Octave Mirbeau’s scathing 1895 review of Paul Hervieu’s novel L’Armature (The Framework), a masterful critique exposing how money forms the hidden skeleton of high society. A sharp, witty analysis of Belle Époque corruption and hypocrisy.
“…The only general basis for worldly relations, the sole binding force for this mass that comes from so many quarters, and indeed, the only element that constitutes family, society, the very law of the universe, is love!
“—No,” objected Tharsul, “it’s money.”
“—How so, money?”
“—Do you know exactly what we mean by the word ‘framework’? It refers to an assembly of metal pieces designed to support or contain the less solid, or loose, parts of a particular object. Well then! To support the family, to contain society, to provide all these fine people with the rigorous bearing you see in them, there’s a metal framework made of their money. On top of that, one arranges the trimming, the artistic work, the masonry—that is to say, duties, principles, feelings, which aren’t the resistant part, but rather the part that wears out, changes when needed, and gets changed again. The framework is more or less concealed; ordinarily, completely invisible; but it’s what prevents everything falling apart when the snags come, the jolts, the unforeseen storms, when the fabric of feelings tears and the façade of duties or grand principles cracks. It’s only in such circumstances, and for a few moments, that one can sometimes glimpse, in society’s heart, at the centre of families or between two halves of a marriage, their bare framework, the money-link. But quickly, they cover it up with fresh feelings or makeshift principles. They replace the worn-out prejudices and the burst duties… And the framework has withstood the earthquake! It remains permanently in place to scrupulously maintain the form and appearance of domestic hearths, and to receive whatever repairs the worldly façade needs…”
This conversation that M. Paul Hervieu has his characters hold in the opening pages of his book, I wanted to reproduce at the head of this article because it explains, better than I could, the symbolism of this title: The Framework, whilst also conveying the work’s general intent. A powerful work of life, implacable in its observation, terrifying in its truth, and beneath the force—harsh and profound—with which it imprints itself line by line in the reader’s brain, a work of sovereign charm through the infinite art that animates it and the science of a style that has reached the mastery of the great masters. One of the finest, surely, perhaps the finest, of our time. Since Balzac, to whom, incidentally, M. Paul Hervieu bears no resemblance—striving as he does to resemble only himself—except in the superior qualities of intelligence and the sense of life, I don’t recall such a book, a book that has given me as completely as this one the rare and violent impression of being a masterpiece.
⁂
Having first appeared in the Revue des Deux-Mondes, The Framework has been much discussed. It couldn’t be otherwise, given the book’s exceptional audacity, and also because the Revue des Deux-Mondes counts among its clientele the greatest “framework-bearers” of our epoch. One must admit their emotion is understandable, aggravated further by the fact that they hardly expected to be so harshly “documented” in what they consider, wrongly no doubt, as the last rampart of their social privileges, as their own house. Some felt anger; others, stupor—naturally, to the extent that worldly correctness permits the expression of these two generally over-expressive sentiments. All sincerely thought that M. Paul Hervieu had exaggerated, and that there was, in his case, if not hatred, at least bias. Society people have truly peculiar ways of understanding and judging matters touching on literature. They accept with marvellous ease, and cover with smiling, complicit indulgence, everything that life around them, in their own milieu, can offer in the way of irregular situations, qualified vices, proven or merely suspected infamies. If all this is accompanied by the mendacious bearing and hypocritical discretion that, in their morality, stand in for conscience and replace honour, they delight in it and, if need be, take pride in it. But when these situations, these vices, these infamies transpose from life to art, and leave daily reality to become incorporated, even attenuated, in a work of pure imagination, then they virtuously take offence and protest, in the name of grand principles, against the possibility that such morals could be true, or even plausible.
By a singular contradiction, some have gone so far as to claim that M. Paul Hervieu made The Framework a roman à clef. They recognised the characters, cited the real names alongside the fictional ones, and, as happens in such cases, each cited different ones. I do believe that in this little society game, all of contemporary finance and nobility paraded by. I needn’t defend M. Paul Hervieu from such a ridiculous accusation. One need not know this perfect gentleman and perfect writer, in whom our profession takes pride, to suppose for an instant that he might seek success through scandal. He has other resources in his mind. But M. Paul Hervieu, in studying his epoch, cannot abstract himself from his epoch. And as he has the gift of seeing, as he has the habit of looking, not as an indifferent spectator satisfied with the first lie that comes along, but as a philosopher passionate for truth, at the human being grappling with the gears of his passions, his instincts, and the fatalities of his social milieu, it’s quite evident that he had to render man resembling himself, and show us, in the brilliant light of his marvellous talent, that little cesspool of mud—pink and perfumed, but mud nonetheless—that is the heart of society people. It’s therefore by the characteristic odour of the novel’s imagined hearts that they recognised the odour of their own hearts.
⁂
I think that to recount a novel as important, as powerfully structured as The Framework, is to clumsily deflower it. It teems with so many characters, the most self-effacing of whom carries, through the nuance of humanity they represent, considerable psychological value; there are so many episodes, tragic or gay, voluptuous or bitter, which connect through necessary and harmoniously arranged links to the drama’s general action, that it would be, beyond difficult, perilous to compress a necessarily incomplete analysis within the too-narrow limits of a newspaper article. And then, like all great ensembles, M. Paul Hervieu’s book is worth above all for the multiplicity, the variety of ingenious and strong details, the power of observation, the fearsome analysis, the chain of causes leading to drama, to catastrophe, the way he specifies, with the high impersonality of a man of science, the functioning of social organs and the human mechanism that corresponds to and fits into them. It’s worth it for the perfection of the style, of admirable suppleness and plasticity, and for the supremely artistic evocation of things, which renders tangible the hidden life, the secret life, the deep life, where appears, stripped of all the lies that cover it, the hideous human framework. All things one is obliged to neglect in a cold review.
At most, I might detach from this series of portraits, without too much risk, the book’s principal figure, towards whom all others converge: Baron Saffre.
Baron Saffre is truly the god of gold. A millionaire financier, colossal gambler revolutionising all the world’s stock exchanges, his hand is everywhere, and all are at his feet. Everyone, great and small, strives to rub against this living statue of gold, hoping some particles will remain on their coat, on their conscience, on their honour. He bribes royal highnesses who show themselves at his parties, pays for husbands’ luxury by buying their wives, maintains an army of parasites, feeds the coffers of political parties, regilds the caskets of pretenders, humiliates with his patrimony and intellectual superiority the aristocracy—disdainful at first, soon vanquished and bought and paid cash by this great corruptor of men. M. Paul Hervieu paints him with a stroke: “His guiding spirit,” he writes, “his celebrated skill were founded on the art, in everything, of suspecting everyone, and always supposing the worst. Thanks to this method, his surprises could only serve him as conclusions in humanity’s honour.” Alas! He didn’t often have occasion to formulate such conclusions.
It’s around this colossal character that the multiple elements of the terrible drama that is The Framework swirl. All the abominable covetousness that this perpetual blaze of gold attracts; the base instincts it imperiously rekindles even in the depths of hearts that remained pure and are won by universal contagion; the complexity of contrary interests locked in fierce and merciless struggle, each thinking only of himself, as in the every-man-for-himself of a rout; the repercussion in families, sometimes tragic to the point of parricide, of passions that gold-fever unleashes and which lead to the negation of all moral and social law, this fine society, venal and rotten, and yet so proud to call itself guardian of grand principles, grand words, grand humbug—all this lives, takes flesh in unforgettable figures, circumscribes itself in moving scenes, on every page, every line. M. Paul Hervieu’s great merit is that he knew how to avoid the tedium of sermons and the uselessness of social theses in a subject that would have, without doubt, led a mind less aware than his to useless chatter. And what spiritual measure he has brought to the study of such baseness, and the fine bearing, and the correctness with which their proprietors conduct them in society!
Such is this admirable book: The Framework. It completes Flirt and Painted by Themselves, and forms with these last two a trilogy that future moralists must consult carefully when they want to form an idea of our worldly society of today.
I love and deeply admire this book because, beyond its marvellous art, it has a rare probity: that of flattering no snobbism, caressing no passion, encouraging no fashion, and not letting pass, as in the books of our most accredited psychologists, a great Christian breath over the toilet waters that have just washed the perfumed secret of adulteries.
1895.
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Léon Hennique Novel 