AT THE BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE
There are many libraries in Paris. Some of them are so famous that I
ought to hesitate to call the Bibliothèque Nationale simply "the
library." But I do call it that, not because it is the largest in the
world (a fact that calls forth instinctively admiration and respect from
Americans), but because we love the Bibliothèque from long and habitual
association. It is a part of our life like our home.
In the beginning of the fellowship year, Herbert came to realize that
books could do more for him than lecturers. A magnetic and enthusiastic
lecturer communicates his inspiration: but most professors are decidedly
non-conductors. And then, with rare exceptions, university professors
are not sources themselves. What they do is to stand between you and the
sources. When they have something original and suggestive to say, why
not let them speak to you from the covers of a book? If a book does not
hold you, you can throw it aside and take up another: the lecturer has
you fast for an hour, and you often suffer because his baby did not
sleep well the night before. But when the professor speaks from the
printed page, he has had a chance to eliminate in his final revision
whatever effects of insomnia there may have been in the first draft. If
he hasn't done so, you do not need to read him.
When students become full fledged post-graduates, they are at the
parting of the ways. Either they go directly to the sources, form
independent judgments, and produce original work as a result of
constructive thinking, or they continue to remain in intellectual
dependence upon their teachers. The latter alternative is the more
pleasant course. It requires less effort, and does not make one restless
and unhappy. The pleasant days of taking in are prolonged and the
agonizing days of giving out are postponed. But if a youngster is face
to face with books all day long every day, he either stops studying or
commences to produce for himself. Then, too, he is constantly under the
salutory influence of being confronted with his own appalling ignorance.
Whatever effort he makes, the volumes he summons from the shelves to his
desk keep reminding him that others have given years to what he hopes to
compass in days. The Bibliothèque teaches two lessons, and teaches them
with every tick of the clock from nine a. m. to four p. m.--humility and
industry.
There was, of course, much to be learned at the Sorbonne. But my husband
had already passed through three years of post-graduate work, and was
tired of chasing around from one lecture to another. There were hours
between courses that could not be utilized, and the habit of loafing is
the easiest formed in the world. It was because we were jealous of every
hour in the Golden Year that Herbert and I first turned from the
Sorbonne to the Bibliothèque. Later we came to realize that the only
thing in common between Salles de Conférences of the Sorbonne and the
Salle de Lecture of the Bibliothèque was the lack of fresh air--the
universal and unavoidable torture of indoors everywhere in France.
Nine to four, five days in the week, Herbert lived in the Bibliothèque,
and I went there mornings--when Scrappie was not on my conscience! One
did not have to go out to lunch, as the fare of the _buvette_ was quite
acceptable to those interested in books and manuscripts. The old law of
the time of Louis XIV holds good in this day. No light but that of
heaven has ever been introduced into the Bibliothèque. After gas was
discovered, the law was not changed. Even when electricity came,
presenting an infinitesimal risk of fire, the Government refused to have
the vast building wired. The prohibition of lights extends, of course,
to smoking. You cannot strike a match in the sacred precincts. So, after
lunch we used to go across the street and sit for half an hour in the
Square Louvois.
[Illustration: Château de la Reine Blanche: Rue des Gobelins]
Do you know the Square Louvois? I'll wager you do not. For when one
passes afoot up the Rue Richelieu, he is generally in a hurry to get to
the Bourse or the Grands Boulevards. If you go on the Clichy-Odéon
bus, you whizz by one of the most delightful little green spots in the
city of green spots without noticing it. The Square Louvois has on the
side opposite the Bibliothèque Nationale a good-sized hotel, which was
named after the square. The boundary streets on the north and south are
lined with modest restaurants and coffee bars, within the purse of
_petits commis_ and _midinettes_. In Europe there is not the hurry over
the mid-day meal that seems universal in America. Dyspepsia is unknown.
The humblest employee or laborer has from one hour and a half to two
hours off at noon. There is competition for benches and chairs in the
Square Louvois between twelve-thirty and two. Mothers who are their own
nursemaids have to resist the temporary encroachment of the Quarter's
business world. We from the Bibliothèque make an additional demand. We
must have our smoke and fresh air. And we never tire of the noble
monument to the rivers of France that is the fountain in the center of
the Square.
"Funny, isn't it," said I, "how things turn out to be different from
what you expected--your thesis for instance. Gallicanism is simply a
closed door for the present."
"I tackled too big a subject," admitted Herbert.
We were smoking in the Square after lunching in the buffet of the
Bibliothèque Nationale with the Scholar from Oxford.
"I'll wager," said Herbert, "that those greasy fellows in the _salle de
travail_ discovered long ago what I have just learned. You start with a
general subject and a century. You narrow down until you have a phase
and a decade. If I ever do Gallicanism, it'll be limited to the
influence of the conversion of Henry of Navarre upon the movement. I
could work till my hair was grey developing that. But I should be
narrow-minded and dry as bones when I finished."
"Ah! You must not quarrel with the greasy fellows," put in the Scholar
from Oxford. "That is research. They are not narrow: they are
specialists." The Scholar is a canny Scotchman who gives his r's their
full value, and then some.
Allowing the letter r to be heard for sure is another point of contact
and sympathy between Scott and Frank. Just as the cooler Teutonic
temperament seeks the sun, and has been seeking the sun right down
through history, in trying to reach the Mediterranean, the cooler Scotch
temperament seeks the sun where it is nearest to be found--in France. It
is the attraction of opposites.
"You Americans," said the Scholar, "with your Rocky Mountains and your
Niagaras naturally approach research from the general to the particular.
It is far easier for men born in an older civilization to begin with a
specialist's point of view."
"I know, I know," said Herbert, "I had to work that out and I had to
change my whole subject, too. I wobbled from Gallicanism to Ottoman
history."
"That's no sin," declared Alick. "A man engrossed in research is human.
Going to Turkey was bound to influence your thinking. The traditions of
France still hold you, but the memory of Turkey is strong enough to
change the trend of your work. Go on with your origins of the Ottoman
Empire and be thankful you have discovered a line off the beaten track."
"Yes," I cried, "and for goodness' sake stick to constructive ideas. You
research-fiends waste too much time trying to prove that the other
fellow is wrong. Instead of remaining scientists you get to be
quibblers. But I must leave you now. I cannot put my whole day into the
Bibliothèque. I have to mix up tea-kettles and dusting with pamphlets
and cards for the file."
As Herbert and the Scholar from Oxford passed by the solemn guard at the
door of the _salle de travail_, I lingered in the lobby musing about
what we had been saying. I leaned for a minute against the pedestal of
the Sèvres vase and watched Herbert and Alick take their places side by
side at the old inked desks. I looked through the great polished plate
glass that makes the _salle de travail_ and the _travailleurs_ seem like
a picture in its frame. I knew from experience that once the two men had
got their noses in their books they would not look up. There was no use
in waiting for a smile.
"Boc ou demi?" asked the waiter.
Herbert and I and the Scholar from Oxford were lunching together in the
Quarter. The Bibliothèque was closed for cleaning, so it was an off day.
Herbert and the Scholar asked for _bocs_, and I thinking to be modest
chose a _demi_. My eyes nearly dropped out of my head when the men got
glasses of beer and before me stood a formidable mug that held a pint.
Emilie told me afterwards that if I wanted that much beer again the
waiter would understand better if I ordered "_un sérieux_."
The Scholar from Oxford had the habit of living in our apartment when he
came to Paris. Memories of hospitality on the part of himself and his
wife when we were on our honeymoon in Oxford were fresh, and when the
time came for the Scholar's next look at manuscripts in the Bibliothèque
Nationale, there was no question in our mind--nor in his, for that
matter--as to where he should stay. We set up a folding-bed in the
dining-room and tucked him in. No matter if we did not come back to the
Rue Servandoni at meal time. If we did not want to bother getting up a
meal, we put the apartment key into our pocket and sallied forth on what
we called a baby-carriage promenade. There was always some little place
where we could eat when we got hungry. Once we dined in a _crémerie
chaude_ for no better reason than the attraction of a diverting sign on
the window--_Five o'clock à toute heure_.
To-day we had decided against Brogart's, our usual haunt, on the rue de
Rivoli. At Brogart's you could lunch for Fr. 1.25 with the _plat du
jour_ and a satisfying range of choice in the fixings that went with it.
It was 1.20 if you invested in tickets. Then you were given a
napkin-ring to mark your serviette, and a numbered hole in the open-face
cupboard screwed to the wall beside the high desk where Madame sat while
she raked in the money and kept a sharp eye on her clients. There was a
division of opinion between Mother and me during a flying visit she made
us just before Christmas. We took her to Brogart's. She saw a fellow,
some kind of a wop with a greasy face and long hair, pick his teeth with
a fork. She never went back to Brogart's again. They don't do that in
Philadelphia. At least if they do, Mother had never happened to see
them. Herbert and Alick and I were less difficult to please. To-day it
was only because we had wandered far afield that Brogart's did not see
us. We had found a table that pleased us in a restaurant that bore the
sign "Au rendez-vous des cochers." We were not looking for a novel
experience. We were not tourists, you understand. It was on account of
the budget.
Everybody knows that the cochers of Paris are no fools. They can drive a
horse, but they can drive a bargain too and afterwards settle down on
their high box and fling you shrewd observations about art or politics
or what not. But there is more to it than that. When you have lived a
while in the Latin quarter you know who are the expert judges of
cooking. In the old days, the meal you could buy in a tiny dark
_rendez-vous des cochers_ was as tasty as anything you could enjoy on a
Grand Boulevard at ten times the price. Minor details like a table-cloth
and clean forks and knives with each new plate are not missed when the
_gigot_ is done to a turn and the _sauce piquante_ is just right. The
_rendez-vous des cochers_ restaurant has one distinct advantage over the
swell place on the Boulevards. If you are in a hurry to go to the
Concert Rouge and have had no dinner, you can stop for a second at a cab
driver's restaurant while you buy a portion of _frites_. The luscious
golden potatoes, sprinkled with salt, are wrapped in a paper, and you
consume them as you walk up the Rue de Tournon. They don't mind babies
there. Scrappie was asleep in her carriage. Monsier le Patron came out
and rolled the carriage ever so gently under the awning beside the glass
screen by the restaurant door. He beamed at us benevolently, then
stepped over to explain that he was a _père de famille_ and that
_courants d'air_ inflame babies' eyes.
The Scholar from Oxford is a Scotchman with the Scotch affection for
France. Before the war he came to France and Italy every year to make
enigmatical notes in his own handwriting reduced to cramped proportions.
The notes were placed within columns that were inked out years ago when
he began the monumental work. The columns are drawn across the short
dimension of the paper, so that you have to turn the thing sidewise to
read it.
There is a variety of ink. The row of notes at the top is all in the
same color. Three quarters of an inch in black mark the first year's
hours spent in the Bibliothèque. Run your eye down a space the width of
your thumb and the ink changes. Count how many ink colors you see, and
you'll know how many times the Scholar from Oxford has come abroad on
his grant. He carries his papers in a shiny black oil cloth _serviette_.
He was modestly imperturbable when with my usual vehemence I gave him a
good scolding because he confessed he had no copy of the precious
sheets.
"So worked the old monks in the days of the Reformation," said I, "when
a fellow spent his life time laboriously copying the Bible with his own
hand."
"Ah," mused the Scotchman with his eyes far away, "they were great
scholars, the monks."
"But it was slow," I protested, "often a man did not live long enough to
illuminate the device at the end of his chapter. Only a great enthusiasm
carried his successors to the end."
"Without them, think what we should have lost!"
"But they worked like that, you stubborn one, because there were no
typewriters or secretaries. You cannot persuade me, Alick, that there is
any extra virtue in using their methods today. You should adopt modern
methods so that you could accomplish more. You don't seem to realize
that thirty years from now the world will call you what you are,
Britain's greatest Latin scholar."
Unconvinced that mediaeval methods belong to mediaeval times, the
Scholar from Oxford lit another cigarette. He still persists in carrying
around Europe, in spite of wars, his priceless record of years of labor.
But he has since become Professor of Humanity at a great University. The
chair that he holds dates back to the day of the methods to which he
remains faithful.
Home again, I was making the coffee. But I was not out of the
conversation. Our kitchenette was six feet from the dining-room table.
Herbert started to light his cigar.
"Ah, my lad," said the Scholar from Oxford, staying Herbert's hand, "you
haven't asked the lady's permission!"
"I guess I can smoke in my dining-room," answered Herbert.
"You have to ask my permission then," laughed Alick, "before you smoke
in my bedroom."
Thank heaven, the Bibliothèque Nationale does not make my husband and my
guest stupid. If I could not look forward to jolly evenings, I should
make war upon research work, much as I like Bibliothèque Nationale.