In The Heart Of The Vosges And Other Sketches Part 3

The real thorn in the flesh of the annexed Alsatians is, however, as I have before pointed out, military service, and the enforced German education. All who have read Alphonse Daudet's charming little story, _La derniere lecon de Francais_, will be able to realize the painfulness of the truth, somewhat rudely brought home to French parents.

Their children must henceforth receive a German education, or none at all, for this is what the law amounts to in the great majority of cases.

Rich people, of course, and those who are only well-to-do, can send their sons to the Lycee, opened at Belfort since the annexation, but the rest have to submit, or, by dint of great sacrifice, obtain private French teaching. And, whilst even Alsatians are quite ready to render justice to the forbearance and tact often shown by officials, an inquisitorial and prying system is pursued, as vexatious to the patriotic as enforced vaccination to the Peculiar People or school attendance to the poor. One lady was visited at seven o'clock in the morning by the functionary charged with the unpleasant mission of finding out where her boy was educated. "Tell those who sent you," said the indignant mother, "that my son shall never belong to you. We will give up our home, our prospects, everything; but our children shall never be Prussians." True enough, the family have since emigrated. No one who has not stayed in Alsace among Alsatians can realize the intense clinging to France among the people, nor the sacrifices made to retain their nationality. And it is well the true state of feeling throughout the annexed territory should be known outside its limits. With a considerable knowledge of French life and character, I confess I went to Mulhouse little prepared to find there a ferment of feeling which years have not sufficed to calm down.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ETTENHEIM]

"Nous ne sommes pas heureux a Mulhouse" were almost the first words addressed to me by that veteran patriot and true philanthropist, Jean Dollfus.

And how could it be otherwise? M. Dollfus, as well as other representatives of the French subjects of Prussia in the Reichstag, had protested against the annexation of Alsace in vain. They pointed out the heavy cost to the German empire of these provinces, in consequence of the vast military force required to maintain them, the undying bitterness aroused, the moral, intellectual, and material interests at stake. I use the word intellectual advisedly, for, amongst other instances in point, I was a.s.sured that the book trade in Mulhouse had greatly declined since the annexation. The student cla.s.s has diminished, many reading people have gone, and those who remain feel too uncertain about the future to acc.u.mulate libraries. Moreover, the ordeal that all have gone through has depressed intellectual as well as social life. Mulhouse has been too much saddened to recover herself as yet, although eminently a literary place, and a sociable one in the old happy French days. The b.a.l.l.s, soirees and reunions, that formerly made Mulhouse one of the friendliest as well as the busiest towns in the world, have almost ceased. People take their pleasures very soberly.

It is hardly possible to write of Mulhouse without consecrating a page or two to M. Jean Dollfus, a name already familiar to some English readers. The career of such a man forms part of contemporary history, and for sixty years the great cotton-printer of Mulhouse, the indefatigable philanthropist--the fellow-worker with Cobden, Arles-Dufour, and others in the cause of Free Trade--and the ardent patriot, had been before the world.

The year before my visit was celebrated, with a splendour that would be ridiculed in a novel, the diamond wedding of the head of the numerous house of Dollfus, the silver and the golden having been already kept in due form.

Mulhouse might well be proud of such a fete, for it was unique, and the first gala-day since the annexation. When M. Dollfus looked out of his window in the morning, he found the familiar street transformed as if by magic into a bright green avenue abundantly adorned with flowers. The change had been effected in the night by means of young fir-trees transplanted from the forest. The day was kept as a general holiday.

From an early hour the improvised avenue was thronged with visitors of all ranks bearing cards, letters of congratulation or flowers. The great Dollfus works were closed, and the five thousand workmen with their wives, children and superannuated parents, were not only feasted but enriched. After the banquet every man, woman and child received a present in money, the oldest and those who had remained longest in the employ of M. Dollfus being presented with forty francs. But the crowning sight of the day was the board spread for the Dollfus family and the gathering of the clan, as it may indeed be called. There was the head of the house, firm as a rock still, in spite of his eighty-two years; beside him the partner of sixty of those years, his devoted wife; next according to age, their numerous sons and daughters, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law; duly following came the grandsons and grand-daughters, then the great-grandsons and great-granddaughters, and lastly, the babies of their fifth generation, all accompanied by their nurses in the picturesque costume of Alsace and Lorraine. This patriarchal a.s.semblage numbered between one and two hundred guests. On the table were represented, in the artistic confectionery for which Mulhouse is famous, some of the leading events of M. Dollfus's busy life. Here in sugar was a model of the achievement which will ever do honour to the name of Jean Dollfus, namely, the _cites ouvrieres_, and what was no less a triumph of the confectioner's skill, a group representing the romantic ride of M. and Mme. Dollfus on camels towards the Algerian Sahara when visiting the African colony some twenty years before.

This patriarchal festival is said to have cost M. Dollfus half a million of francs, a bagatelle in a career devoted to giving! The bare conception of what this good man has bestowed takes one's breath away! Not that he was alone; never was a city more prolific of generous men than Mulhouse, but Jean Dollfus, _"Le Pere Jean,"_ as he is called, stood at the head. He received with one hand to bestow with the other, and not only on behalf of the national, intellectual and spiritual wants of his own workmen and his own community--the Dollfus family are Protestant--but indiscriminately benefiting Protestant, Catholic, Jew; founding schools, hospitals, libraries, refuges, churches, for all.

We see at a glance after what fashion the great manufacturers set to work here to solve the problem before them. The life of ease and the life of toil are seen side by side, and all the brighter influences of the one brought to bear on the other. The tall factory chimneys are unsightly here as elsewhere, and nothing can be uglier than the steam tramways, noisily running through the streets. But close to the factories and workshops are the cheerful villas and gardens of their owners, whilst near at hand the workmen's dwellings offer an exterior equally attractive. These _cites ouvrieres_ form indeed a suburb in themselves, and a very pleasant suburb too. Many middle-cla.s.s families in England might be glad to own such a home, a semi-detached cottage or villa standing in a pretty garden with flowers and trees and plots of turf. Some of the cottages are models of trimness and taste, others of course are less well kept, a few have a neglected appearance. The general aspect, however, is one of thrift and prosperity, and it must be borne in mind that each dwelling and plot of ground are the property of the owner, gradually acquired by him out of his earnings, thanks to the initiative of M. Dollfus and his fellow-workers. "It is by such means as these that we have combated Socialism," said M. Dollfus to me; and the gradual transformation of the workman into an owner of property, is but one of the numerous efforts made at Mulhouse to lighten, in so far as is practicable, the burden of toil.

These pleasant avenues are very animated on Sundays, especially when a universal christening of babies is going on. The workmen at Mulhouse are paid once a fortnight, in some cases monthly, and it is usually after pay-day that such celebrations occur. We saw one Sunday afternoon quite a procession of carriages returning from the church to the _cite ouvriere_, for upon these occasions n.o.body goes on foot. There were certainly a dozen christening parties, all well dressed, and the babies in the finest white muslin and embroidery. A very large proportion of the artisans here are Catholics, and as one instance among others of the liberality prevailing here, I mention that one of the latest donations of M. Dollfus is the piece of ground, close to the _cite ouvriere_, on which now stands the new, florid Catholic church.

There are free libraries for all, and a very handsome museum has been opened within the last few years, containing some fine modern French pictures, all gifts of the Dollfrees, Engels, and Kochlins, to their native town. The museum, like everything else at Mulhouse, is as French as French can be, no German element visible anywhere. Conspicuous among the pictures are portraits of Thiers and Gambetta, and a fine subject of De Neuville, representing one of those desperate battle-scenes of 1870-71 that still have such a painful hold on the minds of French people. It was withheld for some time, and had only been recently exhibited. The bombardment of Strasburg is also a popular subject in Mulhouse.

I have mentioned the flower-gardens of the city, but the real pleasure-ground of both rich and poor lies outside the suburbs, and a charming one it is, and full of animation on Sundays. This is the Tannenwald, a fine bit of forest on high ground above the vineyards and suburban gardens of the richer citizens. A garden is a necessity of existence here, and all who are without one in the town hire or purchase a plot of suburban ground. Here is also the beautiful subscription garden I have before alluded to, with fine views over the Rhine valley and the Black Forest.

Nor is Mulhouse without its excursions. Colmar and the romantic site of Notre Dame des Trois epis may be visited in a day. Then there is Thann, with its perfect Gothic church, a veritable cathedral in miniature, and the charming, prosperous valley of Wesserling. From Thann the ascent of the Ballon d'Alsace may be made, but the place itself must on no account be missed. No more exquisite church in the region, and most beautifully is it placed amid sloping green hills! It may be said to consist of nave and apse only. There are but two lateral, chapels, evidently of a later period than the rest of the building. The interior is of great beauty, and no less so the facade and side porch, both very richly decorated.

One's first feeling is of amazement to find such a church in such a place; but this dingy, sleepy little town was once of some importance and still does a good deal of trade. There is a very large Jewish community here, as in many other towns of Alsace. Whether they deserve their unpopularity is a painful question not lightly to be taken up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COLMAR]

Leisurely travellers bound homeward from Mulhouse will do well to diverge from the direct Paris line and join it at Dijon, by way of Belfort--the heroic city of Belfort, with its colossal lion, hewn out of the solid rock--the little Protestant town of Montbeliard, and Besancon. Belfort is well worth seeing, and the "Territoire de Belfort" is to all intents and purposes a new department, formed from that remnant of the Haut Rhin saved to France after the war of 1870-71. The "Territoire de Belfort"

comprises upwards of sixty thousand hectares, and a population, chiefly industrial, of nearly seventy thousand inhabitants, spread over many communes and hamlets. There is a picturesque and romantic bit of country between Montbeliard and Besancon, well worth seeing, if only from the railway windows. But the tourist who wants to make no friendly calls on the way, whose chief aim is to get over the ground quickly, must avoid the _detour_ by all means, as the trains are slow and the stoppages many.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SKETCH BY GUSTAVE DORe, AETAT EIGHT YEARS]

V

THE 'MARVELLOUS BOY' OF ALSACE

I

It is especially at Strasburg that travellers are reminded of another "marvellous boy," who, if he did not "perish in his pride," certainly shortened his days by overreaching ambition and the brooding bitterness waiting upon shattered hopes.

Gustave Dore was born and reared under the shadow of Strasburg Cathedral. The majestic spire, a world in itself, became indeed a world to this imaginative prodigy. He may be said to have learned the minster of minsters by heart, as before him Victor Hugo had familiarized himself with Notre Dame. The unbreeched artist of four summers never tired of scrutinizing the statues, monsters, gargoyles and other outer ornamentations, while the story of the pious architect Erwin and of his inspirer, Sabine, was equally dear. Never did genius more clearly exhibit the influence of early environment. True child of Alsace, he revelled in local folklore and legend. The eerie and the fantastic had the same fascination for him as sacred story, and the lives of the saints, gnomes, elves, werewolves and sorcerers bewitched no less than martyrs, miracle-workers and angels.

His play-hours would be spent within the precincts of the cathedral, whilst the long winter evenings were beguiled with fairy-tales and fables, his mother and nurse reading or reciting these, their little listener being always busy with pen or pencil. Something much more than mere precocity is shown in these almost infantine sketches. Exorbitant fancy is here much less striking than sureness of touch, outlined figures drawn between the age of five and ten displaying remarkable precision and point, each line of the silhouette telling. At six he celebrated his first school prize with an ill.u.s.trated letter, two portraits and a mannikin surmounting the text.

[Footnote: See his life by Blanch Roosevelt, Sampson Low & Co. 1885; also the French translation of the same, 1886.]

His groups of peasants and portraits, made three or four years later, possess almost a Rembrandt strength, unfortunately pa.s.sion for the grotesque and the fanciful often lending a touch of caricature.

Downright ugliness must have had an especial charm for the future ill.u.s.trator of the _Inferno_, his unconscious models sketched by the way being uncomely as the immortal Pickwick and his fellows of Phiz. A devotee of Gothic art, he reproduced the mediaeval monstrosities adorning cornice and pinnacle in human types. Equally devoted to nature out of doors, the same taste predominated. What he loved and sought was ever the savage, the legend-haunted, the ghoulish, seats and ambuscades of kelpie, hobgoblin, brownie and their kind.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SKETCH BY GUSTAVE DORe, aeTAT EIGHT YEARS]

From the nursery upwards, if the term can be applied to French children, his life was a succession of artistic abnormalities and _tours de force_. The bantling in petticoats who could astound his elders with wonderfully accurate silhouettes, continued to surprise them in other ways. His memory was no less amazing than his draughtsmanship. When seven years of age, he was taken to the opera and witnessed _Robert le Diable_. On returning home he accurately narrated every scene.

At eight he broke his right arm, but became as if by magic ambidextrous, whilst confined to bed, cheerily drawing all day long with the left hand. At ten he witnessed a grand public ceremony. In 1840 Strasburg celebrated the inauguration of a monument to Gutenberg, the festival being one of extraordinary splendour. Fifteen cars represented the industrial corporations of the city, each symbolically adorned, and in each riding figures suitably travestied and occupied, men, women and children wearing the costumes of the period represented. Among the corporations figured the _Peintres-verriers_, or painters on stained gla.s.s, their car proving especially attractive to one small looker-on.

Intoxicated by the colour and movement of the fete, garlanded and beflagged streets, the symbolic carriages, the bands, civic and military, and the prevailing enthusiasm, the child determined to get up an apotheosis of his own: in other words, to repeat the performance on a smaller scale. Which he did. Cars, costumes, banners and decorations were all designed by this imp of ten. With the approval of his professors and the collaboration of his school-fellows, the Dore procession, consisting of four highly decorated cars, drawn by boys, defiled before the college authorities and made the round of the cathedral, the youthful impresario at its head. The car of the painters on gla.s.s was conspicuously elaborate, a star copied from a Cathedral window showing the superscription, _G. Dore, fecit_. Small wonder is it that the adoring mother of an equally adoring son should have believed in him from the first, and seen in these beginnings the dawn of genius, the advent, indeed, of a second Michael Angelo or t.i.tian.

The more practical father might chide such overreaching vaticinations, might reiterate--

"Do not fill the boy's head with nonsense."

The answer would be--

"I know it. Our son is a genius."

And Dore _pere_ gave way, under circ.u.mstances curious enough.

II

In 1847 the family visited Paris, there to Gustave's delight spending four months. Loitering one day in the neighbourhood of the Bourse, his eye lighted upon comic papers with cuts published by MM. Auber and Philipon. Their shop windows were full of caricatures, and after a long and intent gaze the boy returned home, in two or three days presenting himself before the proprietors with half-a-dozen drawings much in the style of those witnessed. The benevolent but businesslike M. Philipon examined the sketches attentively, put several questions to his young visitor, and, finding that the step had been taken surrept.i.tiously, immediately sat down and wrote to M. and Mme. Dore. He urged them with all the inducements he could command to allow their son the free choice of a career, a.s.suring them of his future.

A few days later an agreement was signed by father and publisher to this effect: During three years the latter was to receive upon certain terms a weekly cartoon from the sixteen-year-old artist, who, on his side, bound himself to offer no sketches elsewhere.

[Footnote: This doc.u.ment was reproduced in _Le Figaro_ of December 4, 1848.]

Meanwhile, Gustave would pursue his studies at the Lycee Charlemagne, his patron promising to look after his health and well-being. The arrangement answered, and in _Le Journal pour rire_ the weekly caricature signed by Dore soon noised his fame abroad. Ugly, even hideous, as were many of these caricatures, they did double duty, paying the lad's school expenses, and paving the way to better things. Of caricature Dore soon tired, and after this early period never returned to it. Is it any wonder that facile success and excessive laudation should turn the stripling's head? Professionally, if not artistically speaking, Dore pa.s.sed straight from child to man; in one sense of the word he had no boyhood, the term tyro remained inapplicable. This undersized, fragile lad, looking years younger than he really was, soon found himself on what must have appeared a pinnacle of fame and fortune.

Shortly after his agreement with Philipon, his father died, and Mme.

Dore with her family removed to Paris, settling in a picturesque and historic hotel of the Rue St. Dominique. Here Dore lived for the rest of his too short life.

The house had belonged to the family of Saint Simon, that terrible observer under whose gaze even Louis XIV. is said to have quailed. So aver historians of the period. The a.s.sociations of his home immediately quickened Dore's inventive faculties. He at once set to work and organized a brilliant set of _tableaux vivants_, ill.u.s.trating scenes from the immortal Memoires. The undertaking proved a great social success, and henceforth we hear of galas, soirees, theatricals and other entertainments increasing in splendour with the young artist's vogue--and means.

The history of the next twenty years reads like a page from the _Arabian Nights_. Although dazzling is the record from first to last, and despite the millions of francs earned during those two decades, the artist's ambition was never satisfied. We are always conscious of bitterness and disillusion. As an ill.u.s.trator, no longer of cheap comic papers but of literary masterpieces brought out in costly fashion, Dore reached the first rank at twenty, his _Rabelais_ setting the seal on his renown. So immense was the success of this truly colossal undertaking and of its successors, the _Don Quixote_, the _Contes de fees_ of Perrault and the rest, that he meditated nothing less than the ill.u.s.tration of cosmopolitan _chefs 'd' oeuvre, en bloc_, a series which should include every great imaginative work of the Western world! Thus in 1855 we find him noting the following projects, to be carried out in ten years'

time:--ill.u.s.trations of aeschylus, Lucan, Ovid, Shakespeare, Goethe _(Faust)_, Lamartine _(Meditations)_, Racine, Corneille, Schiller, Boccaccio, Montaigne, Plutarch's Lives--these names among others. The jottings in question were written for a friend who had undertaken to write the artist's biography.

The _Rabelais, Don Quixote, The Inferno_, and several more of these sumptuous volumes were brought out in England. Forty years ago Dore's bold and richly imaginative work was in great favour here; indeed, throughout his life he was much more appreciated by ourselves than by his countrymen. All the drawings were done straight upon wood. Lavish in daily life, generous of the generous, Dore showed the same lavishness in his procedure. Some curious particulars are given upon this head.

Fabulous sums were spent upon his blocks, even small ones costing as much as four pounds apiece. He must always have the very best wood, no matter the cost, and it was only the whitest, smoothest and glossiest boxwood that satisfied him. Enormous sums were spent upon this material, and to his honour be it recorded, that no matter the destination of a block, the same cost, thought and minute manipulation were expended upon a trifling commission as upon one involving thousands of pounds. The penny paper was treated precisely the same as the volume to be brought out at two guineas. In the zenith of his fame as an ill.u.s.trator, at a time when tip-top authors and editors were all clamouring for his drawings, he did not despise humbler admirers and clients. His delight in his work was only equalled by quite abnormal physical and mental powers. Sleep, food, fresh air, everything was forgotten in the engrossment of work. At this time he would often give himself three hours of sleep only.

Dore's ambition--rather, one of his ambitions--was to perfect wood engraving as an art, hence his indifference to the cost of production.