Those extraordinary eyes, once one had met their gaze, made it difficult to notice other features that might have been trivial or irregular.
The habitual expression of the face was a sort of powerful hilarity, a Rabelaisian and monkish joy — the robe no doubt contributing to the birth of this idea — which made you think of Brother Jean des Entommeures, but it was enlarged and elevated by a mind of the first order.
According to his habit, Balzac had risen at midnight, and had written until my arrival. His features betrayed no fatigue, aside from a slight darkening beneath the eyelids, and during the entire breakfast he demonstrated a wild gaiety. Little by little the conversation drifted toward literature, and he complained of the enormous difficulties of the French language. Style preoccupied him a great deal, and he sincerely believed that he had none at all. It is true that he was then generally thought to be lacking this quality. The school of Victor Hugo, in love with the sixteenth century and the Middle Ages, specialized in patterns, in rhythms, in structure, rich in words, breaking prose with the gymnastics of verse, and modeling itself on a master confident in his methods, would do nothing other than that which was well written, that is to say worked and toned beyond measure, and found the portrayal of modern manners to be useless, conventional, and lacking in lyricism. Balzac, despite the popularity that he had begun to enjoy among the public, was not admitted among the gods of Romanticism, and he knew it. While devouring his books, people did not pause to regard their serious side, and even for his admirers, he remained for a long time the most productive of our novelists and nothing else; this surprises today, but I can vouch for the truth of my assertion. He tortured himself in trying to achieve a style, and, in his anxiety to make corrections, he consulted people who were a hundred times his inferiors. Before signing his name to anything, he had written under different pseudonyms (Horace de Saint‑Aubin, L. de Viellerglé, etc.) one hundred volumes just "to free his hand." However he already possessed a style of his own without being conscious of it.
But let me return to our breakfast. While talking, Balzac played with his knife or his fork, and I noted that his hands were of a rare beauty, the true hands of a prelate, white, with fingers both slender and plump, and nails that were pink and shiny; he was proud of them and smiled with pleasure as I looked at them. He considered his hands to be evidence of breeding and aristocratic birth. Lord Byron, in a note, says with evident satisfaction, that Ali Pacha complimented him on the smallness of his ears, and inferred from them that he was a true gentleman. A similar remark upon his hands would have equally flattered Balzac, even more than the praise of one his books. He had a sort of prejudice against those whose extremities lacked finesse. The meal was rather fine, a paté de foie gras was part of it, but this was a deviation from his habitual frugality, as he remarked while laughing, and that for "this solemn occasion" he had borrowed his silver plates from his library!
I retired after having promised some articles for La Chronique de Paris, where Le Tour en Belgique, La Morte Amoureuse, La Chaine d'Or, and other literary works had appeared. Charles de Bernard, who had also been called by Balzac, contributed La Femme de Quarante Ans, La Rose Jaune, and some new work since collected into volumes. Balzac, as one knows, had invented the woman of thirty years; his imitator added ten years to that already venerable age and his heroine obtained no less success.
Before going further, let's pause for a moment and give some details of Balzac's life prior to my acquaintance with him. My authorities will be Madame de Surville, his sister, and himself.
Balzac was born in Tours, May 16, 1799, on the day of the celebration of Saint Honoré who gave him his name, which sounded good and augured well. Little Honoré was not a child prodigy; he did not announce prematurely that he would write La Comédie Humaine. He was a fresh, rosy, healthy boy, fond of play, with gentle, sparkling eyes, but in no way distinguished from other boys of his age, at least upon casual observation. At seven, upon leaving a day school in Tours, he attended a secondary school in Vendôme run by the Oratoriens, where he was thought to be a very mediocre student.
The first part of Louis Lambert contains curious information regarding this period of Balzac's life. Dividing his own personality, he describes himself as an old classmate of Louis Lambert, sometimes speaking in his name, and sometimes lending his own sentiments to this person who is imaginary, yet very real, since he is a sort of lens into the writer's very soul.
"Situated in the middle of the town, upon the little river Loire that bathes its walls, the college forms a vast enclosure containing the establishments necessary for an institution of this kind: a chapel, a theater, an infirmary, a bakery, some streams of water. This college, the most celebrated seat of instruction of the central provinces, is populated by those provinces and by our colonies. The distance does not allow parents to come here often to see their children; the rules forbid vacations away from the institution. Once they have entered, the pupils do not leave the college until the end of their studies. With the exception of walks taken outside under the supervision of the Fathers, everything had been planned to give to this house all of the advantages of monastic discipline. In my time, the corrector was still a living memory, and the leather strap played with honor its terrible role."
It is in this way that Balzac described this formidable college, which left in his imagination such persistent memories.