MY MEMOIRS
BY
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
TRANSLATED BY
E. M. WALLER
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
ANDREW LANG
VOL. VI
1832 TO 1833
WITH A FRONTISPIECE
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1909
Alexandre Dumas
aet area '67.
CONTENTS
Preparations for my Fancy Dress Ball—I find that my lodgings are too much after the style of Socrates—My artist-decorators—The question of the supper—I go for provisions to la Ferté-Vidame—View of this capital town of the Canton, by night, in a snowstorm—My nephew's room—My friend Gondon—Roebuck hunting—Return to Paris—I invent a Bank of Exchange before M. Proudhon—The artists at work—The dead [1]
Alfred Johannot [10]
Clément Boulanger [18]
Grandville [28]
Tony Johannot [36]
Sequel to the preparations for my ball—Oil and distemper—Inconveniences of working at night—How Delacroix did his task—The ball—Serious men—La Fayette and Beauchene—Variety of costumes—The invalid and the undertaker's man—The last galop—A political play—A moral play [42]
Dix ans de la vie d'une femme [53]
Doligny manager of the theatre in Italy—Saint-Germain bitten by the tarantula—How they could have livened up Versailles if Louis-Philippe had wished it—The censorship of the Grand-Duke of Tuscany—The bindings of printer Batelli—Richard Darlington, Angèle, Antony and La Tour de Nesle performed under the name of Eugène Scribe [83]
A few words on La Tour de Nesle and M. Frédérick Gaillardet—The Revue des Deux Mondes—M. Buloz—The Journal des Voyages—My first attempt at Roman history—Isabeau de Bavière—A witty man of five foot nine inches [91]
Success of my Scènes historiques—Clovis and Hlodewig (Chlodgwig)—I wish to apply myself seriously to the study of the history of France—The Abbé Gauthier and M. de Moyencourt—Cordelier-Delanoue reveals to me Augustine Thierry and Chateaubriand—New aspects of history—Gaule et France—A drama in collaboration with Horace Vernet and Auguste Lafontaine [99]
Édith aux longs cheveux—Catherine Howard [107]
An invasion of cholera—Aspect of Paris—Medicine and the scourge—Proclamation of the Prefect of Police—The supposed poisoners—Harel's newspaper paragraph—Mademoiselle Dupont—Eugène Durieu and Anicet Bourgeois—Catherine (not Howard) and the cholera—First performance of Mari de la veuve—A horoscope which did not come true [115]
My régime against the cholera—I am attacked by the epidemic —I invent etherisation—Harel comes to suggest to me La Tour de Nesle—Verteuil's manuscript—Janin and the tirade of the grandes dames—First idea of the prison scene—My terms with Harel—Advantages offered by me to M. Gaillardet—The spectator in the Odéon—Known and unknown authors—My first letter to M. Gaillardet [127]
M. Gaillardet's answer and protest—Frédérick and Buridan's part—Transaction with M. Gaillardet—First performance of La Tour de Nesle—The play and its interpreters—The day following a success—M. * * *—A profitable trial in prospect—Georges' caprice—The manager, author and collaborator [142]
The use of friends—Le Musée des Familles—An article by M. Gaillardet—My reply to it—Challenge from M. Gaillardet —I accept it with effusion—My adversary demands a first respite of a week—I summon him before the Commission of Dramatic Authors—He declines that arbitration—I send him my seconds—He asks a delay of two months—Janin's letter to the newspapers [156]
Sword and pistol—Whence arose my aversion to the latter weapon—Philippe's puppet—The statue of Corneille—An autograph in extremis—Le bois de Vincennes—A duelling toilet—Scientific question put by Bixio—The conditions of the duel—Official report of the seconds—How Bixio's problem found its solution [186]
The masquerade of the budget at Grenoble—M. Maurice Duval—The serenaders—Escapade of the 35th of the line—The insurrection it excites—Arrest of General Saint-Clair—Taking of the préfecture and of the citadel by Bastide—Bastide at Lyons—Order reigns at Grenoble—Casimir Périer, Gamier-Pages and M. Dupin—Report of the municipality of Grenoble—Acquittal of the rioters—Restoration of the 35th—Protest of a smoker [198]
General Dermoncourt's papers—Protest of Charles X. against the usurpation of the Duc d'Orléans—The stoutest of political men—Attempt at restoration planned by Madame la duchesse de Berry—The Carlo-Alberto—How I write authentic notes—Landing of Madame near La Ciotat—Legitimist affray at Marseilles—Madame set out for La Vendée—M. de Bonnechose—M. de Villeneuve—M. de Lorge [215]
Madame's itinerary—Panic—M. de Puylaroque—Domine salvum fac Philippum—The château de Dampierre—Madame de la Myre—The pretended cousin and the curé—M. Guibourg—M. de Bourmont—Letter of Madame to M. de Coislin—The noms de guerre—Proclamation of Madame—New kind of henna—M. Charette—Madame is nearly drowned in the Maine—The sexton in charge of the provisions—A night in the stable—The Legitimists of Paris—They dispatch M. Berryer into la Vendée [230]
Interview between MM. Berryer and de Bourmont—The messenger's guides—The movable column—M. Charles—Madame's hiding-place—Madame refuses to leave la Vendée—She rallies her followers to arms—Death of General Lamarque—The deputies of the Opposition meet together at Laffitte's house—They decide to publish a statement to the nation—MM. Odilon Barrot and de Cormenin are commissioned to draw up this report—One hundred and thirty-three deputies sign it [247]
Last moments of General Lamarque—What his life had been— One of my interviews with him—I am appointed one of the stewards of the funeral cortège—The procession—Symptoms of popular agitation—The marching past across the place Vendôme—The Duke Fitz-James—Conflicts provoked by the town police—The students of the École Polytechnique join the cortège—Arrival of the funeral procession at the pont d'Austerlitz—Speeches—First shots—The man with the red flag—Allocution of Étienne Arago [260]
The artillerymen—Carrel and le National—Barricades of the boulevard Bourdon and in the rue de Ménilmontant— The carriage of General La Fayette—A bad shot from my friends—Despair of Harel—The pistols in Richard—The women are against us—I distribute arms to the insurgents—Change of uniform—The meeting at Laffitte's—Progress of the insurrection—M. Thiers—Barricade Saint-Merry—Jeanne—Rossignol—Barricade of the passage du Saumon—Morning of 6 June [281]
Inside the barricade Saint-Merry, according to a Parisian child's account—General Tiburce Sébastiani—Louis-Philippe during the insurrection—M. Guizot—MM. François Arago, Laffitte and Odilon Barrot at the Tuileries—The last argument of Kings—Étienne Arago and Howelt—Denunciation against me—M. Binet's report [301]
Le Fils de l'Émigré—I learn the news of my premature death—I am advised to take a voyage for prudence and health's sake—I choose Switzerland—Gosselin's literary opinion on that country—First effect of change of air—From Châlon to Lyons by a low train—The ascent of Cerdon—Arrival at Geneva [317]
Great explanations about the bear-steak—Jacotot—An ill-sounding epithet—A seditious felt hat—The carabineers who were too clever—I quarrel with King Charles-Albert over the Dent du Chat—Princes and men of intellect 323
22 July 1832 [339]
Edict unbaptizing the King of Rome—Anecdotes of the childhood of the Duc de Reichstadt—Letter of Sir Hudson Lowe announcing the death of Napoleon [346]
Prince Metternich is appointed to teach the history of Napoleon to the Duc de Reichstadt—The Duke's plan of political conduct—The poet Barthélemy at Vienna—His interviews with Count Dietrichstein—Opinion of the Duc de Reichstadt on the poem Napoleon en Egypt [353]
Journey of the Duc de Reichstadt—M. le Chevalier de Prokesch—Questions concerning the recollections left by Napoléon en Égypte—The ambition of the Duc de Reichstadt—The Countesse Camerata—The prince is appointed lieutenant-colonel—He becomes hoarse when holding a review—He falls ill—Report upon his health by Dr. Malfatti [363]
The Duc de Reichstadt at Schönbrünn—Progress of his disease—The Archduchess Sophia—The prince's last moments—His death—Effect produced by the news at Paris—Article of the Constitutionnel upon this event [373]
Lucerne—The lion of August 10—M. de Chateaubriand's fowls—Reichenau—A picture by Conder—Letter to M. le duc d'Orléans—A walk in the park of Arenenberg [383]
News of France—First performance of Le Fils de l'Émigré— What Le Constitutionnel thought of it—Effect produced by that play on the Parisian population in general and on M. Véron in particular—Death of Walter Scott—Perrinet Leclerc—Sic vos non vobis [401]
La Duchesse de Berry returns to Nantes disguised as a peasant woman—The basket of apples—The house Duguigny—Madame in her hiding-place—Simon Deutz—His antecedents—His mission—He enters into treaty with MM. Thiers and Montalivet—He starts for la Vendée [412]
M. Maurice Duval is made Préfet of the Loire-Inférieure— The Nantais give him a charivari—Deutz's persistent attempts to see Madame—He obtains a first and then a second audience—Besieging of the maison Duguigny—The hiding-place—The police searches—Discovery of the Duchess [424]
First moments after the arrest—Madame's 13,000 francs—What a gendarme can win by sleeping on a camp-bed and making philosophic reflections thereon—The duchess at the Château de Nantes—She is transferred to Blaye—Judas [438]
Le Roi s'amuse—Criticism and censorship [462]
Le Corsaire trial—The Duc d'Orléans as caricaturist—The Tribune trial—The right of association established by jury—Statistics of the political sentences under the Restoration—Le Pré-aux-Clercs [500]
Victor Jacquemont [505]
George Sand [513]
Eugène Sue—His family, birth, godfather and godmother— His education—Dr. Sue's wine-cellar—Choir of botanists —Committee of chemistry—Dinner on the grass—Eugène Sue sets out for Spain—His return—Ferdinand Langlé's room—Captain Gauthier [520]
Eugène Sue is ambitious enough to have a groom, horse and trap—He does business with the maison Ermingot, Godefroi et Cie which permits him to gratify that fancy—Triumph at the Champs-Élysées—A vexing encounter—Desforges and Eugène Sue separate—Desforges starts Le Kaléidoscope at Bordeaux—Ferdinand Langlé starts La Nouveauté at Paris—César and the negro Zoyo—Dossion and his dog [531]
Eugène Sue's début in journalism—L'Homme-Mouche—The merino sheep—Eugène Sue in the Navy—He takes part in the battle of Navarino—He furnishes a house—The last folly of youth—Another Fils de l'Homme—Bossange and Desforges [540]
The political duels [547]
Lucrèce Borgia—Discouragement—First conception of the Historical Romances [572]
Condition of the Théâtre-Français in 1832 and 1833—Causes which had led to our emigration from the Théatre-Français—Reflections concerning the education of dramatic artists [577]
Talma—Mademoiselle Mars—The Conservatoire—Macready—Young —Kean—Miss Smithson—Mrs. Siddons—Miss Faucit—Shakespeare —The limits to dramatic art in France [582]
[THE MEMOIRS OF]
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
[BOOK I]
[CHAPTER I]
Preparations for my Fancy Dress Ball—I find that my lodgings are too much after the style of Socrates—My artist-decorators—The question of the supper—I go for provisions to la Ferté-Vidame—View of this capital town of the Canton, by night, in a snowstorm—My nephew's room—My friend Gondon—Roebuck hunting—Return to Paris—I invent a Bank of Exchange before M. Proudhon—The artists at work—The dead
Carnival time was drawing near, and the suggestion Bocage had made that I should give a ball spread abroad throughout the artist world, and was flung back at me on all sides. One of the first difficulties which arose was the question of the smallness of my lodgings—my rooms comprised a dining-room, sitting-room, bedroom and study, which, however adequate in size for a dwelling, were too limited for a party. A ball, given by me, necessitated three or four hundred invitations; and how could I have three or four hundred people in a dining-room, drawing-room, bedroom and study? Happily I bethought myself of a set of four rooms on the same landing, not only empty, but still void of all decoration—except for the mirrors above the chimney-pieces, and the blue-grey paper which covered the walls. I asked the landlord's permission to use this set of rooms for the purpose of the ball I intended to give. It was granted me. Next came the question of decorating the rooms. This was the business of my artist friends. Hardly did they know that I needed them before they came and offered me their services. There were four rooms to decorate, and they shared the task between them. The decorators were no other than Eugène Delacroix, Louis and Clément Boulanger, Alfred and Tony Johannot, Decamps, Grandville, Jadin, Barye, Nanteuil—our first painters, in fact. Ciceri undertook the ceilings. The question arose as to whether the subject should be from a novel or from a play of each of the authors who would be there. Eugène Delacroix undertook to paint King Rodrigo after the defeat of the Guadalèté, a subject taken from the Romancero, translated by Émile Deschamps; Louis Boulanger chose a scene from Lucrèce Borgia; Clément Boulanger, a scene from the Tour de Nesle; Tony Johannot, a scene from the Sire de Giac; Alfred Johannot, a scene from Cinq-Mars; Decamps promised a Debureau in a cornfield studded with poppies and corn-flowers; Grandville took a panel twelve feet long by eight feet wide, in which he undertook to reproduce all our professions in a picture representing an orchestra of thirty or forty musicians, some clanging cymbals, others shaking Chinese hats, some blowing on horns and bassoons, others scraping on violins and violoncellos. There were, besides, animals at play above each door.
Barye took upon himself the window frames: lions and tigers as large as life formed these supports. Nanteuil did the surroundings, the ornamentations and the panels of the doors. This point settled, it was decided that, four or five days before the ball, Ciceri should stretch the canvases on the walls and bring paint-brushes, measures and colours. When the artists had begun their work, they were not to leave it except to go to bed: they were to be fed and provided with drink in the house. The collation was to consist of three items.
There now remained a thing of the highest importance to attend to, namely, supper. I thought of providing the main foundation of this with game killed by my own hand; this would be both a pleasure and an economy. I went in search of M. Deviolaine, who gave me leave to shoot over the forest of la Ferté-Vidame. This was the more delightful as my old friend Gondon was inspector of it, and I was very sure he would not grudge a roebuck more or less. Furthermore, the permission included some friends as well as myself. I invited Clerjon de Champagny, Tony Johannot, Géniole and Louis Boulanger. My brother-in-law and nephew were to set out from Chartres and to turn up at the appointed hour at la Ferté-Vidame. I gave Gondon two days' notice in advance, so that he could procure the necessary beaters, and it was arranged that we should stop the night at an inn, the address of which he gave me; that we should sleep there; that we should shoot the whole of the following day, and that, according as we were too tired or not, we should either leave that evening or the next morning. We were to make the journey in a huge berline which, somehow or other, I happened to possess. Everything decided upon was carried out punctiliously. We started between nine and ten in the morning. We reckoned upon arriving about six or seven in the evening, but snow overtook us when a third of our journey was done, and, instead of arriving at seven, it was midnight before we got there, and we had not had anything to warm us the whole of that long journey except the never-failing wit and charming spirits of Champagny, to which, as an accompaniment, was joined the noise of a tin trumpet which he had bought somewhere or other, I know not for what purpose, its droll sound affording the boon of making us shout with laughter.
When we arrived, we naturally found everybody asleep; at la Ferté-Vidame they go to bed at ten in summer and eight in winter. We set foot on a magnificent carpet of snow, which reminded me of the wolf-hunts of my youth, with my old friends M. Deviolaine and the gamekeepers. How many things had happened between the snows of 1817 and those of 1832 and had melted away even as they! We looked like those who knocked at the outbuildings of the Castle of the Sleeping Beauty; nobody answered us, and, as we were getting more and more benumbed, I was already beginning to talk of breaking in the door of the inn, as I had at M. Dupont-Delporte's country-house, when, from the other side of the door, I heard my nephew's voice. He was exactly the age that I was when going shooting kept me from sleeping—poor boy, he has since died! Half awake from the pleasure to which he was looking forward in the next day's sport he woke up completely at the racket we made, at our desperate cries and, especially, at the sound of Champagny's trumpet. He exerted himself inside as we did outside, to rouse the hotel people from their beds. Finally, swearing, scolding, crotchety, a man got up, calling upon heaven to know if this was the hour to wake honest people. The door opened and the host's bad temper calmed down a little when he saw we had come by post-chaise! That made it justifiable for him to be disturbed at night, and, thenceforward, we were well received. My brother-in-law had not been able to come. Émile, my nephew, was alone, and he had naturally taken the best room in the house, by virtue of his right as first arrival. It was immediately pointed out to him that, being at the age when one can eat anything, he was also, naturally, at the age when one gets the worst beds and cold rooms. His room had a splendid fireplace, in which burned the remains of a fire which I tended with the conscientiousness of a vestal, until they brought a load of wood. It was a large room; we held council, and it was unanimously decided to carry the mattresses from the small rooms into the large one; that they should be arranged symmetrically against the wall, and that we should all sleep together. Émile demanded two things: the honour of being one of the company and the right of putting his ready-made bed on the floor. He had left a store of warmth in his sheets which he did not want to lose. These preliminary arrangements made, we proceeded to supper. Every one was literally dying of hunger, literally, also, there was equally nothing to eat in the inn. We visited the henhouse: the fowls had obligingly laid a score of eggs. That made four eggs apiece; we each had one egg boiled, two in an omelette and one in the salad. There was bread and wine as might be required. I think we never had a merrier supper-party or slept better. At dawn we were awakened by Gondon. He arrived thoroughly equipped for shooting, with his two dogs. Fifteen beaters, engaged the previous day, waited for us at the door. The toilet of a sportsman is quickly made. A huge fire was lit: there was no possibility of eating the remains of the previous night's supper: we had to be contented with a crust of bread dipped in white wine. Besides, Gondon spoke of a cold leg of mutton which would be picked up in passing his house, and which we should eat in the forest round a great fire between two battues; this welcome intelligence brought back a smile to the most morose lips. We were shooting a quarter of an hour later. One has one's days of skill as also one's days of courage. Champagny, an excellent shot usually, this day shot like a cab-driver, and attributed his awkwardness to the narrowness of the barrel of his gun. Indeed, I do not know why he shot with a kind of double-barrelled pistol. Tony Johannot was, I believe, a complete novice in matters of shooting. Géniole was a beginner. As for Louis Boulanger, he was accustomed to go shooting pencil in one hand and sketch-book in the other. There were, then, only Gondon and myself, both old sportsmen, and, having long rifles, we found ourselves the kings of the shoot. The shoot does not deserve any special description; nevertheless, an incident happened at it which has since caused bets in the forest of la Ferté-Vidame, between the forest gamekeepers and the Parisian sportsmen who were my successors. We were placed in a line, as is the custom in a battue, and I had chosen for my position the angle made by a little narrow footpath and the main road. I had the path horizontally in front of me, and, behind me, the highroad ran at right angles. On my right was Tony Johannot; on my left, Géniole. The beaters drove the game towards us. Every hunted animal, when it encounters a road, and particularly a footpath, has a propensity to follow the path, which enables it to see and to run more easily. Three roebucks, urged on by the beaters, followed the footpath and came straight for me. Tony Johannot, for whom they were out of range, made violent signs to me, in the belief that I did not see them. I saw them perfectly well, but I had the very ambitious idea fixed in my head of killing all three with two shots. Tony, who did not understand my inaction, increased his signals. Still I let the three roebucks come on. Finally, when nearly thirty paces from me, they stopped short, listening, admirably placed: two crossed their fine, graceful necks over one another, one looking to the right, the other to the left; the third kept a little behind, hidden by the two others. I fired at the first two and brought them down. The third took a leap, but not so quickly as to avoid my second shot. Then I stood in position to reload my rifle, not wishing the whole hunt to be put out for me. In fact, an instant later, a roebuck passed Gondon, and he killed it. Seeing my inaction after my two shots, toy companions thought I had missed. However, Géniole, who was on my left, and Tony, who was on my right, asked what had become of the roebucks. The enigma was explained to them by the beaters, who found the three dead bucks thirty paces from me: two in the path,—they had not stirred!—the other, four yards away, in the underwood.
That night, returning at nightfall, a final roebuck was so ill-advised as to start up before us in a sort of clearing. The sun, a little out of the clouds, was setting literally in a bed of purple; in spite of this amelioration in the weather on the horizon, the snow continued falling round us in thick flakes. Suddenly, a buck bounded off fifteen yards from us. The guns were unloaded, so it was a question for the quickest loader. Ten or a dozen shots went off almost at the same time. The buck disappeared in the midst of the fire and smoke. Dogs and hunters set off in pursuit. I have never seen a more fitting composition for a picture than that which chance had made—Boulanger was in ecstasies! He, not having a gun, could see everything without being distracted. All the night he was haunted by the idea of making a sketch of that scene: he could not forget it. We brought back nine roebucks and three hares; I had, for my share, killed five roebucks and two hares. We dined at Gondon's that night, and we had a very different supper from that of the night before.
We started next day at dawn and, as night fell, we reentered Paris with our nine bucks hanging from the imperial of our carriage, like a butcher's shop. I summoned Chevet. It was a question of trading by exchange. I wanted an enormous fish: for three bucks, Chevet undertook to provide me with a salmon weighing thirty pounds, or a sturgeon weighing fifty. I wanted a colossal galantine; a fourth buck paid for that. I wished to have two bucks roasted whole; Chevet undertook to get them roasted. The last buck was cut up and distributed among the families of my travelling companions. The three hares provided a pâté. So it will be seen that the shoot, besides the pleasure derived from it, gave us the principal constituents of the supper. The rest was only a matter of attending to detail; this was the business of the staff belonging to the house. In our absence, old Ciceri—do obeisance, all of you, to the old man, just as gay to-day, well-preserved and willing, in spite of his seventy years; do obeisance to him Séchan, Diéterle, Despléchin, Thierry, Cambon, Devoir, Moinet, you kings, viceroys and princes of modern decorative art: old Ciceri it was who did the cloister of Robert le Diable!—in our absence, I say, old Ciceri had had the canvases placed in position and had fixed up the paper. All was ready even to the paints, pencils and brushes. All the rooms were warmed with big fires; chairs, stools, footstools of all sizes were there, and a folding ladder had been bought. Granville, our good excellent Granville, delightful painter of man, purely as an animal, and of animals with human intelligence, was the first to set to work. He it was, indeed, who had the heaviest task on his hands; it will be recollected that he was burdened with an immense panel and with the painting of all the top parts above the doors. Alas! it is sad to think that of those ten artists who put their talent at my disposition, four to-day lie in the tomb! Of those ten hearts which beat so happily in unison with my own, four are stilled! Who would have told you then, in that merry workroom which you covered with your paintings, and filled with your laughter, in those three days of talking, during which scintillated incessantly that fascinating wit the secret of which artists alone have the key; who would have said to you, beloved dead friends! that, while still young, I should survive you, and that I should pause when mentioning your names to say to myself, 'It is not enough for you, their brother, simply to mention their names; you ought to relate what they were like as men and artists, their characters and their talents!' A task both sweet and melancholy it is to speak of the dead that one loves! Moreover, it is midnight; the hour for invocation. I am alone, no profane gaze appears through the darkness to scare your sepulchral modesty. Come, brothers! Come! Tell me, in the language of the dead, that gentle whisper which is like the stream caressing its banks, the soft sound of leaves rustling in the forest, the gentle murmur of the breeze sobbing in the reeds, tell me of your life, your sorrows, your hopes and your triumphs, so that the world, nearly always indifferent when it is not ungrateful, may know what you were and, above all, your worth!
[CHAPTER II]
Alfred Johannot
The first who appears to me, because he was the first who left us, is pale and sad as he was when living. His hair is cut short, his forehead is prominent, his glance is both gloomy and gentle beneath his thick eyebrows, the moustache and beard are russet-brown, the face long and melancholy. His name is Alfred Johannot, and he has been dead now for sixteen years.
Come, brother! come nearer to me; it is I, a friend who calls thee. Speak, tell, in the tongue of the dead, of thy youth and glorious life, and I will repeat it in the language of the living. Spirits of the night, silence even the shaking of your moth-like wings, that all may be still; even thou, too, O Night—silence, dumb son of darkness! The dead speak low, but I will speak aloud. We have all seen him, young men of twenty-five, men of forty, old men of seventy. Was he not indeed such as I have described him to be? Now, here is his biography.
He was born with the century, in 1800; with the spring, on 21 March; he was born in the grand-duchy of Hesse, in the little town of Offenbach, upon the banks of the charming river beloved of fishermen and water-sprites, which men call the Mein, which has its source in Bavaria and which empties itself in the Rhine opposite Mayence. His father was a wealthy merchant of Frankfort, and his ancestors were Protestants whom the revocation of the Edict of Nantes had compelled to take shelter in foreign countries. After a stay of several years in Lyons, M. Johannot, the father, founded at Frankfort the first great silk factory. Trade, when it reaches the pitch to which he carried it, rises to the elevation of poetry; besides, he was an excellent painter of flowers and spent his life among artists. In 1806, M. Johannot was ruined and came to settle in Paris. This upheaval, though sad for the parents, was a happy one for Alfred. Every change and all excitement amuses childhood. His mother, who adored him, endeavoured to educate him herself; from thence, perhaps, came that which throughout his life people took for melancholy, and which was merely the modest sensitiveness of a heart entirely moulded by a woman's hand.
Alfred Johannot was eight years old when they took him to the Louvre the first time. You who read these lines will remember the Louvre under the Empire? It was the rendezvous of all the finest things in the world; every masterpiece seemed to have the right to be there, and appeared to be only at home there. He was astounded, deeply moved, dazzled. He went in a child, without any vocation: he came out adolescent and a painter. On his return home, he took to his pencil and never left it again. He had a brother, a clever engraver, Charles Johannot, who died before he did, also young like him, alas! The age of the three brothers at the time of the death of each scarcely reached that of a mature man. This brother lent him his artist's card of admission to the Louvre and, under the protection of his brother's name, he was able to work there. When they wanted to punish him cruelly they said to him: "Alfred, you shall not go to the Louvre to-morrow." When he was in the Louvre he lived no longer, he did not exist, he was absorbed in his work, and it was in that that he lived and had his being.
One day, alone with his thoughts, as was his habit, genius encouraging him with those sweet whispered words which keep the eyes and lips of youth always in a smile, he was copying a Raphael, when he felt a hand laid lightly on his shoulder. He turned round and stood confounded. In the centre of a circle of officers in military dress and courtiers in court dress, he stood alone by the side of a man in a very simple uniform. The hand which this man had lightly placed on his shoulder, when pressed on the far ends of the earth made the world reel: it was the hand of Napoleon.
"Courage, my friend!" a voice, almost as soft as a woman's, said to him.
It was the voice of the Emperor. Then the wonderful man went away, leaving the child pale, dumb, trembling and almost breathless; but, as he moved away, he inquired who the child was. A secretary stayed behind from the Emperor's suite, came to Alfred, asked him his name and where his parents lived, then rejoined the brilliant group, which disappeared into a neighbouring room.
Some days afterwards, Alfred Johannot's father was appointed inspector of the library at Hamburg, then a French town. The whole family set out for this destination and Alfred was not to see Paris again until 1818. He was never to see the Emperor again; but the recollection of the scene we have just described remained deeply engraved on the child's memory. I remember one evening, the evening on which he himself told me the story—it was in my rooms—he took up a pen and paper and drew a pen-and-ink sketch of the scene. I never saw a finer portrait of Napoleon, more dignified, greater or more gentle, I will even say more fatherly. In Alfred's thoughts, the Emperor remained as in 1810, beautiful, radiant and victorious!
In default of good masters, the child found excellent engravers at Hamburg; this is the reason that, as a young man, he preferred at first graving tools to the paint brush. He was thirteen when disaster overtook the Empire. The enemy laid siege to Hamburg; and Hamburg made up its mind to resist to the very last and, indeed, its defence was a celebrated one.
Alfred three times only just escaped death: by a bullet, by starvation and by typhus fever! One day, when he was on the ramparts, a bullet flew by two yards from him, a little nearer and it would have been the end of him; but he was spared. It was a different matter with starvation and, above all, in the matter of typhus! Hunger weakened his digestion, typhus burned up his blood: hence, the paleness of his cheeks and the fever in his eyes: he died in 1837 from the effects of the famine and fever of 1813.
The whole family, as we have said, returned to Paris in 1818 and settled near Charles, who then did one of his wonderful engravings, Le Trompette blessé, by Horace Vernet. The poor people were totally ruined. It was essential that the children they had nourished should, in their turn, look after those who had nourished them.
Alfred set to work at first to make engravings for confectioners and to illuminate images of the saints. This lasted for seven years. It was Charles who brought in the larger contribution to the common purse. He died in 1825, just the same age as was Alfred when he died, thirty-seven. God permitted that, from henceforth, Alfred's powers should increase, on account of the burden which this misfortune laid upon him. A young brother and aged parents—these were the responsibilities which the death of his brother left him!
The world does not sufficiently recognise the story of those saintly struggles of filial love against poverty, but I shall tell the story again and again!
Alfred's life was a strange one! He had no youth and was not to have an old age. The furrows of mature age, which line the careworn brow of the thinker, were engraved upon him by starvation when he was thirteen, by exile and by fatigue they were continued when he was eighteen, and poverty took up the task when he was twenty-five.
"Did you, who knew him, ever see him smile?"
"No." And yet this gravity had nothing in it of the melancholy of disgust or of despair; it was the calm of resignation.
The first plate which he published—for he began by devoting himself to engraving: feeling himself to be feeble he sought some support on which to lean—was that of Scheffer's Orphelins. This publication brought him the patronage of Gérard. In the first instance, this master entrusted him with a scene from Ourika, then the reproduction of his great picture of Louis XIV. présentant Philippe V. aux ambassadeurs d'Espagne. From that moment Alfred Johannot became known. It was the period when English publications introduced the taste for illustrations into France. Since Moreau, junior, who had admirably reproduced the pictures of the age of Louis XIV., and particularly those of the time of Louis XV., there was not a more distinguished engraver in France than Alexandre Desenne. Alfred went to him and asked to be allowed to study under his direction. Genius is simple, kind and friendly: Desenne gave him excellent advice. Then Desenne died, and the only well-known engraver who was left was Achille Devéria—You knew that fine intellect? that fecund producer, who, having to choose between genius, which leaves people to die of hunger, and talent, which can support a family, tore himself weeping from the disconsolate embraces of genius, flinging in its arms as a substitute his brother Eugène. Some day I will tell his story as I am telling Alfred's, and I will compel the jeering and ungrateful world to bow its head before the pious son, the industrious father, who, by working sixteen hours a day, kept a whole family in comfort.
O Devéria, how noble wert thou in God's sight when thou didst deny thyself the chance of becoming as great in the eyes of men as thou couldst have been!
But, soon, Devéria left painting and engraving for lithography. Then, Alfred assumed the first position in book illustration, which his brother was soon to share and to whom he abandoned it altogether when he was dying.
During all this time, Tony had been growing up under the protection of that friendship which had in it both the intimacy of brotherhood and the protective tenderness of fatherhood. And, from the time when the young life became connected with that of Alfred, there was no separation: the figurative phrases about ivy and elms, creepers and oaks, would seem to have been conceived with these two artists in view. One day, death broke down the eldest; but the survivor was left, with his roots springing from the grave of the one who was dead. For, indeed, from the moment when they joined forces together, they kept the same step and pace, until it was impossible to say which was ahead of the other. Tony blended into Alfred, became an engraver with the engraver, designer and painter with the designer and painter, forming the unique spectacle of a triple fraternity of blood, mind and talent. It was not as on the playbills of a theatre, where the name of the oldest in art precedes that of the younger: one as often spoke of Alfred and Tony as of Tony and Alfred. Like the inseparable Siamese twins, a moment came when they themselves wished to separate, but could not do so. And thus, for ten years, the history of one is that of the other. One can no more separate this history than, one league from Lyons, one can separate the Saône from the Rhone; or, a league from Mayence, the Moselle from the Rhine. When they depended on one another they felt themselves to be strong. It was no longer the drawings of others that they engraved, but their own. Aquafortis engraving became their favourite process; and it was at this time that the vignettes of Walter Scott, of Cooper and of Byron appeared. All the great literary names bore their signature. There is little poetry scattered over the world the illustrations to which have not been traced by their graving tools.
Then, marvellous to relate, each of them dreamed of still greater glory; from copyists, they became engravers; from engravers, they decided to make themselves painters. It was no longer from designs that they executed their aquafortis work: it was after the charming little pictures in the Salon of 1831—so remarkable that we returned two or three times to see them—that they exhibited their plates, which were placed, I recollect, in the embrasure of a window of the great gallery to the left. There were twenty-four compositions. From that moment, each became both artist and engraver at one and the same time.
Let us follow Alfred; we shall return to Tony later. In 1831 Alfred did his first great easel painting: L'Arrestation de Jean Crespière. This was a success. The same year he finished Don Juan naufragé and a scene from Cinq-Mars.
In 1832 and 1833 he produced L'Annonce de la Victoire de Hastenbeck for King Louis-Philippe's gallery, and L'Entrée de Mademoiselle de Montpensier, pendant la Fronde, à Orléans; in 1834, François Ier et Charles Quint; in 1835, Le Courrier Vernet saigne et pause par le roi Louis-Philippe, Henri II., Catherine de Médicis et leurs enfants; in 1836, Marie Stuart quittant l'Écosse,—Anne d'Este, Duchesse de Guise se présentant à la cour de Charles IX.,—Saint Martin,—and La bataille de Saint-Jacques.
But during the last two years nature had been exhausted in Alfred; he succumbed under a final effort. He recognised his condition, and knew that when the finger of time pointed to the early months of the winter of 1837 the hour of eternity would strike for him. So the last eighteen months of his life are prodigious in activity: pictures, vignettes, water-colours, aquafortis, wood-engravings, pencil sketches, pen-and-ink drawings, he undertook everything, hurried on and carried all through. A lifetime would scarcely have been enough to finish what he had begun, and he only had a few months!
In the midst of this feverish output, this agonising productiveness, he received a letter from Mannheim. It was from his sister; his father was ill and desired to see him. He announced his departure; it was in vain for people to tell him that, however seriously ill his father might be, his father was not so ill as he was himself; that the old man had longer to live than the young man: he did not listen to anything; his father called for him and he felt he must go! He went, he remained absent three months from Paris and returned late in November. His father was out of danger; but he was dying. On 7 December 1837, he died, with his sketches, tools and vignettes on his bed and his eyes fixed on his unfinished pictures!
The phantom has just ceased speaking. Then, turning in its direction I said to it: It was so, brother, was it not? Have I translated thy words well? But I saw nothing more than a white vapour which faded away, I heard nothing but a faint sigh, which was lost in the air after having articulated the word "Yes!"
[CHAPTER III]
Clément Boulanger
The whisper dies away and the shade disappears. Another shade comes out of the ground and advances as silently as the first, but with a more rapid step. One felt that, in this case, to some extent, the life had been more bright and that death had suddenly taken this being into its naked embrace without giving notice beforehand, as it had done in the case of poor Alfred.
This shade was the painter of the picture entitled Mort d'Henri II. and of the Procession du Corpus Domini. Short chestnut hair, a rather narrow but intelligent forehead, blue eyes, long nose, fair moustaches and beard, complexion fresh and clear, dead lips smiling at life as in life they had smiled at death: this was the shade of Clément Boulanger. He bowed his tall figure towards me and I felt his breath touch my brow, like the kiss of a friend after a long journey. He kissed me on his return from death.
Poor Clément! He was so bright, so witty, while he was painting in great washes the scene from the Tour de Nesle representing Buridan "flung into the Seine," as Villon says, and borrowed from the Écolier de Cluny by Roger de Beauvoir.
"Friend," I say to him, "I knew but little of your life and still less of your death. You lived and died far away from me. You rest beneath the cypresses of Scutari, with the sky of the Bosphorus stretched above your head and the Sea of Marmora breaking at your feet; the blue doves come in at the half-opened windows of your chapel and circle round your tomb like loved friends! Tell me what I do not know, so that I may relate it to the generation which never knew you."
I seemed to see a spark light up in the hollow eyes of the phantom, and a kind of smile pass over the pale lips. Life is so good a thing, whatever people say about it, that the dead tremble every time a living being pronounces their names.
He spoke and I, in my turn, trembled in astonishment to hear merry words coming from the mouth of a phantom.
He died without knowing he was going to die; his last convulsion was a laugh and his last words a song.
Clément Boulanger was born in 1812. His mother during pregnancy was possessed by a singular desire: no matter what happened, she wanted to take lessons in painting. They procured her a master and she indulged in the pleasure of daubing away at five or six canvases. Although the craving was satisfied, the child was marqué (stamped) as midwives call it: as soon as he could talk, he asked for a pencil; at the age of four, everything sat for him, cats, dogs, parrots, chimney-sweeps, errand-boys and water-carriers. At eight, he was sent to a seminary. From that time, everything in uniform pleased him, all ecclesiastical pomp delighted him; when he was a choir-boy and whilst attending and serving at the altar, he sketched the beadle, the chanter, the officiating priest, in a mass book with a pencil which he hid in the palm of his hand. His first idea was not to leave the seminary, but to become both priest and painter; his mother, deeming the studies he would be obliged to pursue as an artist not very compatible with the duties of a priest, took him away from the seminary. The child then asked to go into a studio. His mother was alarmed at this desire: so many things are learnt in a studio that painting is sometimes the last thing one learns there; nevertheless, her maternal pride urged her to agree; with his inclinations, the boy could not fail to become a great artist. But where place him, until he grew up?—Good! the very thing!—with a chemist; it would be a middle course; he would learn there the constituents of colours. Soon he had a laboratory and a mechanical workshop at his mother's house. In the laboratory he studied chemistry: in the workshop he made machines, especially hydraulic machines; he had the tastes of Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus. One night his mother heard a slight, but queer, noise in his room: something between a whisper, a wail and a murmur. She rose and stepped forward, and, when she had reached the middle of her room, she felt herself being damped by a fine rain; she started back, lit a candle and, having felt the effect, discovered the cause. The child had made experiments concerning the physical truth that water tends to find its own level; he had set a basin in the centre over his mother's room and a reservoir in his own. The reservoir was six feet above the basin; a tin pipe, perfectly soldered together and ended by a water-spout, served as communication between the reservoir and the basin. During the night the valve had got out of order and the stream of water was working its way through into Madame Boulanger's bedroom!
In other matters, there was no play going and no money was allowed: money offers temptation, the theatre prompts the budding of desire. Every Sunday, vespers and mass! This was the ordinary life of the boy who, just as he sketched all alone and did his mechanical work by himself, so did he begin painting by himself.
At fourteen he was attacked by smallpox, and, after being dangerously ill, remained shut up in his room for a month during his convalescence. For diversion he painted his courtyard with the porter sweeping. The picture still exists and it is charming; quite like a little Van Ostade. A little later, whilst playing, he rediscovered the secret of painting on glass. After his mother had hesitated between all the celebrated painters in Paris, she decided on M. Ingres; the morality of all the others seemed to her to be insufficient or dubious.
At nineteen, he saw his cousin, Marie Elisabeth Monchablon, and immediately fell in love with her. She was fifteen years old. The very day he saw her he begged his mother to let him marry her. His mother was willing enough, but she thought the two children only old enough to be betrothed and not husband and wife. She imposed two years of noviciate on Clément. Marie Monchablon painted, also. You will recollect Madame Clément Boulanger's exquisite water-colour paintings? You remember Madame Cavé's fine work concerning painting without the aid of a master? Madame Clément Boulanger and Madame Cavé are one and the same charming woman, and the same ethereal artist as Marie Monchablon. The children painted together. Marie began by being Clément's master; Clément ended by being Marie's. Meanwhile, great progress was made at Ingres', and great friendship sprang up between Ingres and his pupil, who was now twenty-one and free, at last, to marry his cousin. The day after their marriage, the young couple ran away to Holland. They were in haste to be free and, above all, to convince themselves of their freedom. For three months nobody knew what had become of them. They re-appeared at the end of that time. The turtle-doves returned of their own accord to their dovecot. During this escapade, Clément had become possessed of the rage for work. The very day of his return he sketched a Suzanne au bain, which he finished in three weeks. It is pale and, perhaps, rather monotonous in colouring, but picturesque in composition. Clément admired two very opposite artists: Ingres and Delacroix. He showed his picture to the two masters. Strange to say, they both praised the painter. The colour pleased M. Ingres; but he blamed the disordered composition. This was what Delacroix liked, but he blamed the colouring. In short, each said to the young man, "You will be a painter!" Clément did not let the grass grow after this twofold promise; he sent for a fourteen feet canvas and drew upon it the life-size figures of the Martyre des Macchabées. This time, he did not trouble himself much as to what M. Ingres would say; it was Delacroix he wished to please most of all; for, whilst admiring the two painters in, perhaps, an equal degree, his sympathies inclined towards Delacroix. The picture was to glow with colour. Seven months sufficed for its execution. As in the case of Suzanne, when the picture was done he called in the two masters. Delacroix was the first to come this time. He was enchanted; and had no critical remarks to make to the young man, whom he overwhelmed with congratulations. Next day, M. Ingres arrived in his turn, uttered a kind of growl, recoiled as though a reflection in a mirror had struck his eyes; gradually his growls change to reproaches: it was ingratitude, heresy, apostasy! M. Ingres went out furious, cursing the renegade. Crushed by this malediction Clément prepared to set out for Rome. This had been the ambition of the two young people for a long time; but their grandparents would never consent to let these young folk of twenty-one and seventeen, thirty-eight years of age all told, travel; and without the leave of their grandparents, who held the purse-strings, how could they travel? There is a Providence who looks after travellers! A connoisseur visited Clément's studio. As in the case of Delacroix, the picturesque setting of Suzanne pleased him; he wanted to put Suzanne in his bedroom alcove. But Clément, who did not dare to ask 6000 francs for the picture, declared that he did not wish to sell it by itself and asked 4500 francs for the Macchabées and 1500 francs for the Suzanne. The connoisseur wished only to buy the Suzanne, but Clément pointed out to him that the pictures were inseparable. The connoisseur did not understand the reason for this indissoluble bond between the Suzanne and the Macchabées, and he offered 2000 francs, then 2500, for the Suzanne alone. Clément was inflexible; the only reduction he made was to offer the two pictures for 5000 francs. The connoisseur bought the Macchabées in order to get the Suzanne, and he put the latter in his bedroom and the former in his garret; and behold the two young people found themselves in control of the vast sum of 5000 francs! They could go round the world five times with that! So they ran off to Italy as they had run away to Holland, taking a travelling carriage to Lyons, crossing Mont Cenis and reaching Rome in twenty-one days. In visiting Italy, Clément, with that devouring imagination of his, wanted to see everything. His wife only desired to see three things: Madame Lætitia, whom they then called Madame Mère, Vesuvius in eruption and Venice at Carnival time. The two latter desires arose from simple curiosity; the first from sentiment: Marie Monchablon was a cousin of General Leclerc, first husband of the Princess Borghese. There was, therefore, relationship with the Napoleon family, although obviously very distant; but relationships go much further back than that in Corsica!
Horace Vernet was director of the school of painting in Rome. The first visit of the two artists was naturally to Horace Vernet; but, on leaving his house, there was only the Monte Pincio to cross, the gate del Popolo to pass and they were in the villa Borghese. Now, at the villa Borghese lived Madame Mère, whom Madame Clément Boulanger was very anxious to see. Chance aided the young enthusiast: during Madame Mère's walk she passed by her. Madame Clément longed to fling herself on her knees;—I can understand this, for it is just what I did, and I am not a fanatic, when I had the honour of being received by Madame Lætitia at Rome, and when she gave me her hand to kiss. Oh! it is impossible to imagine what antique proportions exile seemed to give to that woman! I seemed to see the mother of Alexander, of Cæsar or of Charlemagne. Madame Lætitia looked at the two young people and smiled upon them as age smiles on youth, as the setting sun smiles on the East, as benevolence smiles on beauty. Madame Clément returned to her lodgings intoxicated with joy. She was invited to the palace Ruspoli that night by Madame Lacroix; still full of delight and not conscious that she was speaking to the secretary of Madame Mère—
"Ah!" she said, "I can leave Rome to-night."
"Why? You only arrived this morning!"
"I have seen what I came to see."
"Ah! What did you want to see?"
"Madame Mère."
She then related the three desires which brought her to Italy: to see Madame Mère, an eruption of Vesuvius and the Carnival at Venice.
The secretary listened to this great enthusiasm without making any comment; but that same evening he related what he had heard to the mother of Cæsar. She smiled, called to mind the two good-looking young people she had bowed to in the garden of the villa Borghese and asked that they should be presented to her on the following day. Next day they were both introduced to Madame Mère's bedchamber, in which the famous old lady usually dwelt.
"Come here, my child," said Madame Lætitia, beckoning to the young wife to come near, "and tell me why you were so anxious to see me."
"Because people say that sons resemble their mother." Madame Lætitia smiled at that delicious flattery, more than ever charming from the lips of seventeen.
"Then," she replied, "I hope you will have a son of your own, madame!"
"An unfortunate wish, Princess, for I should prefer a daughter."
"Why so?"
"Why should you wish me to bring forth a boy, since the Emperor is no longer here to give him his epaulettes?"
"All the same, have a son and there may, perhaps, be a Napoleon on the throne when he is of age for service."
This strange prophecy was realised! Madame Clément Boulanger has had a son; that son is now twenty-two, and he is employed under a Napoleon in the Government offices.
Some days later, invited to the soirées of Queen Hortense, Madame Clément Boulanger valsed for the first time,—as a young girl, she had never been allowed; as a young wife, she had not yet had time to do so;—she valsed, we say, for the first time, and with Prince Louis. After this they began seriously to set to work. Madame Clément Boulanger had seen all she desired in seeing Madame Mère, but she would have been very disappointed had she been prevented from seeing the rest!
Meanwhile, Clément had finished a companion picture to the Macchabées and had sketched out the tournament of the Tournelles: the subject was Henri II., tué, à travers sa visière, par l'Éclat de lance de Gabriel de Montgomery. This picture appeared at the Exhibition of 1831, and is now at the château de Saint-Germain.
From Rome the lovers started for Naples. Madame Clément was enceinte, and in order to produce a happy pregnancy Providence arranged the eruption of 1832. From Naples they returned to Florence. There Clément completed and exhibited in a church his picture of the Corpus Domini. This picture was a great success, so great, that the Contadini from the environs of Florence, who came to see the picture in processions, hearing it constantly said that it was a representation of the Corpus Domini and, not knowing what Corpus Domini meant, believing that it was the painter's name, openly called Clément Boulanger and his wife M. and Mme. Corpus Domini. Meanwhile, the young couple took hasty excursions into the country and, as the parents could not leave little Albert behind, they put him in a basket which a man carried on his head. This was the son of Corpus Domini, and bearing this title, no goat-herd but would give him of her milk.
In his spare moments Clément remembered his chemical studies: he invented a kind of paper which concealed ink. You only had to dip the pen in the water-jug, stream or river, or simply in your mouth, to write with water or with saliva, and the writing became black as fast as the nib of the pen formed the letters. It was such a wonderful invention that they decided to start a paper factory under illustrious patronage. This patronage was granted and a sheet of the chemical paper was taken to Madame Clément. Unluckily or luckily, Madame Clément had a cold; she sneezed; the damped paper became black all over where it had been wetted. This gave the spectators much food for reflection. It would be impossible to use the paper on a rainy day or days when one had a cold or on days when one was tearful. The factory idea was renounced.
Clément Boulanger returned to Paris in the month of February 1832; and from the 10th to the 15th March of the same year, so far as I can recollect, he covered with his broad and easy style of painting a panel twelve feet by ten in my house.
In 1840 Clément Boulanger set out for Constantinople. For a year and a half he had been at Toulouse, where he painted the Procession, which is now at Saint Étienne-du-Mont. This work in the provinces had wearied him: he wanted the open air, change of scene, the stir of life, in short, instead of a sedentary life, he accepted the suggestion made him by the traveller Tessier, who was going to make excavations in Asia-Minor; and, commissioned by the department of Fine Arts to paint a picture of excavations, Clément, as we have said, set out in 1840. They reached Magnesia near the Mendere river and began to dig in the ground. This preliminary work appeared to Clément to be the most exciting, animated part of the business; he felt that it, at any rate, ought to be reproduced. He made a sketch in the full heat of the midday sun and, during his work, got one of those attacks of sunstroke that are so dangerous in the East. Brain fever ensued: he was far from all aid; there were only bad Greek doctors near him, of the type that killed Byron. They hung à hammock inside a mosque and laid the poor invalid in it. Delirium set in by the third day; on the fifth, he died laughing and singing, unconscious that he was dying. All the Greek clergy in Constantinople came to pay respect to the body of the poor traveller, who had died at twenty-eight years of age, far away from his friends, his family and his country! Twenty-eight years of age! do you realise? Compare that age with what he had done! The body was carried away on the back of a camel.
There, as here, everybody loved him. People of all lands and in every kind of costume followed the procession. All the French ships in the roadstead carried their flags at half-mast and their ensigns of mourning. The whole staff of the embassy came out to meet the body at the gate of Constantinople, and a procession of over three thousand persons followed it to the French church. There he lies, sleeping, like Ophelia, still smiling and singing!
[CHAPTER IV]
Grandville
Delicate and sarcastic smile, eyes sparkling with intelligence, a satirical mouth, short figure and large heart and a delightful tincture of melancholy perceptible everywhere—that is your portrait, dear Grandville! Come! I begin to have as many friends below ground as above; come to me! tell me that friendship is stronger than the grave and I shall not fear to go down to your abode, since, dying, one rejoins one's dead friends without leaving the living ones.
You will remember, dear Grandville, when I went to call upon you in your garret in the rue des Petits-Augustins, a garret from whence I never came out without carrying away with me some wonderful sketches? What good long talks we had! What fine perceptions! I did not think of asking you then where you came from, neither where you were going; you smiled sadly at life, at the future; you had had some sadness forced out from the depths of your heart. It was easily explained, you were a connecting-link between Molière and la Fontaine. That which I did not think to ask of the artist when he was full of life, energy and health, I now ask of him when he is dead and laid in the grave. You have forgotten, you say, dear Grandville? I understand that. But there is one of your friends, a man of heart and of talent who has not forgotten: take Charles Blanc, and add to what he has forgotten that which you yourself can remember. Your life was too uninteresting, you say? Very well, but the public takes as much interest in the humble vicar of Wakefield in his village parish as in the brilliant Ralegh at the court of the proud Elizabeth—You will try to remember? Good!—I will put it down.
Grandville was born at Nancy. He was the successor, compatriot, one might almost say the pupil, of Callot. His real name was Gérard; but his father, a distinguished miniature painter, had renounced his family name to take the theatrical name of his grandfather, an excellent comedian who had more than once brought smiles to the lips of the two exiles, Hanislas and Marie Leczinski, one of whom had been a king and the other of whom was to become a queen. The grandfather was called Grandville. This child, who was to create a world of his own, half animal, half human, who was to explain the scent of flowers by making the flower the mere external covering of woman, who, by means of imagery drawn from human life, was to endow the stars with those beauteous eyes which flash amidst the darkness and with which they are supposed to gaze upon the earth, this child, I say, was born on 13 September 1802. He was born so weak that it was thought for a moment he was only born to die, but his mother took him in her arms and hid him so completely in her heart, that Death, who was looking for him, passed by and saw him not. But the child saw Death, and that is why he has since then painted him so accurately.
As a youth, he was taciturn but observant, watching everything with those large melancholy eyes of his, which seemed as though they were looking for and finding in everything some side unknown and invisible to other eyes. It is this side which he has shown in all beings and created things, from the giant to the ant, from man to mollusc, from the star down to the flower. Others find fault with the world as the good God has made it, but, powerless to refashion it, they rest satisfied with railing at it; Grandville not only did not scoff at it, but even re-created one of his own.
At twelve he entered the school at Nancy, and he left at fourteen. What did Latin, Greek or even French matter to him? He had a language of his own, which he talked in low tones to that invisible master whom we call genius, a language which, later, he was to speak aloud to the whole of creation. When I went to see Grandville and found him holding a lizard in his hand, whistling to a canary in its cage or crumbling bread in a bowl of red fishes, I was always tempted to ask him: "Come, what does the fish, canary or lizard say to you?"
Grandville began to draw at fourteen; I am mistaken, he had always drawn. Exercises and translations were scanty in his college exercise-books, but illustrations—as they have since been termed—to the subject of la rose, rosa and to the translation of Deus creavit cælum et terrant were marvellous! So, one day, the masters showed these exercise-books to his father. They meant them to be the means of getting the child a scolding; but the father saw more than the masters did: they only saw an indifferent Latin scholar; the father saw a great artist. All saw correctly, but each turned his back and looked in an opposite direction from that of the others. Grandville was from that day introduced into his father's studio, and had the right to make sketches without being obliged to do exercises and translations. When a sitter came to sit for a miniature in M. Grandville's studio, he sat both to father and son. The sitter, however, only saw the work of the father because that was a finished, varnished and touched-up portrait, whilst the son's was a beautiful and excellent caricature, at which the father would laugh heartily when the sitter was gone, but which he advised his son to hide deep among his drawings, wondering each time how it was that the man's face had some likeness to the head of an animal. Meantime, an artist called Mansion passed through Nancy, and went to call on his confrère Grandville, who showed him his miniatures; the artist visitor looked at them rather contemptuously, but, when he came to the youth's drawings, he fastened on them eagerly and looked at them as though he would never stop looking, repeating: "More!" as long as there were any more left.
"Let me have this lad," he said to the father, "and I will take him to Paris."
It was hard to give up his boy, even to a brother artist; and yet Grandville's father knew very well that one cannot become a great artist unless one goes out into the great centres of civilisation. He adopted a middle course, which appeased his conscience and comforted his heart. He promised to send the boy to Paris. Six months went by before this promise was put into execution; at last, recognising that the lad was wasting time in the provinces, the father made up his mind. A hundred crowns were put into one of the young artist's pockets, a letter to a cousin in the other, and he was commended to the care of the conductor of a diligence; thus the great man of the coming future started for Paris. The cousin's name was Lemétayer; he was manager of the Opéra-Comique. He was a clever man, whom we all knew, very popular in the artist world, and intimate with Picot, Horace Vernet, Léon Cogniet, Hippolyte Lecomte and Féréol.
I shall be asked why I put Féréol, a singer, with Picot, Horace Vernet, Léon Cogniet and Hippolyte Lecomte, four painters? Well, just as M. Ingres, who is a great painter, lays claim to be a virtuoso, so it was with Féréol, who, though an excellent opera-singer, laid claim to be a painter.
Alas! We know others, too, besides M. Ingres and Féréol, who are ambitious in the same way! Now, it happened one day that Féréol, having carried one of his compositions to Lemétayer, it was seen by Grandville, and Grandville, in his disrespect for Féréol's painting, began to draw it over again, as Féréol might have begun singing over again one of the airs of M. Ingres. Meanwhile, Hippolyte Lecomte came in. We do not know whether Hippolyte Lecomte has, like M. Ingres and Féréol, some hobby besides his art; but we know he was a man possessed of good common sense and of good judgment. It was exactly what the young man wanted, and he passed from M. Mansion's studio to that of Lecomte. And, M. Mansion's pupil kept an old grudge against his master. This was what occasioned it—
With his delightful imagination, which was as picturesque when he was a child as when a man, Grandville had invented a game with fifty-two cards. Mansion thought this game so remarkable that he fathered it under his own name with the title of La Sibylle des salons. I once saw the game at Grandville's, when he was in a good humour and turning over all his drawings; there was something very fantastic about it. When with Hippolyte Lecomte, there was no longer any question of drawing—he had to paint. But painting was not Grandville's strong point—pencil or pen were his to any extent! He painted, like Callot, with a steel pen. Pencil, pen and style spoke admirably the language of the artist and adequately expressed what he wanted to say!
Then, suddenly, lithography comes on the scenes. Grandville is attracted to, looks at and examines the process, utters a cry of delight, and feels that this is what he must do. Grandville, like Clément Boulanger, was a seeker, never satisfied with what others found for him to do, at times discontented with what he had found for himself. Callot had substituted in his engravings the spirit varnish of musical instrument-makers for soft varnishes. Grandville executes his lithographs after the manner of engravings: he cuts into the stone with a hard pencil, shades with cut lines, specifies his outlines and draws no more, but engraves; it was at this time that the series of drawings representing the Tribulations de la petite propriété appear and that of the Dimanches d'un bon bourgeois. Grandville then lived at the hôtel Saint-Phar in the boulevard Poissonnière, the room since occupied by Alphonse Karr, an artist who also used his pen as an engraving tool instead of writing with it.
About 1826 Grandville left the hôtel Saint-Phar and went to live in a sort of garret situated opposite the Palais des Beaux-Arts, where I made his acquaintance. Alas! I also lived in another sort of garret; the twenty-five francs which, upon Oudard's entreaty, M. de Broval had just added to my salary, did not allow me to live in a first floor of the rue de Rivoli; my garret, however, was envious of Grandville's: an artist's studio, no matter how poor he is, always contains more things than the room of an ordinary workman; a sketch, a statuette, a plaster-cast, an old vizorless helmet, some odd bits of armour with traces of the gold damascening, a stuffed squirrel playing the flute, a gull hanging from the ceiling with wings spread, looking as though it still skimmed the waves, and a strip of Chinese material, draped before a door, give to the walls a coquettish air which rejoices the eye and tickles the fancy. And the painter's studio was a gathering-place for talks. There, and in the adjacent studios, were to be found Philippon, who was to found La Caricature and, later, his brother, who founded Le Journal pour rire; Ricourt, the persistent maker of improbable stories; Horeau, the architect; Huet, Forest, Renou. When they were flush of money they drank beer; on other days they were content to smoke, shout, declaim and laugh. Grandville laughed, declaimed, shouted, smoked, and drank but little. He remained seated at a table, a sheet of paper before him, pen or pencil in hand, smiling betimes, but everlastingly drawing. What did he draw? He himself never knew. A fancy bordering on the nonsensical guided his pencil. Birds with monkeys' heads, monkeys with fishes' heads, the faces of bipeds on the bodies of quadrupeds: a more grotesque world than Callot's temptations or Breughel's sportive demons, When two hours had gone by, full of laughter, noise and smoke for the others, Grandville had drawn from his brain, as from some fanciful circle, a whole new creation, which certainly belonged as much to him as that which was destroyed by the Flood belonged to God. It was all very exquisite, very clever, very enchanting; and expressed very clearly what it wished to interpret; the eyes and gestures speaking such a droll language that, by the time one had to leave them, one had always spent upwards of half an hour or an hour looking at them, trying to discover the meaning of them—improvised illustrations of stories unknown by Hoffmann. It was in this way he prepared, composed and published Les Quatre saisons de la vie, Le Voyage pour l'éternité, Les Metamorphoses du jour, and, finally, La Caricature, in which all the political celebrities of the day sat for him or before him. Then came 1832.
Grandville had offered that my portrait should be one of the first; he was one of the first to come and mount his platform, smoothing out his panel on a folding ladder and sketching the parts that reached above the height of the door. Two months afterwards, I went on a voyage. Did I see him again? I have my doubts. Only news of his tremendous works reached me. These were Chansons de Béranger, Gargantua au berceau, the Fables de la Fontaine, Les Animaux peinte par eux-mêmes, les Étoiles, les Fleurs animées. Then, in the midst of all these merry figures which fell from his pencil and pen came heartrending and bitter sorrows; his wife and three children died one after the other; when the last died, he himself fell ill. It was as though the voices of his four beloved ones were calling him to them. His conversation changed in character; it became more elevated; no more studio laughter or youthful joking was to be heard. He talked of that future life towards which he was going, of that immortality of the soul of which he was to know the secret; he soared into purest ether and floated on the most transparent clouds.
On 14 March 1847, he became insane; and he died three days later in the house of Dr. Voisin, at Vauvres. He is buried at Saint-Mandé, near his wife and three children, and if the dead are still endowed with sympathy, he has but to stretch out his arm to touch the hand of Carrel!
[CHAPTER V]
Tony Johannot
Grandville disappeared. Did he mount up to heaven on the rays of one of those stars with the faces of women, to whom he made love? Did he lie down to sleep in the tomb, to listen, during the sleep of death, to the growing of those women to whom he had given the stems of flowers? Oh! that is the great secret which the grave guards mysteriously, which death cannot tell life, which Hamlet asked fruitlessly of Yorick, of his father's ghost, of the interrupted song of Ophelia!
This secret my two dear and excellent friends who died on the same day—4 August 1852—Tony Johannot and Alfred d'Orsay, would assuredly have told me if it had been permitted to them. What poetry of sorrow could, then, be adequate to express the feelings of my heart the morning I woke to receive two such letters as these?
"MY DEAR FATHER,—Did you ever hear anything equal to this? I went to Tony Johannot's house yesterday with your letter, to ask him if he could undertake the vignettes for Isaac Laquedem, and they said to me: 'Sir, he has just died!'
"Tony Johannot dead! I met him the day before yesterday and we made an appointment for to-day. Dead! This single syllable felt like the tolling of a bell. It awoke the same kind of vibration in my heart. Dead! Tony Johannot is dead! If people die like this, one ought never to leave those one loves. Come back at once to Paris or I shall start for Brussels.—Yours, "ALEX. DUMAS, fils"
"MY DEAR DUMAS,—Our well-beloved Alfred d'Orsay died this morning at four o'clock, in my arms laughing, talking, making plans and without any idea he was dying. One of the last names he uttered was yours, for one of his last projects was to renew the lease of your shooting, which he much enjoyed last year. The funeral will take place the day after to-morrow at Chambourcy. Come, if my letter reaches you in time! It would be a comfort to Agénor and to the Duchesse de Grammont to have you with them at such a time.—Yours affectionately, "CABARRUS"
Another time I will tell you the whole of d'Orsay's history, d'Orsay the gentleman, the man of fashion, the artist, and, above all, the man of kindly heart; and I shall certainly not have room in one chapter to do that. For the present, let us restrict ourselves to Tony Johannot, the one among the four dead men whose lives I am relating with whom I was the most intimate.
He was born in 1803, in the little town of Offenbach, as was his brother; I have given the history of his parents and of his early days in relating that of Alfred. He must, therefore, appear before our readers as a young man in the same frame as Alfred; it was in this way, indeed, that the Artiste published them in its two excellent portraits of those twin-geniuses of art. Tony was delightful in those days, when about thirty years old: a clear, fresh complexion which a woman might have envied, short, curly hair, a dark moustache, small, but bright, intelligent and sparkling eyes, medium height in figure but wonderfully well-proportioned. Like Alfred, he was silent; but he was not as taciturn: his melancholy never went so far as depression: he was a man of few words and never launched out into a long sentence, but what he said always showed delicacy of perception and flashes of wit. Finally, his talent reflected his character like a mirror, and any one not knowing him could have formed a perfectly correct idea of him from his drawings, vignettes and pictures. The first time I saw him, if I remember rightly, was at the house of our dear good friend, Nodier. Nodier was very fond of both of the brothers. Tony brought a lovely water-colour to Marie Nodier. I can see it now: it represented a woman being murdered, either a Desdemona or a Vanina d'Ornano. It was meant for Marie's album. We drew together at once without hesitation, as if our two hearts had been in search of one another for twenty-five years; we were the same age, almost, he a little younger than I. I have related in these Memoirs that we went through the Rambouillet campaign side by side and that we returned from it together. A score of times he had tried to make a portrait sketch of me; a score of times he had erased the paper clean, rubbed off the wood, scratched the paint off the canvas, dissatisfied with his work. It was in vain I told him it was a good likeness.
"No," he said, "and no one could do it, any more than I can."
"Why so?"
"Because your face changes in expression every ten seconds. How can one make a likeness of a man who is not like himself?"
Then, to compensate me he would turn over his portfolios and give me a charming drawing of Minna et Brenda, or a lovely sketch of the Last of the Mohicans.
The chief merit of the character of Tony Johannot and the particular note of his talent was that gift of heaven bestowed specially on flowers, birds and women—charm. Tony even delighted his critics. His colour was, perhaps, a trifle monotonous, but it was cheerful, light and silvery in tone. His women were all like one another, Virginie and Brenda, Diana Vernon and Ophelia; what did it matter since they were all young and beautiful and gracious and chaste? The daughters of the poets, to whatever country they belong, have all one and the same father-genius. Charlotte and Desdemona, Leonora and Haidée, dona Sol and Amy Robsart are sisters. Now who can reproach sisters for bearing a family likeness?
Other illustrators found fault with Tony for monopolising every book as they blamed me for monopolising every newspaper. Ah! well, Tony has been dead eighteen months; let us see where, then, are those vignettes which were only waiting for a chance to be produced? Where, then, are all the illustrated Pauls and Virginies, the Manon Lescauts, Molières, Coopers, Walter Scotts which were to cause those of the poor dead artist to be forgotten? Where, then, are the fancies and whims which are to succeed this rage? Where is the art which is to replace this trade? So far as I am concerned, since they have brought the same reproach of monopolising against me, and an occasion offers to say a word on this subject, I will say it without circumlocution. At the present moment, 15 December 1853, I have for some time past more or less left La Presse free, Le Siècle free, Le Constitutionnel free; I have only one more story to write for Le Pays: see, you victimised gentlemen, the gates stand open, the columns are empty; besides Le Constitutionnel, Le Siècle, La Presse, you have La Patrie, l'Assemblée nationale, Le Moniteur, the Revue de Paris, the Revue des Deux Mondes; write your Reine Margots, gentlemen! Write Monte-Cristo, the Mousquetaires, Capitaine Paul, Amaury, Comtesse de Charny, Conscience, Pasteur d'Ashbourn; write all these, gentlemen! do not wait till I am dead. I have but one regret: it is that I cannot divert myself from my gigantic work by reading my own books; distract my thoughts by letting me read yours, and I assure you it will be a good thing for both me and yourselves and, perhaps, even better for you than for me.
Tony did as I did; he first of all worked at the rate of six hours a day, then eight, then ten, then twelve, then fifteen: work is like the intoxication of hashish and of opium: it creates a fictitious life inside real life, so full of delicious dreams and adorable hallucinations that one ends by preferring the fictitious life to the real one. Tony then worked fifteen hours a day—which speaks for itself.
Thus, after he had exhibited with his brother, the series of tableaus-vignettes to which I have referred in connection with Alfred, he did the following by himself: Minna et Brenda sur le bord de la mer, La Bataille de Rosbecque, La Mort de Julien d'Avenel, La Bataille de Fontenoy, l'Enfance de Duguesclin, l'Embarquement d'Élisabeth à Kenilworth, Deux Jeunes Femmes près d'une fenêtre, La Sieste, Louis XIII. forçant le passage du Méandre, a subject taken from George Sand's André, a subject from the Gospels, one from the Imitation of Christ, Le Roi Louis-Philippe offrant à la reine Victoria deux tapisseries des Gobelins au Château d'Eu. Then, after failing to exhibit in the Exhibitions of 1843, 1845 and 1846, he sent twelve pictures in 1848, five in 1850, three in 1851 and, in 1852, a Scène de village and the Plaisirs de l'automne. Three or four years previously, Tony's friends had been alarmed by a thing which, in spite of the fear of the doctors, seemed nevertheless quite impossible. He had been threatened with pulmonary phthisis. Nothing could have been more solidly constructed, it must be said, than Tony Johannot's chest, and, allowing for immoderate ambition, never were lungs more commodiously situated for fulfilling their functions; so Tony's friends did not feel anxious. He coughed, spat a little blood, took a course of treatment and got better. He had not stopped working. Work is a factor of health in the case of all who are producers. He had just done his Évangile and Imitation of Christ, he had stopped work on an oil-painting of Ruth and Boaz to start upon illustrations to the works of Victor Hugo, when, suddenly, he sank down and fell on his knees. He was struck by a crushing attack of apoplexy. On 4 August 1852, he died. The twofold news came too late: I could neither follow d'Orsay to the cemetery of Chambourcy, nor follow Tony Johannot to the cemetery of Montmartre. There it is that the creator of many charming vignettes, many fascinating pictures, sleeps in the vault where his two brothers Charles and Alfred had preceded him.
[BOOK II]
[CHAPTER I]
Sequel to the preparations for my ball—Oil and distemper —Inconveniences of working at night—How Delacroix did his task —The ball—Serious men—La Fayette and Beauchene—Variety of costumes—The invalid and the undertaker's man—The last galop—A political play—A moral play
Let us return from painters to paintings. The eleventh decorator had signed himself Ziégler. We did not reckon on him, but he had foreseen what might happen; one panel had been left blank and this was given to him on which to make a scene from La Esmeralda. Three days before the ball, everybody was at his post: Alfred Johannot was sketching his scene from Cinq-Mars; Tony Johannot, his Sire de Giac; Clément Boulanger, his Tour de Nesle; Louis Boulanger his Lucrèce Borgia; Jadin and Decamps worked in collaboration at their Debureau, Grandville at his Orchestre, Barye at his Tigres, Nanteuil at his door-panels, which were two medallions representing Hugo and Alfred de Vigny. Delacroix alone failed to answer to the appeal: they wanted to dispose of his panel, but I answered for him.
It was very diverting to see the start for this steeplechase between ten painters of equal merit. Each of them, without, apparently, watching his neighbour, followed with his eyes first the charcoal then the paint-brush. None of them—the Johannots in particular, being engravers and designers of vignettes and painters of easel pictures—were accustomed to the use of distemper. But the painters of large canvases soon got into the way of it. Among these, Louis and Clément Boulanger seemed as though they had never worked in any other medium. Jadin and Decamps discovered wonderful tones in this new method of execution, and declared they never wanted to paint in anything again but distemper. Ziégler took to it with some ease, Barye made belief that it was water-colour on a grand scale, but easier and more quickly done than water-colour on the small scale. Grandville drew with red chalk, charcoal and Spanish white chalk, and produced prodigious effects with these three crayons. We waited with curiosity for Delacroix, whose facility of execution has become proverbial. As I have said, only the two Johannots were behindhand. They knew they would not be finished if they did not work at night. Consequently, whilst others played, smoked and gossiped, both continued their day's work when night came, rejoicing in the tones given them by the light, and the superiority of lamplight to that of day, for painting intended to be seen by lamplight. They did not stop working till midnight, but they caught up with the others by so doing. Next day, when light broke, Alfred and Tony uttered cries of despair: by lamplight they had mistaken yellow for white and white for yellow, green for blue and blue for green. The two pictures looked like huge omelettes aux fines herbes. At this juncture Ciceri père came in. He had but to glance at the two pictures to guess what had happened.
"Bravo!" he said; "we have a green sky and yellow clouds! But that is a mere nothing!"
Indeed, it was more specially in the sky that the error had been committed. He took up the brushes and with broad, vigorous, powerful strokes he repainted the skies of both pictures in one minute: the one calm, serene and azure, leaving a glimpse of the splendours of Dante's paradise through the blue of the firmament; the other low, cloudy, charged with electricity, ready to burst forth into lightning flashes.
All the young painters learnt in an instant the secrets of decoration, which they had been hours groping after on the previous day. Nobody cared about working at night. Besides, thanks to the lesson given by Ciceri père, things were progressing with giant strides. There was no more news of Delacroix than if he had never existed. On the night of the second day I sent to him to ask if he remembered that the ball was fixed for the next day. He sent reply that I need not be anxious and he would come at breakfast-time next morning. Work began with the dawn next day. Most of the workers, moreover, had their task three-quarters finished. Clément Boulanger and Barye had done. Louis Boulanger had no more than three or four hours' work. Decamps was putting the last touches to his Debureau, and Jadin to his poppies and corn-flowers; Grandville was at work on his door tops, when, as he had promised, Delacroix arrived.
"Well, now, how are you getting on?" he asked.
"You see for yourself," said each worker, standing aside to let his work be seen.
"Oh, really! but you are doing miniature-work here! You should have told me: I would have come a month ago."
He went round all the four rooms, stopping before each panel and finding something pleasant to say to each of his confrères, thanks to the charming spirit with which he is endowed. Then, as they were going to breakfast, he breakfasted too.
"Well?" he asked, when breakfast was done, turning towards the empty panel.
"Well, there it is!" I said. "It is the panel for the Crossing of the Red Sea; the sea has gone back, the Israelites have crossed, the Egyptians have not yet arrived."
"Then I will take advantage of the fact to do something else. What would you like me to stick up there?"
"Oh, you know, a King Rodrigo after a battle:
'Sur les rives murmurantes
Du fleuve aux oncles sanglantes,
Le roi sans royaume allait,
Froissant, dans ses mains saignantes,
Les grains d'or d'un chapelet.'"
"Ah, is that what you want?"
"Yes."
"You will not ask me for something else when it is half done?"
"Of course not!"
"Here goes, then, for King Rodrigo!"
And, without taking off his little black coat which clung closely to his body, without turning up his sleeves or taking off his cuffs, or putting on a blouse or cotton jacket, Delacroix began by taking his charcoal and, in three or four strokes, he had drawn the horse; in five or six, the cavalier; in seven or eight, the battlefield, dead, dying and fugitives included; then, making sufficient out of this rough sketch to be intelligible to himself, he took up brushes and began to paint. And, in a flash, as if one had unveiled a canvas, one saw appear under his hand, first a cavalier, bleeding, injured and wounded, half dragged by his horse, who was as hurt as himself, holding on by the mere support of his stirrups, and leaning on his long lance; round him, in front and behind him, the dead in heaps; by the riverside, the wounded trying to put their lips to the water, and leaving tracks of blood behind them; as far as the eye could see, away towards the horizon stretched the battlefield, ruthless and terrible; above it all, in a horizon made dense by the vapour of blood, a sun was setting like a red buckler in a forge; then, finally, a blue sky which, as it melted away into the distance, became an indefinable shade of green, with rosy clouds on it like the down of an ibis. The whole thing was wonderful to see: a circle gathered round the master and each one of the artists left his task to come and clap his hands without jealousy or envy at the new Rubens, who improvised both composition and execution as he went on. It was finished in two or three hours' time. At five that afternoon, owing to a large fire, all was dry and they could place the forms against the walls. The ball had created an enormous stir. I had invited nearly all the artists in Paris; those I had forgotten wrote to remind me of their existence. Many society women had done the same, but they asked to be allowed to come masked: it was an impertinence towards other women and I left it to the responsibility of those who had offered it. It was a fancy dress ball, but not a masked one; the order was strict, and I hired two dozen dominoes for the use of impostors, whoever they might be, who attempted to introduce themselves in contraband dress.
At seven o'clock, Chevet arrived with a fifty-pound salmon, and a roebuck roasted whole, served on a silver dish which looked as though it had been borrowed from Gargantua's sideboard, and a gigantic pâté, all to correspond. Three hundred bottles of Bordeaux were put down to warm, three hundred bottles of Burgundy were cooling, five hundred bottles of champagne were on ice.
I had discovered in the library, in a little book of engravings by Titian's brother, a delightful costume of 1525: hair cut round and hanging over the shoulders, bound in with a gold band; a sea-green jerkin, braided with gold, laced down the front of the shirt with gold lace, and fastened at the shoulder and elbows by similar lacing; breeches of parti-coloured red and white silk; black velvet slippers, à la François I., embroidered in gold. The mistress of the house, a very handsome person, with dark hair and blue eyes, was in a velvet dress, with a starched collarette, and the black felt hat with black feathers of Helena Formann, Rubens's second wife. Two orchestras had been set up in each suite of rooms, in such a way that, at a given moment, they could both play the same air, and the galop could be heard throughout the five rooms and the hall. At midnight, these five rooms afforded a wonderful spectacle. Everybody had taken up the idea with the exception of those who styled themselves staid men; every one had come in fancy dress; but it was in vain that the serious-minded men pleaded their seriousness; no attention whatever was paid to it; they were compelled to clothe themselves in dominoes of the quietest colours. Véron, a staid person, though he could also be merry, was muffled up in rose colour; Buloz, who was serious and melancholy in temperament, was decked out in sky-blue; Odilon Barrot, who was ultra-serious to solemnness, had obtained a black domino, in virtue of his twofold title of barrister and député; finally, La Fayette, the good, the fashionable and courtly old gentleman, smiling at all this foolishness of youth, had, without offering any opposition to it, put on the Venetian costume. This man had pressed the hand of Washington, had compelled Marat to hide in caves, had struggled against Mirabeau, had lost his popularity in saving the life of the queen, and on 6 October had said to a royalty of ten centuries old: "Bow thyself before that royalty which yesterday was called the people!" This man—who, in 1814, had thrust Napoleon from his throne; who, in 1830, had helped Louis-Philippe to ascend his; who, instead of falling, had gone on growing in power during revolutions—was with us also, simple as greatness, good as strength, candid as genius. He was, in fact, the subject of astonishment and admiration for all those entrancing beings who saw, touched and spoke to him for the first time, who brought back to him his younger days; he looked at them earnestly, gave both his hands to them and responded with the most polite and courteous words to all the pretty speeches the charming queens of the Paris theatres addressed to him. You will recollect having been the favourites of that famous man for one whole night, you—Léontine Fay, Louise Despréaux, Cornélie Falcon, Virginie Déjazet? You recollect your amazement in finding him simple and gentle, coquettish and gallant, witty and deferential, as he had been forty years before at the balls of Versailles and the Trianon? One moment Beauchene sat down by him, and this juxtaposition made a singular contrast: Beauchene wore the Vendéen costume in all its completeness: the hat surrounded with a handkerchief, the Breton jacket, short trousers, gaiters, the bleeding heart on the breast, and the English carbine. Beauchene, who passed for a too Liberal Royalist under the Bourbons of the Elder Branch, passed for too Royalist a Liberal under the Younger Branch. So, General La Fayette, recognising him, said with a charming smile—
"Monsieur de Beauchene, tell me, I beg you, in virtue of what privilege are you the only person here who is not wearing a disguise?"
A quarter of an hour later, both were seated at an écarté table, and Beauchene was playing against the Republican of 1789 and of 1830, with gold bearing the effigy of Henry V.
The sitting-room presented the most picturesque appearance. Mademoiselle Mars, Joanny, Michel Menjaud, Firmin, Mademoiselle Leverd had come in the costumes belonging to Henri III. It was the court of the Valois complete. Dupont, the offended soubrette of Molière, the merry soubrette of Marivaux, was in a Boucher shepherdess costume. Georges, who had regained the beauty of her best days, had taken the costume of a Nettuno peasant-girl, and Madame Paradol wore that of Anne of Austria. Rose Dupuis had one like Lady Rochester. Noblet was in harlequin's dress; Javureck was a Turkish slave-girl. Adèle Alphonse, who was making her first public appearance, arriving, I think, from Saint Petersburg, was a young Greek girl. Léontine Fay, an Albanian woman. Falcon, the beautiful Jewess, was dressed as Rebecca; Déjazet, as du Barry; Nourrit, as a court abbé; Monrose, as a soldier of Ruyter; Volnys, as an Armenian; Bocage, as Didier. Allan—who, no doubt, took himself for a serious-minded person like Buloz and Véron—was clad in a white necktie, black coat and trousers; but, over the toilet of a gilded youth, we had insisted on putting a cabbage-green domino. Rossini had taken the costume of Figaro, and vied in popularity with La Fayette. Moyne, our poor Moyne! who had so much talent and who, in spite of his talent, died of hunger, killing himself in the hope that his death would bequeath a pension to his widow—Moyne had taken the costume of Charles IX.; Barye was dressed as a Bengal tiger; Etex, as an Andalusian; Adam, as a doll; Zimmermann, as a kitchen-maid; Plantade, as Madame Pochet; Pichot, as a magician; Alphonse Royer, as a Turk; Charles Lenormand, as a native of Smyrna; Considérant, as a bey of Algiers; Paul de Musset, as a Russian; Alfred de Musset, as a weather-cock; Capo de Feuillide, as a toreador. Eugène Sue, the sixth of the serious men, was in a pistachio domino; Paul Lacroix, as an astrologer; Pétrus Borel, who took the name of Lycanthrope, as Young France; Bard, my companion in the Soissons expedition, as a page of the time of Albert Dürer; Francisque Michel, as a vagabond; Paul Fouché, as a foot-soldier in the Procession of Fools; Eugène Duverger, as Van Dyck; Ladvocat, as Henri XI.; Fournier, as a sailor; Giraud, as a man-at-arms of the eleventh century; Tony Johannot, as Sire de Giac; Alfred Johannot, as young Louis XI.; Menut, as a page of Charles VII.; Louis Boulanger, as a courtier of King John; Nanteuil, as an old soldier of the sixteenth century; Gaindron, as a madman; Boisselot, as a young lord of the time of Louis XII.; Châtillon, as Sentinelli; Ziégler, as Cinq-Mars; Clément Boulanger, as a Neapolitan peasant; Roqueplan, as a Mexican officer; Lépaule, in Highland dress; Grenier, as a seaman; Robert Fleury, as a Chinaman; Delacroix, as Dante; Champmartin, as a pilgrim; Henriquet Dupont, as Ariosto; Chenavard, as Titian; Frédérick Lemaître, as Robert Macaire covered with spangles.
Several droll incidents enlivened the evening. M. Tissot, of the Academy, conceived the notion of making himself up as an invalid; he had scarcely entered, when Jadin came in as an undertaker's man and, lugubrious crêpe on his hat, followed him from room to room, fitting his pace to his and every five minutes repeating the words: "I am waiting!" M. Tissot could not stand it and, in half an hour's time, he left. At one time, there were seven hundred persons present. We had supper at three in the morning. The two rooms of the empty flat on my landing were converted into a dining-room.
Wonderful to relate there was enough for everybody to eat and to drink! At nine o'clock in the morning, with music ringing in their heads, they began a final galop in the rue des Trois-Frères, the head of the procession reaching to the boulevard whilst the tail was still frisking in the courtyard of the square. I have often thought since of giving a second ball like that one, but it always seemed to me that it would be quite impossible.
It was about this time that they performed at the Odéon a play which made some sensation, first on account of its own merit, and, also, from the measure that it suggested. This play had for title: Révolution d'autrefois, ou les Romains chez eux. The authors were Félix Pyat and Théo.
They had taken for their hero the mad Emperor, whom, six years later, I tried in my turn to put on to the stage—Caligula. There was scarcely any plot in the play; its principal merit was that which was attached to its subtitle: Les Romains chez eux. Indeed, this was the first time people had seen the toga worn, and buskins on the feet, and the speech, actions, and eating as had been the case in real life. The subject was the death of Caligula and the succession of Claudius to the throne. Unfortunately for the longevity of the play, it contained a scene which seemed to imply a disrespectful allusion to the leader of the Government. It was the third scene of the last act. One soldier represented Claudius as being perfectly suitable for the Romans, because he was big, fat and stupid. It is impossible to describe the effect which this big, fat and stupid produced; there was at that period a terrible reaction against Louis-Philippe. The insurrection of the month of June still brooded upon all spirits. They applied these three epithets to the head of the Government, doing him the justice which he was at any rate to deserve sixteen or seventeen years later. I had not been present at the first performance. I succeeded, after great difficulty, in getting a seat at the second. Take careful note that I am speaking of the Odéon. All Paris would have come to Harel's theatre, for I think he still had the Odéon then, if the play had not been stopped at the third performance. And the most curious thing was that nobody, neither manager nor authors, counted much on the work, which was readily to be seen by the way in which it was mounted. Apart from Lockroy and Provost, the whole play was distributed amongst what is called in theatrical parlance la troupe de fer-blanc ("a fit-up crowd"). Arsène played Chéréas and Moëssard, Claude. Seventeen days later the Porte-Saint-Martin played a piece which was to cause a scandal of another order. It was called: Dix ans de la vie d'une femme, ou les mauvais conseils. The leading part was played by Dorval. The play of Dix ans de la vie d'une femme—the first manuscript at least—was by a young man of thirty or so, named Ferrier. Harel, while reading it, had seen in it a sequel to Joueur and had coupled Ferrier with Scribe. The result of this alliance was a play fit to make people's hair stand on end, a drama which Mecier or Rétif de la Bretonne would hardly have put their names to!
Something like eighteen years later, we were discussing, at the Council of State, before the commission formed to prepare the law connected with theatres the question of dramatic censorship and theatrical liberty, and, on this head, I heard Scribe attack immoral literature more violently than was usual with him. He demanded a censorship which should be a salutary check to keep talent from the excesses of all kinds to which it was too apt to surrender itself. I allowed myself to interrupt the austere orator, and addressed this question laughingly so that it could be heard all over the room.
"Come, tell us, Scribe, does the drama entitled Dix ans de la vie d'une femme come under the head of moral literature?"
"What?"
I repeated the question.
Scribe replied in the same laughing spirit in which he had been attacked. Read the work again and you will see it would have been difficult for him to reply otherwise. You shall judge for yourselves. We have so often seen our works and those of the Romantic school taxed with immorality by people who uphold M. Scribe as a moral author, that it must really be permitted us to repeat the accusation here and to show, play in hand, how far they pushed the scandal at times in the opposite camp. The wide point of view which the outline of these Memoirs embraces makes us hope that such an exposition may not be looked upon as a digression. At all events, those of our readers who think it irrelevant are quite at liberty to pass over the following chapter.
[CHAPTER II]
Dix ans de la vie d'une femme
This is what Dix ans de la vie d'une femme was like. Adèle Évrard has married M. Darcey, a rich landowner, a worthy and excellent man, full of concern for, attention towards and kindnesses to his wife—a sort of Danville of the École des vieillards, with this difference, that Darcey is only forty. Adèle, Madame Darcey, has the same Christian name as Madame d'Hervey; but, instead of being like the heroine of Antony, ready to struggle to the point of preferring death to shame, Adèle of Dix ans de la vie d'une femme was born possessed of every evil tendency that could be fostered by bad influences. Now such bad influences were not wanting in her case. Adèle, daughter of an honest merchant, wife of an honest man, had made the acquaintance—(where, the narrative does not say, but it ought to have done: these things, even on the stage, ought to be explained)—Adèle, we repeat, had made the acquaintance of two disreputable women named Madame Laferrier and Sophie Marini. At the raising of the curtain, Adèle is chatting with her sister; of what? Of a subject young wives and girls are eternally talking about—Love. Clarisse loves a fascinating young man named Valdeja, who holds a position of attaché to the Embassy at Saint Petersburg, far away from her. There is but one disquieting element in that love—the character of the recipient is inclined to melancholy.
Meanwhile, M. Darcey arrives. At the first words he pronounces, one can recognise that he is an excellent man, half father, half husband; his wife, whom he adores, will have the sunny side of life; only the feathers, silks and velvets of married life if she will but obey his orders, or rather, accede to her husband's wishes, which are very simple and reasonable. He wishes her to cease from seeing two persons who are of more than equivocal antecedents, whose conduct and ways are not consistent with the behaviour of a respectable woman, or with the duties of the mother of a family. Adèle promises in a fashion which means that she will break her promise. Her husband goes out, called away from home on business which will detain him half the day; Clarisse goes to attend to household matters, and Madame Darcey stays alone. Hardly is she left thus before she is told that Madame Laferrier, Sophie Marini and M. Achille Grosbois have come. Her first impulse is to recall the promise she has made to her husband; the second, to put it on one side. Enter these ladies and M. Achille.
We can imagine the turn the conversation takes, particularly when, on seeing Adèle's troubled looks as she welcomes her friends, they discover something fresh has happened in the household and that Darcey has forbidden his wife to receive Sophie and Amélie. Such a prohibition, which should make two women who possess merely the faintest feelings of pride fly for very shame, only incites our two hussies: they do not merely content themselves with paying an ordinary call at the château; they invite themselves to dinner. Furthermore, as though they had expected the affront that had been offered them, they prepare their revenge: M. Rodolphe is to come.
"Qu'est-ce que M. Rodolphe? demande Adèle.
—Un jeune homme charmant!
—Qu'est-ce qu'il est?
—Il va à Tortoni.
—J'entends bien ... Mais qu'est-ce qu'il fait?
—Il déjeune le matin chez Tortoni, et le soir, vous le trouvez, en gants jaunes, au balcon de tous les théâtres. Du resté, il est garçon, possède vingt-mille livres de rente, et est adorateur d'Adèle.
—De moi?
—Il te poursuit partout sans pouvoir t' atteindre, et, en désespoir de cause, nous adore, Sophie et moi, parce que nous sommes tes meilleures amies!"
And, upon this somewhat vague intelligence, that Rodolphe breakfasts at Tortoni's and is at night in the stalls at the theatres wearing yellow gloves, Adèle receives M. Rodolphe and invites him to dinner with her friends and M. Achille Grosbois. At this juncture, Clarisse runs in joyously: she tells her sister that a coupé, drawn by two horses with the most beautiful coats and a coachman in elegant livery, sent as a gift from M. Darcey, are just coming into the château courtyard.
"Comment! Ju n'avais pas encore de coupé? dit une des visiteuses.
—Il y a trois ans que mon mari m'en a donné un! dit l'autre."
And the effect M. Darcey intended to produce by his driver and carriage and pair is completely lost. But, as Adèle's father arrives in this fine equipage, however little enthusiasm Madame Darcey puts into her appreciation of a present she has looked forward to for so long, she is obliged to leave her dear friends, not to see the carriage, coachman and horses, but to welcome M. Évrard. Amélie follows her, for fear, no doubt, that the paternal embraces may awaken some proper feeling in her friend's heart. Sophie, M. Achille, M. Rodolphe and Clarisse remain together. Conversation is difficult between a virtuous young girl and such creatures; but wait, Sophie means to keep up the conversation. She thanks Clarisse for a little sum the latter has given her. Sophie Marini had undertaken to collect money as a charitable lady, and fulfils, by so doing, a pious duty. For what had this person been collecting? Oh, that is a perfectly simple matter: for a young girl who has been deserted by a shameful seducer.
"Oh! voilà qui est horrible! s'écrie Rodolphe,—étendu sur une chaise.
—Je ne vous nommerai pas le séducteur, quoique je le connaisse, reprend Sophie; ce serait inutile: il n'est plus en France, il est très-loin, à l'étranger ... en Russie.
—En Russie! répète Clarisse vivement,—sans s'apercevoir que, devant elle, jeune fille et demi-maîtresse de maison, il y a un monsieur qui reste étendu sur une chaise.
—Oui, en Russie, où il occupe une fort belle place! Et, certainement, ce Valdeja aurait bien pu ...
—Valdeja! s'écrie Clarisse."
Well! the poison is shed, the poor child is wounded to the heart! Adèle re-enters. She thinks she will have a meal prepared in the pavilion in the park. The whole company then go out to luncheon. Some minutes later, M. Darcey returns, and he learns that the best wines from his cellar, and the finest fruits from his garden are being served to entertain M. Achille and M. Rodolphe, whom he does not know at all, and Mesdames Sophie Marini and Amélie Laferrier, whom he knows but too well. He asks himself if it is possible his wife can so soon have forgotten the promise she made him, when Amélie, Sophie and Achille appear on the scenes and proceed to talk freely without perceiving the master of the house.
"AMELIE.
Nous voici revenus au point d'où nous étions partis.. Il est charmant, ce parc; mais c'est un véritable labyrinthe.
SOPHIE.
Heureusement, nous n'y avons pas rencontré le Minotaure!
ACHILLE.
Il est à Paris.
DARCEY, qui s'est tenu a l'écart, s'avance près d'Amélie.
Non, monsieur!
Exclamation générale.
ACHILLE.
Ma foi! monsieur, qui se serait douté que vous étiez là à m'écouter? Rien de plus dès obligeant que d'être écouté! Vous excuserez la plaisanterie, j'espère?
DARCEY.
Monsieur ...
ACHILLE.
L'air de la campagne pousse singulièrement aux bons mots, et, sans examiner s'ils sont exacts, la langue s'en débarrasse.
DARCEY.
Je comprends cela â merveille; mais j'ai un grand travers d'esprit: je n'aime pas les fats.
ACHILLE.
Ah! vous n'aimez pas!...
DARCEY.
Ah! vous n'aimez pas!...
DARCEY.
Non, je ne les amie pas; et, quand ils s'introduisent chez moi (regardant les deux dames), dans quelque compagnie qu'ils se trouvent, je les chasse sans balancer.
ACHILLE, sur les épines.
Fort-bien, fort-bien!—Je disais tout à l'heure.
DARCEY, élevant la voix.
Monsieur, vous m'avez compris ...
SOPHIE, à Amélie.
Il n'y a pas moyen d'y tenir: sortons, ma chère! Elle sort en donnant la main à Achille.
DARCEY.
Je serais désolé de vous retenir.
AMELIE.
Monsieur, un pareil outrage.
DARCEY.
Madame Laferrier me permettra-t-elle de la reconduire jusqu'à sa voiture?"
And whilst Darcey turns his back, the following scene takes place between Adèle and Rodolphe.
"RODOLPHE, un bouquet à la main.
Eh bien, où sont dont ces dames?
ADÈLE.
Dieu! M. Rodolphe, parlez! éloignez-vous!
RODOLPHE.
Et pourquoi donc?
ADÈLE.
Mon mari est de retour.
RODOLPHE.
Eh! que m'importe?
ADÈLE.
Il vient de nous faire une scène affreuse.
RODOLPHE, gaiement.
C'est comme cela que je les amie, les maris!
ADÈLE.
Mais, pour moi, monsieur; pour moi, de grâce, parlez!
RODOLPHE.
Pour vous, c'est différent, il s'y a rien que je ne fasse. Mais mon respect, ma soumission me priveront ils de votre présence? Dois-je désormais renoncer à ce bonheur?
ADÈLE.
Il le faut. Je ne puis plus vous voir.
RODOLPHE.
Chez vous, je le comprends; mais dans le monde. Chez vous, amies?...
ADÈLE, avec crainte.
Monsieur, vous me faites mourir!
RODOLPHE.
Un mot de consentement, un seul mot, et je pars; sinon, je reste.
ADÈLE.
Parlez, parlez, je vous en supplie!
RODOLPHE, lui baisant la main.
Ah! que je vous remercie!"
He escapes by the bottom of the garden; then Darcey returns.
"DARCEY.
Leur voiture est sur la route de Paris.... Maintenant, madame, voulez-vous que nous passions au salon?
ADÈLE.
Monsieur, est ce la le commencement du rôle de mari?
DARCEY.
Oui, madame.
ADÈLE, sortant. Alors, malheur à celui qui ose s'en charger!
DARCEY, la suivant des yeux, et sortant après elle.
Malheur à toi, si tu écoutes d'autres conseils que ceux de la raison!"
In the second act, Adèle is the mistress of Rodolphe. Thus, the wife has not even the excuse of seduction; she has not been overcome, given in through weakness, hesitated; she yielded as Sophie Marini or Amélie Laferrier would; then the interest grows. A wife is lost, but without any efforts to save herself!
Valdeja has arrived from Russia; he is gloomier, more bitter, more averse to women than ever. A young girl who loved him, whom he was counting upon marrying, who was almost his betrothed, has written to him through her father that she does not love him, and could not love him. Hence, Valdeja's sadness, his vow to be avenged on other women for the sufferings this one has caused him. Darcey does not know who the young girl is: an extraordinary thing, considering the degree of intimacy between himself and Valdeja, and that that young girl is his sister-in-law. But to proceed!...
Adèle enters. She exercises that insincere tenderness towards her husband, that assiduity which is affected by deceitful women. At the first words, Valdeja is not taken in by it. Adèle tells her husband that she has just learnt that her father is ill; she therefore proposes to go and see him, but she will return to dinner.
"Vraiment! Il est neuf heures du matin, dit Darcey, et à six heures tu seras rentrée?
—A moins qu'on ne me retienne; ce pauvre père si bon!
—Il me semble qu'en envoyant Créponne ou Baptiste s'informer de sa santé ...
—Oh! ce serait d'une indifférence ... Et puis, Clarisse, ma jeune sœur, m'a écrit: elle désire me voir, sans doute au sujet du mariage dont il est question pour elle, tu sais?
—Ah! mademoiselle votre sœur va se marier!"
Here we see Valdeja informed that Clarisse is going to be married, as she has been told that Valdeja had been unfaithful to her. After this, Adèle insists so much on her father's illness, and on the fact that the letter from her sister Clarisse is very urgent, that her husband gives her complete liberty to go where she wished. The eagerness with which she takes advantage of this liberty rouses Valdeja's suspicions, and under pretext of having to make various visits, a letter from a Russian prince to be handed to a M. Laferrier, and so on, he goes out at a venture to follow Madame Darcey, when they announce the arrival of Clarisse.
"Alors, répond Darcey, dites à Adèle que sa sœur est là.
—Madame est sortie.
—C'est étonnant! Je n'ai pas entendu sa voiture, et il y a trop loin pour qu'elle aille à pied.
—Madame avait envoyé Baptiste à la place voisine pour faire avancer un fiacre.
—Un fiacre? C'est singulier! dit Darcey."
Clarisse comes in; her father has nothing whatever the matter with him! but his credit is on the point of being destroyed by bankruptcy. He needs a hundred thousand crowns to save him. Valdeja offers them. But Darcey will not allow a stranger to pay the debts of his family: he puts the hundred thousand crowns at the disposition of Clarisse's father.
Let us pass on to the following scene and we shall see if Adèle d'Hervey—poor Adèle, against whom there has been this outcry because she was a respectable woman!—is not a model of virtue (rosière[1]) compared to Adèle Darcey. Note, particularly, that our confrère Scribe, author of Dix ans de la vie d'une femme and of Héloise et Abeilard, is one of the warmest partizans for a dramatic censorship. Consult the archives of the State Commission oh this point. Further, we will try ourselves to procure these archives, and there will be found stated our three opinions: Eugène Scribe's, Victor Hugo's and that of Alexandre Dumas—a matter not without a certain amount of interest to all who are connected with literature.
Let us return to our drama. The stage represents an elegant boudoir in the house of Madame Laferrier. Adèle is there, waiting for Rodolphe. You will admit that I was not so far wrong in calling Madame Laferrier a disreputable woman. There is, I think, another name to designate women who lend their boudoirs to friends when the latter tell their husbands that their fathers are dying in order to obtain liberty to go and meet their lovers. But set your mind at rest. Adèle and Rodolphe only come there to quarrel. True, the quarrel is sufficiently disgraceful in itself.
"Qu'avez-vous à me reprocher, madame?
—Votre oubli de toutes les convenances. Avant hier, par exemple, quand vous me donniez le bras, oser saluer sur le boulevard mademoiselle Anastasie, une figurante de l'Opéra!
—Du chapeau seulement, sans mains, sans grace, comme on salue tout le monde.
—Je l'avais une vue déjà une fois sortir de chez vous.
—C'est ma locataire. J'amie les arts, moi ...
—Je vous prie de me rendre mes lettres et mon portrait.
—Dès demain, mon valet de chambre Sylvestre vous portera vos lettres, et, quant à votre portrait, a médaillon que j'avais fait faire, qui ne me quittait jamais, le voici, madame.
—C'est bien! le voilà donc revenu dans mes mains. (L'ouvrant pour le regarder.) Dieu! que vois-je? et quelle indignité! Le portrait de mademoiselle Anastasie!
—Est-il possible? C'est délicieux! Je me serai trompé en le prenant ce matin. (Textuel)."
Rodolphe goes out kissing Adèle's hand, calling her cruel, and promising never to forget her kindnesses.
"Ce pauvre Rodolphe! un charmant cavalier! dit Amélie, qui était présente à l'entretien."
One would have thought after the impertinences M. Rodolphe had been permitted to commit, Amélie would scarcely recall ce charmant cavalier to Adèle's memory. Perhaps, though, this might have happened, if the name of Valdeja had not been pronounced. This incident gives another turn to the conversation.
"Valdeja!" exclaims Amélie; "Sophie Marini's deadly enemy?"
"Lui-même ... Sais-tu ce que Sophie Marini a contre lui?
—Elle ne me l'a jamais confié; mais on prétend qu'autrefois elle l'a amie. Puis; il a découvert qu'il avait des rivaux, et il s'est vengé d'une maniéré indigne.
—Comment cela?
—En la faisant trouver à un dîner où il avait invité tous ceux qu'elle avait préférées. On ne dit pas combien il y avait de couverts. (Textuel.)"
At this point, Créponne, Adèle's maid, comes on the scene. She has been hunting for her mistress for six hours past: at Rodolphe's and at Madame Marini's house. Clarisse coming to the house has revealed all: her father is not ill, and she never wrote! What is to be done? Fortunately, Amélie is there.
"Y a-t-il longtemps que vous n'êtes allés, toi et ton mari, chez madame de Longpré, dont tu me parles souvent?
—Quinze jours environ.
—Assieds-toi là, et écris.
—Que veux-tu que je lui écrive?
—Assieds-toi toujours. (Dictant.) 'Si, avant de m'avoir vue, le hasard vous mettait en rapport avec mon père ou mon mari, n'oubliez pas que je suis arrivée aujourd'hui chez vous dans un état affreux; que j'y suis restée longtemps, et que je'en suis repartie en fiacre. Je vous envoie mon chapeau et mon mouchoir. Vous me les renverrez demain par votre femme de chambre.' Date et signe. Commences—tu à comprendre?
—Oui, mon bon ange!"
—En arrivant chez toi, tu te trouveras mal, et je réponds du reste.
—Dieu! que c'est simple et bien! (Textuel.)"
At this moment a servant announces that a gentleman is asking to see madame.
"Il prend bien son temps, répond Amélie; qu'il s'en aille!
—Il prétend qu'il n'est que pour un jour à Paris, et qu'il apporte à madame des lettres et des nouvelles du prince Krimikoff.
—Ce pauvre prince! il pense encore à moi!—
—Dis au monsieur d'attendre là dans la pièce qui touche à ce boudoir; dans un instant, je suis à lui, je le recevrai."
Why in the room adjoining that boudoir we ask? Why, of course, so that the gentleman can hear what is going to be said; there is no deeper motive behind it than that! See for yourself, however: when the servant has gone out, the dialogue continues between Adèle and Amélie.
"Une chose m'inquiète, maintenant: ce sont ces lettres et ce portrait que Rodolphe a entre les mains.
—C'est ta faute; je t'ai dit vingt fois de ne pas écrire. Tu veux toujours faire à ta tête!
—Il n'en a que trois, et il m'a bien promis devant toi de me les renvoyer demain par son valet de chambre.
—Espérons-le! Allons, va-t'en vite!
—De ce côté?
—Oh! non, tu serais vue par cet étranger.
—Eh! mais j'y pense, maintenant, nous sommes là a parler tout haut, et l'on entend de ton petit salon tout ce qui se dit ici.
—Qu' importe! cet étranger ne sait peut-être pas le français."
Adèle is satisfied with the suggestion that a Russian does not understand French, the current language of Russia; she does not reflect that a Russian who cannot talk French would not ask to speak with Amélie, who is not supposed to be a woman who knows Russian. Valdeja enters behind the two women, brought in by a servant.
"Je n'étais pas si mal où j'étais! se dit Valdeja, et, dès qu'à travers cette légère cloison j'ai eu reconnu la voix de madame Darcey, j'eusse mérité de ne plus rien entendre de ma vie, si j'eusse perdu un mot de leur conversation!"
What does Valdeja think of doing now? That is quite simple: to carry off Adèle's handkerchief and letter. Unfortunately, Amélie, when taking her friend home, has carried them away with her. But, do not be uneasy, when she returns she will bring them back, and this will give occasion to a curious scene, as you are about to hear.
Valdeja, who speaks French perfectly, although a foreigner, for he is a Spaniard, has been charged by Prince Krimikoff with a letter for M. Laferrier. This letter begins the affair. So they chat about Prince Krimikoff.
"Dans quel état l'avez-vous trouvé? demande Amélie.
—Fort triste et fort maussade.
—Changé à ce point! Je l'ai vu ici, il y a six ans: il était charmant.
—Je sais cela. Il m'a dit que vous l'aviez trouvé charmant.
—Il vous l'a dit?
—Chut!... Parce que je sais vos heures intimes avec lui, ce n'est pas une raison pour les publier.
—Monsieur! M. Krimikoff est un fat ... Je nie positivement.
—A quoi bon? Parce qu'on arrive du fond de la Russie, nous croyez-vous en dehors de la civilisation? Là-bas, comme ici, la vie bien entendue n'est qu'un joyeux festin; et de quel droit. M. Krimikoff se réserverait il le privilège d'une ivresse exclusive?
—Eh! mais, monsieur, permettez-moi de vous dire que voilà d'affreux principes."
At the same time, as the author is careful to state, Amélie utters these words smiling. Valdeja continues:
"Affreux à avouer, doux à mettre en pratique.
—Monsieur!
—Ne le niez pas, je sais tout ... Car cette lettre que j'ai là, cette lettre n'est pas pour votre mari, comme j'ai dit: elle est pour vous."
It is, indeed, unfortunate that it is for Madame Laferrier and not for M. Laferrier; for, although they talk much about it, the spectators do not see M. Laferrier at all. It would certainly be interesting to see the husband who would adapt himself to such a wife! Listen carefully and follow the turn the conversation is going to take.
"Mais, continue Valdeja, à votre seul aspect, je me suis repenti de m'en être chargé ... Il me semblait cruel de vous apporter, de la part d'un autre, des hommages que j'étais tenté de vous rendre, et de vous voir lire devant moi ce que je n'osais vous dire.
—Un rival?... Permettez! Je ne vous cacherai pas que les brilliantes qualités de M. Krimikoff, m'avaient frappée; cependant, sans le piège qu'il m'a tendu, je serais, je l'atteste, restée irréprochable."
What, then, is the snare Prince Krimikoff has laid for Madame Laferrier? The author does not say. But it must be the same order of snare which Valdeja sets for her. Poor Amélie! Let us admit that she has naturally a great talent for allowing herself to be caught in a trap.
"Irréprochable! s'écrie Valdeja avec chaleur.
—Eh! bon Dieu! de quel mot vous servez-vous la? Qu'est-ce que c'est que vertueuse? (Riant.) Ah!
—Ah! sur mon âme, voilà d'étroites idées, d'anciennes façons bien pauvres, et je croyais la France moins arriérée. Vous arrêter un instant à de pareilles distinctions?
—Ah! madame, j'avais d'abord conçu une meilleure idée de vous!"
You may imagine Amélie's joy at the thought of the good opinion the noble stranger has conceived of her. Valdeja goes on, raising his tones:
"Quand on adopte un régime, il faut tâcher qu'il soit bon. Je ne connais qu'un enseignement respectable, c'est celui de nos passions. La nature y est pour tout, la société pour rien. Plaisir, ivresse, déüre, voilà des mots auxquels nos cœurs répondent.... Vous le savez, vous qui ne pouvez, même en ce moment, contenu vos pensées qui s'allument (il lui prend la main,) vous dont le pouls s'active, dont l'œil s'enflamme et rit là en silence de tous ces aphorismes de vertu.
—Monsieur, Monsieur ...
—A quoi bon ces vains scruples? Je vous comprends, je vous suis, je vous devance peut-être.
—Parlons d'autre chose, je vous prie.
—Voyez, votre mémoire vous domine, vos souvenirs sont dans votre sang; vous vous rappelez tout ce que vaut, dans la vie, un moment d'illusion.
—Laissez-moi!
—Ce que peut un bras qui serre ...
—Laissez-moi!
—Un souffle, qui renverse!
—Oh! grâce! grâce!"
You see very clearly that instead of stopping, Valdeja continues:
"Venez! dit il en prenant Amélie par la taille.
—Écoutez! (On entend le bruit d'une voiture.) C'est mon mari! Voilà sa voiture qui rentre."
Ah! so we are to see this worthy M. Laferrier after all! The noise of the carriage, which would have disturbed anybody else, helps Valdeja, on the contrary, to wind up the scene, which we should agree was becoming difficult between people who have only just met for the first time, one of whom hates and despises the other.
"Vous quitter ainsi, s'écrie Valdeja, sans un gage, sans un souvenir? (Apercevat le mouchoir resté sur la table.) Ah! Ce mouchoir, qui est le votre ...
—Monsieur ...
—Là, là, sur mon cœur; il y restera comme votre image!
—Monsieur, rendez-moi mon mouchoir.
—Jamais! Adieu, adieu, madame!"
And, in spite of Amélie's cries of "My handkerchief, my handkerchief!" Valdeja goes out, forgetting to take leave at his departure. The curtain falls. Let us now see what happens in the third act.
In the first scene of the third act, we are at Valdeja's rooms in a furnished house. He is alone, seated at a table, holding in his hand the handkerchief which he has taken from Madame Laferrier. He waits for his moujik Mourawieff. Mourawieff has been deputed by Valdeja to procure the letters and portrait artfully. Perhaps Valdeja, as a civilised being, ought to have lent assistance to the skill of a moujik only arrived in Paris the previous day, who, consequently, could not be very much up to date in French manners; but he has overlooked this detail, which, as it concerns the reputation of the wife of a friend, deserves, perhaps, that some attention should be paid to the matter.
The consequence is that Mourawieff acts as cunningly as a moujik; he waited for Rodolphe's servant at the door of No. 71 of the rue de Provence, where the frequenter of the café Tortoni stays; he makes sure that the servant is the bearer of the letters and portrait; and, in wrestling terms, he trips him up. Sylvestre falls, loosing letters and portrait. Mourawieff takes possession of them and arrives, running. Do not let us complain: Mourawieff's clumsiness is a skilful move on the part of the author and will give us an excellent scene presently. I say presently, because, before it, there is one which we do not consider very happy—from the moral point of view be it understood: we are not concerning ourselves here, be careful to notice, with the literary merits of the drama. No, we will imagine ourselves Academicians—what more can you desire? we are all mortal!—commissioned to make a report on the most moral play acted in 1832 at the boulevard theatres; our confrère Scribe competes for the prize for morality: we examine his play with all the more care as we know he is a fanatical partisan of the censorship, and we make our report.
The unfortunate scene is that where Valdeja opens the packet and reads the letters addressed to M. Rodolphe by his friend's wife. The perusal of them confirms him in the resolution to leave his friend in ignorance of everything; but he takes upon himself to avenge that friend's honour and to fight a duel with Rodolphe. He therefore takes a brace of pistols and a couple of duelling swords and makes himself ready to go in search of Rodolphe at 71 rue de Provence. He meets the man he is looking for on the threshold of his door. Rodolphe has also, like Valdeja, a brace of pistols in his hands and two swords under his arm.
That Valdeja, who probably wishes a duel without witnesses, should take pistols and swords and go armed like a Malbrouk on his way to the war, in search of the man of whom he has to demand the vindication of a friend's honour, is conceivable enough in all conscience. But that Rodolphe, who has none of these motives, instead of sending his seconds as is done between well-bred people, should come himself and go up the stairs with sword under his arm and pistols in hand, instead of leaving all the weapons in his carriage, is altogether senseless. No matter, for, as we have already said, we are not fishing in those waters. The scene containing this improbable incident is original and well drawn; that is sufficient. Bravo! bravo! bravo! But you shall see where it vexes us that our confrère has taken advantage of the absence of the censorship. The two young people agree to fight with pistols. It is Rodolphe who suggests the weapon.
"Le pistolet, soit! répond Valdeja.
—Chacun les nôtres.
—J'y consens.
—Dites-moi donc,—reprend Rodolphe tenant, ainsi que Valdeja, sa boîte à la main,—nous avons l'air de bijoutiers, courant les pratiques.
—Pourquoi non? La mort est un chaland tout comme un autre, et nos âmes sont, dit on, des joyaux divins.
—Vieilles idées sans base et sans soutien!
—Pour l'un des deux, Rodolphe, le doute aura cessé d'exister aujourd'hui.
—Va comme il est dit!"
Both go out. The second scene of the third act brings us into a room in Évrard's house. The whole family is in a state of rejoicing; Darcey's 100,000 francs have saved Évrard from ruin. They bless Darcey. Albert Melville, Clarisse's future husband, takes advantage of this moment of expansiveness to try to obtain from his fiancée a positive statement as to the state of her affections. Clarisse feels that of a sister for him, the tenderness of a friend, but she will never be in love with him. Albert is resigned; enumerating Clarisse's excellent qualities, he thinks he will be happy in his lot. The scene is interrupted by the arrival of Adèle. For a long time she has not been to her father's house, but, invited by him as well as her husband to a little family gathering, she complies with the invitation. Behind her enters M. and Madame Dusseuil, her uncle and aunt. As for M. Darcey, no one knows if he is coming; Adèle has not seen him since the morning. As they are wondering about his coming, the door opens and he enters pale and constrained.
Now begins a scene, dramatic in its simple domesticity. Darcey has found his wife's letters. The author does not tell us how, for these letters cannot have been put in his way for two hours after the departure of Valdeja; which leads us to surmise that, Valdeja not having returned within two hours, he must be dead. Never mind by what means Darcey has discovered the letters; he has them, and that is the chief point, and he comes as before a family tribunal to ask each member what is the punishment a friend of his ought to inflict on a wife who has deceived him.
"Je pardonnerais, mon frère, dit Clarisse, dans l'espoir d'obtenir par le repentir ce qu'un autre sentiment n'aurait pas en assez de force pour faire naître.
—Moi, je la tuerais! dit Albert."
Adèle's father is questioned in his turn.
"ÉVRARD.
Ma foi, je la mènerais à ses parents; je les ferais juges entre elle et moi; je leur dirais: 'La voilà! le mauvais germe a étouffé le bon; il a porté ses fruits; ils sont murs, récoltez-les! et je la leur laisserais.
DARCEY.
Eh bien, c'est vous qui l'avez jugée.
ADÈLE, avec anxiété.
Mais qui donc?...
DARCEY.
Je ne la tuerai pas, je ne la traînerai pas sur les bancs d'un tribunal; mais je vous la rendrai, mon père! Car, cet homme, c'est moi! Cette femme, c'est votre fille!
ADÈLE.
Ce n'est pas vrai!
ÉVRARD.
Adèle vous a trahir?
ADÈLE.
Je ne suis pas coupable! il ne m'aime plus: c'est un prétexte.
DARCEY.
Et Rodolphe, l'avez-vous oublié depuis hier?
ADÈLE.
Qui, Rodolphe?
DARCEY.
Rodolphe, votre amant!
ADÈLE.
Je ne connais pas de Rodolphe!
DARCEY.
Vous ne connaissez pas de Rodolphe?
ADÈLE.
Non.
DARCEY, lui mettant ses lettres sous les yeux.
Lisez donc! lisez! Voilà les pièces du procès; ces lettres, ce sont les siennes. Adieu!
Justice est faite!..."
Nothing further remains for Darcey to do but to be avenged on Rodolphe; but, as one might expect, he has been killed by Valdeja. In the fourth act, we are at Adèle's house: it is modest to the very verge of mediocrity, for Adèle is short of money; she holds a pen in her hand and has paper before her; she is on the point of humbling herself to her husband and asking help from him. She prefers that humiliation to becoming the mistress of an Italian banker named Rialto. Sophie and Amélie enter. You can guess the scene: the pen is flung across the table, the paper upon which the first letters were already traced is torn up; the proposals of Rialto are accepted. The shameful treaty bears the stamp of self-sacrifice. Albert Melville has lost his position in the offices of the Exchequer; Rialto, who is at the head of all the loans, gets him restored to it and Albert Melville marries Clarisse. What is the reason for this anxiety for the welfare of Albert Melville and Clarisse on the part of the three women? Stop a minute! The marriage of these two young people will cause Valdeja to give way to despair. Whereupon, Valdeja comes forward. He comes on behalf of Darcey, whose kindness of heart is touched by the physical sufferings of the woman: as woman, not as his wife. Adèle is nothing to him personally now, only from the point of view of ordinary humanity; she no longer belongs to his family; she is his neighbour merely. Adèle, who has nearly accepted this conjugal charity, refuses it at the instigation of the two women. Valdeja is more cheerful than usual: he smiles in spite of himself at the contretemps which destroys the prospect of the marriage of Albert and Clarisse for ever. But, when promising to yield herself to Rialto, Adèle asks that Albert's post may be given back to him, and, within ten minutes' time, the post is restored to him, the marriage is arranged and the young folk are wedded! It is not very probable that all this could take place in ten minutes; but one knows that actual times does not exist on the stage. When Valdeja learns that it is the hatred of the three women which has just destroyed his last hope, he renews his oath of hatred, which they listen to with laughter. The curtain falls upon that oath. It rises upon a pretty garden with a summer-house on the left.
For three years Adèle is Rialto's mistress, and she lives with him just as though she were his wife. She has all she wants, even to the lover of her heart's desire. This lover's name is M. Hippolyte. Rialto promises to buy her houses, carriages and horses, and she loathes him. M. Hippolyte gives her a simple bouquet and she worships him. See him enter upon the scenes.
"Bonjour! ma chère Adèle!
—Ah! arrivez donc, monsieur! Je m'entretenais de vous.
—Et, moi, je pensais à vous. Vous le voyez, ma chère Adèle, des fleurs, votre image ...."
It is evident that if Hippolyte has made the conquest of Madame Darcey, it is an affair of the heart in which her mind has no part whatever. Besides, Hippolyte is grave to solemnity. He sends Créponne, the chambermaid, away and stays alone with Adèle. It is she who begins the conversation.
"Voyons, qu'est-ce qui pesé si fort sur la gaieté aujourd'hui? demande-t-elle.
—J'ai quelque chose de si important à te dire.
—Quoi donc?
—Ma chère Adèle, depuis trois mois, je suis aimé de toi; depuis six semaines, j'ai formé le projet d'être ton mari, et je viens te t'annoncer.
—Ah! ah! ah! ah! fait Adèle éclatant de rire.
—Qu'y a-t-il donc de si risible?
—Je ris parce que.... Ah! ah! ah! mais c'est une plaisanterie."
This hilarity, sufficiently ill-timed when confronted with so serious a proposal, does not disconcert Hippolyte in the least. He had come of age the previous day and wished to profit by his majority to marry Adèle in hot haste. Rialto is announced.
"C'est votre père? demande ingénument Hippolyte.
—Oui, mon ami; il faut partir à l'instant, par ici, par la porte de ce pavillion.
—Pourquoi donc?
—Il ne faut pas qu'il vous voie, ou tout serait perdu! Éloignez-vous, de grace!
—Du tout! Je veux voir monsieur votre père, moi; j'ai à lui parler."
You guess why Hippolyte wants to speak to Rialto; Hippolyte, who attributes Adèle's immoderate laughter to playfulness of character, wishes to ask Rialto for his daughter's hand in marriage! Rialto laughs as loudly at this demand as Adèle had done. The poor lover might just as well have demanded the hand of the daughter of Democritus. But Hippolyte insists more pertinaciously to Rialto than he has done to Adèle; his tutor, to whom he has boasted of the virtue and beauty of the woman he loves, comes. The joke continues for about ten minutes; and then Rialto, whose laughter has suffered several checks, thinks it is time to put a stop to it. He sends the lover to the right about and takes Adèle by the arm to go a walk with her. You shall see what happens; and one thing you certainly will not have expected!
"HIPPOLYTE, arrêtant Rialto par le bras.
Monsieur, c'est beaucoup plus grave que vous ne pensez!
RIALTO.
C'est possible; mais, si vous êtes malade du cerveau, je ne suis pas médecin.
ADÈLE.
Mon Dieu! laissons là cet entretien.
HIPPOLYTE.
Non, madame; je forcerai bien monsieur votre père à ne pas me refuser.
RIALTO.
C'est ce que nous verrons.
HIPPOLYTE.
Un mot suffira. Et, puis qu'il n'y a pas d'autre moyen, daignez me répondre, monsieur, connaissez-vous l'honneur?
RIALTO.
Eh bien, oui, je le connais. Qu'est-ce que vous en voulez dire?
HIPPOLYTE.
Tenez-vous au vôtre et à celui de votre famille?
RIALTO.
Sans doute que j'y tiens.
HIPPOLYTE.
Arrangez-vous, alors, pour qu'il ne souffre pas des atteintes que je lui ai portées, et tâchez de réparer avec le mari le dommage que l'amant lui a fait.
RIALTO.
L'amant?
ADÈLE.
Ne l'écoutez-pas!
HIPPOLYTE.
L'amant! Depuis trois mois, madame m'appartient!
RIALTO.
Ah! ah! qu'est-ce que vous me dites là?
HIPPOLYTE.
Ce qui est.
ADÈLE.
C'est une horreur!
HIPPOLYTE.
Et si vous avez un cœur de père ...
RIALTO.
Eh! monsieur, je ne suis pas son père!
HIPPOLYTE.
Vous n'êtes pas son père?
RIALTO.
Ni son père, ni son frère, ni son oncle, ni son mari ... Comprenez-vous, maintenant?
HIPPOLYTE, stupéfie.
Ah! ce n'est pas possible!
RIALTO.
Aïe! aïe! belle dame, vous m'en faisiez donc en cachette? Et mes billets de mille fanes comptaient pour deux, à ce qu'il paraît!
ADÈLE.
Il n'en est rien, je vous jure!
RIALTO.
Ah! ah! ah! Et vous, mon brave, vous voulez épouser des femmes qui vivent séparées de leurs maris, et que des protecteurs consolent!..."
We think we ought to spare our readers, especially our feminine ones, the rest of the scene. This may, indeed, be nature, as they say in studio terms; but it is vile nature! Pah! And to think that once in my life I did something nearly like it in a play entitled Le Fils de l'Émigré! But do not be anxious, when I come to that, I will deal with myself severely!
At the fifth act, we find ourselves in a mean room of wretched appearance. Three years have passed since Adèle has been turned out by Rialto and deserted by Hippolyte. Sophie waits for Adèle. The two women recognise one another.
"Ah! c'est toi, Sophie, dit Adèle.
—Tu me reconnais? C'est heureux! Pour moi, je l'avoue j'aurais en quelque peine ...
—Je suis donc bien changée? reprend Adèle.
—Tu as l'air souffrant ...
—Et toi, depuis trois ans que tu as quitté Paris?...
—J'étais allée en Belgique avec mon mari, lorsqu'il est parti pour ce pays-là, sans le dire à ses créanciers, cm les fournisseurs en sont tous là: se ruiner en entreprises, en spéculations, quand il y a tant d'autres moyens!
—Et il ne lui est rien resté?
—Rien, que des dettes; répond Sophie avec amertume. Mais, moi, j'avais encore des espérances: un oncle paralytique, M. de Saint-Brice; qui, veuf et sans enfants, avait une immense fortune, et je suis revenue en France à Paris, où j'ai appris que, par la grâce du ciel, il venait de mourir. Mais, vois l'horreur, il m'a déshéritée!"
It is Valdeja who induced M. de Saint Brice to strike this great blow; so you see that the love for Sophie felt by the ex-attaché to the Embassy at St. Petersburg has not made much progress. We say the ex-attaché, because during the six years he stays in Paris to attend to the affairs of his friend Darcey and those of his pupil Hippolyte, Valdeja must be no longer attached to but detached from the Embassy. During those last three years Adèle has made the acquaintance of M. Léopold, the son of a rich wine merchant, who has taken up his place as his father's successor; but unfortunately this succession has not lasted long.
"Et tu ne l'as pas abandonné? demande Sophie.
Je le voudrais, dit Adèle; je n'ose pas. Il est si violent, il me tuerait!"
Besides, Adèle has discovered secrets which make her tremble: M. Léopold entices extravagant young men and robs them. She has no hope left except in her sister, to whom she has written.
Créponne enters and gives a letter to Adèle; it is from Clarisse, who is always good and charitable and loving! Her husband has forbidden her to see her sister; but, at two o'clock, hidden by a cloak, she will come on foot. Adèle must arrange to be alone. Sophie reads the letter at the same time with Adèle. She sees in it a means of injuring Clarisse and will meditate upon it.
"Adieu, dit elle à madame Darcey. Si j'ai quelque chose de nouveau, je viendrai te revoir.
—Je crains que Léopold ne se fâche, et que cela ne lui déplaise.
—Eh bien! par exemple!
—Pour plus de sûreté, quand tu auras à me parler, ne monte pas par le grand escalier, où l'on pourrait te voir, mais viens par celui-ci, dont voici la clef."
The key is just the thing Sophie wants to carry out her plan. But now that she has the key, the only thing she is in need of is some money with which to buy food.
"Tu n'aurais pas quelque argent à me prêter dit elle?
—J'en ai si peu!
—Et, moi, je n'en ai pas du tout. Je te rendrai cela dès que j'aurai obtenu ce que je sollicite.
—Bientôt?
—Je te le promets.
—A la bonne heure, car sans cela.... Tiens!"
At this moment M. Léopold arrives; he smells the money, pounces upon it and confiscates it, as he says by order of the police. That will give you an idea of monsieur's ways of procedure; but you will see plenty more. He wants money, much money.
Adèle must ask it from her parents.
"Vous savez bien qu'ils sont morts de chagrin, lui dit Adèle.
—Oui, à ce qu'ils disent, répond Léopold."
This is pretty talk, too pretty, indeed. There is still M. Rialto, but Adèle refuses to apply to him. To M. Hippolyte then....
"ADÈLE.
Plutôt mourir que d'avoir recours à lui!
LÉOPOLD, haussant la voix.
Il le faut, cependant; car je veux, et vous ne me connaissez pas, quand on me résiste.
ADÈLE.
Léopold, Léopold, vous m'effrayez!... (a part).
Ah! Dieu! qui m'arrachera de ses mains?
LÉOPOLD.
Là, au secrétaire ... voilà ce qu'il vous faut pour écrire.
Entre Créponne.
CRÉPONNE, has à Adèle.
Une dame, enveloppée d'un manteau, est là dans votre chambre.
ADÈLE, de même.
C'est ma sœur, c'est Clarisse!LÉOPOLD, l'arrêtant par le bras.
Où vas-tu? Tu ne sortiras pas d'ici que tu n'aies écrit.ADÈLE.
O mon Dieu!
LÉOPOLD, la faisant asseoir au secrétaire.
Allons, une lettre à la Sévigné, et pour cela, je vais dicter: 'Cher Hippolyte....
ADÈLE.
Je ne mettrai jamais cela.
LÉOPOLD.
Hippolyte, tout court.
ADÈLE, écrivant.
'Monsieur....'
LÉOPOLD.
A la bonne heure, je n'y tiens pas. (Dictant.) Monsieur, une ancienne amie bien malheureuse ...
CRÉPONNE.
C'est bien vrai!
LÉOPOLD.
Je ne mens jamais ... (Dictant.) Est menacée d'un affreux danger dont vous seul pouvez le sauver.
ADÈLE.
Mais c'est le tromper!
LÉOPOLD.
Qu'en savez-vous? Je ne mens jamais ... (Dictant.) 'Si tout souvenir, si toute humanité n'est pas éteinté dans votre cœur, venez à son secours! Elle vous attendra aujourd'hui rue ...' Mets ton nom et ton adresse. 'Prenez avec vous de l'or, beaucoup d'or. Vous saurez pourquoi.'
ADÈLE, indignée.
Je n'écrirai jamais cela.
LÉOPOLD, dictant d'un ton impératif.
'Vous saurez pourquoi, et j'ose croire que vous m'en remercierez.' (Lui prenant les mains.)
Allons! écris, je le veux!
ADÈLE.
Mais que prétendez-vous donc faire? le forcer à jouer, le dépouiller?
LÉOPOLD.
Cela me regarde ... Signe!"
Adèle signs and Léopold goes out. But Adèle quickly orders Créponne to run to Hippolyte, to warn him of the snare that is being laid for him. Adèle then goes to her sister. Créponne stays alone talking to herself while putting on her shawl. Whilst addressing herself to this twofold occupation, the door of the little staircase opens slowly, and Albert appears, shrouded in a cloak.
"Encore un qui arrive, dit la femme de chambre. Il en sort donc ici de tous côtés?"
You perhaps suppose that Créponne, who is not tongue-tied, will go up to the newcomer and ask him who he can be to have possession of his mistress's house key? But no, she quietly moves off to the opposite side. Ah! confrère, though you are very clever and ingenious, I would verily rather have committed what they call in theatrical language un loup. True, had Créponne spoken to the man wrapped in a cloak, she would have recognised Albert, whom she would have told that his wife was there and that would have been the end of scene one of the fifth act.
You understand, dear reader? Sophie had sent the key Adèle gave her to Albert, and, when doing so, took good care, of course, to tell Melville that his wife had arranged a meeting with Valdeja; then she writes to Valdeja, in Clarisse's name, to tell him he will find her ... where? I have no notion, for the author of the play does not give the address of the house. It is a needless precaution, and makes no difference, be assured!
Albert, who wishes to hear all, hides in a cupboard. Whilst he is hiding, Valdeja enters! You can guess the situation. Valdeja and Clarisse meet; great is their astonishment, especially on the part of Clarisse; but, finally, they explain matters. The sole thing that Clarisse sees in it all is that she is incurring a real danger.
"Ah! mon Dieu! s'écrie-t-elle, je suis perdue, déshonorée! Qui pourrait me secourir, me protéger?
—Moi, Clarisse! dit Albert sortant du cabinet."
Albert and Valdeja exchange friendly greetings; they have learned to esteem one another. Valdeja goes away by a door at the back. Albert gives money to Adèle; Clarisse gives her a gold chain, then Albert and Clarisse go out by the little staircase. Scarcely have they disappeared before a noise is heard outside, then a pistol shot and cries of "Help! murder!" Adèle rushes terrified towards the stairs, and the curtain falls without any further explanation; but those who are anxious to guess without being told suspect that Léopold has taken Albert for Hippolyte and fired on him. The second part of the fifth act shows Adèle on a pallet-bed, ill and coughing and at death's door. Having spent her last crowns in a lottery, she has nothing to fall back upon but a gold chain which she has given to Sophie to sell. She would fain have chosen a more reliable agency, for she begins to mistrust her former friend; but it is necessary that it should be Sophie who sells the chain. You shall see why.
"Ma chère, cela va mal! dit Sophie en rentrant. Tu sais, cette chaîne que tu tenais de ta sur?
—Eh bien?
—J'ai été pour la vendre chez le bijoutier notre voisin, un vieux qui l'a regardée attentivement; puis il m'a dit: 'De qui tenez-vous cette chaîne?—D'une dame de mes amies.—Qui est elle —Que vous importe?—C'est que, a-t-il ajouté en feuilletant un registre, cette chaîne, à ce qu'il me semble, est au nombre des objets qui, lors de l'affaire Léopold, nous ont été signalés par la police.'"
How can the chain have been marked by the police when Adèle had received it from her sister before the assassination? Then Sophie lost her head; and with good reason, too! When she sees how clever the police are she runs away; the jeweller calls his assistants and they follow her; they know she is there.
"Mais on ignore qui tu es?
—Peut-être, car j'ai rencontré, en montant, la propriétaire.
—Je ne la connais pas.
—En bien, sais-tu quelle est cette femme? Notre ancienne amie!
—Amélie Laferrier?
—Elle-même!"
What a pity it was not her husband! We shall, perhaps, see him. But he is not there, you may be sure, and I have a great longing to be presented to him. At this moment there is a knock at the door. It is a Sister of Charity. Adèle has written to the mayor, under the name of Madame Laurencin; she has depicted her misery in pitiable terms; the Sister of Mercy has been told and comes. Guess who that Sister of Charity is? It is Clarisse! Clarisse, who finds her sister weak, broken down, dying! Clarisse is in mourning, for Albert is dead. When Adèle recognises Clarisse, she faints away. Whilst Clarisse is bringing her back to consciousness with salts, the magistrates enter, brought by Amélie Laferrier. Naturally the meeting lacks effusion. The magistrates have come to arrest Madame Laurencin; but, as they must do this legally, they have sent to fetch the mayor. He arrives, and is Darcey, Amélie's husband, having become mayor of his arrondissement, thanks to conduct diametrically opposite to that of his wife! He is followed by his faithful Valdeja. The author does not tell us if Valdeja has been appointed deputy mayor under Darcey; it is likely, for, without this, how would he be there?
"Quelle est cette femme que l'on parle d'arrêter? demande Darcey.
—C'est la vôtre, monsieur! votre pauvre femme!
—Ma femme! répond Darcey, qui repousse le mot avec indignation."
It is a rude shock for Adèle: knowing herself to be dying, she raises herself up and asks her husband's forgiveness.
"Jamais! répond Darcey."
Adèle utters a cry and falls into an armchair.
"DARCEY, se laissant entraîner, dit à Valdeja, qui le pousse vers Adèle.
Tu le veux? Eh bien ... (En ce moment, Adèle rend le dernier soupir.) Dieu! il n'est plus temps!
VALDEJA.
Elle expire! (À Amélie et à Sophie.) Femmes, prenez ce cadavre! prenez-le donc, il est à vous ... Vos œuvres méritaient un salaire: le voilà! Honte à vous et à toutes vos semblables! (À Darcey) À toi la liberté!
DARCEY, lui montrant Clarisse.
Et à toi, je l'espère, bientôt le bonheur!"
These two last touches are a trifle harsh, it seems to us, before the body of Adèle and Clarisse's mourning garb; so harsh that, were we members of the Academy and deputed to award the prize for morality, it would be a ground for withholding the prize from the drama Dix ans de la vie d'une femme.
[1] TRANSLATOR'S NOTE, Rosière.—A young girl who in village life is awarded the prize of a rose for virtue.
[CHAPTER III]
Doligny manager of the theatre in Italy—Saint-Germain bitten by the tarantula—How they could have livened up Versailles if Louis-Philippe had wished it—The censorship of the Grand-Duke of Tuscany—The bindings of printer Batelli—Richard Darlington, Angèle, Antony and La Tour de Nesle performed under the name of Eugène Scribe
The curious discussion to which we have referred[1] proves, among other things, that the author of Dix ans de la vie d'une femme, the drama to which Mercier or Rétif de la Bretonne hardly dared subscribe their names, holds two very distinct opinions, which he does not reckon upon reconciling: one as legislator, and one as poet, since he asked the State Commission to suppress the small immoral theatres, and applied for a censorship which should be a salutary check to restrain talent from the excesses of all kinds to which it is too commonly given. The fact is that, had there been a censorship in 1832, my confrère Scribe's talent, which I appreciate more than any one, restrained by a salutary check, would never have given to timorous souls the spectacle of a play which has remained, not as the model, but as the most advanced specimen, of dramatic eccentricity. It was M. Scribe, who, in the following sentence which he pronounced before the State Council, suggested to me the word I wanted—"There is not much money made by really literary plays; success is often achieved better by eccentricities and attacks against morality and the government." Furthermore, my illustrious confrère possesses a fine reputation as a man of moral character, not only in France but still more abroad; and I am going to relate an anecdote on this subject, which has its amusing side.
I lived for two years in Florence before a single theatrical manager thought of playing anything of mine; because I was an immoral man, no play, whether in the original or translated, could be performed in any one of the theatres of the City of Flowers. One fine morning, when I was still in bed, I heard a voice I knew in my sitting-room, and the sound of a friend's name. The voice and the name were those of Doligny. You remember that I spoke about Doligny in connection with the Tompson of Richard Darlington, and that I paid full justice to the remarkable manner in which he had acted the part. Very well, it was Doligny, who, actor and manager, came with a French company to seek his fortune in Italy. Everywhere else fortune has three forelocks: in Italy it has only one; everywhere else, it turns on a single wheel: in Italy, it turns on two. Which is to say that, in Italy, more than anywhere else, fortune is for everybody, and particularly for the managers of literary enterprises, an Atlanta difficult to overtake and to seize by the hair. Doligny, then, went from Turin to Milan, from Milan to Rome, from Rome to Naples, from Naples to Venice, from Venice to Bologna, in the hope of overtaking fortune. He had not yet succeeded. Finally, he thought he saw a vision of gold in the direction of Florence. He smote his forehead and said to himself: Why have I not thought of that before? What he had not thought of was my presence at Florence. I carry about with me—where it comes from I have no idea; but there it is, indeed—I carry about an atmosphere of life and excitement which has become proverbial. I lived three years at Saint-Germain; well, the inhabitants themselves, respectable subjects of the Sleeping Beauty, did not know themselves any longer. I communicated to the town a spirit of energy which they took at first for a sort of epidemic, a contagious fever, like that produced by the bite of the Neapolitan spider. I bought the theatre, and the best actors of Paris, coming to supper with me, played from time to time, before sitting down to table to give themselves an appetite, either Hamlet or Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle, or Les Demoiselles de Saint Cyr, for the benefit of the poor. Ravelet had not horses enough, Collinet had not rooms enough, and the railway admitted to me, once, an increase of 20,000 francs takings per annum since I lived at Saint-Germain. It is true that, at the time of the elections, Saint-Germain considered me too immoral to have the honour of being its representative. Saint-Germain had then waked up, or nearly so. It had its forest for horse exercise, went to the theatre and set up on my terrace fireworks which they sent for from Paris, to the great astonishment of Versailles, which, from time to time, rose out of its tomb and looked with vacant eyes over the hills of Louveciennes, and said in dying tones: "What is Saint-Germain doing to make such a commotion as this? Look at me, do I move? Good heavens! When one is dead, it is not a time for having fireworks, going to the play or riding on horseback! Look at me, I sleep like an Academician, and I even push respect for conventions to the point of never snoring!"
Versailles lay down again in its gilded sepulchre, where, as it said, it never even snored. One day the king was annoyed by the noise which came from the direction of Saint-Germain, so much so that he took heed not to hear the faintest breath of wind coming from Versailles. He sent for M. de Montalivet, although he had no love for intellectual people. Montalivet and Vatout were the two exceptions at the court.
"My dear Count," said Louis-Philippe, "do you know what has happened?"
"What, sire?"
"We have succeeded in waking up Saint-Germain (they had made the king think he had brought about this miracle himself); we will manage to galvanise Versailles into life, with the picture gallery and fountains, on each first Sunday in the month!"
"Sire," replied Montalivet, "would you like Versailles instead of being as gloomy as death to be merry even to the point of foolishness!"
"My dear Count," replied the king, "I will not conceal from you that it would give me the greatest pleasure."
"Very well, Sire, Dumas has a fortnight's durance as National Guardsman: command that he spend it here at Versailles."
The king turned his back on M. de Montalivet and did not speak a word to him for a month after. What came of it? Versailles became more and more gloomy, and, after passing from melancholy to darkness, passed from darkness to funereal depths.
As to Saint-Germain, I do not know what became of it; but I have been assured that, since my departure, it has been seized with the spleen and simply shakes with agony. Now it was the knowledge of this vivifying quality which attracted Doligny to Florence. He said to himself: As Dumas is in Tuscany, Tuscany must have again become the department of the Arno, and we shall laugh and earn money. Doligny was mistaken: people laugh all over Italy; but they do not laugh at all in Tuscany. As to earning money there, I only knew the Comte de Larderette who made a fortune there; but his speculation had nothing literary about it.... I listened to Doligny's exposition of plans with a growing melancholy which could not fail to have discouraged him.
"Well," he asked me, "am I mistaken?"
"In what?"
"Do you not go to the court?"
"As little as I can; but I do go."
"Do you not go into society?"
"As little as possible; but, of course, I do see something of it."
"Have you no friends?"
"As few as possible; I have some."
"Do you think my actors are poor ones?"
"I do not know them."
"Do you not think the performance of your plays will pique people's curiosity?"
"Yes, indeed."
"Do you not believe, in short, that, thanks to all this, I can make money?"
"I believe you can; but...."
"But what?"
"You must do it with other plays than mine."
"Why so?"
"Because they will not allow you to play them."
"They will refuse to let me perform your plays?"
"Yes."
"What reason will they give for their refusal?"
"They won't give any."
"All the same, my dear friend, there must be some reason at the bottom."
"No doubt."
"Tell me what it is."
"My friend, you are asking me to make a painful confession."
"Tell me what it is."
"I do not know how to tell you a thing that I am ashamed to confess even to myself."
"Remember that my fortune depends on it!"
"My friend, I am an immoral author."
"Bah!"
"Yes."
"Who said so?"
"Le Constitutionnel; so the thing has spread abroad from the east to the west, from the south to the north." "You fill me with dismay!"
"What else can I do!..."
"Still, I am going to send them your plays."
"Send them, but it will be useless."
"But surely when they have read them...."
"Yes, but they won't read them."
"Yet they will refuse?"
"For the sake of appearances."
"Well, I wish to have a clear conscience in the matter." "Have a clear conscience, my dear fellow; it will only cost you your expenses for hiring, if you have already hired the theatre."
"Why of course I have hired it."
"The deuce! Send the plays then."
"This very day."
"Go! only let me know of the refusal directly you receive it."
"What's the good?"
"Who knows? Perhaps I may then have some fresh idea."
"Why have you not one now?"
"Ah! my dear fellow, ideas are capricious damsels which will not let themselves be taken except when they fancy, and the whim of my idea is not to produce anything until after the refusal of the grand-ducal censorship." "All right, we must humour your fancy I suppose." Doligny went away in despair at the probable refusal which threatened him, and yet with a certain degree of hopefulness in the idea that might spring up from that refusal. Three day later I saw him again. Owing to the protection of Belloc the ambassador, a delightful man, the refusal was only delayed for three days. This was a great favour; it might have been put off for a month, six weeks—for ever!
"Well?" I said, when I caught sight of Doligny.
"Well, as you said."
"Refused?"
"Refused."
"What plays did you send?"
"Richard Darlington, Antony, Angèle, La Tour de Nesle."
"Heavens! You went to work with a vengeance! the four most immoral plays of an immoral author."
"Do you think if I had sent others?"
"Useless."
"Then, the only thing left is to make use of your idea!"
"You had set special store by those four plays?"
"I believe they would have produced the best results. However, if you think you can obtain leave for others more easily...."
"Oh! that does not matter."
"Why?"
"Well, I have taken upon me to obtain permission, that is all you mind about?"
"Of course! will you undertake that."
"I win."
I picked up my hat.
"You are going?"
"Come with me."
"I will follow you with confidence."
"That is right."
I was writing at that time a big 'work on painting, entitled La Galerie des Offices. I took Doligny to the printer's.
"My dear Batelli," I said as I entered, "you must do me a service."
"With pleasure, Monsou Doumasse."
"This is it."
"What is it?"
"I want you to re-bind these four plays, to change the four titles and to put another author's name to them."
"That is easy enough. Just tell me exactly what you want."
"You see this one?"
"Richard Darlington, drama in three acts of seven scenes, by Monsou Alessandre Doumasse."
"Just so. Very well, you must substitute L'Ambitieux ou le Fils du bourreau, by M. Eugène Scribe."
"Bene! Next?"
"You see this?"
"Angèle, drama in five acts by Monsou Alessandre Doumasse."
"You must put: L'Échelle de femmes, by M. Eugène Scribe."
"Bene! Next?"
"You see this one?"
"Antony, drama in five acts by Monsou Alessandre Doumasse."
"Put L'Assassin par amour, by M. Eugène Scribe."
"Bene! Next?"
"You see this one?"
"La Tour de Nesle, by MM. Gaillardet et * * *."
"Put: L'Adultère puni, by M. Eugène Scribe."
"Bene! bene!"
In an hour's time, the bindings were set up, sewed, and glued; the same day the four plays were deposited on the censor's desk. Three days after they were returned signed for permission.
The censors had not made any remarks whatever, they had not found a single word to say against them. It is a wonder that the Committee of Censorship had not proposed to the grand-duke to found a prize for virtue, in favour of four such edifying plays. That same night, the whole town, except MM. les Censeurs knew that the performance of four plays by M. Alexandre Dumas had been sanctioned under the moral signature of Eugène Scribe. I never had such a success. They thought these four works the very perfection of innocence; the grand-duke, the most innocent man in his grand-duchy, was applauded to the echo!
Scribe, on that occasion, was about to receive the Cross of the Commander of Saint-Joseph. Fortunately for Scribe, somebody or other revealed the trickery to the grand-duke. Scribe was beside himself with fear.
[1] See Appendix.
[CHAPTER IV]
A few words on La Tour de Nesle and M. Frédérick Gaillardet—The Revue des Deux Mondes—M. Buloz—The Journal des Voyages—My first attempt at Roman history—Isabeau de Bavière—A witty man of five foot nine inches.
Let us leave Italy—to which we shall soon return—and come back to our plays, which, by an innocent subterfuge, as a moral author called it, I had played in the capital of His Imperial Highness the Grand-Duke of Tuscany.
Two had already been acted at Paris in the month of April 1832, at which date we have arrived—Antony and Richard; but there were still two to be performed, La Tour de Nesle and Angèle. May I be prevented, now I come to speak of the making of the first of these plays, from saying anything which may arouse the dormant susceptibilities of M. Gaillardet! Since 2 June 1832, that is to say for the past twenty-five years, I have composed upwards of forty dramas and eight hundred volumes; it will, therefore, be taken for granted that I have no interest whatever in laying claim to one paternity more or less. But the matter made such a stir at the time, it unravelled itself so ostensibly, that I have scarcely the right to pass it over in silence; but, whilst we are upon the subject, I promise only to cite the facts of which I have proof, and to divest those facts of any sentiment either of hatred or of attack. Since that time, M. Gaillardet has left France for America, Paris for New Orleans. To my great joy, he has, I am told, made a fortune out there; to my still greater joy, my books, so I am assured, have not been detrimental to his good fortune. So much the better! Happy he to whom Providence gives a double share of rest, and, when scarcely a third of life is passed, after a brilliant début, permits him to throw down his pen and to rest on his laurels, French laurels, which are the most to be envied of any, and to repose on a bed of American flowers, brightest of all the flowers that bloom! In the darkness which, though dispersed for a time, gradually returns to envelop him once more in its beloved shade, such a man, like Horace, keeps happy things for the present and puts care behind him till the morrow; such a man knows not the daily struggle and nightly labour; he does not live by lamplight, but by the light of the sun. He lies down when the robin sings his evening song and wakes when the lark begins to sing; nothing disturbs the order of Nature for him; his day is day and his night is night; and, when his last day or final night comes, he has lived his life within its natural limits. I shall have gone through mine hurrying along on the brakeless engine of work. I shall not have sat down at any table belonging to those lengthy banquets where people stay till they become intoxicated; I shall have tasted from all sorts of cups; and the only ones I shall have drained to the dregs (for man's existence, however rapid, always has time for doing this) will have been the bitter cups!
At this time, in 1832, however, I had not yet become the being I now am. I was then a young man of twenty-nine, eager after pleasure, eager for love and for life, eager after everything, in fact, but hatred. It is a strange thing that I have never been able to hate on account of any personal wrong or injury. If I have harboured any antipathy in my heart, if I have shown, either in my words, or in my writings, any aggressive sentiment, it was against those people who set themselves against the growth of art, and who opposed progress in politics. If to-day, after twenty-five years have elapsed, I attack, M. Viennet, M. Jay, M. Étienne, the whole of the Académie, in short, or, at any rate, the major portion of its members, it is not in the least because these gentlemen collectively signed petitions against me or, individually, prohibited my plays; it is because they hindered France from marching towards the supreme conquest of art, and founding a universal monarchy of the intellect. If, after thirty years, I bear a grudge against Louis-Philippe, it is not because he stopped my salary when I gave myself to literature, or because he demanded my resignation when I had a drama received at the Théâtre-Français; it is because this would-be citizen-king had a rooted aversion to new ideas, an instinctive distaste for all movements which tended to advance the human race. Now, how can you expect me, who am all for progress, to admit without question, on whatever side I meet them, death, or inaction, which is the likeness of death!
Already, in 1832, I began to find that, working for the theatre—I will not say did not occupy my time sufficiently, but—occupied my mind too much in one direction. I had, as I have mentioned, tried to write some short novels: Laurette, Le Cocher de Cabriolet, La Rose rouge. I have told how I had them printed, under the title Nouvelles Contemporaines, at my own expense, or, rather, at that of my poor mother, and that six copies were sold at 3 francs a copy; which left me 582 francs out of pocket. One of the six sold copies, or, rather, probably, one of the three or four hundred copies that were given away, fell into the hands of the editor of the Revue des Deux Mondes, and he made up his mind that, poor as these stories were, the author who had written them could, by dint of working, make something as a novel-writer.
That editor was M. Buloz; who, under the reign of Louis-Philippe, had become a power in the State; now he still is a powerful influence in literature. Be it clearly understood, M. Buloz is not a power on account of his personal literary abilities, but by the literary merits of others of whom he made free use. Hugo, Balzac, Soulié, de Musset and I had invented the facile style of literature; and we have succeeded, whether ill or well, in making a reputation with that fluent style of writing.
M. Buloz had himself invented the boresome style of literature and, for good or for ill, made his fortune out of it, wearisome though it was. It is not in the least the case that, when M. Buloz takes it into his head to write, he is not as tiresome as, or even more so than, Monsieur So and So; but it is not enough merely to write in order to produce real literature. M. Nisard explained once, with difficulty, laboriously and wearisomely, what ease of style in literature was. We will ourselves try to tell, in as amusing a way as we can, what the laboured style of literature is. True, we could put a reference here and say, "See M. Désiré Nisard or M. Philarète Chasles"; but we know our readers would rather believe us than go and look for themselves. MM. Désiré Nisard and Philarète Chasles will be dealt with in their own turn. Let us now turn our attention to M. Buloz.
M. Buloz, first a compositor, then a foreman in a printing house, was, in 1830, a man between thirty-four or five years of age, of pale complexion, with a thin beard, eyes that did not match properly, features of no particular character and yellowish, sparsely grown hair; as regards temperament, he was taciturn and almost gloomy, disinclined to speak, because of an increasing deafness, cross-grained on his good days, brutal on his bad ones, and, at all times, doggedly obstinate. I knew him through Bixio and Bocage. Both were intimate with him at that time.[1] M. Buloz has since been to them, as he has been to everybody, faithless in friendship when not downright ungrateful for service done him. I do not know how he gets on with Bixio now; but I believe he is very horrid to Bocage. We were not rich in those days; we had our meals in a little restaurant in the rue de Tournon, adjoining the hôtel de l'Empereur Joseph II., where, I can assure you, they served very bad dinners at six sous the plateful.
M. Ribing de Leuven had a newspaper, which sold very badly, a journal de luxe, and wealthy people took up the fad and ruined themselves over it; it was called Le Journal des Voyages. Adolphe and I persuaded M. de Leuven to sell this paper to Buloz.
Buloz, Bocage, Bonnaire and, I believe, even Bixio, collected some funds and became proprietors of the above-mentioned paper, which took the title of La Revue des Deux Mondes. This occurred in 1830 or 1831. We all set to work with our best efforts on this newspaper, which we looked upon as a child belonging to all of us and loved with a paternal affection. The first milk I gave it to feed on was a Voyage en Vendée, which is partly to be found in these Memoirs. Then, this is what happened to me: I have told how profoundly ignorant I was in history and of my great desire to study it. I heard a great deal of talk about the Duc de Bourgoyne and I read the Histoire des ducs de Bourgoyne, by Barante. For the first time, a French historian let himself have free play in picturesque writing of history and in simplicity in the telling of legends.
The work begun by the romances of Sir Walter Scott had by now matured in my mind. I did not yet feel strong enough to write a long novel; but there was then a kind of literature being produced which kept a middle course between the novel and the drama, which had some of the influence of the one and much of the arresting qualities of the other, wherein dialogue alternated with narrative; this type of literature was termed "Scènes historiques."
With my inclinations already biased towards the theatre, I set myself to dissect, to relate and to put these historical scenes into dialogues from the Histoire des ducs de Bourgoyne. They were taken from one of the most dramatic periods of France, the reign of Charles VI.; they provided me with the dishevelled personage of the mad king, with the poetic figure of Odette, the imperious and licentious character of Isabel of Bavaria, the careless one of Louis d'Orléans, the terrible character of John of Burgundy, the pale and romantic one of Charles VII.; they gave me l'Ile-Adam and his sword, Tanneguy-Duchatel and his axe, the Sire de Giac and his horse, the Chevalier de Bois-Bourdon and his gold doublet and Perinet-Leclerc and his keys. But they offered me still more; I, who was already a creator of scenes, they provided with a well-known stage upon which to plan my characters, since the events all took place in the neighbourhood of Paris or in Paris itself. I began to compose my book, driving it before me as a labourer urges forward his plough, without knowing exactly what is going to happen. The result was Isabeau de Bavière.
As fast as I finished these scenes, I took them to Buloz, who carried them to the printing office, and printed them, and, every fortnight, the subscribers read them.
From that time there sprang up in my work my two chief qualities, those which will give a value to my books and to my theatrical works in the future; dialogue, which is the groundwork of drama; and the gift of narrative, which is the foundation of romance. These qualifications—you know how frankly and unguardedly I talk of myself—I have in a superior degree. At that period, I had not yet discovered two other qualities in myself, none the less important, which are derived from one another—gaiety and a lively imagination People are lighthearted because they are in good health, because they have a good digestion, because they have no reason for sadness. That is the cheerfulness of most people. But with me gaiety of heart is persistent, not the light-heartedness which shines through grief—all sorrow, on the contrary, finds me either full of compassion for others, or profoundly depressed with myself—but which shines through all the worries, material vexations and even lesser dangers of life. One has a lively imagination because one is lighthearted; but this imagination often evaporates like the flame of spirits or the foam on champagne. A merry man, spirited and animated of speech, is, at times, dull and morose when alone in front of his paper with pen in hand. Now work, on the contrary, excites me; directly I have a pen in my hand, reaction sets in; my most freakish fancies have often sprung out of my dullest days, like fiery lightnings out of a storm. But, as I have said, at this period of my youth, I did not recognise in myself either this imagination or this lightness of spirit.
One day, I introduced Lassailly to Oudard. He wanted help, I think. My letter, instead of being dismal, was merry, but with a gaiety that was importunate and full of sympathy. Lassailly read the letter, which he was to take in person, and, turning towards me, he said with a stupefied air—
"Well! this is comical!"
"What?"
"Why, you possess wit!"
"Why should I not? Are you envious?"
"Ah! you are probably the first man of five foot nine who has ever been witty!"
I remembered this saying more than once whilst creating Porthos, it was more pregnant than it seemed at the first utterance. My brevet for wittiness was, then, bestowed on me by Lassailly, a good fellow, who was not lacking in a certain sort of merit, but who, as regards wit, was as badly equipped by nature as the fox whose tail was cut off was with cunning. Besides, at that period I should have recognised the marvellous quality of mirthfulness which I had latent within my soul, fearfully hidden from all eyes. Then, the only mirth permissible was satanic, the mirth of Mephistopheles or of Manfred. Goethe and Byron were the two great sneerers of the century. In common with others I had put a mask on my face. Witness my portrait sketches of that period: there is one of Devéria, written in 1831, which, with a few alterations, could perfectly stand for the portrait of Antony. This mask, however, was gradually to fall and to leave my real face to be disclosed in the Impressions de Voyages. But, I repeat, in 1832 I was still looked upon as a Manfred and a Childe Harold. But, when one is of an impressionable temperament, this kind of whim only takes one during a headstrong period; and, the times themselves, being gloomy and terrible, were instrumental to the success both of my début as a democratic poet and also as a romance writer.
[1] M. Buloz's ambition was to have a review. I had the good fortune to help him in this ambition; I think I have previously said how; may I be excused if I repeat myself.
[CHAPTER V]
Success of my Scènes historiques—Clovis and Hlodewig (Chlodgwig) —I wish to apply myself seriously to the study of the history of France—The Abbé Gauthier and M. de Moyencourt—Cordelier-Delanoue reveals to me Augustin Thierry and Chateaubriand—New aspects of history—Gaule et France—A drama in collaboration with Horace Vernet and Auguste Lafontaine
My Scènes historiques sur le règne de Charles VI. were my first successful things in the Revue des Deux Mondes. We shall presently see the result which this proved success had for me. That success decided me to write a series of romances which should extend from the reign of Charles VI. to our own day. My first desire is always limitless; my first inspiration even to achieve the impossible. Only when I become infatuated, half through pride and half through love of my art, do I achieve the impossible. How?—I will try to tell you, although I do not understand it very thoroughly myself: by working as nobody else works, cutting off all the extraneous details of life and doing without sleep. When once ambition has taken shape in my thoughts my whole mind is set to the putting of it into execution. Having discovered a vein of gold in the well of the beginning of the fifteenth century, in which I had been digging, I never doubted, so great was my confidence in myself, that at each fresh well I dug in a century nearer our own times, if I did not find a vein of gold I should at least find one of platinum or silver. I put the silver last because, at this period, platinum still held an intermediary value between silver and gold. Nevertheless, one thing made me uneasy: from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, from Charles VI. to Napoleon, I should teach history to the public whilst learning it myself—but who would teach it me from Clovis to Charles VI.? May I be forgiven for saying Clovis. I called it so then, I still call it so now, but, from 1833 to 1840, I spoke of Hlodewig (Chlodgwig). True, no one understood whom I meant; that is why I returned to calling it Clovis—like the rest of the world.
I decided to write a few pages of introduction to my novel, Isabeau de Bavière, which was intended to open the series of my historical novels. You shall judge of my ignorance and appreciate my innocence, for I am going to tell you something that certainly no one else would admit. To learn the history of France, of which I did not know a word in 1831 (except that connected with Henri III.), and which, in common with general opinion, I held to be the most wearisome history in the whole world, I bought the Histoire de France, at the request of, and in response to, the Abbé Gauthier, since revised and corrected by M. de Moyencourt. So I bravely set to work to study the history of France, copying out such notes as the following as seriously as possible, which summed up a whole chapter poetically:
"MÉMOIRES D'ALEX. DUMAS
En l'an quatre cent vingt, Pharamond, premier roi,
Est connu seulement par la salique loi.
***
Clodion, second roi, nommé le Chevelu,
Au fier Aétius cède, deux fois vaincu.
***
Francs, Bourguignons et Goths triomphent d'Attila.
Chilpéric fut chassé, mais on le rappela.
***
Clovis, à Tolbiac, fit vœu d'être chrétien;
Il défait Gondebaud, tue Alaric, arien;
Entre ses quatre fils partage ses États,
Source d'atrocités, de guerres, d'attentats.
***
Childebert, en cinq cent, eut Paris en partage;
Les Bourguignons, les Goths éprouvent son courage."
And this went on up to Louis-Philippe, of whom this is the distich—
"Philippe d'Orléans, tiré de son palais.
Succède à Charles-Dix, par le choix des Français."
There was in these quatrains and distichs, instructive though they were, one singular feature which, indeed, distressed me somewhat: amongst all these verses, there were only two to be found which were feminine. There must verily be a reason for that: as the History of France was specially intended for schools, it was necessary, doubtless, to bring before the notice of school children as few evil ideas as possible, that might even indirectly remind them of a genus which brought destruction upon the human race. I apparently took my notes with desperate seriousness, and deemed that I already knew enough history to teach it to others when, by good fortune, Delanoue came to my study. Quick as I had been in hiding my Abbé Gauthier, revised by M. de Moyencourt, Delanoue saw the action.
"What are you reading there?" he asked.
"Nothing."
"Nothing? Why you had a book in your hand!"
"Oh! a book ... yes."
No doubt he imagined it was some obscene book which I wished to conceal from him. He insisted in such a manner that it was impossible to resist him.
"There," I said to him, rather humiliated at being surprised reading such an elementary subject as a history of France.
"Oh! Abbé Gauthier's history ... well, upon my word!" And, without needing to cast a glance at the book, he repeated—
"Neuf cent quatre vingt-sept voir Capet sur le trône.
Ses fils ont huit cents ans conservé la couronne!"
"Oh, you know it by heart?"
"It is the companion to Racine's grecques—
'O, se doit compter pom septante;
Ὀδελός la broche tournante.'"
Delanoue assumed in my eyes fabulous proportions of learnedness.
"What! do you not know the Abbé Gauthier's Histoire de France and the Jardin des Racines grecques, by M. Lancelot?"
"I know nothing, my dear fellow!"
"It must make you laugh."
"Not very much."
"Then why do you read it?"
"Because I want to get exact details about the early centuries of our history."
"And you are looking for them in the Abbé Gauthier?"
"As you see."
"Ah! You are funny! Did you get your details for Henri III. from this?—
"'Henri-Trois, de Bologne, en France est ramené,
Redoute les ligueurs, et meurt assassiné!'"
"No, from l'Estoile, Brantôme, d'Aubigné, and the Confession de Sancy; but I did not know there was anything like that about Mérovée or Clovis."
"In the first place, they are not called Mérovée and Clovis now."
"What are they called, then?"
"Méro-wig and Hlode-wig; which mean the eminent warrior and the celebrated warrior."
"Where did you see that?"
"Parbleu! in the Lettres sur l'histoire de France by Augustin Thierry."
"The Lettres sur l'histoire de France, by Augustin Thierry?"
"Yes."
"Where can it be got?"
"Anywhere."
"What does it cost?"
"Perhaps 10 or 12 francs, I am not sure exactly how much."
"Will you be so good as to buy it for me and have it sent in as soon as you leave me?"
"Nothing could be simpler."
"Do you know any other books on this period?"
"There is Chateaubriand's Études historiques and the original sources of information."
"Who are these?"
"The authors of the Decline, Jornandès, Zozimus, Sidonius Apollinaris, Gregory of Tours."
"Have you read all those authors?"
"Yes, partly."
"Did the Abbé Gauthier not read them?"
"In the first case he could not have read Augustin Thierry, who has written since his death. As to Chateaubriand, he was his contemporary, and historians never read contemporary historians; finally, as regards Jornandès, Zozimus, Sidonius Apollinaris and Gregory of Tours, I suspect the Abbé Gauthier of never having even known of their existence."
"But whence, then, did he get his history?"
"From the Abbé Gauthier's who wrote the same sort of histories before him."
"Will you also buy me Chateaubriand at the same time as Thierry?"
"Certainly."
"See; here is the money ... I shall not see you again."
"No; but you want your Augustin Thierry and Chateaubriand?"
"I confess I do."
"You shall have them in a quarter of an hour's time." And I had them a quarter of an hour later.
I opened one of the books haphazard.... I had alighted on Augustin Thierry. I read—I am mistaken, I did not read, I devoured—that marvellous work on the early kings by the author of the Conquête des Normands; then the sort of historical tableaux entitled Récits Mérovingiens. Then, without needing to open Chateaubriand, all the ghosts of those kings, standing on the threshold of monarchy, appeared before me, from the moment when they were made visible to the eyes of the learned chronicler—from Clodio, whose scouts reported that Gaul is the noblest of countries, full of all kinds of wealth, and planted with forests of fruit trees, who was the first to wield the Frankish rule over the Gauls, to the great and religious-minded Karl, rising from table filled with a great fear, standing for a long time by a window which looked to the east, with arms crossed, weeping without stanching his tears, because he saw on the horizon the Norman vessels. I saw, in fact, visions which I had never suspected hitherto, a whole living world of people of twelve centuries ago, in the dark and deep abysses of the past. I remained spellbound. Until that moment I had believed Clovis and Charlemagne were the ancestors of Louis XIV.; but here, under the pen of Augustin Thierry, a new kind of geography was revealed, each race flowed by separately, following its own particular channel through the ages: Gauls, as vast as a lake, Romans, as noble as a river, Franks, as terrible as a flood, Huns, Burgundians, West-Goths as devouring and rapid as torrents. Something equivalent to what happened in me at General Foy's repeated itself. I perceived that, during the nine years which had rolled by, I had learnt nothing or next to nothing; I remembered my conversation with Lassagne; I understood that there was more to see in the past than in the future; I was ashamed of my ignorance, and I pressed my head convulsively between my hands. Why, then, did not those who knew produce their knowledge? Oh! I did not know at that period with what fatherly goodness God treats men; how he makes some into miners who extract gold and diamonds from the earth, of others, the goldsmiths who cut and mount them. I did not know that God had made Augustin Thierry a miner and me a goldsmith.
I was seven or eight days hesitating before the enormous task which I had to accomplish; then, during that halting time, my courage returned to me and I bravely set to work, forgetting everything for the sake of the study of history. It was during this period that I wrote Térésa and the piece of which I am about to speak. Horace Vernet had sent a large picture from Rome depicting Édith aux longs cheveux cherchant le corps d'Harold sur le champ de bataille d'Hastings. It was a picture belonging to the category that Vernet laughingly styled his grand manner. It was singularly fascinating to me on account of the heroine's name, not because of the subject. I was seized with the whim to write a drama with the title Édith aux longs cheveux. One could only write in verse a drama with so poetical a title. Charles VII. had somewhat familiarised me with what is still called at the Academy the language of the gods. How was all this which I saw but imperfectly, and which it was an absolute necessity I should study, to remain in my poor brain without its bursting? And be careful to notice that I was as yet only brooding over the earliest races. How was I to disentangle the surroundings of Charlemagne and his son and to represent the interests and types of the Frankish race? How was I to pick out the Eudes and Roberts, the National Kings who sprang up and reigned over the conquered land which was to produce its Camilles and Pélages? It was staggering to know nothing at thirty of what other men knew when they were twelve. I had studied the theatre; I knew enough about it to be satisfied on that head. I must, then, study history as I had studied the theatre, and I believed that history was a barrier put in my path. Who was there to tell me that there would be a fresh course of study to make, longer, drier and more arduous than the preceding one? The study of the theatre had taken me five or six years. How much time was the study of history going to take me? Alas! I should have to study it for the rest of my life! If I had studied at the age of other people, I should have had nothing else to do but produce! I had as yet only the title to my drama. It need hardly be said that all I knew about the battle of Hastings was that which I had read in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. So I purposed to compose something after the style of Shakespeare's Cymbeline and not a historical drama. Accordingly, I read by chance a romance by Auguste Lafontaine—I would indeed like to tell you which but I have forgotten—all I remember is that the heroine's name was Jacobine. However, if you wish to remove all doubts about the matter, my friend Madame Cardinal, rue des Canettes, will tell you. She knows her Auguste Lafontaine by heart. Anyhow, Jacobine is made to take a narcotic and is put to sleep so that she may pass for dead, and, thanks to this supposed death, which releases her from the trammels of the earth, she can marry her lover. It is a little like Romeo and Juliet; but what is there on this earth here below which does not resemble some other idea, more or less? You will notice that I had already had this tiresome drama in my head for a very long time; for I had suggested it to Harel in the month of August 1830, instead of Napoléon, which I strongly disliked doing. We have seen how Harel fought and overcame my resistance. As for Édith aux longs cheveux, he had refused it outright, and you will see directly that he was not ill advised in doing so.
[CHAPTER VI]
Édith aux longs cheveux—Catherine Howard
Here is the story of Édith aux longs cheveux; you will meet her again under another name, clad in another garb and, instead of moving along in five acts, dragging behind her a tail of eight scenes.
A young girl who has been deserted lives in a sort of Eden surrounded by green shade, singing birds and flowers; a river flows, encroaching on one corner of her garden, as on the Arno or the Canal de la Brenta, and beautiful young people pass by on it who make her dream of love, and beautiful noblemen who make her dream ambitious dreams.
One of these noblemen notices her, and stops before the graceful apparition, penetrates into what he believes is a fairy palace and finds a young maiden, who looks as though she were the sister of the birds and the flowers which surround her; like them, she sings; like them, she is white and rosy and sweet scented. He falls in love with Edith. But Edith cares for nothing but the court and balls and fêtes and royal pomp. Ethelwood is the king's favourite; and, meantime, she allows herself to be loved by Ethelwood. Edith is one of those women who are as white as marble and as cold at heart as marble; she is like the statue of an ancient courtesan, dug up from the ruins of Pompeii, which is touched to life by the daylight and sunshine. She is alive, but that is all; it is useless to expect love from her. It is very seldom I created such characters in my books or dramas as this, but I had an example before me at the time. That example lured me on; there is always a little of the outside material world in the ideal inner world of the artist. She tells Ethelwood that she loves him, but she does not; for, behind Ethelwood, she looks towards the king. The king has also seen her; it is fated that certain women cannot be seen without being loved. The king sees Edith and loves her. But who is she and how is she to be approached? The king knows nothing about it; he needs ministers to help him to his love, as he needs them in his kingdom; and if Ethelwood helps him to support half his power, Ethelwood will also help him to carry the weight of his love. That which Ethelwood dreaded happens: the king falls in love with the same woman that he does. This woman is his very life; he wishes to keep her from the king at no matter what price. On the following day he has to visit Edith with the king. He has the night before him and on his side—night, the faithful ally of lovers, we must also add the capricious friend, for she betrays almost as often as she serves! He sets off; in two hours' time he is with Edith. He presses into her hand a flask filled with the potent drug which only exists on the stage and is only to be found among Shakespeare's alchemists. When the lover sees her, beautiful and young and almost loving for the first time—for she is thinking of the king, whilst fondling Ethelwood—he hesitates even to put this masterpiece of creation to sleep. Sleep, said the ancients, is brother to Death. But suppose the sister be jealous of the brother and pluck the soul of that beautiful child, like a flower from a tomb, during her sleep! A ballad Edith sings about a vassal espoused by a king decides him; the narcotic is poured into the maiden's glass; she has hardly drunk it before a deadly stupor spreads over her; she feels herself growing numb; she cries out, calls, instinctively pushes Ethelwood from her and falls asleep in despair thinking she is dying. He returns to the palace; next day, when he returned with the king they find Edith dead. She is laid in a vault; the king and Ethelwood go down into it and the king kneels. Ethelwood remains standing with his hand on the girl's heart, fearing that life has disappeared and is turned into death. He feels a slight throbbing in her veins and thinks the icy marble is gradually becoming warmer. What will happen if Edith wakes? He makes a pretext of the king's grief and drags him away, just as Edith's heart is beginning to flutter beneath his hand. Edith is left alone and wakes like Juliet; but, when Juliet awakens, she finds Romeo waiting for her. Edith is alone with the dead, with all the terrors and superstitions of the young girl: she cries and calls and shakes the door of the vault; it opens and Ethelwood appears. For the first time she flings herself into his arms with the effusion of gratitude. It is not a king bringing her a crown, but something much greater and more precious, a far more providential gift: a saviour who brings her life. For some moments she loves him with the whole strength of the life which she thought she had lost. Her expression is so open and true and spontaneous that she deceives the poor lover. He thinks he is beloved and tells her everything. The king has seen her and is in love with her. Then, for the benefit of the audience only, under the guise of the loving girl, one of the characteristics of the ambitious woman begins to reveal itself. Ethelwood confesses his ruse to Edith: he tells her how he made her take a drug to put her to sleep; he discloses to her what he had hidden from her until now, that he is one of the highest nobles in the State; but this no longer satisfies Edith! He tells her that, during her sleep, the king came down into her vault, and prayed on his knees by the side of the adored body which he took for a corpse; and that he, Ethelwood, a prey to the anguish of despair, awaited, dagger in hand, for the first movement of Edith and the first sigh from the king to stab the latter.
In the midst of the poor fool's story, Edith follows her own train of thought only. The king loves her! Why not be the king's wife rather than that of the king's favourite?... Did not the king put his ring of betrothal on her finger?... A ring—it is a crown in miniature! Meantime, Edith must be got out of the tomb, which weighs heavily on her, and take advantage of the night to reach Ethelwood's château. Ethelwood will go and explore the surroundings and then, if the road be deserted, he will return and fetch Edith. Edith is left alone for a moment and makes use of the time to search for traces of the king's footsteps on the damp flagstones, and the marks of his hand on the cold marble. In that brief moment she discloses her heart and the abyss of ambition which has swallowed up all her love.
Ethelwood returns to fetch her. It is almost with regret that she leaves the vault where a king has kissed her brow and passed a ring on her finger. The next act is in the count's château. Edith seems happy. Ethelwood is happy. The arrival of the king is announced. What has he to do at the count's home? Edith would know why; obliged to hide herself from being seen by the king, she does it in such a way as not to lose a word he says to the count.
The king is profoundly sad. Like all wounded hearts, he seeks for conflict; the war with France affords a diversion for his grief; he will go on the Continent. But he wants a firm and trustworthy regent for his State during his absence; he has thought of Ethelwood, who shall be the regent, and, to reward him for his devotion, and, still more, to attach him to the interests of the kingdom, sure as he is of his loyalty, he will give him his sister in marriage.
Ethelwood tries to refuse this twofold honour; he objects that Princess Eleanor—I think she was called Eleanor; I am not very certain, but the name of the princess does not affect the matter: in theatrical slang the princess would be called la princesse Bouche Trou (i.e. a stop-gap princess)—the Princess Eleanor does not love him. Ethelwood is mistaken, the princess does love him. He refuses everything. This refusal at first surprises, then annoys, the king.... A quarrel springs up between subject and king. The subject puts his hand on his sword hilt. Henceforth, he will incur confiscation, degradation, death on the scaffold; he will become poor, renounce his rank, will brave death, but he will marry no other woman than Edith. The king goes away, forbidding him to follow: but Ethelwood is the king's host; he must conduct him to his château gates; he must hold his stirrup and give his knee for the king to mount his horse. Scarcely has the king gone out and the count disappeared behind him, than a thick tapestry is raised and Edith enters on the scene. She has seen nothing save that the king is young and beautiful; heard nothing but that he loves her. Ethelwood's devotion, his refusal to marry the king's sister, the danger he is incurring, all glide over her heart like a breath on a mirror. She goes to the window. Ethelwood is on his knees holding the king's stirrup. In the office which, where nobility of spirit is present, is regarded as an honour, Edith sees nothing but shame; and, looking at the king, covered with gold and precious stones, surrounded with the homage of a people, as in a purple mantle, grown great by the lowliness of all who are around him, she lets fall the whisper, "If only I could be queen!..." At this moment Ethelwood returns. He makes up his mind, Edith shall know him as he is. He asks for pen, paper and ink. He is going to write his will.
"Are you going to die then?" asks Edith.
"No; but I am going to make you a return for all you have done for me. I only poured you out half the liquid contained in the flask; the rest was for myself, in case it had turned out to be a poison instead of a narcotic."
"Well?"
"I have drunk the rest of that liquid from the flask."
Edith grows pale; she begins to understand. The parchment upon which Ethelwood has rapidly traced a few lines will tell to every one that the count has taken refuge from the king's anger in death. As Edith lay in her grave, Ethelwood will be laid in his; and, as he watched over her, she, in her turn, shall watch by him; as he had the key of death, she shall have the key of life. Edith fights against this idea; she measures her own weakness, urges her ambition, but too late: Ethelwood, when he left the king, had taken the narcotic. He totters, pales, falls into Edith's arms as he puts the key of the vault into her hand saying—
"Till to-morrow!"
Next day, instead of opening the gates of life to her lover, Edith takes the king her betrothal ring. The king at first thinks she is the ghost of the woman whom he loved; then, by degrees, he is satisfied; he joyously touches the warm and living hand which he had touched when it was dead and cold; he renews to the Edith full of life the offers he had made to the Edith asleep in the tomb. The young girl turns giddy and needs to recollect all her promised ambitions. The key of the vault where her lover lies burns like red-hot iron. She goes to the window and asks if the river which flows at the foot of the palace is very deep.
"It is a gulf which swallows up all that is thrown into it."
Edith turns her head aside, and with a smothered cry lets the key fall into it, saying—
"Que pour l'éternité.
L'abime l'engloutisse, ou le courant l'entraîne!
LE ROI.
Que faites-vous, Édith?
EDITH
Moi, rien ... je me fais reine!"
I had pondered over this subject for two years, and had worked for something like three to four months at the plan of this fine work. I was reasonably well satisfied with it, not because of its merit, but on account of the trouble it had cost me: in other words, I believed I had achieved a masterpiece. So, for the first time in my life—and also for the last—I invited two or three friends to come to hear the reading of it which I had to give before the Théâtre-Français. I had a splendid audience. My delusion lasted to the end of the first act; but I must say it went no further. At the end of that act, I already felt that my chef d'œuvre had not caught on with the public. By the second act, it was still colder. By the third, it was frigid! One of the greatest punishments that can be imposed on an author, in expiation of his plays, is to read before a committee that has come with benevolent intentions, and to feel these intentions little by little fading away, turning yellow, falling at the breath of boredom, as autumn leaves fall under the killing winds of winter. Ah! what would one not give, at such a moment, not to have to go on to the finish, but to roll up one's manuscript, make one's bow and depart! But no such fate! In spite of the service the author would render to his audience, he is condemned to read and the audience to hear. He must go to the very end! He must descend the staircase of this tomb step by step, colder than the staircase of death itself! This was, I repeat, the first time the thing had happened to me; a just punishment for my pride. I rose immediately after the last hemistich and went out, leaving Édith aux longs cheveux on the committee table. I felt that, this time, it was not a narcotic she had taken, like Juliet, but a fine, good poison she had swallowed, like Romeo. However, I had not the courage to go away without an answer. So I waited for it in the manager's office. It was Mademoiselle Mars herself who brought it me. Poor Mademoiselle Mars! She wore a funereal expression; one would have said that she had returned from Ethelwood's obsequies, after having the day before been at those of Edith. She beat about the bush in all sorts of ways to break it to me that the committee did not think my play was suitable for acting. According to her, the play was only half written, "What became of Edith after she had flung the key into the abyss? What became of Ethelwood, enclosed in the vault? What became of the king's sister, who was enamoured of this living dead man? Was it possible that Providence could look on at such a crime without interfering? That divine justice could hear of such a grievance and find no true bill? There must be a sequel to be joined to such a beginning, a second part to attach to this first. Was there no way of turning the sister of the king to account? Could she not represent faithfulness, as Edith represented ingratitude? Could she not descend into the vault to see her dead lover as the king had done to see his dead fiancée? Could not that happen to the sister which had nearly happened in the king's case and Ethelwood?..."
I took hold of Mademoiselle Mars's hand.
"The play is saved," I said to her; "it shall be called Catherine Howard. Thanks to you, I perceive the ending.... Where are my friends that I may announce the good news to them?"
But my friends were far away. They found a disused door by which they could make sure of fleeing without meeting me. Next day I received a letter from the secretary of the Comédie-Française, which invited me to take away the manuscript. "Fling it into the fire!" I replied. I do not know whether he obeyed my instructions; but I know I never saw it again and the only verses which I remember are the two and a half I have quoted—
"On les immola tous, sire:—ils étaient trois mille!"
And that was how the beautiful Édith aux longs cheveux was buried.
We will tell in due order and place how there came into existence her sister, Catherine Howard, who was not worth much more than she was, and who died in the flower of her age, in the year of grace 1834.
[BOOK III]
[CHAPTER I]
An invasion of cholera—Aspect of Paris—Medicine and the scourge —Proclamation of the Prefect of Police—The supposed poisoners—Harel's newspaper paragraph—Mademoiselle Dupont—Eugène Durieu and Anicet Bourgeois—Catherine (not Howard) and the cholera—First performance of Mari de la veuve—A horoscope which did not come true
Meantime, France had been anxiously following the progress of cholera for some time past. Starting from India, it had taken the route of the great magnetic currents, had crossed Persia, reached St. Petersburg and stopped at London. The Channel alone separated it from us. But what is the distance between Dover and Calais to a giant who has just done three thousand leagues? So it crossed the Channel at a single stride. I remember the day when it struck its first blow: the sky was sapphire blue; the sun very powerful. All nature was being born again, with its beautiful green robe and the colours of youth and of health on its cheeks. The Tuileries was studded with women as a greensward is with flowers; revolutionary risings had died down for some time, leaving society a little peace and permitting spectators to venture out to the theatres. Suddenly, a terrible cry went forth, uttered in a voice like those mentioned in the Bible which thrill through the atmosphere, hurling maledictions on the earth from the skies: "The cholera is in Paris!" They added: "A man has just died in the rue Chauchat; he was literally struck down dead!" It was exactly as though a veil of crape was stretched between the blue sky and the bright sun and Paris. People rushed out into the streets and fled to their homes, shouting: "The cholera! the cholera!" as, seventeen years before, they had shouted: "The Cossacks!" But, no matter how well they closed their doors and windows, the terrible demon of Asia slipped in through the chinks of the shutters and through the keyholes of the doors. Then people attempted to fight it. Science came forward and tried to wrestle with it at close quarters. It touched it with its finger-tips, and science was floored. Science rose stunned but not vanquished; and began to study the disease. Sometimes, people died in three hours' time; at others, in even less time still. The sick man, or, rather, the condemned, suddenly felt a slight shivering: then came the first stage of cold, then cramp, then the terrible and ceaseless dysentery; next the circulation was stopped by the thickening of the blood; the capillaries were altered; the sick man became black and died. But none of these stages was positively fixed; they might follow or precede or intermingle with one another; each separate constitution brought its own variety of the malady. Further, these were but symptoms; people died with symptoms as of some unknown disease. The corpse was visible, but the assassin invisible! It struck and the blow was seen, but it was useless to search for the dagger. People were doctored by guesswork; as a man surprised by a thief in the night strikes out into the gloom by chance, hoping to hit the thief, so science wielded its sword in the darkness. In Russia, they treated cholera with ice. The attacks there presented the symptoms of typhoid. Opinion was divided on this point. Some administered tonics, that is to say, punch, warm wine, Bordeaux and Madeira. Others, thinking only of the abdominal pains, treated them with both the systems in vogue at that period, either by the physiological system of Broussais, which consisted in bleeding the sick and putting leeches on the stomach and abdomen—a treatment which attempted to attack the inflammatory part of the disease—or by opiates, calmatives and soothing medicines, like opium, belladonna and hellebore—this was to deal with the pain more than the disease. Others, again, tried warmth, hot-air baths, rubbing, burning iron. When the cold stage was attacked in time, and by energetic reaction they succeeded in overcoming the cold, the patient was generally saved. All the same, they only saved about one out of every ten! This was the reverse of the tithe.
The scourge struck the poorer classes by preference, but it did not spare the rich. The hospitals were crowded with terrible rapidity. A man would fall ill in his home; two neighbours put him on a stretcher and carried him to the nearest hospital. The sick man often died before he got there, and one, if not both, of the carriers would take his place upon the stretcher. A ring of frightened faces would form round the dead, and a cry would sound from the crowd. A man with one of his hands to his chest and the other to his body would writhe like an epileptic, fall to the ground, roll on the pavement, turn blue and expire. The crowd would disperse terrified, lifting hands to heaven, turning their heads behind them and flying for the sake of flight, for the danger was everywhere; it did not understand the distinctions the doctors made between the three words: epidemic, endemic and contagious.
The doctors were heroic! Never general on the bloodiest field of battle ran dangers equal to those to which the man of science exposed himself in the midst of the hospitals or as he went from bed to bed in the town. The Sisters of Charity were saints and often martyrs. The strangest rumours got abroad, springing from one knows not where, and repeated by the people with curses and menaces. They said that it was the fault of the Government, which, to get rid of the surplus population filling up Paris, caused poison to be thrown into the fountains and into the casks of the wine merchants. Paris seemed to be seized with madness; those even whose offices made it a duty to reassure others were afraid. On 2 April, the Prefect of Police, M. Gisquet, addressed the following circular to the Police Commissaries:—
"MONSIEUR LE COMMISSAIRE,—The appearance of the cholera-germ in the capital, the source of active anxiety and of real sorrow for all good citizens, has given the perpetual enemies of order a fresh opportunity for spreading infamous calumnies against the Government throughout the population; people have dared to say that the cholera is nothing short of poisoning effected by the agents of those in authority in order to decrease the population and to turn aside the general attention from political questions.
"I am informed that, to give credit to these atrocious conjectures, certain wretches have conceived the project of going through the public-houses and butchers' shops with bottles and packets of poison, either to throw into the fountains or wine casks or on to the meat, or simply to seem to do so and then get arrested in the very act by accomplices, who, after having made out that they were attached to the police, will countenance their escape, and, finally, set everything at work to demonstrate the reality of the odious accusation directed against authority.
"I need only point out such designs to you, monsieur, to make you feel the necessity of redoubling your vigilance over the establishment of dealers in liquids and butchers' shops, and to urge you to warn the inhabitants against attempts which they have a personal and powerful interest in preventing. If such audacious attempts are carried out, I need hardly tell you how important it will be to seize the culprits and to place them in the hands of justice. It is a task in which you will be seconded by all friends of order and by all respectable people.—Receive, etc.
"GISQUET"
An hour after the appearance of such a circular, the Prefect of Police ought to have been prosecuted. But nothing was done. M. Gisquet answered a blunder by a libel. It was no longer the agents of the Government who poisoned the fountains and wine casks to reduce the population and turn attention away from political affairs, it was the Republicans who threw bottles of poison over the butchers' stalls to depopulate the Government of Louis-Philippe! One could understand the first accusation, which sprang out of ignorance; but the second! which came from authority and from such a quarter! a quarter which ought to be the best informed on such affairs as these! The people only asked not to have to believe in the presence of the plague: that invisible enemy, which struck from the heart of the clouds, irritated the people by its invisibility. They refused to believe that one could die of an atmospheric poison, from so pure a sky and so radiant a sun. A material, visible, palpable cause would do its business much more effectually—at all events, revenge could be taken on a tangible cause. Placards containing nearly the same accusations were pasted up. The same day crowds collected round these placards and then they took themselves off to the barriers. Poor unfortunate wretches were knocked down by sticks, assassinated by knife-thrusts, torn by the nails of women and the teeth of dogs. A man would be pointed at with a finger—pursued, attacked and killed! I saw one of these terrible executions from a distance. The crowd moved towards the barrier: one could count the heads by the thousand, each one a wave of that angry ocean; a great number of butcher-boys with their aprons spotted with blood were mixed up in that frightful sea, each apron among all those waves like a crest of foam. Paris threatened to become worse than a great charnel-house: it threatened to become a vast slaughter-house. The prefect was obliged to retract and to recognise that an assassin, a murderer, a poisoner who escaped all capture, had broken loose, and was hiding himself in Paris. That assassin, murderer and poisoner was the cholera!
Oh! who ever saw Paris at that time would forget it, with its implacable blue sky, its mocking sun, its deserted walks, its solitary boulevards, its streets strewn with hearses and haunted by phantoms? Places of public entertainment looked like immense tombs. Harel put the following paragraph in the newspapers during the performances of Dix ans de la vie d'une femme:—
"It has been noticed with surprise that theatres are the only public places where, whatever the number of spectators, no case of cholera had yet appeared. We present this INCONTESTABLE fact for scientific investigation."
Poor Harel! He still had his wits about him, when nobody else had any left or even dreamt of such a thing! It was the Terror of 1793 on a grand scale. In 1793, the worst days counted their thirty or thirty-five victims. Now, the newspapers admitted to between seven and eight hundred deaths per day! It was a strange thing! But other diseases seemed to have disappeared; they were stayed from sheer stupefaction; death had no longer any but the one way of striking. One left a friend at night, shook his hand, saying, "Au revoir!" and, th next day, a voice would come from one knew not where, out of chaos, would whisper in one's ear—
"You knew such and such a person?"
"Yes ... Well?"
"He is dead!"
One had said au revoir; it was adieu one ought to have said instead.
Soon, there was a shortness of coffins: in that terrible steeplechase between death and the coffin-makers, the latter were outdistanced. They wrapped the bodies in tapestries; they rumbled along ten, fifteen, twenty, to the church at once. Relatives followed the common carts or not, as the case might be. Each knew the number of his own dead and mourned them. A mass was said for all collectively; then they wended their way to the cemetery, and tipped the contents of the tapestry into the common grave, and covered them all over with a shroud of lime.
The 18th of April was the crisis of the first outbreak—the numbers rose to nearly a thousand! At that time, I lived, as I have said, in the rue Saint-Lazare, in the square d'Orléans, and I saw from my windows every day fifty to sixty funerals pass on their way to the Montmartre cemetery. It was with this prospect before my eyes that I wrote one of my gayest comedies: Le Mari de la veuve. This is how the play came about. Mademoiselle Dupont, the excellent soubrette of the Comédie-Française, who laughed with such rosy lips and white teeth, she who was the most impudent Martine I have ever seen, had obtained a benefit performance. I had known her more at Firmin's house privately than at the theatre; she had never acted in any of my plays. One morning—it was, so far as I can recollect, the very day before 29 March, on which day the cholera was to burst forth—she came to see me. Everything was ready for her benefit. She came to ask me to write her a narrative scene. It was Saturday, I think: the performance was to take place on the following Tuesday or Wednesday. There was no time to lose. I am stupid at improvising anything appropriate to such an occasion as this; and yet how could I refuse the charming soubrette a demand of so little importance?
"Defer the performance until Saturday," I said to her, "and, instead of one scene, I will write you a one-act comedy."
"Will you promise to do this?"
"On my honour!"
"I will go and see if it be possible, and I will return in an hour's time."
Twenty minutes later I received a note from Mademoiselle Dupont telling me she had obtained a respite of twelve days, and asking me to make a part in it for Mademoiselle Mars. I had not been on very friendly terms with Mademoiselle Mars since Antony, and she had not taken the trouble to make it up with me.
Now I had one friend, a man of infinite cleverness, head or second in command at the Home Offices,—a friend who has since made his name in the Government. He was called, and happily still calls himself, Eugène Durieu. I had met him two or three times during the past year, and every time he had given me the subject for a play, either in one act, or two or in three. But I do not know why we had never yet settled anything. I wrote to him and he came to me.
"Let us look over your subjects," I said; "I want a play in one act for Mademoiselle Dupont's benefit"—
"Are you crazy? She is billed for next Tuesday!"
"It is put off for a week."
"And you think a play could be written, read, distributed, learned and played between now and then?"
"I will do my part."
"Really."
"A day to write the play, one to get it re-copied, one for reading it; there will still be seven days for the rehearsals; a luxurious allowance!"
Eugène Durieu recognised the correctness of the calculation and gave me the benefit of his ideas. We thought of the subject of Le Mari de la veuve; but the plan was a long way from completion.
"Listen!" I said to Durieu, "it is noon; I have business until five o'clock. Anicet Bourgeois wishes to have his turn at the Théâtre-Français; why, I don't know. Some whim of his! Go and find him for me; settle the outlines of the drama with him, return together at half-past four and we will dine together. In the evening we will arrange the numbering of the scenes; I can set to work on the play to-night or to-morrow morning, and, in any case, at whatever time I start upon it, it shall be finished twenty-four hours later."
Durieu left at a run. I returned at five, as I had said, and found my two collaborators at the task. The foundations were not yet laid; I came to the rescue. They left me at midnight, leaving me a number of scenes nearly completed. The next day, as I had promised, I set to work. I was at my third or fourth scene when the chambermaid entered, looking terrified and as pale as death.
"Ah! Monsieur! Monsieur! Monsieur!" she said.
"Well, what is the matter, Catherine?"
"Ah! Monsieur it is ... My God! My God!"
"What?"
"It is the cholera ... Ah! Monsieur, I have the cramp!"
"The cholera is in Paris?"
"Yes, monsieur, it is, the scoundrel!"
"Diable! Are you sure what you say is true?"
"A man has just died in the rue Chauchat, monsieur. He had only been dead a quarter of an hour, and he is already as black as a nigger!"
"How did they treat him?"
"By rubbing, monsieur; but it was no use ... Black, monsieur—quite black!"
"Perhaps they rubbed him with a blacking-brush."
"Oh, monsieur, you may joke!... Rue Chauchat, monsieur, in the rue Chauchat!"
Now, the rue Chauchat is next to the rue Saint-Lazare. What could prevent the cholera in leaving the rue Chauchat from passing along the rue Saint-Lazare and knocking at my own door?
"If the cholera rings, do not open to it, Catherine," I resumed. "I am going to see what is happening."
I took up my hat and went out. Then it was that I saw with my own eyes the spectacle of terror that I have tried to describe. I returned home, very much disinclined to write my comedy, I confess, and I wrote to Mademoiselle Dupont:—
"MA BELLE MARTINE,—I presume that when you settled the day for your performance you had reckoned without the cholera. It has just come from London and made its début two hours ago in the rue Chauchat. Its début is making such a commotion that it will, I am afraid, spoil your takings. What ought I to do about the one-act comedy?—Yours always,
ALEX. DUMAS"
Mademoiselle Dupont was at home, and I received the following reply by the same messenger as had taken my letter:—
"MY DEAR DUMAS,—My benefit has been on the way for such a long time that I want it done with, one way or another. Finish your play, then, I beseech you; it must take its chance.—Always yours,
DUPONT"
So I returned to Le Mari de la veuve. The play was finished in twenty-four hours, as I had promised. The principal part pleased Mademoiselle Mars, and she accepted it. Her presence in a play was a guarantee for speed. Indeed, we have already said how honest Mademoiselle Mars was in theatrical matters and with authors. She came punctually to the rehearsals, in spite of the cholera, and enraged me just as much over one act as she would have done over a five-act play. Each day she found some thing to correct; and I had to take the play home and make the correction there. This was how Le Mari de la veuve was created, with that funereal background of which I have just been telling you. The play was exquisitely mounted: the five parts it contained were filled by Mademoiselle Mars, Monrose, Anaïs, Menjaud and Mademoiselle Dupont.
The play was performed on the appointed day. The cholera had proved a troublesome competitor; there were not five hundred people in the theatre. The play had but a moderate success and obtained even a round of hissing. After Menjaud had been caught in a shower, he re-entered the castle shaking himself.
"What weather!" he said; "I am as drenched as College wine!"
A spectator hissed; no doubt some schoolmaster. The saying, though, was not mine; I had heard it said to Soulié a few days before, and had utilised it because I thought it so funny.
It was a fresh proof to me of the truth of the saying that what suits one person to perfection jars on another. I have hunted in all the newspapers for an account of the performance and cannot find any trace of it except in the Annuaire historique by Lesur and the Gazette de France. My readers will allow me to lay before them the twofold appreciation offered by criticism on the work: it is short and sincere. Here is Lesur's—
THÉÂTRE-FRANÇAIS
"Performance for the benefit of Mademoiselle Dupuis ..."
[In the first place, Lesur is wrong: he should have said Mademoiselle Dupont.]
"Le Mari de la veuve, a Comedy in one Act, in prose by M....
"No theatrical performance on a Benefit day ever offered a more melancholy aspect and a more scanty assembly. The cholera had invaded Paris; the town was given over to terror, riot ran rife through the street, drums beat at the hour for the opening of the box office. There were very few spectators that night bold enough to breathe the smell of camphor and lime in the solitudes of the Théâtre-Français in order to judge the merits of the new play. Under these circumstances, the absent hardly lost much.
"A few pleasant incidents and witty sayings, and the talent of Mademoiselle Mars, might be able to support this slight work for a dozen or so of performances.
"The author, who, doubtless, is not blind as to the unimportant nature of the play, maintains his anonymity."
That is one! Now let us pass on to the Gazette de France.
"A short Comedy has recently been performed: Le Mari de la veuve, by M. Alexandre Dumas, which, although the dialogue is written with plenty of go and naturalness, offers very little in the way of common sense as to plot and truth of characterisation; but the play is so agreeably acted by Monrose, Menjaud, Mademoiselle Mars and Mademoiselle Dupont, that it ought to cause great amusement and much laughter among those who are inclined to make fun of the quibblers and silent indifference of the smaller newspapers against the Théâtre-Français, and to go oftener to this theatre than to Atar-Gull or to Madame Gibou."
The play has now been performed over three hundred times since its first appearance.
[CHAPTER II]
My régime against the cholera—I am attacked by the epidemic—I invent etherisation—Harel comes to suggest to me La Tour de Nesle—Verteuil's manuscript—Janin and the tirade of the grandes dames—First idea of the prison scene—My terms with Harel—Advantages offered by me to M. Gaillardet—The spectator in the Odéon—Known and unknown authors—My first letter to M. Gaillardet
The cholera was running its course, but we had arrived at the stage of getting accustomed to it. In France, alas! we get used to everything! It was even said that the best way of fighting the cholera was not to think about it but to live as far as possible in one's ordinary way. This régime suited me excellently at the period in question. I wrote Gaule et France, a work which fatigued me very much in the way of study, to such an extent that I was not sorry to forget my day's work in the evening. Every night, accordingly, I had some friends with me: Fourcade, Collin, Boulanger, Liszt, Châtillon, Hugo at times, Delanoue nearly always. We talked and talked of art; sometimes we persuaded Hugo to read us poetry; Liszt, who never required much pressing, thumped on a bad piano with all his might, and he ended by breaking it to pieces; so the evening would fly by without any one thinking any more of the cholera than if it had been at St. Petersburg or Benares or Pekin. Besides, it had been calculated that five hundred deaths per day, out of a million of men, was not quite one death per thousand, and, taking everything into consideration, one had far more chance of being one of the thousand living souls than the one dead one. This calculation, it will be seen, was exceedingly reassuring. In the midst of all this, Harel, who was at loggerheads with Hugo, came to me from time to time to tease me to write him another play. He made out that it was a most favourable time, that nothing was being a success elsewhere, and that the first-comer to make a success under such circumstances would have a run of a hundred performances.
As for the cholera, he treated it as a myth, and put it on a level with the ghosts of Semiramis and of Hamlet; he put a bit of paper into his snuff-box to remind himself that he was in Paris. The object of his pursuing me with such determination was a drama entitled La Tour de Nesle, in which he said there was originality enough to set all Paris on fire with excitement. I rejected the tempter energetically, telling him that the same subject had been suggested to me twice before; once by Roger de Beauvoir, author of L'Écolier de Cluny; also by Fourcade, who, at that time, was anxious to produce literature.
Henri Fourcade was Fourcade's brother, my old friend, of whom I have already spoken with reference to my early love affairs at Villers-Cotterets; who, it will be recollected, danced so well, and had in his pocket a second pair of gloves to change, when he went to the ball—a luxury at which I had been struck dumb. One night, then, when we had been laughing, talking, spouting verses, playing music, and having supper, as I was about to see my friends out and was lighting them from the top of my landing, I felt suddenly overtaken with a slight trembling in my legs; I took no notice of it and lent against the bannisters, half to light those who were going downstairs and half to support myself, as I shouted a ringing, cheerful au revoir! to them. Then, when the sound of their footsteps was lost in the square, I turned round to go into my rooms.
"Oh, monsieur!" said Catherine to me, "how pale you are!"
"Nonsense; am I really, Catherine?" I said laughingly. "Go and look in the glass, sir, and see."
I followed her advice and looked in the glass. I was, indeed, exceedingly pale. At the same time, I was seized with a shaking which gradually turned to a violent shivering fit.
"It is queer," I said; "I feel very cold."
"Ah! monsieur," cried Catherine; "that is how it begins."
"What, Catherine?"
"The cholera, monsieur."
"You think I have the cholera then, Catherine?"
"Oh! I am sure of it, monsieur."
"Oh! Then, Catherine, let us lose no time: get a lump of sugar, dip it in ether and fetch a doctor."
Catherine went away, tumbling against the furniture as she left, and exclaiming—
"Oh! mon Dieu! Master has the cholera!"
Meanwhile, as I felt my strength failing rapidly, I went up to my bed, undressed myself as fast as possible, and lay down. I shivered more and more. Catherine returned; the poor girl was nearly off her head: instead of bringing me a lump of sugar dipped in ether, she brought me a wineglassful of ether. When I say full, I should add that, by good fortune, her hand had trembled so much that the glass was no more than two-thirds full. She gave it to me. With more reason for my condition than she, I hardly knew what I was doing; I did not remember what it was I had asked her for, and was ignorant of the contents of the glass she held out to me, I carried it to my lips and swallowed a whole ounce of ether at a gulp. I felt as though I had swallowed the sword of the Avenging Angel! I heaved a sigh, closed my eyes, and my head fell back on the pillow. No chloroform ever produced a quicker result. From that moment and for two hours my unconsciousness lasted, I knew nothing at all; only, when I opened my eyes again, I was in a vapour bath which, by means of a pipe, my doctor was administering to me beneath my bedclothes, whilst a good neighbour was rubbing me on the top of the sheets with a warming-pan full of embers. I do not know what I shall feel like in hell, but I shall never even there be more nearly roasted than I was that night. I spent five or six days without being able to put a foot out of my bed; I was literally exhausted. Every day Harel's card was brought in; he was told, as was everybody else, that I could not see visitors. When I again opened my doors to people, the first thing I saw through the half-opened door was his smiling, clever face.
"What about the cholera?" I asked.
"It has departed!"
"Are you sure of it?"
"It did not pay its expenses.... Ah! my friend, what a capital time for launching a drama!"
"Do you think so?"
"There will be a reaction in favour of the theatres; besides, you saw what I put in the newspapers?"
"Yes, about the places of entertainment not having had a single case of cholera in them.... My dear Harel, you are the cleverest man of the nineteenth century!"
"Oh! not so!"
"Why not?"
"You can well see why not, since I cannot get you to write me a play."
"In all conscience, am I in a fit state for doing it?"
"You?..."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I am possessed with all the devils of a fever."
"They will give you an inspiration."
"But, seriously, let me see what your play is about."
"Well, I am going to tell you the truth."
"Really?"
"On my honour."
"Harel! Harel! Harel!"
"How stupid you are!"
"You can see very well that I did not make you say it."
"But if you make me say it; it only proves your cleverness, because you make me stupid."
"Come, stop affectations! what were we saying?"
"That a young man from Tonnerre, named Frédérick Gaillardet, has brought me a MS. which has some ideas in it, but he has never had anything to do with the stage; it is not, dramatically speaking, any good as it is. But I have entered into treaty with him because I have my own plans."
"Let us hear what they are."
"For a long time Janin has wanted to write a drama."
"Good!"
"I said, 'Here is your excuse ready to hand!' I took my young author's MS. to him."
"Next?"
"He read it."
"And then?"
"He agreed with me that there was dramatic material in it.
"And that drama ...?"
"He has hunted for it for six weeks, and not found it."
"Then he has added nothing to the original manuscript." "Indeed, he has rewritten it."
"What then?"
"It is better written, but no more fit for acting."
"So that it has already two authors?"
"You need not trouble yourself about Janin."
"Why not?"
"Because, this morning, he took his own MS. and that of M. Gaillardet in his arms, and flung them on Georges's sofa, saying to me, 'You and your drama there can go to the devil! '"
"Then you came to me; thanks!"
"What does that matter to you, my friend? Read this."
"But I tell you I am very weak. I cannot even read."
"I will send Verteuil to you; he will read the piece to you: he reads very well."
"Shall I not get into trouble with your young man?"
"He is as meek as a lamb, my dear fellow!"
"I see, and you wish to shear him?"
"There is no talking seriously with you."
"Send Verteuil to me."
"When?"
"When you like."
"He shall be here in an hour."
"Very well, are you going?"
"I have no mind to stay."
"Why not?"
"You would only have some one to contradict you."
"Oh! I do not promise anything."
"That is needless, since you are pledged."
"To what?"
"To deliver me the play in a fortnight."
"Harel!"
"Take pains over Georges' part."
"Harel!"
"Good-bye!"
Harel was gone.
"Oh, the brute!" I muttered, falling back on to my pillow; "he will give me a relapse."
An hour later, as Harel had said, Verteuil was in the house. He expected to find me sitting up and convalescent; but he found me in bed, burning with fever, and reduced in weight by twenty-five pounds. I frightened him.
"Oh!" he said, "you are not going to work in that state?" "What the deuce do you expect else, my dear fellow, as Harel insists on it!"
"No, I will take the MS. away, and tell Mademoiselle Georges that it is impossible, short of killing you."
"Is there anything in that MS.?"
"Certainly, it has some ideas, but...."
"But what?"
"Ah! you shall see ... I dare not say."
"Then leave it to me; I will read it."
"When?"
"At my leisure. Is the writing clear, by the way?"
"I recopied it myself."
"Good!"
"I have only brought Janin's version of the MS., to save you as much time as possible."[1]
"Is there much difference between the two MSS.?"
"What do you mean?"
"Structurally?"
"It is the same thing, except for one or two tirades added by Janin."
"What about the form?"
"Oh well! it has style, you know; it is smart, brilliant, trenchant."
"I will take note of that."
"When do you wish me to return?"
"Return to-morrow."
"At what hour?"
"About noon."
"To-morrow at noon, then; rest as much as you can till then."
"I will try.... Adieu."
"Adieu!" He gave me his hand.
"Take care of yourself, you are frightfully feverish."
"That is just what I am reckoning upon. A thousand compliments to Georges; she need not be anxious; if there is a suitable rôle for her, it shall be created, or I will know the reason why."
"Have you nothing else for me to tell her?"
"Only that that I love her with all my heart."
Verteuil went away, leaving me alone with the fever and the copy of Janin's MS.
Once again I repeat it (and these lines are addressed to M. Frédérick Gaillardet), Heaven save me, after the lapse of twenty-one years, from seeming to have hostile intentions towards a man who did me the honour of risking his life against mine, in exchanging pistol shots with me; but I must, according to my accustomed frankness, relate things as they happened, very certain that, if it is still necessary at this date, the memories of Bocage, of Georges, of Janin and of Verteuil will agree with mine. Having made this assertion, I will continue my narrative. When left to myself, I began to read the manuscript. The play began at the second scene, that is to say, with Orsini's monologue. Finally, the second scene, which was then the first, remained pretty much as it was. There was, as Verteuil had told me, and as I myself recognised later, no other difference between M. Gaillardet's MS. and Janin's than the style. Janin, as is known, is, in this respect, a master before whom small fry bow and great ones salute. But a complete tirade, probably the most brilliant in the whole drama, belonged to Janin: it was the one of the grandes dames. Did he avenge himself here on some lady, some one he believed to be a great lady? I do not know at all; but although the tirade is well known, we will reproduce it here.
"BURIDAN. Vous ne savez donc pas où nous sommes?
PHILIPPE. Où sommes-nous?
BURIDAN. Vous ne savez donc pas quelles sont ces femmes?
PHILIPPE. Vous êtes tout ému, Buridan!
BURIDAN. Ces femmes, n'avez-vous pas quelque soupçon de leur rang?... N'avez-vous pas remarqué que ce doivent être de grandes dames?... Avez-vous vu, car je pense qu'il vient de vous arriver, à vous, ce qui vient de m'arriver, à moi,—avez-vous vu, dans vos amours de garnison, beaucoup de mains aussi blanches, beaucoup de sourires aussi froids?... Avez-vous remarqué ces riches habits, ces voix si douces, ces regards si faux? Ce sont de grandes dames voyez-vous!... Elles nous fait chercher dans la nuit par une femme vieille et voilée, qui avait des paroles mielleuses. Oh! ce sont de grandes dames!... A peine sommes nous entrés dans cet endroit éblouissant, parfumé et chaud à enivrer, qu'elles nous accueillis, avec mille tendresses, qu'elles se sont livrées à nous sans détour, sans retard, à nous tout de suite, à nous inconnus et tout mouillés de cet orage. Vous voyez bien que ce sont de grandes dames!... A table,—et c'est notre histoire à tous deux, n'est-ce pas?—à table, elles se sont abandonées à tout ce que l'amour et l'ivresse ont d'emportement et d'oubli; elles ont blasphémé; elles ont tenu d'étranges discours et d'odieuses paroles; elles ont oublié toute retenue, toute pudeur, oublié la terre, oublié le ciel. Ce sont de grandes dames, de très-grandes dames, je vous le répète!"
The first fault which struck me, a theatrical man, in the work, was that the play began really at the second scene, and, consequently, none of the parts were known or the characters properly revealed; so that while reading this tower scene, the tavern scene began to appear to me as in a cloud. But I did not stop short there, it was not a suitable moment. I began the second; but I protest that I did not go further than the eighth or tenth page. The drama completely deviated from the course which, in my opinion, it ought to have taken.
The essential crux of the drama to me was the struggle between Buridan and Margaret of Burgundy, between an adventurer and a queen, the one armed with all the resources of his genius, the other with the powerful allies of her rank. Of course, genius is naturally made to triumph over power. Then I had had an idea in my head for a long time which I thought highly dramatic; and I wanted to try to get that situation put before the public.
A man is arrested, sentenced, and laid in the depths of a dungeon, without resource or hope; a man who will be lost if his enemy has the courage not to come and mock at his abasement, but to have him poisoned, strangled, or stabbed in his corner; the man will be saved if his enemy yields to the desire to come and insult him for the last time; for, with speech, the sole weapon left him, he would frighten his enemy so that the latter would loosen the chains on his arms a little, and the iron collar round his neck, and open to him the door which he had hitherto so carefully closed upon him, and lead forth in triumph the man who expected that, if he ever left his living tomb at all, it would only be to mount the scaffold.
The struggle between Margaret of Burgundy and Buridan gave me the idea for this situation. It will be well understood that I did not let such a scene slip. It is the one that has since been named la scène de la prison. That settled, I did not trouble any further over the rest. I wrote to Harel that I was his man for La Tour de Nesle, and begged him to come and arrange the terms under which this new drama should be done.
I must explain to the public what I mean by settling the terms. I wished—since Janin loyally, more than loyally, generously, withdrew from the collaboration—that M. Gaillardet, who had temporarily given up his share to Janin, should take that share to himself again. At that period, unless under private treaty, author's rights at the theatre Porte-Saint-Martin, for which M. Gaillardet's drama was intended, were 48 francs for author's share and 24 francs' worth of tickets per night. Consequently, 24 francs for author's rights and 12 francs' worth of tickets were conceded to Janin. Janin, as we have said, gave up his share; I wanted this share to be returned to M. Gaillardet, and my rights to be settled independently, as if I had been a complete stranger to the work. I laid down also, as a condition, sine quâ non, that my name should be left. It was agreed in the contract with Janin that his name should be given. Harel raised no difficulties over granting me my separate treaty, which was the same as in Christine: 10 francs per hundred of the takings, and 36 to 40 francs' worth of tickets, I believe. Nothing could be objected to, as the rights were proportional—if it paid, I gained; if it did not, I only made a light demand on the receipts. Now, take careful notice, that, at this time of cholera, two or three hundred francs were quite large takings. The Odéon once played before one spectator who refused to have his money returned, and insisted that they should go through the performance for him and then hissed it. But, by hissing, the wretched man raised a weapon against himself; the manager sent for a police officer, who, with the excuse that the hisser disturbed the performance, put him outside the doors. Harel, I say, made no difficulty of any kind over my separate contract; but he did over my wishing to maintain my incognito: I had a hard struggle over this, and he poured upon me all the dazzling splendours of his wit and the thundering ammunition of his paradoxes. I held out and Harel retired conquered. It was settled and signed that I was to have my separate contract, that I should not be named, that M. Gaillardet should alone be mentioned by name on the night of the first performance and on the bills, and that he alone should take the whole of the rights granted by the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre at the time when he signed his treaty; but, I reserved to myself the right to put the drama under my own name among my complete works. From that moment, Verteuil never left me; he came every morning, and, as much dictated as written by his hand, every night he carried a scene away with him. After the prison scene, Harel rushed in. It was a chef d'œuvre, which would even put the success of Henri III. into the shade. I laughed. I really must let my name be given; it was impossible otherwise. I grew angry, and Harel took himself off in despair. Theatrical managers, in those days, had a singular idea to which, indeed, they have returned latterly: it was that they made more money, with equal merit, when the name of the author was known, than if it were unknown. I think they were mistaken. The better the name be known, the more it rouses jealous feelings on the part of criticism: the less it be known, the more kindly does criticism favour it. Criticism, which does not produce children of its own, only picks up and fondles orphans which it can adopt; but it turns, angry and growling, on those children who are supported by a vigorous parentage. Nowadays, managers have fallen into the opposite abuse. They have hunted out from the collections of proverbs all the pieces which were no good at all—comedies which were not comedies, dramas which were not dramas—and played them with more or less success. The object of this attempt was, I believe, meant at least to prove that dramatic art is an art by itself; a rare and difficult one, seeing that Greece has only bequeathed to us Æschylus, Euripides, Sophocles and Aristophanes; Rome, only Plautus, Terence and Seneca; England, only Shakespeare and Sheridan; Italy, only Machiavelli and Alfieri; Spain, only Lopes de Vega, Calderon, Alarcon and Tirso de Molina; Germany, only Goethe and Schiller; and France, only Corneille, Rotrou, Molière, Racine, Voltaire and Beaumarchais; that is to say, but twenty-three names floating on an ocean of twenty-three centuries! Actually, this is what happens in my opinion: more noise is made round the work of a known author; people wait for and receive the appearance of such work with greater curiosity; but the public also becomes more exacting in proportion as the reputation of the writer increases: they get tired of hearing a man called happy; as the Athenians grew tired of hearing Aristides called the Just; and reaction operates with a harshness all the stronger as the previous favouritism has been great. Finally, the man who falls, if unknown, only falls from the height of the play by which he has made his début; the known author who falls, on the contrary, falls from the height of all his past successes. I have experienced this in my own case; at three epochs in my life, reaction has disturbed me to the point that, in order to keep the footing I had arrived at, I had to exert greater efforts than those I had made in reaching that stage. We are not far from the first of these epochs, and I will relate this phase of my life with the same simplicity as I have related the rest. After nine days of work, which retarded my convalescence by more than a month, Verteuil carried away the last scenes of the drama, with the following letter addressed to Harel:—
"DEAR FRIEND,—Do not be distressed at these two last scenes. They are weak, I grant; when I got to the end, my strength failed me. Look upon them as null and void, as they will have to be rewritten. But give me two or three days' rest, and don't be uneasy. I begin to be of your opinion: there are the elements of a tremendous success in the work.—Yours always,
"ALEX. DUMAS"
After the fourth act, the poorest in the whole work, Harel had written to me—
"MY DEAR DUMAS,—I have received your fourth act. Hum! hum! Your King Louis, the headstrong, is a droll figure, indeed! But, he has abundance of wit, and wit makes anything go well. I await the fifth act.—Yours etc.
HAREL"
The fifth act arrived; only, it was even worse than the fourth! Harel rushed to me with crape on his hat and his head covered with ashes. He was in mourning for his lost success. Nothing I could say reassured him; I must set to work again that very night. Two days later, the scenes were rewritten, and Harel's mind set at rest. The same day I wrote to M. Gaillardet, keeping as far as possible to my own side of the proceedings:—
"MONSIEUR,—M. Harel, with whom I have been in continual business relations, has come to ask me to give him some advice about a work by you which he wishes to put on the stage.
"I seized with pleasure the opportunity of bringing forward a young fellow-dramatist, whom I have not the honour of knowing, but to whom I most sincerely wish success. I have smoothed down all the difficulties which would present themselves to you in the putting into rehearsal of a first piece of work, and your play, as it now is, seems to me capable of succeeding.
"I do not need to tell you, sir, that you alone will be the author, and that my name will not even be mentioned; this is the condition under which I undertook the work to which I have been so fortunate as to be able to add. If you look upon what I have done for you in the light of a kindness, allow me to give it you rather than sell it you.
"ALEX. DUMAS"
Indeed, from my point of view, at any rate, it was really giving my services; although I had superseded Janin as collaborator, I did not take either the author's rights nor the rights to tickets belonging to the collaboration, which, in the contract, remained in Harel's hands, and by virtue of which Harel returned to Janin. Had Harel the right, from Janin's consent, and at his (Janin's) entreaty to substitute me for Janin? I think he had, as my substitution left M. Gaillardet's name alone on the bills, and gave him 48 francs for rights and 12 for tickets, instead of 24 francs for rights and 6 for tickets. M. Gaillardet gained, therefore, from the monetary point of view, as he received double; and he gained in reputation, because his name alone appeared. It remains to prove that the Contract Janin-Gaillardet and Harel had passed under the control of the former contract, according only 48 francs in rights and 12 in tickets. This will be easy for me to do with the two dates. The Contract of Janin-Gaillardet and Harel was signed on 29 March 1832, and the fresh treaty, which still holds good to-day at the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre, was not signed between M. Harel and the Commission of Authors, till the following 11 April. I repeat, I would rather have passed over this ridiculous quarrel as to the paternity of the play in silence; but I am compelled to lay details before my readers which will interest them but indifferently, but for which, however, they would have the right to ask if I passed them over in silence. I am writing the history of art during the first half of the nineteenth century; I speak of myself as of a stranger; I lay my plays open to the inspection of my natural arbitrator, the public; it shall judge my work, as they say at the palace. I will neither make out M. Gaillardet to be right or wrong; I will write merely a recitative, and not an argument—
Ad narrandum, non ad firobandum.
[1] In the Paris edition of the Souvenirs, 1854, both M. Gaillardet's and M. Janin's MSS. are referred to as having been brought, both here and later.
[CHAPTER III]
M. Gaillardet's answer and protest—Frédérick and Buridan's part—Transaction with M. Gaillardet—First performance of La Tour de Nesle—The play and its interpreters—The day following a success—M. * * *—A profitable trial in prospect—Georges' caprice—The manager, author and collaborator
Great was my astonishment when I received an answer from M. Gaillardet, which, instead of being full of gratitude, was a protest. He wrote that the play was his own and belonged only to him; that he had not intended to have, and never would have, a collaborator. I confess I was astounded. The play, as everybody thought, was unactable as it was, and Janin had given it up, openly admitting that he did not know what to do to make it better. I flew off to Harel. I had not asked him to communicate the agreement to me, but had simply believed in his word. I accused him of having deceived me. He thereupon took the contract from his desk and made me read it.
This is what it was, verbally—
"Between MM. Gaillardet and Jules Janin on the one part:
"And M. Harel, manager of the Porte-Saint-Martin, on the other part;
"It is agreed as follows:
"MM. Gaillardet and Jules Janin remit and hand over to M. Harel, a five-act drama entitled La Tour de Nesle, to be played at the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre.
"M. Harel receives the work and will have it performed immediately.
"Copy made at Paris, 29 March 1832.
Signed: "F GAILLARDET. J. JANIN. HAREL."
As MM. Janin and Gaillardet remitted and handed over their drama conjointly, M. Gaillardet must have had a collaborator, and that collaborator was stated to be M. Janin. Now, he always had a collaborator; only, that collaborator did not take half his rights from him, and was not called Janin or anybody else, since he was never named at all. I can but believe that it was the person of Janin who was regretted by M. Gaillardet; for, as we saw, he himself wrote later that Janin had been surreptitiously imposed upon him. Harel had no difficulty in convincing me that it was within his rights to bring me M. Gaillardet's drama, as it had been remitted and handed over to him without embargo. The drama had not been done over again by me; had it been necessary to rewrite the play completely I should certainly never have undertaken the task; but what was done was done straightforwardly and in good faith. The welfare of the theatre, ruined by the riotings and cholera, rested entirely on this work. I was the first to advise that the arrival of M. Gaillardet should be awaited. After the delivery of the first scene, moreover, the play had been put in rehearsal. Now, at the first of these rehearsals, a very curious incident happened. The two principal parts had been given to Georges and Frédérick; but, as I have said, the cholera upset everything. Frédérick, who came to listen to the reading of the first act, and who had carried away the part, was afraid of the cholera; he kept away in the country and, in spite of the notices of the rehearsals, gave no sign of life. Five or six rehearsals took place before he turned up or sent news of himself. He was a man of capricious talent, violent and passionate, and, accordingly, very natural in passionate, violent and capricious characters. He was the French Kean. Harel could neither wait for the end of Frédérick's fear nor for that of the cholera. He decided to engage some one else since Frédérick persisted in staying away; and he looked about him. Bocage was out of an engagement: he entered into negotiations with him. Bocage took the part, promised to rehearse it in spite of all the choleras on the earth, returned home, and began to study it. Next day, he came to the theatre without his manuscript: he knew his first scene. The report of what had occurred reached Frédérick; he rushed up, and I never saw anybody in such a state of vexation as he was. Frédérick is a great actor, an artist of talent and feeling; he was hurt in both these directions. He offered as much as 5000 francs to Bocage if the latter would give up his part, but Bocage refused it, and the part remained his.
Your grief was a fine sight, Frédérick, and I shall never forget it!
The rehearsals continued with Bocage and Mademoiselle Georges. One day, Harel, who then lived in the rue Bergère, sent to fetch me. M. Gaillardet had just arrived, and the following extract represents his state of mind. I will borrow from him direct, so much do I desire to remain neutral in this discussion.
"... I started, and before going home I went dressed as I was in my travelling costume, to see M. Harel.
"'I am ruined!' he said to me. 'I have deceived you, that is the truth. Now what shall you do?'
"'Stop the play.'
"'You will not succeed in doing that; I shall change the title and play it; you can attack me for piracy, theft, plagiarism, anything you like. You will obtain 1200 francs indemnity. If you allow it to be played, on the contrary, you will gain 1200 francs, etc. etc.'
"He said the truth, for that is the protection our judges ordinarily allow to an author who has been defrauded."
If I remember rightly, it was in this interval that I arrived. The discussion was violent on both sides, and the explanations were equally violent. We had to leave Harel to hunt up seconds on both sides. Harel, however, intervened, calmed us down, and induced M. Gaillardet to sign a deed by which we acknowledged ourselves joint-authors of La Tour de Nesle. We each reserved to ourselves the right to put our names to the play in our complete works. The play was to be played and published under the name of M. Gaillardet alone; but Harel insisted that there should be asterisks after his name. When this deed was signed, the rehearsals went on uninterruptedly.
As the play developed, it assumed great proportions, and I began to believe, with Harel, that it would be a big success. The parts of Marguerite and of Buridan were just made for Georges and for Bocage, who were both splendid in them. Lockroy, who, out of friendship for me, played the part of Gaultier d'Aulnay, was deliciously youthful and loverlike and poetic in it; Provost (as Savoisy), Serres (as Landry) and Delafosse (as Philippe d'Aulnay) completed the characters.
The day of the first performance came: 29 May 1832; I had sent a box ticket to Odilon Barrot, telling him I would dine with him, and reserving a place for myself in his box. The dinner lasted longer than we expected; Madame Odilon Barrot, then young and charming, always a clever and original woman—a rare thing among women—was upon thorns. The great demagogue had no notion anybody could feel so much impatience to see a first performance of a play. We arrived in the middle of the second scene, just in time to hear the tirade of the grandes dames. The theatre was in a state of boiling excitement: the audience felt the success of the play, it was in the air, they breathed it. The end of the second scene is terrible in its impressiveness: Buridan leaping from the window into the Seine, Marguerite revealing her bleeding cheek, and exclaiming—" 'Look at thy face and then die,' saidest thou? Let it be done as thou wishest.... Look, and die!" This was all startling and terrible! And, when, after the orgy, the flight, the assassination, the laughter extinguished in groans, the man flung into the river, the lover of a night pitilessly murdered by his royal mistress, the careless and monotonous voice of the night watchman is heard calling, "Three o'clock and a quiet night: Parisians sleep!" the audience burst forth into loud applause.
The third scene is poor, I must candidly admit; it was nearly all written by me, and it was a bit of gagging; still, it does not allow interest to languish; the second had sated the spectators for a time. It will be recollected that, except for an alteration in the staging, the second scene was almost entirely the same as in M. Gaillardet's manuscript. The end of the third scene, however, relieves the beginning; the last scene was entirely concerned with Gaultier d'Aulnay, who comes to demand vengeance for the murder of his brother from Marguerite of Bourgogne, without knowing that the murder had been committed by her. Lockroy's exhibition of grief was magnificent.
The fourth scene was scarcely better than the third; it was the one where Buridan and Marguerite meet in the Orsini tavern, where Marguerite tears from the diary entrusted to her lover the famous page which proves the murder. The principal scene was an improbable one; I had tried my hand at it three or four times before I succeeded. Let me add that I have never been satisfied with it; Georges, who, for her part too, felt it was false, did not play it so well as the others. But the audience was captivated, and in that frame of mind which accepts everything.
The fifth scene was short, spirited, sensitive and full of surprises. The arrest and exit of Buridan made the greatest sensation. Finally, came the famous prison act.
One day, my son asked me—he had not yet written plays at that time—
"What are the first principles of a drama?"
"That the first act be lucid, the last short and, above all, that there be no prison scene in the third!"
When I said that I was ungrateful: I have never seen such an effect as that prison act, and it was marvellously played, besides, by the two actors concerned with it, Who have the whole responsibility of it. Serres (Landry) was delightfully artless and whimsical in it. Bocage, with his great Sicilian eyes, his teeth as white as pearls, and his black beard, was of a physical beauty to which, perhaps, I have only seen one other man attain: Mélingue, one of the most beautiful actors I ever saw on the stage.
After the prison scene, the other might be indifferently either good or bad, for success was assured. This was not unfortunate!
The seventh scene, like the third, was the weakest in the work; it was saved by its wit, and because, all things considered, the spectators, like Harel, thought King Louis, the headstrong, was a droll figure.
Finally came the fifth act, which had so much frightened Harel. It was divided into two scenes: the eighth, of a diabolical humour; the ninth, which, for appalling dramatic character might be compared with the second. Something about it reminded one of the ancient fatalism of Sophocles, blended with the scenic terrors of Shakespeare. So its success was enormous, and the name of M. Frédérick Gaillardet was proclaimed amidst loud applause.
Madame Odilon Barrot was in ecstasy, and enjoyed herself like a schoolgirl. Odilon Barrot, little accustomed to melodramatic theatrical displays, was astounded that emotion could be carried so far. Of course, as in the case of Richard Darlington, Harel came and made me all sorts of offers if I would consent to have my name mentioned. I had refused in Richard, where nothing pledged me to it; I refused more firmly still in the case of La Tour de Nesle, where I was bound both by a promise of honour and a written one.
I returned home, I vow it, without a single feeling of regret. It was, however, the first performance of a play which was to hold the bills for nearly eight hundred times! Next day, several of my friends, who knew the part I had taken in La Tour de Nesle, came to pay me their compliments. Amongst these was one of my best friends, Pierre Collin.
"Do you know what Harel has done?" he said to me as he was coming in.
"What has he done?"
"What he has put on the bills?"
"No."
"Instead of proceeding as in mathematics, from the known to the unknown, he has proceeded from the unknown to the known."
"I do not understand."
"Instead of putting: 'MM. Gaillardet et * * *,' he has put et 'MM. * * * et Gaillardet.'"
"Oh, the rascal!" I exclaimed, "he will cause me a fresh quarrel with M. Gaillardet; and, what is worse, this time M. Gaillardet will be in the right." I took up my hat and walking-stick.
"Where are you going?"
"I am going to Harel. Will you come with me?"
"I must go to my office."
"Then, quick, call a carriage! I will drop you there in passing."
I was at Harel's five minutes later.
"Ah! there you are!" he said to me; "you have learnt the trick I have played off on Gaillardet?"
"It is because I have learnt of it that I have hurried here.... It is very wrong of you, my dear friend!"
"Really! Why? Was it not agreed that the asterisks should precede M. Gaillardet's name? It is your right: you are four years his senior in theatrical matters."
"But it is the custom for asterisks to follow a name."
"Custom is a fool, my dear; we will either change it or put some sense into it; we both have enough and to spare when the devil takes us!"
"Say you have quite enough by yourself."
"Ah! You would betray me? You would go against me?"
"Oh no, I remain neutral; only, if M. Gaillardet calls on me as a witness, I shall be obliged to tell the truth."
"My dear fellow, we have a great success already; with a touch of scandal we shall have a tremendous success. ... If M. Gaillardet objects, our scandal is to hand. He will then have done something for the play at any rate."
"Harel!"
"Oh! you are really delightful! You think it is enough to make masterpieces and to say, 'I did not do them.' Very well, whether it suits you or not, all Paris shall know that you did."
"Go to the devil! I wish I had never touched your cursed play.... Listen, some one is ringing your bell; I bet it is M. Gaillardet."
Harel opened his door and listened a moment.
"Who is it?" he asked.
"I do not know, sir," the servant answered; "it is a man carrying a stamped paper."
"A stamped paper?... This is something of a novelty! Show him in."
The man was a sheriff's officer who came on behalf of M. Gaillardet, and who, like Haman for Mardocheus, served as a herald to his fame. The stamped document was a summons before the Tribunal of Commerce, seeking to force M. Harel to remove the unlucky asterisks.
"Good!" I cried, "this is a joint affair! I shall find the same when I get back home. You were an idiot to play this prank!"
Harel rubbed his hands together until all his joints cracked.
"A fine lawsuit," he said, "an excellent lawsuit! I only ask two such per year for six years and my fortune is made!"
"But you will lose the case!"
"I know that, very well."
"In that case it will be a bad lawsuit."
"First of all, I would have you to know that a lawsuit is not necessarily a bad one because one may lose it; and if I lose it I shall appeal."
"But you will lose it then, for I tell you I shall be against you."
"You will say that you have nothing to do with the play, I suppose?"
"I shall say that I must not be named."
"Meanwhile, you will be mentioned at the Tribunal of Commerce, at the Court of Appeal, by M. Gaillardet's solicitor and by your own; the newspapers will copy the law proceedings, the three asterisks will have made the public talk when placed before the name, and will do so if they are put after it; the MSS. will be put in, M. Gaillardet's, Janin's and yours.... My dear fellow, I only reckoned upon a hundred performances; now I will bet on two hundred."
"May the devil take you!"
"Will you not stay to dinner with us?"
"Thanks."
"Yes, indeed.... Does not Georges bless you?"
"Is she satisfied with her success?"
"Delighted! Although you have rather sacrificed her part to Bocage, you will admit."
"Good! is she also going to bring an action against me?"
"She has a good mind to do so, and it might, indeed, happen, unless you promise to write a play for her."
"Oh! I promise her that, if that is all she wants."
"She has an idea."
"It is not divorce?" Georges had been teasing me for a long time to write her a play upon the Emperor's divorce.
"No, don't be anxious!"
I went up and saw her. She was as beautiful as the conquering Semiramis. We greeted each other as cordially as we always do when we meet. I told her the whole story about M. Gaillardet, and I was grieved to see that she thought Harel entirely in the right.
"Well, all right," I said; "let us not talk any more about it.... By the bye, what is this he tells me?"
"Harel?"
"Yes."
"Some tomfoolery."
"Exactly.... He tells me that you had an idea in your mind."
"Insolent man!"
"An idea for a play, be it understood. Peste! You have something much better than ideas: you have your caprices."
"Not with you, in any case!"
"That is just what I complain of."
I went on my knees before her and kissed her lovely hands.
"Tell me then, Georges, shall we be held ridiculous in the eyes of posterity, for having come in contact with one another without the assistance of which Descartes talks."
"Be quiet, you big animal! and go and talk such nonsense to your dear Dorval."
"Oh! Dorval!... poor Dorval, I have not seen her for an age!"
"Good! when you have been living door to door with her."
"Precisely so! Formerly we had only one door between us! Now we have a wall."
"A partition only!"
"Bravo! Ah! but let us hear your idea."
"Well, my dear, I have played princesses and I have played queens ...
"And even empresses!"
"Stop, that is for you to do." She lifted up to me her beautiful hand, which I stopped to kiss in its passage.
"And even empresses!" I repeated.
"All right, I want to play a woman of the people."
"Yes! I know you! You would play that in a velvet dress and all your diamonds."
"No! I tell you, I mean a woman of the people, a beggar-woman!"
"Bah! Come forward as far as the footlights, stretch your hand out to the audience, and there would be no more play, or rather no more beggar-woman."
"What pasture have you been browsing on to-day?"
"On one which grew in your dressing-room one day when Harel shut me up to write Napoléon."
"Come, be quiet with you, and write me my play."
"A beggar-woman.... We have Jane Shore; will that do for you?"
"No; Jane Shore is a princess; I want a woman belonging to the people, I tell you."
"I do not know how to draw such women."
"You aristocrat!"
"Come, have you a subject?"
"I know some one who has one."
"Send me that some one."
"I will."
"Who is it?"
"Anicet."
"This happens most luckily, for I owe him a play."
"How is that?"
"We did Térésa together, and my name appeared; we will do your Mendiante together, and his name shall be on it."
"Oh! it is a regular craze with you not to give your own name? Richard! La Tour de Nesle! You will end by only putting your name to bad dramas."
"Do you mean that in connection with Catherine Howard?"
"No, I said it ... at a venture."
Some one knocked at the door.
"Good!" she continued, "here is Harel coming to worry us."
"Let us see. Come in; what do you want?"
"I bring news from M. Gaillardet."
"A second writ?"
"No, the copy of a letter which will be in all the newspapers to-morrow."
"Oh! leave us in peace!" said Georges.
"Wait then, till I have read it you."
"My dear Harel, I tell you you are disturbing us greatly."
"I do not think so!" he said.
Indeed, I was still on my knees in front of Georges.
"Listen."
He read—
"30 May
"To the Editor.
"DEAR SIR,—Yesterday I was alone named as the author of La Tour de Neste, to-day my name is on the playbills, preceded by two M's, and * * *. It is an error or a piece of malice of which I will neither be the victim nor the dupe. In any case, will you please announce that, in my contract as on the stage, and as, I trust, on to-morrow's bills, I am and intend to be the sole author of La Tour de Neste.
F. GAILLARDET"
"There!" said I to Harel, "that is flat."
Harel unfolded a second letter.
"Here is my reply," he said.
"My dear man, the only answer you can make is to change the position of the stars."
"That does not enter into my planetary system.... Listen."
And he read—
"1 June
"To the Editor.
"This is my answer to the extraordinary letter from M. Gaillardet, who claims to be the sole author of La Tour de Neste. The play, entirely as far as style is concerned, and nineteen-twentieths, at least, as regards its composition, belongs to a celebrated collaborator who, for private reasons, did not wish to give his name after the immense success it received. Scarcely anything left is of the original work of M. Gaillardet. I assert this and will prove it, if need arises, by comparison of the MS. compared with that of M. Gaillardet.—Yours etc.
"HAREL"
On 2 June, the newspapers contained this reply from M. Gaillardet—
"To the Editor.
"By way of an answer to M. Harel, please be so good as to insert the enclosed letter, written to me by the celebrated collaborator of whom M. Harel speaks, which I received at Tonnerre, where I first learnt that I had a collaborator.
"F. GAILLARDET"
My letter followed. I must confess the insertion of my letter surprised me. It was, to say the least, tactless on M. Gaillardet's part, for he thereby made an adversary of a man who wished to remain neutral. It was no longer possible for me to keep silent; the newspapers, always rather malevolent towards me, began to attack me, and I had had a quarrel the day before with M. Viennet of the Corsaire in the very office of that newspaper, which very nearly ended in a duel. Furthermore, I felt vaguely that, before this matter was ended, there would be swordplay or pistol practice to be given or received. After all the mortifications the work had cost me, I should much prefer that this should be with M. Gaillardet than with any other person. In addition to all this, since my attack of cholera, I was excessively weak. I could not eat, and I was attacked every night by feverishness, which put me into an abominable temper. So I seized my pen and, smarting under the disagreeable impression that I had just received from the publishing of my letter, I replied—
"To the Chief Editor of the Newspaper.
"SIR,—Allow me first of all to thank you for the insertion of the letter I wrote to M. Gaillardet, reproduced in your yesterday's issue. It will be a proof to the public mind of the delicacy which I desired to exercise in my dealings with this young man; but that delicacy has, it seems to me, been very ill appreciated: the only two conversations I had with him proved to me that he could not understand it.[1] But how could M. Gaillardet not be conscious that, at least, the insertion of this letter would necessitate a reply on my part, that it could only be one disadvantageous to himself, and that, hunting for ridicule with a lantern, he could not fail to be more fortunate than Diogenes? Very well, the answer which he compels me to make is as follows—
"'I have not read M. Gaillardet's MS.; it only left M. Harel's hands for a second and it was returned to him at once; for, in consenting to write a work under a title and about a known situation, I was afraid of being influenced by a work anterior to my own, and thus lose the freshness which is essential to me before I can do such a piece of work.'
"Now, since M. Gaillardet thinks the public is not sufficiently informed about this sorry business, let him convoke the arbitration of three men of letters, of his own choice, and come before them with his MS., while I will with mine; they shall then judge on which side is the delicacy of feeling and on which the ingratitude.
"In order that I may be faithful to the extreme limits of the conditions which I self-sacrificingly imposed upon myself in the letter I wrote to M. Gaillardet, allow me, sir, not to give my name here, any more than I have done on the bills.
"THE AUTHOR OF THE MANUSCRIPT OF
La Tour de Nesle"
Henceforth, it will be understood, war was declared between M. Gaillardet and myself.
[1] I am obliged, in order not to alter the text, to reproduce the letters in their entirety; only, I now disapprove of every wounding expression contained in mine.
[CHAPTER IV]
The use of friends—Le Musée des Familles—An article by M. Gaillardet—My reply to it—Challenge from M. Gaillardet—I accept it with effusion—My adversary demands a first respite of a week—I summon him before the Commission of Dramatic Authors—He declines that arbitration—I send him my seconds—He asks a delay of two months—Janin's letter to the newspapers
Although great events were gathering like a dreadful storm on the horizon, and were about to take place in the midst of the miserable controversy about which we are writing, I think it is better, as we have begun it, to follow it to the end, rather than to return to it later.
M. Gaillardet persisted in his lawsuit and won it. I have mentioned that I had completely refused to second Harel in his defence. The ill-advised stars which had stolen a march upon M. Gaillardet's name were obliged to fall behind it; but, as Harel had wished, all Paris knew that I was the real author of La Tour de Nesle.
Did this do the drama much good? I have my doubts about it; I have already expressed my opinion upon the pleasure the public takes in making the reputation of an unknown young man at the expense of established reputations. Two years went by, during which La Tour de Nesle ran its two to three hundred performances. I thought no more about the old quarrel; I had only published Gaule et France during those two years—a very incomplete work, from the point of view of science, but singularly noteworthy from the point of view of the prediction with which it ends—and had Angèle performed, when, one morning, a friend of mine (friends are very useful sometimes, as we are about to see), came into my room when I was still in bed, and, after a few preliminary words, asked me if I had read Le Musée des Familles. I looked at him with an obviously astonished air.
"Le Musée des Familles?" I asked. "On what grounds should I have read that paper?"
"Because it contains an article by M. Gaillardet."
"So much the better for Le Musée des Familles."
"An article on La Tour de Nesle."
"Ah! an article on the drama?"
"No, on the tower."
"Well, how does that affect me?"
"Because in M. Gaillardet's article on the tower he speaks of the play."
"Well, what does he say? Come to the point."
"He says it is his best drama."
"He ought to be ashamed of himself. It is one of my best, he means."
"You ought to read it."
"What is the good?"
"Because it may perhaps have to be replied to."
"M. Gaillardet's article?"
"Yes."
"Do you think so?..."
"Good heavens! Read it."
I called Louis. The servant I then had was called Louis; he was a droll fellow whom I found drunk from time to time, when I returned home at night, and who gave as an excuse that as he had to fight a duel the next morning he must drown his thoughts. I hurried him away to Henry Berthoud, the publisher of Le Musée des Familles, with a message asking him to send me the number which contained M. Gaillardet's article. Louis returned with the required number, and this is what I read
"LA TOUR DE NESLE
"One evening the setting sun lit up the sky with a purple red colour, and bordered the horizon that lay between Sèvres and Saint Cloud with a ribbon of fire; I was on the Pont des Arts, with M. de Jouy's L'Ermite in my hand. Guided by the Academician, I had come there as an observer to the centre of a bird's-eye view; for this particular place is a focus where a thousand rays meet and converge. Opposite to me, the city, the cradle of Paris, with its houses piled up in the shape of a triangle, and as close to one another as a battle corps; at the head of the city, the Pont Neuf, with its ancient arches and its nine adjoining streets. To the left, the Louvre, which is no longer the old Louvre, with its heavy tower and belfry; the Tuileries, that royal pied-à-terre, whose name is ennobled with the dignity of time and of the revolutions which have passed over its head; a monument of which can be said, as Milton said of Satan: 'Lightning has struck it and marked its face!' To the right, the Mint, the sole building in Paris which, together with the Timbre-Royal and the Morgue, possess a physiognomy of their own, and, so to speak, show the nature of their existence. Below, the Institut and the Bibliothèque Mazarine.
"I had reached thus far in my circumspection, when my cicerone (I still refer to M. de Jouy) informed me, in a footnote, that at this place formerly stood the tower of Nesle, from the top of which, according to the chroniclers, several queens or princes were forced to fling themselves into the Seine, to get rid the more surely and swiftly of the misfortune they had drawn down upon themselves. I was much struck by this anecdote. When still young and at college, I had read Brantôme and what it contained about the tower of Nesle; but the recollection of it had been effaced from my memory: it now returned to me vividly and suddenly. Assuming a twofold power from the hour and the place where I stood, it returned with redoubled force and impressiveness; it completely took possession of me.... For the first time, I detected the drama, and my first and best drama was conceived!
"There is something both attractive and terrible in this story of debauchery and of princely slaughters, consummated in the night, at midnight, between the thick walls of a tower, with no witnesses but the burning lamps, the attendant assassins, and God watching all! Something which takes possession of the soul, in the hutchery of these young men (they were all young and beautiful!) who had come there weaponless and without mistrust, ... a truly royal quarry, which hyænas and tigers might envy! But I am letting myself run away in these poetical reflections, and I forget that I am, and only desire to be, a story-teller.
"Let us first speak of the building, then, afterwards, I will speak of its mysteries. At the time of King Philip, the Beautiful, and his sons, the boundaries of Paris were limited, on the left bank of the Seine going down, by an enclosure made by Philippe-Auguste, who gave his name to it. That enclosure, the walls of which correspond pretty nearly to the later towers of the Louvre, had, for their outer defence, a moat which communicated with the Seine, and took the water to the Gate of Bussy. Beyond the enclosure, were the great and little pré-aux-Clercs, so called because they were used on fête days as a promenade by the students of the university. They covered the space now occupied by the rues des Petits-Augustins, Marais-Saint-Germain, Colombier, Jacob, Verneuil, de l'Université and of Saints-Pères, etc. On this space, and adjoining the enclosure, was the hôtel de Nesle, which had a façade of eleven great arcades, with a close which was planted with trees, the end of which, on the quayside, was close to the Church of the Augustines. This mansion occupied the situation of the College Mazarin, the hôtel de la Monnaie and other contiguous sites: its spacious court, its buildings and its gardens were almost bounded by the rues Mazarine and Nevers and the quai Conti, formerly called quai de Nesle.
"Amaury de Nesle, the owner of the mansion, sold it, in 1308, to Philippe le Bel for the sum of 5000 livres; Philippe le Long gave it to Jeanne de Bourgogne, his wife, and she, in her will, ordered it to be sold, and the money applied to the foundation of a college which was called the Collège de Bourgogne. In 1381, Charles VI. sold it to his uncle, the due de Berry. Finding the gardens too small, the latter, in 1385, added seven acres of land to them, situated outside the town moats, and, in order to establish communication, he had a bridge built over the moat. This outer portion was called the petit séjour de Nesle. From the hands of the Duc de Berry, the mansion passed into those of several other princes and, finally, was sold outright by Henri II. and Charles IX. in 1552 and 1570. Upon its ground various constructions rose up, such as the hôtel de Nevers, the hôtel de Guénégaud, which has since taken the name of Conti; later again still, what remained of this mansion was pulled down to make room for the Collège Mazarin, now the Palais de l'Institut. At the western end of the mansion, in the angle made by the course of the Seine and the moat of the enclosure de Philippe-Auguste, were the gate and tower of Nesle, the only ones which were represented on the engraving placed at the head of this account. The gate was a kind of fortress comprised of a building flanked by two round towers, between which was the entrance from the town. This was reached by a stone bridge supported on four arches, and re-establishing the communication intercepted by the moat, which was very wide at this spot.
"It appears that, for a long time, this gate had been closed to the public; for I read letters patent of 13 April 1550, addressed to the provost and aldermen, authorising them to 'cause the gate of Nesle to be opened, for the convenience of the neighbourhood, and for foot passengers and horses only, not for the use of waggons or pack horses subject to the payment of toll.' I further read in these letters that 'the faubourg had been ruined by the wars, and reduced to arable land; and, having begun to be rebuilt under François I., who had allowed it to be done, it was one of the finest suburbs of any of the towns of France. Whereupon, request being made by the town, the opening of the said gate is allowed.'[1]
"It was by this gate of Nesle that Henri IV. entered Paris, after having besieged that side of the city, in 1589. It was still in existence under the reign of Louis XIV. Now as to the tower; it was situated some few feet to the north of the gate, on the point of land which was formed by the moat where it reunited itself to the Seine: the river bathing it at its foot. It was round in shape, was about a hundred and twenty feet in height, and overlooked the roof of the gallery of the Louvre. It was yoked to a second tower containing the spiral staircase, and was not so large in diameter, but still higher. At first sight, one would have said they were like two sisters, one of whom had the heritage of the strength and the maturity of age, and the other the lightness and graces of youth. More pointed and slender, this tower was the look-out one; more solid and staid, the former trusted to its strength and waited. Both were joined to the neighbouring gate by a wall, their ally, these three forming a complete whole, which faced south-west, and was continued by ramparts which, together with several other works, completed the defence.
"On the other bank, opposite these, rose the Louvre, and, in the angle between the Louvre and the Wall of Paris, was a tower similar to them, which they called the tour du Coin. In times of danger, an iron chain, one end of which was fixed to the tour de Nesle, stretched across the Seine, and, held up at various distances by boats, was fastened to the tour du Coin, and barred from that side of the river the entrance from the city of Paris.
"Originally, the door and gate of Nesle bore the name of Philippe Hamelin, their builder or their first owner, I do not know which. Later, they derived their name from the mansion, which had become important. The windows of the tower and one terrace of the mansion looked over the river.
"Brantôme (I now return to him), in the second paragraph, art. Ier of his Femmes Galantes, relates that a Queen of France, whom he does not name, ordinarily lived there, 'who was on the watch there for passers-by, calling out to them and making them come to her; and throwing them from the top of the tower, which still stands, to the water below to drown them.... I do not wish to say, he adds, that this was true; but the common people, the greater portion of Paris, at least, declare this; and no man so simple but who, if you showed him the tower alone, and questioned him concerning it, would say it was so.'
"Jean Second, a Dutch poet, who died in 1536, supported Brantôme's assertion in a piece of Latin verse which he composed about the tower of Nesle.[2]
"Mayeme mentions it in his History of Spain, vol. I, p. 560. Villon, who wrote his poems in the fifteenth century, at a still nearer date to the event, adds his testimony to it. Giving several new details, he informs us that the wretched victims were shut into sacks before being flung into the river. In the second strophe of his Ballade des Dames du temps jadis, he asks—
"... Où la royne
Qui commanda que Buridan
Fût jeté, en ung sac, en Seine?""This Buridan, of whom Villon speaks, escaped from the trap, we know not how. He retired to Vienna, in Austria, where he founded a university, and his name became famous in the schools of Paris in the fifteenth century.
"In 1471, a Master of Arts of the University of Leipzig wrote a small work entitled Commentaire historique sur les jeunes écoliers parisiens que Buridan, etc. It will be seen that the story of the tower of Nesle had become of European fame. The queen, of whom Brantôme, Jean Second, Mayeme and Villon, all speak, was taken to be, successively, Jeanne de Navarre, wife of Philippe le Bel; next, Marguerite de Bourgogne, first wife of Louis X., as well as his two sisters, Jeanne and Blanche, all three daughters-in-law of Philippe le Bel.
But Robert Gaguin, a historian of the fifteenth century, comes forward in defence of Jeanne de Navarre. After speaking of the conduct of the three princesses, wives of the three sons of Philippe le Bel and of their punishment, he adds: 'These disorders and their frightful consequences gave birth to a tradition injurious to the memory of Jeanne de Navarre, wife of Philippe le Bel. According to that tradition, she caused students whom she attracted to her to be thrown into the river from the window of her room. Only one single student, Jean Buridan, had the good luck to escape the penalty he had incurred; this is why he published this epigram (before his self-exilement): Ne craignez pas de tuer une royne; cela est quelquefois bon (Reginam interficere nolite timere; bonum est).'
"Thus, Gaguin does not contest the fact; on the contrary, he confirms it and develops it, only complaining—and not without reason—that it was attributed to Jeanne de Navarre, who did not live at the same time as Buridan. As regards Margaret of Burgundy and her sisters Jeanne and Blanche, they have not the safeguard or the protection of a date, nor of the verdict of history. All the world knows, on the other hand, that the three sisters were in other ways guilty of the most scandalous conduct; two of them had their two brothers, Philippe and Gaultier d'Aulnay as their lovers; the tower of Nesle then belonged to the Princess Jeanne, and was their meeting-place. But, one day, says Geoffrey of Paris—
"'Tout chant et baudor et leesce
Tornés furent à grand destrèce,
Du cas qui lors en France avint:
Dont escorcher il eu convint,
Deux chevaliers joli et gaie,
Gaultier et Philippe d'Aulnay.'"In fact, these two young men were suddenly arrested as well as the queen and her sisters, the princesses. Philippe confessed that he was the lover of Margaret, wife of Louis X., and Gaultier that of Blanche, Comtesse de la Marche. This confession made, says Geoffrey—
"'L'eure ne fut pas moult retraite
Que donnée fut la sentence;
Si furent jugiés sans doutance
Les deux chevaliers de leur paire.
D'une sentence si amère
Por leur traison et péchié,
Que ils furent escorchié,
. . . . .
Et puis entrainé et pendu!'"Margaret and Blanche were taken to the Andelys, where they were flung, says Geoffrey, into a kind of underground dungeon.
"'Longuement en prison là furent,
Et de confort moult petit urent.
L'une ne l'autre ni ot aise;
Mais toutes voies plus à mal aise
Fut la royne de Navarre,
En haut estoit; et à la terre
La comtesse fut plus aval,
Dont elle souffroit moins de mal,
Car elle estoit plus chaudement.
Ce fut justice voirement,
Car la royne cause estoit,
Du péché que elle avoit fait.'"From this prison they were transferred to the Château-Gaillard, a Normandy fortress. There, by order of Louis X., Margaret was strangled with a towel, according to some, and with her own hair, according to others. Blanche was spared and divorced, and took the veil at the Abbey of Maubisson, where she ended her life. But Jeanne was even more fortunate; she had been arrested, like her sisters—
"'Et, quand la comtesse ce vit,
Hautement s'écria et dit:
Por Dieu, oiez moi, sire Roi;
Qui est qui parle contre moi?
Je dis que je suis preude fame,
Sans nul crisme, sans nul diffame;
Et sé nul ne veut contre dire,
Gentil Roy, je vous réquier. Sire,
Que vous m'oiez en deffendant
Sé nul ou nulle demandant
Me fait chose de mauvestie,
Mon cuer sens si pur, si traitie,
Que bonnement me détiendrai,
Ou tel champion baillerai,
Qui bien saura mon droit deffendre,
S'il ovus pies à mon gage prendre.'She succeeded, indeed, in justifying herself more or less, and her husband Philippe le Long took her back again.
"FRÉDÉRICK GAILLARDET"
There was nothing in all this particularly offensive to me; but I had been so greatly annoyed over the whole business, that I had promised myself, on the very first opportunity that presented itself, to be disagreeable to M. Gaillardet, and I did not intend to let this opportunity slip by. The occasion appeared and I seized it. I wrote, ab irato, the following letter, and I did wrong. I cannot do more than confess it, I hope.
"TO M. S.—HENRY BERTHOUD
"MONSIEUR LE DIRECTEUR,—In turning over one of your back numbers, I chanced upon an article in which M. Gaillardet relates how he wrote his drama of La Tour de Nesle. I should never have believed that such details were of sufficiently lively an interest to the public; but, as M. Gaillardet thinks otherwise, I will submit to his opinion, and I will relate, in my turn, how I wrote mine.
"I must first of all admit that its birth or, rather, its incarnation, its earliest idea, dawned on my mind in a less sudden and inspired and, consequently, less poetical, a manner than in his case. It did not strike me on the Pont des Arts, towards the evening of a beautiful summer day, at that hour when the ray of the western sun purples the horizon of the great city; it did not come to me, indeed, while I was gazing at the Mazarin Palace, vulgarly known as the Institut. That is why my Tour de Nesle is so unacademic. No; but you will, perhaps, recollect the disastrous time when the cholera leapt from St. Petersburg to London, and from London to Paris, and fell upon the Hôtel-Dieu, spreading its wings over the doomed city like a black pall. The rich man in his selfishness, first of all, hoped that the plague-laden breath of this demon would restrict itself to a mortality among the poor; that the aristocratic scourge would only decimate the dwellers in lodgings or garrets, and that it would think twice before it knocked with its trailing shroud at the doors of the mansions of the opulent Chaussée or the noble Faubourg. He thought it had gone mad I He shut the padded shutters of his windows so that no sound should reach him; he ordered his valets to fight fresh candles, to bring in more bottles of wine, to sing more songs. Then, at the close of the orgy, he heard the shout at his door:—It was the Asiatic angel come, like the Commander after Don Juan's feast, to seize him by the hair, saying: 'Repent thee and die!'
"Oh I then there was universal desolation, indeed I and it was curious to see how the rumour of the first cry of death from a rich household went resounding through the faubourg Saint-Honoré to the Luxembourg, and from the Luxembourg to la Nouvelle-Athènes; how, suddenly, all who lived encircled within that elegant triangle were stirred by a growing terror, and thought of nothing but flight, and shut themselves in their carriages emblazoned with the arms of Crécy, of Marengo or of the Bourse. More than one of these carriages, before it reached the end of the street, came into collision with a waggon covered with black on its way to the cemetery, and more than one fugitive met Death, the incorruptible Customs' officer, who forbade him to go beyond the frontier, recognising him as his, and having marked him for the tomb beforehand.
"Then, to the noise of these barouches, berlins and post-chaises, which increased in every direction, and tore along the roads, there succeeded a dull and continuous sound. A long file of hearses of all descriptions, from a simple black curtain converted into one (for these funeral equipages were soon insufficient for the number of guests invited), followed incessantly, at a walking pace, in a triple line, and before them yawned the jaws of a cemetery. Then, by another route, the carriages returned, empty and impatient to be refilled. All things disappear before the incessant fear of death: the Bourse was mute; the walks became solitary; the places of entertainment deserted; the theatre Porte-Saint-Martin, that king of money-makers, took 9000 francs only during the whole month of April.
"One of the bomb-shells which had burst over Paris struck me. I was still laid on my bed, feverish, but convalescent when M. Harel came and sat by my bedside. The disease from which his theatre was suffering was following the reverse course from mine. M. Harel is one of those gladiators who, if not the strongest, are, at least, the most agile I know: a man of calculated cool-headedness, clever by nature, eloquent from necessity. For five years, I believe, fortune and he wrestled with one another and struggled in the lists that go by the name of the pit of a theatre; certainly, more than once, he bit the dust, but, more than once, he also floored his adversary and, each time the thing happened, the goddess did not rise except with empty pockets. Nevertheless, this time, he himself confessed she had her dagger at his throat!
"With a man like M. Harel, circumstances may change from ill to good, and from good to ill ten times in one day; but, in either case, it is always a pleasure to see him because he is always amusing to listen to: Give him Mascarille and Figaro for valets de chambre and, if he does not get the better of them, I wish I may be a Georges Dandin. It was, then, with the usual pleasure which his presence gave me, no matter, as I have previously said, what the position I might be in with respect to him, that I saw M. Harel come in. This time, moreover, I thought we were on friendly terms, and his visit was a real bit of good luck to a convalescent. He recounted to me, in the wittiest manner imaginable, all the tribulations the theatre was undergoing, enough to drive an ordinary man mad, and ended by saying that if my brains were as empty at that moment as his theatre he was a ruined man.
"An author's head is rarely quite dried up; he has always, in one of the drawers of that marvellous piece of furniture which we call the brain, two or three ideas which are awaiting the period of incubation necessary for each of them before they can come forth alive. Unfortunately, or, perhaps, fortunately, none of these ideas was, at the moment, ready to be born from me, and they each needed several more months of gestation unless they were to come forth into the world still-born. M. Harel gave me a week.
"There are two ways of working at literary work as a whole and dramatic work in particular: one is conscientious, the other pecuniary; the first artistic, the second bourgeois. In the first method, one works thinking only of oneself; in the second, thinking only of the public, and the great evil of our profession is that it is very often the pecuniary work which prevails over the conscientious, and the bourgeois upholding itself over the artistic scheme. Which means that, when one works for oneself, one sacrifices all public requirements to personal, whilst, if one works for others, one sacrifices all personal demands to public; and this does not prevent, whatever their fate, an author having works to which he is indifferent and those for which he has a predilection. Now, it is useless to say that works of predilection are not created in a week. I stuck to it, then, not to give up any of the ideas I had in my head at that moment; and, M. Harel seeing this, he incontinently mentioned one of those which he had in his MSS. boxes at his theatre.
"'Pardieu!' he said to me, 'there is in one of the three or four hundred dramas received at the Porte-Saint-Martin a subject which would suit your style of work admirably, and in which Mademoiselle Georges would have a fine part.'
"'What is it?'
"'A Margaret of Burgundy.'
"'I cannot take it: I refused to deal with it the other day when some one suggested it to me.'[3]
"'But why?'
"'Because a friend of mine, who, I think, has much more cleverness than you, which is saying a good deal, is doing a drama on it.'
"'Who is he?'
"'Roger de Beauvoir?'
"'You are mistaken! It is a novel entitled, L'Écolier de Cluny.'
'Oh! then another difficulty is removed! I am all the more pleased to plunge into the stream of the fourteenth century at the time when cholera has come to pay me a call, for I know my Louis le Hutin to my finger-tips.'
"'So it is understood I send you the MS. to-morrow.'
"'But the author! Will it suit his ideas?'
"'The play belongs to me; mine by fair and square contract: I have the right to have it rewritten at my own pleasure, by whomsoever I think fit. And, believe me, I feel sure the author will prefer that you should touch it up rather than any one else.... Besides, let me tell you everything frankly.'
"'I warn you that, after that declaration, I shall be on my guard!'
"'Exactly so ... You know Janin is rather friendly towards me?'
"'Yes.'
"'Very well, I begged him to rewrite this play, as it is unactable as it is, and I only took it after he had consented to overhaul it ...'
"'Then you do not need me?'
"'On the contrary, for it was Janin himself who told me to come to you. He has toiled and moiled at it; he has put marvellous style into it; "I have Janin's MS. in my possession; it is, indeed, perhaps the work on which he best displayed the wealth and flamboyant versatility of his pen. This is so true, that when my drama was done I made use of his work as the gold dust with which to besprinkle my own," but, finally, he was the first to realise that there was no play in what he had done. This morning, he came into my room with an armful of papers, which he flung at me, telling me that you were the only one who could put it into shape, that I should kill him with worry, that he had the cholera and that he was going to apply a score of leeches.'
"'Very well, send me all these old papers to-morrow?'
"'Will you set at it immediately?'
"'I will try; but on one condition.'
"'What is it?'
"'That I shall not appear at the rehearsals, and that my name shall not figure on the bills; because I am doing this for you and not for myself. So give me your word of honour?'
"'My word of honour!'"
"I have already mentioned that, at the time M. Harel came to hunt me up, I was suffering from fever, a state of mind, as every one knows, extremely favourable to the concoction of works of the imagination. Therefore, the very same day, my character of Margaret of Burgundy was decided upon, my rôle of Buridan drawn out and part of the plot contrived. Next day M. Harel arrived with his manuscript.
"'Here the thing is,' he said.
"'What a pity! it comes too late.'
"'How is that?'
"'Your drama is finished.'
"'Bah!'
"'Send me your secretary to-night; he shall have the first scene.'
"'Ah! my dear friend! You are ...'
"' One moment! Let us concern ourselves with business matters now.'
"'But you know that, between us ...'
"'Ah! it is not of my own I wish to speak; it is of those of your young man.... You have made the young man sign a contract, you told me?'
"'Yes.'
"'On what conditions?'
"'Why, according to the usual Porte-Saint-Martin terms: 2 louis per performance, I for himself, I for Janin, and 12 francs' worth of tickets.[4]
"'As Janin renounced his part in the collaboration, does he give up his rights?'
"'There is no doubt on that head; he was the first to say so to me.' 'Then, your young man enjoys the benefit of Janin's withdrawal, and has the treaty entirely to himself?'
"'Nothing of the kind!'
"'Why?'
"'Because, with your rights, which are in addition to the ordinary arrangements, that would cost me a ruinous sum per night. Besides, he only claims one louis; he expects to have a collaborator: he will get his louis and his collaborator; only, the latter, instead of being named Janin, will be called Dumas, and, instead of being named, will not hear of it.'
"'Yes; but I would like this young man to be satisfied with me, all the same.'
"'There is a way; let him deduct his second louis from your rights.'
"'Yes, but then, you, on your side, will take the sum of 20 francs' worth of tickets; that will make even money for him.'
"'I am anxious it should.'
"'Do you agree to that?'
"'Perfectly.'
"'Let us draw it up.'
"I took up pen and paper and the treaty was drawn up and signed.
"'Is there anything besides to take over in what you have brought there?' I continued, pointing to the manuscript lying on my bed.
"'Why, yes, in the first act ... Understand clearly that this MS. is Janin's; I have not brought you the other, which is illegible.' 'I will see that after I have written mine.'
"'Then I shall have something to-night?'
"'Yes, the first scene.'
"'That is well; Verteuil shall be with you at ten o'clock.'[5]
"I spent the day scratching the nib of a pen on paper. Verteuil came that night at the appointed hour; I was dead tired, but the scene was done; it was the tavern scene.
"'At what time must I return?' said Verteuil to me.
"' To-morrow, at four.'
"'And shall I have the second scene?'
"'You shall have it.'
"'Wonderful!...'
"'Only, leave me in peace.'
"'I will take myself off at once.'
"'Verteuil took his leave. I then remembered what M. Harel had said to me of the beauties of style, which, according to him, existed in the beginning of the work. The first thing I caught sight of, on looking at the names of the characters, was that the principal hero was called Anatole, a name which seemed to me singularly modern for a fourteenth century drama; but I went on with my reading undiscouraged. There was a suggestion of plot, of which I took advantage, and, as I have said, admirable things in the way of style. However, I only took the tirade of the grandes dames. Thus, it is at Janin, and not at me, that the marquises of the faubourg Saint-Germain ought to throw stones. As far as the second, third, fourth and fifth acts were concerned, they diverged so greatly from ordinary theatrical rules, that it was impossible to extract anything from them; nevertheless, the magic of the style made me read them right to the end; but, when I had read the manuscript, I laid it down and did not open it again.
"Next day, Verteuil was prompt and I was punctual, and he carried off his second scene. When the first three acts were done, they were read to the actors without waiting for the last two. According to our compact, my name was not uttered, I never appeared at the reading, and M. Harel took the place of the presumed author, who was still absent from Paris.
"In a week's time, M. Harel had his drama completely finished. I then wrote to the young man to tell him that his first performance was going to take place. He never favoured me with an answer; but took carriage, came to Paris and found his rehearsal tickets at his rooms. He rushed to the Porte-Saint-Martin, came in as they began the second act, listened to it quite quietly, also to the third; but, at last, losing patience after the prison scene, he came up on to the stage and asked if they were soon going to begin the rehearsal of his play, or if they had made him come solely and simply to listen to somebody else's drama. The actors began to laugh. The resemblance in the names suddenly occurred to his mind, and he saw clearly that he had said a foolish thing.
"'What,' said Bocage to him, 'do you not recognise your child, or has it been changed at nurse?'
"The young man did not know what to reply.
"'Are you dissatisfied with the prison scene?' continued Bocage.
"'Not at all,' said the young man, who began to regain his self-possession; 'on the contrary, it seems to me very effective.'
"'Very well, but you shall see your second act,' resumed Bocage; 'that will please you indeed!'
"The young man saw his second act, and declared it to be exactly to his taste. Only, he seemed much to regret that the name of Anatole had been exchanged for that of Gaultier d'Aulnay.
"The young man followed the rehearsals of his drama most carefully, making objections at random to which nobody listened, and corrections which they took good care not to follow.
"The day of the representation arrived. Carefully though I had kept the secret on my side, the indiscreet interest of the manager, the jokes of the actors, even the complaints let slip as to the author, had denounced me to the public as the real culprit; a certain way of handling, in the construction of the play, and qualities of style impressed with an individual stamp of its own, at each moment rose up to accuse me more and more; in short, there was not one single person in the theatre but who expected to hear my name pronounced by the lips of Bocage, when he came to announce, according to custom, that the play they had had the honour of performing was by Monsieur * * * He named the young man.
"I had just fulfilled the last engagement that I had set myself, and, certainly, it was the most difficult. To hear a whole theatre stamping, applauding with hundreds of hands, demanding with the frenzy of triumph your name as the author, which is equivalent to your person, your life and your renown, and to give up instead of your own an unknown name to the halo of publicity; and all this when one might have done otherwise, since no sort of promise binds you, since no engagement whatever has been entered into, this is, believe me, the philosophy of delicacy pushed to the extremest limit.[6]
"When the performance was over, I caught sight of our young man as I was going downstairs with the audience. He modestly received the compliments of all his friends and was riding the high horse in the centre of a group of them. Janin was going down at the same time as I. We exchanged one of those looks which nobody could understand; then we went away arm in arm, laughing all along the boulevard, at the young man, at the public and, most of all, at ourselves. Next day, M. Harel, who made out that the absence of my name on the bills was prejudicial to him, invented one of those methods which were peculiar to himself, of telling the public, tacitly, what it was impossible to tell it outright, and he drew up his bill in these terms—
"LA TOUR DE NESLE
"Drame en cinq actes, en prose
"DE MM. * * * ET GAILLARDET"He had, as we see, reversed the rules of algebra, which lay down that one should proceed from the known to the unknown, and not from the unknown to the known. It was impossible to give proof, I think, of a more knowing ignorance and of a more ingenious blunder. Which seeing, the young man wrote the following letter to the editor of the Corsaire.....
We are acquainted with that letter as well as with Harel's answer: I have quoted them previously.
"That answer did not hinder the young man, who was a barrister, from bringing an action against M. Harel, but it was a singular action, as you shall see. He never dreamt of taking the asterisks from the bill altogether; it was a question, therefore, solely, of changing the position of them. A request was, consequently, presented by the young man to the Tribunal de Commerce, to have the things re-established in algebraical position; this request asked for a decree which should authorise the young man to put himself first. Until then all went well, and the young man had not completely forgotten the small service I had just done him, and the way in which I had done it; witness the following letter which he had written me when starting his lawsuit—
'MY DEAR MASTER,—I wish to renew my thanks for your good and loyal conduct in my affairs yesterday; but, since Harel is intractable, I will not yield him an inch of ground, and I am going to fight him. If, indeed, as he says, the honour of his management is imperilled, so is my word compromised; and I am too far pledged with the public and with my friends to remain quiet.
"'Do not let this business worry you, my dear master, and particularly do not let it prevent you from going away when you wish; only, in that case, I would ask you of your goodness to make one trivial declaration,[7] so that Harel may be brought to trial, and made to overcome his obstinacy by the certain prospect of a conviction against him. A thousand pardons for all the upset these miserable, wretched quarrels are causing you. A thousand cordial thanks.
"'4 June 1832'
"Owing to my declaration, the sentence was pronounced and the unlucky asterisks were condemned to be put last. Meanwhile, a singular idea had presented itself to the young man: namely, to sell the MS. without my knowledge. Consequently, he went in search of Duvernoy and told him that he was the author of La Tour de Nesle, and that he had come to do business with him.
"Duvernoy, who knew how things had been going, came in search of me, and warned me of the action of my collaborator. We settled there and then the conditions of the sale. It was fixed at 1400 francs, 700 of which were to be handed to the young man. Doubtless, this sum did not appear to the young man proportionate to the merit of his drama; for he threatened Duvernoy and me with a second lawsuit if we fixed the basis of terms on these conditions. At the end of a fortnight he signed a contract of sale for a sum total of 500 francs. The young man would have done better, you see, to go on letting me look after his business affairs. It is needless to say that only one single name appeared on the pamphlet, as was the case on the bills. You will, perhaps, think that in consideration of this last deed of division my young man held me discharged?
"At the time I was occupied with the publication of my complete works I received a letter from him. What do you think he told me in that letter? He told me that he had just learnt with the greatest surprise that I had the presumption to put his drama amongst mine. As one sees, the matter had degenerated into buffoonery. I replied to the young man that, if he continued to bother me with his nonsense, I should print his manuscript in the preface of my own. This intimation was a genuine thunderbolt to the poor devil. He did not know that M. Harel had made me a present, as a kind of premium, of the autograph MS. after the signing of my agreement for Angèle.
"Next day I received, by a sheriff's officer, an invitation to place my manuscript in its author's hands, because, he said, he had just negotiated its sale. The thing will at first appear odd, but it will be understood, when one reflects that, with the exception of one scene, the drama was entirely unrevised; the publisher, then, could not have been in his right senses, but the author was well within his rights.
"M. Philippe Dupin, to whom I sent both the MSS., and who still has them in his possession, replied to our adversary that we were ready to surrender the said autograph, but that we would only do so in exchange for a copy collated under the inspection of three dramatic authors and certified conformable to them. The young man reflected for a fortnight, then withdrew his demand. This was the third lawsuit he had begun against me, in order to gain for himself 12,000 francs. Since that time I have heard no further mention of the young man, and I do not at the present day know if he be dead or alive. That is how my Tour de Nesle was composed. As for M. Gaillardet's, I am not aware if it is, as he says, his best drama; I still only know it from reading it, and I shall wait until he has it played before deciding if it be better than George and Struensee.—Faithfully, etc.,
"ALEX. DUMAS"
The days rolled by, and I knew that my future adversary went shooting every morning, and I was kept informed of the progress which he made. Finally, appeared the famous answer. Let me be permitted to reproduce it in full, with the insults it contains. It is probable that M. Gaillardet to-day regrets his insults towards me, as I regret my violence towards him.[8]
"TO M. S.—HENRY BERTHOUD
"MONSIEUR LE DIRECTEUR,—I published an article in the twenty-first number of Le Musée des Families which you did me the honour to ask from me on the ancient tower of Nesle. In that article, I related cursorily, and under the form of a chat without any sort of pretension, how the idea had come to me to write a drama, the first conception of which no one has contested with me; a drama printed and published over two years ago, and performed to-day for the two hundredth time under my name, by the consent of M. Dumas himself. I did not say a word of M. Dumas; I did not make any allusion to the judicial and literary discussion which arose formerly between him and me. Anyone can be convinced of this by reading my article. I should have a scruple, indeed, against reviving a quarrel long since extinguished, and to which an amicable transaction put an end; a transaction proposed by M. Dumas himself, as I shall tell in due course, by which the public controversy that I had then desired and provoked was settled in its earliest stages. However that may be, to-day M. Dumas returns to the affair; he rekindles the cold and scattered ashes, piling them up with his hands and stirring them to life with his breath, and relights the fire, at the risk of burning his own fingers at it. Since he has thrown down the glove, I pick it up. He has incited me, I reply to him. So much the worse for him if he be wounded in this game, if his reputation chances to be compromised thereby: it does not rest with me to avoid the fight.... I am the offended, the insulted one I and, if ever retaliation be permissible, it is to him who has not sought the attack.... To such an one, vengeance is sacred and reprisals holy, he employs the right of natural and legitimate defence!
"I come, then, to the complete and true story of La Tour de Nesle. I will base my recital on proofs written and signed by the actual personages in this story, and, when proofs shall fail me, I will put before the readers' eyes the suppositions and probabilities of the case, and say to him: 'Consider and judge!' But, in a lawsuit like this, where honour is everything, where the written proof of many of the general facts cannot be set forth (for that, the future would need to have been foreseen and divined as to what would happen), where each of the litigants in certain circumstances must be believed, because he has always told the truth in others, where he who has once lied, on the contrary, is no more worthy of credence; in an affair, in fact, where good faith ought to prevail over lying, when both have nothing to show beyond their word,—I must, and I will, before all else, convince my adversary of inaccuracy (I will be polite in expression), and, that inaccuracy proved, I will bind it on his forehead like the inscription of a brand at the head of a standard, so that the stigma may survive and hover incessantly over the guilty one, before the eyes of the judges in this suit.
"M. Dumas declares (I begin with the first sentence of his article relative to La Tour de Nesle), that, having received a visit from M. Harel, the latter said to him, 'The play belongs to me; mine by fair and square contract; I have the right to have it rewritten at my own pleasure, by whomsoever I think fit....' And, further: 'You have made the young man sign a contract, you told me?' 'Yes.' 'On what conditions?' 'Why, according to the usual terms of the Porte-Saint-Martin: 2 louis per performance, 1 for himself, 1 for Janin and 12 francs' worth of tickets.' Then, in a note, M. Dumas adds: 'This treaty is still in the possession of M. Harel.' Very well, the more words the more inaccuracies. Here is the only treaty which ever existed between me and M. Harel; it is the one they made me sign, by what manœuvre I will tell later, when they made me accept the collaboration of M. Janin."
Then followed the text of that treaty, which the reader knows.
"'The drama was played,' says M. Dumas; 'they gave the name of the young man. (M. Dumas has throughout used that expression to designate me.) To hear a whole theatre clapping, demanding your name and, instead of one's own, an unknown name given up to the halo of publicity; and all this when one might have done otherwise, since no sort of promise binds you, since no engagement whatever has been entered into, this is the philosophy of delicacy pushed to the extremest limit.'
"Well, here is the letter I received from M. Dumas before the performance, and the conditions on which alone I consented to allow the play to be acted."
That letter, the first that I wrote to M. Gaillardet, will not have been forgotten.
"Now, reader, decide. In the case of M. Dumas, which holds its head highest, the philosophy of delicacy, or, indeed, that of assurance? 'Duvemoy came in search of me,' continues M. Dumas, 'and we settled there and then the conditions of the sale. It was fixed at 1400 francs, 700 of which were to be handed to the young man. Doubtless this sum did not appear to the young man proportionate to the merit of his drama.... In a fortnight's time, he signed a contract of sale for a sum total of 500 francs. The young man would have done better, you see, to go on letting me look after his business affairs.'
"Here is a declaration signed by M. Duvernoy.
"'By the same impartial spirit which made me give a declaration to M. Alexandre Dumas in which I acknowledged that M. Gaillardet had offered me the MS. of La Tour de Nesle (we shall see this later), I assert that there was never any question of 1400 francs for the price of the said MS., but of a sum which, I believe, was to be 1000 francs.
DUVERNOY"'PARIS, 8 Septembre 1834'
"I have much more to say and all the philosophies to quote! but they will find room in my narrative; for, now, yes,—now, I feel myself quite strong enough to undertake them!
"It was on 27 March that I read my drama La Tour de Nesle to M. Harel in the presence of M. Janin and of Mademoiselle Georges. The drama was received. 'Dumas could not have done better!' exclaimed the manager, enthusiastically. 'There is, however, something to touch up in the style, which is not at all dramatic; but do not worry yourself about that; begin another drama, and Janin will do us both the favour of revising some pages.' I did not quite comprehend how M. Janin, who had never written a play, could have a dramatic style, to use the manager's expression. 'But, if he has not written one,' I said to myself, 'he has heard a great many, which, perhaps, comes to the same thing.'
"I therefore professed that I should be extremely flattered and most grateful if M. Janin would indeed smooth down a few sentences. M. Janin consented with ready willingness, and I left M. Janin and Mademoiselle Georges joyfully. I was in the seventh heaven.... My rapture did not last long.
"Two days later, 29 March, I went to see what my Janinised drama had become. What was my surprise to see a whole act rewritten! 'It is a big piece of work,' I said aside to the manager. 'M. Janin did much more than I had desired; but I do not think my style so bad that he need ...' 'No, no, certainly,' replied M. Harel; 'but Janin has thrown himself thoroughly into it, he will at least want his share.' 'What! his share?' 'Yes, his half.' 'But it is a collaboration then?—there is some misunderstanding; I will go and tell M. Janin.' 'Ah! what are you going to do? You will offend Janin, Janin the most influential of the critics! You will make an enemy for life.' 'Bah!' 'I tell you it is so. You do not know what the theatre is! But ... besides they have set to work on it! It is not intact. You are bound on both sides! etc., etc.,' to such an extent that M. Harel, seeing me quite stunned, took a sheet of paper, scrawled upon it the agreement that I have transcribed above, and made me sign it.... And that is how I got my first collaborator.
"Then, I attributed that occurrence to a misunderstanding; now, I attribute it to a very good understanding: ideas change with time!
"Then the day came for M. Janin to read us his work. I said nothing, for, as far as I can, I exercise charity, even towards my enemies!... Let it be known only that, by common accord, the work was judged null and void. Janin withdrew and gave up the task (I will give the written proof), and M. Harel returned purely and simply to my drama. Now, since the day upon which I read my play, I had conceived new ideas and improvements, due as much to discussion and to the criticisms of the manager as to my own reflections. But, in order to enlighten the public as to the true mysteries of the birth of La Tour de Nesle, and, as it were, to initiate it into the phases and developments of the work by which this drama was conceived, abnormal in its success and by reason of the quarrels which it raised, I am about to establish succinctly what the drama was, as a whole, and in comparison with the drama performed, which I read to M. Harel, and which was returned to me at the epoch of which I am speaking. It will be easy to all to understand me at once (who has not seen La Tour de Nesle?), and to verify me afterwards, M. Dumas having the original MS. in his possession, and able to show it to whomsoever desires to see it; also, people may be confident that I shall say less rather than more. I quote from memory and my adversary has the book!"
Here, M. Gaillardet gave the résumé of his first MS.; then he continued thus—
"The reader has already gathered at what points the two dramas coincide. Are not these points, in the small portion I have quoted, and quoted faithfully (for if I were the man to make up an audacious lie, my adversary would hold in his hands the means of exposing me!)—are not those points already the fundamental basis of the acted drama? Are they not the bones and marrow, the substance and framework?... Indeed I I venture to say that had I done only that in the play, I should have done more than half the drama, consequently ten, twenty times more than M. Dumas allows me, since he allows me nothing. Very well! he has dared to write and to print it in all his letters! But, after what we know of him, of what can we and should we be surprised?
"M. Harel had expressed much regret to me; first, because the drama was not en tableaux; that style suited the ways of his theatre better, and the success of Richard supported the opinion; secondly, that I had not made Buridan the father of Gaultier and of Philippe, whose mother (Marguerite) was alone known. 'That would complicate the plot,' he said to me. Finally, he thought it improbable that Marguerite, a queen and all-powerful, would not have had Buridan arrested and got rid of, at the first words of his revelation. At the juxtaposition of these two latter objections a sudden ray of light sprang up in me. Let Buridan be the father indeed, by means of a pre-existing intrigue, and let him be arrested by Marguerite, who wanted to rid herself of him; then, at the moment of his greatest peril, let him make himself known, and there would be the opportunity for a magnificent scene—capital! The prison scene was hit upon.
"Two days after that on which Janin had given up the drama, like an athlete, exhausted by a task too heavy for him, I took to M. Harel, the manager of the Porte-Saint-Martin, a scenario which was pretty nearly that of La Tour de Nesle. I am, however, going to point out the differences.
"Orsini was not a tavern-keeper; that was Landry, although both were men belonging to the tower of Nesle. As for Orsini, he was one of those magicians extremely feared in his time under the name of envoûteurs. A confidant of Marguerite, he receives at his house the courtiers, a part very much like that of Ruggieri in Henri III.; it is on that account, I think, that M. Dumas has made him a tavern-keeper instead of Landry.
"Secondly, the prison scene was arranged like this so that Buridan might finish his part holding Marguerite's hands, and say to her, 'Délie ces cordes!' Marguerite, falling on her knees obediently, and freeing him with one single cut. M. Dumas has tripled that action by causing Buridan only to be unbound after three attempts.
"He is miles beyond me, as tried talent far exceeds feeble inexperienced effort, as attainment exceeds inexperience.
"As far as the truth of what I advance is concerned, it will be detected by all impartial readers, first, in the accuracy and faithfulness of its details, if I may so express it; I do not merely relate what is in the actual Tour de Nesle, but things that are not to be found in that, among others, one scene in the fourth act. Buridan comes as a gipsy, and not as a captain, to visit the wizard Orsini. The latter wants to overawe the gipsy, who revealed to him the murders of the tower of Nesle as he had revealed them to Marguerite; and soon the magician falls at the gipsy's feet, seized with the very superstitions he himself instils into the vulgar-minded, to enquire if, perhaps, there be true sorcerers! This scene was bound to disappear directly Orsini was made an inn-keeper.
"Finally, as to probability, I might say concerning the proof of my word, that I have the actual words of M. Dumas in the letter in which he says to me: 'Harel has come to ask my advice about a drama by you which he wishes to put on the stage. Your play ... that which I have been happy to have been able to add to it ... etc.' Nobody speaks like this of a work in which he has done everything.
"Next, a line from M. Harel, which I received before my departure (after Janin's withdrawal,) in which he says to me: 'Write to me; take care of your health and, above all, work! 'There were then, modifications, changes decided upon, a work to be done!... They deny it; I assert it and assert it with proof!... It is for the reader to decide the matter.[9]
"So, now, you will perceive that it will matter little to me whether M. Dumas either had or had not my first MS. in his possession. I have proved that he has had my second plan; from another source, he himself confesses to have possessed and partly copied Janin's MS. which was mine spoilt.... What more do I need?
"I will, therefore, resume my story from where I left off. Felonies were about to succeed one another like file-firing. It was on 8 April when I took my scenario to M. Harel. My father died on the 9th; he had come to Paris on purpose to fetch me away from the contagion which reigned over the city, and his joy in being present at my first play induced him to remain with me! This recollection breaks my heart!... On the 10th, as a messenger of death, I went to console my poor mother. This was the night of the same day on which M. Harel wrote me the note wherein he said, 'Take care of your health!' Wretched irony, flung at me between a misfortune which had come upon me and an act of robbery which was about to overtake me! 'Go,' he had said to me; 'I have a play before yours: you have three months before you. Take it easy and write to me!'
"I had scarcely been gone a month before I had to write to M. Janin to ask him about an announcement relative to La Tour de Nesle. A book had just appeared upon the same subject (L'Écolier de Cluny), and I did not wish it to be thought that my play was taken from the book. Janin replied—
"'I will willingly do what you ask me: but what is the good? I announce the approaching performance of your play. I say your and not our, because I count for absolutely nothing in it; you know the matter rests between you and M. Harel; that was agreed upon a long time ago, etc.
JULES JANIN'"'10 May 1832'
"After that, not a word further. I wrote to Paris, and I learnt that M. Dumas has been made and has constituted himself my collaborator. I leave the reader to imagine what my feelings were!...
"Beside myself, trembling with rage and indignation, I wrote to M. Harel to forbid him to act the play; to M. Dumas to beg him to prevent it. 'You have doubtless been misinformed,' I said to him; 'the play belongs to me and to me alone; I do not wish to have collaborators at all, certainly not clandestine ones, imposed upon me; I therefore appeal to you, for your own honour's sake, and I point out to you the necessity for stopping the rehearsals, etc.'
"No answer either from M. Harel or M. Dumas!... I set off, and, before going to my home, I went in travelling garb, as I was, straight to M. Harel. 'I am ruined!' he said to me; 'it is true I have deceived you.... Now, what are you going to do?... Stop the play!—You will not succeed in doing that; I shall change the title of it and play it. You can attack me for forgery, theft, plagiarism, what you like: you would obtain 1200 francs damages. Ask a lawyer! If, however, you let it be played you will gain 12,000 francs, etc.' He spoke the truth, for such is the protection ordinarily granted by our judges to the author who is robbed! ... I returned home, pale with rage, and it was then I found the grandiloquent letter from M. Dumas, quoted by me at the beginning of this article. Such are the principal facts.
"Now, what do you say to those lines of M. Dumas? 'I wrote to the young man, and the young man never favoured me with an answer!' This time it is the philosophy of truthfulness, with a vengeance! Nobody would have believed it, if I had not held the evidence and the means of proving what I am stating! M. Dumas not having yielded to the request or to the summons that I sent him to stop the rehearsals of the play (which was the first, if not the second, of his mistakes, from which he will never clear himself, because it proves his complicity), and M. Harel threatening to play in spite of me—which, both morally and physically, he was capable of doing,—there was nothing else left for me to do but to let my drama be performed, and according to the conditions stipulated in M. Dumas's letter, in which he stated that his name would not be given, that I should be the sole author, that he wished to tender me a service and not to sell it me.
"Very well, then, the day following the first performance, asterisks appeared on the playbills before my name, and now, M. Dumas wants to replace my name by his: it will be seen what encroachments these were! This is not all. When it came to payment, they would not give me more than one share. Now, listen carefully: during the current April, the Commission of Authors had made an agreement with M. Harel, before the performance of my play, which stipulated for a fee of ten per cent, for the authors, in the performances to come on at the Porte-Saint-Martin. I had, then, the right to the benefit of this agreement. M. Dumas enjoyed it, and more beside; he also received two and three hundred francs per night. What did they leave me? Forty-eight francs, the price of an old agreement! and M. Dumas took half of it from me—that is the service he wished to tender me, and not to sell!!!
"There was nothing for it but to go to law to protest against such deeds, as there is nothing but the police station against theft and pickpocketting. I therefore had recourse to the law courts.
"If more proof still be needed, I have it at hand, drawn up and set forth in the legal deeds, properly attested, which began the examination of this trial. But it would seem that the trial a little alarmed M. Dumas's public conscience, for he suggested to me to stop it by a compromise.
"In that compromise—First, we both acknowledged each other as joint authors of La Tour de Nesle; second, it was specified that this play should always be published and acted under my name, followed by asterisks; third, M. Dumas guaranteed me a settled sum of 48 francs per performance, and half of his tickets. 'To what sum do they amount?' I asked him in all good faith. 'To 36 francs, upon my honour!' he replied, glancing at M. Harel; so I accepted 18 francs' worth of tickets. Next day, M. Harel would not fulfil the above-mentioned compromise, as far as it concerned himself, although he had been the instigator of, and witness to, it. It needed a trial to compel him to do it, and M. Dumas blamed him on that occasion.... I had that to thank him for ... it was the first and last time. He also quoted my letter.
"A little while later, I learnt that M. Dumas, who had declared to me upon his honour that there would only be 36 francs' worth of tickets, had over 50! But, while taking the oath, he had looked at M. Harel. The MS. was still for sale. Barba, who had offered 1000 francs for it, and never 1400, would give no more than 500 francs. Half that sum should have been paid down to each of us there and then, and the remainder in six months from that date. In a few days' time, when I went to M. Barba to get my 125 francs, I learnt that M. Dumas had come and taken my share of the cash payable down with his own, saying he was authorised to do so by me!
"There is something so incredible in such an act, so petty, so degrading to the man of letters, that I should not have dared to cite it, had I not possessed the proof, written by M. Dumas himself. Indeed, when Barba informed me of that, not venturing to believe it, I wrote to M. Dumas, who replied that he had, indeed, received 250 francs; but Barba had said he had special arrangements with me (did they not say that it was Barba who had wished to pay there and then?); that, moreover, he had enabled me to exact the same advantage for myself as for him ... that I could make use of his letter to get myself also paid at once, that he authorised me, etc. This was making use of a first fraud in order to commit a second, two indelicacies instead of one! I should have preferred to be settled by a six months' bill.[10] Now, Monsieur Dumas, what do you suppose I should reply to you—you who treated me in your letter as though I were a poor devil of a fellow?... I am too well-bred for you to guess. Now, in order to escape the sooner out of these unworthy details, which present so ill a picture, I will state that I should never oppose the insertion of La Tour de Nesle among M. Dumas's complete works (although that right resulted strictly as mine from the terms of our transaction together), if M. Dumas had consented to make a simple mention of my collaboration in that play. That is the method followed nowadays by M. Scribe. But, to a polite letter M. Dumas replied by one of those incivilities of which he claims the monopoly.[11]
"Finally, if I asked M. Dumas for my first MS. through a sheriff's officer, it was because it was, on his part, incredible disloyalty to put side by side with this sole and only MS. a play which had had at the least three!
"This is the truth about La Tour de Nesle and the whole truth. I should add to the documents which I have brought forward and to the proofs I have given, that, summoned before our peerage, the Commission of Authors, I cited and enumerated all these details and facts before M. Dumas in person! And there, as here, I more than once felt my cheeks flush with involuntary shame. Up to now, M. Dumas seemed great and sacred in my eyes, with the greatness of talent, the sacredness of art. So, if, after this controversy, which he provoked, another should follow it, my hand may indeed tremble ... for behind M. Dumas the man, there is the artist, and, beneath the shame, is his fame.
"P.S.—In support of his statements, M. Dumas has produced various certificates, to each of which I shall only concede what is necessary in order to the appreciation of their worth and weight.
"I will say nothing of M. Harel, who was the primary culprit in the whole affair, and whose accomplice M. Dumas is. M. Dumas ought to be ashamed to call upon such a witness.
"M. Verteuil, M. Harel's secretary, asserts to having gone to M. Dumas's house to fetch the five acts of La Tour de Nesle (excellent!) as he wrote them, to having re-copied his manuscript entirely (better and better!), which had no sort of resemblance with that (which?) of M. Gaillardet, a MS. which was in my possession about three months.... Ah! Monsieur Verteuil, I pull you up here!... La Tour de Nesle was performed on 31 May. It was on 29 March (look at the date at the top) when my MS. was received. I left on 10 April; M. Dumas was my collaborator on the 11th. He declares he did his work in a week, and you declare that my MS. had then been about three months in your possession?... Oh I Monsieur Verteuil, you are indeed secretary to M. Harel.
"M. Duvernoy certifies that I wished to sell the drama (I believe him there, indeed!). He asserted to me that M. Dumas had quoted a false price; this is rather more positive. There now only remains M. Janin's attestation. Ah! that, I confess, I scarcely expected. M. Janin writes that nothing can be more accurate than the details given by M. Dumas, which he thinks he remembers and that, on the whole, M. Dumas's reply is truthful! and M. Dumas declares that Janin, accepted by me as a collaborator, had given his rights to him and been sent by M. Harel! This is too much! M. Janin, then, forgets that he had no further rights, that he had waived his claim, that he had proclaimed this to me in a letter written and signed in his own hand?
"This is not all, and, since I must tell it you, reader, be informed that, after the first performance of La Tour de Nesle, it was M. Janin who bound me to protest; it was at his house that I wrote my protest; it was he himself who wanted to dictate it to me and did do so! He was furious with MM. Harel and Dumas. This is not all yet; in consequence of the lawsuit which arose between M. Harel and myself before the Tribunal de Commerce, M. Janin himself wrote to M. Darmaing, to support a protest that I made to the Gazette des Tribunaux: 'I beg M. Darmaing to insert the enclosed short note, I entreat it in my own name, and that of M. Gaillardet. I do not understand the stubbornness with which they seek to rob this young man of that which belongs to him, etc.' (See La Gazette des Tribunaux, 1 July 1832.) What do you say to it, reader? I had promised to relate the petty secrets of this apostasy, but I have not space; and, besides, I reflected that it was not worth the trouble, and so I sign myself—
"F. GAILLARDET"
After this reply, it will be realised that M. Gaillardet had no right to delay our duel, as, not having spared me less than I had him, it was I who considered myself the injured party. So, after a fresh call on the part of my seconds, the meeting was fixed for 17 October 1834.
[1]Histoire de Paris, by Félibien, vol. iii. of the proofs, p. 378, Collect, B.
[2] "Epigramm, libro," p. 140. edit. Lugd. Batav.
[3] "In fact, Fourcade, one of my best friends, son of the Consul-General of that name, had come a few days previously to make me this offer. It will not be surprising, I think, in a letter of this kind, that I mention every one by name; for a name written out plainly saves me testimonials and certificates."
[4] This treaty is still in the possession of M. Harel.
[5] Verteuil is M. Haxel's secretary.
[6] "This had already happened to me in Richard; but, this time, it was not the voice of my amour propre which compelled me to restrain myself, but the entreaties of my collaborator. Ten times during the performance, Dinaux and M. Harel came into my box to beg me with growing solicitations as the drama increased in popularity to give out my name. They have not forgotten the firmness of my refusal, I believe; but neither shall I forget the friendly delicacy of their entreaties."
[7] "The object of that declaration was to make it known that I resigned being put first, and that I had never solicited that position."
[8] See Appendix.
[9] "'I, the undersigned, one of the managers of the newspaper, l'Avant-Scène**, ex-inspector-general of the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre, under M. de Lhéry, M. Harel's predecessor, assert that, a short time before M. de Lhéry's retirement, M. F. Gaillardet communicated with me concerning a MS. of La Tour de Nesle, in five acts without scenes, of which he was the sole author; that, later, and before his departure for the provinces, M. Gaillardet showed me a new plan of the same drama in scenes, in which was pretty nearly the whole of the original Tour de Nesle; a plan that had just been settled, he said, between himself and M. Harel. In witness of which, etc., DUPERRET'
[10] "Here is M. Barba's statement—
"I think I remember (it is more than two years ago) that half the purchase money of La Tour de Nesle was given, in cash, to M. Dumas on his saying that that was agreed upon with M. Gaillardet, which the latter denied. He was then obliged by the terms of our agreement to accept my note for his share.
BARBA '29 August 1834'
[11] "'You have written Struensee!' he says to me. Does M. Dumas think to prove by that that I have done nothing in La Tour de Nesle? He forgets, then, that he, too, has written also La Chasse et l'Amour, La Noce et l'Enterrement? (who has heard these plays mentioned?) Then the wretched Napoléon, which has had two Waterloos, dragging with it in its second the downfall of the Odéon and of M. Harel! then, immediately after La Tour de Nesle, Le Fils de l'Émigré, which had three performances with M. Anicet; Angèle, which had thirty with M. Anicet; La Vénitienne, which had twenty with M. Anicet; Catherine Howard, which has had fifteen without M. Anicet? Are we really to suppose that M. Dumas is not therefore the author of the beauties of Antony, of Henri III., and of Christine? It has surely been said so here and there, and even partly proved! Perhaps it is to this that I owe M. Dumas's attack? But he need not be anxious: I shall never write a Gaule et France and certainly not a Madame et la Vendée.
[CHAPTER V]
Sword and pistol—Whence arose my aversion to the latter weapon—Philippe's puppet—The statue of Corneille—An autograph in extremis—Le bois de Vincennes—A duelling toilet—Scientific question put by Bixio—The conditions of the duel—Official report of the seconds—How Bixio's problem found its solution
I had wished the duel to be one with swords; M. Gaillardet insisted it should be with pistols. I have a strong repugnance to that weapon; it seems to me brutal and more that of a highway robber, who attacks a traveller from the shelter of a wood, than that of the honourable combatant defending his life. The thing I dread most in pistol-duelling (but I have only fought twice with this weapon) is unskilfulness, much more than dexterity. Indeed, two or three years before the period in which the events I am relating took place—namely, before 1834—I had had a pistol-duel; I have not spoken of it, not being able to give the name of the man against whom I fought, nor to tell the reasons why I was fighting. In that duel, which took place at seven in the morning in the bois de Boulogne, in the neighbourhood of Madrid, my adversary and I were placed at twenty paces distance from one another. Lots were drawn as to who should fire first and the advantage fell to my adversary. I planted myself, with pistol loaded, at a distance of twenty paces and I waited for the firing with the muzzle of the barrel of my weapon in the air.
My adversary fired. I saw his hand tremble and the bullet strike the ground six lengths in front of me, and, at the same time, however, I felt what seemed like the sharp cut of a whip on my leg. It was the flattened bullet which struck the calf of my leg as it rebounded, making a wound two inches deep and forcing into my wound a piece of my trousers and boot. The pain was so great that I unconsciously pressed the trigger of my weapon and the charge went off into the air. The seconds then decided that the firing held good, and that any pistol discharged in a duel was discharged against the adversary.
I requested it to be continued, and the seconds began to reload the weapons; but, during that operation, whether from shaken nerves, or loss of blood, I nearly fainted. It was, therefore, impossible to go on with the duel. Consequently, I got into my carriage, and, as I did not wish to return to my mother in the state I was in, I had myself driven to Deligny's Swimming School, where my friend père Jean gave me a bathing-closet and sent to the rue de l'Université for Roux, the clever surgeon. Roux was not at home, but they brought back one of his assistants. The young man examined the wound, and, as the ball had passed through almost from one side to the other where it had entered, he decided it was shorter to begin the search by the aid of a fresh wound than to fumble about in the other; the swelling, moreover, made that almost impracticable. It was done as he wished; the young man opened the calf of my leg and extracted first the bullet, next the piece of boot and, finally, the fragment of my trousers; then they neatly put pad of lint on both sides of my wound, and bound up my leg, and I returned home hopping on one foot, telling my poor mother that I had torn my leg with a splinter of wood while bathing. I had, therefore, good reason for not having a liking for pistols—well though I shot with them, and, at that time, I was a remarkable shot—but M. Gaillardet insisted and I accepted his weapon. All the same, I wished to prove to his seconds that if I insisted on swords, it was not, indeed, for want of skill to use the weapon preferred by my opponent. I consequently invited Soulié and Fontan to come to Gosset's. It was a singular thing! the seconds had drawn by lot their fighter, or, rather, M. Gaillardet and I had so drawn our seconds, and fate gave me Longpré and Maillan, who were simple acquaintances, and it gave Soulié and Fontan to M. Gaillardet, who were both my friends. Soulié, Fontan and I, then, went to Gosset's the night before the duel. A boy named Philippe usually loaded my pistols. He it was, therefore, who went to take down the puppet and to put up the bull's eye.
"No," I said to Philippe, "leave the puppet."
"But monsieur is not in the habit of firing at the puppet."
"I will only fire ten bullets, Philippe; it is merely to show these gentlemen that I am not one of your poor shots."
Philippe left the doll.
I put my first bullet an inch above its head; the second an inch below its feet; the third an inch to its right side, and the fourth an inch to its left side. "Now that it cannot escape either above, below, to right or to left, I am going to break it with my fifth bullet." And I broke it with my fifth. I aimed the sixth bullet at the ground; it stopped short at ten paces, almost. I shot at it with the remains of the contents of my pistol. At that moment, a swallow came and alighted on a chimney and I killed it. Fontan and Soulié exchanged looks. One of my principles was never to draw sword or to shoot before others; this time I had made an exception in their favour. Soulié himself shot extremely well; I had been his second four or five years previously, in a duel he had had with Signol, and in an experiment similar to this which I had made I had seen him break the small and large hand of a cuckoo clock one after the other at a distance of fifteen yards.
"Philippe," I said, as I came out, "I have to fight a duel to-morrow; I wish things to go off fair and square. Take with you ammunition and pistols that I have never used, powder and shot, and be at Saint-Mandé by noon."
Philippe promised to do what he was bidden and we went away.
The affair assumed a seriousness I had never realised till then. I went to Bixio, begging him, as usual, to be present at the duel, not in the capacity of second, but in that of surgeon. The meeting was to be at twelve o'clock at Saint-Mandé! We were to go by the mail-coach. If I were not wounded or killed, we should immediately leave the field of battle for Rouen, where there was to be an inauguration of the statue of Corneille. Fontan, Dupeuty and I had been appointed by a majority of votes to represent dramatic authors. Bixio accepted, of course; he was to come and fetch me from the rue Bleue, where I lodged at the time. I returned home to take certain precautionary measures concerning my son and daughter, in case of my death. As regarded my mother, since the poor woman knew that I was going a journey of some length, I left a score of letters written from different towns in Italy; if I was killed, they could hide the truth from her by letting her believe I was still alive by the receipt of a letter at intervals, as though it had just arrived by post. These preparations took up the whole night. I only slept towards five in the morning. At ten o'clock, when my two seconds came in, they found me still asleep. The affair was still on. We were to have breakfast at the café des Variétés. There, my carriage came for us and we were to be taken and brought back by my horses; then, on the return (if return there were to be), we should take post-horses and start, as I have said, for Rouen. I sent Maillan and Longpré on in advance to order breakfast. I went downstairs ten minutes after them. I had, at all risks, taken duelling swords under my cloak; I still hoped the matter would end that way. I met Florestan Bonnaire on the staircase, whom I have already mentioned in connection with Madame Sand. He had an album in his hand.
"Stop," he said, "are you going out?"
"Yes."
"Are you in a hurry?"
"Why?"
"Because, if you are not in a hurry, I wish you would go upstairs and write a few lines of poetry in my album."
"All right! Take the album upstairs; and leave it. On my return I will put you a scene in it from Christine or from Charles VII."
"You cannot do it at once?"
"No, honestly I can't."
"Go along with you!"
"On my word of honour, I am in a hurry, and I would not be late for the whole world!"