-----
M. and Madame Alphonse Daudet--for it is impossible to mention the great
French writer without also immediately recalling the personality of the
lady who has been his best friend, his tireless collaboratrice, and his
constant companion during the last twenty-five years--have made their
home on the top storey of a fine stately house in the Rue de Belle
Chasse, a narrow old-world street running from the Boulevard Saint
Germain up into the Quartier Latin.
[Illustration: MADAME DAUDET.]
Like most houses on the left bank of the Seine, the "hotel" is built
round a large courtyard, the Daudets' pretty _appartement_ being
situated on the side furthest from the street, and commanding a splendid
view of Southern Paris, whilst in the immediate foreground is one of
those peaceful, quiet gardens, owned by some of the old Paris religious
foundations still left undisturbed by the march of Republican time.
The study in which Alphonse Daudet does all his work, and receives his
more intimate friends, is opposite the hall door, but a strict watch is
kept by Madame Daudet's faithful servants, and no one is allowed to
break in upon the privacy of _le maitre_ without some good and
sufficient reason. Few writers are so personally popular with their
readers as is Alphonse Daudet; there is about most of his books a
strange magnetic charm, and every post brings him quaint, curious, and
often pathetic, epistles from men and women all over the world, and of
every nationality, discussing his characters, suggesting alterations,
offering him plots, and asking his advice on their own most intimate
cases of conscience, whilst, if he were to grant all the requests for
personal interviews which come to him day by day, he would literally
have not a moment for work or leisure.
[Illustration: DAUDET AT WORK.]
But to those who have the good fortune of his acquaintance, M. Daudet is
the most delightful and courteous of hosts, and, though rarely alluding
to his own work in conversation, he will always answer those questions
put to him to the best of his ability, and as one who has thought much
and deeply on most subjects of human interest.
The first glance shows you that Daudet's study is a real work room;
there is no straining after effect; the plain, comfortable furniture,
including the large solid writing table covered with papers, proofs,
literary biblots, and the various instruments necessary to his craft,
were made and presented to him by a number of workmen, his military
comrades during the war, and serve to perpetually remind him of what, he
says, has been the most instructive and intensely interesting period of
his life. "That terrible year," I have heard him exclaim more than once,
"taught me many things. It was then for the first time that I learned to
appreciate our workpeople, _le peuple_. Had it not been for what I then
went through, one whole side of good human nature would have been shut
to me. The Paris _ouvrier_ is a splendid fellow, and among my best
friends I reckon some of those who fought by my side in 1870."
During those same eventful months M. Daudet made the acquaintance of the
man who was afterwards to prove his most indefatigable helper; it was
between one of the long waits outside the fortifications. To his
surprise, the novelist saw a young soldier reading a Latin book. In
answer to a question, the _pioupiou_ explained that he had been brought
up to be a priest, but had finally changed his mind and become a
workman. Now, the ex seminarist is M. Daudet's daily companion and
literary agent; it is he who makes all the necessary arrangements with
editors and publishers, and several of Daudet's later writings have been
dictated to him.
All that refers to a great writer's methods cannot but be of interest.
Daudet's novels are really human documents, for from early youth he has
put down from day to day, almost from hour to hour, all that he has
seen, heard, and done. He calls his note-books "my memory." When about
to start a new novel he draws out a general plan, then he copies out all
the incidents from his note-books which he thinks will be of value to
him for the story. The next step is to make out a rough list of
chapters, and then, with infinite care, and constant corrections, he
begins writing out the book, submitting each page to his wife's
criticism, and discussing with her the working out of every incident,
and the arrangement of every episode. Unlike most novelists, M. Daudet
does not care to always write on the same paper, and his manuscripts are
not all written on paper of the same size. Of late he has been using
some large, rough hand-made sheets, which Victor Hugo had specially made
for his own use, and which have been given to M. Daudet by Georges Hugo,
who knew what a pleasure his grandfather would have taken in the thought
that any of his literary leavings would have been useful to his little
Jeanne's father-in-law, for it will be remembered that Leon Daudet, the
novelist's eldest child, married some three years ago "Peach Blossom"
Hugo, for whom was written _L'Art d'etre Grand-pere_.
Although M. Daudet takes precious care of his little note-books, both
past and present, he has never troubled himself much as to what became
of the fair copies of his novels. They remain in the printers' and
publishers' hands, and will probably some day attain a fabulous value.
His handwriting is clear, and somewhat feminine in form, and he always
uses a steel pen. Till his health broke down he wrote every word of his
manuscripts himself, but of late he has been obliged to dictate to his
wife and two secretaries; re-writing, however, much of his work in the
margin of the manuscript, and also adding to, and polishing, each
chapter in proof, for no writer pays more attention to style and
chiselled form than the man who has been called the French Dickens, and
whose compositions, to the uninitiated, would seem to be singularly
spontaneous.
Since the war M. Daudet has never had an hour's sleep without artificial
aid, such as chloral; but devotees of Lady Nicotine will be interested
to learn that in answer to a question he once said, "I have smoked a
great deal while working, and the more I smoked the better I worked. I
have never noticed that tobacco is injurious, but I must admit that,
when I am not well, even the smell of a cigarette is odious." He added
that he had a great horror of alcohol as a stimulant for work, and has
ofttimes been heard to say that those who believe in working on spirits
had better make up their minds to become total abstainers if they hope
to achieve anything in the way of literature.
Unlike most literary _menages_, M. and Madame Daudet are one of those
happy couples who are said by cynics to be the exceptions which prove
the rule. Literary men are proverbially unlucky in their helpmates; and
geniuses have been proved again and again to reserve their fitful
humours and uncertain tempers for home use. M. and Madame Daudet are at
once sympathetic, literary partners, and the happiest of married
couples; in _L'Enfance d'une Parisienne_, _Enfants et Meres_, and
_Fragments d'un Livre Inedit_, Madame Daudet has proved that she is in
her own way as original and delicate an artist as her husband. She has
never written a novel, but, as a great French critic once aptly
remarked, "Each one of her books contains the essence of innumerable
novels." Her literary work has been an afterthought, an accident; she is
not anxious to make a name by her writing, and her most intimate friends
have never heard her mention her literary faculty; like most
Frenchwomen, a devoted mother, when not helping her husband, she is
absorbed in her children, and whilst her boys were at the Lycee she
taught herself Latin in order to help them prepare their lessons every
evening; and she is now her young daughter's closest companion and
friend.
One of the most charming characteristics of Alphonse Daudet is his love
for, and pride in, his wife. "I often think of my first meeting with
her," he will say. "I was quite a young fellow, and had a great
prejudice against literary women, and especially against poetesses, but
I came, saw, and was conquered, and," he will conclude smiling, "I have
remained under the charm ever since.... People sometimes ask me whether
I approve of women writing; how should I not, when my own wife has
always written, and when all that is best in my literary work is owing
to her influence and suggestion. There are whole realms of human nature
which we men cannot explore. We have not eyes to see, nor hearts to
understand, certain subtle things which a woman perceives at once; yes,
women have a mission to fulfil in the literature of to-day."
[Illustration: THE PROVENCAL FURNITURE.]
Strangely enough, M. Daudet made the acquaintance of his future wife
through a favourable review he wrote of a volume of verse published by
her parents, M. and Madame Allard. They were so pleased with the notice
that they wrote and asked the critic to come and see them. How truly
thankful the one time critic must now feel that he was inspired to deal
gently by the little _bouquin_.
Madame Daudet is devoted to art, and her pretty _salon_ is one of the
most artistic _interieurs_ in Paris, whilst the dining-room, fitted up
with old Provencal furniture, looks as though it had been lifted bodily
out of some fastness in troubadour land.
The tie between the novelist and his children is a very close one; he
has said of Leon that there stands his best work; and, indeed, the young
man is in a fair way to make his father's words come true, for,
inheriting much of both parents' literary faculty, M. Leon Daudet lately
made his _debut_ as a novelist with _Hoeres_, a remarkable story with
a purpose, in which the author strove to explain his somewhat curious
theories on the laws of heredity. Having originally been intended for
the medical profession, he takes a special interest in this subject. It
is curious that three such distinct and different literary gifts should
exist simultaneously in the same family.
As soon as even the cool, narrow streets of the Quartier Latin begin to
grow dusty and sultry with summer heat, the whole Daudet family emigrate
to the novelist's charming country cottage at Champrosay. There old
friends, such as M. Edmond de Goncourt, are ever made welcome, and life
is one long holiday for those who bring no work with them. Daudet
himself has described his country home as being "situated thirty miles
from Paris, at a lovely bend of the Seine, a provincial Seine invaded by
bulrushes, purple irises, and water-lilies, bearing on its bosom tufts
of grass, and clumps of tangled roots, on which the tired dragon-flies
alight, and allow themselves to be lazily floated down the stream."
[Illustration: THE DRAWING ROOM.]
It was in a round, ivy-clad pavilion overhanging the river that _le
maitre du logis_ wrote _L'Immortel_. On an exceptionally fine day he
would get into a canoe, and let it drift among the reeds, till, in the
shadow of an old willow-tree, the boat became his study, and the two
crossed oars his desk. Strange that so bitter and profoundly cynical a
study of modern Paris life should have been evolved in such
surroundings, whilst the _Contes de Mon Moulin_, and many other of his
most ideal _nouvelles_, were written in the sombre grey house where M.
and Madame Daudet lived during many years of their early married life.
The author of _Les Rois en Exile_ has not yet utilised Champrosay as a
background to any of his stories; he takes notes, however, of all that
goes on in the little village community, much as he did in the Duc de
Morny's splendid palace, and in time his readers may have the pleasure
of perusing an idyllic yet realistic picture of French country life, an
outcome of his summer experiences.
Alphonse Daudet was born just fifty-three years ago in the sunlit, white
_batisse_ at Nimes, which he has described in the painful, melancholy
history of his childhood, entitled _Le Petit Chose_. At an age when
other French boys are themselves _lyceans_, he became usher in a kind of
provincial Dotheboys Hall; and some idea of what the sensitive, poetical
lad went through may be gained by the fact that he more than once
seriously contemplated committing suicide. But fate had something better
in store for _le petit Daudet_, and his seventeenth birthday found him
in Paris sharing his brother Ernest's garret, having arrived in the
great city with just forty sous remaining of his little store, after
spending two days and nights in a third-class carriage.
Even now, there is a touch of protection and maternal affection in the
way in which Ernest Daudet regards his younger brother, and the latter
never mentions his early struggles without recalling the
self-abnegation, generous kindliness, and devotion of "_mon frere_." The
two went through some hard times together. "Ah!" says the great writer,
speaking of those days, "I thought my brother passing rich, for he
earned seventy-five francs a month by being secretary to an old
gentleman at whose dictation he took down his memoirs." And so they
managed to live, going occasionally to the theatre, and seeing not a
little of life, on the sum of thirty shillings a month apiece!
When receiving visitors, the author of _Tartarin_ places himself with
his back to the light on one of the deep, comfortable couches which line
the fireplace of his study, but from out the huge mass of his powerful
head, surrounded by the lionese mane, which has become famous in his
portraits and photographs, gleam two piercing dark eyes, which, like
those of most short-sighted people, seem to perceive what is immediately
before them with an extra intensity of vision.
To ask one who has far outrun his fellows what he thinks of the race
seems a superfluous question. Yet, in answer as to what he would say of
literature as a profession, M. Daudet gave a startlingly clear and
decided answer.
[Illustration: THE BILLIARD AND FENCING ROOM.]
"The man who has it in him to write will do so, however great his
difficulties, but I would never advise any young fellow to make
literature his profession, and I think it is nothing short of madness to
give up a good chance of making your livelihood in some other, though
perhaps less congenial, fashion, in order to pursue the calling of
letters. You would be surprised if you knew the number of young people
who come to me for sympathy with their literary aspirations, and as for
the manuscripts submitted to me, the sending of them back keeps one of
my friends pretty busy, for of late years I have had to refuse to look
at anything sent to me in this way. In vain I say to those who come to
consult me, 'However much occupied you are with your present way of
earning a livelihood, if you have it in you to write anything you will
surely find time to do it.' They go away unconvinced, and a few months
later sees them launched on the perilous seas of journalism; with now
really not a moment to spare for serious writing! Of course, if the
would-be writer has already an income, I see no reason why he should not
give himself up to literature altogether. It was in order to provide a
certain number of coming geniuses with the wherewithal to find at least
spare time in which to write possible masterpieces, that my friend
Edmond de Goncourt and his brother Jules conceived the noble and
unselfish idea to found an institute, the members of which would require
but two qualifications, poverty and exceptional literary power. If a
would-be writer can find someone who will assist him in this manner,
well and good; but no one is a prophet in his own country, and friends
and relations are, as a rule, most unwilling to waste good money on
their young literary acquaintances. Still I admit that the Academie de
Goncourt would fulfil a want, for there have been, and are, great
geniuses who positively cannot produce their masterpieces from bitter
poverty."
"Then do you believe in journalism as a stepping-stone to literature?"
"I cannot say that I do, though, strangely enough, there is scarcely one
of us--I allude to latter-day French novelists and critics--who did not
spend at least a portion of his youth doing hard, pot-boiling newspaper
work. But I deplore the necessity of a novelist having to make
journalism his start in life, for, as all newspaper writing has to be
done against time, his style must certainly deteriorate, and his
literature becomes journalese."
"What was your own first literary essay, M. Daudet?"
"You know I was born a poet, not a novelist; besides, when I was a lad
everyone wrote poetry, so I made my _debut_ by a book of verse entitled
_Mes Amoureuses_. I was just eighteen, and this was my first stroke of
luck; for six weary months I had carried my poor little manuscript from
publisher to publisher, but, strange to say, I never got further than
these great people's ante-chamber; at last, a certain Tardieu, a
publisher who was himself an author, took pity on my _Amoureuses_. The
title had been a happy inspiration, and the volume received some
favourable notices, and led indirectly to my getting journalistic work."
Indeed, it seems to have been more or less of an accident that M. Daudet
did not devote himself entirely to poetry; and probably the very poverty
which seemed so bitter to him during his youth obliged him to try what
he could do in the way of story-writing, that branch of literature being
supposed by the French to be the best from a pecuniary point of view. So
remarkable were his verses felt to be by the critics of the day, that
one of them wrote, "When dying, Alfred de Musset left his two pens as a
last legacy to our literature--Feuillet has taken that of prose; into
Daudet's hand has slipped that of verse."
But some years passed before the poet-journalist became the novelist; at
one time he dreamed of being a great dramatist, and before he was
five-and-twenty several of his plays had been produced at leading Paris
theatres. Fortune smiled upon him, and he was appointed to be one of the
Duc de Morny's secretaries, a post he held four years, and which
supplied him with much valuable material for several of his later
novels, notably _Les Rois en Exile_, _Le Nabab_, and _Numa Romestan_,
for during this period he was brought into close and intimate contact
with all the noteworthy personages of the Third Empire, making at the
same time the acquaintance of most of the literary lions of the
day--Flaubert, with whom he became very intimate; Edmond and Jules de
Goncourt, the two gifted brothers who may be said to have founded the
realistic school of fiction years before Emile Zola came forward as the
apostle of realism; Tourguenieff, the two Dumas, and many others who
welcomed enthusiastically the young Southern poet into their midst.
[Illustration: THE TUILERIES STONE.]
The first page of _Le Petit Chose_ was written in the February of 1866,
and was finished during the author's honeymoon, but it was with _Fromont
Jeune et Risler Aine_, published six years later, that he made his first
real success as a novelist, the work being crowned by the French
Academy, and arousing a veritable enthusiasm both at home and abroad.
Alphonse Daudet is not a quick worker; he often allows several years to
elapse between his novels, and refuses to bind himself down to any
especial date. _Tartarin de Tarascon_ was, however, an exception to this
rule, for the author wrote it for Messrs. Guillaume, the well-known art
publishers, who, wishing to popularise an improved style of
illustration, offered M. Daudet 150,000 francs (L6,000) to write them a
serio-comic story. _Tartarin_, which obtained an instant popularity,
proved the author's versatility, but won him the hatred of the good
people of Provence, who have never forgiven him for having made fun of
their foibles. On one occasion a bagman, passing through Tarascon, put,
by way of a jest, the name "Alphonse Daudet" in his hotel register. The
news quickly spread, and had it not been for the prompt help of the
innkeeper, who managed to smuggle him out of the town, he might easily
have had cause to regret his foolish joke.
Judging by sales, _Sapho_ has been the most popular of Daudet's novels,
for over a quarter of a million copies have been sold. Like most of his
stories, its appearance provoked a great deal of discussion, as did the
author's dedication "To my two sons at the age of twenty." But, in
answer to his critics, Daudet always replies, "I wrote the book with a
purpose, and I have succeeded in painting the picture as I wished it to
appear. Each of the types mentioned by me really existed; each incident
was copied from life...."
The year following its publication M. Daudet dramatised _Sapho_, and the
play was acted with considerable success at the Gymnase, Jane Hading
being in the _title-role_. Last year the play was again acted in Paris,
with Madame Rejane as the heroine.
[Illustration: DAUDET'S YOUNGER SON.]
M. Daudet, like most novelists, takes a special interest in all that
concerns dramatic art and the theatre. When his health permits it he is
a persistent first-nighter, and most of his novels lend themselves in a
rare degree to stage adaptation.
I once asked him what he thought of the attempts now so frequently made
to introduce unconventionality and naked realism on the stage.
"I have every sympathy," he replied, "with the attempts made by Antoine
and his Theatre Libre to discover strong and unconventional work. But I
do not believe in the new terms which a certain school have invented for
everything; after all, the play's the thing, whether it is produced by a
group who dub themselves romantics, realists, old or new style. Realism
is not necessarily real life; a photograph only gives a rigid, neutral
side of the object placed in front of the camera. A dissection of what
we call affection does not give so vivid an impression of the
master-passion as a true love-sonnet written by a poet. Life is a thing
of infinite gradations; a dramatist wishes to show existence as it
really is, not as it may be under exceptionally revolting
circumstances."
His own favourite dramatist and writer is Shakespeare, whom, however, he
only knows by translation, and _Hamlet_ and _Desdemona_ are his
favourite hero and heroine in the fiction of the world, although he
considered Balzac his literary master.
M. Daudet will seldom be beguiled into talking on politics. Like all
Frenchmen, the late Panama scandals have profoundly shocked and
disgusted him, as revealing a state of things discreditable to the
Government of his country. But the creator of Desiree Dolobelle has a
profound belief in human nature, and believes that, come what may, the
novelist will never lack beautiful and touching models in the world
round and about him.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_The Dismal Throng._