When I posted my review of Il Figlio Maledetto by Balzac, Emmanuelle de Boysson, when I sent her my review, said me: "I wrote a book about Balzac's lovers!". I immediately said her: send me the book, I want to read it!
Balzac amoureux
was for sure a fascinating reading.
First of all Honoré de Balzac has never been immensely loved by his mother. He had a father pretty bubbling, if I can use this expression, so very sociable, and also a smiling guy; their parents were the perfect couple, you could think...But, no, the mother of Balzac fell in love with with another gentleman with which she had had the second son, after Honoré, Henry, much much much more loved than not him.
For this reason Honoré had nasty words regarding her mother and sincerely he didn't never paint her in great shapes in her books. If the mother guessed that there was something strongly biographical in that son's words we can't know.
For sure, that ones were signals of love, launched in many different ways by Honoré. This son wanted to become a writer but the mother in particular was skeptical although she didn't make any kind of oppositions.
Balzac dreamed a of woman as writes Emmanuelle: "....Idéale, maternelle, ange et démon, courtisane sensuelle, confidente, grande dame fortunée, douce et piquante", someone maternal, but also a sort of angel/demon, a sensual courtesan, confident, someone a big lucky, sweet but spicey at the same time."
I know: an ideal woman. It's difficult to find these characteristics just in a person.
But as we will see the research of Balzac became pretty intense also thanks to the bad maternal example he had had and undere many ways he replicated that love he hadn't had with and for more adult women.
First of all let's say that the most important people of his young adult age are marked by women all called Laure; starting from thre mother, passing through the siblings, Antoinette de Berny realistically was another Laure. During the second part of his existence he will try without any success to seduct Henriette de Castries, but, not able to winning the lady, he will find some consolation with Zulma Garraud. The final love was Mme Hanska; at the end he will marry her!
Balzac was an enthusiast about women and that's why he portrayed them compulsively, letting us see in all his books the best and worse of women.
Humiliated women, but also unhappy marriages and, sufferences, feminists, secretive souls, there is a range of characters not indifferent in the literary production by Balzac.
It was a big love the one with Mme Berny.
Daughter of the teacher of harp of Marie Antoinette, yes the queen, her mother was one of the dames of Marie Antoinette, Mme de Berny was an interesting lady: more old than Balzac's mother, but still sensual, little and with a pretty face.
Although at first Mme Berny would want to arrange a marriage with one of her daughters, Balzac is interested in Mme de Berny. Balzac is just 22 years, Berny 45.
Yes maybe she was what meant, writes the author, for Jean Jacques Rousseu Mme de Warens: "une mère et une amante" a mother and a lover. Voices of this unusual and embarassing love-storty starts to circulate and the mother of Balzac will try to divide the two lovers.
Divided by destiny, Balzac will start to write confessing that a writer is someone with a free spirit.
At 25 years Balzac decides that he wants to become completely independent and he lives with more freedom her relationship with Laure. Laura at first will be crucial for the career of Balzac; but wait, when the two pigeons could be happy together, Balzac knows another lady of 41 years, Laure d’Abrantès. This one is a napoleonic legend. Balzac falls in love for her as well!
Yes, Honoré started a relationship with this second Laure and for years he will keep two secret love-stories. Passionate, original, these ones the treat that are keeping both these women close to him.
Mme d’Abrantès will introduce him at Juliette Récamier muse of Chateaubriand and Benjamin Constant. When discovered that he has also a relationship with Berny, Balzac promises loyalty, but there are other problems for Balzac, who, at some point will leave for Versailles but will assist at the decable of the printing. Laura de Berny remains at the same time always close to him. She is 52 now but nothing is changed in her heart.
« Ô toi ! Toi, céleste cher ! Rester en extase, absorbée par mes souvenirs, est tout ce que je puis. Comment te dire mon bonheur ? (…) J’aurais souhaité, dans mon rêve plein de folie, être aimée à la manière du ciel… À toi ; salut, honneur, amour…
Sure she starts to be jealous of Laure d'Albrentès. The pleasure donated him by the duchess can't be avoided by Honoré. He had a strong appetite for women and Berny was his favorite.
Victor Hugo, 27 years, on july, invites Balzac for the lecture: Marion Delorme. In that occasion Berny won't attend the event. She prefers a low profile. The ambivalence relationship with the other Laure continues and one day Balzac will write in a beautiful love-letter: "Tu sais que mon cœur, c’est toi qui le possèdes..."
At the same time Honoré de Balzac publishes Physiologie du Mariage, a book that violently remarks the inconsistence of a marriage, affirming the sex equality.
Balzac loved women so badly and understood very well their psychological dramas, being in grade also of understanding their weaknesses, for "manipulating" them.
Victor Hugo was deeply involved in policy, but not Balzac. As writes Emmanuelle "En pleine force de l’âge, Honoré laisse libre cours à sa soif d’érotisme et à ses fantasmes."
Balzac becomes famous thanks to his writings and everyone want to see him. 55 years, Berny is a woman that continues to donate him a lot of pleasure, but not just this: she is a lady that corrects his writings.
As said before, he knew Henriette de Castries but she won't be available and secretely in love for him, Zulma Garraud will try all her best for conquering Balzac.
A big cholera epidemic is taking place in Paris and once returned home Balzac is horrified to see this scenario. And plus, he remains chronically unsatisfied, because he notices that he didn't yet settle down with any woman. Now he is rich, famous, and, oh what a joy if he could marry someone of noble origin, maybe rich, beauty; more than these treats, what Balzac is searching is the biggest love, the one that let you say: she is that one!
And the ONE is reading his books close to a fireplace. Her name is Éveline Hanska; in exhile in a place that she can't consider her hometown, she considers herself greatly misunderstood.
One day she writes to the publishing house and the letter arrives to Balzac but the sender's name is just L’Étrangère. Someone he doesn't know and couldn't know and firstly, someone mysterious.
Balzac will discover who the lady is. Very young married with a wealthy man, Balzac is galvanized because he understands that this lady is also very rich. He will spend in an epistolary love-story with Eveline something like 17 years of his existence.
Oh, in the while he continued to live.
Berny understands the danger of this relationship and she tries her best for interrupt this weird liaison: with the opposite effect.
Balzac, where possible, will fall much more in love for Eveline, and after a lot of years, more than adult, he will marry her.
On 1850 he died and her mother close to the corpse of this son who wanted just to be adored by her, at the end repeated all the time as a mantra: « Je suis fière de toi ,» I am proud of you.
At the end, she said these words to his son. Pity that he could not listen anymore and he could not heal anymore for her lack of affection.
Beautiful book. Quick, engaging, passionate as all the french books are, it's a great reading!
Highly recommended!
I thank Emmanuelle de Boysson for the copy of this book.
Anna Maria Polidori
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