person of the young Comte de Restaud,[7] who in spite of his mother’s derelictions[8] was otherwise a very acceptable suitor. After the place of his novel had been visited, viewed from every aspect, the customs noted and the localisms acquired, Balzac would return to Paris, shut himself up in a garret,—the garret has its poetry,—and for weeks and sometimes months at a time he would not only disappear entirely from view, but all trace of him would be lost. At other times, he would lodge under an assumed name, which he imparted only to his most intimate friends. “My address,” he wrote to Madame Carraud in 1834, “is always Madame Veuve Durand, 13, Rue des Batailles;” and in 1837, he wrote to Dablin, “To see the Widow Durand, a name must be given. Yours is on the list.” “The house,” Gautier wrote,[9] “of the Widow Durand was as well guarded as the Garden of the Hesperides. Two or three passwords were exacted, and that they might not become vulgarized they were frequently changed. Among others, I recall the following. On telling the janitor that the season for prunes had arrived, the visitor was permitted to cross the threshold; to the servant who prowled about the head of the stairway, it was necessary to murmur ‘I bring laces from Belgium;’ and on assuring the valet de chambre that Madame Bertrand was in excellent health, the visitor was ushered into the great man’s presence.” It was in the Rue des Batailles that the famous boudoir of the “Fille aux Yeux d’Or” actually existed; and though its luxury would not appear unusual to-day, it was, nevertheless, a source of continual wonder to his Bohemian friends, and his own description of it is not devoid of interest:[10]— “One side of the boudoir formed a graceful semicircle, while in the centre of the other, which was perfectly square, there shone a mantel-piece of marble and gold. The door, which was concealed behind a rich portière of tapestry, was directly in front of the window. “In the horseshoe was a Turkish divan, fifty feet in circumference and as high as a bed. The covering was of white cashmere tufted with bows of black and lilac silk, which were disposed as at the angles of a lozenge. “The back of this immense bed rose several inches above a pile of cushions, which added to the general effect by their coloring and artistic arrangement. “The boudoir was hung with a red material, over which was draped an Indian muslin fluted like a Corinthian column by a piping alternately hollow and round, and bordered at top and bottom by a band of lilac embroidered with black arabesques. Beneath the muslin the red became pink, and this delicate shading was repeated in the window curtains, which were of Indian muslin lined with pink silk and ornamented with a fringe of black and lilac. “At equal distances on the wall above the divan were six sockets of silver-gilt, each of which supported two candles, while from the centre of the ceiling hung a highly polished lustre of the same material.