Not everything worth reading is hot off the press. In this section, we recommend "something old" that is still well worth reading. "Something Old" can mean anything from a venerable and antique classic to a good book first published year or two ago.
“URSULE MIROUET” by Honore de Balzac (First published in 1841)
Of all Balzac’s novels, Ursule Mirouet is, in my opinion, one of the most trying for modern readers. In his The Wild Ass’s Skin [La Peau de Chagrin], there is a suggestion of the occult – but that novel is as much fable as hard-headed reality. Balzac wrote some other novels that dabbled in ideas which were then regarded by some as legitimate science – phrenology, palmistry, clairvoyance etc. Ursule Mirouet, however, really does embrace the supernatural as a reality, even if its setting is a mundane small town filled with credible everyday people. Yet despite its oddity, the novel is curiously serene in its effect. This time, goodness and charity win, quite unlike the scoundrels, gossips, criminals, misers and cheats that fill most of Balzac’s novels – though of course there are some reprehensible people in Ursule Mirouet too. It is a tangled tale, so I will have to take some time with a synopsis.
The story takes place between 1829 and 1836, with in the background the second revolution when the Bourbon kings were overthrown and the Bourgeois “Citizen” King Louis Phillipe took over.
In the country town of Nemours lives Doctor Minoret. He is an atheist, but he does not rock the boat and he gets in well with the parish priest Abbe Chaperon. There are interlocking families – cousins and spouses - who are part of the Minoret clan… and they know that the young, pious 15-year old Ursule Mirouet has inherited much wealth. (Please note there are many characters called Minoret in this novel.) It is Doctor Minoret who is Ursule Mirouet’s legitimate guardian, as both her parents are dead. Ursule is blessed in having a number of good-hearted people who make her young life nearly idyllic. There is M. de Jorty , formerly a soldier, who tutors Ursule. M. Bongrand the notary who diligently looks after her books and ledgers. The maidservant La Bougival and the clerk Goupil are always at her service. These people are not after Ursule’s money, unlike some members of the Mirouet clan. They are set before us almost guardian angels.
Dr Minoret had always scoffed at the spiritual life, but on a visit to Paris had an experience which wrought a miraculous conversion. He met Bouvard, a medical acquaintance and devotee of magnetism (“the science of imponderable fluids” – yes, this was believed by many in the early 19th century) who took him to the humble abode of a Swedenborgian savant. There, a woman in a trance was able to give him a full description of the Nemours house, tell him what the innocent Ursule was doing at that very moment, even look into Ursule’s troubled soul and relate how Ursule was tormented by the beginnings of love for a man she has only glimpsed. Returning to Nemours, Doctor Minoret is able to verify all the things the old woman had said and he tells everything to the astonished and awestruck Ursule. From this point, Minoret , the 18 th century-style sceptic, begins taking instructions in the faith from the Abbe Chaperon, and becomes a devout churchgoer. Ursule’s frequent prayers seem about to be answered.
BUT, as in most of Balzac’s novels, there are people in the town who gather together and gossip about Ursule, seeing her as an “artful young minx” - because it is known that the young man Ursule saw fleetingly is an aristocrat, the young Marquis Savinien de Portenduere. The gossips suggest that Ursule is only interested in the Marquis’s aristocracy and wealth. As it happens, the Marquis Savinien was a scapegrace, went to Paris, ate up most of his mother’s meagre inheritance, and gained little help from fellow young aristocrats. Dr. Minoret and his devoted friends bail him out when he is imprisoned for debt. He returns penitent to Nemours….
A few years go by. The Marquis’s mother Mme. de Portenduere, an old-style noble whose manners were formed before the first revolution, does not wish her son to marry beneath him, and puts obstacles in the way of Ursule’s love for Savinien, even as their love blossoms. The marriage cannot be. Urged on by Dr Minoret, the impoverished young noble decides to redeem his honour by joining the navy and proving his zeal.
Meanwhile, in 1830, the Bourbon King Charles X has gone through the folly of appointing the severe Polignac as his prime minister, and the second revolution takes place. In its general chaos, Dr Minoret’s arriviste relatives have profited by gaining power in the local administration of Nemours. In his last years, Dr Minoret, ever pious, devotes much money to improving Ursule’s social graces and attempting to win Mme. de Portenduere’s approval for the true-love marriage. Ursule and Savinien are constant, Savinien proving his worth as a naval officer and gaining promotion. The other village heirs fear such a marriage and fear that Ursule will inherit all the money. Dr Minoret finally dies in 1836, when Ursule is 20. And now the comedy begins.
In Dr Minoret’s last sickness, Mme. de Portenduere at least referred to Ursule as “my daughter”, but Ursule is still single and the inheritance could be up for grabs. A shady character called Minoret-Levrault has eavesdropped on a death-bed conversation in which Dr. Minoret told Ursule where there was a secret will which would at least give her some of the inheritance, even if he has followed legal precedent, leaving most to the legitimate heirs. Minoret-Levrault finds and burns the secret will and steals some investment bonds. The heirs swarm upon the late doctor’s house, avid for gain. Ursule and her maidservant La Bougival are evicted to poorer quarters. The postmaster and his wife take over the late doctor’s house. Stricken with grief at the death of her protector, Ursule is unable to look after her worldly interests. In much that follows, it is the magistrate Bongrand, the Abbe Chaperon and Savinien who do their best to protect her assets.
The mere presence of Ursule in the town is a reproach to the bullish Minoret-Levrault’s conscience. He wishes to find ways of driving Ursule out of town. He also wishes to drive the de Portenduere family out of town.
In a repeated, prophetic dream, Dr. Minoret appears to Ursule and gives her the full secret details of Minoret-Levrault’s deceit. At first Ursule thinks the dreams are just a manifestation of her grief, but at last she consults the Abbe Chaperon. The priest confronts Minoret-Levrault with every detail of his hidden crime – the man’s fears and sweat show a guilty conscience, but there is no legal proof against him. Minoret-Levrault’s reaction is to increase his underhanded efforts to remove Ursule from the town. He uses the deceitful Goupil as his agent. Goupil writes anonymous letters to Mme. de Portenduere, aiming to destroy Ursule’s credit with her. He sets up tricks, such as putting a rope-ladder dangling from Ursule’s window to suggest she has a lover. He even forges a letter in the Abbe Chaperon’s handwriting. Humiliated and slandered, Ursule’s delicate heath sinks. She is apparently dying and the perpetrator of her misery cannot be traced.
But at this point Goupal falls out with Minoret-Levrault and confesses he wrote the poison letters. Although Savinien punches his nose, the virtuous characters promise to take no action against him, for it is now Minoret-Levrault who must be exposed. To gain satisfaction, Savinien threatens to fight a duel with Minoret-Levrault’s son Desire. But at last Minoret-Levrault confesses the affair to his wife Zelie. She tries to buy Ursule off with a marriage-settlement, but here Ursule asserts herself and refuses. Bongrand, ever acting in Ursule’s interests, is able to uncover proof of the bonds Minoret-Levrault purloined. Meanwhile Dr. Minoret again appears to Ursule in a dream, this time warning that something dreadful will befall Minoret-Levrault’s son Desire if the postmaster does not atone for his crime. The Abbe Chaperon conveys this to the postmaster, who simply continues to jeer.
Savinien does not fight his duel with Desire, but Desire is mortally wounded in a coaching accident and dies. The postmaster’s wife Zelie goes mad [and dies in an asylum some years later]. Minoret-Levrault, penitent, restores what he has stolen… and becomes the most pious churchwarden. The various estates out of which she has been swindled are restored to Mme. de Portenduere. And Ursule marries Savinien.
Now I beg you – PLEASE DON’T SHOUT AT ME!! I have just related to you a novel in which clairvoyance and prophetic dreams are turning points and of course you are very sceptic about such things – and so am I. Indeed you are probably annoyed that I have even synopsised Ursule Mirouet . But bear with me and see how much merit there is to this tale.
This is a novel of the 1840s, shifting between romanticism and social realism, and easily criticised as such. Melodrama there certainly is, what with the three prophetic dreams and Dr. Minoret’s conversion on the strength of clairvoyance. Then there is the chaste and pure love of Ursule and Savinien, the burning of the will, and Ursule’s sympathetic sickness when much if the world seems to have turned against her. One could criticise, too, the “legless angel” aspect of Ursule. She is essentially a passive protagonist – things happen to her. Yet there is a surprising energy to the narrative and (despite the convolutions of the second half of the novel) and a surprising serenity to the story. This may be partly a function of the fact that, for once, Balzac shows virtuous characters (Dr. Minoret, Bongrand, Abbe Chaperon) who are capable of taking executive action and worldly-wise enough to defend themselves – Ursule’s “good uncles” for a charmed circle. And is the “happy ending” seems glib, please remember that vice is not wholly defeated. After all, the conflict is only over a part of Minoret’s inheritance – most of it goes to his legitimate, grasping heirs. The self-interest of the rapacious town circle is not glossed away… and please remember that, more the any other writer of his century, Balzac was aware of the power of money.
Balzac-the-occultist probably saw the religious aspect of the story as paramount. This creates great problems for us in the early 21st century. Balzac’s religion is that of a worldly man who wants to pay a debt to piety, recognises there is something important in religious devotion, yet can only understand religion by means of “science” – which in his time included phrenology, palmistry, clairvoyance etc. Hence his embracing Swedenborgianism in which thoughts and visions become refined physical substances. Nevertheless, I am quite prepared to accept the conversion of Dr. Minoret, even if not for the reasons Balzac gives. This character is really an epitaph for the gentlemanly 18th. century scepticism and rationalism, realising in old age (and under the influence of sympathetic friends) that mere rational benevolence is not enough. This strikes me as credible… even if the clairvoyance and prophetic dreams are not. Note, by the way, that Ursule Mirouet has the same name as Dr. Minoret’s deceased wife. His double function as “father” and “spiritual guide” should not be overlooked.
Socially, this is one of Balzac’s key statements. Despite admiring at least some aristocrats, he often depicts them (like Mme. de Portenduere) as incapable of looking after their own interests or adjusting to post-revolution social reality. On the one hand, the revolution of 1830 appears to have released self-interested rascals to positions of power; rogues without the coherence of a traditional code. This is symbolised in this novel by the rapacious Minoret heirs taking over Nemours in 1830, and it is significant that as they rush for the late doctor’s legacy, Balzac says they “scattered like beads unthreaded from the rosary”. Balzac’s ideals seem to be the priest like Abbe Chaperon, pious but very capable of looking after himself; the benevolent man-of-the-world Dr. Minoret; and the more humble people like those who educate Ursule and protect her.
Is this Balzac’s best novel? Certainly not. But in the wicked and corrupt world that he most often depicts, he for once gives virtue an outing.
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