"A MOST GENTLEMANLY EMPEROR."
How the Calf Which This Famous Hornplayer
Put in His Apartment Became
in Time an Ox.
Henry Sutherland Edwards, a London journalist, who died a short time ago,
published in 1900 a volume of "Personal Recollections" which is very much
alive with anecdotes of men of the past generation. Considerable space is
given to a man who is now almost unremembered--Eugene Vivier, the
hornplayer, "the most charming of men and the spoiled child of nearly
every court in Europe." Vivier is the man who said of Napoleon III, "He is
the most gentlemanly emperor I know."
"What can I do for you?" said this gentlemanly emperor one day, when
Vivier had gone to see him at the Tuileries.
"Come out on the balcony with me, sire," replied the genial cynic. "Some
of my creditors are sure to be passing, and it will do me good to be seen
in conversation with your majesty."
Vivier was a confirmed practical joker. Once, while riding in an omnibus,
he pretended to be mad.
He indulged in the wildest gesticulations, and then, as if in despair,
drew a pistol from his pocket. The conductor was called upon by
acclamation to interfere, and Vivier was on the point of being disarmed
when suddenly he broke the pistol in two, handed half to the conductor and
began to eat the other half himself. It was made of chocolate!
Vivier could not bear to see people in a hurry. According to him, there
was nothing in life worth hurrying for; and, living on the Boulevard, just
opposite the Rue Vivienne, he was much annoyed at seeing so many persons
hastening, toward six o'clock, to the post-office on the Place de la
Bourse.
He determined to pay them out, and for that purpose bought a calf, which
he took up to his apartments at night, and exhibited the next afternoon at
a few minutes before six o'clock on the balcony of his second floor. In
spite of their eagerness to catch the post, many persons could not help
stopping to look at the calf.
Soon a crowd collected and messengers stayed their steps in order to gaze
at the unwonted apparition. Six o'clock struck, and soon after a number of
men who had missed the post returned in an irritated condition, and,
stopping before Vivier's house, shook their fists at him. Vivier went down
to them and asked the meaning of the insolence.
"We were not shaking our fists at you," replied the enraged ones, "but at
that calf."
"Ah! You know him, then?" returned Vivier. "I was not aware of it."
In time Vivier's calf became the subject of a legend, according to which
the animal (still in Vivier's apartments) grew to be an ox, and so annoyed
the neighbors by his lowing that the proprietor of the house insisted on
its being sent away. Vivier told him to come and take it, when it was
found that the calf of other days had grown to such a size that it was
impossible to get it down-stairs.