LA
 
 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS.
 
 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 1250 copies First Edition, June 1892. 
 1000 Second Edition, July 1892. 
 1000 Third Edition, August 1892.
 
 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PAEIS 
 
 (NOTES AND RECOLLECTIONS) 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. I. 
 REIGN OF LOUIS-PHILIPPE 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LD. 
 
 1892
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PACK 
 
 The Quartier- Latin in the late thirties The difference between 
 then and now A caricature on the walls of Paris I am 
 anxious to be introduced to the quarter whence it emanated 
 I am taken to " La Childebert," and make the acquaint- 
 ance of the original of the caricature The story of Bougiuier 
 and his nose Dantan as a caricaturist He abandons that 
 branch of art after he has made Madame Malibran burst into 
 tears at the sight of her statuette How Bouginier came to 
 be immortalized on the facade of the Passage du Caire 
 One of the first co-operative societies in France An artists' 
 hive The origin of "La Childebert" Its tenants in my 
 time The proprietress Madame Chanfort, the providence 
 of poor painters Her portraits sold after her death High 
 jinks at "La Childebert " The Childebertians and their 
 peacefully inclined neighbours Gratuitous baths and com- 
 pulsory douches at "La Childebert " The proprietress is 
 called upon to repair the roof The Childebertians bivouac 
 on the Place St. Germain-des Pres They start a " Society 
 for the Conversion of the Mahometans " The public sub- 
 scribe liberally What becomes of the subscriptions ? My 
 visits to " La Childebert " breed a taste for the other amuse- 
 ments of the Quartier-Latin Bobino and its entertainments 
 The audience The manager His stereotyped speech 
 The reply in chorus Woe to the bourgeois intruder Stove- 
 pipe hats a rarity in the Quartier-Latin The dress of the 
 collegians Their mode of living Suppers when money 
 was flush, rolls and milk when it was not A fortune-teller 
 in the Rue de Tournon Her prediction as to the future of 
 Josephine de Beauharnais The allowance to students in 
 those days The Odeon deserted Students' habits The 
 Chaumiere Rural excursions Pere Bonvin's .. .. 1 
 
 2067114
 
 vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 My introduction to the celebrities of the day The Cafe' de Paris 
 The old Prince Deinidoff The old man's mania Hia 
 sons The furniture and attendance at the Cafe' de Paris 
 Its high prices A mot of Alfred de Musset The cuisine 
 A rebuke of the proprietor to Balzac A version by one of 
 his predecessors of the cause of Vatel's suicide Some of the 
 lidbitu& Their intercourse with the attendants Their 
 courteous behaviour towards one another Le veau a la 
 casserole What Alfred de Musset, Balzac, and Alexandre 
 Dumas thought of it A silhouette of Alfred de Musset 
 His brother Paul on his election as a member of the Acade- 
 mic A silhouette of Balzac, between sunset and sunrise 
 A curious action against the publishers of an almanack A 
 full-length portrait of Balzac His pecuniary embarrassments 
 
 His visions of wealth and speculations His constant 
 
 neglect of his duties as a National Guard His troubles in 
 consequence thereof L'Hotel des Haricots Some of Ins 
 fellow-prisoners Adam, the composer of " Le Postilion de 
 Lonjumeau" Eugene Sue; his portrait His dandyism 
 The origin of the Paris Jockey Club Eugene Sue becomes 
 a member The success of * Les Mysteres de Paris " The 
 origin of " Le Juif-Errant " Sue makes himself objection- 
 able to the members of the Jockey Club His name struck 
 off the list His decline and disappearance . . . . 34 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 Alexandre Dumas pere Why he made himself particularly 
 agreeable to Englishmen His way of silencing people The 
 pursuit he loved best next to literature He has the privilege 
 of going down to the kitchens of the Cafe de Paris No one 
 questions his literary genius, some question his culinary 
 capacities Dr. Ve'ron and his cordon-bleu Dr. Veron's 
 reasons for dining out instead of at home Dr. Veron's 
 friend, the philanthropist, who does not go to the theatre 
 because he objects to be hurried with his emotions Dr. 
 Veron, instigated by his cook, accuses Dumas of having 
 collaborateurs in preparing his dishes as he was known to 
 have collaborateurs in his literary work Dumas' wrath 
 He invites us to a dinner which shall be wholly cooked by
 
 CONTENTS. Til 
 
 PAGE 
 
 him in the presence of a delegate to be chosen by the guests . 
 The lot falls upon me Dr. Ve'ron and Sophie make the 
 amende honorable A dinner-party at Veron's A curious 
 lawsuit in connection with Weber's " Freysohutz " Nestor 
 Roqueplan, who became the successor of the defendant in 
 the case, suggests a way out of it Leon Fillet virtually 
 adopts it and wins the day A similar plan adopted years 
 before by a fireman on duty at the opera, on being tried 
 by court-martial for having fallen asleep during the per- 
 formance of " Guido et Geuevra " Firemen not bad judges 
 of plays and operas They were often consulted both by 
 Meyerbeer and Dumas Dumas at work How he idled his 
 time away Dumas causes the traffic receipts of the Chemin 
 de Fer de 1'Ouest to swell during his three years' residence 
 at Saint-Germain M. de Moutalivet advises Louis-Philippe 
 to invite Dumas to Versailles, to see what his presence will 
 do for the royal city Louis-Philippe does not act upon the 
 advice The relations between Dumas and the d'Orleans 
 family After the Revolution of '48, Dumas becomes a can- 
 didate for parliament The story of his canvass and his 
 address to the electors at Joigny Dumas' utter indifference 
 to money matters He easts his burdens upon others 
 Dumas and his creditors Writs and distraints How they 
 are dealt with Dumas' indiscriminate generosity A dozen 
 houses full of new furniture in half as many years Dumas' 
 frugality at table Literary remuneration Dumas and his 
 eon "Leave me a hundred francs" .. .. .. 62 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Dr. Louis Veron The real man as distinguished from that of 
 his own "Memoirs" He takes the management of the 
 Paris Opera How it was governed before his advent 
 Meyerbeer's "Robert le Diable" underlined Meyerbeer 
 and his doubts upon the merits of his work Meyerbeer's 
 generosity Meyerbeer and the beggars of the Rue Le 
 Peletier Dr. Veron, the inventor of the modern newspaper 
 puff Some specimens of advertisements in their infancy 
 Dr. Veron takes a leaf from the book of Moliere Dr. 
 Veron's love of money His superstitions His objections to 
 travelling in railways He quotes the Queen of England as
 
 Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 MM 
 
 an example When Queen Victoria overcomes her objection, 
 Veron holds out "Queen Victoria has got a successor: 
 the Ve'ron dynasty begins and ends with me " Thirteen at 
 table I make the acquaintance of Taglioni The woman 
 and the ballerina Her adventure at Perth An improvised 
 performance of "Nathalie, la Laitiere Suisse" Another 
 adventure in Russia A modern Claude Du-Val My last 
 meeting with Taglioni A dinner-party at De Moray's A 
 comedy scene between husband and wife Flotow, the com- 
 poser of " Martha " His family His father's objection to 
 the composer's profession The latter's interview with M. 
 de Saint-Georges, the author of the libretto of Balfe's 
 " Bohemian Girl " M. de Saint-Georges prevails upon the 
 father to let his son study in Paris for five years, and to pro- 
 vide for him during that time The supplies are stopped 
 on the last day of the fifth year Flotow, at the advice of 
 M. de Saint-Georges, stays on and lives by giving piano- 
 lessons His earthly possessions at his first success 
 "Rob Roy" at the Hotel Castellane Lord Granville's 
 opinion of the music The Hotel Castellane and some Paris 
 salons during Louis-Philippe's reign The Princesse de 
 Lieven's, M. Thiers', etc. What Madame de Girardin's was 
 like Victor Hugo's Perpetual adoration ; very artistic, but 
 nothing to eat or to drink The salon of the ambassador of 
 the Two Sicilies Lord and Lady Granville at the English 
 Embassy The salon of Count Apponyi A story connected 
 with it Furniture and entertainments Cakes, ices, and 
 tea; no champagne as during the Second Empire The 
 Hotel Castellane and its amateur theatricals Rival com- 
 paniesNo under-studies Lord Brougham at the Hotel 
 Castellane His bad French and his would-be Don Juan- 
 ism A French rendering of Shakespeare's "There is but 
 one step between the sublime and the ridiculous," as applied 
 to Lord Brougham He nearly accepts a part in a farce 
 where his bad French is likely to produce a comic effect 
 His successor as a murderer of the language M. de Saint- 
 Georges Like Moliere, he reads his plays to his house- 
 keeper When the latter is not satisfied, the dinner is spoilt, 
 however great the success of the play in public estimation- 
 Great men and their housekeepers Turner, Jean Jacques 
 Rousseau, Eugene Delacroix .. 90
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Boulevards in the forties The Chinese Baths A favourite 
 tobacconist of Alfred de Musset The price of cigars The 
 diligence still the usual mode of travelling Provincials in 
 Paris Parliamentary see-saw between M. Thiers and M. 
 Guizot Amenities of editors An advocate of universal 
 suffrage Distribution of gratuitous sausages to the working 
 man on the king's birthday The rendezvous of actors in 
 search of an engagement Frederick Lemaitre on the eve of 
 appearing in a new part The Legitimists begin to leave 
 their seclusion and to mingle with the bourgeoisie Alex- 
 andre Dumas and Scribe The latter's fertility as a play- 
 wright The National Guards go shooting, in uniform 
 and in companies, on the Plaine Saint-Denis Vidocq's 
 private inquiry office in the Rue Vivienne No river-side 
 resorts The plaster elephant on the Place de la Bastille 
 The sentimental romances of Lo'isa Puget The songs of the 
 working classes Cheap bread and wine How they enjoyed 
 themselves on Sundays and holidays The'ophile Gautier's 
 pony-carriage The hatred of the bourgeoisie Nestor 
 Roqueplan's expression of it Gavarni's M. Thiers' sister 
 keeps a restaurant at the corner of the Rue Drouot When 
 he is in power, the members of the Opposition go and dine 
 there, and publish facetious accounts of the entertainment 
 All appearances to the contrary, people like Guizot better 
 than Thiers But few entries for the race for wealth in those 
 days The Rothschilds still live in the Rue Lafitte 
 Favourite lounges The Boulevards, the Rue Le Peletier, 
 and the Passage de 1'Ope'ra The Opera The Rue Le 
 Peletier audits attractions The Restaurant of Paolo Broggi 
 The Estaminet du Divan Literary waiters and Boniface 
 Major Fraser The mystery surrounding his origin 
 Another mysterious personage The Passage de 1'Opera is 
 invaded by the stockjobbers, and loses its prestige as a pro- 
 menade Bernard Latte's, the publisher of Donizetti's operas, 
 becomes deserted Tortoni's Louis-Blanc His scruples as 
 an editor A few words about duelling Two tragic meet- 
 ings Lola Monies Her adventurous career A celebrated 
 trial My first meeting with Gustavo Flaubert, the author 
 of" Madame Bovary " and " Salambo " Emile de Girardin 
 His opinion of duelling My decision with regard to it The
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 original of " La Dame aux Camillas " Her parentage 
 Alexandra Duums gives the diagnosis of her character in 
 connection with his son's play L'Homme au Camellia M. 
 Lautour-Mezerai, the inventor of children's periodical litera- 
 ture in France Auguste Lireux He takes the manage- 
 ment of the Odeon Balzac again His schemes, his greed 
 Lireux more fortunate with other authors Anglophobia 
 on the French stage Gallophobia on the English stage .. 124 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 Eachel and some of her fellow-actors Rachel's true character 
 Her greediness and spitefulness Her vanity and her wit 
 Her powers of fascination The cost of being fascinated 
 by her Her manner of levying toll Some of her victims, 
 Comte Duchatel and Dr. Veron The story of her guitar 
 A little transaction between her and M. Fould Her sup- 
 posed charity and generosity Ten tickets for a charity 
 concert How she made them into twenty How she could 
 have made them into a hundred Baron Taylor puzzled 
 Her manner of giving presents Beauvallet's precaution 
 with regard to one of her gifts Alexandra Dumas the 
 younger, wiser or perhaps not so wise in his generation 
 Rachel as a raconteuse The story of her debut at the 
 Gymnase What Rachel would have been as an actor instead 
 of an actress Her comic genius Rachel's mother What 
 became of Rachel's money Mama Felix as a pawnbroker 
 Rachel's trinkets Two curious bracelets Her first appear- 
 ance before Nicholas I. A dramatic recital in the open air 
 Rachel's opinion of the handsomest man in Europe 
 Rachel and Samson Her obligations to him How she repays 
 them How she goes to Berryer to be coached in the fable of 
 " The Two Pigeons " An anecdote of Berryer Rachel's fear 
 of a "warm reception" on the first night of "Adrienne 
 Lecouvreur" How she averts the danger Samson as a 
 man and as an actor Petticoat-revolts at the Comedie- 
 Francaise Samson and Regnier as buffers Their different 
 ways of pouring oil upon the troubled waters Mdlle. 
 Sylvanie Plessy A parallel between her and Sarah Bern- 
 hardt Samson and Regnier's pride in their profession The 
 different character of that pride " Apollo with a bad tailor,
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 and who dresses without a looking-glass" Samson gives a 
 lesson in declamation to a procureur-imperial The secret of 
 Regnier's greatness as an actor A lesson at the Conser- 
 vatoire Ee'gnier on "make-up" Eegnier's opinion of genius 
 on the stage A mot of Augustine Brohan Giovanni, the 
 wigmaker of the Comeilie-Fran^use His pride in his pro- 
 fession M. Ancessy, the musical director, and his three 
 wigs .. .. .. .. .. .. 183 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Two composers, Auber and Fe'licien David Auber, the legend 
 of his youthful appearance How it arose His daily rides, 
 his love of women's society His mot on Mozart's "Don 
 Juan" The only drawback to Auber's enjoyment of women's 
 society His reluctance to take his hat off How lie managed 
 to keep it on most of the time His opinion upon Meyerbeer's 
 and Hulevy's genius His opinion upon Ge'rard de Nerval, 
 who hanged himself with his hat on His love of solitude 
 His fondness of Paris His grievance against his mother for 
 not having given him birtli there Ho refuses to leave Paris 
 at the commencement of the siege His small appetite He 
 proposes to write a new opera when the Prussians are gone 
 Auber suffers no privations, but has difficulty in finding 
 fodder for his horse The Parisians claim it for food 
 Another legend about Auber's independence of sleep How 
 and where he generally slept Why Auber snored in Veron's 
 company, and why he did not in that of other people His 
 capacity for work Auber a brilliant talker Auber's grati- 
 tude to the artists who interpreted his work, but different 
 from Meyerbeer's The reason why, according to Auber 
 Jealousy or humility Auber and the younger Coquelin 
 " The verdict on all things in this world may be summed 
 up in the one phrase, ' It's an injustice'" Fe'licien David 
 The man The beginnings of his career His terrible poverty 
 He joins the Saiut-Simoniens, and goes with some of them 
 to the East Their reception at Constantinople M. Scribe 
 and the libretto of " L'Africaine " David in Egypt at 
 the court of Mehemet-AH David's description of him 
 Mehemet's way of testing the educational progress of his 
 aons Woe to the fat kine Meheinet-Ali suggests a new
 
 Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 mode of teaching music to the inmates of the harem Felicien 
 David's further wanderings in Egypt Their effect upon 
 his musical genius His return to France He tells the story 
 of the first performance of " Le De".sert " An ambulant box- 
 office His success Fame, but no money He sells the score 
 of "Le Desert" He loses his savings "La Perle du 
 Bresil" and the Coup-d'Etat "No luck" Napoleon III. 
 remains his debtor for eleven years A mot of Auber, and 
 one of Alexandre Dumas pere The story of " A'ida " Why 
 Felicien David did not compose the music The real author 
 of the libretto .. .. 217 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Three painters, and a school for pifferari Gabriel Decamps, 
 Eugene Delacroix, and Horace Vernet The prices of 
 pictures in the forties Delacroix' find no purchasers at 
 all Decamps' drawings fetch a thousand francs each 
 Decamps not a happy man The cause of his unhappiness 
 The man and the painter He finds no pleasure in 
 being popular Eugene Delacroix His contempt for the 
 bourgeoisie A parallel between Delacroix and Shakespeare 
 Was Delacroix tall or short ? His love of flowers His 
 delicate health His personal appearance His indifference 
 to the love-passion George Sand and Delacroix A mis- 
 carried love-scene Delacroix' housekeeper, Jenny Leguillou 
 Delacroix does not want to pose as a model for one of 
 George Sand's heroes Delacroix as a writer His approval 
 of Carlyle's dictum, "Show me how a man sings," etc. 
 His humour tempered by his reverence His failure as a 
 caricaturist His practical jokes on would-be art-critics 
 Delacroix at home His dress while at work Horace 
 Vernet's, Paul Delaroche's, Ingres' Early at work He 
 does not waste time over lunch How he spent his evenings 
 His dislike of being reproduced in marble or on canvas 
 after his death Horace Vernet The contrast between the 
 two men and the two artists Vernet's appearance His own 
 account of how he became a painter Moral and mental re- 
 semblance to Alexandre Dumas pere His political opinions 
 Vernet and Nicholas I. A bold answer His opinion on 
 the mental state of the Romanoffs The comic side of
 
 CONTEXTS. Xlll 
 
 PACE 
 
 Vernet'B character He thinks himself a Vauban His 
 interviews with M. Thiers His admiration of everything 
 military His worship of Alfred de Vigny His ineffectual 
 attempts to paint a scene in connection with the storming of 
 Constantino Laurent-Jan proposes to write an epic on it 
 He gives a synopsis of the cantos Laurent-Jan lives " on 
 the fat of the land " for six months A son of Napoleon's 
 companion in exile, General Bertrand The chaplain of 
 " la Belle-Poule " The first French priest who wore the 
 English dress Horace Vernet and the veterans of "la 
 grande armee" His studio during their occupancy of it 
 as models His budget His hatred of pifferari A pro- 
 fessor The Quar tier-Latin revisited .. .. .. 234 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Louis-Philippe and his family An unpublished theatrical skit 
 on his mania for shaking hands with every one His art of 
 governing, according to the same skit Louis-Philippe not 
 the ardent admirer of the bourgeoisie he professed to be 
 The Faubourg Saint-Germain deserts the Tuileries The 
 
 English in too great a majority Lord 'a opinion of the 
 
 dinners at the Tuileries The attitude of the bourgeoisie 
 towards Louis-Philippe, according to the King himself 
 Louis-Philippe's wit His final words on the death of 
 Talleyrand His love of money He could be generous at 
 times A story of the Palais-Royal Louis-Philippe and the 
 Marseillaise Two curious stories connected with the Mar- 
 seillaise Who was the composer of it? Louis-Philippe's 
 opinion of the throne, the crown, and the sceptre of France 
 as additions to one's comfort His children, and especially 
 his sons, take things more easily Even the Bonapartists 
 admired some of the latter A mot of an Imperialist How 
 the boys were brought up Their nocturnal rambles later 
 on The King himself does not seem to mind those escapades, 
 but is frightened at M. Guizot hearing of them Louis- 
 Philippe did not understand Guizot The recollection of 
 his former misery frequently haunts the King He worries 
 Queen Victoria with his fear of becoming poor Louis- 
 Philippe an excellent husband and father He wants to 
 write the libretto of an opera on an English subject His
 
 v CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 religion The court receptions ridiculous Even the prole- 
 tariat sneer at them The entree of the Duchesse d'Orleans 
 into Paris The scene in the Tuileries gardens A mot of 
 Princesse Clementine on her father's too paternal solicitude 
 A practical joke of the Prince de Joinville His carica- 
 tures and drawings The children inherited their talent for 
 drawing and modelling from their mother The Due de 
 Nemours as a miniature and water-colour painter Suspected 
 of being a Legitimist All Louis-Philippe's children great 
 patrons of art How the bourgeoisie looked upon their inter- 
 course with artists The Due de Nemours' marvellous 
 memory The studio of Eugene Lami His neighbours, 
 Paul Delaroche and Honore de Balzac The Duo de 
 Nemours' bravery called in question The Due d'Aumale's 
 exploits in Algeria considered mere skirmishes A curious 
 story of spiritism The Duo d'Aumale a greater favourite 
 with the world than any of the other sons of Louis- 
 Philippe His wit The Due d'Orleans also a great 
 favourite His visits to Decamps' studio An indifferent 
 classical scholar A curious kind of black-mail His in- 
 difference to money There is no money in a Republic 
 His death A witty reply to the Legitimists . . . , 264 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Revolution of '48 The beginning of it The National 
 Guards in all their glory The Cafe Gregoire on the Place 
 du Caire The price of a good breakfast in '48 The palmy 
 days of the Cuisine Bourgeoise The excitement on the 
 Boulevards on Sunday, February 20th, '48 The theatres 
 A ball at Poirson's, the erstwhile director of the Gymnase 
 A lull in the storm Tuesday, February 22nd Another 
 visit to the Cafe Gregoire On my way thither The Come- 
 die-Fran<jaise closes its doors What it means, according 
 to my old tutor We are waited upon by a sergeant and 
 corporal We are no longer "messieurs," but "citoyens" 
 An eye to the main chance The patriots do a bit of business 
 in tricolour cockades The company marches away Casual- 
 ties "Le patriotisme" means, the difference between the 
 louis d'or ami the ecu of three francs The company 
 bivouacs on the Boulevard Saint-Martin A tyrant's victim
 
 CONTENTS. XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " malgre lui "Wednesday, February 23rd The Cafe Gre- 
 goire once more The National Guards en neglig A novel 
 mode of settling accounts The National Guards fortify the 
 inner man A bivouac on the Boulevard du Temple A 
 camp scene from an opera I leave My companion's account 
 The National Guards protect the regulars The author of 
 these notes goes to the theatre The Gymnase and the 
 Varietes on the eve of the Revolution Bouffe and Dejazet 
 Thursday, February 24th, '48 The Boulevards at 9.30 a.m. 
 No milk The Revolutionaries do without it The Place 
 du Carrousel The sovereign people fire from the roofs on 
 the troops The troops do not dislodge them The King 
 reviews the troops The apparent inactivity of Louis- 
 Philippe's sons A theory about the difference in bloodshed 
 One of the three ugliest men in France comes to see the 
 King Seditious cries The King abdicates Chaos The 
 sacking of the Tuileries Receptions and feasting in the 
 Galerie de Diane " Du cafe pour nous, des cigarettes pour 
 les dames " The dresses of the princesses The bourgeois 
 feast the gamins who guard the barricades The Republic 
 proclaimed The riff-raff insist upon illuminations An 
 actor promoted to the Governorship of the Hotel de Ville 
 Some members of the " provisional Government " at work 
 Me'ry on Lamartine Why the latter proclaimed the 
 Republic .. .. .. .. .. .. 298
 
 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Quartier-Latin in the late thirties The difference between then 
 and now A c;iric iture on the walls of Paris I am anxious to be 
 introduced to the quarter whence it emanated I am taken to " La 
 Childebert," ;ind make the acquaintance of the original of the 
 caricature The story of Bouginier and his nose Dantan as a 
 caricaturist He abandons that branch of art after he has made 
 Madame Malibran burst into tears at the sight of her statuette 
 How Bouginier came to be immortalized on the fa9ade of the 
 Passage du Caire One of the first co-operative societies in France 
 An artists' hive The origin of "La Childebert " Its tenants in 
 my time The proprietress Madame Chaufort, the providence of 
 poor pointers Her portraits sold after her death High jinks at 
 "La Childebert'' The Childebertians and their peacefully in- 
 clined neighbours Gratuitous baths and compulsory douches at 
 "La Childebert " The proprietress is called upon to repair the 
 roof The Childebertians bivouac on the Place St. Germain-des- 
 Pres They start a "Society for the Conversion of the Mahome- 
 tans" The public subscribe liberally What becomes of the 
 subscriptions? My visits to "La Childebert" breed a taste for 
 the other amusements of the Quartier-Latin Bobino and its 
 entertainments The audience The manager His stereotyped 
 speech The reply in chorus Woe to the bourgeois-intruder 
 Stove-pipe hats a rarity in the Quartier-Latin The dresa of 
 the collegians Their mode of living Suppers when money was 
 flush, rolls and milk when it was not -A fortune-teller in the 
 Rue de Tournon Her prediction as to the future of Josephine de 
 Beauharnais The allowance to students in those days The 
 Ode'on rieserted Students' habits The Chaumiere Rural ex- 
 cursions Pere Bonvin's. 
 
 LONG before Baron Haussmann began his architectural 
 transformation, many parts of Paris had undergone 
 changes, perceptible only to those who had been 
 brought up among the inhabitants, though distinct 
 VOL. i. B
 
 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 from them in nationality, education, habits, and tastes. 
 Paris became to a certain extent, and not altogether 
 voluntarily, cosmopolitan before the palatial mansions, 
 the broad avenues, the handsome public squares which 
 subsequently excited the admiration of the civilized 
 world had been dreamt of, and while its outer aspect 
 was as yet scarcely modified. This was mainly due 
 to the establishment of railways, which caused in the 
 end large influxes of foreigners and provincials, who 
 as it were drove the real Parisian from his haunts. 
 Those visitors rarely penetrated in large numbers 
 to the very heart of the Quartier-Latin. When 
 they crossed the bridges that span the Seine, it was 
 to see the Sorbonne, the Pantheon, the Observatory, 
 the Odeon, and the Luxembourg; they rarely stayed 
 after nightfall. The Prado, the Theatre Bobino, the 
 students' taverns, escaped their observation when there 
 was really something to see; and now, when the 
 Closerie des Lilas has become the Bal Bullier, when 
 the small theatre has been demolished, and when the 
 taverns are in no way distinguished from other Parisian 
 taverns when, in short, commonplace pervades the 
 whole people flock thither very often. But during 
 the whole of the forties, and even later, the rive 
 gauche, with its Quartier-Latin and adjacent Faubourg 
 St. Germain, were almost entirely sacred from the 
 desecrating stare of the deliberate sightseer ; and, 
 consequently, the former especially, preserved its 
 individuality, not only materially, but mentally and 
 morally immorally would perhaps have been the 
 word that would have risen to the lips of the ob- 
 server who lacked the time and inclination to study the 
 life led there deeper than it appeared merely on the
 
 THE QUARTIEE-LATIN IN THE FORTIES. 3 
 
 surface. For though there was a good deal of royster- 
 ing and practical joking, and short-lasted liaison, there 
 was little of deliberate vice, of strategic libertinism 
 if I may be allowed to coin the expression. True, 
 every Jack had his Jill, but, as a rule, it was Jill who 
 had set the ball rolling. 
 
 The Quartier - Latin not only sheltered sucking 
 lawyers and doctors, budding professors and savans 
 and literateurs, but artists whose names have since 
 then become world-renowned. It was with some of 
 these that I was most thrown in contact in that 
 quarter, partly from inclination, because from my 
 earliest youth I have been fonder of pictures than 
 of books, partly because at that time I had already 
 seen so many authors of fame, most of whom were 
 the intimate acquaintances of a connection of mine, 
 that I cared little to seek the society of those who 
 had not arrived at that stage. I was very young, 
 and, though not devoid of faith in possibilities, too 
 mentally indolent when judgment in that respect 
 involved the sitting down to manuscripts. It was so 
 much easier and charming to be able to discover a 
 budding genius by a mere glance at a good sketch, 
 even when the latter was drawn on charcoal on a not 
 particularly clean " whitewashed " wall. 
 
 I was scarcely more than a stripling when one 
 morning such a sketch appeared on the walls of Paris, 
 and considerably mystified, while it at the same time 
 amused, the inhabitants of the capital. It was not the 
 work of what we in England would call a " seascape 
 and mackerel artist," for no such individual stood by 
 to ask toll of the admirers ; it was not an advertisement, 
 for in those days that mode of mural publicity was
 
 4 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 scarcely born, let alone in its infancy, in Paris. What, 
 then, was this colossal, monumental nose, the like of 
 which I have only seen on the faces of four human 
 beings, one of whom was Hyacinth, the famous actor 
 of the Palais-Koyal, the other three being M. d'Argout, 
 the Governor of the Bank of France ; M. de Jussieu, 
 the Director of the Jardin des Plantes ; and Lasailly, 
 Balzac's secretary ? What was this colossal nose, with 
 a ridiculously small head and body attached to it ? 
 The nasal organ was certainly phenomenal, even 
 allowing for the permissible exaggeration of the 
 caricaturist, but it could surely not be the only title 
 of its owner to this sudden leap into fame ? Was it 
 a performing nose, or one endowed with extraordinary 
 powers of smell? I puzzled over the question for 
 several days, until one morning I happened to run 
 against my old tutor, looking at the picture and 
 laughing till the tears ran down his wrinkled cheeks. 
 It was a positive pleasure to see him. " C'est bien lui, 
 c'est bien lui," he exclaimed ; " c'est absolumeut son 
 portrait crache ! " " Do you know the original ? " I 
 asked. " Mais, sans doute, je le connais, c'est un ami 
 de mon fils, du reste, tout le monde connait Bouginier." 
 " But I do not know him," I protested, feeling very 
 much ashamed of my ignorance. " Ah, you ! that's 
 quite a different thing ; you do not live in the Quartier- 
 Latin, but everybody there knows him." From that 
 moment I knew no rest until I had made the acquaint- 
 ance of Bouginier, which was not very difficult ; and 
 through him I became a frequent visitor to " La 
 Child ebert," which deserves a detailed description, 
 because, though it was a familiar haunt to many 
 Parisians of my time with a taste for Bohemian
 
 AN IMMORTAL CARICATURE. 5 
 
 society, I doubt whether many Englishmen, save (the 
 late) Mr. Blanchard Jerrold and one of the Mayhews, 
 ever set foot there, and even they could not have seen 
 it in its prime. 
 
 But before I deal with " La Child ebert," I must say 
 a few words about Bouginier, who, contrary to my 
 expectations, o\ved his fame solely to his proboscis. He 
 utterly disappeared from the artistic horizon in a few 
 years, but his features still live in the memory of those 
 who knew him through a statuette in terra cotta 
 modelled by Dantan the younger. During the reign 
 of Louis-Philippe, Dantan took to that branch of art 
 as a relaxation from his more serious work; he finally 
 abandoned it after he had made Madame Malibran 
 burst into tears, instead of making her laugh, as he 
 intended, at her own caricature. Those curious in 
 such matters may see Bouginier's presentment in a 
 medallion on the frontispiece of the Passage du Caire, 
 amidst the Egyptian divinities and sphinxes. As a 
 matter of course, the spectator asks himself why this 
 modern countenance should find itself in such incon- 
 gruous company, and he comes almost naturally to the 
 conclusion that Bouginier was the owner, or perhaps 
 the architect, of this arcade, almost exclusively tenanted 
 until very recently by lithographers, printers, etc. 
 The conclusion, however, would be an erroneous one. 
 Bouginier, as far as is known, never had any property 
 in Paris or elsewhere ; least of all was he vain enough 
 to perpetuate his own features in that manner, even if 
 he had had an opportunity, but he had not ; seeing 
 that he was not an architect, but simply a painter, of 
 no great talents certainly, but, withal, modest and 
 sensible, and as such opposed to, or at any rate not
 
 6 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PAULS. 
 
 sharing, the crazes of mediaevalism, romanticism, and 
 other isms in which the young painters of that day 
 indulged, and which they thought fit to emphasize in 
 public and among one another by eccentricities of 
 costume and language, supposed to be in harmony 
 with the periods they had adopted for illustration. 
 This absence of enthusiasm one way or the other 
 aroused the ire of his fellow-lodgers at the " Childe- 
 bert," and one of them, whose pencil was more deft 
 at that kind of work than those of the others, executed 
 their vengeance, and drew Bouginier's picture on the 
 " fa^ end " of a dead wall in the vicinity of the Church 
 of St. Germain-des-Pres. The success was instantaneous 
 and positively overwhelming, though truth compels 
 one to state that this was the only flash of genius that 
 illumined that young fellow's career. His name was 
 Fourreau, and one looks in vain for his name in the 
 biographical dictionaries or encyclopedias of artists. 
 Fate has even been more cruel to him than to his 
 model. 
 
 For the moment, however, the success, as I have 
 already said, was overwhelming. In less than a fort- 
 night there was not a single wall in Paris and its out- 
 skirts without a Bouginier on its surface. Though 
 Paris was considerably less in area than it is now, it 
 wanted a Herculean effort to accomplish this. No 
 man, had he been endowed with as many arms as 
 Briareus, would have sufficed for it. Nor would it 
 have done to trust to more or less skilful copyists they 
 might have failed to catch the likeness, which was 
 really an admirable one ; so the following device was 
 hit upon. Fourreau himself cut a number of stencil 
 plates in brown paper, and, provided with them, an
 
 THE CHILDEBERTIANS ON THEIR TRAVELS. 7 
 
 army of Childebertians started every night in various 
 directions, Fourreau and a few undoubtedly clever 
 youths heading the detachments, and filling in the 
 blanks by hand. 
 
 Meanwhile summer had come, and with it the long- 
 ing among the young Tintos to breathe the purer air 
 of the country, to sniff the salt breezes of the ocean. 
 As a matter of coarse, they were not all ready to start 
 at the same time, but being determined to follow the 
 same route, to assemble at a common goal, the con- 
 tingent that was to leave a fortnight later than the 
 first arranged to join the others wherever they might be. 
 
 " But how ? " was the question of those who were 
 left behind. "Very simply indeed," was the answer ; 
 " we'll go by the Baniere d'ltalie. You'll have but to 
 look at the walls along the road, and you'll find your 
 waybill." 
 
 So said, so done. A fortnight after, the second 
 division left head-quarters and made straight for the 
 Baniere d'ltalie. But when outside the gates they 
 stood undecided. For one moment only. The next 
 they caught sight of a magnificent Bouginier on a wall 
 next to the excise office of a Bougiuier whose out- 
 stretched index pointed to the Fontainebleau road. 
 After that, all went well. As far as Marseilles their 
 Bouginier no more failed them than the clouds of 
 smoke and fire failed the Israelites in the wilderness. 
 At the seaport town they lost the track for a little while, 
 rather through their want of faith in the ingenuity 
 of their predecessors than through the latter's lack of 
 such ingenuity. They had the Mediterranean in front 
 of them, and even if they found a Bouginier depicted 
 somewhere on the shore, his outstretched index could
 
 8 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 only point to the restless waves ; he could do nothing 
 more definite. Considerably depressed, they were 
 going down the Cannebiere, when they caught sight 
 of the features of their guiding star on a panel between 
 the windows of a shipping office. His outstretched 
 index did not point this time ; it was placed over a 
 word, and that word spelt " Malta." They took ship 
 as quickly as possible for the ancient habitation of the 
 Knights-Templars. On the walls of the Customs in the 
 island was Bouginier, with a scroll issuing from his 
 nostrils, on which was inscribed the word " Alexandria." 
 A similar indication met their gaze at the Pyramids, 
 and at last the second contingent managed to come up 
 with the first amidst the ruins of Thebes at the very 
 moment when the word " Suez " was being traced as 
 issuing from Bouginier's mouth. 
 
 Among the company was a young fellow of the 
 name of Berthier, who became subsequently an archi- 
 tect of some note. The Passage du Caire, as I have 
 already observed, was in those days the head-quarters 
 of the lithographic-printing business in general, but 
 there was one branch which nourished more than the 
 rest, namely, that of lettres de faire part* menus of 
 restaurants and visiting-cards. The two first-named 
 documents were, in common with most printed matter 
 intended for circulation, subject to a stamp duty, but 
 in the early days of the Second Empire Louis-Napo- 
 leon had it taken off. To mark their sense of the 
 benefit conferred, the lithographic firms f determined 
 
 * The ' leltre de faire part " is an intimation of a birth, marriage, or 
 death sent to the friends, and even mere acquaintances, of a family. 
 EDITOR. 
 
 t The lithographers were almost the first in France to form a co- 
 operative society, but not in the sense of the Kochdale pioneers, which
 
 AN ARTISTS' HIVE. 9 
 
 to have the arcade, wliich stood in sad need of repair, 
 restored, and Bertliier was selected for the task. The 
 passage was originally built to commemorate Bona- 
 parte's victories in Egypt, and when Berthier received 
 the commission, he could think of no more fitting 
 facade than the reproduction of a house at Karnac. 
 He fondly remembered his youthful excursion to the 
 land of Pharaohs, and at the same time the image of 
 Bougiuier uprose before him. That is why the pre- 
 sentment of the latter may be seen up to this day on 
 the frieze of a building in the frowsiest part of Paris. 
 
 If I have dwelt somewhat longer on Bouginier than 
 the importance of the subject warranted, it was mainly 
 to convey an idea of the spirit of mischief, of the love 
 of practical joking, that animated most of the inmates 
 of " La Childebert." As a rule their devilries were 
 innocent enough. The pictorial persecution of Bouginier 
 is about the gravest thing that could be laid to their 
 charge, and the victim, like the sensible fellow he was, 
 rather enjoyed it than otherwise. Woe, however, to the 
 starched bourgeois who had been decoyed into their 
 lair, or even to the remonstrating comrade with a 
 serious turn of mind, who wished to pursue his studies 
 in peace ! His life was made a burden to him, for the 
 very building lent itself to all sorts of nocturnal 
 surprises and of guerilla sorties. Elsewhere, when a 
 man's door was shut, he might reasonably count upon 
 a certain amount of privacy ; the utmost his neighbours 
 could do was to make a noise overhead or by his side. 
 At the " Childebert " such privacy was out of the 
 
 dates from about the same period. The Lacrampe Association was for 
 supplying lithographic work. It began in tlie .Passage du Caire with 
 ten members, and in a short time numbered two hundred workmen. 
 EDITOB.
 
 10 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 question. There was not a door that held on its hinges, 
 not a window that could be opened or shut at will, not 
 a ceiling that did not threaten constantly to crush you 
 beneath its weight, not a floor that was not in danger 
 of giving way beneath you and landing you in the 
 room below, not a staircase that did not shake under 
 your very steps, however light they might be ; in short, 
 the place was a wouderful illustration of " how the rotten 
 may hold together," even if it be not gently handled. 
 
 The origin of the structure, as it stood then, was 
 wrapt in mystery. It was five or six stories high, and 
 must have attained that altitude before the first 
 Revolution, because the owner, a Madame Legendre, 
 who bought it for assignats amounting in real value 
 to about one pound sterling, when the clergy's property 
 was sold by the nation, was known never to have spent 
 a penny upon it either at the time of the purchase or 
 subsequently, until she was forced by a tenant more 
 ingenious or more desperate than the rest. That it 
 could not have been part of the abbey and adjacent 
 monastery built by Childebert I., who was buried there 
 in 558, was very certain. It is equally improbable 
 that the Cardinal de Bissy, who opened a street upon 
 the site of the erstwhile abbey in the year of Louis 
 XIV. 's death, would have erected so high a pile for 
 the mere accommodation of the pensioners of the former 
 monastery, at a time when high piles were the excep- 
 tion. Besides, the Nos. 1 and 3, known to have 
 been occupied by those pensioners, all of whose rooms 
 communicated with one another, were not more than 
 two stories high. In short, the original intention of 
 the builder of the house No. 9, yclept " La Childebert," 
 has never been explained. The only tenant in the
 
 THE POOR PAINTERS' PROVIDENCE. 11 
 
 itue Childebert who might have thrown a light on the 
 subject had died before the caravansary attained its 
 fame. He was more than a hundred years old, and had 
 married five times. His fifth wife was only eighteen 
 when she became Madame Chanfort, and survived him 
 for many, many years. She was a very worthy soul, 
 a downright providence to the generally impecunious 
 painters, whom she used to feed at prices which even 
 then were ridiculously low. Three eggs, albeit fried 
 in grease instead of butter, for the sum of three-half- 
 pence, and a dinner, including wine, for sixpence, could 
 not have left much profit ; but Madame Chanfort always 
 declared that she had enough to live upon, and that 
 she supplied the art-students with food at cost price 
 because she would not be without their company. At 
 her death, in '57, two years before the "Childebert" 
 and the street of the same name disappeared, there 
 was a sale of her chattels, and over a hundred portraits 
 and sketches of her, " in her habit as she lived," came 
 under the hammer. To show that the various occu- 
 pants of " La Cliildebert " could do more than make 
 a noise and play practical jokes, I may state that not 
 a single one of these productions fetched less than 
 fifty francs mere crayon studies ; while there were 
 several that sold for two hundred and three hundred 
 francs, and two studies in oil brought respectively 
 eight hundred francs and twelve hundred francs. 
 Nearly every one of the young men who had signed 
 these portraits had made a name for himself. The 
 latter two were signed respectively Paul Delaroche 
 and Tony Johannot. 
 
 Nevertheless, to those whose love of peace and 
 quietude was stronger than their artistic instincts
 
 12 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 and watchful admiration of budding genius, the 
 neighbourhood of " La Childebert " was a sore and 
 grievous trial. At times the street itself, not a very 
 long or wide one, was like Pandemonium let loose ; it 
 was when there was an " AtHome " at "La Childebert," 
 and such functions were frequent, especially at the 
 beginning of the months. These gatherings, as a rule, 
 partook of the nature of fancy dress conversaziones; for 
 dancing, owing to the shakiuess of the building, had 
 become out of the question, even with such dare-devils 
 as the tenants. What the latter prided themselves 
 upon most was their strict adherence to the local colour 
 of the periods they preferred to resuscitate. Unfortu- 
 nately for the tranquillity of the neighbourhood, thev 
 pretended to carry out this revival in its smallest 
 details, not only in their artistic productions, but in 
 their daily lives. The actor who blacked himself all 
 over to play Othello was as nothing to them in his 
 attempted realism, because we may suppose that he 
 got rid of his paint before returning to the everyday 
 world. Not so the inmates of " La Childebert." They 
 were minstrels, or corsairs, or proud and valiant knights 
 from the moment they got up till the moment they 
 went to bed, and many of them even scorned to stretch 
 their weary limbs on so effeminate a contrivance as a 
 modern mattress, but endeavoured to keep up the 
 illusion by lying on a rush- bestrewn floor. 
 
 I am not sufficiently learned to trace these various 
 and succeeding disguises to their literary and theatrical 
 causes, for it was generally a new book or a new play 
 that set the ball rolling in a certain direction; nor can 
 I vouch for the chronological accuracy and complete- 
 ness of my record in that respect, but I remember
 
 THE CHILDEBERTIANS AT HOME. 13 
 
 some phases of that ever-shifting masquerade. When 
 I was a very little boy, I was struck more than once 
 with the sight of young men parading the streets in 
 doublets, trunk nose, their flowing looks adorned with 
 velvet caps and birds' wings, their loins girded with 
 short swords. And yet it was not carnival-time. No 
 one seemed to take particular notice of them ; the 
 Parisians by that time had probably got used to their 
 vagaries. Those competent in such matters have 
 since told me that the "get-up" was inspired by "La 
 Gaule Poetique" of M. de Marchangy, the novels of 
 M. d'Arlincourt, and the kindred stilted literature that 
 characterized the beginning of the Eestoration. Both 
 these gentlemen, from their very hatred of the Greeks 
 and Romans of the first Empire, created heroes of 
 fiction still more ridiculous than the latter, just as 
 Metternich, through his weariness of the word 
 " fraternity," said that if he had a brother he would 
 call him "cousin." A few years later, the first 
 translation of Byron's works produced its effect ; and 
 then came Defauconpret, with his very creditable 
 French versions of Walter Scott. The influence of 
 Paul Delaroche and his co-champions of the cause 
 of romanticism, the revolution of July, the dramas of 
 Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo, all added their 
 quota to the prevailing confusion in the matter of 
 style and period, and early in the forties there were 
 at the " Childebert " several camps, fraternizing in 
 everything save in their dress and speech, which were 
 the visible and audible manifestation of their individual 
 predilection for certain periods of history. For instance, 
 it was no uncommon thing to hear the son of a con- 
 cierge, whose real or fancied vocation had made him
 
 14- AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 embrace the artistic profession, swear by " the faith 
 of his ancestors," while the impoverished scion of a 
 noble house replied by calling him " a bloated 
 reminiscence of a feudal and superstitious age." 
 
 At the conversaziones which I mentioned just now, 
 the guests of the inmates of " La Childebert " not only 
 managed to out-Herod Herod in diction and attire, 
 but, to heighten illusion still further, adopted as far 
 as possible the mode of conveyance supposed to have 
 been employe 1 by their prototypes. The classicists, 
 and those still addicted to the illustration of Greek 
 and Roman mythology, though nominally in the 
 minority at the " Childebert " itself, were, as a rule, 
 most successful in those attempts. The ass that 
 had borne Silenus, the steeds that had drawn the 
 chariot of the triumphant Roman warrior, the she-goat 
 that was supposed to have suckled Jupiter, were as 
 familiar to the inhabitants of the Rue Childebert as 
 the cats and mongrels of their own households. The 
 obstructions caused by the former no longer aroused 
 their ire ; but when, one evening, Romulus and Remus 
 made their appearance, accompanied by the legendary 
 she-wolf, they went mad with terror. The panic was 
 at its height when, with an utter disregard of mytho- 
 logical tradition, Hercules walked up the street, leading 
 the Nemaean lion. Then the aid of the police was 
 invoked; but neither the police nor the national 
 guards, who came after them, dared to tackle the 
 animals, though they might have done so safely, 
 because the supposed wolf was a great dane, and the 
 lion a mastiff, but so marvellously padded and painted 
 as to deceive any but the most practised eye. The 
 culprits, however, did not reveal the secret until they
 
 THE PROPRIETRESS OF "LA CHILDEBERT." 15 
 
 were at the commissary of police's office, enjoying the 
 magnificent treat of setting the whole of the neighbour- 
 hood in an uproar on their journey thither, and of 
 frightening that official on their arrival. 
 
 In fact, long before I knew them, the inmates of the 
 " Childebert " had become a positive scourge to the 
 neighbourhood, while the structure itself threatened 
 ruin to everything around it. Madame Legendre 
 absolutely refused to do any repairs. She did not 
 deny that she had bought the place cheap, but she 
 pointed out at the same time that the rents she 
 charged were more than modest, and that eight times 
 out of ten she did not get them. In the beginning 
 of her ownership she had employed a male concierge, 
 to prevent, as it were, the wholesale flitting which was 
 sure to follow a more strenuous application for arrears 
 upon which she ventured now and then in those days. 
 That was towards the end of the Empire, when the 
 disciples of David had been reduced to a minority in 
 the place by those of Lethiere, who sounded the first 
 note of revolt against the unconditional classicism of 
 the illustrious member of the Convention. If all the 
 disciples of the Creole painter had not his genius, 
 most of them had his courage and readiness to draw 
 the sword on the smallest provocation,* and the various 
 Cerberi employed by Madame Legendre to enforce 
 her claims had to fly one after another. The rumour of 
 the danger of the situation had spread, aud at last 
 
 * Guillaume Lethiere, whose real name was Guillon, was a native 
 of Guadeloupe. He fought and seriously woanded several officers 
 because the latter had objected to "a mere dauber wearing mous- 
 taches." He was obliged to leave Paris, but, thanks to the protection 
 of Lucien Bonaparte, was appointed Director of the French Acade'mie 
 at Rome. EDITOR.
 
 16 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 Madame Legendre could find no man to fill it, except, 
 on monetary conditions with which she would not 
 perhaps could not comply. From that day forth 
 she employed a woman, who was safe, because she had 
 been told to let "lawless impecuniosity " take its 
 course, and it was recorded that pecuniarily the pro- 
 prietress was the better off for this change of tactics. 
 I am willing to repeat that record, which, if true, 
 did credit to the head of the landlady and the hearts 
 of her tenants, but am compelled to supplement it by 
 a different version. When I saw the " Clrildebert " in 
 '37 or '38, no man in his senses would have paid rent 
 for any one room in it on the two top stories ; he 
 might as well have lived in the streets. It was an 
 absolute case of the bottomless sedan chair in which 
 two of his fellow-porters put Pat ; "but for the honour 
 of the thing, he might have walked." Consequently 
 the tenants there were rarely harassed for their rent ; 
 if they paid it at all, it was so much unexpected gain. 
 It happened, however, that now and then by mistake 
 a youngster was put there who had scruples about 
 discharging his liabilities in that respect ; and one of 
 these was Emile Lapierre, who subsequently became 
 a landscape-painter of note. One night, after he had 
 taken up his quarters there, the floodgates of heaven 
 opened over Paris. Lapierre woke up amidst a deluge. 
 I need not say that there were no bells at the "Chil- 
 debert;" nevertheless there was no fear of dying 
 unattended, provided one could shout, for there was 
 always a party turning night into day, or hailing the 
 smiling morn before turning in. Lapierre's shouts 
 found a ready echo, and in a few moments the old 
 concierge was on the spot.
 
 A REVOLT AT "LA CHILDEBEUT." 17 
 
 " Go and fetch a boat go and fetch a boat !" yelled 
 Lapierre. " I am drowning ! " yelled Lapierre. 
 
 " There are none in the quarter," replied the old 
 woman innocently, thinking he was in earnest. 
 
 " Then go and fetch Madame Legendre, to show her 
 the pond she is letting me instead of the room for 
 which I pay her." 
 
 "Madame would not come, not even for you, 
 monsieur, who are the only one punctual with your 
 rent ; besides, if she did come, she would have no 
 repairs done." 
 
 " Oh, she'll have no repairs done ! We'll soon find 
 out. I think I'll make her," screamed Lapierre ; and 
 he kept his word. 
 
 It was the only instance of Madame Legendre 
 having had to capitulate, and I have alluded to it 
 before ; it remains for me to tell how it was done. 
 
 Lapierre, contrary to the precept, allowed the sun to 
 go down upon his wrath, in the hope perhaps of induc- 
 ing Madame Legendre to change her oft-announced 
 decision of doing no repairs; but he rose betimes next 
 morning, and when there was no sign of workmen, 
 he proceeded to carry out his plan. The floors of the 
 " Childebert " were made of brick, and he simply 
 removed three or four squares from his, after which 
 he went downstairs and recruited half a dozen water- 
 carriers, and bade them empty their full pails into the 
 opening he had made. I shall probably have some 
 remarks to make elsewhere about the water-supply of 
 Paris ; at present it is sufficient to say that in those 
 days there was not a single house in the capital 
 which was not dependent upon those Auvergnats who 
 carried the commodity round in barrels on carts drawn 
 
 VOL. i. C
 
 18 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 by hand or horse. These gentlemen, though astonished 
 at the strange task required of them, consented. In 
 less than ten minutes there was a string of water-carts 
 stationed in the Eue Childebert, and in a few minutes 
 more the lower stories were simply flooded. Aime 
 Millet, the sculptor, whose room was situated im- 
 mediately beneath that of Lapierre, was the first 
 victim. It was he who gave the alarm, but, as a matter 
 of course, in the twinkling of an eye there were one 
 or two heads at every window, and though very early, 
 there was a stampede of very primitively clad models(?) 
 into the street, shouting and yelling out at the top of 
 their voices. Outside no one seemed to know exactly 
 what had occurred ; the prevailing impression was that 
 the place was on fire. Then Madame Legendre was sent 
 for in hot haste. By that time the truth had become 
 known in the house. The alarm had subsided, but not 
 the noise. When the report of Madame Legendre's 
 coming got wind, a deputation went to the entrance 
 of the street to welcome her. It was provided with 
 all sorts of instruments except musical ones, and the 
 old dame was conducted in state to Millet's room. 
 The cause of the mischief was soon ascertained, for 
 the water-carriers were still at work. The police had 
 refused to interfere ; in reality, they would not have 
 been sorry to see the building come down with a crash, 
 for it was as great a source of annoyance to them as 
 to the peaceful burghers they were supposed to protect. 
 A move was made to the room above, where Lapierre 
 without a stitch of clothing stood directing the 
 operations. 
 
 " What are you doing, Monsieur Lapierre ? " 
 screeched Madame Legendre.
 
 THE PROPRIETRESS MAKES A CONCESSION. 19 
 
 " 1 am taking a bath, madame ; it is very warm. You 
 gave me one against my will the night before last ; 
 and lest I should be accused of selfishness, I am letting 
 my neighbours partake of the pleasure." 
 
 That is how Madame Legendre was compelled to 
 repair the roof of " La Childebert." 
 
 Such was the company amidst which I was intro- 
 duced by the son of my old tutor. Many years have 
 passed since then, during which I have been thrown 
 into the society of the great and powerful ones of this 
 world, rather through the force of circumstances than 
 owing to my own merits, but I have looked in vain 
 for the honest friendships, the disinterested actions, 
 the genuine enthusiasm for their art, underlying 
 their devilry, of which these young men were 
 capable. The bourgeois vices, in the guise of civic 
 and domestic virtues, entered the souls of Frenchmen 
 early in the reign of Louis-Philippe, and have been 
 gnawing since, with ever-increasing force, like a cancer, 
 at everything that was noble and worthy of admiration 
 in a nation. But those vices never found their way 
 to the hearts of the inmates of " La Childebert" while 
 they were there, and rarely in after-life. Many attained 
 world-wide reputations ; few gathered riches, even when 
 they were as frugal as the best among them Eugene 
 Delacroix. 
 
 To have known these young men was absolutely a 
 liberal education. To the Podsnap and Philistine of 
 no matter what nationality, it seems a sad thing to 
 have no thought for to-morrow. And these youngsters 
 had not even a thought for the day. Their thoughts 
 were for the future, when the world mayhap would ring 
 with their names ; but their physical or mental hearing
 
 20 AN ENGLISHMAN IX PARIS. 
 
 never strained for the ring of money. They were 
 improvident creatures, to be sure ; but how much more 
 lovable than the young painters of the present period, 
 whose ideal is a big balance at their bankers ; who 
 would rather have their names inscribed on the 
 registers of the public debt than in the golden book 
 of art ; whose dreamt-of Eden is a bijou villa in the 
 Pare Monceaux or in the Avenue Villiers ; whose 
 providence is the richard, the parvenu, the wealthy 
 upstart, whose features they perpetuate, regardless 
 of the perpetuation of their own budding fame. 
 
 When I began to jot down these notes, I made up 
 my mind to eschew comparisons and moralizing ; I find 
 I have unconsciously done both, but will endeavour not 
 to offend again. Still, I cannot help observing how 
 the mere "moneyed nobody" rushes nowadays to the 
 eminent painter to have his lineaments reproduced, 
 when a guinea photograph would serve his purpose 
 just as well for " family use ; " for I take it that no one, 
 besides his relations and friends, cares or will care to 
 gaze upon his features. And yet our annual picture 
 exhibitions are crowded with the portraits of these 
 nonentities. They advertise themselves through the 
 painters that transfer them to canvas, and the latter 
 are content to pocket heavy fees, like the advertising 
 agents they are. I am certain that neither Holbein, 
 Rubens, Van Dyck, Hals, nor Rembrandt would have 
 lent themselves to such transactions. When they, or a 
 Reynolds, a Lawrence, a Gainsborough, conferred the 
 honour of their brush upon some one, it was because 
 he or she was already distinguished from his or her 
 fellow-creatures by beauty, social position, talents, 
 genius, or birth ; not because he or she wanted to be,
 
 ART PATRONS AT "LA CHILDEBERT." 21 
 
 or, in default of such distinction, wanted to attract the 
 public notice at all costs. That, I fancy, was the way 
 in which painters of other days looked upon the thing. 
 I know it was the way in which the young fellows at 
 the " Childebert " did ; and woe to their comrade who 
 ventured to apply in art the principle of international 
 maritime law, that " le pavilion couvre la marchandise " 
 (the flag covers the cargo). He was scouted and jeered 
 at, and, moreover, rarely allowed to reap the pecuniary 
 benefit of his artistic abasement. Hence the "patron 
 for a portrait " seldom found his way to " La Childe- 
 bert." When he did, the whole of the place conspired 
 to make his life and that of his would-be protege a 
 misery. 
 
 To enumerate all the devices resorted to to make 
 the sittings abortive, to "distort the features that had 
 donned the bland smile of placid contentment" with 
 the paralyzing fear of some impending catastrophe, 
 would be impossible; the mention of a few must 
 suffice. That most frequently employed, and com- 
 paratively easy of execution, was the setting alight of 
 damp straw ; the dense smoke penetrated every nook 
 and cranny of the crazy building, and the sitter, mad 
 with fright, rushed away. The chances were a hun- 
 dred to one against his ever returning. Another was 
 the intrusion of a male model offering his services 
 as a Saint-Jerome, or a female one offering hers as 
 Godiva; for, curious to relate, the devotion of the wife 
 of Leofric of Murcia was a favourite subject with the 
 Childebertians. As a matter of course, the applicants 
 were in the costume, or rather lack of costume, appro- 
 priate to the character. The strait-laced bourgeois 
 or bourgeoise was shocked, and did not repeat the
 
 22 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 visit. The cry that there was a mad dog in the house 
 was a common one on those occasions ; and at last tlie 
 would-be portrait-painters had to give in, and a big 
 placard appeared on the frontispiece : " Le commerce 
 des portraits a ete cede aux directeur et membres de 
 
 / * 
 
 1'Ecole des Beaux-Arts." 
 
 The most curious thing in connection with the 
 " Childebert " was that, though the place was inex- 
 pressibly ill kept, it escaped the most terrible visita- 
 tions of the cholera. I prefer not to enter into details 
 of the absolute disregard of all sanitary conditions, 
 but in warm weather the building became positively 
 uninhabitable. Long before the unsavoury spectacle 
 of " learned fleas " became a feature of the suburban 
 fairs, Emile Signol, who is best known as a painter of 
 religious subjects, had trained a company of performers 
 of a different kind of nocturnal pests. He averred in 
 his opening lecture that their ingenuity was too great 
 to remain unknown, and cited anecdotes fully proving 
 his words. Certain is it that they were the only 
 enemies before which the combined, forces of the 
 Childebertians proved powerless. But even under 
 such trying circumstances the latter never lost their 
 buoyant spirits, and their retreats en masse were effected 
 in a manner the reports of which set the whole of 
 Paris in a roar. One Sunday morning, the faithful 
 worshippers, going to matins at the Church of St. 
 Gerinain-des-Pres, found the square occupied by a 
 troop of Bedouins, wrapt in their burnouses, and sleep- 
 ing the sleep of the just. Some had squatted in 
 corners, calmly smoking their chibouks. This was in 
 the days of the Algerian campaign, and the rumour 
 spread like wildfire that a party of Arab prisoners of
 
 A NEW CONVERSION SOCIETY. 23 
 
 war were bivouacked round the church, where a special 
 service would be given in the afternoon as the first step 
 to their conversion to Christianity. It being Sunday, 
 the whole of Paris rushed to the spot. The Bedouins 
 had, however, disappeared, but a collection was made 
 in their behalf by several demure-looking young men. 
 The Parisians gave liberally. That night, and two or 
 three nights after, the nocturnal pests' occupation was 
 gone, for the " Childebert " was lighted a giorno from 
 basement to roof, and the Childebertians held high 
 festival. The inhabitants of the streets adjacent to 
 the Rue Childebert spent as many sleepless nights, 
 though their houses were perfectly wholesome and 
 clean. 
 
 I had the honour to be a frequent guest at those 
 gatherings, but I feel that a detailed description of 
 them is beyond my powers. I have already said that 
 the craziness of the structure would have rendered 
 extremely dangerous any combined display of chore- 
 graphic art, as practised by the Childebertians and 
 their friends, male and female, at the neighbouring 
 Grande- Chatimie re ; it did, however, not prevent a lady 
 or gentleman of the company from performing a pas 
 seul now and then. This, it must be remembered, was 
 the pre-Rigolbochian period, before Chicard with his 
 chdhut had been ousted from his exalted position by 
 the more elegant and graceful evolutions of the 
 originator of the modern cancan, the famous Brididi ; 
 when the Faubourg du Temple, the Bal du Grand 
 Saint-Martin, and " the descent of the Courtille " 
 were patronized by the Paris jeunesse doree, and in 
 their halcyon days, when the habitues of the establish- 
 ment of Le Pere Lahire considered it their greatest
 
 24- AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 glory to imitate as closely as possible the baccha- 
 nalian gyrations of the choregraphic autocrat on the 
 other side of the Seine. No mere description could 
 do justice to these gyrations ; only a draughtsman of the 
 highest skill could convey an adequate idea of them. 
 But, as a rule, the soirees at the " Childebert " were 
 not conspicuous for such displays; their programme 
 was a more ambitious one from an intellectual point of 
 view, albeit that the programme was rarely, if ever, 
 carried out. This failure of the prearranged proceed- 
 ings mainly arose from the disinclination or inability 
 of the fairer portion of the company to play the 
 passive part of listeners and spectators during the 
 recital of an unpublished poem of perhaps a thousand 
 lines or so, though the reciter was no less a personage 
 than the author. In vain did the less frivolous and 
 male part of the audience claim " silence for the 
 minstrel ; " the interrupters could conceive no minstrel 
 without a guitar or some kindred instrument, least of 
 all a minstrel who merely spoke his words, and the 
 feast of reason and flow of soul came generally to an 
 abrupt end by the rising of a damsel more outspoken 
 still than her companions, who proposed an adjourn- 
 ment to one of the adjacent taverns, or to the not far 
 distant " Grande-Chaumiere," " si on continue a nous 
 assommer avec des vers." The threat invariably 
 produced its effect. The " minstrel " was politely 
 requested to " shut up," and Beranger, Desaugiers, or 
 even M. Scribe, took the place of the Victor Hugo in 
 embryo until the small hours of the morning; the 
 departure of the guests being witnessed by the night- 
 capped inhabitants of the Kue Childebert from their 
 windows, amidst the comforting reflections that for
 
 BOBINO AND ITS HABITUES. 25 
 
 another three weeks or so there would be peace in the 
 festive halls of that " accursed building." 
 
 My frequent visits to "La Childebert" had developed 
 a taste for the Bohemian attractions of the Quartier- 
 Latin. I was not twenty, and though I caught fre- 
 quent glimpses at home of some of the eminent men 
 with whom a few years later I lived on terms of friend- 
 ship, I could not aspire to their society then. It is 
 doubtful whether I would have done so if I could. I 
 preferred the Theatre Bobino to the Opera and the 
 Comedie-Francaise ; the G-rande-Chaumiere or the 
 Chaumiere, as it was simply called to the most 
 brilliantly lighted and decorated ballroom ; a stroll 
 with a couple of young students in the gardens of the 
 Luxembourg to a carriage- drive in the Bois de Bou- 
 logne ; a dinner for three francs at Magny's, in the Rue 
 Contrescarpe-Dauphine, or even one for twenty-two 
 sous at Viot's or Blery's, to the most sumptuous repast 
 at the Cafe Riche or the Cafe de Paris. I preferred the 
 buttered rolls and the bowl of milk at the Boulangerie 
 Cretaine, in the Rue Dauphine, to the best suppers at 
 the Cafe Anglais, whither I had been taken once or 
 twice during the Carnival in short, I was very young 
 and very foolish ; since then I have often wished that, 
 at the risk of remaining very foolish for evermore, 1 
 could have prolonged my youth for another score of 
 years. 
 
 For once in a way I have no need to be ashamed 
 of my want of memory. I could not give an account 
 of a single piece I saw during those two or three years 
 at Bobino, but 1 am certain that not one of the 
 companions of my youth could. It is not because the 
 lapse of time has dimmed the recollection of the plots,
 
 26 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 but because there were no plots, or at any rate none 
 that we could understand, and I doubt very much 
 whether the actors and actresses were more enlightened 
 in that respect than the audience. The pieces were 
 vaudevilles, most of them, and it was sufficient for us 
 to join in the choruses of the songs, with which they 
 were plentifully interlarded. As for the dialogue, it 
 might have been sparkling with wit and epigram ; it 
 was nearly always drowned by interpolations from 
 one side of the house or the other. When the tumult 
 became too great, the curtain was simply lowered, 
 to be almost immediately raised, " discovering " the 
 manager in his dressing-gown. He seemed prouder 
 of that piece of attire than the more modern one would 
 be of the mo>t faultless evening dress. He never 
 appealed to us by invoking the laws of politeness ; he 
 never threatened to have the house cleared. He simply 
 pointed out to us that the police would inevitably 
 close the place at the request of the inhabitants of the 
 Hue de Madame if the noise rose above a certain pitch, 
 and disturbed their peaceful evening hours, spent in 
 the bosom of their families; which remark was always 
 followed by the audience intoning as one man Gretry's 
 " Ou peut-on etre mieux qu'au sein de sa famille ? " 
 the orchestra such an orchestra! playing the accom- 
 paniment, and the manager himself beating time. 
 Then he went on. " Yes, messieurs et mesdames, we 
 are here en famille also, as much en famille as at the 
 Grande-Chaumiere ; and has not M. Lahire obtained 
 from the Government the permission de faire sa police 
 tout seul ! After all, he is providing exercise for your 
 muscles ; I am providing food for your brain." 
 ^ The speech was a stereotyped one we all knew it by
 
 COLLEGUNS AND THEIR DRESS. 27 
 
 heart ; it invariably produced its effect in keeping us 
 comparatively quiet for the rest of the evening, unless 
 a bourgeois happened to come in. Then the uproar 
 became uncontrollable ; no managerial speech could 
 quell it until the intruder had left the theatre. 
 
 By a bourgeois was meant a man who wore broad- 
 cloth and a top hat, but especially the latter. In fact, 
 that head-gear was rarely seen within the inner pre- 
 cincts of the Quartier-Latin, even during the daytime, 
 except on the head of a professor, or on Thursdays 
 when the collegians the term " lyceen " was not in- 
 vented were taken for their weekly outing. The 
 semi-military dress of the present time had not been 
 thought of then. The collegian wore a top hat, like 
 our Eton boys, a white necktie, a kind of black quaker 
 coat with a stand-up collar, a very dark blue waistcoat 
 and trousers, low shoes, and blue woollen stockings. In 
 the summer, some of them, especially those of the 
 College Rollin, had a waistcoat and trousers of a lighter 
 texture, and drab instead of blue. They were virtually 
 prisoners within the walls of the college all the week, 
 for in their Thursday promenades they were little more 
 than prisoners taking exercise under the supervision of 
 their gaolers. They were allowed to leave on alternate 
 Sundays, provided they had parents, relations, or 
 friends in Paris, who could come themselves or send 
 their servants to fetch them in the morning and take 
 them back at night. The rule applied to all, whether 
 they were nine or doub'e that number of years ; it 
 prevails even no\v. I only set foot in a French college 
 of those days twice to see a young friend of mine, and 
 I thanked my stars that four or five years of that 
 existence had been spared to me. The food and the
 
 28 AK ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 table appointments, the bedrooms they were more 
 like cells with their barred windows would have been 
 declined by the meanest English servant, certainly by 
 the meanest French one. I have never met with a 
 Frenchman who looks back with fond remembrance 
 on his school-days. 
 
 The evening was generally wound up with a supper 
 at Dagneaux's, Pinson's, or at the rotisseuse that is, 
 if the evening happened to fall within the first ten 
 days of the month ; afterwards the entertainment 
 nearly always consisted of a meat-pie, bought at one 
 of the charcutiers', and washed down with the bottles 
 of wine purchased at the Ho'el de 1'Empereur Joseph 
 II., at the south-eastern angle of the Kue de Tournon, 
 where it stands still. The legend ran that the brother 
 of Marie Antoinette had stayed there while on a visit 
 to Paris, but it is scarcely likely that he would have 
 done so while his sister was within a step of the throne 
 of France ; nevertheless the Count von Falkenstein 
 which was the name he adopted when travelling in- 
 cognito was somewhat of a philosopher. Did not 
 he once pay a visit to Jean-Jacques Rousseau without 
 having apprised him of his call? Jean-Jacques was 
 copying music as the door opened to let in the visitor, 
 and felt flattered enough, we may be sure; not so 
 Buffon, whom Joseph surprised under similar circum- 
 stances, and who could never forgive himself for having 
 been caught in his dressing-gown he who never sat 
 down to work except in lace ruffles and frill. 
 
 If I have been unwittingly betrayed into a semi- 
 historical disquisition, it is because almost every step 
 in that quarter gave rise to one, even amongst those 
 light-hearted companions of mine, to the great as-
 
 A CELEBRATED FORTUNE-TELLER. 29 
 
 tonishment of the fairer portion of the company. 
 They only took an interest in the biography of one 
 of the inhabitants of the street, whether past or 
 present, arid that was in the biography of Mdlle. Lenor- 
 mand, a well-known fortune-teller, who lived at No. 5. 
 They had heard that the old woman, who had been 
 the mistress of Hebert of " Pere Duchesne " fame, had, 
 during the First Kevolution, predicted to Josephine 
 de Beauharnais that she should be empress, as some 
 gipsy at Grenada predicted a similar elevation to 
 Eugenie de Montijo many years afterwards. Mdlle. 
 Lenortnand had been imprisoned after Hebert's death, 
 but the moment Napoleon became first consul she 
 was liberated, and frequently sent for to the Luxem- 
 bourg, which is but a stone's throw from the Rue de 
 Tournon. As a matter of course her fame spread, and 
 she made a great deal of money during the first 
 empire. Ignorant as they were of history, the 
 sprightly grisettes of our days had heard of that; their 
 great ambition was to get the five francs that would 
 open the door of Mdlle. Lenormand's to them. Mdlle. 
 Lenormand died about the year '43. Jules Janin, 
 who lived in the same street, in the house formerly 
 inhabited by Theroigne de Merieourt, went to the 
 fortune-teller's funeral. The five francs so often 
 claimed by the etudiante, so rarely forthcoming from 
 the pockets of her admirer, was an important sum 
 in those days among the youth of the Quartier-Latin. 
 There were few whose allowance exceeded two hundred 
 francs per month. A great many had to do with less. 
 Those who were in receipt of five hundred francs 
 perhaps not two score among the whole number were 
 scarcely considered as belonging to the fraternity.
 
 30 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 They were called " ultrapontins," to distinguish them 
 from those who from one year's end to another never 
 crossed the river, except perhaps to go to one of the 
 theatres, because there was not much to be seen at 
 the Odeon during the thirties. With Harel's migra- 
 tion to the Porte St. Martin, the glory of the second 
 Theatre-Franpais had departed, and it was not until 
 '41 that Lireux managed to revive some of its 
 ancient fame. By that time I had ceased to go to 
 the Quartier-Latin, but Lireux was a familiar figure 
 at the Cafe Riche and at the divan of the Rue Le 
 Peletier ; he dined now and then at the Cafe de Paris. 
 So we made it a point to attend every one of his first 
 nights, notwithstanding the warnings in verse and in 
 prose of every wit of Paris, Theophile Gautier in- 
 cluded, who had written : 
 
 " On a fait Ik dessus mille plaisanteries, 
 Je le sais ; il poussait de 1'Lerbe aux galeries ; 
 Trente-six varietes de champignons malsains 
 Dans lea logea tigraient la mousse des coussins." 
 
 It was impossible to say anything very spiteful of 
 a theatre which had remained almost empty during 
 a gratuitous performance on the king's birthday ; 
 consequently while I frequented the Quartier-Latin 
 the students gave it a wide berth. When they were 
 not disporting themselves at Bobino, they were at the 
 Chaumiere, and not in the evening only. Notwith- 
 standing the enthusiastic and glowing descriptions of it 
 that have appeared in later days, the place was simple 
 enough. There was a primitive shooting-gallery, a 
 skittle-alley, and so forth, and it was open all day. 
 The students, after having attended the lectures and 
 taken a stroll in the gardens of the Luxembourg, 
 repaired to the Chaumiere, where, in fine weather,
 
 RURAL EXCURSIONS. 31 
 
 they were sure to find their "lady-loves" sitting at 
 work demurely under the trees. The refreshments 
 were cheap, and one spent one's time until the dinner 
 hour, chatting, singing, or strolling about. The stu- 
 dents were very clannish, and invariably remained in 
 their own sets at the Chaumiere. There were tables 
 exclusively occupied by Bourguignons, Angevins, etc. 
 In fact, life was altogether much simpler and more 
 individual than it became later on. 
 
 One of our great treats was an excursion to the 
 establishment of Le Pere Bonvin, where the student 
 of to-day would not condescend to sit down, albeit 
 that the food he gets in more showy places is not 
 half as good and three times as dear. Le Pere 
 Bonvin was popularly supposed to be in the country, 
 though it was not more than a mile from the 
 Barriere Montparna^se. The "country" was repre- 
 sented by one or two large but straggling plots of 
 erstwhile grazing-land, but at that time dotted with 
 chalk-pits, tumble-down, wooden shanties, etc. Such 
 trees as the tract of "country" could boast were on 
 the demesne of Pere Bonvin, but they evidently felt 
 out of their element, and looked the reverse of 
 flourishing. The house of Pere Bonvin was scarcely 
 distinguished in colour and rickettiness from the 
 neighbouring constructions, but it was built of stone, 
 and had two stories. The fare was homely and 
 genuine, the latter quality being no small recom- 
 mendation in an establishment where the prolific 
 " bunny " was the usual plat de resistance. For sophis- 
 tication, where the rabbit was concerned, was part of 
 the suburban traiteur's creed from time immemorial, 
 and the fact of the former's head being visible in the
 
 32 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 dish was no guarantee as to that and the body by 
 its side having formed one whole in the flesh. The 
 ubiquitous collector of rags and bottles and rabbits' 
 skins was always anxiously inquiring for their heads 
 also, and the natural conclusion was that, thanks to 
 the latter, stewed grimalkin passed muster as gibe- 
 lotte. At Pere Bonvin's no such suspicion could be 
 entertained for one moment ; the visitor was admitted 
 to inspect his dinner while alive. Pere Bonvin was 
 essentially an honest man, and a character in his way. 
 During the daytime he exercised the functions of 
 garde-champetre; at night he became the restaurateur. 
 In those days both his sons, Francois and Leon, were 
 still at home, but the former had apparently already 
 made up his mind not to follow in his sire's footsteps. 
 He was a compositor by trade, but the walls of the 
 various rooms showed plainly enough that he did not 
 aim at the fame of an Aldine or an Elzevir, but at 
 that of a Jan Steen or a Gerard Dow. He has fully 
 maintained the promise given then. His pictures 
 rank high in the modern French school; there are 
 few of his contemporaries who have so thoroughly 
 caught the spirit of the Dutch masters. Leon was 
 a mere lad, but a good many among the habitues of 
 Pere Bonvin predicted a more glorious career for him 
 than for his brother. The word " heaven-born musi- 
 cian" has been often misapplied; in Leon's instance 
 it was fully justified. The predictions, however, were 
 not realized. Whether from lack of confidence in his 
 own powers, or deterred by the never-ceasing remon- 
 strances of his father, Leon, unlike Francois, did not 
 strike out for himself, but continued to assist in the 
 business, only turning to his harmonium in his spare
 
 BONVIN'S. 33 
 
 time, or towards the end of the evening, when all 
 distinction between guests and hosts ceased to exist, 
 and the whole made a very happy family. He married 
 early. I lost sight of him altogether, until about 
 '64 I heard of his tragic end. He had committed 
 suicide. 
 
 VOL. T. J)
 
 34 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 My introduction to the celebrities of the day The Cafe de Paris 
 The old Prince Demidoff The old man's mania His sons The 
 furniture and attendance at the Cafe de Paris Its high prices 
 A mot of Alfred de Musset The cuisine A rebuke of the 
 proprietor to Balzac A version by one of his predecessors of the 
 cause of Vatel's suicide Some of the halritueg Their intercourse 
 with the attendants Their courteous behaviour towards one 
 another Le veau a la casserole What Alfred de Musset, 
 Balzac, and Alexandre Dumas thought of it A silhouette of 
 Alfred de Musset His brother Paul on his election as a member 
 of the Acade'mie A silhouette of Balzac, between sunset and 
 sunrise A curious action against the publishers of an almanack 
 A full-length portrait of Balzac His pecuniary embarrass- 
 ments His visions of wealth and speculations His constant 
 neglect of his duties as a National Guard His troubles in con- 
 sequence thereof L'Hotel des Haricots Some of his fellow- 
 prisoners Adam, the composer of "Le Postilion de Lonjumeau" 
 Eugene Sue ; his portrait His dandyism The origin of the 
 Paris Jockey Club Eugene Sue becomes a member The success 
 of "Les Mysteres de Pans" The origin of "Le Juif-Errant" 
 Sue makes himself objectionable to the members of the Jockey 
 Club His name struck off the list His decline and disappear- 
 ance. 
 
 IF these notes are ever published, the reader will 
 gather from the foregoing that, unlike many English- 
 men brought up in Paris, I was allowed from a very 
 early age to mix with all sorts and conditions of men. 
 As 1 intend to say as little as possible about myself, 
 there is no necessity to reveal the reason of this early 
 emancipation from all restraint, which resulted in my 
 being on familiar terms with a great many celebrities 
 before I had reached my twenty-first year. I had no 
 claim on their goodwill beyond my admiration of their
 
 THE CAFE DE PARIS. 35 
 
 talents and the fact of being decently connected. The 
 constant companion of my youth was hand and glove 
 with some of the highest in the land, and, if the truth 
 must be told, with a good many of the lowest; but 
 the man who was seated at the table of Lord Palmer- 
 ston at the Cafe de Paris at 8 p.m., could afford de 
 s'eneanailler at 2 a.m. next morning without jeopar- 
 dizing his social status. 
 
 The Cafe de Paris in those days was probably not 
 only the best restaurant in Paris, but the best in 
 Europe. Compared to the "Freres Provencaux " 
 Vefour and Very, the Cafe de Paris was young ; it 
 was only opened on July 15, 1822, in the vast suite 
 of apartments at the corner of the Rue Taitbout and 
 Boulevard de Italiens, formerly occupied by Prince 
 Demidoff, whose grandson was a prominent figure in 
 the society of the Second Empire, and whom I knew 
 personally. The grandfather died before I was born, 
 or, at any rate, when I was very young; but his 
 descendant often told me about him and his two 
 sons, Paul and Anatole, both of whom, in addition 
 to his vast wealth, inherited a good many of his 
 eccentricities. The old man, like many Russian 
 grand seigneurs, was never so happy as when he 
 could turn his back upon his own country. He 
 inhabited Paris and Florence in turns. In the latter 
 place he kept in his pay a company of French 
 actors, who were lodged in a magnificent mansion 
 near to his own, and who enacted comedies, vaude- 
 villes, and comic operas. The London playgoer may 
 remember a piece in which the celebrated Ravel made 
 a great sensation ; it was entitled " Les Folies Dra- 
 matiques," and was founded upon the mania of the
 
 36 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 old man. For he was old before his time and racked 
 with gout, scarcely able to set his feet to the ground. 
 He had to be wheeled in a chair to his entertainments 
 and theatre, and often fell into a dead faint in the 
 middle of the performance or during the dinner. " It 
 made no difference to his guests," said his grandson ; 
 "they wheeled him out as they had wheeled him in, 
 and the play or repast went on as if nothing had 
 happened." In fact, it would seem that the prince 
 would have been very angry if they had acted other- 
 wise, for his motto was that, next to enjoying himself, 
 there was nothing so comfortable as to see others do 
 so. Faithful to this principle, he always kept some 
 one near, whose mission it was to enjoy himself at his 
 expense. He was under no obligation whatsoever, 
 except to give an account of his amusements, most 
 frequently in the dead of the night, when he got 
 home, because the old prince suffered from insomnia ; 
 he would have given the whole of his vast possessions 
 for six hours' unbroken slumber. 
 
 I have an idea that the three generations of these 
 Demidoffs were as mad as March hares, though I am 
 bound to say, at the same time, that the form this 
 madness took hurt no one. Personally, I only knew 
 Prince Anatole, the second son of the old man, and 
 Paul, the latter's nephew. Paul's father, of the same 
 name, died almost immediately after his son's birth. 
 He had a mania for travelling, and rarely stayed in 
 the same spot for forty-eight hours. He was always 
 accompanied by a numerous suite and preceded by 
 a couple of couriers, who, nine times out of ten, had 
 orders to engage every room in the hotel for him. 
 Being very rich and as lavish as he was wealthy, few
 
 A RUSSIAN GRAND SEIGNEUR. 37 
 
 hotel proprietors scrupled to turn out the whole of 
 their guests at his steward's bidding and at a moment's 
 notice. Of course, people refused to put up with such 
 cavalier treatment; but as remonstrance was of no 
 avail, they often brought actions for damages, which 
 they invariably gained, and were promptly settled by 
 Boniface, who merely added them to Prince Paul's 
 bill. The most comical part of the business, however, 
 was that the prince as often as not changed his mind 
 on arriving at the hotel, and, without as much as 
 alighting, continued his journey. The bill was never 
 disputed. Another of his manias was that his wife 
 should wash her hands each time she touched a metal 
 object. For a while Princess Demidoff humoured 
 her husband, but she found this so terribly irksome 
 that she at last decided to wear gloves, and continued 
 to do so long after her widowhood. 
 
 It must be obvious to the reader that this digression 
 has little or no raison d'etre, even in notes that do not 
 profess to tell a succinct story ; but my purpose was 
 to a certain extent to vindicate the character of 
 one of the most charming women of her time, who 
 had the misfortune to marry what was undoubtedly 
 the most eccentric member of the family. I am 
 referring to Princess Anatole Demidoff, nee Bonaparte, 
 the daughter of Jerome, and the sister of Plon-Plon. 
 
 To return to the Cafe de Paris and its habitues. 
 First of all, the place itself was unlike any other res- 
 taurant of that day, even unlike its neighbour and rival, 
 the Cafe Hardi, at the corner of the Eue Laffitte, on 
 the site of the present Maison d'Or. There was no 
 undue display of white and gold ; and " the epicure 
 was not constantly reminded that, when in the act of
 
 38 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 eating, he was not much superior to the rest of 
 humanity," as Lord Palmerston put it when com- 
 menting upon the welcome absence of mirrors. The 
 rooms might have been transformed at a moment's 
 notice into private apartments for a very fastidious, 
 refined family; for, in addition to the tasteful and 
 costly furniture, it was the only establishment of its 
 kind in Paris that was carpeted throughout, instead of 
 having merely sanded or even polished floors, as was 
 the case even in some of the best Paris restaurants as 
 late as five and six years ago (I mean in the seventies') 
 Bignon, the Cafe Foy, and the Lion d'Or, in the 
 Rue du Helder, excepted. The attendance was in 
 every respect in thorough keeping with the grand air 
 of the place, and, albeit that neither of the three or 
 four succeeding proprietors made a fortune, or any- 
 thing approaching it, was never relaxed. 
 
 On looking over these notes, I am afraid that the 
 last paragraph will be intelligible only to a small 
 section of my readers, consequently I venture to 
 explain. Improved communication has brought to 
 Paris during the third quarter of the century a great 
 many Englishmen who, not being very familiar either 
 with French or with French customs in their better 
 aspect, have come to look upon the stir and bustle of 
 the ordinary Paris restaurant, upon the somewhat free- 
 and-easy behaviour of the waiters, upon their eccen- 
 tricities of diction, upon their often successful attempts 
 at " swelling " the total of the dinner-bill as so much 
 matter of course. The abbreviated nomenclature the 
 waiter employs in recapitulating the bill of fare to 
 the patron is regarded by him as merely a skilful 
 handling of the tongue by the native ; the chances are
 
 A DISSERTATION ON RESTAURANTS. 39 
 
 ten to one in favour of the patron trying to imitate 
 the same in his orders to the attendant, and deriving 
 a certain pride from being successful. The stir and 
 bustle is attributed to the more lively temperament 
 of our neighbours, the free-and-easy behaviour as a wish 
 on the waiter's part to smooth the linguistically thorny 
 path of the benighted foreigner, the attempt to multiply 
 items as an irrepressible manifestation of French greed. 
 Wherever these things occur, nowadays, the patron 
 may be certain that he is " in the wrong shop ; " but 
 in the days of which I treat, the wrong shop was legion, 
 especially as far as the foreigner was concerned ; the 
 Cafe de Paris and the Cafe Hardi were the notable 
 exceptions. Truly, as Alfred de Musset said of the 
 former, "you could not open its door for less than 
 fifteen francs ; " in other words, the prices charged 
 were very high ; but they were the same for the repre- 
 sentatives of the nations that conquered as for those 
 who were vanquished at Waterloo. It would be more 
 correct to say that the personnel of the Cafe, from the 
 proprietor and manager downward, were utterly 
 oblivious of such distinctions of nationality. Every 
 one who honoured the establishment was considered 
 by them a grand seigneur, for whom nothing could be 
 too good. I remember one day in '45 or '46 for M. 
 Martin Guepet was at the head of affairs then Balzac 
 announcing the advent of a Russian friend, and asking 
 Guepet to put his best foot forward. " Assuredly, mon- 
 sieur, we will do so," was the answer, " because it is 
 simply what we are in the habit of doing every day." 
 The retort was sharp, but absolutely justified by 
 facts. One was never told at the Cafe de Paris that 
 this or that dish " could not be recommended," that
 
 40 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 " the fish could not be guaranteed." When the quality 
 of the latter was doubtful, it did not make its appear- 
 ance on the bill of fare. A propos of fish, there was 
 a story current in the Cafe de Paris which may or 
 may not have been the invention of one of the many 
 clever literary men who foregathered there. It was 
 to the effect that one of Gruepet's predecessors Angil- 
 bert the younger, I believe had cast a doubt upon 
 the historical accuracy of the facts connected with the 
 tragic death of Vatel, the renowned chef of the Prince 
 de Conde. According to Angilbert, Vatel did not 
 throw himself upon his sword because the fish for 
 Louis XIV.'s dinner had not arrived, but because it 
 had arrived, been cooked, and was found " not to be 
 so fresh as it might be." The elimination of those 
 dishes would have disturbed the whole of the economy 
 of the menu, and rather than suffer such disgrace 
 Vatel made an end of himself. " For you see, mon- 
 sieur," Angilbert is supposed to have said, "one can 
 very well arrange a perfect dinner without fish, as long 
 as one knows beforehand; but one cannot modify a 
 service that has been thought out with it, when it fails 
 at a moment's notice. As every one of my chefs is a 
 treasure, who would not scruple to imitate the sacrifice 
 of his famous prototype; and as I do not wish to 
 expose him to such a heroic, but inconvenient death, 
 we take the certain for the uncertain, consequently 
 doubtful fish means no fish." 
 
 Truth or fiction, the story accurately conveys the 
 pride of the proprietors in the unsullied gastronomic 
 traditions of the establishment, and there is no doubt 
 that they were ably seconded in that respect by every 
 one around them, even to the clientele itself. Not a
 
 STILL THE CAFE" DE PARIS, 41 
 
 single one of the latter would have called the waiters 
 by their names, nor would these have ventured to 
 rehearse the names of the dishes in a kind of slang 
 or mutilated French, which is becoming more frequent 
 day by day, and which is at best but fit as a means 
 of communication between waiters and scullions. 
 Least of all, would they have numbered the clients, 
 as is done at present. A gentleman sitting at table 
 No. 5 was " the gentleman at table No. 5," not merely 
 " number five." There was little need for the bellow- 
 ing and shouting from one end of the room to the 
 other, because the head waiter himself had an eye 
 everywhere. The word " addition," which people think 
 it good taste in the seventies and eighties to employ 
 when asking for tht-ir bills, was never heard. People 
 did not profess to know the nature of the arithmetical 
 operation by which the total of their liabilities was 
 arrived at ; they left that to the cashier and the rest 
 of the underlings. 
 
 No coal or gas was used in the Cafe de Paris : lamps 
 and wood fires upstairs; charcoal,. and only that of a 
 peculiar kind, in the kitchens, which might have been 
 a hundred miles distant, for all we knew, for neither 
 the rattling of dishes nor the smell of preparation 
 betrayed their vicinity. A charming, subdued hum 
 of voices attested the presence of two or three score 
 of human beings attending to the inner man; the 
 idiotic giggle, the affected little shrieks of the shop- 
 girl or housemaid promoted to be the companion of 
 the quasi-man of the world was never heard there. 
 The cabinet particulier was not made a feature of the 
 Cafe de Paris, and suppers were out of the question. 
 Now and then the frank laughter of the younger
 
 42 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 members of a family party, and that was all. As a 
 rule, however, there were few strangers at the Cafe de 
 Paris, or what are called chance customers, as distinct 
 from periodical ones. But there were half a score of 
 tables absolutely sacred from the invasion of no matter 
 whom, such as those of the Marquis du Hallays, Lord 
 Seymour, the Marquis de St. Cricq, M. Romieu, Prince 
 Rostopchine, Prince Soltikoff, Dr. Veron, etc., etc. 
 Lord Palmerston, when in Paris, scarcely ever dined 
 anywhere else than at the Cafe de Paris of course 
 T mean when dining at a public establishment. 
 
 Almost every evening there was an interchange of 
 dishes or of wines between those tables ; for instance, 
 Dr. Veron, of whom I will have a good deal to say 
 in these notes, and who was very fond of Musigny 
 vintage, rarely missed offering some to the Marquis 
 du Hallays, who, in his turn, sent him of the finest 
 dishes from his table. For all these men not only pro- 
 fessed to eat well, but never to suffer from indigestion. 
 Their gastronomy was really an art, but an art aided 
 by science which was applied to the simplest dish. 
 One of these was veau a la casserole, which figured at 
 least three times a week on the bill of fare, and the 
 like of which I have never tasted elsewhere. Its 
 recuperative qualities were vouched for by such men 
 as Alfred de Musset, Balzac, and Alexandre Dumas. 
 The former partook of it whenever it was on the bill ; 
 the others often came, after a spell of hard work, to 
 recruit their mental and bodily strength with it, and 
 maintained that nothing set them up so effectually. 
 
 These three men were particularly interesting to 
 me, and their names will frequently recur in these 
 notes. I was very young, and, though perhaps not so
 
 ALFRED DE MUSSET. 43 
 
 enthusiastic about literature as I was about painting 
 and sculpture, it would indeed have been surprising 
 if I had remained indifferent to the fascination ex- 
 perienced by almost every one in their society: for 
 let me state at once that the great poet, the great 
 playwright and the great novelist were even something 
 more than men of genius ; they were men of the 
 world, and gentlemen who- thought it worth their 
 while to be agreeable companions. Unlike Victor 
 Hugo, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, and Eugene Sue, all 
 of whom I knew about the same time, they did not 
 deem it necessary to stand mentally aloof from ordinary 
 mortals. Alfred de Musset and Alexandre Dumas 
 were both very handsome, but each in a different way. 
 With his tall, slim figure, auburn wavy hair and beard, 
 blue eyes, and finely-shaped mouth and nose, De 
 Musset gave one the impression of a dandy cavalry 
 officer in mufti, rather than of a poet : the " Miss 
 Byron " which Preault the sculptor applied to him 
 was, perhaps, not altogether undeserved, if judged 
 intellectually and physically at first sight. There was 
 a feminine grace about all his movements. The " Con- 
 fessions d'un Enfant du Siecle," his play, " Frederic 
 and Bernerette," were apt to stir the heart of women 
 rather than that of men ; but was it not perhaps 
 because the majority of the strong sex cannot be 
 stirred except with a pole ? And the poet who was so 
 sensitive to everything rough as to leave invariably 
 the coppers given to him in exchange, was unlikely 
 to take voluntarily to such an unwieldy and clumsy 
 instrument to produce his effects.* 
 
 * This reluctance to handle coppers proved a sore grief to his more 
 economical and less fastidious brother Paul, who watched like a
 
 44 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 Throughout these notes, I intend to abstain care- 
 fully from literary judgments. I am not competent 
 to enter into them ; but, if I were, I should still be 
 reluctant to do so in the case of Alfred de Musset, 
 who, to my knowledge, never questioned the talent of 
 any one. De Musset improved upon better acquaint- 
 ance. He was apt to strike one at first as distant and 
 supercilious. He was neither the one nor the other, 
 simply very reserved, and at the best of times very 
 sad, not to say melancholy. It was not affectation, as 
 has been said so often ; it was his nature. The charge 
 of superciliousness arose from his distressing short- 
 sightedness, which compelled him to stare very hard 
 at people without the least intention of being offensive. 
 
 I have said that Balzac often came, after a spell of 
 hard work, to recruit his forces with the veau a la 
 casserole of the Cafe de Paris ; I should have added 
 that this was generally in the autumn and winter, for, 
 at the end of the spring and during the summer, the 
 dinner hour, seven, found Balzac still a prisoner at 
 home. Few of his acquaintances and friends ever 
 caught sight of him, they were often in total ignor- 
 ance of his whereabouts, and such news as reached 
 them generally came through Joseph Mery, the poet 
 
 guardian angel over his junior, whom he worshipped. It is on record 
 that he only said a harsh word to him once in his life, namely, when 
 they wanted to make him, Paul, a member of the Acade'mie Fran9aise. 
 " C'est bien assez d'un immortel dans la famille," he replied to those 
 who counselled him to stand. Then, turning to his brotner, " Je ne 
 comprends pas pourquoi tu t'es f'ourre dans cette galere, si elle est 
 assez grande pour moi, tu dois y etre joliment a 1'e'troit." It is difficult 
 to imagine a greater instance of brotherly pride and admiration, 
 because Paul de Musset was by no means a nonentity, only from a 
 very early age he had always merged his individuality in that of 
 Alfred. To some one who once remarked upon tiiis in my hearing, 
 he answered," Que voulez-vous? c'est comme cela: Alfred a eu toujoura 
 la moitie du lit, seulement la uioitie etait toujoura prise du milieu."
 
 WALKS BEFORE SUNRISE. 45 
 
 and novelist, the only one who came across him during 
 those periods of eclipse. Mery was an inveterate 
 gambler, and spent night after night at the card-table. 
 He rarely left it before daybreak. His way lay past 
 the Cafe de Paris, and for four consecutive mornings 
 he had met Balzac strolling leisurely up and down, 
 dressed in a pantalon a pieds (trousers not terminating 
 below the ankle, but with feet in them like stockings), 
 and frock coat with velvet facings. The second 
 morning, Mery felt surprised at the coincidence; the 
 third, he was puzzled ; the fourth, he could hold out 
 no longer, and asked Balzac the reason of these 
 nocturnal perambulations round about the same spot. 
 Balzac put his hand in his pocket and produced an 
 almanack, showing that the sun did not rise before 
 3.10. "I am being tracked by the officers of the 
 Tribunal de Commerce, and obliged to hide myself 
 during the day ; but at this hour I am free, and can 
 take a walk, for as long as the sun is not up they 
 cannot arrest me." 
 
 I remember having read that Ouvrard, the great 
 army contractor, had done the same for many years ; 
 nevertheless, he \\as arrested one day, the authorities 
 proved that the almanack was wrong, that the sun 
 rose ten minuies earlier than was stated therein. He 
 brought an ac tion against the compiler and publishers. 
 They had to pay him damages. 
 
 Though literary remuneration was not in those days 
 what it became later on, it was sufficiently large to 
 make it difficult to explain the chronic impecuniosity 
 of Balzac, though not that of Dumas. They were 
 not gamblers, and had not the terrible fits of idle- 
 ness or drinking which left De Musset stranded every
 
 46 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 now and again. Lamartine suffered from the same 
 complaint, 1 mean impecuniosity. There is proof 
 of Balzac's industry and frugality in two extracts 
 from his letters to his mother, dated Angouleme, 
 July, 1832, when he himself was thirty-two years old, 
 and had already written half a dozen masterpieces. 
 "Several bills are due, and, if I cannot find the 
 money for them, I will have them protested and let 
 the law take its course. It will give me breathing time, 
 and I can settle costs and all afterwards." 
 
 Meanwhile he works eight hours a day at "Louis 
 Lambert," one of the best things among his numberless 
 best things. His mother sends him a hundred francs, 
 and, perhaps with the same pen with which he wrote 
 those two marvellous chapters that stand out like 
 a couple of priceless rubies from among the mass of 
 other jewels, he thanks her and accounts for them. 
 " For the copying of the map 5 !, 20 frs. ; for my passport, 
 10 frs. I owed 15 frs. for discount on one of my bills, 
 and 15 frs. on my fare. 15 frs. for flowers as a birthday 
 present. Lost at cards, 10 frs. Postage and servant's 
 tips, 15 frs. Total, 100 frs." 
 
 But these ten francs have not been lost at one fell 
 swoop ; they represent his bad luck at the gaming table 
 during the whole month of his stay at Angouleme, at 
 the house of his friend and sister's schoolfellow, 
 Madame Zulma Carraud, hence, something like seven 
 sous (3|d.) per day : for which extravagance he makes 
 up, on his return to Paris, by plunging into work 
 harder than ever. He goes to roost at 7 p.m., " like 
 the fowls ; " and he is called at 1 a.m., when he writes 
 until 8 a.m. He takes another hour and a half of sleep, 
 and, after partaking of a light meal, " gets into his
 
 HONORS DE BALZAC. 47 
 
 collar " until four in the afternoon. After that, he 
 receives a few friends, takes a bath, or goes out, and 
 immediately he has swallowed his dinner he " turns 
 in," as stated above. " I shall be compelled to lead 
 this nigger's life for a few months without stopping, 
 in order not to be swamped by those terrible bills that 
 are due." 
 
 These extracts are not personal recollections. I have 
 inserted them to make good my statement that Balzac 
 was neither a gambler, a drunkard, nor an idler. 
 
 " How does he spend his money ? " I asked Mery, 
 when he had told us of his fourth meeting with Balzac 
 on that very morning. 
 
 "In sops to his imagination, in balloons to the land 
 of dreams, which balloons he constructs with his hard- 
 won earnings and inflates with the essence of his 
 visions, but which nevertheless will not rise three feet 
 from the earth," he answered. Then he went on 
 explaining : " Balzac is firmly convinced that every 
 one of his characters has had, or has still, its counter- 
 part in real life, notably the characters that have risen 
 from humble beginnings to great wealth ; and he 
 thinks that, having worked out the secret of their 
 success on paper, he can put it in practice. He 
 embarks on the most harum-scarum speculations with- 
 out the slightest practical knowledge ; as, for instance, 
 when he drew the plans for his country-house at the 
 Jardies (Ville d'Avray), and insisted upon the builder 
 carrying them out in every respect while he was away. 
 When the place was finished there was not a single 
 staircase. Of course, they had to put them outside, and 
 he maintained that it was part of his original plan ; 
 but he had never given a thought to the means of
 
 48 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 ascent. But here is Monsieur Louis Lurine. If you 
 would like an idea of Balzac's impracticability, let him 
 tell you what occurred between Balzac and Kugelmann 
 a few months ago." 
 
 Kugelmann was at that time publishing a very 
 beautifully illustrated work, entitled, " Les Kues de 
 Paris," which Louis Lurine was editing. We were 
 standing outside the Cafe Kiche, and I knew Lurine 
 by sight. Mery introduced me to him. After a few 
 preliminary remarks, Lurine told us the following 
 story. Of course, many years have elapsed since, but 
 I think I can trust to my memory in this instance. 
 
 " I had suggested," said Lurine, " that Balzac should 
 do the Hue de Kichelieu, and we sent for him. I did 
 not want more than half a sheet, so imagine my 
 surprise when Balzac named his conditions, viz., five 
 thousand francs, something over six hundred francs a 
 page of about six hundred words. Kugelmann began 
 to yell, I simply smiled ; seeing which, Balzac said, as 
 soberly as possible, ' You'll admit that, in order to 
 depict a landscape faithfully, one should study its every 
 detail. Well, how would you have me describe the 
 Rue de Richelieu, convey an idea of its commercial 
 aspect, unless I visit, one after the other, the various 
 establishments it contains ? Suppose I begin by the 
 Boulevard des Italiens : I'd be bound to take my 
 dejeuner at the Cafe Cardinal, I would have to buy a 
 couple of scores at Brandus', a gun at the gunsmith's 
 next door, a breastpin at the next shop. Could I do 
 less than order a coat at the tailor's, a pair of boots at 
 the bootmaker's ? ' 
 
 " I cut him short. * Don't go any further/ I said, 
 ' or else we'll have you in at " Compagnie des Indes,"
 
 HONORS DE BALZAC. 49 
 
 and, as both lace and Indian shawls have gone up 
 in price, we'll be bankrupt before we know where we 
 are.' 
 
 " Consequently," concluded Lurine, "the thing fell 
 through, and we gave the commission to Guenot- 
 Lacointe, who has done the thing very well and has 
 written twice the pages Balzac was asked for, without 
 buying as much as a pair of gloves." 
 
 When Balzac was not being harassed by the 
 officials of the Tribunal de Commerce, he had to 
 dodge the authorities of the National Guards, who 
 generally had a warrant against him for neglect of 
 duty. Unlike his great contemporary Dumas, Balzac 
 had an invincible repugnance to play the amateur 
 warrior a repugnance, by-the-by, to which we owe 
 one of the most masterly portraits in his wonderful 
 gallery, that of the self-satisfied, bumptious, detestable 
 bourgeois, who struts about in his uniform ; I am 
 alluding to Crevel of " La Cousine Bette." But 
 civic discipline could take no cognizance of the 
 novelist's likes and dislikes, and, after repeated 
 " notices " and " warnings," left at his registered 
 domicile, his incarceration was generally decided upon. 
 As a rule, this happened about half a dozen times in 
 a twelvemonth. 
 
 The next thing was to catch the refractory national 
 guard, which was not easy, seeing that, in order to 
 avoid an enforced sojourn at the Hotel des Haricots,* 
 Balzac not only disappeared from his usual haunts, 
 but left his regular domicile, and took an apartment 
 
 * The name of the military prison which was originally built on the 
 site of the former College Montaigu, where the scholars were almost 
 exclusively fed on haricot beans. Throughout its removals the 
 prison preserved its nickname. EDITOR. 
 
 VO1,. I. E
 
 50 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 elsewhere under an assumed name. On one occasion, 
 at a small lodgings which he had taken near his 
 publisher, Hippolyte Souverain, under the name of 
 Madame Dupont, Leon Gozlan, having found him out, 
 sent him a letter addressed to " Madame Dupont, nee 
 Balzac." 
 
 The sergeant-major of Balzac's company had un- 
 doubtedly a grudge against him. He happened to be 
 a perfumer, and ever since the publication and success 
 of " Cesar Birotteau " the Paris perfumers bore Balzac 
 no goodwill. That particular one had sworn by all 
 his essences and bottles that he would lay hands on 
 the recalcitrant private of his company in the streets, 
 for only under such conditions could he arrest him. 
 To watch at Balzac's ordinary domicile was of no use, 
 and, when he had discovered his temporary residence, 
 he had to lure him out of it, because the other was on 
 his guard. 
 
 One morning, while the novelist was hard at work, 
 his old housekeeper, whom he always took with him, 
 came to tell him that there was a large van downstairs 
 with a case addressed to him. " How did they find me 
 out here?" exclaimed Balzac, and despatched the 
 dame to gather further particulars. In a few moments 
 she returned. The case contained an Etruscan vase 
 sent from Italy, but, seeing that it had been knocking 
 about for the last three days in every quarter of Paris 
 in the carman's efforts to find out the consignee, the 
 former was anxious that M. Balzac should verify the 
 intact condition of the package before it was unloaded. 
 Balzac fell straight into the trap. Giving himself 
 no time even to exchange his dressing-gown, or rather 
 his monk's frock he was in the habit of wearing, lor
 
 BALZAC AND THE NATIONAL GUARD. 51 
 
 a coat, or his slippers for a pair of boots, he rushed 
 downstairs, watching with a benign smile the carrier 
 handling most delicately the treasure that had come 
 to him. 
 
 " Caught at last," said a stentorian voice behind 
 him, and dispelling the dream as its owner laid his hand 
 on the novelist's shoulder, while a gigantic companion 
 planted himself in front of the street door and cut off 
 all retreat that way. 
 
 " With a refinement of cruelty, which in the eyes of 
 posterity will considerably diminish the glory of his 
 victory " I am quoting Balzac's own words as he 
 related the scene to us at the Hotel des Haricots the 
 sergeant-major perfumer would not allow his prisoner 
 to change his clothes, and while the van with the 
 precious Etruscan vase disappeared in the distance, 
 Balzac was hustled into a cab to spend a week in 
 durance vile, where on that occasion he had the 
 company of Adolphe Adam, the composer of " Le 
 Postilion de Lonjumeau." 
 
 However, l< les jours de fete etaient passes," and had 
 been for the last five years, ever since the Hotel des 
 Haricots had been transferred from the town mansion 
 of the De Bazancourts in the Rue des Fosses-Saint- 
 Grermain to its then locale near the Orleans railway 
 station. There were DO more banquets in the refec- 
 tory as there had been of yore. Each prisoner had 
 his meals in his cell. Joseph Mery, Nestor Roqueplan, 
 and I were admitted as the clock struck two, and had 
 to leave exactly an hour afterwards. It was during 
 this vi-sit that Balzac enacted the scene for us which 
 I have endeavoured to describe above, and reminded 
 Mery of the last dinner he had given to Dumas, Jules
 
 52 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 Sandeau, and several others in the former prison, which 
 dinner cost five hundred francs. Eugene Sue, who was 
 as unwilling as Balzac to perform his civic duties, 
 had had three of his own servants to wait upon him 
 there, and some of his plate and silver brought to his 
 cell. 
 
 Seeing that the name of the celebrated author of 
 " Les Mysteres de Paris " has presented itself in the 
 course of these notes, I may just as well have done 
 with him, for he forms part of the least agreeable 
 of my recollections. He was also an habitue of the 
 Cafe de Paris. A great deal has been written about 
 him ; what has never been sufficiently insisted upon 
 was the inveterate snobbishness of the 'man. When I 
 first knew him, about '42-'43, he was already in the 
 zenith of his glory, but I had often heard others 
 mention his name before then, and never very favour- 
 ably. His dandyism was offensive, mainly because it 
 did not sit naturally upon him. It did not spring 
 from an innate refinement, but from a love of show, 
 although his father, who had been known to some of 
 the son's familiars, was a worthy man, a doctor, and, it 
 appears, a very good doctor, but somewhat brusque, 
 like our own Abernethy ; still much more of a gentle- 
 man at heart than the son. He did not like Eugene's 
 extravagance, and when the latter, about '24, launched 
 out into a cabriolet, he shipped him off on one of the 
 king's vessels, as a surgeon ; to which fact French 
 literature owed the first novels of the future author of 
 " Les Mysteres de Paris " and " Le Juif-Errant." 
 
 But the father was gathered to his fathers, and 
 Eugene, who had never taken kindly to a seafaring 
 life, returned to Paris, to spend his inheritance and to
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH JOCKEY CLUB. 53 
 
 resume his old habits, which made one of his 
 acquaintances say that " le pere and le fils had loth 
 entered upon a better life." It appears that, though 
 somewhat of a poseur from the very beginning, he was 
 witty and amusing, and readily found access to the 
 circle that frequented the gardens of the Tivoli and 
 the Cafe de Paris.* They, in their turn, made him 
 a member of the Jockey Club when it was founded, 
 which kindness they unanimously regretted, as will 
 be seen directly. 
 
 The Tivoli gardens, though utterly forgotten at 
 present, was in reality the birthplace of the French 
 Jockey Club. About the year 1833 a man named 
 Bryon, ono of whose descendants keeps, at the hour 
 I write, a large livery stables near the Grand Ca'e, 
 opened a pigeon-shooting gallery in the Tivoli ; the 
 pigeons, from what I have heard, mainly consisting of 
 quails, larks, and other birds. The pigeons shot at 
 were wooden ones, poised up high in the air, but 
 motionless, as we still see them at the suburban fairs 
 around Paris. Seven years before, Bryon had started 
 a " society of amateurs of races," to whom, for a certain 
 consideration, he let a movable stand at private meet- 
 ings, for there were no others until the Society for the 
 Encouragement of breeding French Horses started 
 operations in 1834. But the deliberations at first took 
 place at Bryon's place in the Tivoli gardens, and 
 continued there until, one day, Bryon asked the 
 fourteen or fifteen members why they should not have 
 a locale of their own ; the result was that they took 
 
 * There were two Tivoli gardens, both in the same neighbourhood, 
 the bite ot the present Quanier de 1'Europe. The author is alluding 
 to the second, so oiten mentioned in the novels of Paul de Kock. 
 KDITOB.
 
 54 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 modest quarters in the Rue du Helder, or rather 
 amalgamated with a small club located there under the 
 name of Le Boujze (The Deu) ; for Lord Seymour, the 
 Duke de Nemours, Prince Demidoff, and the rest were 
 sufficiently clear-sighted to perceive that a Jockey 
 Club governed on the English principle was entirely 
 out of the question. That was the origin of the 
 French Jockey Club, which, after various migrations, 
 is, at the time of writing, magnificently housed in one 
 of the palatial mansions of the Rue Scribe. As a 
 matter of course, some of the fashionable habitues of 
 the Cafe de Paris, though not knowing a fetlock from 
 a pastern, were but too pleased to join an institution 
 which, with the mania for everything English in full 
 swing, then conferred as it were upon its members 
 a kind of patent of " good form," and, above all, of 
 exclusiveness, for which some, even amidst the flesh- 
 pots of the celebrated restaurant, longed. Because, 
 it must be remembered, though the majority of the 
 company at the Cafe de Paris were very well from 
 the point of view of birth and social position, there was 
 no possibility of excluding those who could lay no 
 claim to such distinctions, provided they had the 
 money to pay their reckoning, and most of them had 
 more than enough for that. It appears that Eugene 
 Sue was not so objectionable as he became afterwards, 
 when the wonderlul success of his " Mysteres de Paris " 
 and the " Juif-Errant" had turned his head; he was 
 made an original member of the club. Election on 
 the nomination by three sponsors was not necessary 
 then. That article was not inserted in the rules until 
 two years after the foundation of the Paris Jockey 
 Club.
 
 EUGENE SUE. 55 
 
 Of the success attending Sue's two best-known 
 works, I can speak from personal experience ; for 
 I was old enough to be impressed by it, and foolish 
 enough to rank him, on account of it, with Balzac and 
 Dumas, perhaps a little higher than the former. After 
 the lapse of many years, I can only console myself for 
 my infatuation with the thought that thousands, of far 
 greater intellectual attainments than mine, were in the 
 same boat, for it must not be supposed that the 
 furore created by " Les Mysteres de Paris " was confined 
 to one class, and that class the worst educated one. 
 While it appeared in serial form in the Debats, one 
 had to bespeak the paper several hours beforehand, 
 because, unless one subscribed to it, it was impossible 
 to get it from the news-vendors. As for the reading- 
 rooms where it was supposed to be kept, the pro- 
 prietors frankly laughed in your face if you happened 
 to ask for it, after you had paid your two sous 
 admission. "Monsieur is joking. We have got five 
 copies, and we let them out at ten sous each for half 
 an hour : that's the time it takes to read M. Sue's 
 story. We have one copy here, and if monsieur likes 
 to take his turn he may do so, though he will probably 
 liave to wait fur three or four hours." 
 
 At last the guileless demoiselle behind the counter 
 found even a more effective way of fleecing her clients. 
 The cabinets de lecture altered their fees, and the two 
 sous, which until then had conferred the right of stay- 
 ing as long as one liked, were transformed into the 
 price of admission for one hour. Each reader received 
 a ticket on entering, stating the time, and the shrewd 
 caissiere made the round every ten minutes. I may 
 say without exaggeration that the days on which the
 
 56 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 instalment of fiction was "crowded out," there was a 
 general air of listlessness about Paris. And, after the 
 first few weeks, this happened frequently ; for by that 
 time the Berlins had become quite as clever as their 
 formidable rival, the proprietor and editor of the 
 Constitutionnel, the famous Dr. Veron, whom I have 
 already mentioned, but of whom I shall have occasion 
 to speak again and again, for he was one of the most 
 notable characters in the Paris of my early manhood. 
 But to return for a moment to " Les Mysteres de Paris " 
 and its author. 
 
 The serial, then, was frequently interrupted for one 
 or two days, without notice, however, to the readers ; 
 and on its resumption there was a nice little paragraph 
 to reassure the " grundes dames de par le monde," as 
 well as their maids, with regard to the health of M. Sue, 
 who was supposed to have been too ill to work. The 
 public took all this au grand serieux. They either 
 chose to forget, or were ignorant of the fact, that 
 a novel of that kind, especially in the early days of 
 serial feuilleton, was not delivered to the editor bit by 
 bit. Sue, great man as he was, would not have dared 
 to inaugurate the system only adopted somewhat later 
 by Alexandre Duroas the Elder, namely, that of 
 writing " from hand to mouth." These paragraphs 
 served a dual purpose they whetted the lady and 
 other readers' interest in the author, and informed the 
 indifferent ones how great that interest was. For 
 these paragraphs were, or professed to be, I really 
 believe they were, the courteous replies to hundreds 
 of kind inquiries which the author "could not acknow- 
 ledge separately for lack of time." 
 
 But this was not all. There was really a good
 
 A STARTLING SUCCESS 57 
 
 excuse for Eugene Sue "se prenant an serieux," 
 seeing that some of the most eminent magistrates 
 looked upon him in that light and opened a cor- 
 respondence with him, submitting their ideas about 
 reforming such criminals as " le maitre d'ecole," and 
 praising Prince Rodolph, or rather Eugene Sue under 
 that name, for " his laudable efforts in the cause of 
 humanity." In reality, Sue was in the position of 
 Moliere's " bourgeois gentilhomme " who spoke prose 
 without being aware of it ; for there was not the 
 smallest evidence, from his former work, that he 
 intended to inaugurate any crusade, either socialistic 
 or philanthropic, when he began his "Mysteres de 
 Paris." He simply wanted to write a stirring novel. 
 But, unlike M. Jourdain, he did not plead ignorance 
 of his own good motives when congratulated upon 
 them. On the contrary, he gravely and officially replied 
 in the Debats without winking. Some of the papers, 
 not to be outdone, gravely recounted how whole 
 families had been converted from their evil ways by 
 the perusal of the novel; how others, after supper, 
 had dropped on their knees to pray for their author ; 
 how one working man had exclaimed, " You may say 
 what you like, it would be a good thing if Providence 
 sent many men like M. Sue in this world to take up 
 the cudgels of the honest and struggling artisan." 
 Thereupon Beranger, who did not like to be forgotten 
 in this chorus of praise, paid a ceremonious visit to 
 Sue, and between the two they assumed the protector- 
 ship of the horny-handed son of toil. 
 
 It must not be supposed that I am joking or 
 exaggerating, and that the engoument was confined to 
 the lower classes, and to provincial and metropolitan
 
 58 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 faddists. Snch men as M. de Lourdoueix, the editor 
 of the Gazette de France, fell into the trap. I have 
 pointed out elsewhere that the republicans and social- 
 ists of those days were not necessarily godless folk, 
 and M. de Lourdoueix fitly concluded that a social- 
 istic writer like Sue might become a powerful weapon 
 in his hands against the Jesuits. So lie went to the 
 novelist, and gave him a commission to that effect. 
 The latter accepted, and conceived the plot of " The 
 Wandering Jew." When it was sketched out, he com- 
 municated it to the editor ; but whether that gentle- 
 man had reconsidered the matter in the interval, or 
 whether he felt frightened at the horribly tragic 
 conception with scarcely any relief, he refused the 
 novel, unless it was modified to a great extent and 
 its blood-curdling episodes softened. The author, 
 taking himself au serieux this time as a religious 
 reformer, declined to alter a line. Dr. Veron got 
 wind of the affair, bought the novel as it stood, and, 
 by dint of a system of puffing and advertising which 
 would even make a modern American stare, obtained 
 a success with it in the Constitutionnel which equalled 
 if it did not surpass that of the Debats with the 
 " Mysteres." 
 
 " It is very amusing indeed," said George Sand one 
 night, " but there are too many animals. I hope we 
 shall soon get out of this menagerie." Nevertheless, 
 she frankly admitted that she would not like to miss 
 an instalment for ever so much. 
 
 Meanwhile Sue posed and posed, not as a writer 
 for, like Horace Walpole, he was almost ashamed of 
 the title but as "a man of the world" who knew 
 nothing about literature, but whose wish to benefit
 
 DE MUSSET AND SUE. 59 
 
 humanity had been greater than his reluctance to 
 enter the lists with such men as Balzac and Dumas. 
 After his dinner at the Cafe de Paris, he would 
 gravely stand on the steps smoking his cigar and 
 listen to the conversation with an air of superiority 
 without attempting to take part in it. His mind was 
 supposed to be far away, devising schemes for the 
 social and moral improvement of his fellow-creatures. 
 These philanthropic musings did not prevent him 
 from paying a great deal of attention too much 
 perhaps to his personal appearance, for even in those 
 days of beaux, bucks, and dandies, of Counts d'Orsay 
 and others, men could not help thinking Eugene Sue 
 overdressed. He rarely appeared without spurs to his 
 boots, and he would no more have done without a new 
 pair of white kid gloves every evening than without 
 his dinner. Other men, like Nestor de Eoqueplan, 
 Alfred de Musset, Major Eraser, all of whose names 
 will frequently recur in these notes, did not mind 
 having their gloves cleaned, though the process was 
 not so perfect as it is now ; Eugene Sue averred that 
 the smell of cleaned gloves made him ill. Alfred de 
 Musset, who could be very impertinent when he liked, 
 but who was withal a very good fellow, said one day : 
 " Mais enfin, mon ami, fa ne sent pas pire que les 
 bouges que vous nous depeignez. N'y seriez vous 
 jamais alle ? " 
 
 In short, several years before the period of which I 
 now treat, Eugene Sue had begun to be looked upon 
 coldly at the Jockey Club on account of the " airs he 
 gave himself;" and three years before the startling 
 success of his work, he had altogether ceased to go 
 there, though he was still a member, and remained so
 
 60 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 nominally until '47, when his name was removed from 
 the list in accordance with Rule 5. Owing to momen- 
 tary pecuniary embarrassments, he had failed to pay 
 his subscription. It may safely be asserted that this 
 was merely a pretext to get rid of him, because such 
 stringent measures are rarely resorted to at any 
 decent club, whether in London or Paris, and least 
 of all at the Jockey Clubs there. The fact was, that 
 the members did not care for a fellow-member whose 
 taste differed so materially from their own, whose 
 daily avocations and pursuits had nothing in common 
 with theirs ; for though Eugene Sue as early as 1835 
 had possessed a race-horse, named Mameluke, which 
 managed to come in a capital last at Maisons-sur- 
 Seine (afterwards Maisons-Lafitte); though he had 
 ridden his haque every day in the Bois, and driven 
 his cabriolet every afternoon in the Champs-Elysees, 
 the merest observer could easily perceive that all this 
 was done for mere show, to use the French expression, 
 " pose." As one of the members observed, " M. Sue 
 est toujours trop habille, trop carosse, et surtout trop 
 eperonne." 
 
 M. Sue was all that, and though the Jockey Club 
 at that time was by no means the unobtrusive body 
 of men it is to-day, its excesses and eccentricities 
 were rarely indulged in public, except perhaps in 
 carnival time. A M. de Chateauvillard might take 
 it into his head to play a game of billiards on horse- 
 back, or M. de Machado might live surrounded by a 
 couple of hundred parrots if he liked ; none of these 
 fancies attracted the public's notice: M. Sue, by his 
 very profession, attracted too much of it, and brought 
 a great deal of it into the club itself; hence, when he
 
 EXPELLED FROM THE JOCKEY CLUB. 61 
 
 raised a violent protest against his expulsion and 
 endeavoured to neutralize it by sending in his resig- 
 nation, the committee maintained its original decision. 
 A few yeirs after this, Eugene Sue disappeared from 
 the Paris horizon.
 
 62 AX ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 CBAPTEK III. 
 
 Alexandra Dumas pere Why he made himself particularly agree 
 able to Englishmen His way of silencing people The pursuit he 
 loved best next to literature He has the privilege of going down 
 to the kitchens of the Cafe de Paris No one questions his 
 literary genius, some question his culinary capacities Dr. Ve'ron 
 and his cordon-bleu Dr. Veron's reasons for dining out instead 
 of at home Dr. Ve'ron's friend, the philanthropist, who does not 
 go to the theatre because he objects to be hurried with his 
 emotions Dr. Veron, instigated by his cook, accuses Dumas of 
 having collaborateurs in preparing his dishes as he was known 
 to have collaborateurs in his literary work Uumas's wrath He 
 invites us to a dinner which shall be wholly cooked by him in 
 the presence of a delegate to be chosen by the guests Tlie lot 
 falls upon me Dr. Ve'ron and Sophie make the amende honor- 
 able A dinner-party at Ve'ron's A curious law-suit in con- 
 nection with Weber's "Frevsehutz" Nestor Roqueplan, who 
 became the successor of the defendant in the case, suggests a 
 way out of it Le'on Fillet virtually adopts it and wins the day 
 A similar plan adopted years before by a fireman on duty at the 
 opera, on being tried by court-martini for having fallen asleep 
 during the performance of " Guido et Ge'nevra " Firemen not 
 bad judges of plays and operas They were often consulted both 
 by Meyerbeer and Dumas Dumas at work How he idled his 
 time away Dumas causes the traffic receipts of the Chemin de 
 Fer de 1'Ouest to swell during his three years' residence at Siiint- 
 Germain M. de Montalivet advises Louis-Philippe to invite 
 Dumas to Versailles, to see what his presence will do for the 
 royal city Louis-Philippe does not act upon the advice The 
 relations between Dumas and the d'Orleans family After the 
 Eevolution of '48, Dumas becomes a candidate for parliament 
 The story of his canvass and his address to the electors at Joigny 
 Dumas' utter indifference to money matters He casts his 
 burdens upon others Dumas and his creditors Writs and dis- 
 traints How they are dealt w th Dumas' indiscriminate 
 generosity A dozen houses full of new furniture in half as 
 many years Dumas' frugality at table Literary remuneration 
 Dumas and his son "Leave me a hundred francs." 
 
 AMONG my most pleasant recollections of those days 
 are those of Alexandre Dumas. To quote his own words,
 
 DUMAS THE ELDER. 63 
 
 " whenever he met an Englishman he considered it his 
 particular duty to make himself agreeable to him, as 
 part of the debt he owed to Shakespeare and Walter 
 Scott." I doubt whether Dumas ever made himself 
 deliberately disagreeable to any one ; even when 
 provoked, he managed to disarm his adversary with 
 an epigram, rather than wound him. One evening, 
 a professor at one of the provincial universities had 
 been dining at the Cafe de Paris, as the guest of Roger 
 de Beauvoir. He had a magnificent cameo breast-pin. 
 It elicited the admiration of every one, and notably 
 that of Dumas. He said at once that it was a portrait 
 of Julius Cresar. 
 
 " Are you an archaeologist ? " asked the professor. 
 
 " I," replied Dumas, " I am absolutely nothing." 
 
 " Still," insisted the visitor, " you perceived at once 
 that it was a portrait of Julius Ca3sar." 
 
 " That is not very wonderful. Caesar is essentially a 
 Koman type ; and, besides, I know Ctesar as well as 
 most people, and perhaps better." 
 
 To tell a professor of history especially a pro- 
 vincial one that one knows Caesar as well as most 
 people and perhaps better, is naturally to provoke 
 the question, " In what capacity ? " As a matter of 
 course the question followed immediately. 
 
 " In the capacity of Caesar's historian," said Dumas, 
 imperturbably. 
 
 We were getting interested, because we foresaw 
 that the professor would, in a few minutes, get the 
 worst of it. Dumas' eyes were twinkling with 
 mischief. 
 
 " You have written a history of Cffisar ? " asked the 
 learned man.
 
 64 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 " Yes ; why not ? " 
 
 " Well, you won't mind my being frank with yon : 
 it is because it has never been mentioned in the world 
 of savans." 
 
 " The world of savans never mentions me." 
 
 " Still, a history of Caesar ought to make somewhat 
 of a sensation." 
 
 " Mine has not made any. People read it, and that 
 was all. It is the books which it is impossible to read 
 that make a sensation : they are like the dinners one 
 cannot digest ; the dinners one digests are not as much 
 as thought of next morning." That was Dumas' way 
 of putting a would-be impertinent opponent hors de 
 combat, and his repartees were frequently drawn from 
 the pursuit he loved as well, if not better than 
 literature, namely, cooking. It may sound exaggerated, 
 but I verily believe that Dumas took a greater pride 
 in concocting a stew than in constructing a novel or 
 a play. Very often, in the middle of the dinner, he 
 would put down his knife and fork. " Ca, c'est rude- 
 ment bon : il faut que je m'en procure la recette." 
 And Guepet was sent for to authorize Dumas to 
 descend to the lower regions and have a consultation 
 with his chefs. He was the only one of the habitues 
 who had ever been in the kitchens of the Cafe de 
 Paris. As a rule these excursions were followed by an 
 invitation to dine at Dumas' two or three days hence, 
 when the knowledge freshly acquired would be put 
 into practice. 
 
 There were few of us who questioned Dumas' literary 
 genius ; there were many who suspected his culinary 
 abilities, and notably among them, Dr. Veron. The 
 germs of this unbelief had been sown in the doctor's
 
 DR. VtiRON. 65 
 
 mind by his own cordon-bleu, Sophie. The erstwhile 
 director of the opera lived, at that time, in a beautiful 
 apartment on the first floor of a nice house in the Rue 
 Taitbout, at the corner of which the Cafe de Paris 
 was situated. Sophie had virtually a sinecure of it, 
 because, with the exception of a dinner-party now and 
 then, her master, who was a bachelor, took his dinners 
 at the restaurant. And with regard to the dejeuner, 
 there was not much chance of her displaying her 
 talents, because the man, who was reputed to be a very 
 Apicius, was frugality itself. His reasons for dining 
 out instead of at home were perfectly logical, though 
 they sounded paradoxical. One day, when I was 
 remarking upon the seemingly strange habit of dining 
 out, when he was paying " a perfect treasure " at home, 
 he gave me these reasons. " My dear friend, depend 
 upon it that it is man's stomach which found the 
 aphorism, ' Qui va piano va sano, qui va sano va 
 lontano.' In your own home the soup is on the table 
 at a certain hour, the roast is taken off the jack, the 
 dessert is spread out on the sideboard. Your servants, 
 in order to get more time over their meals, hurry you 
 up ; they do not serve you, they gorge you. At the 
 restaurant, on the contrary, they are never in a hurry, 
 they let you wait. And, besides, I always tell the 
 waiters not to mind me ; that I like being kept a long 
 while that is one of the reasons why I come here. 
 
 " Another thing, at the restaurant the door is opened 
 at every moment and something happens. A friend, a 
 chum, or a mere acquaintance comes in ; one chats and 
 laughs: all this aids digestion. A man ought not to 
 be like a boa-constrictor, he ought not to make digestion 
 a business apart. He ought to di'ie and to digest at 
 
 VOL. i. F
 
 66 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 the same time, and nothing aids this dual function like 
 good conversation. Perhaps the servant of Madame 
 de Maintenon, when the latter was still Madame 
 Scarron, was a greater philosopher than we suspect 
 when he whispered to his mistress, ' Madame, the 
 roast has run short ; give them another story.' 
 
 "I knew a philanthropist," wound up Dr. Veron, 
 " who objected as much to be hurried over his emotions 
 as I object to be hurried over my meals. For that 
 reason he never went to the theatre. When he wanted 
 an emotional fillip, he wandered about the streets 
 until he met some poor wretch evidently hungry and 
 out of elbows. He took him to the nearest wine-shop, 
 gave him something to eat and to drink, sat himself 
 opposite to his guest, and told him to recount his 
 misfortunes. ' But take your time over it. I am 
 not in a hurry,' he recommended. The poor outcast 
 began his tale ; my friend listened attentively until he 
 was thoroughly moved. If the man's story was very 
 sad, he gave him a franc or two ; if it was positively 
 heartrending and made him cry, he gave him a five- 
 franc piece ; after which, he came to see me, saying, 
 * I have thoroughly enjoyed myself, and made the 
 intervals between each sensational episode last as long 
 as I liked, and, what is more, it has just cost me seven 
 francs, the price of a stall at the theatre.' " 
 
 To return to Dr. Veron's scepticism with regard to 
 Dumas' culinary accomplishments, and how he was 
 converted. Dumas, it appears, had got the recipe 
 for stewing carp from a German lady, and, being at 
 that moment on very friendly terms with Dr. Veron, 
 which was not always the case, had invited him and 
 several others to come and taste the results of his
 
 DUMAS AS A COOK. 67 
 
 experiments. The dish was simply splendid, and for 
 days and days Veron, who was really a frugal eater, 
 could talk of nothing else to his cook. 
 
 "Where did you taste it?" said Sophie, getting 
 somewhat jealous of this praise of others ; " at the 
 Cafe de Paris ? " 
 
 " No, at Monsieur Dumas'," was the answer. 
 
 " Well, then, I'll go to Monsieur Dumas' cook, and 
 get the recipe." 
 
 " That's of no use," objected her master. "Monsieur 
 Dumas prepared the dish himself." 
 
 " Well, then, I'll go to Monsieur Dumas himself 
 and ask him to give me the recipe." 
 
 Sophie was as good as her word, and walked herself 
 off to the Chaussee d'Antin. The great novelist felt 
 flattered, and gave her every possible information, but 
 somehow the dish was not like that her master had 
 so much enjoyed at his friend's. Then Sophie grew 
 morose, and began to throw out hints about the great 
 man's borrowing other people's feathers in his culinary 
 pursuits, just as he did in his literary ones. For 
 Sophie was not altogether illiterate, and the papers at 
 that time were frequently charging Dumas with keep- 
 ing his collaborateurs too much in the background and 
 himself too much in front. Dumas had never much 
 difficulty in meeting such accusations, but Sophie had 
 unconsciously hit upon the tactics of the clever solicitor 
 who recommended the barrister to abuse the plaintiff, 
 the defendant's case being bad, and she put it into 
 practice. "C'est avec sa carpe comme avec ses roman-*, 
 les autres les lont et il y met son nom," she said one 
 day. "Je 1'ai bien vu, c'est un grand diable de 
 vaniteux."
 
 68 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 Now, there was no doubt about* it, to those who did 
 not know him very well, Dumas was "un grand 
 diable de vaniteux ; " and the worthy doctor sat ponder- 
 ing his cook's remarks until he himself felt inclined 
 to think that Dumas had a clever chef in the back- 
 ground, upon whose victories he plumed himself. 
 Meanwhile Dumas had been out of town for more than 
 a month, but a day or so after his return he made 
 his appearance at the Caie de Paris, and, as a matter 
 of course, inquired after the result of Sophie's efforts. 
 The doctor was reticent at first, not caring to acknow- 
 ledge Sophie's failure. He had, however, made the 
 matter public, alleging, at the same time, Sophie's 
 suspicions as to Dumas' hidden collaborates, and one 
 of the company was ill advised enough to let the 
 cat out of the bag. During the many years of my 
 acquaintance with Dumas, I have never seen him in 
 such a rage as then. But he toned down in a very 
 few minutes. " II n'y a qu'une reponse a une accusa- 
 tion pareille," he said in a grandiloquent tone, which, 
 however, had the most comical effect, seeing how 
 trifling the matter was in reality " il n'y qu'une 
 reponse ; vous viendrez diner avec moi demain, vous 
 choissirez un delegue qui viendra a partir de trois 
 heures me voir preparer mon diner." I was the 
 youngest, the choice fell upon me. That is how my 
 life-long friendship with Dumas began. At three 
 o'clock next day I was at the Chaussee d'Antin, and 
 was taken by the servant into the kitchen, where the 
 great novelist stood surrounded by his utensils, some 
 of silver, and all of them glistening like silver. With 
 the exception of a soupe aux choux, at which, by his 
 own confession, he had been at work since the morn-
 
 A CHALLENGE. 6^) 
 
 ing, all the ingredients for the dinner were in their 
 natural state of course, washed and peeled, but 
 nothing more. He was assisted by his own cook and 
 a kitchen-maid, but he himself, with liis sleeves rolled 
 up to the elbows, a large apron round his waist, and 
 bare cbest, conducted the operations. I do not think I 
 have ever seen anything more entertaining, though in 
 the course of these notes 1 shall have to mention fre- 
 quent vagaries on the part of great men. I came to the 
 conclusion that when writers insisted upon the culinary 
 challenges of Carerae, Duglere, and Casimir they 
 were not indulging in mere metaphor. 
 
 At half-past six the guests began to arrive ; at a 
 quarter to seven Dumas retired to his dressing-room; 
 at seven punctually the servant announced that 
 " monsieur e"tait servi." The dinner consisted of the 
 aforenamed soupe aux choux, the carp that had led 
 to the invitation, a ragout de mouton a la Hongroise, 
 roti de faisans, and a salable Japonaise. The sweets 
 and ices had been sent by the patissier. I never 
 dined like that before or after, not even a week later, 
 when Dr. Veron and Sophie made the amende 
 honorable in the Rue Taitbout. 
 
 I have spent many delightful evenings with all 
 these men ; I do not remember having spent a more 
 delightful one than on the latter occasion. Every 
 one was in the best of humours ; the dinner was very 
 tine, albeit that, course for course, it did not come 
 up to Dumas' ; and, moreover, during the week that 
 had elapsed between the two entertainments, one of Dr. 
 Veron's successors at the opera, Ldon Fillet, had been 
 served with the most ludicrous citation that was ever 
 entered on the rolls of any tribunal. For nearly nine-
 
 70 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 teen years before that period there had been several 
 attempts to mount Weber's " Freyschutz," all of which 
 had come to nought. There had been an adaptation 
 by Castil-Blaze, under the title of " Robin des Bois," 
 and several others ; but until '41, Weber's work, even 
 in a mutilated state, was not known to the French 
 opera-goer. At that time, however, M. Ernilien Pac- 
 cini made a very good translation; Hector Berlioz 
 was commissioned to write the recitatives, for it must 
 be remembered that Weber's opera contains dialogue, 
 and that dialogue is not admissible in grand opera. 
 Berlioz acquitted himself with a taste and reverence 
 for the composer's original scheme that did great credit 
 to both ; he sought his themes in Weber's work itself, 
 notably in the " Invitation a la Valse : " but notwith- 
 standing all this, the " Freyschutz " was miserably 
 amputated in the performance lest it should " play " 
 longer than midnight, though a ballet was added 
 rather than deprive the public of its so-called due. 
 Neither Paccini nor Berlioz had set foot in the 
 opera-house since their objections to such a course 
 had been overruled, and they made it known to the 
 world at large that no blame attached to them ; 
 nevertheless, this quasi " Freyschutz " met with a 
 certain amount of success. M. Pillet was rubbing his 
 hands with glee at his own cleverness, until a Nemesis 
 came in the shape of a visitor from the Fatherland, 
 who took the conceit out of the director with one fell 
 blow, aud r what was worse still, with a perfectly legal 
 one. 
 
 The visitor was no less a personage than Count 
 Tyszkiewicz, one of the best musical critics of the 
 time and the editor of the foremost musical publica-
 
 A MUSICAL LAW-SUIT. 71 
 
 tion in the world ; namely, Die Musikalische Zeitung, 
 of Leipzig. The count, having been attracted by the 
 announcement of the opera on the bills, was naturally 
 anxious to hear how French artists would acquit 
 themselves of a work particularly German, and, having 
 secured a stall, anticipated an enjoyable evening. But 
 alack and alas ! in a very little while his indignation at 
 the liberties taken with the text and the score by the 
 singers, musicians, and conductor got the upper hand, 
 and he rushed off to the commissary of police on duty 
 at the theatre to claim the execution of Weber's 
 opera in its integrity, as promised on the bills, or the 
 restitution of his money. Failing to get satisfaction 
 either way, he required the commissary to draw up 
 a verbatim report of his objections and his claim, 
 determined to bring an action. Next morning, he 
 sent a lithographed account of the transaction to all 
 the papers, requesting its insertion, with which request 
 not a single one complied. Finding himself baffled at 
 every turn, he engaged lawyer and counsel and began 
 proceedings. 
 
 It was at that stage of the affair that the dinner at 
 Dr. Veron's took place. As a matter of course, the 
 coming lawsuit gave rise to a great deal of chaff on 
 the part of the guests, although the victim of this 
 badinage and defendant in the suit was not there. It 
 was his successor who took up the cudgels and pre- 
 dicted the plaintiff's discomfiture. " The counsel," 
 said Roqueplan, " ought to be instructed to invite the 
 president and assessors to come and hear the work 
 before they deliver judgment : if they like it person- 
 ally, they will not decide against Fillet ; if they don't, 
 they'll fall asleep and be ashamed to own it alter-
 
 72 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 wards. But should they give a verdict for the plaintiff, 
 Fillet ought to appeal on a question of incompetence ; 
 a person with the name of Tyszkiewicz has no right to 
 plead in the interest of harmony." * 
 
 Among such a company as that gathered round 
 Dr. Veron's table, a single sentence frequently led to 
 a host of recollections. Scarcely had Boqueplan's 
 suggestion to invite the president and assessors of the 
 court to the performance of the " Freyschutz " been 
 broached than our host chimed in : "I can tell you a 
 story where the expedient you recommend was really 
 resorted to, though it did not emanate from half as 
 clever a man as you, Roqueplan. In fact, it was only 
 a pompier that hit upon it to get out of a terrible 
 scrape. He was going to be brought before a court- 
 martial for neglect of duty. It happened under the 
 management of my immediate successor, Duponchel, at 
 the fourth or fifth performance of Halevy's ' Guido et 
 Genevra.' Some of the scenery caught fire, and, but 
 for Duponchel's presence of mind, there would have 
 been a panic and a horrible catastrophe. Nevertheless, 
 the cause of the accident had to be ascertained, and it 
 was found that the brigadier fireman posted at the 
 spot where the mischief began had been asleep. He 
 frankly admitted his fault, at the same time pleading 
 extenuating circumstances. * What do you mean ? ' 
 asked the captain, charged with the report. ' Such a 
 thing has never happened to me before, mon capitaine, 
 but it is impossible for any one to keep his eyes open 
 
 * The latter plea was, in fact, advanced by Fillet's counsel in the 
 first instance, on Boqueplan's advice, and perhaps influenced the 
 court ; for though it gave a verdict for the plaintiff, it was only for 
 seven francs (the price of the stall), and costs. The verdict was 
 based upon the " consideration" that the defendant had not cairied 
 out altogether the promise set forth on the programme.
 
 A MUSICAL TEST. 73 
 
 during that act. You need not take my word, but 
 perhaps you will try the effect yourself.' The captain 
 did try ; the captain sat for two or three minutes after 
 the rise of the curtain, then he was seen to leave his 
 place hurriedly. The brigadier and his men were 
 severely reprimanded, but they were not tried. Out 
 of respect for Halevy the matter was kept a secret. 
 
 "I may add," said our host, "that the pompier is by 
 no means a bad judge of things theatrical, seeing that 
 he is rarely away from the stage for more than three 
 or four nights at a time. I remember perfectly well 
 that, during the rehearsals of 'Kobert le Diable,' 
 Meyerbeer often had a chat with them. Curiously 
 enough he now and then made little alterations after 
 these conversations. I am not insinuating that the 
 great composer acted upon their suggestions, but I 
 should not at all wonder if he had done so." 
 
 Alexandre Dumas, in whose honour, it will be 
 remembered, the dinner was given, had an excellent 
 memory, and some years afterwards profited by the 
 experiment. I tell the story as it was given to us 
 subsequently by his son. Only a few friends and 
 Alexandre the younger were present at the first of the 
 final rehearsals of " The Three Musketeers," at the 
 Ambigu Comique. They were not dress rehearsals 
 proper, because there were no costumes, and the 
 scenery merely consisted of a cloth and some wings. 
 Behind one of the latter they had noticed, during the 
 first six tableaux, the shining helmet of a fireman who 
 was listening very attentively. The author had noticed 
 him too. About the middle of the seventh tableau 
 the helmet suddenly vanished, and the father remarked 
 upon it to his son. When the act was finished, Dumas
 
 74 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 went in search of the pompier, who did not know 
 him. "What made you go away?" he asked him. 
 " Because it did not amuse me half as much as the 
 others," was the answer. " That was enough for my 
 father," said the younger Dumas. " There and then he 
 went to Beraud's room, took off his coat, waistcoat, and 
 braces, unfastened the collar of his shirt it was the 
 only way he could work and sent for the prompt 
 copy of the seventh tableau, which he tore up and 
 flung into the fire, to the consternation of Beraud. 
 ' What are you doing ? ' he exclaimed. ' You see 
 what I am doing ; I am destroying the seventh tableau. 
 It does not amuse the pompier. 1 know what it wants.' 
 And an hour and a half later, at the termination of 
 the rehearsal, the actors were given a fresh seventh 
 tableau to study." 
 
 I have come back by a roundabout way to the author 
 of " Monte-Christo," because, tout chemin avec moi 
 mene a Dumas ; I repeat, he constitutes one of the 
 happiest of my recollections. After the lapse of many 
 years, I willingly admit that I would have cheerfully 
 foregone the acquaintance of all the other celebrities, 
 perhaps David d' Angers excepted, for that of Dumas 
 pere. 
 
 After the lapse of many years, the elder Dumas 
 still represents to me all the good qualities of the 
 French nation and few of their bad ones. It was 
 absolutely impossible to be dull in his society, but it 
 must not be thought that these contagious animal 
 spirits only showed themselves periodically or when in 
 company. It was what the French have so aptly 
 termed " la joie de vivre," albeit that they rarely 
 associate the phrase with any one not in the spring
 
 DUMAS AT REST. 75 
 
 of life. With Dumas it was chronic until a very few 
 months before his death. I remember calling upon 
 him shortly after the dinner of which I spoke just 
 now. He had taken up his quarters at Saint-Germain, 
 and come to Paris only for a few days. " Is monsieur 
 at home ? " I said to the servant. 
 
 "He is in his study, monsieur," was the answer. 
 " Monsieur can go in." 
 
 At that moment I heard a loud burst of laughter 
 from the inner apartment, so I said, "I would sooner 
 wait until monsieur's visitors are gone." 
 
 " Monsieur has no visitors; he is working," remarked 
 the servant with a smile. " Monsieur Dumas often 
 laughs like this at his work." 
 
 It was true enough, the novelist was alone, or rather 
 in company with one of his characters, at whose sallies 
 he was simply roaring. 
 
 Work, in fact, was a pleasure to him, like every- 
 thing else he undertook. One day he had been out 
 shooting, between Villers-Cotterets and Compiegne, 
 since six in the morning, and had killed twenty-nine 
 birds. " I am going to make up the score and a half, 
 and then I'll have a sleep, for I feel tired," he said. 
 When he had killed his thirtieth partridge he slowly 
 walked back to the farm, where his sou and friends 
 found him about four hours later, toasting himself 
 before the fire, his feet on the andirons, and twirling 
 his thumbs. 
 
 " What are you sitting there for like that? " asked 
 his son. 
 
 " Can't you see ? I am resting." 
 
 " Did you get your sleep ? " 
 
 " No, I didn't ; it's impossible to sleep here. There
 
 76 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 is an infernal noise ; what with the sheep, the cows, the 
 pigs, and the rest, there is no chance of getting a 
 wink." 
 
 " So you have been sitting here for the last four 
 hours, twirling your thumbs ? " 
 
 " No, I have been writing a piece in one act." The 
 piece in question was "Romulus," which he gave to 
 Eegnier to have it read at the Comedie-Francaise, 
 under a pseudonym, and as the work of a young 
 unknown author. It was accepted without a dis- 
 sentient vote. 
 
 It is a well-known fact, vouched for by the accounts 
 of the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer de 1'Ouest, that 
 during the three years Dumas lived at Saint-Germain, 
 the receipts increased by twenty thousand francs per 
 annum. Of course, it has been objected that railways 
 being then in their infancy the increment would have 
 been just the same without Dumas' presence in the royal 
 residence, but, curiously enough, from the day he left, 
 the passenger traffic fell to its previous state. Dumas 
 had simply galvanized the sleepy old town into life, 
 he had bought the theatre where the artists of the 
 Com^die-Franpaise, previous to supping with him, 
 came to play " Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle " or the 
 "Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr," for the benefit of the 
 poor. On such occasions, there was not a room to be 
 had at the hotels. After supper, there were twice a 
 week fireworks on the Terrace, which could be seen 
 from Paris and from Versailles, to the great astonish- 
 ment of Louis-Philippe, who really attributed the 
 change to the beneficence of his reign, although he 
 failed to account for the continued dulness of the 
 latter royal borough, where he himself resided, and
 
 DUMAS AS A CENTRE OF ATTRACTION. 77 
 
 whose picture-galleries he had restored and thrown 
 open to the public, besides having the great fountains 
 to play every first Sunday of the month. 
 
 One day the king sent for M. de Montalivet, and 
 told him that, though gratified at the revived 
 prosperity of Saint-Germain, he would like to see a 
 little more gaiety at Versailles. 
 
 " You really mean it, sire ? " asked the minister. 
 
 " Not only do I mean it, but I confess to you that 
 it would give me great pleasure." 
 
 " Well, sire, Alexandre Dumas has lately been 
 sentenced to a fortnight's imprisonment for neglecting 
 his duty in the National Guards : make an order for 
 him to spend that fortnight in Versailles, and I 
 guarantee your Majesty that Versailles will be lively 
 enough." 
 
 Louis-Philippe did not act upon the suggestion. 
 The only member of the d'Orleans' family who was 
 truly sympathetic to Dumas was the king's eldest son, 
 whose untimely death shortly afterwards affected the 
 great novelist very much, albeit that he frankly 
 acknowledged to regretting the man and not the 
 future ruler ; for while loudly professing his re- 
 publican creed, he never pretended to overlook his 
 indebtedness to Louis-Philippe, when Due d'Orleans, 
 for having befriended him ; nay, I am inclined to 
 think that Dumas' gratitude was for greater than the 
 case warranted. When, in 147, the fancy took him to 
 go iuto parliament, he naturally turned to the borough 
 he had benefited so much by his stay there Saint- 
 Germain, and Saint-Germain denied him. They 
 thought him too immoral. Dumas waited patiently 
 for another opportunity, which did not come until the
 
 78 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 following year, when Louis-Philippe had abdicated. 
 Addressing a meeting of electors at Joigny, he was 
 challenged by a M. de Bonneliere to reconcile his title 
 of republican with his title of Marquis de la Pailleterie, 
 and the fact of his having been a secretary to the Due 
 d'Orleans, although he had never occupied so im- 
 portant a position in the Due d'Orleans' household. 
 His reply was simply scathing, and I give it in full 
 as the papers of the day reproduced it. " No doubt," 
 he said, in an offhand, bantering way, "I was formerly 
 called the Marquis de la Pailleterie, which was my 
 father's name, and of which I was very proud, being 
 unable then to claim a glorious one of my own make. 
 But at present, when I am somebody, I call myself 
 Alexandre Dumas and nothing more; and everybody 
 knows me, you among the rest you, you absolute 
 nobody, who have merely come to be able to boast 
 to-morrow, after insulting me to-night, that you have 
 known the great Dumas. If such was your ambition, 
 you might have satisfied it without failing in the 
 common courtesies of a gentleman." 
 
 When the applause which the reply provoked had 
 subsided, Dumas went on : " There is also no doubt 
 about my having been a secretary to the Due d'Orleans, 
 and that I have received all kinds of favours from his 
 family. If you, citizen, are ignorant of the meaning 
 of the term, 'the memory of the heart/ allow me 
 at least to proclaim here in my loudest voice, that I 
 am not, and that I entertain towards this royal family 
 all the devotion an honourable man can feel." 
 
 It is, however, not my intention to sketch Alexandre 
 Dumas as a politician, for which career I considered 
 him singularly unfit ; but the speech from which I
 
 DUMAS AS A POLITICIAN. 79 
 
 extracted the foregoing contains a few lines which, 
 more than thirty-five years after they were spoken, 
 cannot fail to strike the reader with his marvellous 
 foresight. " Geographically," he said, commenting 
 upon the political state of Europe, " Prussia has 
 the form of a serpent, and, like it, she seems to be 
 asleep, and to gather her strength in order to swallow 
 everything around her Denmark, Holland, Belgium, 
 and, when she shall have swallowed all that, you will 
 find that Austria will be swallowed in its turn, and 
 perhaps, alas, France also." 
 
 The last words, as may be imagined, provoked a 
 storm of hisses; nevertheless, he kept his audience 
 spellbound until midnight. 
 
 A parliamentary candidate, however eloquent, who 
 flings his constituents into the river when they happen 
 to annoy him, must have been a novelty even in 
 those days, and that is what Dumas did to two 
 brawlers after said meeting, just to show them that 
 his "aristocratic grip" was worth their "plebeian 
 one." 
 
 A few years later, at a dinner at Dumas', in the Rue 
 d'Amsterdam, I met a Monsieur du Chaffault who had 
 been an eye-witness of this, as well as of other scenes 
 during that memorable day. Until the morning of 
 that day, M. du Chaffault had never set eyes on the 
 great novelist; in the evening, he was his friend for life. 
 It only proves once more the irresistible fascination 
 Duinas exercised over every one with whom he came 
 in contact, because the beginning of that friendship 
 cost M. du Chaffault six hundred francs, the expenses 
 of that part of the electoral campaign. The story, as 
 told by M. du Chaffault the following afternoon in the
 
 80 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 Cafe Riche to Dr. Veron, myself, and Joseph Mery, is 
 too good to be missed. I give it as near as I can 
 remember. 
 
 "I was about twenty-four then, with nothing par- 
 ticular to do, and a moderate private income. They 
 were painting and whitewashing my place, a few miles 
 away from Sens, and I had taken up my quarters in 
 the principal hotel in the town. The first elections 
 under the second republic were being held. There was 
 a good deal of excitement everywhere, and I liked it, 
 though not taking the slightest interest in politics. 
 This was in May, 1848 ; and about six, one morning 
 while I was still in bed, the door of my room was sud- 
 denly opened without knocking, and what seemed to 
 me a big black monster stood before me. There was 
 a pistol lying by the side of me, and I was reaching 
 towards it, when he spoke. ' Don't alarm yourself',' 
 he said; 'I am Alexandra Dumas. They told me 
 you were a good fellow, and I have come to ask you 
 a service.' 
 
 " I had never seen Dumas in the flesh, only a portrait 
 of him, but I recognized him immediately. ' You have 
 often afforded me a great deal of amusement, but I 
 confess you frightened me,' I said. ' What, in Heaven's 
 name, do you want at this unholy hour ? ' 
 
 " ' I have slept here/ was the answer. ' I landed here 
 at midnight, and am starting for Joigny by-and-by, to 
 attend a political meeting. I am putting up as a 
 member for your department.' 
 
 " I jumped out of bed at once, Dumas handed me 
 my trousers, and, when 1 got as far as my boots, he 
 says, ' Oh, while I think of it, I have come to ask 
 you for a pair of boots ; in stepping into the carriage,
 
 DUMAS' ELECTION TACTICS. 81 
 
 one of mine has come to utter grief, and there is no 
 shop open.' 
 
 " As you may see for yourselves, I am by no means 
 a giant, and Dumas is one. I pointed this out to 
 him, but he did not even answer me. He had caught 
 sight of three or four pair of boots under the dress- 
 ing-table, and, in the twinkling of an eye, chose the 
 best pair and pulled them on, leaving me his old 
 ones, absolutely worn out, but which I have preserved 
 in my library at home. I always show them to my 
 visitors as the thousand and first volume of Alexandre 
 Dumas.* 
 
 " By the time he got the boots on we were friends, 
 as if we had known one another for years; as for 
 Dumas, he was ' theeing ' and ' thouing ' me as if 
 we had been at school together. 
 
 " ' You are going to Joigny ? ' I said ; ' I know a 
 good many people there.' 
 
 " ' All the better, for I am going to take you along 
 with me.' 
 
 " Having to go no further than Joigny, and being 
 taken thither in the conveyance of my newly-made 
 friend, I did not think it necessary to provide myself 
 with an extra supply of funds, the more that I had 
 between five and six hundred francs in my pocket. In 
 a short time we were on our road, and the first stage 
 of three hours seemed to me as many minutes. When- 
 ever we passed a country seat, out came a lot of 
 anecdotes and legends connected with its owners, 
 interlarded with quaint fancies and epigrams. At 
 that first change of horses, Dumas' secretary paid. At 
 he second, Yillevailles, Dumas says, 'Have you got 
 
 * Alexandre Dumas had a marvellously small foot. EDITOB. 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PAEIS. 
 
 twenty francs change ? ' Without a moment's hesita- 
 tion, I took out my purse, paid the money, and put 
 down in my pocket-book, * Alexandre Dumas, twenty 
 francs.' I might have saved myself the trouble, as I 
 found out in a very short time, for the moment he 
 got out at Joigny, he rushed off in a hurry without 
 troubling about anything. The postilion turned to 
 me for his money, and I paid, and put down once 
 more, ' Alexandre Dumas, thirty francs.' 
 
 " The first meeting was fixed for four, at the theatre. 
 They applied to me for the hire of the building, for the 
 gas. I went on paying, but I no longer put down the 
 items, saying to myself, ' When my six hundred francs 
 are gone, my little excursion will be at an end, and 
 I'll go back to Sens.' The little excursion did not 
 extend to more than one day, seeing that I had to 
 settle the dinner bill at the Due de Bourgogne, 
 Dumas having invited every one he met on his way. 
 I am only sorry for one thing, that I did not have ten 
 thousand francs in my pocket that morning in order 
 to prolong my excursion for a week or so. But next 
 morning my purse was empty, and 'our defeat was 
 certain.' I had already identified myself with Dumas' 
 aspirations, so I returned to Sens by myself, but over- 
 joyed at having seen and spoken to this man of genius, 
 who is richer than all the millionnaires in the world 
 put together, seeing that he never troubles himself 
 about paying, and has therefore no need to worry about 
 money. Three months afterwards, the printer at Joigny 
 drew upon me for a hundred francs for electioneering 
 bills, which, of course, I could not have ordered, 
 but which draft I settled as joyfully as I had settled 
 the rest. I have preserved the draft with the boots ;
 
 DUMAS' IMPECUNIOSITY. 83 
 
 they are mementoes of my first two days' friendship 
 with my dear friend." 
 
 At the first blush, all this sounds very much as if 
 we were dealing with a mere Harold Skimpole, but no 
 man was more unlike Dickens' creation than Alexandre 
 Dumas. M. du Chaffault described him rightly when 
 he said that he did not worry about money, not even 
 his own. " My biographer," Dumas often said, " will 
 not fail to point out that I was ' a panier perce,' * 
 neglecting, as a matter of course, to mention that, as 
 a rule, it was not I who made the holes." 
 
 The biographers have not been quite so unjust as 
 that. Unfortunately, few of them knew Dumas inti- 
 mately, and they were so intent upon sketching the 
 playwright and the novelist that they neglected the 
 man. They could have had the stories of Alexandre 
 Dumas' improvidence with regard to himself and his 
 generosity to others for the asking from his familiars. 
 On the other hand, the latter have only told these 
 stories in a fragmentary way ; a complete collection of 
 them would be impossible, for no one, not even Dumas 
 himself, knew half the people whom he befriended. In 
 that very apartment of the Rue d' Amsterdam which 
 I mentioned just now, the board was free to any and 
 every one who chose to come in. Not once, but a score 
 of times have I heard Dumas ask, after this or that man 
 had left the table, " Who is he ? what's his name ? " 
 Whosoever came with, or at the tail, not of a friend, 
 but of a simple acquaintance, especially if the ac- 
 quaintance happened to wear skirts, was immediately 
 invited to breakfast or dinner as the case might be. 
 
 * Literally, a basket with holes in it ; figuratively, the term applied 
 to irreclaimable spendthrifts. EDITOR.
 
 84 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 Count de Cherville once told me that Dumas, having 
 taken a house at Varenne-Saint-Hilaire, his second 
 month's bill for meat alone amounted to eleven hundred 
 francs. Let it be remembered that his household 
 consisted of himself, two secretaries, and three servants, 
 and that money went a great deal further than it does 
 at present, especially in provincial France, in some 
 parts of which living is still very cheap. In conse- 
 quence of one of those financial crises, which were 
 absolutely periodical with Alexandre Dumas, M. de 
 Cherville had prevailed upon him to leave Paris for 
 a while, and to take up his quarters with him. All 
 went comparatively well as long as he was M. de 
 Cherville's guest; but, having taken a liking to the 
 neighbourhood, he rented a house of his own, and 
 furnished it from garret to cellar in the most expensive 
 way, as if he were going to spend the remainder of his 
 life in it. Exclusive of the furniture, he spent between 
 fifteen thousand and eighteen thousand francs on 
 hangings, painting, and repairs. The parasites and 
 harpies which M. de Cherville had kept at bay came 
 down upon him like a swarm of locusts. " And how 
 long, think you, did Dumas stay in his new domicile ? 
 Three months, not a day more nor less. As a matter of 
 course, the furniture did not fetch a quarter of its cost ; 
 the repairs, the decorating, etc., were so much sheer 
 waste: for the incoming tenant refused to refund a 
 cent for it, and Dumas, having made up his mind to go 
 to Italy, would not wait for a more liberal or conscien- 
 tious one, lest he should have the rent of the empty 
 house on his shoulders also. Luckily, I took care that 
 he should pocket the proceeds of the sale of the 
 furniture."
 
 DUMAS AND THE BAILIFFS. 85 
 
 This last sentence wants explaining. As a rule, 
 when a man sells his sticks, he pockets the money. 
 But the instance just mentioned was the only one in 
 which Dumas had the disposal of his household goods. 
 The presiding diviuity invariably carried them away 
 with her when she had to make room for a successor, 
 and these successions generally occurred once, some- 
 times twice, a year. "La reine est morte, vive la 
 reine." The new sovereign, for the first few days of 
 her reign, had to be content with bare walls and very 
 few material comforts ; then the nest was upholstered 
 afresh, and " il n'y avait rien de change en la demeure, 
 sauf le nom de la maitresse." 
 
 Consequently, though for forty years Alexandra 
 Dumas could not have earned less than eight thousand 
 pounds per annum ; though he neither smoked, drank, 
 nor gambled ; though, in spite of his mania for cooking, 
 he himself was the most frugal eater the beef from 
 the soup of the previous day, grilled, was his favourite 
 dish, it rained writs and summonses around him, while 
 he himself was frequently without a penny. 
 
 M. du Chaffault one day told me of a scene a propos 
 of this which is worth reproducing. He was chatting 
 to Dumas in his study, when a visitor was shown in. 
 He turned out to be an Italian man of letters and 
 refugee, on the verge of starvation. M. du Chaffault 
 could not well make out what was said, because they 
 were talking Italian, but all at once Dumas got up and 
 took from the wall behind him a magnificent pistol, 
 one of a pair. The visitor walked off with it, to M. du 
 Chaffault's surprise. When he was gone, Dumas turned 
 to his friend and explained : " He was utterly penniless, 
 and so am I ; so I gave him the pistol."
 
 86 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 " Great Heavens, yon surely did not recommend him 
 to go and make an end of himself ! " interrupted du 
 Chaffault. 
 
 Dumas burst out laughing. "Of course not. I 
 merely told him to go and sell or pawn it, and leave 
 me the fellow one, in case some other poor wretch 
 should want assistance while I am so terribly hard up." 
 
 And yet, in this very Rue d' Amsterdam, whether 
 Dumas was terribly impecunious or not, the dejeuner, 
 which generally began at about half-past eleven, was 
 rarely finished before half-past four, because during 
 the whole of that time fresh contingents arrived to be 
 fed, and communication was kept up between the apart- 
 ment and the butcher for corresponding fresh supplies 
 of beefsteaks and cutlets. 
 
 Is it a wonder, then, that it rained summonses, and 
 writs, and other law documents? But no one took 
 much notice of these, not even one of the four secre- 
 taries, who was specially appointed to look after these 
 things. If I remember aright, his name was Hirschler. 
 The names of the other three secretaries were Rusconi, 
 Viellot, and Fontaine. Unfortunately, Hirschler was 
 as dilatory as his master, and, until the process-server 
 claimed a personal interview, as indifferent. These 
 " limbs of the law " were marvellously polite. I was 
 present one day at an interview between one of these 
 and Hirschler, for Dumas' dwelling was absolutely and 
 literally the glass house of the ancient philosopher 
 with this difference, that no one threw any stones from 
 it. There was no secret, no skeleton in the cupboard ; 
 the impecuniosity and the recurrent periods of plenty 
 were both as open as the day. 
 
 The " man of law " and Hirschler began by shaking
 
 AN UNWEITTEN COMEDY. 87 
 
 hands, for they were old acquaintances ; it would have 
 been difficult to find a process-server in Paris who was 
 not an old acquaintance of Dumas. After which the 
 visitor informed Hirschler that he had come to 
 distrain. 
 
 " To distrain ? I did not know we had got as far 
 as that," said Hirschler. " Wait a moment. I must 
 go and see." It meant that Hirschler repaired to 
 the kitchen, where stood a large oaken sideboard, in 
 a capacious drawer of which all the law documents, 
 no matter by whom received, were indiscriminately 
 thrown, to be fished out when the "mauvais quart 
 d'heure " came, and not until then. 
 
 "You are right," said Hirschler, but not in the 
 least worried or excited. " I really did not know we 
 had got as far as that. I must ask you to wait another 
 minute. I suppose a third or a fourth of the total 
 amount will do for the present ? " 
 
 " Well, I do not know," said the process-server with 
 most exquisite politeness. " Try what you can do. I 
 fancy that with a third I may manage to stop proceed- 
 ings for a while." 
 
 The third or fourth part of the debt was rarely in 
 the house ; messengers had to be despatched for it to 
 Cadot, the publisher, or to the cashier of the Moniteur y 
 Constitutionnel, or Siecle. Meanwhile the process-server 
 was feasted in a sumptuous way, and when the mes- 
 senger returned with the sum in question, Hirschler 
 and the process-server shook hands once more, with 
 the most cordial au revoir possible. 
 
 As a matter of course, the same process-server re- 
 appeared upon the scene in a few months. The comedy 
 had often as many as a dozen representations, so that
 
 88 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 it may safely be said that a great number of Dumas' 
 debts were paid six or seven times over. Even six- 
 pence a line of sixty letters did not suffice to keep pace 
 with such terrible improvidence, though the remu- 
 neration was much more frequently fourpence or five- 
 pence. It rarely rose to sevenpence halfpenny, but in 
 all cases a third went to Dumas' collaborateurs, another 
 third to his creditors, and the rest to himself. 
 
 I have allowed my pen to run away with me. One 
 more story, and then I leave Alexandre Dumas for the 
 present. It is simply to show that he would have 
 squandered the fortune of all the Rothschilds combined : 
 I repeat, not on himself; he would have given it away, 
 or allowed it to be taken. He had no notion of the 
 value of money. About a year after I had made his 
 acquaintance, he was ill at Saint-Germain, and I went 
 to see him. His dog had bitten him severely in the 
 right hand ; he was in bed, and obliged to dictate. 
 His son had just left him, and he told me, adding, 
 " C'est un coeur d'or, cet' Alexandre." Seeing that I 
 did not ask what had elicited the praise, he began 
 telling me. 
 
 " This morning I received six hundred and fifty 
 francs. Just now Alexandre was going up to Paris, 
 and he says, * I'll take fifty francs.' 
 
 " I did not pay attention, or must have misunder- 
 stood ; at any rate I replied, ' Don't take as much as 
 that ; leave me a hundred francs.' 
 
 " ' What do you mean, father ? ' he asked. ' I am 
 telling you that I am going to take fifty francs.' 
 
 " ' I beg your pardon,' I said. ' I understood you 
 were going to take six hundred.' " 
 
 He would have considered it the most natural thing
 
 THE TWO DUMASES. 89 
 
 in the world for his son to take six hundred and leave 
 him fifty; just as he considered it the most natural 
 thing to bare his arm and to have a dozen leeches put 
 on it, because his son, when a boy of eight, having met 
 with an accident, would not consent to blood-letting of 
 that kind. In vain did the father tell him that the 
 leeches did not hurt. "Well, put some on yourself, 
 and then I will." And the giant turned up his sleeves, 
 and did as he was told.
 
 90 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 Dr. Louis Ve'ron The real man as distinguished from that of his 
 own " Memoirs " He takes the management of the Paris Opera 
 How it was governed before his advent Meyerbeer's " Robert le 
 Diable" underlined Meyerbeer and his doubts upon the merits 
 of his work Meyerbeer's generosity Meyerbeer and the beggars 
 of the Rue Le Peletier Dr. Ve'ron, the inventor of the modern 
 newspaper puff Some specimens of advertisements in their 
 infancy Dr. Ve'ron takes a leaf from the book of Moliere 
 Dr. Veron's love of money His superstitions His objections 
 to travelling in railways He quotes the Queen of England as 
 an example When Queen Victoria overcomes her objection, 
 Ve'ron holds out " Queen Victoria has got a successor : the 
 Veron dynasty begins and ends with me " Thirteen at table 
 I make the acquaintance of Taglioni The woman and the 
 ballerina Her adventure at Perth An improvised perform- 
 ance of " Nathalie, la Laitiere Suisse " Another adventure in 
 Russia A modern Claude Du-Val My last meeting with Tag- 
 lioni A dinner-party at De Moray's A comedy scene between 
 husband and wife Flotow, the composer of " Martha " His 
 family His father's objection to the composer's profession The 
 latter^ interview with M. de Saint-Georges, the author of the 
 libretto of Balfe's " Bohemian Girl " M. de Saint-Georges 
 prevails upon the father to let his son study in Paris for five 
 years, and to provide for him during that time The supplies are 
 stopped on the last day of the fifth year Flotow, at the advice 
 of M. de Saint-Georges, stays on and lives by giving piano- 
 lessons His earthly possessions at his first success " Rob 
 Roy" at the Hotel Castellane Lord Granville's opinion of the 
 music The Hotel Castellane and some Paris salons during 
 Louis-Philippe's reign The Princesse de Lieven's, M. Thiers', 
 etc. What Madame de Girardin's was like Victor Hugo's 
 Perpetual adoration ; very artistic, but nothing to eat or to 
 drink The salon of the ambassador of the Two Sicilies Lord 
 and Lady Granville at the English Embassy The salon of 
 Count Apponyi A story connected with it Furniture and 
 entertainments Cakes, ices, and tea ; no champagne as during 
 the Second Empire The Hotel de Castellane and its amateur the- 
 atricals Rival companies No under-studies Lord Brougham 
 at the Hotel Castellane His bad French and his would-be 
 Don Juanism A French rendering of Shakespeare's " There is 
 but one step between the sublime and the ridiculous," as applied
 
 DR. VtiRON. 91 
 
 to Lord Brougham He nearly accepts a part in a farce where 
 his bad French is likely to produce a comic effect His successor 
 as a murderer of the language M. de Saint-Georges Like 
 Moliere, he reads his plays to his housekeeper When the latter 
 is not satisfied, the dinner is spoilt, however great the success of 
 the play in public estimation Great men and tlieir housekeepers 
 Turner, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Eugene Delacroix. 
 
 NEXT to Dumas, the man who is uppermost in my 
 recollections of that period is Dr. Louis Veron, the 
 founder of the Revue de Paris, which was the precursor 
 of the Revue des Deux Mondes ; Dr. Veron, under 
 whose management the Paris Opera rose to a degree 
 of perfection it has never attained since ; Dr. Veron, 
 who, as some one said, was as much part and parcel 
 of the history of Paris during the first half of the 
 nineteenth century as was Napoleon I. of the history 
 of France ; Dr. Veron, than whom there has been 
 no more original figure in any civilized community 
 before or since, with the exception, perhaps, of Phineas 
 Barnum, to whom, however, he was infinitely superior 
 in education, tact, and manners. 
 
 Dr. Veron has written his own " Memoirs " in six 
 bulky volumes, to which he added a seventh a few 
 years later. They are full of interesting facts from 
 beginning to end, especially to those who did not 
 know intimately the author or the times of which he 
 treats. Those who did are tempted to repeat the 
 mot of Diderot when they gave him the portrait of 
 his father. " This is my Sunday father ; I want my 
 everyday father." The painter, in fact, had repre- 
 sented the worthy cutler of Langres in his best coat 
 and wig, etc. ; not as his son had been in the habit 
 of seeing him. The Dr. Veron of the "Memoirs" 
 is not the Dr. Veron of the Cafe de Paris, nor the 
 Dr. Veron of the avant-scene in his own theatre, snoring
 
 92 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 a duet with Auber, and "keeping better time than 
 the great composer himself; " he is not the Dr. Veron 
 full of fads and superstitions and uniformly kind, 
 " because kindness is as a rule a capital investment ; " 
 he is not the cheerful pessimist we knew; he is a 
 grumbling optimist, as the journalists of his time 
 have painted him ; in short, in his book he is a 
 quasi-philanthropic illusion, while in reality he was 
 a hard-hearted, shrewd business man who did good 
 by stealth now and then, but never blushed to find it 
 fame. 
 
 The event which proved the starting-point of Dr. 
 Veron's celebrity was neither of his own making nor 
 of his own seeking. Though it happened when I was 
 a mere lad, I have heard it discussed in after-years 
 sufficiently often and by very good authorities to be 
 confident of my facts. In June, 1831, Dr. Veron took 
 the management of the Paris Opera, which up till 
 then had been governed on the style of the old regime, 
 namely, by three gentlemen of the king's household 
 with a working director under them. The royal 
 privy purse was virtually responsible for its liabilities. 
 Louis-Philippe shifted the burden of that responsibility 
 on the State, and limited its extent. The three 
 gentlemen of the king's household were replaced by 
 a royal commissioner, and the yearly subsidy fixed at 
 32,500 ; still a pretty round sum, which has been 
 reduced since by 500 only. 
 
 At Dr. Veron's advent, Meyerbeer's "Kobert le 
 Diable " was, what they call in theatrical parlance, 
 " underlined," or, if not underlined, at least definitely 
 accepted. Only one work of his had at that time been 
 heard in Paris, " II Crociato in Egitto."
 
 VERON AND MEYERBEER. 93 
 
 It is difficult to determine, after so many years, 
 whether Dr. Veron, notwithstanding his artistic in- 
 stincts, was greatly smitten with the German composer's 
 masterpiece. It has often been argued that he was 
 not, because he insisted upon an indemnity of forty 
 thousand francs from the Government towards the cost 
 of its production. In the case of a man like Veron, 
 this proves nothing at all. He may have been 
 thoroughly convinced of the merits of "Kobert le 
 Diable," and as thoroughly confident of its success 
 with the public, though no manager, not even the 
 most experienced, can be; it would not have pre- 
 vented him from squeezing the forty thousand francs 
 from the minister on the plea that the performance 
 of the work was imposed upon him by a treaty 
 of his predecessor. To Dr. Veron's credit be it 
 said that he might have saved himself the hard 
 tussle he had with the minister by simply applying 
 for the money to Meyerbeer himself, who would have 
 given it without a moment's hesitation, rather than 
 see the success of " Eobert le Diable " jeopardized by 
 inefficient mounting, although up to the last Meyer- 
 beer could never make up his mind whether magnificent 
 scenery and gorgeous dresses were an implied com- 
 pliment or the reverse to the musical value of his 
 compositions. A propos of this there is a very 
 characteristic story. At one of the final dress-re- 
 hearsals of " Robert le Diable," Meyerbeer felt much 
 upset. At the sight of that beautiful set of the 
 cloister of Sainte-Rosalie, where the nuns rise from 
 their tombs, at the effect produced by the weird 
 procession, Meyerbeer came up to Veron. 
 
 " My dear director," he said, " I perceive well enough
 
 94 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 that you do not depend upon the opera itself; you 
 are, in fact, running after a spectacular success." 
 
 " Wait till the fourth act," replied Veron, who was 
 above all logical. 
 
 The curtain rose upon the fourth act, and what did 
 Meyerbeer behold ? Instead of the vast, grandiose 
 apartment he had conceived for Isabella, Princess of 
 Sicily, he found a mean, shabby set, which would have 
 been deemed scarcely good enough for a minor theatre. 
 
 "Decidedly, my dear director," says Meyerbeer, 
 with a bitter twinge in his features and voice, " I 
 perceive well enough that you have no faith in my 
 score ; you did not even dare go to the expense of a 
 new set. I would willingly have paid for it myself." 
 
 And he would willingly have paid for it, because 
 Meyerbeer was not only very rich, but very generous. 
 
 " It is a very funny thing," said Lord , as he 
 
 came into the Cafe de Paris one morning, many years 
 afterwards ; " there are certain days in the week when, 
 the Hue Le Peletier seems to be swarming with 
 beggars, and, what is funnier still, they don't take 
 any notice of me. I pass absolutely scot-free." 
 
 " I'll bet," remarked Eoger de Beauvoir, " that they 
 are playing ' Robert le Diable ' or ' Les Huguenots ' 
 to-night, and I can assure you that I have not seen 
 the bills." 
 
 " Now that you speak of it, they are playing ' Les 
 
 Huguenots ' to-night," replied Lord ; " but what 
 
 has that to do with it? I am not aware that the 
 Paris beggars manifest a particular predilection for 
 Meyerbeer's operas, and that they are booking their 
 places on the days they are performed." 
 
 " It's simply this," explained De Beauvoir : " both
 
 . MEYERBEER'S CHARITY. 95 
 
 Eossini and Meyerbeer never fail to come of a morning 
 to look at the bills, and when the latter finds his name 
 on them, he is so overjoyed that he absolutely empties 
 his pockets of all the cash they contain. Notwith- 
 standing his many years of success, he is still afraid 
 that the public's liking for his music is merely a 
 passing fancy, and as every additional performance 
 decreases this apprehension, he thinks he cannot be 
 sufficiently thankful to Providence. His gratitude 
 shows itself in almsgiving." 
 
 I made it my business subsequently to verify what 
 I considered De Beauvoir's fantastical statement, and 
 I found it substantially correct. 
 
 To return to Dr. Veron, who, there is no doubt, did 
 the best he could for "Robert le Diable," to which 
 and to the talent of Taglioni he owed his fortune. 
 At the same time, it would be robbing him of part of 
 his glory did we not state that the success of that 
 great work might have been less signal but for him ; 
 both his predecessors and successors had and have 
 still equally good chances without having availed 
 themselves of them, either in the interest of lyrical 
 art or in that of the public. 
 
 I compared Dr. Veron just now to Phineas Barnum, 
 and the comparison was not made at random. Dr. 
 Veron was really the inventor of the newspaper puff 
 direct and indirect of that personal journalism which 
 records the slightest deed or gesture of the popular 
 theatrical manager, and which at the present day is 
 carried to excess. And all his subordinates and co- 
 workers were made to share the advantages of the 
 system, because their slightest doings also reflected 
 glory upon him. An artist filling at a moment's
 
 96 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 notice the part of a fellow-artist who had become 
 suddenly ill, a carpenter saving by his presence of 
 mind the situation at a critical juncture, had not only 
 his paragraph in next morning's papers, but a whole 
 column, containing the salient facts of his life and 
 career. It was the system of Frederick the Great 
 and of the first Napoleon, acknowledging the daring 
 deeds of their smallest as well as of their foremost 
 aids with this difference, that the French captain 
 found it convenient to suppress them now and then, 
 and that Dr. Veron never attempted to do so. When 
 the idea of putting down these notes first entered my 
 mind, I looked over some files of newspapers of that 
 particular period, and there was scarcely one between 
 1831 and 1835 that did not contain a lengthy refer- 
 ence to the Grand Opera and its director. I was 
 irresistibly reminded of the bulletins the great 
 Napoleon dictated on the battle-field. I have also 
 seen a collection of posters relating to the same 
 brilliant reign at the Opera. Of course, compared to 
 the eloquent effusions and ingenious attempts of the 
 contemporary theatrical manager to bait the public, 
 Veron's are mere child's play ; still we must remember 
 that the art of puffing was in its infancy, and, as such, 
 some of them are worth copying. The public was not 
 so blase, and it swallowed the bait eagerly. Here 
 they are. 
 
 " To-morrow tenth performance of . . . , which hence- 
 forth will only be played at rare intervals. 
 
 "To-morrow twentieth performance of . . . ; posi- 
 tively the last before the departure of M. ... 
 
 " To-morrow seventeenth performance of ...; re- 
 appearance of Madame . . .
 
 PRIMITIVE PUFFING. 97 
 
 "To-morrow fifteenth performance of ... by all 
 the principal artists who * created ' the parts. 
 
 " To-morrow thirtieth performance of ... The 
 third scene of the second act will ba played as on the 
 first night. 
 
 " To-morrow twentieth performance of . . . , which 
 can only be played for a limited number of nights. 
 
 " To-rnorrow sixteenth performance of ... In the 
 Ball-Boom Scene a new pas de Chales will be intro- 
 duced. 
 
 " To-morrow thirtieth performance of ... This suc- 
 cessful work must be momentarily suspended owing 
 to previous arrangements." 
 
 Childish as these lines may look to the present 
 generation, they produced a fortune of 2000 a year 
 to Dr. Veron in four years, and, but for the outbreak 
 of the cholera in '32, when " Robert le Diable " was 
 in the flush of its success, would have produced another 
 1000 per annum. At that time Dr. Veron had already 
 been able to put aside 24,000, and he might have 
 easily closed his theatre during those terrible months ; 
 but, like Moliere, he asked himself what would become 
 of all those who were dependent upon him, and had 
 not put aside anything ; so he made his savings into 
 ten parcels, intending to hold out as many months 
 without asking help of any one. Five of the parcels 
 went. At the beginning of the sixth month the cholera 
 abated ; by the end it had almost disappeared. 
 
 Those who would infer from this that Dr. Veron 
 was indifferent to money, would make a great mistake. 
 But he would not allow his love of it to get the upper 
 hand, to come between him and his conscience, to 
 make him commit either a dishonest or a foolish act. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 By a foolish act he meant headlong speculation. 
 When the shares of the Northern Railway were 
 allotted, Dr. Veron owned the Constitutionnel ; 150 
 shares were allotted to him, which at that moment 
 represented a clear profit of 60,000 francs, they being 
 400 francs above par. Dr. Veron made up his mind 
 to realize there and then. But it was already late; 
 the Bourse was closed, the stockbrokers had finished 
 business for the day. He, however, met one on the 
 Boulevards, who gave him a cheque for 55,000 francs 
 on the Bank of France, which could only be cashed 
 next day. The shares were left meanwhile in Dr. 
 Veron's possession. Three minutes after the bargain 
 was concluded Dr. Veron went back to his office. " I 
 must have ready money for this, or decline the 
 transaction," he said. The stockbroker, by applying 
 to two of his colleagues, mauaged to scrape together 
 50,000 francs. Dr. Veron gave him a receipt in lull, 
 returned home, singing as he went the French version 
 of " A bird in the hand," etc. 
 
 Veroii was exceedingly superstitious, and had fads. 
 He could never be induced to take a railway journey. 
 It was generally known in France at that time that, in 
 the early days of locomotion by steam, Queen Victoria 
 had held a similar objection. Veron, when twitted 
 with his objection, invariably replied, "I have yet to 
 learn that the Queen of England is less enlightened 
 than any of you, and she will not enter a railway 
 carriage." But one day the report spread that the 
 queen had made a journey from Windsor to London 
 by the "iron horse," and then Veron was sorely 
 pressed. He had his answer ready. " The Queen of 
 England has got a successor : the Veron dynasty begins
 
 TAGLIONI. 99 
 
 and ends with me. I must take care to make it last 
 as long as possible." He stuck to his text till the end 
 of his life. 
 
 On no consideration would Yeron have sat down 
 "thirteen at table." Once or twice, when the guests 
 and host made up that number, his coachman's son 
 was sent for, dressed, and made presentable, and joined 
 the party ; at others he politely requested two or 
 three of us to go and dine at the Cafe de Paris, and 
 to have the bill sent to him. We drew lots as to who 
 was to go. 
 
 It was through Dr. Veron that I became acquainted 
 with most of the operatic celebrities Meyerbeer, 
 Halevy, Auber, Duprez, etc. ; for though he had 
 abdicated his directorship seven or eight years before 
 we met, he was perhaps a greater power then in the 
 lyrical world than at the date of his reign. 
 
 It was at Dr. Veron's that I saw Mdlle. Taglioni 
 for the first time off the stage. It must have 
 been in 1844, for she had not been in Paris since 
 1840, when I had seen her dance at the Opera. I had 
 only seen her dance once before that, in '36 or '37, but I 
 was altogether too young to judge then. 1 own that in 
 1840 I was somewhat disappointed, and my disappoint- 
 ment was shared by many, because some of my friends, 
 to whom I communicated my impressions, told me 
 that her three years' absence had made a vast differ- 
 ence in her art. In '44 it was still worse; her per- 
 formances gave rise to many a spiteful epigram, for 
 she herself invited comparison between her former 
 glory and her decline, by dancing in one of her most 
 successful creations, " L'Ombre." Those most leniently 
 disposed towards her thought what Alfred de Musset
 
 100 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 so gracefully expressed when requested to write some 
 verses in her album. 
 
 " Si vous ne voulez plus danser, 
 Si vous ne faites que passer 
 Sur ce grand theatre si sombre, 
 Ne courez pas apres votre ombre 
 Et t&chez de nous la laisser." 
 
 My disappointment with the ballerina was as 
 nothing, however, to my disappointment with the 
 woman. I had been able to determine for myself 
 before then that Marie Taglioni was by no means a 
 good-looking woman, but I did not expect her to be 
 so plain as she was. That, after all, was not her fault ; 
 but she might have tried to make amends for her 
 lack of personal charms by her amiability. She rarely 
 attempted to do so, and never with Frenchmen. Her 
 reception of them was freezing to a degree, and on the 
 occasions few and far between when she thawed, it 
 was with Kussians, Englishmen, or Viennese. Any 
 male of the Latin races she held metaphorically as 
 well as literally at arm's length. Of the gracefulness, 
 so apparent on the stage, even in her decline, there 
 was not a trace to be found in private life. One of 
 her shoulders was higher than the other; she limped 
 slightly, and, moreover, waddled like a duck. The 
 pinched mouth was firmly set ; there was no smile on 
 the colourless lips, and she replied to one's remarks 
 in monosyllables. 
 
 Truly she had suffered a cruel wrong at the hands 
 of men of one man, bien entendu ; nevertheless, the 
 wonder to most people who knew her was not that 
 Comte Gilbert de Voisins should have left her so soon 
 after their marriage, but that he should have married 
 her at all. " The fact was," said some one with whom
 
 TAGLIONI AT PERTH. 101 
 
 T discussed the marriage one day, " that De Voisins 
 considered himself in honour bound to make that 
 reparation, but I cannot conceive what possessed him 
 to commit the error that made the reparation neces- 
 sary." And I am bound to say that it was not the 
 utter lack of personal attractions that made every one, 
 men and women alike, indifferent to Taglioni. She 
 was what the French call "une pimbeche." * "Am 
 I not a good-natured woman ? " said Mdlle. Mars 
 one day to Hoffman, the blood-curdling novelist. 
 "Mademoiselle, you are the most amiable creature I 
 know between the footlights and the cloth," he replied. 
 No one could have paid Taglioni even such a left- 
 handed compliment, for, if all I heard was true, she was 
 not good-tempered either on or off the stage. Dr. 
 Veron, who was really a very loyal friend, was very 
 reticent about her character, and would never be drawn 
 into revelations. " You know the French proverb," 
 he said once, when I pressed him very closely. " ' On 
 ne herite pas de ceux que Ton tue ; ' and, after all, she 
 helped me to make my fortune." 
 
 That evening I was seated next to Mdlle. Taglioni 
 at dinner, and when she discovered my nationality 
 she unbent a little, so that towards the dessert 
 we were on comparatively friendly terms. She had 
 evidently very grateful recollections of her engage- 
 ments in London, for it was the only topic on which I 
 could get her to talk on that occasion. Here is a little 
 story I had from her own lips, and which shows the 
 Scotch of the early thirties in quite a new light. It 
 may have been known once, but has been probably 
 forgotten by now, except by the " oldest inhabitant " of 
 * The word " shrew " ia the nearest equivalent EDITOR.
 
 302 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 Perth. In 1832 or 18331 will not vouch for the exact 
 year, seeing that it is two score of years since the story 
 was told to me the season in London had been a 
 fatiguing one for Taglioni. A ballet her father had 
 composed for her, " Nathalie, ou la Laitiere Suisse," a 
 very inane thing by all accounts, had met with great 
 success in London. The scene, however, had, as far as 
 I could make out, been changed from Switzerland to 
 Scotland, but of this I will not be certain. At the 
 termination of her engagement Taglioni wanted rest, 
 and she bethought herself to recruit in the Highlands. 
 After travelling hither and thither for a little while, 
 she arrived at Perth, and, as a matter of course, put 
 down her name in the visitors' book of the hotel, then 
 went out to explore the sights of the town. Meanwhile 
 the report of her arrival had spread like wildfire, and 
 on her return to the hotel she found awaiting her a 
 deputation from the principal inhabitants, with the 
 request to honour them with a performance. " The 
 request was so graciously conveyed," said Taglioni, 
 " that I could not but accept, though I took care to 
 point out the difficulties of performing a ballet all by 
 myself, seeing that there was neither a corps de ballet, 
 a male dancer, nor any one else to support me. All 
 these objections were overruled by their promise to 
 provide all these in the best way they could, and before 
 1 had time to consider the matter fully, I was taken 
 off in a cab to inspect the theatre, etc. Great heavens, 
 what a stage and scenery ! Still, I had given my 
 promise, and, seeing their anxiety, would not go back 
 from it. I cannot tell where they got their personnel 
 from. There was a director and a stage-manager, but 
 as he did not understand French, and as my English
 
 A SCRATCH PERFORMANCE. 103 
 
 at that time was even worse than it is now, we were 
 obliged to communicate through an interpreter. His 
 English must have been bewildering, to judge from the 
 manager's blank looks when he spoke to him, and his 
 French was even more wonderful than my English. 
 He was a G-erman waiter from the hotel. 
 
 " Nevertheless, thanks to him, I managed to convey 
 the main incidents of the plot of 'Nathalie* to the 
 manager, and during the first act, the most complicated 
 one, all went well. But at the beginning of the second 
 everything threatened to come to a standstill. I must 
 tell you that my father hit upon the novel idea of 
 introducing a kind of dummy, or lay figure, on which 
 this idiotic Nathalie lavishes all her caresses. The 
 youn: fellow, who is in love with Nathalie, contrives 
 to take the dummy's place ; consequently, in order to 
 preserve some semblance of truth, and not to make 
 Nathalie appear more idiotic than she is already, there 
 ought to be a kind of likeness between the dummy and 
 the lover. I know not whether the interpreter had 
 been at fault, or whether in the hurry-scurry I had 
 forgotten all about the dummy, but a few minutes 
 before the rise of the curtain I discovered that there 
 was no dummy. ' You must do the dummy,' I said 
 to Pierre, my servant, ' and I'll pretend to carry you 
 on.' Pierre nodded a silent assent, and immediately 
 began to don the costume, seeing which I had the 
 curtain rung up, and went on to the stage. I was not 
 very comfortable, though, for I heard a violent alter- 
 cation going on behind the scenes, the cause of which 
 I failed to guess. I kept dancing and dancing, getting 
 near to the wings every now and then, to ask whether 
 Pierre was ready. He seemed to me inordinately long
 
 104 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 in changing his dress, but the delay was owing to 
 something far more serious than his careful preparation 
 for the part. Pierre had a pair of magnificent whiskers, 
 and the young fellow who enacted the lover had not 
 a hair on his face. Pierre was ready to go on, when the 
 manager noticed the difference. ' Stop ! ' he shouted ; 
 * that won't do. You must have your whiskers taken off.' 
 Pierre indignantly refused. The manager endeavoured 
 to persuade him to make the sacrifice, but in vain, 
 until at last he had him held down on a chair by two 
 stalwart Scotchmen while the barber did his work. 
 
 "All this had taken time, but the public did not 
 grow impatient. They would have been very difficult 
 to please indeed had they behaved otherwise, for I 
 never danced to any audience as I did to them. One 
 of the few pleasant recollections in my life is that 
 evening at Perth ; ami, curiously enough, Pierre, who 
 is still with me, refers to it with great enthusiasm, 
 notwithstanding the cavalier treatment inflicted upon 
 him. It was his first and last appearance on any stage." 
 
 Here is another story Taglioni told me on a sub- 
 sequent occasion. I have often wondered since 
 whether Macaulay would not have been pleased with 
 it even more than I was. 
 
 "The St. Petersburg theatrical season of '21-25 
 had been particularly brilliant, and nowhere more so 
 than at the Italian Opera. I came away laden with 
 presents, among others one from the Czar a magnifi- 
 cent necklet of very fine pearls. When the theatre 
 closed at Lent, I was very anxious to get away, in 
 spite of the inclement season, and notwithstanding 
 the frequent warnings that the roads were not safe. 
 Whenever the conversation turned on that topic, the
 
 A RUSSIAN CLAUDE DU-VAL. 105 
 
 name of Trischka was sure to crop up; he, in fact, 
 was the leader of a formidable band of highwaymen, 
 compared with whose exploits those of all the others 
 seemed to sink into insignificance. Trischka had 
 been steward to Prince Paskiwiecz, and was spoken of 
 as a very intelligent fellow. Nearly every one with 
 whom I came in contact had seen him while he was 
 still at St. Petersburg, and had a good word to say for 
 him. His manners were reported to be perfect ; he 
 spoke French and German very fairly ; and, most 
 curious of all, he was an excellent dancer. Some went 
 even as far as to say that if he had adopted that 
 profession, instead of scouring the highways, he 
 would have made a fortune. By all accounts he never 
 molested poor people, and the rich, whom he laid 
 under contribution, had never to complain of violent 
 treatment either in words or deeds nay, more, he 
 never took all they possessed from his victims ; he 
 was content to share and share alike. But papa 
 n'ecoutait pas de cet' oreille la; papa etait tres peu 
 partageur; and, truth to tell, I was taking away a 
 great deal of money from St. Petersburg which was 
 perhaps another reason why papa did not see the neces- 
 sity of paying tithes to Trischka. If we had followed 
 papa's advice, we should have either applied to the 
 Czar for an armed escort, or else delayed our departure 
 till the middle of the summer, though he failed to see 
 that the loss of my engagements elsewhere would have 
 amounted to a serious item also. But papa had got 
 it into his head not to part with any of the splendid 
 presents I had received ; they were mostly jewels, and 
 people who do not know papa can form no idea what 
 they meant to him. However, as we were plainly
 
 106 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 told tint Trischka conducted his operations all the 
 year round, that we were as likely to be attacked by 
 him in summer as in winter, papa reluctantly made 
 up his mind to go in the beginning of April. Papa 
 provided himself with a pair of large pistols that 
 would not have hurt a cat, and were the laughing- 
 stock of all those who accompanied us for the first 
 dozen miles on our journey ; for I had made many 
 friends, and they insisted on doing this. We had two 
 very roomy carriages. My father, my maid, two 
 German violinists, and myself were in the first; the 
 second contained our luggage. 
 
 " At the first change of horses after Pskoff, the 
 postmaster told us that Trischka and his band had 
 been seen a few days previously on the road to Duna- 
 bourg; at the same time, be seemed to think very 
 lightly of the matter, and, addressing himself par- 
 ticularly to me, opined that, with a little diplomacy 
 on my part and a good deal of sang-froid, I might be 
 let off very cheaply. All went well until the middle 
 of next night, when all of a sudden, in the thick 
 of a dense forest, our road was barred by a couple of 
 horsemen, while a third opened the door of our 
 carriage. It was Trischka himself. ' Mademoiselle 
 Taglioni ? ' he said in very good German, lifting his 
 hat. 'I am Mademoiselle Taglioni,' I replied in 
 French. *I know,' he answered, with a deeper bow 
 than before. ' I was told you were coming this way. 
 I am sorry, mademoiselle, that I could not come to 
 St. Petersburg to see you dance, but as chance has 
 befriended me, I hope you will do me the honour to 
 dance before me here.' ' How can I dance here, in 
 this road, monsieur?' I said beseechingly. 'Alas,
 
 TAGLIONl'S HUSBAND. 107 
 
 mademoiselle, I have no drawing-room to offer you,' 
 he replied, still as polite as ever. 'Nevertheless,' he 
 continued, 'if you think it cannot be done, I shall 
 be under the painful necessity of confiscating your 
 carriages and luggage, and of sending you back on 
 foot to the nearest post-town.' * But, monsieur,' I 
 protested, ' the road is ankle-deep in mud.' ' Truly,' 
 he laughed, showing a beautiful set of teeth, 'but 
 your weight won't make any difference ; besides, I 
 dare say you have some rugs and cloths with you 
 in the other carriage, and my men will only be too 
 pleased to spread them on the ground.' 
 
 " Seeing that all my remonstrance would be in vain, 
 I jumped out of the carriage. While the rugs were 
 being laid down, my two companions, the violinists, 
 tuned their instruments, and even papa was prevailed 
 upon to come out, though he was sulky and never 
 spoke a word. 
 
 "I danced for about a quarter of an hour, and I 
 honestly believe that I never had such an appreciative 
 audience either before or afterwards. Then Trischka 
 led me back to the carriage, and, simply lifting his 
 hat, bade me adieu. ' I keep the rugs, mademoiselle. 
 I will never part with them,' he said. The last I saw 
 of him, when our carriages were turning a bend in the 
 road, was a truly picturesque figure on horseback, 
 waving his hand." 
 
 More than eight years elapsed before I met 
 Taglioni again, and then she looked absolutely like 
 an old woman, though she was under fifty. It was at 
 the Comte (afterwards Due) de Morny's, in '52, and, 
 if I remember rightly, almost immediately after his 
 resignation as Minister of the Interior. Taglioni and
 
 108 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 Mdlle. Rachel were the only women present. Just as 
 we were sitting down to dinner, Count Gilbert De 
 Voisins came in, and took the next seat but one on my 
 left which had been reserved for him. We were on 
 friendly, though not on very intimate, terms. He was 
 evidently not aware of the presence of his wife, for after 
 a few minutes he asked his neighbour, pointing to her, 
 " Who is this governess-looking old maid ? " He told 
 him. He showed neither surprise nor emotion ; but, if 
 an artist could have been found to sketch his face 
 there, its perfect blank would have been more amusing 
 than either. He seemed, as it were, to consult his 
 recollections ; then he said, " Is it ? It may be, after 
 all;" and went on eating his dinner. His wife acted 
 less diplomatically. She recognized him at once, and 
 made a remark to her host in a sufficiently loud voice to 
 be overheard, which was not in good taste, the more 
 that De Morny, notwithstanding his many faults, was 
 not the man to have invited both for the mere pleasure 
 of playing a practical joke. In fact, I have always 
 credited De Morny with the good intention of bringing 
 about a reconciliation between the two ; but the affair 
 was hopeless from the very beginning, after Taglioni's 
 exhibition of temper. I am far from saying that 
 Count Gilbert would have been more tractable if it 
 had not occurred, but his spouse shut the door at once 
 upon every further attempt in that direction. Never- 
 theless, whether out of sheer devilry or from a wish 
 to be polite, he went up to her after dinner, accom- 
 panied by a friend, who introduced him as formally as 
 if he and she had never seen one another. It was at 
 a moment when the Comte de Morny was out of the 
 room, because I feel certain that he was already sorry
 
 VON FLOTOW. 109 
 
 then for what he had endeavoured to do, and had 
 washed his hands of the whole affair. Taglioni made 
 a stately bow. "I am under the impression," she 
 said, "that I have had the honour of meeting you 
 before, about the year 1832." With this she turned 
 away. Let any playwright reproduce that scene in a 
 farcical or comedy form, and I am sure that three- 
 fourths of his audience would scout it as too exag- 
 gerated, and yet every incident of it is absolutely true. 
 Among my most pleasant recollections of those days 
 is that connected with Von Flotow, the future com- 
 poser of " Martha." In appearance he was alto- 
 gether unlike the traditional musician ; he looked more 
 like a stalwart officer of dragoons. Though of noble 
 origin, and with a very wealthy father, there was a 
 time when he had a hard struggle for existence. 
 Count von Flotow, his father, and an old officer of 
 Blucher, was nearly as much opposed to his son 
 becoming a musician as Frederick the Great's. Never- 
 theless, at the instance of Flotow's mother, he was sent 
 to Paris at the age of sixteen, and entered the Con- 
 servatoire, then under the direction of Reicha. His 
 term of apprenticeship was not to extend beyond two 
 years, "for," said the count, "it does not take longer 
 for the rawest recruit to become a good soldier." 
 " That will give you a fair idea," remarked Von Flotow 
 to me afterwards, " how much he understood about it. 
 He had an ill-disguised contempt for any music which 
 did not come up to his ideal. His ideal was that per- 
 formed by the drum, the fife, and the bugle. And the 
 very fact of Germany ringing a few years later with 
 the names of Meyerbeer and Halevy made matters 
 worse instead of mending them. His feudal pride
 
 110 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 would not allow of his son's entering a profession the 
 foremost ranks of which were occupied by Jews. 
 ' Music,' he said, ' was good enough for bankers' sons 
 and the like,' and he considered that Weber had cast 
 a slur upon his family by adopting it." 
 
 The two years grudgingly allowed by Count von 
 Flotow for his son's musical education, were inter- 
 rupted by the revolution of 1830, and the young fellow 
 had to return home before he was eighteen, because, 
 in his father's opinion, "he had not given a sign of 
 becoming a great musician ; " in other words, he had 
 not written an opera or anything else which had 
 attracted public notice. However, towards the begin- 
 ning of 1831, the count took his son to Paris once 
 more ; " and though Meyerbeer nor Halevy were not 
 so famous then as they were destined to become within 
 the next three years, their names were already suffi- 
 ciently well known to have made an introduction 
 valuable. It would not have been difficult to obtain 
 such. My father would not hear of it. ' I will 
 not have my son indebted for anything to a Jew,' 
 he said; and I am only quoting this instance of 
 prejudice to you because it was not an individual 
 but a typical one among my father's social equals. 
 The remark about 'his son's entering a profession in 
 which two Jews had carried off the highest prizes ' is of 
 a much later date. Consequently we landed in Paris, 
 provided with letters of introduction to M. de Saint- 
 Georges.* Clever, accomplished, refined as was M. 
 de Saint-Georges, he was scarcely the authority a 
 
 * Jules-Henri de Saint-Georges, one of the most fertile librettists of 
 the time, the principal collaborateur of Scribe, and best known in Eng- 
 land as the author of the book of Balfe's " Bohemian Girl." EDITOK.
 
 VON FLOTOW'S FATHER. Ill 
 
 father with serious intentions about his son's musical 
 career would have consulted ; he was a charming, 
 skilful librettist and dramatist, a thorough man of the 
 world in the best sense of the word, but absolutely 
 incapable of judging the higher qualities of the com- 
 poser. Nevertheless, I owe him much ; but for him I 
 should have been dragged back to Germany there and 
 then ; but for him I should have been compelled to 
 go back to Germany five years later, or starved in the 
 streets of Paris. 
 
 " My father's interview with M. de Saint-Georges, 
 and my first introduction to him," said Flotow on 
 another occasion, "were perhaps the most comical scenes 
 ever enacted off the stage. You know my old friend, 
 and have been to his rooms, so I need not describe 
 him nor his surroundings to you. You have never 
 seen my father ; but, to give you an idea of what he 
 was like, I may tell you that he \vas an enlarged 
 edition of myself. A bold rider, a soldier and a 
 sportsman, fairly well educated, but upon the whole 
 a very rough diamond, and, I am afraid, with a corre- 
 sponding contempt for the elegant and artistic side of 
 Paris life. You may, therefore, picture to yourself the 
 difference between the two men M. de Saint-Georges 
 in a beautiful silk dressing-gown and red morocco 
 slippers, sipping chocolate from a dainty porcelain 
 cup ; my father, who, contrary to German custom, had 
 always refused to don that comfortable garment, and 
 who, to my knowledge, had never in his life tasted 
 chocolate. For the moment I thought that every- 
 thing was lost. I was mistaken. 
 
 " ' Monsieur,' said my father in French, which abso- 
 lutely creaked with the rust of age, ' I have come to
 
 112 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 ask your advice and a favour besides. My son desires 
 to become a musician. Is it possible ? ' 
 
 " ' There is no reason why he should not be,' replied 
 M. de Saint-Georges, ' provided he lias a vocation.' 
 
 "'Vocation may mean obstinacy,' remarked my 
 father. ' But let us suppose the reverse that obsti- 
 nacy means vocation : how long would it take him to 
 prove that he has talent ? ' 
 
 " 'It is difficult to say five years at least.' 
 
 " ' And two he has already spent at the Conservatoire 
 will make seven. I hope he will not be like Jacob, 
 who, after that period of waiting, found that they had 
 given him the wrong goddess ! ' growled my father, 
 who could be grimly humorous when he liked. 'Five 
 years more be it, then, but not a single day longer. If 
 by that time he has not made his mark, I withdraw 
 his allowance. I thank you for your advice; and 
 now I will ask a favour. Will you kindly supply my 
 place that is, keep an eye upon him, and do the best 
 you can for him ? Remember, he is but twenty. It is 
 hard enough that I cannot make a soldier of him ; 
 from what I have heard and from what I can see, you 
 will prevent him from becoming less than a gentle- 
 man.' 
 
 " M. de Saint-Georges was visibly moved. ' Let me 
 hear what he can do,' he said, 'and then I will tell 
 you.' 
 
 " I sat down to the piano for more than an hour. 
 
 " ' I will see that your son becomes a good musician, 
 M. le Comte,' said M. de Sainte-Georges. 
 
 " Next morning my father went back to Germany. 
 Nothing would induce him to stay a single day. He 
 said the atmosphere of Paris was vitiated.
 
 THE LIBRETTIST OF "THE BOHEMIAN GIRL." 113 
 
 " I need not tell you that M. de Saint-Georges kept 
 his word as far as he was able ; he kept it even more 
 rigorously than my father had bargained for, because 
 when, exactly on the last day of the stipulated five 
 years, I received a letter demanding my immediate 
 return, and informing me that my father's banker had 
 instructions to stop all further supplies, M. de Saint- 
 Georges bade me stay. 
 
 " ' I promised to make a musician of you, and I 
 have kept my word. But between a musician and 
 an acknowledged musician there is a difference. I 
 say stay ! ' he exclaimed. 
 
 " ' How am I to stay without money ? ' 
 
 " * You'll earn some.' 
 
 " ' How ? ' 
 
 " * ^y gi y i n g piano-lessons, like many a poor artist 
 has done before you.' 
 
 " I followed his advice, and am none the worse for 
 the few years of hardships. The contrast between my 
 own poverty and my wealthy surroundings was suffi- 
 ciently curious during that time, and never more so than 
 on the night when my name really became known to 
 the general public. I am alluding to the first per- 
 formance of * Le Due de Guise,' \\hich, as you may 
 remember, was given in aid of the distressed Poles, and 
 sung throughout by amateurs. The receipts amounted 
 to thirty thousand francs, and the ladies of the chorus 
 had something between ten and twelve millions of 
 francs of diamonds in their hair and round their 
 throats. All my earthly possessions in money con- 
 sisted of six francs thirty-five centimes.' 
 
 I was not at the Theatre de la Eenaissance that 
 night, but two or three years previously I had heard 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS 
 
 the first opera Flotow ever wrote, at the Hotel Cas- 
 tellane. I never heard " Kob Eoy " since ; and, curi- 
 ously enough, many years afterwards I inquired of 
 Lord Granville, who sat next to me on that evening in 
 1838, whether he had. He shook his head negatively. 
 " It is a great pity," he said, " for the music is very 
 beautiful." And I believe that Lord Granville is a 
 very good judge. 
 
 The Hotel Castellane, or " La Maison du Mouleur," 
 as it was called by the general public on account of 
 the great number of scantily attired mythological 
 deities with which its facade was decorated, was one 
 of the few houses where, during the reign of Louis- 
 Philippe, the discussion of political and dynastic dif- 
 ferences was absolutely left in abeyance. The scent 
 of party strife I had almost said miasma hung over 
 all the other salons, notably those of the Princesse 
 de Lieven, Madame Thiers, and Madame de Girardin, 
 and even those of Madame Le Hon and Victor Hugo 
 were not free from it. Men like myself, and especially 
 young men, who instinctively guessed the hollowness 
 of all this who, moreover, had not the genius to 
 become political leaders and not sufficient enthusiasm 
 to become followers avoided them ; consequently 
 their description will find little or no place in these 
 notes. The little I saw of Princesse de Lieven at the 
 Tuileries and elsewhere produced no wish to see more. 
 Thiers was more interesting from a social and artistic 
 point of view, but it was only on very rare occasions 
 that he consented to doff his political armour, albeit 
 that he did not wear the latter with unchanging dignity. 
 Madame Thiers was an uninteresting woman, and only 
 the "feeder" to her husband, to use a theatrical
 
 SOCIETY IN THE FORTIES. 115 
 
 phrase. Madame Le Hon was exceedingly beautiful, 
 exceedingly selfish, and, if anything, too amiable. 
 The absence of all serious mental qualities was cleverly 
 disguised by the mask of a grande dame ; but I doubt 
 whether it was anything else but a mask. Madame 
 Delphine de Girardin, on the other hand, was endowed 
 with uncommon literary, poetical, and intellectual 
 gifts ; but I have always considered it doubtful whether 
 even the Nine Muses, rolled into one, would be bearable 
 for any length of time. As for Victor Hugo, no man 
 not blessed with an extraordinary bump of veneration 
 would have gone more than once to his soirees. The 
 permanent entertainment there consisted of a modern 
 version of the " perpetual adoration," and of nothing 
 else, because, to judge by my few experiences, his 
 guests were never offered anything to eat or to drink. 
 As a set-off, the furniture and appointments of his 
 apartments were more artistic than those of most of 
 his contemporaries ; but Becky Sharp has left it on 
 record that " mouton aux navets," dished up in price- 
 less china and crested silver, is after all but "mouton 
 aux navets," and at Hugo's even that homely fare was 
 wanting. 
 
 Among the few really good salons were those of the 
 ambassadors of the Two Sicilies, of England, and of 
 Austria. The former two were in the Faubourg Saint- 
 Honore, the latter in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. 
 The soirees of the Due de Serra-Cabriola were very 
 animated; there was a great deal of dancing. I cannot 
 say the same of those of Lord and Lady Granville, 
 albeit that both the host and hostess did the honours 
 with charming and truly patrician grace and hos- 
 pitality. But the English guests would not throw off
 
 116 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 their habitual reserve, and the French in the end 
 imitated the manner of the latter, in deference, pro- 
 bably, to Lord and Lady G-ranville, who were not at all 
 pleased at this sincerest form of French flattery of 
 their countrymen. 
 
 There was no such restraint at Count Apponyi's, 
 in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, the only house where 
 the old French noblesse mustered in force. The latter 
 virtually felt themselves on their own ground, for the 
 host was known to have not much sympathy with 
 parvenus, even titled ones, though the titles had been 
 gained on the battle-field. Had he not during the 
 preceding reign ruthlessly stripped Soult and Marmont, 
 and half a dozen other dukes of the first empire, by 
 giving instructions to his servants to announce them 
 by their family names? Consequently, flirtation a la 
 Marivaux, courtly galanterie a la Louis XV., sprightly 
 and witty conversation, " minuetting " a la Watteau, 
 was the order of the day as well as of the night there, 
 for the dejeuner dansant was a frequent feature of the 
 entertainment. No one was afraid of being mistaken 
 for a financier anobli ; the only one admitted on a 
 footing of intimacy bore the simple name of Hope. 
 
 Nevertheless, it must not be thought that the enter- 
 tainments, even at the three embassies, partook of 
 anything like the splendour so noticeable during 
 the second empire. The refreshments elsewhere par- 
 took of a simple character; ices and cake, and lukewarm 
 but by no means strong tea, formed the staple of them. 
 Of course there were exceptions, such as, for instance, 
 at the above-named houses, and at Mrs. Tudor's, Mrs. 
 Locke's, and at Countess Lamoyloff s ; but the era of 
 flowing rivers of champagne, snacks that were like
 
 AMATEUR THEATRICALS. 117 
 
 banquets, and banquets that were not unlike orgies, had 
 not as yet dawned. And, worse than all, in a great 
 many salons the era of mahogany and Utrecht velvet 
 was in full swing, while the era of white-and-gold 
 walls, which were frequently neither white nor gold, 
 was dying a very lingering death. 
 
 The Hotel Castellaae was a welcome exception to 
 thi?, and politics were rigorously tabooed, the reading 
 of long-winded poems was interdicted. Politicians were 
 simply reminded that the adjacent Elysee-Bourbon, or 
 even the Hotel Pontalba, might still contain sufficiently 
 lively ghosts to discuss such all-important matters 
 with them ; * poets who fancied they had something 
 to say worth hearing, were invited to have it said for 
 them from behind the footlights by rival companies of 
 amateurs, each of which in many respects need not 
 have feared comparison with the professional one of 
 the Comedie-Francaise. Amateur theatricals were, 
 therefore, the principal feature of the entertainments 
 at the Hotel Castellane ; but there were " off nights " 
 to the full as brilliant as the others. There was 
 neither acting nor dancing on such occasions, the latter 
 amusement being rarely indulged in, except at the 
 grand balls which often followed one another in rapid 
 succession. 
 
 I have said rival companies, but only the two 
 
 * The Ely see-Bourbon, which was the official residence of Louis- 
 Napoleon during his presidency of the second republic, was almost 
 untenanted during the reign of Louis-Philippe. 
 
 The Hotel Pontalba was partly built on the site of the former 
 mansion of M. de Morfontaine, a staunch royalist, who, curiously 
 enough, had married the daughter of Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau, 
 the member of the Convention who had voted the death of Louis X VI., 
 and who himself fell by the hand of an assassin. Mdlle. le Peletier 
 Saint-Fargeau was called " La Fille de la Nation." EDITOR.
 
 118 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 permanent ones came under that denomination ; the 
 others were what we should term " scratch companies," 
 got together for one or two performances of a special 
 work, generally a musical one, as in the case of 
 Flotow's "Rob Roy" and "Alice." They vied in 
 talent with the regular troupes presided over respec- 
 tively by Madame Sophie Gay, the mother of Madame 
 Emile de Girardin, and the Duchesse d'Abrantes. 
 Each confined itself to the interpretation of the works 
 of its manageress, who on such evening did the 
 honours, or of those whom the manageress favoured 
 with her protection. The heavens might fall rather 
 than that an actor or actress of Madame Gay's company 
 should act with Madame d'Abrantes, and vice versa. 
 Seeing that neither manageress had introduced the 
 system of " under-studies," disappointments were fre- 
 quent, for unless a member of the Comedie-Franpaise 
 could be found to take up the part at a moment's 
 notice, the performance had necessarily to be post- 
 poned, the amateurs refusing to act with any but the 
 best. Such pretensions may at the first blush seem 
 exaggerated; they were justified in this instance, the 
 amateurs being acknowledged to be the equals of the 
 professionals by every unbiassed critic. In fact, 
 several ladies among the amateurs "took eventually 
 to the stage," notably Mdlles. Davenay and Mdlle. 
 de Lagrange. The latter became a very bright star 
 in the operatic firmament, though she was hidden to 
 the musical world at large by her permanent stay in 
 Russia. St. Petersburg has ever been a formidable 
 competitor of Paris for securing the best histrionic 
 and lyrical talent. Madame Arnould-Plessy, Bressant, 
 Dupuis, and later on M. Worms, deserted their native
 
 LORD BROUGHAM AS DON JUAN. 119 
 
 scenes for the more remunerative, though perhaps really 
 less artistic, triumphs of the theatre Saint-Michel ; 
 and when they returned, the delicate bloom that had 
 made their art so delightful was virtually gone. 
 "C'etait de 1'art Francais a la sauce Tartare," said 
 some one who was no mean judge. 
 
 The Comte Jules de Castellane, though fully equal, 
 and in many respects superior, in birth to those who 
 professed to sneer at the younger branch of the 
 Bourbons, declined to be guided by these opponents 
 of the new dynasty in their social crusade against the 
 adherents to the latter; consequently the company 
 was perhaps not always so select as it might have been, 
 and many amusing incidents and piquantes adventures 
 were the result. He put a stop to these, however, 
 when he discovered that his hospitality was being 
 abused, and that invitations given to strangers, at the 
 request of some of his familiars, had been paid for in 
 kind, if not in coin. 
 
 As a rule, though, the company was far less addicted 
 to scandal-monger ing and causing scandal than simi- 
 larly composed "sets" during the subsequent reign. 
 They were not averse to playing practical jokes, espe- 
 cially upon those who made themselves somewhat too 
 conspicuous by their eccentricities. Lord Brougham, 
 who was an assiduous guest at the Hotel Castellane 
 during his frequent visits to Paris, was often selected 
 as their victim. He, as it were, provoked the tricks 
 played upon him by his would-be Don-Juanesque 
 behaviour, and by the many opportunities he lost of 
 holding his tongue in French. He absolutely mur- 
 dered the language of Moliere. His worthy successor 
 in that respect was Lady Norraanby, who, as some one
 
 120 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 said, " not only murdered the tongue, but tortured it 
 besides." The latter, however, never lost her dignity 
 amidst the most mirth-compelling blunders on her 
 part, while the English statesman was often very near 
 enacting the buffoon, and was once almost induced to 
 accept a role in a vaudeville, in which his execrable 
 French would no doubt have been highly diverting 
 to the audience, but would scarcely have been in 
 keeping with the position he occupied on the other 
 side of the Channel. "Quant a Lord Brougham," 
 said a very witty Frenchman, quoting Shakespeare 
 in French, "il n'y a pour lui qu'un pas entre le 
 sublime et le ridicule. C'est le pas de Calais, et il 
 le traverse trop souvent." 
 
 In 1842, when the Comte Jules de Castellane 
 married Mdlle. de Villontroys, whose mother had 
 married General Rapp and been divorced from him, 
 a certain change came over the ppirit of the house ; 
 the entertainments were as brilliant as ever, but the 
 two rival manageresses had to abdicate their sway, 
 and the social status of the guests was subjected 
 to a severer test. The new dispensation did not 
 ostracize the purely artistic element, but, as the 
 comtesse tersely put it, "dorenavant, je ne recevrai 
 que ceux qui ont de 1'art ou des armoiries." She 
 strictly kept her word, even during the first years of 
 the Second Empire, when pedigrees were a ticklish 
 thing to inquire into. 
 
 I have unwittingly drifted away from M. de Saint- 
 Georges, who, to say the least, was a curious figure in 
 artistic and literary Paris during the reigns of Louis- 
 Philippe and his successor. He was quite as fertile as 
 Scribe, and many of his plots are as ingeniously con-
 
 M. DE SAINT-GEORGES. 121 
 
 ceived and worked out as the latter's, but he suffered 
 both in reputation and purse from the restless activity 
 and pushing character of the librettist of " Kobert le 
 Diable." Like those of Rivarol,* M. Saint-Georges' 
 claims to be of noble descent were somewhat contested, 
 albeit that, unlike the eighteenth-century pamphleteer, 
 he never obtruded them; but there could be no doubt 
 about his being a gentleman. He was utterly different 
 in every respect from his rival. Scribe was not only 
 eaten up with vanity, but grasping to a degree; he 
 had dramatic instinct, but not the least vestige of 
 literary refinement. M. de Saint-Georges, on the 
 contrary, was exceedingly modest, very indifferent to 
 money matters, charitable and obliging in a quiet way, 
 and though perhaps not inferior in stage-craft, very 
 elegant in his diction. "When he liked, he could write 
 verses and dialogue which often reminded one of 
 Moliere. It was not the only trait he had in common 
 with the great playwright. Moliere is said to have 
 consulted his housekeeper, Laforet, with regard to his 
 productions; M. de Saint-Georges was known to do 
 the same with this difference, however, that he did 
 not always attend to Marguerite's suggestions, in which 
 case Marguerite grew wroth, especially if the piece 
 turned out to be a success, in spite of her predictions 
 of failure. On such occasions the popular approval 
 scarcely compensated M. de Saint-Georges for his 
 discomforts at home ; for though Marguerite was an 
 admirable manager at all times when she liked, 
 though there was no bachelor more carefully looked 
 after than the author of " La Fille du Eegiment," he 
 had now and then to bear the brunt of Marguerite's 
 * One of the great wits of the Revolution. EDITOB.
 
 122 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 temper when the public's verdict did not agree with 
 hers. 
 
 If under such circumstances M. de Saint-Georges 
 ventured to give a dinner, the viands were sure to be 
 cold, the Bordeaux iced, and the Champagne luke- 
 warm. M. de Saint-GTeorges, who, notwithstanding his 
 courtly manners, was candour itself, never failed to 
 state the reasons of his discomfiture as a host to his 
 guests. " Que voulez vous, mes amis, la piece n'a pas 
 plu a Marguerite et le diner s'en ressent. Si je lui 
 faisais une observation, elle me repondrait comme elle 
 m'a repondu deja maintes fois. Le diner etait mauvais, 
 vous dites? C'est possible, il 6tait assez bien pour 
 ceux qui ont eu le bon gout d'applandir votre piece 
 hier-au-soir." Because Mdlle. Marguerite had a seat 
 in the upper boxes reserved for her at all the first 
 representations of her master's pieces. She did not 
 always avail herself of the privilege at the Opera, but 
 she never missed a first night at the Opera-Comique. 
 I have quoted textually the words of M. de Saint- 
 Georges on the morrow of the premiere of " Giselle," 
 a ballet in two acts, written in collaboration with 
 Theophile Gautier. "'Giselle' had been a great 
 success; Marguerite had predicted a failure; hence 
 we had a remarkably bad dinner." 
 
 I had had many opportunities of seeing Marguerite, 
 and often wondered at the secret of the tyranny she 
 exercised. She was not handsome scarcely comely ; 
 she was not even as smart in her appearance as dozens 
 of servants I have seen, and her mental attainments, 
 as far as I could judge, were not above those of her 
 own class. One can understand a Turner, a Jean 
 Jacques Rousseau, submitting to the influence of
 
 AN IMPARTIAL CRITIC. 123 
 
 such a low-born companion, because, after all, they, 
 though men of genius, sprang from the people, and 
 may have felt awkward, ill at ease, in the society 
 of well-bred men and women, especially of women. 
 Beranger sometimes gave me that idea. But, as I have 
 already said, no one could mistake M. de Saint-Georges 
 for anything but a well-bred man. Notwithstanding 
 his little affectations, his inordinate love of scents, his 
 somewhat effeminate surroundings, good breeding was 
 patent at every sentence, at every movement. He was 
 not a genius, certainly not, but the above remarks 
 hold good of a man who was a genius, and who sprang, 
 moreover, from the higher bourgeoisie of the eighteenth 
 century I am alluding to Eugene Delacroix.
 
 124 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 The Boulevards in the forties The Chinese Baths A favourite 
 tobacconist of Alfred de Musset The price of cigars The 
 diligence still the usual mode of travelling Provincials in Paris 
 Parliamentary see-saw between M. Thiers and M. Guizot 
 Amenities of editors An advocate of universal suifrage Dis- 
 tribution of gratuitous sausages to the working man on the king's 
 birthday The rendezvous of actors in search of an engagement 
 Fre'de'rick Lemaitre on the eve of appearing in a new part The 
 Legitimists begin to leave their seclusion and to mingle with the 
 bourgeoisie Alexandre Dumas and Scribe The latter's fertility 
 as a playwright The National Guards go shooting, in unifoim 
 and in companies, on the Plaine Saint-Denis Vidocq's private 
 inquiry office in the Hue Vivienne No river-side resorts The 
 planter elephant on the Place de la Bastille The sentimental 
 romances of Lo'isa Puget The songs of the working classes 
 Cheap bread and wine How they enjoyed themselves on Sundays 
 and holidays Theopl.ile Gautier's pony-carriage The hatred of 
 the bourgeoisie Nestor Koqueplan's expression of it Gavarni's 
 M. Thiers' sister keeps a restaurant at the corner of the Rue 
 Drouot When he is in power, the members of the Opposition go 
 and dine there, and publish facetious accounts of the entertain- 
 ment All appearances to the contrary, people like Guizot better 
 than Thiers But few entries for the race for wealth in those 
 days The Rothschilds still live in the Rue Latitte Favourite 
 lounges The Boulevards, the Rue Le Peletier, and the Passage 
 de 1'Upe'ra The Ope'ra The Rue Le Peletier and its attractions 
 The Restaurant of Paolo Broggi The Estaminet du Divan 
 Lite rary waiters and Boniface Major Frastr The mystery sur- 
 rounding his origin Another mysterious personage The Passage 
 de 1'Opera is invaded by the stockjobbers, and loses its prestige as 
 a promenade Bernard Latte's, the publisher of Donizetti's operas, 
 becomes deserted Tortoni's Louis-Blanc His scruples as an 
 editor A few words about duelling Two tragic meetings Lola 
 Montes Her adventurous career A celebrated trial My first 
 meeting with Gustave Flaubert, the author of " Madame Bovary " 
 and "Salambo" Emile de Girardin His opinion of duelling 
 My decision with regard to it The original of "La Dame aux 
 Camelias" Her parentage Alexandre Dumas gives the diagnosis 
 of her character in conntction with his son's play L'Homme au 
 Camellia M. Lautour-Mtzcrai,the inventorof children's periodical
 
 PARIS IN THE FORTIES. 125 
 
 literature in France Augusts Lireux He takes the management 
 of the Ode'on Balzac again His schemes, his greed Lireux 
 more fortunate with other authors Anglophobia on the French 
 stage Gallophobia on the English stage. 
 
 EVEN in those days " the Boulevards " meant to most 
 of us nothing more than the space between the present 
 opera and the Kue Drouot. But the Credit Lyonnais 
 and other palatial buildings which have been erected 
 since were not as much as dreamt of ; if I remember 
 rightly, the site of that bank was occupied by two or 
 three " Chinese Baths." I suppose the process of 
 steaming and cleansing the human body was some- 
 thing analogous to that practised in our Turkish baths, 
 but I am unable to say from experience, having never 
 been inside, and, curious to relate, most of my familiars 
 were in a similar state of ignorance. We rarely crossed 
 to that side of the boulevard except to go and dine at 
 the Cafe Anglais. At the corner of the Kue Lafitte, oppo- 
 site the Maison d'Or, was our favourite tobacconist's, 
 and the cigars we used to get there were vastly supe- 
 rior to those we get at present in Paris at five times 
 the cost. The assistant who served us was a splendid 
 creature. Alfred de Musset became so enamoured of 
 her that at one time his familiars apprehended an 
 " imprudence on his part." Of course, they were afraid 
 he would marry her. 
 
 In those days most of our journeys in the interior of 
 France had still to be made by the mails of Lafitte- 
 Caillard, and the people these conveyances brought 
 up from the provinces were almost as great objects 
 of curiosity to us as we must have been to them. 
 It was the third lustre of Louis-Philippe's reign. 
 " God," according to the coinage, " protected France," 
 and when the Almighty seemed somewhat tired of the
 
 126 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 task, Thiers and Guizot alternately stepped in to do 
 the safeguarding. Parliament resounded with the 
 eloquence of orators who are almost forgotten by now, 
 except by students of history ; M. de Genoude was 
 clamouring for universal suffrage; M. de Cormenin, 
 under the nom de plume of " Timon," was the fashion- 
 able pamphleteer ; the papers indulged in vituperation 
 against one another, compared to which the amenities 
 of the rival Eatanswill editors were compliments. 
 Grocers and drapers objected to the participation of 
 M. de Lamartine in the affairs of State. The Figaro of 
 those days went by the title of C or saire- Satan, and, 
 though extensively read, had the greatest difficulty in 
 making both ends meet. In order to improve the lot 
 of the working man, there was a gratuitous distribution 
 of sausages once a year on the king's fete-day. The 
 ordinary rendezvous of provincial and metropolitan 
 actors out of an engagement was not at the Cafe de 
 Suede on the Boulevard Montmartre, but under the 
 trees at the Palais-Royal. Frederick Lemaitre went to 
 confession and to mass every time he " created " a new 
 role. The Legitimists consented to leave their aristo- 
 cratic seclusion, and to breathe the same air with the 
 bourgeoisie and proletarians of the Boulevard du Crime, 
 to see him play. The Government altered the title of 
 Sue and Goubeaux's drama " Les Pontons Anglais " into 
 " Les Pontons," short, and made the authors change 
 the scene from England to Spain. Alexandre Dumas 
 chaffed Scribe, and flung his money right and left ; 
 while the other saved it, bought country estates, and 
 produced as many as twenty plays a year (eight more 
 than he had contracted for). The National Guards 
 went in uniform and in companies to shoot hares and
 
 THE HATRED OF THE BOURGEOISIE. 127 
 
 rabbits on the Plaine Saint-Denis, and swaggered 
 about on the Boulevards, ogling the women. Vidocq 
 kept a private inquiry office in the Passage Vivienne, 
 and made more money by blackmailing or catching 
 unfaithful husbands than by catching thieves. Bou- 
 gival, Asnieres and Joinville-le-Pont had not become 
 riparian resorts. The plaster elephant on the Place de 
 la Bastille was crumbling to pieces. The sentimental 
 romances of Madame Loisa Puget proved the delight 
 of every bourgeoise family, while the chorus to every 
 popular song was " Larifla, larifla, fla, fla, fla." 
 
 Best of all, from the working man's point of view, 
 was the low price of bread and wine ; the latter could 
 be had at four sous the litre in the wine-shops. He, 
 the working man, still made excursions with his wife 
 and children to the Artesian well at Crenelle; and if 
 stranded perchance in the Charnps-Elysees, stood lost 
 in admiration at the tiny carriage with ponies to 
 match, driven by Theophile Gautier, who had left off 
 wearing the crimson waistcoats wherewith in former 
 days he hoped to annoy the bourgeois, though he 
 ceased not to rail at him by word of mouth and with 
 his pen. He was not singular in that respect. Among 
 his set, the hatred of the bourgeois was ingrained ; it 
 found constant vent in small things. Nestor Roqueplan 
 wore jackboots at home instead of slippers, because the 
 latter chaussure was preferred by the shopkeeper. 
 Gavarni published the most biting pictorial satires 
 against him. Here is one. A dissipated-looking loafer 
 is leaning against a lamp-post, contemptuously staring 
 at the spruce, trim bourgeois out for his Sunday walk 
 with his wife. The loafer is smoking a short clay 
 pipe, and some of the fumes of the tobacco come
 
 128 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 between the wind and the bourgeois' respectability. 
 " Voyou ! " says the latter contemptuously. " Voyou 
 tant que vous voulez, pas epicier," is the answer. 
 
 In those days, when M. Thiers happened to be in 
 power, many members of the Opposition and their 
 journalistic champions made it a point of organizing 
 little gatherings to the table-d'hote kept by Mdlle. 
 Thiers, the sister of the Prime Minister of France. 
 Her establishment was at the entrance of the present 
 Kue Drouot, and a sign-board informed the passer-by 
 to that effect. There was invariably an account of these 
 little gatherings in next day's papers of course, with 
 comments. Thiers was known to be the most wretched 
 shot that ever worried a gamekeeper, and yet he was 
 very fond of blazing away. " We asked Mdlle. Thiers," 
 wrote the commentators, " whether those delicious 
 pheasants she gave us were of her illustrious brother's 
 bagging. The lady shook her head. 'Non, monsieur ; 
 le President du Conseil n'a pas 1'honneur de fournir 
 mon etablissement ; a quoi bon, je peux les acheter a 
 meilleur marche que lui et au meme endroit. S'il m'en 
 envoyait, il me ferait payer un benefice, parcequ'il ne 
 fait jamais rien pour rieii. C'est un peu le defaut de 
 uotre famille.' " I have got a notion that, mercurial as 
 was M. Thiers up to the last hour of his life, and even 
 more so at that period, and sedate as was M. Guizot, 
 the French liked the latter better than the former. 
 
 M. Guizot had said, " Enrichissez vous," and was 
 known to be poor ; M. Thiers had scoffed at the advice, 
 and was known to be hoarding while compelling his 
 sister to earn her own living. It must be remem- 
 bered that at the time the gangrene of greed had not 
 entered the souls of all classes of Frenchmen so deeply
 
 A LITERARY CAF& 129 
 
 as it has now, that the race for wealth had as 
 yet comparatively few votaries, and that not every 
 stockjobber and speculator aspired to emulate the 
 vast financial transactions of the Rothschilds. The 
 latter lived, in those days, in the Eue Lafitte, where 
 they had three separate mansions, all of which since 
 then have been thrown into one, and are at present 
 exclusively devoted to business purposes. The Rue 
 Lafitte was, however, a comparatively quiet street. 
 The favourite lounges, in addition to the strip of 
 Boulevards I have already mentioned, were the Rue 
 Le Peletier and the galleries of the Passage de 1'Opera. 
 Both owed the preference over the other thoroughfares 
 to the immediate vicinity of the Opera, which had its 
 frontage in the last-named street, but was by no means 
 striking or monumental. Its architect, Debret, had to 
 rim the gauntlet of every kind of satire for many a 
 year after its erection ; the bitterest and most scathing 
 of all was that, perhaps, of a journalist, who wrote one 
 day that, a provincial having asked him the way to the 
 grand opera, he had been obliged to answer, "Turn 
 down the street, and it is the first large gateway on 
 your right." 
 
 But if the building itself was unimposing, the 
 company gathered around its entrance consisted 
 generally of half a dozen men whose names were then 
 already household words in the musical world Auber, 
 Halevy, Rossini and Meyerbeer, St. Georges, Adam. 
 Now and then, though rarely together, all of these 
 names will frequently reappear in these notes. The 
 chief attractions, though, of the Rue Le Peletier 
 were the famous Italian restaurant of Paolo Broggi, 
 patronized by a great many singers, the favourite haunt 
 
 VOL. i. K
 
 180 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 of Mario, in the beginning of his career, and 1'Esta 
 minet du Divan, which from being a very simple cafe 
 indeed, developed into a kind of politico-literary club 
 under the auspices of a number of budding men of 
 letters, journalists, and the like, whose modest purses 
 were not equal to the charges of the Cafe Biche and 
 Tortoni, and who had gradually driven all more prosaic 
 customers away. I believe I was one of the few 
 habitues who had no literary aspirations, who did not 
 cast longing looks to the inner portals of the offices of 
 the National, the bigwigs of which Armand Marrast, 
 Baron Domes, Gerard de Nerval, and others sometimes 
 made their appearance there, though their restaurant 
 in ordinary was the Cafe Hardi. The Estaminet du 
 Divan, however, pretended to a much more literary 
 atmosphere than the magnificent establishment on the 
 boulevard itself. It is a positive fact that the waiters 
 in the former would ask, in the most respectful way 
 imaginable, "Does monsieur want Sue's or Dumas' 
 feuilleton with his cafe?" Not once but a dozen 
 times I have heard the proprietor draw attention 
 to a remarkable article. Major Fraser, though he 
 never dined there, spent an hour or two daily in the 
 Estaminet du Divan to read the papers. He was a 
 great favourite with every one, though none of us knew 
 anything about his antecedents. In spite of his English 
 name, he was decidedly not English, though he spoke 
 the language. He was one of the best-d essed men of 
 the period, and by a well-dressed man I do not mean 
 one like Sue. He generally wore a tight-fitting, short- 
 skirted, blue frock-coat, grey trousers, of a shape which 
 since then we have detined as " pegtops," but the 
 fashion of which was borrowed from the Cossacks.
 
 MAJOR FRASER. 131 
 
 They are still worn by some French officers in cavalry 
 regiments, notably crack cavalry regiments. 
 
 Major Fraser might have fitly borrowed Piron's 
 epitaph for himself: " Je ne suis rien, pas meme 
 Academicien." He was a bachelor. He never alluded 
 to his parentage. He lived by himself, in an entresol 
 at the corner of the Rue Lafitte and the Boulevard 
 des Italiens. He was always flush of money, though 
 the sources of his income were a mystery to every one. 
 He certainly did not live by gambling, as has been 
 suggested since; for those who knew him best did 
 not remember having seen him touch a card. 
 
 I have always had an idea, though I can give no 
 reason for it, that Major Fraser was the illegitimate 
 son of some exalted personage, and that the solution of 
 the mystery surrounding him might be found in the 
 records of the scandals and intrigues at the courts 
 of Charles IV. and Ferdinand VII. of Spain. The 
 foreign " soldiers of fortune " who rose to high posts, 
 though not to the highest like Richards and O'Reilly, 
 were not all of Irish origin. But the man himself was 
 so pleasant in his intercourse, so uniformly gentle and 
 ready to oblige, that no one cared to lift a veil which 
 he was so evidently anxious not to have disturbed. 
 I only remember his getting out of temper once, 
 namely, when Leon Gozlan, in a comedy of his, intro- 
 duced a major who had three crosses. The first had 
 been given to him because he had not one, the second 
 because he had already one, and the third because all 
 good things consist of three. Then Major Fraser sent 
 his seconds to the playwright; the former effected a 
 reconciliation, the more that Gozlan pledged his word 
 that an allusion to the major was farthest from his
 
 132 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 thoughts. It afterwards leaked out that our irrepres- 
 sible Alexandre Dumas had been the involuntary cause 
 of all the mischief. One day, while he was talking to 
 Gozlan, one of his secretaries came in and told him 
 that a particular bugbear of his, and a great nonentity 
 to boot, had got the Cross of the Legion of Honour. 
 
 "Grand Dieu," exclaimed Gozlan, "pourquoi lui 
 a-t-on donne cette croix ? " 
 
 " Vous ne savez pas ? " said Alexandre, looking very 
 wise, as if he had some important state secret to 
 reveal. 
 
 " Assurement, je ne le sais pas," quoth Gozlan, " ni 
 vous non plus." 
 
 " Ah, par exemple, moi, je le sais." 
 
 " He bien, dites alors." 
 
 " On lui a donne la croix parceque il n'en avait pas." 
 
 It was the most childish of all tricks, but Gozlan 
 laughed at it, and, when he wrote his piece, remembered 
 it. He amplified the very small joke, and, on the first 
 night of his play, the house went into convulsions 
 over it. 
 
 Major Fraser's kindness and gentleness extended to 
 all men except to professional politicians, and those, 
 from the highest to the lowest, he detested and 
 despised. He rarely spoke on the subject of politics, 
 but when he did every one sat listening with the raptest 
 attention ; for he was a perfect mine of facts, which he 
 marshalled with consummate ability in order to show 
 that government by party was of all idiotic institutions 
 the most idiotic. But his knowledge of political 
 history was as nothing to his familiarity with the 
 social institutions of every civilized country and of 
 every period. Curiously enough, the whole of his
 
 A MYSTERIOUS ORIENTAL. 133 
 
 library in his own apartment did not exceed two or 
 three scores of volumes. His memory was something 
 prodigious, and even men like Dumas and Balzac con- 
 fessed themselves his inferiors in that respect. The 
 mere mention of the most trifling subject sufficed to set 
 it in motion, and the listeners were treated to a "maga- 
 zine article worth fifty centimes la ligne au moins," as 
 Dumas put it. But the major could never be induced 
 to write one. Strange to say, he often used to hint 
 that bis was no mere book-knowledge. "Of course, 
 it is perfectly ridiculous," he remarked with a strange 
 smile, " but every now and again I feel as if all this 
 did not come to me through reading, but from, personal 
 experience. At times I become almost convinced that 
 I lived with Nero, that I knew Dante personally, and 
 so forth." 
 
 When Major Fraser died, not a single letter was 
 found in his apartment giving a clue to his antecedents. 
 Merely a file of receipts, and a scrap of paper attached 
 to one the receipt of the funeral company for his 
 grave, and expenses of his burial. The memorandum 
 gave instructions to advertise his demise for a week in 
 the Journal des Debdts, the money for which would be 
 found in the drawer of his dressing-table. His clothes 
 and furniture were to be sold, and the proceeds to be 
 given to the Paris poor. " I do not charge any one 
 with this particular duty," the document went on; "I 
 have so many friends, every one of whom will be ready 
 to carry out my last wishes." 
 
 Another " mystery," though far less interesting than 
 Major Fraser, was the Persian gentleman whom one 
 met every where, at the Opera, at the Boisde Boulogne, 
 at the concerts of the Conservatoire, etc. Though
 
 134 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 invariably polite and smiling, he never spoke to any 
 one. For ten years, the occupant of the stall next to 
 his at the Opera had never heard him utter a syllable. 
 He always wore a long white silk petticoat, a splendidly 
 embroidered coat over that, and a conical Astrakan 
 cap. He was always alone ; and though every one knew 
 where he lived, in the Passage de 1'Opera, no one had 
 ever set foot in his apartment. As a matter of course, 
 all sorts of legends were current about him. Accord- 
 ing to some, he had occupied a high position in his 
 own country, from which he had voluntarily exiled 
 himself, owing to his detestation of Eastern habits ; 
 according to others, he was simply a dealer in Indian 
 shawls, who had made a fortune. A third group, the 
 spiteful ones, maintained that he sold dates and 
 pastilles, and that the reason why he did not speak 
 was because he was dumb, though not deaf. He died 
 during the Second Empire, very much respected in the 
 neighbourhood, for he had been very charitable. 
 
 Towards the middle of the forties the Passage de 
 1'Opera began to lose some of its prestige as a lounge. 
 The outside stockjobbers, whom the police had driven 
 from the Boulevards and the steps of Tortoni, migrated 
 thither, and the galleries that had resounded with the 
 sweet warblings in a very low key of the clients of 
 Bernard Latte, the publisher of Donizetti's operas, 
 were made hideous and unbearable with the jostling 
 and bellowing of the money-spinners. Bernard Latte 
 himself was at last compelled to migrate. 
 
 In the house the ground-floor of which was occupied 
 by Tortoni, and which was far different in aspect from 
 what it is now, lived Louis Blanc. Towards nine in the 
 morning he came down for his cup of cafe au lait.
 
 LOUIS BLANC. 135 
 
 It was the first cup of coffee of the day served in the 
 establishment. I was never on terms of intimacy with 
 Blanc, and least of all then, for I shared with Major 
 Fraser a dislike to politic- mongers, and, rightly or 
 wrongly, I have always considered the author of 
 " L'Histoire de Dix Ans " as such. Though Louis 
 Blanc was three or four and thirty then, he looked 
 like a boy of seventeen a fact not altogether owing 
 to his diminutive stature, though he was one of the 
 smallest men, if not the smallest man, I ever saw. Of 
 course I mean a man not absolutely a dwarf. I have 
 been assured, however, that he was a giant compared 
 to Don Martinoz Garay, Duke of Altamira, and 
 Marquis of Astorga, a Spanish statesman, who died 
 about the early part of the twenties. These notes do 
 not extend beyond the fall of the Commune, and it 
 was only after that event that I met M. Blanc once or 
 twice in his old haunts. Hence my few recollections 
 of him had better be jotted down here. They are not 
 important. The man, though but sixty, and apparently 
 not in bad health, looked desillusione. They were, 
 no doubt, the most trying years to the Third Republic, 
 but M. Blanc must have perceived well enough that, 
 granting all the existing difficulties, the men at the 
 head of affairs were not the Republicans of his dreams. 
 He had, moreover, suffered severe losses ; all his im- 
 portant documents, such as the correspondence between 
 him and George Sand and Louis-Napoleon while the 
 latter was at Ham, and other equally valuable matter, 
 had been destroyed at the fire of the Northern Goods 
 Station at La Villette, a fire kindled by the Communists. 
 He was dressed almost in the fashion of the forties, a 
 wide-skirted, long, brown frockcoat, a shirt innocent of
 
 136 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 starcb, and a broad -brimmed hat. A few years later, 
 he founded a paper, L'Homme-Libre, the offices of which 
 were in the Rue Grrange-Bateliere. The concern was 
 financed by a Polish gentleman. Blanc gave his 
 readers to understand that he would speak out plainly 
 about persons and things, whether past or present ; 
 that he would advance nothing except on docu- 
 mentary proofs ; but that, whether he did or not, 
 he would not be badgered into giving or accepting 
 challenges in defence of his writings. " I am, first of 
 all, too old, " he said ; " but if I were young again, I 
 should not repeat my folly of '47, when I wanted to 
 fight with Eugene Pelletan on account of a woman 
 whose virtue, provided she had any, could make no 
 difference to either of us. It does not matter to me 
 that we were not the only preux chevaliers of that 
 period, ready to do battle for or against the charms 
 of a woman whose remains had crumbled to dust by 
 then." * 
 
 * M. Eugfcne Pelletan, the father of M. Gamille Pelletan, the editor 
 of La Justice, and first lieutenant to M. Clemenceau, having severely 
 criticized some passages in H. Blanc's "Histoire de la Revolu- 
 tion," relating to Marie-Antoinette, the author quoted a passage 
 of Madame Campan'8"Memoires" in support of his writings. The 
 critic refused to admit the conclusiveness of the proof, whereupon 
 M. Blanc appealed to the Socie'te des Gens de Lettres, which, ou the 
 summing up of M. Taxile Dtlord, gave a verdict in his favour. M. 
 Pelletan declined to submit to the verdict, as lie had refused to admit 
 the jurisdiction, of the tribunal. M. Blanc, who had at first scouted 
 all idea of a duel, considered himself obliged to resort to this meaiis 
 of obtaining satisfaction, seeing that M. Pelletan stoutly maintained 
 his opinion. A met ting had been arranged when the Revolution of 
 '48 broke out. The opponents having both gone to the H6tel-de- 
 Ville, met by accident at the entrance, and fell into one another's 
 arms. " Thank Heaven ! " exclaimed Thiers, when he heard of it. 
 " If Pelletan had killed Blanc, I should have been the smallest man 
 in France." 
 
 M. Blanc's allusion to other "preux chevaliers" aimed particularly 
 at M. Cousin, who, having become a minister against his will, resumed 
 with a sigh of relief his studies under the Second Empire. He waa
 
 LOUIS BLANC AS AN EDITOR. 137 
 
 M. Blanc's boast that he would advance nothing 
 except on proof positive was not an idle one, as his 
 contributors found out to their cost. Every afternoon, 
 at three, he arrived at the office to read the paper in 
 proof from the first line to the last. Not the slightest 
 inaccuracy was allowed to pass. Kind as he was, his 
 reporters' lives became a burden. One of the latter 
 told me a story which, though it illustrates the ridicu- 
 lousness of M. Blanc's scruples when carried too far, 
 is none the less valuable. A dog had been run 
 over on the Boulevards, and the reporter, with a 
 hankering after the realistic method,, had endeavoured 
 to reproduce onomatopoeically the sounds uttered by 
 the animal in pain. 
 
 " Are you quite sure r monsieur, about your sounds ? " 
 asked Blanc. 
 
 " Of course, I am as sure as a non-seientific man can 
 be," was the answer. 
 
 " Then strike them out ; one ought to be scientifically 
 sure. By-the-by r l see you have made use of the word 
 ' howl ' (Jiurlev). Unless- I am mistaken, a dog when 
 in pain yelps (glapii). Please alter it." 
 
 On another occasion, on going through the advertise- 
 ments, he found a new one relating to a cough mixture, 
 setting forth its virtues in the most glowing terms. 
 
 especially fond of the seventeenth century, and all at once he, who had 
 scarcely ever noticed a pretty woman, became violently smitten with 
 the Duchesse de Longueville, who had been in her grave for nearly 
 two centuries. He positively invested her with every perfection, 
 moral and mental ; unfortunately, he could not invest her with a 
 shapely bust, the evidence being too overwhelmingly against her 
 having been adorned that way. One day some one snowed him a 
 portrait of the sister of the "grand Con<'e," in which she was amply 
 provided with the charms the absence of which M. Cousin regretted. 
 He wrote a special chapter on the subject, and was well-nigh challeng- 
 ing all his contradictors. EDITOR.
 
 138 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 Immediately the advertisement canvasser was sent for, 
 M. Blanc having refused to farm out that department 
 to an agency, as is frequently done in Paris, in order 
 to retain the absolute control over it. 
 
 " Monsieur, I see that you have a new advertisement, 
 and it seems to me a profitable one ; still, before insert- 
 ing: it, I should like to be certain that the medicine 
 
 O * 
 
 does all it professes to do. Can you personally vouch 
 for its efficiency ? " 
 
 " Mon Dieu, monsieur, I believe it does all it pro- 
 fesses to do, but you can scarcely expect me to run 
 the risk of bronchitis in order to test it upon myself ! " 
 
 " Heaven forbid that I should be so exacting and 
 indifferent to other people's health, but until you can 
 bring me some one who has been cured, we will not 
 insert it." 
 
 Let me come back for a moment to that sentence of 
 Louis Blanc, about the practice of duelling, in con- 
 nection with one of the most tragic affairs of that 
 kind within iny recollection. I am alluding to the 
 Dujarrier-Beauvallon duel. I have been in the habit 
 for years, whenever an important meeting took place 
 in France, to read every shade of English opinion on 
 the subject ; and while recognizing the elevated sen- 
 timents of the writers, I have no hesitation in saying 
 that not a single one knew what he was writing about. 
 They could not grasp the fact that for a man of social 
 standing to refuse a challenge or to refrain from 
 sending one, save under very exceptional circumstances, 
 was tantamount to courting social death. They knew 
 not that every door would henceforth be closed against 
 him ; that his wife's best friends would cease to call 
 upon her, by direction of their husbands ; that his
 
 DUELS. 139 
 
 children at school would be shunned by their comrades ; 
 that no young man of equal position to his, were he 
 ever so much in love with his daughter, would ask her 
 to become his wife, that no parents would allow their 
 daughter to marry his son. That is what backing 
 out of a duel meant years ago ; that is what it still 
 means to-day of course, I repeat, with certain classes. 
 Is it surprising, then, that with such a prospect facing 
 him, a man should risk death rather than become a 
 pariah ? Would the English leader-writer, if he be a 
 man of worth, like to enter his club-room without a 
 hand held out to welcome him from those with whom 
 lie was but a few weeks ago on the most friendly 
 footing, without a voice to give him the time of day ? 
 I think not ; and that is what would happen if he were 
 a Frenchman who neglected to ask satisfaction for even 
 an imaginary insult. 
 
 I knew M. Dujarrier, the general manager of La 
 Presse, and feel convinced that he was not a bit more 
 quarrelsome or eager " to go out " than Louis Blanc. 
 It is, moreover, certain that he felt his inferiority, both 
 as a swordsman and as a marksman, to such a practised 
 shot and fencer as M. de Beauvallon ; and well he 
 might, seeing that subsequent evidence proved that 
 he, Dujarrier, had never handled either weapon. Yet 
 he not only strenuously opposed all attempts on the 
 part of his friends to effect a reconciliation, but would 
 not afford a hint to his adversary of his want of skill, 
 lest the latter should make him a present of his life. 
 The present would not have been worth accepting. 
 It would have been a Nessus-shirt, and caused the 
 moral death of the recipient. Consequently, Dujarrier 
 literally went like a lamb to the slaughter rather than
 
 140 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 be branded as a coward, and he made no secret of his 
 contemplated sacrifice. "I have no alternative but 
 to fight," he said, two days before the meeting, to 
 Alexandre Dumas, who taxed all his own ingenuity, 
 and that of his son, to prevent, at any rate, a fatal 
 issue. The only way to effect this, according to the 
 very logical reasoning of the two Dumases, was to 
 induce Dujarrier, who, as the offended party, had the 
 choice of weapons, to choose the sword. They counted 
 upon the generosity of Beauvallon, who, as a gentle- 
 man, on discovering his adversary's utter lack of skill, 
 would disarm, or inflict a slight wound on him. Un- 
 fortunately, young Dumas, with the best intentions, 
 unburthened himself to that effect among those most 
 interested in the affair, namely, the staffs of La Presse 
 and Le Globe. These two journals were literally at 
 daggers drawn, and some writers connected with the 
 latter went hinting, if not saying openly, that 
 Dujarrier was already showing the white feather. 
 Whether Dujarrier heard of the comments in that 
 shape, or whether he instinctively guessed what they 
 would be, has never been clearly made out, but it is 
 certain that from that moment he insisted upon the 
 use of pistols. "I do not intend nay adversary to 
 show me the slightest favour, either by disarming me 
 or by wounding me in the arm or leg. I mean to have 
 a serious encounter," he said. Young Dumas, 
 frightened perhaps at his want of reticence in the 
 matter, begged his father to go and see Grisier,* and 
 claim his intervention. Alexandre Dumas, than whom 
 no stauncher friend ever existed, who would have 
 
 * The great fencing-master, whom Dumas immortalized in his 
 " Maitre d'Armes." EDITOB.
 
 EMILE DE GIRARDIN ON DUELLING. 141 
 
 willingly risked his own life to save that of Dujarrier, 
 had to decline the mission suggested by his son. " I 
 cannot do it," he said ; " the first and foremost thing 
 is to safeguard Dujarrier's reputation, which is the 
 more precious because it is his first duel." 
 
 " His first duel," here is the key-note to the 
 whole of the proceedings as far as Dujarrier and his 
 personal friends were concerned. Had Dujarrier been 
 in the position of the editor of his paper, Emile de 
 Girardin, had he been out before and killed or severely 
 wounded his man, as the latter killed Armand Carrel 
 nine years before, he might have openly announced 
 his determination " never to go out again " under no 
 matter what provocation. Unfortunately, Dujarrier 
 was not in that position ; in fact, it is no exaggeration 
 to say that Dujarrier paid the penalty of M. de 
 Girardin's decision. A great deal of mawkish senti- 
 ment has been wasted upon the tragic fate of Armand 
 Carrel ; in reality, he had what he deserved, albeit 
 that no one more than M. de Girardin himself regretted 
 his untimely end. Most writers will tell one that 
 Carrel fell a victim to his political opinions ; nothing 
 is farther from the truth. Armand Carrel fell a victim 
 to a "question of shop "of which he allowed himself, 
 though perhaps not deliberately, to become the 
 champion. After many attempts, more or less success- 
 ful, in the way of popular journalism, M. de Girardin, 
 in 1836, started La Presse, a serious journal of the same 
 size as the then existing ones, but at half the sub- 
 scription of the latter, all of which absolutely banded 
 at once against him. Armand Carrel, who was a 
 soldier, and a valiant soldier, a writer of talent, and 
 a gentleman to boot, ought to have stood aloof from
 
 142 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 that kind of polemics. Emile de G-irardin was not the 
 likely man to submit to open or implied insult. His 
 best, albeit, his least-known, book, " Emile," which is 
 as it were an autobiography, had given the measure of 
 his thoughts on the subject of duelling. "Emile" 
 goes into society as a soldier would go into an enemy's 
 country. Not that he is by nature cruel or blood- 
 thirsty, but he knows that, to hold his own, he must be 
 always ready, not only for defence, but for attack. 
 
 " The secret one is bound to preserve with regard 
 to the preparations for a meeting, and those prepa- 
 rations themselves are simply horrible. The care, 
 the precautions to be taken, the secret which is not 
 to leak out, all these are very like the preparations 
 for a crime," he says. " Nevertheless," he goes on, 
 "the horror of all this disappears, when the man, 
 impelled by hatred or resentment, is thirsting for 
 revenge ; but when the heart is absolutely without 
 gall, and when the imagination is still subject to all 
 the softer emotions, then, in order not to recoil with 
 fear at the ever horrible idea of a duel, a man must 
 be imbued with all the force of a prejudice which 
 resists the very laws that condemn it." 
 
 It was under the latter circumstances that M. de 
 Girardin confronted his adversary. The two men had 
 probably never exchanged a word with one another, 
 they felt no personal animosity ; nay, more, the duel 
 was not an inevitable one ; and yet it cost one man his 
 life, and burthened the other with lifelong regrets. 
 
 Had the issue been different, La Presse would 
 probably have disappeared, and all recrimination 
 ceased. As it was, unable to goad M. de Girardin 
 into a reversal of his decision "never to go out
 
 A CELEBRATED ENCOUNTER. 143 
 
 again," and that in spite of nine years of direct 
 insult from a so-called political party, of every kind 
 of quasi-legal vexation, M. de Beauvallon consti- 
 tuted himself a second Armand Carrel, selecting 
 Dujarrier as his victim, the chief not being available. 
 But here all resemblance to Armand Carrel ceased, 
 and the law itself was anxious to mark the difference. 
 In the one case it had been set at nought by two 
 men of undoubted courage and undoubted honour, 
 meeting upon equal terras ; in the other, it was 
 proved that, not content with Dujarrier's well-known 
 inferiority, De Beauvallon's pistols had been tried 
 before the encounter. The court could take no cog- 
 nizance of this, but it marked its disapproval by 
 sentencing Beauvallon to eight years', and one of his 
 seconds, M. d'Ecquevilley, to ten years' imprison- 
 ment for perjury. Both had declared on oath that 
 the pistols had not been tried. The Dujarrier duel 
 caused a deep and painful sensation. I have dwelt 
 upon it at greater length than was absolutely 
 necessary, because it inspired me with a resolution 
 from which I have never departed since. I was 
 twenty-seven at the time, and, owing to circumstances 
 which I need not relate here, foresaw that the greater 
 part of rny life would be spent in France. I am 
 neither more courageous nor more cowardly than most 
 persons, but I objected to be shot down like a mad 
 dog on the most futile pretext because some one 
 happened to have a grudge against me. To have de- 
 clined " to go out " on the score of my nationnlity 
 would not have met the case in the conditions in 
 which I was living, so from that moment I became 
 an assiduous client at Gosset's shooting-gallery, and
 
 144 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 took fencing lessons of Grisier. I do not know that 
 I became very formidable with either weapon, only 
 sufficiently skilled not to be altogether defenceless. 
 I took care at the same time to let it go forth that a 
 duel to me not only meant one or both parties so 
 severely wounded as not to be able to continue the 
 struggle, but the resumption of the combat, when he 
 or they had recovered, until one was killed. Of course, 
 it implied that I would only go out for a sufficiently 
 weighty reason, but that, if compelled to do so for a 
 trifling one, I would still adhere to my original reso- 
 lution. Only once, more than twelve years afterwards, 
 I had a quarrel fastened upon me, arising out of the 
 excitement consequent upon the attempt of Orsini. 
 I was the offended party, and, as such, could dictate 
 the conditions of the meeting. I declined to modify 
 in the least the rules I had laid down for my own 
 guidance, and stated as much to those who were to 
 act for me General Fleury and Alexandre Dumas. 
 My adversary's friends refused to accept the terms. 
 I was never molested afterwards, though an English- 
 man had not always a pleasant life of it, even under 
 the Second Empire. 
 
 In connection with Dujarrier's duel, I may say a 
 few words here of that quasi-wonderful woman, Lola 
 Montes. I say " quasi," because really there was 
 nothing wonderful about her, except perhaps her 
 beauty and her consummate impudence. She had 
 not a scrap of talent of any kind; education she had 
 none, for, whether she spoke in English, French, or 
 Spanish, grammatical errors abounded, and her ex- 
 pressions were always those of a pretentious house- 
 maid, unless they were those of an excited fishwife.
 
 LOLA MONTfcS. 145 
 
 She told me that she had been at a boarding school 
 in Bath, and that she was a native of Limerick, but 
 that when quite a child she was taken to Seville by 
 her parents. Her father, according to her account, 
 was a Spaniard, her mother a Creole. " But I scan- 
 dalized every one at school, and would not learn." 
 I could quite believe that ; what I could not believe 
 was that a girl of her quick powers for she un- 
 doubtedly possessed those could have spent, how- 
 ever short a time in the society of decent girls of 
 her own age, let alone of presumedly refined school- 
 mistresses, without having acquired some elementary 
 notions of mariner and address. Her gait and carriage 
 were those of a duchess, for she was naturally graceful, 
 but the moment she opened her lips, the illusion 
 vanished at least to me ; for I am bound to admit 
 that men of far higher intellectual attainments than 
 mine, and familiar with very good society, raved and 
 kept raving about her, though all those defects could 
 not have failed to strike them as they had struck me. 
 I take it that it must have been her beauty, for, though 
 not devoid of wit, her wit was that of the pot-house, 
 which would not have been tolerated in the smoking- 
 room of a club in the small hours. 
 
 When Dujarrier was carried home dying to the 
 Eue Lafitte, a woman flung herself on the body and 
 covered his face with kisses. That woman was Lola 
 Montes. In his will he left her eighteen shares in the 
 Palais-Eoyal Theatre, amounting in value to about 
 20,000 francs. She insisted afterwards in appearing as 
 a witness at the trial at Kouen, although her evidence 
 threw not the slightest light upon the matter. She 
 wanted to create a sensation; and she accomplished 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 her aim. I was there, and though the court was 
 crowded with men occupying the foremost ranks in 
 literature, art, and Paris society, no one attracted the 
 attention she did. Even the sober president and 
 assessors sat staring at her open-mouthed when she 
 took her stand behind the little rail which does duty 
 for a witness-box in France. She was dressed in 
 mourning not the deepest, but soft masses of silk 
 and lace and when she lifted her veil and took off 
 her glove to take the prescribed oath, a murmur of 
 admiration ran through the court. That is why she 
 had undertaken the journey to Rouen, and verily she 
 had her reward. 
 
 It was on that occasion that I became acquainted, 
 though quite by accident, with the young man who, 
 ten or eleven years later, was to leap into fame all of 
 a sudden with one novel. I have already said that 
 the court was very crowded, and next to me was 
 standing a tall, strapping fellow, somewhat younger 
 than myself, whom, at the first glance, one would have 
 taken to bn an English country gentleman or well-to- 
 do farmer's son. Such mistakes are easily made in 
 Normandy. When Lola Monies came forward to give 
 her evidence, some one on the other side of him 
 remarked that she looked like the heroine of a novel. 
 
 "Yes," he replied; "but the heroines of the real novels 
 enacted in everyday life do not always look like that." 
 
 Then he turned to me, having seen me speak to 
 several people from Paris and in company of Alex- 
 andre Dumas and Berryer, whom everybody knew. 
 He asked me some particulars about Lola Montes, 
 which I gave him. I found him exceedingly well- 
 informed. We chatted for a while. When he left
 
 SHE TELLS HER OWN STORY. 147 
 
 he handed me his card, and hoped that we should see 
 one another again. The card bore the simple super- 
 scription of " Gustave Flaubert." I was told during 
 the evening that he was the son of a local physician 
 of note. Twelve years later the whole of France rang 
 with his name. He had written "Madame Bovary," 
 and laid the foundation of what subsequently became 
 the ultra-realistic school of French fiction. 
 
 To return for a moment to Lola Montes. The trial 
 was really the starting-point of her notoriety, for, in 
 spite of her beauty, she had been at one time reduced 
 to sing in the streets in Brussels. That was after she 
 had fled from Calcutta, whither her first husband, a 
 captain or lieutenant James, in the service of the 
 East India Company, had taken her. She landed at 
 Southampton, and, during her journey to London, 
 managed to ingratiate herself with an English 
 nobleman, by pretending that she was the wife of a 
 Spanish soldier who had been shot by the Carlists. 
 She told me all this herself, because she was not in 
 the least reticent about her scheming, especially after 
 her scheming had failed. She would, however, not 
 divulge the name of her travelling companion, who 
 tried to befriend her by introducing her to some of his 
 acquaintances, with the view of obtaining singing 
 lessons for her. " But I did not make my expenses, 
 because you English are so very moral and my patron 
 was suspected of not giving himself all that trouble 
 for nothing. Besides, they managed to ferret out that 
 I was not the widow of a Spanish officer, but the wife 
 of an English one; and then, as you may imagine, it 
 was all up. I got, however, an engagement at the 
 Opera House in the ballet, but not for long ; of course,
 
 148 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 1 could not dance much, but I could dance as well 
 as half your wooden ugly women that were there. 
 But they told tales about me, and the manager dis- 
 missed me.* 
 
 * The English nobleman must have been Lord Malmesbnry, who 
 alludes to her as follows : " This was a most remarkable womau, and 
 may be said by her conduct at Munich to have set fire to the magazine 
 of revolution, which was reaily to burst forth all over Europe, and 
 which made the year 1848 memorable. I made her acquaintance by 
 accident, as I was going up to London from Heron Court, in the 
 railway. The Consul at Southampton aoked me to take charge of a 
 Spanish lady who had been recommended to his care, and who had 
 just landed. I consented to do this, and was introduced by him to a 
 remarkably handsome person, who was in deep mourning, and who 
 appeared to be in great distress. As we were alone in the carriage, 
 she, of her own accord, informed me, in bad English, that she was the 
 widow of Don Diego Leon, who had lately been shot by the Carlists 
 after he was taken prisoner, and that she was going to London to sell 
 some Spanish property that she possessed, and give lessons in singing, 
 as she was very poor. On arriving in London she took some lodgings, 
 and came to my house to a little concert which I gave, and bang some 
 Spanish ballads. Her accent was foreign, and she had all the appearance 
 of being what she pretended to be. She sold different things, tuch as 
 veils, etc., to the party present, and received a good deal of patronage. 
 Eventually she took an engagement for the ballet at the Opera House, 
 but her dancing was very inferior. At last she was recognized as an 
 impostor, her real name bein>r Mrs. James, and Irish by exti action, 
 and had married an officer in India Her engagement at the Opera 
 was cancelled, she left the country, and retired to Munich. She was a 
 very vioLnt woman, and actually struck one of the Bavarian generals 
 as he was reviewing the troops. The king became perfectly infatuated 
 with her beauty and cleverness, and gave her large sums of money, 
 with a title, which she afterwards bore v\ hen she return > d to England." 
 (" Memoirs of an Ex-minister," by the Earl of Malmesbury.) 
 
 Lord Malmesbury is wrong in nearly every particular which he has 
 got from hearsay. Lola Montes did not retire to Munich after her 
 engagement at the Opera House had been cancelled, but to Brussels, 
 and from there to Warsaw. Nor did she play the all-imporlant part 
 in the Bavarian riots or revolution he asciibes to her. The author of 
 these notes has most of the particulars of Lola Montes' career previous 
 to her appearance in Munich from her own lips, and, as he has already 
 said, she was not in the least reticent about her scheming, especially 
 when her scheming had failed. For the story of the events at Munich, 
 I gather inferentially from his notes that he is indebted to Karl von 
 Abel, King Ludwig's ultramontane minister, who came afterwards 
 to Paris, and who, if I mistake not, was the father or the uncle of Herr 
 von Abel, the Berlin correspondent of the limes, some fourteen or 
 fifteen years ago. EDITOR.
 
 ROYAL CONJUGAL FELICITY. 149 
 
 She fostered no illusions with regard to her chore- 
 graphic talents; in fact, she fostered no illusions about 
 anything, and her candour was the best trait in her 
 character. She had failed as a dancer in Warsaw, 
 whither she had gone from London, by way of Brussels. 
 In the Belgian capital, according to her own story, 
 she had been obliged to sing in the streets to keep 
 from starvation. I asked her why she had not come 
 from London to Paris, " where, for a woman of her 
 attractions, and not hampered by many scruples," as 
 I pointed out to her, "there were many more resources 
 than elsewhere." The answer was so characteristic 
 of the daring adventuress, who, notwithstanding her 
 impecuniosity, flew at the highest game to be had, 
 that I transcribe it in full. I am often reluctant to 
 trust to my memory : in this instance I may ; I 
 remember every word of it. This almost illiterate 
 schemer, who probably had not the remotest notion of 
 geography, of history, had pretty well "the Almanach 
 de Gotha " by heart, and seemed to guess instinctively 
 at things which said Almanach carefully abstained from 
 mentioning, namely, the good understanding or the 
 reverse between the married royal couples of Europe, etc. 
 
 " Why did not I come to Paris ! " she replied. 
 " What was the good of coming to Paris where 
 there was a king, bourgeois to his finger-nails, tight- 
 fisted besides, and notoriously the most moral and 
 best father all the world over ; with princes who were 
 nearly as much married as their dad, and with those 
 who were single far away ? What was the good of 
 coming to a town where you could not bear the title 
 of ' la maitresse du prince ' without the risk of being 
 taken to the frontier between two gendarmes, where
 
 150 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 you could not have squeezed a thousand louis out of 
 any of the royal sons for the life of you? What was 
 the good of trying to get a count, where the wife of 
 a grocer or a shoemaker might have objected to your 
 presence at a ball, on the ground of your being an 
 immoral person ? No, I really meant to make my way 
 to the Hague. I had heard that William II. whacked 
 his wife like any drunken labourer, so that his sons 
 had to interfere every now and then. I had heard 
 this in Calcutta, and from folk who were likely to 
 know. But as I thought that I might have the 
 succession of the whacks, as well as of the lord, I 
 wanted to try my chance at Brussels first; besides, 
 I' had n't much money." 
 
 "But King Leopold is married, and lives very happily 
 with his wife," I interrupted. 
 
 " Of course he does they all do," was the answer ; 
 "mais ca n'empeche pas les sentiments, does it? I 
 am very ignorant, and haven't a bit of memory, but 
 I once heard a story about a Danish or Swedish king 
 I do not know the difference who married an 
 adventuress like myself, though the queen and the 
 mother of his heir was alive. He committed bigamy, 
 but kings and queens may do things we mayn't. One 
 day, he and his lawful wife were at one of their country 
 seats, and, leaning out of the window, when a carriage 
 passed with a good-looking woman in it, ' Who is this 
 lady?' asked the queen. 'That's my wife,' replied 
 the king. ' Your wife ! what am I, then ? ' said the 
 queen. ' You ? well, you are my queen.' * 
 
 "Never mind, whatever my intentions on Leopold's 
 
 * Lola Months was perfectly correct. It was Frederick IV. of 
 Denmark, only the woman was not an adventurers liKe herself, but 
 the Countess Keventlow, whom he had abducted. EDITOR.
 
 HER WANDERINGS. 151 
 
 money or affections may have been, they came to 
 nothing; for before I could get as much as a peep at 
 him, my money had all been spent, and I was obliged 
 to part with my clothes fiist, and then to sing in the 
 streets to get food. I was taken from Brussels to 
 Warsaw by a man whom I believe to be a German. 
 He spoke many languages, but he was not very well 
 off himself. However, he was very kind, and, when 
 we got to Warsaw, managed to get me an engagement 
 at the Opera. After two or three days, the director 
 told me that I couldn't dance a bit. I stared him full 
 in the face, and asked him whether he thought that, 
 if I could dance, I would have come to such a hole 
 as his theatre. Thereupon he laughed, and s;dd I was 
 a clever girl for all that, and that he would keep me 
 on for ornament. I didn't give him the chance for 
 long. I left after about two months, with a Polish 
 gentleman, who brought me to Paris. The moment I 
 get a nii-e round lump sum of money, I am going to 
 carry out my original plan ; that is, trying to hook a 
 prince. I am sick of being told that I can't dance. 
 They told me so in London, they told me in Warsaw, 
 they told me at the Porte Saint-Martin where they 
 hissed me. I don't think the men, if leit to themselves, 
 would hiss me; their wives and their daughters put 
 them up to it : a woman like myself spoils their trade 
 of honest women. I am only waiting my chance 
 here ; for though you are all very nice and generous 
 and all that kind of thing, it is not what I want." 
 
 Shortly after this conversation, the death of Dujarrier 
 and his legacy to her gave her the chance she had 
 been looking for. She left for London, 1 heard, with 
 an Englishman ; but I never saw him, so I cannot say
 
 152 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 for certain. But. it appears, she did not stay lone;, 
 because, a little while after, several Parisians, on their 
 return from Germany, reported that they had met her 
 at Wiesbaden, at Homburg, and elsewhere, punting in 
 a small way, not settling down anywhere, and almost 
 deliberately avoiding both Frenchmen and Englishmen. 
 The rumour went that her husband was on her track, 
 and that her anxiety to avoid him had caused her 
 to leave London hurriedly. In spite of her chequered 
 career, in spite of the shortcomings at Brussels, Lola 
 Montes was by no means anxious for the " sweet yoke 
 of domesticity." In another six months, her name was 
 almost forgotten by all of us, except by Alexandre 
 Dumas, who now and then alluded to her. Though 
 far from superstitious, Dumas, who had been as much 
 smitten with her as most of her admirers, avowed that 
 he was glad she had disappeared. " She has 'the evil 
 eye/ " he said ; " and sure to bring bad luck to any one 
 who closely links his destiny with hers, for however 
 short a time. You see what has occurred to Dujarrier. 
 If ever she is heard of again, it will be in connection 
 with some terrible calamity that has befallen a lover 
 of hers." We all laughed at him, except Dr. Veron, 
 who could have given odds to Solomon Eagle himself 
 at prophesying. Fortunately he was generally afraid 
 to open his lips, for he was thoroughly sincere in his 
 belief that he could prevent the event by not predicting 
 it at any rate aloud. For once in a way, however, 
 Alexandre Dumas proved correct. When we did hear 
 again of Lola Montes, it was in' connection with the 
 disturbances that had broken out at Munich, and the 
 abdication of her royal lover, Louis I. of Bavaria, in 
 favour of his eldest son, Maximilian.
 
 LOLA AND LOUIS I. OF BAVARIA. 153 
 
 The substance of the following notes relating to 
 said disturbances was communicated to me by a 
 political personage who played a not inconsiderable 
 part in the events themselves. As a rule it is not very 
 safe to take interested evidence of that kind, " but in 
 this instance," as my informant put it, " there was really 
 no political reputation to preserve, as far as he was 
 concerned." Lola Montes had simply tried to over- 
 throw him as Madame Dubarry overthrew the Due de 
 Choiseul, because he would not become her creature ; 
 and s!ie had kept on repeating the tactics with every 
 succeeding ministry, even that of her own making. 
 But it should be remembered that revolution was in 
 the air in the year '48, and that if Lola Montes had 
 been the most retiring of favourites, or Louis I. the most 
 moral of kings, the uprising would have happened just 
 the same, though the upshot might have been different 
 with regard to Louis himself. 
 
 Here is a portrait of him, which, in my literary 
 ignorance, I think sufficiently interesting to reproduce. 
 
 "Louis was a chip of the old Wittelsbach block; 
 that is, a Lovelace, with a touch of the minnesinger 
 about him. Age had not damped his ardour; for, 
 though he was sixty-one when Lola Montes took up 
 her quarters at Munich, any and every "beauty" that 
 came to him was sure of an enthusiastic welcome. And 
 Heaven alone knows how many had come to him 
 during his reign ; they seemed really directed to him 
 from every quarter of the globe. The new arrival had 
 her portrait painted almost immediately ; it was added 
 to the collection for which a special gallery had been 
 set apart, and whither Louis went to meditate by him- 
 self at least once a day. He averred that he went
 
 154 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 thither for poetic inspiration, for he took himself au 
 serieux as a poet, and, above all, as a classical poet, 
 modelling his verse upon those of ancient times. He 
 had published a volume of poems, entitled ' Walhalla's 
 Genossen ; ' * but his principal study of antiquity was 
 mainly confined to the rites connected with the worship 
 of Venus. He was very good-natured and pleasant in 
 his dealings with every one ; he had not an ounce of 
 gall in the whole of his body. He was, moreover, very 
 religious in his own way, and consequently the tool of 
 the Jesuits, who really governed the kingdom, but who 
 endeavoured to make his own life sweet and pleasant 
 to him. They liked him to take part in the religious 
 processions, as any burgher of devout tendencies might, 
 but being aware of his tendency to be attracted by the 
 first pretty face he caught sight of, they took care to 
 relegate all the handsome maidens and matrons to 
 the first and second floors. In that way Louis's eyes 
 were always lifted heavenwards, and religious appear- 
 ances were preserved. 
 
 " Under such conditions, it was not difficult for a 
 woman of Lola Montes' attractions and daring to gain 
 her ends. She was not altogether without means when 
 she came to Munich, though the sum in her possession 
 was far from a hundred thousand francs, as she after- 
 wards alleged it was. At any rate, she was not the 
 penniless adventuress she had formerly been, and when, 
 in her beautiful dresses, she applied to the director of 
 the Hof-Theatre for an engagement, the latter was 
 fairly dazzled, and granted her request without a 
 murmur. She did, however, not want to dance, and, 
 before her first appearance, she managed to set tongues 
 
 * " Companions in Walhalla." EDITOK.
 
 A ROYAL LOVELACE. 155 
 
 wagging about her beauty, and, as a matter of course, 
 the rumours retched the king's ears. lam afraid I 
 shall have to prefer a grave charge, but I am not 
 doing so without foundation. It is almost certain 
 by now that the Jesuits, seeing in her a tool for the 
 further subjugation of the superannuated royal trou- 
 badour, countenanced, if they did not assist her in her 
 schemes ; they, the Jesuits, did many things of which 
 a Catholic, like myself, however firm in his allegiance 
 to Bume, could not but disapprove. At any rate, 
 three or four days after the king's first meeting with 
 her, Lola Monies was presented at court, and introduced 
 to the royal family and corps diplomatique by the 
 sovereign himself, as * his best friend.' Events pro- 
 ceeded apace. In August, '47, the king granted 
 her patents of ' special naturalization,' created her 
 Baroness von Rosenthal, and, almost immediately 
 afterwards, Countess von Landsfeld. She received an 
 annuity of twenty thousand florins, and had a magni- 
 ficent mansion built for her. At the instance of the 
 king, tlie queen was compelled to confer the order 
 of St. Therese upon her. I, and many others, had 
 strenuously opposed all this, though not unaware that, 
 up till then, the Jesuits were on her side, rather than 
 on ours. We paid the penalty of our opposition with 
 our dismissal from office, and then Lola Monies con- 
 fronted the Jesuits by herself. She was absolutely 
 mad to invade Wurtemberg, not for any political 
 reason ; she could no more have accounted for any 
 such than the merest hind, but simply because, a few 
 months before her appearance at Munich, she had 
 been, in her opinion, slighted by the old king. The 
 fact was, old William, sincerely attached to Amalia
 
 156 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 Stubenrauch, the actress, had not fallen a victim to 
 Lola Monies' charms, and had taken little or no notice 
 of her. The contemplated invasion of Wurtemberg was 
 an act of private revenge. But mad as she was, there 
 was some one more mad still King Louis I. of Bavaria. 
 "The most ill-advised thing she did, perhaps, was 
 to change her supporters. Like the ignorant, over- 
 bearing woman she was, she would not consent to share 
 her power over the king with the Jesuits; she tried to 
 form an opposition against them among the students 
 at the University, and she succeeded to a certain extent. 
 These adherents constituted the nucleus of a corps 
 which soon became known under the title of 'Allemanen.' 
 But the more noble-minded and patriotic youths at the 
 Munich University virtually ostracized the latter, and 
 several minor disturbances had already broken out in 
 consequence of this, when, in the beginning of February, 
 '48, a more than usually serious manifestation against 
 * Lola's creatures,' as they were called, took place. 
 The woman did not lack pluck, and she insisted upon 
 defying the rioters by herself. But they proved too 
 much for her ; and, after all, she was a woman. She 
 endeavoured to escape from their violence, but every 
 house was shut against her ; the Swiss on guard at the 
 Austrian Embassy refused her shelter. A most painful 
 scene happened ; the king himself, the moment the 
 news reached him, rushed to her rescue, and, having 
 elbowed his way through the threatening, yelling 
 crowd, offered her his arm, and conducted her to the 
 church of the Theatines, hard by. As a matter of 
 course, several officers had joined him, and all might 
 have been well, if she had taken the lesson to heart. 
 But her violent, domineering, vindictive temper got
 
 THE REVOLUTION AT MUNICH. 157 
 
 the better of her. No sooner did she find herself in 
 comparative safety, than, emboldened by the presence 
 of the officers, she snatched a pistol from one of them, 
 and, armed with it, leapt out of the building, confront- 
 ing the crowd, and threatening to fire. Heaven alone 
 knows what would have been the result of this mad 
 act, but for the timely arrival of a squadron of 
 cuirassiers, who covered her retreat. 
 
 "The excitement might have died out in a week or 
 a fortnight, though the year '48 was scarcely a pro- 
 pitious one for a display of such quasi-feudal defiance, 
 if she had merely been content to forego the revenge 
 for the insults she herself had provoked ; but on the 
 lUth of February she prevailed upon the king to issue 
 a decree, closing the University for a twelvemonth. 
 The smouldering fire of resentment against her con- 
 stant interference in the affairs of the country blazed 
 forth once rnore,and this time with greater violence than 
 ever. The working men, nay, the commercial middle 
 classes, hitherto indifferent to the king's vagaries, 
 which, after all, brought grist to their mill, espoused 
 the students' cause. Barricades were erected ; the cry 
 was not * Long live the Constitution,' or ' Long live the 
 Republic,' but * Down with the concubine.' It was 
 impossible to mistake the drift of that insurrection, but, 
 in order to leave no doubt about it in the sovereign's 
 mind, a deputation of the municipal council and one 
 of the Upper House waited upon Louis, and insisted 
 upon the dismissal of Lola Montes, who, in less than an 
 hour, left Munich, escorted by a troop of gendarmes, 
 who, however, had all their work to do to prevent her 
 from being torn to pieces by the mob. Her departure 
 was the signal for the pillaging of her mansion, at
 
 158 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 which the king looked on as he thought incognito. 
 It is difficult to determine what prompted him to 
 commit so rash an act. Was it a feeling of relief at 
 having got rid of her for there was a good deal of 
 cynicism about that semi-philosophical, semi-mystical 
 troubadour or a desire to chew the cud of his vanished 
 happiness? Whatever may have been the reason, he 
 paid dearly for it, for some one smashed a looking- 
 glass over his head, and he was carried back to the 
 palace, unconscious, and bleeding profusely. It was 
 never ascertained who inflicted the wounds, though 
 there is no doubt that the assailant knew his victim. 
 Meanwhile Lola Montes had succeeded in slipping 
 away from her escort, and three hours later she 
 re-entered Munich disguised, and endeavoured to make 
 her way to the palace. But the latter was carefully 
 guarded, and for the next month all her attempts in 
 that direction proved fruitless, though, audacious as 
 she was, she did not dare stop for a single night in the 
 capital itself. Besides, I do not believe that a single 
 inhabitant would have given her shelter. Unlike a 
 good many royal favourites of the past, she had no 
 personal adherents, no faithful servants who would 
 have stood by her through thick and thin, because she 
 never treated any one kindly in the days of her pros- 
 perity : she could only bribe ; she was incapable of 
 inspiring disinterested affection among those who were 
 insensible to the spell of her marvellous beauty." 
 
 So far the narrative of my informant. The rest is 
 pretty well known by everybody. A few years later, 
 she committed bigamy with another English officer, 
 named Heald, who was drowned at Lisbon about the 
 same time that her real husband died. Alexandre
 
 "LA DAME AUX CAM^LIAS." 159 
 
 Dumas was right she brought ill-luck to those who 
 attached themselves to her for any length of time, 
 whether in the guise of lovers or husbands. 
 
 These notes about Lola Montes remind me of 
 another woman whom public opinion would place in 
 the same category, though she vastly differed in 
 character. I am alluding to Alphonsine Plessis, better 
 known to the world at large as " La Dame aux 
 Camelias." I frequently met her in the society of 
 some of my friends between '43 and '47, the year of 
 her death. Her name was as I have written it, and 
 not Marie or Marguerite Duplessis, as has been written 
 since. 
 
 The world at large, and especially the English, have 
 always made very serious mistakes, both with regard to 
 the heroine of the younger Dumas' novel and play, and 
 the author himself. They have taxed him with having 
 chosen an unworthy subject, and, by idealizing it, 
 taught a lesson of vice instead of virtue ; they have 
 taken it for granted that Alphonsine Plessis was no 
 better than her kind. She was much better than that, 
 though probably not sufficiently good to take a house- 
 maid's place and be obedient to her pastors and 
 masters, to slave from morn till night for a mere pit- 
 tance, in addition to her virtue, which was ultimately to 
 prove its own reward the latter to consist of a home of 
 her own, with a lot of squalling brats about her, where 
 she would have had to slave as she had slaved before, 
 without the monthly pittances hitherto doled out to her. 
 She was not sufficiently good to see her marvellously 
 beautiful face, her matchless graceful figure set off 
 by a cambric fap and a calico gown, instead of having 
 the first enhanced by the gleam of priceless jewels in
 
 160 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 her hair and the second wrapped in soft laces and velvets 
 and satins ; but, for all that, she was not the common 
 courtesan the goody-goody people have thought fit to 
 proclaim her the common courtesan, who, according 
 to these goody-goody people, would have descended to 
 her grave forgotten, but for the misplaced enthusiasm 
 of a poetical young man, who was himself corrupted 
 by the atmosphere in which he was born and lived 
 afterwards. 
 
 The sober fact is that Dumas fils did not idealize 
 anything at all, and, least of all, Alphonsine Plessis' 
 character. Though very young at the time of her 
 death, he was then already much more of a philosopher 
 than a poet. He had not seen half as much of 
 Alphonsine Duplessis during her life as is commonly 
 supposed, and the first idea of the novel was probably 
 suggested to him, not by his acquaintance with her, 
 but by the sensation her death caused amon^ the Paris 
 public, the female part of which almost without 
 distinction went to look at her apartment, to appraise 
 her jewels and dresses, etc. "They would probably 
 like to have had them on the same terms," said a 
 terrible cynic. The remark must have struck young 
 Dumas, in whose hearing it was said, or who, at any 
 rate, had it reported to him ; for if we carelully look 
 at all his earlier plays, we find the spirit of that 
 remark largely pervading them. 
 
 Alphonsine Plessis had probably learned even less 
 in her girlhood than Lola Monies, but she had a 
 natural tact, and an instinctive refinement which no 
 education could have enhanced. She never made 
 grammatical mistakes, no coarse expression ever 
 passed her lips. Lola Montes could not make friends ;
 
 HOW THE PLAY WAS WRITTEN. 161 
 
 Alphonsine Plessis could not make enemies. She 
 never became riotous like the other, not even boister- 
 ous; for amidst the most animated scenes she was 
 haunted by the sure knowledge that she would die 
 young, and life, but for that knowledge, would have 
 been very sweet to her. Amidst these scenes, she 
 would oiten sit and chat to me : she liked me, because 
 I never paid her many compliments, although I was 
 but six years older than the most courted woman of 
 her time. The story of her being provided for by a 
 foreign nobleman because she was so like his deceased 
 daughter, was not a piece of fiction on Dumas' part ; 
 it was a positive fact. Alphonsine Plessis, after this 
 provision was made for her, might have led the most 
 retired existence ; she might, like so many demi- 
 mondaines have done since, bought herself a country- 
 house, re-entered " the paths of respectability," have 
 had a pew in the parish church, been in constant 
 communication with the vicar, prolonged her life by 
 several years, and died in the odour of sanctity : but, 
 notwithstanding her desperate desire to live, her very 
 nature revolted at such self-exile. When Alexandre 
 Dumas read the " Dame aux Camelias " to his father, 
 the latter wept like a baby, but his tears did not 
 drown the critical faculty. " At the beginning of the 
 third act," he said afterwards, " I was wondering how 
 Alexandre would get his Marguerite back to town 
 without lowering her in the estimation of the spectator. 
 Because, if such a woman as he depicted was to remain 
 true to nature to her nature and consequently able 
 to stand the test of psychological analysis, she could 
 not have borne more than two or three months of such 
 retirement. This does not mean that she would have 
 VOL. i. M
 
 162 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 severed her connection with Armand Duval, but he 
 would have become * un plat dans le menu ' after a 
 little while, nothing more. The way Alexandre got 
 out of the difficulty proves that he is my son every 
 inch of him, and that, at the very outset of his career, 
 he is a better dramatist than I am ever likely to be. 
 But depend upon it, that if, in real life and with such 
 a woman, le pere Duval had not interfered, la belle 
 Marguerite would have taken the * key of the street ' on 
 some pretext and that, notwithstanding the sale of 
 her carriages, the pledging of her diamonds and her 
 furs in order not to worry the man she loved, for the 
 time being, with money matters. Honestly speaking, it 
 wanted my son's cleverness to make a piece out of 
 Alphonsine Plessis' life. True, he was fortunate in that 
 she died, which left him free to ascribe that death to 
 any cause but the right one, namely, consumption. I 
 know that he made use of it, .but he took care to show 
 the malady aggravated by Armand Duval's desertion 
 of her, and this is the only liberty he took with the 
 psychological, consequently scientific and logical, de- 
 velopment of the play. People have compared his 
 Marguerite Gautier to Man on Leseant, to Marion 
 Delorme, and so forth : it just shows what they know 
 about it. They might just as well compare Thiers to 
 Cromwell. Manon Lescaut, Marion Delorme, Crom- 
 well, knew what they wanted : Marguerite Gautier and 
 Thiers do not ; both are always in search of I'inconnu, 
 the one in experimental politics, the other in experi- 
 mental love-making. Still, my son has been true to 
 Nature ; but he has taken an episode showing her at 
 her best. He was not bound to let the public know 
 that the frequent recurrence of these love episodes, but
 
 THE GENEALOGY OF "LA DAME AUX CAMELIAS." 163 
 
 always with a different partner, constitutes a disease 
 which is as well known to specialists as the disease 
 of drunkenness, and for which it is impossible to find 
 a cure. Messalina, Catherine II., and thousands of 
 women have suffered from it. When they happen to 
 be born in such exalted stations as these two, they buy 
 men ; when they happen to be born in a lowly station 
 and are attractive, they sell themselves ; when they 
 are ugly and repulsive they sink to the lowest depths 
 of degradation, or end in the padded cells of a mad- 
 house, where no man dares come near them. Nine 
 times out of ten the malady is hereditary, and I am 
 certain that if we could trace the genealogy of 
 Alphonsine Plessis, we should find the taint either on 
 the father's side or on the mother's, probably on the 
 former's, but more probably still on both." * 
 
 * The following is virtually a summary of an article by Count G. 
 de Contades, in a French bibliographical periodical, Le Livre (Dec. 
 10, 1885), and shows how near Alexandre Dumas was to the truth. I 
 have given it at great length. My excuse for so doing is the extra- 
 ordinary popularity of Dumas' play with all classes of playgoers. 
 As a consequence, there is not a single modem play, with the 
 exception of those of Shakespeare, the genesis of which has been 
 so much commented upon. It is no exaggeration to say that most 
 educated playgoers, not to mention professional students of the drama, 
 have at some time or other expressed a wish to know something more 
 of the real Margue'rite Gautier's parentage and antecedents than is 
 shown by Dumas, either in his play or in his novel, or than what they 
 could gather from the partly apocryphal details given by her con- 
 temporaries. Dumas himself, in his preface to the play, says that she 
 was a farm servant. He probably knew no more than that, nor did 
 Alphonsine Plessis herself. In after-years, the eminent dramatist 
 had neither the time nor the inclination to search musty parish 
 registers ; Count de Contades has done so for him. Here are the 
 results, as briefly as possible, of his researches. Alphonsine Plessis' 
 paternal grandmother, "moitie mendiante et moitie prostitue'e," 
 inhabited, a little less than a century ago, the small parish of Longe'- 
 sur-Maire, which has since become simply Longe iu the canton of 
 Briouze, arrondissement of Argentan. (about thirty miles from 
 Alen9on). She had been nicknamed " La Guenuchetonne," a rustic 
 version of the archaic French word gunippe (slattern). Louis 
 Descours, a kind of country clod who had entered the priesthood
 
 164 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 There were few of us who, during Alphonsine Plessis' 
 lifetime, were so interested in her as to have gone to 
 
 without the least vocation, and just because his people wished him 
 to do so, becomes enamoured of "La Guenuchetonne," and early in 
 January, 1790, the cure Philippe christens a male child, which is 
 registered as Marin Plessis, mother Louis-Renee Plessis, father 
 unknown. That the father was known well enough is proved by the 
 Christian name bestowed upon the babe, Marin, which was that of 
 Louis Descours' father. This gallant adventure of the country priest 
 was an open secret for miles around. 
 
 Marin Plessis grew into a handsome fellow, and when about twenty 
 took to travelling in the adjacent provinces of lower and upper 
 Normandy with a pack of smallwares. Handsome and amiable 
 besides, he was a welcome guest everywhere, and soon became a great 
 favourite with the female part of the Normandy peasantry. For a 
 little while he flitted from one rustic beauty to another, until he was 
 fairly caught by one more handsome than the rest, Marie Deshayes. 
 She was not, perhaps, immaculately virtuous, but, apart from her 
 extraordinary personal attractions, she was something more than an 
 ordinary peasant girl. 
 
 Some sixty years before Marin Plessis' union with Marie Deshayes, 
 there lived in the neighbourhood of Evreux a spinster lady of good 
 descent, though not very well provided with worldly goods. She was 
 comely and sweet-tempered enough, but then, as now, comeliness and 
 a sweet temper do not count for much in the French matrimonial 
 market, and least of all in the provincial one. Owing to the modesty 
 of her marriage portion, she had no suitors for her hand, and, being 
 of an exceedingly amorous disposition, she bestowed her affection 
 where she could, " without regret, and without false shame," as the 
 old French chronicler has it. 
 
 The annals of the village for, curiously enough, these annals do 
 exist, though only in manuscripts are commeudably reticent about 
 the exact number and names of her lovers. It would seem that the 
 author, a contemporary of Mdlle. Anne du Mesnil d'Argentelles and 
 the great-grandfather of the present possessor of the notes, a gentleman 
 near Bernay, was divided between the wish of not being too hard upon 
 his neighbour, who was, after all, a gentlewoman, and the desire to leave 
 a record of a peculiar phase of the country manners of tiiose days to 
 posterity. Be this as it may, Mdlle. d'A'rgeutelles' swains, previous 
 to the very last one, have been doomed to anonymous obscurity. 
 But with the advent of Etienne Deshayes, the annalist becomes less 
 reticent, he is considered worthy of being mentioned in full, perhaps 
 as a reward for having finally " made an honest woman " of his 
 inamorata. For that is the, final upshot of the love-story between him 
 and Mdlle. d'Argentelles, which, in its earlier stages, bears a certain 
 resemblance to that between Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Madame 
 de Warens, with this difference that the Normaud Jean-Jacques is 
 considerably older than his mistress. 
 
 The children born of this marriage were very numerous. One of
 
 THE REAL ALPHONSINE PLESSIS. 165 
 
 the length of such a psychological analysis of her 
 pedigree. Nevertheless, most men were agreed that 
 she was no ordinary girl. Her candour about her 
 early want of education increased the interest. 
 " Twenty or twenty-five years ago," said Dr. Veroii, 
 one day, after Alphonsine Plessis had left the dinner 
 table, " a woman of her refinement would not have been 
 phenomenal in her position, because at that period the 
 grisette, promoted to the rank of femme entretenue, 
 had not made her appearance. The expression 'femme 
 entretenue' was not even known. Men chose their 
 companions, outside marriage, from a different class ; 
 they were generally women of education and often of 
 good family who had made a faux pas, and, as such, 
 forfeited the society and countenance of their equals 
 who had not stumbled in that way, at any rate not in 
 the sight of the world. I confess, Alphonsine Plessis 
 interests me very much. She is, first of all, the best- 
 dressed woman in Paris ; secondly, she neither flaunts 
 nor hides her vices ; thirdly, she is not always talking 
 or hinting about money ; in short, she is a wonderful 
 courtesan." 
 
 The result of all this admiration was very favourable 
 to Alexandre Dumas fils when he brought out his book 
 about eighteen months after her death. It was iu 
 
 them, Louis-Deshayes, married a handsome peasant girl, Marie- 
 Madeleine Marra, who appears to have been somewhat too intimate 
 with a neighbouring squire, but who gave birth a few years after to 
 a daughter, of whose paternity there could not be the smallest doubt, 
 seeing that she grew up into a speaking likeness of her maternal 
 grandmother, the erstwhile Mdlle. Anne du Mesuil d'Argentelles. 
 Fate ought to have had a better lot in store for beautiful Marie 
 Deshayes than a marriage with a poor pedlar like Marin Plessis ; but 
 the latter was very handsome, aud, notwithstanding the opposition 
 of the family, she became his wife. On the loth of January, 1824, the 
 child which was to be immortalized as " La Dame aux Camelias " 
 saw the light, in a small village in Lower Normandy. EDITOB.
 
 166 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 every one's hands, and the press kept whetting the 
 curiosity of those who had not read it as yet with 
 personal anecdotes about the heroine. In addition to 
 this, the title was a very taking one, and, moreover, 
 absolutely new ; for, though it was obvious enough 
 from Alphonsine Plessis' habit of wearing white 
 camellias the greater part of the year, no one had ever 
 thought of applying it to her while she was alive ; 
 hence, the credit of its invention belongs decidedly to 
 Dumas jftZs. 
 
 I may return to the subject of "La Dame aux 
 Camelias " in connection with the play ; meanwhile, I 
 will say a few words of the only man among our set 
 who objected to the title, " because it injures my own," 
 as he put it; namely, M. Lautour-Mezerai, who had 
 been surnamed"L'Homme au Camellia;" in the singular, 
 from his habit of never appearing in public without 
 that flower in his button-hole. And be it remembered 
 that in those days, the flower was much more rare than 
 it is at present, and consequently very expensive. The 
 plagiarist, if there was one, must have been Alphon- 
 sine Plessis, for Dr. Veron, who was one of his oldest 
 friends, did not remember having even seen him 
 minus the camellia, and their friendship dated from 
 the year 1831. It is computed that during the nine- 
 teen years Mezerai was in Paris, previous to his 
 departure for the South of France and afterwards for 
 Algeria, in both of which provinces he fulfilled the 
 functions of prefect, he must have spent no less than 
 fifty thousand francs on his favourite floral ornament, 
 for he frequently changed it twice a day, and its price, 
 especially in the thirties and earlier part of the forties, 
 was not less than five francs. It is, therefore, not
 
 L'HOMME AU CAMELLIA. 167 
 
 surprising that he resented the usurpation of his title. 
 M. Lautour-Mezerai was one of the most elegant men 
 I knew. He not only belonged to a very good pro- 
 vincial stock, but his family on both sides counted 
 some eminent names in literature.* He was a most 
 charming companion, exceedingly generous; but he 
 would not have parted with the flower in his button- 
 hole for any consideration, not even to oblige his greatest 
 friend, male or female. It was more than an ornament 
 to him, he looked upon it as a talisman. He always 
 occupied the same place at the Opera, in the balcony, 
 or what we call the " dress-circle," and many a 
 covetous glance from the brightest eyes was cast at 
 the dazzling white camellia, standing out in bold relief 
 against the dark blue coat, but neither glances nor 
 direct requests had any effect upon him. He became 
 absolutely savage in his refusal when too hardly 
 pressed, because, by his own admission, he was super- 
 stitious enough to believe that, if he went home 
 without it, something terrible would happen to him 
 during the night. 
 
 M. Lautour-Mezerai was, however, something more 
 than a mere man of fashion. To him belongs the 
 credit of having founded at any rate in France the 
 children's periodical. For the comparatively small 
 subscription of six francs per annum, thousands of 
 little ones received every month a number of the 
 Journal des Enfants, stitched in blue paper, and with 
 their own name on the wrapper. It flattered their 
 pride to be treated like their elders by having their 
 literature despatched to them in that way, and there is 
 
 * Curiously enough, he belonged to the same department, and died 
 almost on the very spot where Marin Plessis was born. EDITOR.
 
 168 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 no doubt that this ingenious device contributed, to a 
 certain extent, to the primary and enormous success 
 of the undertaking. But M. Lautour-Mezerai was too 
 refined a litterateur to depend upon such a mere trick, 
 and a look at even the earlier numbers of the Journal 
 des En/ants, would prove conclusively that, in the 
 way of amusing children while instructing them a 
 little, nothing better has been done since, whether 
 in France, England, or Germany. The editor and 
 manager succeeded in grouping around him such 
 men as Paul Lacroix (le bibliophile Jacob) and Charles 
 Nodier, both of whom have never been surpassed in 
 making history attractive to young minds. Emile 
 Souvestre, Leon Gozlan, Eugene Sue, and even Alex- 
 andre Dumas told them the most wonderful stories. 
 The men who positively kept the adult population of 
 France spellbound by their stirring romances seemed 
 to take a delight in competing with women like 
 Virginie Ancelot, the Duchesse d'Abrantes, and others 
 on the latter's ground. As a consequence, it became 
 the fashion to present the young ones on New Year's 
 Day with a receipt for a twelvemonth's subscription, 
 made out in their names, instead of the everlasting bag 
 of sweets. At one time the circulation of Le Journal 
 des Enfants was computed at 60,000, and M. Lautour- 
 Mezerai was said to make 100,000 francs per annum 
 out of it. 
 
 In a former note, I incidentally mentioned Auguste 
 Lireux. He is scarcely remembered by the present 
 generation of Frenchmen ; I doubt whether there are 
 a hundred students of French literature in England 
 who know his name, let alone his writings : yet he is 
 worthy of being remembered by both. He had what
 
 A THEATRICAL MANAGER. 169 
 
 a great many French writers of talent, far greater 
 than his own, essentially lack humour. True, the 
 latter was not subtle ; but it was rarely, if ever, coarse. 
 The nearest approach to him among the journalists of 
 the present day is M. Francisque Sarcey; but the 
 eminent dramatic critic has had a better education. 
 Nevertheless, if Lireux had finished as he began, he 
 would not be so entirely forgotten. Unfortunately 
 for his fame, if not for his material welfare, he took it 
 into his head to become a millionnaire, and he almost 
 succeeded ; at any rate, he died very well off, in a 
 beautiful villa at Bougival. 
 
 I remember meeting with Lireux almost immediately 
 after he landed in Paris, at the end of '40 or the 
 beginning of '41. He came, I believe, from Rouen ; 
 though, but for his accent, he might have come from 
 Marseilles. Tall, well-built, with brown hair and 
 beard and ruddy complexion, a pair of bright eyes 
 behind a pair of golden spectacles > very badly dressed, 
 though his clothes were almost new, very loud and very 
 restless, his broad-brimmed hat cocked on one side, 
 he gave one the impression of what in Paris we used 
 to call a " departemental oracle." He was that to a 
 certain extent, still he was not really pompous, and 
 the feeling of discomfort one experienced at first soon 
 wore off. He was not altogether unknown among the 
 better class of journalists in the capital, for it appears 
 that he frequently contributed to the Paris papers from 
 the provinces. He had a fair knowledge of the French 
 drama theoretically, for he had never written a piece, 
 and openly stated his intention never to do so. But 
 in virtue of his dramatic criticisms in several periodi- 
 cals which, in spite of the difference in education
 
 170 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 between the two men, read uncommonly like the 
 articles of M. Sarcey in the Temps and his un- 
 wavering faith in his lucky star, he considered himself 
 destined not only to lift the Odeon from the slough 
 in which it had sunk, but to make it a formidable 
 rival to the house in the Rue de Richelieu. He had 
 no ambition beyond that. The Odeon was really at 
 its lowest depth. Hare! had enjoyed a subsidy of 
 130,000 francs, M. d'Epagny eleven years later had 
 to content himself with less than half, and yet the 
 authorities were fully cognizant of the necessity of 
 a second Theatre-Franpais. Whether from incapacity 
 or ill-luck, M. d'Epagny did not succeed in bringing 
 back the public to the old house. The direction was 
 offered then to M. Hippoly te Lucas, the dramatic critic 
 of Le Siecle, and one of the best English scholars I 
 have ever met with among the French, and, on his 
 declining the responsibility, given to Lireux, who for 
 the sake of making a point, exclaimed, " Directeur ! 
 . . . au refus d'Hippolyte Lucas ! " * 
 
 It was a piece of bad taste on Lireux's part, because 
 M. Lucas was his superior in every respect, though 
 he would probably have failed where the other 
 succeeded at least for a while. Save for this mania 
 of saying smart things in and out of season, Lireux 
 was really a good-natured fellow, and we were all 
 glad that he had realized his ambition. The venture 
 looked promising enough at the start. He got an 
 excellent company together, comprising Bocage, Mon- 
 rose, Gil-Peres, Maubant, Mdlles. Georges and Araldi, 
 Madame Dorval, etc. ; and if, like young Bonaparte's 
 
 * An imitation of the line of Don Carlos in Hugo's " Hernani : " 
 " Empereur ! . . . au refus de Fre'de'ric-le-Sage ! " EDITOR
 
 LIREUX AND HIS PATRONS. 171 
 
 troops, they were badly paid and wanted for every- 
 thing, they worked with a will, because, like Bonaparte, 
 Lireux inspired them with confidence. He, on the 
 other hand, knew their value, and on no pretext would 
 allow them to be ousted from the positions they had 
 honourably won by their talents and hard work. 
 Presumptuous mediocrity, backed either by influence 
 or intrigue, found him a stern adversary ; the intriguer 
 got his answer in such a way as to prevent him from 
 returning to the charge. One day an actor of reputed 
 incapacity, Machanette, claimed the title-role in 
 Moliere's " Misanthrope." 
 
 " You have no one else to play Alceste," he said. 
 " Yes, I have. I have got one of the checktakers," 
 replied Lireux. 
 
 Auguste Lireux was one of those managers the 
 race of which began with Harel at the Porte Saint- 
 Martin and Dr. Yeron at the Opera. Duponchel, at 
 the latter house, Montigny at the Gyirmase, Buloz 
 and Arsene Houssaye at the Comedie-Francaise, en- 
 deavoured as far as possible to follow their traditions 
 of liberality towards the public and their artists, 
 and encouragement given to untried dramatists. It 
 was not Lireux's fault that he did not succeed for any 
 length of time. Of course, there is a ridiculous side to 
 everything. During the terrible cholera visitation of 
 1832, Harel published a kind of statistics, showing that 
 not a single one of the spectators had been attacked 
 by the plague ; but all this cannot blind us to the 
 support given to the struggling playwright, Dumas, 
 in the early part of his career. During the winter of 
 1841-42, which was a severe one, Lireux sent foot- 
 warmers to the rare audience that patronized him on
 
 172 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 a bitterly cold night," when tragedy still further chills 
 the house ; " the little bit of charlatanism cannot dis- 
 turb the fact of his having given one of the foremost 
 dramatists of the day a chance with " La Cigue." I am 
 alluding to the first piece of Emile Augier. 
 
 This kind of thing tells with a general public, 
 more so still with a public composed of generous- 
 minded, albeit somewhat riotous youths like those 
 of the Quartier-Latin in the early forties. Gradually 
 the latter found their way to the Odeon, " sinon pour 
 voir la piece, alors pour entendre Lireux, qui est 
 toujours amusant ; " which, in plain language, meant 
 that come what may they would endeavour to provoke 
 Lireux into giving them a speech. 
 
 Flattering as was this resolve on their part to 
 Lireux's eloquence, the means they employed to 
 encompass their end would have made the existence 
 of an ordinary manager a burden to him. But Lireux 
 was not an ordinary manager ; he possessed " the gift 
 of the gab" to a marvellous degree: consequently he 
 made it known that he would be happy at any time 
 to address MM. les etudiants without putting them 
 to the expense of apples and eggs on the evening 
 of the performance, and voice-lozenges the next day, 
 if they, MM. les etudiants, would in return respect 
 his furniture and the dresses of his actors. The 
 arrangement worked exceedingly well, and for four 
 years the management and the student part of the 
 audience lived in the most perfect harmony. 
 
 Lireux did more than that, he forestalled their 
 possible objections to a doubtful episode in a play. 
 I remember the first night of "Jeanne de Naples." 
 The piece had dragged fearfully. Lireux had made
 
 THE PRUNING-KNIFE WITH A VENGEANCE. 173 
 
 three different speeches during the evening, but he fore- 
 saw a riot at the end of the piece which no eloquence 
 on his part would be able to quell. It appears for we 
 only found this out the next day that the condemned 
 woman, previous to being led to execution, had to 
 deliver a monologue of at least a hundred and fifty 
 or two hundred lines. The unhappy queen had 
 scarcely begun, when a herculean soldier rushed on 
 the stage, took her into his arms and carried her off 
 by main force, notwithstanding her struggles. It was 
 a truly sensational ending, and the curtain fell amidst 
 deafening applause. It redeemed the piece ! 
 
 Next day Lireux made his appearance at Tortoni's 
 in the afternoon, and, as matter of course, the pro- 
 duction of the previous evening was discussed. 
 
 " I cannot understand," said Koger de Beauvoir, 
 " how a man with such evident knowledge of stage- 
 craft as the author displayed in that denoument, could 
 have perpetrated such an enormity as the whole of 
 the previous acts." 
 
 Lireux was fairly convulsed with laughter. "Do 
 you really think that was his own invention ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Of course I do," was the reply. 
 
 " Well, it is not. His deuoument was a speech 
 which would have taken about twenty minutes, at 
 the end of which the queen is tamely led off between 
 the soldiers. I know what would have been the 
 result : the students would have simply torn up the 
 benches and Heaven knows what else. You know 
 that if the gas is left burning, if only a moment, after 
 twelve, there is an extra charge irrespective of the 
 quantity consumed. I looked at my watch when she
 
 174 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 began to speak her lines. It was exactly thirteen 
 minutes to twelve ; she might have managed to get 
 to the end by twelve, but it was doubtful. What was 
 not doubtful was the row that would have ensued, and 
 the time it would have taken me to cope with it. My 
 mind was made up there and then. I selected the 
 biggest of the supers, told him to go and fetch her, 
 and you know the rest." 
 
 There were few theatrical managers in those days 
 who escaped the vigilance of Balzac. Among the 
 many schemes he was for ever hatching for benefiting 
 mankind and making his own fortune, there was one 
 which cannot be more fitly described than in the 
 American term of "making a corner;" only that 
 particular " corner " was to be one in plays. 
 
 About two years before the advent of Lireux, and 
 when the house at Ville d'Avray, of which I have 
 spoken elsewhere, was completed, a party of literary 
 men received an invitation to spend the Sunday there. 
 It was not an ordinary invitation, but a kind of 
 circular-letter, the postscriptum to which contained the 
 following words, " M. de Balzac will make an important 
 communication." Leon Gozlan, Jules Sandeau, Louis 
 Desnoyers, Henri Mounier, and those familiar with 
 Balzac's schemes, knew pretty well what to expect ; 
 and when Lassailly, one of the four men whose nose 
 vied with the legendary one of Bouginier, confirmed 
 their apprehensions that it was a question of making 
 their fortunes, they resigned themselves to their fate. 
 Jules Sandeau, who was gentleness itself, merely 
 observed with a sigh that it was the fifteenth time 
 Balzac had proposed to make him a millionnaire ; 
 Henri Monnier offered to sell his share of the pro-
 
 BALZAC AGAIN. 175 
 
 spective profits for 7 francs, 50 centimes ; Leon Gozlan 
 suggested that their host might have discovered a 
 diamond mine, whereupon Balzac, who had just entered 
 the room, declared that a diamond mine was nothing 
 to it. He was simply going to monopolize the whole 
 of the Paris theatres. He exposed the plan in a 
 magnificent speech of two hours' duration, and would 
 have continued for two hours more had not one of the 
 guests reminded him that it was time for dinner. 
 
 " Dinner," exclaimed Balzac ; " why, I never thought 
 of it." 
 
 Luckily there was a restaurant near, and the future 
 millionnairesandtheir would-be benefactor were enabled 
 to sit down to "a banquet quite in keeping, not only 
 with the magnificent prospects just disclosed to them, 
 but with the splendour actually surrounding them," as 
 Mery expressed it. 
 
 For it should be added that the sumptuous dwelling 
 which was to be, was at that moment absolutely bare 
 of furniture, save a few deal chairs and tables. The 
 garden was a wilderness, intersected by devious paths, 
 sloping so suddenly as to make it impossible to keep 
 one's balance without the aid of an Alpenstock or 
 the large stones imbedded in the soil, but only 
 temporarily, by the considerate owner. One day, 
 Dutacq, the publisher, having missed his footing, 
 rolled as far as the wall inclosing the domain, without 
 his friends being able to stop him. 
 
 The garden, like everything else connected with the 
 schemes of Balzac, was eventually to become a gold- 
 mine. Part of it was to be built upon, and converted 
 into a dairy ; another part was to be devoted to the 
 culture of the pine-apple and the Malaga grape, all of
 
 176 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 which would yield an income of 30,000 francs annually 
 "at least" to borrow Balzac's own words. 
 
 The apartments had been furnished in the same 
 grandiose way theoretically. The walls were, as I 
 have already remarked, absolutely bare, but on their 
 plaster, scarcely dry, were magnificent inscriptions of 
 what was to be. They were mapped out regardless 
 of expense. On that facing the north there was a 
 splendid piece of thirteenth-century Flemish tapestry 
 in writing, of course, flanked by two equally price- 
 less pictures by Kaphael and Titian. Facing these, 
 one by Rembrandt, and, underneath, a couch, a couple 
 of arm-chairs, and six ordinary ones, Louis XV., and 
 iipholstered in Aubusson tapestry subjects, Lafon- 
 taine's Fables. Opposite again, a monumental mantel- 
 piece in malachite (a present of Czar Nicholas, who 
 had expressed his admiration of Balzac's novels), with 
 bronzes and clock by De Gouttieres. The place on 
 the ceiling was marked for a chandelier of Venetian 
 glass, and in the dining-room a square was drawn on 
 the carpetless floor for the capacious sideboard, whereon 
 would be displayed " the magnificent family plate." 
 
 Pending the arrival of the furniture, the building of 
 the dairy, hothouses, and vineries, the guests had to 
 sit on hard wooden chairs, to eat a vile dinner, supple- 
 mented, however, by an excellent dessert. Balzac was 
 very fond of fruit, and especially of pears, of which he 
 always ate an enormous quantity. The wine was, as 
 a rule, very inferior, but on that particular occasion 
 Balzac's guests discovered that their host's imagination 
 could even play him more cruel tricks in the selection 
 of his vintages than it played him in his pursuit of 
 financial schemes and the furnishing of his house.
 
 BALZAC'S VISIONS. 177 
 
 When the fruit was placed upon the table, Balzac 
 assumed a most solemn air. "Gentlemen," he said, 
 " I am going to give you some Chateau-Lafitte, such 
 as you have never tasted such as it has been given 
 to few mortals to taste. I wish you to sip it carefully 
 I might almost say reverently, because the oppor- 
 tunity may not repeat itself in our lives." 
 
 Wherewith the guests' glasses were filled; all of 
 them made horrible faces, for it was abominable stuff, 
 but one more outspoken than the rest gave his opinion 
 there and then 
 
 " This may be ' Chateau de la Hue Lafitte,' but it is 
 enough to give one the colic." 
 
 Any one else but Balzac would have been horribly 
 disconcerted ; he, on the contrary, did not budge. 
 " Yes," he said proudly, " you are right in one respect ; 
 this ambrosial nectar comes in a straight line from the 
 Rue Lafitte, for it is Baron James de Rothschild who 
 made me a present of two barrels, for which I arn 
 profoundly grateful. Drink, gentlemen, drink, and be 
 thankful also." 
 
 Those who would consider this a piece of clever 
 acting on Balzac's part, would be greatly mistaken. 
 His imagination at times affected his palate as well 
 as his other organs, and at that moment he was under 
 the distinct impression that he was offering his guests 
 one of the rarest vintages on record. 
 
 I have endeavoured hitherto to digress as little as 
 possible in my recollections, though their very nature 
 made it difficult. In this instance, digression was 
 absolutely necessary to convey an idea of the shock 
 which would naturally result from the contact of two 
 such brains as those of Balzac and Lireux ; for it was 
 
 VOL. i. N
 
 178 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 not long after the young manager's advent to the 
 Odeon that Balzac found his way to his sanctum. 
 The play he offered him was " Les Kessources de 
 Quinola." Strange as it may seem to us, even as late 
 as '42, Balzac's name as a novelist did not rank first 
 in the list with the general public, still it is very 
 doubtful whether any young manager would have 
 refused a stage play by him; consequently, Lireux 
 accepted " Les Ressources de Quinola " almost without 
 fear. It is not to the purpose to say that it was a 
 bad play, and that he ought to have known better ; it 
 has been amply proved by now that the most ex- 
 perienced manager is not infallible ; but it is a moot 
 point whether the greatest masterpiece would have 
 succeeded with the tactics adopted by Balzac to insure 
 its success. The following may appear like a scene 
 from a farcical comedy ; I can vouch for the truth of 
 every word of it, because I had it from the lips of 
 Lireux himself, who, after all, was the heaviest 
 sufferer by Balzac's incurable greed, or, to put it as 
 leniently as one can, by his constant chase after a 
 capital stroke of business. His resolve to pack the 
 house on the first night was not due to a desire to 
 secure a favourable reception from a friendly audience, 
 but to the determination to secure " a lump sum," let 
 come what might. In Balzac are found the two 
 contradictory traits of the money-grubber and the 
 spendthrift. 
 
 The scene alluded to just now, took place when the 
 rehearsals were far advanced; the author and the 
 manager were discussing the invitations to be sent 
 out, etc. All at once Balzac declared that he would 
 have none but Knights of the Order of Saint-Louis in
 
 BALZAC AND LIREUX. 179 
 
 the pit. " I am agreeable," replied Lireux ; " provided 
 you ferret them out." * 
 
 " I'll see to that," said Balzac. " Pray go on. What 
 is the next part of the house ? " 
 
 " Orchestra stalls." 
 
 " Nothing but peers of France there." 
 
 "But the orchestra stalls will not hold them all, 
 Monsieur de Balzac." 
 
 " Those who cannot find room in the house will have 
 to stand in the lobbies," said Balzac, imperturbably. 
 
 " Stage boxes ? " continued Lireux. 
 
 " They will be reserved for the Court." 
 
 " Stage boxes on the first tier ? " 
 
 " For the ambassadors and plenipotentiaries." 
 
 " The open boxes on the ground floor? " 
 
 " For the wives and families of the ambassadors." 
 
 " Upper circle ? " enumerated Lireux, not a muscle 
 of his face moving. 
 
 " For the deputies and grand officers of State." 
 
 " Third circle ? " enumerated Lireux. 
 
 " The heads of the great banking and financial 
 establishments. 1 ' 
 
 * It shows that Lireux was not very familiar with the royal edicts 
 affecting that order, and that Balzac himself exaggerated the social 
 and monetary importance of its wearers. For, though Louis-Philippe at 
 his accession suppressed the order, not less than twelve thousand new 
 knights had been created by his two immediate predecessors. They, 
 the recently created knights, were allowed to retain their honours and 
 pensions; but, even before the fall of the Bourbons, the distinction 
 had lost much of its prestige. After the Battle of Navarino, Admiral 
 de Eigny, soliciting rewards for his officers who had distinguished 
 themselves, tacitly ignored the order of Saint-Louis in favour of that 
 of the Legion of Honour. The order, as founded by Louis XIV. in 
 1693, was only available to officers and Catholics. Several modifica- 
 tions were introduced afterwards in its statutes. The Order of Saint- 
 Louis and that of "Military Merit" were the only two recognized by 
 the Constituent Assembly of 1789 ; but the Convention suppressed the 
 former, only leaving the latter. EDITOR.
 
 180 AX ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 " The galleries and amphitheatre ? " 
 
 "A carefully selected, but varied, bourgeoisie," 
 wound up Balzac. 
 
 Lireux, who was a capital mimic, re-enacted the 
 scene for us four and twenty hours after it had been 
 enacted in his own room, and while he was still under 
 the impression that it was merely a huge joke on 
 Balzac's part. He soon discovered, however, that the 
 latter was terribly in earnest, when, a few days later, 
 Balzac claimed the whole of the seats for the first 
 three nights, on the penalty of withdrawing his piece 
 there and then. Lireux foolishly submitted, the box 
 office was closed ; every one applying for tickets was 
 referred to Balzac himself, or, rather, to the shady indi- 
 vidual who had egged him on to this speculation. The 
 latter, at the first application, had run up the prices ; 
 the public felt disgusted, and, when the curtain rose 
 upon "Les Ressources de Quinola," the house was 
 almost empty. Thereupon a batch of nondescripts 
 was sent into the streets to dispose of the tickets at 
 any price; the bait was indignantly rejected, and the 
 curtain fell amidst violent hisses. I repeat, a master- 
 piece would have failed under such circumstances ; 
 but the short run of the revival, almost a quarter of 
 a century later at the Vaudeville, proved that the 
 piece was not even an ordinary money-drawing one. 
 It only kept the bills for about nine or ten days. 
 
 Lireux was more fortunate with several other pieces, 
 notably with that of Leon Gozlan, known to students 
 of the French drama as " La Main Droite et la Main 
 Gauche," but which originally bore the title of "II 
 etait une Fois un Hoi et une Reine." There could be 
 no doubt about its tendency in its original form ; it
 
 ANGLOPHOBIA ON THE STAGE. 181 
 
 was nothing less than an indictment for bigamy both 
 against Queen Victoria and her Consort; and the 
 authorities had to insist not only upon the change of 
 title and the names of the dramatis personee, but upon 
 the action being shifted from London to Stockholm. 
 The author and manager had to comply ; but the 
 public, who had got wind of the affair, crowded the 
 house every night in order to read between the lines. 
 
 One of my great sources of amusement for many 
 years has been the perusal of political after-dinner 
 speeches, and political leaders in the English papers, 
 especially when the speakers and writers have en- 
 deavoured to lay stress upon the cordial relations 
 between the French and the English, upon the friendly 
 feelings guiding their actions on both sides. I am 
 putting together these notes nearly fourteen years 
 after the conclusion of the Franco-German War, 
 nearly three quarters of a century after Waterloo. 
 There is not a single Frenchman, however Chauvinistic, 
 who ever thinks, let alone talks, of avenging Napo- 
 leon's defeat by Wellington ; while, on the other 
 hand, there is not a single Frenchman, however 
 unpatriotic, who does not dream now and then of 
 wiping out the humiliation suffered at Sedan. Well, 
 in spite of the almost entire oblivion of the one 
 disaster, and the poignant recollection of the other, 
 the French of to-day hate the English more than the 
 Germans; or let me put. it more correctly they hate 
 the Germans, they despise us. Nothing that we can 
 do will ever remove this dislike of us. 
 
 It has been thus as long as I can remember ; no royal 
 visits, no exchange of so-called international courtesies 
 will alter the feeling. It is ready to burst forth, the
 
 182 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 smallest provocation or fancied one will set it ablaze. 
 During the forties there were a good many real or 
 imaginary provocations on the part of England, and, as 
 a consequence, the hostile feeling against her broke 
 forth where it is almost always sure to break forth first 
 in France on the stage and in song. After " La Main 
 Droite et la Main Gauche," came Halevy's opera of 
 " Charles VI." It is but fair to say that the Govern- 
 ment did all it could to stem the tide, but, notwith- 
 standing its positive orders to modify the chorus of 
 the famous war song in the first act, the song was 
 henceforth regarded as a patriotic hymn. Nor did the 
 visit of the Queen to Louis-Philippe at Eu, in 1843, 
 effect much improvement in this state of things ; and, 
 as a matter of course, we on the English side of the 
 Channel retaliated the skits, etc., though I do not 
 think we took them au grand serieux. When, in 
 January, '44, 1 went to London for a few days, I found 
 the Christmas pantomime of "King Pippin" in full 
 swing at Drury Lane. I well remember a scene of it, 
 laid in the shop of a dealer in plaster figures. Two 
 of these represented respectively the King of France 
 and the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. At a 
 given moment, the two statues became animated, drew 
 close to one another, and exchanged the most profuse 
 salutations. But meanwhile, at the back of the stage, 
 the Gallic cock and the British lion (or leopard) 
 assumed a threatening attitude, and at eacli mark of 
 affection between the two royal personages, shook their 
 heads violently and seemed to want desperately to 
 come to close quarters. The audience applauded voci- 
 ferously, and it was very evident to me that neither 
 in Paris nor in London the two nations shared the 
 entente cordiale of their rulers.
 
 RACHEL. 183 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Rachel and some of her fellow-actors Rachel's true character Her 
 greediness and spitefulness Her vanity and her wit Her powers 
 of fascination The c tst of being fascinated by her Her 
 manner of levying toll Some of her victims, Comte Duchatel and 
 Dr. Ve'ron The story of her guitar A little transaction between 
 her and M. Fould Her supposed charity and generosity 
 Ten tickets for a charity concert How she inado them into 
 twenty How she could have made them into a hundred Baron 
 Taylor puzzled Her manner of giving presents Beauvallet's 
 precaution with regard to one of her gifts Alexandra Dumas 
 the younger, wiser or perhaps not so wise in his generation 
 Rachel as a raconteuse The story of her ctebut at the Gymnase 
 What Rachel would have been as an actor instead of an actress 
 Her comic genius Rachel's mother What became of Rachel's 
 money Mama Felix as a pawnbroker Rachel's trinkets Two 
 curious bracelets Her first appearance before Nicholas I. A 
 dramatic recital in the open air Rachel's opinion of the hand- 
 somest man in Europe Rachel and Samson Her obligations to 
 him How she repays them How she goes to Berryer to be 
 coached in the fable of "The Two Pigeons" An anecdote of 
 Berryer Rachel's fear of a " warm reception " on the first night 
 of " Adrienne Lecouvreur" How she averts the danger Samson 
 as a man and as an actor Petticoat-revolts at the Come'die- 
 Franaise Samson and Regnier as buffers Their different ways 
 of pouring oil upon the troubled waters Mdlle. Sylvanie 
 Plessy A parallel between her and Sarah Berulmrdt Samson 
 and Re'gnier's pride in their profession The different character 
 of that pride " Apollo with a bad tailor, and who dresses without 
 a looking-glass" Samson gives a lesson in declamation to a 
 procureur-imperial The secret of Regnier's greatness as an actor 
 A lesson at the Conservatoire Regnier on "make-up' 1 
 Regnier's opinion of genius on the stage A mot of Augustine 
 Brohan Giovanni, the wigmaker of the Comedie-Fran9aise 
 His pride in his profession M. Ancessy, the musical director, 
 and his three wigs. 
 
 THERE were few authors of my time who came in 
 contact with Kachel without writing about her ; there 
 were absolutely none who have represented her in her 
 true character. Either her genius blinded them to
 
 184 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PABIS. 
 
 her faults, or else they were content to perpetuate the 
 popular belief in her amiability, good nature, generosity, 
 etc. The fact is, that Rachel off the stage was made 
 of very ordinary clay. She had few of the good 
 qualities of her race, and a good many of the bad 
 ones; she was greedy to a degree, and could be very 
 spiteful. All these drawbacks, in the eyes of most 
 of her biographers, were redeemed by her marvellous 
 tragic abilities on the stage, by a wonderful " gift of 
 the gab," by a " happy-go-lucky," " hail-fellow, well- 
 met " manner off the stage to those whom she liked to 
 propitiate. Nevertheless, there were times when she 
 had not a single friend at the Comedie-Francaise, and 
 though her champions attributed this hostility to 
 jealousy of her great gifts, a moment's consideration 
 would show us that such a feeling could scarcely have 
 influenced the men who to a great extent shared her 
 histrionic triumphs, viz. Beauvallet, Eegnier, Provost, 
 Samson, and least of all the latter. Still, all these 
 would have willingly kept her out of the Comedie- 
 Franfaise after she had left it in a huff. She was difficult 
 to get on with ; her modesty, assumed in everyday life, 
 was a sham, for woe to the host who, deceived by it, 
 did not at once make her the queen of the entertain- 
 ment ! And, in reality, nothing in her warranted such 
 a temporary elevation. She was witty in her way and 
 after her kind that is, she had the quick-wittedness 
 of the French woman who is not an absolute fool, and 
 who has for many years rubbed elbows with everything 
 distinguished in art and literature. Notwithstanding 
 this intimacy, I am doubtful whether she had ever read, 
 let alone appreciated, any of the masterpieces by the 
 writers of her own days that did not directly bear upon
 
 THE REAL WOMAN. 185 
 
 her profession. I exclude fiction I mean narrative 
 fiction, arid especially that of a, sensational kind, of 
 which she was probably as fond as the meanest con- 
 cierge and most romantic milliner-girl; 
 
 Nevertheless, provided one did not attempt to 
 analyze it, the power of fascinating the coldest inter- 
 locutor was there. To their honour be- it said, her 
 contemporaries, especially the men, rarely made such 
 an attempt at analysis. They applauded all she said 
 (off and on the stage), they tolerated all she did, albeit 
 that they paid the cost of many of her so-called 
 "amiable tricks," which were mainly so many instances 
 of greed and nothing else. One evening she was 
 dining at Comte Duchatel's, the minister of Louis- 
 Philippe. The table was positively laden with flowers, 
 but Kachel did not care much about them ; what she 
 wanted was the splendid silver centre-piece. But she 
 was too clever to unmask her batteries at once, so she 
 began by admiring the contents, then at last she came 
 to the principal point. The host was either in one of 
 his generous or foolish moods, and made her a present 
 of it there and then. Rachel knew, though, that even 
 with a grand seigneur like Comte Duchatel, there are 
 " les lendemains de 1'enthousiasme," especially when he 
 is a married man, whose wife does not willingly submit 
 to have her home stripped of its art-treasures. The 
 tragedienne came in a hackney cab ; the comte offered 
 to send her back in his carriage. She struck the iron 
 while it was hot. "Yes, that will do admirably; there 
 will be no fear of my being robbed of your present, 
 which I had better take with me." "Perfectly, 
 mademoiselle," replied the comte ; " but you will send 
 me back my carriage, won't you ? "
 
 186 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 Dr. Veron was despoiled with even less ceremony. 
 Having taken a fancy to some silver saucers or cups 
 in which the proprietor of the Constitutionnel offered 
 ices to his visitors, she began by pocketing one, and 
 never rested until she had the whole of the set. In 
 short, everything was fish to her net. She made her 
 friends give her bibelots and knickknacks of no par- 
 ticular value, to which she attached some particular 
 legend absolute inventions for the greatest part in 
 order to sell them for a thousand times their original 
 cost. One day she noticed a guitar at the studio of 
 one of her familiars. " Give me that guitar ; people 
 will think it is the one with which I earned my living 
 on the Place Royale and on the Place de la Bastille." 
 And as such it was sold by her to M. Achille Fould 
 for a thousand louis. The great financier nearly fell 
 into a fit when the truth was told to him at Rachel's 
 death ; he, in his turn, having wanted to " do a bit 
 of business." In this instance no Christian suffered, 
 because buyer and vendor belonged to the same race. 
 Of course the panegyrists of Rachel, when the story 
 came to their ears, maintained that the thousand louis 
 were employed for some charitable purpose, without, 
 however, revealing the particular quarter whither they 
 went; but those who judged Rachel dispassionately 
 could not even aver that her charity began at home, 
 because, though she never ceased complaining of her 
 brother's and her sisters' extravagance, both brother 
 and sisters could have told very curious tales about 
 the difficulty of making her loosen her purse-strings 
 for even the smallest sums. As for Rachel's doing 
 good by stealth and blushing to find it fame, it was 
 all so much fudge. Contrary to the majority of her
 
 HER SUPPOSED CHARITY. 187 
 
 fellow-professionals, in the past as well as the present, 
 she even grudged her services for a concert or a per- 
 formance in aid of a deserving object, although she 
 was not above swelling her own hoard by such 
 entertainments. 
 
 The following instance, for the absolute truth of 
 which I can vouch, is a proof of what I say. One day 
 the celebrated Baron Taylor, who had been the director 
 of the Comedie-Francaise, came to solicit her aid for a 
 charity concert ; I am not certain of the object, but 
 believe it was in aid of the Christians in Persia or 
 China. The tickets were to be a hundred francs each. 
 Sontag, Alboni, Rosine Stoltz, Mario, Lablache, Vieux- 
 temps, and I do not know how many more celebrated 
 artists had promised their services. 
 
 It was in 1850 when M. Arsene Houssaye was her 
 director, and I am particular about giving the year, 
 because Rachel refused on the pretext that her director 
 would never give her leave to appear on any other 
 stage. Now, it so happened that no woman ever had 
 a more devoted friend and chivalrous champion than 
 Rachel had in Arsene Houssaye. His friendship for 
 her was simply idolatry, and I verily believe that if 
 she had asked him to stand on his head to please her, 
 he would have done so, at the risk of making himself 
 supremely ridiculous he who feared ridicule above 
 everything, who was one of the most sensible men of 
 his time, who was and is the incarnation of good- 
 nature, to whom no one in distress or difficulties ever 
 appealed in vain. 
 
 Baron Taylor argued all this, but Rachel remained 
 inflexible. " I am very sorry," he said at last, rising 
 to go, " because I am positive that your name on the
 
 188 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 bill would have made a difference of several thousand 
 francs in the receipts." 
 
 " Oh, if you only want my name," was the answer, 
 " you may have it ; you can make an apology at the 
 eleventh hour for my absence on the score of sudden 
 indisposition the public at charity concerts are used 
 to that sort of thing ; besides, you will have so many 
 celebrities that it will make very little difference. By- 
 the-by " as he was at the door " I think my name 
 is worth ten or twenty tickets." Taylor knew Rachel 
 too well to be in the least surprised at the demand 
 and left ten tickets on the mantelpiece. 
 
 That same afternoon he met Count Wale vvski, and as 
 a matter of course asked him to take some tickets. 
 
 " Very sorry, cher baron,, but I have got ten already. 
 You see, poor Rachel did not know very well how to 
 get rid of the two hundred you burdened her with as a 
 lady patroness ; so she wanted me to have twenty, but 
 I settled the matter with ten. As it is, it cost me a 
 thousand francs." 
 
 Taylor did not say another word he probably 
 could not ; he was struck dumb with astonishment at 
 the quickness with which Rachel had converted the 
 tickets into money. But what puzzled him still more 
 was the fact of her having offered Walewski double 
 the quantity of tickets he had given her. Where had 
 she got the others from ? He was coming to the con- 
 clusion that she had offered twenty in order to place 
 ten, when he ran against Comte Le Hon, the husband 
 of the celebrated Mdlle. Musselmans, the erstwhile 
 Belgian ambassador to the court of Louis-Philippe, 
 who averred frankly that he was the father of a family, 
 though he had no children of his own.
 
 HER DISINTERESTEDNESS. 189 
 
 Taylor thought he would try another chance, and 
 was met with the reply, " Cher baron, I am very sorry, 
 but I have just taken five tickets from Mdlle. Rachel. 
 It appears that she is a lady patroness, and that they 
 burdened her with two hundred ; fortunately, she told 
 me, people were exceedingly anxious to get them, and 
 these were the last five." 
 
 " Then she had two hundred tickets after all," said 
 Baron Taylor to himself, making up his mind to find 
 out who had been before him with Eachel. But no 
 one had been before him. The five tickets sold to 
 Comte Le Hon were five of the ten she had sold to 
 Conite Walewski. When the latter had paid her, she 
 made him give her five tickets for herself and family, 
 or rather for her four sisters and herself. Of Comte 
 Le Hon she only took toll of one, which, wonderful to 
 relate, she did not sell. That was Rachel's way of 
 bestirring herself in the cause of charity. 
 
 " Look at the presents she made to every one," say 
 the panegyrists. They forget to mention that an hour 
 afterwards she regretted her generosity, and from that 
 moment she never left off scheming how to get the 
 tiling back. Every one knew this. Beauvallet, to 
 whom she gave a magnificent sword one day, instead 
 of thanking her, said, " I'll have a chain put to it, 
 mademoiselle, so as to fasten it to the wall of my 
 dressing-room. In that way I shall be sure that it 
 will not disappear during my absence." Alexandre 
 Dumas the younger, to whom she made a present of a 
 ring, bowed low and placed it back ou her finger at 
 once. " Allow me to present it to you in my turn , 
 mademoiselle, so as to prevent you asking for it." 
 She did not say nay, but carried the matter with one of
 
 190 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 her fascinating smiles. "It is most natural to take 
 back what one has given, because what one has given 
 was dear to us," she replied. 
 
 Between '46 and '53 I saw a great deal of Each el, 
 generally in the green-room of the Comedie-Francaise, 
 which was by no means the comfortable or beautiful 
 apartment people imagine, albeit that even in those 
 days the Comedie had a collection of interesting 
 pictures, busts, and statues worthy of being housed in 
 a small museum. The chief ornament of the room 
 was a large glass between the two windows, but if the 
 apartment had been as bare as a barn, the conversation 
 of Rachel would have been sufficient to make one 
 forget all about its want of decoration ; for, with the 
 exception of the elder Dumas, I have never met any 
 one, either man or woman, who exercised the personal 
 charm she did. I have been told since that Bismarck 
 has the same gift. I was never sufficiently intimate 
 with the great statesman to be able to judge, having 
 only met him three or four times, and under conditions 
 that did not admit of fairly testing his powers in that 
 respect, but I have an idea that the charm of both lay 
 in their utter indifference to the effect produced, or 
 else in their absolute confidence of the result of their 
 simplicity of diction. Rachel's art of telling a story, 
 if art it was, reminded one of that of the chroniclers of 
 the Niebelungen ; for notwithstanding her familiarity 
 with Racine and Corneille, her vocabulary was exceed- 
 ingly limited, and her syntax, if not her grammar, off 
 the stage, not always free from reproach. 
 
 I do not pretend, after the lapse of so many years, 
 to give these stories in her own language, or all of 
 them ; there are a few, however, worth the telling,
 
 THE STORY OF A FAILURE. 191 
 
 apart from the fascination with which she invested 
 them. 
 
 One evening she said to me, "Do you know 
 Poirson ? " 
 
 I had known Poirson when he was director of the 
 Gymnase. He afterwards always invited me to his 
 soirees, one of which, curiously enough, was given on 
 the Sunday before the Revolution of '48. So I said, 
 " Yes, I know Poirson." 
 
 "Has he ever told you why he did not re-engage me?" 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " I'll tell you. People said it was because I did not 
 succeed in ' La Vendeenne ' of Paul Duport ; but that 
 was not the cause. It was something much more 
 ridiculous ; and now that I come to think of it, I am 
 not sure that I ought to tell you, for you are an 
 Englishman, and you will be shocked." 
 
 I was not shocked, I was simply convulsed with 
 laughter, for Rachel, not content with telling the 
 story, got up, and, gradually drawing to the middle 
 of the room, enacted it. It was one of those ludicrous 
 incidents that happen sometimes on the stage, which 
 no amount of foresight on the part of the most skilful 
 and conscientious manager or actor can prevent, but 
 which almost invariably ruins the greatest masterpiece. 
 There were about eight or nine actors and actresses in 
 the room Re'gnier, Samson, Beauvallet, etc. It was 
 probably the most critical audience in Europe, but 
 every one shook, and Mdlle. Anai's Aubert went into 
 a dead faint. Re'gnier often averred that if Rachel 
 had been a man, she would have been the greatest 
 comic actor that ever lived ; and it is not generally 
 known that she once played Dorine in " Tartuffe," and
 
 192 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 set the whole of the house into a perfect roar ; but 
 on that evening I became convinced that Rachel, in 
 addition to her tragic gifts, was the spirit of Aris- 
 tophanesque comedy personified. I am afraid, how- 
 ever, that I cannot tell the story, or even hint at it, 
 beyond mentioning that Poirson is reported to have 
 said that Eachel did not want a stage-manager, but a 
 nurse to take care of her. The criticism was a cruel 
 one, though justified by appearances. It was Mama 
 Felix, and not her daughter, who was to blame. The 
 child she was scarcely more than that had hurt 
 herself severely, and instead of keeping her at home, 
 she sent her to the theatre, "poulticed all over," as 
 Eachel expressed it afterwards. 
 
 Mama Felix was the only one who was a match for 
 her famous daughter in money matters. What the 
 latter did with the enormous sums of money she earned 
 has always been a mystery. As I have already said, 
 they were not spent in charity. Nowadays, whatever 
 other theatres may do, the Comedie-Francaise dresses 
 its pensionnaires as well as its societaires from head to 
 foot; it pays the bootmaker's as well as the wigmaker's 
 bill, and the laundress's also. Speaking of the begin- 
 ning of her career, which coincided with the end of 
 Eachel's, Madeleine Brohan, whose language was often 
 more forcible than elegant, remarked, "Dans ma 
 jeunesse, on nous mettait toutes nues sur la scene ; 
 nous etions assez jolies pour cela." But Eachel's cos- 
 tumes varied so little throughout her career as to have 
 required but a small outlay on her part. Nor could 
 her ordinary dresses and furniture, which I happened 
 to see in April, 1858, when they were sold by public 
 auction at her apartments in the Place Eoyale, have
 
 HER MONETARY AFFAIRS. 193 
 
 made a considerable inroad on her earnings. The 
 furniture was commonplace to a degree ; such pictures 
 and knickknacks as were of value had been given to her, 
 or acquired in the manner I have already described ; 
 the laces and trinkets were, undoubtedly, not purchased 
 with her own money. It is said that her brother 
 Raphael was a spendthrift. He may have been, but he 
 did not spend his celebrated sister's money ; of that I 
 feel certain. Then what became of it ? I am inclined 
 to think that Mdlle. Eachel dabbled considerably 
 in stocks, and that, notwithstanding her shrewdness 
 and sources of information, she was the victim of 
 people cleverer than she was. At any rate, one thing 
 is certain she was nearly always hard up ; and, after 
 having exhausted the good will of all her male acquaint- 
 ances and friends, compelled to appeal to her mother, 
 who had made a considerable hoard for her other four 
 isters, and perhaps also for her scapegrace son ; for, 
 curiously enough, with Mama Felix every one of her 
 children was a goddess or god, except the goddess. This 
 want of appreciation on the mother's part reminds me 
 of a story told to me by Meisonnier. His grand- 
 daughter, on her fifteenth or sixteenth birthday, had 
 a very nice fan given to her. The sticks were ex- 
 quisitely carved in ivory, and must have cost a pretty 
 tidy sum, but the fan itself, of black gauze, was abso- 
 lutely plain. The donor probably intended the grand- 
 father's art to enhance the value of the present, and 
 the latter was about to do so, when the young lady 
 stopped him with the cry, "Voila qu'il va me gater 
 mon eventail avec ses mannequins ! " The irony of 
 non-appreciation by one's nearest and dearest could no 
 further go. 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 Mama Felix, then, was very close-fisted, and ' would 
 never lend her daughter any money, except on very 
 good security, namely, on her jewels. In addition to 
 this, she made her sign an undertaking that if not 
 redeemed at a certain date they would be forfeited ; 
 and forfeited they were, if the loan and interest were 
 not forthcoming at the stipulated time, notwithstanding 
 the ravings of Rachel. This would probably account 
 for the comparatively small quantity of valuable 
 jewellery found after her death. 
 
 Some of the ornaments I have seen her wear had 
 an artistic value utterly apart from their cost, others 
 were so commonplace and such evident imitations as 
 to have been declined by the merest grisette. One 
 day I noticed round her wrist a peculiar bracelet. It 
 was composed of a great number of rings, some almost 
 priceless, others less valuable but still very artistic, 
 others again possessing no value whatsoever, either 
 artistically or otherwise. I asked her to take it off, 
 and found it to be very heavy, so heavy that I re- 
 marked upon it. " Yes," she replied, " I cannot wear 
 two of the same weight, so I am obliged to wear the 
 other in my pocket." And out came the second, 
 composed of nearly double the number of rings of the 
 first. I was wondering where all those rings came 
 from, but I refrained from asking questions. I was 
 enabled to form my own conclusions a little while 
 afterwards, in the following way. 
 
 While we were still admiring the bracelet, Eachel 
 took from her finger a plain gold hoop, in the centre 
 of which was an imperial eagle of the same metal. 
 " This was given to me by Prince Louis Napoleon,' 
 she said, "on the occasion of my last journey to London.
 
 A STORY OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 195 
 
 He told me that it was a souvenir from his mother, 
 and that he would not have parted with it to any one 
 else but me." 
 
 I cannot remember the exact date of this conver- 
 sation, but it must have been shortly after the Revo- 
 lution, when the future emperor had just landed in 
 France. About three or four weeks afterwards we were 
 talking to Augustine Brohan, who had just returned 
 from London, where she had fulfilled an engagement 
 of one or two months. Rachel was not there that night, 
 but some one asked her if she had seen Prince Louis in 
 London. " Yes," she replied ; " he was going away, and 
 he gave me a present before he went." Thereupon she 
 took from her finger a ring exactly like that of Rachel's. 
 " He told me it was a souvenir from his mother, and that 
 he would not have parted with it to any one but me." 
 
 We looked at one another and smiled. The prince 
 had evidently a jeweller who manufactured "souve- 
 nirs from his mother " by the dozen, and which he, the 
 prince, distributed at that time, " in remembrance of 
 certain happy hours." The multiplicity of the rings 
 on Rachel's wrist was no longer a puzzle to me. I 
 was thinking of the story in the " Arabian Nights," 
 where the lady with the ninety-eight rings bewitches 
 the Sultans Shariar and Shahzenan, in spite of the 
 jealousy and watchfulness of the monster to whom she 
 belongs, and so makes the hundred complete. 
 
 Among the many stories Rachel told me there is 
 one not generally known that of her first appearance 
 before Nicholas I. Though she was very enthusias- 
 tically received in London, and though she always 
 spoke gratefully of the many acts of kindness shown 
 her there, I am inclined to think that she felt hurt
 
 196 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 at the want of cordiality on the part of the English 
 aristocracy when they invited her to recite at their 
 entertainments. This may be a mere surmise of mine ; 
 I have no better grounds for it than an expression 
 of hers one day when we were discussing London 
 society. " Oui, les Anglais, ils sont tres aimables, mais 
 ils paraissent avoir peur des artistes, comme des betes 
 sauvages, car ils vous parquent comme elles au Jardin 
 des Plantes." I found out afterwards that it was a 
 kind of grudge she bore the English for having 
 invariably improvised a platform or enclosure by 
 means of silken ropes. Certain is it that, beyond a 
 few casual remarks at long intervals upon London, 
 she seemed reluctant to discuss the subject with me. 
 Not so with regard to Potsdam after her return 
 whence in August, '51. In the beginning of July of 
 that year she told me that she had a special engage- 
 ment to appear before the court on the 13th of that 
 month. I did not see her until a few weeks after she 
 came back, and then she gave me a full account of the 
 affair. I repeat, after the lapse of so many years, I 
 cannot reproduce her own words, and I could not, even 
 half an hour after her narrative, have reproduced the 
 manner of her telling it; but I can vouch for the 
 correctness of the facts. 
 
 " About six o'clock, Eaphael [her brother], who was 
 to give me my cues, and I arrived at Potsdam, where 
 we were met by Schneider, who had made the engage- 
 ment with me. You know, perhaps, that Schneider had 
 been an actor himself, that afterwards he had been 
 promoted to the directorship of the Koyal Opera House, 
 and that now he is the private reader to the king, with 
 the title of privy or aulic councillor.
 
 RACHEL AT THE PRUSSIAN COURT. 197 
 
 "Schneider is a very nice man, and I have never 
 heard a German speak our language so perfectly. 
 Perhaps it was as well, because I dread to contemplate 
 what would have been the effect upon my nerves and 
 ears of lamentations in Teutonized French." 
 
 " Why lamentations ? " I asked. 
 
 " Ah, nous voila ! " she replied. " You remember I 
 was in mourning. The moment I stepped out of the 
 carriage, he exclaimed, 'But you are all in black, 
 mademoiselle.' ' Of course I am,' I said, ' seeing that 
 I am in mourning.' * Great Heaven ! what am I to 
 do? Black is not admitted at court on such 
 occasions.' I believe it was the birthday of the 
 Czarina, but of course I was not bound to know that. 
 
 " There was no time to return to Berlin, and least 
 of all to get a dress from there, so Eaphael and he 
 put their heads together ; the result of which con- 
 ference was my being bundled rather than handed into 
 a carriage, which drove off at fall speed to the Chateau 
 de Glinicke. I could scarcely catch a glimpse of the 
 country around Potsdam, which seemed to me very 
 lovely. 
 
 " When we got to Glinicke, which belongs to Prince 
 Charles, I was handed over to some of the ladies-in- 
 waiting of the princess. Handed over is the only 
 word, because I felt more like a prisoner than 
 anything else, and they tried to make ' little Kachel ' 
 presentable according to their lights. One of them, 
 after eyeing me critically, suggested my wearing a dress 
 of hers. In length it would have done very well, only 
 I happen to be one of the lean kine, and she decidedly 
 was not, so that idea had to be abandoned. They may 
 be very worthy women, these German ladies, but their
 
 198 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 inventiveness with regard to dress is absolutely nil. 
 When the idea suggested by the first lady turned out 
 to be impracticable, they were a bout de ressources. You 
 may gather from this, mon ami, that the beginning 
 and the end of their strategic de la toilette are not far 
 apart. There was one thing that consoled me for this 
 sudden exhaustion of their limited ingenuity. Be- 
 tween the half-dozen for they were half a dozen 
 they could not find a single word when the first and 
 only device proved impossible of realization. Had 
 there been the same number of French women assem- 
 bled, it would have been a kind of little madhouse ; in 
 this instance there was a deep silence for at least ten 
 minutes, eventually broken by tlie knocking at the 
 door of one of the maids, with Herr Schneider's 
 compliments, and wishing to know what had been 
 decided upon. The doleful answer brought him to 
 the room, and what six women could not accomplish, 
 he, like the true artist, accomplished at once. 'Get 
 Mdlle. Rachel a black lace mantilla, put a rose in 
 her hair, and give her a pair of white gloves.' In 
 less than ten minutes I was ready, and in another ten, 
 Eaphael, Schneider, and I embarked on a pretty little 
 steam-yacht lying ready at the end of the mag- 
 nificent garden for '1'lle des Paons' (Pfauen-Insul, 
 Peacock Island), where we landed exactly at eight. But 
 my troubles and surprises were not at an end. I made 
 sure that there would be at least a tent, an awning, 
 or a platform for me to stand under or upon. Ah, 
 oui ! not the smallest sign of either. ' Voila votre 
 estrade,' said Schneider, pointing to a small lawn, 
 separated from the rest of the gardens by a gravelled 
 walk three or four feet wide. I declined at once to
 
 A CURIOUS DRAMATIC RECITAL. 199 
 
 act under such conditions, and insisted upon being 
 taken back immediately to the station, and from thence 
 to Berlin. Poor Schneider was simply in despair. In 
 vain did he point out that to any one else the total 
 absence of scenery and adjuncts might prove a draw- 
 back, but that to me it would only be an additional 
 advantage, as it would bring into greater relief my own 
 talent; I would not be persuaded. Finding that it 
 was fruitless to play upon my vanity as an artist, he 
 appealed to me as a femme du monde. ' The very 
 absence of all preparations,' he said, ' proves that their 
 majesties have not engaged Mdlle. Kachel of the 
 Comedie-Francaise to give a recitation, but invited 
 Mdlle. Kachel Felix to one of their soirees. That 
 Mdlle. Kachel Felix should be kind enough, after 
 having partaken of a cup of tea, to recite something, 
 would only be another proof of her well-known readiness 
 to oblige ; ' and so forth. Let me tell you, mon cher, 
 that I have rarely met with a cleverer diplomatist, and 
 Heaven knows I have seen a lot who imagined them- 
 selves clever. They could not hold a candle to this 
 erstwhile actor ; nevertheless I remained as firm as a 
 rock, though I was sincerely distressed on Schneider's 
 account." 
 
 " What made you give in at last ? " I inquired. 
 " Was it the idea of losing the magnificent fee ? " 
 
 " For once you are mistaken," she laughed, " though 
 Schneider himself brought that argument to bear as a 
 big piece of artillery. ' Kemember this, mademoiselle,' 
 he said, when he could think of nothing else; 're- 
 member this that this soiree may be the means of 
 putting three hundred thousand or four hundred 
 thousand francs into your pocket. You yourself
 
 200 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 told me just now on board the yacht that you were 
 very anxious for an engagement at St. Petersburg. 
 I need scarcely tell you that, if you refuse to appear 
 before their majesties to-night, I shall be compelled 
 to state the reason, and Kussia will be for ever closed 
 to you. Apart from pecuniary considerations, it will 
 be said by your enemies and your very eminence in 
 your profession causes you to have many that you 
 failed to please the Empress. After all, the fact that 
 all the ordinary surroundings of the actress have been 
 neglected proves that you are not looked upon as an 
 actress by them, but as une femme du monde.'" 
 
 " That persuaded you ? " I remarked. 
 
 " Not at all." 
 
 " Then it was the money." 
 
 " Of course you would think so, even if I swore the 
 contrary a hundred times over ; but if you were to 
 guess from now till to-morrow, you would never hit 
 upon the real reason that made me stay." 
 
 "Well, then, I had better not try, and you had 
 better tell me at once." 
 
 " Strange as it may seem to you, it was neither the 
 gratification of being treated en femme du monde nor 
 the money that made me stay ; it was the desire to 
 see what I had been told was the handsomest man in 
 Europe. I did see him, and for once in a way rumour 
 had not exaggerated the reality. I had scarcely given 
 my final consent to Schneider, when the yacht carrying 
 the imperial and royal families came alongside the 
 island, and the illustrious passengers landed, amidst an 
 avalanche of flowers thrown from the other vessels 
 Schneider presented me to the King, who was also 
 good-looking, and the latter presented me to the Czar.
 
 IMPKOVISED FOOTLIGHTS. 201 
 
 " Immediately afterwards the recital began. At the 
 risk of taxing your credulity still further, I may tell 
 you that I, Kachel, who never knew what 'stage 
 fright ' meant, felt nervous. That man to me looked 
 like a very god. Fortunately for my reputation, the 
 shadows of night were gathering fast ; in another 
 twenty minutes it would be quite dark, and I felt 
 almost rejoiced that my audience could scarcely dis- 
 tinguish my features. On the other hand, Eaphael, 
 who only knew the part of Hippolyte by heart, and 
 who was obliged to read the others, declared that he 
 could not see a line, and candles had to be brought in. 
 It was a glorious evening, but there was a breeze 
 nevertheless, and as fast as the candles were lighted, 
 they were extinguished by the wind. To put ordinary 
 lamps on the lawn at our feet was not to be thought 
 of for a moment ; luckily one of the functionaries re- 
 membered that there were some candelabra with globes 
 inside, and by means of these a kind of ' float ' was 
 improvised. Still the scene was a curious one. Raphael 
 close to me on the edge of the lawn, with one of these 
 candelabra in his left hand. Behind, to the left and 
 right of us, a serried crowd of generals, court digni- 
 taries in magnificent uniforms. In front, and separated 
 by the whole width of a gravel walk, the whole group 
 of sovereigns and their relations, and behind them the 
 walls of the mansion, against which the tea-table had 
 been set, and around which stood the ladies-in-waiting 
 of the Queen of Prussia and the Empress of Russia. 
 A deep silence around, only broken by the soft soughing 
 of the wind in the trees and the splashing of a couple 
 of fountains near, playing a dirge-like accompaniment 
 to Raphael's and my voice.
 
 202 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 "The recital lasted for nearly an hour; if I had 
 liked I could have kept them there the whole night, 
 for never in my career have I had such an attentive, 
 such a religiously attentive, audience. The King was 
 the first to notice my fatigue, and he gave the signal 
 for my leaving off by coming up and thanking me for 
 my efforts. The Emperor followed his example, and 
 stood chatting to me for a long while. In a few 
 minutes I was the centre of a circle which I am not 
 likely to forget as long as I live. Then came the 
 question how Eaphael and I were to get back to 
 Berlin. The last train was gone. But Schneider 
 simply suggested a special, and a mounted messenger 
 was despatched then and there to order it. After 
 everything had been arranged for my comfortable 
 return, the sovereigns departed as they had come, only 
 this time the yacht, as well as the others on the lake, 
 were splendidly illuminated. This was my first appear- 
 ance before Nicholas I." 
 
 There was no man to whom Rachel owed more than 
 to Samson, or even as much ; but for him, and in spite 
 of her incontestable genius, the Comedie-Francais 
 might have remained closed to her for many years, 
 if not for ever. Frederick Lemaitre and Marie Dorval 
 were undoubtedly, in their own way, as great as she, 
 yet the blue riband of their profession never fell to 
 their lot. And yet, when she had reached the topmost 
 rung of the ladder of fame, Eachel was very often 
 not only ungrateful to him, but her ingratitude showed 
 itself in mean, spiteful tricks. When Legouve's 
 " Adrienne Lecouvreur " was being cast, Samson, 
 who had forgiven Rachel over and over again, was 
 on such cool terms with her that the authors feared
 
 RACHEL AND SAMSON. 203 
 
 he would not accept the part of the Prince de Bouillon. 
 Nevertheless, Samson, than whom there was not a 
 more honourable and conscientious man on or off the 
 stage, accepted; he would not let his resentment 
 interfere with what he considered his duty to the 
 institution of which he was so eminent a member. 
 This alone ought to have been sufficient to heal the 
 breach between the tutor and the pupil ; any woman 
 with the least spark of generosity, in the position 
 of Kachel towards Samson, would have taken the first 
 step towards a reconciliation. Rachel, as will be seen 
 directly, was perfectly conscious of what she ought to 
 do under the circumstances; she was too great an 
 actress not to have studied the finer feelings of the 
 human heart, and yet she did not do it. On the 
 contrary, she aggravated matters. Every one knows 
 the fable of " The Two Pigeons " which Adrienne 
 recites at the soiree of the Princesse de Bouillon. 
 Now, it so happened that the great barrister and 
 orator, Berryer, was considered a most charming 
 reciter of that kind of verse. Berryer, a most simple- 
 minded man, took special delight in sharing the most 
 innocent games of young children. He was especially 
 fond of the game of " forfeits ; " and so great was his 
 fame as a diseur, that the penalty generally imposed 
 upon him was the reciting of a fable. But great diseur 
 as he was, he himself acknowledged that Samson could 
 have given him a lesson. 
 
 At every new part she undertook, Rachel was in the 
 habit of consulting with her former tutor; this time she 
 went to consult Berryer instead, and, what was worse, 
 took pains that every one should hear of it. "Then 
 my heart smote me," she said afterwards, when by
 
 204 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 one of those irresistible tricks of hers she had obtained 
 her tutor's pardon once more. It was as deliberate 
 a falsehood as she ever uttered in her life, which in 
 Rachel's case means a good deal. The fact was, the 
 affair, as I have already said, had been bruited about, 
 mainly by herself at first; the public showed a dis- 
 position to take Samson's part, and she felt afraid of 
 a " warm reception " on the first night. 
 
 Under these circumstances she had recourse to one 
 of her wiles, which, for being theatrical, was not less 
 effective. At the first rehearsal, when Adrienne has 
 to turn to Michonnet, saying, " This is my true friend, 
 to whom I owe everything," she turned, not to Regnier, 
 who played Michonnet, and to whom the words are 
 addressed, but to Samson, at the same time holding 
 out her hand to him. Samson, who, notwithstanding 
 all their disagreements, felt very proud of his great 
 pupil, who was, moreover, of a very affectionate dispo- 
 sition, notwithstanding his habitual reserve, fell into 
 the trap. He took her proffered hand; then she 
 flung herself into his arms, and the estrangement 
 was at an end, for the time being. Rachel took 
 great care to make the reconciliation as public as 
 possible. 
 
 I was never very intimate with Samson, but the 
 little I knew of him I liked. I repeat, he was 
 essentially an honourable and honest man, and very 
 tolerant with regard to the foibles of the fair sex. 
 There was need for such tolerance in those days. 
 Augustine Brohan, Sylvanie Plessy, Rachel, and half 
 a dozen other women, all very talented, but all very 
 wayward, made Buloz' life (he was the director of the 
 Comedie-Francaise, as well as the editor of the Eevue
 
 A DIRECTOR OF THE COMEDIE. 205 
 
 des Deux Mondes) a burden to him. He who could, 
 and often did, dictate his will to men who already 
 then were famous throughout Europe, frequently found 
 himself powerless against women, who, however cele- 
 brated, were, with the exception of Eachel, nothing 
 in comparison with the former. He was, it is true, 
 overbearing to a degree, and disagreeable besides, but 
 his temper proved of no avail with them ; it only made 
 matters worse. "Apres tout," he said one day to 
 Madame Allan, who was the most amenable of all, 
 " je suis le maitre ici." " Oa se peut, monsieur," was 
 the answer, " mais nous sommes les centres maitre." * 
 
 In nearly all such troubles Regnier and Samson had 
 to act as buffers between the two contending parties ; 
 but, as Augustine Brohan explained once, the two were 
 utterly different in their mode of casting oil upon the 
 troubled waters. "Regnier," she said, "c'est le bon 
 Dieu des Chretiens, qui se fait tres souvent mener 
 par le nez par des mots. Du reste son nez s'y prete.f 
 Samson c'est le Dieu juste, mais vengeur des Juifs, qui 
 veut bien pardonner, mais seulement apres soumission 
 complete et entiere. Samson ne vous promet pas le 
 ciel, il vous offre des compensations solides ici bas." 
 
 It would be difficult to paint the contrast between 
 two characters in fewer words. In 1845, when Mdlle. 
 Sylvanie Plessy seceded from the Comedie-Franpaise, 
 Regnier wrote a kind epistle, recommending her to 
 come and explain matters either personally or by 
 letter. " Let your letter be kind and affectionate, and 
 
 * The play upon the word is scarcely translatable. " Contre-maitre " 
 in the singular means foreman ; as it is used here it means against the 
 master. EDITOR. 
 
 t Kegnier's nose was always a subject of jokes among his fellow- 
 actors. " It is not because it is large," said Beauvallet, " but because 
 it is his principal organ of speech." EDITOB.
 
 206 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 be sure that things will right themselves better than 
 you expect." 
 
 Samson also wrote, but simply to say that if she did 
 not come back at once all the terrors of the law 
 would be invoked against her. Which was done. The 
 Comedie-Franpaise instituted proceedings, claiming two 
 hundred thousand francs damages, and twenty thousand 
 francs "a litre de provision." * The court cast Mdlle. 
 Plessy in six thousand francs provision, deferring 
 judgment on the principal claim. Two years later 
 Mdlle. Plessy returned and re-entered the fold. 
 Thanks to Samson, she did not pay a single farthing 
 of damages, and the Comedie bore the costs of the 
 whole of the lawsuit.f 
 
 Both Samson and Kegnier were very proud of their 
 profession, but their pride showed itself in different 
 ways. Kegnier would have willingly made every one 
 an actor that is, a good actor ; he was always teaching 
 a great many amateurs, staging and superintending 
 their performances. Samson, on the other hand, had 
 no sympathy whatsoever with that kind of thing, and 
 could rarely be induced to give it aid, but he was very 
 anxious that every public speaker should study elo- 
 cution. "Eloquence and elocution are two different 
 things," he said ; " and the eloquent man who does not 
 study elocution, is like an Apollo with a bad tailor, 
 and who dresses without a looking-glass. I go further 
 still, and say that every one ought to learn how to 
 speak, not necessarily with the view of amusing his 
 
 * Damages claimed by one of the parties, pending the final verdict. 
 EDITOR. 
 
 t Curiously enough, it was Emile Augier's " Aventuriere " that 
 caused Mdlle. Plessy's secession, just as it did ) thirty-five years later, 
 in the case of Mdlle. Sarah Bernhardt. EDITOR.
 
 SAMSON. 207 
 
 friends and acquaintances, but with the view of not 
 annoying them. I am a busy man, but should be glad 
 to devote three hours a week to teach the rising 
 generation, and especially the humbler ones, how to 
 speak." 
 
 In connection with that wish of Samson, that every 
 man whose duties compelled him, or who voluntarily 
 undertook to speak in public, should be a trained 
 elocutionist, I remember a curious story of which I 
 was made the recipient quite by accident. It was in 
 the year '60, one morning in the summer, that I 
 happened to meet Samson in the Rue Vivienne. We 
 exchanged a few words, shook hands, and each went his 
 own way. In the afternoon I was sitting at Tortoni's, 
 when a gentleman of about thirty-five came up to me. 
 " Monsieur," he said, " will you allow me to ask you a 
 question ? " " Certainly, monsieur, if it be one I can 
 answer," I replied. " I believe," he said, " that I saw 
 you in the Rue Vivienne this morning talking to some 
 one whose name I do not know, but to whom I am 
 under great obligations. I was in a great hurry and 
 in a cab, and before I could stop the cabman both of 
 you had disappeared. Will you mind telling me his 
 name ? " "I recollect being in the Eue Vivienne and 
 meeting with M. Samson of the Comedie-Francaise," 
 I answered. " I thought so," remarked my interlocutor. 
 "Allow me to thank you, monsieur." With this he 
 lifted his hat and went out. 
 
 The incident had slipped my memory altogether, 
 when I was reminded of it by Samson himself, about 
 three weeks afterwards, in the green-room of the 
 Comedie-Francaise. I had been there but a few 
 moments when he came in. "You are the man who
 
 208 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 betrayed me," he said with a chuckle. " I have been 
 cudgelling my brain for the last three weeks as to 
 who it could have been, for I spoke to no less than 
 half a dozen friends and acquaintances in the Hue 
 Vivienne on the morning I met you, and they all wear 
 imperials and moustaches. A nice thing you have 
 done for me; you have burdened me with a grateful 
 friend for the rest of my life ! " 
 
 And then he told me the story, how two years before 
 he had been at Granville during the end of the summer ; 
 how he had strolled into the Palais de Justice and heard 
 the procureur-imperial make a speech for the prosecu- 
 tion, the delivery of which would have disgraced his 
 most backward pupil at the Conservatoire. " I was very 
 angry with the fellow, and felt inclined to write him a 
 letter, telling him that there was no need to torture the 
 innocent audience, as well as the prisoner in the dock. 
 I should have signed it. I do not know why I did 
 not, but judge of my surprise when, the same evening 
 at dinner, I found myself seated opposite him. I must 
 have scowled at him, and he repaid scowl for scowl. 
 It appears that he was living at the hotel temporarily, 
 while his wife and child were away. I need not tell 
 you the high opinion our judges have of themselves, 
 and I dare say he thought it the height of impertinence 
 that I, a simple mortal, should stare at him. I soon 
 came to the conclusion, however, that if I wanted to 
 spare my fellow-creatures such an infliction as I had 
 endured that day, I ought not to arouse the man's 
 anger. So I looked more mild, then entered into con- 
 versation with him. You should have seen his face 
 when I began to criticize his tone and gestures. But 
 he evidently felt that I was somewhat of an authority
 
 A LESSON IN ELOCUTION. 209 
 
 on the subject, and at last I took him out on the beach 
 and gave him a lesson in delivering a speech, and left 
 him there without revealing my name. Next morning 
 I went away, and never set eyes on him again until 
 three weeks ago, when he left his card, asking for an 
 interview. He is a very intelligent man, and has 
 profited by the first lesson. During the three clays he 
 remained in Paris I gave him three more. He says 
 that if ever I get into a scrape, he'll do better than 
 defend me prosecute me, and I'm sure to get off." 
 
 I have never seen Samson give a lesson at the 
 Conservatoire, but I was present at several of Regnier's, 
 thanks to Auber, whom I knew very well, and who 
 was the director, and to Regnier himself, who did not 
 mind a stranger being present, provided he felt certain 
 that the stranger was not a scoffer. I believe that 
 Samson would have objected without reference to the 
 stranger's disposition; at any rate, Auber hinted as 
 much, so I did not prefer my request in a direct form. 
 
 I doubt, moreover, whether a lesson of Samson to 
 his pupils would have been as interesting to the out- 
 sider as one of Regnier's. Of all the gifts that go to the 
 making of a great actor, Regnier had naturally only 
 two taste and intelligence ; the others were replaced 
 by what, for want of a better term, one might call 
 the tricks of the actor; their acquisition demanded 
 constant study. For instance, Regnier's appearance 
 off the stage was absolutely insignificant; his voice 
 was naturally husky and indistinct, and, moreover, 
 what the French call nasillarde, that is, produced 
 through the nose. His features were far from mobile ; 
 the eyes were not without expression, but these never 
 twinkled with merriment nor shone with passion. 
 
 VOL. i. p
 
 210 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 Consequently the smallest as well as largest effect 
 necessary to the interpretation of a character had to 
 be thought out carefully beforehand, and then to be 
 tried over and over again materially. Each of his 
 inflections had to be timed to a second ; but when all 
 this was accomplished, the picture presented by him 
 was so perfect as to deceive the most experienced 
 critic, let alone an audience, however intelligent. In 
 fact, but for his own frank admission of all this, his 
 contemporaries and posterity would have been never 
 the wiser, for, to their honour be it said, his fellow- 
 actors were so interested in watching him " manipu- 
 late himself," as they termed it, as to never breathe 
 a word of it to the outside world. They all acknow- 
 ledged that they had learned something from him 
 during rehearsal. For instance, in one of his best- 
 known characters, that of the old servant in Madame 
 de Girardin's ," La Joie fait peur," * there is a scene 
 which, as played by Regnier and Delaunay, looked 
 to the spectator absolutely spontaneous. The smallest 
 detail had been minutely regulated. It is where the 
 old retainer, while dusting the room, is talking to 
 himself about his young master, Lieutenant Adrien 
 Desaubiers, who is reported dead. 
 
 " I can see him now," says Noel, who cannot resign 
 himself to the idea ; " I can see him now, as he used 
 to come in from his long walks, tired, starving, and 
 shouting before he was fairly into the house. * Here 
 I am, my good Noel ; I am dying with hunger. Quick ! 
 
 * There are several English versions of the play, and I am under 
 the impression that the late Tom Eobertson was inspired by it when 
 he adapted " Caste." I allude to that sceue in the third act, where 
 George d'Alroy returns unexpectedly and where Polly Eccles breaks 
 the news to her siater. EDITOR.
 
 RtiGNIER AND HIS ART. 211 
 
 an omelette.' " At that moment the young lieutenant 
 enters the room, and having heard Noel's last sentence, 
 repeats it word for word. 
 
 Short as was the sentence, it had been arranged 
 that Delaunay should virtually cut it into four parts. 
 
 At the words, " It is I" Regnier shivered from 
 head to foot ; at " Here 1 am, my good Noel" he lifted 
 his eyes heavenwards, to make sure that the voice did 
 not come from there, and that he was not labouring 
 under a kind of hallucination ; at the words, " I am 
 dying with hunger" he came to the conclusion that it 
 was a real human voice after all ; and at the final, 
 "Quick! an omelette" he turned round quickly, and 
 fell like a log into the young fellow's arms. 
 
 I repeat, the whole of the scene had been timed 
 to the fraction of a second ; nevertheless, on the first 
 night, Regnier, nervous as all great actors are on such 
 occasions, forgot all about his own arrangements, and, 
 at the first sound of Delaunay's voice, was so overcome 
 with emotion that he literally tumbled against the 
 latter, who of course was not prepared to bear him up, 
 and had all his work to do to keep himself from 
 falling also. Meanwhile Regnier lay stretched at 
 full length on the stage, and the house broke into 
 tumultuous applause. 
 
 "That was magnificent," said Delaunay after the 
 performance. "Suppose we repeat the thing to- 
 morrow ? " 
 
 But Regnier would not hear of it ; he stuck to his 
 original conception in four tempi. He preferred 
 trusting to his art rather than to the frank promptings 
 of nature. 
 
 That is why a lesson of Regnier to his pupils was so
 
 212 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 interesting to the outsider. The latter was, as it were, 
 initiated into all the resources the great actor has at 
 his command wherewith to produce his illusion upon 
 the public. Among Regnier's pupils those were his 
 favourites who never allowed themselves to be carried 
 away by their feelings, and who trusted to these 
 resources as indicated to them by their tutor. He 
 was to a certain extent doubtful of the others. 
 " Feelings vary ; effects intelligently conceived, 
 studied, and carried out ought never to vary," he 
 said. Consequently it became one of his theories 
 that those most plentifully endowed with natural gifts 
 were not likely to become more perfect than those who 
 had been treated niggardly in that respect, provided 
 the vocation and the perseverance were there. The 
 reverse of Samson, who was proudest of Eachel, 
 Regnier was never half as proud of M. Coquelin 
 as of others who had given him far more trouble. 
 Augustine Brohan explained the feeling in her own 
 inimitable way. " Regnier est comme le grand seigneur 
 qui s'enamourache d'une paysanne a qui il faut tout 
 enseigner; si moi j'etais homme, j'aimerais mieux 
 une demoiselle de bonne famille, qui n'aurait pas 
 besoin de tant d'enseignement." 
 
 Mdlle. Brohan exaggerated a little bit. Regnier's 
 pupils were not peasant children, to whom he had 
 to teach everything ; a great many, like Coquelin, 
 required very little teaching, and all the others 
 had the receptive qualities which make teaching a 
 pleasure. The latter, boys and girls, had to a certain 
 extent become like Regnier himself, " bundles of 
 tricks," and, what is perhaps not so surprising to 
 students of psychology and physiology, their features
 
 REGNIER AT THE CONSERVATOIRE. 213 
 
 had contracted a certain likeness to his. At the first 
 blush one might have mistaken them for his children. 
 And they might have been, for the patience he had 
 with them. It was rarely exhausted, but he now and 
 then seemed to be waiting for a new supply. At such 
 times there was a frantic clutch at the shock, grey- 
 haired head, or else a violent blowing of the perky 
 nose in a large crimson chequered handkerchief, its 
 owner standing all the while on one leg ; the attitude 
 was irresistibly comic, but the pupils were used to it, 
 and not a muscle of their faces moved. 
 
 Those who imagine that Ee^nier's courses were 
 merely so many lessons of elocution and gesticulation 
 would be altogether mistaken. Regnier, unlike many 
 of his great fellow-actors of that period, had received 
 a good education ; he had been articled to an architect, 
 he had even dabbled in painting, and there were few 
 historical personages into whose characters he had not 
 a thorough insight. He was a fair authority upon 
 costume and manners of the Middle Ages, and his 
 acquaintance with Roman and Greek antiquities 
 would have done credit to many a professor. He was 
 called " le comedien savant " and " le savant comedien." 
 As such, whenever a pupil failed to grasp the social 
 or political importance of one of the dramatis personse 
 of Racine's or Corneille's play, there was sure to be a 
 disquisition, telling the youngster all about him, but 
 in a way such as to secure the attention of the listener 
 a way that might have aroused the envy of a uni- 
 versity lecturer. The dry bones of history were clothed 
 by a man with an eye for the picturesque. 
 
 "Who do you think Augustus was?" he said one 
 day when I was present, to the pupil, who was de-
 
 214 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 claiming some lines of " Cinna." " Do you think he was 
 the concierge or le commission naire du coin?" And 
 forthwith there was a sketch of Augustus. Absolutely 
 quivering with life, he led his listener through the 
 streets of Rome, entered the palace with him, and once 
 there, became Augustus himself. After such a scene 
 he would frequently descend the few steps of the 
 platform and drop into his armchair, exhausted. 
 
 Every now and then, in connection with some 
 character of Moliere or Regnard, there would be an 
 anecdote of the great interpreter of the character, 
 but an anecdote enacted, after which the eyes would 
 fill with tears, and the ample chequered handkerchief 
 come into requisition once more. 
 
 Itegnier was a great favourite with most of his 
 fellow-actors and the employes of the Comedie-Fran- 
 caise, but he was positively worshipped by Giovanni, 
 the wigmaker of the establishment. They were in 
 frequent consultation even in the green-room, the 
 privilege of admission to which had been granted to 
 the Italian Figaro. The consultations became most 
 frequent when one of the members undertook a part 
 new to him. It was often related of Balzac that he 
 firmly believed in the existence of the characters his 
 brain had created. The same might be said of Reg- 
 nier with regard to the characters created by the 
 great playwrights of his own time and those of the 
 past. Of course, I am not speaking of those who had 
 an historical foundation. But Alceste, Harpagon, 
 Georges Dandin, Sganarelle, and Scapin were as real 
 to him as Orestes and CEdipus, as Augustus and 
 Mohammed. He would give not only their biographies, 
 but describe their appearance, their manners, their
 
 GIOVANNI AND R^GNIER. 215 
 
 gait, and even their complexion. The first time I 
 heard him do so, I made sure that he was trying to 
 mystify Giovanni ; but Rachel, who was present, soon 
 undeceived me. And the Italian would sit listening 
 reverently, then start up and exclaim, "Ze sais ce 
 qu'il vous faut, Monsu Regnier, ze vais faire oune 
 parruque a etonner Moliere lui-meme." And he kept 
 his word, because he considered that the wig con- 
 tributed as much to, or detracted from, the success 
 of an actor as his diction, and more than his clothes. 
 When Delaunay became a societaire his first part 
 was that of the lover in M. Viennet's " Migraine." 
 " Voila Monsu Delaunay, oune veritable parruque di 
 societaire. Zouez a present, vous etes sour de votre 
 affaire." 
 
 One day Beauvallet found him standing before the 
 window of Brandus, the music-publisher in the Rue 
 de Richelieu. He was contemplating the portrait of 
 Rossini, and he looked sad. 
 
 " What are you standing there for, Giovanni ? " 
 asked Beauvallet. 
 
 " Ah, Monsu Bouvallet, I am looking at the por- 
 trait of Maestro Giovanni Rossini, and when I think 
 that his name is Giovanni like mine, when I see that 
 abominable wig which looks like a grass-plot after a 
 month of drought, I feel ashamed and sad. But I 
 will go and see him, and make him a wig for love or 
 money that will take twenty years off his age." He 
 went, but Rossini would not hear of it, or rather 
 Madame Rossini put a spoke in his wheel. Giovanni 
 never mentioned his name again. It was Ligier who 
 brought Giovanni to Paris, and for a quarter of a century 
 he worked unremittingly for the glory of the Corned ie-
 
 216 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 Francaise, and when one of the great critics happened 
 to speak favourably of the " make-up " of an actor, as 
 Paul de St. Victor did when Kegnier " created Noel," 
 Giovanni used to leave his card at his house. It was 
 Giovanni who made the wigs for M. Ancessy, the 
 musical director at the Odeon, who, under the manage- 
 ment of M. Edouard Thierry, occupied the same 
 position at the Comedie-Franpaise. M. Ancessy was not 
 only a good chef d'orchestre, but a composer of talent ; 
 but he had one great weakness he was as bald as a 
 billiard-ball and wished to pass for an Absalom. Gio- 
 vanni helped him to carry out the deception by making 
 three artistic wigs. The first was of very short hair, 
 and was worn from the 1st to the 10th of the month ; 
 from the llth to the 20th M. Ancessy donned one 
 with hair that was so visibly growing as to cover his 
 ears. From the 20th to the last day of the month his 
 locks were positively flowing, and he never failed to 
 say on that last evening in the hearing of every one, 
 " What a terrible nuisance my hair is to me ! I must 
 have it cut to-morrow."
 
 AUBER. 21' 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Two composers, Auber and Felicien David Auber, the legend of his 
 youthful appearance How it arose His daily rides, his love of 
 women's society His mot on Mozart's " Don Juan " The only 
 drawback to Auber's enjoyment of women's society His reluc- 
 tance to take his h;it off How he managed to keep it ou most 
 of the time His opinion upon Meyerbeer's and Halevy's genius 
 His opinion upon Ge'rard de Nerval, who hanged himself with 
 his hat on His love of solitude His fondness of Paris His 
 grievance against his mother for not having given him birth 
 there He refuses to leave Paris at the commencement of the 
 siege His small appetite He proposes to write a new opera 
 when the Prussians are gone Auber suffers no privations, but 
 has difficulty in finding fodder for his horse The Parisians 
 claim it for food Another legend about Auber's independence 
 of sleep How and where he generally slept Why Auber snored 
 in Veron's company, and why he did not in that of other people 
 His capacity for work Auber a brilliant talker Auber's 
 gratitude to the artists who interpreted his work, but different 
 from Meyerbeer's The reason why, according to Auber 
 Jealousy or humility Auber and the younger Coquelin ' The 
 Terdict on all things in this world may be summed up in the one 
 phrase, ' It's an injustice ' " Felicien David The man The 
 beginnings of his career His terrible poverty He joins the 
 Saint-Simoniens, and goes with some of them to the East Their 
 reception at Constantinople M. Scribe and the libretto of 
 "L'Afiicaine" David in .Egypt at the court of Mehemet-Ali 
 David's description of him Mehemet's way of testing the edu- 
 cational progress of his sons Woe to the fat kine Mehemet-Ali 
 suggests a new mode of teaching music to the inmates of the 
 harem Fe'licien David's further wanderings in Egypt Their 
 effect upon his musical genius His return to France He tells 
 the story of the first performance of " Le De'sert " An ambulant 
 box-office His success Fame, but no money He sells the 
 score of " Le Desert " He loses his savings " La Perle du 
 Bresil " and the Coup-d'Etat " No luck " Napoleon III. re- 
 mains his debtor for eleven years A mot of Auber, and one of 
 Alexandre Dumas pere The story of "A'ida" Why Felicien 
 David did not compose the music The real author of the libretto. 
 
 I KNEW Auber from the year '42 or '43 until the day 
 of his death. He and I were in Paris during the
 
 218 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 siege and the Commune; we saw one another fre- 
 quently, and I am positive that the terrible mis- 
 fortune's of his country shortened his life by at least 
 ten years. For though at the beginning of the 
 campaign he was close upon ninety, he scarcely 
 looked a twelvemonth older than when I first knew 
 him, nearly three decades before ; that is, a very 
 healthy and active old man, but still an old man. So 
 much nonsense has been written about his perpetual 
 youth, that it is well to correct the error. But the 
 ordinary French public, and many journalists besides, 
 could not understand an octogenarian being on horse- 
 back almost every day of his life, any more than they 
 understood later on M. de Lesseps doing the same. 
 They did not and do not know M. Mackenzie- Grieves, 
 and half a dozen English residents in Paris of a similar 
 age, who scarcely ever miss their daily ride. If they 
 had known them, they might perhaps have been less 
 loud in their admiration of the fact. 
 
 What added, probably, to Auber's reputation of 
 possessing the secret of perpetual youth was his great 
 fondness for women's society, his very handsome 
 appearance, though he was small comparatively, and 
 his faultless way of dressing. He was most charm- 
 ing with the fairer sex, and many of the female pupils 
 of the Conservatoire positively doted on him. Though 
 polite to a degree with men and I doubt whether 
 Auber could have been other than polite with no 
 matter whom his smiles, I mean his benevolent ones, 
 for he could smile very sceptically, were exclusively 
 reserved for women. When he heard Mozart's "Don 
 Juan " for the first time, he said, " This is the music 
 of a lover of twenty, and if a man be not an imbecile,
 
 AUBER'S MANIA. 219 
 
 he may always have in a little corner of his heart the 
 sentiment or fancy that he is only twenty." 
 
 There was but one drawback to Auber's enjoyment 
 of the society of women he was obliged to take off 
 his hat in their presence, and he hated being without 
 that article of dress. He might have worn a skull-cap 
 at home, though there was no necessity for it, as far as 
 his hair was concerned, for up to the last he was far 
 from bald ; but he wanted his hat. He composed with 
 his hat on, he had his meals with his hat on, and though 
 he would have frequently preferred to take his seat in 
 the stalls or balcony of a theatre, he invariably had 
 a box, and generally one on the stage, in order to 
 keep his hat on. He would often stand for hours 
 on the balcony of his house in the Kue Saint-Georges 
 with his hat on. " I never feel as much at home 
 anywhere, not even in my own apartment, as in the 
 synagogue," he said one day. He frequently went 
 there for no earthly reason than because he could 
 sit among a lot of people with his hat on. In fact, 
 those frequent visits, coupled with his dislike to be 
 bareheaded, made people wonder now and then whether 
 Auber was a Jew. The supposition always made 
 Auber smile. "That would have meant the genius 
 of a Meyerbeer, a Mendelssohn, or a Halevy," he said. 
 "No, I have been lucky enough in my life, but such 
 good fortune as that never fell to my lot." For there 
 was no man so willing nay, anxious to acknowledge 
 the merit of others as Auber. But Auber was not a 
 Jew, and his mania for keeping on his hat had nothing 
 to do with his religion. It was simply a mania, and 
 nothing more. When, in January, '55, Gerard de 
 Nerval was found suspended from a lamp-post in the
 
 220 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 Rue de la Vieille-Lanterne, he had his hat on his 
 head ; his friends, aud even the police, pretended to 
 argue from this that he had not committed suicide, 
 but had been murdered. "A man who is going to 
 hang himself does not keep his hat on," they said. 
 "Pourquoi pas, mon Dieu ? " asked Auber, simply. 
 "If I were going to kill myself, I should certainly 
 keep my hat on." In short, it was the only thing 
 about Auber which could not be explained. 
 
 Auber was exceedingly fond of society, and yet he 
 was fond of solitude also. Many a time his friends 
 reported that, returning home late from a party, they 
 found Auber standing opposite his house in the Rue 
 Saint-Georges, with apparently no other object than to 
 contemplate it from below. After his return to Paris 
 from London, whither he had been sent by his father, 
 in order to become conversant with English business 
 habits, he never left the capital again, though at the 
 end of his life he regretted not having been to Italy. 
 It was because Rossini, who was one of his idols, had 
 said " that a musician should loiter away some of 
 his time under that sky." JBut almost immediately 
 he comforted himself with the thought that Paris, 
 after all, was the only city worth living in. " I was 
 very fond of my mother, but I hav y e one grievance 
 against her memory. What did she want to go to 
 Caen for just at the moment when I was about to be 
 born? But for that I should have been a real Parisian." 
 I do not think it made much difference, for I never 
 knew such an inveterate Parisian as Auber. When 
 the investment of Paris had become an absolute 
 certainty, some of his friends pressed him to leave ; 
 he would not bear of it. They predicted discomfort,
 
 AUBER'S INDEPENDENCE OF SLEEP. 221 
 
 famine, and what-not. "The latter contingency will 
 not affect me much, seeing that I eat but once a day, 
 and very little then. As for the sound of the firing 
 disturbing me, I do not think it will. It has often 
 been said that the first part of my overture to ' Fra 
 Diavolo ' was inspired by the retreating tramp of a 
 regiment ; there may be some truth in it. If it be 
 vouchsafed to me to hear the retreating tramp of the 
 Germans, I will write an overture and an opera, 
 which will be something different, I promise you." 
 
 I do not suppose that, personally, Auber suffered 
 any privations during the siege. A man in his position, 
 who required but one meal a day, and that a very light 
 one, was sure to find it somewhere ; but he had great 
 trouble to find sufficient fodder for his old faithful 
 hack, that had carried him for years, and when, after 
 several months of scheming and contriving to that 
 effect, he was forced to give it up as food for others, 
 his cup of bitterness was full. "Us m'ont pris mon 
 vieux cheval pour le manger," he repeated, when I 
 saw him after the event; "je 1'avais depuis vingt ans." 
 It was really a great blow to him. 
 
 There is another legend about Auber which is not 
 founded upon facts, namely, that he was pretty well 
 independent of sleep. It was perfectly true that he 
 went to bed very late and rose very early, but most 
 people have overlooked the fact that during the 
 evening he had had a comfortable doze, of at least an 
 hour and a half or two hours, at the theatre. He rarely 
 missed a performance at the Opera or Opera-Comique, 
 except when his own work was performed. And during 
 that time he slumbered peacefully, "en homme du 
 monde," said Nestor Koqueplan, " without snoring."
 
 222 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 "I never knew what it meant to snore," said 
 Auber, apologetically, " until I took to sleeping in 
 Veron's box ; and as it is, I do not snore now except 
 under provocation. But there would be no possibility 
 of sleeping by the side of Veron without snoring. You 
 have to drown his, or else it would awaken you." 
 
 Auber was a brilliant talker, but he scarcely ever 
 liked to exert himself except on the subject of music. 
 It was all in all to him, and the amount of work he 
 did must have been something tremendous. There 
 are few students of the history of operatic music, no 
 matter how excellent their memories, who could give 
 the complete list of Auber's works by heart. We 
 tried it once in 1850, when that list was much shorter 
 than it is now ; there was not a single one who gave 
 it correctly. The only one who came within a measure- 
 able distance was Roger, the tenor. 
 
 In spite of his world-wide reputation, even at that 
 time, Auber was as modest about his work as Meyerbeer, 
 but he had more confidence in himself than the latter. 
 Auber was by no means ungrateful to the artists who 
 contributed to his success ; " but I don't ' coddle ' them, 
 and put them in cotton-wool, like Meyerbeer," he 
 said. " It is perfectly logical that he should do so. 
 The Nourrits, the Levasseurs, the Viardot-Garcias, and 
 the Rogers, are not picked up at street-corners; but 
 bring me the first urchin you meet, who has a decent 
 voice, and a fair amount of intelligence, and in six 
 months he'll sing the most difficult part I ever wrote, 
 with the exception of that of Masaniello. My operas 
 are a kind of warming-pan for great singers. There is 
 something in being a good warming-pan." 
 
 At the first blush, this sounds something like
 
 AUBER AND COQUELIN CADET. 223 
 
 jealousy in the guise of humility, but I am certain 
 that there was no jealousy in Auber's character. Few 
 men have been so uniformly successful, but he also 
 had his early struggles, " when perhaps I did better 
 work than I have done since." The last sentence was 
 invariably trolled out when a pupil of the Conservatoire 
 complained to him of having been unjustly dealt with. 
 I remember Coquelin the younger competing for the 
 " prize of Comedy " in '65 or '66. He did not get it, 
 and when we came out of Auber's box at the Conser- 
 vatoire, the young fellow came up to him with tears 
 in his eyes. 1 fancy they were tears of anger rather 
 than of sorrow. 
 
 " Ah, Monsieur Auber," he exclaimed, " that's an 
 injustice." 
 
 "Perhaps so, my dear lad," replied Auber; "but 
 remember that the verdict on all things in this world 
 may be summed up in the words you have just uttered, 
 * It's an injustice.' Let me give you a bit of advice. 
 If you mean to become a good Figaro, you must be 
 the first to laugh at an injustice instead of weeping 
 over it." Wherewith he turned his back upon the now 
 celebrated comedian. In the course of these notes I 
 shall have occasion to speak of Auber again. 
 
 Auber need not have generalized to young Coquelin ; 
 he might have cited one instance of injustice in hi 
 own profession, to which, fortunately, there was no 
 parallel for at least thirty years. In the forties the 
 critics refused to recognize the genius of Felicien 
 David, just as they had refused to recognize the genius 
 of Hector Berlioz. In the seventies they were morally 
 guilty of the death of Georges Bizet, the composer of 
 Carmen."
 
 224- AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 I knew little or nothing of Hector Berlioz, but 1 
 frequently met Felicien David at Auber's. It was a 
 pity to behold the man even after his success a success 
 which, however, did not put money in his purse. His 
 moral sufferings, his material privations, had left their 
 traces but too plainly on the face as well as on the 
 mind. David had positively starved in order to buy 
 the few books and the paper necessary to his studies, 
 and yet he had the courage to say, " If I had to begin 
 over as;ain, I would do the same." The respectability 
 that drives a gig when incarnated in parents who 
 refuse to believe in the power of soaring of their off- 
 spring because they, the parents, cannot see the wings, 
 has assuredly much to answer for. Flotow's father 
 stops the supplies after seven years, because his son 
 has not come up to time like a race-horse. Berlioz' 
 father does not give him so long a shrift ; he allows 
 him three months to conquer fame. Felicien David 
 had no father to help or to thwart him in his ambition. 
 He was an orphan at the age of five, and left to the 
 care of a sister, who was too poor to help him ; but he 
 had an uncle who was well-to-do, and who allowed him 
 the magnificent sum of fifty francs per month for a 
 whole quarter and then withdrew it, notwithstanding 
 the assurance of Cherubini that the young fellow had 
 the making of a great composer in him. And the 
 worst is that these young fellows suffer in silence, 
 while there are hundreds of benevolent rich men who 
 would willingly open their purses to them. When 
 they do reveal their distressed condition, it is generally 
 to some one as poor as themselves. These rich men 
 buy the autographs of the deceased genius for small or 
 large sums which would have provided the struggling
 
 F^LICIEN DAVID. 225 
 
 ones with comforts for days and days. I have before 
 me such a letter which I bought for ten francs. I 
 would willingly have given ten times the amount not 
 to have bought it. It is written to a friend of his 
 youth. " As for money," it says, " seeing that I am 
 bound to speak of it, things are going from bad to 
 worse. And it is very certain that in a little while I 
 shall have to give it up altogether. I have been ill 
 for three weeks with pains in the back, and fever and 
 ague everywhere. I dare say that my illness was 
 brought on by my worries, and by the bad food of the 
 Paris restaurants, also by the constant dampness. 
 Why am I not a little better off ? I fancy that the 
 slight comforts an artist may reasonably expect would 
 do me a great deal of good. I am not speaking of 
 the body, though it is a part of ourselves which con- 
 siderably affects our intellect, but my imagination 
 would be the better for it, for how can my brain, con- 
 stantly occupied as it is with the worry of material 
 wants, act unhampered? Really, I do not hesitate to 
 say that poverty and privation kill the imagination." 
 
 They did not kill the imagination in David's case, 
 but they undermined his constitution. It was at that 
 period that he fell in with the Saint-Si moniens, to 
 the high priest of which, M. Enfantin, who eventually 
 became the chairman of the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterra- 
 nean Railway Company, he took me many years later. 
 After their dispersion, the group to which he belonged 
 went to the East, and it is to this apparently fortuitous 
 circumstance that the world owes not only " Le Desert," 
 " La Perle du Bresil," and " L'Eden," but probably also 
 Meyerbeer's " Africaine." Meyerbeer virtually acknow- 
 ledged that but for David's scores, so replete with the 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 poetry of the Orient, he would have never thought of 
 such a subject for one of his operas. M. Scribe, on the 
 other hand, always maintained that the idea emanated 
 from him, and that it dated from 1847, when the com- 
 poser was given the choice between " Le Prophete " 
 and "L'Africaine," and chose the former. One might 
 almost paraphrase the accusation of the wolf against 
 the lamb in La Fontaine's fable. " M. Scribe, if you 
 did not owe your idea to Felicien David, you owed it 
 to Montigny, the director of the Gymnase, who in the 
 thirties produced a play with a curious name, and a 
 more curious plot, at the Ambigu-Comique." * One 
 thing is certain, that " L'Africaine " was discarded, if 
 ever it was offered, and would never have been thought 
 of again but for Meyerbeer's intense and frankly 
 acknowledged admiration of Felicien David's genius. 
 
 To return for a moment to Felicien David, whose 
 melancholy vanished as if by magic when he related 
 his wanderings in the East. I do not mean the poetical 
 side of them, which inspired him with his great com- 
 positions, but the ludicrous one. I do not remember 
 the dress of the Saint-Simoniens, I was too young at 
 
 * I have taken some pains to unearth this play. It was called 
 " Amazampo ; or, The Discovery of Quinine." The scene was laid in 
 Peru in 1636. Amazampo, the chief of a Peruvian tribe, is in love 
 with Mai'da, who on lier part is in love with Ferdinand, the son of the 
 viceroy. Amazampo is heart-broken, and is stricken down with 
 fever. In his despair and partial delirium he tries to poison himself, 
 and drinks the water of a pool in which several trunks of a tree called 
 kina, reported poisonous, have been lying for years. He feels the 
 effect almost immediately, but not the effect he expected. He 
 recovers, and takes advantage of his recovered health to forget his 
 love passion, and to be avenged upon the oppressors of his country, 
 many of whom are dying with fever. Lima becomes a huge cemetery. 
 Then the wife of the viceroy is stricken down. Maida wishes to save 
 her, but is forestalled by Amazampo, wlio compels Dona Theodora 
 to drink the liquor, and so forth. But Amazampo and Mai'da die. 
 EDITOR.
 
 DAVID AND THE SAINT-SIMON IENS. 227 
 
 the time to have noticed it, but am told it consisted 
 of a blue tunic and trousers to match, a scarlet jersey, 
 which buttoned at the back, and could not be undone 
 except with the aid of some one else. It was meant 
 to symbolize mutual dependence upon one another. 
 "As far as Marseilles everything went comparatively 
 \vell," said David ; " we lived by giving concerts, and 
 though the receipts were by no means magnificent, 
 they kept the wolf from the door. Our troubles began 
 at Constantinople. Whether they did not like our 
 music, or ourselves, or our dresses, I have never been 
 able to make out, but we were soon denounced to the 
 authorities, and marched off to prison, though our 
 incarceration did not last more than a couple of hours, 
 thanks to our ambassador, Admiral Koussin. Our 
 liberation, however, was conditional ; we had to leave 
 at once. We made our way to Smyrna, where my 
 music seemed to meet with a little more favour. I 
 performed every night, but in the open air, and some 
 one took the hat round, just as if we had been a 
 company of ambulant musicians to the manner born. 
 We were, however, not altogether unhappy, for we had 
 enough to eat and to drink, which with me, at any 
 rate, was a paramount consideration. Up till then 
 sufficient food had not been a daily item in my pro- 
 gramme of life. My companions, nevertheless, became 
 restless ; they said they had not come to eat and drink 
 and play music, but to convert the most benighted 
 part of Europe to their doctrines ; so we moved to 
 Jaffa and Jerusalem, then to Alexandria, and finally 
 to Cairo. By the time we got there, only three of 
 us were left ; the rest had gone homeward. Koenig- 
 Bey had just at that moment undertaken the tuition
 
 228 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 of Mehemet-Ali's children there were between sixty 
 and seventy at that time ; it was he who presented me 
 to their father, with a view of my becoming the pro- 
 fessor of music to the inmates of the harem. ' It is of 
 no use to try to get you the appointment of professor 
 of music to the young princes, because Mehemet, 
 though intelligent enough, would certainly not hear of 
 it. He would not think it necessary that a man-child 
 should devote himself to so effeminate an accomplish- 
 ment. I am translating his own thoughts on the 
 subject, not mine. When I tell you that my monthly 
 report about their intellectual progress is invariably 
 waved off with the words, " Tell me how much they 
 have gained or lost in weight," you will understand 
 that I am not speaking at random. The viceroy 
 thinks that hard study should produce a corresponding 
 decrease in weight, which is not always the case, for 
 those more or less inclined to obesity make flesh in 
 virtue of their sitting too much. Consequently the 
 fat kine have a very bad time of it, and among the 
 latter is one of the most intelligent boys, Mohammed- 
 Said.' " 
 
 " Those who would infer from this," said David one 
 day, referring to the same subject, " that Mehemet- 
 Ali was lacking in intelligence, would commit a grave 
 error. I am convinced, from the little I saw of him, 
 that he was a man of very great natural parts. His 
 features, though not absolutely handsome, were very 
 striking and expressive. He was over sixty then, but 
 looked as if he could bear any amount of fatigue. His 
 constitution must originally have been an iron one. 
 Instead of the Oriental repose which I expected, there 
 was a kind of semi-European, semi-military stiffness
 
 DAVID AND MEHEMET-ALI. 229 
 
 about him, which, however, soon wore off in conversa- 
 tion. I say advisedly conversation, albeit that he did 
 not understand a word of French, which was the only 
 language I spoke, and that I could not catch a 
 word of his. But in spite of Koenig-Bey's acting the 
 interpreter, it was a conversation between us both. He 
 seemed to catch the meaning of my words the moment 
 they left my lips, and every now and then smiled at 
 my remarks. He as it were read the thoughts that 
 provoked them, and I do not wonder at his having been 
 amused, for I myself was never so amused in my life. 
 Perhaps you will be, when I tell you that I was not 
 to see the ladies 1 had to teach ; my instruction was 
 to be given to the eunuchs, who, in their turn, had to 
 transmit them to the viceroy's wives and daughters. 
 Of course, I tiled to point out the impossibility of such 
 a system, but Mehemet-Ali shook his head with a 
 knowing smile. That was the only way he would 
 have his womenkind initiated into the beauties of 
 Mozart and Mendelssohn. I need not tell you that 
 the arrangement came to nought." 
 
 Nearly all these conversations which I have noted 
 down here, without much attempt at transition, took 
 place at different times. One day, when he was 
 relating some experiences of his wanderings through 
 the less busy haunts of Egypt, I happened to say, 
 " After all, Monsieur David, they did you good ; they 
 inspired you with the themes of your most beautiful 
 works." 
 
 It was a very bitter smile that played on his lips, 
 but only for a moment ; the next his face resumed its 
 usual melancholy expression. " Yes, they did me good. 
 Do you know what occurred on the eve of the first per-
 
 230 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 formance of ' Le Desert,' on the morrow of which I may 
 say without undue pride that I found myself famous? 
 Well, I will tell you. But for Azevedo, I should have 
 gone supperless that night.* I met him on the 
 Boulevards, and I almost forced him to take some 
 tickets, for I was hungry and desperate. I had been 
 running about that morning to dispose of some tickets 
 for love or money, for what I feared most was an empty 
 house. I had sold half a dozen, perhaps, but no one 
 had paid me. Azevedo said, ' Yes, send me some this 
 afternoon.' * I can give them to you now,' I replied, 
 *for I carry my box office upon me.' Then he under- 
 stood, and gave me the money. May God bless him 
 for it, for ever and ever ! 
 
 " Now would you like to hear what happened after 
 the performance ? " he continued. " The place was full 
 and the applause tremendous. Next morning the papers 
 were full of my name; I was, according to most of 
 them, * a revelation in music.' But for all that I was 
 living in an attic on a fifth floor, and had not suffi- 
 cient money to pay my orchestra, let alone to arrange 
 for another concert. As for the score of * Le Desert,' 
 it went the round of every publisher but one, and was 
 declined by all these. At last the firm of Escudier 
 offered me twelve hundred francs for it, which, of 
 course, I was glad to take. They behaved handsomely 
 after all, because they arranged for a series of perform- 
 ances of it, which I was to direct at a fee of a thousand 
 francs per performance. Those good Saint-Simoniens, 
 the Pereiras, Enfantin, Michel Chevalier, had not lifted 
 
 * Alexis Azevedo, one of the best musical critics of the time, as 
 enthusiastic in Ms likes as unreasoning in his dislikes. He became a 
 fervent admirer of Felicien David. EDITOB.
 
 DAVID AND LOUIS NAPOLEON. 231 
 
 a finger to help me in my need ; nevertheless, I was 
 not going to condemn good principles on account of 
 the men who represented them not very worthily. Do 
 you know what was the result of this determination 
 not to be unjust if others were ? I embarked my little 
 savings in a concern presided over by one of them. I 
 lost every penny of it ; since then I have never been 
 able to save a penny." 
 
 Felicien David was right he never made money ; 
 first of all, " because," as Auber said, " he was too great 
 an artist to be popular ; " secondly, because the era of 
 cantatas and oratorios had not set in in France; 
 thirdly, because he composed very slowly; and fourthly, 
 " because he had no luck." The performances of his 
 principal theatrical work were interrupted by the 
 Coup-d'Etat. I am alluding to " La Perle du Bresil," 
 which, though represented at the Opera-Comique in 
 1850, only ran for a few nights there, divergencies of 
 opinion having arisen between the composer and M. 
 Emile Perrin, who was afterwards director of the Grand 
 Opera, and finally of the Comedie-Franeaise. When it 
 was revived, on November 22, 1851, the great event 
 which was to transform the second republic into the 
 second empire was looming on the horizon. In 1862, 
 Napoleon III. made Felicien David an officer of the 
 Legion d'Honneur ; Louis-Philippe had bestowed the 
 knighthood upon him in '46 or '47, after a perform- 
 ance of his " Christophe Colomb " at the Tuileries. 
 When Auber was told of the honour conferred, he 
 said, " Napoleon is worse than the fish with the ring of 
 'Polycrates ; it did not take him eleven years to bring 
 it back." Alexandre Dumas opined that "it was a 
 pearl hid in a dunghill for a decade or more." When,
 
 232 AN ENGLISHMAN IX PAKIS. 
 
 towards the end of the Empire, a street near the 
 projected opera building was named after Auber, and 
 when he could see his bu*t on the facade of the build- 
 ing, the scaffolding of which had been removed, Auber 
 remarked that the Emperor had been good enough to 
 give him credit. "Now we are quits," he added, " for 
 he was David's debtor for eleven years. At any rate, 
 I'll do my best to square the account, so you need not 
 order any hatbands until '79." When '79 came, he had 
 been in his tomb for nearly eight years. 
 
 I wrote just now that Felicien David composed very 
 slowly. But for this defect, if it was one, Verdi would 
 have never put his name to the score of " Ai'da." The 
 musical encyclopedias will tell you that Signer Ghis- 
 lanzoni is the author of the libretto, and that the 
 khedive applied to Signer Verdi for an opera on an 
 Egyptian subject. The first part of that statement is 
 utterly untrue, the other part is but partially true. 
 Signer Ghislanzoui is at best but the adapter in verse 
 and translator of the libretto. The original in prose is 
 by M. Camille du Locle, founded on the scenario sup- 
 plied by Mariette-Bey, whom Ismail-Pasha had given 
 carte blanche with regard to the music and words. 
 Mariette-Bey intended from the very first to apply to 
 a French playwright, when one night, being belated 
 at Memphis in the Serapeum, and unable to return 
 on foot, he all at once remembered an old Egyptian 
 legend. Next day he committed the scenario of it to 
 paper, showed it to the khedive, and ten copies of it 
 were printed in Alexandria. One of these was sent 
 to M. du Locle, who developed the whole in prose. 
 
 M. du Locle had also been authorized to find a 
 French composer, but it is very certain that Mariette-
 
 THE ORIGIN OF VERDl's "AIDA." 233 
 
 Bey had in his mind's eye the composer of " Le Desert," 
 though he may not have expressly said so. At any 
 rate, M. du Locle applied to David, who refused, 
 although the " retaining fee " was fifty thousand francs. 
 It was because he could not comply with the first and 
 foremost condition, to have the score ready in six 
 months at the latest. Then Wagner was thought of. 
 It is most probable that he would have refused. To 
 Mariette-Bey belongs the credit furthermore of having 
 entirely stai^e-managed the opera. 
 
 Thus Felicien David, who had revealed "the East in 
 music " to the Europeans, no more reaped the fruits of 
 his originality than Decamps, who had revealed it in 
 painting. Was not Auber riijlit when he said to young 
 Coquelin that the verdict on all things in this world 
 might be summed up in the one phrase, "It's an 
 injustice " ?
 
 234- AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Three painters, and a school for pifferari Gabriel Decamps, Eugene 
 Delacroix, and Horace Veraet The prices of pictures in the 
 forties Delacroix' find no purchasers at all Decamps' drawings 
 fetch a thousand francs each Decamps not a happy man The 
 cause of his unhappiness The 7nan and the painter He finds 
 no pleasure in being popular Eugene Delacroix His contempt 
 for the bourgeoisie A parallel between Delacroix and Shake- 
 speare Was Delacroix tailor short? His love of flowers His 
 delicate health His personal appearance His indifference to 
 the love-passionGeorge Sand and Delacroix A n iscarried 
 love-scene Delacroix' housekeeper, Jenny Leguillou Delacroix 
 does not want to pose as a model for one of George Sand's heroes 
 Delacroix as a writer His approval of Carlyle's dictum, " Show 
 me how a man sings," etc. His humour tempered by his reve- 
 rence His failure as a caricaturist His practical jokes on would- 
 be art-critics Delacroix at home His dress while at work 
 Horace Vernet's. Paul Delaroche's, Ingres' Early at work He 
 does not waste time over lunch How he spent his evenings His 
 dislike of being reproduced in marble or on canvas after his death 
 Horace Vemet The contrast between the two men an 1 the two 
 artists Vernet's appearance His own account of how he became 
 a painter Moral and mental resemblance to Alexandre Dumas 
 pere His political opinions Vernet and Nicholas I. A bold 
 answer His opinion on the mental state of the Romanoffs The 
 comic side of Vernet's character He thinks himself a Vauban 
 His interviews with M. Thiers His admiration of everything 
 military His worship of Alfred de Vigny His ineffectual 
 attempts to paint a scene in connection with the storming of Con- 
 Btantine Laurent-Jan proposes to write an epic on it He gives 
 a synopsis of the cantos Laurent-Jan lives "on the fat of the 
 land" for six months A son of Napoleon's companion in exile, 
 General Bertrand The chaplain of "la Helle-Ponle" The first 
 French priest who wore the English dress Horace Vernet and 
 the veterans of "la grande arme'e" His studio during their 
 occupancy of it as models His budget. His hatred of pifferari 
 A professor The Quartier-Latin revisited. 
 
 A FEW weeks ago,* when rummaging among old 
 
 papers, documents, memoranda, etc., I came upon 
 
 Written in 1882.
 
 THE PRICE OF PICTURES IN THE FORTIES. 235 
 
 some stray leaves of a catalogue of a picture sale at 
 the Hotel Bullion * in 1845. I had marked the prices 
 realized by a score or so of paintings signed by men 
 who, though living at that time, were already more 
 or less famous, and many of whom have since then 
 acquired a world-wide reputation. There was only 
 one exception to this that of Herrera the Elder, who 
 had been dead nearly two centuries, and whose name 
 was, and is still, a household word among connoisseurs 
 by reason of his having been the master of Velasquez. 
 The handiwork of the irascible old man was knocked 
 down for three francs seventy-five centimes, though no 
 question was raised as to the genuineness of it in my 
 hearing. It was a saint the catalogue said no more, 
 and I have been in vain trying to recollect why I 
 did not buy it. There must have been some cogent 
 reason for my not having done so, for "the frame 
 was no doubt worth double the money," to use an 
 auctioneer's phrase. Was it suspicion, or what ? At 
 any rate, two years later, I heard that it had been sold 
 to an American for fourteen thousand francs, though, 
 after all, that was no guarantee of its value. 
 
 In those days it was certainly better to be a live 
 artist than a dead one, for, a little further on among 
 these pages, I came upon a marginal note of the prices 
 fetched by three works of Meissonier, " Le Corps de 
 Garde," " Une partie de piquet," and " Un jeune 
 homme regardant des dessins," all of which had been 
 in the salon of that year,f and each of which fetched 
 
 * The Hotel Bullion was formerly the town mansion of the financier 
 of that name, and situated in the Rue Coquilliere. EDITOR. 
 
 t The annual salon was held in the Louvre then ; in 1849 it was 
 transferred to the Tuileries. In 1850, '51, and '52 it was removed to 
 the galleries of the Palais-Royal ; in 1853 and '54 the salon was held
 
 236 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 3000 francs. I should not like to say what their pur- 
 chasing price would be to-day, allowing for the differ- 
 ence in the value of money. Further on still, there 
 is a note of a picture by Alfred de Dreux, which 
 realized a similar amount. Allowing for that same 
 difference in the value of money, that work would 
 probably not find a buyer now among real connoisseurs 
 at 200 francs.* At the same time, the original sketch 
 of David's "Serment du Jeu de Paurne " did not find 
 a purchaser at 2500 francs, the reserve price. A land- 
 scape by Jules Andre, a far greater artist than Alfred 
 de Dreux, went for 300 francs, and Baron's " Oies du 
 Frere Philippe" only realized 200 Cranes more. There 
 was not a single " bid " for Eugene Delacroix' " Marc- 
 Aurele," and when he did sell a picture it was for 500 
 or b'OO francs ; nowadays it would fetch 100,000 francs. 
 On the other hand, the drawings of Decamps' admirable 
 "Histoire de Samson" realized 1000 francs, each. 
 
 Yet Gabriel Decamps was a far unhappier man than 
 Eugene Delacroix. The pictures rejected by the 
 public became the "apples" of Delacroix' eyes, with 
 which he would not part, subsequently, at any price, 
 as in the case of his " Marino Falieto." Decamps, 
 one day, while he lived in the Faubourg Saint- Denis, 
 deliberately destroyed one hundred and forty draw- 
 ings, the like of which were eagerly bought up for a 
 
 in the Hotel des Menus-Plaisirs, in the Faubourg Poissonniere, which 
 became afterwards the storehouse for the scenery of the Giai;d Opera. 
 In 1855 the exhibition took place in a special annex of the Palais de 
 1'Industrie ; after that, it was lodged in the Palais itself. EDITOR. 
 
 * Alfred de Dreux was not an unknown figure in London society. 
 He came in 1848. He was a kind of Cnmte d'Orsay, and painted 
 chiefly equestrian figures. After the Coup-d'Etat lie returned to 
 Paris, and was patronized by society, and subsequently by Napoleon 
 III. himself, whose portrait he painted. H. was killed in a duel, the 
 cause of which has never been revealed. EDITOR.
 
 GABRIEL DECAMPS. 237 
 
 thousand francs apiece, though at present they would 
 be worth four times that amount. Delacroix was con- 
 tent with his God-given genius ; " he saw everything 
 he had made, and behold it was very good." Decamps 
 fumed and fretted at the supposed systematic neglect 
 of the Government, which did not give him a com- 
 mission. " You paint with a big brush, but you are 
 not a great painter," said Sir Joshua to a would-be 
 Michael-Angelo. To Gabriel Decamps the idea of 
 being allowed or invited by the State to cover a 
 number of yards of canvas or wall or ceiling was so 
 attractive that lie positively lost his sleep and his appe- 
 tite over it. It was, perhaps, the only bitter drop in 
 his otherwise tolerably full cup of happiness, but that 
 one drop very frequently embittered the whole. He 
 had many good traits in his character, though he was 
 not uniformly good-tempered. There was an absolute 
 indifference as to the monetary results of his calling, 
 and an inherent generosity to those who " had fallen 
 by the way." But he was something of a bear and a 
 recluse^ not because he disliked society, but because he 
 deliberately suppressed his sociable qualities, lest he 
 should arouse the suspicion of making them the step- 
 ping-stone to his ambition. No man ever misread the 
 lesson, " Do well and fear not," so utterly as did De- 
 camps. He was never tired of well-doing ; and he was 
 never tired of speculating what the world would think 
 of it. There is not a single picture from his brush 
 that does not contain an original thought; he founded 
 an absolutely new school no small thing to do. The 
 world at large acknowledged as much, and yet he would 
 not enjoy the fruits of that recognition, because it 
 lacked the " official stamp." When Decamps con-
 
 238 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 sented to forget his real or fancied grievances he 
 became a capital companion, provided one had a taste 
 for bitter and scathing satire. I fancy Jonathan Swift 
 must have been something like Gabriel Decamps in 
 his daily intercourse with his familiars. But he rarely 
 said an ill-natured thing of his fellow-artists. His 
 strictures were reserved for the political men of his 
 time, and of the preceding reign. The Bourbons he 
 despised from the bottom of his heart, and during the 
 Restauration his contempt found vent in caricatures 
 which, at the moment, must have seared like a red- 
 hot iron. He had kept a good many of these ephe- 
 meral productions, and, I am bound to say, they struck 
 one afterwards as unnecessarily severe. " If they " 
 (meaning the Bourbons) " had continued to reign in 
 France," he said one day, " I would have applied for 
 letters of naturalization to the Sultan." 
 
 Decamps was killed, like Gericault, by a fall off his 
 horse, but long before that he had ceased to work. 
 " I cannot add much to my reputation, and do not care 
 to add to my store," he said. In 1855, the world 
 positively rang with his name, but I doubt whether 
 this universal admiration gave him much satisfaction. 
 He exhibited more than fifty works at the Exposition 
 Universelle of that year, a good many of which had 
 been rejected by the " hanging committees " of previous 
 salons. True to his system, he rarely, perhaps never 
 directly, called the past judgment in question, but he 
 lived and died a dissatisfied man. Unlike Mirabeau, 
 who had not the courage to be unpopular, Decamps 
 derived no gratification from popularity. 
 
 I knew Eugene Delacroix better than any of the 
 others in the marvellous constellation of painters of
 
 EUGENE DELACROIX. 239 
 
 that period, and our friendship lasted till the day of 
 his death, in December 1863. I was also on very good 
 terms with Horace Vernet ; but though the latter was 
 perhaps a more lively companion, the stronger at- 
 traction was towards the former. I was one of the few 
 friends whom he tolerated whilst at work. Our friend- 
 ship lasted for nearly a quarter of a century, and 
 during that time there was never a single unpleasant- 
 ness between us, though I am bound to admit that 
 Delacroix' temper was very uncertain. Among all 
 those men who had a profound, ineradicable contempt 
 for the bourgeois, I have only known one who despised 
 him even to a greater extent than he ; it was Gustave 
 Flaubert. Though Delacroix' manners were perfect, 
 he could scarcely be polite to the middle classes. 
 With the exception of Dante and Shakespeare, Dela- 
 croix was probably the greatest poet that ever lived ; a 
 greater poet undoubtedly than Victor Hugo, in that 
 lie was absolutely indifferent to the material results 
 of his genius. If Shakespeare and the author of the 
 " Inferno " had painted, they would have painted 
 like Delacroix ; his " Sardanapale " is the Byronic 
 poem, condensed and transferred to canvas. 
 
 Long as I knew Delacroix, I had never been able to 
 make out whether he was tall or short, and most of his 
 friends and acquaintances were equally puzzled. As 
 we stood around his coffin many were surprised at its 
 length. His was decidedly a curious face, at times 
 stony in its immobility, at others quivering from the 
 tip of chin to the juncture of the eyebrows, and with 
 a peculiar movement of the nostrils that was almost 
 pendulum-like in its regularity. It gave one the 
 impression of their being assailed by some unpleasant
 
 240 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 smell, and, one day, when Delacroix was in a light 
 mood, I remarked upon it. " You are perfectly right," 
 he replied; "I always fancy there is corruption in the 
 air, but it is not necessarily of a material kind." 
 
 Be this as it may, he liked to surround himself with 
 flowers, and his studio was often like a hothouse, apart 
 from the floral decorations. The temperature was 
 invariably very high, and even then he would shiver 
 now and again. I have always had an idea that Dela- 
 croix had Indian blood in his veins, which idea was 
 justified to a certain extent by his appearance, albeit 
 that there was no tradition to that effect in his family. 
 But it was neither the black hair, the olive skin, nor 
 the peculiar formation of the features which forced 
 that conclusion upon me ; it was the character of 
 Delacroix, which for years and years I endeavoured to 
 read thoroughly, without succeeding to any appreciable 
 degree. There was one trait that stood out so distinctly 
 that the merest child might have perceived it his 
 honesty ; but the rest was apparently a mass of contra- 
 diction. It is difficult to imagine a poet, and especially 
 a painter-poet, without an absorbing passion for some 
 woman not necessarily for the same woman ; to my 
 knowledge Delacroix had no such passion, for one can 
 scarcely admit that Jenny Leguillou, his housekeeper, 
 could have inspired such a feeling. True, when I first 
 knew Delacroix he was over forty, but those who had 
 known him at twenty and twenty-five never hinted at 
 any romantic attachment or even at a sober, homely 
 affection. And assuredly a man of forty is not in- 
 vulnerable in that respect. And yet, the woman who 
 positively bewitched, one after another, so many of 
 Delacroix' eminent contemporaries, Jules Sandeau,
 
 EUGENE DELACROIX AND GEORGE SAND. 241 
 
 Alfred de Musset, Michel de Bourges, Chopin, Pierre 
 Leroux, Cabet, Lammenais, etc., had no power over him. 
 
 Paul de Musset, perhaps as a kind of revenge for 
 the wrongs suffered by his brother, once gave an 
 amusing description of the miscarried attempt of 
 George Sand " to net " Eugene Delacroix. 
 
 It would appear that the painter had shown signs 
 of yielding to the charms which few men were able to 
 withstand, or, at any rate, that George Sand fancied 
 she could detect such signs. Whether it was from a 
 wish on George Sand's part to precipitate matters 
 or to nip the thing in the bud, it would be difficult to 
 determine, but it is certain that she pursued her usual 
 tactics that is, she endeavoured to provoke an ad- 
 mission of her admirer's feeling. Though I sub- 
 sequently ascertained that Paul de Musset's story was 
 substantially true, I am not altogether prepared, 
 knowing his animosity against her, to accept his 
 hinted theory of the lady's desire " de brusquer les 
 fianfailles." 
 
 One morning, then, while Delacroix was at work, 
 George Sand entered his studio. She looked out of 
 spirits, and almost immediately stated the purpose of 
 her visit. 
 
 " My poor Eugene ! " she began ; " I am afraid I 
 have got sad news for you." 
 
 " Oh, indeed," said Delacroix, without interrupting 
 his work, and just giving her one of his cordial smiles 
 in guise of welcome. 
 
 " Yes, my dear friend, I have carefully consulted my 
 own heart, and the upshot is, I am grieved to tell you, 
 that I feel I cannot and could never love you." 
 
 Delacroix kept on painting. " Is that a fact ? " he said. 
 
 VOL. i. E
 
 242 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 " Yes, and I ask you once more to pardon me, and to 
 give me credit for my candour my poor Delacroix." 
 
 Delacroix did not budge from his easel. 
 
 " You are angry with me, are you not ? You will 
 never forgive me ? " 
 
 " Certainly I will. Only I want you to keep quiet 
 for ten minutes ; I have got a bit of sky there which 
 has caused me a good deal of trouble, it is just coming 
 right. Go and sit down or else take a little walk, and 
 come back in ten minutes." 
 
 Of course, George Sand did not return ; and equally, 
 of course, did not tell the story to any one, but some- 
 how it leaked out. Perhaps Jenny Leguillou had 
 overheard the scene she was quite capable of listening 
 behind a screen or door and reported it. Delacroix 
 himself, when "chaffed" about it, never denied it. 
 There was no need for him to do so, because theoretically 
 it redounded to the lady's honour ; had she not rejected 
 his advances '( 
 
 I have noted it here to prove that the poetry of 
 Delacroix n'allait pas se faufiler dans les jupons, 
 because, though we would not take it for granted that 
 where George Sand failed others would have suc- 
 ceeded, it is nevertheless an authenticated fact that 
 only one other man among the many on whom she tried 
 her wiles remained proof against them. That man 
 was Prosper Merimee, the author of " Colomba " and 
 4 ' Carmen," the friend of Panizzi. "Quand je fais un 
 roman, je choisis mon sujet ; je ne veux pas que 1'on 
 me decoupe pour en faire un. Madame Sand ne met 
 pas ses amants dans son cosur, elle les mets dans ses 
 livres ; et elle le fait si diablement vite qu'on n'a pas 
 le temps de la devancer." Merimee was right, each of
 
 THE ARTIST. 243 
 
 George Sand's earlier books had been written with 
 the heart's blood of one of the victims of her insatiable 
 passions for I should not like to prostitute the word 
 " love " to her liaisons ; and I am glad to think that 
 Eugene Delacroix was spared that ordeal. It would 
 have killed him ; and the painter of " Sardanapale " 
 was more precious to his own art than to hers, which, 
 with all due deference to eminent critics, left an un- 
 pleasant sensation to those who were fortunate enough 
 to be free from incipient hysteria. 
 
 A liaison with George Sand would have killed 
 Eugene Delacroix, I am perfectly certain ; for he 
 would have staked gold, she would have only played 
 with counters. It would have been the vitiated 
 atmosphere in which the candle of his life and of his 
 genius which were one, in this instance would have 
 been extinguished. 
 
 As it was, that candle burned very low at times, 
 because, during the years I knew Delacroix, he had 
 nearly always one foot in the grave ; the healthy 
 breezes of art's unpolluted air made that candle burn 
 brightly now and again ; hence the difference in quality, 
 as striking, of some of his pictures. 
 
 Perhaps on account of his delicate health, Delacroix 
 was not very fond of society, in which, however, he 
 was ever welcome, and particularly fitted to shine, 
 though he rarely attempted to do so. I have said that 
 Dante and Shakespeare, if they had painted, would 
 have painted as Delacroix did ; I am almost tempted 
 to add that if Delacroix' vocation had impelled him 
 that way, he would have sung as they sang of course, 
 I do not mean that he would have soared as high, but 
 his name would have lived in literature as it does in
 
 -44 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 painting, though perhaps not with so brilliant a halo 
 around it. For, unlike many great painters of his 
 time, Delacroix was essentially lettre. One has but 
 to read some of his critical essays in the Revue des 
 Deux Mondes of that period, to be convinced of that at 
 once. Theophile Gautier said, one evening, that it 
 was " the style of a poet in a hurry." The sentences 
 give one the impression of newly-minted golden coins. 
 Nearly every one contains a thought, which, if reduced 
 to small change, would still make an admirable para- 
 graph. He gives to his readers what he expects from 
 his authors a sensation, a shock in two or three lines. 
 The sentences are modelled upon his favourite prose 
 author, who, curious to relate, was none other than 
 Napoleon I. I often tried to interest him in English 
 literature. Unfortunately, he knew no English to speak 
 of, and wa<* obliged to have recourse to translations. 
 Walter Scott he thought long-winded, and, after a few 
 attempts at Shakespeare in French, he gave it up. 
 " Ca ne peut pas etre cela," he said. But he had 
 several French versions of " Gulliver's Travels," all of 
 which he read in turn. One day, I quoted to him 
 a sentence from Carlyle's " Lectures on Heroes : " 
 " Show me how a man sings, and I will tell you how 
 he will fight." " C'est cela," he said ; " if Shakespeare 
 had been a general, he would have won his battles like 
 Napoleon, by thunderclaps " (par des coups de foudre). 
 Delacroix had what a great many Frenchmen lack 
 a keen sense of humour, but it was considerably 
 tempered by what, for the want of a better term, I 
 may call the bump of reverence. He could not be 
 humorous at the expense of those he admired or re- 
 spected, consequently his attempts at caricature at the
 
 HIS PRACTICAL JOKES. 245 
 
 early period of his career in Le Nain Jaune were a 
 failure ; because Delacroix' admiration and respect 
 were not necessarily reserved for those with whom he 
 agreed in art or politics, but for every one who 
 attempted something great or useful, though he failed. 
 The man who, at the age of sixty, would enthusiasti- 
 cally dilate upon his meeting forty years before with 
 Gros, whose hat he had knocked off by accident, was 
 not the likely one to hold up to ridicule the celebrity 
 of the hour or day without malice prepense. And this 
 malice prepense never uprose within him, except in 
 the presence of some bumptious, ignorant nobody. 
 Then it positively boiled over, and he did not mind 
 what trick he played his interlocutor. The latter 
 might be a wealthy would-be patron, an influential 
 Government official, or a well-known picture-dealer; it 
 was all the same to Delacroix, who had an utter con- 
 tempt for patronage, nepotism, and money. It was as 
 good as a clever scene in a comedy to see him rise 
 aud draw himself up to his full height, in order to 
 impress his victim with a sense of the importance of 
 what he was going to say. To get an idea of him 
 under such circumstances, one must go and see his 
 portrait in the Louvre, painted by himself, with the 
 semi-supercilious, semi-benevolent smile playing upon 
 the parted lips, and showing the magnificent regular 
 set of teeth, of which he was very proud, beneath the 
 black bushy moustache, which reminds one curiously 
 of that of Eembrandt. Of course, the victim was 
 mesmerized, and stood listening with all attention 
 promising himself to remember every word of the 
 spoken essay on art, with the view of reproducing it as 
 his own at the first favourable opportunity. And he
 
 246 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PAKIS. 
 
 generally did, to his own discomfiture and the amuse- 
 ment of his hearers, who, if they happened to know 
 Delacroix, which was the case frequently, invariably 
 detected the source of the speaker's information . I once 
 heard a spoken essay on Holbein reproduced in that 
 way, which would have simply made the fortune of any 
 comic writer. The human parrot had not even been 
 parrot-like, for he had muddled the whole in trans- 
 mission. I took some pains to reproduce his exact 
 words, and I never saw Delacroix laugh as when I 
 repeated it to him. For, as a rule, and even when he 
 was mystifying that kind of numskull in the presence 
 of half a dozen well-informed friends, Delacroix 
 remained perfectly serious, though the others had to 
 bite their lips lest they should explode. In fact, it 
 would have been difficult at any time to guess or 
 discover, beneath the well-bred man of the world, with 
 his charming, courtly, though somewhat distant 
 manner, the painter who gave us "La Barque de 
 Dante," and " Les Massacres de Scio ; " still, Delacroix 
 was that man of the world, exceedingly careful of his 
 appearance, particular to a degree about his nails, 
 which he wore very long, dressed to perfection, and, 
 in spite of the episode with George Sand, recorded 
 above, most ingratiating with women. 
 
 Different altogether was he in his studio. Though 
 he was " at home " from three till five, to visitors of 
 both sexes, it was distinctly understood that he would 
 not interrupt his work for them, or play the host as 
 the popular painter of to-day, is supposed to do. The 
 atelier, encumbered with bric-a-brac and sumptuous 
 hangings and afternoon tea, had not been invented : 
 if the host wore a velvet coat, a Byronic collar, and
 
 DELACROIX AT HOME. 247 
 
 gorgeous papooshes, it was because he liked these 
 things himself, not because he intended to impress 
 his visitors. As a rule, the host, though in his youth 
 perhaps he had been fond of extravagant costumes, 
 did not like them : Horace Vernet often worked in his 
 shirt-sleeves, Paul Delaroche nearly always wore a 
 blouse, and Ingres, until he became "a society man," 
 which was very late in life, donned a dressing-gown. 
 Delacroix was, if anything, more slovenly than the 
 rest when at work. An old jacket buttoned up to 
 the chin, a large muffler round his neck, a cloth cap 
 pulled over his ears, and a pair of thick felt slippers 
 made up his usual garb. For he was nearly alwavs 
 shivering with cold, and had an affection of the threat, 
 besides, which compelled him to be careful. " But for 
 my wrapping up, I should have been dead at thirty," 
 he said. 
 
 Nevertheless, at the stroke of eight, winter and 
 summer, he was in his studio, which he did not leave 
 until dark, during six months of the year, and a little 
 before, during the other six. Contrary to the French 
 habit, he never took luncheon, and generally dined at 
 home a little after six the fatigue of dining out being 
 too much for him. 
 
 I may safely say that I was one of Delacroix' 
 friends, with whom he talked without restraint. I 
 often went to him of an evening when the weather 
 prevented his going abroad, which, in his state of 
 health, was very often. He always chafed at such 
 confinement; for though not fond of society in a 
 general way, he liked coming to the Boulevards, after 
 his work was over, and mixing with his familiars. 
 Delacroix smoked, but, unlike many addicted to
 
 248 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 tobacco, could not sit idle. His hands, as well as his 
 brain, wanted to be busy ; consequently, when im- 
 prisoned by rain or snow, he sat sketching figures or 
 groups, talking all the while. By then his name had 
 become familiar to every art student throughout the 
 world, and he often received flattering letters from 
 distant parts. One evening, shortly after the death of 
 David d' Angers, to an episode in whose life I have 
 devoted a considerable space in these nates, Delacroix 
 received an American newspaper, the title of which 
 I have forgotten, but which contained an exceedingly 
 able article on the great sculptor, as an artist, and as 
 a man. It wound up with the question, '* And what 
 kind of monument will be raised to him by the man 
 who virtually shortened his life by sending him into 
 exile, because David remained true to the republican 
 principles which Napoleon only shammed or, if not 
 shammed, deliberately trod underfoct to ascend a 
 tyrant's throne?" 
 
 I translated the whole of the article, and, when I 
 came to the last lines, Delacroix shook his head sadly. 
 " You remember," he said, " the answer of our friend 
 Dumas, when they asked him for a subscription towards 
 a monument to a man whom every one had reviled in 
 the beginning of his career. 'They had better be 
 content with the stones they threw at him during his 
 existence. No monument they can raise will be so 
 eloquent of their imbecility and his genius.' I may 
 take it," he went on, "that such a question will be 
 raised one day after my death, perhaps many years 
 after I am gone. If you are alive you will, by my will, 
 raise your voice against the pro,ect. I have painted 
 my own portrait; while I am here, I will take care
 
 HIS DEATH AND LAST WILL. 24-9 
 
 that it be not reproduced ; I will forbid them to do so 
 after I am at rest. There shall not be a bust on my 
 tomb." 
 
 About a fortnight before his death he made a will 
 to that effect, and up to the present hour (1883) its 
 injunctions have been respected. Delacroix lies in a 
 somewhat solitary spot in Pere-Lachaise. Neither 
 emblem, bust, nor statue adorns his tomb, which was 
 executed according to his own instructions. "They 
 libelled me so much during my life," he said one day, 
 " that I do not want them to libel me after my death, 
 on canvas or in marble. They flattered me so much 
 afterwards, that I know their flattery to be fulsome, 
 and, if anything, I am more afraid of it than of their 
 libels." 
 
 It would be difficult to find a greater contrast than 
 there existed between Eugene Delacroix, both as a man 
 and an artist, and Horace Vernet. The one loved his 
 art with the passionate devotion of an intensely poetical 
 lover for his wayward mistress, whom to cease wooing 
 for a moment might mean an irreparable breach or, at 
 least, a long estrangement; the other loved his with 
 the calm affection of the cherished husband for the 
 faithful wife who had blessed him with a numerous 
 offspring, whom he had known from his very infancy, a 
 marriage with whom had been decided upon when he 
 was a mere lad, whom he might even neglect for a 
 little while without the bond being in any way relaxed. 
 According to their respective certificates of birth,Vernet 
 was the senior by ten years of Delacroix. When I 
 first knew them, about 1840, Vernet looked ten years 
 younger than Delacroix. It they had chosen to dis- 
 guise themselves as musketeers of the Louis XIII.
 
 250 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 period, Vernet would have reminded one of both 
 Aramis and d'Artagnan; Delacroix, of Athos. 
 
 Montaigne spoke Latin before he could speak French ; 
 Vernet drew men and horses before he had mastered 
 either French or Latin. His playthings were stumpy, 
 worn-out brushes, discarded palettes, and sticks of 
 charcoal; his alphabet, the pictures of the Louvre, 
 where his father occupied a set of apartments, and 
 where he was born, a month before the outbreak of the 
 first Revolution. He once said to me, " Je suis peintre 
 comme il y des hommes qui sont rois parceque ils ne 
 peuvent pas etre autre chose. II fallait un homme de 
 genie pour sortir d'un pareil bourbier et malheureuse- 
 ment je n'ai que du talent." By the "bourbier" he 
 meant his great-grandfather, his two grandfathers, and 
 his father, all of whom were painters and draughtsmen. 
 
 Posterity will probably decide whether Horace 
 Vernet was a genius or merely a painter of great 
 talent, but it will scarcely convey an approximate idea 
 of the charm of the man himself. There was only one 
 other of his contemporaries who exercised the same 
 spell on his companions Alexandre Dumas pere. 
 Though Vernet was a comparative dwarf by the side 
 of Dumas, the men had the same qualities, physical, 
 moral, and mental. Neither of them knew what 
 bodily fatigue meant ; both could work for fourteen or 
 fifteen hours a day for a fortnight or a month ; both 
 would often have "a long bout of idleness," as they 
 called it, which, to others not endowed with their 
 strength and mental activity, would have meant hard 
 labour. Both were fond of earning money, fonder still 
 of spending it ; both created almost without an effort. 
 Dumas roared with laughter while writing ; Vernet sang
 
 HORACE VERNET. 2-U 
 
 at the top of his voice while painting, or bandied jokes 
 with his visitors, who might come and go as they liked 
 at all hours. Dumas, especially in the earlier days of 
 his career, had to read a great deal before he could 
 <-atch the local colour of iiis novels and plays he 
 himself has told us that he was altogether ignorant 
 of the history of France. But when he had finished 
 reading up the period in question, he wrote as if lie had 
 been born in it. Vernet was a walking cyclopaedia on 
 military costume '; he knew, perhaps, not much more 
 than that, but that he knew thoroughly, : and never 
 had to think twice about the uniforms of his models, 
 and, as he himself said, "I never studied the thing, 
 nor did I learn to paint or to draw. According to 
 many people, I do not know how to paint or to draw 
 now: it may be so; at any rate I have the comfort 
 of having wasted nobody's time in trying to learn." 
 
 Like Dumas, he was very proud of his calling and 
 of the name he had made for himself in it, which he 
 would not have changed for the title of emperor least 
 of all for that of king ; for, like his great contemporary, 
 he was a republican at heart. It did not diminish 
 either his or Dumas' admiration for Napoleon I. " I 
 can understand an absolute monarchy, nay, a downright 
 autocracy, and I can understand a republic," said 
 Vernet, " but I fail to understand the use of a con- 
 stitutional king, just because it implies and entails 
 the principle of succession by inheritance. An 
 autocracy means one ruler over so many millions of 
 subjects ; a constitutional monarchy means between 
 five and six hundred direct rulers, so many millions 
 of indirect ones, and one subject who is called king. 
 Who would leave his child the inheritance of such.
 
 252 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 slavery? A la bonne heure, give me a republic such 
 as we understand it in France, all rulers, all natural- 
 born kings, gods in mortals' disguise who dance to the 
 piping of the devil. There have been two such since 
 I was born ; there may be another half-dozen like these 
 within the next two centuries, because, before you can 
 have an ideal republic, you must have ideal republicans, 
 and Nature cannot afford to fritter away her most 
 precious gifts on a lot of down-at-heels lawyers and 
 hobnail- booted scum. She condescends now and then 
 to make an ideal tyrant she will never make a nation 
 of ideal republicans. You may just as well ask her to 
 make a nation of Eaffaelles or Michael Angelos, or 
 Shakespeares or Molieres." 
 
 Both men, in spite of their republican opinions, 
 were personally attached to some members of the 
 Orleans family; both had an almost invincible 
 objection to the Bourbons. Vernet had less occasion 
 to be outspoken in his dislike than Dumas, but he 
 refused to receive the Due de Berri when the latter 
 offered to come and see the battle-pieces Vernet was 
 painting for the then Duke of Orleans (Louis-Philippe). 
 Vernet had stipulated that his paintings should 
 illustrate exclusively the campaigns of the first 
 Republic and the Empire, though subsequently he 
 depicted some episodes of the Algerian wars, in which 
 the son of the King had distinguished himself. " Tri- 
 colour cockades or no pictures/' he remarked, and 
 Louis-Philippe good-humouredly acquiesced. Though 
 courteous to a degree, he never minced matters to 
 either king or beggar. While in Eussia Nicholas took 
 a great fancy to him. It appears that the painter, 
 who must have looked even smaller by the side of the
 
 VERNET AND NICHOLAS I. 253 
 
 Czar than lie did by that of Dumas, had accompanied 
 the former, if not on a perilous, at least on a very 
 uncomfortable journey in the middle of the winter. 
 HH and the Emperor were the only two men who had 
 borne the hardships and privations without grumbling, 
 nay, with Mark Tapleyean cheerfulness. That kind 
 of fortitude was at all times a passport to Nicholas' 
 heart, doubly so in this instance, by reason of Vernet's 
 by no means robust appearance. From that moment 
 Nicholas became very attached to, and would often 
 send for, him. They would often converse on subjects 
 even more serious, and, one day, after the partition of 
 Poland, Nicholas proposed that Vernet should paint a 
 picture on the subject. 
 
 " I am afraid I cannot do it, sire," was the answer. 
 "I have never painted a Christ on the cross." 
 
 "The moment I had said it," continued Vernet, 
 when he told me the story, which is scarcely known, 
 " I thought my last hour had struck. I am positively 
 certain that a Russian would have paid these words 
 with his life, or at least with lifelong exile to Siberia. 
 I shall never forget the look he gave me; there 
 was a murderous gleam in the eyes : but it was over 
 in an instant. Nevertheless, I feel convinced that 
 Nicholas was mad, and, what is more, I feel equally 
 convinced that there is incipient madness throughout 
 the whole of the Romanoff family. I saw a good 
 many of its members during my stay in Russia. 
 They all did and said things which would have landed 
 ordinary men and women in a lunatic asylum. At the 
 same time there was an unmistakable touch of genius 
 about some of them. I often endeavoured to discuss 
 the matter with the resident foreign physicians, but,
 
 254 AX ENGLISHMAN IN PARTS. 
 
 as you may imagine, they were very reticent. But 
 mark my words, one day there will be a terrible flare- 
 up. Of course, the foreigner, who sees the superstitious 
 reverence, the slavish respect with which they are 
 surrounded, scarcely wonders that these men and 
 women should, in the end, consider themselves above, 
 and irresponsible to, the millions of grovelling mortals 
 whom they rule ; in spite of all this, the question can 
 only be one of time, and when the Kussian empire 
 falls, the cataclysm will be unlike any other that has 
 preceded it." 
 
 There was a comic side to Horace Vernet's character. 
 By dint of painting battle-pieces he had come to con- 
 sider himself an authority on strategy and tactics, and 
 his criticisms on M. Thiers' system of fortifications 
 used to set us roaring. I am under the impression 
 though I will not strictly vouch for it that at the 
 recommendation of one or two of the inveterate jokers 
 of our set, Laurent-Jan * and Mery, he had a couple of 
 interviews with M. Thiers, but we never ascertained the 
 result of them. It is almost certain that the minister 
 of Louis-Philippe, who at one period of his life con- 
 sidered himself a Napoleon aud a Vauban rolled into 
 one, did not entertain Vernet's suggestions with the 
 degree of enthusiasm to which he thought them en- 
 titled ; at any rate, from that time, the mention of 
 M. Thiers' name generally provoked a contemptuous 
 shrug of the shoulders on Vernet's part. " C'est tout 
 a fait comme Napoleon et Jomini, mon cher Vernet," 
 
 * Laurent-Jan was a witty, though incorrigibly idle journalist. He 
 is entirely forgotten now save by such men as MM. Arsene Houssaye 
 and Roger de Beauvoir, who were his contemporaries. He was the 
 author of a clever parody on Kotzebue's " Menschenhasz und Reue." 
 known on the English stage as " The Stranger." EDITOR.
 
 A PROJECTED EPIC. 255 
 
 said Laurent- Jan ; " mais, apres tout, qu'est que cela 
 vous fait? La posterite jugera entre vous deux, elle 
 saura bien debrouiller la part que vous avez contribute 
 a ces travaux immortels." 
 
 Much as Horace Vernet admired his great contem- 
 poraries in art and literature, his greatest worship 
 was reserved for Alfred de Vigny, the soldier-poet, 
 though the latter was by no means a sympathetic 
 companion. Next to his society, which was rarely 
 to be had, he preferred that of Arthur Bertrand, the 
 son of Napoleon's companion in exile. Arthur Ber- 
 trand had an elder brother, Napoleon Bertrand, who, 
 at the storming of Coastantine, put on a new pair of 
 white kid gloves, brought from Paris for the purpose. 
 Horace Vernet made at least fifty sketches of that 
 particular incident, but he never painted the picture. 
 "I could not do it justice," he said, when remonstrated 
 with for his procrastination. "I should fail to realize 
 the grandeur of the thing." Thereupon Laurent-Jan, 
 who had no bump of reverence, proposed a poem, in 
 so many cantos, to be illustrated by Vernet. I give 
 the plan as developed by the would-be author. 
 
 1. The kid in its ancestral home among the moun- 
 tains. A mysterious voice from heaven tells it that 
 its skin will be required for a pair of gloves. The kid 
 objects, and inquires v\hy the skin of some other kid 
 will not do as well. The voice reveals the glorious 
 purpose of the gloves. The kid consents, and at the 
 same moment a hunter appears in sight. The kid, 
 instead of taking to its heels, assumes a favourable 
 position to be shot. It makes a dying speech. 
 
 2. A glove-shop on the Boulevard. Enter Napoleon 
 Bertrand, asking for a pair of gloves. The girl tells
 
 256 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 him that she has only one pair left, and communicates 
 the legend connected with it. The price is twenty 
 francs. Napoleon Bertrand demurs at it, and tells her, 
 in his turn, what the gloves are wanted for. The girl 
 refuses to take the money, and her employer, overhear- 
 ing the conversation, dismisses her there and then. He 
 keeps the wages due to her as the price of the gloves. 
 Napoleon Bertrand puts the latter in his pocket, offers 
 the girl his arm, and invites her to breakfast in a 
 cabinet particulier, " en tout bien, en tout, honneur." 
 To prove his perfectly honourable intentions, he tells 
 her the story of Jeanne d'Arc. The girl's imagination 
 is fired by the recital, and after luncheon she goes in 
 search of a book on the subject. An unscrupulous, 
 dishonest second-hand bookseller palms off an edition 
 of Voltaire's " La Pucelle." The girl writes to Napo- 
 leon Bertrand to tell him that he has made a fool of 
 her, that Jeanne d'Arc was no better than she should 
 be, and that she is going to join the harem of the Bey 
 of Constantino. 
 
 3. Napoleon Bertrand stricken with remorse before 
 Constantine. Orders given for the assault. Napoleon 
 Bertrand looks for his gloves, and finds that they are 
 too small. He can just get them on, but cannot grasp 
 the handle of the sword. His servant announces a 
 mysterious stranger, a veiled female stranger. She is 
 admitted ; she has made her escape from the harem ; 
 a mysterious voice from heaven the same that spoke 
 to the kid having warned her the night before that 
 the gloves would be too small, and that she was to let 
 a piece in. Reconciliation. Tableau. The bugles are 
 sounding " boot and saddle." Storming of Constantine. 
 
 I have reproduced the words of Laurent-Jan; I
 
 THE ABBti COQUEREAU. 257 
 
 will not attempt to reproduce his manner, which was 
 simply inimitable. Horace Vernet and Arthur Ber- 
 trand shook with laughter, and the latter offered 
 Laurent-Jan to keep him for a twelvemonth if he 
 would write the poem. Jan consented, and lived 
 upon the fat of the land during that time, but the 
 poem never saw the light. 
 
 Arthur Bertrand was one of the most jovial fellows 
 of his time. He, Eugene Sue, and Latour-Mezerai 
 were the best customers of the florist on the Boule- 
 vards. It was he who accompanied the Prince de 
 Joinville to St. Helena to bring back the remains 
 of Napoleon. After their return, a new figure joined 
 our set now and then. It was the Abbe Coquereau, 
 the chaplain of " La Belle-Poule." The Abbe Coque- 
 reau was the first French Catholic priest who dis- 
 carded the gown and the shovel hat, and adopted that 
 of the English clergy. He was a charming man, and 
 by no means straight-laced, but he drew the line at 
 accompanying Arthur in his nightly perambulations. 
 One evening he, Arthur Bertrand, and Alexandre 
 Dumas were strolling along the Boulevards when the 
 latter tried to make the abbe enter the Varietes. The 
 abbe held firm, or rather took to his heels. 
 
 In those days there were still a great many veterans 
 of the grande armee about, and a great deal of Horace 
 Vernet's money went in entertaining them at the 
 various cafes and restaurants especially when he was 
 preparing sketches for a new picture. The ordinary 
 model, clever and eminently useful as he was at that 
 period, was willingly discarded for the old and bronzed 
 warrior of the Empire, some of whom were even then 
 returning from Africa. " They may just as well earn 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 the money I pay the others," he said; consequently 
 it was not an unusual thing to see a general, a couple 
 of colonels, half a dozen captains, and as many ser- 
 geants and privates, all of whom had served under 
 Napoleon, in Yernet's studio at the same time. Of 
 course the officers were only too pleased to give their 
 services gratuitously, but Yernet had a curious way 
 of making up his daily budget. Twenty models at 
 four francs for models earned no more then eighty 
 francs. Fifteen of them refuse their pay. The eighty 
 francs to be divided between five. And the five 
 veterans enjoyed a magnificent income for weeks and 
 weeks at a time. 
 
 Truth compels me to state, however, that during 
 those weeks " the careful mother could not have taken 
 her daughter " to Vernet's studio. A couple of live 
 horses, not unfrequently three, an equal number of 
 stuffed ones, camp kettles, broken limbers, pieces of 
 artillery, an overturned ammunition waggon, a col- 
 lection of uniforms, that would have made the fortune 
 of a costumier, scattered all over the place ; drums, 
 swords, guns and saddles : and, amidst this confusion, 
 a score of veterans, some of whom had been comrades- 
 in-arms and who seemed oblivious, for the time being, 
 of their hard-earned promotion in the company of 
 those who had been less lucky than they, every man 
 smoking his hardest and telling his best garrison story : 
 all these made up a scene worthy of Yernet himself, 
 but somewhat appalling to the civilian who happened 
 to come upon it unawares. 
 
 Vernet was never happier than when at work under 
 such circumstances. Perched on a movable scaffolding 
 or on a high ladder, he reminded one much more of
 
 A PROFESSOR OF STREET MUSIC. 259 
 
 an acrobat than ol a painter. Like Dumas, he could 
 work amidst a very Babel of conversation, but the 
 sound of music, however good, disturbed him. In 
 those days, itinerant Italian musicians and pifferari, 
 who have disappeared from the streets of Paris 
 altogether since the decree of expulsion of '81, were 
 numerous, and grew more numerous year by year. I, 
 for one, feel sorry for their disappearance, for I 
 remember having spent half a dozen most delightful 
 evenings listening to them. 
 
 The thing happened in this way. Though my 
 regular visits to the Quartier-Latin had ceased long 
 ago, I returned now and then to my old haunts during 
 the years '63 and '64, in company of a young English- 
 man who was finishing his medical studies in Paris, 
 who had taken up his quarters on the left bank of the 
 Seine, and who has since become a physician in very 
 good practice in the French capital. He had been 
 specially recommended to me, and I was not too old 
 to enjoy an evening once a week or a fortnight among 
 my juniors. At a cafe, which has been demolished 
 since to make room for a much more gorgeous 
 establishment at the corners of the Boulevards Saint- 
 Michel and Saint-Germain, we used to notice an 
 elderly gentleman, scrupulously neat and exquisitely 
 clean, though his clothes were very threadbare. He 
 always sat at the same table to the right of the 
 counter. His cup of coffee was eked out by frequent 
 supplements of water, and meanwhile he was always 
 busy copying music at least, so it seemed to us at 
 first. We soon came to a different conclusion, though, 
 because every now and then he would put down his 
 pen, lean back against the cushioned seat, look up at
 
 260 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 the ceiling and smile to himself such a sweet smile ; 
 the smile of a poet or an artist, seeking inspiration 
 from the spirits supposed to be hovering now and 
 then about such. 
 
 That man was no copyist, but an obscure, un- 
 appreciated genius perhaps, biding his chance, hoping 
 against hope, meanwhile living a life of jealously 
 concealed dreams and hardship. For he looked sad 
 enough at the best of times, with a kind of settled 
 melancholy which apparently only one thing could 
 dispel the advent of a couple or trio of pifferari. 
 Then his face would light up all of a sudden, he would 
 gently push his music away, speak to them in Italian, 
 asking them to play certain pieces, beating time with 
 an air of contentment which was absolutely touching 
 to behold. On the other haud, the young pifferari 
 appeared to treat him with greater deference than 
 they did the other customers; the little girl who 
 accompanied them was particularly eager for his 
 approval. 
 
 In a little while we became very friendly with the 
 old gentleman, and, one evening, he said, "If you 
 will be here next Wednesday, the pifferari will give 
 us something new." 
 
 On the evening in question he looked quite smart ; 
 he had evidently " fait des frais de toilette," as our 
 neighbours have it ; he wore a different coat, and his 
 big white neckcloyth was somewhat more starched than 
 usual. He seemed quite excited. The pifferari, on 
 the other hand,' seemed anxious and subdued. The 
 cafe was very full, for all the habitues liked the old 
 gentleman, and had made it a point of responding to 
 his quasi-invitation. They were well rewarded, for I
 
 A PARIS SAFFRON-HILL. 261 
 
 have rarely heard sweeter music. It was unlike any- 
 thing we were accustomed to hear from such musicians; 
 there was an old-world sound about it that went straight 
 to the heart, and when we looked at the old gentleman 
 amidst the genuine applause after the termination of 
 the first piece, there were two big tears coursing down 
 his wrinkled cheeks. 
 
 The pifferari came again and again, and though 
 they never appealed to him directly, we instinctively 
 guessed that there existed some connection between 
 them. All our efforts to get at the truth of the 
 matter were, however, in vain, for the old gentleman 
 was very reticent. 
 
 Meanwhile my young friend had passed his exami- 
 nations, and shifted his quarters to my side of the 
 river. He did not abandon the Quartier-Latin alto- 
 gether, but my inquiries about the old musician met 
 with no satisfactory response. He had disappeared. 
 Nearly two years went by, when, one afternoon, he 
 called. " Come with me," he said ; " I am going to 
 show you a curious nook of Paris which you do not 
 know, and take you to an old acquaintance whom you 
 will be pleased to see again." 
 
 The " curious nook " of Paris still exists to a certain 
 extent, only the pifferari have disappeared from it. It 
 is situated behind the Pantheon, and is more original 
 than its London counterpart Saffron Hill. It is like 
 a corner of old Home, Florence, or Naples, without 
 the glorious Italian sun shining above it to lend 
 picturesqueness to the rags and tatters of its popu- 
 lation; swarthy desperadoes with golden rings in 
 their ears and on their grimy fingers, their greasy, 
 soft felt hats cocked jauntily on their heads, or drawn
 
 262 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 over the flashing dark eyes, before which their 
 womankind cower and shake ; old men who but for 
 the stubble on their chins would look like ancient 
 cameos ; girls with shapely limbs and handsome faces ; 
 middle-aged women who remind one of the witches 
 in Macbeth; women younger still, who have neither 
 shape nor make ; urchins and little lassies who remind 
 one of the pictures of Murillo : in short, a population 
 of wood-carvers and modellers, vendors of plaster casts, 
 artist-models, sugar-bakers and mosaic-workers, living 
 in the streets the greater part of the day, retiring to 
 their wretched attics at night, sober and peaceful 
 generally, but desperate and unmanageable when in 
 their cups. 
 
 The cab stopped before a six-storied house which 
 had seen better days, in a dark, narrow street, into 
 which the light of day scarcely penetrated. The 
 moment we alighted we heard a charivari of string 
 instruments and voices, and as we ascended the steep, 
 slimy, rickety staircase the sound grew more distinct. 
 When we reached the topmost landing, my friend 
 knocked at one of the three or four doors, and, without 
 waiting for an answer, we entered. It was a scantily 
 furnished room with a bare brick floor, an old bedstead 
 in one corner, a few rush-bottomed chairs, and a deal 
 table ; but everything was scrupulously clean. Behind 
 the table, a cotton nightcap on his head, his tall thin 
 frame wrapt in an old overcoat, stood our old friend, 
 the composer ; in front, half a dozen urchins, in cos- 
 tumes vaguely resembling those of the Calabrian 
 peasantry, grimy like coalheavers, their black hair 
 standing on end with attention, were rehearsing a 
 new piece of music. Then I understood it all. He
 
 THE PROFESSOR'S DEATH. 263 
 
 was the professor of pifferari, an artist for all that, 
 an unappreciated genius, perhaps, who, rather than 
 not be heard at all, introduced a composition of his 
 own into their hackneyed programme, and tasted the 
 sweets of popularity, without the accompanying 
 rewards which, nowadays, popularity invariably brings. 
 This one had known Paisiello and Eossini, had been 
 in the thick of the excitement on the first night of 
 the " Barbiere," and had dreamt of similar triumphs. 
 Perhaps his genius was as much entitled to them as 
 that of the others, but he had loved not wisely, but 
 too well, and when he awoke from the love-dream, he 
 was too ruined in body and mind to be able to work 
 for the realization of the artistic one. He would 
 accept no aid. Three years later, we carried him to 
 his grave. A simple stone marks the place in the 
 cemetery of Montparnasse.
 
 264 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Louie-Philippe and his family An unpublished theatrical skit on his 
 mania tor shaking hands with every one His art of governing, 
 according to the same skit Louis-Philippe not the ardent 
 admirer of the bourgeoisie he professed to be The Faubourg 
 Saint-Germain deserts the Tuileries The English in too great a 
 
 majority Lord *s opinion of the dinners at the Tuileries 
 
 The attitude of the bourgeoisie towards Louis-Philippe, accord- 
 ing to the King himself Louis-Philippe's wit His final words 
 on the death of Talleyrand His love of money He could be 
 generous at times A story of the Palais-Koyal Louis-Philippe 
 and the Marseillaise Two curious stories connected with 
 the Marseillaise Who was the composer of it ? Louis- 
 Philippe's opinion of the throne, the crown, and the sceptre of 
 France as additions to one's comfort His children, and espe- 
 cially his sons, take things more easily Even the Bonapartists 
 admired some of the latter A mot of an Imperialist How the 
 boys were brought up Their nocturnal rambles later on The 
 King himself does not seem to mind those escapades, but is 
 frightened at M. Guizot hearing of them Louis-Philippe did 
 not understand Guizot The recollection of his former misery 
 frequently haunts the King He worries Queen Victoria with his 
 fear of becoming poor Louis-Philippe an excellent husband and 
 father He wants to write the libretto of an opera on an English 
 subject His religion The court receptions ridiculous Even the 
 proletariat sneer at them The entrtfe of the Duchesse d'Orleans 
 into Paris The scene in the Tuileries gardens A mot of Prin- 
 cesse Clementine on her father's too paternal solicitude A prac- 
 tical joke of the Prince de Joinville His caricatures and drawings 
 The children inherited their talent for drawing and modelling 
 from their mother The Due de Nemours as a miniature and water- 
 colour painter Suspected of being a Legitimist All Louis- 
 Philippe's children great patrons of art How the bourgeoisie 
 looked upon their intercourse with artists The Due de Nemours' 
 marvellous memory The studio of Eugene Larai His neigh- 
 bours, Paul Delaroche and Honore de Balzac The Due de 
 Nemours' bravery called in question The Due d'Aumale's ex- 
 ploits in Algeria considered mere skirmishes A curious story of 
 spiritism The Due d'Aumale a greater favourite with the world 
 than any of the other sons of Louis-Philippe His wit The Due 
 d'Orleans also a great favourite His visits to Decamps' studio
 
 AN UNPUBLISHED PLAY. 265 
 
 An indifferent classical scholar A curious kind of black-mail 
 His indifference to money There is no money in a Kepublic 
 His death A witty reply to the Legitimists. 
 
 As will appear by-and-by, I was an eye-witness of a 
 good many incidents of the Kevolution of '48, and 
 a great many more have been related to me by friends, 
 whose veracity was and still is beyond suspicion. 
 Keither they nor I have ever been able to establish a 
 sufficiently valid political cause for that upheaval. 
 Perhaps it was because we were free from the preju- 
 dices engendered by what, for want of a better term, 
 I must call " dynastic sentiment." We were not 
 blind to the faults of Louis-Philippe, but we refused 
 to look at them through the spectacles supplied in 
 turns by the Legitimists, the Imperialists, and Be- 
 publicans. How far these spectacles were calculated 
 to improve people's vision, the following specimen 
 will show. 
 
 I have lying before me a few sheets of quarto paper, 
 sewn together in a primitive way. It is a manuscript 
 skit, in the form of a theatrical duologue, professing 
 to deal with the king's well-known habit of shaking 
 hands with every one with whom he came in contact. 
 The dramatis personx are King Fip I., Boi des 
 Epiciers-read, King of the Philistines or Shopkeepers, 
 and his son and heir, Grand Poulot (Big Spooney). 
 The monarch is giving the heir-apparent a lesson in 
 the art of governing. " Do not be misled," he says, 
 " by a parcel of theorists, who will tell you that the 
 citizen-monarchy is based upon the sovereign will of 
 the people, or upon the strict observance of the 
 Charter ; this is merely so much drivel from the poli- 
 tical Bights or Lefts. In reality, it does not signify a
 
 266 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 jot whether France be free at home' and feared and 
 respected abroad, whether the throne be hedged round 
 with republican institutions or supported by an heredi- 
 tary peerage, whether the language of her statesmen 
 be weighty and the deeds of her soldiers heroic. The 
 citizen-monarchy and the art of governing consist of 
 but one thing the capacity of the principal ruler for 
 shaking hands with any and every ragamuffin and 
 out-of-elbows brute he meets." Thereupon King Fip 
 shows his son how to shake hands in every conceivable 
 position on foot, on horseback, at a gallop, at a trot, 
 leaning out of a carriage, and so forth. Grand Poulot 
 is not only eager to learn, but ambitious to improve 
 upon his sire's method. " How would it do, dad," he 
 asks, " if, in addition to shaking hands with them, one 
 inquired after their health, in the second person 
 singular ' Comment vas tu, mon vieux cochon ? ' or, 
 better still, * Comment vas tu, mon vieux citoyen ? ' ' 
 "It would do admirably," says papa; "but it does 
 not matter whether you say cochon or citoyen, the 
 terms are synonymous." 
 
 I am inclined to think that beneath this rather 
 clever banter there was a certain measure of truth. 
 Louis-Philippe was by no means the ardent admirer 
 of the bourgeoisie he professed to be. He did not 
 foster any illusions with regard to their intellectual 
 worth, and in his inmost heart he resented their 
 so-called admiration of him, which he knew to be 
 would-be patronage under another name. They had 
 formed a hedge round him which prevented any 
 attempt on his part at conciliating his own caste, the 
 old noblesse. It is doubtful whether he would have 
 been successful, especially in the earlier years of his
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE'S COURT. 267 
 
 reign ; but their ostracism of him and his family 
 rankled in his mind, and found vent now and again in 
 an epigram that stung the author as much as the 
 party against which it was directed. "There is more 
 difficulty in getting people to my court entertain- 
 ments from across the Seine than from across the 
 Channel," he said. 
 
 The fact is, that the whole of the Faubourg St.- 
 Germain was conspicuous by its absence from the 
 Tuileries in those days, and that the English were in 
 rather too great a majority. They were not always a 
 distinguished company. I was little more than a lad 
 
 at this time, but I remember Lord 's invariable 
 
 answer when his friends asked him what the dinner 
 had been like, and whether he had enjoyed himself : 
 " The dinner was like that at a good table- d'hote, and I 
 enjoyed myself as I would enjoy myself at a good 
 hotel in Switzerland or at Wiesbaden, where the pro- 
 prietor knew me personally, and had given orders to 
 the head waiter to look after my comforts. But," he 
 added, "it is, after all, more pleasant dining there, 
 when the English are present. At any rate, there is 
 no want of respect. When the French sit round the 
 table, it is not like a king dining with his subjects, 
 but like half a hundred kings dining with one subject." 
 Allowing for a certain amount of exaggeration, there 
 was a good deal of truth in the remarks, as I found 
 out afterwards. " The bourgeoisie in their attitude 
 towards me," said Louis-Philippe, one day, to the 
 English nobleman I have just quoted, " are always 
 reminding me of Adalberon of Eheims with Hugues 
 Capet : ' Qui t'as fait roi ? ' asked the bishop. ' Qui 
 t'as fait due ? ' retorted the king. I have made
 
 268 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 them dukes to a greater extent, though, than they 
 have made me king." 
 
 For Louis-Philippe was a witty king wittier, per- 
 haps, than any that had sat on the throne of France 
 since Henri IV. Some of his mots have become his- 
 torical, and even his most persistent detractors have 
 been unable to convict him of plagiarism with regard 
 to them. What he specially excelled in was the " mot 
 de la fin " anglice the clenching of an argument, such 
 as, for instance, his final remark on the death of 
 Talleyrand. He had paid him a visit the day before. 
 When the news of the prince's death was brought to 
 him, he said, " Are you sure he is dead ? " 
 
 " Very sure, sire," was the answer. " Why, did not 
 your majesty himself notice yesterday that he was 
 dying?" 
 
 " I did, but there is no judging from appearances 
 with Talleyrand, and I have been asking myself for 
 the last four and twenty hours what interest he could 
 possibly have in departing at this particular moment." 
 
 To those who knew Louis-Philippe personally, it 
 was very patent that he disliked those who had been 
 instrumental in setting him on the throne, and who, 
 under the cloak of " liberty, fraternity, and equality," 
 were seeking their own interest only, namely, the 
 bourgeoisie. He knew their quasi-good will to him to 
 be so much sheer hypocrisy, and perhaps he and they 
 were too much alike in some respects, in their love of 
 money for the sake of hoarding it. It was, perhaps, 
 the only serious failing that could be laid to the 
 charge of the family, because none of its members, 
 with the exception of the Due d'Orleans, were entirely 
 free from it. It must not be inferred, though, that
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE'S CHARITY. 269 
 
 Louis-Philippe kept his purse closed to really 
 deserving cases of distress. Far from it. I have the 
 following story from my old tutor, to whom I am, more- 
 over, indebted for a great many notes, dealing with 
 events of which I could not possibly have had any 
 knowledge but for him. 
 
 In 1829 the greater part of the Galerie d'Orle'ans 
 in the Palais-Hoy al was completed. The unsightly 
 wooden booths had been taken down, and the timber 
 must have been decidedly worth a small fortune. 
 Several contractors made very handsome offers for it, 
 but Louis-Philippe (then Due d'Orleans) refused to 
 sell it. It was to be distributed among the poor of 
 the neighbourhood for fuel for the ensuing winter, 
 which threatened to be a severe one. One day, when 
 the duke was inspecting the works in company of his 
 steward, an individual, who was standing a couple of 
 yards away, began to shout at the top of his voice, 
 " Vive Louis-Philippe ! " " Go and see what the 
 fellow wants, for assuredly he wants something," said 
 the cfcuke, who was a Voltairean in his way, and had 
 interpreted the man's enthusiasm aright. Papa 
 Sournois was one of those nondescripts for whom even 
 now there appear to be more resources in the French 
 capital than elsewhere. At the period in question he 
 mainly got his living by selling contre-marques 
 (checks) at the doors of the theatre. He had heard 
 of the duke's intention with regard to the wood, hence 
 his enthusiastic cry of "Vive Louis-Philippe!" A 
 cartload of wood was sent to his place ; papa Sournois 
 converted it into money, and got drunk with the 
 proceeds for a fortnight. When the steward, horribly 
 scandalized, told the duke of the results of his bene-
 
 270 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 volence, the latter merely laughed, and sent for the 
 wife, who made her appearance accompanied by a young 
 brood of five. The duke gave her a five-franc piece, 
 and told her to apply to the concierge of the Palais- 
 JRoyal for a similar sum every day during the winter 
 months. Of course, five francs a day was not as much 
 as a drop of water out of the sea when we consider 
 Louis-Philippe's stupendous income, and yet, when 
 the Tuileries were sacked in 1848, documents upon 
 documents were found, compiled with the sole view of 
 saving a few francs per diem out of the young princes' 
 " keep." 
 
 " I am so sick of the word ' fraternity,' " said Prince 
 Metternich, after his return from France, "that, if I had 
 a brother, I should call him cousin." Though it was 
 to the strains of the Marseillaise that Louis-Philippe 
 had been conducted to the H6tel-de-Ville on the day 
 when Lafayette pointed to him as "the best of all 
 republics," a time came when Louis-Philippe got 
 utterly sick of the Marseillaise. 
 
 But what was he to do, seeing that his attempt at 
 introducing a new national hymn had utterly failed ? 
 The mob refused to sing " La Parisienne," composed 
 by Casimir de la Vigne, after Alexandre Dumas had 
 refused to write a national hymn ; and they, moreover, 
 insisted on the King joining in the chorus of the old 
 hymn, as he had hitherto done on all public occasions.* 
 They had grumblingly resigned themselves to his 
 
 * When there was no public occasion, his political antagonists or 
 merely practical jokers who knew of his dislike invented .one, like 
 Edouard d'Ourliac, a well-known journalist and the author of several 
 novels, who, whenever he had nothing better to do, recruited a band 
 of street arabs to go and sing the Marseillaise under the king's 
 windows. They kept on singing until Louis- Philippe, in sheer self- 
 defence, was obliged to come out and join in the song. EDITOR.
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE AND THE MARSEILLAISE. 271 
 
 beating time no longer, but any further refusal of his 
 co-operation might have been resented in a less 
 peaceful fashion. On the other hand, there was the 
 bourgeoisie who were of opinion that, now that the 
 monarchy bad entered upon a more conservative 
 period, the intoning of the hymn, at any rate on the 
 sovereign's part, was out of place, and savoured too 
 much of a republican manifestation. " It was Guizot 
 who told him so," said Lord , who had been stand- 
 ing on the balcony of the Tuileries on the occasion of 
 the king's " saint's day," * and had heard the minister 
 make the remark. 
 
 " And what did the king reply ? " was the question. 
 
 " Do not worry yourself, monsieur le ministre ; I am. 
 only moving my lips; I have ceased to pronounce the 
 words for many a day." 
 
 These were the expedients to which Louis-Philippe 
 was reduced before he had been on the throne half 
 a dozen years. "I am like the fool between two 
 stools," observed the king in English, afterwards, when 
 
 speaking to Lord , " only I happen to be between 
 
 the comfortably stuffed easy-chair of the bourgeois 
 drawing-room and the piece of furniture seated on 
 which Louis XIV. is said to have received the Dutch 
 ambassadors." 
 
 While speaking of the Marseillaise, here are two 
 stories in connection with it which are not known to 
 the general reader. The first was told to me by the 
 old tutor already mentioned ; the second aroused a 
 great deal of literary curiosity in the year 1860, and 
 bears the stamp of truth on the face of it. It was, 
 
 * In France it is the Patron Saint's day, not the birthday, that is 
 kept.
 
 272 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 however, never fully investigated, or, at any rate, the 
 results of the investigation were never published.* 
 
 *' We were all more or less aware," said my infor- 
 mant, " that Eouget de 1'Isle was not the author of the 
 whole of the words of the Marseillaise. But none of 
 us in Lyons, where I was born, knew who had written 
 the last strophe, comojoiily called the 'strophe of 
 the children/ and I doubt whether they were any 
 wiser in Paris. Some of my fellow-students for I 
 was nearly eighteen at that time credited Andre 
 Chenier with the authorship of the last strophe, others 
 ascribed it to Louis-Francis Dubois, the poet.f 
 All this was, however, so much guess-work, when, one 
 day during the Eeign of Terror, the report spread 
 that a ci-devant priest, or rather a priest who had 
 refused to take the oath to the Kepublic, had been 
 caught solemnizing a religious marriage, and that he 
 was to be brought before the Eevolutionary Tribunal 
 that same afternoon. Though you may not think so, 
 merely going by what you have read, the appearance 
 of a priest before the Tribunal always aroused more 
 than common interest, nor have you any idea what 
 more than common interest meant in those days. A 
 priest to the Eevolutionaries and to the Terrorists, 
 they might hector and bully as they liked, was not 
 an ordinary being. They looked upon him either as 
 something better than a man or worse than a devil. 
 They had thrown the religious compass they had 
 
 * I have inserted them here in order not to fall into repetitions on 
 the same subject. EDITOR. 
 
 t Louis-Frangois Dubois, the author of several heroic poems, 
 " Ankarstrom," " Genevieve et Siegfried," etc., which are utterly 
 forgotten. His main title to the recollection of posterity consists in 
 his having saved, during the Eevolution, a great many literary works 
 of value, which he returned to the State afterwards. EDITOR.
 
 A STORY OF THE MARSEILLAISE. 273 
 
 brought from home with them overboard, and they had 
 not the philosophical one to take its place. You may 
 work out the thing for yourself ; at any rate, the place 
 was crammed to suffocation when we arrived at the 
 Hotel de Ville. It was a large room, at the upper end 
 of which stood an oblong table, covered with a black 
 cloth. Seated around it were seven self-constituted 
 judges. Besides their tricolour scarfs round their 
 waists, they wore, suspended by a ribbon from their 
 necks, a small silver axe. 
 
 "As a rule there was very little speechifying. 'La 
 mort sans phrase,' which had become the fashion 
 since Louis XVI.'s execution, was strictly adhered to. 
 Half a dozen prisoners were brought in and taken 
 away without arousing the slightest excitement, 
 either in the way of commiseration or hatred. After 
 having listened, the judges either extended their hands 
 on the table or put them to their foreheads. The first 
 movement meant acquittal and liberation, the second 
 death; not always by the guillotine though, for the 
 instrument was not perfect as yet, and did not work 
 sufficiently quickly to please them. All at once the 
 priest was brought in, and a dead silence prevailed. 
 He was not a very old man, though his hair was snow- 
 white. 
 
 " ' Who art thou ? ' asked the president. 
 
 " The prisoner drew himself up to his full height. ' I 
 am the Abbe Pessoneaux, a former tutor at the college 
 at Vienne, and the author of the last strophe of the 
 Marseillaise,' he said quietly. 
 
 " I cannot convey to you the impression produced 
 by those simple words. The silence became positively 
 oppressive ; you could hear the people breathe. The 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 president did not say another word ; the priest's reply 
 had apparently stunned him also : he merely turned 
 round to his fellow-judges. Soldiers and gaolers stood 
 as if turned into stone ; every eye was directed towards 
 the table, watching for the movement of the judges' 
 hands. Slowly and deliberately they stretched them 
 forth, and then a deafening cheer rang through the 
 room. The Abbe Pessoneaux owed his life to his 
 strophe, for, though his story was not questioned then, 
 it was proved true in every particular. On their way 
 to Paris to be present at the taking of the Tuileries on 
 the 10th of August, the Marseillais had stopped at 
 Vienne to celebrate the Fete of the Federation. On 
 the eve of their arrival the Abbe Pessoneaux had 
 composed the strophe, and but for his seizure the 
 authorship would have always remained a matter of 
 conjecture, for Rouget de 1'Isle would have never 
 had the honesty to acknowledge it." 
 
 My tutor was right, and I owe him this tardy 
 apology ; it appears that, after all, Eouget de 1'Isle had 
 not the honesty to acknowledge openly his indebted- 
 ness to those who made his name immortal, and that 
 his share in the Marseillaise amounts to the first 
 six strophes. He did not write a single note of 
 the music. The latter was composed by Alexandre 
 Boucher, the celebrated violinist, in 1790, in the 
 drawing-room of Madame de Mortaigne, at the request 
 of a colonel whom the musician had never met before, 
 whom he never saw again. The soldier was starting 
 next morning with his regiment for Marseilles, and 
 pressed Boucher to write him a march there and then. 
 Eouget de 1'Isle, an officer of engineers, having been 
 imprisoned in 1791, for having refused to take a
 
 WHO WROTE THE MUSIC? 275 
 
 second oath to the Constitution, heard the march from 
 his cell, and, at the instance of his gaoler, adapted 
 the words of a patriotic hymn he was then writing 
 to it. 
 
 One may fancy the surprise of Alexandre Boucher, 
 when be heard it sung everywhere and recognized it 
 as his own composition, though it had been somewhat 
 altered to suit the words. But the pith of the story 
 is to come. I give it in the very words of Boucher 
 himself, as he told it to a Paris journalist whom I 
 knew well. 
 
 "A good many years afterwards, I was seated next 
 to Rouget de 1'Isle at a dinner-party in Paris. We 
 had never met before, and, as you may easily imagine, 
 I was rather interested in the gentleman, whom, with 
 many others at the same board, I complimented on 
 his production ; only I confined myself to compliment- 
 ing him on his poem. 
 
 " ' You don't say a word about the music,' he replied ; 
 ' and yet, being a celebrated musician, that ought to 
 interest you. Do not you like it ? ' 
 
 "'Very much indeed,' I said, in a somewhat 
 significant tone. 
 
 " ' Well, let me be frank with you. The music is 
 not mine. It was that of a march which came, 
 Heaven knows whence, and which they kept on 
 playing at Marseilles during the Terror, when I was 
 a prisoner at the fortress of St. Jean. I made a few 
 alterations necessitated by the words, and there it is.' 
 
 "Thereupon, to his great surprise, I hummed the 
 march as I had originally written it. 
 
 "'Wonderful!' he exclaimed; ' how did you come 
 by it ? ' he asked.
 
 276 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 "When I told him, he threw himself round my 
 neck. But the next moment he said 
 
 " ' I am very sorry, my dear Boucher, but I am afraid 
 that you will be despoiled for ever, do what you will ; 
 for your music and my words go so well together, that 
 they seem to have sprung simultaneously from the 
 same brain, and the world, even if I proclaimed my 
 indebtedness to you, would never believe it.' 
 
 "' Keep the loan/ I said, moved, in spite of myself, by 
 his candour. * Without your genius, my march would 
 be forgotten by now. You have given it a patent of 
 nobility. It is yours for ever.' " 
 
 I return to Louis-Philippe, who, at the time of my 
 tutor's story, and for some years afterwards, I only 
 knew from the reports that were brought home to us. 
 Of course, I saw him several times at a distance, at 
 reviews and on popular holidays, and I was surprised 
 that a king of whom every one spoke so well in private, 
 who seemed to have so much cause for joy and happi- 
 ness in his own family, should look so careworn and 
 depressed in public. For, young as I was, I did not 
 Jail to see that, beneath the calm and smiling exterior, 
 there was a great deal of hidden grief. But I was 
 too young to understand the deep irony of his reply 
 to one of my relatives, a few months before his 
 accession to the throne : " The crown of France is too 
 cold in winter, too warm in summer ; the sceptre is too 
 blunt as a weapon of defence or attack, it is too short 
 as a stick to lean upon : a good felt hat and a strong 
 umbrella are at all times more useful." Above all, 
 I was too young to understand the temper of the 
 French where their rulers were concerned, and though, 
 at the time of my writing these notes, I have lived for
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE'S CHILDREN. 277 
 
 fifty years amongst them, I doubt whether I could 
 give a succinct psychological account of their mental 
 attitude towards their succeeding regimes, except by 
 borrowing the words of one of their cleverest country- 
 women, Madame Emile de Girardin : " When Mar- 
 shal Soult is in the Opposition, he is acknowledged 
 to have won the battle of Toulouse ; when he belongs 
 to the Government, he is accused of having lost it." 
 Since then the Americans have coined a word for that 
 state of mind " cussedness." 
 
 Louis-Philippe's children, and especially his sons, 
 some of whom I knew personally before I had my first 
 invitation to the Tuileries, seemed to take matters 
 more cheerfully. Save the partisans of the elder 
 branch, no one had a word to say against them. On 
 the contrary, even the Bonapartists admired their 
 manly and straightforward bearing. I remember 
 being at Tortoni's one afternoon when the Due 
 d'Orleans and his brother, the Due de Nemours, rode 
 by. Two of my neighbours, unmistakable Imperialists, 
 and old soldiers by their looks, stared very hard at 
 them ; then one said, " Si le petit au lieu de filer 
 le parfait amour partout, avait mis tous ses O3ufs dans 
 le meme panier, il aurait eu des grands comme cela et 
 nous ne serions pas dans 1'im passe ou nous sommes." 
 
 " Mon cher," replied the other, " des grands comme 
 cela ne se font qu'a loisir, pas entre deux campagnes." * 
 
 The admiration of these two veterans was perfectly 
 
 * It reminds one of the answer of the younger Dumas to a gentleman 
 whose wife had been notorious for her conjugal faithlessness, and 
 whose sons were all weaklings. " Ah, Monsieur Dumas, c'est un fils 
 comme vous qu'il me fallait," he exclaimed. "Mon cher monsieur," 
 came the reply, " quand on veut avoir un fils comme moi, il faut le 
 faire soi-meme." EDITOB.
 
 278 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 justified: they were very handsome young men, the 
 sons of Louis- Philippe, and notably the two elder ones, 
 though the Due d'Orleans was somewhat more delicate- 
 looking than his brother, De Nemours. The boys had 
 all been brought up very sensibly, perhaps somewhat 
 too strict for their position. They all went to a public 
 school, to the College Henri IV., and I remember 
 well, about the year '38, when I had occasion of a 
 morning to cross the Pont-Neuf, where there were 
 still stalls and all sorts of booths, seeing the blue-and- 
 yellow carriage with the royal livery. It contained 
 the Duos d'Aumale and de Montpensier, who had not 
 finished their studies at that time. 
 
 But though strictly brought up, they were by no 
 means milksop?, and what, for want of a better term, 
 I may call " mother's babies : " quite the reverse. It 
 was never known how they managed it, but at night, 
 when they were supposed to be at home, if not in bed, 
 they were to be met with at all kinds of public places, 
 notably at the smaller theatres, such as the Vaude- 
 ville, the Varietes, and the Palais-Eoyal, one of which, 
 at any rate, was a goodly distance from the Tuileries. 
 It was always understood that the King knew nothing 
 about these little escapades, but I am inclined to 
 doubt this : I fancy he connived at them ; because, 
 
 when Lord told him casually one day that he had 
 
 met his sons the night before, Louis-Philippe seemed 
 not in the least surprised, he only anxiously asked, 
 "Where?" 
 
 " At the Cafe de Paris, your majesty." 
 
 The king seemed relieved. " That's all right," he 
 said, laughing. " As long as they do not go into places 
 where they are likely to meet with Guizot, I don't
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE'S DEEAD OF POVERTY. 279 
 
 mind ; for if he saw them out in the evening, it might 
 cost me my throne. Guizot is so terribly respectable. 
 I am afraid there is a mistake either about his 
 nationality or about his respectability ; they are badly 
 matched." 
 
 The fact is, that though Louis-Philippe admired and 
 respected Guizot, lie failed to understand him. To the 
 most respectable of modern kings not even Charles I. 
 and William III. excepted if by respectability we 
 mean an unblemished private life Guizot's respect- 
 ability was an enigma. The man who, in spite of his 
 advice to others, " Enrichissez vous, enrichissez vous," 
 was as poor at the end of his ministerial career 
 as at the beginning, must have necessarily been a 
 puzzle to a sovereign who, with a civil list of 
 750,000, was haunted by the fear of poverty, and 
 haunted to such a degree as to harass his friends and 
 counsellors with his apprehensions. " My dear 
 minister," he said one day to Guizot, after he had 
 recited a long list of his domestic charges " My dear 
 minister, I am telling you that my children will be 
 wanting for bread." The recollection of his former 
 misery uprose too frequently before him like a horrible 
 nightmare, and made him the first bourgeois instead of 
 the first gentilhomme of the kingdom, as his prede- 
 cessors had been. When a tradesman drops a shilling 
 and does not stoop to pick it up, his neglect becomes 
 almost culpable improvidence ; when a prince drops a 
 sovereign and looks for it, the deed may be justly 
 qualified as mean. The leitmotif of Louis-Philippe's 
 conversation, witty and charming as it was, par- 
 took of the avaricious spirit of a Thomas Guy and 
 a John Overs rather than of that of the great adven-
 
 280 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 turer John Law. The chinking of the money-bags is 
 audible through both, but in the one case the orches- 
 tration is strident, disagreeable, depressing; -in the 
 other, it is generous, overflowing with noble impulses, 
 and cheering. I recollect that during my stay at 
 Treport and Eu, in 1843, when Queen Victoria paid 
 her visit to Louis-Philippe, the following story was 
 
 told to me. Lord and I were quartered in a 
 
 little hostelry on the Place du Chateau. One morn- 
 ing Lord came home laughing till he could 
 
 laugh no longer. " What do you think the King has 
 done now ? " he asked. I professed my inability to 
 guess. " About an hour ago, he and Queen Victoria 
 were walking in the garden, when, with true French 
 politeness, he offered her a peach. The Queen seemed 
 rather embarrassed how to skin it, when Louis-Philippe 
 took a large clasp-knife from his pocket. 'When a 
 man has been a poor devil like myself, obliged to live 
 upon forty sous a day, he always carries a knife. I 
 might have dispensed with it for the last few years ; 
 still, I do not wish to lose the habit one does not 
 know what may happen,' he said. Of course, the tears 
 stood in the Queen's eyes. He really ought to know 
 better than to obtrude his money worries upon every 
 one." 
 
 I must confess that I was not as much surprised 
 as my interlocutor, who, however, had known Louis- 
 Philippe much longer than I. Not his worst enemies 
 could have accused the son of Philippe Egalite of being 
 a coward : the bulletins of Valmy, Jemmappes, and 
 Neerwinden would have proved the contrary. But the 
 contempt of physical danger on the battle-field does not 
 necessarily constitute heroism in the most elevated sense
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE'S RELIGION. 281 
 
 of the term, although the world in general frequently 
 accepts it as such. A man can die but once, and the 
 semi-positivism, semi-Voltaireanisra of Louis-Philippe 
 had undoubtedly steeled him against the fear of death. 
 His religion, throughout life, was not even skin-deep ; 
 and when he accepted the last rites of the Church on 
 his death-bed, he only did so in deference to his wife. 
 " Ma femme, es-tu contente de moi ? " were his words 
 the moment the priests were gone. 
 
 Nevertheless, he was too good a husband to grieve 
 his wife, who was deeply religious, by any needless 
 display of unbelief. He always endeavoured, as far as 
 possible, to find an excuse for staying away from 
 church. He, as well as the female members of his 
 family, were very fond of music ; and Adam, the com- 
 poser, was frequently invited to come and play for them 
 in the private apartments. In fact, after his abdica- 
 tion, he seriously intended to write, in conjunction with 
 Scribe, the libretto of an opera on an English historical 
 subject, the music of which should be composed by 
 Halevy. The composer of " La Juive " and the author 
 of " Les Hugenots " came over once to consult with the 
 King, whose death,' a few months later, put an end to 
 the scheme. 
 
 On the occasion of Adam's visits the princesses 
 worked at their embroidery, while the King often stood 
 by the side of the performer. Just about that period 
 the chamber organ was introduced, and, on the recom- 
 mendation of Adam, one was ordered for the Tuileries. 
 The first time Louis-Philippe heard it played he was 
 delighted : " This will be a distinct gain to our rural 
 congregations," he said. " There must be a great many 
 people who, like myself, stay away from church on
 
 282 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 account of their objection to that horrible instrument, 
 the serpent. Is it not so, my wife ? " 
 
 The ideal purpose of life, if ever he possessed it, had 
 been crushed out of him first, by his governess, 
 Madame de Genlis ; secondly, by the dire poverty he 
 suffered during his exile : and, notwithstanding all that 
 has been said to the contrary, France wanted at that 
 moment an ideal ruler, not the rational father of a 
 large family who looked upon his monarchy as a suit- 
 able means of providing for them. He was an usurper 
 without the daring, the grandeur, the lawlessness of 
 the usurper. The lesson of Napoleon I.'s method 
 had been thrown away upon him, as the lesson of 
 Napoleon Ill's has been thrown away upon his grand- 
 son. When I said France, I made a mistake, I 
 should have said Paris ; for since 1789 there was no 
 longer a King of France, there was only a King of 
 Paris. Such a thing as a Manchester movement, as a 
 Manchester school of politics, would have been and is 
 still an impossibility in France. 
 
 And, unfortunately, Paris, which had applauded the 
 glorious mise-en-scene of the First Empire, which had 
 even looked on approvingly at some of the pomp and 
 state of Louis XVIII. and Charles X., jeered at Louis- 
 Philippe and his court with its ridiculous gatherings 
 of tailors, drapers, and bootmakers, " ces gardes nation- 
 aux d'un pays ou il n'y a plus rien de national a 
 garder," and their pretentious spouses "qui," according 
 to the Duchesse de la Tremoille, "ontplus de chemises 
 que nos ai'eules avaient des robes." * She and the 
 
 * She had unconsciously borrowed the words from the Duchesse de 
 Coislin, who, under similar circumstances a few years before, said to 
 Madame de Chateaubriand, " Cela sent la parvenue ; nous autres, 
 femmes de la cour, nous n'avions que deux chemiaea ; on les renou-
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE AND THE NOBLESSE. 283 
 
 Princesse Bagration were the only female representa- 
 tives of the Faubourg St. Germain who attended these 
 gatherings ; for the Countess Le Hon, of whom I may 
 have occasion to speak again, and who was the only 
 other woman at these receptions that could lay claim 
 to any distinction, was by no means an aristocrat. 
 And be it remembered that in those days ridicule had 
 still the power to kill. 
 
 Nor was the weapon wielded exclusively by the 
 aristocracy; the lower classes could be just as satirical 
 against the new court element. I was in the Tuileries 
 gardens on that first Sunday in June, 1837, when the 
 Duchesse d'Orleans made her entree into Paris. The 
 weather was magnificent, and the set scene as distin- 
 guished from some of the properties, to use a theatrical 
 expression in keeping with the weather. The crowd 
 itself was a pleasure to look at, as it stood in serried 
 masses behind the National Guards and the regular 
 infantry lining the route of the procession from the 
 Arc de Triomphe to the entrance of the Chateau. All 
 at once an outrider passes, covered with dust, and the 
 crowd presses forward to get a better view. A woman 
 of the people, in her nice white cap, conies into some- 
 what violent contact with an elegantly dressed elderly 
 lady, accompanied by her daughter. The woman, 
 instead of apologizing, says aloud that she wishes to 
 see the princess : " You will have the opportunity of 
 seeing her at court, mesdames," she adds. The 
 elegant lady vouchsafes no reply, but turns to her 
 daughter : " The good woman," says the latter, shrug- 
 
 velait quand elles e'taient use'es ; nous etions vetues de robes de soie et 
 nous n'avions pas 1'air de grisettes comme ces demoiselles de mainte- 
 nant." EMTOB.
 
 284 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 ging her shoulders, " is evidently not aware that she 
 has got a much greater chance of going to that court 
 than we have. She has only got to marry some grocer 
 or other tradesman, and she will be considered a grande 
 dame at once." Then the procession passes first the 
 National Guards on horseback, then the king and M. 
 de Montalivet, followed by Princesse Helene, with her 
 young husband riding by the side of the carriage. So 
 far so good : the first three or four carriages were more 
 or less handsome, but Heaven save us from the rest, as 
 well as from their occupants ! They positively looked 
 like some of those wardrobe-dealers so admirably 
 described by Balzac. 
 
 When all is over, the woman of the people turns to 
 the elegant lady : " I ask your pardon, madame ; it 
 was really not worth while hurting you. If these are 
 grandes dames, I prefer les petites whom I see in my 
 neighbourhood, the Rue Notre-Dame de Lorette. 
 Comme elles etaient attifees ! " Anglice, " What a lot 
 of frumps they looked ! " 
 
 In fact, Louis-Philippe and his queen sinned most 
 grievously by overlooking the craving of the Parisians 
 for pomp and display. No one was better aware of 
 this than his children, notably the Due d'Orleans, 
 Princess Clementine,* and the Due de Nemours. They 
 
 * The mother of Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, the present ruler 
 of Bulgaria. She was a particular favourite of Queen Victoria, and 
 Louis-Philippe himself not only considered her the cleverest of liis 
 three daughters, but the most likely successor to his sister Adelaide, 
 as his private adviser. That the estimate of her abilities was by no 
 means exaggerated, subsequent events have proved. The last time I 
 saw the princess was at the garden party at Sheen-House, on the 
 occasion of the silver wedding of the Count and Countess de Paris. I 
 did not remember her for the moment, for a score of years had made a 
 difference. I asked an Austrian attache who >he was. The answer 
 came pat, "Alexander IIL's nightmare, Francis-Joseph's bogy, and 
 Bismarck's sleeping draught ; one of the three clever women in Europe ; 
 Bulgaria's mother." EMTOB.
 
 THE PRINCE DE JOINVILLE AND HIS SISTER. 285 
 
 called him familiarly "le pere." "II est trop pere," said 
 the princess in private ; " il fait concurrence au Pere 
 Eternel." She was a very clever girl perhaps a 
 great deal cleverer than any of her brothers, the Solon 
 of the family, the Due de Nemours, included but 
 very fond of mischief and practical joking. She found 
 her match, though, in her brother, the Prince de 
 Joinville, the son of Louis-Philippe of whom France 
 heard most and saw least, for he was a sailor. One day, 
 his sister asked him to bring her a complete dress of a 
 Ked-Skin chieftain's wife. His absence was shorter 
 than usual, and, a few days before his return, he told 
 her in a letter that he had the costume she wauted. 
 " Here, Clementine, this is for you," he said, at his 
 arrival, putting a string of glass beads on the table. 
 
 " Very pretty," said Clementine, " but you promised 
 me a complete dress." 
 
 " This is the complete dress. I never saw them 
 wear any other." 
 
 I did not see the Prince de Joinville very often, 
 perhaps two or three times in all ; once on the occasion 
 of his marriage with Princess Franpoise de Bourbon, 
 the daughter of Dom Pedro I. of Brazil, and sister of 
 the present emperor, when the prince brought his 
 young bride to Paris. He was a clever draughtsman 
 and capital caricaturist ; but if the first of these talents 
 proved an unfailing source of delight to his parents, 
 the second frequently inspired them with terror, 
 especially his father, who never knew which of his 
 ministers might become the next butt for his third son's 
 pencil. I have seen innumerable sketches, ostensibly 
 done to delight his young wife and brothers, which, 
 had they been published, would have been much more
 
 286 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 telling against his father's pictorial satirists than any- 
 thing they produced against the sovereign. For in 
 those days, whatever wisdom or caution they may have 
 learnt afterwards, the sons of Louis-Philippe were by 
 no means disposed to sit down tamely under the insults 
 levelled at the head of their house. In fact, nearly 
 the whole of Louis-Philippe's children had graphio 
 talents of no mean order. The trait came to them 
 from their mother, who was a very successful pupil of 
 Angelica Kauffman. Princesse Marie, who died so 
 young, executed a statue of Jeanne d'Arc, which was 
 considered by competent judges, not at all likely to 
 be influenced by the fact of the artist's birth, a very 
 creditable piece of work indeed. I never saw it, so I 
 cannot say, but I have seen some miniatures by the 
 Due de Nemours, which might fairly rank with per- 
 formances by the best masters of that art, short of 
 genius. 
 
 It is a curious, but nevertheless admitted fact that 
 the world has never done justice to the second son 
 of Louis-Philippe. He was not half as great a 
 favourite with the Parisians as his elder brother, 
 although, in virtue of his remarkable likeness to Henri 
 IV., whom the Parisians still worship probably be- 
 cause he is dead, he ought to have commanded their 
 sympathies. This lukewarmness towards the Due de 
 Nemours has generally been ascribed by the partisans 
 of the Orleanist dynasty to his somewhat reticent dis- 
 position, which by many people was mistaken for 
 Jiauteur. I rather fancy it was because he was suspected 
 of being his father's adviser, and, what was worse, 
 his father's adviser in a reactionary sense. He was 
 accused of being an anti-parliamentarian, and he never
 
 THE DUG DE NEMOUES. 287 
 
 took the trouble to refute the charge, probably because 
 he was too honest to tell a lie.* I met the Due de 
 Nemours for the first time in the studio of a painter, 
 Eugene Lami, just as I met his elder brother in that 
 of Decamps. In fact, all these young princes were 
 sincere admirers and patrons of art, and, if they had 
 had their will, the soirees at the Tuileries would have 
 been graced by the presence ot artists more frequently 
 than they were ; but, preposterous and scarcely credible 
 as it may seem, the bourgeoisie looked upon this 
 familiar intercourse of the king's sons with artists, 
 literary men, and the like, as so much condescension, 
 if not worse, of which they, the bourgeoisie, would not 
 be guilty if they could help it. It behoves me, how- 
 ever, to be careful in this instance, for the English 
 aristocracy at home was not much more liberal in those 
 days. 
 
 The first thing that struck one in the Due de 
 Nemours was the vast extent of his general information 
 and the marvellous power of memory. Eugene Lami 
 had just returned from London, and, in the exercise of 
 his profession, had come in contact with some members 
 of the oldest families. The mere mention of the 
 name sufficed as the introduction to the general and 
 anecdotal history of such a family, and I doubt whether 
 the best official at Herald's College could have dissected 
 a pedigree as did the Due de Nemours. Eugene 
 
 * There was a similar divergence of dynastic opinion during the 
 Second Empire between the sovereign and those placed very near him 
 on the throne. When Alphonse Daudet came to Paris to make a 
 name in literature, the Due de Morny offered him a position as 
 secretary. " Before I accept it, monsieur le due, I had better tell you 
 that I am a Legitimist," replied the future novelist. " Don't let that 
 trouble you," laughed De Morny ;" so am I to a certain'extent, and the 
 Empress is even more of a Legitimist than I am." EDITOR.
 
 288 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 Lami was at that time engaged upon designing some 
 new uniforms for the army, many of which disappeared 
 only after the war of 1870. He lived in the Kue des 
 Marais, the greater part of which was subsequently 
 demolished to make room for the Boulevard de 
 Magenta, and in the same house with two men whose 
 names have become immortal, Honore de Balzac and 
 Paul Delaroche. I have already spoken of both, but 
 I did not mention the incident that led to the painter's 
 acquaintance with the novelist, an incident so utterly 
 fanciful that the boldest farce-writer would think twice 
 before utilizing it in a play. It was told to me by 
 Lami himself. One morning, as he and Paul Dela- 
 roche were working, there was a knock at the door, 
 and a stout individual, dressed in a kind of monastic 
 garb, appeared ou the threshold. Delaroche remem- 
 bered that he had met him on the staircase, but neither 
 knew who he was, albeit that Balzac's fame was not 
 altogether unknown to them. " Gentlemen," said the 
 visitor, " I am Honore Balzac, a neighbour and a con- 
 frere to boot. My chattels are about to be seized, 
 and I would ask you to save a remnant of my library." 
 Of course, the request was granted. The books were 
 stowed away behind the pictures ; and, after that, Balzac 
 often dropped in to have a chat with them, but neither 
 Delaroche nor Lami, the latter least of all, ever con- 
 ceived a sincere liking for the great novelist. Their 
 characters were altogether dissimilar. I have seen a 
 good many men whose names have become household 
 words among the refined, the educated, and the art- 
 loving all the world over; I have seen them at the 
 commencement, in the middle, and at the zenith of 
 their career : I have seen none more indifferent to the
 
 THE DUG D'AUMALE. 289 
 
 material benefits of their art than Eugene Lami and Paul 
 Delaroche, not even Eugene Delacroix and Decamps. 
 Balzac was the very reverse. To make a fortune was 
 the sole ambition of his life. 
 
 To return for a moment to Louis-Philippe's sons. 
 I have said that the Due de Nemours was essentially 
 the grand seigneur of the family ; truth compels me to 
 add, however, that there was a certain want of pliability 
 about him which his social inferiors could not have 
 relished. It was Henri IV. minus the bonhomie, also 
 perhaps minus that indiscriminate galanterie which 
 endeared Ravaillac's victim to all classes, even when 
 he was no longer young. In the days of which I am 
 treating just now, the Due de Nemours was very young. 
 As for his courage, it was simply above suspicion ; 
 albeit that it was called in question after the revolution 
 of '48, to his father's intense sorrow. No after-dinner 
 encomium was ever as absolutely true as that of Sir 
 Eobert Peel on the sons and daughters of the last 
 King of France, when he described them as respectively 
 brave and chaste. Nevertheless, had the Due de 
 Nemours and his brothers been a thousand times as 
 brave as they were, party spirit, than which there 
 is nothing more contemptible in France, would have 
 found the opportunity of denying that bravery. 
 
 If these notes are ever published, Englishmen will 
 smile at what I am about to write now, unless their 
 disgust takes another form of expression. The ex- 
 ploits of the Due d'Aumale in Algeria are quoted by 
 independent military authorities as so many separate 
 deeds of signal heroism. They belong to history, 
 and not a single historian has endeavoured to impair 
 their value. Will it be believed that the Opposition 
 
 VOL. I. TJ
 
 290 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 journals of those days spoke of them with ill-disguised 
 contempt as mere skirmishes with a lot of semi-savages ? 
 And, during the Second Kepublic, many of these papers 
 returned to the charge because the Due d'Aumale, 
 being the constitutionally-minded son of a constitu- 
 tionally-minded king, resigned the command of his 
 army instead of bringing it to France to coerce a nation 
 into retaining a ruler whom, ostensibly at least, she 
 had voluntarily accepted, and whom, therefore, she was 
 as free to reject. 
 
 In connection with these Algerian campaigns of 
 the Due d'Aumale, I had a story told to me by his 
 brother, De Montpensier, which becomes particularly 
 interesting nowadays, when spiritualism or spiritism 
 is so much discussed. He had it from two unim- 
 peachable sources, namely, from his brother D'Aumale 
 and from General Cousin - Montauban, afterwards 
 Comte de Palikao, the same who was so terribly afraid, 
 after the expedition in China, that the emperor 
 would create him Comte de Pekin, and who sent an 
 aide-de-camp in advance to beg the sovereign not to 
 do so.* 
 
 It was to General Montauban that Abdel-Kader 
 surrendered after the battles of Isly and Djemma- 
 Gazhouat. It was in the latter engagement that a 
 Captain de Gereaux fell, and when the news of his 
 death reached his family they seemed almost pre- 
 pared for it. It transpired that, on the very day of 
 the engagement, and at the very hour in which Cap- 
 tain de Gereaux was struck down, his sister, a young 
 
 * In order to understand this dread on Montauban's part, the 
 English reader should be told that the term ptfkin is the contemp- 
 tuous nickname for the civilian, with the French soldier. EUITOK.
 
 A SPIRITUALIST STORY. 291 
 
 and handsome but very impressionable girl, started all 
 of a sudden from her chair, exclaiming that she had 
 seen her brother, surrounded by Arabs, who were 
 felling him to the ground. Then she dropped to the 
 floor in a dead swoon. 
 
 A few years elapsed, when General Montauban, who 
 had become the military Governor of the province of 
 Gran, received a letter from the De Gereaux family, 
 requesting him to make some further inquiries re- 
 specting the particulars of the captain's death. The 
 letter was written at the urgent prayer of Mdlle. de 
 Gereaux, who had never ceased to think and speak of 
 her brother, and who, on one occasion, a month or so 
 before the despatch of the petition, had risen again 
 from her chair, though in a more composed manner 
 than before, insisting that she had once more seen her 
 brother. This time he was dressed in the native garb, 
 he seemed very poor, and was delving the soil. These 
 visions recurred at frequent intervals, to the intense 
 distress of the family, who could not but ascribe them 
 to the overstrung imagination of Mdlle. de Gereaux. 
 A little while after, she maintained having seen her 
 brother in a white robe and turban, and intoning 
 hymns that sounded to her like Arabic. She im- 
 plored her parents to institute inquiries, and 
 General Montauban was communicated with to that 
 effect. He did all he could ; the country was at 
 peace, and, after a few months, tidings came that there 
 was a Frenchman held prisoner in one of the villages 
 on the Morocco frontier, who for the last two or three 
 years had entirely lost his reason, but that, previous 
 to that calamity, he had been converted to Islamism. 
 His mental derangement being altogether harmless,
 
 292 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 he was an attendant at the Mosque. As a matter of 
 course, the information had been greatly embellished 
 in having passed through so many channels, nor was 
 it of so definite a character as I have noted it down, 
 but that was the gist of it. 
 
 Meanwhile, Montauban had been transferred ,to 
 another command, and for a twelvemonth after his 
 successor's arrival the inquiry was allowed to fall 
 in abeyance^ When it was finally resumed, the 
 French prisoner had died, but, from a document 
 written in his native language found upon him and 
 brought to Oran, there remained little doubt that he 
 was Captain de Gereaux. 
 
 To return for a moment to the Due d'Aumale, who, 
 curiously enough, exercised a greater influence on 
 the outside world in general than any of his other 
 brethren an influence due probably to his enormous 
 wealth rather than to his personal qualities, though 
 the latter may, to some people, have seemed remark- 
 able. I met him but seldom during his father's 
 lifetime. He was the beau-ideal of the preux 
 chevalier, according to the French notion of the 
 modern Bayard that is, handsome, brave to a fault, 
 irresistibly fascinating with women, good-natured in 
 his way, and, above all, very witty. It was he who, 
 after the confiscation of the d' Orleans' property by 
 Napoleon III., replied to the French Ambassador at 
 Turin, who inquired after his health, " I am all right ; 
 health is one of the things that cannot be confiscated." 
 Nevertheless, upon closer acquaintance, I failed to 
 see the justifying cause for the preference manifested 
 by public opinion, and, upon more minute inquiry, I 
 found that a great many people shared my views. I
 
 THE DUC D'ORL^ANS. 293 
 
 am at this moment convinced that, but for his having 
 been the heir of that ill-fated Prince de Conde, and 
 consequently the real defender in the various suits 
 resulting from the assassination of that prince by 
 Madame de Feucheres, he would have been in no way 
 distinguished socially from the rest of the D'Orleans. 
 
 The popularity of his eldest brother, the Due 
 d'Orleans, was, on the contrary, due directly to the 
 man himself. As far as one can judge of him, he was 
 the reverse of Charles II., in that he never said a wise 
 thing and never did a foolish one. He was probably 
 not half so clever as his father, nor, brave as he may 
 have been, would he have ever made so dashing a 
 soldier as his brother D'Auinale, or so rollicking a 
 sailor as his brother De Joinville. He did not pre- 
 tend to the wisdom of his brother De Nemours, nor to 
 the mystic tendencies of his youngest sister, nor to 
 the sprightly wit of Princesse Clementine, and yet 
 withal he understood the French nation better than 
 any of them. Even his prenuptial escapades, secrets 
 to no one, were those of the grand seigneur, though by 
 no means affichees; they endeared him to the ma- 
 jority of the people. " Chacun colon-ise a. sa fapon," 
 was the lenient verdict on his admiration for Jenny 
 Colon, at a moment when colonization in Algeria was 
 the topic of the day. On the whole he liked artists 
 better, perhaps, than art itself, yet it did not prevent 
 him from buying masterpieces as far as his means 
 would allow him. Though still young, in the latter 
 end of the thirties, I was already a frequent visitor to 
 the studios of the great French painters, and it was 
 in that of Decamps' that I became alive to his 
 character for the tirst time. I was talking to the
 
 294 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 great painter when the duke came in. We had met 
 before, and shook hands, as lie had been taught to do 
 by his father when he met with an Englishman. But 
 I could not make out why he was carrying a pair of 
 trousers over his arm. After we had been chatting 
 for about ten minutes, I wondering all the while what 
 he was going to do with the nether garment, he 
 caught one of my side glances, and burst out laughing. 
 " I forgot," he said ; " here, Decamps, here are your 
 breeches." Then he turned to me to explain. "I 
 always bring them up with me when I come in the 
 morning. The concierge is very old, and it saves her 
 trudging up four flights of stairs." The fact was, that 
 the concierge, before she knew who he was, had once 
 asked him to take up the painter's clothes and boots. 
 From that day forth he never failed to ask for them 
 when passing her lodge. 
 
 I can but repeat, the Due d'Orleans was one of the 
 most charming men I have known. I always couple 
 him in my mind with Benjamin Disraeli, and Alex- 
 andre Dumas the elder. I knew the English states- 
 man almost as well during part of my life as the 
 French novelist. Though intellectually wide apart 
 from them, the duke had one, if not two traits in 
 common with both ; his utter contempt for money 
 affairs and the personal charm he wielded. I doubt 
 whether this personal charm in the other two men 
 was due to their intellectual attainments; with the 
 Due d'Orleans it was certainly not the case. He 
 rarely, if ever, said anything worth remembering ; in 
 fact, he frankly acknowledged his very modest scholar- 
 ship, and his inability either to remember the epi- 
 grams of others or to condense his thoughts into one
 
 HIS INDIFFERENCE WITH REGARD TO MONEY. 295 
 
 of his own. " I should not like to admit as much to 
 my father, who, it appears, is a very fine G-reek and 
 Latin scholar," he said " that is, if I am to believe 
 my brothers, De Nemours and D'Aumale, who ought to 
 know; for, notwithstanding the prizes they took at 
 college, I believe they are very clever. Ah, you may 
 well look surprised at my saying, 'notwithstanding 
 the prizes they took,' because I took ever so many, 
 although, for the life of me, I could not construe a 
 Greek sentence, and scarcely a Latin one. I have 
 paid very handsomely, however, for my ignorance." 
 And then he told us an amusing story of his having 
 had to invent a secretaryship to the duchess for an 
 old schoolfellow. " You see, he came upon me una- 
 wares with a slip of paper I had written him while 
 at college, asking him to explain to me a Greek 
 passage. There was no denying it, I had signed it. 
 What is worse still, he is supposed to translate and to 
 reply to the duchess's German correspondence, and, 
 when I gave him the appointment, he did not know a 
 single word of Schiller's language, so I had to pay a 
 German tutor and him too." 
 
 I have said that the Due d'Orleans was absolutely 
 indifferent with regard to money, but he would not 
 be fleeced with impunity. What he disliked more 
 than anything else, was the greed of the shop-keeping 
 bourgeois. One day, while travelling in Lorraine, 
 he stopped at the posting-house to have his breakfast, 
 consisting of a couple of eggs, a few slices of bread 
 and butter, and a cup of coffee. Just before proceeding 
 on his journey, his valet came to tell him that mine 
 host wanted to charge him two hundred francs for the 
 repast. The duke merely sent for the mayor, handed
 
 296 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 him a thousand-franc note, gave him the particulars 
 of his bill of fare, told him to pay the landlord 
 according to the tariff, and to distribute the remainder 
 of the money among the poor. It is more than 
 probable that mine host was among the first, in '48, 
 to hail the republic: princes and kings, according 
 to him, were made to be fleeced ; if they objected, what 
 was the good of having a monarchy ? 
 
 The popular idol in France must distribute largesse, 
 and distribute it individually, or be profitable in some 
 other way. Greed, personal interest, underlies most 
 of the political strife in France. During one of the 
 riots, so common in the reign of Louis-Philippe, Mimi- 
 Lepreuil, a well-known clever pickpocket, was shouting 
 with all his might, " Vive Louis-Philippe ! a bas la 
 Republique ! " As a rule, gentlemen of his profession 
 are found on the plebeian side, and one of the super- 
 intendents of police on duty, who had closely watched 
 him, inquired into the reason of his apostasy. " I am 
 sick of your Republicans," was the answer. " I come 
 here morning after morning" it happened on the 
 Place de la Bourse, " and dip my hands into a score 
 of pockets without finding a red cent. Daring the 
 Revolution of July, at the funeral of General La- 
 marque, I did not make my expenses. Give me a royal 
 procession to make money." These were his politics. 
 
 It would be difficult to say what the Due d'Orleans 
 would have done, had he lived to ascend the throne. 
 One thing is certain, however, that, on the day of 
 his death, genuine tears stood in the eyes of all 
 classes, except the Legitimists. As I have already 
 said, they ascribed the fatal accident to God's 
 vengeance for the usurpation of his father. " If this
 
 "PROVIDENCE IN A FIX." 297 
 
 be the case," said an irreverent but witty journalist, 
 "it argues but very little providence on the part of 
 your Providence, for now He will have to keep the peace 
 between the Due de Berri, the Due de Reichstadt, and 
 the Due d' Orleans."
 
 2J)8 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 The Eevolution of '48 The beginning of it The National Guards in 
 all their glory The Cafe Gre'goire on the Place du Caire The 
 price of a good breakfast in '48 The palmy days of the Cuisine 
 Bourgeoise The excitement on the Boulevards on Sunday, 
 February 20th, '48 The theatres A ball at Poirson's, the erst- 
 while director of the Gymnase A lull in the storm Tuesday, 
 February 22nd Another visit to the Cafe Gregoire On my way 
 thither The Comedie-Frangaise closes its doors What it means, 
 according to my old tutor We are waited upon by a sergeant 
 and corporal We are no longer " messieurs," but " citoyens " 
 An eye to the main cb.-in.ce The patriots do a bit of business in 
 tricolour cockades The company marches away Casualties 
 "Le patriotisme" means the difference between the louis d'or 
 and the e'en of three francs The company bivouacs on the 
 Boulevard Saint-Martin A tyrant's victim " malgre lui " 
 Wednesday, February 23rd The Cafe Gregoire once more The 
 National Guards en neglige A novel mode of settling accounts 
 The National Guards fortify the inner man A bivouac on the 
 Boulevard du Temple A camp scene from an opera I leave 
 My companion's account The National Guards protect the regulars 
 The author of these notes goes to the theatre The Gymnase 
 and the Varie'tes on the eve of the Revolution Bonffeand Dejazet 
 Thursday, February 24th, '48 The Boulevards at 9.30 a.m. 
 No milk The Revolutionaries do without it The Place du 
 Carrousel The sovereign people fire from the roofs on the troops 
 The troops do not dislodge them The King reviews the troops 
 The apparent inactivity of Louis-Philippe's sons A theory about 
 the difference in bloodshed One of the three ugliest men in 
 France comes to see the King Seditious cries The King 
 abdicates Chaos The sacking of the Tuileries Receptions and 
 feasting in the Galerie de Diane "Du cafe pour nous, des 
 cigarettes pour les dames " The dresses of the princesses The 
 bourgeois feast the gamins who guard the barricades The 
 Republic proclaimed The riff-raff insist upon illuminations An 
 actor promoted to the Governorship of the Hotel de Ville Some 
 members of the "provisional Government" at work Mery ou 
 Lamartine Why the latter proclaimed the Republic. 
 
 I WAS returning home earlier than usual on Saturday 
 mght, the 19th of February, '48, when, at the corner of
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE KEVOLUTION OF '48. 299 
 
 the Hue Lafitte, I happened to run against a young 
 Englishman who had been established for some years 
 in Paris as the representative of his father, a wealthy 
 cotton-spinner in the north. We had frequently met 
 before, and a cordial feeling had sprung up between us, 
 based at first I am bound to say on our common 
 contempt for the vanity of the French. 
 
 " Come and breakfast with me to-morrow morning," 
 he said; "I fancy you will enjoy yourself. We will 
 breakfast in my quarter, and you will see the National 
 Guards in all their glory. They will muster very 
 strong to-morrow, if it be fine." 
 
 "But why to-morrow?" I replied. "I was under 
 the impression that the idea of the Reformist banquet 
 in the Champs-Elysees had been abandoned, so there 
 will be no occasion for them to parade ? Besides, that 
 would be on Tuesday only." 
 
 "It has been abandoned, but if you think that it 
 will prevent them from turning out, you are very 
 much mistaken ; at any rate, come and listen to the 
 preliminaries." 
 
 I promised him to come, but I had not the slightest 
 idea that I was going to witness a kind of mild prologue 
 to a revolution. 
 
 Next morning turned out very fine balmy spring 
 weather and as I sauntered along the Boulevards 
 Montmartre and Poissoniere to the place of appoint- 
 ment the streets were already crowded with people 
 in their Sunday clothes. The place where I was to 
 meet my English friend was situated in the midst of a 
 busy quarter, scarcely anything but warehouses where 
 they sold laces, and flowers, and silks ; something like 
 the neighbourhood at the back of Cheapside. The
 
 300 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 wealthy tradesmen of those days did not live in the 
 outskirts of Paris, as they did later on ; and when my 
 friend and I reached the principal cafe and restaurant 
 on the Place du Caire I think it was called the Cafe 
 Gregoire there was scarcely a table vacant. The 
 habitues were, almost to a man, National Guards, 
 prosperous business men, considerably more anxious, 
 as I found out in a short time, to play a political part 
 than to maintain public tranquillity. If I remember 
 rightly, one of them, a chemist and druggist, who was 
 pointed out to me then, became a deputy after the 
 fall of the Second Empire ; and I may notice en passant 
 that this same spot was the political hothouse which 
 produced, afterwards, Monsieur Tirard, who started 
 life as a small manufacturer of imitation jewellery, 
 and who rose to be Minister of Finances under the 
 Third Kepublic. 
 
 The breakfast was simply excellent, the wine genuine 
 throughout, the coffee and cognac all that could be 
 wished ; and, when I asked my friend to let me look 
 at the bill, out of simple curiosity, or, rather, for the 
 sake of comparing prices with those of the Cafes de 
 Paris and Riche, I found that he had spent something 
 less than eleven francs. At the Cafe Riche it would 
 have been twenty-five francs, and, at the present time, 
 one would be charged double that sum. These were 
 the palmy days of the Cuisine Franpaise, or, to call 
 it by another name, the Cuisine Bourgeoise, for which, 
 a few years later, a stranger in Paris would have almost 
 sought in vain. Luckily, however, for my enjoyment 
 and digestive organs, I was no stranger to Paris and 
 to the French ; if I had been, both the former would 
 have been spoilt, the excitement of those around me
 
 THE NATIONAL GUARDS. 301 
 
 being such as to lead the alien to believe that there 
 would be an instantaneous departure for the Tuileries, 
 and a revival of the bloody scenes of the first revo- 
 lution. It has been my lot, in after-years, to hear a 
 great deal of political drivel in French and English, 
 but it was sound philosophy compared to what I 
 heard that morning. I have spoken before of the 
 Hotel des Haricots, where men like Hugo, Balzac, 
 Beranger, and Alfred de Musset chose to be im- 
 prisoned rather than perform their duties as National 
 Guards. After that, I could fully appreciate their 
 reluctance to be confounded with such a set of pompous 
 windbags. 
 
 It came to nothing that day, but I had become 
 interested, and made an appointment with my friend 
 for the Tuesday, unless something should happen in 
 the interval. Still, I did not think that the monarchy 
 of July was doomed, though, on returning to the 
 Boulevards, I could not help noticing that the excite- 
 ment had considerably increased during the time I 
 had been at breakfast. By twelve o'clock that night 
 I was convinced that I had been mistaken, and that 
 the dynasty of the D'Orleans had not a week to live. 
 All the theatres were still open, but I had an invitation 
 to a ball, given by Poirson, the then late director 
 of the Gymnase Theatre, at his house in the Faubourg 
 Poissonniere. "Nous ne danserons plus jamais sous 
 Louis-Philippe ! " was the general cry, which did 
 not prevent the guests from thoroughly enjoying 
 themselves. 
 
 Next morning, Monday, there seemed to be a lull 
 in the storm, but on the Tuesday the signs of the 
 coming hurricane were plainly visible on the horizon.
 
 302 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 The Ministry of Marine was guarded by a company of 
 linesmen. I had some business in the Rue de Eivoli, 
 which at that time ended almost abruptly at the 
 Louvre ; and, om my way to the Cafe Gregoire, I met 
 patrol upon patrol of National Guards beating the " as- 
 sembly." I had occasion to pass before the Comedie- 
 Franpaise. The ominous black-lettered slip of yellow 
 paper, with the word Eelache, was pasted across the 
 evening's bill. That was enough for me. I remem- 
 bered the words of my old tutor : " When the Comedie- 
 Franpaise shuts its doors in perilous times, it is like 
 the battening down of the hatches in dirty weather. 
 There is mischief brewing." When I got to the Place 
 du Caire, I was virtually in the thick of it. With the 
 exception of my friend and I, there was not a man in 
 mufti. Even the proprietor had donned his uniform. 
 Our fillet of beef was brought to us by a corporal, and 
 our coffee poured out by a sergeant. Whether these 
 warrior-waiters meant to strike one blow for freedom 
 and to leave the place to take care of itself, we were 
 unable to make out ; but their patrons were no longer 
 " messieurs," but had already become " citoyens." I 
 was tempted to say, in the words of Dupin the one 
 who was President of the Chamber on the day of the 
 Coup d'Etat, and who was Louis-Philippe's personal 
 friend, " Soyons citoyens, mais restons messieurs," but 
 I thought it better not. My friend had given up all 
 idea of attending to business. " It will not be of the 
 least use," he said. " If I had ribbons to sell instead 
 of cottons, I might make a lot of money, though ; for 
 I am open to wager that some of our patriotic neigh- 
 bours, while they are going to bell the cat outside, 
 have given orders to their workpeople to manufacture
 
 A STROKE OF BUSINESS. 303 
 
 tricolour cockades and rosettes with the magic B. F. 
 (Republique Fran9aise) in the centre. 
 
 " You do not mean that they would think of such 
 a thing at such a critical moment, even if the 
 republic were a greater probability than it appears 
 to be ? " I remonstrated. 
 
 " I do mean to say so," he replied, beckoning at the 
 same time to a sleek, corpulent lieutenant, standing 
 a few paces away. "Can you do with a nice lot 
 of narrow silk ribbon ? " he asked, as the individual 
 walked up to our table. 
 
 " What colour ? " inquired the lieutenant. 
 
 My friend gave me a significant look, and named 
 all the hues of the rainbow except white, red, and 
 blue. 
 
 " Won't do," said the lieutenant, shaking his head. 
 " If it had been red, white, and blue I would have 
 bought as much as you like, because I am manu- 
 facturing rosettes for the good cause." After this he 
 walked away. 
 
 On the Thursday afternoon the Boulevards and 
 principal thoroughfares swarmed with peripatetic 
 vendors of the republican insignia, and some of my 
 friends expressed their surprise as to where they had 
 come from in so short a time. Seeing that they were 
 Frenchmen, I held my tongue, even when one pro- 
 fessed to explain, " They have come from England ; 
 they are always speculating upon our misfortunes, 
 though they do it cleverly enough. They got scent 
 of what was coming, and sent them over as quickly as 
 they could. Truly they are a great nation of shop- 
 keepers ! " I was reminded of Beranger's scapegrace, 
 when he was accused of being drunk.
 
 304 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 " Qu'est que cela me fait, a moi ? 
 Que 1'on m'appelle ivrogne ? " 
 
 he sings. 
 
 As the afternoon wore on, the excitement increased ; 
 the news from the Boulevards became alarming, and 
 at about three o'clock the company marched away. 
 As a matter of course we followed, and equally, as a 
 matter of course, did not leave them until 2.30 next 
 morning. Casualties to report. A large scratch in 
 one of the drummer's cheeks, made by an oyster- 
 shell, flung at the company as it turned round the 
 corner of the Rue de Clery. No battles, no skir- 
 mishes, a great deal of fraternizing with "le peuple 
 souverain," whom, in their own employ, the well-to-do 
 tradesmen would have ordered about like so many 
 mangy curs. 
 
 From that day forth I have never dipped into any 
 history of modern France, professing to deal with the 
 political causes and effects of the various upheavals 
 during the nineteenth century in France. They may 
 be worth reading ; I do not say that they are not. I 
 have preferred to look at the men who instigated those 
 disorders, and have come to the conclusion that, had 
 each of them been born with five or ten thousand a 
 year, their names would have been absolutely wanting 
 in connection with them. This does not mean that the 
 disorders would not have taken place, but they would 
 have always been led by men in want of five or ten 
 thousand a year. On the other hand, if the D'Orleans 
 family had been less wealthy than they are there would 
 have been no firmly settled third republic ; if Louis- 
 Napoleon had been less poor, there would, in all 
 probability, have been no second empire ; if the latter 
 had lasted another year, we should have found Gam-
 
 A MILITARY SPECTACLE. 305 
 
 betta among the ministers of Napoleon III., just like 
 Emile Ollivier, of the " light heart." " Les con- 
 victions politiques en France sont basees sur le fait 
 que le louis d'or vaut sept fois plus que 1'ecu de trois 
 francs." This is the dictum of a man who never wished 
 to be anything, who steadfastly refused all offers to 
 enter the arena of public life. 
 
 My friend and I had been baulked of the drama 
 we expected tor we frankly confessed to one another 
 that the utter annihilation of that company of National 
 Guards would have left us perfectly unmoved, and 
 got instead, a kind of first act of a military spectacular 
 play, such as we were in the habit of seeing at Fran- 
 coni's. The civic warriors were ostensibly bivouacking 
 on the Boulevard St. Martin ; they stacked their 
 muskets and fraternized with the crowd ; it would not 
 have surprised us in the least to see a troupe of ballet 
 dancers advance into our midst and give us the enter- 
 tainment de rigueur the intermede. It was the only 
 thing wanting to complete the picture, from which 
 even the low comedy incident was not wanting. An 
 old woebegone creature, evidently the worse for liquor, 
 had fallen down while a patrol of regulars was passing. 
 He was not a bit hurt ; but there and then the rabble 
 proposed to carry him to the Hotel de Yille, and to 
 give him an apotheosis as a martyr to the cause. 
 They had already fetched a stretcher, and were, not- 
 withstanding his violent struggles, hoisting him on 
 it, when prevented by the captain of the National 
 Guards. 
 
 Still, we returned next day to the Cafe Gregoire. 
 In the middle of the place there lay an old man that 
 one, stark dead, who had been fired upon without 
 
 VOL. i. x
 
 306 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 rhyme or reason by a picket of the National Guards. 
 It was only about eleven o'clock, and those valiant 
 defenders of public order were still resting from their 
 fatigue at any rate, there were few of them about. 
 There was a discussion going on whether they should 
 go out or not a discussion confined to the captain, 
 two lieutenants, and as many sub-lieutenants. They 
 appeared not to have the least idea of the necessity 
 to refer for orders to the colonel or the head-quarters 
 of the regiment or the legion, as it was called. They 
 meant to settle the matter among themselves. The 
 great argument in favour of calling out the men was 
 that one of them, while standing at his window that 
 very morning, was fired at by a passing ragamuffin, 
 who, instead of hitting him, shattered his window- 
 panes. 
 
 " Well," said one of the lieutenants, who had been 
 opposed to the calling out of the men, " then we are 
 quits after all; for look at the old fellow lying out 
 there." 
 
 " No, we are not," retorts the captain ; " for he was 
 shot by a mistake, so he doesn't count." 
 
 " L'esprit ne perd jamais ses droits en France ; " so, 
 in another moment or two, the bugle sounded lustily 
 throughout the quarter. We followed the buglers for 
 a little while, it being still too early for our breakfast, 
 and consequently enjoyed the felicity of seeing a good 
 many of the warriors " in their habit as they lived " 
 indoors namely, in dressing-gown and slippers and 
 smoking-caps. For most of them opened their windows 
 on the first, second, and third floors, to inquire whether 
 the call was urgent. The buglers entered into expla- 
 nations. No, the call was not urgent, but the captain
 
 THE CIVIC WARRIOR IN HIS GLORY. 307 
 
 had decided on a military promenade, just to reassure 
 the neighbourhood, and to stimulate the martial spirit 
 of the lagging members of the company. The expla- 
 nation invariably provoked the same answer, and in a 
 voice not that of the citizen-warrior : " Que le capitaine 
 attende jusqu'apres le dejeuner." 
 
 Davoust has said that the first condition of the 
 fitness of an army is its commissariat. In that respect 
 every one of these National Guards was fit to be a 
 Davoust, for their fortifying of the inner man was 
 not accomplished until close upon two o'clock. By 
 that time they marched out, saluted by the cries of 
 " Vive la Reforme ! " of all the ragtag and bobtail from 
 the Faubourgs du Temple and St. Antoine, who had 
 invaded the principal thoroughfares. The " Marseil- 
 laise," the " Chant des Girondins," " La Eepublique 
 nous appelle " resounded through the air ; and I was 
 wondering whether they were packing their trunks at 
 the Tuileries, also what these National Guards had 
 come out for. They only seemed to impede the 
 efficient patrolling of the streets by the regulars, and, 
 instead of dispersing the rabble, they attracted them. 
 They were evidently under the impression that they 
 made a very goodly show, and at every word of com- 
 mand I expected to see the captain burst asunder. 
 When we got to the Boulevard St. Martin, the latter 
 was told that the sixth legion was stationed on the 
 Boulevard du Temple. A move was made in that 
 direction. 
 
 Now " Kichard is himself again ; " he is among the 
 crowd he likes best the crowd of the Boulevard du 
 Crime, with its theatres, large and small, its raree and 
 puppet shows, its open-air entertainments, its cafes
 
 308 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 and mountebanks; and, what is more, he is there in 
 his uniform, distinguished from the rest, and conse- 
 quently the cynosure of all the little actresses and 
 pretty figurantes' who have just left the rehearsal for 
 by this time it is after three and who are but too 
 willing to be entertained. Appointments are made to 
 dine or to sup together, without the slightest reference 
 as to what may happen in the interval. All at once 
 there is an outcry and a rush towards the Porte Saint- 
 Martin ; our warriors are obliged to leave their inamo- 
 ratas, and when they come to look for their muskets, 
 which they have placed in a corner for convenience' 
 sake, they find that a good many have disappeared. 
 The customers belonging to the sovereign people have 
 slunk off with them. Nevertheless they join the 
 ranks, for the bugle has sounded. At the corner of 
 the Faubourg Saint-Martin, whence the noise proceeded, 
 they are met by three or four score of the sovereign 
 people, ragged, unkempt, who are pushing in front of 
 them two of the students of the Ecole Polytechnique. 
 The two young fellows are very pale, and can scarcely 
 speak. Still they manage to explain that the Municipal 
 Guard at the Saint-Martin barracks have fired upon the 
 people : then they go their way. Whither ? Heaven 
 only knows. But our captain, in the most stentorian 
 of voices, gives the word of command, " To the right, 
 wheel ! " and we are striding up the faubourg, which 
 is absolutely deserted as far as the Eue des Marais. 
 A collision seems pretty inevitable now, the more that 
 the Municipal Guards are already taking aim, when 
 all at once our captain and one of the lieutenants rush 
 forward, and fling themselves into the arms of the 
 officers of the Municipal Guards. Tableau ; and I am
 
 HE PROTECTS THE REGULARS. 300 
 
 baulked once more of a good fight. I leave my friend 
 to see the rest of this ridiculous comedy, and take my 
 departure there and then. 
 
 The following is my companion's account of what 
 happened after I left. I am as certain that every 
 word of it is true as if I had been there myself, 
 though it seems almost incredible that French officers, 
 whose worst enemies have never accused them of 
 being deficient in courage, should have acted so 
 inconsiderately. 
 
 " The officers of the National Guards appear to have 
 assumed at once the office of protectors of the regulars 
 against the violence of the crowd. Why the regulars 
 should have submitted to this, seeing that they were 
 far better armed than their would-be guardians, I am 
 unable to say. Be this as it may, the regulars con- 
 sented, the flag floating above the principal door of 
 the barracks was taken down, and I really believed 
 that the Municipal Guards stacked their arms and 
 virtually handed them over to the others. But I will 
 not vouch for it. At any rate, a few hours afterwards, 
 while the company had gone to dinner, the barracks 
 were assailed, the men and officers knocked down by 
 the people, and the building set on fire. When the 
 fifth legion returned about eleven o'clock to the Fau- 
 bourg Saint-Martin, the flames were leaping up to the 
 sky, so they turned their heels contentedly in the 
 direction of the Boulevard du Temple, where they 
 bivouacked between the Theatre de la Gaite and the 
 Ambigu-Comique, while those who had made appoint- 
 ments with the little actresses went round by the stage 
 doors to keep them. That, as far as I could judge, 
 was the part of the fifth legion in the day's proceedings.
 
 310 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 I left them in all their glory, thinking themselves, no 
 doubt, very fine fellows. 
 
 " On the Thursday morning " my companion told 
 me all this on Saturday evening, the 26th of February 
 "I was up betimes, simply because the drumming 
 and bugling prevented my sleeping. At eight, the Cafe 
 Gregoire was already very full, the heroes of the 
 previous night had returned to perform their ablutions, 
 and also, I suppose, to reassure their anxious spouses ; 
 but they had no longer that conquering air I noticed 
 when I left them the night before. Whether they 
 had come to the conclusion that botli in love and war 
 they had reaped but barren victories, I cannot say, 
 but their republican ardour, it seemed to me, had 
 considerably cooled down. I am convinced that, not- 
 withstanding the events of Wednesday night in the 
 Faubourg Saint-Martin, they were under the impression 
 that neither the people nor the military would resort 
 to further extremities. I cannot help thinking that, 
 after I left, not a single man could have remained at 
 his post, because not one amongst them seemed to 
 have an idea of the horrible slaughter on the Boulevard 
 des Capucines.* They were not lelt very long in 
 
 * The author, as will be seen directly, saw nothing of that massacre, 
 though he must have passed within a few hundred yards of the spot 
 immediately before it began. It would have been the same if he had ; 
 he could not have explained the cause, seeing that the most pains- 
 taking historians who have consulted the most trustworthy eye- 
 witnesses have failed to do so. It will always remain a mystery 
 whence the first shot came, whether from the military who were 
 drawn up across the Boulevard des Capucines, on the spot where now 
 stands the Grand Cafe, or from the crowd that wanted to pass, in 
 order to proceed to Odilon-Barrot's to serenade him, because, not- 
 withstanding the opposition of the king, he was to be included in 
 the new ministry, which Mole" had been instructed to form. It may 
 safely be said, however, that, but for that shot and the slaughter con- 
 sequent upon it, the revolution might have been averted then after 
 all, perhaps, only temporarily. EDITOR.
 
 THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION. 311 
 
 ignorance of the real state of affairs, and then they 
 saw at once that they had roused a spectre they would 
 be unable to lay. From that moment, it is my opinion, 
 they would have willingly drawn back, but it was too 
 late. While they were still debating, an individual 
 rushed in, telling them that one or two regiments, 
 commanded by a general (who turned out to be General 
 Bedeau), had drawn up in front of the barricade which 
 had been thrown up during the night in the Boulevard 
 Bonne-Nouvelle, and was being defended by a detach- 
 ment of the fifth legion. They all ran out, and I ran 
 with them. When we got to the boulevard, matters 
 had already been arranged, and they were just in time 
 to join the escort General Bedeau had accepted, after 
 having consented not to execute the orders with which 
 he had been entrusted. By that time I began to per- 
 ceive which way the wind was blowing: the canaille 
 had unceremoniously linked their arms in those of the 
 National Guards, and insisted, courteously but firmly, 
 on carrying their firearms. When we got to the Rue 
 Montmartre, they took the horses out of the gun- 
 carriages, and the soldiers looked tamely on, notwith- 
 standing the commands of their officers. When the 
 latter endeavoured to enforce their orders by hitting 
 them with the flat of their swords, they simply left the 
 ranks and joined the rabble. I had had enough of it, 
 and made my way home by the back streets. I had 
 had enough of it, and kept indoors until this afternoon." 
 Thus far my informant. As for myself, I saw little 
 on the Wednesday night of what was going on. It was 
 my own fault : I was too optimistic. I had scarcely 
 gone a few steps, after my dinner, when, just in front 
 of the Gyrnnasa, they began shouting, "La Patrie,
 
 312 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 Journal du soir ; achetez La Patrie. Voyez le nouveau 
 ministers de Monsieur Mole." I remember giving 
 the fellow half a franc, at which he grumbled, though 
 it was three times the ordinary price. On opening 
 tlie paper, I rashly concluded from what I read that 
 the revolution was virtually at an end, and I was the 
 more confirmed in my opinion by the almost instanta- 
 neous lighting up of the Boulevards. It was like a 
 fairy scene : people were illuminating a little bit too 
 soon, as it turned out. Being tired of wandering, 
 and feeling no inclination for bed, I turned into the 
 Grymnase. There were Bressant and Rose Cheri and 
 Arnal ; I \\ould surely be able to spend a few pleasant 
 hours. But alack and alas ! the house presented 
 a very doleful appearance dead-heads, to a man ; 
 and very few of these, people who, if they could not 
 fiddle themselves, like Nero while Rome was burning, 
 would go to hear fiddling under no matter what 
 circumstances, provided they were not asked to pay. 
 I did not stay long, but when I came out into 
 the streets the noise was too deafening for me. 
 The " Marseillaise " has always had a particularly 
 jarring effect upon my nerves. There are days when 
 I could be cruel enough to prefer ' the yells of those 
 ferocious soldiers, as they murder in cold blood the 
 sons and the companions " of one section of defenceless 
 patriots, to the stirring strains of the other section as 
 they figuratively rush to the rescue; and on that 
 particular evening I felt in that mood. ISo, when I 
 got to the Boulevard Montmartre, I turned into the 
 Theatre des Varietes. I remember the programme up 
 to this day. They were playing "Le Suisse de Marly," 
 " Le Marquis de Lauzun," " Les Extremes se touchent,"
 
 THE 24TH FEBRUARY, 1848. 313 
 
 and " Les Vieux Peches." I had seen the second and 
 the last piece at least a dozen times, but I was always 
 ready to see them again for the sake of Virginie Dejazet 
 in the one, of Bouffe in the other. The lessee at that 
 time was an Englishman. Bouffe and I had always 
 kept up our friendship ; so I made up my mind to go 
 and have a chat with him, hoping that Dejazet, whose 
 conversation affected one like a bottle of cham- 
 pagne, would join us. The house, like the Gymnase, 
 was almost empty, but I made my way behind the 
 scenes, and in about half an hour forgot all about the 
 events outside. Bouffe was telling me anecdotes about 
 his London performances, and Dejazet was imitating 
 the French of some of the bigwigs of King Leopold's 
 court; so the time passed pleasantly enough. At the 
 end of the performance we proposed taking supper, 
 and turned down the Rue Montmartre. It was late 
 when I returned home, consequently I saw nothing of 
 the slaughter on the Boulevard des Capucines. 
 
 Though I had gone to bed late, I was up betimes 
 on the Thursday morning. A glance at the Boule- 
 vards, as I turned the corner of my street about half- 
 past nine, convinced me that the illuminations of the 
 previous night had been premature, and that before 
 the day was out there would be an end of the 
 monarchy of July. A slight mist was still hanging 
 over the city as I strolled in the direction of the 
 Madeleine, and the weather was damp and raw, but 
 in about half an hour the sun broke through. A shot 
 was heard now and then, but I myself saw no collision 
 then between the troops and the people. On the 
 contrary, it looked to me as if the former would have 
 been glad to be left alone. As I had been obliged
 
 314 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 to leave home without my usual cup of tea for want 
 of milk the servant had told me there was none 
 I went back a little way to Tortoni's, where I was 
 greeted with the same answer. I could have tea or 
 coffee or chocolate marie with water, but milk there 
 was none on that side of Paris, and, unless things took 
 a turn, there would be no butter. The sovereign 
 people had thrown up barricades during the night 
 round all the northern and north-western issues, and 
 would not let the milk-carts pass. They, no doubt, 
 had some more potent fluids to fall back upon, for a 
 good many, even at that early hour, were by no 
 means steady in their gait. The Boulevards were 
 swarming with them. Since then, I have seen these 
 sovereign people getting the upper hand twice, viz. 
 on the 4th of September, '70, and on the 18th of March, 
 '71. I have seen them during the siege of Paris, and I 
 have no hesitation in saying that, for cold-blooded, 
 apish, monkeyish, tigerish cruelty, there is nothing on 
 the face of God's earth to match them, and that no 
 concessions wrung from society on their behalf will 
 ever make them anything else but the fiends in human 
 shape they are. 
 
 After my fruitless attempt to get my accustomed 
 breakfast, I resumed my perambulations, this time 
 taking the Rue Vivienne as far as the Palais- Royal. 
 It must have been between half-past ten and eleven 
 when I reached the Place du Carrousel, which, at a 
 rough guess, was occupied by about five thousand 
 regular infantry and horse and National Guards. The 
 Place du Carrousel was not then, what it became later 
 on, a large open space. Part of it was encumbered 
 with narrow streets of very tall houses, and from their
 
 THE SOLDIERS AND THE PEOPLE. 315 
 
 windows and roofs the sovereign people according to 
 an officer who had been on duty from early morn 
 had been amusing themselves by firing on the troops, 
 not in downright volleys, but with isolated shots, 
 picking out a man here and there. " But," I remon- 
 strated, "half a dozen pompiers and a score of lines- 
 men could dislodge them in less than ten minutes, 
 instead of returning their shots one by one." " So 
 they could," was the reply, "but orders came from 
 the Chateau not to do so, and here we are. Besides," 
 added my informant, " I doubt very much, if I gave 
 my men the word of command to storm the place, 
 whether they would do so; they are thoroughly 
 demoralized. On our way hither I had the greatest 
 difficulty in keeping them together. Without a roll- 
 call I could not exactly tell you how many are mis?- 
 ing, but as we came along I noticed several falling out 
 and going into the wine-shops with the rabble. They 
 did not come back again. I had to shut my eyes to 
 it. If I had attempted to prevent it, there would have 
 been a more horrible slaughter than there was last 
 night on the Boulevards, and, what is worse, the men 
 who remained staunch would have been in a minority, 
 and not able to stand their ground. The mob have 
 got hold of the muskets of the National Guards. I 
 dare say, as you came along, you noticed on many 
 doors, written up in chalk, ' Arms given up,' and on 
 some the words 'with pleasure' added to the state- 
 ment." It was perfectly true ; I had noticed it. 
 
 I was still talking to the captain when the drums 
 began to beat and the buglers sounded the salute. 
 At the same moment I saw the King, in the uniform 
 of a general of the National Guards, cross the court-
 
 316 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 yard on horseback. I noticed a great many ladies 
 at the ground-floor windows of the palace, but could 
 not distinguish their faces. I was told afterwards that 
 they were the Queen and the princesses, endeavouring 
 to encourage the septuagenarian monarch. Louis- 
 Philippe was seventy-five then. 
 
 I have often heard and seen it stated by historians 
 of the revolution of '48, that the Duke d'Aumale and 
 the Prince de Joinville, had they been in Paris, would 
 have saved their father's crown. This is an assumption 
 which it is difficult to disprove, seeing how popular 
 these young princes were then. But if the assumption 
 is meant to convey that the mob at the sight of these 
 brave young fellows would have laid down their arras 
 without fighting, I can unhesitatingly contradict it. 
 What the National Guard might have done it is im- 
 possible to say. The regulars, no doubt, would have 
 followed the princes into battle, as they would have 
 followed their brother, De Nemours, notwithstanding 
 the latter's unpopularity. There would have been a 
 great deal of bloodshed, but the last word would have 
 remained with the Government. Louis -Philippe's 
 greatest title to glory is that of having prevented 
 such bloodshed. But to show how little such abne- 
 gation of self is understood by even the most educated 
 Frenchmen, I must relate a story which was told to 
 me many years afterwards by a French officer who, 
 at that time, had just returned from the Pontifical 
 States, where he had helped to defeat the small army 
 of Garibaldi. He was describing the battle-field of 
 Mentana to Napoleon III., and mentioned a prisoner 
 he had made who turned out to be an old acquaint- 
 ance from the Boulevards. " He was furious agaiust
 
 EXIT LOUIS-PHILIPPE. 317 
 
 Garibaldi, sire," said the officer, "because the latter 
 had plared him in the necessity, as it were, of firing 
 upon his own countrymen in a strange land. Said 
 the prisoner, * I am not an emigre ; I would not have 
 gone to Coblenz ; I am a Frenchman from the crown 
 of my head to the sole of my foot. If it came to 
 fighting my countrymen in the streets of Paris, that 
 would be a different thing. I should not have the 
 slightest scruple of firing upon the Imperial Guards 
 or upon the rabble, as the case might be, for that 
 would be civil war.' That's what he said, sire." 
 
 Napoleon nodded his head, and with his wonderful, 
 sphinx-like smile, replied, "Your prisoner was right; 
 it makes all the difference." The Orleans princes, 
 save perhaps one, never knew these distinctions; if 
 they had known them, the Comte de Paris might be 
 King of France to-day. 
 
 To return for a moment to Louis-Philippe as I saw 
 him at the last moments of his reign. He felt evi- 
 dently disappointed at the lukewarm reception he 
 received, for though there was a faint cry among the 
 regulars of " Vive le Roi ! " it was immediately drowned 
 by the stentorian one of the rabble of " Vive la Re- 
 forme ! " in which a good many of the National Guards 
 joined. He was evidently in a hurry to get back to 
 the Tuileries, and, when he disappeared in the door- 
 way, I had looked upon him for the last time in my 
 life. An hour and a half later, he had left Paris for 
 ever. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Personally I saw nothing of the flight of the King, 
 nor of the inside of the Tuileries, until the royal 
 family were gone. The story of that flight was told
 
 818 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 to me several years later by the Due de Montpensier. 
 What is worse, in those days it never entered my 
 mind that a time would come when I should feel 
 desirous of committing my reminiscences to paper, 
 consequently I kept no count of the hours that went 
 by, and cannot, therefore, give the exact sequence of 
 events. I do not know how long I stood among the 
 soldiers and the crowd, scarcely divided from one 
 another even by an imaginary line. It was not a 
 pleasant crowd, though to my great surprise there 
 were a >reat many more decently dressed persons in 
 it than I could have expected, so I stayed on. About 
 half an hour after the King re-entered the Tuileries, 
 I noticed two gentlemen elbow their way through the 
 serried masses. I had no difficulty in recognizing the 
 one in civilian's clothes. Though he was by no means 
 so famous as he became afterwards, there was hardly 
 a Parisian who would not have recognized him on the 
 spot. His portrait had been drawn over and over 
 again, at least as many times as that of the King, and 
 it is a positive fact that nurses frightened their babies 
 with it. He was the ugliest man of the century. 
 It was M. Adolphe Cremieux.* His companion was 
 in uniform. I learnt afterwards that it was General 
 Gourgaud, but I did not know him then except by 
 name, and in connection with his polemics with the 
 Duke of Wellington, in which the latter did not 
 altogether behave with the generosity one expects 
 from an English gentleman towards a fallen foe. As 
 they passed, the old soldier must have been recog- 
 
 * The author is slightly mistaken. The two ugliest men in France 
 in the nineteenth century were Andrieux, who wrote " Les Etourdis," 
 and Littre; but Cremieux ran them very hard. EDITOR.
 
 SCENES AT THE TUILERIES. 319 
 
 nized, because not one, but at least a hundred cries 
 resounded, "Vive la grande armee! Vive 1'Empereur!" 
 In after years I thought that these cries sounded 
 almost prophetic, though I am pretty sure that those 
 who uttered them had not the slightest hope of, and 
 perhaps not even a desire for, a Napoleonic restora- 
 tion; at any rate, not the majority. There is one 
 thing, however, which could not have failed to strike 
 the impartial observer during the next twenty years. 
 I have seen a good many riots, small and large, during 
 the Second Republic and the Second Empire. "Sedi- 
 tious cries," as a matter of course, were freely shouted. 
 I have never heard a single one of " Vivent les D'Or- 
 leans ! " or " Vivent les Bourbons ! " I have already 
 spoken more than once about the powerful influence 
 of the Napoleonic legend in those days ; I shall have 
 occasion to refer to it again and again when speaking 
 about the nephew of the first Napoleon. 
 
 Cremieux and Gourgaud could not have been inside 
 the Tuileries more than a quarter of an hour when 
 they rushed out again. They evidently made a com- 
 munication to the troops, because I beheld the latter 
 waving their arms, but, of course, I did not catch a 
 word of what they said ; I was too far away. It was, 
 I learnt afterwards, the announcement of the advent 
 of a new ministry, and the appointment of a new 
 commander of the National Guards. When I saw 
 hats and caps flung into the air, and heard the people 
 shouting, I made certain that the revolution was at 
 an end. I was mistaken. It was not Cremieux's 
 communication at all that had provoked the enthu- 
 siasm ; it was a second communication, made by some 
 one from the doorway of the Tuileries immediately
 
 320 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 after the eminent barrister had disappeared among 
 the crowd, to the effect that the King had abdicated 
 in favour of the Comte de Paris, with the Duchesse 
 d'Orleans as regent. Between the first and second 
 announcements there could not have elapsed more 
 than five or six minutes, ten at the utmost, because, 
 before I had time to recover from my surprise, I saw 
 Cremieux and Gourgaud battle through the tightly 
 wedged masses once more, and re-enter the Tuileries 
 to verify the news. I am writing this note especially 
 by the light of subsequent information, for, I repeat, 
 it was impossible to understand events succinctly by 
 the quickly succeeding effects they produced at the 
 time. Another ten minutes elapsed ten minutes 
 which I shall never forget, because every one of the 
 thousands present on the Place du Carrousel was in 
 momentary danger of having the life crushed out of 
 him. It was no one's fault ; there was, if I recollect 
 rightly, but one narrow issue on the river-side, and 
 there was a dense seething mass standing on the 
 banks, notwithstanding the danger of that position, 
 for the insurgents were firing freely and recklessly 
 across the stream. Egress on the opposite side of the 
 Place du Carrousel, that of the Place du Palais-Eoyal, 
 had become absolutely impossible, for at that moment 
 a fierce battle was raging there between the people 
 and the National Guards for the possession of the 
 military post of the Chateau d'Eau ; * and those of the 
 non-combatants who did not think it necessary to pay 
 for the fall or the maintenance of the monarchy of 
 
 * So called after a large ornamental fountain ; the same, I believe, 
 which subsequently was transferred to what is now called the Place 
 de la Ke'publique, and which finally found its way to the Avenue 
 Daumesnil, where it stands at present. EDITOR.
 
 THE PLACE DU CARROUSEL. 321 
 
 July with life or limb, tried to get out of the bullets' 
 reach. There was but one way of doing so, by a 
 stampede in a southerly direction ; the Eue de Eivoli, 
 at any rate that part which existed, was entirely 
 blocked to the west, the congeries of streets that have 
 been pulled down since to make room for its pro- 
 longation to the east were bristling with barricades : 
 hence the terrible, suffocating crush, in which several 
 persons lost their lives. The most curious incident 
 connected with these awful ten minutes was that of 
 a woman and her baby. When Cremieux issued for 
 the second time from the Tuileries, it was to confirm 
 the news of the King's abdication. Almost imme- 
 diately afterwards, the masses on the quay were 
 making for the Place de la Concorde and the Palais- 
 Bourbon, whither, it was rumoured, the Duchesse 
 D'Orleans and her two sons were going; and gradually 
 the wedged-in mass on the Place du Carrousel found 
 breathing space. Then the woman was seen to fall 
 down like a ninepin that has been toppled over; she 
 was dead, but her baby, which she had held above the 
 crowd, and which they had, as it were, to wrench from 
 her grasp, was alive and well. 
 
 I stood for a little while longer on the Place du 
 Carrousel, trying to make up my mind whether to 
 proceed to the Place de la Concorde or to the Place 
 de I'Hotel de Ville. I knew that the newly-elected 
 powers, whosoever they might be, would make their 
 appearance at the latter spot, but ho\v long it would 
 be before they came, I had not the least idea. I was 
 determined, however, to see at any rate one act of the 
 drama or the farce ; for even then there was no knowing 
 in what guise events would present themselves. I 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 322 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 could hear the reports of firearms on both sides of me, 
 though why there should be firing when the King had 
 thrown up the sponge, I could not make out for the 
 life of me. I did not know France so well then as 
 I know her now. I did not know then that there is 
 no man or, for that matter, no woman on the civilized 
 earth so heedlessly and obdurately bloodthirsty when 
 he or she works himself into a fury as the professedly 
 debonnaire Parisian proletarian. Nevertheless, I de- 
 cided to go to the Hotel de Ville, and had carefully 
 worked my way as far as the site of the present 
 Place du Chatelet, when I was compelled to retrace 
 my steps. The elite of the Paris scum was going to 
 dictate its will to the new Government ; it was march- 
 ing to the Chamber of Deputies with banners flying. 
 One of the latter was a red-and-white striped flannel 
 petticoat, fastened to a tremendously long pole. I 
 had no choice, and if at that moment my friends had 
 seen me they might have easily imagined that 1 had 
 become one of the leaders of the revolutionary mob. 
 We took by the Quai de la Megisserie, and just before 
 the Pont des Arts there was a momentary halt. The 
 vanguard, which I was apparently leading, had de- 
 cided to turn to the right ; in other words, to visit the 
 abode of the hated tyrant. Had I belonged to the 
 main division, I should have witnessed a really more 
 important scene, from the historical point of view ; as 
 it was, I witnessed 
 
 THE SACKING OF THE TUILERIES. 
 
 The idea that " there is a divinity that hedgeth 
 round a kiug " seemed, I admit, preposterous enough 
 at that moment; but I could not help being struck
 
 THE SACKING OF THE TUILERIES. 323 
 
 with its partial truth on seeing the rabble invade the 
 palace. When I say the rabble, I mean the rabble, 
 though there were a great many persons whom it 
 would be an insult to class as such, and who from sheer 
 curiosity, or because they could not help themselves, 
 had gone in with them. The doors proved too narrow, 
 and those who could not enter by that way, entered by 
 the windows. The whole contingent of the riff-raff, 
 male and female, weltering in the adjacent streets 
 and such streets ! was there. Well, for the first ten 
 minutes they stood positively motionless, not daring 
 to touch anything. It was not the fear of being 
 caught pilfering and punished summarily that pre- 
 vented them. The minority which might have pro- 
 tested was so utterly insignificant in numbers, as to 
 make action on their part impossible. No, it was 
 neither fear nor shame that stayed the rabble's hands ; 
 it was a sentiment for which I can find no name. It 
 was the consciousness that these objects had belonged 
 to a king, to a royal family, which made them gaze 
 upon them in a kind of superstitious wonder. It did 
 not last long. We were on the ground floor, which 
 mainly consisted of the private apartments of the 
 household of Louis-Philippe. We were wandering, or 
 rather squeezing, through the study and bedroom of the 
 King himself, through the sitting-rooms of the princes 
 and princesses. I do not think that a single thing was 
 taken from there at that particular time. But as if 
 the atmosphere their rulers had breathed but so very 
 recently became too oppressive, the crowd swayed 
 towards the vestibule, and ascended the grand staircase. 
 Then the spell was broken. The second batch that 
 entered through the windows, when we had made room,
 
 324 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 for them, were apparently not affected by wonder 
 and respect, for, half an hour later, when I came down 
 again, every cupboard, every wardrobe, had been 
 forced, though it is but fair to say that very little 
 seems to have been taken ; the contents, books, cloth- 
 ing, linen, etc., were scattered on the floors ; but the 
 cellars, containing over four thousand bottles of wine, 
 were positively empty. Two hours later, however, the 
 clothing, especially that of the princesses, had totally 
 disappeared. It had disappeared on the backs of the 
 inmates of St. Lazare, the doors of which had been 
 thrown open, and who had rushed to the Tuileries to 
 deck themselves with these fine feathers which, in 
 this instance, did not make fine birds. I saw some 
 of them that same evening on the Boulevards, and a 
 more heart-rending spectacle I have rarely beheld. 
 
 The three hours I spent at the Tuileries were so 
 crowded with events as to make a succinct account of 
 them altogether impossible. I can only give frag- 
 ments, because, though at first the wearers of broad- 
 cloth were not molested, this tolerance did not last 
 long on the part of the new possessors of the Tuileries ; 
 and consequently the former gradually dropped off, 
 and those of them who remained had to be very 
 circumspect, and, above all, not "to linger long in the 
 same spot. This growing hostility might have been 
 nipped in the bud by our following the example 
 of the National Guards, and taking off our coats and 
 fraternizing with the rabble; but I frankly confess 
 that I had neither the courage nor the stomach to do 
 so. I have read descriptions of mutinous sailors 
 stowing in casks of rum and gorging themselves with 
 victuals; revolting as such scenes must be to those
 
 THE SOVEREIGN PEOPLE AT TABLE. 325 
 
 who take no active part in them, I doubt whether they 
 could be as revolting as the one I witnessed in the 
 Grallerie de Diane. 
 
 The Gallerie de Diane was one of the large recep- 
 tion rooms on the first floor, but it generally served as 
 the dining and breakfast room of the royal family. 
 The table had been laid for about three dozen persons, 
 because, as a rule, Louis-Philippe invited the prin- 
 cipal members of his military and civil households to 
 take their repasts with him. The breakfast had been 
 interrupted, and not been cleared away. When I 
 entered the apartment some sixty or seventy ruffians 
 of both sexes were seated at the board, while a score 
 or so were engaged in waiting upon them. They were 
 endeavouring to accomplish what the Highest Authority 
 has declared impossible of accomplishment, namely, 
 the making of silken purses out of sows' ears. They 
 were " putting on " what they considered " company 
 manners," and, under any other circumstances but 
 these, the attempt would have proved irresistibly 
 comic to the educated spectator ; as it was, it brought 
 tears to one's eyes. I have already hinted elsewhere 
 that the cuisine at the Tuileries during Louis- 
 Philippe's reign was execrable, though the wine was 
 generally good. Bad as was the fare on that aban- 
 doned breakfast-table, it must, nevertheless, have 
 been superior to that usually partaken of by the 
 convives who had taken the place of the fugitive king 
 and princes. They, the convives, however, did not 
 think so ; they criticized the food, and ordered the 
 improvised attendants " to give them something 
 different ; " then they turned to their female com- 
 panions, filling their glasses and paying them compli- 
 
 VOL. I. Y 3
 
 326 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 ments. But for the fact of another batch eagerly 
 claiming their turn, the repast would have been 
 indefinitely prolonged ; as it was, the provisions in 
 the palace were running short, and the deficiency had 
 to be made up by supplies from outside. The inner 
 man being refreshed, the ladies were invited to take a 
 stroll through the apartments, pending the serving of 
 the cafe and liqueurs. The preparation of the mocha 
 was somewhat difficult, seeing the utensils necessary 
 for the supply of so large a company were probably 
 not at hand, and the ingredients themselves in the 
 store-rooms of the palace. Nothing daunted, one of 
 the self-invited guests rose and said, in a loud voice, 
 " Permettez moi d'offrir le cafe a la cornpagnie," 
 which offer was received with tumultuous applause. 
 Suiting the action to the word, he pulled out a small 
 canvas bag, and took from it two five-franc pieces. 
 "Qu'on aille chercher du cafe et du meilleur," he 
 said to one of the guests who had stepped forward to 
 execute his orders, for they sounded almost like it ; 
 and I was wondering why those professed champions 
 of equality did not tell him to fetch the coffee himself. 
 Then he added, "Et pendant que tu y es, citoyen, 
 apporte des cigarres pour nous et des cigarettes pour 
 les dames." The " citoyen " was already starting on 
 his errand, when the other " citoyen " called him back. 
 " Ecoute," he said ; " tu n'acheteras rien a moins d'y 
 e"tre force. Je crois que tu n'auras qu'a demander a 
 la premiere epicerie venue ce que t'il taut, et ainsi au 
 premier bureau de tabac. Us ont si peur, ces sales 
 bourgeois qu'ils n'oseront pas te refuser. En tout cas 
 prends un fusil ; on ne sait pas ce qui peut arriver ; 
 mais ne t'en sers pas q u'en cas de necessite : " which
 
 SOCIAL AMENITIES. 327 
 
 meant plainly enough, "If they refuse to give you the 
 coffee and the tobacco, shoot them down." 
 
 Of course, I am unable to say how these two com- 
 modities were eventually procured ; but I have every 
 reason to believe that this messenger had only " to ask 
 and have," without as much as showing his musket. 
 There is no greater cur at troublous times than the 
 Paris shopkeeper. The merest urchin will terrify 
 him. Even on the previous day I had seen bands of 
 gamins who had constituted themselves the guardians 
 of the barricades and there was one in nearly every 
 street levy toll without the slightest resistance, 
 when a few well-administered cuffs would have sent 
 them flying, so 1 have not the slightest doubt 
 that our friend had all the credit of his generosity 
 without disbursing a penny unless his delegate 
 fleeced him also, on the theory that a man who could 
 " fork out " ten francs at a moment's notice was 
 nothing more or less than a bourgeois. However, 
 when I returned after about forty minutes' absence, it 
 was very evident that both the coffee and the tobacco 
 had arrived, because the Gralerie de Diane, large as it 
 was, was full of smoke, and three saucepans, filled with 
 water, were standing on the fire, while two or three 
 smaller ones were arranged on the almost priceless 
 marble mantelpiece. Another batch of ravenous re- 
 publicans had taken their seats at the board, their 
 predecessors whiliug the time away in sweet converse 
 with the " ladies." Some of the latter were more use- 
 fully engaged ; they were rifling the cabinets of the 
 most rare and valuable Sevres, and arranging the 
 cups, saucers, platters on their tops to be ready for 
 the beverage that was being brewed. I was wondering
 
 328 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 how they had got at these art-treasures, having noticed 
 an hour before that their receptacles were locked and 
 the keys taken away. The doors had simply been 
 battered in with the hammer of the great clock of the 
 Tuileries. 
 
 It was of a piece with the wanton destruction I had 
 witnessed elsewhere, during my absence from the 
 Galerie de Diane. Before I returned thither, I had 
 seen the portrait of General Bugeaud in the Salle des 
 Marechaux/literally stabbed with bayonets; the throne 
 treated to a similar fate, and carried off to the Place 
 de la Bastille to be burned publicly ; the papers of the 
 royal family mercilessly flung to the winds; the dresses 
 of the princesses torn to ribbons or else put on the 
 backs of the vilest of the vile. 
 
 There was only one comic incident to relieve the 
 horror of the whole. In one of the private apartments 
 the rabble had come upon an aged parrot screeching 
 at the top of its voice, " A bas Guizot ! " The bird 
 became a hero there and then, and was absolutely 
 crammed with sweets and sugar. That one comic note 
 was not enough to dispel my disgust, and after the 
 scene in the Galerie de Diane which I have just 
 described, I made my way into the street. 
 
 I had scarcely proceeded a few steps, when I heard 
 the not very startling news that the republic had 
 been formally proclaimed in the Chamber by M. de 
 Lamartine, who had afterwards repaired to the Hotel 
 de Ville. At the same time, people were shouting that 
 the King had died suddenly. I endeavoured to get as 
 far, but, though the distance was certainly not more 
 than half a mile, it took me more than an hour. At
 
 THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT. 329 
 
 every few yards my progress was interrupted by 
 barricades, the self-elected custodians of which were 
 particularly anxious to show their authority to a man 
 like myself, dressed in a coat. At last I managed to 
 get to the corner of the Rues des Lombards and 
 Saint-Martin, and just in time to enjoy a sight than 
 which I have witnessed nothing more comic during 
 the succeeding popular uprisings in subsequent years. 
 I was just crossing, when a procession hove in sight, 
 composed mainly of ragged urchins, dishevelled 
 women, and riff-raff of both sexes. In their midst was 
 an individual on horseback, dressed in the uniform of 
 a general of the First Republic, whom they were 
 cheering loudly. The stationary crowd made way for 
 them, and mingled with the escort. The moment I 
 had thrown in my lot with the latter, retreat was no 
 longer possible, and in a very short time I found 
 myself in the courtyard of the Hotel de Ville, and, in 
 another minute or so, in the principal gallery on the 
 first floor, where, it appears, some members of the 
 Provisional Government were already at work. I had 
 not the remotest notion who they were, nor did I care 
 to inquire, having merely come to look on. The work 
 of the members of the Provisional Government seemed 
 mainly to consist in consuming enormous quantities 
 of charcuterie and washiug them down with copious 
 libations of cheap wine. The place was positively 
 reeking with the smell of both, not to mention the 
 fumes of tobacco. Every one was smoking his hardest. 
 The entrance of the individual in uniform caused 
 somewhat of a sensation ; a member whom I had never 
 seen before and whom I have never beheld since
 
 330 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 stepped forward to ask his business. The new-comer 
 did not appear to know himself; at any rate, he 
 stammered and stuttered, but his escort left him no 
 time to betray his confusion more plainly. "C'est le 
 citoyen gouverneur de 1'Hotel de Ville," they shouted 
 as with one voice ; and there and then the new 
 governor was installed, though I am perfectly sure that 
 not a soul of all those present knew as much as his 
 name. 
 
 Subsequent inquiries elicited the fact that the man 
 was a fourth or fifth-rate singer, named Chateaurenaud, 
 aud engaged at the Opera National (formerly the 
 Cirque Olympique) on the Boulevard du Temple. 
 On that day they were having a dress rehearsal of a 
 new piece in which Chateaurenaud was playing a 
 military part. He had just donned his costume when, 
 hearing a noise on the Boulevards, he put his head out 
 of the window. The mob caught sight of him. " A 
 general, a general ! " cried several urchins ; and in less 
 time than it takes to tell, the theatre was invaded, 
 and notwithstanding his struggles, Chateaurenaud was 
 carried off, placed on horseback, and conducted to 
 the Hotel de Ville, where, for the next fortnight, he 
 throned as governor. For, curious to relate, M. de 
 Lamartine ratified his appointment (?) on the morning 
 of the 25th of February. Chateaurenaud became au 
 official of the secret police during the Second Empire. 
 I often saw him on horseback in the Bois de Boulogne, 
 when the Emperor drove in that direction. 
 
 I did not stay long in the Hotel de Ville, but made 
 my way back to the Boulevards as best I could ; for by 
 that time darkness had set in, and the mob was shouting
 
 WHY LAMARTINE MADE A REPUBLIC. 331' 
 
 for illuminations, and obstructing the thoroughfares 
 everywhere. Every now and then one came upon a 
 body which had been lying there since the morning, 
 but they took no notice of it. Their principal concern 
 seemed the suitable acknowledgment of the advent of 
 the Second Republic by the bourgeoisie by means of 
 coloured devices, or, in default of such, by coloured 
 lamps or even candles. Woe to the houses, the 
 inhabitants of which remained deaf to their summons 
 to that effect. In a very few minutes every window 
 was smashed to atoms, until at last a timid hand was 
 seen to arrange a few bottles with candles stuck into 
 them on the sill, and light them. Then they departed, 
 to impose their will elsewhere. 
 
 That night, after dinner, the first person of my 
 acquaintance I met was Mery. He had been in the 
 Chamber of Deputies from the very beginning of the 
 proceedings ; it was he who solemnly assured me that 
 the first cry of ' Vive la Republique ! " had been uttered 
 by M. de Lamartine. I was surprised at this, because 
 I had been told that early in the morning the poet 
 had paid a visit to the Duchesse d'Orleans to assure 
 her of his devotion to her cause. " That may be so," 
 said Mery, to whom I repeated what I had heard ; 
 " but you must remember that Lamartine is always 
 hard up, and closely pursued by duns. A revolution 
 with the prospect of becoming president of the 
 republic was the only means of staving off his 
 creditors. He clutched at it as a last resource." 
 
 Alexander Dumas was there also, but I have an 
 idea that he would have willingly passed the sponge 
 over that incident of his life, for I never could get
 
 332 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 
 
 him to talk frankly on the subject. This does not 
 mean that he would have recanted his republican 
 principles, but that he was ashamed at having lent 
 his countenance to such a republic as that. I fancy 
 there were a great many like him. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES ANIJ SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.