THE CHASE FOR GOLD.
“Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ est.”—SENECA, _De
Tranquillitate Animi_, c. 15.
From Balzac’s early manhood his entire existence was consumed in a
feverish pursuit of wealth; and had the mines of California been
discovered at an earlier date, there is little doubt that he would have
exchanged his pen for a pick, and sought, in a red shirt, to realize
the millions with which he dowered his characters.
At the outset of his career, he was, as has been seen, unsuccessful in
a business enterprise, and became, in consequence, heavily involved in
debt. This spectre of the past haunted him so continually that it not
only found frequent expression in his writings, in which money became a
hymn, but it brought to him illusions and projects of fortune which
were at once curious and fantastic.
At one time, shortly after the publication of “Facino Cane,”—who, it
will be remembered, was imprisoned in the dungeons of Venice, and, in
making his escape, discovered the hidden treasures of the Doges, which
he proposed to seek and share with his biographer,—Balzac became
fairly intoxicated with the delusions of his hero, and his dreams of
secreted wealth assumed such a semblance of reality that he at last
imagined, or pretended that he had learned, the exact spot where
Toussaint Louverture had buried his famous booty.
“‘The Gold Bug’ of Edgar Poe,” Gautier writes, “did not equal in
delicacy of induction and clearness of detail his feverish recital of
the proposed expedition by which we were to become masters of a
treasure far richer than Kidd’s.”
“Sandeau was as easily seduced as myself. It was necessary that Balzac
should have two robust and devoted accomplices, and, in exchange for
our assistance, he was good enough to offer to each of us a quarter of
the prodigious fortune. Half was to be his, by right of conquest. It
was arranged that we were to purchase spades and picks, place them
secretly in a ship, and, to avoid suspicion, reach the designated spot
by different roads, and then, after having disinterred the treasure, we
were to embark with it on a brig freighted in advance. In short, it was
a real romance, which would have been admirable had it been written
instead of recited. It is of course unnecessary to add that the booty
was not unearthed. We discovered that we had no money to pay our
traveling expenses, and our united capital was insufficient to purchase
even the spades.”
At another time Balzac conceived the project of manufacturing paper
from a substance which was at once cheap and plentiful. Experiments,
however, proved that his plan was impracticable, and a friend who
called to console him found that, instead of being dejected, he was
even more jovial than ever.
“Never mind about the paper,” he said. “I have a better scheme yet.”
It was this: While reading Tacitus, he had stumbled upon a reference to
the mines of Sardinia; his imagination, aided by his scientific
knowledge, carried him back to the imperfect mechanical processes of
old Rome, and he saw at once a vision of wealth, awaiting only modern
appliances to be his own. With the greatest difficulty he
collected—partly from his mother, partly from his cousin, and partly
from that aunt whom the Anglo-Saxon Bohemian has converted into an
uncle—the sum of five hundred francs; and then, having reached Genoa,
he embarked for Alghiero, explaining his project to the captain of the
vessel with the candor of an infant.
Once in Sardinia, dressed like a beggar,—a terror to brigands and
monks,—he sought the mines on foot. They were easily found. With a few
specimens of the ore, he returned immediately to Paris, where an
analysis showed them to contain a large proportion of silver. Jubilant
with success, he would then have applied to the Italian government for
a concession of the mines, but unfortunately he was, for the moment,
detained by lawsuits and other business, and when he at last set out
for Milan it was too late. The perfidious captain had thought the idea
so good that, without preliminary examinations, he had lost no time in
securing an authorization in due form, and was then quietly proceeding
to make a fortune.
“There is a million in the mines,” Balzac wrote to his sister. “A
Marseilles firm has assayed the scoriæ, but the delay has been fatal.
The Genoese captain has already obtained a contract from the
government. However, I have another idea, which is even better; this
time there will be no Genoese. I am already consoled.”
After having read “Venice Preserved” and admired the union of Pierre
and Jaffier, Balzac says that he began to consider the peculiar virtues
of those who are thrown outside of the social order,—the honesty of
the galleys, the fidelity of robbers, and the privileges of that
enormous power which these men obtain in fusing all ideas into one
supreme will,—and concluded that, man being greater than men, society
should belong entirely to those whose brilliancy, intelligence, and
wealth could be joined in a fanaticism warm enough to melt their
different forces into a single jet. An occult power of this
description, he argued, would be the master of society; it would
reverse obstacles, enchain desires, and give to one the superhuman
power of all; it would be a world within a world, admitting none of its
ideas, recognizing none of its laws; it would be a league of
filibusters in yellow gloves and dogcarts, who could at all times be
ready to devote themselves in their entirety to any one among them who
should require their united aid.
This novel conception was not only the motif of the “Histoire des
Treize,” but no sooner was the book completed than Balzac, in
accordance with his mania for living his characters, attempted to
reproduce it in real life,—or rather, in the other life, for his true
world was the one which he carried in his brain,—and without
difficulty recruited for this purpose Jules Sandeau, Léon Gozlan,
Laurent Jan, Gérard de Nerval, Merle, Alphonse Karr, and Granier de
Cassagnac.
The aim of the association, which he explained with that tumultuous
eloquence for which he was famous and which silenced every objection,
was simply to grasp the leading-strings of the principal newspapers,
invade the theatres, take seats in the Académie, and become
millionaires and peers of France. When any one of them produced a book
or a play, the others were to write about it, talk about it, and
advertise it generally, until its success was assured; and as nothing
succeeds like success, a good commencement was all that was needed to
insure an easy and glorious ascent.
The project was enthusiastically received and unanimously approved. The
society was entitled the “Cheval Rouge,” and Balzac was elected chief.
In order to avoid suspicion, it was agreed that in public the members
should not appear to know each other, and Karr relates that for a long
time Balzac would pretend, whenever he saw him, that they met for the
first time, and would communicate with him only in an actor’s aside.
The meetings of the society were pre-arranged by the chief. The notices
consisted of a card, on which was painted a red horse, and the words,
stable, such a day, such a place; in order to make it still more
fantastic, the place was changed each time.
This project, which of course resulted in nothing, and which was soon
abandoned, was none the less practicable, and minus the mysterious
farce with which it was surrounded has since, in many instances, been
put into successful operation.
Through one of those psychical phenomena which generate within us a
diversity of sentiment while uniting their contradictory elements,
Balzac was tortured by a combined distaste and affection for
journalism. It possessed a morbid attraction for him; and while he
execrated the entire profession, he longed none the less for an
editor’s chair, from which he could bombard his enemies at his ease,
and glean at the same time the rich harvest which a successful review
invariably produces.
The foundation of a journal, however, is money, more money, always
money; and Balzac, who was rich only in unrecognized audacity and
unquoted talent, after having tried in every way to acquire the
necessary capital, was about to abandon his scheme as hopeless, when
Providence in the form of a young man passed the sentries and entered
his room.
“M. de Balzac?”
And Balzac, to whom every stranger was a dun, replied, “It is, sir, and
it is not; it depends.”
“I am looking for the author of ‘La Peau de Chagrin.’”
“Ah! then, I am he.”
“Sir,” said the youth, “I understand that you are about to edit a
journal, and I have come to ask for the position of theatrical critic.
I would also like to write the fashion article.”
Balzac, furious at the intrusion and indignant at the youth’s
proposition to collaborate in a journal whose appearance was prevented
by lack of funds, was about to order the young man out, when he
suddenly noticed that he was clothed in the most expensive manner.
“May I ask whom I have the honor of addressing?” inquired the ogre,
with his most seductive smile.
“I am the son of M. Chose, the banker.”
Balzac became very fascinating. “I thought so,—I thought so from the
first; you look like him. Will you not sit down? As we were saying, I
am about to edit the ‘Chronique de Paris,’ whose appearance, so
impatiently awaited, I have delayed only that its success might be the
better assured. And did I understand you to say that you would like to
take charge of the theatrical criticisms?”
“Yes, indeed, sir, if you think me capable.”
“Capable? Do I think you capable? Why, all the more capable, as it is
unusual for a banker’s son to wish to enter a purely literary
association. The blood of a financier is seldom inclined to”...
“I do not care for letters of credit, M. de Balzac. I care for
_letters_, simply.”
“Adorable witticism!” cried Balzac, illuminated with hope. “And you
care, then, for literature, in spite of the immense fortune which you
enjoy?”
“I expect ten millions more,” interrupted the youth.
“Ten millions!”
“Rather more than less, M. de Balzac.”
“Nothing could be better or more opportune,” smiled this courtesan of
wealth, reduced to adulating an idiot. “I was just wondering whom I
should select. The position is yours. No, no; it is for me to thank
you. My best regards to your dear father.”
The youth had barely turned the corner when Balzac hastily summoned the
members of the “Cheval Rouge.”
“At last I have a capitalist!” he cried. “He has promised nothing, it
is true, but I have reason to believe that, properly managed, he will
invest anywhere from a hundred thousand up. He is an idiot, the son of
Chose the banker. He wants to be dramatic critic, and that means money,
simply money, and lots of it. But,” he continued, “the affair cannot be
arranged without a subtle preparation and solemn initiation, and
preparation and initiation mean _dinner_. It is at a dinner, not frugal
but sumptuous, adorned with a garland of editors and critics, each more
seductive than the other, that the alliance of your intelligence and
the money of my imbecile will be consummated; and then, with the
champagne in his throat, he will tell us how much he proposes to pour
into the till of the ‘Chronique de Paris.’ It has not got one yet, to
be sure, but we will buy one as soon as he furnishes the money.”
“But there will be about twenty of us,” objected de Nerval, “and the
dinner will cost at least four hundred francs. Where are they? Have you
got them?”
“No, but I will find them,” Balzac answered, with a magnificent
gesture. “It is not a question of a dinner in a restaurant, for that
would smack of the adventurer a mile away; and besides, there of course
you pay cash. The banquet shall be served here, and on credit. We have
only to inspire some caterer with sufficient confidence.”
“Charming,” said Merle, as he looked about the poorly furnished
apartment; “but how is that sufficiency of confidence to be inspired?”
After innumerable propositions had been discussed and rejected, Balzac
discovered that Granier de Cassagnac had a service of silver in pawn
for eight hundred francs, and prevailed on Gautier to borrow a like
amount, disengage the silver, which, negligently exposed on Balzac’s
table, would inspire confidence in any caterer; promising that after
the dinner the silver should be immediately repawned and the loan
repaid.
“My plan is triumphant!” he exclaimed; “the money is ours. To-morrow we
will liberate the silver. Tuesday, conference with the caterer.
Wednesday, invitation on vellum launched at our young capitalist; the
same evening, solemn engagement on his part to invest, accompanied on
ours by the most hilarious toasts. Thursday, contract drawn by a notary
and signed by the delicate hand of our millionaire. Friday, reunion and
tea, to read over the prospectus, which I will compose. Saturday,
colossal advertisement on every wall, monument, and column; and the
week after, brilliant apparition on the Parisian horizon of the first
number. Soldiers! to arms!”
This programme, joyously arranged, was fearlessly carried out. The
silver was liberated, the caterer inspired with confidence, the
invitation accepted, and after a sumptuous repast Balzac, glass in
hand, arose and addressed the company as follows:—
“Gentlemen, you are all aware of the object for which we have assembled
this evening about the liberal and gracious guest here seated at my
right. It is the creation of a publication destined to assume, thanks
to him and to his munificent intelligence, an unexceptionable position
among the reviews of the century. Although I have not, to my great
regret, been possessed of sufficient leisure to cultivate as I should
have desired this rare intelligence, which has been called not only to
fecundate our own, but also to assist us in spreading the fruits of our
genius over a world which awaits them, and which, I may confidently
state, would never know them save for the generous and effective
assistance of our guest, I may nevertheless be permitted to say to what
extent he has, in momentary confidences, permitted me to foresee
treasuries of encouragement and rich rewards. I do not fear, therefore,
to say that the ‘Chronique de Paris’ will owe to him its existence, its
splendor, and its popularity. Were my emotion not so great and so real,
I would speak at greater length of the future of our cherished and
illustrious publication; but I prefer, in begging you, in honor of our
guest, to join your toasts to mine, to leave the floor to him, that he
may explain what in his generosity he proposes to do for the ‘Chronique
de Paris,’ at once happy and proud to possess him as protector and
patron.”
Then, lowering his voice to one of simple politeness, Balzac turned to
his guest, and said, “Be good enough, my dear young friend, to explain
what your liberal intentions are.”
“Gentlemen,” the banker’s son replied, “I will talk it over with papa.”
Balzac grew white as the table-cloth, but, magnificent in his defeat,
hardly had the pseudo-capitalist disappeared than he exclaimed, with an
accent which might have unsettled destiny itself, “It is daylight; let
us repawn the silver!”[20]
Partly for the sake of solitude, and partly to affect, for business
purposes, an appearance of luxury, Balzac, in 1837, built a villa at
Ville d’Avray, which he named Les Jardies, as a reminiscence of the
days when Louis XIV. lounged at Versailles.
It consisted of but three rooms, or rather three stories. The ground
floor, the _rez-de-chaussée_, was the reception-room, the second the
study, and the third the bedroom.
When the architect’s plan was first submitted, the staircase greatly
interfered with the dimensions of the rooms, and Balzac, exasperated at
this impertinence, ordered it out of the house, and caused it, by way
of punishment, to climb in spiral solitude about the outer wall.
This little eccentricity gave to his parrot’s cage the appearance of
having been transplanted from some old Hanseatic or Flemish town, and
satisfied at the same time his proprietary pride.
At a little distance was another habitation, in which the kitchen and
servants’ rooms were situated; and the whole establishment was
surrounded by a high wall, which, being built on the incline of a
hillock, was devastated by every storm, and fell five times into his
neighbor’s grounds; until Balzac, wearied by constant summons and
complaints, bought the surrounding property, that his cherished wall
might lie at ease where it chose.
The interior of Les Jardies was fully in keeping with the character of
its owner. The reception-room was but scantily furnished, and the bare
walls were ornamented with a promise of Gobelin tapestry traced in
charcoal.
On the ceiling was written, “Fresco by Delacroix.” On the wall of his
study he wrote, “Here is a regal Venetian mirror,” while a corner of
his bedroom assured the visitor that he was looking at one of Raphael’s
priceless Madonnas.
In this way Balzac furnished his home with magnificent dreams, while he
dined, perhaps, as did that creation of Dickens, who cut his bread into
imaginary omelets, and sliced it into tenderloins.
Before Balzac’s advent, the plot of ground on which Les Jardies was
built had been a vineyard, on which the warm sun had lain all day, and
ripened the clustering grapes. The knowledge of this fact preoccupied
him greatly. If grapes had grown there, he argued, why should not
anything else? Why should not pine-apples?
Now pine-apples were dear in Paris, costing from ten to fifteen francs
apiece; and no sooner did this idea present itself than it was
grappled, seized, and caressed by Balzac, who immediately saw an annual
harvest of an hundred thousand pine-apples, which had bloomed in
hot-houses as yet unbuilt.
These pine-apples would, he thought, sell at least for five francs
apiece; the attendant expenses could not be over a hundred thousand
francs; and by a simple mathematical process, with which no one was
more familiar, he foresaw a princely revenue of four hundred thousand
francs more.
These four hundred thousand francs danced with such charm and grace
before him that he lost no time in looking for a shop in which to sell
his unplanted fruit. He soon found a suitable one on the Boulevard
Montmartre, which he would have immediately hired, painted in black and
yellow, and decorated with an enormous sign, bearing for epigraph
Pine-apples from Les Jardies, had he not been forcibly dissuaded by
friends less enthusiastic than he.
In this way scheme succeeded scheme, and one project was abandoned only
for another. His latest idea he always considered his best, unless he
was agreed with, when he would reverse all his arguments to prove that
a precedent one was better still. At one time he thought that through a
mathematical combination he had discovered a system which would enable
him to break the bank at Baden; at another he proposed to cut down a
forest in Poland, and supply Paris with timber, and would have done so
had not his brother-in-law proved to him that the expenses for
transportation would far exceed any possible profit.
To make money, to become a millionaire, and to lead the life of a
prince was his constant aim and ambition.
“The life of an artist,” he said, “should be a succession of
splendors;” and while he detested Dumas, he secretly admired his
Oriental magnificence and envied his prodigal luxury. But while the
firm of Dumas and Company was manufacturing novels by the dozen, Balzac
was engaged in weighing a phrase and occupied with its corrections;
while Dumas never so much as glanced at the proof-sheets of his
feuilletons, Balzac’s were not only carefully corrected, but the
attendant expenses were, by agreement, charged to him; and where, as in
the case of “Pierrette,” he was obliged to pay for the corrections
three hundred francs more than he received for the story itself, it
will be readily understood that the amounts which he earned by his pen
were not always as satisfactory as could have been desired.
In this respect, however, it should be stated that while the money
which he earned in his later years was out of all proportion to that
which he at first received, yet, in the mean time, some few debts had
necessarily accumulated, and his income, consequently reduced, averaged
at best not more than ten or twelve thousand francs.
The history of his financial troubles, and of that which he laughingly
termed his floating debt, can best be found in his correspondence,
which, ranging from his twentieth year to but a few days prior to his
death, contains many details of the thirty years’ war which he waged
with poverty; and his letters, while interesting in their account of
his transient successes, attendant struggles, defeats, and final
victory, will convince even the prejudiced reader, that the writer was,
in the first place, a man of the strictest integrity; for it may be
said, without exaggeration, that the better part of his life was passed
in attempting to satisfy that necessity whose earthly representatives
are creditors; secondly, that his morals were perfectly pure, for he
loved and reverenced women with that _amor intellectualis_ which made
chastity to him one of those graces which are superfluities to the
vulgar and necessities to the re-fined; and thirdly, that his heart,
which was as great as his brain, was yet too full of affection, for
those whom he loved to harbor malice against his detractors and
persecutors.
The earliest of these letters, the majority of which are addressed to
his sister, or to Madame Zulma Carraud, one of her intimate friends,
are mere descriptions of his life and poverty, and are expressed with
the smiling indifference of youth, to whom the shadows of the future
are yet vague and distant.
“Since you are so much interested in all that I do,” he wrote from
Paris to his sister, in 1819, “you must know that last night I slept
magnificently; and how could I do otherwise? I dreamed of you, of
mother, of my loves, of my hopes, and now, on awakening, I give you my
earliest thoughts. I must tell you, in the first place, that that
wretch, Myself, becomes more and more negligent. He goes but twice a
week for provisions, and then, being economical even of his steps,
always to the nearest, and consequently to the worst, shops in the
neighborhood; hence, your brother, destined to such celebrity, is
already nourished like any other great man, which means that he is
dying of hunger.”
To his sister, in the following year, he wrote,—
“I feel to-day that wealth does not constitute happiness, and that my
life here will be to me always a source of the sweetest remembrances.
To live as I choose; to work when I will, and after my own manner; to
do nothing, even, if I so desire; to fall asleep in a beautiful future;
to think of you, and to know that you are happy; to possess the Julie
of Rousseau for mistress, La Fontaine and Molière for friends, Racine
for master, and Père-Lachaise for promenade!... Oh, could it but last
forever!”
And a little later,—
“I have just returned from Père-Lachaise, where I have been inhaling
magnificent inspirations. Decidedly, the only beautiful epitaphs are
such as these, _La Fontaine_, _Molière_, _Masséna_,—a single name
which tells all, and makes the passer dream!”...
The next year he wrote,—
“DEAR SISTER,—I am going to work like the horse of Henri IV. before it
was cast in bronze; and this year I hope to make the twenty thousand
francs which are to commence my fortune. I have a quantity of novels
and dramas to prepare.... In a little while there will be, between the
me of to-day and the me of to-morrow, the difference that exists
between the boy of twenty and the man of thirty. I reflect; my ideas
ripen; and I see that in giving to me the heart and head which I
possess Nature has treated me with favor. Believe in me, dear sister;
for while I do not despair of being something, some day, I yet have
need of a believer. I see now that ‘Cromwell’ had not even the merit of
an embryo. As to my novels, they are as poor as the devil, though not
half so seductive.”
But when, later on, at the age of twenty-seven, Balzac found himself
without position, without a profession, entirely unknown, without
resources, and burdened, moreover, with a debt of 120,000 francs,—the
result of his disastrous experience as printer and publisher,—he had
but his pen with which to conquer poverty and combat the world. His
family had no faith in him; they had sunk a large sum in his
enterprise; he was friendless, and his genius was entirely
unrecognized; and it is at once curious and pathetic to note through
the rest of his correspondence the continued recurrence and repetition
of his dream of prospective fortune and freedom from debt.
His first letters after his disaster are profoundly sad: in one he
wrote to his sister,—
“I must live without asking aid of any one. I must live to work, that I
may repay you all; but shall I be able to live long enough to pay my
debts of love and gratitude as well?”
To the Duchesse d’Abrantès, in the same year, he wrote,—
“I wonder if you have ever experienced the extent to which misfortunes
develop within us the terrible faculty of breasting a tempest, and of
opposing to adversity an immobile calm.
“As for myself, I have acquired the habit of smiling at the torments of
fate,—torments that still continue.
“I am old in suffering, but my light-hearted appearance offers no
criterion of my age. I have never been otherwise; I have been always
bent beneath a terrible weight. Nothing can give you an idea of the
life which I have led, nor of my astonishment at having nothing but
fortune to combat.
“Were you to inquire about me, you would be unable to obtain any
insight to the nature of my misfortunes; but then you know there are
those who die without any apparent disease....
“I have undertaken two books at a time, to say nothing of a number of
articles. The days evaporate in my hands like ice in the sunlight. I do
not live; I waste away; but death from work or from any other cause
amounts to the same thing in the end.... I sleep from six in the
evening until midnight, and then I work for sixteen hours. I have but
one hour of liberty, and that during dinner. I have sworn to owe
nothing, and though I die like a dog my courage will support me to the
end.”
In 1831, he wrote to the same lady,—
“You do not know that in 1828 I had but my pen with which to live and
pay off 120,000 francs. In a few months I shall be free from debt, and
be able to arrange a comfortable home. During the next six months,
therefore, I shall enjoy my last miseries. I have asked aid from no
one. I have never stretched my hand, either for a page or a sou. I have
hidden my griefs and my wounds, and you who know how difficult it is to
make money with the pen will, with your feminine glance, be able to
sound the depths of the abyss which I disclose to you, and by the side
of which I have marched without falling.”
In the following year, he wrote to his mother,—
“Sooner or later, literature, politics, journalism, marriage, or some
good speculation will make my fortune.”
And later on,—
“Thank you, my sister; you have restored to me that energy which has
been my sole support. Yes, you are right. I will not stop; I will
continue to advance, and some day you will see mine counted among the
great names of our country.... My books are the only replies which I
shall make to those who commence to attack me. Do not let their
criticisms annoy you: they are the best of auguries; mediocrity is
never discussed. Tell my mother that I love her as I did when a child.
The tears fall from my eyes as I write these lines,—tears of
tenderness and of despair, for I feel my future near at hand, and in my
days of triumph my mother will be a necessity. When will they come? As
to you and to your husband, I can only hope that you will never doubt
my heart, and if I do not write to you let your tenderness be
indulgent. Do not misjudge my silence, but say, rather, ‘He thinks of
us, he is speaking to us;’ for, after my long meditations and
overwhelming duties, I rest in your hearts as in some delicious spot
where there is no pain.”
In the same year, from Aix, he wrote to his mother,—
“I shall not return to Paris until all my engagements are fulfilled;
when I do so everything will have been paid off.”
In 1833, to Madame Carraud,—
“My life is mechanically changed. I go to sleep with the chickens and
am called at one in the morning. I then work until eight o’clock, sleep
for an hour, and at nine I take a cup of pure coffee, and remain in
harness until four. I then take a bath, and go out, and after dinner
return to bed. Profit is slow, and debts are inexorable, but I am
certain now of immense wealth. I have but to wait and work for three
years.”
In the following year, he wrote,—
“The fiascos of the ‘Médecin de Campagne’ and ‘Louis Lambert’ have
affected me deeply, but I am resolved that nothing shall discourage me.
After the 1st of August I think that I shall be free.”
And later on, in the same year,—
“If I but live, I shall have a beautiful position, and we will all be
happy. Let us laugh then still, my sweet sister; the house of Balzac
will triumph yet.”
To his mother he wrote,—
“The day when we shall all be happy rapidly approaches. I begin to
gather the fruit of the sacrifices which I made for the sake of future
prosperity. In a few months I will bring to you the ease and comfort
which you need.... Oh, my dear mother, you will yet live to see my
beautiful future; for, in the end, everything must bend beneath the
work of him who loves you, and is your devoted son.”
In 1835 he wrote to Werdet, his publisher,—
“Some day,—and that day rapidly advances,—we shall both have made our
fortune; and the sight of our carriages meeting in the Bois will make
our enemies swoon with envy.”
To his mother, in the same year, he wrote,—
“Do not be vexed at my silence. I not only have a great deal to do, but
I work twenty-one hours and a half daily. A letter is not only a loss
of money, but an hour’s sleep and a drop of blood.”
To Madame Hanska he wrote,—
“That you may know the extent of my courage, I must tell you that the
‘Secret des Ruggieri’ was written in one night, ‘La Vieille Fille’ in
three, and ‘La Perle Brisée,’ which terminates ‘L’Enfant Maudit,’ was
composed in a few hours of mental and physical agony. It is my Brienne,
my Champaubert, my Montmirail. It is my campaign in France.”
And to Madame Carraud,—
“I sleep but five hours, and work eighteen. I shall purchase the
Grenadière,[21] and pay my debts. I need at least a year to be
completely free from debt, but the happiness of owing nothing, which I
thought impossible, is no longer a chimera.”
In October, 1836, he wrote to Madame Hanska,—
“You do not know the depths of my grief, nor the sombre courage which
accompanies the second great defeat which I have experienced.[22] The
first occurred when I was barely twenty-nine; and then I had an angel
at my side.[23] To-day I am too old to inspire a sentiment of
inoffensive protection.... I am overcome, but not conquered. My courage
yet remains.... During the past month, I have worked from midnight
until six in the evening; and while I have observed the strictest diet,
that my brain might not be troubled by the fatigue of digestion,
nevertheless, I not only suffer from indescribable weaknesses, but I
also experience nervous attacks of the most singular character. I
sometimes lose the sense of verticality, and even in bed it seems as
though my head fell to the right or to the left; and when I attempt to
get up I am as though weighed down by an enormous burden, which seems
to be in my brain. I understand now how Pascal’s absolute continence
and excessive brain work caused him continually to see an abyss about
him, and obliged him to sit between two chairs.... But if I do not
succumb in the mean time, two years of work will suffice for the
payment of everything.”
To the same lady, two years later, he wrote,—
“I am thirty-nine years old, and I owe two hundred thousand francs.
Belgium has stolen a million from me.”[24]
In 1838 he wrote to Madame Carraud,—
“I have greater faith than ever in my work. I have been offered twenty
thousand francs for a play. Hereafter, I shall devote my time to the
theatre; books no longer pay.... You have no idea how happy I shall be
in a few years. My gains will be enormous.”
A few months later he wrote,—
“My debts and money troubles are the same as ever, but my courage has
redoubled with the decrease of my desires.... I hope to remain here[25]
for three or four months, and then, if my plays succeed, it may be that
over and above my debts I shall have gained sufficient capital to
supply my daily bread, my flowers, and my fruits. The rest, perhaps,
will come with time.”
Continually overthrown, but never conquered, in his letters during the
next eight years he seems to breathe the delicious idea of De Custine,
that hope is the imagination of those who are unhappy. In May, 1846,
however, he wrote to his sister,—
“A series of terrible and unbelievable disasters have happened to me. I
am entirely without money, and am being sued by those who were friendly
to me.... I shall have to work eighteen hours a day.”
These terrible and unbelievable disasters were the result of a debt of
ten thousand francs, which he owed to William Duckett, the editor of
the “Dictionnaire de la Conversation,” who, being in difficulties
himself, was obliged not only to sue Balzac, but to obtain an order for
his arrest. Balzac, however, was not to be found. No trace of him was
to be had at Passy, nor at any of his several habitations, which,
though secret to the world at large, were necessarily known to the
police. One day, however, a woman, whose advances to Balzac had not
been met with that degree of cordiality which she had doubtless
expected, called upon Duckett, and told him that Balzac was to be found
at the residence of Madame Visconti, on the Champs-Élysées.
In an hour the house was surrounded, and Balzac, interrupted in the
middle of a chapter, was informed that a cab awaited him at the door.
Madame Visconti, with a hospitality which was simply royal, asked the
amount of the debt, and paid the ten thousand francs on the spot. A few
days later Balzac wrote to Madame Hanska,—
“You can form no idea of the life of a hunted hare which I have led.
Two years of calm and tranquillity are absolutely necessary to soothe
my spirit, worn by sixteen years of successive catastrophes. I am
tired, very tired, of this incessant struggle. My last debts are more
irksome than all the others which I have paid.”
But now in regard to these debts, to the payment of which he seems to
have devoted his life, it is only natural to ask in what they consisted
and whence they came: for they became as famous as Balzac himself; they
followed him about like a glittering retinue, and found their way not
only into his correspondence, but into his romances, and supplied him
with a subject of conversation of which he never tired.
Balzac, as has been seen, wished to be considered as much of a Monte
Cristo as Dumas himself, and could not, without causing his pen to
blush, permit it to be believed that he did not extract from his books
the same magnificent harvest which was annually reaped by his rival.
The debt of 120,000 francs which had crippled his early manhood was,
with his habitual probity, soon wiped out; but the remembrance of it
remained, and this remembrance, joined to the annoyance caused by a few
creditors, suggested an innocent deceit which would explain why he did
not live in a palace and enjoy the splendors of a literary monarch. He
imagined, therefore, and caused it to be understood that he was not
only immensely in debt, but that the sums which he owed were fabulous;
and he talked of them, wrote of them, and increased them to such an
extent that it was not long before they became even more celebrated
than the prodigalities of his confrère.
His debts, however, both real and imaginary, were finally paid, and
their liquidation was the climax of the solitary romance of his life.
About the year 1835, he became acquainted with the Countess Hanska, a
Polish lady, of great beauty and immense wealth, whose husband was an
invalid. It has been stated—on what authority it has been difficult to
discover—that when she accidentally met the author of the “Comédie
Humaine” her emotion was so great that she lost consciousness. The
better opinion, however, would be that a correspondence, begun on her
side after the publication of the “Médecin de Campagne,” a work which
she greatly admired, was continued for a number of years before they
finally met. Balzac paid several visits to her Polish estates, and it
is probable that she frequently came to Paris. After her husband’s
death marriage was naturally thought of, but for the time being there
were many obstacles: Balzac’s pecuniary position was most unfortunate,
while she, as a Russian subject, was not in a position to marry
off-hand.
The winter of 1848, as well as the spring of the following year, Balzac
passed at Vierzschovnia, with Madame Hanska and her children. He was
wretchedly ill, and the physicians had forbidden any kind of mental
labor. Incessant work and the abuse of coffee had seriously undermined
his constitution and shattered his nerves of steel, but the day to
which he had looked with such constant expectation had at last arrived:
his debts were not only paid, but the revenues from the sale of his
books were magnificent.
For some little time he had been preparing in the Rue Fortunée—now Rue
Balzac—a superb residence. His taste in furniture and works of art
found ample expression there. For one set of Florentine workmanship the
king of Holland himself was in treaty, while his art gallery was the
same as is described in “Le Cousin Pons.”
While he was in Poland his mother was his general agent, and he wrote
to her the most minute directions of everything appertaining to the
house, its fixtures and decorations; and finally, on the 17th March,
1850, he wrote from Vierzschovnia as follows:—
“Three days ago I married the only woman whom I have loved, whom I love
more than ever, and whom I shall love until death. I believe that this
union is the recompense that God has held in reserve for me through so
many adversities, years of work, and difficulties suffered and
overcome. My youth was unhappy and my spring was flowerless, but I
shall have the most brilliant summer and the sweetest of autumns.”
Balzac had now fulfilled his two immense desires: he was celebrated, he
was beloved. His own income combined with that which remained to his
wife—she had, at his instance, made over the greater portion of her
fortune to her children—sufficed for the realization of his most
extravagant dreams. “I shall live to be eighty,” he said. “I will
terminate the ‘Comédie Humaine’ and write dozens of dramas. I will have
two children,—not more; two look well on the front seat of a landau.”
It was all too beautiful; nothing remained but death, and five months
after his marriage, on the 20th of August, 1850, after thirty years of
ceaseless toil, at the very moment when the world was his, Balzac, as a
finishing touch to his own “Études Philosophiques,” died suddenly of
disease of the heart.
At his grave in Père-Lachaise is a simple monument, bearing for epitaph
that “single name which tells all and makes the passer dream;” and
here, at the very spot where Rastignac, after the burial of Père
Goriot, hurled his supreme defiance at Paris, Victor Hugo delivered the
funeral oration.
“Alas!” he said, “this powerful and tireless worker, this philosopher,
this thinker and poet, whose existence was filled with more labors than
days, passed among us that life of struggles and combats common in all
time to all great men. To-day, at last, he is at peace: he has taken
leave of contests and hatreds, and enters now both glory and the tomb.
Hereafter he will shine above all the clouds about us, high among the
stars of our country.”
-----
Footnote 20:
_H. de Balzac_, by Eugène de Mirecourt. _H. de Balzac_, by Armand
Bashet. _Balzac en Pantoufles_, by Léon Gozlan.
Footnote 21:
A villa on the Loire.
Footnote 22:
The disastrous result of his lawsuit with the _Revue des Deux Mondes_.
Footnote 23:
Madame de Berny, a devoted friend.
Footnote 24:
An allusion to the pirated editions of his works.
Footnote 25:
At Les Jardies.