Eugène Sue is ambitious enough to have a groom, horse and trap--He
does business with the maison Ermingot, Godefroi et Cie which permits
him to gratify that fancy--Triumph at the Champs-Élysées--A vexing
encounter--Desforges and Eugène Sue separate--Desforges starts _Le
Kaléidoscope_ at Bordeaux--Ferdinand Langlé starts _La Nouveauté_ at
Paris--César and the negro Zoyo--Dossion and his dog
Time rolled on and Eugène Sue grew up, and Dr. Sue kept his
purse-strings drawn tighter and tighter. Eugène wanted to have a groom,
horse and trap; it was necessary to have recourse to expediency. He
was put into communication with two worthy capitalists who sold wine
to young persons of good family who felt a vocation for trading; their
names were MM. Ermingot and Godefroi. We do not know whether these
gentlemen still pursue the trade; but we will risk quoting their names,
hoping they will not take the following words for an advertisement.
MM. Ermingot and Godefroi made inquiries, and they found that Eugène
Sue was to inherit 100,000 francs from his maternal grandfather, and
about 300,000 or 400,000 from his father. They concluded that they
might risk somewhat. Eugène Sue received an invitation to lunch at
Bercy with one or two of his friends. He decided to take Desforges,
who was regarded as a society man in whom Dr. Sue had the greatest
confidence. They were expected at the _Grands_ or _Gros Marroniers,_
I forget which. It was a splendid lunch; they made the two young men
taste the wines they had on hand, and Eugène Sue, to whom wine was
particularly seductive, was so pleased with them, that he bought
some there and then for a sum of 15,000 francs, which he settled for
at once by bills of exchange. The wine was deposited at the house of
a third party, with power to Eugène Sue to let them be tasted and to
sell them, and so make what profit he could out of them. That profit,
at the lowest estimate, must have been at least from 5000 to 6000
francs. A week later, Eugène Sue sold back to a confederate of Ermingot
& Godefroi Company his lot of wine for the sum of 1500 francs ready
money. He lost 13,500 francs upon the speculation; but, nevertheless,
he had 1500 francs of money in hand at once with which to realise his
wish to possess a groom, horse and trap, an ambition which, for over a
year, had disturbed the sleep of the two friends.
"How could he get a groom and horse and trap," the reader asks, "for
1500 francs?"
It is incredible what credit 1500 francs ready money will give,
especially when one is a son of good family, and when one can apply
to one's father's tradespeople. They bought the trap from Sailer, the
doctor's carriage-dealer, and gave him 500 francs on account; they
bought the horse from Kunsmann, where they took riding lessons, and
gave him about 500 francs. They remained in possession of 500 francs:
they engaged a groom, whom they clothed completely from head to
foot. That was not ruinous, for they had credit at the tailor's, the
bootmaker's and the hatter's. They had attained this magnificent result
at the beginning of the winter of 1824-25. The trap was kept through
the winter. In the spring, they decided to ride on horseback, to greet
the appearance of the first leaves. One morning they set out; Desforges
and Eugène Sue were on horseback, followed by their groom, also on
horseback. The groom made awful grimaces, which the passers-by were at
a loss to account for. Desforges and Eugène Sue alone knew the cause of
the working of poor John's facial muscles: they had bought him which
morning boots which were too tight, and it had taken the combined
efforts of both masters to get their servant into them. Half-way to the
Champs-Élysées, as they were scattering greetings to men and smiles to
ladies, a green conveyance drew up and a head appeared and examined the
two elegants with stupefaction. The head belonged to Dr. Sue; the green
vehicle was what the family called the three-lamped carriage: it was a
low conveyance, invented by the doctor, from which one could descend
without a step--the ancestor of all the small coupés in vogue nowadays.
The head struck the two young people as did the head of Medusa; only,
instead of turning them to stone, it gave them wings. They flew at a
gallop, but, unluckily, they had to return. They did not do so until
the day but one after, but they did return. Justice lay in wait at the
gate in the person of Dr. Sue. They saw they must confess everything,
and it was even a great relief, to them; for the house of Ermingot &
Godefroi was beginning to show its teeth and to send stamped papers, as
the six months' bills drew near their end.
Dr. Sue's business agent was charged to settle matters with Ermingot
& Godefroi; the firm had just had a little dispute at the police
correctionnelle, which made them entirely accommodating: they returned
the bills of exchange, less 2000 francs, and gave a receipt in full
settlement. Whereupon Eugène Sue engaged to go back to his post at the
military hospital at Toulon. Desforges completely lost the doctor's
confidence; it was found out that he had been involved up to the hilt
in the Ermingot & Godefroi affair, and he was placed on the index; and
this, as he had independent means of his own, decided him to follow
Eugène Sue to Toulon. Damon never gave greater proof of his devotion
to Pythias. They left after spending the night together; but, at the
moment of departure, enthusiasm ran so high that Romieu and Mira (son
of the celebrated Brunei), decided to escort them to the diligence.
Eugène Sue and Desforges were in the coupé; Romieu and Mira galloped
by the side of each door. Romieu galloped as far as Fontainebleau;
there he was obliged to dismount. Mira was carried away three leagues
farther, then he too was obliged to stop. The diligence continued
imperially on its way, leaving the wounded on the road. They reached
Toulon on the third day--now, one can go in twenty-four hours. The
first care of the exiles was to write for news of their friends;
Romieu had been taken back to the capital on a stretcher. Mira had
preferred to await his convalescence where he was, and, a fortnight
later, returned in a carriage to Paris. The exiles settled themselves
at Toulon, and began to play ducks and drakes with the remains of their
Parisian grandeur, which, somewhat faded in Paris, was looked upon as
luxury in Toulon. The Toulonnais began to to look upon the new-comers
with an evil eye. They called Eugène Sue _le beau Sue._ It was much
worse when they saw the dandies come nightly to the theatre, and when
they perceived that they came especially to ogle Mademoiselle Florival,
_la première amoureuse_! It was almost like attacking the authorities;
the Sous-préfet had her specially under his care. Tho two Parisians
were subscribers, and demanded entrance into the wings. Desforges made
capital of his quality as author; he had already had two or three
pieces played. Eugène Sue was innocent of all literature, and gave no
signs of a vocation for the career of a man of letters--he was more of
an artist; as a youngster he had gone through the studios, drawing,
sketching, painting. Scarcely three or four years ago, I saw in an old
street near the Madeleine, now vanished, a horse which he had drawn on
the wall with black varnish and a shoe brush. The horse crumbled away
with the street! The door of the wings remained pitilessly closed,
which gave the Toulonnais the incontestable right of jeering at the
Parisians. Luckily Louis XVIII. died on 16 September 1824, and Charles
X. conceived the idea of getting himself crowned. The ceremony was to
have taken place in the Cathedral of Rheims on 26 May 1825. Now, how
could the death of Louis XVIII. in Paris and the coronation of King
Charles X. at Rheims open the doors of the Toulon theatre to Desforges
and Eugène Sue? In this way.
Desforges suggested to Eugène Sue to write what was called at that
period an _à-propos_ upon the coronation. Eugène Sue agreed. The
_à-propos_ was written and played in the midst of universal enthusiasm.
I still have the trifle, written entirely by the hand of Eugène Sue.
The same evening the two authors gained entrance behind the wings in
unassailable fashion. Mademoiselle Florival did not prove more strict
than the administration, and gave the two authors the run of her
house. They both took advantage of it without any jealous feeling. The
friendship of Desforges and Eugène Sue was akin to that of Damon and
Pythias. About June 1825 Pythias and Damon parted; Eugène Sue remained
alone in possession of the entry to the theatre and to Mademoiselle
Florival's. Desforges departed to Bordeaux. Why did he go to Bordeaux?
He thought he was simply going to see a friend: he went to start a
newspaper. Mysterious and deep are the ways of Providence! Desforges
thought of spending one or two days with his friend. Tessier took him
to a bookseller, where they not merely sold books but also produced
literature. It was in his shop, situated, I believe, in the rue
Esprit-des-Lois, that the Hôtel Rambouillet of Bordeaux was held. The
traveller there found eight or ten young people eager to catch a whiff
of the Parisian breezes which carry literary pollen all over the world.
"Ah! if we only had a newspaper," they said; "if only we had some one
to start one!"
"Very well, here am I!" replied Desforges, and as the upshot of this
meeting, thanks to Desforges, _Le Kaléidoscope_ was founded. Thus were
scattered abroad the missionaries of the new faith, who prepared the
great literary movement of 1827, 1828 and 1829.
Desforges, who only knew me by name at this period, not by my literary
works--which were non-existent at that time--and by my childish name,
which he had heard at M. Collard's, the good worthy tutor of whom I
have had occasion to speak in these Memoirs, put some verses of mine in
_Le Kaléidoscope,_ a portion of my elegy on the death of General Foy,
so far as I can recollect. Later, this formed the touchstone for our
acquaintance in Paris.
One day, I went into the Café des Variétés, and Desforges was chatting
with Théaulon, who nodded good-day to me. A minute later, Desforges
came to me.
"Do you know," he said, "what Théaulon has just been saying about you?"
"Théaulon is very fond of me: you must not believe blindly all he says
or even what he thinks of me."
"'Well,' he said, 'do you see that tall thin fellow, he will
out-distance us all in literature.'"
I sent a dubious smile across to Théaulon and a sign of gratitude.
From that day dated our acquaintance, or rather, let us say, our
friendship with Desforges. Whilst Desforges was at Bordeaux starting
_Le Kaléidoscope,_ Ferdinand Langlé was starting _La Nouveauté_
newspaper in Paris; yet another open tribute to the new school, another
finger-post marking a step forward.
Langlé had conceived a financial idea which was not so bad for an
assistant-surgeon in the Guards, especially when one considers that the
idea preceded by seven years the appearance of Émile de Girardin, the
man who had the most ideas about printing concerns: the first thousand
subscribers to _La Nouveauté_ at an outlay of 60 francs were to become
proprietors of half the shares of the paper; the other half naturally
belonged to the founder, Ferdinand Langlé. A fortnight after the
prospectus had been sent out, they had 60,000 francs in the bank. I say
in the bank, but, unluckily, there wasn't a bank: it was the want of a
fixed place for depositing the money which led to there being only one
cashier in a short time. Heaven knows that it was not the cashier who
had eaten up the money, we can give unexceptionable proof of this. The
banker of _La Nouveauté_ had a horse and carriage and a negro servant;
he gave _Zoyo_ (that was the servant's name) 7 francs per week for his
board, and for that of his horse 28 francs per month! It was for him
to make what profit he could out of it. He managed to feed himself
out of the 7 francs, and to feed his horse with the outside rinds
of melons, the leaves of salad and cabbage stalks which he found on
rubbish heaps--he called it putting César out to grass. When that was
insufficient, Zoyo begged from the passers-by.
"Why are you begging, you odd fish?" one of them asked him.
"Monsieur," replied Zoyo, "it is not for myself but for my poor César,
who is dying of hunger."
Then he would point to the horse, whose noble and dignified bearing
inspired sympathy. When the melon rinds, salad leaves and cabbage
stalks were insufficient, and the appeals to public charity had yielded
badly, Zoyo arrived at a great decision. He went to the boot-blacks
who had an establishment at the entrance of the passage Feydeau, and
blacked boots at half-price for the manager of the business. When he
had earned 10 sous by cleaning ten pairs of boots, he converted his
gain into a small quantity of oats or half a truss of hay, and César
dined as well as possible. _When the bank closed_ at five o'clock,
César was harnessed and put into the trap; Zoyo clad himself in
white breeches with top-boots, a yellow waistcoat, green coat and
a broad-laced hat, decorated with a black cockade, and brought the
trap round to the office door, No. 67 rue de Richelieu, opposite the
bibliothèque Nationale. The banker jumped up into his trap, Zoyo flung
back the hood and mounted up behind; they went to the boulevard, and
drove as far as the place Louis XV., then along the Champs-Élysées and
took a turn or two under the trees.
If people asked--
"Who is the gentleman with the chestnut horse, green trap and negro
groom?"
The reply was--
"He is the banker of _la Nouveauté_ newspaper."
This did the newspaper good. But it was not enough to have a carriage
only, it wanted a responsible editor too. It was much more difficult at
that period to find a responsible editor, and yet they were compelled
to have one: many lawsuits were brought against newspapers, many
responsible editors were thrown into prison; responsible editors,
therefore, were an absolute necessity.
Ferdinand Langlé cast his eye upon a kind of dwarf named Dossion. The
police of the time did not demand that a responsible editor should have
a special style of figure. This Dossion was a singular person, with a
red nose and a curved back and he was always mounted on his high horse.
I remember we called him the drum-major of the rats of the sewers of
Montmartre. You may hunt up the origin of the name if you like! I
have quite forgotten what it was; but, of course, it was connected
with some legend of the time, now forgotten. He had been prompter at
the Vaudeville, and had done so much for good Désaugiers that he had
obtained a part for him in the _Arlequins,_ where he was Laporte's
understudy; but as he was short-sighted, on the day of his first
appearance he conceived the ingenious notion of putting short-sighted
spectacles to his mask: only he had not thought of one thing--the heat
of the theatre dimmed the glasses, with the result that, as Dossion was
running after Colombine, he did not see where he was putting his foot
and dis appeared down the prompter's trapdoor. Unlike roses, which only
live a morning, Dossion had but lived on night. We invented a practical
joke by means of which we made Dossion come on livid with anger. He had
a dog of the same colour as d'Artagnan's horse, fluctuating between the
shade of a jonquil and that of a buttercup. As Dossion was mortally
offended, we pretended that his dog had presented a petition to the
Chamber to be authorised to leave his master; but M. de Villèle's three
hundred looked upon the matter as a political affair, and one of them
even uttered the famous sentence--
"Anarchy is beginning to raise its head!"
Castor's petition had passed into the order of the day. The unlucky
animal, compelled to remain attached to Dossion, died of ennui. I do
not know whether Dossion is dead or alive: if alive, the lines I have
just written are a homage rendered him; if dead, a flower which I throw
on his grave.[1]
[Footnote 1: See Appendix.]