On this day in 1850 Honore de Balzac died, at the age of fifty-one. Balzac's last months were as tumultuous as all the others, and as brimming with life as anything in his seventeen-volume Human Comedy. The Polish Countess with whom he had been corresponding for sixteen years had pledged to marry him, contingent upon her husband's death, and she was now, technically, available. But wary of Balzac's debts, family, deceptions and appetites -- and lied to, said Balzac, by her sister, a "two-legged bottle of vinegar" who made up stories about his liaisons -- Countess Hanska had cooled. Balzac was on his last legs by the time she had warmed again, but he rushed to her estate (this may not be the correct term: 21,000 acres, 3000 serfs (counting just males), 300 servants, its own orchestra and hospital) with a hope for more than marriage: "If I don't achieve greatness by La Comédie Humaine," he wrote his sister, "I shall at least achieve it in this if it comes off ... FULL STORY »
