PARIS:-  A manuscript of Balzac’s novel “Ursule Mirouet” sold for 1.17 million euros ($1.38 million) at auction in Paris late Wednesday, as the world’s biggest private collection of French literary texts went under the hammer. The draft, one of only two in private hands of the 1841 story of a woman who survives a plot by provincial notables to deprive her of her inheritance, went for the highest price in the first sale of the vast collection amassed by the collapsed investment firm Aristophil. The company was shut down in scandal two years ago taking 850 million ($1 billion) of investors’ money with it after French authorities accused it of being a pyramid scheme.–AFP