The Thirteen – The Girl with the Golden Eyes

.THE HUMAN COMEDY – Honoré de Balzac Ninth volume of works of Honoré de Balzac edited by widow André Houssiaux, publisher, Hebert and Co, successors, 7 rue Perronet – Paris (1877) Scenes from Parisian life HISTOIRE DES TREIZE is a novel comprising 3 episodes under the titles: Ferragus, La Duchesse de Langeais, La Fille aux yeux d’or

THE GIRL WITH GOLDEN EYES  

Work dedicated by Balzac to Eugène Delacroix, painter

Analysis of the work This episode of La Fille aux yeux d’or was imprudently announced as a post-face in the first edition of Ne touchez pas à la hache, the original title of La Duchesse de Langeais. This third episode, announced in April 1834, was not published until eighteen months later, in November 1835, and Balzac seems to have regarded it as pensum. In a letter to Madame Hanska dated March 11, 1835, he speaks bitterly of “this Fille aux yeux d’or nonsense .” It’s a bizarre work, as un-Balzacian as it gets. It begins, however, with an indigestible digression that describes the various social strata of the Parisian population with a salesman’s faconde, which can hardly be considered anything other than a sort of prospectus of the Scenes from Parisian lifestrangely placed in a work that has nothing to do with the meaning of this series. The sequel is a seraglio adventure with kidnapping, duègne, mysterious corridors and mamelukes, featuring Henri de Marsay as the hero and the novelty of one woman’s violent passion for another, ending in murder. Balzac claimed in several places that this was a true story. It is generally thought that the story was told to him by Countess Merlin, a Creole like the two women whose affair Balzac describes. Many critics have praised Balzac for taking on this daring subject. It’s an audacity that’s relative. The same subject had already been tackled several times by contemporary writers. Balzac himself, five years earlier, had recounted in one of his Contes Philosophiques, Sarrasine, the passion of a young French painter for a Roman castrato he had mistaken for a singer. Other critics, such as Albert Béguin, were sensitive to the shimmering colors, the sophisticated style, “fetid and putrid, witty, pushed, illuminated, flickering and marvelous in the way it captures and makes the smallest things shine”, as Sainte-Beuve put it, a shimmer that gives an impression of modernism. In fact, this “turquerie”, which is overly guilloché, is interesting above all for the cruelty and raging ferocity that the author has attributed to Henri de Marsay, traits that are hardly confirmed afterwards by the character’s fate.

The Story The story is a drama of jealousy. Count Henri de Marsay, illegitimate child of Lord Dudley, is a dangerous and elegant member of the Confrérie des Treize. This great manipulator, invested with beauty and charisma, influences the world’s great and good, and makes the most beautiful women in Paris fall at his feet. Moved by the oriental beauty of Paquita, La Fille aux yeux d’or, whom he meets on a stroll, he does everything in his power to seduce her. Seized and loved by the possessive Marquise Margarita-Euphémia Porrabéril de San Réal, who has made her her lover, Paquita cannot resist the charm of this handsome dandy and, at the risk of her life, defies all prohibitions to be able to receive and love her lover in secret. For Paquita, it’s the first man in her life, and she’s soon torn between her love for Henri de Marsay and the fear that the wealthy de San Réal inspires in this submissive woman. For his part, De Marsay, unaware of the mystery surrounding Paquita, harbors suspicions about her that sharpen his jealousy day by day. In the ardor of an embrace, he will feel betrayed in his pride and vanity as a man by a name “Mariquita” other than his own whispered by his belle. Mad with jealousy, he tries to kill her, but fails. Vowing revenge, and aided by Ferragus and the Treize gang, he organizes a new ambush at the Marquise’s the following week. Once again, new circumstances thwart his plans for death. Even so, death comes for Paquita at the hands of Madame de San Réal, who stabs her to death. Madame de San Réal ended her life in the convent of Los Dolores, in Spain. Strangely enough, history reveals that Madame de Réal and M. de Marsay unknowingly share the same father in Lord Dudley. Paris, March 1834-April 1835

Source analysis: Preface and story compiled from the complete works of the Comédie Humaine (Tome XII) published by France Loisirs 1985 under the auspices of the Société des Amis d’Honoré de Balzac.

The characters The Marquise de San Réal: Euphémia Porraberil, wife of the Spanish Marquis de San Réal. Lord Dudley’s natural daughter, she is the mistress and lover of the Girl with the Golden Eyes, whom she has bought from her mother, referred to in the story as “the Georgian”. Paquita Valdès: Young woman aged 22, born in the West Indies in 1793 to an unknown father and a Georgian mother (of Moorish origin). Like a favorite sitting in a caliph’s harem, she is the prisoner and courtesan of Madame de San Réal. The Marquise de San Réal’s passion for Paquita leads to her murder. The Georgian : Paquita’s mother. She comes from a country where women are sold like objects and have a market value. Gambling being an addiction for this woman, she sells her daughter to the Marquise. Henri de Marsay: Dandy and member of the Congrégation des Treize, he is the natural son of Lord Dudley and the Marquise de Vordac. His mother’s first marriage was to an elderly gentleman, Monsieur de Marsay, who recognized Henri as his child. The old gentleman died and Madame de Marsay remarried the Marquis de Vordac. Born in 1792 or 1801, Henri de Marsay was the son of Lord Dudley. Around 1827 he married Dinah Stevens, born in 1791. Christemio: Paquita Valdès’ faithful servant and “watchdog

Source genealogy of characters: Félicien Marceau “Balzac et son monde” Gallimard.