Lost Illusions | Page 2

Madame de Bargeton inferior.
But the real interest both of Les Deux Poetes, and still more of Eve et
David, between which two, be it always remembered, comes in the
Distinguished Provincial, lies in the characters who gave their name to
the last part. In David, the man of one idea, who yet has room for an
honest love and an all-deserved friendship, Balzac could not go wrong.
David Sechard takes a place by himself among the sheep of the
Comedie. Some may indeed say that this phrase is unfortunate, that
Balzac's sheep have more qualities of the mutton than innocence. It is
not quite to be denied. But David is very far indeed from being a good
imbecile, like Cesar Birotteau, or a man intoxicated out of
common-sense by a passion respectable in itself, like Goriot. His
sacrifice of his mania in time is something--nay, it is very much; and

his disinterested devotion to his brother-in-law does not quite pass the
limits of sense.
But what shall we say of Eve? She is good of course, good as gold, as
Eugenie Grandet herself; and the novelist has been kind enough to
allow her to be happier. But has he quite interested us in her love for
David? Has he even persuaded us that the love existed in a form
deserving the name? Did not Eve rather take her husband to protect him,
to look after him, than either to love, honor, and obey in the orthodox
sense, or to love for love's sake only, as some still take their husbands
and wives even at the end of the nineteenth century? This is a question
which each reader must answer for himself; but few are likely to refuse
assent to the sentence, "Happy the husband who has such a wife as Eve
Chardon!"
The central part of Illusions Perdues, which in reason stands by itself,
and may do so ostensibly with considerably less than the introduction
explanatory which Balzac often gives to his own books, is one of the
most carefully worked out and diversely important of his novels. It
should, of course, be read before Splendeurs et Miseres des
Courtisanes, which is avowedly its second part, a small piece of Eve et
David serving as the link between them. But it is almost sufficient by
and to itself. Lucien de Rubempre ou le Journalisme would be the most
straightforward and descriptive title for it, and one which Balzac in
some of his moods would have been content enough to use.
The story of it is too continuous and interesting to need elaborate
argument, for nobody is likely to miss any important link in it. But
Balzac has nowhere excelled in finesse and success of analysis, the
double disillusion which introduces itself at once between Madame de
Bargeton and Lucien, and which makes any redintegratio amoris of a
valid kind impossible, because each cannot but be aware that the other
has anticipated the rupture. It will not, perhaps, be a matter of such
general agreement whether he has or has not exceeded the fair license
of the novelist in attributing to Lucien those charms of body and gifts
of mind which make him, till his moral weakness and worthlessness are
exposed, irresistible, and enable him for a time to repair his faults by a
sort of fairy good-luck. The sonnets of Les Marguerites, which were
given to the author by poetical friends --Gautier, it is said, supplied the
"Tulip"--are undoubtedly good and sufficient. But Lucien's first article,

which is (according to a practice the rashness of which cannot be too
much deprecated) given likewise, is certainly not very wonderful; and
the Paris press must have been rather at a low ebb if it made any
sensation. As we are not favored with any actual portrait of Lucien,
detection is less possible here, but the novelist has perhaps a very little
abused the privilege of making a hero, "Like Paris handsome, and like
Hector brave," or rather "Like Paris handsome, and like Phoebus
clever." There is no doubt, however, that the interest of the book lies
partly in the vivid and severe picture of journalism given in it, and
partly in the way in which the character of Lucien is adjusted to show
up that of the abstract journalist still farther.
How far is the picture true? It must be said, in fairness to Balzac, that a
good many persons of some competence in France have pronounced for
its truth there; and if that be so, all one can say is, "So much the worse
for French journalists." It is also certain that a lesser, but still not
inconsiderable number of persons in England--generally persons who,
not perhaps with Balzac's genius, have like Balzac published books,
and are not satisfied with their reception