Balzac | Page 4

PARIS, 1910.

PREFACE

Excusing himself for not undertaking to write a life of Balzac,
Monsieur Brunetiere, in his study of the novelist published shortly
before his death, refused somewhat disdainfully to admit that
acquaintance with a celebrated man's biography has necessarily any
value. "What do we know of the life of Shakespeare?" he says, "and of
the circumstances in which /Hamlet/ or /Othello/ was produced? If
these circumstances were better known to us, is it to be believed and

will it be seriously asserted that our admiration for one or the other play
would be augmented?" In penning this quirk, the eminent critic would
seem to have wilfully overlooked the fact that a writer's life may have
much or may have little to do with his works. In the case of
Shakespeare it was comparatively little--and yet we should be glad to
learn more of this little. In the case of Balzac it was much. His novels
are literally his life; and his life is quite as full as his books of all that
makes the good novel at once profitable and agreeable to read. It is not
too much to affirm that any one who is acquainted with what is known
to-day of the strangely chequered career of the author of the /Comedie
Humaine/ is in a better position to understand and appreciate the
different parts which constitute it. Moreover, the steady rise of Balzac's
reputation, during the last fifty years, has been in some degree owing to
the various patient investigators who have gathered information about
him whom Taine pronounced to be, with Shakespeare and Saint-Simon,
the greatest storehouse of documents we possess concerning human
nature.
The following chapters are an attempt to put this information into
sequence and shape, and to insert such notice of the novels as their
relative importance requires. The author wishes here to thank certain
French publishers who have facilitated his task by placing books for
reference at his disposal, Messrs. Calmann-Levy, Armand Colin, and
Hetzel, in particular, and also the Curator of the /Musee Balzac/,
Monsieur de Royaumont who has rendered him service on several
occasions.

BALZAC
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

The condition of French society in the early half of the nineteenth
century--the period covered by Balzac's novels--may be compared to

that of a people endeavouring to recover themselves after an earthquake.
Everything had been overthrown, or at least loosened from its
base--religion, laws, customs, traditions, castes. Nothing had withstood
the shock. When the upheaval finally ceased, there were timid attempts
to find out what had been spared and was susceptible of being raised
from the ruins. Gradually the process of selection went on, portions of
the ancient system of things being joined to the larger modern creation.
The two did not work in very well together, however, and the edifice
was far from stable.
During the Consulate and First Empire, the Emperor's will, so sternly
imposed, retarded any movement of natural reconstruction. Outside the
military organization, things were stiff and starched and solemn. High
and low were situated in circumstances that were different and strange.
The new soldier aristocracy reeked of the camp and battle- field; the
washer-woman, become a duchess, was ill at ease in the Imperial
drawing-room; while those who had thriven and amassed wealth
rapidly in trade were equally uncomfortable amidst the vulgar luxury
with which they surrounded themselves. Even the common people,
whether of capital or province, for whose benefit the Revolution had
been made, were silent and afraid. Of the ladies' /salons/--once
numerous and remarkable for their wit, good taste, and
conversation--two or three only subsisted, those of Mesdames de
Beaumont, Recamier and de Stael; and, since the last was regarded by
Napoleon with an unfriendly eye, its guests must have felt constrained.
At reunions, eating rather than talking was fashionable, and the eating
lacked its intimacy and privacy of the past. The lighter side of life was
seen more in restaurants, theatres, and fetes. It was modish to dine at
Frascati's, to drink ices at the Pavillon de Hanovre, to go and admire
the actors Talma, Picard, and Lemercier, whose stage performance was
better than many of the pieces they interpreted. Fireworks could be
enjoyed at the Tivoli Gardens; the great concerts were the rage for a
while, as also the practice for a hostess to carry off her visitors after
dinner for a promenade in the Bois de Boulogne.
Literature was obstinately classical. After the daring flights of the

previous century, writers contented themselves with marking time.
Chenedolle, whose verse Madame de Stael said to be as lofty as
Lebanon, and whose fame is lilliputian to-day, was, with Ducis, the
representative of their advance-guard. In painting, with Fragonard,
Greuze and Gros, there was a greater stir of genius, yet without
anything corresponding in