Balzac | Page 6

vigorously that they lost their skirts. The same
species of /revanche/ was indulged in when Lady Morgan, the novelist,
came to France, seeking material for a popular book describing French
customs. Henri Beyle (Stendhal) hoaxed her by acting as her cicerone
and filling her note-books with absurd information, which she accepted
in good faith and carried off as fact. On Sundays the most respectable
families used to resort to the /guinguettes/, or /bastringues/, of the
suburbs. Belleville had its celebrated Desnoyers establishment. At the
Maine gate Mother Sagnet's was the meeting-place of budding artists
and grisettes. At La Villette, Mother Radig, a former canteen woman,
long enjoyed popularity among her patrons of both sexes. All these
scenes are depicted in certain of Victor Ducange's novels, written
between 1815 and 1830, as also in the pencil sketches of the two artists
Pigal and Marlet.
The political society of the Restoration was characterized by a good
deal of cynicism. Those who were affected by the change of /regime/,
partisans and functionaries of the Empire, hastened in many cases to
trim their sails to the turn of the tide. However, there was a relative
liberty of the press which permitted the honest expression of party
opinion, and polemics were keen. At the Sorbonne, Guizot, Cousin, and
Villemain were the orators of the day. Frayssinous lectured at
Saint-Sulpice, and de Lamennais, attacking young Liberalism,
denounced its tenets in an essay which de Maistre called a heaving of
the earth under a leaden sky.
The country's material prosperity at the time was considerable, and

reacted upon literature of every kind by furnishing a more leisured
public. In 1816 Emile Deschamps preluded to the after-triumphs of the
Romantic School with his play the /Tour de faveur/, the latter being
followed in 1820 by Lebrun's /Marie Stuart/. Alfred de Vigny was
preparing his /Eloa/; Nodier was delighting everybody by his talents as
a philologian, novelist, poet, and chemist. Beranger was continuing his
songs, and paying for his boldness with imprisonment. The King
himself was a protector of letters, arts, and sciences. One of his first
tasks was to reorganize the "Institut Royal," making it into four
Academies. He founded the Geographical and Asiatic Societies,
encouraged the introduction of steam navigation and traction into
France, and patronized men of genius wherever he met with them.
Yet the nation's fidelity to the White Flag was not very deep-rooted.
Grateful though the population had been for the return of peace and
prosperity, a lurking reminiscence of Napoleonic splendours combined
with the bourgeois' Voltairian scepticism to rouse a widespread
hostility to Government and Church, as soon as the spirit of the latter
ventured to manifest again its inveterate intolerance. Beranger's songs,
Paul-Louis Courier's pamphlets, and the articles of the /Constitutionnel/
fanned the re-awakened sentiments of revolt; and Charles the Tenth's
ministers, less wisely restrained than those of Louis XVIII., and blind
to the significance of the first barricades of 1827, provoked the
catastrophe of 1830. This second revolution inaugurated the reign of a
bourgeois king. Louis-Philippe was hardly more than a delegate of the
bourgeois class, who now reaped the full benefits of the great
Revolution and entered into possession of its spoils. During Jacobin
dictature and Napoleonic sway, the bourgeoisie had played a waiting
role. At present they came to the front, proudly conscious of their
merits; and an entire literature was destined to be devoted to them, an
entire art to depict or satirize their manners. Scribe, Stendhal, Merimee,
Henry Monnier, Daumier, and Gavarni were some of the men whose
work illustrated the bourgeois /regime/, either prior to or
contemporaneous with the work of Balzac.
The eighteen years of the July Monarchy, which were those of Balzac's
mature activity, contrasted sharply with those that immediately

preceded. In spite of perceptible social progress, the constant war of
political parties, in which the throne itself was attacked, alarmed lovers
of order, and engendered feelings of pessimism. The power of
journalism waxed great. Fighting with the pen was carried to a point of
skill previously unattained. Grouped round the /Debats/--the ministerial
organ--were Silvestre de Sacy, Saint-Marc Girardin, and Jules Janin as
leaders, and John Lemoinne, Philarete Chasles, Barbey d'Aurevilly in
the rank and file. Elsewhere Emile de Girardin's /Presse/ strove to oust
the /Constitutionnel/ and /Siecle/, opposition papers, from public favour,
and to establish a Conservative Liberalism that should receive the
support of moderate minds. Doctrines many, political and social, were
propounded in these eighteen years of compromise. Legitimists,
Bonapartists, and Republicans were all three in opposition to the
Government, each with a programme to tempt the petty burgess.
Saint-Simonism too was abroad with its utopian ideals, attracting some
of the loftier minds, but less appreciated by the masses than the
teachings of other semi-secret societies having aims more material.
Corresponding to the character