Vie De Boheme Part 8

XI

AMUs.e.m.e.nTS OF BOHEMIA

The pageant of 1830 has pa.s.sed, and our gaze has been directed to its Bohemian ingredients with the purpose of noting the particular marks and qualities which distinguished Bohemia, and how their particular manifestations were conditioned and varied by the progress of the years.

Looking out of the window of the present, we have been unable at any moment to call a halt, lest we should lose a comprehensive view of the main development. Now that this view has been gained it will do no harm to send the procession once more before the mind's eye, that we may fix at leisure any less important details which may seem in themselves attractive. One of the most happy qualities of the Bohemian nature is its capacity for amusing itself. Real boredom and lackadaisical idleness do not come into the list of its shortcomings. The pa.s.sionate Romantics, indeed, fashionably suffered from "spleen" and "ennui," they proclaimed a "cur use comme l'escalier d'une fille de joie," but the Bohemian, so far as he indulged in these peculiarities, was amusing himself. To him "spleen" and "ennui" were part of the game which he embraced with enthusiasm and in which he desired to excel; yet they were parts to which, as a general rule, he did not pay too much attention, preferring the more positive and a.s.sertive sides of Romanticism. Neither Gautier nor Gerard de Nerval nor Rodolphe nor Schaunard presents himself to the imagination as suffering from boredom. An unfailing capacity for amusing oneself and finding amus.e.m.e.nt in one's fellow-men is an essential Bohemian _trait_. The preceding chapters have not been wholly devoid of indications as to the way in which these talents were exercised by the Bohemian clans, but it was necessary to insist rather on the diversions which characterized the _particular_ spirit of each brotherhood than on the general opportunities which they all enjoyed with slight variation.

The field is now open without restriction, and it will not be amiss to take a glimpse here and there at the Bohemian enjoying his leisure, if only to add a few vivid touches that will enliven the background of the picture. The work of Bohemia can always be taken for granted; artistic endeavour, whether actively or indolently pursued, varies but little in external feature; the change, the colour, the tragedy and comedy are only to be found within the artist's mind; but the amus.e.m.e.nt of Bohemia, so far from being hidden, courts publicity. It takes its colour, too, so largely from the changing world around that there is great pictorial value in its easily observable vicissitudes. For that reason I devote this chapter to the subject of its t.i.tle without further apology, but only with the caution that here the accidents rather than the essentials of Bohemia are regarded. The privilege of amus.e.m.e.nt is open to everybody, but to see what Bohemia made of its privileges in that respect is, perhaps, to quicken it for the imagination by an extra spark.

Precisians might say that dress hardly comes under the head of amus.e.m.e.nts and that on certain views it is more properly included in the category of necessities or of nuisances. Yet there is no doubt that for all women--and for more men than would admit it--to be well dressed is an enjoyment, a term only differing from amus.e.m.e.nt by a smaller suggestion of possible frivolity. It is quite a sufficient warrant, at all events, for giving dress a small part in this chapter; besides, the costume of any individual or society is both a sure indicator of qualities and an apt focus for judgment. In England, the very home of ill.u.s.trated books and papers, it is not necessary to say much in evoking the costume of a past age, so that the subject may be treated quite shortly, especially as regards the men of Bohemia, whose dress was too often a deplorable tragedy. When Marcel went to Musette's party with "Mathusalem" b.u.t.toned up to the neck over a blue shirt dotted with the figures of a boar-hunt he was, as Murger says, "dressed in the worst taste possible." In such a case there is no more to be said; his appearance would vary little from age to age. To the Bohemian in his lean days, certainly, it would be an insult to impute enjoyment of his tattered wardrobe. Those who most enjoyed dressing, without a doubt, were the Bohemian generation who cheered "Hernani" with such frenzy, for they made their _pourpoints_, felt sombreros, Robespierre waistcoats, and Phrygian caps effective details in the general Romantic demonstration and, as such, matters of intense pleasure. But these extravagances have already caught our attention; they were part of that frantic desire for novelty and colour which was a symptom of _le mal romantique_; their proper complement was that rage for fancy-dress b.a.l.l.s which broke out shortly after 1830 and laid every nationality and period under contribution for picturesque costumes. So far as the men are concerned, it need only be pointed out that the general dress of the time--against which Bohemia stood out at first and into which it gradually faded--was that of tight pantaloons with straps, long coats with full skirts and accentuated waists, full cravats, lavish jewellery, and high hats in a bewildering variety of shapes, cylindrical, conical, inverted conical, curly, straight, with broad brims and with scarce a brim at all--the civilian uniform, in fact, of our own late Georgian and early Victorian era. It was a dress that only a few could wear with distinction; on the rest it wrinkled and puffed in inevitable ugliness.

A Roger de Beauvoir could look immaculately moulded, but one has only to glance at the caricatures of Travies, Monnier, Daumier, and Gavarni to see how unequivocally hideous were the clothes of an average man. To be out at elbows in this exacting fashion was indeed to be a sorry sight, and one can well imagine poor Lucien de Rubempre to have been in his provincial attire fair game for the sneers of Rastignac and de Marsay. Still, even the Bohemian had a new suit at times, and it lights the memory of a.r.s.ene Houssaye, Camille Rogier, Murger, Champfleury, and the rest to recall that it was not for comfortable lounge suits and flannels that they got into debt, but for correct suits of "tails,"

flowery waistcoats, top-hats, and patent leather boots. It gives a quaint touch of decorum to the picture of their wildest excesses.

Women entered Bohemia as guests rather than as inhabitants, and to the fair visitors conformity to fashion was anything but a trifle. To deck themselves fittingly was their constant amus.e.m.e.nt, and one in which they took good care that their swains should be sharers. The female dress of the time is well known to us from early pictures of Queen Victoria and the paintings of Winterhalter; there are few, too, who at one time or another have not seen some of Gavarni's beautiful fashion plates. The Empire style had entirely disappeared, and the accent was in 1830 laid chiefly on the waist. The shoulders were sloping and wide, the sleeves so voluminous that by 1836 they were like miniature balloons, the skirt very wide and full, ending above the ankles. The waist and head were made to seem very small in proportion, so that two loaves placed one on top of the other would have made a very good caricature of a woman's figure at any time during the golden age of Bohemia. The hair was elaborately done to frame a pretty face daintily under a large poke-bonnet. It was pre-eminently the day of "fragile" women: nothing in their costume seemed made for hard wear. Cydalise or Victorine, as she swung in the hammock among the gallants of the Impa.s.se du Doyenne, would have kicked a little cross-laced foot out from ethereal folds of flowered muslin, and gathered a gauzy scarf enticingly round bare shoulders. Fashions were indeed expensive for a fond lover's pocket, but at least he was never at a loss what to buy for his mistress, so many were the little accessories to the Graces' toilet. He was never wrong, for instance, in offering a piece of gay ribbon, for there were bows everywhere, on the bosom, on the sleeves, and, with long dazzling streamers, round the waist. There was no end to their variety and combination of colours, brilliant and pale; even the crudest Scottish tartans were not considered amiss, as a certain dress in the London Museum will show the incredulous. If ribbon was too paltry, a man in a really generous mood would present a cashmere shawl, an expensive and much appreciated luxury. The manipulation of shawls on frail, rounded little persons, who, in England at least, still fainted at will and indulged in the vapours, was a matter of some art. Balzac, in one of his short stories, a.s.serts that a _femme du monde_ could be distinguished from the actress or the _grisette_ by the handling of her _cachemire_ alone. There was only one great change in woman's dress between the earlier and later days of Bohemia, and that was in the sleeves, which dwindled suddenly as if the balloons had been p.r.i.c.ked, and became either closely fitting or almost disappeared into two little frilly bands. In fact, during the forties, before skirts began to be exaggerated on horse-hair paddings and verge upon the crinoline, female costume was as nearly natural as it can be if corsets be granted. Nothing can be more charming than the appearance of the Queen of the Belgians in her portrait by Winterhalter which hangs in the gallery at Versailles. She wears a red velvet dress, cut simply as to the _corsage_, with the skirt reaching the ground in full, stately folds: there is no extravagance of bows and frills, only a little lace at the bosom and sleeves. So, if we would picture Mimi or Musette, as they were dressed for that memorable day at Fontenay-aux-Roses, in the new muslin frocks made by their own hands, we must imagine dainty little women, looking as if a breath would blow them away, their pretty cheeks showing between two bewitching cl.u.s.ters of ringlets, straw bonnets with not too large brims upon their heads, tied with a coquettish ribbon, gowns of flowered muslin, light, simple, and flowing, and scarfs pinned round their sloping shoulders or held in place by mittened hands. Gavarin drew them to the life time and time again, and they were considerably more attractive than any would-be _Bohemiennes_ of our time in their rough, untidy tweeds or amorphous "rational" dress.

From the amus.e.m.e.nt of clothing the body it is an easy transition to that of refreshing it. Eating and drinking, like dress, may from a certain point of view come under the head of necessities, but indulgence in good cheer when possible is a habit of young people of which a Bohemian was by no means contemptuous. A word, therefore, about his particular haunts among the thousand _cafes_ and restaurants of Paris will not be out of season. After 1830 the great houses in the Palais Royal had fallen out of fashion, and the four leading restaurants of Paris were on the boulevard. Bohemians, it is true, were not often to be found within them, but in the golden age, when Bohemia was nearer to the dandies and _viveurs_, it would at least have been possible that in a moment of extravagance some Bohemian friend should have accompanied Roger de Beauvoir into the Cafe de Paris, the Cafe Riche, the Cafe Hardy, or the Cafe Anglais. The Cafe de Paris was opposite Tortoni's, which stood at the end of the Rue Taitbout. Besides being the home of the aristocratic _pet.i.t cercle_, it was renowned for its witty conversation and its general air of luxury. Since it was favoured by the aspirants to smartness, as well as the perfect examples, its society was less select than that of the Cafe Riche, at the corner of the Rue Lepeletier, or the Cafe Anglais, which still remains in its old position. There was a quiet solidity about the Cafe Anglais, in particular, which gave it a peculiar air of distinction, though its company was gay enough at supper-time. It was especially famous for its roast meat and its grills, though in these matters the Cafe Hardy, at the corner of the Rue Laffitte, ran it close.

Hardy was an English cook who invented the _dejeuner a la fourchette_, and popularized it by setting up the first silver grill in Paris.

Customers chose their own cutlet or steak and saw it cooked before their eyes. At all these four the prices were very high, and with regard to two of them it was said: "On doit etre riche pour diner au Cafe Hardy, et hardi pour diner au Cafe Riche." However, the chief haunt for Bohemians with money to spend was the Rocher de Cancale, where it was easier to be uproarious without offending the proprieties. This famous restaurant still stands in the dirty, provincial Rue Montorgueil, in the midst of small shops whose wares overflow on to the pavement. The stately ornamentation of dark painted wood is still visible on its upper stories, but the specimens of edibles in its ground-floor windows tell too plainly to what depths it has sunk. It is no longer a possible home for Rastignac and his boon companions, nor would it tempt a.r.s.ene Houssaye to entertain there the brethren of _la Boheme galante_, for it merely plies the trade of the convenient _marchand de vin_ in a rather squalid quarter. The Rocher de Cancale had declined already during the later days of Bohemia, and in Murger's day they repaired on _jours de liesse_ to the Cafe de l'Odeon, Hill's Tavern in the Boulevard des Capucines, or the Cabaret Dinochan at the corner of the Rue de Navarin.

The first of these was, in particular, the haunt of Baudelaire and his friends, where the unfortunate Hegesippe Moreau made his brief acquaintance with the main stream of Bohemia towards the end of his days, which had been mainly pa.s.sed in a backwater. Hill's Tavern was one of the many chop-houses in the English style that flourished in Louis Philippe's Paris--only the Pet.i.t Lucas, a charming place for a quiet dinner, remains to-day--to cater for the down-at-elbows Englishmen, jockeys, and trainers, of whom there was always a certain number. At supper-time, however, it was invaded by Bohemia, and was often so full that its doors had to be closed. One of its peculiarities was that its private rooms were named after Shakespeare, Byron, and other great poets. The Cafe Dinochan, according to Delvau,[30] was the ground on which a great many small papers of the day were started. Monselet, Nadar, Fauchery, and Champfleury were among its customers, and Murger died in debt to its proprietor for twelve hundred francs, for it was said of this worthy creditor: "On dine tres-bien chez lui quand on a quarante sous dans une poche--et dix francs dans l'autre." Yet the full apparatus of a restaurant was not necessary to the gaiety of Bohemian suppers, for in scanty days they made just as merry in the shops of one or two bakeries on rolls and warm milk. The Boulangerie Cretaine in the Quartier Latin was famous for its milk rolls and for the brilliant conversation of Privat d'Anglemont, who, though it was against his principle to get into debt, ran up a bill there for halfpenny rolls of six hundred francs. The other famous baker was the _patissier_ Pitou, by the Porte Montmartre, where a crowd of Bohemians used to congregate after the midnight closing of the _cafes_. In the back shop was a table running round three sides of the square, and at this "piano," as it was called, the quaint figure of Guichardet presided. Guichardet, whose "nez vermeil et digne" was celebrated in one of Banville's triolets, was a Bohemian of the type of Balzac's Comte de la Palferine, one who had voluntarily dropped out of the race of life while preserving all his dignity and pride. He pa.s.sed his days in amiable vagabondage, but preserved "a perfume of exquisite politeness and witty impertinence which made him the most delightful companion in the world." So says Delvau, according to whom he was the only man left in France who really knew how to say "Femme charmante!"

So far I have mainly mentioned the haunts of Bohemians with the means and inclination for a certain amount of self-indulgence. But in Bohemia occasions preponderated when indulgence in anything beyond bare necessities was an impossibility. The left bank swarmed with cheap refuges for those who had hearty appet.i.tes and only a few pence. There was Viot's for the poorest of the poor; Dagneaux's or Magny's in the Rue Contrescarpe-Dauphine--rather superior houses where it was possible to procure a semblance of good cheer; and the Cabaret of Mere Cadet outside the Barriere Montparna.s.se, where Schaunard had his first meeting with Colline over the stewed rabbit with two heads. This last had a garden which ran along the Montparna.s.se cemetery, and under the shade of its dusty shrubs not only literary Bohemians but nearly all the young actors and actresses of the Theatre Montparna.s.se and the Theatre du Luxembourg made their scanty meals. You might as well have asked for sphinx there as chicken, says Delvau, the staple dishes being stewed rabbit and _choucroute garnie_. To give a longer catalogue of such places would be neither instructive nor amusing, and their types are easily enough found in the Paris of to-day. There are two, however, that call for special mention, for fiction has carried their fame beyond the days of their material existence. No reader of Balzac's "Illusions Perdues" can have forgotten the description of the cheap eating-house at the corner of the Place de la Sorbonne and the Rue Neuve de Richelieu, with the small panes of gla.s.s of its front window, its comforting announcement of _pain a discretion_, its long tables like those of a monastic refectory, its varieties of cow's flesh and veal, and the hurried air of its diners, who came there to eat and not to loiter. This famous house, where a dinner of three dishes with a _carafon_ of wine or a bottle of beer cost ninepence, where Lucien de Rubempre met Lousteau and made the acquaintance of d'Arthez and his virtuous friends, was the restaurant of Flicoteaux, no product of Balzac's imagination, but a name known to all the strugglers for fame and fortune. It was a sure ground on which to observe Bohemia, not indeed in its greatest indigence, but on the days when there was at least no margin. Thackeray mentions it in his "Paris Sketch-Book," and there is a pa.s.sage in Lytton Bulwer's "France" which vividly gives the impression produced by Flicoteaux on an English eye:

"Enter [he says] between three and four o'clock, and take your seat at one of the small tables, the greater number of which are already occupied. To your right there is a pale young man: his long hair, falling loosely over his face, gives an additional wildness to the eye, which has caught a mysterious light from the midnight vigil; his clothes are clean and threadbare; his coat too short at the wrists; his trousers too short at the legs; his cravat of a rusty black, and vaguely confining two immense shirt collars, leaves his thin and angular neck almost entirely exposed. To your left is a native of the South, pale and swarthy: his long black locks, parted from his forehead, descend upon his shoulders; his lip is fringed with a slight moustache, and the semblance of a beard gives to his meditative countenance an antique and apostolic cast. Ranged round the room, with their thin, meagre portions of meat and bread, their pale decanter of water before them, sit the students, whom a youth of poverty and privation is preparing for a life of energy or science."

Flicoteaux has long been swept away, and buildings of the Sorbonne now occupy its site. Gone, too, these many years, is the Cafe Momus, which stood in a back street by the old church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois, the hostelry celebrated by so many exploits of Murger's four heroes in "Scenes de la Vie de Boheme." It was here that Schaunard and Colline collected Rodolphe for the Bohemian brotherhood, and it became their home, not so much for meals, though it was the scene of their reckless Christmas Eve supper which introduced the saviour Barbemuche, but rather for the lighter _consommations_ over which, by the French custom, they could spend unlimited hours--a precious privilege when a cold garret was the only alternative. There was nothing fict.i.tious about the Cafe Momus; it was a real establishment serving some respectable shopkeepers of the quarter, when by some mischance, from the good M. Momus' point of view, it attracted the Bohemian horde of Murger, Champfleury, Nadar, Schann, Wallon, and many of the other "Buveurs d'Eau." Even on Murger's testimony, they must be admitted to have abused their privileges without shedding any very great glory in return, and we may take as fairly true the list of grievances which was drawn up by the proprietor against Rodolphe and his friends, from which it appears that they spent the whole day there from morning to midnight, making a desert round them with their strident voices and extravagant conversation; that Rodolphe carried off all the papers in the morning and complained if their bands were broken, and that by shouting every quarter of an hour for _Le Castor_, a journal of the hat trade edited by Rodolphe, the companions had forced a subscription on the proprietor; that Colline and Rodolphe played _tric-trac_ all day, refusing to give up the table to other people; that Marcel set up his easel in the _cafe_, and even went so far as to invite models of both s.e.xes; that Schaunard had expressed his intention of bringing his piano there, and that Phemie Teinturiere never wore a bonnet when she came to meet him; that, not content with ordering very little, the four friends presumed to make their own coffee on the premises; and that the waiter, corrupted by their influence, had seen fit to address an amatory poem to the _dame du comptoir_. Murger puts a touch of exaggeration into this complaint, but it is to be feared, nevertheless, that no trifling _dossier_ of misdemeanours could have been compiled against the originals of Rodolphe, Marcel, and the rest.

We have it on Delvau's authority, at all events, that the profit of their custom was quite disproportionate to its a.s.siduity, when he tells of their stratagem for obtaining asylum at small cost. The smallest possible order was a _demi-ta.s.se_, which consisted of a small cup of coffee, four lumps of sugar, and a thimbleful of cognac; this cost five sous, a sum of importance in Bohemia. The practice, therefore, was that a certain student, Joannis Guigard, who was of the band, went in first, ordered a _demi-ta.s.se_, and went upstairs to consume it. Murger would then arrive, ask if Guigard were upstairs, and run up. The rest followed in succession with the same question till the _cenacle_ was complete and in a position to have a sip of coffee and some hours of warmth for nothing. After a short while Momus grew tired of these troublesome customers and formally gave them notice to quit. They accepted the intimation, but vowed revenge. Accordingly, a few days later, one of the band turned up with six wet-nurses in his train, while another brought six funeral mutes. The rest of the band then arrived, and the Bohemian spokesman, probably Schann, delivered a flowery discourse upon the affinity of life and death, with allusions to their guests' professions.

He wound up by telling the mutes to bury the Cafe Momus and take the nurses as a reward. To make matters worse, he directed that the milk and beer which had been ordered should be warmed as a mixture. The mutes and nurses, furious at being thus deceived and insulted, broke into angry expostulations, and, aided by the jests of the Bohemians, the proceedings ended in a tremendous disturbance. Schann and two others were arrested, and the next day Momus sold his business.

The extent to which Bohemia, at its different phases, shared in the various pastimes of Paris cannot be determined with any accuracy, so much depended on individual taste and individual wealth. It is certain, however, that after 1837 gambling was not a Bohemian distraction, for in that year the public gaming-houses were closed. Before that time they were such a popular inst.i.tution that the early Bohemia cannot be conceived to have entirely eschewed it. At the beginning of "La Peau de Chagrin" Balzac draws a powerful picture of the wretched crowd that haunted the Palais Royal, where Raphael de Valentin lost his last gold coin at a single coup. There were no less than four gaming-houses in the Palais Royal, Nos. 9, 113, 124, and 129, where the minimum stake was two francs for roulette and five francs for trente-et-un. Besides the Palais Royal, there were Paphos, Frascati, and the select Cercle des etrangers. The popularity of gambling can be judged from the fact that the Treasury profited annually by it to the extent of five and a half million francs. Yet there is no record that the truly artistic members of Bohemia, like Gautier or Houssaye, so wasted time or money, while Murger and his friends were spared the temptation. In music, too, Bohemia played no very great part, in spite of the devotion of Champfleury, Barbara, and Schann to Beethoven's quartets. There was plenty of fine music to be heard in Paris during the time: Habeneck was introducing Beethoven's symphonies, Berlioz was revolutionizing orchestration, while Liszt, Chopin, Paganini, Vieuxtemps, and de Beriot were among the soloists. Certainly those Bohemians of the golden age who had access to the _salons_ of the Princess Belgiojoso or Madame de Girardin must often have heard these great artists, but it is not to be supposed that they were great supporters of concerts, unless it were of the Concerts Musard. These concerts, which won great fame through the personality of Musard, the conductor, began in 1833 in the Salle Saint-Honore;[31] their programmes were excellent and the prices low enough to attract the least well off. Musard had a genius for making _pot-pourris_ of operatic tunes and for introducing new effects, especially into dance music. His electric style of conducting made the Bals Musard far more popular than the great b.a.l.l.s at the Opera. He contrived a wonderful quadrille, for instance, out of "Les Huguenots,"

during which red lights were lit, tocsins pealed, tom-toms boomed, screams resounded, and the whole illusion of a ma.s.sacre was thrillingly kept up. He also composed a _contre-danse_ in the finale of which he broke a chair, and his triumph was a certain galop in which he discharged a pistol. This was thoroughly in keeping with the Romantic spirit, and after its first performance he was publicly chaired round the hall by the excited dancers. So far as pure music was concerned, however, it appealed most to Parisians in the form of opera. Meyerbeer's "Robert le Diable" and "Les Huguenots" produced frenzies of enthusiasm: no Romantic, consequently no Bohemian of Gautier's day, could afford not to have listened to them. Rossini's great vogue began at the same time, while Donizetti and Auber shared the honours of light opera till Offenbach appeared to carry all before him. Musical Bohemia was well educated, if not in composition, at least in execution, when it was possible to hear Duprez, Rubini, Lablache, Tamburini, Grisi, Mario, Persiani, and Pauline Viardot-Garcia. The ballet, too, with Carlotta Grisi, Taglioni, and f.a.n.n.y Elssler, was an additional attraction at the Opera. The devotion of _la Boheme galante_ to the _corps de ballet_ has appeared in an earlier chapter, and it was a devotion shared by most masculine society. Murger's Bohemia flourished after the greatest operatic enthusiasms, which its more cla.s.sically inclined members probably despised; but their exchequers were not of the sort to allow for tickets at the grand opera, though they turned up in force at the light operas of the Theatre Bobino. At this little theatre, more properly called the Theatre du Luxembourg, there was a continuous uproar made by Bohemians and students. When this grew too unbearable the manager would appear in his dressing-gown and protest that the police would arrive if the respectable inhabitants of the quarter were disturbed; whereupon the whole audience struck up as one man Gretry's air "Ou peut-on etre mieux qu'au sein de la famille?" accompanied by the wheezy orchestra and conducted by the manager himself. At such a scene Schaunard and Marcel must often have a.s.sisted.

Nevertheless, in the eyes of Bohemia, the glory of the opera paled entirely before that of the drama. There was not one Bohemian with any literary talent who did not try to write a play--nay, many plays--tragedies in alexandrines, comedies, or vaudevilles; and when they were not writing plays they were haunting the theatres as dramatic critics, selling their articles simply for the sake of a free entry, unless, like Lucien's immoral set, they added the profits of blackmail.

From the second _cenacle_ to the end of Murger's Bohemia there was no end so generally pursued as dramatic composition. Bouchardy and Augustus Mackeat were dramatists, so were Ourliac, a.r.s.ene Houssaye, and Gerard de Nerval; Gautier was a dramatic critic; Murger and Champfleury failed as vaudevillists; and it is quite likely that Rodolphe's magnificent drama, "Le Vengeur," had its counterpart in reality. The "poete echevele" and the humble _conteur_ alike turned their eyes continuously towards the stage, besieging luckless managers without cease. The reason of this was partly, as may be supposed, that a successful play, then as to-day, gave far quicker and more splendid pecuniary returns for labour than any other form of literary composition. A concrete instance of that is the case of Murger himself, who was set on his legs entirely by the sudden vogue of the dramatized "Scenes de la Vie de Boheme." But there was another reason at least as strong, far deeper, and more honourable. The stage, as I have already pointed out, was the battlefield of the Romantic struggle. "Hernani"

brought home the new truths to the public far more vividly than any novel or poem could have done; every night they were declaimed before compelled attention. It is not surprising, then, that the stage played so great a part in the amus.e.m.e.nts of Bohemia. It was, with one other, the chief of their pastimes. For them to listen to "Chatterton," the "Tour de Nesle," or "Antony" was not only a distraction, it was a frantic excitement which made their blood seethe almost painfully and sent geysers of hot eloquence from their lips as they munched the hot rolls of the Boulangerie Cretaine. These young enthusiasts were not stinted of good fare. Mademoiselle Mars, Marie Dorval, Rachel and Judith appeared at the Francais during these eighteen years; at the Folies-Dramatique Frederic Lemaitre created with enormous success the part of Robert Macaire; while at the Funambules Gaspard Deburau was winning eternal fame as the incomparable Pierrot. There were a host of other theatres besides, the Varietes, Porte Saint-Martin, Odeon, not to mention smaller ones, managed for the most part by men of taste, supplied with plays by men with some pretension to talent, and criticized by unsparing critics, from Jules Janin downwards, who knew what they wanted and did not hesitate to speak when they did not get it.

In the stage Bohemia found not only amus.e.m.e.nt and inspiration but part of its livelihood: it lived next door to that special world composed of actors and actresses. Yet, though Bohemians went to supper with Mademoiselle Mars, Dumas was very much at home with Marie Dorval, Roger de Beauvoir played pranks with Bache, and Rodolphe had a love affair with Mademoiselle Sidonie, the two worlds were definitely separated. In fact, the life of dramatic artists, whatsoever Bohemian flavouring it may have, has always had a mysterious taste of its own, incapable of mixture with any other blend of artistic life, so that, interesting as it may have been in Paris during these years, its omission from these pages has been intentional.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bal Masque a l'Opera]

The one other amus.e.m.e.nt--a pure pastime involving no material profit--which was particularly popular in Bohemia was dancing. In this respect Bohemia was no exception from the rest of Parisian society, for in all cla.s.ses there was an inextinguishable pa.s.sion for the dance. But the Bohemian, obeying only his own laws of social propriety, was in a more favourable position for taking full advantage of all public opportunities for this exercise and of all the _agrements_ in the way of casual intercourse with both s.e.xes which it implied. All the year round there were public b.a.l.l.s given in Paris, at which the Bohemian was in his element, giving rein to his inventive humour, his high spirits, and his gift of seductive gallantry. During the first few years after 1830, the golden age of Bohemia, the b.a.l.l.s at the Opera were the most frequented, especially in the days of the carnival. There masks and dominoes covered dancers of every rank in society, for even the _femme du monde_ slipped in unbeknown to her husband. This scene of utmost gaiety and brilliance, of which Balzac gives a picture at the opening of "Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes," was closely rivalled by the ball at the Varietes, at which a still more feverish excitement reigned. Or if the Bohemian preferred to make sure of a _grisette_ as a partner he went to the Prado, the site of which was opposite the Palais de Justice, where, under Pilodo, the famous conductor, he could join Louise la Balocheuse, Angelina l'Anglaise, or Ernestine Confortable in the giddy whirl. The waltz was recognized at this period, but the quadrille easily held the place of honour, especially as it lent itself more freely to individual invention, such as Ourliac's magnificent variation depicting the grandeur and fall of Napoleon. It was through this licence in the figures of the quadrille that the _chahut_ and the _cancan_ were introduced by the rakish set among the _viveurs_ which included Charles de la Battut, Alton-Shee, Monnier, and the famous Chicard--a leather-merchant who made a name by his grotesque costumes and wild dances, the term _chicard_, which degenerated into _chic_, becoming a general denomination for his imitators. I have not been able to arrive at the difference between the _chahut_ and the _cancan_, but both were originally primitive dances indulged in by the lowest cla.s.ses, quaint, but in all probability perfectly decent. The rage for extravagance during the early thirties changed them into formidable pantomimes of violence, if not always of indecency, which every complete reveller rendered with his own individual touch. Heine, in the course of one of his articles in the _Augsburg Gazette_, said of the _cancan_:

"It must be regarded simply as a pantomime of Robert Macairedom.

Anybody who has a general idea of the latter will understand those indescribable dances, expressions of _persiflage_ in dance, which not only mock s.e.xual relations, but civic relations too, all, in fact, that is good and beautiful, every kind of enthusiasm, patriotism, uprightness, faith, family feeling, heroism, divinity."

Heine's view is rather too Teutonic, for the popularity of the _cancan_ was due to the high spirits of the Romantic enthusiasm, and its degree of morality or immorality depended upon the individual dancer. Not much harm can be imagined to have dwelt in the dance-_persiflage_ of the Impa.s.se du Doyenne, whatever a Chicard or a Milord Arsouille may have made of it. The feature of public b.a.l.l.s, however, was certainly a Dionysiac exaltation which culminated in the final _galop infernal_, as it was called, into which Musard particularly infused a special fury. It was less a dance than a stampede of maniacs, who rushed round the room, men and women, clutching one another anyhow, wigs flying, tresses waving, dresses rent from fair shoulders, all shrieking and shouting, brandishing arms, kicking legs, and stamping heedlessly on those who were unlucky enough to fall.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Galop Infernal]

The b.a.l.l.s of the Opera declined in attraction and became dull about 1836, but they were revived with still greater splendour two years later, when Musard was made conductor and members of the ballet were drafted in to enliven the company. Such b.a.l.l.s, however, became too much public functions to suit the less splendid Bohemia of a later day, which found diversion more suited to its pocket and its manners at the Chaumiere or the Closerie des Lilas on the left bank. It was at such places as these that Rodolphe and Marcel disported themselves, and Schaunard was arrested for "ch.o.r.egraphie trop macabre." The Chaumiere was a large garden on the Boulevard Montparna.s.se, a miniature edition of Cremorne or Vauxhall, with a primitive shooting gallery, a skittle alley, and switchback. It was open all day for students to promenade after lectures and make their addresses to the _grisettes_ working under the trees. Its dances were very simple affairs; a few lamps and Chinese lanterns, a small orchestra, a bar for lemonade and _galette_ were all that the management supplied, the fun, of which they had enough and to spare, being the dancers' contribution.

The Closerie des Lilas, though less generally popular than the Chaumiere, was more particularly a.s.sociated with Bohemia than the latter, for Murger, Vitu, Fauchery, Theodore de Banville, and one or two others of that set frequented it regularly, as a French writer[32] says, "avec quelques compa.r.s.es sans importance," among whom, no doubt, were Mimi and Musette. This little dancing-hall began in 1838 as La Chartreuse, being so called because it was on the site of the old Carthusian monastery in the Rue d'Enfer. It was in some sort the trial-ground for those of the fair s.e.x who aspired to become stars of the Prado and the Chaumiere. Privat d'Anglemont has described it in a rare pamphlet as it was in its early days under its extraordinary manager, Carnaud. As La Chartreuse it was the most primitive kind of _guingette_, the dancing-place being a large marquee, into which one descended by a steep flight of steps. On the left were an orchestra and _cafe_, and the only ornaments were nine plaster statues representing the Muses, which were handily adapted for supporting petroleum lamps on their arms. "There," says Privat d'Anglemont, "decent dress was not _de rigueur_; one came as one liked, or rather as one could--the women in bonnets or, in default of other adornments, covered simply by their hair, and the men in blouses. It certainly was the most original bar in Paris. It had a physiognomy of its own, strange, quaint, even a little burlesque, but it existed. Its population was to be seen nowhere else; it seemed to exist only at the Chartreuse and for the Chartreuse. Since this ball disappeared its population has completely vanished."

[Ill.u.s.tration: La Guinguette]

Everything about the Chartreuse was original, not only the dancers and the dances but the orchestra, the music, and the manager. Every kind of "percussion" was added to the usual instruments, the noise of money-bags, pistol shots, rows of explosive caps, resounding anvils, and sheets of metal struck to represent the roaring of lions and tigers. All the music was composed by Carnaud himself, who was conductor, first violin, _restaurateur_, composer, and advertis.e.m.e.nt-writer in one. At every special _fete_ he invented a new quadrille and a new exotic word to describe it, such as "la fete des vendanges, quadrille dechirancochicandard," or "l'hotel des haricots,[33] avec accompaniments de chaines et de bruits de clefs, grand quadrille exhilarandeliranchocnosophe."

Carnaud was succeeded by the famous Bullier, who altered the name to the Closerie des Lilas and replaced the simple marquee by an Oriental palace with a garden, Moorish pavilions, billiard tables, swings, and a pistol-shooting gallery. A decent orchestra was installed and four admirable waiters. With these improvements the b.a.l.l.s, held every Sunday, Monday, and Thursday, began to attract the _beau monde_ of the Quartier Latin, and several of the dancers gained the coveted honour of a _sobriquet_. There were Jeanne la Juive, for instance, Maria les Yeux Bleus, Josephine Pochardinette, and the literary Clementine Pomponnette, who used to show her admirers a farce she had written "dans les loisirs que lui laissait l'amour." This transformation took place about 1847, and it was then that one of the Moorish pavilions was especially consecrated to Murger's Bohemian set. It is needless to say that the name of Bullier still remains in the Bal Bullier of to-day.

One other popular ball must be mentioned, the Bal Mabille, which for so long was one of the sights of Paris. This public ball was inst.i.tuted by Mabille, a dancing-master, in the Champs Elysees. The price of entrance at first was fifty centimes, with an extra fee for each quadrille, and in 1843 the whole of the dances were included in an initial sum of two francs. The fame of the Bal Mabille was due first to its polkas, a dance which became the rage at the time, and secondly to the most celebrated of polka-dancers, Elise Sergent, known as La Reine Pomare. Her dancing was a revelation of fire and pa.s.sion which won her recognition on the very first evening of her appearance. Crowds came to see her dance, articles were devoted to her by the journalists of the day, and Privat d'Anglemont wrote a sonnet to her. Paris, in fact, went mad about her, and she had many lovers, among whom, it is said, was Alphonse Karr, which brings her into some kind of connexion with Bohemia. But Reine Pomare and her rival, Celeste Mogador, who also made her _debut_ at Mabille, were too much on the plane of _grandes cocottes_ for any real relation with the Bohemia of their day. They might have danced for love at the Impa.s.se du Doyenne, but Schaunard and Marcel had nothing to offer them to compare with the splendour of the _viveurs_ which was laid at their feet. Bohemia found its pleasure at less expense and with less restraint in the company of Mimi and Musette in a Moorish pavilion at the Closerie des Lilas, where Colline's bad puns found appreciative listeners and Schaunard's _pas de fascination_ were greeted with rapturous applause.

XII

THE PARIS OF BOHEMIA

_Paris sombre et fumeux,_ _Ou deja, points brillants au front de maison ternes,_ _Luisent comme des yeux des milliers de lanternes;_ _Paris avec ses toits dechiquetes, ses tours_ _Qui ressemblent de loin a des cous de vautours,_ _Et ses clochers aigus a fleche dentelee,_ _Comme un peigne mordant la nue echevelee._

THeOPHILE GAUTIER

The last chapter was devoted to certain accidental adjuncts of _la vie de Boheme_ by way of general ill.u.s.tration, though they consisted of simple amus.e.m.e.nts common not only to the Parisians of the day but to civilized society of most epochs. The present chapter, which I have reserved till the last, might logically have claimed an earlier place, for its subject, as I have already pointed out, is distinctive of the society in which Bohemia played an important part. Bohemia, of course, neither monopolized Paris nor even a portion of it, but the Paris of Bohemia's florescence and decline was a unique background for these events, a necessary condition, though temporary in itself, which it would pa.s.s the bounds of human possibility to reconstruct. Interesting as it is to imagine correctly the dress of the Bohemian and his mistress, the places where they dined, or the gardens where they danced, the re-presentation of the city where they lived, so small, so sensitively vibrant, so congested, so hopelessly out of date, except for a few new patches, so dirty, so noisy, and so picturesque, ranks far higher in importance. Yet, though I might have put this chapter first, I choose to put it last because I cannot hope that it will be appreciated by any but those who have already some memory of Paris and on whom the spell of its fascination has, at least, been lightly cast. The general description of Bohemian life may provide some entertainment to those who know not Paris; for their sake I have sought not to break the general interest. My story is now told, and I am free to call those who have breathed, even for a moment, the quick breeze off the Seine or seen the sunshine strike through the trees in the Tuileries Gardens, to stay with me for a last look back upon that city of beauty and adventure which calls, like the East, to those who love it. To have gained even a superficial view of modern Paris, to have caught some of her accents and contrasts--the radiance of the Bois de Boulogne, the vivacity of the boulevards, the _cafes_ overflowing on to the pavements, the view from her bridges, the differences between the two banks, the mean alleys lurking mischievously at the back of splendid thoroughfares, the broadest omnibuses comically invading the narrowest streets--is to have formed some general notion with which an earlier Paris can be compared.

And with a reader who has penetrated deeper, whose nostrils yearn for her indescribably subtle perfume, who knows the different aspects of her streets from days of diligent tramping, who has seen her river blending with her sky in a hundred harmonies, who has felt her moods and her humours, finding like a true lover her blemishes as adorable as her perfections, who has recognized her past in her present, and who, though a stranger, has divined in ecstasy the wild throb of her romantic heart--with him my task is easier still. Such a one will already have guessed the intoxication of the air which a Roger de Beauvoir delicately breathed, when Paris, her spirit newly quickened with the exhilaration of a potent elixir, was yet unspoiled by modern cosmopolitan vulgarity, and her inner soul shone out, through all her deformities and incongruities, with a gay and unmasked confidence.

She did not shine before an unseeing generation, for the Parisians of the Romantic age adored their city, dandies, Bohemians, and _bourgeois_ alike, all pa.s.sionately conscious of their privileged citizenship, though they could admit with Maxime du Camp that under Louis Philippe she was "one of the dirtiest, the most tortuous, and the most unhealthy"

in the world. As they lived in her, so they wrote of her--with pride.

Victor Hugo did her great homage in "Notre Dame de Paris" and "Les Miserables," Eugene Sue in "Les Mysteres de Paris," and Paul de k.o.c.k in all his work, but these achievements appear as slight and partial sketches beside the wonderful and penetrating picture which Balzac drew of Paris--at once the background and the protagonist--in his greatest novels. Balzac, besides giving us a world, gave us a great city. Minute as were the studies he made of the provinces, they are nothing to the picture that he drew of the city which he regarded as the brain of the whole world, the leader of its civilization. He gloated over Paris as a scientist gloats over an interesting organism that he has first observed and then skilfully dissected. He had dissected Paris even on the threshold of his career. In some of his early stories, like a brilliant young surgeon fresh from his researches, he overweights the matter in hand with the results of the laboratory. "Ferragus" begins with a long comparison of the streets of Paris; "La Fille aux Yeux d'Or" with a marvellous tirade on the restless race for money and pleasure that is run by all cla.s.ses, a tirade which, probing as it does all the strata of society, is an epitome, in some sort, of all his work. Paris, that small _enceinte_ which was enclosed within what is now the second line of _boulevards_, still innocent of the reforming hand of Haussmann, becoming rich, but hardly yet industrial, not yet the pleasure-ground of all the world, dest.i.tute of railways, squalid, ill-kept, nevertheless was transformed by his wonderful imagination into the type of all great cities, which will ever remain true. To him she was "le plus delicieux des monstres," as he says in "Ferragus." "Mais, o Paris," he cries, "qui n'a pas admire tes sombres paysages, tes echappees de lumiere, tes culs-de-sac profonds et silencieux; qui n'a pas entendu tes murmures, entre minuit et deux heures du matin, ne connait encore rien de ta vraie poesie, ni de tes bizarres et larges contrastes. Il est un pet.i.t nombre de gens ... qui degustent leur Paris.... Pour ceux-la Paris est triste ou gai, laid ou beau, vivant ou mort; pour eux Paris est une creature; chaque homme, chaque fraction de maison est un lobe du tissu cellulaire de cette grande courtisane de laquelle ils connaissent parfaitement la tete, le cur et les murs fantasques. Aussi ceux-la sont les amants de Paris...."

There are a happy few to whom it would be enough to say that the Paris of Bohemia was the Paris of Balzac--such devotees, I mean, as have thought it worth while to pay attention to that accurate topography in which Balzac took so great a pride, following it in a contemporary map so that, in their walks about the modern city, streets and houses incessantly recall his characters and his scenes. But life is short for such agreeable exercises, so this chapter must inadequately proceed. I have already touched on the social implications of Louis Philippe's Paris, its smallness and its diminutive population, and my present aim is simply to present more fully its external aspect, which changed so quickly after 1848. The rapidity of the change may well be judged by a pa.s.sage in Theophile Gautier's article[34] on Paul de k.o.c.k, published in 1870. No apology is necessary for transcribing it:

"Those [he says] who were born after the Revolution of February 24, 1848, or a little before, cannot imagine what the Paris was like in which the heroes and heroines of Paul de k.o.c.k move; it resembled Paris of to-day so little that I sometimes ask myself, on seeing these broad streets, these great boulevards, these vast squares, these interminable lines of monumental houses, these splendid quarters which have replaced the market-gardens, if it is really the city in which I pa.s.sed my childhood. Paris, which is on the way to become the metropolis of the world, was then only the capital of France. One met French people, even Parisians, in its streets. No doubt foreigners came there, as always, to find pleasure and instruction; but the means of transport were difficult, the ideal of rapidity did not rise above the cla.s.sic mail-coach, and the locomotive, even in the form of a chimera, was not yet taking shape in the mists of the future. The physiognomy of the population had not therefore sensibly changed.

"The provinces stayed at home much more than now, only coming to Paris on urgent business. One could hear French spoken on that boulevard which was then called the Boulevard de Gand and which is now called the Boulevard des Italiens. One frequently saw a type which is becoming rare and which, for me, is the pure Parisian type--white skin, pink cheeks, brown hair, light grey eyes, a well-shaped figure of moderate stature, and, in the women, a delicate plumpness hiding small bones. Olive complexions and black hair were rare; the South had not yet invaded us with its pa.s.sionately pale tints and its furious gesticulations. The general aspect of faces was therefore rosy and smiling, with an air of health and good humour. Complexions now considered _distingues_ would at that time have caused suspicions of illness.

"The city was relatively very small, or at least its activity was restricted within certain limits that were seldom pa.s.sed. The plaster elephant in which Gavroche found shelter raised its enormous silhouette on the Place de la Bastille, and seemed to forbid pa.s.sers-by to go any further. The Champs Elysees, as soon as night fell, became more dangerous than the plain of Marathon; the most adventurous stopped at the Place de la Concorde. The quarter of Notre Dame de Lorette only included vague plots of ground or wooden fences. The church was not built, and one could see from the boulevard the b.u.t.te Montmartre, with its windmills and its semaph.o.r.e waving its arms on the top of the old tower. The Faubourg Saint-Germain went early to bed, and its solitude was but rarely disturbed by a tumult of students over a play at the Odeon.

Journeys from one quarter to another were less frequent; omnibuses did not exist, and there were sensible differences of feature, costume, and accent between a native of the Rue du Temple and an inhabitant of the Rue Montmartre."

Gautier is referring in this pa.s.sage to the Paris of his childhood, in the second decade of the nineteenth century, but, though by his Bohemian days the Church of Notre Dame de Lorette had been built, omnibuses had been inst.i.tuted, and railway stations were about to break out on the face of Paris, his picture would have remained substantially true of Paris during the whole of Louis Philippe's reign. There was a certain amount of change during the time: the Palais Royal declined in popularity, ceasing to be "a scene of extravagance, dissipation, and debauchery not to be equalled in the world," as Coghlan's "Guide to Paris" put it; a few old houses were pulled down here and there, and the desert patches on the outskirts began to be filled by a straggling population, but, in general, Louis Philippe's Paris can be considered as a stable whole. Most visitors to Paris do not, of course, realize the boundaries of the large circle which now forms the city, for they enjoy themselves at the centre, though they may, perhaps, remember how far from the terminus a train pa.s.ses the fortifications. In Louis Philippe's day the outer line of boulevards, on which stood the fortifications and _barrieres_, was that second ring of to-day which even visitors reach at times; a _barriere_ existed at the Arc de Triomphe, at the Place Pigalle, where the amus.e.m.e.nts of Montmartre only just begin, at the cemeteries of Pere Lachaise and Montparna.s.se. The actual diameter of the city was then about three miles, but for all practical purposes it was little more than two, for the outskirts were still occupied by large market-gardens, plots of land acquired for future use by speculators, with here and there some mushroom rows of houses, half finished and nearly empty, the work of a bankrupt who had too far antic.i.p.ated the coming boom, farmyards, chicken-runs, cow-stalls, gra.s.s, odd weeds, and all the disfigurements of a landscape over which the impending march of a city has thrown a blight. Only on the northern heights were there still windmills and vineyards. These outskirts had only a scanty population, for there were no thousands of workpeople to spread over the heights of Belleville or Menilmontant, or southwards over Montrouge, so that it was easy for a starveling company of Bohemians, headed by the Desbrosses and Murger, to find shelter in an old farm by the Barriere d'Enfer--now the busy Place Denfert-Rochereau--or for Balzac's Colonel Chabert to live in a tumble-down cottage well inside the boundaries. The fact was, as the dramatist Victorien Sardou has said in a pa.s.sage of reminiscence,[35] that under Louis Philippe one-third of the total surface of Paris was not built on. There were gardens everywhere, except in the very centre of the city, and on the left bank, especially, houses were only dotted in the midst of orchards, kitchen-gardens, farmyards, and parks. It was this fact that made Paris, however quick the flame that burnt at her heart, in most respects a provincial city.

Only in such a city could Bohemia perfectly have realized itself; an industrial metropolis would have swallowed it or brushed it contemptuously aside.

Paris, then, compared with herself of to-day, would have been almost unrecognizable. There was no sign of the rich and luxurious quarter which has grown up round the Champs Elysees, with its magnificent hotels and fine mansions. The Champs Elysees were used during the daytime for riding or driving, but there was hardly a house to be seen except two or three wretched _cafes_. After sunset it was madness to go past the _rond-point_, for beyond was the home of thieves and cut-throats, the Bois de Boulogne, needless to say, being in a much more wild state than to-day. The Parc Monceau was practically in the country, and even the Quartier du Roule, by the top of the Boulevard Malesherbes, was all market-gardens when Rosa Bonheur lived there as a child. As for the Batignolles, that Kensington of modern Paris, its repute was as unsavoury as that of the London fields now respectably covered by Sloane Square and Sloane Street. The quarter chosen by wealth, as opposed to blue blood, which lived in dreary _hotels_ surrounded by high walls in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, lay in the neighbourhood of the present Saint-Lazare terminus. The favourite street was the Rue de la Pepiniere, continued by the Rue Saint-Lazare. Only a small part of the Rue de la Pepiniere is now left, most of it being called the Rue La Boetie, but it retains its old name between the Boulevard Malesherbes and the Rue Saint-Lazare. Another fashionable street was the Rue de Provence, which runs parallel to the south of the Rue Saint-Lazare. In the former was the famous house inhabited successively by seven of Balzac's courtesans,[36] in the latter the charming house of Baron Nucingen.

Every Englishman knows the clamour and smell and garish shops of the Rue Saint-Lazare to-day, and the Rue de Provence is just a plain _bourgeois_ thoroughfare of shops, _cafes_, flats, and a post-office.

The fashionable boulevards have already appeared in a previous chapter, but a word must be said of the difference between the then and now of that brilliant corner of Paris which most Europeans and Americans see once before they die. To-day, without a doubt, the Boulevard des Capucines, which stretches from the Madeleine to the Opera, has the most distinguished and luxurious appearance. The Boulevard des Italiens beyond the Opera is dowdier and more workaday. In the days of Bohemia the Boulevard des Capucines had no social existence. It had as yet not been levelled with the Rue Ba.s.se du Rempart, which, some fifteen feet below it, followed the course of the ancient moat; it was flanked by plots of land on which new houses were being erected, and its only traffic was the omnibus which jogged between the Madeleine and the Bastille. The present Opera-house and Place de l'Opera were not existent, for the Opera stood just off the Boulevard des Italiens, beyond Tortoni's, while the Rue de la Paix came quietly into the boulevard at a sharp angle, instead of arriving in that busy open s.p.a.ce, with Cook's office as its centre, over which traffic plies in all directions with bewildering activity. The Avenue de l'Opera, also, was not known to Bohemia. At that day a pedestrian who wished to go direct from the top of the Rue de la Paix to the Louvre had to thread a maze of narrow streets--an example of which remains in the Rue des Pet.i.ts Champs--which became meaner and more sinister as he neared the Louvre.

The Louvre quarter, so close to brilliance and luxury, was a squalid plague-spot, that has since been thoroughly cleansed. The brotherhood of the Impa.s.se du Doyenne, I suspect, were careful to have a companion when they ascended the Rue Froidmanteau or the Rue Traversiere after dark. If one crosses the Avenue de l'Opera between the entrance of the Rue de l'Ech.e.l.le on one side and the Rue Moliere on the other, one will have exactly traversed the site of the infamous Rue de Langlade where in "Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes" Vautrin found Esther la Torpille on the verge of death, _a propos_ of which Balzac has a lurid pa.s.sage on the thick shadows, the flickering lights, the phantom forms, and disquieting sounds which characterized at nightfall this _lacis de pet.i.tes rues_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Rue St. Denis]

On the north-east and the east of the Louvre lay the most unregenerate portion of Paris, a district as tortuous, narrow, and unhealthy as in the Middle Ages, yet the centre of Parisian commerce. Even to-day the visitor may wonder that such a district can exist in a capital city, when he ventures into the Rue Quincampoix, the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, and the other alleys which cut them at right angles. But at least this quarter has been cleared by the thorough reorganization of the Halles and by the construction of some large arteries, the Boulevard de Sebastopol, the Rue Rambuteau, the Rue Etienne Marcel, and the Rue de Turbigo. It is sufficient to glance at a map of Louis Philippe's Paris, such as Dulaure's, to see what a maze it was then. Save for the two narrow thoroughfares, the Rue Saint-Martin and the Rue Saint-Denis, going from north to south, it had hardly a single continuous street. A stroll in the region of the old church of Saint-Merri will show many of these streets in their original dimensions; there is the Rue des Lombards, for instance, where Balzac's Matifat presided over the wholesale drug market, and the Rue Aubry le Boucher, formerly the Rue des Cinq Diamants, where in the virtuous Anselme Popinot's shop the first measures were taken for the reconstruction of Cesar Birotteau's shattered fortunes. The darkness and insalubrity of this quarter are specially commented on at the beginning of Balzac's "Une Double Famille," where he says that a pedestrian coming from the Marais quarter to the quays near the Hotel de Ville by the Rue de l'Homme Arme and other streets--practically the route of the present Rue des Archives down to the Place Lobau--would think he was walking in underground cellars. This unsavoury network in the day of Bohemia continued right on to the quays, which have now been cleared by the construction of the Theatre and Place du Chatelet, the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt, the Place de l'Hotel de Ville, and the Place Lobau with its barracks. But in Louis Philippe's reign the Rue de la Vieille Lanterne, where poor Gerard de Nerval was found hanged, occupied the site of the stage of the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt, and instead of the Place Lobau the Rue de la Tixanderie and the Rue du Tourniquet-Saint-Jean forked at the back of the Hotel de Ville. The house described in "Une Double Famille" stood in the Rue du Tourniquet-Saint-Jean, which was only five feet wide at its broadest and only cleaned when flooded by a shower. The inhabitants lit their lamps at five in June and never put them out in winter.