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diff --git a/old/balza10h.htm b/old/balza10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3fcd176 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/balza10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,11711 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>New File</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= +"text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> +<style type="text/css"> +<!-- +body {margin:10%; text-align:justify} +blockquote {font-size:14pt} +P {font-size:14pt} +--> +</style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg Etext of Balzac<br> +by Frederick Lawton</h1> + +<pre> +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.07/27/01*END* + + +</pre> + +Prepared by Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com and John Bickers, +jbickers@ihug.co.nz + +<p>Balzac</p> + +<p>By Frederick Lawton</p> + +<p>DEDICATED,</p> + +<p>In remembrance of many pleasant and instructive hours spent in +his society, to the sculptor</p> + +<p>AUGUSTE RODIN,</p> + +<p>whose statue of Balzac, with its fine, synthetic portraiture, +first tempted the author to write this book.</p> + +<p>PASSY, PARIS, 1910.</p> + +<p>PREFACE</p> + +<p>Excusing himself for not undertaking to write a life of +Balzac, Monsieur Brunetiere, in his study of the novelist +published shortly before his death, refused somewhat disdainfully +to admit that acquaintance with a celebrated man's biography has +necessarily any value. "What do we know of the life of +Shakespeare?" he says, "and of the circumstances in which +<i>Hamlet</i> or <i>Othello</i> was produced? If these +circumstances were better known to us, is it to be believed and +will it be seriously asserted that our admiration for one or the +other play would be augmented?" In penning this quirk, the +eminent critic would seem to have wilfully overlooked the fact +that a writer's life may have much or may have little to do with +his works. In the case of Shakespeare it was comparatively +little--and yet we should be glad to learn more of this little. +In the case of Balzac it was much. His novels are literally his +life; and his life is quite as full as his books of all that +makes the good novel at once profitable and agreeable to read. It +is not too much to affirm that any one who is acquainted with +what is known to-day of the strangely chequered career of the +author of the <i>Comedie Humaine</i> is in a better position to +understand and appreciate the different parts which constitute +it. Moreover, the steady rise of Balzac's reputation, during the +last fifty years, has been in some degree owing to the various +patient investigators who have gathered information about him +whom Taine pronounced to be, with Shakespeare and Saint-Simon, +the greatest storehouse of documents we possess concerning human +nature.</p> + +<p>The following chapters are an attempt to put this information +into sequence and shape, and to insert such notice of the novels +as their relative importance requires. The author wishes here to +thank certain French publishers who have facilitated his task by +placing books for reference at his disposal, Messrs. +Calmann-Levy, Armand Colin, and Hetzel, in particular, and also +the Curator of the <i>Musee Balzac</i>, Monsieur de Royaumont who +has rendered him service on several occasions.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>BALZAC</p> + +<p>CHAPTER I</p> + +<p>INTRODUCTION</p> + +<p>The condition of French society in the early half of the +nineteenth century--the period covered by Balzac's novels--may be +compared to that of a people endeavouring to recover themselves +after an earthquake. Everything had been overthrown, or at least +loosened from its base--religion, laws, customs, traditions, +castes. Nothing had withstood the shock. When the upheaval +finally ceased, there were timid attempts to find out what had +been spared and was susceptible of being raised from the ruins. +Gradually the process of selection went on, portions of the +ancient system of things being joined to the larger modern +creation. The two did not work in very well together, however, +and the edifice was far from stable.</p> + +<p>During the Consulate and First Empire, the Emperor's will, so +sternly imposed, retarded any movement of natural reconstruction. +Outside the military organization, things were stiff and starched +and solemn. High and low were situated in circumstances that were +different and strange. The new soldier aristocracy reeked of the +camp and battle- field; the washer-woman, become a duchess, was +ill at ease in the Imperial drawing-room; while those who had +thriven and amassed wealth rapidly in trade were equally +uncomfortable amidst the vulgar luxury with which they surrounded +themselves. Even the common people, whether of capital or +province, for whose benefit the Revolution had been made, were +silent and afraid. Of the ladies' <i>salons</i>--once numerous +and remarkable for their wit, good taste, and conversation--two +or three only subsisted, those of Mesdames de Beaumont, Recamier +and de Stael; and, since the last was regarded by Napoleon with +an unfriendly eye, its guests must have felt constrained.</p> + +<p>At reunions, eating rather than talking was fashionable, and +the eating lacked its intimacy and privacy of the past. The +lighter side of life was seen more in restaurants, theatres, and +fetes. It was modish to dine at Frascati's, to drink ices at the +Pavillon de Hanovre, to go and admire the actors Talma, Picard, +and Lemercier, whose stage performance was better than many of +the pieces they interpreted. Fireworks could be enjoyed at the +Tivoli Gardens; the great concerts were the rage for a while, as +also the practice for a hostess to carry off her visitors after +dinner for a promenade in the Bois de Boulogne.</p> + +<p>Literature was obstinately classical. After the daring flights +of the previous century, writers contented themselves with +marking time. Chenedolle, whose verse Madame de Stael said to be +as lofty as Lebanon, and whose fame is lilliputian to-day, was, +with Ducis, the representative of their advance-guard. In +painting, with Fragonard, Greuze and Gros, there was a greater +stir of genius, yet without anything corresponding in the sister +art.</p> + +<p>On the contrary, in the practical aspects of life there was +large activity, though Paris almost alone profited by it. +Napoleon's reconstruction in the provinces was administrative +chiefly. A complete programme was first started on in the +capital, which the Emperor wished to exalt into the premier city +of Europe. Gas-lighting, sewerage, paving and road improvements, +quays, and bridges were his gifts to the city, whose general +appearance, however, remained much the same. The Palais-Royal +served still as a principal rendezvous. The busy streets were the +Rues Saint-Denis and Saint-Honore on the right bank, the Rue +Saint-Jacques on the left; and the most important shops were to +be found in the Rue de la Loi, at present the Rue de +Richelieu.</p> + +<p>The fall of the Empire was less a restoration of the Monarchy +than the definite disaggregation of the ancient aristocracy, +which had been centralized round the court since the days of +Richelieu. The Court of Louis XVIII. was no more like that of +Louis XVI. than it was like the noisy one of Napoleon. Receiving +only a few personal friends, the King allowed his drawing-rooms +to remain deserted by the nobles that had returned from exile; +and the two or three who were regular visitors were compelled to +rub elbows with certain parvenus, magistrates, financiers, +generals of the Empire whom it would not have been prudent to +eliminate.</p> + +<p>In this initial stage of society-decentralization, the +diminished band of the Boulevard Saint-Germain--descendants of +the eighteenth-century dukes and marquises--tried to close up +their ranks and to differentiate themselves from the plutocracy +of the Chaussee d'Antin, who copied their manners, with an added +magnificence of display which those they imitated could not +afford. In the one camp the antique bronzes, gildings, and +carvings of a bygone art were retained with pious veneration; in +the other, pictures, carpets, Jacob chairs and sofas, mirrors, +and time-pieces, and the gold and silver plate were all in lavish +style, indicative of their owner's ampler means. One feature of +the pre-Revolution era was revived in the feminine <i>salons</i>, +which regained most, if not the whole, of their pristine renown. +The Hotel de la Rochefoucauld of Madame Ancelot became a second +Hotel de Rambouillet, where the classical Parseval-Grandmaison, +who spent twenty years over his poem <i>Philippe-Auguste</i>, +held armistice with the young champion of the Romantic school, +Victor Hugo. The Princess de Vaudemont received her guests in +Paris during the winter, and at Suresnes during the summer; and +her friend the Duchess de Duras' <i>causeries</i> were frequented +by such men as Cuvier, Humboldt, Talleyrand, Mole, de Villele, +Chateaubriand, and Villemain. Other circles existed in the houses +of the Dukes Pasquier and de Broglie, the countess Merlin, and +Madame de Mirbel.</p> + +<p>With the re-establishment of peace, literary and toilet pre- +occupations began to assert their claims. The <i>Ourika</i> of +the Duchess de Duras took Paris by storm. Her heroine, the young +Senegal negress, gave her name to dresses, hats, and bonnets. +Everything was <i>Ourika</i>. The prettiest Parisian woman +yearned to be black, and regretted not having been born in +darkest Africa. Anglomania in men's clothes prevailed throughout +the reign of Louis XVIII., yet mixed with other modes. "Behold an +up-to-date dandy," says a writer of the epoch; "all extremes meet +in him. You shall see him Prussian by the stomach, Russian by his +waist, English in his coat-tails and collar, Cossack by the sack +that serves him as trousers, and by his fur. Add to these things +Bolivar hats and spurs, and the moustaches of a counter- skipper, +and you have the most singular harlequin to be met with on the +face of the globe."</p> + +<p>Among the masses there were changes just as striking. For the +moment militarism had disappeared, to the people's unfeigned +content, and the Garde Nationale, composed of pot-bellied +tradesmen, alone recalled the bright uniforms of the Empire. To +make up for the soldier excitements of the <i>Petit Caporal</i>, +attractions of all kinds tempted the citizen to enjoy himself +after his day's toil was finished--menagerie, mountebanks, +Franconi circus, Robertson the conjurer in the Jardin des +Capucines. At the other end of the city, in the Boulevard du +Temple, were Belle Madeleine, the seller of Nanterre cakes, +famous throughout Europe, the face contortionist Valsuani, Miette +in his egg-dance, Curtius' waxworks. By each street corner were +charlatans of one or another sort exchanging jests with the +passers-by. It was the period when the Prudhomme type was +created, so common in all the skits and caricatures of the day. +One of the greatest pleasures of the citizen under the +Restoration was to mock at the English. Revenge for Waterloo was +found in written and spoken satires. Huge was the success of +Sewrin's and Dumersan's <i>Anglaises pour rire</i>, with Brunet +and Potier travestied as <i>grandes dames</i>, dancing a jig so +vigorously that they lost their skirts. The same species of +<i>revanche</i> was indulged in when Lady Morgan, the novelist, +came to France, seeking material for a popular book describing +French customs. Henri Beyle (Stendhal) hoaxed her by acting as +her cicerone and filling her note-books with absurd information, +which she accepted in good faith and carried off as fact. On +Sundays the most respectable families used to resort to the +<i>guinguettes</i>, or <i>bastringues</i>, of the suburbs. +Belleville had its celebrated Desnoyers establishment. At the +Maine gate Mother Sagnet's was the meeting-place of budding +artists and grisettes. At La Villette, Mother Radig, a former +canteen woman, long enjoyed popularity among her patrons of both +sexes. All these scenes are depicted in certain of Victor +Ducange's novels, written between 1815 and 1830, as also in the +pencil sketches of the two artists Pigal and Marlet.</p> + +<p>The political society of the Restoration was characterized by +a good deal of cynicism. Those who were affected by the change of +<i>regime</i>, partisans and functionaries of the Empire, +hastened in many cases to trim their sails to the turn of the +tide. However, there was a relative liberty of the press which +permitted the honest expression of party opinion, and polemics +were keen. At the Sorbonne, Guizot, Cousin, and Villemain were +the orators of the day. Frayssinous lectured at Saint-Sulpice, +and de Lamennais, attacking young Liberalism, denounced its +tenets in an essay which de Maistre called a heaving of the earth +under a leaden sky.</p> + +<p>The country's material prosperity at the time was +considerable, and reacted upon literature of every kind by +furnishing a more leisured public. In 1816 Emile Deschamps +preluded to the after-triumphs of the Romantic School with his +play the <i>Tour de faveur</i>, the latter being followed in 1820 +by Lebrun's <i>Marie Stuart</i>. Alfred de Vigny was preparing +his <i>Eloa</i>; Nodier was delighting everybody by his talents +as a philologian, novelist, poet, and chemist. Beranger was +continuing his songs, and paying for his boldness with +imprisonment. The King himself was a protector of letters, arts, +and sciences. One of his first tasks was to reorganize the +"Institut Royal," making it into four Academies. He founded the +Geographical and Asiatic Societies, encouraged the introduction +of steam navigation and traction into France, and patronized men +of genius wherever he met with them.</p> + +<p>Yet the nation's fidelity to the White Flag was not very +deep-rooted. Grateful though the population had been for the +return of peace and prosperity, a lurking reminiscence of +Napoleonic splendours combined with the bourgeois' Voltairian +scepticism to rouse a widespread hostility to Government and +Church, as soon as the spirit of the latter ventured to manifest +again its inveterate intolerance. Beranger's songs, Paul-Louis +Courier's pamphlets, and the articles of the +<i>Constitutionnel</i> fanned the re-awakened sentiments of +revolt; and Charles the Tenth's ministers, less wisely restrained +than those of Louis XVIII., and blind to the significance of the +first barricades of 1827, provoked the catastrophe of 1830. This +second revolution inaugurated the reign of a bourgeois king. +Louis-Philippe was hardly more than a delegate of the bourgeois +class, who now reaped the full benefits of the great Revolution +and entered into possession of its spoils. During Jacobin +dictature and Napoleonic sway, the bourgeoisie had played a +waiting role. At present they came to the front, proudly +conscious of their merits; and an entire literature was destined +to be devoted to them, an entire art to depict or satirize their +manners. Scribe, Stendhal, Merimee, Henry Monnier, Daumier, and +Gavarni were some of the men whose work illustrated the bourgeois +<i>regime</i>, either prior to or contemporaneous with the work +of Balzac.</p> + +<p>The eighteen years of the July Monarchy, which were those of +Balzac's mature activity, contrasted sharply with those that +immediately preceded. In spite of perceptible social progress, +the constant war of political parties, in which the throne itself +was attacked, alarmed lovers of order, and engendered feelings of +pessimism. The power of journalism waxed great. Fighting with the +pen was carried to a point of skill previously unattained. +Grouped round the <i>Debats</i>--the ministerial organ--were +Silvestre de Sacy, Saint-Marc Girardin, and Jules Janin as +leaders, and John Lemoinne, Philarete Chasles, Barbey d'Aurevilly +in the rank and file. Elsewhere Emile de Girardin's <i>Presse</i> +strove to oust the <i>Constitutionnel</i> and <i>Siecle</i>, +opposition papers, from public favour, and to establish a +Conservative Liberalism that should receive the support of +moderate minds. Doctrines many, political and social, were +propounded in these eighteen years of compromise. Legitimists, +Bonapartists, and Republicans were all three in opposition to the +Government, each with a programme to tempt the petty burgess. +Saint-Simonism too was abroad with its utopian ideals, attracting +some of the loftier minds, but less appreciated by the masses +than the teachings of other semi-secret societies having aims +more material.</p> + +<p>Corresponding to the character of the <i>regime</i> was the +practical nature of the public works executed--the railway system +with its transformation of trade, the fortification of the +capital, the commencement of popular education, and the +renovation of decayed or incompleted edifices. Unfortunately, the +rapidity of the development and the rush of speculation prevented +any co-ordinating method in the effort, so that the epoch was +poor in its architectural achievement compared with what had been +produced in the past. Even other branches of art were greatest in +satire. Daumier's <i>Robert Macaire</i> sketches and the +<i>Mayeux</i> of Travies had large material supplied them in the +various types of citizen, greedy of pleasure and gold. The +<i>mot</i>: "Enrichissez-vous," attributed to Guizot, was the +axiom of the time, accepted as the <i>nec plus ultra</i> by the +vast majority of people. It invaded all circles with its lowering +expedience; and he who was to depict its effects most puissantly +did not escape its thrall.</p> + +<p align="center">* * * * *</p> + +<p>When Balzac began to write, no French novelist had a +reputation as such that might be considered great. Up to the +epoch of the Restoration, the novel had been declared to be an +inferior species of literature, and no author had dreamed of +basing his claims to fame on fiction. Lesage had been and was +still appreciated rather on the ground of his satire; and the +Abbe Prevost, his slightly younger contemporary, received but +little credit in his lifetime for the <i>Manon Lescaut</i> that +posterity was to prize. Throughout the eighteenth century, he was +chiefly regarded as a literary hack who had translated +Richardson's <i>Pamela</i> and done things of a similar kind to +earn his livelihood. Rousseau too was esteemed less for his +<i>Nouvelle Heloise</i> than for his political disquisitions. No +novelist since 1635 had ever been elected to the French Academy +on account of his stories. Jules Sandeau was the first to break +the tradition by his entrance among the Immortals in 1859, to be +followed in 1862 by Octave Feuillet.</p> + +<p>Lesage was the writer who introduced into France with his +<i>Gil Blas</i> what has been called the personal novel--in other +words, that story of adventures of which the narrator is the +hero, the aim of the story being to illustrate first and foremost +the vicissitudes of life in general and those of a single person +in particular. The subsequent introduction of letters into the +personal novel, which allowed more than one character to assume +the narrator's role, brought about a change which those who +initiated it scarcely anticipated. Together with the larger +interest, due to there being several narrators, came a tendency +to introspection and analysis, diminishing the prominence of the +facts and enhancing the effect produced by these facts on the +thoughts and feelings of the characters. It was this development +of the personal novel at the commencement of the nineteenth +century, exhibited in Chateaubriand's <i>Rene</i>, Madame de +Stael's <i>Corinne</i>, Benjamin Constant's <i>Adolphe</i>, +George Sand's <i>Indiana</i>, and Sainte- Beuve's <i>Volupte</i>, +which contributed so much to create and establish the Romantic +School of fiction with its egoistic lyricism.</p> + +<p>The historical novel, which more commonly is looked upon as +having been the principal agent in the change, gave, in sooth, +only what modern fiction of every kind could no longer do +without, namely, local colour. The so-styled historical novels of +Madame de la Fayette-- <i>Zayde</i> and the <i>Princesse de +Cleves</i>--in the seventeenth century, and those of Madame de +Tencin and Madame de Fontaines in the eighteenth, were simply +historic themes whereon the authors embroidered the inventions of +their imaginations, without the slightest attention to accuracy +or attempt at differentiating the men and minds of one age from +those of another; nor was it till the days of Walter Scott that +such care for local colour and truth of delineation was +manifested by writers who essayed to put life into the bones of +the past.</p> + +<p>Even Lesage, so exact in his description of all that is +exterior, lacked this literary truthfulness. His Spain is a land +of fancy; his Spaniards are not Spanish; <i>Gil Blas</i>, albeit +he comes from Santillana, is a Frenchman. Marivaux was wiser in +placing his <i>Vie de Marianne</i> and his <i>Paysan parvenu</i> +in France. His people, though modelled on stage pattern, are of +his own times and country; and, in so far as they reveal +themselves, have resemblances to the characters of +Richardson.</p> + +<p>To the Abbe Barthelemy, Voltaire, and Rousseau the novel was a +convenient medium for the expression of certain ideas rather than +a representation of life. The first strove to popularize a +knowledge of Greek antiquity, the second to combat doctrines that +he deemed fallacious, the third to reform society. However, +Rousseau brought nature into his <i>Nouvelle Heloise</i>, and, by +his accessories of pathos and philosophy, prepared the way for a +bolder and completer treatment of life in fiction. Different from +these was Restif de la Bretonne, who applied Rousseau's theories +with less worthy aims in his <i>Paysan perverti</i> and +<i>Monsieur Nicolas, ou Le Coeur humain devoile</i>. If mention +is made of him here, it is because he was a pioneer in the path +of realism, which Balzac was to explore more thoroughly, and +because the latter undoubtedly caught some of his grosser +manner.</p> + +<p>The novelists and dramatists whom Balzac made earliest +acquaintance with were probably those whose works were appearing +and attracting notice during his school-days--Pigault-Lebrun, +Ducray-Duminil, and that Guilbert de Pixerecourt who for a third +of the nineteenth century was worshipped as the Corneille of +melodrama. These men were favourite authors of the nascent +democracy; and, in an age when reprints of older writers were +much rarer than to-day, would be far more likely to appeal to a +boy's taste than seventeenth- and eighteenth-century authors. At +an after-period only, when he had definitely entered upon his +maturer literary career, was he to take up the latter and use +them, together with Rabelais, La Bruyere, Moliere, and Diderot, +as his best, if not his constant, sources of inspiration. In the +stories of the first of the three above-mentioned modern writers, +the reader usually meets with some child of poor parentage, who, +after most extraordinary and comic experiences, marries the child +of a nobleman. In those of the second, the hero or heroine +struggles with powerful enemies, is aided by powerful friends, +and moves in an atmosphere of blood and mystery until vice is +chastized and virtue finally rewarded. The two writers, however, +differ more in their talent than in their methods, the first +having an amount of originality which is almost entirely wanting +to the second. With both, indeed, the main object is to impress +and astonish, and the finer touches of Lesage and Prevost are +seldom visible in either's work. As for Pixerecourt, whose fame +lasted until the Romantic drama of the older Dumas, Alfred de +Vigny, and Victor Hugo eclipsed it, he wrote over a hundred +plays, each of which was performed some five hundred times, while +two at least ran for more than a thousand nights.</p> + +<p>If it was natural that Balzac should familiarize himself in +his adolescence with such writers of his own countrymen as every +one discussed and very many praised, it was natural also he +should extend his perusals to the translated works of +contemporary novelists on the further side of the Channel, the +more so as the reciprocal literary influence of the two countries +was exceedingly strong at the time, stronger probably than to-day +when attention is solicited on so many sides. To the novels of +Monk Lewis, Maturin, Anne Radcliffe, and other exponents of the +School of Terror, as likewise to the novels of Godwin, the chief +of the School of Theory, he went for instruction in the +profession that he was wishing to adopt. Mrs. Radcliffe's stories +he thought admirable; those of Lewis he cited as hardly being +equalled by Stendhal's <i>Chartreuse de Parme</i>; and +Maturin--oddly as it strikes us now--he not only styled the most +original modern author that the United Kingdom could boast of, +but assigned him a place, beside Moliere and Goethe, as one of +the greatest geniuses of Europe. And these eulogiums were not the +immature judgements of youth, but the convictions of his riper +age. As will be seen later, the influence remained with him. In +all he wrote there enters some of the material, native and +foreign, out of which Romanticism was made.</p> + +<p>To the true masters of English fiction his indebtedness was +equally large, exception made perhaps for Fielding and Smollett; +and one American author should be included in the acknowledgment. +Goldsmith, Sterne, Walter Scott, and Fenimore Cooper were his +delight. The first and last of Richardson's productions he read +only when his own talent was formed. <i>Pamela</i> and <i>Sir +Charles Grandison</i> he chanced upon in a library at Ajaccio; +and, after running them through, pronounced them to be horribly +stupid and boring. But <i>Clarissa Harlowe</i>, on the contrary, +he highly esteemed. Already in 1821 he had studied it; and, when +composing his <i>Pierrette</i>, towards the end of the thirties, +he spoke of it as a magnificent poem, in a passage which brands +the procedure of certain hypocrites, their oratorical +precautions, and their involved conversations, wherein the mind +obscures the light it throws and honeyed speech dilutes the venom +of intentions. The phrase, says Monsieur Le Breton, in his +well-reasoned book on Balzac, is that of a man who was conversant +with the patient analysis, the conscientious and minute realism +of this great painter of English life. In Monsieur Le Breton's +opinion, Balzac's long-windedness is, in a measure, due to +Richardson, who reacted upon him by his defects no less than by +his excellencies.</p> + +<p>Throughout Balzac's correspondence, as throughout his novels, +there are numerous remarks which are so many confessions of the +hints he received in the course of his English readings. In one +passage he exclaims: "The villager is an admirable nature. When +he is stupid, he is just the animal; but, when he has good +points, they are exquisite. Unfortunately, no one observes him. +It needed a lucky hazard for Goldsmith to create his <i>Vicar of +Wakefield</i>." Elsewhere he says: "Generally, in fiction, an +author succeeds only by the number of his characters and the +variety of his situations; and there are few examples of novels +having but two or three <i>dramatis</i> <i>personae</i> depending +on a single situation. Of such a kind, <i>Caleb Williams</i>, the +celebrated Godwin's masterpiece, is in our time the only work +known, and its interest is prodigious."</p> + +<p>Sterne, even more than Scott, was Balzac's favourite model. +Allusions to him abound in the <i>Comedie Humaine</i>. +<i>Tristram Shandy</i> the novelist appears to have had at his +fingers' ends. Not a few of Sterne's traits were also his +own--the satirical humour, in which, however, the humour was less +perfect than the satire, the microscopic eye for all the exterior +details of life especially in people's faces and gestures and +dress; and both had identical notions concerning the analogy +between a man's name and his temperament and fate.</p> + +<p>Scott and Cooper being Balzac's elder contemporaries, it +happened that their books were given to the French public in +translation by one or the other of the novelist's earlier +publishers, Mame and Gosselin. His taste for their fiction was no +mere passing fancy. It was as pronounced as ever in 1840, at +which date, writing in the <i>Revue Parisienne</i>, he declared +that Cooper was the only writer of stories worthy to be placed by +the side of Walter Scott, and that his hero Leather-stocking was +sublime. "I don't know," said he, "if the fiction of Walter Scott +furnishes a creation as grandiose as that of this hero of the +savannas and forests. Cooper's descriptions are the school at +which all literary landscapists should study: all the secrets of +art are there. But Cooper is inferior to Walter Scott in his +comic and minor characters, and in the construction of his plots. +One is the historian of nature, the other of humanity." The +article winds up with further praise of Scott, whom its author +evidently regarded as his master.</p> + +<p>The part played by these models in Balzac's literary training +was to afford him a clearer perception of the essential worth of +the Romantic movement. Together with its extravagancies and +lyricism, Romantic literature deliberately put into practice some +important principles which certain forerunners of the eighteenth +century had already unconsciously illustrated or timidly taught. +It imposed Diderot's doctrine that there was beauty in all +natural character. And its chief apostle, Hugo, with the examples +of Ariosto, Cervantes, Rabelais and Shakespeare to back him, +proved that what was in nature was or should be also in art, yet +without, for that, seeking to free art from law and the necessity +for choice.</p> + +<p>This spectacle of a vaster field to exploit, this possibility +of artistically representing the common, familiar things of the +world in their real significance, seized on the youthful mind of +him who was to create the <i>Comedie Humaine</i>. It formed the +connecting link between him and his epoch, and in most directions +it limited the horizon of his life.</p> + +<p>CHAPTER II</p> + +<p>BOYHOOD</p> + +<p>For all his aristocratic name, Honore de Balzac was not of +noble birth. The nobiliary particule he did not add to his +signature until the year 1830. In his birth certificate we read: +"To-day, the 2nd of Prairial, Year VII. (21st of May 1799) of the +French Republic, a male child was presented to me, Pierre-Jacques +Duvivier, the undersigned Registrar, by the citizen +Bernard-Francois Balzac, householder, dwelling in this commune, +Rue de l'Armee de l'Italie, Chardonnet section, Number 25; who +declared to me that the said child was called Honore Balzac, born +yesterday at eleven o'clock in the morning at witness's +residence, that the child is his son and that of the citizen, +Anne-Charlotte-Laure Sallambier, his wife, they having been +married in the commune of Paris, eighth arrondissement, Seine +Department, on the 11th of Pluviose, Year V."</p> + +<p>The commune referred to in the birth certificate was Tours. +There in the street now rechristened and renumbered and called +the Rue Nationale, a commemorative plate at No. 29 bears the +following inscription: "Honore de Balzac was born in this house +on the 1st of Prairial, Year VII. (20th of May 1799); he died in +Paris on the 28th[*] of August 1850."</p> + +<p>[*] The registered date of Balzac's death was the 18th of +August. The date on the commemorative plate is wrong. See also in +a subsequent chapter, M. de Lovenjoul's remark on the +subject.</p> + +<p>This former capital of Touraine, which the novelist says +disparagingly in the <i>Cure of Tours</i> was in his time one of +the least literary places in France, has had, at any rate, an +honourable past. It was one of the sixty-four towns of Gaul that, +under Vercingetorix, opposed the conquest of Caesar; and to it, +in 1870, the French Government retired when the Germans marched +on the capital. Its ancient industry in silk stuffs, established +by Louis XI. in the fifteenth century, raised its population to +eighty thousand. By revoking the Edict of Nantes, King "Sun" +chased away three thousand of the wealthy, manufacturing +families, who migrated to Holland; and Tours lost, with a quarter +of its inhabitants, its weaving supremacy, which fell into the +hands of Lyons. Situated on the Loire, in a rich but flat +district, its surroundings are less interesting than its own +architectural possessions, including a cathedral of mingled +Gothic and later styles, a bit of the Norman-English Henry the +Second's castle, and its three bridges. The fine central one, of +fifteen arches and a quarter of a mile long, is a prolongation of +the Rue Nationale, and has near it statues of Rabelais and +Descartes.</p> + +<p>Balzac's father, who at the time of Honore's birth was +fifty-three years of age, was not a native of Tours. He came from +Nougayrie, a small hamlet close to Canezac in the Tarn Department +and province of Languedoc. He was, therefore, a man of the south. +On the registers he was inscribed as a son of Bernard-Thomas +Balssa, <i>laboureur</i>, or peasant farmer; but he subsequently +changed his name to Balzac. Recent investigations have disclosed +the fact that--whether by his own initiative or that of his +son--he was the first to employ the "de" before the family name, +prefixing it in the announcements made of the marriage of his +second daughter Laurence.</p> + +<p>Although of humble origin, the elder Balzac acquired both +education and position. He embraced the legal profession, and was +said by his son to have acted as secretary to the Grand Council +under Louis XV., by his daughter Laure to have been advocate to +the Council under Louis XVI. There is no documentary proof that +he held either of these offices; but he figured in the Royal +almanacs of 1793 as a lawyer, and would seem to have served the +Republican Government, although his children subsequently +asserted that he had always been an unswerving Royalist. The +family tradition was that he had become suspect to Robespierre +through his efforts to save several unfortunates from the +guillotine, and would himself have perished had not a friend +succeeded in getting him sent on a mission to the frontier to +organize the commissariat department there. Thenceforward +attached to the War Office, he returned to Paris, and in 1797 +married Laure Sallambier, the daughter of one of his hierarchic +chiefs, she being thirty-two years his junior. The next year he +went to Tours as administrator of the General Hospice, and +remained there for seventeen years.</p> + +<p>The father of the novelist was a man out of the common. A +contemporary of his, Le Poitevin Saint-Alme, relates that he +united in himself the Roman, the Gaul, and the Goth, and +possessed the attributes of these three races--boldness, +patience, and health. He avowed himself a disciple of +Jean-Jacques Rousseau, considering a return to nature to be the +main condition of happiness. He shunned doctors, advocated +exercise, long walks, woollen garments for every season, and a +more scientific propagation of his species. His +daughter--afterwards Madame Surville--says of him in the short +biography she wrote of her brother: "My father often railed at +mankind, whom he accused of unceasingly contributing to their own +misfortune. He could never meet an ill- formed fellow-creature +without fulminating against parents and governments, who were +less careful to improve the human race than that of animals."</p> + +<p>In addition to his notions on hygiene, he interested himself +in the problems of sociology, anticipating Fourier and +Saint-Simon, and writing numerous pamphlets on philanthropic and +scientific questions. Large traces of his influence are found in +his son's books. His hobby was health cultivation. Every man, he +said, ought to strive for an equilibrium of the vital forces. In +his own case there was an extra reason for his aiming at +longevity. Being still unmarried at the age of forty-five, he had +sunk most of his fortune in life annuities, one of which was a +tontine; and, after his marriage, he encouraged his family to +hope for his surviving all the competitors of his series, and +thus being able to bequeath them a huge capital. This hope was +not realized. His death occurred in 1829, when he was +eighty-three, and the twelve thousand francs income accruing from +his annuities disappeared.</p> + +<p>His memory was extraordinary. At seventy, happening to meet a +friend of his childhood, whom he had not seen since he was +fourteen, he unhesitatingly began speaking to him in the +Provencal tongue, which he had ceased using for half a century. +Equally great was his benevolence. On one occasion, hearing that +his friend General de Pommereul was in monetary difficulties, he +called at the General's house, and, finding only Madame de +Pommereul, said to her, as he placed two heavy bags on the table: +"I am told you are short of cash. These ten thousand crowns will +be more useful to you than to me. I don't know what to do with +them. You can give me them back when you have recovered what has +been stolen from you." Having uttered these few brusk words, he +turned and hurried away. Later we shall meet with a younger +General de Pommereul, to whom the novelist dedicated his +<i>Melmoth Reconciled</i>, adding, "In remembrance of the +constant friendship that united our fathers and subsists between +the sons."</p> + +<p>When young, the novelist's father must have been endowed with +great physical strength. He used to relate that, during the time +he was a clerk to a Procureur, he was requested one day to cut up +a partridge at his master's table. With the first dig of the +knife, he not only severed the partridge but the dish also, and +drove his weapon into the wood of the table. Detail worth +noticing, this feat procured him the respect of the Procureur's +wife. The portrait sketched of him by his daughter Laure +represents him, between sixty and seventy, as a fine old man, +still vigorous, with courteous manners, speaking little and +rarely of himself (in this very different from Honore), indulgent +towards the young, whose society he was fond of, allowing to all +the same liberty that he claimed for himself, upright and sound +in judgment notwithstanding his eccentricities, of equable +humour, and so mild in character that he made every one around +him happy. Delighting in conversation, now grave, now curious, +now prophetic, he was always eagerly listened to by his elder +son, whose indebtedness to him cannot be doubted.</p> + +<p>Balzac's mother, who was married at eighteen, was a Parisian +by birth. Her father was Director of the Paris Hospitals. At the +Hotel-Dieu there is a Sallambier ward which perpetuates his +memory. A small, active woman of nervous temperament, irritable +and inclined to worry about trifles, she yet had abundant +practical sense--a quality less developed in her husband. Her +daughter tells us she was beautiful, that she had remarkable +vivacity of mind, much firmness and decision, and boundless +devotion to her family. Her affection, however, was expressed +rather by action than in speech. She had great imagination, adds +Madame Surville; and, says the novelist, "this imagination, which +she has bequeathed me, bandies her ever from north to south and +from south to north." Exceedingly pious, with a bias to +mysticism, she possessed a library of books bearing on such +doctrines, which were read by her son and afterwards utilized by +him in his fiction.</p> + +<p>Honore was the second child of his parents. The first dying in +infancy through the poorness of Madame Balzac's milk, he was sent +to a house on the outskirts of the town and suckled by a +foster-mother. His sister Laure, a year younger than himself, was +submitted to the same treatment, and the two children remained +away from home until they were four and three years old +respectively. From her remembrance of him, when both were +toddling mites, his sister speaks of him as a charming little +boy, whose merry humour, shapely, smiling mouth, large brown +eyes, at once bright and soft, high forehead and rich black hair +caused him to be noticed a great deal in their daily outings.</p> + +<p>In 1804 came the first important event of his life, a visit to +Paris to see his maternal grandparents. It was a wonderful change +from his home surroundings in Tours, where a certain severity +prevailed. Here he was spoiled to his heart's content; and his +happiness was rendered complete by Mouche, the big watch-dog, +with whom he was on the best of terms. One evening a +magic-lantern exhibition was given in the grandson's honour. +Noticing that Mouche was not among the spectators, he rose from +his seat with an authoritative: "Wait." Then, going out, he +shortly after came back, dragging in his canine friend, to whom +he said: "Sit down there, Mouche, and look; it will cost you +nothing. Granddad will pay for you!" A few months later his +grandfather died, and the widow went to live with the Balzacs at +Tours. This death made a deep impression on the child's mind, and +for a while dwelt so constantly in his memory that, on one +occasion, when Laure was being scolded by her mother for an +offence which the culprit aggravated by a fit of involuntary +tittering, he approached his sister and whispered in her ear, +with a view to restoring her gravity: "Think of grandpapa's +death."</p> + +<p>Distinguished in these juvenile years more by kindness than +cleverness, he nevertheless manifested a certain inventiveness in +improvizing baby comedies which had more appreciative audiences +than some of his maturer stage productions. On the contrary, his +conception of music and his own musical execution had no admirers +beyond himself. For hours he would scrape the chords of a small, +red violin, drawing from them most excruciating sounds, himself +lost in ecstasy, and most amazed when he was begged to cease his +concert, which was somewhat calculated to give his friend Mouche +the colic.</p> + +<p>The boy's initial steps in the path of learning were taken +under the care of a nursery governess, Mademoiselle Delahaye, +whom he quitted to attend the principal day-school in the town, +known as the Leguay Institution. When he was eight he entered the +College school at Vendome, a quiet spot in Touraine, with +something of the aspect of a university town. On the registers of +the school may be read the following inscription: "No. 460, +Honore Balzac, aged eight years and five months. Has had +small-pox; without infirmities; sanguine temperament; easily +excited and subject to feverishness. Entered the College on June +22nd 1807; left on the 22nd of August 1813."</p> + +<p>An old seventeenth-century foundation of the Oratorians, the +school possessed at this period a renown almost equal to that of +Oxford and Cambridge. In his <i>Louis</i> <i>Lambert</i>, Balzac +gives us a description of the place. "The College," he says, "is +situated in the middle of the town and on the little river Loir, +which flows hard by the main school-buildings. It stands in a +spacious enclosure carefully walled in, and comprises all the +various establishments necessary in an institution of this +kind--a chapel, a theatre, an infirmary, a bakery, gardens, +watercourses. The College, being the most celebrated centre of +education in France, is recruited from several provinces and even +from our colonies, so that the distance at which families live +does not permit of parents' seeing their children. As a rule, +pupils do not spend the long holidays at home, and remain at the +College continuously until their studies are terminated." As a +matter of fact, Balzac passed his six years there without once +returning to Tours, being entirely cut off from his family, save +for such rare visits as were suffered from its members.</p> + +<p>The school life was semi-monastic, with a discipline of iron. +"The leathern ferule played its terrible role with honour" among +Minions, Smalls, Mediums, and Greats. There were, however, +certain mitigations --long walks in the woods, cards, and amateur +theatricals during vacation; gardening and pigeon-fancying; +stilt-walking, sliding and clog-dancing; and, withal, the joys of +a chapman's stall set up in the enclosure itself.</p> + +<p><i>Louis Lambert</i> is a slice of autobiography, attempting +also a portrait of the novelist, psychologically as well as +outwardly, while he was at Vendome. Although the author speaks of +himself as distinct from his hero, they make up one and the same +individual. Of himself he says: "I had a passion for books. My +father, being desirous I should enter the Ecole Polytechnique, +paid for me to take private lessons in mathematics. But my coach, +being the librarian of the college, let me borrow books, without +much troubling about what I chose, from the library, where during +playtime he gave me my tuition. Either he was very little +qualified to teach, or he must have been pre-occupied with some +undertaking of his own; for he was only too willing I should read +in the hours he ought to have devoted to me, himself working at +something else. Thus, by virtue of a tacit agreement between us, +I did not complain of learning nothing, and he kept secret my +book- borrowing. This precocious passion led me to neglect my +studies and instead to compose poems, which indeed were of no +high promise, if judged by the following verse: 'O Inca! O roi +infortune,' commencing an epopee on the Incas. The line became +only too celebrated among my companions, and I was derisively +nicknamed the poet. Mockery, however, did not cure me, and I +continued my efforts in spite of the apologue of the Principal, +Monsieur Mareschal, who one day related to me the misfortunes of +a linnet that tried to fly before being fully fledged. He wished, +no doubt, to turn me from my inveterate habit. As I continued to +read, I was continually punished, and grew to be the least +active, most idle, most contemplative pupil of the Smalls."</p> + +<p>And now for the <i>alter ego</i>. "Louis Lambert was slender +and thin, not more than four feet and a half in height, but his +weather-beaten face, his sun-browned hands seemed to indicate a +muscular vigour which he had not in a normal state. So, two +months after his entering the college, when his school life had +robbed him of his well-nigh vegetable colour, we remarked that he +became pale and white like a woman. His head was unusually big; +his hair, beautifully black and naturally curly, lent an +ineffable charm to his forehead, the size of which struck us as +extraordinary, though, as may be imagined, we little recked of +phrenology. The beauty of this prophetic forehead resided chiefly +in the extremely pure cut of the two brows, under which shone his +dark eyes--brows that appeared to be carved in alabaster. Their +lines had the somewhat rare luck to be perfectly parallel in +joining each other at the beginning of the features. These latter +were irregular enough, but the irregularity disappeared when one +saw his eyes, whose gaze possessed an astonishing variety of +expression. Sometimes clear and terribly penetrating, sometimes +angelically mild, this gaze grew dull and colourless, so to +speak, in his contemplative moments. His eye then resembled a +pane of glass no longer illuminated by the sun. The same was true +of his strength, which was purely nervous, and also of his voice. +Both were equally mobile and variable. The latter was alternately +sweet and harmonious, and then at times painful, incorrect, and +rugged. As for his ordinary strength, he was incapable of +supporting the fatigue of any games whatever. He seemed obviously +feeble and almost infirm; but once, during his first year at +school, one of our bullies having jeered at this extreme delicacy +that rendered him unfit for the rough games practised in the +playground, Lambert with his two hands gripped the end of one of +our tables containing twelve desks in two rows; then, stiffening +himself against the master's chair and holding the table with his +feet placed on the bottom cross-bar, he said: 'Let any ten of you +try to move it.' I was there and witnessed this singular display +of strength. It was impossible to drag the table from him. He +appeared at certain moments to have the gift of summoning unusual +powers, or of concentrating his whole force on a given +point."</p> + +<p>That <i>Louis Lambert</i> is an attempted revelation of +Balzac's adolescent mind we have both Madame Surville's and +Champfleury's additional testimony to prove. Discounting the +exaggerations, due either to literary morbidity of the kind that +produced Chateaubriand's <i>Rene</i> and Sainte-Beuve's <i>Joseph +Delorme</i>, or to the natural vanity of which the novelist had +so large a share, there yet remains a considerable substratum of +truth in this record of twin, boyish existence, which affords a +valuable secondary help towards understanding its author's +character.</p> + +<p>The major punishment inflicted at Vendome was imprisonment in +the dormitory. Referring to himself and his double, Balzac says: +"We were freer in prison than anywhere. There we could talk for +days together in the silence of the room, where each pupil had a +cubicle six feet square, whose partitions were provided with bars +across the top, and whose grated iron door was locked every +evening and unlocked every morning under the surveillance of a +Father, who assisted at our going to bed and getting up. The +creak of the doors, turned with singular celerity by the +dormitory porters, was one of the peculiarities of the school. In +these alcoves we were sometimes shut up for months on end. The +scholars thus caged fell under the stern eye of the Prefect, who +came regularly, and even irregularly, to see whether we were +talking instead of working at our tasks. But nutshells on the +stairs or the fineness of our hearing nearly always warned us of +his arrival, so that we were able to indulge safely in our +favourite studies."</p> + +<p>One of the confinements was inflicted on Honore for his faulty +Latin and impertinence. "Caius Gracchus was a noble heart," he +translated with a free paraphrase of <i>vir nobilis</i>. "What +would Madame de Stael say, if she happened to learn you had thus +misconstrued the sense?" asked the master. (Madame de Stael was +supposed to be Louis Lambert's patroness.) "She would say you are +a stupid," muttered Honore. "Mister poet, you will go to prison +for a week," retorted the master, who had overheard the +comment.</p> + +<p>Among the long walks enjoyed by the pupils on Thursdays, when +there were no lessons, was one to the famous castle of +Rochambeau. In 1812, Balzac paid his first and impatiently +anticipated visit to this spot. "When we arrived on the hill," he +says, "whence the castle was visible, perched on its flank, and +the winding valley with the glittering river threading its way +through a meadow artistically laid out by Nature, Louis Lambert +said to me: 'Why, I saw this last night in a dream.' He +recognized the clump of trees under which we were, the +arrangement of the foliage, the colour of the water, the turrets +of the castle, in fine, all the details of the place. . . . I +relate this event," he continues, "first because each man can +find in his existence some phenomenon of sleeping or waking +analogous to it; and next, because it is true and gives an idea +of Lambert's prodigious intelligence. In fact, he deduced from +the occurrence an entire system, possessing himself, like Cuvier, +in another order of things, of a fragment of life to reconstruct +a whole creation." And Lambert is made to develop a theory of the +astral body and astral locomotion. The younger self announces +also: "I shall be celebrated--an alchemist of thought."</p> + +<p>With such notions in his head at this early age, it was not +surprising he should have begun, while in his tender teens, a +metaphysical composition entitled <i>Treatise of the Will</i>. +After working for six months on it, a day of misfortune arrived. +The pieces of paper on which it had been written were hidden away +from all eyes in a locked box, which gradually assumed the weird +attraction of a Blue Beard's secret chamber to his mocking +class-companions, so that at length their inquisitiveness drove +them to essay capturing the said box by violence. Amidst the +noise caused by the child-author's desperate defence of his +treasure, Father Hagoult suddenly appeared; and, being apprized +of what was inside the box, insisted on its being opened. The +papers were at once confiscated, and were never given back. Their +loss caused the boy a serious shock, which, combining with +debility of longer standing, brought on a malady that +necessitated his leaving the school. The Principal himself +advised the removal. In 1813, between Easter and prize +distribution, he wrote to Madame Balzac asking her to come +immediately and fetch her son away. The lad, he explained, was +prostrated by a kind of coma, which alarmed his teachers all the +more as they were at a loss to account for it. To them Honore was +simply an idler. It did not occur to them that his condition was +owing to cerebral fatigue. Thin and sickly-looking at present, he +had the air of a somnambulist, asleep with his eyes open, +oblivious of the questions put to him, and unable to answer when +asked: "What are you thinking of? Where are you?" His return home +produced a painful impression. "So this is how the college +authorities remit to us the nice children we entrust to them," +exclaimed his grandmother. And it must be confessed that the good +Fathers, engrossed by the training of their charges' souls, paid +but little attention to the bodies.</p> + +<p>In the rooms where the pupils worked, the exhalations by which +the air was constantly vitiated mingled with the smells left by +the debris of lunches and teas and by other accumulated dirt. +There were also cupboards and closets where each pupil used to +keep his private booty --pigeons killed on fete days or dishes +pilfered from the refectory. Swept only once a day, the place was +always filthy, and was further rendered disagreeable by odours +coming from the wash-house, dressing- room, pantries, etc. All +this with the mud brought in from the outside playgrounds made +the atmosphere insupportable. Moreover, the pupils' petty +ailments and pains were almost entirely unheeded. In winter chaps +and chilblains were Honore's unceasing lot. His woman's +complexion, and especially the skin of his ears and lips, cracked +under the least cold; his soft white hands reddened and swelled. +Constant colds harassed him; and, until he was inured to the +Vendome regimen, pain was his daily portion.</p> + +<p>A lively recollection of what he went through in these +school-days persisted during his maturer years. Writing in 1844 +to Monsieur Fontemoing, one of his few boy-companions that he +maintained relations with, he said: "When David is ready to +inaugurate his statue of Jean Bart in Dieppe, I shall perhaps be +there to enjoy the spectacle; and then we will spend one or two +days recalling to mind the cages, wooden breeches and other +Vendomoiseries."</p> + +<p>His memory was probably less faithful in 1832, when striving +to reproduce the tenour of the lost <i>Treatise of the Will</i>. +At thirteen he could scarcely have had such definite notions of +intuition and other operations of the mind; and there must be a +fairly long antedating of reflection in attributing to Louis +Lambert, even with the latter's two years seniority, thoughts +like the following:--</p> + +<p>"Often amid calm and silence, when our inner faculties are +lulled and we indulge in sweet repose, and darkness hovers round +us, and we fall into a contemplation of other things, straight an +idea darts forth, flashes through the infinite space created by +our brain, and then, like a will-o'-the-wisp, vanishes never to +return--an ephemeral apparition like that of such children as +yield boundless joy and grief to bereaved parents; a species of +still-born flower in the fields of thought. At times also the +idea, instead of forcibly gushing and dying without consistence, +dawns and poises in the fathomless limbo of the organs that give +it birth; it tires us by its long parturition; then it develops +and grows, is fertile, rich, and productive in the visible grace +of youth and with all the qualities of longevity; it sustains the +most inquiring glances, invites them, and never wearies them. Now +and again ideas are generated in swarms, one evolves another; +they interlace and entice, they abound and are dalliant; now and +again, they arise pale and looming, and perish through want of +strength or nourishment--the quickening substance is +insufficient. And, last of all, on certain days they plunge into +the abysses, lighting up their depths; they terrify us, and leave +us in a soul despair. Our ideas have their complete system; they +are a kingdom of nature, a sort of efflorescence of which a +madman perhaps might give an iconography. Yes, all attests the +existence of these delightful creations I may compare to flowers. +Indeed, their production is no more surprising than that of +perfumes and colour in the plant."</p> + +<p>Still, without being a Pascal, Balzac in the first half of his +teens, was evidently not an ordinary child. There was a ferment +of thought, as he said, reacting on itself and seeking to +surprise the secrets of its own being. Fostered by the moral +isolation in which he lived during these six years, his +self-analysis grew unwholesome, there being little or nothing on +the physical side to counterbalance it. Fortunately, the return +to saner surroundings occurred before the evil was irremediable. +Running wild for a few months in the open air, he recovered his +natural vivacity and cheerfulness. Every day he went for a long +ramble through one or another of the landscapes of Touraine, and +on his way home enjoyed the magnificent sunsets lighting up the +steeples of his native town and glinting on the river covered +with craft, both large and small. To check his reveries, Madame +Balzac forced him to amuse his two sisters Laure and Laurence and +to fly the kite of his little brother Henry,[*] who had been born +while he was at Vendome.</p> + +<p>[*] The name is spelt in the English way.</p> + +<p>On Sundays and fete days he regularly accompanied his mother +to the Cathedral of saint-Gatien, where he must have been an +observant spectator if not consistently a devout listener. He +prayed by fits and starts; and in the intervals studied closely +and with an eye for effect the appearance of priestly persons and +functions, with altar and stained-glass window in the background, +and gathered materials for his Abbes Birotteau, Bonnet, and +others. The period was one of compensation and adjustment. What +he had been striving to assimilate had now the leisure to arrange +itself in his brain, which was no longer overheated.</p> + +<p>As soon as his health was considered sufficiently strong, he +began attending classes at the institution of a Monsieur +Chretien, and supplemented them by private lessons received at +home. His conviction that he would become a famous man was as +strong as ever, and his naïve assertion of it was frequent +enough to provoke great teasing in the domestic circle. Far from +being irritated, he laughed with those that laughed at him, his +sisters saying: "Hail to the great Balzac!" On the part of his +elders the bantering was intended to damp his exalted notions, +which they regarded as ill-founded, judging him, as his Vendome +professors, by the smallness of his Latin and Greek. His mother +in particular had no faith in his prophecies nor yet in his +occasional utterances of deeper things than his years warranted: +"You certainly don't know what you are talking about," was her +habitual snub. And, when Honore, not daring to argue further, +took refuge in his sly, not to say supercilious, smile, she taxed +him with overweeningness--an accusation that had some truth in +it. She might well be excused for her scepticism, for the youth +had also large ignorance in some of the commoner things of life, +and, moreover, allowed himself to be taken in easily. Laure seems +to have traded a good deal on his credulity for the sake of fun. +One day she gave him a so-called cactus seedling, supposed to +have come from the land of Judaea. Honore preserved it preciously +in a pot for a fortnight, only to discover at length that this +plant was a vulgar pumpkin.</p> + +<p>At the end of 1814, Monsieur Balzac came to reside in Paris, +being placed at the head of the Commissariat of the First +Military Division; and Honore's education was continued in the +capital, for a while at the establishment of a Monsieur Lepitre, +Rue Saint-Louis, and then at another kept by Messieurs Sganzer +and Beuzelin, Rue de Thorigny, both being situated in the Marais +Quarter, near his father's house. So far as the subjects of the +curriculum were concerned, he was still a mediocre pupil. +However, literature began to attract his attention and efforts, +and one composition of his for an examination--the speech of +Brutus's wife after the condemnation of her sons--treasured up by +his sister Laure, is mentioned by her as exhibiting some of the +energy and realistic presentment in which he was ultimately to +excel.</p> + +<p>When he was seventeen, his father, seeing that there was no +chance of his getting into the Ecole Polytechnique, decided to +put him into the legal profession; and, for the purpose of +preliminary training, induced a solicitor friend, Guillonnet de +Merville,[*] to take him into his office in the place of a +clerk--no other than Eugene Scribe, the future dramatist--who had +just quitted law for literature. During the eighteen months +passed here, Balzac went to lectures at the Sorbonne University, +and was coached by private tutors. Among the College professors +he heard were Villemain, Guizot, and Cousin. These great teachers +converted his passion for reading into more serious habits of +study; and, in order to profit more by their lessons, he often +spent his leisure hours in the libraries of the city and sought +out old books of value in the cases of the dealers along the +Quays.</p> + +<p>[*] <i>An Episode under the Terror</i> was dedicated to +him.</p> + +<p>The pocket-money required for such purchases was principally +supplied by his grandmother, who permitted him to win from her at +whist or boston in the evenings he remained at home. A friend of +his grandmother's that lived in a neighbouring flat was likewise +very kind to him. She was an old maiden lady who had been +acquainted with Beaumarchais, and delighted to chat with her +protege about the author of the <i>Mariage de Figaro</i>. Though +now a young man, Honore was not tall; five feet two was his exact +height. Retaining his childish love of laughter and fun of every +kind, he showed at present greater facility in learning, with a +faculty of memory that was prodigious. Having to go with his +sisters to balls, he took lessons in dancing; but, happening to +meet with an unlucky fall, and resenting the smiles and giggling +his accident called forth among the girls, he renounced attempts +at tripping on the light, fantastic toe, and devoted subsequent +visits to the task of jotting down notes.</p> + +<p>A second period of eighteen months in the office of a notary, +Maitre Passez, completed his law apprenticeship. In the first +pages of <i>Colonel Chabert</i> the novelist gives us a sketch of +the interior where he acquired his knowledge of chicane. Our +nostrils are familiarized with its stove-heated atmosphere, our +eyes with the yellow-billed walls, the dirty floor, the greasy +furniture, the bundles of papers, the chimney-piece covered with +bottles and glasses and bits of bread and cheese; and our ears +are assailed by the quips and jokes and puns of the clerks and +office-boys who were his companions for a time. He lingers over +his reminiscences, which, though pleasant from their connection +with his lost youth, had none the less to do with men and things +that settled the foundation of his maturer pessimism. An article +of his in 1839, entitled the <i>Notary</i>, says:--</p> + +<p>"After five years passed in a notary's office, it is hard for +a young man to conserve his candour. He has seen the hideous +origins of all fortunes, the disputes of heirs over corpses not +yet cold, the human heart in conflict with the Code. . . . A +lawyer's office is a confessional where the various passions come +to empty out their bag of bad ideas and to consult about their +cases of conscience while seeking means of execution."</p> + +<p>While we have no conclusive evidence on the point, it is yet +probable that, at least for a while, Balzac had, during these +years of legal training, serious thoughts of adopting law as his +career. Otherwise he would scarcely have troubled to gain such an +extensive acquaintance with everything appertaining to its theory +and practice--knowledge which he afterwards utilized in several +of his books, notably in <i>Cesar Birotteau</i> and the +<i>Marriage Contract</i>. However, in 1819, he had definitely +made up his mind to follow Scribe's example. At this date his +father informed him that an opportunity offered itself for him to +become a junior partner in a solicitor's practice, which might be +ultimately purchased with money advanced him and the dowry that +an advantageous marriage would bring. When the newly-fledged +Bachelor of Laws declared that it was impossible for him to +accept the proposal, and that he had determined to become a man +of letters, trusting to his pen for a living, the elder Balzac's +astonishment was unbounded. If any echoes of his son's recent +cogitations and conversations on the subject had come to the +father's ears, they had been deemed so much empty talk; and the +friends who were consulted in the dilemma had nothing more +encouraging to say. One of them pronounced that Honore was worth +nothing better than to make a scrivener of or a clerk in some +Government department. The poor fellow had a good handwriting-- +this, indeed, deteriorated later. Through his parents' influence, +it was thought he might ultimately attain a moderate competency. +Perhaps Laure, the favourite sister and early confidante of the +novelist, may have used persuasion at this juncture with her +father and mother. At any rate, as the issue of a great deal of +lively discussion, the parents agreed to let Honore make a two +years' experiment as a free lance in the ranks of the +book-writing tribe. By the end of that time, they no doubt +imagined he would be glad enough to re-enact the parable of the +prodigal son and start in some safer trade.</p> + +<p>CHAPTER III</p> + +<p>EXPERIMENTS IN LITERATURE AND BUSINESS</p> + +<p>It happened that Honore's enlistment in the army of +<i>litterateurs</i> coincided with considerable changes in his +parents' circumstances. His father had just been retired on a +pension and had recently lost money in two investments. As there +were a couple of daughters to be provided for, the family, for +the sake of economy, quitted Paris and went to live at +Villeparisis, six leagues distant from the capital, where a +modest country-house had been bought. Honore, by dint of +insistence, obtained permission to remain in Paris, where he +would be freer to work and could more easily get into relations +with publishers; and a meagrely furnished attic-study was rented +for him at No. 9 Rue Lesdiguieres, a street near the Arsenal, +still bearing the same name. A small monthly allowance was made +him, just enough to keep him from starving; and an old woman, +Mother Comin--the Iris-messenger, he facetiously called her--who +had been in the family's service and was staying on in the city, +undertook to pay him occasional visits and to report should he be +in difficulties.</p> + +<p>The novelty of his semi-independence caused him at first to +look with cheerful eye on his narrow surroundings. To his sister +he wrote in April 1819:--</p> + +<p>"Here are some details about my way of living. I have taken a +servant.</p> + +<p>"A servant! What can you be thinking of!</p> + +<p>"Yes; a servant. His name is as funny as that of Dr. +Nacquart's domestic. The Doctor's is Tranquil; mine is Myself. He +is a bad acquisition! . . . Myself is idle, clumsy, and +improvident. When his master is hungry and thirsty, he has +sometimes neither bread nor water to give him; he does not know +how to protect himself against the wind, which blows through the +door and window like Tulou through his flute, but less agreeably. +As soon as I am awake, I ring for Myself, and he makes my bed. He +sets to sweeping, and is not very deft in the exercise.</p> + +<p>"Myself!</p> + +<p>"Yes, Sir.</p> + +<p>"Just look at the cobweb where that big fly is buzzing loud +enough to deafen me, and at those bits of fluff under the bed, +and at that dust on the windows blinding me.</p> + +<p>"Why, sir, I don't see anything.</p> + +<p>"Tut, tut! hold your tongue, impudence!</p> + +<p>"And he does, singing while he sweeps and sweeping while he +sings, laughs in talking and talks in laughing. He has arranged +my linen in the cupboard by the chimney, after papering the +receptacle white; and, with a three-penny blue paper and +bordering, he has made a screen. The room he has painted from the +book-case to the fireplace. On the whole, he is a good +fellow."</p> + +<p>In the introduction to <i>Facino Cane</i>, which Balzac wrote +some fifteen years later, there is a return of memory to this +sojourn in the Lesdiguieres garret. "I lived frugally," he says; +"I had accepted all the conditions of monastic life, so needful +to the worker. When it was fine, the utmost I did was to go for a +stroll on the Boulevard Bourdon. One hobby alone enticed me from +my studious habits, and even that was study. I used to observe +the manners of the Faubourg, its inhabitants, and their +characters. Dressed as plainly as the workmen, indifferent to +decorum, I aroused no mistrust, and could mix with them and watch +their bargaining and quarrelling with each other as they went +home from their toil. My faculty of observation had become +intuitive; it penetrated the soul without neglecting the body, or +rather it so well grasped exterior details that at once it +pierced beyond. It gave me the power of living the life of the +individual in whom it was exercised, enabling me to put myself in +his skin, just at the dervish of the <i>Arabian Nights</i> +entered the body and soul of those over whom he pronounced +certain words."</p> + +<p>The would-be man of letters pushed his hobby even to dogging +people to their homes, and to registering in note-book or brain +their conversations--records of joys, sorrows, and interests.</p> + +<p>"I could realize their existence," he affirms; "I felt their +rags on my back. I walked with my feet in their worn-out shoes; +it was the dreaming of a man awake. . . . To quit my own habits +and become another by the intoxication of my moral faculties at +will, such was my diversion. To what do I owe this gift? Is it +second sight? Is it one of those possessions of the mind that +lead to madness? I have never sought out the causes of this gift. +I have it and use it--that is all I can say."</p> + +<p>Honore's 'prentice attempts at producing a masterpiece +oscillated between the novel and the drama. Two stories, entitled +respectively <i>Coquecigrue</i> (an imaginary animal) and +<i>Stella</i>, were abandoned before they were begun. A comic +opera had the same fate. The <i>Two Philosophers</i>, a farce in +which a couple of sham sages mocked at the world and quarrelled +with each other, while secretly coveting the good things they +affected to despise, appears to have been worked at, but +uselessly. Next a tragedy, tackled with greater resolution, was +composed and entirely finished. Curiously, the subject of it, +<i>Cromwell</i>, was the same as that chosen by Victor Hugo, a +few years later, to achieve the overthrow of classicism and the +substitution of Romanticism in its stead.</p> + +<p>The drama was written in verse, a form of literary composition +foreign to Balzac's talent. Even during the months he laboured at +his task, he confessed to Laure, 'midst his sallies of joking, +that what he was writing teemed with defective lines. He polished +and repolished, however, hoping to overcome these drawbacks, +upheld by his invincible self-confidence. The piece, as sketched +out in his correspondence, made large alterations in English +history. Its interest hinged chiefly on the dilemma created in +Cromwell's mind by his two sons falling into the hands of a small +Royalist force, and by Charles's ordering them to be given up +without conditions to their father, although the King was a +prisoner. Posed in the third act, the dilemma was solved in the +fourth by Cromwell's decision to condemn the King, +notwithstanding his generosity. At the close of the play, the +Queen escaped from England, crying aloud for vengeance, which she +intended to seek in all quarters. France would combat the +English, would defeat and crush them in the end.</p> + +<p>"I mean my tragedy to be the breviary of peoples and kings," +he proudly informed his sister. "It is impossible for you not to +find the plan superb. How the interest grows from scene to scene! +The incident of Cromwell's sons is most happily invented. +Charles's magnanimity in restoring to Cromwell his sons is finer +than that of Augustus pardoning Cinna." In blowing his own +trumpet Balzac was early an adept.</p> + +<p>To stimulate his imagination and reflection, he transferred +his daily walk from the Jardin des Plantes to the Pere Lachaise +Cemetery. "There I make," he explained, "studies of grief useful +for my <i>Cromwell</i>. Real grief is so hard to depict; it +requires so much simplicity." His garret had still its charm. +"The time I spend in it will be sweet to look back upon," he +said. "To live as I like, to work in my own way, to go to sleep +conjuring up the future, which I imagine beautiful, to have +Rousseau's Julie as a sweetheart, La Fontaine and Moliere as +friends, Racine as a master, and Pere Lachaise as a promenade +ground! Ah! if it could only last for ever!" His dreaming led him +on to wider anticipations even than those of literary glory. "If +I am to be a grand fellow (which, it's true, we don't yet know), +I may add to my fame as a great author that of being a great +citizen. This is a tempting ambition also."</p> + +<p>At the end of April 1820, he went to Villeparisis with his +completed tragedy. Counting on a triumph, he had requested that +some acquaintances should be invited to the house to hear it read +aloud. Among those present was the gentleman who had advised his +turning clerk in the Civil Service. The reading commenced, and, +as it progressed, the youthful author noticed that his audience +first showed signs of being bored, then of being bewildered, and +lastly of being frankly dissatisfied and hostile. Laure was +dumbfounded. The candid gentleman broke out into uncompromising, +scathing condemnation; and those who were most indulgent were +obliged to pronounce that the famous tragedy was a failure. +Honore defended his production with energy; and, to settle the +dispute, his father proposed it should be submitted to an old +professor of the Ecole Polytechnique, whom he knew, and who +should act as umpire. This course was adopted; and the Professor, +after careful examination of the manuscript, opined that Honore +would act wisely in preferring any other career to +literature.</p> + +<p>The verdict was received with more calmness than might have +been expected. Instead of twisting his own neck, as he had hinted +he might, if unsuccessful, the young author quietly remarked that +tragedies were not his forte and that he intended to devote +himself to novels.</p> + +<p>As the price of their assent to his continuance in writing, +Honore's parents stipulated that he should quit his garret and +come home. The return was all the more advisable as Laure was +about to be married to a Monsieur Surville, who was a civil +engineer, and a gap was thus created in the home circle, which +his presence could prevent from being so much felt.[*] His health +besides had suffered during his fifteen months of self-imposed +privations. In after-life he complained much to some of his +friends--Auguste Fessart and Madame Hanska amongst others--of his +parents' or rather his mother's hardness to him while he was in +the Lesdiguieres Street lodgings, and asserted that, if more +liberality had then been displayed, most of his subsequent +misfortunes would have been avoided. This is by no means certain. +His troubles and burdens would seem to have been caused far more +by mistakes of judgment and improvidence than by any stress of +circumstance.</p> + +<p>[*] Laurence, the younger sister, was married in 1821, twelve +months after her sister. Her husband was Monsieur de Montzaigle. +She died before the close of the decade.</p> + +<p>For the next five years he remained with his father and +mother, excepting the occasional visits paid to Touraine, +L'Isle-Adam, or Bayeux, at which last place his sister Laure was +settled for a while. In a letter to her there he banteringly +spoke of his desire to enter the matrimonial state: "Look me out +some widow who is a rich heiress," he said; "you know what I +require. Praise me up to her--twenty-two years of age, amiable, +polite, with eyes of life and fire, the best husband Heaven has +ever made. I will give you fifty per cent on the dowry and +pin-money." He alluded to his mother's worrying disposition and +susceptibility: "We are oddities, forsooth, in our blessed +family. What a pity I cannot put us into novels." This he was to +do later.</p> + +<p>Beforehand there was his Romantic cycle to be run through, in +more than forty volumes, if Laure's statement could be believed. +What she meant no doubt was sections of volumes or else tales; +and even the composition of forty tales in five years would be a +considerable performance. True, there were partnerships with Le +Poitevin de l'Egreville,[*] Horace Raisson, Etienne Arago. And +the material turned out was of the coarsest kind, generally +second-hand, a hash-up of stories already published, imitations +of Monk Lewis, Maturin, Mrs. Radcliffe, and French writers of the +same school, with a little shuffling of characters and incidents. +The preface to the novel that opened the series--<i>The Heiress +of Birague</i>--speaks of an old trunk bequeathed by an uncle and +filled with manuscripts, which the author had merely to edit. And +the apology had more truth in it than he meant it to convey.</p> + +<p>[*] Son of Le Poitevin Saint-Alme.</p> + +<p>Balzac was quite aware of the small merit of this hack-work. +To Laure he confessed: "My novel is finished. I will send it to +you on condition of your not lending it or boasting of it as a +masterpiece." He could appreciate better achievement, and spoke +of <i>Kenilworth</i> as the finest thing in the world. His excuse +was that he had no time to reflect upon what he wrote. He must +write every day to gain the independence that he sought; and had +none but this ignoble way, as he said, of securing it.</p> + +<p>Moreover, there was still the dreaded possibility of his +having to embrace another profession than literature. The notary +was dead and the business had been taken over by some one else, +so that this danger no longer threatened him; but the candid +friend was inquiring about a second sinecure. "What a terrible +man!" exclaimed Honore.</p> + +<p>He indulged in a fit of premature discouragement, seeking for +some one or something to cast a little brightness over what he +deemed his dull existence. "I have none of the flowers of life," +he lamented; "and yet I am in the season when they bloom! What is +the good of fortune and joys when youth is past? Of what use the +actor's garments if one does not play the role? The old man is +one who has dined and looks at others eating. I am young and my +plate is empty, and I am hungry, Laure. Will ever my two only, +immense desires--to be celebrated and to be loved--be satisfied?" +They were, but at a cost that was dearly paid.</p> + +<p>However great Balzac's potential genius, it was too little +developed, too little exercised at this period for him to produce +anything of real, permanent worth. The fiction in which he was +destined to excel, the only fiction he was peculiarly fitted to +write, demanded maturity of experience that he could hardly +acquire before another decade had passed over his head. Yet the +stories he reeled off had a certain market value. <i>The Heiress +of Birague</i> was sold for eight hundred francs, +<i>Jean-Louis</i>, or the <i>Foundling Girl</i>, for thirteen +hundred; and a higher price still was obtained (whether the money +was actually received is uncertain) for the <i>Handsome Jew</i>, +afterwards republished under a fresh title, <i>The +Israelite</i>.</p> + +<p>Contemporary critics declined to acknowledge that, in these +books and their congeners,[*] there were some traces of a +master-hand. To-day the traces are perceptible, because criticism +has a better opportunity of discovering them. Here and there, and +especially in <i>Argow, the Pirate</i>, is to be noticed a +beginning of the realism that was afterwards the novelist's +excellence. The theme, that of a brigand purified by love, is, as +Monsieur le Breton remarks in his study of Balzac, a romantic one +in the manner of Byron, and has things in common with Walter +Scott's <i>Heart of Midlothian</i>, Victor Hugo's <i>Bug- +Jargal</i>, and Pixerecourt's <i>Belveder</i>. There is an +atmosphere of imagination in it, the action is quick, and the +characters are strongly though distortedly drawn. Moreover, a +breath of healthy sentiment runs through the story, which is not +always the case in the later and more celebrated novels. Balzac +must have learnt much and acquired much that was useful to him +during this puddling of his ore in the furnace of his early +efforts; and, if in his maturer age he retained certain defects +of the Romantic school, it was because a lurking sympathy with +them in his nature prevented his shaking himself free of them, +when he reformed his manner.</p> + +<p>[*] Other youthful productions were The Centenarian, The Last +Fairy, Don Gigadas, The Excommunicated Man, Wann-Chlore, or Jane +the Pale, The Curate of the Ardennes, and Argow, the Pirate.</p> + +<p>The style of his letters at this same period was admirable, +sparkling with wit and with a humour that unfortunately grew +rarer, bitterer, and even coarser often, in his later career. +Some of his rapidly sketched pictures were incidents of home +life. This one represents his mother's fidgety disposition:--</p> + +<p>"Louise, give me a glass of water."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Ma'am."</p> + +<p>"Ah, my poor Louise, I'm in a bad way; I am indeed!"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, Ma'am!"</p> + +<p>"It's worse than other years."</p> + +<p>"Lud! . . . Ma'am!"</p> + +<p>"My head is splitting. . . . . Oh, Louise! The shutters are +slamming; it's enough to break all the panes in the +drawing-room."</p> + +<p>Already, with the faculty of exaggeration which characterised +him all his life, he anticipated gaining within the next +twelvemonth no less than twenty thousand francs; forgetting the +small result of his <i>Cromwell</i>, he spoke of having a lot of +theatrical pieces in hand, plus an historical novel, <i>Odette de +Champdivers</i>, and another dealing with the fortunes of the +R'hoone family. R'hoone was an anagram of his own name Honore. +Lord R'hoone was one of his pseudonyms. And "Lord R'hoone," he +told Laure, "will soon be the rage, the most amiable, fertile +author; and ladies will regard him as the apple of their eye. +Then the little Honore will arrive in a coach with head held up, +proud look, and fob well garnished. At his approach, amidst +flattering murmurs from the admiring crowd, people will say: 'He +is Madame Surville's brother.' Then men, women, and children, and +unborn babes will leap as the hills. . . . And I shall be the +ladies' man, in view of which event I am saving up my money. +Since yesterday I have given up dowagers, and intend to fall back +on thirty-year-old widows. Send all you can find to Lord R'hoone, +Paris. This address will suffice. He is known at the city gates. +N.B.--Send them, carriage paid, free of cracks and soldering. Let +them be rich and amiable; as for beauty, it is not a <i>sine</i> +<i>qua non</i>. Varnish wears off, but the underneath earthenware +remains."</p> + +<p>Through all these displays of fireworks one fact stands out, +that Balzac was in too great a hurry to reap fame and +wealth--wealth especially. It was his hurry that inspired his +constant complaint: "Ah! if only I had enough bread and cheese, I +would soon make my mark and write books to last." This was not +altogether true nor just to his parents. He had his bread and +cheese and a home to eat it in, which authors have not always +enjoyed who have gained immortality by their unaided pen. +Although his family were anxious to see him independent, they did +not oblige him to depend upon what he earned. Nothing at the +moment prevented him from striving to produce something of good +quality and spending the time necessary over it. He saw the +better, but followed the worse.</p> + +<p>"My ideas," he wrote to Laure, "are changing so much that my +execution will soon change also. . . . In a short time there will +be the same difference between the me of to-day and the me of +to-morrow as exists between the young man of twenty and the man +of thirty! I am reflecting; my ideas are ripening. I recognize +that Nature has treated me favourably in giving me my heart and +my head. Believe in me, dear sister, for I need some one to +believe in me. I do not despair of doing something one day. I see +at present that <i>Cromwell</i> had not even the merit of being +an embryon. As for my novels, they are not up to much."</p> + +<p>How could they be when he supplied them, so to speak, +machine-made! "Citizen Pollet" button-holed him in August 1822 +and induced him to sign an agreement binding him to deliver a +couple of these stories by the 1st of October. Six hundred francs +were paid cash down, and the rest in deferred bills. The second +of the couple was the <i>Curate of the Ardennes</i>, which Laure +helped him to write.</p> + +<p>It surprises at first sight to read that the demand for this +cheap fiction was so great in the early decades of the nineteenth +century. The explanation is that, during the last years of the +Empire, the article had scarcely been in the market at all, so +that, in the Restoration period, which was one of peace and +leisure, there was quite a rush for it. On the whole, Balzac did +not manage to hit the public fancy with his work in this line. +The further he went with it the less he liked it, and such bits +of better stuff as he introduced in lieu of the blood and mystery +rather lessened than increased the saleableness of his books. For +the printing of the <i>Last Fairy</i> he had to pay, himself; and +he was obliged to own, after five years' catering for popular +taste, he was no nearer emerging from obscurity than he had been +at the commencement. It was discouraging and humiliating; he had +started with such confidence and boasting. Now those who had +spoken against his literary vocation seemed to be justified, and +those who had been most inclined to believe in him were +sceptical.</p> + +<p>However, there was still one woman who kept her faith in his +capacity for soaring above the common pitch. She it was who, +understanding him better than his own family, became a second +mother to him. Attracted by him, in spite of his weaknesses of +conceit, loudness, and vulgarity, she polished his behaviour, +guided his perceptions, corrected his pretentiousness, +influencing him through the sincerity and strength of her +affection.</p> + +<p>Twenty-two years his senior, she was the daughter of a German +harpist named Henner, in favour at the Court of Louis XVI., whom +Marie- Antoinette had married to Mademoiselle Quelpee-Laborde, +one of her own ladies-in-waiting. Both King and Queen stood as +god-parents to the Henners' little girl, who, when grown up, was +married to a Monsieur de Berny, of ancient, noble lineage, and +bore him nine children. The date at which Balzac made her +acquaintance has been variously stated. Basing themselves upon +his <i>Love-story at School</i>, some writers have supposed he +knew her when he was a boy, but there is no evidence to confirm +this hypothesis. The first definite mention of her and her family +occurs in a gossipy letter he wrote to Laure in 1822 from +Villeparisis, where the de Berny family were settled: "I may tell +you," he says, "that Mademoiselle de B. has narrowly escaped +being broken into three pieces in a fall; that Mademoiselle E. is +not so stupid as we imagined; that she has a talent for serious +painting and even for caricature; that she is a musician to the +tips of her toes; that Monsieur C. continues to swear; that +Madame de B(erny) has become a bran, wheat, and fodder merchant, +perceiving after forty years' reflection that money is +everything."</p> + +<p>At this date, the relationship between him and Madame de Berny +was one of ordinary friendship, yet with indications of warmer +feelings on either side that his parents noticed and disapproved. +With a view to discouraging the intimacy, they induced him to pay +visits that took him from home for some time; but the object they +aimed at was not attained. The intimacy ripened. Madame de Berny +was his only confidante. His few male friends were too old or too +young for his unbosomings. There was the Abbe de Villers whom he +stayed with at Nogent, and there was Theodore Dablin, the retired +ironmonger, whom he used to call his "<i>cher petit pere</i>." +Besides these two elders, there was the young de Berny, who was +considerably his junior. But to none of them could he talk +unreservedly of his ambitions literary and political. For a man +between twenty and thirty years of age, whose mind is seething +with evolving thought, there is no more sympathetic and +appreciative adviser than a woman some years his senior. Madame +de Berny listened to his expression of Imperialistic opinions +tinged with Liberalism, as she listened to his confession of +hopes and disappointments; and, in turn, talked with persuasive +accents of those pre-Revolution days which she had known as a +child. She was able also to draw the curtain aside and show him +something of the history of the revolution itself and of the +Terror, during which she and her parents' family had been +imprisoned. It was his first mingling with the grandeurs that +were his delight. Through her narration, he was able to enter the +old Court society and watch the intrigues of the personages who +had been famous in it. Madame de Berny's mother was still living, +and added her own reminiscences to those of her daughter. Later, +by their agency he was introduced to some of the aristocratic +partisans of the fallen dynasty--the Duke de Fitz-James and the +Duchess de Castries. Under Madame de Berny's education, his +Imperialism was transformed into Legitimism.</p> + +<p>How a matron of her age should have allowed the friendship of +the commencement to develop into a liaison is one of those +problems of sexual psychology easier to describe in Balzac's own +language than to explain rationally. We know that she was not +happy with her husband, and can surmise that she entered upon the +role she played without clearly foreseeing its dangers. No doubt, +her desire to form this genius in the rough carried her away from +her moorings, which, indeed, had never been very strong, since +she had already once before in her married life had a lover. +Besides there was her temperament, sensual and sentimental; and +with it the tradition of the eighteenth-century morals, indulgent +to illicit amours.</p> + +<p>Most likely, the second phase of her relations with Balzac +coincided with his temporary abandonment of authorship for +business. It was in 1825 that he resolved to embark on +publishing,[*] partly urged by the mute reproaches of his parents +and partly allured by the prospect of rapidly growing rich. He +had likewise some intention of bringing out his own books, both +those previously written and those in preparation. Of these +latter there were a goodly number sketched out in a sort of +note-book or album, which his sister Laure called his +<i>garde-manger</i> or pantry. It was full of jottings anent +people, places, and things that he had come across in the +preceding lustrum.</p> + +<p>[*] The initiator of this project was not Balzac, although his +early biographers, Madame Surville included, gave him the credit +for it.</p> + +<p>The idea of taking up business was mooted to him first by a +Monsieur d'Assonvillez, an acquaintance of Madame de Berny, whom +he used to see and talk with when staying, as he occasionally +did, at the small apartment rented by his father in Paris. Just +then Urbain Canel, the celebrated publisher of Romantic books, +was thinking of putting on the market compact editions of the old +French classics, beginning with Moliere and La Fontaine; and +Balzac, either already knowing him or being introduced to him by +a mutual friend, was admitted to join in the undertaking. The +money necessary for the partnership was lent to him by Monsieur +d'Assonvillez, who, as a sharp business man, imposed conditions +on the loan which secured him from loss in case of failure. The +editions were to be library ones, illustrated by the artist +Deveria (who about this time painted Balzac's portrait), and were +to be published in parts. The price was high, twenty francs for +each work; and additional drawbacks were the smallness of the +type and the poorness of the engravings. No success attended the +experiment; at the end of a twelvemonth not a score of copies had +been sold. By common consent the firm, which had been increased +to four partners, broke up their association, and Balzac was left +sole proprietor of the concern, the assets of which consisted of +a large quantity of wastepaper, and the liabilities amounted to a +respectable number of thousand francs.</p> + +<p>Madame Surville attributes the fiasco to the professional +jealousy of competitors, who discouraged the public from buying; +but the cause of the discomfiture lay rather in the faulty manner +in which the partners carried out their plan. Monsieur +d'Assonvillez being still an interested adviser, Balzac now +submitted to him a project for retrieving his losses by adding a +printing to his publishing business. The stock and goodwill of a +printer were to be bought, and a working type-setter, named +Barbier, was to be associated as a second principal in the +affair, on account of his practical experience. The project was +approved, and the elder Balzac was persuaded to come forward with +a capital of about thirty thousand francs, this sum being +required to pay out the retiring printer, Monsieur Laurens, and +obtain the new firm's patent. Madame de Berny had already lent +Honore money to help him in the publishing scheme. At present, +she induced her husband to intervene with the Government so that +the printing licence might be granted without delay.</p> + +<p>The printing premises were situated at No. 17, Rue des Marais, +Faubourg Saint-Germain, to-day Rue Visconti, near the Quai +Malaquais. The street, which is a narrow one, subsists nearly the +same as it was a century ago. Older associations, indeed, are +attached to it. At No. 19 died Jean Racine in 1699, and Adrienne +Lecouvreur in 1730. No. 17 was a new construction when Balzac +went to it, having probably been built on the site where Nicolas +Vauquelin des Yveteaux used to receive the far-famed Ninon in his +gardens. On the impost, where formerly appeared the names Balzac +and Barbier, now may be read "A. Herment, successeur de Garnier." +The place is still devoted to like uses.</p> + +<p>In the <i>Lost Illusions</i>, whose part-sequel <i>David +Sechard</i> reproduces Balzac's life as a printer, there is a +description of the ground floor: "a huge room, lighted on the +street-side by an old stained- glass window and on the inner +yard-side by a casement." The passage in Gothic style led to the +office; and on the floor above were the living rooms, one of +which was hung with blue calico, was furnished with taste, and +was adorned with the owner's first novels, bound by Thouvenin. In +this "den," during the two years that he was engaged in the +printing trade, were received the daily visits of her he called +his <i>Dilecta</i>.</p> + +<p>She could not give him the practical business qualities in +which he was utterly lacking and for which his wonderful +intuitions of commercial possibilities were no compensation; but +she could smile at his enthusiasms and sympathize with his +disappointments, which had their see-saw pretty regularly in the +interval from the 1st of June 1826 to the 3rd of February 1828. A +very fair trade was done; and, in fact, some of the books he +printed were important: Villemain's <i>Miscellanies</i>, +Merimee's <i>Jacquerie</i>, Madame Roland's <i>Memoirs</i>, not +to speak of his own small <i>Critical and Anecdotal Dictionary of +Paris Signboards</i>, published under a pseudonym, or rather +anonymously, since it was signed <i>Le Batteur de Pave</i>, the +"Man in the Street." But the senior partner, he who should have +financed the concern with all the more wariness as d'Assonvillez, +the principal supplier of capital, had a mortgage upon the whole +estate, allowed himself to be paid for his printing, more often +than not, in bills for which no provision was forthcoming and in +securities that were rotten. One debt of twenty- eight thousand +francs was settled by the transfer of a lot of old unsaleable +literature, which would have been dear at a halfpenny a volume. +And then, when everything was in confusion--debtors recalcitrant +and creditors pressing--what must he do but launch on another +venture, buy the bankrupt stock of a type-founder, and start +manufacturing. A fresh partner, Laurent, was admitted into the +firm in December 1827, with a view to his exploiting the +presumably auxiliary branch; and a prospectus was issued vaunting +a process of type- founding, which Balzac was wrongly credited +with having invented. Within two months after this spurt, and +while a fine album was in preparation, which was to illustrate +the firm's improved method, Barbier withdrew from the +partnership. His desertion would have at once spelt disaster, if +Madame de Berny had not boldly stepped into the vacant place, +with a power of attorney conferred on her by her husband, and +pledged her credit for nine thousand francs. During three months +longer, the tottering house continued to hold up; and then, under +the avalanche of writs and claims, it fell. A petition in +bankruptcy was filed in April, and the estate was placed in the +hands of an official receiver.</p> + +<p>On reaching this crisis so big with consequences, Balzac had +recourse to his mother, who, though little disposed in the past +to humour his bent, consented now to every sacrifice in order to +save his credit. Her first step was to get her cousin Monsieur +Sedillot to occupy himself with the liquidation, she authorizing +him at the same time to make whatever arrangement he should judge +best, and promising to accept it. She was most anxious to spare +her husband, at present eighty-three years of age, the grief he +must feel if informed of the full extent of the disaster. Alas! +notwithstanding her precautions, the old man did learn the truth; +and the shock hastened his end. Within twelve months after the +bankruptcy he met with a slight accident, which, acting on his +enfeebled constitution, was fatal to him.</p> + +<p>Balzac's liabilities, at the moment of the failure, were one +hundred and thirteen thousand francs. The effect of the +liquidation was to reduce the number of creditors, so that his +indebtedness was restricted to members of his own family and to +Madame de Berny. The latter's claims were partly met by her son's +taking over the business with Laurent, the other partner. Being +thus reconstituted, the firm subsequently prospered. To-day it +still carries on its affairs under the control of a Monsieur +Charles Tuleu, who succeeded Monsieur de Berny. Madame Surville +would have us believe that, if her parents had only supported +Honore more unreservedly at the commencement, he could have +realized a fortune; but all the facts of her brother's life go to +prove the contrary.</p> + +<p>Referring, a decade later, to these dark days, which loaded +him with a burden of debt that he never shook off but increased +by his natural inability to balance receipts and expenditure, he +spoke of Madame de Berny's kindness, and declared that he had +repaid the <i>Dilecta</i> in 1836 the last six thousand francs he +owed her, together with their five per cent interest. As on many +other occasions, Balzac imagined something which had not been +done, though he apparently believed what he asserted. The +following anecdote re-establishes the facts of the case.</p> + +<p>Monsieur Arthur Rhone, a friend of the de Berny family, who +used to visit the son Alexander in the office of the Rue des +Marais, often admired on the mantelpiece a fine bust of Flora, +modelled by Marin. One day the printer said to him: "Do you know +how much that bust cost me? . . . Fifteen thousand francs. I got +it from Balzac, who owed me a great deal of money. Once when I +was at his house in Passy, he exclaimed: 'Since I can't pay you, +take what you like from here to reimburse yourself.'" This work +of art, a Louis XVI. gilt-bronze time piece, with its two +candelabra, once also in Balzac's possession, was part payment of +the balance due to the de Berny family, and was surrendered only +in the forties.</p> + +<p>The novelist, whose memory was so short in money matters, had +a longer recollection of his moral obligations. In the letter +above referred to, he confessed: "Without her (Madame de Berny) I +should have died. She often divined that I had not eaten for +several days (here he was probably piling on the agony). She +provided for everything with angelic kindness. Her devotion was +absolute." It ended only with the <i>Dilecta's</i> life.</p> + +<p>In the <i>Shagreen Skin</i>, which embodies some of Balzac's +youthful experiences, Raphael, the hero, was saved from +committing suicide, after ruining himself, by an accident which +forms the thread of the story. Possibly, during the bankruptcy +proceedings, there may have been a fit of despair which urged the +insolvent printer to end his own troubles in the Seine. If so, it +was of short duration. A fortnight after he had quitted the Rue +des Marais, the letter he wrote to General de Pommereul showed +him planning out a fresh future.</p> + +<p>"At last has happened," he said in it, "what many persons were +able to foresee, and what I myself feared in beginning and +courageously supporting an establishment the magnitude of which +was colossal (!!!). I have been precipitated, not without the +previsions of my conscious mind, from my modest prosperity. . . . +For the last month I have been engaged on an historical work of +the highest interest; and I hope that, in default of a talent +altogether problematic with me, my sketch of national customs +will bring me luck. My first thought was for you; and I resolved +to write and ask you to shelter me for two or three weeks. A +camp-bed, a single mattress, a table, if only it is quadrupedal +and not rickety, a chair and a roof are all that I require."</p> + +<p>The General replied: "Your room awaits you. Come quick." And +he went. It was his definite entrance into literature, and his +resumption of the search for wealth withal.</p> + +<p>CHAPTER IV</p> + +<p>FIRST SUCCESSES AND FAME</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>The historical novel that Balzac had set himself to write was +the <i>Chouans</i>, this name being given to the Vendee Royalists +who, under the leadership of the Chevalier de Nougarede, combated +the Revolution and Napoleon. The scene being laid in Brittany, it +was natural that, apart from health reasons, the author should +wish to inspire his pen by a visit to the places he intended to +describe.</p> + +<p>His hostess at Fougeres has left us a description of her +guest: "He was a little, burly man, clad in ill-fitting garments +that increased his bulk. His hands were magnificent. He wore a +most ugly hat; but, as soon as he took it off, one remarked +nothing else besides his head. . . . Beneath his ample forehead, +on which seemed to shine the reflection of a lamp, there were +brown, gold-spangled eyes which expressed their owner's meaning +as clearly as his speech. He had a big, square nose, and a huge +mouth, which was perpetually smiling in spite of his ugly teeth. +He wore a moustache, and his long hair was brushed back. At the +time he came to us he was rather thin, and appeared to be +half-starved. He devoured his food, poor fellow! For the rest, +there was so much confidence, so much benevolence, so much +<i>naivete</i>, so much frankness in his demeanour, his gestures, +his ways of speaking and behaving that it was impossible to know +him and not love him. . . . His good humour was so exuberant as +to be contagious. Notwithstanding the misfortunes he had just +passed through, he had not been with us a quarter of an hour +before he made the General and me laugh till tears came into our +eyes."</p> + +<p>The <i>Chouans</i>, which his two or three months' sojourn at +Fougeres enabled him to get on with rapidly, was completed after +his return to Paris, and was published under his own name in +1829. Charles Vimont, who accepted and brought it out, paid him +no more than a thousand francs. The book, although it was not +badly written, and contained plenty of incident, very fair +characterization, of the minor personages especially, and local +colouring imitated from Walter Scott, made no great impression. +For the ordinary reader it differed too little from the +Romanticism with which he was familiar. Moreover, the action +savoured too much of the melodramatic; and the character of +Mademoiselle de Verneuil, and that of the Chouan chief, whom she +had promised to deliver up to the emissaries of Fouche, were too +nebulous to gain general sympathy, even with the heroine's tragic +devotion. There is, however, a fine sketch of Brittany and of its +spirit of revolt; the numerous figures of the background are +vigorously executed, and nearly all the episodes of the drama are +skilfully presented. A perusal of the <i>Chouans</i> makes us +regret that there was hardly any return to this kind of +composition in the author's after- work.</p> + +<p>When embarking on his publishing enterprise, Balzac went to +live in an apartment of the Rue Tournon, No. 2[*] close to the +Luxembourg. He abandoned it for the Rue des Marais in 1826; and, +this latter abode being given up in 1828, he removed on his +return from Brittany to No. 4, Rue Cassini, where he remained for +some years. A friend of his, Latouche--soon to become an +enemy--helped him to liven up the walls of his study with the +famous blue calico that had adorned his room over the printing +office. Certain busybodies spread the report that he was +furnishing his new apartment extravagantly; and Laure, to whose +ear the tattle had come, ventured to allude to it in a letter +reproaching him with remissness in writing home and to her. The +accusation of extravagance, which later he really merited, was at +this moment a trifle previous, money being scarce and credit +also. "Stamps and omnibus fares are expenses I cannot afford," he +assured his sister; "and I abstain from going out in order to +save my clothes."</p> + +<p>[*] Some early biographers state that the novelist went to the +Rue Tournon after his bankruptcy. This is a mistake.</p> + +<p>However, he was now on the point of scoring a literary +success. In the same year as his <i>Chouans</i> appeared his +<i>Physiology of Marriage</i>, a book of satire and caricature +having a distinct stamp of his maturer manner. Werdet, for a +number of years his publisher and friend, relates in his +<i>Portrait Intime</i> that Balzac, while still in the +Lesdiguieres Street garret, had gone one day to Alphonse +Levavasseur and offered, in return for a royalty and a cash +installment of two hundred francs, to supply him with a book to +be entitled: <i>Manual of the Business Man, by a former Notary's +Clerk</i>. It was agreed that the manuscript should be handed in +at the end of the month; and the two hundred francs were paid +down. In vain the publisher waited for his Manual. Ultimately he +hunted out his debtor; and the latter had to confess that the +long-promised manuscript had never been written. In order to calm +the creditor's indignation, Balzac read to him some fragments of +another book which he was really engaged upon. After listening +for a while, Levavasseur's countenance grew serene: "I will pay +you two thousand francs for this production when finished, +Monsieur," he said; "and we will cancel the old transaction. Come +with me. I will give you the first thousand francs now. The rest +you shall have as soon as I get the last corrected proofs." "Dear +publisher, your speech is golden," cried Balzac; "I accept." +Nevertheless, the proofs were not delivered until 1829. The book +immediately became popular. "From the day of its appearance," +comments Werdet, "literature counted another master and France +another Moliere."</p> + +<p>The verdict is exact only if the <i>Physiology</i> is regarded +in conjunction with the novelist's after achievement in the +domain of realistic fiction. Alone it would not rank so high. +Flippant, cynical, immoral--these epithets, which were freely +applied to it, all have their justification when one looks at the +work from any other standpoint than that of its being a very +amusing and clever exposition of sex relations governed by +interest and passion. Both facts and philosophy are confined +within an exceedingly narrow horizon, one in which the writer was +most thoroughly at home, which explains why they bear the imprint +of a mind already <i>blase</i>.</p> + +<p>From a letter Balzac sent to Levavasseur, while finishing the +last pages of the manuscript, it appears that he commenced his +task as a jest and completed it with more serious purpose: "I +intended to dash off a pleasantry," he told him, "and you came +one morning and asked me to do in three months what +Brillat-Savarin took ten years to do. I haven't an idea which is +not the <i>Physiology</i>. I dream of it, I am absorbed by +it."</p> + +<p>The sale of the book was in a measure due to the sort of +scandal it provoked. Ladies especially bought the volume to find +out for themselves how far they had been maligned; and +Levavasseur, who was pleased with his profits, introduced Balzac +to Emile de Girardin, then chief editor of the <i>Mode</i>, to +which paper he now began to contribute light articles, not to +speak of other journals, which were only too glad to receive +something from his pen. The extent to which the fair sex read the +<i>Physiology</i> and were affected by it is illustrated by a +story that Werdet tells of a hoax perpetrated at Balzac's expense +by a number of his society friends, who had cause to complain of +his uppishness towards them, a treatment based not merely on the +belief he entertained in his literary superiority, but on his +pretensions to aristocratic descent. The story belongs more +properly to the middle thirties, when he had been using the +prefix "de" before his name already for some years, justifying +himself on the ground that his father claimed issue from an old +family that had resisted the Auvergne invasion and had begotten +the d'Entragues stock. His father, moreover, so he said, had +discovered documents in the Charter House establishing a +concession of lands made by a de Balzac in the fifth century; and +a copy of the transaction had been registered by the Paris +Parliament.</p> + +<p>Between 1833 and 1836 one of the most celebrated Paris "sets" +was that of the Opera "lions," seven young aristocratic sparks +composing it, or, to be precise, six, together with the Chevalier +d'Entragues de Balzac, as his friends jokingly dubbed him--he +being an elder. It was the period of his first flush of +prosperity, when he drove about in a hired carriage resplendent +with the d'Entragues coat of arms, which cost him five hundred +francs a month; had a majestic coachman in fine livery and a Tom +Thumb groom; sported himself in gorgeous garments and strutted +about in the Opera <i>foyer</i>, amidst the real or feigned +admiration of his fellows.</p> + +<p>To revenge themselves for their mentor's superciliousness +towards them, the six other <i>lions</i> induced a dancer at the +Opera to play the part of a supposed Duke's daughter smitten with +the great man's writings and person, a role she undertook the +more willingly as, being well acquainted with the former, she was +anxious to prove to him that he was not so perspicacious as he +deemed himself. An Opera ball was chosen for the adventure; and +Balzac was duly baited and taken in tow by the lady, whose mask +only half concealed her beauty. Thus began a flirtation, with +subsequent clandestine meetings, allowing the fair unknown to +fool him to the top of her bent. The author wanted to propose for +her hand to the Duke her father; but, cleverly using her +knowledge of his books, the sly jade showed him that he would +have no chance of being accepted. At last she hinted she would +like to visit him in his author's sanctum; and the delighted +novelist went to most lavish expense in fitting up a boudoir to +receive her. The visit was presumably a secret one. Protected by +a young man employed at the Opera, to whom she was engaged, and +who accompanied her in the disguise of a negro, she went to the +Rue des Batailles one evening and graciously listened to the +enraptured conversation of her victim till towards midnight, when +her mother, who was in the plot, came to fetch her. The +novelist's fury and humiliation were extreme on his learning how +neatly he had been tricked, and it was some time before he +ventured to reappear in his accustomed haunts. As narrated by +Werdet, the story is a good deal embellished, and some of the +details that he gives were probably invented; but the main +outline he vouches to be true.</p> + +<p>Among the editors of journals who sought Balzac's +collaboration after the publication of the <i>Physiology</i> were +Buloz of the <i>Revue de Paris</i> and Victor Ratier of the +<i>Silhouette</i>. To the latter of them, in 1831, he wrote from +La Grenadiere, where he had gone to recruit, a letter revealing a +curiously mixed state of mind in this dawning period of fame. He +would seem to have been under a presentiment of the long years of +struggle and incessant toil he was about to be involved in, and +to have felt a shrinking of his physical nature from them.</p> + +<p>"Oh! if you knew what Touraine is like," he exclaimed. "Here +one forgets everything else. I forgive the inhabitants for being +stupid. They are so happy. Now, you know that people who enjoy +much are naturally stupid. Touraine admirably explains the +lazzarone. I have come to regard glory, the Chamber, politics, +the future, literature, as veritable poison-balls to kill +wandering, homeless dogs, and I say to myself: 'Virtue, +happiness, life, are summed up in six hundred francs income on +the bank of the Loire. . . .' My house is situated half-way up +the hill, near a delightful river bordered with flowers, whence I +behold landscapes a thousand times more beautiful than all those +with which rascally travellers bore their readers. Touraine +appears to me like a <i>pate de foie gras</i>, in which one +plunges up to the chin; and its wine is delicious. Instead of +intoxicating, it makes you piggy and happy. . . . Just fancy, I +have been on the most poetic trip possible in France--from here +to the heart of Brittany by water, passing between the most +ravishing scenery in the world. I felt my thoughts go with the +stream, which, near the sea, becomes immense. Oh, to lead the +life of a Mohican, to run about the rocks, to swim in the sea, to +breathe in the fresh air and sun! Oh, I have realized the savage! +Oh, I have excellently understood the corsair, the adventurer +--their lives of opposition; and I reflected: 'Life is courage, +good rifles, the art of steering in the open ocean, and the +hatred of man-- of the Englishman, for example.' (Here Balzac is +of his time.) Coming back hither, the ex-corsair has turned +dealer in ideas. Just imagine, now, a man so vagabond beginning +on an article entitled, <i>Treatise of Fashionable Life</i>, and +making an octavo volume of it, which the <i>Mode</i> is going to +print, and some publisher reprint. . . . Egad! At the present +moment literature is a vile trade. It leads to nothing, and I +itch to go a-wandering and risk my existence in some living +drama. . . . Since I have seen the real splendours of this spot, +I have grown very philosophic, and, putting my foot on an +ant-hill, I exclaim, like the immortal Bonaparte: 'That, or men, +what is it all in presence of Saturn or Venus, or the Pole Star?' +And methinks that the ocean, a brig, and an English vessel to +engulf, is better than a writing-desk, a pen, and the Rue +Saint-Denis."</p> + +<p>About the events of the 1830 Revolution the novelist was +apparently but little concerned. True, the change was one of +dynasty only, not of <i>regime</i>, albeit Louis-Philippe posed +rather as a plebiscitary monarch. Balzac's clericalism and +royalism, which ultimately became so crystallized, were at this +date in a position of unstable equilibrium. At one moment his +criticisms have an air of condemning the monarchic principle, at +another they point to his being a pillar of the ancient system of +things. On this occasion he was twitted by Madame Zulma Carraud, +his sister's friend, with whom his relations grew more intimate +as his celebrity augmented; and he defended himself by a +confession of faith which forecast his endeavours--less +persistent than his desires--to add the statesman's laurels to +those of the <i>litterateur</i>. His doctrine, following the +Machiavellian tradition, was that the genius of government +consists in operating the fusion of men and things--a method +which demonstrated Napoleon and Louis XVIII. alike to be men of +talent. Both of them restrained all the various parties in +France--the one by force, the other by ruse, because the one rode +horseback, the other in a carriage. . . . France, he continued, +ought to be a constitutional monarchy, with an hereditary Royal +Family, a House of Lords extraordinarily powerful and +representing property, etc., with all possible guarantees of +heredity and privilege; then she should have a second, elective +assembly to represent every interest of the intermediary mass +separating high social positions from what was called the people. +The bulk of the laws and their spirit should tend to enlighten +the people as much as possible--the people that had +nothing--workmen, proletaries, etc.--so as to bring the greatest +number of men to that condition of well-being which distinguished +the intermediary mass; but the people should be left under the +most puissant yoke, in such a way that the individual units might +find light, aid, and protection, and that no idea, no form, no +transaction might render them turbulent. The richer classes must +enjoy the widest liberty practicable, since they had a stake in +the country. To the Government he wished the utmost force +possible, its interests being the same as those of the rich and +the bourgeois, viz. to render the lowest class happy and to +aggrandize the middle class, in which resided the veritable +puissance of States. If rich people and the hereditary fortunes +of the Upper Chamber, corrupted by their manners and customs, +engendered certain abuses, these were inseparable from all +society, and must be accepted with the advantages they +yielded.</p> + +<p>This conception of the classes and the masses which he +afterwards set forth more fully in his <i>Country Doctor</i> and +<i>Village Cure</i>, partly explains why all his best work, +besides being impregnated with fatalism, has such a constant +outlook on the past. It was a dogma with him rather than a +philosophy, and was clung to more from taste than from reasonable +conviction. He believed in aristocratic prerogative, because he +believed in himself, and ranked himself as high as, or rather +higher than, the noble. This was at the bottom of his doctrine; +but he was glad all the same to have his claim supported by such +outward signs of the inward grace as were afforded by vague +genealogy and the homage of the great. Duchesses were his +predilection when they were forthcoming; failing them, countesses +were esteemed.</p> + +<p>The Duchess d'Abrantes--one of his early admirers--to whom he +dedicated his <i>Forsaken Woman</i>, was herself a colleague in +letters; and he was able to render her some service through his +relations with publishers. Their correspondence shows them to +have been on very friendly terms. In one of his letters to her, +he insisted on his inability to submit to any yoke, and rebutted +her insinuation that he permitted himself to be led--possibly the +Duchess's hint referred to Madame de Berny. "My character," he +said, "is the most singular one I have ever come across. I study +myself as I might another person. I comprise in my five feet two +every incoherence, every contrast possible; and those who think +me vain, prodigal, headstrong, frivolous, inconsistent, foppish, +careless, idle, unstable, giddy, wavering, talkative, tactless, +ill-bred, impolite, crotchety, humoursome, will be just as right +as those who might affirm me to be thrifty, modest, plucky, +tenacious, energetic, hardworking, constant, taciturn, cute, +polite, merry. Nothing astonishes me more than myself. I am +inclined to conclude I am the plaything of circumstances. Does +this kaleidoscope result from the fact that, into the soul of +those who claim to paint all the affections and the human heart, +chance casts each and every of these same affections in order +that by the strength of their imagination they may feel what they +depict? And can it be that observation is only a sort of memory +proper to aid this mobile imagination? I begin to be of this +opinion."</p> + +<p>Balzac appears to have been introduced to the Duchess +d'Abrantes about the year 1830, when he was engaged in writing +his <i>Shagreen Skin,</i> which, out of the numerous pieces of +fiction produced within this and the next twelve months, added +most to his notoriety, though inferior to such stories as the +<i>House of the Tennis-playing Cat</i>, and even to the <i>Sceaux +Ball</i> in the more proper qualities of the novel.</p> + +<p>The <i>Shagreen Skin</i> is the adventure of a young man who, +after sowing his wild oats and losing his last crown at the +gaming table, goes to end his troubles in the river, but is +prevented from carrying out his intention by being fortuitously +presented with a piece of shagreen skin, which has the marvellous +property of gratifying its possessor's every wish, yet, +meanwhile, shrinks with each gratification, and in the same +proportion curtails its possessor's life. On this warp of fairy +tale, the author weaves a woof of romance and reality most oddly +blended. The imitations of predecessors are numerous. The style +is turgid, the thought is shallow, the sentiment is exaggerated. +But very little of the sober characterization soon to be +manifested in other books is displayed in this one. The best that +can be said is that the thing has the same cleverness as the +<i>Physiology</i>, with here and there indications--and clear +ones--of the novelist's later power. He himself grossly +overestimated it, as, indeed, he overestimated not a few of his +poorer productions--maybe because they cost him greater toil than +his masterpieces, which generally, after long, unconscious +gestation, issued rapidly and painless from him.</p> + +<p>An amusing expression of this self-praise has come down to us +in the puff he composed on the occasion of a reprint of the +<i>Shagreen Skin</i> by Gosselin in 1832. "The <i>Philosophic +Tales</i> of Monsieur de Balzac," it announced, "have appeared +this week. The <i>Shagreen Skin</i> is judged as the admirable +novels of Anne Radcliffe were judged. Such things escape +annalists and commentators. The eager reader lays hold of these +books. They bring sleeplessness into the mansions of the rich and +into the garret of the poet; they animate the village. In winter +they give a livelier reflection to the sparkling log, great +privileges to the story-teller. It is nature, in sooth, who +creates story-tellers. Vainly are you a learned, grave writer, if +you have not been born a story-teller, and you will never obtain +the popularity of the <i>Mysteries of Udolpho</i> and the +<i>Shagreen Skin</i>, the <i>Arabian Nights</i>, and Monsieur de +Balzac. I have somewhere read that God created Adam, the +nomenclator, saying to him: You are the story-teller. And what a +story-teller! What verve and wit! What indefatigable perseverance +in painting everything, daring everything, branding everything! +How the world is dissected by this man! What an annalist! What +passion and what coolness!</p> + +<p>"The <i>Philosophic Tales</i> are the red-hot interpretation +of a civilization ruined by debauch and well-being, which +Monsieur de Balzac exposes in the pillory. The <i>Arabian +Nights</i> are the complete history of the luxurious East in its +days of happiness and perfumed dreams. <i>Candide</i> is the +epitome of an epoch in which there were bastilles, a stag-park, +and an absolute king. By thus taking at the first bound a place +beside these formidable or graceful tale-tellers, Monsieur de +Balzac proves one thing that remained to be proved; to wit, that +the drama, which was no longer possible to-day on the stage, was +still possible in the story--that our society, so dangerously +sceptical, <i>blase</i>, and scornful, could yet be moved by the +galvanic shocks of this poetry of the senses--full of life and +colour, in flesh and blood, drunk with wine and lust--in which +Monsieur de Balzac revels with such delight. Thus, the surprise +was great, when, thanks to this story-teller, we still found +among us something resembling poetry--feasts, intoxication, the +light o' love giving her caresses amidst an orgie, the brimming +punch-bowl crowned with blue flames, the yellow-gloved +politician, scented adultery, the girl indulging in pleasure and +love and dreaming aloud, poverty clean and neat, surrounded with +respectability and happy hazard--we have seen all this in Balzac. +The Opera with its lemans, the pink boudoir and its flossy +hangings, the feast and its surfeits; we have even seen Moliere's +doctor reappear, such need has this man of sarcasm and +grotesqueness. The further you advance in the <i>Shagreen +Skin</i>--vices, lost virtues, poverties, boredom, deep silence, +dry-as-dust science, angular, witless scepticism, laughable +egotism, puerile vanities, venal loves, Jewish second-hand +dealers, etc.--the more astonished and pained you will be to +recognize that the nineteenth century in which you live is so +made up. The <i>Shagreen Skin</i> is <i>Candide</i> with +Beranger's notes; it is poverty, luxury, faith, mockery; it is +the heartless breast, the brainless cranium of the nineteenth +century--the century so bedizened and scented, so revolutionary, +so ill-read, so little worth, the century of brilliant +phantasmagorias, of which in fifty years' time nothing will be +seizable except Monsieur de Balzac's <i>Shagreen Skin</i>."</p> + +<p>On account of its sensationalism, the <i>Shagreen Skin</i> had +a success of curiosity equal, and, if anything, superior to that +of the <i>Physiology</i>. The author, however, had to defend +himself against the charge of copying foreign +literature--Hoffman's tales in particular. One of his +correspondents, the Duchess de Castries, who subsequently +flattered him and flirted with him, wrote to him incognito, +taking exception to certain statements he had made in each of his +two popular works. Replying to her, he for the first time spoke +of his desire to develop his fiction into a vast series of +volumes destined to make known to posterity the life of his +century.</p> + +<p>Great schemes were always to be Balzac's day-dreaming, one +chasing the other in his fancy. They filled his thoughts, and in +his heart were his constant aim, far more than to be loved, for +all he asserted of this last desire. If literature was the one +means he resorted to in his efforts to attain them, this was +because every other means deceived his expectation, and not +because he deliberately preferred it to all others. He owned the +fact without reservation. In the case of a man whose literary +achievement was so high, such slighting of letters has its +significance, and is curious. Taken in conjunction with other +evidence furnished by his letters, it proves that genius, though +sometimes clearly the pure, simple moving of a spirit that cannot +be resisted, is also--and perhaps as often--a calculating +partnership, and that the work of art is a compromise. Would +Balzac have written better if his motive had been single? It is +not certain.</p> + +<p>During these early days of his popularity, a seat in the +Chamber of Deputies was his will o' the wisp. Aided by the +<i>Dilecta's</i> friends, he offered himself as a candidate in +two constituencies, Angouleme and Cambrai, after publishing his +pamphlet: <i>An Inquiry into the Policy of Two Ministries</i>. +With a view to shining in the future Parliament, he sharpened his +witticisms, rounded his periods, polished his style, exercised +himself in opposing short phrases to others of Ciceronian length, +endeavouring the while to put poetry and observation into a new +subject. At least these things were in his mind, as his +communication to Berthoud of the Cambrai <i>Gazette</i> +testified. His intention was to become an orator, he said. Had he +been elected, he might have become the rival of Thiers. They were +about the same age. Then France might have had two "little +bourgeois" instead of one, unless one of the two had knocked the +other out. But whether conquering or conquered, Balzac the +politician would have swallowed up Balzac the novelist, and +<i>Eugenie Grandet</i> would never have been written. Why he +failed at the polls is not clear. Probably he did not possess +enough suppleness to please his party. To tell the truth, we do +not learn definitely to which party he belonged. He was quite +capable of constituting one by himself.</p> + +<p>These preoccupations hindered him somewhat in carrying out his +engagements with publishers and editors, so that he did not +always get the money he counted on. Yet he worked hard. His +habit, at this time, was to go to bed at six in the evening and +sleep till twelve, and after, to rise and write for nearly twelve +hours at a stretch, imbibing coffee as a stimulant through these +spells of composition. What recreation he took in Paris was at +the theatre or at the houses of his noble acquaintances, where he +went to gossip of an afternoon. It was exhausting to lead such an +existence; and even the transient fillips given by the coffee +were paid for in attacks of indigestion and in abscesses which +threw him into fits of discouragement. When suffering from these, +he poured out his soul to his sister or Madame Carraud, +complaining in his epistles that his destiny compelled him to run +after fame and deprived him of his chance to meet with the ideal +woman. Madame de Berny, with all her devotion, did not satisfy +him now. "Despairing of ever being loved and understood by the +woman of my dreams," he tragically cried, "having met with her +only in my heart, I am plunging again into the tempestuous sphere +of political passions and the stormy, withering atmosphere of +literary glory." But the "she" of his dreams, he added, must be +wealthy. He could not conceive of marriage and love in a cottage. +It must be admitted that from his sources of affection as from +his sources of ambition there was a gush which was rather +muddy.</p> + +<p>Altogether, the year of 1832 was an irritating one for Balzac. +A rich match he had hoped to make fell through. A second attempt +of his to enter the Chamber of Deputies ended in defeat. His +books, after their first season or two of favour, were selling +but poorly in France, although pirated editions were issued and +had a large circulation abroad. Impatiently he meditated plans +for doubling and tripling his revenue. He would emigrate--he +would recommence publishing--he would turn playwright. Amid these +three solicitations he moved in a circle without reaching a +conclusion. And fortune, while he was hesitating, did not come to +his door. In default of her visit, not all the flattering +epistles he received from ladies in Russia and Germany-- three +and four a day, he asserted--were an adequate compensation. A +journey undertaken for the benefit of his health to Sache, +Angouleme, and Aix forced him to borrow from his mother again, +instead of paying back the capital he owed her. His unfinished +manuscripts he had taken with him, but he found it difficult to +get on with them: "I was going to start work this morning with +courage," he wrote to her, "when your letter came to upset me +completely. Do you think it possible for me to have artistic +thoughts when I see all at once the tableau of my miseries +displayed before me as you display them? Do you think I should +toil thus, if I did not feel it?"</p> + +<p>The novelist's relations with his mother force the attention +of any one that studies his life. Their two natures were +contrary; there were often conflicts between them. As a child, he +seems not to have comprehended the affection underlying the +maternal severity, and to have entertained a dread of the latter +which never entirely left him. According to his friend Fessart, +he used to confess he always experienced a nervous trembling +whenever he heard his mother speak; and the effect was in some +sort the numbing of his faculties when he was in her presence. +Her generous abnegation at the time of his bankruptcy was a +revelation to him; his gratitude for it was sincere; and from +that date onwards, during a number of years, his letters to her +evinced it, yet not consistently; the old distrust recurs, and +also a growing tendency to utilize her as a servant in his +concerns. Having once dipped in her purse, he did not hesitate to +hold out his hand, on each occasion that his needs, real or +fancied, prompted him, being confident of requiting her in the +future. His refrain was ever the same: "Sooner or later, +politics, journalism, a marriage, or a big piece of business luck +will make me a Croesus. We must suffer a little longer." And he +finished by exhausting her last penny of capital, and reduced her +to depend on an allowance he gave her, irregularly--an allowance +which, when he died, had to be continued to her from the purse of +another. Madame Balzac was sacrificed to his improvidence and +stupendous egotism; nor can the tenderness of his language--more +frequently than not called forth by some fresh immolation of her +comfort to his interests--disguise this unpleasing side of his +character and action. While he was recouping his strength and +spirits, on the 1832 holiday, she was in Paris negotiating with +Pichot of the <i>Revue de Paris</i>, with Gosselin and other +publishers, arranging for proofs, and also for an advance of +cash. Even his epistolary good-byes were odd mixtures of business +with sentiment. After casting himself-- through the post--on her +bosom and embracing her with effusion, he terminated by: "Pay +everything as you say. On my side, I will gain money by force, +and we will balance the expenses by the receipts."</p> + +<p>The book that cost him the greatest efforts during the year of +1832 was his <i>Louis Lambert</i>, already mentioned in the +second chapter. Writing about it to his family from Angouleme he +explained that he was attempting in it to vie with Goethe and +Byron, with <i>Faust</i> and <i>Manfred</i>. It was to be a +conclusive reply to his enemies, and would make his superiority +manifest. Some day or other it would lead science into new paths. +Meantime it would produce a deep impression and astonish the +Swedenborgians. Whether the members of this sect were astonished, +history does not record. Those who were most so were the +novelist's friends, and Madame de Berny among the number. But +their wonder was not a eulogium. First of all, the hero--his +<i>alter ego</i>--is a very poor replica of Pascal; and the +exalting of Lambert's intelligence, which was mere self-praise, +jarred on them the more, as they truly loved him. The +<i>Dilecta</i>, whom he had asked to pass her frank opinion on +it, did not hesitate to tell him some hard truths: "Goethe and +Byron," she said, "have admirably painted the desires of a +superior mind; when reading them, one aggrandizes them by all the +space they have perceived; one admires the scope of their view; +one would fain give them one's soul to help theirs to cover the +distance that separates them from the goal they aspire to reach. +But, if an author comes and tells me he has attained this goal, I +no longer see in him, however great he may be, more than a +presumptuous man; his vanity shocks me, and I diminish him by all +the height to which he has tried to raise himself. . . . I would +therefore beg you, dearest, to cut out of your <i>Lambert</i> +everything that might suggest these singular ideas; for instance: +'The admirable combat of thought arrived at its greatest force, +at its vastest expression' . . . 'The moral world, whose limits +he had thrown back for himself,' cannot be tolerated. Write, +dearest, in such a manner that the whole crowd may perceive you +from everywhere, by the height at which you will have placed +yourself; but do not cry out for people to admire you; for, on +all sides, the largest magnifying-glasses would be directed +towards you; and what becomes of the most delicious object seen +by the microscope!"</p> + +<p>The lesson was a severe one. Though it did not cure Balzac of +his author's vanity--nothing could cure him of that--it did, for +a while at least, direct his endeavours towards fiction of a more +objective kind.</p> + +<p>What he was now capable of in characterization treated +objectively he showed in his <i>Colonel Chabert</i> and the +<i>Cure of Tours</i>, both of which were published in the same +twelvemonth as <i>Louis Lambert</i>. These stories are +exceedingly simple in construction. The Cure is a priest whose +joys and ambitions are modest and innocent. Having reached the +age when indulgence in ease and comfort is excusable, he finds +himself suddenly deprived of them through unwittingly offending +his landlady. She, an old maid, as inwardly shrewish as outwardly +pious, utilizes the Abbe Birotteau and another clergyman, who +both lodge with her, to attract the good society folk of Tours to +her evening receptions. After due experience of these gatherings, +the Abbe plays truant, finding it more agreeable to spend his +leisure with friends elsewhere. His absence causes the landlady's +guests to grow remiss and finally to desert her; so, to revenge +herself, the slighted dame, proceeding by petty pin-pricks, makes +the Abbe's life a burden to him, and, ultimately enlisting the +brother clergyman in her schemes of annoyance, works on his +jealousy with such cleverness that their victim's career is +blasted and blighted. Dependent on the development of the +characters, the plot is adroitly and naturally elaborated. +Nowhere is there any forcing of the note; and, in alternate flow, +humour and pathos, of a saner sort than in some of the author's +previous work, run and ripple throughout. With deeper pathos the +novelist tells in <i>Colonel Chabert</i> the virtues of a man of +obscure origin, whose nobleness meets with but scanty +recognition, since it conducts him to the almshouse in his old +age. So vivid is the sober realism of this fine story that the +public believed the relation to be plain, unvarnished facts, and +were astonished at the writer's daring to reveal them in all +their detail.</p> + +<p>Balzac's autumn trip was prolonged as far as Annecy and +Geneva. He had intended going on to Italy in company with the +Duke de Fitz-James. The latter journey, however, was ultimately +abandoned, as he did not succeed in raising the thousand crowns +it required. Travelling on the top of a coach, he had rather a +serious accident when going to Aix. He was climbing up to the +front seat just as the horses set off, and, having missed his +footing, fell with all his weight against the iron step. The +strap, which he clutched in his fall, saved him from coming to +the ground; but the impact of his eighty-four kilograms caused +the sharp iron to enter the flesh of his leg pretty deeply. This +wound took some time to heal, and the annoyance it cause him was +aggravated by an additional malady in his stomach which he tried +to deal with by consulting a mysterious quack in Paris, sending +him through his mother, two pieces of flannel that he had been +wearing next his skin. The doctor was to examine No. 1 flannel, +and by it to determine the seat and the cause of the affection, +as well as the treatment to be followed; then he was to examine +No. 2, and to give certain instructions as to its further use. +Balzac asked his mother to touch the flannels only with paper, so +as not to interfere with their effluvia. This belief of his in +magnetism of an occult kind was an inheritance. His mother, it +has already been said, was a mystic. Her books of this doctrine +comprised more than a hundred volumes of Saint- Martin, +Swedenborg, Madame Guyon, Jacob Boehm, and others. All these +writers he was familiar with. Throughout his life, the influence +of their teaching and his mother's firm belief remained with him. +On his conduct and practice their effect was harmless; but in his +literary work they were a disturbance, and, wherever they +intruded, detracted from its quality.</p> + +<p>Happily, he was beginning to be tempted more and more by the +artistic side of things in his daily experience. Of the lesser +novels composed before the end of 1832, several were directly +inspired by incidents brought to his knowledge. The <i>Red +Inn</i> was related to him by a former army surgeon, a friend of +the man that was unjustly condemned and executed. An <i>Episode +under the Terror</i> was narrated by the hero himself. <i>A +Desert Attachment</i> was the outcome of a conversation with +Martin, the celebrated tamer of wild beasts. On the other hand, +<i>Master Cornelius</i> was written to correct the false +impression of Louis XI. which he considered Walter Scott had +given to his readers in <i>Quentin Durward</i>, this making him +very angry. His curiosity concerning facts and realities of every +description led him to seek an interview with Samson the +executioner. Calling one day to see the Director of Prisons, he +found himself in presence of a pale, melancholy-looking man of +noble countenance, whose manners, language, and apparent +education were those of one polished and cultured. It was Samson. +Entering into conversation with this strange personage, the +novelist listened to the particulars of his life. Samson was a +royalist. On the morrow of Louis XVI.'s execution he had suffered +the utmost remorse, and had paid for what was probably the only +expiatory mass said on that day for the repose of the King's +soul.</p> + +<p>Like other <i>litterateurs</i>, Balzac took up many subjects +which he did not go on with. He had this peculiarity besides, +that he often asserted some book to be completed which was either +not begun at all or was in a most unfinished condition. While on +the Angouleme and Aix excursion, he spoke especially of <i>The +Three Cardinals</i>, <i>The Battle of Austerlitz</i> (afterwards +often alluded to simply as the <i>Battle</i>), and <i>The Marquis +of Carrabas</i>. Not one of these was ever written. They were +abandoned perhaps on account of other work, or else because the +execution was less easy than the conception. Napoleon, who would +have been a central figure in the <i>Battle</i>, is incidentally +introduced in the <i>Country Doctor</i>, which was begun in +1832.</p> + +<p>Probably, also, to this same date should be assigned the +bizarre and even comical expression of hopes and fears for the +future which Balzac confided to his sister Laure. In order to +force himself to take exercise, he used to correct his proofs +either at the printer's or at her house. Sometimes the weather, +to the influence of which he was very susceptible, sometimes his +money-tightness, or his fatigue from protracted work would cause +him to arrive with lack-lustre eyes, sallow complexion, glum +expression and irritable temper. Laure essayed to console and +brighten him.</p> + +<p>"Now don't try to comfort me," he answered on one occasion. +"I'm a dead man."</p> + +<p>And the dead man began to drawl out his tale of woe, gradually +rousing up as he talked, and, at last, speaking excitedly. But +the dolent accents returned as he opened his proofs and read +them.</p> + +<p>"I shall never make a name, sis."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense! with such books, any one could make a name."</p> + +<p>He raised his head; his features relaxed; the sombre tints +vanished from his face.</p> + +<p>"You are right, by Jove! . . . these books must live. . . . +Besides, there is Chance. It can protect a Balzac as well as it +can a fool. Indeed, one has only to invent this chance. Let some +one of my millionaire friends (and I have a few), or a banker not +knowing what to do with his money, come and say to me: 'I am +aware of your immense talent and your anxieties; you need such +and such a sum to be free; accept it without scruple; you will +pay it back some day or other; your pen is worth my millions!' +That's all I require, my dear sister."</p> + +<p>Laure, being accustomed to the appearance of these illusions +which brought back his cheerfulness, never exhibited any surprise +at such soaring notes. Having created the fable, her imaginative +brother continued:</p> + +<p>"Those people spend such sums on whims. . . . A handsome deed +is a whim, like any other, and gives joy perpetually. It is +something to say: 'I have saved a Balzac.' Humanity has good +impulses of the sort; and there are people who, without being +English, are capable of like eccentricities. 'Either a +millionaire or a banker,' he cried, thumping on his chest, 'one +of them I will have.'"</p> + +<p>By dint of talking he had come to accredit the thing, and +gleefully strode about the room, lifting and waving his arms.</p> + +<p>"Ah! Balzac is free! You shall see, my dear friends, and my +dear enemies, what his progress is."</p> + +<p>In fancy, he entered the Academy! From there it was only a +step to the House of Peers. He beheld himself admitted thither. +Why shouldn't he be a member of the Upper Chamber? This and that +person had been created a peer. Then he was appointed a minister. +There was nothing extraordinary about it. Presidents existed. +Were not people who had boxed the compass of ideas the fittest to +govern their fellows? A programme, a policy was evolved and +carried out; and, as everything was going on smoothly, he had +time to think of the millionaire friend or banker who had +assisted him. The generous Maecenas should be rewarded. He +understood the novelist, had lent him money on the security of +his talent, had enabled him to obtain his well-deserved honours. +The benefactor should now have his share in the honour, a share +in the immortality.</p> + +<p>After a peregrination of this magnitude and dreams to match, +he alighted from his Pegasus, and spoke as an ordinary mortal--he +had enjoyed himself, and his fit of the dumps was exorcised. +Putting the last touch to his proof-correcting, he left the house +with his face wreathed in smiles.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," he said to his sister, at the door; "I am off home +to see if the banker is there, waiting for me. If he isn't, I +shall find some work to do all the same; and work is my real +money-lender."</p> + +<p>CHAPTER V</p> + +<p>LETTERS TO "THE STRANGER," 1831, 1832</p> + +<p>One has little doubt in deciding that, of the two spurs which +goaded</p> + +<p>Balzac's labours, his desire for wealth acted more +persistently and energetically than his desire for glory. In his +conversations, in his correspondence, money was the eternal +theme; in his novels it is almost always the hinge on which the +interest, whether of character, plot, or passion, depends. Money +was his obsession, day and night; and, in his dormant visions, it +must have loomed largely.</p> + +<p>Henry Monnier, the caricaturist, used to relate that, meeting +him once on the Boulevard, the novelist tapped him on the +shoulder and said:</p> + +<p>"I have a sublime idea. In a month I shall have gained five +hundred thousand francs."</p> + +<p>"The deuce, you will," replied Monnier; "let's hear how."</p> + +<p>"Listen, then," returned his interlocutor. "I will rent a shop +on the Boulevard des Italiens. All Paris is bound to pass by. +That's so, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Well, what next?"</p> + +<p>"Next, I will establish a store for colonial produce; and, +over the window, I will have printed, in letters of gold: 'Honore +de Balzac, Grocer.' This will create a scandal; everybody will +want to see me serving the customers, with the classical +counter-skipper's smock on. I shall gain my five hundred thousand +francs; it's certain. Just follow my argument. Every day these +many people pass along the Boulevard, and will not fail to enter +the shop. Suppose that each person spends only a sou, since half +of it will be profit to me I shall gain so much a day; +consequently, so much a week; so much a month."</p> + +<p>And thereupon, the novelist, launched into transcendental +calculations, soaring with his enthusiasm into the clouds.</p> + +<p>It was the same Henry Monnier who, meeting him another time on +the Place de la Bourse, and having had to listen to another of +such mirific demonstrations about a scheme from which both were +to derive millions, answered drily:</p> + +<p>"Then lend me five francs on strength of the affair."</p> + +<p>Noticing this sort of monomania, in an article which he wrote +in the short-lived <i>Diogenes</i>, during the month of August +1856, Amedee Roland said of Balzac:</p> + +<p>"His ambition was to vie in luxury with Alexandre Dumas and +Lamartine, who, before the Revolution of 1848, were the most +prodigal and extravagant authors in the five continents. For +anything like a chance of finding his elusive millions, he would +have gone to China. Indeed, on one occasion, he took it into his +head he would start, together with his friend, Laurent Jan, and +go to see the great Mogul, maintaining that the latter would give +him tons of gold in exchange for a ring he possessed, which came, +so he asserted, right down from Mahomet. It was three o'clock in +the morning when he knocked at Laurent Jan's door to inform his +sleeping friend of his project; and the latter had the greatest +difficulty in dissuading him from setting off forthwith in a +post-chaise for India, of course, at the expense of the monarch +in question."</p> + +<p>In justice, however, to Balzac, it should be stated that not a +few of his suggestions were sensible enough, and contained ideas +which, if properly put into execution, could have yielded +profitable results. As a matter of fact, some were subsequently +exploited by people who listened to them, or heard of them. A +scheme of his for making paper by an improved process, which he +tried to realize in 1833, and which he induced his mother, his +sister's husband, and other friends to support with their +capital, anticipated the employment of esparto grass and wood, +which since has been adopted successfully by others and has +yielded large fortunes to them. The scheme was perhaps premature +in Balzac's day, not to speak of his small business capacity, +which was in an inverse ration to his inventiveness.</p> + +<p>From one of his conceptions, at least, there issued an +important benefit to the entire literary profession. Already, in +the previous century, Beaumarchais had attempted to establish a +society of authors, whose aim should be to protect the rights of +men of letters. His efforts then met with no response. Balzac +revived the proposal, and coupled with it others tending to +improve the material and style of printing of books. He had to +contend with the hostility of certain publishers and the +indifference of many authors. But his endeavours were ultimately +understood and appreciated; and, not long afterwards, in 1838, +the Societe des Gens de Lettres was founded.</p> + +<p>In connection with this campaign, which he waged for a while +alone, there was also his elaboration of the arrangement, first +accepted by Charpentier, which consisted in fixing the percentage +of the author's royalty on the octavo, three-franc-fifty volume +at one-tenth of the published price. One of his discussions with +Charpentier on the subject was overheard in the Café of +the Palais Royal by Jules Sandeau's cousin, who happened to be +playing a game of billiards there. After the departure of Balzac +and the publisher, the cousin remarked that a paper had been +forgotten; and, on reading it through, with his partner in the +game, saw a crowd of figures that were so many hieroglyphics to +them. When the paper was restored to the novelist by Jules +Sandeau, who lived in the same set of flats as Balzac, it +transpired that the figures were the calculation of the sum that +the writer might obtain on the decimal basis, if a hundred +thousand copies of any one of his works were sold.</p> + +<p>Two of the novelist's most important books appeared in 1833, +his <i>Country Doctor</i> and <i>Eugenie Grandet</i>. The former +he disposed of to a new publisher, Mame, who was to print it, at +first, unsigned, his old publisher Gosselin having pre-emption +rights, that had not been redeemed. Referring to it in a letter +to Mame, towards the end of 1832, he said: "I have long been +desirous of the popular glory which consists in selling numerous +thousands of a small volume like <i>Atala</i>, <i>Paul</i> <i>and +Virginia</i>, the <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i>, <i>Manon +Lescaut</i>, etc. The book should go into all hands, those of the +child, the girl, the old man, and even the devotee. Then once, +when the book is known, it will have a large sale, like the +<i>Meditations</i> of Lamartine, for instance, sixty thousand +copies. My book is conceived in this spirit; it is something +which the porter and the grand lady can both read. I have taken +the Gospel and the Catechism, two books that sell well, and so I +have made mine. I have laid the scene in a village, and the whole +of the story will be readable, which is rare with me." How high +his hopes of its quality and saleableness were (the two things +were oddly mixed up in his mind), he imparted to Zulma Carraud. +"The <i>Country Doctor</i> has cost me ten times more labour than +<i>Louis Lambert</i>," he informed her. "There is not a sentence +or an idea in it that has not been revised, re-read, corrected +again and again. It's terrible. But when one wishes to attain the +simple beauty of the Gospel, surpass the <i>Vicar of +Wakefield</i> and put the <i>Imitation of Jesus Christ</i> into +action, one must spare no effort. Emile de Girardin and our good +Borget (his co-tenant at the time) wager the sale will be four +hundred thousand copies. Emile intends to bring out a franc +edition, so that it may be sold like a Prayer Book."</p> + +<p>What with his writing for the <i>Revue de Paris</i>, to which +he was contributing <i>Ferragus</i>, and the pains he gave +himself with the <i>Country Doctor</i>, he was unable to deliver +the latter work to Mame at the date stipulated, and the publisher +brought a lawsuit against him, the first of a series of legal +disputes he was destined to wage with publishing firms and +magazine editors during his agitated life.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding the advertisement produced him by the lawsuit, +the <i>Country Doctor</i> fell flat in the market. Most of the +newspapers spoke contemptuously of it. One reason given was its +loose construction, there being no plot, and the two love stories +being thrust in towards the end to explain the doctor's altruism +and the vicarious paternity of the Commandant Genestas.</p> + +<p>This officer, who is stationed not far from the village close +to the Grande-Chartreuse, pays a few days' visit to a Doctor +Benassis there, under pretext of consulting him professionally. +While on the visit he is initiated into the transformation that +has been wrought by the doctor in the habits of the people and +their homes and surroundings--a regeneration accomplished quietly +and gradually, vanquishing hostility and lethargy and converting +the peasant's distrust into love. The placing of the Commandant's +adopted child under the doctor's care, and Benassis' death, which +occurs shortly after, form rather a lame conclusion to the love +stories, which are mysteriously withheld to tempt the reader to +go on with his perusal. For all its dogmatism in religion and +politics, its long arguments in defence of the author's favourite +opinions, and its defective construction, the novel, if one can +call it a novel, is one of Balzac's best creations. The pictures +of country scenes are presented with close fidelity to nature and +also with real artistic arrangement. There are, moreover, +delineations of rustic character that are truer to life than many +of the more celebrated ones in the rest of the novelist's +fiction; and, in the episode entitled the Napoleon of the +people,--the narration of an old soldier of the First +Empire,--there is a topical realism that makes one regret the +never-achieved <i>Battle</i>. Add to these excellences the +writer's having put into his work, for the nonce, a sincere +aspiration towards the idea; and, despite flaws, the whole can be +pronounced admirable.</p> + +<p>It was just about the time the <i>Country Doctor</i> was +published that he began to dwell upon the advantages he might +secure by connecting the characters in his novels and forming +them into a representative society. Excited by the perspective +this plan offered if all its possibilities were realized, he +hurried to his sister's house in the Faubourg Poissonniere.</p> + +<p>"Salute me," he exclaimed joyfully: "I'm on the point of +becoming a genius!"</p> + +<p>And he commenced to explain his thought, which seemed to him +so vast and pregnant with consequence as to inspire him with +awe.</p> + +<p>"How fine it will be if I can manage the thing," he continued, +striding up and down the drawing-room, too restless to stay in +one place. "I shan't mind now being treated as a mere teller of +tales, and can go on hewing the stones of my edifice, enjoying, +beforehand, the amazement of my short-sighted critics, when they +contemplate the structure complete."</p> + +<p>At length, Honore sat down and more tranquilly discussed the +fortunes of the individuals already born from his brain, or, as +yet in process of birth. He judged them and determined their +fate.</p> + +<p>"Such a one," he said, "is a rascal, and will never do any +good. Such another is industrious, and a good fellow; he will get +rich, and his character will make him happy. These have been +guilty of many peccadilloes; but they are so intelligent and have +such a thorough knowledge of their fellows that they are sure to +raise themselves to the highest ranks of society."</p> + +<p>"Peccadilloes!" replied his sister. "You are indulgent."</p> + +<p>"They can't change, my dear. They are fathomers of abysses; +but they will be able to guide others. The wisest persons are not +always the best pilots. It's not my fault. I haven't invented +human nature. I observe it, in past and present; and I try to +depict it as it is. Impostures in this kind persuade no one."</p> + +<p>To the members of his family he announced news from his world +of fiction just as if he were speaking of actual events.</p> + +<p>"Do you know who Felix de Vandenesse is marrying?" he asked. +"A Mademoiselle de Grandville. The match is an excellent one. The +Grandvilles are rich, in spite of what Mademoiselle de Belleville +has cost the family."</p> + +<p>If, now and again, he was begged to save some wild young man +or unhappy woman among his creations, the answer was:</p> + +<p>"Don't bother me. Truth above all. Those people have no +backbone. What happens to them is inevitable. So much the worse +for them."</p> + +<p>This absorption in the domain of fancy was so complete at +times as to cause him to confuse it with the outside world. It is +related that Jules Sandeau, returning once from a journey, spoke +to him of his sister's illness. Balzac listened to him +abstractedly for a while, and then interrupted him: "All that, my +friend, is very well," he said to the astonished Jules, "but let +us come back to reality; let us speak of <i>Eugenie +Grandet</i>."</p> + +<p>It was the second great book of 1833; and, on the whole, +exhibits the novelist at his best. Eulogiums came from friends +and enemies alike. The critics were unanimous, too unanimous, +indeed, for the author, who detected in their chorus of praise a +reiterated condemnation of much of his previous production. At +last, it even annoyed him to hear his name invariably mentioned +in connection with this single novel. "Those who call me the +father of Eugenie Grandet seek to belittle me," he cried. "I +grant it is a masterpiece, but a small one. They forbear to cite +the great ones."</p> + +<p>His ill-humor was, of course, of later growth. While +<i>Eugenie Grandet</i> was being written, between July and +November of 1833, Balzac was quite content to estimate it at its +higher value. During the period of its composition, he had +fallen, perhaps for the first time in his life, sincerely in love +with the woman he ultimately married; and it is appropriate to +notice here the synchronism of the event with his high- water +mark in fiction. As he confessed to Zulma Carraud, love was his +life, his essence; he wrote best when under its influence. There +were, be it granted, other contributory causes to make this +rapidly written story what we find it to be. The place, the date, +the people, the incidents were all close to his own life. Saumur +and Tours are neighbouring towns; and 'tis affirmed that the +original of the goodman Grandet, a certain Jean Niveleau, had a +daughter, whom he refused to give in marriage to Honore. Maybe +tradition has embroidered a little on the facts, but there would +seem to be much in the narration that belongs to the writer's +personal experience. His sister found fault with his attributing +so many millions to the miser. "But, stupid, the thing is true," +he replied. "Do you want me to improve on truth? If you only knew +what it is to knead ideas, and to give them form and colour, you +wouldn't be so quick to criticize."</p> + +<p>As is usual, when the interest is chiefly characterization, +Balzac does not give us a complicated plot. We have in Grandet a +self-made man, who has amassed riches by trade and speculation, +and lives with his wife and daughter in a gloomy old house, with +only one servant as miserly as the master. Eugenie's hand is +sought by several suitors, and in particular by the son of the +banker des Grassins and the son of the notary Cruchot, these two +families waging a diplomatic warfare on behalf of their +respective candidates. Into this midst suddenly comes the +fashionable nephew Charles Grandet, whose father has, unknown to +him, just committed suicide to escape bankruptcy. Eugenie falls +in love with her cousin, and he, apparently, with her; but the +old man, unsoftened by his brother's death, using it even as a +further means of speculation, gets rid of the unfortunate lover +by gingerly helping him to go abroad. Years pass, and Eugenie's +mother dies, while she herself withers, under the miser's +avaricious tyranny. At length, old Grandet pays his debt to +nature, and Eugenie is left with the millions. Until now she had +waited for the wandering lover's return; but he, engaging in the +slave-trade, has lost all the generous impulses of his youth, and +comes back only to deny his early affection and marry the ill- +favoured daughter of a Marquis. Eugenie takes a noble revenge for +this desertion by paying her dead uncle's debts, which Charles +had repudiated, and she marries the notary's son, who leaves her +a widow soon after.</p> + +<p>Everything in the tale is absolutely natural, extraordinary in +its naturalness; and the reactions of its various persons upon +each other are traced with fine perception. There is not much of +the outward expression of love--in this Balzac did not excel--but +there is a good deal of its hidden tragedy. Moreover, the miser's +ruling passion is exhibited in traits that suggest still more +than they openly display; and all the action and circumstance are +in the subdued tone proper to provincial existence. The +introductory words prepare the reader's mind for what +follows:--</p> + +<p>"In certain country towns there are houses whose aspect +inspires a melancholy equal to that evoked by the gloomiest +cloisters, the most monotonous moorland, or the saddest ruins. . +. . Perhaps, in these houses there are at once the silence of the +cloister, the barrenness of the moorland, and the bones of ruins. +Life and movement are so tranquil in them that a stranger might +believe them uninhabited if he did not suddenly see the pale, +cold gaze of a motionless person whose half-monastic face leans +over the casement at the noise of an unknown step. . . ."</p> + +<p>And the shadow persists even in the love-scene.</p> + +<p>"Charles said to Eugenie, drawing her to the old bench, where +they sat down under the walnut trees: 'In five days, Eugenie, we +must bid each other adieu, for ever perhaps; but, at least, for a +long while. My stock and ten thousand francs sent me by two of my +friends are a very small beginning. I cannot think of my return +for several years. My dear cousin, don't place my life and yours +in the balance. I may perish. Perhaps you may make a rich +marriage.'--'You love me,' she said.--'Oh yes, dearly,' he +replied, with a depth of accent revealing a corresponding depth +of sentiment.--'I will wait, Charles. Heavens! my father is at +his window,' she said, pushing away her cousin, who was +approaching to kiss her. She escaped beneath the archway; Charles +followed her there. On seeing him, she withdrew to the foot of +the staircase and opened the self-closing door; then hardly +knowing where she was going, Eugenie found herself near Nanon's +den, in the darkest part of the passage. There, Charles, who had +accompanied her, took her hand, drew her to his heart, seized her +round the waist, and pressed her to himself. Eugenie no longer +protested. She received and gave the purest, sweetest, but also +the entirest of all kisses."</p> + +<p>The foregoing and others, equally well drawn, are figures in +the background. Standing out in front of them, and in lurid +relief, is the central figure of the miser, represented with the +same mobility of temperament noticeable in George Eliot's +creations--a thing exceptional in Balzac's work. Grandet, as long +as his wife lives is reclaimable--just reclaimable. Subsequently, +he is an automaton responsive only to the sight and touch of his +gold.</p> + +<p>The dedication of <i>Eugenie Grandet</i> is to Maria; and +Maria, portrayed under the features and character of the heroine, +was, we learn, an agreeable girl, of middle-class origins, who, +in the year of 1833, attached herself to Balzac and bore him a +child.</p> + +<p>This liaison was running its ephemeral course just at the time +when accident made him acquainted with his future wife. On the +28th of February 1832, his publisher Gosselin handed him a letter +with a foreign postmark. His correspondent, a lady, who had read, +she said, and admired his <i>Scenes of Private Life</i>, +reproached him with losing, in the <i>Shagreen Skin</i>, the +delicacy of sentiment contained in these earlier novels, and +begged him to forsake his ironic, sceptical manner and revert to +the higher manifestations of his talent. There was no signature +to this communication; and the writer, who subscribed herself +"The Stranger," begged him to abstain from any attempt to +discover who she was, as there were paramount reasons why she +should remain anonymous. Balzac's curiosity was keenly aroused by +so much mystery, and he tried, but in vain, to get hold of some +clue that might conduct him to the retreat of the +<i>incognita</i>. After a lapse of seven months, a second epistle +arrived, more romantic in tone than the first; and containing, +among obscure allusions to the lady's surroundings and +personality, the following declaration: "You no doubt love and +are loved; the union of angels must be your lot. Your souls must +have unknown felicities. The Stranger loves you both, and desires +to be your friend. . . . She likewise knows how to love, but that +is all. . . . Ah! you understand me."</p> + +<p>A third letter followed this one shortly afterwards, asking +the novelist to acknowledge its receipt in the <i>Quotidienne</i> +journal, which he did, expressing in the advertisement his regret +at not being able to address a direct reply. At last, in the +spring of 1833, the fair correspondent made herself known. She +was a Countess Evelina Hanska, wife of a Polish nobleman living +at Wierzchownia in the Ukraine. She further allowed it to be +understood that she was young, handsome, immensely rich, and not +over happy with her husband. This information sufficed to set +Balzac's imagination agog. At once, he enshrined the dame in the +temple of his ideal, poured out his heart to her, and told her of +his struggles and ambitions, meanwhile fashioning a realm of the +future in which he and she were to be the two reigning +monarchs.</p> + +<p>Madame Hanska was also a Pole. She belonged to the noble +Rzewuska stock and was born in the castle of Pohrebyszcze between +1804 and 1806. Owing to family reverses, her parents, who had +several other children to provide for, were glad to meet with a +husband for her in the Count Hanski, who was twenty-five years +her senior. The marriage took place between 1818 and 1822, and +four children, three boys and a girl, were its issue; but, the +boys all dying in infancy, the young mother was left with her +little daughter Anna to bring up, and with the desires of a rich, +cultured woman, who did not find in her home- circle the +wherewithal to satisfy them.</p> + +<p>Of her own charms she had spoken truly. Daffinger's miniature +of her, painted when she was thirty, represents her as abundantly +endowed by nature; and Gigoux' pastel of 1852, which is less +faithful and shows her considerably older, still gives +substantially the portrait that Barbey d'Aurevilly sketched of +her after Balzac's death: "She was of imposing and noble beauty, +somewhat massive," says this writer. "But she knew how to +maintain, despite her embonpoint, a very great charm, which was +enhanced by her delightful foreign accent. She had splendid +shoulders, the finest arms in the world, and a complexion of +radiant brilliancy. Her soft black eyes, her full red lips, her +framing mass of curled hair, her finely chiselled forehead, and +the sinuous grace of her gait gave her an air of abandon and +dignity together, a haughty yet sensuous expression which was +very captivating."</p> + +<p>Fascinated by Balzac's masterly delineation of her sex, and +longing to learn more about the man who had appealed to her so +powerfully, she contrived a journey to Switzerland in 1833, in +which her husband and child accompanied her. Switzerland was a +land easier for a noble Russian subject to obtain permission to +visit. Neufchatel was the place of sojourn chosen, since there +was the home of Anna's Swiss governess, Mademoiselle Henriette +Borel, who had played an intermediary's role in the beginning of +the adventure.</p> + +<p>As soon as he had news of the party's arrival, Balzac posted +off, concealing from every one the reason for his sudden +departure. It had been agreed that the meeting should be on the +chief promenade; and there, on a bench, with one of the +novelist's books on her lap, Madame Hanska sat with her husband, +when he came up and accosted her. One account states that the +Countess having, in her excitement, allowed a scarf to drop and +hide the book, he passed her by more than once, not daring to +speak till she took up the scarf. The same account adds that the +lady, remarking the little, stout man staring at her, prayed he +might not be the one she was expecting. But no written confession +of the Countess's exists to prove that such a thought damped her +enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>Balzac's impression was recorded in a letter to his sister. "I +am happy, very happy," he wrote. "She is twenty-seven, possesses +most beautiful black hair, the smooth and deliciously fine skin +of brunettes, a lovely little hand, is naive and imprudent to the +point of embracing me before every one. I say nothing about her +colossal wealth. What is it in comparison with beauty. I am +intoxicated with love." The one drawback to the meeting was +Monsieur Hanski. "Alas!" adds the writer, "he did not quit us +during five days for a single second. He went from his wife's +skirt to my waistcoat. And Neufchatel is a small town, where a +woman, an illustrious foreigner, cannot take a step without being +seen. Constraint doesn't suit me."</p> + +<p>Evidently, during the Neufchatel intercourse, some sort of +understanding must have been reached, based on the rather unkind +anticipation of the Count Hanski's death. At that time, the +gentleman's health was precarious. He survived, however until +1841, meanwhile more or less cognizant of his wife's attachment +and offering no opposition. He even deemed himself honoured by +Balzac's friendship. How rapid the progress of the novelist's +passion was for the new idol may be judged by the letter he +despatched to Geneva, two or three months later, in December, +whilst he was correcting the proofs of <i>Eugenie Grandet</i>. "I +think I shall be at Geneva on the 13th," he wrote. "The desire to +see you makes me invent things that ordinarily don't come into my +head. I correct more quickly. It's not only courage you give me +to support the difficulties of life; you give me also talent, at +any rate, facility. . . . My Eve, my darling, my kind, divine +Eve! What a grief it is to me not to have been able to tell you +every evening all that I have done, said, and thought."</p> + +<p>The visit to Geneva was paid, and lasted six weeks, the +novelist quitting Switzerland only on the 8th of February 1834. +From this date onward, a regular correspondence was kept up +between them, compensating for their seeing each other rarely. +The project of marriage, more tenaciously pursued by Balzac than +by his Eve, was yet no hindrance to his fleeting fancies for +other women. These interim amours have a good deal preoccupied +his various biographers, partly because of the undoubted use he +made of them in his novels, and partly also because of the +trouble he gave himself to establish among circles outside his +own immediate entourage the legend of his being a sort of Sir +Galahad, leading a perfectly chaste life and caring only for his +literary labours. Says Theophile Gautier:--</p> + +<p>"He used to preach to us a strange literary hygiene. We ought +to shut ourselves up for two or three years, drink water, eat +soaked lupines like Protogenes, go to bed at six o'clock in the +evening, and work till morning . . . and especially to live in +the most absolute chastity. He insisted much on this last +recommendation, very rigorous for a young man of twenty-four or +twenty-five years of age. According to him, real chastity +developed the powers of the mind to the highest degree, and gave +to those that practised it unknown faculties. We timidly objected +that the greatest geniuses had indulged in the love passion, and +we quoted illustrious names. Balzac shook his head and replied: +'They would have done much more but for the women.' The only +concession he would make us, regretfully, was to see the loved +one for half-an-hour a year. Love letters he allowed. They formed +a writer's style."</p> + +<p>George Sand speaks much to the same effect in her +reminiscences. She believed in the legend.</p> + +<p>"Moderate in every other respect," she says, "he had the +purest of morals, having always dreaded wildness as the enemy of +talent; and he nearly always cherished women solely in his heart +and in his head, even in his youth. He pursued chastity on +principle; and his relations with the fair sex were those merely +of curiosity. When he found a curiosity equal to his own, he +exploited this mine with the cynicism of a father-confessor. But, +when he met with health of mind and body, he was as happy as a +child to speak of real love and to rise into the lofty regions of +sentiment."</p> + +<p>Unfortunately for the preceding testimony, a flat +contradiction is given to it not only by the recorded facts of +the novelist's life, but by his sister, who knew better than +George Sand and Gautier that Balzac's profession of sublimer +sentiments did not exclude a more mundane feeling and practice. +Commenting on George Sand's generous panegyric of her brother, +she adds: "It is an error to speak of his extreme moderation. He +does not deserve this praise. Outside of his work, which was +first and foremost, he loved and tasted all the pleasures of this +world. I think he would have been the most conceited of all men, +if he had not been the most discreet. Confident in himself, he +never committed the least indiscretion in his relations with +others, and kept their secrets, though unable to keep his +own."</p> + +<p>The Viscount Spoelberch de Lovenjoul is still more explicit in +his short book on Balzac and Madame Hanska, entitled <i>Roman +d'Amour</i>. Speaking of the novelist's various liaisons and love +escapades, which were covered up with such solicitude from the +eyes of the world, he remarks that Balzac, while vaunting +himself, in argument, of having remained chaste for a number of +years, owned to his sister that the truth was quite different. +The novelist did his utmost, continues Monsieur de Lovenjoul, to +foster the tradition of his hermit-like conduct; and to all the +jealous women with whom he entertained friendly relations he +asserted that his morals were as spotless as those of a cenobite. +Ever and everywhere he abused the credulity of those who +flattered themselves they were his only love.</p> + +<p>Madame de Berny was not among the credulous ones, nor yet so +resigned as the simple <i>bourgeoise</i> Maria, who, to quote +Balzac's own words, "fell like a flower from heaven, exacted +neither correspondence nor attentions, and said: 'Love me a year +and I will love you all my life.'" Though forced to accept the +transformation of her relations with her young lover into a +purely platonic friendship, she made occasional protests against +being supplanted by younger rivals--the imperious Madame de +Castries among the number. The birth and growth of his affection +for Madame Hanska she appears to have felt and resented to a +greater degree than his previous infidelities to her. Not even +its maintenance, for the time being, on the plane of pure +sentiment, dispelled her jealous thoughts. Being apprized of +Balzac's dedication of a portion of the <i>Woman of Thirty Years +Old</i> to his Eve, she insisted on his expunging the offending +name, while the sheets were in the press. Whether her fretting +over his transferred allegiance hastened her end it is impossible +to say with any certainty; yet one cannot help being struck by +the fact that the serious phase of the malady that killed her +almost coincided with the beginning of their separation.</p> + +<p>Madame Hanska, although she started with a supposition of his +loving another, became exacting also, in proportion as her +admirer's professions of loyalty conferred the right upon her. +Rumours reached her now and again, and sometimes precise +information, of her place being usurped by another. And, later, +as will be again mentioned, a breach occurred between them which +was nearly final. By his various mistresses, Balzac had four +children, including <i>Maria's</i> little daughter, two of whom +survived him.</p> + +<p>All this notwithstanding, it would be a mistake to assume that +he was a deliberate woman-hunter, and wasted his energies in +licentiousness. His immense industry and productiveness are +enough to prove that such lapses were more the natural outcome of +his having so constant a bevy of lady worshippers about him, and +occurred as opportunity offered only. On the other hand, it must +be admitted that woman's counsels, woman's encouragements, +woman's caresses and help were very necessary to him; and he drew +largely on the capacities, material and moral, of the Marthas and +Maries that crossed his orbit, attracting him or themselves +attracted.</p> + +<p>The twelvemonth which was marked by the achievement of his +most perfect novel also brought him into regular business +relations with Werdet, destined to be one of his biographers, who +now became his chief publisher and remained so during several +years. Incorrect in many details which lay outside his own ken, +and which he had gleaned from hearsay or books hastily written, +Werdet's own book, a familiar portrait of Balzac, is nevertheless +a valuable document. If the author was unable to fathom the whole +of the genius and character of the man he described, he yet +sincerely appreciated them; and not even the soreness he could +not help feeling when ultimately thrown aside, destroyed his +deep-rooted worship of him whom he regarded as one of the highest +glories of French literature.</p> + +<p>Werdet, when he was introduced to the writer of the +<i>Physiology of Marriage</i>, had already tried his luck at +publishing, but had been compelled to abandon the master's +position and to enter as an employee into the house of a Madame +Bechet, who was engaged in the same line of business. Having read +and liked some of Balzac's earlier works, he persuaded the firm +to entrust him with the task of negotiating a purchase of the +exclusive rights of the novelist's <i>Studies of Manners and +Morals in the Nineteenth Century</i>. The negotiation was carried +through in 1832, and a sum of thirty-six thousand francs was paid +to Balzac. This was the writer's real beginning of money-making. +Twelve months after, Werdet resolved to start once more on his +own account. He had only a few thousand francs capital. His idea +was to risk them in buying one of Balzac's books; and then, if +successful, gradually to acquire a publishing monopoly in the +great man's productions. Distrusting his own powers of +persuasion, he enlisted the good offices of Barbier, the late +partner of the Rue des Marais printing-house, who was a +<i>persona grata</i> with the novelist. Together, they went to +the Rue Cassini; and Barbier set forth Werdet's desire.</p> + +<p>"Very good," replied the great man. "But you are aware, +Monsieur, that those who now publish my works require large +capital, since I often need considerable advances."</p> + +<p>Proudly, young Werdet brought out his six notes of five +hundred francs each, and spread them on the table.</p> + +<p>"There is all my fortune," he said. "You can have it for any +book you please to write for me."</p> + +<p>At the sight of them Balzac burst out laughing.</p> + +<p>"How can you imagine, Monsieur, that I--I--de Balzac! who sold +my <i>Studies of Manners and Morals</i> not long ago to Madame +Bechet for thirty-six thousand francs--I, whose collaboration to +the <i>Revue de Paris</i> is ordinarily remunerated by Buloz at +five hundred francs per sheet, should forget myself to the point +of handing you a novel from my pen for a thousand crowns? You +cannot have reflected on your offer, Monsieur; and I should be +entitled to look upon your step as unbecoming in the highest +degree, were it not that your frankness in a measure justifies +you."</p> + +<p>Barbier tried to plead for his friend, and mentioned that, in +consideration of Werdet's share in the transaction with Madame +Bechet, a second edition of the <i>Country</i> <i>Doctor</i> +might be granted him for the three thousand francs. But Balzac, +retorting that whatever service had been rendered was not to +himself but by himself, dismissed his visitors with the +words:</p> + +<p>"We have spent an hour, gentlemen, in useless talk. You have +made me lose two hundred francs. For me, time is money. I must +work. Good- day."</p> + +<p>They left, and Barbier, to comfort his friend, prophesied +that, in spite of this reception, Balzac would enter into +<i>pourparlers</i> with him, and that Werdet had only to wait, +and news would be received from the Rue Cassini shortly. He was +not mistaken. Three days elapsed and then Werdet had the +following note sent him:--</p> + +<p>"SIR,--You called upon me the other day when my head was +preoccupied with some writing that I wanted to finish, and I +consequently did not very well comprehend what was your drift. +To-day, my head is freer. Do me the pleasure to call on me at +four o'clock, and we can talk the matter over."</p> + +<p>Werdet waited nearly a week before he paid the requested +visit. In quite another tone, the novelist discussed the proposed +scheme, promised to use his influence on the young publisher's +behalf, and gave him the <i>Country Doctor</i> for the price +offered.</p> + +<p>Thenceforward, a familiar guest in the dwelling of the Rue +Cassini, Werdet described it in detail, when composing his +<i>Portrait Intime</i>. It was part of a two-storied +<i>pavilion</i> (as the French call a moderate-sized house) +standing to the left in a courtyard and garden, with another +similar building on the right. From the ground-floor a flight of +steps led up to a glass-covered gallery joining the two buildings +and serving as an antechamber to each. Its sides were hung in +white and blue-striped glazed calico; and a long, +blue-upholstered divan, a blue and brown carpet, and some fine +china vases filled with flowers, adorned it. From the gallery the +visitor proceeded into a pretty drawing-room, fifteen feet +square, lighted on the east by a small casement that looked over +the yard of a neighbouring house. Opposite the drawing-room door +was a black marble mantelpiece.</p> + +<p>The <i>salon</i> gave access to the bedroom and the +dining-room, the latter being connected with the kitchen +underneath by a narrow staircase. A secret door in the +<i>salon</i> opened into the bathroom with its walls of white +stucco, its bath of white marble, and its red, opaque window- +panes diffusing a rose-coloured tint through the air. Two +easy-chairs in red morocco stood near the bath.</p> + +<p>The bedroom, having two windows, one towards the south and the +observatory, the other overlooking a garden of flowers and trees, +was very bright and cheery. The furniture, with its shades of +white, pink, and gold, was rich and handsome. A secret door +existed also in this chamber, hidden behind muslin hangings; it +led down the same narrow staircase already mentioned to the +kitchen, and thence out into the yard. Nanon, Balzac's cook, less +discreet than Auguste, the valet-de- chambre, had tales to tell +Werdet about certain lady visitors who arrived by means of this +private staircase into the daintily arranged bedroom.</p> + +<p>The study, of oblong shape, about eighteen feet by twelve, had +likewise two windows affording a view only over the yard of the +next house, which, being lofty, made the room dark, even in the +sunniest weather. Here the furniture was simple, the principal +piece being an exceedingly fine ebony bookcase, with mirrored +panels. It contained a large collection of rare books, all bound +in red morocco and set off with the escutcheon of the d'Entragues +family. Among them were nearly all the authors who had written on +mysticism, occult science, and religion. Opposite the bookcase, +between the windows, was a carved ebony cabinet filled with red +morocco box-cases, and on the top of the cabinet stood a plaster +statuette representing Napoleon I. Across the sword-sheath was +stuck a tiny paper with these words written by the novelist: +"What he could not achieve with the sword I will accomplish with +the pen. Honore de Balzac."</p> + +<p>On the mantelpiece decorated with a mirror, there was an +alarum in unpolished bronze, together with two vases in brown +porcelain. And on either side of the mirror hung all sorts of +woman's trifles; here, a crumpled glove, there a small satin +shoe; and, further, a little rusty iron key. Questioned as to the +significance of this last article, the owner called it his +talisman. There was also a diminutive framed picture exhibiting +beneath the glass a fragment of brown silk, with an arrow-pierced +heart embroidered on it, and the English words: <i>An Unknown +Friend</i>. In front of a modest writing-table covered with green +baize was a large Voltaire arm-chair upholstered in red morocco; +and about the room were a few other ebony chairs covered in brown +cloth.</p> + +<p>Within his sanctum Balzac worked clad in a white Dominican +gown with hood, the summer material being dimity and cashmere; he +was shod with embroidered slippers, and his waist was girt with a +rich Venetian-gold chain, on which were suspended a paper-knife, +a pair of scissors, and a gold penknife, all of them beautifully +carved. Whatever the season, thick window-curtains shut out the +rays of light that might have penetrated into the study, which +was illuminated only by two moderate- sized candelabra of +unpolished bronze, each holding a couple of continually burning +candles.</p> + +<p>The installation of these various household necessaries and +luxuries was progressive and was associated closely with the +heyday period of his celebrity. It was during 1833 that the +metamorphosis was mainly effected, for Werdet relates that, in +the month of November, he found Balzac, one afternoon, +superintending the laying down of some rich Aubusson carpets in +his house. Money must have been plentiful just then. Learning +accidentally on this occasion that his publisher had no carpet in +his drawing-room, the novelist surprised him the same evening by +sending some men with one that he had bought for him. This +present Werdet suitably acknowledged a short time after; and, +throughout the period of their intimacy, there were a good few +compliments of the kind exchanged, which appear to have cost the +man of business dearer than the man of letters.</p> + +<p>To tell the truth, Balzac had a knack of presuming that +something he intended doing was already done. One notorious +example was the white horse he asserted, in presence of a number +of guests assembled in Madame de Girardin's drawing-room, had +been given by him to Jules Sandeau. The animal in question, he +said, he had bought from a well- known dealer; the celebrated +trainer Baucher had tested it and declared it to be the most +perfect animal ever ridden. For nearly half-an-hour the speaker +expatiated on the points of this wonderful steed, and thoroughly +convinced his audience of the gift having been already bestowed. +A few evenings later, Jules Sandeau met Balzac at the same house, +and the subject was of course reverted to by their mutual +friends. As the novelist asked him whether he liked the horse, +Jules, not to be outvied, answered with an enumeration of its +qualities. But he never saw the animal for all that.</p> + +<p>Another instance equally amusing was furnished at a dinner +given in honour of Balzac by Henri de Latouche, who had not then +broken with him. At dessert, the host sketched the plan of a +novel he intended to write, and Balzac, who had been drinking +champagne, warmly applauded; "The thing," he said, "is capital. +Even summarily related, it is charming. What will it be when the +talent, style, and wit of the author have enhanced it!" Next +evening, at Madame de Girardin's, he reproduced, with his native +fire and power of description, the narration he had heard the +night before--reproduced it as his own-- persuaded it was his +own. Every one was enthusiastic, and complimented him. But the +matter was bruited abroad. Latouche recognized in Balzac's +proposed new novel the creation he had himself unfolded; and +wrote a sharp protest which, for once, forced its recipient to +distinguish fact from fiction, and what was his share, what +another's, in the output of ideas. Yet he might be excused for +some of his frequent fits of forgetfulness, since he sowed his +own conceptions and discoveries broadcast, and often encountered +them again in the possession of lesser minds who had utilized +them before he could put them into execution.</p> + +<p>In the year of 1833, the novelist's correspondence alludes to +several books which, like others previously spoken of, were never +published, and probably never written. Among these are <i>The +Privilege</i>, <i>The History of a Fortunate Idea</i>, and the +<i>Catholic Priest</i>. Meanwhile, he did add considerably to his +<i>Droll Tales</i>, the first series of which appeared in the +same twelve months as <i>Eugenie Grandet</i>. These stories --in +the style of Boccaccio, and of some of Chaucer's writing--broad, +racy, and somewhat licentious, albeit containing nothing +radically obscene, were meant to illustrate the history of the +French language and French manners from olden to modern days. +Only part of the project was realized. They are told with wit and +humour that are nowhere present to the same degree in the rest of +the novelist's work, and in their colouring, as Taine justly +remarks, recall Jordaens' painting with its vivid carnation +tints. At this time the author was occupied with <i>Bertha +Repentant</i> and the <i>Succubus</i>, which, however, were +published only three years subsequently.</p> + +<p>CHAPTER VI</p> + +<p>LETTERS TO "THE STRANGER," 1833, 1834</p> + +<p>If Balzac's intimates, careful of his future, had besought him +to jot down in a diary the detailed doings of his every-day life, +with a confession of his thoughts, feelings, and opinions, in +fine an unmasking of himself, he would surely have urged the +material impossibility of his fulfilling such a task, over and +above the labours of Hercules to which his ambition and his +necessities bound him. And yet he performed the miracle +unsolicited.</p> + +<p>From the day when he quitted Neufchatel to the day when he +arrived at Wierzchownia, on his crowning visit in 1848, he never +ceased chronicling, in a virtually uninterrupted series of +letters to Madame Hanska, closely following each other during +most of this long period, a faithful account of his +existence--exception made for its love episodes--which, having +fortunately been preserved, constitutes an almost complete +autobiography of his mature years. When the end of the +correspondence shall have been given to the public, three +volumes, at least, will have been taken up with the record--a +record which taxed his time and strength, indeed overtaxed them, +causing him to encroach unduly on his already too short hours of +sleep. The motive must have been a powerful one that could induce +him to make so large a sacrifice. Whether it was love alone, as +he protested again and again, or love mixed with gratified pride, +or both joined to the hope of enjoying the vast fortune that +loomed through the mists of the far-off Ukraine, the phenomenon +remains the same. Certainly some great force was behind the pen +that untiringly wrote in every vein and mood these astonishing +<i>Letters to the Stranger</i>.</p> + +<p>In those up to the year 1834 that were, properly speaking, +private, the tone rises to a pitch of lover-passion that could +hardly fail to alarm, even whilst they flattered the one to whom +his devotion was addressed. Although Balzac's brief sojourns in +Madame Hanska's vicinity had resulted in no breach of the +marriage law, there was too much implied in his assumption of +their betrothal to please the husband, if any of these lover's +oaths should fall under his notice. And this was what just did +happen before many months had gone by. In consequence of some +accident which is not explained, the Count had cognizance of two +epistles that reached his wife while both were staying at Vienna; +and, for some time, it seemed as though the intercourse would be +definitely severed. A humble apology was sent to the Count, the +letters being passed off as a joke; and the interpretation was, +fortunately for Balzac, accepted. Madame Hanska was offended as +well as her husband, or, at any rate, she affected to be. It +appears some negligence had been committed by the novelist in +forwarding the incriminating epistles. However, being cleared in +her husband's eyes, she yielded her forgiveness.</p> + +<p>Balzac's policy, after this mishap, was to keep on the best +terms possible with Monsieur Hanski, who, to use the Frenchman's +English expression, suffered from chronic blue devils. After +leaving his new friends at Geneva, the novelist procured the +Count an autograph letter from Rossini, this great composer being +a favourite at Wierzchownia. To his new lady-love he sent an +effusion of his own in verse, having small poetic merit, but +pretty sentiment.</p> + +<p>During the Geneva intercourse, he did his best to familiarize +Eve with all the names and characters of the people he knew, +since his interests were to be hers, or, at any rate, so he +flattered himself. She learnt to distinguish the people who were +for him from those who were against him. Of these latter there +were a goodly number, some made enemies by his own fault, through +over-susceptibility or unconscious arrogance. Both causes were +responsible for the quarrel occurring about this time between him +and Emile de Girardin, which was never entirely healed, in spite +of the persevering efforts of Emile's wife, better known as +Madame Delphine Gay. "I have bidden good-bye to the Gays' +molehill," he informed Madame Hanska. It was pretty much the same +with his estrangement from the Duke de Fitz-James, which, +however, was followed by a speedy reconciliation, for the Duke +was offering, a few months later, to support him again in a +political election. The unsatisfactory state of his health, and +some family troubles, decided him to defer his candidature to the +end of the decade, by which date he hoped to have written two +works--<i>The</i> <i>Tragedy of Philippe II.</i> and <i>The +History of the Succession of the Marquis of Carrabas</i>--which +should implant his conception of absolute monarchic power so +strongly in the minds of his fellow-citizens that they would be +glad to send him to Parliament as their representative. Other +political articles and pamphlets of his, he asserted, would +enable him by 1839 to dominate European questions.</p> + +<p>Werdet has a great deal to say about his idol's over-weening +exaction of homage, leading him to be himself guilty of acts of +rudeness towards others, thus alienating their sympathies. The +publisher relates one scene that he witnessed at the offices of +William Duckett, proprietor of the <i>Dictionary of Conversation +and Reading</i>. The office door was suddenly opened and Balzac +stalked in with his hat on his head. "Is Duckett in?" he curtly +asked, addressing in common the chief editor, his sub, and an +attendant. There was a conspiracy of silence. Evidently, this was +not the novelist's first visit, and his style was known. Again +the question was put in the same language and manner, and again +no one replied. Advancing now a step, and speaking to the chief +editor, he repeated his question for a third time. Monglave, who +was an irritable gentleman, being accosted personally, answered +briefly: "Put your question to the sub-editor." There was a +wheel-about, and another peremptory inquiry, to which the sub, +imitating his chief, replied with "Ask the attendant." At present +boiling with rage, Balzac turned to the porter and thundered: "Is +Duckett in?" "Monsieur Balzac," returned the attendant, "these +gentlemen have forbidden me to tell you." Threatening to report +the affair to Duckett, the novelist withdrew, pursued by the +mocking laughter of the chief editor and the sub; but, on second +thoughts, he deemed it more prudent to let the matter drop.</p> + +<p>Another example of this peculiar assumption of superiority +occurred not long after at a dinner given by Werdet in honour of +a young author, Jules Bergounioux, whose novels were being much +read. Among the guests were Gustave Planche, Jules Sandeau, and +Balzac. During the meal the conversation, after many assaults of +wit and mirth, fell on the necessity of defending writers against +the piracy and mutilation of their books in foreign countries, +more especially in Belgium. All expressed their opinion +energetically, young Bergounioux like the rest, he happening to +class himself with his fellows in the words--<i>we men of +letters</i>. At the conclusion of his little speech, Balzac +uttered a guffaw: "You, sir, a man of letters! What pretension! +What presumption! You! compare yourself to us! Really, sir, you +forget that you have the honour to be sitting here with the +marshals of modern literature."</p> + +<p>This exhibition and others similar were natural to the man. He +could not help them. It was impossible for him not to be +continually proclaiming his own greatness. "Don't tax me with +littleness," he said in one of his letters to Delphine Gay, in +which he justified his breaking with her husband. "I think myself +too great to be offended by any one."</p> + +<p>The domestic troubles alluded to above, which were worrying +Balzac in 1834, had partly to do with his brother Henry, a sort +of ne'er-do- well, who had been out to the Indies and had +returned with an undesirable wife, and prospects--or rather the +lack of them--that made him a burden to the other members of the +family. Madame Balzac, too, was unwell at Chantilly; and her +illnesses always affected Honore, who, at such moments, +reproached himself for not being able to do more on her behalf. +Not that his year's budget was a poor one. The seventy thousand +francs at which he estimated his probable earnings for the +twelvemonth were not on this occasion so very much beyond the +truth, if his author's percentages were included. Werdet--the +illustrious Werdet, who, he said, somewhat resembled the +<i>Illustrious</i> <i>Gaudissart</i> --bought an edition of his +philosophic novels for fifteen thousand francs; and, besides two +principal books to be mentioned further on, both of which +appeared before the close of the year, there were parts of +<i>Seraphita</i> and <i>The Cabinet of Antiques</i> which the +<i>Revue de Paris</i> was publishing as serials. His notorious +quarrel and lawsuit with this Review was yet to come. But there +was storm in the air even now. <i>Seraphita</i>, the subject +inspired by Madame Hanska and dedicated to her, was but little to +the taste of Buloz the editor; and he declared to Balzac, who was +making him wait for copy, that it was hardly worth while taking +so long and making so much fuss over a novel which neither the +public nor he, the editor, could understand. Happily the dear +Werdet was at hand to arrange the difficulty. Though in the same +case as Buloz, and failing altogether to comprehend the subject +or its treatment, he took over <i>Seraphita</i> in 1835 and +published it.</p> + +<p>Next to politics, as a means of gaining name and fame more +quickly, Balzac esteemed play-writing. The esteem was purely +commercial. In his heart of hearts he rather despised this +species of composition, entertaining the notion that it was +something to be done quickly, if at all, and utilizable to please +the groundlings. Yet, because he saw that there was money in it, +he turned his hand to it, time after time, and, for long, had to +abandon it as constantly. In 1834 he formed a partnership with +Jules Sandeau and Emmanuel Arago, with the idea of risking less +in case of failure. In addition to the tragedy already spoken of, +he tried two others--<i>The</i> <i>Courtiers</i> and <i>Don +Philip and Don Charles</i>, the latter modelled on Schiller's +<i>Don Carlos</i>. The <i>Grande Mademoiselle</i> was a comic +history of Lauzun; and his <i>Prudhomme, Bigamist</i>, was a +farce, in which a dummy placed in a bed seemed to him capable, +with a night's working on it, of bringing down the house. Vaguely +he felt, and vaguely he confessed to his sister, what he had seen +and confessed thirteen years earlier, that the drama was not his +forte. But, anchored in the conviction that he ought finally to +succeed in everything he undertook, he returned to the attempt +with magnificent pluck and perseverance.</p> + +<p>His colleague for the nonce, Sandeau, he considered to be a +protege of his; and used him a while as a kind of secretary. In +this year especially he showed much solicitude about him. There +was nothing to excite his jealousy in the author of <i>Sacs et +Parchemins</i>, who was not elected to the Academy until nearly +the end of the decade in which Balzac died. On the contrary, his +pity was aroused by Sandeau's precarious position and by the +recent separation between Madame Dudevant and this first of her +lovers, who did his best to commit suicide by swallowing a dose +of acetate of morphia. Luckily the dose was so large that +Sandeau's stomach refused to digest it. George Sand herself +Balzac admired but did not care for at this time. He would talk +to her amiably when he met her at the Opera; but, if she invited +him to dinner, he invented an excuse, if possible, for not going. +"Don't speak to me," he would say, "of this writer of the neuter +gender. Nature ought to have given her more breeches and less +style."</p> + +<p>His opinion, however, did not prevent him, in 1842, from +accepting her help. An article had come out in her <i>Revue +Independante</i>, without her knowledge, attacking him violently. +She wrote to apologize; and Balzac called on her, to explain, as +he informed Madame Hanska, how injustice serves the cause of +talent. She told him then that she should like to write a +thorough study of him and his books; and he made as though he +would dissuade her, saying that she would only get herself in bad +odour with his critics. Still she persisted, and he accordingly +asked her to compose a preface for an ensuing publication of his +whole works, the preface to be a defence of him against those who +were his enemies. Whether this notice was written before the +novelist's death is uncertain. At any rate, it was not printed +until 1875, when it appeared in her volume <i>Autour de la +Table</i>.</p> + +<p>It was difficult for Balzac to be fair towards those men of +letters among his contemporaries who excelled in his own domain; +yet his judgment, when unwarped, was fine, keen, and, in many +instances, endowed with prophetic sight. For instance, in placing +Alfred de Musset as a poet above Victor Hugo or Lamartine, he +daringly contradicted the opinions of his own day, and +anticipated a criticism which is at present becoming respectable +if not fashionable. On the other hand, his estimate of +<i>Volupte</i>, Sainte-Beuve's just then published novel, which +he was soon to imitate and recreate in his <i>Lily in the +Valley</i>, was manifestly prejudiced. He called it a book badly +written in most of its parts, weak, loosely constructed, diffuse, +in which there were some good things, in short a puritanical +book, the chief character of it, Madame Couaen not being woman +enough. His opinion, which he imparted to Madame Hanska, he +apparently took no trouble to conceal, for Sainte-Beuve was +evidently aware of it when he treated Balzac very sharply in an +article of this same year of 1834. From that date, the celebrated +lecturer looked with coldness and disfavour on the novelist, and +even in his final pronouncement of the <i>Causeries du Lundi</i>, +shortly after Balzac's death, he meted out but faint praise.</p> + +<p>Something has been said in a previous chapter of the +novelist's belief in certain occult powers of the mind, with +which the newly discovered action of magnetism seemed to him to +be connected. At first, his ideas on the subject were a good deal +mixed. When, in 1832, a terrible epidemic of cholera was +spreading its ravages, he wrote to Doctor Chapelain, suggesting +that somnambulism--he would have called it hypnotism +to-day--should be employed to seek out the causes of the malady, +and a test applied to prove whether its virtues were real or +chimerical. In 1834, he had come to pin his faith to the healing +powers of magnetism. "When you or Monsieur Hanski or Anna are +ill," he wrote to Eve, "let me know. Don't laugh at me. At +Issoudun, facts recently demonstrated to me that I possess very +large magnetic potency, and that, either through a somnambulist" +(he meant a hypnotist) "or through myself, I can cure persons +dear to me." To all his friends he reiterated the same +advice--magnetic treatment, which he declared his mother capable +of exercising as well as himself. Madame Balzac's initiation into +the science was due to the Prince of +Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingfurst, Bishop of Sardica, who, in +his several visits to Paris between 1821 and 1829, wrought +wonderful cures by the simple imposition of hands. As the lady +used to suffer from a swelling in the bowels whenever she ate raw +fruit, the Bishop, hearing of it, came one day to see her, and +applied his method, which cured her. Balzac, being a witness of +the miracle, became an ardent investigator in this new branch--or +rather old branch revived--of therapeutics. Thenceforward, his +predilection for theories of the occult went hand in hand with +his equally strong taste for the analytic observation of visible +phenomena; and not infrequently he indulged in their simultaneous +literary expression. The composing of <i>Seraphita</i> was +carried on at the same time as his <i>Search</i> <i>for the +Absolute</i> and <i>Pere Goriot</i>.</p> + +<p>Both of these two novels were finished and published in 1834. +In the <i>Search for the Absolute</i>, we have Balthazar Claes, a +man of wealth and leisure, living in the ancient town of Douai, +and married to a wife who adores him and who has borne him +children. Claes' hobby is scientific research; his aim, the +discovery of the origin of things which he believes can be given +him by his crucible. In his family mansion, of antique Flemish +style, which is admirably described by the novelist at great +length, he pursues his tireless experiments; and, with less +justification than Bernard Palissy, encroaches by degrees on the +capital of his fortune, which melts away in his furnace and +alembics. During the first period of his essays, his wife tries +to have confidence in his final success, herself studies all +sorts of learned treatises, in order to be able to converse with +him suitably and to encourage him in his work; but, at last, +unable to delude her own mind any longer, she weeps with her +children over the approaching destruction of their home, and the +grief wears her out and kills her. Luckily the daughter, +Marguerite, is made of sterner stuff than her mother. And, with +her brother, she toils to pay her father's debts and to keep the +home together. At the end, Claes himself dies, still absorbed in +his chimera, and his last words are an endeavour to formulate the +marvellous revelation which his disordered brain persuades him he +has now received.</p> + +<p>"'Eureka!' he cried with a shrill voice, and fell back on his +bed with a thud. In passing away, he uttered a frightful groan, +and his convulsed eyes, until the doctors closed them, spoke his +regret not to have been able to bequeath to science the key of a +mystery whose veil had been tardily torn aside under the gaunt +fingers of Death."</p> + +<p>The S<i>earch for the Absolute</i> may be classed with +<i>Eugenie Grandet</i> in the category of the novelist's best +creations. Though Claes is, as much as Grandet, and perhaps more, +an abnormal being, his sacrifice of every duty of life to the +pursuit of the irrealizable is common enough in humanity. By +reason of the novelist's intense delineation, his figure shows +out in monstrous proportions; but these are skilfully relieved by +the happier fates of the children. The lengthy descriptions of +the opening chapter he defended against his sister Laure's +strictures, asserting that they had ramifications with the +subject which escaped her. His presentment, too, of Marguerite he +said was not forced, as she thought. Marguerite was a Flemish +woman, and Flemish women followed one idea out and, with phlegm, +went unswervingly towards their goal. The labour the book had +cost him he owned to Madame Hanska. Two members of the Academy of +Sciences taught him chemistry, so that he might be exact in his +representation of Claes' experiments; and he read Berzelius into +the bargain. Moreover, he had revised and modified the proofs of +the novel no fewer than a dozen times.</p> + +<p>As Werdet tells, the real work of composition, with Balzac, +hardly commenced until he had a set of galley proofs. What he +sent first to the printer, scribbled with his crow's-quill, was a +mere sketch; and the sketch itself was a sort of Chinese puzzle, +largely composed of scratched-out and interpolated sentences; +passages and chapters being moved about in a curious +<i>chasse-croise</i>, which the type-setters deciphered and +arranged as they best could. Margins and inter-columnal spaces +they found covered with interpolations; a long trailing line +indicated the way here and the way there to the destination of +the inserted passages. A cobweb was regular in comparison to the +task which the printers had to tackle in the hope of finding +beginning, middle, and end. In the various presses where his +books were set up, the employees would never work longer than an +hour on end at his manuscript. And the indemnity he had to pay +for corrections reached sometimes the figure of forty francs per +sixteen pages. Numerous were the difficulties caused on this +score with publishers, editors, and printers. Balzac justified +himself by quoting the examples of Chateaubriand, Ingres, and +Meyerbeer in their various arts. To Buloz, of the <i>Revue de +Paris</i>, who expostulated, he impatiently replied: "I will give +up fifty francs per sheet to have my hands free. So say no more +about the matter." It is true that Buloz paid him 250 francs per +sheet for his contributions.</p> + +<p>Indeed, the novelist's own method of work was a reversal of +the natural alternation of regular periods of activity and +repose. He not only, as he told all his correspondents with +wearisome iteration, burned the midnight oil, but would keep up +these eighteen or twenty hours' daily labour for weeks +altogether, until some novel that he was engaged on was finished. +During these spells of composing he would see no one, read no +letters, but write on and on, eating sparingly, sipping his +coffee, and refreshing his jaded anatomy by taking a bath, in +which he would lie for a whole hour, plunged in meditation. After +his voluntary seclusions, he suddenly reappeared in his usual +haunts, active and feverish as ever, note-book ready to hand, in +which he jotted down his thoughts, discoveries, and observations +for future use. On its pages were primitively outlined the +features of most of the women of his fiction.</p> + +<p>One of these prolonged <i>claustrations</i>, in October +1834--the day was Sunday--he interrupted by a call, most +unexpected, on Werdet. His face was sallow and gaunt with vigil. +He had been stopped in the description of a spot, he explained, +by the uncertainty of his recollections, and must go into the +city in order to refresh them. So he invited Werdet to accompany +him in playing truant for the day. The morning was spent in the +slums, where he gathered the information required; and the +afternoon they whiled away in listening to a concert at the +<i>Conservatoire</i>. Here he was welcomed by the fashionables of +both sexes, notwithstanding his shabby costume, which he had +donned in view of his morning's occupation. On quitting the +concert room, he carried Werdet off to dine with him at Very's, +the most expensive and aristocratic restaurant in Paris. The +place was full of guests; and those who were in proximity to the +table where the two newcomers sat down were astounded to see the +following menu ordered and practically consumed by one man, since +Werdet, being on diet, took only a soup and a little chicken: A +hundred oysters; twelve chops; a young duck; a pair of roast +partridges; a sole; hors d'oeuvre; sweets; fruit (more than a +dozen pears being swallowed); choice wines; coffee; liqueurs. +Never since Rabelais' or perhaps Louis XIV.'s time, had such a +Gargantuan appetite been witnessed. Balzac was recouping himself +for his fasting.</p> + +<p>When the repast, lengthened out by a flow of humorous +conversation, was at length terminated, the nineteenth-century +Johnson asked his Boswell if he had any available cash, as he +himself had none. Werdet confessing only to forty francs, the +novelist borrowed a five-franc piece from him and thundered out +his request for the bill. To the waiter who presented it he +handed the coin, at the same time returning the bill with a few +words scribbled at the foot. "Tell the cashier," he cried, "that +I am Monsieur Honore de Balzac." And he stalked out with Werdet, +whilst all the diners present stared admiringly after the great +man.</p> + +<p>But the evening was not yet finished. In the garden of the +Palais- Royal, then more frequented by society than to-day, they +met Jules Sandeau and Emile Regnault. And, as they were near a +gambling-saloon, Balzac, who had an infallible system for +breaking the bank, proposed to Jules that he should go and try +his luck. A twenty-franc piece was wheedled out of Werdet for the +experiment, which proved a fiasco. Next, the novelist, to +convince his companions of the accuracy of his theory, which he +further detailed, went and borrowed forty francs from his +heraldic engraver, and sent Sandeau and Regnault into the saloon +again. Alas! fate was once more unkind. They returned minus their +money. To console themselves, they went to the Funambules +Theatre, to see Debureau act in the <i>Boeuf Enrage</i>, and +Balzac laughed so loud that he and his party had to leave the +theatre. On the morrow Werdet was called upon to pay the +restaurant-keeper sixty-two francs, and to reimburse the engraver +the forty francs loan, which sums, together with what he had +himself advanced, ran Balzac's debit for the day up to one +hundred and twenty-seven francs.</p> + +<p>In <i>Pere Goriot</i>, the publication of which came close at +the heels of the <i>Search for the Absolute</i>, Balzac traces +the gradual impoverishment of a fond father by his two daughters, +married, the one to a nobleman, the other to a banker, and whose +husbands, when they have received the marriage dowry, give their +father-in-law, who is a plebeian, the cold shoulder, and forbid +their wives to see him unless in secret. Goriot's daughters, +losing in their grand surroundings the little filial affection +they ever had, exploit the old man's worship of them shamelessly. +If they visit him in the boarding-house to which he has retired, +after selling his home to endow them more richly, it is solely to +get from him for their pleasures the portion of his wealth he has +retained for his own wants. And he never refuses them, but sells +and sells, until, at last, he is reduced to lodge in the garret +of the boarding-house and eat almost the refuse of the table. +Around this tragic central figure are grouped the commensals of +the Vauquer <i>pension</i>, Rastignac, the young law-student, +with shallow purse and aristocratic connections; Bianchon, the +future great-gun in medicine, at present walking the hospitals +and attending lectures and practising dissections; Victorine +Taillefer, the rejected daughter of a guilty millionaire; +Mademoiselle Michonneau, the soured spinster, who ferrets out the +identity of her fellow-boarder Vautrin, and betrays to justice +this cynical outlaw installed so quietly, and, to all appearance, +safely, in the <i>pension</i>, where Madame Vauquer, the +traipsing widow, lords it serenely, attentive only to her +profits.</p> + +<p>Of these subsidiary characters, two, Vautrin and Rastignac, +furnish a second interest in the story parallel to that of Goriot +and his daughters, and constituting a foil. Under the influence +of Paris surroundings and experience, Rastignac passes from his +naïve illusions to a state of worldly wisdom, which he +reaches all the more speedily as Vautrin is at his elbow, +commenting with Mephistophelian shrewdness on his fellow-men and +the society they form. Himself a man of education, who has sunk +from high to low and is branded with the convict's mark, Vautrin +is yet capable of affection of a certain kind; but, in the mind +and heart of the youth he would fain advantage, he is capable +only of inculcating the law of tooth and claw. "A rapid fortune +is the problem that fifty thousand young men are at present +trying to solve who find themselves in your position," he says to +Rastignac. "You are a single one among this number. Judge of the +efforts you have to make and of the desperateness of the +struggle. You must devour each other like spiders in a pot, +seeing there are not fifty thousand good places. Do you know how +one gets on here? By the brilliance of genius or the adroitness +of corruption one must enter the mass of men like a cannon-ball, +or slip into it like the plague. Honesty is of no use." Having a +tempter about him of Vautrin's calibre, strong, undauntable, as +humorous as Dickens' Jingle, but infinitely more unscrupulous and +dangerous, Rastignac is gained over, in spite of his first +repulsion. The nursing and burying of Pere Goriot are his last +acts of charity accorded to the claims of his higher nature, and +even these are sullied by his relations with one of Goriot's +daughters. Standing on the cemetery heights, and looking down +towards the Seine and the Vendome column, he flings a defiance to +the society spread beneath him, the society he despises but still +wishes to conquer.</p> + +<p>In this novel many social grades are gathered together, and +the reciprocal actions of their representative members are +rendered with effective contrast and a good deal of dramatic +quickness. The chief theme, though so painful, is developed with +less strain and monotony than in some other of the novelist's +works by reason of a larger application, conscious or +unconscious, of Shakespeare's practice of intermingling the +humorous with the tragic. Even the comic is not entirely absent, +Madame Vauquer especially supplying interludes. The novelist +himself chuckled as he put into her mouth a mispronunciation of +the word <i>tilleul</i>,[*] and explained to Madame Hanska, whose +foreign accent in speaking French suggested it, that he chose the +fat landlady so that Eve should not be jealous.</p> + +<p>[*] English linden, or lime-tree.</p> + +<p>Balzac's too great absorption in his writing forced him more +than once in this year to go into the country and recuperate his +health. During the earlier months he spent a short time with the +Carrauds at Frapesle, which was a favourite sojourn of his, and, +later on, at Sache, a pleasant retreat in his native Touraine. +His iron constitution was not able always to resist the demands +continually made upon it; and his abuse of coffee only aggravated +the evil. To Laure he acknowledged, while at Sache, that this +beverage refused to excite his brain for any time longer than a +fortnight; and even the fortnight was paid for by horrible cramps +in the stomach, followed by fits of depression, which he suffered +when suddenly deprived of his beloved drink. In his <i>Treatise +of Modern Stimulants</i> he describes its peculiar operation upon +himself. "This coffee," he says, "falls into your stomach, and +straightway there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move +like the battalions of the Grand Army on the battlefield, and the +battle takes place. Things remembered arrive full gallop, ensign +to the wind. The light cavalry of comparisons deliver a +magnificent, deploying charge; the artillery of logic hurry up +with their train and ammunition; the shafts of wit start up like +sharp- shooters. Similes arise; the paper is covered with ink; +for the struggle commences and is concluded with torrents of +black water, just as a battle with powder."</p> + +<p>When he tells us how Doctor Minoret, Ursule Mirouet's +guardian, used to regale his friends with a cup of Moka mixed +with Bourbon coffee, and roasted Martinique, which the Doctor +insisted on personally preparing in a silver coffee-pot, it is +his own custom that he is detailing. His Bourbon he bought only +in the Rue Mont Blanc (now the Chaussee d'Antin), the Martinique, +in the Rue des Vieilles Audriettes, the Moka at a grocer's in the +Rue de l'Universite. It was half a day's journey to fetch +them.</p> + +<p>The <i>Tigers</i> or <i>Lions</i>, of the Loge Infernale at +the Opera, have already been spoken of. It was in this year that +Balzac, as belonging to the Club, gave a dinner to its members, +the chief guest being Rossini. Nodier, Sandeau, Bohain, and the +witty Lautour-Mezeray were also present. He doubtless wore on the +occasion his coat of broadcloth blue, made by his tailor-friend +Buisson, with its gold buttons engraved by Gosselin, his jeweller +and goldsmith. On his waistcoat of white English <i>pique</i> +twined and glittered the thousand links of the slender chain of +Venice gold. Black trousers, with footstraps, showing his calves +to advantage, patent-leather boots, and his wonderful stick, +which inspired Madame Delphine Gay to write a book, completed the +equipment.</p> + +<p>This stick was certainly in existence in 1834, being mentioned +in the correspondence with Madame Hanska during that year. +Werdet, however, connects its origin with the novelist's +imprisonment, two years later, in the Hotel de Bazancourt, +popularly known as the Hotel des Haricots, which was used for +confining those citizens who did not comply with Louis-Philippe's +law enrolling them in the National Guard and ordering them to +take their turn in night-patrol of the city. Balzac was incurably +recalcitrant. Nothing would induce him to encase himself in the +uniform and serve; and, whenever the soldiers came for him, he +bribed them to let him alone. Finally, these bribes failed of +their effect, and an arrest-warrant was issued against him. In +his ordinary correspondence two experiences of his being in +durance vile at the Hotel des Haricots are mentioned, one in +March 1835, another in August 1836. The latter of these is +differently dated in the <i>Letters to the</i> <i>Stranger</i>, +the end of April being given, unless, indeed, there were two +confinements close together, which is hardly probable. What is +most likely is, that Werdet has confused two things, the story of +the lock of hair, properly belonging to 1836, and the making of +the stick, which belongs to 1834. Here is his narration:--</p> + +<p>The publisher one day received a note requesting him to go at +once to the prison and to take with him some money. He went with +two hundred francs, and found Balzac, in his Dominican's dress, +installed in a small cell on the third story, busily engaged in +arranging papers. Part of the money brought was utilized to order +a succulent dinner, which Werdet stayed and shared in the smoky +refectory below. Both prisoner and visitor were very merry until +the door opened and Eugene Sue, the popular novelist, entered, +himself also a victim of the conscription law. Invited to join in +the meal, Sue declined, saying that his valet and his servant +were shortly to bring him his dinner. This repulse damped +Balzac's spirits until the arrival of a third victim, the Count +de Lostange, chief editor of the <i>Quotidienne</i>, who sat down +willingly to table. Then Balzac forgot Sue's rudeness, and the +mirth was resumed. Notwithstanding the efforts of the novelist's +influential friends, the Count de Lobau, who was responsible for +the arrest, showed himself inexorable, and a second day was spent +in captivity, which Werdet came again towards evening to enliven. +A whole pile of perfumed epistles sent by feminine sympathizers +was lying on the table, and the publisher had to open them and +read them aloud to his companion. When a third day's confinement +was decided on by the authorities, Werdet arranged to celebrate +it by a dinner that should merit being put on record. He +therefore secured the presence of some intimates of the novelist, +among them being Gustave Planche and Alphonse Karr; and at 5 +P.M., eight people were assembled in the cell, with Auguste, +Balzac's valet, to serve them. The restaurant-keeper Chevet's +menu of exquisite dishes was suitably moistened with excellent +champagne sent by a Countess, and, when the feast was in full +progress, Balzac took a scented parcel from among his presents +and asked permission to open it. The authorization being granted, +he undid the parcel, and disclosed a mass of long, fair, silky +hair threaded into a gold ring that was set with an emerald. On +the gift was an inscription in English: <i>From an unknown +friend</i>. A great discussion ensued. One irreverent speaker +opined that the thing was a hoax, and that the hair had come from +a wig-maker's; but his blasphemy was shouted down. Another +proposed that Balzac should cut off his own long, flat locks (it +was in 1834 that he began to let them grow) and should send them +addressed to the Unknown Fair One. Poste Restante. But this +suggestion, too, was not approved. The locks were proclaimed to +be national property, and to be cut off only by the passing of a +special law. Next, the ring was discussed; and here it was that +Balzac, struck with a brilliant idea, announced his intention of +ordering Gosselin, the goldsmith, to manufacture a marvellous +hollow stick-knob in which a lock of the blond hair should be +inserted, and all over the top of the knob were to be fixed +diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, topazes, rubies, chosen out of the +many he had had given him by his rich lady-enthusiasts. On the +morrow, he was released, after spending, during the few days he +had been locked up, five hundred and seventy francs in +refreshment for himself and visitors.</p> + +<p>CHAPTER VII</p> + +<p>LETTERS TO "THE STRANGER," 1835, 1836</p> + +<p>The Rue des Batailles, whither Balzac removed his household +goods in 1834, was one of those old landmarks of Paris which have +disappeared in the opening up and beautifying of the city. +Commencing at the fortifications, it penetrated inwards along the +waste ground of the Trocadero, and crossed the Rue Chaillot at a +point which has since become the Place d'Iena. Its direction from +there was very nearly the same as that of the present Avenue +d'Iena. No. 12, where Balzac had his flat, probably occupied the +site whereon now stands the mansion of Prince Roland Bonaparte. +From its windows a good view was obtained of the Seine, the Champ +de Mars, the Ecole Militaire, and the Dome of the Invalides.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, the house of the Rue des Batailles was +for a time a supplementary dwelling rented by the novelist, so +Werdet says, as a hiding-place from the myrmidons of the law. The +flat in the Rue Cassini was retained, and its furniture also; and +an arrangement was made with the landlord by which a notice-board +hung continually on the door, with the words: "This apartment to +let." In reality the tenant often sojourned there still, and his +cook stayed on the premises to look after them, and serve her +master with meals, whenever he wished to work in his old study +without being disturbed. At the Rue des Batailles he lived under +the pseudonym of Widow Brunet, so that temporarily the +sergeant-major of the National Guard was outwitted.</p> + +<p>The second flat, when he took it, was composed of five small +rooms; but an army of workmen was summoned; and what with the +pulling down of partitions and their reconstruction on a more +commodious plan, the place was metamorphosed into four +luxuriously furnished chambers, the study being fitted up as a +sort of boudoir. One of its walls was a graceful curve against +which rested a large, real Turkish divan in white cashmere, its +drapery being caught and held with lozenge-shaped bows of black +and flame-coloured silk. The opposite wall formed a straight line +broken only by a white marble chimney-piece pinked out in gold. +The entire room was hung in red stuff as a background, and this +was covered with fluted Indian muslin, having a top and bottom +beading of flame-coloured stuff ornamented with elegant black +arabesques. Under the muslin the red assumed a rose tint, which +later was repeated in the window curtains of muslin lined with +taffety, and fringed in black and red. Six silver sconces, each +supporting two candles, projected from the wall above the divan, +to light those sitting or lying there. From the dazzlingly white +ceiling was suspended an unpolished silver-gilt lustre; and the +cornice round it was in gold. The carpets of curious designs were +like Eastern shawls; the furniture was lavishly upholstered. The +time-piece and candelabra were of white marble incrusted with +gold; and cashmere covered the single table, while several +flower-stands filled up the corners, with their roses and other +blooms. This study, which Balzac himself has left us a +description of in his novel <i>The Girl with the Golden Eyes</i>, +was soon abandoned as a workroom for another more simple and +austere, up under the roof. The latter, however, he likewise +began, being tormented by the desire of change, to adorn almost +as fantastically.</p> + +<p>Throughout the time that Werdet continued to be Balzac's +publisher, and up to the end of 1836, when their active business +relations ceased, it is difficult to be quite accurate in +speaking of their relations and the things spoken of by both in +which they were mutually concerned. There is frequent discordance +in their narration of the same event, and one is often +embarrassed in trying to reconcile them. On the one hand, it is +certain that Balzac was not always exact in his statements; on +the other, Werdet's memory, in the seventies, when he wrote his +<i>Portrait Intime</i> of the novelist, was as certainly now and +again treacherous. An example of such discrepancy is furnished by +the information given concerning <i>Seraphita</i>, which Werdet +says he bought from Buloz at the end of 1834, and for which he +had to wait till December 1835. He even makes it a reproach that +the novelist, after being extracted from a dilemma, should have +dealt with him so cavalierly. Now, from documents published by +the Viscount de Lovenjoul, there must be a mistake in Werdet's +dates. During the year of 1835, the <i>Revue de Paris</i> +published, after long delay, some further chapters of +<i>Seraphita</i>; and not until the end of November in this same +twelvemonth was the treaty signed which rendered Werdet possessor +of the book.</p> + +<p><i>Seraphita</i>, or <i>Seraphitus</i>--the name is designedly +spelt both ways in different parts of the book--is an attempt on +the novelist's part to represent in fiction the dual sex of the +soul. The scene is laid in the fiords of Norway. There, in a +village, we meet with a person of mysterious nature who is loved +simultaneously by a man and a woman, and who is regarded by each +as being of the opposite sex. By whiles this hermaphrodite seems +to respond to the affection of each admirer, and by whiles to +withdraw on to a higher plane of existence whither their +mortality hinders them from following. To the old pastor of the +village, <i>Seraphita-Seraphitus</i> talks with assurance of the +essence of phenomena and the invisible world, but, forsooth, only +to initiate the shades that visit spiritualistic <i>seances</i>, +and to say what is either obscure verbiage, or a hash-up of +philosophies often digested without much sustenance derived from +them. In the end, this dual personage vanishes from our mundane +atmosphere, translated bodily to heaven; and leaves his or her +lovers to repair their loss--just like a forlorn widow or +widower--by making a match based on rules of conduct laid down by +the departed one.</p> + +<p><i>Seraphita</i> was Balzac's pocket Catholicism. He had +another Catholicism, entirely orthodox, for the use of the public +at large. Esoterically understood, his novel teaches a doctrine +of mysticism, intuitionalism, and materialism combined. Plotinus, +the Manicheans, and Swendenborg are borrowed from without +reserve. Ordinary reason is despised. He believes himself for the +nonce inspired, like the Pope when launching bulls. "The +pleasure," he writes, "of swimming in a lake of pure water, +amidst rocks, woods, and flowers, alone and fanned by the warm +zephyr, would give the ignorant but a weak image of the happiness +I felt when my soul was flooded with the rays of I know not what +light, when I listened to the terrible and confused voices of +inspiration, when from a secret source the images streamed into +my palpitating brain." On the contrary, he holds--and this does +not square well with the preceding--that the soul is an ethereal +fluid similar to electricity; that the brain is the matrass or +bottle into which the animal transports, according to the +strength of the apparatus, as much as the various organisms can +absorb of this fluid, which issues thence transformed into will; +that our sentiments are movements of the fluid, which proceeds +from us by jerks when we are angry, and which weighs on our +nerves when we are in expectation; that the current of this king +of liquids, according to the pressure of thought and feeling, +spreads in waves or diminishes and thins, then collects again, to +gush forth in flashes. He believes also that our ideas are +complete, organized beings (the theosophic notion) which live in +the invisible world and influence our destinies; that, +concentrated in a powerful brain, they can master the brains of +other people, and traverse immense distances in the twinkling of +an eye. In short, he anticipates not a little of the science of +the present day, yet mixing up the true and false in his guesses +by the very exuberance of his fancy. At the close, he gives us +his vision of the universe: "They heard the divers parts of the +Infinite forming a living melody; and, at each pause, when the +accord made itself felt like a huge respiration, the worlds, +drawn by this unanimous movement, inclined themselves towards the +immense being who, from his impenetrable centre, sent everything +forth and brought it back to himself. The light engendered +melody, the melody engendered light; the colours were light and +melody, the movement was number endowed with speech; in fine, all +was at once sonorous, diaphanous, mobile; so that, all things +interpenetrating each other, distance was without obstacles, and +might be traversed by the angels throughout the depths of the +infinite. There was the fete. Myriads of angels all hastened in +like flight, without confusion, all similar, yet all dissimilar, +simple as the field-rose, vast as worlds. They were neither seen +to come nor go. On a sudden, they studded the infinite with their +presence, just as the stars shine in the indiscernible +ether."</p> + +<p>The fundamental error of <i>Seraphita</i> is its hybridity, +not to speak of its pretentious psychology. It is neither flesh +nor fowl; and, exception made for some fine passages, more at the +beginning than in the rest of the book, it jars and irks, and +amazes, but does not captivate or persuade.</p> + +<p>It had a great success when it came out in book form. People +were inquisitive to know the end of the story, which the <i>Revue +de Paris</i> had not given; and their eagerness had been further +whetted by a cleverly graduated series of puffs put into the +newspapers. In the first day of sale, the whole edition was +cleared out of Werdet's warehouse, a thing that had never +happened before with any of the same author's works. Balzac, who +had been duly informed of the good news, hastened to the office, +and led the publisher off proudly to dine with him at Very's, and +to finish up the evening at the Porte-Saint-Martin Theatre, with +ices afterwards at Tortoni's. The whole affair was carried out in +grand style. The novelist had on his war-paint, and was +accompanied by a lady, young, pretty, whose name is not revealed +to us. Werdet's <i>vis-à-vis</i> was Madame Louise +Lemercier, a benevolent blue-stocking of that day, who was a +Providence to needy men of letters. When dinner was over, +Balzac's elegant equipage, with its mighty coachman and its +diminutive groom, yclept Millet-seed, who unfortunately died soon +after in the hospital, conveyed them to the play, in which +Frederick Lemaitre and Serres held chief roles. Balzac was the +hero of the evening. His jewelled stick, and his pretty companion +monopolized the attention of the spectators, who somewhat +neglected the amusement offered by the <i>Auberge des Adrets</i> +on the stage. At the conclusion of the piece, the four passed out +of the theatre through a double line of people eager to pay the +homage that notoriety can always command.</p> + +<p>In the year 1835 the novelist's restlessness and inability to +remain long in one spot were evinced in a very marked manner. +Only by repeated changes of scene was he able to carry on his +work at all. After wearing himself out in a fruitless attempt to +complete <i>Seraphita</i> in April, he fled to Madame Carraud's +at Frapesle. In October he was at La Boulonniere, where he put +the last touches to <i>Pea-Blossom</i>, better known as the +<i>Marriage Contract</i>, which came out before the end of +December. His fits of depression alternated with spurts of +cheerfulness nearly every week, according as he had some loss or +gain to register; here, a fire at the printer's, where some of +his <i>Contes Drolatiques</i> were burned; there, the sale of an +article to the <i>Conservateur</i> for three thousand francs. In +September the barometer rose, and he exclaimed joyfully in a +letter to Laure:</p> + +<p>"The Reviews are at my feet and pay me more for my sheets. He! +He!</p> + +<p>"The reading public have changed their opinion about the +<i>Country Doctor</i>, so that Werdet is certain of selling his +editions directly. Ha! Ha!</p> + +<p>"In short, I can meet my liabilities in November and December. +Ho! Ho!"</p> + +<p>This tone changed in October. To his sister now he +lamented:</p> + +<p>"I am drinking the cup to the dregs. In vain I work fourteen +hours a day. I cannot suffice."</p> + +<p>He had held practically the same language to Werdet in May,[*] +when he announced to him his intention of starting for Austria, +where Madame Hanska was staying. His brain, he said, was empty; +his imagination dried up; cup after cup of coffee produced no +effect, nor yet baths-- these last being the supreme remedy.</p> + +<p>[*] In Werdet's account this journey is placed between +September and November; but the <i>Letters to the Stranger</i> +prove that the date he gives is incorrect.</p> + +<p>Werdet did his best to thwart the trip; but Balzac would not +be gainsaid. He affirmed he should return with rejuvenated +faculties, after seeing his <i>carissima</i>; and ultimately he +persuaded his publisher to advance him two thousand francs for +his travelling expenses. Profuse in his gratitude, he wrote from +his hotel in Vienna --the Hotel de la Poire, situated in the +Langstrasse--that, in the society of the cherished one, he had +regained his imagination and verve. Werdet, he continued, was his +Archibald Constable <i>(vide</i> Walter Scott); their fortunes +were thenceforward indissoluble; and the day was approaching when +they would meet in their carriages in the Bois de Boulogne and +turn their detractors green with envy. This flattery was the jam +enveloping the information that he had drawn on his publisher for +another fifteen hundred francs; there was also a promise made +that he would come back with his pockets full of manuscripts. +Instead of the manuscripts, he brought back some Viennese +curiosities. He had done no work while with Madame Hanska, but he +had seen Munich, and had enjoyed himself immensely, being +idolized by the aristocracy of the Austrian capital. "And what an +aristocracy!" he remarked to Werdet; "quite different from ours, +my dear fellow; quite another world. There the nobility are a +real nobility. They are all old families, not an adulterated +nobility like in France."</p> + +<p>The Vienna visit, which cost him, in total, some five thousand +francs --a foolish expense in his involved circumstances--was the +cause of his silver plate having to be pawned while he was away, +in order that certain payments of interest that he owed might be +made at the end of the month. Since he was always plunging into +fresh extravagance of one kind or another, his liabilities had a +fatal tendency to grow; and at present even more than before, +since he was puffed up by the lionizing he had enjoyed abroad. It +was hardly to be expected that a man should study economy who saw +himself already appointed to the Secretaryship for Foreign +Affairs. "This is the only department which would suit me," he +said to Werdet. "I have now my free entry to the house of the +Count d'Appony, Ambassador of Austria, and to that of Rothschild, +Consul of the same Power. What glory for you, Master Werdet, to +have been my publisher. I will make your fortune then."</p> + +<p>His display and luxury manifested themselves in greater +sumptuousness of furniture, more servants in livery, a box at the +Opera for himself, and another at the <i>Italiens</i>. And the +two secretaries must not be forgotten--one was not +sufficient--the Count de Belloy and the Count de Grammont. +Sandeau was not grand enough for the post. The reason given by +Balzac to Madame Hanska was Jules' idleness, nonchalance, and +sentimentality. As a matter of fact, Sandeau did not care to play +always second fiddle, and to write tragedies or comedies for +which Balzac wished to get all the credit. Moreover, he was not a +Legitimist. The novelist had tried to convert him to his own +doctrine of autocratic government and had signally failed. These +sprigs of nobility he felt himself more in sympathy with.</p> + +<p>About this time his epistles to "The Stranger" were full of +himself and his Herculean labours, and Madame Hanska hinted +pretty plainly that the quantity of the latter did not +necessarily imply their quality. Such expression of opinion +notwithstanding, he boasted of conceiving, composing, and +printing the <i>Atheist's Mass</i>, a short novel, it is true, in +one night only. His portrait by Louis Boulanger, which was +painted during the year of 1835, had been ordered rather with a +view to advertizing him at the ensuing Salon, although he +asserted it was because he wanted to correct a false impression +given of him by Danton's caricature in the earlier months of the +year. The likeness produced by Boulanger he esteemed a good one, +rendering his Coligny, Peter the Great persistence, which, +together with an intrepid faith in the future, he said was the +basis of his character. The future hovered as a perpetual mirage +in all his introspections, sometimes with tints of dawn, at other +times half-threatening. "I am the Wandering Jew of thought," was +his cry to Eve from the Hotel des Haricots, "always up and +walking without repose, without the joys of the heart, without +anything besides what is yielded me by a remembrance at once rich +and poor, without anything that I can snatch from the future. I +hold out my hand to it. It casts me not a mite, but a smile which +means to say: to-morrow."</p> + +<p>When he embarked on the hazardous venture of starting a +newspaper of his own, the motive was chiefly a desire to exercise +a larger political influence. Yet he had additional incentives. +The Reviews to which he had contributed in the past had yielded +him almost as much annoyance as profit; and, since the two most +important ones, the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i> and the <i>Revue +de Paris</i>, both under the same editorship, were closed against +him, he believed he needed an organ in which to defend himself +from the rising virulence of hostile criticism. A press campaign +in his favour could be better and more cheaply waged in a paper +under his entire control. His plan was not to create a journal, +but to revive one. In 1835 the <i>Chronique de Paris</i>, +formerly called the <i>Globe</i>, was on its last legs, albeit it +had been ably edited by William Duckett; and the proprietor, +Bethune the publisher, was only too glad to listen to Balzac's +overtures. By dint of puffing the new enterprise, a company was +formed with a nominal capital of a hundred thousand francs; +Duckett was paid out in bills drawn on the receipts to accrue, +since the novelist had no ready money of his own; and a start was +made under the new management. The staff was a strong one. Jules +Sandeau was dramatic critic; Emile Regnault supplied the light +literature; Gustave Planche was art critic; Alphonse Karr wrote +satirical articles; Theophile Gautier, Charles de Bernard, and +Raymond Brucker contributed fiction; and Balzac, together with +his functions of chief editor, gave the leading article.</p> + +<p>In its reorganized form, the Review came out Sundays and +Thursdays and once a week Saturdays. The collaborators met at +Werdet's house to discuss and compare notes. Generally, they +brought with them more conversation than copy, and Balzac would +begin to scold.</p> + +<p>"How can I make up to-morrow's issue," he asked, "if each of +you arrives empty-handed?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! being a great man and a genius," was the reply, "you have +merely to say: 'Let there be a Chronicle,' and there will be a +Chronicle."</p> + +<p>"But you know that I reserve to myself nothing except the +article on foreign policy."</p> + +<p>"Yes, we all know," answered Karr, punning on the French word +<i>etrangere</i>, "that your policy is strange."</p> + +<p>(Not finishing the word <i>etrangere</i>, he said only +<i>etrange</i>.)</p> + +<p>"<i>Ere</i>," shouted Balzac, adding the termination.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ere</i>," Alphonse yelled back. "You reserve to yourself a +policy which is foreign to all governments present and past and +future. And, as you scold me, Mr. Editor, is your own article +ready?"</p> + +<p>"No, but it is here"--tapping his forehead--"I have only to +write it. In an hour it will be done."</p> + +<p>"With the corrections?" queried Karr slily.</p> + +<p>"Yes, with the corrections."</p> + +<p>"Ah! well, prove that to us; and we'll all go on dry bread and +water until a statue is raised to you. I am hungry."</p> + +<p>Although Balzac's colleagues had a real respect and admiration +for his talent, they chaffed him unmercifully for his vanity. One +Saturday, Alphonse Karr, as a joke, crowned him with flowers; and +Balzac, in all good faith, complacently accepted the honour. +Around him, the laughter broke out fast and furious; and, at +length, he joined in with volleys that shook the room, while his +face waxed purple beneath his explosions. In his <i>Guepes</i>, +Alphonse Karr subsequently recalled this improvized coronation of +the novelist.</p> + +<p>Edited and composed in such desultory fashion, the +<i>Chronicle's</i> prosperity was short-lived, in spite of the +lustre it temporarily acquired from Balzac's name, and the +publication in it of some of his fiction. Before long its +financial position was so bad that the chief editor, as a forlorn +hope, tried to induce a young Russian nobleman, who was an eager +reader of his books, to enter the concern with a large amount of +fresh capital. To bait him, a magnificent dinner was given in the +Rue Cassini flat, amidst a display of all its tenant's gold and +silver plate, liberated from the pawnbroker's for the occasion by +a timely advance of two thousand francs from Werdet. The feast +was an entire success, and an appointment was fixed for the next +day at the Russian's hotel. Alas! when the envoy went, he +received, sandwiched in the guest's thanks for the royal +entertainment of the preceding evening, an announcement of the +said guest's immediate departure for Russia and the intimation +that, as the nobleman was not returning to Paris for some time, +it would be impossible for him to accept the offer of a +sleeping-partnership in the Review. Three months later the +<i>Chronicle</i> was resold to Bethune for a small sum; and the +publisher disposed of it to a third person, who, however, did not +succeed in keeping it alive. Balzac's loss by his experiment was +about twenty thousand francs.</p> + +<p>And this loss was not the only disagreeable part of the +business. There were the bills signed to Duckett. They being +protested in 1837, Duckett sued the novelist and obtained +judgment against him. At this moment, Balzac, tracked by his +creditors, had taken temporary refuge with some friends, the +Count Visconti and his English wife, who lived in the Champs +Elysees. Here he remained incognito. One day a man, wearing the +uniform of a transport company, called at the mansion and +informed the servant that he had brought six thousand francs for +Monsieur de Balzac. Suiting the action to his words, he dumped +down on to the floor a heavy bag that chinked as it struck the +hall tiles. "Monsieur de Balzac does not live here," was the +servant's reply. "Then is the master of the house in?" asked the +man. "No, but the mistress is." "Then tell her I have six +thousand francs for Monsieur de Balzac." The servant vanished and +soon the lady of the mansion appeared and offered to sign the +receipt herself. To this the man demurred. He must either see +Monsieur de Balzac or must take the money away again. There was a +hurried confabulation between hostess and guest, the upshot of +which was that Balzac, falling into the snare, came to the man, +thinking that some generous friend had sent him the money; and he +was immediately served with an arrest-warrant for debt. "I am +caught," he cried; "but I will pillory Duckett for this. He shall +go down to posterity with infamy attached to his name." To get +the novelist out of the mess, Madame Visconti paid the debt for +which the warrant had been made out; and thus spared him, for the +nonce, a sojourn in the debtors' prison at Clichy.</p> + +<p>Balzac's lawsuit with the <i>Revue de Paris</i>, the details +of which are given in the Viscount de Lovenjoul's <i>Last Chapter +of the History of Balzac's Works</i>, was brought about by the +novelist's quarrel, in 1835, with Buloz, the editor, because the +latter, while the <i>Lily in the Valley</i> was being printed, +communicated proofs of it to the <i>Revue Francaise</i> of Saint +Petersburg. Balzac at once severed his connection with the +<i>Revue de Paris</i>, and took away his novel, on the ground +that the editor was not justified in selling it abroad without +his--the author's--permission, and especially was not justified +in communicating premature proofs, which, owing to his practice +of modifying the text while correcting it, could in no way +represent his finished work. After an attempt made by mutual +friends to settle the matter amicably, Buloz entered an action +against Balzac to compel him to continue the publication of the +<i>Lily in the Valley</i> in the <i>Revue de Paris</i>. Three +parts had been given. It was the end which the Review demanded, +and ten thousand francs damages for the delay. The case was heard +in May 1836, after months of bitter controversy, in which both +sides had their ardent supporters. The most was made by the +plaintiff's barrister of Balzac's previous disputes with other +editors, who had had to complain of his tardiness in completing +articles or stories. A letter was also put in, signed by +Alexandre Dumas, Eugene Sue, Frederic Soulie, and others, stating +that it was usual for authors to allow the communication of their +productions to the <i>Revue Francaise</i> of Saint Petersburg, +with a view to combating Belgian and German piracies. And Jules +Janin, who during the Thirties was a zealous opponent of Balzac, +cast his weight of evidence in favour of the Review. The +<i>Seraphita</i> episode was dragged in, too, with testimony to +show that, even after Werdet had bought the right to publish the +novel in book form, Balzac again negotiated for its continuation +as a serial in the Review, and had, moreover, supplied some other +chapters, yet without coming to the end. In fact, the suit was a +complicated one to decide. Ultimately, the Court gave its verdict +against Balzac on the chief point at issue. He lost the +conclusion of the <i>Lily in the Valley</i>, and recovered only a +small sum of money that had been advanced to the novelist for +copy not supplied, and besides had to pay all the expenses of his +action.</p> + +<p>What galled Balzac particularly during the speeches of the +plaintiff's barrister, was to hear the style of his novel pulled +to pieces in language of mingled sarcasm and clever criticism +that delighted the audience and the papers. After the termination +of the affair, he thoroughly overhauled the parts of the book +which had been so severely handled, made large alterations, and, +since fun had also been poked at his pretensions to noble +ancestry, he prefixed a curious introduction to the edition that +Werdet was about to publish. In the course of it he declared: "If +some persons, deceived by caricatures, false portraits, +penny-a-liners, and lies, credit me with a colossal fortune, +palaces, and above all, with frequent favours from women . . . I +here declare to them that I am a poor artist, absorbed in art, +working at a long history of society, which will be either good +or bad, but at which I work by necessity, without shame, just as +Rossini has made operas or Du Ryer translations and volumes; that +I live very much alone, that I have a few firm friends; that my +name is on my birth-certificate, etc., just as that of Monsieur +de Fitz-James is on his; that, if it is of old Gaulish stock, +this is not my fault; but that de Balzac is my patronymic, an +advantage which many aristocratic families have not who called +themselves Odet before they were called Chatillon, Duplessis, and +who are, none the less, great families."</p> + +<p>To the foregoing he joined a long account of his birth and his +presumed title to ancient lineage, and inserted into the bargain +a panegyric of Werdet as a man of activity, intelligence, and +probity, with whom his relations would be unbroken, since by this +same declaration he constituted him henceforward his sole +publisher. That was in July 1836. Scarcely six months after, when +Werdet was threatened with a bankruptcy which was likely to +involve him--a repetition in minor degree of Scott's entanglement +with Constable--he veered completely round, called Werdet a +rotten plank, an empty head, an obstinate mule, and other names +more expressive than polite, affirmed that he had always +considered him a bit of a fool, and dropped all further +connection with him. Werdet, it is true, was no business genius, +but he was really attached to Balzac, and had yielded to the +great man's importunities as long as his purse would support the +strain.</p> + +<p>The <i>Lily in the Valley</i> was published by Werdet in the +week after the lawsuit was finished, and was well received by the +public. Its success, however, was more considerable abroad than +in France. The author complained of the smallness of the numbers +sold in France compared with those of foreign editions; but +Werdet's figures indicate a very fair sale, and are larger than +those given by Balzac, who in this instance at least was not so +accurate as his publisher.</p> + +<p>The novel deals with the struggle in the heart of a Madame de +Mortsauf, torn between her affection for Felix de Vandenesse and +her determination to remain outwardly faithful in conduct towards +her husband. With his invariable enthusiasm for subjects that +pleased him in his own work, Balzac believed and affirmed that +this secret combat waged in a valley of the Indre was as +important as the most famous military battle ever fought. +Possibly the amount of early personal biography in the book--yet +a good deal romanced--led him to this conviction. Possibly, too, +the richness with which he adorned its style helped to foster the +opinion he held, which critics have not ratified. Not even +Lamartine, his eulogist, found much to say in favour of the +story. To the first part alone he gave his approval, likening it +to the Song of Solomon. The rest he thought vulgar, and hinted +that the heroine degenerates into a sort of hermaphrodite +character. Brunetiere's estimate, given in a parenthesis, is not +much more favourable. And Taine, when dipping into the book for +examples of Balzac's style, neutralizes his praise of one portion +by his depreciation of another.</p> + +<p>Apart from the question of the novel's style, which is turgid +because the lyric note intrudes, the most legitimate objection to +the book is the sentimentalism which pervades it throughout, and +palls on the reader before he reaches the conclusion. Like +Richardson in his <i>Pamela</i>, but far to a greater extent than +Richardson, Balzac has placed the struggle on the physical plane. +Madame de Mortsauf permits de Vandenesse to make love to her, to +caress her, and she accords him everything with the single +exception of that which would confer on her husband the right to +divorce her. The interest of the book therefore is largely a +material one. The moral issue is thrown into the background. And +de Vandenesse, moreover, is not a person that inspires us with +respect or even pity. He consoles himself with Lady Dudley, while +swearing high allegiance to his Henriette.</p> + +<p>In sooth, the swain's position resembled the novelist's own. +Honore was also inditing oaths of fidelity to his "dear star," +his "earth- angel" in far-away Russia, while worshipping at +shrines more accessible. Lady Dudley may well have been, for all +his denial, the Countess Visconti, of whom Madame Hanska was +jealous and on good grounds, or else the Duchess de Castries, to +whom he said that, in writing the book, he had caught himself +shedding tears. His reminiscences of Madame de Berny aided him in +composing the figure of the heroine, whose death-bed scene was +soon to become sober reality. Madame de Berny died in July, +having had a last pleasure in perusing the story that +immortalized her affection for the novelist. Balzac had been +intending to pay her a farewell visit; but he was then in the +midst of embarrassments of all kinds, and the journey was +postponed until it was too late.</p> + +<p>At this moment, the affair of the <i>Chronique</i> was being +liquidated; and then Madame Bechet, his late publisher, was +dunning him for some arrears of copy that he owed her. His +brother Henry, too, going from bad to worse, was in a position +that necessitated Madame de Balzac's giving up the remnants of +her capital; and, to crown all, a son of Laurence, the dead +sister, quitting an unhappy home, was living as a vagabond on the +streets of Paris, whence he had to be rescued. Since, to these +worries and griefs, there was added certain disquieting news from +Eve, whose aunt, from reading some of his books, supposed him to +be a gambler and debauchee and was trying to turn her niece +against him, it was not astonishing that he should have been +completely unnerved. While at Sache, where he had come to stay +with some friends, the de Margonnes, in order to terminate the +work he was obliged to do for Madame Bechet, he had an attack of +apoplexy; and, on recovering from it, was glad to seize an +opportunity offered him of a journey to Italy to escape for a +while from the scene of his toiling and moiling and to have a +radical change. His good genius on this occasion was the Count +Visconti, who, having some legal business of a litigious nature +to settle at Turin and not being able to attend to it personally, +asked him to go instead. On this trip he was accompanied by +Madame Marbouty, a woman of letters, better known under her +pseudonym, Claire Brunne, whose acquaintance he had made some +years back at Angouleme. Madame Marbouty's exterior had much in +common with that of George Sand, and the resemblance between the +two women gave rise to the report that it was the authoress of +<i>Indiana</i> who accompanied Balzac to Italy at this date.</p> + +<p>The journey back to Paris was effected through Switzerland, +which enabled him to see Geneva again, though under less +agreeable auspices than those of 1833. His prospects on returning +to France were no better than when he left. Indeed, they were +worse, for Werdet's bad circumstances forced him to pledge +himself in several quarters in order to raise some ready money +for his immediate wants; and, being pledged, he was bound to +produce at high pressure. His <i>Old Maid</i>, which he sold to +the <i>Presse</i> for eight thousand francs, was written in three +nights, <i>Facino Cane</i>, in one night, and the <i>Secret of +the Ruggieri</i>, in one night also. Rossini, happening to meet +him during this spell of drudgery, condoled with him and remarked +that he himself had gone through the mill.</p> + +<p>"But when I did it," he added, "I was dead after a fortnight, +and it took me another fifteen days to revive."</p> + +<p>"Well!" replied Balzac, "I have only the coffin in view as a +rest; yet work is a fine shroud."</p> + +<p>Casting round for a means to free himself from a position that +had grown intolerable, he was induced to lend himself to a scheme +suggested by Chateaubriand's example. Chateaubriand, having +fallen into financial straits, sold his pen to a syndicate, in +return for an annual stipend. Balzac did something of the same +kind. Victor Bohain, who played an intermediary role in the +affair, discovered Chateaubriand's capitalist; and a company was +formed which paid the novelist fifty thousand francs down to +relieve his most pressing needs; and further engaged to allow him +fifteen hundred francs a month for the first year, three thousand +francs a month for the second year, and, afterwards, four +thousand francs a month up to the fifteenth year, when the +agreement was to come to an end. In return for these sums, Balzac +promised to furnish a fixed number of volumes per year, half +profits in which were to be his, after all publishing expenses +were paid. The arrangement was signed on the 19th of November +1836; and this date, in so far as the general quality of his +writing is concerned, marks a beginning of decadence. +Thenceforward his fiction, published mostly in political dailies +first of all--the <i>Presse</i>, the <i>Constitutionnel</i>, the +<i>Siecle</i>, the <i>Debats</i>, the <i>Messager</i>--had to be +composed hurriedly and without the corrections which were the +<i>sine qua non</i> of Balzac's excellence; and consequently it +contained many imperfections inherent in such kinds of literary +work. There was irony in the situation. Hitherto, he had despised +the daily press and the journalists that supplied it with matter, +chiefly, it must be confessed, because of the slatings he had +received through these organs of information; and he had revenged +himself for the attacks by pillorying the journalistic profession +in his novels. Lousteau, Finot, Blondet, and other members of the +press appear in his pages as unprincipled men, only too willing +to sell themselves to the highest bidder. Of course, such +retaliation carried with it injustice; and men of high principle, +like Jules Janin, resented this prejudiced condemnation of a +class for no better reason than its having black sheep, which +existed in every circle, trade and profession. Now, Janin had an +easy task in convicting of inconsistency an accuser who, since it +suited his purpose, was fain to belong to the press brotherhood. +The real derogation, however, was not in Balzac's turning +<i>feuilletoniste</i>, but in his slipping into the manner and +his adopting the artifices that he blamed so unsparingly in +Eugene Sue and Alexandre Dumas. Not to speak of his falling off +in accurate observation, he inserted more and more padding in his +fiction; the aridly didactic encroached upon the artist's +creation; and, to make the arid portions go down with his +readers, he spiced them with exciting episodes and all the stage +tricks common in the serial story. To tell the truth, he had +never quite shaken off his juvenile manner of the <i>Heiress of +Birague</i>, which reasserted itself so much the more easily as +his essentially vulgar temperament was ready to crop out on the +slightest encouragement afforded to it. During his best period he +had a mentor at his elbow in Charles Lemesle, who always read +what he wrote before it went to the printer; and Balzac, though +vain, was too intelligent not to avail himself of this friend's +pruning. Under the new <i>regime</i> the revising was impossible, +and, as a result, that difficult perfection which he had so +perseveringly sought was destined to be attained but rarely in +the rest of his achievement.</p> + +<p>CHAPTER VIII</p> + +<p>LETTERS TO "THE STRANGER," 1837, 1838</p> + +<p>By the agreement which farmed out Balzac's future production, +Werdet was implicitly sacrificed. The final breach did not occur +until the middle of 1837, but no fresh book was given him after +the November of 1836. There was one unpublished manuscript that +he then had in his possession--the first part of <i>Lost +Illusions</i>, and this appeared in the following spring. The +novelist was intending at the time to bring out a new edition of +the <i>Country Doctor</i>, of which Werdet held the rights. His +idea was to present it for the Montyon prize of the Academy, and, +if successful, to devote the money to raising a statue at Chinon +in memory of Rabelais. Lemesle was one Sunday at Werdet's place, +engaged in revising the book, when Balzac arrived in an excited +state of mind, and sprang on the astonished publisher the demand +that their respective positions should be legally specified in +writing, and a clean sweep made which should leave him perfectly +free. Previously their business relations had been carried on by +verbal understandings, which, as a matter of fact, did not bind +the novelist overmuch, since he never sold either a first or a +subsequent edition of any of his novels for more than a +comparatively short period--usually a year--at the end of which +he recovered his entire liberty, whether the edition were +exhausted or not. Werdet acquiesced, though grievously offended +and disappointed; but asked that certain accounts outstanding +from the year before should be settled on the same occasion. The +promise was given, and everything was put straight, except the +reimbursement of the money Werdet had advanced. Instead of +acquitting this debt, the ingenious author endeavoured to squeeze +a little more cash out of his long-suffering publisher. For once, +Werdet lost his temper, and sent the great man off with a flea in +his ear. It would almost look as if Balzac had provoked the +quarrel, since, on the very evening after the tiff, he returned +to Werdet's and offered to redeem all existing copyrights that +the publisher held for the price of sixty-three thousand francs. +His proposal was accepted, and Bethune, who was acting on behalf +of the novelist's syndicate, paid over the amount.</p> + +<p>The transaction was the best possible for Werdet, who was too +poor to continue playing Maecenas to his Horace. Against such +incurable improvidence, and such little regard for strict equity +in money dealings, nothing but the impersonality of a syndicate +could stand. Nevertheless, one cannot help regretting that the +intercourse of the two men should have ceased. Having so great a +personal regard for his hero, and having besides his share of the +observant faculty, Werdet, could have supplied us with +biographical details of the last twelve years of the novelist's +life much more interesting than those of Gozlan, Gautier, and +Lemer. His naive narrations, which are well composed and have +humour, carry with them a conviction of their sincerity, whatever +the errors of chronology.</p> + +<p>Werdet's prosperity finished with Balzac as it had commenced +with him. He was ultimately compelled to file his petition in +bankruptcy, and, abandoning business on his own account, to take +up travelling for other firms. His creditors were not tender +towards the novelist, and used to the utmost the lien they had +upon the few unterminated engagements that involved him in the +liquidation. A letter addressed by Balzac to the Marquis de +Belloy, his former secretary, testifies to the annoyance the +creditors caused him:--</p> + +<p>"MY DEAR CARDINAL" (he wrote, calling the Marquis by a +nickname),-- "Your old Mar" (a familiar appellation applied to +Balzac by his friends) "would like to know if you are at Poissy, +as it is possible he may come and request you to hide him. There +is a warrant out against him on Werdet's account, and his +counsellors recommend him to take flight, seeing that the +conflict between him and the officers of the Commercial Tribunal +is begun. If you are still at Poissy, a room, concealment, bread +and water, together with salad, and a pound of mutton, a bottle +of ink, and a bed, such are the needs of him who is condemned to +the hardest of hard literary labour, and who is yours.</p> + +<p>"LE MAR."</p> + +<p>The last occasion on which Werdet forgathered with his +favourite author was at his house in the Rue de Seine, where, in +February 1837, he gave a dinner. Some young members of the fair +sex were present; and Balzac, whether to produce a greater +impression upon these or because he had been making some society +calls, arrived nearly an hour late. Nothing very special occurred +during the evening, but the <i>soiree</i> had its conclusion +disturbed by a thunderbolt. On rising to depart, Balzac sought +his wonderful stick--an inseparable companion--which was nowhere +to be found. Every nook was explored without result. The great +man yielded to a veritable fit of despair. A suspicion crossed +his mind: "Enough of this trick, gentlemen," he cried to the male +guests. "For Heaven's sake, restore me my stick. I implore you!" +and he tore at his long hair in vexation. But the guests assured +him they were as ignorant as himself of the stick's whereabouts. +Werdet then said he would take a cab and inquire at all the +places the novelist had visited in the course of the afternoon. +Two hours later he came back, announcing that his jaunt had been +useless. At this news, Balzac fainted outright. The loss of his +talisman was overwhelming. When he was brought round again, +Werdet suggested what ought to have been suggested in the first +instance, namely, that they should proceed to the livery stables +and see whether the stick had been left in the carriage which the +novelist had used while on his peregrinations. The proposal was +jumped at. He went thither, accompanied by Werdet, and had the +ineffable joy of discovering the missing bauble quietly reposing +in a corner of the vehicle.</p> + +<p>During the year of 1836, he had had the unique experience of +corresponding for some months continuously with an unknown lady, +who called herself Louise, and to whom, in remembrance of their +epistolary intercourse, he dedicated his short tale <i>Facino +Cane</i>. Whether he really had the opportunity of learning who +she was--as he asserted-- and refrained from availing himself of +it through deference to her wishes, is doubtful. Some, if not +all, of the letters he received from "Louise" were written in +English; and at least one water-colour painting was sent him +which had been executed by the lady's own hand. From the tone of +his own epistles, which grew warmer onwards till the end, one may +conjecture that the dame was a second Madame Hanska, smitten with +the novelist's person through reading his works; and Balzac, +whose heart was made of inflammable stuff and whose brain was +always castle-building, indulged for a time the hope of meeting +with another ideal princess to espouse. Like the Orientals, he +was quite capable of nourishing sentiments of devotion towards as +many beautiful and fortuned women as showed themselves amenable. +The sudden cessation of Louise's letters, towards the end of +1836, freed him from the risk of Eve's learning of these divided +attentions; and it may be presumed that the latter divinity was +kept in ignorance of his worshipping elsewhere.</p> + +<p><i>Facino Cane</i> was a blind old violinist who encountered +Balzac, if there is any truth in the story, one evening at a +restaurant where he was playing for the members of a +wedding-party. Something in the old man's dignified aspect moved +the novelist deeply, and, accosting him, Balzac drew forth +gradually the narration of his life. Facino was, in reality, a +Venetian nobleman, at present reduced to dire poverty and obliged +to dwell in the Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts.[*] In his youth he +had been imprisoned within the Doge's Palace, and, while there, +had accidentally come upon the secret treasures it contained. +After his escape from confinement, his dream had been to meet +with some one who would help him to gain possession of this +wealth, without taking advantage of his blindness. And now he +confided his plan to Balzac with undiminished faith in the +possibility of its accomplishment. The pathos of the old man's +situation is created with sober touches. Among the novelist's +minor tales, this is one of the simplest and best.</p> + +<p>[*] Hospital founded by Saint Louis for three hundred noblemen +whose sight had been destroyed by the Saracens.</p> + +<p>In his reminiscences, Theophile Gautier mentions, apropos of +<i>Facino Cane</i>, that Balzac himself was persuaded he knew the +exact spot, near the Pointe-a-Pitre, where Toussaint Louverture, +the black dictator of Santo Domingo, had his booty buried by +negroes of that island, whom he then shot. To Sandeau and Gautier +the novelist explained, with such eloquence and precision, his +scheme for obtaining the interred wealth that they were wrought +up to the point of declaring themselves ready to set out, armed +with pick-axe and spade, and to put into action Edgar Allen Poe's +yarn of the <i>Gold Bug</i>. When money was the theme, Balzac's +tongue was infinitely persuasive.</p> + +<p>One is tempted to wonder whether his returning to Italy in the +spring of 1837, and his visit to Venice, after Florence and +Milan, were not an indirect consequence of his <i>Facino Cane</i> +story. It is certain that he regarded the ancient land of the +Caesars as a possible El Dorado; and, curiously enough, he came +back this time, if not with Sindbad's diamonds, yet with some +prospect of becoming a Silver King. Throughout the remainder of +the twelvemonth, a plan, connected with this prospect, was +simmering in his head, a plan which, we shall see, was less +chimerical than most of those that he concocted.</p> + +<p>While he was at Milan, the Italian sculptor Puttinati modelled +his bust, which pleased him so much that he gave him a order for +a group representing <i>Seraphita</i> showing the path heavenward +to Wilfrid and Minna. At Venice, he began <i>Massimilla Doni</i>, +one of his philosophic novels, in which the love episode is +interwoven with mysticism and music, and Rossini's <i>Mose</i> is +analysed with skill. His best production of the year was <i>Cesar +Birotteau</i>. The subject he had borne in his mind for a long +while, but had feared to start on it on account of the difficulty +of treating it imaginatively. At last, tempted by an offer of +twenty thousand francs if he would complete it by a fixed date, +he sat down to the task and wrote the novel in three weeks.</p> + +<p>The <i>Grandeur</i> (or <i>Rise</i>) <i>and Fall of Cesar +Birotteau</i>, to give the book its fuller title, has neither +plot nor progress of love-passion. Its value--which is great--is +almost entirely dependent on a number of little things that make +up an imposing whole. The subject is a commonplace one. +Birotteau, who is a dealer in perfumes, and has invented a +Sultana cosmetic and a Carminative Water, has reached a position +of influence and substance. Urged by his wife's desire to shine +in society, he allows himself to be inveigled into an expenditure +that compromises his fortune and reduces him to insolvency. +Although retaining the esteem of his fellow-citizens, who are +convinced of his integrity, Cesar is stricken to the heart, less +by the loss of his money than by his failure to meet his +engagements. In vain, his wife and daughter hire themselves out +in order to aid in remedying the disaster for which they are +largely responsible. In vain, friends rally round him, until, +little by little, the debts are paid, the perfumer is +rehabilitated, and is honoured even by the King. On the very +evening when, in the society of his family and friends and his +daughter's betrothed, he regains the feeling of independence and +freedom, death overtakes him. Joy succeeding to the strain is too +much for him.</p> + +<p>In the background of the novel is a tableau of the Restoration +epoch which is admirable; and the intricacies of finance and law, +which form so considerable a part of the story, are handled with +an ease and fancy that no other writer of fiction has quite +equalled. We have a romance of ledgers and day-books, in a +business atmosphere that amazingly well reveals the bent and +moral worth of the various characters. Cesarine, Villerault, +Popinot have traits which one smiles to recognize. And +Birotteau's development both of qualities and foibles is free +from caricature, yet pleases much.</p> + +<p>As was the case with <i>Eugenie Grandet</i>, Balzac does not +seem to have cared for this masterpiece. The rapidity with which +he composed it, and the fatigue he had undergone, caused him to +regard it with some irritation. He did not realize that it was +all elaborated in his brain before he put in on paper. Probably +also he spoke of it under the disappointment he experienced from +his continued failures in play- writing. Twice, during the +twelvemonth, he tackled pieces which he described to Madame +Hanska. One of them, the <i>Premiere Demoiselle</i>, refashioned +as the <i>School for Husbands and Wives</i>, treated the +unsavoury theme of an adulterous husband who keeps his mistress +in his own house; and the other, <i>Joseph Prudhomme</i>, much +better in conception, dealt with the not uncommon incident of a +girl's making a respectable marriage after a first betrayal, and +her bringing up in secret the child born out of wedlock. Certain +situations arising from the plot were both original and +affecting. But in neither undertaking did he manage to go on to +the end. Heine, whom he consulted in his difficulties, advised +him to abandon further efforts in writing for the stage. "You had +better remain in your galleys," he said. "Those who are used to +Brest cannot accustom themselves to Toulon."</p> + +<p>The advice was not palatable to a man of his temperament. He +wanted all domains to open before him; and poured out his soul in +lamentations, even while exhausting himself in fresh attempts. +Now that Madame de Berny was dead, his Eve was the chief +recipient of these jeremiads. "Are you not tired of hearing me +vary my song in all moods?" he asked her. "Does not this +unceasing egotism of a man struggling in a narrow circle bore +you? Tell me, for, by your letter, you appear to me inclined to +throw me over as a sorry pauper that knows only his +<i>paternoster</i>, and always says the same thing."</p> + +<p>To him, as to ambitious men in every century, reflection came +now and again, whispering what folly it was to spend life in the +sole pursuit of glory. Just now the whisperings must have been +more insistent, for he had thoughts of going to live in some +sylvan retreat on the banks of the Cher or the Loire, right away +from Paris. A visit to Sache, after an illness, afforded him the +excuse for searching; and, as he still proposed to write--for his +pleasure,--it was congruent he should meditate a sort of Heloise +and Abelard idyll--two lovers drawn to the cloister, and telling +in epistles to each other the history of their vocation.[*]</p> + +<p>[*] This novel was never written, or at least completed. The +<i>Sister Marie des Anges</i>, so often spoken of in the +novelist's correspondence, may have been the one here alluded +to.</p> + +<p>As a preliminary step towards carrying his determination into +execution, he dismissed his servants, with the exception of +Auguste, finally got rid of his lease in the Rue Cassini, whence +he had removed his furniture in the preceding year; and then, +feeling still a sneaking kindness for the city in which he had +triumphed, he compromised by retreating to Sevres, there to study +the ways and means of dwelling secure from pestering military +summonses addressed to Monsieur de Balzac, <i>alias</i> Madame +Widow Brunet, Man of Letters, Chasseur in the First Legion, and +also, if not secure from, at least not so accessible to the calls +of dunning creditors. The flat in the Rue de Chaillot, however, +was retained till the year 1839; and, from time to time, he made +short stays in it. But, in case any of his friends wished to see +him during these sojourns, they needed to know the pass-words, +which were not infrequently changed. On arriving at the outside +door, the visitor must announce, for instance, that the seasons +of plums had arrived. Then, if he could further announce that he +was bringing lace from Belgium, he would be permitted to enter. +But, before it was lawful for him to cross the threshold of the +novelist's sanctum, he must be prepared to state that Madame +Bertrand was in good health.</p> + +<p>At Sevres, Balzac soon hit upon a site that pleased his fancy. +It was a plot of land on a steep slope, about forty perches in +area.[*] This he bought by using his credit, and forthwith busied +himself with builder's estimates, since he intended to have his +hermitage inhabitable some time in the following spring.</p> + +<p>[*] More land was subsequently bought.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile his project of retiring--to a distance of twenty +minutes-- from Paris society did not hinder him from occasionally +putting in an appearance at one or another of the aristocratic +houses where he had his entries, among them that of Madame de +Castries, whom he continued to see, although she confined her +worship to his talent, and merely patronized the man. Either from +sheer mischievousness, or to revenge herself for some real or +fancied slight--perhaps, indeed, to mock at his talk of +refinement--she perpetrated upon him the practical joke of +getting her Irish governess, a Miss Patrickson, to send him notes +in English, signed Lady Neville, in one of which an appointment +was made to meet him at the Opera. He went to the rendezvous; but +no one was there waiting for him. This drew from him a sharp +letter of reproach; and Miss Patrickson, who was, in her private +life, a humble admirer of the great man, and had on one or two +occasions translated some of his fiction, was so smitten with +remorse for her trick that she revealed to him the name of the +one who had invented it.</p> + +<p>Les Jardies, where Balzac had decided to take up his +residence, was built on the further side of the hill of Saint +Cloud, facing the south, and with Ville d'Avray to the west. In +front, there was the rising ground of the forest of Versailles; +to the east, the outlook was down on Sevres and, beyond it, on +Paris, with the city's smoky atmosphere fringing the uplands of +Meudon and Bellevue. In the direction of these last places, a +glimpse was obtainable of the plains of Montrouge and the road +leading away to Tours. In summer weather especially, the +landscape here presented charming contrasts, being a wealth of +woodland and verdure in a miniature Switzerland.</p> + +<p>The architecture of the would-be hermit's house was rather +primitive. Three rooms, one over another, composed the main +building. The ground floor served as drawing-room; above it was +the anchoret's bedroom; and the top story was used as a study. +Sixty feet away, rose a second building containing kitchens, +stables, and servants' rooms. The whole stood in its own grounds, +fenced in with walls, half of which, being situated on the +steepest portion of the declivity, persisted in tumbling. One +curious feature of the house was its outside staircase. Wags +pretended that the owner had forgotten it in his plans, and been +obliged to add it as an after-thought. The truth was that an +inside staircase would have compelled him to build with less +simplicity. "Since the staircase wants to be master in my +dwelling, I will turn it out of doors," he said. And this was +done, the said staircase being a sort of broad ladder.</p> + +<p>Had the novelist stayed long enough in this rural retreat, he +would have beautified the interior in accordance with his +fanciful tastes. Friends who were invited out there were +astonished to see scrawled in chalk on the walls:</p> + +<p>"Here, a covering of Paros marble; here, a ceiling painted by +Eugene Delacroix; here, a mosaic flooring formed of rare wood +from the isles; here, a chimney-piece in cipolin marble."</p> + +<p>Jokingly, Leon Gozlan one day himself inscribed on a +convenient space:</p> + +<p>"Here, a picture by Raphael, of priceless value, such as was +never yet seen."</p> + +<p>Of course, in the early days of his rusticating, he was +enthusiastic about his Italian-looking brick cottage, with its +covered platform or gallery running round the first floor and +supported on slender pillars, Its value, he was sure, would +double when he had created the garden of Eden round about it, +planted with poplars, birches, vines, evergreens, magnolias and +sweet peas. His humour-barometer went up to "set fair." For the +moment, no pessimism clouded his sky. Here he would abide, here +he would work or muse until the long-expected and at last +approaching fortune should deign to enter beneath his roof; and +then--well then, he believed he should have had enough of +ambition's spoils, and should be content under the shadow of his +vine, and watch from afar--just twenty minutes or half-an-hour at +most--the march of events without seeking to mingle in them.</p> + +<p>The original cost of the homestead was about forty thousand +francs. Other expenses were incurred before the whole of the +building and installation was completed, which made the total +cost very considerably larger; and, as hardly any of the amount +had been paid cash down, Balzac's liabilities, which were heavy +enough without this extra charge, very soon introduced a +disturbing element into his Arcadian existence. Within the +twelvemonth, a distraint was levied upon him for non-payment of +moneys that were owing. Lemer, one of his biographers, narrates +that, paying a visit to Les Jardies at this date, for the purpose +of soliciting the novelist's collaboration in an international +album, he not only received a promise of help but an invitation +for himself and a companion to remain and dine off a leg of +mutton. As the two visitors declined, Balzac said: "Ah! you +think, perhaps, I am an ordinary host who invites his guests +gratis. On the contrary, I intend to make you pay for your meal. +Aha! You shall aid me afterwards to flit. To-morrow, the bailiffs +are coming to seize my furniture; and I don't mean them to find +anything to carry away. So, to-night, I am going to put +everything in my gardener's cottage. The gardener will transport +all the bigger articles of furniture; but, for the books, +manuscripts, and valuables, I shall be glad to have the +co-operation of men of letters like you."</p> + +<p>And the owner of Les Jardies was inconsolable when his +visitors again expressed their inability to comply with his +request.</p> + +<p>Himself a guest once more of the Carrauds at Frapesle in +February 1838, he took advantage of his proximity to Nohant to go +and see George Sand; and spent two or three days with her. On his +arrival, he surprised her clad in her dressing-gown, and smoking +a cigar after dinner, beside the fire, in a huge, solitary room. +Beneath the gown, she had on some red trousers, which allowed her +smart stockings and yellow slippers to be seen. Since he used to +meet her in the house of the Rue Cassini, she had grown stout, +and now had a double chin; but her hair was still unbleached, and +her bistre complexion preserved its tinge as of old. Working +hard, she went to bed at six in the morning, and got up at noon. +During the time he was at Nohant, Balzac adopted her habits. They +talked from five in the evening all through the night and till +five o'clock in the morning; and he learnt to know her more truly +in these hours of familiar converse than in the four years of her +liaison with Jules Sandeau. He summed her up as a tomboy, an +artist, a mind great, generous, devoted and chaste (this last +term would need explanation); her characteristic traits were +those of a man, not a woman. She had, so he opined, neither force +of conception, nor gift of constructing plots, nor faculty of +reaching the true, nor the art of the pathetic. The French +language she used she did not thoroughly know, but she had style. +Of her glory she made little account, and despised the public. +Her fate was to be duped--and duped she had been by Bocage, by de +Lamennais, by Liszt, by Madame d'Agoult. Together they discussed +the future revolution in manners and morals, and the influence +their books might have in bringing it about. She suggested to him +some subjects that he might develop, and taught him-- up to then +opposed to the weed--how to smoke latakia tobacco in a hookah +pipe. Imagining the hookah to be something Russian, he asked +Madame Hanska, to whom he related all this, to purchase him one, +telling her that he would have his wonderful stick-knob, with its +jewels, adapted to it, since he no longer bore the stick about +with him as a fetish.</p> + +<p>From Frapesle he returned with the plan matured which he had +been preparing since his excursion to Italy. When at Genoa, in +the previous year, a merchant had talked to him of the existence +of huge hills of refuse metal left in the island of Sardinia by +the Romans, who had worked silver mines there. Aware how +defective the Roman methods of extraction were, Balzac thought +there might be profit in treating this slag by some process that +would cause it to yield whatever precious metal it contained; and +he requested the merchant to procure him some specimens of the +slag, and to forward them to Paris for examination, promising, if +the tests were satisfactory, to include the Genoese in the +company which he was sure of being able to float for the +exploitation of the concern. Although the merchant did not +forward the specimens, Balzac consulted some specialists in +Paris, Monsieur Carraud amongst others, who all concurred in +pronouncing the enterprise feasible. Finally, the novelist +decided to proceed to the spot and investigate the matter +personally. If success awaited him, he would gain enough to pay +off all his debts; and these he estimated to be about two hundred +thousand francs--a Falstaffian exaggeration, of course, but the +real figures were large. At present, he had no ready money at +all; and had to borrow from his mother, a cousin, and other +friends, in order to get his travelling expenses.</p> + +<p>Experience proved that he was correct in his theory. The slag +yielded ten per cent of lead by a first treatment, and the lead +ten per cent of pure silver. Unfortunately, the Genoese merchant +had availed himself of Balzac's hint, and had sold the scheme to +a Marseilles firm, who were already applying for the monopoly to +the rulers of the island, when, in the spring if 1838,[*] he +started on his journey thither; and, before he could do anything, +they had obtained the concession. Once more, he had imprudently +thrown out an idea, and lost his claim on it.</p> + +<p>[*] Madame Surville wrongly places the date of the journey in +1833.</p> + +<p>On his way south he saw much that was new and novel to him. +Passing through Corsica, he went over the house where the Emperor +Napoleon was born; and, according to his habit of seeking +information, he ferreted out several things that contradicted +received history. The <i>Petit Caporal's</i> father he discovered +to have been a fairly rich landowner, not a sheriff's officer, as +tradition said. Moreover, when the Emperor arrived at Ajaccio +from Egypt, instead of being acclaimed and having a triumphal +reception from his countrymen, he was outlawed, a price put upon +his head, and he escaped only through the devotion of a peasant +who hid him in the mountains.</p> + +<p>Corsica he considered one of the finest places in the world, +with mountains like those of Switzerland, and needing only the +latter country's lakes. Completely undeveloped, and practically +unexplored, it was inhabited by people that cultivated the +<i>dolce far niente</i> to the utmost. Its population of eight +thousand vegetated rather than lived, ignorant of everything +beyond the simplest necessities of existence. The women disliked +strangers, and the men did nothing but walk about all day, clad +in their threadbare velvet coats, smoking to beguile the +hours.</p> + +<p>His account of Sardinia is equally curious. It was a +wilderness, he says, with savannas of palm-trees, inhabited by +savages. On horseback, he traversed a virgin forest, obliged to +bend over his horse's neck to avoid the huge branches of +holm-oaks and cork-trees, and laurels and heather that were +thirty feet high. In one canton he found people naked, except for +a waist-cloth, and living on coarse bread made from acorns mixed +with clay. Their mud hovels had no chimney, the fire being +lighted on the ground in the middle. There was no agriculture in +the island, and the only work done by the men was tending their +flocks of goats and other animals.</p> + +<p>A tour through Genoa, Florence, and Milan made up the rest of +this interesting trip, which lasted from March till June. +Disappointed in the object for which he left home, it furnished +him with leisure to gather fresh subjects for his pen, and even +to begin one--the <i>Diaries of Two Young Wives</i>. What he +wished to describe in this book was stated in the following +remarks to Madame Hanska: "I have never seen a novel in which +happy love, satisfied love, is depicted. Rousseau puts too much +rhetoric in his attempt, and Richardson too much preaching. The +poets have too many flourishes; the novelists are too much the +slaves of facts. Petrarch is too exclusively occupied with his +images of speech and his <i>concetti</i>; he sees the poetry more +than the woman. Pope has given perhaps too many regrets to +Heloise; he wanted her to be better than nature; and the better +is an enemy to the good. In fine, God, who created love with +humanity, has alone understood it; for none of his creatures has +described, so as to please me, the elegies, fantasies, and poems +of this divine passion of which each speaks and which so few have +really known."</p> + +<p>Did Balzac himself ever know it? By his own confession, never +in his youth. In the years of his adolescence there is no sign of +such a feeling having agitated his breast, where ambition reigned +to the exclusion of everything else. If, then, he thought of +marriage, its prosaic, advantageous side only appears to have +entered into count; and the liaison, which stood him in lieu of +it, stirred, beyond sense, nothing but sentiments of common +gratitude. In riper age, his attachment to Madame Hanska was a +bizarre medley of flattered vanity, artistic appreciation of +beauty, and cold calculation. His epistles reek with each and all +of these; and his eternal complaints of financial embarrassment +not infrequently read like the expressions of a pauper's +whining.</p> + +<p>That they ultimately wearied out the recipient of them is +evident from the remonstrances he drew upon himself. Eve blamed +his lightness of character, the facility with which he let +himself be tempted, his tendency to waste in travelling the funds +he would have done more wisely to employ in reducing his +obligations or avoiding them. At such moments he defended himself +sharply, his tone savouring less of the boudoir than the forum. +Any and every excuse was pressed into service; everything and +everybody were responsible but himself. Even his mother he +accused of causing his indebtedness--his mother who had ruined +herself for him, and from whose remaining pittance he took in +this self-same year the wherewithal to go to Sardinia, although +earning many thousands of francs annually. The truth is that +Balzac exploited all the women that loved him, himself incapable +of loving any one of them with that entire devotion which, if +roused, is unique in a man's life; and, as he was ignorant of it, +so he has never described it adequately, faithfully. In one or +two instances, he obtains a glimpse of it--as Moses obtained a +vision of the promised land--from afar; when he tries to get +nearer, he presents us with mere sensualism.</p> + +<p>What Madame Hanska probably enjoyed most in his letters were +the <i>obiter dicta</i> which he was never tired of pronouncing +on his contemporaries. Scribe, whose <i>Camaraderie</i> he had +been to see, he summed up as a man who was conversant in his +trade but had no veritable art, who possessed talent but not the +higher dramatic genius, and who, moreover, was altogether lacking +in style. Victor Hugo's <i>Ruy Blas</i> was to him an infamy in +verse, and the rest of this author's pieces miserable melodramas. +Theophile Gautier's poetry was decadent, his style sparkling with +great wit; yet the man was wanting in force of ideas. When, +however, he added that Gautier would do nothing that would last +because he was engaged in journalism, he spoke with all his +hatred of a profession that refused him the honour he deemed his +due. Eugene Sue, also, he looked upon with jaundiced eyes, as +being a rival whose material success amazed him--a rival, indeed, +whom no less a critic than Sainte-Beuve erroneously declared to +be his equal. Sue, he informed Madame Hanska, was a man of narrow +bourgeois mind, perceiving merely certain insignificant details +of the vulgar evils of French contemporary society. To Balzac, +besides, it was blasphemy in Sue that he spoke slightingly of the +century which to this Legitimist was the grandest epoch in French +history, slightingly of Louis XIV., who, in the said Legitimist's +opinion, was France's premier king.</p> + +<p>The latter half of 1838 was spent at Les Jardies, where the +novelist was busy either with his pen or in improving the +interior and exterior of the property. A scheme for cultivating a +pine-apple orchard in his grounds kept him from fretting over the +sorry termination of his Sardinian dream. He intended to set five +thousand plants, and sell the fruit at five francs a piece, +instead of twenty which was the ordinary price. After deducting +the expenses of the undertaking, he reckoned he could gain twenty +thousand francs a year out of his pine-apples. If they had been +willing to grow in the open air, he would undoubtedly have gone +from theory into practice. But, as this difficulty presented +itself in the initial stage, he threw up incontinently his +market- gardening; and, since he was in urgent want of cash, he +bethought himself that, lying by him, he had a collection of +Napoleon's sayings, which he had been making for the past seven +years, cutting them out of books that dealt with the Emperor's +life. The number was just then five hundred. For a sum of five +thousand francs he disposed of the fruits of his industry to a +retired hosier named Gandy, who published them subsequently under +the title <i>Maxims and Thoughts of Napoleon</i>, the preface +being also supplied by the novelist.</p> + +<p>Besides <i>Gambara</i>, a second study of the musical art, +containing a lyrically expressed analysis of <i>Robert le +Diable</i>, Balzac produced in 1837 and 1838 two longer works, +the <i>Employees</i> or the <i>Superior Woman</i> and the <i>Firm +of Nucingen</i>. The former, with its criticism of the +bureaucratic system, depicted a state of things which has +survived several changes of <i>regime</i> in France, in spite of +much in it that contradicts common sense. Rabourdin, the head +clerk in a government department, seeks to simplify the useless +machinery that clogs rather than advances the administration of +the country. Having a practical mind, he believes that a hundred +functionaries at twelve thousand francs a year would do the same +work better than a thousand employees at twelve hundred francs, +and cost no more. As in other of the novelist's books that +preached reform, there are parts in this one where the main +thread of the story disappears like a river in a canyon; and +readers of the <i>Presse</i>, in which it came out as a serial, +railed at the author, called his contribution stupid, and +threatened to cease subscribing if it were not withdrawn. Yet, +perused in volume form, it reveals comedy in abundance. The +portraits are limned with master hand; and Celestine Rabourdin, +the wife of the head clerk, has, together with her grace and +taste, the gift of amusing by the skill with which she bamboozles +the dissolute des Lupeaulx.</p> + +<p>The <i>Firm of Nucingen</i> is a scathing satire of the world +of stock- jobbing, where the money of the small investor is +robbed with impunity under cover of legality. Balzac's Jewish +banker, who thrives on others' ruin is a type that exists to-day, +as then, without any adequate effort made by law to suppress him. +Less happy in indicating a remedy than in branding an evil, the +novelist naively held that France had only to adopt his doctrine +of absolute rule for the suppression to become a fact. An +unprejudiced reading of history should have informed him that +<i>regimes</i> have always so far existed for the benefit of +their creators, and that, although constitutional monarchies and +republics have not yet found out a system capable of defending +the interests of all individual citizens, and perhaps never will, +absolute monarchy has shown to satiety its inability to defend +the interests of more than a few.</p> + +<p>In perusing such a book as the foregoing, one is led to ask +why it was so inoperative on the life of the country. One reason +perhaps is that Balzac wrote from his head rather than from his +heart. Whatever may be, in other respects, the superiority of the +Realistic over the Romantic school of fiction, it is inferior in +this, viz., that its emotiveness tends to the negation, not to +the affirmation, of action. One cannot but recollect to the +novelist's disadvantage, as applying to this reference, the +following statement he made to Madame Hanska for another purpose: +"I have never in my life confused the thoughts of my heart with +those of my head, and, excepting a few lines written only for you +to read (for instance, Madame de Chaulieu's jealous letter), I +have never expressed in my books anything of my heart. It would +have been the most infamous sacrilege." Unconsciously insincere, +like the majority of people in their justificative confessions, +Balzac often allowed his heart to intrude where it had no +business to be present. Nevertheless in his realist pictures he +exercised himself with all the cold delight of the anatomist, and +with none of the warm emotion that might have become +communicative. This Brunetiere implicitly admits when he says +that most of Balzac's novels are, so to speak, +inquiries,--collections of documents.</p> + +<p>The year 1838 closed questioningly for the hermit at Les +Jardies. The yoke of his treaty with the publishing syndicate was +hardly twelve moons old; and, however, it galled his neck to the +extent of his cogitating how he might pay off the earnest money +he had received, and be his own man again. And how was he to do +it unless by increasing his earnings? All his actual revenue was +swallowed up by his debts and habits of living. Ah! if only he +could become a successful dramatic author! Alone, he did not for +the moment feel equal to trying. But there was the possibility of +collaboration. His late secretary, the Marquis de Belloy, had +recently seemed disposed to come and help him again. But de +Belloy desired some acknowledgment in coin; and Balzac, on the +contrary, judged that the honour of collaborating with a novelist +of his celebrity ought to be sufficient wage.</p> + +<p>"My dear de Belloy," (he wrote back)--"Not a halfpenny; much +work, your six hours a day, in three shifts, that's what awaits +you at Sevres, if you are in the mind to come and realize things +which are not vague plans but definite arrangements, and the +relative result of which will depend on the brilliant wit that +you have had the fatal imprudence to cast to the winds. I am at +the grindstone, and forswear any one that will not tackle it. I +have put my neck in the big collar because the other one was +irksome. Your devoted Mar <i>tyr</i> " ine " <i>ried man</i> " +about"</p> + +<p>he concluded, punning on his nickname. Like his fellow +mortals, he was often most merry when he was most sad.</p> + +<p>CHAPTER IX</p> + +<p>LETTERS TO "THE STRANGER," 1839, 1840</p> + +<p>Sometimes, notwithstanding his affected indifference, Balzac +was provoked by the pleasantries, the fleerings and floutings of +satirists and caricaturists, who, finding so many weak points in +his armour--so much that was ridiculous in his exaggerations, +might be excused for choosing him as a quarry for their wit, if +not for the wit's grossness. In 1839, the <i>Gazette des +Ecoles</i> inserted in one of its numbers a lithograph exhibiting +the novelist in the debtors' prison at Clichy, clad in his monk's +gown, and sitting at a table on which there were bottles of wine +and a champagne glass. In his left hand he grasped a pipe that he +was smoking, and his right arm was round a young woman's waist. +Beneath the lithograph was the inscription: "The Reverend Father +Dom Seraphitus, Mysticus Goriot, of the Regular Order of Clichy +Friars, taken in by all those he has himself taken in, receives +amidst his forced solitude the consolations of Sancta Seraphita +(<i>Scenes of the Hidden Life</i>, sequel to those of <i>Private +Life</i>).</p> + +<p>The last sentence being open to the interpretation that the +subject of the caricature was a dishonest man, a complaint was +lodged with the Procureur-General against the proprietor of the +paper, and was supported by the newly-constituted Men of Letters +Society.</p> + +<p>This Society, of which Balzac may be considered almost the +founder, came into existence during his journey to Italy in the +preceding year. On his return, he at once became a member; and, +for a while, took a prominent part in all its deliberations, +being elected on the committee, as also Victor Hugo, with whom +thenceforward his relations were, at least outwardly, most +cordial. In the first lawsuit engaged by the Society against the +<i>Memorial de Rouen</i> for the purpose of defending the +principle of literary property, he pleaded with all the force of +his talent, and composed a <i>Literary Code</i> and some <i>Notes +on Literary Ownership</i> containing not a few excellent +suggestions. His, too, was the initiative for the drawing up of a +petition to the King, with a view to the establishment of +literary prizes to be bestowed on well-deserving authors every +ten years. The King, or rather his advisers, rewarded this zeal +but ill. At one of the committee meetings Balzac was prevented +from attending by a three days' confinement in a dirty lock-up at +Sevres, the cause being the old one which had partly driven him +from Paris--his unwillingness to go, as he humorously put it, +into the vineyards of his village, and, dressed in uniform, to +see that truants from Paris were not eating the grapes.</p> + +<p>His rural retreat, indeed, was scarcely the safe asylum he had +fondly hoped it would be. Allusion has already been made to one +defect--that of the walls which, unlike those of Jericho, did not +wait for the trumpeters' blast before they fell down. They had an +incurable preference for tumbling down of themselves. Constructed +on a subsoil of sandy nature, their foundations yielded at every +spell of rain. In vain, architect after architect was applied to, +and one mode or another was recommended of relaying and +buttressing. At the next downpour, the servant would disturb his +master with the news: "The walls have toppled over again, sir, +into the neighbours' gardens." And the neighbours' gardens were +planted with all kinds of edible vegetables, which were crushed +and pounded out of shape and succulence, so that the owner of Les +Jardies had claims for damage continually sent in, until, in +sheer despair, pledging his credit more deeply, he purchased the +land beyond, content, at length, that his walls should be able to +carry on their freaks in his own demesne, without let or +hindrance or objection from any one. It is said that the land on +which Les Jardies stood was so much on the incline that Frederick +Lemaitre, who once ventured over there, was compelled to take a +couple of stones and place them at each step under his feet in +order to approach the house. This was, no doubt, one of the +actor's jokes. It is probable that, in selecting the site, Balzac +had in his thought the facility the place would afford for +reconnoitering when any one came to his doors. The domestics were +directed to keep a sharp look-out; and, as soon as a figure was +seen approaching that appeared to be a creditor or of the State +functionary tribe, the blinds of the abode were lowered, the dog +Turk was dungeoned, and every trace of there being inhabitants +vanished. After ringing uselessly, the unwelcome visitor +generally retreated under the impression that the place was +deserted. Then, when the last echo of his steps had died away in +the distance, the blinds were drawn up again, Turk, barking with +joy, was released from his captivity, and, like the castle of the +Sleeping Beauty, Les Jardies re-awoke to its normal activity. How +ever the tiers of planted beds perched one above the other--a +modern example of the hanging gardens of Babylon--were made to +resist the solicitations of the walls was a puzzle to Balzac's +familiars. As for trees, only one, a walnut, managed, by dint of +perpetual acrobatism, to conserve a stable equilibrium.</p> + +<p>Most of the fiction published by Balzac in 1839--<i>A +Provincial Great Man in Paris</i>, the <i>Secrets of the Princess +de Cadignan</i>, and the <i>Village Cure</i>--was written with +great verve, and may be classed in the list of his important +work. The second of the three just mentioned, which is the +shortest, gives us the story of a woman who, after losing her +fourteenth lover, succeeds in getting a fifteenth, d'Arthez, to +believe her virtuous and a sort of saint maligned by envy. There +is cleverness and to spare in the way the wiles of this sly jade +are related, and falsehood shown as a fine art in the service of +passional love. Balzac was thoroughly at home in treating such a +theme. Both d'Arthez and the Princess are prominent characters in +certain others of his books. The former appears in the +<i>Provincial Great Man in Paris</i>, which the author calls an +audacious and frightfully exact painting of the inner morals of +the French capital.</p> + +<p>It formed a sequel to a previously published short novel, the +<i>Two Poets</i>, and made part of a still larger series united +under the title <i>Lost Illusions</i>, the entire work being +completed in the Forties with <i>Splendour and Wretchedness of +Courtezans</i>, this last portion having also more than one +section. The first two volumes of the <i>Lost Illusions</i> +narrate the early experiences of Lucien de Rubempre, a young poet +of Angouleme, whose family, with some claims to gentility, has +fallen into narrow circumstances, the widowed mother being +obliged to earn money as a midwife, and the daughter as a +laundry-woman. The latter's marriage with David Sechard, a +printer, alters the situation of the family for the better; and +Lucien is enabled to occupy himself in the printing-house, while +pursuing his poetical efforts. Though his literary talent, for +the time being, has no value in cash, it procures him the +friendship of Madame de Bargeton, a grand dame of Angouleme; or, +more properly speaking, it is the pretext and justification; for +Lucien really owes the lady's favour to his Apollo-like beauty. +Subsequently the poet, desirous of shining in Paris, quits his +native place with a sum of money scraped together by his sister +and brother- in-law, and goes to the capital, accompanied by +Madame de Bargeton. His liaison there with the lady is but of +short duration. In compensation, however, he becomes acquainted +with a new literary world, into which he enters with his meagre +stock of poems, plus a novel; and, after a number of adventures, +turns journalist, a metamorphosis that supplies the author with +an opportunity to rage furiously against all those of that ilk. +The rest of the first part of the <i>Lost Illusions</i> is taken +up with the amours of Lucien and an actress named Coralie, who +gives the poet her heart and person, yet he sharing the second +with the rich Camuzot. Coralie really loves Lucien, even though +playing afresh the role of Manon to his des Grieux; but Lucien, +less constant in affection, and finding how difficult it is to +secure wealth and position, abases his pen to vile uses, and +would gladly abandon his mistress for a profitable marriage. At +length a duel, in which he is dangerously wounded, lays him on a +sick-bed, and Coralie, who has sacrificed her situation on the +stage to her love for him, and is herself ill, rises to nurse him +back to health, and dies under the strain.</p> + +<p>The further history of Lucien de Rubempre belongs to the +<i>Splendour and Wretchedness of Courtezans</i>. Both the +beginning and the middle and the end exhibit the strong and the +weak points of the novelist. The defects were dwelt upon in the +<i>Revue de Paris</i>, soon after the book's first part came out, +in probably the longest critical article devoted to any single +one of Balzac's writings. By the irony of events, Jules Janin, +who was the author of it, praised, some dozen years later, where +now he cursed. There was exaggeration in his panegyric, +pronounced in 1850 under the impulse dictating generosity to the +memory of a dead foe; and there was exaggeration also in his +polemic indited under the smart of Balzac's gibes against the +press. However, the closing words of the article, save for the +tone, can hardly be gainsaid: "Never," asserted Janin, "has +Monsieur de Balzac's talent been more diffuse, never has his +invention been more languishing, never has his style been more +incorrect, even if we include the days when the illustrious +novelist had nothing to fear from serious criticism, days when he +was too unknown to be noticed by the small newspapers, days when +Monsieur Honore de Balzac was as yet only Monsieur Horace de +Saint-Aubin."[*]</p> + +<p>[*] A <i>nom de guerre</i> of Balzac in his apprenticeship +days.</p> + +<p>The preceding remarks might be applied in substance to the +<i>Village Cure</i>, which is one of the most incoherent of the +novelist's productions. "I have no time to finish the book; just +the part that concerns the Cure will be wanting," he explained to +a correspondent. A good deal else was lacking when it was +published, the whole resembling a patchwork of odds and ends of +the crudest and least harmonious design. Its central figure is +Veronique, the wife of a Limoges banker named Grasselin, and +greatly her senior, to whom she has been married by her parents +before she has had the time to know anything of love and its +behests. Led by her goodness of heart to patronize a youth in her +husband's employ, she falls in love with him, as he with her, +and, through weakness, becomes his mistress. A murder, of which +the young Tascheron is accused, and, as the issue proves, quite +justly, interrupts this culpable idyll; and the assassin is +condemned and executed, without revealing the secret of his +liaison, and without Madame Grasselin's interfering to save him, +otherwise than vaguely, through the Cure of the district. None +the less, she is aware that the act has been committed indirectly +through the young man's love for her. Smitten with remorse, after +the execution, she quits Limoges, and, removing into the country, +endeavours there by a life of charity and devotion to religion to +redeem her lapse from her wifely duty. Then, finally, she dies in +presence of the Archbishop, of Bianchon the great doctor, and of +the Procureur-General and other witnesses, whom she has sent for +to listen to her confession of moral complicity, the death scene +being narrated with much theatrical emphasis. On to this +melodramatic subject, wilfully rendered obscure, and really +incomprehensible, the novelist did his best to tack various +illustrations of Catholic repentance. He intended the book to be +the glorification of Catholicism, the refutation of +Protestantism, the embodiment of virtues private and social in +people who bowed themselves to his ideal of faith; the story he +used simply as a thread to connect these things together. +Consequently, the action is intermittent, being checked by +irrelevant episodes, and by long tirades on agriculture, +sociology, and on other theories set forth by the writer with +much zeal but also with much acrimony. Catholicism is asserted to +be the only Church which has shown humanity its way of safety; +Tascheron's sister, who returns from America, is made to relate +that in a certain place where Catholic influence prevailed, the +Protestants were very soon chased away. To this religion of such +charming mansuetude whenever it has the upper hand, a Protestant +engineer named Gerard is converted by puerile arguments which in +any other domain than the theological would seem to be the +divagations of a lunatic; and the Cure Bonnet proclaims the +necessity of passive obedience by the masses to the Church's rule +in matters civil as well as ecclesiastic. To add spice to this +farrago of absurdity, Balzac spits out his hatred of the English, +albeit he is compelled to acknowledge their common sense. As he +confessed to the Marquis de Custine, it was his delight to abuse +England, and its inhabitants, whether men or women.</p> + +<p>From what we know of his relations with Madame Visconti, we +may, however, suppose that his prejudice against the <i>perfide +Albion</i> was not very deep-rooted. Indeed in his sentiments, as +in his conduct, consistency was conspicuous by its absence. We +find this would-be Legitimist, absolutist, ultra-orthodox +worshipper of every old-time privilege and doctrine, yet +continually saying and doing things that savour more of the +democratic than the aristocratic. Towards the disintegration of +monarchic attachments, his fiction contributed at least as much +as that of George Sand; and even his comic resistance to the +compulsory service required of him in the National Guard showed +how little he was inclined to accept for himself those doctrines +of authority which he would fain impose on others.</p> + +<p>Such incongruity between his theory and practice may have +struck the members of the Academie Francaise, who manifested +their disapproval of his candidature so unmistakably in 1839 that +he withdrew in favour of Victor Hugo. This forced concession +perhaps tinged the portrait he sketched of Hugo for Madame Hanska +about the same time. "Victor Hugo," he said, "is an exceedingly +witty man; he has as much wit as poetry in him. His conversation +is most delightful, with some resemblance to that of Humboldt, +but superior and allowing more dialogue. He is full of bourgeois +ideas. He execrates Racine, and treats him as a sorry sort of +man. On this point he is quite mad. His wife he has thrown over +for J----; and gives for such conduct reasons of signal meanness +(she bore him too many children; notice that J---- has borne him +none). In fine, there is more good than bad in him. Although the +good traits are an outcome of pride, and although in everything +he is a deeply calculating man, he is amiable on the whole, and, +besides, is a great poet. Much of his force, value, and quality +he has lost by the life he leads, having overdone his devotion to +Venus."</p> + +<p>Calling Hugo a great poet meant little in Balzac's mouth. Of +poetry he made but small account, probably because he succeeded +so ill in it himself. When poets appear in his stories, they are +rarely estimable characters. For Lucien de Rubempre he has only +little sympathy. The three specimens of Lucien's verse given in +the novel he procured from his acquaintances. The sonnet to +Marguerite was composed by Madame de Girardin; the one to +Camellia, by Lassailly, and that to Tulipe, by Theophile +Gautier.</p> + +<p>A movement of disinterested generosity displayed by him in the +same year was his fight, in conjunction with the artist Gavarni, +on behalf of Sebastien Benoit Peytel. Peytel was a notary living +at Belley, who, on the 20th of August 1839, was condemned to +death by the Ain Assizes on a charge of murdering his wife and +man-servant. Balzac had known him some time before in Paris, when +both were on the staff of the theatrical journal <i>Le +Voleur</i>. The Court of Cassation was appealed to in vain and +the sentence was carried out at Bourg on the 28th of October. As +long as there seemed the slightest chance of preventing the +execution, Balzac continued his efforts to save the notary, +though blamed by his family and friends for his interference, +which they set down as quixotic. Presumably Peytel had committed +the crime in a fit of jealous passion, to punish his wife's +adultery. A curious drawing by Balzac exists in the first volume +of his general correspondence, in which Gavarni is represented +mocking the headsman; and, accompanying the design, is an +autograph letter to Dutacq, managing director of the +<i>Siecle</i>, referring to an article on the question published +by the novelist in that paper.</p> + +<p>The time and money he gave to this lost cause were all the +more meritorious as his own concerns demanded greater attention +than ever. A new departure had occurred in journalism. The +appearance of certain cheaper newspapers necessitated a change in +the <i>roman feuilleton</i>; and the <i>Presse</i> and +<i>Siecle</i>, which had inaugurated the reform, and to both of +which Balzac contributed fiction, laid down the principle that +they would print only short tales complete in three or four +numbers. This was hard on the novelist. For him to compress a +story within artificial limits determined by an editor was a task +even more difficult than to write a play.</p> + +<p>It must have been the desire to escape from such servitude +which induced him to launch into another adventure with a journal +of his own. The <i>Revue Parisienne</i>, which he founded in July +1840, was not a newspaper but a magazine, intended to supply the +public, at a reasonable price, with tales, novels, poetry, and +articles of criticism both literary and political, and to give +the same public for their money more than three times as much +matter as they would get in other reviews. The success of +Alphonse Karr's monthly <i>Guepes</i>, which was reported to be +selling extraordinarily, encouraged him to believe that his own +fame, wider spread in 1839 than in 1836, and greater, would +suffice to assure a similar result. Author and editor combined, +he made the three numbers of his review, which were all he was +able to bring out, at any rate the equal of the older established +monthlies. In the three appeared his <i>Z. Marcas</i>, and <i>A +Prince of Bohemia</i>, the former a resuscitation of the <i>Louis +Lambert</i> species of hero transformed into a politician. The +<i>Russian Letters</i>, likewise political, furnish a very exact +and comprehensive sketch of the general state of mind in Europe +at the commencement of the Forties. One article of criticism +praised to the skies Stendhal's <i>Chartreuse de Parme</i> +published in the previous year. A letter he had addressed to +Stendhal in April 1839 was more moderate in its tone, though +eulogistic with its well-turned compliment: "I make a fresco, and +you have made Italian statues." He blamed the writer in his +letter for situating the plot of the <i>Chartreuse</i> in Parma. +"Neither state or town," he told him, "should have been named. It +should have been left to the imagination to discover the Prince +of Modena and his minister. Hoffman never failed to obey this law +without exception in the rules of the novel. If everything be +left undefined as regards reality, then everything becomes real." +In short, notwithstanding parts that were too long drawn out, he +found the whole a fine piece of work; and, if a modern +Machiavelli were to write a novel, it would be, he said, the +<i>Chartreuse de Parme</i>.</p> + +<p>Between the judicious language employed in the letter and the +article of the <i>Revue Parisienne</i>, the difference was so +enormous that Beyle himself remarked: "This astonishing notice, +such as never one writer had from another, I read, let me own it, +amid bursts of laughter. Whenever I came to fresh flights of +eulogy--and I met with them in every paragraph--I could not help +thinking how my friends would look when they saw them." "The +reason for this augmented enthusiasm must be sought," says +Sainte-Beuve, "in the fact that Stendhal lent or gave Balzac a +sum of five thousand francs in the interval, and thus received +back a service of <i>amour</i> <i>propre</i> for the service +rendered in cash. Since the proof of this gift or loan was found +in Beyle's papers, at his death, Sainte-Beuve's explanation seems +well grounded; and yet, for Balzac's credit, one could have +wished his praise more spontaneous."</p> + +<p>The cessation of the <i>Revue Parisienne</i> forced its +founder again to enter the ranks of paid contributors to the +daily press, and to comply with its exigencies. Yet not entirely. +His qualities and his defects alike led him frequently to break +from restraint and to follow his own bent, maugre the complaints +of readers, maugre editors' entreaties; and, even in the final +phase of his production, there were some masterpieces supporting +comparison with those of his best period.</p> + +<p>At the end of the Thirties, he was again, like Bruce's spider, +renewing his efforts to climb on to the stage. He had three +pieces in hand, <i>La Gina</i>, <i>Richard the Sponge-Heart</i>, +and his <i>School for Husbands and Wives</i>, already mentioned. +The last he had now managed to carry through to its conclusion; +and, in February 1839 there seemed to be some prospect of his +getting it played. Pereme, an influential acquaintance of his in +the theatrical world, had persuaded the Renaissance theatre to +accept it on approval, but was less fortunate with regard to the +fifteen thousand francs which Balzac had asked for on account. +The roles were discussed and partially distributed. Henry Monnier +and Frederick Lemaitre were to be chief actors on the men's side, +Mesdames Theodore and Albert on the women's. On the 25th of the +month, the author presented himself with his manuscript before +the reading committee; and, to his intense annoyance and dismay, +was compelled to put it back into his pocket. Either the +committee feared the expense which the representation would have +entailed, or else the elder Dumas, who was one of their most +successful suppliers of dramas, and had recently fallen out with +them, must have made up the quarrel just before Balzac's comedy +was read. Whatever the reason was, the rejection of the piece +grievously affected the novelist, who, besides losing a great +deal of valuable time, had spent money to no purpose in having +his comedy printed.</p> + +<p>It must be acknowledged that, in dramatic composition, +whatever Balzac had so far done by himself was done grudgingly, +and, when possible, shifted on to other shoulders. Gozlan relates +that Lassailly, who went to Les Jardies and lived there for some +little time as a paid secretary, would be rung up at night, when +his employer usually worked--rung up not once nor twice, but +several times, to hear himself asked whether, in his waking or +his dreaming, he had hatched any good plan; and poor Lassailly +would have sorrowfully to avow that his brain had conceived +nothing of any importance in the way of drama.</p> + +<p>How Harel, the managing director of the Porte-Saint-Martin, +was brought to give in the same twelve-month to the rejected of +the Renaissance a firm promise that anything he liked to do for +that theatre should be acted is an impenetrable mystery. But then +Harel himself was an oddity, and he may have felt bowels of +compassion for a <i>confrere</i> so original. The story goes that +once he tried to borrow thirty thousand francs from King +Louis-Philippe. "Ah! Monsieur Harel," replied the monarch, +smiling, "I was thinking of applying to you for a similar +sum."</p> + +<p>The subject that, after much cogitation, Balzac chose for +Harel's stage was <i>Vautrin</i>--the Vautrin of <i>Pere +Goriot</i> and the <i>Lost Illusions</i>--back at his old trade +of acting Providence to a presumably fatherless and friendless +young man, whose fortunes he sought to advance by means similar +to those that had brought Lucien de Rubempre (we are anticipating +a little) to so miserable an end. In the concluding act of the +play, the young man discovers that he has a family, and a father +who is a noble; and he marries the girl he loves. But Vautrin is +arrested, and, although he has been the instrument of his +protege's happiness, he is led off to prison once more. The +theme, as treated, was a somewhat hackneyed one, and was further +spoiled by ill-managed contrasts of the serious and comic, of +which in any form the French stage was not tolerant. Objection +has been made on the same score to the <i>School for Husbands and +Wives</i> at the Theatre Francais, where it had been offered +after its rejection by the Renaissance.</p> + +<p>Balzac himself had no great opinion of his dramatic +arrangement of <i>Vautrin</i>. He had done wrong, he said, to put +a romantic character on the stage. After the play was finished, +he re-wrote nearly the whole of it; and, from what Theophile +Gautier relates about the way in which it was primitively +composed, we can well believe that the revision was necessary. +When the treaty with Harel was signed, Balzac installed himself +in the small apartment which he rented at his tailor's, No. 104 +Rue de Richelieu, and sent for Gautier. "I am going to read to +Harel to-morrow," he announced, "a grand five-act drama." "Ah!" +replied Gautier; "so I suppose you want us to hear it and to give +you our opinion." "The play is not yet written," answered Balzac +coolly. "You shall do one act; Ourliac, a second; Laurent Jan, a +third; de Belloy, a fourth; and I, the fifth. There are not so +many lines in one act. With all of us working together, we shall +be able to complete it by to-morrow." Objections were timidly put +forward as to the hotch- potch that was likely to result from so +improvized a method of work; but the hasty playwright overruled +them all. It need hardly be said that the five acts were not +ready on the morrow, nor for some time after. In fact, Laurent +Jan was the only collaborator who gave any considerable help. To +him, in acknowledgment, Balzac dedicated the piece, which was +performed on the 14th of March 1840.</p> + +<p>Knowing what a number of enemies he had among the Parisian +journalists and critics, whom he had satirized with increased +causticity in his latest fiction, the author endeavoured to pack +the theatre with his friends, but there was a large leakage in +the sale of tickets; and, on the eventful evening, the seats were +occupied by a majority of persons hostile to him. He must have +had an inkling of this; for, when sending a ticket to Lamartine, +he said to him: "You will see a memorable failure. I have done +wrong, I believe, to appeal to the public. <i>Morituri te +salutant Caesar</i>." The first portion of the performance was +received, on the whole, favourably, though there was no +enthusiasm; but, when Frederick Lemaitre, who was entrusted with +the role of Vautrin, came on to the stage, in the fourth act, +dressed as a Mexican general, and wearing his forelock of hair in +a way that appeared to imitate a like peculiarity in the King, +there was an outcry among the audience; and Louis-Philippe's son, +who was present, was informed by complaisant courtiers that the +travesty was intended as an insult to his father. The next day, +Harel was advertized that the authorities forbade any other +presentation of the piece; and, on the 16th, the Press, following +the Government's lead, were practically unanimous in +anathematizing the unhappy dramatist, the <i>Debats</i> being +particularly acrimonious, and asserting that <i>Vautrin</i> was a +thoroughly immoral play.</p> + +<p>Balzac's friends, Victor Hugo included, did what they could to +get the interdiction raised; but the Minister was inflexible. All +that he would consent to was an indemnity of five thousand francs +offered through Cave, the Under-Secretary for Fine Arts. This, +Balzac indignantly refused. One might have expected such +continued ill-luck to prostrate its victim, at least momentarily. +Gozlan went out to Les Jardies for the purpose of cheering the +hermit up. He found him calm and collected. "You see that strip +of land bordering the garden over there?" the latter said, +looking out of the window. "Yes." "I am about to establish there +a dairy, with an installation of the best kind, the cows of which +will bring me in three thousand francs a year." Gozlan stared. +"And you see the other strip down yonder farther than the wall?" +"Yes." "Well, I intend to plant that with rare vegetables of the +sort that used to be supplied to the King's table. That will +bring me in another three thousand francs a year." Gozlan waited +for what would come next. "And you see the plot right facing the +southern sun?" "Yes." "Ah! there I shall plant a vineyard, which +will furnish exquisite grapes that I can sell for wine-making in +quantities sufficient to bring me in twelve thousand francs a +year. This means a revenue of eighteen thousand francs annually. +And then, the walnut- tree you see there--I can utilize it to the +tune of two thousand francs a year." "How?" "Ah! that is my +secret. So we get a total of twenty thousand francs a year, which +I shall gain by the refusal of my <i>Vautrin</i>."</p> + +<p>This was brave talk on the part of the obstacle-breaker, as he +loved to call himself. 'Twas also the bravest temper he could +assume in face of the outside world. To Madame Hanska he revealed +more the cankering disappointment, just as he had a twelvemonth +previously, after the mishap of the <i>School for Husbands and +Wives</i>. He had fresh thoughts of leaving France, which being, +for the nonce, a bear-garden, he said, he detested, and of going +away to America, perhaps to Brazil, where he should soon grow +rich. He even told her she might next hear from him at Havre or +Marseilles, just as he was on the point of embarking for the +other side of the Atlantic. He had been reading Fenimore Cooper +again; and the descriptions given by this painter of Nature +always aroused his roaming instincts. He envied especially +Cooper's power and skill in reproducing the details of a +landscape. Once, in a pastry- cook's shop that he had entered +with Gozlan to devour a plate of macaroni, he brandished a book +of Cooper's, which he had been carrying under his arm, while he +recounted his fruitless efforts to get experts in botany to tell +him how to describe the differences between certain grasses that +he wanted to distinguish appropriately in his fiction. An English +girl who had served him in the shop listened open-mouthed to the +great man, whose name had been uttered by Gozlan; and, when the +moment came for settling, marked her appreciation of what she had +heard and seen by charging him nothing for the macaroni. Balzac, +not to be outdone in generosity, made her a gift of his copy of +Cooper, expressing his regret that he had not one of his own +novels with him that he might have offered her instead.</p> + +<p>No account of this macaroni feast figures in his almost daily +letters at this time despatched to Madame Hanska. To her, if he +mentioned his diet, its meagreness was emphasized rather. Being +in one of his chronic hard-up crises, he excused himself for the +intervals that had occurred between some of his previous epistles +on the ground of having no ready money for the postage--the rates +for Russia, it is true, were high; and he spoke of buying a bit +of dry bread on the boulevards, or of intending to beg from +Rothschild; then flourished his big debt at the end, quoting +fantastic sums, variable as the barometer, which would oblige him +sooner or later, notwithstanding his constant devotion to the +Countess, whom he loved more than he loved God, to barter himself +away to some agreeable young woman who should be willing to +bestow her person upon him, plus a couple of hundred thousand +francs. Once or twice there was really a question of his making a +match through the good offices of his mother, of whom he none the +less said fretfully that she did not think much about him. But, +on each occasion, the negotiations fell through--why we do not +learn. Such information, maybe, he reserved for the various dames +in Paris whose houses he still frequented. Madame de Girardin had +managed to get him back; and some sort of relations had been +re-established between him and her husband, mostly business, +since Monsieur de Girardin continued to be editor of the +<i>Presse</i>.</p> + +<p>One day, Gozlan met him in the Champs Elysees, just as he had +left Delphine's <i>salon</i>. He looked chilly and anxious. The +chill he attributed to the unheated drawing-room that he had +quitted; but it was due mostly to his condition of mind, then +much exercised by something of prime importance to him, the +finding of a name for a story which he had written but could not +christen, in spite of protracted meditation. It was a man's name +he wanted--a name unusual, striking, suggestive of the +extraordinary nature of the person he had created. "Why not try +the names you see in the street?" said Gozlan incautiously. "The +very thing," answered Balzac, whose face grew radiant. "Come +along with me. We will seek together." Realizing too late into +what an adventure he had allowed himself to be entangled, Gozlan +tried in vain to escape. Protests were of no use. Balzac dragged +him off; and, with noses in the air and absorbed gaze, the two +men promenaded along the Rue Saint-Honore and a number of other +streets, knocking up against the people they met and provoking a +good deal of profane language from these latter, who regarded +them as a couple of imbeciles. At length, Gozlan, like Columbus' +sailors, having more than enough of the tramp, refused to play +follow-my-leader any longer; and only after a long palaver was he +dragged up one last narrow street dubbed variously the Rue du +Bouloi, du Coq Heron, and de la Jussienne throughout its course. +Here, suddenly, Balzac stopped dead, and pointed to the word +<i>Marcas</i>, inscribed over a door. "That's what I've been +looking for," he cried. "It exactly suits my man. The person that +owns the name ought to be some one out of the common,--an artist, +a worker in gold, or something of the kind." Inquiry proved that +the real Marcas was a modest tailor. However, his name was +selected, and the initial Z was tacked on to it for the book, Z +being by the novelist's interpretation a letter of mystic +import.</p> + +<p>Another rather longer tale than this, belonging to the year +1840, was <i>Pierrette</i>, which the author dedicated to Madame +Hanska's daughter Anna, characterizing it as a pearl "sweated +through suffering," and telling her that there was nothing in it +improper--he used the English word. The story is a painful one, +and is scarcely suitable for a young girl's perusal, the heroine, +a simple Breton maid, being the victim of an avaricious Provins +family, the Rogrons, who under cover of the law, inflict on her +such terrible ill-treatment that she ultimately dies from it. +<i>Pierrette</i> first appeared as a serial in the <i>Siecle</i>. +In the final edition of the novelist's works it is classed under +the <i>Celibates</i>; and, apropos of this heading, may be +mentioned the fact that Balzac reproved celibacy as a state +injurious to society, and held the opinion, dear to the hearts of +certain Parliamentarians of to-day, that the unmarried should be +taxed for the benefit of those having large families.</p> + +<p>Of course, the agricultural projects entertained for a moment +after the interdiction of <i>Vautrin</i> soon faded from Balzac's +mind, which was still harping on the necessity of his conquering +the suffrages of the public in his character of dramatist. He now +set himself to write a play called <i>Mercadet</i> or the +<i>Faiseur</i>,[*] the latter word implying by its meaning the +tragi-comedy of a penniless financier--the novelist's own +experience was there to guide him--who invents a thousand and one +stratagems for keeping his creditors at bay, and for creating the +illusion of a wealth which he had not; who deceives himself as +well as others; who is neither entirely a rogue nor entirely +honest; but who, after all, reaches relative tranquillity and +competency more through accident than purpose. The piece was not +performed in its author's life-time; but friends were acquainted +with it already in 1840, when Gautier and the rest of the inner +circle were summoned to Les Jardies to hear the hermit read it, +differing considerably then from the arrangement that was +ultimately played. Balzac read it well, with all the inflections +peculiar to each character and suitable to every change of +circumstance. He had in him, says Gautier, the stuff of a great +actor, possessing a full, sonorous, metallic voice of rich, +powerful timbre, and kept his audience under the spell from the +beginning to the end of the recitation. If Vedel and +Desmousseaux, the administrators of the Comedie Francais heard +him interpret his own pieces, they might be excused for having, +as he asserted they had, a high opinion of his dramatic +talent.</p> + +<p>[*] English, <i>Jobber</i>.</p> + +<p>The greatest honour done to Les Jardies during the hermit's +residence there was a visit of Victor Hugo, who came to talk over +the affairs of the Men of Letters Society. During lunch, the +conversation naturally turned on literature, and the host waxed +bitter against the stupidity of kings that neglected letters, and +against Louis-Philippe in particular, who had recently put a stop +to the evening gatherings-- chimney-gatherings they were +called--held by the Duke of Orleans for the purpose of honouring +the arts. In the afternoon the guests were shown round the +domain, and expected to admire its beauties. Hugo was extremely +sober in his praises until they came to the famous walnut- tree. +Encouraged by the notice accorded to his favourite, the master of +Les Jardies repeated to Hugo what he had already affirmed to +Gozlan, to wit, that the tree was worth fifteen hundred francs to +him (to Gozlan he had said two thousand). "In walnuts, I +suppose?" retorted the chief guest quizzingly. "No," replied +Balzac, chuckling, "not in walnuts." And he proceeded to explain +that, by an old custom, the inhabitants of the neighbourhood had +been accustomed to make the shadow of the walnut-tree a "temple +of all the gods," and that he had only to exploit the offerings, +in the same way as a guano island is exploited to-day, for the +fifteen hundred francs to be added to his revenues.</p> + +<p>A few months later, in December, Les Jardies, with its +walnut-tree and other advantages, was abandoned in hasty flight; +and the hermit took refuge in the Passy quarter of Paris. On the +house and property a distraint had been levied for moneys due +which had not been paid. In total, his desire to abide under his +own vine and under his own fig- tree had cost him a sum that he +estimated between one hundred thousand and one hundred and twenty +thousand francs. Deduction made for his Falstaffian speech, the +amount was probably about eighty thousand. This might have been +gradually saved and the interest meantime given regularly, if he +had been willing to live well within his income. With his system +of spending not only what he earned but hoped to earn each year, +perpetual insolvency was inevitable.</p> + +<p>At Les Jardies he had small creditors as well as great, fear +of whom haunted him to the extent of curtailing his walks abroad. +Leon Gozlan relates that, going over to Ville d'Avray early one +morning, he found Balzac taking a constitutional round the +asphalt of his house. "Come and have a stroll in the woods," said +the visitor. "I am afraid," answered Balzac. "Of what or whom?" +"Of the keeper." Not understanding why the novelist, who would +not explain, should be in dread of this humble functionary, and +imagining that much study and labour had made his friend a little +mad, Gozlan took no denial, and, button-holing Balzac, lugged him +off into the leafy avenues. And there, sure enough, after a +while, they saw the bugbear, who, as soon as he perceived the two +pedestrians, bore down on them with plodding but vigorous step. +The shorter of the two turned pale, but tried to put on an air of +dignified indifference. Soon the official ran in under their lee, +passed alongside with slackened pace, and clarioned into the +novelist's ear: "Monsieur de Balzac, this is beginning to get +musical." The owner of Les Jardies quailed in his shoes. He owed +the man thirty francs.</p> + +<p>CHAPTER X</p> + +<p>LETTERS TO "THE STRANGER," 1841, 1842</p> + +<p>The abode that Balzac chose, on coming back to live within the +city walls, was not far from the Rue de Chaillot which had been +his address before he removed to Sevres. It was situated in what +is now called the Rue Raynouard, but then bore the name of the +Rue Basse. In reality, the street is low only at one end, to +which it descends from some high land that forms the Passy and +Trocadero quarter, and, for some distance, overhangs the Seine. +The whole of the street is narrow and winding, and still has an +old-time provincial aspect, though the modern building has begun +to make its appearance in it, replacing the ancient mansions +surrounded by gardens with ever-encroaching blocks of flats.</p> + +<p>Balzac's new house was at Number 19 (at present Number 47). It +stood-- and the house still stands--in a back garden, on a lower +level than the road, from which it was masked by houses fronting +the causeway. Any one approaching it from the side of the Rue +Basse would enter the common vestibule of one of these houses, go +down some stone steps, and would then find himself in a +courtyard, opposite a fairly good-sized, apparently one-storied +cottage, with the tree adorned garden to the right of him. Once +inside the cottage, however, he would notice that it was built on +the extreme upper edge of a precipitous slope, and that on the +farther side the structure had lower stories, with an issue +through them into a lane at the rear leading to the Seine banks +and the lower portion of the Rue Basse. Whoever, therefore, +inhabited the cottage could quit it fore or aft, an advantage +which must have weighed with the incoming tenant, tracked as he +was by creditors, and hiding himself here under the name of +Madame de Brugnol.</p> + +<p>The insistence of these claimants on his purse was such that, +acting on the advice of his solicitor, Gavault, in the course of +the year 1841, he executed a fictitious sale of Les Jardies for +the sum of seventeen thousand five hundred francs, his hope being +to preserve his hermitage for the days of wealth and ease to +come. Meanwhile, he took his mother to live with him. After +giving him and her other son, Henry, all she possessed, and the +latter being now in the colonies, where he ultimately died in +poverty, she was dependent on what Honore could pay her each +month. The living-together arrangement was not very successful. +Madame Balzac's nervous, fretful temperament had not been +improved by age and trouble; and her elder son found it hard to +bear with her complainings, excusable and even justifiable though +they might be. It is not pleasant to read the passages in his +letters to Madame Hanska, in which he reiterates the old charge +of his misfortunes being all due to his mother. In some of them +he goes so far as to say that she was a monster and a +monstrosity, that she was hastening the death of his sister +Laure--Laure outlived them both-- after hastening those of his +sister Laurence and his grandmother, that she hated him before he +was born, that she had a dreadful countenance, that the doctor +affirmed her to be not mad but malicious, that his father had +stated in 1822 he--Honore--would never have a worse enemy than +his mother. Had his mother been all this and more, it would have +been ungenerous and unfilial to blacken her reputation to a +stranger. And, being false, it was odious. Madame Balzac's +partiality towards the second son--heavily enough punished--did +not prevent her from loving the elder, though their characters +(hers and his) were not made to comprehend each other; and her +lack of enthusiasm in the days of his literary apprenticeship was +natural enough in a parent who understood only too well the +impractical, improvident mind he possessed, and feared its +consequences. The fact was that Balzac ill supported +remonstrances from his own family, and especially from his +mother, and, when irritated by them, forgot every benefit he had +received from her.</p> + +<p>This peculiarity of temperament rendered his feelings toward +many of his friends exceedingly variable. One day he was lauding +them to the skies, another depreciating them to a cipher. Even +his sister, Laure, in spite of her loyalty to him, did not escape +attacks from his fickle humour. Like her mother, she never +thoroughly penetrated the nature of this wayward, excitable, +compass-boxing brother of hers, whose gaze was so much in the +clouds and whose feet so often in the mire. But she defended him +to others; and, as far as her purse and her husband's could +possibly afford, she gave him money when he was hard up--and when +he was not!--money which he was never in a hurry to pay back. Yet +her, too, he maligned to "The Stranger," because she now and +again ventured on expostulations.</p> + +<p>Madame Balzac made two stays in the Passy cottage, neither of +them very long. After leaving the first time, she asked her son +to pay her a somewhat larger sum per month, which would allow her +to live decently elsewhere. Considering that he had borrowed from +her a couple of thousand pounds--over fifty thousand francs--and +that the sum he had paid her irregularly was not five per cent +interest on the money, this request was not unreasonable. Yet he +refused to accede to it on the ground of being in financial +straits; and offered her a home with him once more, but in +language that spoke of strained relations between them, as well +as of a personal discouragement that was real.</p> + +<p>"The life I lead," he wrote, "suits no one; it wearies +relatives and friends alike. All leave my melancholy home. . . . +It is impossible for me to work amidst the petty tiffs aroused by +surroundings of discord; and my activity has waned during the +past year. . . . You were in a tolerable situation. I had a +trustworthy person who spared you all household worries. You were +not obliged to trouble about domestic matters; you were in peace +and silence. You insisted on interfering with me when you should +have forgotten I existed, and should have let me have my entire +liberty, without which I can do nothing. This is not your fault; +it is in the nature of women. To-day, everything is changed. If +you like to come back, you will have a little of the weight that +will fall on me and that hitherto affected you only because you +wished it."</p> + +<p>The conclusion of the letter, in which he assured her of his +love, could not counterbalance the harshness of its contents. +Madame Balzac, be it granted, was cantankerous; but how many sons +who have never sponged on their mothers have supported them +cheerfully, gladly, for long years out of meagre resources, and +have borne with a smile the natural peevishness of old age, not +to say its egoisms!</p> + +<p>At this period, Balzac's acquaintance with the grand dames of +Paris was considerably diminished. Madame de Castries he seems to +have broken with altogether. Madame Visconti, who lived a good +deal at Versailles, he saw but seldom. In lieu of these, he +regularly visited George Sand, who was at present settled in a +small flat of the Rue Pigalle in Paris, and was there enjoying +the society of Chopin. With a connoisseur's envy, the novelist +describes to Eve the interior, the elegantly furnished +dining-room in carved oak, the <i>café-au-lait</i> +upholstered drawing-room, with its superb Chinese vases of +fragrant flowers, its cabinet of curiosities, its Delacroix +pictures, its rosewood piano, and the portrait of the authoress +by Calamatta. What struck him as much as anything was the bedroom +in brown, with the bed on the floor in Turkish fashion. He was +careful to assure his correspondent that, Chopin being the +<i>maitre de ceans</i>, she had no need to be jealous. But +jealous she was, though not of George Sand. As Paris was a resort +for rich Russians, Madame Hanska's cousins among the number, she +had frequent reports of Balzac's doings, distorted by society +gossip, the true and the untrue being fantastically mixed; and it +was no small task to disabuse her mind and persuade her that his +conduct was blameless. Indeed, at bottom she remained +sceptical.</p> + +<p>In 1841, three books were published which merit attention on +the part of a student of his works. The first, <i>A Shady +Affair</i>, has the right to be styled an historical novel. +Dealing with the Napoleonic epoch, its interest gathers chiefly +round the person of the brave peasant Michu, whose devotion to +the Legitimist house of Cinq-Cygne brings him, an innocent +victim, to the scaffold. The character of Laurence de Cinq-Cygne, +a girl of the Flora MacDonald type, and the characters also of +the two cousins de Simeuse, who both loved her and conspired with +her, and whose pardon she gained only to lose these faithful +knights dying on a field of battle, are drawn with great power +and naturalness. And the plot, in which, together with other +police spies, the same Corentin reappears that was the evil +genius of the <i>Chouans</i>, is more rapid and less cumbered +than in the earlier work. When the <i>Shady Affair</i> came out +in the <i>Commerce</i> journal, Balzac was accused of having +identified a certain Monsieur Clement de Ris with his Malin de +Gondreville, who plays an evil role in the story--that of an +unscrupulous, political turncoat, Revolutionary to begin with, +Senator under the Empire, and Peer under the Restoration. The +novelist defended himself against the imputation; but the +resemblances between the fictitious and the real personage were, +all the same, too close to be quite accidental.</p> + +<p>Something, however, more important than the question of +likeness or portraiture in the book, is that it gives us Balzac's +conception of what the historical novel should be. His +contemporary Dumas, and his predecessor Walter Scott--the latter +in a less degree than Dumas--did not weave a romance on to a warp +of history, but romanced the history itself. What he tried to do +was to keep the historical action exact and accurate, and to +throw its romantic elements into relief without dislocating them. +His opinion was that history might so be written as to be a sort +of novel, which, perhaps, will account for his answer to +Lamartine, who, in 1847, asked him if he could explain how it was +that the <i>History of the Girondins</i> had obtained a greater +success than the most popular novels of the same date. "Gad!" he +replied, "the reason is that you wrote this fine book as a +novelist, not as an historian." The <i>Shady Affair</i> recreates +for us the Napoleonic atmosphere, silent and heavy, yet +electrically charged with grudge, hatred, and ambition, all ready +to burst out at one or another point. Underhand plotting was the +order of the day; there was a language of the eye rather than of +the tongue, since no one was sure that in his own family there +might not be eavesdroppers listening to betray him.</p> + +<p><i>Ursule Mirouet</i> is a very different kind of story. We +have here the old Doctor Minoret, who after making a fortune in +Paris, returns to spend the last few years of his life in +Nemours, his native town. Having lost wife and child by death, he +brings back with him a baby niece, who is an orphan, and to whom +he devotes himself with tender care. In Nemours there are other +less estimable branches of the Minoret stock, cousins of the +Doctor's, whose hopes of inheriting his fortune are damped by the +presence of little Ursule. Chief of these relatives is the burly +postmaster, Minoret Levrault, whose son Desire is destined to the +law and is sent by his parents to study in Paris. Although a +disciple of Voltaire, and scouting all religious practice for +himself, the Doctor is friendly with the Cure, and allows his +niece to be brought up to Church. At the time the story opens an +unexpected event astonishes the town. The Doctor has become +converted, and goes to Mass. The cause of the change is a +wonderful experience of clairvoyance he meets with in the +capital, whither he has been summoned by a colleague with whom he +had quarrelled years before over the new-fangled doctrines of +Mesmerism. What necessary connection there is between +clairvoyance and Catholicism, or indeed any particular form of +religion, the novelist does not attempt to prove. It suffices for +the sceptical old Doctor to be told by a hypnotized woman in +Paris what Ursule is doing at Nemours, and the conversion is +wrought. Soon after, Doctor Minoret dies, bequeathing his fortune +in just and appropriated shares to his various relatives, Ursule +included. She is at the time a fine young woman, beloved by a +young gentleman of the place. The rest of the novel tells how the +big postmaster contrives to destroy the part of the will +favourable to Ursule and to steal certain moneys that belong to +her; how Minoret's ghost appears in dreams and signs to confound +the guilty man and his guilty wife, who are at last induced to +confess their ill deeds, the repentance being hastened by the +death of their son Desire; and, in fine, how Ursule marries +Monsieur de Portenduere and is happy.</p> + +<p>In its general construction, the book holds well together, and +the characters in the main are depicted without exaggeration, +while the traits of individuality are ingeniously marked. The +Doctor and Ursule are less firmly and informingly delineated. As +usual, when Balzac shows us the figure of a virtuous girl in an +ordinary domestic circle, he represents her with passive rather +than active qualities. She has no strong likes or dislikes, no +particular mental bias, and possesses but small attractiveness. +In fact, the novelist seems at a loss to imagine. In the case of +Ursule, we see that she cultivates flowers, but we do not feel +that she is fond of them. As for the Doctor, he would have or +might have been less a puppet, had the author himself judged with +wiser reserve the mysterious forces that exist in the world of +sub-consciousness.</p> + +<p>His belief in these forces being alloyed with much +superstition, he was always consulting fortune-tellers, even +those that divined by cards. One of them, a certain Balthazar, +who was subsequently convicted and imprisoned for dishonesty, +told him that his past life had been one series of struggles and +victories, a reading too agreeable to be doubted; and that he +would soon have tranquillity, a prophecy which unhappily was not +fulfilled. Concerning the prospects of a union with Madame +Hanska, the cartomancer was mute, though he described the lady in +language sufficiently clever for his client to acknowledge the +likeness. His clairvoyance was exceedingly limited; otherwise he +would have warned his client of the approaching death of Count +Hanski, this event taking place towards the close of the +year.</p> + +<p>Occupied with her own affairs, which were complicated by her +husband's illness, and perhaps also resenting the falling off in +the number of her distant worshipper's epistles, caused by an +indisposition in the spring and a visit to Brittany to +recuperate, she wrote only once or twice during 1841; and, as +chance would have it, these letters were lost, so that, for +nearly twelve months, he had no news from her. Pathetically he +announced that his sister was planning to marry him to a +Mademoiselle Bonnard, god-daughter to King Louis-Philippe; but +still no answer came. On the 1st of November, as he related to +his Eve afterwards, he lost one of the two shirt-studs which +Madame de Berny had given him, and which he wore alternately with +another pair presented to him by Madame Hanska. Beginning on the +morrow, he put on thenceforth only the pair that Eve had given +him; and this trifling occurrence affected him so much that all +his familiars noticed it. He looked upon the loss as a sign from +Heaven. Poor Madame de Berny! Now that the stud from her had +disappeared, he had no further tenderness for her memory. Instead +of recalling her kindness to him, he preferred to speak, in +connection with what he styled his horrible youth, of the years +which she--the <i>Dilecta</i>--had tarnished. Too opportune to be +sincere, this condemnation of his first liaison cannot but be +regarded as an incense of flattery offered to the coy goddess of +his later vows.</p> + +<p>The third of the three principal books of 1841 was the +<i>Diaries of Two Young Wives</i>, written, like the <i>Country +Doctor</i> and the <i>Village Cure</i>, in a decidedly didactic +tone. We have two girl friends, Renee de Maucombe and Louise de +Chaulieu, reared in a convent school, who marry, each with an +ideal of wedlock that differs. The former, a doctor in stays, as +her school companion calls her, seeks in marriage a calm domestic +happiness, the duties and joy of motherhood, and has a husband +worthy but commonplace, to whom she gives herself at first +without much positive attachment on her side. The latter makes of +love a passion, and marries a Spanish exile, plain-looking but +virile, whom she bends to her will. The two wives exchange their +impressions during their early years of matrimony, and we see the +happiness of the one develop while that of the other diminishes. +The Spaniard dies and Louise de Chaulieu takes a second husband, +a poor poet, whom she adores as much as her Spaniard had adored +her. Carrying him off to Ville-d'Avray, she creates there a snug +Paradise, where she fondles him as if he were a toy, until at +length her feverish jealousy brings on her own illness and +death.</p> + +<p>The novel in its earlier phases was being worked at together +with the <i>Sister Marie des Anges</i>, which was promised to +Werdet but never completed, and seems to have had some connection +with it. Possibly, in his primitive plan, the author intended to +set in contrast the spouse and the nun: and certainly, in the +original draft, there was only one bride.</p> + +<p>In 1842, at the Odeon Theatre, was performed a dramatic piece +from the novelist's pen, which by some critics has been +considered his best play. There are even critics who hold that +Balzac was a born dramatist, as he was a born novelist, basing +their opinion on his possession of qualities common to dramatist +and novelist. His force of characterization, his handling of +plot, his sense of passion were all sufficient to procure him +success on the stage, which explains why pieces adapted from his +novels by other playwrights invariably caught the public fancy. +But, in order to develop character, plot, and passion in his +fiction, he employed interminable detail and slow action; and his +effects were obtained rather by constant pressure throughout than +by sudden impact. The brevity and condensation required by the +drama were foreign to his genius; he could not help trying to put +too much into his stage pieces, and the unity of subject was +compromised.</p> + +<p>The <i>School of Great Men</i>,[*] as he preferred to call his +play at the Odeon, carries the spectator back to the Spain of +Philippe II. Fontanares, a clever man of science but poor, and +without influence, has discovered the means of navigating by +steam. His valet Quinola, a genius in his way, resolves to aid +his master, who, being in love, has all the greater claim on his +pity; and he contrives to present the King with a petition in +favour of Fontanares, and to obtain a ship for an experiment to +be made. But now professional jealousies combine with love +rivalries to thwart the inventor; and when, at last, the ship is +made to move by its own machinery, the honour of the success is +attributed to another. To avenge his wrongs, and the loss of his +betrothed, who is given to his rival and dies, he blows up the +steamer in presence of an assembled multitude, and quits his +native land with a courtezan who has conceived a liking for him +and will provide him with money to recommence his enterprise +elsewhere.</p> + +<p>[*] More usually called: <i>The Resources of Quinola</i>.</p> + +<p>Before the first performance, Balzac was just as sanguine +about the result as he had been with <i>Vautrin</i>. It followed +several pieces, Felix Pyat's <i>Cedric the Norwegian</i>, Dumas' +<i>Lorenzino</i>, and Scribe's <i>Chaine</i>, which had been +coldly received. What if his <i>Quinola</i> should be the great +attraction of the season! And his mind was filled visions of +overflowing houses and showers of gold. Alas! if the +representations went beyond the single one of <i>Vautrin</i>, +they did not exceed twenty; and his share of profits was +insignificant. The play is not dull to read, with its flavour of +Moliere's comedies, and the keenness of Balzac's observation. But +its colour and poesy do not compensate for the diffuseness of the +plot and the undramatic conclusion.</p> + +<p>Instead of acknowledging the defects of his composition, the +unlucky dramatist was wroth with his public. For a while he +caressed the thought of going to St. Petersburg, taking out +letters of naturalization, and opening a theatre in the Russian +capital with a view to establishing the pre-eminence of French +literature--embodied in his own writings. It must be owned that +he was beginning to imagine himself persecuted. Victor Hugo, he +said, had changed towards him and was creating a conspiracy of +silence round about him, so that no one should speak any more of +his works. And he liked better being attacked than ignored. +Later, he asserted that Hugo, after accepting the dedication of +the <i>Lost Illusions</i> to himself, had induced Edouard Thierry +to write an abusive article against him. "He is a great writer," +said the novelist in telling this, "but he is a mean +trickster."</p> + +<p>By the death of Count Hanski, the one insuperable obstacle to +his union with Eve had been removed; and now, in his letters to +her, there was a sudden outburst of love protestations. He wanted +the widow to marry him at once, or, at the outside limit, as soon +as propriety would permit. Madame Hanska replied that there was +her daughter Anna, only just in hr teens, who would require her +mother's entire attention and care for some years to come; and +there were, besides, matters concerning the inheritance, which +would hardly be settled within any shorter period. Balzac was +dismayed. He could not understand the delay, the prudence, the +hesitation. Not to speak of his affection, his pride was +offended. He overwhelmed his Eve with reproaches. Women, he +informed her, loved fools, as a rule, because fools were ever +ready to sit at their feet. Recurring in subsequent letters to a +quieter manner, he strove to shake her resolution by hints at his +exhausted strength, his difficulty of composition,--this was +nothing new--his lessened alertness of thought and his weaker +invention. Cleverly he juxtaposed with these a description of his +study, in the little Passy house, hung with red velvet, on which +black silk cords stood out in agreeable contrast; on one wall was +Eve's portrait, and opposite it was a painting of the +Wierzchownia mansion. Here he toiled unceasingly, creating, +always creating. God only created during six days, he added, +while he--the inference was left to be drawn. Feeling how +requisite it was he should put himself right, in every respect, +with the lady of his choice, he made a fresh confession of his +religious faith. His Catholicism, he told her, was outwardly of +the Bossuet and Bonald type, but was esoterically mystical, +Saint-Johnian, which form alone preserved the real Christian +tradition. Somewhat encouraged by vague inquiries from Madame +Hanska as to the income required by a household for living in +Paris, he entered into particulars with gusto; and, stating that +he had eighty thousand francs worth of furniture, he discussed +the best manner of arranging an existence with eight hundred +thousand francs capital. With three hundred thousand francs, a +country residence and small estate might be bought and the means +of inhabiting there provided. Another hundred thousand would buy +a house in Paris to spend each winter; and the residue of four +hundred thousand, if invested in French Rentes, would purchase an +additional income of fifteen thousand francs for town expenses. +These latter he subdivided into three thousand francs for +carriage hire; five thousand for cooking; two thousand five +hundred for dress and amusement; and two thousand five hundred +for general charges; the remaining two thousand would go in +sundries. Madame de Berny, he said, spent only eight hundred +francs on her wardrobe, and kept her household with nine hundred +francs. Once launched into detail, he went far. The Countess +learnt that he had still the same carpets, covering seven rooms, +that he had bought for fifteen hundred francs in the Rue Cassini. +They had worn well and were economical. The red velvet in his +study had cost him two francs fifty a yard; but then he would +take it away to another house, instead of giving it to the +landlord. Living was slightly dearer in Passy, he concluded. A +mutton chop cost seven sous there, instead of the five charged in +the city. These last details were thrown in by a habit he had +grown into of defending himself against the strictures passed by +Madame Hanska on his expenditure.</p> + +<p>They were frequent--such strictures--because Balzac was always +repeating to her that he was penniless; and she, comparing this +talk with other statements about his gaining large sums yearly, +argued that the penury must be his own fault. True, there was the +debt. But the debt grew instead of diminishing. So, apparently, +he was not starving himself to pay it back. The fact was that +Balzac did not tell the truth either about his assets or his +liabilities. He neither earned as much as he affirmed, nor owed +as much. According to some of his early biographers, his average +income was not more than twelve thousand francs a year. But these +figures cannot include lump sums he received at irregular +intervals, nor yet all the royalties due to him on continued +sales of his books. Taking one year with another, he probably +made, throughout the greater portion of his literary career, +between twenty and twenty-five thousand francs annually. What +must have increased his embarrassments, in the later Thirties and +early Forties, was his hobby for buying pictures and articles of +vertu; this, with his knack of dropping money in speculations and +imprudent ventures, rendered it impossible for him to live within +his means.</p> + +<p>It is curious to notice how his impecuniosity reduced him to +regard every goal of his ambition as having merely a cash value. +Speaking of his election to the Academie Francaise, which he +reckoned to be near, he explained to Eve that it would mean six +thousand francs a year to him, since he would be a member of the +Dictionary committee; and then there was the Perpetual +Secretaryship, which, falling to him naturally, would raise his +emoluments to more than double that amount. Emboldened by these +calculations--a trifle previous--he confided to Eve his desire to +start on a trip to Naples, Rome, Constantinople, and Alexandria, +unless she should veto the proposal. In that case, his desire +would be hers. Four thousand francs was what the journey would +cost. Would she authorize him to spend so much? At present she +was the arbitress of his actions. As the trip was abandoned, we +are obliged to suppose that Eve was not favourable to it.</p> + +<p>Mention has already been made of the novelist's initiative in +the beginnings of the Men of Letters Society, and of his scheme +for a petition to the King. In its details, what he wished to see +adopted was on the same lines as those followed now by the Nobel +Prize distribution--at any rate as regards literature. His idea +was to secure a small independence for prize-takers in tragedy, +comedy, opera, fiction, Christian philosophy, linguistic or +archaeological research, and epic poetry, by awarding them a +capital of a hundred thousand francs, and even two hundred +thousand to poets, and to open thus an easier way to position and +fame. Finding that his programme was not acceptable to the more +influential members of the Society, he resigned his seat on the +committee, and ceased his active connection with the Society +itself, continuing, however, to interest himself in is +prosperity.</p> + +<p>Later, his bust by David was placed in the Society's Committee +Room, where it may be seen at present presiding silently over the +meetings. Both the bust and the famous daguerreotype of him +belong to the commencement of the Forties. The sculptor Etex had +asked him to sit for a bust; but David had the preference, being +a friend. His profile of the novelist, sketched in view of a +medallion, an engraving of which appeared in 1843 in the <i>Loire +Illustree</i> for August, was deemed by Madame Surville to be the +only real likeness of her brother. Not until 1889 did the Men of +Letters Society decide to honour Balzac by a statue to be erected +amidst the life of the capital which he had so well described. +And even then they allowed certain elements of prejudice and +passion to dominate their counsels, with the result that a +magnificent full-length figure of the novelist executed by the +first sculptor in France was rejected; the committee's plighted +word was violated; and in lieu was accepted and placed in one of +the streets of Paris a sorry likeness hastily modelled by a man +who, though a good sculptor, had one foot in the grave, and who +had not, besides, the conception of what was required.[*]</p> + +<p>[*] See my <i>Life of Rodin</i> (Fisher Unwin, 1906) or my +later and smaller edition of the same sculptor's life (Grant +Richards, 1907).</p> + +<p>Of the novels that appeared in 1842, <i>Albert Savarus</i>, +the first published, is worthy of attention chiefly as being a +continuation of its author's personal experiences. The hero is +the same ideal personification already seen in <i>Louis +Lamber</i>t and <i>Z. Marcas</i>. A barrister, he suddenly +settles in a provincial town, bringing with him a past history +that no one can penetrate and every one would like to know. When +interviewed in his private consulting-room, he presents himself +in a black merino dressing-gown girt about with a red cord, in +red slippers, a red flannel waistcoat, a red skull-cap. The +likeness is once again Balzac's own--adorned by fancy: a superb +head, black hair sparsely sprinkled with white, hair like that of +Saint Peter and Saint Paul as shown in our pictures, with thick +glossy curls, hair of bristly stiffness; a white round neck, as +that of a woman; a splendid forehead with the puissant furrow in +the middle that great plans and thoughts and deep meditations +engrave on the brow of genius; an olive complexion streaked with +red; a square nose; eyes of fire; gaunt cheeks with two long +wrinkles, full of suffering; a mouth with sardonic smile, and a +small, thin, abnormally short chin; crow's feet at the temples; +sunken eyes (he repeats himself a little) rolling beneath their +beetling arches and resembling two burning globes; but, despite +all these signs of violent passions, a calm, profoundly resigned +mien; a voice of thrilling softness, . . . the true voice of the +orator, now pure and cunning, now insinuating, but thunderous +when required, lending itself to sarcasm and then waxing +incisive. Monsieur Albert Savarus (<i>alias</i> Balzac) is of +medium height, neither fat nor slim; to conclude, he has +prelate's hands.</p> + +<p>The mystery of Savarus' earlier life, revealed as the story +goes on, is his meeting in Switzerland with Francesca, the wife +of a rich Italian, whom he eventually wins to love him and to +promise marriage when she is free and he has acquired wealth and +fame. All the details of the prologue are those of Balzac's first +relations with Madame Hanska. The development of the novel, in +which Philomene de Watteville falls in love with Savarus, +surprises his secret attachment to Francesca, intercepts his +letters to her, and ruins his hopes, is less cleverly told. +Savarus' retirement to a Carthusian monastery and fate's +punishment of Philomene, who is mutilated and disfigured in a +railway accident, form the denouement, which is strained to the +improbable. The background of the story, with its glimpses of the +manners and foibles of provincial society, is the most valuable +portion of the book.</p> + +<p>Between this relapse into lyricism and a much stronger work +came the amusing <i>Beginning in Life</i>, suggested by his +sister Laure's tale, <i>Un Voyage en Coucou</i>, and giving the +adventures of the young Oscar Husson, a sort of Verdant Green, +whose pretentious foolishness leads him into scrapes of every +kind, until, having made himself the laughing-stock of all around +him, and compromised many, he enlists and goes to the wars, +whence he returns maimed for life. A comic character in the +sketch is the bohemian artist Leon de Lora, nicknamed Mistigris, +with his puns and proverbs that were the rage in the early +Forties. A character of more serious calibre is Joseph Bridau, +the talented painter. He and his scamp of a brother, Philippe, +are the twin prominent figures in the novel above alluded to: +<i>La Rabouilleuse</i>.</p> + +<p>Originally called the <i>Two Brothers</i>, and subsequently +<i>A Bachelor's Household</i>, this slice of intensely realistic +fiction exhibits the art of the author at its highest vigour. +Philippe Bridau, the mother's favourite of the two boys, enters +the army, sees Waterloo, and, after, leads the life of an +adventurer, with its ups and downs of fortune. His widowed +mother's indulgence, his own innate selfishness, and the +hardening influence of war combine to render him a villain of the +Richard III type, absolutely heartless and conscienceless. He +robs his own family, fixes himself leech-like on that of an +uncle, marries the latter's widow for her money, when he has +killed her lover in a duel, drives his wife into vice, lets her +die on a pallet, and refuses to pay a visit to the deathbed of +his mother, whose grey hairs he had brought down with sorrow to +the grave. Like Shakespeare's ideal villain, he has the +philosophy, the humour of his egotism. "I am an old camel, +familiar with genuflections," he exclaims. "What harm have I +done?" he asks, speaking of his robbery of his relative, the old +Madame Descoings. "I have merely cleaned the old lady's +mattress." And he is equally indifferent to what destiny reserves +for him. "I am a <i>parvenu</i>, my dear fellow; I don't intend +to let my swaddling-clothes be seen. My son will be luckier than +I; he will be a <i>grand seigneur</i>. The rascal will be glad to +see me dead. I quite reckon on it; otherwise he would not be my +son."</p> + +<p>Most of the other figures are of equal truth to life, and are +presented so as to increase the effect of the complete picture: +Jean- Jacques Rouget, the stupid infatuated uncle, who espouses +the intriguing Flore Brazier; and Flore herself, whose petty +vices are crushed by those of her second husband; Maxime Gilet, +the bully of Issoudun, whose surface bravado is checked and mated +by the cooler scoundrelism of Philippe; Agathe, the foolish +mother, whose eyes are blind to the devotion of her son Joseph; +and Girondeau, the old dragoon, companion to Philippe who casts +him off as soon as prosperity smiles and he has no further need +for him. And the narrow-horizoned, curiously interlaced +existences of the county-town add the mass of their colour-value, +sombre but rich. One could have wished in the book a little more +counterbalancing brightness, and less trivial detail; but neither +the defect of the one nor the excess of the other takes from the +novel the right to be considered a masterpiece.</p> + +<p>CHAPTER XI</p> + +<p>LETTERS TO "THE STRANGER," 1843, 1844</p> + +<p>The great event of the year 1843 was Balzac's visit in the +summer to Saint Petersburg, where Madame Hanska had been staying +since the preceding autumn. He had hoped to go there in the +January, commissioned to exploit an important invention for +cheaper shipbuilding, in which his brother-in-law, Monsieur +Surville, was concerned. Like each of his previous schemes for +quickly becoming rich, this invention turned out to be a +soap-bubble, bursting as soon as trial was made of it. What was +left intact, however, was his determination to go to the banks of +the Neva; and, throughout the spring, successive letters +announced preparations for departure. The real motive of his +journey was to try to persuade his lady-love to fix the date of +their marriage. Her period of mourning was over, and no objection +could be made now on the ground of propriety. Such sentimental +arguments as Madame Hanska might still put forward, he trusted to +be able to overcome by his presence.</p> + +<p>In order that she might be the more anxious to see him, he +talked again of abandoning literature, and sailing for America. +This time the West Indies were his El Dorado. He did not say how +the shy millions were to be coaxed into his purse there, unless +he wished her to understand he intended to export spices, since +he added: "If I had been a grocer for the last ten years, I +should have become a millionaire." Forsooth, these details were +mere bluff. His inmost thought was that Eve would prevent his +going across the Atlantic now, as Madame de Berny had prevented +him--so he said--in 1829. Moreover, there was Balthazar's +prediction that he was to be happy with her for long years. The +fortune-teller's sanctum he attended more frequently than church. +Going one day to the house of a magnetizer, a Monsieur Dupotet, +living in the Rue du Bac, he gave his hand to a hypnotized woman, +who placed it on her stomach and immediately loosed it again with +a scared look: "What is that head?" she cried. "It is a world; it +frightens me." "She had not looked at my heart," commented Balzac +proudly. "She has been dazzled by the head. Yet since I was born, +my life has been dominated by my heart--a secret which I conceal +with care." All this he related quite seriously to Eve. Probably, +Madame de Girardin, who accompanied him on this pilgrimage, could +have told Madame Hanska more.</p> + +<p>Writing on his birthday, he inserted the prayer he had offered +up to his patron-saint for the accomplishment of his desires, its +burden indicating how near he believed himself to the longed-for +goal: "O great Saint Honore, thou to whom is dedicated a street +in Paris at once so beautiful and so ugly, ordain that the ship +may not blow up; ordain that I may be no more a bachelor, by +decree of the Mayor or the Counsul of France; for thou knowest +that I have been spiritually married for nigh on eleven years. +These last fifteen years, I have lived a martyr's life. God sent +me an angel in 1833. May this angel never quit me again till +death! I have lived by my writing. Let me live a little by love! +Take care of her rather than of me; for I would fain give her +all, even my portion in heaven; and especially let us soon be +happy. Ave, Eva."</p> + +<p>The love fervour of this prayer was a dominant note throughout +the twelvemonth; we notice after the visit that the familiar +<i>thou</i> prevails over the colder <i>you</i>; and the letters, +both in number and length, very largely exceed those he had +written up to the end of 1842. Funnily, he expresses admiration +of himself for this work of supererogation, informing Eve, on one +occasion, that the sixteen leaves he had recently sent her were +worth sixteen hundred francs, even two thousand, counting extra +leaves enclosed to Mademoiselle Henriette Borel, the governess, +for whom he was negotiating an entrance into a nunnery. +Love-letters estimated at five francs a page!!!</p> + +<p>Let us grant that the epistles at present contained more +gossip than ever, so that the recipient of them had her share of +amusement. She was wonderfully well kept up in Paris happenings +in society, including the stage and art galleries. She learnt +that Madame d'Agoult--Daniel Stern[*]--had become Emile de +Girardin's mistress, on losing Liszt, who had fallen into the +toils of the Princess de Belgiojoso, the latter lady achieving +her conquest after luring in succession Lord Normanby from his +wife, Mignet from Madame Aubernon, and Alfred de Musset from +George Sand. Going to see Victor Hugo's <i>Burgraves</i>, he +reported that it was nothing to speak of as history, altogether +poor as invention, but nevertheless poetic, with a poetry that +carried away the spectator. It was Titian painting on a mud wall. +He chiefly remarked the absence of feeling, which, in Victor +Hugo, was more and more noticeable. The author of the +<i>Burgraves</i> lacked the true. As he did not publish these +opinions, he was able to go on dining with the poet and to praise +the beauty of his fourteen-year-old daughter. On George Sand's +<i>Consuelo</i> he pronounced a severer judgment still, calling +it the emptiest, most improbable, most childish thing +conceivable--boredom in sixteen parts. And yet he had conceived +certain improbable plots himself.</p> + +<p>[*] Her literary pseudonym</p> + +<p>Like Charles Lamb, who left his office earlier in the +afternoon to make up for arriving late in the morning, he +counterbalanced these heavy-handed slatings of his friends by +extolling his own performance past and present. Being engaged in +revising the <i>Chouans</i> for a fresh edition, he was struck by +qualities in it that he had hitherto held too lightly. It was all +Scott and all Fenimore Cooper, he said, with a fire and wit, into +the bargain, that neither of these writers ever possessed. The +passion in it was sublime! Its landscapes and scenes of war were +depicted with a perfection and happiness that surprised him. As a +piece of self-praise there is probably nothing surpassing this in +the annals of literature. In a competition, Balzac's blasts of +vanity would beat the Archangel Michael's last trump for +loudness.</p> + +<p>Horace Vernet, he asserted, would never be a great painter. He +was a colourist; he knew how to design and compose, had technical +skill, and, now and again, found sentiment, but did not +understand how to combine these talents in his pictures. He was +clever, but had no genius. His <i>alter ego</i> was Delaroche, to +whom he gave his daughter in marriage. Of the other painters, +Boulanger, Delacroix, Ingres, Decamps, Jules Dupre were his +favourites--true artists, he deemed them. At the <i>Salon</i> he +saw hardly anything to please him besides a canvas by Meissonier +and Cogniet's <i>Tintoretto painting his Dead Daughter</i>. He +would have liked to see Boulanger's <i>Death of Messalina</i>, +but the <i>Salon</i> Committee had refused it.</p> + +<p>In music his preferences were as eclectic as in pictures. +Liszt, whom he thought ridiculous as a man, he considered superb +as a musician-- the Paganini of the piano, yet inferior to +Chopin, since he had not the genius of composition. And, in +singing, Rubini was his idol-- Rubini who triumphed in the role +of Othello, giving the suspicion <i>air</i> in a manner no one +could equal. It intoxicated him to hear this tenor with +Tamburini, Lablache, and Madame Grisi; while Nourrit's song, +<i>Ce Rameau</i> q<i>ui donne la Puissance et l'Immortalite</i> +in <i>Robert le Diable</i> made his flesh creep. It yielded a +glimpse of life with all its dreams satisfied.</p> + +<p>Originally intending to start for St. Petersburg early in +June, Balzac was not able to leave Paris until a month later. As +usual, filthy lucre had to do with his tarrying. In spite of a +loan of 11,500 francs from lawyer Gavault--his guardian, the +novelist called him--who for the privilege of the great man's +friendship had been endeavouring during the two years past to +introduce a little order into his affairs, he had not available +cash enough for a trip so far, and stayed on, hoping to finish +his <i>David</i> <i>Sechard</i>,* which was running as a serial +in the <i>Etat</i>, and his <i>Esther</i>,[*] appearing similarly +in the <i>Parisien</i>. June he spent at Lagny, where his +manuscripts were being printed, in order to correct the proofs +and get his money. But the <i>Etat</i> ceased issue while he was +there; and the <i>Parisien</i>, being in parlous condition, +refused likewise to pay up, so that he had to go off with a +thinner-lined pocket than he had expected. Otherwise, he was in a +fitting state of grace to meet his fair tyrant, whose envelope +lectures had brought him into fear of her and at least outward +obedience.</p> + +<p>[*] Part of the <i>Lost Illusions</i>.</p> + +<p>The torrents of coffee by the aid of which he had forced his +last pen- work through, had been reduced to minimum doses; the +occasional mustard foot-baths that cured his cerebral +inflammations were replaced by entire ablutions every other day; +he liked hot baths well enough; but, in the spells of +composition, they were often indefinitely adjourned, so that this +season of purification had its <i>raison d'etre</i>. And now, +with his gaze turned to the east, he wondered how long he was +going to remain there. His reply to a person who asked him to +pledge himself for some novels on his return reads much as though +he were counting on an offer to fix his residence in the empire +of the czars. "I don't know whether I shall come back," he said. +"France bores me. I am infatuated with Russia. I am in love with +absolute power. I am going to see if it is as fine as I believe +it to be. De Maistre stayed a long time at St. Petersburg. +Perhaps I shall stay also." This he naturally repeated to Madame +Hanska. Not that it was new to her. A similar hint had been given +in January, when he capped his declaration, "I abhor the English; +I execrate the Austrians; the Italians are nothing," with "I +would sooner be a Russian than any other subject." The comic side +of this fury is that Madame Hanska was a Pole, her late husband +too; and neither she nor her family were reconciled to the +Russian yoke. To make his renunciation more complete, he humbly +spoke his dread she might turn from him with the "get away" said +to a dog. No! She had no intention of dismissing him. His +outpourings of devotion caressed her woman's pride, even if she +did not accept them as gospel truth. And however tedious she +found his vamping song of sixpence, his sittings in the parlour +counting out his mirage-money, she put up with them in +consideration of her privilege.</p> + +<p>Sailing from Havre in the <i>Devonshire</i>, an English boat, +Balzac arrived at St. Petersburg towards the end of July. He +lodged in a private house not far from Eve's Koutaizoff mansion; +but passed the three months of his sojourn almost entirely in her +society. It was the first opportunity he had had of getting to +know her intimately, their previous meetings being surrounded +with too many restrictions to allow of familiar intercourse. No +detailed record has come down to us of these days of +<i>tete-a-tete</i> existence. All we learn from subsequent +allusions is that, together with a good deal of billing and +cooing, more sustained on the novelist's side, there were some +lovers' tiffs, followed by reconciliations. Apparently the +friction was mainly caused by Eve's evasiveness on the subject of +their marriage.</p> + +<p>It would seem as though there were an attack on her aloofness +in the long criticism he sent her from his lodgings on Madame +d'Arnim's <i>Bellina</i>, a French translation of which had been +published not long before he left Paris. After some general +remarks on the circumstance of a girl's fancying herself in love +with a great man living at a distance, he waxed wroth over what +he styled Bellina's head-love, and over head-love in general. To +this monster, Merimee, in his <i>Double Mistake</i>, had given a +thrust but a thrust that made it bleed only. The cleverer Madame +d'Arnim had poisoned it with opium. "In order for the literary +expression of love to become a work of art and to be sublime," he +continued, "the love that depicts should itself be complete; it +should occur in its triple form, head, heart, and body; should be +a love at once sensual and divine, manifested with wit and +poetry. Who says love says suffering; suffering from separation; +suffering from disagreement. Love in itself is a sublime and +pathetic drama. When happy, it is silent. Now, the cause of the +tedium of Madame d'Arnim's book," he added, "is easily +discoverable by a soul that loves. Goethe did not love Bellina. +Put a big stone in Goethe's place--the Sphinx no power has ever +been able to wrest from its desert sand--and Bellina's letters +are understandable. Unlike Pygmalion's fable, the more Bellina +writes, the more petrified Goethe becomes, the more glacial his +letters. True, if Bellina had perceived that her sheets were +falling upon granite, and if she had abandoned herself to rage or +despair, she would have composed a poem. But, as she did not love +Goethe, as Goethe was a pretext for her letters, she went on with +her girl's journal; and we have read some (not intended for +print) much more charming, not in units, but in tens."</p> + +<p>In the rest of the criticism, Balzac swirls round his guns and +directs his fire on Goethe's replies to Bellina. The latter's +epistles were accompanied with presents of braces and slippers +and flannel waistcoats, which were much more appreciated by the +poet than her theories on music. Not so did he, Balzac, treat his +Lina, his Louloup --such was the inference suggested. Every one +of her, i.e. Eve's sayings was treasured up, after being duly +pondered upon. Such adulation must have been delicious to Madame +Hanska; and yet she sent her sighing swain back into his +loneliness, with his bonds riveted tighter, his promises to break +with all rivals more solemn, and a disappointment, over his +deferred hopes, that brought on an illness after his return.</p> + +<p>The journey back was made by land through Riga, Taurogen, and +Berlin. In the Prussian capital, Von Humboldt came to see him +with a message from the King and Queen; and Shakespeare's +<i>Midsummer Night's Dream</i> was seen on the stage, without +pleasure being derived from it. To its poesy the novelist was +little open. Instead of pushing on straight to France, he bent +his course southwards to Dresden, where he visited the +Pinakothek. The Saxon town pleased him more than Berlin, both by +its structural picturesqueness and surroundings. The palace, +begun by Augustus, he esteemed the most curious masterpiece of +rococo architecture. The Gallery he thought over-rated; but he +none the less admired Correggio's <i>Night</i>, his +<i>Magdalene</i> and two <i>Virgins</i>, as also Raphael's +<i>Virgins</i>, and the Dutch pictures. His highest enthusiasm +was aroused by the theatre, decorated by the three French artists +Desplechin, Sechan, and Dieterle. He reached Passy on the 3rd of +November, having crowded into the preceding week visits to +Maintz, Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle, and several places in +Belgium.</p> + +<p>The form assumed by his malady was arachnitis, an inflammation +of the network of nerves enveloping the brain. For the time +being, Nacquart, his doctor, conjured it away, as he had done in +the case of other seizures from which the patient had suffered. +He had known Balzac since boyhood and was well acquainted with +his constitution. Unfortunately he could not change the +novelist's abnormal manner of living and working. And the +mischief was in them.</p> + +<p>Balzac's three months' absence from Paris had caused profane +tongues to wag considerably. Notwithstanding his reticence +concerning Countess Hanska, a legend had gathered round about +their relations to each other. More than one paper reported that +he had been off on an expedition, wife, and +fortune-hunting--which was true; and one daily, at least, spoke +of his having been engaged by the Czar as a kind of court +<i>litterateur</i>. The <i>Presse</i> especially annoyed him by +copying from the <i>Independance Belge</i> a story of his having +been surprised by the Belgian police dining in an hotel with an +Italian forger, whose grand behaviour and abundance of false +bank-notes had completely captivated him. The forger was +certainly arrested in the hotel where he had put up, but the +dinner and the chumming were inventions; at any rate, Balzac +affirmed they were, uttering furious anathemas against the +scorpion Girardin, who had allowed so illustrious a name to be +taken in vain.</p> + +<p>On the 26th of September, during the St. Petersburg visit, his +third finished theatrical piece, <i>Pamela Giraud</i>, was +produced at the Gaite Theatre. Differing essentially from his +previous efforts, this play is an ordinary melodramatic comedy. +Pamela, like Richardson's heroine, is an honest girl, who, +occupied in the humble trade of flower-selling, loves a young +man, Jules Rousseau, that she believes to belong to her own +modest rank, whereas, in reality, he is the son of a big +financier. Involved in a Bonapartist conspiracy, which has just +been discovered, Jules comes one night to her room and tries to +persuade her to fly with him. She refuses; and, while he is with +her, the police enter and arrest him. To save him she consents, +though opposed by her parents, to say in Court that her lover had +spent the night of the conspiracy with her; and Jules is +acquitted through this false confession of her being his +mistress. Once the happy result obtained, Jules and his family +forget her. The lawyer, however, smitten by her beauty and +virtue, proposes to marry her, and is about to carry his +intention into effect when, remarking that she is pining for the +ungrateful Jules, he contrives to bring him to Pamela's feet +again, and the marriage is celebrated.</p> + +<p><i>Pamela Giraud</i> was written in 1838, but no theatre had +been willing to stage it in its original form. Ultimately two +professional playwrights, Bayard and Jaime, who had already +dramatized, the one, <i>Eugenie Grandet</i> and the <i>Search for +the Absolute</i>, the other, <i>Pere Goriot</i>, pruned the +over-plentifulness of its matter and strengthened the relief of +various parts; and, in the amended guise, it was performed. +Balzac resented the modifications, which explains his equanimity +on hearing, as he travelled homewards, that the piece had fallen +flat. He considered that, presented as he wrote it, the chances +of success would have been greater. He was wrong, and those +critics as well who attributed the failure to enmities arising +out of a recent publication of his, entitled the <i>Monography of +the Press</i>. Neither of the two chief <i>dramatis personae</i> +was capable of properly interesting a theatrical audience. The +character of Jules is contemptible from beginning to end, and +that of Pamela ceases to attract after the trial. The conclusion +of this play, as that of <i>Vautrin</i>, is an anticlimax and +leaves an unsatisfactory impression.</p> + +<p>Why did Balzac write his <i>Monography of the Parisian +Press</i>? Not altogether from a pure motive, one must own. There +is too much gall in his language, too much satire in the thought. +He was sufficiently acquainted with the inner ring of +journalistic life to be able to say truly what were its +blemishes; and, without doubt, at the time when he composed the +chief of his novels, these had a prejudicial effect on literature +as on other phases of activity. But his pamphlet, besides its +indiscriminate condemnations, erred in adopting a style which +rendered the turning of the tables only too easy. And Jules +Janin, whom he had already indisposed by sketching a seeming +portrait of him in the <i>Provincial Great Man in Paris</i>, came +down heavily on the daring satirist in the <i>Debats</i> of the +20th of February 1843. The retort, so he informed Madame Hanska, +made him laugh immoderately. Perhaps; but the laugh must have +been somewhat forced--what the French call "yellow."</p> + +<p>In the <i>Monography</i>, men of letters, baptized by the +novelist <i>gendelettres</i>--one of the few words coined by +Balzac which have become naturalized--may be divided into several +categories. First, there are the <i>publicistes</i>, occupied in +scratching the pimples of the body politic. From these pimples +they extract a book which is a mystification. Not far removed +from the <i>publicistes</i> are the chief managing editors and +proprietors general, big wigs who sometimes become prefects, +receivers general, or theatrical directors. The type of this +class is glory's porter, speculation's trumpeter, the +electorate's <i>Bonneau</i>. He is set in motion by a +ballet-dancer, a cantatrice, an actress; in short, he is a +brigand-captain, with other brigands under him. And of the +latter:--There are the <i>Premiers Paris</i>, alias, first +tenors. In writing <i>Premiers Paris</i>, it is impossible for a +man to avoid mental warp and rapid deterioration. In such +writing, style would be a misfortune. One must know how to speak +jesuitically; and, in order to advance, one must be clever in +getting one's ideas to walk on crutches. Those who engage in the +trade confess themselves corrupt; like diplomatists, they have as +a pension the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, a few +librarianships, even archiveships.</p> + +<p>Next to the <i>Premiers Paris</i> come the <i>Faits Paris</i>; +then the <i>Camarillists</i>, other banditti commissioned to +distort Parliamentary speeches; then the newspaper Politicians, +who have not two ideas in their heads. If appointed +under-officials, they would be unable to administer the sweeping +of the streets. Consequently, the more incapable a man is, the +better he is qualified to become the Grand Lama of a newspaper. +Indeed, nothing is more explicable than politics. It is a game at +ninepins.</p> + +<p>In addition to its Politicians, the newspaper has its +<i>Attaches</i>. The <i>Attaches</i> of the Republican party are +watched very closely. One day two Republicans meet, and the first +says to the second: "You have sold yourself; people find you are +getting fatter." Whence it follows that any paper knowing its +trade will have only exceedingly thin <i>Attaches</i>; otherwise +your <i>Attache</i> will be a mere detached <i>Attache</i>, that +is to say, a sort of paid spy, who is mostly a professor of +rhetoric or philosophy. He will dine at all tables, with mission +to attack political leaders; he runs in and out of newspaper +offices, like a dog seeking his master; and, when he has bitten +sharply, he becomes the professor of a fantastic science, the +private secretary of some cabinet, or else consul-general.</p> + +<p>Afterwards come the <i>gendelettre</i> pamphleteers. According +to the author of the <i>Monography</i>, the pamphlet is the +brochure masterpiece; and he himself is its most illustrious +exponent. The Abbe de Lamennais does not know how to speak to the +proletariat. He is not Spartacus enough, not Marat enough, not +Calvin enough; he does not understand how to storm the positions +of the ignoble bourgeoisie at present in power.</p> + +<p>Following on are the <i>gendelettre-vulgarisateurs</i>, who +have invented Germany. The type of this class is appointed +professor in the College de France. He marches at the head of the +Nothingologues; he is the almighty king of the Sorbonne. Such +people are the skin parasites of France. The Nothingologue is +ordinarily <i>monobible</i>;[*] and, as the bourgeoisie are +essentially lacking in intelligence, they are infatuated with +him. The <i>Monobible</i> becomes a director of canals, railways, +the defender of negroes, or else the advocate of slavery; in a +word, the Nothingologue is an important man, quite as the +convinced <i>gendelettre</i>, who reserves to himself the Council +of State, and as the sceptic <i>gendelettre</i>, who becomes +Master of Requests or Governor of the Marquisas Isles.</p> + +<p>[*] In Balzac's use of the word: A man who has written only +one book and boasts of it always.</p> + +<p>Replying to this diatribe, with its medley of shrewdness and +exaggeration, Janin pointed out that it insulted Quinet, +professor at the College de France; Sainte-Beuve, the poet, +novelist, and critic, the historian of Port-Royal; Philarete +Chasles, professor of Foreign Literature; Loeve Weimars, Consul +at Bagdad; not to speak of Planche, Berlioz, Michel and +Chevalier; and that it came amiss from a man who had lived and +still lived on newspapers; who himself had been the chief +managing editor, tenor, Jack-of-all-trades, canard-seller, +camarillist, politician, premier-Paris, fait-Paris, +<i>detache-attache</i>, pamphleteer, translator, critic, +euphuist, bravo, incense-bearer, guerillero, angler, humbug, and +even, what was more serious, the banker of a paper of which he +was the only, unique, and perpetual <i>gendelettre</i>, and +which, so admirably written, cleverly conducted, and signed with +so great a name, did not live six months.</p> + +<p>Within a very few years, Janin was to bury the hatchet of +polemics beside Balzac's grave, and, forgetting the soreness +generated in him by the <i>Monography of the Press</i> to +constitute himself the dead author's apologist.</p> + +<p>Besides his continuation of Lucien de Rubempre's story in the +<i>Splendour and Wretchedness of Courtezans</i>, Balzac +published, in the year 1843, two complete novels, viz. +<i>Honorine</i>, and <i>The Muse of the County</i>, and a portion +of an historical study on Catherine de Medici. This last work, to +which the <i>Calvinist Martyr</i> belongs, was undertaken with +the idea of composing, as he said, a retrospective history of +France treated clairvoyantly, and, as the fragment shows, with +his peculiar bias towards despotism. In the experiment made with +<i>Catherine de Medici</i>, he started out thinking to justify +and rehabilitate her memory. Instead, he found himself obliged to +exhibit her committing the worst actions imaginable; and, his +conclusions not concording with his premises, he abandoned +further incursions into the past. History is a dangerous ground +for a doctrinaire to investigate.</p> + +<p>The former of the two novels is mainly psychological. The wife +of a Count Octave, having quitted her husband for another, has +repented of her fault and separated from her lover, but, through +shamefastness, will not return to her husband. She seeks to gain +a livelihood by flower-making; and her husband, who still loves +her and is full of forgiveness, helps her secretly to obtain +orders. At length, by the good offices of a secretary and the +latter's uncle, a priest, he pleads with his wife more +efficaciously, and induces her to return to him, yet without her +pardoning herself; and she dies in giving birth to a child, dies +because she wishes, rather from wounded pride, it would appear, +than on account of her husband, to whose affection she is +strangely insensible. The heroine is not particularly interesting +with her morbidness and hysterical posing; she probably stands +for one of Balzac's principles, and his principles are the most +tedious thing about him.</p> + +<p>With the <i>Muse of the County</i>, which the author declared +to be Constant's <i>Adolphe</i> treated realistically, we are +back in the truer Balzacian manner. Dinah de la Baudraye--a +Sancerre Catherine de Vivonne--married to an apology for a man, +is human flesh and blood; and her love for the journalist Etienne +Lousteau is natural, though culpable. Indeed, her subsequent +devotion to this shallow egotist is not without greatness. Here +the novelist, as much by his wit as by his denouement, gives +perhaps the best practical condemnation of adultery.</p> + +<p>"Bah!" says the little de la Baudraye, "do you call it +vengeance, because the Duke of Bracciano will kill his wife for +putting him into a cage and showing herself to him in her lover's +arms. Our tribunals and society are much more cruel."</p> + +<p>"In what?" asked Lousteau.</p> + +<p>"In letting the woman live with a slender allowance. Every one +turns away from her. She has neither dress nor consideration, two +things which are everything to a woman."</p> + +<p>"But she has happiness," replied Madame de la Baudraye +grandly.</p> + +<p>"No!" replied the husband, lighting his candle to go to bed; +"for she has a lover."</p> + +<p>Dinah's punishment is of this kind. Persuaded at length to go +back to the house of her husband, who had been made a peer of +France and accepts Lousteau's children with her, she lives to see +her former lover and father of her children sink so low that she +must despise him, while still occasionally tempted to yield to +his caresses.</p> + +<p>When Alexandre Dumas, the younger, was received into the +French Academy in 1875, the Count d'Haussonville, who welcomed +him, asserted that the elder Dumas, like Balzac, Beranger, de +Lamennais and others, had preferred to remain an outsider. In the +case of Balzac, the Count was mistaken. The so-called preference +was Hobson's choice. He stayed outside only because he could not +get in. Between 1839 and 1849, he made several attempts to secure +the promise of a number of votes sufficient to elect him. Having +stood aside at the earlier date in favour of Victor Hugo, who was +admitted in 1841, he thought he might count on a reciprocal +service from the poet. And, on Bonald's death in the same year, +he asked him, during the visit to Les Jardies, to use his +influence with his colleagues in the Academy. "Hugo promised but +little," says Gozlan; and Balzac had to wait for a better +opportunity. This happened at the end of 1843, when Campenon +died, and a vacancy occurred which he might reasonably claim to +fill. Encouraged at present by Hugo and Charles Nodier, he began +the round of visits required by Academy etiquette; but soon +discovered that the members whose votes he solicited did not +consider him rich enough. He therefore withdrew from the list of +candidates, writing to Nodier that, if he could not succeed in +entering the Academy while in honourable poverty, he would never +present himself at the moment when prosperity should have +bestowed her favours on him.</p> + +<p>And, so far as personal solicitation was concerned, he never +did. Though not abandoning his desire of belonging to the Forty, +and esteeming rightly that the value of his work entitled him to +a place among them, he felt after this rebuff that, if a fresh +proposal were made, it should come from the other side. He might +have done more to provoke it had not Madame Hanska been against +his taking any further action in the matter, however indirect. +Maybe she realized better than he did the uselessness of his +candidature. The enemies he had in the Academy and its entourage +were too powerful for his claims to be considered. Many years +afterwards, Victor Hugo related that the novelist put himself +forward for the vacancy left by Ballanche's death at the end of +1847, and apropos added the following anecdote.</p> + +<p>"I was driving," he said, "down the Rue du Faubourg +Saint-Honore, when in front of the Church I perceived Monsieur de +Balzac, who beckoned to me to stop. I was going to get out of the +carriage, but he prevented me, and said: 'I was just coming to +see you. You know I am on the list for the Academy.' 'Really!' +'Yes. What do you think of my chances?' 'You are too late, I +fear. You will get only my vote.' 'It is your vote especially I +want.' 'Are you quite in earnest?' 'Quite.' Balzac quitted me. +The election was virtually decided. For political motives. The +candidature of Monsieur Vatout had a majority of supporters. I +tried to canvass for Balzac, but met with no success. It vexed me +to think that a man of Balzac's calibre should have only one +vote, and I reflected that if I could obtain a second one, I +might create some change of opinion. How was I to gain it? On the +election day I was sitting beside the excellent Pongerville, one +of the best of men. I asked him point blank, 'For whom are you +voting?' 'For Vatout, as you know.' 'I know it so little that I +ask you to vote for Balzac.' 'Impossible!' 'Why?' 'Because my +bulletin is ready. See.' 'Oh! that makes no matter.' And on two +bits of paper I wrote in my best hand: 'Balzac.' 'Well!' quoth +Pongerville; 'well! you will see.' The apparitor who was +collecting the votes approached us. I handed him one of the +bulletins I had prepared. Pongerville, in his turn, stretched out +his hand to put Vatout's name in the urn; but, with a friendly +tap on his fingers, I caused his paper to flutter to the floor. +He looked, appeared irresolute for a moment; and, as I presented +him with the second bulletin, on which Balzac's name was +inscribed, he smiled, took it, and gave it with good grace. And +that is how Honore de Balzac had two votes in his favour at the +Academy."</p> + +<p>This story is inexact chronologically. Balzac was not a +candidate in 1847-48, when Monsieur Vatout was chosen, but at two +later elections, those of the 11th and 18th of January 1849. In +each of these he obtained two votes; and since the second +election was to fill the chair of Monsieur Vatout, who died after +occupying it during a twelvemonth, it would seem that Victor +Hugo, deceived by his memory, confused the two events. As for the +conversation with Balzac, it probably refers to the candidature +which the novelist did begin in 1844; and either Hugo's age in +1877, when he told the story, or his capacity for embellishing +was responsible for the interview being tacked on to the election +incident of 1849.</p> + +<p>The Pongerville mentioned by Hugo was the same in whose album, +in 1844, Balzac wrote a couple of complimentary verses. He +happened to come across the album at his sister's, and, after +inserting his poetry, took the book to Pongerville's house +without finding him at home. He had certainly reckoned, at the +close of the preceding year, on having this Academician's vote, +as well as Dupaty's, Hugo's, and Nodier's. Pongerville may have +deemed his own tardy support a sufficient reward for the +verses.</p> + +<p>Although Balzac's monetary embarrassments were fated to +persist as long as he lived, the causes being so much in the man, +their burden was somewhat less felt in and from the year 1844. +This better state of things was proved by his looking round for a +more commodious residence. The Passy cottage, picturesque as it +was, accorded but ill with his designs of marrying so grand a +dame; and even for his work was not very suitable, being close to +the flats of the Rue Basse, where families lived with children +that disturbed his meditations. He would have liked to free Les +Jardies from its mortgage and keep the place as a summer resort, +while renting a snug mansion in the city during the winter; but +the two abodes were hardly within his means, unless Eve would +loosen her purse-strings. "I will not sell it," he informed her, +referring to his "Folly"; "it was built with my blood and brains. +I will stick to it--if I cannot dispose of it advantageously," he +finished up with, inconsequently. And still she made no sign; or, +rather she proffered no cash. Business advice she gave in plenty. +About each of the Paris houses suggested she had some objections +to make, so that, after fixing successively on a residence +belonging to Madame Delannoy (one of his creditor friends) in the +Rue Neuve-des Mathurins, on the old mansion opposite his Passy +abode once possessed by the Princesse de Lamballe, on the +property in the Rue Ponthieu, and on a plot of land in the Allee +des Veuves where he thought they could build, the end of the year +arrived without any definite solution being reached. The two +"louloups," as he called himself and Eve, filled their +correspondence with calculations and figures, the Paris "louloup" +expressing his conviction that figures were the foundation of +their happiness.</p> + +<p>If he did not die too soon, she might consider she would marry +a million in giving him her hand, he said. Slily, he now and +again quoted his worth in the estimation of a rival feminine +authority. For example, Madame de Girardin was about to write an +article on the great conversationalists of the day, and had +mentioned that she held him to be one of the most charming. +However, when he raised his rate of exchange in this way, he was +always prudent enough to follow up with concessions. His intimacy +with the Englishwoman, Madame Visconti, who was Eve's bugbear, he +broke off completely--at least he swore he had done so and +offered to send his beloved tyrant the cold letter in which his +whilom friend and benefactress bade him good-bye. To let Eve see +it would not be gallant on his part, he confessed; but what could +he deny her, if she persisted. He was her Paris agent, even her +Paris errand-boy, at one time negotiating the entrance of the +governess, Mademoiselle Borel, into the +Saint-Thomas-de-Velleneuve nunnery; at another, purchasing +gloves, millinery, and other articles of dress. Yet she never +considered him submissive enough, notwithstanding his pretty +flattery.</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't you have a poet?" he asked, thinking of +himself, "as other people have a dog, a monkey, a parrot--the +more so as I have in me something of these three creatures: I +always repeat the same phrase, I imitate society, I am faithful." +And again in a burst of lyricism, he exclaimed: "Adieu, loved +friend, to whom I belong like the sound to the bell, the dog to +his master, the artist to his ideal, prayer to God, pleasure to +cause, colour to the painter, life to the sun. Love me, for I +need your affection, so vivifying, so coloured, so agreeable, so +celestial, so ideally good, of such sweet dominance, and so +constantly vibrating." With comparisons of this sort he was +lavish. "I am like Monsieur de Talleyrand," he told her in +another letter. "Either I show a stolid, tin face and do not +speak a word, or else I chatter like a magpie." Adopting the +expression first invented by Guizot, he characterized their +mutual relations as an <i>entente cordiale</i>, impatient, none +the less, for the realization of his fancy, which was to see his +idol enter a tabernacle prepared to receive her on the return +from a delightful honeymoon. Meanwhile, he was amassing furniture +and bric-a-brac, just as the bird bits of straw; and he implored +her not to scold him. In the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, he had +ferreted out two Dresden vases, which he bought, resolving to +deprive himself for a time of his grapes at forty sous a pound, +in order to retrieve the money.</p> + +<p>The retrieval indeed was not easy, since his passion for +collecting curios led him far, and he generally succumbed to the +temptation of something ancient and rare. In the previous autumn +he had bought, for thirteen hundred and fifty francs, a +<i>secretaire</i> and <i>commode</i> in ebony, with inlaid pearl, +that had apparently been manufactured at Florence in the +seventeenth century; these <i>objets d'art</i> he estimated at +values ranging up to forty or fifty thousand francs. A +description of them appeared in the press, and rich amateurs +inquired whether he were willing to sell; but, either because he +asked too much or really did not want to part with them, they +were kept, as also his <i>Christ</i> by Bouchardon or Girardon, +which he obtained for two hundred francs and valued at several +thousands. If he had no cash for his purchases-- and this +frequently happened--he placed one of his already acquired +treasures (possibly unpaid for, too) in the establishment of his +"respectable relative," as he styled the pawnbroker, and thus +secured the coveted object.</p> + +<p>In his intercourse with his own family, Madame Hanska was a +continuously troubling factor. The prospect of his alliance with +this foreign aristocrat had less charm for Madame Balzac and +Laure than for Honore. They probably perceived the chimera he was +pursuing, and could not be expected to show enthusiasm. This +attitude on their side and a certain hauteur on his, partly +caused by offended dignity, widened the breach between him and +them. "I have now no family," he told "The Stranger," "and am +glad that the coldness should be established before I am +completely happy; for later the reason of it would have been +attributed to you, or to what would have been termed my +uppishness. The isolation, which you wish, will be likewise my +dearest desire. My sister," he proceeded, "has suppressed for +ever the literary question betwixt us, with her blue-stocking +whims. I cannot talk to her of my affairs, nor yet of my +mother's. She asserts that her husband is a greater man than I +am." Madame de Berny, he added, had foreseen his mother's and +sister's transformation when she told him he was a flower that +had sprung up on a dunghill! If Madame de Berny told him this, it +was no doubt in a fit of anger against them for endeavouring to +sever the liaison, an endeavour they were perfectly justified in. +These portions of Balzac's confidences, which reflect upon his +character seriously, and besmirch him more than those against +whom they were spoken, cannot be overlooked in a biography. They +have to be included in our judgment of him, and, in a measure, +concern the tragic close of his love romance.</p> + +<p>We are fonder of him in the expansive moods when his +naïve wonder at his own performances carries him into +self-panegyric, which, not infrequently, we can endorse, though +with some discount. Thus, for instance, the <i>Bourgeois of +Paris</i> he declared to be one of those masterpieces that leave +everything else behind. "It is grand, it is terrifying in verve, +in philosophy, in novelty, in painting, in style." And yet there +was Eugene Sue selling the <i>Wandering Jew</i> to a newspaper +for a hundred thousand francs, while the <i>Philosophy of +Conjugal Life</i>, a publication of his own in Hetzel's <i>Diable +a Paris</i>, fetched only eight hundred; and the <i>Peasants</i> +was paid for only at the rate of sixty centimes a line. His +<i>Modeste Mignon</i> which appeared in the <i>Debats</i>, sold +rather dearer, six thousand francs being given, and for the +<i>Bourgeois</i>, nine thousand. The explanation of Sue's getting +more than he he imagined to be because Sue lived in grander style +than himself with flunkeys to open the door and overawe the +publishers who flocked to the successful writer, whereas he, +living in a cottage, had to cool his heels in an office +ante-chamber, and was exploited on account of his neediness. +There was some truth in what he said; but he did not sufficiently +realize that Sue wrote, for the market, exciting tales that +everybody rushed to read. His own books were, of course, most of +them infinitely superior; but they appealed to a much smaller +public. All the same, he was loth to resign himself to the +depreciation Sue's bargains effected in his own. Feverishly he +strove to demonstrate by his painfully gained successes that they +were masterpieces, as he said, by the side of Sue's +chimney-fronts, and as far above them as Raphael was above +Dubufe. Moliere, Lesage, Voltaire, Walter Scott--these were the +only names he acknowledged as rivals to his own. Sue was nothing +but a spangled and satined Paul de Kock.</p> + +<p>We can grant him that, in fiction, his proper manner was as +far in advance of his epoch as, in politics, his doctrine was +behind it. George Sand was a medium in both, although she dwelt +always a little too much in the clouds. At a dinner with her +towards the end of January, the antagonism of their principles +manifested itself over his recent visit to Russia.</p> + +<p>"If you were to see the Czar," Balzac said to her, "you would +fall in love with him and jump from your <i>bousingotism</i>[*] +to autocracy."</p> + +<p>[*] A word used to characterise the dress and manners of the +Romanticists, who were fond of Robespierre waistcoats, long hair, +and other peculiarities intended to distinguish them from +ordinary mortals.</p> + +<p>Madame Dudevant waxed angry. It was not kind in a man who had +resisted her blandishments to make merry over her foibles.</p> + +<p>The Russians, he gravely told her, were extremely amiable, +easy to get on with, exceedingly literary, since everything was +done on paper, and Russia was the only country in which people +knew how to obey.</p> + +<p>The mention of obedience in a people irritated the hostess; +but on her seething he poured a drop of cold water by asking +jestingly:</p> + +<p>"Would you, in a great danger, wish your servants to +deliberate about what you had ordered them to do?"</p> + +<p>The Sandist-Philosophico-Republico-Communico-Pierre-Lerouxico- +Geranico-Deisto train (the epithets are Balzac's) stopped dead at +the question. Then Marliani, one of the guests, remarked that +argument was impossible with poets. Balzac bowed, and added:</p> + +<p>"You hear what he says?"</p> + +<p>"You are a dreadful satirist," retorted George Sand. "Go on +with your <i>Comedie Humaine</i>."</p> + +<p>It was not necessary to give the recommendation. He was for +ever going on; and the further he went, the further his horizons +receded. The embracing lines were rather indiscriminate. He came +to think himself capable of reducing every domain to his scale. +Men's ambitions, however, are part of their motive power; and, +had his been less sweeping, the qualities of his work might have +diminished with the defects. "Four men," he cried in one of his +vauntings, "have had an immense life, Napoleon, Cuvier, +O'Connell, and--I mean to be the fourth! The first lived with the +life of Europe; he inoculated himself with armies! The second +espoused the globe! The third incarnated in himself a people! As +for me! I shall have borne a whole society in my head! It is just +as well to live thus as every evening to say, 'Spades, hearts, +trumps;' or to wonder why Madame such a one has done such and +such a thing."</p> + +<p><i>Modeste Mignon</i>, which was published in 1844 with the +extra attraction of some of Auber's music in it is one of +Balzac's brighter and lighter books, and reproduces part of his +own last love-story more objectively treated than in <i>Albert +Savarus</i>. Its plot was suggested to him by a short tale which +Madame Hanska composed, intending to submit it for his approval, +but which she threw in the fire, afterwards sending him, in one +of her epistles, an outline of what she had done. Since he +utilized her invention, he paid her back by selecting as his +point of departure the adventure of a well-educated girl of +literary tastes, who, through reading the verses of the +celebrated Canalis, at once a poet and a statesman, fell in love +with him and expressed her (literary) admiration in a letter, +though she had never seen him. There were other such cases in the +first half of the nineteenth century besides that of the Polish +Countess and the author of <i>Eugenie Grandet</i>. Disdaining to +reply to a correspondent who did not appear to be a person with +whom he could take liberties, Canalis delegated the task to his +friend and secretary, La Briere, who answered under cover of the +great man's name and ultimately found out and, incognito, beheld +the lady. She was beautiful and he lost his heart to her. When +later the subterfuge was discovered, Canalis, interested now, +wanted to marry the lady, she being presumably rich. Through +pique, Modeste, for a while, listened to his suit and smiled on +him, albeit, in verity, she was touched by La Briere's sincere +affection. The circumstances leading to the unmasking of Canalis' +selfish character and to Modeste's marriage with La Briere are +handled in a less Balzacian way than the introductory chapters, +which, however, are more than usually tortuous. But the whole +story is pleasing; and, in the discursive paragraphs, there is +less dogmatism and a more delicate sense of contrasts than the +novelist is wont to exhibit when astride a hobby-horse. The +following passage has an aroma of Shelley's <i>Defence of +Poetry</i> in it, which merits our attention. The divine in man +says:</p> + +<p>"In order to live, thou shalt bend thyself towards earth; in +order to think thou shalt raise thyself heavenwards. We want the +life of the soul as much as that of the body; whence there are +two utilities. Thus it is certain that a book will not serve as +foot-gear; an epic, from the utilitarian point of view, is not +worth an economical soup from the kitchen of a Benevolent +Society; and a self-acting boiler, rising a couple of inches on +itself, procures calico a few pence a yard cheaper; but this +machine and the improvements of industry do not breathe life into +a nation, and will not tell the future that it has existed; +whereas Egyptian art, Mexican art, Grecian art, Roman art, with +their masterpieces accused of uselessness, have attested the +existence of these peoples in the vast expanse of time, there +where huge intermediary nations, destitute of great men, have +disappeared without leaving their visiting cards on the globe. +All works of genius are the epitome of a civilization, and +presuppose an immense utility. Forsooth, a pair of boots will not +outvie a stage-play in your eyes, and you will not prefer a +windmill to the Church of Saint Ouen. So, a people is animated +with the same sentiment as a man; and man's favourite idea is to +survive himself mentally as he reproduces himself physically. The +survival of a people is the work of its men of genius."</p> + +<p><i>Beatrix</i>, the other completed novel of the year, is a +drawn-out, ill- composed work, which is not redeemed sufficiently +by its minute description of Breton manners and its portrait of +George Sand in Felicite des Touches. Six years separated the +publication of the first part of the book from that of the +conclusion, and, in the interval, the unity of plan suffered. +Balzac devoted a good deal of labour to its execution. In all the +conjugal ruses employed by Sabine de Grandlieu to detach Calyste, +her husband, from Beatrix, he displays his peculiar talent, but +the ultimate effect is poor.</p> + +<p>CHAPTER XII</p> + +<p>LETTERS TO "THE STRANGER," 1845, 1846</p> + +<p>Though fertile in incidents, the year of 1845 was, from a +literary point of view, more barren than any in Balzac's past +career, exception, of course, made for the time lost during his +printing-house adventure. Beyond his short, witty sketch, <i>A +Man of Business</i>, relating the tricks employed by the princes +of bohemianism to pay their debts and indulge their caprices +gratis, no finished work was published. The <i>Peasants</i>, +which the author never entirely got through, was taken up +repeatedly, and as often put aside from sheer inability to +proceed.</p> + +<p>The deadlock in which he found himself had been preparing +since his visit to Saint Petersburg. Whether the intimacy created +there between Madame Hanska and himself was that of two lovers in +the chaster sense, or, as Monsieur Gabriel Ferry assets, in his +<i>Balzac et ses Amies</i>, that of a closer union, it had +haunted him during his subsequent twelvemonth's loneliness. And +when Eve, who had come to spend the winter at Dresden, +discouraged, from fear of her society friends' backbiting, the +idea of his going there to see her, he grew incapable of +concentrating his mind on his books; and, even in his letters to +her, chafed and was irritable, scolding her for not stamping her +envelopes, and recommending her to acquire habits of order and +economy! confessing the while that, to escape from his +melancholy, he had been playing lansquenet, dining out, going to +the theatres, and leading a nonchalant life.</p> + +<p>The tone was a bold one to assume, but clever. His tyrant, +already repenting the pledges given, had been hinting it would be +better not to carry them out. Her own relatives were quite as +much against the match as Balzac's, she reminded him, while +narrating all the malicious tittle-tattle that mutual +acquaintances were constantly telling her. She defended him, she +said. "A mistake!" retorted Balzac. "When, in your presence, any +one attacks me, your best plan is to mock the slanderers by +outdoing them. When some one sneeringly remarked to Dumas that +his father was a nigger, he answered: 'My grandfather was a +monkey.'"</p> + +<p>His scolding for once did good. Eve did not like his "wounding +prose," but she talked no more of breaking with him. On the +contrary, she relented as far as to remove the embargo on his +going to Dresden; so in May he went. And, what was more, she came +in August to Paris; incognito, since the visit was without the +Czar's permission, she and her daughter Anna travelling from the +frontier under the names of Balzac's sister and niece.</p> + +<p>In the novelist's correspondence, there is a curious letter +written on the 2nd of August to Madame Emile de Girardin. In it +the writer excuses himself for not calling on her, being obliged +to remain at home on account of the disquieting condition of a +lady friend of his who had hurt herself and was under medical +treatment. The inference is that the lady in question was staying +in his house; and a note written to Madame Hanska, on the 4th of +September, with its allusion to the Passy garden in which they +had walked so much together, makes it sufficiently plain that she +was the August guest. Although no proofs have yet come to light +which we can accept as irrefutable, there seems to be ground for +the supposition put forward that a premature confinement was the +illness, carefully concealed from every one.</p> + +<p>If the supposition be correct, it explains the convalescent's +being joined by Balzac again in September at Baden-Baden, where +the arrangements were made for Eve and himself to meet in October +at Chalon-sur-Saone and to travel together to Italy. It was +during this second stay in Germany that the play of the +<i>Saltimbanques</i> they had seen suggested to the novelist the +amusing nicknames which he henceforth adopted when writing to +Madame Hanska's family. Anna was dubbed <i>Zephirine</i>; her +betrothed, <i>Gringalet</i>; Eve, <i>Atala</i>; and himself, +<i>Bilboquet</i>. Georges, the betrothed, who was a Pole bearing +the title of Count Mniszech, was a young man of scientific tastes +and considerable learning, for whom Balzac conceived a great +liking, and whom he helped in his entomological researches.</p> + +<p>The ramble southwards was probably the most pleasurable +experience in the novelist's life, being an anticipated +honeymoon. From Chalon they journeyed along the banks of the +Rhone, visiting no fewer than twenty- three towns on the way. At +Naples they parted, and the prospective bridegroom turned +Paris-wards, going via Pisa, Civita Vecchia, and Marseilles; in +this last city he comforted himself for the separation by hunting +out further adornments for the home he was still busily striving +to find in the capital.</p> + +<p>At Marseilles lived a poet-friend of his named Mery, whom he +had enlisted as a collaborator in his teeming dramatic schemes. +Him he commissioned to bargain for certain articles of vertu +which Lazard, the famous dealer in antiquities, quoted too +dear--eight hundred francs for a mirror, and five hundred for a +statuette. "Let Lazard see that you will give a thousand francs +for the two things," he advised Mery; "but don't offer more than +nine. Glance stoically at the articles when passing by, and joke +the dealer. Then send acquaintances to offer a little less than +you. After a fortnight's haggling, Lazard will let you have them +one fine morning." For getting the better of these sly +shopkeepers, Balzac had a good many devices up his sleeve.</p> + +<p>Back in Passy, he was seized again by the same restlessness as +in the spring, thwarting his efforts to settle down to his desk. +The utmost he could accomplish was to wander about, note-book in +hand, collecting material for later use. Happening in December to +be near the Assize Courts, he went in to listen to the trial of +Madame Colomes, a niece of Marshal Sebastiani, who was accused of +forging bills. He was struck by her strong resemblance to the +dead <i>Dilecta</i>, and also by her attachment, herself being +forty-five years of age, to a young man of twenty. The latter, +after wasting in riotous living the money she had procured him by +her forgeries, fled and left her to bear the brunt of her shame. +The most repugnant detail of this unfortunate woman's case Balzac +utilized not long afterwards in his <i>Cousin Bette</i>.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was less his ennui than the curiosity for new +sensations which caused him to accept Gautier's invitation to +pass an evening with Baudelaire and one or two others, at the +Hotel Pimodan, for the purpose of eating hashish. He experienced +none of the extraordinary phenomena usually attributed to the +consumption of this drug, his explanation being that the dose was +too weak, or his brain too strong. However, he owned to having +heard celestial voices and to having seen divine paintings while +he descended Lauzun's staircase, in a promenade that seemed to +have lasted twenty years. He does not appear to have repeated the +intoxication. Yet, on receiving another unkind epistle from Eve, +shortly afterwards, he mentioned the possibility of arming +himself against his sea of troubles through the drug's lethal +properties.</p> + +<p>In anything that had to do with the function of the brain, he +was as interested as if medicine had been his profession. A book +of Dr. Moreau's on madness, which he read during these months of +mental relaxation, drew from him an acknowledgment wherein he +foreshadowed his intention of studying anatomy and myology. "I +believe," he said, "we shall do no good until we have determined +the action exercised by the physical organs of thought in the +production of madness. The organs are the containing sheaths of +some fluid or other as yet inappreciable. I hold this for proved. +Well! there are a certain number of organs which are vitiated by +their lack, by their constitution, others which are vitiated by +an excess of afflux. People, who, like Cuvier and Voltaire, have +exercised their organs early, have rendered them so powerful that +no excess can affect them; whereas those who keep to certain +portions of the ideal encephalos, which we represent as the +laboratory of thought--the poets, who leave deduction and +analysis inactive and exploit the heart and imagination +exclusively--may become mad. In short, there would be a fine +experiment to make. I have thought of it for twenty years. This +would be to reconstitute the brain of an idiot, to demonstrate +whether a thinking apparatus can be created by developing its +rudiments. Only by building up a brain shall we know how one is +demolished."</p> + +<p>The beginning of the new year did not bring back his former +zeal for labour. Much of his time he frittered away in adding to +his collections. Here he picked up a portrait of Queen Marie +Leczinska by a pupil of Coypel, there, a Flemish lustre for which +he paid four hundred and fifty francs. Eve reproached him with +his idleness, presumably because he was too frequently at the +house of Madame de Girardin. To calm her he penned a few remarks +anent that lady not exactly complimentary. "Madame de Girardin," +he said, "who is charming among a few friends, is a less +agreeable hostess when she holds a large reception. She belies +her origin only by her talent; but, when she is outside her +talent, she becomes once more her mother's daughter, that is to +say 'bourgeoise' and 'Gay' thoroughbred." To the soiree which +drew from him this jibe, he had been invited to meet Sheridan's +granddaughter--an English bore, he styled her--who looked him up +and down through an eye-glass as if he were an actor. His +relations with Emile, Delphine's husband, continued to be marked +by breezes. Before starting for Rome on the 17th of March, he +sent him a few sharp lines complaining of the <i>Presse's</i> +delay in printing the <i>Peasants</i>. As a matter of fact, the +readers of the <i>Presse</i> were not pleased with the story; and +the editor had been obliged to request the author to modify the +unpublished part. Balzac complied, but felt sore.</p> + +<p>The earlier chapters of this novel appeared in 1844; the last +ones did not come out until five years after the novelist's +death. The plot of the book turns on the struggle waged by the +peasants and petty bourgeois of Soulanges against a new but +estimable landlord, General Montcornet, whose estate they are +determined to have by hook or by crook in their own hands, not +hesitating, at least some of them, to assassinate the honest +agent who strives to protect his employer's property against +their depredations. All these country folk Balzac has portrayed +with effects depending on the painter's and sculptor's art as +much nearly as on the writer's; and the inmates and visitors of +the village-inn and coffee-house are individualized with an +anatomical intensity fringing on the brutal. Like the <i>Village +Cure</i> and the <i>Country Doctor</i>, the <i>Peasants</i> is a +novel with a purpose and a warning. The author preaches against +the dividing up of the land; and advocates agriculture on a large +scale by a reversion to the old estates with their castles and +forests. As adjuvants to these he pleads for the development of +Catholicism, a wider influence of the clergy both in education +and private life. His picture of peasant avarice has been +repeated by later writers, Guy de Maupassant and Zola. True in +many particulars, it is traced by a prejudiced mind, and cannot +be accepted as thoroughly representative.</p> + +<p>At Rome he found Madame Hanska, and stayed with her there till +May. Instead of describing the Eternal City to his sister, he +referred her to de Lamennais' accounts, himself being fully +occupied with his companion and sight-seeing. He was duly +received by the Pope, and obtained a small crown chaplet for his +mother, together with His Holiness' blessing. Saint Peter's +surpassed his expectations, and the choir's <i>Miserere</i> so +delighted him that he went to hear it a second time in lieu of +that of the Sixtine Chapel. The journey back through Genoa, the +Grisons, and Bale was a pretext for continuing his bric-a- brac +purchases, Holbein's <i>Saint Peter</i> being added to his +treasures.</p> + +<p>Reaching Paris at last, he now took up his pen with his old +ardour. Fresh pledges for the future had been given him by Eve. +These served to lure him onward; and behind him were the +creditors who had lent him money for his trip, and were wanting +some of it restored. At this period Madame Hanska's funds and his +own were partly associated. Some of her capital and some of his +own, probably the sum accruing from the sale of Les Jardies, at +present definitive, had been invested in North Railway Shares. +Besides, not a few of his paintings and antique pieces of +furniture had been paid for with advances from her +strong-box.</p> + +<p>The two works that issued from his new effort of creation were +<i>Cousin Bette</i> and <i>Cousin Pons</i>. These, with +<i>Pierrette</i>, made up his series of the <i>Poor</i> +<i>Relations</i>.</p> + +<p>The <i>Old Musician</i>, as he originally called <i>Pons</i>, +was meant to give us the case of a man overwhelmed with +humiliations and insults, yet preserving his generosity and +pardoning everybody and everything, avenging himself only through +kindness. Composed, like <i>Cesar Birotteau</i>, very rapidly, it +bears evidence of the author's haste. There is no proper love +interest in the book, the lack being supplied by the friendship +between Pons and the old German musician, Schmucke. A number of +subordinate biographies are interwoven with the principal +story--those of the banker Brunner, the Auvergnat Remonencq, the +Cibots, who were Pons' porters and caterers, Doctor Poulain and +Lawyer Fraisier. We have plots within plots, wheels within +wheels, in this strange, pathetic life of the musician, whose +collecting hobby and expert's skill in finding out rarities +Balzac dwells on with all the greater detail as he was indulging +at that time his own bent in this direction with peculiar zest +and success. But the complexity and crowding are foils one is +glad to have against the sordid treachery of the Cibot household, +as, too, against the woes of Pons and Schmucke. Perhaps nowhere +in his achievement has the novelist got deeper down to the +rockbed of genuine humanity than in this work. <i>Cousin Pons</i> +was published in 1847. <i>Cousin Bette</i> came a year +earlier.</p> + +<p>Besides the two novels just mentioned, Balzac finished, during +this same period, the long series in which <i>Vautrin</i> is a +chief, if not the chief, character; and also a book variously +named the <i>Brothers of Consolation</i> and the <i>Reverse Side +of Contemporary History</i>. In the <i>Vautrin</i> sequels he +took up again the fortunes of Lucien de Rubempre, who, after +returning in disgrace to his family, loses courage and is on the +point of drowning himself when he meets with an Abbe Carlos +Herrera; the latter changes the young man's suicidal intentions +by promising to procure him wealth, rank, and honours. Herrera is +no other than Vautrin, who, having escaped from prison, is at the +head of a formidable association of convicts. Carefully hiding +his identity from Lucien, he persuades him to accept monetary +help; and gradually Lucien contrives to enter aristocratic +society, becomes the favourite of the Duchess of Serizy, and will +be received as the betrothed of the nobly born Clotilde de +Grandlieu, provided he can show that he possesses sufficient +landed property. It so happens that his mistress Esther, a Jewess +of great beauty, who is as fond of him as Coralie was, kills +herself on learning that she must give him up. And Esther being +in reality an heiress whose father, Gobseck, has just died, +Vautrin forges a will by which the fortune is bequeathed to +Lucien. Unluckily for the ex-convict's plans, some police spies +have been on the track of his proceedings, and an untimely arrest +of him and his protege casts them into prison. These adventures +are told in <i>Whither Bad Ways Lead</i> and two other volumes. A +concluding book, entitled <i>Vautrin's Last Incarnation</i>, +relates the outlaw's duel with justice in his confinement, the +suicide of his disciple, and his own pardon at the price of +entering into the Government's secret police. The later portions +of this drawn-out piece of fiction are written in the +melodramatic style, and the characterization is distinctly +inferior. The author loses himself in the various imbroglios, and +the actors degenerate into creatures of romance, lacking +consistency.</p> + +<p>The <i>Reverse Side of Contemporary History</i> has similar +defects. It was commenced in the <i>Musee des Familles</i> in +1842, was continued in 1844, and was completed only in 1848 in +the <i>Spectateur Republicain</i>. We meet at first with a +certain Godefroi who reaches middle age without obtaining any +permanent satisfaction out of his life, and who thinks of burying +himself in some quiet quarter of Paris where he can dwell +unknowing and unknown. An accident introduces him to a kind of +lay community whose presiding spirit is a Madame de la Chanterie, +and whose members are a priest and three old gentlemen. These +people are devoting what remains to them of their existence to +alleviating pain and distress. Godefroi is admitted into the +association, and, during his novice expedition, has a curious +experience which leads to the disclosure of Madame de la +Chanterie's past. This is narrated in the second half of the +book. We get the whole of that lady's tragic history, an unjust +trial of which she was the victim, the Nemesis which punished the +bad judge in his daughter's frightful malady and his poverty, and +the heaping of coals of fire on his head by the woman who had +suffered so direly through him. On arriving at the end of the +story we cannot recognize it as the one we were made acquainted +with at the outset. The tangle of episode and explanation--the +latter confusing more than it explains--which intervenes in the +middle, issues in a coarser thread that persists till the close. +And yet the start was a fair one.</p> + +<p>With <i>Cousin Bette</i>, we are back among the monstrosities. +Bette is the poor relation who, unlike Pons, revenges herself for +her humiliations and the insults bestowed on her. She aids in the +pecuniary and moral ruin of the Hulot family, acts in cold blood, +and attains her object before she dies. She is not the only +perverted nature delineated. There is the Baron Hulot, whose +odious licentiousness brings him to a veritable cretinism. There +is Crevel, a grotesque, contemptible dupe; there are the +Marneffes, sinks of corruption; and, with these, other minor +characters--the vindictive Brazilian who wreaks his wrath on +Madame Marneffe and on Crevel by his mysterious death-causing +gift. The ideally virtuous Adeline Hulot also the novelist +belittles, making her offer herself to Crevel to save her husband +from the consequences of his degrading passions. Nearly all the +book is harrowing, and even the atmosphere of the bohemian +circles, where conversation is one sparkle of satire, is heavily +tainted with vice.</p> + +<p>George Sand protested against Madame Hulot's portrait as +unnatural; and, herself being the contrary of prudish in sexual +relations, the opinion cannot be called prejudiced. Balzac +defended his treatment, while admitting there was force in what +she said. Arguing with her on their respective methods, he +replied: "You seek to paint man as he ought to be. I take him as +he is. Believe me, we are both right. Both ways lead to the same +goal. I am fond of exceptional beings. I am one myself. Moreover, +I need them to give relief to my common characters; and I never +sacrifice them without necessity. But these common characters +interest me more than they interest you. I aggrandize them; I +idealize them in an inverse direction, in their ugliness or their +stupidity. I give to their deformity terrifying or grotesque +proportions. You could not do this. You are wise not to look at +people and things that would cause you nightmare. Idealize in +that which is pretty and beautiful. This is woman's task."</p> + +<p>In spite of sheriff's summonses and stormy discussions with +those to whom he still had indebtedness, and in spite, too, of a +tropical summer, the would-be bride-groom toiled cheerfully on +through 1846. His Passy cottage was becoming, with the +continually augmented collection, quite a museum, and Bertall, +the artist-caricaturist, was in ecstasies over a china service +estimated by its owner at some thousands of francs. His good +humour rendered him his former conversational brilliancy, which +had been somewhat damped during the past twelvemonth, and, at one +of Delphine Gay's dinners, where he met Hugo and Lamartine, he +replied to Jove's heavy artillery with a raking fire from his own +quick-firing guns. Lamartine was enchanted. Balzac must go to the +Chamber was his verdict. But Balzac, at present, was content to +correspond with his Eve and to occupy himself with the +restoration of the pictures she was helping him to buy. One of +these, the <i>Chevalier</i> <i>of Malta</i>, he had acquired on +Gringalet's recommendation when in Rome. It had been bistered +over by the dealer with a view to hiding a scratch, and there was +also the dirt of age upon it. Requisitioning a clever craftsman +in picture-restoring, he submitted the treasure to him. "It's a +masterpiece," pronounced the expert: "but what will it be worth +when the dirt is off?" Three days later the restorer came back +with his drugs and implements. And, first, he rubbed a corner +with some cotton dipped in one of his mixtures, which frothed the +painting white. Then for an hour he scrubbed the surface +progressively until he had a lot of little cotton balls all +black. Afterwards, he began again, for the dirt was in layers, +and, at the conclusion of the scrubbing and brushing, the +chevalier emerged as life-like and fresh as when painted by the +pupil of Raphael--Albert Durer or another--three hundred years +before. The scratch was easily repaired, and Balzac was beside +himself with joy. Relating to Georges Mniszech this happy result, +which enriched his gallery containing already more than +half-a-dozen old masters of great value, he said: "When +connoisseurs and dilletanti come to visit my collection I shall +say to them, 'I owe this head to a young professor of entomology; +he is a charming young man, full of wit and feeling, who, for the +moment, is buried in bliss, science, and the steppes of the +Ukraine. He is so versed in paintings that he is a boon to his +friends. Oh! I assure you he out-experts all the experts of Paris +put together. What is his name?--Gringalet!--No, really!--As +truly as I am called Bilboquet.'"</p> + +<p>The bliss referred to was Georges' approaching marriage with +Eve's daughter Anna, which was celebrated very unostentatiously +at Wiesbaden in October, owing to the recent death of the Count's +father. Balzac went to the wedding, and stayed with the family +for four days. He had already spent a short time with them in +August, on the occasion of the old Count Mniszech's death, and, +on his return journey, had been accompanied by Madame Hanska as +far as Strasburg, where she made him such a definite statement +regarding their marriage as amounted to an official engagement. +It was between the two visits that he commissioned Georges to buy +Atala a Voltaire-armchair for her greater ease and comfort.</p> + +<p>While at the wedding, he was able to tell Eve that he had at +last come upon a house which was everything that could be desired +for them two selves. It was the smaller remaining portion of the +splendid mansion and grounds built for the famous financier, +Beaujon, by the architect Girardin in the eighteenth century. The +original property, situated near the Arc de Triomphe, was +nicknamed by contemporaries Beaujon's Folly. At the owner's +death, the mansion and grounds were sold, and subsequently the +Rues Chateaubriand, Lord Byron, and Fortunee were cut through the +place. The abode chosen by the novelist bordered on the Rue +Fortunee. From its staircase there was an entrance into a private +chapel, which the financier had had constructed in his old age +for his soul's edification, and in which he was finally buried. +The outside of the house in Balzac's time was modest in +appearance. Alone, a cupola, seen above the containing walls, +suggested memories of bygone glory. Inside, there were still very +substantial pieces of luxury and artistic decoration that needed +only touching up to be practically what they had been of yore. +Balzac detailed all this to his betrothed, and his selection was +approved. No sooner was he in Paris again than the bargain was +settled, and orders were given for the necessary repairs and +renovation to be executed.</p> + +<p>The end of 1846 seemed to smile on these projects of a speedy +installation in conformity with his desires. Though the North +Railway Shares had declined considerably, he was earning a good +deal of money. <i>Cousin Bette</i> yielded him thirteen thousand +francs, and <i>Cousin Pons</i> was sold for nine--modest prices +indeed; but the total, with other sources of revenue, gave him +for the twelvemonth an income of about fifty thousand francs. In +the Beaujon mansion the workmen soon accomplished prodigies, +transforming its dilapidated rooms into ship- shape and elegance. +Bilboquet issued special instructions for apartments to be fitted +up for Gringalet and Zephirine--a bedchamber and small +<i>salon</i>, both circular and sculptured, with paintings on the +arches, worthy of the destined aristocratic occupants.</p> + +<p>Urged on by the sight of these preparations, he threw himself +with almost frenzy into fresh literary labour. Dr. Nacquart +warned him against the consequences of such brain debauch, as he +termed it, prophesying that harm would ensue. And the doctor was +right. Balzac was soon to pay for his excesses. Just now there +was much in the political firmament that caused the novelist +anxiously to wish that his own fortunes and those of Eve were +indissolubly united. "Make haste!" was his constant cry to +her.</p> + +<p>"I see," he said, "Italy and Germany ready to move. Peace +hangs only by a thread--the life of Louis-Philippe, who is +growing old; and, if war comes, Heaven knows what would happen to +us. . . . For a young and ambitious sovereign who would not want, +like Louis-Philippe, above all to die quietly in his bed, how +favourable the moment would be to regain the left bank of the +Rhine. The populations are harassed by petty, imbecile royalties. +England is at loggerheads with Ireland, who seeks to ruin her or +separate from her. All Italy is preparing to shake off the yoke +of Austria. Germany desires her unity, or perhaps more liberty +merely. Anyway, we are on the eve of great catastrophes. In +France, it is our interest to wait, our cavalry and navy not +being strong enough to enable us to triumph on land and sea; but, +when these two are improved and our defence-works completed, +France will be redoubtable. One must admit, that, by the manner +Louis-Philippe is administering and governing, he is making her +the first Power in the world. Just think! Nothing is factitious +with us. Our army is a fine one; we have money; everything is +strong and real at present. When the port of Algiers is +terminated, we shall have a second Toulon in front of Gibraltar; +we are advancing in the domination of the Mediterranean. Spain +and Belgium are with us. This man has made progress. If he were +ambitious and wished to chant the Marseillaise, he would demolish +three empires to his advantage."</p> + +<p>The foregoing outlook on the future neglected certain signs of +the times equally necessary to be taken into account with others +that were perceived. In politics especially, the humourist's +detachment is essential to correct perspective, and of humour +Balzac had but small share. As compensation, pleasantry was not +wanting in this Duc de Bilboquet, peer of France and other +places--as he subscribed himself to his dear Gringalet.</p> + +<p>In February 1847, for the second time, Madame Hanska came to +Paris incognito. The Beaujon house was nearly ready, and as +mistress of it that was to be, her instructions were required for +the garnishing. The happy Bilboquet conducted her to the Opera, +the Italiens, the Conservatoire, and also to the Varietes where +they saw Bouffe and Hyacinthe play in the laughable <i>Filleul de +tout le Monde</i>. It was intended that she should stay till +April, and that then he should take her back to Germany, leaving +her there to pursue her journey to Wierzchownia, whither he was +to proceed later. The novelist's so far published correspondence +has large gaps in the year 1847, with an entire lack of letters +to Eve--yet such exist--so that we do not learn whether the +intermediate programme was executed. Until the third volume of +the <i>Letters to the Stranger</i> is published, it will be +impossible to fill in accurately the history of the months +between February and October, in which, however, events of +importance occurred. One of these was Balzac's burning all Madame +Hanska's epistles to him. Why? Apparently on account of a +quarrel. And the quarrel? Was it caused by her finding out that, +in 1846, he had a liaison with a lady resulting in the birth of a +six months' child, which did not survive? Monsieur de Lovenjoul, +who is the authority for this last information, mentions that the +harassment Balzac suffered from the affair was largely +responsible for the rapid progress of the heart-disease that +finally killed him.</p> + +<p>During the month of April[*] he was occupied in removing his +furniture from the Passy cottage to his new residence. Theophile +Gautier, who paid him a visit there not long after the +installation, gave a sketch of what he saw in an article that +appeared in the <i>Artiste</i>. He says:</p> + +<p>[*] On the house in Passy; the dates indicating the period of +the novelist's residence there are incorrect. It is to be hoped +that the error, which has been pointed out to the Curator, will +be rectified.</p> + +<p>"When one entered this dwelling, which, indeed, was not easy, +since the occupant kept himself close there, a thousand tokens of +luxury and comfort were noticeable which were but little in +agreement with the poverty that he pleaded. One day, however, he +received us, and we saw a dining-room wainscoted in old oak, with +table, chimney-piece, sideboards, dressers, and chairs, all in +wood so carved as to have caused envy to Cornejo Duque and +Verbruggen, if they had been present; a drawing-room upholstered +in buttercup damask, and with doors, cornices, skirting-board, +and embrasures in ebony; a library arranged in bookcases inlaid +with tortoise-shell and brass in Boule style; a bathroom in +yellow and black marble, with stucco bass-reliefs; a dome +boudoir, whose ancient paintings had been restored by Edmond +Hedouin; a gallery lighted from above, which we recognized later +in the collection of <i>Cousin Pons</i>. There were what-nots +laden with all sorts of curiosities, Dresden and Sevres china, +cornet-shaped vases of frosted celadon, and, on the carpeted +staircase, large porcelain bowls, and a magnificent lantern +suspended by a red silk cord. 'Why! you have emptied one of +Aboulcasem's siloes,' we laughingly remarked to Balzac, as we +gazed at all these splendours. 'We were quite right in asserting +that you were a millionaire.' 'I am poorer than ever I was,' he +replied, with a humble, sly air. 'Nothing of this is mine. I have +furnished the house for a friend that I am expecting. I am only +the keeper and porter.'"</p> + +<p>Within three short years from this date, the charge fell on +her--the friend. She became the porteress of the abode which the +other had prepared with such lavish attention and expenditure, to +serve him only as a pall.</p> + +<p>In 1875, the widow and her son-in-law, Count Mniszech, +resolved to modify the Hotel Beaujon and the adjoining buildings, +with the intention of perpetuating the novelist's memory. The +rotunda of the private chapel they planned to convert into a kind +of circular atrium, with a fountain in the middle and a trellised +gallery running round it, decorated with busts, statues, and +other works of art. Changes likewise were to be effected in the +courtyard, to which the pillars of the chapel nave had been +removed; and a statue of the late owner was to be erected there, +close to a tree, the seed of which had been planted on the +occasion of his marriage. The facade of the house on the Rue +Fortunee, now the Rue Balzac, was also to be embellished, and the +central pavilion made to represent the novelist's apotheosis, +with a monumental bass-relief and a niche. Only a small portion +of these alterations was completed. On Madame de Balzac's death, +in 1882, the property was bought by the Baroness Salomon de +Rothschild; and, before the end of the century, it was demolished +and the ground it covered was incorporated into the Baroness's +own gardens. All that now marks the site is the small dome +forming the corner of the Rue Balzac and the Rue du +Faubourg-Saint-Honore.</p> + +<p>Whatever menaces of rupture between the lovers may have +darkened their horizon in the spring and summer of 1847 had +vanished before the autumn. At the end of September, Balzac went +by invitation to Wierzchownia, and remained its guest for over +four months. The sight of Russia's huge oak forests, of which the +Mniszech family possessed some twenty thousand acres, suggested +to him another of the grandiose schemes for gaining a large +fortune that he was for ever elaborating in his brain. His +project was to establish an exportation to France of oak timber, +either by sea or rail; which, with every expense figured out, +might yield, so he calculated, a profit of a million two hundred +thousand francs for a part area, and would still leave the estate +well wooded after thinning out the trees. The thing was a +gold-mine for him and his family if a banker could be induced to +take it up. Alas! his brother-in-law was obliged to pour cold +water on the project, proving to him that the expenses, contrary +to what he had estimated, would far exceed the receipts. The weak +point in the affair, however, was one that cheaper transport +following on increased railway communication could remedy. +Balzac's only mistake was in imagining that this could be +provided immediately. The visitor to Wierzchownia was not wrong +in thinking that Russia's natural productions must sooner or +later be one of the chief supplies of the European market. A +better knowledge of the country, acquired during his stay, +enabled him to perceive that internal reorganization was needed +before the country's immense wealth could be exploited to the +same degree as was possible in a country like France. In the +Forties, Russia presented curious contrasts--great magnificence, +and yet entire want of the commonest conveniences. Madame +Hanska's estate was the only one boasting of a Carcel lamp and a +hospital. There were ten-foot mirrors, and no paper on the walls. +Still, he had not to complain of his apartments in pink stucco, +with fine carpets on the floor, and furniture that was +comfortable. It astonished him to find that the whole of the +Wierzchownia castle--as big as the Louvre--was heated by means of +straw, which was burnt in stoves, the weekly consumption being as +much as could be seen in the Saint-Laurent market at Paris. But, +then, everything was huge. One of the Mniszech estates extended +over a surface as large as the Seine and Marne Department, and +was watered by no fewer than three rivers, the Dnieper being one +of them. And the cholera was colossal also--a conscientious +cholera, carrying off its forty to fifty victims a day in Kiew +alone, and a total of nine thousand at Savataf. To reassure his +relatives, Balzac added that this plague paid most of its calls +at the houses of rich uncles, to which category he did not +belong, and passed by people who had debts. <i>Ergo</i>, he was +inoculated against its attacks.</p> + +<p>CHAPTER XIII</p> + +<p>LAST YEARS: MARRIAGE AND DEATH</p> + +<p>It is time something was said now about Balzac's last dramatic +compositions. Since the Gaite fiasco, in 1843, no other theatre +had been brought up to the point of producing a further piece +from his pen, although several negotiations were opened +respecting plays supposed to be well in hand. In 1844, there was +his comedy <i>Prudhomme en Bonne Fortune</i>, which the Gymnase +had some thoughts of staging. Poirson, the manager, whom the +author met one day in an omnibus, was enchanted with the idea, +and proposed help even on most advantageous terms. The rehearsals +were fixed for March, and the first performance for May; but, for +some reason that we do not learn, the execution of the project +was abandoned. Probably it was the burden of unfinished novels +and a lurking desire to go on with <i>Mercadet</i>, which was +lying still in its unachieved state.</p> + +<p>Twelve months later, <i>Mercadet</i> appears to have received +the last touches, and to be awaiting only an opportunity for its +representation. But Frederick Lemaitre, who was to assume the +chief role, had previous engagements that monopolized him; so +Balzac, meanwhile, turned again to a subject he had often toyed +with, <i>Richard the Sponge-Heart</i>, the name recalling that of +Richard the Lion-Heart, without there being the least analogy +between the Norman king and the hero of the play. In each +preceding attempt, the author had stopped short at the end of the +first act, and, on recommencing, had produced a different +version. The hero was a joiner, living in the Faubourg +Saint-Antoine, whose habitual drunkenness had procured him his +nickname. Had it been developed, the piece would no doubt have +been a popular drama, on the lines subsequently followed by +Zola's <i>Assommoir</i>. There was talk of performing it at the +Varietes in 1845; the year, however, slipped away, and it was not +forthcoming. Dining with Gautier in December, at the house of +Madame de Girardin, Balzac agreed with Theophile to go on with +the drama in collaboration as soon as the theatres should have +worked off some of their stock. Evidently, this was not done. +However, Monsieur Henri Lecomte, in his <i>Life of Frederick +Lemaitre</i>, affirms that Balzac did terminate <i>Richard the +Sponge-Heart</i>, and that it was handed to Frederick to study. +Then, some months afterwards, being in want of money, he asked +the actor to take it to the publisher, Paulin, and obtain an +advance of a thousand francs on it. If Paulin had it, he must +either have mislaid or destroyed it, for, from this date, all +traces of it were lost; and, to-day, a few fragments alone remain +in Monsieur de Lovenjoul's collection.</p> + +<p>In 1846, vague mention was made in the correspondence with +Madame Hanska of a military farce called the <i>Trainards</i> or +<i>Laggards</i>. However, nothing came of it. But in August 1847, +after the publication of <i>Cousin Pons</i>, the novelist paid a +visit to Monsieur Hostein, manager of the Theatre Historique, +which had been inaugurated in the preceding February. On this +stage, which was subsequently transformed into the Theatre +Lyrique, and later demolished to make room for the Boulevard of +the Prince Eugene, several pieces of Alexandre Dumas had just +been played in succession; and Balzac said to himself that he +would have a better chance of meeting with appreciative audiences +in these new premises. Monsieur Hostein relates in his +<i>Reminiscences</i> that the novelist, calling on him one day at +his Bougival country- residence, went out and sat with him by the +river-side, and there explained that he wished to write a great +historic drama entitled <i>Peter and Catherine (of Russia)</i>. +Asked for an outline of it, Balzac tapped his forehead and said: +"It is all there. I have only to write. The first tableau can be +rehearsed the day after to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"We are," he continued, "in a Russian inn, with many people +running in and out, since troops are passing through the +place.</p> + +<p>"One of the servants is a lively girl. Pay attention to her. +She is not beautiful, but attractive! And the visitors notice +her, and joke with her. She smiles at every one; but those who go +too far in gesture or language soon discover they have made a +mistake.</p> + +<p>"All at once, a soldier enters, bolder than the rest. He gets +the girl to sit down with him, and wants to clink glasses with +her. On the innkeeper's objecting, he rises in a rage, thumps the +table with his fist, and cries: 'Let no one oppose my will, or I +will set fire to the inn.'</p> + +<p>"The innkeeper orders the girl to obey, for the troops are +everywhere, and the peasant is alarmed. Sitting down again, the +soldier drinks with the girl, tells her she shall be happy with +him, and promises her a finer home than she has.</p> + +<p>"But while they are talking, a door opens at the back, and an +officer appears. Those present rise with respect, except the girl +and her companion. Approaching them, the officer lays his hand +heavily on the soldier's arm, and says: 'Stand up, fellow. Go to +the counter, and write your name and that of your regiment, and +hold yourself at my orders.'</p> + +<p>"The soldier stands up automatically, obeys, and, having +presented the paper, retires.</p> + +<p>"Then the officer sits down and flirts with the girl, who +accepts his compliments.</p> + +<p>"But now a stranger shows himself at the door. He is clad in a +big cloak. At the sight of him, men and women fall on their +knees, except the officer, who is too agreeably occupied to +notice the new arrival. In a moment of enthusiasm, he says to the +girl: 'You are divine. I will take you with me. You shall have a +fine house, where it is warm.'</p> + +<p>"Just then, the man in the cloak draws near. The officer +recognizes him, turns pale, and bows down, uttering: 'Oh, pardon, +sire!'</p> + +<p>"'Stand up,' orders the master, meantime examining the +servant, who, on her side, looks without trembling at the +all-powerful Czar.</p> + +<p>"'You may withdraw,' the latter tells the officer. 'I will +keep this woman, and give her a palace.'</p> + +<p>"Thus met for the first time Peter I and she who became +Catherine of Russia."</p> + +<p>Having given this prologue, Balzac went on to speak of the +staging of his play, which he promised to arrange in accordance +with what he knew of the country's scenery and customs, Russia +being, from an artistic point of view, admirable to exhibit +theatrically. Monsieur Hostein was quite gained over by the +prospect of something so novel; and Balzac, paying him a second +call, some few days later, pledged himself to start for Kiew and +Moscow very shortly, and, from there, to go to Wierzchownia and +finish his drama. The journey to Russia was made; and Balzac, in +due course, returned, but he did not bring with him the +denouement of <i>Peter</i> <i>and Catherine</i>.</p> + +<p>Not that his mind was less preoccupied with the drama. On the +contrary, Champfleury, who went to see him in the Rue Fortunee, +soon after his arrival in Paris, found him more bent on writing +for the stage than ever. One idea of his now was to create a +<i>feerie</i>, or sort of pantomime, sparkling throughout with +wit. Another was to form an association for dramatic authors of +standing (himself naturally included), not to defend their +interests, but to get them to work in common, and to keep thus +the various Paris theatres provided with their work. It was a +<i>trust</i> scheme before the era of trusts. If the thing were +managed, they might renew the miracles of those indefatigable and +marvellous Spanish playwrights--Calderon, who composed between +twelve and fifteen hundred pieces, Lope de Vega, who composed +more than two thousand. However, he feared that many of his +colleagues might not care to fall in with his suggestions. "They +are idlers, donkeys," he added. "There is only one worker among +them, and that is Scribe. But what a piece of literature his +<i>Memoirs of a Hussar Colonel</i> is!"</p> + +<p>Another visitor to the Rue Fortunee in February 1848 was +Monsieur Hostein, to whom the novelist had offered for the spring +a piece that should replace <i>Peter and Catherine</i>. This time +the manuscript was ready. It lay on the table, bearing on its +first page the title, <i>Gertrude, a Bourgeois Tragedy</i>. The +piece was a five-act one, in prose. A couple of days later, +actors and actresses were assembled in Balzac's drawing-room. +Madame Dorval pursed her lips at the words, <i>Gertrude</i>, +<i>tragedy</i>. "Don't interrupt," cried the author, laughing. +However, after the reading of the second act they had to +interrupt. The play was overloaded with detail. A good deal of +pruning was effected, together with a change in title, before the +first performance on the 25th of May; and more excisions might +have been made with advantage. Alterations less beneficial were +those introduced into the cast, Madame Dorval being eliminated in +favour of Madame Lacressonniere. This lady was a much poorer +actress, but was a <i>persona grata</i> with Monsieur Hostein. +Both public and critics accorded Balzac's new effort a very fair +reception, notwithstanding the mediocrity of the acting and the +peculiar circumstances under which it was produced, just as the +Revolution storm was breaking out.</p> + +<p>The <i>Maratre</i>, or <i>Stepmother</i>, as the piece was +called when staged, presents the home of a Count de Grandchamp, +who, after being a general under the First Empire, has turned +manufacturer under the restoration. He has a grown-up daughter, +Pauline, and a second wife named Gertrude, the latter still a +young, handsome woman, with a ten-year-old son, the little +Napoleon. Though they are outwardly on good terms, the stepmother +and stepdaughter nevertheless hate each other. They are in love +with the same man, Ferdinand, the manager of the general's works. +On this hatred the entire interest of the play turns. Ferdinand +really loves Pauline; but he has formerly been engaged to +Gertrude, who jilted him to marry the general, and this fact +somewhat embarrasses him in his wooing. Moreover, his father was +an officer under the Revolution Government, and, if the general +should learn that, it would ruin his chances of obtaining the old +gentleman's consent. The plot arising out of these relations is, +at first, cleverly dealt with by the author, who involves matters +further by a second suitor for Pauline, to whom Gertrude tries to +marry her, in order that she herself may regain Ferdinand's +affection. In the second act, a word- duel is fought between the +two women, during a whist-party, each seeking to surprise the +opponent's true sentiments towards Ferdinand. This scene is +exceedingly original; and, subsequently, a bold employment is +made by the author of the <i>enfant terrible</i>--the young +Napoleon--for the purpose of helping on the unravelling of the +plot. The concluding portion of the piece and its sombre +tragedy--the deaths of Pauline and Ferdinand--is heavier in +dialogue and cumbrous in construction, with its officers of +justice who supply a useless episode. One might sum up the +<i>Stepmother</i> as a weak ending to a strong beginning. None +the less it shows progress on <i>Vautrin</i> and <i>Pamela +Giraud</i>.</p> + +<p>A few days after the Revolution, Theodore Cogniard, manager of +the Porte-Saint-Martin Theater, wrote to Balzac and proposed to +reproduce <i>Vautrin</i>. Balzac, in replying, referred to +Lemaitre's <i>toupet</i>, and explained that, when disguising +Vautrin as a Mexican general, he had in his mind General Murat. +He told Cogniard he was willing to allow the revival, if care +were taken against there being any caricature of the now disposed +monarch. The manager agreed, but the performances did not come +off, apparently on account of the disturbed state of the city. In +1850, an unauthorized revival was put on the stage of the Gaite, +while Balzac was at Dresden. Being informed of it, the novelist +protested in a letter to the <i>Journal des Debats</i>, and the +piece was at once withdrawn.</p> + +<p>The <i>Stepmother</i> was Balzac's last dramatic composition +played during his lifetime. This was partly his own fault. In the +short epoch of the Second Republic, when neither the Comedie +Francaise nor the Odeon, the two national homes of the drama, +were thriving, it was to the directors' interest to seek out men +of talent; and he had overtures from both theatres. Mauzin of the +Odeon even promised him, as he had promised Alexandre Dumas and +Victor Hugo, a premium of six thousand francs and a percentage of +receipts on any sum over a thousand francs. Balzac consented to +write a tragedy entitled <i>Richard Sauvage</i>, and got as far +as--a monologue. With Lockroy of the Theatre Francais also he +made an arrangement for a comedy. There had been talk at first, +both inside and outside the Francais, of a satirical piece called +the <i>Petty Bourgeois</i>, but having nothing except the name in +common with his unfinished novel similarly yclept. His motive for +not proceeding with it he set forth to the journalist Hippolyte +Rolle, in a letter published in his correspondence. "Is it on the +morrow of a battle," he wrote, "when the bourgeoisie have so +generously shed their blood on behalf of threatened civilization, +and when they are in mourning, that one can drag them before the +footlights?"</p> + +<p>The manager, he said, had been pleased to accept in exchange +another comedy which would be soon performed. This comedy was the +resuscitated <i>Mercadet</i>, the title of which had been altered +to the <i>Speculator</i> in 1847, and the <i>Jobber</i> in 1848. +Under the last appellation, it was read by the Comedie Committee +in August, and unanimously approved. However, between this date +and December, Balzac had taken his departure to Wierzchownia, +where he seemed likely to remain for a while; and, in his +absence, the members of the Committee repented of their bargain. +Another solemn sitting was held in December, and an amended +resolution was passed, accepting the <i>Jobber</i> on condition +that certain corrections were made in it. On being apprized of +the proviso, Balzac immediately cancelled his treaty with +Lockroy, and entered into negotiations with Hostein, who +professed himself only too happy to place the Theatre Historique +at the author's disposal. Alas! the same difficulties and worse +cropped up here. Hostein wrote that his public was a boulevard +one, much fonder of melodrama than comedy, and that, if the +<i>Jobber</i> were to succeed, it must be completely modified. +Naturally, Balzac refused. He had not withdrawn it from the first +theatre in Paris, which demanded only trifling alterations, to +permit it to be cut up by a theatre of less importance.</p> + +<p>Content to wait till a more complaisant director should make +overtures to him, he filled in his leisure at Wierzchownia by +inventing the <i>King of Beggars</i>, which he announced to his +friend Laurent Jan as an up-to-date play flattering the +all-powerful plebs; and he likewise sketched a tragedy in which +Madame Dorval was to have the chief role. This was in April, +1849, and, a few weeks later, Madame Dorval was dead. Only on the +23rd of August 1851, a year after his own death, did his +executors meet with a director, Monsieur Montigny of the Gymnase, +who undertook to stage <i>Mercadet the Jobber</i>. Less +intransigent than Balzac, the executors allowed its five acts to +be reduced to three, and a considerable amount of suppression and +remodelling to be operated by a professional playwright, Adolphe +Dennery. Performed with these concessions to theatrical +requirements and popular taste, and with Geoffroy in the chief +role, failing Lemaitre and Regnier, <i>Mercadet</i> pleased the +public greatly, too greatly for some bull and bear habitues of +the Bourse, who feared that their pockets might suffer. Owing to +their complaints, the Minister for the Interior temporarily +suspended the representations, basing his interdiction on the +ground that expressions struck out by the Censor had been +inserted again by the actors. Prudently, Monsieur Montigny +ordered a few more excisions, and the prohibition was raised. +Seventeen years elapsed before the Comedie Francaise at last +placed <i>Mercadet</i> on its repertory and inaugurated the event +by a special performance with Got as the <i>Jobber</i>.</p> + +<p>The hero of the piece is a financier who has very little cash, +but innumerable projects for gaining money. These involve methods +which are not always straight-forward; yet, since he believes in +the success of what he advocates, he is not absolutely +unprincipled, though he does not mind to some extent gulling the +gullible. His chief aim is to trick his creditors--themselves, as +it happens, not worthy of much pity; and, himself kind-hearted, +loving his wife and daughter, and not a libertine, he appeals to +the sympathies of the reader or the audience. Most of the +amusement of the play--and it is very amusing-- is derived from +the metamorphoses adopted by the <i>Jobber</i> in dealing with +each sort of creditor. Moreover, the love-passages between Julie, +the daughter, and a poor clerk who thinks her an heiress, are so +managed as to strengthen the comic side of certain situations. +The unexpected arrival of a rich uncle from America releases the +<i>Jobber</i> ultimately from the tangle into which he has +twisted himself. It is the least original part of the comedy; but +was suggested, like the rest of the play, by Balzac's own +circumstances. Was he not always expecting a windfall; and was +not Eve a kind of rich--relative? To add one more detail +concerning <i>Mercadet</i>, it was revived at the Comedie +Francaise in 1879, and again in 1890, there being as many as 107 +performances. Its indisputable qualities have caused some writers +to conclude that, if Balzac had lived longer, he would have +become as great a dramatist as he was a novelist. This is very +doubtful. Notwithstanding its long incubation of nearly a decade, +and the advantage it possessed in embodying so much personal +experience, <i>Mercadet</i> was still weak in construction and +was largely wanting in dramatic compression. And, at fifty years +of age, with failing powers, Balzac would have found the task +increasingly hard to acquire an art for which, by his own +confession, he had no born aptitude.</p> + +<p>The temporary government which was set up, in consequence of +the February Revolution of 1848, conceived the curious idea of +summoning the members of the Men of Letters Society to a meeting +in the Palais Mazarin, for the purpose of eliciting from them an +expression of opinion on the situation of literature and the best +way to protect it. Balzac, who had newly arrived from +Wierzchownia, went to the meeting and was chosen chairman. But no +sooner was the discussion opened than it degenerated into dispute +and tumult; the place became a bear- garden, and, after vainly +endeavouring to restore order, he took up his hat and left the +room.</p> + +<p>When the general elections were held, for the forming of a +Constituent Assembly, he stood as a candidate, and published a +long declaration of his opinions in the <i>Constitutionnel</i>, +in which had appeared his <i>Poor Relations</i>. The candidature +had no success; it could scarcely be expected to have any. His +political style was not one to catch the popular vote; and his +sympathies were too visibly autocratic to commend themselves at +such a moment. What deceived him was that, at first, there +appeared to be a chance for the establishment of a strong central +power well disposed towards sage reforms of a social, +administrative, and financial character, with men like Lamartine +to elaborate them; and to a government of this kind he could have +given his support. When he realized that the trend of events was +towards a Republic of Utopian experiment which he regarded as +doomed to failure and disaster, he quietly dropped out of the +struggle, and, leaving Paris once more in September, retraced his +steps to Wierzchownia.</p> + +<p>The political disturbances of the previous six months had been +prejudicial both to his invested capital and to his income +accruing from work. It was difficult to sell fiction +advantageously when people were more interested in facts; nor did +he care much to continue his efforts under a <i>regime</i> that +he looked upon as a usurpation. Until the speedy overthrow which +he confidently reckoned upon, he said to himself that he would do +better to occupy himself with the question of his marriage. The +hope was at present a forlorn one, but it was worth risking. He +started with the intention of coming back, like the Spartan, +either on his shield or under it.</p> + +<p>Short of available cash, as always, he borrowed five thousand +francs from his publisher, Souverain, for the expenses of his +journey and pocket-money, and placed his mother in charge of his +Beaujon mansion, with procuration to buy the complement of his +domestic articles.</p> + +<p>The warm welcome he received on reaching Madame Hanska's +residence made him so sanguine that he wrote to Froment-Meurice, +his jeweller in Paris, asking that the cornaline cup might be +sent him which had been on order for the past two years. The +jeweller was evidently not anxious to oblige such a bad payer. +This cup, the novelist said, was to be flanked by two figures, +Faith and Hope, the former holding a scroll, with Neuchatel and +the date 1833 on it, the latter, another scroll, with a kneeling +Cupid--the whole resting on a ground covered with cacti and +various thorny plants besides, in silver gilt.</p> + +<p>The blasts of winter in a rigorous climate laid him by with +bronchitis in November. He suffered at the same time great +difficulty in breathing; and the doctors diagnosed certain +symptoms of heart trouble that caused them to consider his case a +grave one. This malady relegated all matrimonial projects for the +moment into the background. Madame Hanska did not hide that she +regretted having put so much of her money into the purchase and +furnishing of a house that they hardly seemed likely to inhabit +together. Adding up what it had cost them both, they estimated +the total at three hundred and fifty thousand francs. Into these +figures the price of pictures entered for a large amount. The +most recent were Greuze's <i>Jeune Fille Effrayee</i>, from the +last King of Poland's Gallery; two Canalettis, once the property +of Pope Clement XIII; <i>James II of England's Wife</i>, by +Netscher; the same king's portrait, by Lely, in addition to a Van +Dyck, two Van Huysums, and three canvases by Rotari, a Venetian +painter of the eighteenth century.</p> + +<p>The winter was not propitious to Madame Hanska either. Two +fires on her estate did enormous damage, and her money losses +were important. Balzac, though tenacious of his plan, talked +constantly of going back to his loneliness, yet stayed on still; +and Eve, who either would not or could not screw up her courage, +invented fresh reasons for procrastinating. One of these was the +Emperor's refusal to sanction the marriage unless Madame Hanska's +landed property were transferred to her daughter's husband. A +scolding letter from the novelist's mother, accusing Honore of +remissness towards his nieces and family, was by chance read to +the Wierzchownia hostess, and this further complicated a +situation already sufficiently involved. Balzac's bile was +stirred. He relived his feelings in a long reply to Laure. It +seemed after all he would return to Paris under his shield. "I +had a marriage which made my fortune," he told her. "Everything +is now upset for a bagatelle. Know that it is with marriages as +with cream; a changed atmosphere, a bad odour, spoils them both. +Bad marriages are easily arranged; good ones only with infinite +precaution. . . . I can tell you, Laure," he continued, "it is +something, when one wishes, to be able in Paris to open one's +drawing-room and gather in it an <i>elite</i> of society who will +find there a woman as polished and imposing as a queen, +illustrious by her birth, allied to the greatest families, witty, +educated, and beautiful. One has thus a fine means of domination. +With a household thus established, people are compelled to +reckon; and many persons of high position will envy it, +especially since your dear brother will bring to it only glory +and a clever conduct."</p> + +<p>Here we have the secret of Balzac's persistence, and ample +proof also of what has already been asserted, to wit, that his +affection for the <i>Stranger</i> was a fancy born and bred +rather in the head than in the heart.</p> + +<p>It was perhaps to take the edge off this quip quarrelsome that +the following amusing lines were addressed in the next month to +his nieces, giving them particulars about animal and vegetables +foods in Russia. "The country," he said, "has no veal--I mean +eatable veal, for cows produce calves here as well as elsewhere; +but these calves are of Republican leanness. Beef, such as one +gets in Paris, is a myth; one remembers it only in dreams. In +reality, one has meat twenty years old, which is stringy and +which serves to bulk out the packets of hemp intended for +exportation. One consoles one's self with excellent tea and +exquisite milk. As for the vegetables, they are execrable. +Carrots are like turnips, and turnips are like nothing. On the +other hand, there are gruels galore. You make them with millet, +buckwheat, oats, barley; you can make them even with tree-bark. +So, my nieces, take pity on this country, so rich in corn, but so +poor in vegetables. Oh! how Valentine would laugh to see the +apples, pears, and plums! She wouldn't give over at the end of a +year. Good-bye, my dear girls, and accept the Republic patiently; +for you have real beef, veal, and vegetables, and a kind uncle +happy and fed on gruel."</p> + +<p>Ill again with his heart in the April of 1849, Balzac had the +good luck to be attended by a pupil of the famous Doctor Franck, +the latter being the original of his <i>Country Doctor</i>. This +disciple, and his son to a less extent, were men of a newer and +more enlightened school; and the elder man, by bold experiments, +reduced his patient's arterio- sclerosis to the point of what +seemed to be convalescence. But the treatment was tedious and +lasted on into the summer, so that the novelist was left weak and +delicate at the end. In such a condition he was less than ever +fit to carry on his wooing.</p> + +<p>To give himself a countenance, he spoke again of departure, +fixing the date for the month of October. Madame Hanska was +apparently willing to let him go. She had played the hostess +generously during nearly a twelvemonth to this invalid, and it +seemed to her enough. Not that she intended to sever the +engagement. She wished merely to wait and see how matters turned +out. Meantime, he could watch over their common property, now +augmented by the acquisition of an extra plot of land at the +side, which could be resold later at a large profit. But a +resumption of the old burden was more than Balzac could face. In +September he was prostrated by what Dr. Knothe called an +intermittent brain fever, which continued for more than a month. +His constitution pulled him through, with the aid of good +nursing; and then, realizing that her tergiversations had been +partly responsible for the attack, Eve, at last, in conversations +between them that followed his recovery, let him understand that +she relented and was willing to accompany him back to Paris as +his wife, if the Emperor would permit of such a transfer of the +estate to Count Mniszech as might enable her to receive a share +of its revenues.</p> + +<p>The victory was won, yet at a heavy cost. For a man so worn +down by illness Russia was not the place to recruit in. Its +biting winds throughout the winter of 1849 and 1850 withered what +little vitality Balzac had still remaining, and at Kiew, where he +had gone with Madame Hanska on business, he was again laid up +with fever.</p> + +<p>All the different formalities required by Russian law having +been finally complied with, the wedding was celebrated on the +14th of March, in the Church of Saint Barbara at Beriditchef, +some few hours distant from Wierzchownia. At once the bridegroom +despatched the news to his family and friends. His joy was such +that he fancied he had never known happiness before. "I have had +no flowery spring," said his letter to Madame Carraud. "But I +shall have the most brilliant of summers, the mildest of autumns. +. . . I am almost crazy with delight."</p> + +<p>More than a month elapsed ere the newly married couple were +able to set out on their journey to the French capital, and, even +then, they had to travel along roads studded with quagmires into +which their carriage frequently sank up to the axle. Sometimes +fifteen or sixteen men and a crick were necessary to extricate +them. Though on their honeymoon, they found the repetition of +these incidents monotonous, and were so tired when they reached +Dresden that they stayed there to recover themselves. From this +town Balzac sent a few lines to his mother and sister mentioning +the approximate date of their reaching home; and instructions +were given that everything should be in order, flowers on the +table, and a meal prepared. He did not want his mother to be at +the house to receive them, deeming it more proper that his wife +should call on her first, either at Laure's, or at Suresnes where +she was living. They got into Paris on the 22nd or 23rd of +May.</p> + +<p>Monsieur de Lovenjoul relates that the two travellers drove up +to the Beaujon mansion a little before midnight. Weary with the +journey, they stepped out of the cab and rang the bell, rang more +than once, for no one came to open the door. Through the windows +they could see the lamps lighted and signs of their being +expected. But where was the valet, Francois Munck, who had been +left in charge by the novelist's mother? Apparently, he had +deserted his post. Balzac kept on ringing, shouting at intervals, +and thumping the gate. Still there was silence inside. The one or +two people passing at this late hour stopped out of curiosity, +and began in their turn to call and knock; while the cabman, +tired of waiting, put down the luggage on the footpath.</p> + +<p>Madame de Balzac grew impatient. It was cold standing in the +night- air. Her husband, nonplussed and exceedingly annoyed, did +not know what to say to the bystanders. One of the latter offered +to fetch a locksmith, named Grimault, who lived in a street close +by. The suggestion was gladly agreed to, since there seemed +nothing else to be done. However, until such time as the +locksmith should come, they continued battering at the gate and +throwing tiny pebbles at the windows; and the master, thus shut +out from his own dwelling, hallooed to the invisible valet: "I am +Monsieur de Balzac." It was useless. The door refused to open. +Around Madame de Balzac, now seated on one of the trunks, other +passers-by had gathered and listened to the novelist's excited +comments on his predicament. The occurrence was certainly +extraordinary.</p> + +<p>At length, the locksmith was brought and the gate was forced. +The whole party, hosts and impromptu guests, hurried through the +narrow courtyard, entered the house without further hindrance, +and were met by a strange spectacle. The valet had been seized +with a sudden fit of madness and had smashed the crockery, +scattered the food about, spilt a bottle of wine on the carpet, +upset the furniture, and ruined the flowers. Having performed +these exploits, he was wandering aimlessly to and fro with +demented gestures, and in this state they discovered him. After +securing and fastening him up in a small room, the visitors +helped to place the luggage in the yard and then retired, with +profuse thanks from the novelist, who being thoroughly unnerved +by this untoward incident, was obliged to go straight to bed. The +next day, Francois was taken to an asylum at his master's +expense, as is proved by a receipt still existing in which Balzac +is dubbed a Count. Perhaps the title was a piece of flattery on +the doctor's part, or the novelist may have imagined that his +marrying a Countess conferred on him letters of nobility.</p> + +<p>Anyway, this assumed lordship was poor compensation for the +immense disappointment of his marriage in every other respect. +From the moment he and his wife took possession of their fine +Beaujon residence, whatever bonds of friendship and tenderness +had previously existed between them were irremediably snapped +asunder. Peculiarities of character and temperament in each, +which, as long as they were lovers, had been but slightly felt, +now came into close contact, clashed, and were proved to be +incompatible. Moreover, there were disagreeable revelations on +either side. The husband learnt that his wife's available income +was very much inferior to what he had supposed or been led to +believe, and the wife learnt that her husband's debts, far from +being paid, as he had asserted, subsisted and were more numerous +and larger than he had ever in sober truth admitted. So, instead +of coming to Paris to be the queen of a literary circle, the +<i>Stranger</i> saw herself involved in liabilities that +threatened to swallow up her own fortune, if she lent her +succour.</p> + +<p>Reproaches and disputes began in the week following their +instalment. The disillusioned Eve withdrew to her own apartments +in anger; and Balzac, whose bronchitis and congestion of the +liver had grown worse, remained an invalid in his. They had +intended spending only a fortnight or so in Paris, and then +travelling south to the Pyrenees and Biarritz; but this programme +was perforce abandoned. All through the month of June the patient +was under medical treatment, able to go out only in a carriage, +and, even so, in disobedience to the doctor's orders. One of +these visits was to the door of the Comedie Francaise, where +Arsene Houssaye, the Director, came to speak to him about +<i>Mercadet</i>, and indulgently promised him, it should be +staged soon, the <i>Resources of Quinola</i> also.</p> + +<p>On the 20th of June, he wrote, through his wife, to Theophile +Gautier, telling him that his bronchitis was better and that the +doctor was proceeding to treat him for his heart-hypertrophy, +which was now the chief obstacle to his recovery. At the end of +the letter he signed his name, adding: "I can neither read nor +write." They were the last words of his correspondence. From that +date his heart-disease undermined him rapidly; and the few +friends whom he received augured ill from what they remarked. Not +that he lost hope himself. Although suffering acutely at +intervals from difficulty in breathing, and from the oedema of +his lower limbs, which slowly crept upwards, he spoke with the +same confidence as always of his future creations that he +meditated. His brain was the one organ unattacked. From Dr. +Nacquart he inquired every day how soon he might get to work +again.</p> + +<p>The month of July and the first half of August passed thus, +the dropsy gaining still on him in spite of all that Nacquart and +other medical men could do to combat it. To every one but the +patient himself, it was evident that he was dying. Houssaye, who +came to see him on the 16th of August, found Dr. Nacquart in the +room. He relates that Balzac, addressing the latter, said: +"Doctor, I want you to tell me the truth. . . . I see I am worse +than I believed. . . . I am growing weaker. In vain I force +myself to eat. Everything disgusts me. How long do you think I +can live?"--The doctor did not reply.--"Come, doctor," continued +the sick man, "do you take me for a child? I can't die as if I +were nobody. . . . A man like me owes a will and testament to the +public."--"My dear patient, how much time do you require for what +you have to do?" asked Nacquart.--"Six months," replied Balzac; +and he gazed anxiously at his interlocutor.--"Six months, six +months," repeated the doctor, shaking his head.--"Ah!" cried +Balzac dolorously; "I see you don't allow me six months. . . . +You will give me six weeks at least. . . . Six weeks with the +fever, is an eternity. Hours are days; and then the nights are +not lost."--The doctor shook his head again. Balzac raised +himself, almost indignant.--"What, doctor! Am I, then, a dead +man? Thank God! I still feel strength to fight. But I feel also +courage to submit. I am ready for the sacrifice. If your science +does not deceive you, don't deceive me. What can I hope for yet? +. . . Six days? . . . I can in that time indicate in broad +outlines what remains to be done. My friends will see to details. +I shall be able to cast a glance at my fifty volumes, tearing out +the bad pages, accentuating the best ones. Human will can do +miracles. I can give immortal life to the world I have created. I +will rest on the seventh day."--Since beginning to speak, Balzac +had aged ten years, and finally his voice failed him.--"My dear +patient," said the doctor, trying to smile, "who can answer for +an hour in this life? There are persons now in good health who +will die before you. But you have asked me for the truth; you +spoke of your will and testament to the public."--"Well?"--"Well! +this testament must be made to-day. Indeed, you have another +testament to make. You mustn't wait till to-morrow." --Balzac +looked up.--"I have, then, no more than six hours," he exclaimed +with dread.</p> + +<p>The details of this narration given to the <i>Figaro</i> many +years after the event[*] do not read much like history. A more +probable account tells that Balzac, after one of his fits of +gasping, asked Nacquart to say whether he would get better or +not. The doctor hesitated, then answered: "You are courageous. I +will not hide the truth from you. There is no hope." The sick +man's face contracted and his fingers clutched the sheet. "How +long have I to live?" he questioned after a pause. "You will +hardly last the night," replied Nacquart. There was a fresh +silence, broken only by the novelist's murmuring as if to +himself: "If only I had Bianchon, he would save me." Bianchon, +one of his fictitious personages, had become for the nonce a +living reality. It was Balzac who had taken the place of his +medical hero in the kingdom of shadows. Anxious to soften the +effect of his sentence, Nacquart inquired if his patient had a +message or recommendation to give. "No, I have none," was the +answer. However, just before the doctor's departure, he asked for +a pencil, and tried to trace a few lines, but was too week; and, +letting the pencil drop from his fingers, he fell into a +slumber.</p> + +<p>[*] 20th of August 1883.</p> + +<p>In his <i>Choses Vues,</i> Victor Hugo informs us that, on the +afternoon of the 18th, his wife had been to the Hotel Beaujon and +heard from the servants that the master of the house was dying. +After dinner he went himself, and reached the Hotel about nine. +Received at first in the drawing-room, lighted dimly by a candle +placed on a richly carved oval table that stood in the centre of +the room, he saw there an old woman, but not, as he asserts, the +brother-in-law, Monsieur Surville. No member of Balzac's own +family was present in the house that evening. Even the wife +remained in her apartments. The old woman told Hugo that gangrene +had set in, and that tapping now produced no effect on the +dropsy. As the visitor ascended the splendid, red-carpeted +staircase, cumbered with statues, vases, and paintings, he was +incommoded by a pestilential odour that assailed his nostrils. +Death had begun the decomposition of the sick man's body even +before it was a corpse. At the door of the chamber Hugo caught +the sound of hoarse, stertorous breathing. He entered, and saw on +the mahogany bed an almost unrecognizable form bolstered up on a +mass of cushions. Balzac's unshaven face was of blackish-violet +hue; his grey hair had been cut short; his open eyes were glazed; +the profile resembled that of the first Napoleon. It was useless +to speak to him unconscious of any one's presence.</p> + +<p>Hugo turned and hastened from the spot thinking sadly of his +previous visit a month before, when, in the same room, the +invalid had joked with him on his opinions, reproaching him for +his demagogy. "How could you renounce, with such serenity, your +title as a peer of France?" he had asked. He had spoken also of +the Beaujon residence, the gallery over the little chapel in the +corner of the street, the key that permitted access to the chapel +from the staircase; and, when the poet left him, he had +accompanied him to the head of the stairs, calling out to Madame +de Balzac to show Hugo his pictures.</p> + +<p>Death took him the same evening.[*] During the last hours of +his life Giraud had sketched his portrait for a pastel;[+] and, +on the morning of the 19th, a man named Marminia was sent to +secure a mould of his features. This latter design had to be +abandoned. An impression of the hands alone was obtainable. +Decomposition had set in so rapidly that the face was distorted +beyond recognition. A lead coffin was hastily brought to cover up +the ghastly spectacle of nature in a hurry.</p> + +<p>[*] De Lovenjoul says that Balzac died on the 17th, not the +18th. This discrepancy is most curious, the latter date figuring +as the official one, as well as being given by Hugo and +others.</p> + +<p>[+] De Lovenjoul says that the sketch was made after death. +But, if the mask was not possible, it is difficult to understand +how a pencil likeness could have been drawn.</p> + +<p>Two days later, on the 21st of August, the interment took +place at Pere Lachaise cemetery. The procession started from the +Church of Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, to which the coffin had been +transported beforehand. There was no pomp in either service or +ceremony. A two- horse hearse and four bearers--Hugo, Alexandre +Dumas, Francis Wey, and Baroche, the Minister for the Interior +made up the funeral accessories. But an immense concourse of +people followed the body to the grave. The Institute, the +University, the various learned societies were all represented by +eminent men, and a certain number of foreigners, English, German, +and Russian, were present also. Baroche attended rather from duty +than appreciation. On the way to the cemetery, he hummed and +hawed, and remarked to Hugo: "Monsieur Balzac was a somewhat +distinguished man, I believe?" Scandalized, Hugo looked at the +politician and answered shortly: "He was a genius, sir." It is +said that Baroche revenged himself for the rebuff by whispering +to an acquaintance near him: "This Monsieur Hugo is madder still +than is supposed."</p> + +<p>Over the coffin, as it was laid under the ground near the +ashes of Charles Nodier and Casimir Delavigne, the author of +<i>Les Miserables</i> and <i>Les Feuilles</i> <i>d'Automne</i> +pronounced an oration which was a generous tribute to the talent +of his great rival. On such an occasion there was no room for the +reservations of criticism. It was the moment to apply the maxim, +<i>De mortuis nil nisi bonum</i>. "The name of Balzac," he said, +"will mingle with the luminous track projected by our epoch into +the future. . . . Monsieur de Balzac was the first among the +great, one of the highest among the best. All his volumes form +but a single book, wherein our contemporary civilization is seen +to move with a certain terrible weirdness and reality--a +marvellous book which the maker of it entitled a comedy and which +he might have entitled a history. It assumes all forms and all +styles; it goes beyond Tacitus and reaches Suetonius; it +traverses Beaumarchais and attains even Rabelais; it is both +observation and imagination, it lavishes the true, the intimate, +the bourgeois, the trivial, the material, and, through every +reality suddenly rent asunder, it allows the most sombre, tragic +ideal to be seen. Unconsciously, and willy nilly, the author of +this strange work belongs to the race of revolutionary writers. +Balzac goes straight to the point. He grapples with modern +society; and from everywhere he wrests something--here, illusion; +there, hopes; a cry; a mask. He investigates vice, he dissects +passion, he fathoms man--the soul, the heart, the entrails, the +brain, the abyss each has within him. And by right of his free, +vigorous nature--a privilege of the intellects of our time, who +see the end of humanity better and understand Providence--Balzac +smilingly and serenely issues from such studies, which produced +melancholy in Moliere and misanthropy in Rousseau. The work he +has bequeathed us is built with granite strength. Great men forge +their own pedestal; the future charges itself with the statue. . +. . His life was short but full, fuller of works than of days. +Alas! this puissant, untired labourer, this philosopher, this +thinker, this poet, this genius lived among us the life of all +great men. To-day, he is at rest. He has entered simultaneously +into glory and the tomb. Henceforth, he will shine above the +clouds that surround us, among the stars of the fatherland."</p> + +<p>To the credit of Balzac's widow it should be said that, +although not legally obliged, she accepted her late husband's +succession, heavy as it was with liabilities, the full extent of +which was communicated to her only after the funeral. The +novelist's mother, having renounced her claim on the capital lent +by her at various times to her son, received an annuity of three +thousand francs, which was punctually paid until the old lady's +demise in 1854. Buisson the tailor, Dablin, Madame Delannoy, and +the rest of the creditors, one after the other, were reimbursed +the sums they had also advanced, the profits on unexhausted +copyright aiding largely in the liberation of the estate. Before +Eve's own death, every centime of debt was cleared off.</p> + +<p>In the romance of Balzac's life it will be always arduous, if +not infeasible, to estimate exactly Madame Hanska's role, unless, +by some miracle, her own letters to the novelist could arise +phoenix-like from their ashes. The liaison that she is said to +have formed soon after her husband's death with Jean Gigoux, the +artist, who painted her portrait in 1852, may be regarded either +as a retaliation for Honore's infidelities, which she was +undoubtedly cognizant of, or else as the rebound of a sensual +nature after the years spent in the too idealistic realm of +sentiment. And, whichever of these explanations is correct, the +irony of the conclusion is the same.</p> + +<p>CHAPTER XIV</p> + +<p>THE COMEDIE HUMAINE</p> + +<p>The idea of joining his separate books together and forming +them into a coherent whole was one that matured slowly in +Balzac's mind. Its genesis is to be found in his first collection +of short novels published in 1830 under the titles: <i>Scenes of +Private Life</i>, and containing <i>The Vendetta</i>, +<i>Gobseck</i>, <i>The Sceaux Ball</i>, The House of the +Tennis-playing Cat, <i>A Double Family</i>, and <i>Peace in the +Household</i>. Between these stories there was no real connexion +except that certain characters in one casually reappeared or were +alluded to in another. By 1832, the <i>Scenes of Private Life</i> +had been augmented, and, in a second edition, filled four +volumes. The additions comprised <i>The Message</i>, <i>The +Bourse</i>, <i>The Adieu</i>, <i>The Cure of Tours</i>, and +several chapters of <i>The Woman of Thirty Years Old</i>, some of +which had previously come out as serials in the <i>Revue de +Paris</i> or the <i>Mode</i>.</p> + +<p>It has already been related how the novelist all at once +realized what a gain his literary production might have in +adopting a plan and building up a social history of his epoch. +And, in fact, this conception did stimulate his activity for some +time, serving too, as long as it was uncrystallized, to +concentrate his visions upon objective realities.</p> + +<p>Needing, between 1834 and 1837, a more comprehensive title for +the rapidly increasing list of his works, he called them +<i>Studies of Manners and Morals in the Nineteenth Century</i>, +subdividing them into <i>Scenes of Private Life</i>, <i>Scenes of +Parisian Life</i>, and <i>Scenes of Provincial Life</i>. However, +some things he had written were classible conveniently neither +under the specific names nor under the generic one. These +outsiders he called <i>Tales and Philosophic Novels</i>, +subsequently shortening the title, between 1835 and 1840, to +<i>Philosophic Studies</i>. The question was what wider +description could be chosen which might embrace also this last +category. Writing to Madame Hanska in 1837, he used the +expression <i>Social Studies</i>, telling her that there would be +nearly fifty volumes of them. Either she, or he himself, must, on +reflection, have judged the title unsatisfactory, for no edition +of his works ever bore this name. Most likely the thought +occurred to him that such an appellation was more suitable to a +strictly scientific treatise than to fiction.</p> + +<p>The expression <i>Comedie Humaine</i>, which he ultimately +adopted, is said to have been suggested to him by his whilom +secretary, the Count Auguste de Belloy, after the latter's visit +to Italy, during which Dante's <i>Divine Comedy</i> had been read +and appreciated. But already, some years prior to this journey, +the novelist would seem to have had the Italian poet's +masterpiece before his mind. In his <i>Girl with the Golden +Eyes</i>, he had spoken of Paris as a hell which, perhaps, one +day would have its Dante. De Belloy's share in the matter was +probably an extra persuasion added to Balzac's own leaning, or +the Count may have been the one to substitute the word +<i>human</i>.[*]</p> + +<p>[*] A communication has been made to me, while writing this +book, by Monsieur Hetzel, the publisher, tending to show that his +father, who was also known in the literary world, had a large +share in the choice of the <i>Comedie Humaine</i> as a title.</p> + +<p>Madame Hanska was at once informed of the choice. "The +<i>Comedie Humaine</i>, such is the title of my history of +society depicted in action," he told her in September 1841. And +when, between 1841 and 1842, Hetzel, together with Dubochet and +Turne, brought out sixteen octavo volumes of his works +illustrated, they each carried his name, while a preface set +forth the reasons which had led the author to choose it. +Thereafter, every succeeding edition was similarly styled, +including Houssiaux' series in 1855, and the series of +Calmann-Levy, known as the definitive one, between 1869 and +1876.</p> + +<p>Against the appellation itself no objection can reasonably be +made. Balzac's fiction takes in a world--an underworld might +appropriately be said--of Dantesque proportions. As soon as it +was fully fledged, it started with a large ambition. "My work," +he said to Zulma Carraud in 1834, "is to represent all social +effects without anything being omitted from it, whether situation +of life, physiognomy, character of man or woman, manner of +living, profession, zone of social existence, region of French +idiosyncrasy, childhood, maturity, old age, politics, +jurisdiction, war." And in the Forties the same intention was +stated as clearly. "I have undertaken the history of the whole of +society. Often have I summed up my plan in this simple sentence: +A generation is a drama in which four or five thousand people are +the chief actors. This drama is my book."</p> + +<p>When Hetzel decided to publish a so-far complete edition of +the <i>Comedie</i>, he induced the novelist to insert a preface +composed for the occasion. Balzac wished at first to use an old +preface that he had written in conjunction with Felix Davin, and +placed, under the latter's signature, at the beginning of the +<i>Study of Manners and</i> <i>Morals in the Nineteenth +Century</i>. Hetzel objected to this, and urged that so important +an undertaking ought to be preceded by an author's apology. His +advice was accepted, and the preface was developed into a +veritable doctrine and defence. Here are some of its essential +passages:--</p> + +<p>"The <i>Comedie Humaine</i>," says Balzac, "first dawned on my +brain like a dream--one of those impossible projects, it seemed, +that are caressed and allowed to fly away; a chimera which +smiles, shows its woman's face, and forthwith unfolds its wings, +mounting again into a fancied heaven. But the chimera, as many +chimeras do, changed into reality. It had its commands and its +tyranny to which I was obliged to yield.</p> + +<p>"It was born from a comparison between humanity and animality. +It would be an error to believe that the great quarrel which in +recent times has arisen between Cuvier and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire +is concerned with a scientific innovation. The <i>unity of +composition</i> involved in it had already, under other terms, +occupied the greatest minds of the two preceding centuries. On +reading over again the extraordinary works of such mystic writers +as Swedenborg, Saint- Martin, etc., who have studied the +relations of science with the infinite, and the writings of the +finest geniuses in natural history, such as Leibnitz, Buffon, +Charles Bonnet, etc., one finds in the monads of Leibnitz, in the +organic molecules of Buffon, in the vegetative force of Needham, +in the <i>jointing</i> of similar parts of Charles Bonnet--who +was bold enough to write in 1760: 'The animal vegetates like the +plant;' one finds, I say, the rudiments of the beautiful law of +<i>self for self</i> on which the unity of composition reposes. +There is only one animal. The Creator has made use only of one +and the same pattern for all organized beings. The animal is a +principle which acquires its exterior form, or, to speak more +exactly, the differences of its form, in the surroundings in +which it is called upon to develop. The various zoologic species +result from these differences. The proclamation and upholding of +this system, in harmony, moreover, with the ideas we have of the +Divine power, will be the eternal honour of Geoffroy +Saint-Hilaire, who was the vanquisher of Cuvier on this point of +high science, and whose triumph was acknowledged in the last +article written by the great Goethe."</p> + +<p>Continuing his exposition, the novelist says all men resemble +each other, but in the same manner as a horse resembles a bird. +They are also divided into species. These species differ +according to social surroundings. A peasant, a tradesman, an +artist, a great lord are as distinct from each other as a wolf is +from a sheep. Besides, there is another thing peculiar to man, +viz. that male and female are not alike, whereas among the rest +of the animals, the female is similar to the male. The wife of a +shopkeeper is sometimes worthy to be the spouse of a prince, and +often a prince's wife is not worth an artist's. Then, again, +there is this difference. The lower animals are strictly +dependent on circumstances, each species feeding and housing +itself in a uniform manner. Man has not such uniformity. In +Paris, he is not the same as in a provincial town; in the +provinces, not the same as in rural surroundings. When studying +him, there are many things to be considered--habitat, furniture, +food, clothes, language. In fine, the subject taken up by a +novelist who wishes to treat it properly, comprises man as an +integral portion of a social species, woman as not peculiarly +belonging to any, and <i>entourage</i> from its widest +circumference of country down to the narrowest one of home.</p> + +<p>"But," he goes on, "how is it possible to render the drama of +life interesting, with the three or four thousand varying +characters presented by a society? How please at the same time +the philosopher, and the masses who demand poetry and philosophy +under striking images? If I conceived the importance and poetry +of this history of the human heart, I saw no means of execution; +for, down to our epoch, the most celebrated narrators had spent +their talent in creating one or two typical characters, in +depicting one phase of life. With this thought, I read the works +of Walter Scott. Walter Scott, the modern <i>trouvere</i>, was +then giving a gigantic vogue to a kind of composition unjustly +called secondary. Is it not really harder to compete with the +registry of births, marriages, and deaths by means of Daphnis and +Chloe, Roland, Amadis, Panurge, Don Quixote, Manon Lescaut, +Clarissa, Lovelace, Robinson Crusoe, Ossian, Julie d'Etanges, My +Uncle Toby, Werther, Rene, Corinne, Adolphe, Gil Blas, Paul and +Virginia, Jeanie Deans, Claverhouse, Ivanhoe, Manfred, Mignon, +than to arrange facts almost similar among all nations, to seek +for the spirit of laws fallen into decay, to draw up theories +which lead people astray, or, as certain metaphysicians, to +explain what exists? First of all, nearly all these characters, +whose existence becomes longer, more genuine than that of the +generations amid which they are made to be born, live only on +condition of being a vast image of the present. Conceived in the +womb of the century, the whole human heart moves beneath their +outward covering; it often conceals a whole philosophy. Walter +Scott, therefore, raised to the philosophic value of history the +novel--that literature which from century to century adorns with +immortal diamonds the poetic crown of the countries where letters +are cultivated. He put into it the spirit of ancient times; he +blended in it at once drama, dialogue, portraiture, landscape, +description; he brought into it the marvellous and the true, +those elements of the epopee; he made poetry mingle in it with +the humblest sorts of language. But having less invented a system +than found out his manner in the ardour of work, or by the logic +of this work, he had not thought of linking his compositions to +each other so as to co-ordinate a complete history, each chapter +of which would have been a novel and each novel an epoch. +Perceiving this want of connection, which, indeed does not render +the Scotchman less great, I saw both the system that was +favourable to the execution of my work, and the possibility of +carrying it out. Although, so to speak, dazzled by the surprising +fecundity of Walter Scott, always equal to himself and always +original, I did not despair, for I found the reason of such +talent in the variety of human nature. <i>Chance is the greatest +novelist in the world.</i> To be fertile, one has only to study +it. French society was to be the historian. I was to be only the +secretary. By drawing up an inventory of virtues and vices, by +assembling the principal facts of passions, by painting +characters, by choosing the principal events of society, by +composing types through the union of several homogeneous +characters, perhaps I should succeed in writing the history +forgotten by so many historians, that of <i>manners and +morals</i>. With much patience and courage, I should realize, +with regard to France in the nineteenth century, the book we all +regret which Rome, Athens, Tyre, Memphis, Persia, India have not +unfortunately left about their civilizations, and which like the +Abbe Barthelemy, the courageous and patient Monteil had essayed +for the Middle Ages, but in a form not very attractive."</p> + +<p>One may well believe the novelist when he explains that "it +was no small task to depict the two or three thousand prominent +figures of an epoch," representing typical phases in all +existences, which, says he, "is one of the accuracies I have most +sought for. I have tried to give a notion also of the different +parts of our beautiful land. My work has its geography, as it has +its genealogy and its families, its places and things, its +persons and its facts, as it has its blazonry, its nobles and its +commoners, its artisans and its peasants, its politicians and its +dandies, its army, in fine, its epitome of life-- all this in its +settings and galleries."</p> + +<p>The Human Comedy, as finally arranged and classified in 1845, +had three chief divisions: <i>Studies of Manners and Morals</i>, +<i>Philosophic Studies, Analytic Studies</i>; and the first of +these was subdivided into <i>Scenes of Private Life, Scenes of +Provincial Life, Scenes of Parisian Life, Scenes of Military +Life, Scenes of Political Life, Scenes of Country Life.</i></p> + +<p>Even if we include the unwritten books, the diminution from +first to second and from second to third is considerable. In the +novelist's mind, this difference was intentional. According to +his conception, the first large series represented the broad base +of effects, upon which was superposed the second plane of causes, +less numerous and more concentrated. In the latter, he strove to +answer the why and wherefore of sentiments; in the former, to +exhibit their action in varying modes. In the former, therefore, +he represented individuals; in the latter, his individuals became +types. All this he detailed to Madame Hanska, insisting on the +statement that everywhere he gave life to the type by +individualizing it, and significance to the individuals by +rendering them typical. At the top of the cone he treated, in his +analytical studies, of the principles whence causes and effects +proceed. The manners and morals at the base, he said, were the +spectacle; the causes above were the side-scenes; and the +principles at the top were the author.</p> + +<p>Coming to the subdivisions, he explains that his <i>Scenes of +Private Life</i> deal with humanity's childhood and adolescence, +and the errors of these, in short, with the period of budding +passions; the <i>Scenes of Provincial Life</i>, with passions in +full development--calculation, interest, ambition, etc.; the +<i>Scenes of Parisian Life</i>, with the peculiar tastes, vices +and temptations of capitals, that is to say, with passion +unbridled. The interpretation assigned to these categories is a +fanciful one. Passions are born and bred and produce their full +effect in every place and phase of life. They may assume varying +forms in divers surroundings, but such variation has no analogy +with change of age. Only by forcing the moral of his stories was +the author able to give them these secondary significations. +Indeed, he was often in straits to decide in which category he +ought to class one and another novel. <i>Pere Goriot</i> was +originally in the <i>Scenes of Parisian Life</i>, where it has a +certain <i>raison d'etre</i>. Ultimately, it found its way into +the <i>Scenes of Private Life</i>. And a greater alteration was +made by removing <i>Madame Firmiani</i> and the +<i>Woman</i>-<i>Study</i> from the <i>Philosophic Studies</i>, +and placing them also in the <i>Private Life</i> series.</p> + +<p>Be it granted that the plan of the <i>Comedy</i> was grandiose +in its scope; it was none the less doomed in its execution to +suffer for its ambitiousness, since an attempt was made to +subordinate imagination to science in a domain where the rights +of imagination were paramount.</p> + +<p>That which Balzac has best rendered in it is the struggle for +life on the social plane; and that which forms its most +legitimate claim to be deemed in some measure a whole is the +general reference to this in all the so-called parts. Before the +Revolution, the action of the law was narrower, being chiefly +limited to members of one class. With the fall of ancient +privilege the sphere of competition was opened to the entire +nation; and, instead of nobles contending with nobles, churchmen +with churchmen, tradesmen with tradesmen, there was an +interpenetration of combatants over all the field of battle, or +rather, the several smaller fields of battle became one large +one. Balzac's fiction reproduces the later phase in minute +detail, and, mostly, with a treatment suited to the subject.</p> + +<p>Brunetiere, whose chapter on the <i>Comedy</i> is written more +gropingly than the rest of his study of the novelist, makes use +of an ingenious comparison with intent to persuade that the +stories had from the very first a predestined organic union, with +ramifications which the author saw but obscurely and which were +joined together more closely--as also more consciously--during +the lapse of years. "Thus," he says, "brothers and sisters, in +the time of their infancy or childhood, have nothing in common +except a certain family resemblance--and this not always. But, as +they advance in age, the features that individualized them become +attenuated, they return to the type of their progenitors, and one +perceives that they are children of the same father and mother. +Balzac's novels," he concludes, "have a connection of this kind. +In his head, they were, so to speak, contemporary."</p> + +<p>The simile is not a happy one. It does not help to reconcile +us to an artificial approximation of books that are +heterogeneous, unequal in value, and, frequently, composed under +influences far removed from the after-thought that was given to +them by a putative father. Balzac was not well inspired in +relating his novels to each other logically. Such natural +relationship as they possess is that of issuing from the same +brain, though acting under varying conditions and in different +states of development; and it is true that, if the story of this +brain is known, and its experiences understood, a certain +classification might be made--perhaps more than one--of its +creations, on account of common traits, resemblances of subject +or treatment, which could serve to link them together loosely. +But, between this arrangement and the artificial hierarchy of the +<i>Comedy</i>, it is impossible to find a bridge to pass +over.</p> + +<p>One of the real links betwixt the novels is the reappearance +of the same people in many of them, which thing is not in itself +displeasing. It has the advantage of allowing the author to +display his men and women in changed circumstances, to cast +side-lights upon them, and to reveal them more completely. +However, here and there, we pay for the privilege in meeting with +bores whose further acquaintance we would fain have been spared. +And then, also, we are likely enough to come across a hero or +heroine as a child, after learning all about his or her maturer +life; to accompany people to the grave and see them buried, and +yet, in a later book, to be introduced to them as alive as ever +they were. This is disconcerting. Usually, Balzac remembers his +characters well enough to be consistent in other respects when he +makes them speak and act, or lets us into his confidence about +them. Still, he is guilty of a few lapses of memory. In <i>The +Woman of Thirty Years Old</i>, Madame d'Aiglemont has two +children in the early chapters; subsequently, one is drowned, +and, instead of one remaining, we learn there are three--a new +reading of Wordsworth's <i>We are seven</i>. Again, in the +<i>Lost Illusions</i>, Esther Gobseck has blond hair in one +description of her, and black in another. We are reduced to +supposing she had dyed it. Mistakes of the kind have been made by +others writers of fiction who have worked quickly. In the +<i>Comedy</i>, the number of <i>dramatis</i> <i>personae</i> is +exceedingly large. Balzac laughingly remarked one day that they +needed a biographical dictionary to render their identity clear; +and he added that perhaps somebody would be tempted to do the +work at a later date. He guessed rightly. In 1893, Messrs. +Cerfbeer and Cristophe undertook the task and carried it through +in a book that they call the <i>Repertory of the Comedie +Humaine</i>.[*] All the fictitious personages or petty folk that +live in the novelist's pages are duly docketed, and their births, +marriages, deaths, and stage appearances recorded in this +<i>Who's Who</i>, a big volume of five hundred and sixty-three +pages, constituting a veritable curiosity of literature.</p> + +<p>[*] This work has been made available at Project Gutenberg by +Team Balzac. It is in two volumes.--Preparer's Note.</p> + +<p>Much has been said in the preceding chapters of the large use +Balzac made of his own life, his adventures, his experiences, in +composing the integral portions of his <i>Comedy</i>, so that its +contents, for any one who can interpret, becomes a valuable +autobiography. And the lesser as well as the greater novels +supply facts. In the <i>Forsaken Woman</i>, Madame de Beauseant, +who has been jilted by the Marquis of Ajuda-Pinto, permits +herself to be wooed by Gaston de Nueil, a man far younger than +herself. After ten years, he, in turn, quits her to marry the +person his mother has chosen for him; but, unable to bear the +combined burden of his remorse and yearning regret, he commits +suicide. This tale, like the <i>Lily in the Valley</i>, is a +adaptation of Balzac's liaison with Madame de Berny. It was +written in the very year he severed the material ties that bound +them. The only distinction between his case and that of Gaston de +Nueil was that he had no desire to kill himself, and was content +to be no more than a friend, since he was the freer to flirt with +Madame de Castries. And when the latter lady kept him on +tenter-hooks, tormenting him, tempting him, but never yielding to +him, he revenged himself by writing the <i>Duchess de +Langeais</i>, attributing to the foolish old general his own +hopes, fears, and disappointments at the hands of the coquettish, +capricious duchess. "I alone," he said in a letter, "know the +horrible that is in this narrative." And, if, in <i>Albert</i> +<i>Savarus</i>, we have a confession of his political ambitions +and campaigns, we get in <i>Cesar Birotteau</i> and the <i>Petty +Bourgeois</i> his financial projects, which never brought him +anything; in <i>A Man of Business</i>--as well as elsewhere--his +continual money embarrassments. How deeply he felt them, he often +lets us gather from his fiction. "I have been to a capitalist," +he wrote in one of his epistles to Madame Hanska, "a capitalist +to whom are due indemnities agreed on between us for works +promised and not executed; and I offered him a certain number of +copies of the <i>Studies of Manners and Morals</i>. I proposed +five thousand francs with deferred payment, instead of three +thousand francs cash. He refused everything, even my signature +and a bill, telling me my fortune was in my talent and that I +might die any time. This scene is one of the most infamous I have +known. Some day I will reproduce it."</p> + +<p>And he did, with many things else that happened to him in his +dealings with his fellows. There is biography too, as well as +autobiography in the <i>Comedy</i>--this notwithstanding his +disclaimers. Exact portraiture he avoided for obvious reasons, +but intentional portraiture he indulged in largely; and life and +character were sufficiently near the truth for shrewd +contemporaries to recognize the originals. To add one or two +examples to the number already given. Claire Brunne (Madame +Marbouty) seems to have suggested his <i>Muse of the County</i>, +a Berrichon blue-stocking; Madame d'Agoult and Liszt became +Madame de Rochfide and the musician Conti in <i>Beatrix</i>; a +cousin of Madame Hanska, Thaddeus Wylezinski, who worshipped her +discreetly, is depicted under the traits of Thaddeus Paz, a +Polish exile in the <i>False Mistress</i>, who assumes a feigned +name to conceal his love; Lamartine furnished the conception of +the poet Canalis in <i>Modeste Mignon</i>, the resemblance being +at first so striking that the novelist afterwards toned it away a +little; and Monnier, the caricaturist, certainly supplied the +essential elements in Bixiou, who is so well drawn in <i>Cousin +Bette</i> and the <i>Firm of Nucingen</i>. The Baron Nucingen +himself has some of the features of the James de Rothschild whom +Balzac knew; and Rastignac embodied the author's impression of +Thiers in the statesman's earlier years. One might go further and +couple Delacroix the painter's name with that of Joseph Bridau in +<i>A Bachelor's Household</i>, Frederick Lemaitre, the actor's, +with Medal's in <i>Cousin Pons</i>, Emile de Girardin's with du +Tillet's in <i>Cesar Birotteau</i>. At last, however, owing to +the mingling of one personality with another, identification is +increasingly difficult, unless the novelist comes to our +assistance, as in the story <i>Cousin Bette</i>, where he +confesses Lisbeth the old maid, to be made up out of three +persons, Madame Valmore, Madame Hanska's aunt, and his own +mother.</p> + +<p>Summing up Balzac's entire literary production, which in +Monsieur de Lovenjoul's catalogue occupies no fewer than fourteen +pages, we find that it comprises, besides the ninety-six +different works of the <i>Comedie Humaine</i> properly so called, +ten volumes of his early novels; six complete dramatic +pieces--one, the <i>School</i> <i>for Husbands and Wives</i> +recently published;[*] thirty <i>Contes Drolatiques</i>; and +three hundred and fourteen articles and opuscles, some of them +fairly long, since the <i>Reminiscences of a Pariah</i> has a +hundred and eighty-four pages octavo, the <i>Theory of +Walking</i> fifty, the <i>Code of Honest People</i> a hundred and +twelve, the <i>Impartial History of the Jesuits</i> eighty; these +exclusive of the <i>Revue Parisienne</i> with its two hundred and +twenty pages, which, as we have seen, was written entirely by +himself. When we remember that the whole of this, with the +exception of the early novels and six of the opuscles, was +produced in twenty years, we can better appreciate the man's +industry, which, as Monsieur Le Breton calculates, yielded an +average of some two thousand pages, or four to five volumes a +year.</p> + +<p>[*] Played for the first time March 13, 1910, at the Odeon +Theatre.</p> + +<p>In the miscellanies one meets with much that is curious, +amusing, and instructive, quite worthy to figure in the +<i>Comedy</i>--witty dialogues, light stories containing +deductions <i>a la</i> Sherlock Holmes or Edgar Allan Poe, plenty +of satire, sometimes acidulated as in his <i>Troubles and Trials +of an English Cat</i>, and theories about everything, indicative +of extensive reading, large assimilation and quick reasoning. The +miscellanies really stand to the novels in the relation of a sort +of prolegomenon. They serve for its better understanding, and are +agreeable even for independent study.</p> + +<p>CHAPTER XV</p> + +<p>VALUE OF THE WORK</p> + +<p>The aim of an author whose writings are intended to please +must be ethical as well as aesthetic, if he respects himself and +his readers. He wishes the pleasure he can give to do good, not +harm. The good he feels capable of producing may be limited to +the physical or may extend beyond to the moral; but it will be +found in his work in so far as the latter is truly artistic.</p> + +<p>Balzac's prefaces and correspondence are so many proofs that +he rejected the pretensions of literature or any other art to +absolute independence. The doctrine of art for art's sake alone +would have had no meaning to him. However much his striving to +confer on his novels organic unity, and however much the writing +against time deteriorated his practice, they did not prevent him +from recognizing the ethical claim. What he realized less was the +necessity of submitting treatment to the same government of +law.</p> + +<p>Even if we grant that the plan of the <i>Comedie Humaine</i> +existed in the novelist's mind from the commencement, obscurely +at first, more clearly afterwards, the plan itself was not +artistic in the sense that an image in the architect's mind is +artistic when he designs on paper the edifice he purposes to +construct, or in the painter's mind when he chooses the subject +and details of his picture, or in the sculptor's mind when he +arranges his group of statuary, or in the musician's mind when he +conjures up his opera or oratorio. Balzac's plan was one of +numbers or logic merely. The block of his <i>Comedy</i> was +composed on the dictionary principle of leaving nothing out which +could be put in; and his genius, great as it was, wrestled +achingly and in vain with a task from which selection was +practically banished and which was a piling of Pelion on +Ossa.</p> + +<p>For this reason it is that, regarded as an aggregate, the +<i>Comedie Humaine</i> can be admired only as one may admire a +forceful mass of things, when it is looked at from afar, through +an atmosphere that softens outlines, hides or transforms detail, +adds irreality. In such an ambience certain novels that by +themselves would shock, gain a sort of appropriateness, and +others that are trivial or dull serve as foils. But, at the same +time, we know that the effect is partly illusion.</p> + +<p>In a writer's entire production the constant factor is usually +his style, while subject and treatment vary. Balzac, however, is +an exception in this respect as in most others. He attains terse +vigour in not a few of his books, but in not a few also he +disfigures page after page with loose, sprawling ruggedness, not +to say pretentious obscurity. His opinion of himself as a stylist +was high, higher no doubt than that he held of George Sand, to +whom he accorded eminence mainly on this ground. Of the French +language he said that he had enriched it by his alms. Finding it +poor but proud, he had made it a millionaire. And the assertion +was put forward with the same seriousness that he displayed when +declaring that there were three men only of his time who really +knew their mother-tongue--Victor Hugo, Theophile Gautier, and +himself. That his conversancy with French extended from Froissart +downwards, through Rabelais' succulent jargon as well as +Moliere's racy idiom, is patent in nearly all he wrote; and that +he was capable of using this vocabulary aptly is sufficiently +shown in the best and simplest of his works. But it is not so +clear that he added anything to the original stock. Such words as +he coined under the impetus of his exuberance are mostly found in +his letters and have not been taken into favour.</p> + +<p>A demur must likewise be entered against his style's +possessing the qualities that constitute a charm apart from the +matter expressed. Too many tendencies wrought in him uncurbed for +his ideas to clothe themselves constantly in a suitable and +harmonious dress. Generally when his personality intruded itself +in the narrative, it was quite impossible for him to speak unless +affectedly, with a mixture of odd figures of speech and similes +that hurtled in phrases of heavy construction. Taine has +collected a few of these. In the <i>Cure of Tours</i> we +read:--</p> + +<p>"No creature of the feminine gender was more capable than +Mademoiselle Sophie Gamard of formulating the elegiac nature of +an old maid."</p> + +<p>Elsewhere, he speaks of the "fluid projections of looks that +serve to touch the suave skin of a woman;" of the "atmosphere of +Paris in which seethes a simoon that swells the heart;" of the +"coefficient reason of events;" of "pecuniary mnemonics;" of +"sentences flung out through the capillary tubes of the great +female confabulation;" of "devouring ideas distilled through a +bald forehead;" of a "lover's enwrapping his mistress in the +wadding of his attentions;" of "abortions in which the spawn of +genius cumbers an arid strand;" of the "philosophic moors of +incredulity;" of a "town troubled in its public and private +intestines."</p> + +<p>In one of the chapters of <i>Seraphita</i>, he says: "Wilfred +arrived at Seraphita's house to relate his life, to paint the +grandeur of his soul by the greatness of his faults; but, when he +found himself in the zone embraced by those eyes whose azure +scintillations met with no horizon in front, and offered none +behind, he became calm again and submissive as the lion who, +bounding on his prey in an African plain, receives, on the wing +of the winds, a message of love, and stops. An abyss opened into +which fell the words of his delirium!"</p> + +<p>And the same Wilfred "trusted to his perspicacity to discover +the parcels of truth rolled by the old servant in the torrent of +his divagations."</p> + +<p>During the years of Balzac's greatest literary activity, which +were also those of his bitterest polemics, his opponents made +much capital out of the caprices of his pen. In the lawsuit +against the <i>Revue de Paris</i>, Monsieur Chaix d'Est-Ange, the +defendant's counsel, provoked roars of laughter by quoting +passages from the <i>Lily in the Valley</i>; and Jules Janin, in +his criticism of <i>A Provincial Great Man in Paris</i>, grew +equally merry over the verbal conceits abounding in the portraits +of persons. And yet the very volumes that furnish the largest +number of ill-begotten sentences contain many passages of +sustained dignity, sober strength, and proportioned beauty.</p> + +<p>Normally, Balzac's style, in spite of its mannerisms, its use +and abuse of metaphor, its laboured evolution and expression of +the idea, and its length and heaviness of period, adapts itself +to the matter, and alters with kaleidoscopic celerity, according +as there is description, analysis, or dramatization. Thus +blending with the subject, it loses a good deal of its proper +virtue, which explains why it does not afford the pleasure of +form enjoyed in such writers as George Sand, Flaubert, Renan, and +Anatole France. The pleasure his word-conjuring can yield is +chiefly of the sensuous order. The following passage is, as Taine +says, botany turned into imagination and passion:--</p> + +<p>"Have you felt in the meadows, in the month of May, the +perfume which communicates to every living being the thrill of +fecundation, which, when you are in a boat, makes you dip your +hands in the rippling water and let your hair fly in the wind, +while your thoughts grow green like the boughs of the forest? A +tiny herb, the sweet-smelling anthoxanthum is the principal of +this veiled harmony. Thus, no one can stay in its proximity +unaffected by it. Put into a nosegay its glittering blades +streaked like a green-and-white netted dress; inexhaustible +effluvia will stir in the bottom of your heart the budding roses +that modesty crushes there. Within the depths of the scooped-out +neck of porcelain, suppose a wide margin composed of the white +tufts peculiar to the sedum of vines in Touraine; a vague image +of desirable forms turned like those of a submissive slave. From +this setting issue spirals of white-belled convolvulus, twigs of +pink rest-harrow mingled with a few ferns, and a few young +oak-shoots having magnificently coloured leaves; all advance +bowing themselves, humble as weeping willows, timid and suppliant +as prayers. Above, see the slender-flowered fibrils, unceasingly +swayed, of the purply amourette, which sheds in profusion its +yellowy anthers; the snowy pyramids of the field and water +glyceria; the green locks of the barren bromus; the tapered +plumes of the agrosits, called wind-ears; violet-hued hopes with +which first dreams are crowned, and which stand out on the grey +ground of flax where the light radiates round these blossoming +herbs. But already, higher up, a few Bengal roses scattered among +the airy lace of the daucus, the feathers of the marsh-flax, the +marabouts of the meadow-sweet, the umbellae of the white chervil, +the blond hair of the seeding clematis, the neat saltiers of the +milk-white cross-wort, the corymbs of the yarrow, the spreading +stems of the pink-and-black flowered fumitory, the tendrils of +the vine, the sinuous sprays of honeysuckle; in fine, all that is +most dishevelled and ragged in these naïve creatures; flames +and triple darts, lanceolated, denticulated leaves, stems +tormented like vague desires twisted at the bottom of the soul; +from the womb of this prolix torrent of love that overflows, +shoots up a magnificent red double-poppy with its glands ready to +open, displaying the spikes of its fire above the starred jasmine +and dominating the incessant rain of pollen, a fair cloud that +sparkles in the air, reflecting the light in its myriad +glistening atoms. What woman, thrilled by the love-scent lurking +in the anthoxanthum, will not understand this wealth of +submissive ideas, this white tenderness troubled by untamed +stirrings and this red desire of love demanding a happiness +refused in those struggles a hundred times recommenced, of +restrained, eternal passion. Was not all that is offered to God +offered to love in this poesy of luminous flowers incessantly +humming its melodies to the heart, caressing hidden pleasures +there, unavowed hopes, illusions that blaze and vanish like +gossamer threads on a sultry night?"</p> + +<p>This last quotation was probably in Sainte-Beuve's mind when +he spoke of the efflorescence by which Balzac gave to everything +the sentiment of life and made the page itself thrill. Elsewhere +he found the efflorescence degenerate into something exciting and +dissolvent, enervating, rose-tinted, and veined with every hue, +deliciously corruptive, Byzantine, suggestive of debauch, +abandoning itself to the fluidity of each movement. Sainte-Beuve +was not an altogether unprejudiced critic of the novelist; but +his impeachment can hardly be refuted, although Brunetiere would +fain persuade us that the only thing which may be reasonably +inveighed against in Balzac's style is its indelicacy or rather +native non-delicacy. If the <i>Contes Drolatiques</i> alone had +been in question, this lesser accusation might suffice. But there +are the <i>Lost Illusions</i>, the <i>Bachelor's Household</i>, +and <i>Cousin Bette</i>, not to mention other novels, in which +the scenes of vice are dwelt upon with visible complacency and a +glamour is created and thrown over them by the writer's +imagination, in such a way that the effect is nauseous in +proportion as it is pleasurable. The artistic representation of +vice and crime is justifiable only in so far as the mind +contemplating it is carried out and beyond into the sphere of +sane emotion. True, by considerable portions of the <i>Comedie +Humaine</i> only sane emotions are roused; but these portions +are, more often than not, those wherefrom the author's peculiar +genius is absent. It is in less conspicuous works, or those like +the <i>Cure of Tours</i>, the <i>Country Doctor</i>, <i>Cesar +Birotteau, Cousin Pons</i>, the <i>Reverse</i> <i>Side of +Contemporary History</i> that the eternal conflict of good and +evil is so exhibited as to evoke healthy pity, sympathy, +admiration, and their equally healthy contraries, and also a +wider comprehension of life.</p> + +<p>It is difficult to separate the subject-matter of a novel from +its treatment. Yet a word should be said of Balzac's widening the +limits of admission. His widening was two-fold. It boldly took +the naked reality of latest date, the men and women of his time +in the full glare of passion and action, unsoftened by the veil +that hides and in some measure transforms when they have passed +into history; and it included in this reality the little, the +commonplace, the trivial. This innovator in fiction aimed, as +Crabbe and Wordsworth had aimed in poetry, at interesting the +reader in themes which were ordinarily deemed to be void of +interest. The thing deserved trying. His predecessors, and even +his contemporaries, had neglected it. An experimenter in this +direction, he now and then forgot that the proper subject-matter +of the novel is man--man either individual or collective--and +spent himself in fruitless endeavours to endow the abstract with +reality.</p> + +<p>When he opined, somewhat rashly, that George Sand had no force +of conception, no power of constructing a plot, no faculty of +attaining the true, no art of the pathetic, he doubtless wished +the influence to be drawn that he was not lacking in them +himself.</p> + +<p>As regards the first, his claim can be admitted without +reserve. Force of conception is dominant throughout his fiction. +It is that which gained his novels their earliest acceptance. +Whether they were approved or disapproved in other respects, +their strong originality imposed itself on the attention of +friends and enemies alike. One felt then, and one feels now, +though more than half a century has elapsed since they were +produced, that, whatever factitious accretions clung to them, +they came into the world with substance and form new- fashioned; +no mere servile perpetuation of an effete type, but a fresh +departure in the annals of art.</p> + +<p>Especially is this seen in his characterization. His men and +women are most of them put on foot with the energy of movement in +them and an idiosyncrasy of speech and action that has not been +surpassed. As already stated, they generally are not portraits, +although his memory was of that peculiar concave visuality which +allowed him to cast its images forth solidly into space. What he +did was to remodel these images with proportions differing from +those of the reality, magnifying or diminishing them pretty much +as Swift with his Brobdingnagians and Lilliputians; and, having +got the body of his personage recomposed, with mental and moral +qualities and defects corresponding to every one of its +details--for Balzac was a firm believer in the corporal being an +exact reflection of the spiritual-- he set his mechanisms in +motion.[*]</p> + +<p>[*] "A round waist," he says, "is a sign of force; but women +so built are imperious, self-willed, more voluptuous than tender. +On the contrary, flat-waisted women are devoted, full of finesse, +inclined to melancholy." Elsewhere, he informs us that "most +women who ride horseback well are not tender." "Hands like those +of a Greek statue announce a mind of illogical domination; +eyebrows that meet indicate a jealous tendency. In all great men +the neck is short, and it is rare that a tall man possesses +eminent faculties."</p> + +<p>To call his men and women mechanisms, while yet acknowledging +their intense vitality, may seem a contradiction; but nothing +less than this antinomy is adequate to indicate the fatality of +Balzac's creatures. None of them ever appear to be free agents. +Planet-like they revolve in an orbit, or meteor-like they rush +headlong, and their course in the one or the other case is +guessable from the beginning. Not that change or development is +precluded. The conjuror provides for large transformation; but +the law of such transformation is one of iron necessity, and, +when he brings in at the end his interferences of Providence, +they shock us as an inconsequence. However, though bound by their +weird, his people are extraordinarily various in their aspect and +doings. It is rare that he repeats his characters, albeit many of +them touch each other at certain points. The exceptions are +caused by his sometimes altering his manner of characterization +and proceeding from the inside first. This variation goes to the +extent of distinguishing influences of the soil as well as of +social grade and temperament. His northerners speak and act +otherwise than those of the south or west, and, in the main, are +true to life, despite the author's perceptible satire when +depicting provincials.</p> + +<p>Parallel to his vigorous creation of character is the force +with which he builds up their environment. Here his realism is +intense. Indeed, occasionally one is tempted to credit Balzac +with a greater love of things than of men, yet not the things of +nature as much as things made by men. His portrayal of landscape +may be fine prose, but contains no pure feeling of poetry in it, +while, in the town, in the house, in the street, wherever the +human mind and hand have left their imprints, his language grows +warm, his fancy swoops and grasps the significance of detail; +these dumb survivals of the past become eloquent to his ears; his +eyes discover in them a reflecting retina which, obedient to his +command, resuscitates former contacts, a world buried and now +found again. When attempting the historical novel, in which his +persons are typical rather than individual, he still preserves +this exactitude of local colouring. His descriptions of places, +in fact, in all his books are almost photographs, and, where +change has been slow, still serve to guide the curious +traveller.</p> + +<p>In his preface to the <i>Cabinet of Antiques</i>, he explains +how he dealt with his raw material. A young man has been +prosecuted before the Assize Court, and had been condemned and +branded. This case he connected with the story of an ancient +family fallen from its high estate and dwelling in provincial +surroundings. The story had dramatic elements in it, but less +intensely dramatic than those of the young man's case. "This way +of proceeding," he says, "should be that of an historian of +manners and morals. His task consists in blending analogous facts +in a single picture. Is he not rather bound to give the spirit +than the letter of the happenings? He synthesizes them. Often it +is necessary to pick out several similar characters in order to +succeed in making up one, just as odd people are met with who are +so ridiculous that two distinct persons may be created out of +them. . .. . Literature uses a means employed in painting, which, +to obtain a fine figure, adapts the hands of one model, the foot +of another, the chest of a third, the shoulders of a fourth."</p> + +<p>The foregoing quotation raises the question of the +significance of the term truth as applied to fiction. Evidently, +it cannot have the same meaning as when applied to history or +biography. In the latter, the writer invents neither +circumstances nor actions, nor the persons engaged in them, but +seeks to know the whole of the first two exactly as they +occurred, and to interpret, as nearly to life as may be, the +third. However, if he be a philosopher, he will perhaps try to +show the intimate relations existing between these same persons +and the events in which they were concerned; and, in doing so, he +will step out of his proper role and assume one which is less +easy for him than for the novelist to play, since the writer of +fiction composes both his <i>dramatis personae</i> and their +story; and the concordance between them is more a matter of art +than of science.</p> + +<p>Still it is possible that neither a novelist's characters nor +their environment shall be in entire agreement with all +observable facts. There may be arrangements, eliminations, +additions, which, though pleasing to the reader, may remove the +mimic world to a plane above that of the so-called real one. Thus +removed, Balzac judged George Sand's production to be. And we +must confess that, even in <i>Little Fadette</i>, <i>The Devil's +Pool</i>, and <i>Francois le Champi</i>, it deals with human +experience in a mode differing widely from that which the author +of <i>Eugenie Grandet</i> considered conform to truth.</p> + +<p>As regards the methods of these two rivals, the claim to +superior truth cannot be settled in Balzac's favour by merely +pointing to his realism. Realism tried by the norm of truth is +relative. What it represents of the accidental in life may be +much less than what it omits of the essential or potential, for +these two words are often interchangeable. In the same object, +different people usually see different aspects, qualities, +attributes. Is one spectacle necessarily true and another false? +It is certain that George Sand, in her stories of peasant life, +largely uses the artist's liberty of leaving out a great deal +that Balzac would have put in when treating a like subject. It is +certain that from some themes and details that Balzac delighted +in describing she deliberately turned away, and it is certain +also that she introduced into her fiction not a little of the +Utopian world that has haunted man in his later development +without there being actuality or the least chance of realization +to lend it substance. But Balzac's fiction has, too, its pocket +Utopias, less attractive and less invigorating than Madame +Dudevant's, and in his most realistic portrayals there are not +infrequently dream-scapes of the fancy. The truth that we can +most readily perceive in his work is one which, after all, +embraces the ideally potential in man as well as his most +material manifestations. It is small compared with the mass of +what he wrote; but, where found, it is supreme.</p> + +<p>In constructing plot Balzac is unequal and often inferior. +Here it is that his romanticist origins reappear rankly like +weeds, giving us factitious melodrama that accords ill with his +sober harvest of actuality. And his melodrama has not the merit +of being various. It nearly always contains the same band of +rogues, disguised under different names, conspiring to ruin +innocent victims by the old tricks of their trade.</p> + +<p>Then, again, many of his novels have no understandable +progression from the commencement, through the middle, to the +conclusion. This is not because he was incapable of involving his +characters in the consequences of their actions, but because +things that he esteemed of greater importance interfered with the +story's logical development. We have episodes encroaching on the +main design, or what was originally intended to be the main +design, which is disaggregated before the end is arrived at. As a +matter of fact, quite a number of his plots are swamped by what +he forces into them with the zeal of an encyclopaedist. +Philosophy, history, geography, law, medicine, trade, industry, +agriculture enter by their own right. The novelist yields up his +wand, and the pedagogue or <i>vulgarisateur</i> comes forward +with his chalk and blackboard. Canalization is explained at +length in the <i>Village Cure</i>; will-making is discoursed upon +in <i>Ursule Mirouet</i>; promissory notes, bills of exchange, +and protests, not to speak of business accounts, cover pages in +the <i>Lost Illusions</i>; therapeutics takes the place of +narrative in the <i>Reverse Side of Contemporary History</i>; +physiology is lectured upon in the <i>Lily in the Valley;</i> +<i>Louis Lambert</i> aims at becoming a second and better edition +of the <i>Thoughts of Pascal</i>; and in <i>Seraphita</i> we have +sermons as long and tedious as those of an Elizabethan divine. +The result is that even novels containing the presentment of love +in its most passional phases lose their right to the name. At +best they can be called only disparate chapters of fiction; at +worst, they are merely raw material.</p> + +<p>As for his achievement in the pathetic, it is almost nil. At +least, if by pathos we mean that which touches the heart's +tenderest strings. Harrow us, he can; play upon many of our +emotions, he is able to at will. But, at bottom, he had too +little sympathy with his fellows to find in their mistakes, or +sins, or sufferings, the wherewithal to bring out of us our most +generous tears. Those he wept once or twice himself when writing +were drawn from him by a reflex self-pity that is easily evoked. +In genuine pathos, Hugo is vastly his superior.</p> + +<p>Women occupy so preponderant a position in the <i>Comedy</i> +that one is forced to ask one's self whether these numerous +heroines are reproduced with the same fidelity to nature as are +his men. At any rate, they are not all treated in the same +manner. In his descriptions of grand ladies the satiric intention +is rarely absent. Why, it is difficult to say, unless it was that +he was unable to avoid the error of introducing the pique of the +plebeian suitor, and that the satire was an effort to establish +the balance in his favour. "When I used to go into high society," +he told Madame Hanska, "I suffered in every part of me through +which suffering could enter. It is only misunderstood souls and +those that are poor who know how to observe, because everything +jars on them, and observation results from suffering." In his +inmost thought he had no high opinion of women. Notwithstanding +his flattery of Madame Hanska, he was a firm upholder of the old +doctrine of male supremacy; and, at certain moments, he slipped +his opinion out, content afterwards to let Eve or another suppose +that his hard words were not spoken in earnest. One of his +would-be witticisms at the expense of the fair sex was: "The most +Jesuitical Jesuit among the Jesuits is a thousand times less +Jesuitical than the least Jesuitical woman." The form only of the +accusation was new. How often before and since the misogynist has +asserted that women have no conscience. Be it granted that +Balzac's grand dames often have very little, and some of his +other women also. They are creatures of instinct and passion +susceptible only of being influenced through their feelings. Yet, +as regards the former, Sainte- Beuve assures us that their +portraits in the <i>Comedy</i> resemble the originals. He says: +"Who especially has more delightfully hit off the duchesses and +viscountesses of the Restoration period!" Brunetiere accepts this +testimony of a contemporary who himself frequented the +<i>salons</i> of the great. Some later critics, on the contrary, +hold that the novelist has given us stage-dames with heavy graces +and a bizarre free-and-easiness as being the nearest equivalent +to aristocratic nonchalance. One thing is certain, namely, that +Balzac was personally acquainted rather with that side of +aristocratic society which was not the better. It was the side +bordering on licentiousness, where manners as well as morals are +easily tainted and vulgarity can creep in. Again, he creates his +women with a theory, and, in art, theories are apt to become +prejudices. According to his appreciation Walter Scott's heroines +are monotonous; they lack relief, he said, and they lack it +because they are Protestants. The Catholic woman has repentance, +the Protestant woman, virtue only. Many of Balzac's women repent, +and many of those that repent either backslide or come very near +to it. His altogether virtuous women are childish without being +children, and some are bold into the bargain. In fine, his gamut +of feminine psychology seems to be limited, very limited. Women +of the finest mind he neither comprehended nor cared to +understand. They were outside his range.</p> + +<p>But what he missed in the whole representation of the fair sex +he made up for by what he invented, as indeed, too, in his +representation of the sterner sex; and Jules Janin's account of +the matter is not far from the truth:--</p> + +<p>"He is at once the inventor, the architect, the upholsterer, +the milliner, the professor of languages, the chambermaid, the +perfumer, the barber, the music-teacher, and the usurer. He +renders his society all that it is. He it is who lulls it to +sleep on a bed expressly arranged for sleep and adultery; he, who +bows all women beneath the same misfortune; he, who buys on +credit the horses, jewels, and clothes of all these handsome sons +without stomach, without money, without heart. He is the first +who has found the livid veneer, the pale complexion of +distinguished company which causes all his heroes to be +recognized. He has arranged in his fertile brain all the adorable +crimes, the masked treasons, the ingenious rapes mental and +physical which are the ordinary warp of his plots. The jargon +spoken by this peculiar world, and which he alone can interpret, +is none the less a mother-tongue rediscovered by Monsieur de +Balzac, which partly explains the ephemeral success of this +novelist, who still reigns in London and Saint Petersburg as the +most faithful reproduction of the manners and actions of our +century."</p> + +<p>Janin's animus blinded him to the rest, and it is just the +rest of the qualities which converted the ephemeral success into +the permanent. Taine's estimate is more discursive. He is further +removed from polemics. He says:--</p> + +<p>"Monsieur de Balzac has of private life a very deep and fine +sentiment which goes even to minuteness of detail and of +superstition. He knows how to move you and make you palpitate +from the first, simply in depicting a garden-walk, a dining-room, +a piece of furniture. He divines the mysteries of provincial +life; sometimes he makes them. Most often he does not recognize +and therefore isolates the pudic and hidden side of life, +together with the poetry it contains. He has a multitude of rapid +remarks about old maids and old women, ugly girls, sickly women, +sacrificed and devoted mistresses, old bachelors, misers. One +wonders where, with his petulant imagination, he can have picked +it all up. It is true that Monsieur de Balzac does not proceed +with sureness, and that in his numerous productions, some of +which appear to us almost admirable, at any rate touching and +delicious or piquant and finely comic in observation, there is a +dreadful pell- mell. What a throng of volumes, what a flight of +tales, novels of all sorts, droll, philosophic, and theosophic. +There is something to be enjoyed in each, no doubt, but what +prolixity! In the elaboration of a subject, as in the detail of +style, Monsieur de Balzac has a facile, unequal, risky pen. He +starts off quickly, sets himself in a gallop, and then, all at +once, he stumbles to the ground, rising only to fall again. Most +of his openings are delightful; but his conclusions degenerate or +become excessive. At a certain moment, he loses self- control. +His observing coolness escapes; something in his brain explodes, +and carries everything far, far away. Hazard and accident have a +good share in Monsieur de Balzac's best production. He has his +own manner, but vacillating, fidgety, often seeking to regain +self- possession."</p> + +<p>How much one could wish that, instead of producing more, +Balzac should have produced less. With a man of his native power +and perseverance, what greater perfection there might have been! +Certainly, no defect is more patent in the <i>Comedie Humaine</i> +than the trail of hasty workmanship, the mark of being at so much +a line. Strangely, the speed with which he wrote furnished him +with a cause for boasting. More properly, it ought to have filled +him with humiliation. Many <i>litterateurs</i> are compelled to +drive and overdrive their pens. But, if they have the love of +letters innate in them, it will go against the grain to send into +the world their sentences without having had leisure to polish +each and all. Examples have already been given of the short time +spent over several books of the <i>Comedy</i>. There is no need +to repeat these or to add to their names. Occasionally, the +result was not bad, when, as with <i>Cesar Birotteau</i>, the +subject had been long in the novelist's head. This, however, was +the exception. The fifty-five sheets once composed in a single +week, and the six thousand lines once reeled off in ten days, +were probably invented as well as set on paper within the periods +stated. No doubt, much was altered in the galley proofs; but the +alterations would be made with the same celerity, so that they +risked being no improvement either in style or matter. Balzac, +indeed, was aware of the imperfections arising from such a +method; and he not infrequently strove to correct them in +subsequent editions. The task might perhaps have been carried out +fully, if the bulk of his new novels had not been continually +growing faster than he could follow it with his revision.</p> + +<p>The commercial compromises that he consented to were still +more injurious to the artistic finish of some of his later pieces +of fiction. For instance, when the <i>Employees</i> was about to +come out in a volume, after its publication as a serial the +length was judged to be insufficient by the man of business. He +wanted more for his money. What did Balzac do? He searched +through his drawers, pitched upon a manuscript entitled +<i>Physiology of the Employee</i>, and drilled it into the other +story. Of these patchwork novels <i>The Woman of Thirty Years +Old</i> is the worst. Originally, it was six distinct short tales +which had appeared at divers dates. The first was entitled +<i>Early Mistakes</i>; the second, <i>Hidden Sufferings</i>; the +third, <i>At Thirty Years Old</i>; the fourth, <i>God's +Finger</i>; the fifth, <i>Two Meetings</i>; and the sixth and +last, <i>The Old Age of a Guilty Mother</i>. In 1835, the author +took it into his head to join them together under one title, +<i>The Same Story</i>, although the names of the characters +differed in each chapter, so that the chief heroine had no fewer +than six appellations. Not till 1842 did he remedy this primary +incoherence, yet without the removal of the <i>aliases</i> doing +anything towards bestowing consistency on the several personages +thus connected in Siamese-twin fashion. To-day, any one who +endeavors to read the novel through will proceed from +astonishment to bewilderment, and thence to amazement. Nowhere +else does Balzac come nearer to that peculiar vanity which +fancies that every licence is permissible to talent.</p> + +<p>In his chapter on the social importance of the <i>Comedie +Humaine</i>, Brunetiere tries to persuade us that, before +Balzac's time, novelists in general gave a false presentation of +the heroes by making love the unique preoccupation of life. And +he seems to include dramatists in his accusation, declaring that +love as a passion, the love which Shakespeare and Racine speak +of, is a thing exceeding rare, and that humanity is more usually +preoccupied with everything and anything besides love; love, he +says, has never been the great affair of life except with a few +idle people. Monsieur Brunetiere's erudition was immense, and the +nights as well as the days he spent in acquiring his formidable +knowledge may in his case have prevented more than a passing +thought being given to the solicitation of love. If the eminent +critic had been as skilled in psychology as he was in literature, +he would have been more disposed to recognize that, amidst all +the toils and cares of life, love, in some phase, is after all +the mainspring, and that, if it were eliminated from man's +nature, the most puissant factor of his activity would disappear. +Love is part of the huge sub-conscious in man; and the novelist, +in making the events of his fiction turn upon it, does no more +than follow nature.</p> + +<p>However, it is not exact that all novelists and dramatists, or +even the majority of them, before Balzac's time made love the +sole preoccupation of their heroes. What they did rather--in so +far as their writing was true--was to give a visible relief to it +which in real life is impossible, since it belongs to the +invisible, inner experience. Nor is it exact that Balzac +consistently assigns a secondary place in his novels to love. He +does so in his best novels, but not in some that he thought his +best--<i>The</i> <i>Lily in the Valley</i> and <i>Seraphita</i> +for example. The relegation of love to the background in these +novels which happen to be his masterpieces was caused by +something mentioned in a preceding chapter, to wit, that Balzac +never thoroughly felt or understood love as a great and noble +passion. And love, with him, being so oddly mixed up with +calculation, it was to be expected he should succeed best in +books in which the dominant interest was some other passion--an +exceptional one. If money plays, on the contrary, such an +intrusive role in his novels, its introduction was less from +voluntary, reasoned choice than from obsession. He deals with +this subject sometimes splendidly, but, at other times, he +wearies. Had money filled a smaller part of his work, the work +would not have been lost.</p> + +<p>In fine, with its beauties and its ugliness, its perfections +and its shortcomings, the <i>Comedy</i> is the illumination cast +by a master-mind upon the goings-out and comings-in of his +contemporaries, the creation of a more universal and +representative history of social life than had been previously +written. Having considerable ethical value, it is worth still +more on account of the ways it opens towards the fiction of the +future.</p> + +<p>CHAPTER XVI</p> + +<p>THE INFLUENCE</p> + +<p>Balzac's influence during his lifetime was, with but few +exceptions, exercised outside his own, novelist's profession. The +sphere in which it made itself chiefly felt was that of the +cultured reading public, and the public was, first and foremost, +a foreign one. History repeated itself. To Honore d'Urfe, the +author of the <i>Astree</i>, in the sixteenth century, while +living in Piedmont, a letter came announcing that twenty-nine +princesses and nineteen lords of Germany had adopted the names +and characters of his heroes and heroines in the <i>Astree</i>, +and had founded an academy of true lovers. Almost the same thing +occurred to the nineteenth-century Honore de Balzac. For a while, +certain people in Venetian society assumed the titles and roles +of his chief personages, playing the parts, in some instances, +out to their utmost conclusion.</p> + +<p>Sainte-Beuve, who, in 1850, drew attention to this curious +historical analogy, went on to mention that, in Hungary, Poland, +and Russia, Balzac's novels created a fashion. The strange, rich +furniture that was assembled and arranged, according to the +novelist's fancy, out of the artistic productions of many +countries and epochs, became an after-reality. Numerous wealthy +persons prided themselves on possessing what the author had +merely imagined. The interior of their houses was adorned <i>a la +Balzac</i>.</p> + +<p>One evening at Vienna, says his sister, he entered a +concert-room, where, as soon as his presence was perceived and +bruited about, all the audience rose in his honour; and, at the +end of the entertainment, a student seized his hand and kissed +it, exclaiming: "I bless the hand that wrote <i>Seraphita</i>." +Balzac himself relates that, once travelling in Russia, he and +his friends, as night was coming on, went and asked for +hospitality at a castle. On their entrance, the lady of the house +and some other members of the fair sex vied with each other in +eagerness to serve the guests. One of the younger ladies hurried +to the kitchen for refreshment. In the meantime, the novelist's +identity was revealed to the <i>chatelaine</i>. A lively +conversation was immediately engaged in, and, when the impromptu +Abigail returned with the refreshment, the first words she heard +were: "Well, Monsieur Balzac, so you think--" Full of surprise +and joy she started, dropped the tray she had in her hands, and +everything was broken. "Glory I have known and seen," adds the +narrator; "wasn't that glory?"</p> + +<p>It was more. It was power wielded for good or evil, like that +of every other great man, be he statesman, or priest, or artist. +The conviction of possessing this power caused Balzac to complain +with sincere indignation of those who charged him with being an +immoral writer. "The reproach of immorality," he said in his +preface to the second edition of <i>Pere Goriot</i>, "which has +ever been launched at the courageous author, is the last that +remains to be made, when nothing else can be urged against a +poet. If you are true in your portrayal, if, by dint of working +night and day you succeed in writing the most difficult language +in the world, the epithet immoral is cast in your face. Socrates +was immoral, Jesus Christ was immoral. Both were persecuted in +the name of the societies they overthrew or reformed. When the +world wishes to destroy any one, it taxes him with +immorality."</p> + +<p>This argument is beside the question. It does not settle +whether the apologist's influence upon the men and women of his +generation and beyond--an influence which, in his lifetime, was +incontestable, and may be deemed potent still, to judge by the +extent to which his books are read--was and is good or bad. +Balzac's personality is here only indirectly involved. His +individual character might have been better or worse without the +conclusion to be drawn being affected. Good men's influence is +not always good, nor bad men's influence always bad. Intention +may be inoperative, and effect may be involuntary.</p> + +<p>Balzac claimed the right to speak of all conduct, to represent +all conduct in his fiction; and we shall see, farther on, that he +imposed his claim upon those who followed him in literature. But, +if he anticipated reality--and this is acknowledged--if he led +society to imitate his fiction, if his exceptional +representations tended, with him and after him, to become general +or more frequent in one or another class of society, he must be +considered morally responsible for the result. It has already +been remarked, in the preceding chapter, that there are two ways +of reproducing reality in literature and art, one of them +favouring, not through didacticism but through emotion, the +creation in the mind of a state of healthy feeling, thought, and +effort; the other, that sort of fascination with which the +serpent attracts its victims. It is certain that Balzac did not +adequately take this into account, certain also that in parts of +his <i>Comedy</i>, the secret, unconscious sympathy of the author +with some of his sicklier heroes and heroines could not and did +not have that dynamic moral action which he vainly desired.</p> + +<p>Of the chief French novelists or <i>litterateurs</i> who were +his contemporaries, critics are inclined to esteem his influence +most evident on George Sand and Victor Hugo. Brunetiere, indeed, +begins with Sainte-Beuve. But the similarities discoverable +between the author of <i>Volupte</i> and the author of the +<i>Comedie Humaine</i> were present in Sainte-Beuve's work at a +period when Balzac was only just issuing from obscurity, and +appear, moreover, to be due to temperament. In the case of George +Sand, the inference is based partly on the praise she meted out +to Balzac in her reminiscences. Brunetiere specifies the +<i>Marquis de Villemer</i> as the one proved example of +imitation. But this novel was written in 1861, eleven years after +Balzac's death; and, in so far as it differs from <i>Mauprat</i> +and the earlier books, whether <i>La Petite Fadette</i> or +<i>Consuelo</i>, can be shown to be the result of a natural and +independent evolution.</p> + +<p>As regards Victor Hugo, on the contrary, there is plenty of +<i>prima facie</i> evidence that he largely utilized Balzac's +material and method; and there is evidence also that Balzac +utilized, though in a less degree, the subjects developed by +Hugo. The reciprocal borrowing is easy to explain, both men, in +spite of their fundamental peculiarities, having much in them +that was common--imagination difficult to control, fondness for +exaggeration, language prone to be verbose and turgid, research +of devices to astonish the reader. Hugo's <i>Miserables</i> is a +monument of his fiction that owes much to Balzacian architecture. +The realism of the latter author is converted without difficulty +into the former's romanticism, or, rather, the alloy of +romanticism is so considerable in Balzac's work that there is +little conversion to make. Ferragus and Vautrin are prototypes of +Valjean, just as Valjean's Cosette exploited by Madame Thenardier +is an adaptation of Ferragus' daughter or Doctor Minoret's +Ursula. The prison manners and slang of the <i>Miserables</i> +inevitably recall those of <i>Vautrin's Last Incarnation</i>, +while, on the other hand, Hugo's salon <i>ultra</i> reappears in +the <i>Cabinet of Antiques</i>. And the analogies present +themselves continually. One might almost say that the whole of +the <i>Comedie Humaine</i> suggested things to its future +panegyrist, who wrote his greatest novel in the years consecutive +to Balzac's death. Of course, Hugo's borrowings, being those of a +man of genius, were not made use of servilely. Like Shakespeare +and Moliere, the author of the <i>Miserables</i> metamorphosed +and enhanced what he took.</p> + +<p>Balzac's major influence on literature began as soon as he was +dead. And the men he reacted on soonest were the dramatists; not +through his own plays, which figured so small in his achievement, +or, if through them at all, then only as they applied the same +principles as his novels. The stage, being ever <i>en +vedette</i>, is best situated to interpret the signs of the +times, and is likewise more open to the solicitations of novelty, +more ready to try new methods. A noticeable defect of the French +drama, in the first half of the nineteenth century, was the +pronounced artificiality of its characters and plots. Whatever +the kind of play exhibited, the same stereotyped noble fathers, +ingenuous maidens, coquettes, and Lotharios strutted on the +boards. Whatever else changed, these did not. Only their costumes +differed. Moreover, the adventures in which the <i>dramatis +personae</i> displayed themselves contained always the same sort +of tricks for bringing about the denouement. Even the language +had its own style, outside which nothing was appropriate. All +this was classicism in its most degenerate form, an art from +which original inspiration was banished to the profit of a much +inferior species of skill. Be it granted that the drama, more +than any other kind of literature, is liable to the encroachment +and dominance of such artificiality on account of its +foreshortening in perspective. Be it granted, also, that +sometimes a new movement will intensify an old habit. The +Romanticists, though reformers in other respects, did little or +nothing to render the stage more real. Their lyricism, in front +of the footlights, needed buskins and frippery, or, at any rate, +fostered them, as the pieces of Hugo and de Vigny proved.</p> + +<p>The younger Dumas, Emile Augier, Halevy and Becque--with a +crescendo that in the last of the four is somewhat +harsh--diverged from the traditional path, and in their plays put +men and women whose motives and conduct were nearer to the +humanity of their audience. The departure from old lines in these +dramatists is patent; and, after discounting the part that may +have been temperamental or contingent on some other cause, there +remains the larger share to attribute to Balzac's influence. +Dumas' <i>Dame aux Camelias</i> originally staged in 1852, was a +timid start in the new direction. The theme, that of the +courtezan in love, was a favourite one with the classical school, +and much of the ancient style and tone pervades it; yet its +atmosphere is a modern one, the expression of its sentiment is +modern too, and the accessories are supplied with an eye to +material and moral exactitude. The same author's <i>Question +d'Argent</i>, composed a few years later, was a more direct +tribute to the modifying power of the <i>Comedie Humaine</i>. It +was Balzac's <i>Mercadet the Jobber</i> remodelled with a larger +stage science. Hypnotized subsequently by the <i>piece a +these</i> (and not to his advantage) Dumas went off at a tangent +whereas Augier, once engaged in the newer manner with his +<i>Gendre de Monsieur Poirier</i>, persisted in it with each of +his succeeding pieces, flattering his model by resurrection after +resurrection of the <i>Comedy's</i> principal actors, Bixiou and +Lousteau in Giboyer and Vernouillet, Balthazar Claes in the +Desronceretz of <i>Maitre Guerin</i>. Ludovic Halevy apparently +wished every one to perceive what he owed to the father of French +realism. Finding in the <i>Petty Bourgeois</i> a Madame Cardinal +whose comic personality and peculiar moral squint suited one of +his plays, he adopted her entirely, name and all, altering only +what her more recent surroundings required. Henri Becque digested +Balzac rather than imitated him. One feels in reading his +<i>Corbeaux</i> that it is a disciple's own work. The master's +virtues and some of the disciple's faults are everywhere present, +both in the subject and in the treatment. We have the same world +of money and business that shows so big throughout the +<i>Comedy</i>, an unfaithful partner and lawyer introducing ruin +into the house of the widow and orphan. The practice of legal +ruse and robbery--in these things Balzac had rung the changes +again and again. What Becque added were sharpness of contrast, +dramatic concentration, bitterer satire, and likewise greater +art.</p> + +<p>If one may hazard a guess at the reasons that convinced the +older school of playwrights of their error, there are two by +which they must have been struck--the artistic possibilities of +the real suggested by the <i>Comedie Humaine</i>, and the +prescience--one might say the intuition --it exhibited of things +that were destined to reveal themselves more prominently in the +latter half of the nineteenth century. And in this respect Balzac +in no wise contributed to what he foresaw and, so to speak, +prophesied--the growing stress of the struggle for life in +domains political, social, financial, industrial, the coming of +uncrowned kings greater in puissance than monarchs of yore, the +reign of not one despot but many, the generalization of intrigue, +the replacement of ancient disorders by others of equal or +increased virulence and harder to remedy, hundred-headed hydras +to combat, most difficult of herculean tasks. The reflection of +all this in the <i>Comedy</i> was calculated to impress at its +hour, and the hour arrived. Men looked at the counterfeit +presentment and wondered why no one had recognized these things +sooner. From that moment, the reputation of the <i>Comedie +Humaine</i> was made. Perhaps, after all, in such connection, the +one or two of Balzac's plays that went so resolutely off the old +lines--the <i>Resources of Quinola</i> and <i>Mercadet</i>,--may +have served, in remembrance, despite their insignificance beside +the novels, which were the true drama, to awaken the attention of +professional dramatists, especially as one after another story of +the <i>Comedy</i> was dramatized. But it was the fund of +observation and the leaven of satire which startled, aroused, and +ultimately set the stage agog. Not even the lighter forms of +composition were left unaffected. Labiche, in the vaudeville +style, with his <i>Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon</i> and <i>La +Cagnotte</i>, gave his audience, behind his puppets, the touch of +present reality, the sensation of existent follies.</p> + +<p>The relative slowness with which the novels of Balzac's +younger contemporaries and his successors were penetrated with +realism was partly due to the lasting effect of George Sand's +idealistic fiction. As we have seen, Balzac himself was reacted +upon by it to some extent; but he yielded against his will, and +the result in his case was a bastard one. She whom he called his +brother George survived him for more than twenty years, and +continued to the last to add to her reputation, so that naturally +the impetus she lent to the idealistic movement was long before +it was spent, if indeed one may say that the impetus has +altogether been lost. Adepts like Octave Feuillet, with his +<i>Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre</i>, and Victor Cherbuliez, with +his <i>Comte Kostia</i>, endeavoured to perpetuate idealism or at +least to recreate it in other forms. And then there were +independents, like Flaubert who, with <i>Madame Bovary</i>, +passed realism by on his way to naturalism. Yet it is worth +remarking that Flaubert made a sort of <i>volte face</i> in 1869, +and wrote his <i>Education Sentimentale</i>, in which, under the +pressure of simple circumstance, the hero descends gradually from +the soaring of youth's hopes and ambitions to the dull, dun +monotony of mature life, with nothing left him save the iron +circle of his environment. Here the disillusionment is that of +all Balzac's chief <i>dramatis personae</i>. Moreover, the minor +characters of <i>Madame Bovary</i> may well owe something to the +<i>Comedy</i>. These doctors, chemists, cures, prefectoral +councillors and country squires would possibly never have been +depicted but for their having already existed for twenty years in +the predecessor's gallery of portraits.</p> + +<p>There is no need to call the de Goncourts and Guy de +Maupassant imitators because they bear a strong stamp of Balzac's +influence. They have greater art, a finer style, and, above all, +more pathos than the earlier master was capable of. But they are +true disciples, as likewise Feuillet in his later manner with +<i>Monsieur de</i> <i>Camors</i>. De Maupassant's short stories, +exemplifying his severely objective treatment at his best, are +Balzac's purified of their lingering romanticism, and his +<i>Bel</i> <i>Ami</i> is a modernized Lucien de Rubempre. And, if +the resemblances are closer between works of the de Goncourts +less known, such as <i>Charles Demailly</i>, or <i>Manette +Salomon</i> and the <i>Lost Illusions</i>, <i>Peter Grassou</i>, +the <i>Muse of the County</i>, yet the means employed by the two +brothers to endow with life and form <i>Renee Mauperin</i> and +<i>Germinie Lacerteux</i>, fixing a background, stamping the +outlines, filling in details, adding particularities, all this +was Balzacian method, insufficient forsooth, in the domain of +psychology, but furnishing idiosyncrasy in plentiful +variations.</p> + +<p>When we come to Alphonse Daudet, time enough has elapsed for +realism to evolve into naturalism so-called. Naturalism is +realism stark-naked --the dissecting-room, and a good deal +besides, which Monsieur Zola illustrated well but not wisely. +Daudet, fortunately for his reputation, was a naturalist <i>sui +generis</i>, with a delicate artistic perception altogether +lacking to the author of the Rougon-Macquart series. He was also +an independent, but willing to take lessons in his trade. And how +much he learnt from <i>Cousin Bette</i> may be judged by his +<i>Numa Roumestan</i> and <i>Froment Jeune et Rissler aine</i>. +There are close analogies also between the best of Balzac's +fiction and the sombre realism of the <i>Evangeliste</i>, based +on tragic facts that had come under Daudet's personal notice. Of +the two realisms Daudet's is certainly the more genuine, with its +lambent humour that glints on even the saddest of his +pictures.</p> + +<p>In neither the naturalistic school of fiction, nor the +psychological, in so far as the latter is represented by Bourget, +has Balzac's influence been a gain. Bourget has borrowed Balzac's +furniture, his pompous didacticism, his occasional indecency--in +fine, all that is least essential in the elder's assets, without +learning how to breathe objective life into one of his +characters. Zola borrowed more, but mainly the unwholesome parts, +truncating these further to suit his theory of the novel as a +slice of life seen through a temperament, and travestying in the +Rougon-Macquart scheme, with its burden of heredity and +physiological blemish, Balzac's cumbrous and plausible doctrine +of the <i>Comedy</i>. Both novelists made a mistake in arrogating +to themselves the role of the <i>savant</i>. Neither of them +seemed to understand that there are limits imposed on each +profession by the mode of its operation. For Zola the novel was +not only an observation working upon the voluntary acts of life, +it was an experiment--like that of the astrologers whom Moses met +in Egypt--producing phenomena artificially, and allowing a law of +necessity to be deduced from the result. And for Balzac the novel +was something of the same kind--a synthesis of every human +activity framed by one who, as he proudly claimed, had observed +and analysed society in all its phases from top to bottom, +legislations, religions, histories, and present time. What Balzac +did in fiction and what he thought he did are separated by a gulf +which could only have been bridged over by the long and painful +study of a man surviving for centuries. His scientific knowledge +was superficial in nearly every branch. It was his divination +which was great. And divination is not omniscience.</p> + +<p>An offshoot from the naturalistic school apparently, but +derived more truly from the <i>Comedie Humaine</i>, is that +decadent, pornographic art, of which Balzac would have been +ashamed, had he lived to see the vegetation that grew up from the +seeds he had sown without knowing what they would bring forth. In +Zola's novels the plant was already full grown; its earlier +appearance as the slender blade was Champfleury's vulgar satire, +the <i>Bourgeois de Molinchart</i>. More recently the blossom has +revealed its pestilential rankness so plainly that no one can be +deceived as to its noxious effect.</p> + +<p>Where Balzac's influence is likeliest to remain potent for +good is in the domain of history. He was not altogether an +initiator here, having learnt from Walter Scott in the one as in +the other capacity; but he developed and focussed what he had +received; he added to it, and made it a factor in the historical +science. After him historians began to assign a more important +place in their narrations and chronicles to the manners and +interests of the people, patiently seeking to assemble and +situate everything that could relate them exactly to the great +political and other public events which would be nothing but +names without them. The de Goncourts, in their <i>History of +French Society during the Revolution and under the +Directoire</i>, applied this method with all the zeal of fresh +disciples, and with hardly enough discretion. Taine's <i>Origins +of Contemporary France</i> abdicates none of the older +historian's role, but its background is Balzacian. Among the +later writers who have taken up the historian's pen, Masson, +Lenotre, and Anatole France, illustrate the newer principles, +each with a difference, but all excellently, the first in his +<i>Napoleon</i>, the second in his <i>Old Houses, Old Papers</i>, +the third in his <i>Joan of Arc</i>.</p> + +<p>It can scarcely be disputed that an entrance of realism into +French literature would have occurred in the second half of the +nineteenth century, had there been no Balzac. Some other +novelists or writers, themselves reacted upon by the scientific +spirit, would have set the example in their own way, if not with +the achievement of the author of the <i>Comedy</i>. On the other +hand, it is certain that Balzac, had he put his hand to another +treatment of fiction, would nevertheless have created a school. +His tremendous force would have channelled into the future, +whatever the nature of its current. As Sainte-Beuve well says, he +wrote what he wrote with his blood and muscles, not merely with +his thought, and such work backed by genius was sure to tell, +notwithstanding its defects, the latter even to some extent +aiding.</p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p>Having partly a bibliographic value, and partly confirming the +statements above as to Balzac's influence, the following details +concerning theatrical adaptations of some of his novels may serve +as a supplement to this chapter.</p> + +<p>The first made was produced at the Vaudeville in 1832, and was +based on the story of <i>Colonel Chabert</i>, which under another +title, <i>The Compromise</i>, had finished as a serial in the +March <i>Artiste</i> of the same year. In Balzac's tale--the one +of the novels that contains most real pathos--the Colonel, who is +a Count of the Empire, is left for dead on the battlefield of +Eylau, with wounds that disfigure him dreadfully. Rescued, and +sojourning for a long while in German hospitals, he ultimately +returns to France, but only to find his wife, who believes him +dead, married to another nobleman. Treated as an imposter by +everybody save a former non-commissioned officer of his regiment, +he falls into poverty and wretchedness, and dies in a hospice, +whilst his wife continues to live rich and honoured. Jacques +Arago and Louis Lurine, who composed the play, altered the +denouement. The husband is pensioned off by his wife, who, +however, suffers for her hard-heartedness, being afterwards +deserted by her second husband. A second version of the same +subject was produced twenty years later at the Beaumarchais +Theatre by Faulquemont, and, in 1888, a third at Brussels.</p> + +<p><i>Eugenie Grandet</i> was staged as a comedy, at the Gymnase +in 1835, by Bayard and Paulin, who dealt with the plot very +freely. Eugenie, happening to lay hold of the letter telling of +her uncle's intention to commit suicide, begs her father to send +money enough to Paris to prevent the catastrophe. On her father's +refusing, she steals one of the old man's strong-boxes and gives +it to the son of a local notary, who hurries to the capital with +it and reaches there in time to save Charles' father from ruin +and death. As Charles has also fled with his uncle's mare on the +same errand, the miser thinks he is the thief, and obtains a +warrant for his arrest. But Eugenie avows everything except the +name of her accomplice. Explanations occur, now that Guillaume +Grandet is saved; Charles comes out of prison and marries +Eugenie, whose dowry is the money that has served so good a +purpose. With Bouffe in the chief role, the <i>Miser's +Daughter</i>, as the piece was called, had a great popularity, +and was several times revived.</p> + +<p>In 1835 also, was produced <i>Pere Goriot</i> at the Varietes, +there being three collaborators in the dramatizing, Theaulon, de +Comberousse, and Jaime. Their adaptation possessed the same +characters as the novel, but the roles are considerably modified. +Victorine Taillefer becomes Goriot's illegitimate daughter, who +is provided for by her father, yet brought up without ever seeing +him and without the least inkling of her relationship to him. But +Vautrin has discovered that a sum of five hundred thousand francs +is deposited on her behalf with a notary; and he goes to +Grenoble, where she is living, brings her back with him to Paris, +and presents her to Goriot as a poor girl, his intention being to +ask her in marriage at the proper moment. The retired tradesman +takes her in, and she remains with him when his other daughters +marry, and during the time they pass in ungratefully stripping +him of his fortune. At last his sons-in-law, to salve their +consciences, offer to place him in an almshouse. Goriot +indignantly refuses, and tells them he has another daughter whom +he has made rich, and that he will go and live with her. Now is +Vautrin's opportunity. He informs Goriot who Victorine is, and, +since she had given her affections to the young Rastignac, he, +like a good fellow, renounces his own matrimonial project and +assists the old father in marrying the lovers happily. The part +of Goriot was acted by Vernet, who did entire justice to Balzac's +great creation. Simultaneously at the Vaudeville, another and +poorer version of the novel was given; and, in 1891, at the +Theatre Libre, Tabarand experimented a third piece, this last +being a faithful reproduction of the novel. Antoine scored a big +success in the part of Goriot, rendering the death-bed scene with +remarkable power and skill.</p> + +<p>In 1836, <i>La Grande Breteche</i>, with its vengeful husband +who walls up his wife's lover alive, tempted Scribe and another +playwright, Melesville. In their arrangement, there is a virtuous +wife whose husband is a bigamist. On learning the truth, she +consents to receive the visit of Lara, an admirer of hers, whom +she loves; and, when the Bluebeard, Valdini, surprises his victim +and proceeds to the immurement, his first wife slips in most +conveniently and whisks him off, leaving Valentine free to marry +Lara.</p> + +<p>It is curious to notice how, in almost every instance, the +first adapting dramatists transformed Balzac's tragedies into +comedies, softening the stern facts of life and its injustices, +and meting out the juster rewards and punishments which the +novelist's realism forbade.</p> + +<p>In Antony Beraud's <i>Gars</i>, a play drawn from the +<i>Chouans</i> and performed at the Ambigu-Comique in 1837, the +hero and heroine, instead of dying, are saved by a political +amnesty decreed by Napoleon; and the curtain falls to the cry of +<i>Vive l'Empereur</i>. More than fifty years later, in 1894, the +same theatre gave a close rendering of the dramatic portions of +the <i>Chouans</i>, due to the collaboration of Berton and +Blavet, the tragic ending being preserved, with all the effects +properly belonging to it.</p> + +<p>Commonplace, like the <i>Gars</i>, were the arrangements of +the <i>Search for the Absolute</i>, in 1837, and <i>Cesar +Birotteau</i> in 1838. The former was staged under the bizarre +title, <i>A+Mx=O+X, or the Dream of a Savant</i>. The authors, +Bayard and Bieville, concealed their identity under an algebraic +X as well; and their piece, which made Balthazar Claes a Parisian +chemist and a candidate to a vacant chair in the College de +France, failed to attract at the Gymnase, in spite of Bouffe's +talent and the redemption of Balthazar.</p> + +<p><i>Cesar Birotteau</i> was performed at the Pantheon Theatre, +which was demolished in 1846. The love-story of Popinot and +Cesarine, which is so briefly sketched in the novel, assumed +chief importance in Cormon's adaptation, and, of course, Cesar +does not die.</p> + +<p>Scribe borrowed largely from the <i>Comedie Humaine</i>. His +<i>Sheriff</i> libretto for Halevy's music at the Opera Comique +in 1839 was a transmogrification of <i>Master</i> +<i>Cornelius</i>. Balzac's Cornelius is Louis XI's money-lender, +who lives with his sister in an old mansion, next to a house with +the King's natural daughter, Marie de Sassenage, occupies with +her husband, the Comte de Sainte-Vallier. The old money- lender, +perceiving that his gold is disappearing, has had four of his +apprentices hanged on suspicion. The like fate now threatens +Marie's lover, Georges d'Estouteville, who in order to see her +more safely, has persuaded Cornelius to let him stay in his +dwelling one night. Marie appeals to the King to spare her +lover's life, and Louis, on investigating the matter, discovers +that Cornelius is a somnambulist, and has been robbing himself +and burying his gold. On being told of this, the old money-lender +has no peace of mind, fearing the King will take all his +treasure, and ultimately cuts his own throat. In Scribe's parody, +for a parody the piece virtually is, the scene is laid in +England. John Turnel, the Sheriff of London, is the somnambulist, +and he suspects his own daughter and his cook of stealing his +money. But, differing from Cornelius, he accepts the situation +when the truth is revealed to him under circumstances that make +him as ridiculous as the spectre of Tappington in the +<i>Ingoldsby Legends</i>; and, as a comic opera generally ends +happily, he consents to the marriage of his daughter, Camilla, +and of Keat, the cook, with their respective swains.</p> + +<p>An English setting was likewise given by Scribe to his play of +<i>Helene</i>, suggested by Balzac's <i>Honorine</i>, which was +staged at the Gymnase in 1846. Helene is a young orphan who draws +and paints for her living, and has the good fortune to have all +her canvases bought at advantageous prices by a rich dealer named +Crosby. But suddenly she learns that the dealer is acting in +behalf of a certain Lord Clavering, and, fearing some underhand +designs, she refuses to keep the money that has been paid her. +Smitten by her disinterestedness as well as by her beauty, Lord +Clavering would gladly marry her, but is bound by his word +plighted to Lord Dunbar's daughter. However, the latter elopes +with another nobleman, and Clavering marries Helene. This pretty +theme, developed by the actress Rose Cheri, made a huge hit.</p> + +<p>Nearly as great was the actress's success at the same theatre +in 1849, when she played the principal role in Clairville's +<i>Madame Marneffe</i> a version of <i>Cousin</i> <i>Bette</i>, +but very much modified, since Bette is eliminated altogether, and +Valerie Marneffe, instead of being a depraved creature, is merely +a clever woman of the world, who avenges her father's ruin on the +Baron Hulot and Crevel, they being mainly responsible for it. +When Balzac was at Wierzchownia, on his last visit, he wrote to +his mother asking her to go to the theatrical agent's in order to +receive his third of the receipts produced by the piece. These +author's royalties must have helped his purse considerably.</p> + +<p>In the year after the novelist's death, the applauded +representation of <i>Mercadet</i>, at the Gymnase, stimulated +other managers of theatres to go on exploiting his <i>Comedy</i>. +In September, the <i>Shagreen Skin</i>, arranged by Judicis, was +played at the Ambigu-Comique, with <i>tableaux</i> of almost +literal imitation, yet bringing to life again, in the denouement, +the chief <i>dramatis personae,</i> and making the whole drama a +dream.</p> + +<p>At the Comedie Francaise, in 1853, Barriere and de Beauplan +produced a five-act prose play drawn from the <i>Lily in the +Valley</i>. The novel was an awkward one to dramatize, there +being very few elements in it capable of yielding situations for +the stage. So the result was poor. A better thing was made in +1859 by de Keraniou out of the <i>Sceaux Ball</i>. On it he based +an agreeable piece entitled <i>Noblesse Oblige</i>, with a +delicately interpreted love scene in it which met with +appreciative audiences at the Odeon.</p> + +<p>One more example, that of <i>Cousin Pons</i>, may be given to +close the list of these adaptation, which are fully treated in +Edmond Bire's interesting book dealing with certain aspects of +Balzac's life and work. <i>Cousin Pons</i> was staged at the +Cluny Theatre in 1873. Alphonse de Launay, the author of the +play, keeps to his text fairly well; but he adds a love episode +which thrusts the friendship of the two musicians into the second +place. Moreover, after the death of Pons, Schmucke lives to +inherit his fortune and the Camusots are checkmated.</p> + +<p>CHAPTER XVII</p> + +<p>CONCLUSION: THE MAN AND HIS PORTRAITS</p> + +<p>It may be affirmed, without thereby disparaging the <i>Comedie +Humaine</i>, that Balzac's personality is even more interesting +than his work; and this is a sufficient excuse for returning to +it in a last chapter and trying, at the risk of repetition, to +make its presentment completer by way of supplement and +summary.</p> + +<p>The interest does not arise alone from the contrasts of his +foibles, which, forsooth, are nearly always comic--when they are +not tragic. We are just as much attracted by the contrasts of his +qualities, and by the interplay of the former with the +latter--the victories and defeats, the glimpses of immense +possibility, the struggles between temperament and environment, +all these having a fullness of display rarely found in human +nature.</p> + +<p>Besides the portraits in painting or sculpture executed of the +novelist by Deveria, Boulanger, David d'Angers, and others, some +mention of which has already been made, there was one begun by +Meissonier, who unfortunately did not finish it. Monsieur Jules +Claretie states that the canvas on which it was drawn was +subsequently covered by the artist's <i>Man choosing a Sword</i>, +to-day in the Van Prael collection at Brussels. About Boulanger's +picture Theophile Gautier has a good deal to tell us in his +article of 1837, published in the <i>Beaux Arts de la Presse</i>; +and it scarcely agrees with Balzac's condemnation of the portrait +as a daub, when he saw the canvas some years later in Russia. +Remarking on the difficulty of rendering the novelist's +physiognomy, on account of its mobility and strange aspect, +Gautier gives it as his opinion that Boulanger succeeded +perfectly in seizing the complex expression which seemed to +escape all efforts of the brush. The description is a long one; +and any one desirous of comparing with each other the impressions +received by Balzac's contemporaries who came into close contact +with him would do well to read it after this description by +Lamartine. In the tenth of his lectures on Literature during the +year 1856, the author of <i>Jocelyn</i>, speaking of what he had +observed, said:--</p> + +<p>"His exterior was as uncultivated as his genius. It was the +shape of an element: big head, hair scattered over his collar and +cheeks like a mane that scissors never trimmed, lips thick, eyes +soft but of flame; costume clashing with every elegance; clothes +too small for his colossal body; waistcoat unbuttoned; linen +coarse; blue stockings; shoes that made holes in the carpet; an +appearance as of a schoolboy on holiday, who has grown during the +year and whose stature has burst his garments. Such was the man +that by himself wrote a whole library about his century, the +Walter Scott of France, not the Walter Scott of landscape and +adventure, but what is much more prodigious, the Walter Scott of +characters, the Dante of the infinite circles of human life, the +Moliere of read comedy, less perfect but more fertile than the +Moliere of played comedy. Why does not his style equal his +conception? France would then have two Molieres, and the greater +would not be he who lived first."</p> + +<p>Returning to the same subject in his hundred and sixth +lecture, eight years later, Lamartine continued:--</p> + +<p>"He bore his genius so simply that he did not feel it. He was +not tall, and, however, the lighting up of his face and the +mobility of his body prevented his small stature from being +noticed; but this height swayed like his thought. Between the +ground and him there appeared to be a certain margin; now, he +stooped down to pick up a sheaf of ideas; now, he stood on tiptoe +to follow the soaring of his thought into the infinite. He was +big, thick-set, square-shouldered- and-hipped. His neck, chest, +body, thighs, and limbs were mighty. There was much of the +ampleness of Mirabeau, but no heaviness; there was so much soul +that this carried that lightly. The weight seemed to give him +force and not to take it from him. His short arms gesticulated +with ease; he talked as an orator speaks. His voice resounded +with the somewhat savage energy of his lungs, but it had neither +roughness nor irony nor anger. His legs, on which he waddled a +little, carried his bust smartly; his hands, plump and broad, +expressed his whole thought by their waving movements. Such was +the man in his stalwart frame. But, in front of the face, one +forgot the framework. The speaking countenance, from which it was +impossible to detach one's gaze, both charmed and fascinated the +beholder. His hair floated over the forehead in large locks; his +black eyes pierced like arrows blunted by benevolence; they +entered yours confidently as if they were friends; his cheeks +were full, rosy, and strongly coloured; the nose was well +modelled, yet a trifle long; his lips, gracefully limned, ample +and raised at the corners; his teeth, unequal, broken, and +blackened by cigar-smoke; his head often inclining towards the +neck, then proudly raised during speech. But the dominating trait +of his face, even more than intelligence, was communicative +kindness. He charmed your mind when he spoke, and, when not +speaking, he charmed your heart. No passion of hatred or envy +could have been expressed by this physiognomy; it would have been +impossible for him not to be kind. Yet it was not a kindness of +indifference or nonchalance, as in the epicurean face of a La +Fontaine; it was a loving kindness, intelligent with regard to +itself and others, which inspired gratitude and the outpouring of +the heart, and defied a person not to love him. A gay +childishness was the characteristic of this figure, a soul on +holiday when he laid down his pen to forget himself with his +friends. . . . But, when I saw him some years later, what gravity +did that which was serious not inspire in him? what repulsion did +his conscience not evince towards evil? What difficult virtues +did his apparent joviality not conceal?"</p> + +<p>This tribute of an intimate, as generous as that of Hugo and +perhaps more sincere, may pass without comment in so far as it +concerns the outer man. On the moral side its exactitude may be +questioned, both for what it omits and what it asserts. The +omissions are considerable. The assertions deal too exclusively +with that conduct which people generally exhibit in their most +amicable relations with each other. Balzac's kindness of heart +came out in not a few experiences of his life; but deeper than +these ephemeral bursts of generosity were selfishnesses that were +enormous and persistent. The impulsive energy, the huge +boyishness, the appetites physical and mental that age never +trained nor chastened were phenomena that all his friends noted, +though the manifestations differed.</p> + +<p>Some lines of Gozlan's in his <i>Balzac in Slippers</i>, form +a good sequel to Werdet's account of the Gargantuan dinner. +"Balzac drank nothing but water," says Gozlan, but this must have +been on Fridays; "and ate but little meat. On the other hand, he +consumed great quantities of fruit. . . . His lips palpitated, +his eyes lit up with happiness, at the sight of a pyramid of +pears or fine peaches. Not one remained to go and relate the rout +of the others. He devoured them all. He was superb in vegetable +Pantagruelism, with his cravat taken off, his shirt unbuttoned at +the neck, his fruit-knife in hand, laughing, drinking water, +carving into the pulp of a doyenne pear. I should like to +add--and talking. But Balzac talked only little. He let others +talk, laughed at intervals, silently, in the savage manner of +Leather- stocking, or else, he burst out like a bomb, if the +sentence pleased him. It needed to be pretty broad, and was never +too broad. He melted with pleasure, especially at a silly pun +inspired by his wines, which were delicious."</p> + +<p>Another portrait drawn of the novelist by a contemporary, +interpreting the inner man, but less flattering to the great +delineator of character, is not free from satire and narrowness; +but some of the traits it outlines are closely and accurately +observed. In his <i>Histoire du Quarante et Unieme (Academy) +Fauteuil</i>, Arsene Houssaye wrote: "Monsieur de Balzac--that +haughty rebel who would fain have been a founder, that refined +Rabelais who discovered a woman where Rabelais had discovered +only a bottle--Monsieur de Balzac dreamed of the gigantic, yet +without being an architect of Cyclopean times. Consequently, when +he tried to build his temple of Solomon, he had neither marble +nor gold enough to his hand. For his <i>human comedy</i> he often +lacked actors, and had to resign himself frequently to making the +understudies play. It is the fashion to-day to raise Balzac to +the level of the dominating geniuses of the world, such as Homer, +Saint Augustine, Shakespeare and Moliere; but for the mind that +has accurate vision, how many rocks are overturned on this +Enceladus, what staircases are forgotten in his Tower of Babel, +as in his Jardies house! Balzac was half a woman, as George Sand +was half a man. He had a woman's curiosities, he had also her +contradictions. Balzac believed himself religious; but his church +was the witches' sabbath, and his priest was not Saint Paul but +Swedenborg, if not Mesmer; his Gospel was the conjuror's book, +perhaps that of Pope Honorius--Honorius de Balzac. He believed +himself a politician, and endeavoured to continue de Maistre; he +fancied he was glorifying authority, whereas he realized the +perpetual apotheosis of force; his heroes were named +indifferently Moses or Attila, Charlemagne or Tamerlane, Ricci, +the General of the Jesuits, or Robespierre, the profaner of the +sanctuary, Napoleon or Vautrin. The <i>History of the +Thirteen</i> will remain as the grandiose and monstrous defence +of personal force defying the social. But will it not remain +also, by the side of Hegel's philosophy, as an eloquent codicil +to those testaments of individual sovereignty signed by +Aristophanes, Montaigne, and Voltaire? He believed himself a +spiritualist, and, sublime sawbones, he studied only in the +medical amphitheatre. He entered a drawing-room only through the +kitchen and the dressing-room. He was always ignorant of that +fine saying of Hemsterhuys: 'This world is not a machine but a +poem.' He believed himself a painter of manners, and he invented +the manners. His women who are so vividly alive, Madame de +Langeais or La Torpille, have never been intimate with any other +company than that of Monsieur de Balzac. As other great artists, +he created his world, a strange world which has consoled and +welcomed all the outcasts of the real world, an impossible world +which has more than once painted the actual one in its likeness. +What charming women of the provinces have since developed into a +Eugenie Grandet, a Madame de Mortsauf, a Madame Claes! . . . What +was wanting to Balzac in the hell of life, whose every spiral he +descended, was virginity in love and ingenuousness in poetry. He +always lost himself in the difficult places of style; and himself +wept over the lack. When he wrote the <i>Search for the +Absolute</i>, he was in quest of the ideal; but the ideal is that +which one had inside one's self, just as love is. The studies of +the chemist and alchemist, of the doctor and jurist, do not light +the flame of Prometheus."</p> + +<p>The quotations do not exhaust the list of portraits emanating +from Balzac's fellows, but they adequately illustrate the varying +views, which were many. Indeed, like the sculptor who produces +several studies of the same model and shows a different +interpretation each time, critics have presented us, in more than +one instance, with descriptions of the novelist, at an earlier +and a later date, that contain important discrepancies.</p> + +<p>Balzac was an enigma because he was not always the same +personality to himself. Both his energies and his desires carried +him outside the limits in which a man's individuality is usually +manifested. Despite Monsieur Houssaye, one may even sympathize, +though incredulous, with admirers that would have him to be a +universal genius, unfortunately thwarted by fate--one who else +might have opened up all the avenues of knowledge that humanity +can ever penetrate. This persuasion was undoubtedly his own; and +it partly explains his Faustus curiosities leading him now and +again into illegitimate and unwholesome experiments, of which we +get some glimpse in his books and correspondence.</p> + +<p>That he could have succeeded in other careers, the medical +one, for example, the painter's or sculptor's perhaps, or the +mechanical inventor's, seems likely; but his impulsiveness, his +exuberance, and his poor financial ability would have been +hindrances in directions where success depends largely on exact +calculation, method, and detail. In political life, his +brilliance would assuredly have sufficed to procure him +prominence in opposition. As a minister he would have inevitably +fallen a victim to the inconsistencies of his own +attitude--inconsistencies due to the fact that his judgments were +intuitional and instinctive, with prejudices reacting on them, +too numerous and too strong to allow him to weigh things fairly +and deliberately. Moreover, his mind was too much engrossed by +the sole picturesqueness of phenomena to delve deep enough +beneath them for their essential relations. This is why it +happens that his arguments are often worse than his convictions, +the latter being inherited, in general, and at least having the +residuary wisdom of tradition together with the additional force +of his common sense. Thus, on the eve of giving the ignorant man +a power equal to that of the intelligent one, and of handing over +the supreme decision in the vital concerns of a country to +unsafeguarded majorities less qualified for the task than ancient +oligarchy or autocracy. But he had nothing of worth to suggest, +no alternative save the return to abuses of the grossest kind +which experience had proved to lead to revolution.</p> + +<p>His ponderous declaration: "I write by the light of two +eternal truths, religion and the monarchy," was a sort of +cheap-jack recommendation of the so-called philosophy in his +<i>Comedie Humaine</i>. His Catholic orthodoxy, if orthodoxy it +were, savoured more of politics than religion. He did not wish +the old ecclesiastical organization and faith of France to be +changed, because he saw in it a useful police agency for +restraining the masses. As for his Royalism, which had a smack of +Frondism in it, he stuck to it because it accorded with his +conservative, eclectic tastes, and not because he had worked it +out as the best theory of government. Such dissertations as +appear in his writings, on either the one or the other subject, +have nothing more original about them than can be found in the +most ordinary election speech or pulpit discourse.</p> + +<p>And in the realm of pure speculative thought he was not great. +Beyond the limits of the visible, his intuition failed him; so +that he floundered helplessly when not upheld by the doctrines of +others, which, since he did not understand them, he adapted to +his purpose but awkwardly. Whether there were latent faculties in +him that might have developed with training, it is impossible to +affirm or deny; however, we may be forgiven the doubt. From a +mind so forceful, the native perception, though uncultured, +should have issued in something better than <i>Lambert</i> or +<i>Seraphita</i>. Still, there is this to be said, that a man +whose eyes were so constantly bent on facts, whose gaze was +always spying out details which escaped the common observation, +was embracing a plane parallel, if inferior to that which was +covered by a Plato.</p> + +<p>The title of the author of the <i>Comedy</i> to be called a +philosopher can be defended only on the ground of his adding a +new domain to the rule of science. He was not the discoverer of +the law of cause and effect. Nor was he the one in his own +country who did the most towards demonstrating the +interdependence of the various branches of knowledge, this honour +being reserved to Comte. But the transference of the minute +causalities of life into fiction was systematized by him. He made +the thing an artistic method, using it with the same power, +though not the same chasteness, as George Eliot after him. His +employment was not very logical--how could it be when the guiding +mind was in chronic fermentation? He gives us this contradiction +that human thought is at once the grandeur and destruction of +life--an opinion imbued with ecclesiasticism, confusing thought +with passion. It is passion alone which disintegrates; and, in +the <i>Comedie Humaine</i>, such monomaniacs as Grandet, Claes, +and Hulot are destroyed not by their thought but their +desire.</p> + +<p>Balzac's pessimism is not philosophic. In him it was not the +despair of an intellect that had worn itself out in vainly +seeking for the solution of the riddle of the universe, vainly +striving after a theory that should reconcile nature's brute law +with the human demand for justice and immanent goodness. By +original temperament an optimist, he changed and grew pessimistic +with the untoward happenings of his agitated career, and under +the fostering of his native self-esteem. Possibly too, as Le +Breton asserts, a secondary cause was his having imbibed the +pretentious doctrines of the Romantic school, the disdains of the +young artistic bloods of 1830, who held their clan composed the +loftier, super-human race, the only one that counted. Berlioz +carried this folly of pride to its highest pitch. In his +<i>Memoirs</i>, he declared that the public (of course excluding +himself) were an infamous tag-rag-and-bob-tail. The people of +Paris, he protested, were more stupid and a hundred times more +ferocious, in their caperings and revolutionary grimaces, than +the baboons and orang-outangs of Borneo. Balzac at times adopted +and expressed similar opinions. Gozlan relates that one day the +owner of Les Jardies said to him in the attic of his hermitage: +"Come, let us spit upon Paris." The novelist imagined that +talents of the kind he possessed ought to be admitted to every +honour; and his hatred of the Revolution and Republicanism was +more because he believed they were inimical to art--and his +art--than because they had cast down a throne. His bitterness was +to some extent excusable, for he was exploited much during his +lifetime, and had, even to the end, to bend his neck to the yoke. +But he also belonged to the class of exploiters by his mental +constitution. Could he have had his way, all the men of letters +around him would have been in his pay, writing for their bare +living and contributing to his fame. In this connection there is +an anecdote narrated by Baudelaire, in the <i>Echo des +Theatres</i> of the 25th of August 1846, and referable to the +year 1839.</p> + +<p>The Jardies hermit had a bill of twelve hundred francs to +meet; and for this reason he was sad as he walked up and down the +double passage of the Opera--he, the hardest commercial and +literary head of the nineteenth century; he, the poetic brain +upholstered with figures like a financier's office; he, the man +of mythologic failures, of hyperbolic and phantasmagoric +enterprises, the lanterns of which he always forgot to light; he, +the great pursuer of dreams for ever in quest of the absolute; +he, the funniest, most attractive as well as the vainest +character of the <i>Comedie Humaine</i>; he, the original, as +unbearable in private life as he was delightful in his writings; +the big baby swollen with genius and conceit, who had so many +qualities and so many failings that one feared to attack the +latter for fear of injuring the former, and thus spoiling this +incorrigible and fatal monstrosity.</p> + +<p>At length, however, his forehead grew serene and he went +towards the Rue de Richelieu with sublime and cadenced step. +There he entered the den of a rich man (Curmer), who received him +with due honour.</p> + +<p>"Would you like," quoth he, "the day after to-morrow to have +in the <i>Siecle</i> and the <i>Debats</i> two smart articles on +the French depicted by themselves, the articles to be signed by +me? I must have fifteen hundred francs. The affair is a grand one +for you."</p> + +<p>The editor, unlike his <i>confreres</i>, found the proposal +reasonable, and the bargain was concluded on the spot, with the +stipulation that the money should be paid on the delivery of the +first article. Leaving the office, the visitor returned to the +passage of the Opera; and there he met a diminutive young man of +shrewish, witty countenance (Edouard Ourliac), known among the +journalists for his clownish verve.</p> + +<p>"Edouard, will you earn a hundred and fifty francs +to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"Won't I, if I get the chance!" answered the latter.</p> + +<p>"Then come and drink a cup of coffee."</p> + +<p>"To-morrow," explained his principal, "I must have three big +columns on the French depicted by themselves, and I must have +them early, for I have to copy and sign them."</p> + +<p>Edouard hastened away to his task, while the novelist went and +ordered a second article in the rue de Navarin.</p> + +<p>The first article appeared two days later in the +<i>Siecle</i>, and was signed, strangely enough, neither by the +little man nor by the great man, but by a third person known in +Bohemia for his tom-cat and opera- comique amours (Gerard de +Nerval). The second friend was big, idle, and lymphatic. +Moreover, he had no ideas; he knew only how to thread words +together like pearls; and, as it takes longer to heap up three +long columns of words than to make a volume of ideas, his article +appeared only several days later in the <i>Presse</i>.</p> + +<p>The twelve-hundred-francs debt was paid. Each one was +perfectly satisfied, except the editor, who was not quite. And +this was how a man of genius discharged his liabilities.</p> + +<p>Balzac's individuality is one of those that inevitably raise +the question as to how far genius and creative imagination are +made up of will-power, how far what is produced by great talent +is sub-conscious inspiration virtually independent of effort. +Although Shelley confines his assertions on the subject to +poetry, he nevertheless seems to imply that creation of any kind +has little to do with the will. "The mind in creation," he says, +"is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an +inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power +arises from within, like the colour of a flower which fades and +changes as it is developed, and the ocnsciuso portions of our +natures are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure. +Could this influence be durable in its original purity and force, +it is impossible to predict the greatness of the results; but, +when composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline." +The case of Balzac suggests that the sort of genius Shelley had +in his thought is the exception rather than the rule. The author +of the <i>Comedy</i> himself asserts that great talents do not +exist without great will. "You have ideas in your brain?" he +says. "Just so. I also. . . . What is the use of that which one +has in one's soul if no use is made of it?" . . . "To conceive is +to enjoy; it is to smoke enchanted cigarettes; but, without the +execution, everything goes away in dream and smoke." . . . +"Constant work is the law of art as it is that of life; for art +is creation idealized. Consequently, great artists and poets do +not wait for orders or customers; they bring forth to-day, +to-morrow, continually."</p> + +<p>It may be, after all, that the difference is one of those +verbal ones to which Locke draws attention in his <i>Essay on the +Human Understanding</i>. Will-power is partly an inheritance and +partly an acquisition. And acquired qualities are always less +puissantly exercised, less effective in the results obtained. +Even in poetry it would appear that, without will to unlock the +door, fine faculties that are dormant may never make their +existence known. Balzac gives us an example of a native will that +was for ever rushing through his being and arousing to activity +first one and then another of his native powers. And, if the +total accomplishment was not conform to the tremendous liberation +of force, it was because there was circumstance harder than will +and the intershock of energies that ran counter to each +other.</p> + +<p>In fine, alas! there is something absent from the man which +would have both beautified himself and added a saner beauty to +his work--the pursuit of those finer ideals which mean consistent +devotion to duty and broad sympathy with human nature, +irrespective of nation, colour, and position, in its yearnings +and in its fate. Fascinated by material aims, worshipping the +Napoleonic epopee to the extent of framing his conduct by it, +measuring the happiness of existence rather by its honours and +furniture than by its moral attainments, he missed the first +poetry of love as he missed the last wisdom of age. This +limitation of the man makes itself sorely felt in his writings, +where we, more often than not, tread a Dane's <i>Inferno</i>, +unrelieved by the brighter glimpses and kindlier impulses that +still are found in our world of self-seeking and suffering.</p> + +<p>End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Balzac by Frederick +Lawton</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p> </p> + +<p> </p> + +<p> </p> + +<p> </p> + +<p> </p> + +<p> </p> +</body> +</html> + + |