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The Drama
of
Honore de Balzac
BY
WALTER SCOTT HASTINGS
A UiSSERTATION
SUBMITTED IV Xiii BOARD OF UNIVERSITY STUDIES OF THE JOHNS
HOPKINS UNIVERSTTy • -^ CONFORMITY WITH THE REQUIREMENTS
FOB. THE L.CGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
BALTIMORE
1917
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2008 with funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/dramaofhonordeOOhastrich
THE DRAMA
OF
HONORE DE BALZAC
The Drama
of
Honore de Balzac
BY
WALTER SCOTT HASTINGS
A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED TO THE BOARD OF UNIVERSITY STUDIES OF THE JOHNS
HOPKINS UNIVERSITY IN CONFORMITY WITH THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
BALTIMORE
1917
GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANY
MENASHA, WISCONSIN
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
Chapter I. Introduction 1
Chapter II. Unfruitful Attempts at the Drama IS
Chapter III. Vi^cole des minages 37
Chapter IV. Vautrin 52
Chapter V. Les Ressources de Quinola 72
Chapter VI. Pamela Giraud 92
Chapter VII. La Mardtre 103
Chapter VIII. Mercadet 115
Chapter IX. Conclusions 138
Bibliography 147
Appendix 153
Vita 159
H
4S1845
I
INTRODUCTION
Honore de Balzac, the novelist and short-story writer, has been
the object of countless critical and popular studies. Nearly every
phase of the author's work has been treated, to say nothing of the
mass of biographical data that patient and painstaking critics have
collected. In Spoelberch de Lovenjoul's extremely valuable book,
devoted to the history of Balzac's works,^ there are no less than
forty-five pages of critical bibliography. The present study, how-
ever, will deal with a phase of his work which has been purposely
neglected by the majority of Balzac students: his drama. Such
studies as have been already made are far from complete, and the
Balzac drama remains little known in its entirety.^ Marcel Barriere,
whose treatment of Balzac's literary labors is for the most part
sympathetic and exact, dismisses the drama with a few general con-
siderations such as the following: "Un romancier a tou jours, plus
ou moins, le temperament d'un auteur dramatique."^ In Bire's
excellent volume, the author has brought to light a quantity of inter-
esting biographical material concerning Balzac historian, royalist
and dramatist,. but in treating the latter phase he has confined him-
self more especially to a history of the plays, to a discussion of the
successive stages leading to their production or refusal by Parisian
theatrical directors. Paul Flat, in his essay of fifteen pages, traces
the motives which induced Balzac to write plays, the cause of his
failure, and concludes summarily that the drama is a negligible part
of his work. It is scarcely necessary to mention here the pages in
Lemer's work on Balzac^ which contain merely a few personal recol-
lections of the plays. M. Le Breton would like to find in the drama
some germ of Balzac's influence upon the realistic stage, but concludes,
and with reason, that the younger Dumas and Augier found inspira-
^ Histoire des osuvres de HofwrS de Balzac, 1879; second edition, 1886; third edition,
1888. References in this study are to the third edition.
^ See especially Edmond Eire, Honore de Balzac, 1897; Paul Flat, Seconds Essais
sur Balzac, 1894.
3 VCEuvre de Balzac, 1890, p. 453.
*• Balzac: sa vie — son oeuvre, 1892, pp. 338-343.
V
2 THE DRAMA OF HONOr£ DE BALZAC
tion not in the actual stage productions of this "father of realism,"
but in the Human Comedy.*
However negative the results that may be obtained, the motives
which tempted the great novelist to write plays and the fashion in
which he conceived them, his knowledge of the theatre of his day and
his actual contact with the stage are all questions which should
interest the Balzac student. To treat these questions, emphasizing
the fact that Balzac was haunted throughout his life by the desire
for dramatic success, and that at no time was his mind entirely free
of theatrical projects, is the purpose of this study.
Theatrical projects occupied Balzac's mind during the whole of
his literary career. During the labor of composition of the unlucky
^cole des menages^ the author wrote to Armand Pereme:
J'ai, depuis dix ans, travaill6 en vue du th6&tre, et vous connaissez mes id6es i
cet6gard. EUes sont vastes, et leur realization m'effraie souvent. Mais je ne manque
ni de Constance ni de travaux refaits avec patience. . . . [Pour r6ussir,] il ne faut
que du travail, soutenu de quelque chose que je me sens en moi: motus^?
There is the same note of tireless endeavor in these lines that Balzac
voiced so often about the composition of his novels. At the time
this letter was written, the author of le Dernier Chouan^ le Pbre
Goriot and Eugenie Grandet had already become a name in Parisian
literary circles, and was safely on the road to novelistic success. The
idea, however, of placing his figures of fiction directly before an
audience, and the desire to see the strong reflection of the footlights
in their faces never ceased to torment him. Balzac himself recounts
the warning which the poet Heine once made to him when the two
were discussing the stage:
Prenez-y garde: celui qui s'est habitu6 ^ Brest ne pent pas s'accoutumer &
Toulon. Restez dans votre bagne.'
This advice we know Balzac did not heed. Besides his six published
plays, we have the evidence of numerous other dramatic projects
from scattered fragments, scenarios, scenes and lists of personages.®
^Balzac, Vhomme et Voeuvre, 1905.
•December 4, 1838. Letter published in Lovenjoul's Aulour de Honori de
Balzac, p. 119.
' LEU, Vol. I, p. 412. July 19, 1837.
•At the death of the Viscount Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, a most ardent and
consciencious bibliophile, his magnificent collection of Balzaciana, including the
theatrical fragments, became the property of the French government, and was placed
at Chantilly under the care of M. Georges Vicaire. See £. Henriot, in les Annates
romantiques, Vol. XI, 1. 1914.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 3
Why then was Balzac attracted towards the theatre? >
We find a partial solution of the question in one of the greatest I \
factors in his life: the neM of mone y. A successful play meant '
primarily to the novelist a solution of pressing financial difficulties,
and at what period of his life was he free from these? From the ,
miserable days in the Lesdiguieres garret, the desire for wealth j
became an obsession, and at no moment in his career did the furtive
millions come within his grasp. They constitute, as it were, the
great romance and the great tragedy of his life, and no study of
Balzac can be separated from this theme. When the novelist set
out with the energy of Napoleon to conquer Europe with his pen,'
the gigantic labor of his task and the fury of his production were
scarcely in proportion to the financial returns they brought him:
Pour me liquider, cette effroyable production de livres, qui a entrain6 des masses
d'^preuves, ne sufl5t pas: II faut en venir au thSdtre, dont les revenus sont finormes
conipar^s k ceux que nous font les livres.^"
Again he writes:
Le th6&tre me vaudrait deux cent mille francs par an. Je sais, k n'en pas douter,
que j'y ferais en peu de temps ma fortune, mais vous oubliez que je n'ai pas six mois
k moi, ni un mois, sans cela je n'eusse pas fait une pi^ce, j'aurais 6t6 vous voir."
Dramatic works, he repeats time and time again, are more productive
than novels, and his whole attitude towards them was one of confi-
dence in their financial success. On the eve of Vautrin, his principal
interest and anxiety seems to have been centered about this one fact:
Jugez quelles seront mes angoisses pendant la soir6e oii Vautrin sera repr6sent6.
Dans cinq heures de temps, il sera decide si je paie ou si je ne paie pas mes dettes.^
Again, he says of Vautrin:
n paralt que je puis compter sur un grand succ^s d'argent; je I'ai faite pour cela."
As rapidly as theatrical propositions were made to Balzac, he calcu-
lated their probable financial result scene by scene. Speaking of a
proposed play called la Gina, he writes to Mme Hanska:
• "Ce qu'il avait commenc6 par r6p6e, je Tach^verai par la plume," Balzac is
related to have inscribed on a statuette of the Emperor. Gozlan, Balzac chez luiy
1862, p. 214.
" LEt., Vol. I, p. 273. August 23, 1835.
" Ibid., p. 240. March 11, 1835.
»* Ibid., p. 530. February 10, 1840.
" Ibid., p. 525. January 20, 1840.
4 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
Les propositions ne me manquent pas. On m'offre, d'un cote, vingt mille francs
de prime, pour quinze actes, et j'ai les quinze actes dans la t6te, mais non sur le papier.**
It is with a note of despair that Balzac describes to Mme Zulma
Carraud the refusal by the Renaissance of his J^cole des menages.
He needed six thousand francs by the end of February; he began to
work feverishly at his play, sleeping three hours out of the twenty-
four, employing twenty extra men at the printing office. The play
was turned down for a new production of Dumas'.^^
^ Not until Balzac began to meditate his comedy Mercadet do we
find him enthusiastic over a theatrical success in any other light than
financial. Mercadet was to his mind something worth while:
C'est exclusivement une comedie, et j'esp^re cette fois avoir un succ^s et satisfaire
les exigences litteraires.*^
Mercadet, he declares, is a gay production which should enliven and
elevate the disgusting atmosphere of the boulevard stage.^^
But the desire for gain was not the only spur which goaded Balzac
on to play writing. In 1842, he writes to Mme Hanska:
Je vais voir un drame h. I'Oddon, celui qui me pr6c&de, Cidric-le-Norw6gien, de
Pyat. Hier Lorenzino, de Dumas, est tomb^; la Chaine, de Scribe, n'a pas 6t6 un succSs.
Ce serait bien beau pour moi si j'6tais le succds de la saison!*^
The ambition to succeed in more than one type of literary production
helped to turn Balzac to the stage. Other novelists — in fact, most
of the contemporaries — had tried their hand at the theatre, and
were being talked about. Hugo had produced Lucrece Borgia and
Marie-Tudor in 1833, Angelo in 1835, and Ruy Bias in 1838; Vigny's
novels, Cinq-Mars and Stello, were followed in 1835 by a play. Chatter-
ton; and, finally, Dumas became immensely popular for a time after
Henri III and Antony. George Sand was likewise writing for the
stage, and Balzac confesses that it is the diversity of Musset's work
that pleases him.^^ But these romantic plays were short-lived, and
the public soon became dissatisfied with the ordinary type of melo-
drama. In 1840, Hernani and la Marechale d'Ancre failed. Vigny
did not possess the dramatic instinct, and left the stage early.
** LEt., Vol. I, p. 489. September 17, 1838.
^ Corr., p. 327. March, 1839.
« LEL, Vol. I, p. 536. May 10, 1840.
" LEL, Vol. II, p. 329. March 11, 1844.
i8/6iJ., p. 21.
" La Rente parisienne, August 25, 1840.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 5
Dumas, moreover, was forced to amuse his audiences with
immense kaleidoscopic effects. In 1838, Gautier writes:
Le mouvement si energiquement imprime a Tart dramatique par Christine,
Hernani, Henri III, ne s'est pas continue ; nous avons cm un moment que nous allions
avoir un theatre modeme; mais nos esperances ont ^te trompees.^"
Balzac felt that there was work for him to do in this field. With Sand,
Musset, Dumas, Hugo and others busily engaged in writing plays,
the stage, as Paul Flat so justly remarks, became for him "une
necessity litteraire.''^! As we shall see, at the beginning of his
literary career, dramatic projects occupied a vast amount of space.
^ At the very height of his novelistic success, stirred by the ambition
to emulate his contemporaries, he returned to the stage, and busied
himself with scenic plans until the end of his life.
However, the fruitless search for financial success and for reputa-
tion in a wider field, already conquered by other men of genius, were
not the only reasons for Balzac's dramatic activity. There is also
apparent an unselfish aspiration to broaden his genius, an effort
which can be explained by the nature of the man himself. The
dramatic form was well-suited and well-nigh a necessity to such a
mind as his, devoured by a passion for life. Leon Gozlan relates a
conversation between Balzac and the notorious police-agent, Vidocq,
during which the latter held that reality was more dramatic than
fiction. Balzac is quoted as replying:
Ah! vous croyez a la reality, mon cher Vidocq. Vous me charmez. Je ne vous
aurez pas suppose si naif. La r^alit^! parlez-m'en. Vous revenez de ce beau pays.
Allons done! C'est nous qui la faisons, la reality !^
Balzac was this "maker of reality," whose powerful imagination
would not let him rest from his probing and dissection and repro-
duction of society. The Human Comedy was to be a faithful
representation of this labor:
J'ai entrepris I'histoire de toute la sdci^te. J'ai exprim^ souvent mon plan dans
cette seule phrase : "Une generation est un drame k quatre ou cinq mille personnages
saillants." Ce drame, c'est mon livre.^'
In the Human Comedy we discover the presence of more than one
precious dramatic gift. Gautier has noted perhaps the capital one:
2° Histoire de Vart dramatique, Vol. I, p. 84.
2^ Seconds Essais sur Balzac, p, 106.
^ Balzac chez lui: Souvenirs des Jardies, 1862, p. 214.
23 (Emres, Vol. XXII, p. 547.
6 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
Une qualit6 de Balzac semblait le pr6destiner au th^itre, c'est la puissance de
peindre les caract^res."
His characters were real personages to him. It was his great boast
that they should rival life itself. They spoke to him; he could see
their rags and their furs; their gestures, their tricks of speech, their
passions haunted his dreams. Werdet, in his book of personal
reminiscences,*^ cites many instances of his friend's confusion of
reality and fiction.
But it is not alone in his force of characterization that Balzac has
displayed a dramatic turn of mind. He possessed also a sense for
situation and for dialogue. Hostile glances exchanged by two jealous
women over a tea-table furnished the germ of his drama, la Mardtre.^
He knew how to seize upon a dramatic moment and to reproduce it in
the manner of a veritable coup de thidtre. At times, the novelistic
framework seems to drop completely, and stage-scenes, which
might be transported to the theatre and the actors without the
change of a word, stand forth in bold relief. Such is the scene in
la Rabouilleuse of Philippe Bridau's drunken delirium at the bedside
of his dying aunt. Such again is the scene in which the ghastly old
Colonel Chabert arrives at Derville's oflSce after midnight:
Monsieur, lui dit Derville, k qui ai-je I'honneur de parler?
— Au Colonel Chabert.
— Lequel?
— Celui qui est mort k Eylau.
Balzac's genius was of that peculiar type which was bound to lead him
to the theatre. He possessed the dramatic sense for characterization,
for situation and for dialogue. He knew, to borrow a definition of
Houssaye's," "Part de faire sortir,de situations qu'on voit tous les
jours dans la vie reelle, des scenes du plus grand effet dramatique,
sans employer d'autres ressources que les sentiments et les passions."
Such a temperament was bound to approach the stage, where living
actors might translate into action the creatures of his lively imagina-
tion, and where a public might come into contact with his world.
When we seek to discover what direct contact Balzac during his
early life had with the stage, we are surprised to find almost a void.
»• Histoire de Vart dramatique, Vol. Ill, p. 102.
" Portrait intime de Balzac. Sa vie, son humeur et son caractere, 1859.
* See pp. 108-9.
" Les Hommes et les idies, 1886, p. 203.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 7
He seems neither to have been a theatre-goer^^ nor to have read
many plays. This may be easily explained by the fact that he had
neither the time nor the money for such luxuries. His first real
association with the stage dated from the days of the Lesdiguieres
garret and the drama in verse which he called Cromwell. His interest
at this time seems divided between the classical drama, which he did
not know well, and the historical play, so much in vogue at the
moment. To his sister he writes in 1819 about Lebrun^s tragedy,
Marie Stuart^ which was then being given at the Theatre Fran^ais.^"
He declares that subjects taken from antiquity are the most favor-
able for tragedy, and that it is difficult to render a modern subject in-
teresting. Our statesmen, he says, are all monotonous, and crimes
of diplomacy are undramatic. He seems to have been thoroughly
sincere in his classical leanings at this time. Corneille he calls "mon
vieux general," and his greatest desire is to emulate Racine.'" After
the production of his first plays we find him declaring in the face of
Hugo that Racine is perfection; that Berenice will never be surpassed,
and that Phkdre is the greatest r61e in modern times.'^ The first
of the great classic plays that Balzac seems to have seen was Cinna.
"Je n'ai pas encore vu jouer les pieces de Corneille, notre general,"
he writes to Mme Surville on the eve of witnessing a performance
of that play.32 Later, we shall see that the impression left by this
masterpiece was to make itself felt in Balzac's first drama. He
professes total ignorance about the staging of plays and of the manner
in which verses are recited. Still, he had read both Corneille and
Racine, declared that Racine's verse seems superior to that of
Corneille, and in 1825 he prefaced the edition of Moliere which his.
own printing-house prepared with a notice on the great comedian.'*
Later on in his life Balzac was more intimately associated with plays
and the players. He knew the elder Dumas and Victor Hugo, and
counted Theophile Gautier among his warmest friends. He was
associated also with the leading actors of the day: Frederick
28 "II allait peu dans les tMatres; on ne Ta peut-6tre pas vu trois fois dans sa vie
au foyer de la Com^die-frangaise." — Gozlan, Balzac en pantoufles, 1865, p. 17.
29Corr.,p. 11.
8° Ibid., p. 18.
31 LEL, Vol. II, p. 94. December 21, 1842.
32 Corr., p. 12.
^ (Euvres completes de Moliere. Paris, Delongchamps, Urbain Canel, Baudouin
freres, 1826. The notice is published in (Euvres, Vol. XXII, pp. 1-8.
8 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
Lemaitre, Marie Dorval, Henry Monnier and others. In 1830,
when he published with Emile de Girardin le Feuilleton des journaux
poUtiques, he devoted considerable space to active dramatic criticism.
Balzac had certain definite ideas about the romantic drama, and
attacked it bitterly in la Caricature and le Feuilleton des journaux
politiques. In general this criticism is vigorous and just. Hernani
is made the subject of two detailed articles in le Feuilleton, dated
March 24 and April 7, 1830.^'* Balzac attacks boldly the salient
romantic faults exemplified in this play: the improbabilities of the
action, the misappropriation of history, the lack of invention, the
unreal characters. "Un drame est I'expression d'une passion
humaine, d'une individualite ou d'un fait immense." Hernani, he
concludes, belongs in none of these categories. The characters are
not created according to "bon sens," Don Ruy is stupid, and Don
Carlos might easily have been either Louis XVI or Louis XV. The
subject is neither true to life nor reasonable, and suggests rather
the matter of a ballad. Thus the play is undramatic, resembling
the early work of Lope de Vega or of Calderon.
After Marie-Tudor, in 1833, Balzac utters a storm of angry
protest against Hugo's manner.^^ But he gives vent to his most
biting sarcasm regarding Ruy Bias, which he terms "une enorme
betise, une infamie en vers."^^ After Lucrece Borgia, he writes:
J'ai vu Lucrece. . . .C'est un pastiche de Chenier, comme trente poetes de
second ordre actuels eussent pu le mieux faire. Et, quand a la piece, il n'y a rien de
plus enfant, de plus nul, de plus tragedie de college ! . . . Hugo a bien merite par ses
sottises que Dieu lui envoyat un Ponsard pour rival! Ah! si vous saviez comme Lucrece
est chose ermuyeuse! En France il n'y a de grand que ce qui est nU. Rousseau,
Voltaire, Montesquieu, La Fontaine, Racine et Moliere meme, tous ont ete nies,
discut6s, combattus.^'
Later, the public acclaims les Burgraves as the highest expression
of lyricism. Lyricism, says Balzac, is not dramatic.^^ He ridicules
in this play the unreal stage appurtenances, the poor invention and
Hugo's abuse of history:
J'6tais a la premiere representation des Burgraves. II y a de magnifique poesie,
mais Victor Hugo est decidement reste Venfant sublime, et ne sera que cela. C'est
tou jours les memes enf antillages de prison, de cercueil, d'invraisemblances de la derniere
34 (Euvres, Vol. XXII, pp. 44-56.
36 LEL, Vol. I, pp. 81 and 85.
^lUd., p. 503. November 15, 1838.
37 IhU., Vol. II, p. 158. May 11, 1843.
38 IhU., p. 94. December 21, 1842.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 9
absurdite. Comme histoire, il n'en faut pas parler; comme invention, c'est de la
derniere pauvrete. Mais la poesie enleve. C'est Titien peignant sur un mur de
boue. II y a surtout une absence de coeur, qui se fait de plus en plus sentir. Victor
Hugo n'est pas vraiP
Of the other contemporary dramatists Balzac has little to say.
After witnessing the first performance of la Camaraderie ou la Courte-
Echelle, he decides that Scribe knows his ''metier," but that he is
ignorant of art. He recognizes his talent and his tact, but he deplores
his lack of seriousness and depth, and consequently his feeble style.*"
Eugene Sue fares scarcely better, for Latreaumont he calls a "slack"
play, and its author "un esprit borne et bourgeois," incapable of
treating the gigantic aspects of Louis XIV's age."** This judgment
is excessive, inspired no doubt by Sue's blasphemous treatment, to
Balzac's mind, of the greatest epoch in French history.
For the vaudeville Balzac expresses the utmost scorn:
II vaut mieux une belle page non payee que cent mille francs d'un mauvais
vaudeville.**
Casting aside his projected play called la Gina^ he says:
J'ai trouv6 mon personnage inadmissible. Un auteur de vaudeville n'eiit pas et6
arrets par cette difficulte.'*^
Perhaps the bitterest attack on this popular form of amusement is
made in the following lines, after he had witnessed one of the numer-
ous vaudevilles made up of Napoleonic episodes, so popular about
1830:
J'ai 6t6 voir Virginie D6jazet representant Napoleon. Excellent plaisanterie !
Pendant que M. Victor Hugo fait des odes a la Colonne, il y a d'autres hommes qui la
depecent, la taillent, se la partagent et la mettent en pieces de six liards, afin de donner
a tout le monde un grand homme en petite monnaie. Napoleon en vaudeville, pros-
titu^ par des com^diens de TAmbigu-Comique, des Varietes, ou M. Cazot s'est charge
de nous en offrir les traits, du Vaudeville, du Cirque-Olympique, etc., est tout k fait
digne de Napol6on en sucre d'orge, en liqueur, en savon.^
One very interesting bit of criticism from Balzac's pen concerns
the work of Edouard Ourliac, and his short story entitled Collinet}^
39 LEL, Vol. II, p. 125. March 19, 1843.
*» Corr., p. 303. June 18, 1838.
*' Ibid., pp. 280, 281. January 20, 1838. Balzac's opinion of Sue personally is
energetically expressed in a letter to Mme Hanska, LEt., Vol. I, p. 321. April 25,1836.
« LEL, Vol. I, p. 197. October 18, 1834.
^UUd., p. 489. September 18, 1838.
^ Lettres sur Paris. October 18, 1830. (Euvres, Vol. XXIII, p. 113.
« La Revue parisienne, August 25, 1840. (Euvres, Vol. XXIII, pp. 745-48.
10 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
Ourliac, it will be remembered, was, along with Gautier, Laurent-
Jan and others, to have been one of the collaborators in Vautrin.
What Balzac admires especially in the young man's work is his
handling of dialogue, his unexpected and sudden flashes of meridional
wit — very precious dramatic traits — his clearness of vision and
vivacity, so needful for the stage.
Collinet contient une puissante et belle comedie, nous en verrons peut-fetre tirer
quelque miserable vaudeville; tandis que, si les destin6es du Th6atre-Frangais 6taient
entre les mains dignes de les dinger, M. Ourliac serait d6ji prie peut-6tre de travailler.
Ourliac, he declares, is a first-rate dramatist with talent, and would
furnish the Theatre-Fran fais with excellent work, at a moment when
they are accepting poor compositions from incompetent authors.
Balzac has repeatedly voiced this note of regret in criticizing the
stage. Playwrights, to satisfy the hollow tastes and insistent de-
mands of the day, have exhausted their ideas. In his Lettre aux
ecrivains franqais^ he describes with some bitterness the state of the
theatre in his day. A typical audience, uncultivated and uneducated,
goes to see a play merely to be soothed to sleep after a heavy dinner!
To satisfy these tastes, Paris, with its twelve theatres, offering to
dramatic literature a budget of ten millions or more, is choked with
thin, imitative plays, without creation or ideas, which will last
perhaps for six weeks. The theatrical public demands a new play
for every day in the year, and the authors, to fulfill this craving,
themselves void of originality, go to novels, "prenant leur bien ou ils
le trouvent." In his Lettres sur Paris , Balzac writes:
Quand au th6itre, il est dans un 6tat de marasme incroyable; mais il faut attribuer
ce calme desesperant k des causes secretes qu'il ne serait pas encore convenable de vous
d6voiler. Au Th^&tre-Frangais, M. Alexandre Dumas s'oppose ^ la repr6sentation
A' Antony. M. Casimir Delavigne retient Louis XI en portefeuille, M. Victor Hugo
sa Marion Delorme, MM. Empis et Mazeres leur Changement de Minister e.^'^
And again he declares:
Quand aux th6§,tres, k la litt^rature, k la po6sie, tout cela est mort. La trag6die,
le talent et les grandes pensees ont trop couru par les rues pour qu'ils soient aux
spectacles, ou dans les livres. La comedie commence i lever la t6te>*
There is a great deal of sound insight and truth in this criticism, and
it displays more than a passing interest in the stage. In Paris en
* Appeared first, dated Paris, November 1, 1834, in la Revue de Paris of November,
1834. Published in CEuvres, Vol. XXII, pp. 221 sf.
<M. M. F***, d Besanqon, January 29, 1831. CEuvres, Vol. XXIII, p. 180.
**A.M. F***, d Tours, September 26, 1830. Ibid., p. 103.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 11
1831*^ among the other brief and biting criticisms of the city, Balzac
writes that it is a place "oii Ton dit le plus mal des comediens." In
1826, he printed at his own establishment a little 32mo. volume
entitled Petit Dictionnaire critique et anecdotique des enseignes de
Faris^^ which contains the following amusing sketches of Parisian
theatres:
AMBIGU-COMIQUE (Theatre de 1').— S'il y a quelque chose de comique dans
ce theatre, ce n'est certainement pas le genre qu'on y exploite, car il faut une fiere dose
d'hilarite pour rire a Calas, a VAuherge des Adrets. Le niais n'offre lui-meme rien de
comique, mais, en revanche, le nombreux public qu'amenent les trophees des heros
de melodrame pourrait bien, a quelques egards, exciter le sourire, le jour de chambree
complete.
Of the Gaiete he says:
. . . Cette arene, ou les passions romanesques sont remuees a la pelle.
Of the Gymnase-Dramatique:
Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, entre un limonadier et un p^tissier. Dix toises de
facade; monument aussi immortel que M. Scribe.
Finally, he describes the Porte-Saint-Martin as follows:
Salle immense, belles decorations, facade plus large qu'artistement dessinee.
Mazurier, M. Cooke, Jocko, le Monstre, c'est autant de raret6s dignes de parcourir les
foires.
What conclusion may be drawn from Balzac's dramatic criticism?
There seem to be at least two. First, he displays a practical knowl-
edge of the faults of the contemporary stage, and of its needs. After
the Revolution of 1830, he sees in dramatic literature that grievous
lack of restraint which is its fundamental characteristic, the unbridled
striving to do away with traditions, without substituting anything
in their place. He condemns the romantic disrespect for manners
and historical verity, the lack of invention and reality, the careless
psychology, the immense vogue of cheap vaudeville and melodrama,
and the play hastily constructed to thrill the grosser public. He
condemns the mediocrity of the present-day stage, and the host of
second-rate authors: "Au diable la mediocrite," he cries, "au diable
les Pradon et les Bauvarlet! il faut etre Gretry et Racine."^^
« Dated March 10, 1831. (Euvres, Vol. XXI, p. 243.
^Ubid.,p. 116 sf.
" Corr., p. 18, 1820.
12 THE DRAMA OF HONOR^ DE BALZAC
En litt6rature, les m6diocrit6s pers6v6rantes font fortune, elles y gagnent I'in-
cognito et dix mille livres de rente. Cela vaut bien une place. II y a deux cents
auteurs dramatiques sur six cents dans ce cas-la h. Paris. C'est le dilemme que j'aurais
pos6 si Ton m'avait consult^. J'aurais dit: **0u Armand a du g6nie ou il n'a que de
TentStement; s'il a du g^nie, il sera malheureux, sans le sou et glorieux comme tous
ceux qui ont du g6nie; s'il a de I'entfitement, il sera M. Clairville, M. Anicet, M. de
Comberousse, qui gagnent, en travaillant, en piochant la terre dramatique, quinze ou
vingt mille francs par an."^^
His solemn advice to Hugo, at the close of his review of Hernani^ is,
in a measure, his advice to all the dramatists of his day: "A moins de
travaux consciencieux, d'une grande docilite aux conseils d'amis
sev^res, la sc^ne lui est interdite."
Balzac has seen the worst faults in the contemporary drama, and
has expressed them with a great deal of vigor. However, we cannot
say that he has been altogether fair. A certain personal animosity
entered into his criticism of Sue. The note of carelessness, almost of
frivolity, runs through his criticism of Hugo. He has failed com-
pletely to do justice to the poetic qualities of les Burgraves and Ruy
Bias; he has appreciated none of the lyric splendor of the love-duets
in Eernani or of Triboulet^s monologue. Ruy Bias he calls "une
enorme b^tise, une infamie en vers," before having seen it acted.
There is something of Balzac's impetuosity here, something of the
triviality also which was inherent in the nature of the man. Later,
when we come to study his own plays, we shall see how absolutely
he has neglected the warnings given to this leader of a new school,
and how easily he succumbed to the worst of the romantic faults.
After the unhappy failure of Vautritij it must be remembered that
Hugo proved to be a warm friend of Balzac's, and it is no doubt the
recollection of this kindness that prompted the latter to write in his
Revue parisienne of July 25, 1840, the following lines:
Aussi regrett6-je qu'^ I'exemple de Goethe, il n'ait pas fait une trag^die du genre
classique od il se serait astreint au systeme severe de versification et de pens6e qui
recommande Britianicus ou Cinna. II aurait ainsi ferm6 la bouche a quelques critiques.'^
We have seen in the foregoing pages what criticism Balzac makes
of the stage. What does he himself propose to do, and what dramatic
principles does he intend to hold? Unfortunately, he proposes
nothing particularly clear or tangible. He has nowhere set forth
his theory of dramatic art, rather he has been satisfied to express a
« Ibid., pp. 596-7. February 9, 1849.
" (Euvrts, Vol. XXIII, p. 603.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 13
vague desire to depict the "vrai." This explains, partially, at least,
the mediocrity of his own work. Without a clear idea of what he
intended to do, he set forth to imitate and to reproduce what had
already been done, in spite of his pretensions to create something
new.
In 1838, during the composition of V£cole des minages, he declares
to Mme Hanska that his theatrical ideas are vast, and that he intends
to work for the stage with patience and constancy. Notwithstand-
ing such statements as these, Balzac failed to take his drama seriously,
and this is his fundamental error. He considered the actual labor
involved in making a play much less than that required for a novel.
A play would not necessitate hours in a library nor the assiduity
demanded by fiction. We know something of his method of com-
position in general : the construction of a huge and sometimes cumber-
some skeleton, to which were added at different times more and still
more materials. There was no curtailing, no polishing; rather there
were additions of various sorts, with little heed to proportion. Some-
times this huge mass of work was discarded, or gone over with a
sweeping hand, remodeled entirely, or, with nothing but the bare
framework standin'g, encrusted with detail. Gautier tells us that
this mania for elaboration became lightning-like when he attacked
the drama.^ We have seen how important a place finance held in
his dramatic efforts. Until Mercadety indeed, this preoccupation
was almost an obsession. After the failures of his first plays, written
hurriedly to save their author from bankruptcy, we find Balzac, no
doubt on sound advice from friends, adopting a much saner and less
feverish attitude towards the stage. In 1837, he writes:
Une piece est I'oeuvre la plus facile et la plus diflScile deresprithumain: ou c'est un
jouet d'Allemagne, ou c'est une statue immortelle, un polichinelle ou la V^nus, le
Misanthrope et Figaro, ou la Camaraderie et la Tour de Nesles.^
But the fact remains, Balzac never taught himself the lessons which
he preached to others, nor did he correct the serious faults committed
by the dramatists he imitated.
So much we know about Balzac's methods of composition. His
aesthetic theories about playwriting remain vague and formless.
He seems, like Dumas the elder, to have had the intention to write
plays of diverse nature. Unlike Hugo, he had no definite dramatic
^Portraits contemporains, pp. 82 and 119.
« LEt., Vol. I, p. 405.
14 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
system, no defined purpose. Every dramatist, he declares, should
introduce the corrections of faults into his play, and should put well
in the foreground the salutary opposition of good and evil. This was
his purpose also in the Human Comedy. About his plays he talks
little. Vautrin, in the mind of the author, represented the dramatic
contrast between a brigand and the law. His historical comedy,
Quinola, was to depict the struggles of genius with poverty, distrust,
ignorance and fate. UEcole des menages and la Mardtre were to
present the terrible ravages of passion in the home, and to preach a
moral lesson to the bourgeois. Mercadet, "le combat d'un homme
contre ses creanciers,"^^ was to be a pure comedy. This is all. He
approached the stage as he did the novel, fully aware of the obstacles
across his path, and with a determination to succeed.
Let us now consider the manner in which Balzac has conceived
his plays, turning first to the mass of theatrical projects which
occupied a great portion of his time, and which were never com-
pleted, then to the finished productions from the dramatist's pen,
plays which will be studied in detail.
» LEL, Vol. I, p. 536. May 10, 1840.
II
UNFRUITFUL ATTEMPTS AT THE DRAMA
When Balzac became settled in his attic room at 9, Rue de Les-
diguieres, to begin his literary career, he was twenty years old. It
was the month of March, 1819. He was barely installed in those
humble quarters when he began to write, conceiving the plans for
various types of productions. Madame Laure de Surville relates in
her interesting biography of her brother something of this labor:
Que de travaux il m6dite! des romans, des comedies, des op6ras-comiques, des
tragedies sont sur sa liste d'ouvrages a faire, II ressemble k I'enfant qui a tant de
paroles a dire, qu'il ne sait par oh commencer. C'est d'abord Stella et Coqsigrtte,
deux livres qui ne virent jamais le jour! De tous ses pro jets de comedie de ce temps,
je me souviens des Deux Philosophes, qu'il eht certainement repris k ses loisirs. Ces
pr6tendus philosophes se moquaient I'un de I'autre, se querellaient sans cesse, comme
des amis (disait mon frere en racontant cette pidce).
Ces philosophes, tout en meprisant les hochets de ce monde, se les disputaient
sans pouvoir les obtenir, insucces final qui les raccomodait et leur faisait maudire en
commun la detestable engeance humaine !*
These early productions were soon abandoned. It is interesting,
however, that the first word he writes to his family at the beginning
of his literary career is about theatrical projects. To his sister, in a
letter dated September 6, 1819, he says:
J'ai decid6ment abandonn6 mon op^ra-comique. Je ne puis trouver un compo-
siteur dans mon trou; je ne dois pas, d'ailleurs, ^crire pour le gout actuel, mais faire
comme ont fait les Racine et les Corneille, travailler comme eux pour la posterity P
His first thought about the drama, and indeed about literature, was
to write for posterity. The comedy abandoned, he draws up the
plans for a much more ambitious work, this time a tragedy in five
acts and in verse, having for its subject the condemnation and death
of Charles I of England.^ He hesitated as to whether he should
entitle his composition Cromwell j Henriette d^ Angleterre or le Regicide.
He entered heart and soul into his work, talking frankly about his
efforts to depict the hearts of his characters, and to analyze their
^(Euvres, Vol. XXIV, pp. xx-xxi.
2 Corr., p. 5.
' The complete text of Cromwell is to be found in the Chantilly collection of Bal-
zac drama, with notes and modifications made by Spoelberch de Lovenjoul in view of a
possible production.
16 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
sentiments.* "De toutes les affections de T^me, la douleur est la
plus difl&cile a peindre," he writes.^ He found difficulties at the out-
set with his verse.^ A monologue after the manner of Chapelain, at
first sight good, turned out to be abominable verse/ and it was in
vain that he read for inspiration the tragedies of Crebillon, Voltaire,
Corneille and Racine. Repeatedly he asks his sister for advice,
calling for color and a certain romantic flavor which he lacks and
terms, "la fibre ossianesque."^ Finally, by the end of June, 1820,
he leaves Paris and goes to the family home at Villeparisis to read
his play. According to Champfleury,^ the academician, Andrieux,
professor of literature at the College de France and a staunch up-
holder of the classical tradition, was called in to judge the play.
Champfleury recounts the verdict which the older man, himself a
playwright, passed: "Que le jeune homme fasse quoi que ce soit,
excepte de la litterature."
The plan of the play is recounted by Balzac in the following lines:
Acte premier.
Henriette d'Angleterre, accabl6e de fatigue et d6guis6e sous d'humbles v^tements,
entre dans Westminster, soutenue par le fils de Strafford; elle revient d'un long voyage.
Elle a €t€, selon I'ordre de Charles !•', conduire ses enfants en Hollande et soUicitcr
des secours k la cour de France. Strafford en larmes lui apprend les derniers 6v6ne-
ments. Le roi, prisonnier dans Westminster, accus6 par le Parlement, attend son
jugement. Tu comprends l'61an de la reine k ces nouvelles; elle veut partager le sort
de son 6poux.
Entrent Cromwell et son gendre Ireton. Us ont donn6 rendez-vous dans ce lieu
aux conjures.
La reine, effray6e, se cache derriSre une tombe royale.
Les conspirateurs arrivent et elle entend discuter si on fera ou non mourir le roi.
Schne fort vive oil Fairfax (un honnfete gargon) defend les jours de I'illustre prisonnier
et d^voile I'ambition de Cromwell. Celui-ci rassure tout son monde. Apres quoi,
on conclut k la peine de mort.
La reine se montre et leur fait un fameux discours! ...
Cromwell et ses amis la laissent parler, enchant6s de tenir une victime qui leur
manquait. II sort avec ses complices pour assurer le succ^s de leurs projets, et la
reine se rend auprSs du prisonnier.
* Corr., p. 5.
* Ibid., p. IS. 1820.
^ Ibid., p. 16.
^ Ibid., p. 20. September, 1819. This letter has been dated incorrectly in the
definitive edition, Calmann-L6vy, 1876.
* Ibid., p. 7. September 6, 1819.
* Grandes Figures d'hier et d'aujourd'hui. 1861. See also the unsigned article
Honori de Balzac in la Revue franqaise, June 10, 1856.
' THE DRAMA OF HONOR^ DE BALZAC 17
Acte deuxieme
Charles !•', seul, repasse dans sa m6moire les 6v6nemeiits et les faits de son
r^gne. Quel monologue!
La reine arrive. C'est encore \k qu'il faudra du talent! L'amour conjugal sur
la sc^ne pour tout potage! il faut qu'il embrase la pi^ce. H doit r^gner dans cette
entrevue douloureuse un ton si m61ancolique et si tendre, que c'est d6j4 k d6sesp6rer;
il faut tout bonnement arriver au sublime.
Cromwell vient chercher le roi pour la s6ance. Sc^ne fort 6pineuse encore, oil il
faut mettre en relief les caracteres si differents des trois interlocuteurs (6tude historique
diflficile).
Strafford vient avertir la reine qu'une petite arm6e de royalistes s'est empar^e
des fils de Cromwell revenant de dompter I'Irlande. En mettant Cromwell entre ses
fils et le tr6ne, on sauvera peut-etre le roi. L'acte finit sur cette lueur d'esp6rance.
Acte troisUme.
Cromwell attend la reine. Celle-ci lui explique ce que tu sais et le met dans
I'altemative de se prononcer. Grand combat dans I'^-me du protecteur. Le roi
arrive et annonce k Cromwell qu'il a ordonn6 que ses fils lui soient rendus sans condi-
tion. Cromwell, en sortant, laisse le spectateur dans I'attente. Quelques autres
sc^es entre la reine, le roi, puis Strafford, qui fait observer au roi qu'il se remet sous
le couteau.
Tous vont k Westminster.
Acte quatriime.
Cromwell arrive. L'ambition I'emporte. Le parlement est assemble. Le roi
comparalt et parle, pour la premiere ct demiere fois, d'un ton. . . . (C'est li qu'il
faut 6tre sublime!) La reine, indign6e, se pr6sente et defend (Dieu sait comme!)
son diable de mari. Cromwell, voyant le parlement s'attendrir, fait retirer le roi et
la reine pour ddlib^rer. Au moment o^ les gardes les emmfenent, la reine tente un
dernier effort aupr^s de Cromwell: elle lui off re honneurs, titres, etc. Cromwell
reste froid.
La reine sort d€sesp6r6e.
Acte cinquUme {et le plus difficile de tous).
La sentence n'est pas encore connue; mais Charles !•', qui ne s'abuse pas, entrc-
tient la reine de ses dernieres volont6s. (Quelle sc^ne!) Strafford sait la condamna-
tion et vient I'annoncer k son maltre afin qu'il y soit prepare avant d'entendre son
arr6t. (Quelle scene!) Ireton arrive chercher le roi pour le conduire devant ses
juges. Charles I« ' dit k Strafford qu'il lui reserve I'honneur de le conduire k I'^chaf aud,
Adieux du roi et de la reine. (Quelle scene!) Fairfax accourt; il pr6 vient la reine de
son danger, il faut qu'elle fuie sur-le-champ, on veut la retenir prisonni^re et lui faire
aussi son proems.
La reine, toute k son d6sespoir, n'entend rien d'abord, puis elle delate tout k coup
en imprecations contre I'Angleterre: elle vivra pour la vengeance, elle lui soul^vera
partout des ennemis, la France la combattra, la dominera, I'^crasera un jour.
Ce sera le feu de joie, et je te r^ponds que ce sera tap6 de main de maltre!
Puis le parterre, tremp6 de larmes, ira se coucher.^"
" Corr., pp. 21-23. 1820.
18 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
The plan of Cromwell reveals several interesting facts. The
trivial plot displays much awkwardness in the art of constructing an
intrigue, but at the same time Balzac shows certain psychological
preoccupations. Written in 1819, and reworked in 1820, seven
years before Hugo established his dramatic principles in a play of the
same name, Balzac's plot is frankly romantic. At this time, it
will be remembered, the romantic drama was still in its infancy;
neither Hugo nor the elder Dumas had begun to write plays, and
such liberal classicists as Casimir Delavigne were immensely popular.
But the field for future romanticism on the stage was already being
cleared at the time Balzac was struggling with his classic verse.
The germs of this later drama are to be found in the historical melo-
drama of the early years of the nineteenth century. ^^ Ten years
before Hernani we have a queen disguised and hiding behind a royal
tomb at Westminster. . She listens to conspirators who discuss the
fate of their king. Like Charles V before the tomb of Charlemagne,
the English king reviews the events of his reign in a long monologue
at the opening of the second act. We are told that a sublime duo
d^amore is to be enacted between the queen and the king, and finally,
in the fifth act, ''the most difficult of all," Balzac tells us, the innocent
victim — the queen — declares that she will avenge her husband's
death, whereupon "le parterre, trempe de larmes, ira se coucher!"
It is curious to note here all the "properties" of the early romantic
melodrama. Conspirators had already found ample place in Ne-
pomucene Lemercier's Pinto (1800); the disguises, the powerless
victim, the abundant pathetic scenes, the solemn monologues and
grandiloquent gestures were all dear to the heart of Pixerecourt and
his school. Balzac's choice of subject even had already found
favor among the dramatists of the moment. In 1820, the Count
de Gain-Montaignac published a volume of three plays, one of which
dealt with the unhappy English monarch, Charles I.^^ About the
same time Merimee was making his first experiments with the
drama, and one of the earliest productions from his pen was a his-
" On the development of the historical drama and the early romantic drama, see
two extremely valuable articles by Jules Marsan in la Revue d'histoire litteraire: Le
Melodrame et Guilbert de Pixerecourt, vol. VII, 1900, pp. 196-200; and le Theatre
historigue et le romantisme, 1818-1829, vol. XVII, 1910, pp. 1-33.
^ Thidtre par le Cte J.-R. de Gain-Montaignac, gouverneur du Chateau Royal de
Pau. Paris, Potey et Petit, [1820]. — Charles-Quint d Saint Just. — La Conjuration des
adolescents. — Charles Premier.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 19
torical drama called Cromwell, a youthful piece of work which was,
like Balzac's play, read to friends, but never published.^^
Notwithstanding the romantic features of the plot of Cromwell,
Balzac's conception was classic, and we know the models from
which he sought inspiration. In October, 1819, Delavigne had
produced at the Odeon his Vipres siciliennes, the last in importance
of the historical tragedies, and Balzac had no doubt seen it acted.
At any rate, in November of the same year, while at work on his
drama, the author wrote to a friend, Theodore Dablin, to send him a
copy of the play.^^ The elements which attracted him in les Vipres
siciliennes were undoubtedly the historical subject, the Cornelian
sentiment of patriotism and liberty, the elevated tone and the strict
adherence to the classic rules of unity and versification. All of these
elements Balzac proposed to introduce in Cromwell. The action
centers about the soul combat of the Protector and the magnanimity
of Charles I. Cromwell's two sons have fallen into the hands of the
Royalists, but the king orders their unconditional surrender to their
father. The fourth act depicts Cromwell's dilemma, terminating
in his refusal to spare the life of the sovereign.
Balzac found justification for his historical subject and, to a
certain extent, for his form and matter in the success of Delavigne's
play. But he determined also to follow his "vieux general," Cor-
neille. At this time he had seen a performance of Cinnay and was
stirred by the moral sublimity in the play.^^ This he proposed to
reproduce in Cromwell. Charles I, in a monologue, reviews the
unhappy events of his reign. "Quel monologue!" writes Balzac, as
he might also have said of the Emperor's famous speech in Cinna,
when he recalls the crimes and bloodshed of his reign, and the
ingratitude of his friends.^^ Balzac's king, surrendering Cromwell's
sons, is also a memory of Augustus's magnanimity, when he heaps
favors upon the conspirator, Cinna. Cromwell himself, who has
been chosen to liberate England, is like the Corneille hero who
believes that
Le del entre nos mains a mis le sort de Rome.^'
^' See E. Delecluze, Souvenirs de soixante annies, 1862, p. 223. M. Marsan, in the
article cited supra, mentions also a play by Charles d'Outrepont, la Mort de Charles I,
published a few years later, in 1827.
14 Cf>rr., p. 15.
16 Cf. supra, p. 7.
i« Act IV, scene 2.
1' Cinna, Act I, scene 3.
20 THE DRAMA OP HONOR^ DE BALZAC
For his character study, Balzac went to Bossuet, and studied the
admirable tribute which the latter paid England's unhappy queen."
From Bossuet he gleaned certain traits of his king, his justness and
clemency, and especially, in the face of betrayal, his greatness of soul.
Bossuet^s portrayal of Henrietta's self-sacrifices upon her return
from the fruitless mission to Holland, her splendid defense of her
husband and her pride so sadly humiliated before Cromwell, also
attracted Balzac. He sought again his portrait of the Protector
from Bossuet, this chief sent by God to liberate a kingdom, but here
he hesitates, and cries out: "Bossuet m'epouvante!""
Cromwell was a beginning, and displays a serious interest in the
stage; this is all we may say of the play. With the pages of his
classic "generals" at hand, he set out to treat a modern historical
theme, but the task he found too great for his untrained genius,
and the result was a frigid and wearisome composition.
During the year 1821 Balzac began to write his first novels, work-
ing at his father's home near Paris. These were poor productions,
all of them, and no one was quicker to realize it than the author
himself. In the meanwhile Cromwell remained unfinished; in fact,
the last word we hear about it is in a letter to the author's sister in
1822:
Mes id6es changent tellement, que lefaire changerait bientfit! . . . Encore quelque
temps, et il y aura entre le moi d'aujourd'hui et le moi de demain la diff6rence qui
existe entre le jeune homme de vingt ans et Thomme de trente! Je r6fl6chis, mes id6es
m^rissent, je reconnais que la nature m'a trait6 favorablement en me donnant mon
cceur et ma t6te. Crois-moi, chere soeur, car j'ai besoin d'une croyante, je ne d6sespftrc
pas d'etre un jour quelque chose. Je vois aujourd'hui que Cromwell n'avait pas
m6me le m6rite d'etre un embryon; quand k mes romans, ils ne valent pas le diable,
et ne sont pas si tentateurs surtout.*"
A recollection of these youthful dramatic productions is to be found
in la Feau de chagrin where Balzac writes:
Une com6die devait en peu de jours me donner une renomm6e, une fortune, et
l'entr6e de ce monde oii je voulais reparaltre en y exergant les droits r^galiens de
Thomme de g^nie. Vous avez tous vu dans ce chef-d'oeuvre la premiere erreur d'un
jeime honune qui sort du college, une veritable niaiserie d'enfant.'*
" Oraison funebre de Henriette-Marie de France. November 16, 1669.
*• Corr., p. 23. For further remarks on the sources of Cromwell, see Appendix.
»76ia.,p. 45.
« (Euvres, Vol. XV, p. 82.
THE DRAMA OF HONOR^ DE BALZAC 21
It is not until ten years later that Balzac again occupies himself
with the stage. During these years the novelist had already come
into fame, and some of his best work had been written — les Chouans,
Gohsecky le Colonel Chaberl^ Louis Lambert. At this time he was
engrossed in his novels, working with his customary feverish haste in
his Rue Cassini home, already undergoing the excessive and un-
natural regime of long and sleepless hours. Except for a brief hint
in his correspondence of certain proposed collaborations with Victor
Ratier, editor of la Silhouette^ whose relations with Balzac were most
cordial, no mention is made of theatrical activity until 1834. Bal-
zac's letter to Ratier, written from Nemours in May of 1831, reads in
part as follows:
Mon judicieux ami, a mon retour, je ne demande pas mieux, toute speculation k
part, que de travailler avec vous pour le theatre, en vous laissant tout I'honneur de nos
compositions androgynes, de nous donner I'un k I'autre k tour dc r61e la canne de
I'argousin pour frapper sur le torse du fain6ant. ... Si nous avons le bonheur de
faire un bon Scribe de notre raison sociale Ratier, ce sera tant mieux et je le desire bien
vivement.'^
Except for these few lines, nothing more is said of the proposed work.
The subject of a historical play, with the plot laid at the court of
Philip II, seems to have occupied the mind of Balzac for some years.
The first mention which is made of such a play is in May, 1834, when
he writes to Mme Hanska that he has thought of a tragedy in prose
entitled Don Philippe et Don CharlesP The plans were set aside the
following month, and we know little of the nature of these first
sketches. The name which the author finally decided to give to his
tragedy was Philip pe-le-Reserve, and he writes of it as follows:
PhiUppe-le-Reserv6 (Felipe-il-discreto) est mis de c6t6. Ndanmoins, la litt6rature
s'inquiete beaucoup de ma pi^ce. En r6ponse k ce que vous daignez m'en 6crire, je
vous dirai que Carlos a €t6 si fort amoureux de la Reine, qu'il y avait preuve suffisantc
que I'enfant dont elle est morte enceinte {traiUe pour une hydropisie, car Dieu prit en
pitiS le trdne d'Espagne et aveugla les midecins, propres termes du m6ticuleux Mariano),
6tait de I'infant. Ainsi, dans ma piece, la Reine est coupable, suivant les idfies ad-
mises. Carlos idem. Philippe II, Charles, sont jou6s par Don Juan d'Autriche.
Enfin, je me conforme k I'histoire et la suis pied a pied. D'ailleurs, selon toute appa-
rence, cette ceuvre sera faite sous vos yeux, car c'est la seule chose que Ton puisse faire
en courant, et vous jugerez de la profondeur politique de cette ^pouvantable trag6die.
II faudra des sondes bien armies de cordes pour la jauger! Deux de mes amis fouillent
« Corr., p. 83.
» LEt., Vol. I, p. 156. May 10, 1834.
22 THE DRAMA OF HONORf DE BALZAC
avec ardeur les manuscrits historiques pour que rien ne me manque. Je veux avoir
jusqu'aux plans du palais et jusqu'a I'etiquette de la cour d'Espagne sous Philippe II. 2*
However ardent Balzac's research into Mariana's history and
other less meticulous documents may have been at the moment, as
he states in his letter, the actual work on this tragedy was delayed
until he went to Russia for a few months rest. Later, he refers to
the play as Philippe-le-Discret,'^^ and had evidently received sug-
gestions from Mme Hanska concerning it. "Vous avez partage mes
jugements sur Schiller et mes idees sur ce que je dois faire," he writes
her on August 11. This sordid subject, the incestuous love of the
grandson of Charles V for his step-mother, Elizabeth of Valois, had
already been the matter of Schiller's Don Carlos, ^^ and Balzac
evidently proposed to make this latter play his point of departure.
In October, however, he had not had time to begin his tragedy ;2^ in
fact, he was at that moment interested in other scenic plans together
with Jules Sandeau and Arago. Moreover, his theatrical projects
were causing him a great deal of trouble. "Mes essais de theatre vont
mal," he writes to his sister, and he mentions the difficulties of the
historical drama, which exacts stage effects unknown to him. As
for comedy, he is trying to follow Moliere and finds him ''un maitre
desesperant." But the real reasons for his failures seem to have
been a lack of time and the difficulties which he experienced in having
his plays accepted.^^ By 1837, he had begun to work on his Ecole
des menages, and his historical tragedy was abandoned. It is not
until the close of 1841, after the failure of Vautrin, that we again
hear of a Spanish play written about the court of Philip II, and this
time it is not a tragedy, but a comedy: les Res sources de QuinolaP
In 1834, Balzac, correcting the proofs of la Recherche de Vahsolu,
and completing le Fere Goriot, begins to plan a theatrical venture to
which he refers as Marie Touchet, ''une fiere piece, ou je dresserai en
pied de fiers personnages."^" Marie Touchet was actually written,
not, however, by the hand of Balzac. The Count Ferdinand de
^ Ibid., p. 162. Junes, 1834.
25 IbU., p. 179. August 11, 1834.
^ 1783-7. Don Carlos, infant d'Espagne, de Schiller, traduit par Ad. Legay.
Paris, an YlU.— Theatre de Schiller, traduit par Lamartelliere, Paris, 1799, 2 vol.
" LEL, Vol. I, p. 198.
28 Corr., p. 200.
29 See p. 72 sf.
30 Corr., p. 198.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 23
Grammont, one of the novelist's friends, was entrusted with the task
of writing the play for Balzac, and the manuscript in his hand-
writing forms a part of the Lovenjoul collection.^^
In October of 1834 Balzac proposed to collaborate with Jules
Sandeau and Emmanuel Arago in a five-act play to be called les Cour-
tisans, a production which would pay off their debts and undoubtedly
grace the boards of the Theatre-Fran fais.^^ Another play, with
Sandeau's collaboration we are told, was begun at the same time, a
comedy to bear the name of la Grande Mademoiselle — a story of the
Duke de Lauzun, which was to have for denouement: Marie, Hre-moi
mes bottes — a comedy to be launched forth into the maelstrom of
Parisian melodramas P
From October, 1835, until 1848 Balzac was occupied at various
moments with a play which he calls Richard Cosur-d'eponge, numerous
fragments of which are extant in the Chantilly collection.^* The
hero of the play is a carpenter by trade, and a drunkard, the latter
winning him the soubriquet, *'c(Bur-d'eponge." Begun in 1835,^^
the idea was taken up again in 1838,^^ and still not worked out by
1840, when the following lines were written in the preface to Vautrin:
La v6ritable et meilleure preface de Vautrin sera done le drame de Richard Coeur-
d'eponge, que radministration permet de repr^senter, afin de ne pas laisser les rats
occuper exclusivement les planches si f^condes du th6a,tre de la Porte-Saint-Martin.
During the first months of 1839 three plays were occupying
Balzac's attention: V£,cole des menages, Richard Coeur-d'eponge,
and a melodrama called la GinaP This latter play was begun in
September of the previous year. Of its character we know very
little. "C'est Othello retourne," the author writes to Mme Hanska:^*
La Gina sera un Othello femelle. La scene est a Venise, et je veux enfin essayer
du th64tre. Les propositions ne me manquent pas. On m'oflfre, d'un c6t6, vingt
mille francs de prime, pour quinze actes, et j'ai les quinze actes dans la tete, mais non
sur le papier.
31 Bire, H. de Balzac, p. 193.
32 LEL, Vol. I, p. 20L October 26, 1834.
33 Ihid., p. 207. December 1, 1834.
3* Lovenjoul, Autour de Honore de Balzac, p. 57. For a further discussion of
Richard Coeur-d' Sponge, see Appendix.
35 Corr., p. 225.
36 LEL, Vol. I, p. 489.
''Ibid., p. 507. February 12, 1839.
38 Ibid., p. 489. September 17, 1838.
24 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
On the following day, the plans were abandoned, and the author
writes characteristically:
Le temps de toumer cette page, j'ai trouv6 la Gina trop difficile; il y a des raison-
nements qui assassinent. Ainsi, dans Otkello, lago est le pilier qui soutient la conception,
moi, je n'ai que I'intdrfet d'argent, au lieu de I'int^r^t de I'amour m^connu. J'ai trouv6
mon personnage inadmissible. Un auteur de vaudeville n'eiit pas 6t6 arr6t6 par cette
difficult^."
In September of 1837 Balzac began to talk of a play, the subject
of which was to interest him for a period of years:
"Je commence ce soir," he writes on the first day of the month,
"une comedie en cinq actes, intitulee: Joseph PrudhommeJ^^^ With
boldness he declares that the type belongs to Henry Monnier, but
adds that a creation is not one of the requisites of theatrical success :^^
Seulement, il faut assassiner Monnier, et que mon Prudhonmie soit le seul Prud-
homme. II n'a fait, lui, qu'un mis6rable vaudeville a travestissements; moi, je ferai
cinq actes au Th6&tre-Francais.
All this, to be sure, is little else than pure boasting. There follows in
the same letter to Mme Hanska a plan of the comedy.
Prudhomme is in love with the daughter of a portress, a charming
girl of eighteen, entirely comme il faut, who studies at the Conserva-
tory and sees before her the future of a Mile Mars. Her name is
Pamela. Deceived by a fellow-student, who flees to America, the
poor girl is left with a child, a boy. To bring up this child properly
she marries Prudhomme without revealing to him her past life.
The result of this union is a daughter. All this forms the prologue
to the play, and is to be called le Mariage de Prudhomme. The real
action begins eighteen years later. Prudhomme is now a prosperous
banker. Pamela is a model wife, consumed with love for her boy,
who, thanks to Prudhomme's generosity, has been well reared, and
has lately become a .clerk in Prudhomme's establishment. His name
is Adolphe. In the meanwhile Prudhomme's daughter has grown
up, and has become one of the richest heiresses in Paris. Her fortune
tempts an old notary who desires to make a match between his son
and the young girl, but Mme Prudhomme looks with disfavor upon
this. Noticing the fondness of Mme Prudhomme for Adolphe, the
'• LEt.^ Vol. I. p. 489. A few summary notes of the plan of la Gina actually exist
in the Lovenjoul collection. See Autour de Honor e de Balzac, p. 58.
*o/6tJ.,p. 423.
«/Wrf., pp. 430, 431. October 10-12, 1837.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 25
notary reports the fact to Prudhomme, and succeeds in kindling the
husband's jealousy. Unable to explain her relationship to the
young man, Pamela allows unjust accusations to fall upon her head,
but takes her revenge by refusing to consent to the proposed marriage
of her daughter. Adolphe is sent away. The return of Pamela's
former lover furnishes the climax. Prudhomme, suspecting the
truth, resorts to the ruse of pretending to marry brother and sister
in order to assure himself of his wife's relation to Adolphe.
Such, in the main, was the proposed plot of this satire on bour-
geois manners. The role of Pamela was destined for Mile Mars.
Balzac frankly admits that these plans were pushed forward by an
urgent need of money. Furthermore, he proposed to write under
an assumed name an additional piece with the same characters, a
vaudeville to be called Prudhomme higame,
Prudhomme est avare; il tient sa femjne fort juste, elle fait le m6nage; c'est une
servante d6guis6e sous le titre d^Spouse. Elle n'a jamais €t€ au bal de rOp6ra. Sa
voisine veut I'emmener et, apres s'fitre informde des habitudes conjugales de Joseph
Prudhomme, les deux femmes font un mannequin qui ressemble k madame Prudhom-
me, le laissent dans le lit et vont au bal masqu6. Prudhomme rentre, fait ses mono-
logues, interroge sa femme qui dort; enfin, il se couche. A cinq heures sa fenrnie rentre, et
il se trouve deux femmes! Vous ne devinez guere les boufltonneries que nos acteurs
feront avec ce croquis, mais je vous jure que si cela prend, les Parisiens viendront voir
cela cent fois. Dieu le veuille! II ne m'en content qu'une matinee, et cela pent valoir
quinze mille francs. VoilH la meilleure bouflfonnerie! Mais tout depend de tant de
choses! II me faut un pr^te-nom; puis, les th^Atres, c'est une sentine, et mon pied est
vierge de souillure. Peut-6tre la premiere et demifere representation sera-t-elle dans
cette lettre.'*^
The latter statement was true, and this is the last we hear of Prud-
homme bigame.
On November 7, 1837, Balzac writes to Mme Hanska that his
comedy had been begun, but that he was finding difficulties with
the great work which was to throw Monnier in the shade!** He
writes :
II faut que chaque mot soit un arrdt prononce sur les moeurs de I'dpoque. II ne
faut pas choisir les sujets minces ni mesquins. II faut entrer dans le fond des choses,
en sorte qu'il faut constamment embrasser r6tat social et le juger sous une forme
plaisante. II y a mille choses H dire, et il ne faut dire que la bonne, en sorte qu'il y a
mille pens6es rebutees sous une expression qui demeure. Ce travail me confond. II va
sans dire que j'entends parler d'une ceuvre de g6nie, car pour les trente mille pieces
qu'on nous a donn^es depuis quarante ans, rien n'est plus facile k faire. Je suis tres
« LEL, Vol. I, p. 197. October 18 and 19, 1834.
« Ibid., p. 443.
26 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
envahi par cette comedie; je ne pense qu'a cela, et chaque pensee en 6tend les diffi-
cultes. Ce ne sera rien que de la faire; il faudra la faire repr^senter, et elle peut
tomber.'*^
With the ardor so typical of Balzac, one detail of
Prudhomme's life suggested another. He laid the plans for other
plays, all dealing with the same hero. Before producing Prudhomme
parvenu, he writes, he must depict Prudhomme se mariant. ''Ainsi
me voila avec huit actes sur les bras au lieu de cinq."^^
In August of the next year, after his return from Corsica, Balzac
writes Mme Hanska that he has been promised twenty thousand
francs for le Mariage de Joseph Prudhomme on the day of the first
reading, but that he has not begun the play.'*^
Balzac's interest in Henry Monnier, the Phellion of les Employes
(1837) and of les Petits bourgeois (1844), author, caricaturist, play-
wright and actor, is important. He was intimately acquainted
with the work of this versatile genius, praising it at various times in
his critical reviews.^^ Monnier, like Balzac, had served time in a
notary's office, and later in the Ministry of Justice, where he became
intimately acquainted with a great variety of types of government
clerks and officials. In 1828 he published an album entitled Mceurs
administratives dessinees d'apres nature, in which the various types of
employes were caricatured. This was followed by an amusing
series of pen sketches called Scenes populaires, which later grew to
the extent of eight volumes. In these sketches and in a vaudeville
entitled la Famille improvisie, appeared for the first time the famous
character of Joseph Prudhomme, ''professeur d'ecriture, eleve de
Brard et Saint-Omer, expert assermente pres les cours et tribunaux!"
La Famille improvisee, a series of comic episodes had been arranged
for the stage by three vaudevillists, Dupeuty, Duvert and the well-
known Brazier. It was produced for the first time at the Theatre du
Vaudeville on July 5, 1831.^^ The thread of this amusing caricature
is briefly as follows: Adolphe has become engaged, without having
seen her, to Eulalie, the daughter of a retired merchant. But at
** Ibid., pp. U6-U7.
*^ Ibid., p. US.
« Ibid., p. 482.
*'' See especially the article on Gavarni, published in Essais et Melanges, (Euvres,
Vol. XXII, p. 184; also the review of Monnier's album, Recreations, in la Caricature,
May 31, 1832. (Euvres, Vol: XXII, pp. 203-4.
^* Published in la France dramatique au 19^ siecle, number 281, 1838.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 27
Paris he has fallen in love with an unknown lady, and wishes to
break his pledge to Eulalie's parents. His friend, Albert, agrees to
help him, and later, disguised as various members of Adolphe*s
family, including the famous Prudhomme, he scandalizes the parents
of Eulalie, so that they are eager to break ofiF the engagement of their
daughter. But Adolphe finally recognizes Eulalie as the fair unknown
whom he has seen at Paris, and the farce ends happily. Monnier
played with success the role of Albert and the improvised family,
advertising his advent upon the stage in his final couplet:
Messieurs, jadis, dans una autre carriere,
Votre indulgence a su me soutenir;
J'invoque ici votre bonte premiere:
Que le passe protege Tavenir!
Songez, messieurs, sur ce point-la j'insiste,
Lorsque je brigue un suffrage nouveau,
Que devant vous c'est toujours un artiste,
Et qu'il n'a fait que changer de drapeau.
The piece was merely a travesty, but the character of Prudhomme
became immensely popular. Who is Prudhomme? He is the
symbol of the active, commercial, bourgeois spirit, rising to impor-
tance through sheer blufiF and bluster; he is the type of the grandiose
politician, the stupid and vulgar parvenu, loud of voice, sententious,
absurdly eloquent and filled with self-importance. Balzac was
enthusiastic over Monnier and his creation. His letters are filled
with appreciation of the man's talent as artist and actor. That he
should have boldly proposed to confiscate his Prudhomme and
transfer the glory of the character to a play of his own making, at
the same time referring to its author in the slighting terms cited
above, seems preposterous to those who are not aware of the immense
vanity and utter assurance of the man. In January of 1840 Monnier's
creation was still in his mind, and at this time he audaciously pro-
posed that Monnier himself should have the principal role in this new
Prudhommel*^ Three years later, it is still a question of Monnier.
In a letter dated February 10, 1844, Balzac writes to Mme Hanska:
Hier, j'ai rencontr6 Poirson, le directeur du Gymnase, dans un omnibus, et je
crois que je vais arranger avec lui la comddie de Prudhomme [en bonne fortune], en la
faisant jouer par Henry Monnier. C'est une de mes deux b^quilles pour cette ann^e
que cette piece-1^. J'irai la lui exposer lundi prochain, et, si cela lui va, je me mets k
la faire imm^diatement, pour dtre jou6e en mars ou mai, car mars m'a 6t6 deux fois
fataliso
«X£^., Vol. I, p. 526. January 20, 1840.
" Ibid., Vol. II, p. 304.
28 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
The last line refers of course to the unhappy productions of Vautrin
and Quinola, both played in the month of March. In March,
Poirson had accepted the comedy, and rehearsals were to begin.^^
The r61e of Prudhomme was to be taken by the actor Dufour.
However, the next month his Prudhomme projects were definitely
abandoned,^^ when Balzac turned his attention from Monnier to
Frederick Lemaitre.
In the month of November, 1843, Balzac returned from Russia,
the failure of Pamila Giraud fresh in his mind. The importance of
his considerable dramatic activity at this time lies in the fact that
he was writing solely for a special actor, Frederick Lemaitre. ^^ In
1842, Lemaitre returned to the Porte-Saint-Martin, newly opened
under the directorship of the Cogniard brothers, in Ruy Bias. The
same year he played a gloomy melodrama by Bouchardy, called
Paris le Bohemietiy and Adolphe Dumas' Mile de la Valliere,'**
Since Vautrin Balzac had been eager for Lemaitre's collaboration
in a dramatic success. Richard Cceur-d'eponge had been written for
him; with Monnier and Saint-Firmin he was to have had one of the
principal roles in V^cole des menages.^ On November 7, 1843, he
writes to Mme Hanska that he must prepare a play for Frederick
Lemaitre. This play was the result of reading Cooper's Spy:
Le drame que je vais faire pour Frederick aura pour base le r61e de Tespion dans
le roman de Cooper; il s'adapte a merveille au talent de I'acteur, qui veut des metamor-
phoses, et il y a la matiere a sentiments patriotiques qui manquent rarement leur effet
sur le public. Mais le danger est dans I'intrigue secondaire, sur laquelle il f aut attacher
le r6le de I'espion.^
The title of this production was to be le Heros ignore, and Lemaitre
was to play the part of Harvey Birch.^^ At the beginning of the next
year the play was still unwritten, nor was it ever begun, for Balzac
was informed by the actor that he had already seen two productions
based on the same subject — one, the work of D'Epagny, had failed
61 Ihid., pp. 314, 325.
^"-Ihid., p. 347. Monnier's successful comedy in five acts, entitled Grandeur
et decadence de M. Joseph Prudhomme, written in collaboration with Gustave Vaez, was
given for the first time at the Odeon on November 23, 1852, Monnier himself playing
the title role.
" Antome-Louis-Prosper Lemaitre (1800-1876).
^ G. Duval, Frederick Lemaitre et son temps, 1876.
" G6rard was written for Lemaitre, and Duval for Monnier. See Corr., p. 326.
66 LE.t., Vol. II, p. 229. November 22, 1843.
" IhU., p. 244. December 16, 1843.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 29
at the Odeon.*^ In the meanwhile, Balzac was busily engaged with
his comedy, Mercadet. Lemaitre was achieving a triumph with
les Mysteres de Paris, and Sue's success would not let him rest.
Mercadet was finished, but it suited neither the theatre for which
it was destined nor the actor. On March 13, he writes to Mme
Hanska:
J'ai trouve le plus beau su jet bouff on pour Frederick, quelque chose d'inouI;mais
je n'ai pas le temps de I'ecrire. Voici ce que c'est: peindre les Tratnards de l'Arm6efran-
qaise, en 1813 et 1814, c'est-^-dire I'envers de la guerre, toutes les guenilles qui tralnent
apres une armee. Faire une piece qui soit a I'epoque de Napoleon ce qu'est Don
Quichotte a la chevalerie, montrer les SganareUes; les Frontins, les Mascarilles, les
Figaros de Tarmee, ce qu'on appelle les Fricoteurs, les gens qui parlent guerre et qui
n'ont pas vu le feu, en quinze ans, et qui sont poursuivis, ou par I'ennemi ou par la
gendarmerie, de I'armee de Russie en Alsace, en passant par les pays interm6diaires
qu'on peindra ! C'est une Epopee drolatique, et avec Fr^d^rick pour Achille en haillons
de gloire, il y a de quoi faire bien de I'argent. . . . J'irai voir demain Gozlan; c'est le
seul esprit capable d'inventer I'esprit de ces farces-li. J'ai a lui proposer aussi d'6crire
une belle com^die pour le Theatre-Franfais.^^
The "belle comedie" was Mercadet. As for les Tratnards, the title
is all that remains of this proposed farce.
One fact concerning all this activity is evident: Balzac was
disheartened by his three failures upon the stage, and by the cool
reception which had greeted his J^cole des menages, still unaccepted.
He was confident, however, that safety lay in the choice of a popular
actor and a popular form of play, so he clung tenaciously to Lemaitre
and strove to imitate his most taking roles. Moreover, he did not
hesitate to solicit aid from outside sources. Consequently, we find
him seeking collaboration with such varied types of genius as Gautier
and Gozlan, groping about haphazard for inspiration from Fenimore
Cooper or the contemporary farce. This is a period that one would
like to pass over in silence, devoid of any real progress in dramatic
ability, and choked with hasty, unfledged projects to win popular
favor and money.
Mention must be made of another curious and unfruitful dramatic
venture by Balzac. In the Lovenjoul collection is found the title
page, list of characters and notes of a play which read as follows:
"/Wi.,p. 283. January 24, 1843.
"/W<f., p. 330.
30 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
Orgon
Com6die en cinq actes
Personnages
Mme Peraelle, m^re d'Orgon Mme Desmousseaux
Orgon MM. Samson
Tartuffe Provost
Elmire, femme d'Orgon Mlle Mars
Damis, fils d'Orgon
Marianne [fille d'Orgon] Mlle Brohan
Valere [mari de Marianne]
Clitandre (sic)
Dorine [servante d'Orgon]
Laurent [serviteur de Tartuffe] M. R^gnier
Flipote [servante de Mme Pemelle]
Acte Premier
Dorine et Damis. Une scene entre chaque enfant, d'un caractSre different. Une
avec la femme, le beau-frere, Mme Pemelle.
Acte II
Co. . . .
Acte III
Acte de Tartuffe
Acte IV
Acte de la r6volte
Acte V
R^gne de Tartuffe
Sujet
Tous les ennemis du pere de famille qui, ayant fait une faute, est tomb6 dans le
m6pris. Vieillesse abreuv6e de chagrins. La femme devenant maltresse, allant dans
le monde avec sa fille. Le fils d6pensier. Le vieillard reste seul. II n'a plus que sa
mere. lis regrettent, k eux deux, Tartuffe. Us font venir Laurent et s'enquierent de
Tartuffe.
Tartuffe reseduit Orgon; il lui dit que ses malheurs viennent de ce qu'il s'est
laiss6 dominer trop, que le pouvoir du pere de famille doit ^tre absolu, qu'il est I'image
de Dieu sur la terre, que la dissipation de sa femme vient de son irr^ligion, qu'elle
finira par. . . .
In addition to the above fragment, we liave also preserved a
prose plan of the comedy written in Balzac's hand, and the manu-
script of the first act in verse by the hand of another. When this
comedy was conceived, we are unable to say. Lovenjoul determines
it roughly between 1835 and 1841 — the former date marking the
actor's Provost's debut at the Comedie Franjaise, the latter, Mlle
Mar's retirement from the stage.^''
•* See article by Lovenjoul in le Figaro, May 21, 1899.
THE DRAMA OF HONOR:^ DE BALZAC 31
After his scenario was written, Balzac was anxious to put his
comedy into verse, a form which he doubtless regarded necessary
for his classic subject. For this task a collaborator was sought,
though it was not until 1847 that the busy playwright occupied
himself seriously with the task. On June 25 of this year he writes
to Mme Hanska:
Si je fais du theatre, j'aurai beaucoup de courses a faire. Je pense beaucoup a
faire Orgon, et demain je verrai Theophile Gautier, mon voisin, pour savoir s'il veut
mettre ma prose en vers.*^
The next day, however, Balzac writes that Gautier is too busy
to help him:
Alors, j'ai eu I'idee de donner un acte k Charles de Bernard, deux actes k M6ry,
et de distribuer les deux autres k deux autres poetes, comme Gramont, etc., si ce
pro jet de mon esprit subsiste; car j'ai I'exp^rience qu'avant de mordre k son oeuvre,
ma tfite lutine avec des sujets.®*
By June 28 he had found a poet who was willing to aid him with
his versifying:
J'ai d^couvert un rimeur e£fr6n6 pour Orgon. J'ai mis du monde ^ sa piste. II se
nomme Am6d6e Ponmaier. Quels fruits en retirerai-je? I'^v^nement le dira. . ."
Balzac's acquaintanceship with Pommier was of some years
standing. In 1842, the novelist had received a flattering mention
in a volume of verse by Pommier entitled Crdneries et dettes de cceur,^
and had written a cordial letter to the poet in reply .*^ Before the
*' Cited by Lovenjoul in article supra.
^Ubid.
"Ibid.
" Corr., pp. 350 and 362. Am6d6e Pommier: Lyons, 1804— Paris, 1877.
• "A M. Am6d6e Pommier, homme de lettres, k Paris.
23 avril, 1842.
"Monsieur,
"Je vous remercie et de votre receuil et de ce que vous y dites de flatteur pour moi;
malgre la modestie de votre lettre d'envoi, j'ai lu tout, et je vous trouve trop de talent
et d'avenir pour ne pas vous dire d'ecouter ce que vous vous etes adress6 a vous-m6me
par la bouche de Boileau.*
"J'aurais, en qualite d'admirateur presque enthousiaste des pontes, beaucoup
d'observations a vous faire, dans votre int^ret; mais je n'ai point le temps de les 6crire,
ha,t6 que je suis de tracer, comme un pauvre bceuf de prosateur, mon sillon tons les
jours; mais, si je me trouve un matin de bonne heure vers le quartier oii vous demeurez,
j'irai frapper i votre porte et vous soumettre de vive voix mes critiques amicales.
"Agr6ez, monsieur, mes compliments et mes voeux pour de nouveaux succes.
H. de Balzac." — Cited by Lovenjoul in article supra.
* Poem entitled Apparition.
32 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
first of July, 1847, Balzac had submitted his prose plan to Pommier,
and the latter had undertaken the collaboration. In September,
Balzac went to Russia, and it was during the months of July and
August that Pommier put into verse the first act of Orgon, following
with exactitude, so Lovenjoul tells us, the plan submitted by Balzac.
This one act is all that was ever completed. Lovenjoul has pub-
lished the only fragment of the play which we have in Balzac's hand,
the prose plan which he originally conceived.^
What Balzac has proposed to do is no less a task than to resume
the history of Tartuffe at the point where Moliere has left off: to
depict the distress of Orgon after the departure of his "directeur de
conscience," humiliated by his family, and determined to have
Tartuffe back. Nothing more ambitious or preposterous can be
imagined than this project suggested by Moliere 's play, or than the
method of composition which Balzac proposed to follow.
Orgon, when finished, was to have been submitted to the actors
of the Comedie Franyaise. At the same time Balzac was planning
two other plays, one of which was la Mardtre, to which the author
refers as "un gros melodrame."^^ After the opening of the Theatre
Historique on February 20, 1847 with Dumas' Reine Mar got ^
Balzac was as eager as ever to compete with the dramatist who was
then the idol of all Paris. *^ The theatre was under the directorship
of H. Hostein, former "regisseur general" of the Ambigu-Comique.
In August of that year Balzac confided to Hostein that he had
planned for a long time a historical drama with the title of Pierre et
Catherine. The interview is recounted by Hostein as follows:
Nous sommes, dit Balzac, dans une auberge russe. Vous voyez d'ici le d^cor?
Bon. Dans cette auberge, beaucoup de mouvement, parce qu'il y a sur la route des
passages de troupes. On entre, on sort, on boit, on cause, mais tout cela tres rapide-
ment.
Parmi les gens de la maison, une servante, jeune, vive, alerte. Faites attention
h, cette fenune-la! .... EUe est bien campee, pas de beaute, mais un piquant excep-
tionnel! On la lutine en passant: elle sourit a tout le monde: mais ceux dont les
propos ou les gestes sont trop vifs trouvent vite a qui parler.
Entre un soldat plus crane que les autres et qui semble moins press6. II cause
longuement avec la servante, la fait asseoir pres de lui et veut trinquer avec elle.
•• Article cited supra. For this prose plan, see Appendix. On May 21, 1899, on
the occasion of the Balzac centenary, the first and only performance of Ponmiier*s
fragment was given by the Com6die Franjaise company.
*^ Cited by Lovenjoul in article supra.
** See Hostein, Historiettes et souvenirs d'un homme de thidtre, 1878. Also, Henri
Beaulieu, Thidtre du boidevard du crime, 1905, pp. 155-158.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 33
Comme le vieux hotelier fait mine de se facher, le soldat se leve avec fureur, et, f rappant
du poing la table: "Qu'on ne s'oppose pas k ma volont6, sinon je mets le feu a la
baraque !"
L'h6telier fait signe a la jeune fille d'obeir. Que voulez-vous? lorsque les troupes
ftont d6chainees dans les campagnes, le pauvre paysan est bien en peine!
Le soldat s'est remis a table. II continue a boire et a courtiser la fille, qui sourit
k ses propos. "Va, lui dit-il, tu ne seras pas malheureuse avec moi. Je te donnerai une
bien plus belle cabane que celle-ci."
Tandis qu'ils causent tous les deux, sans s'occuper d'autre chose, la porte du fond
s'ouvre. Un oflbcier parait. En le voyant, chacun se leve avec respect. Seuls le
soldat et la servante demeurent assis. lis n'ont ni vu ni entendu I'officier, qui s'avance
vers la table, et, posant lourdement la main sur I'epaule du soldat, lui crie: "Debout,
drdle ! Va ^crire sur le comptoir ton nom, celui de ton regiment, ton num^ro d'ordre,
et attends-toi k avoir bientdt de mes nouvelles!"
Le soldat se dresse automatiquement, fait le salut militaire, et va inscrire au
comptoir ce que lui a 6te demande. Ayant 6crit, il pr6sente humblement le papier.
"C'est bon, dit Tofficier, va-t'en!"
Le soldat fait un nouveau salut, tourne sur ses talons selon I'ordonnance, et sort
sans regarder personne, pas meme la jolie fille.
Mais d6ja I'officier a pris la place qu'occupait le soldat; assise a ses c6t6s, la
sefvante 6coute ses galants propos.
Un Stranger se montre a la porte d'entrde. II est envelopp6 dans un grand man-
teau. A sa vue, hommes et fenunes tombent k genoux. Quelques-uns inclinent leur
front jusqu'a terre.
Pas plus que n'avait fait le soldat, I'officier ne remarque pas ce qui se passe der-
rifire lui. La s^duisante fille d'aubergt est en train de I'ensorceler. II s'6crie dans un
moment d'enthousiasme : "Tu es divine, je t'emmSne. Tu auras un bel appartement
ou il fait tres chaud."
Cependant I'homme au manteau s'est approch6; rejetant son manteau en arridre
et croisant ses bras sur sa poitrine, il se montre a I'officier. L'officier p^it, se leve,
s'inclinant tr^s bas, it balbutie ces mots:
"Ah! pardon. Sire!"
"Rel^ve-toi."
De m^me encore que le soldat, I'officier se leve tout d'une piece, attendant le bon
plaisir du maitre. Le maitre etait occupe a regarder de pres la servante; de son c6t6,
elle consid^rait avec attention et sans trembler le t^ar tout-puissant.
"Tu peux te retirer, dit celui-ci a I'officier. Je garde cette femme, je lui donnerai
un palais!"
Ainsi se rencontr^rent pour la premiere f ois Pierre I*' et celle qui devint Catherine
deRussie! ....
"Eh bien, que dites-vous de mon prologue?" demanda Balzac.
"Tres curiex, tres original! mais le reste?"
"Sous peu, vous I'aurez. La donn6e est int^ressante, vous verrez!" ....
Although the scenario which Balzac sketched for Hostein is far from
complete, we are struck by the insistence of the dramatist upon
realistic detail, both in the setting and in the characterization. In
34 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
fact, it was a lack of historical information about customs, costumes,
landscapes and the like, all of which he had determined to have in
keeping with his subject, that detained him. He contemplated a
visit to Russia, where he intended to finish his play, and his visit to
Wierzchownia was actually made in the autumn of 1847, when he
remained as Mme Hanska's guest for over four months. But the
play was never finished. La Mardtre, produced on May 25, 1848,
preceded only a few days the socialist uprising of June, and the
lean theatrical days to follow. During the insurrection of June,
Balzac wrote the following letter to Hostein, the last word we have
about his Russian drama:
Je me demande si, apres la haiaille des prolitaires, apr^s cette funeste affaire, et
alors que les theatres vont ^tre priv6s de spectateurs pendant trois mois, je dois con-
tinuer a travailler a mon drame de Pierre et Catherine. II me serait indiff6rent de
risquer une piece comme on en peut trouver k tout moment; mais ce drame est plus
qu'une pi^ce. C'est un sujet, une de ces rencontres qu'on ne fait pas deux fois, comme
les Na-poUon du Cirque. Si vous pensez que les circonstances politiques vous per-
mettront de monter Pierre et Catherine en octobre, je viendrai I'achever a Paris, et je
quitterai les cMteaux oil je suis comme un coq en pS,te. En attendant, on pourra
donner au th6itre des bouffonneries sans amertume, comme les Macaires, et incliner
aux Saltimbanques.^^
After the unprofitable days of June, the theatres began to regain
courage and to search about for new material. Alexandre Mauzin,
who had been recently appointed director of the Odeon, made an
offer to Dumas, Hugo and Balzac of six thousand francs each if they
would furnish his theatre with a play apiece. Dumas, we are told,
proposed that his son should write a Faust; Hugo declined outright,
but Balzac accepted the offer with the promise of a drama to be
called Richard Sauvage, of which he composed solely one monologue. ^°
In August of the same year it was a question of a five-act comedy
for the Theatre Frangais, to be called les Petite BourgeoisJ^ Not
a line of the text was written, although the title and the list of char-
actors are to be found in the Chantilly collection.
"• Fragment of a letter to Hostein, published in le Gaulois, December 13, 1869.
See Lovenjoul, Eistoire des ceuvres, p. 224.
'" Histoire administrative, anecdotique et littiraire du Thedtre-Franqaisy by P. Porel
and G. Monval, 1882, Vol. II, p. 291.
'^ See Hippolyte RoUe in le Constitutionnel, August 8, 1848; also Balzac's letter to
Rolle, Corr., p. 572. The posthumous novel, les Petits Bourgeois, unfinished by Balzac,
appeared first in le Pays, in 1854. See Lovenjoul, Histoire des ceuvres, p. 143.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 35
In September of the same year Balzac went to Russia, entrusting
his dramatic interests to his friend, Laurent-Jan. During this
period negotiations with the Theatre Fran^ais and the The§,tre
Historique for Mercadet were going on. Balzac was at the same
time sketching another play, and writes to his sister in January 1849
that le Roi des mendiants, for Hostein, is being completed, "une
piece de circonstance en republique et flatteuse pour la majeste
populaire."'^ Laurent-Jan urged Balzac to send this play or some
other as soon as possible, and wrote despairingly of the actual con-
dition of the stage.''' By April, according to the author's own word,
le Roi des mendiants was finished, as well as a play for the Theatre
Historique with a principal role for Mme Dorval,'^* a r61e which
she was never to see, since the actress died in May of the same year.
As for le Roi des mendiants ^ it was never sent to Paris, Balzac arguing
that it was well-nigh impossible to forward a manuscript across the
Russian frontier.
In spite of an illness which was soon to carry him to his grave,
Balzac still continued to write for the stage, talking bravely of
embarking again in his "galere dramatique."^^ In the month of
May 1850, he returned from Russia and his brief honeymoon in
Germany. He was in wretched health, and unable to work. Still
his mind was occupied with his plays. Arsene Houssaye, at that
time director of the The&tre Fran^ais, publishes in his Confessions
a letter which he received from Balzac shortly after his return:
Mon cher directeur,
J'arrive de Russie. Venez me voir ces jours-ci pour causer de mon th6Atre. Dans
mon esprit, la Comedie Frangaise doit ^tre le couronnement de ma Com6die humaine.
Mes voyages m'ont coup6 les jambes. Je ne puis aller vous voir.^'
In the autumn of 1849, Houssaye had written to Balzac, request-
ing a drama or a comedy, and was eager to produce something from
his pen. It is significant that these last days of a literary career
such as was Balzac's, marked by such intense labor and immense
production, should have been spent, like the early days of his vague
and formless essays, in writing for the stage. As he began, so he
'«C<)rr., p. 600.
'3 Letter dated March 15, 1849, published by Lovenjoul, Aulour de Honors de
Balzac, pp. 247-253.
^*Corr.,pp. 615 and 618.
76 IbiL, p. 642.
7«Vol. Ill, p. 118.
36 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
ended his career. On the very day of his death Houssaye recounts
how he entered the great man's study, and found on his desk the
fragment of a comedy which he had never seen.^^ The whole period
of his literary activity was marked by theatrical ventures; at times,
the dramatist's ambition overshadowed that of the novelist. Before
approaching those plays which have been actually produced, what
conclusions may be drawn from the mass of scenic projects already
traced ?^^
One fact is evident: during Balzac's long novelistic career, he had
many ideas for plays; but these ideas, in general, were not of great
value, and were not developed. That he produced nothing from the
mass of vaudevilles, farces and light comedies whose history has been
traced in the present chapter, is undoubtedly, first of all, because he
lacked the time to devote to them. Again, Balzac, in spite of his
ephemeral enthusiasm, quickly perceived the mediocrity of these
scenic plans and partially completed sketches, and found nothing
worthy of bis genius in them. There was little sincerity in the attack
of a vaudeville like Prudhomme bigame by the novelist who had just
completed le Pere Goriot; little enthusiasm in the creator of Lucien
de Rubempre when he shifted his energies to a Cooper melodrama.
Before seeking to draw further conclusions, let us turn to the
more serious dramatic productions of Balzac, and endeavor to
establish the extent of their importance in the field of his activity.
" Vol. IV, p. 225.
'8 Armand Baschet, in le Mousquetaire, March 17, 1854, has published the list of
proposed plays, including l'£cole des manages and Mercadet, which were actually
written, from a document which Balzac himself drew up. This list reads as follows:
V&cole des menages La Succession Pons
Richard Cosur-d'eponge U&dttcation du Prince
La Comedie de V amour Les Courtis ans
Les Petits Bourgeois Le Ministre
La Conspiration Prud'homme Organ
La Folk J^preuve L'Armee roulante
Le Roi des mendiants Sophie Prud'homme
Le Mariage Prud'homme Annunciata
Le Pere prodigue La Veille et le lendemain
Pierre et Catherine Gobseck
Mercadet La Fille et la femme
in
L'fiCOLE DES MANAGES
During Balzac's lifetime, and, in fact, after his death, V^cole des
menages never found its way into any theatrical repertory, nor has it
been included in any edition of the author's works. Its preservation
and subsequent publication^ are due to the efforts of the late Viscount
de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, who found in 1878 the only known copy
of the play. It had been advertised for sale in a book-catalogue of
the Librairie Bailleu at Paris as follows:
Exemplaire unique, avec les corrections de I'auteur et s'arretant a la scene V du
5« acte. Cette piece fut abandonn6e par Balzac, qui plus tard en reprit quelques
scenes qu'il adapta k la oomedie de Mercadet. ^
Comparing his purchase later with the manuscript copy belonging
to Mme de Balzac, Lovenjoul found the play complete, and that no
fragment had been utilized in Mercadet.
To Lovenjoul also belongs the sole credit for a comprehensive
and extremely interesting history of the play, the essay appearing
first in le Figaro, September 11 to 16, 1895, and afterwards incor-
porated in his volume entitled Autour de Honors de Balzac, pages
91 to 95. Briefly, this history is as follows:
Planned as early as 1837,^ it was during the summer of 1838 that
the play, successively called la Premiere Demoiselle, la Demoiselle du
magasin, and finally VEcole des menages, was written. We are told
that Balzac took a certain young poet named Lassailly"' into his
employ to help with the composition. It was at this moment that
his theatrical activity had reached its most feverish stage. His
Sardinian mine scheme had failed, and the disappointed prospector
^ Honore de Balzac, (Euvre posthume, V6,cole des menages. Tragedie bourgeoise
en cinq actes et en prose, precedee d'une lettre par le Vicomte de Spoelberch de Loven-
joul. fidition originale. . . . Paris. L. Carteret, 1907.
See G. Vicaire in le Bulletin de bibliophile, 1907, pp. 296, 297; also, J. Claretie in
le Temps, March 29, 1907.
2 LEt., Vol. I, pp. 381, 382. February 12, 1837.
^ An amusing account of Lassailly's sojourn at les Jardies is told by Gozlan in his
volume entitled Balzac en pantoufles, 1865, pp. 66-74. Se also Gerard de Nerval's
article in la Presse, October 7, 1850, the greater part of which has been cited by Loven-
joul, Autour de Honore de Balzac, pp. 179-191.
38 THE DRAMA OF HONOR^ DE BALZAC
was in the most pressing financial straits. To Mme Zulma Carraud
he writes in July:
Je mene de front i la fois le theatre et la librairie, le drame et le livre. . . . Quoique
je sois 6treiiit par une n6cessit6 qui n'a jamais desserre un seul bouton de sa camisole
d'acier dqDuis ma naissance, j'ai plus que jamais foi dans men travail; j'ai promesse
de vingt mille francs d'un theatre pour la piece que je fais, et je vais organiser mes
travaux dramatiques sur la plus grande ^chelle, car la desormais est la recette. Les
livres ne donnent plus rien."*
On November 8, 1838, the Theatre de la Renaissance opened
with Ruy Bias, Frederick Lemaitre playing the title role. The
director, An tenor Joly, wished a play of Balzac to follow Hugo's.
Armand Pereme, a well-known antiquarian whom Balzac had met
in Berry, seems to have acted as an intermediary between the
dramatist and the director, Joly. In a letter from Pereme, dated
December 9, 1838, Balzac was assured by the Renaissance of sixteen
thousand francs for his play, and the writer says: "Le theatre a
besoin de vous et il ne saurait trop faire pour obtenir votre assistance.*
Balzac replied that he would prepare not one, but three five-act plays
for the Renaissance, to be completed within a year's time.^ In the
same letter to Pereme he writes that rehearsals for his "drame de la
vie bourgeoise" can probably begin in January, 1838.
The play was finally rejected by the Renaissance for Dumas'
Alchimiste, the latter produced on April 10, 1839. With bitterness
the author wrote to Mme Carraud from Les Jardies in March:
La Renaissance m'avait promis six mille francs de prime pour lui faire une pi^ce
en cinq actes; P6rem6 avail 6te I'entremetteur, tout etait convenu. Comme il me
faUait six mille francs a la fin de fevrier, je me mets k I'oeuvre, je passe seize nuits et
seize jours au travail, ne dormant que trois heuressurles vingt-quatre; j'emploie vingt
ouvriers £L I'imprimerie, et j'arrive £t ^crire, faire et composer VJ^cole des minages, en
cinq actes, et k pouvoir la lire le 25 fevrier. Mes directeurs n'avaient pas d'argent, ou
peut-^tre Dumas, qui leur avait fait faux bond et avec lequel ils s'etaient f&ch6s, leur
est-il revenu; ils n'^coutent pas ma piece et la refusent. Ainsi me voil^ €chm6 de
travail, seize jours de perdus, six mille francs a payer, et rien! Ce coup m'a abattu,
je n'en suis pas encore remis. Ma carriere au theatre aura les memes 6v6nements
que ma carriere litt6raire; ma premiere oeuvre sera refus6e. II faut un courage sur-
humain pour ces terribles ouragans de malheur.'
* Corr., p. 306.
* Autour de EonorS de Balzac, p. 122.
* Letter dated December 11, 1838.
^ Corr., p. 327. After the posthumous performance of Mer cadet, arranged by the
dramatist, D'Ennery, V£,cole des manages was also submitted to him for a reworking,
but the task was refused. The first performance of the play occurred on March 13, 1910,
at the Od6on, when the Lovenjoul text was produced along with la Manette Salomon of
Edmond de Goncourt and le Candidal of Flaubert.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 39
The action of the play takes place in the home of a certain M.
Gerard, the head of a prosperous business firm. This man, past his
fiftieth year and the father of two grown daughters, has formed a
violent attachment for the chief clerk in his establishment, Mile
Adrienne Guerin. His conduct has been noticed by all the members
of his family, even by the servants, who gossip openly about their
master's bounty to the girl. Moreover, Gerard has determined to
marry his daughter, Caroline, secretly in love with a young clerk
named Hippolyte, to Adrienne's brother, an alliance which the
family considers to be far beneath them. Mme Gerard's brother, a
wealthy druggist named Duval, forseeing the disastrous consequences
of the old man's affair, promises Roblot, the worthy cashier of the
firm, to set him up in a splendid banking business if he will obtain
the hand of Mile Adrienne and marry her. At the opening of the
play we see Roblot making an early morning declaration of love to
the chief clerk, but he is unsuccessful in his suit. It is then that
Mme Gerard and her daughters, in wait for some excuse to expel
the girl, accuse her of a love-affair with Roblot, and order her to
leave the house. Gerard arrives, and learns that Adrienne has
departed, and that the reason for her dismissal has been a plot
instigated by Duval. Heaping vulgar reproaches upon his family,
he vows to fetch her back, and the truth of his terrible passion
dawns upon his wife. She realizes now that the girl must be taken
into her confidence. Adrienne returns, and confesses to Mme
Gerard how her employer's attentions have been directed towards
her for eight years, how he has made certain advances to her, and how
she has returned his love. She confesses moreover that her love
amounts to a dangerous passion which she may be able to combat
within his home, and begs that she may be allowed to stay only
until peace is restored, promising to aid Mme Gerard in bringing to
his senses the head of the family, and in breaking off the marriage
of Caroline to her brother. Adrienne tries with all sincerity to
prevent Gerard from insisting upon this alliance, but she fails.
Whereupon Mme Gerard, imagining that she has been deceitful,
seeks to harm her again, and to excite the jealousy of the husband.
Gerard's fury is consequently aroused to white heat: he pretends to
have failed in business, to have ruined his firm, urging Roblot again
to sue for the hand of the girl merely to observe the effect which
these things may have upon her. Adrienne, discovering this treach-
ery, is still generous, returning to Gerard all the money that he has
40 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
given her, and seeking again to fulfill her promises to Mme
Gerard. Gaining Gerard's consent to the marriage of Caroline
and her lover Hippolyte, she excuses his offensive suspicion against
her, and begs him to remain a dutiful father. In the meanwhile,
other more serious events have been taking place. Caroline, despond-
ent over the outcome of her love-affair, attempts to end her life
with poison, while Anna, Gerard's younger daughter, determines to
sacrifice herself in order to save her mother and sister from ruin.
She attempts to poison Adrienne with arsenic. The plot fails, and
Gerard becomes aware of what has occurred. Assuming the role of
judge, he calls together his family, and discovers to what a terrible
pass his illicit love has brought him. With terrific force the truth
bursts upon him, and with it his reason flees. But the sight of her
demented lover deprives Adrienne as well of her reason, and we
finally see the two unfortunate creatures housed under the same
roof, meeting each other daily, and talking together of their former
love without a sign of mutual recognition. Before a board appointed
to look into their affairs, they are brought together, Adrienne piti-
fully dressed as a bride and calling incessantly for her lover; Gerard
dressed in the finery of a young gallant. Caroline, seeing what
proofs of love and self-denial Adrienne's brother has given her, and
renounced by the faithless Hippolyte, consents to become his wife.
With this scene the sombre drama closes, and the unhappy family
is left to piece together the wreck which the ravages of passion have
left within it.
A reading of the play reveals the fact that the action is exceedingly
complicated and, at times, obscure. The author has not brought
into relief the successive steps of his intrigue, and the play is over-
loaded with scenes which are not only too long, but which follow one
another with little natural sequence. The action, moreover, is
complicated by a series of conspiracies and misunderstandings.
First, Mme Gerard and her brother conspire to expel Adrienne from
the home; later Mme Gerard sees the necessity of forming an alliance
with the girl, and begs her to return. Finally, when Adrienne's
sincere endeavors to restore peace have failed, Mme Gerard tries
again to harm her. These are the three successive steps which
Balzac has sought to put into action, but a host of secondary compli-
cations intervene. Gerard is deceived about the reason for Adrienne's
THE DRAMA OF HONORS DE BALZAC 41
departure from his home; he is unable to assure himself of her honesty
even after her return. His wife's pretended affection for the girl
deceives him, as well as Adrienne's sincere efforts to have him consent
to Caroline's marriage to Hippolyte. These misunderstandings
succeed one another with little logical order, and serve to befog the
action to a serious extent. The whole of the long second act is taken
up with Gerard's attempts to outwit his family, closing with a scene
of pure "comedie larmoyante" between the two daughters, which
adds nothing to the aclion.. In the third act further awkward
complications arise from Gerard's pretended failure, while the
opening of the fourth act announces his departure, a scene for which
the way has not been prepared. Also, in this act the element of
chance intervenes in a most startling manner, with no semblance of
reality. Just at the moment when Duval declares that Caroline
has stolen arsenic from his shop, with the intention of killing herself,
a dog eats the poisoned soup prepared for Adrienne by Anna! The
fifth act is misplaced, since it has little logical connection with the
preceding action. The double catastrophe is not prepared, and is
merely a violent theatrical device for bringing the action to a close. ^
The unity of composition is furthermore disturbed by long mono-
logues and unnecessary tirades which retard the action: for example,
Gerard's lengthy opening monologue at the beginning of the second
act, and his review of his life in the fourth act.
Throughout the play we are struck by the evidences of careless
work and the lack of dramatic technique. The action develops
haltingly, and is overburdened with useless scenes. The conclusion,
which should be the logical working out and summing up of the
different threads of the action, is utterly without significance. The
most fundamental of all theatrical gifts — the concentration of
effect in scenes which follow in logical progression — Balzac did not
possess at the time of the composition of this play.
In the characters which Balzac has introduced into this dramatic
frame we have the manifestations of a powerful imagination un-
bridled, the same imagination which led the novelist at times to
abuse reality, and to produce such excessive types as are to be found
in le Pere Goriot or la Cousine Bette. Tolerated in the novel, where
* Jules Claretie, in le Temps, March 29, 1907, suggests that this final "mad scene"
was written, in part, at least, by Lassailly.
42 THE DRAMA OF H0N0K.6 DE BALZAC
they may develop slowly, and where the author may devote pages
to personal description, these characters are wholly inadmissible on
the stage. Balzac was no doubt aware of the poverty of analysis in
this play when, in writing to Mme Hanska, who had criticized his
I drama rather harshly, he stated that "peut-etre les personnages
\ manquent-ils de certaines conditions pour devenir types."®
^ Balzac has grouped his personages into two opposing camps:
the one, Gerard's family — his wife and daughters, and his wife^s
brother — and the other, Gerard himself and Adrienne. In this
latter group Adrienne's brother may also be placed, since the efforts
of Mme Gerard to break off his attachment for her daughter consti-
tute one of the threads of the action.
Let us examine first the Gerard family. Mme Gerard and her
daughter Caroline are gloomy, colorless creatures, hopelessly under
the domination of Gerard, whose will they have learned to obey.
Caroline later shifts from the pale, melancholy girl, bereft of the man
she loves, and attempting to take her own life, to a modest little miss,
resigning herself eventually to the man who has shown his devotion
to her throughout. With Anna, the younger daughter, it is different.
She is a precocious woman of sixteen! "Je ne suis comme ma
soeur qui pleure et obeit, J'ai mes idees," she declares.^® It has
been her unhappy lot to observe the ignominy and danger of
her father's senile passion, and she determines to outwit Adrienne
for the sake of her mother and sister. Balzac has made of Anna the
best character in the play. She is no longer the "jeune fille de
convention," but a woman of spirit and resolution. She is a cham-
pion of woman's rights, who talks with the experience of a mature
person. To save her sister from a man she does not love, Anna offers
to marry him instead.
Anna: Mon pere, une jeune fille peut-elle s'offrir elle-mSme en mariage ^ un
homme?
Girard: Ce n'est pas I'usage.
Anna: H6 bien, proposez-moi vous-m6me a monsieur. Ma soeur croit qu'il faut
bien aimer un homme pour I'^pouser; moi, je crois que I'amour nous rend tres mal-
heureux, et comme vous avez dit que le mariage n'etait pas fond6 sur la passion, le
bonheur conjugal de monsieur reposerait sur des bases solides.
Girard: Est-ce que tu es en 6tat de juger le mariage?
Anna: Le mariage! Mais c'est un sacrement institu6 pour se tourmenter."
» LEt., Vol. I, p. 506. February 12, 1839.
*» Act I, scene 8.
" Act III, scene 14. Compare, la Peau de chagrin: "Le mariage est un sacre-
ment en vertu duquel nous ne nous conmiuniquons que des chagrins." — (Euvres, Vol.
XV, p. 135.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 43
She possesses a sharp wit, and is quite capable of dealing with her
father. When Gerard argues with Caroline that intellect is the only
stable quality on which to base one's affections, Anna replies: "Papa,
si votre systeme prend, les sots resteront done sans femmes. Pauvres
sots!"^^ On men in general she delivers the following opinion.
Je les trouve tous laids, de gros favoris noirs, des barbes dures, des teints a faire
peur! Quand ils sont jolis, ils nous ressemblent, et ils n'ont alors ni esprit, ni capacite
.... Vraiment le monde est a refaire; si je me marie, je ne veux que des garfons,
afin de ne pas avoir I'ennui des gendres.^^
Where Balzac has failed in this character is in the exaggeration
of her violent loves and hates : they are too apparent and too melo-
dramatic. In spite of these unnatural qualities, however, this
figure of a mature, firm and keen-minded girl remains by far the
best creation in the play. i
In Roblot Balzac has instilled something of his real fervor for
gold: this old cashier, whose whole life has been spent pouring over
columns of figures and counting money, so that his love-making
even is mixed with percentages. The figure is realistic, but episodic,
and is overshadowed by grosser and more romantic types of exagger-
ated passion found in the principal roles. In like manner, Duval,
the richest druggist in the Rue des Lombards, is neatly drawn, but
remains in the background. Adrienne's brother, who is meant to
fill an important r61e in the action, is but feebly conceived; a character
that is sympathetic and romantic, "un avocat qui ne plaide que
selon ses convictions, dont la conduite est irreprochable,"^^* who
later becomes a successful lawyer, and is declared to be "le plus grand
avocat du jeune barreau," a living representative of the rising
democracy, sincere, honest and dignified.
When we come to study the father of this unhappy family, we
are struck first of all by the fact that thej^type has appeared at
various times in Balzac's work, with varying degrees of emphasis
laid upon the master-passion. It is sufficient to recall from the
Human Comedy such figures as Jean- Jacques Rouget, Nucingen or
Baron Hulot. Gerard is but another one of these monomaniacs,
devoured by a senile passion. A clever and successful business man,
ambitious and thrifty, he has met, at a time of life when the last
^2 Act III, scene 8.
13 Act III, scene 14.
"a Act II, scene 5.
44 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
flame of love is burning, a woman whose charms turn him from his
family, and gradually lead him to ruin :
A la porte de I'enfer terrestre des gens passionn6s, et qui s'appelle la vieillesse, a
surgi cette jeune fille.**
He forgets his duties as husband, he is ready to sacrifice his daughter's
happiness, he can think of nothing but this passion. The prudent
business man who has amassed a fortune becomes careless in his
affairs; the devoted father forgets his children, while his violence
towards his wife is the common talk of the servants. Vice turns to
j an obsession, until the old man is torn by jealousy and tortured by
' fear of infidelity when he is away from Adrienne. To please her, he
would even desert his home.
If we compare this stage figure for a moment with a similar
character later conceived by Balzac for the Human Comedy, the
Baron Hulot of la Cousine Bette, we note certain differences, and that,
whereas the character in the novel lives and impresses itself upon
our memories by the sheer magnitude of its proportions, the stage
figure is feeble and unconvincing. Hulot is perhaps one of the
most excessive figures that Balzac has drawn; here we have a striking
example of a powerful imagination at work, menacing reality. But
Hulot, the creation of this excessive imagination, ceases to be an
individual, and remains rather a type, a personification of the sex
appetite. In the novel, the author has had room to expand the
character. At the outset, we have a splendid physical portrait of
the aged gallant; we see him in the midst of his friends and his
^ ! family, dignified and respected, while the poisonous germ of lust
,J^ ' begins slowly to expand, destroying fortune and honor. We are able
to see the passion develop by successive stages: it increases, degree
by degree, until it becomes overwhelming in its force. Under its
weight the character assumes colossal proportions, until we finally
cease to look upon Hulot as a man, but as a symbol of physical and
moral decrepitude.
When placed upon the stage, where the presentation must be
i \ entrusted to spoken dialogue and to an actor's individual art, such
- \ a figure is much less convincing. The dramatist can no longer rely
U I upon physical and psychological description; his character must live
by what he says and does. We are concerned here with the living,
acting individual, but Gerard's passion has attained heroic propor-
1* Act IV, scene 2.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 45
tions, and in the crude glare of the footlights it appears ridiculous.
Balzac has dwelt with melodramatic insistence upon the brutally
pathetic, giving to his hero a tearful language and violent gestures:
Dans la jeunesse, nous aimons avec notre force qui va diminuant; mais, k mon
kge, on aime avec la faiblesse qui va croissant; aussi la vie me parait-elle impossible
sanselle. . . . lis sont tous contre elle, ils veulent I'^prouver. . . . Oh! laches! Et toi
aussi! Mais si elle triomphe, ils sont perdus; et si elle succombe, je deviendrai. . . fou
peut-6tre.^^
Gerard, as passionate lover, as self-appointed judge of his family, as
maundering idiot, is created with the express desire of producing
physical horror and repulsion, and with little care for psychological
exactitude. The conception of the character is admissible and even
interesting. A senile and jealous passion which degrades an honor-
able man unhappily finds correspondence in reality. Balzac knew
how to present such a character in his novels; he did not know how to
adapt it to the stage. Where he has failed is in his presentation,
which is awkward, and renders the character ridiculous.
Adrienne Guerin, who passes in and out the Gerard household
with the familiarity of one of the family, reserved and modest in
manner, thoughtful to the extent of knowing the individual tastes
of each of its members, is also a figure of the melodrama. The power
of her passion has lifted her to the sphere of the romantic heroines,
with no trait to distinguish her from the thousands of unfortunate
women who have made tender-hearted spectators weep in the past.
There is nothing to distinguish the declaration of passion which
Adrienne makes to her lover's wife from manifold similar avowals:
Mais, madame, ici je suis forte, ici je puis r6sister, ici je puis vous rendre mille
services, emp^cher des malheurs, de grands malheurs! filoignez-moi, nous sommes
tous perdus! J'ai bien pens6 a fuir par amour pour lui; mais il serait venu me chercher
au fond de rAm6rique. Si je reste en France, il ferait des folies! etc., etc.*'
Adrienne, to escape her lover, would flee to America, a place dear
to the heart of the melodrama tist; America, the refuge of the "gens
k passion," of the "revokes," of all those who seek to avoid the
constraining influence of society!
Adrienne is also generous-hearted, and it is by means of generosity
that she seeks to purify her passion. Her struggles are depicted
^ Act IV, scene 2.
*" Act III, scene 4.
46 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
with the sole purpose of making a boulevard audience weep. In one
of her romantic outbursts she cries to Mme Gerard:
Inf^me, je vous aurais ruin6e. Vous ne savez pas, Madame, jusqu'o^ va cette
passion; elle s'agrandit de toute la faiblesse qui de jour en jour crolt chez lui. Je
n'envisage pas I'avenir sans effroi. J'aime, je combats! Mais c'est tout ce que
peuvent demander le monde et Dieu."
When she learns of Gerard's pretended failure, and believes him
generous in offering Roblot to her, she exclaims, almost in Dona
Sol's very language: "Quand une femme aime un bandit, elle va
dans les cavernes!"^^ Generosity, she cries, is "la premiere vertu
des hommes envers les femmes."^®
In February of 1837, Balzac writes the following interesting lines
to Mme Hanska:
Je fais en ce moment avec fureur une piece de th6itre, car 1^ est mon salut. II
faut vivre du theatre et de ma prose concurremment. Elle s'appelle: la Premiere Demoi-
selle. Je I'ai choisie, pour mon d6but, parce qu'elle est entierement bourgeoise.
Figurez-vous une maison de la rue Saint-Denis, comme la Maison du Chat qui pelote,
o^ je mettrai un int6r^t dramatique et tragique d'une extreme violence. Personne
n'a encore pens6 k mettre a la scene I'adultere du mari, et ma pi^ce est basee sur cette
grave affaire de notre civilization moderne. Sa maitresse est dans la maison. Per-
sonne n'a encore song6 a faire un Tartufe femelle, et sa maitresse sera Tartufe en
jupons; mais on concevra bien plus I'empire de la premiere demoiselle sur le maitre,
qu'on ne congoit celui de Tartufe sur Orgon, car les moyens de domination sont bien
plus naturels et compr6hensibles.
En regard de ces deux figures passionnees, il y aura une mere opprimee, et deux
filles 6galement victimes de la tyrannie perfide de la premiere demoiselle. L'ainde
croit qu'il faut cajoler la premiere demoiselle, qui a son parti dans la maison, car le
caissier I'aime sincerement. La tyrannie est si odieuse aux filles et k la mere, que la
plus jeune des filles, partant d'un principe d'heroisme, veut delivrer sa famille de cette
peste en s'immolant elle-meme. Elle veut I'empoisonner et rien ne I'arrete. Le
coup manque, mais le pere, qui a vu ^ quelles extr^mites se portent ses enfants,
devine que la premiere demoiselle ne peut vivre sous son toit, qu'apres cette tentative
tout lien d'interieur est rompu. II la renvoie; mais, au cinquieme acte, il lui est si
impossible de vivre sans cette femme, qu'il prend une portion de sa fortune, laisse le
reste k sa femme et s'enfuit avec la Premiere Demoiselle en Am4rique.
Voil^ le gros de ma piece; je ne vous parle pas des details qui sont aussi originaux
que le sont les caracteres, qui n'ont ete, k mon avis, pris pour aucune piece. II y a la
scdne du jugement de la fille en famille; il y a la scene de separation, etc. . . .2°
" Act ni, scene 4.
*• Act IV, scene 4.
»• Act I, scene 12.
" LEL, Vol. I, pp. 381, 382. February 12, 1837.
THE DRAMA OF HONORlfe DE BALZAC 47
This letter is instructive, for it displays to us a character very
difiFerent from the one realized in the play. In this plan Balzac
supposes his heroine to be a female Tartuffe, a hypocritical and less
generous character than the one conceived later. It is apparent
that he has gone to Tartuffe for his heroine, as well as for the main
outlines of his plot. The situation is the same in both plays: a
bourgeois family into which an impostor has entered, and whose
happiness is being sapped out and destroyed inch by inch. The
head of the family in each case brings ruin upon his home, and
in both plays the family is leagued against him in their efforts to expel
the impostor. Balzac, moreover, gives to Gerard a brother-in-law
who strives to bring peace into the chaotic household, corresponding
to Cleante in Moliere's play. As Orgon's maniacal devotion to "le
pauvre homme," so Adrienne's name is constantly on Gerard's lips.
Like Moliere, Balzac has felt the necessity of introducing a few
comic scenes in the midst of hi? tragedy; so Victoire, the impudent
and observant maid, bears a certain similarity to Dorine, and serves
to relieve the tragic march of events. Just as Orgon, through
his blind devotion to the hypocrite, obstructs his daughter's wooing,
so Gerard is determined to marry his daughter to Adrienne's brother.
If we may trust Gerard de Nerval's recollections of a first reading of
Balzac's play, in the original version Gerard's old mother formed an
additional member of the family, corresponding to Madame Pernelle
in Tartuffe}^ Just when the changes in the conception and the
action of Adrienne's character were made it is impossible to say.
The play was reworked a number of times. When the young poet,
Lassailly, went to Les Jardies to collaborate with Balzac, the play
was entirely rewritten.^^ It was probably at this time that the author
idealized his female Tartuffe, and purified her passion through
generosity, unable to neglect the popular call of theatre-goers who
demanded romantic heroines.
Balzac was certainly not unaware of the faults of his play. When
the manuscript was turned over to Gustave Planche to read, the
author was impressed by the latter's unfavorable verdict:
Planche m'a rapports ma piece. II la trouve au-dessus de tout ce qui se fait, mais
nous sommes du meme avis sur les d^fauts. Ramen^e au poiat de vue de I'art, elle
en a beaucoup.^
2^ See supra, p. 37, note 3.
^ Autour de Honore de Balzac, p. 136.
» LEt., Vol. I, p. 509. April 14, 1839.
48 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
The awkwardly constructed action and the melodramatic characters
reflect a style which contains many defects. The principal one is
obscurity: the characters allude to things which the audience cannot
possibly know; they employ hidden meanings so that the spectator
becomes confused in his attempt to follow the action. The second
stylistic fault is no less serious, and consists in the unreality of the
dialogue. The idealistic ardor of the characters is reflected in aU
that they say, and they speak a most unnatural language. Some-
times it is a solemn phrase uttered by Gerard's daughter: "L'amour
n'est le plus beau de tous les sentiments que parce qu'il est le plus
involontaire."^ Sometimes, it is merely an inartistic and heavy
metaphor: "Quand on se sent la t^te dans les cieux, la terre fait mal
aux pieds."^* Adrienne constantly expresses herself in affected
phrases which have little relation to reality. For example, take
the following Unes addressed to Mme Gerard:
Ici, dans le sanctuaire domestique, j'ai su purifier un amour qui vous blessait.
II y a de la grandeur assez pour aimer purement; aussi, les soupgons Taigrissent-ils 4
un point oA il ne se connait plus. . . . H veut le salaire de la plus coAteuse des vertus
.... *
Roblot, talking with the cook, speaks as follows:
Ordinairement, ma chere, les bienfaiteurs exploitent leurs obliges ou les obliges
deviennent les tyrans de leurs bienfaiteurs.'^
Gerard either gives vent to long monologues which retard the action
or employs such trite and sententious remarks as the following:
"Le hasard est le courtisan de la jeunesse."^^ Usually, the wit is
of a cheap variety, even if sometimes characterstic of the speaker's
vulgarity. "Je ne puis pas voir pleurer une femme! fa trouble
ma digestion, "2^ says the uncle, Duval. Roblot figures his passion
as follows: "Apres tout, I'amour est une addition, le mariage une
multiplication, et Tarithmetique fait plus de mariages que I'amour
n'en defait.''^" The pathetic is also stressed to the utmost, and at
*• Act II, scene 10. Compare, C6sar Birotteau: "Quelques moralistes pensent que
I'amour est la passion la plus involontaire, la plus d6sint6ressee, la moins calculatrice
de toutes."
*" Act III, scene 4.
" Act I, scene 1.
" Act II, scene 1.
" Act II, scene 9.
" Act I. scene 2.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 49
times all reality vanishes before the violence of tumultuous scenes:
broken bits of dialogue, entreaties, tears, repetitions of the words
''crime" and "poison."
No word of praise can be spoken for the style of this play. It
is characterized by obscurity and banality, the faults of many of
the popular dramatists of Balzac's day.
Gautier, writing of Balzac's £.cole des menages in la Presse*
March 11, 1839, concludes his article with the following words:
Nous sommes chann^s que M. de Balzac aborde enfin le th64tre. Depuis long-
temps nous demandons pourquoi la scene est abandonn6e aux plates m6diocrit^s. Le
plaisir du theatre n'existe pas a Paris pour les gens qui ont fait leurs Etudes et savent
leur langue. Des esprits delicats ne sauraient prendre aucun int^ret aux productions
sans esprit, sans etude et sans style des fournisseurs de la denr^e dramatique. Que
M. Alfred de Musset, le delicieux auteur des Caprices de Marianne et le poete de
Lorenzaccio; que M€ry, ce volcan de saillies tou jours en eruption; que M6rim6e, qui a
fait le theatre de Clara Gazul\ que Janin, cet esprit d'un enjouement si facile, et d'une
plaisanterie si fine et si legere; que George Sand, cette grande passion, s'emparent de la
scene, et ne permettent plus aux barbares de s'y montrer! Ce sera U un beau et
noble spectacle, et nous louons M. de Balzac d'avoir pris I'initiative.
Briefly, what was the condition of the theatre at the moment Balzac
was writing his £.cole des menages} The Monarchy of July had had
its important effects upon literature as well as upon politics, and the
stage had become a potent means for the diffusion of ideas. All
the important political agitations were reflected in the plays of the
time. Hosts of playwrights with social and humanitarian theories
were filling the theatres with the most mediocre of productions —
military travesties and vaudevilles, cheap melodramas which reflected
the passing events. An author who wrote under the sinister pseudo-
nym of Samson offered to the public a spectacle of horrors called
le Bourreau. Melodramas, such as Robert Macaire, which rendered
crime ludicrous and made a cynical appeal to the most depraved
tastes, were much in vogue. It was also the age of Soulie's Diane de
Chivry and le Proscrit, "machines electriques, destinees a donner
d'effroyables secousses aux spectateurs;"^^ of historical travesties
such as Pyat's Ango. Liberty had given away to licence, and
dramatic authors were seeking to please the crudest of public tastes:
Les trois traits dominants de cette litterature dramatique courante furent un
penchant marque k renverser sur la scene la hierarchie sociale, en donnant I'avantage
^' Alfred Nettement, Histoire de la litterature franqaise sous le gouvernement de
Juillet, 1876. Vol. II, p. 181.
50 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
aux demi^res classes sur les premieres; une hardiesse cynique a tout oser, pour r^veiller
les sens du public assoupis et biases a la suite de tant d'exces et de scandales, et une
tendence gdn^rale a mettre sur le pavois I'habilete souillee, et a preferer le bien-jou6 ai
la vertu.**
So Alfred Nettement, a sound critic of the day, describes the con-
ditions. During all this period, it must be remembered, romanticism
and the "drames de cape et d'epee" were still holding the boards.
Hugo, with his national and social mission, his definite dramatic sys-
tem and moral intent, his "idees severes," his poetic fancies and
lyric outbursts, was still maintaining a vogue. Dumas, moreover,
with his pageants and historical dramas, had not yet exhausted his
talents. But, towards 1838, lyricism began to decline, and that
same year Ruy Bias was received with coldness, while the Renais-
sance theatre began to search for new material.
Something has already been said of Balzac's ideas of the con-
temporary stage. He was a bitter enemy of the encroaching vaude-
ville; he scorned the wornout tricks of the romantic school, and the
calumnies expressed under the guise of historical dramas. He voiced
repeatedly the need of "emotions vraies et fortes, "^^ of depicting
with fearlessness the truth upon the stage. Let us see what he has
proposed in this first drama.
Balzac calls his first play "une drame de la vie bourgeoise."^
He is in reality continuing the traditions already laid down by
Diderot in his Fils naturel and his P^re de famille: he is endeavoring
to present a picture of middle-class family life without artistic
formalism, and to preach a moral lesson. Following the tradition
of the "tragedie bourgeoise," sentimentalism plays a large role. The
smallest of events are made tragic, while the most tragic of human
consequences are multiplied without number. What is the moral
lesson which Balzac wishes to preach? He proposes to depict what
he considers the most grievous phase of modern life: marriage.^^
Marriage is not made the turning-point of the drama, but the central
note about which the action revolves : Gerard is unhappily married,
and wishes to force an unhappy alliance upon his daughter:
Madame, la maniere dont on se marie est un des malheurs de notre temps. Le
mariage n'est pas fond6 sur la passion . . . mais sur la famille.^
«/Wi.,p. 180.
^ Portraits et critique littSraire, (Euvres, Vol. XXII, p. 19.
34 LEt., Vol. I, p. 506. February 12, 1839.
^Ibid.
^ Act III, scene 8.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 51
So Gerard addresses his wife. He seeks to give his daughter to a
man whom she does not love. To save her sister from the evil
consequences of this union, the younger daughter would commit a
crime. The play is the study of the ravages of passion which over-
take a man past middle life, the father of a family. It is the author's
desire to handle with fearlessness and truth this question. "Pour
lacher le vrai devant un public blase, il faut du courage,"" he writes
to Pereme during the negotiations for the acceptance of the play.
Balzac's theory is excellent, and he has set out to accomplish some-
thing new. Before Augier, he preaches the thesis of respect for
family ties; before the younger Dumas he condemns adultery. In
certain respects, however, the play approaches the romantic drama
rather than the bourgeois tragedy. The mingling of the comic with
the emotional, the awkward unfolding of events, the insistence upon
a master passion, the pretentious unreality of the characters and the
self-renunciation of the heroine which purifies her in the eyes of the
world, are all elements dear to the hearts of the Romantics. The
result is a hybrid production, half-way between the "piece a these"
and the "piece pathetique." However sincere Balzac may have
been in theory, he has also failed to make his thesis clear. His
sympathy is divided between two hostile camps: Gerard and his
inamorata are made to suffer as well as his family, while both parties
have committed serious faults. In the interest of his thesis the
author should have concentrated his sympathy on one or the other
side. This he has not done, and the moral value suffers thereby.
U&cole des menages, from the point of view of construction and
character study, is a failure. For its author the field of the drama
is unfamiliar, and he treads over it with no light step. The interest
in the play lies solely in the realistic promise which Balzac, successful]
in the realm of the novel, makes at the outset of his dramatic career j
'' Letter dated December 11, 1838. Cited in Autour de Honori de Balzac, p. 127.
IV
VAUTRIN
Vautrin, a drama in five acts, was represented for the first time
at the Theatre de la Porte-Saint-Martin on March 14th, 1840. The
play, one volume in-8, was published first by Delloye and Tresse
without the preface, which appeared two months later. This pref-
ace, which is dated May 1st, 1840, was heralded by the following
detachable notice, published with the volume:
M. de Balzac, retenu au lit par une indisposition trSs-grave, n'a pu ^crire la
preface qui devait accompagner sa piece de Vautrin, dont les representations ont €t€
arrdt6es par Tautorite.
Cette preface paraltra dds que la sant6 de I'auteur lui permettra de la composer.
Toutes les personnes qui auront achet^ la pr6sente Edition auront droit H un exem-
plaire de ladite preface, qui leur sera remis en 6change du present avis, qu'il est facile
de detacher de ce livre.
BON POUR UN EXEMPLAIRE DE LA PRfiFACE DE VAUTRIN.^
Balzac had published le Pere Goriot in 1835. Three years later
he had again reincarnated his Vautrin in la Torpille} During all
this period we find him intensely busy with scenic projects. The
unsuccessful outcome of VEcole des menages and its withdrawal from
the boards of the Renaissance theatre, April 10th, 1839, urged the
despondent dramatist to the fulfilment of another theatrical venture,
this time, in a sort of desperation, a play to catch the public favor.
Frederick Lemaitre was fresh from his success in Robert Macaire*
The public had read and was thoroughly familiar with the Vautrin
of the novels. To hear their applause, to put them in direct contact
with a t3^e they already knew, to reach a great mass of people
who did not read, to solve pressing financial needs — Vautrin was the
great adventure.
Theophile Gautier, perhaps with certain fantastic exaggeration,
recounts how the drama was conceived:
Un mot pressant de Balzac nous somma un jour de nous rendre k I'instant m6me
rue de Richelieu, 104, oil il avait un pied-a-terre dans la maison de Buisson, le tailleur.
— Enfin, voila le Th6o! s'ecria-t-il en nous voyant. Paresseux, tardigrade, unau,
al, d6p6chez-vous done; vous devriez 6tre ici depuis uneheure. — Je lis demain h Harel
un grand drame en cinq actes.
* Lovenjoul, Histoire des oeuvres de Balzac, pp. 221, 222.
' Title under which the first part of les Splendeurs et misires des courtisanes appeared.
' Comedy in three acts, by Benjamin, Saint-Amand, and Maurice Alhoy, .played
first at les FoUes-Dramatiques, June 14, 1834.
THE DRAMA OF HONORj^ DE BALZAC 53
— Et vous d6sirez avoir notre avis, repondimes-nous en nous 6tablissant dans un
fauteuil comme un homme qui se prepare a subir une longue lecture.
A notre attitude, Balzac devina notre pens6e, et il nous dit de Tair le plus simple:
"Le drame n'est pas fait."
— Diable! fis-je. Et bien, il faut faire remettre la lecture k six semaines.
— Non, nous allons bdcler le dramorama, pour toucher la monnaie. A telle
6poque j'ai une 6ch6ance bien chargee.
— D'ici k demain, c'est impossible; on n'aurait pas le temps de le recopier.
— Voici comment j'ai arrange la chose. Vous ferez un acte, Ourliac un autre,
Laurent- Jan le troisieme, de Belloy le quatri^me, moi le cinqui^me, et je lirai k midi,
comme il est convenu. Un acte de drame n'a pas plus de quatre ou cinq cents lignes;
on peut faire cinq cents lignes de dialogue dans sa journ^e et dans sa nuit.
— Contez-moi le sujet, indiquez-moi le plan, dessinez-moi en quelques mots les
personnages, et je vais me mettre £l I'oeuvre, lui r6pondis-je passablement effar6.
— Ah! s'6cria-t-il avec un air d'accablement superbe et de d6dain magnifique,
s'il faut vous conterle sujet, nous n'aurons jamais fini! . . .
D'apres une indication breve arrach6e k grand'peine, nous nous mimes k brocher
une scene dont quelques mots seulement sont rest6s dans I'oeuvre d6finitive, qui nc
fut pas lue le lendemain, comme on peut bien le penser. Nous ignorons ce que firent
les autres collaborateurs; mais le seul qui mit s^rieusement la main k la p4te, ce fut
Laurent- Jan, auquel la piece est d6diee.*
This statement of a contemporary and a friend is satisfactory
proof that Balzac was aided somewhat in the composition of the play
by Laurent- Jan and by others. Just what was the extent of this
assistance we are unable to judge. However, there is no reason to
believe with M, Gabriel Ferry that Laurent- Jan composed the
greater part of the play.^ Balzac was at the time of the composition
of Vautrin unfamiliar with the exigencies of the stage; his knowledge
sj of plot construction and the handling of situations was limited.
Gautier tells us of the unusual collaboration that his friend sought,
and that Laurent-Jan interested himself seriously in the play. It is
more than likely that Balzac consulted his actor friend regarding the
arrangement of scenes, the situations, the comic relief. But there
is every reason to assume, from the resemblances between Vautrin
and the later plays, that the melodramatic plot, the complex situa-
tions and the jeux de mots are the work of Balzac. The author him-
self speaks several times of the difficulties he has encountered in the
* Portraits contemporains, 1914, pp. 119, 120.
' "Laurent- Jan 6crivit la plus grande partie de I'ouvrage; il ne rcsta que quelques
lignes de travail de Gautier." — Balzac et ses amies, p. 114.
Ferry is here following the statement made him by Adolphe D'Ennery, the adapter
of Mercadet. See his article, Balzac et Adolphe D'Ennery, in la Revue d'art dramatique^
July 15, 1894.
54 THE DRAMA OF HONORf DE BALZAC
composition of the play. To Mme Hanska he writes in February of
1840:
. . . je trouvais ma piece stupide, et j'avais raison. Je I'ai recpmmenc6e en
entier et je la trouve passable.
Another time he confesses that the workmanship is quite poor:
. . . ce sera tou jours une mechante pi^ce. J'ai c6d€ au d^sir de jeter sur la scSne
un personnage romanesque, et j'ai eu tort.'
The play was accepted by the Porte-Saint-Martin, and on October
30th, 1839 the author writes to Mme Hanska that it has been turned
over to the actors.'' The idea of dramatic fame from this play was
overshadowed by a desire for financial success:
• Jugez quelles seront mes angoisses pendant la soiree oil Vauirin sera repr6sent6.
Dans cinq heures de temps, il sera decide si je paie ou si je ne paie pas mes dettes. . . .
AUer vous voir est un desir constant chez moi; mais il faut pour cela ne laisser derriSre
soi ni billets i payer, ni affaires, ni dettes, ni soucis d'argent, et cela repr6sente au moins
soixante mille francs, et Vautrin peut les donner en quatre mois!^
The first performance of the play occurred on the fourteenth of
March, 1840. Balzac, on the eve of the event, sent the following
lines to Lamartine, begging him to be present:
Je confois parfaitement que, chez vous, I'homme politique absorbe I'homme
litteraire a ce point que vous ignoriez ce qui se passe dans un petit theatre de boulevard.
J'aurais done I'honneur de vous apprendre que je fais jouer demain un drame en
cinq actes a la Porte-Saint-Martin.
Si, comme je I'espere, je tombe de bonne heure, je m'empresserai d'aller demander
k votre amitie des consolations de circonstance.'
To Gozlan he confides:
Vous verrez une chute memorable. J'ai eu tort d'appeler le public, je crois.
Morituri te salutant, C(Bsar\^^
The play was a great failure, and the press on the following day
was exceedingly hostile. Jules Janin, writes in les Dehats of March
16th:
Tout manque, I'esprit, le style, le langage, I'invention, le sens commun,
and he closes his article with these words:
C'est un lamentable chapitre a ajouter aux 6garements de I'esprit humain.
« LEL, Vol. I, p. 529. February, 1840.
7/i>«i.,p. 521.
» Ihid., p. 530. February 10, 1840.
• Corr., p. 338.
1° Ihid., p. 339.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 55
On March 15th, the Minister of the Interior, charging Balzac
with immorality, forbade further performances of the play." We
are familiar with the principal cause of this governmental dis-
pleasure. Frederick Lemaitre, who played the r61e of Vautrin,
appeared in the fourth act of the play attired in the costume of a
Mexican general, suggesting unmistakably the figure of Louis-
Philippe. The eldest son of the king occupied a box, and left the
theatre in anger. The actor was greeted with hisses and loud
laughter, while his efforts to redeem himself by making his lines
ridiculous were ill-received. Balzac, disheartened by the sad out-
come of his venture, took to his bed, overwhelmed by physical
exhaustion. He hastened to declare, however, that the evening had
been a financial success, and that he had desired nothing more. He
also hinted that Lemaitre's action might have been aimed against
Harel, director of the theatre, whose relations with the actor were
strained at the moment. ^^ Victor Hugo and the elder Dumas proved
to be friends in the time of need, and the former accompanied Balzac
to the Ministry of the Interior to plead his cause. Their audience
was unfruitful.i^ Hugo's kindness the author of Vautrin later
recognized in the preface to his play. Dumas also wrote a most
cordial letter to Balzac, offering to take up the question of indem-
nity for him.^"* While the unsuccessful dramatist was still ill, the
government agreed to pay him several thousand francs for the
injustice that he had suffered, and for the considerable sum that he
had lost by his play. Balzac refused money at first, but said later
that he would accept an indemnity in proportion to the wrong that
had been done him, and not alms. Mme Surville, the author's
sister, recounts the affair in the following words:
Inquiete de la revolution qu'avait dii produire le renversement de ses esp6rances,
je courus le lendemain rue Richelieu, dans la chambre que mon frere occupait, et je
le trouvai en proie k une grosse fi^vre. Je Temmenai chez moi pour le soigner.
" Le Monileur, March 16, 1840.
12 LEL, Vol. I, pp. 533 and 534. March, 1840.
13 Ibid. Also, la Remce parisienne, August 25, 1840. (Euvres, Vol. XXIII, pp.
772, 773.
1* Letter published in la Revue bletie, November 28, 1903, part of which reads as
follows:
"Voulez-vous que je me charge de demander pour vous une indemnity? Voulez-
vous me chiffrer la somme a laquelle s'61eve ou votre dette ou vos pretentions? En ce
cas, donnez-moi une lettre avec vos pouvoirs pres du Ministre. Personne au monde
ne le saura. La somme vous sera remise, soit a vous directement, soit a moi, qui vous
remettrai. Ni coUaborateur, ni juif n'entrera la-dedans, en supposant toutefois que
ie sois assez heureux pour reussir."
56 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
Deux heures apres son installation, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas et plusieurs
autres de ses confreres accouraient pour lui offrir leurs services.
M. *** arrive et dit a mon frere qu'il se fait fort de lui obtenir une belle indemnite
s'il consent k retirer Vautrin, afin d'6pargner k I'autorit^ une initiative qu'il lui serait
d6sagr6able de prendre.
"Monsieur, lui repondit mon frere, I'interdiction de Vautrin me sera fort pr6-
judiciable, mais je n'accepterai pas d'argent en payement d'une injustice; on def6ndra
ma pi^e, car je ne la retirerai pas."
Vautrin fut raye de I'affiche a la troisiame representation.^^
The director of the Porte-Saint-Martin agreed to revive the play,
but it was not until ten years later, while Balzac was in Germany,
that Vautrin was transferred to the Gaiete and produced without
the consent of the author, Rancourt filling the title role. Balzac
wrote angry protests against this act of piracy both to Louis Veron,
editor of le Constitutio finely and to the editor of le Journal des debats,
denouncing this violation of dramatic rights. ^^ On April 1st, 1850,
Vautrin was revived for a single performance at the Ambigu, with
Frederick Lemaitre.
The scene of the drama is laid in Paris in 1816, shortly after the
second return of the king, Louis XVIII. Among the emigres who
have become again established in France are the Duke de Montsorel,
his wife and his bastard son, the Marquis Albert. The family,
which is an old and respected one, is far from happy. In fact, for
more than twenty years the Duke has been estranged from his
wife, and for twenty years he has deprived her of her only son, insist-
ing that the unhappy mother recognize as the rightful successor to
his illustrious name his illegitimate child, the son of a Spanish
courtezan.
We are told at the opening of the drama why this cruel separation
has been inflicted upon the duchess: how, after seven months of
married life, the poor woman bore a son whose legitimacy was doubted
by the Duke, suspicious of his wife's relations with a certain Viscount
de Langeac. Convinced that her persistent declarations of innocence
would only endanger the life of her child, and confident that some
day she would find him again, the Duchess has held her peace.
Twenty-one years have passed thus, when, at the opening of the
drama, the mother declares that she has seen a striking resemblance
"* (Euvres, Vol. XXIV, p. kxvii.
"»Corr., p. 660. May 11, 1850.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 57
to her son in the person of a youth whom she has met at the Spanish
embassy. She discovers also that this youth, whose name is Raoul
de Frescas, is in love with Ines de Christoval, a beauty of high rank
and the fiancee of Albert, the Duke's son. The Duchess, with her
mother instinct alert after these years of separation and suffering,
sends for Raoul and determines to assure herself of his parentage.
But her husband's suspicions are aroused, and he resolves to spy
upon his wife and this interloper, de Frescas.
In the midst of this unhappy household there arrives a mysterious
stranger known to the Montsorel servants as Jacques Collin. This
person, entering the house with apparent defiance of locks and keys,
displays a great interest in the family secrets. He plies the Duke's
valet de chambre, Joseph, with questions. We are left but a short
time in doubt as to the identity of these two worthies: the one,
inquisitive and sententious, is Vautrin, the Vautrin of the galleys
and the Vauquer boarding-house, while Joseph is a former accomplice
and friend in crime.
With the second act we learn that the Duke has employed a
certain secret agent named Saint-Charles to spy upon the rival of
his son. During the bloody September days of 1792 it was Saint-
Charles, as we learn later, who betrayed and brought about the
execution of Langeac, the man whom Montsorel believed to be his
wife's lover. In the meanwhile Madame de Montsorel has asked
Raoul to call on her. He arrives, to meet not only the Duke and his
son, but also the Christoval family, mother and daughter. The un-
happy youth is assailed by questions from both families: who is he,
and what is his family. Behind him stands the tragic figure of the
Duchess, whispering: "Restez le personnage mysterieux que vous
^tes."^^ Heartlessly snubbed both by the Duke and his son, and un-
able to satisfy the curiosity of the Christoval s, Raoul takes his leave
with the mysterious name of Vautrin on his lips: "O! Vautrin, pour-
quoi m'avoir ordonne ce silence absolu?"^^ But what interest has
Vautrin in Raoul, and what bond is there between them?
The third act reveals this. Vautrin had escaped from the Toulon
galleys some twenty-one years before. During his subsequent
wanderings he has met and adopted a tiny child, a boy, whom he
educated with a father's care and called Raoul de Frescas. In an
17 Act II, scene 10.
58 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
atmosphere that reeks of the galleys and the Paris underworld,
surrounded by thieves and cut-throats who serve Vautrin and call
him emperor, this child has been carefully and luxuriously reared.
We are now made aware of the paternal interest which Vautrin has
taken in Raoul; how completely he governs the youth's destiny and
rules his conduct. This strange guardian, who has given the boy
houses, servants, wealth and even position, is also plotting as a final
coup that he shall marry a Spanish princess, and is determined that
nothing shall stand in the way of his project. This is his culminating
dream, his final castle in Spain.
Vautrin has reckoned without the Duke de Montsorel and his
son. But his suspicions are aroused when Saint-Charles, the Duke's
spy, pays him a visit. He threatens to have the latter imprisoned —
this man of mystery commands brigands and dungeons on every
hand — thereby forcing him to give up certain important documents
of the Langeac family, proving the innocence of the Duchess de
Montsorel. He may now control the Duke, but to succeed in his
ambitious project he has yet much to do.
In the fourth act we see Vautrin at work in the Christoval
household. Disguised as a Mexican general, he introduces his ward
to them as the son of an immensely wealthy Mexican dictator.
With forged letters he has little difficulty in deceiving both Ines and
her mother. But Raoul, in spite of his ardent passion, is unwilling
to agree to this deception and to compromise his honor. His struggle
is short, however, and we see the youth sinking into the toils of his
protector. Raoul agrees to Vautrin's deceit.
The final act reveals again the Montsorel home, with a whole web
of plotting and espionage about it. There are strange comings and
goings of Vautrin's gang by night. It has been arranged that Raoul's
rival shall be killed. Vautrin, the emperor, is himself directing the
energies of his men, and when he rifles the desk of Montsorel, he
learns for the first time that Raoul is really the heir of the family.
In the meanwhile, Saint-Charles, escaped from prison, has sum-
moned the police. The moment of Vautrin's renunciation has come.
Producing the genuine proofs of the Duchess's innocence, and seeing
the family finally reconciled, he takes a tender leave of Raoul and
is led away by the police.
Although Balzac lived during the very fervent days of romanti-
cism, the marked tendencies of this school made themselves little felt
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 59
in the Human Comedy. Moreover, we have already seen how the
realist flayed the dramatic ideals of Hugo and the melodramatists
in his criticism of the contemporary stage. We are amazed there-
fore, when we come to his first stage production, to find it thoroughly
like the current melodrama of the day.
What is the essential plot of Vautrin? A criminal outcast from
society wishes to set the object of his creation, "le fils de son esprit
et de son fiel," in the highest niche of society. His ambitious
design is frustrated by the fact that this child whose destiny he has
controlled is the son of a proud and beautiful member of this same
society, a mother unjustly accused, who finally claims her own.
In his intrigue Balzac has followed the popular melodrama very
closely. He wishes to emphasize in this play the revolt of a criminal
against society, the romantic ''force qui va," with which the public
was familiar. But there is little naturalness in this intrigue, and
the composition is marred to a serious extent by unnecessary devia-
tions from the main theme, by complicated counter-plots in which
spies and disguises and intercepted messages play a large part, and
by a constant mingling of the comic with the serious. The exposi-
tion is long and tedious, and the reader's interest begins to flag
before the first act is over. The essential facts of the play are told
in the most haphazard fashion, chiefly by monologue and whispered
asides which are little in keeping with real life. The central character
of the drama is Vautrin, but he does not figure in the intrigue until
the third act, when we see him surrounded by his band of criminals.
This central figure should be prepared for us with care, yet for two
full acts, while he appears from time to time on the scene like the
protean figure of the vaudeville, our interest is not aroused in him.
In the third act we are transported rudely to a world of thieves and
cut-throats comfortably moving in a drawing-room. For a time we
are impressed with the sparkle of the comic scenes between Vautrin
and his rogues, scenes grossly comic to be sure, like the sinister
recitals of Vidocq, yet the interest in the intrigue ceases, while we
follow with bewilderment a maze of melodramatic incoherences.
In like manner the comedy of the fourth act, exaggerated on the
famous first night by Lemaitre in his "toupet pyramidal," is clever,
but there is no longer any attempt at artistic construction; scenes
follow one another pell-mell, reaching a delirious climax in the last
act, where the sudden entrances, the plots to kill, the secret doors,
the whispered threats, and fortunate arrivals follow in rapid succes-
60 THE DRAMA OF HONORIE DE BALZAC
sion. Let us take a single example of Balzac^s utter disregard for
reality in his mad effort to move his characters on and off stage.
Vautrin suddenly comes upon the Duchess de Montsorel and her
maiden aunt. Wishing to send the latter away, he tells her that
the Marquis is being strangled by two assassins, and advises her to
go to his aid. A strange order to give to an old lady! The plot
of Vuutrin resembles that of an ordinary melodrama, in which the
author assumes free liberty regarding his characters, and allows
them to move in and out of the loose framework he has constructed
with utter disregard for the niceties of construction.
The characters of Vautrin are thoroughly romantic. They are
divided into two unreconcilable groups — the "gens du monde,"
and the ''formats," both moving with ease in the drawing-rooms of
fashionable Paris. But Balzac made his mistake when he introduced
high society into this melodrama. These *'gens du monde," like
their counterparts in the Human Comedy, are pale creatures,
psychologically unsound and uninteresting. The language which
they employ is for the most part the stilted language of the romanti-
cists, inevitably terminating in pompous tirades. The Duchess is
probably the worst offender in this respect. She constantly retards
the action to give vent to lengthy expressions of martyrdom. This
mother, who vows vengeance upon her enemies and details her woes
in the most intimate and harrowing manner, is scarcely better than
the grief-stricken mother in VAuberge des Adrets, perhaps the type
par excellence of this character. The Duke and his son are drawn
with even less psychological care. Balzac puts much of the exposi-
tion into the mouth of the one, and offsets the legitimate son with
the other. Raoul presents the handsome figure of a "jeune premier,"
for whose sake a mother's tears have been shed. This romantic
figure, overwhelmed by the disillusion and mystery which surrounds
him, is a weaker brother of Vautrin's other proteges, Eugene de
Rastignac and Lucien de Rubempre. But, unlike Eugene, Raoul
has had no contact with the outside world; he has never known the
Vauquer boarding-house nor been the lover of a great lady. Indeed,
the hothouse existence which the ill-starred youth has led bears
little resemblance to reality. His fine manners, his elegance and
aristocratic bearing which permit him to enter the most exclusive
society, bear no evidence of the hideous company in which he has
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 61
lived. Like Lucien, he has been forced to accept the paternity of
Vautrin, deriving from it his whole existence; like Lucien also he
has been created to inspire love, and when this human passion over-
takes him, when he "sees heaven for the first time, and is forced
to remain on earth," he questions his destiny after the fatalistic
manner of a Hugo hero :
Suis-je entre les mains d'un demon ou d'un ange? Tu m'instruis sans d^florer
les nobles instincts que je sens en moi; tu m'eclaires sans m'eblouir; tu me donnes
I'experience des vieillards, et tu ne m'otes aucune des graces de la jeunesse; mais tu
n'as pas impun^ment aiguis6 mon esprit, etendu ma vue, eveille ma perspicacite.^^
Raoul questions the means by which Vautrin has made his com-
fortable existence possible, and swears that his honor must remain
intact. In fact, he has a certain sense of honor, because a ''jeune
premier," according to all rules of the melodrama should have one,
but his will is feeble. He appeals to Ines to trust him, to believe in
his integrity, and he curses the power of Vautrin over him, yet there
is little trace of an inner struggle. Balzac has reproduced a current
type, adapting it more or less to the situation of his play.
When we consider the figure of Vautrin, we are struck by the
fact that the stage character is much less real and convincing than
the creation in the novels.^^ In le Fere Goriot and in les Splendeurs
et miseres des courtisanes he has, as on the stage, heroic proportions,
but in the one case he is the symbol of crime, prepared for us carefully
by many pages of physical and psychological description, while on
the stage the unreality of the figure is too apparent, and Vautrin is
too openly a puppet in the hands of a melodramatist. If Vautrin
is more shocking on the stage than in the novels, it is clearly because
he is not the same figure. The Vautrin of the Human Comedy
reveals Balzac occupied as a criminologist. The author is interested
in a social ''specimen," and makes it the object of a scientific investi-
gation. He has described his brutal physical appearance with the
energy that Vidocq employed when he pictured his famous Saint-
ly Act III, scene 10.
20 Le Pere Goriot appeared in 1835. Vautrin next figured in la Torpille, title under
which the first part of les Splendeurs et miseres des courtisanes was published in 1838.
After 1840, when Vautrin was represented theatrically for the first time, the character
reappeared in David Sechard, in 1843; in the third part of les Splendeurs et miseres des
courtisanes, entitled Oil menent les mauvais chemins, in 1846; finally in the fourth and
last part of the same novel, la Dernier e Incarnation de Vautrin, in 1847.
62 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
Germain.^^ Physically a criminal type, the Vautrin of the Vauquer
boarding-house displays certain morbid and degenerate tastes. He
entered the Toulon galleys first for having taken upon himself the
crime committed by an Italian youth whom he loved. Later he
attaches himself with unbounded fervor to other youths. This interest
is unnatural and repulsive. Prison life has also filled this being with
a great feeling of revolt against society, and has rendered him a
dangerous egoist. His sole activity is directed towards the fulfil-
ment of certain ambitious schemes for his proteges. His love of
Rastignac and his efforts to have the young man marry the daughter
of a rich banker lead to a murder and to the soiling of Eugene's soul.
In like manner, the Spanish priest, Carlos Herrera, instils his brutal
egoism in Lucien de Rubempre. Vautrin is the criminal of force
and magnetism; his pessimistic philosophy, his bitter sarcasm and
his degenerating effect upon youth are all problems which Balzac
has set out to solve pathologically, and they hold the attention of
the reader.
On the stage this same figure is totally different. Here we have
no longer the terrible criminal, corrupting and degenerating, but a
romantic hero, a galley-slave rehabilitated through love and renun-
ciation. As M. de Regnier puts it so aptly, Vautrin is the brother
of Marion Delorme.^^ On the stage the sentimentalism of the
character is stressed to the utmost. It is true that we discover
visions of this in the novels also — Vautrin learning to appreciate
beauty from Benvenuto Cellini; teaching the lovely Jewess, Esther,
the Lord's Prayer — yet in the drama this feminine tenderness and
magnanimity assume heroic proportions, and are incomprehensible.
2^ Vidocq speaks of his criminal as follows: "Saint-Germain was a man about
five feet eight inches high, with strongly developed muscles, an enormous head, and
very small eyes, half -closed, like those of an owl; his face, deeply marked with the small-
pox, was extremely plain; and yet, from the quickness and vivacity of his expression,
he was by many persons considered pleasing. In describing his features, a strong
resemblance would suggest itself to those of the hyena and wolf, particularly if the
attention were directed to his immensely wide jaws, furnished with large projecting
fangs; his very organization partook of the animal instinct common to beasts of prey.
As he had acquired the airs and manners of good society, he expressed himself when he
chose with ease and fluency, and was almost always fashionably and elegantly dressed,
he might be styled as a 'well-bred thief.' " — Memoirs. Translation by E. L. Carey and
A. Hart, 1834, p. 201. One might compare this figure and Vautrin.
22 Journal des debats, May 21, 1910.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 63
This type was exceedingly common on the stage about 1840.^ It
is Hugo's
Agent aveugle et sourd de mysteres funebres!
Une ame de malheur faite avec des tenebres!^*
expressing the great romantic revolt against society. Like the
redskin of Cooper, Vautrin finds man's life a struggle for existence
in the face of countless dangers:
Apres tout, c'est la vie d'un Indien entoure d'ennemis, et je d6fends mes cheveux."
The real power of this world lies outside of society, either with kings
or with criminals.26 Balzac is adding merely another reproach
against society that the outlaw Hernani and the valet Ruy Bias had
already voiced. Vautrin, the superman, is another figure of romantic
disenchantment and pessimism, whose bitter philosophy, when
preached from the stage, Balzac's audience was not inclined to toler-
ate. Frederick Lemaitre realized this, when he attempted to
renew in the role the buffoonery of Robert Macaire. The character
is thoroughly romantic, a mingling of sinister criminality and paternal
tenderness. To Raoul, Vautrin cries:
Mon coeur doit ^tre pour toi ce que le ciel est pour les anges, un espace o^ tout
est bonheur et confiance.^^
It is the same romantic cry that Triboulet utters in le Roi s^ amuse:
Ma fille, 6 seul bonheur que le ciel m'ait permis.^^
This constant mingling of the base with the elevated, of comedy and
real drama, these violent gestures and cries, the appeal to the nerves
of the spectators, are all the tricks of the romantic stage, while
through them all the moral lesson, the "idee severe" of Hugo is
lacking. M. Fernand Roux, in an admirable discussion of the
character of Vautrin, has expressed clearly the reason for its failure
upon the stage:
La premiere condition de reussite au theatre, c'est la vie; il faut que I'illusion
reste aussi proche que possible de la r6alite ou bien I'artifice apparait comme les fils
^^ Romantic literature was immensely interested in criminals of various sorts; it
is sufficient to recall besides les Miserables, Hugo's Claude Gueux and le Dernier Jour
d'un condamne. On the latter, see the article by Gustave Charlier in la Revue d'histoire
litUraire, July-December 1915, pp. 321-60.
2* Hernani, act III, scene 4.
"^ Act I, scene 5.
26 Act III, scene 10.
27 Act III, scene 10.
28 Act II, scene 3.
64 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
dans un spectacle de marionnettes. Or, Vautrin n'existe pas; il est tour a tour trop
mfS,me et trop grand, trop noble et trop trivial, trop philosophique et trop peuple.'^'
The false heroism and final renunciation of Vautrin merely shocked
the pit, who, willing to accept the heroic proportions of the criminal
in the novel, were disgusted by them on the stage.
On the fourteenth of March, 1840, when the audience of the
Porte-Saint-Martin witnessed the first performance of Balzac's
drama, Vautrin, they were not seeing for the first time a new creation
of the author. They were already familiar with the muscular
ex-convict of le Pdre Goriot and with the Spanish priest of la Torpille
who charged himself with the role of Providence in behalf of a
friendless youth.^° Having already placed his figure of Vautrin in
the novels, where it had become popular, when Balzac began to
write for the stage, what is more natural than to find a reincarnation
of this figure for a popular actor, Frederick Lemaitre, whose successes
at the moment were due to the interpretation of a similar role. It
was the novelist's belief, moreover, that isolated novel or drama
expressed life badly. He intended that his characters should appear
and reappear in his work, with the result of a certain continuity of
creation. A detail of costume, a striking word or characteristic
gesture often called up in his mind a whole new character. He
had seen Frederick Lemaitre bluff and bluster through le Paradis
des voleurs. Here was an excellent opportunity for him to introduce
his already conceived character in a play which might capture the
public.
In fact, the character of the ex-convict, transformed into a bene-
factor of humanity and ready to render some noble service, was a
familiar one at this period, and was expecially well-known at the
theatre. A drama called VHonnUe Criminel, by Fenouillot de
Falbaire, which Brazier, in his Chroniques des petits thedtres, tells us
was produced in 1768,^^ seems to have been one of the first of these
plays dealing with a galley-hero, and in it we discover vague outlines
*• Balzac jurisconsulte et criminaliste, 1906, p. 283.
3° In his Histoire des treize, dated February 1833, Balzac had created a brother
type to Vautrin — Ferragus, the chief of a band of outlaws who were bound together to
defy all social laws.
« Paris, 1883. Vol.11, p. 296.
THE DRAMA OF HONOR^ DE BALZAC 65
of the Jean Valjean and the Vautrin types. Among the numerous
pantomimes written by the prolific Jean-Fran?ois Mussot, better
known by his pseudonym, Arnould, was one called la Foret noircj
staged at the Ambigu-Comique, according to Brazier, about 1792.^^
This successful pantomime introduces on the scene a young boy who
has been stolen by an organized band of robbers, and who finally
converts his captors. With the advent of Pix6recourt and his melo-
dramas, we find still further instances of this type of hero. In
Victor y ou V enfant de la fore^^ the son of a brigand who is a bitter
enemy of society is brought up by a certain Baron Fritzerne. When
Victor learns that his real father is about to attack the baron's
castle, he goes to him and begs him to renounce his undertaking.
The brigand defends his trade, and declares that he is not a robber
but an avenger. In 1802, the Ambigu theatre presented a play by
Cuvelier de Trye called le Tribunal invisible ou le fils criminely in
which the interest centered about a certain Count of Heidelberg,
the leader of a mysterious tribunal, whose meetings are carried on in
the depths of the forest. Finally, in 1833, on the 25th of April, the
bill-board of the Porte-Saint-Martin bore this imposing announce-
ment: UAuberge des Adrets. Le dernier quart d^heure, epilogue
termini par le Paradis des voleurs, episode fantastique par MM.
Frederick Lemaitrey Serres^ Saint-Paul.^ This melodrama in three
acts had been first composed forLemaltreby three popular dramatists,
Benjamin Antier, Saint-Amand and Paulyanthe, and represented
at the Ambigu-Comique for the first time, July 2, 1823. It was
taken later — January 28, 1832 — to the Porte-Saint-Martin, where
the sombreness of the plot seemed to point to a failure. Lemaltre,
always familiar with the tastes of his public, hit upon the happy
scheme of remodeling the play, making a grotesque figure of the
gruesome hero. Robert Macaire, the incarnation of criminal buffoon-
ery, was the result, and all Paris flocked to the Folies-Dramatiques
to see the new piece.^^ The remodeled play was made up of a series
of loose episodes which served merely to present the grotesque figure
of Robert Macaire, an escaped criminal, whose remarkable wit and
charlatanism, whose cynical regard for society follow him through a
series of the most burlesque adventures. In choosing a similar hero
32/6«f., Vol. I,p. 64.
33 Ambigu, November 9, 1797.
3* See Duval, Frederick Lemattre et son temps, 1876, p. 132.
^ See page 52, note 3.
66 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
for his first play Balzac would then be catering to a very popular
taste; his appeal would be to those eager souls who were already
familiar with his hero of fiction, who, with this former creation still
in their minds, would welcome with avidity the further lively adven-
tures of his hero. There is no doubt too that Balzac was eager to
see Lemaitre play the r61e. In the preface to the play we read:
"L'auteur expliquerait-il son ceuvre? Mais elle ne pouvait avoir
que M. Frederick Lemaitre pour commentateur." It was Frederick
Lemaitre, the idol of the melodrama, who had just taken Paris by
storm with the grotesque figure of Robert Macaire. ^^ Robert
Macaire est I'elu de la foule; on I'aime, on I'admire, on I'applaudit,"
writes Jules Janin in les Dibats, and among those who saw and
applauded this sparkling bit of buffoonery was the author of Vautrin.
Later he wrote of it:
C'est la seule grande piece de notre temps, elle est toute aristophanesque."
What is more natural than that Balzac, mindful of the popularity
and of the resulting financial success of Robert Macaire, interpreted
by Frederick Lemaitre, should search about for a similar r61e to suit
him.
There are also certain suggestions of plot and character in the
sombre original of Robert Macaire, the melodrama known as VAuberge
des Adrets. In this play two fathers discuss the marriage of their
children, a boy and a girl. Dumont, the father of the boy, declares
that Charles is not his own son, that he found him in an inn at
Grenoble and adopted him. There is a striking resemblance here
to the mystery about Raoul's birth and adoption by Vautrin, the
latter declaring that he found the boy a beggar along the road. In
the same drama, a mother, who has lost her son and has been unjustly
accused of a wrong that she has never committed, finally has the
child restored to her. The poor woman, whose misfortunes have
been caused by a worthless husband, rants of her sufferings and
threatens a mother's vengeance in much the same manner that the
Duchess de Montsorel does. In the end Robert Macaire, the
genius of evil, unites mother and son, and dies.
The numerous disguises of Vautrin Balzac has also borrowed
from Robert Macaire. This insistence upon costume was an old
melodramatic trick much practised by Ducange and his school. But
^ Lettre d M. Hippolyte Casiille, appeared first in la Semaine, dated October 11
1846, (Euwes, Vol. XXII, p. 368.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 67
the taste for scenery and dress was also an object of special care in
the romantic drama, illustrated, for example, in Vigny's Marechale
d'Ancre and in the historical pageants of Dumas. Vautrin wears
seven complete changes of costume, ranging from that of a foreign
diplomat, a business man, to that of a Tartuffe in black, a Mexican
general and a bourgeois Napoleon! Macaire introduces himself
at the Auberge des Adrets in a disguise, and poses throughout the
later travesty as some personnage other than his real self. The
scene where Vautrin appears as a Mexican general and carries on a
ridiculous dialogue in patois with Lafouraille also suggest the scene
where Macaire and Bertrand appear before the ''reunion electrale"
in parliamentary costume. Lafouraille, the light-fingered accomplice
of Vautrin, reproached by his master for thieving, is the counterpart
of Bertrand, who steals a ring from the mayor's wife, M. Magloire*s
handkerchief, and even tries to steal from his chief.
This popular vaudeville type, Robert Macaire, whose character
is a mingling of derision, sarcasm, horrible gaiety, elegance and
grace, furnished Balzac with more than one trait for Vautrin. This
influence may have come before the play was conceived, and the
bursts of sinister laughter, the cold, calculating and murderous
designs, the feigned elegance and outbursts of song of Lamaitre's
creation may have already found their way into the Vauquer board-
ing house. At all events, when Balzac came to put Vautrin on the
stage, he remembered the success of Robert Macaire and the inter-
preter of the role.
Balzac declares that the original of Vautrin really existed.^^ The
model which he unquestionably took for this extraordinary character
was a certain Francois Vidocq, a notorious ex-convict from the
galleys of Brest and Toulon, who later became "chef de la surete"
at Paris. Balzac had met Vidocq on several occasions, and they
became quite good friends.^^ There is, moreover, every reason to
believe that Balzac had read the memoirs published under his name,
and obtained from the highly coloured and exaggerated recitals the
principal episodes for his Vautrin exploits.^^ First of all, a word
37 Letlre d M. Hippolyte Castille. (Euvres, Vol. XXII, p. 364.
38 Gozlan, Balzac chez lui.
'' See Gozlan, Balzac chez lui', also Le Breton, Balzac, pp. 172 and 173; Roux,
Balzac jurisconsulte et criminaliste, p. 357.
68 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
might be said about the name Vautrin. In Vidocq's Memoirs*'^ the
author recounts an exciting chase after a certain counterfeiter whom
he captured after a violent hand-to-hand fight. The man's name
was Watrin.^^ The importance of this episode is emphasized by the
fact that the capture was the result of his first work as police agent.
It is very likely that Vidocq, so loquacious and so much on his mettle
before the great man, Balzac, had told him of this adventure. Balzac
whose eagerness for names and whose belief in their significance was
so great, may very easily have hit upon his ex-convict's name in this
manner. There are, however, in the play certain traces of the
author's association with Vidocq which do not occur in the novels,
strengthening the belief that Vidocq and his tales were an all-
important source. In the play we have the following list of Vautrin's
accomplices and spies:
Franfois Cadet (Philosophe), cocher
Fil-de-soie, cuisinier
Buteux, portier
Joseph Bonnet, valet de chambre
Philippe Boulard (Lafouraille).
We have also Charles Blondet, called le Chevalier de Saint-Charles,
in the employ of the Duke de Montsorel.'*^ In the Memoirs we read
of an escaped convict from Toulon who called himself Cadet-Paul.*'
Philosophe, in criminal argot, Vidocq tells us means miserable.**
At least four of the Balzac spies bear names beginning with B:
Buteux, Bonnet, Boulard, Blondet. Compare with these the follow-
ing list of Vidocq's assassins and thieves: Bouhin, Boudin, Boucault,
Bouthey, Bourdarie, Boudier, Blondy, Blondel. It seems quite
possible that Balzac, with his fondness for just the right appellation,
*° Memoirs de Vidocq, chef de la police de sureti jusqu'en 1827, aujourd'hui pro-
prietaire el fabricanl de papier d Saint-Mande, Paris, 1828, Vol. I and II. Last two vol-
umes appeared the following year.
The author of this study has been forced to use an American translation of Vidocq:
Memoirs {unlil 1827). Translated from the French, Phila., E. L. Carey and A. Hart.
Balto., Carey, Hart and Co., 1834.
■** Memoirs, p. 193.
^ Lafouraille in les Splendeurs et miseres des courtisanes is La Pouraille, a celeb-
rity of three galleys, with a mania for disguises. Fil-de-soie figures both in les Splen-
deurs et miseres des courtisanes and in le Pere Goriot.
«p. 115.
^ Les Voleurs, physiologic de leurs mxurs et de leur langage. Second edition, Paris,
1837.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 69
found here in Vidocq the right assortment of splendid-sounding names.
The idea of an organized band of fugitive galley prisoners, perpetrat-
ing daily robberies as Vautrin's gang is doing, with a recognized
leader for whom they have the greatest respect, is also borrowed
from Vidocq.^^ The scene between Vautrin and Saint-Charles,
where the former assumes the dress of a German and the accomplice,
Lafouraille, speaks broken French, recalls the interesting case which
Vidocq relates in which he was disguised as a German servant, and
employed a Rhenish accent.'*^ Vidocq also recounts the history
of a certain Jossas, known as the Marquis de Saint-Armand
de Feral, one of the most famous robbers of Paris and a former
companion of Vidocq at Toulon. This thief used to operate by
means of false keys, meditating a burglary a long time in advance.
He passed himself off in high society as a Cuban Creole, and frequently
asked and obtained the hands of daughters of distinguished families,
usually making off with the dowry before the date set for the marriage.
Vautrin likewise enters the Montsorel house, obtains wax impressions
of the locks for the purpose of robbing the Duke's study; he plots
to marry off Raoul as the son of a Mexican dictator to a Spanish
heiress, himself assuming the r61e of a Mexican general.*^ The note
of pessimism in Vautrin's reflections on his former miserable life
recalls certain retrospective passages in Vidocq's history where he
^ Memoirs, pp. 186 and 191.
*« Ibid., p. 313.
*'' Paul Ginisty, the author of an extremely interesting book on the melodrama,
thinks that Balzac borrowed from other sources some of his traits for Vautrin, among
others, from the history of a celebrated escaped convict, Pierre Coignard, alias Count
Pontis de Sainte-H61^ne, a lieutenant-colonel in the service of Louis XVIII. Balzac,
in fact, alludes to Coignard in la Derniere incarnation de Vautrin, in the scene where
Vautrin is recognized by La Pouraille and Fil-de-soie at the Conciergerie. Ginisty
writes: "II s'est manifestement souvenu de Coignard dans le drame de Vautrin. Des
le premier acte, Vautrin, en tenue de soiree, s'introduisant dans I'hotel de Montsorel,
s'adresse au valet de chambre Joseph, son affilie, et lui dit: *Je t'ai demande les
empreintes de toutes les serrures du cabinet de monsieur le due. Oil sont-elles?' Au
quatrieme acte, Vautrin parait en uniforme de general, apres qu'on I'a vu, a I'acte
precedant, donner ses instructions a ses complices." (De Quoi est fait Vautrin,
Journal des dihats, May 27, 1910). Coignard was especially fond of obtaining wax
impressions of locks in certain houses which he visited, turning them over later to his
accomplices who made good use of them. Continuing in the same article, Ginisty
writes: "Balzac avait ete frappe de bien des circonstances dans le proces de Coignard
de 1817, ou I'accuse resta beau joueur, ayant garde, pendant sa detention preventive
a la Force, un singulier ascendant sur ses co-detenus."
70 THE DRAMA OF HONOR^ DE BALZAG
tells of his honest struggles after bitter years in the galleys, his
constant fear of arrest, and the association with his former criminal
companions:
No hell can be imagined equal to the torment in which I now existed. . . . Some-
times I trembled at the thought of my apprehension, and my home was transformed
into a filthy dungeon; sometimes it was surrounded by the police, and their pursuit
laid open proofs of a misdeed which would draw down on me the vengeance of the
laws.*'
In like words Vautrin speaks of his former life:
L'enfer! c'est le monde des bagnes et des for gats decor6s par la justice et par la
gendarmerie de marques et de menottes, conduits oil ils vont par la misere, et qui ne
peuvent jamais en sortir.*'
We know that Balzac was accused of having offended good taste
and morality in his play. The official interdictions on the Monday
following the first performance referred to the immorality of the
subject. The press attacked him also on these same grounds. Balzac
took up the defense of his play against this charge, and declared, in
all probability with truth, that the indictment against morality
merely hid the royal disfavor at the principal actor, Frederick
Lemaitre. His intentions are also expressed in the preface to the
first edition of les Splendeurs et miser es des cour tisanes, written in 1844:
Quelques plumes anim6es d'une fausse philanthropie font, depuis une dizaine
d'anndes, du for gat, un 6tre int^ressant, excusable, une victime de la soci6t6; mais,
selon nous, ces peintures sont dangereuses et antipolitiques. II faut presenter ces
Stres-1^ ce qu'ils sont, des etres mis a toujours hors la lot. Tel 6tait le sens infiniment
peu compris de la piece intitulee Vautrin, ou le personnage concluait a son impossibility
sociale, en offrant le combat dramatique de la police et d'un voleur incessamment
aux prises.*"
This social import, however, we are forced to believe was added by
the author after the play was written, for at the time he certainly
had no definite well-formed philosophical intention.
** Memoirs, p. 173.
*• Act III, scene 10. It is curious to note, before leaving Vidocq, whose influence
seems to have been more or less direct upon Balzac's play, that in May 1910, there was
given at the Th6itre Sarah-Bernhardt a five-act play by fimile Bergeret, called Vidocq,
empereur des policiers. Henri de Regnier, reviewing this play in le Journal des dehats,
May 27, 1910, says Vidocq has here been dSvautrinisi.
w (Euvres, Vol. XXII, p. 576.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 71
In conclusion, it must be admitted that Vautrin is a play of little
dramatic value. Through the mingling of comedy and drama, the
"pathetique brutal" and unreality of the action, the stilted and
lachrymose language of the characters and the heroic proportions
which the author has given them, and through the melodramatic
insistence on scenery and costume, the play is frankly romantic. It
is the product of a day of melodrama, with little to distinguish it
from the contemporary plays of Pixerecourt or Ducange. Written
for popular taste, to be acted by a popular comedian, it was no better
than thousands of other ephemeral productions of the boulevard
stage.
LES RESSOURCES DE QUINOLA
In September 1841, Balzac writes that a new play has been
completed bearing the name, les Ruhriques de Quinola} In spite
of the financial reverses of Vautrin, the author seems to have looked
forward with his usual sanguine spirit towards this new venture.
In January of the following year the name of the comedy was changed,
and Balzac writes to Mme Hanska:
Pour parler affaires, j'ai fait un grand pas. Du 5 au 7 fevrier on represente h.
I'Od^on Vi^cole des Grands Hommes, une immense comedie sur la lutte d'un homme
de genie avec son siecle. La scene est en 1560, en Espagne. II s'agit de Thomme qui
fit manoeuvrer un bateau a vapeur dans le port de Barcelone, le coula et disparut. Si
j'ai un succes, je pars; si je tombe, il faut faire quatre volumes pour pouvoir gagner
I'argent du voyage. . . . Tout le monde croit a un immense succes pour les Ressources
de Quinola, le faux litre de ma piece. Je garde celui que je vous ai dit pour le dernier
moment.'
Preoccupied as was the author of Quinola with a financial success for
his play, he seems also to have had an immense amount of ambition
to outdo the other dramatists of the year whose plays had not
succeeded.^ He wished to produce the "taking" play of the season:
Ce n'est plus I'auteur ni I'homme affam6 d'argent, c'est I'amant qui d6sire un
succSs.*
he also writes to Mme Hanska about the same time.
The story of the first reading of the play in 1842 to Auguste
Liroux, director of the Odeon, and to the actors of the company is
too well-known to be repeated here. Leon Gozlan, who was an
interested spectator on the occasion, recounts the story at full length
in his volume entitled Balzac chez lui.^ Gozlan tells us that Balzac
read four acts, then declared that the fifth was not yet written; also
that he then proceeded to improvise the fifth act much to the surprise
of the company, and to the utter disgust of Mme Dorval, for whom
a principal role had been written. Rehearsals of the play began
^ LEt., Vol. I, p. 569. September 30, 1841.
? 76^., pp. 573-4. January 5, 1842.
2 See supra, p. 4.
* LEt., Vol. II, p. 5. January 11, 1842.
5 Pages 102-146. See also Liroux in le Constitutionnel, August 25, 1851.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 73
almost immediately, with the last two acts unfinished. All the de-
tails of Balzac's eccentric dealings with Liroux, the substitution of
Mme Helena Gaussin for Mme Dorval, as well as the bizarre distri-
bution of seats, the author's ticket speculation and the almost empty
auditorium, recalling in themselves the vagaries of Balzac's inventor-
hero, are related with much detail by Gozlan in the volume just cited.
The story of Balzac's disgust with the play, his neglect to finish its
composition, his letters to Mile Sophie Koslovski, demanding the
addresses of prominent Russians to whom he wished to send seats
for the first night,^ his immense boasting about the quality of the
play and about its costly production, his feverish agitation over
its outcome and his eleventh-hour demand for the rejected "cla-
queurs" — all suggest in the most striking fashion a page from the
life of one of his own monomaniacs. Gozlan, who recounts this
story as an eye-witness, should be consulted for the complete history.^
Les Ressources de Quinola, a comedy in five acts with a prologue,
was given for the first time at the Odeon theatre on March 19, 1842.
The play, one volume in-8, was published by Souverain with a
preface dated Lagny, April 2, 1842, preceding by four days the
publication of the first part of the first edition of the Human Comedy.^
In the sumptuously fitted home of Balzac on the Avenue Fortunee,
— today, the Rue Balzac — the home to which the novelist brought
his Russian bride only a few months before his death, there was a
study hung with green damask and furnished with sombre oak and
ebony. Five frames hung on the walls of this room. Two contained
the portraits of Columbus and Salomon de Caus. The remaining
three were empty, and these, we are told, were to be occupied by the
portraits of Fulton, Gutenberg and Galileo.^ Five representatives
of the world's injustice! ''L'ironie du monde est plus funeste aux
gens de talent qu'a tous les autres," writes somewhere Mme de
Stael. Before he had hung his martyred men of science and inven-
tion upon his study walls, Balzac had already painted them on the
pages of his Human Comedy. Balthazar Claes and David Sechard
« Corr., pp. 357, 359, 360.
^ See also the criticisms of the first performance in le Courrier franqais, March 21;
la Gazette de France, March 2 1 and 30, 1842.
^ Lovenjoul, Histoire des auvres de Balzac, pp. 5 and 222.
'Unsigned article in la Revue franqaise, June 20, 1856.
74 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
were both victims of the world's irony. Likewise, les Res sources de
Quinola, as the author tells us, is ''le debat d'un grand homme avec
son siecle."^'' The great man is Fontanares, the inventor of a steam-
propelled boat, believed by the Holy Inquisition to be the work of
the devil. In the prologue to the play we are at the Spanish court
at Valladolid, where Quinola, late of the Tunis galleys, is seeking an
audience with the all-powerful monarch, Philip II, in behalf of his
master, Fontanares. The king that day has heard of the destruction
of his Invincible Armada, and is inclined to listen with favor to tales
of new vessels. Heedless then of the warnings of his spiritual
advisors, he causes the inventor to be brought before him, and grants
him permission to try out his experiments at Barcelona, promising
a dukeship if he succeeds, and death if he fails.
At Barcelona, where we are transported in the first act, Fon-
tanares and Quinola are facing death from poverty. Moreover, all
the rich and powerful of the kingdom are leagued against the poor
inventor. We are presented in rapid succession to the figures with
whom his unhappy destiny is to be linked: Don Fregose, the old
viceroy, and his mistress, the lovely Venetian, Faustine Brancadori;
Lothundiaz, the usurer, and his daughter, Marie, to whom Fonta-
nares has dedicated the fruits of his labor; Avaloros, the banker, who
is credulous enough to believe Fontanares' invention possible; the
secretary to the viceroy of Catalonia, Sarpi, whom Lothundiaz has
chosen for his son-in-law. Meanwhile Quinola the resourceful has
fallen in with an old friend, a former galley companion who calls
himself Monipodio. This ragged rascal, once a thief, now plying
the questionable trade of stool-pigeon, listens with greedy interest
to Quinola's tale of his master's invention, seeing splendid possibilities
for reward or theft in a triple alliance with the two. Consequently,
the man of genius will face the world with the sole companionship of
these two dirty rogues.
The persecutions of the inventor begin. First, the Venetian,
Brancadori, like Potiphar's wife of old, has formed a sudden and
violent attachment for him, and with the cleverness of a skilled
courtezan she seeks to win his affections. She begins her campaign
with a bit of evil advice to Marie, trying to convince the pure-minded
girl that she is a hindrance to her lover's work, and that her most
noble act of assistance would be to marry Sarpi, or to retire to a
!» LEt., Vol. II, p. 5. January 11, 1842.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 75
convent. Scorned by Fontanares as a common harlot, the clever
woman is determined more than ever to bring down her prey.
In the third act we are taken into the workshop of Fontanares,
where we see the guileless inventor surrounded and protected by his
mysterious band of rogues, Quinola, of course, at their head. The
man of genius has fallen grievously in debt to a Jewish money-lender,
and has been forced to share his discovery with him. This partner-
ship the Jew has sold to an idiotic fellow named Don Ramon who
passes himself off in the world as a savant. But the faithful valet
by certain questionable schemes has succeeded in establishing his
master's credit, thereby postponing any immediate disaster. Ill-
luck, however, continues to pursue the inventor, and in the next act
we see him on a public square of Barcelona, where sundry parts of
his steamboat are being auctioned off, appealing to the grandees of
Spain in the name of their sovereign to protect him. Brancadori,
the temptress, now offers to take the poor man to Venice where his
persecutions would be at an end and his triumph assured. But her
renewed seductions are again vigorously repulsed by Marie's lover.
In the meanwhile, the time allotted by the king for the experiment
draws to a close, and the boat has not been built. Fontanares now
faces not only disgrace, but death. However the wits of the valet
have not been idle. Quinola, in some unheard-of manner, has been
able to construct with Monipodio's aid two steamboats after his mas-
ter's plans. Seeing the danger in Monipodio's future activity,
Quinola has contrived to have his companion deported anew to
Africa. Fontanares is saved, and all Barcelona assembles on the
harbor front to see the spectacle. But the honor of the invention
is to go to another, to Don Ramon, whose funds the real inventor
has been forced to employ. Fontanares, a ruined man, now cherishes
merely the hope of defeating his enemies. Quite unexpectedly a
means of revenge presents itself, but it is Monipodio, disgraced by
his fellow rogue and bent upon retaliation, who brings this about:
L'enfer nous a ramene, je ne sais comment, Monipodio altera de vengeance; il est
dans le navire avec une bande de demons, et va le couler si vous ne lui assurez dix miUe
sequins. 1^
With a cry of defiance, Fontanares commands Quinola to see that
Monipodio carries out to the letter his fiendish scheme, and in view
of all Barcelona the boat is sunk. With this disaster comes the news
" Act V, scene 4.
76 THE DRAMA OF HONOR^ DE BALZAC
of Marie's death, and the inventor turns for solace to Brancadori,
the magnificent instrument of his ruin and destruction, as he calls
her, the woman who has taught him what a world of self-interest and
ruse and perfidious scheming this really is.
The construction of this comedy is a striking example of Balzac's
feverish workmanship in a field where the marks of unskilled labor
and awkwardly-handled tools are visible. He did not at this time
understand the construction of a play. We are bewildered by the
mass of documentary detail, the detached scenes and the unnecessary
dialogue with which the play is overcharged. Opening with a long
prologue, which serves merely to present the contrast between
the brilliancy of the Spanish court and the sombreness of the Inquisi-
tion, the play drags through thirteen scenes of confused exposition
before the action really begins. We are finally told that we are to
witness a duel between Fontanares and his age, with Quinola as a
second; whereupon we are prepared to witness the opening scenes
of this duel. Before this, however, we have the inventor revealed
in the chains of the Inquisition, talking in tedious phrases about
"Archimede et moi," and about "Galilee, mon maitre;" we have an
interview between Fontanares and the king, where the former talks
wearily about science, while the grand inquisitor interrupts with
information about Luther and the invention of printing. Nearly
the whole of the first act is still devoted to the exposition of character
— Quinola and Monipodio talking at great lengths about the lineage
of Brancadori, and discussing the most intimate family details about
Lothundiaz. The act is devoid of any real action, and with the
exception of one cumbersome love scene, in which Fontanares
declares his undying constancy to Marie, it has no importance. The
interest of the second act centers not so much about Fontanares and
Quinola as about the mistress of old Don Fregose. It is Brancadori's
act — that is to say, Mme Dorval's, since the role was especially
prepared for this actress. Act III contains the best and the
worst that there is in the play. The realistic setting, displaying
the inventor at work, Quinola's quaint advice about love, and his
vulgarly comic scene with the false savant, Don Ramon, stand out
against the worn-out melodramatic elements which were the undoing
of Vautrin, the tiresome scientific discussions, the rapid and bewilder-
ing use of disguises, the gradual culmination of Fontanares' misery
and the undramatic ending. Finally, after the scenes of la Branca-
dori's seduction, the improbable and unexpected climax is reached.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 77
Fontanares, who has experienced unsurmountable difficulties in
constructing his boat, learns that Quinola and Monipodio at the
same time, and unaided by him, have built two. How this could
come about we are not told. In fact, the intrigue now assumes the
most improbable and confusing proportions. We reach the fifth
act, an act which Gautier might easily have been parodying when he
wrote: "O cinquieme acte, tant reve, que j'ai poursuivi si opini^tre-
ment a travers toute la prose de la vie."^^ Monipodio, who has been
sent back to the galleys, is suddenly needed again. His reappear-
ance is unwarranted, yet he is able to board the boat whose trial trip
is being made — how, we are at a loss even to guess — and sinks it.
This action is utterly unjustified and unnatural.
Turning from the construction to the style of Quinola, we find
the most shocking abuse of romantic license, Balzac has apparently
not been intimidated by Vautrin, for he has not allowed the galley
convicts who formerly haunted the salons of the illustrious Duke de
Montsorel to rest. Quinola, a valet, who might have inherited some
of the sparkling wit of his illustrious ancestors, the Scapins and the
Figaros, is made to talk like the most detestable of Vautrin's rogues.
"Je suis comme Jesus-Christ, entre deux larrons," he says, or again:
"L'on parle du premier amour! Je ne connais rien de terrible comme
le dernier, il est strangulatoire."^^ ■ Is it Quinola, or Vautrin, who
declares: ''En attendant un marquisat et une famille, je me nomme
Quinola."?^^ Sometimes the phrases are heavy and without wit:
*'Cet homme m'inquiete! il me parait posseder mieux la mecanique
de I'amour que Tamour de la mecanique,"^^ or again: "Sangodemi,
il est si rare de faire honnetement sa fortune et celle de TEtat, sans
rien prendre aux particuliers, que le phenomene merite d'etre favor-
ise."^® Balzac has attempted to lend to his character both cynicism
and sparkling wit. Quinola has a certain gross cynicism, but his
wit is often lacking.
Fontanares, making love or discussing science, utters phrases
which range in tone from the most flamboyant to the most prosaic.
Brancadori also, whom we wish to see the one really strong figure of
the comedy, speaks an emphatic language which is far removed from
^2 Les Jeunes-France, p. 170.
^' Act I, scene 1.
15 Act I, scene 17.
*• Prologue, scene 6.
78 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
reality. The following passage will illustrate the feebleness of
Balzac's style:
Fatistine: Ne me demens point, Alfonse! j'ai tout conquis de toi, ne me refuse pas
ton ccEur! tu n'auras jamais d'amour plus d6vou6, plus soumis et plus intelligent; tu
seras le grand homme que tu dois ^tre.
Fontanares: Votre audace m'6pouvante. (// montre la lettre) Avec cette somme,
je suis encore seul arbitre de ma destinee. Quand le roi verra quelle est mon oeuvre,
et ses resultats, il fera casser le mariage obtenu par la violence, et j'aime assez Marie
pour attendre.
FausHne: Fontanares, si je vous aime foUement, peut-etre est-ce k cause de
cette d^licieuse simplicity, le cachet du genie. . . .
Fontanares: Elle me glace quand elle sourit.
FausHne: Cet or, le tenez-vous?
Fontanares: Le voici. . . .
Faustine: Sans or, que pourrez-vous? Votre lutte reconmience! Mais ton ceuvre,
grand enfant In'est pas dispers^e, elle est a moi. . . .
Fontanares: Comment, c'est toi, Venitienne maudite? ....
Faustine: Oui. . . Depuis que tu m'as insultee, ici, j'ai tout conduit . . . Mais
combien d'amour dans cette fausse haine! N'as-tu done pas 6t6 r6veill6 par une
larme, la perle de mon repentir, tomb6e de mes paupieres, durant ton sommeil, quand
je t'admirais, toi, mon martyr adore !^^
In the main, Balzac is trying to adapt his style to two opposed
* 'genres" which he mingles in the play, the "comedie larmoyante"
and the "comedie burlesque." The former style suggests romanti-
cism at its worst; the latter, the over-exercised tricks of Robert
Macaire.
In presenting his inventor-hero to the theatre public, Balzac has
been faithful to the romantic conception of a man of genius. Fonta-
nares is unhappy, inexorably pursued by fate, a mournful and de-
pressed figure of disordered genius, turning like a child from one toy
to another, and petulantly threatening to destroy the most precious of
them all. Like the romantic hero also, he is filled with a soul-
inspiring ardor. What makes the character uninteresting, however,
is Balzac's painting of it. To put such a figure on the stage a gift
of poetry is needed, and Balzac has no poetry at his disposal. His
hero speaks an emphatic and conventional language: when he talks
of science, he is tiresome; when he talks of love, he is ridiculous.
Balzac has no fitting language in which to express his hero's soul-
combats, his hesitations, his struggles, consequently the character
" Act IV. scene 16.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 79
is unreal and psychologically unsound. Fontanar^s is not a type
from Balzac's world of monomaniacs, all of whose defeats are made
so poignantly plain or futile through struggle. Balthazar Claes
struggles and suffers, and we are witness to his gradual attrition of
mind and body. He inspires our pity because he drags down with
him a noble woman. Fontanares, guided by Quinola, and weakly
protesting against the wiles of Brancadori, is but a mediocre creation.
His final defiance of society, coming as it does at the end of a waver-
ing career, has none of the terrible force in it that is inspired by
Rastignac's words htirled in the face of Paris. Balzac had already
in his novels given dramatic force to the plight of his man of genius,
and Avaloros' bloodless proposal to Fontanares had already been
addressed by Claparon to Cesar Birotteau:
Quand rhomme a id6es a rencontr6 quelque bonne affaire, Thomme d'argent lui
donne alors une tape sur I'epaule et lui dit: "Qu'est-ce que c'est que ga? Vous vous
mettez dans la gueule d'un four, mon brave, vous n'avez pas les reins assez forts; voili
mille francs, et laissez-moi mettre en scene cette affaire."^^
Balzac's inventor is not true to life, and the dramatist did wrong
when he attempted to recreate a character of fiction which his genius
as story teller was better fitted to produce.
In 1831, Hugo presented his first drama dealing with the courte-
zan in love, and Madame Dorval created the role of Marion Delorme.
This actress, who became so immensely popular in the Hugo drama,
was Balzac's inspiration for Faustine Brancadori. ^^ A descendant
of a noble Venetian family, whose ideal of love is that of Petrarch
for Laura, young, clever and a coquette, such is the character of
Balzac's heroine, the mistress of the Catalonian viceroy. She is the
ideal romantic type of the courtezan, living a life of luxury and
elegance, surrounded by her devoted court of men. Unfortunately
Balzac has made of Brancadori the same unconvincing character
as Fontanares. We perceive here the same careless psychology,
the same faded lyric phrases of the melodrama:
Aimer! c'est se devouer sans attendre la moindre recompense; aimer! c'est vivre
sous un autre soleil auquel on tremble d'atteindre. N'habillez pas votre egoisme des
splendeurs du veritable amour. Une f emme mariee, Laure de Noves, a dit k P6trarque :
"Tuserasa moi sans espoir, reste dans la vie sans amour." Maisl'Italieacouronn^
^* Cesar Birotteau.
^' The character of Brancadori was finally played by Mile Georges. See LEt.,
Vol. II, p. 14. February 22, 1842.
80 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
I'amant sublime en couronnant le poete, et les siecles 5, venir admireront toujours
Laure et P6trarque!2°
Consider such a metaphor as the following: "II est la, debout
comme un homme devant un precipice et poursuivi par des tigres/'^^
Brancadori defines hate as follows: ''La haine n'est pas le contraire
de Tamour, e'en est Tenvers."^ Her language is excessive and
unnatural, characterized by none of the poetic shading which makes
such a character tolerable on the stage. For the type Balzac has
taken a well-known romantic conception, sufficiently invraisemblable
in itself, but which could have been made acceptable either by
careful psychological exposition, or, as Hugo might have presented it,
clothed in lyric poetry. Unfortunately, Balzac has put into the
character neither the one nor the other.
Lothundiaz represents the stock type of the miser father, a very
pale shadow of old Grandet, just as Mathieu Magis, the Lombard
money-lender, is a pale shadow of Gobseck. Like the latter,^^
Magis has seen much of the world, and has learned to hate it. '*Le
monde est in juste a notre egard," he says^^ in the philosophical tone
of the Dutch usurer. He is cautious like some wild animal, "un
beau chien de chasse," Brancadori calls him.^^ Like Gobseck also,
who is not averse to the beauty of old Goriot's daughter, Magis
declares: "Mon petit commerce est alimente par les grandes
passions: belle femme, belle prime. "^^
Quinola, the intriguing valet of Fontanares, is the combined
type of rascality and devotion. With the gaiety of Figaro, the
rouerie of Scapin and the poorness of Job, as Celler describes him,^^
he maintains throughout a remarkable devotion to his master, and
finally perfects the invention which the world's defeats have with-
held from the inventor. He stands in opposition to all the other
characters of the play. He attacks power and wealth, represented
in Don Fregose and Avaloros; he attacks the shallow science of
Don Ramon, the religious zeal of the Inquisition, the avarice of
Lothundiaz. Balzac has made this rogue the most honest man in
20 Act II, scene 10.
2» Act IV, scene 16.
22 Act IV, scene 7.
23 Gobseck is dated Paris, 1830.
2* Act II, scene 22.
^Ibid.
26 75^.
27 1^^ Valets au thidtre, 1875, p. 89.
THE DRAMA OP HONORE DE BALZAC 81
the play, and also the most practical. He is meant to represent the
modern spirit awakening in an age of prejudice and ignorance. The
character represents in a measure, however, the deliberate and over-
done grotesque of Hugo, lacking the poignant, lyric and exceedingly
human note which makes the fool in King Lear a really great figure.
Quinola, like Vautrin, is a former galley slave whose real name is
Lavradi, a bandit in rags who is none the less versed in the ways of
the court; who associates with his former companions of the galleys,
and finds his sole consolation in the good cheer of the bottle. Yet
this same dirty and disreputable fellow, mirabile dictu, knows how to
address the most powerful monarch of Europe in fitting phrases!
This association with the thieves of the underworld is hardly recon-
cilable with the devotion of an honest servant. In Quinola we find
again the psychology of romanticism and the conventional type of
"bon criminel." We allow a certain amount of good and evil to all
men, but to depict the same character at one time faultless, at another
steeped in all that is wicked and perverse, without transitions or
intermediary moral stages, is to depart seriously from reality.
Like Scapin, Quinola is resourceful, but unlike Moliere's creation,
he is detestable because of the taint of the criminal about him. Like
Figaro, he is the ''intrigant" and the "insolent," the man of talent,
but Figaro is no former convict: his dishonesty is confined rather to
love intrigues. In fact, rascality is the sum total of existence for
Scapin and Figaro; they delight us with their sparkling wit and their
devotion to young lovers, while Quinola, the mocker, the irreverent,
the evil-counsellor, who is meant to represent the soul of the common
people and to preach a lesson of devotion to the grandees, remains
none the less a second Vautrin, a figure of the underworld, whose
discourse is stained with thieves' jargon, and whose wit is directed
against all that is held sacred and pure.
To Robert Macaire the melodramatists gave a Bertrand; to
Vautrin Balzac gave a Lafouraille. In like manner, Quinola is
seconded by Monipodio. This character Balzac has borrowed from
the Rinconete y Cortadillo of Cervantes, a realistic character sketch
of Seville, contained in the author's Novelas ejemplares, and published
for the first time in 1613. The Novelas had a great vogue in France,
and Balzac probably knew the adaptations made by Florian, pub-
lished in 1787. In Cervantes' story, Monipodio, an ill-favored
barbarian, tall and swarthy, is the president of an organized guild of
assassins and pickpockets, a thief ready to "serve God and honest
82 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
people," who makes his gang give something of everything they
steal to charity. Balzac has made of the character a sort of police
guardian to Fontanares, familiar with the haunts of thieves, ready
to serve in any dishonest business. The figure is dull and uninterest-
ing, lacking the vulgar wit of Lafouraille and Bertrand.
In Quinola the two essential traits of the romantic drama are
present: lyricism, and the use of local color and history. The
lyricism of the play is revealed first in the heroic proportions which
the author has given to the love scenes. Fontanares is thoroughly
a romantic hero. For him Marie is always a protecting star. To
her he cries: "Vous etes mon etoile, brillante et loin de moi."^^ As
Marie signals to him from her window, he exclaims: **Mais elle
m'aime. . . . Tiens, vois, mon etoile brille."2»So Romeo had cried
out in the moonlight beneath the windows of the Capulets, and so
many other romantic heroes had expressed their emotion.^" Fon-
tanares speaks of love as *'cette foi humaine, qui rallume le courage
quand il va s'eteindre sous la bise de la raillerie."^^ Like a hero
of the Romantic School he rants also about his pride and honor:
"Brillant et pur amour par qui je me rattache au ciel pour y puiser
Tesperanceet la foi; vous venez de sauver mon honneur," he cries to
Marie as she saves him from the hands of the alguazils.^^ "Tuez-moi,
ne me calomniez pas: vous etes place trop haut pour descendre si
bas," he exclaims to Don Fregose.^'
The comedy is moreover lyric, since under the biting satire on
genius we discover the dramatist himself speaking. It is an echo
of real personal grief that the author has expressed in the words of
Fontanares: ^'O, mon Dieu! le talent et le crime seraient-ils done
une meme chose a tes yeux?"^* The satire is personal, and beneath
it we discern the misfortunes of Honore de Balzac, man of genius, in
28 Act I, scene 19.
29 Act I, scene 17.
'° "She speaks; O speak again, bright angel." — Romeo and Juliet, Act II, scene 2.
"Let her shine as gloriously as Venus of the sky." — Midsummer Night's Dream,
Act II, scene 2.
"Dona Sol, viens briller comme un astre dans Tombre !" — Hernaniy Act ll,scene 1.
31 Act IV, scene 2.
32 Act IV, scene 3.
33 Act IV, scene 2.
34 Act III, scene 8.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 83
debt and hounded by creditors, calumniated by the press and mis-
judged by the public. Like Ruy Bias's appeal to the grandees,
Fontanares (Balzac) cries out to the crowd:
O grands de la terre, riches, vous tous qui tenez en vos mains un pouvoir quel-
conque, pourquoi done en faites-vous un obstacle a la pensee nouvelle?^
When Balzac wrote Quinola, there was a bitterness in his heart
more keen than at any period of his life. He was still resentful over
the storm and ignominy of his first play.^^ But there was also
another cause for his indignation. Less than four months after his
novel, la Transaction {Colonel Chahert), had appeared in V Artiste^
a vaudeville was manufactured from it without the author's permis-
sion.^^ This literary theft, together with a borrowing of an episode
from his Medecin de campagne by VEurope litUraire^^ inflamed
Balzac to such an extent that he wrote his energetic Lettre aux
Scrivains franqais du XIX' Steele, which appeared in la Revue de
Paris, November 1833, urging men of letters to bind themselves
together into a society for mutual protection, so that united they
might overcome the injustice which meant death to individual
genius. The result of this instigation was, as we know, the founda-
tion in 1833 of a Societe des Gens de Lettres, organized for the
purpose of inspiration and protection. Balzac was admitted to
membership in 1838, never having allied himself with the organiza-
tion before that date.^* Immediately upon entering the society,
Balzac drew up a code litteraire, setting forth rules for the protection
of authors. His defense of men of genius had been expressed else-
where. Before writing Quinola, he had already depicted the sufferings
of creative genius in le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu (1831), in la Recherche
de Vahsolu (1834), and in Gambara (1837). David Sechard, written
at the same period as Quinola, also describes the cruel defeats of a
young inventor at the hands of knavish "gens d'affaires." Quinola
then, was but another personal protest, another stage in this struggle
against leagued derision and hatred. The play might easily have
borne on its title page the satirical words of Voltaire :
* Act IV scene 2.
^ See LEL, Vol. II, p. 14. February 22, 1842.
^' La Transaction ceased to appear on March 13, 1832. Colonel Chahert, a drame
vaudeville in two acts by Arago and Lurine, was produced at the Th^^tre du Vaude-
ville, July 2, 1832.
'* See letter to Mme Hanska, dated August 1, 1833.
3' See Louis de Royaumont, Balzac et la societe des gens de lettres, 1913.
84 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
Le plus grand malheur d'un homme de lettres n'est pas d'etre I'objet de la jalousie
de ses confreres, la victime du mepris des puissants du monde, c'est d'etre jug6 par
des sots>°
The theft of Fontanares' discovery, *'le vol le plus honteux qui se
puisse consommer a la face du ciel et d'un pays,"^^ and the injustice
that he suffers from the greed and ignorance and hatred of the
Spanish court, are the personal sufferings of the author. Conse-
quently, we have a lyric hero and a picaresque valet who voice
Balzac's own satirical and pent-up feelings.
The use of history and local color which is found in Quinola
is by no means an innovation of Balzac. Since the beginning of the
century in fact these had been one of the most marked traits of
comedy and drama. Balzac is following the vogue of the historical
play prophesied by Mme de Stael,'*^ and followed out by Lemercier,
Delavigne and Hugo. Dumas, under the influence of Walter Scott,
had produced in 1829, a year before Hernani, his Henri III, a series
of immense tableaux with a historic and picturesque background,
lengthy dramatis personae and numerous local allusions. The
Spanish setting for comedy and drama had had an immense vogue
before Balzac composed Quinola. Pixerecourt's Maures d'Espagne
(1804), a dramatization of Florian's Gonzalve de Cor done, which
Balzac had read, and whose "epic pretentions" he mentions in la
Revue parisienne,*^ was given more than two hundred times in Paris
before 1841. Lemercier's Finlo, dating from 1800, and made so
popular at the Porte-Saint-Martin in 1834 by Bocange, was a
historical comedy built about the Portuguese revolution of 1640,
presenting a sort of political Figaro, who gives a kingdom to his
master. Calderon and Lope de Vega both furnished the French
dramatists with sources."*^ In 1830, Hugo's Hernani and Delavigne's
*^DicHonnaire philosophique,
*^ Act IV, scene 3.
^ "La tendence naturelle du si^cle, c'est la trag6die historique." — De VAllemagne,
II, chap. 15.
"Si le drame historique se vidait de I'int^r^t qui s'attache au pass6, il trouverait
encore une ample matiere dans la peinture des moeurs et des passions rajeunies par la
revolution et elev6es au ton de la po6sie par I'^pop^e de I'Empire." — Ibid.
« (Euvres, Vol. XXIII, p. 600.
** In 1824, Scribe wrote the libretto, with M^lesville, to a lyric drama based on
Cervantes' Fuerza de la sangre, entitled LSocadie, Theatre de I'Opera-Comique,
November 24, 1824, music by Auber. Charrin's melodrama, le Rapt, ou amour,
honneur, et devoir, was imitated from the Spanish of Calderon, produced first at the
Ambigu-Comique, in 1815. Le Cid d'Andalousie, by Lebrun, Th6atre Frangais, March
1, 1825, was imitated from Lope de Vega.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 85
Ruy Gomez were produced on the same night. That same year Dorval
and Lemaitre were appearing in Feblo, le jardinier de Valence, while
Don Carlos, a tragedy in five acts by Talabot, was being played -at
the Theatre Franfais.'*^ Henri de Latouche's Reine d'Espagne was
acted first at the same theatre on November 5, 1831, and undoubt-
edly influenced Hugo to some extent when he came to write Ruy Bias.
One year later, the name Quinola was given by Musset to a valet in
his fantastic comedy, A quoi revent les jeunes filles.^ The fanaticism
of Philip II, "le roi devot," the same king who was soon to interest
Balzac, was made the subject of Delavigne's Don Juan d^Autriche*'^
In 1836, Dumas produced a "mystere" in five acts and innumerable
tableaux, called Don Juan de Mar ana; the following year, an "opera-
comique" in three acts, laid at Seville, called Piquillo}^ Finally,
in 1838, we come to Ruy Blas.*^
History is used as a background for Quinola, with a certain
amount of vivid local color. In the preface to his play, dated April 2,
1842, Balzac tells us that the basis for his plot, namely the steamboat
invention in the XVIth century, is a historical fact, mentioned in
Arago's treatise on steam engines, published in V Annuaire du bureau
des longitudes}'^ Arago cites a curious note contributed by the
director of the royal archives of Simancas to the Correspondance
astronomique of Baron de Zach and published in 1826, which reads
as follows:
Blasco de Garay^ capitaine de mer, proposa, I'an 1543, a Tempereur et roi Charles-
Quint, une machine pour faire aller les batiments et les grandes embarcations, m^me
en temps de calme, sans rames et sans voiles.
Malgr6 les obstacles et les contrari^tes que ce projet essuya, I'empereur ordonna
que Ton en fit Texp^rience dans le port de Barcelone, ce qui effectivement eut lieu le
jour 17 du mois de juin de ladite annee 1543.
Garay ne voulut pas faire connaitre entierement sa d6couverte. Cependant on
vit, au moment de I'epreuve, qu'elle consistait dans une grande chaudiere d'eau bouil-
lante et dans des roues de mouvement attachees a I'un et a I'autre bord du bS.timent.
On fit I'exp^rience sur un navire de 200 tonneaux, appele la Triniti, arriv6 de
Colibre pour decharger du ble a Barcelone, capitaine Pierre de Scarza.
^ Hernani and Ruy Gomez, both produced on February 25; PeWo, May 4,
Ambigu; Don Carlos, December 11.
^Published December, 1832, in a volume entitled Un Spectacle dans un fauteuil.
*'' Comedy in five acts, October 17, 1835, Th6&tre Frangais.
** Don Juan de Marana, April 30, Porte-Saint-Martin; Piquillo, October 31, Op6ra-
Comique.
*^ November 8, Renaissance.
^"Dominique Francois Jean Arago, 1786-1853. His Notice historigue sw les
machines d vapeur was published in 1829.
86 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
Par ordre de Charles-Quint, assisterent k cette experience don Henri de Tolede,
le gouverneur don Pierre de Cardona, le tresorier Ravago, le vice-chancelier et I'inten-
dant de la Catalogne. . .
Dans les rapports que Ton fit k I'empereur et au prince, tous approuverent g6n6-
ralement cette ingenieuse invention, particulierement a cause de la promptitude et de
la facilite avec laquelle on faisait virer de bord le navire.
Le tresorier Ravago, ennemi du projet, dit qu'il irait deux lieues en trois heures,
que la machine etait trop compliquee et trop couteuse, et que I'on serait expose au
p^ril que la chaudiere eclat^t. Les autres commissaires assurerent que le navire
virait de bord avec autant de vitesse qu'une galere manoeuvree suivant la methode
ordinaire, et faisait une lieue par heure, pour le moins.
Lorsque I'essai fut fait, Garay emporta toute la machine dont il avait arm6 le
navire; il ne deposa que les bois dans les arsenaux de Barcelone, et garda tout le reste
pour lui.
Malgre les oppositions et les contradictions faites par Ravago, I'invention de
Garay fut approuv6e, et si I'expedition dans laquelle Charles-Quint 6tait alors engag6
n'y eut mis obstacle, il I'aurait sans doute favoris^e.
Avec tout cela, I'empereur avanga I'auteur d'un grade, lui fit un cadeau de 200,000
maravedis, ordonna a la Tresorerie de lui payer tous les frais et depenses, et lui accorda
en outre plusieurs autres graces.^*
It will be seen from the foregoing citation, which Arago regarded
as scientifically and historically unimportant, what pretentious use
Balzac has made of the document. In the preface to his play the
author declares :
Parmi cinquante faiseurs de feuilletons, il n'en est pas un seul qui n'ait trait6
comme une fable, inventee par I'auteur, le fait historique sur lequel repose cette piece
des Ressources de Quinola.
Longtemps avant que M. Arago mentionn^t ce fait historique dans son Histoire
de la Vapeur, publiee dans VAnnuaire du bureau des Longitudes, I'auteur, k qui le fait
6tait connu, avait pressenti la grande comedie qui devait avoir precede I'acte de descs-
poir auquel fut pouss6 I'inventeur inconnu. . .
Balzac has taken no more care than Hugo or Dumas in his recon-
struction of history, in spite of the fact that historical and local
allusions are constantly put to the fore. The local color is super-
ficial, nor has the author carefully studied Spanish history. We
are given merely external details, while there has been no attempt
to delineate the psychology of the Spanish people or to reconstruct
Spanish society.
The elaborate setting of the prologue in the gallery leading to
the chapel of the king's palace, with the crowd of guards and noble-
" The fourth edition of la Notice historique sur les machines d vapeur is published
in Volume V of les (Euvres computes of Arago, Paris, Gide et J. Baudry, 1854-9,
16 volumes.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 87
men, alcaldes and courtiers, recalls at once the opening setting of
Ruy Bias. The interior of Fontanares' workshop, with its confusion
of wheels, test-tubes, kettles, mathematical instruments, with even
the humble fare of the poor inventor detailed by scenic indications;
the final act on the terrace of the city hall, with its view-of the spark-
ling sea and the Barcelona shipping in the background, the colorful
costumes of the immense crowd which is to witness the destruction
of the steam-propelled boat — all suggest the exacting mise en scene
demanded by the romanticists, and expecially by Pixerecourt and
the melodramatists.^2 In Dumas' A-lchimiste^^ the scenes just
mentioned had already been identically reproduced : an underground
laboratory where Fasio, the alchemist, accused of black art and
persecuted by the rich and powerful, conducts his experiments;
and a public square before the courtezan Maddelena's house, where
the wife of the alchemist pleads for his life.
Another romantic trick, well practised already in Vautrin, is the
use of disguises. Quinola and Monipodio are bewildering in their
rapid changes, successively in rags and silks. Here the trick is
overworked and inartistic.
Balzac has chosen for the period of action of his play that which
Dumas has used in his greatest historical drama, transferring it,
however, to Spain and to the court of Philip 11.^^ In a letter to
Mme Hanska, dated January 5, 1842, Balzac says that the action
occurs in 1560.^ The definitive edition of the plays — Calmann-
Levy, 1879, Volume XX — dates the action as 1533, an evident mis-
take which has been corrected in the Centenary edition to 1588.^^
While the author has introduced several incongruous historical
references, the events in the main are chronologically correct. At
the opening of the play news is brought of the destruction of the
Spanish Armada, which occurred of course in 1588. "La France est
en feu, les Pays-Bas en pleine revoke, Calvin a remue I'Europe,"
*2 See especially Pixerecourt's Christophe Colomh, and his Robinson Crusoe.
" Drama in five acts and in verse, Renaissance, April 10, 1839.
" Balzac had found Philip II an interesting and fascinating figure, speaking of
him at various times in his work. See expecially the preface to the first edition of la
Femme superieure, la Maison Nucingen and la Torpille, dated September 15, 1838.
(Euvres, Vol. XXII, p. 505.
^ LEL Vol. I, p. 574.
^ (Euvres completes de Honors de Balzac. Edition du centenaire. Thedtre,
2 vol. Calmann-Levy.
88 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
says the grand inquisitor,^^ and these pressing events turn the king's
mind from the inventor. In 1588, France was actually in a state of
upheaval, leading up to the famous ''journee des barricades," when
the king was nearly dethroned, and to the assassination of the Duke
de Guise the same year. The Netherlands had recently risen in
revolt and declared William of Orange stadhouder, seeking protection
against the king and his Inquisition. The Reformation was stirring
all Europe, and France especially, where the Huguenots had strength-
ened themselves since the bloody Saint Bartholemew in 1572. The
references in the play to Galileo are out of keeping with the other
events, since he was not born until 1564, and did not become a
suspect of the Inquisition until after 1633, when his treatise on
astronomy was denounced as heretical. Fontanares, a former pupil
of Galileo, declares that his master is now lying in prison, and likens
his own fate to that of the greater man of genius. The reference
which Brancadori makes to an incident about Catherine de Medici
and Diane de Poitiers, which she says ''occurred the other day,"^^
is also misplaced, since at the moment Henry II's mistress was dead,
and Catherine herself dying.
In Quinola we find all the important romantic elements which the
contemporaries of Balzac were emphasizing: the use of a picturesque
and quasi-historical background for the action; an excess of local
color, of tableau effects, of disguises and costuming; a lyric hero,
with a picaresque rogue for a companion; a conventional courtezan
and a pathetic heroine, misused by the world; with all this, a certain
looseness of dramatic construction and an appendage of unnecessary
scenes. We search in vain for some trace of the careful realism which
is to be found in the Human Comedy. The characters are romantic
conceptions, lacking the fine shading which reality demands; the
technical and characteristic detail which Balzac considered so
necessary to reinforce his ''idee dominante" is merely superficial.
The importance which is given to financial matters is, moreover,
*^ Act V, scene 5. Compare Schiller's Don Carlos, Act I, scene 6:
"Die Pest
Der Ketzerei steckt meine Volker an,
Der Aufruhr wachst in meinen Niederlanden."
Compare also Hernani, Act V, scene 1 :
"L'empereur aujourd'hui
Est triste. Le Luther lui donne de I'ennui."
** Act II. scene 9.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 89
inserted here without preconceived realistic intention.^^ Preoccupied
constantly with money, Balzac is unable to withold his exact figures
from us, but their interest in this comedy is rather autobiographical
than realistic.
The conception of Quinola is one which lacks neither truth nor
grandeur. The play is a pungent bit of personal satire on science
and talent, but the conception is novelistic and its theme belongs
more properly to realm of fiction, where our interest may wander far
afield with the author into history and science, and where we may
turn back to reread the pages at will. The theme lacks room for
development on the stage, while the comedy is effaced by the multi-
tude of incidents which are lacking in dramatic importance. Placed
upon the stage, with its events of pure fantasy, with its intermingling
of the heroic and the burlesque, with its picture of thieves consorting
with grandees, and vice triumphant, the play stands without ideal,
and fails. The author must surely have realized this hirnself, when,
rebelling against the inconsistencies and lack of reality in the Hugo
drama, he cried out: "Victor Hugo n'est pas vrai!"®°
Balzac's exaggerated account to Mme Hanska of the reception
of Quinola by the public is interesting:
Quinola a 6t6 I'objet d'une bataille m6niorable, semblable a celle d'Hernani.
On est venu siflfler toute la piece, d'un bout jusqu' a I'autre sans vouloir I'entendre, pen-
dant sept representations consecutives. Aujourd'hui, nous sommes k la dix-septieme
representation, et I'Od^on fait de I'argent. . . . Vous lirez quelque jour cette pi^ce,
fruit de tant d'efEorts et de travaux. . . . Maintenant tous mes ennemis, et ils 6taient
en grand nombre, se sont ru6s sur moi a propos de Quinola. Tous les joumaux, k deux
exceptions pres, se sont mis a m'injurier et a calomnier la piece, k qui mieux-mieux.*'
The critics, almost without exception, were bitter.®^ RoUe,
writing for le National, alone seems to have found place for a kind
word or two. He writes:
'^ There are countless references to money and to specific sums in the play. Marie
has 10,000 sequins income. Lothundiaz talks of a revenue from a property worth
2,000 crowns, and quotes it in exact figures. Fontanares needs 2,000 crowns to continue
his work. Brancadori's picture gallery has cost her lover nearly his whole fortune, and
the old man can think of no prettier compliment to pay his mistress than to say: "Ma
fortune vaut-elle une de vos paroles?" Fontanares, in his horrible predicament, finds
that his whole future depends upon money, and the strength of Brancadori's argu-
ments rests in her words: "Sans or, que pourrez-vous?" etc., etc.
«° LEL, Vol. II, p. 125. March 19, 1843.
«' Ibid., pp. 22 and 23. April 8, 1842.
82 See especially Jules Janin in le Journal des debais, March 21, 1842.
90 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
II y a de grandes erreurs et de grandes fautes dans la piece, mais il y a aussi des
traits comiques, spirituels et quelquefois profonds que je souhaite a certains f euilletons
qui se pr6parent a I'insulter avec la plus charmante gaiety et la plus agr6able fureur."
The criticism in the monthlies was no less severe. Thierry,
writing in la France litter aire, April 3, 1842, after a bitter attack on
Balzac and his novels, speaks as follows of the play:
Des entrees, des sorties, trois tableaux dans le prologue, mille lambeaux de scenes
d^cousues, recousues, rapprochees, rapiecees gaetU; des cloches, des processions; des
gens qui se rencontrent ou ils ne devraient pas se rencontrer, qui disent ce qu'ils ne
devraient pas dire, qui font ce qu'ils ne devraient pas faire, un pere qui regarde tou jours
quelque chose, afin de ne pas g^ner sa fille dans des situations fort delicates, des machines
qu'on ne peut pas construire faute d'argent, et qui se trouvent toutes construites dans
un coin par deux fripons, une explosion, un couronnement, le saint office, des propheties,
des oracles, la reclame predite sous Philippe II, et la revolution de juillet, annoncee
par un in^quisiteur, rapportez done cela, si vous pouvez, quand tous ces fragments ont
cherche, quatre heures durant a se rapprocher, sans pouvoir y parvenir?
G. de Molenes, in la Revue des deux mondes,^ confines himself espec-
ially to the creation of Quinola, comparing the character to Vautrin,
of which he declares it to be but a reminiscence:
Le heros deM.de Balzac, c'est le heros de Beaumarchais, moins le brillant costume
du corps et celui de la pensee; sur son corps, les honteux haillons qui ont longtemps
excite la risee des spectateurs du boulevard, le feutre perce, le pourpoint dechir^ et
crasseux, remplacent le chapeau enrubanne, la veste etincelante de boutons du
joyeux barbier de I'Andalousie; sur sa pensee, les lambeaux de la langue fletrie et
deformee que I'habitude d'ecrire de gros livres a la h^te a faite aux romanciers de ce
temps-ci, remplacent les pimpans atours de la langue coquette et degagee du Huron
et de Candide. . . . Dans ce qui regarde Quinola, I'oeuvre de M. de Balzac n'est pas
« March 21, 1842.
" April, 1842. This attack called forth an article in la Revue litter aire et critique,
April 15, defending Balzac against the bitter critics. The author of the article says
in part:
"En g6neral, c'est un triste spectacle que de voir un illustre nom se d^populariser
peu k peu et tomber graduellement du sommet d'une haute renommee aux injurieux
d^dains d'une foule obscure et envieuse.
Mais lorsqu'une pareille chute n'est provoqu6e par rien, ou qu'elle arrive tout h.
coup a la suite d'une erreur ou d'un seul faux pas, on ne sait si Tauteur ainsi pr6cipite
doit etre plaint, ou s'il ne faut pas mepriser celui qui vient I'outrager jusque dans sa
defaite. II faut le dire, c'est II, pr6cis6ment ce qu'ont fait la plupart des critiques qui
se sont empares de la comedie de M. de Balzac. Apres I'avoir siffl^e au the5.tre, ils*
I'ont immolee dans les colonnes de leurs f euilletons; ils se sont fait une arme de chacun
de ses lambeaux, et ils ont lecer6 tout k leur aise les autres productions de cet 6crivain.
Est-ce la noblement agir, et la reputation litteraire de M. de Balzac, inattaqu6e
jusqu'alors dans son ensemble, doit-elle sufErir d'une pareille injustice et p6rir tout
entiere au milieu d'une semblable persecution?"
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 91
autre chose que Figaro, moins I'esprit d'observation et la verve comique de Beaumar-
chais; dans ce qui regarde Fontanares, le maitre de Quinola, c'est Chatterton, moins
la distinction profonde, le sens delicat et 6lev6 deM.de Vigny.
In his preface, which the author tells us is "d'une douceur ang61i-
que,"^^ Balzac defends his play on the following points:
1. The background for his plot, namely the steamboat invention
in the XVIth century, is a historical fact mentioned in a treatise on
steam, published in the Annuaire du bureau des longitudes by Arago.
2. None of the analyses of his play made by the critics has been
correct, and the press has failed to see that Quinola, whom they
consider a hideous creation, is a criminal pardoned by the king's
grace for perhaps a very slight offence.
3. The title of the Duke de Neptunado, which the king promises
to Fontanares, is in keeping with historical facts of the time, when
titles were wont to recall the circumstances for which they were
awarded. Gross ignorance has caused the public and the critics to
misjudge the author's purpose in introducing this bit of history.
4. Balzac defends his unsuccessful first performance before an
audience of paying spectators on the ground that he wished a repre-
sentative pubHc and independent judges. He accu-es his public,
moreover, of lack of good faith and justice, and of cruelty, mentioning
the names of Gozlan, Hugo, Lamartine and Mme de Girardin as the
persons who have showed him a great measure of kindness; mention-
ing also the benevolent attitude of a few newspapers which were not
altogether hostile: le Commerce j le Messager and la Patrie:
Pour caracteriser les critiques faites sur cette comedie, il suffira de dire que, sur
cinquante journaux qui tous, depuis vingt ans, prodiguent au dernier vaudevilliste
tomb6 cette phrase banale: La piece est d'un homme d' esprit qui saura prendre sa
revanche, aucun ne s'en est servi pour les Ressources de Quinola, que tous tenaient &
enterrer. Cette remarque suffit k I'ambition de I'auteur.®*
« LEt., Vol. II, p. 32.
«« Preface to Quinola, dated April 2, 1842.
VI
PAMELA GIRAUD
Vice triumphs in Quinola, and the curtain falls on disillusion,
defeat and shattered ideals. With Pamela Giraud, however, virtue
shines forth boldly in every scene, and the air is alive with the sen-
timental expression of it.
Pamela Giraud^ a drama in five acts, was produced for the first
time on September 26, 1843, at the Theatre de la Gaiete, the home
of the melodrama. The play was published the same year by
Marchant, one volume in-8.^ At the moment of the first performance
Balzac was in Russia, and seems to have been little occupied with
its outcome. The performance caused none of the agitation or
attention in the literary world that Quinola smdVautrin had produced.
^* Pamela Giraud se repetait sans bruit, et, chose plus singuliere encore,
sans indiscretions," writes Amedee Achard in le Courrier franqais
for October 9, 1843. Undoubtedly a reason for this was that Pamela^
a very plain and ordinary melodrama, was built along conventional
lines, differing little from the typical production of the day. Another
reason was no doubt the fact that the author, whose personality
dominated both behind and before the footlights of his previously
produced plays, the public which had been stirred by a Vautrin on
the stage and by Lemaitre's bold interpretation, the critics who
had launched out into tirades of indignation over the composition
of Quinola, and laughter over the author's eccentricities, all treated
this new production with coolness and indifference. Balzac on the
stage, moreover, was becoming no unusual thing. Besides the two
productions already given, numerous adaptations of his novels had
been made and produced with success at Paris: le Colonel Chaberty
Eugenie Grandet, la Duchesse de Langeais, le Pere Goriotj la
Grande Breteche, les Ckouans, la Recherche de Vabsolu, Cesar Birot-
teau, le Medecin de campagne, VHistoire des treize. Balzac's name
then was not unfamiliar on the theatrical boards.
When the play was written, we do not know. Amedee Achard,
writing in le Courrier franqais, says that it was offered to a "theatre
de vaudeville" in 1837 or 1838, and was refused:
C'est d'ailleurs une etrange histoire que celle de cette Pamela Giraud. Presentee,
dit-on, et refusee, il y a cinq ou six ans, a un theatre de vaudevilles, elle s'est promen6e
^ Lovenjoul, Histoire des centres de Balzac, p. 222.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 93
au travers de tout Paris, la pauvre fille abandonn^e, cherchant quelque directeur
charitable qui voulM bien donner asile a son infortune.^
During the years 1837 and 1838 Balzac was occupied with the
stage solely as a means of paying off his pressing debts, and he talks
a great deal about proposed plays. In February of 1837, he began
r£cole des menages. In September of the same year it is a question
of Joseph Frudhomme,^ to be written for the Theatre Fran^ais. A
survey of the plans for this play reveals fugitive traces of the melo-
drama which was later to resolve itself into Pamela Giraud. Pamela,
in the proposed Prudhomme play, is the daughter of a poor janitor,
who has a love affair with a young man who later deserts her and
whose child she calls Adolphe, doubtless for its father. In 1838, while
traveling in Corsica, Balzac read for the first time Richardson's
Pamela J or Virtue Rewarded,^ and found the book "horriblement
ennuyeux et bete." Nevertheless, Richardson's heroine, who is the
soul of virtue itself, resisting the most violent of temptations and
in the end rewarded, arrested Balzac's attention to the extent that
he enlarged a bit on his story of the janitor's daughter, Pamela,
later to become the wealthy Prudhomme's wife, and made her the
heroine of a virtuous melodrama.^
In 1838, neither Quinola nor Vautrin had been written, and
Balzac felt that he was a timid beginner, with the critics and the
public against him. He consulted his friends on every occasion
about his plays. In rEistoire du theatre contemporain, Royer recounts
that on one occasion in a circle of friends Balzac remarked quite
seriously:
Mes amis, j'ai termine bientot mon monument de la Comidie humaine; je vais
bdtir en regard un autre edifice qui le completera, je veux 6crire un theatre. Mais,
comme on ne manquerait pas de trouver mes pieces d^testables si Ton savait que j'en
2 October 9, 1843.
3 See supra, pp. 24-26.
* LEL, Vol. I, p. 471. April 1, 1838. Richardson's Pamela was published in 1740.
^ Several stage versions of Richardson's novel were made in France during the
latter part of the eighteenth century, the two most important being: De Boissy,
Pamila, ou la vertu mieux eprouvee, comedy in three acts, Theatre Italien, May 4, 1743;
La Chauss6e, Pamela, comedy in five acts, Comedie Frangaise, December 6, 1743.
Voltaire's Nanine, comedy in three acts, Theatre Frangais, June 16, 1789, also treats
the same well-worn theme. In this latter comedy, we note certain elements which
Balzac has also utilized in his melodrama: two lovers, one rich and impulsive, the
other poor and of humble station; an overbearing member of the aristocracy in whom
riches have stifled goodness; a virtuous and unjustly accused heroine; a defense of the
innate goodness of poor people.
94 THE DRAMA OF HONOR^ DE BALZAC
suis I'auteur, je prie Tun de vous de consentir k signer pour moi, au moins les premiers
ouvrages.^
During all this early play- writing period, the striking facts to
remember about his activity are: that he had not the time for a task
which he ranked subordinate to novel writing, yet conceived as being
the only solution to pressing financial troubles;^ that he did not at
that time understand the composition of a play;* and finally, that
he was turning over in his mind quantities of scenic plans. Among
them, no doubt, was the drama, Pamela Giraud, which, in its primi-
tive state, was offered to some theatrical manager and refused, and
which was thereupon laid away until it could be turned over to
certain "gens de profession" and remodeled. In July of 1843
Balzac went to Russia for a few months* rest, mentally and physically
worn.^ It was during this visit that the play was accepted by the
Gaiete and produced.
In the published correspondence there is little or no mention of
the present play: no discussion of it to Mme Hanska, whom the
author consulted about so many of his dramatic schemes; no request
for encouragement from the sympathetic sister, Laure. After the
first moments of despair over Vautrin, Balzac turned his attentions
feverishly to three other plays, and sought in vain to have them
accepted by some theatre. The actor, Lemaitre, turned down two
of them, Richard Cceur-d'eponge^^ and Mercadety^^ while on July 3,
1840, the dramatist wrote to Mme Hanska:
Ah! chere, vous ne savez pas ce que c'est, apres avoir fait quinze volumes en
quinze mois, de faire seize actes de pieces de th6S,tre, conune PamSla Giraud, Vautrin,
Mercadet, inutilement, car il n'y a plus d'espoir de faire rouvrir la Porte-Saint-Martin.
Les proces qui se bataillent sur ce cercueil, emp^chent tout. Les Frangais ferment
pour trois mois pour se rafralchir. La Renaissance est morte. H n'y a pas un th6&tre
« Vol. V, 1878, p. 152.
' "Je me suis tromp6 dans mes 6valuations de dettes. On m'a donn6 cinquante
mille francs ;il m'en faut encore quatorze mille,puis sept mille pour une garantie impru-
demment donn6e pour Werdet. Mais je sens que le theatre et deux belles ceuvres me
sauveraient. II faut, pour faire deux pieces, me cacher en un lieu desert, inconnu, oH
personne ne me sache." LEt. Vol. I, p. 374. December 27, 1836.
* While composing V&cole des minages, the author writes in 1838 to Mme Zulma
Carraud: "J'attends quelque succes au theitre; mais je n'ai pas encore eu le temps
de m6diter les pieces, ou de les ex6cuter comme je voudrais les voir." Corr., p. 308.
»LE/., Vol. II, p. 184.
" lUd., Vol. I, p. 536. May 10, 1840.
>^ Ihid., p. 540. June, 1840.
THE DRAMA OF HONOr£ DE BALZAC 95
otL Fr6d6rick puisse jouer. J'ai tente le Vaudeville, dans sa nouvelle salle; mais le
directeur n'a pas le sou.^^
The following lines were addressed to Mme Hanska nearly a
month after the first performance :
A propos d'accident, Pamela Giraudy qui porte mon nom, n'a pas 6t6 port6e
par mon nom; elle est tomb6e, k ce que je vols, et vous voyez qu'alors V affaire a €t6
tres bonne pour moi. Des que je serai de retour, j'expliquerai le fait par une pi^ce oH
je ne me contenterai pas de livrer mon id6e a des faiseurs. Je viens de lire le f euilleton
du Courtier Franqais; il n'est ni bien ni mal, mais il entre dans les questions anti-
litteraires de I'argent et de la paternity douteuse, tandis qu'il salt probablement
I'affaire telle qu'elle est.^^
This statement seems to indicate that Balzac furnished merely
the subject and the plan, leaving the actual construction of the
play to collaborators. The fact of the matter is as follows: the
complete play in five acts, as it is printed in the Calmann-Levy
edition of the works, was written by the hand of Balzac, and is iden-
tical with the original manuscript which is in the Lovenjoul collection
at Chantilly. The original work by Balzac, however, overcharged
with scenes and awkwardly handled action, was turned over for
readjustment to professional dramatists before the actual stage pro-
duction.^^ Gautier, writing in la Pres^e, October 2, 1843, notes this
collaboration as follows:
II [Balzac] y a tellement r6ussi, qu'il ne serait pas impossible que la doloire etla
bisaigiie d'un charpentier 6m6rite aient ajust^ et rabot6 les poutres de son 6difice
dramatique.
This work of arrangement was given to two melodramatists.
Bayard and Jaime, professionals who had already lent their assistance
in the adaptation of three of the novels. ^^ The play as considered in
this chapter is the original work conceived by Balzac before the
polishers' tools had touched it.^®
i«Z,£/.,Vol. I,p. 543.
^3/H(f., VolII, p. 199.
^* See LEt., Vol. II, p. 199, editor's note: *' Pamela Giraud avait 6t6 arrang6e par
MM. Bayard et Jaime, mais le manuscrit original complet existe de la main de Balzac."
See also, le Constitutionnel, August 25, 1851; le Courrier franqais, October 9, 1843.
^ La Fille de Vavare adapted from Eugenie Grandet, by Bayard and Paulin, Gym-
nase, January 7, 1835; A -{-Mz=0+Xf ou le rive d'un savant, adapted from la Recherche
de I'absolu, by M. X. (Buyard and Bi6ville), Gymnase, November 11, 1837; le Pere
Goriot, by Theaulon, Comberousse and Jaime, Vari6t6s, April 6, 1835.
^* On January 28, 1917, Pamela Giraud was revived at the Odeon. An interesting
review of the play is to be found in VOpinion, February 3, 1917, by J. Ernest-Charles.
96 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
The action of the play takes place in 1815, after the second
return of the Bourbons. The son of a rich banker has been drawn
into an imperialistic plot against the government, moved by ambi-
tion rather than political preference to serve a power "higher up."
A former officer of the first Empire, a certain General de Verby, is
the real promoter of this conspiracy, and has promised Jules Rousseau
a brilliant future, as well as the hand of his niece, if the plot is carried
through successfully. Jules' thoughts have been somewhat turned
from conspiring by the graces of a pretty girl, a maker of artificial
flowers, whom he has met on various occasions at evening outings at
Belleville. Pamela Giraud's affection for Jules is very real, and by
means of it she has aroused the jealousy of a faithful upholsterer's
apprentice, Joseph Binet by name, whom she has promised to marry.
Jules has been suspected of plotting against the government, and at
the opening of the play he is pursued by the police. He comes to
Pamela's modest work-room to seek shelter, and to urge the girl to
flee with him from Paris. But Binet, the jealous rival, overhears
the lovers, and denounces Jules to the police. At the end of the
first act Jules is led away to prison, charged with conspiracy.
From the humble attic of the Girauds we now pass to the fashion-
able home of Jules' parents, and we learn something further about
the conspiracy with which the son of the family is charged. We are
first presented to the Rousseaus: a pompous father and a tender,
feeble-willed mother; Rousseau's sister, Mmedu Brocard, a rich and
arrogant grande dame, who is determined that her nephew shall
marry the niece of de Verby; de Verby himself, a friend and counseller
of the family; also Jules' lawyer, Dupre, a misanthrope who is
vainly searching Parisian society for an honest and upright man.
As the case is discussed, Dupre does not conceal from the family
the seriousness of Jules' position, but at the same time he has begun
secretly to suspect de Verby of an intimate connection with the
selfsame plot, and is determined to watch him. In order to save
the youth, an alibi must be furnished. The scheme which Dupre
conceives is none other than to have Pamela swear in court that the
night on which Jules is accused of conspiring was spent with her.
This defense meets instantly with the approval of the Rousseaus
who agree to silence the virtuous Pamela's protests with ample
pecuniary reward. The mother of Jules alone sees in such a sacrifice
a more fitting reward for the girl whom her son adores.
THE DRAMA OF HONOR^ DE BALZAC 97
In the third act, the advance guard has already hastened to the
Giraud's home, and before Dupre is able to make a diplomatic
proposal of his scheme, Mme du Brocard and de Verby have already
outrageously bargained with Pamela to sell her good name for gold.
The disgust which the honest girl expresses and the anger of her
humble parents break down before the stronger and more humane
arguments of Dupre. Pamela finally agrees to commit perjury in
order to save her lover. Again the promises of money are renewed,
while Mme Rousseau alone declares that she will receive the honest
girl as her son's wife. But the conspirators have reckoned without
the jealous Joseph. Concealed in the room, he has overheard the
scheme, and threatens to reveal everything in court.
Pamela keeps her promise, however, and Joseph fails in his, for
in the fourth act Jules comes up for trial, and Joseph, fascinated by
Dupre's eloquence or by Rousseau's promise of money, corroborates
the story fabricated at the expense of Pamela's honor. We are now
in the home of Mme du Brocard, situated within sight of the Palais.
Here the Rousseaus are gathered as the trial proceeds a stone's-
throw away. From time to time news is brought to them from the
court-room, and we learn that the trial is progressing well in Jules'
favor. In measure as their fears diminish, the Rousseaus regain
their former arrogance. The father no longer talks so glibly of
renouncing half of his fortune as a reward to Pamela. Finally Jules
is acquitted, and comes joyfully from the arms of justice to claim
his savior. But he is reminded that he is already affianced to the
niece of General de Verby, and is quickly dispatched by his family
to Brussels for safe keeping. Dupre, disgusted with the egotism and
heartlessness of the Rousseaus, threatens to disclose the whole plot,
and to have Pamela arrested as a false witness. Instead of carrying
out his threat — a threat to be sure which would involve the lawyer
equally as much — Dupre decides to determine de Verby's part in
the conspiracy and to settle with the Rousseaus by this means.
In the last act, the general's fears of being compromised lead him,
as well as the Rousseaus, to yield to Dupre, and they agree to leave
the question of a wife to their son's choice. In the meantime
Dupre, who has deemed it wise to conceal Pamela and her family
in his own house, has been so struck with admiration for the courage
and sacrifice of the girl, that he asks her to become his wife. But the
ardent Jules, chafing under his enforced exile, returns, while Dupre
renounces his claim to the younger man. Thus virtue is rewarded,
and Pamela wins a rich husband.
98 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
In the conception and execution of this play, Balzac has succeeded
better than with Vautrin and Quinola. There are no exceptional
types here, no embroiled intrigues, no strained and unnatural
situations, none of the author's feverish haste to move his characters
on and off stage. Pamela Giraud is a melodrama pure and simple,
and there are the salient marks of the melodrama throughout the
composition of the play: characters hidden behind curtains and
conversations overheard; frequent asides, in which the actors express
the pent-up feelings of their audience; a letter read by the heroine
which hints at a mysterious danger pursuing the hero. There are
also violent bits of hurried dialogue, tending to create suspense.
Pamela is about to yield to Jules's entreaties to leave her home, when
the latter cries out: "On monte. . .Je suis perdu!. . .vous m'avez
livre!"^^* With the house surrounded by the police, Jules makes a
hurried confession of his love to Pamela's parents, and is accepted.
There is undoubtedly an appeal to the pit in Giraud's cry:
Ma fille, notre tresor, c'est la gloire de nos vieux jours, et vous voulez que nous la
d^shonorions! Non, madame. Ma fille, c'est I'espoir de mes cheveux blancs.^^
In like fashion Pamela addresses the Rousseaus:
Vous ^tes venus ici, chez de pauvres gens, et vous ne saviez pas ce que vous leur
demandiez. . . Vous, madame, qui deviez le savoir, quels que soient le rang, I'^duca-
tion, I'honneur d'une femme est son tr6sor! ce que dans vos families vous conservez
avec tant de soin, tant de respect, vous avez cru qu'ici, dans une mansarde, on le
vendrait! et vous vous ^tes dit: "Offrons de Tor! il nous faut I'honneur d'une gri-
sette!"i8
The pathetic situations are stressed to the utmost. Giraud with
tearful voice thanks his daughter's protector as follows:
Vous. . . le premier des hommes! ... Eh bien! moi et ma fenmie, nous irons
nous cacher, n'est-ce pas, la vieille? . . . dans une campagne bien loin!. . . et le
dimanche, a I'heure de la messe, vous direz: "lis sont tous les deux qui prient le bon
Dieu pour moi. . . et pour leur fille."^'
The aim of the author was to hold the attention of the boulevard
audience, and he made use of many wel] -practiced schemes to do this.
But in the composition Balzac has exercised a vast amount of skill
in holding the spectators' attention: for example, the close of the
third act, after Pamela has consented to save Jules, and Joseph
i«» Act I, scene 2.
" Act III, scene 4.
»8 Ibid.
^» Act V, scene 1.
THE DRAMA OF HONOR^ DE BALZAC 99
threatens to reveal the whole affair; the skillfully managed suspense
during the fourth act, when the outcome of the trial hangs in a
balance. Here Balzac has produced a strikingly dramatic scene,
showing how the anxiety of the Rousseaus over the fate of their son
is marked by their eager promises of reward; how these promises
decrease as their anxiety decreases. After Pamela has delivered her
testimony, Rousseau declares: "Je n'oublierai pas cette jeune fiUe;
elle avait I'intention de nous 6tre utile; elle peut passer a ma caisse
quand elle vaudra pour toucher mille ecus." No longer is there
talk of sacrificing half of his fortune, for Jules is now safe. "Cette
petite a ete charmante dans sa deposition," says the wealthy aunt.
"Allons, il faut etre juste, cela vaut bien trente mille francs!" The
whole scene is excellently handled, and well worthy of the author of
the Human Comedy.
With the fourth act the drama ends, and the remainder of the
play changes its tone to that of comedy. Here Balzac has employed
the old stage artifice of hiding the characters one by one, so that they
may have the discomforting experience of hearing themselves talked
about in no amiable fashion by the others, and are finally revealed to
one another, and are left to wrangle and bicker to their heart's
content.
The characters also bear the stamp of the melodrama: a romantic
lover, rich and in danger, who pleads with his mistress to flee with
him to a foreign land; a common girl who does a noble deed, and
suffers thereby, but is in the end rewarded; a magnanimous protector,
whose heart is softened by the girl's misery; *'gens du monde,"
heartless and ridiculous.
Like the heroine of La Chaussee or Sedaine, Pamela is sentimental
and prone to tears, virtuous to the discredit of the aristocracy with
whom her lot is thrown. She is forced to endure untold sufferings.
When urged by her parents to accept the hand of Joseph, she faces
them as Eugenie Grandet does her miserly father, with defiance:
"Je suis majeure. . .maitresse de mes actions."^^ When she is
insulted by Mme du Brocard, she cries to the topmost gallery:
'** Act I, scene 3. Compare Euginie Grandet: "Mon p^re je vous aime et vous
respecte, malgre votre colere; mais je vous feral fort humblement observer que j'ai
vingt-deux ans. Vous m'avez assez souvent dit que je suis majeure pour que je le
sache."
100 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
"Dieu merci, je sais me respecter I''^^ Sentimental also is the sensi-
tive, high-strung son of the Rousseaus, known to his mistress as
Adolphe Durand— "un joli nom. . .la moiti6 d'un roman."^^ Jules
is also a romantic lover, rich, ardent and impulsive:
Je vous aime, je suis riche, et nous ne nous quitterons jamais.^
He is not only the impulsive lover, but he is also in grave danger,
an additional characteristic of the hero of the melodrama.
Associated intimately with the Rousseau family is the General
de Verby, "ancien oflScier du Premier Empire," an ardent Bona-
partist and a brother of a peer of France. Ambitious and prudent,
with no sense of honor or integrity, eager to boast of glory and
patriotism to a cause, he becomes the object of suspicion from the
very start. We can recognize in this crafty and ambitious figure
traces of another creation of Balzac. De Verby is a continuation of
Maxence Gilet, that unscrupulous champion of Bonapartism, whose
career was checked in its prime by the sword of Philippe Bridau.^
De Verby is Maxence Gilet in after life, still the master of political
shrewdness which would do honor to a Borgia, still retaining the
bearing of a former captain of the Guards, now lifted to a higher
social rank, the brother of a "gentilhomme de la chambre," obse-
quious and wealthy.
As the General de Verby suggests Maxence Gilet to us, so the
lawyer Dupre brings to mind the sollicitor who has appeared on so
many of Balzac's pages, Derville.^^ Dupre is a man of wealth and
good practice, forty-eight years old. His contact with Parisian
society has left him cold and bitter. In all his twenty years of
practice he has yet to meet human hearts "exempts de calculs."^*
His outlook on the world is consequently that of a misanthrope,
based on a long observation of people and manners. To Mme
Rousseau he declares:
Je vous le jure, rien n'excite plus ma curiosity, ma sympathie, qu'un sentiment
reel, et a Paris le vrai est si rare, que je ne saurais rester insensible k la douleur d'une
famille menac6e de perdre un fils unique."
21 Act III, scene 4.
22 Act i, scene 1.
23 Act I, scene 2.
24 Les Deux Freres, published in part in la Presse, in 1841 ; title changed to la Rabou-
illeuse in the definitive edition of 1869.
25 See Gobseck, 1830; Colonel Chabert, 1832; le Pire Goriot, 1834; Une Tenibreuse
Affaire, 1841; Un Debut dans la vie, 1842.
26 Act II, scene 6.
2'' Act II, scene 3.
> ■> ■> -> ■>
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 101
Jules' case interests him as a problem to solve; he is concerned not
only with freeing the boy, but also with convicting the person whom
he believes to head the conspiracy:
Je le crois la dupe de gens situes dans une region superieure, et j'aime les dupes
quand elles le sont noblement et non victimes de secrets calculs. . . car nous sommes
dans un siecle ou la dupe est aussi avide que celui qui I'exploite.'^^
In Dupre's contact with the world, moreover, he has been an outsider:
Je n'estime pas assez les hommes pour les hair, car je n'ai rencontr6 personne
que je pusse aimer.^*
Finally, the generosity and nobility of heart which he has sought in
vain, are revealed to him by a poor working girl whom he wishes to
make his wife.
Dupre is unmistakably modeled after Derville. The latter, a
modest man of high probity and culture, frequents the society of the
Faubourg Saint-Germain, and is thoroughly at home in the "beau
monde." In early life, at the beginning of his career, he has made
the acquaintance of the philosophic money-lender, Gobseck; and
through his eyes he has looked into all the cesspools of Paris. Grad-
ually, his own philosophy is shaped by this crafty old miser, whose
great scorn for humanity has been engendered by watching the
disastrous effects of lust and ambition upon the human heart.
Like Dupre, society presents to Derville a picture of selfishness,
self-interest and depraved manners, and he cries out: "Paris me fait
horreur!"^° After following the unhappy destiny of Colonel Chabert
to its close, he moralizes in no delicate words over the hideous sights
which a lawyer is forced to witness:
Nous voyons se repeter les memes sentiments mauvais, rien ne les corrige, nos
Etudes sont des egouts qu'on ne peut pas curer.^^
Derville's choice of a wife, like Dupre's, is from the ranks of the
humble, and he is happily married to a Parisian dress-maker.^^ As
the renunciation of Colonel Chabert rights Derville with the world,
so Pamela's love and sacrifice serve to reconcile Dupre, and he asks
her to become his wife.
28 Act II, scene 6.
^° Colonel Chabert.
31 Ibid.
«2 Gobseck.
102 THE DRAMA OF HONOR^ DE BALZAC
In Pamela Giraud Balzac has succeeded in making a good melo-
drama. The action is simple and straightforward, unhampered by
digressions. The dramatic struggle is centered about two conflicting
classes of society which the author of the Human Comedy has
described in so many of his novels: a wealthy and commercial class,
which has rapidly covered its vulgar exterior with a varnish of
aristocracy, and a humble honest class of the petits bourgeois. Bal-
zac has also maintained during at least four of the acts the interest
of the spectator by well developed situations and vivacious dialogue,
the latter a marked improvement over that of the plays already
studied.
VII
LA MARATRE
Upon his return from Russia in 1848, Balzac sent for Hostein,
the director of the Theatre Historique, and handed over to him a
five-act play entitled Gertrude^ tragedie bourgeoise. The principal
role had been written for Mme Dorval. The proposed distribution
also included the leading artists of the Theatre Historique, among
whom were Melingue, formerly of the Ambigu-Comique, Mathis
and Barre. The play was accepted and immediately read to the
company. Hostein relates* that after the second act the action was
so overloaded with detail that it was impossible to go on. Dorval
objected to the name, and to the suicide of the stepdaughter. Cer-
tain modifications were immediately made, notably in the name,
which was changed to la Mardfre, and the rehearsals were begun.
Mme Perier, wife of Lacressoniere, replaced Mme Dorval, who was
obliged to resign the role of Gertrude because of ill-health.^
The play, entitled "un drame in time en cinq actes et huit ta-
bleaux," had its initial performance at the Theatre Historique on
May 25, 1848. It was published the same year, a brochure in- 12,
by Michel Levy.
"II sufl5.t h un jeune homme de rencontrer une femme qui ne
Taime pas, ou une femme qui I'aime trop, pour que toute sa vie soit
derangee," writes Balzac in la Peau de chagrin.^ La Mar dire is the
history of a woman who loves too much, and who wrecks not only the
life of the man she loves, but the happiness of her family as well.
Mile Gertrude de Meilhac, an orphan, brought up in the convent
of Saint-Denis, forms, when still a girl in her teens, an attachment
for the son of a former lieutenant-general of Napoleon's army, at
one time the commander of the royal guard. The son inherits a
fortune from his father, and the ambitious orphan girl sees in this
union a golden future of ease and happiness. After the Hundred
Days, the family of Ferdinand Marcandal is ruined, and the pampered,
luxury-loving son, poetic and artistic, is thrown into the world
without a penny. Gertrude, far from abandoning her ambition,
* Historiettes et souvenirs d'un homme de theatre, 1878.
2 Mme Dorval died the following year, May 29, 1849.
3 (Euvres, Vol. XV, p. 139.
104 THE DRAMA OF HONORf DE BALZAC
turns from her first love to a wealthy general of fifty-eight, who is
seeking a governess for his motherless daughter. "Elle n'a vu dans
ce vieux soldat qu'un coffre-fort.'"^ With dreams of an early widow-
hood and a fortune to spend, Gertrude accepts the General Count
de Grandchamp's offer, not as governess, but as wife. She has been
married for twelve years, and she is only thirty-two years old at the
opening of the play. The old flame of passion for her romantic
young lover of former days has never deserted her. Awaiting her
husband's decease, she has caused Ferdinand to come into her
home, and has secured for him a trusted position in her husband's
employ. With the entrance of the lover into this quiet Norman
family, the drama begins. We discover first that the General, a
devoted husband and a doting father, is consumed with a passionate
love for the memory of Bonaparte under whom he has served, and
whose fate has awakened in him an everlasting thirst for vengeance
on those "traitors" who have brought it about. In the very bosom
of his family one of these traitors is lodged. To be sure, Ferdinand
has taken his mother's name, and has given no hint of his real origin.
But his relations with the General's family have latterly become
still more intimate. Unresponsive to the wife's charms, Ferdinand
has fallen in love with the daughter. Fearing this catastrophe,
Gertrude, soon to become her stepdaughter's bitter rival, tries to
hasten the marriage which has been arranged for Pauline to an aged
suiter, a wealthy land-owner named Godard, or Godard de Rimon-
ville, as he likes to be called.
There is quiet, almost idyllic dignity about the opening scenes
of the drama: the gathering of the family at the dinner hour; the
usual banter between the General and his old friend, Godard; the
appearance of the young daughter on her stepmother's arm; the
family doctor, Vernon, and the little son, Gertrude's boy, Napoleon.
The character of the stepmother begins to develop in all of its repul-
siveness. A tragedy has occurred in the General's factory which
disturbs the tranquillity of the dinner guests. A foreman, who has
been accused of poisoning his wife, is brought into the house to face
the officers of justice. The man is known to have bought arsenic,
but he protests that his purchase was made for Gertrude, and declares
that his wife died a natural death. His statements are borne out,
first by Doctor Vernon, who has diagnosed the woman's disease as
* Act I, scene 8.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 105
cholera, and then by Gertrude, who produces the package of arsenic
with intact labels. Upon this evidence of innocence, the man is
freed, but there is a presentiment about the prosecutor's warning
to him, which seems to foreshadow an impending tragedy:
Vous voyez mon ami, a quels facheux soupcons on est expose, quand on fait
mauvais manage. . . Ceux qui vivent sans reproche, qui n'ont que des passions
nobles, avouables, n'ont jamais rien a redouter de la justice.^
The family now returns to its coffee and after-dinner conversation.
Godard, who has been rejected by Pauline, takes occasion at this
moment to play a rather stupid trick on the girl to discover whether
she is really in love with Ferdinand or not. He tells the little
Napoleon to announce brusquely to the assembled family that
Ferdinand has broken his leg. The little joke has far-reaching
results. With a cry of pain, Pauline sinks into her chair as the
child tells his petty falsehood :
Gertrudey d Godard, a qui elk tend un petit verre: Savez-vous, monsieur, que vous
seriez un detestable pr6cepteur! C'est bien mal k vous d'apprendre de semblables
mechancetes a un enfant.
Godard: Vous trouverez que j'ai tr^s-bien fait, quand vous saurez que, par ce
petit stratageme de soci^t^.j'ai pu d^couvrir mon rival. (II montre Ferdinand^ qui
entre).
Gertrude, elle laisse tomber le sucrier: Lui!
Godard^ d part: Elle aussi!"
The clouds have now gathered, and the storm is ready to break.
Sarcey, speaking of the incident of the breaking of the sugar-bowl,
says:
C'est qu'avec lui tombe en morceaux le masque de paix et de bonheur sous lequel
se cachaient des passions perverses et que nous savons implacablesJ
The struggle between stepmother and daughter has begun. With
naturalness the scene closes about the whist table, and the little boy
is sent off to bed:
Gertrude: Pauline, ma fille, prdsente les cartes k ces messieurs pour le whist.
II est bientot neuf heures; s'ils veulent faire leur partie, il ne faut pas perdre de
temps. (Pauline arrange les cartes.) Aliens, Napoleon, dites bonsoir k ces messieurs,
et donnez bonne opinion de vous, en ne gaminant pas comme vous faites tous les soirs.
iVa^o/eo«: Bonsoir, papa. Comment done est faite la justice?
Le Giniral: Comme un aveugle! Bonne nuit, mon mignoni
* Act II, scene 3.
• Act II, scene 4.
''Quarante Ans de thidtre, Vol. IV, pp. 187-93, article la Mardtre; originally
appeared in VO pinion nationale, September 12, 1859.
106 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
Napolion: Bonsoir, monsieur Vernon! De quoi est done faite la justice?
Vernon: De tous nos crimes. Quand tu as commis une sottise, on te donne le
fouet; voila la justice.
NapoUon: Je n'ai jamais eu le fouet.
Vernon: On ne t'a jamais fait justice, alors!
Napoleon: Bonsoir, mon bon ami! — Bonsoir, Pauline! — ^Adieu, monsieur Giod-
ard. . . .
Godard: De Rimonville.
NapoUon: Ai-je 6t6 gentil? {Gertrude Vembrasse.)
Le General: J'ai le roi.
Vernon: Moi, la dame.
Ferdinand, a Godard: Monsieur, nous sommes ensemble.
Gertrude, voyant Marguerite: Dis bien tes prieres, ne fais pas enrager Marguerite
. . . Va, cher amour.
Napolion: Tiens, cher amour! ... en quoi c'est-y fait I'amour? (// s'en va.)
As the whist game goes on, the two women are left together. Ger-
trude must learn the truth of Godard's assertion, but her questioning
only serves to put the girl on her guard. The party breaks up for
the night, and finally father and daughter are left alone. The
motherless girl, no longer able to trust her stepmother, seeks in vain
to confess the story of her love to the old man, but an immense
barrier separates them, for Ferdinand is the son of a hated traitor.
The scene changes, and we see a meeting between the two lovers
at midnight. Ferdinand tells Pauline the wretched story about her
stepmother, how she has loved him in the past, and how he has
returned this love. He gives her as further proof the passionate
letters which Gertrude formerly wrote to him. But they are over-
heard by Gertrude, who finally faces Pauline with defiance, and
lays bare her soul in all its hideousness to the girl.^
The third act opens on the morning following the stormy inter-
view betweeii the two women. Gertrude after a sleepless night
turns to Ferdinand and tries to justify her conduct. She confesses
without shame her violent nature, and pleads with her former lover
to return her affection. She offers even to renounce her home if
he will consent to flee with her. Ferdinand is only able to repeat
that he no longer loves her. It is then that Gertrude determines to
wreck the lives of the two youthful lovers. She persuades her
* In our own day, this scene has been reproduced with striking force by Sir Arthur
Pinero, when the second Mrs Tanqueray appears in her true light as the former mistress
of her stepdaughter's afl&anced. But Gertrude's taint is much deeper than Mrs.
Tanqueray 's; she is the jealous rival of her daughter, while Pinero's heroine has long
since renounced this passion, and it is only an evil chance that has thrown it again
across her path. — The Second Mrs Tanqueray, produced first at London, May 27, 1893.
TH£ drama of HONORE DE BALZAC 107
husband that Pauline loves Ferdinand, and that they should marry,
knowing that Ferdinand's identity will thus become known to the
General. In the meanwhile, the young man, who realizes the hope-
lessness of his situation, thinks of leaving France, and of seeking his
fortune in America. The two women are left face to face to wage a
heartless and brutal warfare. "Selon mon pere," says Pauline, ''la
guerre entre gens civilizes a ses lois; mais la guerre que vous me
faites, madame, est celle des sauvages."^ So be it. The young girl
determines to fight Gertrude with her own weapons. She threatens
her with the letters. Gertrude, aware that Pauline has these upon
her person, determines to obtain them at all costs. She puts opium
in her tea. Pauline^ overcome by the opiate, is carried to her room,
but Gertrude's act has been noticed by Doctor Vernon. The latter,
obtaining the poisoned teacup, locks it in a closet as future evidence.
Aware of the hostility between the two women, the good doctor
questions them both in an effort to clear up the troubled domestic
clouds. But Pauline is unwilling to mention the letters, seeking to
avert dishonor to her father's name. Instead, she determines to
leave home with Ferdinand, a thing which in any case would bring
greater dishonor to her family! As she is about to depart, Gertrude,
who has overheard the whole plot — a frequent occurrence in the
play — interposes herself between the two lovers. She threatens
now to reveal Ferdinand's identity to the General. In desperation,
Pauline agrees to marry Godard. Instead, she surreptitiously
steals the package of arsenic from Gertrude's desk, and with it puts
an end to her life. Again, justice, with all its grimness, enters the
General de Grandchamp's house, for the wrapper from the arsenic
package, which was once the means of proving innocence, now points
to guilt, and Gertrude is accused of her stepdaughter's murder. But
Pauline, on her death-bed, confesses her act of suicide in the presence
of her family. Ferdinand, unwilling to live without his sweetheart,
reveals his real name, and shares the poisoned cup. With over-
whelming force, the truths which have been so well-guarded from the
father, are made plain to him, one by one, and the curtain falls on
the broken old man, stammering prayers by his daughter's death-bed.
As it appears from the summary of the action of la Mardtre,
there is a vast difference in quality between the first two acts and
" Act III, scene 7.
108 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
the rest of the play. The two are infinitely superior to the others,
and display a certain knowledge of dramatic construction on the part
of the author. Although we cannot accept the high praise which
Bire has allowed it/^ the second act is especially worthy of the
author of the Human Comedy. The essential dramatic struggle is
announced clearly, and with precision: the opposition between
peaceful daily life and passions at the breaking-point; between
devoted family ties and insidious jealousy. Balzac has made reality
his point of departure. Hostein relates in his Eistoriettes et souvenirs
d'un homme de ihedtre an interesting page about the composition of
the play:
Je le priai de me dire, si cela etait possible, quelques mots du sujet nouveau qu'il
nous destinait.
— Ce sera une chose atroce, reprit Balzac. . . .
— Comment, atroce?
— Entendons-nous, il ne s'agit pas d'un gros m^lodrame ou le traitre hrOle les
maisons et perfore a outrance les habitants. Non, je r^ve une com^die de salon oil
tout est calme, tranquille, aimable. Les honmies jouent placidement au whist, k la
clart6 de bougies surmontees de leurs petits abat-jour verts. Les femmes causent et
rient en travaillant a des ouvrages de broderie. On prend un th6 patriarcal. En un
^%aiot, tout annonce la regie et I'harmonie. Eh bien, la-dessous les passions s'agitent,
le drame marche et couve, jusqu'a ce qu'il 6clate comme la flamme d'un incendie.
Voil^ ce que je veux.
— Vous ^tes dans votre element, maitre. Alors, votre donn^e est trouv6e?
— Compl^tement. C'est le hasard, notre collaborateur habituel, qui me I'a fournie.
Je connais une famille — je ne la nommerai pas — composee d'un mari, d'une fille que
le mari a eue d'une premiere union, et d'une belle-mere, jeune encore et sans enfant.
Les deux femmes s'adorent. Les soins empresses de I'une, la tendresse mignonne et
caressante de I'autre font I'admiration de I'entourage.
Moi aussi, j'ai trouv6 cela charmant. . . d'abord. Ensuite, je me suis 6tonne,
non point qu'une belle-mere et sa bru fussent bien ensemble — cela n'est pas pr6cis6ment
contre nature — mais qu'elles fussent trop bien. L'exces gate tout.
Malgr6 moi, je me pris k observer; quelques incidents f utiles me maintinrent dans
mon idee. Enfin, une circonstance plus grave m'a prouve, un de ces derniers soirs,
que je n'avais point port6 un jugement temeraire.
Comme je me presentais dans le salon k une heure oil il ne s'y trouvait presque
plus personne, je vis la bru sortir sans m'avoir remarqu^. EUe regardait sa belle-
m^re. Quel regard! Quelque chose comme un coup de stylet. La belle-mere 6tait
occupee a 6teindre les bougies de la table de whist. Elle se retourna du cdte de sa
^^ "Le second acte n'est pas moins remarquable que le premier. II renferme une
scene qui est, k coup siir, I'une des plus belles du th6dtre contemporain." (La sc^ne
de la partie de whist.)
"Les deux premiers actes confinaient au chef-d'ceuvre; mfeme dans les trois
derniers, que de scenes d'int6r6t poignant!" — Honors de Balzac, pp. 243, 245.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 109
belle-fille; leurs yeux se rencontrerent, et le plus gracieux sourire se dessina en meme
temps sur leurs levres. La porte s'dtant refermee sur la bru, I'expression du visage
de I'autre femme se changea subitement en une amere contraction.
Tout cela prit, vous le pensez bien, le temps d'un Eclair, mais ce temps m'avait
sufl5. Je me dis: Voila deux creatures qui s'ex^crent! — Que venait-il de se passer? Je
n'en sais rien, jamais je ne voudrai le savoir; mais, partant de la, un drame tout entier
se d6roula dans mon esprit.
The exchange of a glance between two hostile women, and his
drama was conceived. He has made observation the starting-point.
For treatment he has chosen a comfortable Norman family, and has
striven by careful emphasis on material setting, by observation of
intimate details of character deliniation to give to this setting an
impression of truth. Here we note the powerful imagination of
Balzac at work; he perceives in the twinkling of an eye the dramatic
possibilities of his situation; a detail, seized haphazard, leads to the
building up of an intrigue, to the essential "scenes a faire."
Balzac, making reality his point of departure, has, however,
developed his play in a manner that is only feebly realistic. The
/ incidents and the thread of the action are very unreal. In the first
place, the author's methods of creating situations are awkward and
too apparent. The accusation of the workman at the beginning of
the play serve merely to prove that the package of arsenic purchased
by Gertrude is at that moment sealed, an important bit of evidence
against her at the end of the play. Godard's trick to discover
whether Pauline loves Ferdinand is stupid and dramatically poor.
The same awkward device is employed by Gertrude when she tells
Pauline that Ferdinand is married. The incriminating tea-cup which
Vernon has obtained from Pauline is like lead in his hands until he
locks it in a closet of which he has, strangely enough, the key. Ger-
trude drops the key to her desk in which the arsenic is hidden just
at the moment that Pauline decides to kill herself. Later Pauline
returns the key to her stepmother's pocket, an act which will throw
suspicion upon Gertrude.
In addition to certain undramatic situations, Balzac has spoiled
the unity of his composition by the constant use of asides and eaves-
dropping. Gertrude resorts to this latter trick constantly: she spies
upon Pauline and the General; she overhears all that the two lovers
say. The excessive talk about exact sums of money and about
incomes is also a tedious proceeding of the author throughout the
play. All thes^ minute details of finance were thoroughly realistic
to the mind of Balzac; he believed them to be a necessary phase of
\;
»110 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
his characters' lives, just as much so as his own "comptes drolatiques"
were to him. But these details are undramatic, and a useless bit
of padding. Without doubt, the daughter's fortune — 350,000 francs
from mother and uncle plus interest, making 367,000 francs, which
her father will increase to 400,000 francs upon her marriage — was
one of the excessive details which Mme Dorval wished to dispose of
at the first reading of the play!
"On avance dans ce drame ainsi qu'en un reve affreux,"" writes
Sarcey in his review of the play. With the beginning of the third
act, the "tragedie bourgeoise'' fades into obscurity, and we are
transported abruptly into the realm of the melodrama. Gertrude
offering to leave her home with Ferdinand; the scenes of hysterical
violence between the two women; the pathetic figure of Gertrude's
innocent little boy; the final suicide of the two lovers, are all appeals
to the most vulgar boulevard tastes. The language changes in tone
from the naturalness of the tea-table scene, already cited, to violent
expressions of hatred, anger and pathos. Gertrude says to Ferdi-
nand: "Je n'avais pour vous que des regards pleins de tendresse, une
physionomie gaie,"^^ and a few moments later:
La folic, avec ses reves insenses, danse autour de ma cervelle! . . . Le meurtre
m'agite les doigts. . . C'est dans ces moments-la qu'on tue! . . . Ah! comme je la
tuerais! . . . Oh! mbnDieu! monDieu! nem'abandonnezpas, laissez-moima raison!
. . . Voyons!"
Gertrude at her husband's mercy in the last act cries out:
Mon ami! . . . pauvre pere! . . . Ah! je voudrais que Ton me tu&t a I'instant sans
proces. . . . Non, Pauline m'a envelopp^e dans son suaire, et je sens ses doigts glac6s
autour de mon cou. . . Oh! j'etais resignee! j'allais, oui, j'allais ensevelir avec moi le
secret de ce drame domestique, 6pouvantable, et que toutes les femmes devraient
connaltre! mais je suis lasse de cette lutte avec un cadavre qui m'etreint, qui me
communique la mort! Eh bien! mon innocence sortira victorieuse de ces aveux aux
d^pens de I'honneur; mais je ne serai pas du moins une lache et vile empoisonneuse.
Ah! je vais tout dire.^*
Turning to the characters, we find a surprising diversity in their
quality also. In the General Count de Grandchamp, former officer
under the Empire, colonel of the "jeune garde," seventy years old,
11 Quarante ans de theatre, Vol. IV, p. 191.
12 Act III, scene 2.
1' Act III, scene 7. •
" Act V, scene 10.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 111
twenty-six campaigns and eleven wounds — one of them at Waterloo —
Balzac has incarnated loyalty to a lost cause. Much has already
been written about his treatment of Napoleon. ^^ From la Vendetta
and la Femme de trente ans, both written in 1830, to Une Tenebreuse
Affaire in 1841, Napoleon appeared in various phases throughout the
novels; from Colonel Chabert, whose ardor for the Emperor amounted
to a tremendous passion, to Philippe Bridau, Balzac had expressed in
his characters an intense admiration for the man. When he came
to consecrate his memory upon the stage in the figure of this faithful
follower, General de Grandchamp, he was following moreover the
vogue of almost every dramatist, great and small, of his day. The
keynote to the character is devotion : devotion first of all to God, then
to his Emperor, and then to his family:
Vraunent, le bon Dieu me devait ma Gertrude, ne ftit-ce que pour me consoler
de la chute et de la mort de I'empereur^^
To his little son he has given the name, Napoleon. But devotion to
his family has robbed the old soldier of all subtlety of character, and
he is aware of none of the tragic events which take place under his
very eyes. Balzac has noted with insistent care the contrast between
the kindly nature of the General and the violence of his wife. At
the moment when Gertrude is sharpening her most deadly weapons,
the General is blissfully happy, and kisses her hand, saying: "Que
tu es bonne !"^^ This character of the old "grognard," a good father,
brave and honest, is scarcely more than a conventional type common
to a great many plays of the day. Conventional and pale also is the
country doctor Vernon. Godard, the sound and honest Norman
farmer, is drawn with some realistic care. He is the General's jovial
friend, awkward over the tea-table and in his declarations of love,
much more at ease when he is discussing good pasture lands in the
valley of the Auge and his mortgages. Of humble origin, he is
constantly reminded by the General that his father was "un fort
honnete homme qui menait ses boeufs lui-m^me de Caen a Poissy,
et qui s'appelait sur toute la route Godard, le pere Godard. "^^
Balzac has been more careful in his presentation of the General's
daughter, Pauline. This twenty-two-year-old girl, inheriting from
^^ See especially Bir6, Honore de Balzac, pp. 24-76,
^* Act I, scene 2.
" Act III, scene 5.
^* Act I, scene 3.
112 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
her father all the violence of his nature, brought up without the
tender care of a mother, is suddenly confronted with the hideous
spectacle of her stepmother's lust. There is no person to whom
she may confide her trouble, or from whom she may seek comfort.
Gradually sinking under the weight of treachery and cunning which
is forced upon her, she takes refuge in her stepmother's own weapons,
until finally she is hounded out of her senses, and takes her own life.
As Eire has pointed out,^^ Pauline is no *'jeune premiere de con-
vention." Like Anna, in VRcole des menages, she has a will of her
own, and a certain cunning outlook upon the world, the result of her
lonely life. Like Anna, also, Pauline loves and hates with equal
fervor, and her passions are too apparent, expressed with too much
vigor to correspond to reality, so that both figures sink to the realm
of the melodrama.
j In Gertrude, Balzac has given us merely a "femme fata^e" of the
melodrama. This woman, with the exterior of a devoted wife and
' mother, lavishing fond care upon her son and obedient to her hus-
band's smallest requests, conceals for her former lover a strong
criminal passion which works ruin within her home. What is really
terrible about the character is the ascendency which she gains over
her innocent victim, dragging Pauline after her into the mire of
vulgar subterfuge, deceit and cunning. When her adulterous soul
has been laid bare to her stepdaughter, she sinks rapidly in self-
esteem. Her speech becomes vulgar:
Les hommes ne se croient aimes que quand ils nous ont fait tomber dans la fange!
Et voila comme il me recompense! il a des rendez-vous la nuit avec cette sotte de fille.'"
Her reproaches to Ferdinand and her inflammable retorts to the
honest Godard would do justice to a woman of the streets. Gertrude
is an excessive creation, with all the faults and all the vices of the
melodrama, a character of no complexity or originality. Nor has
Balzac been more careful with the character of the lover, who remains
under the author's pen an unfinished figure. A trusted friend who
violates all the sacred laws of hospitality, and doubly betrays his
protector's trust, he is but sketchily drawn, and Balzac has taken
little pains with him. He is inconsistent to the extreme — one
moment vowing eternal vengeance upon his former mistress because
she stands in the way of his suit; the next, declaring his sincere,
" Honore de Balzac, p. 246.
20 Act III, scene 1.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 113
devoted and absolute friendship.^i Spied upon, living in constant
fear of detection, he cuts a sorry figure, and is little else than the
conventional **Jeune premier." Balzac has wished to make a sym-
pathetic character of him, but his conduct does not inspire sympa-
thy, and Gertrude's reproaches to him are well deserved.
Balzac's conception of his family tragedy, inspired by the ex-
change of jealous glances between two women, shows boldness and
originality. The dramatic situation which he has developed, that
of a lover placed between two women, one older and one younger,
is by no means original with him. At least two of the elder Dumas'
dramas center about this same triangular action: Teresa and
AngeleP' In the latter play Alfred d'Alvimar, the ruined son of a
family which was formerly wealthy, is on the point of marrying the
Countess de Gaston after he has compromised the daughter. In
Teresa there are much closer resemblances to la Mardtre. In this
play, the Baron Delaunay, a colonel of the Empire, marries late in
life a beautiful Neopolitan, Teresa. This youthful woman, like
Gertrude, has had a former lover, Arthur, who proves to be affianced
to her stepdaughter. Arthur, moreover, like Ferdinand, Is a royalist,
to whom Delaunay has with difficulty become reconciled:
Son pere combattait pour un homme; moi, je combattais pour la France! . .
Tout homme qui porte les armes contre son pays est un traitre. . . et son fils est un
fils de traitre P
In this play the same wicked jealousy develops unknown to the old
soldier, but here the adulterous passion is reversed, for it is Arthur
who seeks to renew his former love, while the stepmother is gen-
erous, seeking to spare her husband. The struggle in la Mardtre
is essentially between two women, while Dumas has centered it
about father-in-law and son-in-law. Balzac's veteran general, whose
consolation for Napoleon's downfall has been a young wife, unmis-
takably suggests Delaunay, who has followed his leader's bloody
2^ Act II, scene 10; act III, scene 2.
^ Theatre complet d* Alexandre Dumas, vol. II and III. Paris, Michel Levy, 1863.
Teresa, a prose drama in five acts, Salle Ventadour, February 6, 1832; Angele, a prose
drama in five acts, Porte-Saint-Martin, December 28, 1833; both plays written in
collaboration with Anicet Bourgeois,
23 Act IV, scene 13.
114 THE DRAMA OF HONOR^ DE BALZAC
trail across Europe .^^ General de Grandchamp speaks of his wife
in almost the same terms as Delaunay:
Godard, un ange a qui vous devez I'education de votre future; elle I'a faite a son
image. Pauline est une perle, un bijou; ga n'a pas quitte la maison, c'est pur, innocent,
comme dans le berceau.^
In like manner Delaunay describes his new wife to his daughter:
Je rencontrai un ange d'amour et de puret6, que je ne puis comparer qu'a toi, mon
enfant.*
Souvenirs of Teresa seem unmistakably present in la Mardtre. That
Balzac was intentionally borrowing a situation or a character from
Dumas, we are unable to say. The fact remains, that la Mardtre
was written for Hostein and the Theatre Historique at the moment
when Dumas was composing solely for that theatre, and was im-
mensely popular.27 Perhaps Balzac, in his eagerness to compete
with Dumas and to succeed as he had done, studied the sources of
his success, and unconsciously took from one or more of the plays a
situation and a scene or two to develop.
An American journalist, Walter Littlefield, remarks that la
Mardtre just misses being the forerunner of the modern French
realistic drama. "In it," he continues, "had Balzac been as true
to himself in incident and dialogue as he was in abstractly sketching
a drama of great human passion, he might, and very certainly would,
have produced a masterpiece of its kind."28 in this play Balzac
has returned to the domestic tragedy with which he began his real
theatrical period. As in VEcole des menages, he has attempted the
study of bourgeois family life in which violent passions are at work.
In his first play, it is a father's passion for a girl in his employ; in
la Mardtre^ a mother's passion for her husband's clerk. In both
plays the family ruin involves a young daughter whose character
is misshapen by the wretched plight of her parents; and it is the
exercise of this daughter's will that brings about the catastrophe.
Just as VJ^cole des menages is a hybrid production, half-way between
the bourgeois tragedy and the melodrama, so la Mardtre gives way
after the first two acts to romanticism, filled with clumsy action and
excessive personages.
^ Act II, scene 5.
"^ Act I, scene 3.
^ Act II, scene 5.
27 In 1847, after opening with la Reine Margot, February 20, the Th64tre Histo-
rique presented the following plays of Dumas: Intrigue et amour, June 11; /e Chevalier
de Maison-Rouge, August 3; Hamlet, December 15; in 1848, Monte-Cristo, first part,
February 3; Monte-Cristo, second part, February 4; Catilina, October 14.
28 The Critic, September 1902, p. 250.
VIII
MERCADET
In 1839, during his negotiations with the Renaissance Theatre
for V£.cole des menages, Balzac began to talk of another play, which
he offered in advance to the Theatre Franjais, first under the title
of le Commerce, and later, les Mercadets} There is no reason to
believe that during this year he did more than draw up plans for his
comedy, for in May 1840, it is no longer a question of a play for the
Theatre Frangais, but of Frederick Lemaitre and the Porte-Saint-
Martin. These were stirring theatrical days for Balzac. In addition
to the refusal of r&cole des menages by the Renaissance, Vautrin had
failed, and Lemaitre had refused Richard Cceur-d^eponge. The
ardent dramatist was now searching about with eagerness for a part
to fit Lemaitre's popular genius. To Mme Hanska he writes on
May 10:
EUe est enfin trouv6e, et je vous 6cris au milieu des travaux que necessite Mer cadet
Mercadet est le combat d'un homme centre ses cr6anciers, les ruses dont il se sert pour
leur 6chapper. C'est exclusivement une comedie, et j'espere cette fois avoir un
succes et satisfaire les exigences litteraires.'^
By June of the same year the play was ready, but the actor for whom
the principal r61e was destined wished certain changes made, and
there seem also to have been serious difficulties with the management
of the theatre:
Les int^rdts qui se battent sur le cadavre de la Porte-Saint-Martin en emp^hent
I'ouverture provisoire que le ministre m'avait accordee.'
In 1844, Mercadet, according to the author's own statement, was not
finished. After the opening performance of Sue's Mysteres de Paris
^ See Alfred Nettement in la Gazette de France, February 21, 1839; also, Gautier
in la Presse, March 11, 1839.
^LE/., Vol. I, p. 536.
^ Ibid., p. 540. Gautier, in la Presse of June 2, 1840, declares that Mer-
cadet, with a prologue and epilogue, has been finished: "Voici qu'on a la piece et les
acteurs; mais quand aura-t-on un theatre?"
According to Lovenjoul, Un Roman d' amour, p. 150, the play was written in 1839.
The author states, however, that he means a first version of Mercadet; that le Faiseur
of 1849 is an entirely different play. "Comme pour Richard Cceur-d'eponge," he says,
"Balzac a traits plusieurs fois le meme sujet, et toujours diff^remment." Cited by
Eire, Honore de Balzac, p. 229, note.
116 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
on February 14, 1844, speaking of Frederick Lemaltre's success,
Balzac writes:
Je suis content du succfe qu'il va donner aux Mysteries, car cela me donne le
temps d'achever Mercadet.*
It was undoubtedly at this moment that the original play written
for Lemaitre in 1840 was reworked and finished. In March of 1844
preparations for a production of the play at the Porte-Saint-Martin
ceased:
On veut une pi^ce gaie k la Porte-Saint-Martin, et, dans Tintdr^t actuel de I'atmos-
phere dramatique du Boulevard, il y a certainement [la] un besoin a satisfaire; apres
les images d^gotitantes des demidres assises de la societe, quelque dr6lerie est n6ces-
saire. Je lui ai promis de lui en donner une, car Mercadet est trop comSdie et trop
litt6raire pour la Porte-Saint-Martin.^
In 1848, Mercadet had not found a resting place in any theatre in
Paris. The author was at this moment desirous of taking it to the
Theatre Fran^ais. He had changed the name from Mercadet to
le Speculateur,^ and later to le Faiseur, for it was under this title that
the play was read to the Comedie Fran false, August 17, 1848.''
In September of 1848, Balzac left Paris for a visit to Russia.
During his absence the play was again read to the Comedie Francaise,
and this time the register for September 14 and 15 reads: "La
piece est rejue a corrections.'* Learning of this, Balzac wrote to
Michel Levy on January 19, 1849:
La fafon dont la Com6die-Frangaise a accueilli la piece du Faiseur, en manquant
a des conventions prealables qui I'engageaient, m'a oblige a retirer la piece.^
Objecting to the changes which the Comedie Francaise wished to
make, Balzac asked that his play be withdrawn.^
* Corr., p. 386.
» LEt., Vol. II, p. 329.
• Corr.y p. 561. Letter to his sister, 1847.
' The theatrical register reads as follows: "Le comite, preside par M. Lockroy,
entend la lecture d'une comedie en cinq actes, en prose, intitul6e le Faiseur, par M. H.
de Balzac. Regue a I'unanimite." Cited by Eire, Honore de Balzac, p. 250.
8 Corr., p. 590.
" Bir6, Honore de Balzac, pp. 261, 262, note, quotes the following interesting letter
from Arsene Houssaye, at the time director of the Theatre Frangais, to Georges Malet,
dated 1893: "Je n'ai pas refus6 la piece de Balzac, bien au contraire, je I'ai vu en ses
demiers jours pour causer de ses comddies. C'est sous ma direction qu'on a jou6 les
pieces de Musset. Je voulais ^galement qu'on jouat les pieces de Balzac a la Comedie
francaise. Seulement Balzac 6tait comme Lamartine, qui aurait voulu Dieu le p^re
pour jouer le r6le de Toussaint Louvzrture. Mais s'il etait revenu a la sante, tout se
serait arrange, parce que nous voulions bien tous les deux. Vous savez mon point de
vue sur le theS.tre: toute piece d'un homme sup6rieur, quels que soient ses d^fauts,
devient une bonne piece avec de bons com6diens."
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 117
One month after the break with the Theatre Frangais, Hostein,
director of the Theatre Historique, hastened to offer his house for
le Faiseur}^ But Hostein likewise desired certain modifications in
the play to suit the tastes of his audiences, and again Balzac refused
his consent to the alterations. To Laurent- Jan, who was entrusted
with the dramatist's interests while the latter was in Russia, Balzac
writes:
Ma soeur m'ecrit les 6tranges transformations que Hostein veut faire subir au
Faiseur. Ton esprit et ta raison ont dii te demontrer avant ma lettre qu'il est impossible
de changer une comedie de caractere en un gros m61odrame.
Je n'ai jamais pens6 que cette piece pllt aller au boulevard sans Fr6d^rick Lemaitre,
Clarence, Fechter et Colbrun.
Done, je m'oppose formellement a ce qu'on la travestisse. Mais je n'emp^che
pas que Hostein fasse faire une piece sur ce sujet; seulement, il faut que tu saches et
que tu discs qu'au th^itre personne ne s'int6resse aux affaires d'argent; elles sont
antidramatiques et ne peuvent donner lieu qu'a des comedies comme celle du Faiseur,
qui rentre dans I'ancien genre des pieces a caractere.
Done, je me resume: ma piece restera telle qu'elle est. Les sujets sont k tout le
monde. Hostein, qui a une grande habitude du th6dtre, n'en fera pas faire un drame,
car il faudrait alors aller jusqu'£t I'assassinat pour interesser."
Mercadet was not accepted until a year after the author's death,
when Montigny, director of the Theatre du Gymnase, presented
it at his theatre, August 23, 1851. After Balzac's death the play
had been put into the hands of a professional dramatist and play-
wright, Adolphe D'Ennery,^^ who reduced the five long acts to three,
and put the comic elements into bolder relief. It was produced
under the title of Mercadet}^ The play, as treated in this study,
is the original version made by Balzac.
On the day following the first performance, the Minister of
Interior, Leon Faucher, ordered the play to be suppressed. On the
twenty-fourth, the play was cut, and no representation was given
on the twenty-fifth, but the following day it reappeared on the
boards, having undergone certain changes in accord with the demands
of the authorities. Lovenjoul has published from la Revue et gazette
^0 Corr., pp. 591, 592.
11 Ihid., pp. 599, 600.
12 1811-1899. £.mile, ou lefils d'un pair de France was his first play. Among his
other plays worthy of mention are, les Chevaliers du brouillard, I'Aveugle, Don Cesar de
Bazin, les Bohemiens de Paris. He worked in collaboration with Jules Brazil, Cormon,
Dugu6, Clairville, and with the majority of contemporary dramatists.
" For the names in the projected cast at the Theatre Frangais, see Lovenjoul,
Hisloire des ceuvres de Balzac, p. 223.
118 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
des thSdtres, August 28, 1851, an interesting history of the inter-
diction of the play, a part of which reads as follows :
Beaucoup de bruits ont couru au sujet de cette suspension momentan6e. II
parait que le premier jour les acteurs par suite d'un exces de memoire, ont eu Timpru-
dence de livrer au public des mots, des passages qui avaient ete supprim^s par la
Commission d'examen.^*
On October 22, 1868, the Theatre Frangais gave its first perform-
ance of Mercadet with Got in the principal r61e. Thirty performances
were given at this theatre during the year.^^
Mercadet, according to its original version, was published first
in le Pays, August 28 to September 13, 1851, under the title of
Mercadet. The play appeared in one volume, in- 18, the same year
published at the Librairie the^trale, formerly the Maison Marchant,
boulevard Saint-Martin, 12. It was published, one volume in-12,
by Cadot in 1853 under the name of le Faiseur, In 1865, le Faiseur
was added to the complete works, forming a part of Volume XVIII.^®
The action takes place in 1839, at the home of a stock-jobber,
Mercadet. We are at a moment when this speculator, the hero of a
hundred doubtful transactions and equivocal manipulations of funds,
is beset on all sides by his creditors, and is really in desperate straits.
To all outward appearances Mercadet is rich and respectable: his
family occupies an elegant eleven-room apartment, Rue de Gram-
mont, his servants are in livery; a legend has grown up, moreover,
about the confiscation of certain funds belonging to Mercadet and
Company by a business associate named Godeau, and the latter's
flight to the Indies — a legend which lends a lustre to the firm's name,
and to Mercadet's position. We learn something of the real nature
of Mercadet's affairs first from the servants, after an interminably
long scene at the opening of the play between Mercadet and his
landlord — a scene happily cut in its entirety by the adapter. Mer-
cadet owes the servants an accumulat on of wages, and they have
seen creditors flocking about his house. We learn also that Mercadet
has determined to marry his daughter to a certain wealthy young
" Un Roman d' amour, pp. 153-7.
^5 A. Soubies, la Comedie franqaise depuis Vepoque romantique. 1825-1894, 1895.
^^Lovenjoul, Histoire des csuvres de Balzac, p. 223. An English adaptation of
Mercadet, made by George Henry Lewes, and called A Game of Speculation, was acted
in England and the United States by Charles Mathews.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 119
gentleman whose name is La Brive; that the daughter quite naturally
loves another — in fact, a poor bookkeeper of bastard birth in her
father's employ, whose name is Minard. Preparations are being
made for a great dinner, at which Julie, the speculator's daughter,
is to be presented to the man of her father's choice. Mercadet gives
his orders to the cook — taking occasion, by the way, to persuade
her to turn over her savings to him, with the promise of twenty
francs per year interest. Enters the worst of his creditors, a man
named Goulard. But Mercadet, in debt, a son-in-law to capture,
and a dinner to give, is undaunted. In fact, he is keen for the fray.
With a magnificent gesture to his wife, he approaches Goulard.
Before the latter has ceased chuckling over his opportune encounter
with this debtor, Mercadet already has him in his toils. Goulard
has been dealing heavily in a certain Basse-Indre stock, "une affaire
superbe." "Superbe!" say Mercadet, "oui, pour ceux qui ont fait
vendre hier." Goulard becomes alarmed. "On a vendu!" he
exclaims. "En secret," replies Mercadet significantly, "dans la
coulisse! vous verrez la baisse aujourd'hui et demain." "Merci,
Mercadet, nous causerons plus tard de nos petites affaires," and,
thoroughly alarmed, the creditor makes a hasty departure. Mer-
cadet smiles to his wife with contentment. With expansion he
turns now to his daughter, Julie, to tell her of his ambitious plans
for her future. But Julie is romantic, she loves a poor man, and
romance has no place in her father's life.
In the second act, we see another encounter of Mercadet and
his creditors. This time it is a poor broken old man to whom
Mercadet has been in debt for many years. Violette assumes no
lordly airs of superiority, but begs for his money, and talks of
wretched poverty. Mercadet responds in the same strain- — he has
a mood for every affair — talks of his own poverty and sends the old
man off, richer by sixty francs. In the meantime the finances
necessary for the approaching dinner are lacking. It is to Verdelin,
Mercadet's good friend Verdelin, that the speculator now turns.
But Verdelin is obstinate, even in the face of the pantomime of
agony which Mercadet employs. It is only the latter's threats of
suicide, and the pitiable state of his. family that finally bring the
needed response from the good friend.
Mercadet's next encounter is with his daughter and her lover.
These two plead their case with much ardor, talking of love free
120 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
from obstacles, based on the certitude of mutual passion, etc., etc.,
all of which Mercadet cannot understand:
Ma fiUe, va voir ta mere; laisse-moi parler d'affaires beaucoup moins immat6rielles.
Quelle que soit la puissance de I'id^al sur la beauts des femmes, elle n'a malheureuse-
ment aucune influence sur les rentes.^'
Minard must be put off, and the speculator is not long about it. '
What course would the young suitor take if he believed his lady-love
penniless? Mercadet pretends absolute poverty, and the poor clerk,
who has seen his "pure love" through a mist of substantial dowry,
now hesitates, unwilling to assume a responsibility which eventually
might bring grief to his beloved.
In the third act, the young blood and dandy whom Mercadet has
chosen for a son-in-law appears: La Brive, he calls himself, a mas-
querader under a false name, with tales of wealth and position. As
Mercadet has been led to believe that this impostor has a substantial
fortune, so La Brive has also been tricked by tales of Mercadet's
wealth. Father and future son-in-law sit down to discuss the
marriage settlement; La Brive talks of his pine trees and salt marshes
in a manner that delights the speculative soul of Mercadet: "Vos
terres, vos marais," cries the father-in-law, "car je vois tout le parti
qu'on peut tirer de ces marais! On pent former une societe en com-
mandite pour I'exploitation des marais salants de la Brive! II y a
la plus d'un million, monsieur."^^ Already he is rich; he sees his
daughter's Paris house, her carriages, her gala fetes; he reaches
superb heights of eloquence. Finally the two young people meet.
In the midst of La Brive's stupid attempts at love-making Julie
tells- him that her father is a ruined man, hoping by this means to
cool his ardor. But La Brive does not believe her. Finally, comes the
unmasking, when the usurer, Pierquin, one of Mercadet's creditors,
recognizes La Brive as a certain "gibier de Clichy" of his acquaintance.
But Mercadet, not to be outdone, reveals to La Brive his own share
of deception, whereupon the two worthies put their heads together
for a scheme of mutual betterment. La Brive has duped him with
his salt marshes and his pines; very good. Mercadet has none the
less deceived La Brive, and Monsieur Mercadet is an honest man.
The two must combine their wits. Dinner is announced — the famous
dinner given in the son-in-law's honor. Mercadet is now jubilant.
^^ Act II, scene 9.
i» Act III, scene 8.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 121
"Je serai le Napoleon des affaires," he cries to his friend Verdelin,
who, none the less, fears an approaching Waterloo.
In the fourth act Mercadet's great scheme is disclosed: La Brive
will be the missing Godeau, returned penitent and rich from the
Indies! Basse-Indre stock, due to a panic instigated by Mercadet,
is selling at a low rate ; the false Godeau will buy innumerable shares
of it, and sell as soon as the inevitable rise occurs. With lightning-
like rapidity the news of Godeau's return is spread abroad, and
Mercadet's creditors begin to fawn at his feet. But where is the
missing Godeau, they ask. Whereupon the audacious speculator
ushers him in. But the honest Mme Mercadet, a silent spectator
until this moment during all her husband's business dealings, now
denounces La Brive as a fraud, determined to save her husband from
downright dishonesty. With unaccustomed energy she holds up
to her husband and to La Brive her code of honesty and loyalty, and
poor Mercadet, once more ruined, is again about to face his irate
creditors. Minard, the poor clerk, now comes to the rescue and
offers to marry Julie, and the act closes upon the two lovers reunited
around the ruined father.
In the final act, with the stock bought by the supposed Godeau
upon Mercadet's conscience, the miracle of miracles happens, and
the real Godeau arrives! Godeau just as he has been announced,
rich and penitent, and married to Minard 's mother! Julie now
accepts her wealthy lover, while Mercadet, with a salutatory to for-
tune on his lips, bids speculation adieu, having had his fill of its
agitations and thrills.
We have seen that Balzac, from the time that his play was
finished until his death, refused to make the changes in composition
which were demanded by actor and manager alike: first, by Frederick
Lemaitre, for whom the principal r61e was written; then by the
management of the Porte-Saint-Martin, and later by the Comedie
Fran false, who received the play with corrections which the author
would not countenance. When the play became the property of
the Gymnase theatre, the changes in composition which were deemed
necessary were entrusted, as we have seen, to the professional
playwright, D'Ennery. In the main, D'Ennery has corrected the
salient faults of composition, changing the grouping of certain
scenes that were badly arranged, and omitting others. For example,
122 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
the scene in the second act between Mercadet and Violette, excellent,
but insufficiently developed, the adapter placed in the first act. The
long scene between Mercadet and his landlord he has omitted. By
weeding out certain unnecessary scenes, the adapter reduced the
five acts to three, cutting the details which hindered the action. The
comic elements, as a result of this rearrangement, were put into
bolder relief. In the second act, the character of Minard was
changed by D'Ennery. Instead of the young lover's renunciation
of Julie after he learns that she will come to him without dowry,
D'Ennery has Minard glorify his poverty, and declare to Mercadet
that he can now ask for his daughter's hand with assurance and
gladness, a speech which must have delighted the boulevard audience
for whom the "jeune premier" must always be noble-minded and
and self-sacrificing. In the last scenes as depicted by the adapter,
Godeau actually appears upon the stage, and Mercadet, taking ten
thousand francs from him, lends them to La Brive, exclaiming: "Ah!
je suis. . .creancier! je suis creancier!" Without further discussion
of D'Ennery's adaptation, let us consider Balzac's composition of
the play.
We remark first of all few dramatic intrigues and a relative
simplicity of action. The march of the comedy is towards the
development of one character, the center and pivot of the action.
Mercadet may then be regarded as a comedy of manners, where the
interest lies primarily in the painting of character. To this the
situations are subordinate. Having this central figure once fixed in
mind, Balzac has built his situations around it. By depicting a
series of conflicts between the speculator and his opponents, he
has constructed an action that is ingenious, and scenes that are
strikingly well-managed. In rapid succession, Mercadet meets
and defeats his creditors — first Goulard, and then the usurer, Pier-
quin. Between these two scenes, as a sort of interlude, is placed the
clash between Mercadet and his daughter, serving to relieve the
financial tone of the act, and to introduce one of the main complica-
tions in the action. With the second act, the conflict becomes more
acute, more obstinate. After the capital scene with Verdelin, where
Mercadet threatens suicide, comes the encounter with Julie's lover,
in which the serious tone of th^ comedy rises. Following this, the
dramatist introduces a scene of "depit amoureux," to relieve the
tension, and the act closes with the despair of Julie. In the third
act we are ready for the definite crises of the play. The preparation
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 123
is complete: Mercadet has outwitted his creditors, and has turned
aside Julie's lover. Will his ambitious schemes for a rich marriage
succeed? Mercadet's encounter with La Brive leads to the comic
scene of unmasking, when the two rogues decide to combine their
wits. Finally, we arrive at the climax, and the complete defeat of
Mercadet. With the close of the fourth act, Balzac has exhibited
a real art in exciting the interest of his spectators. With Mercadet's
despairing words: *'Je sais ce qui me reste a faire," we ask our-
selves what is going to happen, now that the speculator's crowning
scheme is overthrown. Finally comes the return of the missing
Godeau, and the closing scenes of real comic character.
In spite of the ingenuity which Balzac has employed in the
composition of Mercadet, there are certain serious faults that must
be noted. The first of these is prolixity: Balzac has not been capable
of judging fairly or accurately the limits of his action. He has
crowded too much upon the stage, and there results a superabundance
of scenes in which the action drags, and where the comedy is not
exposed with clear relief. The figure of the ''faiseur" is constantly
before the footlights; he is present in almost every scene. No doubt
this is a difficulty which Lemaitre saw when he read the play, and
one which may have determined his refusal of the role.
Another fault, no less serious, is the presence of more than one
confused bit of action. The many ruses of the speculator and the
commercial stratagems which he employs, all take place in too
short a time. We are bewildered by the succession of schemes
employed by Mercadet. Balzac has made the financial questions
needlessly obscure. Here we observe the dramatist's own passion
for complicated business deals, his own interest in market quotations,
matters difficult for the non-professional to follow. To expose a
series of rises and falls in stocks, or to interest the spectators, as
Scribe has done for instance in les Actionnaires,^^ in the buying and
selling of stock, the dramatist must explain himself with the utmost
simplicity and clearness, and this Balzac has not always done.
We have seen, throughout the five copious acts, that the figure
of Mercadet is constantly before the audience. As a result of this
lack of measure, both performer and audience are at a disadvantage,
for no role, however well presented dramatically and psychologically,
*^ Comedie-vaudeville in one act, written in collaboration with Bayard; Gymnase
October 22, 1829. Theatre complet d' Eugene Scribe, second edition. Paris, Aim6
Andr6, 1837, vol. XVIII.
124 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
can retain its interest when the author has taxed to the utmost the
endurance of actor and the attention of spectator. Balzac allows
Mercadet to talk with exuberant spirits; his encounters with the
creditors sparkle with vivacity and wit and verve. Here the author
, is in his rightful sphere; he is not hampered with the historical
J j characters of a past age, nor the setting of a Directorate drawing-
i I room; he is in the present-day world of commercial folk whom he
< i knows, and he has much to tell us. Let us take an example of the
' dialogue in one of these scenes — the encounter of Mercadet and
Goulard, the most dangerous of "ces messieurs" who haunt the
speculator's home. Mercadet rebukes his wife for interrupting the
conversation, and the scene continues:
Mercadet: Ma femme a tort de se meler de notre conversation, les femmes
n'entendent rien aux affaires! {A sa femme.) Monsieur est mon creancier, ma ch^re;
il vient me demander le montant de sa creance en capital, int^rSts et frais, car vous ne
m'avez pas menag6, Goulard. . . Ah! vous avez rudement poursuivi un homme avec
qui vous faisiez des affaires considerables!
Goulard: Des affaires ou tout n'a pas ete benefice. . .
Mercadet: Ou serait le m6rite? si elles ne donnaient que des benefices, tout le
monde ferait des affaires! , . .
Goulard: Je ne viens pas chercher les preuves de votre esprit, je sais que vous
en avez plus que moi, car vous avez mon argent. . .
Mercadet : Eh bien, il f aut que I'argent soit quelque part ! {A madame Mercadet.)
Tu vois en monsieur un homme qui m'a poursuivi comme un lievre! Allons! convenez-
en, mon cher Goulard, vous vous etes mal conduit! Un autre que moi se vengerait
en ce moment,' car je puis vous faire perdre une bien grosse somme. . .
Goulard: Si vous ne me payez pas, je le crois bien; mais vous me payerez, ou,
demain, les pieces seront remises au garde de commerce. . .
Mercadet: Oh! il ne s'agit pas de ce que je vous dois, vous n'avez li-dessus
aucune inquietude, ni moi non plus; mais il s'agit de capitaux bien plus considerables!
Rien ne m'a etonn6 comme de vous savoir, vous, homme d'un coup d'oeil si sur, vous
a qui je demanderais un conseil, de vous savoir encore engage dans cette affaire-la! . . .
vous! . . . Enfin nous avons tous nos moments d'erreur. . .
Goulard: Mais quoi? . . .
Mercadet: {A sa femme.) Tu ne le croirais jamais! (A Goulard.) Elle a fini
par se connaitre en speculations, elle a un tact pour les juger! ... (A sa femme.)
Eh bien, ma chere, Goulard y est pour une somme tres-considerable.
Madame Mercadet: Monsieur! . . .
Goulard: (A part.) Ce Mercadet, il a le genie de la speculation: mais veut-il
encore m'amuser? {A Mercadet.) Que voulez-vous dire? De quoi s'agit-il?
Mercadet: Vous le savez bien!. . . On sait toujours ou le bat nous blesse, quand
on porte des actions.
Goulard: Serait-ce les mines de la basse Indre? une affaire superbe! . . .
Mercadet: Superbe! . . . oui, pour ceux qui ont fait vendre hier. . .
Goulard: On a vendu?. . .
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 125
Mercadet: En secret, dans la coulisse! vous verrez la baisse aujourd'hui et
demain. Oh! demain, quand on saura ce que Ton a trouve. . .
Goulard: Merci! Mercadet, nous causerons plus tard de nos petites aflfaires.
Madame, mes hommages. . .^^
and Goulard, completely defeated, takes a hurried leave. The
movement of this scene is rapid, and the comedy is excellent. Again,
in the scene with Pierquin, there are repeated flashes of wit and
picturesque turns of phrase: **L'usurier," Mercadet tells him,
**c'est un capitaliste qui se fait sa part d'avance."^^ In the scenes
between Mercadet and La Brive the dialogue is managed with the
ease of a master of comedy. Mercadet praises his daughter's
qualities in the following words:
Mercadet: Oh! il n'y a que Vkme et I'id^al. Je suis de mon epoque. Je con^ois
cela, moi! L'ideal, fleur de la vie! Monsieur, c'est un effet de la loi des contrastes.
Comme jamais il n'y a eu plus de positif dans les affaires, on a senti le besoin de I'iddal
dans les sentiments. Ainsi, moi, je vais a la Bourse, et ma fille se jette dans les nuages.
Elle est d'une poesie! ... oh! elle est tout ame! Vous ^tes, je le vols, de I'^cole des
lacs. . .
De La Brive: Non, monsieur.
Mercadet: Comment alors aimez-vous Julie, si vous ne cultivez pas l'ideal?. . .
De La Brive: Monsieur, je suis ambitieux. . .
Mercadet: Ah! c'est mieux.
De La Brive: Et j'ai vu en mademoiselle Julie une personne tr&s-distingu6e,
pleine d'esprit, douee de charmantes manieres, qui ne sera jamais deplacee en quelque
lieu que me porte ma fortune; et c'est une des conditions essentielles k un hcnmie
politique.
Mercadet: Je vous comprends! On ti'ouve toujours une femme, mais il est
trSs-rare qu'un homme qui veut etre ministre ou ambassadeur rencontre (disons le mot,
noussommesentrehommes) safemelle! . . . Vous ^tes un homme d'esprit, monsieur , . .
De La Brive: Monsieur, je suis socialiste. . P
As in Cesar BiroUeau, la Maison Nucingen, and Gobseckj Balzac
has lent to his characters the argot of commerce, and all their financial
preoccupations are reflected in what they have to say. The author,
who knows the mechanism of finance, the laws governing bank-
ruptcy, the little details of the stock-market, reports them with
scientific exactitude. But there is too much of this in the play,
and the auditor, who cannot turn back at will to refresh his memory,
as he is permitted to do when he follows out the intricate problems
20 Act I, scene 7.
21 Act I, scene 13.
22 Act III, scene 8.
126 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
of Birotteau's rise and fall, discovers a lack of dramatic clearness in
the play, and is finally bored.
The style of the comedy with its faults of diffuseness and obscurity
already noted, is none the less energetic, and lends itself admirably
to the study of manners. There are certain evidences, however,
of Balzac's fondness for the pathetic which are out of keeping with
the general tone of the comedy. When Mercadet, with Godeau's
name on his conscience, threatens suicide, we descend abruptly into
the melodrama. The evident intent of the author is a relief from
the comedy, just as Julie's romantic tirade at the close of the second
act serves to stir the audience to tears. ' Here Balzac has again
failed in moderation. Julie is too romantic, too much the child of
La Chaussee to suit the tone of his comedy. The same sort of
appeal to those who love to see temptation ultimately resisted is
made in the fourth act when Mercadet refuses to take Minard's
money.
For the most part, Balzac has given Mercadet the blunt, unflat-
tering language of contemporary life, filled with vigorous phrases
and colored with a wealth of picturesque images. In so doing, he
has produced a style admirably suited for comedy. His faults are
grave ones, and are the faults of a novelist treading on unfamiliar
ground: disregard for his audience's patience, an attempt to tell
too much, with the result of obscurity. He has also sought to
relieve his comic scenes with serious moments, but the result is a
banal renewal of the violent language of the melodrama, entirely out
of keeping with the general tone of the comedy.
About 1840, there was a mania in France for the organization of
joint stock-companies, while jobbers and speculators became ramp-
ant in Paris. This activity marks one of the leading tendencies of
the age towards business and commerce. People were occupied
with making money, and the honest were no more numerous
than the dishonest. The literature of the period is impregnated
with this lust after money and the thirst for industrial activity.
It is needless to dwell here on Balzac's preoccupation with this phase
of contemporary life; the pages of the Human Comedy swarm with
the figures of stock-jobbers, usurers, business men and bankers. In
la Maison Nucingen (1837) he had already drawn a picture of the
fraudulent accumulation of capital by speculation. Cesar Birotteau
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 127
is ruined by the evil speculations and bankruptcy of his principal
debtors. No writer was better prepared for the task of placing such
types before the world in all their hideousness. Balzac himself had '
known personally a number of these figures of the Bourse and the
coulisse; he knew moreover the feverish excitement of the specu-
lator, and his own dealings in finance form one of the most com-
plicated chapters of his life.
Who is Mercadet? A stock-jobber who chooses to be rich and
cares little about the means employed in becoming so. He is
primarily a man of business, but a business carried on in the by-paths
of finance. His world is at the stock-market. For him the gold mines
are no longer in Mexico, but in the Place de la Bourse. From the
moment he enters upon the scene to hold our attention for five long
acts, we are made aware of a character that is alert, resourceful, and
occupied mainly with efforts to outdo his creditors. Above all,
he is ambitious. He is a man who desires fortune at any price,
employing the expedients which seem most sufficient to himself.
He is also ambitious for social success. To his daughter he says:
Vous avez des talents, de rinstniction, vous pourrez jouer un r6le brillant k Paris.
Si vous n'dtes pas la femme d'un ministre, vous serez peut-^tre la femme d'un pair de
France. Je suis fache, ma fille, de n'avoir pas mieux a vous offrir.'^'
But the keynote to Mercadet's character is probably his audacity.
"On paie d'audace," he declares, and indeed this is the only way in
which Mercadet does meet his creditors. He feels himself superior
to them, for he has their money, and they are waiting for his. With
Buperb assurance he says to Pierquin: "Monsieur, je suis assez
riche pour ne plus souffrir la plaisanterie de personne, pas m^me
d'un creancier,"^^ and it is after this fashion that he meets all of
those unfortunate people who dog his footsteps. Fears for his own
future or for that of his family never disturb him, for his projects
are mainly for the present, and he is convinced that the future will
take care of itself. To marry off his daughter, he needs two weeks
of opulence; after that, some other glittering scheme will fall handy,
and consequently he has no cause for alarm.
Combined with audacity, Mercadet is imbued with the fever of
a gambler. He undertakes his speculations with bravado. The
get-rich-quick schemes which have appealed to certain spirits of
23 Act I, scene 10.
24 Act I, scene 13.
128 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
every age fill him with unrest and he has no peace until he has tried
a hand at them. He talks of an "assurance contre les chances de
recrutement;" he conceives the idea of a company for the exploitation
of La Brive's salt marshes in the twinkling of an eye. Exact figures
enter his head at once; he begins to reckon the incomes: "II y a
la plus d'un million, Monsieur," he says to his future son-in-law,
and the plans for his daughter's future are momentarily forgotten.
Mercadet is also a man of expensive tastes, with a gambler's love
of the luxurious and the showy. At all costs he seeks to hide his
lack of funds under a cloak of good appearances. He is delighted
with the gowns of his wife and daughter:
Une femme est une enseigne pour un speculateur. . .Quand, a rOp6ra vous vous
montrez avec une nouvelle parure, le public se dit: les Asphaltes vont bien, ou la
Providence des Families est en hausse, car madame Mercadet est d'une elegance l^^
He loves an expensive dinner, and talks in the language of a conois-
seur about the silver and the family arms of La Brive's home.
What are we to say about Mercadet's integrity? He is certainly
not honest — he stoops low enough to take the savings-bank account
of his cook — nor is he altogether dishonest. He is artful and design-
ing, and besides, feeble of character, easily led astray. Ruined by
the flight of his business associate, he has permitted himself to
follow the methods of the unscrupulous speculators with whom he
is daily thrown. As he is more clever than they, he finds it a simple
matter to deceive them. But he has never deliberately stolen. He
has, like Scribe's Piffart,^^ audacious schemes a-plenty, dishonest
ruses at hand, but his conscience is elastic, and he is neither a black-
guard nor a scoundrel. The fact which partially excuses him, and
prevents him from becoming antipathetic, is that Mercadet's victims
are little better than he, and Balzac is careful to insist on this fact.
He has taken apparent pains to protect him even to the point of
recompensing him in the end. Mercadet has even a slight advan-
tage over his victims, for he is a kind husband and father, and has
moreover his tender-hearted moments, as when he shows generosity
to the ill-fortuned Pere Violette. Balzac has given Mercadet
failings, great failings, but he has made them sympathetic.
Balzac has also made a real comic character of his speculator;
his speeches are marked at times by sparkling flashes of wit — for
^ Act I, scene 6.
^ Les Actionnaires. t
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 129
example, his encounter with Goulard in the first act, and with La
Brive; sometimes with torrents of mock-heroic eloquence. Like
the master who created him, Mercadet possesses a great fund of
natural gaiety and good humor. He is fond of splendid-sounding
phrases: ''L'union fait la force! la maxime des ecus de la Repub-
lique,"^^ he remarks jovially to Julie, urging her to marry a rich man.
In his scenes with the supposed La Brive he is feverishly enthusiastic.
Learning of the dandy's supposed wealth, he cries out with ardor:
"Permittez-moi de vous serrer la main a I'anglaise.''^^ When later
La Brive appears disguised as Godeau, with exuberance Mercadet
calls for his houka and tea. Finally, in the last act, he reaches the
heights of eloquence and absurdity in his address to fortune:
Salut, reine des rois, archiduchesse des emprunts, princesse des actions et mere
du credit! . . .Salut, fortune tant recherch^e ici, et qui, pour la millieme fois, arrives
des Indes!29
There is also something of the cynic about Mercadet, and a
great deal of satire mingled with his gaiety, satire expressed at
times with the mocking laughter of the author of the Human Comedy
behind it:
Ah! un homme dans le malheur ressemble k un morceau de pain jet6 dans un
vivier: chaque poisson y donne un coup de dent.^°
This is the word of the dramatist who had been unmercifully flayed
by the press of Paris, whose indignation had for years been kindled
to a white heat by the unfriendly and unfair pens of his critics. But
in Mercadet we are able to see more than one personal touch of the
author. Like Mercadet, Balzac possessed a great store of natural
good humor which seems never to have deserted him, in spite of
shattered dreams and feverish labors. To his creation Balzac also
lends a portion of his own fund of "genie gaulois" and pleasantry,
and something of his frank Rabelaisian laughter. In Mercadet
also we see the reflection of Balzac's own audacity and vanity,
something of the boastfulness of a Meridional. But the audacity
of Mercadet is a trifle exaggerated and lacks naturalness, and his
27 Act I, scene 10.
28 Act III, scene 8.
23 Act V, scene 6.
3° Act I, scene 1. Compare Quinola, Act I, scene 1 : "Un homme pauvre qui trouve
une bonne idee m'a toujours fait I'effet d'un morceau de pain dans un vivier: chaque
poisson vient lui donner un coup de dent."
130 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
vanity is of a grosser quality, possessing none of the naivete that is
one of the charms of Balzac. Mercadet, the Napoleon of business,
echoes also the master's great boast to vie with the lost leader of
his heart.
To Mercadet, moreover, Balzac has lent his own imaginative
qualities. He is a man of ideas — ideas, it must be noted, tending
to one goal, until they become a sort of hallucination with him. But
his plans for the exploitation of salt marshes, for deriving a revenue
from pine trees, were not chimerical; no more were Balzac's Sardinian
mines. Something of the dramatist's great craving for luxury and
elegance he has also depicted in the character of the speculator;
but with Mercadet this never becomes an obsession, nor does it
ever turn his mind from the bourse or his creditors. We see then
that Balzac has inspired his character with a number of personal
traits, a thing which he has done with no other of his stage people.^^
It must not be forgotten in this connection also that the character
of the stock-jobber was written for a special actor, and that Balzac
regretted all his life that Frederick Lemaitre had not played the
r61e.^^ After the comedian's enormous success in 1834 in Robert
Macaire, he became one of the most popular figures on the boulevard
stage, and his creation of the cynical charlatan and amiable thief
who lives by his dishonest wits became the model for more than
one play of the time. Balzac had in mind the popular type and
the popular actor when he planned Monsieur Mercadet. Later we
'^ According to Lovenjoul, there are evidences of other originals in this character,
and he mentions Victor Bohain, a speculator who was at one time director of le Figaro^
prefect of the Charante, associate director of four Parisian theatres and founder of V Europe
Utteraire, in which the first part of Eugenie Grandet was published. Bohain, unfortunate
in his speculations, ended his days in poverty and bankruptcy. Lovenjoul also makes
the following interesting citation from la Revue et gazette des theatres, August 24, 1851:
"Balzac, disait-on, en ecrivant cette comedie [Mercadet], avait voulu retracer la
vie d'un homme qui fut prefet et directeur de theatre. Cet homme, on le savait,
possedait parfaitement la science des expedients et des ressources en matiere commer-
ciale; il avait depense en affaires d'argent autant d'esprit que Talleyrand en diplomatic,
et que Napoleon en gouvernement. Cependant, apres avoir lutt6 avec ses creanciers,
apres les avoir p^tris comme s'ils eussent 6te en caoutchouc, il 6tait tombe sous la
faillite."
Lovenjoul adds in a note that this citation might equally apply to another person
with whom Balzac was more closely allied, Harel, the former director of the Porte-
Saint-Martin, who had at one time been the prefect of les Landes, and had ended his
days in bankruptcy in a mad-house near Paris. See Un Roman d'amour, p. 151.
32 See Corr., p. 592.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 131
shall see that he was also influenced by one or two capital scenes
from the same play.
Mercadet, we have seen, is not a thief, nor is he thoroughly
honest. In fact, none of the world of jobbers, usurers, unlicensed
brokers and creditors who surround him, save poor Violette, are
honest. Like Pierquin, they are all too fond of their little refrain:
"nous autres, nous sommes ronds en affaires,"^^ just at the moment
when they are preparing to fleece some unfortunate victim. The
servants too have learned a lesson from their master. They have
not lived in a speculator's house in vain; their eyes and their ears
have been constantly open. For them this family represents a
portion of society to be scorned — the bourgeois. "C'est des gens
qui depensent beaucoup pour leur cuisine,"^* says Virginie with
contempt. The bourgeois are stupid in their love affairs. ."lis ne
parlent que de Tideal!"^^ declares Therese, recalling Mariane's reply
to her mistress in Turcaret when the latter sighs about her "tender
leaning": "vous aimez comme une vieille bourgeoise."^^ Justin,
who has been with his master for ten years, to borrow Mercadet's
own words, is a sort of demi-Frontin, with this difference that,
where Frontin seeks to direct his dupery even against his master,
Justin is content to remain his master's faithful imitator and emula-
tor: like master, like valet. Justin seems but an echo of Mercadet
at times. What is a business failure, demands Virginie. "C'est
une espece de vol involuntaire admis par la loi, mais aggrave par des
formalites,"^^ replies the faithful servant of his master.
On La Brive Balzac has dwelt with care, and the underlying
intent in tracing this character is evidently satiric. This gentleman
of fortune under an assumed name is a gambler, a boaster, a dandy,
in Pierquin's words, a "gibier de Clichy," heavily in debt and mas-
querading with tales of landed estates and family position. Balzac
has made of him a fool, whose world begins at L'Etoile and ends at
the Jockey Club ! He has taken upon himself to play the magnificent
r61e of wealthy son, journalist, and politician. "Vous ^tes un
homme d'esprit, monsieur," says Mercadet to him. "Monsieur,
^ Act I, scene 13. Compare with the following lines from Scribe's Actionnaires
scene 9: "moi, qui suis rond en affaires, et qui paie toujours comptant. . . ."
»* Act I, scene 2.
* Act I, scene 3.
" Act IV, scene 2.
132 THE DRAMA OF HONOR^ DE BALZAC
je suis socialiste/' replies La Brive, like Scribe's political economist
M. de Montlucar.^^ Both the press and politics are scored in terms
which leave no doubt as to the author's bitterness beneath the
satire. First the journalists:
II y a les joumalistes qui 6crivent et ceux qui n'^crivent point. Les uns, les
redacteurs, sont les chevaux qui trainent la voiture; les autres, les proprietaires, sont
les entrepreneurs; ils donnent aux uns de I'avoine, et gardent les capitaux. Je serai
propri^taire. On se pose dans sa cravate! On dit: — "La question d'Orient. . .
question tr^s-grave, question qui nous menera loin et dont on ne se doute pas!" On
resume une discussion en s'ecriant: — "L'Angleterre, monsieur, nous jouera toujours!"
Ou bien on repond a un monsieur qui a parle longtemps et qu'on n'a pas 6co\ii6: —
"Nous marchons a un abime. Nous n'avons pas encore accompli toutes les Evolutions
de la phase revolutionnaire !" A un minist^riel: — "Monsieur, je pense que sur cette
question il y a quelque chose a faire." On parle fort peu, on court, on se rend utile,
on fait les d6marches qu'un homme au pouvoir ne peut pas faire lui-meme. . . On
est cens6 donner le sens des articles. . . remarques! . . . Et puis, s'il le f aut absolument
... eh bien! Ton trouve a publier un volume jaune sur une utopie quelconque, si
bien ecrit, si fort, que p>ersonne ne I'ouvre, et que tout le monde dit I'avoir lu ! On devient
alors un homme serieux, et Ton finit par se trouver quelqu'un au lieu d'etre quelque
chose !39
"Helas!" replies his friend Mericourt to this tirade, "ton programme
a souvent eu raison de notre temps." And La Brive continues:
Mais nous en voyons d'eclatantes preuves! Pour vous appeler au partage du
pouvoir, on ne vous demande pas aujourd'hui ce que vous pouvez faire de bien, mais
ce que vous pouvez faire de mal! II ne s'agit pas d'avoir des talents, mais d'inspirer
la peur! On est tres-craintif en politique, a cause des tas de linge sale qu'on a dans
des petits coins, et qu'on ne peut pas blanchir. . . Je connais parfaitement notre
6poque. En dinant, en jouant, en faisant des dettes, je faisais mon cours de droit
politique; j'etudiais les petits coins: aussi, le lendemain de mon mariage, aurai-je un
air grave, profond, et des principes! Je puis choisir. Nous avons en France une
carte de principes aussi variee que celle d'un restaurateur. Je serai socialiste. Le
mot me plait. A toutes les epoques, mon cher, il y a des adjectifs qui sont le passe-
partout des ambitions! Avant 1789, on se disait 6conomiste; en 1805, on Etait liberal.
Le parti de demain s'appelle social, peut-etre parce qu'il est insocial; car, en France,
il faut toujours prendre Ten vers du mot pour en trouver la vraie signification !^°
It is necessary to recall Balzac's position at the time this tirade was
written. In 1840, he felt probably more strongly than at any other
time the need of defending himself against his enemies. At this
time, when most of the journals and reviews of Paris were leagued
against him, he founded an independent review in which he proposed
'* La Camaraderie, ou la Courte &chdle, January 19, 1836.
39 Act III, scene 5.
^Uhid.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 133
to define his stand in literary, political and social questions as clearly
as possible. He announces himself frankly royalist, an enemy of
Thiers, of parliamentarism, of the government by Chambers and
of the encroaching socialist party. In the first number of his review
he writes, "Les ouvriers sont I'avant-garde des barbares." La Brive
will be socialist, because the word is the catch phrase of the moment;
as journalist, he will be a master of that "phraseologie hypocrite des
debats quotidiens" which envelops public affairs ;^^ and the character
can not have failed to convey the satire which the author intended.
In closing this discussion of the characters, a few words must be
said about the two lovers, Julie and Minard. The daughter of
Mercadet is the "jeune fille de convention" of the comedy, ready to
end her days in a garret with the man she loves. She is romantic,
and suffers the usual fate of the melodrama heroine, resigning herself
to a life of unhappiness, and in the end rewarded. The poor employe,
Minard, is a straightforward lover who wooes with romantic ardor,
seeing before him no obstacles to hinder his affection. However,
after Mercadet's avowal of poverty, he declares that he has seen his
"holy and pure love" through the medium of 300,000 francs of
dowry, and hesitates to marry her. But Minard is prompted by
generosity, unwilling to accept the girl because of his poverty. Later
he uncovers a small fortune himself, and lays it gallantly at the feet
of his prospective father-in-law. Balzac has failed to make Minard's
generous impulses plain, and the adapter realized this when he
strengthened the generosity and devotion of the character, melo-
dramatic already in the hands of Balzac.
The great interest of Mercadet lies in its novelty on the French
stage. If there are certain situations in the comedy which had ap-
peared already in French comedy before Balzac, the author has
developed them in a fashion which is essentially original. One natur-
ally thinks first of all of the helle scene of the XVIIth century, the scene
between Don Juan and Monsieur Dimanche, where the speechless
creditor is plied with questions about his family, is overwhelmed with
attentions and invited to sup, until he flees from the house of his
debtor without uttering a word. In this one scene of Moliere^^ the
*^ Introduction to first number of la Revue parisienne. July 25, 1840.
*2 Don Juan, act IV, scene 3.
134 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
comedy is concentrated and sparkles with a verve and wit which may
well have urged Balzac on to emulation.
Coming down to the end of the century, we find in Regnard's
Joueur*^ — another type of speculator who banks his money on the
green table — the scene of the convocation of creditors^ that Balzac
utilizes in his comedy, and we see the gambler Valere with the aid of
a rascally valet outwitting them with tales of an approaching marriage
to a rich woman.
In the early years of the XVIIIth century, when the accumulat-
ing of money was a disease, and the epoch was tinged with the color
of gold, Lesage left a picture of this phase of contemporary manners
in his Turcaret.^^ The place that Turcaret holds in his age, Balzac
wished Mercadet to represent in 1840, and the dramatic form which
he has chosen is the same. Like Lesage, he has written a comedy of
character, in which the situations are subordinate to the painting
of one type, and this one type is developed by a series of loose episodes,
with no serious preoccupation given to intrigue."*^ Turcaret, a
revenue collector who is a public robber, like Mercadet passes off
in society as a man of wealth and honor. Like Mercadet also, he
has a taste for luxury, but the striving after money has destroyed
in him all the finer sentiments. But the interest in Lesage's comedy
does not center about Turcaret's money operations nor do we see
him duping his creditors, and here is Balzac's point of departure.
Balzac, moreover, has protected his faiseur from outward dishonesty,
and has stood firmly by his side, while Turcaret is ridiculed and
scouted as a thief and a rascal, and his whole world is held up to the
most biting satire.
The nineteenth century had also its faiseur s and public robbers;
before Balzac's day they were ridiculed from the stage. At the
very beginning of the century, Picard, with his Duhautcoursf' had
waged war on the dishonest financiers. In this comedy, Durville,
a banker who has been ruined, tries to regain his footing by declaring
a business failure and obtaining a bankrupt's certificate from his
" Five act comedy in verse, December 19, 1696.
** Act III, scene 7.
* Five act comedy in prose, February 14, 1709.
*^ Like Balzac, we are told, Lesage was offered large sums of money by the finan-
ciers who saw themselves mirrored in the character if he would withdraw his play from
the boards. — Brunetiere, les &poques du Thedtre-Franqais, p. 196.
<^ Written in collaboration with F. Cheron; prose comedy in five acts, Aug. 6, 1801.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 135
creditors. Acting in Durville's behalf is an obscure agent named
Duhautcours, who practises all the ruses of a scoundrel to deceive
his friend's creditors. Duhautcours is, however, a masked figure,
and is not the out-a,nd-o\it faiseur that Balzac has made of Mercadet,
nor are his ruses so clever. There are certain points of similarity in
the action of the two plays which lead us to believe that Balzac
may have been influenced by Picard's comedy. Durville has lost
his money through the failure of a banker; in just the same manner
Mercadet is impoverished by his business associate. Durville's
nephew is in love with the daughter of a struggling merchant, while
Mercadet's daughter defies her father by choosing for her affection
a poor clerk. In both plays again the wife recalls her husband
to the path of honor, and saves him from outright dishonesty.
The dramatic contrast in Duhautcours between luxury and indi-
gence is furnished by the sumptuous dinner given by the banker
while his creditors wait outside. This bit of action Balzac has also
repeated in his comedy.
The similarity between Scribe's Piffart and Mercadet has already
been noted. Piffart has the same audacious schemes to propose,
and sets to work with the same exuberant spirits. This speculator,
enthusiastic over his artesian wells, no doubt suggested to Balzac
Mercadet's scene with La Brive. Again, the scene where this clever
charlatan is brought to bay by the stockholders in his worthless
scheme, bears a striking resemblance to the same situation of Balzac's
speculator. But the scene between La Brive and Mercadet was also
reproduced in Robert Macaire: the scene of the marriage settlement
between Macaire and the pretended Baron de Wormspire. So close
is the resemblance, that we are led to believe that Balzac found his
model here. Robert Macaire is believed by the baron to be im-
mensely wealthy; he talks glibly of his inherited lands, his Paris home
and his coal mines. In similar fashion, the self-styled baron, a
penniless rascal who is seeking to palm off a girl whom he calls
Eloa — a pretended daughter — draws up in exact figures the marriage
settlement. Balzac remembered this popular and farcical scene
when he came to write his comedy, and Mercadet's promises to
La Brive of future luxuries, as well as the latter's boasts of chateaux
and salt marshes, are the echoes of Frederick Lemaitre's genius.'*^
*^ Among the great quantity of plays dealing with finance and the rogues of the
business world may be mentioned: Le Speculateur, by F.L. Riboutte (June 24, 1826);
V Argent, by Casimir Bonjour (October 12, 1826); le Chevalier d'industrie, by A. Duval
(April 13, 1809); Luxe et indigence, by D'Epagny (January 17, 1824).
136 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
We see from the above-mentioned plays that Balzac has not
been the very first to place a business intrigue upon the stage, nor to
center the interest about a financial question. Not only were other
plays written earlier in the century dealing with the same problems,
but Balzac seems to have had several of these in mind when he came
to certain scenes in his own comedy. Still, before Balzac this
''litterature d'affaires" had not been developed, and the great
interest of Mercadet is due to its novelty as a "piece d'argent." The
merit of the play lies in the originality and realism of its character
drawing. Balzac meant it to be solely a comedy of contemporary
manners, and when Hostein wished to introduce more action into it,
to change it, as Balzac says, into a "gros melodrame,"^^ the author
was justly rebellious. Mercadet, to all intents, was to be a moral
lesson to the century, and a satire on one phase of present-day
manners. Just as the author had introduced finance in the novel
with Cesar BiroUeau, so he introduces it here on the stage. Here, as
inCesar Birotte(iu,h.e studies the newly developed commercial methods
where speculation succeeds modest business dealings. A bourgeois
Mercadet, like a bourgeois Birotteau, has allowed himself to be
dragged into the giddy whirl of these new methods, and is ruined.
We witness in both novel and play the repercussion of financial
troubles on a virtuous and honest family. There is in both the
novel and the play the expression of violent antipathy against
dishonest usurers and big financiers, "ceux qui tuent une affaire
pour en profiter."^^ Mercadet dreams of future riches, and has
much the same imaginative soul as the old perfumer. Both Mer-
cadet and CesaT idolize their only child, a daughter, and both specu-
lators have wives who advise wisely against their extravagant
dreams, representing the good sense and virtue of the bourgeoisie.
Plainly, the social intent is the same in both play and novel. Dra-
matically, Balzac has made here a wise choice of subject, for he is
working in a field that he understands, and has chosen one which
offers the greatest possibilities for a dramatic struggle. Thanks to
its novelty, the comedy has a profound interest. As for its form
and style, the faults are fewer and less disagreeable than those of the
preceding plays, while in composition it is infinitely superior to the
others. "II y a la-dedans du Balzac, du vrai Balzac; il y en a beau-
coup," writes Jules Janin,^^ the bitterest of all Balzac's dramatic
" Corr., p. 599.
'° The expression occurs both in the novel and the play.
" Le Journal des debats, August 25, 1851.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 137
critics, and the expression is true, for no contemporary was better
equipped to lift off the surface of lying and scheming, of boasting
and trifled affections, to show us the glitter of gold beneath, than
was Balzac.
It is in Mercadet that the younger Dumas later found inspiration
for his speculator, Jean Giraud.^^ Closely akin to Mercadet are
also Augier's parvenu, Roussel,^^ and his audacious schemer, Vernou-
illet.^"* We have seen how France was in the throes of speculation
at the time Balzac wrote his play, how business methods were
beginning to develop and industrial enterprises to make themselves
felt. The great interest and the great novelty of Balzac's play is
that it is the first to present a phase of this activity on the stage,
to denounce the corruption of underhand business methods by
means of a character startling in its boldness and originality.
'2 La Question d' argent.
" La Ceinture doree.
" Les Effrontes. '
IX
CONCLUSIONS
"L'auteur dramatique qui connattrait Vhomme comme Balzac
et le theatre comme Scribe serait le plus grand auteur dramatique
qui aurait jamais existe." So writes Dumas the younger in his
preface to le Fdre prodigue. The expression is significant, and Dumas
has noted in Balzac one of the most potent of dramatic qualities.
A knowledge of the greatness and pettiness of the human heart,
combined with a talent for observation and a powerful imagination,
has made him a master of realistic character study. What he lacked
was just this quality that has made Scribe the most popular drama-
tist of his age: an innate sense for the exigencies of the stage.
"L'homme des plus habiles a serrer une intrigue, et le meilleur peintre
de caracteres que nous ayons eu depuis Moliere," Gautier writes of
his friend.^ Where then has Balzac developed this dramatic gift
which Gautier and Dumas and so many others allow him? Let us
turn to the Human Comedy, and not to the plays, for our answer.
In his Lettres sur la litter ature, le thSdtre et les arts Balzac has
written a significant phrase about the trend of modern litterature;
La litterature a subi, depuis vingt-cinq ans, une transformation qui a chang6
les lois de la po6tique. La forme dramatique, la couleur et la science ont p6n6tr6 tous
les genres.'
Again, in the preface to his first edition of le Cure de village, dated
Paris, February, 1841, Balzac writes of his novel:
II ne s'agissait pas tant ici, de meme que dans toutes les Scenes de la vie de campagne,
de raconter une histoire que de repandre des v6rites neuves et utiles, si toutefois il est
des Veritas neuves; mais les tentatives insens^es de notre 6poque n'ont-elles pas rendu
tout le charme de la nouveaute a des v6rites vieilles?
Ainsi, dans le plan de I'auteur, ce livre, loin d'offrir l'int6r^t romanesque, assez
avidement recherchd par les lecteurs et qui fait tourner vivement les pages d'un in-
octavo qu'on ne relit plus, une fois le secret connu, lui paraissait si peu int6ressant
pour le gros du public, qu'il a semble necessaire de le relever par une conception
dramatique, empreinte des caracteres de la v6rit6, mais en harmonie avec le ton de
I'ouvrage.'
* La Presse, November 19, 1838, See Histoire de Vart dramatique, Vol. I, p. 195.
2 (Eumes, Vol. XXIII, p. 569.
3 Ihid., Vol. XXII, pp. 546-7.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 139
It is precisely this "dramatic form" which has penetrated into
the composition of many of the novels that comprise the Human
Comedy, and this "dramatic conception" of both subjects and
characters which must occupy a considerable importance in the
judgment of Balzac's work.
A novel can possess dramatic qualities only when the conception
of subject is dramatic, that is to say, when it is founded on a struggle
between two opposing forces. And not only so, but the interest
of the novel must be found in this struggle, and be maintained by it.
If we look at the choice of subject in the Scenes of Provincial Life
we find the existence of this struggle to a marked extent. How
often it is a feud between two village factions which constitutes the
principal interest of the story. One immediately recalls the division
of the little city of Saumur into the two hostile camps of the Cruchots
and the Des Grassins, each fighting for the hand and heritage of
Eugenie Grandet. Not only this, but we have also in bold relief
the antagonism of the equally strong wills of father and daughter.
In Pierrette, the martyrdom of the poor Breton girl is made apparent
in the continuous struggles of two village factions, the one favorable
and the other hostile to the Rogron family. Ursule Mirouet and
her heritage are the cause of a bitter family feud, but in the same
novel there is a struggle of no less dramatic interest between the
atheism of Doctor Minoret and the fresh faith of his ward.
In the domain of finance and politics Balzac has also chosen
dramatic subjects. The old perfumer, Cesar Birotteau, at ceaseless
war with his creditors, struggles with enemies of the most bitter
sort. In his book about the peasants'* we have described the ever-
lasting antagonism between the two great classes of society, the
rich and the poor, the landowners and their tenants. In the master-
ful Medecin de campagne it is again the struggle of science against
superstition, the efforts of a country doctor to break down the
religious fanaticism of ignorant peasants.^ But it is probably in
the Scenes of Parisian Life that Balzac has depicted most strongly
this struggle: on the one hand, an ambitious youth, generally from
the provinces, penniless, eager for fame and riches; on the other, the
^ Les Paysans.
5 To Mme Zulma Carraud Balzac writes: "Ce livre vaut h mon sens plus que des
lois et des batailles gagnees. C'est I'fivangile en action." Corr., p. 179. August 2,
1833.
140 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
relentless, alluring Parisian life, ready to deceive and corrupt. Such
are the battles of Rubempre, of Valentin and Rastignac.
Society offers then to Balzac a wonderful picture of struggle.
His novels center in this very struggle, and are, for this reason,
dramatic. In a long letter to Hippolyte Castille he explains his
intentions in the following words :
J'ai entrepris I'histoire de toute la societe. J'ai exprimc souvent mon plan dans
cette seule phrase: *'Une generation est un drame a quatre ou cinq mille personnages
saillants." Ce drame, c'est mon livre.^
And a few lines later he declares :
Cette opposition salutaire du bien et du mal est mon incessant labeur dans la
Comedie humaineJ
Are we able to find in the characters of the Human Comedy, so
often anatomically revealed by massed or scattered documentary
evidence, a dramatic quality? Are we able to discover in the Balzac
hero, aside from the long narratives of semi-scientiiic nature, aside
from the curious pathological researches and financial compilations
about which the author is so often apologetic, the psychological
relief and clearness that the theatre demands? It was Balzac's
great boast that his characters rival life itself, they they stand forth
as beings of flesh and blood. If this is true, we have found the
essential quality which the theatre demands — reality in character
conception.
What there is truly dramatic about the characters of the Human
Comedy is the master passion which dominates them and forms the
point of departure for the action. Almost all the great "premiers
roles" are the victims of an overpowering passion which is revealed
by every word they utter, by every action they perform, and leads
them inevitably to the great crises of their lives. So the greed of
the old miser of Saumur develops by a series of successive steps.
There is no trait, no personal feature, which does not reflect this
passion, which does not serve to impress this figure upon our mem-
ories. Let us look for a moment at Colonel Chabert, the old cavalry-
man of Eylau. He is a ''revenant" in every word and gesture; the.
pathetic figure of one who has seen visions of another world, who
returns with a great longing in his heart for the peace of a home, and
finds no place left for him. He brings with him a message from a
6 (Euvres, Vol. XXII, p. 364.
7/6wf., p. 368.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 141
generation that is dead and buried, a tale of inhuman sights and
sounds, of valorous engagements and grave-trenches, but nobody
heeds his message. He is a ghost that stalks the strange streets of
Paris. What there is intensely dramatic about this shadowy,
unearthly figure is just this strong insistence upon unreality. Balzac
has dwelt upon the old man's pale-and thin appearance as he stands
in the shadowy doorway of Derville's office at an hour long past
midnight. He presents a total absence of movement and of expres-
sion. His eyes seem to be covered with a film; his intellect has gone,
and there is a tremendous pathos about his attempts at gaiety, his
forced and horrible smiles, the pathos that one feels in the presence
of a harmless idiot. And the curtain falls upon the old colonel, a
tottering inmate of the Bicetre, tracing with his stick lines in the
gravel walk.^
The insistence upon the excessive passion of Baron Hulot for
debauchery, the mania of Balthazar Claes for chemical research,
serve to throw these figures into vivid relief, stamping them with a
complete physiognomy, so that they seem to rise from the pages and
appear before us in all their naked reality. This quality belongs
pre-eminently to the dramatist's art.
-- But the quality of the dramatist appears not only in the concep-
tion of subject and in the creation of character, but also in the form
of Balzac's novels. ''Un mot, un cri, dans Balzac suffit souvent
pour donner le personnage tout entier. Ce cri est du theatre, et du
meilleur," writes Zola in his defense of naturalism on the stage.*
The succession of short scenes in which the characters are revealed
by involuntary expressions which escape them quite naturally,
or which express with dramatic force the overwhelming passion
under which they are laboring, are legion. There are also certain
scenes which, by reason of their abridged form and by reason of the
subtle analysis of character and precise observation which they
contain, might easily be transported from the novel to the stage
without modification. These are the essential "scenes a faire,"
without which a play fails to reach the heart of an audience. In
8 It is interesting to note that in recent years our American stage has offered to
the public two plays in which the interest centers about a ghost-like hero : The Return
of Peter Grimm and Van der Decken, both plays produced by Mr. Belasco and acted by
Mr. David Warfield. In each case the dramatic intensity is heightened by the unreal
presence of a phantom hero.
' Le Roman experimental, p. 149.
142 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
them narrative gives way to pure action; the novelist retires for the
moment, and the dramatist appears. Such, for example, is the
scene in Eugenie Grandet, when the miser demands from his daughter
the money which she has given her cousin. Such is the melodramatic
scene in old Goriot's room, when his two daughters arrive simul-
taneously to beg for money, and are drawn into a quarrel which
agonizes their aged, doting father. Here the dramatic interest is
less concentrated, for the scene is very long, and Balzac has employed
the most violent pathetic resources to produce an effect upon his
audience. The expression of unnatural hate, as well as the fawning
affection, the tears, the frantic embraces, the heart-rending cries,
the supplication on bended knees, the Judas-kisses — are all calcu-
lated to inspire terror and pity. 'Stich is the scene from la Duchesse
de Langeais, when the unhappy woman is brought before her lover
who proposes to brand her with the infamous mark of the galley-
convict. Here we have a striking example of the romantic melo-
drama, the "drame populaire" which was holding the boards of so
many of the Paris theatres of the epoch. The scene is thoroughly
romantic, and the characters are exaggerated, but the elements of
drama are present: an anticipatory excitement produced by the
intrigue, where we ask ourselves what is going to happen; and the
purely physical effects produced upon our nerves by the setting.
Such, finally, is the short but poignant scene of farewell between the
two old soldiers, Hulot and Marshal Cottin, from la Cousine Bette,
revealing with subtle skill the intimate bond of friendship between
them, and calculated to send thrills of pity and sympathy through
the readers:
Adieu, Cottin, dit le vieillard en prenant la main du prince de Wissembourg, je
me sens I'ame gelee. . . .
Puis, apres avoir fait un pas, il se retourna, regarda le prince qu'il vit emu forte-
ment, il ouvrit les bras pour I'y serrer, et le prince embrassa le marechal.
— II me semble que je dis adieu, dit-il, a toute la grande armee en ta personne. . . .
— Oui, adieu, car je viis ou sont tous ceux de nos soldats que nous avons
pleur^s.*"
In such scenes as these the novelist and his narrative retire for
the moment, the documentary framework of the novel drops, reveal-
ing moments of action and dialogue, unmarred by useless detail,
which might be transferred without the change of a word to the
^^■La Cousine Bette, CEuvres, Vol. X, p. 305.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 143
stage. Once, giving an analysis of la Chartreuse de Parme, Balzac
wrote the following phrase :
Les portraits sont courts. Peu de mots suffisent a M. Beyle, qui peint ses person-
nages et par Taction et par dialogue; il ne fatigue pas de descriptions, il court au drama,
et y arrive par un mot, par une reflexion.^^
And how often Balzac has done the same thing himself!
We are now prepared to ask why Balzac, who in his novels
possesses to such a high degree the dramatic gift, who has penetrated
character so finely, and has exhibited such powers of observation,
should have failed when he approached the stage.
His failure is due to several causes.
'/ First of all, the novelist, who had toiled with such herculean
labor towards the perfection of his style, whose whole literary career
was marked by progress based on past defeats, put little of this
immense effort into his plays. We have seen how a number of the
plays were written to relieve pressing financial conditions, while
the author was at the same time overwhelmed with work on the
Human Comedy. As a result, this theatrical approach became
feverish and careless. "C'est toujours le temps qui me manque,"
was the repeated cry of the dramatist. Lacking time, and in des-
perate need of money, he did not undertake with seriousness the
primary tasks of a playwright: the careful working out of his scenario,
the grouping of his scenes into acts, the determination of the succes-
sive steps of his intrigue. He seems never to have had a clear vision
of dramatic psychology with which to start his task, and his charac-
ters were improvised in haste. In spite of his excellent and clearly
defined critical notions about the contemporary stage, he had him-
self no fixed ideas about writing plays. He was swayed by popular
opinion, and acceptrd the most varied advice from his friends. In
the beginning, we have seen him appealing to various authors for
help, without first setting himself to the task. Gautier, Laurent- Jan,
Ourliac and Lassailly helped him in the composition of Vautrin.
With assurance he was ready to take the type that had made Henry
Monnier famous, and to make his Prudhomme the only Prudhomme.
To Gautier again he went for help with Richard Cosur-d'eponge.
1^ La Revue parisienm, September 25, 1840. (Euvres, Vol. XXIII, p. 735.
144 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
It was especially in moments of financial depression that Balzac
wrote for the stage. At such times as these, he was influenced by
popular productions and sought to amuse his audiences by writing
parts for popular actors. So we find him, after Lemaitre's immense
success in Robert Macaire, writing for him the romantic role of a
convict purified through love, the part of a drunken carpenter in
Richard Coeur-d'eponge, and the adulterous husband in Vl^cole des
menages. For the melodramatic talent of Mme Dorval he wrote the
part of Brancadori the courtezan, and of Gertrude, seeing with bitter
disappointment the latter role given to another actress. To Pereme,
he writes that the success of VEcole des menages depends on securing
a certain young actress whom he sought for the part of Anna.^^
Balzac was influenced by the romantic drama, and later by the
"drame de cape et d'epee," but he felt that he was unable to master
the scenic effects of the historical play, and after Quinola it was"
abandoned. Historical tragedy cast aside, there was the ever
popular melodrama, and it was in this field that he courted his public.
With no single fixed tendency, his drama then reveals a confusion of
theories.
To catch popular favor Balzac proposed to write for popular
actors after popular forms. What then is the result of this frivolity?
A bourgeois tragedy after the style of Mercier and Diderot, with a
mingling of emotional melodrama — VEcole des menages and la
Mar aire -J an appeal to the romantic imaginations of those who like
to see the purging of a criminal soul by nobility — Vautrin; a historical
spectacle after the manner of Dumas, with excessively romantic
characters — Quinola; a frank melodrama — Pamela Giraud. In none
of these plays has Balzac risen above the forms already in vogue, and
in none, with the exception of Mercadet, which must stand alone, is
there an attempt to apply the rigorous realism exhibited in the
Human Comedy, or the verity of character composition which would
have made him the forerunner of Augier.
A still more weighty reason for Balzac's failure on the stage was
his lack of knowledge of theatrical construction. His novelistic
methods were a constant hindrance to him, consequently, the plays
lack proportion and measure. Quinola, for example, contains a
prologue of fourteen scenes; in the same play there are nineteen
scenes in the first act, twenty-two in the second, twenty each in the
" December 11, 1838. Cited by Lovenjoul, Autour de Honore de Balzac, p. 130.
THE BEAM A OF HONORE DE BALZAC 145
third and fourth acts, leaving six to complete the long and tiresome
action. The greatest fault of la Mardtre, a play which contains
none the less some of the best dramatic scenes that Balzac has
written, is just this lack of restraint. The greatest fault of Mercadet
also, we have seen, is the superabundance of dialogue. In the wealth
of material which suggested itself to the dramatist he found the
greatest difficulty in choosing the significant traits, and in exposing
them with relief. He became hopelessly confused in documentation;
he threw out countless suggestions which were never followed out;
in other words, he was attempting to express by the drama what
might better have been 'said in the novel. The dramatic talent,
of which we have such ample proof in the Human Comedy, was slow
to develop into what we may call the theatrical talent. The novelist
who succeeded, after years of patient toil, in making his characters
live and in building an intrigue, was unable to forsake the looser
framework and compress his action into the rigid form demanded by
the stage.
Writing in haste after popular models, Balzac has failed in
the delineation of character. His stage figures have all the
serious exaggerations of the extravagant heroes of the Human
Comedy without that subtle analysis which makes such figures
tolerable in the novel. Under the influence of the romantic drama
Vautrin and Fontanares were conceived, exceptional beings, weighed
down by fatality, lacking the lyricism and the poetry which permit
such creations to live in the plays of Hugo or Dumas. Gerard is a
shadowy Baron Hulot, whose senile passion before the footlights
is grotesque rather than vicious. Adrienne Guerin, conceived by
the author first as a female Tartuffe, is represented finally as a
romantic heroine purified through her struggle, and become generous-
hearted; a safe appeal to an unlettered public. Gertrude, a char-
acter so dramatically set forth in the first two acts, develops into
the same sort of melodramatic heroine, a creature of violent emotions,
lacking all repose and restraint.
Mercadet, of all the characters, and of all the plays, remains
worthy of Balzac's name. Completed after the failure of his first
dramas, a play which had been revised and reworked at various
times, this comedy displays a serious interest in the stage, and reveals
the fact that the author had acquired by perseverance and patience
a knowledge of theatrical exigencies. Balzac chose as his subject a
phase of contemporary life with which he was familiar. We feel here
for the first time the keen and penetrating interest of the author
146 THE DRAMA OF H0N0R1& DE BALZAC
of Cesar BirotteaUj at work in a dramatic field. Moreover, here for
{ the first time, in spite of the promise which la Mardtre gives, Balzac
I has worked out a play along realistic lines. He has made Mercadet
j the forerunner of the modern money play. Here for the first time
is treated the relation of money to domestic happiness, the clouding
of a man's moral sense by the dubious manipulation of funds. The
f interest in this financial question has led Balzac to the painting of a
single character, a character of present-day society, based upon the
author's own observation.
Balzac's failure to grasp a proper theatrical perspective has been
the common lot of novelists writing for the stage, and the history
of the drama abounds in such failures. The inability to compress
action into such limits as are set by the stage and the ignorance of
dramatic conventions are only too apparent in the sentimental
comedies of George Sand. Zola, staunch upholder of the natural-
istic drama, might well have contented himself with his social and
scientific novels instead of offering them, lugubrious and ghastly,
before the footlights. Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, in a study of the
drama of Robert Louis Stevenson," has pointed out several reasons
for this novelist's lack of success on the stage: the inability to realize
that a play must be the product of hard labor, and consequently a
levity of approach; an ignorance of the art of the theatre and
of dramatic fitness. We are struck by the similarity of causes
between Balzac's failures and those of Stevenson. Like Stevenson,
Balzac did not find the time to develop the dramatic talent which
was latent in him and fit it to the stage; nor did he cast aside as
unworthy the outworn models which he slavishly followed, but
whose faults he fully recognized. Like the Scotch novelist, Balzac
was a great enough critic to realize that a play like Vautrin was after
all a shoddy melodrama, a sort of "act-it-or-let-it-rot" piece, to borrow
Stevenson's phrase about his own adaptation of Robert MacaireM
At the close of his life, with the Human Comedy near completion,
and with a clear and definite comprehension of the dramatist's
task, Balzac writes:
La sculpture est comme I'art dramatique, a la fois le plus difficile et le plus facile
de tous les arts. Copiez un modele, et I'oeuvre est accomplie; mais y imprimer una
ime, faire un t)^e en representant un homme ou une femme, c'est le p6ch6 de Pro-
m6thee.i5
^' Robert Louis Stevenson as a Dramatist. Publications of the Dramatic Museum
of Columbia University, no. 4, 1914.
1* Letter to Henley, 1885.
^ La Cousine Bette, (Euvres, Vol. X, p. 196.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I
WORKS OF BALZAC
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II
CRITICAL WORKS
Barriers, Marcel, VCEuvre de Honore de Balzac, itude Uttiraire et philosophique sur
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3 Chapters VIII, IX and X, le Theatre de Balzac, appeared originally in le Quin-
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THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 149
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Beaufort, "La Maratre." Le Moniteur universel, June 8, 1848.
Brisset, M.-J., "Mercadet, le faiseur." La Gazette de France, August 25, 1851.
Brisson, a., "Promenades et visites. Fr6d6rick Lemaitre, Marie Laurent, Marie Dor-
val." Le Temps, May 31, 1901.
6 First edition: Calmann-L6vy, 1879. Second edition: revue, corrig6e et aug-
ment6e d'un appendice, Calmann-Levy, 1886.
7 Published later in Vol. XXIV of the (Euvres completes de Honor e de Balzac, Cal-
mann-L6vy.
"Essay on Balzac originally appeared in le Journal des dibats, February and
March, 1858.
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 151
Brunetiere, Ferdinand, "Honore de Balzac: conference faire a Tours, le 7 mai,
1899." Le Temps, May 8, 1899.
Charlier, Gustave, "Comment fut ecrit le Dernier Jour d'un condamnS" Revue
d'histoire litter aire, July-December, 1915.
Claretie, Jules, "L'Ecole des menages." Le Temps, March 29, 1907.
Des Granges, Charles-Marie, "Balzac au theatre." Le Correspondant, January 25,
1906.
Ermel, Calixte, "La Maratre." L'Opinion publique, May 29, 1848.
Ernest-Charles, J., '^U Ecole des menages de Balzac." L'Opinion, March 19, 1910.
"La Reprise de Pamela Giraud." VOpinion, February 3, 1917.
£tienne, Louis, "Les Hommes d'argent dans la comedie frangaise." Revue des deux
mondes, October 1 and 15, 1870.
Faguet, Emile, "Mercadet." Journal des debats, February 11, 1899.
Ferry, Gabriel, "Balzac, auteur dramatique." Revue d'art dramatique, March 15,
1893.
"Balzac et Adolphe D'Ennery." Revue d'art dramatique, July 15, 1894.
"Les Interpretes de Balzac au theatre: Leopold Barr6." Revue bleue, August 15,
1896.
Flat, Paul, "Balzac, auteur dramatique." Revue d'art dramatique, April 15, 1894.'
Gabillard, Paul, "Une Piece inedite de Balzac. [V £.cole des m enagesV Le Gaulois,
May 20 and 21, 1899.
Gilbert, E., "Une Tragedie bourgeoise inMite, V Ecole des manages, avec un historique
de la piece." Revue hebdomadaire, July 20, 1907.
GiNiSTY, Paul, "De quoi est fait Vautrin?" Journal desdibats. May 27, 1910.
Gautier, Th^ophile, Dramatic criticism in la Presse, especially the following:
"L'ficole des menages," March 11, 1839; "Vautrin," March 18, 1840; "Pam61a
Giraud," September 30, 1843; "la Maratre," May 29, 1848.^0
"La Reprise de Vautrin," Le Journal officiel, April 5, 1869.
Guinot, Eugene (Pierre Durand), "L'ficole des menages." Le Steele, March 17,
1839."
"Vautrin." Le Courrier franqais, March 16, 1840.
ELaas, J., "Balzacs £,cole des menages" Zeitschrift fur Vergleichende Litteraturge-
schichte, N. F. XVII, 1909.
Henriot, £mile, "La Bibliotheque Spoelberch de Lovenjoul." Le Temps, February
18, 1913.
"La Collection Spoelberch de Lovenjoul a Chantilly." Les Annates romantiques,
Vol. XI, 1914, fascicule 1.
Hervey, C, "Balzac at the Odeon." Longman's Magazine, Vol. VI, 1885.
HOSTEIN, H., "Souvenirs d'un directeur de th^^tre: Pierre et Catherine, drame histori-
que projete par M . de Balzac. Comment il a fait la Mardtre." Le Figaro, October
20, 1876.12
Janin, Jules, Dramatic criticism in le Journal des debats, especially the following:
"Vautrin, Fr6derick Lemaitre," March 16, 1840; "les Ressources de Quinola,"
' See supra, Seconds Essais sur Balzac.
^° See supra, Gautier, Histoire de Vart dramatique.
" Article cited by Lovenjoul, Autour de Honor e de Balzac, pp. 145-50.
^2 Citations made by Lovenjoul, Histoire des ceuvres de Balzac, 3rd edition, p. 389.
152 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
. March 21, 1842; "la Preface de Quinola," April 18, 1842; "Pamela Giraud,"
October 2, 1843; "la Mardtre," May 29, 1848; "Mercadet le faiseur," August 25,
1851.
Kent, P., "How la Mardtre Came to be Written." The Theatre, Vol. VII, 4th Series,
1866, pp. 233-44.
LiCHTENBERGER, Andre, "VOrgoti de Balzac." Journal des dSbats, May 27, 1899.
LiREUX, AuGUSTE, "Mercadet." Le Constitutionnel, August 25, 1851.
LiTTLEFEELD, W., "Balzac as Playwright." The Critic, October, 1902.
LuRiNE, Louis, "Mercadet." Messager de Vassemblee, August 25, 1851.
"Philinte et Mercadet." Messager de Vassemblee, September 1, 1851.
"La Peau de chagrin: adaptation par Judicis." Messager de VassembUe, Septem-
ber 7, 1851.
"fitude sur Balzac." La Semaine, May 4, 1856.
M. A., "Quinola." Le Courrier franqais, March 21, 1842.
Marsan, Jules, "Le M61odrame et Guilbert de Pix6r6court." Revue d'histoire
litter aire, Vol. VII, 1900, pp. 196-220.
"Le Theatre historique et le romantisme (1818-1829) ." Revue d'histoire litt irairCy
Vol. XVII, 1910, pp. 1-33.
MoL^NES, G. DE, "Le5 Ressources de Quinola de Balzac." Revue des deux mondeSy
April 1, 1842.
"Simples Essais d'histoire litteraire: Balzac." Revue des deux mondes, November
1, 1842.
Moore, George, "Shakespeare et Balzac." Revu^e bleue, February 26 and March 5,
1910.13
N., "Vautrin." La Gazette de France, March 18, 1840.
"Pamela Giraud." La Gazette de France, October 3, 1843.
Nerval, Gerard de, "L'ficole des manages." La Presse, October 7, 1850.
Parisis, "Balzac au th6atre." Le Figaro, April 9, 1894.
Pascal, F^licien, "Le Theatre et I'argent." Le Correspondant, May 10, 1909.
Pene, H. de, "Mercadet le faiseur." U Opinion publique, August 25, 1851.
Rod, Ed., "Balzac et son historien [Lovenjoul]." Journal des debats, July 25, 1897.
RoLLAND, AutntE, "H. dc Balzac." Le Diogene." August 24, 1856.
Roz, FiRMiN, "L' Nicole des m enages par Balzac." Revue bleue, March 26, 1910.
RzEwusKi, S., "Le Theatre de Balzac k I'etranger." Le Gaulois, January 30, 1899.
Sauvage, T., "Les Ressources de Quinola." Le Moniteur universal, March 23, 1842.
"Mercadet le faiseur." Le Moniteur universel, August 26, 1851.
Second, A., "La Centieme Representation de Mercadet." Le Constitutionnel, June 18,
1852.14
Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, Charles vicomte de, "Les Aventures de V £,cole des
menages." Le Figaro, September 11, 12, 13, 14 and 16, 1895.1^
"Orgon, comedie de Honore de Balzac." Le Figaro, May 21, 1899.
"A Propos de la recherche et de la physionomie des noms dans I'oevre de Honor6
de Balzac." Journal des debats, February 7 and 8, 1895.^^
Thierry, Ed., "Les Ressources de Quinola." La France litteraire, April 3, 1842.
^ Same article translated for the Century, May, 1914.
1* Reprinted in 1858 in a volume of the same title. See supra.
^ Reprinted in Autour de Honore de Balzac, pp. 91-195. See supra.
!• Reprinted in Un Roman d' amour, pp. 113-158. See supra.
APPENDIX!
I
Cromwell
The complete manuscript of Cromwell, a tragedy in five acts and
in verse, is found in the Collection Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, at Chan-
tilly: A 49. It consists of 68 sheets, written on both sides, of which
numbers 13, 14, 27, 28, 43, 64, 65 and 68 are blank. Scene 5 of act
III and scene 2 of act IV do not exist.
On the last page of his manuscript, fol. 67 verso, Balzac has left
several interesting notes relative to the sources of certain scenes in
his drama.
The second scene of act II, in which Charles I meets his wife
disguised in ragged garments, after a long and grievous separation,
Balzac tells us was inspired by the scene from Euripides' Phoenician
Maidens between Polynices and his mother, Jocasta. The long
monologue from act IV, we learn, was also inspired by Euripides.
Henrietta's imprecations from act V, in which she vows vengeance
against England and her enemies, Balzac declares was inspired by
Virgil's Dido — yEneid, Book IV — and by Corneille's Camille — Horace,
act IV, scene 5.
The list of characters reads as follows:
CROMWELL
PERSONNAGES
Charles I^', roi d'Angleterre
Marie Henriette, sa femme
Strafford, fils du nainistre d6capit6
Lord Fairfax, general parlementaire
Cromwell
Ireton, gendre de Cromwell
Lambert, major de l'arm6e de Cromwell
Fleetvold
Barclay
Bradshaw / principaux amis de Cromwell;
Harrisson ) personnages muets
Ludlow
Thurloe
Falcombridge
^ For the material on Cromwell and Richard Cceur-d^ eponge in this appendix I am
indebted to Monsieur Georges Vicaire, Curator of the Collection Spoelberch de Loven-
joul, at Chantilly, through whom I obtained the authorization to have photographed
several pages of each manuscript, and to Monsieur Marcel Bouteron, Librarian of the
Institut de France, whose notes accompanying the photographs have proved inval-
uable.
154 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
Percy )
Lambot > membres du Parlement
Suffolk )
Tous les membres du Parlement
La scene se passa a Westminster.
Le quatrieme acte se passe dans la Salle des seances du Parlement. Les autres
actes sont dans I'endroit de Westminster oijl se trouve I'entree des tombeaux des rois
d'Angleterre.
CROMWELL
MONOLOGUE OF CHARLES I
Act II, Scene I
Le Roi, seul
Heureux, cent fois heureux, s'il connait son bonheur,
Celui qui, loin des cours, a su fuir la grandeur!
S'il n'a pas, au berceau, le poids d'une couronne,
(Que le Ciel nous ravit, pour montrer qu'il la donne!)
II ne vit pas d'erreurs! il n'eut pas a signer
Le supplice de ceux que j'ai dii condamner,
Et s'il cultive en paix son modeste heritage,
De toute ma tempete, il n'a que le nuage! . . .
Vous tous qui gouvernez, m6ditez sur mes vers,
Ce que vient d'y graver le Roi de I'univers:
"II ne vous sufl&t pas de ceindre un diademe,
"Pour avoir la science et regner par vous-m6me,
"Dans I'histoire des temps apprenez les legons
"Que ma puissante mais adresse aux nations.
"En son ordre immuable, imitez la nature,
"De votre coeur, en tout, ecoutez le murmure;
"J'ai fait la conscience un tribunal aux rois,
"Et tout I'erreur des cours n'6touffe pas sa voix!
"Elle vous dit assez que la sainte justice
"Ne doit pas, en aveugle, ob6ir au caprice,
"Qu'elle ne vous rend pas majestueux et grands,
"Pour etre a vos sujets des eternels tyrans. ..."
In the margin, at the head of this monologue, Balzac has written:
J'ai I'intention de changer en totalite ce monologue. II est trop long, et ne cor-
respond pas a la noblesse du caractere du roi.
II . .
Richard Cceur-D'Eponge
In 1835, Balzac mentions a play which was to occupy his atten-
tion for a number of years. He writes to his sister in October of
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 155
that year that he is completing a novel called la Fleur-des-pois,^
and also a play, Richard Coeur-d'eponge.^ The latter statement is
incorrect, for only fragments of this play were ever written and pre-
served by their author.^ These fragments have become the property
of the Institut de France, forming a part of the Lovenjoul collection
at Chantilly.^
The oldest versions of Richard Co3ur-d'eponge antedate 1835 and
the letter mentioned above. Of these primitive sketches, the first
contains only portions of a first act through scene five, which is
incomplete,^ while the second contains merely a clean copy of the
first three scenes.^ The casts of these original versions read as
follows :
First Version Second Version
Richard, 6b6niste Richard, tapissier
Godeau, marchand d'acajou^ Godeau, marchand de meubles
Duval pere, foumisseur Duval pere, ancien fournisseur
Anatole Duval, son fils Anatole Duval, son fils
Finnin, domestique Marignac [ jeunes gens, amis
Braulard, ouvrier Verville )d' Anatole
Julie Richard Firmin, domestique
Marignac Braulard, ouvrier menuisier
Verville
La schne est dans I'appartement de Le premier acte se passe k I'hdtel de
Duval fils, a la Maison Duval. Duval p^re, dans I'appartement de son
fils.
In 1835, Balzac did little work on his play which he then planned
to make a two-act comedy, with the title role for the actor, Bouffe.
' Title under which le Contral de mariage was first printed.
3 Corr., p. 225.
* Lovenjoul, in Autour de Honors de Balzac, p. 57, mentions the possible existence
of a complete version of the play: "Nous possedons, datant d'6poques bien diff6rentes,
de nombreux fragments de Richard Cceur-d' 6ponge, dont I'auteur s'occupa toute sa
vie, et dont la seule version complete, remise, dit-on, a Fr6d6rick Lemaitre, aurait,
parait-il, 6te perdue par lui."
^H. de Balzac: Richard Coeur-d' eponge. Fragments. Manuscrit incomplet.
Collection Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, A 208. This manuscript consists of 63 sheets, of
which numbers 8 to 13, 20 to 30, 46, 48, 52, 55 and 60 are blank.
® Contains nine pages and cast.
' Contains eight pages. In this version Balzac mentions three other theatrical
projects: la Fille et la femme, la Veille et le lendetnain (3 acts and 6 tableaux), and
Gobseck.
8 Balzac utihzed the name, Godeau, in Mer cadet, giving it to the missing business
associate of the stock-jobber.
156 THE DRAMA OF HONOr£ DE BALZAC
He drew up a new list of characters, and wrote one scene for the two
lovers.^ The cast reads as follows:
PERSONNAGES ACTEURS
Richard, surnomme Coeur-d'6ponge, 6b6mste Boufi
Lemomd, entrepreneur en bailments, ami de Richard Verville
Adele, fille de Richard Euginie Sauvage
Adrien de Vaudrey Paul
Justin, son valet de chambre Bordier
Jules de Marignac Allan
Bonebault, premier ouvrier
Ouvriers, etc
La scene se passe au faubourg Saint- Antoine, k Paris, dans la boutique de Richard.
Richard est un homme de cinquante ans. Lemoine en a trente-six environ. Ce
sont deux amis intimes, ^ la vie a la mort. Richard a pour sa fille une passion aveugle.
EUe est la plus belle personne du faubourg. Elle a vingt ans. Adrien de Vaudrey
est un jeune homme de vingt-cinq ans, d6guis6 par amour pour Adele en ouvrier, et
qui, depuis un an, apprend I'^tat d'6b6niste. — L' action a lieu au commencement du
Consulat.
In 1840, Balzac made another venture with his play, this time
writing a plan of the first act, the opening scene of the first act, a
part of a scene between Richard and his daughter, and a monologue
by Richard. On this occasion the play was offered to Frederick
Lemaitre, but the latter refused it. His reasons are set forth in the
following letter which Balzac wrote to Mme Hanska:
Frederick Lemaitre a repousse mon drame de Richard Cceur-d'eponge en disant
que la paternity 6tait un sentiment egoiste qui avait peu de chances pour un succ^s
aupres des masses. II n'a pas 6te d'ailleurs content du denouement, et comme il faut
ne lui donner a jouer que ce qu'il aime a jouer, il a bien 6t6 de n6cessit6 de chercher une
autre piece. Elle est enfin trouv6e, et je vous 6cris au milieu des travaux que necessite
Mercadet}"^
Balzac was finding much difficulty with the composition of his
play, and for this reason he searched about for outside aid. Theophile
Gautier offered to help him arrange it for the Theatre des Varietes."
On the last day of the year 1845, the two met at dinner at the home of
Delphine Gay — Mme de Girardin — to discuss the project with Nestor
^ This version contains altogether eleven pages.
" LEL, Vol. I, p. 536. May 10, 1840.
" Corr., p. 458. November 20, 1845. See also letter to Mme Hanska, dated
December 12, 1845, and published in la Revue des deux mondes, March 15, 1920, a
part of which reads as follows:
"Demain, je vais avec Glandaz k la Conciergerie. [Theophile] Gautier veut me
servir de g^cheur pour la piece Richard Coeur-d'iponge et le directeur des Vari6t6s
livre sa troupe. II est vraisemblable que je risquerai cette partie, tout en finissant
les Paysans, et [que] je n^gocierai pour la prime, k la Comedie-Francaise. II faut tant
d'argent!"
THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC 157
Roqueplan, director of the Varietes, at the conclusion of which it was
agreed that there was no pressing need to complete the play, and it
was abandoned. 12
A final page of manuscript, containing a proposed cast of Richard
Cosur-d'' eponge for the Theatre Historique, was prepared by Balzac
after the opening of that theatre in 1847, and reads as follows:
Richard Duret, dit Cceur-d'6ponge, 6b6niste Socage
Pintard, marchand de bois des iles Rog^
Mayer, foumisseur Bignon^^
Paul Mayer, son fils Laferriere
Christophe, ouvrier Lepetit{?)
Jacques Milon, valet de chambre Monrose^^
Joseph Guichard J ^^g^^p^^l
Adolphe Petit )
Carmagnole, domestique de Mayer Gaspari
C^cile Duret Mme Albert
3 ouvriers
2 domestiques
RICHARD C(EUR-D'£PONGE
OPENING MONOLOGUE FROM THE EARLIEST VERSION
Acte Premier
Scene Premiere
Firmin (seul)
Voici done le jour de la vengeance arrive. Enfin! Ah, vieux p^re Duval, autre-
fois domestique comme moi chez le due de Drancey, tu es devenu foumisseur de ta
Republique, riche a millions, et tu t'es moqu6 de moi, tu m'as laiss6 domestique, tu
m'as jou6 en faisant mettre k ton nom seul le trait6 des fourrages, et tu m'as demand6
si j 'avals des fonds, moi qui alors 6tais tout puissant aux Jacobins! . . . Et puis, au
moment ou j'allais vous faire guillotiner, nous avons eu le malheur de perdre ce bon et
excellent Monsieur de Robespierre! . . . Et je suis retombe dans la crotte au moment
oii j'allais dire aupere Duval: la moiti6de ton quibus, ou ta tete. . . . Ena-t-ilfait
du chemin depuis ce temps-la? II a achete des hdtels, des biens nationaux, et est 116
avec Monsieur de Barras. Son fils est I'ami de Madame de Bonaparte. . . . Les
citoyens directeurs ne jurent que par lui, et le voila dans les secrets du general en chef
des armees d'Orient qui va peut-6tre confisquer tout a son profit. ... II va devenir
un personnage, et moi, je reste valet de chambre, moi qui ai plus d'esprit que lui;
mais j'ai jou6 de malheur, et je pensais au pouvoir quand il briguait a I'argent. . . .
^2 Corr., pp. 486-7. January 4, 1846. See also letter of Mme de Girardin to Balzac,
pubhshed by Lovenjoul in la Genese d'un roman de Balzac. Les Paysans, p. 253.
^3 Creator of Fontanares, in les Ressources de Quinola, at the Odeon, March 19,
1842.
1* Creator of Quinola at the Od6on, March 19, 1842.
158 THE DRAMA OF HONORE DE BALZAC
III
Prose Plan of "Orgon," Act I
Spoelberch de Lovenjoul has published in Le Figaro, May 21, 1899,
the following fragment of Orgon, a projected play, the first act of
which was versified by the poet, Amedee Pommier, following faith-
fully a prose version made by Balzac. Except for one page of this
version, which is reproduced below, a list of characters and a few
notes made by the author,^^ all trace of Balzac's Orgon has been lost.
Scene Premiere
Dorine, Damis
Dorine. — ^Monsieur, vous fites bien de servir le Roi, et Thabit de mousquetaire
vous sied; vous avez bonne fagon; mais de la vie militaire prenez le bon, laissez le
mauvais. Vous avez affaire a des seigneurs qui, sur I'article de d6s et cartes, en savent
plus que vous. Deux fois d6ja j'ai pris sur moi de parler a votre p^re. Mais, pour
cette derniere fredaine, je n'y puis rien. Adressez-vous a Mme votre grand'm^re,
Mme Pernelle, qui, maintenant, est la seule qui ecoute.
Damis. — Les affaires d'honneur ne souffrent pas de retard, et je quitterai la com-
pagnie apres m'^tre battu. Ce sera plus cher, car il faudra quitter le royaume, et mon.
p^re sera plus chagrin de ceci; sans compter mon entretien ^ I'dtranger.
Dorine. — Et pourquoi jouez-vous?
Damis. — Je suis mousquetaire.
Dorine. — N'y a-t-il que du jeu? . . .
Damis. — ^Le jeu . . .
Dorine. — Quelques soupers a la Pomme-de-Pin? Vous donnez tous aussi par
trop de soucis a ce pauvre M. Orgon! Pour madame, ce sont a chaque instant ajuste-
ments nouveaux. EUe est de toutes les fetes et ne fait plus qu'i sa tete. Votre sceur
et Valere voient la belle compagnie, qui vient, va, mange, et vous avez tous des raisons
k donner. Le maitre seul a tort.
Damis. — N'en parlons plus. J'emprunterai; ce sera bien plus dommageable, car
I'usurier est cher en diable!
Dorine. — AUons, je tacherai de le bien disposer.
Damis. — Done, tu lui demanderas ces mille pistoles?
Dorine. — Tudieu! Vous allez vite en paroles! Croyez-vous qu'on extrait cet
argent d'un vieillard soucieux, exigeant, etc., en lui disant: "Votre fils vous demande
mille pistoles; donnez-les lui!" Une pareille demande fait tout refuser. Le voici.
Laissez-moi faire. De toutes les manieres de demander, la directe est la plus mauvaise.
Damis. — C'est vrai, rien ne va droit dans la nature, ni le soleil, ni la femme.
Scene Deuxieme
Les memes, Orgon
Dorine, d Damis. — II a, vous le voyez, mal dormi. Ce n'est pas un beau r6veil,
que de lui dire: "Votre fils a perdu cette nuit." Vous avez eu la joie, et c'est ^ nous
qu'il en cuit.
Orgon. — J'en 6tais sur; des que je suis chouche, ma. . . .
August 14, 1920.
« See p. 30.
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