At Les Jardies.
It was in 1835 that Balzac conceived the idea of acquiring some land,
situated between Sevres and Ville-d'Avray, for the purpose of building
a house. He wished in this way to give a guarantee to his mother, evade
compulsory service in the National Guard, and become a landed
proprietor. He had explored all the suburbs of Paris before deciding
upon a hillside with a steep slope, as ill adapted to building as to
cultivation. But, having definitely made his choice, he acquired
sections from the adjacent holdings of three peasants, thus obtaining a
lot forty square rods in extent, to which he naturally hoped to add
later on. He calculated that he would not have to spend more than
twenty-five thousand francs, which he could borrow,--in point of fact,
the total cost came to more than ninety thousand,--and that the interest
to be paid would not come to more than the rent he was then paying for
his apartment. The first step was to surround his property with walls,
and Balzac then christened it with the name of Les Jardies. He laughed
with sheer contentment, foreseeing himself in his mind's eye already
installed in his own abode, far from Paris, and yet near to it, and
beyond the reach of importunate visitors and the curiosity of cheap
journalism. Nevertheless Les Jardies cost him as much sarcasm and
ridicule as his monstrous walking-stick set with turquoises. He had
given his own plans to his architects, and he himself attentively
superintended his contractors and masons. He experienced all the
annoyances incident to construction, delays in the work, disputes with
the workmen, the worry of raising money and meeting payments, and the
impossibility of obtaining exactly what he wished. He was impatient to
take possession of his own home, but the completion of it was delayed
from month to month; it was to have been ready for occupancy by
November 30, 1837, yet on his return from Sardinia in June 1838, it was
not yet finished. But he was so eager to move in that in defiance of
his physician's orders he installed himself in August, in the midst of
all the confusion and with the workmen still all around him. It was a
dreadful condition of things, the upturned ground, the empty chambers,
the chill of new plaster, and an irritating sense of things not
finished and pushed along in haste; but he was exultant, and distracted
his own attention by admiring the beauty of the surrounding landscape.
How delightful it was to live at Les Jardies! It required not more than
ten minutes to reach the heart of Paris, the Madeleine, and it cost but
ten sous. The Rue des Batailles and the Rue Cassini were at the other
end of the world, and you must needs spend a couple of francs for the
shortest drive which wasted an hour,--such was the fashion in which
Balzac dreamed! And he would gaze at his acre of ground, bare,
ploughed-up clay, without a tree or a blade of grass, and he found no
trouble in transforming it mentally into an eden of "plants, fragrance
and shrubbery." He planned to fill it with twenty-year magnolias,
sixteen-year lindens, twelve-year poplars, birches and grape vines
which would yield him fine white grapes the very next year. And then he
would earn thirty thousand francs and buy two more acres of land, which
he would turn into an orchard and kitchen-garden.
The house which was the object of so many witticisms was a small
three-storied structure, containing on the ground floor a dining-room
and parlour, on the next a bed-chamber and dressing-room, and on the
upper floor Balzac's working room. A balcony supported by brick pillars
completely surrounded the second story, and the staircase--the famous
staircase--ascended on the outside of the house. The whole was painted
brick colour, excepting the corners, which had stone trimmings.
Behind the house itself, at a distance of some sixty feet, were the
outhouses, including, on the ground floor, the kitchen, pantry,
bathroom, stables, carriage-house and harness-room; on the floor above
an apartment to let, and on the top floor the servants' quarters and a
guest chamber. Furthermore, Balzac had a spring of water on his own
grounds!
For months all Paris talked of the staircase at Les Jardies which
Balzac, great architect that he was, had forgotten to put into the
plans for his house. Under the caption, "Literary Indiscretions," the
following humorous note appeared in La Caricature Provisoire;
"M. de Balzac, after having successively inhabited the four corners of
the globe and the twelve wards of Paris, seems to have definitely
transferred his domicile to the midst of an isolated plain in the
outskirts of Ville-d'Avray; he occupies a house which he has had built
there for his own particular accommodation by a direct descendant of
the marvellous architect to whom the world owes the cathedral of
Cologne. This house, in which no doors or windows are to be found, and
which is entered through a square hole cut in the roof, is furnished
throughout with an oriental luxury of which even the pashas themselves
would be incapable of forming an idea. The great novelist's private
study has a floor inlaid with young girl's teeth and hung with superb
cashmere rugs that have been sent him by all the crowned heads of the
universe. As to the furniture, the chairs, sofas and divans, they are
one and all stuffed with women's hair, both blonde and brunette, sent
to the author of La Grenadiere by a number of women of thirty who did
not hesitate a minute to despoil themselves of their most beautiful
adornment,--a sacrifice all the more rare since they have passed the age
at which the hair would grow again!"
Balzac removed to Les Jardies as soon as the walls of the dwelling had
been raised and the floorings laid, and he lived there before there was
a piece of furniture in any of the rooms, aside from the few
indispensable things. Leon Gozlan has amusingly related the manner in
which the novelist supplied their lack by an effort of imagination. He
wrote on the walls with charcoal what he intended the interior
decoration of his house to be: "Here a wainscoting of Parian marble;
here a stylobate of cedar wood; here a ceiling painted by Eugene
Delacroix; here an Aubusson tapestry; here a mantelpiece of cipolino
marble; here doors on the Trianon model; here an inlaid floor of rare
tropical woods."
Leon Gozlan says that "Balzac did not resent pleasantries at the
expense of these imaginary furnishings," and he adds, "he laughed as
heartily as I, if not more so, the day when I wrote, in characters
larger than his own, on the wall of his bed-chamber, which was as empty
as any of the others:
"HERE A PAINTING BY RAPHAEL, BEYOND ALL PRICE, AND THE LIKE OF WHICH
HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN.'"
Balzac laughed, but Gozlan did not understand that he found more
pleasure in desiring things than in actually possessing them, for in
the former case he was limited only by the extent of his own desires,
which were almost infinite.
Among the various speculative schemes which Balzac dreamed of, in
connection with Les Jardies, and which were to make his fortune,--a
dairy, vineyards which were to produce Malaga and Tokay wine, the
creation of a village, etc.,--particular mention should be made of his
plans for the cultivation of pineapples, which we have upon the
authority of Theophile Gautier:
"Here was the project," he tells us, "a hundred thousand square feet of
pineapples were to be planted in the grounds of Les Jardies,
metamorphosed into hothouses which would require only a moderate amount
of heating, thanks to the natural warmth of the situation. The
pineapples were expected to sell at five francs each, instead of a
louis (twenty francs), which was the ordinary price; in other words,
five hundred thousand francs for the season's crop; from this amount a
hundred thousand francs would have to be deducted for the cost of
cultivation, the glass frames, and the coal; accordingly, there would
remain a net profit of four hundred thousand, which would constitute a
splendid income for the happy possessor,--'without having to turn out a
page of copy,' he used to say. This was nothing; Balzac had a thousand
projects of the same sort; but the beautiful thing about this one was
that we went together to the Boulevard Montmartre to look for a shop in
which to sell these pineapples that were not yet even planted. The shop
was to be painted black, with gold trimmings, and there was to be a
sign proclaiming in enormous letters: PINEAPPLES FROM LES JARDIES.
"However, he yielded to our advice not to hire the shop until the
following year, in order to save needless expense."
When the first satisfaction of being a landed proprietor had passed,
Balzac realised that he had added a new burden to those he already
carried, and he confided to Mme. Carraud: "Yes, the folly is committed
and it is complete! Don't talk of it to me; I must needs pay for it,
and I am now spending my nights doing so!" Forty thousand francs had
been added to his former debts, to say nothing of all sorts of trouble
which Les Jardies was still destined to cost him.
In spite of his formidable powers of production, which had caused him
to be called by Hippolyte Souverain "the most fertile of French
novelists,"--a title, by the way, of which he was far from proud,--Honore
de Balzac could not succeed in freeing himself from debt. Nevertheless,
between 1836 and 1839 he published: The Atheist's Mass, The
Interdiction, The Old Maid, The Cabinet of Antiques, Facino Cane, Lost
Illusions (1st part); The Superior Woman (later The Employees), The
Cabinet of Antiques (2d part), The House of Nucingen, Splendours and
Miseries of Courtezans (1st part), A Daughter of Eve, Beatrix, Lost
Illusions (2d part), A Provincial Great Man in Paris, The Secrets of
the Princesse de Cadignan, The Village Cure, and to these he added in
1840 Pierrette, Pierre Grassou, and A New Prince of Bohemia. His prices
had risen, new illustrated editions of his earlier works had been
issued, and he was receiving high rates for his short stories, not only
from the magazines but from newspapers such as the Figaro, the Presse,
the Siecle and the Constitutionnel; yet nothing could extinguish his
debts, those debts which he had been so long carrying like a cross.
"Why," said he, "I have been bowed down by this burden for fifteen
years, it hampers the expansion of my life, it disturbs the action of
my heart, it stifles my thoughts, it puts a blight on my existence, it
embarrasses my movements, it checks my inspirations, it weighs upon my
conscience, it interferes with everything, it has been a drag on my
career, it has broken my back, it has made me an old man. My God, have
I not paid dearly enough for my right to bask in the sunshine! All that
calm future, that tranquillity of which I stand so much in need, all
gambled away in a few hours and exposed to the mercy of Parisian
caprice, which for the moment is in a censorious mood!"
Balzac now staked all his hopes upon his first play, Vautrin, which was
about to be produced at the Porte Saint-Martin theatre. From the very
outset of his literary career his thoughts had steadily turned to the
drama, and his earliest attempt had been that ill-fated Cromwell, which
had failed so ignominiously when read to his family. Yet this setback
had not definitely turned him aside from the stage; and, while he
rather despised the theatre as a means of literary expression, he had
never ceased to consider it as the most rapid method of earning money
and founding a fortune. All the time that he was writing his Human
Comedy, one can feel that he was constantly pre-occupied with the
composition of plays, of which he drafted the scenarios without ever
elaborating them. In 1831 he invited Victor Ratier, editor of La
Silhouette, to collaborate with him, specifying, however, "that it was
more a question of establishing a literary porkshop than a reputation";
in 1832 he announced to his mother that he had "taken the step of
writing two or three plays for stage production!" and he added, "This
is the greatest misfortune which could happen to me; but necessity is
stronger than I, and it is impossible to extricate myself in any other
way. I shall try to find some one who will do me the service of signing
them, so that I shall not need to compromise my own name." Thereafter
he conceived successively a Marie Touchet, a tragedy in prose entitled
Don Philip and Don Carlos, a farce comedy, Prudhomme Bigamist, a drama,
The Courtiers, written in collaboration with Emmanuel Arago and Jules
Sandeau, and a high-class comedy, The Grande Mademoiselle, also in
collaboration with Sandeau. Then, in 1836, he reverted to Marie
Touchet, and composed La Gina, a drama in three acts, and Richard the
Sponge-Hearted. Finally, in 1839, he wrote for the Renaissance Theatre
The School of Married Life, with the obscure aid of Lassailly, a
five-act play for which he was offered an award of six thousand francs,
and which he himself produced in print. But it was never performed, in
spite of many promises.
This first unsuccessful attempt at stage production discouraged him at
first, yet he never gave up his determination to succeed. He prepared a
second play, intending to ask Theophile Gautier to collaborate with
him; this second play was Vautrin.
The first performance of Vautrin took place March 14, 1840. Balzac
expected that this play would bring him in at least six thousand
francs. Tickets had been greatly in demand, and speculators had so
completely cornered them that the audience, composed largely of the
author's friends, could not obtain them at the box office. It was a
tumultuous evening, and one would have to go back to the great opening
nights of Victor Hugo in order to find a parallel case of hostile
demonstrations. Frederik Lemaitre, who played the role of Jacques
Collin, had conceived the idea of making himself up to resemble Louis
Philippe. The King of France, far from being pleased at seeing himself
masquerading as a bandit, suppressed the play, which consequently had
only the one performance. It was a disaster, but Balzac bore up
valiantly under it. Leon Gozlin, who called upon him at Les Jardies on
the very day when the royal interdiction reached him, relates that he
talked of nothing else but his plans for improving his property.
Balzac's friends, headed by Victor Hugo, tried to use their influence
with the government officials, but the latter were powerless to do
otherwise than to confirm the order of Louis Philippe; the royal edict
had been imperative. The government offered to pay Balzac an indemnity,
but he proudly refused.
A few months prior to the production of Vautrin, Balzac, then at the
height of his financial difficulties and literary labours, had
nevertheless courageously undertaken the defense of a man accused of
murder whom he believed to be innocent. This act was in accordance with
his conception of his duty as a citizen, and it bore witness to his
generosity and sense of justice. The case in question was that of a
certain notary, Peytel by name, of Belley, who was accused of the
premeditated murder of his wife and man-servant. Balzac had had a
slight acquaintance with him in 1831, at the time when Peytel was part
owner of the Voleur, to which Balzac contributed. This acquaintance had
sufficed him to judge of the man's character and to conclude that he
was incapable of the double crime with which he was charged. Regardless
of his own most pressing interests, Balzac, accompanied by Gavarni, set
out for Bourg, where the trial and sentence of death had already taken
place. He saw the condemned man, and the conversations which they had
together still further strengthened his opinion. This opinion he set
forth in a Comment on the Peytel Case, which the Siecle published in
its issues of September 15-17, 1839, and with a compelling force of
argument and a fervent eloquence he demonstrated the innocence of the
unfortunate notary. Nevertheless, the Court of Cassation found no
reason for granting a new trial, and Peytel was executed at Bourg,
October 28, 1839. This was a bitter blow to Balzac, who had believed
that he could save him. Furthermore, his efforts and investigations had
cost him ten thousand francs!
This was a cruel loss, both in time and in money. His novels were not
bringing him in a hundredth part of what he estimated that he ought to
be earning, in view of his extraordinary rate of production. He placed
the blame upon the unauthorised Belgian reprints, which, according to
his calculations, had robbed him of more than a million francs.
Literary works were not at that time properly protected, and it was the
province of the Society of Men of Letters to demand from the Government
an effective defense against the "hideous piracy" of foreign countries.
Balzac was admitted to the Society in 1839,--although with no small
difficulty, for he had many enemies, and received only fifty-three
votes, while forty-five were necessary for election,--but it was not
long before he had made his influence felt and had been chosen as a
member of the committee. Leon Gozlan, who served with him, acknowledged
his influence. "Balzac," he wrote, "brought to the Society a profound,
almost diabolical knowledge of the chronic wretchedness of the
profession; a rare and unequalled ability to deal with the aristocrats
of the publishing world; an unconquerable desire to limit their
depredations, which he had brooded over on the Mount Sinai of a long
personal experience; and, above all else, an admirable conviction of
the inherent dignity of the man of letters."
It was Balzac's ambition to form a sort of author's league, under the
direction of "literary marshals," of whom he should be the first, and
including in its membership all the widely scattered men of letters,
banded together in defense of their material and moral interests. He
himself set an example by requesting the support of the Society against
a little sheet entitled Les Ecoles, which had libelled him in a cartoon
in which he was represented in prison for debt, wearing his monkish
robe and surrounded by gay company. The cartoon bore the following
legend: "The Reverend Father Seraphitus Mysticus Goriot, of the regular
order of the Friars of Clichy, at last taken in by those who have so
long been taken in by him." This was in September, 1839, and on the 22d
of the following October Balzac appeared as the representative of the
Society of Men of Letters before the trial court of Rouen, in an action
which it had begun against the Memorial de Rouen, for having reprinted
certain published matter without permission. But he did not limit
himself to a struggle from day to day, to discussions in committee
meetings, to appeals to the legislature,--his ambition was to become
himself the law-maker for the writers. In May, 1840, two months after
the disastrous failure of Vautrin, he offered to the consideration of
the Society of Men of Letters a Literary Code, divided into titles,
paragraphs, and articles, in which he laid down the principles from
which to formulate practical rules for the protection of the interests
of authors, and for the greater glory of French literature.
Having been appointed a member of the Committee of Official Relations,
a committee which had been created at his suggestion for the purpose of
seeing that men of letters should exercise a just influence over the
government, Balzac drew up in 1841, some highly important Notes to be
submitted to Messieurs the Deputies constituting the Committee on the
Law of literary Property. But that same year, after having worked upon
a Manifesto which the Committee was to present to the ruling powers, he
handed in his resignation from the Society, on the 5th of October, and
it was found impossible to make him reconsider his decision. It may be
that he had received some slight which he could not forgive, or perhaps
he had decided that it was to his interest to retain in his own name
the right to authorise the republication of his works.
At this period he had attained that supremacy of which he had formerly
dreamed in his humble mansarde chamber in the Rue Lesdiguieres, and he
wished to have it crowned by some sort of official recognition. He made
up his mind to present himself for election to the Academie Francaise,
in December, 1839, but withdrew in favour of the candidacy of Victor
Hugo, notwithstanding that the latter begged him, in a dignified and
gracious message, not to do so.
An intercourse which, without being especially cordial, was fairly
frequent had been established between these two great writers as a
result of their joint labours on the committee of the Society of Men of
Letters. During the month of July, 1839, Victor Hugo breakfasted with
Balzac at Les Jardies, in company with Gozlan, for the purpose of
discussing the great project of the Manifesto. Gozlan, who formed the
third member of this triangular party, has left the following
delectable account of the interview:
"Balzac was picturesquely clad in rags; his trousers, destitute of
suspenders, parted company with his ample fancy waistcoat; his
downtrodden shoes parted company with his trousers; his necktie formed
a flaring bow, the points of which nearly reached his ears, and his
beard showed a vigorous four days' growth. As for Victor Hugo, he wore
a gray hat of a very dubious shade, a faded blue coat with gilt buttons
resembling a casserole in colour and shape, a much frayed black cravat,
and, as a finishing touch, a pair of green spectacles that would have
delighted the heart of the head clerk of a county sheriff, enemy of
solar radiation!"
They made the circuit of the property, and Victor Hugo remained
politely cold before the dithyrambic praises which Balzac lavished on
his garden. He smiled only once, and that was at sight of a walnut
tree, the only tree that the owner of Les Jardies had acquired from the
community.
Victor Hugo had revealed to him the enormous profits that he drew from
his dramatic writings, and it is easy to believe that Balzac's
persistent efforts to have a play produced were due to the momentary
glimpse of a steady stream of wealth that was thus flashed before his
dazzled eyes. After the catastrophe of Vautrin, he still pursued his
dramatic ambitions with Pamela Giraud and Mercadet, but failed to find
any theatre that would consent to produce them. What was worse, the
year 1840 was, beyond all others, a frightful one for Balzac. He faced
his creditors like a stag at bay; and all the while he found the burden
of Les Jardies becoming constantly heavier. The walls surrounding the
property had slipped on their clay foundation and broken down, while
Balzac himself had sustained a serious fall on the steep slopes of his
garden, and had consequently lost more than a month's work.
Furthermore, he underwent imprisonment at Sevres for having refused to
take his turn at standing guard over his neighbours' vineyards.
In his distress he thought seriously of expatriating himself and
setting out for Brazil; and, before coming to a final decision, he
awaited only the success or failure of a publishing venture such as he
had already undertaken in vain. In the month of July, 1840, he started
the Revue Parisienne, of which he was the sole editor, and through
which he proclaimed a dictatorial authority over the arts and letters,
society and the government. He had to abandon it after the third number.
Balzac remained in France, but he was obliged to quit Les Jardies. His
creditors looked upon this property as their legitimate prey, and
neither ruse nor sacrifice could any longer keep it from them. He first
made a fictitious sale of it to his architect, and then a real one, on
the advice of his lawyer. It had cost him more than ninety thousand
francs, and he got back only seventeen thousand five hundred. But he
had lived there through some beautiful dreams and great hopes.