The Human Comedy

by Honoré de Balzac

  “But what is to become of society, monsieur, if you so honor vice without respect for virtue?” said the attorney general’s wife, the Comtesse de Granville.

  While the palace, the Faubourg, and the Chaussée d’Antin were discussing the decline of aristocratic virtue, while excited young men went galloping off to see the carriage on rue de Seine and confirm that the duchess really was at Monsieur de Monriveau’s, she lay with her heart beating fast in the depths of her own boudoir. Armand, who had not slept at home, was strolling in the Tuileries with Monsieur de Marsay. Meanwhile, the older members of Madame de Langeais’s family were calling on one another to arrange a meeting at her mansion to reprimand her and conceive a way of stopping the scandal caused by her conduct. At three o’clock, Monsieur le Duc de Navarreins, the Vidame de Pamiers, the old Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, and the Duc de Grandlieu had gathered in Madame de Langeais’s drawing room and were awaiting her. To them, as to several curious people, the servants had said that their mistress had gone out. The duchess had made no exceptions to her orders. But belonging to that aristocratic sphere documented in the Gotha Almanac, which is devoted yearly to its revolutions and hereditary pretensions, these four illustrious persons require a quick sketch to complete this social canvas.

  The Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry was the most poetic among the female debris of the reign of Louis XV. In her lovely youth, it is said, she had done her part to win that monarch his appellation “the well-loved.” All that remained of her former charms was a remarkably prominent and slender nose, curved like a scimitar and the chief ornament on a face reminiscent of an old white glove, then some crimped and powdered hair, high-heeled slippers, a cap with upright lace loops, black mittens, and diamond brooches. But to do her complete justice, we must add that she had such a lofty idea of her decrepitude that she wore low-cut evening dresses with long gloves and still painted her cheeks with Martin’s classic rouge. A formidable amiability in her wrinkles, a blazing fire in her eyes, a profound dignity in her entire person, a triple-barbed wit on her tongue, an infallible memory in her head made this old woman a real power. The whole Cabinet des Chartes lined the pathways in her brain, and she knew the alliances of every noble house in Europe—princes, dukes, and counts—indeed the whereabouts of the last descendants of Charlemagne. No usurped title could escape the Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry.

  Young men who wanted to be seen paid her constant homage. Her salon had authority in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. The words of this female Talleyrand were taken as final pronouncements. Certain persons came to her for advice on etiquette or customs, and to take lessons in good taste. Surely no old woman knew how to put her snuffbox back in her pocket the way she did, and in sitting and crossing her legs, she moved her skirt with a precision and grace that made the most elegant young women despair. Her voice had resided in her head during a third of her life, but she had not been able to prevent it from descending into the membranes of the nose, which made it strangely impressive. She still possessed a hundred and fifty thousand pounds of her great fortune, for Napoleon had generously returned her forests to her, so that as regards her person and possessions, she was a woman of considerable consequence.

  This curious antique was seated in a low chair by the fireside, chatting with the Vidame de Pamiers, another contemporary ruin. This old lord, a former commander of the Order of Malta, was a big, tall, spare man, a whose neck was always so tightly compressed by his collar that his cheeks hung slightly over his cravat and kept his head high—an attitude full of self-importance in some men but justified in his case by a Voltarian wit. His wide prominent eyes seemed to see everything and had, in effect, seen everything. He put cotton in his ears. In short, his person altogether provided a perfect model of aristocratic lines, lines thin and delicate, supple and agreeable, which like those of a snake can bend at will, straighten up, become fluid or rigid.

  The Duc de Navarreins was strolling up and down the salon with the Duc de Grandlieu. Both were fifty-five years of age, still healthy, corpulent and short, well fed, with slightly florid complexions, tired eyes, and already drooping lower lips. Without the exquisite tone of their language, without the affable polish of their manners, without their ease that could suddenly become impertinence, a superficial observer might have taken them for bankers. But any such mistake would have to be rectified by listening to their conversation, on guard with those they feared, dry or vapid with their equals, slyly manipulative with their inferiors whom courtiers or statesmen know how to tame by tactful words or to humiliate by an unexpected phrase. Such were the representatives of this great nobility determined to perish rather than submit, who deserved as much praise as blame, and will always be imperfectly judged until some poet comes along to tell how happy they were to obey the king in expiring under Richelieu’s ax, and how they scorned the guillotine of ’89 as a foul revenge.

  These four persons were all distinguished by a reedy voice that was particularly in harmony with their ideas and bearing. Besides, the most perfect equality prevailed among them. The courtier’s habit of hiding their emotions surely prevented any show of displeasure caused by their young relative’s escapade.

  And to prevent critics from condemning the beginning of the next scene as puerile, perhaps we might observe that Locke, finding himself in the company of English lords renowned for their wit, distinguished by their manners rather than by their political consistency, amused himself by jotting down their conversation in some private shorthand; when he read it back to them to see what they could make of it, they all burst out laughing. Truthfully, the clinking jargon that the upper class use in every country, washed in literary and philosophic ashes, yields very little gold. In every rank of society, save in some Parisian salons, the observer finds a same silliness distinguished only by the transparency or opacity of the varnish. Thus serious conversations are the social exception, and Boeotian stupidity is current coin in the various zones of the social world. In the higher regions they must of course talk more, yet they give little thought to it. To think is tiring, and the rich love to see life glide by without great effort. It is by comparing the content of pleasantries by rank, from the Paris street urchin to the peer of France, that the observer understands Monsieur de Talleyrand’s remark that “Manner is everything,” an elegant translation of that judicial axiom: “Form over content.” In the eyes of the poet, the advantage will remain with the lower classes, who never fail to give a rough element of poetry to their thoughts. This observation will perhaps also clarify the inferiority of the salons, their vapidity, their lack of depth, and the disgust superior men feel engaging in the shoddy commerce of exchanging their ideas in this setting.

  The duke suddenly stopped himself, as if he just had a brilliant idea, and said to his neighbor, “So you have sold Thornton?”

  “No, he is ill. I am rather afraid of losing him, and I would feel bereft; he is an excellent hunter. Do you know how the Duchesse de Marigny is faring?”

  “No, I did not go there this morning. I was going out to see her when you came to speak to me about Antoinette. But she was much worse yesterday, they had nearly given up hope, she has been given the sacraments.”

  “Her death will change your cousin’s position.”

  “Not at all. She gave away her property in her lifetime, keeping only an annuity. She made over the Guébriant estate to her niece, Madame de Soulanges, subject to a yearly charge.”

  “It will be a great loss for society. She was a good woman. Her family will have one less person whose advice and experience carried weight. Between us it may be said, she was the head of the house. Her son, Marigny, is an amiable man; he has a sharp wit, he knows how to talk. He is pleasant, very pleasant—oh, when it comes to pleasant, he is certainly that. But . . . no sense of how to behave. Yes, it is extraordinary, he is very acute. The other day he was dining at the Cercle with all that rich set from the Chaussée d’Antin, and your uncle (who always goes there for his card game) saw him. Astonished to meet hi
m there, he asks him if he is part of the Cercle. ‘Yes, I do not go only into society now, I live among bankers.’”

  “Do you know why?” said the marquis, giving the duke a thin smile.

  “He is infatuated with a new bride, that little Madame Keller, the daughter of Gondreville, a woman thought to be very fashionable in that world.”

  “But Antoinette is not wasting her time, it seems,” said the old vidame.

  “The affection I feel for that little woman causes me to take up at the moment a singular pastime,” replied the princess, pocketing her snuffbox.

  “My dear aunt,” said the duke, halting his step, “I am extremely vexed. It was only a man of Bonaparte’s time who could ask such an inappropriate thing of a woman of fashion. Between us, Antoinette might have made a better choice.”

  “My dear,” replied the princess, “the Montriveaus are an old family with powerful connections. They are related to all the highest nobility in Burgundy. If the Arschoot Rivaudoults, from the Dulmen branch of the family, should come to an end in Galicia, the Montriveaus would succeed to the Arschoot properties and titles. They inherit through their great-grandfather.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I know it better than Montriveau’s father did; I used to see a good deal of him and I told him about it. Though a chevalier of several orders, he laughed; he was really an Encyclopedist. But his brother profited nicely from the relationship in the emigration. I have heard it said that his northern relations behaved impeccably toward him—”

  “Yes, certainly. The Comte de Montriveau died in St. Petersburg where I met him,” said the vidame. “He was a big man with an incredible passion for oysters.”

  “How many did he eat at a sitting?” asked the Duc de Grandlieu.

  “Ten dozen every day.”

  “Without discomfort?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “But that is extraordinary! This taste did not give him kidney stones, or gout, or any other complaint?”

  “No, he was in perfect health and died accidentally.”

  “Accidentally! Nature had told him to eat oysters, they were probably necessary to him; for up to a certain point, our dominant tastes are the conditions of our existence.”

  “I am of your opinion,” said the princess, smiling.

  “Madame, you always construe things maliciously,” said the marquis.

  “I only want to make you understand that these things would be very badly construed by a young woman,” she replied. She interrupted herself to say, “But my niece! What about my niece!”

  “Dear aunt, I still refuse to believe that she could have gone to Monsieur de Montriveau’s house.”

  “Nonsense!” replied the princess.

  “What do you think, vidame?” asked the marquis.

  “If the duchess were naïve, I would believe—”

  “But a woman in love becomes naïve, my poor vidame. Are you getting old?”

  “Well, what is to be done?”

  “If my dear niece is wise,” said the princess, “she will go to court this evening, since fortunately this is Monday, the day to be received there. You must see to it that we all rally around her and give the lie to this ridiculous rumor. There are a thousand ways of explaining things, and if the Marquis de Montriveau is a gallant man, he will participate in this effort. We shall make these children listen to reason.”

  “But it is difficult to change Monsieur de Montriveau’s view of the matter. He is one of Bonaparte’s pupils, and he has a position. Why, he is one of the great men of the day, he has an important command in the guard, where he is very useful. He does not have the slightest ambition. At the first word that might displease him, he would say to the king, ‘Here is my resignation, leave me alone.’”

  “What are his opinions, then?”

  “Very disagreeable.”

  “Really,” said the princess, sighing, “the king remains what he has always been, a Jacobin covered with the fleur-de-lis.”

  “Oh, not so bad,” replied the vidame.

  “No, I’ve known him a long time. The man who said to his wife the day of the first state dinner, showing her the court, ‘These are our servants!’ could be only a black-hearted scoundrel. I can see Monsieur, as he once was, in the king, the same as ever. The bad brother who voted so wrongly in his department of the Constituent Assembly surely conspired with the Liberals to let them discuss and argue. This philosophical cant will be just as dangerous for his younger brother as it was for him because I do not know if his successor will manage to pull out of the difficulties created by this large, small-minded man to amuse himself. Besides, he abhors his younger brother and would be happy to tell himself as he lies dying, ‘He will not reign long.’”

  “My aunt, he is the king, I have the honor to be in his service, and—”

  “But my dear, does your charge strip you of your right to speak? You are from as good a noble house as the Bourbons. If the Guises had only possessed a little more resolution, His Majesty would be a poor lord today. It is time I left this world, for the nobility is dead. Yes, all is lost for you, my children,” she said, looking at the vidame. “Should the town really be concerned with my niece’s behavior? She was wrong, I do not approve of it, a useless scandal is a blunder. That is why I still have my doubts about this neglect of appearances, I raised her and I know that—”

  At this moment the duchess come out of her boudoir. She had recognized her aunt’s voice and heard her pronounce the name of Montriveau. She was in her morning gown, and when she appeared, Monsieur de Grandlieu, who was looking carelessly out the window, saw his daughter’s carriage return without her.

  “My dear girl,” the duke said to her, holding her head and kissing her forehead, “you do not know what is going on, then?”

  “What is happening that is so extraordinary, dear Father?”

  “But all of Paris believes you are at Monsieur de Montriveau’s.”

  “My dear Antoinette, you have not gone out, have you?” said the princess, holding out her hand, which the duchess kissed with respectful affection.

  “No, dear Mother, I have not gone out. And,” she said, turning to greet the vidame and the marquis, “I wanted all of Paris to think I was at Monsieur de Montriveau’s.”

  The duke raised his hands heavenward, clapped them desperately, and crossed his arms. “Surely you know what will result from this mad escapade?”

  The old princess silently straightened up on her heels and was looking at the duchess, who began to blush and lowered her eyes. Madame de Blamont-Chauvry gently drew her closer and said, “Let me kiss you, my little angel.” Then she kissed her on the forehead very affectionately, squeezed her hand, and, smiling, continued: “We are no longer under the rule of the Valois, my dear girl. You have compromised your husband, your standing in society; however, we are going to make everything right.”

  “But my dear aunt, I do not want to make everything right. I want all of Paris to know or say that this morning I was at Monsieur de Montriveau’s. Destroying this belief, false as it is, would hurt me, strange as it may seem.”

  “My girl, so you want to lose yourself and cause suffering to your family?”

  “By sacrificing me to their interests, my father, my family have unintentionally condemned me to irreparable miseries. You can blame me for seeking alleviation, but you must surely sympathize with me.”

  “And you take such trouble to settle your daughters suitably!” murmured the Duc de Navarreins to the vidame.

  “Dear girl,” said the princess, shaking off grains of tobacco that had fallen on her dress, “be happy if you can. We are not talking about interfering with your happiness but about respecting convention. All of you here know that marriage is a defective institution tempered by love. But when you take a lover, is there any need to make your bed on the place du Carrousel? Come now, be reasonable and listen to us.”

  “I am listening.”

  “Madame la duchesse,” said th
e Duc de Grandlieu, “if uncles were duty-bound to look after their nieces, they would have a position in the world; society would owe them honors, rewards, and a salary, just as it does the king’s servants. So I did not come to talk about my nephew but about your interests. Let us perform a little calculation. If you persist in making a scandal, I know the lord and I have no great liking for him. Langeais is rather a miser and to hell with anyone else. He will want a separation from you. He will keep your fortune, leave you poor, and consequently you will be a nobody. The income of a hundred thousand pounds that you have just inherited from your maternal great-aunt will pay for the pleasures of his mistresses, and your hands will be tied, garroted by the law, obliged to say amen to these arrangements.

  “Should Montriveau leave you! My Lord, dear niece, let us remain calm—a man will not abandon you, young and beautiful as you are. However, we have seen so many pretty women left neglected, even among the princesses, that you will allow me to imagine the nearly impossible—as I wish to believe. Well, what will happen to you without a husband? Take care of your husband just as you care for your beauty, which is after all a woman’s insurance as much as a husband. I am assuming that you will always be happy and loved; I am not considering any unhappy event. This being so, fortunately or unfortunately, you may have children. What will you do about them? Make them Montriveaus? Well, they will never inherit their father’s entire fortune. You will want to give them all you have; he will wish to do the same. My Lord, nothing is more natural. You will find the law against you. How many suits have we seen brought by the legitimate heirs against love children! I hear about it in every court of law in the world. Will you have recourse to some fideicommissum? If the person in whom you put your trust wrongs you, truly human justice will know nothing about it. But your children will be ruined.