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Balzac was a great French critical realist writer in the 19th century, the founder and outstanding representative of European critical realist literature. He was a great writer with a strong romantic sentiment. While heavily in debt, he created profound literary masterpieces with lofty and profound thoughts. There are endless interesting stories about his life, and his works are praised as "a mirror of French society". When he passed away, the literary master Victor Hugo once stood in the drizzle in Paris, France, facing thousands of mourners and made an impassioned comment: “Among the greatest figures, Balzac is the best; Among the outstanding figures, Balzac is the best."

He wrote 96 novels, novels, and short stories and essays in his life, collectively titled "Human Comedy". Representatives include "Eugénie Grandet" and "Old Man Goriot". For more than 100 years, his works have spread all over the world and have had a huge impact on the development of world literature and human progress. Marx and Engels praised him as "an outstanding novelist" and "a master of realism". Balzac was born into a bourgeois family that became wealthy after the French Revolution. After graduating from law school, he rejected the respected legal career his family chose for him and determined to be a writer. In order to obtain material guarantees for independent living and creation, he tried writing and got involved in business, engaging in publishing and printing, but all ended in bankruptcy. All these provided him with extremely precious first-hand materials for understanding and describing society. He continued to pursue and explore, conducted in-depth research on philosophy, economics, history, natural science, theology and other fields, and accumulated extremely extensive knowledge. In 1829, Balzac completed the novel "The Juanes". This work based on real life brought him great reputation and laid the first cornerstone of French critical realism literature. Balzac will "Joan". "The Anders" and the one hundred and forty-fifty novels he planned to write were collectively named "Human Comedy", and he wrote a "Foreword" for them, expounding his realist creation methods and basic principles, and theoretically providing French Critical realist literature laid a solid foundation. Balzac made great achievements in art. He was ingenious in the structure of novels. His novel structures were diverse and eclectic. He was good at combining concentrated generalization with precise description, and used techniques such as appearance to reflect inner essence to create characters. , he is also good at recreating the style of the times with detailed and vivid descriptions of the environment. Engels praised Balzac's "Human Comedy" for describing the decline and decline of the aristocracy and the rise and development of the bourgeoisie, providing an extremely rich set of vivid details and visual historical materials in various fields of society, "even in terms of economic details ( (such as the redistribution of movable and immovable property after the revolution), I learned more than I could from all the professional historians, economics schools and statisticians of the time." (Engels: "Engels to Mar Harkness") Balzac established an immortal monument in the history of world literature with his own creations.

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The historical novel "The Juanes" (1829) is the first work published by Balzac under his real name. It describes the royalist war in Brittany, France in 1800. The riots against the Communist Party and the Chinese government that occurred under the instigation of the Party. The author gives the heroic Japanese and Chinese soldiers their due glory, but also greatly beautifies the Marquis Mendolan, the leader of the Zhu'an Party, showing his sympathy for the nobles at that time. In order to write this novel, he carefully studied the historical documents about the riots, personally went to Brittany to investigate the mountain situation and peasant life, interviewed the witnesses and participants of the riots, and collected many information about the riots from his friend the Duchess of Burleigh. The story of Zhu An’s party members. The transition from writing supernatural novels to writing historical novels was Balzac's first important step towards critical realism. What he describes in "The Zhu'an Party" is not ancient history, but important events that belong to the scope of contemporary social life. Focusing on reflecting contemporary social life is a characteristic of "The Comedy Humane" written by Balzac later.

In 1831, Balzac joined the royalist party. But his political attitude is not entirely consistent with that of the ultra-royalists. He was a liberal within the party and was not very popular among party members. He even publicly criticized the royalists, saying "this party is disgusting" and "this is a failed party."

From 1829 After writing "The Juanes" in 2001, Balzac's creation began to enter a mature period, that is, the "Human Comedy" period (1829-1848). In the 1930s and 1940s, in addition to devoting himself to literary and artistic creation, he also visited the salons of Paris's upper class society and wrote articles for several newspapers and periodicals. He was exposed to a very wide range of life.

Since this period, Balzac has conducted in-depth exploration in the theory of realism. He believes that novelists must face real life and become historians of customs in contemporary society; he also believes that the task of novelists is not only to describe social phenomena, but also to clarify the causes of these phenomena and point out the meaning behind characters, desires and events. When it comes to shaping characters, he emphasizes characteristics as well as uniqueness; he says that the poet's mission is to create models, personalize the models, and typify the personality; he also says that typical characters should combine the characteristics of those who are more or less similar to him. Character traits all rolled into one. He also emphasized that art must serve society; he believed that artists not only depict vices and virtues, but also point out their educational significance; artists must be moralists and politicians at the same time.

The Human Comedy, Balzac’s representative work, includes ninety-six novels, novels, and short stories, divided into three categories: “Customs Research”, “Philosophical Research” and “Analytical Research” part. "Customs Research" is the main part, which is divided into six categories: "Private Life Scenes", "Provincial Life Scenes", "Paris Life Scenes", "Political Life Scenes", "Military Life Scenes" and "Rural Life Scenes" aspects. The work was originally titled "Social Studies". Later, inspired by Dante's "Divine Comedy", the name was changed to "Human Comedy".

From the perspective of a contemporary historian of customs, Balzac described the historical period of the alternation between feudalism and capitalism in France in the first half of the 19th century in "The Human Comedy". This period was characterized by the gradual replacement of noble titles by money. After the revolution of 1830, the power of money rule became particularly powerful. The bourgeoisie's life goal is to make money, and they achieve their goals through various methods and means, and more often they use fraud and violence to plunder. In "The Human Comedy", Balzac depicts the different classes, classes, occupations and activities of French society in the historical period from the Napoleonic Empire, the Restoration Dynasty to the July Monarchy, making the work a story of two thousand people. A broad social picture composed of multiple characters, from which we can see the law that feudalism will inevitably be replaced by capitalism, and some of the shortcomings of the capitalist system.

In "The Human Comedy", Balzac described all kinds of bourgeois with the characteristics of the times, and reflected the history of the bourgeoisie from them. Here, there is the primitive and low-level loan shark Gobusek ("The Loan Shark", 1830), the old man Grandet who understands the function of money ("Eugénie Grandet", 1833), As well as the advanced financial giant Nucingen ("Bank of Nucingen", 1838), etc. They are the real masters of the bourgeois world; under the protection of state law and the support of public opinion, in order to satisfy their greed, they openly plunder, and each has its own characteristics in the way of plunder. Gobsek is an old-style exploiter who has not yet learned the "latest" way to get rich. He would rather store goods at home than dare to use them as capital to increase them; he hoards goods by hoarding them. Currency is a money-keeper. The scope of activities of old man Grandet is relatively wide. He is a shrewd, capable, cunning and cunning speculator businessman who has transitioned from an old-style exploiter to a capitalist enterprise. He knew how to put money into profitable enterprises and thus accumulate more funds. In his mind, money is the purpose of people's life. He is very stingy and uses everyone around him to serve his purpose of plundering money. The banker Baron Nucingen was a new type of bourgeoisie that emerged on the exchange using nouveau riche means. His strategy is to keep all capital in constant "movement." He used the protection of the law to fake bankruptcies, forcing thousands of small depositors to go bankrupt, but he made millions of gold himself. He does not pretend to be poor or stingy and hide his wealth like Gobsek and Grandet. Instead, he is extravagant and lustful and uses various methods to show off his wealth. He embodies the characteristics of pleasure, gold and blood mixed together. He was a typical figure of the French financial bourgeoisie during the July Monarchy.

In "The Human Comedy", Balzac portrayed the image of bourgeois personal careerists, such as Rafael de Valentine ("Donkey Skin", 1831), Rusty Nietzsche ("Petro Goriot", 1834; "The Bank of Nucingen"; "The Unaware Comedian", 1846), Lucien Lupamplet ("Disillusionment", 1837-1843; "The Honor and Disgrace of a Prostitute", 1838 -1847) and Vautrin ("Goriot", "Disillusionment", "The Honor and Disgrace of a Prostitute"), etc. Except for Vautrin, when they first entered society, they all wanted to find their own way out through "proper" channels. Later, because they were contaminated with the bad habits of the upper class, they all became morally corrupt. Valentine came to Paris from the provinces, dreaming of getting the glory of a scholar, and worked hard to improve himself. Since he met the noble lady Fordora, he has used all means to pursue money. Rastignac is a successful careerist. He found the secret of success from his contact and observation of Parisian society, and the fugitive slave laborer Vautrin was his guide. Although Rastignac was sometimes doubtful and regretful, he eventually took a wrong path and became a shameless rogue politician and an agent of the financial bourgeoisie. Lucien Luchonprey was a talented young poet who came to Paris from the provinces, eager to find a shortcut to get ahead. News reporter Rosto told him the inside story of the current literary world, so he sold his talents and became an unscrupulous literary critic. But in order to succeed, he must do more evil deeds. Vautrin, who had been Rastignac's guide, plotted for Lu Pomprey here again, forcing Lu Pomprey's mistress to death in an attempt to make Lu Pomprey gain millions of wealth. Vautrin committed other murders, while Lupemplet was arrested as an accomplice and died in prison. Vautrin is the most prominent typical figure of bourgeois personal ambition, and all the sins of personal ambition are concentrated in him; he appears with a cynical face and violently attacks bourgeois morality and law, but in fact he spreads this morality and law. law. Rastignac and Lupamplet were two greedy young men under his guidance. One climbed into the ruling group and the other died in prison.

Balzac described the tragedy of a bourgeois family in "The Human Comedy". Under the rule of the money principle, the family becomes a place where people deceive and plunder each other. The daughter consumes her father's wealth and then throws him away like a squeezed lemon ("Petro Goriot"). For money, a father forced his wife to death and ruined his daughter's life ("Eugénie Grandet"). The mother attempts to usurp her husband's will in order to deprive her children of their property ("The Loan Shark"). Wives declared their husbands to be idiots, demanded control of his property ("Prohibition of Property," 1836), or simply turned against their husbands ("Colonel Chabe," 1832). For selfish reasons, he would not hesitate to use despicable means to damage the happiness of his relatives ("Aunt Betty", 1847), or he would insult his poor relatives at will. Once the poor relative became rich, he would ruthlessly kill him and seize his property ("Uncle Bangs") 》, 1846).

As a remnant force of history, the feudal aristocracy plays an important role in "The Human Comedy". In portraying these images, Balzac often showed deep sympathy for the aristocracy. For example, in "Petro Goriot", he describes the love tragedy of the Viscountess de Beauseion in a sighing style, beautifying her aristocratic integrity in every possible way, using Greek goddesses and Roman warriors to describe her demeanor when she was forced to say goodbye to Paris; In "Prohibition of Property", the Marquis de Esbal is called a transcendent nobleman because he has maintained an honest and upright family tradition; another example is in "Lily of the Valley" (1835), Mrs. Morsov used prayer to expel the disease. Evil thoughts and restraint of passion are also praised highly, and the unknown battle between Madame Morsov and her love for the young nobleman Felix is ??almost as great as the famous battles in the annals of history. However, on many occasions, Balzac's satire and ridicule of the feudal aristocracy was extremely harsh and pungent. The Chevalier de Pharoa ("The Old Maid", 1836) is a cunning aristocrat who thinks highly of himself and is arrogant. However, in the marriage competition, he was embarrassed by the powerful Liberal Du Busquier. . The Marquis de Esgrillon ("Antiquities Showroom", 1836-1838) is the embodiment of "loyalty", "strongness" and "nobility" in the patriarchal society. However, these "characters" of his cannot solve any problems in real life. Problem, you can't even guarantee that your family won't have children who corrupt the family tradition. His son Victoryen was accused by the banker Du Croaz for forging checks. Later, he only acted according to Du Croaz's will and put down his aristocratic pretensions to become the banker's niece-in-law. Saved from bankruptcy and preserved reputation. In Balzac's writing, the Marquis of Esgrillon is a playboy who has lost the significance of the times and is only worthy of being in the "antiquities showroom", while his son is a playboy who has been corrupted by bourgeois money relations.

Balzac was also a fervent admirer of Napoleon. The image of Napoleon has been reflected many times in "The Human Comedy", such as "The Country Doctor" (1833), "A Mysterious Case" (1841), "The Woman of Thirty" (1831-1842), "Chabe" Colonel" and other works. At the same time, the author also focuses on describing the image of officers in the imperial era associated with Napoleon.

In "The Human Comedy", Balzac describes the heroes of pacifism with admiration. For example, according to the author, Michel Christian in "Disillusionment" is a politician with the spirit of Danton and Saint-Just. He advocated European federalism, which was a great threat to the European aristocracy. During the Paris uprising in 1831, he died heroically in battle just like an ordinary soldier. His sacrifice was deeply mourned by all who knew him and he is often missed. Another example is Nizlon in "The Peasants" (1844), a veteran communist and communist warrior born from a peasant background, "as strong as steel and as pure as gold." He gave up the property he deserved in the Great Revolution, He was willing to live a life of poverty and once sent his only son to the front to participate in the war to defend the motherland. Because he hated rich people, he was especially loved by the peasants.

The changes caused by the increasingly powerful capitalism's invasion of the countryside are deeply reflected in "Peasants". "Peasants" describes the conflict between the aristocratic large estate land ownership and the bourgeoisie's small land ownership, and the peasants are between these two social forces, just like "a bug is caught between a hammer and anvil." The loan shark businessmen Gaubertin and Li Gu, who represented the interests of the bourgeoisie, defeated General Mongonet, who represented the interests of the aristocratic large landowners. However, the peasants who were attracted by the loan shark businessmen and rich peasants to this cruel struggle gained nothing. They were just trapped in A new kind of slavery meets a more vicious master. Balzac here describes the poverty situation in the countryside after the bourgeois revolution under the dual exploitation of landlords and bourgeoisie, the farmers' strong hatred for the exploiters, and the farmers' dependence on loan sharks determined by their economic status at the time.

In "The Human Comedy", Balzac described the poor life of the working people with a sympathetic attitude. When describing the uprising of textile workers in Lyon, he pointed out the justice and social reasons of this uprising: "When orders stopped, the workers died of hunger; even when there was work to do, he lived almost half-dead and half-alive. Every convict is happier than them.

"("The Bank of Nucingen")

Balzac tried to summarize the whole picture of French capitalist society in the first half of the nineteenth century in "The Human Comedy" and wrote the novel as a story about the customs of French capitalist society. History, but it does not include "scenes of workers' lives"; the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in the 1930s and 1940s was only sporadic and indirect reflection in "Human Comedy". Balzac wrote about the poverty of peasants. life and tragic fate, but he always took a negative attitude towards the peasant uprisings, describing the peasants' struggle against the nobility as a cruel and barbaric act of revenge ("Peasants"). He praised the pacifist heroes and praised Napoleon's achievements. , but his sympathy for the feudal aristocracy is also obvious. His complex political attitudes and ideological tendencies are a reflection of his liberal aristocratic royalist position, which contains both feudal and capitalist factors.

The novel "Petrole Goriot" published in 1834 occupies a very important position in "The Human Comedy". Many important characters in "The Human Comedy" have already appeared in "Petrole Goriot", starting from the characters. From a systematic perspective, "Petro Goriot" can be said to be the prelude to "The Human Comedy"

This novel tells the story of a young college student during the Restoration Dynasty who gradually became corrupted under the influence of the bourgeois society in Paris. The author attacks the extreme egoism of the bourgeoisie and the relationships between people based on ruthless cash transactions. At the same time, in the name of super-class "fatherly love", he affirms the decadent and parasitic life principles of the bourgeoisie.

The story takes place in the decadent, vulgar and shabby Vauquer apartment. There are three tenants in the apartment who are particularly eye-catching: Rastignac, a college student who is looking for a personal way out, and Fu, a suspicious commentator. The old man Goriot had two daughters, the eldest daughter became a countess, and the second daughter married the banker Nucingen. Due to the introduction of his cousin, Viscountess Bausaion, Rusty. Nie got acquainted with Goriot's two daughters, and was particularly interested in the second daughter, Mrs. Nucingen, trying to use her as a springboard for his personal success. However, Rastignac had no money and could not win the favor of the Parisian aristocratic woman. After guessing what he was thinking, he preached to him the fallacy that you should not be afraid of getting your hands dirty if you want to succeed, and planned a conspiracy for him to make money and kill himself. Vautrin turned out to be a famous fugitive from hard labor, and he was finally arrested after the case was solved. ; Soon, Mrs. Boseant escaped from the world due to frustration in love. However, what happened to these two guides was a new life lesson for Rastignac, who was determined to accept the values ??of bourgeois egoism and money supremacy. Law. At the same time, the fate of Old Man Goriot also played an important role in Rastignac. In order to satisfy their vanity and desire for money, Old Man Goriot sacrificed all his possessions. They were abandoned and died in poverty and disease. This tragic ending of Goriot taught Rastignac once again the selfish life education of the bourgeoisie, prompting him to finally decide on his path: determined to use all despicable means. Climb up and become a "hero" in the bourgeois world.

Rastignac is smart, cunning, and calm-minded; he is not without scruples in the face of evil temptations, and sometimes he is even ashamed of his absurd behavior, but the result of each inner struggle is , evil always prevails. In order to buy a set of beautiful clothes, he wrote to his mother and sister asking for help; when the reply came, he was moved to tears and blamed himself for taking advantage of the feelings of his closest relatives so cruelly. He wanted not to take the money, but in the blink of an eye he During this time, he felt very proud at the thought of being able to wear new clothes and go out in social circles, feeling that the whole world was already his. Vautrin suggested to him that he should murder Miss Victoria's brother and make her the sole heir. If he married her, he could get a dowry of one million. Although he rejected this sinful plan, he did not stop his love affair with Miss Victoria: as long as the sinful behavior was not done by himself, he could not enjoy the fruits of sin. After he became aware of the tragedy of Goriot, he became the only person in Vauquer's apartment who sympathized with Goriot. He nursed Goriot's illness, begged Goriot's two daughters to die for their father, and pawned his watch to give to Goriot. The old man took care of his funeral affairs, and he was almost the only person to attend the funeral of Old Man Goriot. However, his ambition to climb up still prevailed on him. After burying Goriot, he went to Mrs. Nucingen's house for dinner. Rastignac did not have to take a wrong path when he came to Paris from the provinces, but he gradually became corrupted under the influence of the Parisian social environment. When he later reappeared in "The Bank of Nucingen", he was a helper who faked the collapse of the bank; in "The Unaware Comedian", he had already received a knighthood and became a minister.

Vautrin was a ferocious predator in the bourgeois world. Because he was being hunted, he violently resisted society. From Balzac's later novels, we know that he was managing a property for a group of prisoners in Paris that could not be made public for the time being. Among the tenants of Vauquer's apartment, he spotted the fledgling Rastignac, tried every means to seduce him, and talked with him in private about the secrets of life. He scolded the despicable and dirty Parisian upper class, but what he pursued was to make a fortune and sell black slaves to America. He placed himself outside morality and above the law, using immorality to fight immorality, and lawlessness to fight lawlessness.

He fought against other predators, using the method of venomous snakes and beasts biting each other's throats. Whoever was stronger would win. Vautrin's attack on bourgeois society was caused by personal hatred of failed plunder. As long as his personal ambition was satisfied, he could stop attacking. Later, in "The Honor and Shame of a Prostitute", Vautrin has transformed into the director of the Paris Secret Police.

Old Man Goriot was a noodle businessman who made a fortune through speculation during the bourgeois revolution. He originally wanted to climb higher, but with the increasingly powerful financial power, his fantasy could not be realized, so he decided to After his wife died, all his hopes and emotions were transferred to his two daughters. When the two daughters were fifteen, they had their own carriages and lived a very luxurious life. Like the mistresses of a rich old lord, the most absurd desires would be satisfied as long as they opened their mouths. Later, Old Man Gao ended his noodle business in order to earn face for his two daughters who were married to famous aristocrats. When he knew that his two sons-in-law were unwilling to receive him openly, he secretly visited his daughter through the side door like a beggar, or waited by the roadside to watch his daughter pass by in a gorgeous carriage. He was the object of ridicule in Vauquer's apartment. It was his greatest pleasure to learn from Rastignac about the two daughters' enjoyment, and Rastignac became his confidant friend. . As for his two daughters, they only came to him when they were cornered by their creditors, and he always tried his best to meet their needs in order to have a chance to see them. When he was seriously ill and dying, he longed to see his daughters, but they were unwilling to sacrifice a chance to attend the dance in order to pay their father a final farewell. When Goriot died, his howls and curses were mixed with miserable calls for his two daughters. He even once wanted to start a pasta business again and earn millions from it, because money can buy everything, including his daughter. When he saw that he had been completely abandoned by his daughter, he couldn't help shouting, and he was going to protest: If the father was trampled under his feet, wouldn't the country be destroyed? Old Man Goriot's funeral was only because of Rusty Nie and his friend Pi Anxun, a young medical student, ran around to get rid of the problem hastily. Neither the two daughters nor the son-in-law attended the funeral, but their empty carriages with noble emblems were sent to follow the hearse all the way to the cemetery.

"Old Man Goriot" also successfully describes many secondary characters, such as Madame Vauquer, Baron Nucingen and Pianchon. Madame Vauquer is a representative figure of the urban philistine. She can change from the smile of a dancer to the ruthlessness of a creditor. She tried her best to save money on the tenants' meals, collected the leftover wine in bottles, and worried about the apple trees in her garden every year, fearing that the apple harvest would not be good. Old Man Goriot's tragic death only caused her uneasiness when she was afraid that it would bring her some extra expenses. Lord Nucingen is a representative of the financial bourgeoisie. He appears many times in "The Human Comedy" and is one of the main protagonists in "The Human Comedy". Although he only makes his first appearance in "Petro Goriot", we can already see the essence of this bourgeois robber. Pianchon is a positive character in the author's works. He is diligent and studious, which is exactly the opposite of the path Rastignac took. He also appeared in some other novels by Balzac, but did not become the central character in any novel. His typicality is far less prominent than the negative image in "The Human Comedy".

As a representative writer of critical realism, Balzac's creative characteristics are mainly reflected in the following aspects.

In "The Human Comedy", Balzac gave a broad reflection of the social life at that time. Taking the contradiction between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie as the central picture, and taking the principle of money rule as the clue of this picture, he described the history of French society in the first half of the nineteenth century, and pointed out in a critical manner the various causes or one of the causes of these phenomena. The reasons, the elucidation of the hidden meanings in this mass of characters, passions and events, exposes the sins of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, and provides us with rich material for understanding French society at that time.

Many important characters in "The Human Comedy" (such as Rastignac, Vautrin, Count Nucingen, Pianchon, etc.) reappear in different novels, which clearly reflect the Their different life stages and their interconnections deepen the integrity and coherence of the broad social picture of "The Human Comedy".

The characters in "The Human Comedy" are typical. Although Balzac idealistically believed that "desire" is the basic element of human beings and emphasized that "desire is the whole world; without desire, religion, history, novels, and art are useless." However, he always considered the embodiment of a certain "desire" Put the character in a certain living environment to study its specific development process, and never describe it in isolation. The establishment of the basic principle of realism, which requires that characters be shaped through living environment, is linked to his belief that people are products of the environment. The central characters and even some minor characters in Balzac's works are all very distinctive and prominent. Old Man Grandet is different from the miser Albagon written by Molière in the seventeenth century, and also different from any other miser and capitalist image in the nineteenth century described in "The Comedy Humane".

Balzac focused on describing the physical environment, such as houses, the surroundings of houses, cities, streets, interior decoration and daily utensils. Arrange what kind of environment for what kind of people.

Romantic writers expressed the inner feelings of characters through descriptions of nature, while Balzac relied on descriptions of the physical environment to portray characters (but sometimes it was cumbersome). This was an original technique of Balzac. He pushed the realistic creation method to a new stage. His works exposed the sores and ulcers of the capitalist world and pointed out how the bourgeoisie hates the normal development of human emotions and talents, causing people to fall into a state of annihilation of conscience and moral degradation. A "Human Comedy" is actually an indictment of bourgeois society. Marx and Engels once gave Balzac high praise. Marx believed that Balzac was a famous writer with "a profound understanding of real relationships", and Engels wrote: "Yes, Balzac was an orthodox politically; his great work was a reflection on the inevitable collapse of upper class society. An endless elegy; all his sympathies were with the doomed class, but, nevertheless, when he brought into action those noble men and women with whom he deeply sympathized, his ridicule was unprecedentedly bitter, his satire. It was unprecedentedly poignant, and the people he often praised unabashedly were his political rivals, the Communists and party heroes of St. Mary's Abbey. These people were indeed the most powerful people at that time (1830-1836). representing the masses. In this way, Balzac had to violate his class sympathies and political prejudices; he saw the inevitable demise of his beloved nobles and thus portrayed them as unworthy of a better fate; The only place where you can find the real people of the future is to see such people - all this I consider to be one of the greatest triumphs of realism and one of the most important characteristics of the old Balzac."

Death

In January 1848, Balzac set off back to Paris to prepare their new home. He spent a large sum of francs to buy many luxury goods to decorate the rooms. At the end of September, he embarked on a long journey to Ukraine, but he was no longer excited about Vieconia. In fact, Mrs. De Hansga and her daughter were also indifferent to him. What was worse was that he had been in high school for so many years. The physical health damaged by intense work also comes to collect debts. During this long winter, he suffered from encephalitis, chronic heart disease and bronchitis, and his life had entered the final stage of failure.

After a long pursuit and waiting, Mrs. de Hansgaard finally agreed to get married because the great writer would not pursue her for much longer. On March 14, 1850, Madame de Hansgar was willing to fulfill Balzac's wish of more than ten years out of compassion. They held their wedding at St. Barbara's Catholic Church in the Ukrainian city of Berdichev. Apart from the newlyweds, only two witnesses and a priest were present. More than a month later, they set off back to France. The journey was disastrous for the terminally ill Balzac. When they finally returned to Balzac's carefully arranged love nest, he could no longer set foot on the steps, and the footsteps of death were getting closer and closer. In his last days, Victor Hugo often visited him, and Balzac complained to his old friend that he would not be able to finish The Comedy Humane.

At 11:30 on the night of August 18, 1850, the great genius Balzac completely got rid of the torture of illness and passed away with the regret of not completing "The Human Comedy". A superstar in the literary world fell like this. At the end of his life, the only person who accompanied him was his mother Anne Charlotte, who had given him pain and helped him throughout his life.

According to Balzac’s last wish, his coffin will be placed in Lachaise Cemetery. At the funeral ceremony, his friend Victor Hugo gave a eulogy for this genius: "...his life was short, but very fulfilling, and his works were richer than countless days. Alas! This mighty, never-weary worker, this philosopher, this thinker, this writer, this genius, has gone through the storms and struggles among us that all great men cannot avoid. life. Today he rests in peace and tranquility, now above all strife and hatred.

On the same day he passed into the grave, but also into the realm of honor, where he will continue to shine in the clouds above us, among the stars of our country..."