He afterwards behaved, however, with great sense and wisdom. He declined all offices and honors, considering his part as political songster at an end. In 1833 he published a collection in which were remarked some songs of a higher order, less partisan, and in which he foreshadowed a broader and more peaceful democracy. After this he was silent, and as he was continually visited and consulted, he resolved upon leaving Paris for some years, in order to escape this annoyance. He went first to the neighborhood of Tours, and then to Fontainebleau; but the free, conversational life of Paris was too dear to him, and he returned to live in seclusion, though always much visited by his troops of friends, and much sought after. In leaving Paris during the first years of Louis Philippe's reign, and closing, as he called it, his consulting office, his chief aim was to escape the questions, solicitations, and confidences of opposite parties, in all of which he continued to have many friends who would gladly have brought him over to their way of thinking. He did not wish to be any longer what he had been so much,—a consulting politician; but he did not cease to be a practical philosopher with a crowd of disciples, and a consulting democrat. Chateaubriand, Lamennais, Lamartine,—the chiefs of parties at first totally opposed to his own,—came to seek his friendship, and loved to repose and refresh themselves in his conversation. He enjoyed, a little mischievously, seeing one of them (Chateaubriand) lay aside his royalism, another (Lamennais) abjure his Catholicism, and the third (Lamartine) forget his former aristocracy, in visiting him. He looked upon this, and justly, as a homage paid to the manners and spirit of the age, of which he was the humble but inflexible representative.
When the Revolution of 1848 burst unexpectedly, he was not charmed with it,—nay, it made him even a little sad. Less a republican than a patriot, he saw immense danger for France, as he knew her, in the establishment of the pure republican form. He was of opinion that it was necessary to wear out the monarchy little by little,—that with time and patience it would fall of itself; but he had to do with an impatient people, and he lamented it. "We had a ladder to go down by," said he, "and here we are jumping out of the window!" It was the same sentiment of patriotism, mingled with a certain almost mystical enthusiasm for the great personality of Napoleon, nourished and augmented with growing years, which made him accept the events of 1851-2 and the new Empire.
The religion of Béranger, which was so anti-Catholic, and which seems even to have dispensed with Christianity, reduced itself to a vague Deism, which in principle had too much the air of a pleasantry. His Dieu des bonnes gens, which he opposed to the God of the congregation and the preachers, could not be taken seriously by any one. Nevertheless, the poet, as he grew older, grew more and more attached to this symbol of a Deity, indulgent before all else, but very real and living, and in whom the poor and the suffering could put their trust. What passed in the days preceding his death has been much discussed, and many stories are told about it. He received, in fact, some visits from the curate of the parish of Saint Elizabeth, in which he lived. This curate had formerly officiated at Passy,—a little village near Paris, where Béranger had resided,—and was already acquainted with the poet. The conversations at these visits, according to the testimony of those best informed, amounted to very little; and the last time the curate came, just as he was going out, Béranger, already dying, said to him, "Your profession gives you the right to bless me; I also bless you;—pray for me, and for all the unfortunate!" The priest and the old man exchanged blessings,—the benedictions of two honest men, and nothing more.
Béranger had one rare quality, and it was fundamental with him,—obligingness, readiness to perform kind offices, humanity carried to the extent of Charity. He loved to busy himself for others. To some one who said that time lay heavy on his hands, he answered, "Then you have never occupied yourself about other people?" "Take more thought of others than of yourself" was his maxim. And he did so occupy himself,—not out of curiosity, but to aid, to succor with advice and with deeds. His time belonged to everybody,—to the humblest, the poorest, the first stranger who addressed him and told him his sorrows. Out of a very small income (at most, four or five thousand francs a year) he found means to give much. He loved, above all, to assist poor artisans, men of the people, who appealed to him; and he did it always without wounding the fibre of manhood in them. He loved everything that wore a blouse. He had, even stronger than the love of liberty, the love of equality, the great passion of the French.
He spent the last years of his life with an old friend of his youth by the name of Madame Judith. This worthy person died a few months before him, and he accompanied her remains to the church. He was seventy-seven years old when he died.
Estimating and comparing chiefly literary and poetic merits, some persons in France have been astonished that the obsequies of Béranger should have been so magnificently celebrated, while, but a few months before, the coffin of another poet, M. Alfred de Musset, had been followed by a mere handful of mourners; yet M. de Musset was capable of tones and flights which in inspiration and ardor surpassed the habitual range of Béranger. Without attempting here to institute a comparison, there is one thing essential to be remarked: in Béranger there was not only a poet, but a man, and the man in him was more considerable than the poet,—the reverse of what is the case with so many others. People went to see him, after having heard his songs sung, to tell him how much they had been applauded and enjoyed,—and, after the first compliments, found that the poet was a man of sense, a good talker on all subjects, interested in politics, a wonderful reasoner, with great knowledge of men, and characterizing them delicately with a few fine and happy touches. They became sincerely attached to him; they came again, and delighted to draw out in talk that wisdom armed with epigram, that experience full of agreeable counsels. His passions had been the talent of the poet; his good sense gave authority to the man. Even by those least willing to accept popular idols, Béranger will always be ranked as one of the subtilest wits of the French school, and as something more than this,—as one of the acutest servants of free human thought.
A TIFFIN OF PARAGRAPHS.
How runs the Hindoo saw? "Are we not to milk when there is a cow?" When India is giving down generous streams of paragraphy to all the greedy buckets of the press, shall we not hold our pretty pail under? As our genial young friend, Ensign Isnob, of the "Sappies and Minors," would say,—"I believe you, me boy!"
Then come with us to Cossitollah, and we'll have a tiffin of talk; some cloves of adventure, with a capsicum or two of tragic story, shall stand for the curry; the customs of the country may represent the familiar rice; a whiff of freshness and fragrance from the Mofussil will be as the mangoes and the dorians; in the piquancy and grotesqueness of the first pure Orientalism that may come to hand we shall recognize the curious chow-chow of the chutney; and as for the beer,—why, we will be the beer ourselves.
"Kitmudgar, remove that scorpion from the punka, before it drops into the Sahib's plate.—Hold, miscreant! who told you to kill it?