Let us see if we cannot get some glimpses of the life in the pavilions of the Rue Pigalle, No. 16. In the first months of 1840, George Sand was busy with preparations for the performance of her drama Cosima, moving heaven and earth to bring about the admission of her friend Madame Dorval into the company of the Theatre-Francais, where her piece, in which she wished this lady to take the principal part, was to be performed. Her son Maurice passed his days in the studio of Eugene Delacroix; and Solange gave much time to her lessons, and lost much over her toilet. Of Grzymala we hear that he is always in love with all the beautiful women, and rolls his big eyes at the tall Borgnotte and the little Jacqueline; and that Madame Marliani is always up to her ears in philosophy. This I gathered from George Sand's Correspondance, where, as the reader will see presently, more is to be found.
George Sand to Chopin; Cambrai, August 13, 1840:—
I arrived at noon very tired, for it is 45 and 35 leagues from Paris to this place. We shall relate to you good stories of the bourgeois of Cambrai. They are beaux, they are stupid, they are shopkeepers; they are the sublime of the genre. If the Historical Procession does not console us, we are capable of dying of ennui at the politeness which people show us. We are lodged like princes. But what hosts, what conversations, what dinners! We laugh at them when we are by ourselves, but when we are before the enemy, what a pitiable figure we selves, make! I am no longer desirous to see you come; but I aspire to depart very quickly, and I understand why you do not wish to give concerts. It is not unlikely that Pauline Viardot may not sing the day after to-morrow, for want of a hall. We shall, perhaps, leave a day sooner. I wish I were already far away from the Cambresians, male and female.
Good night! I am going to bed, I am overcome with fatigue.
Love your old woman [votre vieille] as she loves you.
From a letter written two days later to her son, we learn that Madame Viardot after all gave two concerts at Cambrai. But amusing as the letter is, we will pass it over as not concerning us here. Of another letter (September 20,1840), likewise addressed to her son, I shall quote only one passage, although it contains much interesting matter about the friends and visitors of the inmates of the pavilions of the Rue Pigalle, No. 16:—
Balzac came to dine here the day before yesterday. He is quite mad. He has discovered the blue rose, for which the horticultural societies of London and Belgium have promised a reward of 500,000 francs (qui dit, dit-il). He will sell, moreover, every grain at a hundred sous, and for this great botanic production he will lay out only fifty centimes. Hereupon Rollinat asked him naively:—
"Well, why, then, do you not set about it at once?"
To which Balzac replied:
"Oh! because I have so many other things to do; but I shall
set about it one of these days."