文档介绍：The Muse of the Department
The Muse of the
Department
by Honore de Balzac
Translated by James Waring
1
The Muse of the Department
DEDICATION
To Monsieur te 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 "edy" owe their lordly
mottoes and ingenious armorial bearings. Indeed, "the Armorial of the
Etudes, devised by Ferdinand de Gramont, gentleman," is plete
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.
2
The Muse of the Department
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 Loir