His manner of writing was stamped with the same eccentricity which characterized all his habits. When a subject which he proposed to treat had been well considered, he would cover thirty or forty sheets with a scaffolding of ideas and phrases, which he then sent off to the printer, who returned them in columns wired and centred on large placards. The work, freed in this way from any personality and its errors at once apparent, was then strengthened and corrected. On a second reading the forty pages grew to a hundred, two hundred on the third, and so on, while on the proof-sheets themselves new lines would start from the beginning, the middle, or the end of a phrase; and if the margins were insufficient, other sheets of paper were pinned or glued to the placards, which were again and again returned, corrected, and reprinted, until the work was at last satisfactorily completed. But perhaps the most graphic description of Balzac’s manner of writing is the one contained in an article by Edouard Ourliac in the “Figaro” for the 15th of December, 1837, of which the following is a free translation:— THE MISFORTUNES AND ADVENTURES OF CÉSAR BIROTTEAU BEFORE HIS BIRTH. Let us sing, drink, and embrace, like the chorus in an opéra bouffe; let us waft kisses in the air and turn on our toes, as they do in the ballet. Let us rejoice now that we may. The “Figaro,” without appearing to have done so, has conquered the elements, all the malefactors, and every sublunary cataclysm. The “Figaro” has conquered César Birotteau. Never did the angered gods, never did Juno, Neptune, M. de Rambuteau, or the prefect of the police, oppose against Jason, Theseus, or the wayfarers of the capital, greater obstacles, monsters, ruins, dragons, demolitions, than these two unhappy octavos. We have them at last, and we know their cost. The public will have but the trouble to read them, though that should count as a pleasure. As to M. de Balzac, twenty days of labor, two reams of paper, another masterpiece, that counts as nothing. Whatever else it may be considered, it is at least a typographical exploit and a worthy example of literary and commercial heroism. Writer, publisher, and printer, all deserve the praise of their countrymen. Posterity will gossip about the binders, and our grand-nephews will regret that they do not know the names of the apprentices. I regret it myself,—otherwise I would tell them. The “Figaro” promised the book for the 15th of December, and M. de Balzac began it on the 17th of November. M. de Balzac and the “Figaro” have the singular habit of keeping their word. The printing-press was prepared, and pawed the ground like an excited charger. M. de Balzac sent immediately two hundred sheets, scribbled in five nights of fever. Every one knows how he writes. It was an outline, a chaos, an apocalypse, a Hindu poem.