Les Français peints par eux-mêmes

BALZAC Honoré de Les Français peints par eux-mêmes

First edition, one of the de luxe copies with a double state of the illustrations: one in black and white on colored paper and one of the same plates heightened in colors in "colori gommé" on white paper, protected by yellow silk paper guards, a sign of the first printing. This copy complete with all its hors-texte illustrations as well as its frontispieces, of Napoleon on a horse after Horace Vernet and the double-page map of France in Volume III, Province [The Countryside]. The work also has more than 1,500 illustrations to text. Volumes I and II (Paris) are from 1840, while Volumes III and IV (Paris) and Volumes I and II of The Countryside are from 1841, and Volume V for Paris and Volume III for The Countryside, as well as the Prisme [Prism] are from 1842.
Modern Romantic half red Russia-patterned shagreen over red cloth boards, four false bands to spine with gilt roulettes, blindstamped compartments, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, covers and spine preserved.
7 covers as issued retained in the Prism Volume: 5 blue of the "types coloriés à 10 sous" kind, 1 cover 84 as issued, preserving three pages of "La correspondance des Français [Letters from the French], 1 cover 326 as issued "suite de l'armée par M.E. de la Bédollière [A suite of the Army by M.E. de la Bédollière]", preserving three pages: the poem "l'Ange de la poésie [The Angel of Poetry]" by F. Fertiault and pp. 5 and 6 on Baron Munchhausen.


The texts and illustrations are dedicated to the various crafts as well as the inhabitants of the regions of mainland France and the colonies. The work overall represents the birth of a new genre: panoramic literature as Walter Benjamin calls it in Charles Baudelaire. Un poète lyrique à l'apogée du capitalisme [Charles Baudelaire. A Lyrical Poet at the Apogee of Capitalism]. Beside these portraits of the French, "the work of an expert team of both great and lesser writers and illustrators" (Ségolène Le Men, "La 'littérature panoramique' dans la genèse de la Comédie Humaine : Balzac et Les Français peints par eux-mêmes ['Panoramic Literature' in the Birth of the Comédie Humaine: Balzac and Les Français peints par eux-mêmes", L'Année balzacienne 2002/1 (n° 3) CAIRN) that assembles the most important figures of the art and literary worlds of the time. In that "team of experts" are contributions from the most significant authors and draughtsmen of the age, who each contributed to the project in an original way. In terms of writers, we have Balzac, who wrote the first article, "The Grocer", but also Nodier, Gautier, Nerval, Gozlan, Janin, Karr, just to name a few. The illustrators are equally numerous: Gavarni, Daumier, Delacroix, Grandville, Johannot, Bellangé, Charlet, Daubigny, Vernet, Isabey, Lami, Meissonnier, Monnier, Traviès, and so on.
This Protean fresco was overseen by a publisher, Léon Curmer, who was already well known at the time for the success of Paul et Virginie from 1836 and 1838. He also had an entry in his own book, "The Publisher", in Volume IV, penned by Elias Regnault. The latter took as a model the Tableau de Paris by Louis-Sebastien Mercier, published in 1781, extending its perspective in including the countryside. It was thanks to his coordination that the work did not turn out a simple compilation of portraits, but managed to take on a greater meaning: "the publisher stretched his framework and instead of leaving some fleeting portraits to lose themselves in the immense everyday whirlpool that swallows all things, he tried to bring together the most salient physiognomies of the age" (Ségolène Le Men, Ibid.).
It was essentially he who chose the writers and draughtsmen, matching them to the people they would have to represent, so that the portraits of the French people included in the book would come as close as possible to being a self-portrait. "It's a question of reaching out to well-chosen authors and illustrators, depending on the 'types' they will have to describe" (Ségolène Le Men, Ibid.). What's more, the work was published in parts, which was very common at the time. This meant that there could be greater involvement from the readership, who would subscribe to the publication and whose opinion counted towards the shape of future articles. Readers were called upon to contribute, as the "Correspondance des Français [Letters from the French]" retained in our copy of the Prism Volume attests, in which the publisher responds to suggestions for articles from readers: "Le Coiffeur [The Hairdresser] by M. Paul Tén...is a most spiritual piece. We regret, though, that this profession being taken, we cannot take it on" (Prism, Issue 84)
The work is richly illustrated in the text with vignettes and culs-de-lampes, but it is above all the hors-texte illustrations, the "types" - each figure presented full-page in a sketched landscape, facing the text - that represent an innovation in terms of the illustrated book. These drawings of the inhabitants of various regions or professions owe a lot to the science of physiology so much in fashion at the time. This science consisted in studying social groups. Its goal was to come up with the figure of an individual to serve as an example of their group, which pressed it into a form of caricature.


This "project of a moral encyclopedia that encompasses all of society" (Léon Curmer) is the highly accomplished witness to an era. Contemporary readers found in the work "a sort of collective self-portrait where "Paris" was followed by "The Countryside", and where each group could, in one fascicule or another, recognize itself" (Ségolène Le Men, Ibid.). Right from its conception it was intended to fix a fleeting moment that existed, according to the Baudelaireian style to "make a portrait of contemporary mores, amusing for the present and instructive for the future" (Ségolène Le Men, Ibid.)