The sincerity of Bibi’s mourning, however, has not prevented him from turning an honest penny by selling the inscribed volumes Verlaine had given him, nor from turning many a dishonest penny by selling, as relics, copies of Verlaine’s works supplied with forged inscriptions, and numerous other objects Verlaine never saw.
Thanks to Bibi’s zeal, Verlaine’s last cane and last pipe have been multiplied, like “the only true cross,” and have taken up their abodes in the poetic shrines of two hemispheres.[77]
It is impossible to think of Bibi without thinking of the Mère Casimir, lately deceased, who was, for some reason, Bibi’s most cordial aversion.
The Mère Casimir was a tiny, twisted, shrivelled old flower-woman, who claimed to be an ex-danseuse of the Opéra and to have had for friends “princes and marquises,” and who was ready at any moment, in consideration of a few sous, to prove it by executing certain grotesque Terpsichorean movements on the sidewalk.
While the Mère Casimir was still alive, there was nothing that delighted the students more than bringing about an encounter between her and Bibi, and hearing the pair blackguard each other. Only once, so far as history records, was there a truce between them,—a certain Mi-carême, when, Bibi having been elected king and the Mère Casimir queen of the fête, they paraded the streets of Paris together in the same car. On that day the antipathetic pair were so impressed with the dignities and responsibilities of their position that they treated each other with royal magnanimity. Bibi even went farther than strict etiquette required. In descending from his throne at the breaking up of the cortège, he gallantly fell to his knees,—sight for gods and men!—and kissed the hand of his queen.
The Marquis de Soudin, a long-haired but relatively neat little man, with the noiseless step of a bird, who makes crayon portraits, at ten sous per head, at the Grille and the Noctambules and in the all-night restaurants of the Halles Centrales, is as much of a mystery in his way as Bibi, though he has lived in the Quartier more than twenty-five years. He is said to have been crossed in love early in life, and his title is believed by many to be genuine. However that may be, the little Soudin has the education and manners of a gentleman, and noblesse oblige inspires his conduct. He does no offence to any, and is a veritable providence to his poorer fellow-Bohemians. M. le Marquis makes poems as well as portraits, but not for money. “At least no merchant traffics in his heart.”
The artist bard of Père Lunette’s,[78] who makes crayon portraits at ten sous a head, like the little marquis, and poems for money, unlike the little marquis, is also supposed by many to be of noble origin. He is a dashing, handsome fellow, with the felt and the swagger of a mousquetaire, and is, when he chooses to quit the vulgar rôle his position at Père Lunette’s imposes upon him, a lively and stimulating conversationalist. In summer, with his bosom friend Père Jules, he tramps the country roads of France.
Achille Leroy, philosopher and poet (the anarchist author-editor-publisher-bookseller, referred to in the chapter on the oral propaganda of the anarchists), is another favourite with the students, upon whose quizzical, good-natured patronage he depends mainly for the sale of his wares.
Some years back, at the moment of the anarchist “Terror,” Achille, whose illusions regarding his intellect are on a par with those of Bibi regarding his person, offered himself as a candidate for the Academy. He made the customary “visits” to the Academicians attired in the uniform of a Mexican general, and wherever he was not received left an ominous-looking brass kettle to which, along with his visiting card, this inscription was attached:
“Je ne fais sauter que les idées.”