Behold then master Honoré perched near the sky, seated before his table, and trying to create a work that would justify the indulgence of his father and disprove the unfavorable predictions of his friends. It is a remarkable thing that Balzac debuted with a tragedy, with a Cromwell! Around that same time, Victor Hugo also put the last touches on his Cromwell, whose preface became the manifesto of all young dramatists. II In attentively rereading La Comédie Humaine when one has known Balzac personally, one finds there scattered curious details with regard to his character and his life, particularly in his first works, where he has not yet separated out his own personality, and, due to a lack of subjects, observes and dissects himself. I have said that he began his rude apprenticeship for the literary life in a garret on the Rue Lesdiguières, near the Arsenal. The novel Facino Cane, published in Paris in March, 1836, and dedicated to Louise, contains some precious information regarding the life that this young aspirant for glory led in his aerial nest. "I lived then in a street which without doubt you do not know, the Rue Lesdiguières: it begins at the Rue Saint-Antoine, opposite a fountain, near the Place de la Bastille, and leads into the Rue de la Cerisaie. The love of science had thrown me into an attic where I wrote all night, and I passed the day in a neighboring library, that of Monsieur; I lived frugally, I had accepted all of the conditions of the monastic life, so necessary for laborers. When the weather was fine, I allowed myself a walk on the Boulevard Bourbon. One sole passion enticed me from my studious habits; but wasn't this also studying? I went to observe the manners of the neighborhood, its inhabitants and their characters. As ill clad as the workers, indifferent to decorum, I did not put them on their guard against me: I could mingle in their groups, see them conclude their deals, and hear them argue about the time that they would stop working. For me, observation had already become intuitive, it penetrated the soul without neglecting the body; in other words it so thoroughly grasped exterior that it transcended it immediately; it gave me the ability to live the life of the individual on which I was focused and permitted me to substitute myself for him, like the dervish of the Thousand and One Nights seized the body and the soul of persons over whom he pronounced certain words.