Array The griffin classics - The Collected Works of Honore de Balzac

Dauriat, incapable of taking the epistle seriously, wrote a reply in presence of four or five journalists who happened to be in his office at the time, each of whom added his particular stroke of wit to the production.

Mademoiselle, — Canalis (Baron of), Constant Cys Melchior, member

of the French Academy, born in 1800, at Canalis (Correze), five

feet four inches in height, of good standing, vaccinated, spotless

birth, has given a substitute to the conscription, enjoys perfect

health, owns a small patrimonial estate in the Correze, and wishes

to marry, but the lady must be rich.

He beareth per pale, gules an axe or, sable three escallops

argent, surmounted by a baron’s coronet; supporters, two larches,

vert. Motto: “Or et fer” (no allusion to Ophir or auriferous).

The original Canalis, who went to the Holy Land with the First

Crusade, is cited in the chronicles of Auvergne as being armed

with an axe on account of the family indigence, which to this day

weighs heavily on the race. This noble baron, famous for

discomfiting a vast number of infidels, died, without “or” or

“fer,” as naked as a worm, near Jerusalem, on the plains of

Ascalon, ambulances not being then invented.

The chateau of Canalis (the domain yields a few chestnuts)

consists of two dismantled towers, united by a piece of wall

covered by a fine ivy, and is taxed at twenty-two francs.

The undersigned (publisher) calls attention to the fact that he

pays ten thousand francs for every volume of poetry written by

Monsieur de Canalis, who does not give his shells, or his nuts

either, for nothing.

The chanticler of the Correze lives in the rue de

Paradis-Poissoniere, number 29, which is a highly suitable

location for a poet of the angelic school. Letters must be

post-paid .

Noble dames of the faubourg Saint-Germain are said to take the

path to Paradise and protect its god. The king, Charles X., thinks

so highly of this great poet as to believe him capable of

governing the country; he has lately made him officer of the

Legion of honor, and (what pays him better) president of the court

of Claims at the foreign office. These functions do not hinder

this great genius from drawing an annuity out of the fund for the

encouragement of the arts and belles letters.

The last edition of the works of Canalis, printed on vellum, royal

8vo, from the press of Didot, with illustrations by Bixiou, Joseph

Bridau, Schinner, Sommervieux, etc., is in five volumes, price,

nine francs post-paid.

This letter fell like a cobble-stone on a tulip. A poet, secretary of claims, getting a stipend in a public office, drawing an annuity, seeking a decoration, adored by the women of the faubourg Saint-Germain — was that the muddy minstrel lingering along the quays, sad, dreamy, worn with toil, and re-entering his garret fraught with poetry? However, Modeste perceived the irony of the envious bookseller, who dared to say, “I invented Canalis; I made Nathan!” Besides, she re-read her hero’s poems, — verses extremely seductive, insincere, and hypocritical, which require a word of analysis, were it only to explain her infatuation.

Canalis may be distinguished from Lamartine, chief of the angelic school, by a wheedling tone like that of a sick-nurse, a treacherous sweetness, and a delightful correctness of diction. If the chief with his strident cry is an eagle, Canalis, rose and white, is a flamingo. In him women find the friend they seek, their interpreter, a being who understands them, who explains them to themselves, and a safe confidant. The wide margins given by Didot to the last edition were crowded with Modeste’s pencilled sentiments, expressing her sympathy with this tender and dreamy spirit. Canalis does not possess the gift of life; he cannot breathe existence into his creations; but he knows how to calm vague sufferings like those which assailed Modeste. He speaks to young girls in their own language; he can allay the anguish of a bleeding wound and lull the moans, even the sobs of woe. His gift lies not in stirring words, nor in the remedy of strong emotions, he contents himself with saying in harmonious tones which compel belief, “I suffer with you; I understand you; come with me; let us weep together beside the brook, beneath the willows.” And they follow him! They listen to his empty and sonorous poetry like infants to a nurse’s lullaby. Canalis, like Nodier, enchants the reader by an artlessness which is genuine in the prose writer and artificial in the poet, by his tact, his smile, the shedding of his rose-leaves, in short by his infantile philosophy. He imitates so well the language of our early youth that he leads us back to the prairie-land of our illusions. We can be pitiless to the eagles, requiring from them the quality of the diamond, incorruptible perfection; but as for Canalis, we take him for what he is and let the rest go. He seems a good fellow; the affectations of the angelic school have answered his purpose and succeeded, just as a woman succeeds when she plays the ingenue cleverly, and simulates surprise, youth, innocence betrayed, in short, the wounded angel.

Modeste, recovering her first impression, renewed her confidence in that soul, in that countenance as ravishing as the face of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. She paid no further attention to the publisher. And so, about the beginning of the month of August she wrote the following letter to this Dorat of the sacristy, who still ranks as a star of the modern Pleiades.

To Monsieur de Canalis, — Many a time, monsieur, I have wished to

write to you; and why? Surely you guess why, — to tell you how much

I admire your genius. Yes, I feel the need of expressing to you

the admiration of a poor country girl, lonely in her little

corner, whose only happiness is to read your thoughts. I have read

Rene, and I come to you. Sadness leads to reverie. How many other

women are sending you the homage of their secret thoughts? What

chance have I for notice among so many? This paper, filled with my

soul, — can it be more to you than the perfumed letters which

already beset you. I come to you with less grace than others, for

I wish to remain unknown and yet to receive your entire confidence

— as though you had long known me.

Answer my letter and be friendly with me. I cannot promise to make

myself known to you, though I do not positively say I will not

some day do so.

What shall I add? Read between the lines of this letter, monsieur,

the great effort which I am making: permit me to offer you my

hand, — that of a friend, ah! a true friend.

Your servant, O. d’Este M.

P.S. — If you do me the favor to answer this letter address your

reply, if you please, to Mademoiselle F. Cochet, “poste restante,”

Havre.

CHAPTER VII. A POET OF THE ANGELIC SCHOOL

All young girls, romantic or otherwise, can imagine the impatience in which Modeste lived for the next few days. The air was full of tongues of fire. The trees were like a plumage. She was not conscious of a body; she hovered in space, the earth melted away under her feet. Full of admiration for the post-office, she followed her little sheet of paper on its way; she was happy, as we all are happy at twenty years of age, in the first exercise of our will. She was possessed, as in the middle ages. She made pictures in her mind of the poet’s abode, of his study; she saw him unsealing her letter; and then followed myriads of suppositions.

After sketching the poetry we cannot do less than give the profile of the poet. Canalis is a short, spare man, with an air of good-breeding, a dark-complexioned, moon-shaped face, and a rather mean head like that of a man who has more vanity than pride. He loves luxury, rank, and splendor. Money is of more importance to him than to most men. Proud of his birth, even more than of his talent, he destroys the value of his ancestors by making too much of them in the present day, — after all, the Canalis are not Navarreins, nor Cadignans, nor Grandlieus. Nature, however, helps him out in his pretensions. He has those eyes of Eastern effulgence which we demand in a poet, a delicate charm of manner, and a vibrant voice; yet a taint of natural charlatanism destroys the effect of nearly all these advantages; he is a born comedian. If he puts forward his well-shaped foot, it is because the attitude has become a habit; if he uses exclamatory terms they are part of himself; if he poses with high dramatic action he has made that deportment his second nature. Such defects as these are not incompatible with a general benevolence and a certain quality of errant and purely ideal chivalry, which distinguishes the paladin from the knight. Canalis has not devotion enough for a Don Quixote, but he has too much elevation of thought not to put himself on the nobler side of questions and things. His poetry, which takes the town by storm on all profitable occasions, really injures the man as a poet; for he is not without mind, but his talent prevents him from developing it; he is overweighted by his reputation, and is always aiming to make himself appear greater than he has the credit of being. Thus, as often happens, the man is entirely out of keeping with the products of his thought. The author of these naive, caressing, tender little lyrics, these calm idylls pure and cold as the surface of a lake, these verses so essentially feminine, is an ambitious little creature in a tightly buttoned frock-coat, with the air of a diplomat seeking political influence, smelling of the musk of aristocracy, full of pretension, thirsting for money, already spoiled by success in two directions, and wearing the double wreath of myrtle and of laurel. A government situation worth eight thousand francs, three thousand francs’ annuity from the literary fund, two thousand from the Academy, three thousand more from the paternal estate (less the taxes and the cost of keeping it in order), — a total fixed income of fifteen thousand francs, plus the ten thousand bought in, one year with another, by his poetry; in all twenty-five thousand francs, — this for Modeste’s hero was so precarious and insufficient an income that he usually spent five or six thousand francs more every year; but the king’s privy purse and the secret funds of the foreign office had hitherto supplied the deficit. He wrote a hymn for the king’s coronation which earned him a whole silver service, — having refused a sum of money on the ground that a Canalis owed his duty to his sovereign.