The Muse of the Department | Page 3

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Etext prepared by Dagny, [email protected] and John Bickers,
[email protected]

The Muse of the Department
by Honore de Balzac
Translated by James Waring

DEDICATION
To Monsieur le Comte Ferdinand de Gramont.
MY DEAR FERDINAND,--If the chances of the world of literature--
/habent sua fata libelli/--should allow these lines to be an enduring
record, that will still be but a trifle in return for the trouble you have
taken--you, the Hozier, the Cherin, the King-at- Arms of these Studies
of Life; you, to whom the Navarreins, Cadignans, Langeais,
Blamont-Chauvrys, Chaulieus, Arthez, Esgrignons, Mortsaufs,
Valois--the hundred great names that form the Aristocracy of the
"Human Comedy" owe their lordly mottoes and ingenious armorial
bearings. Indeed, "the Armorial of the Etudes, devised by Ferdinand de
Gramont, gentleman," is a complete manual of French Heraldry, in
which nothing is forgotten, not even the arms of the Empire, and I shall
preserve it as a monument of friendship and of Benedictine patience.
What profound knowledge of the old feudal spirit is to be seen in the
motto of the Beauseants, /Pulchre sedens, melius agens/; in that of the
Espards, /Des partem leonis/; in that of the Vandenesses, /Ne se vend/.
And what elegance in the thousand details of the learned symbolism
which will always show how far accuracy has been carried in my work,
to which you, the poet, have contributed.
Your old friend, DE BALZAC.

THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT

On the skirts of Le Berry stands a town which, watered by the Loire,
infallibly attracts the traveler's eye. Sancerre crowns the topmost height
of a chain of hills, the last of the range that gives variety to the
Nivernais. The Loire floods the flats at the foot of these slopes, leaving
a yellow alluvium that is extremely fertile, excepting in those places
where it has deluged them with sand and destroyed them forever, by
one of those terrible risings which are also incidental to the Vistula--the
Loire of the northern coast.
The hill on which the houses of Sancerre are grouped is so far from the
river that the little river-port of Saint-Thibault thrives on the life of
Sancerre. There wine is shipped and oak staves are landed, with all the
produce brought from the upper and lower Loire. At the period when
this story begins the suspension bridges at Cosne and at Saint-Thibault
were already built. Travelers from Paris to Sancerre by the southern
road were no longer ferried across the river from Cosne to
Saint-Thibault; and this of itself is enough to show that the great
cross-shuffle of 1830 was a thing of the past, for the House of Orleans
has always had a care for substantial improvements, though somewhat
after the fashion of a husband who makes his wife presents out of her
marriage portion.
Excepting that part of Sancerre which occupies the little plateau, the
streets are more or less steep, and the town is surrounded