Another instance equally amusing was furnished at a dinner given in honour of Balzac by Henri de Latouche, who had not then broken with him. At dessert, the host sketched the plan of a novel he intended to write, and Balzac, who had been drinking champagne, warmly applauded; "The thing," he said, "is capital. Even summarily related, it is charming. What will it be when the talent, style, and wit of the author have enhanced it!" Next evening, at Madame de Girardin's, he reproduced, with his native fire and power of description, the narration he had heard the night before--reproduced it as his own --persuaded it was his own. Every one was enthusiastic, and complimented him. But the matter was bruited abroad. Latouche recognized in Balzac's proposed new novel the creation he had himself unfolded; and wrote a sharp protest which, for once, forced its recipient to distinguish fact from fiction, and what was his share, what another's, in the output of ideas. Yet he might be excused for some of his frequent fits of forgetfulness, since he sowed his own conceptions and discoveries broadcast, and often encountered them again in the possession of lesser minds who had utilized them before he could put them into execution. In the year of 1833, the novelist's correspondence alludes to several books which, like others previously spoken of, were never published, and probably never written. Among these are _The Privilege_, _The History of a Fortunate Idea_, and the _Catholic Priest_. Meanwhile, he did add considerably to his _Droll Tales_, the first series of which appeared in the same twelve months as _Eugenie Grandet_. These stories --in the style of Boccaccio, and of some of Chaucer's writing--broad, racy, and somewhat licentious, albeit containing nothing radically obscene, were meant to illustrate the history of the French language and French manners from olden to modern days. Only part of the project was realized. They are told with wit and humour that are nowhere present to the same degree in the rest of the novelist's work, and in their colouring, as Taine justly remarks, recall Jordaens' painting with its vivid carnation tints. At this time the author was occupied with _Bertha Repentant_ and the _Succubus_, which, however, were published only three years subsequently. CHAPTER VI LETTERS TO "THE STRANGER," 1833, 1834 If Balzac's intimates, careful of his future, had besought him to jot down in a diary the detailed doings of his every-day life, with a confession of his thoughts, feelings, and opinions, in fine an unmasking of himself, he would surely have urged the material impossibility of his fulfilling such a task, over and above the labours of Hercules to which his ambition and his necessities bound him. And yet he performed the miracle unsolicited.