Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1

by Andrew Dickson White

To avoid scandals, to negotiate with the French commissioners on one side, and the crowd of exhibitors on the other, and especially to see that in all particulars the representatives of American industry were fully recognized, was a matter of much difficulty; but happily all turned out well.

Among the duties of my position was membership of the upper jury—that which, in behalf of the French Republic, awarded the highest prizes. Each day, at about nine in the morning, we met, and a remarkable body it was. At my right sat Meissonier, then the most eminent of French painters, and beyond him Quintana, the Spanish poet. Of the former of these two I possess a curious memento. He was very assiduous in attendance at our sessions, and the moment he took his seat he always began drawing, his materials being the block of letter-paper and the pencils, pens, and ink lying before him. No matter what was under discussion, he kept on with his drawing. While he listened, and even while he talked, his pencil or pen continued moving over the paper. He seemed to bring every morning a mass of new impressions caught during his walk to the exposition, which he made haste to trans- fer to paper. Sometimes he used a pencil, sometimes, a quill pen, and not infrequently he would plunge the feather end of the quill into his inkstand and rapidly put into his work broader and blacker strokes. As soon as he had finished a drawing he generally tore it into bits and threw them upon the floor, but occasionally he would fold the sketches carefully and put them into his pocket. This being the case, no one dared ask him for one of them.

But one morning his paper gave out, and for lack of it he took up a boxwood paper-knife lying near and began work on it. First he decorated the handle in a sort of rococo way, and then dashed off on the blade, with his pen, a very spirited head—a bourgeois physiognomy somewhat in Gavarni's manner. But as he could not tear the paper-knife into bits, and did not care to take it away, he left it upon the table. This was my chance. Immediately after the session I asked the director-general to allow me to carry it off as a souvenir; he assented heartily, and so I possess a picture which I saw begun, continued, and ended by one of the greatest of French painters.

At my left was Tresca, director of the French National Conservatory of Arts and Trades; and next him, the sphinx of the committee—the most silent man I ever saw the rector of the Portuguese University of Coimbra. During the three months of our session no one of us ever heard him utter a word. Opposite was Jules Simon, eminent as an orator, philosopher, scholar, and man of letters; an academician who had held positions in various cabinets, and had even been prime minister of the republic. On one side of him was Tullo Massarani, a senator of the Italian kingdom, eminent as a writer on the philosophy of art; on the other, Boussingault, one of the foremost chemists of the century; and near him, Wischniegradsky, director of the Imperial Technical Institute at Moscow, whom I afterward came to know as minister of finance at St. Petersburg. Each afternoon we devoted to examining the greater exhibits which were to come before us in competition for the grands prix on the following morning.

At one of our sessions a curious difficulty arose. The committee on the award of these foremost prizes for advanced work in electricity brought in their report, and, to my amazement, made no award to my compatriot Edison, who was then at the height of his reputation. Presently Tresca, who read the report, and who really lamented the omission, whispered to me the reason of it. Through the negligence of persons representing Edison, no proper exhibition of his inventions had been made to the committee. They had learned that his agent was employed in showing the phonograph in a distant hall on the boulevards to an audience who paid an admission fee; but, although they had tried two or three times to have his apparatus shown them, they had been unsuccessful, until at last, from a feeling of what was due their own self-respect, they passed the matter over entirely. Of course my duty was to do what was possible in rectifying this omission, and in as good French as I could muster I made a speech in Edison's behalf, describing his career, outlining his work, and saying that I should really be ashamed to return to America without some recognition of him and of his inventions. This was listened to most courteously, but my success was insured by a remark of a less serious character, which was that if Edison had not yet made a sufficient number of inventions to entitle him to a grand prize, he would certainly, at the rate he was going on, have done so before the close of the exposition. At this there was a laugh, and my amendment was unanimously carried.

Many features in my work interested me, but one had a melancholy tinge. One afternoon, having been summoned to pass upon certain competing works in sculpture, we finally stood before the great bronze entrance- doors of the Cathedral of Strasburg, which, having been designed before the Franco-Prussian War, had but just been finished. They were very beautiful; but I could see that my French associates felt deeply the changed situation of affairs which this exhibit brought to their minds.

In order to promote the social relations which go for so much at such times, I had taken the large apartment temporarily relinquished by our American minister, Governor Noyes of Ohio, in the Avenue Josephine; and there, at my own table, brought together from time to time a considerable number of noted men from various parts of Europe. Perhaps the most amusing occurrence during the series of dinners I then gave was the meeting between Story, the American sculptor at Rome, and Judge Brady of New York. For years each had been taken for the other, in various parts of the world, but they had never met. In fact, so common was it for people to mistake one for the other that both had, as a rule, ceased to explain the mistake. I was myself present with Story on one occasion when a gentleman came up to him, saluted him as Judge Brady, and asked him about their friends in New York: Story took no trouble to undeceive his interlocutor, but remarked that, so far as he knew, they were all well, and ended the interview with commonplaces.

These two Dromios evidently enjoyed meeting, and nothing could be more amusing than their accounts of various instances in which each had been mistaken for the other. Each had a rich vein of humor, and both presented the details of these occurrences with especial zest.

Another American, of foreign birth, was not quite so charming. He was a man of value in his profession; but his desire for promotion outran his discretion. Having served as juror at the Vienna Exposition, he had now been appointed to a similar place in Paris; and after one of my dinners he came up to a group in which there were two or three members of the French cabinet, and said: ``Mr. Vite, I vish you vould joost dell dese zhentlemen vat I am doing vor Vrance. I vas on de dasting gommittee for vines und peers at Vien, and it 'most killed me; and now I am here doing de same duty, and my stomach has nearly gone pack on me. Tell dese zhentlemen dat de French Government zurely ought to gonfer ubon me de Legion of Honor.'' This was spoken with the utmost seriousness, and was embarrassing, since, of all subjects, that which a French minister least wishes to discuss publicly is the conferring of the red ribbon.

Embarrassing also was the jubilation of some of our American exhibitors at our celebration of the Fourth of July in the Bois de Boulogne. Doubtless they were excellent citizens, but never was there a better exemplification of Dr. Arnold's saying that ``a traveller is a self-constituted outlaw.'' A generous buffet had been provided, after the French fashion, with a sufficiency of viands and whatever wine was needed. To my amazement, these men, who at home were most of them, probably, steady-going ``temperance men,'' were so overcome with the idea that champagne was to be served ad libitum, that the whole thing came near degenerating into an orgy. A European of the same rank, accustomed to drinking wine moderately with his dinner, would have simply taken a glass or two and thought no more of it; but these gentlemen seemed to see in it the occasion of their lives. Bottles were seized and emptied, glass after glass, down the throats of my impulsive fellow-citizens: in many cases a bottle and more to a man. Then came the worst of it. It had been arranged that speeches should be made under a neighboring tent by leading members of the French cabinet who had accepted invitations to address us. But when they proceeded to do this difficulties arose. A number of our compatriots, unduly exhilarated, and understanding little that was said, first applauded on general principles, but at the wrong places, and finally broke out into apostrophes such as ``Speak English, old boy!'' ``Talk Yankee fashion!'' ``Remember the glorious Fourth!'' ``Give it to the British!'' ``Make the eagle scream!'' and the like. The result was that we were obliged to make most earnest appeals to these gentlemen, begging them not to disgrace our country; and, finally, the proceedings were cut short.