Paris, Levavasseur – Urbain Canel, 1830.
2 volumes 8vo of: (2) ll., pp. (vij)-xxxv, (2) ll., 328 pp. misnumbered 332; 352 pp. Dark green half-calf with corners, spine with raised bands decorated with gilt and blind tooling, sprinkled edges. Period binding.
203 x 126 mm.
First edition “rare and sought after” (M. Clouzot) of this lucid and cruel book which can be considered Balzac’s first personal work.
Carteret, I, p.58; Destailleur, 1363.
Copy of the very first printing with the pagination error in volume I (p. 332 instead of 328).
First edition, published anonymously, with an introduction signed H. B… c. It bears on the title page the epigraph: Le bonheur est la fin que doivent se proposer toutes les sociétés. (Happiness is the goal that all societies must pursue.)
Starting from some reflections that Napoleon shared with the Council of State during the discussion of the Civil Code, Balzac sees marriage as a carnal adventure, necessarily disappointing, a matter of financial interest, whose major issue is adultery. Close, in its anecdotes, to vaudeville, the work appears as one of the keys to La Comédie humaine, where the morality of marriage is the subject of social and political observation not without a touch of feminism. Among the many anecdotes relating to the ingenuity and artifices of lovers, Balzac recounts, as his own, the one from Meditation XXIV of Point de lendemain by Vivant Denon, recalling on page 204 the story printed in twenty-five copies by Pierre Didot. It is from copy no. 24 that the author took elements of this narration which has the merit of offering both high instructions for husbands; and for bachelors, a depiction of the customs of the previous century.
At the head of the errata in the second volume, Balzac mocks: To properly understand the meaning of these pages, an honest reader must reread several of the main passages; for the author has put all his thought into them. Recalling his practice as a printer, the writer amused himself by filling pages (207)–210 with a gibberish of letters partly upside down, forming no intelligible sentence or word and abundantly peppered with meaningless signs; they are laid out under a chapter heading titled On religions and confession considered in their relation to marriage; following this is recalled La Bruyère’s quip: It is too much against a husband when both devotion and gallantry are involved: a woman should choose.
This edition is notable for having 4 largely illegible pages, namely chapter I of the 15th meditation, dealing with Religions and confession considered in their relation to marriage (pages 207 to 210 of volume 2), composed of letters upright and upside down, blocks, dashes, parentheses, etc.
“One finds in volume II, Meditation XXV, chapter 1, on the fifth line, pages 207 to 210, an incoherent, enigmatic typographic composition, a kind of fantasy in the style of Sterne, and for which Balzac gives, in volume II, page 347, an explanation full of humor.” (Carteret, I, p.58)
Beautiful copy in period binding, from the prestigious libraries of Bourbon de Rouvre and Henri Beraldi. It was bound without the “Note to Readers” leaf.
At the Beraldi sale (III – 1934, no. 9), its binding was reproduced as a plate, and it was simply described: “Rare and beautiful copy in its period binding.”
