1829 - 1832
Work and increasing fame--Emile de Girardin--Balzac's early
relations with the _Revue de Paris_ and quarrel with Amedee
Pinchot--First letters from Madame Hanska and the Marquise de
Castries--Balzac's extraordinary mode of writing--Burlesque
account of it from the _Figaro_.
The record of the next few years of Balzac's life is a difficult one,
so many and varied were the interests crowded into them, so short the
hours of sleep, and so long the nights of work, followed without rest
by an eight hours' day of continual rush. Visits to printers,
publishers, and editors, worrying interviews with creditors, and
letters on business, politics, and literature, followed each other in
bewilderingly quick succession, and the only respite was to be found
in occasional talks with such friends as Madame de Berny, Madame
Carraud, or the Duchesse d'Abrantes.
Success was arriving. But success with Balzac never meant leisure, or
relief from a heavy burden of debt; it merely gave scope for enormous
prodigies of labour. His passion for work amounted to a disease; and
who can measure the gamut of emotion, ranging from rapture down to
straining effort, which was gone through in those silent hours of
darkness, when the man, the best part of whom lived only in solitude
and night, sat in his monk's habit, before a writing-table littered
with papers? Then, impelled by the genius of creation, he would allow
his imagination full sway, and would turn to account the material
collected by his keen powers of observation and his unparalleled
intuition. It was strenuous labour, with the attendant joy of calling
every faculty, including the highest of all--that of creation--into
activity, and the hours no doubt often passed like moments. But the
fierce battling with expression, the effort to tax super-abundant
powers to the utmost, left their mark; and in the morning Balzac would
drag himself to the printer or publisher, with his hair in disorder,
his lips dry, and his forehead lined.
Jules Sandeau, who had been taken by Balzac to live with him, and who
remarked that he would rather die than work as he did, says that
sometimes, when the passion and inspiration for writing were strong on
him, he would shut himself up for three weeks in his closely curtained
room, never breathing the outside air or knowing night from day. When
utterly exhausted, he would throw himself on his pallet-bed for a few
hours, and slumber heavily and feverishly; and when he could fast no
longer, he would call for a meal, which must, however, be scanty,
because digestion would divert the blood from his brain. Otherwise,
hour after hour, he sat before his square table, and concentrated his
powerful mind on his work, utterly oblivious of the fact that there
was anything in the world save the elbowing, crushing throng of
phantom--yet to him absolutely real--personages, whom he took into his
being, and in whose life he lived. For the time he felt with their
feelings, saw with their eyes, became possessed by them, as the great
actor becomes possessed by the personality he represents. "C'etait un
voyant, non un observateur," as Philarete Chasles said with truth.
In 1829 Balzac was introduced by the publisher M. Levavasseur to Emile
de Girardin, who became--and the connection was life-long--what Mme.
de Girardin called La Touche,--an "intimate enemy." At first all was
harmony. Emile de Girardin's letters, beginning in 1830 with "Mon
tres-cher Monsieur," are addressed in 1831 to "Mon cher Balzac"; but
it is doubtful whether the finish of one written in October, 1830, and
ending with "Amitie d'ambition!!!"[*] is exactly flattering to the
recipient--it savours rather strongly of what is termed in vulgar
parlance "cupboard love." However, Girardin was the first to recognise
the great writer's talents, and at the end of 1829, or the beginning
of 1830, after having inserted an article by Balzac in _La Mode_, of
which he was editor, he invited his collaboration, as well as that of
Victor Varaigne, Hippolyte Auger, and Bois le Comte, in forming a
bibliographical supplement to the daily papers, which was to be
entitled "Le feuilleton des journaux politiques." This was a failure,
but Balzac was associated with Emile de Girardin in several other
literary enterprises; and it was through the agency of this energetic
editor that he wrote his letters on Paris in the _Voleur_, which,
extending from September 26th, 1830, to March 29th, 1831, would form a
volume in themselves. After the Revolution of 1830 stories went out of
fashion, the reviews and magazines being completely occupied with the
task of discussing the political situation; and Balzac wrote
numberless articles in the _Silhouette_, which was edited by Victor
Ratier, and in the _Caricature_, edited by M. Philippon. A few years
later, the latter journal became violently political; but at this time
it consisted merely of witty and amusing articles, ridiculing all
parties impartially.
[*] "La Genese d'un Roman de Balzac," p. 105, by the Vicomte de
Spoelberch de Lovenjoul.
With Victor Ratier, Balzac contemplated a partnership in writing for
the theatre, though he thought Ratier hardly sufficiently industrious
to make a satisfactory collaborator. However, he threatened him in
case of laziness with a poor and honest young man as a rival, and, to
rouse Ratier to energy, remarked that the unnamed prodigy was, like
himself, full of courage, whereas Ratier resembled "an Indian on his
mat."[*] Balzac's imaginative brain was to supply the plot and
characters of each drama; but he was careful, as in the case of his
early novels, that his name should not appear, as the plays were to be
mere vaudevilles written to gain money, and would certainly not
increase their author's reputation. Ratier was therefore to pose as
their sole author, and was to undertake the actual writing of the
play, unless he were too lazy for the effort, when the honest and
unfortunate young man would take his place. The pecuniary part of the
bargain was not mentioned, except the fact that both partners would
become enormously rich; and that result is so invariable a
characteristic of Balzac's schemes that it need hardly be noticed.
However, this brilliant plan came to nothing, not, as we may suppose,
from any failure on the part of the indolent Ratier--as there was in
this case his unnamed rival to fall back upon--but most probably
because its promoter had not a moment's leisure in which to think of
it again.
[*] "Correspondance," vol. i. p. 115.
Towards the end of 1830 he began to write for the _Revue de Paris_, a
journal with which his relations, generally inharmonious, culminated
in the celebrated lawsuit of 1836. The review was at this time the
property of a company; and the sole object of the shareholders being
to obtain large dividends, they adopted the short-sighted policy of
cutting down their payment to authors, a course which led to continual
recriminations, and naturally made the office of chief editor very
difficult. When Balzac first wrote for the review, Charles Rabou held
this post, following Dr. Veron; but he resigned in a few months, and
was succeeded in his turn by Amedee Pichot. With him Balzac waged
continual war, finally dealing a heavy blow to the review by deserting
it altogether in 1833.
The cause of the dispute, in the first instance, was one which often
reappears in the history of Balzac's relations with different editors.
Being happily possessed of devoted friends, who allowed him complete
freedom while he stayed with them, he found it easier to write in the
quiet of the country than amidst the worries and distractions of
Paris. In 1830, after travelling in Brittany, he spent four months,
from July to November, at La Grenadiere, that pretty little house near
to Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire, which he coveted continually, but never
succeeded in acquiring. In 1834 he thought the arrangements for its
purchase were at last settled. After three years of continual
refusals, the owners had consented to sell, and he already imagined
himself surrounded with books, and established for six months at a
time at this studious retreat. However, pecuniary difficulties came as
usual in the way, and except as a visitor, Balzac never tasted the
joys of a country life.
From La Grenadiere he wrote a remarkable letter to Ratier,[*] full of
love for the beauty of nature, a feeling which filled him with a sense
of the littleness of man, and expressing also that uncomfortable doubt
which must occasionally assail the mind of any man possessed of
powerful physique as well as imagination--the doubt whether the
existence of the thinker is not after all a poor thing compared with
that of the active worker, who is tossed about, risks his life, and
himself creates a living drama. He finishes with the words: "And it
seems to me that the sea, a man-of-war, and an English boat to
destroy, with a chance of drowning, are better than an inkpot, and a
pen, and the Rue Saint-Denis."
[*] "Correspondance," vol. i. p 98.
In May, 1831, Balzac was again away from Paris, this time taking up
his abode in Nemours, where he describes himself as living alone in a
tent in the depths of the earth, subsisting on coffee, and working day
and night at "La Peau de Chagrin," with "L'Auberge Rouge," which he
was writing for the _Revue de Paris_, as his only distraction.
These absences did not apparently cause any friction; but when, in
November, 1831, Balzac went to Sache to stay with M. de Margonne, and
then moved on to the Carrauds, he left "Le Maitre Cornelius," which he
was writing for the _Revue de Paris_, in an unfinished and uncorrected
condition. Thereupon, Amedee Pichot, who naturally wanted consecutive
numbers of the story for his magazine, committed what was in Balzac's
eyes an unpardonable breach of trust, by publishing the uncorrected
proofs, leaving out or altering what he did not understand. Balzac was
furious at his signature being appended to what he considered
unfinished work. Amedee Pichot was also very angry, because Balzac had
unduly lengthened the first part of the story, and had kept him two
months waiting for the finish. Therefore, as diligence was the only
mode of transit, and it was necessary that "Le Maitre Cornelius"
should end with the year, it was impossible to send the proofs before
printing for correction to Angouleme. Nevertheless, as he had
undoubtedly exceeded his rights as editor, he thought it wise to
temporise, and wrote an explanatory and conciliatory letter; and as
this did not pacify Balzac, he dispatched a second of similar tenor.
However, a few days later, on January 9th, 1832, he felt compelled by
the tone of Balzac's correspondence to send a third beginning: "Sir, I
find from the tone of your letter that I am guilty of doing you a
great wrong. I have treated on an equality and as a comrade a superior
person, whom I should have been contented to admire. I therefore beg
your pardon humbly for the 'My dear Balzac' of my preceding letters. I
will preserve the distance of 'Monsieur' between you and me."[*]
[*] "Une Page Perdue de Honore de Balzac," by the Vicomte de
Spoelberch de Lovenjoul; from which the whole account of the
dispute between Balzac and Pichot is taken.
However, Balzac was furious. His respect for his own name and his
intense literary conscientiousness were stronger even than his desire
for money, and it was a very black crime in his eyes for any one to
produce one of his works before the public until it had been brought
to the highest possible pitch of perfection. This intense anxiety to
do his best, which caused him the most painstaking labour, often
pressed very hardly on managers of magazines. He was generally paid in
advance, so that his money was safe; and though he could be absolutely
trusted to finish sooner or later what he had undertaken, he showed a
lofty indifference to the exigencies of monthly publication. Moreover,
as is shown in the evidence given later on during his lawsuit with the
_Revue de Paris_, he would sometimes, in his haste for money, accept
new engagements when he already had a plethora of work in hand.
Nevertheless, whatever the failures to fulfil a contract on his part
might be, he was implacable towards those who did not rightly
discharge their obligations to him; and Pichot was never forgiven. In
September, 1832, after endless disputes about the rate and terms of
payment, the most fertile source of recriminations between Balzac and
his various publishers and editors, a formal treaty was drawn up
between the great writer, who was at Sache, and Amedee Pichot, as
director of the _Revue de Paris_. By this, with the option of breaking
the connection after six months, Balzac undertook to write for the
_Revue_ for a year, being still entitled during that time to furnish
articles to the _Renovateur_, the _Journal Quotidienne Politique_, and
_L'Artiste_. In spite of this legal document, there were many disputed
points; and the letters which passed between the two men, and which
now began with the formal "Monsieur," were full of bickerings about
money matters, about Balzac's delay in furnishing copy, and about the
length of his contributions. On one occasion Pichot is severe in his
rebukes, because Balzac has prevented the Duchesse d'Abrantes from
providing a promised article, by telling her that his own writing will
fill two whole numbers of the _Revue_. On another, it is curious to
find that Balzac, who was rather ashamed of the immoral reputation of
his works, thanks M. Pichot quite humbly for suppressing a passage in
the "Voyage de Paris a Java," which the director considered unfit for
family perusal, and excuses himself on the subject with the naive
explanation that he was at the same time writing the "Contes
Drolatiques"![*] Finally, in March, 1833, after six months of the
treaty had expired, Balzac withdrew altogether from the _Revue de
Paris_. He gave no explicit explanation for this step; but in 1836, at
the time of his lawsuit with the _Revue de Paris_, he stated as the
reason for his desertion that he considered Pichot to be the author,
under different pseudonyms, of the adverse criticism of his novels
which appeared in its pages. In the _Revue_ he had, among other
novels, brought out the beginning of "L'Histoire des Treize," and the
parsimonious shareholders now had the mortification of seeing the
great man carry his wares to _L'Europe Litteraire_; while the _Revue
de Paris_, in consequence of his desertion, declined in popularity.
[*] "Autour de Honore de Balzac," by the Vicomte de Spoelberch de
Lovenjoul.
Balzac was now fairly launched on the road of literary fame, and some
of his writings at this time had a momentous influence on his life. In
April, 1830, Madame Hanska, his future wife, read with delight, in her
far-off chateau in Ukraine, the "Scenes de la Vie Privee," containing
the "Vendetta," "Les Dangers de l'Inconduite," "Le Bal de Sceaux, ou
Le Pair de France," "Gloire et Malheur," "La Femme Vertueuse" and "La
Paix de Menage"--two volumes which Balzac had published as quickly as
he could, to counteract the alienation of his women-readers by the
"Physiologie du Mariage." In August, 1831, appeared "La Peau de
Chagrin," which so disappointed Madame Hanska by its cynical tone,
that she was impelled to write the first letter from L'Etrangere,
which reached Balzac on February 28th, 1832, a date never to be
forgotten in the annals of his life. He was not, however, very exact
in remembering it himself, and in later life sometimes became confused
in his calculations between the number of years since he had received
this letter, and the time which had elapsed since he first had the joy
of meeting her. "La Peau de Chagrin" greatly increased Balzac's fame,
and in October, 1831, another anonymous correspondent, Madame la
Marquise de Castries, also destined to exercise a strong, though
perhaps transitory, influence over Balzac, had written to deprecate
its moral tone, as well as that of the "Physiologie du Mariage."
Balzac answered her that "La Peau de Chagrin" was only intended to be
part of a whole, and must not be judged alone; and the same idea is
enlarged upon in a letter to the Comte de Montalembert,[*] written in
August, 1831, which shows Balzac's extreme anxiety not to dissociate
his writings from the cause of religion. In it he explains, with much
insistence, that, in site of the apparent scepticism of "La Peau de
Chagrin," the idea of God is really the mainspring of the whole book,
and on these grounds he begs for a review in _L'Avenir_. The letter
also contains an announcement which is interesting as a proof that two
years before the date given by his sister, the idea of his great
systematic work was already formulated, and that in his imagination it
had assumed colossal proportions. He says: "'La Peau de Chagrin' is
the formula of human life, an abstraction made from individualities,
and, as M. Ballanche says, everything in it is myth and allegory. It
is therefore the point of departure for my work. Afterwards
individualities and particular existences, from the most humble to
those of the King and of the Priest, the highest expressions of our
society, will group themselves according to their rank. In these
pictures I shall follow the effect of Thought on Life. Then another
work, entitled 'History of the Succession of the Marquis of Carabas,'
will formulate the life of nations, the phases of their governments,
and will show decidedly that politics turn in one circle, and are
evidently stationary; and that repose can only be found in the strong
government of a hierarchy."
[*] Letters sent by the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul to the
_Revue Bleue_, November 14th, 1903.
The "Peau de Chagrin," which is a powerful satire on the vice and
selfishness of the day, suffers in its allegorical, though not in its
humanly interesting side, by the vivid picture it gives of Balzac's
youth; as, in spite of the introduction of the influence of the magic
Ass Skin, the account of Raphael in the early part of the book, as the
frugal, determined genius with high intellectual aspirations, does not
harmonise with his weak, despicable character as it unfolds itself
subsequently. The critics exercised their minds greatly about the
identity of the heroines, the beautiful and heartless Fedora--in whom
apparently many ladies recognised their own portrait--and the humble
and exquisite Pauline, type of devoted and self-forgetting love.
Mademoiselle Pelissier, who possessed an income of twenty-five
thousand francs, and had a house in the Rue Neuve-du-Luxembourg, where
she held a salon much frequented by political personalities of the
day, was identified by popular gossip as the model of Fedora. It was
said by Parisian society that Balzac was anxious to marry her, but
that the lady, who afterwards became Madame Rossini, refused to listen
to his suit, though she confessed to a great admiration for his
fascinating black eyes.
The original of Pauline has never been discovered, but, possibly with
a few traits borrowed from Madame de Berny, she is what Balzac
describes in the last pages of "La Peau de Chagrin" as an "ideal, as a
visionary face in the fire, a face with unimaginable delicate
outlines, a floating apparition, which no chance will ever bring back
again."
Since the year 1830 Balzac had lodged in the Rue Cassini, a little,
unfrequented street near the Observatory, with a wall running along
one side, on which was written "L'Absolu, marchand de briques," a name
which Theophile Gautier fancies may have suggested to him the title of
his novel "La Recherche de l'Absolu." Borget, Balzac's great friend
and confidant, had rooms in the same house; and later on, when Borget
was on one of his frequent journeys, these rooms were occupied by
Jules Sandeau, after his parting with George Sand. In despair at her
desertion, he tried to commit suicide; and Balzac, touched with pity
at his forlorn condition, proposed that he should come to Borget's
rooms, and took complete and kindly charge of him--a generosity which
Sandeau, after having lived at Balzac's expense for two years, repaid
in 1836, by deserting his benefactor when he was in difficulties.
Balzac was now in the full swing of work. He writes to the Duchesse
d'Abrantes in 1831:[*] "Write, I cannot! The fatigue is too great. You
do not know that I owed in 1828, above what I possessed. I had only my
pen with which to earn my living, and to pay a hundred and twenty
thousand francs. In several months I shall have paid everything, and I
shall have arranged my poor little household; but for six months I
have all the troubles of poverty, I enjoy my last miseries. I have
begged from nobody, I have not held out my hand for a penny; I have
hidden my sorrows, and my wounds."
[*] "Correspondance," vol. i. p. 131.
Poor Balzac! over and over again we hear the same story about the
beautiful time in the future, which he saw coming nearer and nearer,
but which always evaded his grasp at the last. Very often, when he
appears grasping and dictatorial in his business dealings, we may
trace his want of urbanity to some pressing pecuniary anxiety, which
he was too proud to reveal. No doubt these difficulties often sprang
from his extraordinary want of reflection and prudence, as his desire
to make a dashing appearance before the world led him frequently into
the most senseless extravagance. For instance, when he went out of
Paris in June, 1832, intending to travel for several months, he left
behind him two horses with nothing to do, but naturally requiring a
groom, food, and stabling; and it was not till the end of July that,
on his mother's recommendation, he sent orders that they were to be
sold. His money affairs are so complicated, and his own accounts of
them so conflicting, that it is impossible to understand them
thoroughly. Apparently, however, from 1827 to 1836 he could not
support himself and satisfy his creditors without drawing bills. These
he often could not meet, and had to renew; and the accumulated
interest on these obligations formed a floating debt, which was from
time to time increased by some new extravagance.
In his vain struggles to escape, he worked as surely no man has ever
worked before or since. In 1830 he brought out about seventy, and in
1831 about seventy-five publications, including novels, and articles
serious and satirical, on politics and general topics; and in twelve
years, from 1830 to 1842, he wrote seventy-nine novels alone, not
counting his shorter compositions. Werdet, who became his publisher in
1834, gives a curious account of his doings; and this may, with slight
modifications, be accepted as a picture of his usual mode of life when
in the full swing of composition.
He usually went to bed at eight o'clock, after a light dinner,
accompanied by a glass or two of Vouvray, his favourite wine; and he
was seated at his desk by two o'clock in the morning. He wrote from
that time till six, only occasionally refreshing himself with coffee
from a coffee-pot which was permanently in the fireplace. At six he
had his bath, in which he remained for an hour, and his servant
afterwards brought him more coffee. Werdet was then admitted to bring
proofs, take away the corrected ones, and wrest, if possible, fresh
manuscript from him. From nine he wrote till noon, when he breakfasted
on two boiled eggs and some bread, and from one till six the labour of
correction went on again. This unnatural life lasted for six weeks or
two months, during which time he refused to see even his most intimate
friends; and then he plunged again into the ordinary affairs of life,
or mysteriously and suddenly disappeared--to be next heard of in some
distant part of France, or perhaps in Corsica, Sardinia, or Italy. It
is not surprising that even in these early days, and in spite of
Balzac's exuberant vitality, there are frequent mentions of terrible
fatigue and lassitude, and that the services of his lifelong friend,
Dr. Nacquart, were often in requisition, though his warnings about the
dangers of overwork were generally unheeded.
Even with Balzac's extraordinary power of work, the number of his
writings is remarkable, when we consider the labour their composition
cost him. Sometimes, according to Theophile Gautier, he bestowed a
whole night's labour on one phrase, and wrote it over and over again a
hundred times, the exact words that he wanted only coming to him after
he had exhausted all the possible approximate forms. When he intended
to begin a novel, and had thought of and lived in a subject for some
time, he wrote a plan of his proposed work in several pages, and
dispatched this to the printer, who separated the different headings,
and sent them back, each on a large sheet of blank paper. Balzac read
these headings attentively, and applied to them his critical faculty.
Some he rejected altogether, others he corrected, but everywhere he
made additions. Lines were drawn from the beginning, the middle, and
the end of each sentence towards the margin of the paper; each line
leading to an interpolation, a development, an added epithet or an
adverb. At the end of several hours the sheet of paper looked like a
plan of fireworks, and later on the confusion was further complicated
by signs of all sorts crossing the lines, while scraps of paper
covered with amplifications were pinned or stuck with sealing-wax to
the margin. This sheet of hieroglyphics was sent to the
printing-office, and was the despair of the typographers; who, as
Balzac overheard, stipulated for only an hour each in turn at the
correction of his proofs. Next day the amplified placards came back,
and Balzac added further details, and laboured to fit the expression
exactly to the idea, and to attain perfection of outline and symmetry
of proportion. Sometimes one episode dwarfed the rest, or a secondary
figure usurped the central position on his canvas, and then he would
heroically efface the results of four or five nights' labour. Six,
seven, even ten times, were the proofs sent backwards and forwards,
before the great writer was satisfied.
In the _Figaro_ of December 15th, 1837, Edouard Ourliac gives a
burlesque account of the confusion caused in the printing-offices by
Balzac's peculiar methods of composition. This is an extract from the
article:
"Let us sing, drink and embrace, like the chorus of an _opera
comique_. Let us stretch our calves, and turn on our toes like
ballet-dancers. Let us at last rejoice: the _Figaro_, without getting
the credit of it, has overcome the elements and all sublunary
cataclysms.
"Hercules is only a rascal, the apples of Hesperides only turnips, the
siege of Troy but a revolt of the national guard. The _Figaro_ has
just conquered 'Cesar Birotteau'!
"Never have the angry gods, never have Juno, Neptune, M. de Rambuteau,
or the Prefect of Police, opposed to Jason, Theseus, or walkers in
Paris, more obstacles, monsters, ruins, dragons, demolitions, than
these two unfortunate octavos have fought against.
"We have them at last, and we know what they have cost. The public
will only have the trouble of reading them. That will be a pleasure.
As to M. de Balzac--twenty days' work, two handfuls of paper, one more
beautiful book: that counts for nothing.
"However it may be, it is a typographical exploit, a literary and
industrial _tour de force_ worthy to be remembered. Writer, editor,
and printer have deserved more or less from their country. Posterity
will talk of the compositors, and our descendants will regret that
they do not know the names of the apprentices. I already, like them,
regret it; otherwise I would mention them.
"The _Figaro_ had promised the book on December 15th, and M. de Balzac
began it on November 17th. M. de Balzac and the _Figaro_ both have the
strange habit of keeping their word. The printing-office was ready,
and stamping its foot like a restive charger.
"M. de Balzac sends two hundred pages pencilled in five nights of
fever. One knows his way. It was a sketch, a chaos, an apocalypse, a
Hindoo poem.
"The printing-office paled. The delay is short, the writing unheard
of. They transform the monster; they translate it as much as possible
into known signs. The cleverest still understand nothing. They take it
to the author.
"The author sends back the first proofs, glued on to enormous pages,
posters, screens. It is now that you may shiver and feel pity. The
appearance of these sheets is monstrous. From each sign, from each
printed word, go pen lines, which radiate and meander like a Congreve
rocket, and spread themselves out at the margin in a luminous rain of
phrases, epithets, and substantives, underlined, crossed, mixed,
erased, superposed: the effect is dazzling.
"Imagine four or five hundred arabesques of this sort, interlaced,
knotted, climbing and sliding from one margin to another, and from the
south to the north. Imagine twelve maps on the top of each other,
entangling towns, rivers, and mountains--a skein tangled by a cat, all
the hieroglyphics of the dynasty of Pharaoh, or the fireworks of
twenty festivities.
"At this sight the printing-office does not rejoice. The compositors
strike their breasts, the printing-presses groan, the foremen tear
their hair, their apprentices lose their heads. The most intelligent
attack the proofs, and recognise Persian, others Malagash, some the
symbolic characters of Vishnu. They work by chance and by the grace of
God.
"Next day M. de Balzac returns two pages of pure Chinese. The delay is
only fifteen days. A generous foreman offers to blow out his brains.
"Two new sheets arrive, written very legibly in Siamese. Two workmen
lose their sight and the small command of language they possessed.
"The proofs are thus sent backwards and forwards seven times.
"Several symptoms of excellent French begin to be recognised, even
some connection between the phrases is observed."
So the article proceeds; always in a tone of comic good-temper, but
pointing to a very real grievance and point of dispute; and helping
the reader to realise the long friction which went on, and finally
resulted in the unanimity with which publishers and editors turned
against Balzac after his famous lawsuit, and showed a vindictive hate
which at first sight is surprising. However, in this case the matter
ends happily, as the article closes with:
"It ['Cesar Birotteau'] is now merely a work in two volumes, an
immense picture, a whole poem, composed, written, and corrected
fifteen times in the same number of days--composed in twenty days by
M. de Balzac in spite of the printer's office, composed in twenty days
by the printer's office in spite of M. de Balzac.
"It is true that at the same time M. de Balzac was employing forty
printers at another printing-office. We do not examine here the value
of the book. It was made marvellously and marvellously quickly.
Whatever it is, it can only be a _chef d'oeuvre_!"