They pass on. "How could you tell such stories?" asks the friend; "you were never in better health, and you talk of going down hill."
"Ah, well," answered Rossini, "to be sure—but why shouldn't I put it that way? It gives him so much pleasure."
Another time the following short dialogue:—
"Eh bien, cher maître, que faites-vous maintenant?"
Meyerbeer: "Je me corrige toujours."
Rossini: "Moi je m'efface."
Whatever may have been the relative merits of the two masters in matters musical, it is certain that Rossini was acknowledged facile princeps in all concerning the cuisine, and we used to listen with due respect to his remarks on the mysteries of the culinary art.
Crémieux, the eminent lawyer, who was a guest at that dinner, had the reputation of being the plainest man in France, a sort of missing link. A story is told of him and Alexandre Dumas. The great novelist was unmistakably of the mulatto type, and Crémieux, who must have been addicted to making personal remarks, indiscreetly questioned him as to his descent. "Was your father a mulatto?" he asked. "Yes," answered Dumas, "my father was a mulatto, my grandfather a negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey; my family began where yours ends."
Quick at repartee as Dumas was, he did not always have the last word, as on an occasion when he received a letter from some playwright—I have forgotten his name—offering to collaborate with him in the writing of a play. "It is not usual," replied Dumas, "to yoke a horse and an ass together." "Comment done!" retorted the other. "How dare you, sir, insinuate that I am a horse?"
That Villa Rossini I visited ten years later under very different circumstances. It was in May 1871, after the terrible events that marked the reign of the Commune. I had not witnessed these, but had crossed over from London shortly after the Versailles troops had succeeded in making themselves masters of Paris.