Dumas' Paris Part 6

CHAPTER IV.

DUMAS' CONTEMPORARIES

Among those of the world's great names in literature contemporary with Dumas, but who knew Paris ere he first descended upon it to try his fortune in its arena of letters, were Lamartine, who already, in 1820, had charmed his public with his "Meditations;" Hugo, who could claim but twenty years himself, but who had already sung his "Odes et Ballades," and Chateaubriand.

Soulie and De Vigny won their fame with poems and plays in the early twenties, De Musset and Chenier followed before a decade had pa.s.sed, and Gautier was still serving his apprenticeship.

It was the proud Goethe who said of these young men of the twenties, "They all come from Chateaubriand." Beranger, too, "the little man," even though he was drawing on toward the prime of life, was also singing melodiously: it was his _chansons_, it is said, that upset the Bourbon throne and made way for the "citizen-king." Nodier, of fanciful and fantastic rhyme, was already at work, and Merimee had not yet taken up the administrative duties of overseeing the preserving process which at his instigation was, at the hands of a paternal government, being applied to the historical architectural monuments throughout France; a glory which it is to be feared has never been wholly granted to Merimee, as was his due.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TWO FAMOUS CARICATURES OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS]

Guizot, the _bete noire_ of the later Louis-Philippe, was actively writing from 1825 to 1830, and his antagonist, Thiers, was at the same period producing what Carlyle called the "voluminous and untrustworthy labours of a brisk little man in his way;" which recalls to mind the fact that Carlylean rant--like most of his prose--is a well-nigh insufferable thing.

At this time Mignet, the historian, was hard at work, and St. Beauve had just deserted _materia medica_ for literature. Michelet's juvenile histories were a production of the time, while poor, unhonoured, and then unsung, Balzac was grinding out his pittance--in after years to grow into a monumental literary legacy--in a garret.

Eugene Sue had not yet taken to literary pathways, and was scouring the seas as a naval surgeon.

The drama was prolific in names which we have since known as masters, Scribe, Halevy, and others.

George Sand, too, was just beginning that grand literary life which opened with "Indiana" in 1832, and lasted until 1876. She, like so many of the great, whose name and fame, like Dumas' own, has been perpetuated by a monument in stone, the statue which was unveiled in the little town of her birth on the Indre, La Chatre, in 1903.

Like Dumas, too, hers was a cyclopean industry, and so it followed that in the present twentieth century (in the year 1904), another and a more glorious memorial to France's greatest woman writer was unveiled in the Garden of the Luxembourg.

Among the women famous in the _monde_ of Paris at the time of Dumas'

arrival were Mesdames Desbordes-Valmore, Amable Tastu, and Delphine Gay.

"For more than half a century this brilliant group of men and women sustained the world of ideas and poetry," said Dumas, in his "Memoires,"

"and I, too," he continued, "have reached the same plane ... unaided by intrigue or coterie, and using none other than my own work as the stepping-stone in my pathway."

Dumas cannot be said to have been n.i.g.g.ardly with his praise of the work of others. He said of a sonnet of Arnault's--"La Feuille"--that it was a masterpiece which an Andre Chenier, a Lamartine, or a Hugo might have envied, and that for himself, not knowing what his "literary brothers"

might have done, he would have given for it "any one of his dramas."

It was into the office of Arnault, who was chief of a department in the Universite, that Beranger took up his labours as a copying-clerk,--as did Dumas in later years,--and it was while here that Beranger produced his first ballad, the "Roi d'Yvetot."

In 1851 Millet was at his height, if one considers what he had already achieved by his "great agrarian poems," as they have been called. Gautier called them "Georgics in paint," and such they undoubtedly were. Millet would hardly be called a Parisian; he was not of the life of the city, but rather of that of the countryside, by his having settled down at Barbizon in 1849, and practically never left it except to go to Paris on business.

His life has been referred to as one of "sublime monotony," but it was hardly that. It was a life devoted to the telling of a splendid story, that of the land as contrasted with that of the paved city streets.

Corot was a real Parisian, and it was only in his early life in the provinces that he felt the bitterness of life and longed for the flagstones of the quais, for the Tuileries, the Seine, and his beloved Rue de Bac, where he was born on 10th Thermidor, Year IV. (July 28, 1796).

Corot early took to painting the scenes of the metropolis, as we learn from his biography, notably at the point along the river bank where the London steamer moors to-day. But these have disappeared; few or none of his juvenile efforts have come down to us.

Corot returned to Paris, after many years spent in Rome, during the reign of Louis-Philippe, when affairs were beginning to stir themselves in literature and art. In 1839 his "Site d'Italie" and a "Soir" were shown at the annual Salon,--though, of course, he had already been an exhibitor there,--and inspired a sonnet of Theophile Gautier, which concludes:

"Corot, ton nom modest, ecrit dans un coin noir."

Corot's pictures _were_ unfortunately hung in the darkest corners--for fifteen years. As he himself has said, it was as if he were in the catacombs. In 1855 Corot figured as one of the thirty-four judges appointed by Napoleon III. to make the awards for paintings exhibited in the world's first Universal Exhibition. It is not remarked that Corot had any acquaintance or friendships with Dumas or with Victor Hugo, of whom he remarked, "This Victor Hugo seems to be pretty famous in literature." He knew little of his contemporaries, and the hurly-burly knew less of him.

He was devoted, however, to the genius of his superiors--as he doubtless thought them. Of Delacroix he said one day, "He is an eagle, and I am only a lark singing little songs in gray clouds."

A literary event of prime importance during the latter years of Dumas'

life in Paris, when his own purse was growing thin, was the publication of the "Histoire de Jules Cesar," written by Napoleon III.

n.o.body ever seems to have taken the second emperor seriously in any of his finer expressions of sentiment, and, as may be supposed, the publication of this immortal literary effort was the occasion of much sarcasm, banter, violent philippic, and sardonic criticism.

Possibly the world was not waiting for this work, but royalty, no less than other great men, have their hobbies and their fads; Nero fiddled, and the first Napoleon read novels and threw them forthwith out of the carriage window, so it was quite permissible that Napoleon III. should have perpetuated this life history of an emperor whom he may justly and truly have admired--perhaps envied, in a sort of impossible way.

Already Louis Napoleon's collection of writings was rather voluminous, so this came as no great surprise, and his literary reputation was really greater than that which had come to him since fate made him the master of one of the foremost nations of Europe.

From his critics we learn that "he lacked the grace of a popular author; that he was quite incapable of interesting the reader by a charm of manner; and that his _style_ was meagre, harsh, and grating, but epigrammatic." No Frenchman could possibly be otherwise.

Dumas relates, again, the story of Sir Walter Scott's visit to Paris, seeking doc.u.ments which should bear upon the reign of Napoleon. Dining with friends one evening, he was invited the next day to dine with Barras.

But Scott shook his head. "I cannot dine with that man," he replied. "I shall write evil of him, and people in Scotland would say that I have flung the dishes from his own table at his head."

It is not recorded that Dumas' knowledge of swordsmanship was based on practical experience, but certainly no more scientific sword-play of _pa.s.se_ and _touche_ has been put into words than that wonderful attack and counter-attack in the opening pages of "Les Trois Mousquetaires."

Of the _duel d'honneur_ there is less to be said, though Dumas more than once sought to reconcile estranged and impetuous spirits who would have run each other through, either by leaden bullet or the sword. A notable instance of this was in the memorable _affaire_ between Louis Blanc of _L'Homme-Libre_ and Dujarrier-Beauvallon of _La Presse_. The latter told Dumas that he had no alternative but to fight, though he went like a lamb to the slaughter, and had no knowledge of the _code_ nor any skill with weapons.

Dumas _pere_ was implored by the younger Dumas--both of whom took Dujarrier's interests much to heart--to go and see Grisier and claim his intervention. "I cannot do it," said the elder; "the first and foremost thing to do is to safeguard his reputation, which is the more precious because it is his first duel." The Grisier referred to was the great master of fence of the time who was immortalized by Dumas in his "Maitre d'Armes."

Dumas himself is acknowledged, however, on one occasion, at least, to have acted as second--co-jointly with General Fleury--in an _affaire_ which, happily, never came off.

It was this Blanc-Dujarrier duel which brought into further prominent notice that most remarkable and quasi-wonderful woman, Lola Montez; that daughter of a Spaniard and a Creole, a native of Limerick, pupil of a boarding-school at Bath, and one-time resident of Seville; to which may be added, on the account of Lord Malmesbury, "The woman who in Munich set fire to the magazine of revolution which was ready to burst forth all over Europe."

She herself said that she had also lived in Calcutta as the wife of an officer in the employ of the East India Company; had at one time been reduced to singing in the streets at Brussels; had danced at the Italian Opera in London,--"not much, but as well as half the ugly wooden women who were there,"--and had failed as a dancer in Warsaw.

"This illiterate schemer," says Vandam, "who probably knew nothing of geography or history, had pretty well the Almanach de Gotha by heart."

"Why did I not come earlier to Paris?" she once said. "What was the good?

There was a king there bourgeois to his finger-nails, tight-fisted besides, and notoriously the most moral and the best father in all the world."

This woman, it seems, was a beneficiary in the testament of Dujarrier, who died as a result of his duel, to the extent of eighteen shares in the Theatre du Palais Royal, and in the trial which followed at Rouen, at which were present all shades and degrees of literary and professional people, Dumas, Gustave Flaubert, and others, she insisted upon appearing as a witness, for no reason whatever, apparently, than that of further notoriety. "Six months from this time," as one learns from Vandam, "her name was almost forgotten by all of us except Alexandre Dumas, who once and again alluded to her." "Though far from superst.i.tious, Dumas, who had been as much smitten with her as most of her admirers, avowed that he was glad that she had disappeared. 'She has the evil eye,' said he, 'and is sure to bring bad luck to any one who closely links his destiny with hers.'"

There is no question but that Dumas was right, for she afterward--to mention but two instances of her remarkably active career--brought disaster "most unkind" upon Louis I. of Bavaria; committed bigamy with an English officer who was drowned at Lisbon; and, whether in the guise of lovers or husbands, all, truly, who became connected with her met with almost immediate disaster.

The mere mention of Lola Montez brings to mind another woman of the same category, though different in character, Alphonsine Plessis, more popularly known as La Dame aux Camelias. She died in 1847, and her name was not Marie or Marguerite Duplessis, but as above written.

Dumas _fils_ in his play did not idealize Alphonsine Plessis' character; indeed, Dumas _pere_ said that he did not even enlarge or exaggerate any incident--all of which was common property in the _demi-monde_--"save that he ascribed her death to any cause but the right one." "I know he made use of it," said the father, "but he showed the malady aggravated by Duval's desertion."

We learn that the elder Dumas "wept like a baby" over the reading of his son's play. But his tears did not drown his critical faculty. "At the beginning of the third act," said Dumas _pere_, "I was wondering how Alexandre would get his Marguerite back to town, ... but the way Alexandre got out of the difficulty proves that he is my son, every inch of him, and at the very outset of his career he is a better dramatist than I am ever likely to be."

"Alphonsine Plessis was decidedly a real personage, but not an ordinary one in her walk of life," said Doctor Veron. "A woman of her refinement might not have been impossible in a former day, because the grisette--and subsequently the _femme entretenue_--was not then even surmised. She interests me much; she is the best dressed woman in Paris, she neither conceals nor hides her vices, and she does not continually hint about money; in short, she is wonderful."

"La Dame aux Camelias" appeared within eighteen months of the actual death of the heroine, and went into every one's hands, interest being whetted meanwhile by the recent event, and yet more by much gossip--scandal if you will--which universally appeared in the Paris press. Her pedigree was evolved and diagnosed by Count G. de Contades in a French bibliographical journal, _Le Livre_, which showed that she was descended from a "_guenuchetonne_" (slattern) of Longe, in the canton of Brionze, near Alencon; a predilection which the elder Dumas himself had previously put forth when he stated that, "I am certain that one might find taint either on the father's side, or on the mother's, probably on the former's, but more probably still on both."