ABSTRACT
Philarete Chasles's remarks develop the position he had adopted towards Balzac's work at a much earlier date, notably in the article he wrote at the time of the novelist's death. It was a standpoint found particularly unwelcome by Barbey d'Aurevilly. The latter was therefore heartened to discover that Balzac's letters, a selection of which was published a few months after Chasles's memoirs, could be said to constitute a 'weighty rejoinder' to the critic who had dared to speak so disparagingly of the writer's morality. One man has had that secret sense, muffled and ponderous, but nonetheless real, of the vast comedy of this century of ours, and he is Honore de Balzac. Like Dante, he understood the massive and powerful drama that God accords himself and endeavoured to characterize its actors. Dante's stock-in-trade is the distinction between good and evil. Balzac's stock-in-trade is the confusion of good and evil.
