One of the best of these pictorial satires is Roubaud’s sketch of Gautier. It has a teasing quality, it is diabolically fascinating. It shows how great an art caricature is in the hands of a master.
But the highest virtue of a good new book is that it usually sends the reader back to a good old book. One can hardly spend much time upon Renduel; he will remember that Gautier has described that period when hero-worship was in the air, when the sap of a new life circulated everywhere, and when he himself was one of many loyal and enthusiastic youths who bowed the head at mention of Victor Hugo’s name. The reader will remember, too, that Gautier was conspicuous in that band of Romanticists who helped to make Hernani a success the night of its first presentation. Gautier believed that to be the great event of his life. He loved to talk about it, dream about it, write of it.
There was a world of good fellowship among the young artists, sculptors, and poets of that day. They took real pleasure in shouting Hosanna to Victor Hugo and to one another. Even Zola, the Unsentimental, speaks of ma tristesse as he reviews that delightful past. He cannot remember it, to be sure, but he has read about it. He thinks ill of the present as he compares the present with ‘those dead years.’ Writers then belonged to a sort of heroic brotherhood. They went out like soldiers to conquer their literary liberties. They were kings of the Paris streets. ‘But we,’ says Zola in a pensive strain, ‘we live like wolves each in his hole.’ I do not know how true a description this is of modern French literary society, but it is not difficult to make one’s self think that those other days were the days of magnificent friendships between young men of genius. It certainly was a more brilliant time than ours. It was flamboyant, to use one of Gautier’s favorite words.
Youth was responsible for much of the enthusiasm which obtained among the champions of artistic liberty. These young men who did honor to the name of Hugo were actually young. They rejoiced in their youth. They flaunted it, so to speak, in the faces of those who were without it. Gautier says that young men of that day differed in one respect from young men of this day; modern young men are generally in the neighborhood of fifty years of age.
Gautier has described his friends and comrades most felicitously. All were boys, and all were clever. They were poor and they were happy. They swore by Scott and Shakespeare, and they planned great futures for themselves.
Take for an example Jules Vabre, who owed his reputation to a certain Essay on the Inconvenience of Conveniences. You will search the libraries in vain for this treatise. The author did not finish it. He did not even commence it,—only talked about it. Jules Vabre had a passion for Shakespeare, and wanted to translate him. He thought of Shakespeare by day and dreamed of Shakespeare by night. He stopped people in the street to ask them if they had read Shakespeare.
He had a curious theory concerning language. Jules Vabre would not have said, As a man thinks so is he, but, As a man drinks so is he. According to Gautier’s statement, Vabre maintained the paradox that the Latin languages needed to be ‘watered’ (arroser) with wine, and the Anglo-Saxon languages with beer. Vabre found that he made extraordinary progress in English upon stout and extra stout. He went over to England to get the very atmosphere of Shakespeare. There he continued for some time regularly ‘watering’ his language with English ale, and nourishing his body with English beef. He would not look at a French newspaper, nor would he even read a letter from home. Finally he came back to Paris, anglicized to his very galoshes. Gautier says that when they met, Vabre gave him a ‘shake hand’ almost energetic enough to pull the arm from the shoulder. He spoke with so strong an English accent that it was difficult to understand him; Vabre had almost forgotten his mother tongue. Gautier congratulated the exile upon his return, and said, ‘My dear Jules Vabre, in order to translate Shakespeare it is now only necessary for you to learn French.’
Gautier laid the foundations of his great fame by wearing a red waistcoat the first night of Hernani. All the young men were fantastic in those days, and the spirit of carnival was in the whole romantic movement. Gautier was more courageously fantastic than other young men. His costume was effective, and the public never forgot him. He says with humorous resignation: ‘If you pronounce the name of Théophile Gautier before a Philistine who has never read a line of our works, the Philistine knows us, and remarks with a satisfied air, “Oh yes, the young man with the red waistcoat and the long hair.” … Our poems are forgotten, but our red waistcoat is remembered.’ Gautier cheerfully grants that when everything about him has faded into oblivion this gleam of light will remain, to distinguish him from literary contemporaries whose waistcoats were of soberer hue.
The chapter in his Histoire du Romantisme in which Gautier tells how he went to the tailor to arrange for the most spectacular feature of his costume is lively and amusing. He spread out the magnificent piece of cherry-colored satin, and then unfolded his design for a ‘pour-point,’ like a ‘Milan cuirass.’ Says Gautier, using always his quaint editorial we, ‘It has been said that we know a great many words, but we don’t know words enough to express the astonishment of our tailor when we lay before him our plan for a waistcoat.’ The man of shears had doubts as to his customer’s sanity.
‘Monsieur,’ he exclaimed, ‘this is not the fashion!’