Balzac

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At this moment, the affair of the /Chronique/ was being liquidated;
and then Madame Bechet, his late publisher, was dunning him for some
arrears of copy that he owed her. His brother Henry, too, going from
bad to worse, was in a position that necessitated Madame de Balzac's
giving up the remnants of her capital; and, to crown all, a son of
Laurence, the dead sister, quitting an unhappy home, was living as a
vagabond on the streets of Paris, whence he had to be rescued. Since,
to these worries and griefs, there was added certain disquieting news
from Eve, whose aunt, from reading some of his books, supposed him to
be a gambler and debauchee and was trying to turn her niece against
him, it was not astonishing that he should have been completely
unnerved. While at Sache, where he had come to stay with some friends,
the de Margonnes, in order to terminate the work he was obliged to do
for Madame Bechet, he had an attack of apoplexy; and, on recovering
from it, was glad to seize an opportunity offered him of a journey to
Italy to escape for a while from the scene of his toiling and moiling
and to have a radical change. His good genius on this occasion was the
Count Visconti, who, having some legal business of a litigious nature
to settle at Turin and not being able to attend to it personally,
asked him to go instead. On this trip he was accompanied by Madame
Marbouty, a woman of letters, better known under her pseudonym, Claire
Brunne, whose acquaintance he had made some years back at Angouleme.
Madame Marbouty's exterior had much in common with that of George
Sand, and the resemblance between the two women gave rise to the
report that it was the authoress of /Indiana/ who accompanied Balzac
to Italy at this date.

The journey back to Paris was effected through Switzerland, which
enabled him to see Geneva again, though under less agreeable auspices
than those of 1833. His prospects on returning to France were no
better than when he left. Indeed, they were worse, for Werdet's bad
circumstances forced him to pledge himself in several quarters in
order to raise some ready money for his immediate wants; and, being
pledged, he was bound to produce at high pressure. His /Old Maid/,
which he sold to the /Presse/ for eight thousand francs, was written
in three nights, /Facino Cane/, in one night, and the /Secret of the
Ruggieri/, in one night also. Rossini, happening to meet him during
this spell of drudgery, condoled with him and remarked that he himself
had gone through the mill.

"But when I did it," he added, "I was dead after a fortnight, and it
took me another fifteen days to revive."

"Well!" replied Balzac, "I have only the coffin in view as a rest; yet
work is a fine shroud."

Casting round for a means to free himself from a position that had
grown intolerable, he was induced to lend himself to a scheme
suggested by Chateaubriand's example. Chateaubriand, having fallen
into financial straits, sold his pen to a syndicate, in return for an
annual stipend. Balzac did something of the same kind. Victor Bohain,
who played an intermediary role in the affair, discovered
Chateaubriand's capitalist; and a company was formed which paid the
novelist fifty thousand francs down to relieve his most pressing
needs; and further engaged to allow him fifteen hundred francs a month
for the first year, three thousand francs a month for the second year,
and, afterwards, four thousand francs a month up to the fifteenth
year, when the agreement was to come to an end. In return for these
sums, Balzac promised to furnish a fixed number of volumes per year,
half profits in which were to be his, after all publishing expenses
were paid. The arrangement was signed on the 19th of November 1836;
and this date, in so far as the general quality of his writing is
concerned, marks a beginning of decadence. Thenceforward his fiction,
published mostly in political dailies first of all--the /Presse/, the
/Constitutionnel/, the /Siecle/, the /Debats/, the /Messager/--had to
be composed hurriedly and without the corrections which were the /sine
qua non/ of Balzac's excellence; and consequently it contained many
imperfections inherent in such kinds of literary work. There was irony
in the situation. Hitherto, he had despised the daily press and the
journalists that supplied it with matter, chiefly, it must be
confessed, because of the slatings he had received through these
organs of information; and he had revenged himself for the attacks by
pillorying the journalistic profession in his novels. Lousteau, Finot,
Blondet, and other members of the press appear in his pages as
unprincipled men, only too willing to sell themselves to the highest
bidder. Of course, such retaliation carried with it injustice; and men
of high principle, like Jules Janin, resented this prejudiced
condemnation of a class for no better reason than its having black
sheep, which existed in every circle, trade and profession. Now, Janin
had an easy task in convicting of inconsistency an accuser who, since
it suited his purpose, was fain to belong to the press brotherhood.
The real derogation, however, was not in Balzac's turning
/feuilletoniste/, but in his slipping into the manner and his adopting
the artifices that he blamed so unsparingly in Eugene Sue and
Alexandre Dumas. Not to speak of his falling off in accurate
observation, he inserted more and more padding in his fiction; the
aridly didactic encroached upon the artist's creation; and, to make
the arid portions go down with his readers, he spiced them with
exciting episodes and all the stage tricks common in the serial story.
To tell the truth, he had never quite shaken off his juvenile manner
of the /Heiress of Birague/, which reasserted itself so much the more
easily as his essentially vulgar temperament was ready to crop out on
the slightest encouragement afforded to it. During his best period he
had a mentor at his elbow in Charles Lemesle, who always read what he
wrote before it went to the printer; and Balzac, though vain, was too
intelligent not to avail himself of this friend's pruning. Under the
new /regime/ the revising was impossible, and, as a result, that
difficult perfection which he had so perseveringly sought was destined
to be attained but rarely in the rest of his achievement.

CHAPTER VIII

LETTERS TO "THE STRANGER," 1837, 1838

By the agreement which farmed out Balzac's future production, Werdet
was implicitly sacrificed. The final breach did not occur until the
middle of 1837, but no fresh book was given him after the November of
1836. There was one unpublished manuscript that he then had in his
possession--the first part of /Lost Illusions/, and this appeared in
the following spring. The novelist was intending at the time to bring
out a new edition of the /Country Doctor/, of which Werdet held the
rights. His idea was to present it for the Montyon prize of the
Academy, and, if successful, to devote the money to raising a statue
at Chinon in memory of Rabelais. Lemesle was one Sunday at Werdet's
place, engaged in revising the book, when Balzac arrived in an excited
state of mind, and sprang on the astonished publisher the demand that
their respective positions should be legally specified in writing, and
a clean sweep made which should leave him perfectly free. Previously
their business relations had been carried on by verbal understandings,
which, as a matter of fact, did not bind the novelist overmuch, since
he never sold either a first or a subsequent edition of any of his
novels for more than a comparatively short period--usually a year--at
the end of which he recovered his entire liberty, whether the edition
were exhausted or not. Werdet acquiesced, though grievously offended
and disappointed; but asked that certain accounts outstanding from the
year before should be settled on the same occasion. The promise was
given, and everything was put straight, except the reimbursement of
the money Werdet had advanced. Instead of acquitting this debt, the
ingenious author endeavoured to squeeze a little more cash out of his
long-suffering publisher. For once, Werdet lost his temper, and sent
the great man off with a flea in his ear. It would almost look as if
Balzac had provoked the quarrel, since, on the very evening after the
tiff, he returned to Werdet's and offered to redeem all existing
copyrights that the publisher held for the price of sixty-three
thousand francs. His proposal was accepted, and Bethune, who was
acting on behalf of the novelist's syndicate, paid over the amount.

The transaction was the best possible for Werdet, who was too poor to
continue playing Maecenas to his Horace. Against such incurable
improvidence, and such little regard for strict equity in money
dealings, nothing but the impersonality of a syndicate could stand.
Nevertheless, one cannot help regretting that the intercourse of the
two men should have ceased. Having so great a personal regard for his
hero, and having besides his share of the observant faculty, Werdet,
could have supplied us with biographical details of the last twelve
years of the novelist's life much more interesting than those of
Gozlan, Gautier, and Lemer. His naive narrations, which are well
composed and have humour, carry with them a conviction of their
sincerity, whatever the errors of chronology.

Werdet's prosperity finished with Balzac as it had commenced with him.
He was ultimately compelled to file his petition in bankruptcy, and,
abandoning business on his own account, to take up travelling for
other firms. His creditors were not tender towards the novelist, and
used to the utmost the lien they had upon the few unterminated
engagements that involved him in the liquidation. A letter addressed
by Balzac to the Marquis de Belloy, his former secretary, testifies to
the annoyance the creditors caused him:--

"MY DEAR CARDINAL" (he wrote, calling the Marquis by a nickname),--
"Your old Mar" (a familiar appellation applied to Balzac by his
friends) "would like to know if you are at Poissy, as it is
possible he may come and request you to hide him. There is a
warrant out against him on Werdet's account, and his counsellors
recommend him to take flight, seeing that the conflict between him
and the officers of the Commercial Tribunal is begun. If you are
still at Poissy, a room, concealment, bread and water, together
with salad, and a pound of mutton, a bottle of ink, and a bed,
such are the needs of him who is condemned to the hardest of hard
literary labour, and who is yours.

"LE MAR."

The last occasion on which Werdet forgathered with his favourite
author was at his house in the Rue de Seine, where, in February 1837,
he gave a dinner. Some young members of the fair sex were present; and
Balzac, whether to produce a greater impression upon these or because
he had been making some society calls, arrived nearly an hour late.
Nothing very special occurred during the evening, but the /soiree/ had
its conclusion disturbed by a thunderbolt. On rising to depart, Balzac
sought his wonderful stick--an inseparable companion--which was
nowhere to be found. Every nook was explored without result. The great
man yielded to a veritable fit of despair. A suspicion crossed his
mind: "Enough of this trick, gentlemen," he cried to the male guests.
"For Heaven's sake, restore me my stick. I implore you!" and he tore
at his long hair in vexation. But the guests assured him they were as
ignorant as himself of the stick's whereabouts. Werdet then said he
would take a cab and inquire at all the places the novelist had
visited in the course of the afternoon. Two hours later he came back,
announcing that his jaunt had been useless. At this news, Balzac
fainted outright. The loss of his talisman was overwhelming. When he
was brought round again, Werdet suggested what ought to have been
suggested in the first instance, namely, that they should proceed to
the livery stables and see whether the stick had been left in the
carriage which the novelist had used while on his peregrinations. The
proposal was jumped at. He went thither, accompanied by Werdet, and
had the ineffable joy of discovering the missing bauble quietly
reposing in a corner of the vehicle.

During the year of 1836, he had had the unique experience of
corresponding for some months continuously with an unknown lady, who
called herself Louise, and to whom, in remembrance of their epistolary
intercourse, he dedicated his short tale /Facino Cane/. Whether he
really had the opportunity of learning who she was--as he asserted--
and refrained from availing himself of it through deference to her
wishes, is doubtful. Some, if not all, of the letters he received from
"Louise" were written in English; and at least one water-colour
painting was sent him which had been executed by the lady's own hand.
From the tone of his own epistles, which grew warmer onwards till the
end, one may conjecture that the dame was a second Madame Hanska,
smitten with the novelist's person through reading his works; and
Balzac, whose heart was made of inflammable stuff and whose brain was
always castle-building, indulged for a time the hope of meeting with
another ideal princess to espouse. Like the Orientals, he was quite
capable of nourishing sentiments of devotion towards as many beautiful
and fortuned women as showed themselves amenable. The sudden cessation
of Louise's letters, towards the end of 1836, freed him from the risk
of Eve's learning of these divided attentions; and it may be presumed
that the latter divinity was kept in ignorance of his worshipping
elsewhere.

/Facino Cane/ was a blind old violinist who encountered Balzac, if
there is any truth in the story, one evening at a restaurant where he
was playing for the members of a wedding-party. Something in the old
man's dignified aspect moved the novelist deeply, and, accosting him,
Balzac drew forth gradually the narration of his life. Facino was, in
reality, a Venetian nobleman, at present reduced to dire poverty and
obliged to dwell in the Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts.[*] In his youth
he had been imprisoned within the Doge's Palace, and, while there, had
accidentally come upon the secret treasures it contained. After his
escape from confinement, his dream had been to meet with some one who
would help him to gain possession of this wealth, without taking
advantage of his blindness. And now he confided his plan to Balzac
with undiminished faith in the possibility of its accomplishment. The
pathos of the old man's situation is created with sober touches. Among
the novelist's minor tales, this is one of the simplest and best.

[*] Hospital founded by Saint Louis for three hundred noblemen whose
sight had been destroyed by the Saracens.

In his reminiscences, Theophile Gautier mentions, apropos of /Facino
Cane/, that Balzac himself was persuaded he knew the exact spot, near
the Pointe-a-Pitre, where Toussaint Louverture, the black dictator of
Santo Domingo, had his booty buried by negroes of that island, whom he
then shot. To Sandeau and Gautier the novelist explained, with such
eloquence and precision, his scheme for obtaining the interred wealth
that they were wrought up to the point of declaring themselves ready
to set out, armed with pick-axe and spade, and to put into action
Edgar Allen Poe's yarn of the /Gold Bug/. When money was the theme,
Balzac's tongue was infinitely persuasive.

One is tempted to wonder whether his returning to Italy in the spring
of 1837, and his visit to Venice, after Florence and Milan, were not
an indirect consequence of his /Facino Cane/ story. It is certain that
he regarded the ancient land of the Caesars as a possible El Dorado;
and, curiously enough, he came back this time, if not with Sindbad's
diamonds, yet with some prospect of becoming a Silver King. Throughout
the remainder of the twelvemonth, a plan, connected with this
prospect, was simmering in his head, a plan which, we shall see, was
less chimerical than most of those that he concocted.

While he was at Milan, the Italian sculptor Puttinati modelled his
bust, which pleased him so much that he gave him a order for a group
representing /Seraphita/ showing the path heavenward to Wilfrid and
Minna. At Venice, he began /Massimilla Doni/, one of his philosophic
novels, in which the love episode is interwoven with mysticism and
music, and Rossini's /Mose/ is analysed with skill. His best
production of the year was /Cesar Birotteau/. The subject he had borne
in his mind for a long while, but had feared to start on it on account
of the difficulty of treating it imaginatively. At last, tempted by an
offer of twenty thousand francs if he would complete it by a fixed
date, he sat down to the task and wrote the novel in three weeks.

The /Grandeur/ (or /Rise/) /and Fall of Cesar Birotteau/, to give the
book its fuller title, has neither plot nor progress of love-passion.
Its value--which is great--is almost entirely dependent on a number of
little things that make up an imposing whole. The subject is a
commonplace one. Birotteau, who is a dealer in perfumes, and has
invented a Sultana cosmetic and a Carminative Water, has reached a
position of influence and substance. Urged by his wife's desire to
shine in society, he allows himself to be inveigled into an
expenditure that compromises his fortune and reduces him to
insolvency. Although retaining the esteem of his fellow-citizens, who
are convinced of his integrity, Cesar is stricken to the heart, less
by the loss of his money than by his failure to meet his engagements.
In vain, his wife and daughter hire themselves out in order to aid in
remedying the disaster for which they are largely responsible. In
vain, friends rally round him, until, little by little, the debts are
paid, the perfumer is rehabilitated, and is honoured even by the King.
On the very evening when, in the society of his family and friends and
his daughter's betrothed, he regains the feeling of independence and
freedom, death overtakes him. Joy succeeding to the strain is too much
for him.

In the background of the novel is a tableau of the Restoration epoch
which is admirable; and the intricacies of finance and law, which form
so considerable a part of the story, are handled with an ease and
fancy that no other writer of fiction has quite equalled. We have a
romance of ledgers and day-books, in a business atmosphere that
amazingly well reveals the bent and moral worth of the various
characters. Cesarine, Villerault, Popinot have traits which one smiles
to recognize. And Birotteau's development both of qualities and
foibles is free from caricature, yet pleases much.

As was the case with /Eugenie Grandet/, Balzac does not seem to have
cared for this masterpiece. The rapidity with which he composed it,
and the fatigue he had undergone, caused him to regard it with some
irritation. He did not realize that it was all elaborated in his brain
before he put in on paper. Probably also he spoke of it under the
disappointment he experienced from his continued failures in play-
writing. Twice, during the twelvemonth, he tackled pieces which he
described to Madame Hanska. One of them, the /Premiere Demoiselle/,
refashioned as the /School for Husbands and Wives/, treated the
unsavoury theme of an adulterous husband who keeps his mistress in his
own house; and the other, /Joseph Prudhomme/, much better in
conception, dealt with the not uncommon incident of a girl's making a
respectable marriage after a first betrayal, and her bringing up in
secret the child born out of wedlock. Certain situations arising from
the plot were both original and affecting. But in neither undertaking
did he manage to go on to the end. Heine, whom he consulted in his
difficulties, advised him to abandon further efforts in writing for
the stage. "You had better remain in your galleys," he said. "Those
who are used to Brest cannot accustom themselves to Toulon."

The advice was not palatable to a man of his temperament. He wanted
all domains to open before him; and poured out his soul in
lamentations, even while exhausting himself in fresh attempts. Now
that Madame de Berny was dead, his Eve was the chief recipient of
these jeremiads. "Are you not tired of hearing me vary my song in all
moods?" he asked her. "Does not this unceasing egotism of a man
struggling in a narrow circle bore you? Tell me, for, by your letter,
you appear to me inclined to throw me over as a sorry pauper that
knows only his /paternoster/, and always says the same thing."

To him, as to ambitious men in every century, reflection came now and
again, whispering what folly it was to spend life in the sole pursuit
of glory. Just now the whisperings must have been more insistent, for
he had thoughts of going to live in some sylvan retreat on the banks
of the Cher or the Loire, right away from Paris. A visit to Sache,
after an illness, afforded him the excuse for searching; and, as he
still proposed to write--for his pleasure,--it was congruent he should
meditate a sort of Heloise and Abelard idyll--two lovers drawn to the
cloister, and telling in epistles to each other the history of their
vocation.[*]

[*] This novel was never written, or at least completed. The /Sister
Marie des Anges/, so often spoken of in the novelist's
correspondence, may have been the one here alluded to.

As a preliminary step towards carrying his determination into
execution, he dismissed his servants, with the exception of Auguste,
finally got rid of his lease in the Rue Cassini, whence he had removed
his furniture in the preceding year; and then, feeling still a
sneaking kindness for the city in which he had triumphed, he
compromised by retreating to Sevres, there to study the ways and means
of dwelling secure from pestering military summonses addressed to
Monsieur de Balzac, /alias/ Madame Widow Brunet, Man of Letters,
Chasseur in the First Legion, and also, if not secure from, at least
not so accessible to the calls of dunning creditors. The flat in the
Rue de Chaillot, however, was retained till the year 1839; and, from
time to time, he made short stays in it. But, in case any of his
friends wished to see him during these sojourns, they needed to know
the pass-words, which were not infrequently changed. On arriving at
the outside door, the visitor must announce, for instance, that the
seasons of plums had arrived. Then, if he could further announce that
he was bringing lace from Belgium, he would be permitted to enter.
But, before it was lawful for him to cross the threshold of the
novelist's sanctum, he must be prepared to state that Madame Bertrand
was in good health.

At Sevres, Balzac soon hit upon a site that pleased his fancy. It was
a plot of land on a steep slope, about forty perches in area.[*] This
he bought by using his credit, and forthwith busied himself with
builder's estimates, since he intended to have his hermitage
inhabitable some time in the following spring.

[*] More land was subsequently bought.

Meanwhile his project of retiring--to a distance of twenty minutes--
from Paris society did not hinder him from occasionally putting in an
appearance at one or another of the aristocratic houses where he had
his entries, among them that of Madame de Castries, whom he continued
to see, although she confined her worship to his talent, and merely
patronized the man. Either from sheer mischievousness, or to revenge
herself for some real or fancied slight--perhaps, indeed, to mock at
his talk of refinement--she perpetrated upon him the practical joke of
getting her Irish governess, a Miss Patrickson, to send him notes in
English, signed Lady Neville, in one of which an appointment was made
to meet him at the Opera. He went to the rendezvous; but no one was
there waiting for him. This drew from him a sharp letter of reproach;
and Miss Patrickson, who was, in her private life, a humble admirer of
the great man, and had on one or two occasions translated some of his
fiction, was so smitten with remorse for her trick that she revealed
to him the name of the one who had invented it.

Les Jardies, where Balzac had decided to take up his residence, was
built on the further side of the hill of Saint Cloud, facing the
south, and with Ville d'Avray to the west. In front, there was the
rising ground of the forest of Versailles; to the east, the outlook
was down on Sevres and, beyond it, on Paris, with the city's smoky
atmosphere fringing the uplands of Meudon and Bellevue. In the
direction of these last places, a glimpse was obtainable of the plains
of Montrouge and the road leading away to Tours. In summer weather
especially, the landscape here presented charming contrasts, being a
wealth of woodland and verdure in a miniature Switzerland.

The architecture of the would-be hermit's house was rather primitive.
Three rooms, one over another, composed the main building. The ground
floor served as drawing-room; above it was the anchoret's bedroom; and
the top story was used as a study. Sixty feet away, rose a second
building containing kitchens, stables, and servants' rooms. The whole
stood in its own grounds, fenced in with walls, half of which, being
situated on the steepest portion of the declivity, persisted in
tumbling. One curious feature of the house was its outside staircase.
Wags pretended that the owner had forgotten it in his plans, and been
obliged to add it as an after-thought. The truth was that an inside
staircase would have compelled him to build with less simplicity.
"Since the staircase wants to be master in my dwelling, I will turn it
out of doors," he said. And this was done, the said staircase being a
sort of broad ladder.

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