César Birotteau

^Tu veux, ma chère sœur, des détails sur mon emménagement et ma manière de vivre, en voici !

J'ai répondu à Maman sur les achats; mais tu vas frémir, c'est bien pis qu'un achat: j'ai pris un domestique !

— Un domestique ! Y penses-tu, mon frère ?

— Oui, un domestique ... il s'appelle Moi-même. Mauvaise emplette vraiment ! Moi-même est paresseux, maladroit, imprévoyant. Son maître a faim, a soif; il n'a quelquefois ni pain ni eau à lui offrir ; il ne sait pas même le garantir contre le vent, qui souffle à travers la porte et la fenêtre. —

Dès que je suis éveillé, je sonne Moi-même, et il fait mon lit. Il se met à balayer et n'est guère adroit dans cet exercice.

— Moi-même !

— Phiît-il, monsieur?

— Regardez donc cette toile d'araignée où cette grosse

INTRODUCTION ix

mouche pousse des cris à m^étourdir ! Ces moutons qui se promènent sous le lit ! Cette poussière sur les vitres qui m'aveugle !

— Mais, monsieur, je ne vois pas . . .

— Allons, taisez- vous, raisonneur.

Et il se tait. — Il bat mes habits, balaye en chantant, chante en balayant, rit en causant, cause en riant. Au total, c'est un bon garçon.

Le feu a pris rue Lesdiguières, n^ 9, à la tête d'un pauvre garçon, et les pompiers n'ont pu l'éteindre. Il y a été mis par une belle femme qu'il ne connaît pas : on dit qu'elle demeure au bout du Pont des Arts; elle s'appelle la Gloire.'

He lived in a state of feverish haste and excitement, often working eighteen hours and more a day ; creating not only novels and dramas in endless succession, but also commercial enterprises, immense spéculations in almost every branch of business, most of which were fortunately never realized, none of which were aught but ruinons ; yet he was never discouraged, for every fallen hope bore in itself the germs of vaster and more ambitions schemes. He dwelt, as it were, in a world of bis own, created and peopled by his imagination ; every one of bis characters had its place therein and he foUowed the vicissitudes of their fortune, as we foUow those of our friends and relativ^es. Many a time in his correspondence he gives news of his heroes and heroines, speaking of them as of persons whom he met in daily intercourse. Thus it was that no one subject was ever alone in his mind, which was continually fermenting with innumerable designs and closely interwoven plots, until necessity or some other outward circumstance caused him to commit a part of his mental vision to paper. He wrote with

astounding rapidity^, several of his novels being actually writteii in a few days^ but he then elaborated largely on the proof-sheets, altering^ extending, or cutting down ceaselessly, greatly to the annoyance of his editors and printers.

Balzac^s first novels were purely sensational, without depth or style^ though they give ample proof of his fertile imagination. It was not until he reached the height of his manhood about 1830, sobered by the disastrous conséquences of a huge printing spéculation, thoroughly imbued with the scientific spirit of his times, that his talent ripened into maturity. It was then that he published Les Chouans, the first of those novels on which rests his présent literary famé. A few years later he conceived the colossal plan of his Comédie Humaine, that is to say, the idea of uniting his novels into one all-embracing whole, which was to comprise nothing less than life in ail its forms and phases, under ail its diverse aspects caused by character, position, and surroundings. Needless to say, this stupendous idea was never entirely realized ; it ^vould hâve been an impossibility in itself, even if the author's untimely death had not borne him away from the very midst of his labours.

Balzac's life from 1830 onwards contains no events of particular interest. He lived sometimes in Paris, sometimes in the country, whither he was obliged to retire in order to escape from the clamours of his creditors, who were ever at his lieels ; and when they had tracked him to his place of refuge he often left France and travelled about Europe, gatliering new impressions of customs and places, and fixing them in

INTRODUCTION xi

his mind with photographie accuracy^ ready for use at any moment.

For a time he dabbled in poUtics^ aspiring to be elected Député, and to make a name as an orator, but his hopes were not fulfilled ; the élection came and left him without a vote in his favour. He also applied repeatedly for a seat in the Académie, but, unpopular as he was among many of the writers of his day, he was equally unsuccessful in this endeavour, and consoled himself by open contempt for the Institut and the narrow spirit which prevailed amongst its members. It does not, indeed, conduce to the honour of that body, that it refused to admit the greatest noveHst of France into its ranks.

His unUmited faith in his own genius is shown by an utterance of his : — ^ Beethoven est le seul homme qui me fasse connaître la jalousie/ This shielded him from the paralysing influence of dépression and served as a never-failing stimulus to his créative imagination.

Balzac^s external appearance announced his mental and moral calibre. Built like an athlète, with a massive head and neck and sanguine complexion — a friend describes him as looking like *^ un sanglier joyeux' — he was a man of strong practical, material instincts. M. André Le Breton considers vulgarity and force as the most striking features of his character. He undoubtedly lacks tact and delicacy ; his descriptions of the idéal and poetic are sometimes painfully unconvincing, but this want is compensated by his masterly treatment of life from a more material point of view.

Balzac's relations towards women were manifold and various. From the days of his childhood he cherished

xii CESAR BIROTTEAU

a tender affection for his sister^ Madame de Surville^ who was the confidante of ail his troubles and aspirations. Soon after his arrivai in Paris he made the acquaintance of Madame de Berny, a woman considerably older than himself^ who did much towards refining a character so full of unpolished vigour. AU that Balzac possesses of taste and culture^ he probably owes to lier refining influence. He frequently entered upon a correspondence with his female readers without so much as kno^ring their full names. It was in this way that he first became acquainted -svith the Countess de Hanska, who wrote to him from the depths of Russia^ professing her admiration for his works. He fell in love with her almost immediately, though he did not actually meet her until two years later^ and could not marry her until 1850. That year witnessed the height of his glory and happiness : his debts paid by means of his wife's fortune^ the cries of unfavourable criticism dro\^iied by the triumph of his literary genius ; but it was to witness also his death, which took place in August, 1850^ brought about by years of overwork^ and the excessive use of coffee as a stimulant for late hours. This sudden end of a man whose whole life was spent in striving to cope with overwhelming difficulties, just when he was standing on the threshold of prosperity, is ominently pathetic.

INTRODUCTION xiii

II. The Novel before Balzac and his Relation TO CONTEMPORARY LiTERATURE.

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries certainly number some good novels among their literary productions^ from Mme de Lafayette^s Princesse de Clèves, the first good character study^ to Gil Blas by Lesage^ and Rousseau^s Nouvelle Héloïse, yet the novel as such was not considered a branch of literature of sufficient import to form the lif e-work of a great writer. No author who had written novels only could lay any claim to literary distinction. Moreover the novel had so far been either purely a taie of love, as Manon Lescaut and La Nouvelle Héloïse, or the expression of utopian ideas, as Chateaubriand^s René and Atala, or Paul et Virginie by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, or again it was used as an instrument of social satire as in Gil Blas, The characters were often intentionally detached from their everyday surroundings and raised to a higher and more isolated plane, perhaps through the unconscious désire on the author^s part to place them on a level with the dramatic heroes of the classical period. Ne ver had life as it appears to the ordinary observer with its trifling incidents and little meannesses been deemed worthy of serious treatment ; never had reality for its own sake appealed to public attention.

The Romantic School, whose rise and fall coïncides with Balzac^s literary career, and which influenced him more strongly than would at first appear, fervently advocated, at any rate in theory, the necessity of local colour and historical truth. The works of Sir Walter Scott became the models of a new type of novel, the

xiv CÉSAR BIROTTEAU

historical novel^ and led to such masterpieces as De Vigny^s Cinq-Mars and Victor Hugo^s Notre-Dame de Paris, whose literaiy value is but little impaired by their authors^ insufficient training in historical research. At the same time^ the more féminine sphère of sentiment and simple life found an able interpréter in the person of Madame Dudevant^ known as George Sand^ whose novels are generally termed idealistic^ as opposed to the realistic novel^ which Balzac was to create in France.

The Romanticists applied their love of historié détail only to the past^ which they were unable to conjure up as completely or as faithfully as they imagined. Balzac, inspired with the same idea and preserved by his more prosaic turn of mind from seeking refuge in the ^ good old times/ threw himself heart and soûl into the présent, and, having once relinquished the sensationalism of the popular novel of his time, noted, with a clearness of insight amounting to genius, the facts he observed about him. He thus left to posterity documents of far greater historié value than any of the so-called historical novels. If ^ l'histoire est du roman qui a été,' then the novel, and Balzac's novel in particular, is ^ de l'histoire qui aurait pu être.'

Balzac's method of procédure, which earned for him the title of 'father of the naturalist novel,' is closely connected with the awakening of science on an expérimental basis, which is characteristic of the second quarter of the nineteenth century. More particularly the positivist philosophy of Auguste Comte, which established direct observation from the object itself as the only criterion of knowledge, forms an interesting parallel to the work of Balzac. In the author's préface to the

INTRODUCTION xv

Comédie Humaine occur the words : — ^ Il a existé, il existera de tout temps^ des espèces sociales comme il y a des espèces zoologiques/ And it is indeed as a scientist that Balzac deals with the varions human ^ species/ examining the conditions by which they are produced and nnder which they flourish, namely, their ancestors, surroundings, and the time at which they live ( ^ race, milieu, moment, ^ as Taine would say), and showing how they must and do act under certain given circumstances.

There is also another feature which distinguishes Balzac from the writers of the Roman tic School, that is his objectivity.

The reactionary tendency of the Romanticists against classicism is shown by their cuit of the moi, They took up the cause of individuality, and the author's tempérament and peculiar convictions give so personal a colouring both to dramas and works of fiction as to be seriously detrimental to their plastic reality. Many détails of Balzac^s life may indeed be gleaned from his writings, several of his heroes may be said to embody himself, y et his object was never to display his own characteristics and thoughts, but create a man, a living being, whose coïncidence with himself was almost fortuitous. The cases in which he gave a portrait of any public personage likely to be recognized by his readers are rare indeed, and he never did so without the consent of the person in question.

It now remains to be seen to what degree Balzac himself was a Romanticist ; for no writer, however strong his individuality, can escape from the dominating ideas of his time. There is something gigantic in the mère

xvi CÉSAR BIROTTEAU

conception of the Comédie Humaine, which undoubtedly calls to mind the poetic visions of Victor Hugo and his followers, a certain frenzy in the manner in which Balzac worked, which shows that he was not foreign to the exaltation of the Romantic poets ; there is also at times an excess of imagination, a tendency to exaggerate, which proves that, in spite of his antagonism to the school as a whole, Balzac still had one foot, if the left foot, in Romanticism. This is the more unfortunate as he was entirely bereft of poetic sensibility, and no powerful lyric strain could compensate his lack of balance, It is generally admitted that the so-called ^ Romantic ' portions of Balzac^s work are the least successful, and not those which most justify his réputation as the Creator of the modem novel.