“La Canne de M. de Balzac”, by Delphine de Girardin, edited by Martine Reid, Folio, “Classique”, 290 p., €7.40.
“Le Voyage de M. de Balzac à Turin”, by Max Genève, Serge Safran, “Safranpoche”, 224 p., €8.90.
“Choice of consoling maxims about love and other youthful texts”, by Charles Baudelaire, edited and prefaced by Andrea Schellino, pocket Rivages, “Little library”, 154 p., 8 euros.
What if it were an everyday object? In the Chinese portrait game, we are likely to identify Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) with his white porcelain coffee pot with the “HB” logo, an aromatic power of literary electricity, or with the “monk’s robe,” less white. ” of the one who dressed to write, at his lectern or in a sheriff’s office. But all this, my God, is still very classic. No, the true Balzacian object, the most emblematic, remains his cane. Visible in the House of Balzac, in Paris, designed and delivered in 1834 by the jeweler Le Cointe (paid for with a sling, we assure you), hollow and made of reeds, decorated with topazes offered by his muse, Eva Hanska, and equipped with a knob and a golden strap, is more a phallic puzzle or the attribute of a drum major than a cripple’s crutch or a hiking stick.
Famous in one day, she inspired Delphine de Girardin (1804-1855) Balzac’s Lord’s Staffa short and tasty novel of which Martine Reid offers a fascinating edition. Daughter of the novelist Sophie Gay, married to the press chief Emile de Girardin, legendary society columnist under the name of Vicomte de Launay, essential salonnière, she took possession of the fetish cane in 1836 to turn it into the center of a social chronicle. accompanied by a fantastic story. His hero, Tancrède Dorimont, an Apollo as resplendent as he is bewildered, without work or lover, receives the famous and singular object from Balzac. He then discovers that it has the ability to make its owner invisible if he moves it from his right hand to his left hand. Tancrède will use this power to attack both millionaires and marriageable young women, anticipate events or evaluate the validity of feelings. With rosy color and lightness, Delphine de Girardin opens a literary path in which, after her, Verne of Wilhelm Storitz (1910) that the saga harry potter (1998-2007), the Wells of The invisible man (1897) that the Aymé of wall step (1943). A rarity that must be discovered urgently.
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