Lost Illusions

by Honoré de Balzac

  ‘One hundred francs a column,’ Blondet replied. ‘It’s not a great deal when one’s obliged to read a hundred books in order to find one worth writing about – like yours. Your work gave me great pleasure, you have my word for it.’

  ‘And it brought him fifteen hundred francs,’ said Lousteau to Lucien.

  ‘But you’re writing on politics?’ asked Nathan.

  ‘Yes, a little here and there,’ Blondet answered.

  Lucien, feeling himself a tiro in this gathering, had admired Nathan’s book, revered him as a god, and was stupefied at such a show of servility in front of this critic whose name and significance were unknown to him.

  ‘Could I ever behave like this myself?’ he asked himself. ‘Must one really sacrifice one’s dignity? – Put your hat on, Nathan! You’ve written a fine book and the critic has merely written an article.’ Such thoughts made his blood boil. As one moment followed another, he saw timid young men, needy authors begging for a word with Dauriat, but who, seeing that the shop was full, despaired of gaining a hearing and went out saying: ‘I’ll come back.’ Two or three politicians were talking of the summoning of Parliament and public affairs amid a group composed of political celebrities. The weekly journal whose purchase Dauriat was negotiating enjoyed the right of political discussion. In those days periodicals officially authorized to discuss politics were becoming rare. The privilege of running a newspaper was as much sought after as that of running a theatre. One of the most influential shareholders of Le Constitutionnel happened to be in the centre of this group of politicians. Lousteau was admirably acquitting himself of his task as cicerone. And so, as one sentence succeeded another, Dauriat became greater and greater in Lucien’s estimation: it seemed to him that in this shop politics and literature converged. Our great man from the provinces learnt some terrible truths from the sight of an eminent poet prostituting the Muse to a journalist and thereby debasing Art, just as Woman was debased and prostituted in these squalid Galleries. Money! That was the answer to every riddle! Lucien felt that he was alone, a stranger, with only the thread of a dubious friendship to guide him to success and fortune. He blamed his tender and true friends of the Cénacle for having described the world to him in false colours, for having prevented him from throwing himself, pen in hand, into this battle. ‘I might already be a Blondet,’ he exclaimed to himself. Lousteau, who only recently had been crying out like a wounded eagle on the heights of the Luxembourg gardens and whom he had then considered so great, had by now dwindled to minimal proportions. In this place, the fashionable bookseller-publisher, the middleman in the life of all these men, seemed to him to be the really important figure. Clutching his manuscript, the poet was a prey to a trepidation which came close to fear. Inside this shop, on pedestals of wood painted to look like marble, he could see various busts – one of Byron, one of Goethe and one of Monsieur de Canalis, from whom Dauriat was hoping to extract a volume and who, on the day he had first visited the shop, had been able to gauge how highly his work was assessed in publishing circles. Involuntarily, Lucien felt less confident of his own worth, his courage weakened, he foresaw the influence Dauriat was to exert over his destiny, and he waited impatiently for him to appear.

  13. A fourth variety of publisher

  ‘WELL, children,’ said a portly little man with a face rather like that of a Roman proconsul, though its expression was softened by an air of geniality which took in superficial observers. ‘Here I am, the owner of the sole weekly on the market, one with two thousand subscribers.’

  ‘Humbug!’ said Blondet. ‘It’s seven hundred according to the stamp duty, and even that’s nothing to sneeze at.’

  ‘On my most solemn word of honour, there are twelve hundred. – I said two thousand,’ he added sotto voce, ‘to impress the paper-makers and printers here present. – I thought you had more tact, my boy,’ he continued out loud.

  ‘Are you taking partners?’ asked Finot.

  ‘That depends,’ said Dauriat. ‘Would you like a third share in it for forty thousand francs?’

  ‘Agreed, if you’ll take on the staff Emile Blondet – he’s here – Claude Vignon, Scribe, Théodore Leclerc, Félicien Vernou, Jay, Jouy, Lousteau…’

  ‘And why not Lucien de Rubempré,’ the provincial poet boldly interjected before Finot had finished.

  ‘And Nathan,’ said Finot, concluding his list.

  ‘And why not all the people strolling about here?’ rejoindered the publisher, knitting his eyebrows as he turned towards the author of Les Marguerites. ‘To whom have I the honour of speaking?’ he said, looking at Lucien with an insolent air.

  ‘Just a minute, Dauriat,’ Lousteau replied. ‘It is I who have brought this gentleman to you. While Finot is considering your proposition, listen to me.’

  Lucien felt hot under the collar as he observed the cold and frowning demeanour of this redoubtable Padishah of the publishing trade; a man who thou’d Finot although Finot addressed him as ‘you’, who called the much feared Blondet ‘my lad’ and who had offered his hand to Nathan in regal fashion and greeted him with a gesture of familiarity.

  ‘A new piece of business, my lad,’ Dauriat exclaimed. ‘But do you know I have eleven hundred manuscripts to deal with? Yes, gentlemen,’ he shouted. ‘I’ve been offered eleven hundred manuscripts. Ask Gabusson. In fact I shall soon need an administrative staff to control the receipt of manuscripts and a reading committee to examine them; there’ll be meetings to vote on their merit, with attendance vouchers and a permanent secretary to draw up reports for me. It’s going to be like a branch of the French Academy, and my academicians will be better paid here in the Wooden Galleries than those at the Institut de France.’

  ‘Quite an idea!’ said Blondet.

  ‘A bad idea,’ Dauriat went on. ‘It’s not my business to sift the lucubrations of those among you who take to literature just because they can’t be capitalists, bootmakers, army corporals, domestic servants, civil servants or bailiffs. There’s no admittance here except to established reputations! Make your name, and gold will come flooding your way. In the last two years I’ve brought three people into the limelight, which means that I’ve brought triple ingratitude on myself. Nathan is claiming six thousand francs for the second edition of his book, which cost me three thousand francs in review articles and didn’t bring me a thousand francs. As for Blondet’s two articles, they cost me a thousand francs and a dinner which set me back five hundred francs…’

  ‘And yet, Monsieur, if all the publishers talk like that, how can one get a first book into print?’ asked Lucien, whose respect for Blondet diminished enormously when he learned how much Dauriat had paid him for the articles in the Journal des Débats.

  ‘That’s no concern of mine,’ said Dauriat, fixing a murderous stare on the handsome Lucien who looked at him amiably in return. ‘I don’t publish books for fun. I don’t risk two thousand francs just to get two thousand francs back. I’m a speculator in literature. I publish a work in forty volumes at ten thousand copies, just like Panckoucke and the Baudouin brothers. I use the power I have and the articles I pay for to launch a three hundred thousand francs venture rather than a volume in which only two thousand francs are invested. It costs as much effort to get a new name accepted – an author and his book – as to promote the success of works such as the Masterpieces of Foreign Drama, French Victories and Conquests or Memoirs on the French Revolution: and there’s a fortune in them. I’m not here to be a springboard for future reputations, but to make money for myself and provide some for the celebrities. A manuscript which I buy for a hundred thousand francs costs me less than the one some unknown author expects me to buy for six hundred francs! Maybe I’m not quite a Mæcenas, but literature owes me some gratitude: I’ve already more than doubled the price which manuscripts fetch.’

  ‘I’m explaining all this to you, young man,’ said Dauriat to the poet, patting him on the shoulder with a gesture of revolting familiarity, ‘because you’re a friend of Loust
eau. If I talked to all the authors who want me to publish their works, I should have to shut up shop – I should spend my time having extremely agreeable but much too expensive conversations. I’m still not rich enough to listen to all the monologues dictated by self-esteem. That only happens on the stage in classical tragedies.’

  The luxury of this terrible man’s apparel added emphasis, in the eyes of the provincial poet, to the cruel logic of his discourse.

  ‘What is this manuscript?’ Dauriat asked of Lousteau.

  ‘A splendid volume of verse.’

  At the word ‘verse’ Dauriat turned to Gabusson with a gesture worthy of the great actor Talma. ‘Friend Gabusson, from now on, anybody who comes asking me to publish manuscripts… Take this in, the rest of you,’ he said, addressing three shop-assistants who emerged from the piles of books on hearing the choleric tones of their employer, whose eyes were fixed on his finger-nails and his shapely hands. ‘Whenever anyone brings manuscripts for me, you’ll ask if they are in verse or prose. If they’re in verse, get rid of them straight away. Verse will ruin the book-trade!’

  ‘Well said! Dauriat’s quite right,’ the journalists cried out in chorus.

  ‘It’s a fact,’ the publisher exclaimed, walking up and down his shop with Lucien’s manuscript in his hand. ‘You don’t know, gentlemen, how much harm has been done by the success which came to Lord Byron, Victor Hugo, Casimir Delavigne, Canalis and Béranger. Their fame has brought us a new barbarian invasion. I’m sure that, at this very moment, publishers are having to cope with a thousand volumes of poetry which start off with disconnected stories of which you can’t make head or tail, imitations of The Corsair and Lara. Under pretext of originality, young people go in for incomprehensible stanzas and descriptive poems, and this new school of poets claims originality by re-inventing Delille! During the last two years poets have multiplied like may-bugs. Last year I lost twenty thousand francs on them – ask Gabusson! The world may well be swarming with immortal poets – I’ve seen some with such fresh, pink faces that they haven’t yet started shaving!’ – he said this for Lucien’s benefit – ‘but as far as the book-trade is concerned, young man, there are only four poets: Béranger, Casimir Delavigne, Lamartine and Victor Hugo. As for Canalis, he’s been made a poet by the reviews he’s had!’

  Lucien did not feel courageous enough to pull himself together and stand on his pride in front of these influential men and their hearty laughter. He realized that he would cover himself with ridicule, but he felt a violent urge to leap at the publisher’s throat, disarrange the insulting harmony of his knotted cravat, break the gold watch-chain glittering on his chest, stamp on his watch and tear him to pieces. Exasperated self-esteem opened the way to vengeful thoughts, and he vowed mortal hatred to the publisher while showing a smiling face.

  ‘Poetry is like the sun: it makes the eternal forests grow but also engenders gnats, midges and mosquitos,’ said Blondet. ‘There’s nothing good that doesn’t bring something bad in its wake. Literature, for example, engenders publishers.’

  ‘Journalists also!’ said Lousteau.

  Dauriat gave a great guffaw.

  ‘Anyway, what’s in it?’ he asked, pointing to the manuscript.

  ‘A collection of sonnets which would make Petrarch sing small,’ Lousteau answered.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Dauriat.

  ‘What anybody would mean,’ said Lousteau, noticing that everybody’s lips were curled in a sarcastic smile.

  Lucien could not show how annoyed he was, but he was sweating like a horse under harness.

  ‘All right, I’ll read it,’ said Dauriat with a princely gesture which showed what a great concession he was making. ‘If your sonnets come up to the nineteenth-century standard I’ll turn you out as a great poet, my lad.’

  ‘If he’s as intelligent as he’s handsome, you’re not taking a big risk,’ said one of the most famous orators of the Chambre des Députés who was chatting with a member of the Constitutionnel staff and the director of the Minerve.

  ‘General,’ said Dauriat, ‘fame costs twelve thousand francs in reviews and three thousand francs in dinners. Ask the author of Le Solitaire. If Monsieur Benjamin Constant is ready to write an article on this young poet, I’ll not take long to do a deal.’

  At the word ‘General’ and the mention of the illustrious name of Benjamin Constant, the book-shop took on the proportions of Olympus in the eyes of the provincial prodigy.

  ‘Lousteau, I want a word with you,’ said Finot. ‘But I’ll see you again at the theatre. Dauriat, it’s a deal – but on certain conditions. Let’s go into your office.’

  ‘Come in, my boy,’ said Dauriat, ushering Finot in. Making the gesture of a busy man to the dozen persons who were waiting for him, he was about to disappear inside when Lucien, feeling impatient, halted him.

  ‘You are keeping my manuscript then. When can I expect your decision?’

  ‘Well, my little poet, come back in three or four days. We’ll see.’

  Lucien was dragged off by Lousteau without being given time to take his leave either of Vernou, Blondet, Raoul Nathan, General Foy or Benjamin Constant, whose Letters on the Hundred Days had just appeared. Lucien scarcely caught more than a glimpse of his fair hair and fine head, his oblong face, his intelligent eyes, his attractive mouth, in short of the man who for twenty years had been the Potemkin of Madame de Staël and was making war on the Bourbons after making war on Napoleon, but whose fate it was to die from the shock of the victory he had won.

  14. Behind the scenes

  ‘WHAT an emporium!’ Lucien exclaimed when he had taken his seat in a cab beside Lousteau.

  ‘To the Panorama-Dramatique, and drive fast – you’ll get thirty sous for the journey,’ said Etienne to the cabby. Then he replied to Lucien’s remark, his self-esteem agreeably tickled at being able to pose as Lucien’s mentor. ‘Dauriat’s a rogue who sells about fifteen or sixteen hundred thousand francs’ worth of books every year. His rapacity is just as great as Barbet’s, but he operates on a massive scale. Dauriat has some civility, he can be generous, but he’s vain. What wit he has is made up from what he hears people around him saying. His shop is an excellent meeting-place, and gives one a chance to chat with the best minds of our time. There, my friend, a young man learns more in an hour than he would in ten years poring over books. Articles are discussed, subjects are concocted, contact is made with famous or influential men who may prove useful. Today, in order to succeed, one needs to be in with such people. It’s all a matter of chance, you see. The most dangerous thing is to churn out wit all alone in a corner.’

  ‘But the insolence of the man!’ said Lucien.

  ‘Pooh! We all make fun of Dauriat. You need him and he tramples on you; but he needs the Journal des Débats, and Emile Blondet spins him round like a top. Oh! if you get into the writing racket you’ll learn a lot more yet. Well now, didn’t I tell you so?’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ Lucien answered. ‘In Dauriat’s shop, I suffered even more cruelly than I expected according to your plan of action.’

  ‘But why let yourself suffer? The thing we give our lives for, the subject we rack our brains over and wrestle with for nights on end, the race we run across the fields of thought, the monument we build with our heart’s blood: editors regard all that as a good or a bad piece of business. Your manuscript will sell well or it won’t. That’s their whole problem. For them a book is merely a capital risk. The finer it is, the less chance it has of selling. Every exceptional man rises above the masses, and therefore his success is in direct ratio to the time needed for his work to prove its value. No publisher is willing to wait for that. Today’s book must be sold out tomorrow. Following that policy, publishers refuse substantial books which can only gradually obtain the serious approval they need.’

  ‘D’Arthez was right,’ Lucien exclaimed.

  ‘So you know d’Arthez,’ said Lousteau. ‘I know nothing more dangerous than those lone spir
its who think, as that fellow does, they can bring the world to their feet. By firing a young man’s imagination with a flattering belief in the immense power which at first everyone feels he possesses, such seekers after posthumous glory prevent him from bestirring himself at an age when activity is possible and profitable. I’m all for Mahomet’s policy: he commanded the mountain to come to him and then cried out: “If you won’t come to me, I’ll go to you!”

  This sally, which had such forceful logic behind it, was of a kind to make Lucien waver between the system of resigned poverty preached by the Cénacle and the militant doctrine put forward by Lousteau. And so the poet from Angoulême relapsed into silence until they arrived at the Boulevard du Temple.

  The Panorama-Dramatique, now replaced by a private house, was a charming theatre standing opposite the rue Charlot in the Boulevard du Temple. Two of its managing bodies in turn succumbed without scoring a single success, although Vignol, one of the actors who took over from Potier, made his début there, as well as Florine, the actress who was to become so famous five years later. Theatres, like men, are dependent on chance events. The Panorama-Dramatique had to compete with L’Ambigu, La Gaieté, La Porte-Saint-Martin and the musical comedy theatres: it was unable to hold out against their machinations, the restricted terms of its licence and the shortage of good plays. Authors were not inclined to fall out with established theatres in favour of one whose existence seemed problematical. However, the management was counting on the new play, a kind of comic melodrama by a young author, du Bruel, a man who wrote in collaboration with a few reputed authors but claimed to have written this one by himself. It had been composed for Florine’s début: until then she had been an extra at La Gaieté, where for a year she had had walking-on parts in which she had drawn attention to herself without being able to secure an engagement; and so the Panorama had enticed her away from the neighbouring theatre. Another actress, Coralie, was also to make her début in this play.