Biography of Honoré De Balzac

The great comedy

20 may 1799
18 August 1850
Honoré De Balzac was born in Tours on 20 may 1799 by Bernnard-François and Charlotte-Laure Sallambier. The family belongs to the middle class in those years, in almost all of Europe was growing fast. His childhood gray and cold, marked by perennial disagreement which exists between parents, spends substantially in solitude. Internal to the College of the Oratorians studies how to fairly rigid discipline and Vendôme features great pressure required in the study. Too much for a free spirit and erratic as Honoré. Stress, in fact (as we would call it today), causes a big mental prostration, which forces him to a year of inactivity. Resumed his studies, he moved to Paris with his family. In the French capital he enrolled at the Faculty of law, and once after graduating, begins to live on his own, the family had moved into the province.
In 1822 he began a relationship with the Countess Laure de Berny, 22 years his senior and, at the same time, he began his first experiments in the field of literary fiction, which he himself relied very little consideration. In an attic of the Bastille, from 1821 to 1829, alone or in collaboration with Auguste Le Poitevin, a commercial publisher, writes works of popular fiction, signed with pseudonyms such as Horace de Saint-Aubin or Lord r'hoone. However, the early literary activity was very stingy with satisfaction ever restless and unable to sit still, both mentally and physically, gets some writer's temperament that closes in the classic ivory tower. In fact, he likes to take risks, to experiment and you feel inside a certain entrepreneurial spirit.
Financed then by lovers and family, implanting a publishing house, which soon is joined by a print shop and a foundry. The plans are ambitious, want to establish itself on the market but, unfortunately, does nothing but rack up debt, despite the brilliant idea to invent and launch a cheap necklace, authentic newness at the time. It is thus forced to close all tasks he had painstakingly put together. On the creative plan, instead, begin to see each other in fruit of a certain literary maturity reached also thanks to the many trials and experiments of juvenile novels. The first work of any importance is the historical novel, signed with his real name, "The Chouans", which is the background of the revolt in the Vendée. The 1829 is also the year of the masterpiece that is "the physiology of marriage", which won him great fame following the great scandal and the dust raised by the petition.
His life is characterized by intense social life alongside a busy publicist working with various newspapers including "Revue des deux mondes", "Silhouttee", "La Reveu de Paris", "Caricature" and "Le Voleur". Despite then maintains the relationship with the old mistress, the Marquise de Castrie unhappy passion for breaks out. Meanwhile also began a correspondence with the Countess Eve Hanska, which will then be the woman of his life (the writer will marry her only in 1850, a few months before his death). In 1833 enters into a book deal to publish twelve volumes of "Customs and traditions in the 18th century," divided into "scenes of private life, the life of the province and of Parisian life". It is essentially a sketch of the future "human comedy", the huge cycle that Balzac had planned to write. In fact, in 1834 Balzac conceived the idea of merging all its narrative production in a single monumental work, a composite fresco of the French society of his time, from the first empire the restoration.
A colossal project inspired by the theories of naturalists Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (the intent was to include 150 work novels divided into three main areas: costume Studies, philosophical studies and analytical studies). The project was accomplished by two-thirds. The most famous are "Pere Goriot" (1834-35), "Eugénie Grandet (1833)," her cousin Betta "(1846)," The quest for the absolute "(1834) and" lost illusions "(1837-1843). In these novels he captures well an aspect of Balzac's realism, that is its attention to mundane details of everyday life. Far from any type of idealization, the characters are typically obsessively embroiled in material problems, such as those of work and money. The latter in particular seems to emerge as the new company's pin from the studies and as a source of all crimes. In 1837 is hounded by creditors. Thus began a series of trips undertaken certainly for cultural interest, but mostly to keep away from the persistent requests of money that the trail of debt produced inevitably caused.
Is in Italy and stay for a long time in Milan, and attended the Salon of Countess Maffei, by meeting the local giant of letters, Alessandro Manzoni. Visit Florence, Venice, Leghorn, Genoa. In addition, it undertakes an unsuccessful trip to Sardinia with the hope to reactivate the local silver mines. Back at home, agrees with a group of publishers for the publication of his complete works according to a plan at its discretion while shortly thereafter dies on husband of Eve Hanska. So finally opens the prospect of a stable married life but marital aspirations are frustrated by the hesitation of madame Hanska that fears of losing her husband's assets by marrying a foreigner On 24 April 1845 is decorated Knight of the Legion of Honor. Despite the success of his books and certificates of esteem on the part of institutions and personalities, its economic situation remains dire. Health, then, is steadily worsening. On 14 March 1850 we celebrate the long-awaited wedding, but the conditions of the writer are now desperate. On 20 May the bride and groom are in Paris. A few months to enjoy the wedding and on 18 August, Balzac died. Funerals are held solemn and moved to Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, with speech commemorating the friend who a few years earlier had vainly called for his candidacy to the Académie de France, Victor Hugo.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.