But in this friendly contest, if contest it may be called, Mérimée had to deal with a less exquisitely polished wit than his own, a wit which occasionally when Panizzi was, or pretended to be, more than ordinarily annoyed by his friend’s extreme attention to his attire, was developed in practical joking. One of Panizzi’s especial dislikes, and for this he had sound patriotic grounds of justification, was a peculiar cap, much of the kind worn by officers of the Austrian army, which Mérimée persisted in wearing both in the house and in the garden, known as the Principal Librarian’s. This was so peculiarly an object of annoyance to the Principal Librarian that he once went so far as to purloin the cap and lock it up, adding to the peculation the sin of denying to its owner that he knew anything whatever about it. Nor, though the treachery was discovered, is it on record that the rightful owner ever recovered possession of his property. He had his revenge, however. That the ghost of the victim should haunt the criminal, Mérimée made a drawing of the cap, which he placed every morning at breakfast, and every evening at dinner, in Panizzi’s napkin. The kind of footing on which Mérimée was at the British Museum may be gathered from the following self-invitation to Panizzi’s:—
“Paris, 14 Avril, 1858.
“Vous recevrez de toute façon un mot de moi, qui vous marquera précisément le jour de mon entrée dans la ville de Londres. D’autre part, il se trouve que ma cousine est un peu malade, en sorte que son mari reste à Paris.
J’irai donc, si vous voulez le permettre, droit au British Museum à mon arrivée.—Cependant il faut que nous fassions nos conditions.—La première, c’est que vous ne vous dérangerez absolument en rien pour moi; que vous irez dîner en ville et passer vos soirées comme vous en avez l’habitude, sans vous inquiéter en rien de ce que deviendra votre serviteur, qui est assez pratique de Londres pour n’y pas mourir de faim ni même d’ennui.”
At the Museum Mérimée was well known and a great favourite with the whole staff. In this he took just pride:—
“Londres, Mardi, 7 Août, 1860.
“Je reviens du British Museum qui m’a paru tout sombre depuis votre absence. M. Bond m’a montré un tres beau manuscript qu’on vient d’acheter pour soixante livres sterling. Les messengers et les attendants m’ont reconnu et ont été aussi aimables pour moi qu’à l’ordinaire.”
Prosper Mérimée was born at Paris on the 28th of September, 1803. His father, Jean François Léonore, was a painter of some eminence. Prosper was educated at the Collège Charlemagne, whence he passed the course of Ecole de Droit, and in after years as is well-known took an honourable position in political life. It is not, however, our office here to enter on a history of Mérimée’s career, which, as well as his published works, has been too long before the world to demand particular notice at our hands. Seeing that we have been simply the mechanical means of introducing to the public his letters to Panizzi, we hold it to be no transgression of the limits of modesty most heartily to commend these as among the best specimens of the art of letter writing that can well be found in any language. Upon them we shall principally rely for our information about Mérimée; nor, indeed, seeing that we have treated of him mainly in his character of Panizzi’s friend, should we think ourselves justified in travelling very far beyond their contents. Unstudied and unartificial, unrevised after being written, as is plain from the careless repetition that abounds in them, and written with no purpose of meeting any eye but their recipient’s, they present a clearer reflection of the writer’s mind than could be obtained from more elaborate compositions.
Moreover, the multitude of interesting subjects treated in them gives them a value for general history as well as an insight into the disposition and actions of their author.
In politics, Mérimée was of the school commonly known as Liberal-Conservative. He seems to have been singularly free from the gregarious instinct of his race and countrymen, who, to genuine liberty, are apt to prefer enforced equality, which, from the insupportable tyranny of the mob, leads, in nine cases out of ten, to the Despotism of the Dictator. Of the great political principle of vesting the Sovereign power in that quarter where the greatest number of noses are to be counted, he had the most genuine horror, as also of the instrument towards that end, universal suffrage, to which he expressed fears lest the reforms at that time projected in England should cause the nation to drift. It is natural that he should couple the expression of his fears with the praise of one, the moderation of whose opinions on this point he must heartily have approved:—