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Balzac and the Marquis de Custine
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Among Balzac's many devoted admirers and literary friends must be listed a third or fourth-rate novelist, playwright, and poet, de Custine. As is well known, the writer of Le Père Goriot had a weakness for aristocrats and the Marquis could well take his place in the galaxy that included a Princesse de Belgiojoso, a Duc de Fitz-James, and a Comtesse Serafina San Severino, not to mention his future son-in-law, Count Mniszech. The friendship no doubt had firmer foundations since it lasted from the early thirties until Balzac's death.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1943
References
1 See account of Koreff in Marietta Martin's Un aventurier intellectuel sous la Restauration et la monarchie de juillet, le docteur Koreff (1783–1851). Paris, 1925.
2 See his letters to his mother published by Paul Bonnefon in the Revue bleue for 1907 and 1910.
3 See the eulogy of “Mme de Varnhagen” by Custine in K. A. Varnhagen von Ense, Denkwürdigkeiten und vermischte Schriften, Neue Folge (Leipzig, 1859), iv, 685–712.
4 Published by C. Louandre and F. Bourquelot (1827–44) as a continuation of Quérard. The reference is iii, 120.
5 This in collaboration with Mme d'Abrantès, Charles Nodier, Alexandre de Laborde et al. The first number appeared August 1, 1835.
6 Œuvres completes (Paris, 1876), xxiv, 321.
7 This appeared in the Revue bleue for November 21, 1903 (xx, 644), and was published by Spoelberch de Lovenjoul.
8 Charles de Lovenjoul, Histoire des Œuvres de Balzac (Paris, 1879), p. 184.
9 For Custine's unfavorable remarks on Hugo's work, see L. Assing, Lettres à Varnhagen von Ense (Bruxelles, 1870), pp. 342–345.
10 xiii, 132.
11 Œuvres complètes, xxii, 239–242.
12 Œuvres complètes, xxii, 496.
13 See Comte de Luppé's edition of de Custine's Lettres inédites au marquis de La Grange (Paris, 1925), p. xxviii.
14 I wish to express here my thanks to the Huntington Library for permission to publish this letter.
15 Was this perhaps the novel Romuald?
16 The mother of Mme Emile de Girardin and a friend of Victor Hugo.
17 Miss Martin (op. cit., p. 80) mentions these gatherings held on Wednesday evenings opposite St. Germain des Prés and a further meeting Mondays in summer at the baron's Auteuil residence.—It is to be noted that Balzac gave the first reading of his play l'Ecole des ménages (1839) at de Custine's residence. Cf. Victor Leather's L'Espagne et les Espagnols dans I'œuvre de Honoré de Balzac, Paris, 1931, p. 105.
18 Mme Hanska.
19 L'Espagne sous Ferdinand VII.
20 Œuvres complètes, xxiv, 500.
21 Does this refer perhaps to Georges Mniszech, the son-in-law of Mme Hanska, who was traveling with her family in Italy at the time. He was, however, a count, not a prince.
22 See Victor Leathers—L'Espagne et Us Espagnols dans l'œuvre de Honoré de Balzac (Paris, 1931), p. 105.