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Maurois ends the enormous, sprawling life of Balzac with the question, ""But who would wish to be Balzac?"" A man's query perhaps. A woman might write to him admiringly, at first anonymously, as so many did then. What Maurois evokes here so strongly is the writer and the lover and the always hungry dreamer of fame, greatness and happiness. Balzac's feats were prodigious. Hounded by creditors throughout his life, he bought antiques and jewelled walking sticks, and indulged in one ruinous financial deal after another. He worked for months at a frenzied pace. With a passion for unity, he tried to make a comprehensive world from his many works-- ""La Comedie Humaine."" He was lover to many women but he loved only two-Madame de Berny, his mistress in youth and twenty years his senior, and Madame Hanska, whom he married just before his death. Most of the time the narrative is just shy of the many quotations. Maurois is a little like the wise ""friend of the family"" who tells the story with all the intimate speculations, small reproaches and loving (sometimes sentimental) praise one might expect. Names, places and figures abound, and while many of these particulars are only scantily examined, one doesn't mind. Such a French abundance of ""givens"" is in keeping with the rush and energy of Balzac's life. There are good but simple summaries of Balzac's thought but for the most part this close biography draws one headlong into a fantastic life. KIRKUS REVIEW

CHATEAUBRIAND- Poet Statesman Lover by ANDREW MAUROIS. Contents include: Introduction ix I. Childhood and Youth i II. Soldier and Voyager 3 5 III. Exile 57 IV. Le Genie du Christianisme 87 V, Journey from Paris to Andalmia 1 2 8 VI The Valley of Wolves 156 VIL The Partisan 193 VIII. The Upward Climb. The Dizzy Heights. The Fall 233 IX. The Monarchist against the Monarchy 269 X, Old Age and Second Flowering 305 ILLUSTRATIONS Chateaubriand in 1 820 frontispiece Madame Recamier facing page 55 Chateaubriand 70 Madame de Custine 135 Natalie de Labor de. Viscountess of Noailles 1 50 The Countess of Castellane 215 Portrait of Madame Recamier in later life 230 Chateaubriand, last portrait, 186* 7 278. Introduction: SEVERAL reasons have led me to apply myself to the study of Chateaubriand's life. The first was a great admiration for the writer, one of those who have exercised the most lasting and profound in fluence on French literature; the second the desire to compare a French romantic with the English romantics I had studied, and especially to find in Chateaubriand the original of which Byron was so often a copy; the third a keen interest in that strange exist ence which found itself bound up with the whole history of France throughout the most dramatic period of that history* The Old Order, the Revolution, the Empire, the Restoration, the July monarchy, Chateaubriand knew them all; he was banished by the Republic, a rival of the Emperor, a minister and afterwards an op ponent of the King; he lived in England and in America. In his time he was traveller, soldier, novelist, ambassador, religious writer and political publicist; he was loved by the most beautiful and sphinx-like woman of her age. In all this there is so much material for a biography that it is suiprising to find that Chateaubriand's has all things considered, been rarely written.

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