If one decides to forget the past and the great thinkers who had made the middle of last century so interesting in France, one can find great pleasure in knowing some of the literary men of the present day in Paris. They are always amusing, and perhaps the art of small talk is practised by them more brilliantly than among their predecessors. Anatole France, Octave Mirbeau, and Pierre Loti are among the foremost novelists, and for those who have given themselves over to historical studies the Marquis de Ségur is the most acceptable name. I must also give grateful mention to such as Guy de Maupassant and Flaubert—the great Flaubert, whom so many have tried to imitate, but whom few could approach either as regards his talent or his thorough knowledge of the French language.
The well known Octave Mirbeau began his literary career as the secretary of Arthur Meyer, the director and present owner of the Gaulois. He has a profound belief in his own work, and with some justice. He certainly is clever, and the talent with which he describes in his novels what he has not felt is such as one but seldom meets nowadays. His books are remarkable, and they awake passionate interest in their readers, even though they are so strong with realism that they repel many. They are highly imaginative, and provoke not only curiosity but also the desire to read them over again as soon as one has finished them.
From being quite unknown Octave Mirbeau has risen high in the literary firmament of his country and his generation. He soon made his name, gossip saying that he kept himself before his contemporaries by his sharp criticisms of everybody and everything he did not like, or he thought did not like him. He spared no one. Nevertheless he became famous in Paris and throughout France. He succeeded, therefore, in making his books popular.
M. Mirbeau began as a poor man; quickly, however, he earned for himself a large fortune, partly through his books, partly through successful operations on the Stock Exchange, and partly by marriage. M. Mirbeau lives in clover in one of the finest apartments of the Avenue du Bois, and on the lovely property which he possesses at Cormeilles-en-Vexin, near Paris. He gives dinners now and then, and has always been upon excellent terms with the wife to whom he owes so much of his worldly goods. He likes to see at his hospitable hearth the people of whose admiration he feels sure, and honoured me once with an invitation to lunch when I least expected it, for we had never been very friendly towards each other.
I shall never forget that lunch. There were only four of us, the host and hostess, Rodin the sculptor, and myself. When I arrived I was introduced in the study, where the first thing which struck my eyes was the bust of Mirbeau himself on the mantelpiece. As I looked at it, after having exchanged the first greetings with the people in the room, Madame Mirbeau turned to me, and said in her softest accents—and she has a delightfully soft voice: “You are looking at my husband’s bust; it is the work of our great master here,” and she turned towards Rodin.
The latter raised himself slightly from the depths of the large arm-chair in which he was ensconced beside the fire, and looking at me, murmured dreamily: “Ah, it is not everybody’s bust I care to do, but when one meets with a remarkable personality like our great writer here, it is a pleasure for an artist to reproduce his features.”
He sighed as he spoke, and Mirbeau’s face lighted up as he said in his turn: “I never hoped for such a reward for all my work as to be thought worthy of the attention of our great master.”
And then Madame Mirbeau began again: “Ah, it is not often that two great souls like our two great masters here present meet and think together.”
Lunch was announced, and Rodin rose, and directed his steps towards the dining-room. Fearing that I might step before him, Mirbeau stopped me by laying his hand upon my arm, saying as he did so: “Laissez passer le maître, notre maître à tous!”
And this kind of thing went on during the whole meal. Rodin praised Mirbeau, Mirbeau praised Rodin, and Madame Mirbeau praised both of them. One heard nothing but “cher maître,” and “ce grand maître,” and “notre grand maître”—I began to think that I had been invited to assist at the canonisation of Rodin by Mirbeau, and of Mirbeau by Rodin, or of both by Mirbeau’s wife.