Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings - Mary F. Sandars
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Occasionally, indeed, there were disagreements between the brother and
sister, when Honore did not approve of Laure's aspirations for
authorship. The only subject which really caused coldness on both
sides, however--and this was temporary--was Laure's want of sympathy
for Balzac's attachment to Madame Hanska; because she, like many of
his friends, felt doubtful whether his passionate love was returned in
anything like equal measure. Perhaps, too, there may have lurked in
the sister's mind a slight jealousy of this alien _grande dame_, who
had stolen away her brother's heart from France, who moved in a sphere
quite unlike that of the Balzac family, and whose existence prevented
several advantageous and sensible marriages which she could have
arranged for Honore. Balzac, it must be allowed, was not always
tactful in his descriptions of the perfections of the Hanska family,
who were, of course, in his eyes, surrounded with aureoles borrowed
from the light of his "polar star." It must have been distinctly
annoying, when the virtues, talents, and charms of the young Countess
Anna were held up as an object lesson for Madame Surville's two
daughters, who were no doubt, from their mother's point of view, quite
as admirable as Madame Hanska's ewe lamb. Nevertheless, there was
never any real separation between the brother and sister; and it is to
Laure that--certain of her participation in his joy--poor Balzac
penned his delighted letter the day after his wedding, signed "Thy
brother Honore, at the summit of happiness."
Laure's own career was chequered. In 1820 she married an engineer, M.
Midy de la Greneraye Surville, and from the first the marriage was not
very happy, as Honore writes, a month after it took place, to blame
Laure for her melancholy at the separation from her family, and to
counsel philosophy and piano practice. Possibly Balzac's habits of
ascendency over those he loved, and his wonderful gift of fascination
--a gift which often provides its possessor with bitter enemies among
those outside its influence--made matters difficult for his
brother-in-law, and did not tend to promote harmony between Laure and
her husband. M. Surville probably became exasperated by useless attempts
to vie in his wife's eyes with her much-beloved brother--at any rate,
in later years he was tyrannical in preventing their intercourse, and
we hear of the unfortunate Laure coming in secret to see Balzac, on
her birthday in 1836, and holding a watch in her hand, because she did
not dare to stay away longer than twenty minutes. There were other
worries for Laure and her husband, for, like the rest of the Balzac
family, they were in continual difficulty about money matters. M.
Surville seems to have been a man of enterprise, and to have had many
schemes on hand--such as making a lateral canal on the Loire from
Nantes to Orleans, building a bridge in Paris, or constructing a
little railway. Speaking of the canal, Balzac cheerfully and airily
remarked in 1836 that only a capital of twenty-six millions of francs
required collecting, and then the Survilles would be on the high road
to prosperity. This trifling matter was not after all arranged, if we
may judge from the fact that in 1849 the Survilles moved to a cheap
lodging, and were advised by Balzac, in a letter from Russia, to
follow his habit of former days, and to cook only twice a week. In
fact, they were evidently passing through one of those monetary crises
to which we become used when reading the annals of the Balzacs, and
which irresistibly remind the reader of similar affairs in the
Micawber family.
In spite of the friction on the subject of Madame Surville, there was
never any actual breach between Honore and his brother-in-law; indeed,
he speaks several times of working amicably with M. Surville, in the
vain attempt to put in order the hopelessly involved web of family
affairs. He evidently had great faith in his brother-in-law's plans
for making his fortune, and took the keenest interest in them, even
offering to go over to London, to sell an invention for effecting
economy in the construction of inclined planes on railways. But M.
Surville changed his mind at the last, and Balzac never went to
England after all.
Honore and Laure were together during the time of their earliest
childhood, as they were left at the cottage of the same foster-mother,
and did not come home till Honore was four years old. His sister says,
"My recollections of his tenderness date far back. I have not
forgotten the headlong rapidity with which he ran to save me from
tumbling down the three high steps without a railing, which led from
our nurse's room to the garden. His loving protection continued after
we returned to our father's house, where, more than once, he allowed
himself to be punished for my faults, without betraying me. Once, when
I came upon the scene in time to accuse myself of the wrong, he said,
'Don't acknowledge next time--I like to be punished for you.'"[*]
[*] "Balzac, sa vie et ses oeuvres, d'apres sa correspondance," by
Madame L. Surville (nee de Balzac).
Both children were in great awe of their parents, and Honore's fear of
his mother was extreme. Years after, he told a friend that he was
never able to hear her voice without a trembling which deprived him of
his faculties. Their father treated them with uniform kindness, but
Honore's heart was filled with love for his kind grandparents, to whom
he paid a visit in Paris in 1804. He came back to Tours with wonderful
stories of the beauties of their house, their garden, and their big
dog Mouche, with whom he had made great friends. The news of his
grandfather's death a few months later was a great grief to him, and
made a deep impression on his childish mind. His sister tells us that
long afterwards, when the two were receiving a reprimand from their
mother, and he saw Laure unable to control a wild burst of laughter,
which he knew would lead to serious consequences, he tried to stop her
by whispering in tragic tones, "Think about your grandfather's death!"
He was a child of very deep affections and warmth of heart, but he did
not show any special intelligence. He was lively, merry, and extremely
talkative, but sometimes a silent mood would fall on him, and perhaps,
as his sister says, his imagination was then carrying him to distant
worlds, though the family only thought the chatterbox was tired. In
all ways, however, he was in these days a very ordinary child, devoted
to fairy stories, fond of the popular nursery amusement of making up
plays, and charmed with the excruciating noise he brought out of a
little red violin. This he would sometimes play on for hours, till
even the faithful Laure would remonstrate, and he would be astonished
that she did not realise the beauty of his music.
This happy childish life, chastened only by the tremors which both
children felt when taken by their governess in the morning and at
bedtime into the stern presence of their mother, did not last very
long for Honore. When he was eight years old (his sister says seven,
but this seems to be a mistake), there was a change in his life, as
the home authorities decided that it was time his education should
begin in good earnest. He was therefore taken from the day school at
Tours, and sent to the semi-military college founded by the Oratorians
in the sleepy little town of Vendome. On page 7 of the school record
there is the following notice: "No. 460. Honore Balzac, age de huit
ans un mois. A eu la petite verole, sans infirmites. Caractere
sanguin, s'echauffant facilement, et sujet a quelques fievres de
chaleur. Entre au pensionnat le 22 juin, 1807. Sorti, le 22 aout,
1813. S'adresser a M. Balzac, son pere, a Tours."[*] Thus is summed up
the character of the future writer of the "Comedie Humaine," and there
was apparently nothing remarkable or precocious about the boy, as his
quick temper is his most salient point in the eyes of his masters. It
will be noticed, too, that the "de," about which Balzac was very
particular, and which was the occasion of many scoffing remarks on the
part of his enemies, does not appear on this register.
[*] "Balzac au College," by Champfleury.
Honore was a small boy to have been completely separated from home,
and the whole scheme of education as devised by the Oratorian fathers
appears to have been a strange one. One of the rules forbade outside
holidays, and Honore never left the college once during the six years
he was at school; so that there was no supervision from his parents,
and no chance of complaint if he were unhappy or ill treated. His
family came to see him at Easter and also at the prize-givings; but on
these occasions, to which he looked forward, his sister tells us, with
eager delight, reproaches were generally his portion, on account of
his want of success in school work. In "Louis Lambert" he gives an
interesting account of the college, which was in the middle of the
town on the little river Loir, and contained a chapel, theatre,
infirmary, bakery, and gardens. There were two or three hundred
pupils, divided according to their ages or attainments into four
classes--_les grands_, _les moyens_, les petits_, and _les minimes_
--and each class had its own class-room and courtyard. Balzac was
considered the idlest and most pathetic boy in his division, and was
continually punished. Reproaches, the ferule, the dark cell, were his
portion, and with his quick and delicate senses he suffered intensely
from the want of air in the class-rooms. There, according to the
graphic picture in "Louis Lambert," everything was dirty, and eighty
boys inhabited a hall, in the centre of which were two buckets full of
water, where all washed their faces and hands every morning, the water
being only renewed once in the day. To add to the odours, the air was
vitiated by the smell of pigeons killed for fete days, and of dishes
stolen from the refectory, and kept by the pupils in their lockers.
The boy who, in the future, was to awaken actual physical disgust in
his readers by his description of the stuffy and dingy boarding-house
dining-room in "Le Pere Goriot," was crushed and stupefied by his
surroundings, and would sit for hours with his head on his hand, not
attempting to learn, but gazing dreamily at the clouds, or at the
foliage of the trees in the court below. No wonder that he was the
despair of his masters, and that his famous "Traite de la volonte,"
which he composed instead of preparing the ordinary school work, was
summarily confiscated and destroyed. So many were the punishment lines
given him to write, that his holidays were almost entirely taken up,
and he had not six days of liberty the whole time that he was at
college.
In addition to the troubles incident to Honore's peculiar temperament
and genius, he had in the winter, like the other pupils, to submit to
actual physical suffering. The price of education included also that
of clothing, the parents who sent their children to the Vendome
College paying a yearly sum, and therewith comfortably absolving
themselves from all trouble and responsibility. But the results were
not happy for the boys, who dragged themselves painfully along the icy
roads in miserable remnants of boots, their feet half dead, and
swollen with sores and chilblains. Out of sixty children, not ten
walked without torture, and many of them would cry with rage as they
limped along, each step being a painful effort; but with the
invincible physical pluck and moral cowardice of childhood, would hide
their tears, for fear of ridicule from their companions.
Nevertheless, even to Balzac, who was peculiarly unfitted for it, life
at the college had its pleasures. The food appears to have been good,
and the discipline at meals not very severe, as a regular system of
exchange of helpings to suit the particular tastes of each boy went on
all through dinner, and caused endless amusement. Some one who had
received peas as his portion would prefer dessert, and the proposition
"Un dessert pour des pois" would pass from mouth to mouth till the
bargain had been made. Other pleasures were the pet pigeons, the
gardens, the sweets bought secretly during the walks, the permission
to play cards and to have theatrical performances during the holidays,
the military music, the games, and the slides made in winter. Best of
all, however, was the shop which opened in the class-room every Sunday
during playtime for the sale of boxes, tools, pigeons of all sorts,
mass-books (for these there was not much demand), knives, balls,
pencils--everything a boy could wish for. The proud possessor of six
francs--meant to last for the term--felt that the contents of the
whole shop were at his disposal. Saturday night was passed in anxious
yet rapturous calculations, and the responses at Mass during that
happy Sunday morning mingled themselves with thoughts of the glorious
time coming in the afternoon. Next Sunday was not quite so delightful,
as probably there were only a few sous left, and possibly some of the
purchases were broken, or had not turned out quite satisfactorily.
Then, too, there was a long vista of Sundays in the future, without
any possibility of shopping; but after all a certain amount of
compounding is always necessary in life, and an intense short joy is
worth a grey time before and after.
When Balzac was fourteen years old, his life at the college came
suddenly to an end, as, to the alarm of his masters, he was attacked
by coma with feverish symptoms, and they begged his parents to take
him home at once. It is curious to notice that the Fathers make no
reference to this failure in their educational system in the school
record, where there is no reason given for Honore's departure from
school. Certainly his life at Vendome was not very healthy, as
sometimes for idleness, inattention, or impertinence he was for months
shut up every day in a niche six feet square, with a wooden door
pierced by holes to let in air. When Champfleury visited the college
years afterwards, the only person who remembered Balzac was the old
Father who had charge of these cells, and he spoke of the boy's "great
black eyes." Confinement in these _culottes de bois_, as they were
called, was much dreaded by the boys, and the punishment seems
barbarous and senseless, except from the point of view of getting rid
of troublesome pupils. Balzac, however, welcomed the relief from
ordinary school life, and indeed manoeuvred to be shut up. In the
cells he had leisure to dream as he pleased, he was free from the
drudgery of learning his lessons, and he managed to secrete books in
his cage, and thus to absorb the contents of most of the volumes in
the fine library collected by the learned Oratorian founders of the
college. The ideas in many of the learned tomes were far beyond his
age, but he understood them, remembered them afterwards, and could
recall in later years not only the thought in each book, but also the
disposition of his mind when he read them. Naturally this precocity of
intellect caused brain fatigue, though this would never have been
suspected by the Fathers of their idlest pupil.
Honore, his sister tells us, came home thin and puny, like a
somnambulist sleeping with open eyes, and his grandmother groaned over
the strain of modern education. At first he heard hardly any of the
questions that were put to him, and his mother was obliged to disturb
him in reveries, and to insist on his taking part in games with the
rest of the family; but with the fresh air and the home life he soon
recovered his health and spirits, and became again a lively, merry
boy. He attended lectures at a college near, and had tutors at home;
but great efforts were necessary in order to get into his head the
requisite amount of Greek and Latin. Nevertheless, at times, he was
astonishing, or might have been to any one with powers of observation.
On these occasions he made such extraordinary and sagacious remarks
that Madame de Balzac, in her character of represser, felt obliged to
remark sharply, "You cannot possibly understand what you are saying,
Honore!" When Honore, who dared not argue, looked at her with a smile,
she would, with the ease of absolute authority, escape from the
awkwardness of the situation by remarking that he was impertinent. He
was already ambitious, and would tell his sisters and brother about
his future fame, and accept with a laugh the teasing he received in
consequence.
It must have been during this time that he grew to love with an
enduring love the scenery of his native province of Touraine, with its
undulating stretches of emerald green, through which the Loire or the
Indre wound like a long ribbon of water, while lines of poplars decked
the banks with moving lace. It was a smiling country, dotted with
vineyards and oak woods, while here and there an old gnarled walnut
tree stood in rugged independence. The susceptible boy, lately escaped
from the abominations of the stuffy school-house, drank in with
rapture the warm scented air, and often describes in his novels the
landscape of the province where he was born, which he loves, in his
own words, "as an artist loves art." Another lasting memory[*] was
that of the poetry and splendour of the Cathedral of Saint-Gatien in
Tours, where he was taken every feast-day. There he watched with
delight the beautiful effects of light and shade, the play of colour
produced by the rays of sunlight shining through the old stained
glass, and the strange, fascinating effect of the clouds of incense,
which enveloped the officiating priests, and from which he possibly
derived the idea of the mists which he often introduces into his
descriptions.
[*] See "Balzac, sa Vie et ses Oeuvres, d'apres sa Correspondance" par
Madame L. Surville (nee de Balzac).
CHAPTER III
1814 - 1820
Balzac's tutors and law studies--His youth, as pictured in the
"Peau de Chagrin"--His father's intention of making him a lawyer
--He begs to be allowed to become a writer--Is allowed his wish
--Life in the Rue Lesdiguieres, privations and starvation--He
writes "Cromwell," a tragedy.
At the end of 1814 the Balzac family moved to Paris, as M. de Balzac
was put in charge of the Commissariat of the First Division of the
Army. Here they took a house in the Rue de Roi-Dore, in the Marais,
and Honore continued his studies with M. Lepitre, Rue Saint-Louis, and
MM. Sganzer and Benzelin, Rue de Thorigny, in the Marais. To the
influence of M. Lepitre, a man who, unlike old M. de Balzac and many
other worthy people, was an ardent Legitimist _before_ as well as
_after_ 1815, we may in part trace the strength of Balzac's Royalist
principles. On the 13th Vendemiaire, M. Lepitre had presided over one
of the sections of Paris which rose against the Convention; and though
on one occasion he failed in nerve, his services during the Revolution
had been most conspicuous. On his reception at the Tuileries by the
Duchesse d'Angouleme, she used these words, never to be forgotten by
him to whom they were addressed: "I have not forgotten, and I shall
never forget, the services you have rendered to my family."[*]
[*] "Biographie Universelle," by De Michaud.
We can imagine the enthusiasm and delight with which the man who,
whatever might be his shortcomings in courage, had always remained
firm to his Royalist principles, and who had been a witness of the
terrible anguish of the prisoners in the Temple, would hear these
words from the lips of the lady who stood to him as Queen--the
Antigone of France--the heroine whose sufferings had made the heart of
every loyal Frenchman bleed, the brave woman who, according to
Napoleon, was the one man of her family. Lepitre's visit to the
Tuileries took place on May 9th, 1814, the year that Balzac began to
take those lessons in rhetoric which first opened his eyes to the
beauty of the French language. During Lepitre's tuition he composed a
speech supposed to be addressed by the wife of Brutus to her husband,
after the condemnation of her sons, in which, Laure tells us, the
anguish of the mother is depicted with great power, and Balzac shows
his wonderful faculty for entering into the souls of his personages.
Lepitre had evidently a powerful influence over his pupil, and as a
master of rhetoric he would naturally be eloquent and have command of
language, and in consequence would be most probably of fiery and
enthusiastic temperament. We can imagine the fervour with which the
impressionable boy drank in stories of the sufferings of the royal
family during their imprisonment in the Temple, and strove not to miss
a syllable of his master's magnificent exordiums, which glowed with
the light and heat of impassioned loyalty.
No doubt Balzac's "Une Vie de Femme," a touching account of the life
of the Duchesse d'Angouleme, which appeared in the _Reformateur_ in
1832, was partly compiled from the reminiscences of his old master;
and when we hear of his ardent defence of the Duchesse de Berry, or
that he treasured a tea-service which was not of any intrinsic value,
because it had belonged to the Duc d'Angouleme, we see traces of his
intense love and admiration for the Bourbon family.
Nevertheless, in that big, well-balanced brain there was room for many
emotions, and for a wide range of sympathies. The many-sidedness which
is a necessary characteristic of every great psychologist, was a
remarkable quality in Balzac. He may have been present at Napoleon's
last review on the Carrousel--at any rate he tells in "La Femme de
Trente Ans" how the man "thus surrounded with so much love,
enthusiasm, devotion, prayer--for whom the sun had driven every cloud
from the sky--sat motionless on his horse, three feet in advance of
the dazzling escort that followed him," and that an old grenadier
said, "My God, yes, it was always so; under fire at Wagram, among the
dead in the Moskowa, he was quiet as a lamb--yes, that's he!" Balzac's
admiration for Napoleon was intense, as he shows in many of his
writings, and his proudest boast is to be found in the words, said to
have been inscribed on a statuette of Napoleon in his room in the Rue
Cassini, "What he has begun with the sword, I shall finish with the
pen."
None of Balzac's masters thought much of his talents, or perceived
anything remarkable about him. He returned home in 1816, full of
health and vigour, the personification of happiness; and his
conscientious mother immediately set to work to repair the
deficiencies of his former education, and sent him to lectures at the
Sorbonne, where he heard extempore speeches from such men as
Villemain, Guizot, and Cousin. Apparently this teaching opened a new
world to him, and he learned for the first time that education can be
more than a dull routine of dry facts, and felt the joy of contact
with eloquence and learning. Possibly he realised, as he had not
realised before--Tours being, as he says, a most unliterary town--that
there were people in the world who looked on things as he did, and who
would understand, and not laugh at him or snub him. He always returned
from these lectures, his sister says, glowing with interest, and would
try as far as he could to repeat them to his family. Then he would
rush out to study in the public libraries, so that he might be able to
profit by the teaching of his illustrious professors, or would wander
about the Latin Quarter, to hunt for rare and precious books. He used
his opportunities in other ways. An old lady living in the house with
the Balzacs had been an intimate friend of the great Beaumarchais.
Honore loved to talk to her, and would ask her questions, and listen
with the greatest interest to her replies, till he could have written
a Life of the celebrated man himself. His powers of acute observation,
interest, and sympathy--in short, his intense faculty for human
fellowship, as well as his capacity for assimilating information from
books--were already at work; and the future novelist was consciously
or unconsciously collecting material in all directions.
In 1816 it was considered necessary that he should be started with
regular work, and he was established for eighteen months with a
lawyer, M. de Guillonnet-Merville, who was, like M. Lepitre, a friend
of the Balzac family, and an ardent Royalist. Eugene Scribe--another
amateur lawyer--as M. de Guillonnet-Merville indulgently remarked, had
just left the office, and Honore was established at the desk and table
vacated by him. He became very fond of his chief, whom he has
immortalised as Derville in "Une Tenebreuse Affaire," "Le Pere
Goriot," and other novels; and he dedicated to this old friend "Un
Episode sous la Terreur," which was published in 1846, and is a
powerful and touching story of the remorse felt by the executioner of
Louis XVI. After eighteen months in this office, he passed the same
time in that of M. Passez, a notary, who lived in the same house with
the Balzacs, and was another of their intimates.