Excerpt from The Works of Honore De Balzac, Vol. 5: The Gallery of Antiquities; An Old Maid; The Illustrious Gaudissart; Pierrette; The Vicar of Tours Dear baron, You have been so warmly interested in my long and vast history of French manners and morals in the nineteenth century, and you have given such encourage ment to my work, that I feel you have granted me the right to put your name on one of its fragments. Are you not one of the most earnest representatives of studious and con scientious Germany? Your approbation will surely command that of others, and protect my enterprise. I am proud to have obtained it; and I endeavor to deserve it by continu ing my work with the same perseverance which has char acterized your studies and your researches into documents, without which the literary world would never have obtained the monumental work you have bestowed upon it. Your sympathy for my labors has often sustained my ardor during those long nights spent on the details of our modern society; it will please you to know this, you whose simple hearted kindness can be compared only to that of our La Fontaine. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.