WOMEN IN THE LIFE OF BALZAC

CHAPTER I

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BALZAC

In the delightful city of Tours, the childhood of Honore de Balzac was spent in the midst of his family.  This consisted of an original and most congenial old father, a nervous, business-like mother, two younger sisters, Laure and Laurentia, and a younger brother, Henri.  His maternal grandmother, Madame Sallambier, joined the family after the death of her husband.

At about the age of eight, Honore was sent to a semi-military college.  Here, after six years of confinement, he lost his health, not on account of any work assigned to him by his teachers, for he was regarded as being far from a brilliant student, but because of the abnormal amount of reading which he did on the outside.  When he was brought home for recuperation, his old grandmother alternately irritated him with her “nervous attacks” and delighted him with her numerous ways of showing her affection.  At this time he wandered about in the fresh air of the province of Touraine, and learned to love its beautiful scenery, which he has immortalized in various novels.

After he had spent a year of this rustic life, his family moved to Paris in the fall of 1814.  There he continued his studies with M. Lepitre, whose Royalist principles doubtless influenced him.  He attended lectures at the Sorbonne also, strolling meanwhile about the Latin Quarter, and in 1816 was placed in the law office of M. de Guillonnet-Merville, a friend of the family, and an ardent Royalist.  After eighteen months in this office, he spent more than a year in the office of a notary, M. Passez, who was also a family friend.

It was probably during this period of residence in Paris that he first met Madame de Berny, she who was later to wield so great an influence over him and who held first place in his heart until their separation in 1832.  Probably at this same period, too, he met Zulma Tourangin, a schoolmate of his sister Laure, and who, as Madame Carraud, was to become his life-long friend.  Of all the friendships that Balzac was destined to form with women, this with Madame Carraud was one of the purest, longest and most beautiful.

Having attained his majority and finished his legal studies, Balzac was requested by his father to enter the office of M. Passez and become a business man, but the life was so distasteful to him that he objected and asked permission to spend his time as best he might in developing his literary ability, a request which, in spite of the opposition of the family, was finally granted for a term of two years.  He was accordingly allowed to establish himself in a small attic at No. 9 rue Lesdiguieres, while his family moved to Villeparisis.