CHAPTER V.

The Boulevards in the forties -- The Chinese Baths -- A favourite

tobacconist of Alfred de Musset -- The price of cigars -- The

diligence still the usual mode of travelling -- Provincials in

Paris -- Parliamentary see-saw between M. Thiers and M. Guizot --

Amenities of editors -- An advocate of universal suffrage --

Distribution of gratuitous sausages to the working man on the

king's birthday -- The rendezvous of actors in search of an

engagement -- Frederick Lemaitre on the eve of appearing in a new

part -- The Legitimists begin to leave their seclusion and to

mingle with the bourgeoisie -- Alexandre Dumas and Scribe -- The

latter's fertility as a playwright -- The National Guards go

shooting, in uniform and in companies, on the Plaine Saint-Denis

-- Vidocq's private inquiry office in the Rue Vivienne -- No

river-side resorts -- The plaster elephant on the Place de la

Bastille -- The sentimental romances of Loisa Puget -- The songs

of the working classes -- Cheap bread and wine -- How they

enjoyed themselves on Sundays and holidays -- Theophile Gautier's

pony-carriage -- The hatred of the bourgeoisie -- Nestor

Roqueplan's expression of it -- Gavarni's -- M. Thiers' sister

keeps a restaurant at the corner of the Rue Drouot -- When he is

in power, the members of the Opposition go and dine there, and

publish facetious accounts of the entertainment -- All

appearances to the contrary, people like Guizot better than

Thiers -- But few entries for the race for wealth in those days

-- The Rothschilds still live in the Rue Lafitte -- Favourite

lounges -- The Boulevards, the Rue Le Peletier, and the Passage

de l'Opera -- The Opera -- The Rue Le Peletier and its

attractions -- The Restaurant of Paolo Broggi -- The Estaminet du

Divan -- Literary waiters and Boniface -- Major Fraser -- The

mystery surrounding his origin -- Another mysterious personage --

The Passage de l'Opera is invaded by the stockjobbers, and loses

its prestige as a promenade -- Bernard Latte's, the publisher of

Donizetti's operas, becomes deserted -- Tortoni's -- Louis-Blanc

-- His scruples as an editor -- A few words about duelling -- Two

tragic meetings -- Lola Montes -- Her adventurous career -- A

celebrated trial -- My first meeting with Gustave Flaubert, the

author of "Madame Bovary" and "Salambo" -- Emile de Girardin --

His opinion of duelling -- My decision with regard to it -- The

original of "La Dame aux Camelias" -- Her parentage -- Alexandre

Dumas gives the diagnosis of her character in connection with his

son's play -- L'Homme au Camellia -- M. Lautour-Mezerai, the

inventor of children's periodical literature in France -- Auguste

Lireux -- He takes the management of the Odeon -- Balzac again --

His schemes, his greed -- Lireux more fortunate with other

authors -- Anglophobia on the French stage -- Gallophobia on the

English stage.

Even in those days "the Boulevards" meant to most of us nothing more

than the space between the present opera and the Rue Drouot. But the

Credit Lyonnais and other palatial buildings which have been erected

since were not as much as dreamt of; if I remember rightly, the site of

that bank was occupied by two or three "Chinese Baths." I suppose the

process of steaming and cleansing the human body was something analogous

to that practised in our Turkish baths, but I am unable to say from

experience, having never been inside, and, curious to relate, most of my

familiars were in a similar state of ignorance. We rarely crossed to

that side of the boulevard except to go and dine at the Cafe Anglais. At

the corner of the Rue Lafitte, opposite the Maison d'Or, was our

favourite tobacconist's, and the cigars we used to get there were vastly

superior to those we get at present in Paris at five times the cost. The

assistant who served us was a splendid creature. Alfred de Musset became

so enamoured of her that at one time his familiars apprehended an

"imprudence on his part." Of course, they were afraid he would marry

her.

In those days most of our journeys in the interior of France had still

to be made by the mails of Lafitte-Caillard, and the people these

conveyances brought up from the provinces were almost as great objects

of curiosity to us as we must have been to them. It was the third lustre

of Louis-Philippe's reign. "God," according to the coinage, "protected

France," and when the Almighty seemed somewhat tired of the task, Thiers

and Guizot alternately stepped in to do the safeguarding. Parliament

resounded with the eloquence of orators who are almost forgotten by now,

except by students of history; M. de Genoude was clamouring for

universal suffrage; M. de Cormenin, under the _nom de plume_ of "Timon,"

was the fashionable pamphleteer; the papers indulged in vituperation

against one another, compared to which the amenities of the rival

Eatanswill editors were compliments. Grocers and drapers objected to the

participation of M. de Lamartine in the affairs of State. The _Figaro_

of those days went by the title of _Corsaire-Satan_, and, though

extensively read, had the greatest difficulty in making both ends meet.

In order to improve the lot of the working man, there was a gratuitous

distribution of sausages once a year on the king's fete-day. The

ordinary rendezvous of provincial and metropolitan actors out of an

engagement was not at the Cafe de Suede on the Boulevard Montmartre, but

under the trees at the Palais-Royal. Frederick Lemaitre went to

confession and to mass every time he "created" a new role. The

Legitimists consented to leave their aristocratic seclusion, and to

breathe the same air with the bourgeoisie and proletarians of the

Boulevard du Crime, to see him play. The Government altered the title of

Sue and Goubeaux's drama "Les Pontons Anglais" into "Les Pontons,"

short, and made the authors change the scene from England to Spain.

Alexandre Dumas chaffed Scribe, and flung his money right and left;

while the other saved it, bought country estates, and produced as many

as twenty plays a year (eight more than he had contracted for). The

National Guards went in uniform and in companies to shoot hares and

rabbits on the Plaine Saint-Denis, and swaggered about on the

Boulevards, ogling the women. Vidocq kept a private inquiry office in

the Passage Vivienne, and made more money by blackmailing or catching

unfaithful husbands than by catching thieves. Bougival, Asnieres and

Joinville-le-Pont had not become riparian resorts. The plaster elephant

on the Place de la Bastille was crumbling to pieces. The sentimental

romances of Madame Loisa Puget proved the delight of every bourgeoise

family, while the chorus to every popular song was "Larifla, larifla,

fla, fla, fla."

Best of all, from the working man's point of view, was the low price of

bread and wine; the latter could be had at four sous the litre in the

wine-shops. He, the working man, still made excursions with his wife and

children to the Artesian well at Grenelle; and if stranded perchance in

the Champs-Elysees, stood lost in admiration at the tiny carriage with

ponies to match, driven by Theophile Gautier, who had left off wearing

the crimson waistcoats wherewith in former days he hoped to annoy the

bourgeois, though he ceased not to rail at him by word of mouth and with

his pen. He was not singular in that respect. Among his set, the hatred

of the bourgeois was ingrained; it found constant vent in small things.

Nestor Roqueplan wore jackboots at home instead of slippers, because the

latter chaussure was preferred by the shopkeeper. Gavarni published the

most biting pictorial satires against him. Here is one. A

dissipated-looking loafer is leaning against a lamp-post, contemptuously

staring at the spruce, trim bourgeois out for his Sunday walk with his

wife. The loafer is smoking a short clay pipe, and some of the fumes of

the tobacco come between the wind and the bourgeois' respectability.

"Voyou!" says the latter contemptuously. "Voyou tant que vous voulez,

pas epicier," is the answer.

In those days, when M. Thiers happened to be in power, many members of

the Opposition and their journalistic champions made it a point of

organizing little gatherings to the table-d'hote kept by Mdlle. Thiers,

the sister of the Prime Minister of France. Her establishment was at the

entrance of the present Rue Drouot, and a signboard informed the

passer-by to that effect. There was invariably an account of these

little gatherings in next day's papers--of course, with comments. Thiers

was known to be the most wretched shot that ever worried a gamekeeper,

and yet he was very fond of blazing away. "We asked Mdlle. Thiers,"

wrote the commentators, "whether those delicious pheasants she gave us

were of her illustrious brother's bagging. The lady shook her head.

'Non, monsieur; le President du Conseil n'a pas l'honneur de fournir mon

etablissement; a quoi bon, je peux les acheter a meilleur marche que lui

et au meme endroit. S'il m'en envoyait, il me ferait payer un benefice,

parcequ'il ne fait jamais rien pour rien. C'est un peu le defaut de

notre famille.'" I have got a notion that, mercurial as was M. Thiers up

to the last hour of his life, and even more so at that period, and

sedate as was M. Guizot, the French liked the latter better than the

former.

M. Guizot had said, "Enrichissez vous," and was known to be poor; M.

Thiers had scoffed at the advice, and was known to be hoarding while

compelling his sister to earn her own living. It must be remembered that

at the time the gangrene of greed had not entered the souls of all

classes of Frenchmen so deeply as it has now, that the race for wealth

had as yet comparatively few votaries, and that not every stockjobber

and speculator aspired to emulate the vast financial transactions of the

Rothschilds. The latter lived, in those days, in the Rue Lafitte, where

they had three separate mansions, all of which since then have been

thrown into one, and are at present exclusively devoted to business

purposes. The Rue Lafitte was, however, a comparatively quiet street.

The favourite lounges, in addition to the strip of Boulevards I have

already mentioned, were the Rue Le Peletier and the galleries of the

Passage de l'Opera. Both owed the preference over the other

thoroughfares to the immediate vicinity of the Opera, which had its

frontage in the last-named street, but was by no means striking or

monumental. Its architect, Debret, had to run the gauntlet of every kind

of satire for many a year after its erection; the bitterest and most

scathing of all was that, perhaps, of a journalist, who wrote one day

that, a provincial having asked him the way to the grand opera, he had

been obliged to answer, "Turn down the street, and it is the first large

gateway on your right."

But if the building itself was unimposing, the company gathered around

its entrance consisted generally of half a dozen men whose names were

then already household words in the musical world--Auber, Halevy,

Rossini and Meyerbeer, St. Georges, Adam. Now and then, though rarely

together, all of these names will frequently reappear in these notes.

The chief attractions, though, of the Rue Le Peletier were the famous

Italian restaurant of Paolo Broggi, patronized by a great many singers,

the favourite haunt of Mario, in the beginning of his career, and

l'Estaminet du Divan, which from being a very simple cafe indeed,

developed into a kind of politico-literary club under the auspices of a

number of budding men of letters, journalists, and the like, whose

modest purses were not equal to the charges of the Cafe Riche and

Tortoni, and who had gradually driven all more prosaic customers away. I

believe I was one of the few habitues who had no literary aspirations,

who did not cast longing looks to the inner portals of the offices of

the _National_, the bigwigs of which--Armand Marrast, Baron Dornes,

Gerard de Nerval, and others--sometimes made their appearance there,

though their restaurant in ordinary was the Cafe Hardi. The Estaminet du

Divan, however, pretended to a much more literary atmosphere than the

magnificent establishment on the boulevard itself. It is a positive fact

that the waiters in the former would ask, in the most respectful way

imaginable, "Does monsieur want Sue's or Dumas' feuilleton with his

cafe?" Not once but a dozen times I have heard the proprietor draw

attention to a remarkable article. Major Fraser, though he never dined

there, spent an hour or two daily in the Estaminet du Divan to read the

papers. He was a great favourite with every one, though none of us knew

anything about his antecedents. In spite of his English name, he was

decidedly not English, though he spoke the language. He was one of the

best-dressed men of the period, and by a well-dressed man I do not mean

one like Sue. He generally wore a tight-fitting, short-skirted, blue

frock coat, grey trousers, of a shape which since then we have defined

as "pegtops," but the fashion of which was borrowed from the Cossacks.

They are still worn by some French officers in cavalry regiments,

notably crack cavalry regiments.

Major Fraser might have fitly borrowed Piron's epitaph for himself: "Je

ne suis rien, pas meme Academicien." He was a bachelor. He never alluded

to his parentage. He lived by himself, in an entresol at the corner of

the Rue Lafitte and the Boulevard des Italiens. He was always flush of

money, though the sources of his income were a mystery to every one. He

certainly did not live by gambling, as has been suggested since; for

those who knew him best did not remember having seen him touch a card.

I have always had an idea, though I can give no reason for it, that

Major Fraser was the illegitimate son of some exalted personage, and

that the solution of the mystery surrounding him might be found in the

records of the scandals and intrigues at the courts of Charles IV. and

Ferdinand VII. of Spain. The foreign "soldiers of fortune" who rose to

high posts, though not to the highest like Richards and O'Reilly, were

not all of Irish origin. But the man himself was so pleasant in his

intercourse, so uniformly gentle and ready to oblige, that no one cared

to lift a veil which he was so evidently anxious not to have disturbed.

I only remember his getting out of temper once, namely, when Leon

Gozlan, in a comedy of his, introduced a major who had three crosses.

The first had been given to him because he had not one, the second

because he had already one, and the third because all good things

consist of three. Then Major Fraser sent his seconds to the playwright;

the former effected a reconciliation, the more that Gozlan pledged his

word that an allusion to the major was farthest from his thoughts. It

afterwards leaked out that our irrepressible Alexandre Dumas had been

the involuntary cause of all the mischief. One day, while he was talking

to Gozlan, one of his secretaries came in and told him that a particular

bugbear of his, and a great nonentity to boot, had got the Cross of the

Legion of Honour.

"Grand Dieu," exclaimed Gozlan, "pourquoi lui a-t-on donne cette croix?"

"Vous ne savez pas?" said Alexandre, looking very wise, as if he had

some important state secret to reveal.

"Assurement, je ne le sais pas," quoth Gozlan, "ni vous non plus."

"Ah, par exemple, moi, je le sais."

"He bien, dites alors."

"On lui a donne la croix parceque il n'en avait pas."

It was the most childish of all tricks, but Gozlan laughed at it, and,

when he wrote his piece, remembered it. He amplified the very small

joke, and, on the first night of his play, the house went into

convulsions over it.

Major Fraser's kindness and gentleness extended to all men--except to

professional politicians, and those, from the highest to the lowest, he

detested and despised. He rarely spoke on the subject of politics, but

when he did every one sat listening with the raptest attention; for he

was a perfect mine of facts, which he marshalled with consummate ability

in order to show that government by party was of all idiotic

institutions the most idiotic. But his knowledge of political history

was as nothing to his familiarity with the social institutions of every

civilized country and of every period. Curiously enough, the whole of

his library in his own apartment did not exceed two or three scores of

volumes. His memory was something prodigious, and even men like Dumas

and Balzac confessed themselves his inferiors in that respect. The mere

mention of the most trifling subject sufficed to set it in motion, and

the listeners were treated to a "magazine article worth fifty centimes

la ligne au moins," as Dumas put it. But the major could never be

induced to write one. Strange to say, he often used to hint that his was

no mere book-knowledge. "Of course, it is perfectly ridiculous," he

remarked with a strange smile, "but every now and again I feel as if all

this did not come to me through reading, but from personal experience.

At times I become almost convinced that I lived with Nero, that I knew

Dante personally, and so forth."

When Major Fraser died, not a single letter was found in his apartment

giving a clue to his antecedents. Merely a file of receipts, and a scrap

of paper attached to one--the receipt of the funeral company for his

grave, and expenses of his burial. The memorandum gave instructions to

advertise his demise for a week in the _Journal des Debats_, the money

for which would be found in the drawer of his dressing-table. His

clothes and furniture were to be sold, and the proceeds to be given to

the Paris poor. "I do not charge any one with this particular duty," the

document went on; "I have so many friends, every one of whom will be

ready to carry out my last wishes."

Another "mystery," though far less interesting than Major Fraser, was

the Persian gentleman whom one met everywhere, at the Opera, at the

Bois de Boulogne, at the concerts of the Conservatoire, etc. Though

invariably polite and smiling, he never spoke to any one. For ten years,

the occupant of the stall next to his at the Opera had never heard him

utter a syllable. He always wore a long white silk petticoat, a

splendidly embroidered coat over that, and a conical Astrakan cap. He

was always alone; and though every one knew where he lived, in the

Passage de l'Opera, no one had ever set foot in his apartment. As a

matter of course, all sorts of legends were current about him. According

to some, he had occupied a high position in his own country, from which

he had voluntarily exiled himself, owing to his detestation of Eastern

habits; according to others, he was simply a dealer in Indian shawls,

who had made a fortune. A third group, the spiteful ones, maintained

that he sold dates and pastilles, and that the reason why he did not

speak was because he was dumb, though not deaf. He died during the

Second Empire, very much respected in the neighbourhood, for he had been

very charitable.

Towards the middle of the forties the Passage de l'Opera began to lose

some of its prestige as a lounge. The outside stockjobbers, whom the

police had driven from the Boulevards and the steps of Tortoni, migrated

thither, and the galleries that had resounded with the sweet

warblings--in a very low key--of the clients of Bernard Latte, the

publisher of Donizetti's operas, were made hideous and unbearable with

the jostling and bellowing of the money-spinners. Bernard Latte himself

was at last compelled to migrate.

In the house the ground-floor of which was occupied by Tortoni, and

which was far different in aspect from what it is now, lived Louis

Blanc. Toward nine in the morning he came down for his cup of cafe au

lait. It was the first cup of coffee of the day served in the

establishment. I was never on terms of intimacy with Blanc, and least of

all then, for I shared with Major Fraser a dislike to politic-mongers,

and, rightly or wrongly, I have always considered the author of

"L'Histoire de Dix Ans" as such. Though Louis Blanc was three or four

and thirty then, he looked like a boy of seventeen--a fact not

altogether owing to his diminutive stature, though he was one of the

smallest men, if not the smallest man, I ever saw. Of course I mean a

man not absolutely a dwarf. I have been assured, however, that he was a

giant compared to Don Martinoz Garay, Duke of Altamira, and Marquis of

Astorga, a Spanish statesman, who died about the early part of the

twenties. These notes do not extend beyond the fall of the Commune, and

it was only after that event that I met M. Blanc once or twice in his

old haunts. Hence my few recollections of him had better be jotted down

here. They are not important. The man, though but sixty, and apparently

not in bad health, looked _desillusionne_. They were, no doubt, the most

trying years to the Third Republic, but M. Blanc must have perceived

well enough that, granting all the existing difficulties, the men at the

head of affairs were not the Republicans of his dreams. He had,

moreover, suffered severe losses; all his important documents, such as

the correspondence between him and George Sand and Louis-Napoleon while

the latter was at Ham, and other equally valuable matter, had been

destroyed at the fire of the Northern Goods Station at La Villette, a

fire kindled by the Communists. He was dressed almost in the fashion of

the forties, a wide-skirted, long, brown frock coat, a shirt innocent of

starch, and a broad-brimmed hat. A few years later, he founded a paper,

_L'Homme-Libre_, the offices of which were in the Rue Grange-Bateliere.

The concern was financed by a Polish gentleman. Blanc gave his readers

to understand that he would speak out plainly about persons and things,

whether past or present; that he would advance nothing except on

documentary proofs; but that, whether he did or not, he would not be

badgered into giving or accepting challenges in defence of his writings.

"I am, first of all, too old," he said; "but if I were young again, I

should not repeat my folly of '47, when I wanted to fight with Eugene

Pelletan on account of a woman whose virtue, provided she had any, could

make no difference to either of us. It does not matter to me that we

were not the only preux chevaliers of that period, ready to do battle

for or against the charms of a woman whose remains had crumbled to dust

by then."[14]

[Footnote 14: M. Eugene Pelletan, the father of M. Camille

Pelletan, the editor of _La Justice_, and first lieutenant to

M. Clemenceau, having severely criticized some passages in M.

Blanc's "Histoire de la Revolution," relating to

Marie-Antoinette, the author quoted a passage of Madame

Campan's "Memoires" in support of his writings. The critic

refused to admit the conclusiveness of the proof, whereupon M.

Blanc appealed to the Societe des Gens de Lettres, which, on

the summing up of M. Taxile Delord, gave a verdict in his

favour. M. Pelletan declined to submit to the verdict, as he

had refused to admit the jurisdiction, of the tribunal. M.

Blanc, who had at first scouted all idea of a duel, considered

himself obliged to resort to this means of obtaining

satisfaction, seeing that M. Pelletan stoutly maintained his

opinion. A meeting had been arranged when the Revolution of '48

broke out. The opponents having both gone to the

Hotel-de-Ville, met by accident at the entrance, and fell into

one another's arms. "Thank Heaven!" exclaimed Thiers, when he

heard of it. "If Pelletan had killed Blanc, I should have been

the smallest man in France."

M. Blanc's allusion to other "preux chevaliers" aimed

particularly at M. Cousin, who, having become a minister

against his will, resumed with a sigh of relief his studies

under the Second Empire. He was especially fond of the

seventeenth century, and all at once he, who had scarcely ever

noticed a pretty woman, became violently smitten with the

Duchesse de Longueville, who had been in her grave for nearly

two centuries. He positively invested her with every

perfection, moral and mental; unfortunately, he could not

invest her with a shapely bust, the evidence being too

overwhelmingly against her having been adorned that way. One

day some one showed him a portrait of the sister of the "grand

Conde," in which she was amply provided with the charms the

absence of which M. Cousin regretted. He wrote a special

chapter on the subject, and was well-nigh challenging all his

contradictors.--EDITOR.]

M. Blanc's boast that he would advance nothing except on proof positive

was not an idle one, as his contributors found out to their cost. Every

afternoon, at three, he arrived at the office to read the paper in proof

from the first line to the last. Not the slightest inaccuracy was

allowed to pass. Kind as he was, his reporters' lives became a burden.

One of the latter told me a story which, though it illustrates the

ridiculousness of M. Blanc's scruples when carried too far, is none the

less valuable. A dog had been run over on the Boulevards, and the

reporter, with a hankering after the realistic method, had endeavored to

reproduce onomatopoeically the sounds uttered by the animal in pain.

"Are you quite sure, monsieur, about your sounds?" asked Blanc.

"Of course, I am as sure as a non-scientific man can be," was the

answer.

"Then strike them out; one ought to be scientifically sure. By-the-by, I

see you have made use of the word 'howl' (_hurler_). Unless I am

mistaken, a dog when in pain yelps (_glapit_). Please alter it."

On another occasion, on going through the advertisements, he found a new

one relating to a cough mixture, setting forth its virtues in the most

glowing terms. Immediately the advertisement canvasser was sent for, M.

Blanc having refused to farm out that department to an agency, as is

frequently done in Paris, in order to retain the absolute control over

it.

"Monsieur, I see that you have a new advertisement, and it seems to me a

profitable one; still, before inserting it, I should like to be certain

that the medicine does all it professes to do. Can you personally vouch

for its efficiency?"

"Mon Dieu, monsieur, I believe it does all it professes to do, but you

can scarcely expect me to run the risk of bronchitis in order to test it

upon myself!"

"Heaven forbid that I should be so exacting and indifferent to other

people's health, but until you can bring me some one who has been cured,

we will not insert it."

Let me come back for a moment to that sentence of Louis Blanc, about the

practice of duelling, in connection with one of the most tragic affairs

of that kind within my recollection. I am alluding to the

Dujarrier-Beauvallon duel. I have been in the habit for years, whenever

an important meeting took place in France, to read every shade of

English opinion on the subject; and while recognizing the elevated

sentiments of the writers, I have no hesitation in saying that not a

single one knew what he was writing about. They could not grasp the fact

that for a man of social standing to refuse a challenge or to refrain

from sending one, save under very exceptional circumstances, was

tantamount to courting social death. They knew not that every door would

henceforth be closed against him; that his wife's best friends would

cease to call upon her, by direction of their husbands; that his

children at school would be shunned by their comrades; that no young man

of equal position to his, were he ever so much in love with his

daughter, would ask her to become his wife, that no parents would allow

their daughter to marry his son. That is what backing out of a duel

meant years ago; that is what it still means to-day--of course, I

repeat, with certain classes. Is it surprising, then, that with such a

prospect facing him, a man should risk death rather than become a

pariah? Would the English leader-writer, if he be a man of worth, like

to enter his club-room without a hand held out to welcome him from those

with whom he was but a few weeks ago on the most friendly footing,

without a voice to give him the time of day? I think not; and that is

what would happen if he were a Frenchman who neglected to ask

satisfaction for even an imaginary insult.

I knew M. Dujarrier, the general manager of _La Presse_, and feel

convinced that he was not a bit more quarrelsome or eager "to go out"

than Louis Blanc. It is, moreover, certain that he felt his inferiority,

both as a swordsman and as a marksman, to such a practised shot and

fencer as M. de Beauvallon; and well he might, seeing that subsequent

evidence proved that he, Dujarrier, had never handled either weapon. Yet

he not only strenuously opposed all attempts on the part of his friends

to effect a reconciliation, but would not afford a hint to his adversary

of his want of skill, lest the latter should make him a present of his

life. The present would not have been worth accepting. It would have

been a Nessus-shirt, and caused the moral death of the recipient.

Consequently, Dujarrier literally went like a lamb to the slaughter

rather than be branded as a coward, and he made no secret of his

contemplated sacrifice. "I have no alternative but to fight," he said,

two days before the meeting, to Alexandre Dumas, who taxed all his own

ingenuity, and that of his son, to prevent, at any rate, a fatal issue.

The only way to effect this, according to the very logical reasoning of

the two Dumases, was to induce Dujarrier, who, as the offended party,

had the choice of weapons, to choose the sword. They counted upon the

generosity of Beauvallon, who, as a gentleman, on discovering his

adversary's utter lack of skill, would disarm, or inflict a slight wound

on him. Unfortunately, young Dumas, with the best intentions,

unburthened himself to that effect among those most interested in the

affair, namely, the staffs of _La Presse_ and _Le Globe_. These two

journals were literally at daggers drawn, and some writers connected

with the latter went hinting, if not saying openly, that Dujarrier was

already showing the white feather. Whether Dujarrier heard of the

comments in that shape, or whether he instinctively guessed what they

would be, has never been clearly made out, but it is certain that from

that moment he insisted upon the use of pistols. "I do not intend my

adversary to show me the slightest favour, either by disarming me or by

wounding me in the arm or leg. I mean to have a serious encounter," he

said. Young Dumas, frightened perhaps at his want of reticence in the

matter, begged his father to go and see Grisier,[15] and claim his

intervention. Alexandre Dumas, than whom no stauncher friend ever

existed who would have willingly risked his own life to save that of

Dujarrier, had to decline the mission suggested by his son. "I cannot do

it," he said; "the first and foremost thing is to safeguard Dujarrier's

reputation, which is the more precious because it is his first duel."

[Footnote 15: The great fencing-master, whom Dumas immortalized

in his "Maitre d'Armes."--EDITOR.]

"His first duel,"--here is the key-note to the whole of the proceedings

as far as Dujarrier and his personal friends were concerned. Had

Dujarrier been in the position of the editor of his paper, Emile de

Girardin,--had he been out before and killed or severely wounded his

man, as the latter killed Armand Carrel nine years before,--he might

have openly announced his determination "never to go out again" under no

matter what provocation. Unfortunately, Dujarrier was not in that

position; in fact, it is no exaggeration to say that Dujarrier paid the

penalty of M. de Girardin's decision. A great deal of mawkish sentiment

has been wasted upon the tragic fate of Armand Carrel; in reality, he

had what he deserved, albeit that no one more than M. de Girardin

himself regretted his untimely end. Most writers will tell one that

Carrel fell a victim to his political opinions; nothing is farther from

the truth. Armand Carrel fell a victim to a "question of shop" of which

he allowed himself, though perhaps not deliberately, to become the

champion. After many attempts, more or less successful, in the way of

popular journalism, M. de Girardin, in 1836, started _La Presse_, a

serious journal of the same size as the then existing ones, but at half

the subscription of the latter, all of which absolutely banded at once

against him. Armand Carrel, who was a soldier, and a valiant soldier, a

writer of talent, and a gentleman to boot, ought to have stood aloof

from that kind of polemics. Emile de Girardin was not the likely man to

submit to open or implied insult. His best, albeit his least-known book,

"Emile," which is as it were an autobiography, had given the measure of

his thoughts on the subject of duelling. "Emile" goes into society as a

soldier would go into an enemy's country. Not that he is by nature cruel

or bloodthirsty, but he knows that, to hold his own, he must be always

ready, not only for defence, but for attack.

"The secret one is bound to preserve with regard to the preparations for

a meeting, and those preparations themselves are simply horrible. The

care, the precautions to be taken, the secret which is not to leak out,

all these are very like the preparations for a crime," he says.

"Nevertheless," he goes on, "the horror of all this disappears, when the

man, impelled by hatred or resentment, is thirsting for revenge; but

when the heart is absolutely without gall, and when the imagination is

still subject to all the softer emotions, then, in order not to recoil

with fear at the ever horrible idea of a duel, a man must be imbued with

all the force of a prejudice which resists the very laws that condemn

it."

It was under the latter circumstances that M. de Girardin confronted his

adversary. The two men had probably never exchanged a word with one

another, they felt no personal animosity; nay, more, the duel was not an

_inevitable_ one; and yet it cost one man his life, and burthened the

other with lifelong regrets.

Had the issue been different, _La Presse_ would probably have

disappeared, and all recrimination ceased. As it was, unable to goad M.

de Girardin into a reversal of his decision "never to go out again," and

that in spite of nine years of direct insult from a so-called political

party, of every kind of quasi-legal vexation, M. de Beauvallon

constituted himself a second Armand Carrel, selecting Dujarrier as his

victim, the chief not being available. But here all resemblance to

Armand Carrel ceased, and the law itself was anxious to mark the

difference. In the one case it had been set at nought by two men of

undoubted courage and undoubted honour, meeting upon equal terms; in the

other, it was proved that, not content with Dujarrier's well-known

inferiority, De Beauvallon's pistols had been tried before the

encounter. The court could take no cognizance of this, but it marked its

disapproval by sentencing Beauvallon to eight years', and one of his

seconds, M. d'Ecquevilley, to ten years' imprisonment for perjury. Both

had declared on oath that the pistols had not been tried. The Dujarrier

duel caused a deep and painful sensation. I have dwelt upon it at

greater length than was absolutely necessary, because it inspired me

with a resolution from which I have never departed since. I was

twenty-seven at the time, and, owing to circumstances which I need not

relate here, foresaw that the greater part of my life would be spent in

France. I am neither more courageous nor more cowardly than most

persons, but I objected to be shot down like a mad dog on the most

futile pretext because some one happened to have a grudge against me. To

have declined "to go out" on the score of my nationality would not have

met the case in the conditions in which I was living, so from that

moment I became an assiduous client at Gosset's shooting-gallery, and

took fencing lessons of Grisier. I do not know that I became very

formidable with either weapon, only sufficiently skilled not to be

altogether defenceless. I took care at the same time to let it go forth

that a duel to me not only meant one or both parties so severely wounded

as not to be able to continue the struggle, but the resumption of the

combat, when he or they had recovered, until one was killed. Of course,

it implied that I would only go out for a sufficiently weighty reason,

but that, if compelled to do so for a trifling one, I would still adhere

to my original resolution. Only once, more than twelve years afterwards,

I had a quarrel fastened upon me, arising out of the excitement

consequent upon the attempt of Orsini. I was the offended party, and, as

such, could dictate the conditions of the meeting. I declined to modify

in the least the rules I had laid down for my own guidance, and stated

as much to those who were to act for me--General Fleury and Alexandre

Dumas. My adversary's friends refused to accept the terms. I was never

molested afterwards, though an Englishman had not always a pleasant life

of it, even under the Second Empire.

In connection with Dujarrier's duel, I may say a few words here of that

quasi-wonderful woman, Lola Montes. I say "quasi," because really there

was nothing wonderful about her, except perhaps her beauty and her

consummate impudence. She had not a scrap of talent of any kind;

education she had none, for, whether she spoke in English, French, or

Spanish, grammatical errors abounded, and her expressions were always

those of a pretentious housemaid, unless they were those of an excited

fishwife. She told me that she had been at a boarding-school in Bath,

and that she was a native of Limerick, but that when quite a child she

was taken to Seville by her parents. Her father, according to her

account, was a Spaniard, her mother a Creole. "But I scandalized every

one at school, and would not learn." I could quite believe that; what I

could not believe was that a girl of her quick powers--for she

undoubtedly possessed those--could have spent, however short a time in

the society of decent girls of her own age, let alone of presumedly

refined school-mistresses, without having acquired some elementary

notions of manner and address. Her gait and carriage were those of a

duchess, for she was naturally graceful, but the moment she opened her

lips, the illusion vanished--at least to me; for I am bound to admit

that men of far higher intellectual attainments than mine, and familiar

with very good society, raved and kept raving about her, though all

those defects could not have failed to strike them as they had struck

me. I take it that it must have been her beauty, for, though not devoid

of wit, her wit was that of the pot-house, which would not have been

tolerated in the smoking-room of a club in the small hours.

When Dujarrier was carried home dying to the Rue Lafitte, a woman flung

herself on the body and covered his face with kisses. That woman was

Lola Montes. In his will he left her eighteen shares in the Palais-Royal

Theatre, amounting in value to about 20,000 francs. She insisted

afterwards in appearing as a witness at the trial in Rouen, although her

evidence threw not the slightest light upon the matter. She wanted to

create a sensation; and she accomplished her aim. I was there, and

though the court was crowded with men occupying the foremost ranks in

literature, art, and Paris society, no one attracted the attention she

did. Even the sober president and assessors sat staring at her

open-mouthed when she took her stand behind the little rail which does

duty for a witness-box in France. She was dressed in mourning--not the

deepest, but soft masses of silk and lace--and when she lifted her veil

and took off her glove to take the prescribed oath, a murmur of

admiration ran through the court. That is why she had undertaken the

journey to Rouen, and verily she had her reward.

It was on that occasion that I became acquainted, though quite by

accident, with the young man who, ten or eleven years later, was to leap

into fame all of a sudden with one novel. I have already said that the

court was very crowded, and next to me was standing a tall, strapping

fellow, somewhat younger than myself, whom, at the first glance, one

would have taken to be an English country gentleman or well-to-do

farmer's son. Such mistakes are easily made in Normandy. When Lola

Montes came forward to give her evidence, some one on the other side of

him remarked that she looked like the heroine of a novel.

"Yes," he replied; "but the heroines of the real novels enacted in

everyday life do not always look like that."

Then he turned to me, having seen me speak to several people from Paris

and in company of Alexandre Dumas and Berryer, whom everybody knew. He

asked me some particulars about Lola Montes, which I gave him. I found

him exceedingly well-informed. We chatted for a while. When he left he

handed me his card, and hoped that we should see one another again. The

card bore the simple superscription of "Gustave Flaubert." I was told

during the evening that he was the son of a local physician of note.

Twelve years later the whole of France rang with his name. He had

written "Madame Bovary," and laid the foundation of what subsequently

became the ultra-realistic school of French fiction.

To return for a moment to Lola Montes. The trial was really the

starting-point of her notoriety, for, in spite of her beauty, she had

been at one time reduced to sing in the streets in Brussels. That was

after she had fled from Calcutta, whither her first husband, a captain

or lieutenant James, in the service of the East India Company, had taken

her. She landed at Southampton, and, during her journey to London,

managed to ingratiate herself with an English nobleman, by pretending

that she was the wife a Spanish soldier who had been shot by the

Carlists. She told me all this herself, because she was not in the least

reticent about her scheming, especially after her scheming had failed.

She would, however, not divulge the name of her travelling companion,

who tried to befriend her by introducing her to some of his

acquaintances, with the view of obtaining singing lessons for her. "But

I did not make my expenses, because you English are so very moral and my

patron was suspected of not giving himself all that trouble for nothing.

Besides, they managed to ferret out that I was not the widow of a

Spanish officer, but the wife of an English one; and then, as you may

imagine, it was all up. I got, however, an engagement at the Opera House

in the ballet, but not for long; of course, I could not dance much, but

I could dance as well as half your wooden ugly women that were there.

But they told tales about me, and the manager dismissed me."[16]

[Footnote 16: The English nobleman must have been Lord

Malmesbury, who alludes to her as follows: "This was a most

remarkable woman, and may be said by her conduct at Munich to

have set fire to the magazine of revolution, which was ready to

burst forth all over Europe, and which made the year 1848

memorable. I made her acquaintance by accident, as I was going

up to London from Heron Court, in the railway. The Consul at

Southampton asked me to take charge of a Spanish lady who had

been recommended to his care, and who had just landed. I

consented to do this, and was introduced by him to a remarkably

handsome person, who was in deep mourning, and who appeared to

be in great distress. As we were alone in the carriage, she, of

her own accord, informed me, in bad English, that she was the

widow of Don Diego Leon, who had lately been shot by the

Carlists after he was taken prisoner, and that she was going to

London to sell some Spanish property that she possessed, and

give lessons in singing, as she was very poor. On arriving in

London she took some lodgings, and came to my house to a little

concert which I gave, and sang some Spanish ballads. Her accent

was foreign, and she had all the appearance of being what she

pretended to be. She sold different things, such as veils,

etc., to the party present, and received a good deal of

patronage. Eventually she took an engagement for the ballet at

the Opera House, but her dancing was very inferior. At last she

was recognized as an impostor, her real name being Mrs. James,

and Irish by extraction, and had married an officer in India.

Her engagement at the Opera was cancelled, she left the

country, and retired to Munich. She was a very violent woman,

and actually struck one of the Bavarian generals as he was

reviewing the troops. The king became perfectly infatuated with

her beauty and cleverness, and gave her large sums of money,

with a title, which she afterwards bore when she returned to

England." ("Memoirs of an Ex-minister," by the Earl of

Malmesbury.)

Lord Malmesbury is wrong in nearly every particular which he

has got from hearsay. Lola Montes did not retire to Munich

after her engagement at the Opera House had been cancelled, but

to Brussels, and from there to Warsaw. Nor did she play the

all-important part in the Bavarian riots or revolution he

ascribes to her. The author of these notes has most of the

particulars of Lola Montes' career previous to her appearance

in Munich from her own lips, and, as he has already said, she

was not in the least reticent about her scheming, especially

when her scheming had failed. For the story of the events at

Munich, I gather inferentially from his notes that he is

indebted to Karl von Abel, King Ludwig's ultramontane minister,

who came afterwards to Paris, and who, if I mistake not, was

the father or the uncle of Herr von Abel, the Berlin

correspondent of the _Times_, some fourteen or fifteen years

ago.--EDITOR.]

She fostered no illusions with regard to her choregraphic talents; in

fact, she fostered no illusions about anything, and her candour was the

best trait in her character. She had failed as a dancer in Warsaw,

whither she had gone from London, by way of Brussels. In the Belgian

capital, according to her own story, she had been obliged to sing in the

streets to keep from starvation. I asked her why she had not come from

London to Paris, "where for a woman of her attractions, and not hampered

by many scruples," as I pointed out to her, "there were many more

resources than elsewhere." The answer was so characteristic of the

daring adventuress, who, notwithstanding her impecuniosity, flew at the

highest game to be had, that I transcribe it in full. I am often

reluctant to trust to my memory: in this instance I may; I remember

every word of it. This almost illiterate schemer, who probably had not

the remotest notion of geography, of history, had pretty well "the

Almanach de Gotha" by heart, and seemed to guess instinctively at things

which said Almanach carefully abstained from mentioning, namely, the

good understanding or the reverse between the married royal couples of

Europe, etc.

"Why did I not come to Paris!" she replied. "What was the good of coming

to Paris where there was a king, bourgeois to his finger-nails,

tight-fisted besides, and notoriously the most moral and best father all

the world over; with princes who were nearly as much married as their

dad, and with those who were single far away? What was the good of

coming to a town where you could not bear the title of 'la maitresse du

prince' without the risk of being taken to the frontier between two

gendarmes, where you could not have squeezed a thousand louis out of any

of the royal sons for the life of you? What was the good of trying to

get a count, where the wife of a grocer or a shoemaker might have

objected to your presence at a ball, on the ground of your being an

immoral person? No, I really meant to make my way to the Hague. I had

heard that William II. whacked his wife like any drunken labourer, so

that his sons had to interfere every now and then. I had heard this in

Calcutta, and from folk who were likely to know. But as I thought that I

might have the succession of the whacks, as well as of the lord, I

wanted to try my chance at Brussels first; besides, I hadn't much

money."

"But King Leopold is married, and lives very happily with his wife," I

interrupted.

"Of course he does--they all do," was the answer; "mais ca n'empeche pas

les sentiments, does it?" I am very ignorant, and haven't a bit of

memory, but I once heard a story about a Danish or Swedish king--I do

not know the difference--who married an adventuress like myself, though

the queen and the mother of his heir was alive. He committed bigamy, but

kings and queens may do things we mayn't. One day, he and his lawful

wife were at one of their country seats, and, leaning out of the window,

when a carriage passed with a good-looking woman in it, 'Who is this

lady?' asked the queen. 'That's my wife,' replied the king. 'Your wife!

what am I, then?' said the queen. 'You? well, you are my queen.'[17]

[Footnote 17: Lola Montes was perfectly correct. It was

Frederick IV. of Denmark, only the woman was not an adventuress

like herself, but the Countess Reventlow, whom he had

abducted.--EDITOR.]

"Never mind, whatever my intentions on Leopold's money or affections may

have been, they came to nothing; for before I could get as much as a

peep at him, my money had all been spent, and I was obliged to part

with my clothes first, and then to sing in the streets to get food. I

was taken from Brussels to Warsaw by a man whom I believe to be a

German. He spoke many languages, but he was not very well off himself.

However, he was very kind, and, when we got to Warsaw, managed to get me

an engagement at the Opera. After two or three days, the director told

me that I couldn't dance a bit. I stared him full in the face, and asked

him whether he thought that, if I could dance, I would have come to such

a hole as his theatre. Thereupon he laughed, and said I was a clever

girl for all that, and that he would keep me on for ornament. I didn't

give him the chance for long. I left after about two months, with a

Polish gentleman, who brought me to Paris. The moment I get a nice round

lump sum of money, I am going to carry out my original plan; that is,

trying to hook a prince. I am sick of being told that I can't dance.

They told me so in London, they told me in Warsaw, they told me at the

Porte Saint-Martin where they hissed me. I don't think the men, if left

to themselves, would hiss me; their wives and their daughters put them

up to it: a woman like myself spoils their trade of honest women. I am

only waiting my chance here; for though you are all very nice and

generous and all that kind of thing, it is not what I want."

Shortly after this conversation, the death of Dujarrier and his legacy

to her gave her the chance she had been looking for. She left for

London, I heard, with an Englishman; but I never saw him, so I cannot

say for certain. But, it appears, she did not stay long, because, a

little while after, several Parisians, on their return from Germany,

reported that they had met her at Wiesbaden, at Homburg, and elsewhere,

punting in a small way, not settling down anywhere, and almost

deliberately avoiding both Frenchmen and Englishmen. The rumour went

that her husband was on her track, and that her anxiety to avoid him had

caused her to leave London hurriedly. In spite of her chequered career,

in spite of the shortcomings at Brussels, Lola Montes was by no means

anxious for the "sweet yoke of domesticity." In another six months, her

name was almost forgotten by all of us, except by Alexandre Dumas, who

now and then alluded to her. Though far from superstitious, Dumas, who

had been as much smitten with her as most of her admirers, avowed that

he was glad she had disappeared. "She has 'the evil eye,'" he said;

"and sure to bring bad luck to any one who closely links his destiny

with hers, for however short a time. You see what has occurred to

Dujarrier. If ever she is heard of again, it will be in connection with

some terrible calamity that has befallen a lover of hers." We all

laughed at him, except Dr. Veron, who could have given odds to Solomon

Eagle himself at prophesying. Fortunately he was generally afraid to

open his lips, for he was thoroughly sincere in his belief that he could

prevent the event by not predicting it--at any rate aloud. For once in a

way, however, Alexandre Dumas proved correct. When we did hear again of

Lola Montes, it was in connection with the disturbances that had broken

out at Munich, and the abdication of her royal lover, Louis I. of

Bavaria, in favour of his eldest son, Maximilian.

The substance of the following notes relating to said disturbances was

communicated to me by a political personage who played a not

inconsiderable part in the events themselves. As a rule it is not very

safe to take interested evidence of that kind, "but in this instance,"

as my informant put it, "there was really no political reputation to

preserve, as far as he was concerned." Lola Montes had simply tried to

overthrow him as Madame Dubarry overthrew the Duc de Choiseul, because

he would not become her creature; and she had kept on repeating the

tactics with every succeeding ministry, even that of her own making. But

it should be remembered that revolution was in the air in the year '48,

and that if Lola Montes had been the most retiring of favourites, or

Louis I. the most moral of kings, the uprising would have happened just

the same, though the upshot might have been different with regard to

Louis himself.

Here is a portrait of him, which, in my literary ignorance, I think

sufficiently interesting to reproduce.

"Louis was a chip of the old Wittelsbach block; that is, a Lovelace,

with a touch of the _minnesinger_ about him. Age had not damped his

ardour; for, though he was sixty-one when Lola Montes took up her

quarters at Munich, any and every 'beauty' that came to him was sure of

an enthusiastic welcome. And Heaven alone knows how many had come to him

during his reign; they seemed really directed to him from every quarter

of the globe. The new arrival had her portrait painted almost

immediately; it was added to the collection for which a special gallery

had been set apart, and whither Louis went to meditate by himself at

least once a day. He averred that he went thither for poetic

inspiration, for he took himself au serieux as a poet, and, above all,

as a classical poet modelling his verse upon those of ancient times. He

had published a volume of poems, entitled 'Walhalla's Genossen';[18] but

his principal study of antiquity was mainly confined to the rites

connected with the worship of Venus. He was very good-natured and

pleasant in his dealings with every one; he had not an ounce of gall in

the whole of his body. He was, moreover, very religious in his own way,

and consequently the tool of the Jesuits, who really governed the

kingdom, but who endeavoured to make his own life sweet and pleasant to

him. They liked him to take part in the religious processions, as any

burgher of devout tendencies might, but being aware of his tendency to

be attracted by the first pretty face he caught sight of, they took care

to relegate all the handsome maidens and matrons to the first and second

floors. In that way Louis's eyes were always lifted heavenwards, and

religious appearances were preserved.

[Footnote 18: "Companions in Walhalla."--EDITOR.]

"Under such conditions, it was not difficult for a woman of Lola Montes'

attractions and daring to gain her ends. She was not altogether without

means when she came to Munich, though the sum in her possession was far

from a hundred thousand francs, as she afterwards alleged it was. At any

rate, she was not the penniless adventuress she had formerly been, and

when, in her beautiful dresses, she applied to the director of the

Hof-Theatre for an engagement, the latter was fairly dazzled, and

granted her request without a murmur. She did, however, not want to

dance, and, before her first appearance, she managed to set tongues

wagging about her beauty, and, as a matter of course, the rumours

reached the king's ears. I am afraid I shall have to prefer a grave

charge, but I am not doing so without foundation. It is almost certain

by now that the Jesuits, seeing in her a tool for the further

subjugation of the superannuated royal troubadour, countenanced, if they

did not assist her in her schemes; they, the Jesuits, did many things of

which a Catholic, like myself, however firm in his allegiance to Rome,

could not but disapprove. At any rate, three or four days after the

king's first meeting with her, Lola Montes was presented at court, and

introduced to the royal family and corps diplomatique by the sovereign

himself, as 'his best friend.' Events proceeded apace. In August, '47,

the king granted her patents of 'special naturalization,' created her

Baroness von Rosenthal, and, almost immediately afterwards, Countess von

Landsfeld. She received an annuity of twenty thousand florins, and had a

magnificent mansion built for her. At the instance of the king, the

queen was compelled to confer the order of St. Therese upon her. I, and

many others, had strenuously opposed all this, though not unaware that,

up till then, the Jesuits were on her side, rather than on ours. We paid

the penalty of our opposition with our dismissal from office, and then

Lola Montes confronted the Jesuits by herself. She was absolutely mad to

invade Wurtemberg, not for any political reason; she could no more have

accounted for any such than the merest hind, but simply because, a few

months before her appearance at Munich, she had been, in her opinion,

slighted by the old king. The fact was, old William, sincerely attached

to Amalia Stubenrauch, the actress, had not fallen a victim to Lola

Montes' charms, and had taken little or no notice of her. The

contemplated invasion of Wurtemberg was an act of private revenge. But

mad as she was, there was some one more mad still--King Louis I. of

Bavaria.

"The most ill-advised thing she did, perhaps, was to change her

supporters. Like the ignorant, overbearing woman she was, she would not

consent to share her power over the king with the Jesuits; she tried to

form an opposition against them among the students at the University,

and she succeeded to a certain extent. These adherents constituted the

nucleus of a corps which soon became known under the title of

'Allemanen.' But the more noble-minded and patriotic youths at the

Munich University virtually ostracized the latter, and several minor

disturbances had already broken out in consequence of this, when, in the

beginning of February, '48, a more than usually serious manifestation

against 'Lola's creatures,' as they were called, took place. The woman

did not lack pluck, and she insisted upon defying the rioters by

herself. But they proved too much for her; and, after all, she was a

woman. She endeavoured to escape from their violence, but every house

was shut against her; the Swiss on guard at the Austrian Embassy refused

her shelter. A most painful scene happened; the king himself, the moment

the news reached him, rushed to her rescue, and, having elbowed his way

through the threatening, yelling crowd, offered her his arm, and

conducted her to the church of the Theatines, hard by. As a matter of

course, several officers had joined him, and all might have been well,

if she had taken the lesson to heart. But her violent, domineering,

vindictive temper got the better of her. No sooner did she find herself

in comparative safety, than, emboldened by the presence of the officers,

she snatched a pistol from one of them, and, armed with it, leapt out of

the building, confronting the crowd, and threatening to fire. Heaven

alone knows what would have been the result of this mad act, but for the

timely arrival of a squadron of cuirassiers, who covered her retreat.

"The excitement might have died out in a week or a fortnight, though the

year '48 was scarcely a propitious one for a display of such

quasi-feudal defiance, if she had merely been content to forego the

revenge for the insults she herself had provoked; but on the 10th of

February she prevailed upon the king to issue a decree, closing the

University for a twelvemonth. The smouldering fire of resentment against

her constant interference in the affairs of the country blazed forth

once more, and this time with greater violence than ever. The working

men, nay, the commercial middle classes, hitherto indifferent to the

king's vagaries, which, after all, brought grist to their mill, espoused

the students' cause. Barricades were erected; the cry was not 'Long live

the Constitution,' or 'Long live the Republic,' but 'Down with the

concubine.' It was impossible to mistake the drift of that insurrection,

but, in order to leave no doubt about it in the sovereign's mind, a

deputation of the municipal council and one of the Upper House waited

upon Louis, and insisted upon the dismissal of Lola Montes, who, in less

than an hour, left Munich, escorted by a troop of gendarmes, who,

however, had all their work to do to prevent her from being torn to

pieces by the mob. Her departure was the signal for the pillaging of her

mansion, at which the king looked on--as he thought--incognito. It is

difficult to determine what prompted him to commit so rash an act. Was

it a feeling of relief at having got rid of her--for there was a good

deal of cynicism about that semi-philosophical, semi-mystical

troubadour--or a desire to chew the cud of his vanished happiness?

Whatever may have been the reason, he paid dearly for it, for some one

smashed a looking-glass over his head, and he was carried back to the

palace, unconscious, and bleeding profusely. It was never ascertained

who inflicted the wounds, though there is no doubt that the assailant

knew his victim. Meanwhile Lola Montes had succeeded in slipping away

from her escort, and three hours later she re-entered Munich disguised,

and endeavoured to make her way to the palace. But the latter was

carefully guarded, and for the next month all her attempts in that

direction proved fruitless, though, audacious as she was, she did not

dare stop for a single night in the capital itself. Besides, I do not

believe that a single inhabitant would have given her shelter. Unlike a

good many royal favourites of the past, she had no personal adherents,

no faithful servants who would have stood by her through thick and thin,

because she never treated any one kindly in the days of her prosperity:

she could only bribe; she was incapable of inspiring disinterested

affection among those who were insensible to the spell of her marvellous

beauty."

So far the narrative of my informant. The rest is pretty well known by

everybody. A few years later, she committed bigamy with another English

officer, named Heald, who was drowned at Lisbon about the same time that

her real husband died. Alexandre Dumas was right--she brought ill-luck

to those who attached themselves to her for any length of time, whether

in the guise of lovers or husbands.

These notes about Lola Montes remind me of another woman whom public

opinion would place in the same category, though she vastly differed in

character. I am alluding to Alphonsine Plessis, better known to the

world at large as "La Dame aux Camelias." I frequently met her in the

society of some of my friends between '43 and '47, the year of her

death. Her name was as I have written it, and not Marie or Marguerite

Duplessis, as has been written since.

The world at large, and especially the English, have always made very

serious mistakes, both with regard to the heroine of the younger Dumas'

novel and play, and the author himself. They have taxed him with having

chosen an unworthy subject, and, by idealizing it, taught a lesson of

vice instead of virtue; they have taken it for granted that Alphonsine

Plessis was no better than her kind. She was much better than that,

though probably not sufficiently good to take a housemaid's place and be

obedient to her pastors and masters, to slave from morn till night for

a mere pittance, in addition to her virtue, which was ultimately to

prove its own reward--the latter to consist of a home of her own, with a

lot of squalling brats about her, where she would have had to slave as

she had slaved before, without the monthly pittances hitherto doled out

to her. She was not sufficiently good to see her marvellously beautiful

face, her matchless graceful figure set off by a cambric cap and a

calico gown, instead of having the first enhanced by the gleam of

priceless jewels in her hair and the second wrapped in soft laces and

velvets and satins; but, for all that, she was not the common courtesan

the goody-goody people have thought fit to proclaim her--the common

courtesan, who, according to these goody-goody people, would have

descended to her grave forgotten, but for the misplaced enthusiasm of a

poetical young man, who was himself corrupted by the atmosphere in which

he was born and lived afterwards.

The sober fact is that Dumas _fils_ did not idealize anything at all,

and, least of all, Alphonsine Plessis' character. Though very young at

the time of her death, he was then already much more of a philosopher

than a poet. He had not seen half as much of Alphonsine Duplessis during

her life as is commonly supposed, and the first idea of the novel was

probably suggested to him, not by his acquaintance with her, but by the

sensation her death caused among the Paris public, the female part of

which--almost without distinction--went to look at her apartment, to

appraise her jewels and dresses, etc. "They would probably like to have

had them on the same terms," said a terrible cynic. The remark must have

struck young Dumas, in whose hearing it was said, or who, at any rate,

had it reported to him; for if we carefully look at _all_ his earlier

plays, we find the spirit of that remark largely pervading them.

Alphonsine Plessis had probably learned even less in her girlhood than

Lola Montes, but she had a natural tact, and an instinctive refinement

which no education could have enhanced. She never made grammatical

mistakes, no coarse expression ever passed her lips. Lola Montes could

not make friends; Alphonsine Plessis could not make enemies. She never

became riotous like the other, not even boisterous; for amidst the most

animated scenes she was haunted by the sure knowledge that she would die

young, and life, but for that knowledge, would have been very sweet to

her. Amidst these scenes, she would often sit and chat to me: she liked

me, because I never paid her many compliments, although I was but six

years older than the most courted woman of her time. The story of her

being provided for by a foreign nobleman because she was so like his

deceased daughter, was not a piece of fiction on Dumas' part; it was a

positive fact. Alphonsine Plessis, after this provision was made for

her, might have led the most retired existence; she might, like so many

demi-mondaines have done since, bought herself a country-house,

re-entered "the paths of respectability," have had a pew in the parish

church, been in constant communication with the vicar, prolonged her

life by several years, and died in the odour of sanctity: but,

notwithstanding her desperate desire to live, her very nature revolted

at such self-exile. When Alexandre Dumas read the "Dame aux Camelias" to

his father, the latter wept like a baby, but his tears did not drown the

critical faculty. "At the beginning of the third act," he said

afterwards, "I was wondering how Alexandre would get his Marguerite back

to town without lowering her in the estimation of the spectator.

Because, if such a woman as he depicted was to remain true to nature--to

her nature--and consequently able to stand the test of psychological

analysis, she could not have borne more than two or three months of such

retirement. This does not mean that she would have severed her

connection with Armand Duval, but he would have become 'un plat dans le

menu' after a little while, nothing more. The way Alexandre got out of

the difficulty proves that he is my son every inch of him, and that, at

the very outset of his career, he is a better dramatist than I am ever

likely to be. But depend upon it, that if, in real life and with such a

woman, le pere Duval had not interfered, la belle Marguerite would have

taken the 'key of the street' on some pretext--and that, notwithstanding

the sale of her carriages, the pledging of her diamonds and her furs--in

order not to worry the man she loved, for the time being, with money

matters. Honestly speaking, it wanted my son's cleverness to make a

piece out of Alphonsine Plessis' life. True, he was fortunate in that

she died, which left him free to ascribe that death to any cause but the

right one, namely, consumption. I know that he made use of it, but he

took care to show the malady aggravated by Armand Duval's desertion of

her, and this is the only liberty he took with the psychological,

consequently scientific and logical, development of the play. People

have compared his Marguerite Gautier to Manon Lescaut, to Marion

Delorme, and so forth: it just shows what they know about it. They might

just as well compare Thiers to Cromwell. Manon Lescaut, Marion Delorme,

Cromwell, knew what they wanted: Marguerite Gautier and Thiers do not;

both are always in search of _l'inconnu_, the one in experimental

politics, the other in experimental love-making. Still, my son has been

true to Nature; but he has taken an episode showing her at her best. He

was not bound to let the public know that the frequent recurrence of

these love episodes, but always with a different partner, constitutes a

disease which is as well known to specialists as the disease of

drunkenness, and for which it is impossible to find a cure. Messalina,

Catherine II., and thousands of women have suffered from it. When they

happen to be born in such exalted stations as these two, they buy men;

when they happen to be born in a lowly station and are attractive, they

sell themselves; when they are ugly and repulsive they sink to the

lowest depths of degradation, or end in the padded cells of a madhouse,

where no man dares come near them. Nine times out of ten the malady is

hereditary, and I am certain that if we could trace the genealogy of

Alphonsine Plessis, we should find the taint either on the father's side

or on the mother's, probably on the former's, but more probably still on

both."[19]

[Footnote 19: The following is virtually a summary of an

article by Count G. de Contades, in a French bibliographical

periodical, _Le Livre_ (Dec. 10, 1885), and shows how near

Alexandre Dumas was to the truth. I have given it at great

length. My excuse for so doing is the extraordinary popularity

of Dumas' play with all classes of playgoers. As a consequence,

there is not a single modern play, with the exception of those

of Shakespeare, the genesis of which has been so much commented

upon. It is no exaggeration to say that most educated

playgoers, not to mention professional students of the drama,

have at some time or other expressed a wish to know something

more of the real Marguerite Gautier's parentage and antecedents

than is shown by Dumas, either in his play or in his novel, or

than what they could gather from the partly apocryphal details

given by her contemporaries. Dumas himself, in his preface to

the play, says that she was a farm servant. He probably knew no

more than that, nor did Alphonsine Plessis herself. In

after-years, the eminent dramatist had neither the time nor the

inclination to search musty parish registers; Count de Contades

has done so for him. Here are the results, as briefly as

possible, of his researches. Alphonsine Plessis' paternal

grandmother, "moitie mendiante et moitie prostituee,"

inhabited, a little less than a century ago, the small parish

of Longe-sur-Maire, which has since become simply Longe in the

canton of Briouze, arrondissement of Argentan (about thirty

miles from Alencon). She had been nicknamed "La Guenuchetonne,"

a rustic version of the archaic French word _guenippe_

(slattern). Louis Descours, a kind of country clod who had

entered the priesthood without the least vocation, and just

because his people wished him to do so, becomes enamoured of

"La Guenuchetonne," and early in January, 1790, the cure

Philippe christens a male child, which is registered as Marin

Plessis, mother Louis-Renee Plessis, father unknown. That the

father was known well enough is proved by the Christian name

bestowed upon the babe, Marin, which was that of Louis

Descours' father. This gallant adventure of the country priest

was an open secret for miles around.

Marin Plessis grew into a handsome fellow, and when about

twenty took to travelling in the adjacent provinces of lower

and upper Normandy with a pack of small wares. Handsome and

amiable besides, he was a welcome guest everywhere, and soon

became a great favourite with the female part of the Normandy

peasantry. For a little while he flitted from one rustic beauty

to another, until he was fairly caught by one more handsome

than the rest, Marie Deshayes. She was not, perhaps,

immaculately virtuous, but, apart from her extraordinary

personal attractions, she was something more than an ordinary

peasant girl.

Some sixty years before Marin Plessis' union with Marie

Deshayes, there lived in the neighbourhood of Evreux a spinster

lady of good descent, though not very well provided with

worldly goods. She was comely and sweet-tempered enough, but

then, as now, comeliness and a sweet temper do not count for

much in the French matrimonial market, and least of all in the

provincial one. Owing to the modesty of her marriage portion,

she had no suitors for her hand, and, being of an exceedingly

amorous disposition, she bestowed her affection where she

could, "without regret, and without false shame," as the old

French chronicler has it.

The annals of the village--for, curiously enough, these annals

do exist, though only in manuscripts--are commendably reticent

about the exact number and names of her lovers. It would seem

that the author, a contemporary of Mdlle. Anne du Mesnil

d'Argentelles and the great-grandfather of the present

possessor of the notes, a gentleman near Bernay, was divided

between the wish of not being too hard upon his neighbour, who

was, after all, a gentle-woman, and the desire to leave a

record of a peculiar phase of the country manners of those days

to posterity. Be this as it may, Mdlle. d'Argentelles' swains,

previous to the very last one, have been doomed to anonymous

obscurity. But with the advent of Etienne Deshayes, the

annalist becomes less reticent, he is considered worthy of

being mentioned in full, perhaps as a reward for having finally

"made an honest woman" of his inamorata. For that is the final

upshot of the love-story between him and Mdlle. d'Argentelles,

which, in its earlier stages, bears a certain resemblance to

that between Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Madame de Warens, with

this difference--that the Normand Jean-Jacques is considerably

older than his mistress.

The children born of this marriage were very numerous. One of

them, Louis-Deshayes, married a handsome peasant girl,

Marie-Madeleine Marra, who appears to have been somewhat too

intimate with a neighbouring squire, but who gave birth a few

years after to a daughter, of whose paternity there could not

be the smallest doubt, seeing that she grew up into a speaking

likeness of her maternal grandmother, the erstwhile Mdlle. Anne

du Mesnil d'Argentelles. Fate ought to have had a better lot in

store for beautiful Marie Deshayes than a marriage with a poor

pedlar like Marin Plessis; but the latter was very handsome,

and, notwithstanding the opposition of the family, she became

his wife. On the 15th of January, 1824, the child which was to

be immortalized as "La Dame aux Camelias" saw the light, in a

small village in Lower Normandy.--EDITOR.]

There were few of us who, during Alphonsine Plessis' lifetime, were so

interested in her as to have gone to the length of such a psychological

analysis of her pedigree. Nevertheless, most men were agreed that she

was no ordinary girl. Her candour about her early want of education

increased the interest. "Twenty or twenty-five years ago," said Dr.

Veron, one day, after Alphonsine Plessis had left the dinner table, "a

woman of her refinement would not have been phenomenal in her position,

because at that period the grisette, promoted to the rank of femme

entretenue, had not made her appearance. The expression 'femme

entretenue' was not even known. Men chose their companions, outside

marriage, from a different class; they were generally women of education

and often of good family who had made a faux pas, and, as such,

forfeited the society and countenance of their equals who had not

stumbled in that way, at any rate not in the sight of the world. I

confess, Alphonsine Plessis interests me very much. She is, first of

all, the best-dressed woman in Paris; secondly, she neither flaunts nor

hides her vices; thirdly, she is not always talking or hinting about

money; in short, she is a wonderful courtesan."

The result of all this admiration was very favourable to Alexandre Dumas

_fils_ when he brought out his book about eighteen months after her

death. It was in every one's hands, and the press kept whetting the

curiosity of those who had not read it as yet with personal anecdotes

about the heroine. In addition to this, the title was a very taking one,

and, moreover, absolutely new; for, though it was obvious enough from

Alphonsine Plessis' habit of wearing white camellias the greater part of

the year, no one had ever thought of applying it to her while she was

alive; hence, the credit of its invention belongs decidedly to Dumas

_fils_.

I may return to the subject of "La Dame aux Camelias" in connection with

the play; meanwhile, I will say a few words of the only man among our

set who objected to the title, "because it injures my own," as he put

it; namely, M. Lautour-Mezerai, who had been surnamed "L'Homme au

Camellia;" in the singular, from his habit of never appearing in public

without that flower in his button-hole. And be it remembered that in

those days, the flower was much more rare than it is at present, and

consequently very expensive. The plagiarist, if there was one, must have

been Alphonsine Plessis, for Dr. Veron, who was one of his oldest

friends, did not remember having ever seen him _minus_ the camellia, and

their friendship dated from the year 1831. It is computed that during

the nineteen years Mezerai was in Paris, previous to his departure for

the South of France and afterwards for Algeria, in both of which

provinces he fulfilled the functions of prefect, he must have spent no

less than fifty thousand francs on his favourite floral ornament, for he

frequently changed it twice a day, and its price, especially in the

thirties and earlier part of the forties, was not less than five francs.

It is, therefore, not surprising that he resented the usurpation of his

title. M. Lautour-Mezerai was one of the most elegant men I knew. He not

only belonged to a very good provincial stock, but his family on both

sides counted some eminent names in literature.[20] He was a most

charming companion, exceedingly generous; but he would not have parted

with the flower in his button-hole for any consideration, not even to

oblige his greatest friend, male or female. It was more than an ornament

to him, he looked upon it as a talisman. He always occupied the same

place at the Opera, in the balcony, or what we call the "dress-circle,"

and many a covetous glance from the brightest eyes was cast at the

dazzling white camellia, standing out in bold relief against the dark

blue coat, but neither glances nor direct requests had any effect upon

him. He became absolutely savage in his refusal when too hardly pressed,

because, by his own admission, he was superstitious enough to believe

that, if he went home without it, something terrible would happen to him

during the night.

[Footnote 20: Curiously enough, he belonged to the same

department, and died almost on the very spot where Marin

Plessis was born.--EDITOR.]

M. Lautour-Mezerai was, however, something more than a mere man of

fashion. To him belongs the credit of having founded--at any rate in

France--the children's periodical. For the comparatively small

subscription of six francs per annum, thousands of little ones received

every month a number of the _Journal des Enfants_, stitched in blue

paper, and with their own name on the wrapper. It flattered their pride

to be treated like their elders by having their literature despatched to

them in that way, and there is no doubt that this ingenious device

contributed, to a certain extent, to the primary and enormous success of

the undertaking. But M. Lautour-Mezerai was too refined a litterateur to

depend upon such a mere trick, and a look at even the earlier numbers of

the _Journal des Enfants_, would prove conclusively that, in the way of

amusing children while instructing them a little, nothing better has

been done since, whether in France, England, or Germany. The editor and

manager succeeded in grouping around him such men as Paul Lacroix (_le

bibliophile Jacob_) and Charles Nodier, both of whom have never been

surpassed in making history attractive to young minds. Emile Souvestre,

Leon Gozlan, Eugene Sue, and even Alexandre Dumas told them the most

wonderful stories. The men who positively kept the adult population of

France spellbound by their stirring romances seemed to take a delight in

competing with women like Virginie Ancelot, the Duchesse d'Abrantes, and

others on the latter's ground. As a consequence, it became the fashion

to present the young ones on New Year's Day with a receipt for a

twelvemonth's subscription, made out in their names, instead of the

everlasting bag of sweets. At one time the circulation of _Le Journal

des Enfants_ was computed at 60,000, and M. Lautour-Mezerai was said to

make 100,000 francs per annum out of it.

In a former note, I incidentally mentioned Auguste Lireux. He is

scarcely remembered by the present generation of Frenchmen; I doubt

whether there are a hundred students of French literature in England who

know his name, let alone his writings: yet he is worthy of being

remembered by both. He had--what a great many French writers of talent,

far greater than his own, essentially lack--humour. True, the latter was

not subtle; but it was rarely, if ever, coarse. The nearest approach to

him among the journalists of the present day is M. Francisque Sarcey;

but the eminent dramatic critic has had a better education.

Nevertheless, if Lireux had finished as he began, he would not be so

entirely forgotten. Unfortunately for his fame, if not for his material

welfare, he took it into his head to become a millionnaire, and he

almost succeeded; at any rate, he died very well off, in a beautiful

villa at Bougival.

I remember meeting with Lireux almost immediately after he landed in

Paris, at the end of '40 or the beginning of '41. He came, I believe,

from Rouen; though, but for his accent, he might have come from

Marseilles. Tall, well-built, with brown hair and beard and ruddy

complexion, a pair of bright eyes behind a pair of golden spectacles,

very badly dressed, though his clothes were almost new, very loud and

very restless, his broad-brimmed hat cocked on one side, he gave one the

impression of what in Paris we used to call a "departemental oracle."

He was that to a certain extent, still he was not really pompous, and

the feeling of discomfort one experienced at first soon wore off. He was

not altogether unknown among the better class of journalists in the

capital, for it appears that he frequently contributed to the Paris

papers from the provinces. He had a fair knowledge of the French drama

theoretically, for he had never written a piece, and openly stated his

intention never to do so. But in virtue of his dramatic criticisms in

several periodicals--which, in spite of the difference in education

between the two men, read uncommonly like the articles of M. Sarcey in

the _Temps_--and his unwavering faith in his lucky star, he considered

himself destined not only to lift the Odeon from the slough in which it

had sunk, but to make it a formidable rival to the house in the Rue de

Richelieu. He had no ambition beyond that. The Odeon was really at its

lowest depth. Harel had enjoyed a subsidy of 130,000 francs, M. d'Epagny

eleven years later had to content himself with less than half, and yet

the authorities were fully cognizant of the necessity of a second

Theatre-Francais. Whether from incapacity or ill-luck, M. d'Epagny did

not succeed in bringing back the public to the old house. The direction

was offered then to M. Hippolyte Lucas, the dramatic critic of _Le

Siecle_, and one of the best English scholars I have ever met with among

the French, and, on his declining the responsibility, given to Lireux,

who for the sake of making a point, exclaimed, "Directeur!... au refus

d'Hippolyte Lucas!"[21]

[Footnote 21: An imitation of the line of Don Carlos in Hugo's

"Hernani": "Empereur!... au refus de Frederic-le-Sage!"--EDITOR.]

It was a piece of bad taste on Lireux's part, because M. Lucas was his

superior in every respect, though he would probably have failed where

the other succeeded--at least for a while. Save for this mania of saying

smart things in and out of season, Lireux was really a good-natured

fellow, and we were all glad that he had realized his ambition. The

venture looked promising enough at the start. He got an excellent

company together, comprising Bocage, Monrose, Gil-Peres, Maubant,

Mdlles. Georges and Araldi, Madame Dorval, etc.; and if, like young

Bonaparte's troops, they were badly paid and wanted for everything, they

worked with a will, because, like Bonaparte, Lireux inspired them with

confidence. He, on the other hand, knew their value, and on no pretext

would allow them to be ousted from the positions they had honourably

won by their talents and hard work. Presumptuous mediocrity, backed

either by influence or intrigue, found him a stern adversary; the

intriguer got his answer in such a way as to prevent him from returning

to the charge. One day an actor of reputed incapacity, Machanette,

claimed the title-role in Moliere's "Misanthrope."

"You have no one else to play Alceste," he said.

"Yes, I have. I have got one of the checktakers," replied Lireux.

Auguste Lireux was one of those managers the race of which began with

Harel at the Porte Saint-Martin and Dr. Veron at the Opera. Duponchel,

at the latter house, Montigny at the Gymnase, Buloz and Arsene Houssaye

at the Comedie-Francaise, endeavoured as far as possible to follow their

traditions of liberality towards the public and their artists, and

encouragement given to untried dramatists. It was not Lireux's fault

that he did not succeed for any length of time. Of course, there is a

ridiculous side to everything. During the terrible cholera visitation of

1832, Harel published a kind of statistics, showing that not a single

one of the spectators had been attacked by the plague; but all this

cannot blind us to the support given to the struggling playwright,

Dumas, in the early part of his career. During the winter of 1841-'42,

which was a severe one, Lireux sent foot-warmers to the rare audience

that patronized him on a bitterly cold night, "when tragedy still

further chills the house"; the little bit of charlatanism cannot disturb

the fact of his having given one of the foremost dramatists of the day a

chance with "La Cigue." I am alluding to the first piece of Emile

Augier.

This kind of thing tells with a general public, more so still with a

public composed of generous-minded, albeit somewhat riotous youths like

those of the Quartier-Latin in the early forties. Gradually the latter

found their way to the Odeon, "sinon pour voir la piece, alors pour

entendre Lireux, qui est toujours amusant"; which, in plain language,

meant that come what may they would endeavour to provoke Lireux into

giving them a speech.

Flattering as was this resolve on their part to Lireux's eloquence, the

means they employed to encompass their end would have made the existence

of an ordinary manager a burden to him. But Lireux was not an ordinary

manager; he possessed "the gift of the gab" to a marvellous degree:

consequently he made it known that he would be happy at any time to

address MM. les etudiants without putting them to the expense of apples

and eggs on the evening of the performance, and voice-lozenges the next

day, if they, MM. les etudiants, would in return respect his furniture

and the dresses of his actors. The arrangement worked exceedingly well,

and for four years the management and the student part of the audience

lived in the most perfect harmony.

Lireux did more than that, he forestalled their possible objections to a

doubtful episode in a play. I remember the first night of "Jeanne de

Naples." The piece had dragged fearfully. Lireux had made three

different speeches during the evening, but he foresaw a riot at the end

of the piece which no eloquence on his part would be able to quell. It

appears--for we only found this out the next day--that the condemned

woman, previous to being led to execution, had to deliver a monologue of

at least a hundred and fifty or two hundred lines. The unhappy queen had

scarcely begun, when a herculean soldier rushed on the stage, took her

into his arms and carried her off by main force, notwithstanding her

struggles. It was a truly sensational ending, and the curtain fell

amidst deafening applause. It redeemed the piece!

Next day Lireux made his appearance at Tortoni's in the afternoon, and,

as a matter of course, the production of the previous evening was

discussed.

"I cannot understand," said Roger de Beauvoir, "how a man with such

evident knowledge of stagecraft as the author displayed in that

denoument, could have perpetrated such an enormity as the whole of the

previous acts."

Lireux was fairly convulsed with laughter. "Do you really think that was

his own invention?" he asked.

"Of course I do," was the reply.

"Well, it is not. His denoument was a speech which would have taken

about twenty minutes, at the end of which the queen is tamely led off

between the soldiers. I know what would have been the result: the

students would have simply torn up the benches and Heaven knows what

else. You know that if the gas is left burning, if only a moment, after

twelve, there is an extra charge irrespective of the quantity consumed.

I looked at my watch when she began to speak her lines. It was exactly

thirteen minutes to twelve; she might have managed to get to the end by

twelve, but it was doubtful. What was not doubtful was the row that

would have ensued, and the time it would have taken me to cope with it.

My mind was made up there and then. I selected the biggest of the

supers, told him to go and fetch her, and you know the rest."

There were few theatrical managers in those days who escaped the

vigilance of Balzac. Among the many schemes he was for ever hatching for

benefiting mankind and making his own fortune, there was one which can

not be more fitly described than in the American term of "making a

corner"; only that particular "corner" was to be one in plays.

About two years before the advent of Lireux, and when the house at Ville

d'Avray, of which I have spoken elsewhere, was completed, a party of

literary men received an invitation to spend the Sunday there. It was

not an ordinary invitation, but a kind of circular-letter, the

postscriptum to which contained the following words: "M. de Balzac will

make an important communication." Leon Gozlan, Jules Sandeau, Louis

Desnoyers, Henri Monnier, and those familiar with Balzac's schemes, knew

pretty well what to expect; and when Lassailly, one of the four men

whose nose vied with the legendary one of Bouginier, confirmed their

apprehensions that it was a question of making their fortunes, they

resigned themselves to their fate. Jules Sandeau, who was gentleness

itself, merely observed with a sigh that it was the fifteenth time

Balzac had proposed to make him a millionnaire; Henri Monnier offered to

sell his share of the prospective profits for 7 francs, 50 centimes;

Leon Gozlan suggested that their host might have discovered a diamond

mine, whereupon Balzac, who had just entered the room, declared that a

diamond mine was nothing to it. He was simply going to monopolize the

whole of the Paris theatres. He exposed the plan in a magnificent speech

of two hours' duration, and would have continued for two hours more had

not one of the guests reminded him that it was time for dinner.

"Dinner," exclaimed Balzac; "why, I never thought of it."

Luckily there was a restaurant near, and the future millionnaires and

their would-be benefactor were enabled to sit down to "a banquet quite

in keeping, not only with the magnificent prospects just disclosed to

them, but with the splendour actually surrounding them," as Mery

expressed it.

For it should be added that the sumptuous dwelling which was to be, was

at that moment absolutely bare of furniture, save a few deal chairs and

tables. The garden was a wilderness, intersected by devious paths,

sloping so suddenly as to make it impossible to keep one's balance

without the aid of an Alpenstock or the large stones imbedded in the

soil, but only temporarily, by the considerate owner. One day, Dutacq,

the publisher, having missed his footing, rolled as far as the wall

inclosing the domain, without his friends being able to stop him.

The garden, like everything else connected with the schemes of Balzac,

was eventually to become a gold-mine. Part of it was to be built upon,

and converted into a dairy; another part was to be devoted to the

culture of the pineapple and the Malaga grape, all of which would yield

an income of 30,000 francs annually "at least"--to borrow Balzac's own

words.

The apartments had been furnished in the same grandiose

way--theoretically. The walls were, as I have already remarked,

absolutely bare, but on their plaster, scarcely dry, were magnificent

inscriptions of what was to be. They were mapped out regardless of

expense. On that facing the north there was a splendid piece of

thirteenth-century Flemish tapestry--in writing, of course, flanked by

two equally priceless pictures by Raphael and Titian. Facing these,

one by Rembrandt, and, underneath, a couch, a couple of arm-chairs,

and six ordinary ones, Louis XV., and upholstered in Aubusson

tapestry--subjects, Lafontaine's Fables. Opposite again, a monumental

mantelpiece in malachite (a present of Czar Nicholas, who had

expressed his admiration of Balzac's novels), with bronzes and clock

by De Gouttieres. The place on the ceiling was marked for a chandelier

of Venetian glass, and in the dining-room a square was drawn on the

carpetless floor for the capacious sideboard, whereon would be

displayed "the magnificent family plate."

Pending the arrival of the furniture, the building of the dairy,

hothouses, and vineries, the guests had to sit on hard wooden chairs, to

eat a vile dinner, supplemented, however, by an excellent dessert.

Balzac was very fond of fruit, and especially of pears, of which he

always ate an enormous quantity. The wine was, as a rule, very inferior,

but on that particular occasion Balzac's guests discovered that their

host's imagination could even play him more cruel tricks in the

selection of his vintages than it played him in his pursuit of financial

schemes and the furnishing of his house.

When the fruit was placed upon the table, Balzac assumed a most solemn

air. "Gentlemen," he said, "I am going to give you some Chateau-Lafitte,

such as you have never tasted--such as it has been given to few mortals

to taste. I wish you to sip it carefully--I might almost say reverently,

because the opportunity may not repeat itself in our lives."

Wherewith the guests' glasses were filled; all of them made horrible

faces, for it was abominable stuff, but one more outspoken than the rest

gave his opinion there and then--

"This may be 'Chateau de la Rue Lafitte,' but it is enough to give one

the colic."

Any one else but Balzac would have been horribly disconcerted; he, on

the contrary, did not budge. "Yes," he said proudly, "you are right in

one respect; this ambrosial nectar comes in a straight line from the Rue

Lafitte, for it is Baron James de Rothschild who made me a present of

two barrels, for which I am profoundly grateful. Drink, gentlemen,

drink, and be thankful also."

Those who would consider this a clever piece of acting on Balzac's part,

would be greatly mistaken. His imagination at times affected his palate

as well as his other organs, and at that moment he was under the

distinct impression that he was offering his guests one of the rarest

vintages on record.

I have endeavoured hitherto to digress as little as possible in my

recollections, though their very nature made it difficult. In this

instance, digression was absolutely necessary to convey an idea of the

shock which would naturally result from the contact of two such brains

as those of Balzac and Lireux; for it was not long after the young

manager's advent to the Odeon that Balzac found his way to his sanctum.

The play he offered him was "Les Ressources de Quinola." Strange as it

may seem to us, even as late as '42, Balzac's name as a novelist did not

rank first in the list with the general public, still it is very

doubtful whether any young manager would have refused a stage play by

him; consequently, Lireux accepted "Les Ressources de Quinola" almost

without fear. It is not to the purpose to say that it was a bad play,

and that he ought to have known better; it has been amply proved by now

that the most experienced manager is not infallible; but it is a moot

point whether the greatest masterpiece would have succeeded with the

tactics adopted by Balzac to insure its success. The following may

appear like a scene from a farcical comedy; I can vouch for the truth of

every word of it, because I had it from the lips of Lireux himself, who,

after all, was the heaviest sufferer by Balzac's incurable greed, or, to

put it as leniently as one can, by his constant chase after a capital

stroke of business. His resolve to pack the house on the first night was

not due to a desire to secure a favourable reception from a friendly

audience, but to the determination to secure "a lump sum," let come what

might. In Balzac are found the two contradictory traits of the

money-grubber and the spendthrift.

The scene alluded to just now, took place when the rehearsals were far

advanced; the author and the manager were discussing the invitations to

be sent out, etc. All at once Balzac declared that he would have none

but Knights of the Order of Saint-Louis in the pit. "I am agreeable,"

replied Lireux, "provided you ferret them out."[22]

[Footnote 22: It shows that Lireux was not very familiar with

the royal edicts affecting that order, and that Balzac himself

exaggerated the social and monetary importance of its wearers.

For, though Louis-Philippe at his accession suppressed the

order, not less than twelve thousand new knights had been

created by his two immediate predecessors. They, the recently

created knights, were allowed to retain their honours and

pensions; but, even before the fall of the Bourbons, the

distinction had lost much of its prestige. After the Battle of

Navarino, Admiral de Rigny, soliciting rewards for his officers

who had distinguished themselves, tacitly ignored the order of

Saint-Louis in favour of that of the Legion of Honour. The

order, as founded by Louis XIV. in 1693, was only available to

officers and Catholics. Several modifications were introduced

afterwards in its statutes. The Order of Saint-Louis and that

of "Military Merit" were the only two recognized by the

Constituent Assembly of 1789; but the Convention suppressed the

former, only leaving the latter.--EDITOR.]

"I'll see to that," said Balzac. "Pray go on. What is the next part of

the house?"

"Orchestra stalls."

"Nothing but peers of France there."

"But the orchestra stalls will not hold them all, Monsieur de Balzac."

"Those who cannot find room in the house will have to stand in the

lobbies," said Balzac, imperturbably.

"Stage boxes?" continued Lireux.

"They will be reserved for the Court."

"Stage boxes on the first tier?"

"For the ambassadors and plenipotentiaries."

"The open boxes on the ground floor?"

"For the wives and families of the ambassadors."

"Upper circle?" enumerated Lireux, not a muscle of his face moving.

"For the deputies and grand officers of State."

"Third circle?" enumerated Lireux.

"The heads of the great banking and financial establishments."

"The galleries and amphitheatre?"

"A carefully selected, but varied, bourgeoisie," wound up Balzac.

Lireux, who was a capital mimic, re-enacted the scene for us

four-and-twenty hours after it had been enacted in his own room, and

while he was still under the impression that it was merely a huge joke

on Balzac's part. He soon discovered, however, that the latter was

terribly in earnest, when, a few days later, Balzac claimed the whole of

the seats for the first three nights, on the penalty of withdrawing his

piece there and then. Lireux foolishly submitted, the box office was

closed; every one applying for tickets was referred to Balzac himself,

or rather to the shady individual who had egged him on to this

speculation. The latter, at the first application, had run up the

prices; the public felt disgusted, and when the curtain rose upon "Les

Ressources de Quinola," the house was almost empty. Thereupon a batch of

nondescripts was sent into the streets to dispose of the tickets at any

price; the bait was indignantly rejected, and the curtain fell amidst

violent hisses. I repeat, a masterpiece would have failed under such

circumstances; but the short run of the revival, almost a quarter of a

century later at the Vaudeville, proved that the piece was not even an

ordinary money-drawing one. It only kept the bills for about nine or ten

days.

Lireux was more fortunate with several other pieces, notably with that

of Leon Gozlan, known to students of the French drama as "La Main Droite

et la Main Gauche," but which originally bore the title of "Il etait une

Fois un Roi et une Reine." There could be no doubt about its tendency in

its original form; it was nothing less than an indictment for bigamy

both against Queen Victoria and her Consort; and the authorities had to

insist not only upon the change of title and the names of the _dramatis

personae_, but upon the action being shifted from London to Stockholm.

The author and manager had to comply; but the public, who had got wind

of the affair, crowded the house every night in order to read between

the lines.

One of my great sources of amusement for many years has been the perusal

of political after-dinner speeches, and political leaders in the English

papers, especially when the speakers and writers have endeavoured to lay

stress upon the cordial relations between the French and the English,

upon the friendly feelings guiding their actions on both sides. I am

putting together these notes nearly fourteen years after the conclusion

of the Franco-German War, nearly three quarters of a century after

Waterloo. There is not a single Frenchman, however Chauvinistic, who

ever thinks, let alone talks, of avenging Napoleon's defeat by

Wellington; while, on the other hand, there is not a single Frenchman,

however unpatriotic, who does not dream now and then of wiping out the

humiliation suffered at Sedan. Well, in spite of the almost entire

oblivion of the one disaster, and the poignant recollection of the

other, the French of to-day hate the English more than the Germans;

or--let me put it more correctly--they hate the Germans, they despise

us. Nothing that we can do will ever remove this dislike of us.

It has been thus as long as I can remember; no royal visits, no exchange

of so-called international courtesies will alter the feeling. It is

ready to burst forth, the smallest provocation or fancied one will set

it ablaze. During the forties there were a good many real or imaginary

provocations on the part of England, and, as a consequence, the hostile

feeling against her broke forth where it is almost always sure to break

forth first in France--on the stage and in song. After "La Main Droite

et la Main Gauche," came Halevy's opera of "Charles VI." It is but fair

to say that the Government did all it could to stem the tide, but,

notwithstanding its positive orders to modify the chorus of the famous

war song in the first act, the song was henceforth regarded as a

patriotic hymn. Nor did the visit of the Queen to Louis-Philippe at Eu,

in 1843, effect much improvement in this state of things; and, as a

matter of course, we on the English side of the Channel retaliated the

skits, etc., though I do not think we took them au grand serieux. When,

in January, '44, I went to London for a few days, I found the Christmas

pantomime of "King Pippin" in full swing at Drury Lane. I well remember

a scene of it, laid in the shop of a dealer in plaster figures. Two of

these represented respectively the King of France and the Queen of

Great Britain and Ireland. At a given moment, the two statues became

animated, drew close to one another, and exchanged the most profuse

salutations. But meanwhile, at the back of the stage, the Gallic cock

and the British lion (or leopard) assumed a threatening attitude, and at

each mark of affection between the two royal personages, shook their

heads violently and seemed to want desperately to come to close

quarters. The audience applauded vociferously, and it was very evident

to me that neither in Paris nor in London the two nations shared the

entente cordiale of their rulers.