Louis Lambert: A Narrator in Search of the Legible

Louis Lambert: A Narrator in Search of the Legible
Raina Uhden
Abstract: The narrator in Louis Lambert transcribes the story of the child-genius-turned-madman,
Louis Lambert, based on memories and textual fragments. While copying Lambert‟s textual
fragments, the narrator also fleshes out the unreadable. He attempts to decipher Lambert‟s writing and
handles the drafts as if they were palimpsests, searching for the original. The narrator, however,
ultimately alters the original, writing over it, as a palimpsest, in order that the invisible can finally
become visible.
Résumé: Le narrateur de Louis Lambert transcrit – à partir de ses souvenirs et des fragments textuels
– une histoire de l‟enfant génie devenu homme fou, Louis Lambert. Le narrateur recompose les
fragments textuels de son ami et étoffe l‟illisible. Il tente de déchiffrer ces fragments et les manie
comme s‟ils étaient des palimpsestes, cherchant le texte original de Lambert. Il ne lui reste qu‟à écrire
sur l‟original, comme un palimpseste, pour que l‟invisible devienne enfin visible.
Keywords: Honoré de Balzac, Louis Lambert, Invisible, Palimpsest, Hieroglyphs.
With the steep cost of parchment in the Middle Ages, copyists of that time often scratched
away ancient texts to write a new manuscript over the old and less valuable one. Thus the original
writing often became illegible, invisible to the naked eye and consequently forgotten. This document
earned the name of “palimpsest,” “ A parchment or other writing-material written upon twice, the
original writing having been erased or rubbed out to make place for the second; a manuscript in which
a later writing is written over an effaced earlier writing ” (Oxford English Dictionary).
In the nineteenth century, however, as editors dig through the multiple layers of writings in an
attempt to find traces of the original, the importance of the palimpsest shifts; the value resides in the
inferior, original layer. Under the most favorable of circumstances, the quest of the palimpsest editor
leads to the recovery of the original text and to the rediscovery of a past culture and knowledge
transmitted through the writing. “The task of the palimpsest editor was, like an archeologist, to „dig
up‟ the fragments of the former text and carefully piece them together to reconstitute the original
artifact” (McDonagh,, p. 211) Often times, the entirety of the original text escapes the palimpsest
editor due to the scraping of the surface of the parchment, which erodes the document to textual ruins;
however, by playing with the literary remains, the palimpsest editor can attempt to reconstitute a
whole, however fictitious that totality might become through the editing process. The idea of the
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palimpsest presupposes that other older writings, invisible to the eye but nonetheless existent, are
buried beneath the most recent and the most readable façade. As the scriptio inferior gains in value in
the nineteenth century, a new process mirroring an archeological model ensues; the vertical quest for
the unknown origin reveals a struggle between the lowest layer of writing and the superficial upper
layers.
In Louis Lambert, Honoré de Balzac plays on the images of the invisible that the palimpsest
presents: the narrator assumes the role of rendering readable texts that had been buried and forgotten,
notably the textual fragments of his childhood friend, Louis Lambert. The narrator aims to unearth the
extraordinary youth of this child genius- turned-madman in order to initiate us to Lambert‟s
philosophy of “la pensée” detailed in LeTraité de la volonté that he composed in his youth and in the
letters that he penned as a young man. It is only through the narrator‟s rewriting that Lambert‟s
philosophy reemerges. Much like an Egyptologist, the narrator attempts to decipher Lambert‟s textual
fragments.
In Louis Lambert – “part autobiography, part scientific treatise” (Lévy, p. 235) – we observe
the palimpsest on three different levels. First, the narrator introduces us to Louis Lambert, a palimpsest
character, whose education stems from an eclectic intersection of cultures; Lambert reflects all the
diversity of these cultural influences. The narrator then fleshes out the illegible fragments left behind
by Lambert in order to articulate a complete text; he manipulates drafts of letters as if they were
palimpsests. Finally, upon completion of an initial analysis of Balzac‟s work, the reader registers
Louis Lambert as a palimpsest novel. If ever the original copy of the Traité de la volonté existed in its
true form, the reader would have found a philosophy on “la pensée” inherited from Swedenborg
within. Lambert‟s character devotes himself to studies on “la substance de la pensée” (616), and he
appears in several works by Balzac, including Louis Lambert, La Peau de chagrin, Illusions perdues
and Un drame au bord de la mer. The novel of this study prepares the reader for a descent into the
innermost workings of the Balzacian universe.
Situated within the Etudes philosophiques – “with plots that invariably end either in scenes of
the genius‟ self-immolation or in the destruction of his works” (Bresnick, p. 81) – Louis Lambert
began to take shape, as Michel Lichtlé notes, in the days following the death of General Lamarque.
“Parti de Paris en pleine insurrection républicaine, le mercredi 6 juin, au lendemain des funérailles du
général Lamarque,” Balzac composed the first draft of Louis Lambert “dans les jours et les semaines
qui suivirent” (1470). This chronology is important because only a few months prior to Lamarque‟s
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death, the world suffered the loss of Champollion, the celebrated decipherer of hieroglyphs. Both of
these historic figures hark back to the Empire, a period of vast archeological discoveries and cultural
pillaging. Following this period of imperial expansion and dominance, two forms of writing begin to
gain in interest and emerge, not coincidently, in the works of Balzac as they capture the imagination of
the general public: palimpsests and hieroglyphs.
Louis Lambert, palimpsest character
Souvent, me dit-il, en parlant de ses lectures, j’ai accompli de délicieux voyages, embarqué
sur un mot dans les abîmes du passé, comme l’insecte sur quelque brin d’herbe flotte au gré
d’un fleuve. (591)
In 1823, while traveling from Paris to Touraine , the narrator reminisces about his childhood
friend. During his voyage, he recognizes the name and countenance of a fellow traveler who turns out
to be Lambert‟s uncle. The uncle, Monsieur Lefebvre, subsequently informs the narrator that “la veille
de son mariage [Lambert] est devenu fou” after having attempted an autocastration (676). Yet, it is
only towards the end of the narrative that the narrator informs us of Lambert‟s cataleptic state and of
the chance encounter with the uncle. The narrator in fact distorts the chronological sequence of events
in order to “présenter les faits dans un ordre qui les rendît intéressants” (676), beginning his account
with Lambert‟s education. In other episides as well, the narrator makes his presence and his authority
as writer known, stating, for example: “Malgré moi déjà, je viens d‟intervertir l‟ordre dans lequel je
dois dérouler l‟histoire de cet homme qui transporta toute son action dans sa pensée, comme d‟autres
placent toute leur vie dans l‟action” (594). He scrambles the chronology in order to assert his role as
author and to destabilize any assumptions about Lambert‟s madness. Scott Sprenger formulates this
argument in “Balzac, archéologue de la conscience”:
Mais il convient de noter la stratégie délibérée qui se cache derrière cette discontinuité
narrative. Par exemple, nous savons que le narrateur ré-arrange de manière artificielle la
chronologie des événements pour donner l’impression qu’il ne découvre la folie de Lambert
qu’à la fin de l’histoire, alors qu’il en est évidemment conscient avant de commencer le récit
de son ami. C’est même la révélation de la folie de Lambert qui incite le narrateur à retracer
sa trajectoire intellectuelle. (Sprenger, p. 105)
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The narrator thus weaves together a story that makes us believe in Lambert‟s genius before
revealing to us the tragic dénouement of the madman.
For the narrator, this journey represents a symbolic return to the homeland and to origins. The
narrator ranks Lambert along with the great thinkers of the past by citing significant works read by the
child genius. Lambert‟s initiation to the Bible (“L‟Ancien et le Nouveau Testament étaient tombés
entre ses mains à l‟âge de cinq ans” [589]) inspires him to “quêt[er] des livres qu‟il obtenait à la faveur
de ses séductions dont le secret n‟appartient qu‟aux enfants” (589). Lambert‟s uncle, le curé de Mer,
“possédait environ deux à trois mille volumes [qui] proven[aient] des pillages faits pendant la
révolution dans les abbayes et les châteaux voisins” (592). Arnaud Hurel explains: “Mais c‟est aussi
sous la Révolution que naît la notion de patrimoine collectif, c‟est-à-dire l‟idée de biens nationaux et
indivis hérités du passé à transmettre aux générations futures. […] Il trouve son origine dans la
proposition du comte de Mirabeau adoptée le 2 novembre 1789 par l‟Assemblée nationale de
considérer que la „propriété des biens ecclésiastiques appartient à la nation‟” (14). Works authored by
Sainte Thérèse and Mme Guyon, which “lui continuèrent la Bible” (594), count among the books in
the priest‟s library. In 1811, Lambert attracts the attention of Balzac‟s fictitious Mme de Staël as she
catches sight of the young boy reading Swedenborg‟s Heaven and Hell; she is so impressed by
Lambert‟s literary sensibility that she consequently subsidizes his education at the collège de
Vendôme, where the narrator and Lambert meet. At Vendôme, “L‟arrivée de Louis Lambert fut le
texte d‟un conte digne des Mille et Une Nuits” (600), and Lambert earns the epithet of “Pythagorus.”
Lambert‟s sophisticated tastes in literature represent an intersection of languages and cultures,
including Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, German, Persian and Arabic. “Intéressé par les langues
anciennes, l‟hébreu en particulier, [Balzac] voit en effet dans les hiéroglyphes un système d‟écriture
qui ouvre aussi des aperçus sur l‟origine du langage” (Baron, p. 10). Each of these layers of education
constitutes a part of Lambert‟s character, as he comes to embody a sort of palimpsest. Upon her
encounter with the fourteen-year-old Louis Lambert, Mme de Staël proclaims, “C‟est un vrai voyant,”
evoking Swedenborg, [Lichtlé (595 n6 1518)]. Louis Lambert devotes himself to the mastery of his
internal self with the aim of gaining angelic status upon his death. “Il y aurait en nous deux créatures
distinctes. Selon Swedenborg, l‟ange serait l‟individu chez lequel l‟être intérieur réussit à triompher de
l‟être extérieur” (617). According to Lambert, “action” is a product of the internal self, whereas
“reaction” is accomplished in the outside world. Lambert dedicates himself to the study of thought and
to “la supériorité qui distingue nos sens latents de nos sens apparents […] homo duplex !” (622).
Lambert transforms his body and his interior self into a sort of camera obscura where all of
nature‟s occurrences are projected. “Penser, c‟est voir !” (615). The child genius exalts his own ability
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to abstract images from the outside world and in turn to interpret them in his imagination. For
Lambert, his eye extracts life‟s episodes in order to submit those images to detailed analysis in his
imagination, much as if his version of reality were an individual performance. “Quand je le veux […]
je tire un voile sur mes yeux. Soudain je rentre en moi-même, et j‟y trouve une chambre noire où les
accidents de la nature viennent se reproduire sous une forme plus pure que la forme sous laquelle ils
sont d‟abord apparus à mes sens extérieurs” (593). Bresnick explores the reference to Werther, stating
that this citation “echo[es] and pointedly alter[s] the famous words of Goethe‟s Werther, „Ich kehre in
mich zurückk, und finde da eine Welt‟” (83). Limited to his own unique perception of the world,
Lambert excludes all others who seek to engage with him, save for the narrator. Bresnick claims that
“Lambert‟s interiority is shrouded in a non-narratable darkness [yet] Lambert will find the pleasure of
self-absorption so great that he will choose to exempt himself from human interaction” (83).
Lambert‟s imagination gives form and flesh to the unknown, and he calls upon those images at his will
in his isolated interior world. “Si pendant la nuit, les yeux fermés, j‟ai vu en moi-même des objets
colorés […], nous aurions des facultés internes, indépendantes des lois physiques extérieures. La
nature matérielle serait pénétrable par l‟esprit” (622). If we, as readers, believe in what Lambert
“sees,” that belief is based on the way in which the narrator constructs the narrative: Lambert‟s
madness is a revelation that the narrator shares with the reader only after our initiation to Lambert‟s
revolutionary scientific treatise, Le Traité de la volonté. “Toute science humaine repose sur la
déduction, qui est une vision lente par laquelle on descend de la cause à l‟effet, par laquelle on
remonte de l‟effet à la cause; ou, dans une plus large expression, toute poésie comme toute œuvre d‟art
procède d‟une rapide vision des choses” (615).
Lambert confides solely in his childhood friend, our narrator, explaining to him the out-ofbody experiences which he believes he controls, but which nonetheless remain completely
imperceptible to others. The narrator explains that Lambert, at the age of fifteen, had an experience
that led him to believe in his mystical power: during a walk to the Rochambeau manor, Lambert
“reconnut et le bouquet d‟arbres […], et la disposition des feuillages, la couleur des eaux, les tourelles
du château […] enfin tous les détails du site qu‟il apercevait pour la première fois” (621). Lambert
claims he had already seen the site in a dream: “j‟ai vu cela cette nuit en rêve!” (621). The
“sycophantic narrator” (Bresnick, p. 84) takes his friend‟s revelation for truth, although this alleged
revelation is nothing but the fruit of an overactive imagination “préoccupée la veille de cette
promenade”: “Nous en parlâmes pendant toute la soirée” (620). The foundation for Lambert‟s Traité
de la volonté rests on this dubious experience.
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Lambert‟s Traité de la volonté owes in large part to previous authors; however, by blurring the
chronology of events so that Lambert‟s madness is revealed toward the end of the narrative, the
narrator avoids calling into question the intellectual originality of his friend.
Dans cet ouvrage d’enfant, Lambert déposa des idées d’homme. Dix ans plus tard, en
rencontrant quelques savants sérieusement occupés des phénomènes qui nous avaient frappés
[…] je compris l’importance de ses travaux […] Après avoir rassemblé mes souvenirs, je puis
affirmer que, dès 1812, il avait établi, deviné, discuté dans son Traité plusieurs faits
importants dont, me disait-il, les preuves arriveraient tôt ou tard. (625)
There is no trace to be found of Lambert‟s Traité, given that the original manuscript had been
confiscated by father Haugoult and the work subsequently forgotten as “un enfantillage” (625). “Le
père Haugoult vendit probablement à un épicier de Vendôme le Traité de la volonté, sans connaître
l‟importance des trésors scientifiques dont les germes avortés se dissipèrent en d‟ignorantes mains”
(624). In fact, while recollecting his memories of Lambert‟s treatise, the narrator draws comparisons
with certain “grands penseurs” (625), including Swedenborg, Locke, Mesmer, and Jésus-Christ:
“Jésus-Christ était pour lui le plus beau type de son système. Le: Et verbum caro factum est! lui
semblait une sublime parole destinée à exprimer la formule traditionnelle de la Volonté, du Verbe, de
l‟Action se faisant visible” (639). Here, we ask ourselves whether the narrator is truly praising the
genius of his long-lost friend. After all, he places Lambert in rank with some of the most influential
thinkers, at the origin of a new philosophy. Rather, perhaps the narrator is interested in asserting his
own expertise as an archeologist or palimpsest editor. “Ainsi, un pauvre artisan, Bernard, occupé à
fouiller les terres pour trouver les secrets des émaux, affirmait […] les faits géologiques dont la
démonstration fait aujourd‟hui la gloire de Buffon et de Cuvier” (625). By referencing Cuvier, the
narrator is honoring this vertical descent towards origins, and by extension, his own work which
obliges him to unearth the vestiges of a life buried in memories and texts. It is in fact precisely this
action that the narrator undertakes, of digging through memories as well as through Lambert‟s
documents “marchant dans un sentier autre que” the one taken by Lambert, in order to amalgamate the
ideas which “servaient le mieux [le] système” of the narrator (625). The narrator professes: “Le Temps
seul me fit donc pénétrer le sens des événements et des faits qui abondent en cette vie inconnue […]
Aussi cette histoire est-elle, dans l‟expression et l‟appréciation des choses, pleine d‟anachronismes
purement moraux qui ne nuiront peut-être point à son genre d‟intérêt” (607).
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Manipulating palimpsests
Between the introduction [“Louis Lambert naquit, en 1797” (589)] and the conclusion
[“Lambert mourut […] le 25 septembre 1824” (692)], the reader finds multiple references that indicate
the presence of a scribe. By making himself visible throughout the entire narrative, the narrator seeks
above all to leave an impression as the one who resuscitates Lambert‟s science through his own
rewriting of it. Who is this narrator who dedicates himself to transcribing the works of another? We
know that the narrator is Lambert‟s childhood friend, that the two had met at the college de Vendôme,
and that they subsequently lost contact. We also know that the two, as children, had been so close that
they earned the joint epithet of Poète-et-Pythagore (606), as if the narrator had always been the one to
translate the enigmatic thoughts of his friend. We might also say that we are dealing with a slightly
bitter writer, as we learn through the narrator that he had been “surnommé le Poète en dérision de [s]es
essais” and for having composed “ce trop long vers, devenu célèbre parmi [s]es camarades […]: Ô
Inca! ô roi infortuné et malheureux!” (603). This line of verse – cited from Les Incas ou la
Destruction de l’empire de Pérou as Lichtlé notes (603 n3 1528) – reveals the narrator‟s utter sense of
fascination for everything that risks erasure following destruction. The narrator seeks to reacquaint his
readers with a past erased from the collective memory.
The novel is steeped in a concern and obsession with truth that stems from the narrator. The
narrator launches his account with considerations on the word “vrai” by citing Lambert.
N’existe-t-il pas dans le mot VRAI une sorte de rectitude fantastique? Ne se trouve-t-il pas
dans le son bref qu’il exige une vague image de la chaste nudité, de la simplicité du vrai en
toute chose? […] J’ai pris pour exemple la formule d’une idée abstraite, ne voulant pas
expliquer le problème par un mot qui le rendit trop facile à comprendre. […] Par leur seule
physionomie, les mots raniment dans notre cerveau les créatures auxquelles ils servent de
vêtement. (592)
“Enfin, Balzac se place résolument du côté de Cratyle dans la vieille question entre Cratyle et
Hermogène sur l‟arbitraire du signe, reprise au XVIIème siècle par le dialogue entre Leibniz et Locke
– dont il se fait l‟écho dans Louis Lambert –, considérant le nom comme une propriété naturelle de la
chose” (Baron, p. 111). The narrator in fact seems to suffer from anxiety due to his obsession with
truth, and by stressing the word vrai, he is insisting on the truthfulness of his account. “J‟ignore donc
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si, moi son disciple, je pourrai fidèlement traduire ses pensées, après me les être assimilées de manière
à leur donner la couleur des miennes” (625).
The narrator‟s quest for truth simultaneously unleashes his search for the readable. While
fondly recalling his childhood memories with Lambert, the narrator earns an invitation to the uncle‟s
home and a visit with Lambert. “Lorsque le hasard me mit en relation avec son oncle, le bonhomme
m‟introduisit dans la chambre habitée à cette époque par Lambert” (659). The narrator likens
Lambert‟s old room to a site of ruins that the narrator must survey and excavate. “Je voulais y chercher
quelques traces de ses œuvres, s‟il en avait laissé. Là, parmi des papiers dont le désordre était respecté
par ce vieillard” (659), the narrator discovers the love letters that account for “la seconde partie de son
histoire intellectuelle” (659). The narrator sorts through the faded love letters found in the room in
order to complete the story of his friend. “Cette passion fut un abîme où le malheureux jeta tout, abîme
où la pensée s‟effraie de descendre, puisque la sienne, si flexible et si forte, s‟y perdit” (659). Yet, the
narrator plunges his hands into this abyss of documents in order to save all that had been, up until this
point, lost.
Cautious about trusting his memory as he had done while initiating us to the Traité de la
volonté, the narrator now devotes his full attention to Lambert‟s textual fragments, and he compares
these to palimpsests. The narrator, undertaking the first of the love letters addressed to Pauline – the
“ange-femme” (670) – exclaims: “Jamais antiquaire n‟a manié ses palimpsestes avec plus de respect
que je n‟en eus à étudier, à reconstruire ces monuments mutilés d‟une souffrance et d‟une joie si
sacrées pour ceux qui ont connu la même souffrance et la même joie” (660). Our storyteller, taking
himself for an antique dealer who recognizes the intrinsic value of these letters, scrutinizes Lambert‟s
writing. What the narrator finally transcribes for the reader is far from the original “draft” (660) he
found among Lambert‟s effects. Rather, after poring over the document, the narrator presents us with a
polished letter, “lettre dont on se souvient toujours” (660). He recasts these illegible epistolary drafts
into a completed literary text because “Mlle de Villenoix a sans doute détruit les véritables lettres qui
lui furent adressées” (660). Of course, we know that scratching the surface of a palimpsest
compromises the quality of the text, leaving only fragments with critical gaps of information. And yet,
among those letters that the narrator transcribes for the reader, we only have access to the readable.
The narrator‟s task, therefore, consists not only of digging through literary ruins but also of giving
shape to the invisible with a form of his own. Louis Lambert‟s system will later be compared to a
similar reconstition of a whole from fragments: “en effet, il sut en déduire tout un système, en
s‟emparant, comme fit Cuvier dans un autre ordre de choses, d‟un fragment de pensée pour
reconstruire une création” (621).
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In addition to bringing to light the earliest versions of Lambert‟s manuscripts, the narrator also
assumes the responsibility of translating Lambert‟s scrawled handwriting, an action compared to the
deciphering of hieroglyphs, “de métamorphoser la forme en sens” (Baron, p. 112). While examining
Lambert‟s papers, the narrator remarks, “la connaissance que je possédais de l‟écriture de Lambert me
permit, à l‟aide du temps, de déchiffrer les hiéroglyphes de cette sténographie créée par la frénésie de
la passion” (659-660). Here, Balzac points out the nineteenth-century preoccupation with hieroglyphs.
Our narrator, seeking to give form to the unreadable, dedicates himself to his work as if he were an
archeologist or an Egyptologist; and yet, he doubts his capacity to adequately translate Lambert and
his work.
We therefore ask ourselves whether the narrator remains faithful to his task as translator and
editor, or rather if he imposes himself on this work of a scribe, appropriating and manipulating
Lambert‟s ideas. We see, in fact, two kinds of aesthetic in these paper-monuments that are compared
to ruins. On the one hand, Lambert praises the aesthetic of archeological ruins in a letter addressed to
his uncle, a letter which “finira donc, pour le penseur comme pour le poète, cette enfance grandiose et
cette jeunesse incomprise” (646). Lambert states, “Les nations témoignent de leur grandeur par des
monuments, ou de leur bonheur par le bien-être individuel. Les monuments modernes valent-ils les
anciens? j‟en doute” (649-650). Lambert rejects any interpretation of an original , by virtue of the
philosophy he articulates on monuments. On the other hand, the narrator introduces himself as the one
who undertakes the task to “reconstruire [l]es monuments mutilés” (660) that Lambert‟s letters to
Pauline represent, which is in essence an aesthetic counterpart to Lambert‟s own. In the end, these
works composed from memory (Le Traité de la volonté) and rewritten based on fragments (the letters
to Pauline) are borrowed from ideas other than those Lambert himself might have intended. The
narrator admits:
Peut-être aurais-je pu transformer en un livre complet ces débris de pensées, compréhensibles
seulement pour certains esprits habitués à se pencher sur le bord des abîmes, dans
l’espérance d’en apercevoir le fond. La vie de cet immense cerveau, qui sans doute a craqué
de toutes parts comme un empire trop vaste, y eut été développée dans le récit des visions de
cet être, incomplet par trop de force ou par faiblesse ; mais j’ai mieux aimé rendre compte de
mes impressions que de faire une œuvre plus ou moins poétique. (692)
The narrator indeed flatters us, (“certains esprits habitués à se pencher sur le bord des
abîmes”), and invites us to contemplate his own work as if it were a site of ruins.
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Palimpsest novel
Louis Lambert triggers a descent into the Balzacian universe and also serves as a foundation
for other texts. Through analysis of the novel, the reader also transforms himself into an archeologist
seeking to unearth Balzac‟s poetic philosophy.
It is with La Peau de chagrin (1831) that Balzac offers his readers the character named
Raphaël de Valentin who formulates his own Théorie de la volonté. The narrator in Louis Lambert
claims to have attributed this title to his fictitious character, Raphaël de Valentin, in homage to his
real-life friend, Louis Lambert. “Ce fut en mémoire de la catastrophe arrivée au livre de Louis que,
dans l‟ouvrage par lequel commencent ces Études, je me suis servi pour une œuvre fictive du titre
réellement inventé par Lambert, et que j‟ai donné le nom d‟une femme qui lui fut chère à une jeune
fille pleine de dévouement” (624-625). It is in this manner that the narrator reveals himself as author.
He turns his stories into a sort of labyrinth that demands the reader‟s participation and research. The
reader, in order to enter into the work, must untangle the links with other works by Balzac despite the
chronological blurring.
Every novel in which Lambert appears conjures up images of the invisible and absence. La
Peau de chagrin concerns a parchment that shrinks in size precisely like the conical form of the
message: life diminishes according to the number of wishes that are granted. The narrator in Louis
Lambert confronts the vestiges of his memory and ruins of fragmented papers, and he attempts a
reconstitution of these elements that had been erased with the passage of time. Un drame au bord de la
mer takes the shape of a letter sent by Lambert to his uncle, and its content touches upon the idea of
repentance for the absence of offspring. The theme of progeny is further investigated in Louis Lambert
as Lambert himself attempts self-castration. In Illusions perdues, Lambert has already left Paris , and
he is only mentioned for his absence. These episodes in Lambert‟s life are explored in several novels,
and each implies a lacuna. Louis Lambert fully takes on the theme of the invisible, standing as
testimony to Balzac‟s fascination with the mystical and his interest in the archeological model that can
pull a forgotten past into existence.
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Bibliography

Balzac Honoré de, Louis Lambert [1832], in La Comédie humaine, XI, Paris, Gallimard,
« Bibliothèque de La Pléiade », 1980.

Baron Anne-Marie, Balzac, ou les hiéroglyphes de l’imaginaire. Paris: Honoré Champion,
2002.

Bresnick Adam, « The Origen of the Work of Art? Corporal Fragmentation and Aesthetic
Totality in Balzac‟s Louis Lambert. » in Ed. Freeman, G. Henry (eds), Discontinuity and
Fragmentation in French Literature. Amsterdam , Rodopi, 1994.

Evans Henri, « À propos de Louis Lambert. Un illuminé lu par Balzac : Guillaume
Oegger. » Revue des Sciences humaines, 1 er sem. 1950, pp. 37-48.

Hurel Arnaud, La France préhistorienne de 1789 à 1941, Paris, CNRS Éditions, 2007.

Lévy Gayle A. « Articulating Balzac‟s Genius at the Crossroads of the Nineteenth
Century. » Excavatio, 16.1-2 (2002), pp. 235-243.

McDonagh Josephine, « Writings on the Mind: Thomas de Quincey and the Importance of
the Palimpsest in Nineteenth Century Thought. » Prose Studies, 10.2 (1987), pp. 207-224.

The Oxford English Dictionary , 2 nd ed., 1989, OED Online, Oxford University Press.
<http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50169691>.

Sprenger , Scott M. « Balzac, archéologue de la conscience. », in Valérie-Angélique
Deshoulières and Pascal Vacher (eds), La Mémoire en ruines. Le Modèle archéologique
dans l’imaginaire moderne et contemporain, Clermont-Ferrand, Centre de Recherches sur
les Littératures Modernes et Contemporaines, 2000.
Lectrice à Amherst College (Massachusetts), Raina Uhden fait des recherches sur Balzac ainsi que sur
Gautier et Nerval. Elle est titulaire d‟un Ph.D. de Columbia University (2006), et achève une thèse de
doctorat intitulée Décomposer c’est créer : Alchemy and Art in Selected Works of Honoré de Balzac.
Ses articles les plus récents ont pour titre « Le charbon ardent in Balzac‟s La Recherche de l’Absolu
and “ Des artistes ”» (NCFS Colloquium 2006), « Raising the Dead : Body Parts Exhumed from the
Past in Gautier‟s “ Pied de momie ”» (N cfs Colloquium 2007) et « Fragments and Ruins in
Nineteenth-Century French Literature : Balzac and Gautier » (P amla, 2007).
Contact : [email protected]
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