As a preliminary step towards carrying his determination into execution, he dismissed his servants, with the exception of Auguste, finally got rid of his lease in the Rue Cassini, whence he had removed his furniture in the preceding year; and then, feeling still a sneaking kindness for the city in which he had triumphed, he compromised by retreating to Sevres, there to study the ways and means of dwelling secure from pestering military summonses addressed to Monsieur de Balzac, _alias_ Madame Widow Brunet, Man of Letters, Chasseur in the First Legion, and also, if not secure from, at least not so accessible to the calls of dunning creditors. The flat in the Rue de Chaillot, however, was retained till the year 1839; and, from time to time, he made short stays in it. But, in case any of his friends wished to see him during these sojourns, they needed to know the pass-words, which were not infrequently changed. On arriving at the outside door, the visitor must announce, for instance, that the seasons of plums had arrived. Then, if he could further announce that he was bringing lace from Belgium, he would be permitted to enter. But, before it was lawful for him to cross the threshold of the novelist's sanctum, he must be prepared to state that Madame Bertrand was in good health. At Sevres, Balzac soon hit upon a site that pleased his fancy. It was a plot of land on a steep slope, about forty perches in area.[*] This he bought by using his credit, and forthwith busied himself with builder's estimates, since he intended to have his hermitage inhabitable some time in the following spring. [*] More land was subsequently bought. Meanwhile his project of retiring--to a distance of twenty minutes --from Paris society did not hinder him from occasionally putting in an appearance at one or another of the aristocratic houses where he had his entries, among them that of Madame de Castries, whom he continued to see, although she confined her worship to his talent, and merely patronized the man. Either from sheer mischievousness, or to revenge herself for some real or fancied slight--perhaps, indeed, to mock at his talk of refinement--she perpetrated upon him the practical joke of getting her Irish governess, a Miss Patrickson, to send him notes in English, signed Lady Neville, in one of which an appointment was made to meet him at the Opera. He went to the rendezvous; but no one was there waiting for him. This drew from him a sharp letter of reproach; and Miss Patrickson, who was, in her private life, a humble admirer of the great man, and had on one or two occasions translated some of his fiction, was so smitten with remorse for her trick that she revealed to him the name of the one who had invented it.