FERDINAND DE CANDOLLES.

Of all the social miseries of France, none are more fruitful in catastrophes of every kind than the idle uselessness of the well-born, and the over-education of those who are not so. France being, as one of her writers observes, the China of Europe, her habits, customs, and traditions, endure, in fact, through the organized destruction of succeeding revolutions, and whilst throne after throne lies in the dust, the prejudices of that fictitious universe called the world, are standing still, fixed, firm, and uprising in inflexible strength from roots that plunge deep into the soil. For instance, the old idea that a gentilhomme or a Grand Seigneur should not know how to spell, although obsolete as far as grammar and orthography are concerned, lives on yet in the notion that a gentleman must not work. This has hitherto proved an uneradicable opinion, and the general incapability and instinctive laziness of the upper classes in France, can, alas! amply testify to its prevalence throughout the country. It is not that the aristocracy of France are wanting in talent or intelligence; on the contrary, they have far more of what may be called native capacity than the classes beneath them—but they are unpractical, unbusiness-like, unused to any things in the shape of affairs. They are admirable if always in the first place, but rebel at the bare thought of helping on the governing machine in its hidden wheels; and whilst with us every public office counts gentlemen by the dozen, and noble names are to be found even in the most unconspicuous, though useful places; in France an ancient family would think itself degraded if one of its sons were to be discovered amongst the workers of a bureau.

The following tale, the circumstances of which are yet uneffaced from many a memory in Paris, will perhaps serve to exemplify the sad truth of what I advance, and give a slight notion of the immediate action of certain false principles upon our neighbors’ mind. The hero of the ensuing pages, Ferdinand de Candolles, was the last scion of one of the most ancient houses in France. Ferdinand’s father died whilst the boy was in early infancy, and the entire charge of her son, whom she idolized, fell upon Madame de Candolles. At eighteen, Ferdinand was a tall, handsome youth, prodigiously proud of his name, highly romantic in his notions, ready to do battle with any given number of individuals in honor of Dieu, le Roi, ou sa fame, making a terrible quantity of bad verses, but as incapable of explaining to you M. de Villèle’s last financial measure, or the probable influence of the increasing growth of beet-root sugar upon the colonial markets, as he would have been of expounding the doctrines of Confucius in Chinese.

The Revolution of 1830, fell like a thunder-bolt upon France, and the Bourbons of the elder branch allowed themselves to be driven from their post. The elements of revolution had been for the last seven or eight years fermenting far more in society, in the arts and in literature, than in the political sphere; and Ferdinand, with all his heart and soul a devoted royalist, as far as the government was concerned, was naïvely and unsuspectingly in every thing else, a determined revolutionist, overthrowing intellectual dynasties, spurning authority, mocking at control, gloating over Victor Hugo, George Sand, e tutti quanti, and fancying the whole was quite compatible with the political faith he would sooner have died than resign. Sometimes Madame de Candolles would think very seriously of what could be the future career of her son, and the word Nothing! emblazoned in gigantic ideal letters, was the only answer her imagination ever framed. In 1832, it so happened that the now prefect named in the department, was an old friend of the widow’s family—a bourgeois, it is true, still a respectable man, whose father and uncle had, in very difficult times, rendered more than one signal service to Madame de Candolles’ own parents. M. Durand and his wife drew Ferdinand and his mother as much about them as they possibly could, and whenever he found an occasion of insinuating any thing of the kind into the widow’s ear, the well-intentioned préfet would talk seriously, nay, almost paternally, of her son’s future, and the little it seemed likely to offer him. One day, after a conversation in which Madame de Candolles had more freely than usual admitted the barrenness of the lad’s prospects, M. Durand contrived to lead her insensibly toward the notion of some employment whereby a becoming existence might be insured, hinted that there were positions where political opinions need be no obstacle, to which the nomination even did not emanate directly from the government, and ended by proposing to invest Ferdinand with the dignity of head librarian to the Bibliothèque de la Ville, a place yielding some hundred and fifty pounds a year, and just left vacant by the death of Madame Durand’s nephew. Madame de Candolles’ surprise was scarcely surpassed by her indignation, and, though she managed to cover both by a slight veil of politeness, there was in her refusal a degree of haughtiness that went well-nigh to disturb the honest préfet’s equanimity. As to Ferdinand, he did not exactly know, when the offer was first made clear to him, whether he ought not to take down a certain sword worn at Marigny by his ancestor, Palamède de Candolles, and punish M. Durand with positive loss of life for his audacity; but, when what he called reason returned, he determined simply by the frigid dignity of his manners in future to make the bourgeois functionary of Louis Philippe feel the full extent of his mistake, and bring him to a proper consciousness of the wide difference between their relative positions. Nor was this all; one day, some six months after, Madame de Candolles took occasion to pay a visit to the préfecture, and leading M. Durand aside, to solicit him for the still unfilled post of librarian, in favor of Ferdinand’s foster-brother, a market-gardener’s son! He was, she said, an exceedingly clever young man, knew Latin, Greek, and all sorts of things, had just served his time in a notary’s office, and would be the very thing for the situation proposed!—(successor to Madame Durand’s own nephew!) The préfet was sufficiently master of himself to refuse politely, alleging that he had already made choice of a librarian; but when Madame Durand heard the story, she vowed undying hatred to all aristocrats, and whenever she afterward met Madame de Candolles, tossed her plumed head as though she had been a war-horse. So ended our hero’s first and only chance of official employment, rejected, we have seen with what disdain. He had then attained the age of twenty-three.

In the course of the following year General de Candolles died, leaving all he possessed to his nephew. This “all” was not much, still it was something—some twenty-odd thousand francs, or so—and if the widow had lived long enough, it might have increased; but, unfortunately, before Ferdinand had reached the age of twenty-five, his mother also died, leaving him completely—positively “alone in the world.” With what Madame de Candolles left (her chief resources had come from a small annuity) Ferdinand found himself at the head of about two thousand pounds sterling. With two thousand francs a year, which this would yield, he might have lived comfortably enough in any part of the provinces, and indulged in a quiet laugh at the préfet, who wanted to make a bibliothécaire of him. But, of course, such sensible arrangements did not enter into his head. He was (the naïf royalist and aristocrat!) wild with admiration of “Hernani” and le Roi s’amuse, and for the moment thought of little beyond the soul-stirring delights of seeing Bocage in Antony, or Madame Dorval in Marion Delorme. To Paris, of course, tended all his desires, and to Paris he accordingly went, as soon as the first months of mourning were expired, and he had put what he termed order into his affairs.

We will not dive into the details of his existence in the great capital during the first period of his residence there. Suffice it to say, that the literary mania soon possessed him entirely, and he dreamt of little short of European fame. Here, indeed, thought he, was a career into which he might throw himself with all his energy. Lamartine and De Vigny were gentlemen like himself, and there was in poetry nothing to sully his escutcheon. Unfortunately, Ferdinand mistook for talent the means afforded him by his purse for drawing flatterers about him, and for some time he bought his most fatal illusions with his positive substance. Dinners to journalists, and parties of pleasure with all the world, soon reduced his capital considerably, but what did that matter? when he should be famous, publishers would besiege him, laying thousands at his feet for a fortnight’s labor. He was already the acknowledged idol of certain salons, and when the tragedy he had written should be performed, his name would be glorious throughout the world. By dint of pecuniary sacrifices, the performance of this play at the Théâtre Français had been obtained, and what with newspaper scribblers, claqueurs, actresses, and human leeches of every sort who fastened upon his pocket, the author found himself, half an hour before the curtain drew up, on the fancied dawn of his glory, literally deprived of every farthing he possessed, except one solitary five-franc piece in his waistcoat pouch. Ferdinand smiled gayly on perceiving this, and thought what a strange thing fortune was, and fame, too, and how, on the morrow, he should be on the high road to riches!

Well, to cut the matter short, the tragedy was a dead failure, as it merited to be, and before the last act was ended, Ferdinand’s golden dreams were rudely dispelled, and he clutched the pièce de cent sous in his waistcoat-pocket as though it were to save him from going crazy. When the curtain dropped he escaped from the theatre unseen, muffled up in his cloak like some criminal flying from detection. But his fate was lying in wait for him. As he turned round the corner of the house which led into the least frequented of the surrounding streets, he perceived three or four carriages waiting for their occupants, and he stood for an instant, hesitating whether to go backward or forward. At that moment, a ray from the réverbère fell upon the face of a lady who, enveloped in mantle and hood, was waiting for the arrival of her equipage. Ferdinand had never seen that face before, but he stood riveted to the spot, for something in his heart whispered, it is she—the one! The preceding carriages received their respective charges, and whirled them off; the last one drew up, and the door was opened by the footman—the lady dropped her glove, whilst turning to bid adieu to her companion. Ferdinand, unconscious that he had sprung to her side, raised it up, and offered it to its owner. “Thank you, Armand,” said she, “what a wretched stupid play—was it not?” and then turning round—“A thousand pardons, monsieur!” she exclaimed, “I mistook you for another person;” and so, with a bow, she entered her carriage, and the door closed with a bang.