Balzac and Daumier were friends and early professional colleagues, provincials in Paris of a short thickset build. Heine was among his parisian friends; Balzac dedicated a novel to him. Balzac wasn’t particularly close to Hugo, another dedicatee, but they stayed friends for life, with Hugo visiting as Balzac was dying, and reading an oration at his funeral. Andersen visited him when he came to Paris. Sand visited him to take ice-cream; when he went to stay with her, he found her smoking a cigar by the fireside. He dedicated a short story to Berlioz, and lent the composer his fur coat for the long icy sleigh-ride to St Petersburg.