Like most great authors who have not lived to be old, Balzac had little reason to rejoice over the criticism meted out to him by the press. He was not understood. Even the best critics, men of the type of Sainte-Beuve, were too unlike him and too near to him in time to understand his greatness. He lived a solitary life; contrary to Parisian custom he took no steps to get his books praised; and, as usually happens, such success as he earned procured him as much envy as fame. In _Les Illusions perdues_ he gave a picture of the press which the insulted journalists never forgave him. The most eminent of them was Jules Janin. His portrait was, not exactly ill-naturedly, but far from flatteringly painted in the novel under the name of Etienne Lousteau. This made and still makes his criticism of the book very amusing. It appeared in the _Revue de Paris_, a periodical to which Balzac had been a regular contributor until he brought and gained a lawsuit against it, after which it naturally treated him as an outlaw. It is a malicious, trivial, witty piece of writing, which has not survived the book it was intended to ruin. A young, poor provincial poet, beautiful as a god, but of weak character and mediocre talent, is brought to Paris by the Muse of the Department, an elegant, aristocratic bluestocking. They are in love with each other, and it has been the lady's intention to allow him to play the part of her accepted lover in the capital; but when she is received with open arms by the fashionable world, she suddenly sees herself and her knight in a new light. Coldness and neglect on her part ensue; Lucien is thrown into the shade by a more than middle-aged man of the world. And now we are called on to observe the stages of another of the many processes by which provincials are educated into Parisians. Lucien hopes to make his way as an author; he has written a novel in Sir Walter Scott's style and a volume of poems; he is received into a little circle of poor, proud young authors, artists, and scientific men, chosen spirits, to whom the future of France belongs. But the months of poverty, self-denial, laborious study, and ideal hope are too long for him; he pines for immediate pleasure and fame, for revenge upon all who humiliated him when he was the ignorant country prophet. The so-called "minor press" offers him the chance of completely satisfying his desire; his head is turned, and he plunges, without cause to advocate or principle to uphold, into daily journalism.