57 - [BALZAC (Honoré de)]. — GIRARDIN (Émile de). Signed document with approximately two lines in Girardin’s own handwriting. Paris, April 16, 1839. One-half page, in-4 format; small stain on the blank page.

[BALZAC (Honoré de)]. — GIRARDIN (Émile de). Signed document with approximately two lines in Girardin’s own handwriting. Paris, April 16, 1839. One-half page, in-4 format; small stain on the blank page. “Between the undersigned: 1) Mr. Émile de Girardin, manager of the newspaper *La Presse*, on the one hand, and 2) Mr. de Balzac, man of letters, on the other hand, the following has been agreed upon: Mr. DE BALZAC AGREES TO PROVIDE THE NEWSPAPER LA PRESSE, between now and December 31 of this year, beginning on June 1, FIFTY SERIALIZED STORIES COMPRISING AT LEAST EIGHT SHORT STORIES, the last of which may, at the discretion of Mr. E. de Girardin, be published partly in December and partly in the following January. Each installment may also vary in length when published in the newspaper, but it will be counted for Mr. de Balzac at the rate of six columns of 40 lines each, and he will be paid, based on this number, at the rate of one hundred francs per installment; a sum of two thousand francs will be paid to him on May 30 as an advance on the present agreement he has entered into, and this sum will be repaid by means of a deduction of fifty francs per installment from the first forty installments he delivers to Mr. E. de Girardin. Mr. de Girardin undertakes to include at the beginning of each short story a notice stating that reproduction is prohibited. Mr. de Balzac reserves the right to regain ownership of his short stories fifteen days after the last installment of each has been published in the newspaper... ” In his own hand, Émile de Girardin wrote: “Approved. E. de Girardin. Proofreading costs will, as in the past, be borne by the newspaper.” BALZAC AS A SERIALIZER IN *LA PRESSE*. Having been on bad terms for a time with Émile de Girardin, manager of the newspaper *La Presse*, and with Théophile Gautier, editor of the literary serial section—who had rejected *La Torpille* and *La Maison Nucingen* in 1838— Honoré de Balzac eventually began contributing texts to the newspaper once again: from June to December 1839, as stipulated in this contract, he published in *La Presse* “How Small Newspapers Are Made” (an excerpt from *A Great Man from the Provinces in Paris*), “Véronique” (an excerpt from the novel *Le Curé du village*), “Véronique au tombeau” (an excerpt from *Le Curé du village*), and “Une Princesse parisienne” (which would later be published in bookstores under the title *Les Secrets de la princesse de Cadignan*),