"This is not one of the hoaxes in vogue in the year 1830, when every author wrote his "tale of horror" for the amusement of young ladies." -> balzac in the prologue of his elixir de longue vie, just fun to run once again into the notion that women were the main consumers of horror stories in the french 1830's
(also, longue vie is a very good story that yes, reads exactly like a frenetic/romantisme noir. it's so young in the best way, and although the ending comes too abruptly it's very heavy metal album cover and i love it. it also lacks that annoying self imposed bourgeois morality that balzac adopted in later years, so you get some fun courtesan characters sans tragique deaths and all that crap. to the vautrin/lucien enjoyers, i found some useful information to extrapolate from the relationship between don juan and his father. it's also easy to see which elements derive from bazlac's own personal experience,a nd i honestly appreciate when a writer puts himself out there, no matter how bizarre. or especially then, his personal experience is)(the prologue also relates how the idea for the story was given to Balzac by a long dead friend, who probably read it in agerman almanack, i immediately thought of nerval, but he was alive at the time of that republication (1846) so whoo is the mysterious frenetic romantic long dead by 1846 friend!?!?? i wanna know)