An Englishman In Paris Part 5

I compared Dr. Veron just now to Phineas Barnum, and the comparison was not made at random. Dr. Veron was really the inventor of the newspaper puff direct and indirect--of that personal journalism which records the slightest deed or gesture of the popular theatrical manager, and which at the present day is carried to excess. And all his subordinates and co-workers were made to share the advantages of the system, because their slightest doings also reflected glory upon him. An artist filling at a moment's notice the part of a fellow-artist who had become suddenly ill, a carpenter saving by his presence of mind the situation at a critical juncture, had not only his paragraph in next morning's papers, but a whole column, containing the salient facts of his life and career.

It was the system of Frederick the Great and of the first Napoleon, acknowledging the daring deeds of their smallest as well as of their foremost aids--with this difference, that the French captain found it convenient to suppress them now and then, and that Dr. Veron never attempted to do so. When the idea of putting down these notes first entered my mind, I looked over some files of newspapers of that particular period, and there was scarcely one between 1831 and 1835 that did not contain a lengthy reference to the Grand Opera and its director.

I was irresistibly reminded of the bulletins the great Napoleon dictated on the battle-field. I have also seen a collection of posters relating to the same brilliant reign at the Opera. Of course, compared to the eloquent effusions and ingenious attempts of the contemporary theatrical manager to bait the public, Veron's are mere child's play; still we must remember that the art of puffing was in its infancy, and, as such, some of them are worth copying. The public was not so _blase_ and it swallowed the bait eagerly. Here they are.

"To-morrow tenth performance of ..., which henceforth will only be played at rare intervals.

"To-morrow twentieth performance of ...; positively the last before the departure of M....

"To-morrow seventeenth performance of ...; reappearance of Madame ...

"To-morrow fifteenth performance of ... by all the princ.i.p.al artists who 'created' the parts.

"To-morrow thirtieth performance of ... The third scene of the second act will be played as on the first night.

"To-morrow twentieth performance of ..., which can only be played for a limited number of nights.

"To-morrow sixteenth performance of .... In the Ball-Room Scene a new pas de Chales will be introduced.

"To-morrow thirtieth performance of .... This successful work must be momentarily suspended owing to previous arrangements."

Childish as these lines may look to the present generation, they produced a fortune of 2000 a year to Dr. Veron in four years, and, but for the outbreak of the cholera in '32, when "Robert le Diable" was in the flush of its success, would have produced another 1000 per annum.

At that time Dr. Veron had already been able to put aside 24,000, and he might have easily closed his theatre during those terrible months; but, like Moliere, he asked himself what would become of all those who were dependent upon him, and had not put aside anything; so he made his savings into ten parcels, intending to hold out as many months without asking help of any one. Five of the parcels went. At the beginning of the sixth month the cholera abated; by the end it had almost disappeared.

Those who would infer from this that Dr. Veron was indifferent to money, would make a great mistake. But he would not allow his love of it to get the upper hand, to come between him and his conscience, to make him commit either a dishonest or a foolish act. By a foolish act he meant headlong speculation. When the shares of the Northern Railway were allotted, Dr. Veron owned the _Const.i.tutionnel_; 150 shares were allotted to him, which at that moment represented a clear profit of 60,000 francs, they being 400 francs above par. Dr. Veron made up his mind to realize there and then. But it was already late; the Bourse was closed, the stockbrokers had finished business for the day. He, however, met one on the Boulevards, who gave him a cheque for 55,000 francs on the Bank of France, which could only be cashed next day. The shares were left meanwhile in Dr. Veron's possession. Three minutes after the bargain was concluded Dr. Veron went back to his office. "I must have ready money for this, or decline the transaction," he said. The stockbroker, by applying to two of his colleagues, managed to sc.r.a.pe together 50,000 francs. Dr. Veron gave him a receipt in full, returned home, singing as he went the French version of "A bird in the hand,"

etc.

Veron was exceedingly superst.i.tious, and had fads. He could never be induced to take a railway journey. It was generally known in France at that time that, in the early days of locomotion by steam, Queen Victoria had held a similar objection. Veron, when twitted with his objection, invariably replied, "I have yet to learn that the Queen of England is less enlightened than any of you, and she will not enter a railway carriage." But one day the report spread that the queen had made a journey from Windsor to London by the "iron horse," and then Veron was sorely pressed. He had his answer ready. "The Queen of England has got a successor: the Veron dynasty begins and ends with me. I must take care to make it last as long as possible." He stuck to his text till the end of his life.

On no consideration would Veron have sat down "thirteen at table." Once or twice when the guests and host made up that number, his coachman's son was sent for, dressed, and made presentable, and joined the party; at others he politely requested two or three of us to go and dine at the Cafe de Paris, and to have the bill sent to him. We drew lots as to who was to go.

It was through Dr. Veron that I became acquainted with most of the operatic celebrities--Meyerbeer, Halevy, Auber, Duprez, etc.; for though he had abdicated his directorship seven or eight years before we met, he was perhaps a greater power then in the lyrical world than at the date of his reign.

It was at Dr. Veron's that I saw Mdlle. Taglioni for the first time--off the stage. It must have been in 1844, for she had not been in Paris since 1840, when I had seen her dance at the Opera. I had only seen her dance once before that, in '36 or '37, but I was altogether too young to judge then. I own that in 1840 I was somewhat disappointed, and my disappointment was shared by many, because some of my friends, to whom I communicated my impressions, told me that her three years' absence had made a vast difference in her art. In '44 it was still worse; her performances gave rise to many a spiteful epigram, for she herself invited comparison between her former glory and her decline, by dancing in one of her most successful creations, "L'Ombre." Those most leniently disposed towards her thought what Alfred de Musset so gracefully expressed when requested to write some verses in her alb.u.m.

"Si vous ne voulez plus danser, Si vous ne faites que pa.s.ser Sur ce grand theatre si sombre, Ne courez pas apres votre ombre Et tachez de nous la laisser."

My disappointment with the ballerina was as nothing, however, to my disappointment with the woman. I had been able to determine for myself before then that Marie Taglioni was by no means a good-looking woman, but I did not expect her to be so plain as she was. That, after all, was not her fault; but she might have tried to make amends for her lack of personal charms by her amiability. She rarely attempted to do so, and never with Frenchmen. Her reception of them was freezing to a degree, and on the occasions--few and far between--when she thawed, it was with Russians, Englishmen, or Viennese. Any male of the Latin races she held metaphorically as well as literally at arm's length. Of the gracefulness, so apparent on the stage, even in her decline, there was not a trace to be found in private life. One of her shoulders was higher than the other; she limped slightly, and, moreover, waddled like a duck.

The pinched mouth was firmly set; there was no smile on the colourless lips, and she replied to one's remarks in monosyllables.

Truly she had suffered a cruel wrong at the hands of men--of one man, bien entendu; nevertheless, the wonder to most people who knew her was not that Comte Gilbert de Voisins should have left her so soon after their marriage, but that he should have married her at all. "The fact was," said some one with whom I discussed the marriage one day, "that De Voisins considered himself in honour bound to make that reparation, but I cannot conceive what possessed him to commit the error that made the reparation necessary." And I am bound to say that it was not the utter lack of personal attractions that made every one, men and women alike, indifferent to Taglioni. She was what the French call "une _pimbeche_."[10] "Am I not a good-natured woman?" said Mdlle. Mars one day to Hoffman, the blood-curdling novelist. "Mademoiselle, you are the most amiable creature I know between the footlights and the cloth," he replied. No one could have paid Taglioni even such a left-handed compliment, for, if all I heard was true, she was not good-tempered either on or off the stage. Dr. Veron, who was really a very loyal friend, was very reticent about her character, and would never be drawn into revelations. "You know the French proverb," he said once, when I pressed him very closely. "'On ne herite pas de ceux que l'on tue;' and, after all, she helped me to make my fortune."

[Footnote 10: The word "shrew" is the nearest equivalent.--EDITOR.]

That evening I was seated next to Mdlle. Taglioni at dinner, and when she discovered my nationality she unbent a little, so that towards the dessert we were on comparatively friendly terms. She had evidently very grateful recollections of her engagements in London, for it was the only topic on which I could get her to talk on that occasion. Here is a little story I had from her own lips, and which shows the Scotch of the early thirties in quite a new light. It may have been known once, but has been probably forgotten by now, except by the "oldest inhabitant" of Perth. In 1832 or 1833--I will not vouch for the exact year, seeing that it is two score of years since the story was told to me--the season in London had been a fatiguing one for Taglioni. A ballet her father had composed for her, "Nathalie, ou la Laitiere Suisse," a very inane thing by all accounts, had met with great success in London. The scene, however, had, as far as I could make out, been changed from Switzerland to Scotland, but of this I will not be certain. At the termination of her engagement Taglioni wanted rest, and she bethought herself to recruit in the Highlands. After travelling hither and thither for a little while, she arrived at Perth, and, as a matter of course, put down her name in the visitors' book of the hotel, then went out to explore the sights of the town. Meanwhile the report of her arrival had spread like wildfire, and on her return to the hotel she found awaiting her a deputation from the princ.i.p.al inhabitants, with the request to honour them with a performance. "The request was so graciously conveyed," said Taglioni, "that I could not but accept, though I took care to point out the difficulties of performing a ballet all by myself, seeing that there was neither a corps de ballet, a male dancer, nor any one else to support me. All these objections were overruled by their promise to provide all these in the best way they could, and before I had time to consider the matter fully, I was taken off in a cab to inspect the theatre, etc. Great heavens, what a stage and scenery! Still, I had given my promise, and, seeing their anxiety, would not go back from it.

I cannot tell where they got their _personnel_ from. There was a director and a stage-manager, but as he did not understand French, and as my English at that time was even worse than it is now, we were obliged to communicate through an interpreter. His English must have been bewildering, to judge from the manager's blank looks when he spoke to him, and his French was even more wonderful than my English. He was a German waiter from the hotel.

"Nevertheless, thanks to him, I managed to convey the main incidents of the plot of 'Nathalie' to the manager, and during the first act, the most complicated one, all went well. But at the beginning of the second everything threatened to come to a standstill. I must tell you that my father hit upon the novel idea of introducing a kind of dummy, or lay figure, on which this idiotic Nathalie lavishes all her caresses. The young fellow, who is in love with Nathalie, contrives to take the dummy's place; consequently, in order to preserve some semblance of truth, and not to make Nathalie appear more idiotic than she is already, there ought to be a kind of likeness between the dummy and the lover. I know not whether the interpreter had been at fault, or whether in the hurry-scurry I had forgotten all about the dummy, but a few minutes before the rise of the curtain I discovered that there was no dummy.

'You must do the dummy,' I said to Pierre, my servant, 'and I'll pretend to carry you on.' Pierre nodded a silent a.s.sent, and immediately began to don the costume, seeing which I had the curtain rung up, and went on to the stage. I was not very comfortable, though, for I heard a violent altercation going on behind the scenes, the cause of which I failed to guess. I kept dancing and dancing, getting near to the wings every now and then, to ask whether Pierre was ready. He seemed to me inordinately long in changing his dress, but the delay was owing to something far more serious than his careful preparation for the part. Pierre had a pair of magnificent whiskers, and the young fellow who enacted the lover had not a hair on his face. Pierre was ready to go on, when the manager noticed the difference. 'Stop!' he shouted; 'that won't do. You must have your whiskers taken off.' Pierre indignantly refused. The manager endeavoured to persuade him to make the sacrifice, but in vain, until at last he had him held down on a chair by two stalwart Scotchmen while the barber did his work.

"All this had taken time, but the public did not grow impatient. They would have been very difficult to please indeed had they behaved otherwise, for I never danced to any audience as I did to them. One of the few pleasant recollections in my life is that evening at Perth; and, curiously enough, Pierre, who is still with me, refers to it with great enthusiasm, notwithstanding the cavalier treatment inflicted upon him.

It was his first and last appearance on any stage."

Here is another story Taglioni told me on a subsequent occasion. I have often wondered since whether Macaulay would not have been pleased with it even more than I was.

"The St. Petersburg theatrical season of '24-'25 had been particularly brilliant, and nowhere more so than at the Italian Opera. I came away laden with presents, among others one from the Czar--a magnificent necklet of very fine pearls. When the theatre closed at Lent, I was very anxious to get away, in spite of the inclement season, and notwithstanding the frequent warnings that the roads were not safe.

Whenever the conversation turned on that topic, the name of Trischka was sure to crop up; he, in fact, was the leader of a formidable band of highwaymen, compared with whose exploits those of all the others seemed to sink into insignificance. Trischka had been steward to Prince Paskiwiecz, and was spoken of as a very intelligent fellow. Nearly every one with whom I came in contact had seen him while he was still at St.

Petersburg, and had a good word to say for him. His manners were reported to be perfect; he spoke French and German very fairly; and, most curious of all, he was an excellent dancer. Some went even as far as to say that if he had adopted that profession, instead of scouring the highways, he would have made a fortune. By all accounts he never molested poor people, and the rich, whom he laid under contribution, had never to complain of violent treatment either in words or deeds--nay, more, he never took all they possessed from his victims, he was content to share and share alike. But papa n'ecoutait pas de cet' oreille la; papa etait tres peu partageur; and, truth to tell, I was taking away a great deal of money from St. Petersburg--which was perhaps another reason why papa did not see the necessity of paying t.i.thes to Trischka.

If we had followed papa's advice, we should have either applied to the Czar for an armed escort, or else delayed our departure till the middle of the summer, though he failed to see that the loss of my engagements elsewhere would have amounted to a serious item also. But papa had got it into his head not to part with any of the splendid presents I had received; they were mostly jewels, and people who do not know papa can form no idea what they meant to him. However, as we were plainly told that Trischka conducted his operations all the year round, that we were as likely to be attacked by him in summer as in winter, papa reluctantly made up his mind to go in the beginning of April. Papa provided himself with a pair of large pistols that would not have hurt a cat, and were the laughing-stock of all those who accompanied us for the first dozen miles on our journey; for I had made many friends, and they insisted on doing this. We had two very roomy carriages. My father, my maid, two German violinists, and myself were in the first; the second contained our luggage.

"At the first change of horses after Pskoff, the postmaster told us that Trischka and his band had been seen a few days previously on the road to Dunabourg, at the same time, he seemed to think very lightly of the matter, and, addressing himself particularly to me, opined that, with a little diplomacy on my part and a good deal of _sang-froid_, I might be let off very cheaply. All went well until the middle of the next night, when all of a sudden, in the thick of a dense forest, our road was barred by a couple of hors.e.m.e.n, while a third opened the door of our carriage. It was Trischka himself. 'Mademoiselle Taglioni?' he said in very good German, lifting his hat. 'I am Mademoiselle Taglioni,' I replied in French. 'I know,' he answered, with a deeper bow than before.

'I was told you were coming this way. I am sorry, mademoiselle, that I could not come to St. Petersburg to see you dance, but as chance has befriended me, I hope you will do me the honour to dance before me here.' 'How can I dance here, in this road, monsieur?' I said beseechingly. 'Alas, mademoiselle, I have no drawing-room to offer you,'

he replied, still as polite as ever. 'Nevertheless,' he continued, 'if you think it cannot be done, I shall be under the painful necessity of confiscating your carriages and luggage, and of sending you back on foot to the nearest post-town.' 'But, monsieur,' I protested, 'the road is ankle-deep in mud.' 'Truly,' he laughed, showing a beautiful set of teeth, 'but your weight won't make any difference; besides, I dare say you have some rugs and cloths with you in the other carriage, and my men will only be too pleased to spread them on the ground.'

"Seeing that all my remonstrance would be in vain, I jumped out of the carriage. While the rugs were being laid down, my two companions, the violinists, tuned their instruments, and even papa was prevailed upon to come out, though he was sulky and never spoke a word.

"I danced for about a quarter of an hour, and I honestly believe that I never had such an appreciative audience either before or afterwards.

Then Trischka led me back to the carriage, and, simply lifting his hat, bade me adieu. 'I keep the rugs, mademoiselle. I will never part with them,' he said. The last I saw of him, when our carriages were turning a bend in the road, was a truly picturesque figure on horseback, waving his hand."

More than eight years elapsed before I met Taglioni again, and then she looked absolutely like an old woman, though she was under fifty. It was at the Comte (afterwards Duc) de Morny's, in '52, and, if I remember rightly, almost immediately after his resignation as Minister of the Interior. Taglioni and Mdlle. Rachel were the only women present. Just as we were sitting down to dinner, Count Gilbert de Voisins came in, and took the next seat but one on my left which had been reserved for him.

We were on friendly, though not on very intimate terms. He was evidently not aware of the presence of his wife, for after a few minutes he asked his neighbour, pointing to her, "Who is this governess-looking old maid?" He told him. He showed neither surprise nor emotion; but, if an artist could have been found to sketch his face there, its perfect blank would have been more amusing than either. He seemed, as it were, to consult his recollections; then he said, "Is it? It may be, after all;"

and went on eating his dinner. His wife acted less diplomatically. She recognized him at once, and made a remark to her host in a sufficiently loud voice to be overheard, which was not in good taste, the more that De Morny, notwithstanding his many faults, was not the man to have invited both for the mere pleasure of playing a practical joke. In fact, I have always credited De Morny with the good intention of bringing about a reconciliation between the two; but the affair was hopeless from the very beginning, after Taglioni's exhibition of temper. I am far from saying that Count Gilbert would have been more tractable if it had not occurred, but his spouse shut the door at once upon every further attempt in that direction. Nevertheless, whether out of sheer devilry or from a wish to be polite, he went up to her after dinner, accompanied by a friend, who introduced him as formally as if he and she had never seen one another. It was at a moment when the Comte de Morny was out of the room, because I feel certain that he was already sorry then for what he had endeavoured to do, and had washed his hands of the whole affair.

Taglioni made a stately bow. "I am under the impression," she said, "that I have had the honour of meeting you before, about the year 1832."

With this she turned away. Let any playwright reproduce that scene in a farcical or comedy form, and I am sure that three-fourths of his audience would scout it as too exaggerated, and yet every incident of it is absolutely true.

Among my most pleasant recollections of those days is that connected with Von Flotow, the future composer of "Martha." In appearance he was altogether unlike the traditional musician; he looked more like a stalwart officer of dragoons. Though of n.o.ble origin, and with a very wealthy father, there was a time when he had a hard struggle for existence. Count von Flotow, his father, and an old officer of Blucher, was nearly as much opposed to his son becoming a musician as Frederick the Great's. Nevertheless, at the instance of Flotow's mother, he was sent to Paris at the age of sixteen, and entered the Conservatoire, then under the direction of Reicha. His term of apprenticeship was not to extend beyond two years, "for," said the count, "it does not take longer for the rawest recruit to become a good soldier." "That will give you a fair idea," remarked Von Flotow to me afterwards, "how much he understood about it. He had an ill-disguised contempt for any music which did not come up to his ideal. His ideal was that performed by the drum, the fife, and the bugle. And the very fact of Germany ringing a few years later with the names of Meyerbeer and Halevy made matters worse instead of mending them. His feudal pride would not allow of his son's entering a profession the foremost ranks of which were occupied by Jews. 'Music,' he said, 'was good enough for bankers' sons and the like,' and he considered that Weber had cast a slur upon his family by adopting it."

The two years grudgingly allowed by Count von Flotow for his son's musical education were interrupted by the revolution of 1830, and the young fellow had to return home before he was eighteen, because, in his father's opinion, "he had not given a sign of becoming a great musician;" in other words, he had not written an opera or anything else which had attracted public notice. However, towards the beginning of 1831, the count took his son to Paris once more; "and though Meyerbeer nor Halevy were not so famous then as they were destined to become within the next three years, their names were already sufficiently well known to have made an introduction valuable. It would not have been difficult to obtain such." My father would not hear of it. 'I will not have my son indebted for anything to a Jew,' he said; and I am only quoting this instance of prejudice to you because it was not an individual but a typical one among my father's social equals. The remark about 'his son's entering a profession in which two Jews had carried off the highest prizes' is of a much later date. Consequently we landed in Paris, provided with letters of introduction to M. de Saint-Georges.[11]

Clever, accomplished, refined as was M. de Saint-Georges, he was scarcely the authority a father with serious intentions about his son's musical career would have consulted; he was a charming, skilful librettist and dramatist, a thorough man of the world in the best sense of the word, but absolutely incapable of judging the higher qualities of the composer. Nevertheless, I owe him much; but for him I should have been dragged back to Germany there and then; but for him I should have been compelled to go back to Germany five years later, or starved in the streets of Paris.

[Footnote 11: Jules-Henri de Saint-Georges, one of the most fertile librettists of the time, the princ.i.p.al collaborateur of Scribe, and best known in England as the author of the book of Balfe's "Bohemian Girl."--EDITOR.]

"My father's interview with M. de Saint-Georges, and my first introduction to him," said Flotow on another occasion, "were perhaps the most comical scenes ever enacted off the stage. You know my old friend, and have been to his rooms, so I need not describe him nor his surroundings to you. You have never seen my father; but, to give you an idea of what he was like, I may tell you that he was an enlarged edition of myself. A bold rider, a soldier and a sportsman, fairly well educated, but upon the whole a very rough diamond, and, I am afraid, with a corresponding contempt for the elegant and artistic side of Paris life. You may, therefore, picture to yourself the difference between the two men--M. de Saint-Georges in a beautiful silk dressing-gown and red morocco slippers, sipping chocolate from a dainty porcelain cup; my father, who, contrary to German custom, had always refused to don that comfortable garment, and who, to my knowledge, had never in his life tasted chocolate. For the moment I thought that everything was lost. I was mistaken.

"'Monsieur,' said my father in French, which absolutely creaked with the rust of age, 'I have come to ask your advice and a favour besides. My son desires to become a musician. Is it possible?'

"'There is no reason why he should not be,' replied M. de Saint-Georges, 'provided he has a vocation.'

"'Vocation may mean obstinacy,' remarked my father. 'But let us suppose the reverse--that obstinacy means vocation: how long would it take him to prove that he has talent?'

"'It is difficult to say--five years at least.'

"'And two he has already spent at the Conservatoire will make seven. I hope he will not be like Jacob, who, after that period of waiting, found that they had given him the wrong G.o.ddess!' growled my father, who could be grimly humorous when he liked. 'Five years more be it, then, but not a single day longer. If by that time he has not made his mark, I withdraw his allowance. I thank you for your advice; and now I will ask a favour. Will you kindly supply my place--that is, keep an eye upon him, and do the best you can for him? Remember, he is but twenty. It is hard enough that I cannot make a soldier of him; from what I have heard and from what I can see, you will prevent him from becoming less than a gentleman.'

"M. de Saint-Georges was visibly moved. 'Let me hear what he can do,' he said, 'and then I will tell you.'

"I sat down to the piano for more than an hour.

"'I will see that your son becomes a good musician, M. le Comte,' said M. de Saint-Georges.

"Next morning my father went back to Germany. Nothing would induce him to stay a single day. He said the atmosphere of Paris was vitiated.