Zacharie Marcas

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

ZACHARIE MARCAS Scenes from political life   Short story published in Paris in July 1840 in the first issue of Revue Parisienne and sold as a novel in Paris in October 1841 by publisher Dessessart.

Analysis of the work If you need to be familiar with Balzac’s work to appreciate Le député d’Arcis, you need to be just as familiar to understand the enigmatic short story entitled Z.Marcas. This story appeared in July 1840 in the first issue of the Revue Parisienne, a political and literary combat magazine for which Balzac hoped to achieve the same success as Alphonse Karr with his periodical pamphlet Les Guêpes. In this instance, Balzac had imitated the format, character, layout and polemical tone invented by Alphonse Karr. But Balzac had higher ambitions than the witty libellist. He wanted to express his political ideas, to show the weaknesses and errors of the system of government established by the July Days, and to appear as a political thinker whom events would point to as a precursor and guide. Obviously, a news item prominently featured in the first issue of such a magazine had to mean something. It’s a sort of prologue. Balzac recounts the unhappy experiences of a political thinker who is, from every point of view, a first-rate man, but without any fortune. He had to put his knowledge and genius at the service of a politician whose career he was making, in the hope of obtaining from him the means to cross the threshold of censal suffrage and become a member of parliament. He is deceived by this character, courageously accepts difficult roles from which he derives no benefit, struggles for ten years, and, after a period of complete misery, attempts a final experiment, the outcome of which inspires such disgust that he is broken and dies. Marcas’ principles, Marcas’ grievances, his program are, of course, the principles, grievances and program that Balzac will develop in La Revue Parisienne. His life in a garret, his courage, his studies, are a transposition of Balzac’s poor youth in his early years. Z. Marcas, at the head of La Revue Parisienne, is the author and his election poster. Marcas’s ideas are the political application of Balzac’s energetic approach, present in various forms throughout his work. Nations are like people: their strength and future depend on their vital force, i.e. their energy. In a nation, the vital force is represented by the young, and the energy of the nation is formed by their energy and selflessness. Napoleon, Louis XIV, and England in its periods of crisis, were able to base their power on intelligent youth. The July monarchy did the opposite: it was a regime of old men, based on an old men’s conception of life, embodying through its constitution and laws the interests and pusillanimities of sexagenarians. Such a regime will one day be toppled by the explosion of youth kept on the sidelines: today, says Balzac, the Barbarians who camp on the frontiers of nations are those intelligences that have been outlawed. All the political positions of La Revue Parisienne are contained in this speech-program that Marcas addresses to the two young neighbors in the attic. This was Balzac’s destination for his story. But we also needed a canvas. Marcas’ eventful life and bitter experiences were to provide the backdrop. But we had to be quick, we had to be short. The Marcas story was the subject ofLost Illusions, transcribed into the world of politics. To treat it with all its developments, with the circumstances that made it dramatic, would have required all the space Balzac needed for Un grand homme de province à Paris. This is the weakness of this curious news. Lost Illusions can’t be told in thirty pages. It’s a shame. If Balzac had had time to extract from his subject all the magic lantern views he merely enumerates, Z. Marcas would undoubtedly have been the most beautiful and complete Scènes de la vie politique. “Balzac tells this romantic story in a violent, darkly colored style that borders on the poetic. The work is of particular interest in that it initiates the great novelist’s later judgment of contemporary society, viewing with absolute pessimism the new political society born of the July Revolution of 1830.”

The Story Zéphirin Marcas, a native of Vitré of modest origins and remarkable intelligence, put all his energy into obtaining his doctorate in law, then trying his hand at journalism, then attempting to enter politics. Housed in a garret, dressed in rags, his young neighbors nicknamed him “the ruins of Palmyra”.

The “Z” appended to his name would already have something fatal about it, but we can’t see why… In the society of Louis-Philippe’s time, poverty was an insurmountable obstacle. After having exhausted himself writing to earn a living, after having sought the support of a former minister, whom Zéphirin had helped and who promised him wonders, Marcas is rejected as soon as he is no longer needed. He falls into the most horrible decline and dies. His body was dumped in a mass grave in the Montparnasse cemetery. The story is told by Charles Rabourdin, son of Xavier Rabourdin, the employee of Les Employés ou la Femme supérieure, who was Marcas’ neighbor in a dismal apartment building when he was a student. Charles did his best to alleviate Marcas’ misery, supplying him with linen from one of his conquests. He has a very dark vision of the social and political state of France, a vision that fits in perfectly with Marcas’ unhappy fate.

Genealogy ofcharacters Zéphirin Marcas : Politician, died 1883. Xavier Rabourdin: Born in 1784, office manager at the Ministry of Finance. Husband of Célestine Leprince, born in 1796, from whom a son Charles, born in 1815, and a daughter.

Sources: 1) Analysis: Preface from the ^19th volume of La Comédie Humaine, published by France Loisirs in 1987, based on the full text published under the auspices of the Société des Amis d’Honoré de Balzac, 45, rue de l’Abbé-Grégoire – 75006 Paris.

2) Analysis: Wikipedia.

3) History: Wikipedia universal encyclopedia.

4) Character geology: Félicien Marceau “Balzac et son monde” Gallimard.