Something Old

 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.  

     “THE COUNTRY DOCTOR” [“Le Medecin de Compagne”] by Honore de Balzac (First published in 1833)

 

Honore de Balzac often prided himself on being able to write swiftly, and it is well-known that he often wrote through the whole night, fortified by gallons of coffee. But then, having written a whole text, and after the proofs had been sent to him by his publisher, he would virtually re-write the whole work. This was the case with Le Medecin de Compagne. Balzac said that he had written the whole novel in three days and three nights in August 1832, but it is probably true that it was extensively re-written before its publication in September 1833. For modern readers, Le Medecin de Compagne is hardly what we would now call a novel. It is more like a series of vignettes embodying a social and political idea, centred on the idealised portrait of a devoted country doctor. The “novel” divides into five sections, which I will attempt to summarise briefly.    

            First is called in English “The Countryside and the Man”. Doctor Benassis is the mayor of a small alpine village. Late in 1829 an officer called Genestas arrives wanting medical help from the doctor. The doctor puts him up in his guest-room, and cares for him during his convalescence. But the main substance of this section is Dr. Benassis explaining to his guest how he has rejuvenated the village by wise  economic and other social policies over the years – aided by the kindly priest Janvier, the Justice of the Peace Difau and the notary Tonnelet. Cretins are given a tidy refuge. Cottage industries are encouraged so that the village will be self-sufficient. A passable road has been made to reach the outside world and therefore trade is thriving to the prosperity of all. In effect, Benassis outlines the ideal programme for paternalistic village reform. The village now boasts its solid middle-class citizens, as well as thriving peasants.

            Then follows “A Doctor’s Round”, which shows us how Benassis’s benevolence works in practice. The healed Genestas accompanies the doctor on his rounds. The doctor is highly esteemed by all his patients and all the inhabitants of the village and environs. A visit to a house shows a middle-class family unprepared for the coming death of the family’s eldest man… but the doctor also visits a larger peasant family, higher-up in the mountains, where the family patriarch has just died. But the value of sturdy peasant tradition is shown when the mountain family’s widow immediately hands over family authority to the family’s oldest son and the new patriarch is fittingly respected. Other illustrative encounters are a fanatically loyal soldier in Napoleon’s army who now refuses to believe that the emperor is dead; a hardy old peasant called Moreau; and a brickmaker who now owns a village tile factory. A Mother Colas is mortally sick and has to be comforted by her 15-year old son.  The good doctor encourages a notorious poacher and smuggler to mend his ways. There is also some conversation on a 22-year-old girl who is being treated by the doctor for what we would now think of as a psychiatric problem – deep melancholy at least.         

So in part three “The Napoleon of the People”, after having heard Dr. Benassis’s theories and seen his practical work, we now hear his political agenda. At a dinner party, Benassis, Genestas, the priest Janvier, the Justice of the Peace and the notary discuss politics – which means Benassis holds forth. Basically he believes in a limited democracy. The franchise should be restricted, as those without property and talent are easily swayed by giddy orators; yet equality before the law should enable those of ability to rise. Authority must be respected or there will be no security in the state. The state should not be based on pre [French] -revolutionary privileges, but there should be a gulf between the rulers and the ruled. In providing a stable framework for society, the church has a valuable role to play. The talent of the individual entrepreneur will provide benefits to the whole community. Not all men are equally talented – indeed the mass of the population will always be dependent. Hence there is a need for strong men at the top. As if to illustrate the mentality of the [peasant?] mass of the population, the second half of this section has Benassis and Genestas visiting the old Napoleonic soldier who holds an audience spellbound with his tales of Napoleon’s conquests and military glory – embellished with folklore flourishes. It is so exciting that Genetas jumps down and embraces the old soldier, declaring that he marched in Napoleon’s legions too. Is this intended to illustrate for the reader the greatness of Napoleon in arousing among the peasants spirit and a sense of nobility and sacrifice? Or does it really reveal the credulity of the masses? Either way, this episode illustrates the gulf separating the masses and the “great men”.

 

Shifting the perspective considerably, and indeed moving into melodrama,  “The Country Doctor’s Confession” turns to telling us about how Dr. Benassis grew to be the man he is. His backstory, as Benassis tells Genestas, is that he came to this obscure village to practise benevolence because he had suffered tragedy in his life. As a young rake, he had seduced a woman who had his son but who then died. He looked after the boy as best as he could. Then he fell in love with another young woman, Evelina – but her strict Jansenist family refused to let her marry such an immoral man as Benassis . Then his little son died – and all happiness drained out of him. [This catastrophe befell when Benassis was 34 – which was the age Balzac was when he wrote this novel.] Benassis contemplated suicide, reading philosophers to justify himself. But a reading of the Gospels re-awakened his Christian senses. He decided to bury himself in a monastery, and visited the Grande Chartreuse… but monastic life suddenly seemed selfish. Instead, he came to this village to practice the Christian virtues in action. “For a wounded heart – shadow and silence” says Benassis (which Balzac makes an epigraph to this book.)

And in the final section, “Elegies”, Genestas also reveals his true identity and his motives. He too had suffered from the death of a wife; and her boy Adrien is mortally sick. Genestas had heard of the village doctor’s skill and his profound virtue. Genestas, having had dealt with his own medical problem, was also testing to see if Benassis would be worthy of tending young Adrien. Adrien is brought to the village. Benassis says the boy is not consumptive. He simply needs a healthy outdoor life, far from the unhealthy indoor school life in Paris which has ruined him. Benassis introduces the 16-year-old to La Fosseuse, whose profound charity for those suffering is revealed – the suggestion being that Adrien and La Fosseuse will grow together…. Eight months later, Genestas, who has gone back to the city,  gets a letter from Adrien in the mountain village saying that Benassis is dead. He was felled by the final shock of learning that Evaline, the woman he loved, has died. Genestas returns to the village. He sees the sorrow of the whole village at Benassis’s funeral. He finds his son Adrien is now in full health. A grassy mound is raised in Benassis’s honour. The final words of the novel suggest that Genastas will now settle in the village – and possibly the cycle of having a talented, benevolent man in charge will be repeated.

In many ways it is hard to criticise Le Medecin de Compagne as a novel. When  Benassis speaks it becomes a tract (or statement of faith) and anything that happens is really intended to illustrate a thesis – either by showing Bebassis in action, or by revealing the mentality of the people. It thus has no real “plot” as such. Nevertheless, there are vivid vignettes in the various portraits of the people of the village, the vigour of the old soldier’s narrative, and everywhere a very Romantic interpretation of alpine scenery. Le Medecin de Compagne is one of Balzac’s “scenes of country life”, depicting a man retiring after the struggle of city life – yet it was written before Balzac’s better novels about the urban battlefield. Indeed, despite the venerable nature of the novel’s main character, Le Medecin de Compagne is a relatively young man’s novel. Surely the notion of Benassis driven to benevolence by personal heart-break is a young man’s romantic concept? Would such motives sustain him through years of rational planning and toil? Would such a “sensitive plant” be finished by the news about Evelina? But there is a reason for this Romantic swing. The biographical facts are that 34-year-old Balzac wrote this novel after his break with one mistress, Madame de Castries, and after making the acquaintance of the Pole, Evelina Hanska, whose religious outlook was very similar to the novel’s fictitious Evelina.

Where Le Medecin de Compagne would now be most criticised is in its social outlook.  Balzac’s views are what we would now call paternalistic. Balzac, in this novel, sees no contradiction between the maintenance of hardy peasant virtues and the bringing of “progress” to the village. The question of the “lower orders” place in an industrialized society does not appear to exist for Balzac. Benassis (like Balzac) idealises an indefinite extension of the workshop and handicraft industries as means of bringing villages prosperity. He sees social happiness in the peasants trading their specialities with those of other villages. This is an essentially 18^th century concept from the era of “Philosophes”.  Certainly there is unintended irony in this novel when Benassis rejoices that the peasants are now so civilised that they no longer have to bake their own bread, but buy it, and a village bakery has been established. This strikes at the very roots of the self-sufficiency that elsewhere is eulogised. While Balzac may be right about the scarcity of real talent in the general population, he still puts an awful lot of faith in the individual entrepreneur. And, mes amis, how many entrepreneurs are more interested in growing their own wealth rather that serving the general public?

It's only fair to note that France was a little slower than Britain in industrialising, but by the time Balzac wrote, many large factories were appearing in France, railways were being built and France was ceasing to be largely rural. In a way, Le Medecin de Compagne is conjuring up a world that was already disappearing. And certainly, in the way Benassis is depicted, we are given somebody who amounts to a diligent squire to whom the peasants tug their forelocks. Even so, there is much to enjoy in the way the village is presented and the characters who have minor roles. Not one of Balzac’s best, and probably one of his least read, but still very readable.