Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny PARISIANS IN THE COUNTRY THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART, AND THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT By Honore De Balzac INTRODUCTION I have sometimes wondered whether it was accident or intention which made Balzac so frequently combine early and late work in the same volume. The question is certainly insoluble, and perhaps not worth solving, but it presents itself once more in the present instance. _L’Illustre Gaudissart_ is a story of 1832, the very heyday of Balzac’s creative period, when even his pen could hardly keep up with the abundance of his fancy and the gathered stores of his minute observation. _La Muse du Departement_ dates ten years and more later, when, though there was plenty of both left, both sacks had been deeply dipped into. _L’Illustre Gaudissart_ is, of course, slight, not merely in bulk, but in conception. Balzac’s Tourangeau patriotism may have amused itself by the idea of the villagers “rolling” the great Gaudissart; but the ending of the tale can hardly be thought to be quite so good as the beginning. Still, that beginning is altogether excellent. The sketch of the _commis-voyageur_ generally smacks of that _physiologie_ style of which Balzac was so fond; but it is good, and Gaudissart himself, as well as the whole scene with his _epouse libre_, is delightful. The Illustrious One was evidently a favorite character with his creator. He nowhere plays a very great part; but it is everywhere a rather favorable and, except in this little mishap with Margaritis (which, it must be observed, does not turn entirely to his discomfiture), a rather successful part. We have him in _Cesar Birotteau_ superintending the early efforts of Popinot to launch the Huile Cephalique. He was present at the great ball. He served as intermediary to M. de Bauvan in the merciful scheme of buying at fancy prices the handiwork of the Count’s faithful spouse, and so providing her with a livelihood; and later as a theatrical manager, a little spoilt by his profession, we find him in _Le Cousin Pons_. But he is always what the French called “a good devil,” and here he is a very good devil indeed.