Balzac moved to Passy as a means of escaping his creditors in 1840. In this village near the capital, he took rooms in a house that had been broken up into apartments, which were rented out to tenants of modest means.
Shielded from the rue Raymouard by a mansion, this house had the advantage of being invisible. For even greater anonymity, Balzac rented under the pseudonym ‘Monsieur de Breugnol’, a name borrowed from his live-in housekeeper, Philiberte Jeanne Louise Breugnol.
“[…] As soon as you receive this letter, write to me at the following address : Monsieur de Breugnol, rue Basse, n° 19 in Passy, near Paris. I am hiding out here for a while […] I had to move rather hurriedly and take cover where I am now […]“
Letter from Honoré de Balzac to Madame Hanska, 16 November 1840
Balzac’s apartment was on the garden level. Upon entering, one found a kitchen, a dining room and a guest room that Balzac’s mother occasionally used
“[…] Know that I can offer you a very charming room to sleep in, and if you do not have a country house this year, consider this room as your own. My mother comes here extremely rarely, and always lets me know well in advance.“
Letter from Honoré de Balzac to his editor, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, late April or early May 1842. To the right of the dining room, Balzac had a series of three connected rooms: his bedroom, a living room, and his study, where he corrected the whole of La Comédie humaine and wrote, among other works, Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes, Une ténébreuse affaire and Le Cousin Pons.
“The owner has put five families of proletarians in this house, with proletarian children who make such a racket that I lose 30,000 francs-worth of copy per year.“
Letter from Honoré de Balzac to Madame Hanska, 30 August 1844
The house did not offer Balzac a very high standard of comfort. In the summer, his work was disturbed by the heat in his study, which was located over a laundry and had a zinc roof. And all year round, the writer was bothered by the noise of the other tenants.
The apartment in this house was Balzac’s home until 1847 and the only one of Balzac’s Parisian residences that still exists.
