1820 - 1828
Reading of "Cromwell"--Balzac is obliged to live at home
--Unhappiness--Writes romantic novels--Friendship with Madame
de Berny--Starts in Paris as publisher and afterwards as printer
--Impending bankruptcy only prevented by help from his parents
and Madame de Berny.
Evidently Balzac's happy faith in the beauty of "Cromwell" had
impressed his parents, as, apparently without having seen the play,
they had assembled a large concourse of friends for the reading; and
between happy pride in his boy's genius, and satisfaction at his own
acuteness in discerning it, old M. de Balzac was no doubt nearly as
joyous as Honore himself. The Balzac family were prepared for triumph,
the friends were amused or incredulous, and the solemn trial began.[*]
The tragedy, strongly Royalist in principles, opens, according to the
plot as given by Balzac in a letter to his sister,[+] with the
entrance of Queen Henrietta Maria into Westminster. She is utterly
exhausted, and, disguised in humble garments, has returned from taking
her children for safety into Holland, and from begging for the help of
the King of France. Strafford, in tears, tells her of late events, and
of the King's imprisonment and future trial; but during this
conversation Cromwell and Ireton enter, and the Queen, in terror,
hides behind a tomb, till, horrified at the discussion as to whether
or not the King shall be put to death, she comes out, and, as Balzac
remarks, "makes them a famous discourse." Act II. sounds a little
dull, though no doubt it is highly instructive, as a great part of it
is taken up with a monologue by the King detailing the events of his
past reign. Later on Charles, instead of keeping Cromwell's son who
has fallen into his hands, as a hostage for his own life, gives him up
to his father without condition; but Cromwell, unmoved by this
generosity, still plots for his King's death. The fifth Act, which
Balzac remarks is the most difficult of all, opens with a scene in
which the King tells the Queen his last wishes, which Balzac
interpolates with (Quelle scene!); then Strafford informs the King of
his condemnation (Quelle scene!); the King and Queen say good-bye
--(Quelle scene!) again; and the play ends with the Queen vowing
eternal vengeance upon England, declaring that enemies will rise
everywhere against her, and that one day France will fight against
her, conquer her, and crush her.
[*] The original MS., beautifully written out, and tied with faded
blue ribbon, is in the possession of the Vicomte de Spoelberch
de Lovenjoul.
[+] "Honore de Balzac--Correspondance," vol. i, p. 28.
Honore began his reading with the utmost enthusiasm, modulating his
sonorous voice to suit the different characters, and even contriving
for a time to impart by his expressive reading a fictitious interest
to the dull, tedious tragedy. Gradually, however, the feeling of
disappointment and boredom among his audience communicated itself to
him. He lost confidence; his beautiful reading began to decline in
pathos and interest; and when at last he finished, and, glancing at
the downcast faces round him, found that even Laure could not look up
at him with a smile of congratulation, he felt a chill at his heart,
and knew that he had not triumphed after all. Nevertheless, he very
naturally rebelled against the strongly expressed adverse judgment of
his enemy of the copying-clerk proposal, and begged to be allowed to
appeal to a competent and impartial critic. To this request his father
assented, and M. Surville, who was now engaged to Laure, proposed that
M. Andrieux, of the Academie Francaise, formerly his own master at the
Ecole Polytechnique, should be asked to give an opinion. Honore, his
sister says, "accepted this literary elder as sovereign judge," no
doubt hoping against hope that a really cultured man would see the
beauties which were unfortunately hidden from the eyes of the
unintellectual inhabitants of Villeparisis. However, the verdict of M.
Andrieux was, if possible, more crushing than any of the events which
had preceded it. In the honest opinion of this expert, the author of
"Cromwell" ought to do anything, no matter what, _except literature_.
Honore had asked for an impartial judgment, and had promised to abide
by it. His discomfiture and sense of failure ought therefore to have
been complete. Genius does not, however, follow the ordinary road; and
with a mixture of pluck, confidence in himself, and pride which always
characterised him, Honore did not allow that he was beaten, and would
not show the feelings of grief and disappointment which must have
filled his heart. "Tragedies are not my line"--that is all he said;
and if he had been allowed to follow his own bent, he would at once
have returned to his garret, and have begun to write again with
unabated ardour.
Naturally, however, the Balzac family refused to allow him to continue
the course of senseless folly which was already beginning to ruin his
health. Madame de Balzac was specially strong on this point; and
though he had only been allowed fifteen months, instead of the two
years promised for his trial, she insisted that he should come home at
once, and remain under the maternal eye. Indeed, this seemed quite
necessary, after the privations he had gone through. His sufferings
never made him thin at any period of his life; but now his face was
pale and his eyes hollow, and his lifelong friend, Dr. Nacquart, sent
him at once to recruit in the air of his native Touraine.
After this followed a time of bitter trial for poor Honore. His sister
Laure married M. Surville in May, 1820, about a month after his return
home, and went to live at Bayeux, so that he was deprived of her
congenial companionship; and, in spite of his fun and buoyancy, his
letters to her show his extreme wretchedness. Years afterwards he told
the Duchesse d'Abrantes that the cruel weight of compulsion under
which he was crushed till 1822 made his struggles for existence, when
once he was free, seem comparatively light. Continually worried by his
nervous, irritable mother, deprived of independence, of leisure, of
quiet, he saw his dreams of future fame vanish like smoke, and the
hated lawyer's office become a certainty, if he failed to make money
by writing. In deadly fear of this, and with the paralysing
consciousness that his present circumstances were peculiarly
unpropitious as a literary education, he rebelled against the hard
fate which denied him opportunity to work for fame. "Laure, Laure," he
cries at this time, "my two only and immense desires--to be loved and
to be celebrated--will they ever be satisfied?"
Whatever his aspirations might be, it was necessary that he should do
something to support himself, as his parents firmly refused to grant
him the 1,500 francs--about sixty pounds--a year for which he begged,
to enable him to live in Paris and to carry out his vocation. He was
therefore obliged to write at his home at Villeparisis in the midst of
distractions and discouragements. In these unpropitious circumstances
he produced in five years--with different collaborators, whose names
are now rescued from absolute oblivion by their transitory connection
with him--eight novels in thirty-one volumes. That he managed to find
a publisher for most of his novels, and to make forty pounds, sixty
pounds, or eighty pounds out of each, is according to his sister, a
remarkable proof of his strength of will, and also of his power of
fascination. The payment generally took the form of a bill payable at
some distant period--a form of receiving money which does not seem
very satisfying; but at any rate Balzac could prove to his family that
he was earning something, and was himself cheered by his small
successes. We can imagine his feverish anxiety, and the cunning with
which he would exert every wile to induce the publisher--himself a
struggling man--to accept his wares, when he knew that a refusal would
mean mingled scoffs and lamentations at home, and possibly a menace
that not much longer leisure would be allowed him for idling. There is
pathos in the fate of one whose genius is unrecognised till his day on
earth is over, but far harder seems the lot of the man who longs and
struggles, feeling that the power is in him, and who yet, by some
strange gulf between thought and expression, can only produce what he
knows to be worthless. It speaks much for Balzac's courage, patience,
and determination, or perhaps for the intuitive force of a genius
which refused to be denied outlet, that he struggled through this
weary time, and in spite of opposition kept to his fixed purpose of
becoming a writer.
These early works--"L'Heritiere de Birague," "Jean-Louis," "Le
Centenaire," "Le Vicaire des Ardennes," "La Derniere Fee," "Wann
Chlore," and others, published in 1822 and the three following years
--were written under the pseudonyms of Lord R'hoone, Viellergle, and
Horace de Saint-Aubin, and are generally wild tales of adventure in
the style of Mrs. Radcliffe. Though occasionally the reader comes
across a paragraph faintly reminiscent of the Balzac of later years,
these youthful attempts are certainly not worthy of the great man who
wrote them, and he consistently refused to acknowledge their
authorship. The two first, "L'Heritiere de Birague" and "Jean-Louis,"
were written with the collaboration of M. Auguste le Poitevin de
l'Egreville, who took the name of Viellergle, while Balzac adopted
that of Lord R'hoone, an anagram of Honore, so that these two novels
are signed with both pseudonyms.[*] It is amusing to find that the
sage Honore, in 1820, prudently discourages a passing fancy on the
part of his sister Laurence for his collaborator, by remarking that
writers are very bad _partis_, though he hastens to add that he only
means this from a pecuniary point of view! Laure, at Bayeux, is made
useful as an amateur advertising agent, and is carefully told that,
though she is to talk about the novels a great deal, she is never to
lend her copies to any one, because people must buy the books to read
them. "L'Heritiere" brought in about thirty-two pounds, and
"Jean-Louis" fifty-three pounds, unfortunately both in bills at long
date; but it was the first money Honore had ever earned, and he was
naturally excited. However, with "La Derniere Fee" he was not so
fortunate, as both versions--one of which appeared in 1823 and the
other in 1824--were published at his own cost. Nevertheless, he has no
illusions about the worth of his books, "L'Heritiere" being, he says,
a "veritable cochonnerie litteraire," while "Jean-Louis" has "several
rather funny jokes, and some not bad attempts at character, but a
detestable plot."
[*] See "Une Page perdue de Honore de Balzac," by the Vicomte de
Spoelberch de Lovenjoul.
In the same year, 1822, he writes one of his droll, beseeching letters
to beg M. and Mme. Surville to help him out of a great difficulty, and
to write one volume of "Le Vicaire des Ardennes" while he writes the
other, and afterwards fits the two together. The matter is most
important, as he has promised Pollet to have two novels, "Le Vicaire"
and "Le Savant"--the latter we never hear of again--ready by October
1st. It is necessary to be specially quick about "Le Vicaire," partly
because Auguste, his collaborator, is writing a novel of the same
name, and Balzac's production _must_ come out first, and also for the
joyful reason that he will actually receive twenty-four pounds in
ready money for the two books, the further fifty-six pounds following
in bills payable at eight months. What do the Survilles think about
it? He throws himself on their generosity, though he is afraid Laure
will never manage to write sixty pages of a novel every day.
Apparently the Survilles, or at least M. Surville--for it is certain
that the devoted Laure would have worked herself to death to help
Honore--did not see their way to proceeding at this rate of
composition, as the next letter from Balzac, written on August 20th,
is full of reproaches because the manuscript has not been at once
returned to him, that he may go on with it himself. Perhaps this want
of help prevented the carrying out of the contract, and was the reason
that the world has not been enriched by the appearance of "Le Savant."
Honore, however, judging by his next letter, did not bear malice: he
was accustomed to make continual requests, reasonable and sometimes
_very_ unreasonable, to his family; and the large good-humour which
was one of the foundations of his robust character, prevented him from
showing any irritation when they were refused.
From 1821 to 1824 he wrote thirty-one volumes, and it is an
extraordinary proof of his versatility, that in 1824, in the midst of
the production of these romantic novels, he published a pamphlet
entitled "Du Droit d'Ainesse" which argues with singular force, logic,
and erudition against the revolutionary and Napoleonic theories on the
division of property; and a small volume entitled "Histoire impartiale
des Jesuites," which is an impassioned defence of religion and the
monarchy. "The Bourbons are the preservers of the sublime religion of
Christ, and they have never betrayed the trust which confided
Christianity to them," he cries. No one reading these political essays
would think it likely that they were the work of the romantic writer
of "La Derniere Fee" or "Argow the Pirate," which were employing
Balzac's pen at the same time.
Young men are often very severe critics of the doings of their family;
and Balzac, cursed with the sensitiveness of genius, and smarting
under the bitter disappointment of disillusionment and of thwarted and
compressed powers, was not likely to be an indulgent critic; but
making due allowance for these facts, it does not appear that his home
was a particularly comfortable place at this time. Old M. de Balzac
was as placid as an Egyptian pyramid and perennially cheerful; but the
restless Madame de Balzac was now following in the footsteps of her
nervous mother and becoming a _malade imaginaire_. This did not add to
the comfort of her family, while the small excitements she roused
perpetually were peculiarly trying to her eldest son, who was himself
not of a placid nature.
However, there were compensations, though the discreet Honore does not
mention these in his letters to Laure, as in 1821 his friendship with
Madame de Berny began, and only ceased in 1836 with her death, which
in spite of his affection for Madame Hanska, was a lifelong sorrow to
him. One of Honore's home duties was to act as tutor to his younger
brother Henry--the spoilt child of the family--who, owing to supposed
delicacy, was educated at home; and as the Bernys lived near
Villeparisis, it was arranged that he should at the same time give
lessons to one of M. and Madame de Berny's boys. This may have helped
to bring about the intimacy between the two houses, and Honore was
struck by Madame de Berny's patience and sweetness to a morose husband
many years older than herself. Later on, the Bernys left the
neighbourhood of Villeparisis, and divided their time between the
village of Saint-Firmin, near Chantilly, and Paris; and Balzac
occasionally paid them visits in the country, and saw Madame de Berny
continually in Paris. She was twenty-two years older than Honore, and
no doubt supplied the element of motherliness which was conspicuously
absent in Madame de Balzac.
She was a gentle and pathetic figure, the woman who understood Balzac
as Madame Hanska did not; who made light of her troubles and
sufferings for fear of grieving him in the midst of his own struggles;
and who, while performing her duties conscientiously as devoted wife
and mother, for twelve years gave up two hours every day to his
society. She lent him money, interceded with his parents on his
behalf, corrected his proofs, acted as a severe and candid though
sympathetic critic, and above all cheered and encouraged him, and
prevented him from committing suicide in his dark days of distress. On
the other hand, the friendship of a man like Balzac must have been of
absorbing interest to a woman of great delicacy of feeling, and
evidently considerable literary powers, whose surroundings were
uncongenial; and his warm and enduring affection helped her to tide
over many of the troubles of a sad life.
Recent researches have discovered several interesting facts about the
origin of the woman to whom may be ascribed the merit of "creating"
the writer who was destined to exercise so great an influence on his
own and succeeding generations.[*] Curiously enough, Louise Antoinette
Laure Hinner, destined at the age of fifteen years and ten months to
become Madame de Berny, was, like Madame Hanska, a foreigner, being
the daughter of Joseph Hinner, a German musician, who was brought by
Turgot to France. Here he became harpist to Marie Antoinette, and
married Madame Quelpee de Laborde, one of the Queen's ladies in
waiting. Two years later, on May 23rd, 1777, the future Madame de
Berny came into the world, and made her debut with a great flourish of
trumpets, Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, represented by the Duc de
Fronsac and Laure Auguste de Fitz-James, Princesse de Chimay, being
her god-parents. When in 1784 her father died, her mother married the
Chevalier de Jarjayes, one of Marie Antoinette's most loyal adherents
during the Revolution. It was he who conceived the project of carrying
off Louis XVII. from the Temple, and who was entrusted with the
precious duty of carrying the seal, ring, and hair belonging to the
Royal Family to the exiled Monsieur and Comte d'Artois.[*]
[*] See "Balzac, Imprimeur," in "La Jeunesse de Balzac," by MM.
Hanotaux et Vicaire.
We can easily see whence Balzac derived his strong Royalist principles
--how from boyhood the lessons taught him by his masters, M. Lepitre
and M. Guillonnet de Merville, would be insisted on, only with much
greater effect and insistence, by this charming woman of the world.
Her mother, still living, had passed her time in the disturbed and
exciting atmosphere of plots and counterplots; and she herself could
tell him story after story of heartrending tragedies and of
hairbreadth escapes, which had happened to her own relations and
friends. From her he acquired those aristocratic longings which always
characterised him, and through her influence he made acquaintance with
several people of high position and importance, and thus was enabled
to make an occasional appearance in the _beau-monde_ of Paris.
Her portrait gives the idea of an elegant rather than pretty woman,
with a long neck, sloping shoulders, black curls on the temples, at
each side of a high forehead, and large, languishing dark eyes, under
pencilled eyebrows. The oval face has a character of gentle
melancholy, and there is something subdued and suffering in the whole
expression which invites our pity. She wears in the portrait an Empire
dress, confined under the arms by a yellow ribbon.
"La dilecta," as Balzac calls her, cannot have been a very happy
woman. Of her nine children, watched with the most tender solicitude,
only four lived to grow up; and of these her favourite son, "beautiful
as the day, like her tender and spiritual, like her full of noble
sentiments," as Balzac says, died the year before her; and only an
insane daughter and a wild, unsatisfactory son survived her. This
terrible blow broke her heart, and she shut herself up and refused to
see even Balzac during the last year of her life. The end must at any
rate have been peaceful, as, in order to prolong her existence as much
as possible, it had been found necessary to separate her from the
irritable husband with whose vagaries she had borne patiently during
thirty tedious years; but perhaps she was sorry in the end that this
was necessary. Madame de Mortsauf, in the "Lys dans la Vallee," is
intended to be a portrait of her, though Balzac says that he has only
managed to give a faint reflection of her perfections. However this
may be, Henriette de Mortsauf is a charming and ethereal creation, and
from her we can understand the fascination Madame de Berny exerted
over Balzac, and can realise that, as he says to Madame Hanska, her
loss can never be made up to him. It is possible also to sympathise
with the feeling, perhaps unacknowledged even to himself, which peeps
out in a letter to Madame Hanska in 1840.[*] In this he reproaches his
correspondent for her littleness in not writing to him because he
cannot answer her letters quickly, and tells her that he has lately
been in such straits that he has not been able to pay for franking his
letters, and has several times eaten a roll on the Boulevards for his
dinner. He goes on: "Ah! I implore you, do not make comparisons
between yourself and Madame de Berny. She was of infinite goodness and
of absolute devotion; she was what she was. You are complete on your
side as she on hers. One never compares two great things. They are
what they are." Certainly Balzac never found a second Madame de Berny.
[*] "Lettres a L'Etrangere."
From 1822 to 1824 we know little of Balzac's history, except that he
passed the time at home, and was presumably working hard at his
romantic novels; but in 1824 a change came, one no doubt hailed at the
time with eager delight, though it proved unfortunately to be the
foundation of all his subsequent misfortunes.
When he went up to Paris to make arrangements for publishing his
novels, he stayed in the old lodgings of his family in the Rue du Roi
Dore, and here he often met a friend, M. d'Assonvillez, to whom he
confided his fear of being forced into an occupation distasteful to
him. M. d'Assonvillez was sympathetic, advised him to seek for a
business which would make him independent, and, carried away by
Honore's powers of persuasion and eloquence, actually promised to
proved the necessary funds. We can imagine Balzac's joy at this offer,
and the enthusiasm with which he would take up his abode in Paris, and
feel that he was about to earn his living, nay, more, that he would no
doubt become enormously rich, and would then have leisure to give up
his time to literature. What however decided him to become first
publisher and then printer we do not know. He started his publishing
campaign with the idea of bringing out compact editions of the
complete works of different authors in one volume, and began with
Moliere and La Fontaine, carrying on the two publications at the same
time, for fear of competition if his secret should be discovered. The
idea, which had already been thought of by Urbain Canel, was a good
one; but unfortunately Balzac was not able to obtain support from the
trade, and had not sufficient capital for advertising. Therefore by
the end of the year not twenty copies were sold, and he lost 15,000
francs on this affair alone. Consequently, in order to save the rent
of the warehouse in which the books were stored, he was obliged to
part with all the precious compact editions for the price by the
weight of the paper on which they were printed.
Matters now looked very black, as Balzac owed about 70,000 francs; but
M. d'Assonvillez was evidently much impressed by his business
capacity, and was naturally anxious to be repaid the money he had
lent. He therefore introduced Honore to a relation who was making a
large fortune by his printing-press; and Balzac, full of enthusiasm,
dreamt of becoming a second Richardson, and of combining the
occupations of author and printer. His father was persuaded to provide
the necessary funds, and handed him over 30,000 francs--about 1,200
pounds--with which to start the enterprise. In August, 1826, Balzac
began again joyously, first by himself and afterwards with a partner
named Barbier, whom he had noticed as foreman in one of the
printing-offices to which he had taken his novels. Unfortunately a
printing-licence cost 15,000 francs in the time of Charles X.; and
when this had been paid, Barbier had received a bonus of 12,000 francs,
and 15,000 francs had been spent on the necessary materials, there
remained very little capital with which to meet the current expenses
of the undertaking. Nevertheless, the young partners started full of
hope, having bought from Laurent for 30,000 francs the premises at No.
7, Rue des Marais Saint-Germain, now the Rue Visconti, a street so
narrow that two vehicles cannot pass in it. A wooden staircase with an
iron handrail led from a dark passage to the large barrack-like hall
they occupied: an abode which Balzac tried to beautify, possibly for
Madame de Berny's visits, by hangings of blue calico.
There Balzac developed quickly. He learnt the struggle of a business
life, the duel between man and man, through which thousands pass
without gaining anything except business acuteness, but which
introduced the great psychologist to hundreds of new types, and showed
to his keen, observant eyes man, not in society or domesticity, but in
undress, fighting for life itself, or for all that makes life worth
living. In the Rue de Lesdiguieres he had struggled with himself,
striving in cold and hunger to gain the mastery of his art. Here he
battled with others; and since, except on paper, he never possessed
business capacity, he failed and went under; but by his defeat he
paved the way to future triumph. He passed through an experience
possibly unique in the career of a man of letters, one which imparts
the peculiar flavour of business, money, and affairs to his books, and
which fixed on him for all his days the impression of restless,
passionate, thronging humanity which he pictures in his books. The
abyss between his early romantic novels and such a book as the "Peau
de Chagrin" is immeasurable, and cannot be altogether accounted for by
any teaching, however valuable, or even by the strong influence which
intercourse with Madame de Berny exercised. Something else definite
must have happened to him--some great opening out and development,
which caused a sudden appearance on the surface of hitherto latent,
unworkable powers. This forcing-process took place at his first
contact with the war of life; and though he bore the scars of the
encounter as long as he lived, he grew by its clash, ferment, and
disaster to his full stature. In "La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote,"
"Illusions Perdues," and "Cesar Birotteau" he gives different phases
of this life, spent partly in the printer's office and partly in the
streets, rushing anxiously from place to place and from person to
person, trying vainly by interviews to avert the impending ruin.
Matters seemed, however, quite hopeless; but when, towards the end of
1827, an opportunity occurred of becoming possessed of a type-foundry,
the partners, perhaps with the desperation of despair, did not
hesitate to avail themselves of it. This new acquisition naturally
only appeared likely to precipitate the catastrophe, and Barbier
prepared to leave the sinking ship. At this juncture Madame de Berny
came forward with substantial help, and allowed her name to appear as
partner in his place. However, even this assistance did not long avert
disaster--bankruptcy was impending, and Madame de Berny and Laure
implored Madame de Balzac to prevent this. The latter, wishing at all
costs to keep the matter from the ears of her husband, now a very old
man and failing in health, begged a cousin, M. Sedillot, to come
forward, and at least to save the honour of the family. M. Sedillot,
who appears to have been a good man of business, at once set gallantly
to work to disentangle the embroglio, and to free Honore from its
meshes. As a result of his efforts, the printing-press was sold to M.
Laurent, and the type-foundry became the property of the De Bernys,
under whom it was highly successful. At the same time, to save Honore
from disgrace, Madame de Balzac lent 37,000 francs and Madame de Berny
45,000, the latter sum being paid back in full by Balzac in 1836, the
year of Madame de Berny's death. "Without her I should be dead," he
tells Madame Hanska. He was most anxious not to sell the type-foundry,
and his parents have been severely criticised for their refusal to
provide further funds for the purpose of carrying on that and the
printing-office.
This blame seems a little unfair. It is true that, after Balzac had
been obliged, to his intense grief, to part with both businesses at a
loss, a fortune was made out of the type-foundry alone. But the
Balzacs had lost money, and had their other children to provide for;
while Honore, though well equipped with hope, enthusiasm, and belief
in himself, had hitherto failed to justify a trust in his business
capacities. In fact, if his parents had been endowed with prophetic
eyesight, and had been enabled to take a bird's-eye view of their
celebrated son's future enterprises, which were always, according to
his own account, destined to fail only by some unfortunate slip at the
last, it seems doubtful whether they would have been wise to alter the
course they adopted.