His first book, Madame de Montarcy, received on approval at the Théâtre Français, and refused at the second reading, lingered for two years and was only accepted at the Odéon in November, 1856. The first performance was a rousing success. The applause often interrupted the action of the play; a whiff of youth permeated the atmosphere; it was a reminiscence of 1830. That night he became known; his success was assured. He could have collaborated, and made money with his name; but he preferred the quietness of Mantes, and went to live in a little house near an old tower, at the turn of the bridge, where his friends visited him on Sundays.
As soon as his plays were written, he took them to Paris; but the whims and fancies of the managers, the critics, the belated appointments, and the loss of time, caused him much weariness. He did not know that art, in a question of art, held such a trifling place! When he joined a committee against the unfair dealings at the Théâtre Français, he was the only member that did not complain of the rates of authors’ royalties.
With what pleasure he returned to his daily distraction, the study of Chinese! He pursued it ten years, merely as a study of the race, intending to write a grand poem on the Celestial Empire. Days when his heart was too full, he relieved himself by writing lyrical verses on the restrictions of the stage. His luck had turned, but with the Conjuration d’Ambroise it returned, and it lasted all winter.
Six months later he was appointed conservator of the municipal library of Rouen; and his old dream of leisure and fortune was realized at last! But soon afterward a dullness seized him—the exhaustion from too long a struggle. To counteract this he resumed the Greek tragic style and rapidly composed his last play, Mademoiselle Aïssé, which he never corrected. An incurable disease, long neglected, was the cause of his death, which took place on the 18th of July, 1869. He passed away without pain, in the presence of a friend of his youth and her child, whom he loved as if he were his own son. Their affection had increased towards the last, but two other persons marred their happiness. It seems that in a poet’s family there are always bitter disappointments. Annoying quarrels, honeyed sarcasms, direct insults to art, the million and one things that make your heart bleed,—nothing was spared him while he lived, and these things followed him to his death-bed.
His fellow-countrymen flocked to his funeral as if he had been a public man; even the less educated knowing full well that a superior intellect had passed away. The whole Parisian press joined in this universal sorrow; even the most hostile expressed their regrets; a Catholic writer alone spoke disparagingly. No doubt the connoisseurs in verse deplore the loss of such a poetical spirit; but those in whom he confided, who knew his powerful spirit, who benefited by his advice, they alone know to what height he might have risen.
He left, besides Aïssé, three comedies in prose, a fairy-scene, and the first act of Pélerinage de Saint-Jacques, a drama in verse, in ten tableaux. He had outlined two short poems: Le Bœuf, depicting the rustic life of Latium; and Le Dernier Banquet, describing the Roman patricians poisoning themselves at a banquet the night the soldiers of Alaric are entering Rome. He wished also to write a novel on the heathen of the fifth century, the counterpart of the Martyrs; but above all, he desired to write his Chinese tale, the scenes of which are completely laid out. It was his supreme ambition to recapitulate modern science, to write the De natura rerum of our age!
Who has the right to classify the talents of his contemporaries, and, thinking himself superior to all, say: “This one comes first, that one second, and this other third”? Fame’s sudden changes are numerous. There are irretrievable failures; some long, obscure periods, and some triumphant reappearances. Was not Ronsard forgotten before Sainte-Beuve? In days gone by, Saint-Amant was considered inferior as a poet to Jacques Delille. Don Quixote, Gil Blas, Manon Lescaut, La Cousine Bette and other masterpieces, have never had the success of Uncle Tom. In my youth, I heard comparisons made between Casimir Delavigne and Victor Hugo, and it seems that “our great national poet” was declining. Let us then be careful, or posterity will misjudge us—perhaps laugh at our bitterness—still more, perhaps, at our adulations; for the fame of an author does not spring from public approbation, but from the verdict of a few intellects, who, in the course of time, impose it upon the public.
Some will say that I have given my friend too high a place; but they know not, no more do I, what place he will retain. Because his first book is written in stanzas of six lines each, with triple rhymes, like Naouma, and begins like this: “Of all the men that ever walked through Rome, in Grecian buskins and linen toga, from Suburra to the Capitoline hill, the handsomest was Paulus,” somewhat similar to this: “Of all the libertines in Paris, the first, oldest and most prolific in vice, where debauchery is so easily found, the lewdest of all was Jacques Rolla,” without more ado, and ignoring the dissimilarity of execution, poetry, and nature, it was declared that the author of Melœnis imitated Alfred de Musset! He was condemned on the spot; a farce—it is so easy to label a thing so as to be able to put it aside.
I do not wish to be unfair; but where has Musset, in any part of his works, harmonized description, dialogue, and intrigue in more than two thousand consecutive rhymes, with such results of composition, such choice of language, in short, where is there a work of such magnitude? What wonderful ability was needed to reproduce Roman society, without affectation, yet keeping within the narrow confines of a dramatic fable!
If you look for the primitive idea, the general element in Louis Bouilhet’s poems, you will find a kind of naturalism that reminds you of the Renaissance. His hatred of commonplace saved him from platitudes; his inclination towards the heroic was tempered by his wit—he was very witty. This part of his talent was almost unknown; he kept it somewhat in the shadow, thinking it of no consequence; but now nothing hinders me from acknowledging that he excelled in epigrams, sonnets, rondeaux and other jests, written for distraction or pastime, and also through sheer good-nature. I discovered some official speeches for functionaries, New-Year verses for a little girl, some stanzas for a barber, for the christening of a bell, for the visit of a king. He dedicated to one of our friends, wounded in 1848, an ode on the patron of The Taking of Namur, where emphasis reached the pinnacle of dullness. To another who killed a viper with his whip he sent a piece entitled: The struggle of a monster and a genius, which contained enough imperfect metaphors and ridiculous periphrasis to serve as a model or as a scarecrow. But his best was a masterpiece, in Béranger’s style, entitled The Nightcap! His intimate friends will always remember it. It praised glory, the ladies, and philosophy so highly,—it was enough to make all the members of the Caveau burst with the desire of emulating him.