The Allusive Complex of Balzac's Pierrette

Abstract

Despite its popularity, if one can consider successive paperback editions an indication of popularity, Balzac's Pierrette (1840) has had remarkably little attention from critics and scholars, no more than passing references and a very small handful of introductions and studies. 1 These professional readers have frequently mentioned Balzac's early plans for the work, indicated in a letter to Mme Hanska on 4 June 1839: "la première œuvre un peu jeune fille que je ferai, je la dédierai à votre chère Anna ..." While everyone understands that the expectation for what Jean-Louis Tritter calls "une œuvrette plus ou moins à l'eau de rose" was set aside, this comment promising a nice little story does not give much hope for a powerful masterpiece, and it remains to consider the mechanisms through which Balzac turned that same story into "une des scènes les plus désespérées de La Comédie humaine" (4 June). 2 Tritter's excellent edition makes it clear that the work's creation was not easy, involving as it did many false starts (Tritter counts sixteen) and numerous corrections. Balzac's promised dedication to Anna de Hanska and the text itself leave no doubt that the work became anything but "jeune fille." Balzac apologizes for its bleakness and explains that he had no choice: "Il est si difficile, Anna, de vous trouver, dans l'histoire de nos mœurs, une aventure digne de passer sous vos yeux, que l'auteur n'avait pas à choisir" (4.29). Conditions in France, particularly for young people, had grown so bad that edulcoration was impossible.