The transaction was the best possible for Werdet, who was too poor to continue playing Maecenas to his Horace. Against such incurable improvidence, and such little regard for strict equity in money dealings, nothing but the impersonality of a syndicate could stand. Nevertheless, one cannot help regretting that the intercourse of the two men should have ceased. Having so great a personal regard for his hero, and having besides his share of the observant faculty, Werdet, could have supplied us with biographical details of the last twelve years of the novelist's life much more interesting than those of Gozlan, Gautier, and Lemer. His naive narrations, which are well composed and have humour, carry with them a conviction of their sincerity, whatever the errors of chronology. Werdet's prosperity finished with Balzac as it had commenced with him. He was ultimately compelled to file his petition in bankruptcy, and, abandoning business on his own account, to take up travelling for other firms. His creditors were not tender towards the novelist, and used to the utmost the lien they had upon the few unterminated engagements that involved him in the liquidation. A letter addressed by Balzac to the Marquis de Belloy, his former secretary, testifies to the annoyance the creditors caused him:-- "MY DEAR CARDINAL" (he wrote, calling the Marquis by a nickname), --"Your old Mar" (a familiar appellation applied to Balzac by his friends) "would like to know if you are at Poissy, as it is possible he may come and request you to hide him. There is a warrant out against him on Werdet's account, and his counsellors recommend him to take flight, seeing that the conflict between him and the officers of the Commercial Tribunal is begun. If you are still at Poissy, a room, concealment, bread and water, together with salad, and a pound of mutton, a bottle of ink, and a bed, such are the needs of him who is condemned to the hardest of hard literary labour, and who is yours. "LE MAR."