Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings/Chapter VI

by Mary F. Sandars

1829 - 1832

Work and increasing fame—Emile de Girardin—Balzac's early relations with the Revue de Paris and quarrel with Amedee Pinchot—First letters from Madame Hanska and the Marquise de Castries—Balzac's extraordinary mode of writing—Burlesque account of it from the Figaro.

The record of the next few years of Balzac's life is a difficult one, so many and varied were the interests crowded into them, so short the hours of sleep, and so long the nights of work, followed without rest by an eight hours' day of continual rush. Visits to printers, publishers, and editors, worrying interviews with creditors, and letters on business, politics, and literature, followed each other in bewilderingly quick succession, and the only respite was to be found in occasional talks with such friends as Madame de Berny, Madame Carraud, or the Duchesse d'Abrantes.

Success was arriving. But success with Balzac never meant leisure, or relief from a heavy burden of debt; it merely gave scope for enormous prodigies of labour. His passion for work amounted to a disease; and who can measure the gamut of emotion, ranging from rapture down to straining effort, which was gone through in those silent hours of darkness, when the man, the best part of whom lived only in solitude and night, sat in his monk's habit, before a writing-table littered with papers? Then, impelled by the genius of creation, he would allow his imagination full sway, and would turn to account the material collected by his keen powers of observation and his unparalleled intuition. It was strenuous labour, with the attendant joy of calling every faculty, including the highest of all—that of creation—into activity, and the hours no doubt often passed like moments. But the fierce battling with expression, the effort to tax super-abundant powers to the utmost, left their mark; and in the morning Balzac would drag himself to the printer or publisher, with his hair in disorder, his lips dry, and his forehead lined.

Jules Sandeau, who had been taken by Balzac to live with him, and who remarked that he would rather die than work as he did, says that sometimes, when the passion and inspiration for writing were strong on him, he would shut himself up for three weeks in his closely curtained room, never breathing the outside air or knowing night from day. When utterly exhausted, he would throw himself on his pallet-bed for a few hours, and slumber heavily and feverishly; and when he could fast no longer, he would call for a meal, which must, however, be scanty, because digestion would divert the blood from his brain. Otherwise, hour after hour, he sat before his square table, and concentrated his powerful mind on his work, utterly oblivious of the fact that there was anything in the world save the elbowing, crushing throng of phantom—yet to him absolutely real—personages, whom he took into his being, and in whose life he lived. For the time he felt with their feelings, saw with their eyes, became possessed by them, as the great actor becomes possessed by the personality he represents. "C'etait un voyant, non un observateur," as Philarete Chasles said with truth.

In 1829 Balzac was introduced by the publisher M. Levavasseur to Emile de Girardin, who became—and the connection was life-long—what Mme. de Girardin called La Touche,—an "intimate enemy." At first all was harmony. Emile de Girardin's letters, beginning in 1830 with "Mon tres-cher Monsieur," are addressed in 1831 to "Mon cher Balzac"; but it is doubtful whether the finish of one written in October, 1830, and ending with "Amitie d'ambition!!!"^[1] is exactly flattering to the recipient—it savours rather strongly of what is termed in vulgar parlance "cupboard love." However, Girardin was the first to recognise the great writer's talents, and at the end of 1829, or the beginning of 1830, after having inserted an article by Balzac in La Mode, of which he was editor, he invited his collaboration, as well as that of Victor Varaigne, Hippolyte Auger, and Bois le Comte, in forming a bibliographical supplement to the daily papers, which was to be entitled "Le feuilleton des journaux politiques." This was a failure, but Balzac was associated with Emile de Girardin in several other literary enterprises; and it was through the agency of this energetic editor that he wrote his letters on Paris in the Voleur, which, extending from September 26th, 1830, to March 29th, 1831, would form a volume in themselves. After the Revolution of 1830 stories went out of fashion, the reviews and magazines being completely occupied with the task of discussing the political situation; and Balzac wrote numberless articles in the Silhouette, which was edited by Victor Ratier, and in the Caricature, edited by M. Philippon. A few years later, the latter journal became violently political; but at this time it consisted merely of witty and amusing articles, ridiculing all parties impartially.

With Victor Ratier, Balzac contemplated a partnership in writing for the theatre, though he thought Ratier hardly sufficiently industrious to make a satisfactory collaborator. However, he threatened him in case of laziness with a poor and honest young man as a rival, and, to rouse Ratier to energy, remarked that the unnamed prodigy was, like himself, full of courage, whereas Ratier resembled "an Indian on his mat."^[2] Balzac's imaginative brain was to supply the plot and characters of each drama; but he was careful, as in the case of his early novels, that his name should not appear, as the plays were to be mere vaudevilles written to gain money, and would certainly not increase their author's reputation. Ratier was therefore to pose as their sole author, and was to undertake the actual writing of the play, unless he were too lazy for the effort, when the honest and unfortunate young man would take his place. The pecuniary part of the bargain was not mentioned, except the fact that both partners would become enormously rich; and that result is so invariable a characteristic of Balzac's schemes that it need hardly be noticed. However, this brilliant plan came to nothing, not, as we may suppose, from any failure on the part of the indolent Ratier—as there was in this case his unnamed rival to fall back upon—but most probably because its promoter had not a moment's leisure in which to think of it again.

Towards the end of 1830 he began to write for the Revue de Paris, a journal with which his relations, generally inharmonious, culminated in the celebrated lawsuit of 1836. The review was at this time the property of a company; and the sole object of the shareholders being to obtain large dividends, they adopted the short-sighted policy of cutting down their payment to authors, a course which led to continual recriminations, and naturally made the office of chief editor very difficult. When Balzac first wrote for the review, Charles Rabou held this post, following Dr. Veron; but he resigned in a few months, and was succeeded in his turn by Amedee Pichot. With him Balzac waged continual war, finally dealing a heavy blow to the review by deserting it altogether in 1833.

The cause of the dispute, in the first instance, was one which often reappears in the history of Balzac's relations with different editors. Being happily possessed of devoted friends, who allowed him complete freedom while he stayed with them, he found it easier to write in the quiet of the country than amidst the worries and distractions of Paris. In 1830, after travelling in Brittany, he spent four months, from July to November, at La Grenadiere, that pretty little house near to Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire, which he coveted continually, but never succeeded in acquiring. In 1834 he thought the arrangements for its purchase were at last settled. After three years of continual refusals, the owners had consented to sell, and he already imagined himself surrounded with books, and established for six months at a time at this studious retreat. However, pecuniary difficulties came as usual in the way, and except as a visitor, Balzac never tasted the joys of a country life.

From La Grenadiere he wrote a remarkable letter to Ratier,^[3] full of love for the beauty of nature, a feeling which filled him with a sense of the littleness of man, and expressing also that uncomfortable doubt which must occasionally assail the mind of any man possessed of powerful physique as well as imagination—the doubt whether the existence of the thinker is not after all a poor thing compared with that of the active worker, who is tossed about, risks his life, and himself creates a living drama. He finishes with the words: "And it seems to me that the sea, a man-of-war, and an English boat to destroy, with a chance of drowning, are better than an inkpot, and a pen, and the Rue Saint-Denis."

In May, 1831, Balzac was again away from Paris, this time taking up his abode in Nemours, where he describes himself as living alone in a tent in the depths of the earth, subsisting on coffee, and working day and night at "La Peau de Chagrin," with "L'Auberge Rouge," which he was writing for the Revue de Paris, as his only distraction.

These absences did not apparently cause any friction; but when, in November, 1831, Balzac went to Sache to stay with M. de Margonne, and then moved on to the Carrauds, he left "Le Maitre Cornelius," which he was writing for the Revue de Paris, in an unfinished and uncorrected condition. Thereupon, Amedee Pichot, who naturally wanted consecutive numbers of the story for his magazine, committed what was in Balzac's eyes an unpardonable breach of trust, by publishing the uncorrected proofs, leaving out or altering what he did not understand. Balzac was furious at his signature being appended to what he considered unfinished work. Amedee Pichot was also very angry, because Balzac had unduly lengthened the first part of the story, and had kept him two months waiting for the finish. Therefore, as diligence was the only mode of transit, and it was necessary that "Le Maitre Cornelius" should end with the year, it was impossible to send the proofs before printing for correction to Angouleme. Nevertheless, as he had undoubtedly exceeded his rights as editor, he thought it wise to temporise, and wrote an explanatory and conciliatory letter; and as this did not pacify Balzac, he dispatched a second of similar tenor. However, a few days later, on January 9th, 1832, he felt compelled by the tone of Balzac's correspondence to send a third beginning: "Sir, I find from the tone of your letter that I am guilty of doing you a great wrong. I have treated on an equality and as a comrade a superior person, whom I should have been contented to admire. I therefore beg your pardon humbly for the 'My dear Balzac' of my preceding letters. I will preserve the distance of 'Monsieur' between you and me."^[4]

However, Balzac was furious. His respect for his own name and his intense literary conscientiousness were stronger even than his desire for money, and it was a very black crime in his eyes for any one to produce one of his works before the public until it had been brought to the highest possible pitch of perfection. This intense anxiety to do his best, which caused him the most painstaking labour, often pressed very hardly on managers of magazines. He was generally paid in advance, so that his money was safe; and though he could be absolutely trusted to finish sooner or later what he had undertaken, he showed a lofty indifference to the exigencies of monthly publication. Moreover, as is shown in the evidence given later on during his lawsuit with the Revue de Paris, he would sometimes, in his haste for money, accept new engagements when he already had a plethora of work in hand. Nevertheless, whatever the failures to fulfil a contract on his part might be, he was implacable towards those who did not rightly discharge their obligations to him; and Pichot was never forgiven. In September, 1832, after endless disputes about the rate and terms of payment, the most fertile source of recriminations between Balzac and his various publishers and editors, a formal treaty was drawn up between the great writer, who was at Sache, and Amedee Pichot, as director of the Revue de Paris. By this, with the option of breaking the connection after six months, Balzac undertook to write for the Revue for a year, being still entitled during that time to furnish articles to the Renovateur, the Journal Quotidienne Politique, and L'Artiste. In spite of this legal document, there were many disputed points; and the letters which passed between the two men, and which now began with the formal "Monsieur," were full of bickerings about money matters, about Balzac's delay in furnishing copy, and about the length of his contributions. On one occasion Pichot is severe in his rebukes, because Balzac has prevented the Duchesse d'Abrantes from providing a promised article, by telling her that his own writing will fill two whole numbers of the Revue. On another, it is curious to find that Balzac, who was rather ashamed of the immoral reputation of his works, thanks M. Pichot quite humbly for suppressing a passage in the "Voyage de Paris a Java," which the director considered unfit for family perusal, and excuses himself on the subject with the naive explanation that he was at the same time writing the "Contes Drolatiques"!^[5] Finally, in March, 1833, after six months of the treaty had expired, Balzac withdrew altogether from the Revue de Paris. He gave no explicit explanation for this step; but in 1836, at the time of his lawsuit with the Revue de Paris, he stated as the reason for his desertion that he considered Pichot to be the author, under different pseudonyms, of the adverse criticism of his novels which appeared in its pages. In the Revue he had, among other novels, brought out the beginning of "L'Histoire des Treize," and the parsimonious shareholders now had the mortification of seeing the great man carry his wares to L'Europe Litteraire; while the Revue de Paris, in consequence of his desertion, declined in popularity.

Balzac was now fairly launched on the road of literary fame, and some of his writings at this time had a momentous influence on his life. In April, 1830, Madame Hanska, his future wife, read with delight, in her far-off chateau in Ukraine, the "Scenes de la Vie Privee," containing the "Vendetta," "Les Dangers de l'Inconduite," "Le Bal de Sceaux, ou Le Pair de France," "Gloire et Malheur," "La Femme Vertueuse" and "La Paix de Menage"—two volumes which Balzac had published as quickly as he could, to counteract the alienation of his women-readers by the "Physiologie du Mariage." In August, 1831, appeared "La Peau de Chagrin," which so disappointed Madame Hanska by its cynical tone, that she was impelled to write the first letter from L'Etrangere, which reached Balzac on February 28th, 1832, a date never to be forgotten in the annals of his life. He was not, however, very exact in remembering it himself, and in later life sometimes became confused in his calculations between the number of years since he had received this letter, and the time which had elapsed since he first had the joy of meeting her. "La Peau de Chagrin" greatly increased Balzac's fame, and in October, 1831, another anonymous correspondent, Madame la Marquise de Castries, also destined to exercise a strong, though perhaps transitory, influence over Balzac, had written to deprecate its moral tone, as well as that of the "Physiologie du Mariage." Balzac answered her that "La Peau de Chagrin" was only intended to be part of a whole, and must not be judged alone; and the same idea is enlarged upon in a letter to the Comte de Montalembert,^[6] written in August, 1831, which shows Balzac's extreme anxiety not to dissociate his writings from the cause of religion. In it he explains, with much insistence, that, in site of the apparent scepticism of "La Peau de Chagrin," the idea of God is really the mainspring of the whole book, and on these grounds he begs for a review in L'Avenir. The letter also contains an announcement which is interesting as a proof that two years before the date given by his sister, the idea of his great systematic work was already formulated, and that in his imagination it had assumed colossal proportions. He says: "'La Peau de Chagrin' is the formula of human life, an abstraction made from individualities, and, as M. Ballanche says, everything in it is myth and allegory. It is therefore the point of departure for my work. Afterwards individualities and particular existences, from the most humble to those of the King and of the Priest, the highest expressions of our society, will group themselves according to their rank. In these pictures I shall follow the effect of Thought on Life. Then another work, entitled 'History of the Succession of the Marquis of Carabas,' will formulate the life of nations, the phases of their governments, and will show decidedly that politics turn in one circle, and are evidently stationary; and that repose can only be found in the strong government of a hierarchy."

The "Peau de Chagrin," which is a powerful satire on the vice and selfishness of the day, suffers in its allegorical, though not in its humanly interesting side, by the vivid picture it gives of Balzac's youth; as, in spite of the introduction of the influence of the magic Ass Skin, the account of Raphael in the early part of the book, as the frugal, determined genius with high intellectual aspirations, does not harmonise with his weak, despicable character as it unfolds itself subsequently. The critics exercised their minds greatly about the identity of the heroines, the beautiful and heartless Fedora—in whom apparently many ladies recognised their own portrait—and the humble and exquisite Pauline, type of devoted and self-forgetting love. Mademoiselle Pelissier, who possessed an income of twenty-five thousand francs, and had a house in the Rue Neuve-du-Luxembourg, where she held a salon much frequented by political personalities of the day, was identified by popular gossip as the model of Fedora. It was said by Parisian society that Balzac was anxious to marry her, but that the lady, who afterwards became Madame Rossini, refused to listen to his suit, though she confessed to a great admiration for his fascinating black eyes.

The original of Pauline has never been discovered, but, possibly with a few traits borrowed from Madame de Berny, she is what Balzac describes in the last pages of "La Peau de Chagrin" as an "ideal, as a visionary face in the fire, a face with unimaginable delicate outlines, a floating apparition, which no chance will ever bring back again."

Since the year 1830 Balzac had lodged in the Rue Cassini, a little, unfrequented street near the Observatory, with a wall running along one side, on which was written "L'Absolu, marchand de briques," a name which Theophile Gautier fancies may have suggested to him the title of his novel "La Recherche de l'Absolu." Borget, Balzac's great friend and confidant, had rooms in the same house; and later on, when Borget was on one of his frequent journeys, these rooms were occupied by Jules Sandeau, after his parting with George Sand. In despair at her desertion, he tried to commit suicide; and Balzac, touched with pity at his forlorn condition, proposed that he should come to Borget's rooms, and took complete and kindly charge of him—a generosity which Sandeau, after having lived at Balzac's expense for two years, repaid in 1836, by deserting his benefactor when he was in difficulties.

Balzac was now in the full swing of work. He writes to the Duchesse d'Abrantes in 1831:^[7] "Write, I cannot! The fatigue is too great. You do not know that I owed in 1828, above what I possessed. I had only my pen with which to earn my living, and to pay a hundred and twenty thousand francs. In several months I shall have paid everything, and I shall have arranged my poor little household; but for six months I have all the troubles of poverty, I enjoy my last miseries. I have begged from nobody, I have not held out my hand for a penny; I have hidden my sorrows, and my wounds."

Poor Balzac! over and over again we hear the same story about the beautiful time in the future, which he saw coming nearer and nearer, but which always evaded his grasp at the last. Very often, when he appears grasping and dictatorial in his business dealings, we may trace his want of urbanity to some pressing pecuniary anxiety, which he was too proud to reveal. No doubt these difficulties often sprang from his extraordinary want of reflection and prudence, as his desire to make a dashing appearance before the world led him frequently into the most senseless extravagance. For instance, when he went out of Paris in June, 1832, intending to travel for several months, he left behind him two horses with nothing to do, but naturally requiring a groom, food, and stabling; and it was not till the end of July that, on his mother's recommendation, he sent orders that they were to be sold. His money affairs are so complicated, and his own accounts of them so conflicting, that it is impossible to understand them thoroughly. Apparently, however, from 1827 to 1836 he could not support himself and satisfy his creditors without drawing bills. These he often could not meet, and had to renew; and the accumulated interest on these obligations formed a floating debt, which was from time to time increased by some new extravagance.

In his vain struggles to escape, he worked as surely no man has ever worked before or since. In 1830 he brought out about seventy, and in 1831 about seventy-five publications, including novels, and articles serious and satirical, on politics and general topics; and in twelve years, from 1830 to 1842, he wrote seventy-nine novels alone, not counting his shorter compositions. Werdet, who became his publisher in 1834, gives a curious account of his doings; and this may, with slight modifications, be accepted as a picture of his usual mode of life when in the full swing of composition.

He usually went to bed at eight o'clock, after a light dinner, accompanied by a glass or two of Vouvray, his favourite wine; and he was seated at his desk by two o'clock in the morning. He wrote from that time till six, only occasionally refreshing himself with coffee from a coffee-pot which was permanently in the fireplace. At six he had his bath, in which he remained for an hour, and his servant afterwards brought him more coffee. Werdet was then admitted to bring proofs, take away the corrected ones, and wrest, if possible, fresh manuscript from him. From nine he wrote till noon, when he breakfasted on two boiled eggs and some bread, and from one till six the labour of correction went on again. This unnatural life lasted for six weeks or two months, during which time he refused to see even his most intimate friends; and then he plunged again into the ordinary affairs of life, or mysteriously and suddenly disappeared—to be next heard of in some distant part of France, or perhaps in Corsica, Sardinia, or Italy. It is not surprising that even in these early days, and in spite of Balzac's exuberant vitality, there are frequent mentions of terrible fatigue and lassitude, and that the services of his lifelong friend, Dr. Nacquart, were often in requisition, though his warnings about the dangers of overwork were generally unheeded.

Even with Balzac's extraordinary power of work, the number of his writings is remarkable, when we consider the labour their composition cost him. Sometimes, according to Theophile Gautier, he bestowed a whole night's labour on one phrase, and wrote it over and over again a hundred times, the exact words that he wanted only coming to him after he had exhausted all the possible approximate forms. When he intended to begin a novel, and had thought of and lived in a subject for some time, he wrote a plan of his proposed work in several pages, and dispatched this to the printer, who separated the different headings, and sent them back, each on a large sheet of blank paper. Balzac read these headings attentively, and applied to them his critical faculty. Some he rejected altogether, others he corrected, but everywhere he made additions. Lines were drawn from the beginning, the middle, and the end of each sentence towards the margin of the paper; each line leading to an interpolation, a development, an added epithet or an adverb. At the end of several hours the sheet of paper looked like a plan of fireworks, and later on the confusion was further complicated by signs of all sorts crossing the lines, while scraps of paper covered with amplifications were pinned or stuck with sealing-wax to the margin. This sheet of hieroglyphics was sent to the printing-office, and was the despair of the typographers; who, as Balzac overheard, stipulated for only an hour each in turn at the correction of his proofs. Next day the amplified placards came back, and Balzac added further details, and laboured to fit the expression exactly to the idea, and to attain perfection of outline and symmetry of proportion. Sometimes one episode dwarfed the rest, or a secondary figure usurped the central position on his canvas, and then he would heroically efface the results of four or five nights' labour. Six, seven, even ten times, were the proofs sent backwards and forwards, before the great writer was satisfied.

In the Figaro of December 15th, 1837, Edouard Ourliac gives a burlesque account of the confusion caused in the printing-offices by Balzac's peculiar methods of composition. This is an extract from the article:

"Let us sing, drink and embrace, like the chorus of an opera comique. Let us stretch our calves, and turn on our toes like ballet-dancers. Let us at last rejoice: the Figaro, without getting the credit of it, has overcome the elements and all sublunary cataclysms.

"Hercules is only a rascal, the apples of Hesperides only turnips, the siege of Troy but a revolt of the national guard. The Figaro has just conquered 'Cesar Birotteau'!

"Never have the angry gods, never have Juno, Neptune, M. de Rambuteau, or the Prefect of Police, opposed to Jason, Theseus, or walkers in Paris, more obstacles, monsters, ruins, dragons, demolitions, than these two unfortunate octavos have fought against.

"We have them at last, and we know what they have cost. The public will only have the trouble of reading them. That will be a pleasure. As to M. de Balzac—twenty days' work, two handfuls of paper, one more beautiful book: that counts for nothing.

"However it may be, it is a typographical exploit, a literary and industrial tour de force worthy to be remembered. Writer, editor, and printer have deserved more or less from their country. Posterity will talk of the compositors, and our descendants will regret that they do not know the names of the apprentices. I already, like them, regret it; otherwise I would mention them.

"The Figaro had promised the book on December 15th, and M. de Balzac began it on November 17th. M. de Balzac and the Figaro both have the strange habit of keeping their word. The printing-office was ready, and stamping its foot like a restive charger.

"M. de Balzac sends two hundred pages pencilled in five nights of fever. One knows his way. It was a sketch, a chaos, an apocalypse, a Hindoo poem.

"The printing-office paled. The delay is short, the writing unheard of. They transform the monster; they translate it as much as possible into known signs. The cleverest still understand nothing. They take it to the author.

"The author sends back the first proofs, glued on to enormous pages, posters, screens. It is now that you may shiver and feel pity. The appearance of these sheets is monstrous. From each sign, from each printed word, go pen lines, which radiate and meander like a Congreve rocket, and spread themselves out at the margin in a luminous rain of phrases, epithets, and substantives, underlined, crossed, mixed, erased, superposed: the effect is dazzling.

"Imagine four or five hundred arabesques of this sort, interlaced, knotted, climbing and sliding from one margin to another, and from the south to the north. Imagine twelve maps on the top of each other, entangling towns, rivers, and mountains—a skein tangled by a cat, all the hieroglyphics of the dynasty of Pharaoh, or the fireworks of twenty festivities.

"At this sight the printing-office does not rejoice. The compositors strike their breasts, the printing-presses groan, the foremen tear their hair, their apprentices lose their heads. The most intelligent attack the proofs, and recognise Persian, others Malagash, some the symbolic characters of Vishnu. They work by chance and by the grace of God.

"Next day M. de Balzac returns two pages of pure Chinese. The delay is only fifteen days. A generous foreman offers to blow out his brains.

"Two new sheets arrive, written very legibly in Siamese. Two workmen lose their sight and the small command of language they possessed.

"The proofs are thus sent backwards and forwards seven times.

"Several symptoms of excellent French begin to be recognised, even some connection between the phrases is observed."

So the article proceeds; always in a tone of comic good-temper, but pointing to a very real grievance and point of dispute; and helping the reader to realise the long friction which went on, and finally resulted in the unanimity with which publishers and editors turned against Balzac after his famous lawsuit, and showed a vindictive hate which at first sight is surprising. However, in this case the matter ends happily, as the article closes with:

"It ['Cesar Birotteau'] is now merely a work in two volumes, an immense picture, a whole poem, composed, written, and corrected fifteen times in the same number of days—composed in twenty days by M. de Balzac in spite of the printer's office, composed in twenty days by the printer's office in spite of M. de Balzac.

"It is true that at the same time M. de Balzac was employing forty printers at another printing-office. We do not examine here the value of the book. It was made marvellously and marvellously quickly. Whatever it is, it can only be a chef d'oeuvre!"

Footnotes

1. "La Genese d'un Roman de Balzac," p. 105, by the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul.
2. "Correspondance," vol. i. p. 115.
3. "Correspondance," vol. i. p 98.
4. "Une Page Perdue de Honore de Balzac," by the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul; from which the whole account of the dispute between Balzac and Pichot is taken.
5. "Autour de Honore de Balzac," by the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul.
6. Letters sent by the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul to the Revue Bleue, November 14th, 1903.
7. "Correspondance," vol. i. p. 131.