During a period of three months, Balzac received no letter from his “Polar Star,” but he expressed his usual fidelity to her. Miserable or fortunate, he was always the same to her; it was because of his unchangeableness of heart that he was so painfully wounded by her neglect. Carried away, as he often was, by his torrential existence, he might miss writing to her, but he could not understand how she could deprive him of the sacred bread which restored his courage and gave him new life.
His long struggle with his debts and his various financial and domestic troubles seemed at times to deprive him of his usual hope and patience. In a depressed vein, he replies to one of her letters:
“Ah! I think you excessively small; and it shows me that you are of this world! Ah! you write to me no longer because my letters are rare! Well, they were rare because I did not have the money to post them, but I would not tell you that. Yes, my distress had reached that point and beyond it. It is horrible and sad, but it is true, as true as the Ukraine where you are. Yes, there have been days when I proudly ate a roll of bread on the boulevard. I have had the greatest sufferings: self-love, pride, hope, prospects, all have been attacked. But I shall, I hope, surmount everything. I had not a penny, but I earned for those atrocious Lecou and Delloye seventy thousand francs in a year. The Peytel affair cost me ten thousand francs, and people said I was paid fifty thousand! That affair and my fall, which kept me as you know, forty days in bed, retarded my business by more than thirty thousand francs. Oh! I do not like your want of confidence! You think that I have a great mind, but you will not admit that I have a great heart! After nearly eight years, you do not know me! My God, forgive her, for she knows not what she does!”
The novelist wrote his Predilecta of his ideas of marriage, and how he longed to marry, but he became despondent about this as well as about his debts; he felt that he was growing old, and would not live long. His comfort while working was a picture of Wierzchownia which she had sent him, but in addition to all of his other troubles he was annoyed because some of her relatives who were in Paris carried false information to her concerning him.
Not having heard from her for six months, he resorted to his frequent method of allaying his anxiety by consulting a clairvoyant to learn if she were ill. He was told that within six weeks he would receive a letter that would change his entire life. Almost four more months passed, however, without his hearing from her and he feared that she was not receiving his letters, or that hers had gone astray, as he no longer had a home.
For once, the sorcerer had predicted somewhat correctly! Not within six weeks, to be sure, but within six months, the letter came that was to change Balzac’s entire life. On January 5, 1842, a letter arrived from Madame Hanska, telling of the death of M. de Hanski which had occurred on November 10, 1841.
His reply is one of the most beautiful of his letters to her:
“I have this instant received, dear angel, your letter sealed with black, and, after having read it, I could not perhaps have wished to receive any other from you, in spite of the sad things you tell me about yourself and your health. As for me, dear, adored one, although this event enables me to attain to that which I have ardently desired for nearly ten years, I can, before you and God, do myself this justice, that I have never had in my heart anything but complete submission, and that I have not, in my most cruel moments, stained my soul with evil wishes. No one can prevent involuntary transports. Often I have said to myself, ‘How light my life would be with her!’ No one can keep his faith, his heart, his inner being without hope. . . . But I understand the regrets which you express to me; they seem to me natural and true, especially after the protection which has never failed you since that letter at Vienna. I am, however, joyful to know that I can write to you with open heart to tell you all those things on which I have kept silence, and disperse the melancholy complaints you have founded on misconceptions, so difficult to explain at a distance. I know you too well, or I think I know you too well, to doubt you for one moment; and I have often suffered, very cruelly suffered, that you have doubted me, because, since Neufchatel, you are my life. Let me say this to you plainly, after having so often proved it to you. The miseries of my struggle and of my terrible work would have tired out the greatest and strongest men; and often my sister has desired to put an end to them, God knows how; I always thought the remedy worse than the disease! It is you alone who have supported me till now, . . . You said to me, ‘Be patient, you are loved as much as you love. Do not change, for others change not.’ We have both been courageous; why, therefore, should you not be happy to-day? Do you think it was for myself that I have been so persistent in magnifying my name? Oh! I am perhaps very unjust, but this injustice comes from the violence of my heart! I would have liked two words for myself in your letter, but I sought them in vain; two words for him who, since the landscape in which you live has been before his eyes, has not passed, while working, ten minutes without looking at it; I have there sought all, ever since it came to me, that we have asked in the silence of our spirits.”
He was concerned about her health and wished to depart at once, but feared to go without her permission. She was anxious about her letters, but he assured her that they were safe, and begged her to inform him when he could visit her; for six years he had been longing to see her. “Adieu, my dear and beautiful life that I love so well, and to whom I can now say it. Sempre medisimo.”
The role played by M. de Hanski[*] in this friendship was a peculiar one. The correspondence, as has been seen, began in secrecy, but Balzac met him when he went to Neufchatel to see Madame Hanska. Their relations were apparently cordial, for on his return to Paris, the novelist wrote him a friendly note, enclosing an autograph of Rossini whom M. de Hanski admired. The Polish gentleman (he was never a count) must have been willing to have Balzac visit his wife again, at Geneva, when their friendship seemed to grow warmer. Balzac called him l’honorable Marechal de l’Ukraine or the Grand Marechal, and extended to him his thanks or regards in sending little notes to Madame Hanska, and thus he was early cognizant of their correspondence. The future author of the Comedie humaine seems to have been taken into the family circle and to have become somewhat a favorite of M. de Hanski, who was suffering with his “blue devils” at that time.
[*] The present writer is following the predominant custom of using the de in connection with M. de Hanski’s name, and omitting it in speaking of his wife.
Since Balzac was not only an excellent story-teller but naturally very jovial, and M. de Hanski suffered from ennui and wished to be amused, they became friends. On his return to Paris, they exchanged a few letters, and Balzac introduced stories to amuse him in his letters to Madame Hanska. He wrote most graciously to the Marechal, apologizing for the two love letters he had written his wife, and this letter was answered. The novelist was invited by him to visit them in Wierzchownia — an invitation he planned to accept, but did not.
In the spring of 1836, M. de Hanski sent Balzac a very handsome malachite inkstand, also a cordial letter telling him the family news, how much he enjoyed his works, and that he hoped with his family to visit him in Paris within two years. He mentioned that his wife was preparing for Balzac a long letter of several pages, and assured him of his sincere friendship. Balzac was most appreciative of the gift of the beautiful inkstand, but felt that it was too magnificent for a poor man to use, so would place it in his collection and prize it as one of his most precious souvenirs.
Besides discussing business with the Polish gentleman, Balzac apologized often for not answering his letters, offering lack of time as his excuse, but he planned to visit Wierzchownia, where he and M. de Hanski would enjoy hearty laughs while Madame Hanska could work at his comedies. In spite of this friendly correspondence, the Marechal probably hinted to his wife that her admiration for the author was too warm, for Balzac asked her to reassure her husband that he was not only invulnerable, but immune from attack. Balzac spoke of dedicating one of his books in the Comedie humaine to M. de
Hanski, but no dedication to him is found in this work. His death, which occurred some months after this suggestion, doubtless prevented the realization of it.
Balzac evidently received a negative reply to his letter to Madame Hanska asking to be permitted to visit her immediately after her husband’s death. It would have been a breach of the convenances had he gone to visit her so early in her widowhood. Soon after learning of M. de Hanski’s death, he saw an announcement of the death of a Countess Kicka of Volhynia, and since his “Polar Star” had spoken of being ill, he was seized with fear lest this be a misprint for Hanska, and was confined to his bed for two days with a nervous fever.
What must have been Balzac’s disappointment, when almost ready to leave at any moment, to receive a letter which, as he expressed it, killed the youth in him, and rent his heart! She felt that she owed everything to her daughter, who had consoled her, and nothing to him; yet she knew that she was everything to him.
He thought that she loved Anna too much, protested his fidelity to her when she accused him, and reverted to his favorite theme of comparing her to the devoted Madame de Berny. He complained of her coldness, wanted to visit her in August at St. Petersburg, and desired her to promise that they would be married within two years.
Princess Radziwill wrote: “When Madame Hanska’s husband died, it was supposed that her union with Balzac would occur at once, but obstacles were interposed by others. Her own family looked down upon the great French author as a mere story-teller; and by her late husband’s people sordid motives were imputed to him, to account for his devotion to the heiress. The latter objection was removed, a few years later, by the widow’s giving up to her daughter the fortune left to her by Monsieur Hanski.”
It is at this period that Balzac furnishes us with the key to one of his works, Albert Savarus, in writing to Madame Hanska:
“Albert Savarus has had much success. You will read it in the first volume of the Comedie humaine, almost after the fausse Maitresse, where with childish joy I have made the name Rzewuski shine in the midst of those of the most illustrious families of the North. Why have I not placed Francesca Colonna at Diodati? Alas, I was afraid that it would be too transparent. Diodati makes my heart beat! Those four syllables, it is the cry of the Montjoie Saint-Denis! of my heart.”
Francesca Colonna, the Princess Gandolphini, is the heroine of l’Ambitieux par Amour, a novel supposed to have been published by Albert Savarus and described in the book which bears his name. Using her name, the hero is represented as having written the story of the Duchesse d’Argaiolo and himself, he taking the name of Rodolphe. Here are given, in disguise again, the details of Balzac’s early relations to Madame Hanska. Albert Savarus, while traveling in Switzerland, sees a lady’s face at the window of an upper room, admires it and seeks the lady’s acquaintance. She proves to be the Duchesse d’Argaiolo, an Italian in exile. She had been married very young to the Duke d’Argaiolo, who was rich and much older than she. The young man falls in love with this beautiful lady, and she promises to be his as soon as she becomes free.
Gabriel Ferry states that Balzac first saw Madame Hanska’s face at a window, and the Princess Radziwill says that Balzac went to the hotel to meet her aunt. It is to be noted that the year 1834 is that in which Balzac and Madame Hanska were in Geneva together.
The Villa Diodati, noted for having been inhabited by Lord Byron, is situated on Lake Geneva, at Cologny, not far from Pre Leveque,[*] where M. de Hanski and his family resided in the maison Mirabaud-Amat.
[*] Balzac preserved a remembrance of the happy days he had spent with Madame Hanska at Pre-Leveque, Lake Geneva, by dating La Duchesse de Langeais, January 26, 1834, Pre-Leveque.
There are numerous allusions to Diodati in Balzac’s correspondence, from which one would judge that he had some very unhappy associations with Madame de Castries, and some very happy ones with Madame Hanska in connection with Diodati:
“When I want to give myself a magnificent fete, I close my eyes, lie down on one of my sofas, . . . and recall that good day at Diodati which effaced a thousand pangs I had felt there a year before. You have made me know the difference between a true affection and a simulated one, and for a heart as childlike as mine, there is cause there for an eternal gratitude. . . . When some thought saddens me, then I have recourse to you; . . . I see again Diodati, I stretch myself on the good sofa of the Maison Mirabaud. . . . Diodati, that image of a happy life, reappears like a star for a moment clouded, and I began to laugh, as you know I can laugh. I say to myself that so much work will have its recompense, and that I shall have, like Lord Byron, my Diodati. I sing in my bad voice: ‘Diodati, Diodati!’“
Another excerpt shows that Balzac had in mind his own life in connection with Madame Hanska’s in writing Albert Savarus:
“. . . It is six o’clock in the morning, I have interrupted myself to think of you, reminded of you by Switzerland where I have placed the scene of Albert Savarus. — Lovers in Switzerland, — for me, it is the image of happiness. I do not wish to place the Princess Gandolphini in the maison Mirabaud, for there are people in the world who would make a crime of it for us. This Princess is a foreigner, an Italian, loved by Savarus.”
Many of Balzac’s traits are seen in Albert Savarus. Like Balzac, Albert Savarus was defeated in politics, but hoped for election; was a lawyer, expected to rise to fame, and was about three years older than the woman he loved. Like Madame Hanska, the Duchesse d’Argaiolo, known as the Princess Gandolphini, was beautiful, noble, a foreigner, and married to a man very rich and much older than she, who was not companionable. It was on December 26 that Albert Savarus arrived at the Villa on Lake Geneva to visit his princes, while Balzac arrived December 25 to visit Madame Hanska at her Villa there. The two lovers spent the winter together, and in the spring, the Duc d’Argaiolo (Prince Gandolphini) and his wife went to Naples, and Albert Savarus (Rodolphe) returned to Paris, just as M. de Hanski took his family to Italy in the spring, while Balzac returned to Paris.
Albert Savarus was falsely accused of being married, just as Madame Hanska had accused Balzac. The letters to the Duchess from Savarus are quite similar to some Balzac wrote to Madame Hanska. Like Balzac, Savarus saw few people, worked at night, was poor, ever hopeful, communed with the portrait of his adored one, had trouble in regard to the delivery of her letters, and was worried when they did not come; yet he was patient and willing to wait until the Duke should die. Like Madame Hanska, the Duchess feared her lover was unfaithful to her, and in both cases a woman sowed discord, though the results were different.[*]
[*] Miss K. P. Wormeley does not think that Albert Savarus was inspired by Balzac’s relations with Madame Hanska. For her arguments, see Memoir of Balzac.
Madame Hanska did not care for this book, but Balzac told her she was not familiar enough with French society to appreciate it.
Miss Mary Hanford Ford thinks that Madame Hanska inspired another of Balzac’s works: “It is probable that in Madame de la Chanterie we are given Balzac’s impassioned and vivid idealization of the woman who became his wife at last. . . . Balzac’s affection for Madame Hanska was to a large degree tinged with the reverence which the Brotherhood shared for Madame de la Chanterie. . . .” While the Freres de la Consolation adored Madame de la Chanterie in a beautiful manner, neither her life nor her character was at all like Madame Hanska’s. This work is dated December, 1847, Wierzchownia, and was doubtless finished there, but he had been working on it for several years.
In the autumn of 1842,[*] Madame Hanska went to St. Petersburg. She complained of a sadness and melancholy which Balzac’s most ardent devotion could not overcome. He became her patito, and she the queen of his life, but he too suffered from depression, and even consented to wait three years for her if she would only permit him to visit her. He insisted that his affection was steadfast and eternal, but in addition to showing him coldness, she unjustly rebuked him, having heard that he was gambling. She had a prolonged lawsuit, and he wished her to t
urn the matter over to him, feeling sure that he could win the case for her.
[*] Emile Faguet, Balzac, says that it was in 1843 that Madame Hanska went to St. Petersburg. He has made several such slight mistakes throughout this work.
Thus passed the year 1842. She eventually consented to let him come in May to celebrate his birthday. But alas! A great remora stood in the way. Poor Balzac did not have the money to make the trip. Then also he had literary obligations to meet, but he felt very much fatigued from excessive work and wanted to leave Paris for a rest. Her letters were so unsatisfactory that he implored her to engrave in her dear mind, if she would not write it in her heart, that he wished her to use some of her leisure time in writing a few lines to him daily. As was his custom when in distress, he sought a fortune-teller for comfort, and as usual, was delighted with his prophecy. The notorious Balthazar described to him perfectly the woman he loved, told him that his love was returned, that there would never be a cloud in their sky, in spite of the intensity of their characters, and that he would be going to see her within six months. The soothsayer was correct in this last statement, at least, for Balzac arrived at St. Petersburg soon after this interview.
Madame Hanska felt that she was growing old, but Balzac assured her that he should love her even were she ugly, and he relieved her mind of this fear by writing in her Journal intime that although he had not seen her since they were in Vienna, he thought her as beautiful and young as then — after an interval of seven years.[*]
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 1546