The Celibates | Page 3

good-looking and vigorous husband to whom she had taken a fancy,
and no special temptation, and she might have been a blameless, merry,
"sonsy" /commere/, and have 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