that the youthful fictions of Balzac were produced. The strength of
his belief in his own resources and his own future, gave him also the
strength, in relation to these first efforts, to rise above his own
vanity, and to see plainly that he had not yet learnt to do himself
full justice. His early novels bore on their title-pages a variety of
feigned names, for the starving, struggling author was too proud to
acknowledge them, so long as they failed to satisfy his own conception
of what his own powers could accomplish. These first efforts--now
included in the Belgian editions of his collected works, and
comprising among them two stories, "Jane la Pâle" and "Le Vicaire des
Ardennes," which show unquestionable dawnings of the genius of a great
writer--were originally published by the lower and more rapacious
order of booksellers, and did as little towards increasing his means
as towards establishing his reputation. Still, he forced his way
slowly and resolutely through poverty, obscurity, and disappointment,
nearer and nearer to the promised land which no eye saw but his own--a
greater man, by far, at this hard period of his adversity than at the
more trying after-time of his prosperity and his fame. One by one, the
heavy years rolled on till he was a man of thirty; and then the great
prize which he had so long toiled for, dropped within his reach at
last. In the year eighteen hundred and twenty-nine, the famous
"Physiologie du Mariage" was published; and the starveling of the
Paris garret became a name and a power in French literature.
In England, this book would have been universally condemned as an
unpardonable exposure of the most sacred secrets of domestic life. It
unveils the whole social side of Marriage in its innermost recesses,
and exhibits it alternately in its bright and dark aspects with a
marvellous minuteness of observation, a profound knowledge of human
nature, and a daring eccentricity of style and arrangement which amply
justify the extraordinary success of the book on its first appearance
in France. It may be more than questionable, judging from the English
point of view, whether such a subject should ever have been selected
for any other than the most serious, reverent, and forbearing
treatment. Setting this objection aside, however, in consideration of
the French point of view, it cannot be denied that the merits of the
"Physiology of Marriage," as a piece of writing, were by no means
over-estimated by the public to which it was addressed. In a literary
sense, the book would have done credit to a man in the maturity of his
powers. As the work of a man whose intellectual life was only
beginning, it was such an achievement as is not often recorded in the
history of modern literature.
This first triumph of the future novelist--obtained, curiously enough,
by a book which was not a novel--failed to smooth the way onward and
upward for Balzac as speedily and pleasantly as might have been
supposed. He had another stumble on that hard road of his, before he
fairly started on the career of success. Soon after the publication of
"The Physiology of Marriage," an unlucky idea of strengthening his
resources by trading in literature, as well as by writing books, seems
to have occurred to him. He tried bookselling and printing; proved
himself to be, in both cases, probably the very worst man of business
who ever lived and breathed in this world; failed in the most hopeless
way, with the most extraordinary rapidity; and so learnt at last, by
the cruel teaching of experience, that his one fair chance of getting
money lay in sticking fast to his pen for the rest of his days. In the
next ten years of his life that pen produced the noble series of
fictions which influenced French literature far and wide, and which
will last in public remembrance long after the miserable errors and
inconsistencies of the writer's personal character are forgotten. This
was the period when Balzac was in the full enjoyment of his matured
intellectual powers and his enviable public celebrity; and this was
also the golden time when his publisher and biographer first became
acquainted with him. Now, therefore, Monsieur Werdet may be encouraged
to come forward and take the post of honour as narrator of the strange
story that is still to be told; for now he is placed in the fit
position to address himself intelligibly, as well as amusingly, to an
English audience.
* * * * *
The story opens with the starting of Monsieur Werdet as a publisher in
Paris, on his own account. The modest capital at his command amounted
to just one hundred and twenty pounds English; and his leading idea,
on beginning business, was to become the publisher of Balzac.
He had already entered into transactions, on a large scale, with his
favourite author, in the character of agent for a publishing-house of
high standing. He had been very well received, on that first occasion,
as a man representing undeniable capital and a great commercial
position. On the second occasion, however, of his representing nobody
but himself, and nothing but the smallest of existing capitals, he
very wisely secured the protection of an intimate friend of Balzac's,
to introduce him as favourably as might be, for the second time.
Accompanied by this gentleman, whose name was Monsieur Barbier, and
carrying his capital in his pocket-book, the embryo publisher
nervously presented himself in the sanctum sanctorum of the great man.
Monsieur Barbier having carefully explained the business on which they
came, Balzac addressed himself, with an indescribable suavity and
grandeur of manner, to anxious Monsieur Werdet.
"Just so," said the eminent man. "You are doubtless possessed, sir, of
considerable capital? You are probably aware that no man can hope to
publish for ME who is not prepared to assert himself magnificently in
the matter of cash? I sell high--high--very high. And, not to deceive
you--for I am incapable of suppressing the truth--I am a man who
requires to be dealt with on the principle of considerable advances.
Proceed, sir--I am prepared to listen to you."
But Monsieur Werdet was too cautious to proceed without strengthening
his position before starting. He entrenched himself instantly behind
his pocket-book.
One by one, the notes of the Bank of France, which formed the poor
publisher's small capital, were drawn out of their snug hiding-place.
Monsieur Werdet produced six of them, representing five hundred francs
each (or, as before mentioned, a hundred and twenty pounds sterling),
arranged them neatly and impressively in a circle on the table, and
then cast himself on the author's mercy in an agitated voice, and in
these words:
"Sir! behold my capital. There lies my whole fortune. It is yours in
exchange for any book you please to write for me----"
At that point, to the horror and astonishment of Monsieur Werdet, his
further progress was cut short by roars of laughter--formidable
roars, as he himself expressly states--bursting from the lungs of the
highly diverted Balzac.
"What astonishing simplicity!" exclaimed the great man. "Do you
actually believe, sir, that I--De Balzac--can so entirely forget what
is due to myself as to sell you any conceivable species of fiction
which is the product of MY PEN, for the sum of three thousand francs?
You have come here, Monsieur Werdet, to address an offer to me,
without preparing yourself by previous reflection. If I felt so
disposed, I should have every right to consider your conduct as
unbecoming in the highest degree. But I don't feel so disposed. On the
contrary, I can even allow your honest ignorance, your innocent
confidence, to excuse you in my estimation. Don't be alarmed, sir.
Consider yourself excused to a certain extent."
Between disappointment, indignation, and astonishment, Monsieur Werdet
was struck dumb. His friend, Monsieur Barbier, therefore spoke for
him, urging every possible consideration; and finally proposing that
Balzac, if he was determined not to write a new story for three
thousand francs, should at least sell one edition of an old one for
that sum. Monsieur Barbier's arguments were admirably put: they lasted
a long time; and when they had come to an end, they received this
reply:
"Gentlemen!" cried Balzac, pushing back his long hair from his heated
temples, and taking a fresh dip of ink, "you have wasted an hour of MY
TIME in talking of trifles. I rate the pecuniary loss thus occasioned
to me at two hundred francs. My time is my capital. I must work.
Gentlemen! leave me." Having expressed himself in these hospitable
terms, the great man immediately resumed the process of composition.
Monsieur Werdet, naturally and properly indignant, immediately left
the room. He was overtaken, after he had proceeded a little distance
in the street, by his friend Barbier, who had remained behind to
remonstrate.
"You have every reason to be offended," said Barbier. "His conduct is
inexcusable. But pray don't suppose that your negotiation is broken
off. I know him better than you do; and I tell you that you have
nailed Balzac. He wants money, and before three days are over your
head he will return your visit."
"If he does," replied Werdet, "I'll pitch him out of window."
"No, you won't," said Barbier. "In the first place, it is an extremely
uncivil proceeding to pitch a man out of window; and, as a naturally
polite gentleman, you are incapable of committing a breach of good
manners. In the second place, rude as he has been to you, Balzac is
not the less a man of genius; and, as such, he is just the man of
whom you, as a publisher, stand in need. Wait patiently; and in a day
or two you will see him, or hear from him again."
Barbier was right. Three days afterwards, the following satisfactory
communication was received by Monsieur Werdet:--
"My brain, sir, was so prodigiously preoccupied by work
uncongenial to my fancy, when you visited me the other day,
that I was incapable of comprehending otherwise than
imperfectly what it was that you wanted of me.
"To-day, my brain is not preoccupied. Do me the favour to
come and see me at four o'clock.
"A thousand civilities.
"DE BALZAC."
Monsieur Werdet viewed this singular note in the light of a fresh
impertinence. On consideration, however, he acknowledged it, and
curtly added that important business would prevent his accepting the
appointment proposed to him.
In two days more, friend Barbier came with a second invitation from
the great man. But Monsieur Werdet steadily refused it. "Balzac has
already been playing his game with me," he said. "Now it is my turn to
play my game with Balzac. I mean to keep him waiting four days
longer."
At the end of that time, Monsieur Werdet once more entered the sanctum
sanctorum. On this second occasion, Balzac's graceful politeness was
indescribable. He deplored the rarity of intelligent publishers. He
declared his deep sense of the importance of an intelligent
publisher's appearance on the literary horizon. He expressed himself
as quite enchanted to be now enabled to remark that appearance, to
welcome it, and even to deal with it. Polite as he was by nature,
Monsieur Werdet had no chance this time against Monsieur de Balzac. In
the race of civility the publisher was now nowhere, and the author
made all the running.
The interview, thus happily begun, terminated in a most agreeable
transaction on both sides. Balzac cheerfully locked up the six bank
notes in his strong-box. Werdet, as cheerfully, retired with a written
agreement in his empty pocket-book, authorising him to publish the
second edition of "Le Médecin de Campagne"--hardly, it may be remarked
in parenthesis, one of the best to select of the novels of Balzac.
II.
Once started in business as the happy proprietor and hopeful publisher
of the second edition of "Le Médecin de Campagne," Monsieur Werdet was
too wise a man not to avail himself of the only certain means of
success in modern times. He puffed magnificently. Every newspaper in
Paris was inundated with a deluge of advertisements, announcing the
forthcoming work in terms of eulogy such as the wonderstruck reader
had never met with before. The result, aided by Balzac's celebrity,
was a phenomenon in the commercial history of French literature, at
that time. Every copy of the second edition of "Le Médecin de
Campagne" was sold in eight days.
This success established Monsieur Werdet's reputation. Young authors
crowded to him with their manuscripts, all declaring piteously that
they wrote in the style of Balzac. But Monsieur Werdet flew at higher
game. He received the imitators politely, and even published for one
or two of them; but the high business aspirations which now glowed
within him were all concentrated on the great original. He had
conceived the sublime idea of becoming Balzac's sole publisher; of
buying up all his copyrights held by other houses, and of issuing all
his new works that were yet to be written. Balzac himself welcomed
this proposal with superb indulgence. "Walter Scott," he said in his
grandest way, "had only one publisher--Archibald Constable. Work out
your idea. I authorise it; I support it. I will be Scott, and you
shall be Constable!"
Fired by the prodigious future thus disclosed to him, Monsieur Werdet
assumed forthwith the character of a French Constable; and opened
negotiations with no less than six publishers who held among them the
much-desired copyrights. His own enthusiasm did something for him; his
excellent previous character in the trade, and his remarkable success
at starting, did much more. The houses he dealt with took his bills in
all directions, without troubling him for security. After innumerable
interviews and immense exercise of diplomacy, he raised himself at
last to the pinnacle of his ambition--he became sole proprietor and
publisher of the works of Balzac.
The next question--a sordid, but, unhappily, a necessary question
also--was how to turn this precious acquisition to the best pecuniary
account. Some of the works, such as "La Physiologie du Mariage," and
"La Peau de Chagrin," had produced, and were still producing, large
sums. Others, on the contrary, such as the "Contes Philosophiques"
(which were a little too profound for the public) and "Louis Lambert"
(which was intended to popularise the mysticism of Swedenborg), had
not yet succeeded in paying their expenses. Estimating his speculation
by what he had in hand, Monsieur Werdet had not much chance of seeing
his way speedily to quick returns. Estimating it, however, by what was
coming in the future, that is to say, by the promised privilege of
issuing all the writer's contemplated works, he had every reason to
look happily and hopefully at his commercial prospects. At this crisis
of the narrative, when the publisher's credit and fortune depended
wholly on the pen of one man, the history of that man's habits of
literary composition assumes a special interest and importance.
Monsieur Werdet's description of Balzac at his writing-desk, presents
by no means the least extraordinary of the many singular revelations
which compose the story of the author's life.
When he had once made up his mind to produce a new book, Balzac's
first proceeding was to think it out thoroughly before he put pen to
paper. He was not satisfied with possessing himself of the main idea
only; he followed it mentally into its minutest ramifications,
devoting to the process just that amount of patient hard labour and
self-sacrifice which no inferior writer ever has the common sense or
the courage to bestow on his work. With his note-book ready in his
hand, Balzac studied his scenes and characters straight from life.
General knowledge of what he wanted to describe was not enough for
this determined realist. If he found himself in the least at fault, he
would not hesitate to take a long journey merely to ensure truth to
nature in describing the street of a country town, or in painting some
minor peculiarity of rustic character. In Paris he was perpetually
about the streets, perpetually penetrating into all classes of
society, to study the human nature about him in its minutest
varieties. Day by day, and week by week, his note-book and his brains
were hard at work together, before he thought of sitting down to his
desk to begin. When he had finally amassed his materials in this
laborious manner, he at last retired to his study; and from that time,
till his book had gone to press, society saw him no more.
His house-door was now closed to everybody, except the publisher and
the printer; and his costume was changed to a loose white robe, of the
sort which is worn by the Dominican monks. This singular writing-dress
was fastened round the waist by a chain of Venetian gold, to which
hung little pliers and scissors of the same precious metal. White
Turkish trousers, and red-morocco slippers, embroidered with gold,
covered his legs and feet. On the day when he sat down to his desk,
the light of heaven was shut out, and he worked by the light of
candles in superb silver sconces. Even letters were not allowed to
reach him. They were all thrown, as they came, into a japan vase, and
not opened, no matter how important they might be, till his work was
all over. He rose to begin writing at two in the morning, continued,
with extraordinary rapidity, till six; then took his warm bath, and
stopped in it, thinking, for an hour or more. At eight o'clock his
servant brought him up a cup of coffee. Before nine his publisher was
admitted to carry away what he had done. From nine till noon he wrote
on again, always at the top of his speed. At noon he breakfasted on
eggs, with a glass of water and a second cup of coffee. From one
o'clock to six he returned to work. At six he dined lightly, only
allowing himself one glass of wine. From seven to eight he received
his publisher again: and at eight o'clock he went to bed. This life he
led, while he was writing his books, for two months together, without
intermission. Its effect on his health was such that, when he appeared
once more among his friends, he looked, in the popular phrase, like
his own ghost. Chance acquaintances would hardly have known him again.
It must not be supposed that this life of resolute seclusion and
fierce hard toil ended with the completion of the first draught of his
manuscript. At the point where, in the instances of most men, the
serious part of the work would have come to an end, it had only begun
for Balzac.
In spite of all the preliminary studying and thinking, when his pen
had scrambled its way straight through to the end of the book, the
leaves were all turned back again, and the first manuscript was
altered into a second with inconceivable patience and care.
Innumerable corrections and interlinings, to begin with, led in the
end to transpositions and expansions which metamorphosed the entire
work. Happy thoughts were picked out of the beginning of the
manuscript, and inserted where they might have a better effect at the
end. Others at the end would be moved to the beginning, or the middle.
In one place, chapters would be expanded to three or four times their
original length; in another, abridged to a few paragraphs; in a third,
taken out altogether, or shifted to new positions. With all this mass
of alterations in every page, the manuscript was at last ready for the
printer. Even to the experienced eyes in the printing-office, it was
now all but illegible. The deciphering it, and setting it up in a
moderately correct form, cost an amount of patience and pains which
wearied out all the best men in the office, one after another, before
the first series of proofs could be submitted to the author's eye.
When these were at last complete, they were sent in on large slips,
and the indefatigable Balzac immediately set to work to rewrite the
whole book for the third time!
He now covered with fresh corrections, fresh alterations, fresh
expansions of this passage, and fresh abridgments of that, not only
the margins of the proofs all round, but even the little intervals of
white space between the paragraphs. Lines crossing each other in
indescribable confusion, were supposed to show the bewildered printer
the various places at which the multitude of new insertions were to
be slipped in. Illegible as Balzac's original manuscripts were, his
corrected proofs were more hopelessly puzzling still. The picked men
in the office, to whom alone they could be entrusted, shuddered at the
very name of Balzac, and relieved each other at intervals of an hour,
beyond which time no one printer could be got to continue at work on
the universally execrated and universally unintelligible proofs. The
"revises"--that is to say, the proofs embodying the new
alterations--were next pulled to pieces in their turn. Two, three, and
sometimes four, separate sets of them were required before the
author's leave could be got to send the perpetually rewritten book to
press, at last, and so have done with it. He was literally the terror
of all printers and editors; and he himself described his process of
work as a misfortune, to be the more deplored, because it was, in his
case, an intellectual necessity. "I toil sixteen hours out of the
twenty-four," he said, "over the elaboration of my unhappy style; and
I am never satisfied, myself, when all is done."
Looking back to the school-days of Balzac, when his mind suffered
under the sudden and mysterious shock which has already been described
in its place; remembering that his father's character was notorious
for its eccentricity; observing the prodigious toil, the torture
almost, of mind which the act of literary production seems to have
cost him all through life, it is impossible not to arrive at the
conclusion, that, in his case, there must have been a fatal
incompleteness somewhere in the mysterious intellectual machine.
Magnificently as it was endowed, the balance of faculties in his mind
seems to have been even more than ordinarily imperfect. On this
theory, his unparalleled difficulties in expressing himself as a
writer, and his errors, inconsistencies, and meannesses of character
as a man, become, at least, not wholly unintelligible. On any other
theory, all explanation both of his personal life and his literary
life appears to be simply impossible.
* * * * *
Such was the perilous pen on which Monsieur Werdet's prospects in life
all depended. If Balzac failed to perform his engagements punctually,
or if his health broke down under his severe literary exertions, the
commercial decease of his unfortunate publisher followed either
disaster, purely as a matter of course.
At the outset, however, the posture of affairs looked encouragingly
enough. On its completion in the Revue de Paris, "Le Lys dans la
Vallée" was republished by Monsieur Werdet, who had secured his
interest in the work by a timely advance of six thousand francs. Of
this novel (the most highly valued in France of all the writer's
fictions), but two hundred copies of the first edition were left
unsold within two hours after its publication. This unparalleled
success kept Monsieur Werdet's head above water, and encouraged him to
hope great things from the next novel ("Séraphita"), which was also
begun, periodically, in the Revue de Paris. Before it was finished,
however, Balzac and the editor of the Review quarrelled. The
long-suffering publisher was obliged to step in and pay the author's
forfeit-money, obtaining the incomplete novel in return, and with it
Balzac's promise to finish the work off-hand. Months passed, however,
and not a page of manuscript was produced. One morning, at eight
o'clock, to Monsieur Werdet's horror and astonishment, Balzac burst in
on him in a condition of sublime despair, to announce that he and his
genius had to all appearance parted company for ever.
"My brain is empty!" cried the great man. "My imagination is dried up!
Hundreds of cups of coffee and two warm baths a day have done nothing
for me. Werdet, I am a lost man!"
The publisher thought of his empty cash-box, and was petrified. The
author proceeded:
"I must travel!" he exclaimed, distractedly. "My genius has run away
from me--I must pursue it over mountains and valleys. Werdet! I must
catch my genius up!"
Poor Monsieur Werdet faintly suggested a little turn in the immediate
neighbourhood of Paris--something equivalent to a nice airy ride to
Hampstead on the top of an omnibus. But Balzac's runaway genius had,
in the estimation of its bereaved proprietor, got as far as Vienna
already; and he coolly announced his intention of travelling after it
to the Austrian capital.
"And who is to finish 'Séraphita'?" inquired the unhappy publisher.
"My illustrious friend, you are ruining me!"
"On the contrary," remarked Balzac, persuasively, "I am making your
fortune. At Vienna, I shall find my genius. At Vienna I shall finish
'Séraphita,' and a new book besides. At Vienna, I shall meet with an
angelic woman who admires me--she permits me to call her
'Carissima'--she has written to invite me to Vienna--I ought, I must,
I will, accept the invitation."