Lost Illusions

by Honoré de Balzac

  Ah! this alcalde’s daughter makes you drool with love and arouses wicked thoughts. You want to leap on to the stage to offer her your heart and your hearth, or maybe an income of thirty thousand francs and your pen. This Andalusian is the loveliest actress in Paris. Coralie, since that’s the name she goes by, is capable of playing the countess or the shop-girl. There’s no knowing in which part she would be more attractive. She will be what she wants to be. She has it in her to play any part: is not that the best thing one can say of any actress in the boulevard theatres?

  In the second act a Spanish girl arrives from Paris with her cameo face and bewitching eyes. I asked a question in my turn: where did she come from? I was told she had come from the slips and that her name was Florine; but really I couldn’t believe it, there was so much fire in her movements and so much fury in her love. This rival of the alcalde’s daughter is the wife of a hidalgo in a cloak cut to Almaviva’s style, with enough material in it to clothe a hundred hidalgos of the boulevard theatres. If Florine had neither red stockings with green clocks nor patent shoes, she had a mantilla and a veil which she turned to admirable purpose, great lady that she is! She showed wonderfully well that a tigress may turn into a she-cat. I gathered from the stinging repartee of these two girls that there was some drama of jealousy between them. Then, when everything was almost settled, the alcalde’s stupidity threw everything back into confusion. All that world of torches and tapers, valets, Figaros, hidalgos, alcaldes, girls and women began it all anew: searchings, comings, goings and turnings. Then the plot was pieced together again and I left it at that, for the two women, the jealous Florine and the happy Coralie entangled me once more in the folds of their basquines and their mantillas, and I could see nothing but their dainty little feet.

  I was able to get to Act III without making any disturbance, without the police being called in or the audience being scandalized, and from now on I believe in the power of public and religious morality which the Chamber of Deputies worries so much about that you might suppose there’s no morality left in France. I was able to understand that it’s all a matter of one man loving two women without being loved by them, or being loved by them without returning their love, who doesn’t love alcaldes or isn’t loved by alcaldes; but he’s undoubtedly a worthy hidalgo who loves someone, himself – or God as a makeshift, for he becomes a monk. If you want to know more, hurry along to the Panorama-Dramatique.

  ‘You now know quite well that you must go there for the first time in order to get acclimatized to those triumphant red stockings with red clocks, that dainty, promising little foot, those eyes sparkling with sunbeams and the wiles of a Parisienne disguised as an Andalusian or an Andalusian disguised as a Parisienne. Then you must go a second time to enjoy the play: the old man will send you into fits of laughter and the lovelorn hidalgo will bring you to tears. In both respects the play’s a hit. The author, they say, wrote it in collaboration with one of our great poets; he has aimed at success by bringing you a pair of amorous girls, one in each hand, thereby lifting the pit to the seventh heaven of emotional turmoil. The legs of these two young ladies seemed to have more wit than the author. Nevertheless, once these two rivals left the stage, one discovered that the dialogue was scintillating, and that is a convincing proof of the excellence of the play. The author was acclaimed amid a clamour of applause which gave some anxiety to the architect who built the theatre; but the author, who is accustomed to the rumblings of the intoxicated Vesuvius seething under the chandeliers, was not alarmed. His name? Monsieur de Cursy. As for the two actresses, they danced the famous Seville bolero which, in former times, found favour with the Fathers of the Council and which has passed the censor despite the perilous provocations of its postures. This bolero has enough in it to attract all the elderly gentlemen who don’t know what to do with the remnants of their love-life. I am charitable enough to advise them to keep the lenses of their opera-glasses from getting blurred.

  While Lucien was writing these pages, which started a revolution in journalism by the revelation it gave of a new and original style, Lousteau was writing his article, a so-called sketch of manners, entitled The Ex-Beau, which began thus:

  The Empire beau is always a slender and elongated man, well preserved, who wears stays and sports the cross of the Legion of Honour. His name is something like Potelet and, in order to be in with the Court of today, this Imperial beau has awarded himself a du: he is du Potelet, but he may become plain Potelet again in the event of a revolution. He’s also a man who serves two purposes like his name: he pays court to the Faubourg Saint-German after having been the glorious, useful and amiable train-bearer of a sister of the man whom a sense of decorum forbids me to mention. If du Potelet now repudiates the services he rendered to Her Imperial Highness, he still sings the drawing-room ballads of the benefactress with whom he was so closely linked…

  The article consisted of a tissue of personalities in the taste of the time; they were passably stupid, for this kind of literary exercise was later brought to notable perfection, particularly by Le Figaro. It included a clownish parallel between Madame de Bargeton, to whom Baron Châtelet was paying court, and a cuttle-bone: this amused readers without their needing to know the two persons so derided. Châtelet was compared to a heron. The loves of the heron and his inability to swallow the cuttle-fish, which broke into three pieces when he dropped it, provoked irresistible laughter. The same pleasantry was carried on in further articles and created an enormous stir in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and was one of the thousand and one causes for the further severity of the laws passed against the Press.

  One hour later, Blondet, Lousteau and Lucien returned to the salon, where the guests were chatting – the Duke, the German envoy, the four women, the three merchants, the theatre manager, Finot and the three authors. An apprentice printer, wearing his paper cap, had already come to collect the copy for the newspaper.

  ‘The compositors will knock off if I don’t bring them something,’ he said.

  ‘Look, here are ten francs, and tell them to wait,’ Finot replied.

  ‘If I give them that, Monsieur, they’ll take to typsiography, and good-bye to the paper!’

  ‘That lad has appalling good sense,’ said Finot.

  It was while the envoy was predicting a brilliant future for this urchin that the three authors came in. Blondet read out an exceedingly witty article attacking the Romantics. Lousteau’s article raised laughter. The Duc de Rhétoré recommended him to slip in a piece of incidental praise for Madame d’Espard so as not to antagonize the Faubourg Saint-Germain too much.

  ‘And you, read to us what you have written,’ said Finot to Lucien.

  When Lucien, trembling with fear, had finished, the company broke into loud applause, the actresses kissed the neophyte and the three merchants nearly strangled him with their embraces. Du Bruel took him by the hand and a tear came to his eye; finally, the theatre manager invited him to dinner.

  ‘Children have ceased to exist,’ said Blondet. ‘Since Monsieur de Chateaubriand has already applied the epithet enfant sublime to Victor Hugo, I am obliged to tell you quite simply that you are a man of wit, feeling and style.’

  ‘Monsieur de Rubempré is now on the staff of the paper,’ said Finot, thanking Etienne and throwing him the shrewd glance of a man used to exploiting talent.

  ‘What clever things have you written?’ asked Lousteau of Blondet and Du Bruel.

  ‘These are by Du Bruel,’ said Nathan.

  Seeing the amount of attention Monsieur le Vicomte d’A… is receiving from the public, Monsieur le Vicomte Démosthène said yesterday: ‘Perhaps they’ll leave me in peace now.’1

  A lady said to an Ultra who was criticizing Chancellor Pasquier’s speech because it leaned too much to the left: ‘Never mind, he has truly monarchical calves.”2

  ‘If it starts like that,’ said Finot, ‘I don’t need to hear any more. – Hurry along with all that,’ he said to the apprentice. ‘The paper’s a bit patc
hy, but it’s our best number’; and he turned to the group of writers who were already casting looks of sly appraisal at Lucien.

  ‘He has wit, that young fellow,’ said Blondet.

  ‘It’s a good article,’ said Claude Vignon.

  ‘Dinner’s ready!’ shouted Matifat.

  The Duke gave his arm to Florine, Coralie took Lucien’s; the dancer had Blondet on one side and the German envoy on the other.

  18. The supper

  ‘I DON’T understand why you’re attacking Madame de Bargeton and Baron Châtelet; they say he has been made prefect of the Charente and a Master of Requests.’

  ‘Madame de Bargeton got rid of Lucien as if he had been a tramp,’ said Lousteau.

  ‘Such a handsome young man!’ said the envoy.

  The dinner, served in new silver-plate, in Sèvres porcelain on linen damask, was lavishly sumptuous. Chevet had supplied the food and the wines had been chosen by the most famous merchant in the Quai Saint-Bernard, a friend of Camusot, Matifat and Cardot. Thus, for the first time, seeing Parisian luxury in full swing, Lucien met with one surprise after another, but concealed his astonishment like the man of wit, feeling and style he was – according to Blondet’s testimony.

  As they crossed the salon, Coralie had whispered to Florine: ‘Get Camusot so thoroughly drunk that he’ll be forced to sleep in your flat.’

  ‘So you’ve made your journalist?’ asked Florine, using a word from the vocabulary peculiar to women of the street.

  ‘No, my dear, I love him!’ Coralie rejoindered with an enchanting little shrug.

  These words were carried to Lucien’s ears by the fifth of the deadly sins. Coralie was superbly dressed, every detail of her attire artfully setting off her special charms – each woman’s beauty has its own particular perfections. Her dress, like Florine’s, was all the prettier for being made of a delicate material which was then new – silk muslin, the exclusive use of it belonging for a few days to Camusot, whose large orders from Paris, in his capacity as head of the ‘Golden Cocoon’, were a godsend to the Lyon factories. Thus both love and adornment, which are as paint and perfume to a woman, enhanced the happy Coralie’s seductiveness. A pleasure awaited with a feeling of certainty holds a tremendous power of seduction for young people. Perhaps such certainty is what constitutes in their eyes the attraction of evil haunts. Therein perhaps lies the secret of long-lasting fidelity. Pure and sincere love, first love in fact, in conjunction with the impetuous infatuations which assail these poor creatures, also the admiration Coralie felt for Lucien’s great beauty, endowed her with the wit which comes from the heart.

  ‘I should love you even if you were ugly and ill!’ she murmured to Lucien as they sat down to table.

  What words for a poet to hear! Camusot vanished and Lucien no longer saw him when he looked at Coralie. Could a man whose every instinct was for enjoyment and sensation, bored with the monotony of provincial life, drawn into the vortex of Parisian society, weary of poverty, tormented by enforced continence, tired of his monastic seclusion in the rue de Cluny and his unfruitful labours, could such a man have held aloof from this glittering banquet? Lucien had one foot in Coralie’s boudoir and the other caught in the bird-lime of the daily press which he had run after so hard without succeeding in catching up with it. After vainly standing sentry so often in the rue du Sentier, here he found the Press sitting at table, drinking deep, jovial, good-humoured. All his grievances had just been avenged by an article which the very next day would pierce two hearts into which he had vainly sought to pour all the fury and pain with which his cup had been filled. Looking at Lousteau, he thought: ‘There’s a friend!’ without suspecting that Lousteau already feared him as a dangerous rival. Lucien had made the mistake of expending too much wit: a dull article would have served him admirably. Blondet counterbalanced the envy that was gnawing at Lousteau by telling Finot that one had to surrender to such forceful talent. This verdict determined Lousteau’s conduct: he resolved to remain friendly with Lucien and come to an understanding with Finot in order to exploit so dangerous a newcomer by keeping him in a state of need. This decision was rapidly taken by these two men and its significance was fully implied in two muttered phrases:

  ‘He’s a man of talent!’

  ‘He’ll want too much.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Right!’

  ‘I never sup without trepidation with French journalists,’ said the German diplomat, with calm and dignified good nature, as he glanced towards Blondet whom he had met in the Comtesse de Montcornet’s salon. ‘There’s a prophecy of Blucher which it will be your business to fulfil.’

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Nathan.

  ‘When Blucher arrived at the heights of Montmartre with Saacken in 1814 – forgive me, gentlemen, for taking you back to so disastrous a day for you – Saacken, who was a brutal man, said: “And so we are going to burn Paris!” – “Take care you don’t. Down below there is what will be the death of France!” Blucher replied, pointing to the enormous cankerous growth they saw at their feet, fiery and smoke-laden, in the valley of the Seine.’

  ‘I thank God there are no newspapers in my country,’ the minister continued after a pause. ‘I haven’t yet got over my fright at the sight of that little fellow in his paper cap. He’s only ten, but he reasons like a hardened diplomat. And so, this evening, I feel as if I were supping with lions and panthers who are doing me the honour of sheathing their claws.’

  ‘It is clear,’ said Blondet, ‘that we can tell Europe, and prove it, that your Excellency had disgorged a serpent this evening and has only just missed injecting its venom into Tullia, our loveliest dancer. On that theme we could make glosses about Eve, the Bible, the first and the last sin. But have no fear: you’re our guest.’

  ‘It would be quite an amusing thing to do,’ said Finot.

  ‘We could print scientific dissertations on all the serpents found in the human heart and body before they reach the diplomatic corps,’ said Lousteau.

  ‘We could show there’s some sort of a serpent in that jar of brandied cherries,’ said Vernou.

  ‘In the end you’d come to believe it yourself,’ said Vignon to the diplomat.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said the Duc de Rhétoré, ‘don’t unsheathe your claws: they’re so nicely padded at the moment.’

  ‘The influence and power of newspapers are only just dawning,’ said Finot. ‘Journalism is in its infancy; it will grow up. In ten years from now, everything will be subject to publicity. Thought will enlighten the world…’

  ‘It will blast the world,’ said Blondet, interrupting Finot.

  ‘That’s saying something,’ said Claude Vignon.

  ‘It will bring forth kings,’ said Lousteau.

  ‘And bring down monarchies,’ said the diplomat.

  ‘Therefore,’ said Blondet, ‘if the Press didn’t exist, it would be folly to invent it. But it’s here, and we live on it!’

  ‘You’ll die of it,’ said the diplomat. ‘Don’t you see that the superiority of the masses, supposing that you were to enlighten them, will make it difficult for the individual to achieve greatness? By sowing the seeds of argument in the minds of the lower classes you’ll reap a harvest of revolt, and you will be its first victims? What do they smash in Paris when there’s a riot?’

  ‘Street-lamps,’ said Nathan. ‘But we are too modest to have any apprehensions: we shall only get a few slight cracks.’

  ‘The French are too intelligent to let any kind of government get firmly into the saddle,’ said the diplomat. ‘Otherwise you would start conquering Europe all over again; a conquest which you were unable to maintain with your swords.’

  ‘Newspapers are an evil,’ said Claude Vignon. ‘An evil which could be utilized, but the Government wants to fight it. There’ll be a conflict. Who will go under? That’s the question.’

  ‘The Government,’ said Blondet. ‘I’m shouting myself hoarse saying this. In France wit is a most potent weapon, and the pa
pers have not only all the wit which witty men have, but the hypocrisy of Tartuffe into the bargain.’

  ‘Blondet! Blondet!’ said Finot. ‘You’re going too far. Some of our subscribers are present.’

  ‘You’re the owner of one of those poison warehouses. No doubt you’re afraid; but I don’t care a rap for any of your news-shops although I make my living by them.’

  ‘Blondet is right,’ said Claude Vignon. ‘Instead of being a priestly function, the newspaper has become a political party weapon; now it is becoming merely a trade; and like all trades it has neither faith nor principles. Every newspaper is, as Blondet says, a shop which sells to the public whatever shades of opinion it wants. If there were a journal for hunchbacks it would prove night and morning how handsome, how good-natured, how necessary hunchbacks are. A journal is no longer concerned to enlighten, but to flatter public opinion. Consequently, in due course, all journals will be treacherous, hypocritical, infamous, mendacious, murderous; they’ll kill ideas, systems and men, and thrive on it. They’ll be in the happy position of all abstract creations: wrong will be done without anybody being guilty. I shall be Vignon, you will be Lousteau, you Blondet, you Finot: a bunch of Aristides, Platos, Catos, disciples of Plutarch. We shall all be innocent, we shall all be able to wash our hands of all infamy. Napoleon gave the explanation of this phenomenon – moral or immoral, whichever you like – in a superb aphorism dictated to him by his study of the Convention: In corporate crimes no one is implicated. A newspaper can behave in the most atrocious manner and no one on the staff considers that his own hands are soiled.’