"M. de Balzac was one of the first among the greatest, one of the highest among the best. This is not the place to say all or that splendid and sovereign intelligence. All his books form only one hook, living, luminous, profound, in which we see moving all our contemporaneous civilization, mingled with I know not what of strange and terrible; a marvelous book, that the poet has entitled comedy, and which he might have called history; which assumes all forms and all styles: which goes beyond Tacitus and reaches Suetonius, which crosses Beaumarchais and reaches Rabelais; a book which is observation itself, and imagination itself; which is prodigal of the true, the passionate, the common, the trivial, the material, and which at moments throws athwart realities, suddenly and broadly torn open, the gleam of the most somber and tragic ideal. "Without knowing it, whether he will or not, whether he consents or not, the author of this strange and immense work is of the mighty race of revolutionary writers. Balzac goes directly to his object. He assails modern society face to face. From all he forces something: from some illusions, from others hope, from these a cry of pain, from those a mask. He unvails vice and dissects passion. He penetrates and sounds the heart, the soul, the sentiments, the brain, the abyss that each man has within him. And by a gift of his free and vigorous nature, by a privilege of the intelligences of our times,--who, having seen revolutions nearly and with their own eyes, perceive better the end of humanity and comprehend better the course of Providence,--Balzac came forth serene and smiling from those redoubtable studies which produced melancholy in Moliere and misanthropy in Rousseau. "This is what he has accomplished among us. Such is the work he has left us, lofty and solid, a pile of granite, a monumental edifice, from whose summit his renown will henceforth shine. Great men make their own pedestals: the future charges itself with their statues. "His death has struck Paris with stupor. But a few months since he returned to France. Feeling that he was about to die, he desired to see his country, like one who on the eve of a long voyage comes to embrace his mother. "His life was brief, but crowded; fuller of labors than of days. "Alas, the powerful and indefatigable laborer, the philosopher, the thinker, the poet, the man of genius, lived among us the life of storms, of struggles, of quarrels, of combats, common in all times to all great men. Today, behold him here at peace. He leaves collisions and hostilities. The same day he enters on glory and the tomb. Henceforth he will shine above all the clouds over our heads, among the stars of our country. "And you all who are here, are you not tempted to envy him?