SENTIMENTAL FRIENDSHIPS
MADAME DE BERNY
"I have to stand alone now amidst my troubles; formerly I had
beside me in my struggles the most courageous and the sweetest
person in the world, a woman whose memory is each day renewed in
my heart, and whose divine qualities make all other friendships
when compared with hers seem pale. I no longer have help in the
difficulties of life; when I am in doubt about any matter, I have
now no other guide than this final thought, 'If she were alive,
what would she say?' Intellects of this order are rare."
Balzac loved to seek the sympathy and confidence of people whose minds
were at leisure, and who could interest themselves in his affairs.
With his artistic temperament, he longed for the refinement, society
and delicate attentions which he found in the friendships of various
women. "The feeling of abandonment and of solitude in which I am
stings me. There is nothing selfish in me; but I need to tell my
thoughts, my efforts, my feelings to a being who is not myself;
otherwise I have no strength. I should wish for no crown if there were
no feet at which to lay that which men may put upon my head."
One of the first of these friendships was that formed with Madame de
Berny, nee (Laure-Louise-Antoinette) Hinner. She was the daughter of a
German musician, a harpist at the court of Louis XVI, and of Louise-
Marguerite-Emelie Quelpec de Laborde, a lady in waiting at the court
of Marie Antoinette. M. Hinner died in 1784, after which Madame Hinner
was married to Francois-Augustin Reinier de Jarjayes, adjutant-general
of the army. M. Jarjayes was one of the best known persons belonging
to the Royalist party during the Revolution, a champion of the Queen,
whom he made many attempts to save. He was one of her most faithful
friends, was intrusted with family keepsakes, and was made lieutenant-
general under Louis XVIII. Madame Jarjayes was much loved by the
Queen; she was also implicated in the plots. Before dying, Marie
Antoinette sent her a lock of her hair and a pair of earrings. Laure
Hinner was married April 8, 1793, to M. Gabriel de Berny, almost nine
years her senior, who was of the oldest nobility. Madame de Berny, her
husband, her mother and her stepfather were imprisoned for nine
months, and were not released until after the fall of Robespierre.
The married life of Madame de Berny was unhappy; she was intelligent
and sentimental; he, capricious and morose. She seems to have realized
the type of the /femme incomprise/; she too was an /etrangere/, and
bore some traits of her German origin. Coming into Balzac's life at
about the age of forty, this /femme de quarante ans/ became for him
the /amie/ and the companion who was to teach him life. Still
beautiful, having been reared in intimate court circles, having been
the confidante of plotters and the guardian of secrets, possessed of
rare trinkets and souvenirs--what an open book was this /memoire
vivante/, and with what passion did the young interrogator absorb the
pages! Here he found unknown anecdotes, ignored designs, and here the
sources of his great plots, /Les Chouans/, /Madame de la Chanterie/,
and /Un Episode sous la Terreur/.
All this is what she could teach him, aided perhaps by his mother, who
lived until 1837. Here is the secret of Balzac's royalism; here is
where he first learned of the great ladies that appear in his work,
largely portrayed to him by the /amie/ who watched over his youth and
guided his maturity.
Having consulted the /Almanach des 25,000 adresses/, Madame Ruxton
thinks that Balzac met Madame de Berny when the two families lived
near each other in Paris; M. de Berny and family spent the summers in
Villeparisis, and resided during the winters at 3, rue Portefoin,
Paris. It is possible that he met her at the soirees, which he
frequented with his sisters, and where his awkwardness provoked smiles
from the ladies. While it is generally supposed that they met at
Villeparisis, MM. Hanotaux et Vicaire also believed that they must
have known each other before this, if Balzac is referring to his own
life in /Oeuvres diverses: Une Passion au College/.
Madame de Berny is first mentioned in Balzac's correspondence in 1822
when, in writing his sister Laure the general news, he informs her
that Madame de Berny has become a grandmother, and that after forty
years of reflection, realizing that money is everything, she had
invested in grain. But he must have met her some time before this, for
his family was living in Villeparisis as early as 1819.
M. de Berny bought in 1815 the home of M. Michaud de Montzaigle in
Villeparisis, and remained possessor of it until 1825. M. Parquin, the
present owner of this home, is a Balzacien who has collected all the
traditions remaining in Villeparisis concerning the two families.
According to Villeparisis tradition, Madame de Berny was a woman of
great intelligence who wrote much, and her notes and stories were not
only utilized by Balzac, but she was his collaborator, especially in
writing the /Physiologie du Mariage/ and the first part of the /Femme
de trente Ans/.
When Balzac went to Villeparisis to reside, he became tutor to his
brother Henri, and it was arranged that he should also give lessons to
one of the sons of M. and Madame de Berny. Thus Balzac probably saw
her daily and was struck by her patience and kindness toward her
husband. She was apparently a gentle and sympathetic woman who
understood Balzac as did no one else, and who ignored her own troubles
and sufferings for fear of grieving him in the midst of his struggles.
It was owing to the strong recommendation of M. de Berny, councilor at
the Court at Paris, that Balzac obtained in the spring of 1826 his
royal authorization to establish himself as a printer. During the year
1825-1826, Madame de Berny loaned Balzac 9250 francs; after his
failure, she entered in /name/ into the type-foundry association of
Laurent et Balzac. She advanced to Balzac a total of 45,000 francs,
and established her son, Alexandre de Berny, in the house where her
protégé had been unsuccessful.
Though Balzac states that he paid her in full, he can not be relied
upon when he is dealing with figures, and MM. Hanotaux et Vicaire
question this statement in relating the incident told by M. Arthur
Rhone, an old friend of the de Berny family. M. de Berny told M. Rhone
that the famous bust of Flore cost him 1500 francs. One day while
visiting Balzac, his host told him to take whatever he liked as a
reimbursement, since he could not pay him. M. de Berny took some
trifle, and after Balzac's death, M. Charles Tuleu, knowing his
fondness for the bust of Flore, brought it to him as a souvenir of
their common friend. This might explain also why M. de Berny possessed
a superb clock and other things coming from Balzac's collection.
It was while Balzac was living in a little apartment in the rue des
Marais that his /Dilecta/ began her daily visits, which continued so
long, and which made such an impression on him.
Madame de Berny was of great help to Balzac in the social world and
was perhaps instrumental in developing the friendship between him and
the Duchesse de Castries. It was the Duc de Fitz-James who asked
Balzac (1832) to write a sort of program for the Royalist party, and
later (1834), wished him to become a candidate for deputy. This Duc de
Fitz-James was the nephew of the godmother of Madame de Berny. It was
to please him and the Duchesse de Castries that Balzac published a
beautiful page about the Duchesse d'Angouleme.
Although Madame de Berny was of great help to Balzac in the financial
and social worlds, of greater value was her literary influence over
him. With good judgment and excellent taste she writes him: "Act, my
dear, as though the whole multitude sees you from all sides at the
height where you will be placed, but do not cry to it to admire you,
for, on all sides, the strongest magnifying glasses will instantly be
turned on you, and how does the most delightful object appear when
seen through the microscope?"
She had had great experience in life, had suffered much and had seen
many cruel things, but she brought Balzac consolation for all his
pains and a confidence and serenity of which his appreciation is
beautifully expressed:
"I should be most unjust if I did not say that from 1823 to 1833 an
angel sustained me through that horrible struggle. Madame de
Berny, though married, was like a God to me. She was a mother,
friend, family, counselor; she made the writer, she consoled the
young man, she created his taste, she wept like a sister, she
laughed, she came daily, like a beneficent sleep, to still his
sorrows. She did more; though under the control of a husband, she
found means to lend me as much as forty-five thousand francs, of
which I returned the last six thousand in 1836, with interest at
five per cent., be it understood. But she never spoke to me of my
debt, except now and then; without her, I should, assuredly, be
dead. She often divined that I had eaten nothing for days; she
provided for all with angelic goodness; she encouraged that pride
which preserves a man from baseness,--for which to-day my enemies
reproach me, calling it a silly satisfaction in myself--the pride
that Boulanger has, perhaps, pushed to excess in my portrait."
Balzac's conception of women was formed largely from his association
with Madame de Berny in his early manhood, and a reflection of these
ideas is seen throughout his works. It was probably to give Madame de
Berny pleasure that he painted the mature beauties which won for him
so many feminine admirers.
It is doubtless Madame de Berny whom Balzac had in mind when in
/Madame Firmiani/ he describes the heroine:
"Have you ever met, for your happiness, some woman whose harmonious
tones give to her speech the charm that is no less conspicuous in
her manners, who knows how to talk and to be silent, who cares for
you with delicate feeling, whose words are happily chosen and her
language pure? Her banter caresses you, her criticism does not
sting; she neither preaches or disputes, but is interested in
leading a discussion, and stops at the right moment. Her manner is
friendly and gay, her politeness is unforced, her earnestness is
not servile; she reduces respect to a mere gentle shade; she never
tires you, and leaves you satisfied with her and yourself. You
will see her gracious presence stamped on the things she collects
about her. In her home everything charms the eye, and you breathe,
as it seems, your native air. This woman is quite natural. You
never feel an effort, she flaunts nothing, her feelings are
expressed with simplicity because they are genuine. Though candid,
she never wounds the most sensitive pride; she accepts men as God
made them, pitying the victims, forgiving defects and absurdities,
sympathizing with every age, and vexed with nothing because she
has the tact of foreseeing everything. At once tender and gay, she
first constrains and then consoles you. You love her so truly that
if this angel does wrong, you are ready to justify her. Such was
Madame Firmiani."
It was to Madame de Berny's son, Alexandre, that Balzac dedicated
/Madame Firmiani/, and he no doubt recognized the portrait.
Balzac often portrayed his own life and his association with women in
his works. In commenting on /La Peau de Chagrin/, he writes:
"Pauline is a real personage for me, only more lovely than I could
describe her. If I have made her a dream it is because I did not
wish my secret to be discovered."
And again, in writing of /Louis Lambert/:
"You know when you work in tapestry, each stitch is a thought.
Well, each line in this new work has been for me an abyss. It
contains things that are secrets between it and me."
In portraying the yearnings and sufferings of Louis Lambert (/Louis
Lambert/), of Felix de Vandenesse (/Le Lys dans la Vallee/) and of
Raphael (La Peau de Chagrin/), Balzac is picturing his own life.
Pauline de Villenoix (/Louis Lambert/) and Pauline Gaudin (/Le Peau de
Chagrin/) are possibly drawn from the same woman and have many
characteristics of Madame de Berny. Madame de Mortsauf (/Le Lys dans
la Vallee/) is Pauline, though not so outspoken. Then, is it not /La
Dilecta/ whom the novelist had in mind when Louis Lambert writes:
"When I lay my head on your knees, I could wish to attract to you
the eyes of the whole world, just as I long to concentrate in my
love every idea, every power within me";
and near the end of life, could not Madame de Berny say as did Pauline
in the closing lines of /Louis Lambert/:
"His heart was mine; his genius is with God"?
The year 1832 was a critical one in the private life of Balzac. Madame
de Berny, more than twenty years his senior, felt that they should
sever their close connection and remain as friends only. Balzac's
family had long been opposed to this intimate relationship and had
repeatedly tried to find a rich wife for him. Madame de Castries, who
had begun an anonymous correspondence with him, revealed her identity
early in that year, and the first letter from l'Etrangere, who was
soon to over-shadow all his other loves, arrived February 28, 1832.
During the same period Mademoiselle de Trumilly rejected his hand.
With so many distractions, Balzac probably did not suffer from this
separation as did his /Dilecta/. But he never forgot her, and
constantly compared other women with her, much to her detriment. He
regarded her, indeed, as a woman of great superiority.
In June (1832), Balzac left Paris to spend several weeks with his
friends, M. and Mme. de Margonne, and there at their chateau de Sache,
he wrote /Louis Lambert/ as a sort of farewell of soul to soul to the
woman he had so loved, and whose equal in devotion he never found. In
memory of his ten years' intimacy with her, he dedicated this work to
her: /Et nunc et semper dilectae dicatum 1822-1832/. It is to her
also, that he gave the beautiful Deveria portrait, resplendent with
youth and strength.[*]
[*] MM. Hanotaux et Vicaire think that it is Madame de Berny who was
weighing on Balzac's soul when he relates, in /Le Cure de
Village/, the tragic story of the young workman who dies from love
without opening his lips.
M. Brunetiere has suggested that the woman whose traits best recall
Madame de Berny is Marguerite Claes, the victim in /La Recherche de
l'Absolu/, while the nature of Balzac's affection for this great
friend of his youth has not been better expressed than in Balthasar
Claes, she always ready to sacrifice all for him, and he, as
Balthasar, always ready, in the interest of his "grand work," to rob
her and make her desperate while loving her. However, Balzac states,
in speaking of Madame de Berny:
"At any moment death may take from me an angel who has watched over
me for fourteen years; she, too, a flower of solitude, whom the
world had never touched, and who has been my star. My work is not
done without tears! The attentions due to her cast uncertainty
upon any time of which I could dispose, though she herself unites
with the doctor in advising me some strong diversions. She pushes
friendship so far as to hide her sufferings from me; she tries to
seem well for me. You understand that I have not drawn Claes to do
as he! Great God! what changes in her have been wrought in two
months! I am overwhelmed."
M. le Breton has suggested that Madame de Berny is Catherine in /La
Derniere Fee/, Madame d'Aiglemont in /La Femme de trente Ans/, and
Madame de Beauseant in /La Femme abandonnee/, and has strengthened
this last statement by pointing out that Gaston de Nueil came to
Madame de Beauseant after she had been deserted by her lover, the
Marquis d'Ajuda-Pinto, just as the youthful Balzac came to Madame de
Berny after she had had a lover.
It is doubtless to this friendship that Balzac refers when he writes
in the last lines of /La Duchesse de Langeais/: "It is only the last
love of a woman that can satisfy the first love of a man." It is of
interest to note that Antoinette is the Christian name of the heroine
of this story. Throughout the /Comedie humaine/ are seen quite young
men who fall in love with women well advanced in years, as Calyste de
Guenic with Mademoiselle Felicite des Touches in /Beatrix/, and Lucien
de Rubempre with Madame Bargeton in /Illusions perdues/.
In /Eugenie Grandet/ Balzac writes:
"Do you know what Madame Campan used to say to us? 'My children, so
long as a man is a Minister, adore him; if he falls, help to drag
him to the ditch. Powerful, he is a sort of deity; ruined, he is
below Marat in his sewer, because he is alive, and Marat, dead.
Life is a series of combinations, which must be studied and
followed if a good position is to be successfully maintained.' "
Since Madame Campan was /femme de chambre/ of Marie Antoinette, Balzac
probably heard this maxim through Madame de Berny.
Although some writers state that Madame de Berny was one of Balzac's
collaborators in composing the /Physiologie du Mariage/, he says,
regarding this work: "I undertook the /Physiologie du Mariage/ and the
/Peau de Chagrin/ against the advice of that angel whom I have lost."
She may have inspired him, however, in writing /Le Cure de Tours/, as
it is dated at her home, Saint-Firmin, 1832.
In 1833, Balzac wrote Madame Hanska that he had dedicated the fourth
volume of the /Scenes de la Vie privee/ to her, putting her seal at
the head of /l'Expiation/, the last chapter of /La Femme de trente
Ans/, which he was writing at the moment he received her first letter.
But a person who was as a mother to him and whose caprices and even
jealousy he was bound to respect, had exacted that this silent
testimony should be repressed. He had the sincerity to avow to her
both the dedication and its destruction, because he believed her to
have a soul sufficiently lofty not to desire homage which would cause
grief to one as noble and grand as she whose child he was, for she had
rescued him when in youth he had nearly perished in the midst of
griefs and shipwreck. He had saved the only copy of that dedication,
for which he had been blamed as if it were a horrible coquetry, and
wished her to keep it as a souvenir and as an expression of his
thanks.
Balzac was ever loyal to Madame de Berny and refused to reveal her
baptismal name to Madame Hanska; soon after their correspondence began
he wrote her: "You have asked me the baptismal name of the /Dilecta/.
In spite of my complete and blind faith, in spite of my sentiment for
you, I cannot tell it to you; I have never told it. Would you have
faith in me if I told it? No."
After 1834 Madame de Berny's health failed rapidly, and her last days
were full of sorrow. Among her numerous family trials Balzac
enumerates:
"One daughter become insane, another daughter dead, the third
dying, what blows!--And a wound more violent still, of which
nothing can be told. Finally, after thirty years of patience and
devotion, forced to separate from her husband under pain of dying
if she remained a few days longer. All this in a short space of
time. This is what I suffer through the heart that created me.
. . . Madame de Berny is much better; she has borne a last shock,
the illness of a beloved son whose brother has gone to bring him
home from Belgium. . . . Suddenly, the only son who resembles her,
a young man handsome as the day, tender and spiritual like
herself, like her full of noble sentiments, fell ill, and ill of a
cold which amounts to an affection of the lungs. The only child
out of /nine/ with whom she can sympathize! Of the nine, only four
remain; and her youngest daughter has become hysterically insane,
without any hope of cure. That blow nearly killed her. I was
correcting the /Lys/ beside her; but my affection was powerless
even to temper this last blow. Her son (twenty-three years old)
was in Belgium where he was directing an establishment of great
importance. His brother Alexandre went for him, and he arrived a
month ago, in a deplorable condition. This mother, without
strength, almost expiring, sits up at night to nurse Armand. She
has nurses and doctors. She implores me not to come and not to
write to her."[*]
[*] /Lettres a l'Etrangere. Various writers in speaking of Madame de
Berny, state that she had eight children; others, nine. Balzac
remarks frequently that she had nine. Among others, Madame Ruxton
says that she had eight. She gives their names and dates of birth.
The explanation of this difference is probably found in the
following: "I am going to fulfil a rather sad duty this morning.
The daughter of Madame de B . . . and of Campi . . . asks for me.
In 1824, they wished me to marry her. She was bewitchingly
beautiful, a flower of Bengal! After twenty years, I am going to
see her again! At forty years of age! She asks a service of me;
doubtless a literary ambition! . . . I am going there. . . . Three
o'clock. I was sure of it! I have seen Julie, to whom and for whom
I wrote the verses: 'From the midst of those torrents of glory and
of light, etc.:' which are in /Illusions perdues/. . . ." Neither
the name /Julie/ nor the date of her birth is given by Madame
Ruxton.
Some secret pertaining to Madame de Berny remains untold. In 1834
Balzac writes Madame Hanska: "The greatest sorrows have overwhelmed
Madame de Berny. She is far from me, at Nemours, where she is dying of
her troubles. I cannot write you about them; they are things that can
only be spoken of with the greatest secrecy." He might have revealed
this secret to her in 1835 when he visited her in Vienna; the
following secret, however, is not explained in subsequent letters, and
Balzac did not see Madame Hanska again until seven years later in St.
Petersburg:
"I have much distress, even enormous distress in the direction of
Madame de Berny; not from her directly but from her family. It is
not of a nature to be written. Some evening at Wierzchownia, when
the heart wounds are scars, I will tell it to you in murmurs so
that the spiders cannot hear, and so that my voice can go from my
lips to your heart. They are dreadful things, which dig into life
to the bone, deflowering all, and making one distrust all, except
you for whom I reserve these sighs."
Though Madame de Berny may have been jealous of other women in her
earlier association with Balzac, she evidently changed later, for he
writes:
"Alas! Madame de Berny is no better. The malady makes frightful
progress, and I cannot express to you how grand, noble and
touching this soul of my life has been in these days measured by
illness, and with what fervor she desires that another be to me
what she has been. She knows the inward spring and nobility that
the habit of carrying all things to an idol gives me. My God is on
earth."
Contrary to his family, Madame Carraud sympathized with Balzac in his
devotion to Madame de Berny, and invited them to be her guests. In
accepting he writes:
"Her life is so much bound up in mine! Ah, no one can form any true
idea of this deep attachment which sustains me in all my work, and
consoles me every moment in all I suffer. You can understand
something of this, you who know so well what friendship is, you
who are so affectionate, so good. . . . I thank you beforehand for
your offer of Frapesle to her. There, amid your flowers, and in
your gentle companionship, and the country life, if convalescence
is possible, and I venture to hope for it, she will regain life
and health."
He apparently did not receive such sympathy from Madame Hanska in
their early correspondence:
"Why be displeased about a woman fifty-eight years old, who is a
mother to me, who folds me in her heart and protects me from
stings? Do not be jealous of her; she would be so glad of our
happiness. She is an angel, sublime. There are angels of earth and
angels of heaven; she is of heaven."
Madame de Berny's illness continued to grow more and more serious. The
reading of the second number of /Pere Goriot/ affected her so much
that she had another heart attack. But as her illness and griefs
changed and withered her, Balzac's affection for her redoubled. He did
not realize how rapidly she was failing, for she did not wish him to
see her unless she felt well and could appear attractive. On his
return to France from a journey to Italy with Madame Marbouty, he was
overcome with grief at the news of the death of Madame de Berny. He
found on his table a letter from her son Alexandre briefly announcing
his mother's death.
But the novelist did not cease to respect her criticism:
"I resumed my work this morning; I am obeying the last words that
Madame de Berny wrote me; 'I can die; I am sure that you have upon
your brow the crown I wished there. The /Lys/ is a sublime work,
without spot or flaw. Only, the death of Madame de Mortsauf does
not need those horrible regrets; they injure the beautiful letter
she writes.' Therefore, to-day I have piously effaced a hundred
lines, which, according to many persons, disfigure that creation.
I have not regretted a single word, and each time that my pen was
drawn through one of them, never was the heart of man more deeply
stirred. I thought I saw that grand and sublime woman, that angel
of friendship, before me, smiling as she smiled to me when I used
a strength so rare,--the strength to cut off one's own limb and
feel neither pain nor regret in correcting, in conquering one's
self."
Balzac was sincere in his friendship with Madame de Berny, and never
ceased to revere her memory. The following appreciations of her worth
are a few of the numerous beautiful tributes he has paid her:
"I have lost the being whom I love most in the world. . . . She
whom I have lost was more than a mother, more than a friend, more
than any human creature can be to another; it can only be
expressed by the word /divine/. She sustained me through storms of
trouble by word and deed and entire devotedness. If I am alive
this day, it is to her that it is due. She was everything to me;
and although during the last two years, time and illness kept us
apart, we saw each other through the distance. She inspired me;
she was for me a spiritual sun. Madame de Mortsauf in /Le Lys dans
la Vallee/, only faintly shadows forth some of the slighter
qualities of this woman; there is but a very pale reflection of
her, for I have a horror of unveiling my own private emotions to
the public, and nothing personal to myself will ever be known."
"Madame de Berny is dead. I can say no more on that point. My
sorrow is not of a day; it will react upon my whole life. For a
year I had not seen her, nor did I see her in her last moments.
. . . /She/, who was always so lovingly severe to me, acknowledged
that the /Lys/ was one of the finest books in the French language;
she decked herself at last with the crown which, fifteen years
earlier, I had promised her, and, always coquettish, she
imperiously forbade me to visit her, because she would not have me
near her unless she were beautiful and well. The letter deceived
me. . . . When I was wrecked the first time, in 1828, I was only
twenty-nine years old and I had an angel at my side. . . . There
is a blank which has saddened me. The adored is here no longer.
Every day I have occasion to deplore the eternal absence. Would
you believe that for six months I have not been able to go to
Nemours to bring away the things that ought to be in my sole
possession? Every week I say to myself, 'It shall be this week!
. . .' I was very unhappy in my youth, but Madame de Berny
balanced all by an absolute devotion, which was understood to its
full extent only when the grave had seized its prey. Yes, I was
spoiled by that angel."[*]
[*] Madame de Berny died July 27, 1836.
So faithful was Balzac to the memory of his /Dilecta/ that nine years
after her death, he was deeply affected on seeing at the /Cour
d'Assises/ a woman about forty-five years of age, who strongly
resembled Madame de Berny, and who was being arraigned for deeds
caused by her devotion to a reckless youth.
LA DUCHESSE DE CASTRIES.--MADEMOISELLE DE TRUMILLY
"He who has not seen, at some ball of Madame, Duchesse de Berry,
glide airily, scarcely touching the floor, so moving that one
perceived in her only grace before knowing whether she was a
beauty, a young woman with blond, deep-golden hair; he who has not
seen appear then the young Marquise de Castries in a fete, cannot,
without doubt, form an idea of this new beauty, charming, aerial,
praised and honored in the salons of the Restoration."
Balzac had a brief, yet ardent friendship with the Duchesse de
Castries which ended so unhappily for him that one might say: "Heaven
has no rage like love to hatred turned." Madame de Castries was the
daughter of the Duchesse (nee Fitz-James) and the Duc de Maille. She
did not become a duchess until in 1842, and bore the title of marquise
previous to that time. Separated from her husband as the result of a
famous love affair, the Marquise gathered round her a group of
intellectual people, among whom were the writers Balzac, Musset,
Sainte-Beuve, etc., and continued active in literary and artistic
circles until her death (1861).
On Balzac's return to Paris after a prolonged visit with his friends
at Sache during the month of September, 1831, he received an anonymous
letter, dated at Paris, a circumstance which was with him of rather
frequent occurrence, as with many men of letters.
This lady criticized the /Physiologie du Mariage/, to which Balzac
replies, defending his position:
"The /Physiologie du Mariage/, madame, was a work undertaken for
the purpose of defending the cause of women. I knew that if, with
the view of inculcating ideas favorable to their emancipation and
to a broad and thorough system of education for them, I had gone
to work in a blundering way, I should at best, have been regarded
as nothing more than an author of a theory more or less plausible.
I was therefore, obliged to clothe my ideas, to disguise them
under a new shape, in biting, incisive words that should lay hold
on the mind of my readers, awaken their attention and leave
behind, reflections upon which they might meditate. Thus then any
woman who has passed through the "storms of life" would see that I
attribute the blame of all faults committed by the wives, entirely
to their husbands. It is, in fact, a plenary absolution. Besides
this, I plead for the natural and inalienable rights of woman. A
happy marriage is impossible unless there be a perfect
acquaintance between the two before marriage--a knowledge of each
other's ways, habits and character. And I have not flinched from
any of the consequences involved in this principle. Those who know
me are aware that I have been faithful to this opinion ever since
I reached the age of reason; and in my eyes a young girl who has
committed a fault deserves more interest than she who, remaining
ignorant, lies open to the misfortunes of the future. I am at this
present time a bachelor, and if I should marry later in life, it
will only be to a widow."
Thus was begun the correspondence, and the Duchess ended by lifting
her mask and inviting the writer to visit her; he gladly accepted her
gracious offer to come, not as a literary man nor as an artist, but as
himself. It is a striking coincidence that Balzac accepted this
invitation the very day, February 28, 1832, that he received the first
letter from /l'Etrangere/.
What must have been Balzac's surprise, and how flattered he must have
felt, on learning that his unknown correspondent belonged to the
highest aristocracy of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and that her
husband was a peer of France under Charles X!
"Madame de Castries was a coquettish, vain, delicate, clever woman,
with a touch of sensibility, piety and /chaleur de salon/; a true
Parisian with all her brilliant exterior accomplishments,
qualities refined by education, luxury and aristocratic
surroundings, but also with all her coldness and faults; in a
word, one of those women of whom one must never ask friendship,
love or devotion beyond a light veneer, because nature had created
some women morally poor."
At first, Balzac was too enraptured to judge her accurately, but after
frequenting her salon for several months, he says of her:
"It is necessary that I go and climb about at Aix, in Savoy, to run
after some one who, perhaps, will laugh at me--one of those
aristocratic women of whom you no doubt have a horror; one of
those angelic beauties to whom one ascribes a soul; a true
duchess, very disdainful, very loving, subtle, witty, a coquette,
like nothing I have ever yet seen, and who says she loves me, who
wants to keep me in a palace at Venice (for I tell you
everything), and who desires I should write nothing, except for
her; one of those women who must be worshiped on one's knees when
they wish it, and whom one has such pleasure in conquering; a
woman to be dreamt of, jealous of everything."
A few weeks later he writes from Aix:
"I have come here to seek at once both much and little. Much,
because I see daily a person full of grace and amiability, little,
because she is never likely to love me."
Under the influence of the Duchesse de Castries and the Duc de Fitz-
James, Balzac gave more and more prominence to Catholic and Legitimist
sentiments; and it was perhaps for her sake that the novelist offered
himself as a candidate for deputy in several districts, but was
defeated in all of them. He thought it quite probable that the Duc de
Fitz-James would be elected in at least two districts, so if he were
not elected at Angouleme, the Duke might use his interest to get him
elected for the place he declined.
It was after Balzac met Madame de Castries that one notes his
extravagant tastes and love of display as shown in his horses and
carriage, his extra servant, his numerous waistcoats, his gold
buttons, his appearance at the opera with his wonderful cane, and his
indulgence in rare pictures, old furniture, and bric-a-brac in
general.
Induced to follow her to Aix, he continued his work, rising at five in
the morning and working until half past five in the afternoon. His
lunch came from the circle, and at six o'clock, he dined with Madame
de Castries, and spent the evening with her. His intimacy with this
illustrious family increased, and he accepted an invitation to
accompany them to Italy, giving several reasons for this journey:
"I am at the gates of Italy, and I fear to give way to the
temptation of passing through them. The journey would not be
costly; I could make it with the Fitz-James family, who would be
exceedingly agreeable; they are all perfect to me. . . . I travel
as fourth passenger in Mme. de Castries' /vetturino/ and the
bargain--which includes everything, food, carriages, hotels--is a
thousand francs for all of us to go from Geneva to Rome; making my
share two hundred and fifty francs. . . . I shall make this
splendid journey with the Duke, who will treat me as if I were his
son. I also shall be in relation with the best society; I am not
likely to meet with such an opportunity again. M. de Fitz-James
has been in Italy before, he knows the country, and will spare me
all loss of time. Besides this, his name will throw open many
doors to me. The Duchess and he are both more than kind to me, in
every way, and the advantages of their society are great."
From Aix they went to Geneva. Just what happened here, we shall
probably never know. Suddenly abandoning the proposed trip, Balzac
writes his mother:
"It is advisable I should return to France for three months. . . .
Besides, my traveling companions will not be at Naples till
February. I shall, therefore, come back, but not to Paris; my
return will not be known to any one; and I shall start again for
Naples in February, via Marseilles and the steamer. I shall be
more at rest on the subjects of money and literary obligations."
Later he alludes thus to his sudden departure from Geneva:
"/Mon Dieu, Mon Dieu!/ God, in whom I believe, owed me some sweet
emotions at the sight of Geneva, for I left it disconsolate,
cursing everything, abhorring womankind! With what joy shall I
return to it, my celestial love, my Eva!"
Thus was ended an ardent friendship of about eight months' duration,
for instead of rejoining the Duchesse de Castries in Italy Balzac's
first visit to that country was made many years later, and then in the
delightful company of his "Polar Star."
In speaking of this sudden breach, Miss M. F. Sandars says:
"We can only conjecture the cause of the final rupture, as no
satisfactory explanation is forthcoming. The original 'Confession'
in the /Medecin de Campagne/, which is the history of Balzac's
relations and parting with Madame de Castries, is in the
possession of the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul. The present
'Confession' was substituted for it, because the first revealed
too much of Balzac's private life. However, even in the original
'Confession,' we learn no reason for Madame de Castries' sudden
resolve to dismiss her adorer, as Balzac declares with indignant
despair that he can give no explanation of it. Apparently she
parted from him one evening with her usual warmth of affection,
and next morning everything was changed, and she treated him with
the utmost coldness."
Fully to appreciate what this friendship meant to both, one must
consider the private life of each. As has been seen, it was in the
summer of 1832 that Balzac and his /Dilecta/ decided to sever their
intimate connection, and since his /Chatelaine/ of Wierzchownia had
not yet become the dominating force in his life, his heart was
doubtless yearning for some one to adore.
There was also an aching void in the heart of Madame de Castries. She,
too, was recovering from an amorous attachment, more serious than was
his, for death had recently claimed the young Count Metternich.
Perhaps then, each was seeking consolation in the other's society.
There was nothing more astonishing or charming than to see in the
evening, in one of the most simple little drawing-rooms, antiquely
furnished with tables, cushions of old velvet and screens of the
eighteenth century, this woman, her spine injured, reclining in her
invalid's chair, languid, but without affectation. This woman--with
her profile more Roman than Greek, her hair falling over her high,
white brow--was the Duchesse de Castries, nee de Maille, related to
the best families of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Accompanying the
young Comte de Metternich on the hunt, she was caught in the branch of
a tree, and fell, injuring her spine. But a shadow of her former
brilliant self--such had become this beauty, once so dazzling that the
moment she entered the drawing-room, her gorgeous robe falling over
shoulders worthy of a Titian, the brilliancy of the candles was
literally effaced.[*]
[*] Philarete Chasles was a frequent visitor of her salon. When Balzac
visited Madame Hanska at Vienna in the summer of 1835, he did a
favor for the Duchesse de Castries while there. He wrote /La
Filandiere/, 1835, one of his /Contes drolatiques/, for Madame de
Castries' son, M. le baron d'Aldenburg.
Balzac refers frequently to Count Metternich in writing to Madame
Hanska of his association with Madame de Castries:
"There is still a Metternich in this adventure; but this time it is
the son, who died in Florence. I have already told you of this
cruel affair, and I had no right to tell you. though separated
from that person out of delicacy, all is not over yet. I suffer
through her; but I do not judge her. . . . Madame de C---- insists
that she has never loved any one except M. de M---- and that she
loves him still, that Artemisia of Ephesus. . . . You asked me, I
believe, about Madame de C---- She has taken the thing, as I told
you, tragically, and now distrusts the M---- family. Beneath all
this, on both sides there is something inexplicable, and I have no
desire to look for the key of mysteries which do not concern me. I
am with Madame de C---- on the proper terms of politeness, and as
you yourself would wish me to be."
After their abrupt separation at Geneva, their relations continued to
be estranged:
"For the moment I will tell you that Madame de C---- has written me
that we are not to see each other again; she has taken offense at
a letter, and I at many other things. Be assured that there is no
love in all this! . . . I meant to speak to you of Madame de
C----, but I have not the time. Twenty-five days hence I will tell
you by word of mouth. In two words, your Honore, my Eva, grew
angry at the coldness which simulated friendship. I said what I
thought; the reply was that I ought not to see again a woman to
whom I could say such cruel things. I asked a thousand pardons for
the 'great liberty,' and we continue on a very cold footing."
Balzac was deeply wounded through his passionate love for Madame de
Castries, and resented her leaving him in the depths of an abyss of
coldness after having inflamed him with the fire of her soul; he began
to think of revenge:
"I abhor Madame de C----, for she blighted my life without giving
me another,--I do not say a comparable one, but without giving me
what she promised. There is not the shadow of wounded vanity, oh!
but disgust and contempt . . . If Madame de C----'s letter
displeases you, say so frankly, my love. I will write to her that
my affections are placed in a heart too jealous for me to be
permitted to correspond with a woman who has her reputation for
beauty, for charm, and that I act frankly in telling her
so. . . ."
Indeed, his experience with Madame de Castries at Geneva had made him
so unhappy that on his return to that city to visit his /Predilecta/,
he had moments of joy mingled with sorrow, as the scenery recalled
how, on his previous visit, he had wept over his /illusions perdues/.
While other writers suggest different causes, one might surmise that
this serious disappointment was the beginning of Balzac's heart
trouble, for in speaking of it, he says: "It is necessary for my life
to be bright and pleasant. The cruelties of the woman whom you know
have been the cause of the trouble; then the disasters of 1848. . . ."
He tried to overcome his dejection by intense work, but he could not
forget the tragic suffering he had undergone. The experience he had
recently passed through he disclosed in one of his most noted stories,
/La Duchesse de Langeais/, which he wrote largely in 1834 at the same
fatal city of Geneva, but this time, while enjoying the society of the
beautiful Madame Hanska. In this story, under the name of the heroine,
the Duchesse de Langeais, he describes the Duchesse de Castries:
"This was a woman artificially educated, but in reality ignorant; a
woman whose instincts and feelings were lofty, while the thought
which should have controlled them was wanting. She squandered the
wealth of her nature in obedience to social conventions; she was
ready to brave society, yet she hesitated till her scruples
degenerated into artifice. With more wilfulness than force of
character, impressionable rather than enthusiastic, gifted with
more brain than heart; she was supremely a woman, supremely a
coquette, and above all things a /Parisienne/, loving a brilliant
life and gaiety, reflecting never, or too late; imprudent to the
verge of poetry, and humble in the depths of her heart, in spite
of her charming insolence. Like some straight-growing reed, she
made a show of independence; yet, like the reed, she was ready to
bend to a strong hand. She talked much of religion, and had it not
at heart, though she was prepared to find in it a solution of her
life."
In the same story under the name of the Marquis de Montriveau, Balzac
is doubtless portraying himself. It was probably in the home of the
Duchesse de Castries that Balzac conceived some of his ideas of the
aristocracy of the exclusive Faubourg Saint-Germain, a picture of
which he has drawn in this story of which she is the heroine. Her
influence is seen also in the characters so minutely drawn of the
heartless /Parisienne/, no longer young, but seductive, refined and
aristocratic, though deceptive and perfidious.
Before publishing /La Duchesse de Langeais/, the novelist was either
tactful or vindictive enough to call on Madame de Castries and read to
her his new book. He says of this visit: "I have just returned from
Madame de C----, whom I do not want for an enemy when my book comes
out and the best means of obtaining a defender against the Faubourg
Saint-Germain is to make her approve of the work in advance; and she
greatly approved of it." But a few weeks later, he writes: "Here I am,
on bad terms with Madame de C---- on account of the /Duchesse de
Langeais/--so much the better." If Balzac refers to Madame de Castries
in the following except, one may even say that he had her correct his
work.
"Say whatever you like about /La Duchesse de Langeais/, your
remarks do not affect me; but a lady whom you may perhaps know,
illustrious and elegant, has approved everything, corrected
everything like a royal censor, and her authority on ducal matters
is incontestable; I am safe under the shadow of her shawl."
Balzac continued to call on her and to write to her occasionally, and
was very sympathetic to her illness, especially as her Parisian
friends seemed to have abandoned her. Though death did not come to her
until more than twenty-five years later, he writes at this time:
"Madame de Castries is dying; the paralysis is attacking the other
limb. Her beauty is no more; she is blighted. Oh! I pity her. She
suffers horribly and inspires pity only. She is the only person I
visit, and then, for one hour every week. It is more than I really
can do, but the hour is compelled by the sight of that slow
death."
In her despondency he tries to cheer her:
"I do not like your melancholy; I should scold you well if you were
here. I would put you on a large divan, where you would be like a
fairy in the midst of her palace, and I would tell you that in
this life you must love in order to live. Now, you do not love. A
lively affection is the bread of the soul, and when the soul is
not fed it grows starved, like the body. The bonds of the soul and
body are such that each suffers with the other. . . . A thousand
kindly things in return for your flowers, which bring me much
happiness, but I wish for something more. . . . You have mingled
bitterness with the flatteries you have the goodness to bestow on
my book, as if you knew all the weight of your words and how far
they would reach. I would a thousand times rather you would
consider the book and the pen as things of your own, than receive
these praises."[*]
[*] It is interesting to note Balzac's fondness for flowers, as is
seen in his association of them with various women, and the
prominent place he has given them in some of his works.
Though his visits continued, their friendship gradually grew colder,
and in 1836 he writes: "I have broken the last frail relations of
politeness with Madame de C----. She enjoys the society of MM. Janni
and Sainte-Beauve, who have so outrageously wounded me. It seemed to
me bad taste, and now I am happily out of it."
/La Duchesse de Langeais/ appeared in 1834, but Madame de Castries had
not fully wreaked her revenge on Balzac. For some time an Irish woman,
a Miss Patrickson, had insisted on translating Balzac's works. Madame
de Castries engaged her as teacher of English, and used her as a means
of ensnaring Balzac by having her write him a love letter and sign it
"Lady Nevil." Though suspicious about this letter, he answered it, and
a rendezvous was arranged at the opera. That day he called on Madame
de Castries, and she had him remain for dinner. When he excused
himself to go to the opera, she insisted on accompanying him; he then
realized that he was a victim of her strategy, which he thus
describes:
"I go to the opera. No one there. Then I write a letter, which
brings the miss, old, horrible, with hideous teeth, but full of
remorse for the part she had played, full of affection for me and
contempt and horror for the Marquise. Though my letters were
extremely ironical and written for the purpose of making a woman
masquerading as a false lady blush, she (Miss Patrickson) had
recovered them. I had the upper hand of Madame de C---- She ended
by divining that in this intrigue she was on the down side. From
that time forth she vowed me a hatred which will end only with
life. In fact, she may rise out of her grave to calumniate me. She
never opened /Seraphita/ on account of its dedication, and her
jealousy is such that if she could completely destroy the book she
would weep for joy."[*]
[*] Seized with pity for this poor Irish woman, Balzac called later to
see about some translations and found her overcome by drink in the
midst of poverty and dirt. He learned afterwards that she was
addicted to the habit of drinking gin.
Notwithstanding their enmity Balzac visited her occasionally. She had
become so uncomely that he could not understand his infatuation at
Aix, ten years before. He disliked her especially because she had for
the moment, in posing as Madame de Balzac, made Madame Hanska believe
he was married. He enjoyed telling her of Madame Hanska's admiration
for and devotion to him, and sarcastically remarked to her that she
was such a "true friend" she would be happy to learn of his financial
success. Thus, during a period of several years, while speaking of her
as his enemy, the novelist continued to dine with her, but was ever
ready to overwhelm her with sarcasm, even while her guest. Yet, in
1843, he dedicated to her /L'Illustre Gaudissart/, a work written ten
years before.
Though he was fully recovered with time, this drama, played by a
coquette, was almost tragic for the author of the /Comedie humaine/.
No other woman left so deep a mark of passion or such rankling wounds
in his bleeding heart, as did she of whom he says:
"It has required five years of wounds for my tender nature to
detach itself from one of iron. A gracious woman, this Duchess of
whom I spoke to you, and one who had come to me under an
incognito, which, I render her this justice, she laid aside the
day I asked her to. . . . This /liaison/ which, whatever may be
said, be assured has remained by the will of the woman in the most
reproachable conditions, has been one of the great sorrows of my
life. The secret misfortunes of my situation actually come from
the fact that I sacrificed everything to her, for a single one of
her desires; she never divined anything. A wounded man must be
pardoned for fearing injuries. . . . I alone know what there is of
horror in the /Duchesse de Langeais/."
In 1831 Balzac asked for the hand of a young lady of the Faubourg
Saint-Germain, Mademoiselle Eleonore de Trumilly, second daughter of
his friend the Baron de Trumilly, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Artillery
of the Royal guard under the Restoration, a former /émigré/, and of
Madame Alexandra-Anna de Montiers. This request was received by her
father, who transmitted it to her, but she rejected the suitor and
married June 18, 1833, Francois-Felix-Claude-Marie-Marguerite Labroue,
Baron de Vareilles-Sommieres, of the diocese of Poitiers.
The Baron de Trumilly (died April 7, 1832) held high rank among the
officers of the artillery, and his cultured mind rendered him one of
the ornaments of society. He lived in friendly and intellectual
relations with Balzac while the future novelist was working on the
/Chouans/ and the /Physiologie du Mariage/, and at the time Balzac was
revising the latter for publication, he went to dine frequently at the
home of the Baron, who used to work with him until late in the
evening. In this work he introduces an old /émigré/ under the initials
of Marquis de T---- which are quite similar to those of the Baron de
Trumilly. This Marquis de T---- went to Germany about 1791, which
corresponds to the life of the Baron.
Baron de Trumilly welcomed Balzac into his home, took a great interest
in his work, and seemed willing to give him one of his three
daughters; but one can understand how the young novelist, who had not
yet attained great fame, might not favorably impress a young lady of
the social standing of Mademoiselle de Trumilly, and her father did
not urge her to accept him.
Although Balzac wrote Madame Hanska that when he called the girl loved
by Dr. Benassis in his "Confession" (Le Medecin de Campagne)
"Evelina," he said to himself, "She will quiver with joy in seeing
that her name has occupied me, that she was present to my memory, and
that what I deemed loveliest and noblest in the young girl, I have
named for her," some think that the lady he had in mind was not Mme.
Hanska, but Eleonore de Trumilly, who really was a young unmarried
girl, while Madame Hanska was not only married, but the mother of
several children. Again, letters written by the author to his family
show his condition to have been desperate at that time. Balzac asserts
that the story of /Louis Lambert/ is true to life; hence, despondent
over his own situation, he makes Louis Lambert become insane, and
causes Dr. Benassis to think of suicide when disappointed in love.
Thus was the novelist doomed, early in his literary career, to meet
with a disappointment which, as has been seen, was to be repeated some
months later with more serious results, when his adoration for the
Duchesse de Castries was suddenly turned into bitterness.
MADAME HANSKA.--LA COMTESSE MNISZECH.--MADEMOISELLE BOREL.--
MESDEMOISELLES WYLEZYNSKA.--LA COMTESSE ROSALIE RZEWUSKA.--
MADEMOISELLE CALISTE RZEWUSKA.--MADAME CHERKOWITSCH.--
MADAME RIZNITSCH.--LA COMTESSE MARIE POTOCKA.
"And they talk of the first love! I know nothing as terrible as the
last, it is strangling."
The longest and by far the most important of Balzac's friendships
began by correspondence was the one with Madame Eveline Hanska, whose
first letter arrived February 28, 1832. The friendship soon developed
into a more sentimental relationship culminating March 14, 1850, when
Madame Hanska became Madame Honore de Balzac. This "grand and
beautiful soul-drama" is one of the noblest in the world, and in the
history of literature the longest.
So long was Balzac in pursuit of this apparent chimera, and so ardent
was his passion for his "polar star" that the above words of Quinola
may well be applied to his experience. So fervent was his adoration,
so pathetic his sufferings and so persistent his pursuit during the
seventeen long years of waiting that Miss Betham-Edwards has
appropriately said of his letters to Madame Hanska:
"Opening with a pianissimo, we soon reach /a con molto
expressione/, a /crescendo/, a /molto furore/ quickly following.
Every musical term, adjectival, substantival, occurs to us as we
read the thousand and odd pages of the two volumes. . . . Nothing
in his fiction or any other, records a love greatening as the
tedious years wore on, a love sovereignly overcoming doubt,
despair and disillusion, such a love as the great Balzac's for
/l'Etrangere/."
Their relationship from the beginning of their correspondence to the
tragic end which came so soon after Balzac had arrived "at the summit
of happiness," has been shrouded in mystery. This mystery has been
heightened by the vivid imagination of some of Balzac's biographers,
where fancy replace facts.
Miss Katherine P. Wormeley denies the authenticity of some of the
letters published in the /Lettres a l'Etrangere/, saying:
"No explanation is given of how these letters were obtained, and no
proof or assurance is offered of their authenticity. A foot-note
appended to the first letter merely states as follows: 'M. le
vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, in whose hands are the
originals of these letters, has related the history of this
correspondence in detail, under the title of /Un Roman d'Amour/
(Calmann Levy, publisher). Madame Hanska, born Evelina (Eve)
Rzewuska, who was then twenty-six or twenty-eight years old,
resided at the chateau of Wierzchownia, in Volhynia. An
enthusiastic reader of the /Scenes de la Vie privee/, uneasy at
the different turns which the mind of the author was taking in
/La Peau de Chagrin/, she addressed to Balzac--then thirty-three
years old, in the care of the publisher Gosselin, a letter signed
/l'Etrangere/, which was delivered to him February 18, 1832. Other
letters followed; that of November 7 ended thus: 'A word from you
in the /Quotidienne/ will give me the assurance that you have
received my letter, and that I can write to you without fear. Sign
it; to /l'E---- H. de B/.' This acknowledgment of reception
appeared in the /Quotidienne/ of December 9. Thus was inaugurated
the system of /petite/ correspondence now practised in divers
newspapers, and at the same time, this correspondence with her who
was seventeen years later, in 1850, to become his wife."[*]
[*] Miss M. F. Sandars states that a copy of the /Quotidienne/
containing this acknowledgment was in the possession of the
Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, and that she saw it. At the
time of writing this preface, Miss Wormeley did not believe the
correspondence began until February, 1833. In undertaking to prove
this, she cited a letter from Balzac written to Madame Hanska,
dated January 4, 1846, in which he says that the thirteen years
will soon be completed since he received her first letter. She
corrects this statement, however, in writing her /Memoir of
Balzac/ three years later. The mistake in this letter here
mentioned is only an example of the inaccuracy of Balzac, found
not only in his letters, but throughout the /Comedie humaine/. But
Miss Wormeley's argument might have been refuted by quoting
another letter from Balzac to Madame Hanska dated February, 1840:
"After eight years you do not know me!"
Regarding the two letters published in /Un Roman d'Amour/, pp. 33-49,
dated November 7, 1832, and January 8, 1833, and signed /l'Etrangere/,
Miss Wormeley says it is not necessary to notice them, since the
author himself states that they are not in Madame Hanska's
handwriting.
She is quite correct in this, for Spoelberch de Lovenjoul writes: "How
many letters did Balzac receive thus? No one knows. But we possess
two, neither of which is in Madame Hanska's handwriting." In speaking
of the first letter that arrived, he says:
"This first record of interest which was soon to change its nature,
has unfortunately not been found yet. Perhaps this page perished
in the /autodafe/ which, as the result of a dramatic adventure,
Balzac made of all the letters he had received from Madame Hanska;
perhaps also, by dint of rereading it, he had worn it out and
involuntarily destroyed it himself. We do not know. In any case,
we have not found it in the part of his papers which have fallen
into our hands. We regret it very much, for this letter must be
remarkable to have produced so great an impression on the future
author of the /Comedie humaine/."
The question arises: If Balzac burned in 1847 "all the letters he had
received from Madame Hanska," how could de Lovenjoul publish in 1896
two letters that he alleged to be from her, dated in 1832 and 1833?
The Princess Radziwill who is the niece of Madame Honore de Balzac and
was reared by her in the house of Balzac in the rue Fortunee, has been
both gracious and generous to the present writer in giving her much
valuable information that could not have been obtained elsewhere. In
answer to the above question, she states:
"Balzac said that he burned my aunt's letters in order to reassure
her one day when she had reasons to fear they would fall into
other hands than those to whom they belonged. After his death, my
aunt found them all, and I am sorry to say that /it was she who
burned them/, and that I was present at this /autodafe/, and
remember to this day my horror and indignation. But my aunt as
well as my father had a horror of leaving letters after them, and
strange to say, they were right in fearing to leave them because
in both cases, papers had a fate they would not have liked them to
have."
The sketch of the family of Madame Honore de Balzac as given in /Un
Roman d'Amour/, is so inaccurate that the Princess Radziwill has very
kindly made the following corrections of it for the present writer:
"(1) Madame Hanska was really born on December /24th, not 25th/,
1801. You will find the date on her grave which is under the same
monument as that of Balzac, in Pere Lachaise in Paris. I am
absolutely sure of the day, because my father was also born on
Christmas Eve, and there were always great family rejoicings on
that occasion. You know that the Roman Catholic church celebrates
on the 24th of December the fete of Adam and Eve, and it is
because they were born on that day that my father and his sister
were called Adam and Eve. I am also quite sure that the year of my
aunt's birth was 1801, and my father's 1803, and should be very
much surprised if my memory served me false in that respect. But I
repeat it, the exact dates are inscribed on my aunt's grave. . . .
I looked up since I saw you a prayer book which I possess in which
the dates of birth are consigned, and thus found 1801, and I think
it is the correct one, but at all events I repeat it once more,
the exact date is engraved on her monument.
"(2) Caroline Rzewuska, my aunt's eldest sister, and the eldest of
the whole family, is the Madame Cherkowitsch of Balzac's letters,
and not Shikoff, as the family sketch says. It is equally
ridiculous to say that some people aver she was married four
times, and had General Witte for a husband; but Witte was a great
admirer of hers at the time she was Mme. Sobanska. There is also a
detail connected with her which is very little known, and that is
that she nearly married Sainte-Beauve, and that the marriage was
broken off a few days before the one fixed for it to take place.
That was before she married Jules Lacroix, and wicked people say
that it was partly disappointment at having been unable to become
the wife of the great critic, which made her accept the former.
"(3) My aunt Pauline was married to a Serbian banker settled in
Odessa, a very rich man called Jean Riznitsch, but he was /neither
a General nor a Baron/. Her second daughter, Alexandrine, married
Mr. Ciechanowiecki who also never could boast of a title, and
whose father had never been /Minister de l'Interieur en Pologne/.
"(4) My aunt Eve was neither married in 1818 nor in 1822 to Mr.
Hanski, but in 1820. It was not because of /revers de fortune/
that she was married to him, but it was the custom in Polish noble
families to try to settle girls as richly as possible. Later on,
my grandfather lost a great deal of money, but this circumstance,
which occurred after my aunt's marriage, had nothing to do with
it. My grandfather,--this by the way,--was a very remarkable man,
a personal friend of Voltaire. You will find interesting details
about him in an amusing book published by Ernest Daudet, called
/La Correspondence du Comte Valentin Esterhazy/, in the first
volume, where among other things is described the birth of my aunt
Helene, whose personality interests you so much, a birth which
nearly killed her mother. Besides Helene, my grandparents had
still another daughter who also died unmarried, at seventeen years
of age, and who, judging by her picture, must have been a wonder
of beauty; also a son Stanislas, who was killed accidentally by a
fall from his horse in 1826.
"(5) My uncle Ernest was not the second son of his parents, but the
youngest in the whole family."
It is interesting to note that Balzac wished to have his works
advertised in newspapers circulating in foreign countries and wrote
his publisher to advertise in the /Gazette/ and the /Quotidienne/, as
they were the only papers admitted into Russia, Italy, etc. He
repeated this request some months later, by which time he not only
knew that /l'Etrangere/ read the /Quotidienne/, but he had become
interested in her.
As has been mentioned, it is a strange coincidence that this first
letter from /l'Etrangere/ arrived on the very day that the novelist
wrote accepting the invitation of the Duchesse de Castries. Balzac
doubtless little dreamed that this was the beginning of a
correspondence which was destined to change the whole current of his
life.
Many versions have been given as to what this letter contained, some
saying that Madame Hanska had been reading the /Peau de Chagrin/,
others, the /Physiologie du Mariage/, and others, the /Maison du Chat-
qui-pelote/, but if the letter no longer exists how is one to prove
what it contained? Yet it must have impressed Balzac, for he wanted to
dedicate to her the fourth volume of the /Scenes de la Vie privee/ in
placing her seal and "Diis ignotis 28 fevrier 1832" at the head of
/l'Expiation/, the last chapter of /La Femme de trente Ans/, which he
was writing when her letter arrived, but Madame de Berny objected, so
he saved the only copy of that dedication and wished Madame Hanska to
keep it as a souvenir, and as an expression of his thanks.
According to Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, Balzac showed one of Madame
Hanska's letters to Madame Carraud, and she answered it for him; but
with his usual skill in answering severe cross-examinations, he
replies:
"You have asked me with distrust to give an explanation of my two
handwritings; but I have as many handwritings as there are days in
the year, without being on that account the least in the world
versatile. This mobility comes from an imagination which can
conceive all and remain vague, like glass which is soiled by none
of its reflections. The glass is in my brain."
In this same letter, which is the second given, Balzac writes: ". . .
I am galloping towards Poland, and rereading all your letters,--I have
but three of them, . . ." If this last statement be true, the answer
to Spoelberch de Lovenjoul's question, "How many letters did Balzac
receive thus?" is not difficult.
Miss Wormeley seems to be correct in saying that this second letter is
inconsistent with the preceding one dated also in January, 1833,
showing an arbitrary system of dating. There are others which are
inconsistent, if not impossible, but if Spoelberch de Lovenjoul after
the death of Madame Honore de Balzac found these letters scattered
about in various places, as he states, it is quite possible that
contents as well as dates are confused.[*]
[*] One can see at once the injustice of the criticism of M. Henry
Bordeaux, /la Grande Revue/, November, 1899, in censuring Madame
Hanska for publishing her letters from Balzac.
The husband of Madame Hanska, M. Wenceslas de Hanski, who was never a
count, but a very rich man, was many years her senior, and suffered
from "blue devils" and paresis a long time before his death. Though he
was very generous with his wife in allowing her to travel, she often
suffered from ennui in her beautifully furnished chateau of
Wierzchownia, which Balzac described as being "as large as the
Louvre." This was a great exaggeration, for it was comparatively
small, having only about thirty rooms. With her husband, her little
daughter Anna, her daughter's governess, Mademoiselle Henriette Borel,
and two Polish relatives, Mesdemoiselles Severine and Denise
Wylezynska, she led a lonely life and spent much of her time in
reading, or writing letters. The household comprised the only people
of education for miles around.
Having lost six of her seven children, and being an intensely maternal
woman, the deepest feelings of her heart were devoted to her daughter
Anna, who also was destined to occupy much of the time and thought of
the author of the /Comedie humaine/.
If the letters printed in /Un Roman d'Amour/ are genuine, in the one
dated January 8, 1833, she speaks of having received with delight the
copy of the /Quotidienne/ in which his notice is inserted. She tells
him that M. de Hanski with his family are coming nearer France, and
she wishes to arrange some way for him to answer her letters, but he
must never try to ascertain who the person is who will transmit his
letters to her, and the greatest secrecy must be preserved.
It is not known how she arranged to have him send his letters, but he
wrote her about once a month from January to September, and after that
more frequently, as he was arranging to visit her. M. de Hanski with
his numerous family had come to Neufchatel in July, having stopped in
Vienna on the way. Here Balzac was to meet l'Etrangere for the first
time. He left Paris September 22, stopping to make a business visit to
his friend, Charles Bernard, at Besancon, and arriving at Neufchatel
September 25. (Although this letter to M. Bernard is dated August,
1833, Balzac evidently meant September, for there is no Sunday, August
22, in 1833. He did not leave Paris until Sunday, September 22, 1833.)
On the morning after his arrival, he writes her:
"I shall go to the Promenade of the faubourg from one o'clock till
four. I shall remain during that time looking at the lake, which I
have never seen."
Just what happened when they met, no one knows. The Princess Radziwill
says that her aunt told her that Balzac called at her hotel to meet
her and that there was nothing romantic in their introduction.
Nevertheless, the most varied and amusing stories have been told of
their first meeting.
Balzac remained in Neufchatel until October 1, having made a visit of
five days. He took a secret box to Madame Hanska in which to keep his
letters, having provided himself with a similar one in which to keep
hers. If we are to credit the disputed letter of Saturday, October 12,
we may learn something of what took place. Even before meeting Madame
Hanska, he had inserted her name in one of his books, calling the
young girl loved by M. Benassis "Evelina" (Le Medecin de Campagne).
Early in October M. de Hanski took his family to Geneva to spend the
winter. After Balzac's departure from Neufchatel the tone of his
letters to Madame Hanska changed; he used the /tutoiement/, and his
adoration increased. For a while he wrote her a daily account of his
life and dispatched the journal to her weekly.
Madame Hanska came into Balzac's life at a psychological moment. From
his youth, his longing was "to be famous and to be loved." Having
found the emptiness of a life of fame alone, having apparently grown
weary of the poor Duchesse d'Abrantes, about to cease his intimacy
with Madame de Berny, having been rejected by Mademoiselle de
Trumilly, and having suffered bitterly at the hands of the Duchesse de
Castries, he embraced this friendship with a new hope, and became
Madame Hanska's slave.
If Balzac was charmed with the stories of the daughter of the /femme
de chambre/ of Marie Antoinette, was infatuated with a woman who had
known Napoleon, and flattered by being invited to the home of one of
the beautiful society ladies of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, what must
have been his joy in learning that his new /Chatelaine/ belonged to
one of the most aristocratic families of Poland, the grandniece of
Queen Marie Leczinska, the daughter of the wise Comte de Rzewuska, and
the wife of one of the richest men in Russia!
But Madame Hanska was a very different woman from the kind, self-
sacrificing, romantic Madame de Berny; the witty, splendor-loving,
indulgent, poverty-stricken Duchesse d'Abrantes; or the frail,
dazzling, blond coquette, the Duchesse de Castries. With more strength
physically and mentally than her rivals, she possessed a marked
authoritativeness that was not found in Madame de Berny, a breadth of
vision impossible to Madame Junot, and freedom from the frivolity and
coquetry of Madame de Castries.
The Princess Radziwill feels that the Polish woman who has come down
to posterity merely as the object of Balzac's adoration, should be
known as the being to whom he was indebted for the development of his
marvelous genius, and as his collaborator in many of his works.
According to the Princess, /Modeste Mignon/ is almost entirely the
work of Madame Hanska's pen. She gives this description of her aunt,
which corresponds to Balzac's continual reference to her "analytical
forehead":
"Madame de Balzac was perhaps not so brilliant in conversation as
were her brothers and sisters. Her mind had something pedantic in
it, and she was rather a good listener than a good talker, but
whatever she said was to the point, and she was eloquent with her
pen. She had that large glance only given to superior minds which
allows them, according to the words of Catherine of Russia, 'to
read the future in the history of the past.' She observed
everything, was indulgent to every one. . . . Her family, who
stood in more or less awe of her, treated her with great respect
and consideration. . . . We all of us had a great opinion of the
soundness of her judgments, and liked to consult her in any
difficulty or embarrassment in our existence."
No sooner had Balzac returned from his visit to Neufchatel intoxicated
with joy, than he began to plan his visit to Geneva. He would work day
and night to be able to get away for a fortnight; he decided later to
spend a month there, but he did not arrive until Christmas day. In the
meantime, he referred to their promise (to marry) which was as holy
and sacred to him as their mutual life, and he truly described his
love as the most ardent, the most persistent of loves. /Adoremus in
aeternum/ had become their device, and Madame Hanska, not having as
yet become accustomed to his continual financial embarrassment, wished
to provide him with money, an offer which is reproduced in /Eugenie
Grandet/.
Upon his arrival at Geneva the novelist found a ring awaiting him; he
considered it as a talisman, wore it working, and it inspired
/Seraphita/. He became her /moujik/ and signed his name /Honoreski/.
She became his "love," his "life," his "rose of the Occident," his
"star of the North," his "fairy of the /tiyeuilles/," his "only
thought," his "celestial angel," the end of all for him. "You shall be
the young /dilecta/,--already I name you the /predilecta/."[*]
[*] Balzac was imitating Madame Hanska's pronunciation of /tilleuls/
in having Madame Vauquer (/Pere Goriot/) pronounce it /tieuilles/.
His adoration became such that he writes her: "My loved angel, I am
almost mad for you . . . I cannot put two ideas together that you do
not come between them. I can think of nothing but you. In spite of
myself my imagination brings me back to you. . . ." It was during his
stay in Geneva that Madame Hanska presented her chain to him, which he
used later on his cane.
Balzac left Geneva February 8, 1834, having spent forty-four days with
his /Predilecta/, but his work was not entirely neglected. While
there, he wrote almost all of /La Duchesse de Langeais/, and a large
part of /Seraphita/. This work, which she inspired, was dedicated:
"To Madame Eveline de Hanska, nee Countess Rzewuska.
"Madame:--here is the work you desired of me; in dedicating it to
you I am happy to offer you some token of the respectful affection
you allow me to feel for you. If I should be accused of incapacity
after trying to extract from the depths of mysticism this book,
which demanded the glowing poetry of the East under the
transparency of our beautiful language, the blame be yours! Did
you not compel me to the effort--such an effort as Jacob's--by
telling me that even the most imperfect outline of the figure
dreamed of by you, as it has been by me from my infancy, would
still be something in your eyes? Here, then, is that something.
Why cannot this book be set apart exclusively for those lofty
spirits who, like you, are preserved from worldly pettiness by
solitude? They might impress on it the melodious rhythm which it
lacks, and which, in the hands of one of our poets, might have
made it the glorious epic for which France still waits. Still,
they will accept it from me as one of those balustrades, carved by
some artist full of faith, on which the pilgrims lean to moderate
on the end of man, while gazing at the choir of a beautiful
church. I remain, madame, with respect, your faithful servant,
"DE BALZAC."
In the spring of 1834, M. de Hanski and his family left Geneva for
Florence, traveled for a few months, and arrived in Vienna during the
summer, where they remained for about a year. But Balzac continued his
correspondence with Madame Hanska. She was interested in collecting
the autographs of famous people, and Balzac not only had an album made
for her, but helped her collect the signatures.
More infatuated, if possible, than ever with her, he wanted her to
secure her husband's consent for him to visit them at Rome. Then he
felt that he must go to Vienna, see the Danube, explore the
battlefields of Wagram and Essling, and have pictures made
representing the uniforms of the German army.
In /La Recherche de l'Absolu/, he gave the name of Adam de
Wierzchownia to a Polish gentleman, Wierzchownia being the name of
Madame Hanska's home in the Ukraine. "I have amused myself like a boy
in naming a Pole, M. de Wierzchownia, and bringing him on the scene in
/La Recherche de l'Absolu/. That was a longing I could not resist, and
I beg your pardon and that of M. de Hanski for the great liberty. You
could not believe how that printed page fascinates me!" He writes her
of another character, La Fosseuse, (Le Medecin de Campagne): "Ah! if I
had known your features, I would have pleased myself in having them
engraved as La Fosseuse. But though I have memory enough for myself, I
should not have enough for a painter."
Either Balzac's adoration became too ardent, or displeasure was caused
in some other way, for no letters to Madame Hanska appear from August
26 to October 9, 1834. In the meantime, a long letter was written to
M. de Hanski apologizing for two letters written to his wife. He
explained that one evening she jestingly remarked to him, beside the
lake of Geneva, that she would like to know what a love-letter was
like, so he promised to write her one. Being reminded of this promise,
he sent her one, and received a cold letter of reproof from her after
another letter was on the way to her. Receiving a second rebuke, he
was desperate over the pleasantry, and wished to atone for this by
presenting to her, with M. de Hanski's permission, some manuscripts
already sent. He wished to send her the manuscript of /Seraphita/
also, and to dedicate this book to her, if they could forgive him this
error, for which he alone was to be censured.
Balzac was evidently pardoned, for he not only dedicated /Seraphita/
to her, as has been shown, but arrived in Vienna on May 16, 1835, to
visit her, bringing with him this manuscript. His stay was rather
short, lasting only to June 4. While there, he was quite busy, working
on /Le Lys dans la Vallee/, and declined many invitations. To get his
twelve hours of work, he had to retire at nine o'clock in order to
rise at three; this monastic rule dominated everything. He yielded
something of his stern observance to Madame Hanska by giving himself
three hours more freedom than in Paris, where he retired at six.
Soon after his return from Vienna, the novelist was informed that a
package from Vienna was held for him with thirty-six francs due.
Having, of course, no money, he sent his servant in a cab for the
package, telling him where he could secure the money and, dead or
alive, to bring the package. After spending four hours in an agony of
anticipation, wondering what Madame Hanska could be sending him, his
messenger arrived with a copy of /Pere Goriot/ which he had given her
in Vienna with the request that she give it to some one to whom it
might afford pleasure.
It will be remembered that while in Vienna, Balzac's financial strain
became such that his sister Laure pawned his silver. He afterwards
admitted that the journey to Vienna was the greatest folly of his
life; it cost him five thousand francs and upset all his affairs. He
had other financial troubles also, but found time and means to consult
a somnambulist frequently as to his /Predilecta/, and regretted that
he did not have one or two soothsayers, so that he might know daily
about her. His superstition is seen early in their correspondence
where he considered it a good omen that Madame Hanska had sent him the
/Imitation de Jesus-Christ/ while he was working on /Le Medecin de
Campagne/. Again and again he insisted that she tell him when any of
her family were ill, feeling that he could cure at a distance those
whom he loved; or that she should send him a piece of cloth worn next
to her person, that he might present this to a clairvoyant.
After delving deeply into mysticism, and writing some books dealing
with it, the novelist writes his "Polar Star":
"I am sorry to see that you are reading the mystics: believe me,
this sort of reading is fatal to minds like yours; it is a poison;
it is an intoxicating narcotic. These books have a bad influence.
There are follies of virtue as there are follies of dissipation
and vice. If you were not a wife, a mother, a friend, a relation,
I would not seek to dissuade you, for then you might go and shut
yourself up in a convent at your pleasure without hurting anybody,
although you would soon die there. In your situation, and in your
isolation in the midst of those deserts, this kind of reading,
believe me, is pernicious. The rights of friendship are too feeble
to make my voice heard; but let me at least make an earnest and
humble request on this subject. Do not, I beg of you, ever read
anything more of this kind. I have myself gone through all this,
and I speak from experience."
As has been stated, Madame Hanska was of assistance to Balzac in his
literary work. He used her ideas frequently, and was gracious in
expressing his appreciation of them to her:
"I must tell you that yesterday . . . I copied out your portrait of
Mademoiselle Celeste, and I said to two uncompromising judges:
'Here is a sketch I have flung on paper. I wanted to paint a woman
under given circumstances, and launch her into life through such
and such an event.' What do you think they said?--'Read that
portrait again.' After which they said:--'That is your
masterpiece. You have never before had that /laisser-aller/ of a
writer which shows the hidden strength.' 'Ha, ha!' I answered,
striking my head; 'that comes from the forehead of /an analyst/.'
I kneel at your feet for this violation; but I left out all that
was personal. . . . I thank you for your glimpses of Viennese
society. What I have learned about Germans in their relations
elsewhere confirms what you say of them. Your story of General
H---- comes up periodically. There has been something like it in
all countries, but I thank you for having told it to me. The
circumstances give it novelty."[*]
[*] This is only one of the numerous allusions Balzac made to the
analytical forehead of Madame Hanska.
Though Balzac's letters to Madame Hanska became less effervescent as
time went on, each year seemed to add to his admiration and "dog-like
fidelity." She, on the other hand, complained of his dissipation, the
society he kept, and his short letters.
While Balzac was in Vienna, he was working on /Le Lys dans la Vallee/.
Although he said that Madame de Mortsauf was Madame de Berny, M. Adam
Rzewuski, a brother of Madame Hanska, always felt that this character
represented his sister, and called attention to the same intense
maternal feeling of the two women, and the same sickly, morose
husband. The Princess Radziwill also believes that this is a portrait
of her aunt, which hypothesis is further strengthened by comments of
Emile Faguet, who says that to one who has read Balzac's letters in
1834-1835 closely, it is clear that Madame de Mortsauf is Madame
Hanska, and that the marvelous M. de Mortsauf is M. de Hanski.
Mr. F. Lawton also thinks that Balzac has shown his relations to
Madame Hanska in making Felix de Vandenesse console himself with Lady
Dudley while swearing high allegiance to his Henriette, just as Balzac
was "inditing oaths of fidelity to his 'earth-angel' in far-away
Russia while worshipping at shrines more accessible. Lady Dudley may
well have been, for all his denial, the Countess Visconti, of whom
Madame Hanska was jealous and on good grounds, or else the Duchesse de
Castries, to whom he said that while writing the book he had caught
himself shedding tears." Balzac says of this book:
"I have received five /formal complaints/ from persons about me,
who say that I have unveiled their private lives. I have very
curious letters on this subject. It appears that there are as many
Messieurs de Mortsauf as there are angels at Clochegourde, and
angels rain down upon me, but /they are not white/."
In the early autumn of 1835, M. de Hanski and his family, having spent
several weeks at Ischl, returned to their home at Wierzchownia after
an absence of more than two years. It was during this long stay at
Vienna that Madame Hanska had Daffinger make the miniature which
occupies so much space in Balzac's letters in later years.
It must have been a relief to poor Balzac when his /Chatelaine/
returned to her home, for while traveling she was negligent about
giving him her address, so that he was never sure whether she received
all his letters, and she did not number hers, as he had asked her to
do, so that he was not certain that he received all that she wrote
him; neither would she--though leading a life of leisure--write as
often as he wished. But if he scolded her for this, she had other
matters to worry her. She was ever anxious about the safety of her
letters, asked for many explanations of his conduct, for
interpretations of various things in his works, and who certain
friends were, so much so that his letters are filled with vindications
of himself. Even before they had ever met, he wrote her that he could
not take a step that was not misinterpreted. She seemed continually to
be hearing of something derogatory to his character, and trying to
investigate his actions. The reader has had glimpses enough of
Balzac's life to understand what a task was hers. Yet she doubtless
sometimes accused him unnecessarily, and he in turn became impatient:
"This letter contains two reproaches which have keenly affected me;
and I think I have already told you that a few chance expressions
would suffice to make me go to Wierzchownia, which would be a
misfortune in my present perilous situation; but I would rather
lose everything than lose a true friendship. . . . In short, you
distrust me at a distance, just as you distrusted me near by,
without any reason. I read quite despairingly the paragraph of
your letter in which you do the honors of my heart to my mind, and
sacrifice my whole personality to my brain. . . . In your last
letters, you know, you have believed things that are
irreconcilable with what you know of me. I cannot explain to
myself your tendency to believe absurd calumnies. I still remember
your credulity in Geneva, when they said I was married."
Even her own family added to her suspicions:
". . . Your letter has crushed me more than all the heavy nonsense
that jealousy and calumny, lawsuit and money matters have cast
upon me. My sensibility is a proof of friendship; there are none
but those we love who can make us suffer. I am not angry with your
aunt, but I am angry that a person as distinguished as you say she
is should be accessible to such base and absurd calumny. But you
yourself, at Geneva, when I told you I was as free as air, you
believed me to be married, on the word of one of those fools whose
trade it is to sell money. I began to laugh. Here, I no longer
laugh, because I have the horrible privilege of being horribly
calumniated. A few more controversies like the last, and I shall
retire to the remotest part of Touraine, isolating myself from
everything, renouncing all, . . . Think always that what I do has
a reason and an object, that my actions are /necessary/. There is,
for two souls that are a little above others, something mortifying
in repeating to you for the tenth time not to believe in calumny.
When you said to me three letters ago, that I gambled, it was just
as true as my marriage at Geneva. . . . You attribute to me little
defects which I do not have to give yourself the pleasure of
scolding me. No one is less extravagant than I; no one is willing
to live with more economy. But reflect that I work too much to
busy myself with certain details, and, in short, that I had rather
spend five to six thousand francs a year than marry to have order
in my household; for a man who undertakes what I have undertaken
either marries to have a quiet existence, or accepts the
wretchedness of La Fontaine and Rousseau. For pity's sake, do not
talk to me of my want of order; it is the consequence of the
independence in which I live, and which I desire to keep."
In spite of these reproaches, Balzac's affection for her continued,
and he decided to have his portrait made for her. Boulanger was the
artist chosen, and since he wished payment at once, Madame Hanska sent
the novelist a sum for this purpose. For a Christmas greeting, 1836,
she sent him a copy of the Daffinger miniature made at Vienna the
preceding year. Again--this time in /Illusions perdues/--he gave her
name, Eve, to a young girl whom he regarded as the most charming
creature he had created (Eve Chardon, who became Madame David
Sechard).
In the spring of 1837 Balzac went to Italy to spend a few weeks.
Seeing at Florence a bust of his /Predilecta/, made by Bartolini, he
asked M. de Hanski's permission to have a copy of it, half size, made
for himself, to place on his writing desk. This journey aroused Madame
Hanska's suspicions again, but he assured her he was not dissipating,
but was traveling to rejuvenate his broken-down brain, since, working
night and day as he did, a man might easily die of overstrain.
He continued to save his manuscripts for her, awaiting an opportunity
to send or take them to her. Her letters became less frequent and full
of stings, but he begged her to disbelieve everything she heard of him
except from himself, as she had almost a complete journal of his life.
He explained that the tour he purposed making to the Mediterranean was
neither for marriage nor for anything adventurous or silly, but he was
pledged to secrecy, and, whether it turned out well or ill, he risked
nothing but a journey. As to her reproaches how he, knowing all,
penetrating and observing all, could be so duped and deceived, he
wondered if she could love him if he were always so prudent that no
misfortune ever happened to him.
In the spring of 1838 he took his Mediterranean trip, going to
Corsica, Sardinia, and Italy in quest of his Eldorado, but, as usual,
he was doomed to meet with disappointment. On his return he went to
/Les Jardies/ to reside, which was later to be the cause of another
financial disaster. Replying to her criticism of his journey to
Sardinia, he begged her never to censure those who feel themselves
sunk in deep waters and are struggling to the surface, for the rich
can never comprehend the trials of the unfortunate. One must be
without friends, without resources, without food, without money, to
know to its depths what misfortune is.
In spite of her reproaches he continued to protest his devotion to
her. Though her letters were cold, he begged her to gaze on the
portrait of her /moujik/ and feel that he was the most constant, least
volatile, most steadfast of men. He was willing to obey her in all
things except in his affections, and she was complete mistress of
those. Seized with a burning desire to see her, he planned a visit to
Wierzchownia as soon as his financial circumstances would permit.
During a period of three months, Balzac received no letter from his
"Polar Star," but he expressed his usual fidelity to her. Miserable or
fortunate, he was always the same to her; it was because of his
unchangeableness of heart that he was so painfully wounded by her
neglect. Carried away, as he often was, by his torrential existence,
he might miss writing to her, but he could not understand how she
could deprive him of the sacred bread which restored his courage and
gave him new life.
His long struggle with his debts and his various financial and
domestic troubles seemed at times to deprive him of his usual hope and
patience. In a depressed vein, he replies to one of her letters:
"Ah! I think you excessively small; and it shows me that you are of
this world! Ah! you write to me no longer because my letters are
rare! Well, they were rare because I did not have the money to
post them, but I would not tell you that. Yes, my distress had
reached that point and beyond it. It is horrible and sad, but it
is true, as true as the Ukraine where you are. Yes, there have
been days when I proudly ate a roll of bread on the boulevard. I
have had the greatest sufferings: self-love, pride, hope,
prospects, all have been attacked. But I shall, I hope, surmount
everything. I had not a penny, but I earned for those atrocious
Lecou and Delloye seventy thousand francs in a year. The Peytel
affair cost me ten thousand francs, and people said I was paid
fifty thousand! That affair and my fall, which kept me as you
know, forty days in bed, retarded my business by more than thirty
thousand francs. Oh! I do not like your want of confidence! You
think that I have a great mind, but you will not admit that I have
a great heart! After nearly eight years, you do not know me! My
God, forgive her, for she knows not what she does!"
The novelist wrote his /Predilecta/ of his ideas of marriage, and how
he longed to marry, but he became despondent about this as well as
about his debts; he felt that he was growing old, and would not live
long. His comfort while working was a picture of Wierzchownia which
she had sent him, but in addition to all of his other troubles he was
annoyed because some of her relatives who were in Paris carried false
information to her concerning him.
Not having heard from her for six months, he resorted to his frequent
method of allaying his anxiety by consulting a clairvoyant to learn if
she were ill. He was told that within six weeks he would receive a
letter that would change his entire life. Almost four more months
passed, however, without his hearing from her and he feared that she
was not receiving his letters, or that hers had gone astray, as he no
longer had a home.
For once, the sorcerer had predicted somewhat correctly! Not within
six weeks, to be sure, but within six months, the letter came that was
to change Balzac's entire life. On January 5, 1842, a letter arrived
from Madame Hanska, telling of the death of M. de Hanski which had
occurred on November 10, 1841.
His reply is one of the most beautiful of his letters to her: