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BALZAC: A MEMOIR 
 
BALZAC'S NOVELS. 
 
 Translated by Miss K. P. Wormeley. 
 
 Already Published: 
 PERE GORIOT. 
 DUCHESSE DE LAWGEAIS. 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU. 
 EUGENIE GRANDET. 
 COUSIN PONS. 
 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR. 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 THE ALKAHEST. 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 THE MAGIC SKIN (Peau de Chagrin). 
 COUSIN BETTE. 
 LOUIS LAMBERT. 
 BUREAUCRACY (Les Employes). 
 SERAPHITA. 
 SONS OF THE SOIL. 
 FAME AND SORROW. 
 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY. 
 URSULA. 
 AN HISTORICAL MYSTERY. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 
 BOSTON. 
 
' f\e rue • 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVEBSITl 
 
A MEMOIR 
 
 OF 
 
 HoNORE DE Balzac 
 
 COMPILED AND WRITTEN BY 
 
 KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY 
 
 HERS 
 
 3 SOMERSET STREET 
 
 BOSTON 
 1892 
 
Copyright, 1892, 
 By Rqberts Brothers. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 Sanibersttg ^tes2: 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter Pa'ge 
 
 I. Introductory 1 
 
 II. His Sister, Madame Surville's Narra- 
 tive 5 
 
 III. Childhood and Youth 47 
 
 IV. His Sister's Narrative Continued . . 70 
 V. Early Manhood 113 
 
 VI. Literary Life 149 
 
 VII. Judgment of Contemporary Friends . 192 
 
 VIII. His Sister's Narrative Concluded . . 231 
 
 IX. Retrospective 258 
 
 X. Last Years 291 
 
 Appendix 351 
 
 Index 365 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 A Portrait of Balzac, taken one hour after 
 
 DEATH, BY EuGENE GiRAUD Frontispiece 
 
 Madame de Balzac considered this the best likeness of her 
 husband ; she bequeathed it to her niece, Mnie. de Saint- 
 Yves, who allowed Lord Lytton to take a photograph of it. 
 Lord Lytton, in turn, permitted the publisher of " Le Livre 
 Moderne " to cop}' it, and it was first given to the world in 
 that periodical, Sept. 10, 1891. 
 
 A Sketch of the Prison of the College de 
 
 Vendome 53 
 
 Drawn from nature b}' A. Queyroy for Cliampfleur3''s 
 pamphlet, " Balzac au College." 
 
EBSITl 
 
 HONORE^l^E^ALZAa 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 A COMPLETE life of Balzac cannot be written at the 
 present time, and possibly never can be. The necessary 
 documents either do not exist or they are not obtain- 
 able. Unpublished letters and papers there are, in pos- 
 session of the compatriot who best understood him and 
 who ought to write his life, if it be ever written, — the 
 Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul ; but it is doubtful 
 if even these papers will throw light on that inner self 
 which Balzac's own will, aided by circumstances, with- 
 drew from the knowledge of others. There are periods 
 in his life when he disappears. Nearly the whole of 
 what he was to himself, what his own being was, what 
 were the influences that moulded it, how that eye that 
 saw the manifold lives of others saw his own life, how 
 that soul which crowned its earthly work with a vision 
 of the Living Word was nurtured, — what that soul 
 was, in short, has been concealed from sight. 
 
 Wiien he reappears, it is chiefly as he was seen and 
 known bj^ his literary friends and associates in Paris ; 
 bearing up against the trials of a hard life with his 
 hearty Tourainean gaj'ety, battling for his rights with 
 
2 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 editors and publishers, and letting the reaction from his 
 heavy toil and from the inward stress of his spirit have 
 full swing in the eccentric joviality which was a phase 
 of his nature. This is almost the sole aspect under 
 which the man, taken apart from his work, has been 
 made known to the world. The men who saw him 
 thus, his literary associates, had the ear of the pubUc, 
 and to this day their books and publications, with two 
 or three exceptions, remain, not false perhaps, but mis- 
 leading, — so misleading that they have concealed the 
 real man and have forced us to look at the feet of the 
 statue, not suffering us to see its head. Unfortunately, 
 the}^ are the text-books from which the present gener- 
 ation of writers and readers derive their ideas of Balzac 
 in his manhood. 
 
 Of his childhood and early youth his sister Laure, 
 Madame Surville, has written a charmingly sincere and 
 simple narrative. If read in connection with the parts 
 of Balzac's books which are derived from that period of 
 his life, a sufficient idea of him as child and youth will 
 be obtained by those who will take some pains to study 
 the subject. But Madame Surville pauses on the thresh- 
 old of his manhood. She gives certain facts of his 
 struggling life, and relates his conduct under them ; but 
 to the man himself, the matured spirit, the great soul 
 who has bequeathed to us so rich a legac}^, we are left 
 without a guide. Madame Surville says, at the close of 
 her little book, written six years after his death, that the 
 time might come when she would complete her account 
 of his life and show another aspect of his character ; but 
 the time, apparently-, never came. 
 
 The next authentic source of information, his corres- 
 
Honors de Balzac. 3 
 
 pondence, throws much invaluable light on his ideas 
 and opinions about his books, and also (in the letters 
 to Madame Hanska) on the closing years of his life ; 
 but on the formative years of his youth and early man- 
 hood they are silent. By his own will, apparently, 
 little trace of his real self at that period, or in his middle 
 manhood, remains, except as it ma}- be found in his 
 writings. Of the records left by the contemporaries who 
 knew him, that of Theophile Gautier is incomparably 
 the best. Materialist himself, and seeing Balzac chiefly 
 on his material side, which was very strong and real, he 
 nevertheless has left us almost the only true apprecia- 
 tion of Balzac's spirit shown in the writings of those 
 who came in contact with him. It would seem as 
 though the sincere affection which united them gave 
 him insight, if not intuition. 
 
 Scattered among the writings of his associates are a 
 few just estimates of Balzac as a man ; but even these 
 are derived from a one-sided knowledge of him. George 
 Sand, with her broad, generous, and loving spirit, knew 
 him personally, and comprehended him in her waj\ 
 Champfleur}^ saw him at the close of his life for a short 
 time only, but he has made a good portrait of him, and 
 records the fact that having read all which up to that 
 time had been written of Balzac, he found nothing 
 useful or representative. 
 
 It is from tliese various sources, and from two vol- 
 umes written by contemporaries which have done much 
 to mislead the judgment of the world (those of Leon 
 Gozlan and Edmond Werdet) that all memoirs and 
 studies of Balzac as a man have been derived. In fact, 
 the latter are mostly' reproductions of the former, put 
 
4 Honors de Balzac, 
 
 into the language of the compilers, and overlaid with 
 fanciful additions (as in the case of Gabriel Ferry's 
 "Amies de Balzac"), which often obscure real facts, 
 or put them out of focus. 
 
 The sole object of the present volume is to present 
 Balzac to American readers. This memoir is intended 
 to precede the American translations of his work. 
 Translated work is necessarily addressed to those who 
 have not easy access to originals. Bearing this in 
 mind, it has been thought best to go back to the only 
 authentic sources of information and present them in 
 their own words, with such simple elucidations as a 
 close intercourse with Balzac's mind, necessitated by 
 conscientious translation, naturally gives, — an inter- 
 course which cannot be wholly confined to the work of 
 such a mind but, if it exists at all, must reach to the 
 spirit that produced the work. 
 
 The reader is asked to remember that this memoir is 
 meant to be a presentation of the man,* and not of his 
 work, except as it was a part of himself. Three 
 fourths of that work, in translation, is, or will be, before 
 the American public which will thus have the means of 
 judging for itself. 
 
 In giving this volume to the public sincere thanks 
 are offered to those who have encouraged and promoted 
 it : to M. le Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul for 
 the more than courtesy, the cordial kindness with 
 which he answered inquiries ; and to Prof. Edward S. 
 Holden, LL.D., etc., Director of the Lick Observatory, 
 University of California^ for his sympathetic and inspir- 
 ing advice. 
 
Honore de Balzac, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HIS SISTER, MADAME SURVILLE'S NARRATIVE.^ 
 
 I FEEL it a duty to my brother and to the world to 
 publish certain details which, at the present da}', I 
 alone can give, in order that a true and faithful biogra- 
 phy may at some future time be written of the author 
 of the Comedie Humaine. Balzac's friends have urged 
 me to cut short as soon as possible the legendary tales 
 which never fail to collect around illustrious names 
 and so prevent the growth of errors which might come 
 in time to be believed, as to my brother's character 
 and the circumstances of his life. I full}' understand 
 that it is best for me to tell the facts now, while a 
 goodly number of persons are still living to confirm 
 them. 
 
 The Comedie Humaine has excited almost as much 
 antagonism as appreciation. Quite recently certain 
 critics have harshly judged it in the name of religion 
 and morality, — two powers which the opponents of all 
 great renowns have ever sought to summon on their 
 side. I believe that never, at any period of French 
 history, has there been a painter of manners and morale 
 
 1 Balzac, sa vie et ses oeuvres, d'apres sa correspondance, par 
 Mrae. L. Surville, nee de Balzac. 1 vol. Calmann Le'vy, Paris, 
 1878. The book was first published in 1856. 
 
6 Honor e de Balzac, 
 
 who has not incurred the reproach of immorality ; but 
 I find it difficult to imagine what sort of literature 
 would be the outcome of the principles such critics are 
 seeking to impose upon writers, if those who profess 
 them were to put them into practice. For instance, 
 would they succeed in proving that Balzac was mis- 
 taken in his belief that the novel of social life and 
 morals cannot avoid the contrasts of light and shade, 
 and that mankind cannot be rightly instructed by the 
 picture of their virtues only ? 
 
 I have neither the power nor the desire to argue 
 against such judgments ; I am not seeking in these 
 pages to defend my brother. Time, which has laid its 
 chrism upon many a genius insulted and rejected in its 
 day, will assign him his place in the literature of his 
 country. On that judge, who alone is impartial and 
 infallible, we must rely. 
 
 My brother was born at Tours, May 16, 1799, Saint- 
 Honore's day. The name pleased m}" father, and 
 though it had no precedent in either line of the family, 
 he gave it to his son. My mother had lost her first 
 child by endeavoring to nurse it herself A wet-nurse 
 for little Honore was therefore chosen, who lived just 
 outside the gates of the town in an airy house sur- 
 rounded by gardens. My father and mother were so 
 satisfied with this woman that they put me with her 
 and left my brother in her care after he was weaned. 
 He was nearly four j-ears old when we returned to- 
 gether to our father's house. 
 
 Honore's fine health saved our mother from those 
 latent anxieties which commonly find expression in ten- 
 der solicitude and the indulgences which spoil a child, 
 
Honore de Balzac. 7 
 
 but are so dear to it. In those da3's chiklren did not 
 pla}^ the important part now assigned to them in many 
 families. They were not brought into notice ; they were 
 kept children ; and, above all, they were trained in re- 
 spect and obedience to their parents. Our governess, 
 Mademoiselle Delahaye, may have had too much zeal 
 in this direction, for it is certain that, with respect 
 and obedience, she also inspired us with fear. My 
 brother long remembered the small terrors that beset 
 us when she took us to bid good-morning to our mother, 
 or when we entered the latter's presence to wish her 
 good-night. To us these were solemn ceremonies, 
 though repeated dail^'. It is true that by certain signs, 
 previously agreed upon with Mademoiselle, our mother 
 saw (on our faces, she said) the traces of our misdeeds 
 which drew down upon us her stern displeasure, for she 
 alone had the right to punish or reward us. The result 
 was that Honore was neither petted nor transformed 
 into a prodig3' at an age when a child understands its 
 parent's love only through smiles and kisses. If he 
 showed at an early age any sign of the qualities which 
 were destined to make him famous no one remarked it, 
 and no one has since recalled it. He was a charming 
 child; his joyous temper, his smiling, well-cut lips, his 
 great brown eyes, both soft and brilliant, his high fore- 
 head, and his wealth of black hair made him an object 
 of admiration when we were taken to walk in the public 
 promenades. 
 
 FamiW surroundings react so powerfully on the char- 
 acters of children, and exert such influence on their 
 fate that some account of our parents seems to me 
 quite necessary. It will, moreover, serve to explain 
 
8 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 the first events of my brother's youth. Our father, 
 born in Languedoc in 1746, was advocate of the Council 
 under Louis XVI. His profession led him into rela- 
 tions with the notabilities of that time, and with the 
 men whom the "Revolution brought to the surface and 
 made famous. These affiliations enabled him in 1793 
 to save more than one of his old friends- and former 
 protectors. Such services exposed him to some danger, 
 and a very influential Conventional, who felt an interest 
 in citizen Balzac, hastened to remove him from the 
 sight and memory of Robespierre by sending him to 
 the North to organize a commissariat for the army. 
 Thrown thus by chance into the War department, my 
 father remained in it, and was in charge of the com- 
 missariat of the Twenty-second Military Division when 
 he married, in 1797, the daughter of one of his supe- 
 riors, then director of the Paris hospitals. Subsequently, 
 he lived nineteen 3'ears in Tours, where he bought a 
 house and some landed property in the vicinity of the 
 town. At the end of ten years it was proposed to ap- 
 point him ma3'or, but he declined the honor, not wishing 
 to give up the management of a large hospital which 
 he had taken upon himself. He feared he should not 
 find time to properly fulfil these triple functions. 
 
 My father was a mixture of Montaigne, Rabelais, 
 and my uncle Toby in his philosophy, his originality, 
 and his goodness of heart ; and he had, like my uncle 
 Toby, a predominant idea. That idea was health. He 
 managed his life with the view of living as long as pos- 
 sible. He calculated, from the number of years re- 
 quired to bring a man to perfect maturity, that his life 
 ought to last one hundred 3'ears and more ; to attain 
 
Honore de Balzac. 9 
 
 that 7nore he took the most extraordinary care of him- 
 self, and was constantly on the watch to maintain what 
 he called the " equilibrium of the vital forces." And 
 a mighty labor it was, truly ! His fatherly solicitude 
 still further increased this desire for longevity. When 
 forty-five years of age, not having married, and not 
 expecting to do so, he had put the bulk of his property 
 into life annuities, half on the Grand-livre [the Public 
 Funds], half with Lafarge's bank, then just established, 
 he being one of its largest shareholders. When he 
 died in 1829, at the age of eighty-three, from the effects 
 of an accident, he was receiving an income of twelve 
 thousand francs from this source. The reduction of 
 interest, anc^ tho^aste which took place in the admin- 
 istration oi^neTontine diminished his immediate rev- 
 enues, but his green old age seemed to justify his hope 
 of sharing with the State the immense capital of the 
 Tontine by the extinction of all the other shareholders 
 of his class, — a result which might have repaired the 
 ■wrong he did to his family by the investment. This 
 hope had passed into a conviction with him, and he was 
 constantly urging his familj^ to preserve their health so 
 that they migiit enjoy the millions he should leave 
 them. This conviction, which we all shared, made him 
 happy and consoled him under the reverses which over- 
 took him at the close of his life. " No matter, Lafarge 
 will put everything right," he used to say. 
 
 His originality, which became proverbial at Tours, 
 was quite as marked in his talk as in his actions ; he 
 said and did nothing like other people ; Hoffmann might 
 have used him as a type for one of his creations. My fa- 
 ther was wont to scoff at other men who, as he declared, 
 
10 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 were toiling incessantl}' for their own misfortunes. He 
 could not meet a poor sickly or deformed being without 
 railing at the parents, and, above all, at the rulers who 
 did not give as much care to the preservation of the 
 human race as they did to that of animals ; and he 
 held certain singular theories on this debatable subject, 
 which he propounded in a manner no less singular. 
 " But wh}' give them to the world?" he used to say, 
 walking up and down the room in his wadded gown of 
 puce-colored silk, his chin buried in a huge cravat cher- 
 ished from the days of the Director}'. ' ' The}^ would 
 call me an ' original ' " (a term which greatlj' angered 
 him), " and there would n't be one poor ricketj^ being 
 the less. Has any philosopher, except Cervantes, who 
 gave the death-blow to knight-errantrj^, ever been able 
 to correct humanity ? — that palsied being, alwa3's 3'oung 
 always old, which keeps alive somehow — happily for 
 us and our successors," he would add, with a laugh. 
 
 But he never scoffed at humanity unless he was un- 
 able to succor it, as he proved on man}' occasions. 
 Epidemics broke out in the hospital, especiall}' after 
 the return of the soldiers from Spain ; at such times 
 my father took up his abode in the hospital building, 
 and forgetting his own health to watch over that of 
 others, he displa3'ed a zeal which in him was devotion. 
 He put down man}- abuses without fearing the enmities 
 that sort of courage invites ; and he introduced great 
 and beneficent improvements, such, for instance, as 
 work-shops for the old men, for whom he obtained 
 wages. 
 
 His memory, his spirit of observation, and his gift of 
 repartee were not less remarkable than his originality. 
 
Honors de Balzac. 11 
 
 He remembered after an interval of twenty years the 
 exact words that were said to him. At seventy years 
 of age, meeting unexpectedly a friend of his childhood, 
 he spoke to him, without the least hesitation, in the 
 dialect of their province, though he had not retuinied 
 there since he left it at fourteen. His keen observation 
 enabled him more than once to predict the success or 
 failure of men whom the world appreciated far other- 
 wise than as he judged them ; time often proved the 
 justice of his prophec^^ As for his repartees, they 
 never failed him under any circumstances. I remem- 
 ber that some one read aloud an article on a centenarian 
 (not allowed, as will readily be imagined, to pass in 
 silence), and m}" father, against his usual custom, in- 
 terrupted the reader to exclaim enthusiastically, "He 
 Uved wisel}', and did not squander his health in ex- 
 cesses, like the imprudent 30uth of the present day." It 
 turned out, however, that this wise man was in the 
 habit of getting drunk, and (this in my father's eyes 
 was an enormity against health) ate a supper every 
 night. " Well," he said, without a sign of discompos- 
 ure, " he shortened his life, that 's all." 
 
 When Honore was of an age to understand and ap- 
 preciate his father the latter was a fine old man still 
 full of energy, with courteous manners, speaking sel- 
 dom, and rarely of himself, indulgent to youth, with 
 which he was in sympathy, leaving to all the liberty he 
 demanded for himself, possessed of a sound and upright 
 judgment, in spite of his eccentricities, and a temper so 
 equable, a character so kind that he made his home 
 happy to all about him. His fine education enabled 
 him to follow with delisfht the advance of science and 
 
12 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 of social amelioration, the future of which he foresaw 
 from the start. His wise remarks and his many curious 
 anecdotes helped his son greatl}- to a knowledge of life, 
 and supplied him with the subject of more than one of 
 his books. 
 
 M3" mother, who was rich and beautiful and very 
 much younger than her husband, had a rare vivacity of 
 mind and imagination, an unwearying activit}", great 
 firmness of decision, and boundless devotion to her 
 family. Her love for her children brooded over them, 
 but she expressed it more by actions than b}" words. 
 Her whole life proved her love ; she forgot herself for 
 us, and this self-forgetfulness brought misfortunes upon 
 her which she bore courageousl3\ Her last and bitter- 
 est trial was to survive, at the age of seventy, her 
 glorious son, and to succor him in his last moments ; 
 she prayed beside his dying bed, supported by that 
 religious faith which enabled her to exchange her 
 earthly hopes for those of heaven. 
 
 Those who knew my father and my mother will con- 
 firm the truth of these brief sketches. The qualities of 
 the author of the Comedie Humaine are undoubtedly 
 the logical result of those of our parents ; from our 
 father he derived his originalit}", memory, spirit of 
 observation, and judgment ; from our mother, his ac- 
 tivity and imagination ; and from both, his energy and 
 kindheartedness. 
 
 Honore was the eldest among two sisters and two 
 brothers. Our sister, Laurence, died a 5'oung woman 
 after five j^ears of married life. Our brother, Henry, 
 went to the colonies, where he married and settled. 
 At Honore's birth all things combined to promise him 
 
Honors de Balzac. 13 
 
 a fine future. Our mother's fortune, that of our mater- 
 nal grandmother, who lived with her daughter from the 
 time she became a widow, the salary and the annuities 
 of our father made a handsome income for the family. 
 My mother devoted herself wholl}' to the education of 
 her children, and thought herself obliged to treat them 
 with severity to neutralize the effects of the indulgence 
 shown to us by our father and grandmother. This sever- 
 ity repressed the tender feelings of little Honore, who, 
 was also reserved and sh\' in presence of his father's 
 age and gravity. This state of things was profitable 
 to fraternal affection, which was certainly the first feel- 
 ing to bud and blossom in his heart. I was only two 
 years younger than Honore, and in the same situation 
 as he towards our parents. Brought up together in our 
 nurse's home we loved each other tenderlj'. My recol- 
 lections of his tenderness date far back. I have not 
 forgotten the headlong rapidity with which he ran to 
 save me from tumbling down the three high steps 
 without a railing which led from our nurse's room to 
 the garden.* His loving protection continued after we 
 returned to our father's house, where more than once 
 he allowed himself to be punished for my faults without 
 betraying me. Once, when I came upon the scene in 
 time to accuse myself of the wrong, he said: "Don't 
 acknowledge next time ; I like to be punished for you." 
 Such pure and artless devotion is never forgotten. 
 Our affection was fostered still farther by propi- 
 tious circumstances. We lived together, then and 
 later, in a confidence and close intimacy which had 
 no limits. Throughout his life I knew my brother's 
 joys and troubles, and I had, at all times, the precious 
 
14 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 privilege of consoling him : that certainty is now my 
 
 joy- 
 
 The greatest event of his childhood was a journey to 
 Paris, where my mother took him in 1804, to show him 
 to his grandparents. They were delighted with their 
 pretty little grandson, and showered him with gifts and 
 kisses. Little accustomed to such petting, Honore re- 
 turned to Tours with his head full of joyous memories 
 and his heart filled with love for those dear grand- 
 parents, about whom he talked to me incessantl}^ de- 
 scribing them as best he could, also their house, their 
 beautiful garden, not forgetting Mouche, the big watch- 
 dog, with whom he had struck up an intimac3\ This 
 visit to Paris gave food to his imagination for a long 
 time. Our grandmother was fond of relating his say- 
 ings and doings on this occasion, especiallj' the follow- 
 ing. One evening she had sent for a magic-lantern. 
 Honore, not seeing his friend Mouche among the audi- 
 ence, jumped up, calling out in a tone of authority : 
 " Stop ! stop ! " (Probably he felt himself master in his 
 grandfather's house.) Then he left the room and 
 presently returned, dragging the dog, to whom he 
 said : "Sit you there, Mouche, and look at the show ; 
 it won't cost you anything, for grandpapa pays." 
 
 Some months after this trip Honore's brown silk 
 jacket and handsome blue belt were changed for mourn- 
 ing garments. His dear grandpapa was dead, struck 
 down by apoplexy. It was the child's first grief; he 
 wept bitterly when told that he would never again see 
 his grandfather, and the recollection of the kind 
 old man remained so present to his mind that on one 
 occasion, long after the sad event, seeing me go off 
 
Honore de Balzac, 15 
 
 into a wild burst of laughter while 1113' mother was rep- 
 rimanding me, he endeavored to put a stop to such 
 tempestuous gayetj', which threatened serious con- 
 sequences, b}' putting his lips to my ear and saying in 
 tragic tones : — 
 
 '-'- Think on the death of your grandpapa ! " 
 
 Ineffectual succor, alas ! as I had never seen m}^ 
 grandpapa, and knew nothing as yet of death. 
 
 Thus the only words that we can recall of Honore's 
 first years showed kindness of heart rather than intelli- 
 gence. I remember, however, that he did show imag- 
 ination in some of those childish games which George 
 Sand has so well described in her Memoirs. My 
 brother improvised little comedies, which amused us 
 (not always the case with greater ones). For hours 
 together he would twang the strings of a little red vio- 
 lin, while his radiant face expressed the belief that he 
 was making melody ; consequently, he was much sur- 
 prised when I entreated him to stop a noise which 
 might have set his friend Mouche to howling. " Don't 
 you hear how pretty it is ? " he would say. Like other 
 children, he read with eager interest all those fairy- 
 tales in which catastrophes, more or less dramatic, 
 made him cry. Perhaps they inspired him with other 
 tales, for sometimes to his usual bewildering loquacity 
 there succeeded long periods of silence which were 
 attributed to fatigue, but which may really have been 
 reveries carrying him, even then, to imaginary worlds. 
 
 When he was seven years of age he was taken from 
 the da}^ school at Tours and sent to the seminary at 
 Vendome, then very celebrated. We went to see him 
 regularly at Easter of every year, and also on the 
 
16 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 days when prizes were distributed ; but he was seldom 
 crowned ; reproaches were more plentiful than praises 
 for hira on those great da3's which he awaited so im- 
 patiently, and out of which he expected such delight. 
 He remained seven 3'ears at this school, and during 
 that time he had no holidays. The memory of those 
 days inspired him with the first part of Louis Lambert. 
 In that part he and Louis Lambert are one ; it is Bal- 
 zac in two persons. The school routine, the small 
 events of his daily life, what he suffered and what he 
 thought, all is true ; even the Treatise on the Will 
 which one of the professors (whom he names) burned 
 without reading in his anger at finding it in place of a 
 theme which he had ordered the boy to do. My brother 
 always regretted the loss of that paper, regarding it as 
 a proof of his intellect at that period. 
 
 He was fourteen years of age when Monsieur Mares- 
 chal, the head of the school, wrote to our mother, be- 
 tween Easter and the prize-giving, to come at once 
 and remove her son. He was attacked with a sort of 
 coma, which was all the more alarming to his masters 
 because the}' saw no cause for it. My brother was to 
 them an idle scholar ; they could not, therefore, attrib- 
 ute this peculiar affection of the brain to intellectual 
 fatigue. Honor^, who had become thin and pun}-, was 
 like a somnambulist sleeping with open ej'es ; he 
 heard scarcely an}' of the questions that were addressed 
 to him, and could not reply when asked abrupth', 
 ''What are you thinking of?" "Where are 3'ou?" 
 This extraordinary state, which in after j'ears he fully 
 understood, came from a sort of congestion of ideas 
 (to use his own expression). He had read, unknown 
 
Honor e de Balzac. 17 
 
 to his masters, the greater part of the rich librarj- of the 
 college, vvliich had been formed by the learned Orato- 
 rian founders and proprietors of this vast institution, 
 where more than three hundred lads were educated at 
 a time. It was in the punishment cells, to which he 
 was sent almost daily, that he devoured these serious 
 books, which developed his mind at the expense of his 
 body at an age when the pli3'sical powers should be 
 exercised at least as much as the intellectual. No one 
 in the family has ever forgotten the amazement caused 
 by Honore's appearance when his mother brought him 
 back from Vendome. 
 
 " See how a college returns to us the blooming 
 children we trust to it ! " said our grandmother, 
 mournfull3\ 
 
 My father, at first very anxious at the state of his 
 son, was soon reassured when he saw that the change 
 of scene, the fine air and the beneficent effect of home 
 life sufficed to restore the liveliness and gayety of the 
 lad in the adolescent period which was just beginning 
 for him. Little by httle the classification of ideas 
 took place in his vast memory, where he already regis- 
 tered the beings and the events which were about him ; 
 these recollections were put to use later in his pictures 
 of provincial life. Impelled by a vocation of which, 
 as yet, he knew nothing, he was instinctively led to 
 books and to observations which prepared the way for 
 his future toil and made it fruitful ; he amassed ma- 
 terials without knowing the use to which they were 
 destined. Certain types in the Comidie Humaine 
 belong undoubtedly to this period. 
 
 In the long walks which our mother made him take, 
 
 2 
 
18 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 lie already admired with an artist's e3'e the tender 
 seener}' of his dear Touraine which afterwards he de- 
 scribed so well. He would sometimes stop short with 
 enthusiasm before those glorious sunsets which illumine 
 with such picturesque effects the gothic steeples of 
 Tours, the scattered villages on the hill-slopes, and that 
 beautiful Loire, alwa^'s so majestic and covered with 
 sails of every size and shape. But our mother, more 
 solicitous about his exercise than his reveries, obliged 
 him to fly the kite of our little brother, or to run with 
 iny sister and me. He would then forget all about the 
 landscape, and be the youngest and the gayest of the 
 four children who surrounded their mother. But it was 
 not so in the cathedral of Saint-Gatien, to which she 
 took us regularly on fete-days. There, Honore might 
 dream at his leisure, and nought of the poetr3^ and the 
 splendor of that noble church was lost upon him. He 
 noticed all, — from the marvellous effects of hght pro- 
 duced by the old stained windows, and the mists of 
 incense enveloping, as with a veil, the officiating priests, 
 to the pomps of the divine service, rendered all the 
 more imposing by the presence of the cardinal-arch- 
 bishop. The countenances of the priests, which he 
 studied dail}', enabled him later to describe the abbes 
 Birotteau and Lorau, and the cure Bonnet, whose tran- 
 quillity of soul forms so fine a contrast to the agitations 
 of remorse which torture the repentant Veronique.^ 
 This church had made so great an impression on him 
 that the mere name of Saint-Gatien awakened a world 
 of memories in which the fresh and pure sensations of 
 early youth, and the religious feelings which never left 
 1 In the Cur€ de Village. 
 
Honors de Balzac. 19 
 
 him throughout his life, were mingled with the ideas of 
 manhood already germinating in that powerful brain. 
 
 He attended the lectures of the college course, and 
 studied under his father's roof with tutors. Already 
 he began to say that the world would talk of him some 
 day ; a speech that made us laugh, and which became 
 the text for endless witticisnis. In the name of his \ 
 future fame we made him submit to innumerable little 
 tortures, preludes to the greater tortures he was to bear 
 as the cost of his acquired glor3\ This youthful appren- 
 ticeship was far from useless. He accepted all such 
 teasing with a heartier laugh than ours, (he was 
 always laughing in those most happy days). Never 
 was a nature more amiable than his, and 3'et never did 
 any one develop so young the desire and the intuitive 
 expectation of fame. 
 
 But we were far from increasing or encouraging this 
 desire. My brother, who was, as I have alread}' said, 
 somewhat repressed b}- awe, thought much more than 
 he ever said in presence of his father and mother. 
 They, of course, being unable to judge him from a full 
 knowledge of what he was, regarded him, like his mas- 
 ters, as an ordinary boy who had to be prodded and 
 forced to do his lessons in Greek and Latin. Our 
 mother, who more particularly took the management of 
 him, had so little suspicion of what her elder son al- 
 ready was that she attributed to accident the sagacious 
 remarks and observations which sometimes escaped 
 him. " You certainly cannot know what j'ou are talk- 
 ing about, Honore," she would say to him. He, for all 
 answer, would look at her with the sagacious, or the 
 quizzical, or the kindly smile with which nature had 
 
20 Honors de Balzac, 
 
 endowed him. This mute and 3'et eloquent protest was 
 called impertinence if our mother chanced to see it ; for 
 Honore, not daring to argue with her, was unable to 
 explain either his thoughts or his smile. The repres- 
 sion which our elders exercise over genius, the injustices 
 which wound it, the obstacles that are put in its way, 
 maj' possibly double its strength and give more vigor to 
 its wing. At any rate, one likes to think so. 
 
 At the close of the year 1814 my father was sum- 
 moned to Paris and placed in charge of the commissa- 
 riat of the First division of the army. Honore finished 
 his studies with Monsieur Lepitre, rue Saint Louis, and 
 with MM. Sganzer and Beuzelin, rue de Thorigny in 
 the Marais, where we lived. He was not more thought 
 of in those institutions than he had been at Vendome. 
 While doing his exercises in Rhetoric he first became 
 attracted to the beaut}^ of the French language. I have 
 preserved one of his competitive compositions (a 
 speech of the wife of Brutus to her husband after the 
 condemnation of her sons). The anguish of the mother 
 is given with great force, and mj^ brother's all-powerful 
 faculty of entering into the souls of his personages is 
 already noticeable. 
 
 His studies over, Honore returned for tlie third time 
 to his father's house. This was in 1816. He was then 
 a handsome 3'outh, seventeen and a half years old, full 
 of health and vigor ; no study tired him ; a smile was 
 always on his lips ; he was indeed a fine 3'oung lad, the 
 very personification of happiness. M3' mother regarded 
 work as the basis of all education, and she thoroughly un- 
 derstood the business of employing time. Consequently 
 she did not allow her son one idle moment. He received 
 
Honors de Balzac. 21 
 
 lessons in all those sciences which had been neglected 
 in his schools, and he attended the lectures at the Sor- 
 bonne. I still remember the enthusiasm he felt at the 
 eloquent extempore speeches of such men as Ville- 
 maiu, Guizot, Cousin, and others. Glowing with in- 
 terest, he would repeat them, trying to associate us 
 in these jo3's and enable us to comprehend them. He 
 wouid rush to the public libraries to stud}- books and 
 so prepare himself to profit more by the teachings of 
 those illustrious professors. During his peregrinations 
 through the Latin quarter he bought, from the book- 
 stalls along the quays, many rare and precious books 
 which he had learned how to choose. They were the 
 nucleus of that fine librarj' which his constant relations 
 with publishers in after days enabled him to render so 
 complete, — a library which he wished to bequeath to his 
 native town, until the indifference shown to him by his 
 townsmen whenever he returned to Tours wounded him 
 so deeply that he resigned this intention. 
 
 Monsieur Brun, the present prefect of the Indre-et- 
 Loire, a former schoolmate of Honore at Vendorae, has 
 lately, in conjunction with the mayor, Monsieur Mame, 
 brother of the celebrated publisher who brought out 
 Balzac's first works, placed an inscription on the house 
 where the author of the Comedie Humaine was born. 
 This is not the house, however, in which he passed his 
 childhood. My father's residence now belongs to Ma- 
 dame la Comtesse d'Outremont, a friend of our famil3\ 
 It was formerly numbered 29 in the long street which 
 divides the town and crosses it from the bridge to the 
 Avenue de Grammont. The relations and friends of 
 Balzac would have been greatly astonished in 1817, and 
 
22 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 even later, to have been told that he would one day 
 merit this honor paid to his memory, and still more 
 amazed had the announcement been made to them that 
 the street in Paris in which he died was to bear his 
 name, and that a noble procession of great men would 
 follow him to his last resting-place. The}^ would not 
 have known how to reply to such prophecies, for, in 
 spite of the vivacious mind which was beginning to 
 make itself felt in Honore, no one believed as yet in 
 his intellect. It is true that he chattered a great deal, 
 amused himself with nonsense like a child, and showed 
 a good-humor and at times a guilelessness which often 
 made him our butt. Still, we might have observed at 
 the time, had we paid attention to it, the attraction 
 which he felt to thoughtful minds and solid conversa- 
 tions. Above all he liked to listen to an old friend of 
 
 our grandmother, Mademoiselle de R , who had 
 
 been intimately connected with Beaumarchais, and who 
 lived in the same house that we lived in. M3' brother 
 loved to make her talk of that celebrated man until, 
 thanks to her details, he knew Beaumarchais's life so 
 well that he might have furnished the materials for the 
 fine biograph}' that Monsieur de Lomenie has lately 
 published. 
 
 M}' father wished his son to stud3' law, pass through 
 all the examinations, and spend three years in a law- 
 3'er's and in a notary's office, so as to learn the de- 
 tails of legal procedure together with the form and 
 terms of deeds. A man's education was not complete, 
 according to ni}' father's ideas, if he did not have a 
 knowledge of ancient and modern legislation, and, 
 above all, of the laws of his own country. Honore 
 
Honore de Balzac. 23 
 
 therefore entered the law office of Monsieur do Mer- 
 ville, a friend of ours. Monsieur Scribe had just left 
 it. After eighteen months spent in this office he was 
 received into that of Monsieur Passez, notary, where 
 he remained for the same length of time. Monsieur 
 Passez lived in the same house with us, and was also 
 one of our intimates. These circumstances will ex- 
 plain the fidelity of the descriptions of legal offices 
 which is so observable in the Comedie Humaine, and 
 the profound legal knowledge therein revealed. I 
 once found a copy of Cesar Blrottecm among the legal 
 works of a Parisian barrister, and he told me that the 
 work was an excellent one to consult in the matter of 
 bankruptcy. , 
 
 My brother led a busy life during these 3'ears ; for, 
 independently of the time spent in these offices and on 
 the work given him to do b}' his masters, he had also 
 to prepare himself for successive examinations. But 
 his activity, his memor\-, and his natural faculty were 
 such that lie often found time to finish his evenings 
 with a game of whisf or boston with my grandmotiier, 
 at which the kind and gentle old lad}' would contrive, 
 ^by some voluntary imprudence or inattention, to let 
 him win her money, whicli he devoted to the purchase 
 of his books. He always loved those games in mem- 
 ory of her ; and the recollection of her sayings and of 
 her gestures used to come to him like a happiness 
 which, as he said, he wrested from a tomb. 
 
 Occasion all}' Honore accompanied us to a ball ; but 
 having unfortunately slipped and fallen, in spite of the 
 lessons he had taken from the Opera danciiig-master, 
 he renounced the practice of dancing, so much did the 
 
24 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 smiles of the women who saw him fall rankle in his 
 mind ; and he vowed then to master society in some 
 better wa}' than by the graces and talents of a drawing- 
 room ; from that time forth he was a spectator only 
 in festal scenes which, later in life, he utilized in his 
 books. 
 
 At twenty-one he had ended his legal studies and 
 passed all his examinations. My father now confided 
 to him the plans he had made for his future, which 
 would undoubtedly have led him to wealth ; but wealth 
 was then the least of Honore's desires. My father had 
 formerl}' protected a man whom he met again in 1814 
 as a notary- in Paris. The latter, being ver}^ grateful 
 and desirous of returning to the soji the service he had 
 received from the father, offered to take Honore into 
 his office and leave him his practice at the end of a few 
 j^ears. My father's security for part of the expenses, a 
 prosperous marriage, and certain regular advances from 
 the splendid income of the practice would have cleared 
 the position of incumbrance in a very few years. 
 
 But imagine Balzac bending, for ten 3'ears perhaps, 
 over deeds of sale, marriage contracts, inventories, — he 
 who was now aspiring secretly to literary fame ! His, 
 stupefaction was great when the plan was divulged to 
 him. But he openly stated his wishes, and then it was 
 our father's turn to be stupefied. A livel}' discussion 
 followed. Honore eloquently combated the powerful 
 reasons given to him ; and his looks, words, and tones . 
 revealed so genuine a vocation that my father granted 
 him two years in which to give proofs of his talent. 
 This fine legal chance thus thrown away explains the 
 severity with which he was afterwards treated, and 
 
Honors de Balzac. 25 
 
 also the hatred which he always felt to the notarial 
 profession, — a hatred which may be noticed in several 
 of his books. 
 
 My father did not yield to Honore's wishes without 
 regrets, which vexatious events increased. He had 
 just been retired from active service, and he had lost 
 money in two enterprises. In short, we went to live 
 in a country house which he had lately bought at Ville- 
 parisis, about sixteen miles from Paris. Fathers of 
 families will understand the uneasiness of our parents 
 under these circumstances. M}- brother had given no 
 proof of literary talent, and he had his way to make ; it 
 was, therefore, reasonable to desire a less doubtful 
 career for him than that of literature. For one vocation 
 like that which Honore declared he felt (and which he 
 did indeed justify so grandly) how many mediocrities 
 have been suffered to drift into hopeless careers hy 
 such indulgence ! Consequentl}', this yielding of my 
 father to his son's wishes was regarded as a weakness 
 and generally blamed b}' the friends who took an in- 
 terest in our welfare. *' He was allowing Honore to 
 waste the most precious years of his life. Did the 
 career of a literary man ever, under any circumstances, 
 lead to fortune? Had Honore the makings of a man of 
 genius? They doubted if What would these friends 
 have said of my father's weakness if he had told them 
 of the offer that had been made to him and refused ? 
 
 One intimate friend who was somewhat brusque and 
 very dictatorial declared that in his opinion Honore was 
 only good for a copying-clerk. The poor fellow wrote 
 a good hand^ to quote the expression of a writing 
 master who had taught him after leaving Vendome. 
 
26 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 " If I were in 3^0111' place/' added this friend, " I should 
 not hesitate to put Honore in some government clerk- 
 ship, where, with your influence, he will soon manage to 
 support himself." Mj father, however, judged his son 
 ditlerenth' at this time ; and (his theories aiding) he 
 believed in the intellect of his children. He contented 
 himself with smiling at such advice, holding firm all the 
 while to his own way. It is to be presumed that his 
 friends left him that evening deploring to each other 
 his paternal blindness. 
 
 My mother, less confiding than her husband, thought 
 that a little hardship would soon bring Honor6 to sub- 
 mission. She therefore installed him, just before we 
 moved from Paris, in a small attic room, chosen b}" 
 him for its nearness to the Bibliotheque de I'Arsenal, 
 the onl}' librarj- unknown to him, and where he now 
 proposed to work. She furnished this room with the 
 strict necessaries of a bed, table, and a few chairs ; the 
 allowance which she made to her son for his living 
 would certainlv not have sufficed for his bare wants if 
 she had not left behind her in Paris an old woman, for 
 man}' 3'ears attached to our service, whom she charged 
 to keep an eye upon him. It was this woman whom 
 he calls Iris in his letters.^ 
 
 To pass suddenl}' from a comfortable home where 
 everything was abundant to the solitude of a garret, 
 where all comfort was lacking to him, was surely a 
 hard transition. But Honore made no complaint of 
 this lodging, where, in truth, he found freedom, and to 
 which he carried the glorious hopes which his first liter- 
 Sivy disappointments were unable to extinguish. It 
 
 1 This attic room was in the house No. 9 rue Lesdiguieres. 
 
Honors de Balzac. 27 
 
 was then that his correspondence with me began, — a 
 correspondence tenderly preserved, and now so full of 
 dear and precious memories. I ask. indulgence for the 
 familiar playfulness of the first few extracts which I 
 now quote. That ver}' familiarity is their natural plea 
 for it. I cannot suppress them, for they picture in a 
 striking way the rudiments of my brother's character ; 
 and I believe that the gradual development of such a 
 mind is interesting to follow. In his first letter, after 
 enumerating the costs of moving (items which had no 
 other purpose than to show our mother he was alread}'' 
 short of money) he confides to me that he has taken a 
 servant. 
 
 "Paris, April! 2, 1819. 
 
 *' ' A servant, brother ! — what are you thinking of! * 
 
 ''Yes, a servant; with a name as queer as that of 
 Dr. Nacquart's servant. His was called Tranquil ; 
 mine is named Myself. And a bad bargain he is, 
 truly ! Myself is lazy, clumsy, thoughtless. His mas- 
 ter is hungry or thirst\', and often enough he has 
 neither bread nor water to give him ; he does n't even 
 know how to shield him from the wind, which whistles 
 through the door and window, like Tulou in his flute 
 — but less agreeably. As soon as I am awake I ring 
 for M3'self and he makes my bed. Then he sweeps 
 the room, and clumsy he is at it. 
 
 '''Myself!' 
 
 " ' Yes, sir.* 
 
 "'Look at that cobweb with the big fly buzzing 
 in it till I'm half giddy with the noise — and the fluff 
 under the bed — and the dust on the window-panes 
 which blinds me.' 
 
28 Honors de Balzac, 
 
 " The lazy beggar gazes at me and does n't stir, and 
 yet, in spite of all his defects, I can't get rid of that 
 unintelligent Myself. . . . 
 
 '' Don't be surprised that I write on half a sheet of 
 paper, with a bad pen, and that I talk nonsense. I 
 must be careful of my expenditures, and I economize 
 everywhere, in writing and in mind, as you see." 
 
 In his second letter he excuses the first, which our 
 mother had thought too careless. 
 
 " Tell mamma 1 work so hard that writing to you is 
 recreation, for then I go — saving your dignity and my 
 own — like Sancho's ass browsing on anything I get 
 hold of. No, I won't make rough copies — for shame ! 
 the heart knows nothing of rough copies. If I don't 
 punctuate, and if I don't read over what I have written, 
 it is that you may have to read and reread it, and think 
 of me a long time. There ! I '11 fling my pen to the 
 geese if that is n't a refinement of sentiment worthy 
 of a woman. . . . 
 
 "Let me tell you, mademoiselle, that economy 
 reigns here for the purpose of buj-ing a piano ; when 
 my mother brings 3'ou to see me 3'ou will find one. I 
 have taken all dimensions ; by setting back the walls a 
 piano can be got in. If m}^ landlord objects to the 
 expense I shall add it to the cost of the piano, and 
 Rousseau's Dream [a piece by Cramer then much in 
 vogue] shall echo in my garret, where a need of 
 dreams makes itself felt." 
 
 What work he meditates ! novels, comedies, comic 
 operas, tragedies are all upon his list of things to be 
 done. He is like a child with so many words to say he 
 
Honors de Balzac, 29 
 
 does not know where to begin. First, it is Stella and 
 Coqsigrue^ two booivs that never saw the light. Of 
 his projected comedies I remember only Les Deitx 
 Philosophes^ which he would certainly have taken up 
 again in after years had he lived. The pair scoffed at 
 each other and quarrelled incessantly (like friends, 
 Honore said, when relating the plot). These philos- 
 ophers while despising the vanities of the world strug- 
 gled with each other to obtain them ; and their failure 
 to do so finally reconciled them to each other, by caus- 
 ing both to curse the odious selfishness of the human 
 race. For which of these works could it have been 
 that he so urgently wanted our father's Tacitus, a work 
 that was lacking to the librarj^ of the Arsenal? This 
 want was the subject of his next letter. 
 
 *' I positively must have father's Tacitus ; he can't 
 want it now that he is so full of China and the Bible." 
 
 My father, a great admirer of the Chinese (perhaps 
 because of their longevity as a nation), was at this 
 time reading those thick volumes of the Jesuit mission- 
 aries who were the first to describe China. He was 
 also engaged in making notes to a precious edition 
 which he possessed of the Bible, a book which at all 
 times called forth his admiration. 
 
 "June, 1819. 
 
 *' You can easily find out where the key of the library 
 is kept. Papa is not always at liome ; he does go to 
 walk ; and miller Godard is at hand to bring me 
 Tacitus. 
 
 " By the bye, Coqsigrue is beyond my powers, as 3'et. 
 I must ruminate over it and take time before writing. 
 
 "My dear, I don't like your historical studies and your 
 
30 Honore de Balzac, 
 
 maps of the centuries. Why do you * amuse * 3'our- 
 self (what a word to use ! ) in rewriting Blair? Get him 
 out of the Ubrary — you will find him close to Tacitus — 
 and learn him by heart. But what good will that do 
 you? A girl knows enough historj' when she does n't 
 jumble up Hannibal with Caesar, and doesn't take Thra- 
 symene for a general, or Pharsalia for a Roman matron. 
 Read Plutarch and books of that calibre, and you will 
 be freighted for life without losing any of 3-our de- 
 lightful claims to womanhood. You don't want to be 
 a femme savante^ fie ! 
 
 " I dreamed deliciously last night ; I was reading the 
 Tacitus you sent me. 
 
 '' Talma is playing Auguste in Cinna. I am terribly 
 afraid I can't resist going to see hira — madness ! my 
 very stomach trembles. . . . M3' household news is dis- 
 astrous ; toil interferes with cleanliness. That rascal 
 of a Myself neglects me more than ever. He won't go 
 down oftener than every third or fourth da}- to make 
 my purchases, and then to the nearest and worst dealers 
 in the neighborhood ; the others are too far off, and the 
 fellow economizes in steps. And so it is that your 
 brother (destined to fame) is already fed like a great 
 man, — that is to say, he is dying of hunger. 
 
 "Another malign fact: coffee makes a terrible mess 
 upon the floor ; much water is necessary to repair 
 damages ; now as water does not rise naturalh' to my 
 celestial regions (it comes down upon them in stormy 
 days) , it will be necessar}', after buying the piano, to 
 obtain the services of an hydraulic machine to wash up 
 the coffee while master and valet are gaping after fame. 
 When you send Tacitus don't forget the coverlet ; and 
 
Honor^ de Balzac, 31 
 
 if j-ou could add an old, a very old_sliawl, it would be 
 useful to me. Are you laughing? It is the one thing 
 wanting to my nocturnal garb. 1 had to think first of 
 my legs, where I suffer most with cold ; those I wrap in 
 the Tourainean top-coat which Grogniart, of bungling 
 memory, constructed. [Grogniart was a little tailor 
 at Tours, who used to make over the clothes of the 
 father for the son, not at all to the satisfaction of 
 Honore.] The said top-coat coming onl}' to my mid- 
 dle, the upper half of me is ill-protected from the 
 frost, which has only the roof and a flannel waistcoat 
 to get through before reaching my brotherly skin, too 
 tender, alas, to bear it, — in short, the cold nips me. 
 As to my head, I am counting on a Dantesque cap, 
 which shall enable it to brave the blast of door and 
 window. Thus equipped, I shall inhabit my palace in 
 much comfort. . . . 
 
 *' I finish this letter as Cato finished his discourse ; he 
 said ' Let Carthage be destroyed.' I say ' Let Tacitus 
 be taken ; ' and I shall be, dear student of history, of 
 your four feet eight inches, the very humble servant." 
 
 Here follows a letter which I give entire ; prefacing 
 it with a few remarks to make it intelligible. M,y 
 father, wishing to spare his son the mortifications 
 of self-love in case lie failed in his new career, gave 
 out, among our friends, that he was absent in the 
 countr3^ Monsieur de Villers, of whom Honore 
 speaks in the following letter, was an old friend of the 
 family, a former priest and Comte de Lyon, living at 
 Nogent, a little village near the Isle-Adam. My brother 
 had stayed with him several times. The witty conver- 
 
32 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 sation of the good old man, his curious anecdotes about 
 the old Court, where he had been a favorite, the en- 
 couragement he gave to Honore, who made him his con- 
 fidant, had given rise to so true an affection between 
 them that in later days Honore used to speak of Isle- 
 Adam as his "paradise of inspiration." 
 
 "November, 1819. 
 
 " You ask for news. I shall have to manufacture it ; 
 no one sets foot in m}^ garret. I can onlj^ tell 3'ou a lot 
 of items about m3'self; for instance: A fire broke out 
 rue Lesdiguieres, No. 9, in the head of a poor lad, 
 and no engines have been able to put it out. It was 
 kindled by a beautiful woman whom he does not 
 know. The}^ say she lives at the Quatre-Nations, the 
 other side of the Pont des Arts ; she is called Fame. 
 Unfortunatel}' the burned youth reasons ; he says to 
 himself: 'Either I have or I have not genius; in 
 either case I am laying up a store of sorrows. Without 
 genius, I am done for. I must then pass m^^ life in 
 feeling desires I cannot satisfy, in miserable envy, cruel 
 pain. With genius, I shall be persecuted, calumniated ; 
 and I know very well that Mademoiselle Fame will have 
 to wipe away abundant tears. 
 
 " There is still time to make myself a nonentit}^, and 
 to become like M , who calml}^ judges others with- 
 out knowing them, takes the opinions of politicians 
 without understanding them, wins at cards, lucky man, 
 though he wastes his trumps, and who will one day be 
 a deputy, because he is rich, — a perfect man ! If I 
 were to win fives in a lottery to-morrow I should be as 
 successful as he, no matter what else I could say or do. 
 
Honore de Balzac. 33 
 
 But not having the money to buy his hopes, I have not 
 liis wonderful opportunit}' to impose on fools ! Poor, 
 pitiful humanity ! 
 
 *' Let's talk of my pleasures. Yesterday I played a 
 game of boston with my landlord, and after piling up 
 miseres and piccolos, and having the luck of fools 
 
 (perhaps I was thinking of M ), I won — three 
 
 sous ! Mamma will sa}' : ' Dear, dear ! Honore will be 
 a gambler.* Not at all, mother, I keep watch over 
 my passions. 
 
 *' I have been thinking that after the laborious winter 
 I am about to go through, a few days in the country 
 would do me good. No, mamma ; it is not because I 
 am sick of m}- hardships — I love them. But some one 
 close at 3'our elbow will tell you that exercise and fresh 
 air are ver}^ good for the health of man. Now, as 
 Honore is not allowed to show himself in his father's 
 house why should n't he go to that kind Monsieur Vil- 
 lers, who loves and encourages the poor rebel? An 
 idea, mother! Suppose you write and propose the 
 trip? There, now it is as good as done ; you need n't 
 put on your stern look, for we all know you are kind at 
 heart, and we only half fear you. 
 
 ''When are you coming to see me? — to drink my 
 coffee and eat scrambled eggs, stirred up in a dish you 
 must bring with you ; for if I succumb and go to see 
 Cinna, I shall have to renounce household utensils, and 
 perhaps even the piano and the hydraulic ram. 
 
 "Iris, the goddess messenger, has not arrived.^ I 
 will finish this letter to-morrow. 
 
 1 This was the old woman deputed by his mother to keep an 
 eye upon liis wants. 
 
 3 
 
34 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 " To-morrow. Still no Iris. Can she be misconduct- 
 ing herself? [She was seventy years old.] I never 
 see her except on the fly, and so out of breath she cannot 
 tell me one quarter of what I want to know. Do you 
 think of me as much as I think of you ? Do you some- 
 times cry out when at whist or boston, ' Honore, 
 where art thou ? ' I did not tell you that besides the 
 conflagration in my head I have had a frightful tooth- 
 ache, followed by a swelling, which makes my present 
 appearance hideous. Do I hear 3'ou sa}-, '- Have it 
 drawn '? The devil ! a man clings to his teeth ; he has 
 got to bite sometimes, I suppose, even in my career, 
 if only at toil. Hark ! I hear the puflSng of the 
 goddess. 
 
 '' Thanks for 3'our tenderness and the provisions ; I 
 recognize you in the jam-pot and the flowers." 
 
 After long hesitation, he chose the traged}^ of Crom- 
 well for his opening work, — tragic enough, as will be 
 seen by the sequel. 
 
 " I have chosen Cromwell for my subject, because it 
 is the finest in modern histor}^ Ever since I began to 
 take it up and weigh it I have flung myself into that 
 period tooth and nail. Ideas crowd upon me ; but I 
 am constantly held back by my want of facult^^ for 
 versification. I shall bite m}' nails off" more than once 
 before I get through the first scene. If you onl}^ knew 
 the difficulties of such work ! The great Racine spent 
 two whole years in polishing Phedre, the despair of 
 poets. Two years ! two years ! think of it — two years ! 
 
 '•' But how sweet it is, working night and day, to asso- 
 
Honore de Balzac. 35 
 
 date m}' work with those so clear to me. Ah, sister, if 
 heaven has indeed endowed me with talent my great- 
 est joy will be to see m}- faniQ^ reflect on all of you ! 
 What happiness to vanquish ol)livion, and to shed 
 another lustre on the name of Balzac ! ^ My blood glows 
 at the thought. When a fine idea comes into my mind 
 I fancy I hear 3'our voice saying to me, ' Courage ! ' 
 
 " In my off hours I am scratching off Stella^ a pretty 
 little story. I have abandoned the comic opera. There 
 is no way, in my burrow, of finding a composer. Be- 
 sides, I ought not to write for the taste of the present 
 day, but do as the Racines and the Corneilles did — 
 work for posterity ! And then, I must own the second 
 act was weak, and the first too full of brilliant music." 
 
 '' Too full of brilliant music^"" how much of 
 Honore's character is in those five words ; he actually 
 saw and heard that opera. 
 
 "Well, reflection for reflection, I prefer to reflect 
 on Cromwell. But there are usually two thousand 
 verses in a tragedy ; imagine my reflections on that ! 
 Pity me — what am I sa3'ing? No, don't pity me, for I 
 am happy ; emy me rather, and think of me often." 
 
 His hopes were sometimes mingled with anxieties. 
 Here is a letter in which he expresses them : — 
 
 " 1820. 
 
 *' Ah, sister, what tortures are mine ! I shall offer a 
 petition to the pope for the first vacant niche of a mar- 
 
 1 This allusion is to Jean-Louis de Balzac, one of the creators 
 of French prose, 1594-1654. He wrote " Le Socrate Chretien," 
 " Aristippus," etc. 
 
36 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 t}'!'. I have just discovered a fault of construction in 
 my regicide^ and it swarms with bad lines. I am a 
 pater doloroso this da}'. If I am, indeed, a miserable 
 rhymester I ma}' as well go hang myself. I and my 
 tragedy are like Perrette and her milk jug ; perhaps 
 the comparison will turn outonlj'too true. But I must 
 succeed in this work and, no matter what it costs me, 
 have something finished to show when mamma re- 
 quires me to account for my time. . Often I sit up all 
 night to work ; but I do not tell her, it would make her 
 uneas}'. What troubles come of a love of fame ! Long 
 live the grocers, hang them ! they sell all day and 
 count up their gains at night, and delectate themselves 
 now and then with some horrid melodrama, and then 
 they are happ}- ! — yes, but they have to spend their 
 lives between soap and cheese. So, long live the men 
 of letters, sa}^ I. Yes, but they have n't a penny in 
 their pockets, and are only rich in pride. Pooh ! let us 
 live and let live, and long live all the world ! " 
 
 He sends me the plan of his tragedy ; but in the ut- 
 most secrecy, for he wants to surprise the family. So 
 he writes at the head of his letter, '' For 3'our eye only." 
 Months are consumed over the work, about which he 
 writes to me incessantl3^ with continual alternations of 
 hope and fear. Serious thoughts begin to mingle with 
 his boyish gavety. 
 
 " 1820. 
 
 *'I have abandoned the Jardin des Plantes," he 
 wi'ites, " for Pere-Lachaise. The Jardin des Plantes is 
 too sad. I get good strong inspiring thoughts during 
 my walks in Pere-Lachaise, where I go to study sor- 
 
Honore de Balzac. 37 
 
 rows ; true sorrow is so hard to paint — it needs so 
 much simpUcit3\ Of all the affections of the soul grief 
 is the most difficult to represent ; in that we moderns are 
 the very humble servants and followers of the ancients. 
 " Surely the noblest epitaphs are the single names: 
 La Fontaine, Massena, Moliere, — names that tell all 
 and make the passer dream ! " 
 
 He dreams of great men ; he pities those who are 
 victims of the vulgar crowd which understands them 
 not, neither their ideas, nor their actions, nor their 
 work, and he thus concludes : — 
 
 '' The lives of great men must ever be in all ages the 
 consolation for mediocrity." 
 
 He tells how he takes particular pleasure on that 
 height of Pere-Lachaise from which all Paris can be 
 seen ; the spot where his Rastignac stood after render- 
 ing his last duty to Pere Goriot, where Balzac himself 
 now rests. Standing on that spot, he asked himself 
 more than once, as he thought on the illustrious dead 
 about him, whether the world would hereafter pay 
 homage at his tomb. Sometimes, in his days of hope- 
 fulness, he exclaims, like Rastignac, " The world is 
 mine, for I understand it ! " And then he returns to 
 his garret, ''where all is dark as an oven, and no 
 one but me could see at all," he adds merrily. 
 
 Like his own Desplein in the Messe de VAthee he 
 complains that the oil of his lamp costs him more than 
 bis bread ; but still, he loves his dear garret. 
 
 *' The time I spend here will be to me a source of 
 tender memory. To live as I fancy, to work according 
 
38 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 to my taste and in my humor, to do nothing if I so will, 
 to rest in thought on a future which I am able to make 
 noble, to think of 3'ou and know 3'ou are happ}', to 
 have the Julie of Rousseau for my mistress, La Fon- 
 taine and Mohere for my friends, Racine for my mas- 
 ter, and Pere-Lachaise for my walks — Ah ! if it could 
 only last forever." 
 
 The opinion of the family friend who advised mak- 
 ing him a copying-clerk came back to his mind at times 
 and made him anxious ; then he would wax indignant 
 and exclaim, "I'll give the lie to that man ! " The lie 
 given, he dedicated to him, for all vengeance, one of 
 his finest works. Neither did he forget the smiles of 
 the women who saw his slip at the ball ; he resolved to 
 win quite other smiles from their lips. Such thoughts 
 redoubled his ardor for work ; trifling circumstances 
 lead often to great results ; the^^ do not make a voca- 
 tion, but they spur the mind to follow one. 
 
 In another letter, sufficiently remarkable for me to 
 remember it at this distance of time, he showed he was 
 beginning to distinguish the different horizons of social 
 life, the obstacles to be overcome in all careers before 
 we can force our way through the crowds which throng 
 the outskirts. This letter, evidently written for my 
 mother's e^'e, was no doubt given to her, for it is not in 
 my collection. In it he analyzed the cares and the toil 
 which inevitably awaited the lawyer, doctor, soldier, 
 merchant ; the lucky chances they must encounter 
 before they could get enough recognition to succeed. 
 He did not conceal the difficulties and the thorns of the 
 literary profession, but he showed that they were every- 
 
Honor6 de Balzac. 39 
 
 where; "if so," be concluded, "why not grant liberty 
 to one who feels within him an irresistible vocation? " 
 This was the moral of the letter. I transcribe one 
 more fragment of the correspondence dated from his 
 garret. It is curious on account of the period at which 
 it was written (April, 1820) and shows the clearness of 
 a mind wliich was beginning to meditate widely on 
 many subjects. 
 
 "I am more infatuated than ever with ray career; 
 for a crowd of reasons from which I will select only 
 those which you may not have thought of. Our revo- 
 lutions are far from being over. I foresee, from the 
 way in which things are stirring, many more storms. 
 Be it good or evil the representative system demands 
 immense talent of all kinds ; great writers must neces- 
 sarily be sought for in political crises, for they alone 
 unite with scientific knowledge the spirit of observation 
 and a profound perception of the human heart. If I 
 am to be a great one (which we don't yet know, I ad- 
 mit) I ma}- some day be illustrious in other ways than 
 literature ; to add to the title of a great writer that of a 
 great citizen is an ambition which may well tempt a 
 man." 
 
 The scene was now to change. Honore's first hopes 
 were to be followed by his first disappointments. He 
 returned to his father's house at the end of April, 1820, 
 with his traged}' completed. He arrived all joyful, for 
 he counted on a triumph, and he wished certain friends 
 to be present at the reading, — not forgetting the one 
 who had been so mistaken about him. 
 
 The friends assembled ; the solemn trial began. The 
 
40 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 enthusiasm of the reader became more and more chilled 
 as he noted the slight impression he was making, and 
 saw the icy or the downcast faces of those about him. 
 Mine was among the downcast. What I suffered during 
 tliat reading was a foretaste of the terrors which the first 
 representations of Vautrin and Quinola were destined 
 to give me. Cromicell did not revenge him, as 3'et, 
 
 upon M , who, rough as ever, gave his opinion upon 
 
 the tragedy without mincing it. Honore cried out 
 against him, refused to accept his verdict ; but the rest 
 of the audience agreed, though more kindly, in think- 
 ing the work a failure. My father met with the ap- 
 proval of all by proposing to submit the play to a com- 
 petent and impartial authorit}'. Monsieur Surville, the 
 engineer of the canal de I'Ourcq, who became soon 
 after his brother-in-law, proposed his former professor 
 at the Ecole Polytechnique. My brother accepted this 
 literary elder as sovereign judge. The good old man, 
 after reading the play conscientiously, declared that 
 the author ought to do anything, no matter what, ex- 
 cept literature. Honore received the verdict full in the 
 face without flinching, for he did not admit himself 
 beaten. 
 
 " Tragedies are not my line, that 's all," he said, and 
 returned to work. 
 
 But fifteen months of garret life had so reduced him 
 that my mother would not let him go back to it. She 
 insisted on his coming home, where she looked after 
 him solicitously. It was then that he wrote, in the 
 space of five years, ten novels in forty volumes, which 
 he considered mere attempts at his art, and very im- 
 perfect ones ; for this reason he published them under 
 
Honore de Balzac. 41 
 
 various pseudonyms, out of respect for the name of 
 Balzac, once celebrated, and to which he so much de- 
 sired to add a lustre of his own. Mediocrity is not so 
 modest I T am careful not to give the names of these 
 books, wishing to obey his express wish that thej^ 
 should never be acknowledged. 
 
 Materially most comfortable in his father's house he 
 nevertheless regretted his dear garret, where he had 
 the quiet that was lacking to him in a sphere of activ- 
 ity in which ten persons (counting masters and ser- 
 vants) revolved about him ; where the small as well as 
 the great events of the family disturbed him ; and 
 where, even when at work, he heard the wheels of the 
 domestic machine which the vigilant and indefatigable 
 mistress kept in motion. Eighteen months after his 
 return to his father's roof I was living, for the time be- 
 ing, at Bayeux, and our correspondence began again.^ 
 My brother, then among his own people, wrote much 
 more of them than of himself, and with the freedom his 
 confidence in me permitted. He gives me domestic 
 scenes and conversations which might be thought whole 
 pages taken from the Com^die Humaine. In one of 
 these letters he compares his father to the pyramids of 
 Egypt, unchangeable, immutable amid the sand-storms 
 of the desert. In another he announces the marriage 
 of our sister Laurence. Her portrait, that of her lover, 
 the enthusiasm of the family for the new son-in-law, 
 are all painted with a master's hand, and the pen of 
 Balzac. He concludes with these words : — 
 
 i Mademoiselle Laura de Balzac married, May, 1820, Monsieur 
 Midy de la Greneraye Surville, engineer of the department of 
 Tponts et chaussees, — public works. 
 
42 Honors de Balzac, 
 
 "We are fine originals in this holy family of ours. 
 What a pity I can't put us all into my novels." ^ 
 
 As the majority of these letters would have no interest 
 for the public, I can only extract such parts as relate to 
 Honore himself. The following ^ill show his first dis- 
 couragements. He is advancing in life and sees that 
 the way is difficult. 
 
 "You ask for particulars of the fete, and to-day I 
 have nothing to give 3'ou but sadness of heart. I think 
 myself the most unhappy of all the unhappy beings 
 who are struggling to live beneath that beauteous ce- 
 lestial vault which the Eternal has starred with his 
 almighty hand. Fetes ! it is but a mournful litany I 
 can send you in replj'. My father, on his way back 
 from Laurence's marriage was struck in the left eye by 
 Louis's whip. To think that Louis's whip should injure 
 that fine old age, the joy and pride of us all ! . . . My 
 heart bleeds. At first the injur}- was thought greater 
 than it is, happil}' . Father's apparent calmness pained 
 me. I would rather he had complained ; I should have 
 thought that complaints would relieve him. But he is so 
 proud, and justly so, of his moral strength, that I dared 
 
 1 Mme. Surville's family loyalty omits the rest of this letter in 
 which, after relating " very confidentially " the nervous condition 
 of his mother and grandmother he adds, " Alas ! how comes it 
 that people have so little indulgence for others in this life ; why do 
 they seek to turn everything into a means of wounding their fel- 
 lows ? How few are willing to live in that hearty good-will that 
 you and I and papa can live in. Nothing angers me so mucli as 
 these great demonstrations of affection which smother you with 
 kisses and call you selfish if you don't exaggerate your own, and 
 have no conception of inward feelings which only manifest them- 
 selves when the right time comes." 
 
Honore de Balzac. 43 
 
 not even comfort him ; yet an old man's suffering is as 
 painful to see as a woman's. I could neither think nor 
 work and 3'et I must work, must write, write to earn 
 the independence they will not give me. I must en- 
 deavor to get m}" freedom b}' these novels ; and what 
 novels ! Ah, Laure, what a fall for mj' glorious pro- 
 jects ! If they would only have given me an allowance 
 of fifteen hundred francs a year I might have worked 
 for fame ; but for such work I must have time, and I 
 must live ! ^ 1 have no other waj' than this ignoble one 
 hy which to win my independence. And if I do not 
 quickly earn some money the spectre of the place will 
 reappear. I may not be made a notary, for Monsieur 
 
 T has lately died ; but I think that M , that 
 
 dreadful man, is even now inquiring for a place for me. 
 Regard me as dead if thej^ put me under that extin- 
 guisher ; I shall become like the horse of a treadmill 
 which does his thirt}^ or forty rounds an hour, eats, 
 drinks, and sleeps by rule and measure. And the}' 
 call that mechanical rotation, that perpetual recurrence 
 of the same things, living ! 
 
 " Ah, if something would cast a charm over my cold 
 existence ! I have no flowers in my life, and yet I am 
 at the season when they bloom. What good will for- 
 tune or enjoyments do me when my youth is gone? 
 Why wear the clothes of the actor if we never play the 
 role? The old man is one who has dined and looks on 
 to see others eat, but as for me, I am young, mj' plate 
 
 1 He had begged his parents to grant him an allowance of fif- 
 teen hundred francs a year that he might return to a garret in 
 Paris, where he could have solitude and the facilities for literary 
 training of wliich he was deprived at Villeparisis. 
 
44 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 is empty, and I hunger ! Laure, Laiire, my two im- 
 mense and sole desires, — to be famous and to he 
 loved, — will they ever be satisfied ? 
 
 " I send you two new books. The}' are still very bad 
 and, above all, unliterary. You will find one or two 
 rather funnj^ things, and some types of character, but a 
 miserable plot. The veil does not fall, unluckily, till 
 after they are printed ; and as for corrections, I can't 
 even think of them, they would cost more than the 
 book. The only merit of these two novels is, dear, 
 that they bring me in a thousand francs ; but the 
 money is only payable in bills at long sight. Will it 
 be paid? 
 
 " Still, I am beginning to feel my pulse and under- 
 stand my powers. But to be conscious of what I am 
 worth, and to sacrifice the flower of my ideas on such 
 rubbish ! It is enough to make me weep. Ah, if I had 
 only the wherewithal to subsist on, I would soon find me a 
 niche where I could write books that would live — per- 
 haps ! My ideas change so much that my method must 
 change too. Before long there will be betwixt the me 
 of to-day and the me of to-morrow the difierence that 
 exists between the 3'outh of twenty and the man of 
 thirty. I reflect, my ideas mature ; I do know that 
 nature has treated me well in the heart and in the head 
 she has given me. Believe me, dear sister (for I need 
 a believer), I do not despair of one day becoming 
 something ; for I can now see plainly that Cromwell 
 had not even the merit of being an embryo. As for 
 my novels they are not worth a curse, but they pretend 
 to nothing." 
 
Honors de Balzac. 45 
 
 He judged himself too severely ; it is true that these 
 early works contained as yet the mere germs of his 
 talent, but he made such progress from one to another 
 that he might have put his name to the last without 
 injury to his coming reputation. Happily, he could 
 pass quickly from grief to jo}', for the letters which 
 followed are full of gayety and high spirits. His 
 novels are better paid and cost him less pains to 
 write. 
 
 '' If you only knew how little trouble it is to me to 
 plan these books, to head the chapters, and fill the 
 pages ! You shall judge for yourself, however, because, 
 now that your husband invites me, I shall certainly 
 spend three good months with you this year." 
 
 He lays a host of plans, he has a multitude of hopes ; 
 he imagines himself rich and married. He begins to 
 wish for wealth, but only as a means of success. He 
 describes the wife he would like, and speaks of conjugal 
 happiness in the tone of a man who has not yet med- 
 itated on the Physiologie du mariage. He goes to 
 Isle-Adam to stay with his friend, Monsieur de Villers. 
 There he attends the funeral of a physician, such as he 
 describes in the Medecin de Campagne. This man, 
 whom he had known during his previous visits, the bene- 
 factor of the neighborhood, loved and mourned by all, 
 gave him the idea of that book. The man then buried 
 became in after j'ears the living Monsieur Benassis. 
 Wherever he went he studied what he saw, — towns, vil- 
 lages, country-places, and their inhabitants ; collecting 
 words or speeches which revealed a character or painted 
 
46 Ilonore de Balzac. 
 
 a situation. He called, rather slightingly, the scrap- 
 book in which he kept these notes of what he saw and 
 heard his " meat-safe." 
 
 But, rocked to sleep for a time b}' hope, he was soon 
 awakened by sad realit3\ His novels not only did not 
 make him rich, but they barelj- sufficed for his necessary 
 expenses. The doubts and anxieties of his familj^were 
 renewed. His parents talked of taking a stand. To 
 have succeeded in getting his books printed at all was, 
 however, a success, and showed unusual ability and a 
 gift of fascination that was far from common ; for pub- 
 lishers are long unattainable to the poor aspirant, who 
 is usually rebutfed with the discouraging words, " You 
 are unknown, and yet you wish me to publish 3'our 
 books." To have a name before writing is therefore 
 the first problem to solve in this career, unless a man 
 can enter the literary battle-field like a cannon-ball. 
 Now m}^ brother did not think his works had, as yet, 
 that power of propulsion. Besides, he had no influence 
 to aid him in the world of letters, neither had he any 
 one to aid or to encourage him, except one school friend 
 who afterwards entered the magistrac}' and who wrote 
 Honore's first anonymous novel with him. Dreading 
 lest he should be forced to accept the chains which were 
 being forged for him, ashamed of the dependence in 
 which he was kept in his own home, he resolved to at- 
 tempt an enterprise which alone seemed to offer him a 
 chance of freedom. This was in 1823, when my brother 
 was nearly twenty-five years old. Here begin the dis- 
 asters which led to all the troubles and misfortunes 
 of his life. 
 
Honori de Balzac. 47 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 Balzac's childhood was divided thus : four years in 
 tlie house of his peasant nurse, four 3'ears and one 
 month in his own home, six years and two months in 
 the seminary of Vendome without leaving it for a single 
 day. His sister has told us of his sunny nature during 
 the eight years the}' were together. Of the subsequent 
 six years passed in that gray and gloomy institution 
 she tells but three things : his eager longing for the 
 family visits ; the fact (which she states in positive 
 terms) that the first part of Louis Lambert is Honor^'s 
 own histor}' in all its particulars ; and, thirdly, the 
 condition in which the boy was returned to his parents. 
 Balzac himself takes up the tale from his eleventh year. 
 What voiceless sufferings must lie in the years from 
 eight to eleven, during which the sunny little child was 
 broken in to the stern rule and desolate loneliness from 
 which there was no escape. Remembering Balzac's 
 imagination, the mighty <i;ift that was born in him, it is 
 possible to form some idea of what his dawning soul 
 endured in its first struggle with experience. 
 
 We raiglit suppose tiiat the ties of familj^ would have 
 been weak in Balzac, exiled as he was in childhood 
 and later from his home, where it is quite plain, though 
 
48 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 not acknowledged by his sister or himself, that he 
 was never understood or wiselj- treated. On the con- 
 trarj^, the spirit of filial reverence and affection which 
 is so marked a trait in French character was never 
 stronger than in Balzac ; and the abstract principle 
 of the Familj' is one of the b^ses on which he built his 
 work. 
 
 The dream}" little town of Vendome in Touraine was 
 the site of the chief French college of the Oratorians, a 
 fraternity instituted in Itah' in 1575 by Saint Philippe 
 de Neri, and brought to France by Cardinal de BeruUe 
 in 1611. The object of this brotherhood was the edu- 
 cation of 3'outh, more especiall}' that of preachers. To 
 this original' purpose, seems to have been added in 
 Balzac's da}" that of a semi-military academy, sending 
 a certain number of cadets to the army. When the 
 Convention decreed the abolition of the teaching fra- 
 ternities the Oratorians of Vendome quietly closed their 
 buildings and dispersed themselves about the neighbor- 
 hood. After the Revolution was over they returned 
 and re-established the school under its former rules. 
 On its register may be rea,d this entry : "- No. 460. 
 Honore Balzac, aged eight years and one month. Has 
 had the small-pox and is without infirmity. Tempera- 
 ment sanguine ; easily excited ; subject to feverish 
 attacks. Entered June 22, 1807. Left August 22, 
 1813." 
 
 Balzac's account of his life at this school is an in- 
 valuable record. Here we see the first making of his 
 spirit ; we see his mind beating its wa}" out to the 
 light, untrammelled by knowledge of the world, and con- 
 scious of no restraint or limit. The same' power of his 
 
Honors de Balzac. 49 
 
 mind to sustain itself on its own pinions remained with 
 liiui through life, but we find other explanations of it ; 
 it was then a conscious power, affected by environment ; 
 here it is that of the pure, uninfluenced spirit, opening 
 itself to the knowledge of wisdom at that period of life 
 when the human creature is in simple relation to the 
 divine; for "can anything be nearer to God than 
 genius in the heart of a child?" The following is an 
 abridgment of his own account of his school years as 
 given in Louis Lambert. 
 
 Standing in the centre of the town on the little river 
 Loir, which bathes its outer walls, the College is seen 
 to be a vast inclosure of ancient brick and stone build- 
 ings, unchanged since the period of their erection, and 
 containing all the appurtenances necessary for an insti- 
 tution of its kind, — chapel, theatre, infirmary, bake- 
 house, gardens, and a sj-stem of irrigation and water 
 supph'. This college, the most important educational 
 establishment in the middle provinces, derived its 
 pupils from those provinces and from the colonies. 
 The rules forbade vacations bej'ond the walls. Letters 
 to parents were obligator}^ on certain days ; so was 
 confession. Sins and affections were thus under strict 
 supervision. All things bore the stamp of monastic 
 regularitj'. 
 
 The two or three hundred pupils contained in the 
 institution were divided into four sections : the Min- 
 imes^ the Petits^ the Mbyens^ and the Grands, the 
 latter being the head class in rhetoric, philosophy, spe- 
 cial mathematics, ph^'sics, and chemistr}'. Each section 
 occupied a building of its own, with classrooms and a 
 courtyard opening on a broad piece of ground leading 
 
 4 
 
50 Honors de Balzac, 
 
 to the refectory, where the pupils took their meals to- 
 gether. To ameliorate their lives, deprived as they 
 were of all communication with the world without, and 
 severed from family pleasures, the Fathers allowed the 
 boys to keep pigeons and to cultivate little gardens. 
 They were also permitted to play cards and act dramas 
 during the holidays ; a band of music belonged to the 
 miUtary section of the college, and a shop was set up 
 on the common ground near the refectory, where the 
 pupils could buy pens, ink and paper, balls, marbles, 
 stilts, and knives, and other boyish treasures. 
 
 To tliis unnatural life, parted from mother and sis- 
 ters, alone among boys and men, and aware that until 
 his education was finished there would be no change in 
 it even for a single day, the child of eight was con- 
 demned. Happily, he was passionately fond of read- 
 ing (having already devoured all that came in his way 
 in his father s house) and the college librarian allowed 
 him to take such books as he liked, pa3ing little or no 
 attention to those he carried away with him, nor to 
 those he read in the tranquil precincts of the librar\'. 
 Absorbed in the delights of this passion he neglected 
 his studies, and composed poems which gave no prom- 
 ise of future greatness, if we ma}' judge by the follow- 
 ing unwield}' line, the first of an epic on the Incas ; 
 
 O Inca ! vol infortune et malheureux. 
 
 This epic fell into the hands of his schoolmates, who 
 dubbed him " Poet," in derision of the performance. 
 But ridicule did not repress him. He continued to 
 scribble sorry verses in spite of Monsieur Mareschal, 
 the director, who told him the fable of the fledgling that 
 
Honors de Balzac. 51 
 
 fell out of the nest into man}- troubles, because it tried 
 to fl}^ before its wings were grown. All to no purpose, 
 however ; he persisted in his desultory- reading, and be- 
 came the least assiduous, the laziest, dreamiest pupil in 
 his division, and the oftenest punished. He was then 
 twelve years old. George Sand records : '' A friend of 
 mine, who sat on the same bench with him, told me 
 that he was a very absorbed child, rather heavy in ap- 
 pearance, poor at his classics, and appearing stupid to 
 his masters, — a great proof of either precocious genius 
 or strong individuality, and so it seemed in the eyes of 
 the person who told me." 
 
 During the first months of his life at Vendome he 
 fell a victim to a sort of nostalgia, the symptoms of 
 whicli were not perceived by the masters. Accustomed 
 to the open air, to independence, to the care of friends, 
 and to thinking and dreaming in the sunshine, it was 
 very hard for him to bow to college rules, and to live 
 within the four walls of a room where eighty lads were 
 forced to sit erect and silent before their desks His 
 senses were endowed with extreme delicac}', and he suf- 
 fered greatly from this community of life. Exhalations, 
 which poisoned the air and mingled with the other odors 
 of a classroom that was often dirty, gave forth the 
 fumes of a sort of humus which affected his sense of 
 smell, a sense, he says, in closer relation than any other 
 to the cerebral system, and which, if vitiated, must 
 create invisible disturbance to the organs of thought. 
 The loss of the pure countr\' air he had hitherto breathed, 
 the change in his habits, the discipline of the school, 
 all combined to depress his vitality. He would sit for 
 hours leaning his head upon his left hand, and gazing 
 
52 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 into the court3'ard, at the foliage of the trees or the 
 clouds in the sky. He seemed to be studying his les- 
 sons, but from time to time the master, noticing his 
 motionless pen, would call out: ''You are doing 
 nothing!" That fatal " 3'ou are doing nothing" was 
 like a pin pricking his heart. 
 
 He had no recreation, because of the "pensums" 
 he was forced to write. The pensum was a varying 
 number of lines to be copied during recess ; and the 
 boy was so laden down with them that he did not have 
 six entirel}' free days in two years. He brought these 
 pensums upon him in a dozen different ways. His 
 memor}^ was so good that he never studied his lessons ; 
 it sufficed him to hear his schoolmates recite the ap- 
 pointed bit of French or Latin or even grammar, to be 
 able to repeat it when his turn came. Sometimes, by 
 ill-luck, the master would reverse the order and question 
 Balzac first, and then he often did not know what the 
 lesson was. He used to wait till the last moment to 
 write his themes, and if he had a book to finish, or a 
 revery to pursue, the theme was neglected, — fruitful 
 source of pensums. 
 
 Another of his trials was that of physical suflTering. 
 For want of motherly home-care, the Petits and the 
 Mi7iimes were covered with chilblains on their hands 
 and feet. During the winters he never walked without 
 severe pain. This he shared in common with others, 
 for he records the fact that out of sixt}- scholars in his 
 class scarcely ten were free from this torture. To add 
 to it, no gloves were allowed to protect their chapped 
 and bleeding hands. 
 
 For neglected themes, lessons ill-learned, and boy- 
 
Honore de Balzac. 53 
 
 ish pranks, the pensum sufficed ; but other offences, 
 especially those of disrespect, real or imagined, to a 
 master were punished with what was called '' the 
 ferule." This was inflicted by a strip of leather, two 
 inches wide, applied to the shrinking hands of the 
 pupils with all the strength of an angry master. But 
 there was still a third punishment greatly dreaded by 
 the other pupils, but which Balzac came to look on as a 
 boon, for it gave him release from his lessons with soli- 
 tude and the freedom to dream. It was called by the 
 curious name of the calotte de bois, and consisted in 
 being locked up in a cell, or cage, six feet square, the 
 wooden sides of which had a grating round the top to 
 let in the air. Here he was sometimes imprisoned for 
 over a month. The old porter, pere Verdun, whose 
 duty it was to lock the recalcitrant scholars into these 
 cages, was still living, at the age of eightj'-four, some 
 time after Balzac's death. The old man remembered 
 " those great black eyes," and also the fact that he 
 sometimes took him to a prison of greater severity, a 
 gloomy turreted building, detached from the main col- 
 lege and standing at the very edge of the Loir.^ 
 
 It may be very short-sighted of us to regret these 
 trials of the child's life, which strengthened the wings 
 of his spirit and developed an inward power of which he 
 might never have been fully conscious without them. 
 
 In the solitude of those cells, not greater though 
 more tangible than the solitude of mind in which he 
 lived, reading was impossible, and the time was spent 
 chiefly in mental arguments or in recalling curious facts 
 
 1 See the illustration, from a drawing made on the spot by 
 A. Queyroy,for Champfleury's pamphlet, '* Balzac au College." 
 
54 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 to illustrate them. Thoughts came to him by intuition 
 (for he could not as yet have had insight) of which the 
 following may stand as specimens : — 
 
 " Happily for me there are joyful moments when the 
 walls of the classroom disappear, and I am away — in 
 the meadows. What dehght to float upon thought like 
 a bird on the wing ! " 
 
 "To think is to see. All knowledge rests on de- 
 duction, — a chink of vision by which we descend 
 from cause to effect, returning upward from effect to 
 cause." 
 
 "I feel, sometimes, that strange fantastic sufferings 
 are going on within me in spite of myself. For in- 
 stance, when I think strongly on the sensation the blade 
 of my penknife would cause me if thrust into my flesh 
 I instantly experience a sharp pain as though I had 
 really cut myself. An idea causing physical suffer- 
 ing ! what is to be made of that?" 
 
 It is well to remember that these speculations (and 
 others like them not given here) were made and written 
 down before the physiologists of the last half-century 
 had explained or even perceived them. 
 
 " When I first read of the battle of Austerlitz I saw 
 it all. I heard the cannon and the shouts of the 
 soldiers ; I smelt the powder ; 1 heard the tramp of 
 horses and the cries of men. I saw the plain where the 
 armies clashed together as though I stood on the heights 
 of Santon. The sight was awful, — like a page out of 
 the Apocalypse." 
 
 " How is it that men have reflected so little on the 
 events of sleep which prove to them that the}' have a 
 double life? Is there not a dawning science in that 
 
Honore de Balzac. 65 
 
 phenomenon ? If it is not the germ of a science it cer- 
 tainly reveals extraordinary powers in man ; it shows a 
 frequent disunion of our two natures, — a fact round 
 which my mind is constanth' revolving." 
 
 Reading was a hunger of his soul which nothing ap- 
 peased. He devoured books of all sorts ; he even 
 found unspeakable pleasure in reading dictionaries in 
 default of other books. The analysis of a word, its 
 conformation, its histor}', were to him a text for rever3'. 
 "Often," he said, " ^ have made delightful journeys 
 embarked on a single word. Starting from Greece I 
 have reached Rome, and traversed the modern eras. 
 What a glorious book might be written on the life and 
 adventures of a word ! But who can explain to us 
 philosophically the transition from sensation to thought, 
 from thought to word, from the word to its hieroglyph- 
 ical expression, from hieroglyphs to alphabet, from the 
 alphabet to written language?" 
 
 A strong inclination led him to the study of mysti- 
 cism. '' Abyssus abyssum" he said, " our mind is an 
 abyss which delights in depths." This taste for the 
 '' things of heaven " (a phrase of his own), this mens 
 divinior, was due perhaps to the first books he had 
 read. The Old and New Testaments had fallen into his 
 hand in his father's librarj^ ))efore he was seven years 
 old. Was he merely fascinated by the romantic charm 
 of those poems of the Orient, or did tlie child's soul in 
 its first innocence sympathize with the sublime piety 
 which hands divine have shed within that book ? How- 
 ever this ma}^ be, he had since read the writings of 
 Saint Teresa and Madame Guyon, and the}' were to 
 him a continuation of the Bible and the first food of 
 
66 Honor e de Balzac, 
 
 his adult intelligence. This study uplifted his heart 
 and purified it, and gave him a thirst for the Divine 
 nature. Thanks to these first impressions he continued 
 pure in thought throughout his college life, and this 
 noble virginity of the senses had the effect, necessarily, 
 of increasing the faculties of his mind. 
 
 Out of his mystical studies he formed for himself a 
 theory of angels, which ma}^ be summed up as follows : 
 There are within us two distinct beings, — an inner and 
 an outer being. The individual in whom the inward be- 
 ing has triumphed over the outward being is an angel. 
 If a man desires to obe}^ his true calling he must nourish 
 the angelic nature within him. If, failing to possess this 
 vision of his destiu}', he lets the lower tendencies pre- 
 dominate, his natural powers pass into the service of 
 his material being, and the angel within him slowlj^ 
 perishes. On the other hand, if he nourishes the in- 
 ward angel with the essences that accord with it, the 
 soul rises above matter, endeavors to get free from it, 
 and when death comes the angel alone survives and 
 true life begins. Although created beings are appar- 
 ently all of one nature here below, they are in fact 
 divided, according to the perfection of their inward 
 being, into separate spheres whose sayings and ethics 
 are alien to each other. 
 
 He loved to plunge into that world of mystery, in- 
 visible to the senses, and exercise his mind on the toil 
 of thought. To him pure love, the love of which we 
 dream in youth, was the coming together of two angelic 
 natures. Nothing could equal the ardor with which he 
 longed to meet a woman-angel. 
 
 The apparent indolence and torpidity in which he 
 
Honore de Balzac. 57 
 
 lived, his neglect of school duty, and the repugnance 
 he showed to themes and pensums, together with the 
 frequent punishments he incurred, gave him the unchal- 
 lenged reputation of being the idlest and most incorri- 
 gible pupil in the school. The masters thought slight- 
 ingly of his capacity, and pronounced him an ordinary 
 scholar and a dull boy. It is noticeable that Balznc 
 does not resent or greatly complain of the hardships 
 and punishments he was forced to endure ; he makes 
 no claim to pity on that score ; on the contrar}', he 
 seems to accept them as justly due in a measure to his 
 idle ways. The recognition of authority was a tenet of 
 his faith in after years, and he appears to have prac- 
 tised it in his earliest experience ; possibly that experi- 
 ence may have inculcated the doctrine in his mind. 
 
 It was during his last ^-ear at Vendome (he was then 
 fourteen) that he wrote the Treatise on the Will which 
 Father Haugoult, the master, or regent as he was 
 called, confiscated and destroyed in his anger at find- 
 ing it in place of a theme which ought to have been 
 written, saying as he did so: ''So this is the rubbish 
 for which you neglect jour lessons ! " 
 
 It does not come within the scope of this memoir to 
 give a descriptive account of that treatise, the loss of 
 which Balzac always regretted, believing that it gave a 
 true picture of his mind at that period of his life. He 
 endeavored to replace it in Louis Lambert ; and has 
 no doubt done so faithfully in the main, with some 
 assistance from his mature mind.-' 
 
 ^ The reader is referred to the American translation of Louis 
 'Lambert. It is preceded by an introduction by Mr. George Fred- 
 eric Parsons, which develops and makes intelligible to a patient 
 
58 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 Six months after the confiscation of the treatise Bal- 
 zac left college. He was attacked bj feverish symp- 
 toms which clung to him persistently and produced at 
 times a sort of coma, caused, as Balzac himself said, 
 by ''a congestion of ideas," and also, we may add, by 
 the accumulated suffering and unhealthiness of his 
 life. The head of the college, Monsieur Mareschal, 
 wrote to his parents, and his mother promptly removed 
 him from the school and brought him home. 
 
 No sooner did the boy return to a life of freedom 
 and natural enjoyment than he recovered his health ; a 
 strong proof of the vigor of his constitution and also of 
 his mind. In all estimates of Balzac's nature attention 
 must be paid to the fact that he was eminently sound 
 and healthy in mind and hody. Though his spirit rose 
 to regions that could be reached onty by intuition, and 
 ruminated over problems the studj' of which we asso- 
 ciate with fragility of body and aloofness from the 
 things of life, he was at the same time, and quite as 
 thoroughl}', a man with human instincts, loving life and 
 enjoying it. In this lies, no doubt, one of the secrets 
 of his power. It was a part of the many-sidedness of 
 his genius ; it enabled him to actually live and have his 
 being in the men and women whom he evoked from the 
 depths and heights of human nature. His temperament 
 was, above all things, genial, and his humor gay. No 
 pressure of worldly anxietj^ and debt, no crushing toil, 
 
 reader the thought of a book which contains divine wisdom, but 
 is so difficult of comprehension as to need a guide. The day will 
 come, no doubt, when its difficulties will have vanished before the 
 world's clearer knowledge. At present this book, written fifty 
 years ago, is still in advance of the times. 
 
Honors de Balzac. 59 
 
 no hidden grief with wliichthe man, Hke the child in his 
 cell, was acquainted, could destroy that health}^ cheer- 
 fulness or prevent the rebound into hearty and even 
 jovial gayet}'. " Robust " is the word that seems to suit 
 him on the material side of his nature, applying even 
 to his mental processes. He was gifted with a strong 
 common-sense, which guided his judgment on men and 
 circumstances ; though at times, it is true, his imagina- 
 tion interfered with his judgment, as in the famous trip 
 to Sardinia, of which his sister will tell us, and in the 
 harmless eccentricities related (with a grain of truth 
 and much exaggeration) in the rather frothy and self- 
 conscious writings of his literary associates. We may 
 remark, in passing, that nearly all the contemporaries 
 (except a few choice minds) who rushed into print to 
 tell the public what they knew of Balzac, seem to have 
 been thinking more of themselves than of him. They 
 have done him some passing injury, but in judging of 
 Balzac we must always remember that he was a man 
 not for posterity only, but for the posterity of ages. 
 Therefore he needs no controversy about him. It is 
 sufficient to state such facts as can be proved, and 
 draw such natural deductions as may seem just and 
 reasonable, — making no attempt to gainsay the foolish 
 things that have been written of him. So with his 
 books ; each generation will have its own interpreta- 
 tion to put upon them, for the}' have their message to 
 all. Let the present day throw its best light upon his 
 work, and leave insufficient criticism to wear itself out, 
 — already this is happening. 
 
 The lad's health restored, his mind, which had hith- 
 erto been guided by the intuitions of a virgin spirit and 
 
60 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 fed on abstract thought, now added to the mental 
 wealth thus acquired a registration of the beings and 
 events among which his new freedom cast him, amass- 
 ing materials which he stored away in his vast memory. 
 This was unconsciously done on his part, but we who 
 know the use he made of them can look back and see 
 the process. Here, then, were the sources of his train- 
 ing for his ultimate work. 
 
 His fifteenth year was spent at home among the beau- 
 ties of his dear Touraine. " Do not ask me why I 
 love Touraine," he says; "I love it as an artist loves 
 art ; I love it less than I love 3'ou, but without Tou- 
 raine perhaps I should not now be living." To this 
 j^ear we owe the inspiration of those exquisite descrip- 
 tions of scenery in Xa Grenadiere and the Lys dans 
 la ValUe. Perhaps it may be true to say that the 
 greatest charm of Balzac's work lies in his pictures of 
 nature, — waj'side sketches, as it were, never forced or 
 written to order, simply the necessary descriptions of 
 the scenes through which the reader has to pass as the 
 stor}^ leads him.^ 
 
 At the close of the year 1814, when the family moved 
 to Paris and took a house in the rue du Roi-Dore, in the 
 Marais, Honore was again sent from home to schools 
 in the neighborhood, where he remained finishing his 
 education till the autumn of 1816, when he was seven- 
 teen and a half years old. Within that period he wit- 
 
 1 Among thera may be specified the description of the Lac de 
 Bourget in the Peau de Chagrin ; the beginning of the Medecin de 
 Campagne ; the park in Les Paysans ; that wonderful picture of 
 the desert in Une Passion dans le desert ; but above and before all, 
 the opening of Seraphita. 
 
Honor e de Balzac. 61 
 
 nessed great national events : the return from Elba, the 
 Hundred Days, the presence of the Allied Armies, and 
 the Restoration. We can fauc}' what an effect these 
 scenes must have had on an imagination like his, — but 
 indeed we need not fancy it, for we can read it in his 
 books. Surely he knew the old hero of the Beresina in 
 the flesh, and the story of the Emperor was not altogether 
 the work of his brain ; and he must, beyond a doubt, have 
 been present at that last review in the Carrousel, which 
 he thus describes in the language of an eye-witness : — 
 **The expectant multitude throbbed with enthusi- 
 asm. France was about to bid farewell to Napoleon 
 on the eve of a campaign of which all present, even the 
 humblest citizen, foresaw the dangers. The French 
 empire hung in the balance,^ to be or not to be. That 
 thouglit appeared to fill all minds, of soldiers and citi- 
 zens alike, as they stood together silently in the great 
 inclosure above which hovered the genius and the eagles 
 of Napoleon. Arm}^ and people seemed to be taking 
 farewell of each other, — possibly an eternal farewell. 
 All hearts, even those most hostile to the Emperor, 
 breathed ardent prayers to heaven for the nation's 
 glory. Men who were weary of the struggle between 
 France and P^urope laid aside their hatreds as they 
 passed beneath the arch of triumph, acknowledging in 
 their souls that in the hour of danger Napoleon was 
 France. The clock of the palace struck the half-hour. 
 Suddenl}' the hum of voices ceased. The silence grew 
 so deep that the voice of a child was heard. The spec- 
 tators, who seemed to live by their e3'es only, became 
 aware of the clank of spurs and swords echoing among 
 the columns of the palace gateway. 
 
62 Honore de Balzac, 
 
 ''A small man, rather fat, dressed in a green uni- 
 form with white small-clothes and top-boots, suddenly 
 appeared, wearing on his liead a three-cornered hat in 
 v/hich la}' a spell almost as potent as that of the man 
 himself. The broad ribbon of the legion of honor 
 floated on his breast ; a small sword hung at his side. 
 The man was seen b}^ every eye, instantly, in all parts 
 of the great square. The drums beat ; the bands 
 played the first notes of a martial air, which was caught 
 up and repeated by all the instruments from the softest 
 flute to the kettledrums. All hearts quivered at the 
 warlike call ; the colors dipped ; the soldiers presented 
 arms with a simultaneous motion which moved each 
 gun throughout the whole Carrousel. Words of com- 
 mand flew through the ranks like echoes. Cries of 
 * Long live the Emperor ! ' came from the multitude ; 
 the whole mass swayed and quivered and shook. Na- 
 poleon had mounted his horse. That action had given 
 life to the silent assemblage, voice to the instruments, 
 movement to the flags and the eagles, emotion to all 
 faces. The high stone walls of the palace seemed to 
 or}' with the multitude, 'Long live the Emperor!' It 
 was not a human thing ; there was magic in it, — the 
 phantom of divine power ; or, to speak more truly, the 
 fleeting image of a fleeting reign. The man thus sur- 
 rounded with so much love, enthusiasm, devotion, 
 prayer, for whom the sun had driven everj- cloud from 
 the sky, sat motionless on his horse, three feet in ad- 
 vance of the dazzling escort that followed him, with the 
 grand marshal to right and his chamberlain to left of him. 
 In the midst of this mighty emotion of which he was the 
 object, not a feature of his face gave token of feeling. 
 
Honor e de Balzac. 63 
 
 *' My God, yes," an old grenadier was heard to say : 
 *'it was always so; under fire at Wagram, among 
 the dead in the Moskowa, he was quiet as a lamb — 
 3^es, that 's he ! " 
 
 When Balzac finished his legal studies, which lasted 
 from 1816 to 1820, he was twenty-one years old. The 
 Restoration was fully accomplished, and during those 
 years he saw something of it socially through his famih^, 
 though not in the degree to which the fame of his books 
 afterwards introduced him. His political opinions (of 
 which more will be said later) leaned to those of the 
 old regime, but it was impossible for a mind so many- 
 sided in knowledge and insight to be partisan, and his 
 politics rested chiefly on certain broad lines of prin- 
 ciple. His absolute impartiality, which was not tliat of 
 an easy-going nature, but rather that of an ability to 
 see and judge all sides deliberately, is evident in his 
 books. All opinions are brought forward in the human 
 comedy, but it would be hard to find a partisan bias for 
 or against any of them ; and due notice of this should 
 be taken in reading his works. In fact, his admira- 
 tion, and even his sympathy, were often given where 
 his judgment saw and stated essential error, as in the 
 case of Napoleon. Wherever he brings him on the 
 scene it is as a mighty presence ; and certainh' few 
 things have ever been written in any language so vivid, 
 so impetuous, or so full of a certain inspiration as the 
 Story of the Emperor in the Medecin de Campagne. 
 
 But the fateful da}' came when he was to choose his 
 career, or rather when a career was to be chosen and 
 forced upon him. His sister has told us the stor}-, but 
 here, as elsewhere in her narrative, we nmst read be- 
 
64 Honors de Balzac» 
 
 tween the lines. It is plain that his father (who, 
 we shonld remember, was fiftj'-two years old when 
 Honore was born), notwithstanding his own indepen- 
 dence, and his demand for liberty' of thought and action, 
 denied that libert}' to his son. He was totally ignorant 
 of the lad's real powers ; probably he took his opinion 
 of him from the Oratorian report: "a poor scholar 
 and a dull boy ; " and there is evidence in Balzac's let- 
 ters that this was the estimation in which his family 
 held him for man}' years. " Will they still call me an 
 incapable and a do-nothing?" he said after several of 
 his great works had been written. Madame de Balzac, 
 a stirring woman, seems not only to have shared her 
 husband's views, but also, at times, to have instigated 
 them. At an}- rate, the financial injury the father had 
 entailed upon his children by the purchase of an 
 annuity made it, according to French parental ideas, of 
 the utmost consequence that the son should go to work 
 in some way that might speedil}- bring wealth into the 
 famil}'. The profession of notary is one of the most 
 lucrative, with the advantage of little risk, and the op- 
 portunity of so placing his son fell, almost unsought, 
 into the father's hand. 
 
 Confronted with the family opinion of his mental 
 capacity, and with their reasonable worldly expecta- 
 tions of him, we see the dawning consciousness in the 
 youth who had written the Treatise on the Will of a 
 higher vocation, of a thirst to exercise some as yet 
 unknown but instinctive power of his own spirit, — 
 held in check, however, by the filial reverence of a 
 French son. The child had borne his trial in the 
 wooden cage ; this was the trial of the youth. His 
 
Honors de Balzac, 65 
 
 sister has told us how it ended joyfullj' in freedom and 
 a garret. 
 
 We can fanc}' now what that garret was to him, — 
 the first freedom of his life ! freedom to make himself 
 that which his inner being told him he could be. It is 
 necessar}' to bear in mind this inward consciousness of 
 faith in himself; a faith, however inspired, which asked 
 no support from others ; which bore him triumphantly^ 
 through something harder to endure and to conquer 
 than doubts of friends, incessant debt, or the gigantic 
 toil of after years, — through the discovery of his own 
 incapacity. For the strange fact remains that he proved 
 at first incapable in his chosen vocation. With all the 
 wealth of observation, imagination, intuition, and power 
 of philosophical thought that were even then at his 
 command, he could not construct or shape his work nor 
 bring his style into proper form. It seems incredible, 
 but his sister vouches for it as true, that he wrote and 
 published fort}^ volumes before he could write one to 
 which he was willing to put his name : "Ah! sister," 
 he cries, " what a fall for my glorious hopes!" We 
 have only to pause and think upon these facts to per- 
 ceive the force of his struggle and the splendor of the 
 courage that carried him through it. 
 
 He has left a more interesting and valuable picture of 
 his life in the rue Lesdiguieres than that contained in 
 his merry letters to his sister. It is interesting to notice, 
 by the wa}', that his father insisted that Honore should 
 live there incognito, and that friends should be told he 
 was staying with a cousin at Alby ; so that in case of 
 failure his literary attempt might not be made known. 
 Perhaps this command of his father was the origin of 
 
 5 
 
66 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 his much talked-of habit of disappearing for months to 
 write in solitude, during which time his friends could 
 reach him only through a system of pass-words. 
 
 "I was then living," he says, addressing the lady 
 to whom he dedicated Facino Cane^ " in a little street 
 which you probabh^ do not know, the rue Lesdiguieres. 
 Love of knowledge had driven me to a garret, where I 
 worked during the night, passing my days in the library 
 of Monsieur, which was near by.^ I lived frugally, tak- 
 / ing upon me the conditions of monastic life, so essential 
 to workers. I seldom walked for pleasure, even when 
 the weather was fine. One sole passion drew me away 
 from m}^ studies, but even that was a form of study. I 
 walked the streets to observe the manners and ways of 
 the faubourg, to study its inhabitants and learn their 
 characters. Ill-dressed as the workmen themselves, and 
 quite as indifferent to the proprieties, there was nothing 
 - about me to put them on their guard. I mingled in 
 their groups, watched their bargains, and heard their 
 disputes at the hour when their day's work ended. The 
 facult}' of observation had become intuitive with me. 
 I could enter the souls of others, all the while conscious 
 of their bodies — or rather, I grasped external details 
 so thoroughly that my mind instantly passed bej'ond 
 them ; I possessed the faculty of living the life of the 
 individual on whom I exercised my observation, and of 
 substituting myself for him, like the dervish in the 
 Arabian Nights who assumed the bod}- and soul of 
 those over whom he pronounced certain words. 
 
 "Often, between eleven o'clock and midnight, when 
 
 1 Afterwards called the Bibliotheque de I'Arsenal; but he 
 gives it the Bourbon name. 
 
Honors de Balzac, 67 
 
 I met some workman and his wife returning home from 
 the Ambigu-Comique I amused myself by following 
 them. The worthy pair usually talked first of the play 
 they had just seen ; then, from one thing to another, 
 they came to their own affairs ; the mother would, per- 
 haps, be dragging her child along by the hand, paying 
 no attention to its complaints or inquiries ; husband and 
 wife reckoned up their gains ; told what they expected, 
 to make on the morrow, and spent that sum in fancy in 
 a dozen different ways. Then the}' dropped into house- 
 hold details, groaned over the excessive cost of pota- 
 toes, the increased price of fuel, and talked of the 
 strong remonstrance they intended to make to the 
 baker. Their discussions often grew heated, and each 
 side betrayed his and her character in picturesque lan- 
 guage. As I listened to these persons I imbibed their 
 life ; I felt their ragged clothing on my back ; my feet 
 walked in their broken shoes ; their desires, their wants 
 passed into my soul, — or my soul passed into theirs. 
 It was the dream of a waking man. I grew angry, 
 as they did, against some foreman who ill-used them, 
 against annoying customers who obliged them to call 
 many times before they could get their money. To quit 
 my own life, to become some other individual through 
 the excitation of a moral faculty, and to play this game 
 at will, was the relaxation of my studious hours. 
 
 *'To what have I owed this gift? Is it second- 
 sight? Can it be one of those faculties the abuse of 
 which leads to insanity ? I have never sought to dis- 
 cover the causes of this power; I only know that I 
 possess it and use it. I must tell you that ever since 
 I became aware of this facult}-, 1 have decomposed 
 
68 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 the elements of those heterogeneous masses called the 
 Peoi)le, and I have analyzed them in a manner that 
 enables me to appraise both their good and evil 
 N^ qualities." 
 
 Balzac's mind dealt with more than one philosophical 
 problem of which his own life was a startling illustra- 
 tion ; but he was not introspective in a selfish and 
 personal wa}-, or he might have thought himself under 
 the ban of some pursumg fate. For all through his 
 life — even to death — no sooner had he gained a van- 
 tage ground than it was cut from under his feet. He 
 was now to lose his brief independence. Onl}' fifteen 
 months of his two 3'ears opportunity had expired, but 
 the failure of his traged\', and the deprivations he had 
 borne must have seemed to his parents to justify their 
 hope that " a little suffering would bring him to sub- 
 mission." He was not allowed to remain in his garret, 
 but was taken home to Villeparisis, eighteen miles from 
 Paris and from libraries, — this, we must remember, 
 was before the days of railroads. Here he had no soli- 
 tude and no tranquil time for stud3" ; on the contrary, 
 he was surrounded by disturbing domestic elements. 
 But, cheerful as ever, and "good to live with," as 
 Madame Surville sa3's of him, his letters of this period 
 make no complaint. 
 
 Still, with all his courage, his mind seems to have 
 misgiven him as to the possibility of working for his 
 vocation under such circumstances. He asked his 
 father to make him an allowance of fifteen hundred 
 francs a year and let him live in Paris. We smile at 
 the sum, which was scarcely more then than it would 
 be now ; for the times of the Restoration were costly. 
 
Honore de Balzac. 69 
 
 His request was refused. This refusal appears to have 
 been the turning-point of his outward career. Had his 
 request been granted, it is certain that the circumstances 
 of that career would have been ver}' different from what 
 thej^ were ; so far as we can now judge, the incubus 
 that lay upon his whole life and was an agent in his 
 death, though not the cause of it, would never have 
 come to him. 
 
70 Honore de Balzac, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Many persons are unaware that ray brother spent as 
 much mind and energy in struggling against misfortune 
 as in writing the Comedie Humaine^ that work which, 
 however it may be judged, satisfied the most ardent 
 desire of his life and gave him fame. Those who were 
 in the secret of his life and trials ask themselves, with 
 as much compassion as respect, how it was that a man 
 so weighed down could find the time, the physical 
 strength, and above all, the moral force to sustain such 
 enormous labor. If his parents had granted him the 
 modest income of fifteen hundred francs which was all 
 he asked to enable him to win his first success, what 
 adversities would have been spared to him and also to 
 his familj' ; what a fortune he would then have made 
 with his pen, of which he knew the value. Energetic 
 and patient, like all genius, he would have gone back 
 to solitude where that modest allowance would have 
 suflSced for his wants ; for, extreme in all his desires, 
 he needed either a palace or a garret ; lover of luxury 
 that he was, he knew how to do without it. "A gar- 
 ret has its poesy," he often said to me. It was only 
 where poesy did not exist that he was ill at ease. 
 
 But the insoluble question remains : Does not mis- 
 fortune develop talent ? Would Balzac, rich and happy, 
 
Honore de Balzac. 71 
 
 have become the great inquisitor of humanity ; would 
 he have surprised its secrets, laid bare its feelings, and 
 judged its misery from so vast a height? That clear- 
 ness of vision granted to superior minds, which enables 
 them to seize all aspects of an idea, is it ever acquired 
 unless at the cost of privation and the experience of 
 suffering? Yet such clearness of vision itself has a 
 fatal side, for many who cannot comprehend these 
 mighty faculties (and their number is large) sometimes 
 cast doubts upon the moral worth of those who possess 
 them. The dry details that follow, which I shall en- 
 deavor to abridge as much as possible, are necessary 
 to explain the misfortunes of Balzac's life, — misfor- 
 tunes so little or so imperfectly known that even his 
 friends have sometimes attributed them to follies which 
 he did not commit. 
 
 Whenever Honore went to Paris he stayed in the 
 former apartment of the family in the Marais, which 
 his father still retained. There he became intimate 
 with a neighbor to whom he related his fears of being 
 forced into a profession he disliked. This friend, a 
 man of business, advised him to seek for some good 
 enterprise which should make him independent, and he 
 offered to supply the funds. Balzac, transformed into 
 a speculator, was advised to begin as a publisher of 
 books, and he accordingly did so. He was the first to 
 think of publishing compact editions (which have since 
 enriched so many libraries), and he brought out in 
 one volume the complete works of Moliere and also of 
 La Fontaine. He carried on the two publications at 
 the same time, so greatly did he fear that one or the 
 other might be snatched from him by competition. 
 
72 ^ Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 Though these editions did not succeed, it was only be- 
 cause their publisher, unknown to the trade, was not 
 sustained by the fraternity, who refused to sell or to 
 receive his books. The sum lent to the enterprise did 
 not suffice to pay for wide advertising which might per- 
 haps have brought purchasers ; the editions therefore 
 were completely unknown ; at the end of a 3-ear not 
 twcnt}^ copies had been sold ; and to escape paying 
 further rent for the warehouse in which they were 
 stored, my brother sold the whole for the price, by 
 weight, of the fine paper it had cost him so much to 
 print. 
 
 Instead of making money on this first enterprise, 
 Honore was left in debt. It was the opening wedge to 
 that long series of such experiences which were eventu- 
 ally to make him so wise in judging of men and things. 
 In after years he would not have attempted to publish 
 books under such conditions ; he would have known 
 the probable failure of such an enterprise. But experi- 
 ence is never foreseen. 
 
 The friend who furnished the funds, having lost the 
 security for his loan, and being anxious that my brother 
 should find some business which would give him a 
 chance to pay off the debt, took him to one of his rela- 
 tives who was making a fine fortune in the printing 
 business. Honore made due inquiries, sought and ob- 
 tained the best information, and finally became so 
 enthusiastic over this industry that he determined to 
 become a printer. Books were alwaj'S his chief attrac- 
 tion. He did not renounce his intention of writing, 
 however ; for he remembered Richardson, who became 
 rich through printing and writing both, and his dreamed 
 
Honore de Balzac. 73 
 
 of new Clarissas issuing from his press. My brother's 
 creditor, pleased with this determination, encouraged it, 
 and took upon himself to obtain the consent of our 
 parents and the necessary money to start the enter- 
 prise. He succeeded ; my father made over to Honore, 
 as a portion of his inheritance, the capital of the in- 
 come for which he had asked as a maintenance while 
 he should give himself to literature.^ 
 
 Honore now took into partnership a very clever fore- 
 man, whom he had remarked in a printing-office at the 
 time his first novels were published. This young man, 
 who was married and the father of a family, inspired 
 him with confidence, but, unfortunatel}', he brought to 
 the partnership nothing more than his knowledge of 
 typography. This knowledge was, of course, lacking 
 to my brother, who thought that the zeal and activity 
 of his partner, combined with experience, were equiva- 
 lent to capital. Printing licenses were very costly 
 under Charles X. ; when fifteen thousand francs was 
 paid for the license, and the necessary material had 
 been purchased, there remained but little money to 
 meet the current expenses of the work. But my brother 
 was not alarmed ; youth is always so sanguine of lucky 
 chances ! The 3'oung partners installed themselves 
 gayly in the rue des Marais Saint-Germain, and ac- 
 cepted all customers who came to them. Payments, 
 however, were slow in coming, and did not balance with 
 the expenses ; pressure began to be felt. A splendid 
 opportunit}' now offered to unite a type foundr}' with 
 the printing-office. It promised such profits, a'ccording 
 to competent authorities whom Honore consulted, that 
 
 1 The sum is elsewhere stated to have been 30,000 francs. 
 
74 Honord de Balzac. 
 
 he did not hesitate to purchase it. He hoped, by unit- 
 ing the two enterprises to obtain either a third asso- 
 ciate with means, or a loan. He did his best in these 
 directions, but all efforts failed, for the securities given 
 to his first creditor had of course the first claim, and 
 brought all negotiations to an end. 
 
 My brother, with bankruptcy looming in the future, 
 passed through a period of anguish which he never for- 
 got, and which compelled him once more to appeal to 
 his parents, M}^ father and mother saw the gravity of 
 the situation, and came to his assistance ; but after 
 some months of continual sacrifice, fearing that their 
 ruin might follow that of their son, they refused to fur- 
 nish more money, — at the very moment when, per- 
 haps, prosperit}^ was at hand. This is tlie history of 
 nearly all commercial disasters. i 
 
 Honore, unable to convince his parents that a fortu- 
 nate result was close at hand, now attempted to sell out ; 
 but his unfortunate position had become known, and the 
 offers made were so insufficient that by accepting them 
 he would have to lose all except the honor of his name. 
 However, to avoid an imminent failure, which might 
 have killed his old father and blasted his own young 
 life, he made over the foundry and printing-office to 
 friends for the price offered to him. In so doing he 
 secured the future of that friend ; for his judgment 
 proved to have been sound, and a fortune was made out 
 of the foundry alone. The price obtained being insuffi- 
 cient to pay the whole of the pressing debts, my mother 
 advanced what money was needed for them. Honore 
 retired from the business weighed down by obhgations, 
 — our mother being one of his chief creditors. 
 
Honors de Balzac. 75 
 
 It was now the close of the year 1827; our parents 
 had sold their country-house at Villeparisis, and were 
 living near me at Versailles, where Monsieur Surville 
 was stationed as engineer of the department of the 
 Seine-et-Oise. Honor^, then nearly twenty-nine years 
 of age, possessed nothing but debts, and his pen with 
 which to pay them, — that pen, the value of which was 
 still unrecognized. Worse still, every one regarded 
 him as "incapable," — a fatal epithet which deprives a 
 man of all support, and often completes the sliipwreck 
 of the unfortunate victim. This verdict was in direct 
 denial of the sure and rapid judgment he possessed of 
 men and things, — a denial which exasperated him far 
 more than that of his talent, which continued to echo 
 about him long after he had given brilliant proofs to 
 the contrary. Certain of his friends undoubtedly 
 troubled him more than his numerous enemies. Even 
 after the publication of Louis Lambert and the 
 M^decin de Cumpagne they said to him: "Come, 
 Balzac, when are 3'ou going to give us some really fine 
 work?" In their eyes he was a trifler, a mere writer of 
 tales, not a " serious man," — a term which impresses 
 the common run of minds. Had he written some 
 weighty book, so learned that few could uli^erstand it, 
 they would have felt respect for him. And yet these 
 very persons, inconsistent with themselves, while they 
 deplored the frivolity of my brother's works, accused 
 him of presumption when he touched upon grave mat- 
 ters in his " little books " and lectured him paternally. 
 
 " Why meddle with philosophical or governmental 
 questions?" they said to him; "leave that to meta- 
 physicians and economists. You are a man of imagina- 
 
T6 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 tion, — we all admit that; don't go outside of your 
 vocation. A novelist is not obliged to be a learned 
 man or a legislator," 
 
 Such speeches, repeated under many forms, irritated 
 him greatly ; then he would turn with indignation on 
 himself for being wounded by those who did not under- 
 stand his powers, and his anger redoubled. " Must I 
 die," he said bitterly, " to let them know what I am 
 worth?" 
 
 And yet such blindness was not surprising. Those 
 who knew the child long saw him in the man ; and it is 
 so difficult to admit superiority in one whom we have 
 always ruled that when forced to grant him some one 
 special faculty we hasten to deny him all others. Be- 
 sides, his friends argued, is not one such faculty enough 
 for a man ? how many men have none at all ! Did 
 Honore pretend to universal genius? Such audacity 
 deserved repression. These friends did not spare him ; 
 and it was eas}' for them to persuade others that with 
 such an imagmation as my brother possessed he could 
 have no judgment. The union of the two quahties is, 
 doubtless, exceptionally rare, and Honore's two com- 
 mercial disasters seemed to justif}^ this verdict. If 1 
 seem to attach importance to opinions which have none 
 whatever to-day, it is because the}' were thorns in the 
 side of him whose hfe I am relating. Continually 
 wounded by such injustice, my brother would not stoop 
 to explain or defend his ideas and actions, which it 
 was now the custom to blame without endeavoring to 
 understand them ; he went his way alone towards his 
 goal, without encouragement, without support, — a way 
 strewn with the rocks and thorns of his two disasters. 
 
Honors de Balzac. 11 
 
 When he attained that goal, that is to say, when 
 fame was his, many there were to cr}' aloud: >'What 
 genius ! I foresaw it ! " But Balzac was no longer 
 here to laugh at such palinodes, or to enjoy their tardy 
 reparation. 
 
 These memories have led me too far, and I return now 
 to the year 1827, the time at which my brother left the 
 printing-office and hired a room in the rue de Tournon.^ 
 Monsieur de la Touche was his neighbor. He became 
 attached to my brother, but the friendship soon died 
 out, and he was afterwards among his bitterest enemies. 
 Honore was then writing Zes Chouans, the first book to 
 which he put his name. Overwhelmed with work he 
 no longer went to see his famil}^ at Versailles. Our 
 parents complained of his neglect ; and I wrote to 
 warn him of their feelings. My letter must have 
 reached him in a moment of great weariness, for he, so 
 patient and so gentle, answered sharply : — 
 
 Paris, 1827. 
 
 ''Your letter has given me two detestable days and 
 two detestable nights. 1 have thought over my justifi- 
 cation point by point, as Mirabeau did his memorandum 
 to his father, and I am incensed in so doing. I shall 
 not write it ; I have not the time, sister, and besides, I 
 do not feel that I am wrong. . . . 
 
 " I am blamed for the furniture of my room ; but 
 every piece of it belonged to me before m}' catastrophe. 
 I have not bought a single thing. Those blue cambric 
 hangings about which such complaint is made were in 
 my bed-chamber at the printing-office. La Touche and 
 
 1 His debts at this time, as he mentions in a letter, amounted 
 to 120,000 francs. 
 
78 Honors de Balzac, 
 
 I nailed them up to cover an old paper which must 
 otherwise have been changed. My books are my tools, 
 I cannot sell them. Taste, the thing that makes my 
 room harmonious, is not bought or sold (unfortunately 
 for the rich). But, even so, I care so little for what I 
 have that if my creditors were to put me, secretly, into 
 Sainte-Pelagie, I should be happier than I am now; 
 living would cost me nothing, and I could not be more a 
 prisoner than toil is making me. The postage of a 
 letter, the use of an omnibus are expenses I cannot 
 allow myself ; I do not go out, to save the wear and tear 
 of clothes. Is that plain enough for you ? 
 
 "Do not compel me therefore to make those trips, 
 those visits, which are impossible under m}^ circum- 
 stances. Remember that I have nothing left but time 
 and labor with which to make m}' wa}" ; I have no money 
 to meet even the smallest expenses. Think how my 
 pen is never out of my hand, and you will not have the 
 heart to require me to write letters. How can one write 
 with a weary brain and a tortured soul? I should only 
 grieve you, and why should I do that? You don't 
 understand that before my da3^'s work begins I some- 
 times have seven or eight business-letters to answer. 
 
 "Fifteen days more will see me through the Chou^, 
 ans ; till then, no Honore ; you might as well disturb 
 a founder when the metal is flowing. I am satisfied I 
 have done no wrong, dear sister ; if j'ou were to make 
 me think I had, my brain would give way. If my 
 father should be ill 3'ou will of course send me word. 
 You know that no human consideration would then 
 keep me from him. 
 
 " Sister, I must live without asking anything of any 
 
Honore de Balzac, 79 
 
 one, — live to work that I maj^ pa}' 1113^ debts to all. 
 When the Chouans is finished I will bring it out to 
 you ; but I do not wish an}- one to say a word, good or 
 bad, to me about it ; a writer's own family and friends 
 are incapable of judging him. Thanks, dear champion, 
 whose generous voice defends my motives. Shall I live 
 to pay the debts of my heart ? " 
 
 A few days later I received another letter which I 
 copy, because it shows his nature. Two little screens 
 were wanted for the decoration of the room which had 
 already brought reproaches upon him. He wanted them 
 just as he had formerly wanted his father's Tacitus in 
 the old garret, eagerly. 
 
 " Ah ! Laure, if you did but know how passionately 
 I desire (but hush, keep the secret) two blue screens 
 embroidered in black (silence ever!). In the midst of 
 my troubles that 's a point to which my thoughts re- 
 turn. Then I say to myself: ' I '11 confide the wish to 
 sister Laure.* When I get those screens I can never 
 do anything wrong. Shall I not always have a re- 
 minder of that indulgent sister before my eyes? — so 
 indulgent for her thoughts, so stern for mine. The 
 designs can be anything you like, just what you please ; 
 I shall be sure to think them pretty if they come from 
 my alma soror.'* 
 
 Here he is interrupted by bad news. He tells me his 
 new misfortune with passionate eloquence, and then 
 concludes in two lines : — 
 
 " But my screens — I want them more than ever, for 
 a little joy in the hiidst of torment." 
 
80 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 The CJiouans appeared. The work, though imper- 
 fect, and needing to be retouched (as it was later by 
 the master's hand) revealed, nevertheless, such remark- 
 able talent that it drew the attention of the public and 
 also of the press, which at first was very friendly to my 
 brother. Encouraged b}^ this first success he returned 
 with ardor to his work, and wrote his Catherine de Me- 
 dicis. The same withdrawal into solitude, same com- 
 plaints from his parents, same remonstrance on my part. 
 Feeling content, probabl}', with his work when m}- letter 
 arrived, he answers this time in a lively tone : — 
 
 Paris, 1829. 
 
 " I have received your scoldings, madame ; I see you 
 want particulars about the poor delinquent. Honore, 
 my dear sister, is a simpleton, who is crippled with debt 
 without having had one single jovial time to show for 
 it ; read}^ sometimes to dash his head against the wall 
 — though some persons do den}- that he has any. At 
 this moment he is in his room engaged in a duel ; he 
 has a half-ream of paper to kill, and he is stabbing it 
 with ink in a way to make his purse joyful. This fool 
 has some good in him. They say he is cold and indif- 
 ferent ; don't believe it, my darling sister. His heart is 
 excellent ; and he is ready to do services to any one, — 
 only, not having a credit with Mr. Shoemaker, he can't 
 go of errands for everybody as he used to do ; for this 
 he is blamed as Yorick was when he bought the mid- 
 wife's license. 
 
 *' In the matter of tenderness he is in funds, and will 
 return the double of what he receives ; but he is so con- 
 stituted that a harsh or wounding word expels all the joy 
 
Honore de Balzac, 81 
 
 in his heart, — so susceptible is he to delicacy of feeling. 
 He needs hearts that can love largely, that understand 
 affection, and know that it does not consist in visits, 
 civilities, good wishes, and other conventions of that 
 kind ; he carries eccentricity so far as to welcome a 
 friend whom he has not seen for a long time as if they 
 had been together the night before. This odd being 
 may forget the harm that has been done him, but the 
 kindness, never ! It should be graven on brass if his 
 heart contained that metal. As for what indifferent 
 people may think, or sa}' of him, he cares as little as 
 for the dust that sticks to his feet. He is trying to be 
 something ; and when a man erects a building he 
 does n't care for what idlers ma}^ scribble on the scaf- 
 folding! This young man, such as I describe him, 
 loves you, dear sister, and these words will be under- 
 stood by her to whom I address them." 
 
 My brother spent the first years of his literar}^ life 
 amid even greater anxieties than those he had borne in 
 the rue des Marais Saint-Martin, through which, in 
 after years, he never passed without a sigh, remem- 
 bering that his troubles began there. Without his 
 faith in himself, without that honor which commanded 
 him to live to pay his debts, he would certainly never 
 have written the Comedie Humaine. He told me that 
 during these years he had, on several occasions, been 
 assailed by temptations to suicide, such as he has given 
 to the hero of that work of youth and power which he 
 named La Peau de Chagrin. What bitter griefs, 
 what disappointments of every kind must have been 
 the lot of him who said in his latter years : " We spend 
 
 6 
 
82 Hoyiore de Balzac. 
 
 the second half of life in mowing down in our hearts 
 all that we grew there in the first half; and this we 
 call acquiring experience ! " 
 
 Or this, which is sadder still : — 
 
 " Noble souls come slov^ly and with difficulty to be- 
 lieve in evil feelings, in betraj'al, in ingratitude ; but 
 when their education in this matter is accomplished then 
 they rise to a pit}' which is, perhaps, the highest reach 
 of contempt for humanit}^" 
 
 If he did not return after his disasters to a garret 
 like that of the rue Lesdiguieres, it was onlj- because 
 he knew that in Paris everything is ground for specula- 
 tion, even poverty : — 
 
 " They would give me nothing for my books if I 
 lived in a garret," he said to me. 
 
 The luxur}' he affected, and which was so much 
 blamed, and so immensel}' exaggerated, was a means of 
 obtaining better prices for his work. 
 
 My brother, admiring Walter Scott enthusiastically, 
 as much for the abilitj- with which he won and main- 
 tained his success as for his genius, thought, in the 
 first instance, of following his example and making a 
 history of the manners and morals of our nation, 
 selecting for that purpose its leading phases. Les 
 Chouans^ and Catherine de Medecis, which imme- 
 diatel}' followed it, testif}^ to this intention, which he 
 explains in the introduction to Catherine de Mhlecis, — 
 one of his finest books, known to few persons, although 
 it proves to what heights Balzac might have attained 
 as an historian. 
 
 He abandoned this project, however, and confined 
 himself to pictures of the manners and morals of his 
 
Honore de Balzac. 83 
 
 own time, which he first entitled Etudes de Maeurs — 
 Studies of Manners and Morals — dividing them into 
 series, such as Scenes from Private Life — Country Life 
 — Provincial Life — Parisian Life, and so forth. It was 
 not until 1833, about the time of the publication of the 
 Medecin de Campagne, that he first thought of col- 
 lecting all his personages together and forming a com- 
 plete societ3^ The day when this idea burst upon his 
 mind was a glorious day for him. He started from the 
 rue Cassini, where he had taken up his abode after leav- 
 ing the rue de Tournon, and rushed to the faubourg 
 Poissonniere, where I was then living : — 
 
 " Make your bow to me," he said to us, joyouslj', *' I 
 am on the highroad to become a genius ! " 
 
 He then unfolded his plan, which frightened him a 
 little, for no matter how vast his brain might be, it 
 needed time to work out a scheme like that. 
 
 "How glorious it will be if I succeed," he said, 
 walking up and down the room. He could not keep 
 still ; joy radiated from every feature. " I '11 willingly 
 let them call me a maker of tales all the while that I 
 am cutting stones for my edifice. I gloat in advance 
 over the astonishment of those near-sighted creatures 
 as they see it rise ! " And thereupon this hewer of 
 stones sat down to talk over the building at his ease. 
 
 He judged the imaginary beings he created with 
 impartiality, in spite of the tenderness he felt for 
 each. 
 
 " Such an one is a scoundrel," he would say ; " he 
 will never come to an}' good. That man^ hard worker 
 and a good fellow, he will be rich; his nature will 
 always keep him happy." " Those others have com- 
 
84 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 mitted peccadilloes, but they have such good intellects 
 and so much knowledge of men and things that they 
 will get to the top of the social ladder." 
 
 ''Peccadilloes, brother? — 3'ou are ver}^ indulgent." 
 
 " You can't change them, my dear ; they sound the 
 abysses for themselves, but they know how to guide 
 others. The wise and virtuous are not always the 
 best pilots. It is not my fault ; I don't invent human 
 nature ; I observe it in the past and in the present, 
 and I try to paint it such as it is. Mere inventions 
 would n't convince anybody." 
 
 He would tell us the news of his imaginary world as 
 others tell that of the real world. 
 
 ''Do 3^ou know who Felix de Vandenesse is going 
 to marry? A demoiselle de Grandville. It is an 
 excellent match, for the Grandvilles are rich, in spite 
 of what Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille has cost them." 
 
 If we sometimes asked for mercy to a 3'oung man 
 who was hurrying to his ruin, or to some poor unhappy 
 woman whose sad fate interested us, he would answer : 
 
 "Don't bewilder me with 3'our sensibilities; truth 
 before everv'thing. Those persons are feeble, inca- 
 pable ; what happens to them must happen ; so much 
 the worse for them." 
 
 But in spite of this imperious talk their disasters 
 did grieve him. One of Doctor Minoret's friends, 
 Captain Jord\', excited our curiosit3% M3^ brother 
 had told nothing of his life, and yet many things led 
 us to believe he had met with great trials. We asked 
 him about them. " I did not know Monsieur de Jordy 
 before he came to Nemours," he replied. On one 
 occasion I invented a little romance on the old man's 
 
Honore de Balzac. 85 
 
 life, which I told to Honore (such jokes did not dis- 
 please him). " What you say may be so," he replied, 
 " and as you are interested in Monsieur de Jordy I 
 will get at the truth about him." 
 
 He was a long time hunting up a husband for 
 Mademoiselle Camille de Grand lieu, and rejected all 
 those we proposed for her. 
 
 *' His people are not iu the same society ; nothing %^ 
 but chance could bring that marriage about, and chance |' 
 should be used verj- cautiousl}' in a book ; reality alone I 
 justifies improbability ; we novelists are allowed only ' ' 
 possibilities." He finall}' chose the young Comte de 
 Restaud for Mademoiselle de Grandlieu, and rewrote 
 for that marriage the admirable history of Gobseck^ 
 in which the highest morality is to be found in the 
 facts, not in the words. 
 
 Like mothers who particularly attach themselves to 
 unfortunate children, Honore had a weakness for those 
 of his works whicii had the least success. For them 
 he was jealous of the fame of the others. The univer- 
 sal praise bestowed on Eugenie Grandet ended by 
 chilling his regard for that work. When we scolded 
 him for this, " Do let me alone ! " he would sa}' ; 
 *' those who call me ' the father oi Eugenie GerandeV 
 want to belittle me. It is a masterpiece, I know, but , 
 it is a little masterpiece ; they are very careful not to / 
 mention the great ones." 
 
 When the time came for the collection of his works 
 in a compact edition he entitled it La Comedie IIu- 
 maine [The Comedy of Human Life] ; a great de- 
 cision, which cost him many doubts and hesitations. 
 He, usually so resolute, feared he should be thought 
 
86 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 too bold. This fear is plainly seen in the noble preface 
 which accompanied the edition. I have never been 
 able to read the close of it without emotion ; it was, 
 unhappily, prophetic ; he was destined not to finish the 
 work he loved so w^ell.^ It was at this time that he 
 associated his friends with his work by dedicating to 
 each of them a book, or a tale, of the Comedie Hu- 
 niaine. The list of these dedications proves that he 
 was loved by man}' of our illustrious contemporaries. 
 
 From 1827 to 1848 my brother published ninety- 
 seven works ; and I may add that he wrote this enor- 
 mous number with his own hand, without secretary or 
 corrector of proofs. A few facts as to the origin of 
 some of these works may be of interest. 
 
 The subject of the Auberge Rouge (a true history, 
 in spite of all that has been said about it) was given 
 to him by an old army surgeon, a friend of the man 
 who was condemned unjustly. My brother merely 
 added the conclusion. The novel of " Quentin Dur- 
 ward," which has been so much admired, more espe- 
 cially as an historical tale, angered Honore extremely. 
 Contrarj^ to the opinion of the world, he thought Wal- 
 ter Scott had strangely misrepresented Louis XI., '' a 
 king not as 3'et understood," he used to sa3\ This 
 anger led him to write Maitre Cornelius^ in which he 
 places Louis XI. on the scene. Les Proscrits^ writ- 
 ten after a profound study of Dante, as homage to 
 that powerful genius, was part of the original scheme I 
 have mentioned. Un episode sous la Terreur was 
 related to him by the gloomy hero of that tale. Ho- 
 
 1 In the American translated series tliis preface accompanies 
 the volume containing Pere Goriot. 
 
Honore de Balzac. 87 
 
 nore had always desired to see Sanson the executioner. 
 To know what that man, whose soul was filled with 
 blood}' memories, thought, — to learn how he himself re- 
 garded his terrible business and his wretched life, — was 
 
 indeed an investigation to tempt him. Monsieur A , 
 
 the director of prisons, with whom my brother was inti- 
 mate, arranged an interview. Honore went to Mon- 
 sieur A 's house, and there found a pale man of a sad 
 
 and noble countenance ; his dress, manners, language, 
 and education might have led others to think him some 
 writer brought there by a like curiosity. It was Sanson ! 
 
 My brother, warned b}- Monsieur A , repressed all 
 
 surprise and repulsion, and led the conversation to the 
 subjects which interested him. He won Sanson's con- 
 fidence so thorouglily that the latter, carried away by 
 his feelings, spoke of the sufferings of his life. The 
 death of Louis XVI. had caused him all the terrors and 
 remorse of a criminal (Sanson was a royalist). The 
 day after the execution he ordered the only expiatory 
 mass that was celebrated in Paris in those 4ays to be 
 said for the king! 
 
 It was also a conversation my brother had with 
 Martin, the celebrated tamer of wild beasts, at the 
 close of one of his exhibitions, which made him write 
 the short story entitled Uhe Passion dans le desert. 
 S^raphita., that strange work which might be taken for 
 the translation of a German book, was inspired b}' a 
 friend. Our mother helped him to the means of exe- 
 cuting it. She was always much concerned about 
 religious ideas, read the books of the mystics, and 
 even collected them. Honore had seized upon the 
 works of Saint-Martin, Swedenborg, Mademoiselle 
 
88 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 Bourignon, Madame Guj'on, Jacob Boehm, and others, 
 over one hundred vohmies in all, and devoured them. 
 He read almost as others glanced ; 3'et he assimilated 
 the ideas contained in a book. He plunged into the 
 study of somnambulism and magnetism ; my mother, 
 eager after the marvellous, supplied him with still other 
 means of stud}^ for she knew all the magnetizers and 
 celebrated somnambulists of the da3\ Honore was 
 present at their seances, became enthusiastic over their 
 inexplicable faculties and the phenomena they pro- 
 duced, discovered for those faculties a wider field than 
 they really have, perhaps, and composed Seraphita 
 under the impression of such ideas. But recalled by 
 the necessities of life, which did not allow of his writ- 
 ing other books than those that pleased the public, he 
 returned, happily, to the Real, and was detached from 
 metaphysical meditations which might, perhaps, have 
 misled his great intellect, as they have that of others. 
 
 Independently of his books, he had a large corres- 
 pondence on business, together with other letters which 
 took much time. During these years I find many re- 
 lating to journe3'S in Savoie, to Sardinia, and Corsica, 
 to Germany, Italy, and to Saint Petersburg and South- 
 ern Russia, where he made a long stay on two occa- 
 sions ; not to speak of trips in France to the various 
 localities where he placed or intended to place the per- 
 sonages of his tales, for the purpose of describing faith- 
 fulty the towns and country regions where they lived. 
 Often, when he came to take leave of us, he would sa}^ 
 " I am oflT for Alengon to see Mademoiselle Cormon," 
 or "to Grenoble, where Monsieur Benassis lived." 
 
 The impossible did not exist for him ; and he proved 
 
Honors de Balzac. 89 
 
 it in the first instance by finding courage to live through 
 these early years of his literary life, when more than 
 once he deprived himself of the necessaries of life to 
 procure the superfluities, so needful to him in order to 
 occup3' a place in the social life he wished to paint. The 
 recollection of those years brings back such anguish to 
 my mind that I cannot think of them even now without 
 sadness. From 1827 to 1836 my brother could not 
 support himself and meet his obligations without draw- 
 ing notes, the maturing of which kept him in a state of 
 perpetual anxiety ; for he had nothing with which to 
 meet them but the profits of his works, and the time in 
 which he could finish each book was uncertain. After 
 getting those notes accepted and discounted by usurers 
 (the first difficulty) he was often obliged to renew 
 them, a second and still greater difficulty which he 
 alone could manage ; for others would have failed in 
 negotiations where he could fascinate — even usurers. 
 *' What a waste of intellect!" he would say to me, 
 sadly, when he returned, worn out, from these efforts 
 which sadly interfered with his work. 
 
 He was unable to prevent the accumulating interest 
 on his principal obligations from rolling up until it 
 made his "floating debt" (as he called it in his gay 
 moments) like a snowball, growing larger as it rolled ; 
 this debt so increased with the months and j-ears that 
 there were times when my brother despaired of ever 
 paying it. To pacif}^ the more threatening of his cred- 
 itors he performed actual prodigies of labor from time 
 to time, which overwhelmed both publishers and printers. 
 This almost superhuman toil was, undoubtedh', one of the 
 causes which shortened his life. A great mental shock 
 
90 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 brought on the heart disease of which he ultimately 
 died, but it might not have killed him so early had it 
 not been developed by the over-heating of his blood. 
   This condition of anxiety lasted until the time came for 
 the reprinting of his works, which enabled him to at 
 least partially free himself from debt. With what jo}" 
 he lessened the figures of that terrible amount, which he 
 kept ever under his eyes so as to stimulate his courage. 
 
 " After such toil as this, when shall I have a penny 
 for myself?" he often said to me. ''I will certainly 
 frame it ; it will be, in itself, the history of my life." 
 
 A few letters of the years 1832, 1833, 1834, 1835, 
 during which he travelled much, will show the condition 
 of his soul far better than I can tell it. They are writ- 
 ten from Angouleme, Aix-les-Bains, Sache, Marseilles, 
 and Milan. The books of which he speaks enable me 
 to assign the dates, which are nearly alwa3's wanting 
 to his letters. Angouleme was a town where the Car- 
 rauds, friends of ours, whom m}' brother often visited, 
 were then living. (Commandant Carraud was in charge 
 of the government powder-works.) A warm friendship 
 had sprung up between my brother and this honorable 
 family in 1826, when I was living at Versailles. Mon- 
 sieur Carraud was then director of the militar}' school of 
 Saint-Cyr. I was overjoyed to meet his wife, with 
 whom I had been brought up. Her faithful and intelli- 
 gent friendship was one of the happinesses of m}- 
 brother's life. Those of his works which are signed at 
 Angouleme and Frapesle (a country-seat belonging to 
 Madame Carraud in Berry) bear testimony to their 
 deep sympathy. 
 
 Sache is a fine estate about eighteen miles from 
 
Honors de Balzac. 91 
 
 Tours, belonging to Monsieur de Margonne, a friend of 
 our family. Honore found there, at all times, the 
 noblest hospitality joined to unvarying affection. With 
 these friends he could have the tranquillity he could not 
 have in Paris. At Angouleme and at Sache he wrote 
 several of his books, more especially Louis Lambert^ 
 Le Lys dans la Vallee^ La Recherche de VAbsolu^ and 
 
 others I do not now recollect. 
 
 " Angouleme, 1832. 
 
 '* Thank 5'ou, sister; the devotion of the hearts we 
 love does us so much good ! You have revived the en- 
 erg}^ which has enabled me, so far, to surmount the diffi- 
 culties of my life. Yes, 3'ou are right ; I shall not stop 
 sjiort ; I shall advance, I shall attain my end ; 3'ou 
 will one day see me counted among the great minds of 
 France. But what efforts to attain it ! they wear out 
 the body, weariness comes, discouragement follows ! 
 
 *' Louis Lambert has cost me such toil ! how many 
 books I have had to re-read in order to write this one 
 book ! Some day or other it may turn science into new 
 paths. If I had made it a purel}* learned work it would 
 have taken the attention of thinkers, who now will not 
 even cast their e3'es upon it. But, should chance ever 
 place Louis Lambert in their hands they will speak of 
 it, perhaps. I believe it to be a fine book. Our friends 
 here admire it, and you know that the}' never deceive 
 me. Why do you object to its ending? You know the' 
 reason why I chose it. You are always timid. This 
 end is probable : many sad examples justify it ; did 
 not the doctor himself say that madness is at the door 
 of great minds which overstrain themselves? 
 
 "Thanks again for your letter, and forgive a poor 
 
 / 
 
92 Honors de Balzac, 
 
 artist for the discouragement which brought it forth. 
 The game begun, I must plaj^ boldly ; I must press on. 
 Mj' books are the only answer I will ever make to those 
 who attack me. Do not let their criticisms affect j'ou 
 too much ; they are a good augury ; mediocrity is never 
 attacked. Yes, you are right, my progress is a real 
 one, and my infernal courage will be rewarded. Per- 
 suade my mother to think this, my dear sister ; tell her 
 from me to give me the charity of her patience. Such 
 devotion will be counted to her. Some day, I hope, a 
 little fame will repay^ all. Poor mother ! that same 
 imagination which she bestowed upon me drives her 
 mind from north to south, and from south to north per- 
 petually ; such tossings to and fro are fatiguing ; I know 
 it well m3'self. Tell her I love her as I did when a child. 
 Tears are iu m}' eyes as I write these lines, — tears of 
 tenderness and of despair. I think of the future ; I 
 must have my devoted mother with me in the day of 
 m}' triumph; but when shall I win it? Take care of 
 our mother, Laure, for the present and for the future. 
 
 *' As for you and 3^our husband, never doubt m}^ heart. 
 If I cannot write to you be indulgent, do not blame my 
 silence ; say to j^ourselves : ' He thinks of us ; ' un- 
 derstand me, my kind friends, you, mj^ oldest and 
 surest affections. Each time that I issue from my long 
 meditations, m}" exhausting toil, I rest in 3'our hearts 
 as in some delightful spot where nothing wounds me. 
 Some day when m}^ work develops 3'ou will see how many 
 hours were needed to think and write so many things : 
 you will then absolve me for what may now displease 
 3'ou, and 3'OU will forgive the egoism, not of the man 
 (for the man has none) , but of the thinker and toiler. 
 
Honors de Balzac. 93 
 
 '' I kiss3^ou, dear consoler who bring me hope, with a 
 kiss of tender gratitude. Your letter revived me ; after 
 I had read it I gave a joyful hurrah and shouted, ' For- 
 ward, soldier ! fling thyself boldlj' into the fray.' " 
 
 The reader will understand the emotions with which 
 I received such letters as these. 
 
 In Louis Lambert my brother had felt obliged, in 
 order to bring forward ideas which were not yet ac- 
 cepted, to put them under the safeguard of supposed 
 madness. " And even so," he said to me, " I have not 
 dared to give them all the extension that I see in them." 
 Louis Lambert asks himself whether the constituent 
 principle of electricit}' does not enter as a basis into the 
 particular fluid from which Ideas spring. He saw in 
 Thought a complete system, like one of Nature's king- 
 doms, a celestial flora, as it were, the development of 
 which by some man of genius would be taken for the 
 work of a lunatic. " Yes, all things within us and 
 without us," said Louis Lambert, " bear evidence to the 
 life of Ideas, — those ravishing creations which, obeying 
 some mysterious revelation of their nature, I compare 
 to flowers." 
 
 My brother returns in several of his works to this 
 subject of meditation. In the Peau de Chagrin., among 
 others, he analyzes the birth, life, or death of certain 
 thoughts, — one of the most fascinating pages of that 
 book. 
 
 Louis Lambert found in the moral nature phenomena 
 of motion and gravity, similar to those of the phj'sical 
 nature, and demonstrated his opinion by certain 
 examples. 
 
 '' The emotion of expectant attention" he said, " is 
 
94 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 painful through the effect of a law in virtue of which 
 the weight of a bod}^ is multiplied by its swiftness. 
 Does not the weight of sentiment, the moral gravity, 
 which waiting produces, increase by the constant addi- 
 tion of past pains to present pain? To what if not to 
 some electric substance can we attribute that magic b}^ 
 force of which the Will sits majesticalh^ enthroned in 
 the eye, to blast all obstacles at the command of 
 genius, or breaks forth in the voice, or filters visiblj', in 
 defiance of hypocrisy, through the human cuticle? The 
 current of this king of fluids which, under the high 
 pressure of Thought or Sentiment, flows forth in waves, 
 lessens to a thread, or gathers to a volume and gushes 
 out in lightning jets, is the occult minister to whom 
 we owe the efforts (be they fatal or beneficent) of the 
 arts and the passions, — the intonations of the voice, 
 rough, sweet, terrifying, lascivious, horrible, seductive, 
 which vibrate in the heart, in the bowels, in the brain 
 at the will of our wishes, — the spell of touch, from 
 which proceed the mental transfusions of the artist 
 whose creative hands, made perfect through passionate 
 studj', can evoke nature, — the endless gradations of the 
 eye, passing from sluggish aton}^ to the discharge of 
 lightning-flashes full of menace. God loses none of his 
 rights in this system. Thought, material thought tells 
 me of new and undiscovered grandeurs in the Divine." 
 I end my quotations ; having merely wished to prove 
 what I have advanced. The book alone can enable the 
 reader to appreciate the heights of a spirit so ardent in 
 seeking the solution of questions which occupy the 
 minds of all thinkers. Let us return now to the reali- 
 ties of life and see if the man who in 1840 put the fol- 
 
Honors de Balzac. 95 
 
 lowing words into the mouth of Z. Marcas (in a number 
 of the "Revue Parisienne") was capable of judging 
 of men and things : — 
 
 '* * I do not believe that the present form of govern- 
 ment will last ten years/ said Z. Marcas. ' The young 
 blood which made August, 1830, and which is now for- 
 gotten, will burst forth like steam from the explosion 
 of a boiler. That youth has no safety-valve in France 
 to-day ; it is gathering up an avalanche of rejected 
 capacities and honorable but restless ambitions. What 
 sound will it be that shakes these masses and puts 
 them in motion ? I know not ; but they will rush like 
 an avalanche on the present state of things and will 
 overthrow it. The laws of ebb and flow rule the gen- 
 erations. The Roman empire had ignored them when 
 the barbaric hordes came down. The barbarians of 
 to-day are intellects. The laws of surplus are slowly 
 and dumbly acting all about us. The government is the 
 guilty one ; it is not recognizing the two powers to 
 which it owes all. It allows its hands to be tied by the 
 absurdities of the Contrat, and it is now in a fair way 
 to become a victim. Louis XIV., Napoleon, England, 
 were and are eager to welcome intelligent youth. In 
 France j'outh is now condemned to inactivit}' b}^ the 
 new legislation, by the fatal conditions of the elective 
 principle, by the vicious theories of ministerial consti- 
 tution. If you examine the composition of the elective 
 Chamber 3'ou will find no deputies of thirty ^ears of 
 age. The youth of RicheHeu and of Mazarin, of Tur- 
 enne and Colbert, of Pitt and Saint Just, of Napoleon 
 and Prince Metternich have no place there. Burke, 
 Sheridan, and Fox cannot sit on its benches. . . . We 
 
96 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 may conceive the causes of coming events, but we can- 
 not predict what those events may be. At the present 
 time everything is driving the youth of France to re- 
 pubhcanisra, because it sees in a republic its prob- 
 able emancipation ; it remembers the young generals 
 and the young statesmen of the past. The impru- 
 dence of the present government is equalled only by its 
 avarice. . . . France inferior before Russia and Encr- 
 land ! France in the third rank ! They have given us 
 peace by discounting the future,' he cried, ' but danger 
 is ahead. The youth of France will rise as it did in 
 1790, and 3'ou will perish because you did not ask for 
 its vigor and its energy, its devotion and its ardor ; be- 
 cause you disliked young men of abilit}', and would not 
 win the noble generation of the present da}* b}- love.' " 
 
 These words, written at a period when the reign of 
 Louis-Philippe was in its highest prosperitj^, prove that 
 Balzac saw far and judged from heights. 
 
 After Louis Lambert was finished my brother left 
 Angouleme for Savoie. I find two letters from Aix-les- 
 Bains which may be given ; one to my mother, one 
 to me : — 
 
 "Aix, Sept. 1st, 1832. 
 "I have felt the deepest emotion in reading your 
 letter, mother, and I adore you. How and when shall 
 I render, and can I ever render, back to 3'ou, in tender- 
 ness and comfort, all that you are doing for me? I 
 can, at this time, oflTer you only my gratitude. The 
 journej^ which 3'ou have enabled me to make is indeed 
 very necessary to me ; I was worn out with the labor 
 of writing Louis Laynhert ; I had sat up man}' nights, 
 and so abused the use of coffee that I suffered pains in 
 
Honore de Balzac. 97 
 
 my stomach which amounted to cramp. Louis Lam- 
 bert is, perhaps, a masterpiece, but it has cost me dear, 
 — six weeks of unremitting labor at Sachu, and ten 
 days at Angouieme. Now then, perhaps, certain 
 friends will think me a man of some value. I thank 
 you from the bottom of m^' heart for relieving me of 
 the worries of material hfe ; my tenderness for you is 
 not of those that words express. Such unceasing toil 
 as mine must surely be crowned by fortune ; I hope 
 for it all the more because I see other talents rewarded. 
 As for fame, I begin not to despair of it. 
 
 ''Take care of your health, mother; you must live 
 that I may pay 3'ou all. Oh, how I would kiss you if 
 you were only here ! What gratitude do I not feel for 
 the kind hearts that pull some thorns from my life and 
 smooth m}' path b}' their affection ; though, forced to 
 struggle incessantly' against my lot, I have not always 
 the time to express my feelings. But I will not now 
 let a da}^ go by without 3'our knowing what tenderness 
 this last devotion of yours excites in me. Mothers give 
 birth to their chiklren more than once, do they not, 
 mother? Poor darlings! are you ever loved enough? 
 Ah ! could I but reward 3'Ou some day with happiness, 
 b}' gratifying your pride, and b}^ my genius, for all the 
 anguish that \ have caused you. 
 
 '* I am in a great vein of inspiration, and I hope to do 
 much work here where I am tranquil. . . . 
 
 '' A person just starting for Paris will bring j'ou some 
 manuscripts to take to Mame [his publisher]. Tell him 
 he shall have Les Ghouans re-written in February if 
 he wishes to reprint it. 
 
 *' I am writing, by way of amusement, some contes 
 7 
 
98 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 drolatiques. Three are finished, and I am satisfied 
 with them. I am also at work to supply the ' Revue de 
 Paris ' up to December, and I have- articles in my head 
 for January and Februarj^, which are really half done. 
 
 " Don't be uneas}" about my leg. I have taken baths, 
 and the scab is forming. I found a pretty room en- 
 gaged for me which costs two francs a day. I get my 
 meals from a neighboring restaurant. In the morning 
 an Qgg and a glass of milk, a breakfast which comes to 
 fifteen sous ; dinner at the same rates. So you see, 
 mother, that though you have a son who is rather a 
 dreamer, he is at least economical. 
 
 " I press you in my arms and kiss those dear e3'es 
 that watch over me." 
 
 " Aix, September 15th. 
 
 "A word to you, m\^ dearly beloved sister. In the 
 course of my travels I have seen delightful places, I 
 shall perhaps see lovelier still, and 1 want yovi to know 
 that none of them can make me forget you. 
 
 " From m\' room I see the whole valley of Aix. On 
 the horizon are hills, the high mountains of the Deut- 
 du-Chat, and the exquisite lake of Bourget. But I 
 must work in the midst of these enchantments. Mother 
 has probably told you that I have to furnish forty pages 
 a month to the ' Revue de Paris.' 
 
 '' I am now between thirty and forty, dear sister ; in 
 other words, in the full maturity of my powers ; I must 
 now write on my noblest subjects which ought to crown 
 my work. When I return I shall see if I have enough 
 tranquillity of mind to attempt those great works. 
 
 " Mother will have told you that I came near being 
 killed under the wheels of a diligence. I escaped with 
 
Honors de Balzac, 99 
 
 an injur}' to the leg ; but the baths and rest are curing 
 it. Yesterday I was able to drive to the lake. Here 
 I am at the gates of Italy and I fear lest I yield to the 
 temptation of entering them. The journey would not 
 be costl}'. I should go with the Fitz-James party, 
 which would be most agreeable to me, for they are 
 charming. I should travel in their carriage. All ex- 
 penses calculated, it would cost a thousand francs to 
 go from Geneva to Rome, and my quarter of that would 
 be two hundred and fifty francs ; I should need five 
 hundred in Rome, and then I would spend the winter 
 in Naples. But as I cannot touch my receipts in Paris, 
 which must go to meet the notes, I should, if I decided 
 to go to Ital}', write the Medecin de Cawpagne for 
 Mame at once, and that book would pay for all. I 
 shall never have another such opportunitj'. The duke 
 knows Italy and would save me all loss of time ; per- 
 sons ignorant of the countr}' waste much in looking at 
 useless things. I should work wherever I went. In 
 Naples I should have the advantage of the embassy 
 and the couriers of Monsieur de Rothschild, whose ac- 
 quaintance I have made here, and who will give me 
 introductions to his brother ; my proofs can therefore 
 come regularly and m}- work will go on as usual. Talk 
 to my mother about this ; and write to me in detail 
 about all of you." 
 
 On further calculation the journey to Ital}' was con- 
 sidered too expensive ; my brother did not allow him- 
 self to take it, but returned to Angouleme, where he 
 finished La Femme Abandonee, wrote La Qrenadiere 
 and Le Message^ and began Le Medecin de Cam-pagne^ 
 
100 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 which he concluded in the rue Cassini, on his return 
 to Paris. 
 
 Will the details I am now about to give interest the 
 public? Affection makes me a poor judge of this ques- 
 tion. I mjself think them fitted to explain this man}'- 
 sided character, in which the qualities of j'outh remained 
 so long and resisted so much. This belief and the feel- 
 ing that they cannot belittle Balzac makes me write 
 down the following recollections fearlessl}^ on^ In- one, 
 as they come into my mind, remembering that he said 
 himself it was "illusions that helped him to live." 
 
 To oblige himself to take the exercise necessar}' for 
 his health in the midst of such a sedentary life, my 
 brother corrected his proofs either at the printing-offices 
 or at my house. According to the weather (which had 
 great influence upon him), his immediate embarrass- 
 ments, the difficulties of his work, or the extreme fa- 
 tigue of sitting up all night, he often arrived scarcely 
 able to drag himself along, gloomv and dejected, his 
 skin looking sallow and jaundiced. Seeing his de- 
 pressed state, I would trj- to find the means to draw 
 him out of it. He, who could read thoughts, would 
 answer mine before I spoke them. 
 
 " Don't console me," he would say in a faint voice, 
 dropping into a chair; "it is useless. I am a dead 
 man." 
 
 The dead man would then begin in a doleful voice to 
 tell of his new troubles ; but he soon revived, and the 
 words came forth in the most ringing tones of his voice. 
 Then, opening his proofs, he would drop back into his 
 dismal accents, and say, by way of conclusion : — 
 
 "Yes, I am a wrecked man, sister." 
 
Honor 4 de Balzac. 101 
 
 *' Nonsense ! no man is wrecked with such proofs as 
 those to correct." 
 
 Then he would raise his head ; his face unpuckered, 
 little In* Uttle ; the sallow tones of his skin disappeared. 
 
 " By God, you are right ! " he would cry. " Those 
 books will make me live. Besides, blind Fortune is here, 
 is n't she ? why should n't she protect a Balzac as well 
 as a ninny? — and there are always ways of wooing 
 her. Suppose one of ray millionnaire friends (and I have 
 some) or a banker, not knowing what to do with his 
 money, should come to me and say, 'I know 3'our im- 
 mense talents and your anxieties; you want such and 
 such a sum to free 3'ourself ; accept it fearlessly; you 
 will pay me ; your pen is worth millions.' That is all 
 I want ^ my dear." 
 
 Accustomed to such illusions, which revived his cour- 
 age and his light-heartedness, I never showed an\' sur- 
 prise at these suggestions. Having invented his fable, 
 he would pile reasons upon reasons for believing it. 
 
 '' Such men spend so much on mere fancies. A fine 
 action is a fancy like an}^ other, and it would give them 
 actual joy all the time. What a thing to be able to sa}', 
 ' I have saved a Balzac ! ' Humanity does, here and 
 there, have good impulses, and there are persons who, 
 without being Englishmen, are capable of such eccen- 
 tricity. I shall meet with one," he cried ; " millionnaire 
 or banker, I shall find one ! " 
 
 This belief established, he would walk up and dowr 
 the room joj'ously, flinging up his arms and waving 
 them. 
 
 '*Ha! Balzac is a free man! You shall see, my 
 dear friends and my dear enemies, how far he can go." 
 
102 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 First, he went straight to the Institute. From there 
 to the Chamber of Peers was but a step, and in he went. 
 Wh}' shouldn't he be a peer? Such a one and such a 
 one were raised to the peerage. From peer he became 
 minister, — nothing extraordinary' in that, there were 
 plent}^ of precedents ; besides, are not the men who 
 have gone the round of all ideas the ones best suited 
 to govern men? Why should people be astonished 
 at his taking a portfolio? 
 
 The minister then sat down to govern France ; he 
 pointed out and reformed many abuses. Noble ideas 
 and language issued from his dream. Then, as all was 
 highl}^ prosperous in his ministry and in the kingdom, 
 he reverted to the banker or his millionnaire friend who 
 had led him to such honors, wishing to make sure that 
 he, too, was as fortunate as himself: — 
 
 "His part will be a noble one in the future; the 
 world will say, 'That man understood Balzac,- lent 
 him money on his talent, and led him to the honors he 
 deserved.' That will be his glor}', whoever else goes 
 without. It is a higher distinction than burning a tem- 
 ple to leave your name to posteritj'." 
 
 When he had travelled far on his golden clouds he 
 fell back into reality ; but by that time his mind was 
 diverted, and he was half consoled. He corrected his 
 proofs, read them over to us, and departed with a joke 
 at himself. 
 
 " Adieu ; I am going home to see if my banker is 
 waiting for me," he said, laughing his good, hearty 
 laugh. "If he is not there I shall find work at any 
 rate ; and that 's my true banker." 
 
 His ardent spirit was constantl}' seeking means to 
 
Honore de Balzac. 103 
 
 attain freedom from debt ; and these efforts wearied 
 him more than his literary' labors. 
 
 One day, for instance, he thought he had discovered 
 a substance suitable for the composition of a new kind 
 of paper. This substance was everywhere, — cost less 
 titan rags. Here was joy, with mau}^ hopes and pro- 
 jects, quickly followed by disappointment, for the ex- 
 periments did not succeed. We supposed he would be 
 in despair, but we found him radiant. 
 
 *' How about your paper? " 
 
 ''Paper! I am not thinking of that. You people 
 have never reflected that the Eomans, who knew very 
 little about mines, have left treasures in their scoriae. 
 Learned men in the Institute whom I have consulted 
 think as I do, and T am going to Sardinia." 
 
 " Going to Sardinia? pray how are you going to pay 
 your way ? " 
 
 *' Pay my wa}*? I shall traverse the whole island on 
 foot, with a bag on my back, dressed like a beggar. I 
 shall scare the brigands, and the crows, too. I have 
 made my calculations ; six hundred francs will do it all." 
 
 The six hundred francs acquired, he departed, and 
 wrote to us from Marseilles on the 20th of March, 
 1838: — 
 
 '' Don 't have any anxieties about me, mother ; and 
 tell Laure not to have any. I have enough money, and 
 with due deference to laurean wisdom I shall not need 
 any for my return. I have just spent four days and 
 five nights in the imperial of a diligence. My hands are 
 so swollen I can hardl3' write. To-morrow, Wednesday, 
 at Toulon. Thursday I start for Ajaccio, and eight 
 
104 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 daj's after that will be enough for my expedition. I 
 could get to Sardinia from here for fifteen francs if I 
 went by a trading vessel, but such craft take fifteen 
 days for the trip, and it is near upon the equinox ; 
 whereas for — it is true — triple the amount I land 
 there in three days. Now that I am almost there, I 
 begin to have some doubts ; but in an}^ case, I could not 
 risk less to have more. I have spent only ten francs 
 on the way. I am in a hotel that makes me shudder, 
 but with baths I manage to get along. If I fail, a few 
 nights of hard work will restore the equilibrium ! In 
 one month I can scrape up plenty of mone}^ with my 
 pen. 
 
 "Adieu, my dear, loved mother; believe that there 
 is far more desire to end the sufferings of those who are 
 dear to me than personal desire for fortune in what I 
 am undertaking. When a man has no capital he can 
 make his fortune onl}^ b}' ideas like the one I am now 
 pursuing. Ever your respectful son." 
 
 It was good to hear him tell, on his return, of the 
 vicissitudes of this remarkable journey. He had had 
 the luck to encounter real brigands. 
 
 "And they are prett}^ good devils outside of their 
 industry," he assured us; "they told me nearly all I 
 wanted to know. Those fellows take the measure of 
 everything, land and people both ; they saw so plainly 
 I was no fish for their net that I believe, God forgive 
 me, they w^ould sooner have lent me mone}^ than have 
 asked for it." 
 
 He arrived at Bastia without a sou, but his name 
 when he told it was the signal for an uprising among 
 
Honors de Balzac. 105 
 
 the young men of tlie place. The}' had all read his 
 books, and were filled with enthusiasm on seeing him. 
 Great joy on his part ! '* I have a reputation alreadj' 
 in Corsica," he said. " Ah ! the brave youths, the fine 
 countr}^ ! *' Received and feted by Monsieur B., inspec- 
 tor of finances, whom he knew, he had won enough 
 money at cards to pay for his return to France, at the 
 very moment when he was going to write to us to send 
 him some ; he loved such pieces of luck, which made 
 him think he had a star. But that was not all ! this 
 tramping through Sardinia and these buffetings at sea 
 had given him subjects, and such subjects ! The last 
 surpassed all the others — unless we unwisely agreed 
 with him ; for then he asserted the excellence of the 
 first. He related these new subjects with fire ; plan, 
 details, he had them all mapped out. " Pretty to do, 
 is n't it? " he added. 
 
 ''Do 3'ou tell your ideas to everybody?" I asked, 
 rather frightened, for I knew that in the good republic 
 of letters, where everybody wants to be king, they are 
 not over-scrupulous as to rights of property. 
 
 "Why not?" he answered. "The subject is noth- 
 ing, it is the execution that does the thing. Let them 
 try to do Balzac ; I defy them ! Would thieves know 
 how to work ? And if they did, so much the better for 
 the public ; I should n't regret it, for I have plenty of 
 other things in m}' mind. The world is vast, and the 
 human brain is as vast as the world." 
 
 The specimens brought back from the mines were sub- 
 mitted to chemists. Time was needed to analj^ze them ; 
 moreover, Honore was not yet read}^ to go to Piedmont 
 and ask for a concession of the land ; he had, as a pre- 
 
106 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 liminary, to satisfy his publishers and earn the money 
 for the journey. 
 
 He Uved a whole year on this Sardinian fortune, and 
 projects kept pace with it. He flew with outspread 
 wings through a terrestrial Eden, which he arranged to 
 his fancy ; he bought the little chateau of Montcontour 
 which he longed for in Touraine ; for, in spite of the 
 indifference his townspeople had shown to him, he loved 
 the land, and wished to end his days there. '' Gentle 
 and tranquil thoughts grow in the soul as the vines in 
 its soil," he said of it. There he proceeded to fancy 
 himself resting from toil, living like an oj^ster in its 
 shell, opening his being to the setting sun. He gilded 
 this country life with the splendors of his mind, and 
 transformed himself into his own Doctor Minoret in the 
 midst of his friends, — the abbe, the mayor, and the 
 justice of peace, — rejoicing in the same green old age 
 which he has given him in JJrsule Mirou'et. But for all 
 that, he said, he intended to guard his mind from grow- 
 ing rusty. He should come every winter to Paris, and 
 have a salon like that of Baron Gerard (which was long 
 the model of all salons, past, present, and to come, for 
 the meeting of artists), and there he should receive, like 
 Gerard, all the celebrities born to fame or to be born. 
 He knew how to honor them property, for did n't he 
 know just the measure of the respect they deserved? 
 Bah ! he would even invite the critics. Yes, it was to 
 be a place of general pacification, and this king in his 
 own right was a heart}' good fellow, who knew neither 
 hatred nor jealous3\ Then he could return to his soli- 
 • tude, beloved and blessed by all. 
 
 Such were his dreams ! 
 
Honors de Balzac. 107 
 
 But these dreams weighed on the hearts of his 
 friends as much as his hours of depression ; for they 
 revealed the burden of his sorrows equall}' with his 
 sadness. It was only in dreams that he could shake 
 it off; no sooner was he awakened than he shouldered 
 it again. 
 
 A 3'ear after his trip to Sardinia, my brother, having 
 finished the books pledged to his publishers, and to re- 
 views and newspapers, started for Piedmont to obtain 
 the concession of his mine. Unreserved as ever, he 
 had told the purpose of his journe}' to the Genoese cap- 
 tain who took him to Sardinia the previous 3'ear. The 
 following letter explains how the captain profited by 
 that confidence, to Honorc's detriment. 
 
 " Milan. 
 
 " Dear Sister, — It would be too long to write all 
 that I will tell 3'ou when I see you, which will be soon, 
 I hope. I am, after ver3^ fatiguing travels, kept here 
 for the interests of the Visconti famil3\ Politics have 
 so embroiled them that the remnants of their prop- 
 erty in this country^ would have been sequestrated 
 without certain eflbrts on m3^ part which have happily 
 succeeded. 
 
 '' As to the principal object of my journey, all hap- 
 pened as I expected, but the dela3' in m3' coming was 
 fatal. That Genoese captain has obtained a concession 
 in proper form from the court of Sardinia. There is 
 over a million of mone3' in the scoriae and the lead 
 mines. A house in Marseilles with whom he has an 
 agreement has had the ore assayed. I ought not to 
 have loosened m3' grip on the enterprise last 3'ear, and 
 so let them get before me. ... " 
 
108 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 Being m3'self absent from Paris in October of the same 
 year, I received the following letter from my brother : 
 
 " Gone without a word ! the poor toiler went to find 
 3'ou and make you share a little joy, and he found no 
 sister ! I torment you so often with my troubles 
 that the least I can do is to write 3'ou m}^ little joy. 
 You won't laugh at me, you '11 believe me, dear — 
 you will. 
 
 " I went yesterda}^ to Gerard's ; he presented me to 
 three German families. I thought I was dreaming ; 
 three families ! no less. One was from Vienna, one 
 from Frankfort, and the third — Prussia, perhaps ; but 
 I don't rightly know where. They confided to me that 
 they had been to Gerard's faithfull}' for one whole 
 month in the hope of meeting me ; and they let me 
 know that beyond the frontier of France (dear, un- 
 grateful country!) my reputation has begun. 'Perse- 
 vere in your labors,' they added, ' and you will be at 
 the head of literature in Europe.' Europe ! thej- said 
 it, sister! Flattering families! Oh, how I could 
 make certain persons roar with laughter if I told them 
 that. But these were good, kind Germans, and I let 
 myself believe they thought what thej^ said, and, to tell 
 the truth, I 'd have listened to them all night. Praise 
 is such a blessing to us artists, and that of the good 
 Germans primed me with courage. I departed, gay as 
 a lark, from Gerard's, and I am going to fire three guns 
 on the public and on my detractors ; to wit, Eugenie 
 Grandet^ Les Aventures d'une Idee heiireuse^ which 
 you know about, and my Pretre cathoUque, one of the 
 finest of my subjects. 
 
Honore de Balzac. 109 
 
 " The matter of the j^tudes de Mceurs is well under 
 wa}'. Thirty-three thousand francs for author's rights 
 in the reprints will stop up large holes. That slice of my 
 debts paid, I shall go and seek m}' reward at Geneva. 
 The horizon seems really brightening. I have begun 
 hard work again. I go to bed at six, directly after din- 
 ner. The animal digests and sleeps till midnight. 
 Then Auguste makes me a cup of coffee on which the 
 mind works with a steady flow till midday. After that 
 I rush to the printing-office to take my copy and get 
 my proofs, which gives exercise to the animal, who 
 dreams as he goes. 
 
 " I can put a good deal of black on white, little sister, 
 in twelve hours ; and after a month of such life there 's 
 not a little earned. Poor pen ! it must be made of 
 diamond not to be worn out long ago. To lift its mas- 
 ter to reputation (according to the Germans) to enable 
 him to pay his debts to all, and then to give him, some 
 da}', rest upon a mountain — that is its task. 
 
 " What the devil were you doing so late at M ? 
 
 Tell me all about it — and tell me too that these Ger- 
 mans of mine are worthy people. A fraternal hand- 
 shake for Monsieur Canal. Tell him that the Aven- 
 tures d'une Id^e heureuse [Adventures of a good Idea] 
 are on the ways. I send you proofs of the Mc'deci?i de 
 Campagne." 
 
 The Aventures d'une Idee heureuse and the Pretre 
 Catholique were never written. The subject of the first of 
 these books was inspired bj' the ill-luck of a great work 
 with which his brother-in-law, Monsieur Surville, was 
 concerned. Honore intended, in this book, to write the 
 
110 Honors de Bahac. 
 
 history of a good idea useful to all, brought to nought 
 by the individual interests with which it clashed, — thus 
 causing the ruin of a man who had devoted himself to 
 bring it about. The subject under my brother's pen 
 would have been fruitful in observation and in social 
 truths ; it would certainly not have been the least inter- 
 esting of the books comprised in his work. 
 
 Prior to the journey to Switzerland and Geneva to 
 which my brother alludes in the foregoing letters, I. find 
 another letter which he addressed to me during one of 
 m}^ absences from Paris, which it may be interesting to 
 give here : — 
 
 " I have good news for 3'ou, little sister ; the reviews 
 are paying me better prices. Hey ! hey ! 
 
 '^ Werdet announces that m}- Medecin de Campagne 
 was sold off in eight daj-s. Ha ! ha ! 
 
 "I have enough money to meet the notes of No- 
 vember and December, which made you so uneasy. 
 Ho! ho! 
 
 " I have sold the reprinting of the books by that 
 
 rascal R , Saint A., and other pseudon3'ms. The 
 
 sale is made through a third part}^, w^ho denies the 
 authorship ; for I will never admit it. But as they 
 are reprinting them in that damned Belgium, which 
 does so much harm, both to authors and pubhshers, I 
 yield to the necessit}' of exchanging these books for 
 good coin, and in that way I lessen the mischief. 
 
 "And, finalh^, Gosselin publishes my Contes Dro- 
 latiqiies. Ecco^ sorella! 
 
 " All goes well. A few more efforts and I shall have 
 triumphed in a great struggle hy means of a feeble in- 
 
Honore de Balzac, 111 
 
 strument — a pen ! If nothing happens to prevent it, 
 I shall soon owe nothing to any one except my mother ; 
 and when I remember m}^ disasters and the gloomy 
 5'ears I have passed through, I cannot help feeling some 
 pride in thinking that by dint of courage and of toil I 
 have won my liberty. 
 
 '^ This thought has made me so happy that the other 
 night I talked of a project to Surville in which 3'ou 
 w^ere concerned. I made him build a house close to 
 mine ; our gardens adjoined ; we ate the fruits of our 
 trees together — I went far ! The good brother smiled, 
 and raised his eyes to heaven ; there was a world of 
 affection for you and for me in that smile ; but I also 
 saw in it that neither he nor I owned our houses as 
 yet. Never mind, projects sustain the courage, and if 
 God grants me health, we will have our houses, my 
 good sister." 
 
 This "project" afterwards led him to purchase a 
 piece of ground at Ville-d'Avray, where he built Les 
 Jardies. But the steep slope made the walls unsafe ; 
 the propert}^ cost more than it ought to have done ; and 
 other unfortunate circumstances obliged m}' brother to 
 sell it. This purchase was also counted against him as 
 a fault. 
 
 In the foregoing letter Honore alludes to the Contes 
 Drolatiques, which he said in a former letter he was 
 writing *' for relaxation." In these stories he intended 
 to follow the transformations of the French language 
 from the times of Rabelais to the present day, and 
 thus impregnate hie tales with the ideas of the various 
 epochs. 
 
112 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 ''It will be with this work as with the Comedie 
 irumai?ie" he said to us ; " the public will not under- 
 stand its purpose until the work is finished. Until then 
 these stories will only be recreation for artists. In 
 them the}' '11 find the gayety they are often so much in 
 need of." 
 
 He also thought that if everything else failed these 
 stories might save him from oblivion. The studies he 
 then made of the old French writers led him to regret 
 the desuetude of certain words which had never been 
 replaced. He grieved over their fate as Vangelas might 
 have done. 
 
 " What charming words ! don't the}' express exactly 
 what they want to say ? What artless grace I You 
 find such words only in the infancy of a language. 
 Now a days we have to use phrases to replace them. 
 When I work at the dictionary of the Academy . . ." 
 
 And that idea flung him into projects in which the 
 French language became his millionnaire. He was apt 
 at such times to get angry with those who found fault 
 with him for creating certain words which he wanted in 
 his books. 
 
 "Who has the right to make gifts to a language if 
 not a writer?" he would say; "our language has ac- 
 cepted those of my predecessors, and she will accept 
 mine ; my parvenus will become noble in time — which 
 makes all nobilities. However, let the critics yelp over 
 my ' neologisms ' as they call them ; everybody must 
 live, you know." 
 
Honor e de Balzac. 113 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 EARLY MANHOOD. 
 
 In reading the foregoing portion of Madame Surville's 
 narrative, an impression is left upon the mind that more 
 has been omitted than is told. Those were the years 
 of his 3'outh and early manhood, yet his sister tells us 
 little of his actual life, his thoughts on external things, 
 his relation to them ; above all, nothing of the inner 
 man that was formed and being formed within him. 
 If we turn to his correspondence, we find but two let- 
 ters between the j'ears 1822 and 1828, and those of no 
 interest. It is evident that these omissions are inten- 
 tional. If it was Balzac's will (as it appears to have 
 been) to withhold his private life and motives and in- 
 centives from public knowledge, we can only be glad 
 that he foresaw the gossiping curiosity of a coming 
 literary future, and kept that wliich was sacred to him 
 from being trailed in the dust. But without attempting 
 to pry into the life which he concealed (in fact there 
 are no means of doing so), it is the right of posterity 
 to judge a man bj' his utterances ; and Balzac's works, 
 into which he put much of himself, together with a few 
 stray glimpses given here and there in his letters of 
 a later date, do throw some light upon his early 
 manhood. 
 
114 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 But before passing to these more difficult matters it 
 is well to see if Balzac's life after he left his father's 
 house at Villeparisis and became connected with men 
 and things in Paris, can be reduced to a chronolog}', 
 however incomplete. All accounts of him are vague 
 in this respect, often skipping 3'ears in the narration 
 and returning to them later. But by comparing the dif- 
 ferent sources of information it is possible to get some 
 connected idea of his outward life. 
 
 Balzac himself said in after years : "When T was quite 
 a yowng man I had an illness from which persons do not 
 recover ; nineteen out of twenty die. Dr. Nacquart said, 
 ' If he gets well now he may live a hundred years.' I 
 did get well, and I went to work ; I wrote novels for 
 mere study ; one to break myself in to dialogue ; an- 
 other to practise description ; a third to group m}' per- 
 sonages, and so on." Pie frequently alludes to the fact 
 that Dr. Nacquart saved liis life. This illness, doubt- 
 less the heart disease which he mentions to George Sand 
 in 1831, and to which his sister alludes as the result of 
 a great mental shock, must have occurred during the 
 first of these years of which there is no record. 
 
 In 1824-25, the period of his venture as a pub- 
 lisher, we find that he WTote three of the ten novels lie 
 never acknowledged, the last of which was issued by 
 Urbain Canel, a publisher of some repute ; also three 
 pamphlets, Z>e Droit d'Ainesse, Tine Histoire Impar- 
 tiale des Jesuifes, and La Code des Gens honnetes. 
 Champfleury, who was employed by the Levy Freres 
 to collect Balzac's signed writings under the title of 
 (Eavres diverses, mentions that throughout the vicissi- 
 tudes of his life and his man^' changes of abode, Bal- 
 
Honore de Balzac. 115 
 
 zac had preserved a number of boxes {cartons) full of 
 3^outhful writings of little interest, wliich he had prob- 
 ably never re-read, — the sort of papers which most 
 men tear up at intervals or consign to the flames, but 
 which Balzac had kept from some feeling or associa- 
 tion. Among them there was neither correspondence, 
 nor journal, nor an}' paper serviceable to a biographer ; 
 and, curiousl}' enough, many were in verse, for which 
 he had apparentl}' not the slightest faculty. Champ- 
 fleur}' says, however, that from the specimens he found 
 it might be asserted that if Balzac had turned his mind 
 to poetry he could have been one of the poets of the 
 epoch, on a level with Victor Hugo and Lamartine. 
 Balzac's own judgment in the matter is probably nearer 
 the truth. It is told that Madame de Girardin, being 
 dilatory in writing a sonnet for JLes Illusions Perdues^ 
 the printer's devil, who had been sent for it in vain, 
 seeing Balzac's extreme annoyance at the dela}-, said 
 to him, not unnaturall}^, '' Why don't you write it 3'our- 
 self, Monsieur de Balzac?" '* Write it myself! " cried 
 Balzac, turning on him; "don't you know, wretched 
 boy, that it is utterly impossible for me to write a 
 sonnet? " 
 
 During the two years from August, 1826, to Septem- 
 ber, 1828, when Balzac carried on the printing business, 
 first alone and then in partnership with his foreman, Bar- 
 bier, he took all work that came to him, and his name 
 as printer is attached to the following books (among 
 others) : the works of Lesage, the third edition of 
 Madame Roland's " Memoirs," the works of Volney, M. 
 deVigny's "Cinq-Mars," several novels by Zschokke, 
 and an amusing little pamphlet of his own, Le Petit 
 
116 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 Dictionnaire des Enseignes de Paris. He also printed 
 and published the works of Moliere complete in one 
 volume, with an introduction by himself; and he pub- 
 lished in the same form, but did not print, the works of 
 La Fontaine, also with an introduction ; these Intro- 
 ductions are now among his collected writings. He 
 did not print the edition of La Fontaine, which is an 
 illustrated edition de luxe^ because the establishment 
 when he bought it was in bad condition, and he had, as 
 we have seen, no money left out of his thirty thousand 
 francs to better it, — scarcely enough, in fact, to carry 
 it on. This was the chief cause of his failure. After 
 he sold the business in September, 1828, it went 
 into hands that could command more capital, became 
 remunerative, and was still in a prosperous condition 
 some years after Balzac's death. 
 
 When he left the printing-office in the Marais he took 
 a single room in the rue de Tournon, No. 2, where he 
 must have struggled for a time with the wolf at his 
 door. But the worst had come, and things were about 
 to mend. Outward and material circumstances were 
 still against him, and continued to be so, under various 
 phases, all his life ; but at last he had conquered, in 
 some degree at least, his own difficulties of form and 
 construction ; he was becoming able, by dint of per- 
 severance and hard work, to present his thouglit in 
 a manner that satisfied him. He now finished Les 
 Chouayis., which was published under his own name, 
 by Canel and Levavasseur, in March, 1829. During 
 this time (for he had the habit all through life of mak- 
 ing his books long before he wrote them) another book 
 must have lain, inchoate, in his mind, taken from his 
 
Honore de Balzac. 117 
 
 own heart and experience, — Cesar Birotteau. He 
 knew, noi>e better, the anguish of that upright soul in 
 the very circumstances he has given under the guise of 
 fiction. 
 
 Jjes Chouans was the turning-point of his literary 
 career. He became known. Editors went to him for 
 articles ; publishers offered to take his books. The 
 following is a list of the novels and tales written by 
 him during the years 1829 and 1830. They now hold 
 their appropriate place in the Oomedie Hamaine : Ei 
 Verdugo; La Paix du Menage ; Gloire et Malheur 
 (Maison du Chat-qui-pelote) ; Le Bal de Sceaux ; 
 part of CatMrine de Medicis ; Physiologie dit mar- 
 iage ; Gobseck ; La Vendetta ; ^tude de femme ; 
 Une double famille ; Adieu ^ L'J^lixir de tongue vie; 
 part of Les petites Miseres de la vie conjugate / U7ie 
 Bassio7i daiis le desert ; Un Mpisode sous la Terreur; 
 Jesus- Christ en Flandres} 
 
 The first fruit of Balzac's dawning reputation was 
 an introduction to Emile de Girardin (then editor of 
 "La Mode"), through M. Alphonse Levavasseur, part- 
 ner of Urbain Canel. M. de Girardin states that Balzac 
 gave him a story entitled El Verdugo^ which he printed 
 in '' La Mode,*' that publication being the first to ac- 
 
 1 In an appendix will be found lists of Balzac's works so ar- 
 ranged as to be useful to tlie American reader. They do not pre- 
 tend to be full bibliographical lists of all Balzac's works ; for that 
 students must go to the source wlience they are taken, — to the 
 fountain head, namely : Histoire des CEuvres de H. de Balzac, 
 par le Vte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, 3me ed. Paris, Cahnann 
 Levy, 1888; a work which covers the whole ground, and is, while 
 strictly bibliographical, a monument of love, comprehension, and 
 fi«lellty. 
 
118 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 cept his work. This introduction probably did more 
 than anything else to bring l^alzac into connection with 
 the literary and other talent of that day. The salon 
 of Madame Sophie Ga}^ Madame de Girardin's mother, 
 had long been a centre of various interests. It was 
 a refuge under the Empire for stubborn aristocrats, 
 and in later 3'ears for the eager young blood of the da}^ 
 literary and artistic, which was troubled with a sense 
 of its lack of opportunity. In 1830 these interests had 
 the common ground of dislike to the bourgeois dynasty ; 
 poets, painters, and musicians, publicists, politicians, 
 and beautiful and brilliant women met in Madame 
 Gay's salon to contribute their part to that intercourse 
 of talents, and do their best to shine. There Balzac, 
 who alread}' knew something of society and of well- 
 bred women in his mother's house, was brought into 
 familiar intercourse with such persons as Victor Hugo, 
 de Vign}', Lamartine, and Frederic Soulie, Horace Ver- 
 net and Baron Gerard, Rossini, then in the fame of his 
 last opera, Guillaume Tell, Auber, Meyerbeer, Malibran 
 and Duprez, the Due de Broglie and Thiers, Madame 
 Tallien and Madame Recamier in their last years, 
 George Sand in her dawn ; also Henri de la Touche, 
 editor of the '' Figaro," whom Delphine de Girardin 
 called her intimate enem}-, together with man}^ younger 
 literary men and journalists of his own age. Every one 
 did his or her share towards the brilliancy of these 
 evenings, among them Balzac, who, on one occasion, 
 read the Peau de Chagrin aloud to the compan}'. From 
 this time till his death Madame de Girardin was among 
 his stanchest friends ; she did as much justice as could 
 be done in those days to, his great powers, and she 
 
Honors de Balzac. 119 
 
 stood by him Wally, both in private and in the columns 
 of tlie " Presse " (her husband's paper), long after Bal- 
 zac had quarrelled with de Girardin on a business mat- 
 ter, and had ceased to go to her house. 
 
 In the same year, 1830, he combined with Emile de 
 Girardin, Victor Varaignes, Hippolite Auger, and Bois- 
 le Comte, to found a weekly paper called the ** Feuilleton 
 des Journaux politiques," which was intended to sup- 
 plement the purely political newspapers, and to be 
 *' speciall}" devoted to the presentation and criticism of 
 literary works and art productions." The publication 
 was short-lived, but Balzac contributed man}' articles 
 to it ; also to the " Silhouette," edited by Victor Ratier, 
 and to the ''Caricature," a spicy semi-political paper, 
 edited by M. Philippon, and devoted more especially to 
 satirical attacks on the Bourgeois regime. Balzac did 
 much work for it, thus serving an apprenticeship at 
 inner journalism, which he afterwards put to use in Les 
 Illusions Perdues^ and in his witty pamphlet Le Mono- 
 graphie de la Presse Parisienne. He did not like the 
 press, but it was on other than merely personal grounds. 
 "It is not a dynast}^ nor a Chamber, nor a S3'stem 
 that rules France at this date," he says ; '* it is a terrible 
 power — Public Opinion. And who are making Opin- 
 ion? The newspapers. And who make the news- 
 papers? Writers, for the most part third-rate: for 
 great as the mediocrit}' of Court, Chamber, and diplo- 
 mats may be, the mediocrit}' of the writers and proprie- 
 tors who engineer the French newspaper press (all 
 obscure men without initiative or purpose, used-up b}' 
 their own engine) is greater still." Later, he admits 
 its power. '' I don't like journalism ; I ma}' say I hate 
 
120 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 it. It is a blind force, sh', malicious, insubordinate, 
 without morality or tradition, witliout, you may say, an 
 aim. But, at an}- rate, we have got to bow to it. It is 
 a power, — the power of this centur\\ It leads to all 
 points of the circumference. It is the only power in 
 these days that has the force to overthrow, and, conse- 
 quentl}', to set up. Just see what the ' Debats,' the 
 * Constitutionel,' the ' Presse,' and even the ' Siecle,' 
 can do in their several ways. I defy the government to 
 name a minister, or a collector, or an admiral, or a for- 
 ester without more or less considering the effect it will 
 have on the sensitive skin of the press." He soon be- 
 gan to tire of the tone of the " Caricature," and to gird 
 against weekly articles in derision of the king and " le 
 grand poulot " (the Due d'Orleans). At the end often 
 months he declared he had had enough of it, and that 
 true criticism did not exist in France. All his articles 
 of whatever kind have been collected since his death, 
 and published among the " Q^uvres Di verses." He 
 would probably not have sanctioned the publication of 
 all of them under his name ; for he practised criticism 
 as he practised novel- writing, to train his hand and 
 feel his wa}'. 
 
 At the close of the j^ear 1830 he began to write for 
 the " Revue de Paris," then edited b}' Charles Rabou, 
 but soon to pass into the hands of Buloz, also editor of 
 the " Revue des Deux Mondes." Thus, in the course 
 of this one 3^ear, Balzac was fairly launched upon the 
 surface current of his chosen career. 
 
 In May, 1831, he left his poor room in the rue de 
 Tournon, and took a sunny httle apartment in the rue 
 Cassini, near the Observatoire, where he remained 
 
Honore de Balzac, 121 
 
 eight 3'ears. It was the fitting up of this cheerful 
 abode with blue cambric (saved from the printing-otlice) 
 which drew upon him his mother's reproaches ; and even 
 Monsieur Taine cannot refrain from remarking on the 
 love of luxury which lusted for two blue screens made 
 by his sister, presumably to match the hangings. It 
 does not seem a heinous offence wortii indicating to 
 posterity', and his sister coukl little have expected that 
 her innocent story would be so applied ; but the charge 
 was a true one. Hard as he worked to pa}' his debts 
 (always his first object), and poorly as he lived, often 
 going without the necessaries of life, he could not 
 restrain his longing for rare old things of art, and beau- 
 tiful decorations. George Sand said of him that he 
 was " envious of a bibelot and incapable of envying 
 another man's fame;" and this passion, which he was 
 unable to resist, and probably never attempted to, in- 
 creased his debts and added to the millstone already 
 about his neck. He was aware of his weakness, how- 
 ever, and was wont, at times, to hide his treasures 
 from his friends as well as from his creditors. A cata- 
 logue of his rare works of art of all kinds, and a 
 description of his gallery in the Rue Fortunee (his last 
 home) is given in Cousin Pons, a book which reveals, 
 no doubt, in the person of the old collector, some of 
 his own methods in obtaining those treasures. 
 
 In the rue Cassini he became intimate with two men 
 living in the same house, — Jules Sandeau and Henri 
 de la Touche ; the latter was then editing the " Figaro,'* 
 which he chiefl}' wrote himself. Many years earlier la 
 Touche had brought forward Andre Chenier, and he 
 was now among the first to advise and assist George 
 
122 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 Sand, then his secretaiy. He was a man of much liter- 
 ary importance, which came to naught owing to the 
 strange capriciousness of his nature. George Sand 
 said of him that he had shown the promised land to 
 others, but was unable to enter Canaan himself. She 
 was just then trying her wings before writing " Indiana," 
 and it was at this time that Jules Sandeau presented 
 Balzac to her. Her account of their acquaintance and 
 her judgment upon him will be given farther on, — the 
 actual words of such contemporaries as George Sand 
 and Theophile Gautier being far more useful to the 
 reader than any synopsis made b3' others. 
 
 From this time on we may see the man of strict honor 
 and integrity applying himself to the pa3'ment of his 
 debts and the earning of a competenc}', tlie need of 
 which he now began to feel keenly, as he entered more 
 and more into the social life it was his destiny to paint. 
 These were his first objects as seen by the general eye ; 
 but there was a higher law within him, namel}^, the 
 development of his own powers, and nothing was suf- 
 fered to interfere with it, — neither pressure of outward 
 cares, nor remonstrances of angrj^ publishers, nor temp- 
 tations of friendship and pleasure (strong in his loving 
 and joj^ous nature), nor the sense of his incompetency 
 in certain wa} s of putting into form his thought. He 
 never trifled with his genius, the sacred gift which he 
 recognized as a lad in his cage at Vendome. He obej'ed 
 the inspiration that came to him to train it to its highest 
 service ; he cloistered his spirit for weeks and months, 
 wrestling in the silence and solitude of night to bring 
 his great powers within control. There lay his real life ; 
 a life of which he gives but few glimpses and no par- 
 
Honors de Balzac. 123 
 
 ticiilars ; a solitary life, possibl}- typified to his mind 
 by the dress he wore. Scarcely any record is left of it 
 except in the books which issued from its solitude ; but 
 they reveal much. A man less sound in body and mind 
 would have had no outward life ; his nervous system, 
 as we now say of an overtaxed mind and bod3% would 
 have broken down ; or he would at least have been 
 inert and irritable. But Balzac's health}- and hearty 
 nature came to the fore so soon as the strain was 
 over ; no sooner had he touched earth than the giant 
 sprang up refreshed, and took his place among the men 
 and events of the day as if no other life were in his 
 thoughts. 
 
 Lamartine gives a portrait of him at this time which 
 is doubtless a true one. He says that he returned to 
 Paris after an absence of years, knowing only that a 
 3'oung writer named Balzac was said to show a healthy 
 originality. He chanced to read a few pages of his 
 writings, which moved him to exclaim, '■'A man is 
 born to us ! " Soon after this he met him at dinner at 
 Madame de Girardin's." 
 
 *' Balzac was standing before the fireplace of that 
 dear room where I have seen so man}' remarkable men 
 and women come and go. He was not tall, though the 
 light on his face and the mobility of his figure pre- 
 vented me from noticing his stature. His body swayed 
 with his thought ; there seemed at times to be a space 
 between him and the floor ; occasionally he stooped as 
 though to gather an idea at his feet, and then he rose 
 on the points of them to follow the flight of his thought 
 above him. At the moment of my entrance he was 
 carried away by the subject of a conversation then go- 
 
124 Honore de Balzac, 
 
 ing on with Monsieur and Madame de Girardin, and 
 onl}' interrupted himself for a moment to give me a 
 keen, rapid, gracious look of extreme kindliness. 
 
 " He was stout, solid, square at the base and across 
 the shoulders. The neck, chest, body, and thighs were 
 powerful, with something of Mirabeau's amplitude, but 
 without heaviness. The soul was apparent, and seemed 
 to carry everything lighth', gayly, like a supple cover- 
 ing, not in the least like a burden. His size seemed to 
 give him power, not to deprive him of it. His short 
 arms gesticulated easilj^ ; he talked as an orator speaks. 
 His voice resounded with the somewhat vehement en- 
 ergy of his lungs, but it had neither roughness, nor 
 sarcasm, nor anger in it; his legs, on which he rather 
 swayed himself, bore the torso easil}' ; his hands, which 
 were large and plump, expressed his thought as he 
 waved them. Such was the outward man in that robust 
 rame. But in presence of the face it was difficult to 
 think of the structure. That speaking face, from which 
 it was not easy to remove one's eyes, charmed and fas- 
 cinated you ; his hair was worn in thick masses ; his 
 black eyes pierced you like darts dipped in kindliness ; 
 they entered confidingly into yours hke friends. His 
 cheeks were full and ruddy; the nose well modelled, 
 though rather long ; the lips finely outhned, but full and 
 raised at the corners; the teeth irregular and notched. 
 His head was apt to lean to one side, and then, when 
 the talk excited him, it was lifted quickly with an heroic 
 sort of pride. But the dominant expression of his face, 
 greater even than that of intellect, was the manifesta- 
 tion of goodness and kindheartedness. He won your 
 mind when he spoke, but he won your heart when he 
 
 rl 
 
Honor e de Balzac. 125 
 
 was silent. No feeling of envj' or hatred could have 
 been expressed by that face ; it was impossible that 
 it should seem otherwise than kind. But the kindness 
 was not that of indifference ; it was loving kindness, 
 conscious of its meaning and conscious of others ; it 
 inspired gratitude and frankness, and defied all those 
 who knew him not to love him. A childlike merriment 
 was in his aspect ; here was a soul at play ; he had 
 dropped his pen to be happy among friends, and it was 
 impossible not to be joyous where he was." 
 
 During the summers he went into the country, stay- 
 ing chiefly with friends of his family who were also 
 devoted friends of his own : Madame Carrand at An- 
 gouleme, Monsieur de Margonne of Sache, near Tours, 
 Madame de Berny at Saint-Firmin. Some of his noblest 
 books were written at Angouleme and Sache. These 
 were pleasures that cost him little, but his first journey 
 into other lands, in September, 1832, was another thing, 
 and it is touching to see the gratitude with which he 
 thanks his mother (in the letter his sister quotes) for 
 affording him that pleasure. 
 
 By this time his literary success and his personal 
 qualities had brought him into social life. With the 
 Duchesse d'Abrantes (better known as Madame Junot), 
 a friend of his sister, he was already intimate. Many 
 of his letters to her, beginning in 1828, are given in his 
 correspondence. They are frank and friendl}' ; at first 
 they relate chiefly to herself and her books, in the pub- 
 lication of which he seems to have assisted ; later he 
 tells of his own work and discusses subjects. The tone 
 is sincere and affectionate, and grateful for her regard 
 for him. " The friendship you deign to oflfer me," he 
 
126 Honor e de Balzac, 
 
 writes, "is a chimera long sought b}- me ; from my 
 earliest da^'s in college I have desired to possess, not 
 man}' friends, but a friend {un ami). . . . You are 
 unhappy, you sa}^ and without the hope of another 
 dawn ; but remember that in the soul are man}" spring- 
 tides and fresh mornings. Your past life cannot be 
 characterized in language ; it is now a memory, and 
 you cannot judge of the future by such a past. How 
 many human beings have renewed their lives and made 
 them beautiful and sweet when farther on in life than 
 you are now. All we are is in the soul ; are you cer- 
 tain that 3'ours has had its full development? do you 
 breathe-in air through every pore of it? do 3'our eyes 
 see all they can see?" Of himself he says: " I am 
 old in suffering ; you would not guess my age from my 
 livel}' face. I cannot say that I have had, like you, 
 reverses, for I have alwa3-s been bowed down beneath 
 a cruel weight. Perhaps this will seem to 3'ou exag- 
 geration, a method of obtaining your interest ; no, for 
 nothing can give 3'ou an idea of my life up to my 
 twenty-third 3'ear. I am sometimes surprised that I 
 have nothing now to struggle against but outward mis- 
 fortune. You ma}^ question all about me and 3'ou will 
 never gain an3' light on the cause of m3" unhappiness. 
 Some there are who die and the physician himself 
 is unable to discover what malady has carried them 
 off." 
 
 During these 3'ears, beginning with 1831, man}^ 
 women of rank and distinction, as well as others in 
 humble life, wrote to him anonymousl3', impelled to do 
 so b3" their interest in his books. " A cloud of letters'* 
 are still in existence, but they tell nothing ; they are 
 
Honor e de Balzac. 127 
 
 not the letters of women who had a part, either great 
 or small, in his time or in his thoughts. From these 
 must be distinguished the anon^-mous letters of three 
 women, two of whom had an ultimate influence on his 
 life. His answers to the third (who signed herself 
 Louise) are given in his correspondence. It is charac- 
 teristic of liis nature that although these letters to 
 Louise covered a period of two years, and the lady's 
 name was not revealed to him, yet, having on one occa- 
 sion the opportunitN' to discover who she was, his deli- 
 cate sense of honor led him to forego it.^ Madame 
 Hanska, n^e Comtesse Rzewuska, who seventeen years 
 later became his wife, wrote to him in 1832, after read- 
 ing the M^decin de Campagne^ and signed herself 
 '' r^trangere." She was a Pole by birth, married to 
 a Russian gentleman owning vast possessions in the 
 province of Kiew, where the family usually resided on 
 an estate named Wierzschovnia, which was more like 
 a small principality than the home of private persons. 
 Monsieur Ilanski, being very much older than his wife, 
 and greatly occupied with the care of his property, 
 allowed her, from time to time, to travel without him 
 for the purpose of educating their only child, a daugh- 
 ter. Her intercourse with Balzac, begun by letter in 
 1832, and strengthened by occasional meetings in Vienna 
 and elsewhere, continued in a friendly manner but with 
 
 1 It must be said, however, that the letters to Louise have an 
 artificial ring to them. The reader cannot help asking how they 
 came to be published. As the lady never made herself known to 
 Balzac, is it likely that she sent his letters to the publishers of 
 his Correspondance ? Can they have been intended for incorpora- 
 tion with some tale left unfinished among his papers ? 
 
128 Honor i de Balzac, 
 
 some relaxation on his part between 1838 and 1843, 
 the period of Monsieur Hanski's death, after which 
 time it grew closer, and ended in being the abiding 
 and final influence on his life. To his later years the 
 histor}^ of what she was to him properly- belongs. 
 
 The other anon3'mous correspondent, of 1831, proved 
 to be the Duchesse de Castries, daughter of the Due 
 de Maill}', a relation of the Fitz-Jameses and the Mont- 
 morencj's, and all the bluest blood of the faubourg 
 Saint-Germain. She was parted from her husband and 
 lived an artificial life, which was made picturesque by 
 a semi-invalidism caused by a fall from her horse and 
 a consequent injury to the spine. She received her 
 friends lying on a reclining chair in a small salon full 
 of antique furniture, old velvet cushions, and screens of 
 the seventeenth century. Slie was about thirty years 
 of age ; her beauty, more Roman than Greek, was 
 noble and distinguished; her high, wdiite forehead, 
 crowned with auburn hair, and the rubj'-colored gown 
 she was fond of wearing made her the living presenta- 
 tion of a portrait by Titian. 
 
 There is no doubt that Madame de Castries had a 
 marked influence, though it cannot be called an impor- 
 tant one, on Balzac's life. She was of great service to 
 his work, for she brought him into the sphere of the 
 faubourg Saint-Germain, and made known to him its 
 manners and customs, just as Madame Gay and Ma- 
 dame d'Abrantes had been the means of revealing to 
 him the Director}^ and the Empire. Moreover she 
 affected his imagination and gratified his naturaUy 
 artistic taste. The journe}^ to Switzerland was made 
 at her suggestion. She was then on her way to Italy 
 
Honor 4 de Balzac. 129 
 
 with her brother-in-law, the Due de Fitz-James, and his 
 wife. Madame Surville has told us that her brother 
 was unable to accept their proposal to go with them to 
 Italy on account of the expense ; others have said 
 that the real cause was a rupture between the duchess 
 and Balzac at Geneva, where they parted. This may* 
 be, but it would seem from the correspondence that his 
 feelings cooled graduallj' ; they did cool undoubtedly 
 (though not without suffering on his part), so that 
 later, when Madame de Castries evidentl3^ wished to 
 replace the intimac}- on its old footing, he replied to her 
 curtl}', though with courtesy. The Duchesse de Lan- 
 geais^ with its admirable sketch of the faubourg Saint- 
 Germain, is, by his own admission, derived from his 
 intercourse with Madame de Castries. In a letter to 
 Madame Carraud, dated from Sache, Jul}^ 1832, not 
 long before he starts for Aix, he speaks freelj^ of his 
 relations to the duchess : — 
 
 "Ah, if the}" would only have gone to the Pyrenees, 
 I could have stopped to see 3'ou on the way ; but no, 
 it is decreed that I must climb to Aix in Savoie after 
 one of those aristocratic women whom you, no doubt, 
 hold in horror ; the sort of angelic beautj' to whom we 
 attribute a noble soul ; a true duchess, very disdainful, 
 very loving, elegant, coquettish, and witt}', — like noth- 
 ing I have before seen ; a phenomenon of the sort that 
 are fast disappearing ; who says she loves me, who 
 wishes me to stay with her in a Venetian palace (you 
 see I tell j'ou all), and who insists that I am to write 
 nothing that is not for her ; one of those women whom 
 we are compelled to adore upon our knees if they choose 
 that we shall do so ; and whom it is such a pleasure to 
 
 9 
 
130 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 conquer, — the woman of dreams, jealous of everything. 
 Ah ! how much better I should be at Angouleme, very 
 sage, very tranquil, listening to the whirr of the mill- 
 wheels, muddying my hands in gathering truffles, learn- 
 ing of 30U to pocket billiard-balls, and laughing and 
 talking." 
 
 Later he writes from Aix, still to Madame Carraud : 
 "I came here to find little and much. Much, be- 
 cause I am with an amiable and graceful woman ; little, 
 because she will never love me. Why did you send me 
 to Aix ? From my little room I see the whole valley ; 
 I get up pitilessly at five, and work before m\' window 
 till half-past five at night. M}^ breakfast, an eg^, comes 
 from the club. Madame de Castries sends me coffee. 
 She is the type of refined women, more so than Madame 
 de Beauseant. But is not the charm of these women 
 cultivated at the expense of the heart ? ... As I came 
 through Lyon I found the proofs of Louis Lambert^ 
 and, like a bear, I licked my cub." 
 
 It was during the period of their intimacy that Balzac 
 became, or attempted to become, a man of fashion. He 
 bought horses and a tilburj', and was seen in the Bois 
 wearing handsome clothes and accompanied by a little 
 groom called "Grain-de-mil." But this extravagance 
 lasted only a year or two. The horses were first sold 
 to save oats, then the tilbury ; but the coat, which 
 was blue with brass buttons, must have lasted longer, 
 for it appears in several of the satirical tales of the 
 day. 
 
 The following letters are to Madame de Castries, 
 whom he did not meet personally till March, 1832 : 
 
Honors de Balzac. 131 
 
 " Paris, Oct. 5, 1831. 
 
 ** Madame, — Your letter was sent to Touraine after 
 my return, and as I crossed my correspondence on the 
 way I have only just received it. Do not think me 
 guilty of negligence. You attribute so many crimes to 
 me that I must defend myself from the suspicion of dis- 
 courtesy to a lad}', even though she be unknown to me. 
 
 " Permit me to use some frankness in replying to your 
 frank attacks, and, above all, accept m}- sincere thanks 
 for the indirect flatter}- of your criticisms, for the}' reveal 
 to me the strong impression my works have made upon 
 you. You place me in the unfortunate position of speak- 
 ing about myself, and that is the more embarrassing 
 because I address a lady whose age and condition are 
 unknown to me. 
 
 " The Physiologie du Maria ge^ Madame, is a work 
 undertaken in behalf of women. I saw plainly that if, 
 in order to spread ideas looking to the emancipation of 
 women and their higher education, I began in" a com 
 mon place manner by announcing my purpose, I should 
 merely be regarded as the ingenious author of a theory 
 that was more or less fanciful. It was evident that I 
 ought to envelop my ideas, and mould them, as it were, 
 in some new form, either bitter or piquant, which should 
 awaken minds and give them reflections to think upon. 
 For a woman who has passed through the storms of life 
 the meaning of my book will be seen to be the attribu- 
 tion to husbands of all the faults committed by wives, — 
 it is, in short, a great absolution. Next, I put for- 
 ward the natural and inalienable rights of women. No 
 happy marriage is possible if a perfect knowledge of 
 each other's moral nature, habits, and cliaracter does 
 
132 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 not exist between a man and woman before their union ; 
 and I have not shrunk from any of the consequences of 
 that principle. Those who know me know that I have 
 been faithful to that belief from m}^ earliest j'ears. . . . 
 
 " Thus 3'ou see, Madame, that I have changed the 
 first crime you charge upon me into a brave effort which 
 ought to have won me some encouragement ; but, sol- 
 dier as I am at the outposts of a future S3'stem, I meet 
 the fate of all such sentinels. I am misjudged, mis- 
 understood. Some see only the form ; others see noth- 
 ing at all. I shall die in m}^ idea like the soldier in 
 his cloak. 
 
 " Immediately after writing the Physiologie I wrote, 
 in order to develop my thoughts and cast them into 
 young minds by means of striking pictures, the Scenes 
 de la vie privee. In that book, full of moralitj' and 
 wise counsel, nothing is destroj'cd, nothing is attacked ; 
 I respect beliefs, even those I do not share. I am sim- 
 ply the historian, the narrator, and never was virtue 
 more held up for reverence than in those pages. And 
 now, Madame, since j'ou oblige me to defend the J^eau 
 de Chagrin^ I shall do it in one word : the work is not 
 3'et finished. . . . 
 
 '•''Jesus-Christ en Flandres^ L' Enfant Maudit^ Les 
 Proscrits^ and other of my writings, will prove to you 
 that I do not lack faith, nor conviction, nor charity. I 
 plough my furrow conscientious!}^ ; I tr}" to be the man 
 of my subject, and to do m}- work with courage and 
 preseverance, that is all. The Peau de Chagrin is in- 
 tended to portra}' the present age, our life, our egotism ; 
 this representation of our types has been misunderstood. 
 But my consolation, Madame, will ever be in the sincere 
 
Ho nor e de Balzac, 133 
 
 interest that has brought me criticisms made, like 3'oiirs, 
 in good faith and in a triendh' manner. Therefore be- 
 lieve me when I say that 3'our letter, so full of touching 
 sentiments worthy of a woman's heart, is not indifferent 
 to me ; such far-off sympathy thus excited is a treasure, 
 — my onh' fortune, my purest pleasure. But the pleas- 
 ure you have given would be greater still if, instead of 
 dwelling chietl}' on the necessitated picture of a woman 
 famous for never having loved, you had turned to her 
 who is sanctified through the noblest devotion of woman- 
 hood, through her artless love and the rich poetrv of her 
 heart. For me Pauline lives — even more beautiful. If, 
 I have made her a vision, an illusion, it is that none may 
 possess my secret. ..." 
 
 "March, 1834. 
 
 *' Seraphita is advancing ; she will appear at the end 
 of the month. The work has been crushing, terrible. 
 I have worked, and shall work night and day over it. I 
 have made, unmade, remade it ; and as in Paris ridicule 
 usually takes the place of comprehension, I hope for 
 nothing but a far-off, tardy success. The book will be 
 appreciated in the future, and here and there even now. 
 It will be the book of souls who love to lose themselves 
 in the spaces of the Infinite. There is a chapter, the 
 sixth, the Path to Heaven, which will give me, forever, 
 all truly pious souls. 
 
 '' Why do you think I am still in the rue Cassini ? I 
 am nearer or farther from you than that, according to 
 the fanc}' of the moment. I do not like your sadness ; 
 I should scold 3'ou if you were here ; I should pose 3'ou 
 on a large sofa where you would sit like a fair3' in the 
 midst of her palace, and I should tell you that to live 
 
134 Honore de Balzac, 
 
 in this life we must love, and that you do not love. A 
 deep affection is the bread of the soul ; when the soul 
 is not fed it weakens like the l)od\'. ... 
 
 " I went out yesterday and saw the two caricatures of 
 me by Dantan. Send to Susse for them, and you will 
 see how droll they are. Next week I sit for my picture 
 to please a painter, who asked to do it, and I weakly 
 consented. All this is very petty, is it not? it seems 
 the more so to one who has risen with the m3'stics to 
 the skies. 
 
 " The noble figure of womanhood which I promised 
 in the preface, and which piques your curiosity, is half 
 done. The book is called Le Lys dans la Vallee. I 
 may be wrong, but I think it will cause the shedding of 
 many tears. I know that in writing it I have shed 
 many myself." 
 
 "Octobers, 1835. 
 
 " Madame, — My doctor imperatively ordered change 
 of air ; I left all letters behind me, and started for 
 Touraine. On m}^ return 1 found the two you have 
 written to me, also one from M. le Due de Fitz James. 
 
 " Have the kindness to present to the duke nw thanks 
 for his friendlj" invitation, and m}^ regrets that I cannot 
 accept it. 1 have plunged back into work necessitated 
 by pitiless obligations. The bell has sounded in m}' 
 cloister, and I must finish, for the 'Revue,' the paint- 
 ing of a feeling so great that it survives all shocks ; 
 it comes from a spring whence man, the ungrateful, is 
 ever drawing, 3'et never draining its source." 
 
 His life-long and, possibly, truest friend was Madame 
 Carraud, nee Tourangin, the wife of Commandant Car- 
 
Honors de Balzac. 135 
 
 rand, the head of the military school at Saint Cjt, and 
 afterwards in charge of the government powder-works 
 at Angouleme. She was the intimate friend of his sis- 
 ter, and about six 3'ears older than himself. He speaks 
 of her, judging from a social point of view, as a bril- 
 liant mind and noble heart, running to waste in the 
 narrow sphere of Angouleme. To her he went for rest 
 and sympatln' ; she sustained his mind in its darkest 
 moments, a service he never forgot, and fearlessly ad- 
 vised or rebuked him as her true affection and sound 
 judgment dictated. After the events of Jul}', 1830, she 
 and her husband, with other influential friends, were 
 anxious that he should be chosen deput}' at the com- 
 ing elections. He allowed his name to be put up both 
 at Angouleme and at Cambrai, but was not elected 
 at either place. Some of his letters to Madame Car- 
 raud are therefore on politics. The following was writ- 
 ten, it must be remembered, when France was just 
 beginning to try one of her many experiments on the 
 
 bod}' politic. 
 
 " November, 1830. 
 
 '' The country is now in very serious circumstances. 
 I am alarmed at the struggle before it. I see passions 
 everywhere, and reason nowhere. If France is con- 
 vulsed I shall not be among those who refuse to give 
 her their arms or their talents, however much some 
 friends may oppose it.^ It is at such times that science 
 and knowledge, the resources of which we have pushed 
 so far, together with courage, ought to make France 
 triumph. But even then what is to be the upshot of it 
 
 1 He is speaking as a legitimist, and refers to friends who hold 
 the same opinions. 
 
136 Honor^ de Balzac, 
 
 all? Can we quell the uprising of injured interests 
 which are now within the bod}' politic? Ah, the num- 
 ber of patriots in whom there is no patriotism is great 
 indeed. None are willing to unite patriotism with mod- 
 erate principles, the constitutive plan of which I have 
 alreadj' explained to 3'ou. We stand between the ultras 
 of liberalism and of legitimacj', who will unite only in 
 overthrowing all. 
 
 " Do not accuse me of want of patriotism, because my 
 intelligence forces me to take the exact measure of men 
 and things. The genius of government lies in bringing 
 about a fusion of extremes. That is what Napoleon 
 did, also Louis XVIII., — both men of talent ; one never 
 understood, the other understood by himself onl3\ 
 Each held all parties in hand, one by force the other by 
 craft. To-day we have, for our sins, a government 
 without a policy. This is a state of things to ruin us. 
 Ever}' day it deprives me of some hope. Therefore, 3'ou 
 see, I am for the consolidation of interests. If you 
 were in Paris, in the midst of men and circumstances, 
 your solitude politics would soon change. You would 
 not be here a minute without a shock. . . . 
 
 " I own to you frankly that I cannot conceive how any 
 one can expect a representative government to exist 
 without the differences of opinion which are the basis 
 on which it rests. The tempest that is blowing to-day 
 will always blow. You are supposing the natural 
 action of the present government to be its misfortune. 
 Now, without wishing to defend «iy ideas, let me tell 
 you in a few words the sj'stem of government to which 
 my whole life is ready to subscribe. It is the profession 
 of a faith that is unalterable and quite possible of ac- 
 
Hunore de Balzac. 137 
 
 complishraent ; it is m}- political conscience, my scheme 
 and my thought, to which I have as much right as 
 others to whom I give the same liberty of opinion. My 
 political life will be entirely devoted to the furtherance 
 of such thoughts, and to their development. When I 
 speak seriously on the future of my country there is no 
 word or writing of mine that is not imbued with these 
 principles. 
 
 " France ought to be a constitutional monarch}', with 
 an hereditary royal famih- , and a chamber of peers en- 
 dowed with extraordinarN' powers, representing landed 
 property, etc. ; with all possible guarantees for heredi- 
 tary rights and for privileges, the nature of which should 
 be discussed. Then there should be a second chamber, 
 elective, and representing the interests of the interme- 
 diate masses which stand between the highest social 
 positions and what we call the People. The body of 
 the laws and the spirit of them should tend to enlighten 
 to the utmost the People, that is, persons wlio own 
 nothing, workmen, proletaries, etc., so as to advance 
 them as soon as possible into the easy circumstances of 
 the intermediate class. But, while so doing, the Peo- 
 ple should be kept under a powerful control, so that its 
 individuals may be able to find light, help, and protec- 
 tion ; and that no ideas, no combinations or intrigues 
 should make it turbulent. The greatest liberty should 
 be given to the upper class, for it has much to preserve 
 and all to lose, and cannot therefore become licentious. 
 The government should have all possible power. Thus, 
 the government, the upper class, and the middle class 
 have each an interest in making the lowest class happy 
 and able to rise into the middle class, in which lies the 
 
138 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 real power of all States. If rich men, the hereditary 
 occupants of the upper chamber, growing corrupt in 
 morals, give rise to abuses, we must remember that 
 abuses are inseparable from the existence of society 
 itself; the}' must be accepted wnth their concomitant 
 benefits. 
 
 *' That is m}' plan, my thought ; it unites the good and 
 philanthropic conditions of several systems. Persons 
 may laugh at me and call me a liberal or an aristocrat ; 
 I shall not give up that system. I have meditated 
 long and deeply on the institutions of society- ; this sys- 
 tem appears to me — not the best, but — the least 
 defective." 
 
 The period when Balzac in early manhood came upon 
 the scene of political events was just before and after 
 the Revolution, if it can be called such, of Jul}', 1830. 
 He considered himself connected with the old regime 
 through his family, his father having been secretary of 
 the Council under Louis XVI. ; but besides this gen- 
 eral bias, he had that of a strong personal belief in 
 authority, and in the duty of maintaining it. He be- 
 lieved in two great vital powers for the control of man- 
 kind, and he thus expresses his belief in the Preface to 
 the Coinedie Humaine : — 
 
 "Christianity, and especially Catholicism, being (as I 
 have said in the Medecin de Campagne) a complete 
 system for the repression of the selfish interests of man- 
 kind, is the strongest element of the social order. If 
 we study carefully a representation of Society moulded, 
 as it were, upon the living form, with all its good and 
 all its evil, we shall find that while thought — -or rather 
 
Honore de Balzac. 139 
 
 passion, winch is thonght and feeling combined — is the 
 social element and bond, it is also an element of de- 
 struction. In this respect the social life is like the 
 physical life : races and men attain longevit}' onl}- by 
 the non-exhaustion of the vital force. Consequently, 
 instruction, or, to speak more correctly, religious educa- 
 tion, is the great principle of the life of Society, the 
 only means of diminishing the total of evil and aug- 
 menting the total of good in human life. Thought, the 
 fountain of all good and of all evil, cannot be trained, 
 mastered, and directed except by religion ; and the 
 only possible religion is Christianity, which created the 
 modern world and will preserve it. From it sprang 
 the need of the monarchical principle ; in fact, 
 Christianity and monarch}^ are twin principles. As to 
 the limits in which both should be held and regulated 
 lest they develop to their inherent conclusions, this brief 
 preface is not the place for such discussion. Neither 
 can I enter upon the religious and political dissensions 
 of the present da}-. I write by the light of two eternal 
 truths — religion and monarchy : two necessities pro- 
 claimed by contemporaneous events, and towards which 
 ever}' man of sound judgment will endeavor to bring 
 back this nation." 
 
 Such were his principles ; and he believed they would 
 best promote the welfare of those for whom his S3-mpa- 
 thies were strongest, — the poor and the defenceless. No 
 man has ever shown more feeling for those oppressed 
 by fate or circumstances than Balzac ; he wrote of their 
 helpless sorrows with the red blood of his heart. No 
 matter how sternly he exposed their vice and their short- 
 comings, we see that his s3-mpathies are with them, — not 
 
140 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 in a weak and commiserating wa}', but with compre- 
 hension of the causes which make them what the}' are, 
 and the most earnest beUef that his political creed 
 would best lift up and rescue them. He may be right, 
 but in his as in all creeds there is one element not duly 
 allowed for, -:- human nature. Balzac had no leaning 
 at all to the visionary beliefs and projects of the rest- 
 less young minds of the da}', heirs to ideas repressed 
 by the strong hand of Napoleon and kept under by the 
 Restoration. In 1830 they saw, or believed they saw, 
 their opportunity. While despising the Orleans regime 
 and laughing at the king and his personal submissions, 
 they made themselves feared in the press in a short- 
 lived way. With them and their ideas Balzac had no 
 sympath3\ He hated their theories and their socialisms, 
 and, above all, what he called their " experiments on 
 millions of ignorant and excitable natures." It is well, 
 perhaps, that he was not able to carr}" out his desire to 
 add the title of a great citizen to that of a great writer. 
 In this best of all possible worlds politics require poli- 
 ticians, and he could never have reduced either his 
 clear-sightedness or his tongue to its hypocrisies. 
 " France," he said, " is being saved and lost perpet- 
 uall}'. If she wants to be saved indeed let her go back 
 to the laws of God. I tell you I know those laws ; 
 under one regime or under another you will have to 
 come back to the law of laws, — unity of will." 
 
 The following letters are still to Madame Carraud : — 
 
 "June, 1832. 
 "As for politics, have faith thnt I shall conduct 
 In3^self under the inspiration of a high and stern sense 
 
Honor i de Balzac. 141 
 
 of right; and, in spite of Monsieur Carraud's anathema 
 on journalists, believe that I will never write or 
 act except under conviction. M}^ political life and 
 ideas will not be understood in a moment. If I have 
 ever a part in tlie government of the country I shall 
 be judged later, and I am not afraid. I care more 
 for the esteem of a few persons — among whom you 
 hold the first rank as one of the finest minds and 
 most elevated souls I have ever known — than for the 
 estimation of the crowd, for which, to tell the truth, I 
 have profound contempt. There are promptings, how- 
 ever, which we must obey ; something irresistibly im- 
 pels me to seek fame and power. It is not a happy 
 life. Within me is the worship of woman, and a need 
 of love which has never yet been completel}' satisfied. 
 Despairing of ever being loved and understood by the 
 woman of whom I dreamed, never having met her but 
 under one form, in m}- heart, I desire to fling myself 
 into the whirlpool of political passions as I have done 
 into the lurid and parching atmosphere of literary ambi- 
 tion. I may fail in both, but, believe me, if I do seek 
 to live in the life of the century, instead of passing 
 through it obscure and happ}^ it is precisely because 
 pure and unpretending happiness has failed me. Yes, 
 you are right in all you say. If I met with a woman 
 and a fortune I could resign myself very easily to 
 domestic happiness ; but where am I to find her? what 
 parents will believe in a literary fortune ? It would fill 
 me with despair to owe m}' future to a woman I did not 
 love. Believe that in the desert of my life such friend- 
 ships as yours, and the certainty of finding an asylum 
 in a loving heart are the sweetest consolations that 
 
142 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 could be given to me. M}' strongest desire is for a 
 country life, — but always with good neighbors and a 
 happy home. In whatever land I could obtain this I 
 would take it ; I would do no more literature, except 
 as an amateur, to please m3'self and not become inac- 
 tive — if indeed one ever could be idle with trees to 
 plant and to look at. To devote myself to the happi- 
 ness of a woman has been my ceaseless dream ; and I 
 suffer because I have not realized it; but I cannot 
 conceive of love and marriage in poverty." 
 
 " March, 1833. 
 
 " I live in an atmosphere of thoughts, ideas, concep- 
 tions, plans, and labors, which jostle and boil and 
 sparkle in my head till I am half craz3\ But nothing 
 reduces my flesh ; I am the best portrait of a monk 
 ever seen since the earliest days of monasteries. 
 
 "As for my soul, it is profoundly sad. M3' work 
 
 alone enables me to live. Is there no woman for me in 
 
 this world? Must I drop from such crushing toil to 
 
 nothing? Shall I never have beside me the tender and 
 
 caressing spirit of woman, for whom I have done so 
 
 much ? " 
 
 . " August, 1833. 
 
 " You are right, dear, noble soul, in loving Madame 
 de Bern3\ In each of you are striking resemblances of 
 thought, — the sa«ie love of the right ; the same en- 
 lightened liberality, same love of progress, same desires 
 for the good of the masses ; same elevation of soul and 
 of thought, the same delicac}^ in 3'our natures. And for 
 that I love you much. 
 
 " The Medicin de Campagne will reach 3'ou next 
 week ; it has cost me ten times the work that Louis 
 
Honors de Balzac. 143 
 
 Lambert did. There is not a sentence, not an idea, 
 which has not been viewed and reviewed, read and re- 
 read and corrected ; the labor was frightful. I may 
 now die in peace. I have done a great work for my 
 countrv. To my mind it is better to have written this 
 book than to have made laws or won battles. It is 
 the Gospel in action." 
 
 " October, 1833. 
 ^' Do you know how the Medecin has been re- 
 ceived ? By a torrent of insults. The three news- 
 papers of my own party which have spoken of it 
 have done so with the utmost contempt for the 
 work and its author ; the otliers I don't know about. 
 But I do not mind it much ; 30U are my public, — you 
 and a few choice souls whom I desire to please, but 
 you above all, whom I am so proud to know ; you 
 whom I have never seen or listened to without gaining 
 some good ; you who have the courage to help me in 
 l)ulling up the weeds in my garden ; you who encour- 
 age me to perfect myself ; you who resemble the angel 
 to whom I owe all; 3'ou, so good to my badnesses! I 
 alone know with what rapidity I turn to you and seek 
 for your encouragement when some sharp arrow has 
 wounded me ; I am like the ringdove, seeking its nest. 
 For you I feel an affection like none other ; one which 
 can have no rival and no counterpart. It is so good to 
 be near you ! From afar I can tell you all that I think 
 of your soul and of your life without fear of being 
 silenced. God knows there is no one who desires that 
 your path here below be happy more than I do ; would 
 that I could send you the jo3's 30U need, just as m3^ heart 
 sends up its ardent prayers for 3'our happiness. Yes, 
 
144 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 think that in this volcanic Paris there is a being who 
 thinks often of you and of all that is dear to j-oa ; who 
 would gladl}^ put away from j'our life whatever may 
 trouble it ; who appreciates 3'ou at 3'our true value, — a 
 being with a heart ever young and full of sincere 
 friendship for you, a heart that shows its real self to 
 none but you, and a few of those women who can under- 
 stand sorrows/' 
 
 " December, 1833. 
 
 " I have nothing to sa}^ against your criticisms on 
 Eugenie Grandet except that facts are against 3'ou. 
 There is a grocer at Tours who keeps a shop and 
 has eight millions. M. Eynard, a pedler, has twenty ; 
 he was known to keep thirteen miUions in gold in his 
 house. He invested them in the public funds in 
 1814, and now has twenty millions. However, in the 
 next edition, I will lower Grandet's fortune by six 
 millions, and I will answer the rest of 3'our criticisms 
 at Frapesle. Meantime I thank 3'ou for them ; but 
 nothing can tell 3'Ou how grateful I am for the maternal 
 care which 3'our remarks prove to me. 
 
 " Yes, count upon it, I am going to Frapesle, and I 
 hope that I can persuade Madame de Bern3^ to accom- 
 pan3" me. On my return here 3'esterda3^ I found her so 
 ill that I was seized with a panic ; my mind is full of 
 anguish. Her life is so much to mine. Oh ! no one 
 can form a true idea of that deep affection which has 
 sustained all my efforts, and comforts all m3^ pains at 
 every moment. You know something of it, 3'ou who 
 understand friendship so well, 3'Ou who are so kind and 
 affectionate. As soon as I am relieved of anxiety I 
 will write 3'OU again. Mv Seraphita is alread3' far ad- 
 
Honore de Balzac. 145 
 
 vanced. The fiasco of Louis Lambert and the Mede- 
 cin de Campagne grieved me ; but I have chosen my 
 
 path ; nothing shall discourage me." 
 
 " , 1834. 
 
 " Germany has bought two thousand copies of the 
 pirated Louis Lambert; France bought only two 
 hundred of the real one ! And 3'et, I am writing 
 Seraphita, a work as much above Louis Lambert as 
 Louis Lambert is above Gaudissart, — which I am 
 told did not please you. We will talk about that. It 
 is written that I shall never have complete happiness, 
 freedom, libert}^ except in perspective. But, dear, I 
 can at least say this, with all the tender effusions of my 
 heart, — that in the course of my long and painful way, 
 four noble beings have held out their hands to me, have 
 encouraged, loved, and pitied me ; that yours is one of 
 those hearts which have the unalterable privilege of 
 priority over all m}^ affections ; in the silent hours when 
 I look within me, the thought of you brings me rich 
 .memories. Yes, the egoism of poets and artists is a 
 passion for art which holds their feelings in abeyance. 
 But you have ever the right to claim me ; all I have is 
 
 yours." 
 
 " November, 1834. 
 *' None of my friends realize how my work grows ; I 
 now need eighteen hours a day for it. Also, I am try- 
 ing to evade the national guard duty, which would kill 
 me ; and so I have done as the painters do, invented 
 pass- words, which are known only to such persons as 
 
 seriously want to see me." 
 
 " December, 1835. 
 *' Never has the torrent which bears me onward 
 been so rapid ; no more terribly majestic work has 
 
 10 
 
146. Honors de Balzac. 
 
 ever compelled the human brain. I go to my toil as 
 a gambler to cards. I sleep onl}" five hours, and work 
 eighteen; I shall end by kiUing myself — but the 
 thought of you refreshes me sometimes. In another 
 year I may reasonably hope to be out of debt ; the hap- 
 piness of owing nothing, which I thought impossible, is 
 no longer a chimera. I shall pay my debts and buy La 
 Grenadiere. Another article in the 'Revue,' like the 
 Memoires de Deux Jeunes Mariees (which appears in 
 February, 1836), will bring me eight thousand francs. 
 God grant that my fame be not mere reputation, and 
 that reputation a fashion, and that fashion fleeting ! " 
 
 '* Les Jardies, near Sevres (Seine-et-Oise), , 1838. 
 
 " This is my address for a ver}^ long time, thrice dear 
 one, for mj' house is almost finished, and I am already 
 living in it. Three rooms, one above the other : salon 
 on the ground-floor, my bedroom above that, my study 
 on the upper floor, — all three communicating by means 
 of a ladder to which is given the name of staircase. 
 Such is the abode of 3'our friend. Around it is a walk 
 which winds over an acre of ground inclosed by walls, 
 where trees and flowers and shrubs cannot be planted 
 till next November. Then, about sixty feet away, is 
 a detached building containing stable, coach-house, 
 kitchen, etc., one large room, and others for the ser- 
 vants. Such is Les Jardies. This parrot's perch on 
 which I roost, with its tiny garden, and the servants' 
 quarters, is situated near the middle of the valley of 
 Ville-d'Avray, but in the township of Sevres behind 
 the park of Saint- Cloud. It stands on the hillside, and 
 faces south, with the loveliest view in the world ; it has 
 
Honore de Balzac. 147 
 
 a pump which is some da}' to be hidden by clematis and 
 other climbing-plants, a prett}' brook, a future world of 
 our flowers, silence, and — forty-five thousand francs 
 to pay for it ! You understand. Yes, the folly is done, 
 completed ! Don't talk to me about it. I have got to 
 paj' for it, and so I am beginning to sit up all night. 
 
 I have been to Sardinia, and I am not dead. I found 
 the twelve hundred thousand francs I divined were there, 
 but a Genoese had got hold of them by a biglietto reale 
 ovAy three days before m}^ arrival. I had a sort of 
 vertigo, and that ended it. You shall hear all about 
 nn- journey when we meet. It is curious enough, I can 
 tell you." 
 
 "Les Jardies, March, 1839. 
 
 "Dear, what 3'ou ask is absolutel}^ impossible; two 
 or three months from now nothing would be more easy. 
 To you, sister of m\' soul, I can confide ni}' last secret ; 
 I am in the depths of misery. All the walls of Les 
 Jardies are crumbling down, through the builder's fault ; 
 he has not put any foundations ; and this disaster, though 
 he alone is to blame, falls on me to repair, for he does 
 not own a sou, and I had only paid him eight thousand 
 francs on account. Do not call mo imprudent, cava, I 
 ought to have been rich by this time ; I have done mira- 
 cles of work, but all my intellectual walls have toppled 
 over now, together with the stone ones. I have come 
 down like a foundered horse, — I need to go to Frapesle 
 to rest myself." 
 
 In these letters we find Balzac's first mention of 
 Madame de Bern}-, whom he regarded as the guardian 
 angel of his life. He must have destroyed all letters 
 
148 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 and papers addressed to her, so that the sacredness of 
 their intercourse might not be exposed to curious e3'es. 
 Like Madame Carraud, she was the friend of his family, 
 and some 3'ears older than himself. Her husband was 
 Monsieur Alexandre de Bern^' (to whom Madame Fir- 
 niiani is dedicated). They lived on a small estate at 
 Saint-Firmin in the Seine-et-Oise, spending part of the 
 3'ear in Paris or its neighborhood. During the time 
 the de Balzac family" were at Villeparisis, the de Bern^'s 
 had a house there, and this was the beginning of their 
 intercourse. As no written record of Balzac's friend- 
 ship with Madame de Berny exists which connects it in 
 anj^ definite way with the outward events of his life, 
 it is best to leave all further mention of that affection 
 until the end, when we maj^ be more able to judge of 
 its influence on his life. 
 
Honors de Balzac, 149 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LITERARY LIFE. 
 
 During the thirteen years from 1830 to 1842, Balzac 
 being then thirt3'-one to forty-three years of age, liis 
 great work was done. There are signs in 1843 that his 
 health was beginning to fail; he could not force him- 
 self to work as he once did ; periods of stagnation be- 
 gan to set in, although at times he recovered his full 
 vigor, and three of his greatest works were written 
 during the last eight years of his life, — namelj', Les 
 Paysans^ and Les Parents Pauvres : Le Cousin Pons, 
 and La Cousine Pette. 
 
 His external literarj^ life was not a happy one. He 
 had many publishers, and did not continue on good 
 terms with any of them. It is obvious to those who 
 look back upon the history of these troubles that they 
 were, in the first instance, the natural and unavoidable 
 outcome of Balzac's method of work, and the clash of 
 interests that resulted from it. There cannot be a 
 doubt that Balzac was a thorn in the flesh of his pub- 
 lishers. We have only to read Theophile Gautier's ac- 
 count of his manner of correcting proof — or rather of 
 hammering out his ideas on the anvil of ten proofs, the 
 sparks of his corrections fl^'ing wildly about them — to 
 feel that the flesh and blood of printers and publishers 
 could hardly bear the trial. Werdet (who bought up 
 
150 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 the interests of other publishers in 1834, and was his 
 sole publisher till 1837) sa3's that the difficulty with 
 proofs "was at the bottom of his troubles with pubhsh- 
 ers and editors, who were forced to pay the enormous 
 costs of correction." This statement is not strictl}' true, 
 for Balzac mentions more than once in his letters that 
 he has had to pay over a thousand francs for proof- 
 corrections ; and he specially mentions the liberalit}' of 
 Madame Bechet (Werdet being at the time her business 
 manager), who assumed four thousand francs for cor- 
 rections which were justly chargeable to him. But, in 
 any case, the trial of printing for him must have been 
 great, and he tells himself how, entering a printing- 
 office unexpectedly, he overheard a compositor exclaim- 
 ing : " I 've done my hour of Monsieur de Balzac ; who 
 takes him next ? " 
 
 Another cause of annoj^ance to his publishers was 
 Balzac's delay in supplying manuscript. He would 
 not let anj'thing go from him until he felt it was the 
 best he could do ; the conscience of his work was be- 
 fore all else, and his mind refused to be forced to finish 
 a book to order. " I am readN^" he says, replying to 
 Alphonse Levavasseur, who had been more than usually 
 urgent, "to send you the copy on the loth; but it will 
 be the most infamous murder of a book that was ever 
 committed. There is in me a feeling, I don't know 
 what it is, which prevents me from consciously doing 
 wrong. The question here is the future of a book, — 
 am I to make it unworthy trash, or a work for the 
 shelves of a librarj- ? The copy is \y\ng there on my 
 desk, but I am stopped short by a sketch to complete, 
 an idea to develop, by — but it would take me till 
 
Honors de Balzac. 151 
 
 morning to explain how that work hangs between suc- 
 cess and a gibbet at every page. You must not think 
 this letter an excuse. I do work as hard, and in as 
 concentrated a way, as any human creature could do ; 
 but I am the ver}' humble servant of inspiration, and 
 the vixen has her moments of ill-humor." 
 
 He was in the habit of carrying on several works at 
 a time, apparently resting his mind by turning from 
 one to another, and taking each up as he felt himself 
 inspired with its subject. Some of these books being 
 in course of current publication in reviews and weekly 
 papers, such dela3's were, of course, a fruitful source of 
 quarrel and complaint. 
 
 If we are to believe Werdet,^ Balzac sold the right 
 to publish his books under certain invariable conditions, 
 namely : those issued periodicall}' in reviews were con- 
 trolled b}^ the editors during publication and for three 
 months after the date of the concluding number; those 
 issued in book form belonged to the pubHshers for one 
 year only. There is evidence that his rights over his 
 books were strong and lasting. He held a different 
 position towards publishers from that of writers in the 
 
 1 Nine years after Balzac's death Werdet published a book 
 about him : Portrait intime de Balzac ; sa vie, son humeur, et 
 son caraetere ; par Edmond Werdet, 1 vol., Silvestre, Paris, 1859. 
 It is worth reading by those who understand Balzac, for its com- 
 ical malignity. If the particular charge which Werdet brings 
 against him be carefully read, the dates collated, the whole brought 
 within compass, and stripped of Werdet's malicious diffuseness, 
 it will be found that Balzac behaved justly and with forbearance, 
 and that Werdet's real grievance was that in a moment of temper 
 he killed the goose that gave him golden eggs, and was taken at 
 his word. 
 
152 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 present daj', who seem to be the hiveHngs of capitahsts. 
 According to French law, after a book was in tj'pe it 
 could not be printed without a written order {hon ct 
 tirer) from the author; neither could it be published 
 without the same. The publisher was in fact the au- 
 thor's business agent ; making his profits, but not con- 
 trolling the propert}'. The accounts were open to both 
 parties, and when the time for settlement came author 
 and publisher went over the books together and settled 
 the business (see Werdet). This appears to have been 
 the usual method of publication, thus placing the author 
 in an honorable position towards his work and towards 
 the public; and French law, which has thrown man}- 
 safeguards around an author, protected him in it. 
 Balzac was a strong stickler for his rights, and when 
 he thought them infringed he appealed to the law, 
 which he had at his fingers' ends. 
 
 Nowhere among the multiplicit}^ of statements on the 
 money affairs of his books do we find a clear account 
 of the money he derived from them ; in fact, his 
 methods of publication were so involved that it would 
 be impossible to discover the profits of each book. 
 Werdet carefully keeps back, in his word}" narrative, the 
 sums he paid to Balzac, and his own profits, but he 
 mentions that the second edition of the Medecin de 
 Campagne was sold in eight days, Ze Pere Goriot 
 in six, and Seraphita before the book was pubUsbed, 
 with two hundred and fiftj^ copies promised ; and he 
 says, in a rather casual way at the close of his book, 
 " I estimate at 450,000 francs, at least, the sum which 
 Balzac derived from the profits of his books up to the 
 time of our rupture (1838). I could give the details. 
 
Honore de Balzac. 153 
 
 but that might seem useless. To this ah-eady large 
 sum must be added the product of his other works, 
 published from 1838 to the time of his death." Leon 
 Gozlan differs wholly from this estimate, and says that 
 during the first half of Balzac's literary life his work 
 was not lucrative, and that if we exclude the returns of 
 two or three fortunate books, the average of his literary 
 profits during his whole life did not exceed ten or twelve 
 thousand francs a year. This is undoubtedly a blunder 
 which can be disproved bj' Balzac's correspondence. 
 The real truth probably lies between the statements of 
 the two men, who both wrote from a parti pris.^ 
 
 The events of July, 1830, were injurious to publishing 
 interests, owing parti}' to the stringency of money and 
 the stoppage of all credit for three years. Authors 
 and publishers suflfered much from it, and also from the 
 pirated editions which now began to appear in Belgium. 
 Balzac mentions in a letter that two thousand copies of 
 one of his books had been sold in Brussels against two 
 hundred in Paris. The same wrong was also com- 
 mitted in the provinces of France, where, on one oc- 
 casion, ten thousand copies of M. de Lamennais's 
 
 1 Balzac intime ; en pantoufles et chez lui, par* Leon Gozlan, 
 1 vol., Librairie Illustre'e, Paris, no date, — the work of a man who 
 saw only one limited side of Balzac, and exaggerated that for the 
 purpose of writing a smart book. Monsieur Marcel Barriere tells 
 us, in his able commentary on Balzac, that foreigners at first ap- 
 preciated Balzac better than the French, who need, before all 
 things, esprit, in wliich, he says, Balzac was lacking. For this 
 reason, perhaps. Frenchmen may read Monsieur Le'on Gozlan's 
 book with more interest than a foreigner, to whom it seems a tor- 
 reqt of rather vulgar and very self-conscious writing, in which 
 Balzac himself is lost. 
 
154 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 "Paroles d'uii Croj^ant" were printed and sold without 
 the writer's knowledge. This wrong led Balzac to seek 
 admission to the Societe des Gens-de-lettres, then a 
 comparatively weak body, which somewhat resented, it 
 appears, his hitherto slight appreciation of it and now 
 feared to be involved in his struggles with publishers. 
 This feeling lasted but a short time, and later in the 
 same j^ear he became its president. His inspiring pres- 
 ence instantly gave impetus to the Societ}', owing to 
 his accurate knowledge of the business of publication, 
 his rare ability in maintaining an author's rights, and, 
 more especially, his profound conviction of the dignitj^ 
 of a man of letters.^ In the autumn of 1841 Balzac 
 resigned from the Societ}', owing to disagreements on a 
 committee he had himself inspired. This committee 
 was charged to prepare a manifesto which should cover 
 the whole ground of the condition of French literature, 
 its right to be considered a power in the State, the 
 service it had rendered to the nation and to history 
 throughout all time, the slight protection, or even decent 
 good-will, which the present government afforded it, 
 and the danger and the shame to France of allowing 
 such a state of things. The Societe des Gens-de-lettres 
 proposed to present this manifesto to the two Cham- 
 bers, and to scatter it broadcast through the coun- 
 tr}^, in order to obtain support. But the committee 
 
 1 Those who are interested in the protection of Uterature should 
 read Balzac's articles which were written in the service of the 
 Society, viz. : Code. Litteralre; Notes sur la propriete htteraire ; and 
 Lettre aux iScricains Frangais du XIX siecle. They will be found 
 in the CEuvres completes de H. de Balzac, ifcdition definitive. 
 Calmann Levy, Paris. 
 
Honore de Balzac. 155 
 
 were unable to agree on the terms of the document, 
 and Balzac, with one other member, resigned from 
 the Society-, doubts having been thrown on their 
 impartial it}'. 
 
 Literature under Louis-Philippe received but slight 
 encouragement. The king, common b}^ nature, sought 
 onl}' to ingratiate himself with the bourgeoisie, and 
 knew and cared little about writers, except as they 
 supported him or made him fear them in the press. 
 Material interests, solid wealth, limited to the interests 
 of its acquisition, ruled the da}' ; the minds that ruled 
 the world, and gave it posterity were, as now, in the 
 position of underlings. ''These stupid kings," cried 
 Balzac to Victor Hugo, " ignore the fact that without us 
 the world would know nothing about them. The very 
 monuments they put up to their own memory crumble 
 away ; the pictures they hang in their museums to show 
 the world what they do that is useful and grand don't 
 last ; not one is over five centuries old. Without Virgil 
 and Horace and Titus Livius and Ovid, who could dis- 
 tinguish Augustus from all the other Augustuses, though 
 he was the nephew of Caesar ? If it were not for that 
 little lawyer without a brief, Suetonius, we shouldn't 
 know three Caesars out of the dozen he wrote about ; with- 
 out Tacitus we should confound the Romans of his time 
 with the northern barbarians ; without Shakspeare all 
 the life of the reign of Elizabeth would disappear; 
 without Racine, Corneille, Pascal, La Bruyere, Saint- 
 Simon, Moliere, Louis XIV., reduced to his wigs and 
 his mistresses, would be no better than a crowned head 
 on a sign-post; and without us Louis-Philippe*s 
 name would n't be better known to posterit}^ than 
 
156 Honore de Balzac, 
 
 that of Philippe who keeps the restaurant in the rue 
 Montorgueil." 
 
 An amusing account is given by Champfleur}' of 
 Balzac's last meeting with men of letters. It took place 
 after the Revolution of 1848, when Balzac chanced to be 
 in Paris for a few weeks on his return from Russia. It 
 does not come within the chronology of this chapter, but 
 as it is allied to the subject of governmental recognition 
 of literature an abridgment of Champfleury's narrative 
 may be given here.^ 
 
 In May, 1848, M. Ledru-RoUin, being then minis- 
 ter of the Interior of the new republic, put an official 
 notice in the newspapers inviting literary men, geyis-de- 
 lettres^ to assemble on a certain day in a hall of the 
 Institute. About two o'clock of that daj^ a mixed and 
 very singular company, none of whom seemed to know 
 each other, assembled. " Monsieur de Balzac suddenh^ 
 entered, and all present turned to look at the stout 
 man, who on that occasion wore gloves and a green 
 coat. He glanced rapidly round the hall, and seeing 
 me came and took a seat at mj' side. A man mounted 
 the platform and announced that he came from M. 
 Ledru-RoUin, minister of the Interior, to inquire what 
 the government could do in behalf of books of art 
 {livres d'art). The term "books of art" roused the 
 whole assembly, who began to shout in a manner to 
 which the halls of the Institute were little accustomed. 
 M. Francis Wey made a clever and truthful speech, in 
 which he showed that books of art were an open sore 
 
 ^ Grandes Figures, d'hier et d'aujourd'hui, par Champfleury, 
 1 vol., Poulet-Malasses, Paris, 1861. This essay should be read 
 by all students of Balzac. 
 
Honore de Balzac. 157 
 
 in literature ; that books of art ate up the profits which 
 ought to go to the writers ; that books of art, in short, 
 were useless things, and altogether injurious to the in- 
 terests of men of letters. Whereupon the assembly gave 
 three groans for books of art, and the private secretary 
 of M. Ledru-Rollin hastily disappeared, leaving the 
 authors to discuss the matter alone. Now it is uotice- 
 al)le that the most turbulent of all meetings, where the 
 persons present least understand each other, and give 
 the worst explanations of their meaning, are those of 
 literary men. The wise chairman is he who manages 
 to prevent a discussion. Monsieur de Balzac laughed 
 immensely at the uproar ; he was pleased as a child 
 with the noise, and his stomach shook in his pleated 
 trousers. ' What singular literary men ! ' he said to 
 me. * I don't know one of them ; where do they come 
 from? do tell me who they are.* I told him the names 
 of all I knew. When the tumult had subsided a little, 
 the assembly voted to send two delegates to make M. 
 Ledru-Rollin understand that books of art were useless 
 things, and that he would do much better to encourage 
 literature in other ways. M. de Balzac was chosen as 
 one of the delegates ; on this he mounted the platform 
 and said, after thanking the assembly, that he could not 
 accept the honor conferred upon him. He pointed out 
 that the minister had asked a question of literarj^ men, 
 and that it would not do to repl}' to a question with a 
 piece of advice. ' Either make no answer,' he said, ' or 
 answer about books of art.' The assembl}^, however, 
 sent their advice to the ministry b}* other delegates ; 
 and so ended the sole effort of the republic of liberty, 
 equality, and fraternity to benefit literature." 
 
158 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 Champfleur}' adds, by the wa3% that Balzac was one 
 of the first to enter the Tuileries on the 24th of February, 
 1848, after the flight of Louis- Philippe. He told a 
 friend who met him that he had come to get a piece of 
 the velvet of the throne.^ 
 
 Another cause of trouble between Balzac and his 
 editors and publishers arose from the pernicious system 
 of payment that prevailed, — caused, it may be, by the 
 stringenc}' of money after the revolution of July, but 
 none the less dangerous to the interests of both parties. 
 Payments were almost invariably made in bills payable 
 at distant dates. If a writer needed mone}^, which was 
 usualh^ the case, he was subjected to both trouble and 
 loss in getting these notes discounted. In Balzac's case 
 (probably in that of other writers) such transactions 
 were frequent, and the notes sometimes matured and 
 came back upon the publishers, before the manuscript 
 was delivered to them. This was naturally a cause of 
 complaint, and the ^tate of things was complicated by 
 his other money difficulties. Much has been written of 
 those difficulties. Other parts of his life being in ob- 
 scurity, the story of his debts and his struggle to pay 
 them has unfortunately acquired undue proportions. 
 His own imagination, goaded b}' a sense of honor which 
 all accounts (of enemies as well as friends) attribute to 
 
 1 It may not be impertinent to add here, in a note, that the 
 Enghsh nurse of the present writer was carried into the Tuileries 
 directly after the king's flight by a surging mob of rioters. She 
 was brave as a lion; and one of the combatants, seeing her inter- 
 est, slashed off" a piece of the throne with his sabre and gave it to 
 her. This piece, which is of crimson velvet heavily worked in 
 gold, is in the possession of the writer. The throne was burned 
 that night in the Place du Chateau d'Eau. 
 
Honor e de Balzac. 159 
 
 him, magnified them. The undiscriminating publica- 
 tion of his letters to his mother, directing her in the 
 management of his affairs, and sometimes defending 
 himself, not without irritation, against what appear to 
 have been her nagging complaints, has done his memory 
 an injury b}^ presenting him in a grasping and money- 
 getting light. The facts, now seen from a distance, are 
 easily understood. He began life under the inspiration 
 of an unbounded ambition, quickly handicapped b}' 
 debt, with nothing to pay that debt or to live hy except 
 his pen, and gifted jjvith a high sense of honor. Could 
 he have continued to live a garret-life of solitude, he 
 might have paid his debts within a certain time and 
 gained his freedom. But was it possible for him to 
 have lived in that wa}'? No. Given the man, his 
 genius, his ambition, the bent of his mind, which was 
 to the study of life, his tastes for the beautiful, the 
 intoxication of his first successes, which brought him 
 into personal relations with wealth and luxury, and, 
 above all, his imagination, it was not possible for the 
 historian of human societ}' to live remote from its life ; 
 he was of necessit}- a sharer in it. J)ebt, as we know, 
 thrives upon itself. To meet his obligations and get 
 the means of living in the world, he promised books to 
 publishers and received advanced payments, on the 
 system alread}^ mentioned ; and the books were often 
 not forthcoming at the promised time. These habits 
 and practices made all publishers inimical to him ; 
 though it does not anywhere appear, after careful 
 study, that his engagements were not fulfilled in the 
 end, nor that any publisher or editor suffered by him. 
 On the contrary, there is more than one instance of his 
 
160 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 buying back his copy from the editors of reviews who 
 were not satisfied, pacing for the costs of the parts al- 
 ready pubhshed. He took back Seraphita in this waj', 
 after three numbers had been published in the '* Revue 
 de Paris." 
 
 The general dissatisfaction between himself and his 
 publishers broke out, finally, in his memorable dispute 
 with Buloz, then editor of the " Revue de Paris," and 
 also of the " Revue des Deux Mondes." His sister 
 gives an account of it in her narrative, but it is well to 
 add Werdet's statement of the actual facts ; coming 
 from Werdet, who was in position to know them, and 
 who would not have spared Balzac had they told 
 against him, they are probabh^ correct. 
 
 M. Buloz having, in 1835, bought Le Lys dans la 
 Vallee for the "Revue de Paris," on Balzac's usual 
 terms, sold the right of publication to a French review 
 at Saint Petersburg, and the book was issued there be- 
 fore it was half issued in Paris. Moreover, it was 
 printed, not from Balzac's final proofs, on which he had 
 given the order to print, but from the first corrected 
 proof ; letters were printed as part of the text, the be- 
 ginning and end of sentences were omitted, the correc- 
 tions and additions were added, not substituted, so that 
 twenty pages of the Paris edition were swelled to forty 
 pages of the Russian. The injustice was great to Bal- 
 zac, who, finding himself unable to get redress, declared 
 openly that"M. Buloz had done injury to his, Balzac's, 
 reputation, and to the cause of French literature." 
 Buloz replied that he had acted within his legal rights, 
 which allowed him to publish the book as he saw fit up 
 to a period of three months from the last publication in 
 
Honore de Balzac. 161 
 
 the " Revue de Paris." Balzac then proposed to com- 
 promise the matter by recovering iiis rights in the book 
 when the publication in the '* Revue de Paris" ceased. 
 Buloz refused. Some of the associates in the '' Revue " 
 sustained Buloz, others Balzac. The acrimon}^ was 
 great ; it led to a series of cabals and hatreds against 
 Balzac, who was comparatively defenceless under them. 
 Out of the whole newspaper press only one sheet, 
 the " Quotidienne," supported him, but that did so 
 heartily'. Balzac then brought an action against the 
 *' Revue de Paris," and was sustained in the courts. 
 Buloz was condemned to give up the book at once, 
 and pay the costs of the suit. Balzac immediately 
 rewrote the first chapter, which had already been pub- 
 lished in the ' ' Revue ; " Werdet put the whole book in 
 type, and three days after the decision was rendered 
 eighteen hundred copies out of an edition of two thou- 
 sand was sold in two hours. 
 
 At this period Werdet, as Balzac's publisher, was 
 admitted to the solitude in which his working daj's and 
 nights were spent, and he gives a little picture of it which 
 is worth preserving. "He usually," writes Werdet, 
 '' went to bed at eight o'clock after a very light dinner, 
 and almost invariably was seated before his little 
 writing-table b}" two in the morning. Until six his 
 lively, active pen (he always used crow-quills) ran at 
 full speed over the paper, emitting electric sparks. The 
 grating of that pen alone interrupted the monastic si- 
 lence of his solitude. At six he took his bath, remain- 
 ing in it a whole hour. At eight o'clock Auguste 
 brought him a cup of coffee, which he drank without 
 sugar. From eight to nine I was admitted to bring 
 
 11 
 
162 Jffonore de Balzac. 
 
 him proofs, or take away the corrected ones, and to 
 wrest from him, if possible, a few bundles of manu- 
 script. The labor of composition then began again, 
 and lasted, with the same ardor, till noon, when he 
 breakfasted on two boiled eggs and bread, drinking 
 nothing but water, and ending this frugal meal with a 
 cup of excellent coffee, still without sugar. From one to 
 six at work again, always work. Then he dined ver}' 
 lightly, drinking one small glass of Vouvray, which he 
 liked much, declaring it had the power to raise his 
 spirits. From seven to eight he received me again, 
 and sometimes his neighbors, Jules Sandeau and Emile 
 Regnault. This life lasted six weeks, or two months, 
 or more. His seclusion over, he seemed possessed of 
 a feverish activity, and to make himself another man, 
 as it were. He plunged into societ}", where he gathered 
 fresh colors on his palette, and pillaged his hone}' like 
 a bee. . . . 
 
 " His servants loved him. Rose, the cook, a true 
 cordon bleu (we called her La Grande Nanon), used 
 to go into despair when her master, in his working 
 months, neglected her dainty dishes. I have seen her 
 come into his room on tiptoe, bringing a delicious con- 
 somme and trembling with eagerness to see him drink 
 it. Balzac would catch sight of her, perhaps the 
 fumes of the soup w^ould reach his olfactories; then he 
 would toss back his mane of hair with an impatient 
 jerk of his head, and exclaim in his roughest and most 
 surly voice : ' Rose, go away ; I don't want any- 
 thing ; let me alone ! ' ' But Mossieu will ruin his 
 health if he goes on this w^ay ; Mossieu will fall — 
 ill!* 'No, no! let me alone, I say,' in a thundering 
 
Honore de Balzac. 163 
 
 voice, ' I don't want anything ; you worry me ; go 
 away ! * Then the good soul would turn to go slowly, 
 very slowly, muttering : ' To take such pains to please 
 Mossieu ! and such a soup — how good it smells ! Why 
 should Mossieu keep me in his service if he doesn't 
 want what I do for him?' This was too much for 
 Balzac. He called her back, drank the soup at a gulp, 
 and said in his kindest voice, as she went off radiant 
 to her kitchen, ' Now, Rose, don't let this happen 
 again.' When his microscopic groom, a poor little 
 orphan whom he called Grain-de-mil, died, Balzac 
 took extreme care of him, and never failed to go and 
 see him dail}' during his illness. Yes, God had given 
 my great writer a heart of gold ; and those who really 
 knew him adored him. He possessed the art of mak- 
 ing others love him to such a degree that in his 
 presence they forgot any real or fancied complaint 
 against him, and only remembered the affection they 
 bore him." 
 
 Although Balzac parted company with journalism in 
 1831, and was from that time aloof on his own road in 
 literature, he never ceased to desire the growth of sound 
 criticism, which he declared did not exist in France. 
 " I believe," he said, " that if ever patient, thorough, 
 enlightened criticism was needed it is now, when the 
 multiplicity of works of all kinds, and the uprising of 
 ambitions are producing general confusion and the same 
 want of order in literature which is observable in the 
 art of painting. In that art matters have reached such 
 a pass that there are neither masters nor schools ; the 
 absence of discipline is injuring the sacred cause of art, 
 and is becoming a hindrance to its faculties — to a sense 
 
164 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 of the beautiful even, on which production rests. Where 
 is the critic in the present day who understands the re- 
 sources of criticism, and employs them with the laud- 
 able purpose of explaining and bringing into use true 
 methods of literary art, having read and studied the 
 works he criticises? To read a work and understand it 
 for one's self before rendering an account of it to the pub- 
 lic ; to search for its defects in the interests of literature, 
 and not for the sad amusement of grieving an author, is 
 a task which takes time, — weeks, not days." 
 
 With ideas like these in his mind he bought up, in 
 1835, a weekl}' journal, then moribund, called the 
 *' Chronique de Paris.'* He summoned to his staff the 
 best young talent of the daj-, and issued the paper 
 semi-weekly, on Sundays and Thursdays. As editor- 
 in-chief he took charge of the department of foreign 
 politics, and distributed the other offices as follows : 
 Jules Sandeau, drama ; Emile Regnault, light litera- 
 ture ; Gustave Planche and Jacques de Chaudes-Aigues, 
 social criticism; Alphonse Karr, satire; Theophile 
 Gautier, Charles de Bernard, and Raymond Brucker, 
 novels and poems. Balzac's own contribution to the 
 work was a series of papers on the current state of 
 Europe, entitled La France et VJ^tranger. These 
 fortj'-one articles are extremely interesting as showing 
 the study that he gave to subjects which were, one 
 might think, outside of his line of thought. Those who 
 can remember the discussion of foreign politics in those 
 days, especially that on the " Eastern question," will 
 be interested in them. They relate chiefly' to the 
 general condition of Europe ; but Americans will ob- 
 serve that several intelligent references to the United 
 
Honore de Balzac, 165 
 
 States occur in the course of them. However, whether 
 it was that Balzac aimed too high to amuse the pub- 
 he, or that, as Werdet suggests, he could not make 
 his young staff work, the ''Chronique de Paris" 
 proved a failure, and lived but a few months. Five 
 years later he again renewed the attempt; but this 
 time he did the work alone. In 1840 he began the 
 ** Revue Parisieune," a monthly periodical written 
 w4iolly by himself; which lived three months, and died 
 for want of subscribers. Some of the articles in these 
 numbers have been greatly praised by French critics, 
 especially those on Fenimore Cooper and on Stendhal ; 
 but for the most part they belonged to their daj', and 
 have passed away with it. Among them is the well- 
 known criticism on Sainte-Beuve's '' Histoire de Port 
 Royal," which, however just it may be from a literary 
 and historical point of view, does not fulfil Balzac's 
 own desire to avoid the "sad amusement of grieving 
 an author." It is true that Sainte-Beuve had assailed 
 Balzac six years earlier, when reviewing Za Becherche 
 de rAbsolu, b}^ touching on personal matters which 
 had nothing to do with literature, and were peculiarly 
 wounding to him, — namelj- , his relation through his 
 books to women, combined with an imaginary sketch 
 of his early life. The two men were antagonistic by 
 nature ; and it is to the honor of Sainte-Beuve's cold 
 and rather sour spirit that he did, after Balzac's death, 
 impelled by his true literary sense, write a review of 
 him which was fully as just and perceptive as his na- 
 ture could allow him to make it ; and it must not be 
 forgotten that with all his limitations he saw and said 
 what is, in fact, the deepest truth about Balzac, — 
 
166 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 narnel}^ that posterity alone could judge liim.^ Champ- 
 fleury says somewhat the same thing in his modest but 
 valuable essa}'. "There are two w^ays of criticising 
 M. de Balzac," he says. " The simplest is to read 
 his works, to understand them, and then sit down and 
 write an article on the Coinedie Humaine. The sec- 
 ond method,' wellnigh impossible for our present lit- 
 erature, is to shut one's self up for six months, and 
 carefuil}' study in their every detail, as we study a 
 difficult language, not onlv the Comedie Humaine^ but 
 all M. de Balzac's works. This cannot be done quickly-. 
 Perhaps in twenty years, fift}' 3'ears, after ten patient 
 students have gathered together the chief materials, 
 some man of great intellect will profit by their labor, 
 and will combine them all in one great commentarj'." 
 
 It was Balzac's ambition, as it has ever been that of 
 great minds representing human nature, to do dramatic 
 work. He regarded the stage as a great, if not the 
 greatest teacher of men ; the most powerful and wide- 
 reaching of moral influences. He placed it far above 
 the work of the novelist. It was natural therefore that 
 his ambition should constantl3' keep before his mind 
 the hope of becoming a dramatic author. We have 
 already seen how practice and the throwing-off of im- 
 mature and comparativel}^ worthless books were needed 
 before he gathered together his powers as a novelist. It 
 is possible that if his life had been prolonged he might, 
 in the perfect peace of a prosperous married life, have 
 given himself wholl}" to dramatic art, and with his un- 
 flinching conscientiousness have trained his powers into 
 
 1 Portraits conteraporains, par C. A. Sainte-Beuve, vol. ii. 
 Calmann Levy, Paris, 1889. 
 
Honor e de Balzac. 167 
 
 doing work that would have lived forever. As it is, the 
 five dramas produced upon the stage (there are more 
 than a score of others, finished and unfinished, still 
 in manuscript) are far from equal to his other work. 
 The}' are worth studying, however, for it will be seen 
 that their chief defects come from his habits as a nov- 
 elist, which time and practice might have corrected. 
 For instance, the stage requires a clear and easil}^ dis- 
 tinguished plot ; in Balzac's novels the plot is often, it 
 might be said, absent. He depicts life, and life has 
 no such artificial arrangement ; but for the stage it is 
 necessary to bring the portion of life depicted sharply 
 into focus, and this Balzac had not trained himself to 
 do. Also, the management of his scenes is clumsj^ 
 the dialogue heavy, with the philosophical and didac- 
 tical tendency' which those who trul}' care for his books 
 agree to welcome there. Yet, in spite of these defects 
 of form for stage composition, he had, in an eminent 
 degree, the dramatic instinct. 
 
 The last pla}' that he wrote, Le Faiseur (The Specu- 
 lator), ought to be rewritten for the stage of the present 
 day, for it is marvellous as a prophecy of the pass to 
 which money would bring the world ; it is, in fact, a 
 truer picture of our times than of the times in which it 
 was written. George Henr}^ Lewes made an inadequate 
 version of it which was played for a time in London. 
 
 In addition to his higher dramatic ambitions he had 
 that of earning a better wage for his labor ; this he 
 shares in common with all novelists, who in these days, 
 as in his, find that purely literary work is not remun- 
 erated for the toil it costs, and that the stage alone 
 repays their labor. At the time when he produced his 
 
168 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 first play, Vautrin, he was under an unusual pressure 
 of ill-luck. The walls of Les Jardies had crumbled 
 down, his brother Henry was in trouble, which threw 
 certain obligations upon him, and a first dramatic ven- 
 ture, which he does not name, but which had cost him 
 much labor, and was sold for a premium of six thousand 
 francs, exclusive of royalties, had been returned to him, 
 owing to lack of money on the part of the theatre to 
 bring it out. No critical judgment was ever rendered 
 upon Vaiitri?!, which was acted for the first and onl}* 
 time at the Porte-Saint-Martin in 1840, because 
 FrMerick Lemaitre, who played Vautrin in the dress 
 of a Mexican general, happened to wear a toupee, 
 which was thought to mimic and deride Louis Philippe, 
 who was noted for that pyramidal covering to his bald- 
 ness, which gave a sort of stalk to his pear-shaped 
 head. The play was forbidden by the government the 
 next da}^, with an offer of indemnity to Balzac, which 
 he refused, asking, however, for compensation to the 
 theatre and the actors. " I refused," he sa3's in a letter 
 to Madame Visconti. *' I said that I had either a right 
 to it or no right to it. If I had a right, my obligations 
 to others must be considered. I said I asked nothing ; 
 that I valued such virginity of spirit ; that my wishes 
 were, nothing for myself, or all for the others." 
 
 His second play, JOes Hessources de Quinola^ was 
 performed at the Odeon, March loth, 1842, and failed. 
 Balzac, who had set high hopes upon this piece and 
 continued to think it worthy of a better fate, mentions 
 in his preface to the printed version that only four per- 
 sons had defended it, namely : Victor Hugo, Lamartine, 
 Madame de Girardin, and Leon Gozlan. The blow 
 
Huiiore de Balzac, 169 
 
 was a crushing one, and it wrung from liim a grieved 
 and disheartened cry in a letter to his mother, dated 
 April, 1842 : — 
 
 " The life I live," he writes, '^ is not fit to share with 
 others. I tire out both friends and relatives ; the}' one 
 and all avoid my sad home, and things will now be 
 more difficult, if not impossible, than ever ; the loss 
 of money from my play only complicates the 'situa- 
 tion. ... I don't know what to do ; but I must de- 
 cide on some course within the next few days. When 
 my furniture is sold, and Les Jardies too, there will not 
 be much left ; I shall be once more alone with my pea 
 and a garret. I shall live from hand to mouth on arti- 
 cles I can no longer write as I once did with the celerity 
 of youth. You think — my nearest all think — that the 
 egotism of my toil is personal selfishness. I do not 
 deceive myself: if up to tliis time, working as I have 
 worked, I have not succeeded in getting clear of debt and 
 making a living, future work will not save me. I must 
 do something else. I must seek some other position." 
 
 It was at this time that he wrote Albert ^avarus, 
 one of the most remarkable of his books, and little 
 read, — the story of a man's love through passionate 
 effort and a great defeat.^ 
 
 1 It has been said that Albert Savarus was inspired by his rela- 
 tions with Madame Hanska. But tliis cannot be so. It is unmis- 
 takably the picture of man's first love for woman in his youtli. 
 At the time Albert Savarus was written (a year before Monsieur 
 Hanski's death) Balzac's relation to Madame Hanska was that 
 of friendship only. It had, no doubt, the germs of love, but they 
 were not developed until later. At this time it certainly was not 
 in his thoughts as the inspiration of Albert Savarus. His love for 
 Madame Hanska was that of his mature life, not of his youth; 
 
170 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 Of his succeeding plays, Pamela Giraud was brought 
 out at the Gaiete in September, 1843, when Balzac 
 was paying his first visit to Madame Hanska at St. 
 Petersburg, after the death of her husband. He seems 
 to have taken little interest in it. Jja Mardtre was 
 produced at the Theatre Historique, June, 1848. Le 
 Faisear was not played at all during his lifetime, but 
 after his death it was reduced to three acts and brought 
 out successful!}', August, 1851, at the Gj'mnase, under 
 the title of Mercadet., and at the Theatre Frangais, Octo- 
 ber, 1868, with M. Got in the leading part. 
 
 Theophile Gautier dwells at length on wJaat he calls 
 the absolute modernit}^ of Balzac's genius. "Balzac 
 owes nothing," he says, " to antiquit3\ For him there 
 are neither Greeks nor Romans, nor any trace in the 
 composition of his talent of Homer, or Virgil, or Horace, 
 not even of the Viris illustribus ; no one was ever less 
 classic." It is quite true, obvioush' true, that Balzac's 
 genius was brought to bear solely on the present. Its 
 work lay there, — a work so teeming that there was (to 
 give the simplest of reasons) no room for extraneous 
 thoughts and images. If at times it rose above the 
 plane of its immediate work it was to other regions than 
 those of classic antiquit}-. But none the less is Balzac's 
 genius allied to antiquity so far as that is the repre- 
 sentative of the eternal verities. Look, for instance, 
 
 although it was a repetition of that early love. The book was 
 written under the bitter sense that his life was once more a failure, 
 his vocation insufficient for his needs, and that his literary ambi- 
 tion, which had hitherto been the mainstay of his life, had lost its 
 vitality. At such a moment of fresh disappointment and despair 
 his mind reverted to the sorrows of his youth. 
 
Honors de Balzac. 171 
 
 at the awrulness of Fate as it stalks through his pages, 
 telentlessly pursuing men like Philippe Bridau and 
 Baron Hulot to their doom ; the spirit of Greek tragedy 
 is there. Or, turn to his picturing of Sorrow. He 
 himself points to the source from which he learned 
 it as he walked in Pere-Lachaise in search of sor- 
 rows. "Of all tlie affections of the soul," he 8a3's, 
 '^ sorrow is the hardest to depict; in that we moderns 
 are the ver}' humble servants of the ancients." If we 
 turn to the patient mother's sorrow in Agathe Bridau, 
 the repentant mother's sorrow in Lady Brandon, the 
 noble grief of Cesar Birotteau, the anguish of Colonel 
 Chabert, the blighted life of Albert Savarus, or Dante's 
 despairing vision on the Seine, we see an instinct in 
 Balzac's genius which was certainly not modern, for 
 such sorrows, though they belong to all time, are not 
 characteristic of our day as they were of antiquit3\ 
 
 Gautier goes farther, and says that this modernit}^ 
 affected Balzac's sense of art. " He read with careless 
 eyes the marble strophes in which Greek art has sung 
 the glor}' of the human form. He could look at the 
 Venus of Milo without ecstasy ; but if a Parisian 
 woman draped in her shawl, with all her man}' graces, 
 stopped before that immortal statue, his eyes lighted up 
 with pleasure. Ideal beauty, with its serene, pure lines, 
 was too simple, too cold, too uniform, for his compli- 
 cated, teeming, and diversified genius." This is surely 
 too narrow a conclusion. It is true that Balzac had 
 no S3'mpathy with romantic ideals, whether ancient 
 or modern ; and it ma}' also be said that his deepest 
 appreciation of art was as the work of men's hands, — 
 here its appeal to his mind was probably through the 
 
172 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 fellow-feeling of his own struggle in manipulating his 
 art. " The artist," he sa3's, " is a creator ; the man who 
 disposes of thought is a sovereign. Kings have com- 
 manded nations for a limited time ; artists command the 
 ages ; shall we forget that art from the dawn of fresco 
 and of sculpture is a Power to the present day?" But 
 many proofs could be adduced from his writings of his 
 reverence for the ability of art to render " serene, pure" 
 trutli. "Who but Raffaelle," he exclaims, " can paint a 
 virgin ? for literature in this respect falls below art." 
 
 His sense of certain arts, as art, ma}' have been defec- 
 tive ; his judgment, perhaps his enjoyment, of poetrj' 
 certainly was ; the trammels of that art affected him. 
 But he was himself a poet, and a great poet. There 
 is no evidence, either waj', as to his knowledge of the 
 classics (except that as a lad of sixteen he studied them 
 ardently), but the man who described the heroic deeds 
 of his own time in heroic words, as in his pictures of 
 Napoleon, must have loved Homer ; and he who saw 
 the vision of the Shade, "standing upon the outer 
 verge of that dark circle of the abj'ss of woe, his feet 
 straining, with cruel tension, to spring upward " to the 
 Woman-Soul from which he was forever parted, knew 
 Dante as few in our day know him. And what shall 
 we say of the Assumption in Seraphitaf In a future 
 age, when the subject is better understood, that will be 
 counted as the work of one of the greatest poets- of the 
 nineteenth century ; at present it is neither ancient nor 
 modern art, but a vision of futurit}'. 
 
 There is, however, much to corroborate Gautier's 
 opinion (which is just, so far as it goes, but misses the 
 higher ground which Balzac reached) in the fact that 
 
Honore de Balzac. 173 
 
 the art in which he found most personal enjoyment, 
 namel3\ music, is a modern art; also in the further 
 fact that his collection of rare things, so lovingly cata- 
 logued in Cousin Pons^ comprised chiefl}' the treasures 
 of man's choicest handiwork, especially such as l|ad 
 historic interest attaching to them ; but above all, in 
 the signal instance that one form of his own work, 
 his style, is essentially modern. 
 
 It is not possible for foreigners to judge of the style 
 of a French writer from the French point of view, nor 
 should they attempt to do so. The necessary under- 
 standing is bred in the bone, and no acquired com- 
 prehension can take its place. There are, of course, 
 some points which a foreigner can perceive, and sev- 
 eral on which the close intercourse that comes of trans- 
 lation justifies an opinion ; but it must always be borne 
 in mind that the opinion is English, not French, and 
 due allowance must be made for this. Balzac's style 
 is the voice of his genius ; what his genius was, that 
 his style is, — like master, like man. When he wres- 
 tled in solitude to form his thought, he took the words 
 that best formulated it. Language was not to him an 
 art in itself, it was the sluice of his ideas. As the 
 torrent of his thought, such as we see it in his books, 
 came rushing on, with its hundred currents and aspects, 
 philosophical, metaphorical, descriptive, it seized words, 
 or made them, or modelled phrases, as its expression 
 needed. This was certainly not classical, and many of 
 the French writers who in Balzac's da}' were still under 
 the traditions of the seventeenth century- were shocked ; 
 though he was not as much of a neologist as the}^ said 
 he was, for the studies he had made of the French 
 
174 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 language from the time of Rabelais for the Coiites 
 Drolatiques enabled him to replace many words which 
 the purists of the seventeenth century had discarded. 
 But however impetuous the torrent of Balzac's writing, 
 the current is alwa3's clear ; it is not limpid, like the 
 soft flowing of George Sand's language, but in what- 
 ever channel, or stream, or brook it runs, the words 
 that best express the thing to be expressed are there. 
 There are times, in fact, when Balzac's stjle is match- 
 less in its presentation of the feeling of the scene he 
 is describing. Take, for instance, the rendering of the 
 "majesty of Cold," the flight of the eider duck, the 
 breaking of the ice-bonds, in Seraphita. It maj" almost 
 be said that words of description could no farther go 
 in conveying not only a scene, but the sensation of it. 
 Could poetry- as an art do more ? 
 
 It has been said that Balzac is a difficult writer to 
 translate. He does not seem so, for the reason that 
 he is so clear. There are times when it is easy to see 
 that he has worked too long over his thought, and has 
 corrected his original words too often. Patience is then 
 needed to construct a passage after him ; indeed, it some- 
 times seems as though the clauses of a paragraph were 
 like the bits of a Chinese puzzle, to be turned this way 
 and that before they can be fitted into place ; but this 
 is rare, and happens only when his mind flags a little, 
 or his relentless conscience will not let him give up the 
 expression of minute particulars. For the most part, 
 and particularl}^ when an ardent emotion or conviction 
 carries him through equally long sentences with many 
 clauses, the current of his thought runs clear, like 
 rapids with the sunlight in them. It is noticeable to 
 
JTonore de Balzac. 175 
 
 a translator that no freedom is allowed b}- Balzac ; the 
 actual translated word or its closest equivalent must 
 be used, or something of the meaning is lost. This is 
 not so with other French writers, — George Sand,, for 
 instance ; it often happens that one fairly S3'non3'mous 
 word seems to do as ymW as another in rendering her 
 meaning. Balzac, on the contrar\^ keeps a translator 
 under his thumb. Sometimes, in the course of his long 
 and fiery sentences some trifling word has been over- 
 looked, and when the end is reached the meaning comes 
 out crookedl}' ; it is like dropping a stitch in a woman's 
 knitting ; it cannot be patched in ; the work must be un- 
 ravelled, the stitch picked up, and the whole reknittcd. 
 In much of the French literature of the present day a 
 translator, and probably all foreigners who read French, 
 are hampered b}' the self-consciousness of the writers, 
 which seriously affects their style. The reader, or trans- 
 lator, has to consider not onlj' the subject of a book and 
 its presentation, but the personalitj' of the writer, — an 
 under-current of confidential communication must bo 
 kept up with a third element. This appears to a for- 
 eigner to vitiate a st3'le. Balzac is free from this defect. 
 His writings are absolutely impersonal. His thought 
 speaks to you, never himself. He is not so unwise as 
 to complicate that which he wishes to put into you by 
 letting you see the hand that does it; though this in 
 him is not so much a conscious self-restraint as the ne- 
 cessity' of his genius, which saw his thought as a thing 
 apart from himself. 
 
 Theophile Gautier, who had a delightfull}- rich and 
 vivid style of his own, says : " The French language, 
 refined away by the academicians of the seventeenth cen- 
 
176 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 tuiy, is, when conformed to, only suitable for the expres- 
 sion of general ideas and the rendering of conventional 
 forms in a vague way. In order to represent the mul- 
 tiplicit}^ of his details, types, characters, architectures, 
 household surroundings, etc., Balzac was forced to 
 make for himself a special language composed of the 
 technological terms of the arts and sciences, the studios, 
 the street, the theatre itself. Any and every word which 
 had a distinct thing to say was welcomed b}' him, and 
 he would slash an incision into his sentences or com- 
 placenth' add parentheses to admit them. It was this 
 that made superficial critics say that Balzac did not 
 know how to write. He had, though he himself did not 
 think so, a style, and a very fine stj'le, — the logical 
 and mathematical stj'le of his idea." "As for style," 
 said Sainte-Beuve, himself a purist, '' he has it; deli- 
 cate, subtle, liquid, picturesque, having no analogy 
 whatever with tradition." 
 
 M. Marcel Barriere (his most important French 
 critic of the present da}^) says, however: " We aflSrm 
 that Balzac cared as little for elegance of style as he 
 did for the plastic beaut}' of art ; he did not possess 
 the musical instinct in language so dear to the delicate 
 literar}^ mind. He was not sufficiently endowed with 
 the sentiment of harmony inculcated hy our ancestors, 
 which made the triumph of Rousseau, Bernardin de 
 Saint-Pierre, and Chateaubriand." To an English mind 
 the answer would seem to be that those writers were 
 of colder natures, who could not see as Balzac saw ; 
 their style could never have represented his thought.^ 
 
 1 L'CEuvre de H. de Balzac, etude litte'raire et philosophique ; 
 par Marcel Barriere, 1 vol., Calmann Levy, Paris, 189D. M. Bar- 
 
Honor e de Balzac. 177 
 
 Balzac has been called the father of realism. Would 
 that he were ! He certainly is not the father of the 
 present school of realists. That — whether in its most 
 commonplace and puritanical exponents, or in Zola, or 
 in the half-crazed brain of Tolstoi (whose original 
 aspirations are so high above those of his admirers that 
 he ought not to be classed with them ; his being a great 
 perception gone mad) — is the child of materialism. The 
 question of realism, what it is and what it should be, 
 will alvva3's be discussed from the point of view of each 
 man's own temperament and perceptions. What a man 
 sees, that he thinks real. Some can admit that others 
 may see another real from theirs ; others wish to im- 
 pose their real on all minds, and seem unable to per- 
 ceive that those who have higher perceptions of human 
 nature can never be brought to accept views which, in 
 their judgment, degrade it. Tell such writers that the 
 true Real is the Ideal and they will smile at your non- 
 sense ; and yet the whole of morality, — morality of art, 
 morality of life — is there. A great service would be 
 done to morality if the realists of our fin-de-siecle had 
 
 ri^re has written an excellent critique of Balzac's books on cer- 
 tain lines, limited in some respects. His summings-up are less 
 useful, being more conventional ; but the book is a valuable con- 
 tribution to Balzac literature. As we have said before, Balzac 
 will live for the judgment of posterity. The present school of 
 writers can judge him even less than the men of his own day; 
 but all current criticism is valuable as m€moires pour servir of the 
 periods through which Balzac's work passes before it comes to 
 full comprehension. The short memoir by Mr. Frederick Wed- 
 more in the " Great Writers " series stands alone in English liter- 
 ature (so far as the present writer is aware) for a just conception, 
 although too limited, of Balzac as a man. It should be welcomed 
 
 by all who study him. 
 
 12 
 
178 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 the courage of their opinions and would say frankl}- : 
 " Let us eat, and drink, and make money ; the world is 
 a muck-heap, but let us get what we can from it, and 
 crow while we may, for to-morrow we die, and that 's 
 the end of it." Most of them will not say this, for, in 
 truth, they do not think it; they are merely playing 
 with their theory, — which is only a passing phase after 
 all. But it is, none the less, immoral and degrading. 
 
 Balzac's realism is very different. In the dawn of his 
 genius true realism was revealed to him. '' To think 
 is to see," he said. *' Possibl}^" he added, " materiahsm 
 and spiritualism* express two sides of the same thing." 
 Here we have the key-note to which he tuned himself; 
 and he had an inward consciousness which sustained 
 his thought. A discussion of Balzac's realism would be 
 out of place here ; the Comedie Ilvmaine is the em- 
 bodiment of it. There he ran the gamut of his con- 
 ception of realism, — shrinking, as he sa3's, from none 
 of the consequences of his principles. And herein lies 
 his morality. For Balzac is a moralist, — the greatest 
 moralist of the nineteenth century ; one who does not 
 preach, but shows the truth. To discuss this matter 
 fully would prolong it beyond the limits of this memoir ; 
 but we may dwell for a moment on one point of it. In 
 his earliest youth, almost in his childhood, he had longed 
 to meet a woman-angel, and the desire kept his spirit 
 pure. When he entered life and saw the condition of 
 womanhood, the pass to which woman had been brought 
 and had brought herself, he set about — under a true 
 inspiration, and with his natural instinct to take the 
 part of the sorrowful and helpless, no matter what their 
 vices were — to better her condition. How has he done 
 
Honore de Balzac. 179 
 
 it? By presenting facts ki their most awful realit}' ; 
 not sparing woman witli any false tenderness or fear of 
 outcry (no shrinking from the consequences here ! ). but 
 warning her b}' his realism, teaching her b^- the eye to 
 see the horror and the distortion of her position. He 
 himself gives this as his deliberate purpose ; it is, he 
 says, b}' showing facts that he must bring men's minds 
 to the emancipation of women and their higher educa- 
 tion ; and when he said this he had in view something 
 far more fundamental than our present surface questions 
 of woman's emancipation. If realism has the virtue 
 that its followers attribute to it (and it has), this is what 
 its virtue should accomplish ; this is what Balzac sought 
 to do for woman, leading her step by step from her 
 lowest degradation in Cousine Bette up through Eugenie 
 Grandet, Eve Sechard, Marguerite Claes, and others 
 like them, to Seraphita^ where the destiny of woman 
 is presented as a series of lives ascending from love of 
 self, love of others, love of heaven, till the end be 
 won, — a book which M. Taine calls upon us to ob- 
 serve is the " consummation of Balzac's work, as the 
 flower is that of its plant ; a book in which the genius 
 of the writer attains its complete expression, foreseen, 
 explained, justified, and led up' to by all his other 
 work." 
 
 Yes, Seraphita was, indeed, the crown of his work ; 
 but he was destined to leave the world with much of 
 that work unaccomplished. All was mapped out ; and 
 it stirs the feelings painfully to look along the vista of 
 his plans and see what the world has lost. Among 
 these projected works (a list of which will be found in 
 the appendix) his thoughts particularly clung to the 
 
180 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 hope of writing Le Fretre ^catholique^ the Pathologie 
 de la vie sociale, the Anatomie des Corps JEiiseigtiants^ 
 and the Monographie de la vertu. *' Looking at the 
 work still to be done," he says, in his preface to the 
 Comedie Humaine^ "perhaps my readers will say, 
 ' Ma}^ your life be prolonged ! ' My own pra^'er is that 
 I may not be so much tortured by men and events as I 
 have been in the past, since the beginning of m}' great 
 and terrible labor. Yet I have had one support, for 
 which I return thanks to God. The highest talent of 
 our day, the noblest characters, the truest friends, have 
 clasped my hand, and said to me, ' Take courage ! ' 
 Why should I not own that such proofs of affection, such 
 testimonials given now and then by strangers, have 
 upheld me in my career in spite of myself, in spite of 
 unjust attacks, in spite of calumnies that have pursued 
 me, — upheld me against disheartenment, and also 
 against that too vivid hope, the expression of which has 
 sometimes been mistaken for excessive self-love?" 
 
 Anecdotes that reveal the fancies and habits of a 
 great mind and show it in action are precious, if the}' 
 bear the stamp of ' truth ; in Balzac's case they are 
 invaluable, because so unguardedly natural. Here is 
 one in the language of M. Leon Gozlan, somewhat 
 abridged : — 
 
 " One evening I received a note from Balzac, dated 
 Les Jardies, asking me to meet him the next day at 
 three o'clock, in the Champs Ely sees, between the 
 Horses of Marly and the Cafe des Ambassadeurs. I 
 must be punctual, he said, as the matter was impor- 
 tant. The day was dull and chilly, the ground damp, 
 a cold wind blowing. ' Let ns walk fast,' said Balzac, 
 
Honore de Balzac. 181 
 
 when we met, ' to keep up the circulation. I have just 
 written a little tale for the first number of the '' Revue 
 Parisienne." I am rather pleased with it, that is, I 
 shall be when I have found — that which you must 
 help me to find to-da}'. But I must describe to you 
 the principal personage, — in fact, the only personage 
 in this little poem of morals, the grievous morals of our 
 social epoch, such as the national politics of the last ten 
 years have made them.' He thereupon described the 
 personage he had created. ' Now,' he said, ' you '11 see 
 what I want of you. For such a man, so extraordinary 
 a man, I must have a name in keeping with his des- 
 tiny ; a name which explains and pictures and proclaims 
 him ; a name that shall be his, that could not possibly 
 be the cognomen of any other. Well, it won't come to 
 me ; I have tried every possible vocal combination with- 
 out success. I will not baptize my type with a stupid 
 name. We must find one that shall fit the man as the 
 gum the tooth, the root the hair, the nail the flesh. 
 Don't you understand ? ' 
 
 " ' No.' 
 
 '' 'No? don't 3'ou admit that there are names that 
 remind you of a diadem, a sword, a helmet, a flower?' 
 
 "'No.' 
 
 *' ' Names that veil and reveal a poet, a satiric wit, a 
 profound philosopher, a famous painter?' 
 
 '"No, no.' 
 
 " ' I know better,' said Balzac, much provoked. 
 ' Names are given on high before they are given in this 
 low world. It is a m3'ster3% to which it is not allowable 
 to apply the petty rules of our trivial reasoning. I am 
 not the onlv one who believes in this miraculous con- 
 
182 Honor e de Balzac, 
 
 junction of man with his name, which he bears as a 
 divine or devilish talisman, to light his way on eartli, 
 or burn him up. Great minds have always shared this 
 belief; and strange to say, the masses do, too.' 
 
 " ' Why don't 3'ou make a name ? ' 
 
 " ' I tell you I can't. I am worn out with work. I 
 have tried, but it won i come. We must discover it?' 
 
 '' ' If it exists.' 
 
 '^ 'It does exist,' said Balzac, solemnly, ' and you 
 must suggest a way to find it. That is what I want 
 you for.' 
 
 " After reflecting a few moments I said, ^ Let us read 
 the signs in the streets ; there you '11 find all kinds of 
 names, pompous, ridiculous, queer, paradoxical ; enough 
 to rejoice the heart of a vaudevillist ; virtuous names, 
 wicked names, brigands' names ; these last are usually 
 those of chandlers and confectioners.' 
 
 *'The idea delighted Balzac. Alas, I had not fore- 
 seen to what it would lead. 
 
 '' 'Where shall we begin?' he said. 
 
 " ' Why, here,' I answered. 
 
 '' We were just then leaving the court of the Louvre, 
 and entering the rue Coq-Saint-Honore. It was not to 
 be expected that our first steps would produce anj'- 
 thing. Names were plentiful, but they had no physiog- 
 nomies. He looked one side of the street, I the other, 
 our noses in the air, and our feet heaven knows where, 
 which produced much jostling with pedestrians, who 
 probably took us for blind men. Down the rue du 
 Coq, through the rue Saint-Honore to the Palais-Royal, 
 and all the collateral streets to the rue Vivienne, the 
 place de la Bourse, the rue Neuve Vivienne^ the bou- 
 
Honore de Balzac. 188 
 
 levard Montraartre. At the corner of the rue Mont- 
 martre I broke down ; alarmed that Balzac refused 
 to accept any of the names I pointed out to him, I 
 declined to go a step further. 
 
 ** ' It is alwa3's the way with everything/ said Balzac. 
 ' Christopher Columbus abandoned by his crews ! I 
 shall land on the soil of America alone. You may go.' 
 
 " * You are in the midst of many Americas,' I re- 
 torted, ' and you won't land ; you are very unrea- 
 sonable ; you have rejected splendid names. It is 
 Christopher Columbus himself who is to blame.' 
 
 '' ' Fatigue makes a man more unjust than anger; I 
 know that myself,' said Balzac. ' Here, take my arm, 
 and go as far as Saint-Eustache.* 
 
 *" But no farther?' 
 
 *' ' So be it.' 
 
 ',' But he contrived before we reached Saint-Eustache 
 to drag me through the length and breadth of the rues 
 tiu Mail, de Clery, du Cadran, des Foss^s-Montraartre, 
 and the place de la Victoire, filled with magnificent 
 Alsacian names ; in the midst of which I declared to 
 him that if he did not make an immediate choice I 
 would leave him on the spot. 
 
 '' ' There is only the rue du Bouloi left,' said Balzac ; 
 * don't refuse me the rue du Bouloi, and then we '11 go 
 back to Les Jardies for dinner.' 
 
 " I granted him the rue du Bouloi, and it was at the 
 farther end of that street that Balzac, — never shall I 
 forget it ! — having glanced through a little gate, an 
 oblong, narrow, mean little gate opening into a damp 
 alley, suddenly changed color, quivered all over, uttered 
 a cry, and said to me : — 
 
184 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 " ' There ! there ! there ! read it.' 
 
 " And I read— Marcas. 
 
 " ' Marcas,' he muttered. ' Marcas ; what a name ! 
 Marcas, — the name of names ; Marcas ! we will look 
 no farther.' 
 
 *' *■ So be it,' I said ; ' I ask no better.' 
 
 " ' Marcas ; m}' hero is Marcas,' he went on ; 'phil- 
 osopher, writer, statesman, poet ignored ; it is all there. 
 Marcas ! I shall call him Z. Marcas, to add a flame, a 
 plume, a star to the name. Z. Marcas must be some 
 great and unknown artist, engraver, carver, or silver- 
 smith, like Benvenuto Cellini.' 
 
 " ' I can soon find out,' I said. 
 
 *' Leaving Balzac in adoration before the house, I in- 
 quired of the concierge. Returning towards the street, 
 I shouted from afar : — 
 
 '' 'Tailor!' 
 
 "'Tailor!' Balzac was silent for a moment; his 
 head drooped. Then he looked up proudly. 
 
 " ' He deserved a better fate,' he said ; ' but no mat- 
 ter ; I will immortalize him.' " 
 
 Those who have read Xe Lys dans la Vallee cannot 
 fail to remember the exquisite story of the wild-flowers, 
 and perhaps if they studied it deeply they may have 
 been puzzled to identifj- a certain herb, the description 
 and the name of which do not agree. Here is the ex- 
 planation. The anecdote is told b^- Leon Gozlan. 
 
 " Yes," said Balzac, laying down three or four vol- 
 umes that he carried under his arm, " that is Fenimore 
 Cooper's last work. It is fine, it is grand, it is in- 
 tensely interesting. I know no one but Walter Scott 
 
Honor e de Balzac. 185 
 
 who has ever risen to that grandeur and serenit}' of 
 coloring. . . . When I conceived the idea of Le Lys 
 da7i8 la Vallee I had, like Cooper, the idea of giving 
 scener}' a splendid part in the work. Full of this idea, 
 I plunged into natural pantheism like a pagan. I made 
 m3'self tree, horizon, stream, star, brooklet, light. And 
 as science is a good helper in ever3'thing, I wanted to 
 know the names and properties of certain plants which 
 I meant to bring into my descriptions. My first desire 
 was to learn the names of all those little herbs we 
 tread upon in country places, along the roadsides, in 
 the meadows, everywhere. I began by asking my own 
 gardener. ' Oh, Monsieur,' he said, ' nothing easier to 
 know than that.' ' What is it, then, since it is so easy ? * 
 
 * Well, some is luzern ; this is clover ; that is sainfoin.' 
 ' No, no, that is n't what I mean. I want to know 
 what you call all these little herbs under my feet ; here, 
 I '11 gather a tuft of them.' ' Oh, that, monsieur, that 's 
 grass.' 'Yes, but the name of each herb, long, short, 
 straight, curved, smooth, prickly, rough, velvety, dry, 
 damp, dark-green, pale-green.' ' Well, the}'' are all 
 called grass.' I could n't get anything out of him but 
 
 * Grass.' The next day a friend came to see me ; he 
 happened to be a great traveller, and I said to him : 
 ' You, who are such a botanist and have been all over 
 the world, do you know the names of the little herbs we 
 have under our feet?' * Bless me!' he said, 'what 
 herbs?' 'These,' I said, and I plucked some and put 
 them into his hand. ' The fact is,' he said, after a few 
 moments' examination, 'I don't really know an}' flora 
 but that of Malabar. If we were in India now I could 
 tell you the names of countless little plants, but here — ' 
 
186 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 * Here you are just as ignorant as I am?' 'I admit it,' 
 he said. The next day I went to the Jardin des Plantes 
 and questioned one of the most learned professors in 
 the institution. ' Oh, Monsieur de Balzac,' he said, 
 
 * What a thing to ask me ! Here we are busy with the 
 larch and tamarisk, and other such families ; but life is 
 too short to come down to those little herbs that are 
 nothing at all. Thej" concern 3'our salad-woman. But 
 joking apart,' he added, J where are you going to put 
 your novel ? ' 'In Touraine.' * Very good ; then the 
 first peasant you meet in Touraine can tell you more 
 than the most learned of us here.' Down I went to 
 Touraine, and there I found the peasants just as igno- 
 rant as the rest ; so that when I wrote Xe Lys dans 
 la Vallee I found it impossible to describe with perfect 
 accuracy that carpet of verdure which it would have 
 given me such happiness to picture blade b3^ blade." 
 
 M. Taine says of the description in Xe Lys dans la 
 Vallee to which the above anecdote refers : ' ' Oriental 
 poetry has nothing more dazzling, more magnificent ; 
 it is intoxicating, luxurious ; we float in a sky of light 
 and perfume ; all the sensuous joys of a summer's day 
 enter both soul and body, quivering, murmuring, like a 
 tumultuous bevy of many-colored butterflies." ^ 
 
 1 Nouveaux Essais de critique et d'histoire, par H. Taine. 1 vol. 
 3eme q± Hacliette et cie., Paris, 1880. The essay on Balzac should 
 be read. It contains a splendid flux of words in which, truth to 
 tell, there is less of Balzac than we might expect ; but wherever a 
 judgment is given, whether for or against him, it is worth reading, 
 though colored by M. Taine's fancy, — as where he calls him " a 
 business man in debt." Werdet, who ought to know, and who is 
 corroborated by all we find of Balzac's life, says: "He was an 
 honest man ; an honest man in debt, and not a ' business man in 
 debt,' as M. H. Taine avers." 
 
Honore de Balzac. 187 
 
 During the twelve years which we are now consider- 
 ing Balzac wrote and published seventy-nine novels 
 and tales, — a stupendous work when we consider the 
 wealth of ideas embodied and developed in them. The 
 reader is referred to the appendix, where a list of each 
 year's work will be found. So busy a life would seem 
 to allow of no holiday, but his habit was to alternate 
 long periods of intense application with shorter periods 
 of relaxation, employed, naturally and perhaps uncon- 
 sciously, in gathering the experience with which to pur- 
 sue his work. He made, as we have seen, frequent visits 
 to the provinces, and yearly trips to foreign countries. 
 In September, 1833, he was at Neufchatel, where he 
 first met Madame Hanska ; in 1834 he was at Geneva ; 
 in 1835 at Vienna ; the famous journey to Sardinia was 
 in 1838, and the following year he was in Northern 
 Ital}*, and again at Vienna. After that he travelled 
 little for four years, but went much into society. His 
 sister tells us that he loved life and enjoyed its pleas- 
 ures ; he was ver}- hospitable, and the cheer}" dinners 
 given in his various homes still live in the narratives 
 of his friends. 
 
 He remained in the rue Cassini for eight years ; from 
 there he moved to the rue des Batailles at Chaillot, 
 where he had the enjoyment, Gautier tells us, of a 
 magnificent view over Paris. His desire seems ever to 
 have been for heights. In his studious youth he sought 
 that highest point in Pere-Lachaise (the spot where he 
 now lies) whence he could see all Paris ; and his dream of 
 future earthly rest, as he tells us himself, was always for 
 ft home on a mountain. True to this feeling, he bought, 
 in 1838, three acres of land at Ville-d'Avray, where he 
 
188 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 erected the famous pavilion alread}' described in a letter 
 to Madame Carraud. A past historic interest was con- 
 nected with the place, which was called Les Jardies, 
 where, according to Saint-Simon, the courtiers of Louis 
 XIV. were lodged when the king was at Versailles. In 
 after years it gained a third celebrit}- as the home where 
 Gambetta lived and met his death. " Nothing can ex- 
 ceed the beauty of my view," says Balzac, lovingly. 
 ''My house stands on the other side of the mountain, 
 or perhaps I should say the hill of Saint-Cloud ; on the 
 north it joins the royal park; to the west I see the 
 whole valle}' of Ville-d'Avra}" ; to the east I soar above 
 Sevres, and my eyes take in an immense horizon, with 
 Paris in the far distance, its smok}^ atmosphere reach- 
 ing as far as the slopes of Meudon and Belleville, bej'ond 
 which I can see the plains of Montrouge and the high- 
 road to Orleans, which leads to Tours. The whole is 
 of strange magnificence and full of ravishing contrasts. 
 The valley depths have the dewy freshness, the shade, 
 the hillocks, the verdure of $he Swiss vallej^s. Forests 
 and woodland ever3'where ; to the north the fine trees of 
 the royal domain." 
 
 Here he camped rather than lived, for he never had 
 the means to furnish his little home. Nevertheless, it 
 was the scene of much generous hospitality. It was 
 entered from the road which passed behind it. The 
 front-door and hall (if we are to believe the friend who 
 thus describes it) were in the garret, " andj'ou entered 
 the house like wine being poured into a bottle." The 
 steep declivity in front, where his fancy pictured trees, 
 never grew anything taller in his time than shrubs, 
 which, he remarks exultantly, were nearl}' tall enough 
 
Honore de Balzac. 189 
 
 to hide Turc, his Saint-Bernard dog. But his flowers 
 were beautiful ; it gave him as mucii happiness to watch 
 their growth as to hear of his successes in the world ; 
 and, above all, he had the free air for which his spirit 
 longed. There was, alas ! a reverse to the picture in 
 the crumbling walls ; but this was not really as bad as 
 his imagination made it. One would think from the 
 doleful moan he sent to Madame Carraud that he was 
 living in a sort of Herculaneum, with his household gods 
 in fragments about him ; but, in truth, it was only the 
 garden walls that toppled over, and, after rebuilding 
 them several times to pacif}' an angry neighbor, who 
 objected to heaps of stones upon his propert}', Balzac 
 bought the adjoining ground, " in order," he said, " that 
 the stones might at least rattle down on his own land." 
 
 During part of the time when he lived at Les Jardies 
 he kept a room in Paris, in the rue Richelieu, for con- 
 venience ; but in 1843 he took an apartment at Passy 
 (19 rue Basse) an outlying arrondissement of Paris, 
 where he remained until he bought the small hotel 
 Beaujon in the rue Fortunee (now the rue Balzac), 
 which he fitted up luxuriously in the long delayed hope 
 of his marriage with Madame Hanska, transporting 
 there his hidden collection of works of art of all kinds. 
 
 His expansive nature, expansive in spite of his 
 strange secretiveness in deeper ways, sought inter- 
 course with men in his periods of release from work. 
 Among these friends he counted the best men of his 
 da}'. Frederic Souli^, Charles de Bernard, Charles 
 Nodier, Victor Hugo, Heine, whom he often visited, 
 Gavarni, Boulanger, Beyle, whose works he greatly ad- 
 mired, Baron Barchou de Penhoen, a former comrade at 
 
190 Honori de Balzac. 
 
 Vendome, Hector Berlioz, Liszt, Alfred de Musset, and 
 the man who seems to have been closest to him in affec- 
 tion, and also to have received the shadow of confidences 
 not made to others, — Theophile Gautier. Many of 
 these men were far more prosperous than he, the great- 
 est of them, in their mutual career ; but he seems to 
 have been truly incapable, as George Sand said he was, 
 of env}^ Otherwise one might suppose that his feel- 
 ings would have been hurt when he found the way 
 barred against his entrance to the Academy, that Im- 
 mortal body which was less mongrel in those days than 
 it is now. But he behaved with dignity, and withdrew 
 his name when failure seemed probable. " The matter 
 does not stir my feeUngs very much," he said ; " some 
 persons think not at all, but they are mistaken. If I 
 do get there, so much the better ; if I do not, no mat- 
 ter." It is characteristic of him to feel thus. He was 
 totally without personal vanity or self-seeking. Self- 
 assertive as to his work, absorbed in his ideas, con- 
 vinced himself and eager to persuade others of their 
 paramount value, he certainly was ; but his individual 
 self was another thing ; and it is often affecting to no- 
 tice how little thought or care he seemed to give to it. 
 Leon Gozlan says of him: "Indifferent to personal 
 fame, Balzac never gave a thought to what men might 
 want to know of him apart from his books, — of his 
 personal opinions, his private life and character, and 
 his share in the daily events of the world." 
 
 The following letter was addressed to those Acade- 
 micians who intended to support his nomination. It is 
 characteristic of Victor Hugo that he paid no attention 
 to the request, and his ballot was cast for Balzac as a 
 matter of principle. 
 
Honore de Balzac. 191 
 
 " My dear Nodier, — I have learned to-da^', quite 
 positively, that my situation as to fortune is one of the 
 objections which will be brought up against me at the 
 Academy, and I write, with deep grief, to ask jou to 
 give your influence elsewhere than in my favor. 
 
 ''If I cannot enter the Academy on account of my 
 honorable poverty, I will never present myself for ad- 
 mission in the day when prosperitj' smiles upon me. I 
 have written the same thing to Victor Hugo, who takes 
 an interest in my election. 
 
 " God grant you health, my kind Nodier." 
 
 It is observable in Balzac's correspondence that he 
 sa3'S little or nothing of his intercourse with societ}'; 
 3'et there cannot be a doubt in the minds of those who 
 study his work that he saw much of the world, and was 
 in close relations with man}' phases of social life, par- 
 ticularly with women, who are the essence of it. It is 
 impossible that he could have written of women under 
 all aspects as he did unless he had a close personal 
 knowledge of them. Before he became completely 
 absorbed in Madame Hanska in 1843, there must have 
 been a time when he saw much of man}' women, and 
 may even have contemplated marriage with more than 
 one of them. But the evidence of this period in his 
 correspondence is slight, and his sister so distinctly 
 says that he concealed all traces of it that a discussion 
 of what it may have been is useless. It certainly did 
 not influence him seriously as a man, though it was 
 highly serviceable to his work. He remarks himself of 
 this phase of his life that skin-deep aflTections did not 
 suit him : Les amities cVepiderme ne me vont pas. 
 
192 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 JUDGMENT OF CONTEMPORARY FRIENDS. 
 
 George Sand, with her good, broad mind, appreciated 
 Balzac's nature, though she could not agree with his 
 art (her own being so different), nor perceive the higher 
 reaches of his spirit. No kinder or truer words, so far 
 as the}' go, have been said of him than hers : ^ — 
 
 "To say of a man of genius that he was essentially 
 good and kind is the highest praise that I am able to 
 bestow. All superiority must contend with so many 
 obstacles and sufferings that the man who pursues his 
 mission of genius with patience and gentleness is a 
 great man, whatever meaning we may give to the term. 
 Patience and gentleness are strength ; none was ever 
 stronger than Balzac. 
 
 " Before recalling his other claims to the attention of 
 posterit}^ I hasten to render him this justice, which has 
 not been sufficiently rendered by his contemporaries. I 
 saw him often under the shock of great injustices, both 
 literary and personal, and I never heard him say an 
 evil word of any one. He went his painful way with a 
 smile in his soul. Full of himself, passionately eager 
 about his art, he was, nevertheless, modest, after his 
 
 1 Autour de la table, par George Sand, 1 vol., Michel Levy 
 Freres, Nouvelle edition, Paris, 1875. 
 
Honore de Balzac, 193 
 
 fashion, under an exterior of assumption wliich was only 
 the naivete of an artist (great artists are great children), 
 and in spite of an appearance of adoration for his per- 
 sonal merits which was, in reality, nothing else than 
 enthusiasm for his work. 
 
 ^' Balzac's private life was very mysterious, and it has 
 been, as I think, ver}" ill understood by those who were 
 initiated into it. What I know of it, from his own con- 
 fidences, is of great originality and covers no black spots 
 whatever. But these revelations, which have nothing 
 in them that reflects upon his memorj', require amplifi- 
 cations which would be out of place here and would not 
 assist the purpose, chiefly literar}-, which I have set 
 before me. It is sufficient to say that his sovereign end 
 and aim in concealing his life and actions, his search 
 for the absolute, in other words, his great work, was 
 Freedom, the possession of his hours, the solitude of 
 his laborious nights, — the creation, in short, of his 
 Comedie Humaine. 
 
 "Balzac was called during his Ufetime the 'most 
 prolific of novelists.* Since his death he has been called 
 the first of novelists. Without making any invidious 
 categories which might wound illustrious contempora- 
 ries, it will be strictly true, I think, to say that such a 
 term is not praise enough for a power like his. They 
 are not novels, these imperishable books of the great 
 critic, as novels were understood before his da}'. He is, 
 and pre-eminentlj', the critic of human life ; he has 
 written, not alone for the pleasures of the imagination, 
 but for the archives of moral histor}^ the memoirs of 
 the half-century which has now just passed. He has 
 done for that historic period what another great, but 
 
 13 
 
194 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 less thorough worker, Alexis Monteil, endeavored to do 
 for the France of the past. 
 
 " The novel was to Balzac a frame and pretext for an 
 almost universal examination of the ideas, sentiments, 
 customs, habits, legislation, arts, trades, costumes, 
 localities, in short, of all that constituted the lives of his 
 contemporaries. Thanks to him, no earlier epoch of our 
 country will be known to the future like ours. Wliat 
 would we not give, we seekers of to-day, if each van- 
 ished half-century had been transmitted to us living by 
 a Balzac. We make our children read a fragment of 
 the past, reconstructed with immense labor of erudition, 
 ' Rome in the time of Augustus,' and the da}" will 
 come when learned men, writing such histories, will 
 turn to the France of Balzac's period and draw their 
 information from authenticity itself. The criticism of 
 contemporaries on such and such a character presented 
 in Balzac's books, on the style, the method, the inten- 
 tions and the manner of the author, will then seem 
 what already they are beginning to seem, secondary 
 considerations. The future will not call this vast work 
 to account for imperfections which appear in all crea- 
 tions of the human brain ; on the contrary, it will value 
 even the prolixity, the excess of detail, which to us 
 seem defects, and 3'et may not wholly satisfy the in- 
 terest and the curiosity of the readers of the future. 
 
 " Let us say, then, to the readers of the year 2000, or 
 3000, who will still bear some resemblance to the men of 
 to-day, no matter what progress they have been able to 
 make, — to those perfected spirits who will have our 
 needs, our passions, and our dreams, as, in spite of our 
 own progress, we too have the passions, needs, and 
 
Honor e de Balzac. 195 
 
 dreams of the human natures which preceded us, — to 
 them let us sa}' that those among us who have the honor 
 to be called to testify before the work of Balzac declare : 
 ' This is truth,' — not absolute philosophical truth, which 
 Balzac did not seek and this era has not found ; but the 
 true reality of our intellectual, ph3'sical, and moral con- 
 dition. This collected whole of simple narratives, these 
 parables seldom complicated, this multitude of fictitious 
 personages, these interiors, chateaus, garrets, these 
 myriad aspects of country and. city life, all this work of 
 fanc}^ is, thanks to a gift of marvellous clear-sighted- 
 ness and to the exercise of extreme conscientiousness, a 
 mirror in which imagination has shown reality. Do not 
 seek in this history of facts the names of the models 
 who passed before this magic glass ; the types it has 
 preserved are anon3'mous. Nevertheless, know this 
 (for here is a great prodigy of art) : each of these types 
 sums up in itself a whole varietj^ of the human species ; 
 and Balzac, who sought the absolute in a certain order 
 of things, came near finding in his own work the solu- 
 tion of a problem unknown until his day, — complete 
 reality in complete fiction. Yes, readers of the future, 
 the men of 1 830 were as bad, as good, as craz3% and as 
 virtuous, as intelligent and as stupid, as romantic and 
 as matter-of-fact, as prodigal and as keen after gain as 
 Balzac shows them to you. His contemporaries have 
 not all been willing to admit it. That need not astonish 
 you. All, nevertheless, have read his works in which 
 they felt their own hearts beating ; they have read them 
 with anger or — with exultation. 
 
 ''If we judge Balzac in detail, he cannot, any more 
 than other great masters of the present and the past, 
 
196 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 escape all critical severit3\ But when we examine in 
 its totalitj^ his might}^ work, be we critic, public, or 
 fellow-artists, we must all agree, or wellnigh agree, 
 on one point, namel}^ — that in the class of work to 
 which it belongs nothing more complete ever issued 
 from the brain of a writer. I m3self, when I have 
 read, one by one, these extraordinary books as they 
 came from the press, I did not like them all. Some 
 shocked my tastes, ni}^ convictions, my sympathies. 
 At times I was tempted to say, • This is too long,' or 
 ' That is wearisome.' Others seemed to me fantastic, 
 and made me sa}- to myself with regret, * What is the 
 good of it ; what does he mean?' But when Balzac, 
 having found the secret of his destin}^ and solved the 
 enigma of his genius, grasped that deep and admirable 
 idea of the ComMie Humaine^ when, by laborious and 
 ingenious classification, he welded all parts of his work 
 into a logical whole, each of those parts, even those I 
 least liked on their first appearance, took their rightful 
 place and assumed their real value. Each of these 
 books is, in fact, a page of the great work, which would 
 be incomplete without this important page. 
 
 " For this reason it is necessarj^ to read the whole of 
 Balzac. Nothing is unimportant to the general work ; 
 and we soon perceive that in this immeasurable stretch 
 of imagination, to imagination he has sacrificed nothing. 
 Every book has been for him an awesome study. And 
 when we think that he had not, like Dmnas, the power 
 of a marvellous memory, like Lamartine facility of style^ 
 like Alphonse Karr poetr}^ ready-made in his eyes (not 
 to speak of a dozen special qualities gratuitously be- 
 stowed on others by nature), but that, on the contrarj^, 
 
 32%4.v-»*v- 
 
Honore de Balzac. 197 
 
 the labor of execution was long extremel}' difficult to 
 him, that form was constant)}' intractable to his will, 
 that ten 3'ears of his life were sacrificed on experiments, 
 and finally that he was ever struggling with material 
 cares, battling with all his strength to reach a time when 
 he might live in peace, — thinking of all these things 
 one asks one's self what angel and what demon watched 
 at his side and revealed to him the good and the evil, 
 tlie real and the ideal, the history of which he has be- 
 queathed to us. 
 
 " One of m}' friends who knew Balzac presented me to 
 him, not in the character of muse du departement, but 
 as a worthy provincial woman amazed at his talent. 
 This was the truth. Though Balzac had not at that 
 time produced his greatest works, I was much im- 
 pressed by his novel and original manner, and thought 
 of him even then as a master to stud}'. He was liv- 
 ing in the rue Cassini, in a cheerful little entresol 
 near the Observator}'. It was there, I think, that 
 I made the acquaintance of Emmanuel Arago, a man 
 who afterwards became a friend of mine, and was 
 then a mere lad. One fine day Balzac, having made 
 a good sale of a book, affected to despise his entresol, 
 and wished to leave it; but after due reflection he 
 decided to remain, and contented himself b}^ trans- 
 forming his little rooms into a nest of boudoirs a la 
 marquise. That done, he invited me to eat ices within 
 the walls, now hung with silk and edged with lace. I 
 laughed heartil}-, not dreaming that he felt any serious 
 want of such vain luxury^ and supposing it was noth- 
 ing more than a passing fancy. I was mistaken ; these 
 needs of a dainty imagination became the tyrants of 
 
198 Honor e, de Balzac. 
 
 his life ; to satisf}" them, he often sacrificed the com- 
 monest comfort. Henceforth he lived somewhat in this 
 wa}', — lacking necessaries in the midst of his superflui- 
 ties, and depriving himself of soup and coffee rather 
 than of silver-ware and Chinese porcelains. Soon re- 
 duced to amazing expedients not to part with the gew^- 
 gaws that pleased his eye, artist b}' fanc}', child of 
 golden dreams, he lived through his fancj' in a fairy 
 palace ; obstinate withal, he accepted deliberatelj' all 
 anxieties and all deprivations rather than let reality 
 dispossess him of his dream. 
 
 " I did not say much of my own literar}' projects to 
 Balzac. He did not believe in them, or rather he did 
 not care to examine whether I was capable of anything. 
 I did not ask his advice ; he would have told me that 
 he kept it for himself, and he would have said it as 
 much from ingenuous modest}' as from ingenuous ego- 
 tism ; for he had, as I have said, his waj^ of being 
 modest under an appearance of arrogance, a fact which 
 I found out later with agreeable surprise. And as for 
 his egotism, he had his reactions to self-devotion and 
 generosit}'. His companj^ was very agreeable ; a little 
 fatiguing in its rush of words to me, who am not ready 
 enough with an answer to v^ary the subjects of conver- 
 sation sufficientlj' ; but his soul was of great serenity', 
 and I never, at any moment, saw him ill-humored. He 
 would climb, with his big stomach, all the five stories 
 of the house on the qua}^ Michel where I lived, and 
 come in puffing and laughing and talking before he 
 could get his breath. Among his intimate friends he 
 had a nickname, which he always signed to his letters ; 
 with me it had passed into a habit to call liim " Dom 
 
Honore de Balzac, 199 
 
 Mar." He used to pick up my manuscript from the 
 table and cast his eyes over it as if he meant to inform 
 himself of wliat it was about ; but almost immediatel}^ 
 his thoughts would go back to the work he had in hand ; 
 and he would begin to relate it to me, and I must say I 
 found that more instructive than the hindrances which La 
 Touche, disheartening doubter, opposed to my ideas. 
 
 " I had no theories of any kind when I began to write, 
 and I think I had never had an}' when the wish to write 
 a novel placed a pen in m}' hand. That did not prevent 
 m}^ instincts from making for me, without my knowl- 
 edge, the theor}^ which I will now explain and which I 
 have generally followed without taking deliberate ac- 
 count of it, — a theory which is still, at the present 
 moment under discussion. 
 
 '' According to this theory, a novel should be a work 
 of poetr}' as much as of analysis. It must have true 
 situations and true characters, even real ones, grouped 
 around a type which is to present and sum up the prin- 
 cipal sentiment or idea of the book. This type usually 
 represents the passion of love, because nearl}' all novels 
 are histories of love. According to my theory (and here 
 is where it begins) this type, this love we must idealize, 
 not fearing to give it all the powers to which we con- 
 sciously aspire ourselves, and all the sufferings which we 
 have seen or of which we have felt the tortures. But, in 
 any case, that type, that love, must not be degraded by 
 the hazard of events ; it must either die or triumph ; 
 and we must not fear to give it an exceptional impor- 
 tance in life, powers above the ordinary, charms or suf- 
 ferings which go far beyond the usual limit of human 
 things, and even beyond the probable as judged by 
 
200 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 the majority of minds. To sum up this theor}^ briefl}', 
 it is : the idealization of the sentiment whicli makes 
 the subject, leaving to the art of the novehst the duty 
 of placing that subject in conditions and in a frame of 
 reality suitable to bring it vividly into relief. 
 
 " Is this theory- a true one? I think it is ; but it is 
 not, and ought not to be absolute. Balzac, after a time, 
 made me comprehend, by the variety and force of his 
 compositions, that it was allowable to sacrifice the ideal- 
 ization of a subject to the truth of a picture, to the just 
 criticism of society, to humanity itself. Balzac summed 
 this up completely when he said to me later : ' You are 
 seeking man as he should be ; I take him such as he is. 
 Believe me, we are both right. The two roads lead to 
 the same place. I, too, like exceptional beings — I am 
 one m3'self. In fact, I need them as foils to my com- 
 monplace beings ; and I never sacrifice them unless under 
 necessit3\ But commonplace beings interest me more 
 than they interest you. I make them grow, I idealize 
 them, inversely, in their ugliness and stupidity. I give 
 their deformities grotesque proportions. You can't do 
 that ; and you are right not to be willing to look at 
 beings and things which would give you the nightmare. 
 Idealize in the lovely and the beautiful ; that 's a 
 woman's work.' 
 
 " Balzac said this without an}^ concealed disdain or 
 disguised sarcasm. He was sincere in the brotherly 
 feeling with which he spoke, and he has idealized 
 woman far too much to be suspected of any degrading 
 theor}^ about her. 
 
 "Balzac travelled a great deal, and his friends in 
 Paris often lost all trace of him. He had bought a 
 
Honor6 de Balzac, 201 
 
 little house at Ville-d'Avray, called Les Jardies, and 
 from there he dated man}' of the letters which he wrote 
 in Russia, Italy, and elsewhere. Nevertheless, he lived 
 at Les Jardies a good deal, and did an enormous amount 
 of work there. Also he passed whole summers, months 
 or weeks, in the provinces, — at Angouleme, at Issoudun 
 inTouraine, and with me in Berrj'. He was also in Sar- 
 dinia, where he believed, or pretended to believe, he 
 should find strange things. He searched for treasures 
 and found none but those he bore within him, — his 
 intellect, his spirit of observation, his marvellous ca- 
 pacit}', his strength, his gayety, his goodness of heart, 
 in a word, his genius. 
 
 '' The last of his journeys resulted in his marriage ; 
 but our poor Doni Mar did not long enjoy domestic hap- 
 jjiness. A disease of the heart, about which he had 
 often spoken to me and of which he thought himself 
 cured, carried him off at the end of four months of mar- 
 ried life. He was shipwrecked in port, that bold and 
 resolute mariner. All his life he had desired to marry 
 a woman of qualit}', to have no debts, to find in his 
 own home affection and intellectual companionship. He 
 deserved to attain his wish, for he had done gigantic 
 service, fulfilled a splendid mission, and abused but 
 one thing — work. Sober in all respects, his morals 
 were pure ; he dreaded excesses as the death of talent ; 
 he cherished women by his heart or his head, and his life 
 from early youth was that of an anchorite ; for, although 
 he has written some coarse books and passed in his day 
 for an expert in gallantry (having written the Physiol- 
 ogie du Mariage and the Contes Drolatiques), he was 
 much less rabelaisian than benedictine. He loved 
 
202 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 chastit}' as a choice thing, and attacked the sex only 
 through curiosity ; when he found a curiosity equal to 
 his own he worl^ed the mine with the cynicism of a con- 
 fessor ; that is how he himself expressed it. But when 
 he met with health of mind and body (I repeat his own 
 words) he was happy as a child in being able to speak 
 of true love and rise into the higher regions of emotion. 
 "He was a trifle hypercritical, but naively so; and 
 this great anatomist of life let us see that he learned 
 all, both of good and evil, by observation of fticts or 
 contemplation of the idea, not by experience. At- 
 tached, I know not why, to the cause of monarchy to 
 which he thought himself bound, he was so impartial 
 b}' nature that the noblest personages in his books are 
 often republicans or socialists. There were times when 
 he seemed to have the tastes of a parvenu ; they were 
 really at heart the tastes of an artist. He loved curios- 
 ities far more than luxury. He dreamed of avarice, and 
 ruined himself constantly. He boasted of despoiling 
 others, and never robbed any one but himself. In cer- 
 tain of his books he has put his ideal in the boudoir of 
 a duchess ; elsewhere we find it in the customs of an 
 atelier. He has seen the amusing side and also the 
 grand side of all social destinies, of all parties, all 
 systems. He has laughed at the stupid Bonapartists, 
 and pitied the unfortunate Bonapartists ; he has re- 
 spected all disinterested convictions. He charmed the 
 ambitious youth of the century with golden dreams ; 
 he flung it in the dust or the mud by laying bare before 
 it the end of base ambitions, dissolute women, faithless 
 friends, shame, remorse. He has branded on the fore- 
 head those great ladies whom he forced his young men 
 
Honors de Balzac. 203 
 
 to adore. He has swept awa}' the millions and des- 
 tined the temples of delight in which his fancy revelled, 
 to show, behind these chimeras, that toil and honor 
 alone remain erect amid the ruins. He has pictured, 
 con amore^ the seductions of vice, and vigorousl}' pro- 
 claimed the horrors of its contagion. He has seen all 
 and said all, comprehended all, and divined all — how 
 then can he be immoral? Impartiality is eminently 
 sound and healthy for good minds ; the minds it could 
 corrupt are corrupted already, and so corrupted that 
 impartial truth is unable to heal them. 
 
 ''Balzac has been reproached for having no principles 
 because he has, as I think, no positive convictions on 
 questions of fact in religion, art, politics, or even love. 
 But nowhere in his books do I see vice made respect- 
 able or virtue degraded in the reader's e3es. If virtue 
 succumbs, if vice triumphs, the meaning of the book is 
 not left doubtful ; society is condemned. 
 
 " It would, indeed, be puerile to declare Balzac a writer 
 without defects. He would have been, in that case, the 
 first whom nature ever created, and in all probability 
 the last of his kind. He had, and he knew it himself 
 better than those who have said so, essential faults ; a 
 labored style, false taste in certain expressions, a notice- 
 able lack of proportion in the composition of his works. 
 Eloquence and poetr}^ came to him only when he ceased 
 to search for them. He toiled over his work too long, 
 and often spoilt it by corrections. These are all great 
 defects ; but when the}'' are redeemed b}' such merits a 
 man must be — as he said ingenuously' of himself, and 
 as he had the right to say — devilishly strong." 
 
 A critic of our day has said of Gautier's portrait of 
 
204 Honore de Balzac, 
 
 Balzac that it was not critical. This may be true in 
 the sense in which it was said, but the portrait will last 
 long after the criticism of periods and of schools has 
 passed awa3\ It is a true picture of the man's nature, 
 and the more valuable because Gautier could not have 
 shared anj^ of Balzac's great beliefs, while perceiving, in 
 a measure, the spirit that gave birth to them. Was it 
 the power of an inner man making itself felt upon his 
 naturallj' sympathetic and receptive mind through his 
 affections? At any rate, he has left us the only con- 
 temporaneous portrait of Balzac, written by a male 
 friend, which is of value. It is given here somewhat 
 abridged.-^ 
 
 * ' When I saw Balzac, who was a year older than the 
 centur}', for the first time, he was about thu'ty-six, and 
 his personalit\' was one of those that are never forgot- 
 ten. In his presence Shakspeare's words in Juhus 
 Caesar came to my memorj' ; before him, ' nature 
 might stand up and say to all the world, '^ This was a 
 man ? " ' He wore the monk's habit of white flannel or 
 cashmere, in which, some time later, he made Louis 
 Boulanger paint him. What fancy had led him to 
 choose, in preference to all other costumes, this partic- 
 ular one, which he always wore, I do not know. Per- 
 haps it s3'mbolized to his eyes the cloistral life to 
 which his work condemned him ; and, benedictine of 
 romance, he wore the robe. However that ma}^ be, it 
 became him wonderfull3\ He boasted, showing me his 
 spotless sleeves, that he never dropped the least spot of 
 
 1 Portraits contemporains par Theophile Gautier, 1 vol. G. 
 Charpentier et Cie. Se^ie ed. Paris, 1886, 
 
Honors de Balzac. 205 
 
 ink upon it, * for,' lie added, ' a true literary man ought 
 to be clean at Ills work/ 
 
 " The gown was flung back, disclosing the neck of an 
 athlete or a bull, round as the section of a column, 
 without visible muscles, and of a satiny whiteness 
 which contrasted with the stronger tones of the face. 
 At this period Balzac, who was then in the vigor of his 
 age, showed signs of a robust health little in keeping 
 with the romantic pallor then in vogue. His pure Tou- 
 rainean blood glowed in his full cheeks with a healthy 
 crimson, and warmly colored those good lips, thick and 
 curved, and ever laughing, which a slight moustache 
 and an imperial defined, without concealing. The nose 
 which w^as square at the end, divided into two lobes, 
 and furnished with nostrils that opened widely, had a 
 thoroughl}" original and individual character ; so that 
 Balzac, posing for his bust, commended it to the sculi> 
 tor, David of Angers ; ' Pay attention to mj^ nose,' he 
 said ; ' my nose is a world.' The forehead was hand- 
 some, vast, noble, and noticeably whiter than the rest 
 of the face, with no lines but a perpendicular one, 
 which started from the root of the nose, the bump of 
 locality making a very decided projection above the 
 eyebrows. His thick hair, which was long, wiry, and 
 black, was thrown back over his head like a lion's 
 mane. As to the e^es, there were never any like them ; 
 they had a life, a light, an inconceivable magnetism ; 
 the white of the eyeballs was pure, limpid, with a blue- 
 ish tinge, like that of an infant or a virgin, inclosing 
 two black diamonds, dashed at moments with gold 
 reflections, — eyes to make an eagle drop his lids, eyes 
 to read through walls and into bosoms, or to terrify a 
 
206 JSonore de Balzac. 
 
 furious wild beast, the eyes of a sovereign, a seer, a 
 subjugator. 
 
 " The habitual expression of the face was that of 
 puissant hilarity^ of Rabelaisian and monachal joy (the 
 frock no doubt contributing to the idea) w^hich made 
 3^ou think of friar Jean des Entommeures ; but dignified 
 withal, and uplifted by a mind of the first order. 
 
 " As usual, Balzac had risen at midnight, and had 
 worl^ed until my arrival. His features showed no sign 
 of fatigue, except that of a slight brownness beneath the 
 eyelids, and he was gayety itself during the whole 
 breakfast. Little by little, the conversation turned on 
 literature, and he complained of the difficulties of the 
 French language. St3'le troubled him much, and he 
 sincerely thought he had none ; it is true that at this 
 time the critics, as a rule, denied him any. The school 
 of Hugo, lovers of the sixteenth century- and the mid- 
 dle-ages, learned in form, rhythm, structure, periods, 
 rich in words, trained in prose by the gymnastics of 
 verse, following always a master under certain fixed 
 conventions, thought little of any writing that was not 
 ' well written ; ' that is to say, elegant in tone and 
 polished beyond measure ; and they thought, moreover, 
 that tlie presentatit)n of modern manners was useless, 
 vulgar, and wanting in ^ lyricism.' Balzac, in spite of 
 the vogue he was beginning to acquire with the pub- 
 lic, was not admitted among the gods of romanticism, 
 and he knew it. Though the}^ read his books eagerly 
 enough, they did not dwell on the serious aspect of 
 them ; in fact, even to his admirers, he was long ' the 
 most proUfic of our novel-writers,' and nothing more. 
 This seems amazing to us now, but I can answer for 
 
Ilonore de Balzac. 207 
 
 the truth of it. Consequently, he took unwearying 
 pains to form his style, and in his great anxiety for 
 correctness he would consult those who were far inferior 
 to him. He told me that before putting his name to 
 any of his books he had written under various pseudo- 
 nyms a score of volumes * to unlimber his hand.' 
 
 *' But to return to the breakfast. While talking, Balzac 
 pla^-ed with his knife or his fork, and I noticed that his 
 hands were of rare beauty, the hands of a prelate, white, 
 with tapering, dimpled fingers, the nails polished and 
 rosy. He cherished his hands, and smiled with pleasure 
 when an}' one looked at thera, attaching a sense of race 
 and aristocracy to their beauty. Lord Byron said in 
 a note, with visible satisfaction, that Ali Pasha compli- 
 mented him on the small ness of his ear, from which 
 he had inferred he was a gentleman. Such a remark 
 about his hands would have pleased Balzac more than 
 any praise of his books. He had, in fact, a sliglit prej- 
 udice against those whose extremities were clumsy. 
 
 " I left him, after agreeing to write for the ' Chronique 
 de Paris' (he was then starting it), in which appeared 
 my *Tour en Belgique,' 'La Morte Amoureuse,' the 
 * Chaine d'or,' and other works. Charles de Bernard, 
 another of the 3'oung men whom Balzac called to his 
 assistance, wrote his ' Femme de quarante ans ' and 
 the ' Rose jaune ' for the ' Chronique.' Balzac had 
 lately invented the ' woman of thirty ; ' his imitator 
 added two lustres to that already venerable age, and 
 his heroine had an equal success. 
 
 *' Whoever knew Balzac familiarl}' is able to find in 
 the Comedie Humaine a crowd of curious details on his 
 character and on his work, — more especially in his first 
 
208 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 books, in which he had not entirel}' freed himself from 
 his personahty, and lacking subjects to observe, he dis- 
 sected himself. For instance, the story of Facino Cane 
 contains precious indications of the life he led in his 
 garret as a young aspirant of fame. They are doubly 
 precious because they throw light on one side of Balzac's 
 life which is very little known, and reveal in him the con- 
 sciousness of that powerful faculty of intuition which he 
 possessed in so high a degree, and without which the 
 realization of his great work would have been impos- 
 sible. Balzac, Hke Vishnu, the Hindu god, possessed 
 the gift of avatar^ — namel}', that of incarnating him- 
 self in different bodies, and of living in them at his 
 pleasure ; with this difference, that the number of 
 Vishnu's avatars is limited to ten, while those of Balzac 
 are innumerable ; and what is more, he could evoke them 
 at will. Strange as it may seem to say so in this nine- 
 teenth century, Balzac was a Seer. His power as an 
 observer, his discernment as a physiologist, his genius 
 as a writer, do not sufiicientl}' account for the infinite 
 variety of the two or three thousand types which play 
 a role, more or less important, in his human comedy. 
 He did not copy them ; he lived them idealk. He wore 
 their clothes, contracted their habits, moved in their 
 surroundings^ was themselves during the necessary time. 
 Through this faculty came those sustained and logical 
 characters, which never contradict and never duplicate 
 one another ; personalities endowed with a deep and 
 inmost reality, who, to use one of his own expressions, 
 compete for their civil rights. Red blood flows in their 
 A^eins in place of the ink which ordinary writers infuse 
 into their creations. 
 
Honore de Balzac. 209 
 
 *' And yet Balzac, immense in brain, penetrating 
 physiologist, profound observer, intuitive spirit, did 
 not possess the literar}- gift. In him yawned an abyss 
 between thought and form. Sometimes he despaired 
 of ever crossing it. Into it he flung volume after vol- 
 ume, nights of toil without number, essay upon essa}', 
 without ever filling the gulf; a whole librar}' of unac- 
 knowledged books went into it. A less robust will 
 would have been discouraged and overcome ; but Bal- 
 zac, hap[)ily, had unshaken confidence in his genius, 
 which all others ignored. He willed to be a great man, 
 and he became one, b}- the incessant projection of that 
 fluid, more powerful than electricit}', of which he has 
 made such subtle analysis in Louis Lambert. 
 
 " Contrary to the writers of the romantic school, who 
 were all remarkable for the fearlessness and facility of 
 their execution, producing their fruits almost at the 
 same time as their flowers (a double forth-putting 
 which seemed involuntarj'), Balzac, the equal of them 
 all in genius, could not find his method of expres- 
 sion, or found it onlj' after infinite labor. Hugo says, 
 in one of his prefaces, with his Castilian pride : ' I 
 do not understand the art of soldering a fine thing 
 over a defective one ; I correct the defect in another 
 volume.' But Balzac riddled with erasures his tenth 
 proof; and when he found me sending back to the 
 ' Chronique ' the proof of an article (written in a flash at 
 the corner of a table) with no corrections except the 
 typographical ones, he could not believe, however sat- 
 isfied he might be otherwise, that I had done my best. 
 ' It might have been better if you had gone over it two 
 or three more times,' he would say. 
 
 14 
 
210 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 '' He used to preach to me a curious literary hj^giene, 
 with himself for an example. I ought to shut myself 
 up for two or three 3'ears, drink water, eat vegetables 
 like Protogenes, go to bed at six o'clock, get up at 
 midnight and work till morning, employ the da}^ in re- 
 viewing, expanding, pruning, improving, polishing the 
 work of the night ; correcting proofs, taking notes, mak- 
 ing the necessary studies, and, above all, living in the 
 most absohite chastity. He insisted much on this last 
 recommendation, rather rigorous for a 3'oung man of 
 twenty-five. According to his ideas true chastit}' de- 
 veloped to the highest degree the powers of the mind, 
 and gave to those who practised it mysterious fac- 
 ulties. When I timidly remarked that the greatest 
 geniuses had not deprived themselves of love, of pas- 
 sion, nor even of pleasure, and cited a few illustrious 
 names, Balzac shook his head and answered : ' They 
 would have done greater things without them.' 
 
 " It must not be thought that he was jesting in pre- 
 scribing these rules, which even a Trappist would have 
 thought strict. He was perfectl}^ convinced of their 
 efficacy, and spoke with such eloquence that I did, on 
 several occasions, conscientiousl}' tr}^ this method of 
 obtaining genius; I got up at midnight, took the in- 
 spiring coffee (made after a special formula), and sat 
 down at m}- writing-table, — on which sleep made no 
 delay in dropping my head. ' La Morte Amoureuse ' 
 was my only nocturnal production. 
 
 " With his profound instinct for reality, Balzac per- 
 ceived that the modern life he wished to paint was gov- 
 erned by one mighty fact, — Money. Assuredh' no 
 man was ever less avaricious than he, but. his genius 
 
Honor e de Balzac, 211 
 
 made him foresee the immense part about to be pla3'ed 
 by that metallic hero, more interesting to modern society 
 than the Grandisons, the Des Grieux, the Werthers, 
 Laras, Renes, and Quentin Durvvards. At the period 
 when the first novels signed by his name appeared, the 
 world had not, in the same degree that it has to-day, 
 the absorbing interest, or I might better call it, the fever, 
 of gold. California was not discovered ; a few miles 
 of railway were all that existed, and no one suspected 
 their future ; the}^ were looked upon as a new species of 
 montagne russe, then fallen into disuse ; the general 
 public were ignorant of what we now call ' business ; ' 
 bankers alone gambled at the Bourse. The movement 
 of capital, the glitter of gold, the calculations, the 
 figures, in short, the importance given to money in 
 novels, hitherto taken for mere romantic fictions and 
 not for serious pictures of life, astonished the sub- 
 scribers of the circulating libraries, and the critics set 
 to work to add up the sum total expended or brought 
 into action by the author. The millions of old Grandet 
 were discussed arithmetically ; and sober-minded men, 
 excited by the enormity of the totals, threw doubts on 
 Balzac's financial abilit3% — an abilit}^ which was, how- 
 ever, really great, and so admitted, later. Stendhal 
 says, with disdainful foppishness of manner, ' Before 
 sitting down to write I always read three or four pages 
 of the Code civil to tone me up.' Balzac, who knew 
 so much of mone}^ found poems and dramas in the 
 Code. The bankruptcy in C^sar Birotteau stirs us 
 like the history of the fall of an empire. The struggle 
 between the chateau and the cottage in Les Paysans 
 presents as many vicissitudes as the siege of Tro3% 
 
212 Honore de Balzac, 
 
 But these new elements introduced into a novel did not 
 please at first. Philosophical analj'sis, elaborate pict- 
 ures of character, descriptions, of a minuteness which 
 seemed to have in view a distant future, were thought 
 of grievous length, and more often skipped to follow 
 the story. Later, it was seen that the author's purpose 
 was not to weave the intrigues of a complicated tale, 
 but to paint society as a whole, from summit to base, 
 with its living beings and its inanimate things. Then 
 it was that people began to admire the immense variety 
 of his types. I think it is Alexandre Dumas who 
 calls Shakspeare ' the greatest creator after God.' The 
 words might be applied, with even more justice, to 
 Balzac ; for never, in truth, did such a number of living 
 beings issue from any other human brain. 
 
 "About the year 1836 Balzac conceived the plan of 
 his Comedie Ilumaine, and attained to a full conscious- 
 ness of his genius. He then attached the works already 
 written to his general idea, and gave them their place 
 in the philosophical categories he had marked out. 
 Some novels of pure fancy did not fit in very well, in 
 spite of the hooks afterwards attached to them ; but 
 these were mere details, lost in the immensit}- of the 
 whole, like the ornaments of another style in a noble 
 edifice. 
 
 '•I have said that Balzac worked laboriousl}', and, 
 stubborn founder that he was, returned the metal to 
 the pot a dozen times if it did not completely fill the 
 mould. Like Paliss}-, he would have burned the furni- 
 ture, the floors, even the beams of his house to keep up 
 the fire of his furnace, and forego no experiment. The 
 severest necessities never induced him to deliver a work 
 
Honore de Balzac. 213 
 
 on which he had not spent his last effort ; he gave 
 man}" admirable examples of this literar}- conscientious- 
 ness. When, sitting before his table in his monkish 
 robe in the silence of the night, with the white sheets 
 lying before him, on which fell the light of seven candles, 
 which he always used concentrated by a green shade, 
 he forgot all, and then began a struggle greater than 
 that of Jacob with the angel, that of form and idea. 
 In the morning, when he issued from that battle, wearied 
 but not vanquished, the fire being out and the atmos- 
 phere of the room chilly, liis head smoked and his body 
 exhaled a sort of mist like that we see from a horse in 
 winter. Sometimes a single sentence would occup}" a 
 whole night. It would be made and remade, twisted, 
 kneaded, hammered, lengthened, shortened, written in 
 a dozen different ways, and, singular to relate, the 
 proper form, the absolutely best, did not present itself 
 until after all approximative forms had been exhausted. 
 No doubt the metal did often flow with a fuller and 
 freer current, but there are very few pages in Balzac 
 which are identical with the first copy. 
 
 " His method of proceeding was as follows : When he 
 had long borne and lived a subject, he wrote, in a 
 rapid, uneven, blotted, almost hierogljphic writing, 
 a species of outline on several pages. These pages 
 went to the printing-office, from which they were re- 
 turned in placards ; that is to say, in detached columns 
 in the centre of large sheets. He read these proofs at- 
 tentively ; for they alread}' gave to his embryo work 
 that impersonal character which manuscript never pos- 
 sesses ; and he applied to this first sketch the great 
 critical facult}-' with which he was gifted, precisely as 
 
214 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 though he were judging of another man's work. Then 
 he began operations ; approving or disapproving he 
 maintained or corrected, but, above all, he added. 
 Lines started from the beginning, middle, or end of 
 sentences, and made their wa}^ to the margins on the 
 right or left or top or bottom, leading to amplifications, 
 insertions, deletions, epithets, and adverbs. After some 
 hours' work the paper might have been taken for a draw- 
 ing of fireworks by a child. Rockets, darting from the 
 original text, exploded on all sides. Then there were 
 crosses, simple crosses, crosses re-crossed like those of 
 a blazon, stars, suns, Arabic figures, letters, Greek, 
 Roman, or French, all imaginable signs mingled with 
 erasures. Strips of paper, fastened on b}' wafers or 
 pins, were added to the insuflScient margins, and were 
 rayed with lines of writing, very fine to save room, and 
 full themselves of erasures ; for a correction was hardly 
 made before that again was corrected. By this time 
 the original proof had almost disappeared in the midst 
 of this apparently cabalistic scribble, which the compos- 
 itors passed from hand to hand, each unwilling to do 
 more than one hour of Balzac. 
 
 '' The following da}' the proofs came back, all correc- 
 tions made, and the bulk of course doubled. Balzac 
 set to work again, — always amplifying ; adding here a 
 trait, there a detail, a picture, an observation of man- 
 ners, a characteristic word, an effective sentence ; 
 pressing the idea more and more into the form, and 
 getting always nearer to his inward conception ; choos- 
 ing, like a painter, from three or four outlines the final 
 line. Often this tremendous labor ended with an in- 
 tensity of attention, a clearness of perception of which 
 
Honor e de Balzac. 215 
 
 he alone was capable. He would see that the thought 
 was warped b}' the execution ; that an episode predom- 
 inated ; that a figure which he meant should be secon- 
 dar}^ for the general effect, was projecting out of his 
 plan. Then with one stroke of his pen he bravel}^ 
 annihilated the result of four or five nights of labor. 
 He was heroic at such times. 
 
 " I have seen at Les Jardies, on the shelves of a book- 
 case which contained only his own works, each different 
 proof of the same book bound in a separate volume, 
 from the first placard to the finished volume ; and the 
 comparison of Balzac's thought in its various stages 
 was a curious studj^ and contained many useful literary 
 lessons. Near to these volumes, b}" the bye, was a 
 shabby old book of unpleasant appearance, bound jn 
 black morocco without punches or gilding, which at- 
 tracted my attention. *Take it down,' said Balzac, 
 * it is an unpublished work of mine, and has its value.' 
 It bore the title Comptes Melancholiqiies^ and con- 
 tained a list of all his debts, the dates at which his 
 notes fell due, the bills of his tradesmen, and the whole 
 array of threatening documents which the Stamp legal- 
 izes. This volume, as if in derisive contrast, stood 
 side by side with the Contes Drolatiques^ ' to which 
 they are not the sequel,' said Balzac, laughing. 
 
 " In spite of this laborious manner of working, Balzac 
 produced a great deal, — thnnks to his superhuman will 
 assisted by the temperament of an athlete and the se- 
 clusion of a monk. When he had some important work 
 on hand he would write sixteen or eighteen hours out 
 of the twenty-four for two or three consecutive months ; 
 he granted to his animalit}^ onh' six hours' sleep, which 
 
216 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 was heavy, feverish, and convulsive from the torpor of 
 digestion caused by his hasty meals. At such times 
 he disappeared completely ; even his best friends lost 
 trace of him. Then he would reappear as if from un- 
 der ground, flourishing his work over his head, laugh- 
 ing his heart}^ laugh, applauding himself with, perfect 
 naivete, and bestowing on his work the praises he asked 
 of none. No author was ever so indifferent to articles 
 and criticisms on his books. He left his reputation to 
 make itself witliout raising a finger to help it, and never 
 did he court the journalists. 
 
 " Sometimes he would come to m}^ rooms of a morn- 
 ing, breathless, tired-out, giddy with the fresh air, like 
 Vulcan escaping from his forge, and fling himself on 
 the sofa. His long night's work had made him hungry, 
 and he would pound up sardines and butter, making a 
 sort of pomade of them which reminded him of the 
 rillettes of Tours, and spreading it on bread. It was 
 his favorite food ; and he had no sooner eaten it than 
 he fell asleep, telling me to wake him at the end of an 
 hour. I paid no attention to this request ; on the con- 
 trar}', I stopped the noises of the house to prolong that 
 well-earned sleep. When Balzac woke of himself and 
 saw the twilight gathering its gra}- tints upon the sky, 
 he bounded up, called me a traitor, thief, assassin ; I 
 had made him lose ten thousand francs ; if he had been 
 awakened he should have followed out the thread of a 
 story which would have brought him in at least that 
 sum, —   without counting reprints ; I had made him 
 miss rendezvous with bankers, editors, duchesses ; he 
 should be too late to take up a note ; that fatal sleep 
 might cost him millions. But I was well accustomed 
 
Honors de Balzac, 217 
 
 to his hyperboles, and consoled myself readily when I « 
 saw how the tine Tourainean color had come back to his 
 rested face. 
 
 •'The great Goethe held three things in horror, one 
 of which was tobacco-smoke. Balzac, like the Jupiter of 
 the German Olympus, could not endure tobacco under 
 any form ; he anathematized a pipe and proscribed 
 cigars ; he would not even allow of the smallest Span- 
 ish papelito ; the Oriental narghile alone found favor in 
 his sight, and then only as a curious bibelot possessing 
 local color. His philippics against Nicot's herb were 
 not like those of a certain doctor who, during a disser- 
 tation on the horrors of tobacco, took plentiful pinches 
 from a snuff-box beside him. Balzac never smoked. 
 His Traite des Excitants contains an indictment in 
 form against tobacco, and there is no doubt that if he 
 had been sultan, like Amurath, he would have cut off 
 the heads of relapsed or refractor}^ smokers. He re- 
 served all his excesses for coffee, which did him so much 
 harm and perhaps killed him, though he was organized 
 for a centenarian.^ 
 
 " In 1839 Balzac was living at Chaillot in the rue des 
 Batailles, a house from which he had a fine view of the 
 course of the Seine, the Champs de Mars, the Ecole 
 Militaire, the dome of the Invalides, a large part of 
 Paris, and the slopes of Meudon. He had surrounded 
 himself with some luxury' knowing that in Paris no one 
 believes in poverty-stricken talent, and that a well-to- 
 
 1 We may add to these personal traits that he never carried 
 money or a watch. Sometimes this brouglit him into difficulties. 
 He would walk into Paris from Les Jardies and have no means of 
 paying his fare back, or getting a dinnefr 
 
218 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 do appearance often leads to doing well. To this period 
 belong liis passing fancy for dandyism and elegance, 
 the famous blue coat and gilt buttons, the cane with 
 the turquoise knob, the appearance at the Bouffes 
 and the Opera, and his more frequent visits in societ}^, 
 where his sparkling wit and animation made him wel- 
 come, — useful visits, moreover, for they gave him more 
 than one model. It was not easy to make one's way 
 into his house, which was guarded like the garden of 
 the Hesperides. IVo or three passwords were neces- 
 sary, which were changed frequently, for fear they 
 should become known. I remember a few. To the 
 porter we said, 'The plum season has come,' on which 
 he allowed us to cross the threshold. To the servant 
 who rushed to the staircase when the bell rang it was 
 necessary to murmur, ' I bring some Brussels lace ; ' 
 and if you assured him that ' Madame Bertrand was 
 quite well,' 3'ou were admitted forthwith. This non- 
 sense amused Balzac immensel}^ ; and it was perhaps 
 necessary, to keep out bores, and other visitors still 
 more disagreeable. 
 
 " One of Balzac's dreams was of friendship, — heroic, 
 devoted friendship ; two souls, two valors, two intel- 
 lects blended in one will. That of Pierre and Jaffier 
 in Otway's ' Venice Preserved ' had always struck him 
 and he often talked of it. His Histoire des Treize is 
 this idea enlarged and complicated, — a powerful unity, 
 composed of several persons, all acting bhndly for one 
 agreed end. Real life and intellectual life were never 
 as defined and separate in Balzac as in other authors, 
 and his creations often followed him from his study. 
 He wished to form an association in the style of that 
 
Honor e de Balzac. . 219 
 
 which united Ferragus, Montriveau, Ronquerolles, and 
 their companions ; only tliere was no question of their 
 bold strokes, — the actual plan confining itself to some- 
 thing much simpler, as follows : A certain number of 
 friends were to stand by each other on all occasions ; 
 they were to work according to their capacity for the 
 success or the fortunes of whichever one of them might 
 be designated, — with return of service, of course. 
 Much delighted with his scheme, Balzac recruited aux- 
 iliaries, whom he brought into relations with each other 
 with as man}' precautions as though the matter con- 
 cerned a political societ}' or a branch of the Carbonfiri. 
 When the number was complete he assembled the 
 adepts and explained the object of the society. Need- 
 less to say that all declared their satisfaction without 
 discussion, and the statutes were voted with enthusiasm. 
 No one possessed the gift of stirring, super-exciting, 
 intoxicating even the coolest heads and the sedatest 
 minds like Balzac. He had an overflowing, tumultuous, 
 seductive eloquence that carried you off 3'our feet 
 whether you would or no ; no objections were possible 
 against him ; he would drown them in such a deluge of 
 words that you had to be silent. Besides, he had an 
 answer for everything, and he would fling you a glance, 
 so flashing, so illuminated, so charged with electric fluid 
 that he infused his desires into 3'our mind. 
 
 '' The association, which counted among its members 
 Granier de Cassagnac, Leon Gozlan, Louis Desno3'ers, 
 Jules Sandeau, Merle (known as the handsome Merle), 
 myself, and some others whom it is useless to name, 
 was called Le Cheval Rouge [the Red Horse]. Why 
 the Red Horse, you will ask me, any more than the 
 
220 • Honore de Balzac. 
 
 Golden Lion or the Maltese Cross ? The first meeting 
 of the associates took place at a restaurant, on the quai 
 de I'Entrepot, at end of the pont de la Tournelle, the 
 sign of which was a quadruped ruhricd pictus ; and 
 this, had given Balzac the idea of the name, which 
 seemed sufflcienth^ queer, unintelligible, and cabalistic. 
 
 " When it was necessarj' to discuss some project 
 Balzac, elected b\' acclamation grand master of the 
 Order, sent a faithful messenger to each horse (the 
 slang appellation the members went by among them- 
 selves) with a letter, in which was drawn a small red 
 horee, and the words ' Stable, such a da}^, such a 
 place.' In society, though we all knew each other 
 (most of us for half our lifetimes), we were to avoid 
 speaking, or else meet coldly, to escape all suspicion 
 of connivance. Sometimes in a salon Balzac would 
 pretend to meet me for the first time, and then, with 
 winks and grimaces such as actors use for their asides, 
 he would seem to be saying : ' See how well I play mj- 
 part.' 
 
 " What was the object of the Cheval Rouge? Was 
 it organized to change the government, establish a new 
 rehgion, found a school of philosophy, rule men, seduce 
 women? Very much less than that. We were to get 
 possession of newspapers, invade the theatres, seat 
 ourselves in the armchairs of the Academj^, win a 
 string of decorations, and wind up modestl}^ as peers 
 of France, ministers, and millionnaires. All that was 
 easy — according to Balzac ; it was only necessar}^ to 
 have a perfect mutual understanding; such common- 
 place ambitions ought to prove to us the moderation of 
 our characters. 
 
Honors de Balzac, 221 
 
 " I smile to myself as I here betra}', after so many 
 j'ears, the secret of this literary free-masonry, — which 
 had no result whatever. But, at the time, we took 
 the thing seriously ; we imagined we were the IVeize 
 themselves, and felt surprised that we could not pass 
 through barriers as they did ; but the world is so ill- 
 contrived ! After four or five meetings the C/ieval 
 Mouge ceased to exist, most of the horses being unable 
 to pay for their oats in the symbolic manger ; and the 
 association, organized to obtain all things, was dis- 
 solved because the members often lacked fifteen francs, 
 the cost of the reckoning. Each therefore plunged 
 back alone into the battle of life, fighting witli his own 
 weapons ; and this explains why it was that Balzac 
 never belonged to the Academy, and died a chevalier 
 onl}' of the Legion of honor. 
 
 '^ The idea, nevertheless, was a good one. Others, 
 who adopted it, put it in practice without the same 
 romantic phantasmagoria, and succeeded. 
 
 *' I am writing my recollections of Balzac just as they 
 come to me, without attempting to give connection to 
 that which cannot be connected. Moreover, as Boileau 
 has told us, ' transitions are the great difficulty of 
 poetr}',' and, I may add, of essays, — but modern jour- 
 nalists have not the conscience, nor the leisure, of the 
 Parnassian legislator. 
 
 '' Madame de Girardin was one of the women who 
 professed a great admiration for Balzac ; he was fully 
 alive to it, and showed his gratitude b}- frequent 
 visits, — he so char}-, and rightly too, of his time and 
 his hours of labor. No woman ever possessed in a 
 greater degree than Delphine, as we allowed ourselves 
 
222 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 to call her familiady among ourselves, the art of bring- 
 ing out the qualities of her guests. With her they were 
 always at their best, and they left her salon astonished 
 at themselves. No pebble so unpolished but what she 
 could strike a spark from it, and on Balzac, as 3'ou may 
 well believe, there was no need to strike the flint long ; 
 he sparkled instantly, and flamed up. Balzac was not 
 precisely a conversationalist, quick in reply, flinging a 
 keen or decisive word into the discussion, changing the 
 subject imperceptibly as the talk flowed on, touching all 
 things with a light hand, and never exceeding a quiet 
 half-smile. On the contrary, he was full of animation, 
 eloquence, and an irresistible brio ; and, as ever}' one 
 stopped talking to listen to him, conversation in his 
 presence was apt to degenerate into soliloquy. The 
 point of departure was soon forgotten, — he passed 
 from anecdote to philosophical reflection, from social 
 observations to local descriptions ; and as he spoke his 
 cheeks would color, his e3'es became strangely luminous, 
 his voice took man}' inflections^ and sometimes he would 
 burst out laughing at the droll apparitions which he saw 
 before he spoke of them. At the least provocation his 
 natural gayety broke forth, swelling his strong chest ; 
 it sometimes disturbed the squeamish, but the}^ were all 
 forced to share it, no matter what efforts they made to 
 keep their gravity. Do not think, however, that Balzac 
 ever sought to amuse the gallery ; he simpl}^ 3'ielded to 
 a sort of inward intoxication, — sketching with rapid 
 strokes and with comic intensity and incomparable 
 drollery the fantastic images that were dancing in the 
 dark chambers of his brain. At the time when he was 
 writing Un Debut dans la vie he wanted proverbs for 
 
Honors de Balzac. 223 
 
 his rapin Mistigris, and Madame de Girardin, on the 
 other hand, was also in search of sayings for the famous 
 lad}^ with the seven Uttle chairs in the ' Courrier de 
 Paris.' M3- help was occasionally called in ; and if a 
 stranger had entered the room and seen Delphine, with 
 her white fingers thrust through the meshes of her 
 golden hair, profoundly thinking, and Balzac sitting on 
 the arm of a big chair (in which Emile de Girardin was 
 usually asleep), his hands at the bottom of his trousers 
 pockets, his waistcoat rubbed up over his stomach, one 
 foot dangling with rhythmic motion, his face expressing 
 by its contracted muscles some extraordinary' struggle 
 of the mind, and me, curled up among the cushions of 
 the sofa like an hallucinated theriaki, — this stranger, I 
 say, would never have suspected what we were about ; he 
 would have thought that Balzac was dreaming of an- 
 other Xys, Madame de Girardin of a role for Rachel, 
 and I of some sonnet. Ah, the good evenings which 
 can never come again ! Who would then have believed 
 that grand and superb woman, carved in antique mar- 
 ble, that sturd}', robust, apparently long-lived man, 
 who had within him the vigor of a wild boar and a bull, 
 half Hercules, half faun, and was framed to see a hun- 
 dred years, would soon be laid to sleep, one at Mont- 
 martre, the other in Pere-Lachaise, and I should alone 
 remain to record these memories already so far awaj^, 
 and about to perish forever unless I write them down ? 
 
 " Balzac had the makings of a great actor in him. He 
 possessed a full, sonorous, resonant voice, which he knew 
 how to moderate and render soft at will, and he read 
 admirably, — a talent lacking to most actors. When 
 he related anything he played it, with intonations, facial 
 
224 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 expressions, and gestures which no comedian ever ex- 
 celled, as I think. On one occasion, at Les Jardies, he 
 read us Mercadet^ — the original Mercadet^ fuller and 
 more complicated than the pla}^ afterwards arranged 
 for the Gymnase, with tact and ability, b}' d'Ennery. 
 Balzac, who read like Tieck, without indicating either 
 acts or scenes or names, assumed a special voice per- 
 fectly recognizable for each personage. The organs 
 with which he endowed the various creditors were of 
 spleen-dispelling comedj' ; the}' were of all kinds, hoarse, 
 honied, hurried, drawling, threatening, plaintive. This 
 one yelped, that one mewed, others growled and grum- 
 bled and howled, in tones possible and impossible. In 
 the first place. Debt chanted a solo, presently sustained 
 b}' a vast chorus of creditors ; they came from every- 
 where, — from behind the stove, from under the bed, 
 from the drawers of the bureau ; the flue of the chimney 
 vomited them ; they squeezed through the ke3'-hole ; 
 some scaled the window like lovers ; others sprang, like 
 a jack-in-the-box, from a trunk, — 'twas a mob, an up- 
 roar, an invasion, a tidal wave. In vain Mercadet 
 tried to shake them off, others came to the assault, and 
 far on the horizon dark swarms of creditors were sug- 
 gested, like legions of ants making for their prey. I 
 don't know whether the play were better so, but no 
 representation of it ever had the same effect upon me. 
 
 " During this reading of Mercadet Balzac, who had 
 sprained his ankle b}' slipping on his steep property-, 
 lay on a sofa in the salon of Les Jardies. Some sharp 
 thing passing through the covering pricked his leg, and 
 annoyed him. Picking it out, he said, ' The chintz is 
 too thin, the hay comes through.' Franpois, the Caleb 
 
Honore de Balzac. 225 
 
 of this Ravenswood, not liking any jest on the splen- 
 dors of the manor, corrected his master and said * the 
 horse-hair.' * Then that upholsterer has cheated me ! * 
 cried Balzac ; ' I particularly told him to put ha3\ 
 Damned thief! ' 
 
 " The splendors of Les Jardies, however, existed only 
 in dreams. All Balzac's friends remember how they as- 
 sisted in decorating the walls (left in the bare plaster 
 or covered with gray paper) by writing thereon, ' Rose- 
 wood panels,* ' Gobelin tapestries,' ' Venetian mir- 
 rbr,' ' Picture by Raphael.' Gerard de Nerval had 
 already decorated an apartment in the same way. As 
 for Balzac, he really imagined it was all gold and mar- 
 ble and silk, — but, though he never furnished Les 
 Jardies, and though he did sometimes make his friends 
 laugh with his chimeras, he has built himself an eternal 
 dwelling, a monument more durable than bronze or 
 marble, a vast city, peopled with his creations and 
 gilded with his glory. 
 
 '' No one can pretend to write a complete biography 
 of Balzac. All relations with him were broken into from 
 time to time by gaps, absences, disappearances. Work 
 ruled his life ; and he had, with a very kind and tender 
 heart, the selfishness of a hard worker. Who would 
 have dreamed of being angrj- with him for negligence 
 or apparent forgetfulness after seeing the results of his 
 flights and seclusions? When, the work accomplished, 
 he reappeared, you would have thought he had parted 
 from you the night before ; he took up the interrupted 
 conversation as though six months had not elapsed. 
 He travelled much in France to study the localities 
 where he placed his provincial and his country scenes ; 
 
 15 
 
226 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 and he stayed with friends in Touraine or La Charente, 
 where he found a peace his creditors did not alwa^'s 
 let him have in Paris. Occasionally, after some great 
 work was finished, he allowed himself a longer excur- 
 sion, to Germany, Northern Italy, or Switzerland ; but 
 such journeys rapidly made, with anxieties about notes 
 falling due, work to deliver, and a limited viaticum, 
 often harassed him more than the}^ rested himl "^ 
 
 "Contrary to the habit of many illustrious literary 
 men who are fed by their own genius, Balzac read a 
 great deal and very rapidly. He loved books, an5 
 had collected a fine library which he meant to be- 
 queath to his native town, until the indifference of his 
 compatriots towards him made him relinquish the idea. 
 He absorbed in short time the voluminous works of 
 Swedenborg belonging to his mother, who was occu- 
 pied in studying mysticism at one period. To this we 
 owe jSeraphita^ one of the most wonderful productions 
 of modern literature. Never did Balzac approach — 
 never did he clasp ideal beauty so closely as in this 
 book. The ascent of the mountain has indeed some- 
 thing ethereal, supernatural, luminous, which lifts 3'ou 
 above this earth. The onl}^ colors he emploj'S are the 
 blue of the heavens and the white of the snow, with 
 pearly tones for shadows. I know nothing more en- 
 trancing than that opening. The panorama of Norway' 
 with " its serrated edges like a granite lace " seen 
 from those heights, dazzles me and gives me vertigo. 
 Louis Lambert shows the same influences ; but soon 
 Balzac, who had taken wings from the mj'stics to soar 
 into the infinite, returned to this earth on which we 
 dwell ; though his strong lungs were able to breathe the 
 
Honor e de Balzac, 227 
 
 subtile air which is death to feebler beings. After these 
 flights he returned from that upper-world to our lower 
 life ; perhaps his noble genius would too quickly have 
 passed from sight had he continued to rise to the im- 
 measurable immensities of the science of mind, and 
 we ought to consider it a fortunate thing that Louis 
 Lambert and Seraphita were the only doors he opened 
 into the world invisible. 
 
 *' As 3'ears went on his hard life of nocturnal work 
 did, in spite of his strong constitution, leave certain 
 traces on Balzac's face ; and I find in Albert Savarus a 
 portrait of him, drawn by his own hand, which describes 
 him as he was in 1842, with slight modifications, — 
 fewer kilograms of weight, for instance, as became the 
 man beloved by the Duchesse d'Argaiolo and Made- 
 moiselle de Watteville. This story, one of the least 
 known and least quoted of all his books, contains many 
 details on his habits of life and work ; one might even 
 find, if it were allowable to lift the veil, confidences of 
 another nature. 
 
 "Balzac, who has painted women so marvellousl}-, 
 must have known them well. In one of his letters to 
 his sister, written when he was quite young and com- 
 pletely unknown, he reveals the ideal of his life in two 
 words, ' to be famous and to be loved.' The first, 
 which all other artists seek, was realized from point to 
 point. Did the second meet with its fulfilment? In 
 the opinion of those who were most intimate with him 
 he practised the chastity he recommended to others. 
 During our intimac}', which lasted from 1836 until his 
 death, onl}^ once did Balzac make allusion, in the ten- 
 derest and most respectful terms, to an attachment of 
 
228 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 his earl}' 3'outh ; and even then he onlj^ told me the 
 first name of the woman whose memory, after so many 
 years, brought the moisture to his eyes. But, had he 
 told me more than he did, I would certainly not abuse 
 his confidence ; the genius of a great writer belongs to 
 the world, but his heart is his own. I pass lightl}- over 
 this tender and delicate side of Balzac's life, — all the 
 more that I have nothing to say of it that does not do 
 him honor. His reserve and silence were those of an 
 honorable man. If he was loved as he desired in his 
 dreams, the world has known nothing of it. 
 
 " Do not imagine after this that Balzac was austere or 
 prudish in language ; the author of the Contes Drola- 
 tiques was too imbued with Rabelais, too pantagruelist 
 hinaself not to have his merriment ; he knew good 
 stories, and could invent them ; his indecorous jol- 
 lit}', interlarded with Gallic plain-speaking, would have 
 frightened the canting, and made them cry out, ' Shock- 
 ing ! ' But those laughing, loquacious lips were silent 
 as the grave where serious feelings were concerned. 
 Scarcely did he allow his nearest and dearest to guess 
 at his love for a foreigner of distinction, — a love which 
 I may speak of here because it was crowned hy mar- 
 riage. It was this passion, dating back a long while, 
 which explained his distant journej^s, the object of 
 which was a mj^ster}' to his friends until almost the 
 last of his life. 
 
 " About the year 1844 it was that Balzac first began 
 to show a taste for old furniture, chests, potter}', and 
 Chinese vases. The smallest bit of worm-eaten wood 
 which he bought in the rue de Lappe always had some 
 illustrious beginning ; and he made out circumstantial 
 
Honore de Balzac. 229 
 
 genealogies for all his bibelots. He concealed them 
 here and there, on account, he said, of his creditors, 
 in whose reality I was beginning by this time to lose 
 faith. I even amused myself by spreading a report 
 that Balzac had become a millionnaire, and that he 
 bought old stockings of the ragman in which to keep 
 his ounces, doubloons, Genoese gold-pieces, and double- 
 louis, after the manner of Pere Grandet. I told every- 
 where of his three vats, like those of Aboulcasem, filled to 
 the brim with carbuncles and dinars and omans. ' Theo 
 will get my throat cut with his nonsense ! ' said Balzac, 
 provoked and delighted. 
 
 '' What gave some color to m}" joke was the new resi- 
 dence which Balzac had lately bought in the rue For- 
 tunee, quartier Beaujon, then less populated than it is 
 now. Here he occupied a mysterious little house which 
 sheltered the new fancies of my sumptuous financier. 
 When you made your way into this retreat, which was 
 not at all easy, for the master of the house denied him- 
 self to visitors, you beheld a vast number of luxurious 
 and comfortable details much in contradiction to the 
 poverty he affected. He admitted me one da}', and 
 showed me first a dining-room, panelled in old oak, 
 with table, mantelpiece, buffets, shelves, and chairs in 
 carved wood, fit to rouse the envy of Berruguete, 
 Cornejo Duque, or Verbruggen ; then a salon in gold 
 damask, with doors, cornices, plinths and window-cas- 
 ings in ebony ; a library, with ranges of shelves inlaid 
 with tortoise-shell and copper in the style of Boulle ; a 
 bath-room done in black and yellow marble, and finished 
 in stucco ; a dome-roofed boudoir full of old pictures 
 restored by Edmond Hedouin ; and a gallery lighted 
 
230 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 from above, which I recognized later in Cousin Pons. 
 All sorts of curiosities were on the etageres ; Dresden 
 and Sevres porcelains, and specimens of pale-green 
 crackle. On the staircase, which was covered by a car- 
 pet, were tall Chinese vases and a magnificent lantern 
 suspended by a red-silk cord. 
 
 *' ' You certainly have emptied one of Aboulcasem*s 
 vats ! ' I said, laughing. ' You see I was right in call- 
 ing you a million naire.' 
 
 " ' I am as poor as ever,' he replied, with a deprecat- 
 ing air ; ' nothing of all this is mine. I have furnished 
 the house for a friend whom I am expecting. I am 
 onl}' the porter of the hotel.' 
 
 '^I quote his actual words. He made the same an- 
 swer to other persons, who were as much puzzled as I 
 was by it. The mystery was soon after explained by 
 his marriage with a lad}' whom he had long loved. 
 
 " Poster! t}' has begun for Balzac ; every da}' his fame 
 grows greater. When he mingled with his contempo- 
 raries he was ill-appreciated ; he was seen onl}- b}' frag- 
 ments and under aspects that were often unfavorable. 
 Now, the edifice that he built rises higher and higher as 
 we recede from it — like the cathedral of some town, 
 hidden at its base by clustering houses, but seen on the 
 horizon in all its vastness above the diminished roofs. 
 The building is not completed ; but such as it is, it 
 awes us by its immensit}', and future generations will 
 ask who was the giant who raised those might}' blocks 
 and constructed that Babel in which a whole society is 
 humming." 
 
Honore de Balzac. 231 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HIS sister's narrative concluded. 
 
 I AM obliged, though unwillingly, to speak of a law- 
 suit which my brother was compelled to institute in 
 1836 against the " Revue de Paris," in relation to Le 
 Lys dans la YalUe. Not that I wish to revive en- 
 mities, God forbid ! but this suit affected his life too 
 seriously to allow me to pass it over in silence ; it 
 reduced him, for a time, to the distress and anxiety of 
 his first literary jears just as he was about to triumph 
 over them, by depriving him of the support of reviews 
 and newspapers, and by exciting much malevolence 
 against him. 
 
 The facts were these : While Le Lys dans la Vallee 
 was in course of publication in the '' Revue de Paris," 
 friends in St. Petersburg informed my brother that the 
 work was being published in full in that city, though 
 less than half had been issued in Paris. Supposing 
 that this was done without the knowledge of the editor, 
 Honore hastened to inform him of the injury to tlieir 
 mutual interests. He then discovered that the editor 
 himself, believing no doubt that he acted within his 
 rights, was directing the publication in Russia. My 
 brother objected ; the editor became angry, and would 
 not listen to an}' amicable arrangement. Honore then 
 
232 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 told him _ that he should take the case to the courts 
 and ask for a legal decision on the rights of authors. 
 He would not allow such a wrong to pass, for it might 
 be made a precedent in future 3'ears as much to the 
 injury of his brother- writers as to his own. 
 
 To bring such a suit as this was daring a great deal ; 
 for whether won or lost it was certain to have fatal con- 
 sequences to Honore independently of the question of 
 money, which was so important to him ; for no one 
 could doubt that the " Revue" would close its columns 
 to him and become his enemy. Such considerations, 
 however, could not stop him, and he brought the suit. 
 What was his amazement when liis antagonist appeared 
 in court armed with certificates of good repute and 
 literary honor ^ signed by nearly all his brother writers, 
 whose interests as well as his own he was endeavoring 
 to defend at his personal risk and peril. Honore was 
 deeply hurt at what he thought disloyalty. For a long 
 time he divided his fellow-authors into two camps : 
 those who had signed and those who refrained from 
 signing. And when his anger was over the want of 
 logical common-sense in the former still provoked him. 
 
 His rights were evident, however ; he won the case, 
 and with it a great many enemies. 
 
 This lawsuit, together with the book entitled Illu- 
 sions perdues^ in which he has drawn a picture of the 
 feuilletonists, exasperated the press against him ; and, 
 so bitter are literar}^ hatreds, even his death has not 
 disarmed them all. He troubled himself verj^ little 
 about such attacks, and he often brought us the papers 
 or periodicals in which the worst appeared, and read us 
 the articles. 
 
Honore de Balzac, 233 
 
 ''Just see what a state of mind those fellows are 
 in," he would say. *' Fire awa}', my dear enemies, the 
 armor is proof: it saves advertising; your praises 
 would leave the public indifferent, but your insults will 
 wake them up. Don't the}' howl ! If I were rich, 
 people might say I paid them. However, we mustn't 
 say a word; if they get the idea they are doing me 
 good they are capable of holding their tongues." 
 
 We thought otherwise, and the attacks troubled us. 
 
 '' How silly you are to taJce them to heart," he would 
 say. "Can critics make my work good or bad? let 
 time, the great umpire, show ; if these fellows are 
 wrong the public will see it some day or other, and 
 injustice then becomes a benefit to those it has in- 
 jured. Besides, these guerillas of art hit true some- 
 times; and by correcting the faults the}^ point out my 
 work is improved, — in fact, I really owe them some 
 gratitude." 
 
 Therefore he would make neither remonstrance nor 
 explanations. Once only he broke the rule of silence 
 he had laid down for himself by writing the Mono- 
 graphic de la presse. This work, sparkling with wit 
 in ever}' line, was wrung from him by his friends ; they 
 accused him of weakness, almost of cowardice ; he 
 showed his claws to oblige them ; but he afterwards re- 
 gretted the work, which wronged, he thought, his char- 
 acter if not his talent. 
 
 The fatal consequences of this struggle with the 
 "Revue de Paris" are told in the following letter, 
 written from the rue des Batailles, at Chaillot, where 
 he lived after leaving the rue Cassini, and before he 
 inhabited Les Jardies : — 
 
234 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 " Your husband and Sophie came yesterday, and ate 
 a horrible dinner in my bachelor's den at Chaillot ; it 
 was the more unseemly because the kind brother had 
 been running about all day on mj' account. 
 
 " I have just concluded a good arrangement with the 
 ' Estafette.' The other journals will come back to me 
 some day ; the}" need me. Besides, have they taken 
 my brain-fields from me, or my literary Adneyards, or 
 the woods of intellect? are there not other publishers 
 to fall back on? Some publishers, not understanding 
 their real interests (that is incredible to you, isn't it?), 
 prefer books which have not appeared in a periodical. 
 This is not the time to enlighten them ; though it is 
 quite clear that a previous publication saves them the 
 cost of advertising, and that the more a book is known 
 the better it will sell. 
 
 " Don't fret therefore ; there is no danger as j^et in 
 the domicile ; I am tired, it is true, even ill, but I have 
 just accepted Monsieur de Margonne's invitation to 
 spend two months at Sache, where I shall rest and take 
 care of myself. I shall attempt something dramatic, 
 while I finish I^ere Goriot and correct La Recherche 
 de VAbsolu. I shall begin with Marie Touchet ; it will 
 make a strong piece in which I can bring strong char- 
 acters on the stage. 
 
 "I will not sit up so late; don't worry too much 
 about that. Let us be just ; if troubles have given me 
 a liver-complaint I have come honestly b}^ it. But halt 
 there, Mistress Death ; if j^ou do come, let it be to shift 
 my burden, for I have not yet accomplished m}" task ! 
 Don't therefore worry yourself too much, Laure ; the 
 sky will come blue again. 
 
Honore de Balzac. 235 
 
 *' The Medecin de Campagne is being reprinted; it 
 was out of print ; that 's nice, is n't it? 
 
 ''The widow Bechet^ has been sublime; she has 
 taken upon herself four thousand francs for proof cor- 
 rections, which really belonged to me ; that 's nice, too, 
 isn't it? 
 
 *' Rel}^ upon it, if God grants me life, I shall have a 
 noble place in the future, and we shall all be happy. 
 Let us be merry, my good sister ; the house of Balzac 
 shall triumph ! Shout it aloud with me, very loud, that 
 Dame Fortune may hear us, and for God's sake don't 
 fret." 
 
 The letter which follows shows him in one of those 
 moments of discouragement which no artists, however 
 vigorous in mind they may be, can entirely escape. 
 
 " I am so sad to-day that there must be some sym- 
 pathetic cause for such sadness. Can it be that some 
 one I love is suffering? Is my mother ill? Where is 
 m}' good Surville ? is he well, bod^' and soul ? Have 
 you news of Henry, and is it good? You and 3'our 
 little ones, can it be that any of you are ill? Write me 
 at once and ease my mind. 
 
 " My dramatic attempts are doing badly. I shall 
 give them up for the present. Historical drama re- 
 quires great scenic effects, which I know nothing about, 
 and which, perhaps, I could only find out in a theatre 
 with intelligent actors. As for comedy, Moliere, whom 
 I wish to follow, is a disheartening master ; it takes 
 days upon days to attain to anything good of that 
 kind, and time is alwaj's lacking to me. There are, 
 1 His new publisher. 
 
236 Honord de Balzac. 
 
 besides, such innumerable difficulties to conquer before 
 I can handle even one scene ; and I have not the time 
 to give to tentatives. A masterpiece alone, together 
 with my name, would open the doors of a theatre to me, 
 and I have not attained to masterpieces. Not being will- 
 ing to risk m}' reputation, I should have to find an inter- 
 mediary — more time lost, and the worst of it all is I 
 have not any time to lose. I regret giving up the stage ; 
 dramatic work is more productive than books, and 
 would sooner bring me out of ni}' trials. But hardships 
 and I took each other's measure long ago ; I have con- 
 quered them in the past and I will conquer them again. 
 If I succumb, it is because Heaven wills it, and not I. 
 
 "The painful impression my distresses make upon 
 you ought to prevent me from telling 3'ou of them ; but 
 how can I help relieving m}^ over-full heart by pouring 
 it out to yours ? Yet it is wrong to do so. It takes a 
 more robust organization than you women have to bear 
 the tortures of a writer's life. 
 
 *' I work harder than I ought to, but how can I help 
 it? When at work I forget my troubles, and it is that 
 which saves me ; but 3'ou, you forget nothing. There 
 are persons who are offended by this faculty-, and they 
 add to my sufferings by not comprehending me. 
 
 " I ought to insure my life, to leave, in case of death, 
 a little fortune to my mother. All -debts paid can I meet 
 the costs? I must see about this on my return. 
 
 "The time during which the inspiration of coffee 
 lasts is lessening. It now excites my brain for only 
 fifteen days consecutively, — fatal excitement, too, for 
 it gives me horrible pains in the stomach. That is the 
 same time that Rossini assiojns to its stimulus. 
 
Honore de Balzac. 237 
 
 " Laiire, if I wear out eveiy one about nie I shall not 
 be surprised. An autlior's life is never otherwise ; but 
 to-da}' I have the consciousness of what 1 am and what 
 I shall be. What strength it needs to keep one's iiead 
 sound when the heart suffers thus. To work night and 
 da}^ and see myself constantly attacked when I need 
 the tranquillity of a cloister to do my work ! When 
 shall I have that peace? Shall I ever have it for a 
 single day? onl}' in the grave, perhaps. They will do 
 me justice there ; I like to think so. My best inspira- 
 tions have ever come to me in moments of extreme an- 
 guish ; they will shine upon me still — 
 
 '* 1 stop ; I am too sad ; heaven should have given a 
 happier brother to so affectionate a sister. 
 
 My brother was then overwhelmed by a great heart- 
 sorrow.^ I cannot pubHsh an}' parts of his correspond- 
 ence except that which relates to himself and his books, 
 or shows him under the aspect of son and brother. 
 These restrictions deprive the public of many interest- 
 ing pages, especially those which he wrote me after the 
 death of a person very dear to him. I have never read 
 anything so eloquent as the expression of that grief. 
 
 A friend allows me to print the following letters, by 
 which the reader can judge of my brother in his friend- 
 ships : — 
 
 '' My dear Dablin,^ — Here is the corrected manu- 
 script and the proof-sheets of the Chouans, As soon 
 
 1 Tlie death of Madame de Berny. 
 
 2 Monsieur Theodore Dablin was a rich ironmonger of the rue 
 Saint-Martin, who had the tastes of an artist and a generous 
 heart. He was one of Balzac's most faitliful friends, and often 
 lielped him in his early days with advice and also with means. 
 
238 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 as I put my name to any of my compositions I des- 
 tined this one for you. But the chances which rule the 
 fate of books decreed that the Chouans should not be 
 reprinted since 1834 until now, though many persons 
 have thought the book better than its reputation. If I 
 were of those who make their mark upon their epoch 
 this dedication might be of value in future years ; but 
 neither you nor I know the solution of that enigma. 
 Therefore consider it only as a proof of the friendship 
 which remains in my heart, though you have not culti- 
 vated it for many years. Ever 3'ours." 
 
 The dedication of the Chouans reads thus : ''To the 
 first friend, the first work." 
 
 '' My dear Dablin, — My sister tells me that an ex- 
 pression which escaped me has hurt your feelings. It 
 would be knowing me \qv\ little to think me a half- 
 friend. It is nearly eighteen years since that Easter 
 da}^ when, passing through the place Vendorae between 
 you and Monsieur P. le H., close to the column, I (be- 
 ing then very young) felt and said what I could be 
 some day. You said that honors and prosperity 
 changed men's hearts. I answered that nothing could 
 change mine in its affections. That is true ; I have 
 been false to none ; to-day all those who have been m}" 
 true friends are on a footing of a perfect equalit3\ If 
 3^ou saw more of me yoxx would know this. I have re- 
 mained very much of a child in spite of the reputation 
 I have won; only I have the selfishness of a hard 
 worker. Sixteen hours a day given to the construction 
 of a great work, which will one da}' be gigantic, leaves 
 me little time to dispose of. This deprivation of the 
 pleasures of the heart is the heaviest tax I pay to the 
 
Honore de Balzac, 239 
 
 future. As for the pleasures of the world and of life, 
 art has killed them all without one regret from me. 
 
 "I think that intellect and feeUng make all men 
 equal. Therefore, m}- friend, never again put into the 
 singular what I say of the masses. I have been four 
 times to your house to see you and you are off I don't 
 know where. If I am unable to soothe your wounded 
 heart in person, this letter will tell you how great my 
 astonishment was when my sister told me I had hurt 
 you. 
 
 ** Adieu; a long letter like this is a luxury to me. 
 Heartfelt regards, and ever yours." 
 
 My brother, going four times to find Monsieur Dablin, 
 who lived at a great distance, to assure him that a 
 rough remark which escaped him in a discussion was 
 said without the slightest personal meaning, was cer- 
 tainly not a lukewarm friend. 
 
 The letter which follows was addressed to my friend 
 Mme. Carraud, in answer to one from her on the Physi- 
 ologie du Mariage, which incurred her displeasure. 
 
 *' The feeling of repulsion which you had on reading 
 the first pages of the book I sent you, is too honorable 
 and too delicate for any mind, even that of the author, 
 to be offended by it. It proves that you do not belong 
 to a world of duplicity and treacher}', that you know 
 nothing of a social existence which blasts all things, 
 and that you are worthy of a solitude where man is 
 ever great and noble and pure. It is perhaps unfortu- 
 nate for the author that you did not overcome that first 
 feeling which naturally seizes an innocent heart at the 
 
240 Honorc de Balzac. 
 
 hearing of a crime, the picturing of evil in the language 
 of Juv(?nal, Rabelais, Persius, or any other satirist of 
 the same kind. Had yon done so I think you would 
 have been reconciled to tlie book after reading certain 
 strong lessons, certain vigorous pleas in behalf of wo- 
 man's virtue. 
 
 *' But I cannot blame 3-ou for a repugnance which 
 does 3'ou honor. How could I be hurt with 3-ou for be- 
 longing to 3'our sex? I therefore humbl3" ask your 
 pardon for the involuntary offence, against which, if 
 3'ou remember, I had warned 3'ou ; and I beg 3'ou to 
 believe that the severe judgment 3'ou pronounce upon 
 the book cannot alter the sincerit3' of the friendship 
 3'OU suffer me to feel for 3'OU. . . . 
 
 '' Forgive me, dear, m3' jokes about the mone3" 
 earned b3' writing. The3- have shocked 3'ou ; but the3' 
 were reall3' as boyish as a great deal that I do and sa3\ 
 Do 3'OU think money really compensates for my work 
 and health? No, no! If my imagination runs awa3^ 
 with me sometimes, I soon come back to the noble and 
 the true ; do believe that. 
 
 " 1 am now writing for the ' Journal de I'Europe Lit- 
 teraire/ where I have a note of five thousand francs to 
 meet. At the time that journal came near failing liter- 
 ary men pledged themselves to help it. It is the last 
 time I will involve myself in that wa3'. I ought not, in 
 order to do good to some, to do wrong to others." 
 
 My brother was serious in all his thoughts, and it 
 must not be supposed (as man3' have imagined) that 
 the learning and the science on which he touches from 
 time to time in his books were lightly studied and then 
 
Honore de Balzac. 241 
 
 forgotten. What he knew he did not know superfi- 
 cially ; where he was ignorant he naivel}* admitted his 
 ignorance ; and when he had to treat of certain subjects 
 which he had not studied, he consulted those who spe- 
 ciall}' understood them, and was careful to acknowledge 
 openl}' the service the}' had rendered to him. There 
 was pride, perhaps, in such acknowledgments. He was 
 capable of thinking that nothing but lack of time kept 
 him from knowing everything. 
 
 His constant desire for mone}^, which has been so 
 often blamed, will be, I think, understood and justified 
 by the circumstances I have related. He wanted money 
 in the first place to pay his debts to all. He who craves 
 it from such a motive deserves, surely, the respect of 
 others. My brother, entering life through misfortunes, 
 struggled bravely against the storm like the Portuguese 
 poet, lifting high above the waves that threatened to 
 engulf him the Work he expected should give him fame. 
 Such circumstances still further magnify that work. 
 It is therefore with a feeling of pride that I have here 
 narrated his misfortunes. 
 
 I find a letter of this period which refers to his work. 
 It is dated from La Boulonniere, a little estate near 
 Nemours, where he afterwards placed the scene of his 
 Ursiile Mirouet. 
 
 *' La Fleiir des pois [subsequently called Le Contrat 
 de mariage] is finished. I have succeeded, I think, in 
 what I wished to do. The single scene of the signing 
 of the marriage contract shows the future of the couple. 
 You will find in it a touch which 1 think intensely comic ; 
 the struggle between the young and the old notariat. I 
 
 16 
 
242 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 have managed to attract attention to a discussion of that 
 act. This book is one of the chief scenes in the series 
 of private life ; later, I shall write the Inventaire apres 
 deces, in which the horrible mingles with the comic. 
 Appraisers ought to know a good deal about human 
 turpitude ; I shall make them talk. . . . 
 
 "All 3^ou write about my purchase of the bit of 
 ground at Ville-d'Avray does not affect it. You don't 
 seem to understand that that piece of real estate is an 
 investment which represents what I owe to ni}" mother ; 
 I have not the time to discuss it now ; but I will con- 
 vince you when we meet." 
 
 The attacks against my brother increased rather than 
 lessened ; the critics, unable to repeat the same things 
 forever, changed their batteries and accused him of im- 
 morahty. It was the best means in their power of doing 
 him harm, and of alienating the public, who began to be 
 alarmed and to manifest ill-will against the author of the 
 Comedie Ilumaine. His works were forbidden in Spain 
 and in Italy, more especiallv in Rome. Immorality, 
 which is easy to judge of in actions, is difficult to de- 
 fine in works of art. Are not pictures of vice as instruc- 
 tive on the stage or in books as pictures of virtue? 
 What writer, unless it be Florian or Berquin, has escaped 
 the charge of immoralit}' from contemporary critics? It 
 is the resource of such critics when the}' have nothing 
 to say on the literary value of works. Moliere was their 
 target for his Tartufe, Richardson for his Lovelace, 
 that brilliant and vicious man. What did they not say 
 about the house to which Lovelace takes Clarissa? 
 What outcries followed the Manon Lescaut of Provost ! 
 
Honore de Balzac, 243 
 
 These accusations were very injurious to my brother ; 
 the}' grieved him deeply, and sometimes the}' dislieart- 
 ened him. 
 
 ''Those men persist in ignoring the ensemble of my 
 work in order that they may pick the details to pieces," 
 he said. " My blushing critics veil their faces before 
 certain personages in the Gomedie Hiimaine^ who are, 
 unfortunatel}', as true as the others and set in strong 
 relief in my vast picture the morals of the present da}'. 
 There are vices in our time as there were in former times. 
 Do they wish, in behalf of innocence, that I should vow 
 to purity all the two or three thousand personages who 
 figure in the Comedie Humainef I should like to see 
 them in action ! I did n't invent the Marneffes, male 
 and female, tlie Hulots, the Philippe Brideaus whom 
 everybody elbows in our worn-out civilization. I write 
 for men^ and JiQt,_ for young ^irls. But I defy them to 
 cite a single page in which religion or the family is at- 
 tacked. Such injustice revolts the soul and saddens the 
 heart ! What tortures success is made of ! " he added, 
 dropping his head in his hands. " But after all, why 
 complain ? " 
 
 Is it not, in truth, a condition of superiority that such 
 minds shall be tortured? Is not their crown too often 
 of thorns, which the vulgar acclaim ironically, denying 
 their kingship until the day when death gives them im- 
 mortality ? My brother has said somewhere in his works 
 that " Death is the consecration of genius." 
 
 It is right, however, to say that if Balzac was often 
 wounded by those who wilfully misrepresented his ideas 
 and his character, and also by those who really did not 
 comprehend him, he sometimes met with triumphs which 
 
244 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 avenged him for injustice. One only of these triumphs 
 can I relate here. 
 
 One evening, in Vienna, he was entering a concert- 
 room when the whole audience rose to salute the author 
 of the Comedie Humaine. As he passed through the 
 crowd on his wa}' out, a young man seized his hand 
 and put it to his lips, saying: "I kiss the hand that 
 wrote Serophita ! " 
 
 ' ' There was such enthusiasm and conviction in that 
 3'oung face," Honore said to me, *' that the sincerity of 
 this homage went to my heart; they ma}' den}' m}^ 
 talent if they choose, but tlie memory of that student 
 will always comfort me." 
 
 The man is doubtless still living ; should these words 
 meet his eye he will perhaps be glad to know that he 
 gave a joy to the great writer, a joy which he gar- 
 nered in his memory. 
 
 The letters which I have given will enable the public to 
 judge of the ardor of his mind and the warmth of a heart 
 that no disappointments ever chilled. To read his cor- 
 respondence makes one giddy ; how labors, hopes, and 
 projects succeed each other ! what activity of mind ! 
 what courage, reborn incessantl}^ ! what riches of or- 
 ganization ! If sorrows of the heart (which were not 
 lacking to him) or weariness of mind and body caused 
 some discouragements now and then, how he conquered 
 them, recovering immediately his robust energy, and that 
 strength for work which never failed him ! 
 
 The Balzac of society was no longer the man who 
 had poured out his troubles to his family in his talk 
 and letters. In the world he was amiable, brilliant, 
 and knew so well how to conceal his cares that he 
 
Honors de Balzac, 245 
 
 passed for the equal of the prosperous ; conscious of 
 his own intellect he willingly took precedence of others. 
 His poverty he proudly concealed, because he did not 
 wish for pity ; had he felt himself freer in action, more 
 independent of other men, he would proudly have 
 avowed it. It was through misfortune that Balzac 
 came to have his knowledge of social life. Guided by^ 
 the genius of observation he roamed the valleys and 
 the heights of the social state ; studied, like Lavater, 
 on the faces about him the stigmata which express to 
 the eye all passions and all vices ; collected his types 
 in the human bazaar like an antiquary ; chose his curi- 
 osities, evoked his types in places where they were use- 
 ful to him ; placing them on the first or the second 
 plane according to their value ; distributing light and 
 shade with the magic of a ^reat artist who knows the 
 power of contrasts, — in short, he imprinted on each of 
 his creations the names, features, ideas, language, and 
 character that belong to them, and which give them 
 such individuality that amid that teeming crowd not 
 one is confounded with another. 
 
 He had a singular theory about names ; declaring 
 that invented names did- not give life to imaginar}^ 
 beings, whereas those that were actually borne endowed 
 them with vitality. He found those that he took for 
 the personages in the Comedie Humaine wherever he 
 walked, and he would come home radiant when he had 
 made some good capture of this kind. 
 
 " ' Matifat ! ' ' Cardot ! ' what delightful names ! " he 
 said to me. '' I found ' Matifat ' rue de la Perle, in the 
 Marais. I see my Matifat ! he '11 have the wan face of 
 a cat, and a little corpulence ; because a Matifat can't 
 
246 Honord de Balzac. 
 
 have anything stupendous, 3'ou know. And Cardot? 
 that's another matter — he is a Uttle bit of a man, dry 
 as a pebble, lively and jovial." 
 
 I can quite comprehend his joy in finding the name of 
 Marcas ; but I suspect him of inventing the " Z." 
 
 Knowing the fidelity of certain of his portraits drawn 
 from nature, — for if he took their names from the liv- 
 ing he also took their characters, — we were sometimes 
 frightened by the likenesses, and dreaded the fresh 
 enmities we feared he would excite. 
 
 "How silly you are!" he would say, laughing and 
 shrugging those strong shoulders which did truly bear 
 a world. "Do people know themselves? Are there 
 any mirrors that reflect the moral being? If a Van 
 Dyke like myself painted me I should probably bow to 
 myself as if to a stranger." 
 
 Sometimes he audaciousl}' read his types to those 
 who had posed for them. His audience would highly 
 approve, and while we were looking on, full of anxiety, 
 and thinking that they could not fail to recognize their 
 portrait, they would say: " How true those characters 
 
 are ; 3'ou must have known Monsieur , or Monsieur 
 
 Such-a-one ; that's the very image of them, an actual 
 portrait ! " 
 
 Side by side with those who were unable to recognize 
 themselves were others absoluteh' convinced that cer- 
 tain characters in the ComMie Humaine were theirs. 
 How man}^ women have believed that they inspired his 
 Henriette ! My brother never drew an}' of these dear 
 deceived ones from the pleasant error which made them 
 so ardent in his defence. Let this silence be forgiven 
 him, for he had need of such devotion. 
 
Honors de Balzac, 247 
 
 No author ever inade his plans and combinations so 
 far beforehand, or ever bore them longer in his brain 
 before writing them. He has carried to the grave 
 more than one book fully formed, which he reserved for 
 the days of the maturity of his talent, startled himself 
 at the vast horizons it opened before him. 
 
 " I have not yet reached the point of perfection 
 necessary to touch those great subjects," he said. 
 
 The Essai sur les forces humaines, the Pathologie 
 de la vie sociale, the Histoire des Corps Eiiseignants, 
 and the Monographie de la Vertu, were the titles of 
 some of these books, the pages of which, alas ! remain 
 forever blank. 
 
 Those who know literary art, and who study the 
 works of Balzac, no longer accuse him, as they once 
 did, of following mere chance or some aimless purpose. 
 He did occasionally, in obedience to certain necessities 
 of execution, change a few details, but never the plan 
 of a book, always laid down long in advance. No 
 writer ever chained down so rigidly to the rules of work 
 that prodigious fertility and facility with which nature 
 had endowed him. 
 
 "One should distrust those gifts," he said; "they 
 sometimes lead to sterile superabundance. Boileau 
 was right ; we must continually prune the style, which 
 alone gives permanence to a work." 
 
 The love he had for perfection, and his deep respect 
 for his own talent, and for the public, led him to work 
 too much over his st3'le. Excepting a few books writ- 
 ten under so happy an inspiration that he scarcely 
 retouched them (such as Za Messe de VAtMe^ La Gren- 
 adiere, Le Message^ La Femme Abandonn^e), it was 
 
248 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 only after correcting successively eleven or twelve 
 proofs of the sarae sheet that he gave the " order to 
 print," impatiently awaited by the poor compositors, so 
 wearied by his corrections that they could each do onl}- 
 one page at a time of his writings. While he was thus 
 requiring so many proofs of one sheet, and reducing by 
 a great deal his own profits (for publishers would no 
 longer bear the cost of his corrections) he was accused 
 by his traducers of a mercantile spirit in the printing of 
 his books. The compositors who printed them must 
 have laughed if they heard this. When injustice be- 
 comes grotesque there is nothing else to do ; and at- 
 tacks of this kind did not trouble my brother. What 
 anno3'ed him far more was to hear those who did not 
 understand his work pretend to praise it. 
 
 His least labored books — those which won for him 
 earl}" in his career the title of the " most prolific of 
 our novelists " — were those which gave him his reputa- 
 tion. Sheltered by that humble title, which did not 
 imply any great superiority and excited no jealousy, he 
 was able to print his more serious works, for which, 
 without this reputation, he might not have succeeded in 
 getting a publisher. He did not like men to judge him 
 only by those novels and tales the horizons of which 
 were limited. To many persons, specially those of 
 academic tastes, Balzac was only "• the father of Eugenie 
 Grandet." That was as far as such persons went with 
 him, and beyond that they allowed him neither capacity 
 nor fame. I do not feel to that book as my brother 
 did ; and I do not approve of diminishing the merits of 
 such a literary gem, which has been justly compared 
 to a painting of Mieris, or Gerard Dow ; but I do think 
 
Honore de Balzac. 249 
 
 that many of his books surpass it in mental depth, 
 if they cannot surpass it in truth and in finish of 
 execution. 
 
 The title " most prolific of our novelists," which was 
 useful to him in the beginning, was injurious in some 
 respects, and especially in this, that Balzac remained 
 unknown to men of serious minds, who thought this 
 prolific writer unworthy to occupy even their leisure 
 hours ; while, on the other hand, more frivolous per- 
 sons, who fed upon novels exclusively, skipped as wear- 
 isome or digressive, the serious parts of his books, for 
 which the fictitious parts were often only the setting ; 
 consequentl}', man}^ of those who read the Comedie 
 JSumaine knew no more about it than those who never 
 read it at all. 
 
 Thus it was that Balzac did not at first obtain the 
 place to which he has a right on the book-shelves of 
 thinkers, beside Rabelais and Shakspeare and Moliere, 
 through his glorious relationship to those great spirits. 
 
 Friends and relatives who followed Balzac from the 
 cradle to the grave can say confidently that tliis man, 
 so clear-sighted, so lucid in thought, was confiding and 
 simple as a child in his amusements, sweet-tempered 
 and gentle even in his darkest da3's of discouragement, 
 and so amiable in his home that life was good beside 
 him. The man who wrote the Cure de Village^ Les 
 Parents pauvres^ and Les Paysans was like a school- 
 boy in the holidaj's when he took his recreation. He 
 sowed his morning glories along the garden wall at 
 Passy, watched for tiieir blooming in the morning, ad- 
 mired their colors ; went into raptures over the jew- 
 elled armor of some insect; rushed through the Bois 
 
250 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 de Boulogne to Suresnes (where we were then living) 
 to play a game of boston with his family, among whom 
 he was more of a child than his nieces ; laughed at 
 puns, envied the lucky being who had the ' ' gift " of 
 making them, tried to do so himself, and failed, saying 
 regretfully, '' No, that does n't make a pun." He used 
 to cite with satisfaction the only two he had ever made, 
 " and not much of a success either," he avowed in all 
 humility, " for 1 did n't know I was making them" (we 
 even suspected him of embellishing them afterwards). 
 Procerbes retournes, which at one time were much the 
 fashion in the studios, occupied him much ; he was 
 luckier with them than with the puns ; he composed 
 several for his favorite Mistigris {Debut dans la Vie) 
 and for Madame Cremiere in Ursule Mirouet. *' A 
 wife should be the working caterpillar of the house- 
 hold " gave him as much delight as his finest thoughts. 
 ''None of you people would have thought of that! " 
 he said to us. 
 
 He composed mottoes for our lotteries, under which 
 we hid the lots, and would rush in quite joyful when he 
 thought he had some good ones. 
 
 ""An author is good for something," he said quite 
 seriously. 
 
 The music-master, Schmucke, and the banker, 
 Nucingen, whom he made to speak German-French, 
 amused him not less than his dear rapin Mistigris and 
 Madame Cremiere. He laughed the tears into his e3'es 
 when he read to us what he made them say in their 
 terrible jargon. 
 
 Much has been said, and not without reason, of his 
 excessive self-satisfaction ; but it was so frank, and 
 
Honor e de Balzac, 251 
 
 withal so well justified, that those who knew him pre- 
 ferred it to that false humility which often covers far 
 more pride. How could we help forgiving self-satisfac- 
 tion in the man who had put his name to the Medecin 
 de Campagne^ the Recherche de VAbsolu^ the Cure du 
 village^ and so many other great works, when the con- 
 viction of his talent could alone give him the patience 
 and strength necessary for the creation of such works ? 
 It would have been better, no doubt, had he repressed 
 this naive enthusiasm for himself; but it would have 
 been asking the impossible of a man of his frankness 
 and vivacity of feeling. Moreover, we can see in his 
 letters how swiftly doubts followed his greatest satis- 
 factions ; and they were just as sincere as his self-con- 
 ceit. * At such times he would ask anxiously if we 
 thought his works (which were shortening his days) 
 would make him live longer than other men in the 
 minds of his fellows. 
 
 But it must not be supposed that his self-love was 
 deaf and could not hear the truth. We might say 
 to him plainl}', " Such a thing is bad, in our opinion." 
 He would begin by exclaiming, arguing, abusing us 
 perhaps, and declaring that the particular part thought 
 bad was precisely the best in the book. But if, in spite 
 of his anger, we held firm and maintained our own 
 opinion, this firmness made him reflect; he had not lost 
 a single one of our remarks and observations ; he 
 weighed them and he judged them in the solitude of 
 his toilsome nights, and he would come back in the 
 morning to press the hands of the friends who cared for 
 him enough to tell him the truth. 
 
 ** You were right," or, " You were wrong," he would 
 
252 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 say with the same good faith, having as much gratitude 
 in the one case as in the other. And it was such friends 
 whom he really preferred, in spite of his self-conceit. 
 He was the first to laugh at that conceit and to let 
 others laugh, and he was moreover ver}" clever in dis- 
 covering the value of praise and was never duped by 
 unmeaning flattery. He was simple and confiding, but 
 he could not be a fool. 
 
 He admired talent wherever he met it, — equally in his 
 friends as in his enemies, and would defend both against 
 all vulgar attacks which calumniated intellect. How 
 many times he protected, without letting it be known, 
 poor unknown authors whose first works chance had 
 thrown in his way ; he would go himself to the editors 
 of reviews and journals to say, "That man has a fu- 
 ture." And his opinion carried weight. 
 
 An incisive or picturesque phrase sufficed him to 
 present a situation, or the future of a man; and it 
 would be impossible to tell a story better than he, or to 
 talk or read better. In fact, it would not do to let him 
 read his books to you if 3'ou wished to judge of the 
 weak spots ; he could have made an audience admire 
 the verses of Trissotin. 
 
 The egotism for which he has been blamed grew out 
 of his miserable situation and his hard labor. Freed 
 from such pressure he was capable of being helpful to 
 others and devoted ; witness the friendships which he 
 retained to the end of his life ; and certain young liter- 
 ary aspirants could testify that he gave them, more than 
 once, advice and time, his only property. But he who 
 sacrifices his life to live in the future has the right to 
 withdraw from the demands of society, from all those 
 
Honore de Balzac. 253 
 
 little duties which are the life of men of leisure ; and 
 because m}' brother did so withdraw, he does not de- 
 serve to be accused of indifference. The letters which 
 I have cited are a replj' to this reproach of selfishness, 
 and will enable the reader to judge of his heart. But 
 more than this, ho possessed the art of making himself 
 so beloved that in his presence all grievances which, 
 rightly or wrongly, persons had against him were forgot- 
 ten, and nothing remained but the affection they felt for 
 him. The servants who waited on him have never for- 
 gotten him, and yet he was unable to do for them as he 
 wished. From the poor old woman of whom he speaks 
 in Facino Cane (she had taken the place of the " un- 
 intelligent Myself") — who went every morning to the 
 rue Lesdiguieres from the far-off purlieus of the fau- 
 bourg Saint-Antoine, and who used to go and see him 
 wherever he lived afterwards — to Fran9ois, the old 
 soldier, who was one of liis last retainers, all loved him 
 devotedly ; and God knows they had neither leisure 
 nor plent}- when the}' lived with him. 
 
 ''I don't know what it is about him, but I'd serve 
 him for nothing," I have heard one of them sa}^ " You 
 don't feel tired or sleepy if he wants you, and if he 
 scolds you in return, it is all right." 
 
 As for his friendships, it is quite true, as he wrote to 
 Monsieur Dablin, that he betra3'ed none and kept them 
 all. Intimate with man}' of the most remarkable per- 
 sons of his time, they all took pride in his affection and 
 returned it in kind. More than once he left liis work 
 to sta}' with a sick friend ; with him such cl.auJiSLjQf_the_. 
 he art took p recedence of all others. The allurement he 
 felt to the friends he loved was so great that often when 
 
254 Honore de Balzac, 
 
 he went to see them for a moment he sta3'ed hours ; 
 then came remorse and admonitions: — 
 
 " Monster ! wretch ! 3'ou ought to have been making 
 cop3' instead of talking ! " and more time was lost in 
 adding up the number of hours which such pleasures 
 had cost him, — an exorbitant sum, which, beginning 
 with reasonable figures, attained to the fabulous. " For 
 we must reckon the reprints," he said. 
 
 To sum up all, this great spirit had the graces and 
 the charm of those who shine by amiabilit}^ alone. His 
 happy and kindly gayety gave him that serenity of soul 
 which he needed to continue his work ; but foolish 
 indeed are those who pretend to judge of Balzac in 
 his hours of exuberance ; the child-man once at work 
 became the gravest and most profound of thinkers. 
 George Sand, who knew m}- brother well, has spoken 
 nobly of him, being mistaken on one point only; 
 namel}', the extreme sobriet}^ which she attributes to 
 him. His life was not that of an anchorite. Outside 
 of his work, which took precedence of everything, he 
 loved and enjoyed the pleasures of this world ; and I 
 tliink he might have become the most conceited of men 
 had he not also been the most prudent. He, so out- 
 spoken in all that related to himself, never committed 
 any indiscretions in his social relations, and faithfully 
 guarded the secrets of others though be never was able 
 to keep his own. 
 
 I find in his letters the following appreciation of 
 George Sand, whom he called his " brother George," 
 doing homage, no doubt, to her virile genius : — 
 
 " She has none of the littleness of soul nor any of 
 those base jealousies which cloud so many contempo- 
 
Honore de Balzac. 255 
 
 rary talents. Dumas is like her in that respect. George 
 Sand is a ver}' noble friend ; and I would consult her 
 with perfect confidence in moments of doubt as to the 
 logical course to take under such or such circumstances. 
 But I think she lacks the critical sense, at any rate 
 loses the first impulsion of it ; she allows herself to be 
 too easily persuaded, does not hold firmly enough to 
 her own opinions, or know how to contend against the 
 arguments her adversary brings forward." 
 
 My brother used to say, laughingly, in allusion to his 
 want of height, that ".great men were nearly always 
 short; probably because the head should be near the 
 heart, so that the two powers which govern the organi-/ 
 zation should work in harmon}'." 
 
 At home he was always to be seen in a large dressing- 
 gown of white cashmere, lined with white silk, made like 
 the habit of a monk, and fastened round the waist by 
 a silk cord. On his head was the " Dantesque cap'' of 
 black velvet, made for him by his mother, which he first 
 took to wearing in his garret, and continued to wear 
 for the rest of his life. According to the hours at which 
 he went out, his dress was slovenly or \Qvy neat. If he 
 were met in the morning, wearied with twelve hours' 
 hard work, and rushing to the printers with his hat over 
 his eyes, his beautiful hands hidden in shabby gloves, his 
 feet in shoes with high quarters, that were often outside 
 the loose trousers pleated at the waist and held down 
 with straps, he might have been confounded with the 
 common herd. But if his brow were uncovered, if he 
 looked at a passer-by or spoke to him, the most ordinary 
 of men would remember him. His intellect, constantly 
 exercised, had developed to its highest degree a forehead 
 
256 Honore de Balzac, 
 
 naturallj^ vast, the receptacle of man}- lights ! That in- 
 tellect showed itself also in his first words and even in his 
 gestures. A painter might have studied on that mobile 
 face the expression of all sentiments, — joj, pain, energy, 
 discouragement, iron^^ hope, or disappointment, — all 
 conditions of the soul were reflected there. 
 
 He triumphed over the vulgarity which seems to be- 
 long to corpulence by manners and gestures that were 
 full of grace and natural distinction. His hair, the 
 fashion of which he was fond of changing, was always 
 artistic, no matter how he wore it. An immortal chisel 
 has left his features to posterit}'. The bust which David 
 made of m}' brother, then forty-four 3'ears of age, has 
 faithfull}' reproduced his noble brow, and that fine hair 
 (the sign of a physical vigor that equalled his moral 
 vigor), the admirable setting of the eyes, the firm 
 lines of his square nose, the mouth with its curved lips, 
 where good-humor and satire met and mingled, and the 
 chin which completed the pure oval of his face before 
 obesit}' injured its harmon}^ But marble unhappily 
 could not present those torches of the mind, those 
 brown e3'es spangled with gold, like the eyes of a 
 Ij'nx, — e3'es which questioned and answered without 
 the help of words, which saw ideas and feelings, and 
 threw out gleams that seemed to issue from an inv/ard 
 source which poured its ra^^s upon the daylight instead 
 of receiving any from it. 
 
 Balzac's friends will recognize the truth of these 
 words, which those who never knew him may think 
 exaggerated. 
 
 The time may come when I can finish this narrative 
 of my brother's life with an account of his last years. 
 
Honor e de Balzac, 257 
 
 If so, its details will be accompanied by letters which 
 will show the change that experience so dearly bought 
 had wrought in that vast intelligence. The Balzac of 
 those years had outgrown his effusiveness, and had be- 
 come prudent, serious, even grave, but always without 
 misanthropy. I ma^' be able to tell of the last daj's of 
 a life cut down in the vigor of his age and of his genius, 
 before he had completed his work, just as he hoped for 
 happiness and was about to enjoy a tranquillity long- 
 desired, — a grievous fate, which touched the hearts of 
 friends and enemies alike. 
 
 Immense successes, great affections, were the joys 
 of his life ; he had also supreme afflictions ; nothing is i 
 diminutive in the soul of him whom God has endowed j 
 with exquisite sensibilities and a great mind. Who 
 shall dare to pity or to env}^ him? 
 
 I have revealed his nature ; I have shown him in his 
 private life, in his feelings for his family and friends. 
 I have related misfortunes valiantly fought with, cour- 
 ageously borne. I think I have fulfilled my task by 
 making others respect and love the man in the writer 
 whom they admire. Here ends my obligation to him 
 and to all. Strong souls alone can judge him as an 
 author. 
 
 17 
 
258 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 r 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 RETROSPECTIVE. 
 
 It has been said that women are the ke3'stone 
 of Balzac's work. This is true ; but those who have 
 said it show no conception of its real meaning ; and it 
 will be instructive to see what the}- meant by what thej^ 
 said before calling Balzac himself to testify to the sense 
 in which it is true. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve and Jules Janin were the chief critics 
 who in Balzac's lifetime attributed his success to women. 
 In his review of Xa Recherche deVAhsolu Sainte-Beuve 
 says : — 
 
 " In the first place and from the first, M. de Balzac 
 has put in his interests one half of the public, and a 
 very essential half to win. He has made it his up- 
 holder by adroitly flattering certain fibres secretly known 
 to him. ' Woman belongs to M. de Balzac,' says M. 
 Jules Janin ; ' she is his, — in full toilette, in dishabille, 
 in the most trifling particulars of her daily life. He 
 dresses her and he undresses her. He is a milliner, 
 or rather, he is a mantua-maker.' And, in truth, what 
 splendid materials he deals in ; onl}^ they are the worse 
 for wear ; spots of grease and oil are ,on them. M. de 
 Balzac has introduced himself to the sex as a confidant, 
 a consoler, a confessor with a touch of the doctor about 
 him. He knows many things about their sentimental 
 
Honore de Balzac. 259 
 
 and their sensual secrets. Like a doctor he enters their 
 bedroom and speaks in a whisper of mysterious details 
 which confuse the modest. A friend of mine suggests 
 that he has the secret arts and sleight of hand of the 
 accoucheur or the magnetizer. Many women, even 
 respectable ones, are taken in by this. . . . M. de Bal- 
 zac has been fortunate enough to come forward at a 
 moment when the imagination of woman has been 
 greatl}' roused, since the emancipation of July, 1830, by 
 the hopes and promises of Saint-Simonianism." 
 
 After Balzac's death Sainte-Beuve added the follow- 
 ing to his former opinion : — 
 
 ** Who has better painted the belles of the Empire? 
 Above all, who has so delightfully sketched the duch- 
 esses and viscountesses of the close of the Restoration? 
 — those women of thirty who, having had their day, 
 awaited their painter with vague anxiety; so much so 
 that when the}' met, he and they, an electric shock of 
 recognition passed between them. . . . The theor}^ of 
 the woman of thirty, with all her advantages and her 
 positive perfections, is a product of to-da}'. M. de Bal- 
 zac has invented her ; she is one of his most real dis- 
 coveries. The key of his immense success lies here. 
 For this women have forgiven him much, and the}' take 
 his word on all occasions because he has, this once, so 
 well understood them." 
 
 M. Taine, in his flux of words on Balzac, gives but 
 little space or thought to his work on woman and thus 
 dismisses it : — 
 
 *' The nature of woman is made up of nervous deli- 
 cac}', refined and active imagination, native and ac- 
 quired reserve. This is enough to say that it has almost 
 
260 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 always escaped Balzac's comprehension. . . . Wherever 
 there is a deformity or a wound Balzac is there. And 
 what are the promises of happiness and liberty that he 
 offers? — money, carriage, an opera-box. . . . When 
 Balzac tries to paint virtue, religion, or love, he is 
 hampered by their sublimit3\ . . . His finest portraits 
 of women are elsewhere, among the poor grotesque 
 fools, pretentious, silly or nagging, spurred by the 
 devil's claw which their fat libertine of a father, Balzac, 
 never fails to stick into them. . . . Wherever there is a 
 sore or a deformity Balzac is found in his quality as a 
 physiologist." 
 
 Among the critics of the present day Mr. Henry 
 James sa3'S, in substance, that Balzac's women are 
 made up of duplicity, — there are few human accom- 
 plishments for which he expressed so explicit a respect. 
 " Balzac is supposed to have understood the feminine 
 organism as no one else had done before him ; to have 
 had the feminine heart, feminine temperament, feminine 
 nerves at his finger's ends ; to have turned the feminine 
 puppet as it were inside out. ... It may be said that 
 women are the ke3'stone of the Comedie Humaiiie j if 
 they were taken out the whole fabric would collapse. . . . 
 It seems to us that his superior handling of woman is 
 both a truth and a fallac}^ To begin with, he does not 
 take that view of the sex that would commend him to 
 the female sympathizers of the day. There is not a 
 line in liim that would not be received with hisses at 
 an}' convention for giving woman the suflTrage or admit- 
 ting them to Harvard College. ... He takes the old- 
 fasliioned view of woman as the female of man, and in 
 all respects his subordinate. . . . Her metier may be all 
 
Hoiiore de Balzac. 261 
 
 summed up as the art of titillating, in one way or other, 
 the senses of man. Woman has a ' mission ' certainly, 
 and this is it." 
 
 Women themselves have had no voice in this judg- 
 ment so far as the public are aware. It is not likely 
 that many could be found to endorse the views just 
 quoted, because, in the first place (and without touch- 
 ing upon the question of Balzac at all) the tone of these 
 remarks is contemptuous of womanhood. They belong 
 to a period of ideas on which is written passagere. 
 
 When we turn to Balzac himself for their refutation 
 we find that we must go to his life as well as to his 
 books, in order to discover the spirit of his mind towards 
 woman. He was not, as a general thing, in the habit 
 of enunciating principles ; he lived them and made his 
 characters live and illustrate them. W^e may not find a 
 confession of faith on this subject, but enough remains 
 of his words and deeds to show plainl}^ what was his 
 own conception of woman and her relation to man, — 
 what it was, and what it ought to be. 
 
 If we look back to the earliest years when a senti- 
 ment towards women could enter his soul, we find that 
 nothing could exceed the ardor with which he longed to 
 meet a woman-angel ; to him pure love was the coming 
 together of two angelic natures ; and these thoughts 
 kept him pure in heart and deed during his adolescent 
 life. The mind that analyzed itself in Louis Lambert 
 analyzed this particular belief and developed it in 8e- 
 raphita. In that book Balzac, while dealing with the 
 theories of Swedenborg, went far be3'ond them in his 
 perception of the one great truth on which the world 
 should hinge were it not out of joint. 
 
262 Honore de Balzac, 
 
 He saw earl}^ that man is a dual being ; that man 
 aiid woman are needed to express humanity. He saw 
 also that the thread of the Divine which makes man in 
 the image of God is transmitted through woman ; that 
 she is the soul of humanity, regaining full intuition of 
 God. Man is, in himself, not man but male ; unable 
 to bring his powers to bear until he recognizes and ap- 
 propriates Her as his soul ; through her alone he attains 
 to manhood and is enabled to act. She is the trans- 
 mitter of the Divine effluence, the inspirer ; he is the 
 worker, the executor. It is not until her qualities of 
 endurance, love, and intuition are added to his qualities 
 of will, force, and intellect that he is a man at all, capa- 
 ble of an}^ hope or any ambition beyond the grovelling 
 and passing life of his threescore years and ten. Re- 
 ceiving this impulse from her, power is born in him, and 
 he ultimates this power, this effluence, in acts. 
 
 This is no new doctrine. It has existed through the 
 ages ; for it is the essential truth of all things, and the 
 world is out of joint because we have drifted so far 
 away from it. Each soul is an epitome of it, for sex 
 has onlj' an earthly and limited meaning ; the human 
 soul is man and woman both. Once recognized, and 
 the function of woman admitted, "there is no height 
 of goodness or knowledge to which she cannot raise the 
 man ; if only he follows her lead and keeps her free 
 from defilement by Matter and Sense, the direct traffic 
 with which appertains to him. In order properly to 
 fulfil her function in regard to man and attract his gaze 
 upward, she must herself aspire continually to the Divine 
 Spirit within her, the central sun of herself as she is 
 that of the man ; and the clearness with which she dis- 
 
Honors de Balzac. 263 
 
 cerns and transmits the Divine Spirit depends upon her 
 own purit}'. If, withdrawing her gaze from it, she fixes 
 her eyes on things without and below, she falls, and in 
 her fall takes him with her. On the other hand, as 
 Soul and Intuition of Spirit, she leads him, phj'sic^lly 
 and mentally, from dissipation and perdition in the 
 outer and the material. She is the vehicle of the Di- 
 vine Life ; the transmitter of virtue, which is courage, 
 the one stable principle of human evolution." — '' She 
 is the spiritual element in humanity, lacking union with 
 which man must be chained forever to the material, and 
 waste his energies in struggles and labors which, even 
 when most successful, only carry him farther from the 
 true purpose of life, and render emancipation from car- 
 nal conditions more tedious and difficult. Goethe, like 
 Balzac, penetrated to the heart of the great problem in 
 the last scene of the second part of Faust. His Ewig- 
 Weibliche is the divine element which woman both 
 embodies and typifies, and to the purifying and stimu- 
 lating efllluence from which Man is indebted for what- 
 ever degree of enfranchisement from the clogging em- 
 braces of materialism he is able to accomplish. This 
 is the force which zieht uns hinan, which lifts us toward 
 higher spheres and inspires us with nobler aims ; which 
 on the physical plane keeps before our dull and earth- 
 drawn eyes constant examples of self-sacrifice, altruism, 
 patience, compassion, and love stronger than death ; 
 which is most effective in subduing and extirpating the 
 animal tendencies and inclinations from our nature, and 
 in substituting impulses and aspirations which may give 
 us foothold in the path that leads to a life better worth 
 living. In the figure of Seraphita we behold the final 
 
264 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 efflorescence of such endeavor during which the domi- 
 nant impulse has been uniformly spiritual, and through 
 which the carnal elements have been gradually subdued 
 until at length they suffice only to give the mortal form 
 consistency, and to supply the ph3'sical means of that 
 inevitable agony of temptation which is the price of 
 translation to the Divine." ^ 
 
 Much of the miser}' of the world, possibly all of it, is 
 attributable to the ignorance or the rejection of tliis 
 vital truth. The ghastly human miseries which come 
 from what we call " unhappy marriages " are explicable 
 when we consider that the world is practically ignorant 
 of this law. All men are now educated to believe that 
 power and the highest knowledge are vested in them ; 
 all women are now educated to receive this as true. 
 But mark what happens. A man and woman trul}- love 
 each other and marry ; there is ever}^ a-priori reason 
 to suppose that a beautiful and solid life in common 
 will be reared. It fails. Why? Because (1) the man 
 unconsciously looks for this power from his wife, all 
 the while consciously acting as if he were (as he has 
 been taught he is) the source of power ; and because 
 (2) the woman loyally tries to accept what she has 
 been taught, namely, that he is the source of power and 
 knowledge, when all the while she is learning (uncon- 
 sciousl}') that he is not ; and because (3) she is seldom 
 clear enough in her mind to think the truth out as it is, 
 
 1 For a further understanding of this subject, which can be only 
 briefly stated here, the reader is referred to the American transla- 
 tion of Seraphiia and to its introduction. 1 vol. Roberts Bros. : 
 Boston, 1890. Also to "The Perfect Way ; or, The Finding of 
 Christ." 1 vol. Scribner and Welford : New York, 1882. 
 
Honors de Balzac, 265 
 
 and to recognize earl}' enongh her real mission, — which 
 is (applying what has alread}' been said) to transmit 
 illumination and power to him and receive them back 
 from him put into act and use. 
 
 Balzac earh' perceived this truth. It must have 
 come to such a thinker on the threshold of his inquisi- 
 tion into human life. The task lay before him, imposed 
 by the bent of his genius, to exhibit the world to itself 
 under all its aspects, with a picture of its diseases, the 
 secret of its distortions, and the possibilitj- of a return 
 to purit}'. ''In seeing me,'\ he says in his preface to 
 the Comedie Sumaine^ *' collect this mass of facts and 
 paint them as they are, in their element of passionate 
 emotion, some persons have imagined, ver}' erroneously, 
 that I belong to the school of materialists and sensual- 
 ists. They are mistaken. I put no faith in any indefi- 
 nite advancement of Society ; but I believe in the 
 development and progress of the individual human be- 
 ing. Those who find in me a disposition to look on 
 man as a complete being are strangely deceived. Se- 
 raphita is my answer to this accusation. In copying 
 the whole of societ}', and in trying to seize its likeness 
 from the midst of the seething struggle, it necessarily 
 happens that more of evil than of good is shown. Thus 
 some portion of the fresco representing a guilt}' group 
 excites the cry of immorality, while the critics fail to 
 point out a corresponding part which was intended to 
 show a moral contrast. The da}' of impartial judgment 
 has not yet dawned for me ; and I may add that the 
 writer who cannot stand the fire of criticism is no more 
 fit to start upon the career of authorship than a travel- 
 ler is fit to undertake a journey if prepared only for 
 
266 Honore de Balzac, 
 
 fine weather. I shall mereh' remark that, although the 
 most scrupulous moralists have doubted whether Soci- 
 ety is able to show as much good as it shows evil, yet in 
 the pictures that I have made of it the virtuous charac- 
 ters outnumber the bad. Blameworthy' conduct, faults, 
 crimes, have invariably received their punishment, hu- 
 man or divine, evident or secret. In this I have done 
 better than the historian, for I have been free to do so. 
 History cannot, like the novel, hold up the law of a 
 higher ideal. History is, or should be, a picture of the 
 world as it has been ; the novel (to use a saying of 
 Madame Necker) should paint a possible better 
 world. '^ 
 
 And he goes on to give, with pathetic insistence, a 
 list of the virtuous and irreproachable women who are 
 to be found in his works. Reading that list of women^ 
 all strongly individual, nearly all powerful agents in the 
 places assigned to them, we may well wonder that a 
 critic could have found it in his mind to say that Bal- 
 zac's view of woman's metier may be summed up as the 
 art of titillating in one way or another the senses of man. 
 Here are the women in whom Balzac meant to typify 
 the best of human nature, that which has a tendency to 
 uplift and redeem the rest : Constance Birotteau, 
 Eugenie Grandet, Ursule Mirouet, Pierrette Lorain, 
 Marguerite Claes, La Fosseuse, Pauline de Villenoix, 
 Madame Jules, Madame de la Chanterie, Eve Char- 
 don, Mademoiselle d'Esgrignon, Renee de Maucombe, 
 Madame Firmiani, and many others on the second 
 plane. 
 
 The true reason why women are and always have 
 been friends to Balzac, whether as readers and stu- 
 
Honors de Balzac. 267 
 
 dents or in actual life, is because he has perceived and 
 asserted their rightful place in humanity. He has 
 endeavored to inspire them with a sense — through / 
 awful and revolting pictures, it is true — of the conse- 
 quences of falling away from it. He preaches through 
 facts, never didactically ; but women have seen, more or 
 less consciously, his meaning, and, inspired by a hid- 
 den sense within them, they have heard his call to 
 bring about, ''a possible better world." This is a 
 reason which escapes male critics. But it would be 
 quite untrue to assert that such critics are wrong when 
 they sa}' that the women of thirt}' or forty or an}' 
 indefinite age are won b}^ the extension which Balzac 
 gives to their period of charm, and by the impor- 
 tance which he assigns to their part in life. On the 
 contrary,' all that magnifies their influence and lifts it 
 from the more material plane of youth and beauty, 
 where so many of their perils lie, is justly welcome to 
 women. 
 
 The keynote of Balzac as a moralist is therefore his 
 belief that woman is the Soul of man. He early saw 
 the distortions in societ}' caused b}' the ignoring of this 
 truth, and we must take his word to Madame de Cas- 
 tries and to Madame Carraud (alread}' quoted) that his 
 object in writing the Physiologie du Mariage, in 1829, 
 was to awaken ideas favorable to the emancipation 
 and higher education of women and to, insist on their 
 natural and inalienable rights. The book is not suit- ' 
 able for translation, — the same medicine not being . 
 suited to all constitutions. The Anglo-Saxon mind . 
 is shocked b}' a jeering or jesting moralism, which 
 it calls cynicism. But, under any circumstances, the 
 
268 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 subject is not tolerable to the conventions of our day, 
 which would rather not see truth, and when it sees it 
 escapes it b}' calling it immoral. Tolstoi, when deal- 
 ing with the same subject, conscientioush', in his out- 
 wardly brutal and shocking manner, has been tabooed. 
 The day has not come when it can be dealt with ; but 
 whosoever shall hereafter deliver a message upon it 
 which shall reach the universal heart and conscience 
 will do a deed for women in which Balzac intended to 
 do, and has done, his part. 
 
 At what particular period in his youth these beliefs 
 as to the true nature of woman's influence came to 
 him, it is impossible to say, all records of that period 
 having been destroyed. Whether they were the out- 
 come of the lad's own mind, trained b}' the meditations 
 at Vendome and b}' the noble vivginit}- of the senses of 
 which he speaks in Louis Lambert, or whether Balzac 
 w^as led to this study by a need to understand how and 
 why it was that he derived his own force from a woman, 
 cannot now be told. We know that he placed before 
 his mind many questions derived from the phenomena 
 of his own experience, and there are facts which justify 
 us in thinking that he did so now. Very earl}' in life, not 
 later probably than his twenty-third or twent3'-fourth 
 year, he met the woman-angel for whom he longed, and 
 who, thenceforth, inspired his life until some great 
 catastrophe overtook their love. All traces of her 
 name and personalit}^ are lost, no doubt destro3'ed ; 
 all letters and records of the period during which she 
 influenced him are missmg. Such veils should not 
 be vulgarly pushed aside ; happily they cannot be in 
 the present instance ; whatever is said must perforce 
 
Honors de Balzac. 269 
 
 have the reserve and delicacy with which Balzac him- 
 self shrouded his feelings. A few scattered signs alone 
 remain to tell of what he passed through, but they are 
 full of significance ; and a strong retrospective light is 
 thrown upon his mental condition during those years 
 by his letters to Madame Hanska, the love of his later 
 life — for Love, like histor}^ repeats itself. 
 
 The most distinct mention of this early love is that 
 by Theophile Gautier (alread}^ quoted). Once onl}^ did 
 Balzac make allusion to it, and even then he could say 
 no more than the first name of her whose memory so 
 affected him that after man}' years his eyes still filled 
 with tears. That this love was the influence bj^ which 
 his early life was shaped, that from this woman he 
 derived his force and his ambition, and that their 
 mutual love ended in some great sorrow, no one who 
 studies Balzac's life can doubt. To judge of it we 
 must put ourselves in his place ; we must comprehend 
 the force of his imagination and the excessive sensi- 
 bility of his spirit. Later, twent}' j-ears later, when 
 the thought that he might possibly lose Madame 
 Hanska comes over him, he says: ''If the hope of 
 my life were to fail me, if I lost you, I should not kill 
 myself, I should not make myself a priest, — for the 
 thought of 3'ou would give me strength to endure my 
 life ; but I would go to some unknown corner of 
 France, in the Pyrenees or the Ariege, and slowh* die, 
 doing and knowing nothing more in this world." 
 
 These words throw a vivid light on the anguish of 
 his mind in earlier ^ears. 
 
 He makes a few allusions to this cherished woman 
 in his letters. Speaking of Pauline in the Peau de 
 
270 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 Chagrin he says: "For me she exists, onl}^ more 
 beautiful ; if I have made her into a vision it is that 
 no one ma\' be master of my secret." And again, 
 writing to Madame d'Abrantes in 1828, he sa^'s: 
 ''1 have always been crushed beneath a terrible 
 weight. I am sometimes surprised that I have nothing 
 now to struggle against except outward misfortune. 
 You may question all those about me and you will 
 never obtain any light on the nature of my sorrows. 
 There are those who die and the physician himself is 
 ^mable to sa}' what malady has carried them off." 
 Madame Surville alludes in her narrative to some 
 '* great mental shock " in early 3'outh, as the origin of 
 his heart-disease ; and he saj's himself, when writing 
 to his sister in the last year of his life from Ma- 
 dame Hanska's home in the Ukraine, and telling her 
 of the progress of his illness : " These terrible suffoca- 
 tions attack me when distressed, or when I feel an 
 emotion too ardently. My life ought, for my health's 
 sake, to be rose-colored. The origin of this disease 
 was the cruelt}' of that lady whom you know of." 
 
 Theophile Gautier points to Albert Savarus as the 
 secret history of this love ; and he is doubtless right. 
 Possibly he may have had some private means of judg- 
 ing ; the tone of his remark implies as much. Albert 
 Savarus is the stoiy of a man's first love for woman, 
 his inspirer, the source from whom he derives his power 
 of action. That this unnamed woman's influence was 
 such to Balzac, and that for years he was Vambitietix 
 par amour — ambitious through love — cannot be 
 doubted. No man could have made the fight that he 
 did, against such odds from within and from without. 
 
Honore de Balzac. 271 
 
 from purely personal views of self-development He 
 must have had some motive power upon him ; and if 
 Theophile Gautier is right we may find its nature in 
 that remarkable book. What the end was of this great 
 love (which bore fruit in so many of his greatest books) 
 will probably never be known. That it was disastrous 
 is certain. If it did not follow the lines laid down in 
 the stor}' the catastrophe was the same. There is much 
 in his life that connects itself with this, — his seclusion, 
 his craving for solitude, the Trappist robe he wore, the 
 instinctive turning of his soul to Nature as the great 
 consoler. — ^ 
 
 One quality has been attributed to Balzac which 
 cannot be passed over in silence, all the more because 
 it is especially allied to this early phase of his life. We 
 have already seen how those who knew him most inti- 
 mately applied the word *' chaste " to his nature. The- 
 ophile Gautier says (from actual discussion with him) 
 that in his opinion real chastity developed to the highest 
 degree the powers of the mind and gave to those who 
 practised it mysterious faculties ; and Gautier further 
 adds that in the opinion of Balzac's most intimate friends 
 he practised the chastit}' he recommended to others. 
 Without making an}- assertions on this point, as to 
 which during his middle life there is no evidence either 
 wa}', it is right to call attention to this opinion of his 
 intimate associates, men who would certainly not have 
 made the same claim for themselves, nor, perhaps, have 
 desired to do so. It is well to remember that this was 
 the impression his nature made upon them ; in spite, 
 too, of his jovial gayety and free speech. We may add, 
 as a matter both of fact and of suggestion, that this 
 
272 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 characteristic of chastity, which was not a negative 
 thing in a man of Balzac's temperament, but the result 
 of his powerful will, was the secret of his ability to 
 enter into the nature of woman and to apprehend her 
 highest relation to man, — a relation not limited to earth, 
 though rightfuU}^ bound by its conditions while this life 
 lasts. An anecdote is told of him which illustrates this 
 point and gives pleasure to the reader of it : — 
 
 On some occasion when Balzac happened to be at 
 Marseilles the young men of that town, under the lead- 
 ership of Mery, gave him a banquet. An eye-witness 
 relates that Balzac arrived punctually, holding in his 
 hand a little snuff-box which he had bought of an anti- 
 quary for three hundred francs on his way to the dinner. 
 The descendants of the Phocian colon}-, feeling it in- 
 cumbent on them to oner due^'omage to the great 
 writer, the exponent of woman, turned the conversation 
 upon the sex. Mery, the wittiest of men, was their 
 mouthpiece. He made a brilliant speech, of a free na- 
 ture, disrespectful to women. Balzac listened and said 
 nothing ; he crumbled his bread and played with his 
 snuff-box, with which he seemed much pleased. But 
 when a pause came and he was evidently expected to 
 take up the subject, he replied with such a warm de- 
 fence of women, made with so much judgment and deli- 
 cacy that Mery was completely abashed ; and the memory 
 of that banquet and of Balzac's defence of womanhood 
 long survived in the memor}- of those present. 
 
 In the midst of the heavy troubles of all kinds which 
 beset Balzac at the opening of his career he had the 
 good fortune to find encouragement, advice, and s^^m- 
 path}' in the friendship of several women of rare 
 
Honore de Balzac, 273 
 
 distinction of mind and character. First, and para- 
 mount among them, was Madame de Bern}', whose 
 early death withdrew her, only too soon, from the ten- 
 der gratitude of her j'oung friend. She was, undoubt- 
 edly, the confidant of his early sorrow, and his chief 
 support and means of consolation under it. The de- 
 struction, or concealment, of their correspondence was 
 owing to the fact that it concerned those circumstances 
 of his life which he desired to keep secret. In his other 
 letters he makes man}^ allusions to Mme. de Berny, 
 which show his ardent gratitude and deep attachment 
 to her. Those in his letters to Madame Carraud have 
 already been quoted. To another friend he says, speak- 
 ing of her death: "She whom I have lost was more 
 than a mother, more than a friend, more than any crea- 
 ture can be to another creature. I can explain her only 
 as divinity. She sustained me under great sorrows by 
 words, l)y actions, b}' devotion. If I still live it is 
 through her. She has been all to me ; and though for 
 the last two years illness and the lapse of time had 
 separated us, yet we were plainl}' visible to each other 
 from a distance. She re-acted upon me ; she was, as 
 it were, m}' moral sun. Madame de Mortsauf in the 
 Lys is a pale expression of her noble qualities ; it is 
 but a distant reflection of her, for I have a horror of 
 prostituting my own emotions, and the world will never 
 know the sorrows that overcome me." 
 
 He mentions elsewhere that from the year 1821 she 
 had never failed to give him daily two hours of her 
 .time, snatched from societ}', from her famil}', from her 
 A^arious duties, and from all the attractions of Parisian 
 life. " Twelve years,'* he exclaims, " of a subhme de- 
 
 18 
 
274 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 votion which saved me ! " Madame Surville has al- 
 ready told us what he suffered at her death. In her 
 narrative she withholds his letters on the subject ; but 
 in one of them, which is included in the Correspondance^ 
 there is this allusion to Madame de Bern}- : — 
 
 "Les Jardies, 1839. 
 " I am alone to face m}' troubles. Formerlj^ I had 
 one to help me conquer them, — the gentlest and most 
 courageous being upon earth ; a woman who is reborn 
 daily in my heart, and whose divine qualities make all 
 other friendships pale b}^ the side of hers. I have no 
 longer an adviser on my literar}- difficulties, no longer a 
 supporter in the difficulties of life. I have no other 
 guide than the thought, ' What would she sa}^ if she 
 were living?' Minds like hers are rare. The in- 
 timacy which might have been so dear to me between 
 you and me is prevented hy your duties as wife and 
 mother. There is only Madame Zulma [Carraud] 
 among those in whom I can trust who has the intellect 
 to pla3^ her part to me. Never was there a more re- 
 markable mind smothered so completely as Madame 
 Zulma's ; she will die unrecognized in her lonely 
 corner. Madame Hanska could be everything to me ; 
 but I cannot be a burden on her fate ; and even if I 
 could, I would not, unless she knew well what she was 
 undertaking." 
 
 The following extracts are from his letters to Ma- 
 dame Hanska before her husband's death, and while his 
 feelings for her did not exceed the limits of a warm 
 friendship : — 
 
Honore de Balzac, 275 
 
 " Paris, August, 1835.1 
 "You have been ill! you have suffered! and al- 
 waj's for and through others, — ever the same self- 
 abnegation ! 
 
 "If you only remain a short time in Vienna, how 
 shall I send you Seraphita and Le Lys dans la Vallee f 
 Should you decide to return home at once, give me your 
 exact address. In a country so barren of resources as 
 yours and in the depths of the desert you are about to 
 inhabit perhaps my letters may be more welcome than 
 amid the gayeties you are now enjoying, and which, I 
 fear, they have sometimes interrupted too gloomily. 
 May 5'ou never know the bitter sadness that comes of 
 deception, which the sense of loneliness increases ; and 
 this at the ver}' moment when we ma}" happen to need 
 the special support of friends. I must own to you that 
 the cruel conviction is growing upon me that I cannot 
 much longer bear up under m}' hard work. The}' talk 
 of victims of war and epidemics ; but who thinks of the 
 battlefields of art, science, literature, and of the mounds 
 of dead and dying slain by their efforts to succeed ? . . . 
 " I am, perhaps, on the eve of beginning a political 
 existence which may in time give me a certain influence, 
 even if it does not lead to a high position. But it does 
 not tempt me ; for I feel it to be outside of m}' tastes 
 and m}^ natural habits of mind and character. Certain 
 persons powerful in will and influential in position — 
 statesmen — have approaclied me on the subject, and 
 two newspapers have sounded me. One of the latter 
 
 1 This is the first letter to Mme. Hanska which lias been pre- 
 served. Previous letters were burned by a fire which occurred in 
 M. Hanski's house in Moscow. 
 
276 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 has many subscribers, not in France onl}', but all over 
 Europe. If these papers were united under an intelli- 
 gent and capable editor, they could become a power. 
 Two other journals would enter the association, and we 
 should found a fifth. The end would be, sooner or later, 
 the triumph of the party they represent. But what 
 ought we to call that party? 'That is the question.' 
 Shall it be the party of men of intellect, or the party of 
 Intelligence? . . . The scheme is a fine one ; but to put 
 it into execution is another matter. So I merel}' listen, 
 and make no reply to the flattering or the merely agree- 
 able speeches addressed to me. 
 
 "You ask me to tell you of my daily life. That would 
 be troubling you with many annoyances and vexations. 
 I should have to tell you of an endless series of comings 
 and goings to meet my payments and do m}^ business 
 honorably. Life in Paris involves a frightful waste of 
 time ; and time is the material out of which life is made, 
 so the}" say. When I am not bending over my writing 
 by the light of my candles, or lying exhausted on the 
 sofa, I am rushing breathlessly about on business, sleep- 
 ing little, eating little, — in short, like a Republican 
 general fighting a campaign without bread or shoes. 
 Solitude pleases me, however ; for I hate the social life 
 of the world, which bruises the heart and belittles the 
 mind. 
 
 " Do not, I beg of you, make any comparison be- 
 tween the friendship which 3'ou inspire and that which 
 you grant. Never allow 3'ourself to imagine that I have 
 ceased to love 3'OU ; for though I may often be over- 
 worked, as I am now, j'et in m}' hours of fatigue and 
 despair, — hours when mj- energy relaxes, and I sit in 
 
Honore de Balzac. 277 
 
 my chair with pendent arms and sunken head, body 
 wear}- and mind depressed, — the wings of memory 
 still bear me to the cool green shades wliich refreshed 
 m\' soul, to her who smiles to me afar off, wlio has 
 nothing in her heart that is not pure and true, who in- 
 spires me, reanimates me, and renews, if I ma}' say so, 
 by the excitement of the soul, those powers to which 
 others give the name of talent. You are all this to me, 
 and you know it ; therefore never speak jestingl}' of my 
 feelings, as you do sometimes." 
 
 " Paris, October, 1836.1 
 '' I am depressed, but not utterly cast down ; my 
 courage remains to me. The feeling of desertion and 
 the solitude in which I am left grieves me more than 
 m}^ other disasters. There is nothing selfish in me ; 
 but I do need to tell my thoughts, m}' efforts, m}- feel- 
 ings to a being who is not myself ; otherwise I have no 
 strength. I should care for no crown unless there were 
 feet at which to laj' the honors men might put upon m}' 
 head. ... I have said a long and sad farewell to my 
 lost years, — engulfed beyond recall ! The}- gave me 
 neither complete happiness nor complete misery ; they 
 kept me living, — frozen on one side, scorched on the 
 other ; and now I am conscious that nothing holds me 
 to life but a sense of duty. I entered on my present 
 phase of life with the feehng that I should die exhausted 
 with my work ; but I thought I should bear it better 
 than I do. For the last month I have risen at midnight 
 and gone to bed at six in the evening; and I have 
 forced myself down to the lowest amount of food that 
 
 1 This letter was written after his lawsuit with Buloz, when so 
 many of his literary associates deserted him. 
 
278 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 will support me, so as not to weary my brain by diges- 
 tion. Well, not only do I feel weaknesses which 1 could 
 not describe to 3'ou, but, with so much life driven to the 
 brain, I experience strange things. Sometimes I lose 
 the sense of verticality ; even in bed mj^ head seems to 
 fall to the right or left ; and when I rise I feel impelled 
 by an enormous weight which is in my head. I under- 
 stand how Pascal's absolute continence and vast men- 
 tal labor made him see an abyss surrounding him, so 
 that he was obliged to sit between two chairs, one on 
 each side of him. 
 
 *' I did not leave the rue Cassini without regret. I do 
 not yet know whether I can keep a part of my furniture 
 to which I am attached, or even my library. I have 
 made, in advance, every sacrifice of lesser pleasures 
 and memories that I ma}^ keep this one little joy of 
 feeling that these things are still mine ; they would not 
 count for much in satisfying the thirst of my creditors, 
 but they would slake mine in that march across the 
 sands of the desert on which I am about to start. 
 
 " To show you how good m}- courage is, I must tell 
 you that Les Secrets des Ruggieri was written in a 
 single night; think of that when you read it. La 
 Vieille Fille was written in three. La Perle brisee, 
 which ends L' Enfant Maudit^ was done in a few 
 hours of moral and physical anguish ; it was my 
 Brienne, my Champaubert, my Montirail, in short, 
 my campaign of France ! But it was the same with 
 La Messe de VAtMe and Facino Cane, I wrote the 
 first fift}^ sheets of Les Illusions Perdues in three daj^s 
 at Sache. What kills me are the proof corrections. 
 The first part of L^ Enfant Maudit cost me more pains 
 
Honore de Balzac, 279 
 
 than many volumes. I wanted to bring that part up 
 to the plane of La Ferle brisee and make them a sort 
 of little poem of melancholy with wliioh no fault could 
 be found. 
 
 " This is the last plaint that I shall cast into your he&rt ; 
 in m}' confidences to you there is a certain selfishness 
 which I must put an end to. When you are sad I will 
 not aggravate your sadness, for I know that your 
 sorrows aggravate mine. I know that the Christian 
 martyrs smiled ; and I know, too, that if Guatimozin 
 had been a Christian he would have consoled his min- 
 ister, and not have answered, ' And I — am I on a bed 
 of roses ? ' A fine saying for an aboriginal ; but Christ 
 has made us more considerate, if not better. 
 
 *' Well, adieu ; the day is dawning ; mj^ candles pale. 
 For the last three hours I have been writing to you, 
 line after line, hoping that in each \ov\ would hear the 
 cry of a true feeling, deep, infinite as heaven, far above 
 the petty and transitory vexations of this world, 
 incapable of thinking that it can ever change. What 
 would be the good of intellect if not to place a noble 
 thing upon a rock above us, where nothing material, 
 nothing earthl}^ can ever touch it? 
 
 *' But this thought would lead me too far ; my proofs 
 are waiting. I must plunge into the Augean stable 
 of mj' style, and sweep out its faults." 
 
 " Paris, January, 1838. 
 *' Now as to the business which takes me to the 
 Mediterranean ; Mt is neither marriage, nor anything 
 adventurous, nor foolish, nor light-minded, nor im- 
 1 His trip to Sardinia. 
 
280 HonoH de Balzac. 
 
 prudent. It is a serious and a scientific business, 
 about which I can as 3'et tell 3'ou nothing, because I ara 
 pledged to absolute secrec}'. Whether it turns out 
 well or ill, as I risk nothing but the journe3% which 
 will, in an}' case, be a pleasure and a change for me, 
 I think I may embark on this enterprise without 
 anxiety. 
 
 '' You ask me how it is that I who know so much (as 
 you indulgently say), and can observe and penetrate 
 all tilings, can also be so duped and deceived. Alas, 
 would you respect me if I were never duped, if I were 
 so prudent, so observing, that no deceptions ever 
 happened to me ? But, putting that view of the ques- 
 tion aside, I will tell you the secret of this apparent 
 contradiction. You can readil}' see that when a man 
 becomes an accomplished whist-player and knows after 
 the fifth card is played where all the others are, he 
 should like to put science aside and watch how the 
 game will go by the laws of chance? Just so, you dear 
 and fervent Catholic, God knew that Eve would yield, 
 but he let her alone to do so. Or, if you do not like 
 that way of explaining the matter, here is still another 
 which ma}^ please you better. When, night and da}', 
 my strength and m}- faculties are strained to the utmost 
 to invent, write, render, paint, recall ; when I take my 
 flight slowly, painfully, often with wounded wing, 
 across the mental spaces of literarj^ creation, how can 
 I be at the same time on the plane of material things ? 
 When Napoleon was at Essling he was not in Spain. 
 I do see plainly enough that persons are deceiving me, 
 or tliat they are going to do so ; that such and such 
 man has betrayed me, or will betray me and carrj^ 
 
Eonore de Balzac. 281 
 
 awa}' a bit of my fleece ; but just at that moment, when 
 I see it all clearl}', I am compelled to go and fight else- 
 where ; copy has to be delivered ; or some book will 
 be spoiled unless I finish it. . . . 
 
 " I have said for the last twelve 3'ears what 3'ou now 
 say to me about Walter Scott. Beside him, Byron is 
 nothing, or almost nothing. You are mistaken about 
 the plot of ^ Kenil worth.' In the opinion of all make! 
 of tales, and in mine, the plan of that work is the 
 grandest, the most complete, the most wonderful of all. 
 It is a masterpiece from that point of view, just as ' St. 
 Ronan's Well ' is a masterpiece in detail and patient 
 finish, the ' Chronicles of the Canongate ' in sentiment, 
 'Ivanhoe ' (the first volume, be it said) for its historical 
 qualit}', the ^ Antiquar}^' for poetry, the 'Heart of Mid- 
 Lothian * for interest ; each of those books has its own 
 particular interest, but genius shines over all. You 
 are right, — Scott will live and grow after Byron is for- 
 gotten ; but I speak of Byron read in translation ; the 
 poet in the original must ever live, if onl}^ for his form 
 and his impetuous force ; though Byron's brain never 
 had an}' imprint on it except that of his own person- 
 alit}' ; but the whole world posed before the creative 
 genius of Scott and was there reflected. 
 
 "It is very kind of Monsieur Hanski to imagine that 
 women fall in love with authors. Tell him that I have, 
 and have had, nothing to fear on that score. I am not 
 onl}' invulnerable but secure from attack. The English- 
 woman of the times of Cr^billon the younger is not the 
 Englishwoman of to-da}'. 
 
 " I do not read the newspapers ; you can easil}' believe 
 I have not the time ; therefore I am ignorant of what 
 
282 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 5011 tell me of Jules Janin, who takes, I hear, an atti- 
 tude of open hostility to me personally and to my works. 
 I am, as you know, indifferent to the blame as well as 
 to the praise of those who are not the elect of m}^ heart, 
 above all to that of journalism, and, generally, to that of 
 what is called " the public." ... To sum it all up let 
 me say that whenever j^ou hear that I have yielded in 
 matters of principle, honor, and personal self-respect, 
 do not believe it. 
 
 " After idling a little for a month, — going two or three 
 times to the Opera, and as often to La Belgiojoso and 
 sometimes to La Visconti (speaking in the Italian 
 fashion), — and having had enough, and too much, of that 
 sort of thing, I am glad to be quit of it and to go back 
 to my work of twelve and fifteen hours a d?iy. When 
 my house is built and I am fairly installed and have 
 earned two or three thousand francs of my own, I 
 have promised myself the reward of going to see you, 
 not, as you say, for a week or two, but for two or three 
 months. You shall work over my comedies and during 
 that time Monsieur Hanski and I will be off to the In- 
 dies, astride on those smoky benches 3'ou tell me of. 
 
 " The Princesse Belgiojoso is a woman wholly unlike 
 all other women, — not attractive according to my ideas ; 
 pale with Italian pallor, thin, with a touch of the vam- 
 pire. She has the good fortune not to please me. 
 With a good mind, she shows it too much ; she is al- 
 ways trying for effect, and missing her end by pursuing 
 it with visible care and effort. I first met her five j^ears 
 ago at Gerard's. She came from Switzerland, where 
 she had taken refuge. Since then she has recovered 
 her great fortune, thanks to the influence of our Foreign 
 
Honore de Balzac. 283 
 
 Office, and now lives in conformity with her position. 
 Her house is on a good scale, and the talk one hears 
 there is witty. I have gone two Saturdays and dined 
 there once, that is all. . . . Skin-deep affections (les 
 amitUs ct^piderme) do not suit me ; they weary me, 
 and make me feel more keenly than ever the treasures 
 contained in the hearts that shelter me. In this respect 
 I am not a Frenchman in the lighter acceptation of the 
 word." 
 
 '• Ajaccio, March 26, 1838. 
 
 *' Dear Countess, — This date will show you that I 
 am only twenty hours distant from Sardinia. When I 
 tell you that my present enterprise is a desperate effort 
 to put an end to my business troubles 3'ou will not be 
 surprised by it. I only risk a month of my time and 
 five hundred francs for the chance of a great fortune. 
 
 ** Monsieur Carraud decided me. I submitted certain 
 scientific conjectures to him. As he is a very learned 
 man, who does nothing, publishes nothing, and is lazj', 
 there was no obstruction to his opinion being given, as 
 it was, in favor of my ideas. He sa3's that whether I 
 succeed or do not succeed, he respects the idea as most 
 ingenious. There is no scientific problem he cannot 
 explain if questioned. But the trouble is that these 
 vast mathematical minds judge of life only by what it 
 is ; the}' do not see the logical end of it ; and so they 
 await death to be rid of life. This vegetable existence 
 is the despair of Mme. Carraud, who is all soul and fire. 
 She was utterly amazed when she heard Monsieur Car- 
 raud propose to go with me, — he who will not leave 
 the house to attend to his own affairs. However, the 
 natural man returned to him and he gave up the project. 
 
284 Honore de Balzac, 
 
 " Here I am, alone in Napoleon's native town. I have 
 
 been to see the house where he was born ; it is a poor 
 
 hovel. I have rectified a few mistakes. His father was 
 
 a rather rich land-owner, and not a mere clerk, as sev- 
 
 I eral lying biographers have said. Also, when he 
 
   reached Ajaccio on his wa}^ back from Eg3'pt, instead 
 
   of being received with acclamations, as the historians 
 I aver, a price was put on his head. They showed me 
 
   the little beach where he landed. He owed his life 
 to the courage and devotion of a peasant, who took 
 him to the mountains and hid him in an inaccessible 
 place. 
 
 ^' I am going to Sassari, the second capital of Sardinia, 
 where I shall not stay long, as what I have to do there 
 will take no time at all. The great question will be 
 decided in Paris. All I need to do is to obtain a speci- 
 men of the thing. You ma}^ puzzle your head, most 
 gracious and intelligent lad}^ of the manor, but you will 
 never find out what that means. 
 
 '* Corsica is one of the most magnificent countries in 
 the world ; mountains like those of Switzerland, but no 
 fine lakes. France does not make the most of this 
 noble country. It is as large as several of our depart- 
 ments, but does not yield as much as one of them ; it 
 ought to have five million of inhabitants, and there are 
 less than three hundred thousand. We are beginning 
 to make roads and clear forests, which alone are wealth. 
 As the soil is wholh' unexplored there may be the finest 
 mines in the world of metal, marble, and coal. Unhap- 
 pil3', the country is not only unexplored, but it is not 
 studied, nor even known, on account of bandits and the 
 savage state into which it has lapsed." 
 
Honore de Balzac. 285 
 
 " Alghiero, Sardinia, April 8. 
 " I am here after five da^'s in a coral row-boat on its 
 way to Africa, — a good voyage, but I learned the priva- 
 tions of mariners ; nothing to eat but the fish we caught, 
 which they boiled into an execrable soup. I had to 
 sleep on deck and be devoured b}- insects, which abound, 
 the}' say, in Sardinia. . . . Africa begins here. Already 
 I see a naked population, bronzed like Ethiopians." 
 
 •' Cagliari, April 17th. 
 *' I have crossed the whole of Sardinia, and seen 
 things such as the}- tell us of the Hurons or the Polyne- 
 sians. A desert kingdom, real savages, no husbandry ; 
 long stretches of palm-trees and cactas, goats browsing 
 on the undergrowth and keeping it down to the level of 
 their heads. I have been seventeen to eighteen hours 
 on horseback (I who have not mounted a horse for the 
 last four 3'ears) without seeing a single dwelling. I 
 went through a virgin forest lying on the neck of my 
 horse in fear of my life, for I had to ride through a 
 water-course arched over with branches and climbing 
 plants which threatened to put out my eyes, break m}^ 
 teeth, and even wrench off my head. Gigantic oaks, 
 cork-trees, laurel and heather thirty feet high. Nothing 
 to eat. As soon as I reached the end of my expedition 
 I had to think of returning ; so, without taking an}' rest 
 I rode on to Sassari, where I found a diligence which 
 brought me to this place. I passed through a region 
 where the inhabitants make a horrible bread by pound- 
 ing green acorns and mixing the flour with clay, — and 
 this within sight of beautiful Italy ! Men and women 
 go naked, with a bit of cloth to hide their nudit}-. No 
 
286 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 habitation has a chimney ; thej' make their fires in the 
 middle of their huts, which are full of soot. The women 
 spend their time in pounding the acorns and making 
 cla}' bread ; the men keep the goats and cattle. The 
 soil is uncultivated in the richest spot on earth. And 
 yet, in the midst of this utter and inexplicable misery, 
 there were villages where the costumes of the peasantry 
 were of amazing richness ! 
 
 "I have put off writing to Monsieur Hanski until I 
 reach Milan and can give him some real news. I have 
 thought of 3'ou often on my adventurous trip, and I 
 fancy 1 can hear Monsieur Hanski saying, ' What the 
 devil is he doing in that galere .?' '' ^ 
 
 " Milan, May 20, 1838. 
 
 "Dear Countess, — You know all that that date 
 says to me. To-da}^ I begin the 3'ear at the end of 
 which I shall belong to the vast, unnumbered com- 
 panj^ of the resigned. I swore to myself in the days 
 of sorrow, struggle, and faith which made my youth so 
 miserable that I would struggle no more against an}'- 
 thing whatsoever when I reached the age of fort}^ 
 That terrible year has begun for me far from you, far 
 from my own people, in bitter sadness which nothing 
 
 1 It is unnecessary to repeat here in our limited space the story 
 of his disappointment. Madame Surville has given it in her nar- 
 rative with general correctness, but with one mistake. The dis- 
 covery that the Genoese had obtained a grant to tlie mines followed 
 immediately on Balzac's return from his journey, without the de- 
 lay of a year, as his sister states. He had taken up the idea the 
 previous year when at Genoa. His enthusiasm induced the Geno- 
 ese to apply for the grant. When Balzac made his journey the 
 following year he was then too late, as he discovered on landing 
 at Genoa. 
 
Honore de Balzac, 287 
 
 can dissipate ; for of myself I cannot change ni}^ fate, 
 and I no longer believe that some fortunate event may 
 modify it. 
 
 *' I came here from Genoa on my way to France, and 
 I have stayed on to do a work for which the inspiration 
 has suddenly come to me after I had vainly implored it 
 for several jears. 1 have never read a book in which 
 happy love, satisfied love, has been pictured. Rousseau 
 used too much rhetoric ; Richardson preached too much ; 
 the poets are too flowery, the novel-writers slaves to fact ; 
 Petrarch thought too much of his imagery, his concetti, 
 — he saw poetry better than he did women ; Pope over- 
 did the grief of Heloise, — he wanted to make her better 
 than nature, and the better, they say, is the enemy of 
 the good. It may be that God, who created love with 
 humanit}', alone understands it. Certainl}^ none of his 
 creatures, as I think, have truly rendered the sorrows, 
 imaginations, and poesies of that divine passion, which 
 every one talks of, and so few have known. . . . 
 
 *' I have been sitting on a bench for nearl}^ an hour 
 with m^" e3'es fixed on the Duomo, fascinated by the 
 memories your letter brought to me. What unutterable 
 sadness to be so near you in thought, so far in reality ! 
 Ah, dear fraternal soul, the Duomo was glorious, sub- 
 lime, to me in that hour of June ! I lived a lifetime 
 beneath it. . . . 
 
 " I went 3'esterda3" to see the Luini frescos at Sa- 
 ronno, and they seem to me worthy of their fame. The 
 one that represents the marriage of the Virgin has a 
 peculiar charm about it ; the figures are angelic, and, 
 what is rare in frescos, the tones are mellow and 
 harmonious.*' 
 
288 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 "Paris, June 10, 1838. 
 
 " I crossed the Saint- Gothard, with fifteen feet of 
 snow on the path I took ; the road was not distinguish- 
 able even by the tall stone posts which mark it. The 
 bridges across the mountain-torrents were no more vis- 
 ible than the torrents themselves. 1 came near losing 
 my life in spite of the eleven guides who were with me. 
 We crossed the summit at one o'clock in the morning 
 by a sublime moonlight, and I saw the sunrise tinting 
 the snows. A man must see that sight once in his life. 
 I came down so rapidly that in half an hour I had passed 
 from twenty- five degrees below freezing (which it was 
 on the summit) to I don't know what degree of heat in 
 the Vallee de la Reuss. After the horrors of the Devil's 
 bridge I crossed the Lake of the Four Cantons at four 
 in the afternoon. It has been a splendid journey ; but 
 I must do it again in summer, to see all those noble 
 sights under a new aspect. . . . 
 
 " Believe that I have perfect confidence in 3'our 
 literary judgment ; I have made you in that respect the 
 successor of the friend whom I have lost. What you 
 say to me becomes the subject of long and serious 
 meditation ; and I now want your criticism on La 
 Yieille Fille. Show neither pity nor indulgence ; go 
 boldly at it. Should I not be most unworth}" of the 
 friendship 3'ou deign to feel for me if in our intimate 
 correspondence I allowed the pett}' vanity of an author 
 to aff'ect me? . . .1 beg you to be concise in praise, 
 and prolix in criticism. Wait for reflection ; do not 
 write to me after the first reading. If 3'ou knew how 
 much instinct, or rather I should say critical genius, 
 there is in what you write to me, you would be proud 
 
Honore de Balzac. 289 
 
 of yourself, though j'ou prefer to leave that sentiment 
 to 3'our friends. 
 
 "Yes, — now don't defend yourself; don't make 
 3'our familiar little gesture, and hide 3'our ej'es with 
 those white and dimpled fingers ! — yes, our best con- 
 temporaneous critics are not wiser than jou. You 
 make me reflect over my work so tltat I often remodel 
 mj' ideas on what you 833% You will believe this, for you 
 know well that, though I am sincere in all things, I am 
 especiall3' sincere in art. I have none of that pater- 
 nal foolishness which ties a band round the eyes of so 
 many authors ; and if La Vieille Fille has no merit, I 
 shall have the courage to cut it out. 
 
 " I have been home eight days, and I have made un- 
 availing efforts to take up my work. My head refuses 
 to do an3' intellectual work ; it is full of ideas, but none 
 will come out. I am incapable of fixing m3' thoughts 
 or of constraining m3' mind to consider a subject under 
 all its aspects, and so resolving on a course. I don't 
 know when this imbecilit3' will cease ; perhaps it is onl3' 
 the result of having lost my customar3" habits of work." 
 
 " Le8 Jardies, July, 1838. 
 
 *' At present the house is not furnished, but it will be 
 little b3' little. Just now I have an old cook of m3' 
 mother's and her husband to wait on me. 
 
 " I shall stay here till m3' fortune is made ; and I am 
 alread3' so pleased with the life that when I have earned 
 the capital of my tranquillit3' I think I shall want to 
 finish my days here in peace, bidding farewell, without 
 flourish of trumpets, to all my hopes, aspirations, am- 
 bitions, — in short, to everything. The life 3'ou lead 
 
 19 
 
290 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 — that life of country solitude — has great charms for 
 me. I did want more because I had nothing at all, 
 and once in the domain of illusions, it costs a 3'oung 
 man nothing to wish for much. To-da}' my failure in 
 success has wearied my character, — I do not sa}'' 
 my heart, which will ever hope, under all circum- 
 stances. ... • 
 
 " I must tell you that I have been painfully struck by 
 the extreme melancholy of your religious views. For 
 some time past your letters have seemed to mean, 
 * Earth no longer interests me ; I have nothing more 
 to do with it.' You do not know how man}' deductions, 
 ill-founded perhaps, I draw from this. But, as you say 
 it to me in all sincerity, you must be expressing what you 
 feel ; if not, you would be false or distrustful, when jo\x 
 should be all truth with an old friend like me. Even if 
 I displease 3'ou, I must sa}' in confidence that I am not 
 satisfied, and that I should like to see you in another 
 state of mind. To seek God in this way means re- 
 nouncing the world ; and I cannot understand why you 
 should renounce it when you have so many ties to bind 
 3^ou to it, and so many duties to fulfil. None but feeble 
 or guilty souls can reall}^ take such views." 
 
 No letters to Madame Hanska appear in the Corre- 
 spondance during the years 1839, 1840, 3841, and 
 1842. 
 
Honors de Balzac, 291 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LAST YEARS. 
 
 The last eight years of Balzac's life are contained in 
 the history of his intercourse with Madame llanska. 
 His health was already failing ; although this fact does 
 not seein to have struck the minds of his friends and 
 contemporaries. His robust and vigorous appearance 
 and sunn}' disposition probably misled them ; but in 
 his letters we may trace, unmistakably, that the springs 
 of life were giving way. His own belief in the destruc- 
 tive power of Thought and Will was never more exem- 
 plified than in his own experience. This belief he has 
 illustrated again and again in his books, and was 
 now to illustrate in his life. The blade wore out the 
 scabbard.^ 
 
 Monsieur Hanski died in the winter of 1842-43, and 
 in August and September of the latter year Balzac 
 made his first visit to St. Petersburg, with the result, 
 on his side, of an absorbing love which superseded all 
 other thoughts and hopes in his mind ; and on Madame 
 Hanska's side, of an evident aflfection and a desire for 
 
 1 The reader is referred to the American translation of La Peau 
 de Chagrin and its Introduction. Also to the Introduction to the 
 Etudes Philosophiqaes, nominally by Felix Davin, really by Balzac 
 liimself; reprinted in de Lovenjoul's " Hist, des CEuvres de Bal- 
 zac/' page 194. 
 
292 Honors de Balzac, 
 
 his allegiance, tempered b}^ a sense of other duties, 
 — duties to her daughter and to her property, — which 
 made her reluctant to consider the question of marriage. 
 It was not until they were at Strasburg together in 
 1846 that she pledged herself to him ; and his letters 
 from 1843 to 1846 betray the injurj^ her doubts and 
 hesitations did to his mind, and probably to his health. 
 Even after the promise had been jnade she could not 
 be brought to fulfil it ; and it was onl}" in 1849 that 
 he felt any assurance that the marriage would take 
 place. Some of the difficulties which Madame Hanska 
 put forward were genuine ; others seem to have pro- 
 ceeded from her reluctance to take the final step ; 
 though it is quite evident that she never for a moment 
 thought of reUnquishing Balzac's devotion. 
 
 Among the serious difficulties which beset the marriage 
 was the difl^erence of nationalit}'. It was necessary to 
 obtain the Czar's permission, and this was long with- 
 held. Monsieur Hanski had left his wife an immense 
 landed propert}' and the guardianship of their daughter. 
 Kussian law is extremely rigid in its interpretation of 
 such duties. Madame Hanska went to St. Petersburg 
 in the spring of 1843 for the legal settlement of her 
 aflTairs, and she seems to have then become aware that 
 marriage with a foreigner could not take place without 
 the relinquishment of her whole fortune to her daughter. 
 It is evident that she was a woman of deep natural 
 aflTections and a devoted sense of dut}' ; no personal 
 considerations of property influenced her, — for in the 
 end she relinquished her fortune, — but her first duty 
 was, obviously, to her child, then a girl of fourteen; 
 and we cannot wonder that she refused to make so 
 
Honors de Balzac. 298 
 
 great a change in her own life until the life of her 
 daughter was more developed. The wonder rather is 
 that a woman in her position should have thought of 
 such a marriage at all ; for Balzac could offer her noth- 
 ing but a most unfortunate outward life, — crippled by 
 debt. The fact that she loved him, and that her fam- 
 11}' loved him and desired the marriage, and treated 
 him with filial respect and affection, is strong testimony 
 to the sort of man he was. His genius, heart, and prin- 
 ciples seemed to them to outweigh all other considera- 
 tions ; a testimony which does even more honor to their 
 natures than to his. 
 
 When Balzac left Madame Hanska at St. Petersburg, 
 in Sei)tember, 1843, she promised to meet him the 
 following year at Dresden. The promise was broken ; 
 but she made a short visit to Paris in the summer of 
 1844. She did not go to Dresden till the beginning 
 of 1845, and even then she put obstacles in the way 
 of his joining her until April, when she sent for him. 
 In the following September he again met her at Baden, 
 and by that time the chief obstacle between them was 
 in fair way to be removed, — her daughter Anna being 
 engaged to marrj' a young Polish nobleman, Comte 
 Georges Mniszeck, the owner of a vast and very beauti- 
 ful estate in Volhynia, which Balzac describes as an- 
 other Versailles. 
 
 The following winter Madame Hanska, her daughter, 
 and the young count went to Ital}^, inviting Balzac to 
 accompany them. He met them at Chalons, and to- 
 gether they went to Naples, he himself returning to 
 Paris in January, 1846, but rejoining them in Rome 
 in March of that year. The young couple were married 
 
294 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 during the summer, and Balzac was soon after summoned 
 to join Madame Hanska at Wiesbaden. It was during 
 a visit the}^ paid at that time to Strasburg that she 
 first pledged herself to marry him. Later, in the same 
 year, he made her a flying visit of four days at Wies- 
 baden, which led his lively friend, Madame de Girardin, 
 to call him " il vetturino per amore," — for we must 
 remember, difficult as it may be to do so, that in those 
 days railroads were not. 
 
 During these years Balzac's life in Paris had passed 
 through periods of great depression, when he felt him- 
 self physically and mentall}^ incapable of hard work ; 
 although the necessity for it was even greater than 
 ever ; for he now began, silently, and apparently tak- 
 ing no one into his confidence, to prepare for this 
 hoped-for marriage. Little by little, he collected his 
 treasures of rare old furniture, pictures, and works of 
 art of all kinds, and not long after Madame Hanska's 
 pledge was given he bought and remodelled the little 
 house in the rue Fortunee, of which Gautier has 
 told us. 
 
 From time to time during these years his natural 
 vigor and his inspiration returned to him. He tells 
 of this joyously, with all his former eagerness ; but, as 
 a general thing, the reader feels that his wing is broken. 
 Reference to the chronological list in the appendix to* 
 this volume will show the work he did during these 
 years, in the course of which he produced (among other 
 less remarkable tales) three of his greatest books, and 
 one of his noblest characters : JLes jPaysans, the two 
 volumes of Zes Parents Pauvres., and Madame de la 
 Chanter ie. 
 
t Honore de Balzac. 295 
 
 In Januar}', 1847, Madame Hanska came to Paris 
 alone, — tlie young couple having gone to visit their 
 estates in Pohxnd. Certain allusions in Balzac's let- 
 ters show that during this visit she identified herself 
 with all his affairs, and approved of the home he was 
 preparing for her. In fact, she was in part its pur- 
 chaser, and joined with him in filling it with works of 
 art. On her return to Poland in April, Balzac accom- 
 panied her as far as Francfort, and in the following 
 September he made his first visit to Wierzschovnia, 
 her home in the Ukraine. 
 
 These chronological facts thus baldly stated will 
 serve to explain Balzac's letters which give the best 
 pictures of his life and mind during these years. 
 
 "Berlin, Oct. 14, 1843. 
 "Dear Countess, — I arrived here this morning at 
 six o'clock without stopping except for twelve hours at 
 Tilsit. ... As long as I was on Russian soil I seemed 
 to be still with you, and though I was not exactlj' gay, 
 you must have seen by my little note from Taurogen, 
 that I could still make a jest of my sorrows. But once 
 on foreign soil I can tell j'ou nothing, except that this 
 dreadful journey maj^ be made to go to you, but not in 
 leaving 3'ou. The aspect of Russian territory, without 
 cultivation, without inhabitants, seemed natural, but 
 the same sight in Prussia was horribly sad, — in 
 keeping with the sadness within me. Those barren 
 tracts, that sterile soil, that cold desolation, that utter 
 povert}', pierced and chilled me. I felt more saddened 
 than if there had been a contrast between the condition 
 of my heart and that of Nature. 
 
296 Sonore de Balzac. 
 
 " I know how you feel b}' the way I do. There is a 
 void within me which widens and deepens more and 
 more, and from which I cannot turn my mind. I have 
 given up going to Dresden ; I have not the courage. 
 Holbein's Madonna will not be stolen before next year^ 
 and then, in the month of Ma}^, I shall make the trip 
 with other thoughts in my mind. Don't blame me for 
 my faint-heartedness. M}^ present journey' gives me 
 none of the pleasure I fancied it would when 3^ou said 
 to me in Petersburg, ' Go here,' and ' Go there.' I 
 listened, and went in spirit, for 3'ou bade me ; but 
 now, how can I help it ? away from you, all is lifeless 
 and soulless. Next 3'ear, perhaps ! but now I have 
 onl}' the gulf of toil before me ; and to that I must go 
 by the shortest way. 
 
 "This dismal Berlin is not comparable with the 
 Bumptuous Petersburg. In the first place, one could 
 cut out a score of mean little towns like the capital 
 of Brandebourg from the great city of the great Euro- 
 pean empire, and the latter would still have enough 
 left to crush twent}^ other little Berlins. At first sight 
 Berlin seems more populous. I have seen more people 
 in the streets than we did at Petersburg. Moreover, 
 the houses, without being handsome, seem to me well 
 built. The public buildings, ugl}- to look at, are of 
 handsome cut stone, with space about them to show 
 their proportions, — that is one trick, no doubt, by 
 which Berlin seems more populous than Petersburg. 
 . . . Berlin and its inhabitants will never be otherwise 
 than a mean little city inhabited by vulgar, fat people ; 
 and 3'et I must admit that to any one returning from 
 Russia, Germany presents an undefinable something 
 
Honors de Balzac. 297 
 
 which can only be rendered by the magic word ' lib- 
 erty,' — expressed in free manners, or rather, 1 should 
 say, freedom in manner and ways/' 
 
 " Oct. 16. 
 
 ** I dined j-esterda}- with Madame Bresson ; it was 
 a grand diplomatic dinner in honor of the king's fete- 
 day. Except the ambassadress herself, the guests 
 were all old and ugly, or 3'oung and frightful. The 
 handsomest woman, though not the youngest, was the 
 one I took into dinner. Guess who? — the Duchesse 
 de Talleyrand (ex-Dino), who was there with her son, 
 the Due de Valengay, looking ten years older than his 
 mother. The conversation was wholl}' made up of 
 proper names and trifling incidents happening at court ; 
 it explained to me Hoffmann's ridicule of the German 
 courts. . . . 
 
 '' Monsieur de Humboldt came to see me this morn- 
 ing, charged, so he said, with the compliments of the 
 King and the Princess of Prussia. He told me how to 
 find Tieck at Potsdam. I want to see Tieck, and I 
 shall take the opportunity to study that barrack of the 
 great Frederick, who was, as de Maistre said, ' not a 
 great man ; at the most a great Prussian.' . . . 
 
 '' Since writing the above I have seen Tieck in his 
 famil}'. He seemed pleased with my homage. There was 
 an old countess present, a contemporary in spectacles, 
 octogenarian perhaps, — a mummj' with a green eye- 
 shade, who seemed to me a domestic divinity. I got 
 back to Berlin at six o'clock without having eaten 
 a mouthful since morning. Berlin is the city of ennui. 
 I should die here in a week. Poor Humboldt is dying 
 of it ; he pines for Paris." 
 
298 Honor^ de Balzac. 
 
 " Dresden, Oct. 19, 1843.1 
 *' . . . Yesterday, having missed the hour for the 
 Gallery, I wandered over Dresden in all directions. 
 It is, I do assure j'ou, a charming town ; far preferable 
 as a residence to that paltry and melancholy Berlin. 
 There is more of the metropolis about it. It is half- 
 Swiss, half-German ; the environs are picturesque and 
 charming. I can readily understand why persons 
 should live in Dresden, where there is a mingling of 
 gardens among the houses which refreshes the eye. . . . 
 *' I saw so many Titians in Florence and Venice that 
 those in the Gallery here seemed of less value to me. 
 Correggio's ' Night ' is over-rated, I should sa}' ; but 
 his ^ Magdalen' and two Virgins of his, the two Madon- 
 nas of Raffaelle, and the Flemish and Dutch pictures, 
 are alone worth the journe3\ The famous ' Tresor * is 
 nonsense. Its three or four million diamonds cannot 
 dazzle eyes that have just seen the Winter Palace. 
 Besides, a diamond says nothing to me ; a dew-drop 
 ! sparkling in the rising sunlight seems to me a thousand 
 / times more beautiful than the finest diamond, — just as 
 a certain smile is more precious to me than the finest 
 picture. It follows that I must come back to Dresden 
 with you to let the pictures have full effect upon me. 
 Rubens moved me ; but the Rubens in the Louvre are 
 more satisfying. The true masterpiece of the Dresden 
 gallery is a picture by Holbein which eclipses all the 
 rest. How I regretted that I could not hold your hand 
 in mine while I admired it with that inward delight and 
 plenitude of happiness which the contemplation of the 
 
 1 Unimportant circumstances changed his plans and made him 
 go to Dresden. 
 
Honore de Balzac, 299 
 
 beautiful bestows. We are prepared for the Madonna 
 of Kati'aelle, but Holbein's Madonna seized me like an 
 unexpected J03'. 
 
 " It is eleven o'clock at night. I am in a hotel where 
 every one has gone to bed. Dresden is quiet as a sick- 
 room. I have no desire to sleep. Have I grown old, 
 that tiie Gallery gave me so few emotions ? Or is it 
 that the source of my emotions has changed ? Ah, 
 trul}^ I perceive the infinitude of my attachment and 
 its depth by the void there now is in my soul. For me, 
 to love is to live ; I feel this, I see it more than ever 
 now ; all things prove it to me ; I recognize that never 
 again can any taste, an}" absorption of mind, any pas- 
 sion exist for me but that you know of, — which fills not 
 onh' my heart, but m}^ whole brain. 
 
 " Adieu, dear star, forever blessed. There may come 
 a time when I can tell you the thoughts that now op- 
 press me. To-night I can only say that I love j'ou too 
 well for my peace of mind, and that absence from you 
 is death to me. . . . There are moments when I see 
 clearly the least little objects that surround you ; I look 
 at that cushion with a pattern of black lace worked upon 
 it on which you leaned, — I count the stitches. Never 
 was my memor}'^ so fresh. My inward sight, on which 
 are mirrored the houses I build, the landscapes I create, 
 is now all given to the service of the most completely 
 happy memory of my life. You cannot imagine the 
 treasures of rever}^ which glorify certain hours — some 
 there are which fill my eyes with tears." 
 
 " Passt, Feb. 6, 1844. 
 
 "... I beg you not to be troubled about adverse 
 reviews of me ; it might be more injurious the other 
 
800 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 VfSLj. In France a man is doomed if he gets a name, and 
 is crowned while living. Insults, calumnies, rejection, 
 will do me no harm. Some day it will be known that 
 though I lived by my pen not a penny has ever entered 
 my purse that was not laboriously and hardly earned ; 
 that praise or blame are alike indifferent to me ; that I 
 have done my work amid cries of hatred, literar}- fusil- 
 lades, and have held m}' course with a firm hand, imper- 
 turbably. . . . Dear star of the first magnitude, I see, 
 with regret, that you commit the mistake of defending 
 me. When any one says harm of me in j'our presence 
 there is but one thing for you to do, — laugh jn your 
 sleeve at those who calumniate me by outdoing what 
 they sa}'. Tell them, ' If he escapes public indignation 
 it is only because he is so clever in evading the law.' 
 That is what Dumas did when some one said to him 
 that his father was black, and he replied, ' My grand- 
 father was a monkey.' . . . 
 
 " You say in your last letter: What a volume that is 
 which contains La Maison JSTucingen, Pierre Grassou, 
 and Les Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan. Per- 
 haps you are right ; I am proud of it (between our- 
 selves). Next comes Les Petits Bourgeois^ and after 
 that Les Freres de la Consolation} Nothing will then 
 be wanting to my Parisian scenes but the artists, the 
 theatre, and the savants. Those done, I shall have 
 painted the great modern monster under all its 
 aspects. 
 
 ** Here then are the stakes I play for: during the 
 present half-century four men will have had a vast in- 
 
 ^ Now named IJEnvers de VHistoire Contemporaine. 
 
Honors de Balzac. 301 
 
 fluence on the world, — Napoleon, Cuvier, O'Connell; 
 and I desire to be the fourth. The first lived on the 
 blood of* P^urope, he was inoculated with war; the 
 second espoused the whole globe ; the third incar- 
 nated in himself a people ; and I shall have carried 
 a whole society in m}' brain. Better live thus than 
 sit every night calling out, ' spades, trumps, hearts,' 
 or troubling one's self as to why Madame Such-a-one 
 does thus and so. But there will always be some- 
 thing in me that is greater tlian the writer, and far 
 happier than he, — namely, 3'our serf. M}^ feeling, 
 in itself, is to me nobler, grander, more complete 
 than all the gratifications of vanity or fame." 
 
 " Feb. 6, 1844. 
 
 '* Yesterday I consulted Dr. Roux (Dupuytren's 
 successor), and he advises me to make a journe}' on 
 foot as the onl\' means of putting an end to the dis- 
 position my brain shows to become inflamed. When I 
 don't suflfer in the head I suffer in the intestines, and I 
 have alwaj's a little fever. But just now as I write to 
 you I feel well, or rather I feel better. . . . 
 
 " Ah, one more look at that dear room in Petersburg, 
 and a deep sigh, alas, that I am not there ! Why 
 should n't you have a poet as others have a dog, a 
 parrot, a monkey? — all the more because I have some- 
 thing of all three of them in me. I tell 3'ou again and 
 again, I am faithful (here the countess throws up her 
 head and casts a superb glance). 
 
 "Adieu, till to-morrow. The last two da3s I have 
 recovered a little gayety. Can it be that something 
 fortunate is happening to you?" 
 
302 Honore de Balzac, 
 
 "Feb. 19, 1844. 
 "... Yes, you have every reason to be proud of 
 3'Our child. It is through seeing the young girls of her 
 sphere and those who are the best brought-up here that 
 I say to you, and repeat it, that you are right in being 
 proud of 3'our Anna. Tell her that I love her, for you 
 whose happiness and pride she is, and for her own 
 angelic soul which I appreciate. . ♦. . Do you know 
 what is the most lasting thing in sentiment? It is la 
 sorcellerie a froid^ — charm that can be deliberately 
 judged. Well, the charm in you has undergone the 
 coolest examination, and the most minute, as well as 
 the most extended comparison, and all is in your 
 favor. You, dear fraternal soul, 3'ou are the saintl}'^ 
 and noble and devoted being to whom a man confides 
 his whole life and happiness with ample securit3\ You 
 are the pharos, the light-giving star, the sicura ric- 
 chezza, sejiza hrama. I have understood you, even 
 to 3^our sadness, which I love. Among all the reasons 
 which I find to love you — and to love 3'Ou with that 
 flame of 3"outh which brought me the onl3^ happ3'' 
 moment of my past life — there is not one against my 
 loving, respecting, admiring 3^ou. In 3'our presence 
 no mental satiet3^ is possible : in that I sa3' to you a 
 great thing — I say the thing that makes happiness. 
 You will learn henceforth, from day to da3^, from year 
 to 3'ear, the profound truth of what I am now writing 
 to 3'OU. Whence comes it? I know not; perhaps from 
 the similarity of characters, or that of minds, but 
 above all from that admirable phenomenon called in- 
 timate comprehension, and also from the circumstances 
 of our lives. We have both been deeply tried and 
 
Honore de Balzac. 303 
 
 tortured in the course of our existence ; each has a 
 
 thirst for rest, — rest in our hearts and in our outward 
 
 lives. We have the same worship of the ideal, the 
 
 same faith, the same devotion. Well, if those elements 
 
 cannot produce happiness, as their contraries produce 
 
 unhapf)iness, we must deny that saltpetre, coal, and 
 
 such things, produce ashes. But over and above these 
 
 reasons it must be said, dear, that tliere is another, — 
 
 a fact, a certainty' ; it is the inspiration of feeling, the 
 
 inexplicable, intangible, invisible flame which God has 
 
 given to certain of his creatures, and which enfolds 
 
 them ; for I love you as we love that which is beyond 
 
 our reach ; I love you as we love God, as we love 
 
 happiness." 
 
 " Feb. 28, 1844. 
 
 *'In spite of what you tell me of your plans for 
 Dresden, I hardly believe in them. If you leave 
 Petersburg the middle of May you cannot reach 
 Wierzschovnia before the end of June ; how then can 
 you expect to be in Dresden in October? Will four 
 months suffice to take possession of your rights, exam- 
 ine the accounts of the administration and the guardian- 
 ship, and re-establish the statum quo of your personal 
 government? No, I know you cannot leave in Octo- 
 ber ; and I know, too, your anxious tenderness for 3'our 
 child will never suffer her to travel in winter. Do 3'ou 
 comprehend what there is of despair to me in these 
 convictions? Life was onl}^ supportable in the hope 
 of Dresden ; it will overwhelm me, annihilate me, if I 
 have to wait longer. . . . 
 
 *' I went this morning for the proofs of what I have 
 written of JLes Petits Bourgeois. The printing-office 
 
304 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 is close to Saint-Germain-des-Pres ; the idea came to 
 me to enter the church, and I prayed for yo\x and 3'our 
 dear child before the altar of the Virghi. Tears came 
 into my eyes as I asked God to keep you both in life 
 and health. Perhaps, in returning from those heiglits 
 I have brought back some gleams from the ideal throne 
 before which we kneel. With what fervor, what ar- 
 dor, what abandonment of myself, do I feel that I am 
 bound to you forever, — for time and for eternity, as 
 pious people say. 
 
 ''I inclose the first flower that has bloomed in my 
 garden ; it smiled to me this morning, and I send it 
 charged with all those thoughts and emotions which 
 cannot be written. . . . No, never in my living life 
 have I said one word of 3'ou, nor of my worship, nor 
 of my faith ; and probably the stone which will some 
 day lie above my body will keep the secret that I have 
 kept in life. Therefore, there was never in this world 
 a fresher and more immaculate feeling in any soul than 
 that you know of." 
 
 "Passy, Oct. 11, 1844. 
 
 ''To clear off some twenty thousand francs of debt 
 and to start for Dresden in December with Les Pay- 
 saiis finished, — that is my dream ; and if not realized 
 how can I live through 1845? 
 
 ''The death of your cousin Thaddeus grieves me. 
 You have told me so much of him that you made me 
 love him whom you loved. You have doubtless guessed 
 why I called Paz Thaddeus, and gave him the charac- 
 ter and sentiments of your poor cousin. While you 
 weep for his loss remind 3'ourself that I will love you 
 for all those whose love you lose. ... 
 
Honors de Balzac. 305 
 
 ** Are j'ou reall}' satisfied with the young man?^ Ex- 
 amine him without predilections ; for such excellent 
 prospects for your child will certainly tend to make the 
 suitor himself seem perfect. Remember that her whole 
 life is involved. I am glad the first points, those of 
 taste and sympathy, so necessarj^ for her happiness 
 and yours, are satisfactory ; but, nevertheless, study 
 him; be as stern in judgment as if you did not like him. 
 The things to be considered aV)ove all else are prin- 
 ciples, character, firmness. But how stupid of me to 
 be giving this advice to the best and most devoted of 
 mothers. I am sure I don't know why I am recom- 
 mending prudence to one who possesses all the wits of 
 all the Rzewuski, and who has an eye at the tip of each 
 dainty little finger. 
 
 '' C came to see me 5'esterday. He is a terrible 
 
 dullard. I am alarmed to think that the king takes 
 him with him five times out of ten wherever he goes. 
 Louis-Philippe commits the same, fault that Napoleon 
 committed. He wants to be all and sole. There comes 
 a day when empires perish because the man they rest 
 on perishes, having neglected to provide his substi- 
 tute. One thing is certain, the peace and tranquillity 
 of Europe hang on a thread, and that thread is the 
 hfe of an old man of seventy-six." 
 
 "Passy, Oct. 21, 1844. 
 
 " I am perfectly well again, and have gone back to 
 
 work. This is a piece of good news I ought to write to 
 
 3'ou at once. But oh ! dearest, a year is a year, don't 
 
 3'ou see? The heart cannot deceive itself; it must 
 
 ^ Comte Georges Mniszeck, as suitor to her daughter. 
 20 
 
306 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 suffer its own pains in spite of the false remedies of 
 hope — Hope ! is it anything more than pain dis- 
 guised? ... 
 
 " I went out yesterday- for the first time ; and I 
 bought a clock of regal magnificence, and two vases 
 of sea-green marble, which are not less magnificent. 
 A rich amateur is covetous of my Florentine furniture, 
 and is coming to see it. I shall ask fort}' thousand 
 francs. Anotlier bit of news : Girardon's ' Christ,' for 
 which I paid two hundred francs, is valued at five 
 thousand, and at twentj^ thousand with the Brustolone 
 frame. I have also found a splendid pedestal for that 
 bust by David, which they tell me is a great success. 
 This beautiful thing only cost me three hundred francs, 
 and the late Alibert, for whom it was made, must have 
 paid fifteen or twenty thousand for it. And yet you 
 laugh, dear countess, at my dealings in the kingdom of 
 Bric-a-brac. Dr. Nacquart is very much opposed to 
 my selling the furniture. He says : ' In a few months 
 you will be out of your present difficulties, and these 
 magnificent things will be your glorj^* 'I like money 
 better,' I replied. So 3'ou see, Harpagon was the poet, 
 and the poet was Harpagon. Dear, believe me, I can- 
 not suffer much longer as I am. Think of it! another 
 delay ! When Les JPaysans is quite finished, I shall 
 claim a word from you, permitting me to join you in 
 your steppes." 
 
 " November, 1844. 
 
 " As for 3'our suggested plan, I would rather renounce 
 tranquillity than obtain it at that price. When a man 
 has troubled his country and intrigued in court and city, 
 like Cardinal de Retz, he may evade his debts at Com- 
 
Honore de Balzac. 307 
 
 mercy if he chooses ; but in our commonplace epoch 
 a man cannot leave his own place without paying all 
 he owes ; otherwise he would seem to be escaping his 
 creditors. In these days we are doubtless less grand, 
 less dazzling, but we are certainly more orderl}', per- 
 haps more honorable, than the great lords of the great 
 century. This comes, possibly, from our altered un- 
 derstanding of what honor and dut>' mean ; we have 
 placed their meaning elsewhere, and the reason is 
 simple enough. Those great men were the actors on 
 a great stage, whose business it was to be admired, and 
 they were paid for being so. We are now the paying 
 public, which acts only for itself and by itself. There- 
 fore, don't talk to me of Switzerland or Itah-, or any- 
 thing of that kind. My best, my'onlj^ countrj' lies 
 within the fortifications of Paris. If I leave it it will 
 only be to see you, — as you well know. I should 
 alread3' have done so had 3'ou permitted it. 
 
 *' I have received a letter from Lirette, asking me to 
 be present at the ceremony of her taking the vows and 
 veil." 1 
 
 " December 3. 
 
 *'I got up at half-past two this morning, worked till 
 midday, ate a hasty breakfast, and reached the convent 
 at one o'clock. These good nuns reallj' think the 
 world turns for them alone. I asked the portress how 
 long the ceremony would last, and she replied, 'An 
 hour.' So I thought to myself: I can see Lirette after 
 it, and get back in time for my business at the printing- 
 
 1 Mile. Lirette Borel, a confidential friend or companion of 
 Mme. Hanska, had come to Paris to enter, with Balzac's assist- 
 ance, the Order of Saint-Thoraas-de-Villeneuve. 
 
308 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 office. Well, it lasted till four o'clock ! then I had to 
 see the poor girl afterwards ; I did not get away till 
 half-past five. However, it was right that my dear 
 countess and Anna should be represented at the burial 
 of their friend ; so I went through with it bravely. 
 I had a fine place beside the officiating priest. Tlie 
 sermon lasted nearly an hour ; it was well written and 
 well delivered, — not strong, but full of faith. The 
 officiating priest went to sleep (he was an old man). 
 Lirette never stirred. She was on her knees between 
 two postulants. The little girls were ranged on one 
 side of the choir ; the chapter was on the other, be- 
 hind the grating which was made transparent for the cere- 
 monj'. Lirette, together with the postulants, heard the 
 sermon on her knees, and did not raise her eyes. Her 
 face was white, pure, and stamped with the enthusiasm 
 of a saint. As I had never seen the ceremony of tak- 
 ing the veil, I watched, observed, and studied everj-- 
 thing with a deep attention which made them take me, 
 I have no doubt, for a very pious man. On arriving 
 I prayed for you and for your children fervently ; for 
 each time that I see an altar I take my flight to God 
 and humblj- dare, and ardently, to ask his goodness for 
 me and mine, — who are you and yours. The chapel, 
 with its white and gold altar, was a very pretty one. 
 The ceremony was imposing and very dramatic. I felt 
 deeply moved when the three new sisters threw them- 
 selves on the ground and were buried under a pall, 
 while prayers for the dead were recited over those three 
 living creatures, and when, after that, they rose and 
 appeared as brides crowned with white roses, to make 
 their vows of espousal to Jesus Christ. 
 
Hon ore de Balzac. 309 
 
 "Just then an incident occurred. The j-oungest of 
 the sisters — pretty' as a dream of love — was so agi- 
 tated that when it came to pronouncing the vows she 
 was obliged to stop short just at the vow of chastity. 
 It lasted thirt}' seconds at most ; but it was awful ; 
 tliere seemed to be uncertaint}-. For m}' part, I admit 
 that I was shaken to the depths of my soul ; the emo- 
 tion I felt was too great for an unknown cause. The 
 poor little thing soon came to herself, and the ceremony 
 went on without further hindrance. . . . 
 
 '* I saw Lirette after the ceremony ; she was ga}- as 
 a bird ; she said she was so happ}' that she prayed con- 
 tinuall}' that God would make us all monks and nuns. 
 We ended by talking seriously of 3*00 and 3'our dear 
 child. 
 
 *' To-morrow I am going to see a little house which 
 is for sale near the church of Saint Vincent-de-Paul ; 
 the Byzantine church which we went to see, you re- 
 member, and where a funeral was going on. You said 
 to me, looking at the vacant ground near the church, 
 * I should not be unwilling to live here ; we should be 
 near to God, and far from the world.'" 
 
 "Passy, Feb. 15, 1845. 
 " Poor dear countess, how many things I have to say- 
 to 3'ou. Without your inexorable order, I should have 
 been in Dresden a month ago. . . . All these uncer- 
 tainties have weighed heavil3- upon me ; for how can I 
 work when every hour I expect a letter to tell me to 
 start at once? I have not yet written one line for the 
 end of Xes Paysans. This uncertainty has completel3^ 
 disorganized me. From the mere pomt of view of 
 
810 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 material interests it is fatal. In spite of yoxxv fine 
 intelligence you are unable to understand this, for 3'ou 
 know nothing of Parisian economy or the painful straits 
 of a man who tries to live on six thousand francs a year. 
 But the worst of all is the impossibihty of occupying 
 my mind. How can I throw myself into absorbing labor 
 with the idea before me of soon starting — and starting 
 to see you? It is impossible. To do so I need to have 
 no heart. I have been tortured and agitated as I never 
 was in my life before. It is a triple martyrdom of the 
 heart, of the head, of the interests, and (my imagina- 
 tion aiding) it has been so violent that I declare to you 
 I am half dazed, so dazed that to escape madness I 
 have taken to going out in the evening and playing 
 lansquenet at Madame Merlin's and other places. I 
 had to appl}' a remedy to such disease. I have been to 
 the opera, and dined out twice, and tried to lead a gay 
 life for the last fortniglit. And now I will work night 
 and day and finish Les Pay sans. It will take a month 
 of herculean labor, but I inscribe upon m}' brain (to be 
 rejected by my heart) the words : ' Think no more of 
 your star, nor of Dresden, nor of travel; stay in your 
 chains and toil miserably.' " 
 
 " April 5, 1845. 
 " I do not know what to think of what you say of 
 m}^ letter. I, to give you pain or the faintest grief! I, 
 whose constant thought it is to spare you pain ! Good 
 God ! however right m}' intentions were, it seems that 
 I have hurt you, and that is enough. . . . When I see 
 you I will explain all. . . . Under such irritating cir- 
 cumstances I was impatient. I write my letters hastily 
 and never read them over. I say what is in my mind 
 
Honore de Balzac. 311 
 
 without reflection. If I bad reread that letter perhaps 
 I should have sacrificed it to Vulcan, as I often do others 
 in which my voice gets too loud." 
 
 " April 18. 
 
 " You write, 'I wish I could see you.' Well, when 
 you hold this letter in your dainty fingers, may they 
 tremble a little, for I shall be very near you, at Eise^ 
 nach, at Erfurt, — I can't now tell where, for 1 shall 
 follow my letter. To-day is Friday, and I start 
 Sunday." 
 
 " Sept. 10, 1845. 
 
 *' My faculties have come back to me more brilliant 
 than ever. 1 am certain that the present two books 
 will be worthy of the former ones. I tell you this 
 to calm the anxiety of your fraternal soul as to the reac- 
 tion of the physical upon the mental faculties, and to 
 prove to you for the millionth time that I tell you the 
 exact truth and hide nothing, either good or bad. Go 
 to the baths of Teplitz, or elsewhere, if necessar}', only 
 be faithful to 3'our promise at Sarraate. ... I have no 
 words but the mute language of the heart to thank you 
 for that adorable letter, in which your gayety breaks 
 forth with sparkling gush, — sweet treasure of your dear 
 mind, which the charming weather has brought back to 
 you. I remember your once saying to me : ' It is onl}' 
 wrong doers who can stay sad when the joyous sun is 
 shining.' 
 
 "I am working, working, — God knows how, and 
 God knows wlw. When 3'ou hold this letter in your 
 hand I shall probably have no debts, except to m}^ 
 family. We will talk these things over on the boat 
 
312 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 from Chalons. There is much to tell, and I hope that 
 this time 3'ou will not be dissatisfied with your servant. 
 I have an enormous amount of work to do in thinking, 
 writing, and correcting, so as to be free to accompany 
 you. When this letter reaches you, think that we are 
 each going towards the other. Take care of yourself ; 
 see to your health ; your child's welfare depends on it. 
 1 dare not say mine, and yet, what else have I in this 
 world?" 
 
 " Passt, January 1, 1846. 
 ''Another year, dear, and I enter it with pleasure. 
 Thirteen years in Februar3- since the happy da}' when 
 I received your first letter. They seem to me links, 
 indestructible, eternal, glittering with happiness and 
 life. The fourteenth year will soon begin. . . . You 
 are m}' happiness, as you are my fame and my future. 
 Do you remember that early morning at Valence on the 
 bank of the Rhone, when our gentle talk made you for- 
 get 3'our neuralgia? when we walked for two hours in 
 the dawn, both ill, yet without noticing the cold or 
 our own suflTerings? Believe me, such memories, which 
 are wholly of the soul, are as powerful as the material 
 recollections of others; for in you, soul is more beauti- 
 j ful than the corporeal beauties for which the sons of 
 Adam destroy themselves." 
 
 *' February 14, 1846. 
 " You do not yet know that I am silently collecting 
 superb things in art furniture, — thanks to researches, 
 tramps about Paris, economies and privations. I don't 
 mean to speak of this, however ; I shall not unmask 
 my batteries until my dream gathers more and more 
 the semblance of reality. , . . Yesterday I found two 
 
Honore de Balzac. 313 
 
 Sevres vases (of the Restoration) which were, no doubt, 
 painted for some entomologist, for they are covered 
 with the loveliest insects ; evidently' the work of an 
 artist, and of great value, — a real discovery, a rare 
 chance, such as I have never before met with. "With 
 time and patience one can find everything in Paris, 
 even bargains. Just now I am in treat}' for a chan- 
 delier which must have belonged to some emperor of 
 Germany, for it is topped by a double-headed eagle. 
 It is Flemish, and certainly came from Brussels before 
 the Revolution ; weighs two hundred pounds, and is all 
 brass. I expect to get it for its intrinsic value, 450 
 francs. I want it for mj' dining-room, which will be in 
 the same style. I see your alarm at this news ; but 
 don't be uneasy, I am not making debts ; I obe}' your 
 supreme commands. ... I saw the other daj' in a 
 bric-a-brac shop a miniature of Madame de Scvigne, 
 done, I thought, in her lifetime. It can be had for 
 ver}' little; do you want it? It struck me as rather 
 good, but I had no time to examine it properly." 
 
 " 16th. 
 ** I have seen that miniature again and it is hideous. 
 But on the other hand I have bought a portrait of 
 Maria Leczinska after Coy pel, evidently painted in 
 his atelier. I got it for the value of the frame. It 
 is one of those portraits of queens such as they give 
 to cities or great personages, and will do verj' well 
 to decorate the salon. Gautier is to bring me a 
 painter named Chenavard to pass judgment on it, 
 for, like Louis XIV., ' I don't choose to deceive 
 myself.'" 
 
314 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 " Pass Y, June 14, 1846. 
 
 "My financial situation is better than I tiiought. 
 My principal creditors are perfectly satisfied with the 
 liberal manner in which I have settled their accounts. 
 I can easily pay all. My health is excellent, and as 
 for talent — oh! I have recovered it in all its early 
 bloom. My arrangements with publishers will be con- 
 cluded this week. Write me the exact time when you 
 will permit me to go to 3^ou, so that I may be quite 
 ready. Here is what I am going to work at now : 
 Jj'IIistoire des Parents Paiivres, Le JBorihomme 
 Po7is^ and La Cousine Bette ; also Les Me f aits dhm 
 Procureur du roi. and the last of Les Paysans. This 
 will bring me in more than my payments. . . . The 
 publishing business is just now in a bad way. I am 
 to see Furne, Veron, and Charpentier this morning. 
 
 ''I am going valiantly to work with much ardor. 
 Already I have spent two long nights on Le Bon- 
 homme Pons. I think it will be a really fine work, 
 remarkable even among those I am best satisfied with. 
 You shall see ! I have dedicated it to our dear Teano, 
 and I want it to be worthj^ of him. The stor}^ belongs 
 to the order of Cesar Birotteau and the Lt iter diction. 
 The point is to interest the reader in a poor and simple- 
 minded man, an old man, crushed by humiliations and 
 insults, full of feeling, forgiving all and revenging him- 
 self onl}' by benefits. La Cousine Bette is also a poor 
 relation, crushed by humiliations and insults, living in 
 the midst of three or four families, and meditating ven- 
 geance for her bruised pride and wounded vanit3\ 
 These two histories, with that of Pierrette, will make 
 the series of Les Parents Pauvres." 
 
HonorJ de Balzac, 315 
 
 " July 14, 1846. 
 
 '' Two years of peace and tranquillit}- are absolutel}' 
 necessary to soothe my soul after sixteen 3ears of suc- 
 cessive catastropiies. I feel, I do assure jou, very 
 weary of these incessant struggles. If it were not for 
 the new motives for courage which have entered my 
 heart I should, like that drowning man whose strength 
 kept him up for hours in a furious sea, succumb at last 
 to the gentler waves within sight of port. To be 
 dragged incessantly awa}' from all calmness and from 
 the work of the mind by annoyances and anxieties 
 which would drive ordinary people mad, is that living, 
 I ask you ? 
 
 '' 1 have not lived in these latter j'ears, except at 
 Dresden, Baden, Rome, or when we journeyed together. 
 Thanks be to you, oh, dear and tender consoling angel, 
 who alone have poured into m\' desolate life some 
 drops of pure happiness, that marvellous oil which 
 does at times give courage and vigor to the fainting 
 wrestler. That alone should open to you the gates of 
 paradise, if indeed 3'ou have an^^ faults to reproach 
 3'ourself with, — 3'ou, perfect woman, devoted mother, 
 kind and compassionate friend. It is a great and noble 
 mission to console those who have found no consolation 
 on this earth. I have in the treasure of 3'our letters, 
 in the still greater treasure of m3' recollections, in the 
 grateful and constant thought of the good you have 
 done to m3- soul by your advice and your example, a 
 sovereign remed3' against all misfortunes ; and I bless 
 you ver3^ often, m3- dear and beneficent star, in the 
 silence of night and in the worst of my troubles. May 
 that blessing, which looks to God as the author of all 
 
316 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 good, reach you often. Tiy to hear it in the murmur- 
 ing sounds which are heard in the soul though we 
 know not whence they come. My God ! without you, 
 where should I be?" . . . 
 
 "July 20, 1846. 
 '' You tell me of complications in your affairs. But, 
 as you say, we must trust in Providence, for all things 
 are in danger if we sound the earth about us. ... I 
 must tell you, however, that nothing surprises me 
 more than to see you so troubled over things 3'ou can- 
 not change, — you, whom I have seen so submissive 
 to the Divine will ; you, who have always walked 
 straight before you, looking neither to the right nor to 
 the left, and still less behind you, where the past is 
 engulfed as one dead. Why not let yourself be led by 
 the hand of God through the world and through life as 
 you have been hitherto ; and so advance into the future 
 with that calmness, serenity, and confidence which a 
 faith like 3'ours ought to inspire ? I must admit that in 
 seeing my star, which shines with so pure a ray, thus 
 disturbed about material interests, there is something, I 
 know not what, which I do not like, and which makes 
 me suffer. You have already given too much of 3'our 
 time and 3'our beautiful youth to such cares, in spite of 
 your instincts and your natural aversions ; but you were 
 then compelled to do so by necessity, by the interests 
 of your beloved child, and by 3'our sense of duty. Now 
 that you have fulfilled with such scrupulous and merito- 
 rious thoroughness your obligations to your admirable 
 daughter, who understands so well what she owes to 
 3'ou, and whom you have now established according to 
 the choice of her heart and also in accordance with 
 
Honor e de Balzac. 317 
 
 3'our own ideas and S3'rapathies, j'ou surely have noth- 
 ing more to do than to seek the rest and quietude you 
 so fulh' deserve, and give up the burden of business 
 affairs to your children, who will continue the work of 
 your patient and laborious administration. What can 
 3'ou fear for them, so intelligent, so enlightened, so 
 reasonable, so perfecth' united, so fitted for one another? 
 Why foresee events which might trouble such security? 
 Wh}' fear catastrophes which, I delight in thinking, 
 can never happen? B3' spending your strength on 
 imaginar}' dangers 3'ou will have none left for real ones 
 — if they ever threaten 3'ou, wliich 1 doubt." 
 
 " July 20, 1846. 
 *' I have just found a letter from 3'Our children in the 
 post-office, to which Anna has added these few words, 
 which make me uneas3\ She says : * Mamma is sad 
 and suffering. You ought to come here and help us to 
 distract her mind.* I went at once and took m3' place 
 as far as Mayence, I shall go through as punctually 
 as possible ; 3'ou cannot doubt it. Adieu." 
 
 He joined them soon after at Wiesbaden and made 
 the little trip to Strasburg which has alread3' been 
 mentioned. During this and the following year (1846, 
 1847) he did no other work than to finish certain books 
 alread3' in course of publication, and write the first third 
 of Xe Depute d'Arcis, which was finished b3' M. 
 Charles Rabou and published three 3'ears after Balzac's 
 death. 
 
 In October, 1847, he made his first visit to Madame 
 Hanska's home in the Ukraine, of which he gives the 
 following description to his sister, Madame Surville. 
 
 UNIVERSITI 
 
318 Honore de Balzac, 
 
 " WiERZSCHOVNIA, Oct. 8, 1847. 
 
 *' My dear Sister, — I arrived here without other 
 accident than extreme fatigue ; for I have come over a 
 quarter of the earth's diameter and even more in eight 
 daj's, without stopping or going to bed. If I had 
 doubled the distance I should have found myself beyond 
 the Himalayas. As I got here ten days before my 
 letter, I greatl}^ surprised ray friends, who were much 
 touched by my eagerness. 
 
 " This habitation is an actual Louvre, and the territory 
 belonging to it greater than that of one of our depart- 
 ments. In France we have no conception of the extent 
 and fertilit}^ of these great estates, where no manure is 
 ever used, and where they sow wheat year after 3-ear. 
 Though the young count and countess have something 
 like twenty thousand male peasants (forty thousand 
 souls) to their share alone, it would require four hundred 
 thousand to keep all the land in cultivation. They only 
 sow as much as the3' are able to reap and gather in. . . . 
 
 '' The country is peculiar in the sense that side by side 
 with the utmost magnificence the commonest comforts 
 are lacking. This estate is the only one in the province 
 which possesses a Carcel lamp and a hospital. There 
 are mirrors ten feet high, and bare walls ; 3'et Wierz- 
 schovnia is held to be the most sumptuous dwelling in 
 the Ukraine, which is the size of France. Delightful 
 tranquillity reigns. The authorities have been full of 
 attentions, I might say chivalric attentions for me ; 
 otherwise without such miraculous help, I could never 
 have got here ; being ignorant of the languages of the 
 regions through which I passed. From the European 
 frontier to Odessa the country is a flat plain, like our 
 
Honor e de Balzac. 319 
 
 Beauce. Mj^ arrival has been sadly celebrated by two 
 terrible conttagrations, which burned several houses. I 
 saw the dreadful sight. . . . 
 
 *'In spite of these fertile lands the commutation of 
 crops into mone}' is extremel}' difficult, for the bailiffs 
 steal, and labor is scarce to thresh the wheat, which is 
 done b}" machines. Nevertheless, few persons in 
 France have any idea of the wealth and power of 
 Russia. It must be seen to be believed. This power 
 and wealth are all territorial, which will, sooner or later, 
 make Russia the mistress of European markets for all 
 natural products. . . . 
 
 '' I have taken a heav}' cold, which will probably last 
 me two months ; it is so bad I cannot leave the house. 
 I ought to go to Kiev, the Rome of the North, a city 
 with three hundred churches, to pay mj^ respects to the 
 Governor, who is viceroy of three great principalities 
 of the size of an empire, and obtain my permit to re- 
 main here. It is physically impossible that I should 
 return to Paris for six or eight months. The winter is 
 beginning, and I could not riskajourne}" at that season. 
 I shall probably be in Paris towards April ; but even 
 so, I shall return here immediatel}^, as we wish to make 
 a journey to the Crimea and the Caucasus and go as 
 far as Tiflis. The idea of such a journc}" delights me. 
 There is nothing finer than that region. The}' sa}' it is 
 like Switzerland plu^ the sea and the vegetation of the 
 tropics." 
 
 *' November, 1847. 
 
 '' You cannot imagine the enormous wealth which ac- 
 cumulates in Russia and is wasted for want of means of 
 transportation. Here (and Wierzschovnia is a palace) 
 
320 Sonor^ de Balzac. 
 
 they heat the stoves with straw, and burn more in one 
 week than there is in the Saint-Laurent market in Paris. 
 I went the other day to the follioark of Wierzschovnia, 
 which is the place where the}' stack the wheat and 
 thresh it ; for this village alone there were twenty 
 stacks, each thirty feet high by one hundred and twenty 
 five feet long and thirt}' feet broad. But the thefts of 
 the bailiffs and the heavy expenses diminish the reve- 
 nues greatly. We have no idea in France of existence 
 here. At Wierzschovnia, for instance, it is necessary 
 to have all trades on the place. There is a tailor, a 
 shoemaker, a confectioner, an upholsterer, etc., attached 
 to the house. I understand now what the late Mon- 
 sieur H. (who had a whole orchestra in his service) 
 said to me at Geneva about his three hundred servants. 
 *' M3' great hope and desire is not, as yet, near to its 
 accomplishment. Madame Hanska is indispensable to 
 her children. She guides and instructs them in the 
 vast and difficult administration of the property. She 
 has given all to her daughter. I knew of this intention 
 when I was with her in Petersburg ; and I am delighted 
 that the happiness of my life is detached from all self- 
 interests ; it makes me the more solicitous to guard 
 that which has been confided to me. ... I have seen 
 Kiev, the orthodox city of three hundred churches, and 
 the riches of Lavza, the Saint Sophia of the steppes. 
 It was well to see it once. I was showered with atten- 
 tions. Would you believe it, a rich moujik has read all 
 my books and burns a taper for me weekly before Saint 
 Nicholas ! He gave money to the servants of Madame 
 Hanska's sister to let him know when I came to Kiev, 
 so that he might see me. 
 
Honors de Balzac. 321 
 
 ** I Imve a delightful suite of rooms, — a salon, stud}', 
 and bed-chamber. The study is in rose-colored stucco, 
 with a fireplace, superb carpets, and commodious fur- 
 niture. The windows are one sheet of glass, so that I 
 can look round the landscape on all sides. You can 
 imagine that Wierzschovnia is indeed a Louvre when 
 I tell 30U it contains five or six other such suites of 
 rooms for guests. As I am working hard just now, I 
 breakfast in my own rooms and only go down to din- 
 ner ; but the ladies and Comte Georges pay me little 
 visits. It is a patriarchal life without the slightest 
 ennui. 
 
 "Your letters gave me great pleasure. I am delighted 
 to know from my mother that the little house in the 
 rue Fortunee is carefulh' guarded. Madame Ilanska 
 has been very anxious about it on account of the valu- 
 ables it contains. They are the product of six years' 
 economy, and she is afraid of thieves or accident. It 
 is indeed a nest, built straw by straw." 
 
 Balzac returned to Paris on the eve of the Revolu- 
 tion of February, 1848. It was at this time that he 
 met the gens-de-lettres at the Institute, in response to 
 Ledru-RoUin's invitation, of which Champfleury gives 
 the amusing account already quoted. This 3'oung writer 
 had lately dedicated a book (" Feu Miette ") to Balzac, 
 who in return invited him to the rue Fortunee. The 
 account which Champfleury gives of the sumptuous lit- 
 tle 'Miest," destined to see a month's fruition of the 
 hope of years, is valuable as being one of the most per- 
 sonal pictures which we have of its master, and the 
 only one which shows him to us in his last years : — 
 
 21 
 
322 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 "On the 27th of February, 1848, three days after 
 the departure of Louis Philippe, Monsieur de Balzac 
 wrote to ask me to go and see him in the rue For- 
 tunee. His household appeared to consist of a valet 
 and a concierge. M. de Balzac came downstairs to 
 meet me, wrapped in the well-known white dress of a 
 monk. His face was round, his black eyes excessively 
 brilliant ; the general aspect of his skin olive, with 
 strong red tones on the cheeks, and pure yellow ones 
 about the temples, near the ej'es ; his thick hair was 
 very black, but threaded with silver, — a powerful 
 mane. In spite of the ample robe, I noticed that his 
 stomach was enormous. Monsieur de Balzac was hand- 
 some. Unlike most persons who are unable to find the 
 man of their thoughts when they first meet a genius, 
 I was surprised b}^ his beauty. ... It was not, of 
 course, that Greek beauty which has turned the bald 
 heads of France and Germany; it was the beauty be- 
 longing to his intellect, which was not shut in within 
 himself (as in many men), but expanded itself on his 
 face. The face of the author of the Comedie Humaine 
 showed strength, courage, patience, and genius. His 
 eyes questioned and listened like those of a priest and 
 a ph3'sician. I have never seen any like them for ful- 
 ness of idea and depth. His joyous face inspired jo}', 
 just as an actor who yawns can make his audience 
 yawn. All known portraits of Balzac are insuflBcient 
 to represent him. 
 
 '^ After two hours' conversation I rose to go. M. de 
 Balzac took me down a broad staircase different from 
 the one by which we went up. I noticed, in passing, 
 a marble statue of himself, three-quarter . size, which 
 
Honore de Balzac. 323 
 
 seemed to me second-rate. 'Ah! do you care for 
 art ? ' he said to me. * Then I must show you my col- 
 lection.' We went up through other rooms until we 
 entered a long gallery, in which the chief picture was a 
 large Domenichino. There were many other pictures, 
 but I have forgotten their subjects and the names of 
 their painters. 
 
 **As we walked along, I wondered a little that I 
 seemed to know the place. M. de Balzac explained the 
 various objects. He told me, among other things, the 
 genealogy of the frames. One of them had belonged 
 to Marie de Medicis, and M. de Rothschild was anxious 
 to possess it. I was turning over in my mind how it 
 could be that I knew this gallery without ever having 
 entered it, when, as we passed into another room, M. 
 de Balzac stopped me before a little carved wooden 
 frame, empty, yet hung intentionally in a strong light. 
 
 ' When the famous [Dutch antiquary whose name 
 
 I have forgotten] heard I had a frame by this master,' 
 said M. de Balzac, ' he would have given the last drop 
 of his blood to get half of it.' Then the truth flashed 
 upon me. I was in the gallery of Cousin Pons. Here 
 were Cousin Pons' pictures, Cousin Pons' curios. I 
 knew them now. 
 
 ''After the picture gallery we entered a room lighted 
 by a single window. The door once closed, nothing 
 could be seen but cases filled with books in good bind- 
 ings. It would have been difficult to get out of the 
 room without a guide. . . . M. de Balzac then showed 
 me, with the enthusiasm of a proprietor, the arrange- 
 ments of the house, the convenience of the rooms, the 
 bathroom, the boudoir of the late banker Beaujon, the 
 
.324 Honor e de Balzac. 
 
 frescos of which had just been restored ; and, finall}^ a 
 large salon, full of all sorts of curiosities, carved fur- 
 niture, comfortable arm-chairs just repolished and care- 
 fully regilded. I spent three hours in this way, — three 
 rapid hours, — during which M. de Balzac seemed to 
 me the man I had pictured him, — the simple and sin- 
 cere artist, full of a certain pride which charmed me, 
 showing deep respect for the hand of man in art, and 
 loving literature as the Arab loves the wild horse of the 
 desert which he has mastered." 
 
 Balzac returned to Wierzschovnia in October, 1848, 
 and did not leave it again till April, 1850. His letters 
 to his sister during this period show the two-fold strug- 
 gle that he went through ; first, with the fatal malady 
 that was already upon him (without his knowledge), 
 and next in the unavailing effort to bring Madame 
 Hanska to take the step of marriage. The letters are 
 unutterably sad ; not so much for what they sa}^ as for 
 what the reader, with his clearer knowledge of all that 
 was about to happen, sees in them. In the present day 
 we know more of disease and its causes than the lait}^, 
 or even many of the ph}- sicians, of the first half of this 
 century. It is plain to all who read this history now 
 that Balzac was in the grasp of a mortal malad}' as 
 early as 1847, before he went to that cruel Russian 
 climate, which gave him his coup-de- grace. After he 
 was taken ill at Wierzschovnia, he trusted, with his 
 natural confidence, to a local doctor, who tortured him 
 with remedies to no purpose, agaiiast the advice of his 
 own son, a physician of broader intelligence. Dr. Nac- 
 quart, his lifelong friend and physician, being asked to 
 give the causes of Balzac's death, wrote a long and 
 
Honore de Balzac. 325 
 
 rather irrelevant statement, in which, however, the fol- 
 lowing significant facts appear: *' A long-standing 
 disease of the heart, aggravated b}^ over-work at night, 
 and the use, or abuse, of coffee had taken a new and 
 fatal development. ... His breathing was short and 
 panting, and forbade all active motion ; his voice, form- 
 erh' so strong, was weak and broken ; his e3'es, once 
 clear and far-sighted, were covered with a film or veil. 
 The patient retained hopes of himself; but science had 
 in the first instance diagnosed the complication of a 
 marked albuminaria {profonde albuminarie) , and could 
 see no prospect of recovery." Balzac himself seems 
 never to have lost heart ; and this was fortunate in- 
 deed ; for his ignorance as to his true state gave him 
 his heart's desire in his marriage ; which appears (we 
 are tliankful to feel) to have been as deep a happiness 
 to his wife as it was to him. 
 
 The following letters and extracts of letters will tell 
 brieflj^ the story of the last two years : — 
 
 *' WiERzscHOVNiA, November, 1848. 
 "Young Ladies and very honored Nieces:^ 
 
 '*I am highly pleased with your letters, which gave 
 me great satisfaction, and which any other uncle than 
 one known for his agreeable writings would regard 
 with blackest envy on account of their graceful live- 
 liness, and the perfection of their style. Therefore 
 have the}' won for each of you, as due recompense for 
 such fine talents, a " caraco " made of magnificent 
 termolama, trimmed with handsome fur; which 3'our 
 august uncle will endeavor to smuggle through the 
 
 1 Mesdemoiselles Sophie and Valentine Surville. 
 
326 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 custom-house, and which will make 3'ou objects of envy 
 to all your companions in the drawing-class. You can 
 never wear out your termolamas, because that thick, 
 handsome silken stuff will last ten or fifteen 3'ears. The 
 3'oung countess has a fur-lined garment made of termo- 
 lama, which her mother wore in 1830, and which still 
 retains its colors. I don't know how the Orientals man- 
 age to put the sun into their stuffs. Those Eastern 
 peoples are drunk with light. 
 
 *'Do me the favor to send me the following receipts, 
 clearly and carefully written out, so that they can be 
 taught to moujik cooks : (1) the tomato sauce in- 
 vented by your mother, exactly as it is served at your 
 table ; (2) the onion puree which Louise used to make 
 at your grandmother's. For here, I must tell you, we 
 live in the midst of a great desert, and in order to 
 swallow a bit of beef or mutton (which is not Pre-Sale), 
 one needs the resources and persuasions of Parisian 
 cookery. Be proud of thus becoming the benefactresses 
 of a land entirel}' deprived of veal, — I mean eatable 
 veal ; for the cows do have calves here as elsewhere, 
 but tliose calves are republican in their leanness. Beef, 
 such as 3'ou know it in Paris, is a mj'th ; I remember 
 it in my dreams. Excellent tea is a consolation, and 
 the dairy products are delicious ; but as for vegetables, 
 they are dreadful. Carrots taste like radish, and turnips 
 have no taste at all. On the other hand, the}^ make por- 
 ridge out of many things, millet, oats, buckwheat, barlej", 
 — I beheve they make it out of the barks of trees. 
 Therefore, my dear nieces, have pity on this region, 
 so rich in corn, so poor in vegetables. How Valentine 
 would laugh at the apples, pears, and plums. . . . 
 
Honore de Balzac. 327 
 
 " Now, Sophie, you need not be uneas}^ about the 
 music for the Comtesse Georges. She has tlie genius 
 of music, as she has that of love. If she had not been 
 born an heiress, she would certainly have become a great 
 artist. Music, her mother, her husband, — there you 
 have her character in three words. She is the fairy of 
 tlie domestic hearth, the sparkle of our souls, our gay- 
 ety, the life of the liouse. When she is not in it the very 
 walls miss her, for she brightens them with her pres- 
 ence. . . . She is thoroughly educated, without pedan- 
 try ; her naivete is delicious ; although she has been 
 married two years, she is as meny as a cliild, and full 
 of laughter as a young girl, — which does not prevent 
 her from feeling a religious enthusiasm for noble things. 
 Physically, she possesses grace, which is sometimes 
 more beautiful than beauty, and this triumphs over a 
 complexion which is rather dark ; her nose is well-cut, 
 but pretty only in profile ; her figure is perfect, supple, 
 elegant ; her feet and hands delicate and wonderfiill}' 
 small. All these advantages are brought into relief by 
 an air of distinction, of race, that indefinable air of easy 
 grandeur which all queens do not possess, and which is 
 now lost to us in France, where every one expects to be 
 the equal of others. She speaks four languages as well 
 as if she were born in the countries where they are 
 spoken. She is keenly observing ; nothing escapes lier; 
 I am often surprised by this myself; but with it all she 
 is extremely discreet. After living in the house with 
 her some weeks I could think of no word to describe 
 her to my own mind but ' pearl.' Her husband adores 
 her. 
 
 '' I wish I could think that Valentine would study as 
 
328 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 much as the Comtesse Georges, who, besides all her 
 other studies, gives much time every day to the piano. 
 The thing that has given her this splendid education is 
 work. Now I must tell my dear little niece that to do 
 nothing but what we like to do is the origin of all 
 degradation, especially for a woman. Rules to obey, 
 duties to be done, have been the law of this .young girl's 
 life, although she was an only daughter and a rich 
 heiress. Even to this dav, she is a little child in pres- 
 ence of her mother ; she disputes with others the honor 
 of waiting on her ; she has an English, I may sa}^, 
 feudal reverence for her; she knows how to combine 
 deep love and deep respect, tenderness with familiarit}^ 
 without infringing on the enormous distance between 
 her mother and herself. The young countess has never 
 said ' thou ' to her mother, and yet the problem of 
 infinite tenderness and infinite respect is perfectly 
 solved. 
 
 " Don't think this a lesson, my dear nieces. I know 
 your aflfection for 3'our parents, who have made your 
 childhood and 3'outh a poem, such as your mother and 
 I never had in our day, and which your excellent 
 mother vowed you should some day enjo}'. In France 
 we are not born, as these people are here, to see a whole 
 population prostrate before social grandeur ; we have 
 no longer the right to think any one beneath us ; we 
 are each obhged now to acquire our own value person- 
 ally. This will make a great people of us, — provided 
 we do not let commonplace and vulgar vanities get the 
 better of us. So I entreat Valentine to set tasks to 
 herself, to find work to be done, if only to get the habit 
 of duty, — of course without neglecting the ordinary 
 
Honore de Balzac. 329 
 
 and daily employments of the household ; and above 
 all, to repress the desire to do only ichat one likes, for 
 that is a descent into all misfortunes. 
 
 "But that's enough morality, — for 3'ou are both 
 such little pests that \ou are capable of thinking I 
 make your * caracos ' bitter to you. God forbid that 
 I should be like those parents who spread their children's 
 bread and butter with moral rhubarb." 
 
 "February 9, 1849. 
 
 *' You tell me, m}' dear sister, that 3'ou think of 
 leaving jour present house and finding a cheaper one 
 elsewhere. You are right ; for in crises like 3our pres- 
 ent one it is well to cut down expenses to absolute 
 necessities. I can cite my own case for that. I never 
 spent more on myself in Paris (counting carriages and 
 trips to Sache) than two hundred francs. I advise 3'OU 
 to look about the neighborhood of Pass}', les Ternes, or 
 Chaillot ; there you will find as good an apartment as 
 3'our present one for less mone}'. If I were Surville 
 I should take a single room in a central part of Paris 
 and keep my oflSce there. In this way you will pull 
 through the present crisis. You know what means I 
 employed to live cheaply. My cooking was done twice 
 a week, Mondays and Thursdays. I ate cold meat and 
 salad the other days. By contenting myself at Passy 
 with strict necessaries, I managed to spend onh^ a 
 franc a head each day. I could do it again without 
 blinking." 
 
 " March 3, 1849. 
 
 *' The winter has not spared us ; the cold has been 
 like that of 1812. I took a fourth cold at Kiev, which 
 
330 Honord de Balzac. 
 
 has made me suffer long and cruell}'. The treatment I 
 have been undergoing for my heart and lung trouble 
 was interrupted, for I had no strength for it. I have 
 reached the stage of absolute muscular weakness in 
 those two organs, which causes suffocation for no cause 
 at all, — a slight noise, a word spoken loudl3\ However, 
 this last cold is getting better, and they are going to 
 try and remedy the muscular exhaustion ; otherwise, 
 the journey home would be ver}^ difficult. I have had 
 to get a valet, — being unable to lift a package, or make 
 any movement at all violent. . . . 
 
 ' ' The conclusion of the great affair of my life meets 
 with difficulties foreseen and caused bj^ mere formali- 
 ties ; so that though we are both most anxious to reach 
 the rue Fortunee, there is still great uncertainty." 
 
 " March 22, 1849. 
 *' At last I obtained permission to write to Peters- 
 burg for the consent of the sovereign ruler to our 
 marriage. He refused it ; and his minister writes that 
 we know the laws and the}' must be obeyed. Weary 
 of the struggle, Madame Hanska now talks of my 
 returning to Paris, and selling everything in the rue 
 Fortunee. Here, she is rich, beloved, respected ; she 
 spends nothing ; and she hesitates to go where she sees 
 only troubles, debts, expenses, and new faces. Her 
 children tremble for her. You can see that in view 
 of all these doubts expressed and felt about future 
 happiness, an honorable man ought to depart, return 
 the property in the rue Fortunee to whom it belongs, 
 go back to his pen, and hide himself in some hole at 
 Passy. 
 
Honore de Balzac, 331 
 
 *' I have, and I have alwa3's had in Madame Hanska 
 the best and most devoted of friends, — a friend such as 
 one finds but once in life. Her children love me as one 
 of tlieir own famik, but the}' do not wish their adored 
 mother to run the risks of an unfortunate future ; and 
 they are right. You cannot imagine the wisdom and 
 good sense of Madame Hanska ; they are equal to her 
 educational knowledge, which is vast. She is still beau- 
 tiful ; but she has a dread of society and all its annoy- 
 ances ; she loves quiet, sohtude, and studj'. . . . 
 
 "The only thing that I thirst for is tranquillit}*, do- 
 mestic life, and moderate work in finishing the Comedie 
 Humaine. If I fail in this completely, I shall take 
 what belongs to me in the rue Fortunee and begin m}' 
 life anew. But this time I will board in some establish- 
 ment and live in one room, so as to be independent of 
 everjthing, even furniture. Will you believe me when 
 I tell you that the prospect does not alarm me — except 
 for my mother. But even then, bv spending only one 
 hundred and fifty francs a month, I could still pa}' her 
 income. If I lose all here I shall live no longer. I 
 should be content with the garret in the rue Lesdigui- 
 eres and one hundred francs a month. The heart, the 
 mind, the ambition, can desire no other thing than that 
 I have sought for sixteen years. If that immense hap- 
 piness escapes me I have no need for anything — I 
 could desire nothing. . . . You must not think that I 
 care for luxury. I care for the luxury of the rue For- 
 tunee with all its accompaniments, — a beautiful wife, 
 well-born, a competence, and friends ; but in itself it is 
 nothing to me, — the rue Fortunee exists oiAy for and 
 by her." 
 
332 HonorS de Balzac. 
 
 " April 9, 1849. 
 " Would 3'ou believe that m}^ troubles have made 
 me lose two sound teeth, white and uninjured, and 
 that without pain? No one knows what the years 
 1847 and 1848 have cost me; above all in the un- 
 certainty that overhangs my fate. Here I have ma- 
 terial tranquillit}^ and that is all. ... I wish I could 
 see something reassuring about the future ; but all is 
 doubtful and tending to the worst side." 
 
 « April 30, 1849. 
 
 *' I am still here, detained hy illness. Alas ! I have 
 paid tribute to 1848. I have come to such a pass that 
 I can no longer brush my hair without suffocation and 
 palpitation. Twice I nearly strangled from the impos- 
 sibility of inhaling and exhaling my breath. I cannot 
 go upstairs. . . . Happily there is a doctor here, a 
 pupil of the famous Franck (the original of my Medecin 
 de Campagne). He and his son say the trouble is a 
 simple hypertrophy and answer for my complete cure. 
 But here I am, in for a course of treatment for God 
 knows how long. . . . 
 
 '* This horrible illness, horrible for a man of m}" viva- 
 city (for is it living to have to avoid everything, — the 
 least expression of feeling, a word too eagerly said, a 
 step too rapid ?) , is complicated by the effects of the 
 climate. Till now, I have not felt the baneful effects 
 of the Asiatic climate. It is fearful. I have headaches 
 all the time. Heat and cold are both excessive. Asia 
 sends us winds charged with elements quite other than 
 those of European atmospheres. But, as I tell you, the 
 doctors answer for my recovery, and I could not be as 
 
Honore de Balzac. 333 
 
 well cared for in Paris as I am here, where everj' one 
 shows me such tender, fraternal, filial feelings and 
 genuine attachment, like that of a loving family. We 
 live as though we had but one heart among the four. 
 This is, I know, reiteration ; but it is the only definition 
 I can give of the life I live here. . . . 
 
 " Cost what it may, I shall return to Paris in August. 
 One should die in one's form. IIow can I oflTer a life 
 broken as mine is now ? I shall do what my situation 
 requires towards the incomparable friend who for six- 
 teen years has shone upon my life like a blessed star." 
 
 *' June 21, 1849. 
 *' The trouble in my heart (not to speak of those in my 
 stomach which are a consequence of it) has increased 
 to such a degree that the treatment is renewed. I have 
 been auscultated, and the disease named (so as not to 
 alarm me) simple hypertrophy. It appears that the 
 father undertook the cure against the advice of the son, 
 who, imbued with our French ideas, thought it was all 
 over with me. . . . [Here follow man}' details of his 
 ilhiess and treatment.] However, the doctor is con- 
 fident he can complete the work and make me as good 
 as new. He is a great physician, quite unknown. He 
 does justice to the French faculty ; says they are the 
 first in the world for recognizing and diagnosing dis- 
 eases ; but declares them absolutely ignorant, with a 
 few exceptions, of therapeutics, — that is, the knowledge 
 of means of cure. Is it not dreadful to think that 
 Frederic Soulie died for want of this doctor of mine ? — 
 for two months ago I was as ill as Soulie was when he 
 put himself under treatment." 
 
334 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 " August 6, 1849. 
 " Affairs here, financiall}', are in a perilous state. 
 Enormous crops, no mone}^ I fear, for reasons not of 
 a nature to put in a letter, that the purpose that brought 
 me here is indefinitely postponed. Can you believe 
 that it is impossible to send monej^ out of this country' ? 
 Not only does an imperial edict forbid it, but the Jews 
 exact fifteen or twent}" per cent commission. You can 
 have no conception of the greed of the Jews here. Shy- 
 lock was a joke to them, a born innocent. And re- 
 member this is only in the matter of exchange ; when 
 it comes to borrowing they sometimes require fifty per 
 cent, even one Jew from another Jew." 
 
 " October 20, 1849. 
 
 *' I have had what the doctor calls an intermittent 
 cephalalgic fever. It was horrible. It lasted thirty- 
 four days. I am as thin as I was in 1819 ; though 
 there is still a little flesh on my stomach, the last refuge 
 of the fat which illness has taken from me. . . . The 
 fever is over and done with, but it has interrupted the 
 treatment of the chronic affection. . . . 
 
 *' Tell my mother that although I cannot return to 
 Paris now, I have hopes of a happy termination of my 
 journey here ; you can safely say that. I had better stay 
 here some months longer than go to Paris now and re- 
 turn. You may say that things are perhaps going bet- 
 ter than I am willing to write. But manage so that she 
 shall not suspect that I am ill. 
 
 '' I have a dressing-gown for my illness which forever 
 puts an end to the white robes of the Chartreux. It is 
 made of termolama, a Persian or Circassian stuff", all 
 
Honor e de Balzac. 335 
 
 silk, with those miracles of hand-work you see in India 
 shawls. It lasts for years. You are clothed with the 
 sun. It is warm and light. My termolama has a black 
 ground, with palm leaves wreathed with delicate little 
 flowers with gold reflections, — all hand-work ; some- 
 thing like Venetian brocade embroidered in silver and 
 gold. My illness has made a baby of me. I am pos- 
 sessed by one of those delightful joys we onh' have at 
 eighteen. I march about in the glor}' of my termolama 
 like a sultkn. I am writing to you now in my 
 termolama. 
 
 *' The Comtesse Anna and her husband have brought 
 back from Wiezniovicz the alarm-clock of Marina 
 Mniszeck, the czarina, whose wedding outfit, as appears 
 from the archives of the famil}' here, contained a bushel 
 of pearls and six chemises. Their uncle was the last 
 king of Poland, to whom Madame GeofFrin sold her 
 pictures. The 3'oung count and countess have brought 
 to Madame Ilanska the loveliest Greuze I ever saw, 
 *'La Jeune Fille effrayee," done b}^ Greuze for Mme. 
 Geoffrin ; and two Watteaus, also painted for Madame 
 GeofFrin. These three pictures are worth 80,000 
 francs. There are also two admirable Leslies, "James 
 II. and his first wife," a fine Van Dyck, a Cranach, 
 a Mignard, a Rigaud, a Netscher, and a portrait of 
 James II. b}' Lei}', all superb ; besides these, three 
 Canaletti, bought by the king from tlie Rezzonicos, 
 and three Rothari, finer than the Greuze. Rothari was 
 a Venetian painter of the eighteenth centurj', almost 
 unknown in France. The Empress Maria Teresa made 
 him a count of the Russian empire. He is the Greuze 
 of ItaAy. The Comtesse Georges wishes the three 
 
336 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 Canaletti to be in my gallery, the two Watteans^ the 
 Greuze, and the finest of the Rothari in the salon in 
 marquetry, for which I now want only two flat vases 
 in malachite, and two jars to make it complete. Oh, 
 I forgot two Van Huysums, which if ^'ou covered them 
 with diamonds would be scarcely paid for. What treas- 
 ures these great Polish houses contain ! and how the 
 treasures rub shoulders with barbarism I 
 '' Adieu ; I chatter like a convalescent.'* 
 
 "Nov 29,1849. 
 
 " I have had to go back to the treatment for heart- 
 disease. My doctor is a great physician, buried at 
 Wierzschovnia, who, like many another genius, dislikes 
 the art in which he excels. . . . He has invented jooio- 
 ders. . . . He keeps the composition of his powders so 
 great a secret that he will not even reveal it to his son. 
 He has radically cured persons much worse than I. 
 
 " I don't wonder 3'ou are proud of 3'our girls. They 
 write me charming letters. . . . Those girls are the 
 compensation for your life. We must not be unjust to 
 Fate, we can accept troubles for such joys. It is just 
 so with me and Madame Hanska. The gift of her affec- 
 tion explains to me my sorrows, my misfortunes, my 
 labors. I have paid in advance the price of this treas- 
 ure. Napoleon said that everything is paid for here 
 below, nothing is stolen. I even feel as if I had paid 
 very little. What are twentj^-five years of struggle and 
 toil to win at last so splendid, so radiant, so complete 
 a love. It is now fourteen months that I have been 
 living here in a desert, — for it is a desert, — and thej^ 
 have passed like a dream ; without one hour of weari- 
 
Honore de Balzac. 337 
 
 ness, "without a word of discussion. Our sole dis- 
 quietude has been caused by the state of our health 
 and our affairs." 
 
 To his friend and intimate associate, Monsieur Lau- 
 rent-Jan, Balzac wrote occasionally on the subject of 
 his dramatic work. It is evident that his mind turned 
 to that as the field of his future career. He speaks of 
 it with all his old courage in his last letter to this 
 friend : — 
 
 « Dec. 10, 1849. 
 
 *' My dear Laurent, — A long and cruel disease of 
 the heart, with manj' ups and downs, which attacked me 
 in the winter of last j'ear has prevented me from writ- 
 ing except on m}- inextricable affairs, and, as in duty 
 bound, to my family. But to-day the doctors (there 
 are two) allow me, not to work, but to amuse mjself, 
 and I profit by the permission to send yon a little line. 
 
 " If I get back to Pai'is within two months I shall be 
 lucky, for it will take nearly that time to complete my 
 cure. I have grievously paid, alas, for the excesses 
 of work in which I indulged, — for the last ten years 
 specially. But don't let us talk of that. 
 
 " So, about the beginning of February I shall be in 
 Paris, with the firm intention and desire to work as 
 member of the Society of Dramatic Authors ; for in my 
 long days of illness I have thought of more than one 
 theatrical California to work up. But what can I do 
 here? It is impossible to send manuscript over a cer- 
 tain size. The frontiers are closed on account of the 
 war, and no stranger is admitted to the countr3^ I am 
 sure there must be great difficulties in the wayof litera- 
 
 22 
 
338 Sonore de Balzac, 
 
 ture and the arts in France at this time. All is at a 
 standstill, is it not? Shall I find an hilarious pubUc in 
 1850? It is doubtful. Still, 1 mean to work. Think, 
 one scene written a day makes three hundred and 
 sixty-five scenes a year, — that is, ten plays. Suppose 
 five fail and three have only partial success ; there 
 remain two triumphs, which will be a pretty good re- 
 sult. Yes, courage ! If health returns to me I will 
 boldly embark on the dramatic gallej' laden with good 
 subjects ; but God save me from bringing up before 
 a bank of oysters. 
 
 " I tell you, m}^ friend, all happiness depends on 
 courage and work. I have had many periods of 
 wretchedness, but with energy, and above all, with 
 illusions, I pulled through them all. That is why I 
 still hope, and hope much. 
 
 " We have a learned man here, just from Kurdistan, 
 where he found the Jews of Moses, pure blood. 
 
 " We shall meet soon." 
 
 " February 28, 1850. 
 
 '' My dear Sister, — I was obliged to go to Kiev to 
 renew my permit and have my passport vised. Alas ! 
 it was fatal to my health. On the second day a terrible 
 blast of wind, which they call here the chasse-neige^ 
 caught me, though I was so wrapped in furs no spot 
 seemed left for it to reach me, and I took the most 
 dreadful cold I have ever had in my life. . . . But 
 my cherished hopes ma}' be realized. If so, there will 
 be further delays. I must go again to Kiev to take out 
 proper papers. All is probable ; for these four or five 
 successive illnesses, and my suff'erings from the climate 
 (which I laughed at for her sake) have touched that 
 
Honors de Balzac, 
 
 noble soul ; she is more touched b}' them than she is, 
 as a sensible woman, frightened by my few remaining 
 debts. I see now that all will go well. ... In that 
 case my, or rather our arrival in the rue Fortun^e will 
 take place during the first two weeks in April." 
 
 " WiERzscHovNiA, March 15, 1850. 
 
 *'My dear good, beloved Mother, — Yesterda3% at 
 seven in the morning, thanks be to God, my marriage 
 was celebrated in the church of Sainte-Barbe at Berdit- 
 chef, b}' a priest sent by the bishop of Jitomir. Mon- 
 seigneur wished to marry us himself; but being pre- 
 vented, he sent a very saintl}^ man, the Abbe Count 
 Czarouski, the oldest and most distinguished of the 
 Polish Catholic clergy. 
 
 " Madame Eve de Balzac, your daughter-in-law, has 
 taken (in order to remove all difficulties in the wa}' of 
 our mari'iage) the heroic resohition, prompted by her 
 sublime maternal affection, of giving all her fortune to 
 her daughter, reserving onl}^ an income for herself. 
 
 '' My return is now certain ; but it will depend on a 
 journey to Kiev to alter my passport, and inscribe the 
 name of ray wife. . . . We are now two to thank you 
 for all the care you have taken of our house, and to 
 offer you our respectful tenderness. 
 
 ''Accept the assurance of m}' respect, and my filial 
 attachment. Your submissive son \^Tonfils soumis]." 
 
 " WiERzscHOVNiA, Marcli 15, 1850. 
 " My dear Sister, — Yesterda}', at Berditchef, in the 
 parish church of Sainte-Barbe, a delegate from the bishop 
 of Jitomir blessed and celebrated my marriage. So for 
 
340 Honors de Balzac. 
 
 the last twent3'-four hours there is a Madame Eve de 
 Balzac, nee Comtesse Rzewuska, or a Madame Honore 
 de Balzac. It Is no longer a secret, and I write to you 
 with the least possible delay. . . . The witnesses were 
 Comte Georges Mniszeck, ra}^ wife's son-in-law, Comte 
 Gustave Olizar, brother-in-law of the Abbe Comte Cza- 
 rouski, and the priest of the parish of Berditchef. The 
 Comtesse Anna accompanied her mother, both at the 
 summit of happiness. It is, as you know, a marriage 
 of the heart, for Madame Eve de Balzac has given her 
 entire propert}' to her children, — Comte Georges being, 
 perhaps, better to her than any son would have been. . . . 
 " I hope we shall start for Paris in a fortnight ; our 
 journey will consume another fortnight. So, I can now 
 say to you ' we shall soon meet.* 
 
 " Thy brother Honore, 
 
 at the summit of happiness." 
 
 His old friend Madame Carraud had met with re- 
 verses. Pier husband was dead ; her means straight- 
 ened ; and she had been obliged to sell the greater part 
 of her property. One of Balzac's first thoughts after 
 his marriage was that it gave him the opportunitj- to do 
 for her what she had done for him in his dark days. 
 
 " WiERzscHOVNiA, March 17, 1850. 
 " My very dear and kind Madame Carraud, — 
 I have put off answering your good and admirable 
 letter until toda}-, for we are such o]d friends that I 
 cannot let j^ou hear from an}' one but me of the happy 
 conclusion of that long and beautiful drama of the 
 heart, which has continued through sixteen years. 
 
Honors de Balzac.^ 341 
 
 Three days ago I married the only woman I have 
 loved, whom 1 now love more than I ever did, whom I 
 shall love till death. I believe this union to be a com- 
 pensation which God has held in reserve through all 
 my adversities, my years of toil, the difficulties I have 
 met with and finally surmounted. I had no happiness 
 in 3'outh, no blossoming spring- tide, but I shall have a 
 brilliant summer, and the sweetest of all autumns. Per- 
 haps from this point of view my most happy marriage 
 may seem to you a personal consolation, by proving 
 that after many sufferings there are blessings which 
 Providence will, sooner or later, bestow. . . . 
 
 '' I have so often described you to my wife, and your 
 letter has so fully completed the portrait, that you seem 
 to her a friend of long standing. Therefore with one 
 and the same impulse, the same emotion of the soul, 
 we both offer you a room in our house in Paris, where 
 you can live absolutel}^ as though 3'ou were in your 
 own home. What can I sa}' to .you? That you are 
 the onl}' one to whom we would make such a proposal, 
 and that you ought to accept it, — or you deserve 
 trouble. For, reflect, did I not go to you in the sacred 
 confidence of friendship, when you were happy and I 
 was struggling through the storm, through the high 
 waves of my equinox, drowned in debt? ^ow I can 
 have the sweet and tender reprisals of gratitude. . . . 
 Come to us, then, from time to time, to be near 3-our 
 son, to breathe -in art, Paris, elegance ; come and see 
 and talk with enlightened people, and refresh yourself 
 in two hearts that love 3'ou, — one because 3'ou have 
 been so good and tender a friend, the other because 
 you have been all that to me. 
 
342 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 '•'• This is only what I did in the old da3'S at Saint-Cjr, 
 AngOLileme, and Frapesle. There I gathered strength ; 
 there I had the sights about me that I needed ; there 
 my desires were quenched. You shall now know how 
 sweet it was to live so ; you. shall learn by your own 
 experience all that you were (without knowing it) to 
 me, poor toiler, — misunderstood, weighed down through 
 many years by physical and mental anguish. Ah ! I 
 can never forget your motherhood for me ; 3'our divine 
 sympathy for suffering. Thinking of all this, and of 
 the way you are bravely facing adversity, I — who have 
 so often struggled with that rough adversary — I tell 
 you I am ashamed of my happiness when I think that 
 you are unhappy. But no, we are both above such 
 pettiness of heart. Each can say to the other that 
 happiness or unhappiness are only forms of being in 
 which great souls can feel the}^ live a stronger life. 
 We know that we need as much philosophic vigor for 
 the one position as for the other ; and that the unhappi- 
 ness which finds true friends is, perhaps, more endur- 
 able than the happiness which is envied. 
 
 '* So, then, when you come to Paris you will come to 
 us, and without sending word. Come to the rue For- 
 tunee as to your own home, exactly as I used to go to 
 Frapesle. It is my claim, m}' right. I remind you of 
 what you said to me at Angouleme on the day when I 
 (worn out with writing Louis Lambert., and ill, 3'ou 
 know wh}') feared madness, and spoke to you of the 
 way mad people were abandoned. You answered, ' If 
 you go mad I will take care of you.' Never have I 
 forgotten those word's, your look, the expression of 
 your face ; they are all as plain before me as they 
 
Honore de Balzac. 343 
 
 were on that June day of 1832. It is in virtue of that 
 promise that I claim you now when I am mad with 
 happiness." 
 
 " WiERZscHOVNiA, April 15, 1850. 
 
 " My dear Mother, — We are dela3'ed here. I can 
 hardly see to write. I have some trouble in my eyes 
 which prevents either reading or writing. It comes 
 from a draught of air and the present medical treat- 
 ment. The doctor is not alarmed. He wants me to 
 continue the treatment six daj's longer. I have had a 
 serious relapse in my heart-trouble and also in the lung. 
 I have lost more ground than I had gained. Every 
 motion that I make stops both speech and breathing. 
 
 '* Oh, my poor eyes, — once so good ! " 
 
 *' Dresden, May 11, 1850. 
 
 " We have been three weeks in making a journey 
 which should have taken six days. Sometimes it re- 
 quired fifteen or sixteen men to hoist the carriage out 
 of the mud-holes into which it sank up to the doorways. 
 At last we are here, living, but ill and tired out. Such 
 a journey ages one ten years. 
 
 "Let the house be ready, flowers and all, by the 
 20th. ... I want Madame Honore to see it in its best 
 arra3\ There must be flowering-plants in all the jar- 
 dinieres. I mean this for a surprise, and shall sa}'^ 
 nothing about it. . . . Here is where the plants must 
 be put: 1st, the jardiniere in the front room ; 2d, that 
 in the Japanese salon ; 3d, the two in the bedroom with 
 the cupola ; 4th, I want cape jessamine in the two tin}' 
 jardinieres on the fireplace <^f the gray room with cu- 
 pola ; 5th, the two large jardinieres on the staircase 
 
344 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 landings ; 6th, small ferns in the two bowls which 
 Feucheres mounted. I don't know whether Grobe has 
 finished the jardiniere in marquetr}^ for the green salon. 
 If done (it must stand between the writing-table and 
 the cabinet in marquetr}-), I want it filled with beauti- 
 ful^ beautiful flowers." 
 
 "There is a Turkish proverb," says Gautier, in the 
 essay from which we have already quoted, " which 
 declares that when the house is finished death enters. 
 Nothing is so to be dreaded as a wish reahzed. His 
 debts were paid, the longed-for marriage accomplished, 
 the nest for his happiness lined with down, and (as if 
 they foresaw the coming end) even his enemies were 
 beginning to praise him. It was all too good ; nothing 
 remained for him but to die. His illness made rapid 
 progress ; but no one dreamed of a fatal end, we had 
 such confidence in Balzac's athletic constitution ; we 
 thought he would bury us all. 
 
 " I was about to make a journe}^ into Italy, and be- 
 fore leaving I went to say good-by to my illustrious 
 friend in the rue Fortunee, where he had arrived with 
 his wife a few weeks earlier. He had just driven out 
 to the custom-house, the servant said, to recover some 
 foreign curiosities. I left the house reassured ; and the 
 next day I received a note from Madame de Balzac, 
 dated June 20, which kindly explained, with polite 
 regrets, why I had not found her husband at home. 
 At the bottom of the letter Balzac had scrawled these 
 words : — 
 
 '^ ' I can no longer read or write. 
 
 ' "De Balzac.'" 
 
Honore de Balzac. 345 
 
 ^' I have kept that sorrowful line, — the last, probably, 
 that the author of the Comedie Humaine ever wrote. 
 It was, though I did not comprehend it at the time, the 
 supreme cry of the thinker and the worker : ^ It is 
 finished 1 ' The thought that Balzac could die never 
 once came to me. 
 
 ^^ A few weeks later I was at Florian's on the Piazza 
 San Marco ; the ' Journal des Debats,' one of the few 
 French papers which reach Venice, lay beside me. I 
 took it up and read the death of Balzac. I nearly fell 
 upon the marble pavement ; and m}' grief was suddenly 
 mingled with a feeling of indignation and rebellion that 
 "was not Christian, for all souls are alike in the sight of 
 God. 1 had that morning visited the insane hospital 
 on the island of San Servolo, and had seen decrepit 
 idiots, drivelling old men, human larvae no longer di- 
 rected by even animal instincts, and I asked myself 
 why that luminous brain was put out like the snuff of a 
 candle when the vital spark remained in those darkened 
 heads with a fitful gleam." 
 
 Victor Hugo saw Balzac dying and dead, and the 
 words in which he tells of that death-bed and the part- 
 ing scene in Pere-Lachaise may fitly end this memoir : 
 
 '^On the 18th of August, 1850, my wife, who had 
 been that morning to call on Madame de Balzac, told 
 me that Balzac was dying. 
 
 "My uncle, General Louis Hugo, was dining with 
 us, but as soon as we rose from table I left him and 
 took a cab to the rue Fortunee, qiiartier Beaujon, 
 where M. de Balzac lived. He had bought what re- 
 
346 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 mained of the hotel of M. de Beaujon, a few buildings 
 which had escaped the general demolition, and out of 
 them he had made a charming little house, elegantly 
 furnished, with a porte cochere on the street, and in 
 place of a garden a long, narrow, paved courtj^ard, with 
 flower-beds about it here and there. 
 
 ^^I rang. The moon was veiled by clouds; the 
 street deserted. No one came. I rang again. The 
 gate opened ; a woman came forward, weeping. I gave 
 my name, and was told to enter the salon, which was 
 on the ground-floor. On a pedestal opposite the fire- 
 place was the colossal bust by David. A wax-candle 
 was burning on a handsome oval table in the middle of 
 the room. 
 
 ^' Another woman came in, also weeping, and said to 
 me : ' He is dying ; Madame has gone to her own 
 room. The doctors gave him up yesterday. They all 
 said, " We can do nothing for him." The night was 
 dreadful. This morning at nine o'clock Monsieur be- 
 came speechless. Madame sent for a priest, who came 
 and administered extreme unction. Monsieur made a 
 sign that he understood it. An hour later he pressed 
 the hand of his sister, Madame Surville. But since 
 midday the rattle is in his throat, and be sees nothing. 
 He cannot live out the night. If j^ou wish me to do so, 
 I will call Monsieur Surville, who has not 3'et gone to 
 bed.^ 
 
 " Monsieur Surville confirmed all the servant had said. 
 I asked to see Monsieur de Balzac. We passed along 
 a corridor, and up a staircase carpeted in red, and 
 crowded with works of art of all kinds, vases, pictures, 
 statues, paintings, brackets bearing porcelains ; then 
 
Honore de Balzac. 347 
 
 through another corridor, where I saw an open door. 
 I heard a loud and difficult breathing. I was in Mon- 
 sieur de Balzac's bedroom. 
 
 ^^The bed was in the middle of the room. M. de 
 Balzac lay in it, his head supported by a mound of 
 pillows, to which had been added the red damask cush- 
 ions of the sofa. His face was purple, almost black, 
 inclining to the right. The hair was gra}', and cut 
 rather short. His eyes were open and fixed. I saw his 
 side face only and, thus seen, he was like Napoleon. 
 
 " A light near the bed fell on the portrait of a young 
 man, rosy and smiling, hanging over the mantel-piece. 
 I raised the coverlet and took Balzac's hand. It was 
 moist with perspiration. I pressed it; he made no 
 answer to the pressure. 
 
 ^*The room was the same in which I had seen him a 
 month earlier, gay, full of hope, certain of his recovery. 
 We talked and argued long, politically. He reproached 
 me for my ' demagogy.' He himself was legitimist. 
 He said to me : ' How can you renounce with such 
 serenity the rank of peer of France, the noblest of all 
 titles except that of King of France ? ' He also said : 
 ' I have bought this house of M. de Beaujon without the 
 garden, but with the gallery leading into the little church 
 at the corner of the street. I have a door on my stair- 
 case which leads into the church ; a turn of the lock and 
 I am there at mass. I care more for that little gallery 
 than for the garden.' 
 
 '^ When I left him he followed me to the staircase, 
 walking painfully, to show me this door. Then he 
 called to his wife : ' Be sure you show Hugo all my 
 pictures.' 
 
848 Honore de Balzac. 
 
 ^'The nurse said, 'He will die at daybreak/ 
 
 ''I turned away, bearing with me the remembrance of 
 that dying face. As I crossed the salon I looked again 
 at the bust, immovable, impassive, proud, and vaguely 
 beaming, and I compared death with immortality. 
 This was Sunday. They buried him on Wednesday. 
 He was first taken to the Chapel Beaujon, through the 
 door which, to him, had been more precious than the 
 gardens of his predecessor. 
 
 ''Edmond Giraud had made his portrait on the day 
 of his death. 
 
 ''The funeral services took place at Saint-Philippe-du- 
 Roule. The minister of the Interior, Baroche, sat be- 
 side me in church, close to the coffin. He said to me : 
 ' This was a very distinguished man.* I replied, ' He 
 was a man of genius.' The procession crossed Paris 
 and went to Pere-Lachaise along the boulevards. Rain 
 was falling as we left the church and until we reached 
 the cemeter3^ It was one of those days when the 
 heavens seem to weep. We walked the whole distance. 
 I was on the right at the head of the coffin, holding one 
 of the silver tassels of the pall. The other pall-bearers 
 were Alexandre Dumas, Monsieur Baroche, and Sainte- 
 Beuve. 
 
 "When we reached the grave, which was on the brow 
 of the hill, the crowd was immense ; the path was nar- 
 row and steep ; the horses could hardly draw the 
 hearse, and it threatened to slide backward. . . . The 
 coffin was lowered into the grave, which is near to those 
 of Charles Nodier and Casimir Delavigne. The priest 
 said a last prayer, and I a few words. While I was 
 speaking the sun went down. All Paris lay before me 
 
Honor e de Balzac, 349 
 
 afar off in the splendid mists of the sinking light, the 
 glow of which appeared to fall into the grave at my feet 
 as the dull noise of the earth upon the coflSn interrupted 
 my last words : — 
 
 *^ ^No, it is not the Unknown to him. No, I have 
 said it before, and I shall never weary of saying it, — 
 no, it is not darkness to him, it is Light ! It is not 
 the end, but the beginning ; not nothingness, but eter- 
 nit3' ! Is not this true, ye who listen to me ? Such 
 coffins proclaim immortalit}'. In presence of certain 
 illustrious dead we feel the divine destin}' of that in- 
 tellect which has traversed earth to suffer and be puri- 
 fied. Do we not say to ourselves here, to-day, that it 
 is impossible that a great genius in this life can be other 
 than a great spirit after death? ' '' 
 
 Let us leave him there where they laid him — the 
 spot on which he stood in his inspired youth, and 
 thought: '^The noblest epitaphs are the single names, 
 — La Fontaine, Moliere, — names that tell all and make 
 the passer dream." 
 
 A broken column and a single name now mark his 
 grave. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 I 
 
 COMPLETE WORKS OF H. DE BALZAC. 
 
 La Comedie Humaine. 
 
 SCENES DE LA VIE PRIV^E. 
 
 Name. 
 
 1. Gloire et Malheur 
 
 2. Le Bal de Sceaux 
 
 3. M^moires de deux jeunes 
 
 Marines .... 
 
 4. La Bourse .... 
 
 5. Modeste Mignon . . 
 
 6. Un D^but dans la vie 
 
 7. Albert Savarus . . 
 
 8. La Vendetta . . . 
 
 9. Une double famille . 
 
 10. La Paix du manage . 
 
 11. Madame Firmiani 
 
 12. £tude de femme . . 
 
 13. La F ausse ma itresse . 
 
 14. Une Fille d'Eve . . 
 
 15. Le Message .... 
 
 16. La Grenadi^re . . . 
 
 17. La Femme abandonn^e 
 
 18. Honorine .... 
 
 19. Beatrix 
 
 Date. 
 
 Dedicltion. 
 
 1829 
 
 Mile. Marie de Montheau. 
 
 1829 
 
 Henry de Balzac. 
 
 1841 
 
 George Sand. 
 
 1832 
 
 a Sofka. 
 
 1844 
 
 a une Polonaise [Mme. Hanska]. 
 
 1842 
 
 a Laure [Mme. SurvilleJ. 
 
 1842 
 
 Mme. de Girardin. 
 
 1830 
 
 a Puttinati. 
 
 1830 
 
 La Comtesse Louise de Turhein. 
 
 1829 
 
 Mile. Valentine Surville. 
 
 1832 
 
 Alexandre de Berny. 
 
 1830 
 
 Jean-Charles de Negro. 
 
 1842 
 
 La Comtesse Clara Maffei. 
 
 1838 
 
 La Ctsse. Bolognini, nee Vimercati 
 
 1832 
 
 Marquis Damaro Pareto. 
 
 1832 
 
 a Caroline. 
 
 1832 
 
 La Duchesse d'Abrant^s. 
 
 1843 
 
 Achille Uev(^'ria. 
 
 1838 
 
 a Sarah. 
 
352 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 
 Name. 
 
 Date. 
 
 20. 
 
 Gobseck 
 
 1830 
 
 21. 
 
 La Femme de trente ans 
 
 1834 
 
 22. 
 
 Le Pere Goriot . . . 
 
 1834 
 
 23. 
 
 Le Colonel Chabert . . 
 
 1832 
 
 24. 
 
 La Messe de 1' Ath^e . . 
 
 1836 
 
 25. 
 
 L'Interdiction .... 
 
 1836 
 
 26. 
 
 Le Contrat de mariage . 
 
 1835 
 
 27. 
 
 Autre etude de femme . 
 
 1839 
 
 28. 
 
 La Grande Breteche . . 
 
 1832 
 
 Dedication. 
 Baron Barcliou de Penhoen. 
 Louis Boulanger. 
 Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire. 
 La Comtesse Ida de Bocarm6. 
 Auguste Borget. 
 Contre - Amiral Bazoche. 
 Giacomo Rossini. 
 Leon Gozlan. 
 
 SCENES DE LA VIE DE PROVINCE. 
 
 29. Ursule Mirouet . . . 1841 
 
 30. Eug(^nie Grandet . . . 1833 
 
 31. Le Lys dans la valine . 1835 
 
 32. Pierrette 1839 
 
 33. Le Cur^ de Tours . . . 1832 
 
 34. Le Manage d'un gar9on 1842 
 
 35. L'lllustre Gaudissart . 1833 
 
 36. La Muse du departement 1843 
 
 37. La Vieille fille .... 1836 
 
 38. Le Cabinet des Antiques 3837 
 
 39. Les Illusions Perdues . 1836 
 
 Mile. Sophie Surville. 
 
 a Maria 
 
 Docteur J. B. Nacquart. 
 
 Mile. Anna Hanska. 
 
 David (d' Angers). 
 
 Charles Nodier. 
 
 La Duchesse de Castries. 
 
 Comte Ferdinand de Gramont. 
 
 E. Midy de la Greneraye-Surville. 
 
 Baron Hammer-Purgstall. 
 
 Victor Hugo. 
 
 SCENES DE LA VIE PARISIENNE. 
 
 40. Ferragus 
 
 41. La Duchesse de Langeais 
 
 42. La Fille aux yeux d'or . 
 
 43. C^sar Birotteau . . . 
 
 44. La Maison Nucingen 
 
 45. Splendeurs et miseres 
 
 des courtisanes . . . 
 
 46. Les Secrets de la Prln- 
 
 cesse de Cadignan 
 
 47. Facino Cane 
 
 48. Sarrasine . . 
 
 49. Pierre Grassou . 
 
 50. La Cousine Bette 
 
 51. Le Cousin Pons 
 
 1833 Hector Berlioz. 
 
 1834 Franz Liszt. 
 1834 Eugene Delacroix. 
 1837 Alphonse de Lamartine. 
 
 1837 Mme. Zulma Carraud. 
 
 1838 Prince Alphonso Serafino di Porcia. 
 
 an . . 1839 
 
 Th^ophile Gautier. 
 
 . . . 1836 
 
 a Louise. 
 
 . . . 1830 
 
 Charles de Bernard du Grail. 
 
 . . . 3839 
 
 Lieut.-Colonel Periollas. 
 
 . . . 1846 
 
 Prince di Teano. 
 
 . . . 1847 
 
 Prince di Teano. 
 
Appendix. 
 
 353 
 
 
 Name. 
 
 Date. 
 
 52. 
 
 Un Prince de la Boh^me 
 
 1839 
 
 5;J. 
 
 Gaudissart II 
 
 3844 
 
 54. 
 
 Les Employes .... 
 
 1836 
 
 55. 
 
 Les Conn^diens sans le . 
 
 
 
 savoir 
 
 1845 
 
 56. 
 
 Les Petits Bourgeois . . 
 
 1845 
 
 Dedication. 
 Henri Heine. 
 La Princesse Belgiojoso. 
 La Ctsse. Seraphina San-Severino. 
 
 Comte Jules de Castellane. 
 a Constance Victoire. 
 
 SCENES DE LA VIE MILITAIRE. 
 
 57. Les Chouans .... 1827 Theodore Dablin. 
 
 58. Une Passion dans le de- 
 
 sert 1830 
 
 SCENES DE LA VIE POLITIQUE. 
 
 59. Un ]£pisode sous la Ter- 
 
 reur 1831 
 
 60. Une Tc-nebreuse Affaire 1841 
 
 61. Z. Marcas 1840 
 
 62. L' En vers de I'Hist. con- 
 
 temporaine .... 1847 
 
 63. Le Depute d'Arcis. 
 
 M. Guyonnet-Merville. 
 
 M. de Margonne. 
 
 Comte Guillaume de Wurtemburg. 
 
 SCENES DE LA VIE DE CAMPAGNE. 
 
 64. Le Mddecin de campagne 1832 a ma M^re. 
 
 65. Le Curd de village . . 1837 a Helene. 
 
 66. Les Paysans .... 1845 P. S. B. Gavault. 
 
 
 ETUDES 
 
 PHILOSOPHIQUES. 
 
 67. 
 
 La Peau de Chagrin . . 
 
 1830 
 
 M. Savary. 
 
 68. 
 
 Jesus-Christ en Flandres 
 
 1831 
 
 Mme. Desbordes-Valmore. 
 
 69. 
 
 Melmoth rdconcilie . . 
 
 1835 
 
 General Baron de Pommereul. 
 
 70. 
 
 Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu 
 
 1832 
 
 a un Lord. 
 
 71. 
 
 Gambara 
 
 1837 
 
 Marquis de Belloy. 
 
 72. 
 
 Massimilla Doni . . . 
 
 1839 
 
 Jacques Strunz. 
 
 23 
 
354 
 
 Appendix, 
 
 
 Name. 
 
 Date. 
 
 73. 
 
 La Recherche de I'Absok 
 
 I 1834 
 
 74. 
 
 L' Enfant Maudit . . 
 
 1831 
 
 75. 
 
 Les Maranas . . . 
 
 . 1832 
 
 76. 
 
 Adieu 
 
 1830 
 
 77. 
 
 Le R^quisitionnaire . 
 
 1831 
 
 78. 
 
 El Verdugo .... 
 
 1829 
 
 79. 
 
 Un Drame au bord de la 
 
 1834 
 
 
 mer 
 
 80. 
 
 L'Auberge rouge . . 
 
 1831 
 
 81. 
 
 L'lilixir de longue vie 
 
 . 1830 
 
 82. 
 
 Maitre Cornelius . . 
 
 1831 
 
 83. 
 
 Catherine de Medicis 
 
 1836 
 
 84. 
 
 Les Proscrits . . . 
 
 1831 
 
 85. 
 
 Louis Lambert . . . 
 
 1832 
 
 86. 
 
 Seraphita 
 
 1833 
 
 Dedication. 
 
 Mme. Josephine Delannoy. 
 
 La Baronne James de Rothschild. 
 
 La Comtesse Merlin. 
 
 Prince Frederick de Swartzemburg. 
 
 M. de la Ribellerie. 
 
 Martinez de la Rosa, 
 j La Princesse Caroline Galitzin 
 \ de Genthod. 
 
 Marquis de Custine. 
 
 Au Lecteur. 
 
 Comte Georges Mniszeck. 
 
 Marquis de Pastoret. 
 
 Almae Sorori. 
 
 Et nunc et semper dilectje dicatum. 
 
 Mme. Eveline Hanska, n^e Com- 
 tesse Rzewuska. 
 
 l^TUDES ANALYTIQUES. 
 
 87. La Physiologic du man- 
 
 age 1829 Au Lecteur. 
 
 88. Petites mi seres de la vie 
 
 conjugal e. 
 
 {End of La Comedie Humaine.) 
 Theatre. 
 
 Vautrin Drame 5 Actes 
 
 Les Ressources de Quinola Comedie 5 Actes 
 
 Pamela Giraud .... Drame 5 Actes 
 
 La Maratre Drame 5 Actes 
 
 Le Faiseur (Mercadet) . Com6die 5 Actes 
 
 Les Contes Drolatiques. 
 
 Porte Saint Martin 1840. 
 
 Odeon 1842. 
 
 Gaiete 1843. 
 
 Theatre Historique 1848. 
 
 Gymnace 1851. 
 
 CEUVRES Dl VERSES. 
 
 Contes et Nouvelles et Essais Analytiques in all 41 
 
 Physiognomies et esquisses Parisiennes . in all 27 
 
 Croquis et fantaisies . in all 39 
 
Appendix, 
 
 355 
 
 Portraits et critiques litt^raires. Polemique Judiciare . . in all 25 
 
 Etudes Historiques et Folitiques in all 36 
 
 Correspondance de H. de Balzac No. of letters 384 
 
 These works are contained, in the foregoing sequence, in the Edition 
 definitive des Oiiuvres completes de H. de Balzac, 24 vols. Calniann 
 Ldvy. Paris, 1879. The above list, and the two succeeding ones are 
 made from those contained in the bibliographical work of M. le Vicomte 
 de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, — as already stated. 
 
 II. 
 
 COMPLETE WORKS OF H. de BALZAC, 
 
 With Year of Composition. 
 
 1829. 
 
 Les Chouans. 
 Fragoletta, Latouche. 
 Phyaiologie du manage. 
 
 1830. 
 
 £tude de moeurs par les gants. 
 Ki Verdugo. 
 Une viie de Touraine. 
 Complaintes satiriques sur les 
 
 mceurs du temps. 
 Un Homme nialheureux. 
 L'Usurier (fragment de Gobseck). 
 £tude de femme. 
 Visiles. 
 
 Voyage pour I'tternite. 
 L' Spicier. 
 
 Des Artistes. 
 
 La Paix du M(^nage. 
 
 La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote. 
 
 Le Bal de Sceaux. 
 
 La Vendetta. 
 
 Gobseck. 
 
 Une double famille. 
 
 Le Bibliophile Jacob. 
 
 Le Charlatan. 
 
 Les Deux Reves (Catherine de 
 
 Medicis). 
 L'Oisif et le Travailleur. 
 Madame Toutendieu. 
 Moeurs aquatiques. 
 Des Mots a la mode. 
 De la Mode en litterature. 
 Noiivelle Th^orie du dejeuner. 
 £tudes pour Le Feuilleion des Jour- 
 
 naux Politiques. 
 Adieu. 
 
356 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 La Jeunesse fran^aise. 
 
 £tude de Philosophie morale sur 
 
 les habitants du Jardiii des 
 
 Plantes. 
 De la vie de chateau. 
 Physiologic de la toilette. 
 Physiologic gastronomique. 
 Gavarni. 
 Le Miuistre. 
 Un Entr'acte. 
 
 Une Vue du grande monde. 
 L'tlixir de longue vie. 
 Traite de la vie elegante. 
 L'Archeveque. 
 Ressouvenirs. 
 Les Voisins. 
 Une Consultation. 
 L'Opium. 
 
 La Reconnaissance du gamin. 
 La Colique. 
 
 La Coniedie du Diable. 
 Fragment d'une Satire Menipp^e. 
 Des Salons litteraires et des mots 
 
 elogieux. 
 La Tour de la Birette. 
 Le Gar9on de Bureau. 
 La Derniere Revue de Napoleon. 
 Sarrasine. 
 Des Caricatures. 
 Une Lutte. 
 
 Les Litanies romantiques. 
 La Danse des Pierres (fragment 
 
 de Jt^sus-Christ en Flandres). 
 Le Petit Mercier (Hist, des Treize). 
 La Mort de ma Tante. 
 Le dernier napoleon (Peau de 
 
 Chagrin). 
 De ce qui n'est pas a la mode. 
 Une Garde. 
 Si j'etais riche. 
 Vengeance d'artiste. 
 
 Entre Filets, L 
 
 Une Passion dans le desert. 
 Une Inconsequence. 
 Entre-Filets, IL, III. 
 Un lilpisode sous la Terreur. 
 Souvenir d'un paria. 
 Lettres sur Paris. 
 
 1831. 
 
 Les Deux Dragons. 
 
 La Grisette. 
 
 L' Amour. 
 
 Le Marchand de bustes. 
 
 Une Passion au college. 
 
 La Femme de trente ans, l^re partie. 
 
 L'Enfant maudit, l^re partie. 
 
 La Piece nouvelle et la Ddbut. 
 
 Un Lendemain. 
 
 Histoire de giberne. 
 
 La cour des MessaL'^eries-royales. 
 
 Ci-git la muse de Beranger. 
 
 Une charge de dragons. 
 
 La Kequisitionnaire. 
 
 Une Famille politique. 
 
 Un commis-voyageur de la Lib- 
 ert^. 
 
 M^canisme intellectuel, etc. 
 
 Saint-Simonien et Saint-Simoniste. 
 
 Paris en 1831. 
 
 Un Importun. 
 
 Un Depute d'alors. 
 
 La Femme de Trente ans, 2^ partie. 
 
 Le Cornac de Carlsruhe. 
 
 Le Dimanche. 
 
 Opinion de mon dpicier. 
 
 Longchamps. 
 
 L'Embuscade. 
 
 Une semaine de la Chambre des 
 Deputes. 
 
 De rindifference en maliere puli- 
 tique. 
 
Appendix. 
 
 857 
 
 Des fli^es particulieres, etc. 
 
 Enquete sur la politique de, etc. 
 
 Tableau d'un int^rieur de famille. 
 
 Le Provincial. 
 
 Inconvenients de la presse, etc. 
 
 La Patriotisme de Clarice. 
 
 D'un pantalon de foil de chevre. 
 
 Le suicide d'un poete. 
 
 line D^bauche (Peau de Chagrin). 
 
 Les Proscrits. 
 
 Un dejeuner sous le pont Royal. 
 
 La Belle Imperia (Contes Drola- 
 tiques). 
 
 Ordre public. 
 
 Une stance a I'hotel Bullion. 
 
 Conseil des ministres. 
 
 Croquis. 
 
 Don Pedro IL 
 
 Mani^re de faire une ^meute. 
 
 Un conspirateur moderne. 
 
 Physiologic des positions. 
 
 Rondo brillant et facile. 
 
 Le Banquier. 
 
 Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu. 
 
 Physiologie de I'adjoint. 
 
 Deux rencontres en un an. 
 
 Les Grands Acrobates. 
 
 Un Fait personnel. 
 
 L'Auberge rouge. 
 
 La Peau de Chagrin. 
 
 Le Claqueur. 
 
 Vingt et un Septembre, 1822. 
 
 Jdsus-Christ en Flandres. 
 
 La Comedie du Diable. 
 
 La Femme de trente ans. 
 
 Le Sous-pr^fet. 
 
 Exaltation des ministres. 
 
 Morality d'une bouteille de Cham- 
 pagne. 
 
 Critiques pubii^es dans La Carica- 
 ture. 
 
 Physiologie du cigare. 
 
 La Fortune en 1831. 
 
 Grand Concert vocal et instru- 
 mental. 
 
 L'Enibarras du choix. 
 
 Six degr^s du crime Six degr^s de 
 la vertu. 
 
 Details sur un prefet de police. 
 
 Maitre Cornelius. 
 
 La Dome des luvalides. 
 
 1832. 
 
 Un journ^e du nez de M. d'Argout. 
 
 Deux destinies d'homme. 
 
 Religion Saint-Simonienne. 
 
 Le Depart. 
 
 Histoire du Chevalier de Beauvoir. 
 
 Le Grand d'Espagne. 
 
 £chantillon de causeries fran^aises. 
 
 La Maitresse de notre colonel. 
 
 Depart d'une diligence. 
 
 Voila mon homme. 
 
 Madame Firmiani. 
 
 Le Message. 
 
 Le Colonel Chabert. 
 
 Proces de La Caricature. 
 
 Sur le monument du Due de Berry. 
 
 Le Philipotin. 
 
 Terme d'Avril. 
 
 La vie d'une femme. 
 
 Fac^ties choldriques. 
 
 Contes Drolatiques (1" Dixain). 
 
 Le Refns. 
 
 Le Cur^ de Tours. 
 
 La Grande Bretdche. 
 
 Le Conseil. 
 
 Enseignement. 
 
 La Bourse. 
 
 Sur la situation du parti royaliste. 
 
 La Femme abandonn^e. 
 
 Lettre a Charles Nodier. 
 
358 
 
 Appendix, 
 
 Louis Lambert. 
 Voyage a Juva. 
 La Grenadi^ve. 
 
 Critiques publi^es dans la Carica- 
 ture. 
 Les Marana. 
 
 Lettre in^dit de Louis Lambert. 
 Histoire des Treize (fin). 
 Le Contrat de Mariage. 
 Le L3's dans la vallee. 
 Seraphita (fin). 
 Brillat-Savarin. 
 
 1833. 
 
 Critiques publides dans la Carica- 
 ture. 
 
 Preface de I'Histoire des Treize. 
 
 Histoire des Treize, le"" Episode. 
 
 Histoire des Treize, 2e Episode. 
 
 Le Prosne du joyeulx cur^ de 
 Meudon. 
 
 Histoire de PEmpereur. 
 
 Contes Drolatiques, 2^ Dizain. 
 
 Th^orie de la demarche. 
 
 Perseverance d'amour. 
 
 La Muse du D^partement. 
 
 Le Medecin de campagne. 
 
 Eugenie Grandet. 
 
 L'lUustre Gaudissart. 
 
 1834. 
 
 Les Jeunes Gens de Paris. 
 
 Histoire des Treize, 3e Episode. 
 
 La Femme de Trente ans. 
 
 La Recherche de I'absolu. 
 
 Seraphita. 
 
 Lettre aux ^crivains fran9ais du 
 
 xix. siecle. 
 Aventures d'une idde heureuse 
 
 (fragment). 
 Le P6re Goriot. 
 
 1835. 
 
 Un Drame au bord de la met. 
 Melmoth reconcilid. 
 
 1836. 
 
 La Messe de TAth^e. 
 
 L'Interdiction. 
 
 £tudes critiques, Chronique de 
 
 Paris. 
 La France et I'fitranger. 
 Le Cabinet des Antiques. 
 Facino Cane. 
 Ecce Homo. 
 
 Le Lys dans la valine (fin). 
 Histoire du proc6s du Lys. 
 L'Enfant maudit, 2e partie. 
 La Vieille Fille. 
 La confidence des Ruggieri. 
 
 1837. 
 
 Les Illusions perdues, l^^e partie. 
 
 Les Martyrs ignores. 
 
 Les Employes, ler partie. 
 
 Gambara. 
 
 Contes drolatiques, 3^ Dizain. 
 
 Cesar Birotteau. 
 
 Six rois de France. 
 
 1838. 
 
 Le Cabinet des antiques (fin). 
 Splendeurs et Mis^res des courti- 
 
 sanes. 
 Les Employes (fin). 
 La Maison Nucingen. 
 Traite des excitants modernes. 
 Une Fille d'five. 
 
Appendix. 
 
 359 
 
 1839. 
 
 Le Curd du village. 
 
 Beatrix. 
 
 Illusions perdues, 2'^ partie. 
 
 Lettre a propos du Cur^ de village. 
 
 Massimilla Doni. 
 
 Les Secrets de la Princesse de 
 
 Cadignan. 
 Memoire sur le proces Pe^'tel. 
 Proems de la Soci^t^ des Gens-de- 
 
 lettres. 
 Petites Mis^res de la vie conju- 
 
 gale. 
 Le Notaire. 
 L'Epicier. 
 
 Mem. de Deux Jeunes Marines. 
 Catherine de Mddicis. 
 
 1842. 
 
 Les Ressources des Quinola. (Comv5- 
 
 die.) 
 Albert Savarus. 
 Un D^but dans la vie. 
 Les Mechancet^s d'un saint. 
 La Chine et les Chinois. 
 Un Manage de gar9on. 
 Les Amours de deux betes. 
 Autre fitude de femme. 
 Avant-propos de la Com^die Hu- 
 
 1840. 
 
 Pierrette. 
 
 Vautrin. (Drame.) 
 
 Z. Marcas. 
 
 Revue Parisienne. 
 
 Un Prince de la Boh6me. 
 
 Peines de coeur d'une chatte An- 
 
 glaise. , 
 Guide-Ane, etc. 
 Monographie du rentier. 
 Pierre Grassou. 
 La Femme de Province. 
 La Femme comme il faut. 
 
 1841. 
 
 Una Ten^breuse Affaire. 
 , Les Deux Fr^res. 
 Notes remises a IVIM. les deputes. 
 Le Martyr Calviniste. 
 Ursule Mirouet. 
 La Fausse Maitresse. 
 Voyage d'un lion d'Afrique. 
 Physiologic de I'employe. 
 
 1843. 
 
 Tony Sans-soin. 
 
 Sur Catherine de M^dicis. 
 
 Honorine. 
 
 Monographie de la presse Parisi- 
 enne. 
 
 La Muse du d^partement (fin ). 
 
 Spl. et Mis^res de courtisanes 
 (fin). 
 
 Illusions Perdues, 3e partie. 
 
 Pamela Giraud. (Drame.) 
 
 Madame de la Chanterie. 
 
 1844. 
 
 Modeste Mignon. 
 Gaudissart II. 
 Les Pay sans. 
 
 Les Com^diens sans le savoir. 
 Histoire et Physiologie des boule- 
 vards de Paris. 
 Ce qui disparait de Paris. 
 B«5atrix (fin). 
 
860 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 1845. 
 
 Une rue de Paris et son habitant. 
 
 Le Luther des chapeaux. 
 
 Un Homme d'affaires. 
 
 Petites Mis6res de la vie conjugale. 
 
 1846. 
 
 Une Prediction. 
 Lettres a Hippolyte Castille. 
 Les Parents Pauvres, lere partie. 
 L'Enversde I'Hist. contemporaine. 
 
 1847. 
 
 Les Parents Pauvres, 2^ partie. 
 Le Depute d'Arcis (commence- 
 ment). 
 
 1848. 
 
 Profession de foi politique. 
 La Maratre. (Drame.) 
 L'Envers de I'Hist. Contem. (fin). 
 
 Posthume. 
 
 La Filandiere. 
 
 Fragments, Revue Parisienne. 
 
 Le Faiseur (Mercadet). 
 
 Code Littdraire. 
 
 Les Petits Bourgeois. 
 
 Le monde comme il est, etc. 
 
 Inedit. 
 
 L*£cole des Manages. 
 £tude sur la Russie (1849). 
 
 III. 
 
 TITLES OF BOOKS, TALES, AND PLAYS 
 Announced by Balzac, but never Published. 
 
 (Those relating to the Wars of the Empire were intended for Les Scenes 
 Militaires.) 
 
 L' Absolution. 
 
 Une Actrice en voyage. 
 
 A marches forcdes. 
 
 Les Amours d'une laide. 
 
 Anatomie des Corps Enseignants. 
 
 Les Anglais en Espagne. 
 
 Annunciata. (Play.) 
 
 Apres Dresde. 
 
 L'Arm^e roulante. 
 
 L'Armde roulante. (Play.) 
 
 L' Attache d'Ambassade. 
 
 L'Aubergiste. 
 
 La Bataille de Dresde. 
 
 Une Bataille vue de I'Empire. 
 
 La Campagne de France. 
 
 Causeries du Soir. 
 
 Le Chretien. 
 
 Le Combat. 
 
 La Comddie d'amour. (Play.) 
 
 Comment on fait un minist^re. 
 
Appendix. 
 
 361 
 
 La Conspiration Prudhomme. 
 " " •' (Play.) 
 
 Le Corsaire Alg(?rien. 
 
 Les Courtisans. (Play.) 
 
 Une Croisi^re. 
 
 Debuts d'un homme politique. 
 
 Le Dernier champ-de-bataille. 
 
 Les Deux ambitieux. 
 
 Les Deux amours. 
 
 Deux bienfaiteurs de I'humanitd. 
 
 Les Deux Extremes. 
 
 Les Deux Sculpteurs. 
 
 Dialogue Philosophique et Poli- 
 tique sur la perfection du XIX. 
 si^cle. 
 
 Le Diplomate. 
 
 Distraction. 
 
 Une Douleureuse histoire. 
 
 L'fimir. 
 
 Les Enfants. 
 
 L'Entree en campagne. 
 
 Entre Savants. 
 
 Les Environs de Paris. 
 
 £tude sur la Russie. 
 
 La Fille et la Femme. (Play.) 
 
 Fragment d'Histoire g^n^rale. 
 
 Les Fran9ais en Egypte. 3 epi- 
 sodes. 
 
 La Fr^lore. 
 
 La Garde Consulaire. 
 
 Gendres et Belles-M^res. 
 
 Les Gens ridds. 
 
 Gobseck. (Play.) 
 
 Les Grands I'Hopital, le Peuple. 
 
 Le grand P^nitencier. 
 
 Les Heritiers Boirouge. 
 
 Histoire du succession du Marquis 
 de Carabas dans le fief du Co- 
 quatrix. 
 
 L'Histoire et le Roman. 
 
 Int^rieur de College. 
 
 Jacques de Metz. 
 
 Le.Iuge de P.iix. 
 
 Le Juge dinstruction. 
 
 Le Mariage de Prudhomme. (Play.) 
 
 Le Ministre. (Play.) 
 
 Le Ministre. (Novel.) 
 
 Les Mitouflet. 
 
 Monographic de la Vertu. 
 
 Moscou. 
 
 Le Nouvel Abeilard. 
 
 Orgon. (Play.) 
 
 L'Original. 
 
 Les Partisans. 
 
 Pathologic de la vie sociale. 
 
 La Penissi^re. 
 
 Un Pensionnat de demoiselles. 
 
 Le P6re prodigue. (Play.) 
 
 Les Petit Bourgeois. (Play.) 
 
 Le Philanthrope. 
 
 Pierre et Catherine. (Play.) 
 
 Les Pontons. 
 
 Le Pretre catholique. 
 
 Le Privilege, tableau du XV. siecle. 
 
 Le Prophete. 
 
 Richard Coeur d'^ponge. (Play.) 
 
 Le Roi des Mendiants. (Play.) 
 
 Scenes de la vie du monde. 
 
 Soeur Marie des Anges. 
 
 Les Soldats de la R^publique. 
 
 Sophie Prudhomme. (Play.) 
 
 Sous Vienne. 3 Episodes. 
 
 La Succession Pons. (Play.) 
 
 Le Theatre comme 11 est. 
 
 Les Trainards. 
 
 Les Trois Cardinaux. 
 
 La Veille et le Lendemain, (Play.) 
 
 Les Vendeens, guerres civiles au 
 
 XIX. siecle. 
 La vie et aventures d'une idee. 
 Une vue de Paris. 
 
362 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 IV. 
 
 LIST OF THE AMERICAN TRANSLATIONS 
 
 Made by Katharine Prescott Wormeley, and Pub- 
 lished BY Roberts Bros., Boston, U. S. A. 
 
 Those marked * are, or will be, in process of preparation. 
 
 THE COMEDY OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 Scenes from Private Life. 
 
 English Name. 
 
 
 French Name. 
 
 Fame and Sorrow. 
 
 (Tale.) 
 
 Gloire et Malheur. 
 
 The Purse. 
 
 <( 
 
 La Bourse. 
 
 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 (Novel.) 
 
 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 Albert Savarus. 
 
 (Tale.) 
 
 Albert Savarus. 
 
 Madame Firmiani. 
 
 (( 
 
 Madame Firmiani. 
 
 Paz. 
 
 (( 
 
 La Fausse maitresse. 
 
 La Grenadi^re. 
 
 (( 
 
 La Grenadiere. 
 
 P^re Goriot. 
 
 (Novel.) 
 
 Le P6re Goriot. 
 
 Colonel Chabert. 
 
 (Tale.) 
 
 Le Colonel Chabert. 
 
 The Atheist's Mass. 
 
 " 
 
 La Messe de lAth^e. 
 
 La Grande Breteche. 
 
 (( 
 
 La Grande Breteche. 
 
 *A Start in Life. 
 
 (Novel.) 
 
 Un D^but dans la vie. 
 
 *The Peace of a Household. 
 
 (Tale.) 
 
 La Paix du manage. 
 
 *Gobseck. 
 
 . " 
 
 Gobseck. 
 
 *The Injunction. 
 
 " 
 
 L'Interdiction. 
 
 *The Marriage Contract. 
 
 (Novel.) 
 
 Le Conti-at de mariage. 
 
 Scenes from Provincial Life. 
 
 Ursula. 
 
 (Novel.) 
 
 Ursule Mirouet. 
 
 Eugenie Grandet. 
 
 u 
 
 Eugenie Grandet. 
 
 The Lily of the Valley. 
 
 '« 
 
 Le Lys dans la valine. 
 
Appendix. 
 
 363 
 
 English Name. 
 
 The Two Brothers. 
 
 The Illustrious Gaudissart. 
 ♦Pierrette. 
 
 *The Curate of Tours. 
 •The Old Maid. 
 •The Gallery of Antiquities. 
 
 French Name. 
 
 " Le Menage d'un gar9on. 
 
 (Tale.) L'lllustre Gaudissart. 
 
 " Pierrette. 
 
 " Le Cure de Tours. 
 
 " La Vieille tille. 
 
 " Le Cabinet des antiques. 
 
 Scenes from Parisian Life. 
 
 The Duchesse de Langeais. 
 
 C^sar Birotteau. 
 
 Cousin Bette. 
 
 Cousin Pons. 
 
 Bureaucracy. 
 
 Facino Cane. 
 •Ferragus. 
 
 •The House of Nucingen. 
 •The Secrets of the Princesse 
 
 de Cadignan. 
 •Pierre Grassou. 
 •Comedians unknown to them- 
 selves. 
 
 (Novel.) La Duchesse de Langeais. 
 
 *' Cesar Birotteau. 
 
 " La Cousine Bette. 
 
 " Le Cousin Pons. 
 
 " Les Employes. 
 
 (Tale.) Facino Cane. 
 
 " Ferragus. 
 
 " La Maison Nucingen. 
 
 ** Les Secrets de la Princesse de 
 
 " Cadignan. 
 
 " Pierre Grassou. 
 
 " Les Com^diens sans le savoir. 
 
 Scenes from Military Life. 
 
 A Passion in the Desert. 
 ♦The Chouans. 
 
 (Tale.) 
 (Novel.) 
 
 Une Passion dans le desert. 
 Les Chouans. 
 
 An Episode under the Terror. 
 
 An Historical Mystery. 
 *Z. Marcas. 
 •Madame de la Chanterie. 
 
 Scenes from Political Life. 
 
 (Tale ) Un Episode sous la Terreur. 
 (Novel.) Une Tdn^breuse Affaire. 
 (Tale.) Z. Marcas. 
 (Novel.) L'Envers de THistoire con 
 temporaine. 
 
 The Country Doctor. 
 Sons of the Soil. 
 •The Village Curate. 
 
 Scenes from Country Life. 
 (Novel.) 
 
 Le M^decin de campagne. 
 
 Les Paysans. 
 
 Le Cur^ de village. 
 
364 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 Philosophical Studies. 
 
 English Name. 
 
 The Magic Skin, 
 with Introduction by G. F. 
 Parsons. 
 
 Louis Lambert (with same). 
 
 Seraphita (with same). 
 
 Jesus Christ in Flanders. 
 
 The Hidden Masterpiece. 
 
 Gambara. 
 
 The Alkahest, or House of 
 Claes. 
 
 The Exiles. 
 *L'Enfant Maudit. 
 *A Drama on the Seashore. 
 *The Red Inn. 
 *Adieu. 
 *The Maranas. 
 *The Elixir of Long Life. 
 *Maitre Cornelius. 
 ♦Catherine de Medicis. 
 *Le R^quisitionnaire. 
 
 French Name. 
 (Novel.) La Peau de Chagrin. 
 
 (Novel.) 
 
 Louis Lambert. 
 
 (( 
 
 Seraphita. 
 
 (Tale.) 
 
 Jesus-Christ en Flandres. 
 
 " 
 
 Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu. 
 
 <( 
 
 Gambara. 
 
 (Novel.) 
 
 La Recherche de I'absolu. 
 
 (Tale.) 
 
 Les Proscrits. 
 
 <( 
 
 L'Enfant Maudit. 
 
 <( 
 
 Un Drame au bord de la Mer. 
 
 (( 
 
 L'Auberge rouge. 
 
 " 
 
 Adieu. 
 
 " 
 
 Les ]\Iarana. , 
 
 " 
 
 L'Elixir de longue vie. 
 
 tt 
 
 Maltre Cornelius. 
 
 " 
 
 Catherine de Medicis 
 
 (( 
 
 Le Requisitionnaire. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 AbrantIcs, Duchesse d', 125, 126. 
 Albert Savarus, 169, 227, 270,271. 
 Auberge Rouge, L', 86. 
 
 Balzac, Honors de, 
 
 complete life cannot be written: why, 1, 225. 
 
 aspect, known chiefly under one, 2. 
 
 contemporaries, records of, 3, 4. 
 
 birth and infancy, until aet. 4, 6. 
 
 childliood, until set. 8, 7-15. 
 
 Vendome, at school at, set. 8 to 14, 15-17. 47-58. 
 
 Tours, life at, set. 14 to 15, 17-20. 
 
 Paris, school life in, set. 15 to 17, 20, 60-63. 
 
 law studies, aet. 17 to 20, 22-24. 
 
 garret, life and letters in, set. 20 to 21, 26-39, 65 68. 
 
 Villeparisis, life and letters, xt. 21 to 23, 40, 41, 68. 
 
 Rue de Tournon, life in set. 28 to 32, 77-82, 116. 
 
 literary life, desire for, 24, 25, 64. 
 
 a seer; the gift of avatar, 66, 67, 208. 
 
 misjudged by friends, 25, 26, 57, 59, 64, 75-77. 
 
 political opinions, 63, 135-141. 
 
 publisher, attempt as, 70-74, 115, 116. 
 
 Comedie Humaine, first idea of La, 83, 84. 
 
 personages, his view of his, 83-85, 88. 
 
 courage under trials, 88-90. 91-92, 144, 244, 277-279, 333. 
 
 illusions gave him courage, 100-103, 106, 111, 180, 338. 
 
 Sardinia, trip to, 103-107, 146, 279-286. 
 
 neologisms, he defends his. 111, 112. 
 
 early life as a man withheld, 113. 
 
 literary career, opening of, 117-120. 
 
 journalist, as, 119. 
 
 journalism, opinion of, 119, 120. 
 
366 Index, 
 
 Balzac, Honors de, — continued. 
 rue Cassini, removes to, 120. 
 health, geniality, vigor, 58, 59, 123. 
 portrait by Lamartine, 123-125. 
 Duchesse d'Abrantes, friendship with, 125, 126, 
 "Louise," correspondence with, 127. 
 Mme. Hanska, first letter from, 127. 
 Duchesse de Castries, relations with, 127-13-4. 
 Mme. Carraud, friendship with, 134-146, 340-341. 
 sympathy with those oppressed, 139. 
 Mme. de Berny, first mention of, 142, 147. 
 woman, feelings and work for, 141, 142, 227, 228, 258-268. 
 Les Jardies, 146, 147, 187-189, 242. 
 publishers, difficulties with, 149-154, 158. 
 conscience as to his work, 150. 
 publishing, Balzac's system of, 151, 152. 
 profits of work doubtful, 152, 153. 
 Soc. des Gens-de-lettres, services to, 154. 
 last meeting with Gens-de-lettres, 156, 157. 
 lawsuit with Revue de Paris, 160, 161, 231-237. 
 habits of work, 161, 162, 213-216. 
 devotion of servants, 162, 163, 
 founds the Chronique de Paris, 163-165. 
 founds the Revue Paris ienne, 165. 
 posterity, can be judged only by, 165, 166. 
 dramatic work, 166-170, 234. 
 modernity ; Gautier's view narrow, 170-172. 
 his style,"" 173-176, 206-207. 
 " the father of realism," 177-179. 
 what is in a name, 180-184, 245. 
 the vernal grasses, 184, 185. 
 result of twelve years' work, 186. 
 desire for heights, 187, 188. 
 academy, refused admittance to, 190, 191. 
 George Sand's judgment of him, 192-203. 
 Theophile Gautier's judgment of him, 204-230. 
 enemies; how acquired, 232, 
 regrets Monographic de la presse, 233. 
 loyalty in friendship, 237, 253, 341-341. 
 knowledge not superficial, 240. 
 desire for money justified, 241. 
 criticism, courage under, 232, 233, 299, 300. 
 gratitude for appreciation, 108, 179, 180, 244. 
 works planned but not written, 179, 247. 
 
Index. 367 
 
 Balzac, Honors de, — continued. 
 
 "life was good beside him," 249, 250. 
 
 George Sand, liis opinion of, 254. 
 
 personal appearance, 123, 125, 204-206, 255, 256, 322. 
 
 the keystone of his work, 258-2G8. 
 
 his early and unknown love, 2G8-271. 
 
 Albert Savarus, 1G9, 270, 271. 
 
 a characteristic of his nature, 271, 272. 
 
 Madame de Berny, 273, 274. 
 
 Mme. Hanska, letters to (1835 to 1838), 275-290. 
 
 death of M. Hanski, 291. 
 
 letters to Mme. Hanska (1843 to 1846), 295-317. 
 
 first visit to the Ukraine, 317. 
 
 returns to Paris in 1848, 321-323. * 
 
 goes again to the Ukraine, 324. 
 
 letters to nieces and sister, 325-337. 
 
 hopes deferred, and illness, 330-336. 
 
 projects for dramatic work, 337, 338. 
 
 marriage, 338-341. 
 
 *'at the summit of happiness," 340. 
 
 the reprisals of gratitude, 340-342. 
 
 death and burial, 344-349. 
 Balzac, M. de, father, 6, 8-11, 22, 24, 25, 64. 
 Balzac, Mme. de, mother, 6, 7, 12, 26, 40, 41, 96, 103, 339, 343. 
 Barri^re, M. Marcel, 153, 176. 
 Belgiojoso, Princesse, 282. 
 Berlin, 295-297. 
 
 Berny, Madame de, 125, 142, 144, 147, 273, 274. 
 Buloz, IGO, 161, 231-237. 
 
 Cane Facino, 66, 67, 208, 278. 
 
 Caricature, Le, 119. 
 
 Carraud, Madame Zulma, 90, 125, 129, 134-146, 239, 274, 340,341. 
 
 Carraud, Commandant, 90, 283. 
 
 Castries, Duchesse de, 127-134. 
 
 Catherine de M(?dicis, 82. 
 
 Cesar Birotteau, 117, 314. 
 
 Champfleury, 3, 115, 156, 157, 166, 321-324. 
 
 Chouans, Les, 77, 79, 117. 
 
 Chronique de Paris, 164, 165. 
 
 Comedie Humaine, La, 82, 83, 85, 86, 196, 213. 
 
 Contes Drolaiiques, 97, 111. 
 
 Contrat de Mariage, Le, 242. 
 
368 Index. 
 
 Cooper Fenimore, 165, 184. 
 Correspondence [see Letters], 2, 3. 
 Dablin, M Theodore, 237-239. 
 Dramatic Work, 166-170, 235, 337, 338. 
 Dresden, 298, 299. 
 Duchesse de Langeais, La, 129. 
 Dumas, Alexandre, 300, 348. 
 
 Enfant Maudit, L', 132, 278, 279. 
 Episode sous la Terreur, Un, 86. 
 Eugenie Grandet, 85, 143, 144, 249. 
 
 Ferky, M. Gabriel, 4. 
 
 Feuilleton des Journaux, 119. 
 
 Fortunee rue, 229, 322-324, 330, 331. 
 
 Friends and acquaintance, 118, 125, 189-191, 218-223. 
 
 Gautier, Theophile, 3, 149, 170, 175, 204-230, 270, 344, 345. 
 
 Gay, Madame Sophie, 118. 
 
 Girardin, £mile de, 117, 119. 
 
 Girardin, Mme. :tmile de, 115, 123, 221-223. 
 
 Gobseck, 85. 
 
 Gozlan, L^on, 3, 153, 180-185. 
 
 Grenadiere, La, 60. 
 
 Hanska, Madame, nde Comtesse Rzewuska, 3, 127, 274-349. 
 Hanski, Monsieur, 127. 281, 282, 286, 291. 
 Holden, LL.D., Prof. Edward S., 4. 
 Humboldt, Baron von, 297. 
 Hugo, Victor, 155, 190, 345-349. 
 
 James, Mr. Henry, 260. 
 
 Jan, M. Laurent-, 336. 
 
 Jardies, Les, 111, 146, 147, 224, 225, 289. 
 
 Jdsus-Christ en Flandres, 132. 
 
 Kiev, 320. 
 
 Lamaetine, 123-125. 
 
 La Touche, Henri de, 77, 121. 
 
 Letters, 
 
 to his sister Mme. Surville, 27-29, 31, 34-37, 42, 44, 77, 79, 91, 98, 
 
 107, 108, 110, 234, 235, 241, 318, 319, 329, 330, 332-334, 336, 338, 
 
 339. 
 
Index. 3G9 
 
 Letters, — continued. 
 
 to his mother, 96, 103, 339, 343. 
 
 to the Duchesse d'Abrantes, 125, 126. < 
 
 to the Duchesse de Castries, 130, 133, 134. \ 
 
 to Madame Carraud, 129, 130, 140, 142-147, 239, 340. 
 
 to M. Charles Nodier, 190. 
 
 to M. Theodore Dablin, 237, 238. 
 
 to Madame Hanska, 275, 277, 279, 283, 285, 280, 288, 289, 295, 297, 
 298, 301-307, 309-317. 
 
 to his nieces, Miles. Surville, 325. 
 
 to M. Laurent-Jan, 337. 
 •* Ix)uise," 127. 
 
 Louis Lambert, 16, 47-57, 91, 93-94, 96. 
 Lovenjoul, le Vte. de Spoelberch de, 1, 4, 117. 
 Lys dans la Vallee, Le, 134, 160, 161, 184-180, 231. 
 
 Maitre, Cornelius, 86. 
 
 Marcas, Z., 95, 180-184. 
 
 Margonne, M. de, 90, 125, 234. 
 
 Medecin de campagne, Le, 142, 143. 
 
 Mery, 271. 
 
 Mniszeck, Comte Georges, 293, .305. 
 
 Mniszeck, Comtesse Anna, 302, 317, 327-328. 
 
 Monographie de la Presse, 119, 233. 
 
 Nacquart, Dr., 114, 304, 324-325. 
 Nodier, Charles, 190, 191. 
 
 Parents Pauvres, Les, 313. 
 .Parsons, George Frederic, 
 
 Introduction to La Peau de Chagrin, 291. 
 
 Introduction to Louis Lambert, 57. 
 
 Introduction to S^^raphita, 264. 
 Peau de Chagrin, La, 93, 291. 
 Petersburg, St., 291, 296. 
 Physiologie du mariage, 131, 239, 267. 
 Pons, Le cousin, 121, 314, 323. 
 
 Preface to La Comedie Hnmaine, 85, 138, 139, 179, 180, 265, 266. 
 Proscrits, Les, 86, 171, 172. 
 Publishers and editors, 116, 117, 119, 120, 149-154. 
 
 Revue de Paris, 120, 160, 161, 231-234. 
 Revue Parisienne, 165. 
 
 24 
 
370 Index. 
 
 Sach^, 90. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve, 165, 166, 176, 258, 259, 348. 
 
 Saint-Gothard, 287. 
 
 Sand, George, 3, 121, 122, 192-203. 
 
 Sanson, 86, 87. 
 
 Sardinia, 103-105, 146, 283-286. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 82, 86, 280. 
 
 S(^raphita, 144, 179, 226, 261, 263-265. 
 
 Silhouette, La, 119. 
 
 Soulie, Frederic, 333. 
 
 Surville, Madame, 2, 5-46, 70-112, 231-257, 318-320, 329, 339. 
 
 Surville, Miles. S. and V., 325, 336. 
 
 Taine, M. Henri, 121, 179, 186, 259, 260. 
 Talleyrand, Duchesse de, 297. 
 Tieck, 297. 
 
 ViEiLLE Fille, La, 288, 289. 
 
 Wedmore, Mr. Frederick, 177. 
 Werdet, Edmond, 4, 151, 152, 165. 
 Wierzschovnia, 127, 318-321, 324-343. 
 
 Works of art, etc., collection of, 121, 228-230, 294, 312, 313, 323, 335- 
 336. 
 
 C4LIFOW*5^ 
 
BALZAC IN ENGLISH, 
 
 An Historical Mystery. 
 
 Translated by KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY. 
 12mo. Half Eussia. Uniform with Balzac's Works. Price, $1.50. 
 
 An Historical Afystery\s the title given to'* Une Ten^breuse Affaire," which 
 has just appeared in the series of translations oi Honoie de Baltac's novels, by 
 Katharine Prescott Wormeley This exciting; romance is full of stirring interest, 
 and is distinguished by that minute analysis of chaiacier in which us eminent 
 author excelled. The characters stand boldly out from the surrounding incidents, 
 and with a fidelity as wonderful as it is truthful. Plot and counterplot follow 
 each other with marvellous rapidity; and around the exciting davs when Na- 
 poleon was First Consul, and afterward when he was Emperor, a mystery is 
 woven in which some royalists are concerned that is concealed with masterly 
 ingenuity until the novelist sees fit to take his reader into his confidence. The 
 heroine, Laurence, is a remarkably strong character : and the love-story in which 
 she figures is refreshing in its departure from the beaten path of the ordinary 
 writer of fiction. Michu, her devoted servant, has also a marked individuality, 
 which leaves a lasting impression. Napoleon, Talleyrand, Fouch^, and other 
 historical personages, appear in the tale in a manner that is at once natural and 
 impressive. As an addition to a remarkable series, the book is one that no 
 admirer of Balzac can atTord to neglect. Miss Wormeley's translation reproduces 
 the peculianties of the author's style with the faithfulness for which she has 
 hitherto been celebrated. — Saturday EveniH^ Gazette. 
 
 It makes very interesting reading at this distance of time, however; and Balzac 
 has given to the legendary account much of the solidity of history by his adroit 
 manipulation. For the main story it must be said that the action is swifter and 
 more varied than in many of the author's books, and that there are not wanting 
 many of those cameo-like portraits necessary to warn the reader against slovenly 
 
 fjerusal of this carefully written story; for the complications are such, and the re- 
 ations between the several plots involved so intricate, that the thread might 
 easily be lost and much of the interest be thus destroyed The usual Balzac 
 compactness is of course present throughout, to give body and significance to the 
 work, and the stage is crowded with impressive figures. It would be impossible 
 to find a book which gives a better or more faithful illustration of one of the 
 strangest periods in French history, in short ; and its attraction as a story is at 
 least equalled by its value as a true picture of the time it is concerned with. The 
 translation is as spirited and close as Miss Wormeley has taught us to expect in 
 this admirable series. — Ne-vu York Tribune. 
 
 One of the most intensely interesting novels that Balzac ever wrote \% An 
 Historical Mystery, whose translation has just been added to the preceding 
 novels that compose the "Com^die Humaine" so admirably translated by Miss 
 Katharine Prescott Wormeley. The story opens in the autumn of 1803, in the 
 time of the Empire, and the motive is in deep-laid political plots, which are re- 
 vealed with the subtle and ingenious skill that marks the art of Balzac. . . . The 
 story is a deep-laid political conspiracy of the secret service of the ministry of 
 the police. Talleyrand, M'lle de Cinq-Cygne, the Princess de Cadigan, Louis 
 XVI H, as well as Napoleon, figure as characters of this thrilling historic ro- 
 niance. An absorbing love-story is also told, in which State intrigue plays an 
 important part. The character-drawing is faithful to history, and the story illu- 
 minates French life in the early years of the century as if a calcium light were 
 thrown on the scene. 
 
 It IS a romance of remarkable power^ and one of the most deeply fascinating 
 of all the novels of the ''Comedie Humnine." 
 
 Sold by all bnoksellers. Mailed., post-paid., on 7'eceipt of 
 price by the Publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. 
 
BALZAC IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Fame and Sorrow, 
 
 TRANSLATED BY KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY. 
 
 i2mo. Half Russia. Uniform with our edition of Balzac's 
 Works. Price, $1.50. In addition to this remarkable story, 
 the volume contains the following, namely : " Colonel Chabert," 
 " The Atheist's Mass," " La Grande Breteche," " The Purse," and 
 " La Grenadiere." 
 
 The force and passion of the stories of Balzac are unapproachable. He had 
 the art of putting into half a dozen pages all the fire and stress which many 
 writers, wlio are still great, cannot compass in a volume. The present volume is 
 an admirable collection, and presents well his power of handling the short story. 
 That the translation is excellent need hardly be said — Boston Courier. 
 
 The six stories, admirably translated by Miss Wormeley, afford good examples 
 of Balzac's work in what not a few critics have thought his chief specialty. It is 
 certain that no writer of many novels wrote so many short stories as he ; and it is 
 equally as certain that his short stories are, almost without an exception, models 
 of what such compositions ought to be. . . No modem author, however, of any 
 school whatever, has succeeded in producing short stories half so good as Balzac's 
 best. Balzac did not, indeed, attempt to display liis subtility and deftness by 
 writing short stories about nothing. Every one of his tales contains an episode, 
 not necessarily, but usually, a dramatic episode The first in the present collec- 
 tion, better known as " La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote," is really a short novel. 
 It has all the machinery, all the interest, all the detail of a regular story. The 
 difference is that it is compressed as Balzac only could compress; that here and 
 there important events, changes, etc., are indicated in a few powerful lines instead 
 of being elaborated; that the vital points are thrown into strong relief Take the 
 pathetic story of " Colonel Chabert " It begins with an elaboration of detail. 
 The description of the lawyer's office might seem to some too minute. But it is 
 the stage upon which tiie Colonel is to appear, and when he enters we see the 
 value of the preliminaries, for a picture is presented which the memory seizes and 
 holds. As the action progresses, detail is used more parsimoniously, because th« 
 mise-en-scene has already been completed, and because, also, the characters once 
 clearly described, the development of character and the working of passion can 
 be indicated with a few pregnant strokes. Notwithstanding this increasing 
 economy of space, the action takes on a swifter intensity, and the culmination 01 
 the tragedy leaves the reader breathless 
 
 In " The Atheist s Mass " we have quite a new kind of story This is rather 
 a psychological study than a narrative of action. Two widely distinguished char- 
 acters are thrown on the canvas here, — that of the great surgeon and that of the 
 humble patron; and one knows not which most to admire, the vigor of the 
 drawing, or the subtle and lucid psychical analysis. In both there is rare beauty of 
 soul, and perhaps, after all, the poor Auvergnat surpasses the eminent surgeon, 
 though this is a delicate and difficult question. But how complete the little story 
 is ; how much it tells ; with what skill, and in how delightful a manner ! Then 
 there is that tremendous haunting legend of " La Grande Breteche," a story which 
 has always been turned into more languages and twisted into more new forms than 
 almost any other of its kind extant. What author has equalled the continuing 
 horror of that unfaithful wife's agony, compelled to look on and assist at the slow 
 murder of her entrapped lover? . . Then the death of the husband and wife, — 
 the one by quick and fiercer dissipation, the other by simple refusal to live longer, 
 — and the abandonment of the accursed dwelling to solitude and decay, complete 
 a picture, which for vividness, emotional force, imaginative power, and compre- 
 hensiveness of effects, can be said to have few equals in its own class of fiction. — 
 Kansas City Journal. 
 
 Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price, by 
 the publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Bo.ston. 
 
BALZAC IN ENGLISH. 
 
 SONS OF THE SOIL. 
 
 Translated by Kathaiine Prescott Wormeley. 
 
 Many critics have regarded "Les Paysans," to which Miss Wormeley, 
 in her admirable translation, has given the title " Sons of the Soil," as one 
 of Balzac's strongest novels ; and it cannot fail to impress those who read 
 this English rendering of it. Fifty or sixty years ago Balzac made a pro- 
 found study of the effects produced by the Revolution upon the peasants 
 of the remote provinces of France, and he has here elaborated these obser- 
 vations in a powerful picture of one of those strange, disguised, but fero- 
 cious social wars which were at the time not only rendered possible, but 
 promoted by three potent influences, namely, the selfishness of tlie rich 
 landholders ; the land-hunger and stimulated greed of the peasants ; and 
 the calculated rapacity of middle-class capitalists, craftily using the hatreds 
 of the poor to forward their own plots. The first part of " Les Faysans " 
 (and the only part which w..s published during the author's life) appeared 
 under a title taken from an old and deeply significant proverb. Qui a terre 
 a guerre y — "Who has land has war." 
 
 It is the account of a guerilla war conducted by a whole country-sid^ 
 against one great land-owner, — a war in which, moreover, the lawless 
 aggressions of the peasantry are prompted, supported, and directed by an 
 amazing alliance between the richest, most unscrupulous, and most power 
 ful of the neighboring provincial magnates, who, by controlling, through 
 family council, the local administration, ire in a position to paralyze resist 
 ance to their conspiracy. The working out of this deep plot affords th*, 
 author opportunity for .the introduction of a whole gallery of marvelloui 
 studies. 
 
 It is perhaps hardly necessary to say that this powerful and absorbing 
 story is lifted above the level of romance by the unequalled artistic genius 
 of the author, and that it is at times almost transformed into a profound 
 political study by the depth and acumen of his suggestions and comments. 
 Nor should it be requisite to point out analogies with territorial conditions 
 in more than one other country, which lend to " Les Paysans " a special 
 interest and significance, and are likely to prevent it from becoming obsolete 
 for a long time to come. Of the translation it only need be said that it is 
 as good as Miss Wonneley has accustomed us to expect, and that means 
 the best rendering of French into English that has ever been done. -^ 
 New York Tribune. 
 
 Handsome 12mo volume, bound in half Russia. Price, 
 $1 50 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 
 
 BOSTON, MASS. 
 
BALZAC IN ENOLISH 
 
 LOUIS LAMBERT. 
 
 "As for Balzac," writes Oscar Wilde, "he was a most remarkable combination 
 of the artistic temperament with the scientific spirit." It is his artistic tempera- 
 ment which reveals itselt the most clearly in the novel before us. As we read 
 " Louis Lambert," we feel convinced that it is largely autobiographical. It is a 
 psychical study as delicate as Amiel's Journal, and nearly as spiritual. We follow 
 the life of the sensitive, poetical schoolboy, feeling that it is a true picture of Bal 
 zac's own youth. When the literary work on whicii the hero had written for years 
 in all his spare moments is destroyed, we do not need to be told by Mr. Parsons 
 that this is an episode in Balzac's own experience ; we are sure of this fact already; 
 and no writer could describe so sympatiietically the deep spiritual experiences of 
 an aspiring soul who had not at heart felt them keenly. No materialist could have 
 written " Louis Lambert." — Boston Transcript. 
 
 Of all of Balzac's works thus far translated by Miss Katharine Prescott Wormeley. 
 the last in the series, " Louis Lambert," is the most difficult of comprehension. 
 It is the second of the author's Philosophical Studies, "The Magic Skin" being 
 the first, and " Seraphita," shortly to be published, being the third and last. In 
 "Louis Lambert" Balzac has presented a study of a noble soul — a spirit of 
 exalted and lofty aspirations which chafes under the fetters of earthly existence, 
 and has no sympathy with the world of materialism. This pure-souled genius is 
 made the medium, moreovei, for the enunciation of the outlines of a system of 
 philosophy which goes to the very roots of Oriental occultism and mysticism as its 
 source, and which thus reveals the marvellous scope of Balzac's learning. The 
 scholarly introduction to the book by George Frederic Parsons, in addition to 
 throwing a great deal of valuable light upon other phases of the work, shows hov, 
 many of the most recent scientific theories are directly in line with the doctrines 
 broadly set forth by Balzac nearly sixty years ago. The book is one to be studied 
 rather than read ; and it is made intelligible by the extremely able introduction 
 and by Miss Wormeley's excellent translation. — The Book- Buyer- 
 
 " Louis Lambert," with the two other members of the Trilogy, " La Peau de 
 Chagrin" and "Seraphita," is a book which presents many difficulties to the 
 student. It deals with profound and unfamiliar subjects, and the meaning of the 
 author by no means lies on the surface. It is the study of a great, aspiring sou) 
 enshrined in a feeble body, the sword wearing out the scabbard, the spirit soaring 
 away from its prison-house of flesh to its more congenial home. It is in marked 
 contrast to the study of the destructive and debasing process which we see in the 
 " Peau de Chagrin." It stands midway between this study of the mean and base 
 and that noble presentation of the final evolution of a soul on the very borders of 
 Divinity which Balzac gives us in " Seraphita." 
 
 The reader not accustoined to such high ponderings needs a guide to place hmi 
 en rapport with the Seer. Such a guide and friend he finds in Mr. Parsons, 
 whose introduction of one hundred and fifty pages is by no means the least valu- 
 a'cle part of this volume. It is impossible to do more than sketch the analysis of 
 Balzac's philosophy and the demonstration so successfully attempted by Mr. Par- 
 sons of the exact correlation between many of Balzac's speculations and the 
 newest scientific theories. The introduction is so closely written that it defies 
 much condensation. It is so intrinsically valuable that it will thoroughly repay 
 careful and minute study. — From ""Light" a London Journal of Psychical and 
 Occtilt Research, March 9,1889. 
 
 — —   
 
 Oite handsome \imo volume^ uniform "with '■'■ Ptre Goriot,^^ '■^ The 
 Djtchesse de Langeais,"'' " Cesar Birotteau,^'' " Eugenie Grandet,'" 
 " Cousin Pirns,''' '' The Country Doctor.^'' " The Two Brothers,^' " Thf 
 Alkahest,"" "■ Modest e Mis:non," " The Magic Skin,'' ''Cousin Bette:^ 
 Bound in half morocco, French Style. Price, ^1.50. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 
 
 Boston- 
 
BALZAC IN KNOLISH 
 
 COUSIN BETTE. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY. 
 
 He [Balzac] does not make Vice the leading principle of life. The most terrible 
 punishment invariably awaits transsressors. . . Psychologically considered, 
 *' Cousin Bette " with the " Peau de Chagrin " and "The Alkahest" are the most 
 
 Eowerful of all Balzac's studies. The marvellous acquaintance this romance-writer 
 ad with all phases and conditions of French men and women has never been 
 more strongly accentuated. For a French romance presenting difificulties in 
 translation, Miss Wormeley's work is excellent. Its faithfulness is even remark- 
 able. We can hardly conceive that after this series is completed Balzac will 
 remain unknown or unappreciated by American readers. — New York Times. 
 
 Balzac aspired to paint French life, especially Parisian life, in all Us aspects, — 
 " the great modern monster with its every face," to use his own words ; and in no 
 one of his novels is his insight keener, his coloring bolder, or his disclosures of the 
 corruptionsof city life more painfully realistic, than in " Cousin Bette." . . . Not 
 one of the admirably rendered series shows more breadth, skill, and sympathy 
 ■with every characteristic of the great French author than does this. And it is 
 quite a marvel of translation. — The A tnerican^ Philadelphia. 
 
 *T is true the book is not for babes, but he must have strange views of innocence 
 who would ignore the influence for good inherent in such a work. Ignorance con- 
 stitutes but a sorry shield against the onslaughts of temptation. It is well it wis- 
 dom can be so cheaply got as by the perusal of the book. — Americaft Hebrew. 
 
 It is an awful picture, but it is emphatically a work of genius. ... It cannot 
 be said tliat "Cousin Bette" is a book for those who like only optimistic presen- 
 tations of life. It is a study in morbid pathology ; an inquiry into the working of 
 passions and vices, the mischief actually caused by what in all human societies is 
 too patent and too constantly in evidence to be denied or ignored. . . He [Bal- 
 zac] must be judged by the scientific standard, and from that point of view there 
 can be no hesitation in declaring " Cousin Bette " a most powerful work. — New 
 York Tribune. 
 
 And there is much in the characters that is improper and fortunately counter to 
 our civilization; stiii the tone concerning these very things is a healthy one, and 
 Balzac's belief in purity and goodness, his faith in the better part of humanity, is 
 shown in the beautiful purity of Madame Hulot, and the lovely chastity of Hor- 
 tense. In "Cousin Bette," as in all Balzac's works, he manifests a familiarity 
 with the ethics of life which has gained for him the exalted position as tJie greatest 
 of French novelists. — St. Paul Dispatch. 
 
 One handsome i2mo volume, uniform with ^^ Pire Goriot," " The 
 Diichesse de Langeais,^^ " Cesar Birotieau,^^ " Eugenie Grandet,''^ 
 "■Cousin Pons;' " The Country Doctor ;' " The Two Brothers;' " The 
 Alkahest;' " The Magic Skin;' and " Modeste Mignon." Bound in half 
 morocco, French Style. Price, Jpi.50. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 
 
 Boston. 
 
BALZAC IN ENGLISH. 
 
 The Magic Skin. 
 
 (LA PEAU DE CHAGRIN.) 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY. 
 
 "The Magic Skin" is a great novel, — great in its conception, great in its 
 e/ecution, and great in the impression it leaves upon the reader's mind. Those 
 who deny that Balzac is a moral teacher will retract their opinion after reading this 
 powerful allegory- It is a picturesque representation of the great moral truth that 
 m life we have to pay for every excess we enjoy. In the gradual shrinking of the 
 "Magic Skin" we see the inevitable law that by uncontrolled dissipation of body 
 or mind we use up our physical strength and exhaust our vitality. In that beauti- 
 ful, cold, fascinating character. Fedora, the writer shows us the glittering world of 
 fashion and frivolity which men pursue vainly and find to their cost only dust and 
 ashes. In the gentle, loving, and devoted Pauline, Balzac represents the lasting 
 and pure pleasures of domestic life. But in Raphael's short enjoyment of them 
 we see the workings of that inflexible law, " Whatever ye sow that shall ye also 
 reap." In the vivid, striking, realistic picture of Parisian life which Balzac pre- 
 sents to us in " Tiie Magic Skin," the writer had a conscious moral purpose. We 
 know of no more awful allegory in literature. — Boston Tratiscript. 
 
 The story is powerful and original ; but its readers will be most affected by its 
 marvellous knowledge of human nature, and the deep-cutting dissection of charac- 
 ter which makes the attempts of our own analytical novelists appear superficial 
 and experimental. Lite ni all classes of the Paris of Louis Philippe's time is por- 
 trayed in the strongest lights and shadows, and with continual flashes of wit, 
 satire, and sarcasm which spare neither politician, philosopher, priest, poet, jour- 
 nalist, artist, man ot the world, nor woman of the world. Through a maze of 
 heterogeneous personages Raphael, the hero, is carried, pursued by the relentless 
 Magic Skin, which drives him meicilessly to his doom. The vices of high society 
 are laid bare ; but there is also a beautiful exposition of purity in the humble life 
 of Pauline, who is the good angel of the story. In traiislating " La Peau de Cha- 
 grin" Miss Wormeley has done work that is at once skilful and discreet. It is a 
 man's book, virile though not vulgar, and exposing prominences in French social 
 views such as most writers veil in obscurities. Here all is frankly and honestly 
 shown, but by a man of genius, who had no more need of prudish hypocrisy than 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Mr. Parsons's thoughtful preface is a fitting introduction to the most wonder- 
 ful of all Balzac's romances. It is not a whit too strong for Mr. Parsons tc write 
 that, saving Shakespeare, "no man could have been better fitted to examine men- 
 tal processes, to gauge their effects, to estimate their significance, and to define 
 their nature and scope ' than Balzac. If Balzac had been a German, and not a 
 Frenchman of the French, this book of his would be as much of an epoch-maker 
 as Goethe's " Faust." It may take years before the fuller appreciation of *' La 
 Peau de Chagrin " comes, but it is a study of life which will be studied in cen- 
 turies yet to come. — New York Times. 
 
 One handsome i2mo volume, uniform with ^^ P^re Goriot^'* " The 
 Duchesse de Langeais,^' ^'- Cesar Birotteau.''^ ^'■Eugenie Grandet,^* 
 '■'Cousin Pons,'' " The Country Doctor;' " The Two Brothers^' " The 
 Alkahest;'' and '■^ Modeste Mignon.'^ Bound in half morocco, French 
 style. Price, ^1.50. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 
 
 Boston. 
 
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