Béatrix (Honoré de Balzac)

Overview

Béatrix is a novel by Honoré de Balzac, first published in 1839 (it appeared in Le Siècle in August 1839 and in volume form the same year, under the sub-title ou Les Amours forcés) and later placed in the Scènes de la vie privée of La Comédie humaine (Wikipedia, "Béatrix"; Internet Archive record of the 1839 edition). In Brittany, the young Calyste du Guénic loves the older writer Félicité des Touches, who writes as Camille Maupin and is modelled on George Sand; she is unable to return his feelings and tries to help him win the blonde Marquise Béatrix de Rochefide (modelled on Marie d'Agoult), who is carried off by the musician Gennaro Conti (modelled on Liszt). The critic Claude Vignon (modelled on Gustave Planche) is a further rival (same Wikipedia article).

Marie and Béatrix

The novel enters the diary twice as a gift and twice as a mirror.

• 8 and 10 June 1880 (088.0673, 088.0698): she makes Soutzo read Balzac's Béatrix ("ma tante et moi assises et lui à nos pieds"), but "il ne peut pas lire cela sérieusement. Il ne comprend pas Balzac... ce n'est pas encore son âme qui sera ma sœur de la mienne"; later: "ça ne l'amuse pas".
• 4 January 1883 (097.0351): Julian, speaking of Gambetta and the woman in his life, tells her she will never feel a true passion, that she is not woman enough: "presque la tirade de Claude Vignon à Camille Maupin (voir Béatrix de Balzac)". Marie reports him adding that she will always have a court of admirers: "on m'adorera sans m'aimer".
• 6 April 1884 (103.0746): "Merci, mais ce discours a déjà été tenu par Claude Vignon à Mlle des Touches et il n'y a là rien qui m'humilie." The footnote in the diary glosses the allusion: Vignon analyses the writer Camille Maupin as brilliant, formidable, but lacking the tender feminine qualities that inspire great love.

Notes and doubts

• "Béatrix" is the title used by Marie; there is no doubt about the author (she writes "Béatrix de Balzac").
• The two allusions in 1883 and 1884 show she knew Claude Vignon's speech well enough to cite it by speaker and addressee; the project has not checked her wording against the text of Vignon's scene in the Houssiaux edition.

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Béatrix": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9atrix
• French Wikisource, "Béatrix" (Œuvres complètes de H. de Balzac, tome III, Houssiaux, 1855).
• Internet Archive, Béatrix, ou Les amours forcés, 1839.