UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES UMVF TFORN1A . LO:: i.ES LIBRARY HONORS DE BALZAC 462P firnn. a, jkntcJi, - eU HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS BY MARY F. SANDARS WITH PORTRAITS NEW YORK 1905 Fk.8 1908 Copyright, 1904, BY DODD, MEAD & COMPAKT * Published, February 1905. IB sei v. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE Balzac's claims to greatness The difficulty in attempting a complete Life His complex character The intention of this book 1 CHAPTER II Balzac's appearance, dress, and personality His imaginary world and schemes for making money His family, childhood, and school-days 15 CHAPTER III Balzac's tutors and law studies His youth, as pictured in the "Teau de Chagrin" -His father J s mtenti6n of making him a lawyer He begs to be allowed to be- come a writer Is allowed his wish Life in the Rue Lesdiguieres He writes "Cromwell" a tragedy . . 42 CHAPTER IV Reading of ' ' Cromwell ' ' Balzac is obliged to live at home Unhappiness Writes Romantic novels-^Friend- ship_wjth Madame de Berny Starts in Paris as pub- lisher and afterwards as printer Impending bankruptcy only prevented by help from his parents and Madame de Berny 67 vi CONTENTS CHAPTER V PAGE Life in the Rue de Tournon Privations and despair Friend- ships Auguste Borget Madame Carraud The Duch- esse d'Abrantes George Sand, etc. " La Peau de Chagrin" and the "Physiologic du Mariage " -His right to be entitled " De Balzac" 86 CHAPTER VI Work and increasing fame Emile de Girardin I^alzac^s early relationsjarith the Reyue de Paris arid quarrel with Amedee Pichot First letters from Madame Hanska and the Marquise de Castries Balzac's extraordinary mode of writing Burlesque account of it from the Figaro 107 CHAPTER VII Crisis in Balzac's private life ' Contes Drolatiques" Ma- dame Hanska's liTe before sheTnet Balzac Descrip- tion of her appearance "Louis Lambert" Disinter- estedness of Madame de Berny Balzac and his mother Balzac and the Marquise de Castries His despair . .128 CHAPTER VIII Letters between Balzac and Madame Hanska Meeting at Neufchatel " Etudes de Moeurs au XlXieme Siecle " Le Medecin de Campagne " ' Eugenie Grandet" Meets Madame Hanska at Vienna ' La Duchesse de Langeais " " La Recherche de 1'Absolu " " Le Pere Republishes romantic novels 1 49 CONTENTS vii CHAPTER IX PAGE Balzac's portrait as described by Gautier His character Belief in magnetism arjj spmnarnhnlisni His attempts to become deputy His political and religious views . 171 CHAPTER X Balzac starts the Chronique de Paris Balzac and Theophile Gautier-^Lawsuit with the Revue de Paris Failure of the Chronique Travels in Italy Madame Marbouty Death of Madame de Berny Balzac is imprisoned for refusal to serve in Garde Nationale Werdet's failure Disastrous year 1836 192 CHAPTER XI Drawing-room in Rue desBatailles The Cheval Rouge " Second visit to Italy Buys Les Jardies at Sevres Travels to Sardinia to obtain silver from worked-out mines Disappointment Goes on to Italy Takes up his abode -in Les Jardies " L'Ecole des Menages" He Defends Peytel 215 CHAPTER XII Vautrin " La Revue Parisienne Societe des Gens-de-Let- tres Death of 'M. de Hanski '^Les Ressources de Quinola " 'fLa Comedie Hunaaifle^ Balzac goes to St. Petersburg to meet Madame Hanska Her reasons for deferring marriage 237 viii CONTENTS CHAPTER XIII PAGE Pamela Giraud " Comte Georges Mniszech ** Les Pay- sans ' ' Comtesse Anna engaged Dispute with Emile de Girardin " La Cousine Bette " and " Le Cousin Pons " Marriage of Comtesse Anna Balzac and Madame Hanska engaged 260 CHAPTER XIV Balzac buys a house Madame Hanska's visit to Paris Final breach with Emile de Girardin Projects for writing for the theatre Goes to Wierzchownia Re- turns to Paris at the eve of the Revolution of 1848 Stands for last time as deputy 283 CHAPTER XV Description of interior of house in the Rue Fortunee La Maratre " Projected plays- ' Le Faiseur Balzac seeks admission for the last time to the Academic Fran- caise He returns to Wierzchownia Failing health Letters to his family Family relations strained . . 305 CHAPTER XVI Peace between Balzac and his family Madame Hanska's vacillations Visit to Kiev Marriage Letters to his mother, sister, and to Madame Carraud Terrible jour- ney Madame de Balzac's pearl necklace and strange letter Balzac's married life Arrival in Paris . . 326 CONTENTS IX |.ilzac's ill-health Theophile Gautier and Victor Hugo Balzac's grief about the unfinished Comedie Hu- maine^* Victor Hugo's account of his death-bed^ Death and funeral Life afterwards in the Rue For- tunee Fate of Balzac's MSS. His PAGE' ILLUSTRATIONS * HONORE DE BALZAC Frontispiece Facing page RODIN'S STATUE OF HONORE DE BALZAC ... 76 EXHIBITED IN PARIS AT L'EXPOSITION DES BEAUX-ARTS IN 1898. This is only modelled, and has never been sculptured. BALZAC. FROM DAVID'S SKETCH 152 BALZAC SIGNATURE 220 Facsimile of the last page of an article entitled : ' ' Du Gouvernement Moderne," written by Balzac at Aix in 1832. This specimen was kindly given to the Author by the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, who possesses the original A RARE PORTRAIT OF BALZAC 300 FROM DAGUERREOTYPE TAKEN IN 1 842 AND NOW IN POSSES- SION OF THE VICOMTE DE SPOELBERCH DE LOVENJOUL. This is said by the Vicomte to be the only portrait he knows which is a likeness with no attempt at arrange- ment or interpretation. Supposed to have been given only to Balzac's sister and to a few friends. xi PREFACE * - BOOKS about Balzac would ml a fair-sized library. Criticisms on his novels abound, and his contempora- ries have provided us with several amusing volumes dealing in a humorous spirit with his eccentricities, and conveying the impression that the author of " La Cousine Bette " and " Le Pere Goriot " was nothing more than an amiable buffoon. Nevertheless, by some strange anomaly, there exists no life of him derived from original sources, incorporating the information available since the appearance of the volume called " Lettres a 1'^tran- gere." This book, which is the source of much of our present knowledge of Balzac, is a collection of letters written by him from 1833 to 1844 to Madame Han- ska, the Polish lady who afterwards became his wife. The letters are exact copies of the originals, having been made by the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Loven- joul, to whom the autographs belong. It seems curious that no one should yet have made use of this mine of biographical detail. In English we have a Memoir by Miss Wormeley, written at a time when little was known about the great novelist, and a Life by Mr. Frederick Wedmore in the " Great Writers" Series; but this, like Miss Wormeley's Memoir, appeared before the "Lettres a 1'^tran- xiv PREFACE gere" were published. Moreover, it is a very small book, and the space in it devoted to Balzac as a man is further curtailed by several^ chapters devoted to criti- cism of his work. The introduction to the excellent translation of Balzac's novels undertaken by Mr. Saintsbury contains a short account of his life, but this only fills a few pages and does not enter into much detail. Besides these, an admirable essay on Balzac has appeared in "Main Currents of Nine- teenth-century Literature," by Dr. George Brandes; the scope of this, however, is mainly criticism of his merits as a writer, not description of his personality and doings. Even in the French language there is no trust- worthy or satisfactory Life of Balzac a fact on which the numerous critical writers make many com- ments, though they apparently hesitate to throw them- selves into the breach and to undertake one. Madame Surville's charming Memoir only professes to treat of Balzac's early life, and even within these limits she intentionally conceals as much as she reveals. M. Edmond Bire, in his interesting book, presents Balzac in different aspects, as Royalist, playwriter, admirer of Napoleon, and so on; but M. Bire gives no con- nected account of his life, while MM. Hanotaux and Vicaire deal solely with Balzac's two years as printer and publisher. The Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lo- venjoul is the one man who could give a detailed and minutely correct life of Balzac, as he has proved by the stores of biographical knowledge contained in his works the "Roman d'Amour," "Autour de Honore PREFACE xv de Balzac," " La Genese d'un Roman de Balzac, * Les Paysans,' "and above all, " L'Histoire des QEuvres de Balzac," which has become a classic. The English or American reader would hardly be able to appreciate these fascinating books, however, unless he were first equipped with the knowledge of Balzac which would be provided by a concise Life. In these circumstances, helped and encouraged by Dr. Emil Reich, whose extremely interesting lectures I had attended with much enjoyment, and who very kindly gave me lists of books, and assisted me with advice, I engaged in the task of writing this book. It is not intended to add to the mass of criticism of Bal- zac's novels, being merely an attempt to portray the man as he was, and to sketch correctly a career which has been said to be more thrilling than a large propor- tion of novels. I must apologise for occasional blank spaces, for when Balzac is with Madame Hanska, and his letters to her cease, as a general rule all our information ceases also; and the intending biographer can only glean from scanty allusions in the letters written afterwards, what happened at Rome, Naples, Dres- den, or any of the other towns, to which Balzac travelled in hot haste to meet his divinity. The book has been compiled as far as possible from original sources; as the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul whose collection of documents relating to Balzac, Gautier, and George Sand is unique, while his comprehensive knowledge of Balzac is the result of many years of study has most kindly allowed me xvi PREFACE to avail myself of his library at Brussels. There, arranged methodically, according to some wonderful system which enables the Vicomte to find at once any document his visitor may ask for, are hundreds of Balzac's autograph writings, many of them unpub- lished and of great interest. There, too, are portraits and busts of the celebrated novelist, letters from his numerous admirers, and the proofs of nearly all his novels those sheets covered with a network of writ- ing, which were the despair of the printers. The col- lection is most remarkable, even when we remember the large sums of money, and the patience and ability, which have for many years been f ocussed on its for- mation. It will one day be deposited in the museum of Chantilly, near Paris, where it will be at the dis- posal of those who wish to study its contents. The Vicomte has kindly devoted much time to answering my questions, and has shown me documents and autograph letters the exact words of which have been the subject of discussion and dispute, so that I have been able myself to verify the fact that the copies made by M. de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul are taken exactly from the originals. He has warned me to be particularly careful about my authorities, as many of Balzac's letters printed as though copied from autographs are incorrectly dated, and have been much altered. He has further added to his kindness by giving me several illustrations, and by having this book trans- lated to him, in order to correct it carefully by the information to which he alone has access. I gladly PREFACE xvii take this opportunity of acknowledging how deeply I am indebted to him. I cannot consider these words of introduction com- plete without again expressing my sense of what I owe to Dr. Reich, to whom the initial idea of this book is due, and without whose energetic impetus it would never have been written. He has found time, in the midst of a very busy life, to read it through, and to make many valuable suggestions, and I am most grateful for all he has done to help me. I must finish by thanking Mr. Curtis Brown most heartily for the trouble he has taken on my behalf, for the useful hints he has given me, and for the patience with which he has elucidated the difficulties of an inex- perienced writer. MAEY F. SANDARS. HONORE DE BALZAC CHAPTER I Balzac's claims to greatness The difficulty in attempt- ing a complete Life His complex character The intention of this book AT a time when the so-called Realistic School is in the ascendant among novelists, it seems strange that little authentic information should have been published in the English language about the great French writer, Honore de Balzac. / Almost alone among his con- temporaries, he dared to claim the interest of the world for ordinary men and women solely on the ground of a common humanity. , Thus he was the first to embody in literature the principle of Burns that " a man's a man for a' that " ; and though this fact has now become a truism, it was a discovery, and an important discovery, when Balzac wrote. He showed that, because we are ourselves ordinary men and women, it is really human interest, and not sensational circumstance, which appeals to us, and that material for enthralling drama can be found in the life of the most commonplace person of a middle-aged shop- keeper threatened with bankruptcy, or of an elderly musician with a weakness for good dinners. At one blow he destroyed the unreal ideal of the Romantic School, who degraded man by setting up in his place 2 HONORE DE BALZAC a fantastic and impossible hero as the only theme worthy of their pen ; and thus he laid the foundation of the modern novel. His own life is full of interest. He was not a recluse or a bookworm; his work was to study men, and he lived among men, he fought strenuously, he enjoyed lustily, he suffered keenly, and he died pre- maturely, worn out by the force of his own emotions, and by the prodigies of labour to which he was im- pelled by the restless promptings of his active brain, and by his ever-pressing need for money. Some of his letters to Madame Hanska have been published during the last few years; and where can we read a more pathetic love story than the record of his seven- teen years' waiting for her, and of the tragic ending to his long-deferred happiness ? Or where in modern times can more exciting and often comical tales of ad- venture be found than the accounts of his wild and always unsuccessful attempts to become a millionaire? His friends comprised most of the celebrated French writers of the day ; and though not a lover of society, he was acquainted with many varieties of people, while his own personality was powerful, vivid, and eccentric. Thus he appears at first sight to be a fascinating subject for biography; but if we examine a little more closely, we shall realise the web of difficulties in which the writer of a complete and exhaustive Life of Balzac would involve himself, and shall understand why the task has never been attempted. The great author's money affairs alone are so complicated that HONORE DE BALZAC 3 it is doubtful whether he ever mastered them himself, and it is certainly impossible for any one else to understand them; while he managed to shroud his private life, especially his relations to women, in almost complete mystery. For some years after his death the monkish habit in which he attired himself was considered symbolic of his mental attitude; and even now, though the veil is partially lifted, and we realise the great part women played in his life, there remain many points which are not yet cleared up. Consequently any one who attempts even in the most unambitious way to give a complete account of the great writer's life is confronted with many blank spaces. It is true that the absolutely mysterious dis- appearances of which his contemporaries speak curi- ously are now partially accounted for, as we know that they were usually connected with Madame Han- ska, and that Balzac's sense of honour would not allow him to breathe her name, except to his most intimate friends, and under the pledge of the strictest secrecy. His letters to her have allowed a fl^od of light to pour upon his hitherto veiled personality; but they are almost our only reliable source of information. Therefore, when they cease, because Balzac is with his lady-love, and we are suddenly excluded from his con- fidence, we can only guess what is happening. In this way, we possess but the scantiest informa- tion about the journeys which occupied a great part of his time during the last few years of his life. We know that he travelled, regardless of expense and 4 HONORE DE BALZAC exhaustion, as quickly as possible, and by the very shortest route, to meet Madame Hanska; but this once accomplished, we can gather little more, and we long for a diary or a confidential correspondent. In the first rapture of his meeting at Neufchatel, he did indeed open his heart to his sister, Madame Surville; but his habitual discretion, and his care for the reputa- tion of the woman he loved, soon imposed silence upon him, and he ceased to comment on the great drama of his life. The great versatility of his mind, and the power he possessed of throwing himself with the utmost keen- ness into many absolutely dissimilar and incongruous enterprises at the same time, add further to the diffi- culty of understanding him. An extraordinary number of subjects had their place in his capacious brain, and the ease with which he dismissed one and took up another with equal zest the moment after causes his doings to seem unnatural to us of ordinary mind. Leon Gozlan gives a curious instance of this on the occasion of the first reading of the " Ressources de Quinola." Balzac had recited his play in the green-room of the Odeon to the assembled actors and actresses, and before a most critical audience had gone through the terrible strain of trying to improvise the fifth act, which was not yet written. He and Gozlan went straight from the hot atmosphere of the theatre to refresh themselves in the cool air of the Luxembourg Gardens. Here we should expect one of two things to happen. Either Balzac would be depressed with HONORS DE BALZAC 5 the ill-success of his fifth act, at which, according to Gozlan, he had acquitted himself so badly that Madame Dorval, the principal actress, refused to take a role in the play; or, on the other hand, his sanguine temperament would cause him to overlook the drawbacks and to think only of the enthusiasm with which the first four acts had been received. Neither of these two things took place. Balzac " n'y pensait deja plus." He talked with the greatest eagerness of the embellishments he had proposed to M. Decazes for his palace, and especially of a grand spiral staircase, which was to lead from the centre of the Luxembourg Gardens to the Catacombs, so that these might be shown to visitors, and become a source of profit to Paris. But of his play he said nothing. The reader of "Lettres a 1'Etrangere," which are written to the woman with whom Balzac was passion- ately in love, and whom he afterwards married, may, perhaps, at first sight congratulate himself on at last understanding in some degree the great author's character and mode of life. If he dives beneath the surface, however, he will find that these beautiful and touching letters give but an incomplete picture; and that, while writing them, Balzac was throwing much energy into schemes, which he either does not mention to his correspondent, or touches on in the most cursory fashion. Therefore the perspective of his life is dif- ficult to arrange, and ordinary rules for gauging character are at fault. We find it impossible to follow the principle, that because Balzac possessed one characteristic, he could not also show a diamet- 6 HONORE DE BALZAC rically opposite quality that, for instance, because tenderness, delicacy of feeling, and a high sense of reverence and honour were undoubtedly integral parts of his personality, the stories told by his con- temporaries of his occasional coarseness must neces- sarily be false. His own words, written to the Duchesse d'Abrantes in 1828, have no doubt a great element of truth in them : " I have the most singular character I know. I study myself as I might study another person, and I possess, shut up in my five foot eight inches, all the incoherences, all the contrasts possible ; and those who think me vain, extravagant, obstinate, high-minded, without connection in my ideas, a fop, negligent, idle, without application, without reflection, without any constancy; a chatterbox, without tact, badly brought up, impolite, whimsical, unequal in temper, are quite as right as those w r ho perhaps say that I am economical, modest, courageous, stingy, energetic, a worker, constant, silent, full of delicacy, polite, always gay. Those who consider that I am a coward will not be more wrong than those who say that I am extremely brave ; in short, learned or ignorant, full of talent or absurd, nothing astonishes me more than myself. I end by believing that I am only an instru- ment played on by circumstances. Does this kaleido- scope exist, because, in the soul of those who claim to paint all the affections of the human heart, chance throws all these affections themselves, so that they may be able, by the force of their imagination, to feel what they paint? And is observation a sort of memory HONORE DE BALZAC 7 suited to aid this lively imagination? I begin to think so." J Certainly Balzac's character proves to the hilt the truth of the rule that, with few exceptions in the world's history, the higher the development, the more y, complex the organisation and the more violent the //\ clashing of the divers elements of the man's nature;* so that his soul resembles a field of battle, and he wears out quickly. Nevertheless, because everything in Balzac seems contradictory, when he is likened by one of his friends to the sea, which is one and indivis- ible, we perceive that the comparison is not inapt. Round the edge are the ever-restless waves; on the surface the foam blown by fitful gusts of wind, the translucent play of sunbeams, and the clamour of storms lashing up the billows ; but down in the sombre depths broods the resistless, immovable force which tinges with its reflection the dancing and play above, and is the genius and fascination, the mystery and tragedy of the sea. Below the merriment and herculean jollity, so little represented in his books, there was deep, gloomy force in the soul of the man who, gifted with an almost unparalleled imagination, would yet grip the realities of the pathetic and terrible situations he evolved with brutal strength and insistence. The mind of the writer of " Le Pere Goriot," " La Cou- sine Bette," and "Le Cousin Pons," those terrible tragedies where the Greek god Fate marches on his victims relentlessly, and there is no staying of the 1 " Correspondance," vol. i. p. 77. 8 HONORE DE BALZAC hand for pity, could not have been merely a wide, sunny expanse with no dark places. Nevertheless, we are again puzzled, when we attempt to realise the personality of a man whose imagination could soar to the mystical and philosophical conception of " Seraphita," which is full of religious poetry, and who yet had the power in " Cesar Birotteau " to invest prosaic and even sordid details with absolute veri- similitude, or in the " Contes Drolatiques " would write, in Old French, stories of Rabelaisian breadth and humour. The only solution of these contradic- tions is that, partly perhaps by reason of great phys- ical strength, certainly because of an abnormally powerful brain and imagination, Balzac's thoughts, feelings, and passions were unusually strong, and were endowed with peculiar impetus and independence of each other; and from this resulted a versatility which caused most unexpected developments, and which fills us of smaller mould with astonishment. Nevertheless, steadfastness w r as decidedly the groundwork of the character of the man who was not dismayed by the colossal task of the Comedie Humaine; but pursued his work through discourage- ment, ill health, and anxieties. Except near the end of his life, when, owing to the unreasonable strain to which it had been subjected, his powerful organism had begun to fail, Balzac refused to neglect his voca- tion even for his love affairs a self-control which must have been a severe test to one of his tempera- ment. This absorption in his work cannot have been very HONORS DE BALZAC 9 flattering to the ladies he admired; and one plausible explanation of Madame de Castries' coldness to his suit is that she did not believe in the devotion of a lover who, while paying her the most assiduous court at Aix, would yet write from five in the morning till half-past five in the evening, and only bestow his com- pany on her from six till an early bedtime. Even the adored Madame Hanska had to take a second place where work w r as concerned. When they were both at Vienna in 1835, he writes with some irritation, apparently in answer to a remonstrance on her part, that he cannot work when he knows he has to go out ; and that, owing to the time he spent the evening be- fore in her society, he must now shut himself up for fourteen hours and toil at " Le Lys dans la Vallee." He adds, with his customary force of language, that if he does not finish the book at Vienna, he will throw himself into the Danube! The great psychologist knew his own character well when, in another letter to Madame Hanska, who has complained of his frivolity, he cries indignantly: " Frivolity of character! Why, you speak as a good bourgeois would have done, who, seeing Xapoleon turn to the right, to the left, and on all sides to ex- amine his field of battle, would have said, ' This man cannot remain in one place ; he has no fixed idea ! ' : This change of posture, though consonant, as Bal- zac says, with real stability, is a source of bewilderment to the reader of his sayings and doings, till it dawns upon him that, through pride, policy, and the usual / " Lettres a FEtrangre." 10 HONORE DE BALZAC shrinking of the sensitive from casting their pearls before swine, Balzac was a confirmed poseur, so that what he tells us is often more misleading than his silence. Leon Gozlan's books are a striking instance of the fact that, with all Balzac's jollity, his camera- derie, and his flow of words, he did not readily reveal himself, except to those whom he could thoroughly trust to understand him. Gozlan went about with Balzac very often, and was specially chosen by him time after time as a companion; but he really knew very little of the great man. If we compare his account of Balzac's feeling or want of feeling at a certain crisis, and then read what is written on the same subject to Madame Hanska, Balzac's enormous power of reserve, and his habit of deliberately mis- leading those who were not admitted to his confidence, may be gauged. George Sand tells us an anecdote which shows how easily, from his anxiety not to wear his heart upon his sleeve, Balzac might be misunderstood. He dined ..with her on January 29th, 1844, after a visit to Rus- sia, and related at table, with peals of laughter and apparently enormous satisfaction, an instance which had come under his notice of the ferocious exercise of absolute power. Any stranger listening would have thought him utterly heartless and brutal, but George Sand knew better. She whispered to him: "That makes you inclined to cry, doesn't it?" He an- swered nothing; left off laughing, as if a spring in him had broken; was very serious for the rest of 1 " Autour de la Table," by George Sand. HONORE DE BALZAC 11 the evening, and did not say a word more about Russia. Balzac looked on the world as an arena; and as the- occasion and the audience arose, he suited himself with the utmost aplomb to the part he intended to play, so that under the costume and the paint the real Balzac is often difficult to discover. Sometimes he would pretend to be rich and prosperous, when he thought an editor would thereby be induced to offer him good terms; and sometimes, when it suited his purpose, he would make the most of his poverty and of his pecuniary embarrassments. Madame Hanska, from whom he required sympathy, heard much of his desperate situation after the failure of Werdet, whom he likens to the vulture that tormented Pro- metheus ; but as it would not answer for mile de Girardin, the editor of La Presse, to know much about Balzac's pecuniary difficulties, Madame de Gi- rardin is assured that the report of Werdet's sup- posed disaster is false, and Balzac virtuously remarks that in the present century honesty is never believed in. 1 Sometimes his want of candour appears to have its origin in his hatred to allow that he is beaten, and there is something childlike and naive in his vanity. We are amused when he informs Madame Hanska that he is giving up the Chronique de Paris which after a brilliant flourish of trumpets at the start, was a complete failure because the speeches in the Chambre des Deputes are so silly that he abandons 1M La Genese d'un Roman de Balzac," p. 152, by Le Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul. 12 HONORE DE BALZAC the idea of taking up politics, as he had intended to do by means of journalism. In a later letter, how- ever, he is obliged to own that, though the Chronique has been, of course, a brilliant success, money is lack- ing, owing to the wickedness of several abandoned characters, and that therefore he has been forced to bring the publication to an end. -* Of one vanity he was completely free. He did not pose to posterity. Of his books he thought much- each one was a masterpiece, more glorious than the last; but he never imagined that people would be in the least interested in his doings, and he did not care about their opinion of him. Nevertheless there was occasionally a gleam of joy, when some one unex- pectedly showed spontaneous admiration for his work. For instance, in a Viennese concert-room, where the whole audience had risen to do honour to the great author, a young man seized his hand and put it to his lips, saying, " I kiss the hand that wrote ' Sera- phita,' " and Balzac said afterwards to his sister, " They may deny my talent if they choose, but the memory of that student will always comfort me." His genius would, he hoped, be acknowledged one day by all the world; but there was a singular and lovable absence of self-consciousness in his character, and a peculiar humility and childlikeness under his braggadocio and apparent arrogance. Perhaps this was the source of the power of fascination he undoubtedly exercised over his contemporaries. Nothing is more noticeable to any one reading about Balzac than the difference between the tone of HONORS DE BALZAC 13 amused indulgence with which those who knew him personally speak of his peculiarities, and the con- temptuous or horrified comments of people who only heard from others of his extraordinary doings. He had bitter enemies as well as devoted friends; and his fighting proclivities, his objection to allow that he is ever in the wrong, and his habit of blam- ing others for his misfortunes, have had a great effect in obscuring our knowledge of Balzac's life, as the people he abused were naturally exasperated, and took up their pens, not to give a fair account of what really happened, but to justify themselves against Balzac's aspersions. Werdet's book is an instance of this. Beneath the extravagant admiration he ex- presses for the " great writer," with his " heart of gold," a glint can be seen from time to time of the animus which inspired him when he wrote, and we feel that his statements must be received with caution, and do not add much to our real knowledge of Balzac. Nevertheless, though there are still blank spaces to be filled, as well as difficulties to overcome and puz- zles to unravel, much fresh information has lately been discovered about the great writer, notably the " Lettres a 1'Etrangere," published in 1899, a col- lection of some of the letters written by Balzac, from 1833 to 1848, to Madame Hanska, the Polish lady who afterwards became his wife. These letters, which are the property of the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, give many interesting details, and alter the earlier view of several points in Balzac's career and character ; but the volume is large, and takes some 14 HONORS DE BALZAC time to read. It is therefore thought that as those who would seem competent by their knowledge and skill to overcome the difficulties of writing a complete and exhaustive life are silent, a short sketch, which can claim nothing more than correctness of detail, may not be unwelcome. It contains no attempt to give what could only be a very inadequate criticism of the books of the great novelist; for that, the reader must be referred to many able works by learned Frenchmen who have made a lifelong study of the subject. It is written, however, in the hope that the admirers of " Eugenie Grandet " and " La" Pere Go- riot" may like to read something of the author of these masterpieces, and that even those who only know the great French novelist by reputation may be inter- ested to hear a little about the restless life of a man who was a slave to his genius was driven by its in- sistent voice to engage in work which was enormously difficult to him, to lead an abnormal and unhealthy life, and to wear out his exuberant physical strength prematurely. He died with his powers at their high- est and his great task unfinished; and a sense of thankfulness for his own mediocrity fills the reader, when he reaches the end of the life of Balzac. CHAPTER II * Balzac's appearance, dress, and personality His imagi- nary world and schemes for making money His family, childhood, and school-days ACCORDING to Theophile Gautier, herculean jollity was the most striking characteristic of the great writer, whose genius excels in sombre and often sor- did tragedy. George Sand, too, speaks of Balzac's "serene soul with a smile in it"; and this was the more remarkable, because he lived at a time when dis- content and despair were considered the sign-manual of talent. Physically Balzac was far from satisfying a ro- mantic ideal of fragile and enervated genius. Short and stout, square of shoulder, with an abundant mane of thick black hair a sign of bodily vigour his whole person breathed intense vitality. Deep red lips, thick, but finely curved, and always ready to laugh, attested, like the ruddiness in his full cheeks, to the purity and richness of his blood. His forehead, high, broad, and unwrinkled, save for a line between the eyes, and his neck, thick, round, and columnar, contrasted in their whiteness with the colour in the rest of the face. His hands were large and dimpled 15 16 HONORS DE BALZAC "beautiful hands," his sister calls them. He was proud of them, and had a slight prejudice against any one with ugly extremities. His nose, about which he gave special directions to David when his bust was taken, was well cut, rather long, and square at the end, with the lobes of the open nostrils standing out prominently. As to his eyes, according to Gautier, there were none like them. l They had inconceivable life, light, and magnetism. They were eyes to make an eagle lower his lids, to read through walls and hearts, to terrify a wild beast eyes of a sovereign, a seer, a conqueror. Lamartine likens them to " darts dipped in kindliness." Balzac's sister speaks of them as brown; but, according to other contem- poraries, they were like brilliant black diamonds, with rich reflections of gold, the white of the eyeballs being tinged with blue. They seemed to be lit with the fire of the genius within, to read souls, to answer questions before they were asked, and at the same time to pour out warm rays of kindness from a joyous heart. At all points Balzac's personality differed from that of his contemporaries of the Romantic School those transcendental geniuses of despairing temper, who were utterly hopeless about the prosaic world in w T hich, by some strange mistake, they found them- selves; and from which they felt that no possible inspiration for their art could be drawn. So little attuned were these unfortunates to their commonplace surroundings that, after picturing in their writings 1 " Portraits Contemparians Honore de Balzac," by Thdophile Gautier. I \ HONORE DE BALZAC 17 either fiendish horrors, or a beautiful, impossible atmosphere, peopled by beings out of whom all like- ness to humanity had been eliminated, they had infrequently lost their mental balance altogether, or hurried by their own act out of a dull world which could never satisfy their lively imaginations. Balzac, on the other hand, loved the world. How, with the acute powers of observation, and the intuition amount- ing almost to second sight, with which he was gifted, could he help doing so? The man who could at will quit his own personality, and invest himself with that of another; who would follow a workman and his wife on their way home at night from a music-hall, and listen to their discussions on domestic matters till he imbibed their life, felt their ragged clothing on his back, and their desires and wants in his soul how could he find life dull, or the most commonplace indi- vidual uninteresting? In dress Balzac was habitually careless. He would rush to the printer's office, after twelve hours of hard work, with his hat drawn over his eyes, his hands, thrust into shabby gloves, and his feet in shoes with high sides, worn over loose trousers, which were pleated at the waist and held down with straps. Even in society he took no trouble about his appearance, and Lamartine describes him as looking, in the salon of Madame de Girardin, like a schoolboy who has outgrown his clothes. Only for a short time, which he describes with glee in his letters to Madame Hanska, did he pose as a man of fashion. Then he wore a magnificent white waistcoat, and a blue coat 18 HONORE DE BALZAC with gold buttons; carried the famous cane, with a knob studded with turquoises, celebrated in Madame de Girardin's story, " La Canne de Monsieur de Bal- zac " ; and drove in a tilbury, behind a high-stepping horse, with a tiny tiger, whom he christened Anchise, perched on the back seat. This phase was quickly over, the horses were sold, and Balzac appeared no more in the box reserved for dandies at the Opera. Of the fashionable outfit, the only property left was the microscopic groom an orphan, of whom Balzac took the greatest care, and whom he visited daily dur- ing the boy's last illness, a year or two after. Thence- forward he reverted to his usual indifference about appearances, his only vanity being the spotless clean- liness of his working costume a loose dressing-gown of white flannel or cashmere, made like the habit of a Benedictine monk, which was kept in round the waist by a silk girdle, and was always scrupulously guarded from ink-stains. Naive as a child, anxious for sympathy, frankly delighted with his own masterpieces, yet modest in a fashion peculiar to himself, Balzac gave a domi- nant impression of kindliness and bonhomie, which overshadowed even the idea of intellect. To his friends he is not in the first place the author of the " Comedie Humaine," Designed, as George Sand rather grandiloquently puts it, to be " an almost uni- versal examination of the ideas, sentiments, customs, habits, legislation, arts, trades, costumes, localities in short, of all that constitutes the lives of his con- HONORE DE BALZAC 19 temporaries " that claim to notice recedes into the background, and what is seen clearly is the bon cama- rade, with his great hearty laugh, his jollity, his flow of language, and his jokes, often Rabelaisian in flavour. Of course there was another side to the picture, and there were times in his hardset and harassing life when even his vivacity failed him. These moods were, however, never apparent in so- ciety; and even to his intimate men friends, such as Theophile Gautier and Leon Gozlan, Balzac was always the delightful, whimsical companion, to be thought of and written of afterwards with an amused, though affectionate smile. Only to women, his prin- cipal confidantes, who played as important a part in his life as they do in his books, did he occasionally show the discouragement to which the artistic nature is prone. Sometimes the state of the weather, which always had a great effect on him, the difficulty of his work, the fatigue of sitting up all night, and his monetary embarrassments, brought him to an ex- treme state of depression, both physical and mental. He would arrive at the house of Madame Surville, his sister, who tells the story, hardly able to drag him- self along, in a gloomy, dejected state, with his skiri sallow and jaundiced. " 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 1 " Autour de la Table," by George Sand. 20 HONORE DE BALZAC 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 conclu- sion: ' Yes, I am a wrecked man, sister! " " Nonsense ! No man is wrecked with such proofs as those to correct." Then he would raise his head, his face would un- pucker little by little, the sallow tones of his skin would disappear. " My God, you are right! " he would say. " Those books will make me live. Besides, blind Fortune is here, isn't she? Why shouldn't she protect a Balzac as well as a ninny? And there are always ways of wooing her. Suppose one of my millionaire friends (and I have some), or a banker, not knowing what to do with his money, should come to me and say, ' 1 know your immense talents, and your anxieties : you want such-and-such a sum to free yourself; ac- cept it fearlessly ; you will pay me ; your pen is worth millions ! ' That is all I want, my dear." J Then the " child-man," as his sister calls him, would imagine himself a member of the Institute; then in the Chamber of Peers, pointing out and reforming abuses, and governing a highly prosperous country. Finally, he would end the interview with, " Adieu ! I am going home to see if my banker is waiting for me"; and would depart, quite consoled, with his usual hearty laugh. 1 " Balzac, sa Vie et ses CEuvres, d'apr&s la Correspondance," by Mme. L. Surville (nte de Balzac). 21 He lived, his sister tells us, to a great extent in a world of his own, peopled by the imaginary char- acters in his books, and he would gravely discuss its news, as others do that of the real world. Some- times he was delighted with the grand match he had planned for his hero; but often affairs did not go so well, and perhaps it would give him much anxious thought to marry his heroine suitably, as it was neces- sary to find her a husband in her own set, and this might be difficult to arrange. When asked about the past of one of his creations, he replied gravely that he " had not been acquainted with Monsieur de Jordy before he came to Nemours," but added that, if his questioner were anxious to know, he would try to find out. He had many fancies about names, de- claring that those which are invented do not give life to imaginary beings, whereas those really borne by some one endow them with vitality. Leon Gozlan says that he was dragged by Balzac half over Paris in search of a suitable name for the hero of a story to be published in the Revue Parisienne. After they had trudged through scores of streets in vain, Balzac, to his intense joy, discovered " Marcas " over a small tailor's shop, to which he added, as " a flame, a plume, a star," the initial Z. Z. Marcas conveyed to him the idea of a great, though unknown, philosopher, poet, or silversmith, like Benvenuto Cellini; he went no farther, he was satisfied he had found " t he name of names." l Many are the amusing anecdotes told of Balzac's 1 " Balzac en Pantoufles," by Leon Gozlan. 22 HONORE DE BALZAC schemes for becoming rich. Money he struggled for unceasingly, not from sordid motives, but because it was necessary to his conception of a happy life. Without its help he could never be freed from his burden of debt, and united to the grande dame of his fancy, who must of necessity be posed in elegant toilette, on a suitable background of costly brocades and objects of art. Nevertheless, in spite of all his efforts, and of a capacity and passion for work which seemed almost superhuman, he never obtained free- dom from monetary anxiety. Viewed in this light, there is pathos in his many impossible plans for mak- ing his fortune, and freeing himself from the strain which was slowly killing him. Some of his projected enterprises were wildly fan- tastic, and prove that the great author was, like many a genius, a child at heart; and that, in his eyes, the world was not the prosaic place it is to most men and women, but an enchanted globe, like the world of ' Treasure Island," teeming with the possibility of strange adventure. At one time he hoped to gain a substantial income by growing pineapples in the little garden at Les Jardies, and later on he thought money might be made by transporting oaks from Poland to France. For some months he believed that, by means of magnetism exercised on somnambulists, he had discovered the exact spot at Pointe a Pitre where Tous- saint-L'Ouverture hid his treasure, and afterwards shot the negroes he had employed to bury it, lest they should betray its hiding-place. Jules Sandeau and Theophile Gautier were chosen to assist in the enter- HONORE DE BALZAC 23 prise of carrying off the hidden gold, and were each to receive a quarter of the treasure, Balzac, as the leader of the venture, taking the other half. The three friends were to start secretly and separately with spades and shovels, and, their work accomplished, were to put the treasure on a brig which was to be in waiting, and were to return as millionaires to France. This brilliant plan failed, because none of the three adventurers had at the moment money to pay his passage out ; and no doubt, by the time that the neces- sary funds were forthcoming, Balzac's fertile brain was engaged on other enterprises. 1 The foundation of his pecuniary misfortunes was laid before his birth, when his father, forty-five years old and unmarried, sank the bulk of his fortune in life annuities, so that his son was in the unfortunate position of starting life in very comfortable circum- stances, and of finding himself in want of money just when he most needed it. Balzac's father was born in Languedoc in 1746, and we are told by his son that he had been Secre- tary, and by Madame Surville, Advocate, of the Council under Louis XVI. Both these statements, however, appear to be incorrect, and may be considered to have been harmless fictions on the part of the old gentleman, as no record of his name can be found in the Royal Calendar, which was very carefully kept. Almanacs are awkward things, and his name is men- tioned in the National Calendar of 1793 as a "law- yer" and "member of the general council for the 1 " Portraits Contemporians Honore de Balzac," by TWophile Gautier. 24 HONORE DE BALZAC section of the rights of man in the Commune." But he evidently preferred to draw a veil over his revolu- tionary experiences, and it seems rather hard that, because he happened to possess a celebrated son, his little secrets should be exposed to the light of day. Later on he became an ardent Royalist, and in 1814 he joined with Bertrand de Molleville to draw up a memoir against the Charter, which Balzac says was dictated to him, then a boy of fifteen; and he also mentions that he remembers hearing M. de Molleville cry out, " The Constitution ruined Louis XVI., and the Charter will kill the Bourbons!" "No com- promise" formed an essential part of the creed of the Royalists at the Restoration. When M. de Balzac 1 married, in 1797, he was in charge of the Commissariat of the Twenty-second Military Division; and in 1798 he came to live in Tours, where he had bought a house and some land near the town, and where he remained for nineteen ^years. Here, on May 16th, 1799, St. Honore's day, who had stolen away her brother's heart from France, who moved in a sphere quite unlike that of the Balzac family, and whose ex- istence prevented several advantageous and sensible marriages which she could have arranged for Honore. Balzac, it must be allowed, was not -always tactful in his descriptions of the perfections of the Hanska fam- ily, who were, of course, in his eyes, surrounded with aureoles borrowed from the light of his " polar star." It must have been distinctly annoying, when the vir- tues, talents, and charms of the young Countess Anna were held up as an object lesson for Madame Sur- ville's two daughters, who were no doubt, from their mother's point of view, quite as admirable as Madame Hanska's ewe lamb. Nevertheless, there was never any real separation between the brother and sister; and it is to Laure that certain of her participation in his joy poor Balzac penned his delighted letter the day after his wedding, signed " Thy brother Honore, at the summit of happiness." Laure's own career was chequered. In 1820 she married an engineer, M. Midy de la Greneraye Sur- ville, and from the first the marriage was not very happy, as Honore writes, a month after it took place, HONORE DE BALZAC 31 to blame Laure for her melancholy at the separation from her family, and to counsel philosophy and piano practice. Possibly Balzac's habits of ascendency over those he loved, and his wonderful gift of fascina- tion a gift which often provides its possessor with bitter enemies among those outside its influence made matters difficult for his brother-in-law, and did not tend to promote harmony between Laure and her husband. M. Surville probably became exasperated by useless attempts to vie in his wife's eyes with her much-beloved brother at any rate, in later years he was tyrannical in preventing their intercourse, and we hear of the unfortunate Laure coming in secret to see Balzac, on her birthday in 1836, and holding a watch in her hand, because she did not dare to stay away longer than twenty minutes. There were other wor- ries for Laure and her husband, for, like the rest of the Balzac family, they were in continual difficulty about money matters. M. Surville seems to have been a man of enterprise, and to have had many schemes on hand such as making a lateral canal on the Loire from Nantes to Orleans, building a bridge in Paris, or constructing a little railway. Speaking of the canal, Balzac cheerfully and airily remarked in 1836 that only a capital of twenty-six millions of francs required collecting, and then the Survilles would be on the high road to prosperity. This trifling matter was not after all arranged, if we may judge from the fact that in 1849 the Survilles moved to a cheap lodging, and were advised by Balzac, in a let- ter from Russia, to follow his habit of former days, 32 HONORE DE BALZAC and to cook only twice a week. In fact, they were evidently passing through one of those monetary crises to which we become used when reading the annals of the Balzacs, and which irresistibly remind the reader of similar affairs in the Micawber family. In spite of the friction on the subject of Madame Surville, there was never apparently any actual breach between Honore and his brother-in-law; indeed, he speaks several times of working amicably with M. Sur- ville, in a vain attempt to put in order the hopelessly involved web of family affairs. He evidently had great faith in his brother-in-law's plans for making his fortune, and took the keenest interest in them, even offering to go over to London, to sell an inven- tion for effecting economy in the construction of inclined planes on railways. But M. Surville changed his mind at the last, and Balzac never went to Eng- land after all. Honore and Laure were together during the time of their earliest childhood, as they were left at the cot- tage of the same foster-mother, and did not come home till Honore was four years old. His sister says, " My recollections 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, HONORS DE BALZAC 33 he said, 'Don't acknowledge next time I like to be punished for you.' ' Both children were in great awe of their parents, j and Honore's fear of his mother was extreme. Years / after, he told a friend that he was never able to hear her voice without a trembling which deprived him of his faculties. Their father treated them with uni- form kindness, but Honore's heart was filled with love for his kind grandparents, to whom he paid a visit in Paris in 1804. He came back to Tours with wonderful stories of the beauties of their house, their garden, and their big dog Mouche, with whom he had made great friends. The news of his grandfather's death a few months later was a great grief to him, and made a deep impression on his childish mind. His sister tells us that long afterwards, when the two were receiving a reprimand from their mother, and he saw Laure unable to control a wild burst of laughter, which he knew would lead to serious consequences, he tried to stop her by whispering in tragic tones, " Think about your grandfather's death.! " He was a child of very deep affections and warmth of heart, but he did not show any special intelligence. f He was lively, merry, and extremely talkative, but sometimes a silent mood would fall on him, and per- haps, as his sister says, his imagination was then car- rying him to distant worlds, though the family only thought the chatterbox was tired. In all ways, how- ever, he was in these days a very ordinary child, de- 1 " Balzac, sa Vie et ses CEuvres, d'apres sa Correspondance," by Madame L. Surville (n4e de Balzac). 34 HONORE DE BALZAC voted to fairy stories, fond of the popular nursery amusement of making up plays, and charmed with the excruciating noise he brought out of a little red violin. This he would sometimes play on for hours, till even the faithful Laure would remonstrate, and he would be astonished that she did not realise the beauty of his music. This happy childish life, chastened only by the tremors which both children felt when taken by their governess in the morning and at bedtime into the stern presence of their mother, did not last very long for Honore. When he was eight years old (his sis- ter says seven, but this seems to be a mistake), there was a sudden change in his life, as the home authori- ties decided that it was time his education should begin in good earnest. He was therefore taken from the day school at Tours, and sent to the semi-military col- lege founded by the Oratorians in the sleepy little town of Vendome. On page 7 of the school record there is the following notice: "No. 460. Honore Balzac, age de huit ans un mois. A eu la petite verole, sans infirmites. Caractere sanguin, s'echauf- fant facilement, et sujet a quelques fievres de chaleur. Entre au pensionnat le 22 juin, 1807. Sorti, le 22 aout, 1813. S'adresser a M. Balzac, son pere, a Tours." 1 Thus is summed up the character of the future writer of the " Comedie Humaine," and there is apparently nothing remarkable or precocious about the boy, as his quick temper is his most salient point in the eyes of his masters. It will be noticed, too, that 1 " Balzac au College," by Champfleury. HONORE DE BALZAC 35 the "de," about which Balzac was very particular, and which was the occasion of many scoffing remarks on the part of his enemies, does not appear on this register. Honore was a small boy to have been completely separated from home, and the whole scheme of edu- cation as devised by the Oratorian fathers appears to have been a strange one. One of the rules forbade outside holidays, and Honore never left the college once during the six years he was at school; so that there was no supervision from his parents, and no chance of complaint if he were unhappy or ill treated. His family came to see him at Easter and also at the prize-givings ; but on these occasions, to which he looked forward, his sister tells us, with eager delight, reproaches were generally his portion, on account of of his want of success in school work. In "Louis Lambert " he gives an interesting account of the col- lege, which was in the middle of the town on the little river Loir, and contained a chapel, theatre, infirmary, bakery, and gardens. There were two or three hun- dred pupils, divided according to their ages or attain- ments into four classes les grands, les moyens, les petits, and les minimes and each class had its own class-room and courtyard. Balzac was considered the idlest and most apathetic boy in his division, and was continually punished. Reproaches, the ferule, the dark cell, were his portion, and with his quick and delicate senses he suffered intensely from the want of air in the class-rooms. There, according to the graphic picture in " Louis Lambert," everything was dirty, 36 HONORE DE BALZAC and eighty boys inhabited a hall, in the centre of which were two buckets full of water, where all washed their faces and hands every morning, the water being only renewed once in the day. To add to the odours, the air was vitiated by the smell of pigeons killed for fete days, and of dishes stolen from the refectory, and kept by the pupils in their lockers. The boy who, in the future, was to awaken actual physical dis- gust in his readers by his description of the stuif y and dingy boarding-house dining-room in " Le Pere Gor- iot," was crushed and stupefied by his surroundings, and would sit for hours with his head on his hand, not attempting to learn, but gazing dreamily at the clouds, or at the foliage of the trees in the court below. No wonder that he was the despair of his masters, and that his famous " Traite de la volonte," which he composed instead of preparing the ordinary school work, was summarily confiscated and destroyed. So many were the punishment lines given him to write, that his holidays were almost entirely taken up, and he had not six days of liberty the whole time that he was at the college. In addition to the troubles incident to Honore's pe- culiar temperament and genius, he had in the winter, like the other pupils, to submit to actual physical suf- fering. The price of education included also that of clothing, the parents who sent their children to the Vendome College paying a yearly sum, and there- with comfortably absolving themselves from all trouble and responsibility. But the results were not happy for the boys, who dragged themselves painfully HONORE DE BALZAC 37 along the icy roads in miserable remnants of boots, their feet half dead, and swollen with sores and chil- blains. Out of sixty children, not ten walked without torture, and many of them would cry with rage as they limped along, each step being a painful effort; but with the invincible physical pluck and moral cow- ardice of childhood, would hide their tears, for fear of ridicule from their companions. Nevertheless, even to Balzac, who was peculiarly unfitted for it, life at the college had its pleasures. The food appears to have been good, and the dis- cipline at meals not very severe, as a regular system of exchange of helpings to suit the particular tastes of each boy went on all through dinner, and caused endless amusement. Some one who had received peas as his portion would prefer dessert, and the proposi- tion "Un dessert pour des pois" would pass from mouth to mouth till the bargain had been made. Other pleasures were the pet pigeons, the gardens, the sweets bought secretly during the walks, the permission to play cards and to have theatrical per- formances during the holidays, the military music, the games, and the slides made in winter. Best of all, however, was the shop which opened in the class- room every Sunday during playtime for the sale of boxes, tools, pigeons of all sorts, mass-books (for these there was not much demand) , knives, balls, pen- cils everything a boy could wish for. The proud possessor of six francs meant to last for the term felt that the contents of the whole shop were at his disposal. Saturday night was passed in anxious yet 38 HONORE DE BALZAC rapturous calculations, and the responses at Mass dur- ing that happy Sunday morning mingled themselves with thoughts of the glorious time coming in the afternoon. Next Sunday was not quite so delight- ful, as probably there were only a few sous left, and possibly some of the purchases were broken, or had not turned out quite satisfactorily. Then, too, there was a long vista of Sundays in the future, without any possibility of shopping; but after all a certain amount of compounding is always necessary in life, and an intense short joy is worth a grey time before and after. When Balzac was fourteen years old, his life at the college came suddenly to an end, as, to the alarm of his masters, he was attacked by coma with feverish symptoms, and they begged his parents to take him at once. It is curious to notice that the Fathers make no reference to this failure in their educational sys- tem in the school record, where there is no reason given for Honore's departure from school. Certainly his life at the Vendome was not very healthy, as some- times for idleness, inattention, or impertinence he was for months shut up every day in a niche six feet square, with a wooden door pierced by holes to let in air. When Champfleury visited the college years afterwards, the only person who remembered Balzac was the old Father who had charge of these cells, and he spoke of the boy's " great black eyes." Con- finement in these culottes de bois } as they were called, was much dreaded by the boys, and the punishment seems barbarous and senseless, except from the point HONORS DE BALZAC 39 of view of getting rid of troublesome pupils. Balzac, however, welcomed the relief from ordinary school life and, indeed, manoeuvred to be shut up. In the cells he had leisure to dream as he pleased, he was free from the drudgery of learning his lessons, and he managed to secrete books in his cage, and thus to absorb the contents of most of the volumes in the fine library collected by the learned Oratorian founders of the college. The ideas in many of the learned tomes were far beyond his age, but he understood them, re- membered them afterwards, and could recall in later years not only the thoughts in each book, but also the disposition of his mind when he read them. Nat- urally this precocity of intellect caused brain fatigue, though this would never have been suspected by the Fathers of their idlest pupil. Honore, his sister tells us, came home thin and puny, like a somnambulist sleeping with open eyes, and his grandmother groaned over the strain of modern education. At first he heard hardly any of the questions that were put to him, and his mother was obliged to disturb him in reveries, ancTto insist on his taking part in games with the rest of the fam- ily; but with the fresh air and the home life he soon recovered his health and spirits, and became again/a lively, merry boy. He attended lectures at the col- lege near, and had tutors at home ; but great efforts were necessary in order to get into his head the requisite amount of Greek and Latin. Nevertheless, at times he was astonishing, dt might have been to any one with powers qj^ observation. On these 40 HONORE DE BALZAC occasions he made such extraordinary and sagacious remarks that Madame de Balzac, in her character of represser, felt obliged to remark sharply, 'You cannot possibly understand what you are saying, Honore ! " When Honore, who dared not argue, looked at her with a smile, she would, with the ease of absolute authority, escape from the awkwardness of the situation by remarking that he was imperti- nent. He was already ambitious, and would tell his sisters and brother about his future fame, and accept with a laugh the teasing he received in consequence. It must have been during this time that he grew to love with an enduring love the scenery of his native province of Touraine, with its undulating stretches of emerald green, through which the Loire or the Indre wound like a long ribbon of water, while lines of poplars decked the banks with moving lace. It was a smiling country, dotted with vineyards and oak woods, while here and there an old gnarled walnut tree stood in rugged independence. The susceptible boy, lately escaped from the abominations of the stuffy school-house, drank in with rapture the warm scented air, and often describes in his novels the land- scape of the province where he was born, which he loves, in his own words, "as an artist loves art." Another lasting memory 1 was that of the poetry and splendour of the Cathedral of Saint-Gatien in Tours, where he was taken every feast-day. There he watched with delight the beautiful effects of light 1 See " Balzac, sa Vie et ses CEuvres, d'apres sa Correspondance," par Madame L. Surville (n^e de Balzac). HONORE DE BALZAC 41 and shade, the play of colour produced by the rays of sunlight shining through the old stained glass, and the strange, fascinating effect of the clouds of incense which enveloped the officiating priests, and from which he possibly derived the idea of the mists which he often introduces into his descriptions. CHAPTER III 18141820 Balzac's tutors and law studies His youth, as pictured in the " Peau de Chagrin" His father's intention of making him a lawyer He begs to be allowed to become a writer Is allowed his wish Life in the Rue Lesdiguieres He writes " Crom- well," a tragedy AT the end of 1814 the Balzac family moved to Paris, as M. de Balzac was put in charge of the Commis- sariat of the First Division of the Army. Here they took a house in the Rue de Roi-Dore, in the Marais, and Honor e continued his studies with M. Lepitre, Rue Saint-Louis, and MM. Sganzer and Benzelin, Rue de Thorigny, in the Marais. To the influence of M. Lepitre, a man who, unlike old M. de Balzac and many other worthy people, was an ardent Legiti- mist before as well as after 1815, we may in part trace the strength of Balzac's Royalist principles. On the 13th Vindemiaire, M. Lepitre had presided over one of the sections of Paris which rose against the Con- vention; and though on one occasion he failed in nerve, his services during the Revolution had been most conspicuous. On his reception at the Tuileries 42 HONORS DE BALZAC 43 by the Duchesse d'Angouleme, she used these words, never to be forgotten by him to whom they were addressed: "I have not forgotten, and I shall never forget, the services you have rendered to my family." x We can imagine the enthusiasm and delight with which the man who, whatever might be his shortcom- ings in courage, had always remained firm to his Roy- alist principles, and who had been a witness of the terrible anguish of the prisoners in the Temple, would hear these words from the lips of the lady who stood to him as Queen the Antigone of France the hero- ine whose sufferings had made the heart of every loyal Frenchman bleed, the brave woman who, according to Napoleon, was the one man of her family. Le- pitre's visit to the Tuileries took place on May 9th,, 1814, the year that Balzac began to take those les- sons in rhetoric which first opened his eyes to the beauty of the French language. During Lepitre's tuition he composed a speech supposed to be addressed by the wife of Brutus to her husband, after the con- demnation of her sons, in which, Laure tells us, the anguish of the mother is depicted with great power, and Balzac shows his wonderful faculty for entering into the souls of his personages. Lepitre had evi- dently a powerful influence over his pupil, and as a master of rhetoric he would naturally be eloquent and have command of language, and in consequence would be most probably of fiery and enthusiastic tem- perament. We can imagine the fervour with which 1 " Biographic Universelle," by De Michaud. 44 HONORE DE BALZAC the impressionable boy drank in stories of the suffer- ings of the royal family during their imprisonment in the Temple, and strove not to miss a syllable of his master's magnificent exordiums, which glowed with the light and heat of impassioned loyalty. No doubt Balzac's " Une Vie de Femme," a touch- ing account of the life of the Duchesse d'Angouleme, which appeared in the Reformateur in 1832, was partly compiled from the reminiscences of his old master ; and when we hear of his ardent defence of the Duchesse de Berry, or that he treasured a tea-service which was not of any intrinsic value, because it had belonged to the Due d'Angouleme, we see traces of his intense love and admiration for the Bourbon family. Nevertheless, in that big, well-balanced brain there was room for many emotions, and for a wide range of sympathies. The many-sidedness which is a neces- sary characteristic of every great psychologist, was a remarkable quality in Balzac. He may have been present at Napoleon's last review on the Carrousel at any rate he tells in " La Femme de Trente Ans " how the man "thus surrounded with so much love, enthusiasm, devotion, prayer for whom the sun had driven every cloud from the sky sat motionless on his horse, three feet in advance of the dazzling escort that followed him," and that an old grenadier said, " My God, yes, it was always so ; under fire at Wag- ram, among the dead in the Moskowa, he was quiet as a lamb yes, that's he!" Balzac's admiration for Napoleon was intense, as he shows in many of his HONORE DE BALZAC 45 writings, and his proudest boast is to be found in the words, said to have been inscribed on a statuette of Napoleon in his room in the Rue Cassini, " What he has begun with the sword, I shall finish with the pen." None of Balzac's masters thought much of his talents, or perceived anything remarkable about him. He returned home in 1816, full of health and vigour, the personification of happiness ; and his conscientious mother immediately set to work to repair the deficien- cies of his former education, and sent him to lectures at the Sorbonne, where he heard extempore speeches from such men as Villemain, Guizot, and Cousin. Apparently this teaching opened a new world to him, and he learned for the first time that education can be more than a dull routine of dry facts, and felt the joy of contact with eloquence and learning. Possi- bly he realised, as he had not realised before Tours being, as he says, a most unliterary town that there were people in the world who looked on things as he did, and who would understand, and not laugh at him or snub him. He always returned from these lec- tures, his sister says, glowing with interest, and would try as far as he could to repeat them to his family. Then he would rush out to study in the public libra- ries, so that he might be able to profit by the teaching of his illustrious professors, or would wander about the Latin Quarter, to hunt for rare and precious books. He used his opportunities in other ways. An old lady living in the house with the Balzacs had been an intimate friend of the great Beaumarchais. Honore loved to talk to her, and would ask her 46 HONORE DE BALZAC questions, and listen with the greatest interest to her replies, till he could have written a Life of the celebrated man himself. His powers of acute obser- vation, interest, and sympathy in short, his intense faculty for human fellowship, as well as his capacity for assimilating information from books were already at work; and the future novelist was con- sciously or unconsciously collecting material in all directions. In 1816 it was considered necessary that he should be started with regular work, and he was established for eighteen months with a lawyer, M. de Guillonnet- Merville, who was, like M. Lepitre, a friend of the Balzac family, and an ardent Royalist. Eugene Scribe another amateur lawyer as M. de Guilon- net-Merville indulgently remarked, had just left the office, and Honore was established at the desk and table vacated by him. He became very fond of his chief, whom he has immortalised as Derville in " Tine Tenebreuse Affaire," "Le Pere Goriot," and other novels; and he dedicated to this old friend " Un Epi- sode sous la Terreur," which was published in 1846, and is a powerful and touching story of the remorse felt by the executioner of Louis XVI. After eight- een months in this office, he passed the same time in that of M. Passez, a notary, who lived in the same house with the Balzacs, and was another of their intimates. Balzac does not appear to have made any objection to these arrangements, though his legal studies can- not have been congenial to him; but they were only HONORE DE BALZAC 47 spoken of at this time as a finish to his education old M. de Balzac, homme de loi himself, remarking that no man's education can be complete without a knowledge of ancient and modern legislation, and an acquaintance with the statutes of his own coun- try. Perhaps Honore, wiser now than in his school- days, had learnt that all knowledge is equipment for the work of the world, and especially for a literary life. He certainly made good use of his time, and the results can be seen in many of his works, notably in the " Tenebreuse Affaire," which contains in the account of the famous trial a masterly exposition of the legislature of the First Empire, or in " Cesar Birotteau," which shows such thorough knowledge of the laws of bankruptcy of the time that its compli- cated plot cannot be thoroughly understood by any one unversed in legal matters. Honore was very well occupied at this time, and his mother must have felt for once thoroughly satis- fied with him. In addition to his study of law, he had to follow the course of lectures at the Sorbonne and at the College of France; and these studies were a delightful excuse for a very fitful occupation of his seat in the lawyer's office. Besides his multifarious occupations, he managed in the evenings to find time to play cards with his grandmother, who lived with her daughter and son-in-law. The gentle old lady spoilt Honore, his mother considered, and would allow him to win money from her, which he joyfully expended on books. His sister, who tells us this, says, "He always loved those games in memory of her; and the HONORS DE BALZAC 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." ^ Other recollections of this time were not so pleas- ant. Honore wished to shine in society. No doubt the two " immense and sole desires to be famous and ~~-to be loved" which haunted him continually, till he at last obtained them at the cost of his life, were al- ready at work with him, and he longed for the tender glances of some charming demoiselle. At any rate he took dancing-lessons, and prepared himself to enter with grace into ladies' society. Here, however, a terrible humiliation awaited him. After all his care and pains, he slipped and fell in the ball-room, and his mortification at the smiles of the women round was so great that he never danced again, but looked on henceforward with the cynicism which he expresses in the " Peau de Chagrin." That wonderful book, side by side with its philosophical teaching, gives a graphic picture of one side of Balzac's restless, fever- ish youth, as " Louis Lambert " does of his repressed childhood. Neither Louis Lambert nor the morbid and selfish Raphael give, however, the slightest indi- cation of Balzac's most salient characteristic both as boy and youth the healthy joie de vivre, the gaiety and exuberant merriment of which his contempora- ries speak constantly, and which shone out undimmed even by the wretched health and terrible worries of the last few years of his life. In his books, the bitter and melancholy side of things reigns almost exclu- sively, and Balzac, using Raphael as his mouthpiece, HONORE DE BALZAC 49 says: "Women one and all have condemned me. With tears and mortification I bowed before the de- cision of the world; but my distress was not barren. I determined to revenge myself on society; I would dominate the feminine intellect, and so have the femi- nine soul at my mercy; all eyes should be fixed upon me, when the servant at the door announced my name. I had determined from my childhood that I would be a great man. I said with Andre Chenier, as I struck my forehead, ' There is something underneath that ! ' I felt, I believed, the thought within me that I must express, the system I must establish, the knowledge I must interpret." In another place in the same book the bitterness of his social failure again peeps out: ' The incomprehensible bent of women's minds ap- pears to lead them to see nothing but the weak points in a clever man and the strong points of a fool." Reading these words, we can imagine poor Honore, a proud, supersensitive boy, leaning against the wall in the ball-room, and watching enviously while agree- able nonentities basked in the smiles he yearned for. It was a hard lot to feel within him the intuitive knowledge of his genius ; to hear the insistent voice of his vocation calling him not to be as ordinary men, but to give his message to the world ; and yet to have the miserable consciousness that no one believed in his talents, and that there was a huge discrepancy between his ambition and his actual attainments. In 1820 Honore attained his majority and finished his legal studies. Unfortunately the pecuniary mis- fortunes which were to haunt all this generation of 50 HONORE DE BALZAC the Balzac family were beginning as old M. de Bal- zac had lost money in two speculations, and now at the age of seventy-four was put on the retired list, a change which meant a considerable diminution of income. He therefore explained to his son Madame Surville tells us that M. Passez, to whom he had formerly been of service, had in gratitude offered to take Honore into his office, and at the end of a few years would leave him his business, when, with the additional arrangement of a rich marriage, a prosperous future would be assured to him. Old M. de Balzac did not specify the nature of the service which was to meet with so rich a reward; and as he was a gentleman with a distinct liking for talking of his own doings, we may amuse ourselves by supposing that it had to do with those Red Republican days which he was not fond of recalling. Great was Honore's consternation at this news. In the first place, owing to M. de Balzac's constant vapourings about the enormous wealth he would leave to his children, it is doubtful whether Honore, who was probably not admitted to his parents' confi- dence, had realised up to this time that he would have to earn his own living. Then, if it were necessary for him to work for his bread, he now knew enough of the routine of a lawyer's office to look with horror on the prospect of drawing up wills, deeds of sale, and marriage settlements for the rest of his life. He never forgave the legal profession the shock and the terror he experienced at this time, and his portraits of lawyers, with some notable exceptions, are marked HONORE DE BALZAC 51 by decided animus. For instance, in " Les Fran9ais peints par eux-memes," edited by Cummer, the notary, as described by Balzac, has a flat, expression- less face and wears a mask of bland silliness; and in " Pamela Giraud " one of the characters remarks, " A lawyer who talks to himself that reminds me of a pastrycook who eats his own cakes." It was rather unfair to decry all lawyers because of the deadly fear he felt at the prospect of being forced into their ranks, as there is little doubt that he would have shrunk with like abhorrence from any business pro- posed to him. His childish longing for fame had developed and taken shape, and for him, if he lacked genius, there was no alternative but the dragging out of a worthless and wearying existence. Con- scious of his powers, it was a time of struggle, of pas- sionate endeavour, possibly of bewilderment; with the one great determination standing firm in the midst of a chaos of doubt and difficulty the deter- mination to persevere, and to become a writer at any cost. He therefore, to his father's consternation, an- nounced his objection to following a legal career, and begged to be allowed an opportunity of proving his literary powers. Thereupon there were lively dis- cussions in the family; but at last the kindly M. de Balzac, apparently against his wife's wishes, yielded to his son's earnest entreaties, and allowed him two years in which to try his fortune as a writer. The friends of the family were loud in their exclamations of disapproval at the folly of this proceeding, which 52 HONORE DE BALZAC would, they said, waste two of the best years of Honore's life. As far as they could see, he possessed no genius ; and even if he were to succeed in a literary career, he would certainly not gain a fortune, which after all was the principal thing to be considered. However, either the strenuousness and force of Honore's arguments, or the softness of his father's heart, prevailed in his favour; and, in spite of the opposition of the whole of his little world, he was allowed to have his own way, and to make trial of his powers. The rest of the family retired to Villepa- risis, about sixteen miles from Paris, and he was es- tablished in a small attic at No. 9, Rue Lesdiguieres, which was chosen by him for its nearness to the Bibli- otheque de 1' Arsenal, the only public library of which the contents were unknown to him. At the same time, appearances, always all-important in the Balzac family, were observed, by the fiction that Honore was at Alby, on a visit to a cousin; and in this way his literary venture was kept secret, in case it proved unsuccessful. Having arranged this, and asserted himself to the extent of insisting that his son should be allowed a certain amount of freedom in choosing his career, even if he fixed on a course which seemed suicidal, old M. de Balzac appears to have retired from the direc- tion of affairs, and to have left his energetic wife to follow her own will about details. There was no doubt in that lady's mind as to the methods to be pur- sued. Her husband had been culpably weak, and had allowed himself to be swayed by the freak of a HONORE DE BALZAC 53 boy who hated work and wanted an excuse for idle- ness. Honore must be brought to reason, and be taught that " the way of transgressors is hard," and that people who refuse to take their fair share of life's labour must of necessity suffer from depriva- tion of their butter, if not of their bread. Her hus- band was an old man, and had lost money, and it was most exasperating that Honore should refuse a splendid chance of securing his own future, and one which would most probably never occur again. To a good business woman, who did not naturally share in the boundless optimistic views of M. de Balzac for the future, the crass folly of yielding to the wishes of a boy who could not possibly know what was best for him, was glaringly apparent. However, being a practical woman, when she had done her duty in mak- ing the household except the placid M. de Balzac thoroughly uncomfortable, and had most probably driven Honore almost wild with suppressed irrita- tion, she embarked on the plan of campaign which was to bring the culprit back, repentant and submis- sive, to the lawyer's desk. To accomplish this as quickly as possible, it was necessary to make him extremely uncomfortable; so having furnished his attic with the barest necessities a bed, a table, and a few chairs she gave him such a scanty allowance that he would have starved if an old woman, la mere Comin, whom he termed his Iris, had not been told to go occasionally to look after him. In spite of the gaiety of Balzac's letters from his gar- ret, the hardships he went through were terrible, and 54 HONORS DE BALZAC in later years he could not speak of his sufferings at this time without tears coming to his eyes. Appar- ently he could not even afford to have a fire ; and the attic was extremely draughty, blasts coming from the door and window; so that in a letter to his sister he begs her, when sending the coverlet for which he has already asked, to let him have a very old shawl, which he can wear at night. His legs, where he feels the cold most, are wrapped in an ancient coat made by a small tailor of Tours, who to his disgust used to alter his father's garments to fit him, and was a dreadful bungler; but the upper half of his body is only protected by the roof and a flannel waist- coat from the frost, and he needs a shawl badly. He also hopes for a Dantesque cap, the kind his mother always makes for him; and this pattern of cap from the hands of Madame de Balzac figures in the accounts of his attire later on in his life. It is not surprising that he has a cold, and later on a terrible toothache; but it is astonishing that, in spite of cold, hunger, and discomfort, he preserves his gaiety, pluck, and power of making light of hardships, traits of character which were to be strikingly salient all through his hard, fatiguing career. In spite of the misery of his surroundings, he had many compensa- tions. He had gained the wish of his heart, life was before him, beautiful dreams of future fame floated in the air, and at present he had no hateful burden of debt to weigh him down. Therefore he managed to ignore to a great extent the physical pain and discomfort he went through, as he ignored them all HONORS DE BALZAC 55 through his life, except when ill health interfered with the accomplishment of his work. Another characteristic which might also be amaz- ing, did we not meet it constantly in Balzac's life, is his longing for luxury and beauty, and his extraordi- nary faculty for embarking in a perfectly business- like way on wildly unreasonable schemes. With hardly enough money to provide himself with scanty meals, he intends to economise, in order to buy a piano. " The garret is not big enough to hold one," as he casually remarks; but this fact, which, apart from the starving process necessary in order to obtain funds, would appear to the ordinary mind an insur- mountable obstacle to the project, does not daunt the ever-hopeful Honore. He has taken the dimensions, he says; and if the landlord objects to the expense of moving back the wall, he will pay the money himself, and add it to the price of the piano. Here we recognise exactly the same Balzac whose vagrant schemes later on were listened to by his friends with a mixture of fascina- tion and bewilderment, and who, in utter despair about his pecuniary circumstances at the beginning of a letter, talks airily towards the end of buying a costly picture, or acquiring an estate in the country. There is a curious and striking contrast in Balzac between the backwardness in the expression of his literary genius, and the early development and crys- tallisation of his character and powers of mind in other directions. Even when he realised his voca- tion, forsook verse, and began to write novels, he for 56 HONORS DE BALZAC long gave no indication of his future powers; while, on the other hand, at the age of twenty, his views on most points were formed, and his judgments matured. Therefore, unlike most men in whom even if there be no violent changes age gradually and imperceptibly modifies the point of view, Balzac, a youth in his garret, differed little in essentials from Balzac at forty-five or fifty, a man of world- wide celebrity. He never appears to have passed through those phases of belief and unbelief those wild en- thusiasms, to be rejected later in life which gener- ally fall to the lot of young men of talent. Perhaps his reasoning and reflective powers were developed unusually early, so that he sowed his mental wild oats in his boyhood. At any rate, in his garret in 1819 he was the same Balzac that we know in later life. Large-minded and far-seeing except about his busi- ness concerns he was from his youth a voyant, who discerned with extraordinary acuteness the trend of political events; and with an intense respect for authority, he was yet independent, and essentially a strong man. This absolute stability a fact Balzac often com- ments on is very remarkable, especially as his was a life full of variety, during which he was brought into contact with many influences. He studied the men around him, and gauged their characters though it must be allowed that he did not make very good prac- tical use of his knowledge ; but owing to his strength and breadth of vision, he was himself in all essentials immovable. HONORE DE BALZAC 57 The same ambitions, desires, and opinions can be traced all through his career. The wish to enter po- litical life, which haunted him always, was already beginning to stir in 1819, when he wrote at the time of the elections to a friend, M. Theodore Dablin, that he dreamt of nothing but him and the deputies; and his last book, " L'Envers de 1'Histoire contempo- raine," accentuated, if possible more than any work that had preceded it, the extreme Royalist principles which he showed in his garret play, the ill-fated " Cromwell." He never swerved from the two great ambitions of his life to be loved, and to be famous. He was faithful in his friendships; and when once he had found the woman whom he felt might be all in. all to him, and who possessed besides personal advantages the qualifications of birth and money for which he had always craved no difficulties were allowed to stand in the way, and no length of weary waiting could tire out his patience. He was constant even to his failures. He began his literary career by writ- ing a play, and all through his life the idea of making his fortune by means of a successful drama recurred to him constantly. Several times he went through that most trying of experiences, a failure which only just missed being a brilliant success, and once this affected him so much that he became seriously ill ; but, with his usual spirit and courage, he tried again and again. His friend Theophile Gautier, writing of him in La Presse of September 30th, 1843, after the failure of "Pamela Giraud," said truly that Balzac 58 HONORE DE BALZAC intended to go on writing plays, even if he had to get through a hundred acts before he could find his proper form. One part of Balzac never grew up he was all his life the "child-man" his sister calls him. After nights without sleep he would come out of his solitude with laughter, joy, and excitement to show a new mas- terpiece; and this was always more wonderful than anything which had preceded it. He was more of a child than his nieces, Madame Surville tells us: " 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 doesn'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 I didn't know I was making them,' and we even suspected him of embel- lishing them afterward." l He was delightfully simple, even to the end of his life. In 1849 he wrote from Russia, where he was confined to his room with illness, to describe minutely a beautiful new dressing- gown in which he marched about the room like a sul- tan, and was possessed with one of those delightful joys which we only have at eighteen. "I am writing to you now in my termolana," 2 he adds for the sat- isfaction of his correspondent. We must now return to Honore in his attic, where, as in later years, he drank much coiFee, and was un- 1 " Balzac, sa Vie et ses CEuvres, d'apres sa Correspondance," by Madame L. Surville (nde de Balzac). 2 " H. de Balzac Correspondance," vol. ii. p. 418. HONORE DE BALZAC 59 able to resist the passion for fruit which was always his one gourmandise. He records one day that he has eaten two melons, and must pay for the extrava- gance with a diet of dry bread and nuts, but contem- plates further starvations to pay for a seat to see Talma in " China." He writes to his sister : " I feel to-day that riches do not make happiness, and that the time I shall pass here will be to me a source of pleasant memories. To live according to my fancy; to work as I wish and in my own way ; to do nothing if I wish it ; to dream of a beautiful future; to think of you and to know you are happy; to have as lady-love the Julie of Rous- seau; to have La Fontaine and Moliere as friends, Racine for a master, and Pere-Lachaise to walk to, oh! if it would only last always." 1 Pere-Lachaise was a favourite resort when he was not working very hard; and it was from there that he obtained his finest inspirations, and decided that, of all the feelings of the soul, sorrow is the most diffi- cult to express, because of its simplicity. Curiously enough, he abandoned the Jardin des Plantes because he thought it melancholy, and apparently found his reflections among the tombs more cheerful. He decided that the only beautiful epitaphs are single names such as La Fontaine, Massena, Moliere, " which tell all, and make one dream." When he returned home to his garret, fresh inter- ests awaited him. Sometimes, he tells us in the "Peau de Chagrin," he would "study the mosses, 1 " Correspondance," vol. i. 60 HONORS DE BALZAC with their colours revived by showers, or transformed by the sun into a brown velvet that fitfully caught the light. Such things as these formed my recre- ations ; the passing poetic moods of daylight, the mel- ancholy mists, sudden gleams of sunlight, the silence and the magic of night, the mysteries of dawn, the smoke-wreaths from each chimney; every chance event, in fact, in my curious world became familiar to me." Occasionally on Sundays he would go to a friend's house, ostensibly to play cards a pastime which he hated. He generally, however, managed to escape from the eye of his hostess; and comfortably en- sconced in a window behind thick curtains, or hidden behind a high armchair, he would pour into the ear of a congenial companion some of the thoughts which surged through his impetuous brain. All his life he needed this outlet after concentrated mental labour; and sometimes in a friend's drawing-room, if he knew himself to be surrounded only by intimates, he would give full vent to his conversational powers. On these occasions he would carry his hearers away with him, often against their better judgment, by his eloquence and verve ; would send them into fits of hearty laugh- ter by his sallies, his store of droll anecdotes, his jol- lity and gaiety; and would display his consummate gifts as a dramatic raconteur. Later in life, after he had raised the enmity of a large section of the writing world, and knew that there were many watch- ing eagerly to immortalise in print with gay malice .and wit on the surface, and bitter spite and hatred be- HONORE DE BALZAC 61 low the heedless and possibly arrogant words their enemy had uttered in moments of excitement and ex- pansion, he grew cautious ; and sometimes because of this, and sometimes because he was collecting ma- terial for his work, he would often be silent in general society. To the end, however, he loved a tete-a-tete with a sympathetic listener one, it must be conceded, who would be content, except for occasional com- ment, to remain himself in the background, as the great man wanted a safety-valve for his own im- petuous thoughts, and did not generally care to hear the paler, less interesting impressions of his com- panion. With what longing, in the midst of his harassing life in Paris, he would look back to the charming long fireside chats he had had with Madame Hanska; and as the time to meet her again came nearer, with what satisfaction special tit-bits of gossip were reserved to be talked over and explained during the long even- ings at Wierzchownia ! How he loved to rush in to his sister with the latest news of the personages of his novels, as well as with brilliant plans to improve his general prospects; and with what enthusiasm he poured out to Theophile Gautier, or even to Leon Gozlan, his confidences of all sorts! Plans, absurd and impossible, but worked out with a business-like arrangement of detail which, when mingled with somnambulists and magnetisers, had a weird yet ap- parently fascinating effect on his hearers; magnifi- cent diatribes against the wickedness of his special enemies, journalists, editors, and the Press in general; 62 HONORE DE BALZAC strange fancies to do with the world where Eugenie Grandet or Le Pere Goriot had their dwelling, all these ideas, opinions, and feelings came from his lips with an eloquence, a force, and a life which were all convincing. Yet by a strange anomaly, which is sometimes seen in talkative and apparently unre- served people, Balzac in reality revealed very little of himself in fact, we may often suspect him of using a flow of apparently spontaneous words as a screen to mask some hidden feeling. Therefore, when people who had considered themselves his intimate friends tried to write about him after his death, they found that they really knew little of the essentials of the man, and could only string together amusing anecdotes, proving him to have been eccentric, amus- ing, and essentially bon camarade, but giving little idea of his real personality and genius. Even in these early days at the card-parties where sometimes the hostess noticed the defection of the two young guests, and, holding a card in each white delicate hand, would beckon them to take their place at the game, which they would do with humble and discomfited faces, like schoolboys surprised at a forbidden amusement M. de Petigny, Balzac's companion, must have been struck by his openness in some respects and the absolute mystery with which he surrounded himself in others. Where he lived, what he was doing, what his life was like all these facts were hidden from his companion, till he revealed him- self at last, on the verge of his hoped-for triumph. But, on the other hand, the sentiments and impres- HONORE DE BALZAC 63 sions of which M. de Petigny read afterwards in Balzac's books seemed to him only a pale, distant echo of the rich and vivid expressions which fell from his lips in these intimate talks. Magnetism, in which he had a strong faith all his life, was exercising his thoughts greatly. It was "the irresistible ascen- dency of mind over matter, of a strong and immov- able will over a soul open to all impressions." 1 Before long he would have mastered its secrets, and would be able to compel every man to obey him and every woman to love him. He had already, he announced, begun to occupy his fixed position in life, and was on the threshold of a millennium. Balzac's glimpses of society were, however, rare, and ceased altogether during the last few months of his stay in the Rue Lesdiguieres. However, other more satisfying pleasures were his: "Unspeakable joys are showered on us by the exertion of our mental faculties; the quest of ideas, and the tranquil con- templation of knowledge; delights indescribable, because purely intellectual and impalpable to our senses. So we are obliged to use material terms to express the mysteries of the soul. The pleasure of striking out in some lonely lake of clear water, with forests, rocks, and flowers around, and the soft stir- ring of the warm breeze all this would give to those who knew them not a very faint idea of the exulta- tion with which my soul bathed itself in the beams of an unknown light, hearkened to the awful and uncer- tain voice of inspiration, as vision upon vision poured 1 Article by M. Jules de Petigny. 64 HONORE DE BALZAC from some unknown source through my throbbing brain." 1 There is another side to the picture, and perhaps in this description, written in 1830, Balzac has slightly antedated his joy in his creative powers, and describes more correctly his feelings when he wrote "Les Chouans," "La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote," and the " Peau de Chagrin " itself, than those of this earlier period of his life, when the difficulties of expressing himself so often seemed insurmountable, and the hiatus between his ideas and the form in w r hich to clothe them was almost impossible to bridge over. Writing did not at any time come easily to him, and " Stella " and " Coqsigrue," his first novels, were never finished; while a comedy, "Les Deux Philo- sophes," was also abandoned in despair. Next he set to work at " Cromwell," a tragedy in five acts, which was to be his passport to fame. At this play he laboured for months, shutting himself up completely, and loving his self-imposed slavery though his want of faculty for versification, and the intense difficulty lie experienced in finding words for the ideas which crowded into his imaginative brain, were decided drawbacks. While engaged on this work he may indeed have experienced some of the feelings he de- scribes in the "Peau de Chagrin," quoted above; for, curiously enough, " Cromwell," his first finished pro- duction, was the only one of his early works about which he was deceived, and which he imagined to be 1 " La Peau de Chagrin," by Honor de Balzac. HONORE DE BALZAC 65 a chef d'oeuvre. It was well he had this happy faith to sustain him, as, according to the account of M. Jules de Petigny, the circumstances under which the play was composed must, to put the matter mildly, have been distinctly depressing. This gentleman says: "I entered a narrow garret, furnished with a bottomless chair, a rickety table and a miserable pallet bed, with two dirty curtains half drawn round it. On the table were an inkstand, a big copybook scribbled all over, a jug of lemonade, a glass, and a morsel of bread. The heat in this wretched hole was stifling, and one breathed a me- phitic air which would have given cholera, if cholera had then been invented! " Balzac was in bed, with a cotton cap of problematic colour on his head. ' You see," he said, " the abode I have not left except once for two months the evening when you met me. During all this time I have not got up from the bed where I work at the great work, for the sake of which I have condemned myself to this hermit's life, and which happily I have just finished, for my powers have come to an end." It must have been during these last months in his garret, when he neglected everything for his projected masterpiece, that, cov- ered with vermin from the dirt of his room, he would creep out in the evening to buy a candle, which, as he possessed no candlestick, he would put in an empty bottle. The almost insane ardour for and absorption in his work, which were his salient characteristics, had already possession of him; and we see that he 66 HONORS DE BALZAC laboured as passionately now for fame and for love of his art, as he did later on, when the struggle to free himself from debt, and to gain a home and womanly companionship, were additional incentives to effort. At the time of which M. de Petigny speaks, how- ever, his troubles appeared to be over, as the master- piece for which he had suffered so much was com- pleted; and joyfully confident that triumph awaited him, Honore took it home with him to Villeparisis at the end of April, 1820. He was so certain, poor fellow, of success, that he had specially begged that among those invited to the reading of the tragedy should be the insulting person who told his father fifteen months before that he was fit for nothing but a post as copying clerk. CHAPTER IV 18201828 Reading of ' ' Cromwell ' ' Balzac is obliged to live at home Unhappiness Writes romantic novels Friendship with Madame de Berny Starts in Paris as publisher and afterwards as printer Impending bankruptcy only prevented 'by help from his par- ents and Madame de Berny EVIDENTLY Balzac's happy faith in the beauty of "Cromwell" had impressed his parents, as, appar- ently without having seen, the play, they had as- sembled a large concourse of friends for the reading ; and between happy pride in his boy's genius, and satisfaction at his own acuteness in discerning it, old M. de Balzac was no doubt nearly as joyous as Honore himself. The Balzac family were prepared for triumph, the friends were amused or incredulous, and the solemn trial began. * The tragedy, strongly Royalist in principles, opens, according to the plot as given by Balzac in a letter to his sister, 2 with the en- trance of Queen Henrietta Maria into Westminster. She is utterly exhausted, and, disguised in humble J The original MS., beautifully written out and tied with faded blue ribbon, is in the possession of the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul. a " Honor6 de Balzac Correspondance," vol. i. p. 28. 67 68 HONORS DE BALZAC garments, has returned from taking her children for safety into Holland, and from begging for the help of the King of France. Strafford, in tears, tells her of late events, and of the King's imprisonment and future trial; but during this conversation Cromwell and Ireton enter, and the Queen, in terror, hides behind a tomb, till, horrified at the discussion as to whether or no the King shall be put to death, she comes out, and, as Balzac remarks, "makes them a famous discourse." Act II. sounds a little dull, though no doubt it is highly instructive, as a great part of it is taken up with a monologue by the King detailing the events of his past reign. Later on Charles, instead of keeping Cromwell's son, who has fallen into his hands, as a hostage for his own life, gives him up to his father without condition; but Cromwell, unmoved by this generosity, still plots for his King's death. The fifth Act, which Balzac re- marks is the most difficult of all, opens with a scene in which the King tells the Queen his last wishes, which Balzac interpolates with (Quelle scene!) ; then Straf- ford informs the King of his condemnation (Quelle scene!) ; the King and Queen say good-bye (Quelle scene!) again; and the play ends with the Queen vowing eternal vengeance upon England, declaring that enemies will rise everywhere against her, and that one day France will fight against her, conquer her, and crush her. Honore began his reading with the utmost enthu- siasm, modulating his sonorous voice to suit the dif- ferent characters, and even contriving for a time to HONORE DE BALZAC 69 impart by his expressive reading a fictitious interest to the dull, tedious tragedy. Gradually, however, the feeling of disappointment and boredom among his audience communicated itself to him. He lost confidence; his beautiful reading began to decline in pathos and interest ; and when at last he finished, and, glancing at the downcast faces round him, found that even Laure could not look up at him with a smile of congratulation, he felt a chill at his heart, and knew that he had not triumphed after all. Nevertheless, he very naturally rebelled against the strongly expressed adverse judgment of his enemy of the copying-clerk proposal, and begged to be allowed to appeal to a competent and impartial critic. To this request his father assented, and M. Surville, who was now engaged to Laure, proposed that M. Andrieux, of the Academic Fran9aise, formerly his own master at the Ecole Polytechnique, should be asked to give an opinion. Honore, his sister says, " accepted this lit- erary elder as sovereign judge," no doubt hoping against hope that a really cultured man would see those beauties which were unfortunately hidden from the eyes of the unintellectual inhabitants of Ville- parisis. However, the verdict of M. Andrieux was, if possible, more crushing than any of the events which had preceded it. In the honest opinion of this expert, the author of "Cromwell" ought to do anything, no matter what, except literature. Honore had asked for an impartial judgment, and had promised to abide by it. His discomfiture and sense of failure ought therefore to have been com- 70 HONORE DE BALZAC plete. Genius does not, however, follow the ordi- nary road ; and with the mixture of pluck, confidence in himself, and pride which always characterised him, Honore did not allow that he was beaten, and would not show the feelings of grief and disappointment which must have filled his heart. " Tragedies are not my line" that is all he said; and if he had been allowed to follow his own bent, he would at once have returned to his garret, and have begun to write again with unabated ardour. Naturally, however, the Balzac family refused to allow him to continue the course of senseless folly which was already beginning to ruin his health. Madame de Balzac was specially strong on this point ; and though he had only been allowed fifteen months, instead of the two years promised for his trial, she in- sisted that he should come home at once, and remain under the maternal eye. Indeed, this seemed quite necessary after the privations he had gone through. His sufferings never made him thin at any period of his life; but now his face was pale and his eyes hol- low, and his lifelong friend, Dr. Nacquart, sent him at once to recruit in the air of his native Touraine. After this followed a time of bitter trial for poor Honore. His sister Laure married M. Surville in May, 1820, about a month after his return home, and went to live at Bayeux, so that he was deprived of her congenial companionship ; and, in spite of his fun and buoyancy, his letters to her show his extreme wretchedness. Years afterwards he told the Duchesse d'Abrantes that the cruel weight of com- HONORE DE BALZAC 71 pulsion under which he was crushed till 1822 made his struggles for existence, when once he was free, seem comparatively light. Continually worried by his nervous, irritable mother, deprived of independence, of leisure, of quiet, he saw his dreams of future fame vanish like smoke, and the hated lawyer's office become a certainty, if he failed to make money by writing. In deadly fear of this, and with the paralysing consciousness that his present circum- stances were peculiarly unpropitious as a literary education, he rebelled against the hard fate which denied him opportunity to work for fame. " Laure, Laure," he cries at this time, "my two only and immense desires to be loved and to be celebrated will they ever.be satisfied? " Whatever his aspirations might be, it was necessary that he should do something to support himself, as his parents firmly refused to grant him the 1,500 francs about 60 a year for which he begged, to enable him to live in Paris and to carry out his voca- tion. He was therefore obliged to write at his home at Villeparisis in the midst of distractions and dis- couragements. In these unpropitious circumstances he produced in five years with different collabo- rators, whose names are now rescued from absolute oblivion by their transitory connection with him eight novels in thirty-one volumes. That he man- aged to find a publisher for most of these novels, and to make 40, 60, or 80 out of each, is, according to his sister, a remarkable proof of his strength of will, and also of his power of fascination. The pay- 72 HONORS DE BALZAC ment generally took the form of a bill payable at some distant period a form of receiving money which does not seem very satisfying; but at any rate Balzac could prove to his family that he was earning something, and was himself cheered by his small suc- cesses. We can imagine his feverish anxiety, and the cunning with which he would exert every wile to induce the publisher himself a struggling man to accept his wares, when he knew that a refusal would mean mingled scoffs and lamentations at home, and possibly a menace that not much longer leisure would be allowed him for idling. There is pathos in the fate of one whose genius is unrecognised till his day on earth is over, but far harder seems the lot of the man who longs and struggles, feeling that the power is in him, and who yet, by some strange gulf between thought and expression, can only produce what he knows to be worthless. It speaks much for Balzac's courage, patience, and determination, or perhaps for the intuitive force of a genius which refused to be denied outlet, that he struggled through this weary time, and in spite of opposition kept to his fixed pur- pose of becoming a writer. These early works "L'Heritiere de Birague," " Jean-Louis," " Le Centenaire," " Le Vicaire des Ardennes," "La Derniere Fee," "Wann Chlore," and others, published in 1822 and the three following years were written under the pseudonyms of Lord R'hoone, Viellergle, and Horace de Saint- Aubin, and are generally wild tales of adventure in the style of Mrs. Radcliffe. Though occasionally the reader HONORS DE BALZAC 73 comes across a paragraph faintly reminiscent of the Balzac of later years, these youthful attempts are certainly not worthy of the great man who wrote them, and he consistently refused to acknowledge their authorship. The two first, "L'Heritiere de Birague" and "Jean-Louis," were written with the collaboration of M. Auguste le Poitevin de 1'Egre- ville, who took the name of Viellergle, while Balzac adopted that of Lord R'hoone, an anagram of Honore, so that these two novels are signed with both pseudonyms. 1 It is amusing to find that the sage Honore, in 1820, prudently discourages a passing fancy on the part of his sister Laurence for his col- laborator, by remarking that writers are very bad partis, though he hastens to add that he only means this from a pecuniary point of view! Laure, at Bayeux, is made useful as an amateur advertising agent, and is carefully told that, though she is to talk about the novels a great deal, she is never to lend her copies to any one, because people must buy the books to read them. " L'Heritiere " brought in about 32, and "Jean-Louis" 53, unfortunately both in bills at long date; but it was the first money Honore had ever earned, and he was naturally excited. However, with " La Derniere Fee " he was not so fortunate, as both versions one of which appeared in 1823 and the other in 1824 were published at his own cost. Nevertheless, he has no illusions about the worth of his books, "L'Heritiere" being, he says, a "veri- 1 See " Une Page Perdue de HonorS de Balzac," by the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul. 74 HONORS DE BALZAC table cochonnerie litteraire," while " Jean-Louis " has "several rather funny jokes, and some not bad at- tempts at character, but a detestable plot." In the same year, 1822, he writes one of his droll, beseeching letters to beg M. and Mme. Surville to help him out of a great difficulty, and to write one volume of " Le Vicaire des Ardennes " while he writes the other, and afterwards fits the two together. The matter is most important, as he has promised Pollet to have two novels, " Le Vicaire " and " Le Savant " the latter we never hear of again ready by Octo- ber 1st. It is necessary to be specially quick about "Le Vicaire," partly because Auguste, his collabo- rator, is writing a novel of the same name, and Bal- zac's production must come out first, and also for the joyful reason that he will actually receive 24 in ready money for the two books, the further <56 fol- lowing in bills payable at eight months. What do the Survilles think about it? He throws himself on their generosity, though he is afraid Laure will never manage to write sixty pages of a novel every day. Apparently the Survilles, or at least M. Surville for it is certain that the devoted Laure would have worked herself to death to help Honore did not see their way to proceeding at this rate of composition, as the next letter from Balzac, written on August 20th, is full of reproaches because the manuscript has not been at once returned to him, that he may go on with it himself. Perhaps this want of help prevented the carrying out of the contract, and was the reason that the world has not been enriched by the appear- HONORE DE BALZAC . 75 ance of "Le Savant." Honore, however, judging by his next letter, did not bear malice: he was accus- tomed to make continual requests, reasonable and sometimes very unreasonable, to his family; and the large good-humour which was one of the foundations of his robust character, prevented him from showing any irritation when they were refused. From 1821 to 1824 he wrote thirty-one volumes, and it is an extraordinary proof of his versatility, that in 1824, in the midst of the production of these romantic novels, he published a pamphlet entitled "Du Droit d'Ainesse," which argues with singular force, logic, and erudition against the revolutionary and Napoleonic theories on the division of property; and a small volume entitled " Histoire impartiale des Jesuites," which is an impassioned defence of religion and the monarchy. " The Bourbons are the preservers of the sublime religion of Christ, and they have never betrayed the trust which confided Chris- tianity to them," he cries. No one reading these political essays would think it likely that they were the work of the romantic writer of "La Derniere Fee " or " Argow the Pirate," which were employing Balzac's pen at the same time. Young men are often very severe critics of the doings of their family; and Balzac, cursed with the sensitiveness of genius, and smarting under the bitter disappointment of disillusionment and of thwarted and compressed powers, was not likely to be an indul- gent critic; but making due allowance for these facts, it does not appear that his home was a particularly 76 HONORE DE BALZAC comfortable place at this time. Old M. de Balzac was as placid as an Egyptian pyramid and peren- nially cheerful; but the restless Madame de Balzac was now following in the footsteps of her nervous mother and becoming a malade imaginaire. This did not add to the comfort of her family, while the small excitements she roused perpetually were peculiarly trying to her eldest son, who was himself not of a placid nature. However, there were compensations, though the discreet Honore does not mention these in his letters to Laure, as in 1821 his friendship with Madame de Berny began, and only ceased in 1836 with her death, which, in spite of his affection for Madame Hanska, was a lifelong sorrow to him. One of Honore's home duties was to act as tutor to his younger brother Henry the spoilt child of the family who, owing to supposed delicacy, was educated at home; and as the Bernys lived near Villeparisis, it was arranged that he should at the same time give lessons to one of M. and Madame de Berny's boys. This may have helped to bring about the intimacy between the two houses, and Honore was struck by Madame de Berny's patience and sweetness to a morose husband many years older than herself. Later on, the Bernys left the neighbourhood of Villeparisis, and divided their time between the village of Saint-Firmin, near Chantilly, and Paris; and Balzac occasionally paid them visits in the country, and saw Madame de Berny continually in Paris. She was twenty-two years older than Honore, and no doubt supplied the ele- RODIN'S STATUE OF HONORK DE BALZAC HONORE DE BALZAC 77 ment of motherliness which was conspicuously absent in Madame de Balzac. She is a gentle and 'pathetic figure, the woman who understood Balzac as Madame Hanska did not; who made light of her troubles and sufferings for fear of grieving him in the midst of his own struggles; and who, while performing her duties conscientiously as devoted wife and mother, for twelve years gave up two hours every day to his society. She lent him money, interceded with his parents on his behalf, cor- rected his proofs, acted as a severe and candid though sympathetic critic, and above all cheered and encouraged him, and prevented him from commit- ting suicide in his dark days of distress. On the other hand, the friendship of a man like Balzac must have been of absorbing interest to a woman of great deli- cacy of feeling, and evidently considerable powers, whose surroundings were uncongenial ; and his warm and enduring affection helped her to tide over many of the troubles of a sad life. Recent researches have discovered several interest- ing facts about the origin of the woman to whom may be ascribed the merit of "creating" the writer who was destined to exercise so great an influence on his own and succeeding generations. 1 Curiously enough, Louise Antoinette Laure Hinner, destined at the age of fifteen years and ten months to become Madame de Berny, was, like Madame Hanska, a for- eigner, being the daughter of Joseph Hinner, a Ger- a See "Balzac, Imprimeur," in "La Jeunesse de Balzac," by MM. Hanotaux et Vicaire. 78 HONORE DE BALZAC man musician, who was brought by Turgot to France. Here he became harpist to Marie Antoinette, and married Madame Quelpee de Laborde, one of the Queen's ladies in waiting. Two years later, on May 23rd, 1777, the future Madame de Berny came into the world, and made her debut with a great flourish of trumpets, Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, rep- resented by the Due de Fronsac and Laure Auguste de Fitz-James, Princesse de Chimay, being her god- parents. When in 1784 her father died, her mother married the Chevalier de Jar j ayes, one of Marie An- toinette's most loyal adherents during the Revolution. It was he who conceived the project of carrying off Louis XVII. from the Temple, and who was en- trusted with the precious duty of carrying the seal, ring, and hair belonging to the Royal Family to the exiled Monsieur and Comte d'Artois. 1 We can easily see whence Balzac derived his strong Royalist principles how from boyhood the lessons taught him by his masters, M. Lepitre and M. Guil- lonnet de Merville, would be insisted on, only with much greater effect and insistence, by this charming woman of the world. Her mother, still living, had passed her time in the disturbed and exciting atmos- phere of plots and counterplots; and she herself could tell him story after story of heartrending trag- edies and of hairbreadth escapes, which had happened to her own relations and friends. From her he acquired those aristocratic longings which always ^ee "Balzac, Imprimeur," in "La Jeunesse de Balzac," by MM- Hanotaux et Vicaire. HONORE DE BALZAC 79 characterised him, and through her influence he made acquaintance with several people of high position and importance, and thus was enabled to make an occasional appearance in the beau-monde of Paris. Her portrait gives the idea of an elegant rather than pretty woman, with a long neck, sloping shoul- ders, black curls on the temples, at each side of a high forehead, and large, languishing dark eyes, under pencilled eyebrows. The oval face has a character of gentle melancholy, and there is something subdued and suffering in the whole expression which invites our pity. She wears in the portrait an Empire dress, confined under the arms by a yellow ribbon. " La dilecta," as Balzac calls her, cannot have been a very happy woman. Of her nine children, watched with the most tender solicitude, only four lived to grow up; and of these her favourite son, "beautiful as the day, like her, tender and spiritual, like her, full of noble sentiments," as Balzac says, died the year before her; and only an insane daughter and a wild, unsatisfactory son survived her. This terrible blow broke her heart, and she shut herself up and refused to see even Balzac during the last year of her life. The end must at any rate have been peaceful, as, in order to prolong her existence as much as possible, it had been found necessary to separate her from the irritable husband with whose vagaries she had borne patiently during thirty tedious years; but perhaps she was sorry in the end that this was necessary. Madame de Mortsauf , in the " Lys dans la Vallee," is intended to be a portrait of her, though Balzac 80 says that he has only managed to give a faint re- flection of her perfections. However this may be, Henriette de Mortsauf is a charming and ethereal creation, and from her we can understand the fas- cination Madame de Berny exerted over Balzac, and can realise that, as he says to Madame Hanska, her loss could never be made up to him. It is possible also to sympathise with the feeling, perhaps unac- knowledged even to himself, which peeps out in a letter to Madame Hanska in 1840. 1 In this he reproaches his correspondent for her littleness in not writing to him because he cannot answer her letters quickly, and tells her that he has lately been in such straits that he has not been able to pay for franking his letters, and has several times eaten a roll on the Boulevards for his dinner. He goes on: "Ah! I implore you, do not make comparisons between your- self and Madame de Berny. She was of infinite goodness and of absolute devotion; she was what she was. You are complete on your side as she on hers. One never compares two great things. They are what they are." Certainly Balzac never found a second Madame de Berny. From 1822 to 1824 we know little of Balzac's his- tory, except that he passed the time at home, and was presumably working hard at his romantic novels ; but in 1824 a change came, one no doubt hailed at the time with eager delight, though it proved unfortu- nately to be the foundation of all his subsequent misfortunes. 1 " Lettres a 1'fitrangfere." HONORE DE BALZAC 81 When he went up to Paris to make arrangements for publishing his novels, he stayed in the old lodg- ings of his family in the Rue du Roi Dore, and here he often met a friend, M. d'Assonvillez, to whom he confided his fear of being forced into an occupation distasteful to him. M. d'Assonvillez was sympa- thetic, advised him to seek for a business which would make him independent, and, carried away by Hon- ore's powers of persuasion and eloquence, actually promised to provide the necessary funds. We can imagine Balzac's joy at this offer, and the enthusiasm with which he would take up his abode in Paris, and feel that he was about to earn his living, nay, more, that he would no doubt become enormously rich, and would then have leisure to give up his time to litera- ture. What, however, decided him to become first pub- lisher and then printer we do not know. He started his publishing campaign with the idea of bringing out compact editions of the complete works of dif- ferent authors in one volume, and began with Moliere and La Fontaine, carrying on the two publications at the same time, for fear of competition if his secret should be discovered. The idea, which had already been thought of by Urbain Canel, was a good one; but unfortunately Balzac was not able to obtain sup- port from the trade, and had not sufficient capital for advertising. Therefore by the end of the year not twenty copies were sold, and he lost 15,000 francs on this affair alone. Consequently, in order to save the rent of the warehouse in which the books were stored, he was obliged to part with all the precious 82 HONORE DE BALZAC compact editions for the price by weight of the paper on which they were printed. Matters now looked very black, as Balzac owed about 70,000 francs; but M. d'Assonvillez was evi- dently much impressed by his business capacity, and was naturally anxious to be repaid the money he had lent. He therefore introduced Honore to a relation who was making a large fortune by his printing-press; and Balzac, full of enthusiasm, dreamt of becoming a second Richardson, and of com- bining the occupations of author and printer. His father was persuaded to provide the necessary funds, and handed him over 30,000 francs about