Balzac had forbidden his nieces to read his books, promising to write one especially for them. The book referred to here is /Ursule Mirouet/ which he dedicated to Sophie as follows: "To Mademoiselle Sophie Surville. "It is a real pleasure, my dear niece, to dedicate to you a book of which the subject and the details have gained the approbation--so difficult to secure--of a young girl to whom the world is yet unknown, and who will make no compromise with the high principles derived from a pious education. You young girls are a public to be dreaded; you ought never to be permitted to read any books less pure than your own pure souls, and you are forbidden certain books, just as you are not allowed to see society as it really is. Is it not enough, then, to make a writer proud, to know that he has satisfied you? Heaven grant that affection may not have misled you! Who can say? The future only, which you, I hope, will see, though he may not, who is your uncle "BALZAC." To Valentine Surville he dedicated /La Paix du Menage/. The novelist was interested in helping his sister find suitable husbands for her daughters. He and Sophie had a wager as to which--she or he--would marry first; so when Balzac finally reached his own long- sought goal, he did not forget to remind his niece that she owed him a wedding gift. Sophie became an accomplished musician, having for her master Ambroise Thomas. Balzac spoke very lovingly of Valentine during her early childhood; but she was so attractive that he feared she would be spoiled. And spoiled she was, or perhaps naturally inclined to indolence, for he wrote her a few years later: "I should be very glad to learn that Valentine studies as much as the young Countess, who, besides all her other studies, practices daily at her piano. The success of this education is owing to hard work, which Miss Valentine shuns a little too much. Now, I say to my dear niece that to do nothing except what we feel inclined to do is the origin of all deterioration, especially in women. Rules obeyed and duties fulfilled have been the law of the young Countess from childhood, although she is an only child and a rich heiress. . . . Thus I beg Valentine not to exhibit a Creole /nonchalance/; but to listen to the advice of her sister, to impose tasks on herself, and to do work of various sorts, without neglecting the ordinary and daily cares of the household, and, above all, constantly to withstand the inclination we all have, more or less, to give ourselves up to what we find pleasant; it is by this yielding to inclination that we deteriorate and fall into misfortune."