Balzac was not orthodox. There is no doubt, from a letter to Madame Hanska, that the Swedenborgian creed he enunciates in "Seraphita" is to a great extent his own; but he believed in God, in the immortality of the soul, and considered natural religion, of which, in his eyes, the Bourbons were the depositors, absolutely essential to the well-being of a State. He had a great respect for the priesthood, and has left many a charming and sympathetic picture of the parish _cure_, such as l'Abbe Janvier in "Le Medecin de Campagne," who acts hand in hand with the good doctor Benassis, as an enlightened benefactor to the poor; or l'Abbe Bonnet, the hero of "Le Cure du Village," whose face had "the impress of faith, an impress giving the stamp of the human greatness which approaches most nearly to divine greatness, and of which the undefinable expression beautifies the most ordinary features." In "Les Paysans" we have another fine portrait, L'Abbe Brossette, who is doing his work nobly among debased and cunning peasants. "To serve was his motto, to serve the Church and the Monarchy at the most menaced points; to serve in the last rank, like a soldier who feels destined sooner or later to rise to generalship, by his desire to do well, and by his courage." There is a beautiful touch in that terrible book "La Cousine Bette," where the infamous Madame Marneffe is dying of a loathsome and infectious disease, so that even Bette, who feels for her the "strongest sentiment known, the affection of a woman for a woman, had not the heroic constancy of the Church," and could not enter the room. Religion alone, in the guise of a Sister of Mercy, watched over her. CHAPTER X 1836 Balzac starts the _Chronique de Paris_--Balzac and Theophile Gautier--Lawsuit with the _Revue de Paris_--Failure of the _Chronique_--Strain and exhaustion--Balzac travels in Italy --Madame Marbouty--Return to Paris--Death of Madame de Berny --Balzac's grief and family anxieties--He is imprisoned for refusal to serve in Garde Nationale--Werdet's failure--Balzac's desperate pecuniary position and prodigies of work--Close of the disastrous year 1836.