The Muse of the Department

THE HUMAN COMEDY – Honoré de Balzac Sixth volume of works of Honoré de Balzac edited by widow André Houssiaux, publisher, Hebert and Co, successors, 7 rue Perronet – Paris (1877)

Scenes from provincial life

THE DEPARTMENT’S MUSE Signed à Monsieur le comte Ferdinand de Gramont Mon cher Ferdinand, si les hasards (habent sua fata libelli) du monde littéraire font de ces lignes un long souvenir, ce sera certainement peu de chose en comparaison des peines que vous avez donnés vous le d’Hozier, le Chérin, le Roi d’Armes DES ETUDES DE MŒURS ; you to whom the Navarreins, the Cadignans, the Langeais, the Blamont-Chauvry, the Chaulieu, the d’Arthez, the d’Esgrignon, the Mortsauf, the Valois, the hundred noble houses that constitute the aristocracy of the Human comedy owe their beautiful mottos and witty coats of arms. Also L’ARMORIAL DES ETUDES DE MŒURS INVENTED BY FERDINAND DE GRAMONT, GENTILHOMME, is a complete history of the French coat of arms, in which you have left nothing out, not even the arms of the Empire, and which I shall keep. as a monument to Benedictine patience and friendship. What knowledge of the old feudal language in the Pulchrè sedens, meliùs agens! the Beauséants? in the :Des partem Leonis! d’Espard? in the : Don’t sell! of the Vandenesse family? Last but not least, what coquetry in the thousand details of this skilful iconography that will show how far fidelity will be pushed in my undertaking, to which you, the poet, will have helped. Your old friend De Balzac.

Preamble La Muse du département is a novel that may have been started in 1832, but was probably revised in 1837, the text finally being published by Werdet that year as part of Scènes de la vie de province dans l’ensemble des Parisiens en province. Then, in 1843, it was published by Souverain, still in the same classification. In the meantime, the novel has undergone numerous reworkings and changes of classification, to the point where we get lost in the ramifications of its history.

Analysis of the work George Sand is mentioned by name in this portrait of Femme auteur, the title of which she humorously uses in Histoire de ma vie, when referring to her friend Balzac. Without irony, she presents herself as a kind of departmental muse. Balzac has already explained (or will later clarify in Autre étude de femme) what he means by a talented woman. The heroine of La Muse du département , on the other hand, is a woman-like-it-is-not, i.e. untalented, intoxicated by unattainable dreams. A bas-bleu who thinks she’s obliged to experience love-passion because she’s written poems about it. ” La Muse du département presents a whole society. This text can thus be compared to the masterpieces Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes and Illusions perdues. This short novel creates a bridge between the various sections of La Comédie Humaine: Scenes from Private Life (it’s a Woman’s Study), Scenes from Parisian Life and Scenes from Provincial Life. ” La Muse du département is another novel in the “Parisians in the provinces” genre. First published under the title Dinah Piedefer, the name of the novel’s heroine, it is first and foremost a work remarkable for the speed with which it was written. Balzac wrote the story in a month, at the beginning of 1843. At the time, Balzac was in debt and behind on his commitments. “It has to be done in a fortnight,” he writes when announcing his new novel on March 2, and complains that his head is tired, empty. Serial publication begins on March 20 and ends on April 29. Let’s see how Balzac went about achieving this miracle. The novel is in two parts: the first is set in Sancerre, in the Berry region of France. The main character is Madame de la Baudraye, a provincial, intelligent and courageous woman who is bored with her life. Her days are empty, marked by the avarice and indifference of a greedy, disillusioned old husband. The only people who attend her parties are narrow-minded and deeply bigoted. Only a small circle of intimates share Dinah’s wit. The consequences of the arrival of Parisians Etienne Lousteau, a journalist, and Horace Bianchon, a doctor (both from the Berry region) will provide the material for the rest of the novel. The first part is quickly “tied up” with the novelist’s tools: scissors and a pot of glue. He explored his archives and found stories that had already been published and paid for. These tales, written 12 years earlier in collaboration with a collective collection entitled Les contes bruns (Brown Tales ), were signed by “a backwards head”, pictured on the cover. This collection included three tales by Balzac: The story of Chevalier de Beauvoir, La grande Bretèche and The Great of Spain which were presented together with reflections, interruptions describing the freedom of expression of an evening among friends, all entitled A conversation between eleven and midnight. A second use of these same tales took place a little later, in 1832, in the form of a short story entitled Le conseil (The Council), which does not appear in Balzac’s works due to the fact that Balzac had it butchered. Appearing in this second presentation were two Machiavellian storytellers intent on frightening a lover and the young woman he coveted by showing them the tragic outcome of three stories of adultery.

The Story To extend her local fame and establish her reputation as a provincial writer, poet Dinah de la Baudraye, wife of Count and Peer of France Jean-Anastase-Polydore de la Baudraye, invited Sancerre physician Horace Bianchon and Parisian journalist Etienne Lousteau. During their stay, the handsome Etienne, a lawless seducer, begins an affair with the beautiful Dinah. Madly in love with him, she follows him to Paris, where she hopes to make his talents as an author known and appreciated. Unfortunately, neither happiness nor notoriety was forthcoming, and two pregnancies put an end to the beautiful love story. The fickle Etienne shirks his duties and neglects Dinah, who is left destitute. Despite this ruined existence, Madame de la Baudraye was nevertheless fortunate to enjoy the indulgence of an ever-loving husband and the support of her old friend Clagny. Reason will prevail. She left Paris to return to her home in Sancerre, where she raised her three children (one from her union with M. de la Baudraye and two from her affair with Etienne Lousteau).

Source analysis:

1) Preface and story based on the full text of the Comédie Humaine (tome IX) published by France Loisirs 1985 under the auspices of the Société des Amis d’Honoré de Balzac –

2) Wikipedia.

The characters Dinah de la Baudraye: Born Piedefer in 1807 to a Protestant family from Bourges, she married Jean-Anastase-Polydore de la Baudraye, from whom she had a son named Polydore. She had another son and a daughter from her affair with Etienne Lousteau. Jean-Anastase-Polydore de la Baudraye: (1780) Count and peer of France, husband of Dinah Piedefer and father of Polydore. Horace Bianchon: Born around 1796, physician. Etienne Lousteau: (1799) Son of Issoudun subdelegate who died in 1800. Etienne, a journalist, is the father of Madame de la Baudraye’s last two children.

Character genealogy source: Félicien Marceau “Balzac et son monde” Gallimard

Tribute to George Sand and Stendhal La Muse du département is the literary version of a Madame Bovary who takes up writing and, like the monkey she is, tries to ape George Sand, the model to whom she wants to conform. Balzac, who is so understanding of women, shows himself to be very hard on a woman who believes she has talent, but who mixes literature with adultery. No doubt because her admiration and friendship for George Sand could not stand the rough copies that abounded at the time. As well as paying tribute to George Sand, Balzac confirms his admiration for another author who had just died: Stendhal, whose value he had been the first to recognize, and whom he evokes in the form of fragments of literary criticism. Few authors have paid such heartfelt and sincere tribute during their lifetime as Balzac did, both in his journals and in his books, to the authors he sincerely admired. This is yet another characteristic of the spontaneous, uncalculated man who was the author of La Comédie Humaine. Even if his brain was lined with numbers, as Baudelaire lamented, his heart was certainly not.

Source for preamble and tributes: Wikipedia Universal Encyclopedia