It will be seen that Reboul himself did not agree with Lamartine's estimate of him, nor indeed with many of the great poet's religious and political views; but the tribute to our hero is only rendered more honorable by this dissidence of opinion.
Many other names might be added to the list of Reboul's literary acquaintances. Montalembert, at whose request he paraphrased in verse the famous article published in the Correspondant, "Une Nation en deuil," a plea for Poland written by the author of The Monks of the West; Père Lacordaire, Mgr. Dupanloup, M. de Falloux, Mme. Récamier, Mme. de Beaumont, a graceful poetess, Canonge, his fellow-poet of Nîmes, Charles Lenormand, and hosts of others. Artists too he held in great honor: Sigalon, a painter full of promise, of a poor family in Nîmes, and whom Reboul characterizes as one who, had he lived, would have been a modern Michael Angelo; Orsel, of whom he speaks in these enthusiastic terms: "I showed my friends some of Orsel's sketches, which they found more true and more holy than Raphael's style. I will not go so far, for the judgment of ages and of so many connoisseurs unanimously proclaiming the supremacy of the great Italian is a stronger authority in my eyes than the exclamation of a few men in a given moment of enthusiasm. Still I was astounded. Some vague remorse seized me when I reflected that I had regarded this man with indifference, not yet knowing his works! But when I think that I actually read so many of my bad verses to one who had before his mind's eye such holy and beautiful types, and that he was good enough to listen patiently, it is not admiration, but veneration that I feel towards him."
Reber, the musician, who in 1853 was deservedly elected member of the Institut de France, and Rose, a young sculptor, whose Christian genius was worthy of being placed in contrast (in his admirable bassi-relievi of the Stations of the Cross in the church of S. Paul, at Nîmes) with the perfection of Hippolyte Flandrin's magnificent frescos, were also among Reboul's artistic friends. In a comparison instituted by our poet between popular and high art, we find the following pungent comment: "M. Courbet has painted women fitted, by the rotundity of their dimensions, to be exhibited at a fair, and his name is incessantly in the papers. On the other hand, M. Ingres is seldom if ever mentioned!"
Reboul's voluminous letters to M. de Fresne trace unconsciously a most noble moral portrait of the writer. Here are a few characteristic touches, putting in relief his manliness and freedom from petty vanities or weak susceptibilities. There was not the shadow of a meanness in Reboul's mind; his soul was simplicity itself, and was rather like those dark, deep waters of some of the American lakes, at whose bottom every pebble is distinctly visible.
"One of the advantages of the position in which it has pleased God to place me," he says, "is that I hear the truth told me point-blank and without any circumlocution whatever, and, thank God, I am inured to this. I have found out since that what once galled my pride has had other and important results, so that both friend and foe have served me.... I bow to nothing save that which is beautiful everywhere and at all times, and progress to my mind signifies only the fashioning of my works more and more according to this eternal standard. If I do not succeed, therefore, be sure that it is through human helplessness and not intentional profanation."
He thus distinctly recognizes his art as a mission, a sacred thing to be reverently handled, and not profaned by compromises with the local and accidental spirit of the age. And again: "If the poet condescends to these intrigues behind the scenes, he loses what should be his greatest treasure: the consciousness of his own dignity.[42] Theatrical plaudits, success, all that is outside ourselves: the poet should seek to live at peace with his own soul, for alas! man cannot fly from himself, and woe to him if he has need to blush for his deeds before the tribunal of his own conscience.... There is too much water in the wine of success to inebriate me.... Time, which is God's mode of action, deprives us little by little of everything which can be salutary guardianship, until that supreme moment when it leaves us face to face with itself alone. Let us strive to prepare ourselves for this awful tête-à-tête." Reboul possessed the true pride of a noble heart which consisted in doing simply every duty required of him alike by his poor condition and his admirable talent. Of the former he never showed himself ashamed and repeatedly refused to change it; yet this refusal was perfectly honest. If he was in no ways ashamed of his lowly origin, at the same time he was equally far from making it a boast. On the publication of his Traditionelles (a volume of detached poems) M. Lenormand devoted to it a laudatory and appreciative article in the Correspondant. Reboul noticed this in the following words: "I have only one observation to make, however: I would rather they had left the 'baker' out of the question, certainly not because the allusion humiliates me, but because I fear that it points towards making an exception of my verses, as a moral lusus naturæ, and it is my ardent wish, on the contrary, to be judged quite outside such circumstances. I can say this the more frankly, because I have never, in my Traditionelles, disguised my origin, and indeed, did I not fear to be suspected of that hateful plebeian pride, I should even say that I would not exchange my family for any other. This is between ourselves."
And again, when the question of his nomination to the French Academy was under discussion, he wrote a very similar sentence: "I can hardly tell you why I would not accept this candidature. This, perhaps, will best render my idea: I am not of the stuff of which academicians are made. This is no outburst of plebeian pride—the most insolent pride of any; it is merely my true estimate of my own position." At another time he said, excusing himself for not having asked a person of high position and a friend of his to the funeral of his mother: "Whatever ignorance and enviousness may say to the contrary, there are barriers between the different classes of society which cannot be disregarded without unseemliness. My 'neglect' was but the consequence of this conviction."
He has left carelessly here and there embedded in the text of an everyday letter some phrase which seems like a proverb, so beautiful and comprehensive is it. For instance, speaking of the costliness of the Paris salons, he says: "The most beautiful abodes, my dear friend, are those where the devil finds nothing to look upon." Of the degeneracy of modern thought he speaks thus: "These noble convictions are passing away, and every thing is subjected to the feeble equations of reason; all things are discussed, calculated, weighed, and the heart would appear to be a superfluity of creation, so little are its holy inspirations followed!"
And of books and their readers he says: "We do not all read a book alike, but each takes from it only what his individual nature is capable of appropriating. The prejudices of divers schools of literature, the rivalry of various political, philosophical, and religious opinions, are all so many spectacles through which we judge the beauties or defects of any work."
Reboul's domestic life was a calm and simple one; his mind craved no pleasures beyond its silent circle, save those which he found in books; and his attachment to his native city and his humble home was as touching as it was sincere. His trade gave him enough for a modest and assured way of life, and he coveted no more. It was a less precarious source of gain than literature alone would have been; it supported his family in comfort, and, above all, left his own mind at ease; and it was only towards the end of his life that, having generously assisted a relation in financial difficulties, he found himself in real want. Then only, and not till then, did he accept, with touching sadness and humility, the help his friends and his heart's sovereign, the Comte de Chambord, had repeatedly pressed upon him in happier days. His greatest relaxation was an hour spent with his family or a few chosen literary friends in his mazet, an enclosed garden with a little dwelling attached, in which were a sitting-room and a kitchen, but no bed-rooms. We do not know if this is a peculiar institution of Nîmes alone or of the whole south of France. It is constantly mentioned by Reboul, and his letters are often dated from it—nay, his verses were sometimes composed there. It was a luxury of his later days, not of the time when he received Châteaubriand and Lamartine in the "windmill chamber."