No Parisian of the period, perhaps, has been more written about, and none more photographed, sculptured, etched, and painted; and none has done more to divert his time than Bibi. Bibi is by turns an artist’s model, a sponge, a simple beggar, a shoe-black, a tourist’s guide, a watcher of bicycles at cafe doors, a dealer in photographs of himself and in original poems, a boon companion of poets and artists, and a confidant and counsellor of étudiantes; but he is first, last, and all the time Bibi the fop, the Beau Tibbs of Latium, the Beau Brummel of the Castalian gutter.
The first time I saw Bibi was in 1895, at an anarchist meeting addressed by Louise Michel, in the rue de la Montagne Ste. Geneviève, back of the Panthéon. He was muffled to the eyes, conspirator-like, in the folds of a rusty, tattered Spanish cloak, faced with dirty red velvet, and wore besides a white yachting cap, white skin-tight pantaloons, gaping patent leather shoes fitted with cavalry spurs, and white gaiters.
The last time I saw Bibi he was pulling an unlighted cigar, and tenderly convoying to his lodging a poet, not of the most obscure, who had been imbibing too freely. He was dight in a red fez, a bright green velvet waistcoat under an Inverness cape (with no jacket intervening), a yellow silk neckerchief, cavalry boots, and baggy brown corduroy trousers; and, if I should itemise all the different costumes it has been my privilege to see Bibi wear between these dates, a large octavo volume would scarcely hold the list. Reputed in some quarters to be an ex-student, an ex-journalist, a political refugee, and a disguised nobleman, and in others to be a blackmailer, a swindler, a thief, a police spy, and a pander, the mystery that envelopes Bibi’s present as well as his past—a mystery which his autobiography, published in L’Idée, did appreciably nothing to dispel—gives him a curiosity-piquing charm.
There is no doubt as to Bibi’s untidiness, his inordinate vanity, his assurance, his unscrupulousness, and his genuine kindness of heart; but beyond this all is conjecture.
Jehan Rictus in a recent poem, to the recitation of which (at the Noctambules or the Grille) Bibi often listens with his inscrutable smile, has given Bibi a large symbolic significance:—
“On dit de Bibi: ‘Chut! c’est un mouchard!’ D’autres: ‘Taisez-vous, il est bachelier!’ Et d’autres encor’: ‘Bibi est rentier.’ Mais nul ne peut croire à la vérité: Bibi-la-Purée, c’est le Grand-Déchard. Et quel âge a-t-il? On ne sait pas bien. Son nom symbolique en le largougi Proclame qu’il est assez ancien, Quasi éternel comme la Misère. Et trimballes-tu, tu trimballeras, O Bibi, toujours ta rare effigie. Bibi-la-Purée jamais ne mourra. ****** C’est le Pèlerin, c’est le Solitaire Qui depuis toujours marche sur la Terre, C’est un sobriquet bon pour l’Etre Humain.”
Bibi was a humble follower and adorer—slave almost—of Verlaine, who playfully honored him with the following verses in his Dédicaces:—
A BIBI-PURÉE Bibi-Purée, Type épatant Et drôle tant! Quel Dieu te crée Ce chic, pourtant, Qui nous agrée Pourtant, aussi, Ta gentillesse Notre liesse, Et ton souci [244] De l’obligeance Notre gaieté, Ta pauvreté, Ton opulence?
A sincere mourner for Verlaine since his death, Bibi regards it as his special mission to cherish the cult of the dead poet’s memory.