“Gomard and Charlemagne were the two last representatives of the old school: Roussel and Lozes the two first of the new one. I have had the honour, in my youth, of fencing with all four; and I do not hesitate to say that, in my opinion, while fully recognising the incomparable quickness of Lozes, the superiority rested altogether with the representatives of the old school. Fencing ran the risk not of being renewed, like poetry, in another form, but of being lost altogether, at least as an art. Then came forward a young man who combined in himself the opposite qualities of the two schools. Every lover of fencing will understand that I am referring to Bertrand. As rapid as Lozes and as regular as Gomard, he borrowed from romanticism its audacity, its inspiration, its occasional rashness, and preserved at the same time the elegance of bearing, the severity of attitude, the caution and the science of the classical school. He may fairly be said, in company with Cordelois and Pons the elder, to have saved the art of fencing. He is an exceptional fencer among exceptional fencers. If I may be allowed to use the expression, there is genius in his art. The fencing-masters who came next were the products, somewhat mixed, of the three schools; the four professors who figure in the first rank being MM. Robert the elder, Gâtechair, Mimiague, and Pons the younger. Robert has a quickness of hand, an accuracy of attitude, and a rapidity of reply which recalls Bertrand. Gâtechair is the most academic of the masters of the present day. There is, however, something a little theatrical in his elegance and in his imposing carriage.
“Mimiague is supple, insinuating, adroit, sure to profit by every opportunity. There is a sort of cajolery in his play. If you ask who is the best of these four professors, I shall recommend you to apply the test of Themistocles. Bring together the principal fencing-masters of Paris, and ask them to write on a slip of paper the names of the two best fencers in Paris. Each of them will give the first vote to himself; but Robert will have all the second votes: from which I conclude that he deserves the first.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
PETTY TRADES.
Petty Trades—Their Origins—The Day-Banker—The Guardian Angel—The Old-Clothesman—The Claque—Its First Beginning and Development.
THE police of Paris are very strict in suppressing those trades bordering upon mendicancy, which in London are somewhat freely allowed. Many of the former hawkers of inexpensive trifles have been permanently swept away from the streets of Paris.
The Galileo of the Place Vendôme, however, is still permitted to carry on his business. As soon as the gas is alight, this personage, somewhat fantastically dressed, levels his telescope, after having traced in chalk on the pavement a picture of the moon, with its mountains, ravines, and so forth. In consideration of a slight recognition, varying from 25 to 50 centimes, he shows his clients all the astronomical phenomena, including some which have escaped the notice of the Observatory.
“Nearly all the petty industries not classed in the Dictionary of Commerce are,” says a French writer, “the product of an imagination over-excited by the gnawings of the stomach. The first person who picked up, on the highway, a cigar-end, and then another and another, and who, after chopping them all up, sold the results as smoking-tobacco, did not deliberately adopt this profession in the same way that a person becomes an administrator or a lawyer. It was the necessity of eating that launched him into this career. Presently he held this argument, based upon statistics:—Every day in Paris at least three hundred thousand cigars are smoked. There must, therefore, be somewhere, and particularly beneath the outdoor tables of the boulevard cafés, three hundred thousand fag-ends. Thus the horizon opens to him. He perceives a magnificent commercial enterprise and takes[{260}] partners. A new kind of manufacturer has now come into being: a manufacturer of unlicensed tobacco.”
Apparently the commodity sells well; and in the retort of a pipe the eclectic composition is as agreeable to the taste as the privileged product of the imperial factories. Some of the contraband dealers in cigar-ends have made a small fortune.
It was simply chance which created the “day-banker” or “banquier à la journée.” Thirty or forty years ago an individual named Poildeloup, living in the quarter of the markets, lent five francs one day to a woman dealing in old clothes, on condition that she should return him the same evening five francs ten centimes. She kept her word, and again borrowed from him. Then other tradeswomen, also out of funds, applied to Poildeloup, who at once saw what a profit he might derive from this daily lending organised on a big scale. The two sous brought to him each evening in excess of the five francs lent in the morning looked less than nothing at first sight; but in fifty days the banker doubled his capital, and in a few years had amassed wealth. Later on, rival banks were established, which reduced the interest by half, charging only five centimes a day on a hundred sous borrowed in the morning and returned at night. These day-banks, content with half the interest charged by the inventor of the business, still do an excellent trade.
One of the most interesting of the small professions is that of the “guardian angel.” This ethereal personage conducts drunkards home to their dwellings. Attached to every large Paris tavern is a guardian angel, whose duty it is to escort any late-staying customer whose legs decline their office, and who needs a guide. He must not quit the person entrusted to his charge until the latter is out of the reach of thieves and safely installed in his own house. The chief quality requisite in this angel is sobriety.