Honore de Balzac Part 8

And, this letter being written, Balzac once more buried himself in his work with such energy that he had a rush of blood to the head, together with such atrocious neuralgic pains that it was necessary to apply leeches. None the less he continued to work, and, if he went out at all, it was for the purpose of visiting his printers or going on the trail of works of art. From the time that the question of his marriage was a.s.sured he began an a.s.siduous search for beautiful adornments for his future home, their home; and he prided himself on his instinct as a collector and his cleverness as a buyer. He could get the upper hand of the oldest antiquary. He had bought some Florentine furniture worthy of the Louvre, a commode and a writing-desk that had belonged to Marie de Medicis, for thirteen hundred and fifty francs--a unique bargain!--and he could sell them again at a profit of thousands of francs if he wished to. Perhaps he would consent to part with the commode, but he intended to keep the writing desk and place it between two ebony wardrobes which he already possessed, and it would cost him nothing, because the sale of the other piece, the commode, would cover the entire cost! And although in his letters to Mme. Hanska he defended himself against the charge of prodigality, these "good bargains" still continued. A clock of royal magnificence and two vases of pale green garnet, also Bouchardon's "Christ" in a frame by Brustolone. And for years he continued in pursuit of bric-a-brac, paintings and other works of art.

In 1845, on his way home after accompanying Mme. Hanska to Naples, he pa.s.sed through Ma.r.s.eilles, where he found some Chinese vases and plates at Lazard's curio shop, and, after reaching Paris, he wrote to Lazard, ordering some Chinese Horns-of-plenty and some "very fine bookcases ten metres long by three high, richly ornamented or richly carved." And, not content with giving these instructions to the dealer, he wrote to Mery, who had entertained him at Ma.r.s.eilles, explaining what he wanted from Lazard, and giving the following excellent lesson in the art of bargaining:

"While you are jollying the worthy Lazard, do me the favour of sending from time to time some of your friends to bargain for the two objects in question, and have them always make an offer, some of fifty, others of a hundred, others of twenty-five francs less than yours. After a fortnight of this manoeuvring, some fine morning Lazard will let you have them."

And Balzac added a postscript to this little lesson in the fine art of bargaining: "Never become a collector, for if you do you give yourself into the keeping of a demon as exacting and jealous as the demon of gambling." But while warning his friends against his own ruling pa.s.sion he surrendered himself to it with pa.s.sionate delight. During his leisure hours he wandered at random through Paris, like a hunter on the trail of his quarry,--through Paris which he knew down to the remotest of its back alleys and which he loved even in its slums. When he ran across some rare and precious piece, or something that merely appealed to his individual taste, he derived an intense joy out of employing all his trickery, his readiness of speech, his persuasive powers, to beat down the price of the coveted object. It was a battle in which he chose to come out conqueror. It pleased him to be recognised as a man with the business instinct; and he threw out his chest when he repeated the remark of his publisher, Souverain, "M. de Balzac is better at figures than Rothschild!"

In 1846, during a new trip to Italy with Mme. Hanska, her daughter Anna and the latter's husband, Count Georges Mniszech, he ransacked all Naples, Rome and Genoa, and no longer confined his attention to furniture and bric-a-brac, but had his eye open for paintings as well, because his latest ambition was to found a gallery. This taste for paintings came to him rather late in life, for his artistic appreciation had long been limited to the works of Girodet, a taste which called forth many a sarcasm from the far better informed Theophile Gautier. In Rome Balzac purchased a Sebastiano del Piombo, a Bronzino and a Mierevelt, he hunted up some Hobbemas and Holbeins, he secured a Natoire and a Breughel,--which he decided to sell, as it proved not to be genuine,--for he wanted "pictures of the first rank or none at all"; furthermore, he brought back to Paris a Judgment of Paris, attributed to Giorgione, a Greuze,--a sketch of his wife,--a Van Dyck, a Paul Brill, The Sorceresses, a sketch of the birth of Louis XIV representing the Adoration of the Shepherds, an Aurora by Guido, a Rape of Europa, by Annibale Carrachio or Domenichino,--and there we have the beginning of his gallery such as he described it in Cousin Pons. At the same time he did not neglect other forms of art for the sake of his paintings; he acquired a Saxon dinner service and a set of Dutch furniture from Amsterdam; Mme. Hanska sent him some porcelains from Germany; he sent to Tours for a writing desk and a commode of the Louis XVI period, he bought a bed supposed to have belonged to Mme. de Pompadour and which he intended for his guest chamber, besides a parlour set in carved woodwork, "of the last degree of magnificence,"

and a dining-room fountain made by Bernard Palissy for Henry II or Charles IX. Little by little he acc.u.mulated these marvels, destined to adorn his home after the marriage.

And, in the hope of hastening the date, he made one supreme effort, with his brain as clear and as fertile as in the periods of his most furious production. Between 1844 and 1847 he produced, in addition to the works already mentioned, The Peasants, The Splendour and Misery of Courtezans (third part), Cousin Bette, The Involuntary Comedians, The Last Incarnation of Vautrin, Cousin Pons, The Deputy from Arcis, and The Lesser Bourgeoisie. He foresaw the dawn of his deliverance: he would be able to achieve his gigantic task in peace.

Balzac was fully conscious of his genius and of the greatness of the monument which he had already partly raised. He objected to being cla.s.sed with the men of letters of his period, and for some time past had claimed recognition as standing on a higher level. Eugene de Mirecourt was witness of a scene which bore evidence to his justifiable pride:

"It was during the winter of 1843," he wrote, "that Messrs. Maulde and Renon published a Picture of the Great City, which was edited by Marc Fournier, the present manager of the Port-Saint-Martin theatre.

"One evening Balzac entered the publishers' office and said:

"'Our agreement, gentlemen, was that I should be paid for my Monograph on the Parisian Press at the rate of five hundred francs a page.'

"'That is so,' they replied.

"'I have received only fifteen hundred francs and there are four pages; accordingly you still owe me five hundred francs.'

"'But your corrections, M. de Balzac! Have you any idea what they amounted to?'

"'There was nothing said about my paying for corrections.'

"'That is true,' replied M. Renon, 'but I ought to tell you that Alexander Dumas's article, Filles, Lorettes et Courtisanes, also ran to four pages, yet we have not given him a centime more than we have given you.'

"Balzac started and turned pale. It is evident that he must have been in great financial need before he would have come to make such a request. But he quite forgot this in the face of the words he had just heard. For, without pressing his claim further, he arose, took his hat and said, with an accent of solemn dignity:

"'From the moment that you compare me with that negro I have the honour of wishing you good evening!'

"He went out. And that was how the mere name of Alexandre Dumas saved the business office of The Great City five hundred francs." (Balzac, by Eugene de Mirecourt, pp. 80-82.)

In order to hasten his liberation from debt and his settlement with creditors, Balzac tried to augment the sums which he received from editors and publishers with the profits from various speculations. He expected a rise in value of the shares which he held in the company of the Chemins de Fer du Nord, and, either trusting to reliable information or else himself possessing an intimate knowledge of the development of real estate in Paris, he urged Mme. Hanska to invest her capital in land in the Monceau district. He cited the example of Louis-Philippe, who was the cleverest speculator of his time, and who had acquired tracts of immense extent.

After the close of 1846 Balzac retired from the outside world and gave himself up almost entirely to his great work. Through an intermediary he had purchased the residence of the financier, Baujon, in the Rue Fortunee, and with great secrecy he had it repaired and redecorated, with a view to making it habitable at the earliest possible date. Here he deposited his wealth of furnishings,--which had already begun to excite public wonderment, owing to certain indiscreet revelations,--but his life, which had always been closely hidden, had now become practically unknown. He was unwilling to show himself again in public until he could return in triumph after his marriage. Mme. Hanska visited Paris a second time, in 1847, and approved of all his arrangements. Balzac in return went to Wierzchownia that same year, and he was dazzled by the vastness of her estates,--which were equal in extent to a whole department of France,--and by the possibilities of neglected and undeveloped resources which might be made to yield millions. After his return to Paris he had but one desire: to go back to Wierzchownia, celebrate his marriage, and realise the dream which he had tenaciously pursued for seventeen years.

He remained in Paris six months, living in his new home in the Rue Fortunee, denying himself to all but his most intimate friends, and hiding his prosperity until the day should come when he could announce his good fortune to the world at large. One of the last portraits of Balzac at this period is the one traced by Champfleury, whom he had received as a disciple and fervent admirer:

"M. de Balzac," he wrote, "descended the stairs enveloped in his famous monk's robe. His face is round, his black eyes are excessively brilliant, the general tone of his complexion verges upon olive, with patches of violent red in the cheeks, and pure yellow towards the temples and around the eyes. His abundant hair is a dense black, intermingled with threads of silver; it is an astonishing head of hair.

In spite of the amplitude of his dressing-gown, his girth appears enormous." And, further on, he gives us this second sketch: "but at the age of forty-nine M. de Balzac ought to be painted rather than sculptured. His keen black eyes, his powerful growth of hair intermingled with white, the violent tones of pure yellow and red which succeed each other crudely in his cheeks, and the singular character of the hairs of his beard, all combine to give him the air of a festive wild boar, that the modern sculptors would have difficulty in reproducing."

Arriving in Paris a few days before the Revolution, Balzac witnessed the turbulent scenes of 1848. It is said that he was one of the first to reach the Tuileries, mingling with the excited populace, and he brought away a fragment of the tapestry which covered the throne of Louis-Philippe. He attended an a.s.sembly of Men-of-Letters, which met to decide what their att.i.tude should be towards the provisional government, but he had an absent-minded and detached air, as though he found himself a stranger among all those writers. He found no one he knew, and seemed to be searching for his comrades of earlier days. His frequent journeys outside of France, which began in 1845, his long periods of residence in foreign countries, in company with Mme. Hanska, seemed to have weaned him away from the environment in which he had lived and developed, and fitted him for a different mode of life.

The club of Universal Fraternity, in Paris, having placed him upon its list of candidates for the legislative elections, he sent to its president the following public letter, proud and somewhat disillusioned, in reply to the question of a member, who wished to know his political opinions:

"I have already stated that if the functions of a representative were entrusted to me I would accept them. But I thought from the beginning and I still think that it is superfluous for any man whose life and works have been public property for twenty years to make a profession of faith.

"There are some men whom the votes solicit, and there are others who must solicit votes, and it is the latter who must prove the soundness of their political views. But, as to me, if I have not taken my place, through my writings, amongst the nine hundred individuals who represent in our country either intelligence, or power, or commercial activity, or a knowledge of laws and men and business, the ballot will tell me so!"

But although Balzac had for twenty years had an ambition to hold political office, to be a cabinet minister and have a share in the government, he witnessed the Revolution of 1848 with no other feeling than sorrow, for he felt that it augured no good for France. Besides, at this time he had no other wish than to return to Russia, join Mme.

Hanska, and close the great mystery of his life with a glorious marriage. During the few months that he remained in Paris, from February to September, 1848, he showed nothing of his customary literary activity, and seems to have had no other thought than that of putting his new home in order, and transforming it into a sumptuous abode. And when everything was ready to receive the future bride he set out for Wierzchownia, at the end of September, leaving his home in the care of his mother, with whom he had often had clashes and periods of coldness, yet who had never refused her son a devotion which, although at times somewhat churlish, was based upon a deep affection and a precise recognition of her duties.

Accordingly Mme. de Balzac watched over his interests, just as she formerly did in 1832, when he had gone to Aix in the company of Mme. de Castries; and Balzac sent instructions to her from Russia, but their tone showed an a.s.surance, a certain complete tranquillity, which he had not had in the days of his laborious youth. These instructions related to business ventures which he was thinking of undertaking,--during his first sojourn he had considered the plan of utilising Count Mnizscek's forests by converting them into railway ties,--and now he wanted her to send him a work by Vicat, treating of mortars and hydraulic cement; then there were orders relating to the care he wished to be given to the final settling of his home,--which cost him not less than four hundred thousand francs. Mme. de Balzac must needs oversee the various contractors, Grohe, the upholsterer, Paillard, who had the contract for furnishing the parlour, Feuchere, the worker in bronze, from whom Balzac wished his mother to order two brackets in gilded copper, while at the same time she was to send him a complete list of all his table silver. He went into the most minute details, which showed his love of order, begging his mother to remind Francois, one of his servants, to fill and clean the lamps, "for that is an essential matter," he insisted. Each of these letters to his mother contains some such trivial recommendation, which goes to show that he had the instinct of a careful housekeeper who hates needless waste.

From Russia he continued to supervise his theatrical interests, and entrusted them so far as they related to Mercadet, to his friend, Laurent-Jan, while at the same time he protested against a performance of Vautrin which he had not authorised. He announced to Laurent-Jan that he was hard at work and was preparing some scenarios for him. He had not renounced the idea of making money through the dramatic branch of his art. For there were times when Mme. Hanska became anxious regarding his personal debts, which were not yet wholly paid off, as well as their mutual debts incurred in relation to their future home and its furnishings. He feared that his mother, who was herself easily alarmed, might write some discouraging news as to his financial position, and in this way alarm the countess. Accordingly he sent her one day a secret letter, through the post-office in Berditcheff, in which he gave her most explicit orders in this connection. For he had now been in Wierzchownia almost twelve months, and his marriage, although ostensibly agreed upon, had not yet taken place, and he knew that in such a case the whole thing might fall through at any time, up to the very moment of the ceremony. As a matter of fact, he was a sick man, his heart and lungs were both affected, he had lost the last of his teeth, and there were some days when he found it impossible even to move his arms without a sense of suffocation.

Nevertheless his constancy was at last recompensed, after months of despair, during which he said, "I must regard the project which brought me here as indefinitely postponed." In March, 1850, preparations were made for the marriage, and in announcing it to his mother he said that he would notify her of the day of his return, so that she could decorate the rooms with flowers, "beautiful, beautiful flowers." And on March 15th he despatched two letters, one to Mme. de Balzac and the other to Laure, in which he announced the event so long delayed.

"Yesterday, at Berditcheff, in the parish church of St. Barbara, a delegate of the bishop Jatomir, a saintly and virtuous priest, closely resembling our own Abbe Henaux, confessor of the d.u.c.h.ess of Angouleme, blessed and celebrated our marriage." And he signed the letter to his sister: "Your brother, Honore, at the pinnacle of happiness!"

The happiness was brief. Balzac seems to have been destined to have a life made up solely of toil and struggles, and at the very moment when he had forced his way out of the jungle of obstacles and superhuman efforts, and had reached that vast plain where travellers along the path of life repose, destiny forbade him any joy. At the moment when he was hoping for happiness, peace, and love, death was at his elbow.

He returned with his wife to Paris towards the end of May, 1850, in a state of exhaustion, and yet full of dreams, projects and hopes,--but only to take to his bed and await his destined hour. nothing could be more dramatic than his last weeks. He suffered from heart, lungs and liver. Every care was taken of him, and hope was offered of a cure; yet he never rose again. His work had killed him. No one can read without emotion the simple line that he traced on June 20, 1850, on a letter dictated to his wife for Theophile Gautier, who had called to see him: "I can no longer read nor write!"

Honore de Balzac died during the night of August 18, 1850, at a time when his beautiful and weary eyes had barely caught a fleeting glimpse of fortune, glory and peace.

Victor Hugo was notified and hurried to his bedside.

"We traversed a corridor," he has recorded, "we ascended a staircase covered with a red carpet and enc.u.mbered with works of art, vases, statues, paintings, cabinets containing enamels; then another corridor, and I saw a door standing open. I heard a rattling breath, loud and sinister. I found myself in Balzac's bedroom.

"A bed stood in the middle of the chamber. It was a bed of acacia wood, at the head and foot of which were cross-pieces and straps, apparently forming part of an apparatus for lifting and moving the sick man. M. de Balzac lay in this bed, with his head supported on a pile of pillows, to which had been added some red damask cushions taken from the sofa in the same room. His face was purple, almost black, and was turned towards the right. He was unshaven, but his gray hair was cut short.

His eyes were wide open and staring. I saw him in profile, and, seen thus, he resembled the emperor.

"An old woman, the nurse, and a man-servant were standing, one on each side of the bed. A candle was burning behind the headboard on a table, and another on a commode near the door. On still another table a silver vase had been placed. The man and woman stood silent, listening in a sort of terror to the noisy rattle of the dying man's breath.

"The candle at the head of the bed vividly lighted a portrait of a young man, high coloured and smiling, which hung above the mantle.

"An insupportable odour emanated from the bed. I lifted up the coverlid and took Balzac's hand. It was bathed in sweat. I pressed it, but he did not return the pressure.

"The nurse said to me:

"'He will die at daybreak.'

"I descended the stairs, carrying away that livid face in my thoughts; as I crossed the parlour I once again came upon the motionless bust (of Balzac, by David of Angers), impa.s.sible, proud and vaguely radiant, and I drew a comparison between death and immortality.

"On reaching my home, as it happened to be Sunday, I found several callers waiting for me, amongst others Riza-Bey, the Turkish charge d'affaires, Navarrete, the Spanish poet, and Count Arrivabene, an Italian exile. I said to them:

"'Gentlemen, Europe is about to lose a great mind.'

"He died during the night, at fifty-one years of age."

Balzac loved to compare his struggles with the military campaigns of Bonaparte, and to point out that he had conducted them without halt or bivouac, after the manner of the great conqueror. He wished to equal him in glory and to surpa.s.s him in the achievements that he should leave behind him for the benefit of future generations. He has recorded his great desire: "In short, here is the game I am playing; during this present half century four men will have exerted an immense influence: Napoleon, Cuvier, O'Connell, and I should like to be the fourth. The first lived upon the blood of Europe, he inoculated himself with armies; the second espoused the globe; the third was the incarnation of an entire people; as for me, I shall have borne an entire social epoch in my head."

More fortunate than the young Corsican sub-lieutenant, Balzac produced a work possessing a permanence which the other could not have,--since thought is always greater than action,--and although death surprised him before he could lay the last stone of his edifice, its incompleted grandeurs might well suffice the loftiest ambition.