My introduction to the celebrities of the day -- The Cafe de
Paris -- The old Prince Demidoff -- The old man's mania -- His
sons -- The furniture and attendance at the Cafe de Paris -- Its
high prices -- A mot of Alfred de Musset -- The cuisine -- A
rebuke of the proprietor to Balzac -- A version by one of his
predecessors of the cause of Vatel's suicide -- Some of the
_habitues_ -- Their intercourse with the attendants -- Their
courteous behaviour towards one another -- Le veau a la casserole
-- What Alfred de Musset, Balzac, and Alexandre Dumas thought of
it -- A silhouette of Alfred de Musset -- His brother Paul on his
election as a member of the Academie -- A silhouette of Balzac,
between sunset and sunrise -- A curious action against the
publishers of an almanack -- A full-length portrait of Balzac --
His pecuniary embarrassments -- His visions of wealth and
speculations -- His constant neglect of his duties as a National
Guard -- His troubles in consequence thereof -- L'Hotel des
Haricots -- Some of his fellow-prisoners -- Adam, the composer of
"Le Postillon de Lonjumeau" -- Eugene Sue; his portrait -- His
dandyism -- The origin of the Paris Jockey Club -- Eugene Sue
becomes a member -- The success of "Les Mysteres de Paris" -- The
origin of "Le Juif-Errant" -- Sue makes himself objectionable to
the members of the Jockey Club -- His name struck off the list --
His decline and disappearance.
If these notes are ever published, the reader will gather from the
foregoing that, unlike many Englishmen brought up in Paris, I was
allowed from a very early age to mix with all sorts and conditions of
men. As I intend to say as little as possible about myself, there is no
necessity to reveal the reason of this early emancipation from all
restraint, which resulted in my being on familiar terms with a great
many celebrities before I had reached my twenty-first year. I had no
claim on their goodwill beyond my admiration of their talents and the
fact of being decently connected. The constant companion of my youth was
hand and glove with some of the highest in the land, and, if the truth
must be told, with a good many of the lowest; but the man who was seated
at the table of Lord Palmerston at the Cafe de Paris at 8 p.m., could
afford _de s'encanailler_ at 2 a.m. next morning without jeopardizing
his social status.
The Cafe de Paris in those days was probably not only the best
restaurant in Paris, but the best in Europe. Compared to the "Freres
Provencaux" Vefour and Very, the Cafe de Paris was young; it was only
opened on July 15, 1822, in the vast suite of apartments at the corner
of the Rue Taitbout and Boulevard de Italiens, formerly occupied by
Prince Demidoff, whose grandson was a prominent figure in the society of
the Second Empire, and whom I knew personally. The grandfather died
before I was born, or, at any rate, when I was very young; but his
descendant often told me about him and his two sons, Paul and Anatole,
both of whom, in addition to his vast wealth, inherited a good many of
his eccentricities. The old man, like many Russian grand seigneurs, was
never so happy as when he could turn his back upon his own country. He
inhabited Paris and Florence in turns. In the latter place he kept in
his pay a company of French actors, who were lodged in a magnificent
mansion near to his own, and who enacted comedies, vaudevilles, and
comic operas. The London playgoer may remember a piece in which the
celebrated Ravel made a great sensation; it was entitled "Les Folies
Dramatiques," and was founded upon the mania of the old man. For he was
old before his time and racked with gout, scarcely able to set his feet
to the ground. He had to be wheeled in a chair to his entertainments and
theatre, and often fell into a dead faint in the middle of the
performance or during the dinner. "It made no difference to his guests,"
said his grandson; "they wheeled him out as they had wheeled him in, and
the play or repast went on as if nothing had happened." In fact, it
would seem that the prince would have been very angry if they had acted
otherwise, for his motto was that, next to enjoying himself, there was
nothing so comfortable as to see others do so. Faithful to this
principle, he always kept some one near, whose mission it was to enjoy
himself at his expense. He was under no obligation whatsoever, except to
give an account of his amusements, most frequently in the dead of the
night, when he got home, because the old prince suffered from insomnia;
he would have given the whole of his vast possessions for six hours'
unbroken slumber.
I have an idea that the three generations of these Demidoffs were as mad
as March hares, though I am bound to say, at the same time, that the
form this madness took hurt no one. Personally, I only knew Prince
Anatole, the second son of the old man, and Paul, the latter's nephew.
Paul's father, of the same name, died almost immediately after his son's
birth. He had a mania for travelling, and rarely stayed in the same
spot for forty-eight hours. He was always accompanied by a numerous
suite and preceded by a couple of couriers, who, nine times out of ten,
had orders to engage every room in the hotel for him. Being very rich
and as lavish as he was wealthy, few hotel proprietors scrupled to turn
out the whole of their guests at his steward's bidding and at a moment's
notice. Of course, people refused to put up with such cavalier
treatment; but as remonstrance was of no avail, they often brought
actions for damages, which they invariably gained, and were promptly
settled by Boniface, who merely added them to Prince Paul's bill. The
most comical part of the business, however, was that the prince as often
as not changed his mind on arriving at the hotel, and without as much as
alighting, continued his journey. The bill was never disputed. Another
of his manias was that his wife should wash her hands each time she
touched a metal object. For a while Princess Demidoff humoured her
husband, but she found this so terribly irksome that she at last decided
to wear gloves, and continued to do so long after her widowhood.
It must be obvious to the reader that this digression has little or no
_raison d'etre_, even in notes that do not profess to tell a succinct
story; but my purpose was to a certain extent to vindicate the character
of one of the most charming women of her time, who had the misfortune to
marry what was undoubtedly the most eccentric member of the family. I am
referring to Princess Anatole Demidoff, _nee_ Bonaparte, the daughter of
Jerome, and the sister of Plon-Plon.
To return to the Cafe de Paris and its _habitues_. First of all, the
place itself was unlike any other restaurant of that day, even unlike
its neighbour and rival, the Cafe Hardi, at the corner of the Rue
Laffitte, on the site of the present Maison d'Or. There was no undue
display of white and gold; and "the epicure was not constantly reminded
that, when in the act of eating, he was not much superior to the rest of
humanity," as Lord Palmerston put it when commenting upon the welcome
absence of mirrors. The rooms might have been transformed at a moment's
notice into private apartments for a very fastidious, refined family;
for, in addition to the tasteful and costly furniture, it was the only
establishment of its kind in Paris that was carpeted throughout, instead
of having merely sanded or even polished floors, as was the case even in
some of the best Paris restaurants as late as five and six years ago (I
mean in the seventies)--Bignon, the Cafe Foy, and the Lion d'Or, in the
Rue du Helder, excepted. The attendance was in every respect in thorough
keeping with the grand air of the place, and, albeit that neither of the
three or four succeeding proprietors made a fortune, or anything
approaching it, was never relaxed.
On looking over these notes, I am afraid that the last paragraph will be
intelligible only to a small section of my readers, consequently I
venture to explain. Improved communication has brought to Paris during
the third quarter of the century a great many Englishmen who, not being
very familiar either with French or with French customs in their better
aspect, have come to look upon the stir and bustle of the ordinary Paris
restaurant, upon the somewhat free-and-easy behaviour of the waiters,
upon their eccentricities of diction, upon their often successful
attempts at "swelling" the total of the dinner-bill as so much matter of
course. The abbreviated nomenclature the waiter employs in
recapitulating the bill of fare to the patron is regarded by him as
merely a skilful handling of the tongue by the native; the chances are
ten to one in favour of the patron trying to imitate the same in his
orders to the attendant, and deriving a certain pride from being
successful. The stir and bustle is attributed to the more lively
temperament of our neighbours, the free-and-easy behaviour as a wish on
the waiter's part to smooth the linguistically thorny path of the
benighted foreigner, the attempt to multiply items as an irrepressible
manifestation of French greed.
Wherever these things occur, nowadays, the patron may be certain that he
is "in the wrong shop;" but in the days of which I treat, the wrong shop
was legion, especially as far as the foreigner was concerned; the Cafe
de Paris and the Cafe Hardi were the notable exceptions. Truly, as
Alfred de Musset said of the former, "you could not open its door for
less than fifteen francs;" in other words, the prices charged were very
high; but they were the same for the representatives of the nations that
conquered as for those who were vanquished at Waterloo. It would be more
correct to say that the _personnel_ of the Cafe, from the proprietor and
manager downward, were utterly oblivious of such distinctions of
nationality. Every one who honoured the establishment was considered by
them a grand seigneur, for whom nothing could be too good. I remember
one day in '45 or '46--for M. Martin Guepet was at the head of affairs
then--Balzac announcing the advent of a Russian friend, and asking
Guepet to put his best foot forward. "Assuredly, monsieur, we will do
so," was the answer, "because it is simply what we are in the habit of
doing every day." The retort was sharp, but absolutely justified by
facts. One was never told at the Cafe de Paris that this or that dish
"could not be recommended," that "the fish could not be guaranteed."
When the quality of the latter was doubtful, it did not make its
appearance on the bill of fare. _A propos_ of fish, there was a story
current in the Cafe de Paris which may or may not have been the
invention of one of the many clever literary men who foregathered there.
It was to the effect that one of Guepet's predecessors--Angilbert the
younger, I believe--had cast a doubt upon the historical accuracy of the
facts connected with the tragic death of Vatel, the renowned chef of the
Prince de Conde. According to Angilbert, Vatel did not throw himself
upon his sword because the fish for Louis XIV.'s dinner had not arrived,
but because it had arrived, been cooked, and was found "not to be so
fresh as it might be." The elimination of those dishes would have
disturbed the whole of the economy of the _menu_, and rather than suffer
such disgrace Vatel made an end of himself. "For you see, monsieur,"
Angilbert is supposed to have said, "one can very well arrange a perfect
dinner without fish, as long as one knows beforehand; but one cannot
modify a _service_ that has been thought out with it, when it fails at a
moment's notice. As every one of my chefs is a treasure, who would not
scruple to imitate the sacrifice of his famous prototype; and as I do
not wish to expose him to such a heroic but inconvenient death, we take
the certain for the uncertain, consequently doubtful fish means no
fish."
Truth or fiction, the story accurately conveys the pride of the
proprietors in the unsullied gastronomic traditions of the
establishment, and there is no doubt that they were ably seconded in
that respect by every one around them, even to the _clientele_ itself.
Not a single one of the latter would have called the waiters by their
names, nor would these have ventured to rehearse the names of the dishes
in a kind of slang or mutilated French, which is becoming more frequent
day by day, and which is at best but fit as a means of communication
between waiters and scullions. Least of all, would they have numbered
the clients, as is done at present. A gentleman sitting at table No. 5
was "the gentleman at table No. 5," not merely "number five." There was
little need for the bellowing and shouting from one end of the room to
the other, because the head waiter himself had an eye everywhere. The
word "addition," which people think it good taste in the seventies and
eighties to employ when asking for their bills, was never heard. People
did not profess to know the nature of the arithmetical operation by
which the total of their liabilities was arrived at; they left that to
the cashier and the rest of the underlings.
No coal or gas was used in the Cafe de Paris: lamps and wood fires
upstairs; charcoal, and only that of a peculiar kind, in the kitchens,
which might have been a hundred miles distant, for all we knew, for
neither the rattling of dishes nor the smell of preparation betrayed
their vicinity. A charming, subdued hum of voices attested the presence
of two or three score of human beings attending to the inner man; the
idiotic giggle, the affected little shrieks of the shopgirl or housemaid
promoted to be the companion of the quasi-man of the world was never
heard there. The _cabinet particulier_ was not made a feature of the
Cafe de Paris, and suppers were out of the question. Now and then the
frank laughter of the younger members of a family party, and that was
all. As a rule, however, there were few strangers at the Cafe de Paris,
or what are called chance customers, as distinct from periodical ones.
But there were half a score of tables absolutely sacred from the
invasion of no matter whom, such as those of the Marquis du Hallays,
Lord Seymour, the Marquis de St. Cricq, M. Romieu, Prince Rostopchine,
Prince Soltikoff, Dr. Veron, etc., etc. Lord Palmerston, when in Paris,
scarcely ever dined anywhere else than at the Cafe de Paris--of course I
mean when dining at a public establishment.
Almost every evening there was an interchange of dishes or of wines
between those tables; for instance, Dr. Veron, of whom I will have a
good deal to say in these notes, and who was very fond of Musigny
vintage, rarely missed offering some to the Marquis du Hallays, who, in
his turn, sent him of the finest dishes from his table. For all these
men not only professed to eat well, but never to suffer from
indigestion. Their gastronomy was really an art, but an art aided by
science which was applied to the simplest dish. One of these was _veau a
la casserole_, which figured at least three times a week on the bill of
fare, and the like of which I have never tasted elsewhere. Its
recuperative qualities were vouched for by such men as Alfred de Musset,
Balzac, and Alexandre Dumas. The former partook of it whenever it was on
the bill; the others often came, after a spell of hard work, to recruit
their mental and bodily strength with it, and maintained that nothing
set them up so effectually.
These three men were particularly interesting to me, and their names
will frequently recur in these notes. I was very young, and, though
perhaps not so enthusiastic about literature as I was about painting and
sculpture, it would indeed have been surprising if I had remained
indifferent to the fascination experienced by almost every one in their
society: for let me state at once that the great poet, the great
playwright, and the great novelist were even something more than men of
genius; they were men of the world, and gentlemen who thought it worth
their while to be agreeable companions. Unlike Victor Hugo, Lamartine,
Chateaubriand, and Eugene Sue, all of whom I knew about the same time,
they did not deem it necessary to stand mentally aloof from ordinary
mortals. Alfred de Musset and Alexandre Dumas were both very handsome,
but each in a different way. With his tall, slim figure, auburn wavy
hair and beard, blue eyes, and finely-shaped mouth and nose, De Musset
gave one the impression of a dandy cavalry officer in mufti, rather than
of a poet: the "Miss Byron" which Preault the sculptor applied to him
was, perhaps, not altogether undeserved, if judged intellectually and
physically at first sight. There was a feminine grace about all his
movements. The "Confessions d'un Enfant du Siecle," his play, "Frederic
and Bernerette," were apt to stir the heart of women rather than that of
men; but was it not perhaps because the majority of the strong sex
cannot be stirred except with a pole? And the poet who was so sensitive
to everything rough as to leave invariably the coppers given to him in
exchange, was unlikely to take voluntarily to such an unwieldy and
clumsy instrument to produce his effects.[4]
[Footnote 4: This reluctance to handle coppers proved a sore
grief to his more economical and less fastidious brother Paul,
who watched like a guardian angel over his junior, whom he
worshipped. It is on record that he only said a harsh word to
him once in his life, namely, when they wanted to make him,
Paul, a member of the Academie Francaise. "C'est bien assez
d'un immortel dans la famille," he replied to those who
counselled him to stand. Then, turning to his brother, "Je ne
comprends pas pourquoi tu t'es fourre dans cette galere, si
elle est assez grande pour moi, tu dois y etre joliment a
l'etroit." It is difficult to imagine a greater instance of
brotherly pride and admiration, because Paul de Musset was by
no means a nonentity, only from a very early age he had always
merged his individuality in that of Alfred. To some one who
once remarked upon this in my hearing, he answered, "Que
voulez-vous? c'est comme cela: Alfred a eu toujours la moitie
du lit, seulement la moitie etait toujours prise du milieu."]
Throughout these notes, I intend to abstain carefully from literary
judgments. I am not competent to enter into them; but, if I were, I
should still be reluctant to do so in the case of Alfred de Musset, who,
to my knowledge, never questioned the talent of any one. De Musset
improved upon better acquaintance. He was apt to strike one at first as
distant and supercilious. He was neither the one nor the other, simply
very reserved, and at the best of times very sad, not to say melancholy.
It was not affectation, as has been said so often; it was his nature.
The charge of superciliousness arose from his distressing
short-sightedness, which compelled him to stare very hard at people
without the least intention of being offensive.
I have said that Balzac often came, after a spell of hard work, to
recruit his forces with the _veau a la casserole_ of the Cafe de Paris;
I should have added that this was generally in the autumn and winter,
for, at the end of the spring and during the summer, the dinner hour,
seven, found Balzac still a prisoner at home. Few of his acquaintances
and friends ever caught sight of him, they were often in total ignorance
of his whereabouts, and such news as reached them generally came through
Joseph Mery, the poet and novelist, the only one who came across him
during those periods of eclipse. Mery was an inveterate gambler, and
spent night after night at the card-table. He rarely left it before
daybreak. His way lay past the Cafe de Paris, and for four consecutive
mornings he had met Balzac strolling leisurely up and down, dressed in a
pantalon a pieds (trousers not terminating below the ankle, but with
feet in them like stockings), and frock coat with velvet facings. The
second morning, Mery felt surprised at the coincidence; the third, he
was puzzled; the fourth, he could hold out no longer, and asked Balzac
the reason of these nocturnal perambulations round about the same spot.
Balzac put his hand in his pocket and produced an almanack, showing that
the sun did not rise before 3.40. "I am being tracked by the officers
of the Tribunal de Commerce, and obliged to hide myself during the day;
but at this hour I am free, and can take a walk, for as long as the sun
is not up they cannot arrest me."
I remember having read that Ouvrard, the great army contractor, had done
the same for many years; nevertheless, he was arrested one day,--the
authorities proved that the almanack was wrong, that the sun rose ten
minutes earlier than was stated therein. He brought an action against
the compiler and publishers. They had to pay him damages.
Though literary remuneration was not in those days what it became later
on, it was sufficiently large to make it difficult to explain the
chronic impecuniosity of Balzac, though not that of Dumas. They were not
gamblers, and had not the terrible fits of idleness or drinking which
left De Musset stranded every now and again. Lamartine suffered from the
same complaint, I mean impecuniosity. There is proof of Balzac's
industry and frugality in two extracts from his letters to his mother,
dated Angouleme, July, 1832, when he himself was thirty-two years old,
and had already written half a dozen masterpieces. "Several bills are
due, and, if I cannot find the money for them, I will have them
protested and let the law take its course. It will give me breathing
time, and I can settle costs and all afterwards."
Meanwhile he works eight hours a day at "Louis Lambert," one of the best
things among his numberless best things. His mother sends him a hundred
francs, and, perhaps with the same pen with which he wrote those two
marvellous chapters that stand out like a couple of priceless rubies
from among the mass of other jewels, he thanks her and accounts for
them. "For the copying of the maps, 20 frs.; for my passport, 10 frs. I
owed 15 frs. for discount on one of my bills, and 15 frs. on my fare. 15
frs. for flowers as a birthday present. Lost at cards, 10 frs. Postage
and servant's tips, 15 frs. Total, 100 frs."
But these ten francs have not been lost at one fell swoop; they
represent his bad luck at the _gaming table_ during the whole month of
his stay at Angouleme, at the house of his friend and sister's
schoolfellow, Madame Zulma Carraud,--hence, something like seven sous
(3-1/2_d._) per day: for which extravagance he makes up, on his return
to Paris, by plunging into work harder than ever. He goes to roost at 7
p.m., "like the fowls;" and he is called at 1 a.m., when he writes
until 8 a.m. He takes another hour and a half of sleep, and, after
partaking of a light meal, "gets into his collar" until four in the
afternoon. After that, he receives a few friends, takes a bath, or goes
out, and immediately he has swallowed his dinner he "turns in," as
stated above. "I shall be compelled to lead this nigger's life for a few
months without stopping, in order not to be swamped by those terrible
bills that are due."
These extracts are not personal recollections. I have inserted them to
make good my statement that Balzac was neither a gambler, a drunkard,
nor an idler.
"How does he spend his money?" I asked Mery, when he had told us of his
fourth meeting with Balzac on that very morning.
"In sops to his imagination, in balloons to the land of dreams, which
balloons he constructs with his hard-won earnings and inflates with the
essence of his visions, but which nevertheless will not rise three feet
from the earth," he answered. Then he went on explaining: "Balzac is
firmly convinced that every one of his characters has had, or has still,
its counterpart in real life, notably the characters that have risen
from humble beginnings to great wealth; and he thinks that, having
worked out the secret of their success on paper, he can put it in
practice. He embarks on the most harum-scarum speculations without the
slightest practical knowledge; as, for instance, when he drew the plans
for his country-house at the Jardies (Ville d'Avray), and insisted upon
the builder carrying them out in every respect while he was away. When
the place was finished there was not a single staircase. Of course, they
had to put them outside, and he maintained that it was part of his
original plan; but he had never given a thought to the means of ascent.
But here is Monsieur Louis Lurine. If you would like an idea of Balzac's
impracticability, let him tell you what occurred between Balzac and
Kugelmann a few months ago."
Kugelmann was at that time publishing a very beautifully illustrated
work, entitled "Les Rues de Paris," which Louis Lurine was editing. We
were standing outside the Cafe Riche, and I knew Lurine by sight. Mery
introduced me to him. After a few preliminary remarks, Lurine told us
the following story. Of course, many years have elapsed since, but I
think I can trust to my memory in this instance.
"I had suggested," said Lurine, "that Balzac should do the Rue de
Richelieu, and we sent for him. I did not want more than half a sheet,
so imagine my surprise when Balzac named his conditions, viz., five
thousand francs, something over six hundred francs a page of about six
hundred words. Kugelmann began to yell; I simply smiled; seeing which,
Balzac said, as soberly as possible, 'You'll admit that, in order to
depict a landscape faithfully, one should study its every detail. Well,
how would you have me describe the Rue de Richelieu, convey an idea of
its commercial aspect, unless I visit, one after the other, the various
establishments it contains? Suppose I begin by the Boulevard des
Italiens: I'd be bound to take my dejeuner at the Cafe Cardinal, I would
have to buy a couple of scores at Brandus', a gun at the gunsmith's next
door, a breastpin at the next shop. Could I do less than order a coat at
the tailor's, a pair of boots at the bootmaker's?'
"I cut him short. 'Don't go any further,' I said, 'or else we'll have
you in at "Compagnie des Indes," and, as both lace and Indian shawls
have gone up in price, we'll be bankrupt before we know where we are.'
"Consequently," concluded Lurine, "the thing fell through, and we gave
the commission to Guenot-Lacointe, who has done the thing very well and
has written twice the pages Balzac was asked for, without buying as much
as a pair of gloves."
When Balzac was not being harassed by the officials of the Tribunal de
Commerce, he had to dodge the authorities of the National Guards, who
generally had a warrant against him for neglect of duty. Unlike his
great contemporary Dumas, Balzac had an invincible repugnance to play
the amateur warrior--a repugnance, by-the-way, to which we owe one of
the most masterly portraits of his wonderful gallery, that of the
self-satisfied, bumptious, detestable bourgeoise, who struts about in
his uniform; I am alluding to Crevel of "La Cousine Bette." But civil
discipline could take no cognizance of the novelist's likes and
dislikes, and, after repeated "notices" and "warnings," left at his
registered domicile, his incarceration was generally decided upon. As a
rule, this happened about half a dozen times in a twelvemonth.
The next thing was to catch the refractory national guard, which was not
easy, seeing that, in order to avoid an enforced sojourn at the Hotel
des Haricots,[5] Balzac not only disappeared from his usual haunts, but
left his regular domicile, and took an apartment elsewhere under an
assumed name. On one occasion, at a small lodgings which he had taken
near his publisher, Hippolyte Souverain, under the name of Madame
Dupont, Leon Gozlan, having found him out, sent him a letter addressed
to "Madame Dupont, _nee_ Balzac."
[Footnote 5: The name of the military prison which was
originally built on the site of the former College Montaigu,
where the scholars were almost exclusively fed on haricot
beans. Throughout its removals the prison preserved its
nickname.--EDITOR.]
The sergeant-major of Balzac's company had undoubtedly a grudge against
him. He happened to be a perfumer, and ever since the publication and
success of "Cesar Birotteau" the Paris perfumers bore Balzac no
goodwill. That particular one had sworn by all his essences and bottles
that he would lay hands on the recalcitrant private of his company in
the streets, for only under such conditions could he arrest him. To
watch at Balzac's ordinary domicile was of no use, and, when he had
discovered his temporary residence, he had to lure him out of it,
because the other was on his guard.
One morning, while the novelist was hard at work, his old housekeeper,
whom he always took with him, came to tell him that there was a large
van downstairs with a case addressed to him. "How did they find me out
here?" exclaimed Balzac, and despatched the dame to gather further
particulars. In a few moments she returned. The case contained an
Etruscan vase sent from Italy, but, seeing that it had been knocking
about for the last three days in every quarter of Paris in the carman's
efforts to find out the consignee, the former was anxious that M. Balzac
should verify the intact condition of the package before it was
unloaded. Balzac fell straight into the trap. Giving himself no time
even to exchange his dressing-gown, or rather his monk's frock he was in
the habit of wearing, for a coat, or his slippers for a pair of boots,
he rushed downstairs, watching with a benign smile the carrier handling
most delicately the treasure that had come to him.
"Caught at last," said a stentorian voice behind him, and dispelling the
dream as its owner laid his hand on the novelist's shoulder, while a
gigantic companion planted himself in front of the street door and cut
off all retreat that way.
"With a refinement of cruelty, which in the eyes of posterity will
considerably diminish the glory of his victory"--I am quoting Balzac's
own words as he related the scene to us at the Hotel des Haricots--the
sergeant-major perfumer would not allow his prisoner to change his
clothes, and while the van with the precious Etruscan vase disappeared
in the distance, Balzac was hustled into a cab to spend a week in
durance vile, where on that occasion he had the company of Adolphe Adam,
the composer of "Le Postillon de Lonjumeau."
However, "les jours de fete etaient passes," and had been for the last
five years, ever since the Hotel des Haricots had been transferred
from the town mansion of the De Bazancourts in the Rue des
Fosses-Saint-Germain to its then locale near the Orleans railway
station. There were no more banquets in the refectory as there had
been of yore. Each prisoner had his meals in his cell. Joseph Mery,
Nestor Roqueplan, and I were admitted as the clock struck two, and had
to leave exactly an hour afterwards. It was during this visit that
Balzac enacted the scene for us which I have endeavoured to describe
above, and reminded Mery of the last dinner he had given to Dumas,
Jules Sandeau, and several others in the former prison, which dinner
cost five hundred francs. Eugene Sue, who was as unwilling as Balzac
to perform his civic duties, had had three of his own servants to wait
upon him there, and some of his plate and silver brought to his cell.
Seeing that the name of the celebrated author of "Les Mysteres de Paris"
has presented itself in the course of these notes, I may just as well
have done with him, for he forms part of the least agreeable of my
recollections. He was also an _habitue_ of the Cafe de Paris. A great
deal has been written about him; what has never been sufficiently
insisted upon was the _inveterate snobbishness of the man_. When I first
knew him, about '42-'43, he was already in the zenith of his glory, but
I had often heard others mention his name before then, and never very
favourably. His dandyism was offensive, mainly because it did not sit
naturally upon him. It did not spring from an innate refinement, but
from a love of show, although his father, who had been known to some of
the son's familiars, was a worthy man, a doctor, and, it appears, a very
good doctor, but somewhat brusque, like our own Abernethy; still much
more of a gentleman at heart than the son. He did not like Eugene's
extravagance, and when the latter, about '24, launched out into a
cabriolet, he shipped him off on one of the king's vessels, as a
surgeon; to which fact French literature owed the first novels of the
future author of "Les Mysteres de Paris" and "Le Juif-Errant."
But the father was gathered to his fathers, and Eugene, who had never
taken kindly to a seafaring life, returned to Paris, to spend his
inheritance and to resume his old habits, which made one of his
acquaintances say that "le pere and le fils had _both_ entered upon a
better life." It appears that, though somewhat of a _poseur_ from the
very beginning, he was witty and amusing, and readily found access to
the circle that frequented the gardens of the Tivoli and the Cafe de
Paris.[6] They, in their turn, made him a member of the Jockey Club when
it was founded, which kindness they unanimously regretted, as will be
seen directly.
[Footnote 6: There were two Tivoli gardens, both in the same
neighbourhood, the site of the present Quartier de l'Europe.
The author is alluding to the second, so often mentioned in the
novels of Paul de Kock.--EDITOR.]
The Tivoli gardens, though utterly forgotten at present, was in reality
the birthplace of the French Jockey Club. About the year 1833 a man
named Bryon, one of whose descendants keeps, at the hour I write, a
large livery stables near the Grand Cafe, opened a pigeon-shooting
gallery in the Tivoli; the pigeons, from what I have heard, mainly
consisting of quails, larks, and other birds. The pigeons shot at were
wooden ones, poised up high in the air, but motionless, as we still see
them at the suburban fairs around Paris. Seven years before, Bryon had
started a "society of amateurs of races," to whom, for a certain
consideration, he let a movable stand at private meetings, for there
were no others until the Society for the Encouragement of breeding
French Horses started operations in 1834. But the deliberations at first
took place at Bryon's place in the Tivoli gardens, and continued there
until, one day, Bryon asked the fourteen or fifteen members why they
should not have a locale of their own; the result was that they took
modest quarters in the Rue du Helder, or rather amalgamated with a small
club located there under the name of Le Bouge (The Den); for Lord
Seymour, the Duke de Nemours, Prince Demidoff, and the rest were
sufficiently clear-sighted to perceive that a Jockey Club governed on
the English principle was entirely out of the question. That was the
origin of the French Jockey Club, which, after various migrations, is,
at the time of writing, magnificently housed in one of the palatial
mansions of the Rue Scribe. As a matter of course, some of the
fashionable _habitues_ of the Cafe de Paris, though not knowing a
fetlock from a pastern, were but too pleased to join an institution
which, with the mania for everything English in full swing, then
conferred as it were upon its members a kind of patent of "good form,"
and, above all, of exclusiveness, for which some, even amidst the
fleshpots of the celebrated restaurant, longed. Because, it must be
remembered, though the majority of the company at the Cafe de Paris were
very well from the point of view of birth and social position, there was
no possibility of excluding those who could lay no claim to such
distinctions, provided they had the money to pay their reckoning, and
most of them had more than enough for that. It appears that Eugene Sue
was not so objectionable as he became afterwards, when the wonderful
success of his "Mysteres de Paris" and the "Juif-Errant" had turned his
head; he was made an original member of the club. Election on the
nomination by three sponsors was not necessary then. That article was
not inserted in the rules until two years after the foundation of the
Paris Jockey Club.
Of the success attending Sue's two best-known works, I can speak from
personal experience; for I was old enough to be impressed by it, and
foolish enough to rank him, on account of it, with Balzac and Dumas,
perhaps a little higher than the former. After the lapse of many years,
I can only console myself for my infatuation with the thought that
thousands, of far greater intellectual attainments than mine, were in
the same boat, for it must not be supposed that the _furore_ created by
"Les Mysteres de Paris" was confined to one class, and that class the
worst educated one. While it appeared in serial form in the _Debats_,
one had to bespeak the paper several hours beforehand, because, unless
one subscribed to it, it was impossible to get it from the news-vendors.
As for the reading-rooms where it was supposed to be kept, the
proprietors frankly laughed in your face if you happened to ask for it,
after you had paid your two sous admission. "Monsieur is joking. We have
got five copies, and we let them out at ten sous each for half an hour:
that's the time it takes to read M. Sue's story. We have one copy here,
and if monsieur likes to take his turn he may do so, though he will
probably have to wait for three or four hours."
At last the guileless demoiselle behind the counter found even a more
effective way of fleecing her clients. The cabinets de lecture altered
their fees, and the two sous, which until then had conferred the right
of staying as long as one liked, were transformed into the price of
admission for one hour. Each reader received a ticket on entering,
stating the time, and the shrewd caissiere made the round every ten
minutes. I may say without exaggeration that the days on which the
instalment of fiction was "crowded out," there was a general air of
listlessness about Paris. And, after the first few weeks, this happened
frequently; for by that time the Bertins had become quite as clever as
their formidable rival, the proprietor and editor of the
_Constitutionnel_, the famous Dr. Veron, whom I have already mentioned,
but of whom I shall have occasion to speak again and again, for he was
one of the most notable characters in the Paris of my early manhood. But
to return for a moment to "Les Mysteres de Paris" and its author.
The serial, then, was frequently interrupted for one or two days,
without notice, however, to the readers; on its resumption there was a
nice little paragraph to assure the "grandes dames de par le monde," as
well as their maids, with regard to the health of M. Sue, who was
supposed to have been too ill to work. The public took all this _au
grand serieux_. They either chose to forget, or were ignorant of the
fact, that a novel of that kind, especially in the early days of serial
feuilleton, was not delivered to the editor bit by bit. Sue, great man
as he was, would not have dared to inaugurate the system only adopted
somewhat later by Alexandre Dumas the Elder, namely, that of writing
"from hand to mouth." These paragraphs served a dual purpose--they
whetted the lady and other readers' interest in the author, and informed
the indifferent ones how great that interest was. For these paragraphs
were, or professed to be,--I really believe they were,--the courteous
replies to hundreds of kind inquiries which the author "could not
acknowledge separately for lack of time."
But this was not all. There was really a good excuse for Eugene Sue "se
prenant au serieux," seeing that some of the most eminent magistrates
looked upon him in that light and opened a correspondence with him,
submitting their ideas about reforming such criminals as "le maitre
d'ecole," and praising Prince Rodolph, or rather Eugene Sue under that
name, for "his laudable efforts in the cause of humanity." In reality,
Sue was in the position of Moliere's "bourgeois gentilhomme" who spoke
prose without being aware of it; for there was not the smallest evidence
from his former work that he intended to inaugurate any crusade, either
socialistic or philanthropic, when he began his "Mysteres de Paris." He
simply wanted to write a stirring novel. But, unlike M. Jourdain, he did
not plead ignorance of his own good motives when congratulated upon
them. On the contrary, he gravely and officially replied in the _Debats_
without winking. Some of the papers, not to be outdone, gravely
recounted how whole families had been converted from their evil ways by
the perusal of the novel; how others, after supper, had dropped on their
knees to pray for their author; how one working man had exclaimed, "You
may say what you like, it would be a good thing if Providence sent many
men like M. Sue in this world to take up the cudgels of the honest and
struggling artisan." Thereupon Beranger, who did not like to be
forgotten in this chorus of praise, paid a ceremonious visit to Sue, and
between the two they assumed the protectorship of the horny-handed son
of toil.
It must not be supposed that I am joking or exaggerating, and that the
_engoument_ was confined to the lower classes, and to provincial and
metropolitan faddists. Such men as M. de Lourdoueix, the editor of the
_Gazette de France_, fell into the trap. I have pointed out elsewhere
that the republicans and socialists of those days were not necessarily
godless folk, and M. de Lourdoueix fitly concluded that a socialistic
writer like Sue might become a powerful weapon in his hands against the
Jesuits. So he went to the novelist, and gave him a commission to that
effect. The latter accepted, and conceived the plot of "The Wandering
Jew." When it was sketched out, he communicated it to the editor; but
whether that gentleman had reconsidered the matter in the interval, or
whether he felt frightened at the horribly tragic conception with
scarcely any relief, he refused the novel, unless it was modified to a
great extent and its blood-curdling episodes softened. The author,
taking himself _au serieux_ this time as a religious reformer, declined
to alter a line. Dr. Veron got wind of the affair, bought the novel as
it stood, and, by dint of a system of puffing and advertising which
would even make a modern American stare, obtained a success with it in
the _Constitutionnel_ which equalled if it did not surpass that of the
_Debats_ with the "Mysteres."
"It is very amusing indeed," said George Sand one night, "but there are
too many animals. I hope we shall soon get out of this menagerie."
Nevertheless, she frankly admitted that she would not like to miss an
instalment for ever so much.
Meanwhile Sue posed and posed, not as a writer--for, like Horace
Walpole, he was almost ashamed of the title--but as "a man of the world"
who knew nothing about literature, but whose wish to benefit humanity
had been greater than his reluctance to enter the lists with such men as
Balzac and Dumas. After his dinner at the Cafe de Paris, he would
gravely stand on the steps smoking his cigar and listen to the
conversation with an air of superiority without attempting to take part
in it. His mind was supposed to be far away, devising schemes for the
social and moral improvement of his fellow-creatures. These
philanthropic musings did not prevent him from paying a great deal of
attention--too much perhaps--to his personal appearance, for even in
those days of beaux, bucks, and dandies, of Counts d'Orsay and others,
men could not help thinking Eugene Sue overdressed. He rarely appeared
without spurs to his boots, and he would no more have done without a new
pair of white kid gloves every evening than without his dinner. Other
men, like Nestor de Roqueplan, Alfred de Musset, Major Fraser, all of
whose names will frequently recur in these notes, did not mind having
their gloves cleaned, though the process was not so perfect as it is
now; Eugene Sue averred that the smell of cleaned gloves made him ill.
Alfred de Musset, who could be very impertinent when he liked, but who
was withal a very good fellow, said one day: "Mais enfin, mon ami, ca ne
sent pas pire que les bouges que vous nous depeignez. N'y seriez vous
jamais alle?"
In short, several years before the period of which I now treat, Eugene
Sue had begun to be looked upon coldly at the Jockey Club on account of
the "airs he gave himself;" and three years before the startling success
of his work, he had altogether ceased to go there, though he was still a
member, and remained so nominally until '47, when his name was removed
from the list in accordance with Rule 5. Owing to momentary pecuniary
embarrassments, he had failed to pay his subscription. It may safely be
asserted that this was merely a pretext to get rid of him, because such
stringent measures are rarely resorted to at any decent club, whether in
London or Paris, and least of all at the Jockey Clubs there. The fact
was, that the members did not care for a fellow-member whose taste
differed so materially from their own, whose daily avocations and
pursuits had nothing in common with theirs; for though Eugene Sue as
early as 1835 had possessed a race-horse, named Mameluke, which managed
to come in a capital last at Maisons-sur-Seine (afterwards
Maisons-Lafitte); though he had ridden his _haque_ every day in the
Bois, and driven his cabriolet every afternoon in the Champs-Elysees,
the merest observer could easily perceive that all this was done for
mere show, to use the French expression, "pose." As one of the members
observed, "M. Sue est toujours trop habille, trop carosse, et surtout
trop eperonne."
M. Sue was all that, and though the Jockey Club at that time was by no
means the unobtrusive body of men it is to-day, its excesses and
eccentricities were rarely indulged in public, except perhaps in
carnival time. A M. de Chateau-Villard might take it into his head to
play a game of billiards on horseback, or M. de Machado might live
surrounded by a couple of hundred parrots if he liked; none of these
fancies attracted the public's notice: M. Sue, by his very profession,
attracted too much of it, and brought a great deal of it into the club
itself; hence, when he raised a violent protest against his expulsion
and endeavoured to neutralize it by sending in his resignation, the
committee maintained its original decision. A few years after this,
Eugene Sue disappeared from the Paris horizon.