The death of Honoré de Balzac, the celebrated French novelist, was an event in literature. Born Death of Balzac at Tours in 1799, he soon devoted himself to writing. His first work, the tragedy "Cromwell," written at the age of nineteen, proved unsuccessful, as did all of his earlier novels, which appeared under a pseudonym. Various unfortunate undertakings, such as the publication of new editions of "La Fontaine" and "Molière," plunged him into debt. He returned to writing novels. Not until late was his authorship openly avowed. By this time several of his stories, such as "Le Dernier Chouan," "La Femme de Trente Ans," and his sprightly "Physiologie du Mariage," had achieved immense success. Still Balzac failed to turn his successes to financial account. He sank ever deeper in debt. In 1843 he turned upon his critics with a slashing "Monograph on the Parisian Press." The major part "The Human Comedy" of his striking, realistic novels was published in the famous series "La Comédie Humaine." This in turn was divided into these seven parts: "Scenes of Private Life," "Life in the Provinces," "Life in Paris," "In Politics," "In the Army," "In the Country," with "Philosophical Studies" and "Studies in Analysis." In his preface of 1842, Balzac thus explained the scheme of his work:
"In giving the general title of 'The Human Comedy' to a work begun nearly thirteen years ago, it is necessary to explain its motive, to relate its origin, and briefly sketch its plan, while endeavoring to speak of these matters as though I had no personal interest in them. This is not so difficult as many imagine. Few works conduce to much vanity; much labor conduces to great diffidence....
"As we read the dry and discouraging list of events called History, who can have failed to note that the writers of all periods, in Egypt, Persia, Greece and Rome, have forgotten to give us the history of manners? The fragment of Petronius on the private life of the Romans excites rather than satisfies our curiosity....
"A sure grasp of the purport of this work will make it clear that I attach to common, daily facts, hidden or patent to the eye, to the The novel defined acts of individual lives, and to their causes and principles, the importance which historians have hitherto ascribed to the events of public national life.... I have had to do what Richardson did but once. Lovelace has a thousand forms, for social corruption takes the hues of the medium in which it lives. Clarissa, on the contrary, the lovely image of impassioned virtue, is drawn in lines of distracting purity. To create a variety of Virgins it needs a Raphael.
"It was no small task to depict the two or three thousand conspicuous types of a period; for this is, in fact, the number presented to us by each generation, and which the Human Comedy must require. This crowd of actors, of characters, this multitude of lives, needed a setting—if I may be pardoned the expression, a gallery. Hence the division into Scenes of Private Life, of Provincial Life, of Parisian, Political, Military and Country Life. Under these six heads are classified all the studies of manners which form the history of society at large.
"The vastness of a plan which includes both a history and a criticism of society, an analysis of its evils, and a discussion of its principles, authorizes me, I think, in giving to my work the title 'The Human Comedy.' Is this too ambitious?"
Altogether, Balzac brought out more than a hundred prose romances. They contain the most Balzac's Works graphic pictures of the life of the French people under Louis Philippe. Balzac said of himself that he described people as they were, while others described them as they should be. A few months before his death Balzac improved his circumstances by a marriage with the rich Countess Hanska. On his death Victor Hugo delivered the funeral oration, while Alexandre Dumas, his rival throughout life, erected a monument to him with his own means.
One week later Louis Philippe, the deposed King of France, died at Claremont in England, in his seventy-seventh year. His career, from the time that he followed the example of his father, Philippe Egalité, by fighting the battles of the Revolution, and through the vicissitudes of his exile until he became King in 1830, was replete with stirring episodes.
Gay-Lussac, the great French chemist and physicist, died during the same Death of Gay-Lussac year. Born at Saint Léonard, Haut-Vienne, in 1788, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac distinguished himself early in his career as a scientist by his aerial voyages in company with Biot for the observation of atmospheric phenomena at great heights. In 1816, he was appointed Professor of Chemistry at the Polytechnic School of Paris, a chair which he held until 1832. Promoted to a professorship at the Jardin des Plantes, Gay-Lussac labored there incessantly until his death. There is scarcely a branch of physical or chemical science to which Gay-Lussac did not contribute some important discovery. He is noted chiefly for his experiments with gases and for the discovery of the law of combination by volumes.
Louis Napoleon, while administering affairs as President, began to let Louis Napoleon's presidency France feel his power. Early in the year he created his incapable uncle, Jerome Bonaparte, a marshal of France. On August 15, his Napoleonic aspirations were encouraged by a grand banquet tendered to him at Lyons. His government felt strong enough to enact new measures for the restriction of the liberty of the press.