The Works Of Honore De Balzac (Volii)

Preface

This book (as to wliich it is important to remember the Sur if injustice is not to be done to tlie intentions of the author) has plenty of interest of more kinds than one; but it is perhaps more interesting^ because of the place it holds in Balzac’s works than for itself, lie had always considerable hankerings after the historical novel: liis early and lifelong devotion to Scott would sufficiently account for that. More than one of the CEuvres dc JcwncHne attempts the form in a more or less conscious way ; The Choumis, the first successful book, definitely attempts it; but by far the most ambitious attempt is to be found in the book before us. It is most probable that it was of this, if of anything of his own, that Balzac was thinking when, in he wrote disdainfully

to Mine. Hanska about Dumas, and expressed himself tow’ards Le/f Trois Mousquetairen (which had whiled him through a day of cold and inability to work) nearly us un¬ gratefully as ('arlyle did towards (laptain Marry at. And though it is, let it be repeated, a mistake, and a rather un¬ fair mistake, to give such a title to the book as might induce readers to regard it as a singh' and definite novel, of which Catherine is the heroine, though it is made up of three parts written at very different times, it has a unity which the introduction shows to some extent, and which a rejected preface given hy M. de Lovenjoul shows still better.

To muierstand this, we must remember that Balzac, though not exactly an historical scholar, was a considerable student of history; and that, although ratlier an amateur politician, he w'as a constant thinker and writer on political subjects. We must add to these remembrances the fact of his intense interest in all such matters as Alchemy, the h'lixir of Life, and so forth, to whicli the sixteenth century in general, and Catherine de’ Medici in particular, were knowm to he de¬ voted. All these interests of his met in the present book, the parts of which appeared in inverse order, and the genesis

Ui

IV

PEEFACE of which is important enough to make it desirable to in¬ corporate some of the usual bibliographical matter in the substance of this preface. The third and shortest, Les Deux Reves, a piece partly suggestive of the famous Prophecy of Cazotte and other legends of the Revolution (but with more retrospective than prospective view), is dated as early as 1828 (before the turning-point), and was actually published in a periodical in 1830. La Confidence des Ruggieri, written in 1836 (and, as I have noted in the general introduction, according to its author, in a single night) followed, and Le Martyr Calvinist e, which had several titles, and was advertised as in preparation for a long time, did not come till 1841.

It is unnecessary to say that all are interesting. The personages, both imaginary and historical, appear at times in a manner worthy of Balzac; many separate scenes are excellent; and, to those who care to perceive them, the various occupations of the author appear in the most in¬ teresting manner.* Politically, his object was, at least by his own account, to defend the maxim that private and public morality are different ; that the policy of a state cannot be, and ought not to be, governed by the same considerations of duty to its neighbors as those which ought to govern the conduct of an individual. The very best men — those least liable to the slightest imputation of corrupt morals and motives — ^have indorsed this principle; though it has been screamed at by a few fanatics, a somewhat larger number of persons who found their account in so doing, and a great multitude of hasty, dense, or foolish folk. But it was some¬ thing of a mark of that amateurishness which spoilt Balzac’s dealing with the subject to choose the sixteenth century for his text. For every cool-headed student of history and ethics will admit that it was precisely the abuse of this prin¬ ciple at this time, and by persons of whom Catherine de’ Medici, if not the most blamable, has had the most blame put on her, that brought the principle itself into discredit. Between the assertion that the strictest morality of the Sermon on the Mount must obtain between nation and nation, between governor and governed, and the maxim that in

PEEFACE

V politics the end of public safety justifies any means what¬ ever, there is a perfectly immense gulf fixed.

If, however, we turn from this somewhat academic point, and do not dwell very much on the occult and magical sides of the matter, interesting as they are, we shall be brought at once face to face with the question. Is the handling of this book the right and proper one for an historical novel? Can we in virtue of it rank Balzac (this is the test which he would himself, beyond all question, have accepted) a long way above Dumas and near Scott?

I must say that I can see no possibility of answer except,

Certainly not.” For the historical novel depends almost more than any other division of the kind upon interest of story. Interest of story is not, as has been several times pointed out, at any time Balzac^s main appeal, and he has succeeded in it here less than in most other places. He has discussed too much; he has brought in too many personages without sufficient interest of plot ; but, above all, he exhibits throughout an incapacity to handle his materials in the peculiar way required. How long he was before he grasped “ the way to do it,” even on his own special lines, is the commonplace and refrain of all writing about him. Now, to this special kind he gave comparatively little attention, and the result is that he mastered it less than any other. In the best stories of Dumas (and the best number some fifteen or twenty at least) the interest of narrative, of ad¬ venture, of what will happen to the personages, takes you by the throat at once, and never lets you go till the end. There is little or nothing of this sort here. The three stories are excellently well-informed studies, very curious and interesting in divers ways. The Ruggieri is perhaps some¬ thing more; but it is, as its author no doubt honestly en¬ titled it, much more an Etude Philosophique than an his¬ torical novelette. In short, this was not Balzac’s way. We need not be sorry — it is very rarely necessary to be that — that he tried it; we may easily forgive him for not recogniz¬ ing the ease and certainty with which Dumas trod the path. But we should be most of all thankful that he did not himself enter it frequently, or ever pursue it far.

VI

PEEFACE

The most important part of the bibliography of the book has been given above. The rest is a little complicated, and for its ins and outs reference must be made to the usual authority. It should be enough to say that the Martyr, under the title of Les Lecamus, first appeared in the Siecle during the spring of 1841. Souverain published it as a book two years later with the other two, as Catherine de Medicis Expliquee, The second part, entitled, not La Con- -fidence^ but Le Secret des Ruggieri, had appeared much earlier in the Chronique de Paris during the winter of 1836- 37, and had been published as a book in the latter year; it was joined to Catherine de Medicis Expliquee as above. The third part, after appearing in the Monde as early as May 1830, also appeared in the Deux Mondes for December of the same year, then became one of the Romans et Contes Philosophiques, then an Etude Philosophique, and in 1843 joined Catherine de Medicis Expliquee. The whole was inserted in the Comedie in 1846.

G. S.

To M, le Marquis de Fastoret,

Member of the Academie des Beaux-Arts,

When we consider the amazing number of volumes written to ascertain the spot where Hcmnibal crossed the Alps, without our knowing to this day whether it was, as Whitaker and Rivaz say, by Lyons, Geneva, the Saint-Bernard, and the Valley of Aosta; or, as we are told by Letronne, Follard, Saint-Simon, and Fortia d^Urban, by the here, Grenoble, Saint-Bonnet, Mont Genevre, Fenestrella, and the Pass of Susa; or, according to Larauza, by the Mont Cenis and Susa; or, as Strabo, Polybius, and de Luc tell us, by the Rhone, Vienne, Yenne, and the Mont du Chat; or, as certain clever people opine, by Genoa, la Bochetta, and la Scrivia — the view 1 hold, and which Napoleon had adopted — to say nothing of the vinegar with which some learned men have dressed the Alpine rocks, can we wonder, M. le Marquis, to find modern history so much neglected that some most important points remam obscure, and that the most odious calunmies still weigh on names which ought to be revered? — And it may be noted incidentally that by dint of explana¬ tions it has become problematical whether Hannibal ever crossed the Alps at all. Father Menestrier believes that the Scoras spoken of by Polybius was the Same; Letronne, Larauza, and Schweighauser believe it to be the Isere; Cochard, a learned man of Lyons, identifies it with the Drome. But to any¬ one who has eyes, are there not striking geograph¬ ical and linguistic affinities between Scoras and Scrivia, to say nothing of the almost certain fact that the Carthaginian fleet lay at la Spezzia or m the Gulf of Genoa?

I could understand all this patient research if the battle of Cannes could be doubted; but since its consequences are well known, what is the use of blackening so much paper with theories that are but the Arabesque of hypothesis, so to speak; while the most important History of later times, that of the Reformation, is so full of obscurities that the name remains unknown of the man ^ who was making a boat mom by steam at Barcelona at the time when Luther and Calvin were inventing the revolt of mind?

We, I believe, after having made, each in his own way, the same investigations as to the great and noble character of Catherine de^ Medici, have come to the same opinion. So 1 thought that my historical studies on the subject might be suitably dedicated to a writer who has labored so long on the history of the Reformation; and that I should thus do public homage, precious perhaps for its rarity, to the character and fidelity of a man true to the Monarchy.

Pabis, January 1843.

^ The inventor of this experiment was probably Salomon of Caux, not of Cans. Tills great man was always unlucky; after his death even his name was misspelt. Salomon, whose original portrait, at the age of forty-six, was discovered by the author of the Human Comedy, was born at Caux, in Normandy.