When the “fiat lux” was pronounced, and man completed, Balzac turned to his natural companion, and in his portraiture of woman not a single type is lacking. Herein he is unexcelled and unsurpassable. That which Euripides considered as the most terrible of all misfortunes, and De Maistre nothing but a beautiful animal, found its most graphic expression through him. As a faithful naturalist, he has, in descending the spiral of civilization, described and classified the _femina simplex_; but the ideal woman, sublime in her errors, magnificent in her devotion, and royal in her forgiveness, has found her geographer in him. His descriptions of Madame de Beauséant, the Duchesse de Langeais, Madame Firmiani, the Countess in “Colonel Chabert,” Madame Claës, Madame Jules, Madame de Montsauf, Béatrix, and Mademoiselle des Touches comprise woman almost in her entirety; they are landmarks in psychological study; and so true to nature are they that their appearance marked a new era in literature. It is in these portraits that Balzac is most realistic; and while a few of the most admirable among them are sometimes erring, yet it will be admitted that womankind is not composed exclusively of angels; perfection is often dull, and a fault may be a virtue. By way of contrast, however, he has, in Eugénie Grandet, Madame Firmiani, Madame de la Chanterie, Marguerite Claës, Madame Jules, Agathe Rouget, Pierrette, Madame Hulot, and Ursule Mirouët, not only solved the difficult problem of rendering virtue interesting, but he has created in frames of impeccable beauty a series of irreproachable Madonnas. His revelation of woman is completed in a special and parallel study of love. Love he considered the mainspring of humanity; without it, religion, history, romance, and art would be useless; and he has analyzed, dissected, and explained its every phase, hesitation, palpitation, and tenderness. Beyond the scenic effects which he lent to passion, Balzac entered thoroughly into the specialties of trade and profession, and it seems almost incredible that one mind could have grappled with the details of the practice of law which are so admirably described in the “Contrat de Mariage,” in his portrait of Derville the lawyer, Peerquin the notary, and the proceedings in “César Birotteau,” while imagining such types as Vautrin, who dominated Paris from the depths of the galleys, or La Fille aux yeux d’or languishing in her octagonal boudoir.