balzac's entire life project aims to describe every layer of society through novels, and when it comes to depicting the criminal world through vautrin, he chooses to root his character's motivation not in money, but in love. what a tremendous decision. balzac never advocated for/believed in the redemption of convicts but he wrote the greatest proof of humanity into vautrin. this is SO
quotes by philippe berthier (from the 2006 flammarion edition) for those who'd like to lose their minds:
« Sous ses masques, nous dit-on, ce presque tout est un presque rien. » Il est au moins, indubitablement, quelque chose : un homosexuel. S'il est vrai, comme l'affirme Balzac (qui a cohabité douze ans avec lui !), que c'est lui qui, par son « horrible influence », constitue la « colonne vertébrale » reliant Le Père Goriot à Ilusions perdues et Illusions perdues à Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes, son homosexualité, loin d'être simplement sociologique (mœurs spéciales du bagne) ou polémique (provocation antibourgeoise), est en fait sa seule véritable passion. Vautrin ne s'intéresse pas à l'argent. Tous les moyens lui sont bons pour s'en procurer, mais il ne lui en faut que pour mener à bien un plan obsédant, toujours le même, son unique projet de vie, qui le possède tout entier ; trouver un jeune amant et sceller avec lui une alliance corps et âme.
“Under his masks, we're told, that almost-all is an almost-nothing”. He is at least, without a doubt, something: a homosexual. If it's true that, as Balzac says (he lived alongside him for twelve years!), Vautrin is the one who, through his “horrible influence”, makes up the “backbone” which links Le Père Goriot to Illusions perdues and Illusions perdues to Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes, his homosexuality, far from being just sociological (specific lifestyle of the penal colony) or controversial (anti-bourgeois provocation), is in reality his only true passion. Vautrin does not care about money. For him, all means are good to acquire it, but he needs it only to fulfill an obsessive plan, always the same one, his only life goal, which consumes him all; to find a young male lover and seal with him a union body and soul.