An Englishman in Paris: Notes and Recollections

by Albert D. Vandam

CHAPTER I.

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.

Long before Baron Haussmann began his architectural transformation, many parts of Paris had undergone changes, perceptible only to those who had been brought up among the inhabitants, though distinct from them in nationality, education, habits, and tastes. Paris became to a certain extent, and not altogether voluntarily, cosmopolitan before the palatial mansions, the broad avenues, the handsome public squares which subsequently excited the admiration of the civilized world had been dreamt of, and while its outer aspect was as yet scarcely modified. This was mainly due to the establishment of railways, which caused in the end large influxes of foreigners and provincials, who as it were drove the real Parisian from his haunts. Those visitors rarely penetrated in large numbers to the very heart of the Quartier-Latin. When they crossed the bridges that span the Seine, it was to see the Sorbonne, the Panthéon, the Observatory, the Odéon, and the Luxembourg; they rarely stayed after nightfall. The Prado, the Théâtre Bobino, the students' taverns, escaped their observation when there was really something to see; and now, when the Closerie des Lilas has become the Bal Bullier, when the small theatre has been demolished, and when the taverns are in no way distinguished from other Parisian taverns—when, in short, commonplace pervades the whole—people flock thither very often. But during the whole of the forties, and even later, the rive gauche, with its Quartier-Latin and adjacent Faubourg St. Germain, were almost entirely sacred from the desecrating stare of the deliberate sightseer; and, consequently, the former especially, preserved its individuality, not only materially, but mentally and morally—immorally would perhaps have been the word that would have risen to the lips of the observer who lacked the time and inclination to study the life led there deeper than it appeared merely on the surface. For though there was a good deal of roystering and practical joking, and short-lasted liaison, there was little of deliberate vice, of strategic libertinism—if I may be allowed to coin the expression. True, every Jack had his Jill, but, as a rule, it was Jill who had set the ball rolling.

The Quartier-Latin not only sheltered sucking lawyers and doctors, budding professors and savans and littérateurs, but artists whose names have since then become world-renowned. It was with some of these that I was most thrown in contact in that quarter, partly from inclination, because from my earliest youth I have been fonder of pictures than of books, partly because at that time I had already seen so many authors of fame, most of whom were the intimate acquaintances of a connection of mine, that I cared little to seek the society of those who had not arrived at that stage. I was very young, and, though not devoid of faith in possibilities, too mentally indolent when judgment in that respect involved the sitting down to manuscripts. It was so much easier and charming to be able to discover a budding genius by a mere glance at a good sketch, even when the latter was drawn in charcoal on a not particularly clean "whitewashed" wall.

I was scarcely more than a stripling when one morning such a sketch appeared on the walls of Paris, and considerably mystified, while it at the same time amused the inhabitants of the capital. It was not the work of what we in England would call a "seascape and mackerel artist," for no such individual stood by to ask toll of the admirers; it was not an advertisement, for in those days that mode of mural publicity was scarcely born, let alone in its infancy, in Paris. What, then, was this colossal, monumental nose, the like of which I have only seen on the faces of four human beings, one of whom was Hyacinth, the famous actor of the Palais-Royal, the other three being M. d'Argout, the Governor of the Bank of France; M. de Jussieu, the Director of the Jardin des Plantes; and Lasailly, Balzac's secretary? What was this colossal nose, with a ridiculously small head and body attached to it? The nasal organ was certainly phenomenal, even allowing for the permissible exaggeration of the caricaturist, but it could surely not be the only title of its owner to this sudden leap into fame! Was it a performing nose, or one endowed with extraordinary powers of smell? I puzzled over the question for several days, until one morning I happened to run against my old tutor, looking at the picture and laughing till the tears ran down his wrinkled cheeks. It was a positive pleasure to see him. "C'est bien lui, c'est bien lui," he exclaimed; "c'est absolument son portrait craché!" "Do you know the original?" I asked. "Mais, sans doute, je le connais, c'est un ami de mon fils, du reste, toute le monde connait Bouginier." "But I do not know him," I protested, feeling very much ashamed of my ignorance. "Ah, you! that's quite a different thing; you do not live in the Quartier-Latin, but everybody there knows him." From that moment I knew no rest until I had made the acquaintance of Bouginier, which was not very difficult; and through him I became a frequent visitor to "La Childebert," which deserves a detailed description, because, though it was a familiar haunt to many Parisians of my time with a taste for Bohemian society, I doubt whether many Englishmen, save (the late) Mr. Blanchard Jerrold and one of the Mayhews, ever set foot there, and even they could not have seen it in its prime.

But before I deal with "La Childebert," I must say a few words about Bouginier, who, contrary to my expectations, owed his fame solely to his proboscis. He utterly disappeared from the artistic horizon in a few years, but his features still live in the memory of those who knew him through a statuette in terra cotta modelled by Dantan the younger. During the reign of Louis-Philippe, Dantan took to that branch of art as a relaxation from his more serious work; he finally abandoned it after he had made Madame Malibran burst into tears, instead of making her laugh, as he intended, at her own caricature. Those curious in such matters may see Bouginier's presentment in a medallion on the frontispiece of the Passage du Caire, amidst the Egyptian divinities and sphinxes. As a matter of course, the spectator asks himself why this modern countenance should find itself in such incongruous company, and he comes almost naturally to the conclusion that Bouginier was the owner, or perhaps the architect, of this arcade, almost exclusively tenanted—until very recently—by lithographers, printers, etc. The conclusion, however, would be an erroneous one. Bouginier, as far as is known, never had any property in Paris or elsewhere; least of all was he vain enough to perpetuate his own features in that manner, even if he had had an opportunity, but he had not; seeing that he was not an architect, but simply a painter, of no great talents certainly, but, withal, modest and sensible, and as such opposed to, or at any rate not sharing, the crazes of mediævalism, romanticism, and other isms in which the young painters of that day indulged, and which they thought fit to emphasize in public and among one another by eccentricities of costume and language, supposed to be in harmony with the periods they had adopted for illustration. This absence of enthusiasm one way or the other aroused the ire of his fellow-lodgers at the "Childebert," and one of them, whose pencil was more deft at that kind of work than those of the others, executed their vengeance, and drew Bouginier's picture on the "fag end" of a dead wall in the vicinity of the Church of St. Germain-des-Prés. The success was instantaneous and positively overwhelming, though truth compels one to state that this was the only flash of genius that illumined that young fellow's career. His name was Fourreau, and one looks in vain for his name in the biographical dictionaries or encyclopedias of artists. Fate has even been more cruel to him than to his model.

For the moment, however, the success, as I have already said, was overwhelming. In less than a fortnight there was not a single wall in Paris and its outskirts without a Bouginier on its surface. Though Paris was considerably less in area than it is now, it wanted a Herculean effort to accomplish this. No man, had he been endowed with as many arms as Briareus, would have sufficed for it. Nor would it have done to trust to more or less skilful copyists—they might have failed to catch the likeness, which was really an admirable one; so the following device was hit upon. Fourreau himself cut a number of stencil plates in brown paper, and, provided with them, an army of Childebertians started every night in various directions, Fourreau and a few undoubtedly clever youths heading the detachments, and filling in the blanks by hand.

Meanwhile summer had come, and with it the longing among the young Tintos to breathe the purer air of the country, to sniff the salt breezes of the ocean. As a matter of course, they were not all ready to start at the same time, but being determined to follow the same route, to assemble at a common goal, the contingent that was to leave a fortnight later than the first arranged to join the others wherever they might be.

"But how?" was the question of those who were left behind. "Very simply indeed," was the answer; "we'll go by the Barrière d'Italie. You'll have but to look at the walls along the road, and you'll find your waybill."

So said, so done. A fortnight after, the second division left head-quarters and made straight for the Barrière d'Italie. But when outside the gates they stood undecided. For one moment only. The next they caught sight of a magnificent Bouginier on a wall next to the excise office—of a Bouginier whose outstretched index pointed to the Fontainebleau road. After that, all went well. As far as Marseilles their Bouginier no more failed them than the clouds of smoke and fire failed the Israelites in the wilderness. At the seaport town they lost the track for a little while, rather through their want of faith in the ingenuity of their predecessors than through the latter's lack of such ingenuity. They had the Mediterranean in front of them, and even if they found a Bouginier depicted somewhere on the shore, his outstretched index could only point to the restless waves; he could do nothing more definite. Considerably depressed, they were going down the Cannebière, when they caught sight of the features of their guiding star on a panel between the windows of a shipping office. His outstretched index did not point this time; it was placed over a word, and that word spelt "Malta." They took ship as quickly as possible for the ancient habitation of the Knights-Templars. On the walls of the Customs in the island was Bouginier, with a scroll issuing from his nostrils, on which was inscribed the word "Alexandria." A similar indication met their gaze at the Pyramids, and at last the second contingent managed to come up with the first amidst the ruins of Thebes at the very moment when the word "Suez" was being traced as issuing from Bouginier's mouth.