It is somewhat remarkable that Balzac, dealing as he did with
traits of character and the minute and daily circumstances of
life, has never been accused of representing actual persons in the
two or three thousand portraits which he painted of human nature.

In “The Great Man of the Provinces in Paris” some likenesses were
imagined: Jules Janin in Etienne Lousteau, Armand Carrel in Michel
Chrestien, and, possibly, Berryer in Daniel d’Arthez. But in the
present volume, “Beatrix,” he used the characteristics of certain
persons, which were recognized and admitted at the time of
publication. Mademoiselle des Touches (Camille Maupin) is George
Sand in character, and the personal description of her, though
applied by some to the famous Mademoiselle Georges, is easily
recognized from Couture’s drawing. Beatrix, Conti, and Claude
Vignon are sketches of the Comtesse d’Agoult, Liszt, and the
well-known critic Gustave Planche.

The opening scene of this volume, representing the manners and
customs of the old Breton family, a social state existing no
longer except in history, and the transition period of the
vieille roche as it passed into the customs and ideas of the
present century, is one of Balzac’s remarkable and most famous
pictures in the “Comedy of Human Life.”
K.P.W.