I implore the reader to not make too much fun of me, if I confess to him in all humility that I soon shared the conviction of Balzac. What brain could have resisted his breathtaking speech? Jules Sandeau was also soon seduced, and as he needed two dependable friends, two devoted and robust companions to perform the nocturnal excavations under the direction of the seer, Balzac was pleased to grant us one-fourth each of this prodigious fortune. One-half was to revert to him by right, as he had made the discovery and directed the enterprise. We were to buy pikes, pickaxes and shovels, get them secretly on board the vessel, and get ourselves to a designated point by different routes so as not to excite suspicions, and, the blow being struck, we were to transport our riches on a brigantine chartered in advance; in short, it was quite a tale, which would have been admirable if Balzac had written it instead of speaking it. There is no need to say that we did not unearth the treasure of Toussaint Louverture. Money was not available to pay our passage; the three of us had at most enough to buy the pickaxes. The dream of a sudden fortune won by some strange and marvelous means often haunted the brain of Balzac; some years before (in 1833), he had made a voyage to Sardinia to examine the slag of the silver mines abandoned by the Romans, which, treated by imperfect processes, must according to him still have contained a great deal of metal. The idea was reasonable and, imprudently confided, made the fortune of another. III I have related the anecdote of the treasure buried by Toussaint Louverture, not for the pleasure of telling a strange story, but because it is connected with a dominant idea of Balzac – money. Certainly, nobody was less avaricious than the author of La Comédie Humaine, but his genius made him foresee the immense role that this metallic hero would play in art, more interesting for modern society than the Grandissons, the Desgrieux, the Oswalds, the Werthers, the Malek-Adhels, the Renés, the Laras, the Waverleys, the Quentin Durwards, etc.