EXILED
Scores of men, celebrated in art and in literature, have, for a longer
or shorter period of their lives, been bohemians of the Latin Quarter.
And yet these years spent in cafes and in studios have not turned them
out into the world a devil-me-care lot of dreamers. They have all
marched and sung along the "Boul' Miche"; danced at the "Bullier";
starved, struggled, and lived in the romance of its life. It has all
been a part of their education, and a very important part too, in the
development of their several geniuses, a development which in later life
has placed them at the head of their professions. These years of
camaraderie--of a life free from all conventionalities, in daily touch
with everything about them, and untrammeled by public censure or the
petty views of prudish or narrow minds, have left them free to cut a
straight swath merrily toward the goal of their ideals, surrounded all
the while by an atmosphere of art and good-fellowship that permeates the
very air they breathe.
If a man can work at all, he can work here, for between the
working-hours he finds a life so charming, that once having lived
it he returns to it again and again, as to an old love.
How many are the romances of this student Quarter! How many hearts have
been broken or made glad! How many brave spirits have suffered and
worked on and suffered again, and at last won fame! How many have
failed! We who come with a fresh eye know nothing of all that has passed
within these quaint streets--only those who have lived in and through it
know its full story.
[Illustration: THE MUSEE CLUNY]
Pochard has seen it; so has the little old woman who once danced at the
opera; so have old Bibi La Puree, and Alphonse, the gray-haired garcon,
and Mere Gaillard, the flower-woman. They have seen the gay boulevards
and the cafes and generations of grisettes, from the true grisette of
years gone by, in her dainty white cap and simple dress turned low at
the throat, to the tailor-made grisette of to-day.
Yet the eyes of the little old woman still dance; they have not grown
tired of this ever-changing kaleidoscope of human nature, this paradise
of the free, where many would rather struggle on half starved than live
a life of luxury elsewhere.
And the students are equally quixotic. I knew one once who lived in an
air-castle of his own building--a tall, serious fellow, a sculptor, who
always went tramping about in a robe resembling a monk's cowl, with his
bare feet incased in coarse sandals; only his art redeemed these
eccentricities, for he produced in steel and ivory the most exquisite
statuettes. One at the Salon was the sensation of the day--a knight in
full armor, scarcely half a foot in height, holding in his arms a nymph
in flesh-tinted ivory, whose gentle face, upturned, gazed sweetly into
the stern features behind the uplifted vizor; and all so exquisitely
carved, so alive, so human, that one could almost feel the tender heart
of this fair lady beating against the cold steel breastplate.
Another "bon garcon"--a painter whose enthusiasm for his art knew no
bounds--craved to produce a masterpiece. This dreamer could be seen
daily ferreting around the Quarter for a studio always bigger than the
one he had. At last he found one that exactly fitted the requirements of
his vivid imagination--a studio with a ceiling thirty feet high, with
windows like the scenic ones next to the stage entrances of the
theaters. Here at last he could give full play to his brush--no subject
seemed too big for him to tackle; he would move in a canvas as big as a
back flat to a third act, and commence on a "Fall of Babylon" or a
"Carnage of Rome" with a nerve that was sublime! The choking dust of the
arena--the insatiable fury of the tigers--the cowering of hundreds of
unfortunate captives--and the cruel multitude above, seated in the vast
circle of the hippodrome--all these did not daunt his zeal.
Once he persuaded a venerable old abbe to pose for his portrait. The
old gentleman came patiently to his studio and posed for ten days, at
the end of which time the abbe gazed at the result and said things which
I dare not repeat--for our enthusiast had so far only painted his
clothes; the face was still in its primary drawing.
"The face I shall do in time," the enthusiast assured the reverend man
excitedly; "it is the effect of the rich color of your robe I wished to
get. And may I ask your holiness to be patient a day longer while I put
in your boots?"
"No, sir!" thundered the irate abbe. "Does monsieur think I am not a
very busy man?"
Then softening a little, he said, with a smile:
"I won't come any more, my friend. I'll send my boots around to-morrow
by my boy."
But the longest red-letter day has its ending, and time and tide beckon
one with the brutality of an impatient jailer.
On my studio table is a well-stuffed envelope containing the documents
relative to my impending exile--a stamped card of my identification,
bearing the number of my cell, a plan of the slave-ship, and six red
tags for my baggage.
The three pretty daughters of old Pere Valois know of my approaching
departure, and say cheering things to me as I pass the concierge's
window.
Pere Valois stands at the gate and stops me with: "Is it true, monsieur,
you are going Saturday?"
"Yes," I answer; "unfortunately, it is quite true."
The old man sighs and replies: "I once had to leave Paris myself";
looking at me as if he were speaking to an old resident. "My regiment
was ordered to the colonies. It was hard, monsieur, but I did my duty."
The morning of my sailing has arrived. The patron of the tobacco-shop,
and madame his good wife, and the wine merchant, and the baker along the
little street with its cobblestone-bed, have all wished me "bon voyage,"
accompanied with many handshakings. It is getting late and Pere Valois
has gone to hunt for a cab--a "galerie," as it is called, with a place
for trunks on top. Twenty minutes go by, but no "galerie" is in sight.
The three daughters of Pere Valois run in different directions to find
one, while I throw the remaining odds and ends in the studio into my
valise. At last there is a sound of grating wheels below on the gravel
court. The "galerie" has arrived--with the smallest of the three
daughters inside, all out of breath from her run and terribly excited.
There are the trunks and the valises and the bicycle in its crate to get
down. Two soldiers, who have been calling on two of the daughters, come
up to the studio and kindly offer their assistance. There is no time to
lose, and in single file the procession starts down the atelier stairs,
headed by Pere Valois, who has just returned from his fruitless search
considerably winded, and the three girls, the two red-trousered soldiers
and myself tugging away at the rest of the baggage.
It is not often one departs with the assistance of three pretty femmes
de menage, a jolly old concierge, and a portion of the army of the
French Republic. With many suggestions from my good friends and an
assuring wave of the hand from the aged cocher, my luggage is roped and
chained to the top of the rickety, little old cab, which sways and
squeaks with the sudden weight, while the poor, small horse, upon whom
has been devolved the task of making the 11.35 train, Gare St. Lazare,
changes his position wearily from one leg to the other. He is evidently
thinking out the distance, and has decided upon his gait.
"Bon voyage!" cry the three girls and Pere Valois and the two soldiers,
as the last trunk is chained on.
The dingy vehicle groans its way slowly out of the court. Just as it
reaches the last gate it stops.
"What's the matter?" I ask, poking my head out of the window.
"Monsieur," says the aged cocher, "it is an impossibility! I regret very
much to say that your bicycle will not pass through the gate."
A dozen heads in the windows above offer suggestions. I climb out and
take a look; there are at least four inches to spare on either side in
passing through the iron posts.
"Ah!" cries my cocher enthusiastically, "monsieur is right, happily for
us!"
He cracks his whip, the little horse gathers itself together--a moment
of careful driving and we are through and into the street and rumbling
away, amid cheers from the windows above. As I glance over my traps, I
see a small bunch of roses tucked in the corner of my roll of rugs with
an engraved card attached. "From Mademoiselle Ernestine Valois," it
reads, and on the other side is written, in a small, fine hand, "Bon
voyage."
I look back to bow my acknowledgment, but it is too late; we have turned
the corner and the rue Vaugirard is but a memory!
* * * * *
But why go on telling you of what the little shops contain--how narrow
and picturesque are the small streets--how gay the boulevards--what they
do at the "Bullier"--or where they dine? It is Love that moves Paris--it
is the motive power of this big, beautiful, polished city--the love of
adventure, the love of intrigue, the love of being a bohemian if you
will--but it is Love all the same!
"I work for love," hums the little couturiere.
"I work for love," cries the miller of Marcel Legay.
"I live for love," sings the poet.
"For the love of art I am a painter," sighs Edmond, in his atelier--"and
for her!"
"For the love of it I mold and model and create," chants the
sculptor--"and for her!"
It is the Woman who dominates Paris--"Les petites femmes!" who have
inspired its art through the skill of these artisans.
"Monsieur! monsieur! Please buy this fisherman doll!" cries a poor old
woman outside of your train compartment, as you are leaving Havre for
Paris.
"Monsieur!" screams a girl, running near the open window with a little
fishergirl doll uplifted.
"What, you don't want it? You have bought one? Ah! I see," cries the
pretty vendor; "but it is a boy doll--he will be sad if he goes to
Paris without a companion!"
Take all the little fishergirls away from Paris--from the Quartier
Latin--and you would find chaos and a morgue!
L'amour! that is it--L'amour!--L'amour!--L'amour!
[Illustration: (burning candle)]
TRANSCRIBER'S AMENDMENTS:
Page 25: dejeuner amended to dejeuner.
Page 25: Saints-Peres amended to Saints-Peres.
Page 36: aperatif amended to aperitif.
Page 37: boite amended to boite.
Page 51 & 63: Celeste amended to Celeste.
Page 52: gayety amended to gaiety.
Page 57: a a amended to a.
Page 60: glace amended to glace.
Page 64: Quatz amended to Quat'z'.
Page 67: Pres amended to Pres.
Page 78: sufficently amended to sufficiently.
Page 161: Artz amended to Arts.
Page 196: MUSEE amended to MUSEE.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Real Latin Quarter, by F. Berkeley Smith