LETTERS TO "THE STRANGER," 1833, 1834
If Balzac's intimates, careful of his future, had besought him to jot
down in a diary the detailed doings of his every-day life, with a
confession of his thoughts, feelings, and opinions, in fine an
unmasking of himself, he would surely have urged the material
impossibility of his fulfilling such a task, over and above the
labours of Hercules to which his ambition and his necessities bound
him. And yet he performed the miracle unsolicited.
From the day when he quitted Neufchatel to the day when he arrived at
Wierzchownia, on his crowning visit in 1848, he never ceased
chronicling, in a virtually uninterrupted series of letters to Madame
Hanska, closely following each other during most of this long period,
a faithful account of his existence--exception made for its love
episodes--which, having fortunately been preserved, constitutes an
almost complete autobiography of his mature years. When the end of the
correspondence shall have been given to the public, three volumes, at
least, will have been taken up with the record--a record which taxed
his time and strength, indeed overtaxed them, causing him to encroach
unduly on his already too short hours of sleep. The motive must have
been a powerful one that could induce him to make so large a
sacrifice. Whether it was love alone, as he protested again and again,
or love mixed with gratified pride, or both joined to the hope of
enjoying the vast fortune that loomed through the mists of the far-off
Ukraine, the phenomenon remains the same. Certainly some great force
was behind the pen that untiringly wrote in every vein and mood these
astonishing _Letters to the Stranger_.
In those up to the year 1834 that were, properly speaking, private,
the tone rises to a pitch of lover-passion that could hardly fail to
alarm, even whilst they flattered the one to whom his devotion was
addressed. Although Balzac's brief sojourns in Madame Hanska's
vicinity had resulted in no breach of the marriage law, there was too
much implied in his assumption of their betrothal to please the
husband, if any of these lover's oaths should fall under his notice.
And this was what just did happen before many months had gone by. In
consequence of some accident which is not explained, the Count had
cognizance of two epistles that reached his wife while both were
staying at Vienna; and, for some time, it seemed as though the
intercourse would be definitely severed. A humble apology was sent to
the Count, the letters being passed off as a joke; and the
interpretation was, fortunately for Balzac, accepted. Madame Hanska
was offended as well as her husband, or, at any rate, she affected to
be. It appears some negligence had been committed by the novelist in
forwarding the incriminating epistles. However, being cleared in her
husband's eyes, she yielded her forgiveness.
Balzac's policy, after this mishap, was to keep on the best terms
possible with Monsieur Hanski, who, to use the Frenchman's English
expression, suffered from chronic blue devils. After leaving his new
friends at Geneva, the novelist procured the Count an autograph letter
from Rossini, this great composer being a favourite at Wierzchownia.
To his new lady-love he sent an effusion of his own in verse, having
small poetic merit, but pretty sentiment.
During the Geneva intercourse, he did his best to familiarize Eve with
all the names and characters of the people he knew, since his
interests were to be hers, or, at any rate, so he flattered himself.
She learnt to distinguish the people who were for him from those who
were against him. Of these latter there were a goodly number, some
made enemies by his own fault, through over-susceptibility or
unconscious arrogance. Both causes were responsible for the quarrel
occurring about this time between him and Emile de Girardin, which was
never entirely healed, in spite of the persevering efforts of Emile's
wife, better known as Madame Delphine Gay. "I have bidden good-bye to
the Gays' molehill," he informed Madame Hanska. It was pretty much the
same with his estrangement from the Duke de Fitz-James, which,
however, was followed by a speedy reconciliation, for the Duke was
offering, a few months later, to support him again in a political
election. The unsatisfactory state of his health, and some family
troubles, decided him to defer his candidature to the end of the
decade, by which date he hoped to have written two works--_The Tragedy
of Philippe II._ and _The History of the Succession of the Marquis of
Carrabas_--which should implant his conception of absolute monarchic
power so strongly in the minds of his fellow-citizens that they would
be glad to send him to Parliament as their representative. Other
political articles and pamphlets of his, he asserted, would enable him
by 1839 to dominate European questions.
Werdet has a great deal to say about his idol's over-weening exaction
of homage, leading him to be himself guilty of acts of rudeness
towards others, thus alienating their sympathies. The publisher
relates one scene that he witnessed at the offices of William Duckett,
proprietor of the _Dictionary of Conversation and Reading_. The office
door was suddenly opened and Balzac stalked in with his hat on his
head. "Is Duckett in?" he curtly asked, addressing in common the chief
editor, his sub, and an attendant. There was a conspiracy of silence.
Evidently, this was not the novelist's first visit, and his style was
known. Again the question was put in the same language and manner, and
again no one replied. Advancing now a step, and speaking to the chief
editor, he repeated his question for a third time. Monglave, who was
an irritable gentleman, being accosted personally, answered briefly:
"Put your question to the sub-editor." There was a wheel-about, and
another peremptory inquiry, to which the sub, imitating his chief,
replied with "Ask the attendant." At present boiling with rage, Balzac
turned to the porter and thundered: "Is Duckett in?" "Monsieur
Balzac," returned the attendant, "these gentlemen have forbidden me to
tell you." Threatening to report the affair to Duckett, the novelist
withdrew, pursued by the mocking laughter of the chief editor and the
sub; but, on second thoughts, he deemed it more prudent to let the
matter drop.
Another example of this peculiar assumption of superiority occurred
not long after at a dinner given by Werdet in honour of a young
author, Jules Bergounioux, whose novels were being much read. Among
the guests were Gustave Planche, Jules Sandeau, and Balzac. During the
meal the conversation, after many assaults of wit and mirth, fell on
the necessity of defending writers against the piracy and mutilation
of their books in foreign countries, more especially in Belgium. All
expressed their opinion energetically, young Bergounioux like the
rest, he happening to class himself with his fellows in the words--_we
men of letters_. At the conclusion of his little speech, Balzac
uttered a guffaw: "You, sir, a man of letters! What pretension! What
presumption! You! compare yourself to us! Really, sir, you forget that
you have the honour to be sitting here with the marshals of modern
literature."
This exhibition and others similar were natural to the man. He could
not help them. It was impossible for him not to be continually
proclaiming his own greatness. "Don't tax me with littleness," he said
in one of his letters to Delphine Gay, in which he justified his
breaking with her husband. "I think myself too great to be offended by
any one."
The domestic troubles alluded to above, which were worrying Balzac in
1834, had partly to do with his brother Henry, a sort of ne'er-do-well,
who had been out to the Indies and had returned with an undesirable
wife, and prospects--or rather the lack of them--that made him a
burden to the other members of the family. Madame Balzac, too, was
unwell at Chantilly; and her illnesses always affected Honore, who,
at such moments, reproached himself for not being able to do more on
her behalf. Not that his year's budget was a poor one. The seventy
thousand francs at which he estimated his probable earnings for the
twelvemonth were not on this occasion so very much beyond the truth,
if his author's percentages were included. Werdet--the illustrious
Werdet, who, he said, somewhat resembled the _Illustrious Gaudissart_
--bought an edition of his philosophic novels for fifteen thousand
francs; and, besides two principal books to be mentioned further on,
both of which appeared before the close of the year, there were parts
of _Seraphita_ and _The Cabinet of Antiques_ which the _Revue de
Paris_ was publishing as serials. His notorious quarrel and lawsuit
with this Review was yet to come. But there was storm in the air even
now. _Seraphita_, the subject inspired by Madame Hanska and dedicated
to her, was but little to the taste of Buloz the editor; and he
declared to Balzac, who was making him wait for copy, that it was
hardly worth while taking so long and making so much fuss over a novel
which neither the public nor he, the editor, could understand. Happily
the dear Werdet was at hand to arrange the difficulty. Though in the
same case as Buloz, and failing altogether to comprehend the subject
or its treatment, he took over _Seraphita_ in 1835 and published it.
Next to politics, as a means of gaining name and fame more quickly,
Balzac esteemed play-writing. The esteem was purely commercial. In his
heart of hearts he rather despised this species of composition,
entertaining the notion that it was something to be done quickly, if
at all, and utilizable to please the groundlings. Yet, because he saw
that there was money in it, he turned his hand to it, time after time,
and, for long, had to abandon it as constantly. In 1834 he formed a
partnership with Jules Sandeau and Emmanuel Arago, with the idea of
risking less in case of failure. In addition to the tragedy already
spoken of, he tried two others--_The Courtiers_ and _Don Philip and
Don Charles_, the latter modelled on Schiller's _Don Carlos_. The
_Grande Mademoiselle_ was a comic history of Lauzun; and his
_Prudhomme, Bigamist_, was a farce, in which a dummy placed in a bed
seemed to him capable, with a night's working on it, of bringing down
the house. Vaguely he felt, and vaguely he confessed to his sister,
what he had seen and confessed thirteen years earlier, that the drama
was not his forte. But, anchored in the conviction that he ought
finally to succeed in everything he undertook, he returned to the
attempt with magnificent pluck and perseverance.
His colleague for the nonce, Sandeau, he considered to be a protege of
his; and used him a while as a kind of secretary. In this year
especially he showed much solicitude about him. There was nothing to
excite his jealousy in the author of _Sacs et Parchemins_, who was not
elected to the Academy until nearly the end of the decade in which
Balzac died. On the contrary, his pity was aroused by Sandeau's
precarious position and by the recent separation between Madame
Dudevant and this first of her lovers, who did his best to commit
suicide by swallowing a dose of acetate of morphia. Luckily the dose
was so large that Sandeau's stomach refused to digest it. George Sand
herself Balzac admired but did not care for at this time. He would
talk to her amiably when he met her at the Opera; but, if she invited
him to dinner, he invented an excuse, if possible, for not going.
"Don't speak to me," he would say, "of this writer of the neuter
gender. Nature ought to have given her more breeches and less style."
His opinion, however, did not prevent him, in 1842, from accepting her
help. An article had come out in her _Revue Independante_, without her
knowledge, attacking him violently. She wrote to apologize; and Balzac
called on her, to explain, as he informed Madame Hanska, how injustice
serves the cause of talent. She told him then that she should like to
write a thorough study of him and his books; and he made as though he
would dissuade her, saying that she would only get herself in bad
odour with his critics. Still she persisted, and he accordingly asked
her to compose a preface for an ensuing publication of his whole
works, the preface to be a defence of him against those who were his
enemies. Whether this notice was written before the novelist's death
is uncertain. At any rate, it was not printed until 1875, when it
appeared in her volume _Autour de la Table_.
It was difficult for Balzac to be fair towards those men of letters
among his contemporaries who excelled in his own domain; yet his
judgment, when unwarped, was fine, keen, and, in many instances,
endowed with prophetic sight. For instance, in placing Alfred de
Musset as a poet above Victor Hugo or Lamartine, he daringly
contradicted the opinions of his own day, and anticipated a criticism
which is at present becoming respectable if not fashionable. On the
other hand, his estimate of _Volupte_, Sainte-Beuve's just then
published novel, which he was soon to imitate and recreate in his
_Lily in the Valley_, was manifestly prejudiced. He called it a book
badly written in most of its parts, weak, loosely constructed,
diffuse, in which there were some good things, in short a puritanical
book, the chief character of it, Madame Couaen not being woman enough.
His opinion, which he imparted to Madame Hanska, he apparently took no
trouble to conceal, for Sainte-Beuve was evidently aware of it when he
treated Balzac very sharply in an article of this same year of 1834.
From that date, the celebrated lecturer looked with coldness and
disfavour on the novelist, and even in his final pronouncement of the
_Causeries du Lundi_, shortly after Balzac's death, he meted out but
faint praise.
Something has been said in a previous chapter of the novelist's belief
in certain occult powers of the mind, with which the newly discovered
action of magnetism seemed to him to be connected. At first, his ideas
on the subject were a good deal mixed. When, in 1832, a terrible
epidemic of cholera was spreading its ravages, he wrote to Doctor
Chapelain, suggesting that somnambulism--he would have called it
hypnotism to-day--should be employed to seek out the causes of the
malady, and a test applied to prove whether its virtues were real or
chimerical. In 1834, he had come to pin his faith to the healing
powers of magnetism. "When you or Monsieur Hanski or Anna are ill," he
wrote to Eve, "let me know. Don't laugh at me. At Issoudun, facts
recently demonstrated to me that I possess very large magnetic
potency, and that, either through a somnambulist" (he meant a
hypnotist) "or through myself, I can cure persons dear to me." To all
his friends he reiterated the same advice--magnetic treatment, which
he declared his mother capable of exercising as well as himself.
Madame Balzac's initiation into the science was due to the Prince of
Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingfurst, Bishop of Sardica, who, in his
several visits to Paris between 1821 and 1829, wrought wonderful cures
by the simple imposition of hands. As the lady used to suffer from a
swelling in the bowels whenever she ate raw fruit, the Bishop, hearing
of it, came one day to see her, and applied his method, which cured
her. Balzac, being a witness of the miracle, became an ardent
investigator in this new branch--or rather old branch revived--of
therapeutics. Thenceforward, his predilection for theories of the
occult went hand in hand with his equally strong taste for the
analytic observation of visible phenomena; and not infrequently he
indulged in their simultaneous literary expression. The composing of
_Seraphita_ was carried on at the same time as his _Search for the
Absolute_ and _Pere Goriot_.
Both of these two novels were finished and published in 1834. In the
_Search for the Absolute_, we have Balthazar Claes, a man of wealth
and leisure, living in the ancient town of Douai, and married to a
wife who adores him and who has borne him children. Claes' hobby is
scientific research; his aim, the discovery of the origin of things
which he believes can be given him by his crucible. In his family
mansion, of antique Flemish style, which is admirably described by the
novelist at great length, he pursues his tireless experiments; and,
with less justification than Bernard Palissy, encroaches by degrees on
the capital of his fortune, which melts away in his furnace and
alembics. During the first period of his essays, his wife tries to
have confidence in his final success, herself studies all sorts of
learned treatises, in order to be able to converse with him suitably
and to encourage him in his work; but, at last, unable to delude her
own mind any longer, she weeps with her children over the approaching
destruction of their home, and the grief wears her out and kills her.
Luckily the daughter, Marguerite, is made of sterner stuff than her
mother. And, with her brother, she toils to pay her father's debts and
to keep the home together. At the end, Claes himself dies, still
absorbed in his chimera, and his last words are an endeavour to
formulate the marvellous revelation which his disordered brain
persuades him he has now received.
"'Eureka!' he cried with a shrill voice, and fell back on his bed with
a thud. In passing away, he uttered a frightful groan, and his
convulsed eyes, until the doctors closed them, spoke his regret not to
have been able to bequeath to science the key of a mystery whose veil
had been tardily torn aside under the gaunt fingers of Death."
The _Search for the Absolute_ may be classed with _Eugenie Grandet_ in
the category of the novelist's best creations. Though Claes is, as
much as Grandet, and perhaps more, an abnormal being, his sacrifice of
every duty of life to the pursuit of the irrealizable is common enough
in humanity. By reason of the novelist's intense delineation, his
figure shows out in monstrous proportions; but these are skilfully
relieved by the happier fates of the children. The lengthy
descriptions of the opening chapter he defended against his sister
Laure's strictures, asserting that they had ramifications with the
subject which escaped her. His presentment, too, of Marguerite he said
was not forced, as she thought. Marguerite was a Flemish woman, and
Flemish women followed one idea out and, with phlegm, went
unswervingly towards their goal. The labour the book had cost him he
owned to Madame Hanska. Two members of the Academy of Sciences taught
him chemistry, so that he might be exact in his representation of
Claes' experiments; and he read Berzelius into the bargain. Moreover,
he had revised and modified the proofs of the novel no fewer than a
dozen times.
As Werdet tells, the real work of composition, with Balzac, hardly
commenced until he had a set of galley proofs. What he sent first to
the printer, scribbled with his crow's-quill, was a mere sketch; and
the sketch itself was a sort of Chinese puzzle, largely composed of
scratched-out and interpolated sentences; passages and chapters being
moved about in a curious _chasse-croise_, which the type-setters
deciphered and arranged as they best could. Margins and inter-columnal
spaces they found covered with interpolations; a long trailing line
indicated the way here and the way there to the destination of the
inserted passages. A cobweb was regular in comparison to the task
which the printers had to tackle in the hope of finding beginning,
middle, and end. In the various presses where his books were set up,
the employees would never work longer than an hour on end at his
manuscript. And the indemnity he had to pay for corrections reached
sometimes the figure of forty francs per sixteen pages. Numerous were
the difficulties caused on this score with publishers, editors, and
printers. Balzac justified himself by quoting the examples of
Chateaubriand, Ingres, and Meyerbeer in their various arts. To Buloz,
of the _Revue de Paris_, who expostulated, he impatiently replied: "I
will give up fifty francs per sheet to have my hands free. So say no
more about the matter." It is true that Buloz paid him 250 francs per
sheet for his contributions.
Indeed, the novelist's own method of work was a reversal of the
natural alternation of regular periods of activity and repose. He not
only, as he told all his correspondents with wearisome iteration,
burned the midnight oil, but would keep up these eighteen or twenty
hours' daily labour for weeks altogether, until some novel that he was
engaged on was finished. During these spells of composing he would see
no one, read no letters, but write on and on, eating sparingly,
sipping his coffee, and refreshing his jaded anatomy by taking a bath,
in which he would lie for a whole hour, plunged in meditation. After
his voluntary seclusions, he suddenly reappeared in his usual haunts,
active and feverish as ever, note-book ready to hand, in which he
jotted down his thoughts, discoveries, and observations for future
use. On its pages were primitively outlined the features of most of
the women of his fiction.
One of these prolonged _claustrations_, in October 1834--the day was
Sunday--he interrupted by a call, most unexpected, on Werdet. His face
was sallow and gaunt with vigil. He had been stopped in the
description of a spot, he explained, by the uncertainty of his
recollections, and must go into the city in order to refresh them. So
he invited Werdet to accompany him in playing truant for the day. The
morning was spent in the slums, where he gathered the information
required; and the afternoon they whiled away in listening to a concert
at the _Conservatoire_. Here he was welcomed by the fashionables of
both sexes, notwithstanding his shabby costume, which he had donned in
view of his morning's occupation. On quitting the concert room, he
carried Werdet off to dine with him at Very's, the most expensive and
aristocratic restaurant in Paris. The place was full of guests; and
those who were in proximity to the table where the two newcomers sat
down were astounded to see the following menu ordered and practically
consumed by one man, since Werdet, being on diet, took only a soup and
a little chicken: A hundred oysters; twelve chops; a young duck; a
pair of roast partridges; a sole; hors d'oeuvre; sweets; fruit (more
than a dozen pears being swallowed); choice wines; coffee; liqueurs.
Never since Rabelais' or perhaps Louis XIV.'s time, had such a
Gargantuan appetite been witnessed. Balzac was recouping himself for
his fasting.
When the repast, lengthened out by a flow of humorous conversation,
was at length terminated, the nineteenth-century Johnson asked his
Boswell if he had any available cash, as he himself had none. Werdet
confessing only to forty francs, the novelist borrowed a five-franc
piece from him and thundered out his request for the bill. To the
waiter who presented it he handed the coin, at the same time returning
the bill with a few words scribbled at the foot. "Tell the cashier,"
he cried, "that I am Monsieur Honore de Balzac." And he stalked out
with Werdet, whilst all the diners present stared admiringly after the
great man.
But the evening was not yet finished. In the garden of the Palais-Royal,
then more frequented by society than to-day, they met Jules Sandeau
and Emile Regnault. And, as they were near a gambling-saloon, Balzac,
who had an infallible system for breaking the bank, proposed to Jules
that he should go and try his luck. A twenty-franc piece was wheedled
out of Werdet for the experiment, which proved a fiasco. Next, the
novelist, to convince his companions of the accuracy of his theory,
which he further detailed, went and borrowed forty francs from his
heraldic engraver, and sent Sandeau and Regnault into the saloon
again. Alas! fate was once more unkind. They returned minus their
money. To console themselves, they went to the Funambules Theatre, to
see Debureau act in the _Boeuf Enrage_, and Balzac laughed so loud
that he and his party had to leave the theatre. On the morrow Werdet
was called upon to pay the restaurant-keeper sixty-two francs, and to
reimburse the engraver the forty francs loan, which sums, together
with what he had himself advanced, ran Balzac's debit for the day up
to one hundred and twenty-seven francs.
In _Pere Goriot_, the publication of which came close at the heels of
the _Search for the Absolute_, Balzac traces the gradual
impoverishment of a fond father by his two daughters, married, the one
to a nobleman, the other to a banker, and whose husbands, when they
have received the marriage dowry, give their father-in-law, who is a
plebeian, the cold shoulder, and forbid their wives to see him unless
in secret. Goriot's daughters, losing in their grand surroundings the
little filial affection they ever had, exploit the old man's worship
of them shamelessly. If they visit him in the boarding-house to which
he has retired, after selling his home to endow them more richly, it
is solely to get from him for their pleasures the portion of his
wealth he has retained for his own wants. And he never refuses them,
but sells and sells, until, at last, he is reduced to lodge in the
garret of the boarding-house and eat almost the refuse of the table.
Around this tragic central figure are grouped the commensals of the
Vauquer _pension_, Rastignac, the young law-student, with shallow
purse and aristocratic connections; Bianchon, the future great-gun in
medicine, at present walking the hospitals and attending lectures and
practising dissections; Victorine Taillefer, the rejected daughter of
a guilty millionaire; Mademoiselle Michonneau, the soured spinster,
who ferrets out the identity of her fellow-boarder Vautrin, and
betrays to justice this cynical outlaw installed so quietly, and, to
all appearance, safely, in the _pension_, where Madame Vauquer, the
traipsing widow, lords it serenely, attentive only to her profits.
Of these subsidiary characters, two, Vautrin and Rastignac, furnish a
second interest in the story parallel to that of Goriot and his
daughters, and constituting a foil. Under the influence of Paris
surroundings and experience, Rastignac passes from his naive illusions
to a state of worldly wisdom, which he reaches all the more speedily
as Vautrin is at his elbow, commenting with Mephistophelian shrewdness
on his fellow-men and the society they form. Himself a man of
education, who has sunk from high to low and is branded with the
convict's mark, Vautrin is yet capable of affection of a certain kind;
but, in the mind and heart of the youth he would fain advantage, he is
capable only of inculcating the law of tooth and claw. "A rapid
fortune is the problem that fifty thousand young men are at present
trying to solve who find themselves in your position," he says to
Rastignac. "You are a single one among this number. Judge of the
efforts you have to make and of the desperateness of the struggle. You
must devour each other like spiders in a pot, seeing there are not
fifty thousand good places. Do you know how one gets on here? By the
brilliance of genius or the adroitness of corruption one must enter
the mass of men like a cannon-ball, or slip into it like the plague.
Honesty is of no use." Having a tempter about him of Vautrin's
calibre, strong, undauntable, as humorous as Dickens' Jingle, but
infinitely more unscrupulous and dangerous, Rastignac is gained over,
in spite of his first repulsion. The nursing and burying of Pere
Goriot are his last acts of charity accorded to the claims of his
higher nature, and even these are sullied by his relations with one of
Goriot's daughters. Standing on the cemetery heights, and looking down
towards the Seine and the Vendome column, he flings a defiance to the
society spread beneath him, the society he despises but still wishes
to conquer.
In this novel many social grades are gathered together, and the
reciprocal actions of their representative members are rendered with
effective contrast and a good deal of dramatic quickness. The chief
theme, though so painful, is developed with less strain and monotony
than in some other of the novelist's works by reason of a larger
application, conscious or unconscious, of Shakespeare's practice of
intermingling the humorous with the tragic. Even the comic is not
entirely absent, Madame Vauquer especially supplying interludes. The
novelist himself chuckled as he put into her mouth a mispronunciation
of the word _tilleul_,[*] and explained to Madame Hanska, whose
foreign accent in speaking French suggested it, that he chose the fat
landlady so that Eve should not be jealous.
[*] English linden, or lime-tree.
Balzac's too great absorption in his writing forced him more than once
in this year to go into the country and recuperate his health. During
the earlier months he spent a short time with the Carrauds at
Frapesle, which was a favourite sojourn of his, and, later on, at
Sache, a pleasant retreat in his native Touraine. His iron
constitution was not able always to resist the demands continually
made upon it; and his abuse of coffee only aggravated the evil. To
Laure he acknowledged, while at Sache, that this beverage refused to
excite his brain for any time longer than a fortnight; and even the
fortnight was paid for by horrible cramps in the stomach, followed by
fits of depression, which he suffered when suddenly deprived of his
beloved drink. In his _Treatise of Modern Stimulants_ he describes its
peculiar operation upon himself. "This coffee," he says, "falls into
your stomach, and straightway there is a general commotion. Ideas
begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army on the
battlefield, and the battle takes place. Things remembered arrive full
gallop, ensign to the wind. The light cavalry of comparisons deliver a
magnificent, deploying charge; the artillery of logic hurry up with
their train and ammunition; the shafts of wit start up like
sharp-shooters. Similes arise; the paper is covered with ink; for the
struggle commences and is concluded with torrents of black water, just
as a battle with powder."
When he tells us how Doctor Minoret, Ursule Mirouet's guardian, used
to regale his friends with a cup of Moka mixed with Bourbon coffee,
and roasted Martinique, which the Doctor insisted on personally
preparing in a silver coffee-pot, it is his own custom that he is
detailing. His Bourbon he bought only in the Rue Mont Blanc (now the
Chaussee d'Antin), the Martinique, in the Rue des Vieilles Audriettes,
the Moka at a grocer's in the Rue de l'Universite. It was half a day's
journey to fetch them.
The _Tigers_ or _Lions_, of the Loge Infernale at the Opera, have
already been spoken of. It was in this year that Balzac, as belonging
to the Club, gave a dinner to its members, the chief guest being
Rossini. Nodier, Sandeau, Bohain, and the witty Lautour-Mezeray were
also present. He doubtless wore on the occasion his coat of broadcloth
blue, made by his tailor-friend Buisson, with its gold buttons
engraved by Gosselin, his jeweller and goldsmith. On his waistcoat of
white English _pique_ twined and glittered the thousand links of the
slender chain of Venice gold. Black trousers, with footstraps, showing
his calves to advantage, patent-leather boots, and his wonderful
stick, which inspired Madame Delphine Gay to write a book, completed
the equipment.
This stick was certainly in existence in 1834, being mentioned in the
correspondence with Madame Hanska during that year. Werdet, however,
connects its origin with the novelist's imprisonment, two years later,
in the Hotel de Bazancourt, popularly known as the Hotel des Haricots,
which was used for confining those citizens who did not comply with
Louis-Philippe's law enrolling them in the National Guard and ordering
them to take their turn in night-patrol of the city. Balzac was
incurably recalcitrant. Nothing would induce him to encase himself in
the uniform and serve; and, whenever the soldiers came for him, he
bribed them to let him alone. Finally, these bribes failed of their
effect, and an arrest-warrant was issued against him. In his ordinary
correspondence two experiences of his being in durance vile at the
Hotel des Haricots are mentioned, one in March 1835, another in August
1836. The latter of these is differently dated in the _Letters to the
Stranger_, the end of April being given, unless, indeed, there were
two confinements close together, which is hardly probable. What is
most likely is, that Werdet has confused two things, the story of the
lock of hair, properly belonging to 1836, and the making of the stick,
which belongs to 1834. Here is his narration:--
The publisher one day received a note requesting him to go at once to
the prison and to take with him some money. He went with two hundred
francs, and found Balzac, in his Dominican's dress, installed in a
small cell on the third story, busily engaged in arranging papers.
Part of the money brought was utilized to order a succulent dinner,
which Werdet stayed and shared in the smoky refectory below. Both
prisoner and visitor were very merry until the door opened and Eugene
Sue, the popular novelist, entered, himself also a victim of the
conscription law. Invited to join in the meal, Sue declined, saying
that his valet and his servant were shortly to bring him his dinner.
This repulse damped Balzac's spirits until the arrival of a third
victim, the Count de Lostange, chief editor of the _Quotidienne_, who
sat down willingly to table. Then Balzac forgot Sue's rudeness, and
the mirth was resumed. Notwithstanding the efforts of the novelist's
influential friends, the Count de Lobau, who was responsible for the
arrest, showed himself inexorable, and a second day was spent in
captivity, which Werdet came again towards evening to enliven. A whole
pile of perfumed epistles sent by feminine sympathizers was lying on
the table, and the publisher had to open them and read them aloud to
his companion. When a third day's confinement was decided on by the
authorities, Werdet arranged to celebrate it by a dinner that should
merit being put on record. He therefore secured the presence of some
intimates of the novelist, among them being Gustave Planche and
Alphonse Karr; and at 5 P.M., eight people were assembled in the cell,
with Auguste, Balzac's valet, to serve them. The restaurant-keeper
Chevet's menu of exquisite dishes was suitably moistened with
excellent champagne sent by a Countess, and, when the feast was in
full progress, Balzac took a scented parcel from among his presents
and asked permission to open it. The authorization being granted, he
undid the parcel, and disclosed a mass of long, fair, silky hair
threaded into a gold ring that was set with an emerald. On the gift
was an inscription in English: _From an unknown friend_. A great
discussion ensued. One irreverent speaker opined that the thing was a
hoax, and that the hair had come from a wig-maker's; but his blasphemy
was shouted down. Another proposed that Balzac should cut off his own
long, flat locks (it was in 1834 that he began to let them grow) and
should send them addressed to the Unknown Fair One. Poste Restante.
But this suggestion, too, was not approved. The locks were proclaimed
to be national property, and to be cut off only by the passing of a
special law. Next, the ring was discussed; and here it was that
Balzac, struck with a brilliant idea, announced his intention of
ordering Gosselin, the goldsmith, to manufacture a marvellous hollow
stick-knob in which a lock of the blond hair should be inserted, and
all over the top of the knob were to be fixed diamonds, sapphires,
emeralds, topazes, rubies, chosen out of the many he had had given him
by his rich lady-enthusiasts. On the morrow, he was released, after
spending, during the few days he had been locked up, five hundred and
seventy francs in refreshment for himself and visitors.