Balzac

“Do you know the name of that individual who has just entered her box?”

“That is Canalis.”

“Canalis, the great poet, who played such an important part in the life of Modeste Mignon?”

“Precisely.”

“I had thought that he was younger.”

“He has grown quite old during these last few years. He has turned his attention to politics, and you may notice how politics hollows the cheeks and silvers the hair of poetry. He would bankrupt Golconda, however, and he is now attempting to win Mlle. de Montsauf and her millions. But look to the left, in that first box from the door of the gallery, and see whether you do not recognize one of the most curious physiognomies of the ‘Comédie Humaine.’”

“Do you mean that stout woman?”

“Yes; it is Madame Nourrisau.”

“Vautrin’s aunt?”

“In flesh and blood, especially in flesh. There is the formidable hag who went one day to the son of the Baron Hulot and proposed, for fifty thousand francs, to rid him of Madame Marneffe. You must have read about it in ‘La Cousine Bette.’”

“She is not alone, I see.”

“She is with her husband.”

“Her husband? Is it possible that she found one?”

“You forget that she is five or six times millionaire, and also the general rule that where it rains millions husbands sprout. Her name is now Madame Gaudessart, née Vautrin.”

“Is it the illustrious Gaudessart who is the husband of that horrible creature?”

“Legally so, I beg you to believe.”

“Speaking of the ‘Cousine Bette,’ can you tell me anything of Wencelas Steinbock and his wife?”

“They are perfectly happy. It is young Hulot who misbehaves; his wife is in that box over there, with the Steinbocks. Hulot has told them that he will join them later, and has probably stated that he had some urgent law business to attend to; but the truth is that he is behind the scenes at the opera. Hulot is not his father’s son for nothing.”

At this point M. de Rastignac smiled affectionately at a white-haired musician, who was tuning his violin.

“Is that the Cousin Pons?” I asked.

“You forget two things: first, that the Cousin Pons is dead; and secondly, that in his lifetime he always wore a green velvet coat. But though Orestes is no more, Pylades still lives. Damon has survived Pythias. It is Schmucke who sits before you. He is very poor; he has nothing but the fifty francs a month which he earns here, and the payment of a few piano lessons at seventy-five centimes each; but he will not accept any assistance, and, for my part, I have never seen tatters more proudly worn.”

“Can you not,” I asked, “show me M. Maxime de Trailles?”

“De Trailles no longer lives in Paris. When the devil grows stout he turns hermit. This retired condottiere is now a married man, the father of a family, and resides in the country. He makes speeches at the agricultural fairs, takes great interest in cattle, and represents his county at the general assembly of his department, —the late Maxime de Trailles, as he is now pleased to call himself.”

“And Des Lupeaulx?”

“Des Lupeaulx is a prefect of the first class. But in place of these gentlemen, you have before you, in that box, the Count Félix de Vandernesse and the Countess Nathalie de Manerville; a little beyond, the Grandvilles and the Grandlieux; then, the Duke de Rhétoré, Laginski, D’Esgrignon Montreveau, Rochefide, and D’Ajuda-Ponto. Moreover, there are the Cheffrevilles; but then what a pity it is that our poor Camille Maupin is not present at this solemnity!”

“Is it of Mlle. des Touches that you speak?”

“Yes.”

“Is she still religiously inclined?”

“She died like a saint, two years ago, in a convent near Nantes. She retired from the world, you remember, after accomplishing the marriage of Calyste du Guénic and Sabine de Grandlieu. What a woman she was! There are none like her now.”

These last words of M. de Rastignac were covered by the three traditional knocks which precede the rise of the curtain.

“‘Mercadet’ is about to commence,” he said.

“After the first act I will continue my gossip; provided, of course, that I do not weary you with it.”

“Oh, my dear sir!” I cried. “My” —

I had not time to complete my phrase; a friendly but vigorous hand grasped my arm.

“So you come to ‘Mercadet’ to sleep, do you?” said a well-known voice.

“I? Am I asleep?”

“You are not asleep now, but you were.”

I turned quickly around.

My neighbor was a fat-faced gentleman, with blue spectacles, who was peeling an orange with the most ridiculous gravity.

In the boxes and orchestra stalls, wherever I had thought to see the personages of the “Comédie Humaine,” I found only insignificant faces, of the ordinary and graceless type, – a collection of obliterated medals.

At this moment the curtain rose, the actors appeared, and the great comedy of “Mercadet” was revealed, amid the applause and delight of the crowd.

I had been dreaming, therefore, and if I had been dreaming I must have been asleep. But what had provoked my somnolence? Was it the approach of a storm, the heat of the theatre, or the vaudeville with which the performance commenced?

Perhaps all three.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CHASE FOR GOLD

“Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ est.” – Seneca, De Tranquillitate Animi, c. 15.

From Balzac’s early manhood his entire existence was consumed in a feverish pursuit of wealth; and had the mines of California been discovered at an earlier date, there is little doubt that he would have exchanged his pen for a pick, and sought, in a red shirt, to realize the millions with which he dowered his characters.

At the outset of his career, he was, as has been seen, unsuccessful in a business enterprise, and became, in consequence, heavily involved in debt. This spectre of the past haunted him so continually that it not only found frequent expression in his writings, in which money became a hymn, but it brought to him illusions and projects of fortune which were at once curious and fantastic.

At one time, shortly after the publication of “Facino Cane,” – who, it will be remembered, was imprisoned in the dungeons of Venice, and, in making his escape, discovered the hidden treasures of the Doges, which he proposed to seek and share with his biographer, – Balzac became fairly intoxicated with the delusions of his hero, and his dreams of secreted wealth assumed such a semblance of reality that he at last imagined, or pretended that he had learned, the exact spot where Toussaint Louverture had buried his famous booty.

“‘The Gold Bug’ of Edgar Poe,” Gautier writes, “did not equal in delicacy of induction and clearness of detail his feverish recital of the proposed expedition by which we were to become masters of a treasure far richer than Kidd’s.”

“Sandeau was as easily seduced as myself. It was necessary that Balzac should have two robust and devoted accomplices, and, in exchange for our assistance, he was good enough to offer to each of us a quarter of the prodigious fortune. Half was to be his, by right of conquest. It was arranged that we were to purchase spades and picks, place them secretly in a ship, and, to avoid suspicion, reach the designated spot by different roads, and then, after having disinterred the treasure, we were to embark with it on a brig freighted in advance. In short, it was a real romance, which would have been admirable had it been written instead of recited. It is of course unnecessary to add that the booty was not unearthed. We discovered that we had no money to pay our traveling expenses, and our united capital was insufficient to purchase even the spades.”

At another time Balzac conceived the project of manufacturing paper from a substance which was at once cheap and plentiful. Experiments, however, proved that his plan was impracticable, and a friend who called to console him found that, instead of being dejected, he was even more jovial than ever.

“Never mind about the paper,” he said. “I have a better scheme yet.”

It was this: While reading Tacitus, he had stumbled upon a reference to the mines of Sardinia; his imagination, aided by his scientific knowledge, carried him back to the imperfect mechanical processes of old Rome, and he saw at once a vision of wealth, awaiting only modern appliances to be his own. With the greatest difficulty he collected – partly from his mother, partly from his cousin, and partly from that aunt whom the Anglo-Saxon Bohemian has converted into an uncle – the sum of five hundred francs; and then, having reached Genoa, he embarked for Alghiero, explaining his project to the captain of the vessel with the candor of an infant.

Once in Sardinia, dressed like a beggar, – a terror to brigands and monks, – he sought the mines on foot. They were easily found. With a few specimens of the ore, he returned immediately to Paris, where an analysis showed them to contain a large proportion of silver. Jubilant with success, he would then have applied to the Italian government for a concession of the mines, but unfortunately he was, for the moment, detained by lawsuits and other business, and when he at last set out for Milan it was too late. The perfidious captain had thought the idea so good that, without preliminary examinations, he had lost no time in securing an authorization in due form, and was then quietly proceeding to make a fortune.

“There is a million in the mines,” Balzac wrote to his sister. “A Marseilles firm has assayed the scoriæ, but the delay has been fatal. The Genoese captain has already obtained a contract from the government. However, I have another idea, which is even better; this time there will be no Genoese. I am already consoled.”

After having read “Venice Preserved” and admired the union of Pierre and Jaffier, Balzac says that he began to consider the peculiar virtues of those who are thrown outside of the social order, – the honesty of the galleys, the fidelity of robbers, and the privileges of that enormous power which these men obtain in fusing all ideas into one supreme will, – and concluded that, man being greater than men, society should belong entirely to those whose brilliancy, intelligence, and wealth could be joined in a fanaticism warm enough to melt their different forces into a single jet. An occult power of this description, he argued, would be the master of society; it would reverse obstacles, enchain desires, and give to one the superhuman power of all; it would be a world within a world, admitting none of its ideas, recognizing none of its laws; it would be a league of filibusters in yellow gloves and dogcarts, who could at all times be ready to devote themselves in their entirety to any one among them who should require their united aid.

This novel conception was not only the motif of the “Histoire des Treize,” but no sooner was the book completed than Balzac, in accordance with his mania for living his characters, attempted to reproduce it in real life, – or rather, in the other life, for his true world was the one which he carried in his brain, – and without difficulty recruited for this purpose Jules Sandeau, Léon Gozlan, Laurent Jan, Gérard de Nerval, Merle, Alphonse Karr, and Granier de Cassagnac.

The aim of the association, which he explained with that tumultuous eloquence for which he was famous and which silenced every objection, was simply to grasp the leading-strings of the principal newspapers, invade the theatres, take seats in the Académie, and become millionaires and peers of France. When any one of them produced a book or a play, the others were to write about it, talk about it, and advertise it generally, until its success was assured; and as nothing succeeds like success, a good commencement was all that was needed to insure an easy and glorious ascent.

The project was enthusiastically received and unanimously approved. The society was entitled the “Cheval Rouge,” and Balzac was elected chief.

In order to avoid suspicion, it was agreed that in public the members should not appear to know each other, and Karr relates that for a long time Balzac would pretend, whenever he saw him, that they met for the first time, and would communicate with him only in an actor’s aside. The meetings of the society were pre-arranged by the chief. The notices consisted of a card, on which was painted a red horse, and the words, stable, such a day, such a place; in order to make it still more fantastic, the place was changed each time.

This project, which of course resulted in nothing, and which was soon abandoned, was none the less practicable, and minus the mysterious farce with which it was surrounded has since, in many instances, been put into successful operation.

Through one of those psychical phenomena which generate within us a diversity of sentiment while uniting their contradictory elements, Balzac was tortured by a combined distaste and affection for journalism. It possessed a morbid attraction for him; and while he execrated the entire profession, he longed none the less for an editor’s chair, from which he could bombard his enemies at his ease, and glean at the same time the rich harvest which a successful review invariably produces.

The foundation of a journal, however, is money, more money, always money; and Balzac, who was rich only in unrecognized audacity and unquoted talent, after having tried in every way to acquire the necessary capital, was about to abandon his scheme as hopeless, when Providence in the form of a young man passed the sentries and entered his room.

“M. de Balzac?”

And Balzac, to whom every stranger was a dun, replied, “It is, sir, and it is not; it depends.”

“I am looking for the author of ‘La Peau de Chagrin.’”

“Ah! then, I am he.”

“Sir,” said the youth, “I understand that you are about to edit a journal, and I have come to ask for the position of theatrical critic. I would also like to write the fashion article.”

Balzac, furious at the intrusion and indignant at the youth’s proposition to collaborate in a journal whose appearance was prevented by lack of funds, was about to order the young man out, when he suddenly noticed that he was clothed in the most expensive manner.

“May I ask whom I have the honor of addressing?” inquired the ogre, with his most seductive smile.

“I am the son of M. Chose, the banker.”

Balzac became very fascinating. “I thought so, – I thought so from the first; you look like him. Will you not sit down? As we were saying, I am about to edit the ‘Chronique de Paris,’ whose appearance, so impatiently awaited, I have delayed only that its success might be the better assured. And did I understand you to say that you would like to take charge of the theatrical criticisms?”

“Yes, indeed, sir, if you think me capable.”

“Capable? Do I think you capable? Why, all the more capable, as it is unusual for a banker’s son to wish to enter a purely literary association. The blood of a financier is seldom inclined to”…

“I do not care for letters of credit, M. de Balzac. I care for letters, simply.”

“Adorable witticism!” cried Balzac, illuminated with hope. “And you care, then, for literature, in spite of the immense fortune which you enjoy?”

“I expect ten millions more,” interrupted the youth.

“Ten millions!”

“Rather more than less, M. de Balzac.”

“Nothing could be better or more opportune,” smiled this courtesan of wealth, reduced to adulating an idiot. “I was just wondering whom I should select. The position is yours. No, no; it is for me to thank you. My best regards to your dear father.”

The youth had barely turned the corner when Balzac hastily summoned the members of the “Cheval Rouge.”

“At last I have a capitalist!” he cried. “He has promised nothing, it is true, but I have reason to believe that, properly managed, he will invest anywhere from a hundred thousand up. He is an idiot, the son of Chose the banker. He wants to be dramatic critic, and that means money, simply money, and lots of it. But,” he continued, “the affair cannot be arranged without a subtle preparation and solemn initiation, and preparation and initiation mean dinner. It is at a dinner, not frugal but sumptuous, adorned with a garland of editors and critics, each more seductive than the other, that the alliance of your intelligence and the money of my imbecile will be consummated; and then, with the champagne in his throat, he will tell us how much he proposes to pour into the till of the ‘Chronique de Paris.’ It has not got one yet, to be sure, but we will buy one as soon as he furnishes the money.”

“But there will be about twenty of us,” objected de Nerval, “and the dinner will cost at least four hundred francs. Where are they? Have you got them?”

“No, but I will find them,” Balzac answered, with a magnificent gesture. “It is not a question of a dinner in a restaurant, for that would smack of the adventurer a mile away; and besides, there of course you pay cash. The banquet shall be served here, and on credit. We have only to inspire some caterer with sufficient confidence.”

“Charming,” said Merle, as he looked about the poorly furnished apartment; “but how is that sufficiency of confidence to be inspired?”

After innumerable propositions had been discussed and rejected, Balzac discovered that Granier de Cassagnac had a service of silver in pawn for eight hundred francs, and prevailed on Gautier to borrow a like amount, disengage the silver, which, negligently exposed on Balzac’s table, would inspire confidence in any caterer; promising that after the dinner the silver should be immediately repawned and the loan repaid.

“My plan is triumphant!” he exclaimed; “the money is ours. To-morrow we will liberate the silver. Tuesday, conference with the caterer. Wednesday, invitation on vellum launched at our young capitalist; the same evening, solemn engagement on his part to invest, accompanied on ours by the most hilarious toasts. Thursday, contract drawn by a notary and signed by the delicate hand of our millionaire. Friday, reunion and tea, to read over the prospectus, which I will compose. Saturday, colossal advertisement on every wall, monument, and column; and the week after, brilliant apparition on the Parisian horizon of the first number. Soldiers! to arms!”

This programme, joyously arranged, was fearlessly carried out. The silver was liberated, the caterer inspired with confidence, the invitation accepted, and after a sumptuous repast Balzac, glass in hand, arose and addressed the company as follows: —

“Gentlemen, you are all aware of the object for which we have assembled this evening about the liberal and gracious guest here seated at my right. It is the creation of a publication destined to assume, thanks to him and to his munificent intelligence, an unexceptionable position among the reviews of the century. Although I have not, to my great regret, been possessed of sufficient leisure to cultivate as I should have desired this rare intelligence, which has been called not only to fecundate our own, but also to assist us in spreading the fruits of our genius over a world which awaits them, and which, I may confidently state, would never know them save for the generous and effective assistance of our guest, I may nevertheless be permitted to say to what extent he has, in momentary confidences, permitted me to foresee treasuries of encouragement and rich rewards. I do not fear, therefore, to say that the ‘Chronique de Paris’ will owe to him its existence, its splendor, and its popularity. Were my emotion not so great and so real, I would speak at greater length of the future of our cherished and illustrious publication; but I prefer, in begging you, in honor of our guest, to join your toasts to mine, to leave the floor to him, that he may explain what in his generosity he proposes to do for the ‘Chronique de Paris,’ at once happy and proud to possess him as protector and patron.”

Then, lowering his voice to one of simple politeness, Balzac turned to his guest, and said, “Be good enough, my dear young friend, to explain what your liberal intentions are.”

“Gentlemen,” the banker’s son replied, “I will talk it over with papa.”

Balzac grew white as the table-cloth, but, magnificent in his defeat, hardly had the pseudo-capitalist disappeared than he exclaimed, with an accent which might have unsettled destiny itself, “It is daylight; let us repawn the silver!”20

Partly for the sake of solitude, and partly to affect, for business purposes, an appearance of luxury, Balzac, in 1837, built a villa at Ville d’Avray, which he named Les Jardies, as a reminiscence of the days when Louis XIV. lounged at Versailles.

It consisted of but three rooms, or rather three stories. The ground floor, the rez-de-chaussée, was the reception-room, the second the study, and the third the bedroom.

When the architect’s plan was first submitted, the staircase greatly interfered with the dimensions of the rooms, and Balzac, exasperated at this impertinence, ordered it out of the house, and caused it, by way of punishment, to climb in spiral solitude about the outer wall.

This little eccentricity gave to his parrot’s cage the appearance of having been transplanted from some old Hanseatic or Flemish town, and satisfied at the same time his proprietary pride.

At a little distance was another habitation, in which the kitchen and servants’ rooms were situated; and the whole establishment was surrounded by a high wall, which, being built on the incline of a hillock, was devastated by every storm, and fell five times into his neighbor’s grounds; until Balzac, wearied by constant summons and complaints, bought the surrounding property, that his cherished wall might lie at ease where it chose.

The interior of Les Jardies was fully in keeping with the character of its owner. The reception-room was but scantily furnished, and the bare walls were ornamented with a promise of Gobelin tapestry traced in charcoal.

On the ceiling was written, “Fresco by Delacroix.” On the wall of his study he wrote, “Here is a regal Venetian mirror,” while a corner of his bedroom assured the visitor that he was looking at one of Raphael’s priceless Madonnas.

In this way Balzac furnished his home with magnificent dreams, while he dined, perhaps, as did that creation of Dickens, who cut his bread into imaginary omelets, and sliced it into tenderloins.

Before Balzac’s advent, the plot of ground on which Les Jardies was built had been a vineyard, on which the warm sun had lain all day, and ripened the clustering grapes. The knowledge of this fact preoccupied him greatly. If grapes had grown there, he argued, why should not anything else? Why should not pine-apples?

Now pine-apples were dear in Paris, costing from ten to fifteen francs apiece; and no sooner did this idea present itself than it was grappled, seized, and caressed by Balzac, who immediately saw an annual harvest of an hundred thousand pine-apples, which had bloomed in hot-houses as yet unbuilt.

These pine-apples would, he thought, sell at least for five francs apiece; the attendant expenses could not be over a hundred thousand francs; and by a simple mathematical process, with which no one was more familiar, he foresaw a princely revenue of four hundred thousand francs more.

These four hundred thousand francs danced with such charm and grace before him that he lost no time in looking for a shop in which to sell his unplanted fruit. He soon found a suitable one on the Boulevard Montmartre, which he would have immediately hired, painted in black and yellow, and decorated with an enormous sign, bearing for epigraph Pine-apples from Les Jardies, had he not been forcibly dissuaded by friends less enthusiastic than he.

In this way scheme succeeded scheme, and one project was abandoned only for another. His latest idea he always considered his best, unless he was agreed with, when he would reverse all his arguments to prove that a precedent one was better still. At one time he thought that through a mathematical combination he had discovered a system which would enable him to break the bank at Baden; at another he proposed to cut down a forest in Poland, and supply Paris with timber, and would have done so had not his brother-in-law proved to him that the expenses for transportation would far exceed any possible profit.

To make money, to become a millionaire, and to lead the life of a prince was his constant aim and ambition.

“The life of an artist,” he said, “should be a succession of splendors;” and while he detested Dumas, he secretly admired his Oriental magnificence and envied his prodigal luxury. But while the firm of Dumas and Company was manufacturing novels by the dozen, Balzac was engaged in weighing a phrase and occupied with its corrections; while Dumas never so much as glanced at the proof-sheets of his feuilletons, Balzac’s were not only carefully corrected, but the attendant expenses were, by agreement, charged to him; and where, as in the case of “Pierrette,” he was obliged to pay for the corrections three hundred francs more than he received for the story itself, it will be readily understood that the amounts which he earned by his pen were not always as satisfactory as could have been desired.