Parisians in the Country

Parisians in the Country

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Title: Parisians in the Country [Contents: The Illustrious Gaudissart,
and The Muse of the Department]
Author: Honore de Balzac
Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7929] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on June 1, 2003]

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Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARISIANS
IN THE COUNTRY ***

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PARISIANS IN THE COUNTRY
BY
HONORE DE BALZAC

INTRODUCTION
I have sometimes wondered whether it was accident or intention which
made Balzac so frequently combine early and late work in the same
volume. The question is certainly insoluble, and perhaps not worth
solving, but it presents itself once more in the present instance.
/L'Illustre Gaudissart/ is a story of 1832, the very heyday of Balzac's
creative period, when even his pen could hardly keep up with the
abundance of his fancy and the gathered stores of his minute
observation. /La Muse du Departement/ dates ten years and more later,
when, though there was plenty of both left, both sacks had been deeply
dipped into.
/L'Illustre Gaudissart/ is, of course, slight, not merely in bulk, but in
conception. Balzac's Tourangeau patriotism may have amused itself by
the idea of the villagers "rolling" the great Gaudissart; but the ending of
the tale can hardly be thought to be quite so good as the beginning. Still,
that beginning is altogether excellent. The sketch of the
/commis-voyageur/ generally smacks of that /physiologie/ style of
which Balzac was so fond; but it is good, and Gaudissart himself, as
well as the whole scene with his /epouse libre/, is delightful. The
Illustrious One was evidently a favorite character with his creator. He
nowhere plays a very great part; but it is everywhere a rather favorable

and, except in this little mishap with Margaritis (which, it must be
observed, does not turn entirely to his discomfiture), a rather successful
part. We have him in /Cesar Birotteau/ superintending the early efforts
of Popinot to launch the Huile Cephalique. He was present at the great
ball. He served as intermediary to M. de Bauvan in the merciful scheme
of buying at fancy prices the handiwork of the Count's faithful spouse,
and so providing her with a livelihood; and later as a theatrical manager,
a little spoilt by his profession, we find him in /Le Cousin Pons/. But he
is always what the French called "a good devil," and here he is a very
good devil indeed.
Although /La Muse du Departement/ is an important work, it cannot be
spoken of in quite unhesitating terms. It contains, indeed, in the
personage of Lousteau, one of the very most elaborate of Balzac's
portraits of a particular type of men of letters. The original is said to
have been Jules Janin, who is somewhat disadvantageously contrasted
here and elsewhere with Claude Vignon, said on the same rather vague
authority to be Gustave Planche. Both Janin and Planche are now too
much forgotten, but in both more or less (and in Lousteau very much
"more") Balzac cannot be said to have dealt mildly with his /bete noire/,
the critical temperament. Lousteau, indeed, though not precisely a
scoundrel, is both a rascal and a cad. Even Balzac seems a little
shocked at his /lettre de faire part/ in reference to his mistress' child;
and it is seldom possible to discern in any of his proceedings the most
remote approximation to the conduct of a gentleman. But then, as we
have seen, and shall see, Balzac's standard for the conduct of his actual
gentlemen was by no means fantastically exquisite or discouragingly
high, and in the case of his Bohemians it was accommodating to the
utmost degree. He seems to despise Lousteau, but rather for