Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings - Mary F. Sandars
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He had bitter enemies as well as devoted friends; and his fighting
proclivities, his objection to allow that he is ever in the wrong, and
his habit of blaming others for his misfortunes, have had a great
effect in obscuring our knowledge of Balzac's life, as the people he
abused were naturally exasperated, and took up their pens, not to give
a fair account of what really happened, but to justify themselves
against Balzac's aspersions. Werdet's book is an instance of this.
Beneath the extravagant admiration he expresses for the "great
writer," with his "heart of gold," a glint can be seen from time to
time of the animus which inspired him when he wrote, and we feel that
his statements must be received with caution, and do not add much to
our real knowledge of Balzac.
Nevertheless, though there are still blank spaces to be filled, as
well as difficulties to overcome and puzzles to unravel, much fresh
information has lately been discovered about the great writer, notably
the "Lettres a l'Etrangere," published in 1899, a collection of some
of the letters written by Balzac, from 1833 to 1848, to Madame Hanska,
the Polish lady who afterwards became his wife. These letters, which
are the property of the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, give many
interesting details, and alter the earlier view of several points in
Balzac's career and character; but the volume is large, and takes some
time to read. It is therefore thought, that as those who would seem
competent, by their knowledge and skill, to overcome the difficulties
of writing a complete and exhaustive life are silent, a short sketch,
which can claim nothing more than correctness of detail, may not be
unwelcome. It contains no attempt to give what could only be a very
inadequate criticism of the books of the great novelist; for that, the
reader must be referred to the many works by learned Frenchmen who
have made a lifelong study of the subject. It is written, however, in
the hope that the admirers of "Eugenie Grandet" and "Le Pere Goriot"
may like to read something of the author of these masterpieces, and
that even those who only know the great French novelist by reputation
may be interested to hear a little about the restless life of a man
who was a slave to his genius--was driven by its insistent voice to
engage in work which was enormously difficult to him, to lead an
abnormal and unhealthy life, and to wear out his exuberant physical
strength prematurely. He died with his powers at their highest and his
great task unfinished; and a sense of thankfulness for his own
mediocrity fills the reader, when he reaches the end of the life of
Balzac.
CHAPTER II
Balzac's appearance, dress, and personality--His imaginary
world and schemes for making money--His family, childhood,
and school-days.
According to Theophile Gautier, herculean jollity was the most
striking characteristic of the great writer, whose genius excels in
sombre and often sordid tragedy. George Sand, too, speaks of Balzac's
"serene soul with a smile in it"; and this was the more remarkable,
because he lived at a time when discontent and despair were considered
the sign-manual of talent.
Physically Balzac was far from satisfying a romantic ideal of fragile
and enervated genius. Short and stout, square of shoulder, with an
abundant mane of thick black hair--a sign of bodily vigour--his whole
person breathed intense vitality. Deep red lips, thick, but finely
curved, and always ready to laugh, attested, like the ruddiness in his
full cheeks, to the purity and richness of his blood. His forehead,
high, broad, and unwrinkled, save for a line between the eyes, and his
neck, thick, round, and columnar, contrasted in their whiteness with
the colour in the rest of the face. His hands were large and dimpled
--"beautiful hands," his sister calls them. He was proud of them, and
had a slight prejudice against any one with ugly extremities. His
nose, about which he gave special directions to David when his bust
was taken, was well cut, rather long, and square at the end, with the
lobes of the open nostrils standing out prominently. As to his eyes,
according to Gautier, there were none like them.[*] They had
inconceivable life, light, and magnetism. They were eyes to make an
eagle lower his lids, to read through walls and hearts, to terrify a
wild beast--eyes of a sovereign, a seer, a conqueror. Lamartine likens
them to "darts dipped in kindliness." Balzac's sister speaks of them
as brown; but, according to other contemporaries, they were like
brilliant black diamonds, with rich reflections of gold, the white of
the eyeballs being tinged with blue. They seemed to be lit with the
fire of the genius within, to read souls, to answer questions before
they were asked, and at the same time to pour out warm rays of
kindliness from a joyous heart.
[*] "Portraits Contemporains--Honore de Balzac," by Theophile Gautier.
At all points Balzac's personality differed from that of his
contemporaries of the Romantic School--those transcendental geniuses
of despairing temper, who were utterly hopeless about the prosaic
world in which, by some strange mistake, they found themselves; and
from which they felt that no possible inspiration for their art could
be drawn. So little attuned were these unfortunates to their
commonplace surroundings that, after picturing in their writings
either fiendish horrors, or a beautiful, impossible atmosphere,
peopled by beings out of whom all likeness to humanity had been
eliminated, they not infrequently lost their mental balance
altogether, or hurried by their own act out of a dull world which
could never satisfy their lively imaginations. Balzac, on the other
hand, loved the world. How, with the acute powers of observation, and
the intuition, amounting almost to second sight, with which he was
gifted, could he help doing so? The man who could at will quit his own
personality, and invest himself with that of another; who would follow
a workman and his wife on their way home at night from a music-hall,
and listen to their discussions on domestic matters till he imbibed
their life, felt their ragged clothing on his back, and their desires
and wants in his soul,--how could he find life dull, or the most
commonplace individual uninteresting?
In dress Balzac was habitually careless. He would rush to the
printer's office, after twelve hours of hard work, with his hat drawn
over his eyes, his hands thrust into shabby gloves, and his feet in
shoes with high sides, worn over loose trousers, which were pleated at
the waist and held down with straps. Even in society he took no
trouble about his appearance, and Lamartine describes him as looking,
in the salon of Madame de Girardin, like a schoolboy who has outgrown
his clothes. Only for a short time, which he describes with glee in
his letters to Madame Hanska, did he pose as a man of fashion. Then he
wore a magnificent white waistcoat, and a blue coat with gold buttons;
carried the famous cane, with a knob studded with turquoises,
celebrated in Madame de Girardin's story, "La Canne de Monsieur de
Balzac"; and drove in a tilbury, behind a high-stepping horse, with a
tiny tiger, whom he christened Anchise, perched on the back seat. This
phase was quickly over, the horses were sold, and Balzac appeared no
more in the box reserved for dandies at the Opera. Of the fashionable
outfit, the only property left was the microscopic groom--an orphan,
of whom Balzac took the greatest care, and whom he visited daily
during the boy's last illness, a year or two after. Thenceforward he
reverted to his usual indifference about appearances, his only vanity
being the spotless cleanliness of his working costume--a loose
dressing-gown of white flannel or cashmere, made like the habit of a
Benedictine monk, which was kept in round the waist by a silk girdle,
and was always scrupulously guarded from ink-stains.
Naive as a child, anxious for sympathy, frankly delighted with his own
masterpieces, yet modest in a fashion peculiar to himself, Balzac gave
a dominant impression of kindliness and bonhomie, which overshadowed
even the idea of intellect. To his friends he is not in the first
place the author of the "Comedie Humaine," designed, as George Sand
rather grandiloquently puts it, to be "an almost universal examination
of the ideas, sentiments, customs, habits, legislation, arts, trades,
costumes, localities--in short, of all that constitutes the lives of
his contemporaries"[*]--that claim to notice recedes into the
background, and what is seen clearly is the _bon camarade_, with his
great hearty laugh, his jollity, his flow of language, and his jokes,
often Rabelaisian in flavour. Of course there was another side to the
picture, and there were times in his hardset and harassing life when
even _his_ vivacity failed him. These moods were, however, never
apparent in society; and even to his intimate men friends, such as
Theophile Gautier and Leon Gozlan, Balzac was always the delightful,
whimsical companion, to be thought of and written of afterwards with
an amused, though affectionate smile. Only to women, his principal
confidantes, who played as important a part in his life as they do in
his books, did he occasionally show the discouragement to which the
artistic nature is prone. Sometimes the state of the weather, which
always had a great effect on him, the difficulty of his work, the
fatigue of sitting up all night, and his monetary embarrassments,
brought him to an extreme state of depression, both physical and
mental. He would arrive at the house of Madame Surville, his sister,
who tells the story, hardly able to drag himself along, in a gloomy,
dejected state, with his skin sallow and jaundiced.
[*] "Autour de la Table," by George Sand.
"Don't console me," he would say in a faint voice, dropping into a
chair; "it is useless--I am a dead man."
The dead man would then begin, in a doleful voice, to tell of his new
troubles; but he soon revived, and the words came forth in the most
ringing tones of his voice. Then, opening his proofs, he would drop
back into his dismal accents and say, by way of conclusion:
"Yes, I am a wrecked man, sister!"
"Nonsense! No man is wrecked with such proofs as those to correct."
Then he would raise his head, his face would unpucker little by
little, the sallow tones of his skin would disappear.
"My God, you are right!" he would say. "Those books will make me live.
Besides, blind Fortune is here, isn't she? Why shouldn't she protect a
Balzac as well as a ninny? And there are always ways of wooing her.
Suppose one of my millionaire friends (and I have some), or a banker,
not knowing what to do with his money, should come to me and say, 'I
know your immense talents, and your anxieties: you want such-and-such
a sum to free yourself; accept it fearlessly: you will pay me; your
pen is worth millions!' That is _all I want_, my dear."[*]
[*] "Balzac, sa Vie et ses Oeuvres, d'apres la Correspondance," by
Mme. L. Surville (nee de Balzac).
Then the "child-man," as his sister calls him, would imagine himself a
member of the Institute; then in the Chamber of Peers, pointing out
and reforming abuses, and governing a highly prosperous country.
Finally, he would end the interview with, "Adieu! I am going home to
see if my banker is waiting for me"; and would depart, quite consoled,
with his usual hearty laugh.
He lived, his sister tells us, to a great extent in a world of his
own, peopled by the imaginary characters in his books, and he would
gravely discuss its news, as others do that of the real world.
Sometimes he was delighted at the grand match he had planned for his
hero; but often affairs did not go so well, and perhaps it would give
him much anxious thought to marry his heroine suitably, as it was
necessary to find her a husband in her own set, and this might be
difficult to arrange. When asked about the past of one of his
creations, he replied gravely that he "had not been acquainted with
Monsieur de Jordy before he came to Nemours," but added that, if his
questioner were anxious to know, he would try to find out. He had many
fancies about names, declaring that those which are invented do not
give life to imaginary beings, whereas those really borne by some one
endow them with vitality. Leon Gozlan says that he was dragged by
Balzac half over Paris in search of a suitable name for the hero of a
story to be published in the _Revue Parisienne_. After they had
trudged through scores of streets in vain, Balzac, to his intense joy,
discovered "Marcas" over a small tailor's shop, to which he added, as
"a flame, a plume, a star," the initial Z. Z. Marcas conveyed to him
the idea of a great, though unknown, philosopher, poet, or
silversmith, like Benvenuto Cellini; he went no farther, he was
satisfied--he had found "_the_ name of names."[*]
[*] "Balzac en Pantoufles," by Leon Gozlan.
Many are the amusing anecdotes told of Balzac's schemes for becoming
rich. Money he struggled for unceasingly, not from sordid motives, but
because it was necessary to his conception of a happy life. Without
its help he could never be freed from his burden of debt, and united
to the _grande dame_ of his fancy, who must of necessity be posed in
elegant toilette, on a suitable background of costly brocades and
objects of art. Nevertheless, in spite of all his efforts, and of a
capacity and passion for work which seemed almost superhuman, he never
obtained freedom from monetary anxiety. Viewed in this light, there is
pathos in his many impossible plans for making his fortune, and
freeing himself from the strain which was slowly killing him.
Some of his projected enterprises were wildly fantastic, and prove
that the great author was, like many a genius, a child at heart; and
that, in his eyes, the world was not the prosaic place it is to most
men and women, but an enchanted globe, like the world of "Treasure
Island," teeming with the possibility of strange adventure. At one
time he hoped to gain a substantial income by growing pineapples in
the little garden at Les Jardies, and later on he thought money might
be made by transporting oaks from Poland to France. For some months he
believed that, by means of magnetism exercised on somnambulists, he
had discovered the exact spot at Pointe a Pitre where
Toussaint-Louverture hid his treasure, and afterwards shot the negroes
he had employed to bury it, lest they should betray its hiding-place.
Jules Sandeau and Theophile Gautier were chosen to assist in the
enterprise of carrying off the hidden gold, and were each to receive a
quarter of the treasure, Balzac, as leader of the venture, taking the
other half. The three friends were to start secretly and separately
with spades and shovels, and, their work accomplished, were to put the
treasure on a brig which was to be in waiting, and were to return as
millionaires to France. This brilliant plan failed, because none of the
three adventurers had at the moment money to pay his passage out; and no
doubt, by the time that the necessary funds were forthcoming, Balzac's
fertile brain was engaged on other enterprises.[*]
[*] "Portraits Contemporains--Honore de Balzac," by Theophile Gautier.
The foundation of his pecuniary misfortunes was laid before his birth,
when his father, forty-five years old and unmarried, sank the bulk of
his fortune in life annuities, so that his son was in the unfortunate
position of starting life in very comfortable circumstances, and of
finding himself in want of money just when he most needed it.
Balzac's father was born in Languedoc in 1746, and we are told by his
son that he had been Secretary, and by Madame Surville, advocate, of
the Council under Louis XVI. Both these statements however appear to
be incorrect, and may be considered to have been harmless fictions on
the part of the old gentleman, as no record of his name can be found
in the Royal Calendar, which was very carefully kept. Almanacs are
awkward things, and his name _is_ mentioned in the National Calendar
of 1793 as a "lawyer" and "member of the general council for the
section of the rights of man in the Commune." But he evidently
preferred to draw a veil over his revolutionary experiences, and it
seems rather hard that, because he happened to possess a celebrated
son, his little secrets should be exposed to the light of day. Later
on he became an ardent Royalist, and in 1814 he joined with Bertrand
de Molleville to draw up a memoir against the Charter, which Balzac
says was dictated to him, then a boy of fifteen; and he also mentions
that he remembers hearing M. de Molleville cry out, "The Constitution
ruined Louis XVI., and the Charter will kill the Bourbons!" "No
compromise" formed an essential part of the creed of the Royalists at
the Restoration.
When M. de Balzac[*] married, in 1797, he was in charge of the
Commissariat of the Twenty-second Military Division; and in 1798 he
came to live in Tours, where he had bought a house and some land near
the town, and where he remained for nineteen years. Here, on May 16,
1799, St. Honore's day, his son, the celebrated novelist, was born,
and was christened Honore after the saint.
[*] The Balzac family will be accorded the "de" in this account of
them.
Old M. de Balzac was in his own way literary, and had written two or
three pamphlets, one on his favourite subject--that of health. He
seems to have been a man of much originality, many peculiarities, and
much kindness of heart. He was evidently impulsive, like his
celebrated son, and he certainly made a culpable mistake, and a cruel
one for his family, when he rashly concluded that he would always
remain a bachelor, and arranged that his income should die with him.
He afterwards hoped to repair the wrong he had thus done to his
children, by outliving the other shareholders and obtaining a part of
the immense capital of the Tontine. Fortunately for himself he
possessed extraordinary optimism, and power of excluding from his mind
the possibility of all unpleasant contingencies--qualities which he
handed on in full measure to Honore. He therefore kept himself happy
in the monetary disappointments of his later life, by thinking and
talking of the millions his children would inherit from their
centenarian father. For their sakes it was necessary that he should
take care of his health, and he considered that, by maintaining the
"equilibrium of the vital forces," there was absolutely no doubt that
he would live for a hundred years or more. Therefore he followed a
strict regimen, and gave himself an infinite amount of trouble, as
well as amusement, by his minute arrangements.
Unfortunately, however, the truth of his theories could never be
tested, as he died in 1829, at the age of eighty-three, from the
effects of an operation; and Madame de Balzac and her family were left
to face the stern facts of life, denuded of the rose-coloured haze in
which they had been clothed by the kindly old enthusiast. Balzac's
mother certainly had a hard life, and from what we hear of her
nervous, excitable nature--inherited apparently from her mother,
Madame Sallambier--we can hardly be astonished when Balzac writes to
Madame Hanska, in 1835, that if her misfortunes do not kill her, it is
feared they will destroy her reason. Nevertheless, she outlived her
celebrated son, and is mentioned by Victor Hugo, when he visited
Balzac's deathbed, as the only person in the room, except a nurse and
a servant.[*]
[*] "Choses Vues," by Victor Hugo.
She was many years younger than her husband--a beauty and an heiress;
and she evidently had her own way with the easy-going old M. de
Balzac, and was the moving spirit in the household: so that the ease
and absence of friction in her early life must have made her
subsequent troubles and humiliations especially galling. Besides
Honore, she had three children: Laure, afterwards Madame Surville;
Laurence, who died young; and Henry, the black sheep of the family,
who returned from the colonies, after having made an unsatisfactory
marriage, and who, during the last years of Honore de Balzac's life,
required constant monetary help from his relations.
Her two young children were Madame de Balzac's favourites, and they
and their affairs gave her constant trouble. In 1822 Laurence married
a M. Saint-Pierre de Montzaigle, apparently a good deal older than
herself; and Honore gives a very _couleur de rose_ account of his
future brother-in-law's family, in a letter written at the time of the
engagement to Laure, who was already married. He does not seem so
charmed with the bridegroom, _il troubadouro_, as with his
surroundings, and remarks that he has lost his top teeth, and is very
conceited, but will do well enough--as a husband. Every one is
delighted at the marriage; but Laure can imagine _maman's_ state of
nervous excitement from her recollection of the last few days before
her own wedding, and can fancy that he and Laurence are not enjoying
themselves. "Nature surrounds roses with thorns, and pleasures with a
crowd of troubles. Mamma follows the example of nature."[*]
[*] "H. de Balzac--Correspondence," vol. i. p. 41.
Laurence's death, in 1826, must have been a terrible grief to the poor
mother; but she may have realised later on that her daughter had
escaped much trouble, as in 1836 the Balzac family threatened M. de
Montzaigle with a lawsuit on the subject of his son, who was left to
wander about Paris without food, shoes, or clothes. We cannot suppose
that any one with such sketchy views of the duties of a father could
have been a particularly satisfactory husband; but perhaps Laurence
died before she had time to discover M. de Montzaigle's deficiencies.
Henry, the younger son, appears to have been brought up on a different
method from that pursued with Honore, as we hear in 1821 that Madame
de Balzac considered that the boy was unhappy and bored with school,
that he was with canting people who punished him for nothing, and must
be taken away. Evidently the younger son was the mother's darling; but
her mode of bringing him up was not happy in its effects, as he seems
to have given continual anxiety and trouble. He came back from the
colonies with his wife; and by threatening to blow out his brains, he
worked on his mother's feelings, and induced her to help him with
money, and nearly to ruin herself. In consequence she was obliged for
a time to take up her abode with Honore, an arrangement which did not
work well. Even when Henry was at last shipped off to the Indies, he
continued to agitate his family by sending them pathetic accounts of
his distress and necessities, and these letters from her much-loved
son must have been peculiarly painful to Madame de Balzac.
Honore and his mother seem never to have understood each other very
well; and she was stern with him and Laure in their youth, while she
lavished caresses on her younger children. Likeness to a father is not
always a passport to a mother's favour, and Madame de Balzac does not
appear to have realised her son's genius, and evidently feared that,
without due repression in youth, the paternal type of imaginative
optimist would be repeated.
She was not a tender mother in childhood, when indeed she saw little
of Honore, as she left him out at nurse till he was four years old,
and sent him to school when he was eight; but later on in all
practical matters she did her best for him, lending him money when he
was in difficulties, and looking after his business affairs when he
was away from Paris. She was evidently easily offended, and rather
absurdly tenacious of her maternal dignity; so that sometimes the
deference and submission of the great writer are surprising and rather
touching. On the other hand it must be remembered that Honore made
great demands on his friends, that they were expected to accord
continual sympathy and admiration, to be perfectly tactful in their
criticisms, and were only very occasionally allowed to give advice.
Therefore his opinion of his mother's coldness may have sprung from
her failure to answer to the requirements of his peculiar code of
affection, and not from any real want of love on her part.
Certainly her severity in his youth had the effect of concentrating
the whole devotion of Honore's childish heart on Laure, the _cara
sorella_ of his later years. She was a writer, the author of "Le
Compagnon du Foyer." To her we owe a charming sketch of her celebrated
brother, and she was the confidante of his hopes, ambitions, and
troubles, of his sentimental friendships, and of the faults and
embarrassments which he confided to no one else. Expressions of
affection for her occur constantly in his letters, and in 1837 he
writes to Madame Hanska that Laure is ill, and therefore the whole
universe seems out of gear, and that he passes whole nights in despair
because she is everything to him. The friendship between the brother
and sister was deep, devoted, and faithful, as Balzac's friendships
generally were--he did not care, as he said in one of his letters, for
_amities d'epiderme_--and the restriction put on his intercourse with
his sister by the jealousy of M. Surville was one of the many troubles
which darkened his later years.