died in an odor of very reasonable sanctity. Poverty, ignorance, the Rougets (father and son), Maxence Gilet, and Philippe Bridau came in her way, and she lived and died as Balzac has shown her. He has done nothing more "inevitable;" a few things more complete and satisfactory.
Maxence Gilet is a not much less remarkable sketch, though it is not easy to say that he is on the same level. Gilet is the man of distinct gifts, of some virtues, or caricatures of virtues, who goes to the devil through idleness, fulness of bread, and lack of any worthy occupation. He is extraordinarily unconventional for a French figure in fiction, even for a figure drawn by such a French genius as Balzac. But he is also hardly to be called a great type, and I do not quite see why he should have succumbed before Philippe as he did.
Philippe himself is more complicated, and, perhaps, more questionable. He is certainly one of Balzac's /fleurs du mal/; he is studied and personally conducted from beginning to end with an extraordinary and loving care; but is he quite "of a piece"? That he should have succeeded in defeating the combination against which his virtuous mother and brother failed is not an undue instance of the irony of life. The defeat of such adversaries as Flore and Max has, of course, the merit of poetical justice and the interest of "diamond cut diamond." But is not the terrible Philippe Bridau, the "Mephistopheles /a cheval/" of the latter part of the book, rather inconsistent with the common-place ne'er-to-well of the earlier? Not only does it require no unusual genius to waste money, when you have it, in the channels of the drinking-shop, the gaming table, and elsewhere, to sponge for more on your mother and brother, to embezzle when they are squeezed dry, and to take to downright robbery when nothing else is left; but a person who, in the various circumstances and opportunities of Bridau, finds nothing better to do than these ordinary things, can hardly be a person of exceptional intellectual resource. There is here surely that sudden and unaccounted-for change of character which the second-rate novelist and dramatists may permit himself, but from which the first-rate should abstain.
This, however, may be an academic objection, and certainly the book is of first-class interest. The minor characters, the mother and brother, the luckless aunt with her combination at last turning up when the rascal Philippe has stolen her stake-money, the satellites and abettors of Max in the club of "La Desoeuvrance," the slightly theatrical Spaniard, and all the rest of them, are excellent. The book is an eminently characteristic one--more so, indeed, than more than one of those in which people are often invited to make acquaintance with Balzac.
/Pierrette/, which was earlier called /Pierrette Lorrain/, was issued in 1840, first in the /Siecle/, and then in volume form, published by Souverain. In both issues it had nine chapter or book divisions with headings. With the other /Celibataires/ it entered the /Comedie/ as a /Scene de la Vie de Province/ in 1843.
/Le Cure de Tours/ (which Balzac had at one time intended to call by the name of the Cure's enemy, and which at first was simply called by the general title /Les Celibataires/) is much older than its companions, and appeared in 1832 in the /Scenes de la Vie Privee/. It was soon properly shifted to the /Vie de Province/, and as such in due time joined the /Comedie/ bearing its present title.
The third story of /Les Celibataires/ has a rather more varied bibliographical history than the others. The first part, that dealing with the early misconduct of Philippe Bridau, was published separately, as /Les Deux Freres/, in the /Presse/ during the spring of 1841, and a year or so later in volumes. It had nine chapters with headings. The volume form also included under the same title the second part, which, as /Un Menage de garcon en Province/, had been published in the same newspaper in the autumn of 1842. This had sixteen chapters in both issues, and in the volumes two part-headings --one identical with the newspaper title, and the other "A qui la Succession?" The whole book then took rank in the /Comedie/ under the second title, /Un Menage de garcon/, and retained this during Balzac's life and long afterwards. In the /Edition Definitive/, as observed above, he had marked it as /La Rabouilleuse/, after having also thought of /Le Bonhomme Rouget/. For English use, the better known, though not last or best title, is clearly preferable, as it can be translated, while /La Rabouilleuse/ cannot.
George Saintsbury
I
PIERRETTE
By HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
DEDICATION
To Mademoiselle Anna Hanska:
Dear Child,--You, the joy of the household, you, whose pink or white pelerine flutters in
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