Balzac

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CHAPTER XIII

LAST YEARS: MARRIAGE AND DEATH

It is time something was said now about Balzac's last dramatic
compositions. Since the Gaite fiasco, in 1843, no other theatre had
been brought up to the point of producing a further piece from his
pen, although several negotiations were opened respecting plays
supposed to be well in hand. In 1844, there was his comedy /Prudhomme
en Bonne Fortune/, which the Gymnase had some thoughts of staging.
Poirson, the manager, whom the author met one day in an omnibus, was
enchanted with the idea, and proposed help even on most advantageous
terms. The rehearsals were fixed for March, and the first performance
for May; but, for some reason that we do not learn, the execution of
the project was abandoned. Probably it was the burden of unfinished
novels and a lurking desire to go on with /Mercadet/, which was lying
still in its unachieved state.

Twelve months later, /Mercadet/ appears to have received the last
touches, and to be awaiting only an opportunity for its
representation. But Frederick Lemaitre, who was to assume the chief
role, had previous engagements that monopolized him; so Balzac,
meanwhile, turned again to a subject he had often toyed with, /Richard
the Sponge-Heart/, the name recalling that of Richard the Lion-Heart,
without there being the least analogy between the Norman king and the
hero of the play. In each preceding attempt, the author had stopped
short at the end of the first act, and, on recommencing, had produced
a different version. The hero was a joiner, living in the Faubourg
Saint-Antoine, whose habitual drunkenness had procured him his
nickname. Had it been developed, the piece would no doubt have been a
popular drama, on the lines subsequently followed by Zola's
/Assommoir/. There was talk of performing it at the Varietes in 1845;
the year, however, slipped away, and it was not forthcoming. Dining
with Gautier in December, at the house of Madame de Girardin, Balzac
agreed with Theophile to go on with the drama in collaboration as soon
as the theatres should have worked off some of their stock. Evidently,
this was not done. However, Monsieur Henri Lecomte, in his /Life of
Frederick Lemaitre/, affirms that Balzac did terminate /Richard the
Sponge-Heart/, and that it was handed to Frederick to study. Then,
some months afterwards, being in want of money, he asked the actor to
take it to the publisher, Paulin, and obtain an advance of a thousand
francs on it. If Paulin had it, he must either have mislaid or
destroyed it, for, from this date, all traces of it were lost; and,
to-day, a few fragments alone remain in Monsieur de Lovenjoul's
collection.

In 1846, vague mention was made in the correspondence with Madame
Hanska of a military farce called the /Trainards/ or /Laggards/.
However, nothing came of it. But in August 1847, after the publication
of /Cousin Pons/, the novelist paid a visit to Monsieur Hostein,
manager of the Theatre Historique, which had been inaugurated in the
preceding February. On this stage, which was subsequently transformed
into the Theatre Lyrique, and later demolished to make room for the
Boulevard of the Prince Eugene, several pieces of Alexandre Dumas had
just been played in succession; and Balzac said to himself that he
would have a better chance of meeting with appreciative audiences in
these new premises. Monsieur Hostein relates in his /Reminiscences/
that the novelist, calling on him one day at his Bougival country-
residence, went out and sat with him by the river-side, and there
explained that he wished to write a great historic drama entitled
/Peter and Catherine (of Russia)/. Asked for an outline of it, Balzac
tapped his forehead and said: "It is all there. I have only to write.
The first tableau can be rehearsed the day after to-morrow."

"We are," he continued, "in a Russian inn, with many people running in
and out, since troops are passing through the place.

"One of the servants is a lively girl. Pay attention to her. She is
not beautiful, but attractive! And the visitors notice her, and joke
with her. She smiles at every one; but those who go too far in gesture
or language soon discover they have made a mistake.

"All at once, a soldier enters, bolder than the rest. He gets the girl
to sit down with him, and wants to clink glasses with her. On the
innkeeper's objecting, he rises in a rage, thumps the table with his
fist, and cries: 'Let no one oppose my will, or I will set fire to the
inn.'

"The innkeeper orders the girl to obey, for the troops are everywhere,
and the peasant is alarmed. Sitting down again, the soldier drinks
with the girl, tells her she shall be happy with him, and promises her
a finer home than she has.

"But while they are talking, a door opens at the back, and an officer
appears. Those present rise with respect, except the girl and her
companion. Approaching them, the officer lays his hand heavily on the
soldier's arm, and says: 'Stand up, fellow. Go to the counter, and
write your name and that of your regiment, and hold yourself at my
orders.'

"The soldier stands up automatically, obeys, and, having presented the
paper, retires.

"Then the officer sits down and flirts with the girl, who accepts his
compliments.

"But now a stranger shows himself at the door. He is clad in a big
cloak. At the sight of him, men and women fall on their knees, except
the officer, who is too agreeably occupied to notice the new arrival.
In a moment of enthusiasm, he says to the girl: 'You are divine. I
will take you with me. You shall have a fine house, where it is warm.'

"Just then, the man in the cloak draws near. The officer recognizes
him, turns pale, and bows down, uttering: 'Oh, pardon, sire!'

"'Stand up,' orders the master, meantime examining the servant, who,
on her side, looks without trembling at the all-powerful Czar.

"'You may withdraw,' the latter tells the officer. 'I will keep this
woman, and give her a palace.'

"Thus met for the first time Peter I and she who became Catherine of
Russia."

Having given this prologue, Balzac went on to speak of the staging of
his play, which he promised to arrange in accordance with what he knew
of the country's scenery and customs, Russia being, from an artistic
point of view, admirable to exhibit theatrically. Monsieur Hostein was
quite gained over by the prospect of something so novel; and Balzac,
paying him a second call, some few days later, pledged himself to
start for Kiew and Moscow very shortly, and, from there, to go to
Wierzchownia and finish his drama. The journey to Russia was made; and
Balzac, in due course, returned, but he did not bring with him the
denouement of /Peter and Catherine/.

Not that his mind was less preoccupied with the drama. On the
contrary, Champfleury, who went to see him in the Rue Fortunee, soon
after his arrival in Paris, found him more bent on writing for the
stage than ever. One idea of his now was to create a /feerie/, or sort
of pantomime, sparkling throughout with wit. Another was to form an
association for dramatic authors of standing (himself naturally
included), not to defend their interests, but to get them to work in
common, and to keep thus the various Paris theatres provided with
their work. It was a /trust/ scheme before the era of trusts. If the
thing were managed, they might renew the miracles of those
indefatigable and marvellous Spanish playwrights--Calderon, who
composed between twelve and fifteen hundred pieces, Lope de Vega, who
composed more than two thousand. However, he feared that many of his
colleagues might not care to fall in with his suggestions. "They are
idlers, donkeys," he added. "There is only one worker among them, and
that is Scribe. But what a piece of literature his /Memoirs of a
Hussar Colonel/ is!"

Another visitor to the Rue Fortunee in February 1848 was Monsieur
Hostein, to whom the novelist had offered for the spring a piece that
should replace /Peter and Catherine/. This time the manuscript was
ready. It lay on the table, bearing on its first page the title,
/Gertrude, a Bourgeois Tragedy/. The piece was a five-act one, in
prose. A couple of days later, actors and actresses were assembled in
Balzac's drawing-room. Madame Dorval pursed her lips at the words,
/Gertrude, tragedy/. "Don't interrupt," cried the author, laughing.
However, after the reading of the second act they had to interrupt.
The play was overloaded with detail. A good deal of pruning was
effected, together with a change in title, before the first
performance on the 25th of May; and more excisions might have been
made with advantage. Alterations less beneficial were those introduced
into the cast, Madame Dorval being eliminated in favour of Madame
Lacressonniere. This lady was a much poorer actress, but was a
/persona grata/ with Monsieur Hostein. Both public and critics
accorded Balzac's new effort a very fair reception, notwithstanding
the mediocrity of the acting and the peculiar circumstances under
which it was produced, just as the Revolution storm was breaking out.

The /Maratre/, or /Stepmother/, as the piece was called when staged,
presents the home of a Count de Grandchamp, who, after being a general
under the First Empire, has turned manufacturer under the restoration.
He has a grown-up daughter, Pauline, and a second wife named Gertrude,
the latter still a young, handsome woman, with a ten-year-old son, the
little Napoleon. Though they are outwardly on good terms, the
stepmother and stepdaughter nevertheless hate each other. They are in
love with the same man, Ferdinand, the manager of the general's works.
On this hatred the entire interest of the play turns. Ferdinand really
loves Pauline; but he has formerly been engaged to Gertrude, who
jilted him to marry the general, and this fact somewhat embarrasses
him in his wooing. Moreover, his father was an officer under the
Revolution Government, and, if the general should learn that, it would
ruin his chances of obtaining the old gentleman's consent. The plot
arising out of these relations is, at first, cleverly dealt with by
the author, who involves matters further by a second suitor for
Pauline, to whom Gertrude tries to marry her, in order that she
herself may regain Ferdinand's affection. In the second act, a word-
duel is fought between the two women, during a whist-party, each
seeking to surprise the opponent's true sentiments towards Ferdinand.
This scene is exceedingly original; and, subsequently, a bold
employment is made by the author of the /enfant terrible/--the young
Napoleon--for the purpose of helping on the unravelling of the plot.
The concluding portion of the piece and its sombre tragedy--the deaths
of Pauline and Ferdinand--is heavier in dialogue and cumbrous in
construction, with its officers of justice who supply a useless
episode. One might sum up the /Stepmother/ as a weak ending to a
strong beginning. None the less it shows progress on /Vautrin/ and
/Pamela Giraud/.

A few days after the Revolution, Theodore Cogniard, manager of the
Porte-Saint-Martin Theater, wrote to Balzac and proposed to reproduce
/Vautrin/. Balzac, in replying, referred to Lemaitre's /toupet/, and
explained that, when disguising Vautrin as a Mexican general, he had
in his mind General Murat. He told Cogniard he was willing to allow
the revival, if care were taken against there being any caricature of
the now disposed monarch. The manager agreed, but the performances did
not come off, apparently on account of the disturbed state of the
city. In 1850, an unauthorized revival was put on the stage of the
Gaite, while Balzac was at Dresden. Being informed of it, the novelist
protested in a letter to the /Journal des Debats/, and the piece was
at once withdrawn.

The /Stepmother/ was Balzac's last dramatic composition played during
his lifetime. This was partly his own fault. In the short epoch of the
Second Republic, when neither the Comedie Francaise nor the Odeon, the
two national homes of the drama, were thriving, it was to the
directors' interest to seek out men of talent; and he had overtures
from both theatres. Mauzin of the Odeon even promised him, as he had
promised Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo, a premium of six thousand
francs and a percentage of receipts on any sum over a thousand francs.
Balzac consented to write a tragedy entitled /Richard Sauvage/, and
got as far as--a monologue. With Lockroy of the Theatre Francais also
he made an arrangement for a comedy. There had been talk at first,
both inside and outside the Francais, of a satirical piece called the
/Petty Bourgeois/, but having nothing except the name in common with
his unfinished novel similarly yclept. His motive for not proceeding
with it he set forth to the journalist Hippolyte Rolle, in a letter
published in his correspondence. "Is it on the morrow of a battle," he
wrote, "when the bourgeoisie have so generously shed their blood on
behalf of threatened civilization, and when they are in mourning, that
one can drag them before the footlights?"

The manager, he said, had been pleased to accept in exchange another
comedy which would be soon performed. This comedy was the resuscitated
/Mercadet/, the title of which had been altered to the /Speculator/ in
1847, and the /Jobber/ in 1848. Under the last appellation, it was
read by the Comedie Committee in August, and unanimously approved.
However, between this date and December, Balzac had taken his
departure to Wierzchownia, where he seemed likely to remain for a
while; and, in his absence, the members of the Committee repented of
their bargain. Another solemn sitting was held in December, and an
amended resolution was passed, accepting the /Jobber/ on condition
that certain corrections were made in it. On being apprized of the
proviso, Balzac immediately cancelled his treaty with Lockroy, and
entered into negotiations with Hostein, who professed himself only too
happy to place the Theatre Historique at the author's disposal. Alas!
the same difficulties and worse cropped up here. Hostein wrote that
his public was a boulevard one, much fonder of melodrama than comedy,
and that, if the /Jobber/ were to succeed, it must be completely
modified. Naturally, Balzac refused. He had not withdrawn it from the
first theatre in Paris, which demanded only trifling alterations, to
permit it to be cut up by a theatre of less importance.

Content to wait till a more complaisant director should make overtures
to him, he filled in his leisure at Wierzchownia by inventing the
/King of Beggars/, which he announced to his friend Laurent Jan as an
up-to-date play flattering the all-powerful plebs; and he likewise
sketched a tragedy in which Madame Dorval was to have the chief role.
This was in April, 1849, and, a few weeks later, Madame Dorval was
dead. Only on the 23rd of August 1851, a year after his own death, did
his executors meet with a director, Monsieur Montigny of the Gymnase,
who undertook to stage /Mercadet the Jobber/. Less intransigent than
Balzac, the executors allowed its five acts to be reduced to three,
and a considerable amount of suppression and remodelling to be
operated by a professional playwright, Adolphe Dennery. Performed with
these concessions to theatrical requirements and popular taste, and
with Geoffroy in the chief role, failing Lemaitre and Regnier,
/Mercadet/ pleased the public greatly, too greatly for some bull and
bear habitues of the Bourse, who feared that their pockets might
suffer. Owing to their complaints, the Minister for the Interior
temporarily suspended the representations, basing his interdiction on
the ground that expressions struck out by the Censor had been inserted
again by the actors. Prudently, Monsieur Montigny ordered a few more
excisions, and the prohibition was raised. Seventeen years elapsed
before the Comedie Francaise at last placed /Mercadet/ on its
repertory and inaugurated the event by a special performance with Got
as the /Jobber/.

The hero of the piece is a financier who has very little cash, but
innumerable projects for gaining money. These involve methods which
are not always straight-forward; yet, since he believes in the success
of what he advocates, he is not absolutely unprincipled, though he
does not mind to some extent gulling the gullible. His chief aim is to
trick his creditors--themselves, as it happens, not worthy of much
pity; and, himself kind-hearted, loving his wife and daughter, and not
a libertine, he appeals to the sympathies of the reader or the
audience. Most of the amusement of the play--and it is very amusing--
is derived from the metamorphoses adopted by the /Jobber/ in dealing
with each sort of creditor. Moreover, the love-passages between Julie,
the daughter, and a poor clerk who thinks her an heiress, are so
managed as to strengthen the comic side of certain situations. The
unexpected arrival of a rich uncle from America releases the /Jobber/
ultimately from the tangle into which he has twisted himself. It is
the least original part of the comedy; but was suggested, like the
rest of the play, by Balzac's own circumstances. Was he not always
expecting a windfall; and was not Eve a kind of rich--relative? To add
one more detail concerning /Mercadet/, it was revived at the Comedie
Francaise in 1879, and again in 1890, there being as many as 107
performances. Its indisputable qualities have caused some writers to
conclude that, if Balzac had lived longer, he would have become as
great a dramatist as he was a novelist. This is very doubtful.
Notwithstanding its long incubation of nearly a decade, and the
advantage it possessed in embodying so much personal experience,
/Mercadet/ was still weak in construction and was largely wanting in
dramatic compression. And, at fifty years of age, with failing powers,
Balzac would have found the task increasingly hard to acquire an art
for which, by his own confession, he had no born aptitude.

The temporary government which was set up, in consequence of the
February Revolution of 1848, conceived the curious idea of summoning
the members of the Men of Letters Society to a meeting in the Palais
Mazarin, for the purpose of eliciting from them an expression of
opinion on the situation of literature and the best way to protect it.
Balzac, who had newly arrived from Wierzchownia, went to the meeting
and was chosen chairman. But no sooner was the discussion opened than
it degenerated into dispute and tumult; the place became a bear-
garden, and, after vainly endeavouring to restore order, he took up
his hat and left the room.

When the general elections were held, for the forming of a Constituent
Assembly, he stood as a candidate, and published a long declaration of
his opinions in the /Constitutionnel/, in which had appeared his /Poor
Relations/. The candidature had no success; it could scarcely be
expected to have any. His political style was not one to catch the
popular vote; and his sympathies were too visibly autocratic to
commend themselves at such a moment. What deceived him was that, at
first, there appeared to be a chance for the establishment of a strong
central power well disposed towards sage reforms of a social,
administrative, and financial character, with men like Lamartine to
elaborate them; and to a government of this kind he could have given
his support. When he realized that the trend of events was towards a
Republic of Utopian experiment which he regarded as doomed to failure
and disaster, he quietly dropped out of the struggle, and, leaving
Paris once more in September, retraced his steps to Wierzchownia.

The political disturbances of the previous six months had been
prejudicial both to his invested capital and to his income accruing
from work. It was difficult to sell fiction advantageously when people
were more interested in facts; nor did he care much to continue his
efforts under a /regime/ that he looked upon as a usurpation. Until
the speedy overthrow which he confidently reckoned upon, he said to
himself that he would do better to occupy himself with the question of
his marriage. The hope was at present a forlorn one, but it was worth
risking. He started with the intention of coming back, like the
Spartan, either on his shield or under it.

Short of available cash, as always, he borrowed five thousand francs
from his publisher, Souverain, for the expenses of his journey and
pocket-money, and placed his mother in charge of his Beaujon mansion,
with procuration to buy the complement of his domestic articles.

The warm welcome he received on reaching Madame Hanska's residence
made him so sanguine that he wrote to Froment-Meurice, his jeweller in
Paris, asking that the cornaline cup might be sent him which had been
on order for the past two years. The jeweller was evidently not
anxious to oblige such a bad payer. This cup, the novelist said, was
to be flanked by two figures, Faith and Hope, the former holding a
scroll, with Neuchatel and the date 1833 on it, the latter, another
scroll, with a kneeling Cupid--the whole resting on a ground covered
with cacti and various thorny plants besides, in silver gilt.

The blasts of winter in a rigorous climate laid him by with bronchitis
in November. He suffered at the same time great difficulty in
breathing; and the doctors diagnosed certain symptoms of heart trouble
that caused them to consider his case a grave one. This malady
relegated all matrimonial projects for the moment into the background.
Madame Hanska did not hide that she regretted having put so much of
her money into the purchase and furnishing of a house that they hardly
seemed likely to inhabit together. Adding up what it had cost them
both, they estimated the total at three hundred and fifty thousand
francs. Into these figures the price of pictures entered for a large
amount. The most recent were Greuze's /Jeune Fille Effrayee/, from the
last King of Poland's Gallery; two Canalettis, once the property of
Pope Clement XIII; /James II of England's Wife/, by Netscher; the same
king's portrait, by Lely, in addition to a Van Dyck, two Van Huysums,
and three canvases by Rotari, a Venetian painter of the eighteenth
century.

The winter was not propitious to Madame Hanska either. Two fires on
her estate did enormous damage, and her money losses were important.
Balzac, though tenacious of his plan, talked constantly of going back
to his loneliness, yet stayed on still; and Eve, who either would not
or could not screw up her courage, invented fresh reasons for
procrastinating. One of these was the Emperor's refusal to sanction
the marriage unless Madame Hanska's landed property were transferred
to her daughter's husband. A scolding letter from the novelist's
mother, accusing Honore of remissness towards his nieces and family,
was by chance read to the Wierzchownia hostess, and this further
complicated a situation already sufficiently involved. Balzac's bile
was stirred. He relived his feelings in a long reply to Laure. It
seemed after all he would return to Paris under his shield. "I had a
marriage which made my fortune," he told her. "Everything is now upset
for a bagatelle. Know that it is with marriages as with cream; a
changed atmosphere, a bad odour, spoils them both. Bad marriages are
easily arranged; good ones only with infinite precaution. . . . I can
tell you, Laure," he continued, "it is something, when one wishes, to
be able in Paris to open one's drawing-room and gather in it an
/elite/ of society who will find there a woman as polished and
imposing as a queen, illustrious by her birth, allied to the greatest
families, witty, educated, and beautiful. One has thus a fine means of
domination. With a household thus established, people are compelled to
reckon; and many persons of high position will envy it, especially
since your dear brother will bring to it only glory and a clever
conduct."

Here we have the secret of Balzac's persistence, and ample proof also
of what has already been asserted, to wit, that his affection for the
/Stranger/ was a fancy born and bred rather in the head than in the
heart.

It was perhaps to take the edge off this quip quarrelsome that the
following amusing lines were addressed in the next month to his
nieces, giving them particulars about animal and vegetables foods in
Russia. "The country," he said, "has no veal--I mean eatable veal, for
cows produce calves here as well as elsewhere; but these calves are of
Republican leanness. Beef, such as one gets in Paris, is a myth; one
remembers it only in dreams. In reality, one has meat twenty years
old, which is stringy and which serves to bulk out the packets of hemp
intended for exportation. One consoles one's self with excellent tea
and exquisite milk. As for the vegetables, they are execrable. Carrots
are like turnips, and turnips are like nothing. On the other hand,
there are gruels galore. You make them with millet, buckwheat, oats,
barley; you can make them even with tree-bark. So, my nieces, take
pity on this country, so rich in corn, but so poor in vegetables. Oh!
how Valentine would laugh to see the apples, pears, and plums! She
wouldn't give over at the end of a year. Good-bye, my dear girls, and
accept the Republic patiently; for you have real beef, veal, and
vegetables, and a kind uncle happy and fed on gruel."

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