The Muse of the Department
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THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT
BY
HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated by
James Waring
DEDICATION
To Monsieur le Comte Ferdinand de Gramont.
MY DEAR FERDINAND,--If the chances of the world of literature
--_habent sua fata libelli_--should allow these lines to be an
enduring record, that will still be but a trifle in return for the
trouble you have taken--you, the Hozier, the Cherin, the
King-at-Arms of these Studies of Life; you, to whom the Navarreins,
Cadignans, Langeais, Blamont-Chauvrys, Chaulieus, Arthez,
Esgrignons, Mortsaufs, Valois--the hundred great names that form
the Aristocracy of the "Human Comedy" owe their lordly mottoes and
ingenious armorial bearings. Indeed, "the Armorial of the Etudes,
devised by Ferdinand de Gramont, gentleman," is a complete manual
of French Heraldry, in which nothing is forgotten, not even the
arms of the Empire, and I shall preserve it as a monument of
friendship and of Benedictine patience. What profound knowledge of
the old feudal spirit is to be seen in the motto of the
Beauseants, _Pulchre sedens, melius agens_; in that of the
Espards, _Des partem leonis_; in that of the Vandenesses, _Ne se
vend_. And what elegance in the thousand details of the learned
symbolism which will always show how far accuracy has been carried
in my work, to which you, the poet, have contributed.
Your old friend,
DE BALZAC.
THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT
On the skirts of Le Berry stands a town which, watered by the Loire,
infallibly attracts the traveler's eye. Sancerre crowns the topmost
height of a chain of hills, the last of the range that gives variety
to the Nivernais. The Loire floods the flats at the foot of these
slopes, leaving a yellow alluvium that is extremely fertile, excepting
in those places where it has deluged them with sand and destroyed them
forever, by one of those terrible risings which are also incidental to
the Vistula--the Loire of the northern coast.
The hill on which the houses of Sancerre are grouped is so far from
the river that the little river-port of Saint-Thibault thrives on the
life of Sancerre. There wine is shipped and oak staves are landed,
with all the produce brought from the upper and lower Loire. At the
period when this story begins the suspension bridges at Cosne and at
Saint-Thibault were already built. Travelers from Paris to Sancerre by
the southern road were no longer ferried across the river from Cosne
to Saint-Thibault; and this of itself is enough to show that the great
cross-shuffle of 1830 was a thing of the past, for the House of
Orleans has always had a care for substantial improvements, though
somewhat after the fashion of a husband who makes his wife presents
out of her marriage portion.
Excepting that part of Sancerre which occupies the little plateau, the
streets are more or less steep, and the town is surrounded by slopes
known as the Great Ramparts, a name which shows that they are the
highroads of the place.
Outside the ramparts lies a belt of vineyards. Wine forms the chief
industry and the most important trade of the country, which yields
several vintages of high-class wine full of aroma, and so nearly
resembling the wines of Burgundy, that the vulgar palate is deceived.
So Sancerre finds in the wineshops of Paris the quick market
indispensable for liquor that will not keep for more than seven or
eight years. Below the town lie a few villages, Fontenoy and
Saint-Satur, almost suburbs, reminding us by their situation of the
smiling vineyards about Neuchatel in Switzerland.
The town still bears much of its ancient aspect; the streets are
narrow and paved with pebbles carted up from the Loire. Some old
houses are to be seen there. The citadel, a relic of military power
and feudal times, stood one of the most terrible sieges of our
religious wars, when French Calvinists far outdid the ferocious
Cameronians of Walter Scott's tales.
The town of Sancerre, rich in its greater past, but widowed now of its
military importance, is doomed to an even less glorious future, for
the course of trade lies on the right bank of the Loire. The sketch
here given shows that Sancerre will be left more and more lonely in
spite of the two bridges connecting it with Cosne.
Sancerre, the pride of the left bank, numbers three thousand five
hundred inhabitants at most, while at Cosne there are now more than
six thousand. Within half a century the part played by these two towns
standing opposite each other has been reversed. The advantage of
situation, however, remains with the historic town, whence the view on
every side is perfectly enchanting, where the air is deliciously pure,
the vegetation splendid, and the residents, in harmony with nature,
are friendly souls, good fellows, and devoid of Puritanism, though
two-thirds of the population are Calvinists. Under such conditions,
though there are the usual disadvantages of life in a small town, and
each one lives under the officious eye which makes private life almost
a public concern, on the other hand, the spirit of township--a sort of
patriotism, which cannot indeed take the place of a love of home
--flourishes triumphantly.
Thus the town of Sancerre is exceedingly proud of having given birth
to one of the glories of modern medicine, Horace Bianchon, and to an
author of secondary rank, Etienne Lousteau, one of our most successful
journalists. The district included under the municipality of Sancerre,
distressed at finding itself practically ruled by seven or eight large
landowners, the wire-pullers of the elections, tried to shake off the
electoral yoke of a creed which had reduced it to a rotten borough.
This little conspiracy, plotted by a handful of men whose vanity was
provoked, failed through the jealousy which the elevation of one of
them, as the inevitable result, roused in the breasts of the others.
This result showed the radical defect of the scheme, and the remedy
then suggested was to rally round a champion at the next election, in
the person of one of the two men who so gloriously represented
Sancerre in Paris circles.
This idea was extraordinarily advanced for the provinces, for since
1830 the nomination of parochial dignitaries has increased so greatly
that real statesmen are becoming rare indeed in the lower chamber.
In point of fact, this plan, of very doubtful outcome, was hatched in
the brain of the Superior Woman of the borough, _dux femina fasti_,
but with a view to personal interest. This idea was so widely rooted
in this lady's past life, and so entirely comprehended her future
prospects, that it can scarcely be understood without some sketch of
her antecedent career.
Sancerre at that time could boast of a Superior Woman, long misprized
indeed, but now, about 1836, enjoying a pretty extensive local
reputation. This, too, was the period at which two Sancerrois in Paris
were attaining, each in his own line, to the highest degree of glory
for one, and of fashion for the other. Etienne Lousteau, a writer in
reviews, signed his name to contributions to a paper that had eight
thousand subscribers; and Bianchon, already chief physician to a
hospital, Officer of the Legion of Honor, and member of the Academy of
Sciences, had just been made a professor.
If it were not that the word would to many readers seem to imply a
degree of blame, it might be said that George Sand created _Sandism_,
so true is it that, morally speaking, all good has a reverse of evil.
This leprosy of sentimentality would have been charming. Still,
_Sandism_ has its good side, in that the woman attacked by it bases
her assumption of superiority on feelings scorned; she is a blue-
stocking of sentiment; and she is rather less of a bore, love to some
extent neutralizing literature. The most conspicuous result of George
Sand's celebrity was to elicit the fact that France has a perfectly
enormous number of superior women, who have, however, till now been so
generous as to leave the field to the Marechal de Saxe's
granddaughter.
The Superior Woman of Sancerre lived at La Baudraye, a town-house and
country-house in one, within ten minutes of the town, and in the
village, or, if you will, the suburb of Saint-Satur. The La Baudrayes
of the present day have, as is frequently the case, thrust themselves
in, and are but a substitute for those La Baudrayes whose name,
glorious in the Crusades, figured in the chief events of the history
of Le Berry.
The story must be told.
In the time of Louis XIV. a certain sheriff named Milaud, whose
forefathers had been furious Calvinists, was converted at the time of
the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. To encourage this movement in
one of the strong-holds of Calvinism, the King gave said Milaud a good
appointment in the "Waters and Forests," granted him arms and the
title of Sire (or Lord) de la Baudraye, with the fief of the old and
genuine La Baudrayes. The descendants of the famous Captain la
Baudraye fell, sad to say, into one of the snares laid for heretics by
the new decrees, and were hanged--an unworthy deed of the great
King's.
Under Louis XV. Milaud de la Baudraye, from being a mere squire, was
made Chevalier, and had influence enough to obtain for his son a
cornet's commission in the Musketeers. This officer perished at
Fontenoy, leaving a child, to whom King Louis XVI. subsequently
granted the privileges, by patent, of a farmer-general, in remembrance
of his father's death on the field of battle.
This financier, a fashionable wit, great at charades, capping verses,
and posies to Chlora, lived in society, was a hanger-on to the Duc de
Nivernais, and fancied himself obliged to follow the nobility into
exile; but he took care to carry his money with him. Thus the rich
_emigre_ was able to assist more than one family of high rank.
In 1800, tired of hoping, and perhaps tired of lending, he returned to
Sancerre, bought back La Baudraye out of a feeling of vanity and
imaginary pride, quite intelligible in a sheriff's grandson, though
under the consulate his prospects were but slender; all the more so,
indeed, because the ex-farmer-general had small hopes of his heir's
perpetuating the new race of La Baudraye.
Jean Athanase Polydore Milaud de la Baudraye, his only son, more than
delicate from his birth, was very evidently the child of a man whose
constitution had early been exhausted by the excesses in which rich
men indulge, who then marry at the first stage of premature old age,
and thus bring degeneracy into the highest circles of society. During
the years of the emigration Madame de la Baudraye, a girl of no
fortune, chosen for her noble birth, had patiently reared this sallow,
sickly boy, for whom she had the devoted love mothers feel for such
changeling creatures. Her death--she was a Casteran de la Tour
--contributed to bring about Monsieur de la Baudraye's return to
France.
This Lucullus of the Milauds, when he died, left his son the fief,
stripped indeed of its fines and dues, but graced with weathercocks
bearing his coat-of-arms, a thousand louis-d'or--in 1802 a
considerable sum of money--and certain receipts for claims on very
distinguished _emigres_ enclosed in a pocketbook full of verses, with
this inscription on the wrapper, _Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas_.
Young La Baudraye did not die, but he owed his life to habits of
monastic strictness; to the economy of action which Fontenelle
preached as the religion of the invalid; and, above all, to the air of
Sancerre and the influence of its fine elevation, whence a panorama
over the valley of the Loire may be seen extending for forty leagues.
From 1802 to 1815 young La Baudraye added several plots to his
vineyards, and devoted himself to the culture of the vine. The
Restoration seemed to him at first so insecure that he dared not go to
Paris to claim his debts; but after Napoleon's death he tried to turn
his father's collection of autographs into money, though not
understanding the deep philosophy which had thus mixed up I O U's and
copies of verses. But the winegrower lost so much time in impressing
his identity on the Duke of Navarreins "and others," as he phrased it,
that he came back to Sancerre, to his beloved vintage, without having
obtained anything but offers of service.
The Restoration had raised the nobility to such a degree of lustre as
made La Baudraye wish to justify his ambitions by having an heir. This
happy result of matrimony he considered doubtful, or he would not so
long have postponed the step; however, finding himself still above
ground in 1823, at the age of forty-three, a length of years which no
doctor, astrologer, or midwife would have dared to promise him, he
hoped to earn the reward of his sober life. And yet his choice showed
such a lack of prudence in regard to his frail constitution, that the
malicious wit of a country town could not help thinking it must be the
result of some deep calculation.
Just at this time His Eminence, Monseigneur the Archbishop of Bourges,
had converted to the Catholic faith a young person, the daughter of
one of the citizen families, who were the first upholders of
Calvinism, and who, thanks to their obscurity or to some compromise
with Heaven, had escaped from the persecutions under Louis XIV. The
Piedefers--a name that was obviously one of the quaint nicknames
assumed by the champions of the Reformation--had set up as highly
respectable cloth merchants. But in the reign of Louis XVI., Abraham
Piedefer fell into difficulties, and at his death in 1786 left his two
children in extreme poverty. One of them, Tobie Piedefer, went out to
the Indies, leaving the pittance they had inherited to his elder
brother. During the Revolution Moise Piedefer bought up the
nationalized land, pulled down abbeys and churches with all the zeal
of his ancestors, oddly enough, and married a Catholic, the only
daughter of a member of the Convention who had perished on the
scaffold. This ambitious Piedefer died in 1819, leaving a little girl
of remarkable beauty. This child, brought up in the Calvinist faith,
was named Dinah, in accordance with the custom in use among the sect,
of taking their Christian names from the Bible, so as to have nothing
in common with the Saints of the Roman Church.
Mademoiselle Dinah Piedefer was placed by her mother in one of the
best schools in Bourges, that kept by the Demoiselles Chamarolles, and
was soon as highly distinguished for the qualities of her mind as for
her beauty; but she found herself snubbed by girls of birth and
fortune, destined by-and-by to play a greater part in the world than a
mere plebeian, the daughter of a mother who was dependent on the
settlement of Piedefer's estate. Dinah, having raised herself for the
moment above her companions, now aimed at remaining on a level with
them for the rest of her life. She determined, therefore, to renounce
Calvinism, in the hope that the Cardinal would extend his favor to his
proselyte and interest himself in her prospects. You may from this
judge of Mademoiselle Dinah's superiority, since at the age of
seventeen she was a convert solely from ambition.
The Archbishop, possessed with the idea that Dinah Piedefer would
adorn society, was anxious to see her married. But every family to
whom the prelate made advances took fright at a damsel gifted with the
looks of a princess, who was reputed to be the cleverest of
Mademoiselle Chamarolles' pupils and who, at the somewhat theatrical
ceremonial of prize-giving, always took a leading part. A thousand
crowns a year, which was as much as she could hope for from the estate
of La Hautoy when divided between the mother and daughter, would be a
mere trifle in comparison with the expenses into which a husband would
be led by the personal advantages of so brilliant a creature.
As soon as all these facts came to the ears of little Polydore de la
Baudraye--for they were the talk of every circle in the Department of
the Cher--he went to Bourges just when Madame Piedefer, a devotee at
high services, had almost made up her own mind and her daughter's to
take the first comer with well-lined pockets--the first _chien
coiffe_, as they say in Le Berry. And if the Cardinal was delighted to
receive Monsieur de la Baudraye, Monsieur de la Baudraye was even
better pleased to receive a wife from the hands of the Cardinal. The
little gentleman only demanded of His Eminence a formal promise to
support his claims with the President of the Council to enable him to
recover his debts from the Duc de Navarreins "and others" by a lien on
their indemnities. This method, however, seemed to the able Minister
then occupying the Pavillon Marsan rather too sharp practice, and he
gave the vine-owner to understand that his business should be attended
to all in good time.
It is easy to imagine the excitement produced in the Sancerre district
by the news of Monsieur de la Baudraye's imprudent marriage.
"It is quite intelligible," said President Boirouge; "the little man
was very much startled, as I am told, at hearing that handsome young
Milaud, the Attorney-General's deputy at Nevers, say to Monsieur de
Clagny as they were looking at the turrets of La Baudraye, 'That will
be mine some day.'--'But,' says Clagny, 'he may marry and have
children.'--'Impossible!'--So you may imagine how such a changeling as
little La Baudraye must hate that colossal Milaud."
There was at Nevers a plebeian branch of the Milauds, which had grown
so rich in the cutlery trade that the present representative of that
branch had been brought up to the civil service, in which he had
enjoyed the patronage of Marchangy, now dead.
It will be as well to eliminate from this story, in which moral
developments play the principal part, the baser material interests
which alone occupied Monsieur de la Baudraye, by briefly relating the
results of his negotiations in Paris. This will also throw light on
certain mysterious phenomena of contemporary history, and the
underground difficulties in matters of politics which hampered the
Ministry at the time of the Restoration.
The promises of Ministers were so illusory that Monsieur de la
Baudraye determined on going to Paris at the time when the Cardinal's
presence was required there by the sitting of the Chambers.
This is how the Duc de Navarreins, the principal debtor threatened by
Monsieur de la Baudraye, got out of the scrape.
The country gentleman, lodging at the Hotel de Mayence, Rue
Saint-Honore, near the Place Vendome, one morning received a visit
from a confidential agent of the Ministry, who was an expert in
"winding up" business. This elegant personage, who stepped out of an
elegant cab, and was dressed in the most elegant style, was requested
to walk up to No. 3--that is to say, to the third floor, to a small
room where he found his provincial concocting a cup of coffee over
his bedroom fire.
"Is it to Monsieur Milaud de la Baudraye that I have the honor--"
"Yes," said the little man, draping himself in his dressing-gown.
After examining this garment, the illicit offspring of an old chine
wrapper of Madame Piedefer's and a gown of the late lamented Madame de
la Baudraye, the emissary considered the man, the dressing-gown, and
the little stove on which the milk was boiling in a tin saucepan, as
so homogeneous and characteristic, that he deemed it needless to beat
about the bush.
"I will lay a wager, monsieur," said he, audaciously, "that you dine
for forty sous at Hurbain's in the Palais Royal."
"Pray, why?"
"Oh, I know you, having seen you there," replied the Parisian with
perfect gravity. "All the princes' creditors dine there. You know that
you recover scarcely ten per cent on debts from these fine gentlemen.
I would not give you five per cent on a debt to be recovered from the
estate of the late Duc d'Orleans--nor even," he added in a low voice
--"from MONSIEUR."
"So you have come to buy up the bills?" said La Baudraye, thinking
himself very clever.
"Buy them!" said his visitor. "Why, what do you take me for? I am
Monsieur des Lupeaulx, Master of Appeals, Secretary-General to the
Ministry, and I have come to propose an arrangement."
"What is that?"
"Of course, monsieur, you know the position of your debtor--"
"Of my debtors--"
"Well, monsieur, you understand the position of your debtors; they
stand high in the King's good graces, but they have no money, and are
obliged to make a good show.--Again, you know the difficulties of the
political situation. The aristocracy has to be rehabilitated in the
face of a very strong force of the third estate. The King's idea--and
France does him scant justice--is to create a peerage as a national
institution analogous to the English peerage. To realize this grand
idea we need years--and millions.--_Noblesse oblige_. The Duc de
Navarreins, who is, as you know, first gentleman of the Bedchamber to
the King, does not repudiate his debt; but he cannot--Now, be
reasonable.--Consider the state of politics. We are emerging from the
pit of the Revolution.--and you yourself are noble--He simply cannot
pay--"
"Monsieur--"
"You are hasty," said des Lupeaulx. "Listen. He cannot pay in money.
Well, then; you, a clever man, can take payment in favors--Royal or
Ministerial."
"What! When in 1793 my father put down one hundred thousand--"
"My dear sir, recrimination is useless. Listen to a simple statement
in political arithmetic: The collectorship at Sancerre is vacant; a
certain paymaster-general of the forces has a claim on it, but he has
no chance of getting it; you have the chance--and no claim. You will
get the place. You will hold it for three months, you will then
resign, and Monsieur Gravier will give twenty thousand francs for it.
In addition, the Order of the Legion of Honor will be conferred on
you."
"Well, that is something," said the wine-grower, tempted by the money
rather than by the red ribbon.
"But then," said des Lupeaulx, "you must show your gratitude to His
Excellency by restoring to Monseigneur the Duc de Navarreins all your
claims on him."
La Baudraye returned to Sancerre as Collector of Taxes. Six months
later he was superseded by Monsieur Gravier, regarded as one of the
most agreeable financiers who had served under the Empire, and who was
of course presented by Monsieur de la Baudraye to his wife.
As soon as he was released from his functions, Monsieur de la Baudraye
returned to Paris to come to an understanding with some other debtors.
This time he was made a Referendary under the Great Seal, Baron, and
Officer of the Legion of Honor. He sold the appointment as
Referendary; and then the Baron de la Baudraye called on his last
remaining debtors, and reappeared at Sancerre as Master of Appeals,
with an appointment as Royal Commissioner to a commercial association
established in the Nivernais, at a salary of six thousand francs, an
absolute sinecure. So the worthy La Baudraye, who was supposed to have
committed a financial blunder, had, in fact, done very good business
in the choice of a wife.
Thanks to sordid economy and an indemnity paid him for the estate
belonging to his father, nationalized and sold in 1793, by the year
1827 the little man could realize the dream of his whole life. By
paying four hundred thousand francs down, and binding himself to
further instalments, which compelled him to live for six years on the
air as it came, to use his own expression, he was able to purchase the
estate of Anzy on the banks of the Loire, about two leagues above
Sancerre, and its magnificent castle built by Philibert de l'Orme, the
admiration of every connoisseur, and for five centuries the property
of the Uxelles family. At last he was one of the great landowners of
the province! It is not absolutely certain that the satisfaction of
knowing that an entail had been created, by letters patent dated back
to December 1820, including the estates of Anzy, of La Baudraye, and
of La Hautoy, was any compensation to Dinah on finding herself reduced
to unconfessed penuriousness till 1835.
This sketch of the financial policy of the first Baron de la Baudraye
explains the man completely. Those who are familiar with the manias of
country folks will recognize in him the _land-hunger_ which becomes
such a consuming passion to the exclusion of every other; a sort of
avarice displayed in the sight of the sun, which often leads to ruin
by a want of balance between the interest on mortgages and the
products of the soil. Those who, from 1802 till 1827, had merely
laughed at the little man as they saw him trotting to Saint-Thibault
and attending to his business, like a merchant living on his
vineyards, found the answer to the riddle when the ant-lion seized his
prey, after waiting for the day when the extravagance of the Duchesse
de Maufrigneuse culminated in the sale of that splendid property.