There lived somewhere, at that time, a man who put forth a most peculiar claim. He claimed to upset all the rules of orthography, and to substitute for them an orthography without any rule. According to his notion, each word ought to be written as it was pronounced, and he did not trouble his head whether it were derived from Greek or Celtic, Latin, Arabic or Spanish. Thus he would write the adverb aucunement, of which we have just made use, oqunemen.
It was difficult enough to read, but he considered it much easier to write. His name was M. Marle. M. Marle hunted far and wide for recruits for his orthography; he realised that he could not bring about any revolution unless, Attila-like, he could muster a force of a million or so of followers.
Now, having doubtless made up his mind that men of letters, and vaudevillists in particular, would be the most likely of all to disregard correct orthography, he made special efforts to raise recruits among us, and, worthy man, he published a journal written in the strange tongue we have above referred to. He published the journal at a printing-office owned by Setier, who lived in the cour des Fontaines. When I made M. Marie's acquaintance, I also made that of M. and Madame Setier. Madame Setier was a remarkable woman. She was English, or, at any rate, she knew the language perfectly. She offered to translate some English plays for me, which she made out I could easily get taken up on the French stage. As the cour des Fontaines was close to my office, to which, as I have said, I was obliged to go back every evening, and also close to the passage Véro-Dodat where my friend Thibaut lived, to whom I went every day, I frequently called in at the establishment in the cour des Fontaines.
When my three stories were finished, I gave them to Madame Setier to read. Madame Setier, being a woman, had an indulgent nature; she thought my stories charming, and got her husband to print them at half his usual prices. A thousand copies of the tales—I thought we couldn't print too many—would cost 600 francs, and M. Setier agreed to print them for 300. He would stand the remaining 300 francs. After he had repaid himself the 300 francs, we were to divide the profits in equal shares between us. That was why I asked Porcher to lend me 300 francs upon my next tickets as author. I took my 300 francs to M. Setier, handed him my MS. and, two days later, I experienced the delight of correcting my first proofs. Who would have thought that what at that time gave me great joy would, in after life, become a weariness to the flesh?
At the end of a month, during which la Chasse et l'Amour had a triumphant run, bringing me in 180 francs in author's royalties and in the sale of my tickets, my volume of stories appeared under my name, with the title Nouvelles contemporaines.
Four copies of it were sold, and an article on it was written in the Figaro. The article was by Étienne Arago. When this chapter appears, I hope he will have returned to France. In any case, should it come under his notice, in his exile, great will be his surprise, no doubt, to find that I recollect, after a lapse of twenty-five years, an article which he will have forgotten. The four copies sold brought in ten francs to M. Setier's till. Thus, M. Setier was out of pocket to the tune of 290 francs for having printed the Nouvelles contemporaines, and I 300 francs for having written them. It was an unlucky speculation for both of us. I then remembered the advice given me by a very shrewd publisher, M. Bossange—
"Make a name for yourself, and then I will publish your works."
That was just the very difficulty! To make a name for oneself! It is the condition laid down for every man who sets forth to carve his own career. When it is first put to him, he asks himself, in despair, how the condition is ever to be fulfilled; and, nevertheless, he fulfils it.
I do not believe in the existence of ignored talent, or in genius that remains unknown. There must have been reasons why Gilbert and Hégésippe Moreau died in the hospitals. There must have been reasons why Escousse and Lebras committed suicide. It is a hard thing to say, but neither of these two poor foolish fellows, if they had lived, would have earned by the end of twenty years' work the reputation that Béranger's epitaph gave them.
So I set to work very earnestly to make a name sufficient to sell my books, in order that I should no longer have to pay half the cost of printing them. And, moreover, that name, short and humble though it was, had already begun to be known in the land. Vatout had read my Ode au général Foy and my Nouvelles contemporaines (for it will be realised that the sale of only four copies had given a wide field to my generosity in the matter of presentation copies), and one day he sent me three or four lithographs, asking me to take one, and compose some lines to go under it. This requires explanation. Vatout published the Galerie du Palais-Royal. It was a sumptuously printed work and appeared under the patronage of the Duc d'Orléans. It was a lithographic reproduction of all the pictures in the gallery of the Palais-Royal, with notices, information or lines composed in their honour by all the literary men of the day. It would therefore seem that I was included among these literary personages, since Vatout asked me for some lines. My reasoning thus was more in the nature of sophistry than a dilemma; but, as I had no one with whom to discuss the matter, it presented itself to me as a dilemma and became an encouragement to me. Oh! there was nothing I needed then more than encouragement from all sides. I selected a print depicting a Roman shepherd lad, after a picture by Montvoisin. The boy was lying down asleep in the shade of a clump of vines. I do not reproduce the verses I made on this subject for their merit, but rather as an interesting study of my progress in poetical diction:—