Of course I witnessed all that was accessible to me of Parisian public
life. I fairly often found my way, as I had done in 1866, to the Palais
de Justice to hear the great advocates plead. The man I enjoyed
listening to most was Jules Favre, whose name was soon to be on every
one's lips. The younger generation admired in him the high-principled
and steadfast opponent of the Empire in the Chamber, and he was
regarded as well-nigh the most eloquent man in France. As an advocate,
he was incomparable. His unusual handsomeness,--his beautiful face
under a helmet of grey hair, and his upright carriage,--were great
points in his favour. His eloquence was real, penetrating, convincing,
inasmuch as he piled up fact upon fact, and was at the same time, as
the French manner is, dramatic, with large gesticulations that made his
gown flutter restlessly about him like the wings of a bat. It was a
depressing fact that afterwards, as the Minister opposed to Bismarck,
he was so unequal to his position.
I was present at the _Théâtre Français_ on the occasion of the
unveiling of Ponsard's bust. To the Romanticists, Ponsard was nothing
less than the ass's jawbone with which the Philistines attempted to
slay Hugo. But Émile Chasles, a son of my old friend, gave a lecture
upon him, and afterwards _Le lion amoureux_ was played, a very
tolerable little piece from the Revolutionary period, in which, for one
thing, Napoleon appears as a young man. There are some very fine
revolutionary tirades in it, of which Princess Mathilde, after its
first representation, said that they made her _Republican_ heart
palpitate. The ceremony in honor of this little anti-pope to Victor
Hugo was quite a pretty one.
Once, too, I received a ticket for a reception at the French Academy.
The poet Auguste Barbier was being inaugurated and Silvestre de Sacy
welcomed him, in academic fashion, in a fairly indiscreet speech.
Barbier's _Jamber_ was one of the books of poems that I had loved for
years, and I knew many of the strophes by heart, for instance, the
celebrated ones on Freedom and on Napoleon; I had also noticed how
Barbier's vigour had subsided in subsequent collections of poems; in
reality, he was still living on his reputation from the year 1831, and
without a doubt most people believed him to be dead. And now there he
stood, a shrivelled old man in his Palm uniform, his speech revealing
neither satiric power nor lofty intellect. It was undoubtedly owing to
his detestation of Napoleon (_vide_ his poem _L'Idole_) that the
Academy, who were always agitating against the Empire, had now, so late
in the day, cast their eyes upon him. Bald little Silvestre de Sacy,
the tiny son of an important father, reproached him for his verses on
Freedom, as the bold woman of the people who was not afraid to shed
blood.
"That is not Freedom as I understand it," piped the little man,--and
one believed him,--but could not refrain from murmuring with the poet:
C'est que la Liberté n'est pas une comtesse
Du noble Faubourg St. Germain,
Une femme qu'un cri fait tomber en faiblesse,
Qui met du blanc et du carmin;
C'est une forte femme.