The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 7 September 2011
by Honoré de Balzac
We lament the state of human relations. Marriage isn't what it used to be (which usually means it isn't what marriage was in the 1950s, and even then, it wasn't what we imagine it to have been). Human relations seem these days to be all about money, especially among the wealthy and the famous. Some watch the doings of celebutantes as they embarrass themselves in public, usually exposing themselves or their sexual behavior in blurry home videos or on "reality" television. Eventually, they settle down and live amongst their money, marrying one or another of their hangers-on. And this, we say, is the much lamented state of intimate relations in the 21st century. Except that it really isn't anything new, except for the technology.
Here, in 1846, during the July Monarchy and toward the end of Balzac's profound and sprawling Human Comedy, we get the story of libertines in a world in which the author laments the irreligious state of marriage and intimate relationships. The Baron Hulot d'Ervy, wealthy former underling of Napoleon, is an aging satyr, keeping himself active by spending vast amounts of money on actresses, prostitutes and courtesans. His extremely virtuous wife is kept in a state of blissful ignorance of his dalliances. His beautiful daughter Hortense despairs of any appreciable dowry after her father squanders it on his girls. Looking over this tragic family is the wife's spinster cousin Lisbeth, the one everyone calls Cousine Bette. Lisbeth is poor (making this book one of a duet, with Cousin Pons, Balzac styled Poor Relations). She is bitter toward her beautiful and rich cousin, reflecting on how she was treated as a child back in the Vosges. Her secret is that she is keeping a young Polish count, an artist, up in a squalid garret. When Wenceslas's existence becomes known, Hortense connives to marry him. This theft of her pet pushes Cousin Bette to extremes of revenge against the whole family.
As we follow the Baron through his affair with a society courtesan, Valerie, we see Valerie become friends with Bette. Between the two, they conspire to sap Hulot (and Wenceslas, and another dissipated rich merchant, Monsieur Crevel) of all his money, to divide the happily married couples in the family, and to make them regret their vices. The various couplings and betrayals are orchestrated for greatest destructive effect, and Bette manipulates the whole long (and heavily populated) story. We witness the complex legal hoops Crevel and Hulot leap through in order to secure more money to spend on their ladies. Balzac describes a society in which money is the overarching organizing principle amid an incomprehensible Parisian bureaucracy. He laments the distance the society has come away from its Catholic moral path. It is a lament that doesn't sound terribly out of place today. But Balzac is too canny to turn the story on Catholic morals. Sure, he has some faith in the solid rock of religion, but he is wise enough to observe the immovable force that is human nature. The book is dense with characters, convoluted and witty, dark and biting. One of Balzac's many masterpieces.
Also by Balzac: [Cousin Pons] [Ursule Mirouët] [Eugénie Grandet] [Pére Goriot] [Gobseck]