The Boulevards in the forties — The Chinese Baths — A favourite tobacconist of Alfred de Musset — The price of cigars — The diligence still the usual mode of travelling — Provincials in Paris — Parliamentary see-saw between M. Thiers and M. Guizot — Amenities of editors — An advocate of universal suffrage — Distribution of gratuitous sausages to the working man on the king's birthday — The rendezvous of actors in search of an engagement — Frédérick Lemaître on the eve of appearing in a new part — The Legitimists begin to leave their seclusion and to mingle with the bourgeoisie — Alexandre Dumas and Scribe — The latter's fertility as a playwright — The National Guards go shooting, in uniform and in companies, on the Plaine Saint-Denis — Vidocq's private inquiry office in the Rue Vivienne — No river-side resorts — The plaster elephant on the Place de la Bastille — The sentimental romances of Loïsa Puget — The songs of the working classes — Cheap bread and wine — How they enjoyed themselves on Sundays and holidays — Théophile Gautier's pony-carriage — The hatred of the bourgeoisie — Nestor Roqueplan's expression of it — Gavarni's — M. Thiers' sister keeps a restaurant at the corner of the Rue Drouot — When he is in power, the members of the Opposition go and dine there, and publish facetious accounts of the entertainment — All appearances to the contrary, people like Guizot better than Thiers — But few entries for the race for wealth in those days — The Rothschilds still live in the Rue Lafitte — Favourite lounges — The Boulevards, the Rue Le Peletier, and the Passage de l'Opéra — The Opéra — The Rue Le Peletier and its attractions — The Restaurant of Paolo Broggi — The Estaminet du Divan — Literary waiters and Boniface — Major Fraser — The mystery surrounding his origin — Another mysterious personage — The Passage de l'Opéra is invaded by the stockjobbers, and loses its prestige as a promenade — Bernard Latte's, the publisher of Donizetti's operas, becomes deserted — Tortoni's — Louis-Blanc — His scruples as an editor — A few words about duelling — Two tragic meetings — Lola Montès — Her adventurous career — A celebrated trial — My first meeting with Gustave Flaubert, the author of "Madame Bovary" and "Salambô" — Émile de Girardin — His opinion of duelling — My decision with regard to it — The original of "La Dame aux Camélias" — Her parentage — Alexandre Dumas gives the diagnosis of her character in connection with his son's play — L'Homme au Caméllia — M. Lautour-Mézerai, the inventor of children's periodical literature in France — Auguste Lireux — He takes the management of the Odéon — Balzac again — His schemes, his greed — Lireux more fortunate with other authors — Anglophobia on the French stage — Gallophobia on the English stage [86]
CHAPTER VI.
Rachel and some of her fellow-actors — Rachel's true character — Her greediness and spitefulness — Her vanity and her wit — Her powers of fascination — The cost of being fascinated by her — Her manner of levying toll — Some of her victims, Comte Duchâtel and Dr. Véron — The story of her guitar — A little transaction between her and M. Fould — Her supposed charity and generosity — Ten tickets for a charity concert — How she made them into twenty — How she could have made them into a hundred — Baron Taylor puzzled — Her manner of giving presents — Beauvallet's precaution with regard to one of her gifts — Alexandre Dumas the younger, wiser or perhaps not so wise in his generation — Rachel as a raconteuse — The story of her début at the Gymnase — What Rachel would have been as an actor instead of an actress — Her comic genius — Rachel's mother — What became of Rachel's money — Mama Félix as a pawnbroker — Rachel's trinkets — Two curious bracelets — Her first appearance before Nicholas I. — A dramatic recital in the open air — Rachel's opinion of the handsomest man in Europe — Rachel and Samson — Her obligations to him — How she repays them — How she goes to Berryer to be coached in the fable of "The Two Pigeons" — An anecdote of Berryer — Rachel's fear of a "warm reception" on the first night of "Adrienne Lecouvreur" — How she averts the danger — Samson as a man and as an actor — Petticoat-revolts at the Comédie-Française — Samson and Régnier as buffers — Their different ways of pouring oil upon the troubled waters — Mdlle. Sylvanie Plessy — A parallel between her and Sarah Bernhardt — Samson and Régnier's pride in their profession — The different character of that pride — "Apollo with a bad tailor, and who dresses without a looking-glass" — Samson gives a lesson in declamation to a procureur-impérial — The secret of Régnier's greatness as an actor — A lesson at the Conservatoire — Régnier on "make-up" — Régnier's opinion of genius on the stage — A mot of Augustine Brohan — Giovanni, the wigmaker of the Comédie-Française — His pride in his profession — M. Ancessy, the musical director, and his three wigs [128]
Two composers, Auber and Félicien David — Auber, the legend of his youthful appearance — How it arose — His daily rides, his love of women's society — His mot on Mozart's "Don Juan" — The only drawback to Auber's enjoyment of women's society — His reluctance to take his hat off — How he managed to keep it on most of the time — His opinion upon Meyerbeer's and Halévy's genius — His opinion upon Gérard de Nerval, who hanged himself with his hat on — His love of solitude — His fondness of Paris — His grievance against his mother for not having given him birth there — He refuses to leave Paris at the commencement of the siege — His small appetite — He proposes to write a new opera when the Prussians are gone — Auber suffers no privations, but has difficulty in finding fodder for his horse — The Parisians claim it for food — Another legend about Auber's independence of sleep — How and where he generally slept — Why Auber snored in Véron's company, and why he did not in that of other people — His capacity for work — Auber a brilliant talker — Auber's gratitude to the artists who interpreted his work, but different from Meyerbeer's — The reason why, according to Auber — Jealousy or humility — Auber and the younger Coquelin — "The verdict on all things in this world may be summed up in the one phrase, 'It's an injustice'" — Félicien David — The man — The beginnings of his career — His terrible poverty — He joins the Saint-Simoniens, and goes with some of them to the East — Their reception at Constantinople — M. Scribe and the libretto of "L'Africaine" — David in Egypt at the court of Mehemet-Ali — David's description of him — Mehemet's way of testing the educational progress of his sons — Woe to the fat kine — Mehemet-Ali suggests a new mode of teaching music to the inmates of the harem — Félicien David's further wanderings in Egypt — Their effect upon his musical genius — His return to France — He tells the story of the first performance of "Le Désert" — An ambulant box-office — His success — Fame, but no money — He sells the score of "Le Désert" — He loses his savings — "La Perle du Brésil" and the Coup-d'État — "No luck" — Napoléon III. remains his debtor for eleven years — A mot of Auber, and one of Alexandre Dumas père — The story of "Aïda" — Why Félicien David did not compose the music — The real author of the libretto [152]
CHAPTER VIII.
Three painters, and a school for pifferari — Gabriel Decamps, Eugène Delacroix, and Horace Vernet — The prices of pictures in the forties — Delacroix' find no purchasers at all — Decamps' drawings fetch a thousand francs each — Decamps not a happy man — The cause of his unhappiness — The man and the painter — He finds no pleasure in being popular — Eugène Delacroix — His contempt for the bourgeoisie — A parallel between Delacroix and Shakespeare — Was Delacroix tall or short? — His love of flowers — His delicate health — His personal appearance — His indifference to the love-passion — George Sand and Delacroix — A miscarried love-scene — Delacroix' housekeeper, Jenny Leguillou — Delacroix does not want to pose as a model for one of George Sand's heroes — Delacroix as a writer — His approval of Carlyle's dictum, "Show me how a man sings," etc. — His humour tempered by his reverence — His failure as a caricaturist — His practical jokes on would-be art-critics — Delacroix at home — His dress while at work — Horace Vernet's, Paul Delaroche's, Ingres' — Early at work — He does not waste time over lunch — How he spent his evenings — His dislike of being reproduced in marble or on canvas after his death — Horace Vernet — The contrast between the two men and the two artists — Vernet's appearance — His own account of how he became a painter — Moral and mental resemblance to Alexandre Dumas père — His political opinions — Vernet and Nicholas I. — A bold answer — His opinion on the mental state of the Romanoffs — The comic side of Vernet's character — He thinks himself a Vauban — His interviews with M. Thiers — His admiration for everything military — His worship of Alfred de Vigny — His ineffectual attempts to paint a scene in connection with the storming of Constantine — Laurent-Jan proposes to write an epic on it — He gives a synopsis of the cantos — Laurent-Jan lives "on the fat of the land" for six months — A son of Napoléon's companion in exile, General Bertrand — The chaplain of "la Belle-Poule" — The first French priest who wore the English dress — Horace Vernet and the veterans of "la grande armée" — His studio during their occupancy of it as models — His budget — His hatred of pifferari — A professor — The Quartier-Latin revisited [164]
CHAPTER IX.
Louis-Philippe and his family — An unpublished theatrical skit on his mania for shaking hands with every one — His art of governing, according to the same skit — Louis-Philippe not the ardent admirer of the bourgeoisie he professed to be — The Faubourg Saint-Germain deserts the Tuileries — The English in too great a majority — Lord ——'s opinion of the dinners at the Tuileries — The attitude of the bourgeoisie towards Louis-Philippe, according to the King himself — Louis-Philippe's wit — His final words on the death of Talleyrand — His love of money — He could be generous at times — A story of the Palais-Royal — Louis-Philippe and the Marseillaise — Two curious stories connected with the Marseillaise — Who was the composer of it? — Louis-Philippe's opinion of the throne, the crown, and the sceptre of France as additions to one's comfort — His children, and especially his sons, take things more easily — Even the Bonapartists admired some of the latter — A mot of an imperialist — How the boys were brought up — Their nocturnal rambles later on — The King himself does not seem to mind those escapades, but is frightened at M. Guizot hearing of them — Louis-Philippe did not understand Guizot — The recollection of his former misery frequently haunts the King — He worries Queen Victoria with his fear of becoming poor — Louis-Philippe an excellent husband and father — He wants to write the libretto of an opera on an English subject — His religion — The court receptions ridiculous — Even the proletariat sneer at them — The entrée of the Duchesse d'Orléans into Paris — The scene in the Tuileries gardens — A mot of Princesse Clémentine on her father's too paternal solicitude — A practical joke of the Prince de Joinville — His caricatures and drawings — The children inherited their talent for drawing and modelling from their mother — The Duc de Nemours as a miniature and water-colour painter — Suspected of being a Legitimist — All Louis-Philippe's children great patrons of art — How the bourgeoisie looked upon their intercourse with artists — The Duc de Nemours' marvellous memory — The studio of Eugène Lami — His neighbours, Paul Delaroche and Honoré de Balzac — The Duc de Nemours' bravery called in question — The Duc d'Aumale's exploits in Algeria considered mere skirmishes — A curious story of spiritism — The Duc d'Aumale a greater favourite with the world than any of the other sons of Louis-Philippe — His wit — The Duc d'Orléans also a great favourite — His visits to Decamps' studio — An indifferent classical scholar — A curious kind of black-mail — His indifference to money — There is no money in a Republic — His death — A witty reply to the Legitimists [185]