In the winter of 1847-48 the two were published as a book in
twelve volumes by Chlendowski and Petion. In the newspaper (where
Balzac received--a rarely exact detail--12,836 francs for the
_Cousine_, and 9,238 for the _Cousin_) the first-named had
thirty-eight headed chapter-divisions, which in book form became a
hundred and thirty-two. _Le Cousin Pons_ had two parts in _feuilleton_,
and thirty-one chapters, which in book form became no parts and
seventy-eight chapters. All divisions were swept away when, at the end
of 1848, the books were added together to the _Comedie_.
George Saintsbury
I
COUSIN BETTY
BY
HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated by
James Waring
DEDICATION
To Don Michele Angelo Cajetani, Prince of Teano.
It is neither to the Roman Prince, nor to the representative of
the illustrious house of Cajetani, which has given more than one
Pope to the Christian Church, that I dedicate this short portion
of a long history; it is to the learned commentator of Dante.
It was you who led me to understand the marvelous framework of
ideas on which the great Italian poet built his poem, the only
work which the moderns can place by that of Homer. Till I heard
you, the Divine Comedy was to me a vast enigma to which none had
found the clue--the commentators least of all.
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