It was a comfort when, the affairs of the Viscontis being at last satisfactorily arranged, he was able on June 6th to start on his journey back to France. He travelled by the Mont Cenis, and was nearly blinded by clouds of fine dust, so that he was unable to write for some days.
When he reached Paris he only remained for a short time in the Rue des Batailles, as in July, 1838, in defiance of his doctor’s warnings about damp walls, he took up his residence at Les Jardies, having at the same time a pied-a-terre in Paris at the house of Buisson, his tailor, 108, Rue Richelieu. Les Jardies was a quaint abode. Built on a slippery hill, it overlooked the Ville d’Avray with smoky Paris below, and in the distance there was a view of the plain of Mont-rouge and the road to Orleans, which led also to Balzac’s beloved Tours. The principal staircase was outside, because Balzac, in designing the house, found that a staircase seriously interfered with the symmetry of the rooms. Therefore he placed it in an inconspicuous position in a special construction at the back, and owing to the extremely steep slope the visitor entered by the top floor, and made his way down instead of up. There were three stories, the lowest containing the drawing-room and dining-room, the second a bedroom and dressing-room, and the third Balzac’s study. All round the house, which was painted to represent bricks, was a verandah supported by black columns, and the cage in the rear which held the staircase was painted red. About sixty feet behind this curious habitation was the real living-place of Les Jardies, where Balzac kept his servants. Part of this he let at a later date to the Viscontis, and they had charge of his rich library, and of the beautiful furniture brought from the Rue des Batailles, which might, if kept by its owner, have been seized by his creditors.
The interior of this charming abode was intended to be adorned with the utmost magnificence, but it was never finished; there were no curtains, and no furniture to speak of. Years after, descriptions such as the following were still scrawled in charcoal on the bare stucco: “Here is a veneering of Parian marble”; “Here is a mantelpiece in cipolin marble”; “Here is a ceiling painted by Eugene Delacroix.” Balzac laughed himself at these imaginary decorations, and was much delighted when Leon Gozlan wrote in large letters in his study, which was as bare as the other rooms, “Here is a priceless picture by Raphael.” However, there was one thing at Les Jardies of which he was really proud; and that was his system of bell-ringing, which he considered a chef-d’oeuvre. Instead of having hanging wires with “big, stupid, indiscreet bells” at the end of them, his bells were hidden ingeniously in an angle of the wall; and his pride in this brilliant invention made him forget any possible deficiencies in the decorations and appointments of the mansion.
The great feature, however, at Les Jardies, and the torment, the delight, and the despair of Balzac’s life, was the piece of land round the house where the garden ought to have been. He had beautiful plans about this when first he arrived at Les Jardies. The soil was then absolutely bare; but, as he remarked, it was possible to buy everything in Paris, and as money was, of course, no object with him, he intended in the autumn to have good-sized magnolias, limes, poplars, and willows transported there, and to make a little Eden of sweet scents, covered with plants and bushes. No doubt, in imagination he already saw his beautiful flowers, and wandered in this delightful and well-kept garden, which, as nothing with Balzac could possibly be ordinary, was to be “surprising.” The reality, however, was sadly different from his expectations. In vain, by his orders asphalt paths were made in all directions, and landscape gardeners worked for months, trying with stones cunningly inserted to prop up the steep, slippery slope, and to form little terraces on which something might have a chance of growing. With the slightest shower, down tumbled these plateaus; and the work of building had to begin again. It was amusing, Leon Gozlan tells us, to see the amazement of the actor Frederick Lemaitre when he came to see Balzac; and found himself expected to walk up the side of a hill, with the ground at each step slipping under his feet. To support himself he stuck stones behind his heels, and Balzac meanwhile walked by his side with the calmness of a proprietor who is thoroughly used to the vagaries of his own territory, and scorns foreign assistance.
Occasionally, however, even Balzac came to the end of his equanimity. The wall, which separated his property from that of the neighbour below him, was a continual anxiety. In spite of all possible precautions it tumbled down constantly, and scattered stones and mortar over the ground on each side of it. After this had happened two or three times, and Balzac, while investigating the extent of the damage on one of these occasions, had fallen and injured his leg, so that he was in bed for forty days, a meeting of experts was held, and it was decided that the angle at which the wall had been built was not sufficiently acute. The error was rectified, and there were general rejoicings and congratulations; but the next day it rained, and in the evening news was brought to Balzac that the whole structure had toppled over, and was reposing in ruins in his neighbour’s garden. This was serious, as the neighbour promptly sent in an enormous bill for damages done to his carrots and turnips; and it was probably on this occasion that Balzac wrote in March 1839 a despairing letter to Madame Carraud, containing the words: “To you, sister of my soul, I can confide my greatest secrets; I am now in the midst of terrible misery. All the walls of Les Jardies have fallen down through the fault of the builder, who did not make any foundations.”[*] No builder, however, managed to effect the feat of making this unfortunate wall stand upright; and in the end, to allow it to come down in peace and comfort whenever it felt so disposed, Balzac bought the strip of his neighbour’s land which bordered it, and after that, ceased to feel anguish at its vagaries.
[*] “Correspondance,” vol. i. p. 453.
The wall was decidedly important, as Balzac’s fortune was to be made by the contents of the garden at Les Jardies, and it would not have been satisfactory for strangers to be able to wander there at will. Balzac’s new plan for becoming rich was to cover most of his territory with glass houses, and to plant 100,000 feet with pineapples. Owing to the warmth of the soil, he considered that these pineapples would not need much heat, and could be sold at five francs apiece, instead of the louis charged for them in Paris. They would therefore be quickly disposed of, and 500,000 francs would be made, which, deducting 100,000 francs for expenses, would mean a clear profit of 400,000 francs a year. “And this money will be made without a page of copy,” said poor Balzac. He was, of course, absolutely confident about the success of this new undertaking, and Theophile Gautier, who tells the story,[*] says that a search was made for a shop in which to sell these pineapples of the future. This shop was to be painted black with lines of gold, and was to have on it in huge letters the announcement, “Ananas des Jardies”; but Gautier managed to persuade Balzac in order to avoid useless expense, not to hire it till the next year, when the pineapples would have had time to grow. However, perhaps Balzac was discouraged by the sight of the snow falling silently on his slope, or possibly his desire to make a fabulous sum of money by a successful play had for a time blotted out all other ambitions; at any rate, we hear no more of the pineapples of Les Jardies.
[*] “Portraits Contemporains — Honore de Balzac,” by Theophile Gautier.
Balzac’s terribly embarrassed condition in 1837 caused him to return with new ardour to the idea which haunted him all his life, that of an immense theatrical success which should put an end for ever to his pecuniary embarrassments. References to projected plays, to the difficulty he found in writing them, and to his hope of finally freeing himself from debt by producing a masterpiece at the theatre, occur constantly in his letters. “Marie Touchet” and “Philippe le Reserve” — afterwards to become “Les Ressources de Quinola” — were the names of some of the plays he intended to write. In February, 1837, as we have already seen, he planned out “La Premiere Demoiselle,” which he abandoned for the time, but which he worked at with much energy during his ill-fated expedition to Sardinia, and continued at Les Jardies during the summ
er and autumn of 1838. Before starting for Sardinia he wrote to Madame Carraud: “If I fail in what I undertake, I shall throw myself with all my might into writing for the theatre.” He kept his word, and “La Premiere Demoiselle,” a gloomy bourgeois tragedy, which soon received the name of “L’Ecole des Menages,” was the result.
With the distrust in himself, which always in matters dramatic mingled with his optimistic self-confidence, Balzac determined to have a collaborator, and chose a young man named Lassailly, who was peculiarly unfitted for the difficult post. In doing this he only gave one instance out of many of the wide gulf which separated Balzac the writer, gifted with the psychological powers which almost amounted to second sight, and Balzac in ordinary life, many of whose misfortunes had their origin in an apparent want of knowledge of human nature, which caused him to make deplorable mistakes in choosing his associates.
The agreement between Balzac and his collaborator stipulated that the latter should be lodged and fed at the expense of Balzac, and should, on his side, be always at hand to help his partner with dramatic ideas. Balzac performed his part of the treaty nobly, and Lassailly remembered long afterwards the glories of the fare at Les Jardies; but his life became a burden to him from his incapacity to do what was expected of him, and he was nearly killed by Balzac’s nocturnal habits. He was permitted to go to bed when he liked; but at two or three in the morning Balzac’s peremptory bell would summon him to work, and he would rise, frightened and half stupefied with sleep, to find his employer waiting for him, stern and pale from his vigil. “For,” Leon Gozlan says, “the Balzac fighting with the demon of his nightly work had nothing in common with the Balzac of the street and of the drawing-room.”[*] He would be asked severely what help he could give, and, as a result of his terrified and drowsy stammerings would be sent to bed for another hour to see whether in that time inspiration would visit him. Six or eight times in the course of the night would this scene be repeated; and at last Lassailly, who was delicate, became seriously ill and had to leave Les Jardies, ever after looking back on the terrible Balzac and his appalling night-watches, as a nightmare to be recalled with a shudder.
[*] “Balzac en Pantoufles,” by Leon Gozlan.
Balzac, deprived of Lassailly’s valuable assistance, worked on alone; and at first everything seemed likely to go well with “L’Ecole des Menages.”[*] The Renaissance, a new theatre which had opened on November 8th, 1838, with the first representation of Victor Hugo’s “Ruy Blas,” seemed willing to take Balzac’s play to follow this; and M. Armand Pereme, a distinguished antiquary whom Balzac had met at Frapesle, was most active in conducting the negotiations. However, in the end the Renaissance refused the drama. Balzac was terribly dilatory, and irritated every one by not keeping his engagements, and he was also high-handed about the arrangements he considered necessary to the success of his tragedy. His unfortunate monetary embarrassments, too, made it necessary for him to ask for 16,000 francs before the play was written, a request which the Renaissance Theatre was rather slow in granting. However, the real reason for the rejection of the drama, which took place on February 26th, 1839 — just at the time when Balzac was in despair because the wall at Les Jardies had fallen down — was want of money on the part of the managers of the theatre. The only thing that could save the Renaissance from ruin was a great success; and Alexandre Dumas, with whom the directors had formerly quarrelled, had now made peace with them, and had offered them “L’Alchimiste,” which would be certain to attract large audiences. They accepted this in place of Balzac’s play, and “L’Ecole des Menages,” of which the only copy extant is in the possession of the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, has never been acted.
[*] See “L’Ecole des Menages” in “Autour de Honore de Balzac,” by the
Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul.
Balzac was in terrible trouble about the rejection of the drama from which he had hoped so much. He wrote to Madame Carraud[*] in March, 1839: “I have broken down like a foundered horse. I shall certainly require rest at Frapesle. The Renaissance had promised me 6,000 francs bounty to write a piece in five acts; Pereme was the agent, everything was arranged. As I wanted 6,000 francs at the end of February, I set to work. I spent sixteen nights and sixteen days at it, only sleeping three hours out of the twenty-four; I employed twenty workmen at the printer’s office, and I managed to write, make and compose the five acts of ‘L’Ecole des Menages’ in time to read it on February 25th. The directors had no money, or perhaps Dumas, who had not acted fairly to them, and with whom they were angry, had returned to them; they would not hear my piece, and refused it. So here I am, worn out with work, sixteen days lost, 6,000 francs to pay, and nothing! This blow has crushed me, I have not yet recovered from it. My career at the theatre will have the same course as my literary career, my first work will be refused. A superhuman courage is necessary for these terrible hurricanes of misfortune.”
[*] “Correspondance,” vol. i. p. 454.
In the midst of his troubles, he thought with bitter regret of Madame de Berny, who would have understood everything, and have known how to help and console him. He was in a miserable state, was chased like a hare by creditors, and was on the point of lacking bread, candles, and paper. Then to add to his misery would come a sensible letter from the far-distant Madame Hanska, blaming his frivolity and levity; and, in his state of semi-starvation, poor Balzac would be almost driven frantic by words of reproach from his divinity.
A little earlier than this he had found time for an enormous amount of work which would seem completely out of his province, and had written letter after letter in the Siecle, and spent 10,000 francs, in defence of Peytel, a notary of Belley, who had been condemned to death on August 26th, 1839, for the murder of his wife and servant. Peytel appealed against his sentence, and Balzac, who had met him several times, espoused his cause with vehemence. There did not seem to be much satisfactory defence available for the prisoner, who admitted the fact that while driving in a carriage not far from Belley, he had shot both his wife and the coachman. Balzac, however, was urgent in upholding Peytel’s contention that his crime had been homicide, not murder, and brought forward the plea of “no premeditation.” His energetic efforts were of no avail: Peytel was executed at Bourg on November 28th, 1839, and Balzac, who had espoused his cause with quixotic enthusiasm, was genuinely sorry. He wrote to Madame Hanska in September: “I am extremely agitated by a horrible case, the case of Peytel. I have seen this poor fellow three times. He is condemned; I start in two hours for Bourg.” On November 30th he continues: “You will perhaps have heard that after two months of unheard-of efforts to save him from his punishment Peytel went two days ago to the scaffold, like a Christian, said the priest; I say, like an innocent man.”[*]
[*] “Lettres a l’Etrangere.”
Another disappointment this year was the fact that Balzac considered it his duty, after presenting himself as candidate for the Academie and paying many of the prescribed visits, to retire in favour of Victor Hugo. As early as 1833 he had aspired to become some day “un des Quarante,” and he then said half jokingly to his sister: “When I shall work at the dictionary of the Academy!”[*] He was never destined to receive the honour of admittance to this august body, though after his first attempt in 1839, when he himself withdrew, he again tried his fortune in 1843 and in 1849. His normal condition of monetary embarrassment was one reason for his failure, and no doubt some of the members of l’Academie Francaise disapproved of certain of his books, and perhaps did not admire his style. At any rate, as his enemy Saint-Beuve expressed it concisely: “M. de Balzac est trop gros pour nos fauteuils,” and while men who are now absolutely unknown entered the sacred precincts without difficulty, the door remained permanently closed to the greatest novelist of the age.
[*] “Balzac, sa Vie et ses Oeuvres,” par Mme. L. Surville (nee de
Balzac).
CHAPTER XII
1840 - 1843
”Vautrin” — La Revue Paris
ienne — Societe des Gens-de-Lettres
— Balzac leaves Les Jardies, and goes to the Rue Basse, Passy
— Death of M. de Hanski — ”Les Ressources de Quinola” — ”La
Comedie Humaine” — Balzac goes to St. Petersburg to meet Madame
Hanska — Her reasons for deferring the marriage.
The sad fate of “L’Ecole des Menages” did not long discourage Balzac. At the beginning of 1840 he made an engagement to provide Harel, the speculative manager of the Theatre Porte-St-Martin, with a drama. The play was accepted before it was written; and in order to be near the theatre Balzac established himself in the fifth floor of the house of Buisson, his tailor, at the corner of the Rue Richelieu. His proceedings were, as usual, eccentric. One day Gautier, who tells the story, was summoned in a great hurry, and found his friend clad in his monk’s habit, walking up and down his elegant attic, and shivering with impatience.
“‘Here is Theo at last,’ he cried, when he saw me. ‘You idler! dawdle! sloth! gee up, do make haste! You ought to have been here an hour ago! To-morrow I am going to read to Harel a grand drama in five acts.’
“‘And you want my advice,’ I answered, settling myself comfortably in an armchair, ready to submit to a long reading.
“From my attitude Balzac guessed my thought, and said simply, ‘The drama is not written.’
“‘Good heavens!’ said I: ‘well, then you must put off the reading for six weeks.’
“‘No, we must hurry on the drama to get the money. In a short time I have a large sum of money to pay.’
“‘To-morrow is impossible; there is no time to copy it.’
“‘This is the way I have arranged things. You will write one act, Ourliac another, Laurent-Jan the third, De Belloy the fourth, I the fifth, and I shall read it at twelve o’clock as arranged. One act of a drama is only four or five hundred lines; one can do five hundred lines of dialogue in a day and the night following.’
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 1481