J. Walker McSpadden

“ Balzac's first play was Vautrin, and Vautrin appears as the name of the most astonishing and most original character which Balzac has created and introduced in the five or six greatest novels of the Comedy. So transcendent, super-human and satanic is Vautrin, Herrera, or Jacques Collin, as he is indifferently called, that a French critic has interpreted this personage as a mere allegorical embodiment of the seductions of Parisian life, as they exist side by side with the potency and resourcefulness of crime in the French metropolis. ”

“ For those readers who now make the acquaintance of the dramas, we would say briefly that the Balzac Theatre comprises five plays —Vautrin, Les Ressources de Quinola, Pamela Giraud, La Maratre, and Mercadet. These plays are in prose. They do not belong to the apprenticeship period of the Works of Youth, but were produced in the heyday of his powers, revealing the mature man and the subtle analyst of character, not at his best, but at a point far above his worst. ”

“ This play is, however, ingenious, powerful and interesting in many passages.
Pamela Giraud is fantastic and painful in its plot. Balzac's ideal woman, the Pauline of the Peau de Chagrin, is here placed in a situation revolting even to a Parisian audience; but the selfish worldliness of the rich and noble is contrasted with the pure disinterestedness of a poor working girl in all of Balzac's strongest, most searching style. The denouement is well brought about and satisfactory, but scarcely atones for the outrageous nature of the principal situation. ”

“ Moliere himself might have lent a touch of his refined and fragrant wit to the composition; and the situation is one which the author could realize from experience, but had only learned to regard from a humorous standpoint in the ripeness of his premature old age. Balzac makes money rule in his stories, as the most potent factor of social life. He describes poverty as the supreme evil, and wealth as the object of universal aspiration. In line with this attitude comes Mercadet with his trials and schemes. ”

“ Here we find Vautrin in a favorite situation. He becomes the powerful protector of an unknown young man—much as he picked up Lucien de Rubempre in Illusions Perdues, and attempted to aid Rastignac in Le Pere Goriot—and devotes all his sinister craft to his protege's material interests. The playwright is careful to preserve some degree of the young man's self-respect. Chance favors the two by providing the unknown hero with worthy parents; and Vautrin's schemes unexpectedly work out for good. ”

“ Vautrin is described in the Comedie Humaine as the tempter and benefactor of Lucien de Rubempre, whom he loves with an intense devotion, and would exploit as a power and influence in the social, literary and political world. The deep-dyed criminal seems to live a life of pleasure, fashion and social rank in the person of this protege. ”

“ Scenes of ridiculous surprises succeed each other till by the return of the absconder with a large fortune, the greedy, usurious creditors are at last paid in full, and poetic justice is satisfied by the marriage of Julie to the poor man of her choice. ”

“ Though this influence is apparently far beneath the surface, and does not here manifest itself in open plottings, it is nevertheless vital enough to destroy the happiness of a home—when mixed in the mortar of a woman's jealousy. ”

“ Balzac was especially a novelist of his own period, and the life of his romances is the life he saw going on around him. The principal character in The Stepmother is a Napoleonist general typical of many who must have lived in the first half of the nineteenth century. The ruling passion of General de Grandchamp is hatred for those who deserted the cause or forsook the standard of the First Consul. ”

“ It is filled throughout with a genial humanity, as bright and as expressive as that which fills the atmosphere of She Stoops to Conquer or A School for Scandal. The characters are neither demons, like Cousin Betty, nor reckless debauchees, like Gertrude in The Stepmother. ”

“ Be that as it may, one can accept the statement for dramatic purposes; and the story of the early inventor's struggles and his servant's "resources" is promising enough to leave but one regret—that the master-romancer did not make a novel instead of a play out of the material. Though this is called a comedy, it contains more than one element of tragedy in it, and the tone is moody and satirical. The climax, with its abortive love episode, is anything but satisfactory.
Pamela Giraud, a drama in five acts, was first presented in the Gaite Theatre, Paris, September 26, 1843. ”

“ The action takes place at Paris in 1815-24, during the Napoleonic conspiracies, under Louis XVIII. The Restoration has brought its strong undertow of subdued loyalty for the Corsican—an undertow of plots, among the old soldiers particularly, which for several years were of concern to more than one throne outside of France. ”