Balzac and the Model of Painting by Knight Diana

Author:Knight, Diana
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

In Lacan's oft-quoted formulation, 'c'est dans le nom du père qu'il nous faut reconnaître le support de la fonction symbolique qui, depuis l'orée des temps historiques, identifie sa personne à la figure de la loi'.15 In that the nom du père is also the non du père, Piombo's dagger, according to his own perception of his authority, mediates the legislative and punitive functions. Hence his indignant lament to Roguin: '"il y a donc en France des lois qui détruisent le pouvoir paternel"' (1, 1083). But there are two laws in conflict here, and Ginevra is well aware that her father's version of Roman law (which includes the right of life and death over his daughter) has no legitimacy under the Napoleonic Code: '"Eh bien! dit la fille en se levant, je suis Ginevra di Piombo, etje déclare que dans six mois je serai la femme de Luigi Porta. Vous êtes un tyran, mon père."' (1, 1080) In fact, Piombo's refusal to exchange his daughter in marriage flouts the Lacanian Name-of-the-Father, which supposedly exists to forbid Oedipal desires and thereby maintain the incest taboo.

If the Name-of-the-Father ironically alludes to the Christian liturgy, in 1815, even after Waterloo, the place of the father can only be taken by Napoleon, and that of the liturgy by the Napoleonic Code. When Piombo declares to Ginevra that, being Corsican, he has no need to fear human justice ('"nous autres Corses, nous allons nous expliquer avec Dieu"'), he knows very well that this is not the case: '"Ah! nous sommes à Paris'" (1, 1080). Just as Piombo's Corsican vendetta serves the interests of his incestuous possessiveness, so the Corsican connection provides narrative motivation for the opening encounter, set in 1800, between Piombo and the First Consul, the function of which surely exceeds that of laying the ground for the re-emergence of Luigi Porta. It is in Napoleon that Balzac invests the historically relevant nom/non du père, with its legislative prerogative — '"Je suis devenu le chef d'une grande nation, je commande la république et doit faire exécuter les lois"' — and its prohibitory, punitive function: '"Mais plus de Vendetta! [...] Si tu joues du poignard, il n'y a pas de grâce à espérer. Ici la loi protège tous les citoyens"' (1, 1039). In this sense, Piombo is a rebellious fils ingrat of his benefactor Napoleon and, at the end of the story, he becomes the fils puni for his disobedience.

The opening scene portrays the indifference of Napoleon and Lucien Bonaparte to the quarrels of their Corsican past, and Balzac makes Napoleon mutter under his breath: "'le préjugé de la Vendetta empêchera longtemps le règne des lois en Corse [...]. Il faut cependant le détruire à tout prix."' (1, 1039) In the case of Piombo, the hypercathexis of family represented by his stubborn vendetta is part and parcel of his refusal of exogamy. Appropriately, the First Consul who muses about bringing Corsican customs into line with French law is also the Napoleon who will bequeath to France

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