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Updated: June 17, 2025
In 1844 he published among other books "Modeste Mignon," "Gaudissart II," a fragment of the first part of "L'Envers de L'Histoire Contemporaine," which he entitled "Madame de la Chanterie," the end of the first part of "Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes," the third and last part of "Beatrix," and the first part of "Les Paysans."
It is distinctly awkward that this should be divided, as it is itself an enormous episode, a sort of Herodotean parenthesis, rather than an integral part of the story. And, as a matter of fact, it joins on much more to the Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes than to its actual companions.
See him, for example, in the Splendeurs et Misères des Courtisanes, trying with one hand to write a novel of Parisian manners, with the other a romance of mystery, and to do full justice to both. Trompe-la-Mort, the Napoleon of crime, and Esther, the inspired courtesan, represent the romance, and Balzac sets himself to absorb the extravagant tale into a study of actual life.
And when posterity says, 'He wrote "Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes," "Le Pere Goriot," "Les Parents Pauvres," and "Les Treize," the Academie will answer: 'Yes, but he went on a journey."
It should, of course, be read before Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes, which is avowedly its second part, a small piece of Eve et David serving as the link between them. But it is almost sufficient by and to itself.
Occasionally in the shops one sees that mother and daughter, wistful, eager, half-starved for every good thing in life, expatriated, living shabbily in the upper regions of some respectable pension, detached from the world about them, uprooted from the world at home, travel-jaded, ruin-sated, picture-wise and unbelievably stupid concerning life's real interests the mother and daughter who in the old days lived so numerously amid the splendeurs of Europe, flitting from Rome to Florence, from Florence to Lucerne, from Lucerne to Berlin, and thence to Paris and London, following the seasons like the birds.
At the same time it makes interesting reading; and it will prove especially entertaining to readers of the Comedie Humaine who have dreaded and half-admired the redoubtable law-breaker, who makes his initial entrance in Le Pere Goriot and plays so important a part in Illusions Perdues, and Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes. Here we find Vautrin in a favorite situation.
"My dearest misanthrope," I replied, "what you need is some horse-riding." Maintenant que la belle saison étale les splendeurs de sa robe. Listen! A note is struck which, with an old magic, transforms the world!
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