An Englishman In Paris Part 13

Delacroix had what a great many Frenchmen lack--a keen sense of humour, but it was considerably tempered by what, for the want of a better term, I may call the b.u.mp of reverence. He could not be humorous at the expense of those he admired or respected, consequently his attempts at caricature at the early period of his career in _Le Nain Jaune_ were a failure; because Delacroix' admiration and respect were not necessarily reserved for those with whom he agreed in art or politics, but for everyone who attempted something great or useful, though he failed. The man who, at the age of sixty, would enthusiastically dilate upon his meeting forty years before with Gros, whose hat he had knocked off by accident, was not the likely one to hold up to ridicule the celebrity of the hour or day _without_ malice prepense. And this malice prepense never uprose within him, except in the presence of some b.u.mptious, ignorant n.o.body. Then it positively boiled over, and he did not mind what trick he played his interlocutor. The latter might be a wealthy would-be patron, an influential Government official, or a well-known picture-dealer; it was all the same to Delacroix, who had an utter contempt for patronage, nepotism, and money. It was as good as a clever scene in a comedy to see him rise and draw himself up to his full height, in order to impress his victim with a sense of the importance of what he was going to say. To get an idea of him under such circ.u.mstances, one must go and see his portrait in the Louvre, painted by himself, with the semi-supercilious, semi-benevolent smile playing upon the parted lips, and showing the magnificent regular set of teeth, of which he was very proud, beneath the black bushy moustache, which reminds one curiously of that of Rembrandt. Of course, the victim was mesmerized, and stood listening with all attention, promising himself to remember every word of the spoken essay on art, with the view of producing it as his own at the first favourable opportunity. And he generally did, to his own discomfiture and the amus.e.m.e.nt of his hearers, who, if they happened to know Delacroix, which was the case frequently, invariably detected the source of the speaker's information. I once heard a spoken essay on Holbein reproduced in that way, which would have simply made the fortune of any comic writer. The human parrot had not even been parrot-like, for he had muddled the whole in transmission. I took some pains to reproduce his exact words, and I never saw Delacroix laugh as when I repeated it to him. For, as a rule, and even when he was mystifying that kind of numskull in the presence of half a dozen well-informed friends, Delacroix remained perfectly serious, though the others had to bite their lips lest they should explode. In fact, it would have been difficult at any time to guess or discover, beneath the well-bred man of the world, with his charming, courtly, though somewhat distant manner, the painter who gave us "La Barque de Dante," and "Les Ma.s.sacres de Scio;" still, Delacroix was that man of the world, exceedingly careful of his appearance, particular to a degree about his nails, which he wore very long, dressed to perfection, and, in spite of the episode with George Sand, recorded above, most ingratiating with women.

Different altogether was he in his studio. Though he was "at home" from three till five, to visitors of both s.e.xes, it was distinctly understood that he would not interrupt his work for them, or play the host as the popular painter of to-day is supposed to do. The atelier, enc.u.mbered with bric-a-brac and sumptuous hangings and afternoon tea, had not been invented: if the host wore a velvet coat, a Byronic collar, and gorgeous papooshes, it was because he liked these things himself, not because he intended to impress his visitors. As a rule, the host, though in his youth perhaps he had been fond of extravagant costumes, did not like them: Horace Vernet often worked in his shirt-sleeves, Paul Delaroche nearly always wore a blouse, and Ingres, until he became "a society man," which was very late in life, donned a dressing-gown. Delacroix was, if anything, more slovenly than the rest when at work. An old jacket b.u.t.toned up to the chin, a large m.u.f.fler round his neck, a cloth cap pulled over his ears, and a pair of thick felt slippers made up his usual garb. For he was nearly always shivering with cold, and had an affection of the throat, besides, which compelled him to be careful.

"But for my wrapping up, I should have been dead at thirty," he said.

Nevertheless, at the stroke of eight, winter and summer, he was in his studio, which he did not leave until dark, during six months of the year, and a little before, during the other six. Contrary to the French habit, he never took luncheon, and generally dined at home a little after six--the fatigue of dining out being too much for him.

I may safely say that I was one of Delacroix' friends, with whom he talked without restraint. I often went to him of an evening when the weather prevented his going abroad, which, in his state of health, was very often. He always chafed at such confinement; for though not fond of society in a general way, he liked coming to the Boulevards, after his work was over, and mixing with his familiars. Delacroix smoked, but, unlike many addicted to tobacco, could not sit idle. His hands, as well as his brain, wanted to be busy; consequently, when imprisoned by rain or snow, he sat sketching figures or groups, talking all the while. By then his name had become familiar to every art student throughout the world, and he often received flattering letters from distant parts. One evening, shortly after the death of David d'Angers, to an episode in whose life I have devoted a considerable s.p.a.ce in these notes, Delacroix received an American newspaper, the t.i.tle of which I have forgotten, but which contained an exceedingly able article on the great sculptor, as an artist, and as a man. It wound up with the question, "And what kind of monument will be raised to him by the man who virtually shortened his life by sending him into exile, because David remained true to the republican principles which Napoleon only shammed--or, if not shammed, deliberately trod underfoot to ascend a tyrant's throne?"

I translated the whole of the article, and, when I came to the last lines, Delacroix shook his head sadly. "You remember," he said, "the answer of our friend Dumas, when they asked him for a subscription towards a monument to a man whom every one had reviled in the beginning of his career. 'They had better be content with the stones they threw at him during his existence. No monument they can raise will be so eloquent of their imbecility and his genius.' I may take it," he went on, "that such a question will be raised one day after my death, perhaps many years after I am gone. If you are alive you will, by my will, raise your voice against the project. I have painted my own portrait; while I am here, I will take care that it be not reproduced; I will forbid them to do so after I am at rest. There shall not be a bust on my tomb."

About a fortnight before his death he made a will to that effect, and up to the present hour (1883) its injunctions have been respected.

Delacroix lies in a somewhat solitary spot in Pere-Lachaise. Neither emblem, bust, nor statue adorns his tomb, which was executed according to his own instructions. "They libelled me so much during my life," he said one day, "that I do not want them to libel me after my death, on canvas or in marble. They flattered me so much afterwards, that I knew their flattery to be fulsome, and, if anything, I am more afraid of it than of their libels."

It would be difficult to find a greater contrast than there existed between Eugene Delacroix, both as a man and an artist, and Horace Vernet. The one loved his art with the pa.s.sionate devotion of an intensely poetical lover for his wayward mistress, whom to cease wooing for a moment might mean an irreparable breach or, at least, a long estrangement; the other loved his with the calm affection of the cherished husband for the faithful wife who had blessed him with a numerous offspring, whom he had known from his very infancy, a marriage with whom had been decided upon when he was a mere lad, whom he might even neglect for a little while without the bond being in any way relaxed. According to their respective certificates of birth, Vernet was the senior by ten years of Delacroix. When I first knew them, about 1840, Vernet looked ten years younger than Delacroix. If they had chosen to disguise themselves as musketeers of the Louis XIII. period, Vernet would have reminded one of both Aramis and d'Artagnan; Delacroix, of Athos.

Montaigne spoke Latin before he could speak French; Vernet drew men and horses before he had mastered either French or Latin. His playthings were stumpy, worn-out brushes, discarded palettes, and sticks of charcoal; his alphabet, the pictures of the Louvre, where his father occupied a set of apartments, and where he was born, a month before the outbreak of the first Revolution. He once said to me, "Je suis peintre comme il y des hommes qui sont rois--parceque ils ne peuvent pas etre autre chose. Il fallait un homme de genie pour sortir d'un pareil bourbier et malheureus.e.m.e.nt je n'ai que du talent." By the "bourbier" he meant his great-grandfather, his two grandfathers, and his father, all of whom were painters and draughtsmen.

Posterity will probably decide whether Horace Vernet was a genius or merely a painter of great talent, but it will scarcely convey an approximate idea of the charm of the man himself. There was only one other of his contemporaries who exercised the same spell on his companions--Alexandre Dumas _pere_. Though Vernet was a comparative dwarf by the side of Dumas, the men had the same qualities, physical, moral, and mental. Neither of them knew what bodily fatigue meant; both could work for fourteen or fifteen hours a day for a fortnight or a month; both would often have "a long bout of idleness," as they called it, which, to others not endowed with their strength and mental activity, would have meant hard labour. Both were fond of earning money, fonder still of spending it; both created almost without an effort.

Dumas roared with laughter while writing; Vernet sang at the top of his voice while painting, or bandied jokes with his visitors, who might come and go as they liked at all hours. Dumas, especially in the earlier days of his career, had to read a great deal before he could catch the local colour of his novels and plays--he himself has told us that he was altogether ignorant of the history of France. But when he had finished reading up the period in question, he wrote as if he had been born in it. Vernet was a walking cyclopaedia on military costume; he knew, perhaps, not much more than that, but that he knew thoroughly, and never had to think twice about the uniforms of his models, and, as he himself said, "I never studied the thing, nor did I learn to paint or to draw.

According to many people, I do not know how to paint or to draw now: it may be so; at any rate I have the comfort of having wasted n.o.body's time in trying to learn."

Like Dumas, he was very proud of his calling and of the name he had made for himself in it, which he would not have changed for the t.i.tle of emperor--least of all for that of king; for, like his great contemporary, he was a republican at heart. It did not diminish either his or Dumas' admiration for Napoleon I. "I can understand an absolute monarchy, nay, a downright autocracy, and I can understand a republic,"

said Vernet, "but I fail to understand the use of a const.i.tutional king, just because it implies and entails the principle of succession by inheritance. An autocracy means one ruler over so many millions of subjects; a const.i.tutional monarchy means between five and six hundred direct rulers, so many millions of indirect ones, and one subject who is called king. Who would leave his child the inheritance of such slavery?

a la bonne heure, give me a republic such as we understand it in France, all rulers, all natural-born kings, G.o.ds in mortals' disguise who dance to the piping of the devil. There have been two such since I was born; there may be another half-dozen like these within the next two centuries, because, before you can have an ideal republic, you must have ideal republicans, and Nature cannot afford to fritter away her most precious gifts on a lot of down-at-heels lawyers and hobnail-booted sc.u.m. She condescends now and then to make an ideal tyrant--she will never make a nation of ideal republicans. You may just as well ask her to make a nation of Raffaelles or Michael Angelos, or Shakespeares or Molieres."

Both men, in spite of their republican opinions, were personally attached to some members of the Orleans family; both had an almost invincible objection to the Bourbons. Vernet had less occasion to be outspoken in his dislike than Dumas, but he refused to receive the Duc de Berri when the latter offered to come and see the battle-pieces Vernet was painting for the then Duke of Orleans (Louis-Philippe).

Vernet had stipulated that his paintings should ill.u.s.trate exclusively the campaigns of the first Republic and the Empire, though subsequently he depicted some episodes of the Algerian wars, in which the son of the king had distinguished himself. "Tricolour c.o.c.kades or no pictures," he remarked, and Louis-Philippe good-humouredly acquiesced. Though courteous to a degree, he never minced matters to either king or beggar.

While in Russia Nicholas took a great fancy to him. It appears that the painter, who must have looked even smaller by the side of the Czar than he did by that of Dumas, had accompanied the former, if not on a perilous, at least on a very uncomfortable journey in the middle of the winter. He and the Emperor were the only two men who had borne the hardships and privations without grumbling, nay, with Mark Tapleyean cheerfulness. That kind of fort.i.tude was at all times a pa.s.sport to Nicholas' heart, doubly so in this instance, by reason of Vernet's by no means robust appearance. From that moment Nicholas became very attached to, and would often send for, him. They would often converse on subjects even more serious, and, one day, after the part.i.tion of Poland, Nicholas proposed that Vernet should paint a picture on the subject.

"I am afraid I cannot do it, sire," was the answer. "I have never painted a Christ on the cross."

"The moment I had said it," continued Vernet, when he told me the story, which is scarcely known, "I thought my last hour had struck. I am positively certain that a Russian would have paid these words with his life, or at least with lifelong exile to Siberia. I shall never forget the look he gave me; there was a murderous gleam in the eyes; but it was over in an instant. Nevertheless, I feel convinced that Nicholas was mad, and, what is more, I feel equally convinced that there is incipient madness throughout the whole of the Romanoff family. I saw a good many of its members during my stay in Russia. They all did and said things which would have landed ordinary men and women in a lunatic asylum. At the same time there was an unmistakable touch of genius about some of them. I often endeavoured to discuss the matter with the resident foreign physicians, but, as you may imagine, they were very reticent.

But mark my words, one day there will be a terrible flare-up. Of course, the foreigner, who sees the superst.i.tious reverence, the slavish respect with which they are surrounded, scarcely wonders that these men and women should, in the end, consider themselves above, and irresponsible to, the millions of grovelling mortals whom they rule; in spite of all this, the question can only be one of time, and when the Russian empire falls, the cataclysm will be unlike any other that has preceded it."

There was a comic side to Horace Vernet's character. By dint of painting battle-pieces he had come to consider himself an authority on strategy and tactics, and his criticisms on M. Thiers' system of fortifications used to set us roaring. I am under the impression--though I will not strictly vouch for it--that at the recommendation of one or two of the inveterate jokers of our set, Laurent-Jan[34] and Mery, he had a couple of interviews with M. Theirs, but we never ascertained the result of them. It was almost certain that the minister of Louis-Philippe, who at one period of his life considered himself a Napoleon and a Vauban rolled into one, did not entertain Vernet's suggestions with the degree of enthusiasm to which he thought them ent.i.tled; at any rate, from that time, the mention of M. Thiers' name generally provoked a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders on Vernet's part. "C'est tout a fait comme Napoleon et Jomini, mon cher Vernet," said Laurent-Jan; "mais, apres tout, qu'est que cela vous fait? La posterite jugera entre vous deux, elle saura bien debrouiller la part que vous avez contribuee a ces travaux immortels."

[Footnote 34: Laurent-Jan was a witty, though incorrigibly idle journalist. He is entirely forgotten now save by such men as MM. a.r.s.ene Houssaye and Roger de Beauvoir, who were his contemporaries. He was the author of a clever parody on Kotzebue's "Menschenhasz und Reue," known on the English stage as "The Stranger."--EDITOR.]

Much as Horace Vernet admired his great contemporaries in art and literature, his greatest worship was reserved for Alfred de Vigny, the soldier-poet, though the latter was by no means a sympathetic companion.

Next to his society, which was rarely to be had, he preferred that of Arthur Bertrand, the son of Napoleon's companion in exile. Arthur Bertrand had an elder brother, Napoleon Bertrand, who, at the storming of Constantine, put on a new pair of white kid gloves, brought from Paris for the purpose. Horace Vernet made at least fifty sketches of that particular incident, but he never painted the picture. "I could not do it justice," he said, when remonstrated with for his procrastination. "I should fail to realize the grandeur of the thing."

Thereupon Laurent-Jan, who had no b.u.mp of reverence, proposed a poem in so many cantos, to be ill.u.s.trated by Vernet. I give the plan as developed by the would-be author.

1. The kid in its ancestral home among the mountains. A mysterious voice from heaven tells it that its skin will be required for a pair of gloves. The kid objects, and inquires why the skin of some other kid will not do as well. The voice reveals the glorious purpose of the gloves. The kid consents, and at the same moment a hunter appears in sight. The kid, instead of taking to its heels, a.s.sumes a favourable position to be shot. It makes a dying speech.

2. A glove-shop on the Boulevard. Enter Napoleon Bertrand, asking for a pair of gloves. The girl tells him that she has only one pair left, and communicates the legend connected with it. The price is twenty francs.

Napoleon Bertrand demurs at it, and tells her, in his turn, what the gloves are wanted for. The girl refuses to take the money, and her employer, overhearing the conversation, dismisses her there and then. He keeps the wages due to her as the price of the gloves. Napoleon Bertrand puts the latter in his pocket, offers the girl his arm, and invites her to breakfast in a _cabinet particulier_, "en tout bien, en tout honneur." To prove his perfectly honourable intentions, he tells her the story of Jeanne d'Arc. The girl's imagination is fired by the recital, and after luncheon she goes in search of a book on the subject. An unscrupulous, dishonest second-hand bookseller palms off an edition of Voltaire's "La Pucelle." The girl writes to Napoleon Bertrand to tell him that he has made a fool of her, that Jeanne d'Arc was no better than she should be, and that she is going to join the harem of the Bey of Constantine.

3. Napoleon Bertrand stricken with remorse before Constantine. Orders given for the a.s.sault. Napoleon Bertrand looks for his gloves, and finds that they are too small. He can just get them on, but cannot grasp the handle of his sword. His servant announces a mysterious stranger, a veiled female stranger. She is admitted; she has made her escape from the harem; a mysterious voice from heaven--the same that spoke to the kid--having warned her the night before that the gloves would be too small, and that she was to let a piece in. Reconciliation. Tableau. The bugles are sounding "boot and saddle." Storming of Constantine.

I have reproduced the words of Laurent-Jan; I will not attempt to reproduce his manner, which was simply inimitable. Horace Vernet and Arthur Bertrand shook with laughter, and the latter offered Laurent-Jan to keep him for a twelvemonth if he would write the poem. Jan consented, and lived upon the fat of the land during that time, but the poem never saw the light.

Arthur Bertrand was one of the most jovial fellows of his time. He, Eugene Sue, and Latour-Mezerai were the best customers of the florist on the Boulevards. It was he who accompanied the Prince de Joinville to St.

Helena to bring back the remains of Napoleon. After their return a new figure joined our set now and then. It was the Abbe Coquereau, the chaplain of "La Belle-Poule." The Abbe Coquereau was the first French Catholic priest who discarded the gown and the shovel hat, and adopted that of the English clergy. He was a charming man, and by no means straight-laced, but he drew the line at accompanying Arthur in his nightly perambulations. One evening he, Arthur Bertrand, and Alexandre Dumas were strolling along the Boulevards when the latter tried to make the abbe enter the Varietes. The abbe held firm, or rather took to his heels.

In those days there were still a great many veterans of the _grande armee_ about, and a great deal of Horace Vernet's money went in entertaining them at the various cafes and restaurants--especially when he was preparing sketches for a new picture. The ordinary model, clever and eminently useful as he was at that period, was willingly discarded for the old and bronzed warrior of the Empire, some of whom were even then returning from Africa. "They may just as well earn the money I pay the others," he said; consequently it was not an unusual thing to see a general, a couple of colonels, half a dozen captains, and as many sergeants and privates, all of whom had served under Napoleon, in Vernet's studio at the same time. Of course, the officers were only too pleased to give their services gratuitously, but Vernet had a curious way of making up his daily budget. Twenty models at four francs--for models earned no more then--eighty francs. Fifteen of them refused their pay. The eighty francs to be divided between five. And the five veterans enjoyed a magnificent income for weeks and weeks at a time.

Truth compels me to state, however, that during those weeks "the careful mother could not have taken her daughter" to Vernet's studio. A couple of live horses, not unfrequently three, an equal number of stuffed ones, camp kettles, broken limbers, pieces of artillery, an overturned ammunition waggon, a collection of uniforms, that would have made the fortune of a costumier, scattered all over the place; drums, swords, guns and saddles: and, amidst this confusion, a score of veterans, some of whom had been comrades-in-arms and who seemed oblivious, for the time being, of their hard-earned promotion in the company of those who had been less lucky than they, every man smoking his hardest and telling his best garrison story: all these made up a scene worthy of Vernet himself, but somewhat appalling to the civilian who happened to come upon it unawares.

Vernet was never happier than when at work under such circ.u.mstances.

Perched on a movable scaffolding or on a high ladder, he reminded one much more of an acrobat than of a painter. Like Dumas, he could work amidst a very Babel of conversation, but the sound of music, however good, disturbed him. In those days, itinerant Italian musicians and pifferari, who have disappeared from the streets of Paris altogether since the decree of expulsion of '81, were numerous, and grew more numerous year by year. I, for one, feel sorry for their disappearance, for I remember having spent half a dozen most delightful evenings listening to them.

The thing happened in this way. Though my regular visits to the Quartier-Latin had ceased long ago, I returned now and then to my old haunts during the years '63 and '64, in company of a young Englishman who was finishing his medical studies in Paris, who had taken up his quarters on the left bank of the Seine, and who has since become a physician in very good practice in the French capital. He had been specially recommended to me, and I was not too old to enjoy an evening once a week or a fortnight among my juniors. At a cafe, which has been demolished since to make room for a much more gorgeous establishment at the corners of the Boulevards Saint-Michel and Saint-Germain, we used to notice an elderly gentleman, scrupulously neat and exquisitely clean, though his clothes were very threadbare. He always sat at the same table to the right of the counter. His cup of coffee was eked out by frequent supplements of water, and meanwhile he was always busy copying music--at least, so it seemed to us at first. We soon came to a different conclusion, though, because every now and then he would put down his pen, lean back against the cushioned seat, look up at the ceiling and smile to himself--such a sweet smile; the smile of a poet or an artist, seeking inspiration from the spirits supposed to be hovering now and then about such.

That man was no copyist, but an obscure, unappreciated genius, perhaps, biding his chance, hoping against hope, meanwhile living a life of jealously concealed dreams and hardship. For he looked sad enough at the best of times, with a kind of settled melancholy which apparently only one thing could dispel--the advent of a couple or trio of pifferari.

Then his face would light up all of a sudden, he would gently push his music away, speak to them in Italian, asking them to play certain pieces, beating time with an air of contentment which was absolutely touching to behold. On the other hand, the young pifferari appeared to treat him with greater deference than they did the other customers; the little girl who accompanied them was particularly eager for his approval.

In a little while we became very friendly with the old gentleman, and, one evening, he said, "If you will be here next Wednesday, the pifferari will give us something new."

On the evening in question he looked quite smart; he had evidently "fait des frais de toilette," as our neighbours have it; he wore a different coat, and his big white neckcloth was somewhat more starched than usual.

He seemed quite excited. The pifferari, on the other hand, seemed anxious and subdued. The cafe was very full, for all the habitues liked the old gentleman, and had made it a point of responding to his quasi-invitation. They were well rewarded, for I have rarely heard sweeter music. It was unlike anything we were accustomed to hear from such musicians; there was an old-world sound about it that went straight to the heart, and when we looked at the old gentleman amidst the genuine applause after the termination of the first piece, there were two big tears coursing down his wrinkled cheeks.

The pifferari came again and again, and though they never appealed to him directly, we instinctively guessed that there existed some connection between them. All our efforts to get at the truth of the matter were, however, in vain, for the old gentleman was very reticent.

Meanwhile my young friend had pa.s.sed his examinations, and shifted his quarters to my side of the river. He did not abandon the Quartier-Latin altogether, but my inquiries about the old musician met with no satisfactory response. He had disappeared. Nearly two years went by, when, one afternoon, he called. "Come with me," he said; "I am going to show you a curious nook of Paris which you do not know, and take you to an old acquaintance whom you will be pleased to see again."

The "curious nook" of Paris still exists to a certain extent, only the pifferari have disappeared from it. It is situated behind the Pantheon, and is more original than its London counterpart--Saffron Hill. It is like a corner of old Rome, Florence, or Naples, without the glorious Italian sun shining above it to lend picturesqueness to the rags and tatters of its population; swarthy desperadoes with golden rings in their ears and on their grimy fingers, their greasy, soft felt hats c.o.c.ked jauntily on their heads, or drawn over the flashing dark eyes, before which their womankind cower and shake; old men who but for the stubble on their chins would look like ancient cameos; girls with shapely limbs and handsome faces; middle-aged women who remind one of the witches in Macbeth; women younger still, who have neither shape nor make; urchins and little la.s.sies who remind one of the pictures of Murillo; in short, a population of wood-carvers and modellers, vendors of plaster casts, artist-models, sugar-bakers and mosaic-workers, living in the streets the greater part of the day, retiring to their wretched attics at night, sober and peaceful generally, but desperate and unmanageable when in their cups.

The cab stopped before a six-storied house which had seen better days, in a dark, narrow street, into which the light of day scarcely penetrated. The moment we alighted we heard a charivari of string instruments and voices, and as we ascended the steep, slimy, rickety staircase the sound grew more distinct. When we reached the topmost landing, my friend knocked at one of the three or four doors, and, without waiting for an answer, we entered. It was a scantily furnished room with a bare brick floor, an old bedstead in one corner, a few rush-bottomed chairs, and a deal table; but everything was scrupulously clean. Behind the table, a cotton nightcap on his head, his tall thin frame wrapt in an old overcoat, stood our old friend, the composer; in front, half a dozen urchins, in costumes vaguely resembling those of the Calabrian peasantry, grimy like coalheavers, their black hair standing on end with attention, were rehearsing a new piece of music. Then I understood it all. He was the professor of pifferari, an artist for all that, an unappreciated genius, perhaps, who, rather than not be heard at all, introduced a composition of his own into their hackneyed programme, and tasted the sweets of popularity, without the accompanying rewards which, nowadays, popularity invariably brings. This one had known Paisiello and Rossini, had been in the thick of the excitement on the first night of the "Barbiere," and had dreamt of similar triumphs.

Perhaps his genius was as much ent.i.tled to them as that of the others, but he had loved not wisely, but too well, and when he awoke from the love-dream, he was too ruined in body and mind to be able to work for the realization of the artistic one. He would accept no aid. Three years later, we carried him to his grave. A simple stone marks the place in the cemetery of Montparna.s.se.

CHAPTER IX.

Louis-Philippe and his family -- An unpublished theatrical skit on his mania for shaking hands with every one -- His art of governing, according to the same skit -- Louis-Philippe not the ardent admirer of the bourgeoisie he professed to be -- The Faubourg Saint-Germain deserts the Tuileries -- The English in too great a majority -- Lord ----'s opinion of the dinners at the Tuileries -- The att.i.tude of the bourgeoisie towards Louis-Philippe, according to the King himself -- Louis-Philippe's wit -- His final words on the death of Talleyrand -- His love of money -- He could be generous at times -- A story of the Palais-Royal -- Louis-Philippe and the Ma.r.s.eillaise -- Two curious stories connected with the Ma.r.s.eillaise -- Who was the composer of it? -- Louis-Philippe's opinion of the throne, the crown, and the sceptre of France as additions to one's comfort -- His children, and especially his sons, take things more easily -- Even the Bonapartists admired some of the latter -- A mot of an Imperialist -- How the boys were brought up -- Their nocturnal rambles later on -- The King himself does not seem to mind those escapades, but is frightened at M. Guizot hearing of them -- Louis-Philippe did not understand Guizot -- The recollection of his former misery frequently haunts the King -- He worries Queen Victoria with his fear of becoming poor -- Louis-Philippe an excellent husband and father -- He wants to write the libretto of an opera on an English subject -- His religion -- The court receptions ridiculous -- Even the proletariat sneer at them -- The _entree_ of the d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans into Paris -- The scene in the Tuileries gardens -- A mot of Princesse Clementine on her father's too paternal solicitude -- A practical joke of the Prince de Joinville -- His caricatures and drawings -- The children inherited their talent for drawing and modelling from their mother -- The Duc de Nemours as a miniature and water-colour painter -- Suspected of being a Legitimist -- All Louis-Philippe's children great patrons of art -- How the bourgeoisie looked upon their intercourse with artists -- The Duc de Nemours' marvellous memory -- The studio of Eugene Lami -- His neighbours, Paul Delaroche and Honore de Balzac -- The Duc de Nemours' bravery called in question -- The Duc d'Aumale's exploits in Algeria considered mere skirmishes -- A curious story of spiritism -- The Duc d'Aumale a greater favourite with the world than any of the other sons of Louis-Philippe -- His wit -- The Duc d'Orleans also a great favourite -- His visits to Decamps' studio -- An indifferent cla.s.sical scholar -- A curious kind of black-mail -- His indifference to money -- There is no money in a Republic -- His death -- A witty reply to the Legitimists.

As will appear by-and-by, I was an eye-witness of a good many incidents of the Revolution of '48, and a great many more have been related to me by friends, whose veracity was and still is beyond suspicion. Neither they nor I have ever been able to establish a sufficiently valid political cause for that upheaval. Perhaps it was because we were free from the prejudices engendered by what, for want of a better term, I must call "dynastic sentiment." We were not blind to the faults of Louis-Philippe, but we refused to look at them through the spectacles supplied in turns by the Legitimists, the Imperialists, and Republicans.

How far these spectacles were calculated to improve people's vision, the following specimen will show.

I have lying before me a few sheets of quarto paper, sewn together in a primitive way. It is a ma.n.u.script skit, in the form of a theatrical duologue, professing to deal with the king's well-known habit of shaking hands with every one with whom he came in contact. The _dramatis personae_ are King Fip I., Roi des epiciers--read, King of the Philistines or Shopkeepers, and his son and heir, Grand Poulot (Big Spooney). The monarch is giving the heir-apparent a lesson in the art of governing. "Do not be misled," he says, "by a parcel of theorists, who will tell you that the citizen-monarchy is based upon the sovereign will of the people, or upon the strict observance of the Charter; this is merely so much drivel from the political Rights or Lefts. In reality, it does not signify a jot whether France be free at home and feared and respected abroad, whether the throne be hedged round with republican inst.i.tutions or supported by an hereditary peerage, whether the language of her statesmen be weighty and the deeds of her soldiers heroic. The citizen-monarchy and the art of governing consist of but one thing--the capacity of the princ.i.p.al ruler for shaking hands with any and every ragam.u.f.fin and out-of-elbows brute he meets." Thereupon King Fip shows his son how to shake hands in every conceivable position--on foot, on horseback, at a gallop, at a trot, leaning out of a carriage, and so forth. Grand Poulot is not only eager to learn, but ambitious to improve upon his sire's method. "How would it do, dad," he asks, "if, in addition to shaking hands with them, one inquired after their health, in the second person singular--'Comment vas tu, mon vieux cochon?' or, better still, 'Comment vas tu, mon vieux citoyen?'" "It would do admirably," says papa; "but it does not matter whether you say cochon or citoyen, the terms are synonymous."

I am inclined to think that beneath this rather clever banter there was a certain measure of truth. Louis-Philippe was by no means the ardent admirer of the bourgeoisie he professed to be. He did not foster any illusions with regard to their intellectual worth, and in his inmost heart he resented their so-called admiration of him, which he knew to be would-be patronage under another name. They had formed a hedge round him which prevented any attempt on his part at conciliating his own caste, the old n.o.blesse. It is doubtful whether he would have been successful, especially in the earlier years of his reign; but their ostracism of him and his family rankled in his mind, and found vent now and again in an epigram that stung the author as much as the party against which it was directed. "There is more difficulty in getting people to my court entertainments from across the Seine than from across the Channel," he said.

The fact is, that the whole of the Faubourg St.-Germain was conspicuous by its absence from the Tuileries in those days, and that the English were in rather too great a majority. They were not always a distinguished company. I was little more than a lad at this time, but I remember Lord ----'s invariable answer when his friends asked him what the dinner had been like, and whether he had enjoyed himself: "The dinner was like that at a good table-d'hote, and I enjoyed myself as I would enjoy myself at a good hotel in Switzerland or at Wiesbaden, where the proprietor knew me personally, and had given orders to the head waiter to look after my comforts. But," he added, "it is, after all, more pleasant dining there, when the English are present. At any rate, there is no want of respect. When the French sit round the table, it is not like a king dining with his subjects, but like half a hundred kings dining with one subject." Allowing for a certain amount of exaggeration, there was a good deal of truth in the remarks, as I found out afterwards. "The bourgeoisie in their att.i.tude towards me," said Louis-Philippe, one day, to the English n.o.bleman I have just quoted, "are always reminding me of Adalberon of Rheims with Hugues Capet: 'Qui t'as fait roi?' asked the bishop. 'Qui t'as fait duc?' retorted the king. I have made them dukes to a greater extent, though, than they have made me king."

For Louis-Philippe was a witty king--wittier, perhaps, than any that had sat on the throne of France since Henri IV. Some of his mots have become historical, and even his most persistent detractors have been unable to convict him of plagiarism with regard to them. What he specially excelled in was the "mot de la fin" anglice--the clenching of an argument, such as, for instance, his final remark on the death of Talleyrand. He had paid him a visit the day before. When the news of the prince's death was brought to him, he said, "Are you sure he is dead?"