Balzac

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Ill again with his heart in the April of 1849, Balzac had the good
luck to be attended by a pupil of the famous Doctor Franck, the latter
being the original of his /Country Doctor/. This disciple, and his son
to a less extent, were men of a newer and more enlightened school; and
the elder man, by bold experiments, reduced his patient's arterio-
sclerosis to the point of what seemed to be convalescence. But the
treatment was tedious and lasted on into the summer, so that the
novelist was left weak and delicate at the end. In such a condition he
was less than ever fit to carry on his wooing.

To give himself a countenance, he spoke again of departure, fixing the
date for the month of October. Madame Hanska was apparently willing to
let him go. She had played the hostess generously during nearly a
twelvemonth to this invalid, and it seemed to her enough. Not that she
intended to sever the engagement. She wished merely to wait and see
how matters turned out. Meantime, he could watch over their common
property, now augmented by the acquisition of an extra plot of land at
the side, which could be resold later at a large profit. But a
resumption of the old burden was more than Balzac could face. In
September he was prostrated by what Dr. Knothe called an intermittent
brain fever, which continued for more than a month. His constitution
pulled him through, with the aid of good nursing; and then, realizing
that her tergiversations had been partly responsible for the attack,
Eve, at last, in conversations between them that followed his
recovery, let him understand that she relented and was willing to
accompany him back to Paris as his wife, if the Emperor would permit
of such a transfer of the estate to Count Mniszech as might enable her
to receive a share of its revenues.

The victory was won, yet at a heavy cost. For a man so worn down by
illness Russia was not the place to recruit in. Its biting winds
throughout the winter of 1849 and 1850 withered what little vitality
Balzac had still remaining, and at Kiew, where he had gone with Madame
Hanska on business, he was again laid up with fever.

All the different formalities required by Russian law having been
finally complied with, the wedding was celebrated on the 14th of
March, in the Church of Saint Barbara at Beriditchef, some few hours
distant from Wierzchownia. At once the bridegroom despatched the news
to his family and friends. His joy was such that he fancied he had
never known happiness before. "I have had no flowery spring," said his
letter to Madame Carraud. "But I shall have the most brilliant of
summers, the mildest of autumns. . . . I am almost crazy with
delight."

More than a month elapsed ere the newly married couple were able to
set out on their journey to the French capital, and, even then, they
had to travel along roads studded with quagmires into which their
carriage frequently sank up to the axle. Sometimes fifteen or sixteen
men and a crick were necessary to extricate them. Though on their
honeymoon, they found the repetition of these incidents monotonous,
and were so tired when they reached Dresden that they stayed there to
recover themselves. From this town Balzac sent a few lines to his
mother and sister mentioning the approximate date of their reaching
home; and instructions were given that everything should be in order,
flowers on the table, and a meal prepared. He did not want his mother
to be at the house to receive them, deeming it more proper that his
wife should call on her first, either at Laure's, or at Suresnes where
she was living. They got into Paris on the 22nd or 23rd of May.

Monsieur de Lovenjoul relates that the two travellers drove up to the
Beaujon mansion a little before midnight. Weary with the journey, they
stepped out of the cab and rang the bell, rang more than once, for no
one came to open the door. Through the windows they could see the
lamps lighted and signs of their being expected. But where was the
valet, Francois Munck, who had been left in charge by the novelist's
mother? Apparently, he had deserted his post. Balzac kept on ringing,
shouting at intervals, and thumping the gate. Still there was silence
inside. The one or two people passing at this late hour stopped out of
curiosity, and began in their turn to call and knock; while the
cabman, tired of waiting, put down the luggage on the footpath.

Madame de Balzac grew impatient. It was cold standing in the night-
air. Her husband, nonplussed and exceedingly annoyed, did not know
what to say to the bystanders. One of the latter offered to fetch a
locksmith, named Grimault, who lived in a street close by. The
suggestion was gladly agreed to, since there seemed nothing else to be
done. However, until such time as the locksmith should come, they
continued battering at the gate and throwing tiny pebbles at the
windows; and the master, thus shut out from his own dwelling, hallooed
to the invisible valet: "I am Monsieur de Balzac." It was useless. The
door refused to open. Around Madame de Balzac, now seated on one of
the trunks, other passers-by had gathered and listened to the
novelist's excited comments on his predicament. The occurrence was
certainly extraordinary.

At length, the locksmith was brought and the gate was forced. The
whole party, hosts and impromptu guests, hurried through the narrow
courtyard, entered the house without further hindrance, and were met
by a strange spectacle. The valet had been seized with a sudden fit of
madness and had smashed the crockery, scattered the food about, spilt
a bottle of wine on the carpet, upset the furniture, and ruined the
flowers. Having performed these exploits, he was wandering aimlessly
to and fro with demented gestures, and in this state they discovered
him. After securing and fastening him up in a small room, the visitors
helped to place the luggage in the yard and then retired, with profuse
thanks from the novelist, who being thoroughly unnerved by this
untoward incident, was obliged to go straight to bed. The next day,
Francois was taken to an asylum at his master's expense, as is proved
by a receipt still existing in which Balzac is dubbed a Count. Perhaps
the title was a piece of flattery on the doctor's part, or the
novelist may have imagined that his marrying a Countess conferred on
him letters of nobility.

Anyway, this assumed lordship was poor compensation for the immense
disappointment of his marriage in every other respect. From the moment
he and his wife took possession of their fine Beaujon residence,
whatever bonds of friendship and tenderness had previously existed
between them were irremediably snapped asunder. Peculiarities of
character and temperament in each, which, as long as they were lovers,
had been but slightly felt, now came into close contact, clashed, and
were proved to be incompatible. Moreover, there were disagreeable
revelations on either side. The husband learnt that his wife's
available income was very much inferior to what he had supposed or
been led to believe, and the wife learnt that her husband's debts, far
from being paid, as he had asserted, subsisted and were more numerous
and larger than he had ever in sober truth admitted. So, instead of
coming to Paris to be the queen of a literary circle, the /Stranger/
saw herself involved in liabilities that threatened to swallow up her
own fortune, if she lent her succour.

Reproaches and disputes began in the week following their instalment.
The disillusioned Eve withdrew to her own apartments in anger; and
Balzac, whose bronchitis and congestion of the liver had grown worse,
remained an invalid in his. They had intended spending only a
fortnight or so in Paris, and then travelling south to the Pyrenees
and Biarritz; but this programme was perforce abandoned. All through
the month of June the patient was under medical treatment, able to go
out only in a carriage, and, even so, in disobedience to the doctor's
orders. One of these visits was to the door of the Comedie Francaise,
where Arsene Houssaye, the Director, came to speak to him about
/Mercadet/, and indulgently promised him, it should be staged soon,
the /Resources of Quinola/ also.

On the 20th of June, he wrote, through his wife, to Theophile Gautier,
telling him that his bronchitis was better and that the doctor was
proceeding to treat him for his heart-hypertrophy, which was now the
chief obstacle to his recovery. At the end of the letter he signed his
name, adding: "I can neither read nor write." They were the last words
of his correspondence. From that date his heart-disease undermined him
rapidly; and the few friends whom he received augured ill from what
they remarked. Not that he lost hope himself. Although suffering
acutely at intervals from difficulty in breathing, and from the oedema
of his lower limbs, which slowly crept upwards, he spoke with the same
confidence as always of his future creations that he meditated. His
brain was the one organ unattacked. From Dr. Nacquart he inquired
every day how soon he might get to work again.

The month of July and the first half of August passed thus, the dropsy
gaining still on him in spite of all that Nacquart and other medical
men could do to combat it. To every one but the patient himself, it
was evident that he was dying. Houssaye, who came to see him on the
16th of August, found Dr. Nacquart in the room. He relates that
Balzac, addressing the latter, said: "Doctor, I want you to tell me
the truth. . . . I see I am worse than I believed. . . . I am growing
weaker. In vain I force myself to eat. Everything disgusts me. How
long do you think I can live?"--The doctor did not reply.--"Come,
doctor," continued the sick man, "do you take me for a child? I can't
die as if I were nobody. . . . A man like me owes a will and testament
to the public."--"My dear patient, how much time do you require for
what you have to do?" asked Nacquart.--"Six months," replied Balzac;
and he gazed anxiously at his interlocutor.--"Six months, six months,"
repeated the doctor, shaking his head.--"Ah!" cried Balzac dolorously;
"I see you don't allow me six months. . . . You will give me six weeks
at least. . . . Six weeks with the fever, is an eternity. Hours are
days; and then the nights are not lost."--The doctor shook his head
again. Balzac raised himself, almost indignant.--"What, doctor! Am I,
then, a dead man? Thank God! I still feel strength to fight. But I
feel also courage to submit. I am ready for the sacrifice. If your
science does not deceive you, don't deceive me. What can I hope for
yet? . . . Six days? . . . I can in that time indicate in broad
outlines what remains to be done. My friends will see to details. I
shall be able to cast a glance at my fifty volumes, tearing out the
bad pages, accentuating the best ones. Human will can do miracles. I
can give immortal life to the world I have created. I will rest on the
seventh day."--Since beginning to speak, Balzac had aged ten years,
and finally his voice failed him.--"My dear patient," said the doctor,
trying to smile, "who can answer for an hour in this life? There are
persons now in good health who will die before you. But you have asked
me for the truth; you spoke of your will and testament to the
public."--"Well?"--"Well! this testament must be made to-day. Indeed,
you have another testament to make. You mustn't wait till to-morrow."
--Balzac looked up.--"I have, then, no more than six hours," he
exclaimed with dread.

The details of this narration given to the /Figaro/ many years after
the event[*] do not read much like history. A more probable account
tells that Balzac, after one of his fits of gasping, asked Nacquart to
say whether he would get better or not. The doctor hesitated, then
answered: "You are courageous. I will not hide the truth from you.
There is no hope." The sick man's face contracted and his fingers
clutched the sheet. "How long have I to live?" he questioned after a
pause. "You will hardly last the night," replied Nacquart. There was a
fresh silence, broken only by the novelist's murmuring as if to
himself: "If only I had Bianchon, he would save me." Bianchon, one of
his fictitious personages, had become for the nonce a living reality.
It was Balzac who had taken the place of his medical hero in the
kingdom of shadows. Anxious to soften the effect of his sentence,
Nacquart inquired if his patient had a message or recommendation to
give. "No, I have none," was the answer. However, just before the
doctor's departure, he asked for a pencil, and tried to trace a few
lines, but was too week; and, letting the pencil drop from his
fingers, he fell into a slumber.

[*] 20th of August 1883.

In his /Choses Vues/, Victor Hugo informs us that, on the afternoon of
the 18th, his wife had been to the Hotel Beaujon and heard from the
servants that the master of the house was dying. After dinner he went
himself, and reached the Hotel about nine. Received at first in the
drawing-room, lighted dimly by a candle placed on a richly carved oval
table that stood in the centre of the room, he saw there an old woman,
but not, as he asserts, the brother-in-law, Monsieur Surville. No
member of Balzac's own family was present in the house that evening.
Even the wife remained in her apartments. The old woman told Hugo that
gangrene had set in, and that tapping now produced no effect on the
dropsy. As the visitor ascended the splendid, red-carpeted staircase,
cumbered with statues, vases, and paintings, he was incommoded by a
pestilential odour that assailed his nostrils. Death had begun the
decomposition of the sick man's body even before it was a corpse. At
the door of the chamber Hugo caught the sound of hoarse, stertorous
breathing. He entered, and saw on the mahogany bed an almost
unrecognizable form bolstered up on a mass of cushions. Balzac's
unshaven face was of blackish-violet hue; his grey hair had been cut
short; his open eyes were glazed; the profile resembled that of the
first Napoleon. It was useless to speak to him unconscious of any
one's presence.

Hugo turned and hastened from the spot thinking sadly of his previous
visit a month before, when, in the same room, the invalid had joked
with him on his opinions, reproaching him for his demagogy. "How could
you renounce, with such serenity, your title as a peer of France?" he
had asked. He had spoken also of the Beaujon residence, the gallery
over the little chapel in the corner of the street, the key that
permitted access to the chapel from the staircase; and, when the poet
left him, he had accompanied him to the head of the stairs, calling
out to Madame de Balzac to show Hugo his pictures.

Death took him the same evening.[*] During the last hours of his life
Giraud had sketched his portrait for a pastel;[+] and, on the morning
of the 19th, a man named Marminia was sent to secure a mould of his
features. This latter design had to be abandoned. An impression of the
hands alone was obtainable. Decomposition had set in so rapidly that
the face was distorted beyond recognition. A lead coffin was hastily
brought to cover up the ghastly spectacle of nature in a hurry.

[*] De Lovenjoul says that Balzac died on the 17th, not the 18th. This
discrepancy is most curious, the latter date figuring as the
official one, as well as being given by Hugo and others.

[+] De Lovenjoul says that the sketch was made after death. But, if
the mask was not possible, it is difficult to understand how a
pencil likeness could have been drawn.

Two days later, on the 21st of August, the interment took place at
Pere Lachaise cemetery. The procession started from the Church of
Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, to which the coffin had been transported
beforehand. There was no pomp in either service or ceremony. A two-
horse hearse and four bearers--Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Francis Wey, and
Baroche, the Minister for the Interior made up the funeral
accessories. But an immense concourse of people followed the body to
the grave. The Institute, the University, the various learned
societies were all represented by eminent men, and a certain number of
foreigners, English, German, and Russian, were present also. Baroche
attended rather from duty than appreciation. On the way to the
cemetery, he hummed and hawed, and remarked to Hugo: "Monsieur Balzac
was a somewhat distinguished man, I believe?" Scandalized, Hugo looked
at the politician and answered shortly: "He was a genius, sir." It is
said that Baroche revenged himself for the rebuff by whispering to an
acquaintance near him: "This Monsieur Hugo is madder still than is
supposed."

Over the coffin, as it was laid under the ground near the ashes of
Charles Nodier and Casimir Delavigne, the author of /Les Miserables/
and /Les Feuilles d'Automne/ pronounced an oration which was a
generous tribute to the talent of his great rival. On such an occasion
there was no room for the reservations of criticism. It was the moment
to apply the maxim, /De mortuis nil nisi bonum/. "The name of Balzac,"
he said, "will mingle with the luminous track projected by our epoch
into the future. . . . Monsieur de Balzac was the first among the
great, one of the highest among the best. All his volumes form but a
single book, wherein our contemporary civilization is seen to move
with a certain terrible weirdness and reality--a marvellous book which
the maker of it entitled a comedy and which he might have entitled a
history. It assumes all forms and all styles; it goes beyond Tacitus
and reaches Suetonius; it traverses Beaumarchais and attains even
Rabelais; it is both observation and imagination, it lavishes the
true, the intimate, the bourgeois, the trivial, the material, and,
through every reality suddenly rent asunder, it allows the most
sombre, tragic ideal to be seen. Unconsciously, and willy nilly, the
author of this strange work belongs to the race of revolutionary
writers. Balzac goes straight to the point. He grapples with modern
society; and from everywhere he wrests something--here, illusion;
there, hopes; a cry; a mask. He investigates vice, he dissects
passion, he fathoms man--the soul, the heart, the entrails, the brain,
the abyss each has within him. And by right of his free, vigorous
nature--a privilege of the intellects of our time, who see the end of
humanity better and understand Providence--Balzac smilingly and
serenely issues from such studies, which produced melancholy in
Moliere and misanthropy in Rousseau. The work he has bequeathed us is
built with granite strength. Great men forge their own pedestal; the
future charges itself with the statue. . . . His life was short but
full, fuller of works than of days. Alas! this puissant, untired
labourer, this philosopher, this thinker, this poet, this genius lived
among us the life of all great men. To-day, he is at rest. He has
entered simultaneously into glory and the tomb. Henceforth, he will
shine above the clouds that surround us, among the stars of the
fatherland."

To the credit of Balzac's widow it should be said that, although not
legally obliged, she accepted her late husband's succession, heavy as
it was with liabilities, the full extent of which was communicated to
her only after the funeral. The novelist's mother, having renounced
her claim on the capital lent by her at various times to her son,
received an annuity of three thousand francs, which was punctually
paid until the old lady's demise in 1854. Buisson the tailor, Dablin,
Madame Delannoy, and the rest of the creditors, one after the other,
were reimbursed the sums they had also advanced, the profits on
unexhausted copyright aiding largely in the liberation of the estate.
Before Eve's own death, every centime of debt was cleared off.

In the romance of Balzac's life it will be always arduous, if not
infeasible, to estimate exactly Madame Hanska's role, unless, by some
miracle, her own letters to the novelist could arise phoenix-like from
their ashes. The liaison that she is said to have formed soon after
her husband's death with Jean Gigoux, the artist, who painted her
portrait in 1852, may be regarded either as a retaliation for Honore's
infidelities, which she was undoubtedly cognizant of, or else as the
rebound of a sensual nature after the years spent in the too
idealistic realm of sentiment. And, whichever of these explanations is
correct, the irony of the conclusion is the same.

CHAPTER XIV

THE COMEDIE HUMAINE

The idea of joining his separate books together and forming them into
a coherent whole was one that matured slowly in Balzac's mind. Its
genesis is to be found in his first collection of short novels
published in 1830 under the titles: /Scenes of Private Life/, and
containing /The Vendetta/, /Gobseck/, /The Sceaux Ball/, /The House of
the Tennis-playing Cat/, /A Double Family/, and /Peace in the
Household/. Between these stories there was no real connexion except
that certain characters in one casually reappeared or were alluded to
in another. By 1832, the /Scenes of Private Life/ had been augmented,
and, in a second edition, filled four volumes. The additions comprised
/The Message/, /The Bourse/, /The Adieu/, /The Cure of Tours/, and
several chapters of /The Woman of Thirty Years Old/, some of which had
previously come out as serials in the /Revue de Paris/ or the /Mode/.

It has already been related how the novelist all at once realized what
a gain his literary production might have in adopting a plan and
building up a social history of his epoch. And, in fact, this
conception did stimulate his activity for some time, serving too, as
long as it was uncrystallized, to concentrate his visions upon
objective realities.

Needing, between 1834 and 1837, a more comprehensive title for the
rapidly increasing list of his works, he called them /Studies of
Manners and Morals in the Nineteenth Century/, subdividing them into
/Scenes of Private Life/, /Scenes of Parisian Life/, and /Scenes of
Provincial Life/. However, some things he had written were classible
conveniently neither under the specific names nor under the generic
one. These outsiders he called /Tales and Philosophic Novels/,
subsequently shortening the title, between 1835 and 1840, to
/Philosophic Studies/. The question was what wider description could
be chosen which might embrace also this last category. Writing to
Madame Hanska in 1837, he used the expression /Social Studies/,
telling her that there would be nearly fifty volumes of them. Either
she, or he himself, must, on reflection, have judged the title
unsatisfactory, for no edition of his works ever bore this name. Most
likely the thought occurred to him that such an appellation was more
suitable to a strictly scientific treatise than to fiction.

The expression /Comedie Humaine/, which he ultimately adopted, is said
to have been suggested to him by his whilom secretary, the Count
Auguste de Belloy, after the latter's visit to Italy, during which
Dante's /Divine Comedy/ had been read and appreciated. But already,
some years prior to this journey, the novelist would seem to have had
the Italian poet's masterpiece before his mind. In his /Girl with the
Golden Eyes/, he had spoken of Paris as a hell which, perhaps, one day
would have its Dante. De Belloy's share in the matter was probably an
extra persuasion added to Balzac's own leaning, or the Count may have
been the one to substitute the word /human/.[*]

[*] A communication has been made to me, while writing this book, by
Monsieur Hetzel, the publisher, tending to show that his father,
who was also known in the literary world, had a large share in the
choice of the /Comedie Humaine/ as a title.

Madame Hanska was at once informed of the choice. "The /Comedie
Humaine/, such is the title of my history of society depicted in
action," he told her in September 1841. And when, between 1841 and
1842, Hetzel, together with Dubochet and Turne, brought out sixteen
octavo volumes of his works illustrated, they each carried his name,
while a preface set forth the reasons which had led the author to
choose it. Thereafter, every succeeding edition was similarly styled,
including Houssiaux' series in 1855, and the series of Calmann-Levy,
known as the definitive one, between 1869 and 1876.

Against the appellation itself no objection can reasonably be made.
Balzac's fiction takes in a world--an underworld might appropriately
be said--of Dantesque proportions. As soon as it was fully fledged, it
started with a large ambition. "My work," he said to Zulma Carraud in
1834, "is to represent all social effects without anything being
omitted from it, whether situation of life, physiognomy, character of
man or woman, manner of living, profession, zone of social existence,
region of French idiosyncrasy, childhood, maturity, old age, politics,
jurisdiction, war." And in the Forties the same intention was stated
as clearly. "I have undertaken the history of the whole of society.
Often have I summed up my plan in this simple sentence: A generation
is a drama in which four or five thousand people are the chief actors.
This drama is my book."

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