The first order that he filled was a druggist's prospectus, Anti-mucous Pills for Longevity, or Seeds of Life, for Cure, a Parisian druggist, of No. 77, Rue Saint-Antoine; it was a four-leaf 8vo pamphlet, dated July 29, 1826. The average orders seem to have been commonplace enough;nevertheless, Balzac did print a number of interesting books for various publishers; among others, The Historical and Literary Miscellanies of M. Villemain, for Ladvocat, and La Jacquerie, Feudal Scenes, followed by the Carvajal Family, a drama by the "author of the dramatic works of Clara Gazul" (Merimee), for Brissot-Thivars. He was also the printer for two periodicals, the Gymnase, for Carnot and Hippolyte Auger, the editors of that review of social tendencies, and the Annales Romantiques, for Urbain Canel. The latter was the publisher of the younger literary school, and brought out in his magazine the works of Victor Hugo, Alfred de Vigny, Benjamin Constant, Chateaubriand, Delavigne, etc. Are we to suppose that business cares had turned Balzac aside from all his literary projects? And what must his feelings have been when he read on pages still smelling of fresh ink names already familiar, and some of them long since famous, while he himself was still only a simple printer? There is reason for thinking that his business venture, with all its cares and anxieties, never interrupted the silent but fabulous labour that was shaping itself inside his brain, and that when he saw new authors becoming famous he merely said, "My day will come." Meanwhile, he yielded to an influence absolutely opposed to his natural bent, and contributed to the Annales two poems perfectly romantic in tone: an Ode to a Young Girl and Verses Written in an Album.
But in reality Balzac never had the gift of versification, even in his youth; and later on, when he had need of poems for his Human Comedy, he applied to his friends, Theophile Gautier, Mme. de Girardin, or Lassailly, merely indicating the general tone of the verses he wanted them to write.
In addition to the above-mentioned periodicals, Honore de Balzac printed the Album of History and Anecdote, from January to April, 1827, and he seems also to have been its editor. For, as a matter of fact, subscriptions to it were received at the printing house, No. 17, Rue des Marais-Saint-Germain, and there are anecdotes to be found in it which he afterwards repeated in some of his works.
In spite of all his hopes and efforts, the business went from bad to worse, and Balzac endured all the agonies of a merchant who sees the dawn of the day when a note falls due and knows that his cash drawer is empty. We can picture him, anxiously studying his account books, with his elbows on his desk, and imagining a thousand ingenious means of meeting his financial troubles. But the hard reality shattered them, one by one, like thin glass. He was a prey to the money-lenders and the lawyers, who had no mercy upon a poor wretch who had failed to "make good," and accomplish his ruin with mathematical indifference. The sheriffs, the attorneys, the usurers, the intrusive hordes of clerks and process-servers swooped down upon the printing house and the printer, eager to share the spoils. Honore de Balzac, alone in his "horrible struggle," stood at bay against the pack, using all the stratagems that he had learned in long years of conflict to throw them off the track and save his last remaining resources. He put forth all his accumulated cleverness, his fertile spirit of invention, yet he finally had to yield to superior numbers, and witness the rapid and steady disintegration of a business on which he had staked so many hopes.
