In the course of this same year (1832) there came to him an anonymous letter of great significance, dated from the distant Ukraine, and signed l’Etrangere. Though not at that time giving him the slightest presentiment of the outcome, this letter was destined eventually to change the entire life of the novelist. A notice in the Quotidienne acknowledging the receipt of it brought about a correspondence which in the course of events revealed to the author that the stranger’s real name was Madame Hanska.
Love affairs, however, were far from being the only things that occupied Balzac. He was continually besieged by creditors; the clouds of his indebtedness were ever ready to burst over his head. Meanwhile, his mother became more and more displeased with him, and impatient at his constant calls upon her for the performance of all manner of services. She now urged him to make a rich marriage and thus put an end to his troubles and hers. But such was not Balzac’s inclination, and he rightly considered himself the most deeply concerned in the matter.
All the while he was prodigiously productive, but the profits from his works were exceedingly small. This fact was due to his method of composition, according to which some of his works were revised a dozen times or more, and also to the Belgian piracies, from which all popular French authors suffered. In addition to this, his extravagant tastes developed from year to year, and thus prevented him from materially reducing his debts.
Unlike most Frenchmen, Balzac was particularly fond of travel in foreign countries, and when allured by the charms of a beautiful woman, he forgot his financial obligations and allowed nothing to prevent his responding to the call of the siren. Thus he was enticed by the Marquise de Castries to go to Aix and from there to Geneva in 1832, and one year later he rushed to Neufchatel to meet Madame Hanska, with whom he became so enamored that a few months afterwards he spent several weeks with her at this same fatal city of Geneva where the Marquise had all but broken his heart. In the spring of 1835 he followed a similar desire, this time going as far as the beautiful city of the blue Danube.
The charms of his sirens were not enough, however, to keep so indefatigable a writer from his work. He permitted himself to enjoy social diversions for only a few hours daily and some of his most delightful novels were written during these visits, where it seemed that the very shadow of feminine presence gave him inspiration. It should be added, too, that in the limited time given to society during these journeys, he not only worshipped at the shrine of his particular enchantress of the moment, but managed to meet many other women of social prominence.
As his fame spread, his extravagance increased; with his famous cane, he was seen frequently at the opera, at one time sharing a box with the beautiful Olympe. But his business relations with his publisher, Madame Bechet, which seemed to be promising at first, ended unhappily, and the rapidly declining health of his Dilecta, Madame de Berny, not to mention the failure of another publisher Werdet, which there is not space here to recount, cast a gloom from time to time over his optimistic spirit. He now became the proprietor of the Chronique de Paris, but aside from the literary friendships involved, notably that of Theophile Gautier, he derived nothing but additional worries from an undertaking he was unfitted to carry out. An even greater anxiety was the famous lawsuit with Buloz, which was finally decided in his favor, but which proved a costly victory, since it left him physically exhausted.
In order to recuperate, he sought refuge in the home of M. de Margonne, and travelled afterwards with Madame Marbouty to Italy, where he spent several pleasant weeks looking after some legal business for his friends, M. and Mme. Visconti. It was on his return from this journey that he learned of the death of Madame de Berny.
During this period of general depression, Balzac devoted a certain amount of attention to another correspondent, Louise, whom he never met but whose letters cheered him, especially during his imprisonment for refusing to serve in the Garde Nationale. In the same year (1836), he was drawn by the charming Madame de Valette to Guerande, where he secured his descriptive material for Beatrix.
In the spring of 1837, he went to Italy for the second time, hoping to recuperate, and wishing to see the bust of Madame Hanska which had been made by Bartolini. He visited several cities, and in Milan he was received in the salon of Madame Maffei, where he met some of the best known people of the day. He had now thought of another scheme by means of which he might become very rich, — always a favorite dream of his. He believed that much silver might be extracted from lead turned out of the mines as refuse, and was indiscreet enough to confide his ideas to a crafty merchant whom he met at Genoa. A year later, when Balzac went to Sardinia to investigate the possibility of the development of his plans, he found that his ideas had been appropriated by this acquaintance. On his return from this trip to Corsica and Sardinia, on which he had endured much physical suffering, and had spent much money to no financial avail, he stopped again at Milan to look after the interests of the Viscontis. In the Salon of the same year (1837), the famous portrait by Boulanger was displayed. About the same time, together with Theophile Gautier, Leon Gozlan, Jules Sandeau and others, he organized an association called the Cheval Rouge for mutual advertisement.
Balzac now bought a piece of land at Ville d’Avray (Sevres), and had a house built, Les Jardies, which afforded much amusement to the Parisians. He went there to reside in 1838 while the walls were still damp. Here he formed another scheme for becoming rich, this time in the belief that he would be successful in raising pineapples at his new home. Les Jardies was a three-story house. The principal stairway was on the outside, because an exterior staircase would not interfere with the symmetrical arrangement of the interior. The garden walls, not long after completion, fell down as they had no foundations, and Balzac sadly exclaimed over their giving way! After a brief residence here of about two years, he fled from his creditors and concealed his identity under the name of his housekeeper, Madame de Brugnolle, in a mysterious little house, No. 19, rue Basse, Passy.
Aside from his novels, which were appearing at a most rapid rate, Balzac wrote many plays, but they all met with failure for various reasons. Other literary activities, such as his brief directorship of the Revue Parisienne, numerous articles and short stories, and his cooperation in the Societe des Gens-de-Lettres, which was organized to protect the rights of authors and publishers, occupied much of his precious time; in addition, he had his unremitting financial struggles.
This “child-man,” however, with his imagination, optimism, belief in magnetism and clairvoyance, and great steadfastness of character, kept on hoping. Not discouraged by his ever unsuccessful schemes for becoming a millionaire, he conceived the project of digging for hidden treasures, and later thought of making a fortune by transporting to France oaks grown in distant Russia.
In the spring of 1842 Balzac’s novels were collected for the first time under the name of the Comedie humaine. This was shortly after one of the most important events of his life had occurred, when on January 5 he received a letter from Madame Hanska telling of the death of her husband the previous November. Balzac wished to leave for Russia immediately, but Madame Hanska’s permission was not forthcoming, and it was not until July of 1843 that Balzac arrived at St. Petersburg to visit his “Polar Star.”
On his return home he became very ill, and from this time onward his robust constitution, which he had so abused by overwork and by the use of strong coffee, began to break under the continual strain and his illnesses became more and more frequent. His visit to his Chatelaine, however, had increased his longing to be constantly in her society, and he was ever planning to visit her. During her prolonged stay in Dresden in the winter and spring of 1845, he became so desperate that he could not longer do his accustomed work, and when the invitation to visit her eventually came, he forgot all in his haste to be at her side.
With Madame Hanska, her daughter Anna, and the Count George Mniszech, Anna’s fiance, Balzac now traveled extensively in Europe. In July, after some preliminary journeys, Madame Han
ska and Anna secretly accompanied him to Paris where they enjoyed the opportunity of visiting Anna’s former governess, Lirette, who had entered a convent. In August, after visiting many cities with the two ladies, Balzac escorted them as far as Brussels. In September he left Paris again to join them at Baden, and in October, went to meet them at Chalons whence all four — Count Mniszech being now of the party — journeyed to Marseilles and by sea to Naples. After a few days at Naples, Balzac returned to Paris, ill, having spent much money and done little work.
Ever planning a home for his future bride, and buying objects of art with which to adorn it, Balzac with his numerous worries was physically and mentally in poor condition. In March, 1846, he left Paris to join Madame Hanska and her party at Rome for a month. He traveled with them to some extent during the summer, and a definite engagement of marriage was entered into at Strasbourg. In October he attended the marriage of Anna and the Count Mniszech at Wiesbaden, and Madame Hanska visited him secretly in Paris during the winter.
He was now in better spirits, and his health was somewhat improved, enabling him to do some of his best work, but he was being pressed to fulfil his literary obligations, and, as usual, harassed over his debts. In September he left for Wierzchownia, where he remained until the following February, continually hoping that his marriage would soon take place. But Mme. Hanska hesitated, and the failure of the Chemin de Fer du Nord added more financial embarrassments to his already large load. The Revolution of 1848 brought him into more trouble still, and his health was obviously becoming impaired. Yet he continued hopeful.
After spending the summer in his house of treasure in the rue Fortunee, he again left, in September, 1848, for Wierzchownia, this time determined to return with his shield or upon it. During his prolonged stay of eighteen months, while his distraught mother was looking after affairs in his new home, his health became so bad that he could not finish the work outlined during the summer. No sooner had he recovered from one malady than he was overtaken by another. Unable to work, distracted by bad news from his family, and being the witness of several financial failures incurred by Madame Hanska, Balzac naturally was supremely depressed. At this time, a touch of what may not uncharitably be termed snobbishness is seen in his letters to his family when he extols the unlimited virtues of his Predilecta and the Countess Anna.
After seventeen long years of waiting, with hope constantly deferred, Balzac at last attained his goal when, on March 14, 1850, Madame Hanska became Madame Honore de Balzac. His joy over this great triumph was beyond all adequate description, but he was unable to depart for Paris with his bride until April. After a difficult journey, the couple arrived at Paris in May, but the condition of Balzac’s health was hopeless and only a few more months were accorded him. With his usual optimism, he always thought that he would be spared to finish his great work, and when informed by his physician on August 17 that he would live but a few hours, he refused to believe it.
Unless he had been self-centered, Balzac could never have left behind him his enormous and prodigious work. In spite of certain unlovely phases of his private character and failure to fulfil his literary and financial obligations, he was a man of great personal charm. Though at various times he was under consideration for election to the French Academy, his name is not found numbered among the “forty immortals.” But he was the greatest of French novelists, a great creator of characters, who by some competent critics has been ranked with Shakespeare, and he has left to posterity the incomparable, though unfinished Comedie humaine, which is in itself sufficient for his “immortality.”
CHAPTER II. RELATIVES AND FAMILY FRIENDS
BALZAC’S MOTHER
“Farewell, my dearly beloved mother! I embrace you with all my heart. Oh! if you knew how I need just now to cast myself upon your breast as a refuge of complete affection, you would insert a little word of tenderness in your letters, and this one which I am answering has not even a poor kiss. There is nothing but . . . Ah! Mother, Mother, this is very bad! . . . You have misconstrued what I said to you, and you do not understand my heart and affection. This grieves me most of all! . . .”
The above extract is sadly typical of a relationship of thirty years, 1820-1850, between a mother, on the one hand, who never understood or appreciated her son — and a son, on the other, whose longings for maternal affection were never fully gratified. To his mother Balzac dedicated Le Medicin de Campagne, one of his finest sociological studies.
Madame Surville has described Balzac’s mother, and her own, as being rich, beautiful, and much younger than her husband, and as having a rare vivacity of mind and of imagination, an untiring activity, a great firmness of decision, and an unbounded devotion to her family; but as expressing herself in actions rather than in words. She devoted herself exclusively to the education of her children, and felt it necessary to use severity towards them in order to offset the effects of indulgence on the part of their father and their grandmother. Balzac inherited from his mother imagination and activity, and from both of his parents energy and kindness.
Madame de Balzac has been charged with not having been a tender mother towards her children in their infancy. She had lost her first child through her inability to nurse it properly. An excellent nurse, however, was found for Honore, and he became so healthy that later his sister Laure was placed with the same nurse. But she never seemed fully to understand her son nor even to suspect his promise. She attributed the sagacious remarks and reflections of his youth to accident, and on such occasions she would tell him that he did not understand what he was saying. His only reply would be a sweet, submissive smile which irritated her, and which she called arrogant and presumptuous. With her cold, calculating temperament, she had no patience with his staking his life and fortune on uncertain financial undertakings, and blamed him for his business failures. She suffered on account of his love of luxury and his belief in his own greatness, no evidence of which seemed sufficient to her matter-of-fact mind. She continued to misjudge him, unaware of his genius, but in spite of her grumbling and harassing disposition, she often came to his aid in his financial troubles.
Contrary to the wishes of his parents, who had destined him to become a notary, Balzac was ever dreaming of literary fame. His mother not unnaturally thought that a little poverty and difficulty would bring him to submission; so, before leaving Paris for Villeparisis in 1819 she installed him in a poorly furnished mansard, No. 9, rue Lesdiguieres, leaving an old woman, Madame Comin, who had been in the service of the family for more than twenty years, to watch over him. Balzac has doubtless depicted this woman in Facino Cane as Madame Vaillant, who in 1819-1820 was charged with the care of a young writer, lodged in a mansard, rue Lesdiguieres.
After fifteen months of this life, his health became so much impaired that his mother insisted on keeping him at home, where she cared for him faithfully. On a former occasion Madame de Balzac had had her son brought home to recuperate, for when he was sent away to college at an early age, his health became so impaired that he was hurriedly returned to his home. Balzac probably refers to this event in his life when he writes, in Louis Lambert, that the mother, alarmed by the continuous fever of her son and his symptoms of coma, took him from school at four or five hours’ notice.
During the five years (1820-1825) that Balzac remained at home in Villeparisis, he longed for the quiet freedom of his garret; he could not adapt himself to the bustling family circle, nor reconcile himself to the noise of the domestic machinery kept in motion by his vigilant and indefatigable mother. She was of a nervous, excitable nature, which she probably inherited from her mother, Madame Sallambier. She imagined that he was ill, and of course there was no one to convince her to the contrary. Had she known that while she thought she was contributing everything to the happiness of those around her, she was only doing the opposite, we may be sure that she of all women would have been the most wretched.
Balzac having failed in his speculations as publisher and printer, was aided by his mo
ther financially, and she figured as one of his principal creditors during the remainder of his life. (E. Faguet in Balzac, is exaggerating in stating that Madame de Balzac sacrificed her whole fortune for Honore, for much of her means was spent on her favorite son, Henri.)
M. Auguste Fessart was a contemporary of the family, an observer of a great part of the life of Honore, and his confidant on more than one occasion. In his Commentaires on the work entitled Balzac, sa Vie et ses Oeuvres, by Madame Surville, he states that the portrait of Madame de Balzac is flattering — a daughter’s portrait of a mother — and declares that Madame de Balzac was very severe with her children, especially with Honore, adding that Balzac used to say that he never heard his mother speak without experiencing a certain trembling which deprived him of his faculties. Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, in reviewing the Commentaires of M. Fessart, notes the recurring instances in which pity is expressed for the moral and material sufferings almost constantly endured by Balzac in his family circle. These sufferings seem to have impressed him more than anything else in the career of the novelist. In speaking of Balzac’s financial appeal to his family, M. Fessart notes: “And his mother did not respond to him. She let him die of hunger! . . . I repeat that they let him die of hunger; he told me so several times!” When Madame Surville speaks of their keeping Balzac’s presence in Paris a secret, saying that it was moreover a means of keeping him from all worldly temptations, M. Fessart replies: “And of giving him nothing, and of allowing him to be in need of everything!” Finally, when Madame Surville speaks of her parents’ not giving Balzac the fifteen hundred francs he desired, M. Fessart confirms this, saying that his family always refused him money.
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