is a volume of the _Député d'Arcis_, (another of the continuation
family,) heavy stuff, seemingly, by Balzac; and this brings us to
the end of the continuations. With these exceptions, the French
writers who have not altogether left off writing, have at least
kept within circumscribed limits. Here we have a volume from M.
Méry of Marseilles, a clever, careless writer, not much known in
England; another by the authoress of _Consuelo_; two more from M.
Alphonse Karr; a couple from that old sinner, Paul de Kock, who
is not often so concise, having superadded, of late years, to his
other transgressions the crime of long-windedness; a brief Sicilian
sketch from M. Paul de Musset. We turn aside a heap of political
matter, of no great merit or value; a few pamphlets, of some talent,
but fugitive interest, by Girardin and others; a ream of portraits
and caricatures; a few more novels whose authors' names or whose
first pages condemn them; _Mourir pour la Patrie_, and some other
revolutionary staves, bad music and worse words, and the box is
empty. We sit down to peruse the little we have selected as worth
perusal from the pile of printed paper. _La Famille Alain_, by Karr,
is the first thing that comes to hand. We have read the greater
part of it already, in the French periodical in which it first
appeared. M. Karr is rather a favourite of ours. There are many good
points about his novels, although he is, perhaps, less popular as a
novelist than as the writer of a small monthly satirical pamphlet,
_Les Guèpes_, The Wasps, which has existed for several years, with
varying, but, upon the whole, with very great success. M. Karr's
wit is of a peculiar order, approaching more nearly to _humour_
than French wit generally does. There is an odd sort of dryness and
fantastic _naïveté_ in some of his drolleries, quite distinct from
what we are accustomed to in the comic writings of his countrymen.
With this the German origin to be inferred from his name may have
some connexion. There is also a Germanic vagueness and dreaminess in
some of his books, although their scene is usually on French ground,
frequently on the coast of Brittany, a country M. Karr evidently well
knows and loves. One of his great recommendations is the general
propriety of his writings. Of most of them, the tone and tendency
are alike unexceptionable, and some are mere "simple stories," which
the most fastidious papas--who deny that any good thing can proceed
from a French press, and look upon the yellow paper cover with
"Paris" at its foot as the ineradicable mark of the beast, the moral
quarantine flag, betokening uncleanness which no amount of lazaretto
can purge or purify--might with safe conscience place in the hands
of their blooming artless sixteen-year-old daughters. The fact is,
that people _will_ read French novels--so long as they are not
audaciously indecent, immoral, or irreligious--because the present
race of French novelists are far cleverer and more amusing than their
English brethren. And although some French novels are offensive and
abominable, it is not fair to include all in the black list, or to
deny that a great improvement has taken place since the period (the
early years of the reign of the first and last King of the French)
when the Paris press was clogged with indecency and infidelity. We
should be very sorry to put Mrs George Sand's works into the hands of
any young woman; we would insult no woman, of any age, by commending
to her notice the obscene buffoonery of De Kock; but neither would
we condemn the whole flock for a sprinkling of scabby sheep. There
are many French writers of a very different stamp from the two just
named; and M. Karr is one of the better sort. The tale now before
us is a Norman story, possessing better plot and incident than
many of its predecessors; for in these respects, this author--from
indolence, we suspect--is often rather deficient. We need hardly
tell our readers that the Norman is noted for his cunning, and for
his litigious propensities, as the Gascon is for his boasting and
vanity, the Lorrainer for his stolidity, &c., &c. In _La Famille
Alain_, the characteristics of the province, and the casualties
of the peasant's and fisherman's life, are cleverly illustrated.
Tranquille Alain, surnamed Risquetout, from certain bold feats of his
earlier years, lives by the seaside on the produce of his nets. His
family consists of his wife Pélagie, his sons and daughter, Cæsar,
Onesimus, and Berenice, and of his foster-daughter Pulchérie. With
respect to these magnificent names, M. Karr thinks it necessary to
offer some explanation. "I am not their inventor," he says, "and they
are very common in Normandy. There is not a village that has not its
Berenices, its Artemesias, its Cleopatras. I know not whence the
inhabitants originally took these names. Perhaps they were given by
dames of high degree, who took them from Mademoiselle de Scudery's
romances, to bestow them on their rustic god-children, and they have
since remained traditional in the country." The book opens with the
christening of a new fishing-boat, to build which Tranquille Alain
has borrowed a hundred crowns of his cousin Eloi, miller and usurer.
In France, as elsewhere, and especially in Normandy, millers have a
roguish reputation. The loan is to be repaid, part at the beginning
and part at the end of the fishing season, with twenty crowns
interest. But the season sets in stormy and unfavourable; the fish
shun the coast; and at the date appointed for the first payment, the
debtor is unprepared with either principal or interest. At last the
wind lulls, and the angry waves subside into a long sullen swell.
Risquetout and his sons put to sea.
"Towards the close of day, as the boats reappeared on the horizon,
Eloi Alain came down from Beuzeval, and waited their arrival upon the
beach. They had taken a few whitings. Onesimus was proud, because
almost all the fish had been caught on his line.
"Risquetout, who had started that morning rather prematurely, without
waiting till the fine weather had thoroughly set in, had a feeling of
fear and embarrassment at sight of the miller.
"'Have you caught any thing?' said Eloi.
"'A few whitings. Will you come, and eat some with us?'
"Eloi made no answer; but when the lines and fish had been taken out
of the boat, and the boat had been washed and hauled up upon the
shore, he followed the three fishers to their home. Pélagie also felt
uneasy at sight of Eloi; she asked him, as Tranquille had done, if he
would eat a whiting, to which he replied,--
"'Not to refuse you.'
"Then, as they changed the fish from one basket to another, he took
up two, and kept them a long time in his hands, repeating, 'Fine
whitings these, very fine whitings!' until Pélagie said:--
"'You shall take them home with you, cousin.'
"Eloi answered nothing; they sat down to dinner; he found the cider
not very good, which did not prevent his drinking a great deal of it.
"'Well, Tranquille,' said he, at last, 'it is to-day you are to pay
me the hundred and twenty crowns I lent you.'
"Neither the intrepid Risquetout, nor any of his family, dared to
observe that the loan was not of one hundred and twenty crowns, but
only of one hundred crowns, for which a hundred and twenty were to be
paid back.
"'True,' said Tranquille Alain, 'true; but the same reason which
prevented my paying you the other day, prevents me to-day; to-day
only have we been able to put to sea.
"'I am sadly inconvenienced for these hundred and twenty crowns I
lent you, cousin. I had reckoned on them to employ in an affair--I
had taken them from a sum I had in reserve--and here I am, distressed
for want of them.'
"'I am sorrier for it than you are, cousin, but a little patience and
all will go well.'
"Tranquille did not dare say that Eloi could not be distressed for
the hundred and twenty crowns, their agreement having been, that he
should repay only a portion at the beginning of the season, and the
remainder at its conclusion.
"'And when will you pay me?'
"'Well, cousin, at the end of the season.'
"'The two halves shall be paid together,' added Pélagie, bolder than
her husband.
"'It is to-day the money would be useful to me; I miss an affair on
which I should gain fifty crowns! It is very hard to have obliged
people, and to find one's-self in difficulty in consequence. I am so
much in want of money, Risquetout, that if you give me two hundred
francs, I will return you these two bills of sixty crowns each.'
"'You know very well I have no money, Eloi.'
"'Never mind, it shows you what sacrifices I would make to-day, to
receive what you owe me.'
"Again no one dared tell the miller that he was not very sincere when
he offered to sacrifice a hundred and sixty francs to obtain payment
of a sum which would enable him, he said, to gain a hundred and fifty.
"'What is to be done?' said he.
"'I wish I had the money, Eloi.'
"'You say then that you cannot pay, till Michaelmas, the hundred and
twenty crowns you should have paid to-day?'
"'That is to say, cousin,' cried Pélagie, always bolder or less
patient than her husband, 'that we should have given you half of it.'
"'Yes; but that half was due a fortnight ago; and, besides, I am in
such want of that half, that--See here, now, I offered just now to
give you back your bills for two hundred francs; well, pay me one,
and I return you both. There is nothing stingy or greedy in that
offer, I hope; I lent you a hundred and twenty crowns, and I cry
quits for sixty.'
"'Cousin, I repeat that I have no money, and besides, if I had sixty
crowns, I would give them you, which would not prevent my giving you
the sixty others later.'
"'It is sixty crowns that I lose on the affair I miss for want of
money.'
"'Pélagie longed to remind Eloi that the profit sacrificed had been
but fifty crowns a few minutes before, but she held her tongue.
"'I am no Turk,' continued the miller; 'I will renew your bills. Draw
one of a hundred and fifty crowns payable at Michaelmas.'
"The husband and wife exchanged a look. Pélagie spoke.
"'What, cousin! a hundred and fifty crowns! That makes, then, thirty
crowns interest from now till Michaelmas, and that on sixty crowns,
or rather on fifty, since only half the sum is due; and out of the
sixty crowns ten are for interest.'
"'I don't deny it. You think thirty crowns interest too much; well, I
offer sixty for the same time. Give me sixty crowns, and I return the
two bills, and thank you into the bargain, and you will have done me
famous service.'
"'Ah! cousin, I wish I had never borrowed this money of you!'
"'I am sure I wish you had not; I should not be pinched for it
to-day. And why am I? Because I won't get you into difficulties,
for I might give your two bills in payment for the affair I speak
of, and then you would be made to pay, or your boats would be sold;
but I prefer being the loser myself, for after all, cousin, we are
brothers' sons, and we must help one another in this world.'
"'Nevertheless, cousin, thirty crowns are a very high figure.'
"'Yes; and I should be quite content if you would give me sixty for
the hundred and twenty I lent you; but, Lord bless me! add nothing to
the bill, if you like--let me lose every thing.'
"'It is fair to add something, Eloi.'
"'Well, since you find thirty crowns too much, when I should be too
happy to give sixty, add nothing, or add thirty crowns.'
"Tranquille and his wife looked at each other.
"'I will do as you wish,' said Risquetout.
"'Observe,' said the miller, 'that it is not I who wish it. What I
wish, on the contrary, is to see my hundred and twenty crowns which
went out of my pocket, and to receive them without addition; what I
would gladly agree to is, to receive sixty, and make you a present of
the rest.'
"'Write out the bill; I will make my mark.'
"Eloi wrote; but, when about to set down the sum upon the stamp he
had brought with him, he checked himself.
"'Tranquille,' said he, 'the stamp is five sous; it is not fair I
should pay it. Give me five sous.'
"'There is not a sou in the house,' said Pélagie.
"'Then we will add it to the amount of the bill. Thus: At Michaelmas
I promise to pay to my cousin, Eloi Alain, the sum of four hundred
and fifty-one francs (one cannot put four hundred and fifty francs
and five sous, it would look so paltry,) which he has been so
obliging as to lend me in hard cash. Signed, Tranquille Alain. There,
put your mark, and you, Pélagie, put yours also.'
"The signatures given, Eloi returned the old bills with the air of a
benefactor conferring an immense favour.
"'This time, cousin,' said he, 'be punctual. I shall pay away your
bill to a miller at Cherbourg; and if you are not prepared to take
it up when due, he may not be so accommodating as I am; for, after
all, these four hundred and fifty-one francs would be very useful to
me, if I had them in my pocket instead of having lent them to you.
Four hundred and fifty-one francs are not to be picked up under every
hedge; it is not every day one finds a cousin willing to lend him
four hundred and fifty-one francs.'
"No one made any observation on this pretended loan of four hundred
and fifty-one francs.
"'Well, I must be off. I perhaps lost my temper a little, cousin,
but I am really in want of the money. You understand--when one has
reckoned on four hundred and fifty-one francs that one has lent--and
then not to receive a single copper, it is rather vexatious; but,
however, I will manage as I can. I am hasty at the moment, but I bear
no malice. It is all forgotten.'
"He then took up the two whitings which had been laid aside for him.
At the same time he took a third out of the basket, and placed it
beside one of his, comparing the two.
"'I think this is a finer one!' he said. And he weighed them, one in
each hand.
"'There is not much difference,' he observed.
"He changed them into the opposite hands, weighed them again, and
appeared sadly embarrassed, until his kinsman said to him:
"'Don't mind, cousin, take the three.'
"'Here, Onesimus,' said he, 'run a piece of string through their
gills.'
"Onesimus strung them on the end of a strong line. He was about to
cut the piece off, when Eloi checked him.
"'Bless me!' said the miller, 'how wasteful children are! He would
cut that capital new cord.'
"And he carried away the entire cord, with the three whitings at
the end of it, after having several times repeated his advice to
Risquetout to be punctual in the payment of his bill, and after
kissing Berenice, and saying,--
"'Good-bye, my dear children; I am delighted to have been of service
to you.'
"'Our cousin is a very hard and a very griping man,' said Pélagie.
"'God does not pay his labourers every night,' replied Tranquille,
lifting his woollen cap, 'but sooner or later he never forgets to
pay. Each man shall be recompensed according to his work.'"
This is by no means the sort of thing generally met with in
French romances of the present day. It is neither the back-slum
and bloody-murder style, nor the self-styled historical, nor the
social-subversive. It is just simple, natural, pleasant reading, free
from anything indecent or objectionable. We have taken this chapter
because it bears extraction well, not as the best in the book, still
less as the only good one. _La Famille Alain_ has a well-contrived
plot and well-managed incidents, contains some droll and quiet
caricature, and many touching and delicately-handled passages. The
correspondence between the young lady at the Paris boarding-school,
and the fisherman's daughter at Dive, and the sketches of the
company at the watering-place, are each excellent in their way.
The introduction of Madame du Mortal and her daughter, and of the
Viscount de Morgenstein, is rather foreign to the story, but affords
M. Karr opportunity of sketching characters by no means uncommon in
France, although little known in England. At this sort of delineation
he is the Gavarni of the pen.
"The truth is, that Madame du Mortal's existence had been tolerably
agitated. Eight years previously she had quitted M. du Mortal for the
society of an officer, who soon, touched by remorse, had left her
at full liberty to repair their mutual fault by returning to edify
the conjugal mansion by her repentance, and by the exercise of those
domestic virtues she had somewhat neglected. Madame du Mortal did
nothing of the sort; she knew how to create resources for herself.
Formerly, deceived and discouraged people fled to a convent, now they
fly to the feuilleton. When a woman finds herself, by misconduct and
scandal, excluded from society, she does not weep over her fault and
expiate it in a cloister; before long you see her name at the bottom
of a newspaper feuilleton, in which she demands the enfranchisement
of her sex. No great effort of invention was requisite for Madame du
Mortal to devise this resource. Her husband, M. du Mortal, a tall,
corpulent man, with a severe countenance and formidable mustaches,
had long furnished the article MODES to a widely-circulated
newspaper; and under the name of the Marchioness of M----, discoursed
weekly upon tucks and flounces, upon the length of gowns and the
size of bonnets, according to the instructions of milliners and
dressmakers, who paid him to give their names and addresses. Madame
du Mortal devoted herself to the same branch of literature, and
succeeded in seducing some of her husband's customers."
"The Viscount de Morgenstein was one of those illustrious pianists
whose talent has much less connexion with music than with sleight
of hand. M. de Morgenstein achieved only three notes a minute less
than M. Henry Herz; as he was young and worked hard, it was thought
he would overtake, and perhaps surpass that master. He had long
curling hair, affected a melancholy and despairing countenance, and
was considered to have something fatal in his gait. His mere aspect
betrayed the man overwhelmed by the burden of genius and by the
divine malediction."
The character of an old country gentleman, who has ruined himself
to marry his niece to a spendthrift count, is very well hit off.
Eloi Alain, who has a grudge against the poor old fellow, persecutes
him in every possible way; his aristocratic and ungrateful nephew
refuses him the pension agreed upon, and, to maintain appearances,
Monsieur Malais de Beuzeval is reduced to shifts worthy of Caleb
Balderstone. Although a _parvenu_, with vanity for the stimulus
of his stratagems, one cannot help feeling sorry for the weak but
kind-hearted old man, who shuffles on a livery coat, and puts a patch
over his eye, to inform visitors, through the wicket, that he himself
is not at home--his own servants having left him; who paints a blaze,
each alternate day, upon the face of his sole remaining horse, that
neighbours may credit the duplicity of his stud; and who illuminates
his drawing-room and jingles his piano in melancholy solitude, to
make the world believe M. de Beuzeval is receiving his friends. His
manoeuvres to procure a supply of forage, and his ingenuity in
dissipating the astonishment of its vender, who cannot comprehend
that the master of broad pastures should purchase a load of hay, are
capitally drawn. Like every thing else, however, the hay comes to an
end, and, at the same time with the horse, the master runs short of
provender. Only the four-legged animal has resources the biped does
not possess.
"M. de Malais was again compelled to lead out his horse Pyramus
during the night, to graze the neighbours' lucerne. One morning
the inhabitants of the village of Beuzeval heard the castle-bell
announce, as usual, the breakfast. M. de Beuzeval walked into the
breakfast room, but found nothing to eat. He nibbled a stale crust
and set out for Caen, whence he always brought back a little money,
his journeys thither being for the purpose of disposing of some
relic of his departed splendour. But when he had ridden a league he
remembered it was Sunday; the man he had to see would not be at his
shop, and he must wait till the next day. He returned to Beuzeval,
and thence rode down to Dive. Berenice, who was lace-making at her
door, made him a grateful curtsey, and he stopped to exchange a few
words with her. Pélagie, who was preparing dinner, inquired after
Pulchérie.
"'Madame la Comtesse de Morville is well,' he replied; 'I heard from
her the other day. My nephew, Count de Morville, has promised to
bring the countess to see me this summer.'
"Onesimus and his father were close to shore. Pélagie begged M. de
Beuzeval's permission to look to their dinner, as they were obliged
to put to sea again as soon as they had eaten it. M. Malais got off
his horse and entered the house.
"'Your soup smells deliciously,' said he; 'it is cabbage soup.'
"'A soup you seldom see, M. de Beuzeval.'
"'Not for want of asking for it. I am passionately fond of cabbage
soup, but they never will make it at my house.'
"'I daresay not. It is not a soup for gentlefolk.'
"'Yours smells excellent, Pélagie; but you were always a good cook.'
"'Ah, sir! there is one thing that helps me to make good dinners for
our men!'
"'What is that, Pélagie?'
"'A good appetite. They put to sea last night, and here they come,
tired, wet, dying of hunger: all that is spice for a plain meal.'
"The fishermen entered.
"'Come along!' cried M. Malais, 'you have a famous soup waiting for
you. Upon my word, it smells too good; I must taste it. Pélagie, give
me a plate; I will eat a few spoonsful with you. Certainly, it is
but a short time since I took my breakfast--what people call a good
breakfast--but without appetite, without pleasure.'
"'Indeed! M. Malais, you will do us the honour of tasting our soup?'
"And Pélagie hastened to put a clean cloth upon the table. Berenice
fetched a pot of cider. Onesimus _moored_ the horse in the shade;
then they all sat down, taking care to give the best place to M.
Malais, who eagerly devoured a plateful of soup."
We refer to the book itself those who would know how the poor old
gentleman made a second fierce assault on the tureen, and an equally
determined one on the bacon and greens; to what expedients he was
subsequently reduced; how it fared with the Countess Pulchérie and
her scapegrace husband, and what were the struggles, sufferings, and
ultimate rewards, of the courageous and simple-hearted Alains. The
book may safely be recommended to all readers. This is more than we
can say for the next that comes to hand--_Un Mariage de Paris_ by
Méry. This we should pitch into the rubbish-basket after reading the
first two chapters, did it not serve to illustrate what we have often
noted--the profound and barbarous ignorance of French literary men
on the subject of England and the English. Were this confined to the
smaller fry, the inferior herd of _Trans-canalic_ scribblers, one
would not be surprised. It is nothing wonderful that such gentlemen
as M. Paul Feval and poor blind Jacques Arago, should take _le gin_
and _le boxe_ to be the Alpha and Omega of English propensities and
manners, and should proceed upon that presumption in romances of
such distinguished merit as _Les Mystères de Londres_ and _Zambala
l'Indien_. But M. Méry is a man of letters esteemed amongst his
fellows--a hasty and slovenly writer, certainly, but possessing wit,
and tact, and style, when he chooses to employ them; and having,
moreover, he himself assures us, in the pages of the singular
production now under dissection, been all through England--although
this we apprehend he effected by means of express trains, without
stop or stay, from Folkestone to Berwick-upon-Tweed and back again.
Even this much acquaintance with the British Isles is denied to many
of his contemporaries, who evidently derive their notions of English
habits and customs from the frequenters of the English taverns about
the Places Favart and Madeleine at Paris. M. Méry is above this.
He draws entirely upon his imagination for the manners, morals,
and topography of the country in which his scene is laid. He has
got a few names of places, which he jumbles together in the most
diverting manner. His hero, Cyprian de Mayran, a Paris exquisite of
the first water, saddened by a domestic calamity, comes to London
in quest of dissipation and oblivion. He has some acquaintances
there, dating from a previous visit, and amongst them is the popular
singer Sidora W----, a lady, we are told, "whose talent would have
been very contestable at Paris, but was venerated in London, the
city of universal toleration. When, in Norma, or Fidelio, she kept
only tolerably near to the intentions of the composers, changing
their notes into false coin, a phalanx of admirers rose like one
man, and a triple round of applause rent thirty pair of yellow
gloves. The name of Sidora W---- had _great attraction_, (the italics
are M. Méry's,) and when displayed on gigantic placards, before
_Mansion-house_, or _Post-office_, as well as on the modest gray
circulars of the grocers, at night whole squadrons of noble equipages
were seen manoeuvring between _Long Acre_ and the peristyle of
_Covent Garden_, and the theatre of _Drury Lane_ was invaded." The
nightingale who thus, in 1845, filled to suffocation the walls of
Drury, (a fact Mr Bunn may have difficulty to remember,) had a rural
retreat at Highgate, where she received a motley company. "The
garden of reception was like a vast flower-basket inhabited by a
woman, and surrounded by a dark fringe of mute adorers. There were
all the faces of the English universe: retired Calcutta nabobs;
ex-governors of unknown Archipelagos; colonels whose defunct wives
were Malabar widows, snatched from the funeral pile of their
Indian spouses; admirals bronzed by twenty cruises under the
equator; nephews of Tippoo Saib; disgraced ministers from Lahore;
ex-criminals from Botany Bay, who, having grown rich, were voted
virtuous; princes of Madagascar and Borneo; citizens of New Holland,
(naturalised Englishmen, notwithstanding their close affinity to
orang-outangs,)--in short all the human or inhuman types that Sem,
Cham, and Japhet invented on their escape from the Ark, to amuse
themselves a little after a year's diluvian captivity on the summit
of Mount Ararat. It is only in London such collections are to be met
with; and the foreign naturalist has the gratuitous enjoyment of
them. The capital of England is sometimes generous and disinterested
in its zoological exhibitions."