DEDICATION To Mademoiselle Anna Hanska: Dear Child,—You, the joy of the household, you, whose pink or white pelerine flutters in summer among the groves of Wierzschovnia like a will-o’-the-wisp, followed by the tender eyes of your father and your mother,—how can I dedicate to you a story full of melancholy? And yet, ought not sorrows to be spoken of to a young girl idolized as you are, since the day may come when your sweet hands will be called to minister to them? It is so difficult, Anna, to find in the history of our manners and morals a subject that is worthy of your eyes, that no choice has been left me; but perhaps you will be made to feel how fortunate your fate is when you read the story sent to you by Your old friend, De Balzac.
| I. | THE LORRAINS |
| II. | THE ROGRONS |
| III. | PATHOLOGY OF RETIRED MERCERS |
| IV. | PIERRETTE |
| V. | HISTORY OF POOR COUSINS IN THE HOME OF RICH ONES |
| VI. | AN OLD MAID’S JEALOUSY |
| VII. | DOMESTIC TYRANNY |
| VIII. | THE LOVES OF JACQUES AND PIERRETTE |
| IX. | THE FAMILY COUNCIL |
| X. | VERDICTS—LEGAL AND OTHER |
At the dawn of an October day in 1827 a young fellow about sixteen years of age, whose clothing proclaimed what modern phraseology so insolently calls a proletary, was standing in a small square of Lower Provins. At that early hour he could examine without being observed the various houses surrounding the open space, which was oblong in form. The mills along the river were already working; the whirr of their wheels, repeated by the echoes of the Upper Town in the keen air and sparkling clearness of the early morning, only intensified the general silence so that the wheels of a diligence could be heard a league away along the highroad. The two longest sides of the square, separated by an