Lost
Illusions (1843)
Honore
de Balzac
My
original reason for reading Lost Illusions was in an article I once read
in which the writer gave her personal list of literature’s great cads and louts. I recognized all of them, save one: Lucien
Chardon. When I looked up his name, it said that he was one of the characters
in Balzac’s Lost Illusions.
Starting
in college I had read Pere Goriot a couple of times and more recently Cousin
Bette and a third Balzac novel whose name escapes me. But nothing else by Balzac,
although I knew that he had written much, much more. In fact, the Lost
Illusions volume I read was one of about 80 or more companion volumes
constituting a matching set of what purported to be a “complete works” of
Balzac in English, published by the Colonial Press Company of Boston and New
York as an “Illustrated Library Edition.” I had bought the entire handsome ensemble
about 25 years ago from my wife’s used bookstore at the Newport Beach Public
Library. I confess it then sat untouched until the foregoing prompt about
Lucien took me to Lost Illusions. The specific volume I read gives a 1901
copyright date as translated by John D. Avil. A pasted notice on the inside
front cover tells me that this book was originally owned by “Carolyn.” Carolyn
apparently never finished reading Lost Illusions, however, since I was
privileged to cut the pages as I read it.
In a moment I will come to Lucien, but first let
me say that once I had finished Lost Illusions – and particularly
given the anticipated pleasure of being appalled by the behavior of Lucien
Chardon -- I was puzzled and mildly confounded by how the story had been
constructed. So what follows includes a reflection about what this novel
accomplishes and what it does not.
Generally, Lost Illusions is a detailed,
ironic, and largely non-judgmental story of how people manipulate and are
manipulated by others in the France of the author’s era. One who is inclined to follow the story with
strong ethical reactions will do so, but Balzac offers little support for that.
There is no Pip or David Copperfield to engage the reader’s fond interest. In fact, apart from his pleasure in
delivering an increasingly complicated plot, the author’s main object seems
only to submit this story as one of countless examples of the French human
comedy at a particular place and time. The turbulent national politics of the
period are mostly in the background, with only glancing references to
monarchists, liberals, etc. And yet this very provincial setting becomes an exemplar
of France’s broader ambiguities and imperfections, a country whose principles
have fallen into as much flux as its government.
Balzac
possibly set the mark for the familiar cold-eyed Gallic appraisal of human
affairs. This novel, published in 1843, takes place 20-25 years earlier, in the
epoch following the Bourbon restoration. Angouleme, an ancient, snobbish, but
withering neighborhood in southwest France (it is still there), sits on a crag overlooking
L’Houmeau, its crowded, bustling, working class suburb. The gentry who live on
the Angouleme heights are for the most part dull, monarchist landlords, scions
of the old nobility.
Now
here comes what will appear to be a digression. In the author’s early sketch of
this self-satisfied but vapid society, I noticed that Balzac had included among
the prominent residents of Angouleme a passing mention of a man named
Rastignac. Well, as noted, I had already read Pere Goriot and admit that
I was amused at this little wink from another of Balzac’s novels. As it turned
out, although M. Rastignac was only mentioned once again quite a bit later in Lost
Illusions, even this modest use of the device reminded me how much in the
past I have enjoyed similar cross-references. When a character from a story I
have already read flits across the background of a new book, it’s like catching
sight of a familiar face in a crowd. I do not refer to Hercule Poirot or James
Bond. The pre-condition is only that the strategy must be clever, must deepen, revisit,
enlarge, or challenge the assumptions, of an earlier novel. Two wonderful
examples from the mid-20th Century are A Dance to the
Music of Time and the astounding Alexandria Quartet.
To return to the story of Lost Illusions,
I should point out that its protagonists, David and Eve Seychard, are a poverty-stricken
married couple of the lower town. They live hand to mouth and survive by
running a second-rate printing shop. Good and honest people, they are therefore
not particularly interesting except that the husband David is secretly developing
a way to mass produce cheap printing paper. It is widely understood that, if he
succeeds, the industry will be revolutionized, and they will then live a
comfortable life thereafter on his royalties.
At least half of the plot is built around the
calculations of others in the community – starting with business competitors –
to purloin the naïve David’s inevitable patent and beat him to the marketplace.
To tell the truth, the plots and contrivances of these secondary characters
from L’Houmeau — their peculiar flaws and backgrounds, shifting
motives, and social attitudes -- while distasteful, make them more recognizable
humans than David and his wife. They are colorful, often irresolute, with
different intellects, backgrounds, and expectations.
It is the entangled other plot which is
the story of the aforementioned Lucien Chardon, David’s closest friend, and the
brother of David’s wife Eve. Lucien is perhaps 20 years old. Although he too
suffers the burden of extreme poverty, his sister, mother, and David are almost
worshipful of him and blindly in awe of his talents. Lucien himself, it must be
said, enjoys the distinction of being extraordinarily handsome. More
significantly, he is convinced that he is a poet of great promise.
These
latter two features earn Lucien an invitation from Mme Anais Marie-Louise de Bargeton,
to recite his poetry at a soiree convened at her formidable home in Angouleme[1]. There are diverting
details, of course, some of them rather funny, but the main development is the
predictable effect which the young man’s good looks and diligent poetry have on
this clever but bored older woman. When a scandal eventually is concocted
against her by her Angouleme neighbors (they have their reasons), she calculates
that she must escape to the salons of Paris – taking Luicien with her. Paris,
she assures him, will make his fortune -- particularly if he can become known
as both a religious and royalist poet.
But
the novel never follows the couple to Paris. More of this below. Instead, it is
only through letters home and occasional gossip that we learn indirectly and
without detail that following his arrival in Paris Lucien had insulted his
mistress, was expelled from her presence, began living with an actress, and fell
into such abject poverty that he was reduced to borrowing money by forging his
best friend David’s name on some promissory notes which naturally make their
way into the stream of commerce. (Surprisingly, at this point, Balzac’s
perfunctory and unemotional recapitulation of these supposedly scandalous events
did not corroborate the critic who named Lucien as one of her most memorable
cads.) In any event, when this news reaches Lucien’s former neighbors in Angouleme
and L’Houmeau, their wild suppositions of his artistic and financial success
are shattered and the unquestioning admiration and confidence of his local
family is shaken. These reports are the first of still wider lost illusions to
come.[2]
The
immediate story then turns in earnest to detailing the intricate plots,
sub-plots, devices, calculations, counter-plots, bribery, legal maneuvers, etc.
by which the secondary characters whom I have earlier mentioned diligently work
to steal David’s secret formula and advance their own careers. These passages,
which in lesser hands would be tedious, are amusingly compelling given Balzac’s
dry wit in demonstrating the intricacy (and fragility) of human cupidity. But
they are not worth detailing here.
In
the midst of this turmoil of avarice, Lucien, now penniless himself, flees
Paris on foot and must walk back to L’Houmeau over several days, during which
he is horrified to learn about David’s own financial catastrophe which of
course he himself had caused by the forgery of the notes. Ragged, abject, and
contrite, Lucien prostrates himself before his mother and sister. And though they
welcome him, their former adulation is now tempered, though not yet effaced, by
the realization that he is not the hero they had always thought. For his part, Lucien
on reflection concludes in the Parisian fashion that they are simply bourgeois.
And of them, Balzac himself dryly says, they were “reaping the harvest of
egoism which they themselves had fostered.”
But
in fact it is that very feckless egoism which assures Lucien that he can redeem
himself. He will simply – and temporarily -- re-seduce Mme de Bargeton (she has
relocated back to Angouleme) so that she will lend him money which he will use
to pay off David’s debt. The plan works in a fashion, but is stymied by other
developments such that Lucien, again distraught by his own ineptitude, slinks
out of town to commit suicide by drowning. But at the critical moment, we as
readers are abruptly thrust into a different novel.
This
brings me back to the novel’s unusual architecture. Specifically, on the brink of
destroying himself, Lucien abruptly encounters a passing Spanish diplomat who
is also a priest. In silence, this man listens to Lucien’s abject recitation of
his faults and failures. And then, like the Grand Inquisitor, the Abbe
commences his “sermon on morality.”[3] In the next 15 pages, he seduces
Lucien to a stunningly amoral outlook on his past deeds. It is the most
mesmerizing passage in this novel.
With
a subtlety and relentless logic that should never be uttered by a priest, this
man of God flatters the young man’s good looks and ambition. “If someone higher
in place can be useful to you,” he counsels, “worship him as a god; and never
leave him until he has paid the price of your servility to the last farthing.” He recounts a troubling anecdote about the
young Richelieu’s indifferent treachery to a confidante, which was just a
logical step toward the Cardinal’s inevitable greatness. Another cynical anecdote
about Joan of Arc, and still another about Napoleon. Notice, he says, that
anyone who plays at cards and is therefore expected to keep his hand secret, is
essentially lying to the other card players about what he actually holds. That
is the premise of the game. And then, having pointed out that that he has
essentially saved Lucien from an ignoble watery suicide simply by his
conversation, the Spaniard says “I have brought you to life again, you belong
to me as the creature belongs to the creator.” And so they make a “pact between
man and the tempter” in a “code of ambition.”[4]
Magnificently
presented, this encounter neither advances nor explains the story we have just
read. In fact, it is little more than a trick by Balzac. It is merely
the preparation for his next novel. He
has already briefed us (though not depicted) Lucien’s vices and blunders. But where are we to go now? The main story needs
to end.
This
Balzac then accomplishes this in a few neat concluding paragraphs. The secret
formula slips out of David’s hands and becomes public, is exploited, and gains some
commercial value. David and Eve never become rich but go on to an appropriate
modest, comfortable country life. An attorney who had betrayed the couple
confronts his misdeeds and makes amends, because, he says, he is now a more
prominent public official. (Is this even plausible?)
And
then Balzac ends his novel with a single sentence: “As for Lucien, the story of
his return to Paris belongs to the Scenes of Parisian Life.”
What?
My own illusions then dissolved. We have read this admittedly diverting
provincial story simply as an extended prelude to -- an advertisement for -- a
different novel? Lucien Chardon, supposedly one of literature’s top five
malefactors and heels, is given his own forthcoming novel without having earned
it?
Well,
so be it. Someday maybe I will read Scenes of Parisian Life.
[1]
The poem for which Lucien is
given most credit is
titled The Archer of Charles IX.
If this was of
deeper significance to Balzac, I cannot say, but before becoming the last
Angevin king of France, Charles IX had been the Duke of Angouleme.
[2]
The second time was when
during the very depths of David and Eve’s misery, Lucien sends a letter to Eve
announcing the death of the actress and asking for money to bury her and
proclaiming his own lost illusions in the bargain.
[3] Here I give Balzac the honor of anticipating
Dostoyevsky by 40 years.
[4]
I
would add this one arresting feature. It is only after the hypnotic seduction
has succeeded that Balzac then stops to give a physical description of Abbe
Herrera. In my experience this is the reverse of what I have come to expect in
most novels. But it does the job perfectly. Normally we are given a glimpse of
the new character before his role in the story is then revealed. Here, the
seduction is immediate and overwhelmingly rational; the ensuing portrait of how
the man looks merely ratifies what we have just gone through.
