"Infandum, regina, jubes renovare," etc.
Oh, crimini, but it _was_ hot! and how I disliked the pious AEneas! I
couldn't have hated him worse if I'd been poor Dido's favorite
younger brother (not mentioned by Publius Vergilius Maro, if I
remember).
Palaiseau, who sat next to me, had a cold in his head, and kept
sniffing in a manner that got on my nerves.
"Mouche-toi donc, animal!" I whispered; "tu me degoutes, a la fin!"
Palaiseau always sniffed, whether he had a cold or not.
"Taisez-vous, Maurice--ou je vous donne cent vers a copier!" said M.
Bonzig, and his eyes quiveringly glittered through his glasses as he
fixed me.
Palaiseau, in his brief triumph, sniffed louder.
"Palaiseau," said Monsieur Bonzig, "si vous vous serviez de votre
mouchoir--hein? Je crois que cela ne generait personne!" (If you
were to use your pocket-handkerchief--eh? I don't think it would
inconvenience anybody!)
At this there was a general titter all round, which was immediately
suppressed, as in a court of law; and Palaiseau reluctantly and
noisily did as he was told.
In front of me that dishonest little sneak Rapaud, with a tall
parapet of books before him to serve as a screen, one hand shading
his eyes, and an inkless pen in the other, was scratching his
copy-book with noisy earnestness, as if time were too short for all
he had to write about the pious AEneas's recitative, while he
surreptitiously read the _Comte de Monte Cristo_, which lay open in
his lap--just at the part where the body, sewn up in a sack, was
going to be hurled into the Mediterranean. I knew the page well.
There was a splash of red ink on it.
It made my blood boil with virtuous indignation to watch him, and I
coughed and hemmed again and again to attract his attention, for his
back was nearly towards me. He heard me perfectly, but took no notice
whatever, the deceitful little beast. He was to have given up _Monte
Cristo_ to me at half-past two, and here it was twenty minutes to three!
Besides which, it was _my Monte Cristo_, bought with my own small
savings, and smuggled into school by me at great risk to myself.
"Maurice!" said M. Bonzig.
"Oui, m'sieur!" said I. I will translate:
"You shall conjugate and copy out for me forty times the compound
verb, 'I cough without necessity to distract the attention of my
comrade Rapaud from his Latin exercise!'"
"Moi, m'sieur?" I ask, innocently.
"Oui, vous!"
"Bien, m'sieur!"
Just then there was a clatter by the fountain, and the shrill small
pipe of D'Aurigny, the youngest boy in the school, exclaimed:
"He! He! Oh la la! Le Roi qui passe!"
[Illustration: THE NEW BOY]
And we all jumped up, and stood on forms, and craned our necks to see
Louis Philippe I. and his Queen drive quickly by in their big blue
carriage and four, with their two blue-and-silver liveried outriders
trotting in front, on their way from St.-Cloud to the Tuileries.
"Sponde! Selancy! fermez les fenetres, ou je vous mets tous au pain
sec pour un mois!" thundered M. Bonzig, who did not approve of kings
and queens--an appalling threat which appalled nobody, for when he
forgot to forget he always relented; for instance, he quite forgot
to insist on that formidable compound verb of mine.
Suddenly the door of the school-room flew open, and the tall, portly
figure of Monsieur Brossard appeared, leading by the wrist a very
fair-haired boy of thirteen or so, dressed in an Eton jacket and
light blue trousers, with a white chimney-pot silk hat, which he
carried in his hand--an English boy, evidently; but of an aspect so
singularly agreeable one didn't need to be English one's self to
warm towards him at once.
"Monsieur Bonzig, and gentlemen!" said the head master (in French,
of course). "Here is the new boy; he calls himself Bartholomiou
Josselin. He is English, but he knows French as well as you. I hope
you will find in him a good comrade, honorable and frank and brave,
and that he will find the same in you.--Maurice!" (that was me).
"Oui, m'sieur!"
"I specially recommend Josselin to you."
"Moi, m'sieur?"
"Yes, _you_; he is of your age, and one of your compatriots. Don't
forget."
"Bien, m'sieur."
"And now, Josselin, take that vacant desk, which will be yours
henceforth. You will find the necessary books and copy-books inside;
you will be in the fifth class, under Monsieur Dumollard. You will
occupy yourself with the study of Cornelius Nepos, the commentaries
of Caesar, and Xenophon's retreat of the ten thousand. Soyez diligent
et attentif, mon ami; a plus tard!"
He gave the boy a friendly pat on the cheek and left the room.
Josselin walked to his desk and sat down, between d'Adhemar and
Laferte, both of whom were _en cinquieme_. He pulled a Caesar out of
his desk and tried to read it. He became an object of passionate
interest to the whole school-room, till M. Bonzig said:
"The first who lifts his eyes from his desk to stare at '_le
nouveau_' shall be _au piquet_ for half an hour!" (To be _au piquet_
is to stand with your back to a tree for part of the following
play-time; and the play-time which was to follow would last just
thirty minutes.)
Presently I looked up, in spite of piquet, and caught the new boy's
eye, which was large and blue and soft, and very sad and
sentimental, and looked as if he were thinking of his mammy, as I
did constantly of mine during my first week at Brossard's, three
years before.
Soon, however, that sad eye slowly winked at me, with an expression
so droll that I all but laughed aloud.
Then its owner felt in the inner breast pocket of his Eton jacket
with great care, and delicately drew forth by the tail a very fat
white mouse, that seemed quite tame, and ran up his arm to his wide
shirt collar, and tried to burrow there; and the boys began to
interest themselves breathlessly in this engaging little quadruped.
M. Bonzig looked up again, furious; but his spectacles had grown
misty from the heat and he couldn't see, and he wiped them; and
meanwhile the mouse was quickly smuggled back to its former nest.
Josselin drew a large clean pocket-handkerchief from his trousers
and buried his head in his desk, and there was silence.
"La!--re, fa!--la!--re"--
So strummed, over and over again, poor Chardonnet in his remote
parlor--he was getting tired.
I have heard "L'Invitation a la Valse" many hundreds of times since
then, and in many countries, but never that bar without thinking of
Josselin and his little white mouse.
"Fermez votre pupitre, Josselin," said M. Bonzig, after a few
minutes.
Josselin shut his desk and beamed genially at the usher.
"What book have you got there, Josselin--Caesar or Cornelius Nepos?"
Josselin held the book with its title-page open for M. Bonzig to
read.
"Are you dumb, Josselin? Can't you speak?"
Josselin tried to speak, but uttered no sound.
"Josselin, come here--opposite me."
Josselin came and stood opposite M. Bonzig and made a nice little
bow.
"What have you got in your mouth,
Josselin--chocolate?--barley-sugar?--caoutchouc?--or an India-rubber
ball?"
Josselin shrugged his shoulders and looked pensive, but spoke never
a word.
"Open quick the mouth, Josselin!"
And Monsieur Bonzig, leaning over the table, deftly put his thumb
and forefinger between the boy's lips, and drew forth slowly a large
white pocket-handkerchief, which seemed never to end, and threw it
on the floor with solemn dignity.
The whole school-room was convulsed with laughter.
"Josselin--leave the room--you will be severely punished, as you
deserve--you are a vulgar buffoon--a jo-crisse--a paltoquet, a
mountebank! Go, petit polisson--go!"
The polisson picked up his pocket-handkerchief and went--quite
quietly, with simple manly grace; and that's the first I ever saw of
Barty Josselin--and it was some fifty years ago.
* * * * *
At 3.30 the bell sounded for the half-hour's recreation, and the
boys came out to play.
Josselin was sitting alone on a bench, thoughtful, with his hand in
the inner breast pocket of his Eton jacket.
M. Bonzig went straight to him, buttoned up and severe--his eyes
dancing, and glancing from right to left through his spectacles; and
Josselin stood up very politely.
"Sit down!" said M. Bonzig; and sat beside him, and talked to him
with grim austerity for ten minutes or more, and the boy seemed very
penitent and sorry.
Presently he drew forth from his pocket his white mouse, and showed
it to the long usher, who looked at it with great seeming interest
for a long time, and finally took it into the palm of his own
hand--where it stood on its hind legs--and stroked it with his
little finger.
Soon Josselin produced a small box of chocolate drops, which he
opened and offered to M. Bonzig, who took one and put it in his
mouth, and seemed to like it. Then they got up and walked to and fro
together, and the usher put his arm round the boy's shoulder, and
there was peace and good-will between them; and before they parted
Josselin had intrusted his white mouse to "le grand Bonzig"--who
intrusted it to Mlle. Marceline, the head lingere, a very kind and
handsome person, who found for it a comfortable home in an old
bonbon-box lined with blue satin, where it had a large family and
fed on the best, and lived happily ever after.
But things did not go smoothly for Josselin all that Saturday
afternoon. When Bonzig left, the boys gathered round "le nouveau,"
large and small, and asked questions. And just before the bell
sounded for French literature, I saw him defending himself with his
two British fists against Dugit, a big boy with whiskers, who had
him by the collar and was kicking him to rights. It seems that Dugit
had called him, in would-be English, "Pretty voman," and this had so
offended him that he had hit the whiskered one straight in the eye.
Then French literature for the _quatrieme_ till six; then dinner for
all--soup, boiled beef (not salt), lentils; and Gruyere cheese,
quite two ounces each; then French rounders till half past seven;
then lesson preparation (with _Monte Cristos_ in one's lap, or
_Mysteries of Paris_, or _Wandering Jews_) till nine.
Then, ding-dang-dong, and, at the sleepy usher's nod, a sleepy boy
would rise and recite the perfunctory evening prayer in a dull
singsong voice--beginning, "Notre Pere, qui etes aux cieux, vous
dont le regard scrutateur penetre jusque dans les replis les plus
profonds de nos coeurs," etc., etc., and ending, "au nom du Pere,
du Fils, et du St. Esprit, ainsi soit-il!"
And then, bed--Josselin in my dormitory, but a long way off, between
d'Adhemar and Laferte; while Palaiseau snorted and sniffed himself
to sleep in the bed next mine, and Rapaud still tried to read the
immortal works of the elder Dumas by the light of a little oil-lamp
six yards off, suspended from a nail in the blank wall over the
chimney-piece.
* * * * *
[Illustration: A LITTLE PEACE-MAKER]
The Institution F. Brossard was a very expensive private school,
just twice as expensive as the most expensive of the Parisian public
schools--Ste.-Barbe, Francois Premier, Louis-le-Grand, etc.
These great colleges, which were good enough for the sons of Louis
Philippe, were not thought good enough for me by my dear mother, who
was Irish, and whose only brother had been at Eton, and was now
captain in an English cavalry regiment--so she had aristocratic
notions. It used to be rather an Irish failing in those days.
My father, James Maurice, also English (and a little Scotch), and by
no means an aristocrat, was junior partner in the great firm of
Vougeot-Conti et Cie., wine merchants, Dijon. And at Dijon I had
spent much of my childhood, and been to a day school there, and led
a very happy life indeed.
Then I was sent to Brossard's school, in the Avenue de St.-Cloud,
Paris, where I was again very happy, and fond of (nearly) everybody,
from the splendid head master and his handsome son, Monsieur
Merovee, down to Antoine and Francisque, the men-servants, and Pere
Jaurion, the concierge, and his wife, who sold croquets and pains
d'epices and "blom-boudingues," and sucre-d'orge and nougat and pate
de guimauve; also pralines, dragees, and gray sandy cakes of
chocolate a penny apiece; and gave one unlimited credit; and never
dunned one, unless bribed to do so by parents, so as to impress on
us small boys a proper horror of debt.
Whatever principles I have held through life on this important
subject I set down to a private interview my mother had with le pere
et la mere Jaurion, to whom I had run in debt five francs during the
horrible winter of '47-8. They made my life a hideous burden to me
for a whole summer term, and I have never owed any one a penny
since.
The Institution consisted of four separate buildings, or "corps de
logis."
In the middle, dominating the situation, was a Greco-Roman pavilion,
with a handsome Doric portico elevated ten or twelve feet above the
ground, on a large, handsome terrace paved with asphalt and shaded
by horse-chestnut trees. Under this noble esplanade, and ventilating
themselves into it, were the kitchen and offices and pantry, and
also the refectory--a long room, furnished with two parallel tables,
covered at the top by a greenish oil-cloth spotted all over with
small black disks; and alongside of these tables were wooden forms
for the boys to sit together at meat--"la table des grands," "la
table des petits," each big enough for thirty boys and three or four
masters. M. Brossard and his family breakfasted and dined apart, in
their own private dining-room, close by.
In this big refectory, three times daily, at 7.30 in the morning, at
noon, and at 6 P.M., boys and masters took their quotidian
sustenance quite informally, without any laying of cloths or saying
of grace either before or after; one ate there to live--one did not
live merely to eat, at the Pension Brossard.
Breakfast consisted of a thick soup, rich in dark-hued garden
produce, and a large hunk of bread--except on Thursdays, when a pat
of butter was served out to each boy instead of that Spartan
broth--that "brouet noir des Lacedemoniens," as we called it.
Everybody who has lived in France knows how good French butter can
often be--and French bread. We triturated each our pat with
rock-salt and made a round ball of it, and dug a hole in our hunk to
put it in, and ate it in the play-ground with clasp-knives, making
it last as long as we could.
This, and the half-holiday in the afternoon, made Thursday a day to
be marked with a white stone. When you are up at five in summer, at
half past five in the winter, and have had an hour and a half or two
hours' preparation before your first meal at 7.30, French
bread-and-butter is not a bad thing to break your fast with.
Then, from eight till twelve, class--Latin, Greek, French, English,
German--and mathematics and geometry--history, geography, chemistry,
Physics--everything that you must get to know before you can hope to
obtain your degree of Bachelor of Letters or Sciences, or be
admitted to the Polytechnic School, or the Normal, or the Central,
or that of Mines, or that of Roads and Bridges, or the Military
School of St. Cyr, or the Naval School of the Borda. All this was
fifty years ago; of course names of schools may have changed, and
even the sciences themselves.
Then, at twelve, the second breakfast, meat (or salt fish on
Fridays), a dish of vegetables, lentils, red or white beans, salad,
potatoes, etc.; a dessert, which consisted of fruit or cheese, or a
French pudding. This banquet over, a master would stand up in his
place and call for silence, and read out loud the list of boys who
were to be kept in during the play-hour that followed:
"_A la retenue_, Messieurs Maurice, Rapaud, de Villars, Jolivet,
Sponde," etc. Then play till 1.30; and very good play, too;
rounders, which are better and far more complicated in France than
in England; "barres"; "barres traversieres," as rough a game as
football; fly the garter, or "la raie," etc., etc., according to the
season. And then afternoon study, at the summons of that dreadful
bell whose music was so sweet when it rang the hour for meals or
recreation or sleep--so hideously discordant at 5.30 on a foggy
December Monday morning.
Altogether eleven hours work daily and four hours play, and sleep
from nine till five or half past; I find this leaves half an hour
unaccounted for, so I must have made a mistake somewhere. But it all
happened fifty years ago, so it's not of much consequence now.
Probably they have changed all that in France by this time, and made
school life a little easier there, especially for nice little
English boys--and nice little French boys too. I hope so, very much;
for French boys can be as nice as any, especially at such
institutions as F. Brossard's, if there are any left.
Most of my comrades, aged from seven to nineteen or twenty, were the
sons of well-to-do fathers--soldiers, sailors, rentiers, owners of
land, public officials, in professions or business or trade. A dozen
or so were of aristocratic descent--three or four very great swells
indeed; for instance, two marquises (one of whom spoke English,
having an English mother); a count bearing a string of beautiful
names a thousand years old, and even more--for they were constantly
turning up in the Classe d'Histoire de France au moyen age; a
Belgian viscount of immense wealth and immense good-nature; and
several very rich Jews, who were neither very clever nor very
stupid, but, as a rule, rather popular.
Then we had a few of humble station--the son of the woman who washed
for us; Jules, the natural son of a brave old caporal in the
trente-septieme legere (a countryman of M. Brossard's), who was not
well off--so I suspect his son was taught and fed for nothing--the
Brossards were very liberal; Filosel, the only child of a small
retail hosier in the Rue St.-Denis (who thought no sacrifice too
great to keep his son at such a first-rate private school), and
others.
During the seven years I spent at Brossard's I never once heard
paternal wealth (or the want of it) or paternal rank or position
alluded to by master, pupil, or servant--especially never a word or
an allusion that could have given a moment's umbrage to the most
sensitive little only son of a well-to-do West End cheese-monger
that ever got smuggled into a private suburban boarding-school kept
"for the sons of gentlemen only," and was so chaffed and bullied
there that his father had to take him away, and send him to Eton
instead, where the "sons of gentlemen" have better manners, it
seems; or even to France, where "the sons of gentlemen" have the
best manners of all--or used to have before a certain 2d of
December--as distinctly I remember; nous avons change tout cela!
The head master was a famous republican, and after February, '48,
was elected a "representant du peuple" for the Dauphine, and sat in
the Chamber of Deputies--for a very short time, alas!
So I fancy that the titled and particled boys--"les nobles"--were of
families that had drifted away from the lily and white flag of their
loyal ancestors--from Rome and the Pope and the past.
Anyhow, none of our young nobles, when at home, seemed to live in
the noble Faubourg across the river, and there were no clericals or
ultramontanes among us, high or low--we were all red, white, and
blue in equal and impartial combination. All this _par parenthese_.
On the asphalt terrace also, but separated from the head master's
classic habitation by a small square space, was the _lingerie_,
managed by Mlle. Marceline and her two subordinates, Constance and
Felicite; and beneath this, le pere et la mere Jaurion sold their
cheap goodies, and jealously guarded the gates that secluded us from
the wicked world outside--where women are, and merchants of tobacco,
and cafes where you can sip the opalescent absinthe, and libraries
where you can buy books more diverting than the _Adventures of
Telemachus_!
On the opposite, or western, side was the gymnastic ground, enclosed
in a wire fence, but free of access at all times--a place of
paramount importance in all French schools, public and private.
From the doors of the refectory the general playground sloped gently
down northwards to the Rond-point, where it was bounded by double gates
of wood and iron that were always shut; and on each hither side of these
rose an oblong dwelling of red brick, two stories high, and capable of
accommodating thirty boys, sleeping or waking, at work or rest or play;
for in bad weather we played indoors, or tried to, chess, draughts,
backgammon, and the like--even blind-man's-buff (_Colin Maillard_)--even
puss in the corner (_aux quatre coins!_).
All the class-rooms and school-rooms were on the ground-floor;
above, the dormitories and masters' rooms.
These two buildings were symmetrical; one held the boys over
fourteen, from the third class up to the first; the other (into the
"salle d'etudes" of which the reader has already been admitted), the
boys from the fourth down to the eighth, or lowest, form of
all--just the reverse of an English school.
On either side of the play-ground were narrow strips of garden
cultivated by boys whose tastes lay that way, and small arbors
overgrown with convolvulus and other creepers--snug little verdant
retreats, where one fed the mind on literature not sanctioned by the
authorities, and smoked cigarettes of caporal, and even colored
pipes, and was sick without fear of detection (_piquait son renard
sans crainte d'etre colle_).
Finally, behind Pere Brossard's Ciceronian Villa, on the south, was
a handsome garden (we called it Tusculum); a green flowery
pleasaunce reserved for the head master's married daughter (Madame
Germain) and her family--good people with whom we had nothing to do.
Would I could subjoin a ground-plan of the Institution F. Brossard,
where Barty Josselin spent four such happy years, and was so
universally and singularly popular!
Why should I take such pains about all this, and dwell so
laboriously on all these minute details?
Firstly, because it all concerns Josselin and the story of his
life--and I am so proud and happy to be the biographer of such a
man, at his own often expressed desire, that I hardly know where to
leave off and what to leave out. Also, this is quite a new trade for
me, who have only dealt hitherto in foreign wines, and British party
politics, and bimetallism--and can only write in telegraphese!
Secondly, because I find it such a keen personal joy to evoke and
follow out, and realize to myself by means of pen and pencil, all
these personal reminiscences; and with such a capital excuse for
prolixity!
At the top of every page I have to pull myself together to remind
myself that it is not of the Right Honorable Sir Robert Maurice,
Bart., M.P., that I am telling the tale--any one can do that--but of
a certain Englishman who wrote _Sardonyx_, to the everlasting joy
and pride of the land of his _fathers_--and of a certain Frenchman
who wrote _Berthe aux grands pieds_, and moved his _mother_-country
to such delight of tears and tender laughter as it had never known
before.
Dear me! the boys who lived and learnt at Brossard's school fifty
years ago, and the masters who taught there (peace to their ashes!),
are far more to my taste than the actual human beings among whom my
dull existence of business and politics and society is mostly spent
in these days. The school must have broken up somewhere about the
early fifties. The stuccoed Doric dwelling was long since replaced
by an important stone mansion, in a very different style of
architecture--the abode of a wealthy banker--and this again, later,
by a palace many stories high. The two school-houses in red brick
are no more; the play-ground grew into a luxuriant garden, where a
dozen very tall trees overtopped the rest; from their evident age
and their position in regard to each other they must have been old
friends of mine grown out of all knowledge.
I saw them only twenty years ago, from the top of a Passy omnibus,
and recognized every one of them. I went from the Arc de Triomphe to
Passy and back quite a dozen times, on purpose--once for each tree!
It touched me to think how often the author of _Sardonyx_ has stood
leaning his back against one of those giants--_au piquet_!
They are now no more; and Passy omnibuses no longer ply up and down
the Allee du Bois de Boulogne, which is now an avenue of palaces.
An umbrageous lane that led from the Rond-point to Chaillot (that
very forgettable, and by me quite forgotten, quarter) separated the
Institution F. Brossard from the Pensionnat Melanie Jalabert--a
beautiful pseudo-Gothic castle which was tenanted for a while by
Prince de Carabas-Chenonceaux after Mlle. Jalabert had broken up her
ladies' school in 1849.
My mother boarded and lodged there, with my little sister, in the
summer of 1847. There were one or two other English lady boarders,
half-pupils--much younger than my mother--indeed, they may be alive
now. If they are, and this should happen to meet their eye, may I
ask them to remember kindly the Irish wife of the Scotch merchant of
French wines who supplied them with the innocent vintage of Macon
(ah! who knows that innocence better than I?), and his pretty little
daughter who played the piano so nicely; may I beg them also not to
think it necessary to communicate with me on the subject, or, if
they do, not to expect an answer?
One night Mlle. Jalabert gave a small dance, and Merovee Brossard
was invited, and also half a dozen of his favorite pupils, and a
fair-haired English boy of thirteen danced with the beautiful
Miss ----.
They came to grief and fell together in a heap on the slippery
floor; but no bones were broken, and there was much good-natured
laughter at their expense. If Miss ---- (that was) is still among
the quick, and remembers, it may interest her to know that that
fair-haired English boy's name was no less than Bartholomew
Josselin; and that another English boy, somewhat thick-set and
stumpy, and not much to look at, held her in deep love, admiration,
and awe--and has not forgotten!
If I happen to mention this, it is not with a view of tempting her
into any correspondence about this little episode of bygone years,
should this ever meet her eye.
The Sunday morning that followed Barty's debut at Brossard's the
boys went to church in the Rue de l'Eglise, Passy--and he with them,
for he had been brought up a Roman Catholic. And I went round to
Mlle. Jalabert's to see my mother and sister.
I told them all about the new boy, and they were much interested.
Suddenly my mother exclaimed:
"Bartholomew Josselin? why, dear me! that must be Lord Runswick's
son--Lord Runswick, who was the eldest son of the present Marquis of
Whitby. He was in the 17th lancers with your uncle Charles, who was
very fond of him. He left the army twenty years ago, and married
Lady Selina Jobhouse--and his wife went mad. Then he fell in love
with the famous Antoinette Josselin at the 'Bouffes,' and wanted so
much to marry her that he tried to get a divorce; it was tried in
the House of Lords, I believe; but he didn't succeed--so
they--a--well--they contracted a--a _morganatic_ marriage, you know;
and your friend was born. And poor Lord Runswick was killed in a
duel about a dog, when his son was two years old; and his mother
left the stage, and--"
Just here the beautiful Miss ---- came in with her sister, and there
was no more of Josselin's family history; and I forgot all about it
for the day. For I passionately loved the beautiful Miss ----; I was
just thirteen!
But next morning I said to him at breakfast, in English,
"Wasn't your father killed in a duel?"
"Yes," said Barty, looking grave.
"Wasn't he called Lord Runswick?"
"Yes," said Barty, looking graver still.
"Then why are you called Josselin?"
"Ask no questions and you'll get no lies," said Barty, looking very
grave indeed--and I dropped the subject.
And here I may as well rapidly go through the well-known story of
his birth and early childhood.
His father, Lord Runswick, fell desperately in love with the
beautiful Antoinette Josselin after his own wife had gone hopelessly
mad. He failed to obtain a divorce, naturally; Antoinette was as
much in love with him, and they lived together as man and wife, and
Barty was born. They were said to be the handsomest couple in Paris,
and immensely popular among all who knew them, though of course
society did not open its doors to la belle Madame de Ronsvic, as she
was called.
She was the daughter of poor fisher-folk in Le Pollet, Dieppe. I,
with Barty for a guide, have seen the lowly dwelling where her
infancy and childhood were spent, and which Barty remembered well,
and also such of her kin as was still alive in 1870, and felt it was
good to come of such a race, humble as they were. They were
physically splendid people, almost as splendid as Barty himself;
and, as I was told by many who knew them well, as good to know and
live with as they were good to look at--all that was easy to
see--and their manners were delightful.
When Antoinette was twelve, she went to stay in Paris with her uncle
and aunt, who were concierges to Prince Scorchakoff in the Rue du
Faubourg St.-Honore; next door, or next door but one, to the Elysee
Bourbon, as it was called then. And there the Princess took a fancy
to her, and had her carefully educated, especially in music; for the
child had a charming voice and a great musical talent, besides being
beautiful to the eye--gifts which her son inherited.
Then she became for three or four years a pupil at the
Conservatoire, and finally went on the stage, and was soon one of
the most brilliant stars of the Parisian theatre at its most
brilliant period.
Then she met the handsome English lord, who was forty, and they fell
in love with each other, and all happened as I have told.
[Illustration: LORD RUNSWICK AND ANTOINETTE JOSSELIN]
In the spring of 1837 Lord Runswick was killed in a duel by
Lieutenant Rondelis, of the deuxieme Spahis. Antoinette's dog had
jumped up to play with the lieutenant, who struck it with his cane
(for he was "_en pekin_," it appears--in mufti); and Lord Runswick
laid his own cane across the Frenchman's back; and next morning they
fought with swords, by the Mare aux Biches, in the Bois de
Boulogne--a little secluded, sedgy pool, hardly more than six inches
deep and six yards across. Barty and I have often skated there as
boys.
The Englishman was run through at the first lunge, and fell dead on
the spot.
A few years ago Barty met the son of the man who killed Lord
Runswick--it was at the French Embassy in Albert Gate. They were
introduced to each other, and M. Rondelis told Barty how his own
father's life had been poisoned by sorrow and remorse at having had
"la main si malheureuse" on that fatal morning by the Mare aux
Biches.
Poor Antoinette, mad with grief, left the stage, and went with her
little boy to live in the Pollet, near her parents. Three years
later she died there, of typhus, and Barty was left an orphan and
penniless; for Lord Runswick had been poor, and lived beyond his
means, and died in debt.
Lord Archibald Rohan, a favorite younger brother of Runswick's (not
the heir), came to Dieppe from Dover (where he was quartered with
his regiment, the 7th Royal Fusileers) to see the boy, and took a
fancy to him, and brought him back to Dover to show his wife, who
was also French--a daughter of the old Gascon family of
Lonlay-Savignac, who had gone into trade (chocolate) and become
immensely rich. They (the Rohans) had been married eight years, and
had as yet no children of their own. Lady Archibald was delighted
with the child, who was quite beautiful. She fell in love with the
little creature at the first sight of him--and fed him, on the
evening of his arrival, with crumpets and buttered toast. And in
return he danced "La Dieppoise" for her, and sang her a little
ungrammatical ditty in praise of wine and women. It began:
"Beuvons, beuvons, beuvons donc
De ce vin le meilleur du monde ...
Beuvons, beuvons, beuvons donc
De ce vin, car il est tres-bon!
Si je n'en beuvions pas,
J'aurions la pepi-e!
Ce qui me...."
I have forgotten the rest--indeed, I am not quite sure that it is
fit for the drawing-room!
"Ah, mon Dieu! quel amour d'enfant! Oh! gardons-le!" cried my lady,
and they kept him.
I can imagine the scene. Indeed, Lady Archibald has described it to
me, and Barty remembered it well. It was his earliest English
recollection, and he has loved buttered toast and crumpets ever
since--as well as women and wine. And thus he was adopted by the
Archibald Rohans. They got him an English governess and a pony; and
in two years he went to a day school in Dover, kept by a Miss Stone,
who is actually alive at present and remembers him well; and so he
became quite a little English boy, but kept up his French through
Lady Archibald, who was passionately devoted to him, although by
this time she had a little daughter of her own, whom Barty always
looked upon as his sister, and who is now dead. (She became Lord
Frognal's wife--he died in 1870--and she afterwards married Mr.
Justice Robertson.)
Barty's French grandfather and grandmother came over from Dieppe
once a year to see him, and were well pleased with the happy
condition, of his new life; and the more Lord and Lady Archibald saw
of these grandparents of his, the more pleased they were that he had
become the child of their adoption. For they were first-rate people
to descend from, these simple toilers of the sea; better, perhaps,
_caeteris paribus_, than even the Rohans themselves.
All this early phase of little Josselin's life seems to have been
singularly happy. Every year at Christmas he went with the Rohans to
Castle Rohan in Yorkshire, where his English grandfather lived, the
Marquis of Whitby--and where he was petted and made much of by all
the members, young and old (especially female), of that very ancient
family, which had originally come from Brittany in France, as the
name shows; but were not millionaires, and never had been.
Often, too, they went to Paris--and in 1847 Colonel Lord Archibald
sold out, and they elected to go and live there, in the Rue du Bac;
and Barty was sent to the Institution F. Brossard, where he was soon
destined to become the most popular boy, with boys and masters
alike, that had ever been in the school (in any school, I should
think), in spite of conduct that was too often the reverse of
exemplary.
Indeed, even from his early boyhood he was the most extraordinarily
gifted creature I have ever known, or even heard of; a kind of
spontaneous humorous Crichton, to whom all things came easily--and
life itself as an uncommonly good joke. During that summer term of
1847 I did not see very much of him. He was in the class below mine,
and took up with Laferte and little Bussy-Rabutin, who were
first-rate boys, and laughed at everything he said, and worshipped
him. So did everybody else, sooner or later; indeed, it soon became
evident that he was a most exceptional little person.
[Illustration: "'QUEL AMOUR D'ENFANT!'"]
In the first place, his beauty was absolutely angelic, as will be
readily believed by all who have known him since. The mere sight of
him as a boy made people pity his father and mother for being dead!
Then he had a charming gift of singing little French and English
ditties, comic or touching, with his delightful fresh young pipe,
and accompanying himself quite nicely on either piano or guitar
without really knowing a note of music. Then he could draw
caricatures that we boys thought inimitable, much funnier than
Cham's or Bertall's or Gavarni's, and collected and treasured up. I
have dozens of them now--they make me laugh still, and bring back
memories of which the charm is indescribable; and their pathos, to
me!
And then how funny he was himself, without effort, and with a fun
that never failed! He was a born buffoon of the graceful kind--more
whelp or kitten than monkey--ever playing the fool, in and out of
season, but somehow always _a propos_; and French boys love a boy
for that more than anything else; or did, in those days.
Such very simple buffooneries as they were, too--that gave him (and
us) such stupendous delight!
For instance--he is sitting at evening study between Bussy-Rabutin
and Laferte; M. Bonzig is usher for the evening.
At 8.30 Bussy-Rabutin gives way; in a whisper he informs Barty that
he means to take a nap ("_piquer un chien_"), with his Gradus opened
before him, and his hand supporting his weary brow as though in deep
study. "But," says he--
"If Bonzig finds me out (si Bonzig me colle), give me a gentle
nudge!"
"All right!" says Barty--and off goes Bussy-Rabutin into his snooze.
8.45.--Poor fat little Laferte falls into a snooze too, after giving
Barty just the same commission--to nudge him directly he's found out
from the _chaire_.
8.55.--Intense silence; everybody hard at work. Even Bonzig is
satisfied with the deep stillness and studious _recueillement_ that
brood over the scene--steady pens going--quick turning over of
leaves of the Gradus ad Parnassum. Suddenly Barty sticks out his
elbows and nudges both his neighbors at once, and both jump up,
exclaiming, in a loud voice:
"Non, m'sieur, je n'dors pas. J'travaille."
Sensation. Even Bonzig laughs--and Barty is happy for a week.
Or else, again--a new usher, Monsieur Goupillon (from Gascony) is on
duty in the school-room during afternoon school. He has a peculiar
way of saying "_oe, vo!_" instead of "_oui, vous!_" to any boy who
says "moi, m'sieur?" on being found fault with; and perceiving this,
Barty manages to be found fault with every five minutes, and always
says "moi, m'sieur?" so as to elicit the "_oe, vo!_" that gives him
such delight.
At length M. Goupillon says,
"Josselin, if you force me to say '_oe, vo!_' to you once more, you
shall be _a la retenue_ for a week!"
"Moi, m'sieur?" says Josselin, quite innocently.
"_Oe, vo!_" shouts M. Goupillon, glaring with all his might, but
quite unconscious that Barty has earned the threatened punishment!
And again Barty is happy for a week. And so are we.
Such was Barty's humor, as a boy--mere drivel--but of such a kind
that even his butts were fond of him. He would make M. Bonzig laugh
in the middle of his severest penal sentences, and thus demoralize
the whole school-room and set a shocking example, and be ordered _a
la porte_ of the salle d'etudes--an exile which was quite to his
taste; for he would go straight off to the lingerie and entertain
Mlle. Marceline and Constance and Felicite (who all three adored
him) with comic songs and break-downs of his own invention, and
imitations of everybody in the school. He was a born histrion--a
kind of French Arthur Roberts--but very beautiful to the female eye,
and also always dear to the female heart--a most delightful gift of
God!
Then he was constantly being sent for when boys' friends and parents
came to see them, that he might sing and play the fool and show off
his tricks, and so forth. It was one of M. Merovee's greatest
delights to put him through his paces. The message "on demande
Monsieur Josselin au parloir" would be brought down once or twice a
week, sometimes even in class or school room, and became quite a
by-word in the school; and many of the masters thought it a mistake
and a pity. But Barty by no means disliked being made much of and
showing off in this genial manner.
He could turn le pere Brossard round his little finger, and Merovee
too. Whenever an extra holiday was to be begged for, or a favor
obtained for any one, or the severity of a _pensum_ mitigated, Barty
was the messenger, and seldom failed.
His constitution, inherited from a long line of frugal seafaring
Norman ancestors (not to mention another long line of well-fed,
well-bred Yorkshire Squires), was magnificent. His spirits never
failed. He could see the satellites of Jupiter with the naked eye;
this was often tested by M. Dumollard, maitre de mathematiques (et
de cosmographie), who had a telescope, which, with a little
good-will on the gazer's part, made Jupiter look as big as the moon,
and its moons like stars of the first magnitude.
His sense of hearing was also exceptionally keen. He could hear a
watch tick in the next room, and perceive very high sounds to which
ordinary human ears are deaf (this was found out later); and when we
played blind-man's-buff on a rainy day, he could, blindfolded, tell
every boy he caught hold of--not by feeling him all over like the
rest of us, but by the mere smell of his hair, or his hands, or his
blouse! No wonder he was so much more alive than the rest of us!
According to the amiable, modest, polite, delicately humorous, and
even tolerant and considerate Professor Max Nordau, this perfection
of the olfactory sense proclaims poor Barty a degenerate! I only
wish there were a few more like him, and that I were a little more
like him myself!
By-the-way, how proud young Germany must feel of its enlightened
Max, and how fond of him, to be sure! Mes compliments!
But the most astounding thing of all (it seems incredible, but all
the world knows it by this time, and it will be accounted for later
on) is that at certain times and seasons Barty knew by an infallible
instinct _where the north was_, to a point. Most of my readers will
remember his extraordinary evidence as a witness in the "Rangoon"
trial, and how this power was tested in open court, and how
important were the issues involved, and how he refused to give any
explanation of a gift so extraordinary.
It was often tried at school by blindfolding him, and turning him
round and round till he was giddy, and asking him to point out where
the north pole was, or the north star, and seven or eight times out
of ten the answer was unerringly right. When he failed, he knew
beforehand that for the time being he had lost the power, but could
never say why. Little Doctor Larcher could never get over his
surprise at this strange phenomenon, nor explain it, and often
brought some scientific friend from Paris to test it, who was
equally nonplussed.
When cross-examined, Barty would merely say:
"Quelquefois je sais--quelquefois je ne sais pas--mais quand je
sais, je sais, et il n'y a pas a s'y tromper!"
Indeed, on one occasion that I remember well, a very strange thing
happened; he not only pointed out the north with absolute accuracy,
as he stood carefully blindfolded in the gymnastic ground, after
having been turned and twisted again and again--but, still
blindfolded, he vaulted the wire fence and ran round to the
refectory door which served as the home at rounders, all of us
following; and there he danced a surprising dance of his own
invention, that he called "La Paladine," the most humorously
graceful and grotesque exhibition I ever saw; and then, taking a
ball out of his pocket, he shouted: "A l'amandier!" and threw the
ball. Straight and swift it flew, and hit the almond-tree, which was
quite twenty yards off; and after this he ran round the yard from
base to base, as at "la balle au camp," till he reached the camp
again.
"If ever he goes blind," said the wondering M. Merovee, "he'll never
need a dog to lead him about."
"He must have some special friend above!" said Madame Germain
(Merovee's sister, who was looking on).
_Prophetic words!_ I have never forgotten them, nor the tear that
glistened in each of her kind eyes as she spoke. She was a deeply
religious and very emotional person, and loved Barty almost as if he
were a child of her own.
Such women have strange intuitions.
Barty was often asked to repeat this astonishing performance before
sceptical people--parents of boys, visitors, etc.--who had been told
of it, and who believed he could not have been properly blindfolded;
but he could never be induced to do so.
There was no mistake about the blindfolding--I helped in it myself;
and he afterwards told me the whole thing was "aussi simple que
bonjour" if once he felt the north--for then, with his back to the
refectory door, he knew exactly the position and distance of every
tree from where he was.
"It's all nonsense about my going blind and being able to do without
a dog"--he added; "I should be just as helpless as any other blind
man, unless I was in a place I knew as well as my own pocket--like
this play-ground! Besides, _I_ sha'n't go blind; nothing will ever
happen to _my_ eyes--they're the strongest and best in the whole
school!"
He said this exultingly, dilating his nostrils and chest; and looked
proudly up and around, like Ajax defying the lightning.
"But what _do_ you feel when you feel the north, Barty--a kind of
tingling?" I asked.
"Oh--I feel where it is--as if I'd got a mariner's compass trembling
inside my stomach--and as if I wasn't afraid of anybody or anything
in the world--as if I could go and have my head chopped off and not
care a fig."
"Ah, well--I can't make it out--I give it up," I exclaimed.
"So do I," exclaims Barty.
"But tell me, Barty," I whispered, "_have_ you--have you _really_
got a--a--_special friend above?_"
"Ask no questions and you'll get no lies," said Barty,
and winked at me one eye after the other--and went
about his business. And I about mine.
Thus it is hardly to be wondered at that the spirit of this
extraordinary boy seemed to pervade the Pension F. Brossard, almost
from the day he came to the day he left it--a slender stripling over
six feet high, beautiful as Apollo but, alas! without his degree,
and not an incipient hair on his lip or chin!
Of course the boy had his faults. He had a tremendous appetite, and
was rather greedy--so was I, for that matter--and we were good
customers to la mere Jaurion; especially he, for he always had lots
of pocket-money, and was fond of standing treat all round. Yet,
strange to say, he had such a loathing of meat that soon by special
favoritism a separate dish of eggs and milk and succulent vegetables
was cooked expressly for him--a savory mess that made all our mouths
water merely to see and smell it, and filled us with envy, it was so
good. Aglae the cook took care of that!
"C'etait pour Monsieur Josselin!"
And of this he would eat as much as three ordinary boys could eat of
anything in the world.
Then he was quick-tempered and impulsive, and in frequent fights--in
which he generally came off second best; for he was fond of fighting
with bigger boys than himself. Victor or vanquished, he never bore
malice--nor woke it in others, which is worse. But he would slap a
face almost as soon as look at it, on rather slight provocation, I'm
afraid--especially if it were an inch or two higher up than his own.
And he was fond of showing off, and always wanted to throw farther
and jump higher and run faster than any one else. Not, indeed, that
he ever wished to _mentally_ excel, or particularly admired those
who did!
Also, he was apt to judge folk too much by their mere outward
appearance and manner, and not very fond of dull, ugly, commonplace
people--the very people, unfortunately, who were fondest of him; he
really detested them, almost as much as they detest each other, in
spite of many sterling qualities of the heart and head they
sometimes possess. And yet he was their victim through life--for he
was very soft, and never had the heart to snub the deadliest bores
he ever writhed under, even undeserving ones! Like ----, or ----, or
the Bishop of ----, or Lord Justice ----, or General ----, or
Admiral ----, or the Duke of ----, etc., etc.
And he very unjustly disliked people of the bourgeois type--the
respectable middle class, _quorum pars magna fui_! Especially if we
were very well off and successful, and thought ourselves of some
consequence (as we now very often are, I beg to say), and showed it
(as, I'm afraid, we sometimes do). He preferred the commonest
artisan to M. Jourdain, the bourgeois gentilhomme, who was a very
decent fellow, after all, and at least clean in his habits, and
didn't use bad language or beat his wife!
Poor dear Barty! what would have become of all those priceless
copyrights and royalties and what not if his old school-fellow
hadn't been a man of business? And where would Barty himself have
been without his wife, who came from that very class?
And his admiration for an extremely good-looking person, even of his
own sex, even a scavenger or a dustman, was almost snobbish. It was
like a well-bred, well-educated Englishman's frank fondness for a
noble lord.
And next to physical beauty he admired great physical strength; and
I sometimes think that it is to my possession of this single gift I
owe some of the warm friendship I feel sure he always bore me; for
though he was a strong man, and topped me by an inch or two, I was
stronger still--as a cart-horse is stronger than a racer.
For his own personal appearance, of which he always took the
greatest care, he had a naive admiration that he did not disguise.
His candor in this respect was comical; yet, strange to say, he was
really without vanity.
When he was in the Guards he would tell you quite frankly he was
"the handsomest chap in all the Household Brigade, bar three"--just
as he would tell you he was twenty last birthday. And the fun of it
was that the three exceptions he was good enough to make, splendid
fellows as they were, seemed as satyrs to Hyperion when compared
with Barty Josselin. One (F. Pepys) was three or four inches taller,
it is true, being six foot seven or eight--a giant. The two others
had immense whiskers, which Barty openly envied, but could not
emulate--and the mustache with which he would have been quite
decently endowed in time was not permitted in an infantry regiment.
To return to the Pension Brossard, and Barty the school-boy:
He adored Monsieur Merovee because he was big and strong and
handsome--not because he was one of the best fellows that ever
lived. He disliked Monsieur Durosier, whom we were all so fond of,
because he had a slight squint and a receding chin.
As for the Anglophobe, Monsieur Dumollard, who made no secret of his
hatred and contempt for perfidious Albion....
"Dis donc, Josselin!" says Maurice, in English or French, as the
case might be, "why don't you like Monsieur Dumollard? Eh? He always
favors you more than any other chap in the school. I suppose you
dislike him because he hates the English so, and always runs them
down before you and me--and says they're all traitors and sneaks and
hypocrites and bullies and cowards and liars and snobs; and we can't
answer him, because he's the mathematical master!"
"Ma foi, non!" says Josselin--"c'est pas pour ca!"
"Pourquoi, alors?" says Maurice (that's me).
"C'est parce qu'il a le pied bourgeois et la jambe canaille!" says
Barty. (It's because he's got common legs and vulgar feet.)
And that's about the lowest and meanest thing I ever heard him say
in his life.
Also, he was not always very sympathetic, as a boy, when one was
sick or sorry or out of sorts, for he had never been ill in his
life, never known an ache or a pain--except once the mumps, which he
seemed to thoroughly enjoy--and couldn't realize suffering of any
kind, except such suffering as most school-boys all over the world
are often fond of inflicting on dumb animals: this drove him
frantic, and led to many a licking by bigger boys. I remember
several such scenes--one especially.
One frosty morning in January, '48, just after breakfast, Jolivet
trois (tertius) put a sparrow into his squirrel's cage, and the
squirrel caught it in its claws, and cracked its skull like a nut
and sucked its brain, while the poor bird still made a desperate
struggle for life, and there was much laughter.
There was also, in consequence, a quick fight between Jolivet and
Josselin; in which Barty got the worst, as usual--his foe was two
years older, and quite an inch taller.
Afterwards, as the licked one sat on the edge of a small stone tank
full of water and dabbed his swollen eye with a wet pocket-handkerchief,
M. Dumollard, the mathematical master, made cheap fun of Britannic
sentimentality about animals, and told us how the English noblesse were
privileged to beat their wives with sticks no thicker than their ankles,
and sell them "_au rabais_" in the horse-market of Smissfeld; and that
they paid men to box each other to death on the stage of Drury Lane, and
all that--deplorable things that we all know and are sorry for and
ashamed, but cannot put a stop to.
The boys laughed, of course; they always did when Dumollard tried to
be funny, "and many a joke had he," although his wit never
degenerated into mere humor.
But they were so fond of Barty that they forgave him his insular
affectation; some even helped him to dab his sore eye; among them
Jolivet trois himself, who was a very good-natured chap, and very
good-looking into the bargain; and he had received from Barty a sore
eye too--_gallice_, "un pochon"--_scholastice_, "un oeil au beurre
noir!"
By-the-way, _I_ fought with Jolivet once--about AEsop's fables! He
said that AEsop was a lame poet of Lacedaemon--I, that AEsop was a
little hunchback Armenian Jew; and I stuck to it. It was a Sunday
afternoon, on the terrace by the lingerie.
He kicked as hard as he could, so I had to kick too. Mlle. Marceline
ran out with Constance and Felicite and tried to separate us, and
got kicked by both (unintentionally, of course). Then up came Pere
Jaurion and kicked _me_! And they all took Jolivet's part, and said
I was in the wrong, because I was English! What did _they_ know
about AEsop! So we made it up, and went in Jaurion's loge and stood
each other a blomboudingue on tick--and called Jaurion bad names.
"Comme c'est bete, de s'battre, hein?" said Jolivet, and I agreed
with him. I don't know which of us really got the worst of it, for
we hadn't disfigured each other in the least--and that's the best of
kicking. Anyhow he was two years older than I, and three or four
inches taller; so I'm glad, on the whole, that that small battle was
interrupted.
It is really not for brag that I have lugged in this story--at
least, I hope not. One never quite knows.
To go back to Barty: he was the most generous boy in the school. If
I may paraphrase an old saying, he really didn't seem to know the
difference betwixt tuum et meum. Everything he had, books, clothes,
pocket-money--even agate marbles, those priceless possessions to a
French school-boy--seemed to be also everybody else's who chose. I
came across a very characteristic letter of his the other day,
written from the Pension Brossard to his favorite aunt, Lady
Caroline Grey (one of the Rohans), who adored him. It begins:
"My Dear Aunt Caroline,--Thank you so much for the
magnifying-glass, which is not only magnifying, but magnifique.
Don't trouble to send any more gingerbread-nuts, as the boys are
getting rather tired of them, especially Laferte and
Bussy-Rabutin. I think we should all like some Scotch
marmalade," etc., etc.
And though fond of romancing a little now and then, and embellishing
a good story, he was absolutely truthful in important matters, and
to be relied upon implicitly.
He seemed also to be quite without the sense of physical fear--a
kind of callousness.
Such, roughly, was the boy who lived to write the _Motes in a
Moonbeam_ and _La quatrieme Dimension_ before he was thirty; and
such, roughly, he remained through life, except for one thing: he
grew to be the very soul of passionate and compassionate sympathy,
as who doesn't feel who has ever read a page of his work, or even
had speech with him for half an hour?
Whatever weaknesses he yielded to when he grew to man's estate are
such as the world only too readily condones in many a famous man
less tempted than Josselin was inevitably bound to be through life.
Men of the Josselin type (there are not many--he stands pretty much
alone) can scarcely be expected to journey from adolescence to
middle age with that impeccable decorum which I--and no doubt many
of my masculine readers--have found it so easy to achieve, and find
it now so pleasant to remember and get credit for. Let us think of
_The Footprints of Aurora_, or _Etoiles mortes_, or _Dejanire et
Dalila_, or even _Les Trepassees de Francois Villon!_
Then let us look at Rajon's etching of Watts's portrait of him (the
original is my own to look at whenever I like, and that is pretty
often). And then let us not throw too many big stones, or too hard,
at Barty Josselin.
Well, the summer term of 1847 wore smoothly to its close--a happy
"trimestre" during which the Institution F. Brossard reached the
high-water mark of its prosperity.
There were sixty boys to be taught, and six house-masters to teach
them, besides a few highly paid outsiders for special classes--such
as the lively M. Durosier for French literature, and M. le
Professeur Martineau for the higher mathematics, and so forth; and
crammers and coachers for St.-Cyr, the Polytechnic School, the Ecole
des Ponts et Chaussees.
Also fencing-masters, gymnastic masters, a Dutch master who taught
us German and Italian--an Irish master with a lovely brogue who
taught us English. Shall I ever forget the blessed day when ten or
twelve of us were presented with an _Ivanhoe_ apiece as a
class-book, or how Barty and I and Bonneville (who knew English)
devoured the immortal story in less than a week--to the disgust of
Rapaud, who refused to believe that we could possibly know such a
beastly tongue as English well enough to read an English book for
mere pleasure--on our desks in play-time, or on our laps in school,
_en cachette_! "Quelle sacree pose!"
He soon mislaid his own copy, did Rapaud; just as he mislaid my
_Monte Cristo_ and Jolivet's illustrated _Wandering Jew_--and it was
always:
"Dis donc, Maurice!--prete-moi ton _Ivanhoe_!" (with an accent on
the e), whenever he had to construe his twenty lines of Valtere
Scott--and what a hash he made of them!
Sometimes M. Brossard himself would come, smoking his big
meerschaum, and help the English class during preparation, and put
us up to a thing or two worth knowing.
"Rapaud, comment dit-on '_pouvoir_' en anglais?"
"Sais pas, m'sieur!"
"Comment, petit cretin, tu ne sais pas!"
And Rapaud would receive a _pincee tordue_--a "twisted pinch"--on
the back of his arm to quicken his memory.
"Oh, la, la!" he would howl--"je n' sais pas!"
"Et toi, Maurice?"
"Ca se dit '_to be able_,' m'sieur!" I would say.
"Mais non, mon ami--tu oublies ta langue natale--ca se dit, '_to
can_'! Maintenant, comment dirais-tu en anglais, '_je voudrais
pouvoir_'?"
"Je dirais, '_I would like to be able._'"
"Comment, encore! petit cancre! allons--tu es Anglais--tu sais bien
que tu dirais, '_I vould vill to can_'!"