"Do you know by what I have been interrupted? By a legal notice from Bechet, who summons me to furnish her within twenty-four hours my two volumes in 8vo, with a penalty of fifty francs for every day's delay! I must be a great criminal and God wills that I shall expiate my crimes! Never was such torture! This woman has had ten volumes 8vo out of me in two years, and yet she complains at not getting twelve!" There had been a question of a lawsuit as early as the autumn of 1835; to avoid this he was then trying to finish the /Fleur-des-Pois/ (afterwards /Le Contrat de Mariage/). But their relations were more cordial at that time, for a short time later, he writes: "My publisher, the sublime Madame Bechet, has been foolish enough to send the corrected proofs to St. Petersburg. I am told nothing is spoken of there but of the /excellence of this new masterpiece/." Both Madame Bechet and Werdet were in despair over Balzac's journey to Vienna in 1835, but things grew even worse the next year. The novelist gives this glimpse of his troubles: "My mind itself was crushed; for the failure of the /Chronique/ came upon me at Sache, at M. de Margonne's, where, by a wise impulse, I was plunged in work to rid myself of that odious Bechet. I had undertaken to write in ten days (it was that which kept me from going to Nemours!) the two volumes which had been demanded of me, and in eight days I had invented and composed /Les Illusions perdues/, and had written a third of it. Think what such application meant! All my faculties were strained; I wrote fifteen hours a day. . . ." In explaining Balzac's association with Madame Bechet, M. Henri d'Almeras states that Madame Bechet was interested, at first, in attaching celebrated writers to her publishing house, or those who had promise of fame. She organized weekly dinner parties, which took place on Saturday, and here assembled Beranger, Henri de Latouche, Louis Reybaud, Leon Gozlan, Brissot-Thivars, Balzac and Dr. Gentil. It was with Madame Bechet as with Charles Gosselin. The publication, less lucrative than she expected, of the first series of the /Scenes de la Vie parisienne/ and the /Scenes de la Vie de Province/ made it particularly disagreeable to her to receive the reproaches of a writer who, with his admirable talent, could not become resigned to meet with less success than other litterateurs not so good as he. The termination of their business relations is recounted thus: "/Illusions perdues/ appears this week. On the 17th I have a meeting to close up all claims from Madame Bechet and Werdet. So there is one cause of torment the less."