Lost Illusions

by Honoré de Balzac

  ‘What’s got hold of him?’ asked Lucien.

  ‘He’s taking your article to the press!’ said Hector Merlin. ‘It’s a masterpiece: not a word to cut out or a line to add!’

  ‘One only had to show you the way!’ said Lousteau.

  ‘I’d like to see Nathan’s face tomorrow when he reads that,’ said another member of the staff whose face was beaming with satisfaction.

  ‘It pays to be friendly with you,’ said Hector Merlin.

  ‘It’s all right then?’ asked Lucien with lively concern.

  ‘Blondet and Vignon will be green with envy,’ Lousteau replied.

  ‘Here,’ Lucien went on, ‘is a little article I’ve knocked together for you: if it goes down well it might provide material for a series of similar compositions.’

  Lucien then read to them one of those delightful articles which ensured success for this petit journal: in two columns it depicted one of the minor facets of Parisian life, a figure, a type, an everyday event or something out of the ordinary. This sample, entitled ‘People one sees in the streets of Paris’ was written in a new and original style, so that thought was provoked by the mere clash of words and the reader’s attention stimulated by the jingle of adverbs and adjectives. This article was as different from the grave and penetrating article on Nathan as the lettres Persanes is from L’Esprit des Lois.

  ‘You’re a born journalist,’ Lousteau told him. ‘It will go in tomorrow. Write as many of them as you like.’

  ‘Great fun!’ said Merlin. ‘Dauriat is furious at the two bombshells we’ve thrown into his shop. I’ve just been there. He was breathing out fire and slaughter. He was mad with Finot, who told him he’d sold his paper to you. As for me, I drew him aside and whispered these words in his ear: “The Marguerites will cost you dear! A man of talent comes to you, and you send him about his business while we welcome him with open arms.”’

  ‘Dauriat will be thunderstruck by the article we’ve just been listening to,’ said Lousteau to Lucien. ‘You see now, my boy, what a newspaper can do! Incidentally your private revenge is getting on fast! Baron Châtelet came along this morning to ask for your address: there was a murderous article on him this morning; this ex-fop has a soft skull and he’s in despair. Didn’t you read the paper? It’s quite a comical article. Look: The Heron’s funeral procession with the Cuttle-fish as chief mourner. Madame de Bargeton is now definitely known in society as the Cuttle-bone and Châtelet is no longer called anything but Baron Heron.’

  Lucien took the paper and could not help laughing as he read the little masterpiece of banter from Vernou’s pen.

  ‘They’ll hoist the white flag,’ said Hector Merlin.

  Lucien joyfully contributed his quota to some of the witticisms and shafts with which they finished off the paper as they chatted and smoked, related the day’s adventures, poked fun at their colleagues or revealed new details about their characters. This eminently mocking, witty, spiteful conversation brought much enlightenment to Lucien about morals and personalities in the literary world.

  ‘While the paper’s being set up,’ said Lousteau, ‘I’m going to take you round a bit, introduce you to all the ticket-offices and wings of the theatres in which you have right of entry. Then we’ll pick up Florine and Coralie at the Panorama-Dramatique and frolic with them in their dressing-rooms.’

  And so both of them, arm in arm, went from theatre to theatre for Lucien to be enthroned as reviewer, complimented by the managers, ogled by the actresses who all knew what importance a single article from him had just conferred on Coralie and Florine, since they had secured engagements, one at the Gymnase at twelve thousand francs a year, the other at the Panorama at eight thousand francs. Each visit was a minor ovation which magnified Lucien in his own eyes and taught him the measure of his power. At eleven o’clock, the two friends arrived at the Panorama-Dramatique, where Lucien assumed a nonchalant air which worked wonders. Nathan was there. He offered his hand to Lucien who took it and clasped it.

  ‘Well now, my masters,’ he said, looking at Lucien and Lousteau. ‘So you’re intending to get me dead and buried.’

  ‘Just wait till tomorrow, my dear, and you’ll see how Lucien has laid about you! Upon my word, you’ll be satisfied. When criticism is as serious as that, a book gains by it.’

  Lucien turned red with shame.

  ‘Does it hit hard?’ asked Nathan.

  ‘It’s an impressive article,’ said Lousteau.

  ‘Then it won’t do me any harm?’ Nathan continued. ‘But Hector Merlin said in the Vaudeville foyer that it slashed me to pieces.’

  ‘Pay no heed to him, just wait,’ cried Lucien, and he took refuge in Coralie’s dressing-room, following her in at the moment when she was leaving the stage, her attractions enhanced by the glamour of her costume.

  26. Dauriat pays a call

  THE next day, while Lucien was lunching with Coralie, he heard in the quiet street below the brisk rattle of a cabriolet, suggestive of an elegant carriage drawn by a horse whose easy trot and way of pulling up indicated purity of breed. Lucien looked out through the window and in fact caught sight of Dauriat’s splendid English thoroughbred, and Dauriat himself, handing the reins to his groom before jumping down from the vehicle.

  ‘It’s the publisher,’ Lucien called out to his mistress.

  ‘Keep him waiting,’ Coralie immediately said to Bérénice.

  Lucien smiled at her self-possession and the way she so admirably identified herself with his interests, and he turned back to embrace her with genuine fervour: she had shown presence of mind.

  The insolent publisher’s haste in appearing, the sudden self-abasement of this prince of charlatans was prompted by circumstances almost forgotten today, so violent is the transformation which has taken place in the book-trade during the last fifteen years. From 1816 to 1827, a period when reading-rooms, first established for the perusal of newspapers, undertook to supply readers, for a fee, with newly-published books, and when the exorbitant taxes imposed on the periodic press forced it to turn to advertisement, the book-trade had no other means of publicity than articles inserted either in the feuilletons or the main text of the newspapers. And yet, until 1822, French newspapers were printed on pages of such limited size that the leading journals scarcely exceeded the dimensions of the ‘little papers’ of today. In their resistance to journalistic tyranny, Dauriat and Ladvocat were the first to invent posters, by means of which they could bring their books to the attention of Parisians with a display of fancy type, a quaint use of colours, vignettes and, later, lithographs, thus making posters a poem for the eyes and often a drain on amateurs’ purses – for some of them were so original that one of the maniacs known as collectors owns a complete set of Parisian posters. This means of publicity, restricted first of all to shop-windows and those of the big boulevard establishments, was abandoned in favour of advertisement in the press. Nevertheless posters, which continue to strike the eye when both the advertisement and often the work itself are forgotten, will always survive, above all now that the device has been adopted of painting them on walls.

  Advertisement, which is accessible to all those who can pay for it and has made the fourth page of the newspaper as lucrative for the Exchequer as it is for speculators, was born of the rigours of stamp-duty, postal charges and caution-money. These restrictions, invented during the ministry of Monsieur de Villèle, who could easily have killed the newspapers by letting them multiply, had the contrary effect of creating a sort of monopoly by making it almost impossible to launch a newspaper. In 1821 then, the newspapers exercised the right of life and death over the conceptions of thought and the enterprises of publishers. A short notice inserted in ‘News in Brief was terribly expensive. There was such a multiplicity of intrigues inside the editorial offices and in the evenings on the battle-field of the printing offices at the time when the process of page-setting determined the admission or rejection of such and such an article, that the important publishing-hous
es employed a ‘man of letters’ paid to draw up these little articles in which many ideas had to be conveyed in few words. These obscure journalists, who were paid only after the insertion, often spent the whole night at the printing-offices to witness the setting-up of either the big articles – of curiously varied provenance – or a modicum of lines which were then given the name of puffs. Today the standard of morals in literature and the book-trade has changed so much that many people would dismiss as fables the tremendous efforts, the acts of enticement and treachery and the intrigues that the need for obtaining these ‘puffs’ inspired in publishers, authors, martyrs in the cause of fame and all such galley-slaves condemned for life to heap success upon success. Dinners, cajolery and presents were all a common practice in journalistic circles. The following anecdote will better exemplify the close alliance between criticism and the book-trade than all the assertions just made:

  An eminent man of letters, still young, who was aspiring to a political career, a ladies’ man and editor of a leading newspaper, had gained favour with a well-known publishing-house. One Sunday this opulent firm was regaling the principal newspaper editors in a mansion in the country. The lady of the house, young and pretty at that time, took the illustrious writer out into her park. The head clerk of the firm, a cold, grave, methodical Teuton, with a mind only for business, was walking round it with a feuilleton writer and chatting with him about a project on which he wanted to consult him. Their conversation led them out of the park and they reached the woods. Deep down in a thicket, the German caught a glimpse of someone who was very like his employer’s wife. He raised his lorgnette, made a sign to the young journalist to keep quiet and come away, and himself cautiously retreated the way he had come.

  ‘What did you see?’ asked the writer.

  ‘Nothing much,’ was the reply. ‘Our big article will go through. Tomorrow we shall have at least three columns in the Journal des Débats’

  Yet another fact will explain the power such articles wielded. Monsieur de Chateaubriand’s book on the last of the Stuarts was languishing in a warehouse, unsaleable. Thanks to a single article written by a young man in the Journal des Débats, the book was sold out in a week. At a time when if one wanted to read a book one had to buy it instead of borrowing it, ten thousand copies of certain Liberal works, provided they were lauded by the Opposition news-sheets, could find a market; but then of course Belgian pirating had not yet come into existence. The preparatory attacks made by Lucien’s friends, and Lucien’s article, would be sufficient to stop the sale of Nathan’s book. Nathan would only suffer in his self-esteem; having been paid, he had nothing to lose; but Dauriat stood to lose thirty thousand francs. In fact the trade in books styled livres de nouveauté can be summed in this commercial theorem: a ream of blank paper is worth fifteen francs; once printed it is worth five francs or three hundred francs according to the success it obtains. In those times, a favourable or hostile article often decided this question of finance. Therefore Dauriat, having five hundred reams to sell, had hurried along to make terms with Lucien. The sultan among publishers had become a slave.

  After waiting for some time, grumbling, making as much noise as possible and parleying with Berenice, he was allowed access to Lucien. The haughty publisher assumed the smiling demeanour of a courtier entering the royal presence; but it was a blend of self-conceit and affability.

  ‘Don’t let me disturb you, my dear loves!’ he said. ‘Aren’t they sweet, these two turtle-doves! In fact, you’re just like a pair of doves! Who would suppose, Mademoiselle, that this young man with his maidenly air is a tiger with claws of steel who’ll tear a reputation as easily as no doubt he tears off your dressing-gown when you’re slow in removing it…’ And he began to laugh without finishing the jest. ‘My boy,’ he continued, sitting down beside Lucien. Then he broke off and added: ‘Mademoiselle, I am Dauriat.’ – Coralie was giving him such a cold reception that he found it necessary to fire off his name like a pistol-shot.

  ‘Monsieur,’ said the actress, ‘have you had lunch? Would you like to join us?’

  ‘Indeed yes, we can chat more cosily at table,’ Dauriat replied. ‘Moreover, by accepting your lunch, I shall win the right of having you to dinner with my friend Lucien, for henceforth we must be hand in glove together,’

  ‘Bérénice! Oysters, lemons, fresh butter and champagne,’ said Coralie.

  ‘You’re a man of too much intelligence not to know what brings me here,’ said Dauriat, looking at Lucien.

  ‘You’ve come to buy my collection of sonnets?’

  ‘Precisely,’ Dauriat answered. ‘First of all, let’s both of us lay down our arms.’

  He pulled out an elegant pocket-book, drew three thousand-franc notes from it, put them on a plate and offered them to Lucien with the obsequiousness of a courtesan and said: ‘Does that satisfy you, Monsieur?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the poet. A wave of bliss hitherto unexperienced swept over him at the sight of this unexpected sum. He held himself in, but he wanted to sing, to leap up and down. He believed in the existence of wizards and Aladdin’s wonderful lamp; in short he believed he had a genius at his command.

  ‘So the Marguerites will belong to me?’ asked the publisher. ‘But you’ll never attack any of my publications?’

  ‘The Marguerites are yours, but I can’t pledge my pen. It belongs to my friends, just as theirs belongs to me.’

  ‘But after all, you are becoming one of my authors. All my authors are my friends. You’ll do no damage to my affairs without my being warned of any attacks so that I can forestall them?’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Here’s to your future fame!’ said Dauriat, raising his glass.

  ‘Obviously you’ve read the Marguerites,’ said Lucien.

  Dauriat was not disconcerted.

  ‘My boy, buying the Marguerites without knowing them is the finest flattery a publisher can permit himself. In six months you’ll be a great poet; articles will be written about you. People are afraid of you, so I need do nothing to get your book sold. I’m the same business man today as I was four days ago. It’s not I who have changed, it’s you. Last week I wouldn’t have given a fig for your sonnets, but your position today turns them into something rich and rare.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said Lucien, being now in a mocking and charmingly provocative frame of mind since he felt all the pleasure of a sultan in possessing a beautiful mistress and in being assured of success. ‘Even if you haven’t read my sonnets, you’ve read my article.’

  ‘Yes, my friend. Otherwise should I have come along so promptly? Unfortunately it’s very fine, this terrible article. Oh! you have tremendous talent, my boy. Believe me, make the most of the vogue you’re enjoying.’ He said this with a show of good feeling which concealed the utter impertinence of this compliment. ‘But have you had the newspaper, have you read it?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Lucien. ‘Nevertheless this is the first time I’ve published a great piece of prose. But Hector must have sent it to my address in the rue Chariot.’

  ‘Here it is: read it,’ said Dauriat, in the declamatory tones of Talma taking the part of Manlius.

  Lucien took the sheet, but Coralie snatched it from him. ‘You know well,’ she said laughingly, ‘that I claim as mine the first-fruits of your pen.’

  Dauriat was singularly flattering and deferential; he feared Lucien, and therefore invited him and Coralie to a grand dinner he was giving to the press towards the end of the month. He went off with the manuscript of the Marguerites and told ‘his’ poet to drop in when convenient at the Wooden Galleries to sign the contract which he promised to have ready. Still maintaining the regal ceremoniousness with which he tried to impose on superficial minds and to pass for a Maecenas rather than a publisher, he left the three thousand francs behind without taking a receipt, refusing Lucien’s offer of one with a gesture of nonchalance, and departed after kissing Coralie’s hand.

  ‘Well now, my love, would you have seen many of th
ese scraps of paper if you had stayed in your hovel in the rue de Cluny and gone on ransacking your old books in the Sainte-Geneviève Library?’ asked Coralie, to whom Lucien had related his life story. ‘Why, your little friends in the rue des Quatre-Vents strike me as being a rare lot of simpletons!’

  His friends of the Cènacle regarded as simpletons! Yet Lucien laughed as he listened to this verdict. He had read his article in print and had just savoured the ineffable bliss, the initial joy which comes but once to flatter an author’s self-esteem. As he read and re-read the article he became more alive to its scope and purport. A manuscript in print is like a woman on the stage – her beauties and her defects are revealed; she can suffer destruction or gain a new lease of life; a flaw leaps to the eye as vividly as a brilliant idea. Lucien was thrilled and thought no more about Nathan, who was merely a stepping-stone for him. He was overjoyed and could see wealth ahead of him. For a youngster who not long ago had strolled modestly down the slopes of Beaulieu in Angoulême on his way back to L’Houmeau and Postel’s garret where the whole family lived on twelve hundred francs a year, the sum which Dauriat had handed over was a Potosi mine. A still vivid memory, but one which the continual enjoyments of Parisian life were to efface, took him back to the Place du MÛrier. He recalled to mind his lovely and noble sister, his David, his poor mother; he immediately sent Berenice to change one of his notes, and in the meantime wrote a short letter to his family. Then he made Berenice hurry off to post, fearing that if he lingered he might not be able to give his mother the five hundred francs he was sending to her address. To him and to Coralie this restitution seemed to be a good deed. The actress kissed Lucien, thought of him as a model son and brother and heaped caresses on him, for such traits of character delight those good-natured girls who wear their hearts on their sleeves.