Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) (2 page)

Since then the republication of these works – together with the publication of unfinished works and fragments, critical editions, his vast correspondence, etc – has become a major industry. Balzac’s energy was unbounded and his productivity astounding. In fact he worked himself to death, one imperative motive for this being the urge to pay off the formidable
debts he had contracted as a printer. Moreover his way of life was so extravagant that these debts went on increasing to the end. Another even more cogent motive was to bring forth all he had in him as the self-appointed ‘secretary’ of contemporary society. And yet he found time to lead an eventful, picturesque and tormented life, memorable for the incursions he made into fashionable, literary and artistic society and also for a series of love affairs which culminated in the lengthy court he paid to a woman who started as a ‘pen-friend’, became his mistress in 1834 and eventually, after keeping him on tenterhooks for many years, married him in May 1850, almost on the eve of his death: a Polish countess, Eveline Hanska. Naturally these sentimental adventures, his friendships, his animosities and his social relationships all furnished substance for his works, and one of the principal occupations of researchers has been to discover prototypes and models behind his characters (e.g., in Part II of
Lost Illusions,
the novelist George Sand behind Camille Maupin): not an unprofitable activity provided that one realizes that neither Balzac nor any other great writer carries real events and living persons into his fictions without fusing and transforming them.

Balzac may indeed have distinguished himself as a ‘secretary’ of society, but he was also a great creative artist, and from his study of contemporary society emerged, not a mere copy of the world around him, but a new world which may appropriately be called ‘Balzacian’: a vividly striking world, teeming with extraordinarily vital and energetic people, impressively real from one point of view, but so heightened and dramatized, so metamorphosed that it is difficult to say at what moment reality is transcended and imagination takes control. There has been much argument over Balzac as an observer of daily reality and Balzac as a ‘seer’ expressing his own vision of things. He certainly possessed remarkable powers of observation and a prodigious memory. But, as he himself frequently asserted, these faculties were supplemented by a strange gift of sympathetic intuition which he himself, taking a leaf from Scott, called ‘second sight’. In fact he did
regard himself as being specially if not preternaturally endowed. In any case no reader of his works will fail to see that he is not merely a ‘historian’ of society, but also a judge, a satirist and, within certain limits, a constructive thinker, although his philosophy is a curious one, a strange blend of science and occultism. As a novelist, he is, of course, a ‘classic’: that is to say that he tells a straightforward tale, creates his background, giving meticulous and often lengthy attention to localities, sites, buildings, furniture, physiognomy and dress, poses and develops his characters, and by so doing leads the action up to a climax which is usually rapid and eminently dramatic and moreover supported by lively and characteristic dialogue. He is then, in the main, an ‘omniscient’ narrator who knows where he is going and goes there. None the less, there are today quite a few exponents of the ‘new novel’, notably Michel Butor, who are far from thinking that the Balzac technique is antiquated in the twentieth century.

In its three parts
Lost Illusions
sits astride the
Scenes of Provincial Life
and the
Scenes of Parisian Life.
Broadly speaking, it has three main themes:

(1) A young man, born of a plebeian father and an aristocratic mother, after vainly trying to impose himself as a poet on the stupid and prejudiced ‘high society’ in his native Angoulême, is escorted to Paris by his patroness, Madame de Bargeton, for the purpose of making his name and fortune there. Such a migration and this bid for literary success in the metropolis were to some extent Balzac’s own personal experience, one he several times used as a basis for his fictions, for example in
The Skin
and
Old Goriot.
But it was also a common experience, a particular case observed at close hand by Balzac being that of Jules Sandeau (though he did not turn out to be a complete failure), a budding author who provided some essential features for the character and career of Étienne Lousteau in
A Great Man in Embryo
and a few years later in
The Muse of the Department.
In 1835 Balzac’s loyal friend Zulma Carraud, who had lived near Angoulême from 1831 to 1833, tried to interest him in a young protégé of hers, one Émile Chevalet, who had come to Paris for precisely the same purpose.
Balzac took stock of him and sent Zulma a devastating report. ‘If he is without means, it will take him ten years to make a living by his pen… This young man is characteristic of our times. When one has no particular aptitude for anything, one takes to the pen and poses as a talented person.’ But even for the exploitation of real talent, Balzac insists, long and patient effort is needed. And this point is persistently hammered home in the novel.

Lucien Chardon’s case is similar to that of Chevalet although, according to Balzac’s initial postulate, he does possess talent as both poet and prose-writer. The French title of this second part of
Lost Illusions
presents him as ‘a great man from the provinces’. Perhaps ‘a great man in embryo’ would be better, and indeed, in 1838, Balzac was thinking of ‘a great man in his apprenticeship’ as an alternative title. Lucien’s mother and sister, also his indulgent brother-in-law David Séchard, take him at his own valuation. So does Madame de Bargeton at first. What in effect are his claims to ‘greatness’?

The specimens of his poetry proffered by Balzac – he extracted the sonnets from his friends, mostly minor poets except for Théophile Gautier, author of
The Tulip
– scarcely prove his case. It may not perhaps be fair to ask English readers to judge them by the translations offered, though the translator is not inclined to believe that his renderings are much worse than the originals. Then there is Lucien’s review of the Panorama-Dramatique play – clever and vivacious, but hardly giving evidence of genius. Here we are indeed presented with a dilemma. Obviously the frequently appearing epithet
‘grand homme’
is often used ironically. Yet there are many moments when Balzac seems to be using it seriously. The term ‘poet’ has of course a wider connotation than we should usually allow to it. Lucien and David Séchard are both called ‘poets’, though one is drawn to literature and the other to science, more specifically research into the processes of paper-making. Here a second theme appears to interfere with Balzac’s basically satiric attitude and inspire him with a great deal of sympathy for Lucien.

(2) This second theme is the opposition Balzac draws between Paris and the provinces. Though he was himself a provincial by birth and early upbringing, he was proud of having become a Parisian, however whole-heartedly he might rail against Paris as being the heart and centre of the ruthless egoism and acquisitiveness which he looked on as the major vices of his time. And so, generally speaking, he adopts a contemptuous attitude towards provincial life. In 1833 he had written (in the preface to
Eugénie Grandet)
: ‘Things happen in Paris: they just glide by in the provinces. All is drab. Nothing stands out, though dramas are played through in silence.’ And this Parisian sense of superiority is complicated with class snobbery. Balzac’s family, peasant in its origins, had become solidly bourgeois. In the late eighteen-twenties, and more especially since 1830, he was priding himself on having made a triumphal entry into aristocratic society. At the same time he had taken to conservative views in politics and become a champion of ‘Throne and Altar’, And so we shall always find Balzac striking an aristocratic pose (like Sixte Châtelet, he had awarded himself the ‘particule’
de)
and mocking at the
bourgeoisie.
At the same time he never denies himself the pleasure of deriding the nobility for their pride of race and their unintelligent brand of conservatism – particularly in
The Old Maid
(1838) and
The Cabinet of Antiques
(1836–1839). As he portrays it, the aristocracy of Angoulême is at once arrogant, ignorant and petty-minded, and that is why he castigates its treatment of the potential ‘great man’ of Angoulême.

Once Lucien arrives in Paris he finds himself up against the more cultured aristocracy that has access to Court, represented by Madame d’Espard and her satellites – Balzac so often gives the list of them that there is no need to repeat it here. They treat him even more cruelly than the Saintots and Chandours of Angoulême. But they are well-dressed, elegant, full of
savoir-faire,
serenely satisfied with themselves and supposed to be devastatingly witty (Balzac’s demonstrations of this wit may not be found altogether convincing). And so, in the second part of
Lost Illusions,
we become aware of further ambivalence in Balzac’s attitude: he both admires and despises
his
beau monde.
The denizens of the aristocratic Faubourg Saint-Germain are chillingly correct and supercilious, but they are so much more venomous and destructive because their action, once they embark on it, is far more effective than that of the gentry of Angoulême. They combine to dupe, ridicule and eliminate the poor, ‘angelically’ handsome young man – weak, vain and self-centred – who has hoped to attain to the social rank to which his mother’s birth half entitled him.

(3) Once Lucien has been cast aside by Madame de Bargeton, he has to choose between two means of proving his worth: settling down to a long period of poverty and hard work, the course advocated and adopted by the austere d’Arthez, or taking to journalism and forcing himself upon the world of letters by the unscrupulousness which, according to Balzac, alone makes rapid success possible for an ambitious journalist. He decides on this second course but is too vulnerable to pull it off. This third theme can therefore also be regarded as the major theme of
A Great Man in Embryo:
Balzac’s denunciation of journalism as one of the most pernicious knaveries of his time.

The first half of the nineteenth century witnessed the rapid rise to power of the periodical press. Journalism had been active – though dangerous to those engaged in it – during the Revolutionary period. Napoleon had kept the press under his thumb, as Giroudeau points out on page 235. The ‘freedom’ of the press was one of the most controversial issues both under the Restoration and the July Monarchy. Under Louis XVIII and Charles X the struggle between those who, like the Liberals and Bonapartists, wanted to keep the Revolutionary principles and gains intact, and the Conservatives of various hues, especially the ‘Ultras’, who wanted to put the political clock back, was an affair of major importance; likewise, under Louis-Philippe, the conflict between the spirit of stagnation and the parties in favour of ‘movement’. Balzac’s contention is that the majority of journalists under these three monarchs, instead of recognizing that they were called to a serious, even sacred mission, turned the Press into an instrument for self-advancement, prostituted principles to intrigue
and used journalism merely as a means of acquiring money, position and power. He is reluctant to admit that there
were
great, responsible press organs, like
Le Journal des Débats, Le Conservateur, Le Constitutionnel
and, from 1824,
Le Globe,
which stood firm on principle; he is above all aware of the vogue which the
petits journaux
enjoyed after the fall of Napoleon, and of the role they played as political privateers.

The
petits journaux
were so-called because they were produced in smaller format than the important dailies or weeklies, which were more or less grave, staid and ponderous. They proliferated in Paris once the fall of the Empire had given a relative, though still precarious liberty to the Press – precarious because it was constantly threatened by the increasingly reactionary governments of the time. The politicians of the Right found it difficult to keep the newspapers under control even by such means as stamp-duty, caution-money, fines, suspensions and suppressions, the object of these being mainly to put obstacles in the way of would-be founders of hostile periodicals. The ‘little papers’, short-lived as they often proved to be, were much given to journalistic sharp-shooting. They preferred satire, personal attack, sarcasm and scandal-mongering to serious argument or the affirmation of ideals. They were mostly Opposition journals and were a constant thorn in the flesh of the Government. Balzac’s aim was to expose their addiction to ‘graft’, intrigue, blackmail and the misuse of the
feuilleton,
namely the bottom portion of the first page or other pages generally reserved for critical articles and frequently devoted to the malicious task of slashing literary reputations. Andoche Finot – the prototype of such later newspaper magnates as Émile de Girardin and Armand Dutacq, pioneers in 1836 in the founding of cheap dailies which relied on advertisement and serialized novels as a chief source of income – acquires a large share in a big daily and hands on to the equally unprincipled Lousteau the editorship of the ‘little paper’ he already owns. Balzac probably had
Le Figaro
chiefly in mind, a periodical which was constantly going bankrupt or being suppressed but kept popping up again under different editors. Hector Merlin’s
royalist
Drapeau Blanc,
edited by Martainville, really existed, having been founded in 1819; so did
Le Réveil.
Other examples of ‘little papers’ before 1830 were
Le Nain Jaune
(Bonapartist),
Le Diable Boiteux
and
Le Corsaire
(both Liberal),
Le Voleur, La Mode, La Silhouette,
and, under Louis-Philippe, not only the phoenix-like
Figaro,
but also
La Caricature, Le Charivari
(ancestor of our English
Punch),
and once more
Le Corsaire:
a few among many. Louis-Philippe and his Cabinets were easy prey for these stinging gad-flies whose unremitting satire and innuendo remind one of the present-day
Canard Enchaîné.