Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings - Mary F. Sandars
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[*] "Une Page Perdue de Honore de Balzac," by the Vicomte de
Spoelberch de Lovenjoul; from which the whole account of the
dispute between Balzac and Pichot is taken.
However, Balzac was furious. His respect for his own name and his
intense literary conscientiousness were stronger even than his desire
for money, and it was a very black crime in his eyes for any one to
produce one of his works before the public until it had been brought
to the highest possible pitch of perfection. This intense anxiety to
do his best, which caused him the most painstaking labour, often
pressed very hardly on managers of magazines. He was generally paid in
advance, so that his money was safe; and though he could be absolutely
trusted to finish sooner or later what he had undertaken, he showed a
lofty indifference to the exigencies of monthly publication. Moreover,
as is shown in the evidence given later on during his lawsuit with the
_Revue de Paris_, he would sometimes, in his haste for money, accept
new engagements when he already had a plethora of work in hand.
Nevertheless, whatever the failures to fulfil a contract on his part
might be, he was implacable towards those who did not rightly
discharge their obligations to him; and Pichot was never forgiven. In
September, 1832, after endless disputes about the rate and terms of
payment, the most fertile source of recriminations between Balzac and
his various publishers and editors, a formal treaty was drawn up
between the great writer, who was at Sache, and Amedee Pichot, as
director of the _Revue de Paris_. By this, with the option of breaking
the connection after six months, Balzac undertook to write for the
_Revue_ for a year, being still entitled during that time to furnish
articles to the _Renovateur_, the _Journal Quotidienne Politique_, and
_L'Artiste_. In spite of this legal document, there were many disputed
points; and the letters which passed between the two men, and which
now began with the formal "Monsieur," were full of bickerings about
money matters, about Balzac's delay in furnishing copy, and about the
length of his contributions. On one occasion Pichot is severe in his
rebukes, because Balzac has prevented the Duchesse d'Abrantes from
providing a promised article, by telling her that his own writing will
fill two whole numbers of the _Revue_. On another, it is curious to
find that Balzac, who was rather ashamed of the immoral reputation of
his works, thanks M. Pichot quite humbly for suppressing a passage in
the "Voyage de Paris a Java," which the director considered unfit for
family perusal, and excuses himself on the subject with the naive
explanation that he was at the same time writing the "Contes
Drolatiques"![*] Finally, in March, 1833, after six months of the
treaty had expired, Balzac withdrew altogether from the _Revue de
Paris_. He gave no explicit explanation for this step; but in 1836, at
the time of his lawsuit with the _Revue de Paris_, he stated as the
reason for his desertion that he considered Pichot to be the author,
under different pseudonyms, of the adverse criticism of his novels
which appeared in its pages. In the _Revue_ he had, among other
novels, brought out the beginning of "L'Histoire des Treize," and the
parsimonious shareholders now had the mortification of seeing the
great man carry his wares to _L'Europe Litteraire_; while the _Revue
de Paris_, in consequence of his desertion, declined in popularity.
[*] "Autour de Honore de Balzac," by the Vicomte de Spoelberch de
Lovenjoul.
Balzac was now fairly launched on the road of literary fame, and some
of his writings at this time had a momentous influence on his life. In
April, 1830, Madame Hanska, his future wife, read with delight, in her
far-off chateau in Ukraine, the "Scenes de la Vie Privee," containing
the "Vendetta," "Les Dangers de l'Inconduite," "Le Bal de Sceaux, ou
Le Pair de France," "Gloire et Malheur," "La Femme Vertueuse" and "La
Paix de Menage"--two volumes which Balzac had published as quickly as
he could, to counteract the alienation of his women-readers by the
"Physiologie du Mariage." In August, 1831, appeared "La Peau de
Chagrin," which so disappointed Madame Hanska by its cynical tone,
that she was impelled to write the first letter from L'Etrangere,
which reached Balzac on February 28th, 1832, a date never to be
forgotten in the annals of his life. He was not, however, very exact
in remembering it himself, and in later life sometimes became confused
in his calculations between the number of years since he had received
this letter, and the time which had elapsed since he first had the joy
of meeting her. "La Peau de Chagrin" greatly increased Balzac's fame,
and in October, 1831, another anonymous correspondent, Madame la
Marquise de Castries, also destined to exercise a strong, though
perhaps transitory, influence over Balzac, had written to deprecate
its moral tone, as well as that of the "Physiologie du Mariage."
Balzac answered her that "La Peau de Chagrin" was only intended to be
part of a whole, and must not be judged alone; and the same idea is
enlarged upon in a letter to the Comte de Montalembert,[*] written in
August, 1831, which shows Balzac's extreme anxiety not to dissociate
his writings from the cause of religion. In it he explains, with much
insistence, that, in site of the apparent scepticism of "La Peau de
Chagrin," the idea of God is really the mainspring of the whole book,
and on these grounds he begs for a review in _L'Avenir_. The letter
also contains an announcement which is interesting as a proof that two
years before the date given by his sister, the idea of his great
systematic work was already formulated, and that in his imagination it
had assumed colossal proportions. He says: "'La Peau de Chagrin' is
the formula of human life, an abstraction made from individualities,
and, as M. Ballanche says, everything in it is myth and allegory. It
is therefore the point of departure for my work. Afterwards
individualities and particular existences, from the most humble to
those of the King and of the Priest, the highest expressions of our
society, will group themselves according to their rank. In these
pictures I shall follow the effect of Thought on Life. Then another
work, entitled 'History of the Succession of the Marquis of Carabas,'
will formulate the life of nations, the phases of their governments,
and will show decidedly that politics turn in one circle, and are
evidently stationary; and that repose can only be found in the strong
government of a hierarchy."
[*] Letters sent by the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul to the
_Revue Bleue_, November 14th, 1903.
The "Peau de Chagrin," which is a powerful satire on the vice and
selfishness of the day, suffers in its allegorical, though not in its
humanly interesting side, by the vivid picture it gives of Balzac's
youth; as, in spite of the introduction of the influence of the magic
Ass Skin, the account of Raphael in the early part of the book, as the
frugal, determined genius with high intellectual aspirations, does not
harmonise with his weak, despicable character as it unfolds itself
subsequently. The critics exercised their minds greatly about the
identity of the heroines, the beautiful and heartless Fedora--in whom
apparently many ladies recognised their own portrait--and the humble
and exquisite Pauline, type of devoted and self-forgetting love.
Mademoiselle Pelissier, who possessed an income of twenty-five
thousand francs, and had a house in the Rue Neuve-du-Luxembourg, where
she held a salon much frequented by political personalities of the
day, was identified by popular gossip as the model of Fedora. It was
said by Parisian society that Balzac was anxious to marry her, but
that the lady, who afterwards became Madame Rossini, refused to listen
to his suit, though she confessed to a great admiration for his
fascinating black eyes.
The original of Pauline has never been discovered, but, possibly with
a few traits borrowed from Madame de Berny, she is what Balzac
describes in the last pages of "La Peau de Chagrin" as an "ideal, as a
visionary face in the fire, a face with unimaginable delicate
outlines, a floating apparition, which no chance will ever bring back
again."
Since the year 1830 Balzac had lodged in the Rue Cassini, a little,
unfrequented street near the Observatory, with a wall running along
one side, on which was written "L'Absolu, marchand de briques," a name
which Theophile Gautier fancies may have suggested to him the title of
his novel "La Recherche de l'Absolu." Borget, Balzac's great friend
and confidant, had rooms in the same house; and later on, when Borget
was on one of his frequent journeys, these rooms were occupied by
Jules Sandeau, after his parting with George Sand. In despair at her
desertion, he tried to commit suicide; and Balzac, touched with pity
at his forlorn condition, proposed that he should come to Borget's
rooms, and took complete and kindly charge of him--a generosity which
Sandeau, after having lived at Balzac's expense for two years, repaid
in 1836, by deserting his benefactor when he was in difficulties.
Balzac was now in the full swing of work. He writes to the Duchesse
d'Abrantes in 1831:[*] "Write, I cannot! The fatigue is too great. You
do not know that I owed in 1828, above what I possessed. I had only my
pen with which to earn my living, and to pay a hundred and twenty
thousand francs. In several months I shall have paid everything, and I
shall have arranged my poor little household; but for six months I
have all the troubles of poverty, I enjoy my last miseries. I have
begged from nobody, I have not held out my hand for a penny; I have
hidden my sorrows, and my wounds."
[*] "Correspondance," vol. i. p. 131.
Poor Balzac! over and over again we hear the same story about the
beautiful time in the future, which he saw coming nearer and nearer,
but which always evaded his grasp at the last. Very often, when he
appears grasping and dictatorial in his business dealings, we may
trace his want of urbanity to some pressing pecuniary anxiety, which
he was too proud to reveal. No doubt these difficulties often sprang
from his extraordinary want of reflection and prudence, as his desire
to make a dashing appearance before the world led him frequently into
the most senseless extravagance. For instance, when he went out of
Paris in June, 1832, intending to travel for several months, he left
behind him two horses with nothing to do, but naturally requiring a
groom, food, and stabling; and it was not till the end of July that,
on his mother's recommendation, he sent orders that they were to be
sold. His money affairs are so complicated, and his own accounts of
them so conflicting, that it is impossible to understand them
thoroughly. Apparently, however, from 1827 to 1836 he could not
support himself and satisfy his creditors without drawing bills. These
he often could not meet, and had to renew; and the accumulated
interest on these obligations formed a floating debt, which was from
time to time increased by some new extravagance.
In his vain struggles to escape, he worked as surely no man has ever
worked before or since. In 1830 he brought out about seventy, and in
1831 about seventy-five publications, including novels, and articles
serious and satirical, on politics and general topics; and in twelve
years, from 1830 to 1842, he wrote seventy-nine novels alone, not
counting his shorter compositions. Werdet, who became his publisher in
1834, gives a curious account of his doings; and this may, with slight
modifications, be accepted as a picture of his usual mode of life when
in the full swing of composition.
He usually went to bed at eight o'clock, after a light dinner,
accompanied by a glass or two of Vouvray, his favourite wine; and he
was seated at his desk by two o'clock in the morning. He wrote from
that time till six, only occasionally refreshing himself with coffee
from a coffee-pot which was permanently in the fireplace. At six he
had his bath, in which he remained for an hour, and his servant
afterwards brought him more coffee. Werdet was then admitted to bring
proofs, take away the corrected ones, and wrest, if possible, fresh
manuscript from him. From nine he wrote till noon, when he breakfasted
on two boiled eggs and some bread, and from one till six the labour of
correction went on again. This unnatural life lasted for six weeks or
two months, during which time he refused to see even his most intimate
friends; and then he plunged again into the ordinary affairs of life,
or mysteriously and suddenly disappeared--to be next heard of in some
distant part of France, or perhaps in Corsica, Sardinia, or Italy. It
is not surprising that even in these early days, and in spite of
Balzac's exuberant vitality, there are frequent mentions of terrible
fatigue and lassitude, and that the services of his lifelong friend,
Dr. Nacquart, were often in requisition, though his warnings about the
dangers of overwork were generally unheeded.
Even with Balzac's extraordinary power of work, the number of his
writings is remarkable, when we consider the labour their composition
cost him. Sometimes, according to Theophile Gautier, he bestowed a
whole night's labour on one phrase, and wrote it over and over again a
hundred times, the exact words that he wanted only coming to him after
he had exhausted all the possible approximate forms. When he intended
to begin a novel, and had thought of and lived in a subject for some
time, he wrote a plan of his proposed work in several pages, and
dispatched this to the printer, who separated the different headings,
and sent them back, each on a large sheet of blank paper. Balzac read
these headings attentively, and applied to them his critical faculty.
Some he rejected altogether, others he corrected, but everywhere he
made additions. Lines were drawn from the beginning, the middle, and
the end of each sentence towards the margin of the paper; each line
leading to an interpolation, a development, an added epithet or an
adverb. At the end of several hours the sheet of paper looked like a
plan of fireworks, and later on the confusion was further complicated
by signs of all sorts crossing the lines, while scraps of paper
covered with amplifications were pinned or stuck with sealing-wax to
the margin. This sheet of hieroglyphics was sent to the
printing-office, and was the despair of the typographers; who, as
Balzac overheard, stipulated for only an hour each in turn at the
correction of his proofs. Next day the amplified placards came back,
and Balzac added further details, and laboured to fit the expression
exactly to the idea, and to attain perfection of outline and symmetry
of proportion. Sometimes one episode dwarfed the rest, or a secondary
figure usurped the central position on his canvas, and then he would
heroically efface the results of four or five nights' labour. Six,
seven, even ten times, were the proofs sent backwards and forwards,
before the great writer was satisfied.
In the _Figaro_ of December 15th, 1837, Edouard Ourliac gives a
burlesque account of the confusion caused in the printing-offices by
Balzac's peculiar methods of composition. This is an extract from the
article:
"Let us sing, drink and embrace, like the chorus of an _opera
comique_. Let us stretch our calves, and turn on our toes like
ballet-dancers. Let us at last rejoice: the _Figaro_, without getting
the credit of it, has overcome the elements and all sublunary
cataclysms.
"Hercules is only a rascal, the apples of Hesperides only turnips, the
siege of Troy but a revolt of the national guard. The _Figaro_ has
just conquered 'Cesar Birotteau'!
"Never have the angry gods, never have Juno, Neptune, M. de Rambuteau,
or the Prefect of Police, opposed to Jason, Theseus, or walkers in
Paris, more obstacles, monsters, ruins, dragons, demolitions, than
these two unfortunate octavos have fought against.
"We have them at last, and we know what they have cost. The public
will only have the trouble of reading them. That will be a pleasure.
As to M. de Balzac--twenty days' work, two handfuls of paper, one more
beautiful book: that counts for nothing.
"However it may be, it is a typographical exploit, a literary and
industrial _tour de force_ worthy to be remembered. Writer, editor,
and printer have deserved more or less from their country. Posterity
will talk of the compositors, and our descendants will regret that
they do not know the names of the apprentices. I already, like them,
regret it; otherwise I would mention them.
"The _Figaro_ had promised the book on December 15th, and M. de Balzac
began it on November 17th. M. de Balzac and the _Figaro_ both have the
strange habit of keeping their word. The printing-office was ready,
and stamping its foot like a restive charger.
"M. de Balzac sends two hundred pages pencilled in five nights of
fever. One knows his way. It was a sketch, a chaos, an apocalypse, a
Hindoo poem.
"The printing-office paled. The delay is short, the writing unheard
of. They transform the monster; they translate it as much as possible
into known signs. The cleverest still understand nothing. They take it
to the author.
"The author sends back the first proofs, glued on to enormous pages,
posters, screens. It is now that you may shiver and feel pity. The
appearance of these sheets is monstrous. From each sign, from each
printed word, go pen lines, which radiate and meander like a Congreve
rocket, and spread themselves out at the margin in a luminous rain of
phrases, epithets, and substantives, underlined, crossed, mixed,
erased, superposed: the effect is dazzling.
"Imagine four or five hundred arabesques of this sort, interlaced,
knotted, climbing and sliding from one margin to another, and from the
south to the north. Imagine twelve maps on the top of each other,
entangling towns, rivers, and mountains--a skein tangled by a cat, all
the hieroglyphics of the dynasty of Pharaoh, or the fireworks of
twenty festivities.
"At this sight the printing-office does not rejoice. The compositors
strike their breasts, the printing-presses groan, the foremen tear
their hair, their apprentices lose their heads. The most intelligent
attack the proofs, and recognise Persian, others Malagash, some the
symbolic characters of Vishnu. They work by chance and by the grace of
God.
"Next day M. de Balzac returns two pages of pure Chinese. The delay is
only fifteen days. A generous foreman offers to blow out his brains.
"Two new sheets arrive, written very legibly in Siamese. Two workmen
lose their sight and the small command of language they possessed.
"The proofs are thus sent backwards and forwards seven times.
"Several symptoms of excellent French begin to be recognised, even
some connection between the phrases is observed."
So the article proceeds; always in a tone of comic good-temper, but
pointing to a very real grievance and point of dispute; and helping
the reader to realise the long friction which went on, and finally
resulted in the unanimity with which publishers and editors turned
against Balzac after his famous lawsuit, and showed a vindictive hate
which at first sight is surprising. However, in this case the matter
ends happily, as the article closes with:
"It ['Cesar Birotteau'] is now merely a work in two volumes, an
immense picture, a whole poem, composed, written, and corrected
fifteen times in the same number of days--composed in twenty days by
M. de Balzac in spite of the printer's office, composed in twenty days
by the printer's office in spite of M. de Balzac.
"It is true that at the same time M. de Balzac was employing forty
printers at another printing-office. We do not examine here the value
of the book. It was made marvellously and marvellously quickly.
Whatever it is, it can only be a _chef d'oeuvre_!"
CHAPTER VII
1832
Crisis in Balzac's private life--"Contes Drolatiques"--Madame
Hanska's life before she met Balzac--Description of her appearance
--"Louis Lambert"--Disinterested conduct on the part of Madame de
Berny--Relations between Balzac and his mother--Balzac and the
Marquise de Castries--His despair.
The year 1832 was a crisis and a turning-point in the history of
Balzac's private life.
Old relations changed their aspect; he received a terrible and
mortifying wound to his heart and to his vanity; and while he
staggered under this blow, a new interest, not in the beginning
absorbing, but destined in time to engulf all others, crept at first
almost unnoticed into his life.
He was now thirty-three years old; it was time that he should perform
the duty of a French citizen and should settle down and marry; and as
a preliminary, it seemed necessary that Madame de Berny should no
longer continue to occupy her predominant place in his life. She was,
as we know twenty-two years older than he, and was a woman capable not
only of romantic attachment, but also of the most disinterested
conduct where her affections were concerned. She saw clearly that,
having formed Balzac, helped him practically, taught him, given him
useful introductions--in short, made him--the time had now come when
it would be for his good that she should retire partially into the
background; and she had the courage to conceive, and the power to
make, the sacrifice. He, on his side, felt the idea of the proposed
separation keenly, and never forgot all his life what he owed to the
"dilecta," or ceased to feel a deep and faithful affection for her.
Still, for him there were compensations, which did not exist for the
woman who was growing old. He was famous, on the way to attain his
goal; and he was regarded as the champion of misunderstood and misused
women. Therefore, as the species has always been a large one, letters
poured in upon him from all parts of Europe--England being the
exception--letters telling him how exactly he had gauged the
circumstances, sentiments, and misfortunes of his unknown
correspondents, asking his advice, expressing intense admiration for
his writings, and pouring out the inmost feelings and experiences of
the writers. The position was intoxicating for the man who, a few
years before, had been unknown and disregarded; and the fact that
Balzac never forgot his old friendships in the excitement of the
adulation lavished upon him, is a proof that his own belief in the
real steadfastness of his character was not mistaken.
Among these unknown correspondents, there were two who specially
interested him. One of these was the Marquise de Castries, who, though
rather under a cloud at this time, was one of the most aristocratic
stars of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and sister-in-law to the Duc de
Fitz-James, with whom Balzac was already connected in several literary
undertakings.
As we have already seen, she wrote anonymously towards the end of
September, 1831 to complain of the moral tone of the "Physiologie du
Mariage" and of "La Peau de Chagrin." In Balzac's reply, which was
despatched on February 28th, 1832, he thanked her for the proof of
confidence she had shown in making herself known to him, and in
wishing for his acquaintance; and said that he looked forward to many
hours spent in her society, hours during which he would not need to
pose as an artist or literary man, but could simply be himself.[*]
[*] "Correspondance," vol. i., p. 141.
Separated from her husband, and a most accomplished coquette, the
Marquise was recovering from a serious love-affair, when she summoned
Balzac to afford her amusement and distraction. Delicate and fragile,
her face was rather too long for perfect beauty, but there was
something spiritual and slender about it, which recalled the faces of
the Middle Ages. Her health had been shattered by a hunting accident,
and her expression was habitually one of smiling melancholy and of
hidden suffering. Her beautiful Venetian red hair grew above a high
white forehead; and in addition to the attractiveness of her elegant
_svelte_ figure, she possessed in the highest degree the all-powerful
seductive influence which we call "charm."
Reclining gracefully in a long chair, she received her intimates in a
small simple drawing-room furnished in old-fashioned style, with
cushions of ancient velvet and eighteenth-century screens--a room
instinct with the aristocratic aroma of the Faubourg Saint-Germain.
There Balzac went eagerly during the spring of 1832, and imbibed the
strange old-world atmosphere of the exclusive Faubourg, of which he
has given a masterly picture in the "Duchesse de Langeais." In this he
shows that by reason of its selfishness, its divisions, and want of
patriotism and large-mindedness, the Faubourg Saint-Germain had
abrogated the proud position it might have held, and was now an
obsolete institution, aloof and cornered, wasting its powers on
frivolity and the worship of etiquette. At first, gratified vanity at
his selection as an intimate by so great a lady, and pleasure at the
opportunity given him for the study of what was separated from the
ordinary world by an impassable barrier, were Balzac's chief
inducements for frequent visits to the Rue de Varenne. Gradually,
however, the caressing tones of Madame de Castries' voice, the quiet
grace of her language, and her infinite variety, found their way to
his heart, and he fell madly in love.