An Englishman in Paris: Notes and Recollections

by Albert D. Vandam

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

The Quartier-Latin in the late thirties — The difference between then and now — A caricature on the walls of Paris — I am anxious to be introduced to the quarter whence it emanated — I am taken to "La Childebert," and make the acquaintance of the original of the caricature — The story of Bouginier and his nose — Dantan as a caricaturist — He abandons that branch of art after he has made Madame Malibran burst into tears at the sight of her statuette — How Bouginier came to be immortalized on the façade of the Passage du Caire — One of the first co-operative societies in France — An artists' hive — The origin of "La Childebert" — Its tenants in my time — The proprietress — Madame Chanfort, the providence of poor painters — Her portraits sold after her death — High jinks at "La Childebert" — The Childebertians and their peacefully inclined neighbours — Gratuitous baths and compulsory douches at "La Childebert" — The proprietress is called upon to repair the roof — The Childebertians bivouac on the Place St. Germain-des-Prés — They start a "Society for the Conversion of the Mahometans" — The public subscribe liberally — What becomes of the subscriptions? — My visits to "La Childebert" breed a taste for the other amusements of the Quartier-Latin — Bobino and its entertainments — The audience — The manager — His stereotyped speech — The reply in chorus — Woe to the bourgeois-intruder — Stove-pipe hats a rarity in the Quartier-Latin — The dress of the collegians — Their mode of living — Suppers when money was flush, rolls and milk when it was not — A fortune-teller in the Rue de Tournon — Her prediction as to the future of Joséphine de Beauharnais — The allowance to students in those days — The Odéon deserted — Students' habits — The Chaumière — Rural excursions — Père Bonvin's [1]

CHAPTER II.

My introduction to the celebrities of the day — The Café de Paris — The old Prince Demidoff — The old man's mania — His sons — The furniture and attendance at the Café de Paris — Its high prices — A mot of Alfred de Musset — The cuisine — A rebuke of the proprietor to Balzac — A version by one of his predecessors of the cause of Vatel's suicide — Some of the habitués — Their intercourse with the attendants — Their courteous behaviour towards one another — Le veau à la casserole — What Alfred de Musset, Balzac, and Alexandre Dumas thought of it — A silhouette of Alfred de Musset — His brother Paul on his election as a member of the Académie — A silhouette of Balzac, between sunset and sunrise — A curious action against the publishers of an almanack — A full-length portrait of Balzac — His pecuniary embarrassments — His visions of wealth and speculations — His constant neglect of his duties as a National Guard — His troubles in consequence thereof — L'Hôtel des Haricots — Some of his fellow-prisoners — Adam, the composer of "Le Postillon de Lonjumeau" — Eugène Sue; his portrait — His dandyism — The origin of the Paris Jockey Club — Eugène Sue becomes a member — The success of "Les Mystères de Paris" — The origin of "Le Juif-Errant" — Sue makes himself objectionable to the members of the Jockey Club — His name struck off the list — His decline and disappearance [24]

CHAPTER III.

Alexandre Dumas père — Why he made himself particularly agreeable to Englishmen — His way of silencing people — The pursuit he loved best next to literature — He has the privilege of going down to the kitchens of the Café de Paris — No one questions his literary genius, some question his culinary capacities — Dr. Véron and his cordon-bleu — Dr. Véron's reasons for dining out instead of at home — Dr. Véron's friend, the philanthropist, who does not go to the theatre because he objects to be hurried with his emotions — Dr. Véron, instigated by his cook, accuses Dumas of having collaborateurs in preparing his dishes as he was known to have collaborateurs in his literary work — Dumas' wrath — He invites us to a dinner which shall be wholly cooked by him in the presence of a delegate to be chosen by the guests — The lot falls upon me — Dr. Véron and Sophie make the amende honorable — A dinner-party at Véron's — A curious lawsuit in connection with Weber's "Freyschutz" — Nestor Roqueplan, who became the successor of the defendant in the case, suggests a way out of it — Léon Pillet virtually adopts it and wins the day — A similar plan adopted years before by a fireman on duty at the opéra, on being tried by court-martial for having fallen asleep during the performance of "Guido et Génevra" — Firemen not bad judges of plays and operas — They were often consulted both by Meyerbeer and Dumas — Dumas at work — How he idled his time away — Dumas causes the traffic receipts of the Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest to swell during his three years' residence at Saint-Germain — M. de Montalivet advises Louis-Philippe to invite Dumas to Versailles, to see what his presence will do for the royal city — Louis-Philippe does not act upon the advice — The relations between Dumas and the d'Orléans family — After the Revolution of '48, Dumas becomes a candidate for parliament — The story of his canvass and his address to the electors at Joigny — Dumas' utter indifference to money matters — He casts his burdens upon others — Dumas and his creditors — Writs and distraints — How they are dealt with — Dumas' indiscriminate generosity — A dozen houses full of new furniture in half as many years — Dumas' frugality at table — Literary remuneration — Dumas and his son — "Leave me a hundred francs" [43]

CHAPTER IV.

Dr. Louis Véron — The real man as distinguished from that of his own "Memoirs" — He takes the management of the Paris Opéra — How it was governed before his advent — Meyerbeer's "Robert le Diable" underlined — Meyerbeer and his doubts upon the merits of his work — Meyerbeer's generosity — Meyerbeer and the beggars of the Rue Le Peletier — Dr. Véron, the inventor of the modern newspaper puff — Some specimens of advertisements in their infancy — Dr. Véron takes a leaf from the book of Molière — Dr. Véron's love of money — His superstitions — His objections to travelling in railways — He quotes the Queen of England as an example — When Queen Victoria overcomes her objection, Véron holds out — "Queen Victoria has got a successor: the Véron dynasty begins and ends with me" — Thirteen at table — I make the acquaintance of Taglioni — The woman and the ballerian — Her adventure at Perth — An improvised performance of "Nathalie, la Laitière Suisse" — Another adventure in Russia — A modern Claude Du-Val — My last meeting with Taglioni — A dinner-party at De Morny's — A comedy scene between husband and wife — Flotow, the composer of "Martha" — His family — His father's objection to the composer's profession — The latter's interview with M. de Saint-Georges, the author of the libretto of Balfe's "Bohemian Girl" — M. de Saint-Georges prevails upon the father to let his son study in Paris for five years, and to provide for him during that time — The supplies are stopped on the last day of the fifth year — Flotow, at the advice of M. de Saint-Georges, stays on and lives by giving piano-lessons — His earthly possessions at his first success — "Rob Roy" at the Hôtel Castellane — Lord Granville's opinion of the music — The Hôtel Castellane and some Paris salons during Louis-Philippe's reign — The Princesse de Lieven's, M. Thiers', etc. — What Madame de Girardin's was like — Victor Hugo's — Perpetual adoration; very artistic, but nothing to eat or to drink — The salon of the ambassador of the Two Sicilies — Lord and Lady Granville at the English Embassy — The salon of Count Apponyi — A story connected with it — Furniture and entertainments — Cakes, ices, and tea; no champagne as during the Second Empire — The Hôtel Castellane and its amateur theatricals — Rival companies — No under-studies — Lord Brougham at the Hôtel Castellane — His bad French and his would-be Don Juanism — A French rendering of Shakespeare's "There is but one step between the sublime and the ridiculous," as applied to Lord Brougham — He nearly accepts a part in a farce where his bad French is likely to produce a comic effect — His successor as a murderer of the language — M. de Saint-Georges — Like Molière, he reads his plays to his housekeeper — When the latter is not satisfied, the dinner is spoilt, however great the success of the play in public estimation — Great men and their housekeepers — Turner, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Eugène Delacroix [62]

CHAPTER V.