Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings - Mary F. Sandars
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[*] Article by M. Jules de Petigny.
Balzac's glimpses of society were, however, rare, and ceased
altogether during the last few months of his stay in the Rue
Lesdiguieres. However, other more satisfying pleasures were his:
"Unspeakable joys are showered on us by the exertion of our mental
faculties; the quest of ideas, and the tranquil contemplation of
knowledge; delights indescribable, because purely intellectual and
impalpable to our senses. So we are obliged to use material terms to
express the mysteries of the soul. The pleasure of striking out in
some lonely lake of clear water, with forests, rocks, and flowers
around, and the soft stirring of the warm breeze--all this would give
to those who knew them not a very faint idea of the exultation with
which my soul bathed itself in the beams of an unknown light,
hearkened to the awful and uncertain voice of inspiration, as vision
upon vision poured from some unknown source through my throbbing
brain."[*]
[*] "La Peau de Chagrin," by Honore de Balzac.
There was another side to the picture, and perhaps in this
description, written in 1830, Balzac has slightly antedated his joy in
his creative powers, and describes more correctly his feelings when he
wrote "Les Chouans," "La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote," and the "Peau de
Chagrin" itself, than those of this earlier period of his life, when
the difficulties of expressing himself often seemed insurmountable,
and the hiatus between his ideas and the form in which to clothe them
was almost impossible to bridge over.
Writing did not at any time come easily to him, and "Stella" and
"Coqsigrue," his first novels, were never finished; while a comedy,
"Les Deux Philosophes," was also abandoned in despair. Next he set to
work at "Cromwell," a tragedy in five acts, which was to be his
passport to fame. At this play he laboured for months, shutting
himself up completely, and loving his self-imposed slavery--though his
want of faculty for versification, and the intense difficulty he
experienced in finding words for the ideas which crowded into his
imaginative brain were decided drawbacks. While engaged on this work,
he may indeed have experienced some of the feelings he describes in
the "Peau de Chagrin," quoted above; for, curiously enough,
"Cromwell," his first finished production, was the only one of his
early works about which he was deceived, and which he imagined to be a
_chef d'oeuvre_. It was well he had this happy faith to sustain him,
as, according to the account of M. Jules de Petigny, the circumstances
under which the play was composed must, to put the matter mildly, have
been distinctly depressing.
This gentleman says: "I entered a narrow garret, furnished with a
bottomless chair, a rickety table and a miserable pallet bed, with two
dirty curtains half drawn round it. On the table were an inkstand, a
big copybook scribbled all over, a jug of lemonade, a glass, and a
morsel of bread. The heat in this wretched hole was stifling, and one
breathed a mephitic air which would have given cholera, if cholera had
then been invented!" Balzac was in bed, with a cotton cap of
problematic colour on his head. "You see," he said, "the abode I have
not left except once for two months--the evening when you met me.
During all this time I have not got up from the bed where I work at
the great work, for the sake of which I have condemned myself to this
hermit's life, and which happily I have just finished, for my powers
have come to an end." It must have been during these last months in
his garret, when he neglected everything for his projected
masterpiece, that, covered with vermin from the dirt of his room, he
would creep out in the evening to buy a candle, which, as he possessed
no candlestick, he would put in an empty bottle.
The almost insane ardour for and absorption in his work, which were
his salient characteristics, had already possession of him; and we see
that he laboured as passionately now for fame and for love of his art,
as he did later on, when the struggle to free himself from debt, and
to gain a home and womanly companionship were additional incentives to
effort. At the time of which M. de Petigny speaks, however, his
troubles appeared to be over, as the masterpiece for which he had
suffered so much was completed; and joyfully confident that triumph
awaited him, Honore took it home with him to Villeparisis at the end
of April, 1820. He was so certain, poor fellow, of success, that he
had specially begged that among those invited to the reading of the
tragedy, should be the insulting person who told his father fifteen
months before, that he was fit for nothing but a post as copying
clerk.
CHAPTER IV
1820 - 1828
Reading of "Cromwell"--Balzac is obliged to live at home
--Unhappiness--Writes romantic novels--Friendship with Madame
de Berny--Starts in Paris as publisher and afterwards as printer
--Impending bankruptcy only prevented by help from his parents
and Madame de Berny.
Evidently Balzac's happy faith in the beauty of "Cromwell" had
impressed his parents, as, apparently without having seen the play,
they had assembled a large concourse of friends for the reading; and
between happy pride in his boy's genius, and satisfaction at his own
acuteness in discerning it, old M. de Balzac was no doubt nearly as
joyous as Honore himself. The Balzac family were prepared for triumph,
the friends were amused or incredulous, and the solemn trial began.[*]
The tragedy, strongly Royalist in principles, opens, according to the
plot as given by Balzac in a letter to his sister,[+] with the
entrance of Queen Henrietta Maria into Westminster. She is utterly
exhausted, and, disguised in humble garments, has returned from taking
her children for safety into Holland, and from begging for the help of
the King of France. Strafford, in tears, tells her of late events, and
of the King's imprisonment and future trial; but during this
conversation Cromwell and Ireton enter, and the Queen, in terror,
hides behind a tomb, till, horrified at the discussion as to whether
or not the King shall be put to death, she comes out, and, as Balzac
remarks, "makes them a famous discourse." Act II. sounds a little
dull, though no doubt it is highly instructive, as a great part of it
is taken up with a monologue by the King detailing the events of his
past reign. Later on Charles, instead of keeping Cromwell's son who
has fallen into his hands, as a hostage for his own life, gives him up
to his father without condition; but Cromwell, unmoved by this
generosity, still plots for his King's death. The fifth Act, which
Balzac remarks is the most difficult of all, opens with a scene in
which the King tells the Queen his last wishes, which Balzac
interpolates with (Quelle scene!); then Strafford informs the King of
his condemnation (Quelle scene!); the King and Queen say good-bye
--(Quelle scene!) again; and the play ends with the Queen vowing
eternal vengeance upon England, declaring that enemies will rise
everywhere against her, and that one day France will fight against
her, conquer her, and crush her.
[*] The original MS., beautifully written out, and tied with faded
blue ribbon, is in the possession of the Vicomte de Spoelberch
de Lovenjoul.
[+] "Honore de Balzac--Correspondance," vol. i, p. 28.
Honore began his reading with the utmost enthusiasm, modulating his
sonorous voice to suit the different characters, and even contriving
for a time to impart by his expressive reading a fictitious interest
to the dull, tedious tragedy. Gradually, however, the feeling of
disappointment and boredom among his audience communicated itself to
him. He lost confidence; his beautiful reading began to decline in
pathos and interest; and when at last he finished, and, glancing at
the downcast faces round him, found that even Laure could not look up
at him with a smile of congratulation, he felt a chill at his heart,
and knew that he had not triumphed after all. Nevertheless, he very
naturally rebelled against the strongly expressed adverse judgment of
his enemy of the copying-clerk proposal, and begged to be allowed to
appeal to a competent and impartial critic. To this request his father
assented, and M. Surville, who was now engaged to Laure, proposed that
M. Andrieux, of the Academie Francaise, formerly his own master at the
Ecole Polytechnique, should be asked to give an opinion. Honore, his
sister says, "accepted this literary elder as sovereign judge," no
doubt hoping against hope that a really cultured man would see the
beauties which were unfortunately hidden from the eyes of the
unintellectual inhabitants of Villeparisis. However, the verdict of M.
Andrieux was, if possible, more crushing than any of the events which
had preceded it. In the honest opinion of this expert, the author of
"Cromwell" ought to do anything, no matter what, _except literature_.
Honore had asked for an impartial judgment, and had promised to abide
by it. His discomfiture and sense of failure ought therefore to have
been complete. Genius does not, however, follow the ordinary road; and
with a mixture of pluck, confidence in himself, and pride which always
characterised him, Honore did not allow that he was beaten, and would
not show the feelings of grief and disappointment which must have
filled his heart. "Tragedies are not my line"--that is all he said;
and if he had been allowed to follow his own bent, he would at once
have returned to his garret, and have begun to write again with
unabated ardour.
Naturally, however, the Balzac family refused to allow him to continue
the course of senseless folly which was already beginning to ruin his
health. Madame de Balzac was specially strong on this point; and
though he had only been allowed fifteen months, instead of the two
years promised for his trial, she insisted that he should come home at
once, and remain under the maternal eye. Indeed, this seemed quite
necessary, after the privations he had gone through. His sufferings
never made him thin at any period of his life; but now his face was
pale and his eyes hollow, and his lifelong friend, Dr. Nacquart, sent
him at once to recruit in the air of his native Touraine.
After this followed a time of bitter trial for poor Honore. His sister
Laure married M. Surville in May, 1820, about a month after his return
home, and went to live at Bayeux, so that he was deprived of her
congenial companionship; and, in spite of his fun and buoyancy, his
letters to her show his extreme wretchedness. Years afterwards he told
the Duchesse d'Abrantes that the cruel weight of compulsion under
which he was crushed till 1822 made his struggles for existence, when
once he was free, seem comparatively light. Continually worried by his
nervous, irritable mother, deprived of independence, of leisure, of
quiet, he saw his dreams of future fame vanish like smoke, and the
hated lawyer's office become a certainty, if he failed to make money
by writing. In deadly fear of this, and with the paralysing
consciousness that his present circumstances were peculiarly
unpropitious as a literary education, he rebelled against the hard
fate which denied him opportunity to work for fame. "Laure, Laure," he
cries at this time, "my two only and immense desires--to be loved and
to be celebrated--will they ever be satisfied?"
Whatever his aspirations might be, it was necessary that he should do
something to support himself, as his parents firmly refused to grant
him the 1,500 francs--about sixty pounds--a year for which he begged,
to enable him to live in Paris and to carry out his vocation. He was
therefore obliged to write at his home at Villeparisis in the midst of
distractions and discouragements. In these unpropitious circumstances
he produced in five years--with different collaborators, whose names
are now rescued from absolute oblivion by their transitory connection
with him--eight novels in thirty-one volumes. That he managed to find
a publisher for most of his novels, and to make forty pounds, sixty
pounds, or eighty pounds out of each, is according to his sister, a
remarkable proof of his strength of will, and also of his power of
fascination. The payment generally took the form of a bill payable at
some distant period--a form of receiving money which does not seem
very satisfying; but at any rate Balzac could prove to his family that
he was earning something, and was himself cheered by his small
successes. We can imagine his feverish anxiety, and the cunning with
which he would exert every wile to induce the publisher--himself a
struggling man--to accept his wares, when he knew that a refusal would
mean mingled scoffs and lamentations at home, and possibly a menace
that not much longer leisure would be allowed him for idling. There is
pathos in the fate of one whose genius is unrecognised till his day on
earth is over, but far harder seems the lot of the man who longs and
struggles, feeling that the power is in him, and who yet, by some
strange gulf between thought and expression, can only produce what he
knows to be worthless. It speaks much for Balzac's courage, patience,
and determination, or perhaps for the intuitive force of a genius
which refused to be denied outlet, that he struggled through this
weary time, and in spite of opposition kept to his fixed purpose of
becoming a writer.
These early works--"L'Heritiere de Birague," "Jean-Louis," "Le
Centenaire," "Le Vicaire des Ardennes," "La Derniere Fee," "Wann
Chlore," and others, published in 1822 and the three following years
--were written under the pseudonyms of Lord R'hoone, Viellergle, and
Horace de Saint-Aubin, and are generally wild tales of adventure in
the style of Mrs. Radcliffe. Though occasionally the reader comes
across a paragraph faintly reminiscent of the Balzac of later years,
these youthful attempts are certainly not worthy of the great man who
wrote them, and he consistently refused to acknowledge their
authorship. The two first, "L'Heritiere de Birague" and "Jean-Louis,"
were written with the collaboration of M. Auguste le Poitevin de
l'Egreville, who took the name of Viellergle, while Balzac adopted
that of Lord R'hoone, an anagram of Honore, so that these two novels
are signed with both pseudonyms.[*] It is amusing to find that the
sage Honore, in 1820, prudently discourages a passing fancy on the
part of his sister Laurence for his collaborator, by remarking that
writers are very bad _partis_, though he hastens to add that he only
means this from a pecuniary point of view! Laure, at Bayeux, is made
useful as an amateur advertising agent, and is carefully told that,
though she is to talk about the novels a great deal, she is never to
lend her copies to any one, because people must buy the books to read
them. "L'Heritiere" brought in about thirty-two pounds, and
"Jean-Louis" fifty-three pounds, unfortunately both in bills at long
date; but it was the first money Honore had ever earned, and he was
naturally excited. However, with "La Derniere Fee" he was not so
fortunate, as both versions--one of which appeared in 1823 and the
other in 1824--were published at his own cost. Nevertheless, he has no
illusions about the worth of his books, "L'Heritiere" being, he says,
a "veritable cochonnerie litteraire," while "Jean-Louis" has "several
rather funny jokes, and some not bad attempts at character, but a
detestable plot."
[*] See "Une Page perdue de Honore de Balzac," by the Vicomte de
Spoelberch de Lovenjoul.
In the same year, 1822, he writes one of his droll, beseeching letters
to beg M. and Mme. Surville to help him out of a great difficulty, and
to write one volume of "Le Vicaire des Ardennes" while he writes the
other, and afterwards fits the two together. The matter is most
important, as he has promised Pollet to have two novels, "Le Vicaire"
and "Le Savant"--the latter we never hear of again--ready by October
1st. It is necessary to be specially quick about "Le Vicaire," partly
because Auguste, his collaborator, is writing a novel of the same
name, and Balzac's production _must_ come out first, and also for the
joyful reason that he will actually receive twenty-four pounds in
ready money for the two books, the further fifty-six pounds following
in bills payable at eight months. What do the Survilles think about
it? He throws himself on their generosity, though he is afraid Laure
will never manage to write sixty pages of a novel every day.
Apparently the Survilles, or at least M. Surville--for it is certain
that the devoted Laure would have worked herself to death to help
Honore--did not see their way to proceeding at this rate of
composition, as the next letter from Balzac, written on August 20th,
is full of reproaches because the manuscript has not been at once
returned to him, that he may go on with it himself. Perhaps this want
of help prevented the carrying out of the contract, and was the reason
that the world has not been enriched by the appearance of "Le Savant."
Honore, however, judging by his next letter, did not bear malice: he
was accustomed to make continual requests, reasonable and sometimes
_very_ unreasonable, to his family; and the large good-humour which
was one of the foundations of his robust character, prevented him from
showing any irritation when they were refused.
From 1821 to 1824 he wrote thirty-one volumes, and it is an
extraordinary proof of his versatility, that in 1824, in the midst of
the production of these romantic novels, he published a pamphlet
entitled "Du Droit d'Ainesse" which argues with singular force, logic,
and erudition against the revolutionary and Napoleonic theories on the
division of property; and a small volume entitled "Histoire impartiale
des Jesuites," which is an impassioned defence of religion and the
monarchy. "The Bourbons are the preservers of the sublime religion of
Christ, and they have never betrayed the trust which confided
Christianity to them," he cries. No one reading these political essays
would think it likely that they were the work of the romantic writer
of "La Derniere Fee" or "Argow the Pirate," which were employing
Balzac's pen at the same time.
Young men are often very severe critics of the doings of their family;
and Balzac, cursed with the sensitiveness of genius, and smarting
under the bitter disappointment of disillusionment and of thwarted and
compressed powers, was not likely to be an indulgent critic; but
making due allowance for these facts, it does not appear that his home
was a particularly comfortable place at this time. Old M. de Balzac
was as placid as an Egyptian pyramid and perennially cheerful; but the
restless Madame de Balzac was now following in the footsteps of her
nervous mother and becoming a _malade imaginaire_. This did not add to
the comfort of her family, while the small excitements she roused
perpetually were peculiarly trying to her eldest son, who was himself
not of a placid nature.
However, there were compensations, though the discreet Honore does not
mention these in his letters to Laure, as in 1821 his friendship with
Madame de Berny began, and only ceased in 1836 with her death, which
in spite of his affection for Madame Hanska, was a lifelong sorrow to
him. One of Honore's home duties was to act as tutor to his younger
brother Henry--the spoilt child of the family--who, owing to supposed
delicacy, was educated at home; and as the Bernys lived near
Villeparisis, it was arranged that he should at the same time give
lessons to one of M. and Madame de Berny's boys. This may have helped
to bring about the intimacy between the two houses, and Honore was
struck by Madame de Berny's patience and sweetness to a morose husband
many years older than herself. Later on, the Bernys left the
neighbourhood of Villeparisis, and divided their time between the
village of Saint-Firmin, near Chantilly, and Paris; and Balzac
occasionally paid them visits in the country, and saw Madame de Berny
continually in Paris. She was twenty-two years older than Honore, and
no doubt supplied the element of motherliness which was conspicuously
absent in Madame de Balzac.
She was a gentle and pathetic figure, the woman who understood Balzac
as Madame Hanska did not; who made light of her troubles and
sufferings for fear of grieving him in the midst of his own struggles;
and who, while performing her duties conscientiously as devoted wife
and mother, for twelve years gave up two hours every day to his
society. She lent him money, interceded with his parents on his
behalf, corrected his proofs, acted as a severe and candid though
sympathetic critic, and above all cheered and encouraged him, and
prevented him from committing suicide in his dark days of distress. On
the other hand, the friendship of a man like Balzac must have been of
absorbing interest to a woman of great delicacy of feeling, and
evidently considerable literary powers, whose surroundings were
uncongenial; and his warm and enduring affection helped her to tide
over many of the troubles of a sad life.
Recent researches have discovered several interesting facts about the
origin of the woman to whom may be ascribed the merit of "creating"
the writer who was destined to exercise so great an influence on his
own and succeeding generations.[*] Curiously enough, Louise Antoinette
Laure Hinner, destined at the age of fifteen years and ten months to
become Madame de Berny, was, like Madame Hanska, a foreigner, being
the daughter of Joseph Hinner, a German musician, who was brought by
Turgot to France. Here he became harpist to Marie Antoinette, and
married Madame Quelpee de Laborde, one of the Queen's ladies in
waiting. Two years later, on May 23rd, 1777, the future Madame de
Berny came into the world, and made her debut with a great flourish of
trumpets, Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, represented by the Duc de
Fronsac and Laure Auguste de Fitz-James, Princesse de Chimay, being
her god-parents. When in 1784 her father died, her mother married the
Chevalier de Jarjayes, one of Marie Antoinette's most loyal adherents
during the Revolution. It was he who conceived the project of carrying
off Louis XVII. from the Temple, and who was entrusted with the
precious duty of carrying the seal, ring, and hair belonging to the
Royal Family to the exiled Monsieur and Comte d'Artois.[*]
[*] See "Balzac, Imprimeur," in "La Jeunesse de Balzac," by MM.
Hanotaux et Vicaire.
We can easily see whence Balzac derived his strong Royalist principles
--how from boyhood the lessons taught him by his masters, M. Lepitre
and M. Guillonnet de Merville, would be insisted on, only with much
greater effect and insistence, by this charming woman of the world.
Her mother, still living, had passed her time in the disturbed and
exciting atmosphere of plots and counterplots; and she herself could
tell him story after story of heartrending tragedies and of
hairbreadth escapes, which had happened to her own relations and
friends. From her he acquired those aristocratic longings which always
characterised him, and through her influence he made acquaintance with
several people of high position and importance, and thus was enabled
to make an occasional appearance in the _beau-monde_ of Paris.
Her portrait gives the idea of an elegant rather than pretty woman,
with a long neck, sloping shoulders, black curls on the temples, at
each side of a high forehead, and large, languishing dark eyes, under
pencilled eyebrows. The oval face has a character of gentle
melancholy, and there is something subdued and suffering in the whole
expression which invites our pity. She wears in the portrait an Empire
dress, confined under the arms by a yellow ribbon.
"La dilecta," as Balzac calls her, cannot have been a very happy
woman. Of her nine children, watched with the most tender solicitude,
only four lived to grow up; and of these her favourite son, "beautiful
as the day, like her tender and spiritual, like her full of noble
sentiments," as Balzac says, died the year before her; and only an
insane daughter and a wild, unsatisfactory son survived her. This
terrible blow broke her heart, and she shut herself up and refused to
see even Balzac during the last year of her life. The end must at any
rate have been peaceful, as, in order to prolong her existence as much
as possible, it had been found necessary to separate her from the
irritable husband with whose vagaries she had borne patiently during
thirty tedious years; but perhaps she was sorry in the end that this
was necessary. Madame de Mortsauf, in the "Lys dans la Vallee," is
intended to be a portrait of her, though Balzac says that he has only
managed to give a faint reflection of her perfections. However this
may be, Henriette de Mortsauf is a charming and ethereal creation, and
from her we can understand the fascination Madame de Berny exerted
over Balzac, and can realise that, as he says to Madame Hanska, her
loss can never be made up to him. It is possible also to sympathise
with the feeling, perhaps unacknowledged even to himself, which peeps
out in a letter to Madame Hanska in 1840.[*] In this he reproaches his
correspondent for her littleness in not writing to him because he
cannot answer her letters quickly, and tells her that he has lately
been in such straits that he has not been able to pay for franking his
letters, and has several times eaten a roll on the Boulevards for his
dinner. He goes on: "Ah! I implore you, do not make comparisons
between yourself and Madame de Berny. She was of infinite goodness and
of absolute devotion; she was what she was. You are complete on your
side as she on hers. One never compares two great things. They are
what they are." Certainly Balzac never found a second Madame de Berny.