And virtue is in Balzac's eyes just as much of a result as vice. Although he is at times weakly sentimental and bombastic in his descriptions of dutifulness and benevolence, to which he moreover imparts a strong Roman Catholic colouring, he never fails to direct attention to the sources of the virtues he describes, which are to be found, now in a natural frigidity of the senses, now in pride, now in unconscious calculation, now in inherited nobility of sentiment, now in feminine remorse, masculine simple-mindedness, or the pious hope of reward in a future life.
Un Ménage de Garçon, Cousine Bette, and Les Illusions perdues are works which ought to be read by any one who is desirous of appreciating the growth of their author's literary powers during the last stage of his career.
The first, which is one of Balzac's least known and read novels, is an admirable psychological analysis of the life of a small country-town and of a family with branches there and in Paris. The chief character is a decayed officer of Napoleon's Guards, originally a strong, energetic character, now the personification of brutal, passionate egoism. He is the miles gloriosus of antiquity, except that in place of being cowardly he is vicious. The second novel mentioned, La Cousine Bette, a well-known and much read one, gives an incomparable realistic representation of the ruinous power of the erotic passion. Even Shakespeare (in Antony and Cleopatra) does not treat the theme in a more masterly and convincing manner. Les Illusions perdues is devoted to demonstrating the degrading results of the abuse of the press.
The title of this last novel is characteristic of Balzac. It might, in a manner, be the title of his complete works. But no other single book of his gives such a good general idea of his attitude to modern civilisation. The pernicious side of the influence of the newspaper press is treated as the dark side of public life generally.
Like most great authors who have not lived to be old, Balzac had little reason to rejoice over the criticism meted out to him by the press. He was not understood. Even the best critics, men of the type of Sainte-Beuve, were too unlike him and too near to him in time to understand his greatness. He lived a solitary life; contrary to Parisian custom he took no steps to get his books praised; and, as usually happens, such success as he earned procured him as much envy as fame. In Les Illusions perdues he gave a picture of the press which the insulted journalists never forgave him. The most eminent of them was Jules Janin. His portrait was, not exactly ill-naturedly, but far from flatteringly painted in the novel under the name of Etienne Lousteau. This made and still makes his criticism of the book very amusing. It appeared in the Revue de Paris, a periodical to which Balzac had been a regular contributor until he brought and gained a lawsuit against it, after which it naturally treated him as an outlaw. It is a malicious, trivial, witty piece of writing, which has not survived the book it was intended to ruin.
A young, poor provincial poet, beautiful as a god, but of weak character and mediocre talent, is brought to Paris by the Muse of the Department, an elegant, aristocratic bluestocking. They are in love with each other, and it has been the lady's intention to allow him to play the part of her accepted lover in the capital; but when she is received with open arms by the fashionable world, she suddenly sees herself and her knight in a new light. Coldness and neglect on her part ensue; Lucien is thrown into the shade by a more than middle-aged man of the world. And now we are called on to observe the stages of another of the many processes by which provincials are educated into Parisians. Lucien hopes to make his way as an author; he has written a novel in Sir Walter Scott's style and a volume of poems; he is received into a little circle of poor, proud young authors, artists, and scientific men, chosen spirits, to whom the future of France belongs. But the months of poverty, self-denial, laborious study, and ideal hope are too long for him; he pines for immediate pleasure and fame, for revenge upon all who humiliated him when he was the ignorant country prophet. The so-called "minor press" offers him the chance of completely satisfying his desire; his head is turned, and he plunges, without cause to advocate or principle to uphold, into daily journalism.
Lousteau takes him to the shop of a rich Palais-Royal bookseller and newspaper proprietor. "Each time the bookseller opened his lips he grew in Lucien's eyes; the young man seemed to see politics and literature converging towards this shop as their true centre. To find an eminent poet prostituting his muse to a journalist ... was a terrible lesson to the great man from the country.... Money! in that word lies the solution of every problem. He is lonely, unknown, has only a doubtful friendship to look to for happiness. He blames his true and sorrowing friends of the literary brotherhood for having painted the world to him in false colours and having hindered him from rushing, pen in hand, into the great mêlée." From the bookshop Lousteau and Lucien make their way to the theatre. Lousteau, as a journalist, is welcome everywhere. The manager tells them how a conspiracy against the play has been defeated by means of a free use of the purses of his two prettiest actresses' wealthy admirers. "During these last two hours Lucien had heard of nothing but money. Everything had resolved itself into money. At the theatre and in the bookshop, with publisher and with editor, there had been no question of art or real merit. He felt as if the huge stamping-machine of the mint were imprinting its mark with dull, heavy blows on his head and heart." His literary conscience evaporates, and he becomes the literary and dramatic critic of an impudent, stupid newspaper. Loved and supported by an actress, he sinks ever deeper in the life led by the man who has sold his pen. He goes over from the Liberals to the Conservatives. The depth of his degradation is most strongly borne in upon us in the scene where, having been compelled by his editor to write a malicious attack on an admirable book written by the best and noblest of his own friends (Balzac's ideal author), he is found knocking at this friend's door, on the evening before the article appears, to beg his forgiveness. Outward is soon added to inward misery. His mistress dies, and he is in such straits that he has to write obscene songs sitting by her death-bed, to raise the money for her funeral expenses. He ends by accepting from her maid a louis which the woman has just earned in a shameful manner, and with it paying his journey home to his native village. And all this bears the stamp of truth—horrible truth. In this one book Balzac renounces the impartiality of the scientific observer. Everywhere else he preserves his equanimity; here he chastises with scorpions.
[1] Issoudun in Un Ménage de Garçon, Douai in Le Recherche de l'Absolu, Alençon in La vieille Fille, Besançon in Albert Savarus, Saumur in Eugénie Grandet, Angoulême in Les deux Poètes, Tours in Le Curé de Tours, Limoges in Le Curé de Village, Sancerre in La Muse du Département. &c.
[2] See the introduction to the indecent story, La Fille aux Yeux d'Or, in which the hurry, the crowdedness, the whole spirit of Parisian life, is represented with an incomparable skill in the art of word-painting.