[*] “Lettres a l’Etrangere.”
This was double treachery on the part of Buloz, as, by the treaty already mentioned, he had bought the right to publish Balzac’s novels in the Revue de Paris only; and even if this stipulation had not been made, he had no excuse for selling as Balzac’s completed work, what he knew to be absolutely unfinished. Balzac, after this, refused to receive him on friendly terms; but a meeting was arranged at the house of Jules Sandeau, at which Balzac and the Comte de Belloy met Buloz and Bonnaire. Sandeau and Emile Regnault, who were friends of both the contending parties, were also present; and they, after this conference, became for a time exclusively Balzac’s friends, as he remarks significantly. Balzac owed the Review 2,100 francs; but the remainder of the “Lys” was ready to appear, and he calculated that for this, the payment due to him would be about 2,400 francs. He therefore proposed that the account between him and the journal should be closed with the end of the “Lys”; and that as indemnity for the injury done him by the action of Buloz in publishing his unfinished work in the Revue Etrangere, he should be permitted to send the novel in book form to a publisher at once, instead of waiting the three months stipulated in the agreement. MM. Buloz and Bonnaire refused this arrangement, declaring that it would be extortion; and after giving them twenty-four hours for reflection, Balzac announced his intention of writing no longer for the Revue de Paris, and prepared to bring an action against the proprietors.
Buloz and Bonnaire, however, decided that it would be good policy for the first attack to be on their side, and as Balzac could not obtain his proofs from Russia for a month at least, they sued him for breach of contract in not writing “Les Memoires d’une Jeune Mariee,” and claimed 10,000 francs damages for his refusal to finish the “Lys dans la Vallee”; as well as fifty francs for each day’s delay in his doing this. Balzac brought forward his counter claim, and offered the Revue de Paris the 2,100 francs which had been advanced to him; but they refused to be satisfied with the payment of this debt; and in May, 1836, the case opened.
There was a side issue on the subject of “Seraphita,” about which the Revue certainly had just cause for complaint. In May, 1834, Balzac had been paid 1,700 francs in advance for this, and the first number appeared on June 1st, the second not following till July 20th. Then Balzac disappeared altogether; and when he returned in November, he proposed to begin “Le Pere Goriot” in the Revue, and promised after this had come to an end to return to “Seraphita”; but it was not till the middle of August, 1835, that he at last produced another number. After this there were again delays, and, according to Buloz, the whole of “Seraphita” was never offered to the Revue de Paris. The truth, however, appears to have been that Buloz at last completely lost his temper at Balzac’s continual failures to fulfil his engagements, and declared that “Seraphita” was unintelligible, and was losing subscribers to the Review. Balzac, furious at this insult, paid Buloz 300 francs, to defray the expenses already incurred for the printing of “Seraphita,” and took back his work. Buloz’s receipt for this money is dated November 21st, 1835, two days before the appearance of the first number of the “Lys dans la Vallee” in Paris, so storms were gathering on all sides. Ten days after this, on December 2nd, Werdet brought out “Seraphita” in book form in “Le Livre Mystique,” which contained also “Louis Lambert” and “Les Proscrits,” a fact which proved Balzac’s contention that in November it was ready for publication in the Revue de Paris. The first edition of “Le Livre Mystique” was sold in ten days, and the second followed it a month after, which, as Balzac remarked sardonically, was “good fortune for an unintelligible work.” This success on the part of his enemy no doubt did not help to soften the indignant Buloz; and he must have been further exasperated by an article in the Chronique de Paris, in which Balzac was styled the “Providence des Revues,” and the injury the Revue de Paris sustained in the loss of his collaboration was insisted on with irritating emphasis.
The case was carried on with the utmost bitterness by the Revue de Paris; Balzac’s morals, his honesty, even his prose, being attacked with the greatest violence. Editors and publishers on all sides gave their testimony against him. He must have been amazed and confounded by the deep hatred he had evoked by his want of consideration, which on several occasions certainly amounted to a breach of good faith. All his old sins found him out. Amedee Pichot, former manager of the Revue de Paris, Forfellier of the Echo de la Jeune France, and Capo de Feuillide of L’Europe Litteraire, raised their voices against the high-handed and rapacious author. The smothered enmity and irritation of years at last found vent; and it was in vain that Balzac demonstrated, in the masterly defence of his conduct written in one night, which formed the preface to the “Lys dans la Vallee,” that he had always remained technically within his rights, and that as far as money was concerned he owed the publishers nothing. Unwritten conventions had been defied, because it was possible to defy them with impunity; and editors who had gone through many black hours because of the failure of the great man to keep his promises, and who smarted under the recollection of the discourteous refusal of advances it had been an effort to make, did not spare their arrogant enemy now that it was possible to band together against him.
Perhaps, however, the bitterest blow to poor Balzac, was the fact that his brother authors, of whose rights he had been consistently the champion, did not scruple to turn against him. Either terrorised by the all-powerful Buloz, or jealous of one who insisted on his own abilities and literary supremacy with loud-voiced reiteration, Alexandre Dumas, Roger de Beauvoir, Frederic Soulie, Eugene Sue, Mery, and Balzac’s future acquaintance Leon Gozlan, signed a declaration at the instance of Buloz, to the effect that it was the general custom that articles written for the Revue de Paris should be published also in the Revue Etrangere, and should thus avoid Belgian piracy. Jules Janin, whose criticisms on Balzac are peculiarly venomous, and Loeve-Veimars, added riders to this statement, expressing the same views, only with greater insistence. To these assertions, Balzac replied that Buloz had specially paid George Sand 100 francs a sheet over the price arranged, to obtain the right of sending her corrected proofs to Russia; and that arrangements on a similar basis had been made with Gustave Planche and M. Fontaney. The fact that exceptional payments were made on these occasions was conclusive evidence against simultaneous publication in Paris and St. Petersburg being the received practice. Moreover, as Balzac observes with unanswerable justice, even if this custom did exist, it would count as nothing against the agreement between him and Buloz. “M. Janin can take a carriage and go himself to carry his manuscripts to Brussels; M. Sue can get into a boat and sell his books in Greece; M. Loeve-Veimars can oblige his editors if they consent, to make as many printed copies of his future works as there are languages in Europe: all that will be quite right, the Revue is to-day like a publisher. My treaties, however, are made and written; they are before the eyes of the judge, they are not denied, and state that I only gave my articles to the Revue de Paris, to be inserted solely in the Revue, and nowhere else.”
Balzac won the case. It was decided by the Tribunal of Judges on Friday, June 3rd, 1836, that he was not bound to give the “Memoires d’une Jeune Mariee” to the Revue de Paris, as when promised, the story had not been yet written, and the “Lys dans la Vallee” had been substituted for it; also that the 2100 francs which he had already offered to Buloz was all that he owed the Review. The judges left unsettled the question as to whether the proprietors of the Revue de Paris were entitled to hand over their contributors’ corrected proofs to the Revue Etrangere; but decreed that they were certainly in the wrong when they parted with unfinished proofs. They were therefore condemned to pay the costs of the action.
Balzac’s was a costly victory. Except the Quotidienne, which stood by him consistently, not a paper was on his side. His clumsiness of style, his habit of occasionally coining words to express his meaning, and the coarseness of some of his writings, combined with the prejudice caused by his liter
ary arrogance, had always, to a certain extent, blinded literary and critical France to his consummate merits as a writer. Now, however, want of appreciation had changed to bitter dislike; and in addition to abuse, indiscriminate and often absurd of his writings, his enemies assailed his morals, ridiculed his personal appearance, and made fun of his dress and surroundings. He was not conciliatory; he did not bow to the storm. In June, 1839, appeared the second part of “Illusions Perdues,” which was entitled “Un Grand Homme de Province a Paris,” and was a violent attack on French journalism; and in March, 1843, Balzac published the “Monographie de la Presse Parisienne,” a brilliant piece of work, but certainly not calculated to repair the breach between him and the publishing world. Nevertheless, though his pride and independence prevented him from trying to temporise, there is no doubt that Balzac suffered keenly from the hostility he encountered on all sides. He writes to Madame Hanska directly after the lawsuit: “Ah! you cannot imagine how intense my life has been during this month! I was alone for everything; harassed by the journal people who demanded money of me, harassed by payments to make, without having any money because I was making none, harassed by the lawsuit, harassed by my book, the proofs of which I had to correct day and night. No, I am astonished at having survived this struggle. Life is too heavy; I do not live with pleasure.”[*] To add to his difficulties, Madame Bechet had lately become Madame Jacquillard, and possibly urged to action by M. Jacquillard, and alarmed by tales of Balzac’s misdemeanours, she became restive, and demanded the last two volumes of the “Etudes de Moeurs” in twenty-four hours, or fifty francs for each day’s delay. The affairs of the Chronique were at this time causing Balzac much anxiety, and he fled to the Margonnes at Sache; not for rest, but to work fifteen hours a day for “cette odieuse Bechet”; and there, in eight days, he not only invented and composed the “Illusions Perdues,” but also wrote a third of it.
[*] “Lettres a l’Etrangere.”
However, the strain had been too great even for his extraordinary powers, and while walking in the park after dinner with M. and Mme. de Margonne, on the day that letters arrived from Paris with the news that liquidation of the Chronique was necessary, he fell down in a fit under one of the trees. Completely stunned for the time, he could write nothing; and thought, in despair, of giving up the hopeless struggle, and of hiding himself at Wierzchownia. Fortunately, his unconquerable courage soon returned; he travelled to Paris, wound up the affairs of the Chronique; and as Werdet had allowed him twenty days’ liberty, and his tailor and a workman had lent him money to pay his most pressing debts, he obtained a letter of credit from Rothschild, and started for Italy.
His ostensible object was a visit to Turin, to defend the Comte Guidoboni-Visconti in a lawsuit, as the Count, whose acquaintance he had made at the Italian Opera, could not go himself to Italy. In reality, however, in his exhaustion, and the overstrained state of his nerves, he craved for the freedom and distraction which he could only find in travel. Madame Visconti was an Englishwoman — another Etrangere — her name before her marriage had been Frances Sarah Lowell. Later on, she became one of Balzac’s closest friends, and Madame Hanska was extremely jealous of her influence.
It is amusing to discover that Balzac did not take this journey alone. He was accompanied by a lady whom he describes in a letter as “charming, spirituelle, and virtuous,” and who, never having had the chance in her life of breathing the air of Italy, and being able to steal twenty days from the fatigues of housekeeping, had trusted in him for inviolable secrecy and “scipionesque” behaviour. “She knows whom I love, and finds there the strongest safeguard.”[*] This lady was Madame Marbouty, known in literature as Claire Brunne, and during her stay in Italy as “Marcel” — a name taken from the devoted servant in Meyerbeer’s opera “Les Huguenots,” which had just appeared. A few weeks earlier, she had refused to travel in Touraine with Balzac, as she considered that a journey with him in France would compromise her; but, apparently, in Italy this objection did not apply. She travelled in man’s clothes, as Balzac’s page, and both he and she were childishly delighted by the mystification they caused. Comte Sclopis, the celebrated Piedmontese statesman, who acted as their cicerone in Turin society, was much fascinated by the charming page. The liking was evidently mutual, as, after the travellers had left Italy, Balzac records that at Vevey, Lausanne, and all the places they visited, Marcel cried: “And no Sclopis!” and it sounds as though the exclamation had been accompanied by a sigh. Several times during the journey the lively Amazon was mistaken for George Sand, whom she resembled in face, as well as in the fancy for donning masculine attire; and the mistake caused her intense satisfaction. At Geneva, haunted to Balzac by happy memories, the travellers stayed at the Hotel de l’Arc, and Balzac’s mind was full of his lady-love, whose spirit seemed to him to hallow the place. He saw the house where she stayed, went along the road where they had walked together, and was refreshed in the midst of his troubles and anxieties by the thought of her.
[*] See “L’Ecole des Manages,” in “Autour de Honore de Balzac,” by the
Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul.
On August 22nd the travellers returned to Paris on excellent terms with each other, and for some years after this journey friendly relations continued. In 1842, in remembrance of their adventure, Balzac dedicated “La Grenadiere” to Madame Marbouty, under the name of Caroline, and added the words, “A la poesie du voyage, le voyageur reconnaissant.” Later on, however, they quarrelled, and she wrote “Une Fausse Position,” in which Balzac is represented in a decidedly unflattering light; and after this he naturally withdrew the dedication in “La Grenadiere.”
On his return from this amusing trip a terrible trouble awaited Balzac. Among the letters heaped together upon his writing-table was one from Alexandre de Berny, announcing abruptly the death of Madame de Berny, which had taken place on July 27th. Balzac was utterly crushed by this blow. He had not seen Madame de Berny for some time, as since the death of her favourite son she had shut herself up completely, pretending to Balzac that she was not very ill, but saying laughingly that she only wanted to see him when she was beautiful and in good health. Now she was dead, and the news came without preparation in the midst of his other troubles. She was half his life, he cried in despair; and writing to Madame Hanska he said that his sorrow had almost killed him. In the midst of this overwhelming grief other worries added their quota to the weight oppressing Balzac. Henri de Balzac gave his family continual trouble, while Laurence’s husband, M. de Montzaigle, refused to support his children; in fact, the only faint relief to the darkness surrounding the Balzac family at this time was M. Surville’s hopefulness about the Loire Canal scheme.
In addition to all these misfortunes, Balzac had to submit to the annoyance of several days’ imprisonment in the Hotel des Haricots, for his refusal to serve in the Garde Nationale, a duty which was, he said, the nightmare of his life. The place of detention was not luxurious. There was no fire, and he was in the same hall for a time with a number of workmen, who made a terrible noise. Fortunately, he was soon moved to a private room, where he was warm and could work in peace. After this, in terrible pecuniary difficulties, and feeling acutely the loss of the woman who had been an angel to him in his former troubles, he left the Rue Cassini and fled from Paris, to avoid further detention by the civic authorities. He took refuge at Chaillot, and under the name of Madame Veuve Durand hid at No. 13, Rue des Batailles. Here he lodged for a time in a garret formerly occupied by Jules Sandeau, from the window of which there was a magnificent view of Paris, from the Ecole Militaire to the barrier of the Trone, and from the Pantheon to L’Etoile. From time to time Balzac would pause in his work to gaze on the ocean of houses below; but he never went out, for he was pursued by his creditors.
It is curiously characteristic of his love of luxury that, destitute as he was, he had no intention of occupying this modest garret for long, but that a drawing-room on the second floor, which would cost 700 francs, was a
lready in preparation for his use. It was to No. 13, Rue des Batailles, that Emile de Girardin, who had just started La Presse, wrote asking him to contribute to its pages; and, in consequence, Balzac produced “La Vieille Fille,” which began to appear on October 23rd, and shocked the subscribers very much. Here, too, at a most inopportune moment, Madame Hanska addressed to him a depressed and mournful letter, of which he complains bitterly. She was at this time extremely jealous of Madame Visconti, from whom she suspected that Madame de Mortsauf, in the “Lys dans la Vallee,” had been drawn; and Balzac says he supposes that he must give up the Italian opera, the only pleasure he has, because a charming and graceful woman occupies the same box with him. In October he paid a sad little visit to La Boulonniere, which must have brought before him keenly the loss he had sustained; and after he spent a few days at Sache, where he was ill for a day or two as a result of mental worry and overwork.
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 1479