So the article proceeds; always in a tone of comic good-temper, but pointing to a very real grievance and point of dispute; and helping the reader to realise the long friction which went on, and finally resulted in the unanimity with which publishers and editors turned against Balzac after his famous lawsuit, and showed a vindictive hate which at first sight is surprising. However, in this case the matter ends happily, as the article closes with: "It ['Cesar Birotteau'] is now merely a work in two volumes, an immense picture, a whole poem, composed, written, and corrected fifteen times in the same number of days--composed in twenty days by M. de Balzac in spite of the printer's office, composed in twenty days by the printer's office in spite of M. de Balzac. "It is true that at the same time M. de Balzac was employing forty printers at another printing-office. We do not examine here the value of the book. It was made marvellously and marvellously quickly. Whatever it is, it can only be a _chef d'oeuvre_!" CHAPTER VII 1832 Crisis in Balzac's private life--"Contes Drolatiques"--Madame Hanska's life before she met Balzac--Description of her appearance --"Louis Lambert"--Disinterested conduct on the part of Madame de Berny--Relations between Balzac and his mother--Balzac and the Marquise de Castries--His despair. The year 1832 was a crisis and a turning-point in the history of Balzac's private life. Old relations changed their aspect; he received a terrible and mortifying wound to his heart and to his vanity; and while he staggered under this blow, a new interest, not in the beginning absorbing, but destined in time to engulf all others, crept at first almost unnoticed into his life.