From the drawing by Léopold Flameng, made in May, 1858, in Meryon’s room in the rue des Fossés-Saint-Jacques, the night before Meryon became dangerously mad and was taken by his friends, in a cab, to Charenton for the first time. Later he was discharged, and took up his lodging in the rue Duperré, and in October, 1866, returned to Charenton, where he died in February, 1868.
“Do not laugh at all this with méchants bougres. For nothing in the world would I wish to injure a man of talent....
“After he left me, I asked myself how it happened that I, who have always had, in my mind and in my nerves, all that was needed to make me mad, had not become so. Seriously, I addressed to heaven the thanksgivings of the Pharisee.”
* * * * *
It is not surprising that Baudelaire should have been somewhat disconcerted by this interview which confirmed so strikingly the reports of the mental malady of his visitor to which he had alluded in his Salon of 1859, and that he should soon have sought, after some brief intercourse, to avoid personal and private encounters which might have proved embarrassing. He gave notice in ways the artist could not long mistake, that he did not wish to continue the acquaintance on a footing of intimacy, though, as Crépet, in his Charles Baudelaire[5] points out, he by no means ceased to interest himself in the artist, several sets of whose Eaux-Fortes sur Paris he was instrumental, with one or two other admirers of Meryon, in having purchased by the Ministry. Poor Meryon! With an incomplete realization of his own condition which rendered him incapable of divining the real truth, he felt he had offended Baudelaire in some way, and finally addressed him the following appeal, tragic in its note of noble and unconscious pathos:
“Dear Sir: I called on you yesterday evening at the Hôtel de Dieppe. I was informed that you had changed your domicile. I wished, above all, to see you, in order to learn from your own lips that you were not angry with me, for I do not think I have ever done anything to you which could serve as a motive for your change of manner toward me. Only, as the last letter which I wrote you has remained unanswered, and as three times I have left my name at your dwelling without my having had the slightest word from you, I am entitled to believe that you have some reason for breaking with me. I did not remind you of your promise to write a newspaper article about my work, because, quite frankly, I was sure that you could make much better employment of your time and of your literary skill. My etchings are known to nearly all whom they could interest and rather too much good has been said of them. As to the interruption of our relations, which have been but of brief duration and of slight importance, I agree to this without a word if such is your desire, and I shall conserve, none the less, the recollection of the eminent services you have rendered me in coming to see me, and in occupying yourself with me at a time when I was utterly destitute.
“I have forwarded to M. Lavielle, whom I had the advantage of meeting once with you, the set of my views, reworked and a trifle modified; he has, perhaps, shown them to you. I have had difficulty in procuring the ten sets of them (the printer being very busy at that time) that I have disposed of with sufficient rapidity. I have no longer any left and I have destroyed the Petit-Pont, which I propose to engrave anew, after I have made in it some rather important corrections.
“Adieu, dear sir, with all possible good wishes.
“I am your sincere and devoted friend,
“C. Meryon.
“20, rue Duperré.”