[*] “Correspondance,” vol. i. p. 147.
This was Balzac’s last serious attempt to stand for Parliament during the Monarchy of July, though he often talked in his letters to Madame Hanska of his political aspirations, looked forward to becoming a deputy in 1839, and hoped till then to dominate European opinion — rather a large ambition — by a political publication. In his letters he is continually on the point of beginning his career as a statesman; and in 1835 his views are even more inflated than usual. He will absorb the Revue des Deux Mondes and the Revue de Paris, is in treaty to obtain one newspaper, and will start two others himself, so that his power will be irresistible. “Le temps presse, les evenements se compliquent,”[*] he cries impatiently. He is still strangled by want of money — a hundred thousand francs is the modest sum he requires; but he will write a play in the name of his secretary, and the spectre of debt will be laid for ever.
[*] “Lettres a l’Etrangere.”
However, in the stress of work, which made his own life like the crowded canvas of one of his own novels, these brilliant schemes came to nothing, and Balzac was never in the proud position of a deputy. He gives his views clearly in a letter to Madame Carraud in 1830.[*] “France ought to be a constitutional monarchy, to have a hereditary royal family, a house of peers of extraordinary strength, which will represent property, etc., with all possible guarantees for heredity, and privileges of which the nature must be discussed; then a second assembly, elective, representing all the interests of the intermediary mass, which separates those of high social position from the classes who are generally termed the people.”
[*] “Correspondance,” vol. i. p. 108.
“The purport of the laws, and their spirit, should be designed to enlighten the masses as much as possible — those who have nothing, the workmen, the common people, etc., in order that as many as possible should arrive at the intermediary state; but the people should, at the same time, be kept under a most powerful yoke, so that its individuals may find light, help, and protection, and that no idea, no statute, no transaction, may make them turbulent.
“The greatest possible liberty should be allowed to the leisured classes, for they possess something to keep, they have everything to lose, they can never be dissolute.
“As much power as possible should be granted to the Government. Thus the Government, the rich people, and the bourgeoisie have interest in keeping the lowest class happy, and in increasing the number of the middle class, which is the true strength of the state.
“If rich people, the hereditary possessors of fortune in the highest Chamber, are corrupt in their manners, and start abuses, these are inseparable from the existence of all society; they must be accepted, to balance the advantages given.”
This extract is taken from a letter which is, Balzac tells his correspondent, strictly private; but, with his usual independence and fearlessness, he did not hesitate to enunciate his opinions in public, and invariably refused to stoop to compromise or to disguise. Consequently, we cannot wonder that he never attained his ambition; particularly as he lacked the aid of money, and had no support, except the politically doubtful one of a literary reputation. His penetration and power of prescience were remarkable, and it is startling to find that he foretells the fall of the Monarchy of July, and the Revolution of 1848.[*] “I do not think,” he says, “that in ten years from now the actual form of government will subsist — August, 1830, has forgotten the part played by youth and intelligence. Youth compressed will burst like the boiler of a steam engine.” In “Les Paysans,” one of his most wonderful novels, he gives a vivid picture of the constant struggle going on under the surface between the peasants and the bourgeoisie, and shows that the triumph of the former class must be the inevitable result.
[*] “Revue Parisienne,” p. 26
His was essentially a loyal, reverential nature, with the soldierly respect for constituted authority which is often the characteristic of strong natures; and he was absolutely unswerving in his principles — the courage and tenacity which distinguished him through life, never deserting him in political emergencies. He was patriotic and high-minded; absolutely immovable in all that concerned his duty. On one occasion, when it was proposed at a public meeting that the Legitimists should follow the example of their political opponents and should stoop to evil doings, he refused decidedly, saying: “The cause of the life of man is superhuman. It is God who judges; His judgment does not hinge on our passions.”[*] In his eyes, Religion and the Monarchy were twin sisters, and he speaks sadly in “Le Medecin de Campagne” of the downfall of both these powers. “With the monarchy we have lost honour, with our unfruitful attempts at government, patriotism; and with our fathers’ religion, Christian virtue. These principles now only exist partially, instead of inspiring the masses, for these ideas never perish altogether. At present, to support society we have nothing but selfishness.”[+] Elsewhere, he laments the atheistic government, and the increase of incredulity; and longs for Christian institutions, and a strong hierarchy, united to a religious society.
[*] “Balzac et ses Oeuvres,” by Lamartine de Prat.
[+] “Le Medecin de Campagne.”
Balzac was not orthodox. There is no doubt, from a letter to Madame Hanska, that the Swedenborgian creed he enunciates in “Seraphita” is to a great extent his own; but he believed in God, in the immortality of the soul, and considered natural religion, of which, in his eyes, the Bourbons were the depositors, absolutely essential to the well-being of a State. He had a great respect for the priesthood, and has left many a charming and sympathetic picture of the parish cure, such as l’Abbe Janvier in “Le Medecin de Campagne,” who acts hand in hand with the good doctor Benassis, as an enlightened benefactor to the poor; or l’Abbe Bonnet, the hero of “Le Cure du Village,” whose face had “the impress of faith, an impress giving the stamp of the human greatness which approaches most nearly to divine greatness, and of which the undefinable expression beautifies the most ordinary features.” In “Les Paysans” we have another fine portrait, L’Abbe Brossette, who is doing his work nobly among debased and cunning peasants. “To serve was his motto, to serve the Church and the Monarchy at the most menaced points; to serve in the last rank, like a soldier who feels destined sooner or later to rise to generalship, by his desire to do well, and by his courage.”
There is a beautiful touch in that terrible book “La Cousine Bette,” where the infamous Madame Marneffe is dying of a loathsome and infectious disease, so that even Bette, who feels for her the “strongest sentiment known, the affection of a woman for a woman, had not the heroic constancy of the Church,” and could not enter the room. Religion alone, in the guise of a Sister of Mercy, watched over her.
CHAPTER X
1836
Balzac starts the Chronique de Paris — Balzac and Theophile Gautier — Lawsuit with the Revue de Paris — Failure of the Chronique — Strain and exhaustion — Balzac travels in Italy — Madame Marbouty — Return to Paris — Death of Madame de Berny — Balzac’s grief and family anxieties — He is imprisoned for refusal to serve in Garde Nationale — Werdet’s failure — Balzac’s desperate pecuniary position and prodigies of work — Close of the disastrous year 1836.
Balzac opened the first day of the year 1836 by becoming proprietor of the Chronique de Paris, an obscure Legitimist publication, which had been founded in 1834 by M. William Duckett. It started under Balzac’s management with a great flourish of trumpets, the Comte (afterwards Marquis) de Belloy and the Comte de Gramont taking posts as his sectaries; while Jules Sandeau, Emile Regnault, Gustave Planche, Theophile Gautier, Charles de Bernard, and others, became his collaborators. Balzac’s special work was to provide a series of papers on political questions, entitled “La France et l’Etranger,” papers which show his extraordinary versatility; and his helpers were to provide novels and poems, satire, drama, and social criticism; so that the scope of the periodical was a wide one.
At first, Balzac was most sanguine about
the success of his new enterprise, and was very active and enthusiastic in working for it. On March 27th, he wrote to Madame Hanska about the embarrassment caused him by his plate having been pawned during his unfortunate absence in Vienna, nearly a year ago. It was worth five or six thousand francs, and he required three thousand to redeem it. This sum he had never been able to raise, while, to add to his difficulties, on the 31st of the month he would owe about eight thousand four hundred francs. Nevertheless, he must have the silver next day or perish, as he had asked some people to dine who would, he hoped, give sixteen thousand francs for sixteen shares in the Chronique. If borrowed plate were on his table he was terribly afraid that the whole transaction would fail; as one of the people invited was a painter, and painters are an “observant, malicious, profound race, who take in everything at a glance.”[*] Everything else in his rooms would represent the opulence, ease, and wealth of the happy artist.
[*] “Lettres a l’Etrangere.”
Poor Balzac! To add to his difficulties, it was impossible to borrow anywhere in Paris, as he had only purchased the Chronique through the exceptional credit he enjoyed, and this would be at once destroyed if he were known to be in difficulties. We do not hear any further particulars about this tragedy, and cannot tell how far the conjunction of the borrowed plate — if it were after all borrowed — and the astute painter, contributed to the downfall of the Chronique. Werdet, however, attributes the disaster to the laziness of the talented staff, who could not be induced to work together. However that may be, the result was a terrible blow to Balzac; who was now, in addition to all his other liabilities, in debt for forty thousand francs to the shareholders.
It is as a member of the staff of the Chronique, that the name of Theophile Gautier first appears in connection with Balzac; and the two men remained close friends till Balzac’s death. In 1835 Theophile Gautier published “Mademoiselle de Maupin,” in which his incomparable style excited Balzac’s intense admiration, painfully conscious as he was of his own deficiencies in this direction. Therefore, in forming the staff of the Chronique, he at once thought of Gautier, and despatched Jules Sandeau to arrange matters with the young author, and to give him an invitation to breakfast. Theophile Gautier, much flattered, but at the same time rather alarmed at the idea of an interview with the celebrated Balzac, tells us that he thought over various brilliant discourses on his way to the Rue Cassini, but was so nervous when he arrived that all his preparations came to nothing, and he merely remarked on the fineness of the weather. However, Balzac soon put him at his ease, and evidently took a fancy to him at once, as during breakfast he let him into the secret that for this solemn occasion he had borrowed silver dishes from his publisher!
The friendship between Balzac and Gautier, though not as intimate and confidential as that between Balzac and Borget, was true and steadfast; and was never disturbed by literary jealousy. Gautier supported Balzac’s plays in La Presse, and helped with many of his writings. Traces of his workmanship, M. de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul tells us, are specially noticeable in the descriptions of the art of painting and of the studio, in the edition of “Un Chef-d’Oeuvre Inconnu” which appeared in 1837.[*] These descriptions are in Gautier’s manner, and do not appear in the edition of 1831; so that in all probability they were written, or at any rate inspired by him. Gautier also wrote for Balzac, who had absolutely no faculty for verse, the supposed translation of two Spanish sonnets in the “Memoires de Deux Jeunes Mariees,” and the sonnet called “La Tulipe” in “Un Grand Homme de Province a Paris.” On his side, Balzac defended Gautier on all occasions, and in 1839 dedicated “Les Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan,” then called “Un Princesse Parisienne,” “A Theophile Gautier, son ami, H. de Balzac.”
[*] “H. de Balzac and Theophile Gautier” in “Autour de Honore de
Balzac,” by the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul.
Beyond this friendship, the affair of the Chronique brought Balzac nothing but worry and trouble. And it came at a time when misfortune assailed him on all sides. Madame de Berny was approaching her end, and he wrote to his mother on January 1st, 1836, the day he started the Chronique de Paris: “Ah! my poor mother, I am broken-hearted. Madame de Berny is dying! It is impossible to doubt it! Only God and I know what is my despair. And I must work! Work weeping.”[*]
[*] “Correspondance,” vol. i. p. 323.
In the midst of his trouble, a most unfortunate occurrence took place, which besides embittering his life at the time had a decided effect on his subsequent career; and indirectly obscured his reputation even after his death.
In 1833, as we have already seen, Balzac, after long dissensions with Amedee Pichot, had definitely left the Revue de Paris. However, in 1834, when Pichot retired from the management, the new directors, MM. Anthoine de Saint-Joseph, Bonnaire, and Achille Brindeau, tried to satisfy their readers by recalling Balzac; and “Seraphita” began to appear in the pages of the Revue. Difficulties, as might be expected, soon arose between Balzac and the management; and the undercurrent of irritation which subsisted on both sides only required some slight extra cause of offence, to render an outbreak inevitable. In September, 1835, M. Buloz, already director of the Revue des Deux Mondes, an extremely able, but bad-mannered and dictatorial man, took possession also of the much-tossed-about Revue de Paris. Balzac had known Buloz since 1831, when the latter bought the Revue des Deux Mondes, which was then in very low water, and was working with tremendous energy to make it successful. At that time, Buloz and he often shared a modest dinner, and with the permission of M. Rabou, then manager of the Revue de Paris, Balzac contributed “L’Enfant Maudit,” “Le Message,” and “Le Rendez-Vous” to the Revue des Deux Mondes, and only charged a hundred francs for the same quantity of pages for which he was paid a hundred and sixty francs by Rabou. However, on April 15th, 1832, there appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes a scathing, anonymous criticism of the first dizain of the “Contes Drolatiques.” This had apparently been written by Gustave Planche; but Balzac considered Buloz responsible for it, and therefore refused to write any longer for his review. In August, 1832, Buloz, who does not appear to have been particularly scrupulous in his business relations, wrote to apologise, saying that though it was not in his power to suppress the offending article, he had done his best to soften it; and that now he was sole master of the Revue, so that not a word or line could pass without his permission. He therefore begged Balzac to resume his old connection with him, and explained that if he had not been confined to his bed and unable to walk, or even to bear the shaking of a cab, he would have come to visit him, and matters would have been quickly arranged. Balzac’s answer, which is written from Angouleme, is couched in the uncompromising terms of “no surrender,” which he generally adopted when he considered himself aggrieved. He did not absolutely refuse to write for the Review, and referred Buloz to Madame de Balzac for terms; but, by the tone of his letter, he negatived decidedly the idea of resuming friendly relations with his correspondent, and while rather illogically professing a lofty indifference to criticism, remarked that he felt the utmost contempt for those who calumniated his books.[*]
[*] See “Correspondance Inedite — Honore de Balzac,” Revue Bleue,
March 14, 1903.
After this the Revue des Deux Mondes became hostile to Balzac; and when Buloz and Brindeau bought the Revue de Paris, a proceeding which must have been a shock to him, he believed that Brindeau would be sole director, and drew up his agreement with him alone; having already refused to have business dealings with the ever active Buloz. However, Buloz soon took the principal place, and was so apologetic for his past misdeeds, and so insistent in promising amendment for the future, that Balzac, evidently reflecting that it would be distinctly against his interests to exclude himself from two of the most important reviews in Paris, consented to reconsider his decision. Therefore the following agreement, which is interesting as an example of Balzac’s usual conditions when issuing his novels in serial form, was drawn up
between the two men.
The Review was only to use Balzac’s articles for its subscribers. He was to regain absolute rights over his books three months after their first publication — this was an invariable stipulation in all Balzac’s treaties — and was to give up fifty francs out of the two hundred and fifty considered due to him for each “feuille” of fifteen pages, to reimburse Buloz for the number of times the proofs had to be reprinted.[*] On these terms he agreed to finish “Le Pere Goriot,” as well as “Seraphita,” and to write the “Memoires d’une Jeune Mariee,” with the understanding that a separate contract was to be made for each of his contributions, and that he was free to write for other periodicals.
[*] The account of the lawsuit between Balzac and the Revue de Paris is taken from his “Historique du Proces auquel a donne lieu ‘Le Lys dans la Vallee,’“ which formed the second preface of the first edition of “Le Lys dans la Vallee” and is contained in vol. xxii. of the Edition Definitive of Balzac’s works; and from “H. de Balzac et ‘La Revue de Paris,’“ which is the Review’s account of the case, and may be found in “Un dernier chapitre de l’Historie des Oeuvres de H. de Balzac,” by the Vicomte de Spoelberche de Lovenjoul.
Almost at once difficulties began, difficulties which are inevitable when a genius of the stamp of Balzac is bound by an unfortunate agreement to provide a specified quantity of copy at stated intervals. Balzac could not write to order. “Seraphita,” planned to please Madame Hanska, was intended to be a masterpiece such as the world had never seen. From Balzac’s letters there is no doubt that he was conscientiously anxious to finish it, only, as he remarks, “I have perhaps presumed too much of my strength in thinking that I could do so many things in so short a time.”[*] When he made the unfortunate journey to Vienna, “Seraphita” still required, at his own computation, eight days’ and eight nights’ work; but, settled there, he turned his attention at once to “Le Lys dans la Vallee,” which he had substituted for the “Memoires d’une Jeune Mariee,” and at which he laboured strenuously. The first number of this appeared in the Revue de Paris, on November 22, 1835; but in the meantime Balzac’s uncorrected proofs had been sold by Buloz to MM. Bellizard and Dufour, proprietors of the Revue Etrangere de St. Petersbourg. Therefore, in October, before the authorised version was published in Paris, there appeared in Russia, under the title of “Le Lys dans la Vallee,” what Balzac indignantly characterised as the “unformed thoughts which served me as sketch and plan.”
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 1478