An individual with red face, hair and moustaches entered.
"Go and find the manuscript of Moses," said Chateaubriand.
Pilorge was Chateaubriand's secretary, and the place was no sinecure. Besides manuscripts and letters which his master signed, Pilorge copied everything. The illustrious author, attentive to the demands of posterity, preserved with religious care copies of his most trifling notes. The tragedy which Chateaubriand read from with pomp and emphasis did not immensely impress Hugo, and the scene was interrupted by the entrance of a servant with an enormous vessel full of water for the bath. Chateaubriand proceeded to take off his head handkerchief and green slippers, and seeing Hugo about to retire, motioned to him to remain. He then continued to disrobe without ceremony, took off his gray pantaloons, shirt and flannel undershirt, and went into the bath, where his servant washed and rubbed him. He then resumed his clothes, brushed his teeth, which were beautiful, and of which he evidently took great care; and during this process talked with animation.
This morning seems to have been a fortunate exception, as Hugo declares that he found Chateaubriand on other occasions a man of freezing politeness, stiff, arousing rather respect than sympathy—a genius rather than a man. The royal carelessness of his character was shown in his financial affairs. He kept always on his mantelpiece piles of five-franc pieces, and when his servant brought him begging letters—a thing which took place constantly—he took a piece from the pile, wrapped it in the letter and sent it out by the servant. Money ran through his fingers. When he went to see Charles X. at Prague, and the king questioned him in reference to his affairs, his response was, "I am as poor as a rat."
"That will not do," said the king. "Come, Chateaubriand, how much would make you rich?"
"Sire," was the reply, "you are throwing away your time. If you gave me four millions this morning, I should not have a penny this evening."
It must be conceded that there was something imposing in this refusal of royal generosity; but the poet seems to have passed through life thus, with his head carried superbly aloft, and his "grand air" ready on all occasions.
Hugo draws him at fifty, in his fine hôtel at Paris—a celebrity in politics and society. Dumas shows him in his old age, poor, self-exiled, and wellnigh forgotten by the world in which he had played so great a part. The brilliant and eccentric author of Henry III. was traveling in Switzerland in 1834, and on reaching Lucerne was informed that the hotel of The Eagle had the honor of sheltering no less a personage than one of his own literary idols—the great, the famous, the imposing M. de Chateaubriand. Dumas declares that genius in misfortune was always dearer to him than in its hours of greatest splendor, and the statement seems to have been honest. He determined to call and pay his respects to the great poet. He accordingly repaired to the hotel of The Eagle, asked for M. de Chateaubriand, and was informed by the waiter in a matter-of-fact voice that M. de Chateaubriand was not then at the hotel, as he had "gone to feed his ducks."
At this strange announcement Dumas stared. He suppressed his curiosity, nevertheless, left his name and address, and duly received on the next morning a polite note from Chateaubriand inviting him to come and breakfast with him at ten.
The invitation was gladly accepted, not, however, without a tremor of awe on the part of the youthful author. Even in old age, poverty, exile and forgotten by the world, Chateaubriand was to him the impersonation of grandeur. He trembled at the very thought of approaching this "mighty rock upon which the waves of envy had in vain beaten for fifty years"—this grand genius whose "immense superiority wellnigh crushed him." His demeanor, therefore, he declares, when shown into Chateaubriand's presence, must have appeared exceedingly awkward. Nevertheless, the cordial courtesy of the exile speedily restored his self-possession, and they proceeded to breakfast, conversing meanwhile upon political affairs, the news from France, and other topics of national interest to the old poet. Dumas represents him as simple, cordial, grave, yet unreserved. He was gray, but preserved his imposing carriage.