The Message by Honoré de Balzac

A minor work of the Comédie Humaine

“The Message” is one of the 90-plus works of literature that make up French author Honoré de Balzac’s grand scheme known as the Comédie Humaine. Those works run the gamut from mammoth novels to short stories and even some essays. “The Message,” originally published in 1832, is a short story, and one of Balzac’s shortest. Nevertheless, like all works in the Comédie Humaine it is available as an ebook that is freely downloadable from Amazon or Project Gutenberg. This story doesn’t include any recurring characters from the Comédie Humaine, and no prior knowledge of that series is required of the reader.

The story is told in the first person by an unnamed narrator who may possibly be intended to represent Balzac himself. He recalls a stagecoach ride he took as a young man, in 1819, when he struck up an acquaintance with a fellow male passenger of his own age. As two passing strangers exchanging confidences, the two young men bond over their attraction to older women. They trade stories about their mistresses, both of whom are married countesses about the age of forty. To summarize the plot without giving too much away, the newly made friend asks the narrator to deliver a message to his mistress. The narrator then travels to the countess’s chateau and gets a glimpse inside the other man’s love life.

Balzac’s goal in writing the Comédie Humaine was to document, mostly through fiction, all aspects of French society in the early 19th century. If one believes the French literature of this era, this sort of May-December romance between older women and younger men was common among the upper classes. In exchange for the adoration of the young man and an alleviation from loneliness, the older woman helps the younger man get his start in society. These liaisons weren’t necessarily hidden from the husband, who may have quietly assented to the relationship for his wife’s entertainment as long as things remain discreet. In this story, the bond between countess and paramour is depicted as a case of true love. Perhaps that’s the point Balzac is trying to make, that on occasion these illicit affairs can rise to the level of the sublime. In the character of the Countess de Montpersan, he reveals the humanity behind the mistress. Other than that, there doesn’t seem to be much purpose to the story other than to deliver a brief tearjerker.

This is a poignant tale, but after an initial surprise up front it follows a very predictable course. All the characters behave pretty much as one would expect, and nothing particularly exciting or profound happens in the plot’s latter half. Like everything that sprung from Balzac’s pen, “The Message” is certainly a well-written narrative, but this feels like one of the least necessary and most inconsequential pieces of the Comédie Humaine. Not being connected to any of the other works in the series, it doesn’t contribute much to Balzac’s fictional universe, and he has covered this kind of relationship in other, more substantial works like Lost Illusions.
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Honoré de Balzac: His Life and Writings by Mary Frances Sandars

The comic, tragic life of an extravagant genius

Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de Balzac: His Life and Writings, first published in 1904, is a biography by Mary Frances Sandars, an English author who penned several books on French history and literature. Here she traces the life story of the great writer who captured French society with such vivid imagination and exquisite detail in his series of over 90 novels and short stories known as the Comédie Humaine. Although I’m a fan of Balzac and wanted to learn more about his life, I was a little reluctant to start Sandars’s biography because of its length and the antiquity of its publication date. Immediately after I began reading it, however, I found the text to be surprisingly lively and engaging. Balzac lived a fascinating life, and Sandars does an admirable job of relating the exploits and personality of this complex genius in a thoroughly entertaining manner.

The inclusion of “and Writings” in the subtitle also had me worried that the book would contain a lot of literary criticism in addition to factual biography. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I didn’t want Sandars to give away the plots of all the Balzac books I haven’t read. Luckily, those fears were unfounded. Sandars only provides the barest general synopses of works in the Comédie Humaine, without dropping any spoilers. The fact is, she doesn’t have room for a lot of lit-crit in this book because Balzac’s life itself was every bit as interesting as one of his elaborate novels.

Balzac’s prolific literary career was a study in self-imposed Herculean labor, but his personal life was marked by continual emotional histrionics and extravagant spending. One could easily write him off as an overgrown child if he wasn’t such a workaholic. Despite his copious productivity, Balzac was constantly in debt and never managed to break even financially up until the day he died. To supplement his income as an author, he comes up with a number of get-rich-quick schemes to achieve financial security, from printing shops to silver mines to pineapple plantations. He initiates several literary journals, which fold after a couple issues; he runs for political office, but never wins; he lobbies for admittance to the Académie Française, but all for nought. Nevertheless, he approaches each new disaster with the comically boundless optimism of a lovable loser. The reader can’t help rooting for the guy through each financial setback and wishing him the best in his turbulent love life. His one true love was Madame Hanska, a married Russian countess, whom he pursued for most of his life even though she was above his station. Though much of Balzac’s life inspires mirth, Sandars’s account does turn tragic in the closing chapters as his brilliant life of creativity and vivacity comes to a pitiful end.

Researchers have no doubt turned up a lot of new information on Balzac over the past century. Graham Robb’s 1994 book Balzac: A Biography, the most recent comprehensive retelling of the author’s life, probably looks under at least a few stones that Sandars left unturned. There is something to be said, however, for the style of biographical writing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Biographers in those days approached their writing with the goal of crafting an informative and inspirational narrative of the subject in question, without digging for too much dirt or getting bogged down in a morass of detail. Even though Sandars does her due diligence, her research methods might not stand up to the exhaustive scrutiny of today’s academic literary scholars, but so what? Her book is fun to read, and you do learn a lot about the man and his art. Even if you’re just mildly curious about Balzac’s life, there is much to enjoy in this engaging biography.
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Colonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac

An old war horse returns from the dead
Colonel Chabert, a novel by Honoré de Balzac, was first published in 1832 under the title La Transaction in the Parisian literary journal L’Artiste. In subsequent publications Balzac changed the title to the one it now bears. Balzac classified this work under the category of Scenes from Private Life in his grand multi-volume series of novels and stories, the Comédie Humaine.

The title character is a cavalry officer who fought for Napoleon at the Battle of Eylau in 1807. During the combat with the Russians he was struck on the head with a sabre blow, presumed dead, and tossed into a mass grave. Coming to his senses, he climbs out from under the dead bodies of his comrades and is taken in by a local family. For the better part of a decade after that, Chabert slowly makes his way towards Paris—sometimes ill, sometimes imprisoned, always penniless—trying to regain his former life. As the story opens, he seeks assistance at the office of a lawyer, Maitre Derville, who will be recognizable to Balzac regulars as the attorney from Père Goriot, Gobseck, and other novels of the Comédie Humaine. Chabert informs Derville that he has notified his wife of his existence, but she has refused to acknowledge him or grant him a penny of his former estate. Madame Chabert has since married a count to become the Comtesse Ferraud. She has two children by her new husband and enjoys the social status of being espoused to an upwardly mobile councillor of state under the new monarchy. Since Chabert has been declared dead, he has no legal right over her. The old colonel begs Derville to help him reclaim his wife and his identity, and the lawyer agrees to take his case.

Despite the heavy subject matter, Balzac keeps the proceedings relatively lighthearted for most of the story’s length. Humorous scenes of banter between legal clerks provide comic relief. (Balzac, himself once a clerk in a law office, no doubt wrote those passages from his own experience.) The predicament of Colonel Chabert makes for a very compelling narrative, but one can’t exactly call the resolution satisfying. Balzac wrote this novella as a commentary on the Bourbon Restoration of 1814 to 1830. Chabert embodies the principles of honor and glory that characterized the reign of Napoleon, while his wife represents the rampant greed and vapid social climbing of French society under the new regime of Louis XVIII. Balzac’s satirizing of the hypocrisy of the age brings forth humor, but it also brings frustration. In shaping the plot to prove his sociopolitical points, Balzac leaves the reader feeling a little robbed. The story ultimately becomes a conflict between what is honorable and what is right. While readers of the 21st century would likely put right before honor, that would not have been the case in France 200 years ago. The very definition of honor has also changed over the past two centuries. From today’s perspective, the personal code Chabert lives by comes across as an antiquated and foolish mode of chivalry.

Nevertheless, the characters are indelible, the storytelling is top-notch, and one can’t help but be moved by Chabert’s plight. Balzac writes the kind of stories that stick in your mind for years afterward. You may not recall the names of the players from among the bountiful ensemble cast of the Comédie Humaine, but the moral lessons remain entrenched in your psyche. I wouldn’t count Colonel Chabert as one of Balzac’s absolute best works, but even his lesser efforts usually qualify as exceptional literature, and this is certainly no lesser effort.
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Les Paysans (Sons of the Soil) by Honoré de Balzac

War between the classes
Honoré de Balzac’s final published work, Les Paysans, also known by the English titles of The Peasantry or Sons of the Soil, was released posthumously in 1855. The novel takes place in the French region of Burgundy and focuses on the history of antagonism between a land-owning count and the peasants of his district. Though Balzac sets the scene with vivid descriptions of the beautiful countryside, his depiction of rural life in this novel is far from picturesque. Sons of the Soil is the antithesis of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, in that here the poor people are the villains. The book is closer in tone to the more humorous scenes of Emile Zola’s novel The Earth, in that the country folk are depicted as lazy and shiftless ne’er-do-wells. The treatment of the peasantry in Sons of the Soil is even less sympathetic than Zola’s, however, as Balzac grants them almost no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Over the course of a complex back story, a retired general and count named Montcornet purchases the estate of Les Aigues in the Burgundy wine country. Though he makes frequent trips to Paris, the general is far from an absentee landlord and resides most of the year at his country estate. The tenants who work the land are constantly trying to rob, cheat, or swindle Montcornet for as much as they can get out of him, often instigated by a few petit bourgeoisie resentful of the general’s aristocratic status and avaricious for his lands. The poor are allowed to gather dead wood from the grounds of Les Aigues for their fires, but they steal whole trees. They are allowed to glean scraps from the fields where crops have been harvested, but they fill their aprons with pilfered produce. The count and countess bestow charitable gifts upon the poor, but their generosity is frequently taken advantage of by lies and deceit. The whole novel is essentially a chess game in which Montcornet’s middle-class enemies scheme to steal his profits and lands, using the farmers as pawns, while the general in return seeks to thwart their thievery.

Sons of the Soil is a lengthy and incredibly complicated book with an ensemble cast likely surpassing a hundred characters. Each player in the narrative has a cousin or a brother-in-law that somehow factors into the story, and each gets his or her own personal biography, detailed physical description, and tailor-made domestic environment. This is a book that really needs charts and family trees to keep everyone straight. Not realizing that until it was too late, I was often lost amid the Byzantine relationships among the characters. The novel is much longer than it needs to be because it is so loaded with descriptive digressions that distract from the main narrative. Balzac attempts to fully immerse the reader into this fictional world, but at times he only manages to disorient and distance his audience.

Nevertheless, it is this very frustrating intricacy that makes Sons of the Soil such an admirable work of literature. Few writers could pull off the creation of a realistic microcosm so rich in detail and abundant in social commentary as Balzac so expertly manages to accomplish here. At the end of his career, he was clearly still at the height of his literary powers. However, I didn’t care much for the message of the book, which relentlessly paints the poor country folk as evil and immoral riff raff. Though in other works Balzac occasionally displays a post-Revolutionary sympathy toward the lower classes, overall he had a decidedly monarchical bent that is nowhere more apparent than in Les Paysans. Even so, although I usually prefer more leftist takes on the class struggle, I still managed to enjoy this entertaining and skillfully constructed novel.
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The Vicar of Tours by Honoré de Balzac

Have you heard the one about the priest and the landlady?
The Vicar of Tours, or Le Curé de Tours, a short novel by Honoré de Balzac, was published in 1832. It was originally titled Les Célibataires, but the title was changed in a later edition. Les Célibataires is also the name of a subtrilogy within Balzac’s Comédie Humaine, this being the second volume, preceded by Pierrette and followed by La Rabouillieuse (translated into English as The Black Sheep or Two Brothers/A Bachelor’s Establishment). Don’t worry too much about that, however. The many works in the Comédie Humaine are only loosely related to one another, so even if you’ve never read any Balzac you can still enjoy this book on its own.

The Vicar of Tours stars the Abbé François Birotteau (brother of César Birotteau, who has his own eponymous Balzac novel), a mild-mannered, provincially naive clergyman. Though content with his life overall, Birotteau has two nagging desires: a comfortable home and promotion to the clerical rank of canon. For years he has envied the pleasant furnishings and well-stocked library in his good friend the Abbé Chapeloud’s apartment. When Chapeloud passes away, he generously bequeaths the room and its contents to Birotteau. Part of the attraction of the domicile is the landlady, Mademoiselle Sophie Gamard, an aging spinster who diligently caters to her tenants’ needs and sets one of the best tables in town. After a brief period of domestic bliss, Birotteau begins to suspect that Mlle Gamard is angry with him and purposefully slighting his needs. Unbeknownst to the abbé, she has become irate that he prefers to spend his evenings out with rich parishioners instead of inviting people of quality into her drawing room. While Birotteau strives to keep a low profile and avoid conflict, Mlle Gamard’s disgruntlement only escalates, soon drawing others into her web of vindictiveness.

The Victor of Tours is expertly written, with vividly drawn characters and an engaging story that immediately draws the reader into this provincial microcosm of French society. Nevertheless, the subject matter can’t help but feel a bit inconsequential. The merits of the story are not sufficient to make you forget that you’re reading a book about the petty squabbles of a bumbling priest and a shrewish old maid. For Balzac, that might be the whole point. The reason the book was called Les Célibataires (those who are celibate) is because Balzac is trying to make a point about celibacy, namely that those who do not occupy themselves with sexual relationships or romantic love must find some other outlet for their energies. The result is they often take molehills and blow them up into mountains, as exhibited here by Birotteau, Gamard, and a third character, Abbé Troubert, Birotteau’s fellow tenant and rival clergyman.

Of course, any indictment of celibacy is also a criticism of the Catholic Church and its celibate priests. In fact, much of the story’s delightful humor comes at the expense of organized religion. Here the Church is depicted as a competitive bureaucracy populated by self-interested egotists. Birotteau is often painted as a buffoon, though a likeable one.

Balzac is a great storyteller, so not surprisingly, The Vicar of Tours is a well-told story, but it’s nowhere near as profound in its psychological insights as more substantial works like Lost Illusions, Eugénie Grandet, or Cousin Bette. However, if you don’t take it too seriously (as I suspect Balzac didn’t), it’s a light, fun, and entertaining read.
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Cousin Bette by Honoré de Balzac

Love, money, and revenge
Cousin Bette, published in 1846, is one of Honoré de Balzac’s lengthiest and most substantial works. In addition to being included in Balzac’s large collection of writings known as the Comédie Humaine, Cousin Bette is paired in a literary diptych with the author’s 1847 novel Cousin Pons, under the heading of Poor Relations. Though both Cousin novels deal with the less fortunate relatives of wealthy families, the stories are unrelated and share no common characters (except perhaps for some cameo appearances in the supporting cast). Of the two, Cousin Bette is a vastly superior book to Cousin Pons. In fact, Cousin Bette may be Balzac’s greatest work, vying for that title with such excellent books as Père Goriot, Lost Illusions, and Eugénie Grandet.

The ensemble cast is large and the plot is quite complicated. The web of relationships between the myriad characters isn’t quite as byzantine as The Count of Monte Cristo, but close. Lisbeth “Bette” Fischer has always envied and resented her wealthier, more attractive cousin Adeline. The two grew up together, and Adeline was always treated like a princess while Bette was regarded as little more than a servant. Now in their forties, Bette is a spinster and embroidery entrepreneur while Adeline is a beautiful baroness. Bette is always welcome for dinner in the Hulot house, and she keeps her ill feelings well hidden. However, when a young man that Bette has had her eye on is stolen by Adeline’s lovely daughter Hortense, Bette resolves to have her revenge on the family that has always looked down upon her. Meanwhile Adeline’s husband, the Baron Hulot, has set his sights on a new mistress, Valérie Marneffe, a married woman whose husband is happy to act as her pimp if it brings him profit. Bette befriends Valérie, and together the two scheme to bring the Hulot family to misery and ruin.

For a man who wrote many cynical books, Cousin Bette may be his most cynical. Everyone is out for money, depravity and corruption are commonplace, and love is just another commodity to be traded. Balzac discusses sexuality with surprising openness, particularly when compared to the puritanical and prudish American literature of the same time period. Valérie is a lot like Emile Zola’s strumpet heroine Nana, but a lot smarter. She juggles multiple lovers, pitting them against one another as competitive bidders for her affection, sucking them dry of funds. Zola clearly read Cousin Bette before writing Nana, and the book may in fact have been an important influence on Zola’s development of literary naturalism.

All this vindictive backstabbing may sound depressing, but it’s not. It’s actually a whole lot of fun. As in Wuthering Heights, the reader derives pleasure from this dysfunctional family’s misfortunes. Balzac strikes the perfect balance of lighthearted naughtiness and serious moral melodrama throughout. Amidst all the sin and degradation, there are nonetheless glimmers of righteousness and hope in humanity. Adeline, for example, demonstrates saintly devotion to her husband, despite his selfish waywardness. There are some truly memorable moments of pathos and poignancy interspersed amid all the ribald humor. The book makes some valid points about how money has eroded spiritual dignity and tainted the purity of love and family, yet Balzac never succumbs to preachiness. Despite its length and complexity, Cousin Bette is so enjoyable it feels like a breezy read, at least by 19th century standards. It is the perfectly satisfying product of a master novelist operating at the top of his game.
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Cousin Pons by Honoré de Balzac

From dinner guest to sacrificial lamb
Cousin Pons, originally published in 1847, is one of Honoré de Balzac’s last novels. Within his body of work known as the Comédie Humaine, Cousins Pons is the second half of a two-novel miniseries known as Poor Relations (Les Parents pauvres), the first book being Cousin Bette. Although the two books are thematically linked, they feature different characters and are not sequentially related. Cousin Pons is often hailed as one of Balzac’s greatest works. It’s definitely a skillfully crafted novel of great literary quality, but among the author’s prolific output of books I would not count it among my personal favorites.

Sylvain Pons is a musician who makes his living conducting an orchestra in a Paris theatre. He has two great passions in life, the first of which is gluttony. With a gourmand’s appreciation for fine food, he refuses to eat at home, instead making regular weekly rounds as a perpetual dinner guest in the homes of distant relations, however tenuously connected their bloodlines may be. When Pons inadvertently offends one of these relations, he becomes persona non grata among all branches of the family. His wealthier relations will no longer tolerate the freeloading visits of this poor relation.

But how poor is Cousin Pons, really?—a question that brings us to his second love: collecting paintings, knickknacks, and objets d’art. Pons has the ability to recognize masterpieces of great value and acquire them for bargain prices. When rumor of the market value of his collection gets out, everyone sets about trying to rob Pons of his priceless possessions, not by burglary but through legal maneuvering. Pons has only one true friend, Wilhelm Schmucke, a fellow musician. Together the two struggle against the rapacious vultures attempting to abscond with Pons’s fortune.

The novel has a very comical beginning, but it becomes darker and more depressing as a host of despicable characters set about preying upon these two friends. It eventually becomes a catalog of all the various means of fraud, corruption, and legal loopholes by which a dying man can be robbed of his legacy. One has to admire the intricate web of deceit Balzac spins between an ensemble cast of swindlers all angling to serve their personal interests, but at the same time it grows very tedious. Balzac loves to write in legalese. He truly revels in any opportunity to work contract law, estate law, or finance law into a story. He catalogs the exchange of each and every franc as if he were providing blow-by-blow commentary on a round of The Game of Life. While Balzac may be a genius at creating memorable characters, smart dialogue, and vivid scenes of great emotional power, you really need to ask yourself whether you want to wade through a novel that’s primarily about the myriad ways a will can be circumvented.

Amid this dreary subject matter, the one shining light is the unbreakable bond of friendship between Pons and Schmucke, who share a modern Damon and Pythias relationship that rises above all material concerns. The platonic love between these two eccentric bachelors is the saving grace that imbues what could have been a mean-spirited melodrama with an inspirational sense of humanity. As previously stated, this isn’t one of my favorite Balzac books, but it’s still a notable literary achievement with powerful moral lessons to impart.
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The Hated Son by Honoré de Balzac

Evil dad persecutes preemie

The Hated Son, a novel by Honoré de Balzac, was originally published in 1831 under the French title of L’Enfant maudit. It is one of the “philosophical studies” in Balzac’s mammoth series of works known as the Comédie Humaine. The story is set in Normandy in the late 16th century. The Comte d’Herouville, a hateful and cruel man, has recently married a beautiful young heiress of delicate and saintly demeanor, Jeanne de Saint-Savin. The marriage was arranged for political and financial reasons, and Jeanne rightfully fears her brutish husband. Seven months after the wedding, a pregnant Jeanne goes into labor. The scene of the birth is a frightening ordeal in which d’Herouville treats the expectant mother with all the sensitivity and comfort of a medieval jailer for his prisoner. Given the short term of the pregnancy, d’Herouville suspects the baby is the son of Jeanne’s former lover and threatens to kill the child. In fact, the son, Etienne, is a preemie who is born tiny and frail. The Comte stops short of killing the boy because he needs a male heir to ensure custody of his wife’s estate, yet he openly despises Etienne, and banishes him from the castle, confining him to a seaside cottage where the boy grows up in solitude and isolation.

He can’t stay isolated forever, of course, or there wouldn’t be much of a story. Eventually Etienne grows up into a sensitive, artistic young man with the naive innocence of a veritable babe in the woods. I enjoyed the dark tone of the book’s gothic opening; Balzac is at his best when he’s being bad. Etienne’s idyllic existence, however, is dull and cloying by comparison. It is hard to identify or sympathize with a character who is so unrealistically wholesome and pure. If anything, the one character you end up rooting for is Beauvouloir, the “bonesetter” who delivers the baby and ends up having a prominent role in Etienne’s upbringing. The Hated Son has a few enjoyable moments, but overall it suffers from unnecessary protraction. Unlike Balzac works with large ensemble casts and convoluted story lines, this is a relatively simple tale revolving around five characters. There’s only enough material here for a short story, yet Balzac drags it out into a novel by adding lengthy descriptive passages that only belabor the degree of Etienne’s naivete or his uncommonly intense adoration for his mother.

Although this novel takes place centuries before the bulk of the Comédie Humaine, it nevertheless has ramifications for other works in the series. Later generations of the d’Herouville family would go on to figure prominently in the novel Modeste Mignon and receive mention in other Balzac works. There’s also a reference here to the family of prostitutes known as Les Marana, from the novel of the same name. Despite such connections, I wouldn’t consider The Hated Son to be an essential read for any but the most fervent fans of the Comédie Humaine. It’s perfectly fine writing when compared to other fare of the period, but in a ranking of Balzac’s works this one would likely fall somewhere in the bottom half.

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Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac

For love or money
Eugénie Grandet is one of the better known works from Honoré de Balzac’s Comédie Humaine, and for good reason. This enjoyable novel, originally published in 1833, shows Balzac at the height of his storytelling powers. It boasts a memorable cast of stars and supporting characters, and makes some valuable and insightful points about love, greed, and loyalty.

The story begins around 1816, with occasional references to incidents of earlier times. In the quiet, picturesque village of Saumur dwells Monsieur Grandet, a master cooper with a talent for purchasing profitable vineyards and a shrewd eye for investment opportunities. Through hard work and intelligent dealings he has become a wealthy man, and is rumored to have amassed an enormous hoard of gold. Despite his riches, however, Grandet lives like a pauper and forces his family to do the same. He is an inveterate miser who gathers gold for gold’s sake and never parts with a single sou if he can help it. His home is furnished in squalor rather than splendor, and he rations out the family’s daily portions of sugar as if they were threatened with starvation. Though his habits may be ridiculously frugal, Grandet isn’t fooling anyone. His neighbors consider him the richest, most prominent, and most formidable man in the arrondissement, and they all long for a way to get their hands on some of his fortune.

Families with bachelor sons see the surest way to the old man’s treasure is through his daughter’s heart. Eugénie is an innocent girl, somewhat of a plain Jane, though not without her charms. Every young man of Saumur would be happy to take her for his bride, particularly given her eventual inheritance of her father’s money. Two families in particular offer eligible candidates for Eugénie’s hand. The Cruchots and the des Grassins are frequent visitors to la maison Grandet. Monsieur Grandet has no intention of marrying his daughter to either of these small-town oafs, but he humors both sides in order to see what favors he can drag out of them. Eventually, however, when a man enters Eugénie’s life that truly does captivate her heart, Grandet begins to lose his hold on his daughter.

There are some powerfully moving scenes of joy and sorrow in Eugénie Grandet, but this is by no means a sappy love story. Balzac’s bitingly cynical humor permeates the novel, and this reader found himself laughing out loud on more than a few occasions. The cast of characters is as vividly drawn as an assortment of Daumier caricatures. The reader derives vicarious pleasure through Grandet’s wily schemes. In his own despicable way, he is more likable, and more fun than Balzac’s other famous miser, Gobseck. Eugénie, in contrast, is the embodiment of chastity and naiveté. She begins the book as almost a fairy tale heroine, but becomes more real and more aware as the story progresses. The reader can’t help wishing her the happiness and love for which she seeks.

The downside to Eugénie Grandet is it’s a bit long-winded at times, and Balzac frequently indulges his preoccupation with financial wheelings and dealings, stocks and bonds, legal briefs and the like, which aren’t really my cup of tea. Notwithstanding such nitpicking, this is one of his best works. Though not quite as good as Père Goriot or Lost Illusions, it’s still a great read for the author’s diehard fans or an excellent introduction to Balzac’s work for those who’ve never read him before.
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Juana, or The Maranas by Honoré de Balzac

The comic and the tragic
Les Marana, a novel by Honoré de Balzac, was originally published in 1834. In English translation it appears under the title of Juana or The Maranas, or both. The story takes place in 1811 during the French storming of Tarragona, a Spanish coastal city, during the Peninsular War. Balzac introduces us to two officers, neither of whom is a model soldier. Captain Montefiore is a handsome Italian marquis and inveterate ladies’ man. His friend Diard is a quartermaster from Provence with a penchant for stolen art and gambling. As their regiment enters Tarragona, the city is in a state of unbridled pillage and plunder. Diard decides to profit from the general disorder by chasing after some priceless paintings. Montefiore, on the other hand, is enchanted by a beautiful woman firing a gun from the window of a house. The next day, when relative order is restored, he arranges to be quartered in that same house, in hopes of plundering her affections.

Montefiore has to cozy up to the parents of his host family before he can get close to the girl. He later finds out that the young woman in question, named Juana, is actually the daughter of a wealthy courtesan called La Marana. In fact, Juana is the descendant of a long line of such courtesans. Her mother, however, hopes that her beloved Juana will not follow in her ancestors’ footsteps. Wishing a respectable life for her daughter as a wife and mother, La Marana goes to great lengths to protect Juana’s virtue.

That may sound like the setup for a bawdy romantic comedy, and the book certainly starts out that way. Montefiore’s concerted quest to deflower this virgin is as humorous and entertaining as any comic opera. The lighthearted hijinx does not continue, however, and the book takes a darker turn. Balzac divides the novel into three long chapters, and by the time you get to the end of the third the sex and romance has been replaced by degradation and violence. When critics used to accuse Balzac of always concentrating on the uglier, baser aspects of life, this might very well have been one of the works they had in mind. For today’s readers, however, the problem with the book is neither its beginning nor its end but rather its middle, which is slow and rather dull. Balzac goes off on one of his favorite topics—marriage—providing an in-depth relationship examination that is a little too philosophical to be emotionally engaging or vicariously interesting. Thankfully, the plot does pick up again and the book finishes with a moving and memorable ending. Its long-windedness prevents it from being one of Balzac’s strongest works, but the story of Juana is likely to stick with the reader for a long time.
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Stories by Foreign Authors: French III by Honoré de Balzac, et al.

The French Collection 3

Alfred de Vigny

In 1898 the publisher Charles Scribner’s Sons published a ten-volume series entitled Stories by Foreign Authors, featuring short fiction by European authors in English translation. The first three books in the series were devoted to the literature of France. This is the third of these volumes, subtitled French III.

The book opens with its best-known selection, “The Hidden Masterpiece” by Honoré de Balzac. This classic tale of art and obsession gives the fictional account of real-life painter Nicholas Poussin’s meeting with Maitre Frenhofer, a master’s master equipped with almost supernatural artistic skills. Poussin, the upstart whose ambition knows no bounds, would give up everything to decipher this old man’s secrets. This is one of Balzac’s best shorter works. Art lovers in particular will be impressed and enthralled by the author’s breadth of knowledge on the art of painting.

In the next piece, Pierre Loti’s “The Sorrow of an Old Convict,” a boat captain strikes up a friendship with one of his passengers, an aged criminal bound for exile in New Caledonia. It’s a touching tale but a little too brief to be profoundly moving. Loti’s literary talent is evident, but the reader is left wanting a little more.

The weakest piece in the book is “The Mummy’s Foot” by Théophile Gautier, a mediocre horror tale. The story’s narrator goes to an antiquities shop to buy a paperweight and ends up purchasing the mummified foot of an Egyptian Pharoah’s daughter. From there the story moves in predictable directions, and even the surprise ending seems familiar and trite.

Next up, Edouard Rod contributes a very strong entry with “Father and Son.” When a businessman is informed that his father is dying, he must drop everything and return to his hometown. The journey home inspires nostalgic thoughts of youth and inspires him to contemplate the importance of family. Anyone who’s ever undergone such a life event can identify with Rod’s touching treatment of this universal human experience.

Despite the strength of Balzac and Rod’s entries, the best selection in the book is its closing piece, “Laurette or the Red Seal” by Alfred de Vigny. In 1815, a soldier in the guard of Louis XVIII is suffering a rainy journey on horseback to Lille when he makes the acquaintance of an aged infantryman traveling the same muddy thoroughfare. This old soldier used to be a sailor, and he shares a story from his navy days about a voyage he once made to the penal colony in Guiana. This is a riveting story that reveals its secrets slowly. Once de Vigny skillfully draws you into the lives of the characters, you can’t wait to find out what happens next.

If you like classic French literature, do yourself a favor and read the three French volumes in the Stories by Foreign Authors series. You’ll find familiar names like Balzac, Zola, and de Maupassant, but the series’ true value lies in the discovery of lesser-known authors you may not have encountered before. In this case, Rod and de Vigny certainly stand out as authors worthy of a second look.

For some reason, neither Amazon nor Project Gutenberg offers ebook files of the French volumes in the Stories by Foreign Authors series, but they can be found for free at Wikisource.

Stories in this collection

The Hidden Masterpiece by Honoré de Balzac 

The Sorrow of an Old Convict by Pierre Loti 

The Mummy’s Foot by Théophile Gautier 

Father and Son by Edouard Rod 

Laurette or the Red Seal by Alfred de Vigny 

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Maître Cornélius by Honoré de Balzac

The miser’s mystery

Honoré de Balzac

Maître Cornélius, a novella by Honoré de Balzac, was originally published in 1831. The story takes place in 1479 in the city of Tours. A young nobleman visits the cathedral on All Saints’ Day for purposes of love rather than prayer. There he meets the beautiful young countess he is attempting to woo. Unfortunately, she’s married to an aged and abusive count. Finding such stolen rendezvous insufficient to satiate his lovestruck heart, the young man comes up with a plan to get closer to his loved one by establishing himself as an apprentice in the household adjacent to hers, that of the silversmith Maître Cornélius. The plan is more dangerous than it sounds, because this mysterious metalsmith from Flanders has an evil reputation and is even suspected of practicing black magic. Shunned by the citizens of Tours, his only friend is King Louis XI, who resides in the nearby chateau of Plessis-lez-Tours. Though Maître Cornélius may not be as terrible as rumors suggest, he is indeed a surly misanthrope and an incurable miser. And when he feels his riches are threatened, no one is safe from his relentless pursuit of fatal justice.

Despite all the dark subject matter, Maître Cornélius is a lot of fun. Balzac layers on the spooky atmosphere, irresistibly drawing the reader into the mystery of the title character. Louis XI is another intriguing personage, a dying old man with a gleam in his eye and a sly and spritely soul. Eventually the book turns into a mystery story, and the king, of all people, gets to play detective. Through most of the story the reader really doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, but towards the end things do get a little predictable. While the concluding revelation was probably a shock to the audience of Balzac’s day, the attentive reader of today will likely fail to be surprised. That’s a small mark against this otherwise highly entertaining story, however. The best thing about Maître Cornélius is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Like every story involving a miser, there’s a moral about the perils of greed, but here it’s more of an afterthought than a pervasive theme.

In the first few years of his writing career, Balzac’s output was all over the map in terms of subject matter and quality. In his earlier, shorter works he often expends all his energy and ink building exquisite atmosphere and suspense, then raps everything up with a hasty and unsatisfying conclusion. That criticism also applies to this story, somewhat, but overall Maître Cornélius is one of the best of Balzac’s earlier works. Those who enjoy his better-known novels will certainly appreciate this gem of a novella.
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The Elixir of Life by Honoré de Balzac

Cheating the Grim Reaper
The Elixir of Life is an early short story by Honoré de Balzac, originally published in 1830. It’s only about 30 pages long, but, like all the component pieces of Balzac’s Comédie Humaine, it is considered a stand-alone piece of literature and is available as an individual e-book file. The story takes place in the 16th century, so it bears no interconnectivity with the other works in the Comédie Humaine, which mostly take place in the 19th century.

The story is introduced by a mini-essay in which Balzac asserts that at some time or another we all hope to profit from someone’s death, whether it’s in anticipation of acquiring inherited wealth or in longing for the cessation of a financial burden. In the story that follows, the main character exemplifies this shameful truth. Don Juan Belvidero is the son of a Spanish nobleman. Though he is spoiled to the fullest extent by his indulgent father, he can’t wait for the elder’s demise so he can claim the family wealth and title for himself. When the longed-for moment arrives, and he is called to his father’s death bed, he dutifully professes his filial love. His father then unexpectedly informs him that he is in possession of a vial of a magic, death-defying potion. If the son will only rub the liquid on his dead body, the father will come back to life. Don Juan assures his father that he will resurrect him, but will he keep his promise or leave his old man in the lurch?

This story was very audacious for its time, and quite innovative in its use of fantasy and horror plot elements. Of course, in Balzac’s hands the macabre tale serves as the backdrop to a larger statement about morality and ethics. It’s a highly entertaining story, but the momentum is periodically stalled by Balzac’s propensity for philosophical asides in which he makes observations about human nature and offers literary allusions that will probably be lost on most of today’s readers.

In Balzac’s day he was often chastised by critics for writing about the darker, uglier, more evil aspects of life. This story is a perfect example of what they were complaining about. The ending of The Elixir of Life is the most outrageous that I’ve ever read from Balzac. Even by today’s standards, it is so delightfully over-the-top you’ll never forget it. Overall this is a strong story, but the ending alone makes it a must-read for any Balzac fan.
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A Study of Woman by Honoré de Balzac

Too small to amount to much

Honoré de Balzac

A Study of Woman, originally published in 1830, is one of Honoré de Balzac’s shortest stories. The entire piece can be read in under ten minutes. The story takes place in the time of the Bourbon Restoration, and the woman in question is the Marquise de Listomere, the wife of a member of the Chamber of Deputies. The story is narrated by Horace Bianchon, one of Balzac’s recurring characters, and also features Eugène de Rastignac, the Kevin Bacon of Balzac’s Comédie Humaine. With the presence of these familiar characters, the story is well integrated into the interconnected continuity of Balzac’s writings, but due to its brevity and narrowness of scope it’s hardly an indispensable tile in the grand mosaic of the Comédie Humaine.

With a story this short, the less said about the plot the better. Suffice it to say that it deals with a conflict between virtue and vanity, and the simple observation that even when a woman doesn’t want a man, she wants to be wanted by that man. The story is engaging, but its revelations on womankind are neither earth-shattering nor universally accurate, and the reader is likely to forget the piece soon after it’s finished. This relatively inconsequential nugget is best reserved for those avid Balzac fans attempting to tackle his complete works. For everybody else, it’s certainly not a waste of ten minutes, but you’d be better off sticking to Balzac’s better-known and more substantial works.
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The Exiles by Honoré de Balzac

Closer to Hell than Heaven

Honoré de Balzac

“The Exiles,” a short story by Honoré de Balzac, was originally published in 1831 under the French title of “Les Proscrits.” Although it is considered part of Balzac’s collection of works known as the Comédie Humaine, the story takes place at the beginning of the 14th century, so there is no interconnectivity with the other works under that heading, most of which take place in the 19th century.

The story opens in 1308 at the home of Sergeant Tirechair, a constable whose home is located on Paris’s Île de la Cité, in the very shadow of the cathedral of Notre-Dame. We find Tirechair vociferously regretting his decision to accept two lodgers into his home. He suspects them of practicing witchcraft and worries he and his wife may be condemned by association. The two lodgers—an aged “stranger” and a beautiful young man named Godefroid—cross the river to attend a lecture on mystical theology. The speaker, Dr. Sigier, describes a world divided into spheres of spiritual existence ranging from the lowliest levels of Hell to the heights of Heaven. Mankind are essentially fallen angels sentenced to dwell in a middle ground, but through piety they have the power to spiritually evolve to a higher plane.

As is the case with many of Balzac’s more philosophical works, it becomes apparent that the contents of the lecture are more important to the author than the story built around it. It seems that the whole purpose of the narrative is to convey this theological concept, which begs the question, why not just write an essay? Balzac stimulates interest and curiosity on the part of the reader by keeping the identities of the two lodgers a secret. Over the course of the story it becomes apparent that the “stranger” is an eminent personage. Balzac gives enough clues for the reader to solve the mystery before the big reveal at the end. The conclusion of the story is pretty good, but it’s a shame one has to wade through so much esoteric discussion of angels and demons to get there.

The cosmology described by Dr. Sigier bears a great deal of resemblance to the metaphysics explored in Balzac’s novel Louis Lambert. Like that novel, most readers of today will find “The Exiles” inaccessible and rather dull. It’s hard to imagine any 21st-century Christians deriving inspiration from this bizarre theology. Only the most devoted fans of Balzac should think about tackling this story, and even they should prepare themselves for a difficult read.
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The Executioner (El Verdugo) by Honoré de Balzac

Moving and effective, but all too brief
El Verdugo (The Executioner), a short story by Honoré de Balzac, was originally published in 1830. Though very brief, like all of the components of Balzac’s body of work known as the Comédie Humaine, it is considered an individual work of literature in its own right, and is distributed by Amazon or Project Gutenberg as a stand-alone ebook file.

The story takes place in Spain, in the small town of Menda, at a time when Spain is under French occupation. Victor Marchand, a young officer in the French military, has been stationed in Menda with his battalion of soldiers, partly to defend the coast from British attack and partly to keep an eye on the local Spanish nobleman, the Marquis de Leganes, who may be acting in collusion with the English. Despite the suspicions surrounding the Marquis, Marchand has a cordial relationship with the family and has even fallen in love with one of the Marquis’s daughters. Then one lovely night, the tranquility of this peaceful Spanish village is shattered by unexpected treachery.

Though the story deals with military matters, Balzac chose not to classify this tale under the Scenes of Military Life category of the Comédie Humaine, but rather under the Philosophical Studies category, which gives some indication that it won’t be a typical war story. El Verdugo depicts a tragic and disturbing event, one that inspires contemplation of life, death, love, and honor. Unfortunately, it does little more than depict this event. Upon completion, the reader can’t help wishing it were longer, more fleshed out, and had capitalized more on its merits. Even an epilogue of more than one paragraph would have been a big help. As it stands, it’s like a pivotal scene torn from the pages of an excellent novel. Absent that excellent novel, one can’t help wondering what the point of it all is, except to produce a profound and affecting sadness. Nevertheless, anyone who’s ever enjoyed Balzac’s writing should read El Verdugo. For such a brief story, it packs a powerful emotional punch.
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Domestic Peace by Honoré de Balzac

Love and marriage, French Empire style

Honoré de Balzac

Domestic Peace, a short story by Honoré de Balzac, was originally published in 1831 under the French title of La Paix du Ménage. It takes place in November of 1809 at the height of Napoleon’s empire, a time of great splendor and decadence. Everyone who’s anyone in the Parisian aristocracy is gathered at a grand ball at the home of the Comte de Gondreville. Two friends, General Montcornet (also referred to, confusingly, as Colonel) and the Baron Martial de la Roche-Hugon, an up-and-coming lawyer, are discussing a newcomer to the scene, a beautiful mystery woman of melancholy demeanor who has isolated herself in a corner of the room. Martial is immediately smitten with her, despite being engaged to the eminently lovely and wealthy young widow Madame de Vaudremont, who is also present at the party. Will he be willing to sacrifice the advantages of such a fortuitous match in order to chase after this unknown beauty? To complicate matters, Colonel Soulanges, one of Napoleon’s favorite military men, also shows an interest in the mystery woman, and angrily declares he’ll kill Martial if he so much as goes near her.

Thus a complicated love pentagon is established, in which each player schemes to satisfy his or her own romantic and financial interests. The atmosphere Balzac creates is one in which sentimental notions of love and honor are meaningless and reputation is the only inhibition. The story never takes itself too seriously, and it’s fun to watch the fortunes of the two gentlemen friends rise and fall over the course of the evening. Eventually the identity of the mystery woman is revealed, but it’s not as shocking as Balzac intended. There is an enjoyable cleverness to Domestic Peace. Its twists and turns are entertaining, but in the end it feels rather insubstantial. It is, after all, just a party. What it has to say about love and marriage was much more relevant to the society in which Balzac lived than to the audience of today, and readers of the 21st century will find it far less scandalous and titillating than those of the 19th. It is a competently executed piece, but not even close to Balzac at his best. Unless you are an enthusiastic fan of Balzac’s Comédie Humaine, there’s no reason to go out of your way for this one.
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The Magic Skin (La Peau de Chagrin) by Honoré de Balzac

Be careful what you wish for
La Peau de Chagrin, also known as The Magic Skin or The Wild Ass’s Skin, is a novel by Honoré de Balzac. The story opens on a young man entering a gambling hall. His face is an advertisement for despair; he has clearly come here as a last resort. After gambling his last coin on the roulette table, and losing, he determines there’s nothing left for him to do but throw himself into the Seine. Procrastinating his inevitable suicide, he wanders into the shop of an antiquities dealer. The dealer, smelling his desperation, offers him a unique item from his collection. It is a piece of leather, of unknown but ancient origin. The bearer of this unusual talisman has the power to see all his wishes granted, but each time a desire is gratified the skin shrinks a little, and along with it the life expectancy of its user. When the skin shrinks into nonexistence, the bearer will die. Partly out of disbelief and partly out of despondency, the young man, Raphaël de Valentin, accepts the responsibility and inextricably bonds his fate to the magic skin.

Throughout the novel Balzac displays a remarkably encyclopedic knowledge by venturing off into discussions of philosophy, politics, art, history, medicine, engineering, and physics. Unfortunately, these extraneous asides also distract from the main thrust of the story, leaving the reader disappointed at the squandering of its novel and ingenious premise. The book is bogged down by too many lengthy descriptive passages and topical tangents. When Valentin enters the antiquities shop, for example, Balzac lovingly describes each and every object in the room. Each sentence is a work of art, but after a half hour of reading such set decoration, the overall effect is exhausting. Next, a decadent banquet is rendered boring by the meticulous transcription of tedious and pointless conversations. Eventually Valentin decides to explain the circumstances that drove him to contemplate suicide. The result is a far too lengthy flashback consisting mostly of a man groveling at the feet of a woman who treats him like garbage. All the while the reader is wondering when the plot will return to the fascinating magic skin.

Thankfully the final third of the book is an improvement over the rest, as it finally concentrates on how Valentin will cope with the regrettable pact he has made with his talisman. Here the story takes some unexpected turns and creatively dabbles in the realms of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Valentin need not express his wishes out loud like he’s talking to a genie; even his subconscious desires take their toll on the shrinking patch of hide. He reacts by attempting to eliminate all hope and desire in an effort to prolong his existence. The Magic Skin is ultimately the story of one man’s quest for happiness in life. He seeks satisfaction in love, riches, vice, intellect, idleness, isolation, and even drugs, all to no avail. Meanwhile his life fritters away inescapably. The magic scrap of leather embodies the conflict between the quality and the quantity of a human life, and the ravenous insatiability of man’s materialistic and romantic desires.

At the time of its publication in 1831, The Magic Skin was a sensation, quickly selling out and bringing fame and fortune to its author. Today’s readers, however, likely won’t be as enthusiastic as their 19th-century counterparts, and will find this novel less accessible and appealing than many of Balzac’s other writings. Although it contains some memorable scenes and has some powerful points to make, ultimately it wastes too much time on description and digression. Diehard Balzac fans may like this book, but it won’t be their favorite. Casual readers who enjoyed Père Goriot or Lost Illusions will unfortunately find this novel more in keeping with esoteric works like Louis Lambert.
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