The Ways of Men Part 6

"That's the diligence just arrived from Calais; it has been two days _en route_, the pa.s.sengers sleeping as best they could, side by side, and escaping from their confinement only when horses were changed or while stopping for meals. That high two-wheeled trap with the little 'tiger'

standing up behind is a tilbury. We used to see the Count d'Orsay driving one like that almost every day. He wore b.u.t.ter-colored gloves, and the skirts of his coat were pleated full all around, and stood out like a ballet girl's. It is a pity they have not included Louis Philippe and his family jogging off to Neuilly in the court 'carryall,'-the 'Citizen King,' with his blue umbrella between his knees, trying to look like an honest bourgeois, and failing even in that attempt to please the Parisians.

"We were in Paris in '48; from my window at Meurice's I saw poor old _Juste Milieu_ read his abdication from the historic middle balcony of the Tuileries, and half an hour later we perceived the d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans leave the Tuileries on foot, leading her two sons by the hand, and walk through the gardens and across the Place de la Concorde to the Corps Legislatif, in a last attempt to save the crown for her son. Futile effort! That evening the 'Citizen King' was hurried through those same gardens and into a pa.s.sing cab, _en route_ for a life exile.

"Our balcony at Meurice's was a fine point of observation from which to watch a revolution. With an opera-gla.s.s we could see the mob surging to the sack of the palace, the priceless furniture and bric-a-brac flung into the street, court dresses waved on pikes from the tall windows, and finally the throne brought out, and carried off to be burned. There was no keeping the men of our party in after that. They rushed off to have a nearer glimpse of the fighting, and we saw no more of them until daybreak the following morning when, just as we were preparing to send for the police, two dilapidated, ragged, black-faced mortals appeared, in whom we barely recognized our husbands. They had been impressed into service and pa.s.sed their night building barricades. My better half, however, had succeeded in s.n.a.t.c.hing a handful of the gold fringe from the throne as it was carried by, an act of prowess that repaid him for all his troubles and fatigue.

"I pa.s.sed the greater part of forty-eight hours on our balcony, watching the mob marching by, singing _La Ma.r.s.eillaise_, and camping at night in the streets. It was all I could do to tear myself away from the window long enough to eat and write in my journal.

"There was no Avenue de l'Opera then. The trip from the boulevards to the Palais-Royal had to be made by a long detour across the Place Vendome (where, by the bye, a cattle market was held) or through a labyrinth of narrow, bad-smelling little streets, where strangers easily lost their way. Next to the boulevards, the Palais-Royal was the centre of the elegant and dissipated life in the capital. It was there we met of an afternoon to drink chocolate at the 'Rotonde,' or to dine at 'Les Trois Freres Provencaux,' and let our husbands have a try at the gambling tables in the Pa.s.sage d'Orleans.

"No one thought of buying jewelry anywhere else. It was from the windows of its shops that the fashions started on their way around the world.

When Victoria as a bride was visiting Louis Philippe, she was so fascinated by the aspect of the place that the gallant French king ordered a miniature copy of the scene, made _in papier-mache_, as a present for his guest, a sort of gigantic dolls' house in which not only the palace and its long colonnades were reproduced, but every tiny shop and the myriad articles for sale were copied with Chinese fidelity.

Unfortunately the pear-headed old king became England's uninvited guest before this clumsy toy was finished, so it never crossed the Channel, but can be seen to-day by any one curious enough to examine it, in the Musee Carnavalet.

"Few of us realize that the Paris of Charles X. and Louis Philippe would seem to us now a small, ill-paved, and worse-lighted provincial town, with few theatres or hotels, communicating with the outer world only by means of a horse-drawn 'post,' and practically farther from London than Constantinople is to-day. One feels this isolation in the literature of the time; brilliant as the epoch was, the horizon of its writers was bounded by the boulevards and the Faubourg Saint-Germain."

Dumas says laughingly, in a letter to a friend: "I have never ventured into the unexplored country beyond the Bastille, but am convinced that it shelters wild animals and savages." The wit and brains of the period were concentrated into a small s.p.a.ce. Money-making had no more part in the programme of a writer then than an introduction into "society."

Catering to a foreign market and sn.o.bbishness were undreamed-of degradations. Paris had not yet been turned into the _Foire du Monde_ that she has since become, with whole quarters given over to the use of foreigners,-theatres, restaurants, and hotels created only for the use of a polyglot population that could give lessons to the people around Babel's famous "tower."

CHAPTER 13-Some American Husbands

Until the beginning of this century men played the _beau role_ in life's comedy. As in the rest of the animal world, our males were the brilliant members of the community, flaunting their gaudy plumage at home and abroad, while the women-folk remained in seclusion, tending their children, directing the servants, or ministering to their lords' comfort.

In those happy days the husband ruled supreme at his own fireside, receiving the homage of the family, who bent to his will and obeyed his orders.

During the last century, however, the "part" of better half has become less and less attractive in America, one prerogative after another having been whisked away by enterprising wives. Modern Delilahs have yearly snipped off more and more of Samson's luxuriant curls, and added those ornaments to their own _coiffures_, until in the majority of families the husband finds himself reduced to a state of bondage compared with which the biblical hero enjoyed a pampered idleness. Times have indeed changed in America since the native chief sat in dignified repose bedizened with all the finery at hand, while the ladies of the family waited tremblingly upon him. To-day it is the American husband who turns the grindstone all the year round, and it is his pretty tyrant who enjoys the elegant leisure that a century ago was considered a masculine luxury.

To America must be given the credit of having produced the model husband, a new species, as it were, of the _genus h.o.m.o_.

In no role does a compatriot appear to such advantage as in that of Benedict. As a boy he is often too advanced for his years or his information; in youth he is conspicuous neither for his culture nor his unselfishness. But once in matrimonial harness this untrained animal becomes bridle-wise with surprising rapidity, and will for the rest of life go through his paces, waltzing, kneeing, and saluting with hardly a touch of the whip. Whether this is the result of superior horse-womanship on the part of American wives or a trait peculiar to sons of "Uncle Sam," is hard to say, but the fact is self-evident to any observer that our fair equestrians rarely meet with a rebellious mount.

Any one who has studied marital ways in other lands will realize that in no country have the men effaced themselves so gracefully as with us. In this respect no foreign production can compare for a moment with the domestic article. In English, French, and German families the husband is still all-powerful. The house is mounted, guests are asked, and the year planned out to suit his occupations and pleasure. Here papa is rarely consulted until such matters have been decided upon by the ladies, when the head of the house is called in to sign the checks.

I have had occasion more than once to bewail the shortcomings of the American man, and so take pleasure in pointing out the modesty and good temper with which he fills this role. He is trained from the beginning to give all and expect nothing in return, an American girl rarely bringing any _dot_ to her husband, no matter how wealthy her family may be. If, as occasionally happens, an income is allowed a bride by her parents, she expects to spend it on her toilets or pleasures. This condition of the matrimonial market exists in no other country; even in England, where _mariages de convenance_ are rare, "settlements" form an inevitable prelude to conjugal bliss.

The fact that she contributes little or nothing to the common income in no way embarra.s.ses an American wife; her pretensions are usually in an inverse proportion to her personal means. A man I knew some years ago deliberately chose his bride from an impecunious family (in the hope that her simple surroundings had inculcated homely taste), and announced to an incredulous circle of friends, at his last bachelor dinner, that he intended, in future, to pa.s.s his evenings at his fireside, between his book and his pretty spouse. Poor, innocent, confiding mortal! The wife quickly became a belle of the fastest set in town. Having had more than she wanted of firesides and quiet evenings before her marriage, her idea was to go about as much as possible, and, when not so occupied, to fill her house with company. It may be laid down as a maxim in this connection that a man marries to obtain a home, and a girl to get away from one; hence disappointment on both sides.

The couple in question have in all probability not pa.s.sed an evening alone since they were married, the lady rarely stopping in the round of her gayeties until she collapses from fatigue. Their home is typical of their life, which itself can be taken as a good example of the existence that most of our "smart" people lead. The ground floor and the first floor are given up to entertaining. The second is occupied by the s.p.a.cious sitting, bath, and sleeping rooms of the lady. A ten-by-twelve chamber suffices for my lord, and the only den he can rightly call his own is a small room near the front door, about as private as the sidewalk, which is turned into a cloak-room whenever the couple receive, making it impossible to keep books or papers of value there, or even to use it as a smoking-room after dinner, so his men guests sit around the dismantled dining-table while the ladies are enjoying a suite of parlors above.

At first the idea of such an unequal division of the house shocks our sense of justice, until we reflect that the American husband is not expected to remain at home. That's not his place! If he is not down town making money, fashion dictates that he must be at some club-house playing a game. A man who should remain at home, and read or chat with the ladies of his family, would be considered a bore and unmanly. There seems to be no place in an American house for its head. More than once when the friend I have referred to has asked me, at the club, to dine informally with him, we have found, on arriving, that Madame, having an evening off, had gone to bed and forgotten to order any dinner, so we were obliged to return to the club for our meal. When, however, his wife is in good health, she expects her weary husband to accompany her to dinner, opera, or ball, night after night, oblivious of the work the morrow holds in store for him.

In one family I know, paterfamilias goes by the name of the "purse." The more one sees of American households the more appropriate that name appears. Everything is expected of the husband, and he is accorded no definite place in return. He leaves the house at 8.30. When he returns, at five, if his wife is entertaining a man at tea, it would be considered the height of indelicacy for him to intrude upon them, for his arrival would cast a chill on the conversation. When a couple dine out, the husband is always _la bete noire_ of the hostess, no woman wanting to sit next to a married man, if she can help it.

The few Benedicts who have had the courage to break away from these conditions and amuse themselves with yachts, salmon rivers, or "gra.s.s-bachelor" trips to Europe, while secretly admired by the women, are frowned upon in society as dangerous examples, likely to sow the seeds of discontent among their comrades; although it is the commonest thing in the world for an American wife to take the children and go abroad on a tour.

Imagine a German or Italian wife announcing to her spouse that she had decided to run over to England for a year with her children, that they might learn English. The mind recoils in horror from the idea of the catastrophe that would ensue.

Glance around a ball-room, a dinner party, or the opera, if you have any doubts as to the unselfishness of our married men. How many of them do you suppose are present for their own pleasure? The owner of an opera box rarely retains a seat in his expensive quarters. You generally find him idling in the lobbies looking at his watch, or repairing to a neighboring concert hall to pa.s.s the weary hours. At a ball it is even worse. One wonders why card-rooms are not provided at large b.a.l.l.s (as is the custom abroad), where the bored husbands might find a little solace over "bridge," instead of yawning in the coat-room or making desperate signs to their wives from the doorway,-signals of distress, by the bye, that rarely produce any effect.

It is the rebellious husband who is admired and courted, however. A curious trait of human nature compels admiration for whatever is harmful, and forces us, in spite of our better judgment, to depreciate the useful and beneficent. The coats-of-arms of all countries are crowded with eagles and lions, that never yet did any good, living or dead; orators enlarge on the fine qualities of these birds and beasts, and hold them up as models, while using as terms of reproach the name of the goose or the cow, creatures that minister in a hundred ways to our wants. Such a spirit has brought helpful, productive "better halves" to the humble place they now occupy in the eyes of our people.

As long as men pa.s.sed their time in fighting and carousing they were heroes; as soon as they became patient bread-winners all the romance evaporated from their atmosphere. The Jewish Hercules had his revenge in the end and made things disagreeable for his tormentors. So far, however, there are no signs of a revolt among the shorn lambs in this country. They patiently bend their necks to the collar-the kindest, most loving and devoted helpmates that ever plodded under the matrimonial yoke.

When in the East, one watches with admiration the part a donkey plays in the economy of those primitive lands. All the work is reserved for that industrious animal, and little play falls to his share. The camel is always bad-tempered, and when overladen lies down, refusing to move until relieved of its burden. The Turk is lazy and selfish, the native women pa.s.s their time in chattering and giggling, the children play and squabble, the ubiquitous dog sleeps in the sun; but from daybreak to midnight the little mouse-colored donkeys toil unceasingly. All burdens too bulky or too c.u.mbersome for man are put on his back; the provender which horses and camels have refused becomes his portion; he is the first to begin the day's labor, and the last to turn in. It is impossible to live long in the Orient or the south of France without becoming attached to those gentle, willing animals. The role which honest "Bourico" fills so well abroad is played on this side of the Atlantic by the American husband.

I mean no disrespect to my married compatriots; on the contrary, I admire them as I do all docile, unselfish beings. It is well for our women, however, that their lords, like the little Oriental donkeys, ignore their strength, and are content to toil on to the end of their days, expecting neither praise nor thanks in return.

CHAPTER 14-"_Carolus_"

In the early seventies a group of students-dissatisfied with the cut-and-dried instruction of the Paris art school and attracted by certain qualities of color and technique in the work of a young Frenchman from the city of Lille, who was just beginning to attract the attention of connoisseurs-went in a body to his studio with the request that he would oversee their work and direct their studies. The artist thus chosen was Carolus-Duran. Oddly enough, a majority of the youths who sought him out and made him their master were Americans.

The first modest workroom on the Boulevard Montparna.s.se was soon too small to hold the pupils who crowded under this newly raised banner, and a move was made to more commodious quarters near the master's private studio. Sargent, Dannat, Harrison, Beckwith, Hinckley, and many others whom it is needless to mention here, will-if these lines come under their notice-doubtless recall with a thrill of pleasure the roomy one-storied structure in the rue Notre-Dame des Champs where we established our _atelier d'eleves_, a self-supporting cooperative concern, each student contributing ten francs a month toward rent, fire, and models, "Carolus"-the name by which this master is universally known abroad-not only refusing all compensation, according to the immutable custom of French painters of distinction, but, as we discovered later, contributing too often from his own pocket to help out the _ma.s.sier_ at the end of a difficult season, or smooth the path of some improvident pupil.

Those were cloudless, enchanted days we pa.s.sed in the tumbled down old atelier: an ardent springtime of life when the future beckons gayly and no doubts of success obscure the horizon. Our young master's enthusiasm fired his circle of pupils, who, as each succeeding year brought him increasing fame, revelled in a reflected glory with the generous admiration of youth, in which there is neither calculation nor shadow of envy.

A portrait of Madame de Portalais, exhibited about this time, drew all art-loving Paris around the new celebrity's canvas. Shortly after, the government purchased a painting (of our master's beautiful wife), now known as _La Femme au Gant_, for the Luxembourg Gallery.

It is difficult to overestimate the impetus that a master's successes impart to the progress of his pupils. My first studious year in Paris had been pa.s.sed in the shadow of an elderly painter, who was comfortably dozing on the laurels of thirty years before. The change from that sleepy environment to the vivid enthusiasm and dash of Carolus-Duran's studio was like stepping out of a musty cloister into the warmth and movement of a market-place.

Here, be it said in pa.s.sing, lies perhaps the secret of the dry rot that too often settles on our American art schools. We, for some unknown reason, do not take the work of native painters seriously, nor encourage them in proportion to their merit. In consequence they retain but a feeble hold upon their pupils.

Carolus, handsome, young, successful, courted, was an ideal leader for a band of ambitious, high-strung youths, repaying their devotion with an untiring interest and lifting clever and dull alike on the strong wings of his genius. His visits to the studio, on which his friend Henner often accompanied him, were frequent and prolonged; certain Tuesdays being especially appreciated by us, as they were set apart for his criticism of original compositions.

When our sketches (the subject for which had been given out in advance) were arranged, and we had seated ourselves in a big half-circle on the floor, Carolus would install himself on a tall stool, the one seat the studio boasted, and chat _a propos_ of the works before him on composition, on cla.s.sic art, on the theories of color and clair-obscur.

Brilliant talks, inlaid with much wit and incisive criticism, the memory of which must linger in the minds of all who were fortunate enough to hear them. Nor was it to the studio alone that our master's interest followed us. He would drop in at the Louvre, when we were copying there, and after some pleasant words of advice and encouragement, lead us off for a stroll through the galleries, interrupted by stations before his favorite masterpieces.

So important has he always considered a constant study of Renaissance art that recently, when about to commence his _Triumph of Bacchus_, Carolus copied one of Rubens's larger canvases with all the navete of a beginner.

An occasion soon presented itself for us to learn another side of our trade by working with our master on a ceiling ordered of him by the state for the Palace of the Luxembourg. The vast studios which the city of Paris provides on occasions of this kind, with a liberality that should make our home corporations reflect, are situated out beyond the Exhibition buildings, in a curious, unfrequented quarter, ignored alike by Parisians and tourists, where the city stores compromising statues and the valuable debris of her many revolutions. There, among throneless Napoleons and riderless bronze steeds, we toiled for over six months side by side with our master, on gigantic _Apotheosis of Marie de Medicis_, serving in turn as painter and painted, and leaving the imprint of our hands and the reflection of our faces scattered about the composition.

Day after day, when work was over, we would hoist the big canvas by means of a system of ropes and pulleys, from a perpendicular to the horizontal position it was to occupy permanently, and then sit straining our necks and discussing the progress of the work until the tardy spring twilight warned us to depart.

The year 1877 brought Carolus-Duran the _medaille d'honneur_, a crowning recompense that set the atelier mad with delight. We immediately organized a great (but economical) banquet to commemorate the event, over which our master presided, with much modesty, considering the amount of incense we burned before him, and the speeches we made. One of our number even burst into some very bad French verses, a.s.serting that the painters of the world in general fell back before him-

. . . _epouvantes_- _Craignant egalement sa brosse et son epee_.

This allusion to his proficiency in fencing was considered particularly neat, and became the favorite song of the studio, to be howled in and out of season.

Curiously enough, there is always something in Carolus-Duran's att.i.tude when at work which recalls the swordsman. With an enormous palette in one hand and a brush in the other, he has a way of planting himself in front of his sitter that is amusingly suggestive of a duel. His lithe body sways to and fro, his fine leonine face quivers with the intense study of his model; then with a sudden spring forward, a few rapid touches are dashed on the canvas (like home strokes in the enemy's weakest spot) with a precision of hand acquired only by long years of fencing.

An order to paint the king and queen of Portugal was the next step on the road to fame, another rung on the pleasant ladder of success. When this work was done the delighted sovereign presented the painter with the order of "Christ of Portugal," together with many other gifts, among which a caricature of the master at work, signed by his sitter, is not the least valued.