ary of the same year. Its subsequent form, with the actual title, threw the composition back to August 1827, and gave Fougères itself as the place of composition. This revised form, or second edition, appeared in 1834 in two volumes, published by Vimont. When, twelve years later, it took rank in the Comédie Humaine as part of the Scènes de la Vie Militaire, a second preface was inserted, which in its turn was cancelled by the author.
Une Passion dans le Désert is the only other Scene of Military Life. There is no satisfactory explanation why Balzac so limited this section of the Comédie. On a later consideration possibly he might have included a story like Le Colonel Chabert. Probably he contemplated writing at some future time new stories of adventure. But on the other hand, his own realized lack of success in the warlike scenes of his Œuvres de Jeunesse may have given him a perpetual distaste for this species of story. This distaste, however, if present, should have been outweighed by the fact that to Les Chouans—crude though it may be—is due his first success as an author.
Une Passion dans le Désert has the date of 1832, only five years after the appearance of Les Chouans, but it bears abundant testimony of a much firmer grasp of hand; it leaves one with the impression that had the maturer Balzac dealt with events of strife more extensively, he would perhaps have made a success of Military Life approaching more nearly that of Parisian Life or of Philosophical Studies. Still this is mere speculation, for the mature Balzac lent himself to the scrutiny and analysis of real life round about him, rather
