It was the summer of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Whistler could not come to us from Garlant's without passing through streets hung with tawdry wreaths and draggled festoons; Trafalgar Square buried in platforms, seats, and advertisements, Nelson on his column peering above. The decorations were an unfailing amusement to him, an excuse for an estimate of "the Island and the Islander," and the talk about the British, an annoyance, we are afraid, to some of his friends and more of his enemies. One evening he sketched for us his impression of the Square, with Nelson "boarded at last." "You see," he said, "England expects every Englishman to be ridiculous," and the sketch appeared in the Daily Chronicle.
He again went to the Naval Review, and this time saw it from Mr. George Vanderbilt's yacht. No etchings were made, though we believe he did a water-colour or pastel. Instead, he wrote some of his saddest letters, yet he said with a gleam of glee: "It was wonderful, just like Spain, just like Velasquez at some great function, for there was Philip," whom Mr. Vanderbilt resembled, as the portrait proved till he changed and ruined it. "There was the Queen, Mrs. Vanderbilt; there was I, the Court Painter, and, why, even the dwarfs," as he described appropriately two well-known Americans on board.
In July we proposed to cycle across France to Switzerland, and the night before we started Whistler, M. Boldini, and Mr. Kennedy dined with us to say good-bye. Boldini was leaving London the next day, and by the end of the evening Whistler made up his mind to come as far as Dieppe, and as he would never, if he could help it, go alone, he decided that Mr. Kennedy must come too. Next morning we all arrived at the station save Whistler. Even his baggage came, but not till we were reduced almost to nervous collapse, not till the train was starting, did he saunter unmoved—his straw hat over his eyes—down the platform, followed humbly by the pompous station-master and amazed porters, looking for our carriage. No sooner had we started than he was in the best of spirits and enjoyed every minute of the journey, most when on the boat he found a camp of enemies also on the way to Dieppe, to his delight and their discomfort. At Dieppe we had to get our bicycles through the customs, the others took a cab, and when we reached the hotel we were received regally and given a whole suite, Boldini having hinted to the patron we were royalty travelling incognito, they in attendance. Almost at once Whistler got out his little colour-box and started for a shop front in a narrow street he knew. But first he had to find another kind of shop where he could buy a rosette of the Legion of Honour, for his had been lost or forgotten, and he would have thought it wanting in respect to appear without it in France. The shopkeeper, to whom he explained, said, "All right, monsieur, here is the rosette, but I have heard that story before." Whistler was furious, but in the end had to laugh. His dread of illness was again shown, for Beardsley, dying, was in the town, and without knowing it we passed his window and Beardsley saw us. When afterwards we called, Whistler refused to come, and it was well he did. Beardsley, however, was not the only person in Dieppe Whistler would not meet.
We had only our cycling costumes, we were staying at the Hôtel Royal. When he came down to dinner, very late of course, he was correct in evening dress, the rosette in place, and we thought there was a suggestion of hesitation, but it was only a suggestion. He gave his arm to E., who was in short cycling skirt, J. in knickerbockers, and as we went into the dining-room he turned to her, and, to a question that had never been asked, answered clearly, "Mais oui, Princesse," and after that he had all the attention he wanted. Every tourist stared, and we were escorted to our seats by the patron, and for the rest of the evening, when he was not talking to the Princesse, he was giving good advice to the head waiter. The evening and the night were diversified periodically by Boldini's practical jokes, which did not keep Whistler from being down early in the morning to see us off. "Well, you know, can't I hold something?" he offered, as E. mounted her bicycle, and as he watched us wheel along the sea-front, he told Mr. Kennedy, "After all, O'K., ... there's something in it!" We asked Mr. Kennedy to pay our bill, and M. Boldini had some trouble with his. The result was that when Whistler and Kennedy counted up their joint funds, they found they had just about enough money to get back to London, and they left.
In the autumn Whistler was in Paris, the Eden case in the Cour de Cassation being fixed for November 17. It was heard before Président Périvier, Maître Beurdeley for the second time defending Whistler. Mr. Heinemann came from London, and was with him in court. Judgment was given on December 2. The affair had been talked about, and the court was crowded. The judgment went as entirely in Whistler's favour as, in the Lower Court, it had gone against him. He was to keep the picture, on condition that he made it unrecognisable as a portrait of Lady Eden, which had been done; Sir William Eden was to have the hundred guineas back, which already had been returned and 5 per cent. interest; Whistler was to pay one thousand francs damages with interest and the cost of the first trial, and "the Baronet" to pay the costs of appeal. Mr. MacMonnies, who also was with Whistler in court, remembers that "it was decided by the judges that the picture should be produced when needed. Mr. Whistler whispered in my ear, 'MacMonnies, take the picture and get out with it.' As we sat under the judges' noses, and the court-room was packed with admirers and enemies and court officials, I made a distinct spot as I walked down the aisle with the picture under my arm. And Whistler showed his admirable generalship in the case, as not one of the gendarmes could stop me. So all anybody could do was to watch it disappear out of the door."
Whistler said to us that the Procureur de la République was splendid; that the whole affair was a public recognition of his position; that the trial made history, established a precedent, proving the right of the artist to his own work; that a new clause had been added to the Code Napoléon; that he had "wiped up the floor" with "the Baronet" before all Paris, his intention from the first. He wished it to be known that in the law of France he would go down with Napoleon:
"Well, you know, take my word for it, Joseph, the first duty of a good general when he has won his battle is to say so, otherwise the people, always dull—the Briton especially—fail to understand, and it is an unsettled point in history for ever. Victory is not complete until the wounded are looked after and the dead counted."
The trial over, he wanted immediately to make a beautiful little book of it, and he began to arrange the report with his "Reflections" for publication. During many months proofs of The Baronet and the Butterfly filled his pockets. As he had read pages of The Ten O'Clock to Mr. Alan S. Cole, so he read pages of The Baronet and the Butterfly to us, and sometimes to the Council of the International after the meetings, a mistake, for there were members who had not the intelligence to understand it or him. His care was no less than with The Gentle Art. Every note, every Butterfly, was thought out and placed properly. "Beautiful, you know. Isn't it beautiful?" he would say, when a page or a paragraph pleased him, and nothing pleased him more than the Butterfly following the "Reflection" on page 43. There he quotes George Moore: "I undertook a journey to Paris in the depth of winter, had two shocking passages across the Channel and spent twenty-five pounds. All this worry is the commission I received for my trouble in the matter."
Whistler's "Reflection" was: "Why, damme, sir! he must have had a Valentine himself—the sea-saddened expert." This was followed by the Butterfly, "splendid—actually rolling back with laughter, you know!"
A new feature was the toad printed over the Dedication: "To those confrères across the Channel who, refraining from intrusive demonstration, with a pluck and delicacy all their own 'sat tight' during the struggle, these decrees of the judges are affectionately dedicated."