In April, 1843, Balzac had paid back part of his debt to _La Presse_ by publishing "Honorine" in its columns, but in September, 1844, he received 9,000 francs in advance for the still unwritten "Les Paysans." It was further arranged that when this debt had been worked out, he should be given sixty centimes a line for the remainder of the novel, and that _La Presse_ should pay for composition and corrections. It will be noticed that Emile de Girardin, the autocratic chief of _La Presse_, had at last wearied of the bickering which had gone on between him and Balzac ever since their first relations of 1830, and in 1840 had handed over the task of dealing with the aggravating author to his subordinate Dujarier. The treaty concerning "Les Paysans" was therefore drawn up with Dujarier, and matters no doubt would have proceeded harmoniously, had not the latter been killed in a duel in March, 1845. The first number of "Les Paysans" appeared on December 3rd, 1844, and then, owing to a most untoward concatenation of circumstances, there was a long pause in Balzac's contributions to _La Presse_. Madame Hanska had unfortunately decided for some time that she would in 1845 make one of those journeys which more than anything else threw Balzac and his affairs into inextricable confusion. Before M. de Hanski's death, however, Balzac was at any rate welcomed with effusion when, in his longing to see Madame Hanska, he left his affairs in Paris to take care of themselves. In those early days she was devotedly attached to him; besides, an adorer was a fashionable appendage for an elegant married woman, and the conquest of a distinguished man of letters like Balzac was something to be proud of. Now, however, there was no husband as a protector in the eyes of the world; and marriage, a marriage about which she felt many qualms, loomed large before her startled eyes. She had no intention of giving up the delightful luxury of Balzac's love; but might she not by judicious diplomacy, she sometimes asked herself, manage to enjoy this, without taking the last irrevocable step? Her position was not enviable, the state of feeling embodied in the words "she would and she wouldn't" always betokening in the subject a wearing variability of mind posture; but compared with the anguish of Balzac, whom she was slowly killing by her vacillations, her woes do not deserve much sympathy.