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101-666: Michel Lévy frères published such authors as Honoré de Balzac , Gustave Flaubert , and Antoinette Henriette Clémence Robert ; some of their works were illustrated by Eugène Lampsonius . This article about a publishing company is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This French corporation or company article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Honor%C3%A9 de Balzac Honoré de Balzac ( / ˈ b æ l z æ k / BAL -zak , more commonly US : / ˈ b ɔː l -/ BAWL - ; French: [ɔnɔʁe d(ə) balzak] ; born Honoré Balzac ; 20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850)

202-533: A classified advertisement in the Gazette de France , hoping that his anonymous critic would see it. Thus began a fifteen-year correspondence between Balzac and "the object of [his] sweetest dreams": Ewelina Hańska . Ewelina ( née Rzewuska) was married to a nobleman twenty years her senior, Marshal Wacław Hański , a wealthy Polish landowner living near Kyiv . It had been a marriage of convenience to preserve her family 's fortune. In Balzac Countess Ewelina found

303-495: A hyphen ("-"), implying that equal importance is given to both families, do not indicate nobility. For example, the hyphenated surname Suárez-Llanos does not indicate nobility. In Switzerland , de or von , depending on canton of origin, precedes a noble name, de showing a Romance language background and von showing a German or Allemanic background. In the Middle Ages, the words de , borrowed from Latin and French, and

404-458: A pallbearer and the eulogist at Balzac's funeral. Some modern researchers have attributed a factor in his death to excessive coffee consumption or a caffeine overdose (Balzac reportedly drank over 50 cups a day) but this has yet to be proved. Balzac is buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. At his memorial service, Victor Hugo pronounced "Today we have people in black because of the death of

505-406: A type foundry . His inexperience and lack of capital caused his ruin in these trades. He gave the businesses to a friend (who made them successful) but carried the debts for many years. As of April 1828 Balzac owed 50,000 francs to his mother. Balzac never lost his penchant for une bonne spéculation . It resurfaced painfully later when—as a renowned and busy author—he traveled to Sardinia in

606-456: A "Horace de Saint-Aubin". These books were potboiler novels, designed to sell quickly and titillate audiences. In Saintsbury's view, "they are curiously, interestingly, almost enthrallingly bad". Saintsbury indicates that Robert Louis Stevenson tried to dissuade him from reading these early works of Balzac. American critic Samuel Rogers, however, notes that "without the training they gave Balzac, as he groped his way to his mature conception of

707-526: A Polish aristocrat and his longtime love. He died in Paris six months later. Honoré de Balzac was born into a family which aspired to achieve respectability through its industry and efforts. His father, born Bernard-François Balssa, was one of eleven children from an artisan family in Tarn , a region in the south of France. In 1760 he set off for Paris with only a Louis coin in his pocket, intent on improving his social standing ; by 1776 he had become Secretary to

808-602: A bridge over the river Loire . In 1816 Balzac entered the Sorbonne , where he studied under three famous professors: François Guizot , who later became Prime Minister , was Professor of Modern History; Abel-François Villemain , a recent arrival from the Collège Charlemagne , lectured on French and classical literature; and, most influential of all, Victor Cousin 's courses on philosophy encouraged his students to think independently. Once his studies were completed, Balzac

909-437: A closely plotted novella of only fifty pages. According to the literary critic Kornelije Kvas, "Balzac's use of the same characters (Rastignac, Vautrin) in different parts of The Human Comedy is a consequence of the realist striving for narrative economy". Balzac's work habits were legendary. He wrote from 1 A.M. to 8 A.M. every morning and sometimes even longer. Balzac could write very rapidly; some of his novels, written with

1010-554: A family. The particle used varies depending on the country, language and period of time. In some languages, it is the same as a regular prepositional particle that was used in the creation of many surnames . In some countries, it became customary to distinguish the nobiliary particle from the regular one by a different spelling, although in other countries these conventions did not arise, occasionally resulting in ambiguity. The nobiliary particle can often be omitted in everyday speech or certain contexts. In Denmark and Norway , there

1111-442: A garret furnished in the most Spartan fashion, with a starvation allowance and an old woman to look after him", while the rest of the family moved to a house twenty miles (32 km) outside Paris. Balzac's first project was a libretto for a comic opera called Le Corsaire , based on Lord Byron 's The Corsair . Realizing he would have trouble finding a composer, however, he turned to other pursuits. In 1820 Balzac completed

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1212-558: A good knowledge of hanging wallpaper. Balzac transferred this to his descriptions of the Pension Vauquer in Le Père Goriot , making the wallpaper speak of the identities of those living inside. Some critics consider Balzac's writing exemplary of naturalism —a more pessimistic and analytical form of realism, which seeks to explain human behavior as intrinsically linked with the environment. French novelist Émile Zola declared Balzac

1313-520: A hyphen, e.g. David Lloyd George . In the United Kingdom, a multi-barrelled name was indicative of good pedigree and social standing, such that there was and remains a link between hyphenated names and nobility and gentry . This was to preserve the names of aristocratic families which had died out in the mainline. When this was to occur, it was generally possible for the last male member of his family to convey his "name and arms" ( coat of arms ) with

1414-510: A kindred spirit for her emotional and social desires, with the added benefit of feeling a connection to the glamorous capital of France. Their correspondence reveals an intriguing balance of passion, propriety and patience; Robb says it is "like an experimental novel in which the female protagonist is always trying to pull in extraneous realities but which the hero is determined to keep on course, whatever tricks he has to use". Marshal Hański died in 1841, and his widow and her admirer finally had

1515-481: A massive temporal rift; the first part (of four) covers a span of six years, while the final two sections focus on just three days. Le Cousin Pons (1847) and La Cousine Bette (1848) tell the story of Les Parents Pauvres ( The Poor Relations ). The conniving and wrangling over wills and inheritances reflect the expertise gained by the author as a young law clerk. Balzac's health was deteriorating by this point, making

1616-418: A near-fatal accident in 1832 (he slipped and cracked his head on the street), Balzac decided not to stand for election. 1831 saw the success of La Peau de chagrin ( The Wild Ass's Skin or The Magic Skin ), a fable-like tale about a despondent young man named Raphaël de Valentin who finds an animal skin which promises great power and wealth. He obtains these things, but loses the ability to manage them. In

1717-477: A person to add a de to their surname if it does not already have it. The law does allow for one exception: a de may be added in front of a surname that could be otherwise misunderstood as a forename. Conclusive proof of the nobility of a surname can be determined by establishing whether that surname is associated with a blazon , since for centuries coats of arms have been borne legally only by persons of noble condition. Surnames composed of two names linked by

1818-591: A place name follow on from a family surname, as in the name "Aeneas MacDonell of Glengarry". If the place name is identical to the surname, it is sometimes rendered as "that Ilk", e.g. " Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk ". Recognition of a territorial designation is granted in Scotland by the Lord Lyon to Scottish armigers (those entitled to bear a coat of arms ) who own or were born in or are associated with named land, generally in

1919-411: A quill, were composed at a pace equal to thirty words per minute on a modern typewriter. His preferred method was to eat a light meal at five or six in the afternoon, then sleep until midnight. He then rose and wrote for many hours, fueled by innumerable cups of black coffee. He often worked for fifteen hours or more at a stretch; he claimed to have once worked for 48 hours with only three hours of rest in

2020-476: A result, he was frequently sent to the "alcove", a punishment cell reserved for disobedient students. (The janitor at the school, when asked later if he remembered Honoré, replied: "Remember M. Balzac? I should think I do! I had the honour of escorting him to the dungeon more than a hundred times!") Still, his time alone gave the boy ample freedom to read every book which came his way. Balzac worked these scenes from his boyhood—as he did many aspects of his life and

2121-429: A rural area not forming part of a town. The Lord Lyon advises that for a territorial designation to be recognised there must be "ownership of a substantial area of land to which a well-attested name attaches, that is to say, ownership of an 'estate', or farm or, at the very least, a house with policies extending to five acres or thereby". The territorial designation in this case is considered to be an indivisible part of

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2222-452: A treatise on "the means of preventing thefts and murders, and of restoring the men who commit them to a useful role in society", in which he heaped disdain on prison as a form of crime prevention.) In 1814 the Balzac family moved to Paris, and Honoré was sent to private tutors and schools for the next two and a half years. This was an unhappy time in his life, during which he attempted suicide on

2323-553: A writer, he attempted to be a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician; he failed in all of these efforts. La Comédie humaine reflects his real-life difficulties, and includes scenes from his own experience. Balzac suffered from health problems throughout his life, possibly owing to his intense writing schedule. His relationship with his family was often strained by financial and personal drama, and he lost more than one friend over critical reviews. In 1850, Balzac married Ewelina Hańska ( née   Contessa Rzewuska ),

2424-487: A young poet trying to make a name for himself, who becomes trapped in the morass of society's darkest contradictions. Lucien's journalistic work is informed by Balzac's own failed ventures in the field. Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes ( The Harlot High and Low , 1847) continues Lucien's story. He is trapped by the Abbé Herrera ( Vautrin ) in a convoluted and disastrous plan to regain social status. The book undergoes

2525-452: Is a "patronymic- de - toponymic " formula, as used by, among others, the fifteenth-century general Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba , the fourteenth-century chronicler and poet Pero López de Ayala , the European discoverer of the eastern Pacific, Vasco Núñez de Balboa , and many other conquistadors . The second style is use of the particle de before the entire surname. This style resembles but

2626-411: Is a distinction between (1) nobiliary particles in family names and (2) prepositions denoting an individual person's place of residence. Nobiliary particles like af , von , and de (English: of ) are integrated parts of family names. The use of particles was not a particular privilege for the nobility. On the other hand, particles were almost exclusively used by and associated with them. Especially in

2727-423: Is a substitute for all previous surnames' prepositions except the first one, and cannot ever be used without a previous preposition to justify it. An exception to this rule is only shown with duplicate surnames linked by e , for instance maternal surnames that come before the paternal ones: Diogo Afonso da Conceição e Silva (name and mother's duplicate surname) Tavares da Costa (paternal duplicate surname). From

2828-477: Is also significant that both "de" and "of" were used simply to show geographical origin in the names of people of all classes, so that in England and Wales neither word should be looked on as in themselves nobiliary. Despite the lack of official significance of the words "de" or "of" in names, there was sometimes a perception that they connoted nobility. For example, on 8 October 1841, a month after Thomas Trafford

2929-616: Is commemorated on 16 May, four days before Balzac's birthday) was actually the second child born to the Balzacs; exactly one year earlier, Louis-Daniel had been born, but he lived for only a month. Honoré's sisters Laure and Laurence were born in 1800 and 1802, and his younger brother Henry-François in 1807. As an infant Balzac was sent to a wet nurse ; the following year he was joined by his sister Laure and they spent four years away from home. (Although Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau 's influential book Émile convinced many mothers of

3030-430: Is justified, they can be used together ( von und zu ): the ruler of Liechtenstein as of 2022, for example, is Johannes Adam Ferdinand Alois Josef Maria Marko d'Aviano Pius von und zu Liechtenstein . In some cases – although unusually, and perhaps introduced to distinguish collateral branches of the same family – these more common particles might be supplemented with auf (i.e., residing at yet another place different from

3131-450: Is more ambiguous than the French one, since there is no convention for a different spelling when the de is simply a prepositional particle in non-noble toponymic names such as De la Rúa (literally, "of the street") or De la Torre ("of the tower"). Examples of the nobiliary particle de without patronymic include the names of the sixteenth-century Álvaro de Bazán, 1st Marquis of Santa Cruz and

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3232-420: Is not made good until receiving official recognition; Learney comments: "mere assumption is not sufficient to warrant these territorial and chiefly names". A person bearing a Scottish territorial designation is either a Feudal Baron , Chief or Chieftain or a Laird , the latter denoting "landowner", or is a descendant of one of the same. The Lord Lyon is the ultimate arbiter as to determining entitlement to

3333-591: Is placed behind a person's full name in order to denote his or her place of residence, for example Sigurd Jonsson til Sudreim . In France —and in England , largely as a result of the Norman Conquest —the particle de precedes a nom de terre ('name of land') in many families of the French nobility: for example, Maximilien de Béthune . A few do not have this particle: for example, Pierre Séguier , Lord Chancellor of France . The particle can also be du ('of the' in

3434-510: Is reflective of the author's own life, a possible attempt to stabilize it through fiction. "The vanishing man", wrote Sir Victor Pritchett, "who must be pursued from the rue Cassini to ...  Versailles , Ville d'Avray , Italy, and Vienna can construct a settled dwelling only in his work". Balzac's extensive use of detail, especially the detail of objects, to illustrate the lives of his characters made him an early pioneer of literary realism . While he admired and drew inspiration from

3535-457: The Catholic Church . In the preface to La Comédie humaine he wrote: "Christianity, above all, Catholicism, being ... a complete system for the repression of the depraved tendencies of man, is the most powerful element of social order". In the late 1820s Balzac dabbled in several business ventures, a penchant his sister blamed on the temptation of an unknown neighbour. His first enterprise

3636-539: The Earls Spencer are prominent, and the illustrious background of the Churchills, who hark back to their founder-hero, the prominent military leader John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough and whose descendants had died out in the male line (typically the male line descent would be placed last, so that it would have been 'Churchill-Spencer' had the royal licence not specified that it would be 'Spencer-Churchill'). Some of

3737-575: The King's Council and a Freemason (he had also changed his name to the more noble sounding "Balzac", his son later adding—without official recognition—the nobiliary particle : " de "). After the Reign of Terror (1793–94), François Balzac was despatched to Tours to coordinate supplies for the Army . Balzac's mother, born Anne-Charlotte-Laure Sallambier, came from a family of haberdashers in Paris. Her family's wealth

3838-501: The Romantic style of Scottish novelist Walter Scott, Balzac sought to depict human existence through the use of particulars. In the preface to the first edition of Scènes de la Vie privée , he wrote: "the author firmly believes that details alone will henceforth determine the merit of works". Plentiful descriptions of décor, clothing, and possessions help breathe life into the characters. For example, Balzac's friend Henri de Latouche had

3939-420: The chateau is a museum dedicated to the author's life. In 1833, as he revealed in a letter to his sister, Balzac entered into an illicit affair with fellow writer Maria Du Fresnay, who was then aged 24. Her marriage to a considerably older man (Charles du Fresnay, Mayor of Sartrouville ) had been a failure from the outset. In this letter, Balzac also reveals that the young woman had just come to tell him she

4040-465: The 18–34 demographic hyphenating their surnames as of 2017. In modern times, a nobiliary particle (as the term is widely understood on the Continent) is rarely used. More usual is the territorial designation , which in practice is almost identical. In Scotland, there is strictly no nobiliary particle, but the use of the word of as a territorial designation has a long history. In this usage, "of" and

4141-479: The 19th century on, it became customary for Portuguese titled nobility to indicate their titles as subsidiary surnames, as, for instance, in the name of Diana Álvares Pereira de Melo, 11th Duchess of Cadaval who goes by Diana de Cadaval after her title. This social rule does not apply to members of the Portuguese royal house . In Spain , the nobiliary particle de is also used in two different styles. The first

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4242-552: The Balzac Monument has stood since 1939 nearby the intersection of Boulevard Raspail and Boulevard Montparnasse at Place Pablo-Picasso. Rodin featured Balzac in several of his smaller sculptures as well. The Comédie humaine remained unfinished at the time of his death—Balzac had plans to include numerous other books, most of which he never started. He frequently flitted between works in progress . "Finished articles" were frequently revised between editions. This piecemeal style

4343-622: The Counts Zichy, having received donations of the two estates of Zichy and Vásonkeő (the first located in Somogy County and the second in Veszprém county ), used de Zichy and de Vásonkeő ; as this family used two nobiliary particles, the construction in Latin for the whole family name is Comes Zichy de Zichy et Vásonkeő : the Latin conjunction et (and) connects the estate's names. In Hungarian ,

4444-454: The English of , were often used in names in England and Wales , as in " Simon de Montfort " and " Richard of Shrewsbury ". The usage of "de" is often misunderstood, as in most cases it was used only in documents written in Latin or French. At the time, in translating into English, "de" was sometimes converted into "of" and sometimes omitted; only rarely was it used in the English form of a name. It

4545-459: The French nobility have often been composed of a combination of patronymic names, titles, or noms de terres ('names of lands' or estates) joined by the preposition de , as in " Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord ". The use of this particle began to be an essential appearance of nobility. Following the end of the Kingdom of France , however, the use of de did not invariably denote nobility. In

4646-584: The Norman article "de", signifying that a family originated from a particular place, was generally dropped in England. The resumption of such older versions of family names was a Romantic trend in 19th-century England, encouraged by a mistaken belief that the article "de" indicated nobility. As in Spain, English and Welsh surnames composed of two names linked by a hyphen ("-") do not necessarily indicate nobility, e.g. Rees-Jones ; not all double barrelled names require

4747-427: The author to write short stories, which Le Poitevin would then sell to publishers. Balzac quickly turned to longer works, and by 1826 he had written nine novels, all published under pseudonyms and often produced in collaboration with other writers. For example, the scandalous novel Vicaire des Ardennes (1822)—banned for its depiction of nearly-incestuous relations and, more egregiously, of a married priest—attributed to

4848-517: The bearer. Modern Portuguese law recognises any citizen's right not to sign these particles, even if they are present in that citizen's identification documents, and the opposite right, i.e. to sign one's name with such particles even if not present in one's documents, is also recognized. In fact, articles and prepositions are considered in Portuguese nomenclature an embellishment to any name. Traditionally, good taste made Portuguese nobility cut down on

4949-506: The bourgeois title character) are dynamic and complex. It is followed by La Duchesse de Langeais , arguably the most sublime of his novels. Le Père Goriot ( Old Father Goriot , 1835) was his next success, in which Balzac transposes the story of King Lear to 1820s Paris in order to rage at a society bereft of all love save the love of money. The centrality of a father in this novel matches Balzac's own position—not only as mentor to his troubled young secretary, Jules Sandeau, but also

5050-410: The ceremony took a toll on both husband and wife: her feet were too swollen to walk, and he endured severe heart trouble. Although he married late in life, Balzac had already written two treatises on marriage: Physiologie du Mariage and Scènes de la Vie Conjugale . These works lacked firsthand knowledge; Saintsbury points out that "cœlebs cannot talk of [marriage] with much authority". In late April

5151-849: The chance to pursue their affections. A rival of the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt , Balzac visited Countess Hańska in Saint Petersburg in 1843 and won her heart. After a series of financial setbacks, health problems and objections from Tsar Nicholas I , the couple finally received permission to wed. On 14 March 1850, with Balzac's health in serious decline, they travelled by carriage from her family seat at Verhivnya Park in Volhynia to St. Barbara's Catholic Church in Berdychiv (Russia's former banking city in present-day Ukraine), where they were married by Abbot Ożarowski. The ten-hour journey to and from

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5252-413: The city of Paris, a backdrop for much of his writing, takes on many human qualities. His writing influenced many famous writers, including the novelists Émile Zola , Charles Dickens , Marcel Proust , Gustave Flaubert , and Henry James , and filmmakers François Truffaut and Jacques Rivette . Many of Balzac's works have been made into films and continue to inspire other writers. James called him "really

5353-560: The collapse of his businesses, Balzac traveled to Brittany and stayed with the De Pommereul family outside Fougères . There he drew inspiration for Les Chouans (1829), a tale of love gone wrong amid the Chouan royalist forces. Although he was a supporter of the Crown , Balzac paints the revolutionaries in a sympathetic light—even though they are the center of the book's most brutal scenes. This

5454-407: The common people and are among the most common Portuguese surnames today, so the de particle and its variations have not indicated nobility for centuries. Furthermore, Portuguese nobility, irrespective of any noble name with or without particle, is traditionally recognised only in people both of whose grandfathers and grandmothers are noble. Portuguese surnames do not indicate nobility, as usually

5555-460: The completion of this pair of books a significant accomplishment. Many of his novels were initially serialized, like those of Dickens . Their length was not predetermined. Illusions Perdues extends to a thousand pages after starting inauspiciously in a small-town print shop, whereas La Fille aux yeux d'or ( The Girl with the Golden Eyes , 1835) opens with a broad panorama of Paris but becomes

5656-509: The conquistador Hernando de Soto . This is a common tradition in Spanish culture. Unlike French, Spanish lacks elision , and so no contraction is used when the surname starts with a vowel (though exceptionally we find Pedro Arias Dávila ), but contraction is used when the surname includes the article el as in Baltasar del Alcázar . A Spanish law on names from 1958 and still in force does not allow

5757-561: The decision was also significant; as Robb explained: "The disappearance of the father coincides with the adoption of the nobiliary particle. A symbolic inheritance." Just as his father had worked his way up from poverty into respectable society, Balzac considered toil and effort his real mark of nobility. When the July Revolution overthrew Charles X in 1830, Balzac declared himself a Legitimist , supporting King Charles' Royal House of Bourbon , but not without qualifications. He felt that

5858-446: The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some middle-class families simply adopted the particle without being ennobled; Maximilien Robespierre 's family, for example, used the particle for some generations. In Germany and Austria , von (descending from ) or zu (resident at ) generally precedes the surname of a noble family (in, for example, the names of Alexander von Humboldt and Gottfried Heinrich Graf zu Pappenheim ). If it

5959-420: The end, his health fails and he is consumed by his own confusion. Balzac meant the story to bear witness to the treacherous turns of life, its "serpentine motion". In 1833 Balzac released Eugénie Grandet , his first best-seller. The tale of a young lady who inherits her father's miserliness, it also became the most critically acclaimed book of his career. The writing is simple, yet the individuals (especially

6060-468: The fact that he had fathered a child, Marie-Caroline Du Fresnay , with his otherwise-married lover, Maria Du Fresnay , who had been his source of inspiration for Eugénie Grandet . In 1836 Balzac took the helm of the Chronique de Paris , a weekly magazine of society and politics. He tried to enforce strict impartiality in its pages and a reasoned assessment of various ideologies. As Rogers notes, "Balzac

6161-461: The father of the naturalist novel . Zola indicated that whilst the Romantics saw the world through a colored lens, the naturalist sees through a clear glass—precisely the sort of effect Balzac attempted to achieve in his works. Nobiliary particle A nobiliary particle is a type of onomastic particle used in a surname or family name in many Western cultures to signal the nobility of

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6262-471: The father of us all." An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac had trouble adapting to the teaching style of his grammar school. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. When he finished school, Balzac was apprenticed in a law office , but he turned his back on the study of law after wearying of its inhumanity and banal routine. Before and during his career as

6363-439: The five-act verse tragedy Cromwell . Although it pales by comparison with his later works, some critics consider it a good-quality text. When he finished, Balzac went to Villeparisis and read the entire work to his family; they were unimpressed. He followed this effort by starting (but never finishing) three novels: Sténie , Falthurne , and Corsino . In 1821 Balzac met the enterprising Auguste Le Poitevin , who convinced

6464-644: The grandest members of the British aristocracy have triple-barrelled names, for instance the Vane-Tempest-Stewart family, who hold the marquessate of Londonderry ; for a while, the Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos bore five surnames: Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville. In contemporary Britain this correlation has weakened, as more middle and lower-class families have started hyphenating their names on marriage, and/or passing it to their issue, with 11% of newly-weds in

6565-465: The grindstone, doing the same thing over and over again.... I am hungry and nothing is offered to appease my appetite". He announced his intention to become a writer. The loss of this opportunity caused serious discord in the Balzac household, although Honoré was not turned away entirely. Instead, in April 1819 he was allowed to live in the French capital—as English critic George Saintsbury describes it—"in

6666-436: The headmaster to contact his family with news of a "sort of a coma". When he returned home, his grandmother said: " Voilà donc comme le collège nous renvoie les jolis que nous lui envoyons! " ("Look how the academy returns the pretty ones we send them!") Balzac himself attributed his condition to "intellectual congestion", but his extended confinement in the "alcove" was surely a factor. (Meanwhile, his father had been writing

6767-499: The hideous wrangling of heirs over corpses not yet cold, the human heart grappling with the Penal Code". In 1819 Passez offered to make Balzac his successor, but his apprentice had had enough of the Law. He despaired of being "a clerk, a machine, a riding-school hack, eating and drinking and sleeping at fixed hours. I should be like everyone else. And that's what they call living, that life at

6868-551: The hopes of reprocessing the slag from the Roman mines there. Near the end of his life Balzac was captivated by the idea of cutting 20,000 acres (81 km ) of oak wood in Ukraine and transporting it for sale in France. After writing several novels, in 1832 Balzac conceived the idea for an enormous series of books that would paint a panoramic portrait of "all aspects of society". The moment

6969-493: The idea came to him, Balzac raced to his sister's apartment and proclaimed: "I am about to become a genius!" Although he originally called it Etudes des Mœurs (literally 'Studies of manners', or 'The Ways of the World') it eventually became known as La Comédie humaine , and he included in it all the fiction that he had published in his lifetime under his own name. This was to be Balzac's life work and his greatest achievement. After

7070-579: The late 17th and 18th centuries, a person would often receive a particle along with his or her old or new family name when ennobled. Examples are families like de Gyldenpalm (lit. 'of Goldenpalm') and von Munthe af Morgenstierne (lit. 'of Munthe of Morningstar'). Otherwise, particles would arrive together with immigrants. Examples are families like von Ahnen . Prominent non-noble families having used particles are von Cappelen , von der Lippe , and de Créqui dit la Roche . The preposition til (English: to , but translates as of ; comparable with German zu )

7171-547: The lives of those around him—into La Comédie humaine . His time at Vendôme is reflected in Louis Lambert , his 1832 novel about a young boy studying at an Oratorian grammar school at Vendôme. The narrator says : "He devoured books of every kind, feeding indiscriminately on religious works, history and literature, philosophy and physics. He had told me that he found indescribable delight in reading dictionaries for lack of other books." Balzac often fell ill, finally causing

7272-462: The main surname element in the 19th century, such as von Werden → Vonwerden . In the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary Latin was the official language in which royal decrees and all kinds of legal documents were issued. Hungarian noble families used the nobiliary particle de with the name of an estate granted by the King as a royal donation. For instance, the aristocratic Hungarian family of

7373-516: The man of talent; a nation in mourning for a man of genius". The funeral was attended by "almost every writer in Paris", including Frédérick Lemaître , Gustave Courbet , Dumas père and Dumas fils , as well as representatives of the Légion d'honneur and other dignitaries. Later, a statue (called the Monument to Balzac ) was created by the celebrated French sculptor Auguste Rodin . Cast in bronze,

7474-511: The masculine form), d' (used, per the rules of orthography , when the nom de terre begins with a vowel; for example, Ferdinand d'Orléans ), or des ('of the' in the plural). In French, de indicates a link between the land and a person—either landlord or peasant . The nobleman was always designated escuyer , for ' squire ' in English form ( dapifer in Latin), or chevalier for ' knight ' ( equites in Latin). Only knights were designated by

7575-492: The middle. Balzac revised obsessively, covering printer's proofs with changes and additions to be reset. He sometimes repeated this process during the publication of a book, causing significant expense both for himself and the publisher. As a result, the finished product quite often was different from the original text. Although some of his books never reached completion, some—such as Les employés ( The Government Clerks , 1841)—are nonetheless noted by critics. Although Balzac

7676-419: The name, not in itself necessarily indicating historical feudal nobility, but recognition in a territorial designation is usually accorded alongside the grant or matriculation of a Scottish coat of arms , which effectively confers or recognises minor nobility status, even if not ancient. Despite this, the right to bear a territorial designation can also exist for landowners who are not armigerous , but this right

7777-497: The names of their manors, and in a few cases nicknames, into their names. For instance, Egas Gomes, lord of Sousa, became Egas Gomes de Sousa . King Alfonso X 's son Fernando was said to be born with a hairy mole and was called Fernando de la Cerda ("Fernando of the Bristle"), and his son Fernando kept the nickname as his second name and was also called Fernando de la Cerda . In the 15th and 16th centuries, these surnames were adopted by

7878-619: The new July Monarchy (which claimed widespread popular support) was disorganized and unprincipled, in need of a mediator to keep the political peace between the King and insurgent forces. He called for "a young and vigorous man who belongs neither to the Directoire nor to the Empire, but who is 1830 incarnate...." He planned to be such a candidate , appealing especially to the higher classes in Chinon . But after

7979-550: The newly-weds set off for Paris. His health deteriorated on the way, and Ewelina wrote to her daughter about Balzac being "in a state of extreme weakness" and "sweating profusely". They arrived in the French capital on 20 May, his fifty-first birthday. Five months after his wedding, on Sunday, 18 August 1850, Balzac died of gangrene associated with congestive heart failure , in the presence of his mother—his wife, Eve de Balzac (formerly Countess Hańska) had gone to bed. He had been visited that day by Victor Hugo, who later served as

8080-567: The novel, and without the habit he formed as a young man of writing under pressure, one can hardly imagine his producing La Comédie humaine ". Biographer Graham Robb suggests that as he discovered the Novel, Balzac discovered himself. During this time Balzac wrote two pamphlets in support of primogeniture and the Society of Jesus . The latter, regarding the Jesuits , illustrated his lifelong admiration for

8181-450: The official records of homosexuals once maintained by the Paris police were finally released, his name was found listed. In February 1832 Balzac received an intriguing letter from Odessa —with no return address and signed simply " L'Étrangère " ("The Foreigner")—expressing sadness at the cynicism and atheism in La Peau de Chagrin and its negative portrayal of women. His response was to place

8282-573: The one zu refers to and meaning [up]on in English): Von A-dynasty/place, zu B-town, auf C-ville/location/residence . Rarer variants are "von der", "von dem", "zum", "zur", etc. As in France and Spain, not all noble families use a nobiliary particle. The names of the most ancient nobility, the Uradel , but also names of some old untitled nobility, often do not contain either von or zu , such as Grote , Knigge or Vincke . Conversely,

8383-591: The prefix von occurs in the names of 200 to 300 non-noble families, much like van in the Netherlands. Especially in northwestern Germany, e.g. Bremen, Hamburg, Holstein, Lower Saxony, Schleswig, Westphalia, and in German-speaking Switzerland, the particles von , zu , etc., may be elements in non-noble surnames and usually designate the place of origin. In Austria and Bavaria, non-noble surnames containing von were widely altered by compounding it to

8484-400: The prepositions linking their many surnames, and they would sign just one at the beginning of the name; the last surname would be preceded by e (and). For instance, the name João Duarte da Silva dos Santos da Costa de Sousa should be signed just as João Duarte da Silva Santos Costa e Sousa . In the present day, it may also legally be signed João Duarte Silva Santos Costa Sousa . The last e

8585-497: The relevant county or town of origin is represented with the suffix -i at its end: so, in the case of this family, the place names would be written as zicsi and vásonkeői and would be placed before the family name; the two place names are connected by the Hungarian és (and). So the result would be zicsi és vásonkeői Zichy . Starting in the High Middle Ages, West Iberian nobles, who had only used patronyms, started adding

8686-426: The rest of his estate via his will, usually to a male descendant of one of his female relatives, who would then apply for a royal licence to take the name. Royal licences could similarly be obtained where the applicant's mother was a heraldic heiress , although this was less common. For instance, Sir Winston Spencer Churchill 's surname evidences his descendancy from both the aristocratic Spencer family , amongst whom

8787-619: The same surnames exist in noble and non-noble families. The restriction to nobility and the clergy of bearing arms at the beginning of the 16th century, when king Manuel I extinguished the previous bourgeoisie armorial, usually shows someone to be noble if he or she bears personal or family arms. But nobility in Portugal was never restricted to the bearers of arms, and many Portuguese nobles did not or do not have arms at all. The preposition de and its different orthographic forms ( do , dos , da and das ), as in France, do not indicate nobility in

8888-450: The second he would not have been at home there.... [H]e felt it was his business not to frequent society but to create it". However, he often spent long periods at the Château de Saché , near Tours , the home of his friend Jean de Margonne, his mother's lover and father to her youngest child. Many of Balzac's tormented characters were conceived in the chateau's small second-floor bedroom. Today

8989-433: The spoken style monseigneur or messire for ' sir ' ( dominus in Latin), as, for example, "monseigneur Bertrand du Guesclin , chevalier"—in English form, "Sir Bertrand du Guesclin, knight". By convention, surnames with the non-noble use of the particle de are spelled as a single word (e.g., " Pierre Dupont "), though many such surnames conserved the de as a separate word. Since the sixteenth century, surnames among

9090-406: The time to nurse their own children, sending babies to wet nurses was still common among the middle and upper classes.) When the Balzac children returned home, they were kept at a frosty distance from their parents, which affected the author-to-be significantly. His 1835 novel Le Lys dans la vallée features a cruel governess named Miss Caroline, modeled after his own caregiver. At age ten Balzac

9191-433: Was "by turns a hermit and a vagrant", he managed to stay in tune with the social spheres which nourished his writing. He was friends with Théophile Gautier and Pierre-Marie-Charles de Bernard du Grail de la Villette , and he was acquainted with Victor Hugo . Nevertheless, he did not spend as much time in salons and clubs of Paris like many of his characters. "In the first place he was too busy", explains Saintsbury, "in

9292-415: Was 30 years old at the time). This was the first work signed "Honoré de Balzac". He followed his father in the surname Balzac but added the aristocratic-sounding nobiliary particle to help him fit into respected society, a choice based on skill rather than by right. "The aristocracy and authority of talent are more substantial than the aristocracy of names and material power", he wrote in 1830. The timing of

9393-578: Was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence La Comédie humaine , which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is generally viewed as his magnum opus . Owing to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature . He is renowned for his multi-faceted characters; even his lesser characters are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. Inanimate objects are imbued with character as well;

9494-451: Was a considerable factor in the match: she was eighteen at the time of the wedding, and François Balzac fifty. As the author and literary critic Sir Victor Pritchett explained, "She was certainly drily aware that she had been given to an old husband as a reward for his professional services to a friend of her family and that the capital was on her side. She was not in love with her husband". Honoré (named after Saint-Honoré of Amiens , who

9595-414: Was created the 1st Baronet de Trafford , Queen Victoria issued a royal licence to "Sir Thomas Joseph Trafford ... that he may henceforth resume the ancient patronymic of his family, by assuming and using the surname of De Trafford, instead of that of 'Trafford' and that such surname may be henceforth taken and used by his issue." The anglicisation to Trafford had probably occurred in the 15th century, when

9696-503: Was in publishing which turned out cheap one-volume editions of French classics including the works of Molière . This business failed miserably, with many of the books "sold as waste paper". Balzac had better luck publishing the Memoirs of the Duchess of Abrantès , with whom he also had a love affair. Balzac borrowed money from his family and friends and tried to build a printing business, then

9797-599: Was interested in any social, political, or economic theory, whether from the right or the left." The magazine failed, but in July 1840 he founded another publication, the Revue Parisienne . It produced three issues. These dismal business efforts—and his misadventures in Sardinia—provided an appropriate milieu in which to set the two-volume Illusions perdues ( Lost Illusions , 1843). The novel concerns Lucien de Rubempré,

9898-442: Was persuaded by his father to follow him into the Law; after a stint in the office of the avoué Jean-Baptiste Guillonnet-Merville for three years he trained and worked at the office of the notary Édouard-Victor Passez, a family friend. During this time Balzac began to understand the vagaries of human nature. In his 1840 novel Le Notaire , he wrote that a young person in the legal profession sees "the oily wheels of every fortune,

9999-448: Was pregnant with his child. In 1834, 8 months after the event, Maria Du Fresnay's daughter by Balzac, Marie-Caroline Du Fresnay, was born. This revelation from French journalist Roger Pierrot in 1955 confirmed what was already suspected by several historians: the dedicatee of the novel Eugénie Grandet , a certain "Maria", turns out to be Maria Du Fresnay herself. Balzac had also long been suspected of being attracted to males as well. When

10100-513: Was sent to the Oratorian grammar school in Vendôme , where he studied for seven years. His father, seeking to instill the same hardscrabble work ethic which had gained him the esteem of society, intentionally gave little spending money to the boy. This made him the object of ridicule among his much wealthier schoolmates. Balzac had difficulty adapting to the rote style of learning at the school. As

10201-496: Was the first book Balzac released under his own name, and it gave him what one critic called "passage into the Promised Land". It established him as an author of note (even if its historical fiction-genre imitates that of Sir Walter Scott ) and provided him with a name outside his past pseudonyms. Soon afterwards, around the time of his father's death, Balzac wrote El Verdugo —about a 30-year-old man who kills his father (Balzac

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