MY MEMOIRS
BY
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
TRANSLATED BY
E. M. WALLER
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
ANDREW LANG
VOL. VI
1832 TO 1833
WITH A FRONTISPIECE
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1909
Alexandre Dumas
aet area '67.
CONTENTS
Preparations for my Fancy Dress Ball—I find that my lodgings are too much after the style of Socrates—My artist-decorators—The question of the supper—I go for provisions to la Ferté-Vidame—View of this capital town of the Canton, by night, in a snowstorm—My nephew's room—My friend Gondon—Roebuck hunting—Return to Paris—I invent a Bank of Exchange before M. Proudhon—The artists at work—The dead [1]
Alfred Johannot [10]
Clément Boulanger [18]
Grandville [28]
Tony Johannot [36]
Sequel to the preparations for my ball—Oil and distemper—Inconveniences of working at night—How Delacroix did his task—The ball—Serious men—La Fayette and Beauchene—Variety of costumes—The invalid and the undertaker's man—The last galop—A political play—A moral play [42]
Dix ans de la vie d'une femme [53]
Doligny manager of the theatre in Italy—Saint-Germain bitten by the tarantula—How they could have livened up Versailles if Louis-Philippe had wished it—The censorship of the Grand-Duke of Tuscany—The bindings of printer Batelli—Richard Darlington, Angèle, Antony and La Tour de Nesle performed under the name of Eugène Scribe [83]
A few words on La Tour de Nesle and M. Frédérick Gaillardet—The Revue des Deux Mondes—M. Buloz—The Journal des Voyages—My first attempt at Roman history—Isabeau de Bavière—A witty man of five foot nine inches [91]
Success of my Scènes historiques—Clovis and Hlodewig (Chlodgwig)—I wish to apply myself seriously to the study of the history of France—The Abbé Gauthier and M. de Moyencourt—Cordelier-Delanoue reveals to me Augustine Thierry and Chateaubriand—New aspects of history—Gaule et France—A drama in collaboration with Horace Vernet and Auguste Lafontaine [99]
Édith aux longs cheveux—Catherine Howard [107]
An invasion of cholera—Aspect of Paris—Medicine and the scourge—Proclamation of the Prefect of Police—The supposed poisoners—Harel's newspaper paragraph—Mademoiselle Dupont—Eugène Durieu and Anicet Bourgeois—Catherine (not Howard) and the cholera—First performance of Mari de la veuve—A horoscope which did not come true [115]
My régime against the cholera—I am attacked by the epidemic —I invent etherisation—Harel comes to suggest to me La Tour de Nesle—Verteuil's manuscript—Janin and the tirade of the grandes dames—First idea of the prison scene—My terms with Harel—Advantages offered by me to M. Gaillardet—The spectator in the Odéon—Known and unknown authors—My first letter to M. Gaillardet [127]
M. Gaillardet's answer and protest—Frédérick and Buridan's part—Transaction with M. Gaillardet—First performance of La Tour de Nesle—The play and its interpreters—The day following a success—M. * * *—A profitable trial in prospect—Georges' caprice—The manager, author and collaborator [142]
The use of friends—Le Musée des Familles—An article by M. Gaillardet—My reply to it—Challenge from M. Gaillardet —I accept it with effusion—My adversary demands a first respite of a week—I summon him before the Commission of Dramatic Authors—He declines that arbitration—I send him my seconds—He asks a delay of two months—Janin's letter to the newspapers [156]
Sword and pistol—Whence arose my aversion to the latter weapon—Philippe's puppet—The statue of Corneille—An autograph in extremis—Le bois de Vincennes—A duelling toilet—Scientific question put by Bixio—The conditions of the duel—Official report of the seconds—How Bixio's problem found its solution [186]
The masquerade of the budget at Grenoble—M. Maurice Duval—The serenaders—Escapade of the 35th of the line—The insurrection it excites—Arrest of General Saint-Clair—Taking of the préfecture and of the citadel by Bastide—Bastide at Lyons—Order reigns at Grenoble—Casimir Périer, Gamier-Pages and M. Dupin—Report of the municipality of Grenoble—Acquittal of the rioters—Restoration of the 35th—Protest of a smoker [198]
General Dermoncourt's papers—Protest of Charles X. against the usurpation of the Duc d'Orléans—The stoutest of political men—Attempt at restoration planned by Madame la duchesse de Berry—The Carlo-Alberto—How I write authentic notes—Landing of Madame near La Ciotat—Legitimist affray at Marseilles—Madame set out for La Vendée—M. de Bonnechose—M. de Villeneuve—M. de Lorge [215]
Madame's itinerary—Panic—M. de Puylaroque—Domine salvum fac Philippum—The château de Dampierre—Madame de la Myre—The pretended cousin and the curé—M. Guibourg—M. de Bourmont—Letter of Madame to M. de Coislin—The noms de guerre—Proclamation of Madame—New kind of henna—M. Charette—Madame is nearly drowned in the Maine—The sexton in charge of the provisions—A night in the stable—The Legitimists of Paris—They dispatch M. Berryer into la Vendée [230]
Interview between MM. Berryer and de Bourmont—The messenger's guides—The movable column—M. Charles—Madame's hiding-place—Madame refuses to leave la Vendée—She rallies her followers to arms—Death of General Lamarque—The deputies of the Opposition meet together at Laffitte's house—They decide to publish a statement to the nation—MM. Odilon Barrot and de Cormenin are commissioned to draw up this report—One hundred and thirty-three deputies sign it [247]
Last moments of General Lamarque—What his life had been— One of my interviews with him—I am appointed one of the stewards of the funeral cortège—The procession—Symptoms of popular agitation—The marching past across the place Vendôme—The Duke Fitz-James—Conflicts provoked by the town police—The students of the École Polytechnique join the cortège—Arrival of the funeral procession at the pont d'Austerlitz—Speeches—First shots—The man with the red flag—Allocution of Étienne Arago [260]
The artillerymen—Carrel and le National—Barricades of the boulevard Bourdon and in the rue de Ménilmontant— The carriage of General La Fayette—A bad shot from my friends—Despair of Harel—The pistols in Richard—The women are against us—I distribute arms to the insurgents—Change of uniform—The meeting at Laffitte's—Progress of the insurrection—M. Thiers—Barricade Saint-Merry—Jeanne—Rossignol—Barricade of the passage du Saumon—Morning of 6 June [281]
Inside the barricade Saint-Merry, according to a Parisian child's account—General Tiburce Sébastiani—Louis-Philippe during the insurrection—M. Guizot—MM. François Arago, Laffitte and Odilon Barrot at the Tuileries—The last argument of Kings—Étienne Arago and Howelt—Denunciation against me—M. Binet's report [301]
Le Fils de l'Émigré—I learn the news of my premature death—I am advised to take a voyage for prudence and health's sake—I choose Switzerland—Gosselin's literary opinion on that country—First effect of change of air—From Châlon to Lyons by a low train—The ascent of Cerdon—Arrival at Geneva [317]
Great explanations about the bear-steak—Jacotot—An ill-sounding epithet—A seditious felt hat—The carabineers who were too clever—I quarrel with King Charles-Albert over the Dent du Chat—Princes and men of intellect 323
22 July 1832 [339]
Edict unbaptizing the King of Rome—Anecdotes of the childhood of the Duc de Reichstadt—Letter of Sir Hudson Lowe announcing the death of Napoleon [346]
Prince Metternich is appointed to teach the history of Napoleon to the Duc de Reichstadt—The Duke's plan of political conduct—The poet Barthélemy at Vienna—His interviews with Count Dietrichstein—Opinion of the Duc de Reichstadt on the poem Napoleon en Egypt [353]
Journey of the Duc de Reichstadt—M. le Chevalier de Prokesch—Questions concerning the recollections left by Napoléon en Égypte—The ambition of the Duc de Reichstadt—The Countesse Camerata—The prince is appointed lieutenant-colonel—He becomes hoarse when holding a review—He falls ill—Report upon his health by Dr. Malfatti [363]
The Duc de Reichstadt at Schönbrünn—Progress of his disease—The Archduchess Sophia—The prince's last moments—His death—Effect produced by the news at Paris—Article of the Constitutionnel upon this event [373]
Lucerne—The lion of August 10—M. de Chateaubriand's fowls—Reichenau—A picture by Conder—Letter to M. le duc d'Orléans—A walk in the park of Arenenberg [383]
News of France—First performance of Le Fils de l'Émigré— What Le Constitutionnel thought of it—Effect produced by that play on the Parisian population in general and on M. Véron in particular—Death of Walter Scott—Perrinet Leclerc—Sic vos non vobis [401]
La Duchesse de Berry returns to Nantes disguised as a peasant woman—The basket of apples—The house Duguigny—Madame in her hiding-place—Simon Deutz—His antecedents—His mission—He enters into treaty with MM. Thiers and Montalivet—He starts for la Vendée [412]
M. Maurice Duval is made Préfet of the Loire-Inférieure— The Nantais give him a charivari—Deutz's persistent attempts to see Madame—He obtains a first and then a second audience—Besieging of the maison Duguigny—The hiding-place—The police searches—Discovery of the Duchess [424]
First moments after the arrest—Madame's 13,000 francs—What a gendarme can win by sleeping on a camp-bed and making philosophic reflections thereon—The duchess at the Château de Nantes—She is transferred to Blaye—Judas [438]
Le Roi s'amuse—Criticism and censorship [462]
Le Corsaire trial—The Duc d'Orléans as caricaturist—The Tribune trial—The right of association established by jury—Statistics of the political sentences under the Restoration—Le Pré-aux-Clercs [500]
Victor Jacquemont [505]
George Sand [513]
Eugène Sue—His family, birth, godfather and godmother— His education—Dr. Sue's wine-cellar—Choir of botanists —Committee of chemistry—Dinner on the grass—Eugène Sue sets out for Spain—His return—Ferdinand Langlé's room—Captain Gauthier [520]
Eugène Sue is ambitious enough to have a groom, horse and trap—He does business with the maison Ermingot, Godefroi et Cie which permits him to gratify that fancy—Triumph at the Champs-Élysées—A vexing encounter—Desforges and Eugène Sue separate—Desforges starts Le Kaléidoscope at Bordeaux—Ferdinand Langlé starts La Nouveauté at Paris—César and the negro Zoyo—Dossion and his dog [531]
Eugène Sue's début in journalism—L'Homme-Mouche—The merino sheep—Eugène Sue in the Navy—He takes part in the battle of Navarino—He furnishes a house—The last folly of youth—Another Fils de l'Homme—Bossange and Desforges [540]
The political duels [547]
Lucrèce Borgia—Discouragement—First conception of the Historical Romances [572]
Condition of the Théâtre-Français in 1832 and 1833—Causes which had led to our emigration from the Théatre-Français—Reflections concerning the education of dramatic artists [577]
Talma—Mademoiselle Mars—The Conservatoire—Macready—Young —Kean—Miss Smithson—Mrs. Siddons—Miss Faucit—Shakespeare —The limits to dramatic art in France [582]
[THE MEMOIRS OF]
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
[BOOK I]
[CHAPTER I]
Preparations for my Fancy Dress Ball—I find that my lodgings are too much after the style of Socrates—My artist-decorators—The question of the supper—I go for provisions to la Ferté-Vidame—View of this capital town of the Canton, by night, in a snowstorm—My nephew's room—My friend Gondon—Roebuck hunting—Return to Paris—I invent a Bank of Exchange before M. Proudhon—The artists at work—The dead
Carnival time was drawing near, and the suggestion Bocage had made that I should give a ball spread abroad throughout the artist world, and was flung back at me on all sides. One of the first difficulties which arose was the question of the smallness of my lodgings—my rooms comprised a dining-room, sitting-room, bedroom and study, which, however adequate in size for a dwelling, were too limited for a party. A ball, given by me, necessitated three or four hundred invitations; and how could I have three or four hundred people in a dining-room, drawing-room, bedroom and study? Happily I bethought myself of a set of four rooms on the same landing, not only empty, but still void of all decoration—except for the mirrors above the chimney-pieces, and the blue-grey paper which covered the walls. I asked the landlord's permission to use this set of rooms for the purpose of the ball I intended to give. It was granted me. Next came the question of decorating the rooms. This was the business of my artist friends. Hardly did they know that I needed them before they came and offered me their services. There were four rooms to decorate, and they shared the task between them. The decorators were no other than Eugène Delacroix, Louis and Clément Boulanger, Alfred and Tony Johannot, Decamps, Grandville, Jadin, Barye, Nanteuil—our first painters, in fact. Ciceri undertook the ceilings. The question arose as to whether the subject should be from a novel or from a play of each of the authors who would be there. Eugène Delacroix undertook to paint King Rodrigo after the defeat of the Guadalèté, a subject taken from the Romancero, translated by Émile Deschamps; Louis Boulanger chose a scene from Lucrèce Borgia; Clément Boulanger, a scene from the Tour de Nesle; Tony Johannot, a scene from the Sire de Giac; Alfred Johannot, a scene from Cinq-Mars; Decamps promised a Debureau in a cornfield studded with poppies and corn-flowers; Grandville took a panel twelve feet long by eight feet wide, in which he undertook to reproduce all our professions in a picture representing an orchestra of thirty or forty musicians, some clanging cymbals, others shaking Chinese hats, some blowing on horns and bassoons, others scraping on violins and violoncellos. There were, besides, animals at play above each door.
Barye took upon himself the window frames: lions and tigers as large as life formed these supports. Nanteuil did the surroundings, the ornamentations and the panels of the doors. This point settled, it was decided that, four or five days before the ball, Ciceri should stretch the canvases on the walls and bring paint-brushes, measures and colours. When the artists had begun their work, they were not to leave it except to go to bed: they were to be fed and provided with drink in the house. The collation was to consist of three items.
There now remained a thing of the highest importance to attend to, namely, supper. I thought of providing the main foundation of this with game killed by my own hand; this would be both a pleasure and an economy. I went in search of M. Deviolaine, who gave me leave to shoot over the forest of la Ferté-Vidame. This was the more delightful as my old friend Gondon was inspector of it, and I was very sure he would not grudge a roebuck more or less. Furthermore, the permission included some friends as well as myself. I invited Clerjon de Champagny, Tony Johannot, Géniole and Louis Boulanger. My brother-in-law and nephew were to set out from Chartres and to turn up at the appointed hour at la Ferté-Vidame. I gave Gondon two days' notice in advance, so that he could procure the necessary beaters, and it was arranged that we should stop the night at an inn, the address of which he gave me; that we should sleep there; that we should shoot the whole of the following day, and that, according as we were too tired or not, we should either leave that evening or the next morning. We were to make the journey in a huge berline which, somehow or other, I happened to possess. Everything decided upon was carried out punctiliously. We started between nine and ten in the morning. We reckoned upon arriving about six or seven in the evening, but snow overtook us when a third of our journey was done, and, instead of arriving at seven, it was midnight before we got there, and we had not had anything to warm us the whole of that long journey except the never-failing wit and charming spirits of Champagny, to which, as an accompaniment, was joined the noise of a tin trumpet which he had bought somewhere or other, I know not for what purpose, its droll sound affording the boon of making us shout with laughter.
When we arrived, we naturally found everybody asleep; at la Ferté-Vidame they go to bed at ten in summer and eight in winter. We set foot on a magnificent carpet of snow, which reminded me of the wolf-hunts of my youth, with my old friends M. Deviolaine and the gamekeepers. How many things had happened between the snows of 1817 and those of 1832 and had melted away even as they! We looked like those who knocked at the outbuildings of the Castle of the Sleeping Beauty; nobody answered us, and, as we were getting more and more benumbed, I was already beginning to talk of breaking in the door of the inn, as I had at M. Dupont-Delporte's country-house, when, from the other side of the door, I heard my nephew's voice. He was exactly the age that I was when going shooting kept me from sleeping—poor boy, he has since died! Half awake from the pleasure to which he was looking forward in the next day's sport he woke up completely at the racket we made, at our desperate cries and, especially, at the sound of Champagny's trumpet. He exerted himself inside as we did outside, to rouse the hotel people from their beds. Finally, swearing, scolding, crotchety, a man got up, calling upon heaven to know if this was the hour to wake honest people. The door opened and the host's bad temper calmed down a little when he saw we had come by post-chaise! That made it justifiable for him to be disturbed at night, and, thenceforward, we were well received. My brother-in-law had not been able to come. Émile, my nephew, was alone, and he had naturally taken the best room in the house, by virtue of his right as first arrival. It was immediately pointed out to him that, being at the age when one can eat anything, he was also, naturally, at the age when one gets the worst beds and cold rooms. His room had a splendid fireplace, in which burned the remains of a fire which I tended with the conscientiousness of a vestal, until they brought a load of wood. It was a large room; we held council, and it was unanimously decided to carry the mattresses from the small rooms into the large one; that they should be arranged symmetrically against the wall, and that we should all sleep together. Émile demanded two things: the honour of being one of the company and the right of putting his ready-made bed on the floor. He had left a store of warmth in his sheets which he did not want to lose. These preliminary arrangements made, we proceeded to supper. Every one was literally dying of hunger, literally, also, there was equally nothing to eat in the inn. We visited the henhouse: the fowls had obligingly laid a score of eggs. That made four eggs apiece; we each had one egg boiled, two in an omelette and one in the salad. There was bread and wine as might be required. I think we never had a merrier supper-party or slept better. At dawn we were awakened by Gondon. He arrived thoroughly equipped for shooting, with his two dogs. Fifteen beaters, engaged the previous day, waited for us at the door. The toilet of a sportsman is quickly made. A huge fire was lit: there was no possibility of eating the remains of the previous night's supper: we had to be contented with a crust of bread dipped in white wine. Besides, Gondon spoke of a cold leg of mutton which would be picked up in passing his house, and which we should eat in the forest round a great fire between two battues; this welcome intelligence brought back a smile to the most morose lips. We were shooting a quarter of an hour later. One has one's days of skill as also one's days of courage. Champagny, an excellent shot usually, this day shot like a cab-driver, and attributed his awkwardness to the narrowness of the barrel of his gun. Indeed, I do not know why he shot with a kind of double-barrelled pistol. Tony Johannot was, I believe, a complete novice in matters of shooting. Géniole was a beginner. As for Louis Boulanger, he was accustomed to go shooting pencil in one hand and sketch-book in the other. There were, then, only Gondon and myself, both old sportsmen, and, having long rifles, we found ourselves the kings of the shoot. The shoot does not deserve any special description; nevertheless, an incident happened at it which has since caused bets in the forest of la Ferté-Vidame, between the forest gamekeepers and the Parisian sportsmen who were my successors. We were placed in a line, as is the custom in a battue, and I had chosen for my position the angle made by a little narrow footpath and the main road. I had the path horizontally in front of me, and, behind me, the highroad ran at right angles. On my right was Tony Johannot; on my left, Géniole. The beaters drove the game towards us. Every hunted animal, when it encounters a road, and particularly a footpath, has a propensity to follow the path, which enables it to see and to run more easily. Three roebucks, urged on by the beaters, followed the footpath and came straight for me. Tony Johannot, for whom they were out of range, made violent signs to me, in the belief that I did not see them. I saw them perfectly well, but I had the very ambitious idea fixed in my head of killing all three with two shots. Tony, who did not understand my inaction, increased his signals. Still I let the three roebucks come on. Finally, when nearly thirty paces from me, they stopped short, listening, admirably placed: two crossed their fine, graceful necks over one another, one looking to the right, the other to the left; the third kept a little behind, hidden by the two others. I fired at the first two and brought them down. The third took a leap, but not so quickly as to avoid my second shot. Then I stood in position to reload my rifle, not wishing the whole hunt to be put out for me. In fact, an instant later, a roebuck passed Gondon, and he killed it. Seeing my inaction after my two shots, toy companions thought I had missed. However, Géniole, who was on my left, and Tony, who was on my right, asked what had become of the roebucks. The enigma was explained to them by the beaters, who found the three dead bucks thirty paces from me: two in the path,—they had not stirred!—the other, four yards away, in the underwood.
That night, returning at nightfall, a final roebuck was so ill-advised as to start up before us in a sort of clearing. The sun, a little out of the clouds, was setting literally in a bed of purple; in spite of this amelioration in the weather on the horizon, the snow continued falling round us in thick flakes. Suddenly, a buck bounded off fifteen yards from us. The guns were unloaded, so it was a question for the quickest loader. Ten or a dozen shots went off almost at the same time. The buck disappeared in the midst of the fire and smoke. Dogs and hunters set off in pursuit. I have never seen a more fitting composition for a picture than that which chance had made—Boulanger was in ecstasies! He, not having a gun, could see everything without being distracted. All the night he was haunted by the idea of making a sketch of that scene: he could not forget it. We brought back nine roebucks and three hares; I had, for my share, killed five roebucks and two hares. We dined at Gondon's that night, and we had a very different supper from that of the night before.
We started next day at dawn and, as night fell, we reentered Paris with our nine bucks hanging from the imperial of our carriage, like a butcher's shop. I summoned Chevet. It was a question of trading by exchange. I wanted an enormous fish: for three bucks, Chevet undertook to provide me with a salmon weighing thirty pounds, or a sturgeon weighing fifty. I wanted a colossal galantine; a fourth buck paid for that. I wished to have two bucks roasted whole; Chevet undertook to get them roasted. The last buck was cut up and distributed among the families of my travelling companions. The three hares provided a pâté. So it will be seen that the shoot, besides the pleasure derived from it, gave us the principal constituents of the supper. The rest was only a matter of attending to detail; this was the business of the staff belonging to the house. In our absence, old Ciceri—do obeisance, all of you, to the old man, just as gay to-day, well-preserved and willing, in spite of his seventy years; do obeisance to him Séchan, Diéterle, Despléchin, Thierry, Cambon, Devoir, Moinet, you kings, viceroys and princes of modern decorative art: old Ciceri it was who did the cloister of Robert le Diable!—in our absence, I say, old Ciceri had had the canvases placed in position and had fixed up the paper. All was ready even to the paints, pencils and brushes. All the rooms were warmed with big fires; chairs, stools, footstools of all sizes were there, and a folding ladder had been bought. Granville, our good excellent Granville, delightful painter of man, purely as an animal, and of animals with human intelligence, was the first to set to work. He it was, indeed, who had the heaviest task on his hands; it will be recollected that he was burdened with an immense panel and with the painting of all the top parts above the doors. Alas! it is sad to think that of those ten artists who put their talent at my disposition, four to-day lie in the tomb! Of those ten hearts which beat so happily in unison with my own, four are stilled! Who would have told you then, in that merry workroom which you covered with your paintings, and filled with your laughter, in those three days of talking, during which scintillated incessantly that fascinating wit the secret of which artists alone have the key; who would have said to you, beloved dead friends! that, while still young, I should survive you, and that I should pause when mentioning your names to say to myself, 'It is not enough for you, their brother, simply to mention their names; you ought to relate what they were like as men and artists, their characters and their talents!' A task both sweet and melancholy it is to speak of the dead that one loves! Moreover, it is midnight; the hour for invocation. I am alone, no profane gaze appears through the darkness to scare your sepulchral modesty. Come, brothers! Come! Tell me, in the language of the dead, that gentle whisper which is like the stream caressing its banks, the soft sound of leaves rustling in the forest, the gentle murmur of the breeze sobbing in the reeds, tell me of your life, your sorrows, your hopes and your triumphs, so that the world, nearly always indifferent when it is not ungrateful, may know what you were and, above all, your worth!
[CHAPTER II]
Alfred Johannot
The first who appears to me, because he was the first who left us, is pale and sad as he was when living. His hair is cut short, his forehead is prominent, his glance is both gloomy and gentle beneath his thick eyebrows, the moustache and beard are russet-brown, the face long and melancholy. His name is Alfred Johannot, and he has been dead now for sixteen years.
Come, brother! come nearer to me; it is I, a friend who calls thee. Speak, tell, in the tongue of the dead, of thy youth and glorious life, and I will repeat it in the language of the living. Spirits of the night, silence even the shaking of your moth-like wings, that all may be still; even thou, too, O Night—silence, dumb son of darkness! The dead speak low, but I will speak aloud. We have all seen him, young men of twenty-five, men of forty, old men of seventy. Was he not indeed such as I have described him to be? Now, here is his biography.
He was born with the century, in 1800; with the spring, on 21 March; he was born in the grand-duchy of Hesse, in the little town of Offenbach, upon the banks of the charming river beloved of fishermen and water-sprites, which men call the Mein, which has its source in Bavaria and which empties itself in the Rhine opposite Mayence. His father was a wealthy merchant of Frankfort, and his ancestors were Protestants whom the revocation of the Edict of Nantes had compelled to take shelter in foreign countries. After a stay of several years in Lyons, M. Johannot, the father, founded at Frankfort the first great silk factory. Trade, when it reaches the pitch to which he carried it, rises to the elevation of poetry; besides, he was an excellent painter of flowers and spent his life among artists. In 1806, M. Johannot was ruined and came to settle in Paris. This upheaval, though sad for the parents, was a happy one for Alfred. Every change and all excitement amuses childhood. His mother, who adored him, endeavoured to educate him herself; from thence, perhaps, came that which throughout his life people took for melancholy, and which was merely the modest sensitiveness of a heart entirely moulded by a woman's hand.
Alfred Johannot was eight years old when they took him to the Louvre the first time. You who read these lines will remember the Louvre under the Empire? It was the rendezvous of all the finest things in the world; every masterpiece seemed to have the right to be there, and appeared to be only at home there. He was astounded, deeply moved, dazzled. He went in a child, without any vocation: he came out adolescent and a painter. On his return home, he took to his pencil and never left it again. He had a brother, a clever engraver, Charles Johannot, who died before he did, also young like him, alas! The age of the three brothers at the time of the death of each scarcely reached that of a mature man. This brother lent him his artist's card of admission to the Louvre and, under the protection of his brother's name, he was able to work there. When they wanted to punish him cruelly they said to him: "Alfred, you shall not go to the Louvre to-morrow." When he was in the Louvre he lived no longer, he did not exist, he was absorbed in his work, and it was in that that he lived and had his being.
One day, alone with his thoughts, as was his habit, genius encouraging him with those sweet whispered words which keep the eyes and lips of youth always in a smile, he was copying a Raphael, when he felt a hand laid lightly on his shoulder. He turned round and stood confounded. In the centre of a circle of officers in military dress and courtiers in court dress, he stood alone by the side of a man in a very simple uniform. The hand which this man had lightly placed on his shoulder, when pressed on the far ends of the earth made the world reel: it was the hand of Napoleon.
"Courage, my friend!" a voice, almost as soft as a woman's, said to him.
It was the voice of the Emperor. Then the wonderful man went away, leaving the child pale, dumb, trembling and almost breathless; but, as he moved away, he inquired who the child was. A secretary stayed behind from the Emperor's suite, came to Alfred, asked him his name and where his parents lived, then rejoined the brilliant group, which disappeared into a neighbouring room.
Some days afterwards, Alfred Johannot's father was appointed inspector of the library at Hamburg, then a French town. The whole family set out for this destination and Alfred was not to see Paris again until 1818. He was never to see the Emperor again; but the recollection of the scene we have just described remained deeply engraved on the child's memory. I remember one evening, the evening on which he himself told me the story—it was in my rooms—he took up a pen and paper and drew a pen-and-ink sketch of the scene. I never saw a finer portrait of Napoleon, more dignified, greater or more gentle, I will even say more fatherly. In Alfred's thoughts, the Emperor remained as in 1810, beautiful, radiant and victorious!
In default of good masters, the child found excellent engravers at Hamburg; this is the reason that, as a young man, he preferred at first graving tools to the paint brush. He was thirteen when disaster overtook the Empire. The enemy laid siege to Hamburg; and Hamburg made up its mind to resist to the very last and, indeed, its defence was a celebrated one.
Alfred three times only just escaped death: by a bullet, by starvation and by typhus fever! One day, when he was on the ramparts, a bullet flew by two yards from him, a little nearer and it would have been the end of him; but he was spared. It was a different matter with starvation and, above all, in the matter of typhus! Hunger weakened his digestion, typhus burned up his blood: hence, the paleness of his cheeks and the fever in his eyes: he died in 1837 from the effects of the famine and fever of 1813.
The whole family, as we have said, returned to Paris in 1818 and settled near Charles, who then did one of his wonderful engravings, Le Trompette blessé, by Horace Vernet. The poor people were totally ruined. It was essential that the children they had nourished should, in their turn, look after those who had nourished them.
Alfred set to work at first to make engravings for confectioners and to illuminate images of the saints. This lasted for seven years. It was Charles who brought in the larger contribution to the common purse. He died in 1825, just the same age as was Alfred when he died, thirty-seven. God permitted that, from henceforth, Alfred's powers should increase, on account of the burden which this misfortune laid upon him. A young brother and aged parents—these were the responsibilities which the death of his brother left him!
The world does not sufficiently recognise the story of those saintly struggles of filial love against poverty, but I shall tell the story again and again!
Alfred's life was a strange one! He had no youth and was not to have an old age. The furrows of mature age, which line the careworn brow of the thinker, were engraved upon him by starvation when he was thirteen, by exile and by fatigue they were continued when he was eighteen, and poverty took up the task when he was twenty-five.
"Did you, who knew him, ever see him smile?"
"No." And yet this gravity had nothing in it of the melancholy of disgust or of despair; it was the calm of resignation.
The first plate which he published—for he began by devoting himself to engraving: feeling himself to be feeble he sought some support on which to lean—was that of Scheffer's Orphelins. This publication brought him the patronage of Gérard. In the first instance, this master entrusted him with a scene from Ourika, then the reproduction of his great picture of Louis XIV. présentant Philippe V. aux ambassadeurs d'Espagne. From that moment Alfred Johannot became known. It was the period when English publications introduced the taste for illustrations into France. Since Moreau, junior, who had admirably reproduced the pictures of the age of Louis XIV., and particularly those of the time of Louis XV., there was not a more distinguished engraver in France than Alexandre Desenne. Alfred went to him and asked to be allowed to study under his direction. Genius is simple, kind and friendly: Desenne gave him excellent advice. Then Desenne died, and the only well-known engraver who was left was Achille Devéria—You knew that fine intellect? that fecund producer, who, having to choose between genius, which leaves people to die of hunger, and talent, which can support a family, tore himself weeping from the disconsolate embraces of genius, flinging in its arms as a substitute his brother Eugène. Some day I will tell his story as I am telling Alfred's, and I will compel the jeering and ungrateful world to bow its head before the pious son, the industrious father, who, by working sixteen hours a day, kept a whole family in comfort.
O Devéria, how noble wert thou in God's sight when thou didst deny thyself the chance of becoming as great in the eyes of men as thou couldst have been!
But, soon, Devéria left painting and engraving for lithography. Then, Alfred assumed the first position in book illustration, which his brother was soon to share and to whom he abandoned it altogether when he was dying.
During all this time, Tony had been growing up under the protection of that friendship which had in it both the intimacy of brotherhood and the protective tenderness of fatherhood. And, from the time when the young life became connected with that of Alfred, there was no separation: the figurative phrases about ivy and elms, creepers and oaks, would seem to have been conceived with these two artists in view. One day, death broke down the eldest; but the survivor was left, with his roots springing from the grave of the one who was dead. For, indeed, from the moment when they joined forces together, they kept the same step and pace, until it was impossible to say which was ahead of the other. Tony blended into Alfred, became an engraver with the engraver, designer and painter with the designer and painter, forming the unique spectacle of a triple fraternity of blood, mind and talent. It was not as on the playbills of a theatre, where the name of the oldest in art precedes that of the younger: one as often spoke of Alfred and Tony as of Tony and Alfred. Like the inseparable Siamese twins, a moment came when they themselves wished to separate, but could not do so. And thus, for ten years, the history of one is that of the other. One can no more separate this history than, one league from Lyons, one can separate the Saône from the Rhone; or, a league from Mayence, the Moselle from the Rhine. When they depended on one another they felt themselves to be strong. It was no longer the drawings of others that they engraved, but their own. Aquafortis engraving became their favourite process; and it was at this time that the vignettes of Walter Scott, of Cooper and of Byron appeared. All the great literary names bore their signature. There is little poetry scattered over the world the illustrations to which have not been traced by their graving tools.
Then, marvellous to relate, each of them dreamed of still greater glory; from copyists, they became engravers; from engravers, they decided to make themselves painters. It was no longer from designs that they executed their aquafortis work: it was after the charming little pictures in the Salon of 1831—so remarkable that we returned two or three times to see them—that they exhibited their plates, which were placed, I recollect, in the embrasure of a window of the great gallery to the left. There were twenty-four compositions. From that moment, each became both artist and engraver at one and the same time.
Let us follow Alfred; we shall return to Tony later. In 1831 Alfred did his first great easel painting: L'Arrestation de Jean Crespière. This was a success. The same year he finished Don Juan naufragé and a scene from Cinq-Mars.
In 1832 and 1833 he produced L'Annonce de la Victoire de Hastenbeck for King Louis-Philippe's gallery, and L'Entrée de Mademoiselle de Montpensier, pendant la Fronde, à Orléans; in 1834, François Ier et Charles Quint; in 1835, Le Courrier Vernet saigne et pause par le roi Louis-Philippe, Henri II., Catherine de Médicis et leurs enfants; in 1836, Marie Stuart quittant l'Écosse,—Anne d'Este, Duchesse de Guise se présentant à la cour de Charles IX.,—Saint Martin,—and La bataille de Saint-Jacques.
But during the last two years nature had been exhausted in Alfred; he succumbed under a final effort. He recognised his condition, and knew that when the finger of time pointed to the early months of the winter of 1837 the hour of eternity would strike for him. So the last eighteen months of his life are prodigious in activity: pictures, vignettes, water-colours, aquafortis, wood-engravings, pencil sketches, pen-and-ink drawings, he undertook everything, hurried on and carried all through. A lifetime would scarcely have been enough to finish what he had begun, and he only had a few months!
In the midst of this feverish output, this agonising productiveness, he received a letter from Mannheim. It was from his sister; his father was ill and desired to see him. He announced his departure; it was in vain for people to tell him that, however seriously ill his father might be, his father was not so ill as he was himself; that the old man had longer to live than the young man: he did not listen to anything; his father called for him and he felt he must go! He went, he remained absent three months from Paris and returned late in November. His father was out of danger; but he was dying. On 7 December 1837, he died, with his sketches, tools and vignettes on his bed and his eyes fixed on his unfinished pictures!
The phantom has just ceased speaking. Then, turning in its direction I said to it: It was so, brother, was it not? Have I translated thy words well? But I saw nothing more than a white vapour which faded away, I heard nothing but a faint sigh, which was lost in the air after having articulated the word "Yes!"
[CHAPTER III]
Clément Boulanger
The whisper dies away and the shade disappears. Another shade comes out of the ground and advances as silently as the first, but with a more rapid step. One felt that, in this case, to some extent, the life had been more bright and that death had suddenly taken this being into its naked embrace without giving notice beforehand, as it had done in the case of poor Alfred.
This shade was the painter of the picture entitled Mort d'Henri II. and of the Procession du Corpus Domini. Short chestnut hair, a rather narrow but intelligent forehead, blue eyes, long nose, fair moustaches and beard, complexion fresh and clear, dead lips smiling at life as in life they had smiled at death: this was the shade of Clément Boulanger. He bowed his tall figure towards me and I felt his breath touch my brow, like the kiss of a friend after a long journey. He kissed me on his return from death.
Poor Clément! He was so bright, so witty, while he was painting in great washes the scene from the Tour de Nesle representing Buridan "flung into the Seine," as Villon says, and borrowed from the Écolier de Cluny by Roger de Beauvoir.
"Friend," I say to him, "I knew but little of your life and still less of your death. You lived and died far away from me. You rest beneath the cypresses of Scutari, with the sky of the Bosphorus stretched above your head and the Sea of Marmora breaking at your feet; the blue doves come in at the half-opened windows of your chapel and circle round your tomb like loved friends! Tell me what I do not know, so that I may relate it to the generation which never knew you."
I seemed to see a spark light up in the hollow eyes of the phantom, and a kind of smile pass over the pale lips. Life is so good a thing, whatever people say about it, that the dead tremble every time a living being pronounces their names.
He spoke and I, in my turn, trembled in astonishment to hear merry words coming from the mouth of a phantom.
He died without knowing he was going to die; his last convulsion was a laugh and his last words a song.
Clément Boulanger was born in 1812. His mother during pregnancy was possessed by a singular desire: no matter what happened, she wanted to take lessons in painting. They procured her a master and she indulged in the pleasure of daubing away at five or six canvases. Although the craving was satisfied, the child was marqué (stamped) as midwives call it: as soon as he could talk, he asked for a pencil; at the age of four, everything sat for him, cats, dogs, parrots, chimney-sweeps, errand-boys and water-carriers. At eight, he was sent to a seminary. From that time, everything in uniform pleased him, all ecclesiastical pomp delighted him; when he was a choir-boy and whilst attending and serving at the altar, he sketched the beadle, the chanter, the officiating priest, in a mass book with a pencil which he hid in the palm of his hand. His first idea was not to leave the seminary, but to become both priest and painter; his mother, deeming the studies he would be obliged to pursue as an artist not very compatible with the duties of a priest, took him away from the seminary. The child then asked to go into a studio. His mother was alarmed at this desire: so many things are learnt in a studio that painting is sometimes the last thing one learns there; nevertheless, her maternal pride urged her to agree; with his inclinations, the boy could not fail to become a great artist. But where place him, until he grew up?—Good! the very thing!—with a chemist; it would be a middle course; he would learn there the constituents of colours. Soon he had a laboratory and a mechanical workshop at his mother's house. In the laboratory he studied chemistry: in the workshop he made machines, especially hydraulic machines; he had the tastes of Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus. One night his mother heard a slight, but queer, noise in his room: something between a whisper, a wail and a murmur. She rose and stepped forward, and, when she had reached the middle of her room, she felt herself being damped by a fine rain; she started back, lit a candle and, having felt the effect, discovered the cause. The child had made experiments concerning the physical truth that water tends to find its own level; he had set a basin in the centre over his mother's room and a reservoir in his own. The reservoir was six feet above the basin; a tin pipe, perfectly soldered together and ended by a water-spout, served as communication between the reservoir and the basin. During the night the valve had got out of order and the stream of water was working its way through into Madame Boulanger's bedroom!
In other matters, there was no play going and no money was allowed: money offers temptation, the theatre prompts the budding of desire. Every Sunday, vespers and mass! This was the ordinary life of the boy who, just as he sketched all alone and did his mechanical work by himself, so did he begin painting by himself.
At fourteen he was attacked by smallpox, and, after being dangerously ill, remained shut up in his room for a month during his convalescence. For diversion he painted his courtyard with the porter sweeping. The picture still exists and it is charming; quite like a little Van Ostade. A little later, whilst playing, he rediscovered the secret of painting on glass. After his mother had hesitated between all the celebrated painters in Paris, she decided on M. Ingres; the morality of all the others seemed to her to be insufficient or dubious.
At nineteen, he saw his cousin, Marie Elisabeth Monchablon, and immediately fell in love with her. She was fifteen years old. The very day he saw her he begged his mother to let him marry her. His mother was willing enough, but she thought the two children only old enough to be betrothed and not husband and wife. She imposed two years of noviciate on Clément. Marie Monchablon painted, also. You will recollect Madame Clément Boulanger's exquisite water-colour paintings? You remember Madame Cavé's fine work concerning painting without the aid of a master? Madame Clément Boulanger and Madame Cavé are one and the same charming woman, and the same ethereal artist as Marie Monchablon. The children painted together. Marie began by being Clément's master; Clément ended by being Marie's. Meanwhile, great progress was made at Ingres', and great friendship sprang up between Ingres and his pupil, who was now twenty-one and free, at last, to marry his cousin. The day after their marriage, the young couple ran away to Holland. They were in haste to be free and, above all, to convince themselves of their freedom. For three months nobody knew what had become of them. They re-appeared at the end of that time. The turtle-doves returned of their own accord to their dovecot. During this escapade, Clément had become possessed of the rage for work. The very day of his return he sketched a Suzanne au bain, which he finished in three weeks. It is pale and, perhaps, rather monotonous in colouring, but picturesque in composition. Clément admired two very opposite artists: Ingres and Delacroix. He showed his picture to the two masters. Strange to say, they both praised the painter. The colour pleased M. Ingres; but he blamed the disordered composition. This was what Delacroix liked, but he blamed the colouring. In short, each said to the young man, "You will be a painter!" Clément did not let the grass grow after this twofold promise; he sent for a fourteen feet canvas and drew upon it the life-size figures of the Martyre des Macchabées. This time, he did not trouble himself much as to what M. Ingres would say; it was Delacroix he wished to please most of all; for, whilst admiring the two painters in, perhaps, an equal degree, his sympathies inclined towards Delacroix. The picture was to glow with colour. Seven months sufficed for its execution. As in the case of Suzanne, when the picture was done he called in the two masters. Delacroix was the first to come this time. He was enchanted; and had no critical remarks to make to the young man, whom he overwhelmed with congratulations. Next day, M. Ingres arrived in his turn, uttered a kind of growl, recoiled as though a reflection in a mirror had struck his eyes; gradually his growls change to reproaches: it was ingratitude, heresy, apostasy! M. Ingres went out furious, cursing the renegade. Crushed by this malediction Clément prepared to set out for Rome. This had been the ambition of the two young people for a long time; but their grandparents would never consent to let these young folk of twenty-one and seventeen, thirty-eight years of age all told, travel; and without the leave of their grandparents, who held the purse-strings, how could they travel? There is a Providence who looks after travellers! A connoisseur visited Clément's studio. As in the case of Delacroix, the picturesque setting of Suzanne pleased him; he wanted to put Suzanne in his bedroom alcove. But Clément, who did not dare to ask 6000 francs for the picture, declared that he did not wish to sell it by itself and asked 4500 francs for the Macchabées and 1500 francs for the Suzanne. The connoisseur wished only to buy the Suzanne, but Clément pointed out to him that the pictures were inseparable. The connoisseur did not understand the reason for this indissoluble bond between the Suzanne and the Macchabées, and he offered 2000 francs, then 2500, for the Suzanne alone. Clément was inflexible; the only reduction he made was to offer the two pictures for 5000 francs. The connoisseur bought the Macchabées in order to get the Suzanne, and he put the latter in his bedroom and the former in his garret; and behold the two young people found themselves in control of the vast sum of 5000 francs! They could go round the world five times with that! So they ran off to Italy as they had run away to Holland, taking a travelling carriage to Lyons, crossing Mont Cenis and reaching Rome in twenty-one days. In visiting Italy, Clément, with that devouring imagination of his, wanted to see everything. His wife only desired to see three things: Madame Lætitia, whom they then called Madame Mère, Vesuvius in eruption and Venice at Carnival time. The two latter desires arose from simple curiosity; the first from sentiment: Marie Monchablon was a cousin of General Leclerc, first husband of the Princess Borghese. There was, therefore, relationship with the Napoleon family, although obviously very distant; but relationships go much further back than that in Corsica!
Horace Vernet was director of the school of painting in Rome. The first visit of the two artists was naturally to Horace Vernet; but, on leaving his house, there was only the Monte Pincio to cross, the gate del Popolo to pass and they were in the villa Borghese. Now, at the villa Borghese lived Madame Mère, whom Madame Clément Boulanger was very anxious to see. Chance aided the young enthusiast: during Madame Mère's walk she passed by her. Madame Clément longed to fling herself on her knees;—I can understand this, for it is just what I did, and I am not a fanatic, when I had the honour of being received by Madame Lætitia at Rome, and when she gave me her hand to kiss. Oh! it is impossible to imagine what antique proportions exile seemed to give to that woman! I seemed to see the mother of Alexander, of Cæsar or of Charlemagne. Madame Lætitia looked at the two young people and smiled upon them as age smiles on youth, as the setting sun smiles on the East, as benevolence smiles on beauty. Madame Clément returned to her lodgings intoxicated with joy. She was invited to the palace Ruspoli that night by Madame Lacroix; still full of delight and not conscious that she was speaking to the secretary of Madame Mère—
"Ah!" she said, "I can leave Rome to-night."
"Why? You only arrived this morning!"
"I have seen what I came to see."
"Ah! What did you want to see?"
"Madame Mère."
She then related the three desires which brought her to Italy: to see Madame Mère, an eruption of Vesuvius and the Carnival at Venice.
The secretary listened to this great enthusiasm without making any comment; but that same evening he related what he had heard to the mother of Cæsar. She smiled, called to mind the two good-looking young people she had bowed to in the garden of the villa Borghese and asked that they should be presented to her on the following day. Next day they were both introduced to Madame Mère's bedchamber, in which the famous old lady usually dwelt.
"Come here, my child," said Madame Lætitia, beckoning to the young wife to come near, "and tell me why you were so anxious to see me."
"Because people say that sons resemble their mother." Madame Lætitia smiled at that delicious flattery, more than ever charming from the lips of seventeen.
"Then," she replied, "I hope you will have a son of your own, madame!"
"An unfortunate wish, Princess, for I should prefer a daughter."
"Why so?"
"Why should you wish me to bring forth a boy, since the Emperor is no longer here to give him his epaulettes?"
"All the same, have a son and there may, perhaps, be a Napoleon on the throne when he is of age for service."
This strange prophecy was realised! Madame Clément Boulanger has had a son; that son is now twenty-two, and he is employed under a Napoleon in the Government offices.
Some days later, invited to the soirées of Queen Hortense, Madame Clément Boulanger valsed for the first time,—as a young girl, she had never been allowed; as a young wife, she had not yet had time to do so;—she valsed, we say, for the first time, and with Prince Louis. After this they began seriously to set to work. Madame Clément Boulanger had seen all she desired in seeing Madame Mère, but she would have been very disappointed had she been prevented from seeing the rest!
Meanwhile, Clément had finished a companion picture to the Macchabées and had sketched out the tournament of the Tournelles: the subject was Henri II., tué, à travers sa visière, par l'Éclat de lance de Gabriel de Montgomery. This picture appeared at the Exhibition of 1831, and is now at the château de Saint-Germain.
From Rome the lovers started for Naples. Madame Clément was enceinte, and in order to produce a happy pregnancy Providence arranged the eruption of 1832. From Naples they returned to Florence. There Clément completed and exhibited in a church his picture of the Corpus Domini. This picture was a great success, so great, that the Contadini from the environs of Florence, who came to see the picture in processions, hearing it constantly said that it was a representation of the Corpus Domini and, not knowing what Corpus Domini meant, believing that it was the painter's name, openly called Clément Boulanger and his wife M. and Mme. Corpus Domini. Meanwhile, the young couple took hasty excursions into the country and, as the parents could not leave little Albert behind, they put him in a basket which a man carried on his head. This was the son of Corpus Domini, and bearing this title, no goat-herd but would give him of her milk.
In his spare moments Clément remembered his chemical studies: he invented a kind of paper which concealed ink. You only had to dip the pen in the water-jug, stream or river, or simply in your mouth, to write with water or with saliva, and the writing became black as fast as the nib of the pen formed the letters. It was such a wonderful invention that they decided to start a paper factory under illustrious patronage. This patronage was granted and a sheet of the chemical paper was taken to Madame Clément. Unluckily or luckily, Madame Clément had a cold; she sneezed; the damped paper became black all over where it had been wetted. This gave the spectators much food for reflection. It would be impossible to use the paper on a rainy day or days when one had a cold or on days when one was tearful. The factory idea was renounced.
Clément Boulanger returned to Paris in the month of February 1832; and from the 10th to the 15th March of the same year, so far as I can recollect, he covered with his broad and easy style of painting a panel twelve feet by ten in my house.
In 1840 Clément Boulanger set out for Constantinople. For a year and a half he had been at Toulouse, where he painted the Procession, which is now at Saint Étienne-du-Mont. This work in the provinces had wearied him: he wanted the open air, change of scene, the stir of life, in short, instead of a sedentary life, he accepted the suggestion made him by the traveller Tessier, who was going to make excavations in Asia-Minor; and, commissioned by the department of Fine Arts to paint a picture of excavations, Clément, as we have said, set out in 1840. They reached Magnesia near the Mendere river and began to dig in the ground. This preliminary work appeared to Clément to be the most exciting, animated part of the business; he felt that it, at any rate, ought to be reproduced. He made a sketch in the full heat of the midday sun and, during his work, got one of those attacks of sunstroke that are so dangerous in the East. Brain fever ensued: he was far from all aid; there were only bad Greek doctors near him, of the type that killed Byron. They hung à hammock inside a mosque and laid the poor invalid in it. Delirium set in by the third day; on the fifth, he died laughing and singing, unconscious that he was dying. All the Greek clergy in Constantinople came to pay respect to the body of the poor traveller, who had died at twenty-eight years of age, far away from his friends, his family and his country! Twenty-eight years of age! do you realise? Compare that age with what he had done! The body was carried away on the back of a camel.
There, as here, everybody loved him. People of all lands and in every kind of costume followed the procession. All the French ships in the roadstead carried their flags at half-mast and their ensigns of mourning. The whole staff of the embassy came out to meet the body at the gate of Constantinople, and a procession of over three thousand persons followed it to the French church. There he lies, sleeping, like Ophelia, still smiling and singing!
[CHAPTER IV]
Grandville
Delicate and sarcastic smile, eyes sparkling with intelligence, a satirical mouth, short figure and large heart and a delightful tincture of melancholy perceptible everywhere—that is your portrait, dear Grandville! Come! I begin to have as many friends below ground as above; come to me! tell me that friendship is stronger than the grave and I shall not fear to go down to your abode, since, dying, one rejoins one's dead friends without leaving the living ones.
You will remember, dear Grandville, when I went to call upon you in your garret in the rue des Petits-Augustins, a garret from whence I never came out without carrying away with me some wonderful sketches? What good long talks we had! What fine perceptions! I did not think of asking you then where you came from, neither where you were going; you smiled sadly at life, at the future; you had had some sadness forced out from the depths of your heart. It was easily explained, you were a connecting-link between Molière and la Fontaine. That which I did not think to ask of the artist when he was full of life, energy and health, I now ask of him when he is dead and laid in the grave. You have forgotten, you say, dear Grandville? I understand that. But there is one of your friends, a man of heart and of talent who has not forgotten: take Charles Blanc, and add to what he has forgotten that which you yourself can remember. Your life was too uninteresting, you say? Very well, but the public takes as much interest in the humble vicar of Wakefield in his village parish as in the brilliant Ralegh at the court of the proud Elizabeth—You will try to remember? Good!—I will put it down.
Grandville was born at Nancy. He was the successor, compatriot, one might almost say the pupil, of Callot. His real name was Gérard; but his father, a distinguished miniature painter, had renounced his family name to take the theatrical name of his grandfather, an excellent comedian who had more than once brought smiles to the lips of the two exiles, Hanislas and Marie Leczinski, one of whom had been a king and the other of whom was to become a queen. The grandfather was called Grandville. This child, who was to create a world of his own, half animal, half human, who was to explain the scent of flowers by making the flower the mere external covering of woman, who, by means of imagery drawn from human life, was to endow the stars with those beauteous eyes which flash amidst the darkness and with which they are supposed to gaze upon the earth, this child, I say, was born on 13 September 1802. He was born so weak that it was thought for a moment he was only born to die, but his mother took him in her arms and hid him so completely in her heart, that Death, who was looking for him, passed by and saw him not. But the child saw Death, and that is why he has since then painted him so accurately.
As a youth, he was taciturn but observant, watching everything with those large melancholy eyes of his, which seemed as though they were looking for and finding in everything some side unknown and invisible to other eyes. It is this side which he has shown in all beings and created things, from the giant to the ant, from man to mollusc, from the star down to the flower. Others find fault with the world as the good God has made it, but, powerless to refashion it, they rest satisfied with railing at it; Grandville not only did not scoff at it, but even re-created one of his own.
At twelve he entered the school at Nancy, and he left at fourteen. What did Latin, Greek or even French matter to him? He had a language of his own, which he talked in low tones to that invisible master whom we call genius, a language which, later, he was to speak aloud to the whole of creation. When I went to see Grandville and found him holding a lizard in his hand, whistling to a canary in its cage or crumbling bread in a bowl of red fishes, I was always tempted to ask him: "Come, what does the fish, canary or lizard say to you?"
Grandville began to draw at fourteen; I am mistaken, he had always drawn. Exercises and translations were scanty in his college exercise-books, but illustrations—as they have since been termed—to the subject of la rose, rosa and to the translation of Deus creavit cælum et terrant were marvellous! So, one day, the masters showed these exercise-books to his father. They meant them to be the means of getting the child a scolding; but the father saw more than the masters did: they only saw an indifferent Latin scholar; the father saw a great artist. All saw correctly, but each turned his back and looked in an opposite direction from that of the others. Grandville was from that day introduced into his father's studio, and had the right to make sketches without being obliged to do exercises and translations. When a sitter came to sit for a miniature in M. Grandville's studio, he sat both to father and son. The sitter, however, only saw the work of the father because that was a finished, varnished and touched-up portrait, whilst the son's was a beautiful and excellent caricature, at which the father would laugh heartily when the sitter was gone, but which he advised his son to hide deep among his drawings, wondering each time how it was that the man's face had some likeness to the head of an animal. Meantime, an artist called Mansion passed through Nancy, and went to call on his confrère Grandville, who showed him his miniatures; the artist visitor looked at them rather contemptuously, but, when he came to the youth's drawings, he fastened on them eagerly and looked at them as though he would never stop looking, repeating: "More!" as long as there were any more left.
"Let me have this lad," he said to the father, "and I will take him to Paris."
It was hard to give up his boy, even to a brother artist; and yet Grandville's father knew very well that one cannot become a great artist unless one goes out into the great centres of civilisation. He adopted a middle course, which appeased his conscience and comforted his heart. He promised to send the boy to Paris. Six months went by before this promise was put into execution; at last, recognising that the lad was wasting time in the provinces, the father made up his mind. A hundred crowns were put into one of the young artist's pockets, a letter to a cousin in the other, and he was commended to the care of the conductor of a diligence; thus the great man of the coming future started for Paris. The cousin's name was Lemétayer; he was manager of the Opéra-Comique. He was a clever man, whom we all knew, very popular in the artist world, and intimate with Picot, Horace Vernet, Léon Cogniet, Hippolyte Lecomte and Féréol.
I shall be asked why I put Féréol, a singer, with Picot, Horace Vernet, Léon Cogniet and Hippolyte Lecomte, four painters? Well, just as M. Ingres, who is a great painter, lays claim to be a virtuoso, so it was with Féréol, who, though an excellent opera-singer, laid claim to be a painter.
Alas! We know others, too, besides M. Ingres and Féréol, who are ambitious in the same way! Now, it happened one day that Féréol, having carried one of his compositions to Lemétayer, it was seen by Grandville, and Grandville, in his disrespect for Féréol's painting, began to draw it over again, as Féréol might have begun singing over again one of the airs of M. Ingres. Meanwhile, Hippolyte Lecomte came in. We do not know whether Hippolyte Lecomte has, like M. Ingres and Féréol, some hobby besides his art; but we know he was a man possessed of good common sense and of good judgment. It was exactly what the young man wanted, and he passed from M. Mansion's studio to that of Lecomte. And, M. Mansion's pupil kept an old grudge against his master. This was what occasioned it—
With his delightful imagination, which was as picturesque when he was a child as when a man, Grandville had invented a game with fifty-two cards. Mansion thought this game so remarkable that he fathered it under his own name with the title of La Sibylle des salons. I once saw the game at Grandville's, when he was in a good humour and turning over all his drawings; there was something very fantastic about it. When with Hippolyte Lecomte, there was no longer any question of drawing—he had to paint. But painting was not Grandville's strong point—pencil or pen were his to any extent! He painted, like Callot, with a steel pen. Pencil, pen and style spoke admirably the language of the artist and adequately expressed what he wanted to say!
Then, suddenly, lithography comes on the scenes. Grandville is attracted to, looks at and examines the process, utters a cry of delight, and feels that this is what he must do. Grandville, like Clément Boulanger, was a seeker, never satisfied with what others found for him to do, at times discontented with what he had found for himself. Callot had substituted in his engravings the spirit varnish of musical instrument-makers for soft varnishes. Grandville executes his lithographs after the manner of engravings: he cuts into the stone with a hard pencil, shades with cut lines, specifies his outlines and draws no more, but engraves; it was at this time that the series of drawings representing the Tribulations de la petite propriété appear and that of the Dimanches d'un bon bourgeois. Grandville then lived at the hôtel Saint-Phar in the boulevard Poissonnière, the room since occupied by Alphonse Karr, an artist who also used his pen as an engraving tool instead of writing with it.
About 1826 Grandville left the hôtel Saint-Phar and went to live in a sort of garret situated opposite the Palais des Beaux-Arts, where I made his acquaintance. Alas! I also lived in another sort of garret; the twenty-five francs which, upon Oudard's entreaty, M. de Broval had just added to my salary, did not allow me to live in a first floor of the rue de Rivoli; my garret, however, was envious of Grandville's: an artist's studio, no matter how poor he is, always contains more things than the room of an ordinary workman; a sketch, a statuette, a plaster-cast, an old vizorless helmet, some odd bits of armour with traces of the gold damascening, a stuffed squirrel playing the flute, a gull hanging from the ceiling with wings spread, looking as though it still skimmed the waves, and a strip of Chinese material, draped before a door, give to the walls a coquettish air which rejoices the eye and tickles the fancy. And the painter's studio was a gathering-place for talks. There, and in the adjacent studios, were to be found Philippon, who was to found La Caricature and, later, his brother, who founded Le Journal pour rire; Ricourt, the persistent maker of improbable stories; Horeau, the architect; Huet, Forest, Renou. When they were flush of money they drank beer; on other days they were content to smoke, shout, declaim and laugh. Grandville laughed, declaimed, shouted, smoked, and drank but little. He remained seated at a table, a sheet of paper before him, pen or pencil in hand, smiling betimes, but everlastingly drawing. What did he draw? He himself never knew. A fancy bordering on the nonsensical guided his pencil. Birds with monkeys' heads, monkeys with fishes' heads, the faces of bipeds on the bodies of quadrupeds: a more grotesque world than Callot's temptations or Breughel's sportive demons, When two hours had gone by, full of laughter, noise and smoke for the others, Grandville had drawn from his brain, as from some fanciful circle, a whole new creation, which certainly belonged as much to him as that which was destroyed by the Flood belonged to God. It was all very exquisite, very clever, very enchanting; and expressed very clearly what it wished to interpret; the eyes and gestures speaking such a droll language that, by the time one had to leave them, one had always spent upwards of half an hour or an hour looking at them, trying to discover the meaning of them—improvised illustrations of stories unknown by Hoffmann. It was in this way he prepared, composed and published Les Quatre saisons de la vie, Le Voyage pour l'éternité, Les Metamorphoses du jour, and, finally, La Caricature, in which all the political celebrities of the day sat for him or before him. Then came 1832.
Grandville had offered that my portrait should be one of the first; he was one of the first to come and mount his platform, smoothing out his panel on a folding ladder and sketching the parts that reached above the height of the door. Two months afterwards, I went on a voyage. Did I see him again? I have my doubts. Only news of his tremendous works reached me. These were Chansons de Béranger, Gargantua au berceau, the Fables de la Fontaine, Les Animaux peinte par eux-mêmes, les Étoiles, les Fleurs animées. Then, in the midst of all these merry figures which fell from his pencil and pen came heartrending and bitter sorrows; his wife and three children died one after the other; when the last died, he himself fell ill. It was as though the voices of his four beloved ones were calling him to them. His conversation changed in character; it became more elevated; no more studio laughter or youthful joking was to be heard. He talked of that future life towards which he was going, of that immortality of the soul of which he was to know the secret; he soared into purest ether and floated on the most transparent clouds.
On 14 March 1847, he became insane; and he died three days later in the house of Dr. Voisin, at Vauvres. He is buried at Saint-Mandé, near his wife and three children, and if the dead are still endowed with sympathy, he has but to stretch out his arm to touch the hand of Carrel!
[CHAPTER V]
Tony Johannot
Grandville disappeared. Did he mount up to heaven on the rays of one of those stars with the faces of women, to whom he made love? Did he lie down to sleep in the tomb, to listen, during the sleep of death, to the growing of those women to whom he had given the stems of flowers? Oh! that is the great secret which the grave guards mysteriously, which death cannot tell life, which Hamlet asked fruitlessly of Yorick, of his father's ghost, of the interrupted song of Ophelia!
This secret my two dear and excellent friends who died on the same day—4 August 1852—Tony Johannot and Alfred d'Orsay, would assuredly have told me if it had been permitted to them. What poetry of sorrow could, then, be adequate to express the feelings of my heart the morning I woke to receive two such letters as these?
"MY DEAR FATHER,—Did you ever hear anything equal to this? I went to Tony Johannot's house yesterday with your letter, to ask him if he could undertake the vignettes for Isaac Laquedem, and they said to me: 'Sir, he has just died!'
"Tony Johannot dead! I met him the day before yesterday and we made an appointment for to-day. Dead! This single syllable felt like the tolling of a bell. It awoke the same kind of vibration in my heart. Dead! Tony Johannot is dead! If people die like this, one ought never to leave those one loves. Come back at once to Paris or I shall start for Brussels.—Yours, "ALEX. DUMAS, fils"
"MY DEAR DUMAS,—Our well-beloved Alfred d'Orsay died this morning at four o'clock, in my arms laughing, talking, making plans and without any idea he was dying. One of the last names he uttered was yours, for one of his last projects was to renew the lease of your shooting, which he much enjoyed last year. The funeral will take place the day after to-morrow at Chambourcy. Come, if my letter reaches you in time! It would be a comfort to Agénor and to the Duchesse de Grammont to have you with them at such a time.—Yours affectionately, "CABARRUS"
Another time I will tell you the whole of d'Orsay's history, d'Orsay the gentleman, the man of fashion, the artist, and, above all, the man of kindly heart; and I shall certainly not have room in one chapter to do that. For the present, let us restrict ourselves to Tony Johannot, the one among the four dead men whose lives I am relating with whom I was the most intimate.
He was born in 1803, in the little town of Offenbach, as was his brother; I have given the history of his parents and of his early days in relating that of Alfred. He must, therefore, appear before our readers as a young man in the same frame as Alfred; it was in this way, indeed, that the Artiste published them in its two excellent portraits of those twin-geniuses of art. Tony was delightful in those days, when about thirty years old: a clear, fresh complexion which a woman might have envied, short, curly hair, a dark moustache, small, but bright, intelligent and sparkling eyes, medium height in figure but wonderfully well-proportioned. Like Alfred, he was silent; but he was not as taciturn: his melancholy never went so far as depression: he was a man of few words and never launched out into a long sentence, but what he said always showed delicacy of perception and flashes of wit. Finally, his talent reflected his character like a mirror, and any one not knowing him could have formed a perfectly correct idea of him from his drawings, vignettes and pictures. The first time I saw him, if I remember rightly, was at the house of our dear good friend, Nodier. Nodier was very fond of both of the brothers. Tony brought a lovely water-colour to Marie Nodier. I can see it now: it represented a woman being murdered, either a Desdemona or a Vanina d'Ornano. It was meant for Marie's album. We drew together at once without hesitation, as if our two hearts had been in search of one another for twenty-five years; we were the same age, almost, he a little younger than I. I have related in these Memoirs that we went through the Rambouillet campaign side by side and that we returned from it together. A score of times he had tried to make a portrait sketch of me; a score of times he had erased the paper clean, rubbed off the wood, scratched the paint off the canvas, dissatisfied with his work. It was in vain I told him it was a good likeness.
"No," he said, "and no one could do it, any more than I can."
"Why so?"
"Because your face changes in expression every ten seconds. How can one make a likeness of a man who is not like himself?"
Then, to compensate me he would turn over his portfolios and give me a charming drawing of Minna et Brenda, or a lovely sketch of the Last of the Mohicans.
The chief merit of the character of Tony Johannot and the particular note of his talent was that gift of heaven bestowed specially on flowers, birds and women—charm. Tony even delighted his critics. His colour was, perhaps, a trifle monotonous, but it was cheerful, light and silvery in tone. His women were all like one another, Virginie and Brenda, Diana Vernon and Ophelia; what did it matter since they were all young and beautiful and gracious and chaste? The daughters of the poets, to whatever country they belong, have all one and the same father-genius. Charlotte and Desdemona, Leonora and Haidée, dona Sol and Amy Robsart are sisters. Now who can reproach sisters for bearing a family likeness?
Other illustrators found fault with Tony for monopolising every book as they blamed me for monopolising every newspaper. Ah! well, Tony has been dead eighteen months; let us see where, then, are those vignettes which were only waiting for a chance to be produced? Where, then, are all the illustrated Pauls and Virginies, the Manon Lescauts, Molières, Coopers, Walter Scotts which were to cause those of the poor dead artist to be forgotten? Where, then, are the fancies and whims which are to succeed this rage? Where is the art which is to replace this trade? So far as I am concerned, since they have brought the same reproach of monopolising against me, and an occasion offers to say a word on this subject, I will say it without circumlocution. At the present moment, 15 December 1853, I have for some time past more or less left La Presse free, Le Siècle free, Le Constitutionnel free; I have only one more story to write for Le Pays: see, you victimised gentlemen, the gates stand open, the columns are empty; besides Le Constitutionnel, Le Siècle, La Presse, you have La Patrie, l'Assemblée nationale, Le Moniteur, the Revue de Paris, the Revue des Deux Mondes; write your Reine Margots, gentlemen! Write Monte-Cristo, the Mousquetaires, Capitaine Paul, Amaury, Comtesse de Charny, Conscience, Pasteur d'Ashbourn; write all these, gentlemen! do not wait till I am dead. I have but one regret: it is that I cannot divert myself from my gigantic work by reading my own books; distract my thoughts by letting me read yours, and I assure you it will be a good thing for both me and yourselves and, perhaps, even better for you than for me.
Tony did as I did; he first of all worked at the rate of six hours a day, then eight, then ten, then twelve, then fifteen: work is like the intoxication of hashish and of opium: it creates a fictitious life inside real life, so full of delicious dreams and adorable hallucinations that one ends by preferring the fictitious life to the real one. Tony then worked fifteen hours a day—which speaks for itself.
Thus, after he had exhibited with his brother, the series of tableaus-vignettes to which I have referred in connection with Alfred, he did the following by himself: Minna et Brenda sur le bord de la mer, La Bataille de Rosbecque, La Mort de Julien d'Avenel, La Bataille de Fontenoy, l'Enfance de Duguesclin, l'Embarquement d'Élisabeth à Kenilworth, Deux Jeunes Femmes près d'une fenêtre, La Sieste, Louis XIII. forçant le passage du Méandre, a subject taken from George Sand's André, a subject from the Gospels, one from the Imitation of Christ, Le Roi Louis-Philippe offrant à la reine Victoria deux tapisseries des Gobelins au Château d'Eu. Then, after failing to exhibit in the Exhibitions of 1843, 1845 and 1846, he sent twelve pictures in 1848, five in 1850, three in 1851 and, in 1852, a Scène de village and the Plaisirs de l'automne. Three or four years previously, Tony's friends had been alarmed by a thing which, in spite of the fear of the doctors, seemed nevertheless quite impossible. He had been threatened with pulmonary phthisis. Nothing could have been more solidly constructed, it must be said, than Tony Johannot's chest, and, allowing for immoderate ambition, never were lungs more commodiously situated for fulfilling their functions; so Tony's friends did not feel anxious. He coughed, spat a little blood, took a course of treatment and got better. He had not stopped working. Work is a factor of health in the case of all who are producers. He had just done his Évangile and Imitation of Christ, he had stopped work on an oil-painting of Ruth and Boaz to start upon illustrations to the works of Victor Hugo, when, suddenly, he sank down and fell on his knees. He was struck by a crushing attack of apoplexy. On 4 August 1852, he died. The twofold news came too late: I could neither follow d'Orsay to the cemetery of Chambourcy, nor follow Tony Johannot to the cemetery of Montmartre. There it is that the creator of many charming vignettes, many fascinating pictures, sleeps in the vault where his two brothers Charles and Alfred had preceded him.
[BOOK II]
[CHAPTER I]
Sequel to the preparations for my ball—Oil and distemper —Inconveniences of working at night—How Delacroix did his task —The ball—Serious men—La Fayette and Beauchene—Variety of costumes—The invalid and the undertaker's man—The last galop—A political play—A moral play
Let us return from painters to paintings. The eleventh decorator had signed himself Ziégler. We did not reckon on him, but he had foreseen what might happen; one panel had been left blank and this was given to him on which to make a scene from La Esmeralda. Three days before the ball, everybody was at his post: Alfred Johannot was sketching his scene from Cinq-Mars; Tony Johannot, his Sire de Giac; Clément Boulanger, his Tour de Nesle; Louis Boulanger his Lucrèce Borgia; Jadin and Decamps worked in collaboration at their Debureau, Grandville at his Orchestre, Barye at his Tigres, Nanteuil at his door-panels, which were two medallions representing Hugo and Alfred de Vigny. Delacroix alone failed to answer to the appeal: they wanted to dispose of his panel, but I answered for him.
It was very diverting to see the start for this steeplechase between ten painters of equal merit. Each of them, without, apparently, watching his neighbour, followed with his eyes first the charcoal then the paint-brush. None of them—the Johannots in particular, being engravers and designers of vignettes and painters of easel pictures—were accustomed to the use of distemper. But the painters of large canvases soon got into the way of it. Among these, Louis and Clément Boulanger seemed as though they had never worked in any other medium. Jadin and Decamps discovered wonderful tones in this new method of execution, and declared they never wanted to paint in anything again but distemper. Ziégler took to it with some ease, Barye made belief that it was water-colour on a grand scale, but easier and more quickly done than water-colour on the small scale. Grandville drew with red chalk, charcoal and Spanish white chalk, and produced prodigious effects with these three crayons. We waited with curiosity for Delacroix, whose facility of execution has become proverbial. As I have said, only the two Johannots were behindhand. They knew they would not be finished if they did not work at night. Consequently, whilst others played, smoked and gossiped, both continued their day's work when night came, rejoicing in the tones given them by the light, and the superiority of lamplight to that of day, for painting intended to be seen by lamplight. They did not stop working till midnight, but they caught up with the others by so doing. Next day, when light broke, Alfred and Tony uttered cries of despair: by lamplight they had mistaken yellow for white and white for yellow, green for blue and blue for green. The two pictures looked like huge omelettes aux fines herbes. At this juncture Ciceri père came in. He had but to glance at the two pictures to guess what had happened.
"Bravo!" he said; "we have a green sky and yellow clouds! But that is a mere nothing!"
Indeed, it was more specially in the sky that the error had been committed. He took up the brushes and with broad, vigorous, powerful strokes he repainted the skies of both pictures in one minute: the one calm, serene and azure, leaving a glimpse of the splendours of Dante's paradise through the blue of the firmament; the other low, cloudy, charged with electricity, ready to burst forth into lightning flashes.
All the young painters learnt in an instant the secrets of decoration, which they had been hours groping after on the previous day. Nobody cared about working at night. Besides, thanks to the lesson given by Ciceri père, things were progressing with giant strides. There was no more news of Delacroix than if he had never existed. On the night of the second day I sent to him to ask if he remembered that the ball was fixed for the next day. He sent reply that I need not be anxious and he would come at breakfast-time next morning. Work began with the dawn next day. Most of the workers, moreover, had their task three-quarters finished. Clément Boulanger and Barye had done. Louis Boulanger had no more than three or four hours' work. Decamps was putting the last touches to his Debureau, and Jadin to his poppies and corn-flowers; Grandville was at work on his door tops, when, as he had promised, Delacroix arrived.
"Well, now, how are you getting on?" he asked.
"You see for yourself," said each worker, standing aside to let his work be seen.
"Oh, really! but you are doing miniature-work here! You should have told me: I would have come a month ago."
He went round all the four rooms, stopping before each panel and finding something pleasant to say to each of his confrères, thanks to the charming spirit with which he is endowed. Then, as they were going to breakfast, he breakfasted too.
"Well?" he asked, when breakfast was done, turning towards the empty panel.
"Well, there it is!" I said. "It is the panel for the Crossing of the Red Sea; the sea has gone back, the Israelites have crossed, the Egyptians have not yet arrived."
"Then I will take advantage of the fact to do something else. What would you like me to stick up there?"
"Oh, you know, a King Rodrigo after a battle:
'Sur les rives murmurantes
Du fleuve aux oncles sanglantes,
Le roi sans royaume allait,
Froissant, dans ses mains saignantes,
Les grains d'or d'un chapelet.'"
"Ah, is that what you want?"
"Yes."
"You will not ask me for something else when it is half done?"
"Of course not!"
"Here goes, then, for King Rodrigo!"
And, without taking off his little black coat which clung closely to his body, without turning up his sleeves or taking off his cuffs, or putting on a blouse or cotton jacket, Delacroix began by taking his charcoal and, in three or four strokes, he had drawn the horse; in five or six, the cavalier; in seven or eight, the battlefield, dead, dying and fugitives included; then, making sufficient out of this rough sketch to be intelligible to himself, he took up brushes and began to paint. And, in a flash, as if one had unveiled a canvas, one saw appear under his hand, first a cavalier, bleeding, injured and wounded, half dragged by his horse, who was as hurt as himself, holding on by the mere support of his stirrups, and leaning on his long lance; round him, in front and behind him, the dead in heaps; by the riverside, the wounded trying to put their lips to the water, and leaving tracks of blood behind them; as far as the eye could see, away towards the horizon stretched the battlefield, ruthless and terrible; above it all, in a horizon made dense by the vapour of blood, a sun was setting like a red buckler in a forge; then, finally, a blue sky which, as it melted away into the distance, became an indefinable shade of green, with rosy clouds on it like the down of an ibis. The whole thing was wonderful to see: a circle gathered round the master and each one of the artists left his task to come and clap his hands without jealousy or envy at the new Rubens, who improvised both composition and execution as he went on. It was finished in two or three hours' time. At five that afternoon, owing to a large fire, all was dry and they could place the forms against the walls. The ball had created an enormous stir. I had invited nearly all the artists in Paris; those I had forgotten wrote to remind me of their existence. Many society women had done the same, but they asked to be allowed to come masked: it was an impertinence towards other women and I left it to the responsibility of those who had offered it. It was a fancy dress ball, but not a masked one; the order was strict, and I hired two dozen dominoes for the use of impostors, whoever they might be, who attempted to introduce themselves in contraband dress.
At seven o'clock, Chevet arrived with a fifty-pound salmon, and a roebuck roasted whole, served on a silver dish which looked as though it had been borrowed from Gargantua's sideboard, and a gigantic pâté, all to correspond. Three hundred bottles of Bordeaux were put down to warm, three hundred bottles of Burgundy were cooling, five hundred bottles of champagne were on ice.
I had discovered in the library, in a little book of engravings by Titian's brother, a delightful costume of 1525: hair cut round and hanging over the shoulders, bound in with a gold band; a sea-green jerkin, braided with gold, laced down the front of the shirt with gold lace, and fastened at the shoulder and elbows by similar lacing; breeches of parti-coloured red and white silk; black velvet slippers, à la François I., embroidered in gold. The mistress of the house, a very handsome person, with dark hair and blue eyes, was in a velvet dress, with a starched collarette, and the black felt hat with black feathers of Helena Formann, Rubens's second wife. Two orchestras had been set up in each suite of rooms, in such a way that, at a given moment, they could both play the same air, and the galop could be heard throughout the five rooms and the hall. At midnight, these five rooms afforded a wonderful spectacle. Everybody had taken up the idea with the exception of those who styled themselves staid men; every one had come in fancy dress; but it was in vain that the serious-minded men pleaded their seriousness; no attention whatever was paid to it; they were compelled to clothe themselves in dominoes of the quietest colours. Véron, a staid person, though he could also be merry, was muffled up in rose colour; Buloz, who was serious and melancholy in temperament, was decked out in sky-blue; Odilon Barrot, who was ultra-serious to solemnness, had obtained a black domino, in virtue of his twofold title of barrister and député; finally, La Fayette, the good, the fashionable and courtly old gentleman, smiling at all this foolishness of youth, had, without offering any opposition to it, put on the Venetian costume. This man had pressed the hand of Washington, had compelled Marat to hide in caves, had struggled against Mirabeau, had lost his popularity in saving the life of the queen, and on 6 October had said to a royalty of ten centuries old: "Bow thyself before that royalty which yesterday was called the people!" This man—who, in 1814, had thrust Napoleon from his throne; who, in 1830, had helped Louis-Philippe to ascend his; who, instead of falling, had gone on growing in power during revolutions—was with us also, simple as greatness, good as strength, candid as genius. He was, in fact, the subject of astonishment and admiration for all those entrancing beings who saw, touched and spoke to him for the first time, who brought back to him his younger days; he looked at them earnestly, gave both his hands to them and responded with the most polite and courteous words to all the pretty speeches the charming queens of the Paris theatres addressed to him. You will recollect having been the favourites of that famous man for one whole night, you—Léontine Fay, Louise Despréaux, Cornélie Falcon, Virginie Déjazet? You recollect your amazement in finding him simple and gentle, coquettish and gallant, witty and deferential, as he had been forty years before at the balls of Versailles and the Trianon? One moment Beauchene sat down by him, and this juxtaposition made a singular contrast: Beauchene wore the Vendéen costume in all its completeness: the hat surrounded with a handkerchief, the Breton jacket, short trousers, gaiters, the bleeding heart on the breast, and the English carbine. Beauchene, who passed for a too Liberal Royalist under the Bourbons of the Elder Branch, passed for too Royalist a Liberal under the Younger Branch. So, General La Fayette, recognising him, said with a charming smile—
"Monsieur de Beauchene, tell me, I beg you, in virtue of what privilege are you the only person here who is not wearing a disguise?"
A quarter of an hour later, both were seated at an écarté table, and Beauchene was playing against the Republican of 1789 and of 1830, with gold bearing the effigy of Henry V.
The sitting-room presented the most picturesque appearance. Mademoiselle Mars, Joanny, Michel Menjaud, Firmin, Mademoiselle Leverd had come in the costumes belonging to Henri III. It was the court of the Valois complete. Dupont, the offended soubrette of Molière, the merry soubrette of Marivaux, was in a Boucher shepherdess costume. Georges, who had regained the beauty of her best days, had taken the costume of a Nettuno peasant-girl, and Madame Paradol wore that of Anne of Austria. Rose Dupuis had one like Lady Rochester. Noblet was in harlequin's dress; Javureck was a Turkish slave-girl. Adèle Alphonse, who was making her first public appearance, arriving, I think, from Saint Petersburg, was a young Greek girl. Léontine Fay, an Albanian woman. Falcon, the beautiful Jewess, was dressed as Rebecca; Déjazet, as du Barry; Nourrit, as a court abbé; Monrose, as a soldier of Ruyter; Volnys, as an Armenian; Bocage, as Didier. Allan—who, no doubt, took himself for a serious-minded person like Buloz and Véron—was clad in a white necktie, black coat and trousers; but, over the toilet of a gilded youth, we had insisted on putting a cabbage-green domino. Rossini had taken the costume of Figaro, and vied in popularity with La Fayette. Moyne, our poor Moyne! who had so much talent and who, in spite of his talent, died of hunger, killing himself in the hope that his death would bequeath a pension to his widow—Moyne had taken the costume of Charles IX.; Barye was dressed as a Bengal tiger; Etex, as an Andalusian; Adam, as a doll; Zimmermann, as a kitchen-maid; Plantade, as Madame Pochet; Pichot, as a magician; Alphonse Royer, as a Turk; Charles Lenormand, as a native of Smyrna; Considérant, as a bey of Algiers; Paul de Musset, as a Russian; Alfred de Musset, as a weather-cock; Capo de Feuillide, as a toreador. Eugène Sue, the sixth of the serious men, was in a pistachio domino; Paul Lacroix, as an astrologer; Pétrus Borel, who took the name of Lycanthrope, as Young France; Bard, my companion in the Soissons expedition, as a page of the time of Albert Dürer; Francisque Michel, as a vagabond; Paul Fouché, as a foot-soldier in the Procession of Fools; Eugène Duverger, as Van Dyck; Ladvocat, as Henri XI.; Fournier, as a sailor; Giraud, as a man-at-arms of the eleventh century; Tony Johannot, as Sire de Giac; Alfred Johannot, as young Louis XI.; Menut, as a page of Charles VII.; Louis Boulanger, as a courtier of King John; Nanteuil, as an old soldier of the sixteenth century; Gaindron, as a madman; Boisselot, as a young lord of the time of Louis XII.; Châtillon, as Sentinelli; Ziégler, as Cinq-Mars; Clément Boulanger, as a Neapolitan peasant; Roqueplan, as a Mexican officer; Lépaule, in Highland dress; Grenier, as a seaman; Robert Fleury, as a Chinaman; Delacroix, as Dante; Champmartin, as a pilgrim; Henriquet Dupont, as Ariosto; Chenavard, as Titian; Frédérick Lemaître, as Robert Macaire covered with spangles.
Several droll incidents enlivened the evening. M. Tissot, of the Academy, conceived the notion of making himself up as an invalid; he had scarcely entered, when Jadin came in as an undertaker's man and, lugubrious crêpe on his hat, followed him from room to room, fitting his pace to his and every five minutes repeating the words: "I am waiting!" M. Tissot could not stand it and, in half an hour's time, he left. At one time, there were seven hundred persons present. We had supper at three in the morning. The two rooms of the empty flat on my landing were converted into a dining-room.
Wonderful to relate there was enough for everybody to eat and to drink! At nine o'clock in the morning, with music ringing in their heads, they began a final galop in the rue des Trois-Frères, the head of the procession reaching to the boulevard whilst the tail was still frisking in the courtyard of the square. I have often thought since of giving a second ball like that one, but it always seemed to me that it would be quite impossible.
It was about this time that they performed at the Odéon a play which made some sensation, first on account of its own merit, and, also, from the measure that it suggested. This play had for title: Révolution d'autrefois, ou les Romains chez eux. The authors were Félix Pyat and Théo.
They had taken for their hero the mad Emperor, whom, six years later, I tried in my turn to put on to the stage—Caligula. There was scarcely any plot in the play; its principal merit was that which was attached to its subtitle: Les Romains chez eux. Indeed, this was the first time people had seen the toga worn, and buskins on the feet, and the speech, actions, and eating as had been the case in real life. The subject was the death of Caligula and the succession of Claudius to the throne. Unfortunately for the longevity of the play, it contained a scene which seemed to imply a disrespectful allusion to the leader of the Government. It was the third scene of the last act. One soldier represented Claudius as being perfectly suitable for the Romans, because he was big, fat and stupid. It is impossible to describe the effect which this big, fat and stupid produced; there was at that period a terrible reaction against Louis-Philippe. The insurrection of the month of June still brooded upon all spirits. They applied these three epithets to the head of the Government, doing him the justice which he was at any rate to deserve sixteen or seventeen years later. I had not been present at the first performance. I succeeded, after great difficulty, in getting a seat at the second. Take careful note that I am speaking of the Odéon. All Paris would have come to Harel's theatre, for I think he still had the Odéon then, if the play had not been stopped at the third performance. And the most curious thing was that nobody, neither manager nor authors, counted much on the work, which was readily to be seen by the way in which it was mounted. Apart from Lockroy and Provost, the whole play was distributed amongst what is called in theatrical parlance la troupe de fer-blanc ("a fit-up crowd"). Arsène played Chéréas and Moëssard, Claude. Seventeen days later the Porte-Saint-Martin played a piece which was to cause a scandal of another order. It was called: Dix ans de la vie d'une femme, ou les mauvais conseils. The leading part was played by Dorval. The play of Dix ans de la vie d'une femme—the first manuscript at least—was by a young man of thirty or so, named Ferrier. Harel, while reading it, had seen in it a sequel to Joueur and had coupled Ferrier with Scribe. The result of this alliance was a play fit to make people's hair stand on end, a drama which Mecier or Rétif de la Bretonne would hardly have put their names to!
Something like eighteen years later, we were discussing, at the Council of State, before the commission formed to prepare the law connected with theatres the question of dramatic censorship and theatrical liberty, and, on this head, I heard Scribe attack immoral literature more violently than was usual with him. He demanded a censorship which should be a salutary check to keep talent from the excesses of all kinds to which it was too apt to surrender itself. I allowed myself to interrupt the austere orator, and addressed this question laughingly so that it could be heard all over the room.
"Come, tell us, Scribe, does the drama entitled Dix ans de la vie d'une femme come under the head of moral literature?"
"What?"
I repeated the question.
Scribe replied in the same laughing spirit in which he had been attacked. Read the work again and you will see it would have been difficult for him to reply otherwise. You shall judge for yourselves. We have so often seen our works and those of the Romantic school taxed with immorality by people who uphold M. Scribe as a moral author, that it must really be permitted us to repeat the accusation here and to show, play in hand, how far they pushed the scandal at times in the opposite camp. The wide point of view which the outline of these Memoirs embraces makes us hope that such an exposition may not be looked upon as a digression. At all events, those of our readers who think it irrelevant are quite at liberty to pass over the following chapter.
[CHAPTER II]
Dix ans de la vie d'une femme
This is what Dix ans de la vie d'une femme was like. Adèle Évrard has married M. Darcey, a rich landowner, a worthy and excellent man, full of concern for, attention towards and kindnesses to his wife—a sort of Danville of the École des vieillards, with this difference, that Darcey is only forty. Adèle, Madame Darcey, has the same Christian name as Madame d'Hervey; but, instead of being like the heroine of Antony, ready to struggle to the point of preferring death to shame, Adèle of Dix ans de la vie d'une femme was born possessed of every evil tendency that could be fostered by bad influences. Now such bad influences were not wanting in her case. Adèle, daughter of an honest merchant, wife of an honest man, had made the acquaintance—(where, the narrative does not say, but it ought to have done: these things, even on the stage, ought to be explained)—Adèle, we repeat, had made the acquaintance of two disreputable women named Madame Laferrier and Sophie Marini. At the raising of the curtain, Adèle is chatting with her sister; of what? Of a subject young wives and girls are eternally talking about—Love. Clarisse loves a fascinating young man named Valdeja, who holds a position of attaché to the Embassy at Saint Petersburg, far away from her. There is but one disquieting element in that love—the character of the recipient is inclined to melancholy.
Meanwhile, M. Darcey arrives. At the first words he pronounces, one can recognise that he is an excellent man, half father, half husband; his wife, whom he adores, will have the sunny side of life; only the feathers, silks and velvets of married life if she will but obey his orders, or rather, accede to her husband's wishes, which are very simple and reasonable. He wishes her to cease from seeing two persons who are of more than equivocal antecedents, whose conduct and ways are not consistent with the behaviour of a respectable woman, or with the duties of the mother of a family. Adèle promises in a fashion which means that she will break her promise. Her husband goes out, called away from home on business which will detain him half the day; Clarisse goes to attend to household matters, and Madame Darcey stays alone. Hardly is she left thus before she is told that Madame Laferrier, Sophie Marini and M. Achille Grosbois have come. Her first impulse is to recall the promise she has made to her husband; the second, to put it on one side. Enter these ladies and M. Achille.
We can imagine the turn the conversation takes, particularly when, on seeing Adèle's troubled looks as she welcomes her friends, they discover something fresh has happened in the household and that Darcey has forbidden his wife to receive Sophie and Amélie. Such a prohibition, which should make two women who possess merely the faintest feelings of pride fly for very shame, only incites our two hussies: they do not merely content themselves with paying an ordinary call at the château; they invite themselves to dinner. Furthermore, as though they had expected the affront that had been offered them, they prepare their revenge: M. Rodolphe is to come.
"Qu'est-ce que M. Rodolphe? demande Adèle.
—Un jeune homme charmant!
—Qu'est-ce qu'il est?
—Il va à Tortoni.
—J'entends bien ... Mais qu'est-ce qu'il fait?
—Il déjeune le matin chez Tortoni, et le soir, vous le trouvez, en gants jaunes, au balcon de tous les théâtres. Du resté, il est garçon, possède vingt-mille livres de rente, et est adorateur d'Adèle.
—De moi?
—Il te poursuit partout sans pouvoir t' atteindre, et, en désespoir de cause, nous adore, Sophie et moi, parce que nous sommes tes meilleures amies!"
And, upon this somewhat vague intelligence, that Rodolphe breakfasts at Tortoni's and is at night in the stalls at the theatres wearing yellow gloves, Adèle receives M. Rodolphe and invites him to dinner with her friends and M. Achille Grosbois. At this juncture, Clarisse runs in joyously: she tells her sister that a coupé, drawn by two horses with the most beautiful coats and a coachman in elegant livery, sent as a gift from M. Darcey, are just coming into the château courtyard.
"Comment! Ju n'avais pas encore de coupé? dit une des visiteuses.
—Il y a trois ans que mon mari m'en a donné un! dit l'autre."
And the effect M. Darcey intended to produce by his driver and carriage and pair is completely lost. But, as Adèle's father arrives in this fine equipage, however little enthusiasm Madame Darcey puts into her appreciation of a present she has looked forward to for so long, she is obliged to leave her dear friends, not to see the carriage, coachman and horses, but to welcome M. Évrard. Amélie follows her, for fear, no doubt, that the paternal embraces may awaken some proper feeling in her friend's heart. Sophie, M. Achille, M. Rodolphe and Clarisse remain together. Conversation is difficult between a virtuous young girl and such creatures; but wait, Sophie means to keep up the conversation. She thanks Clarisse for a little sum the latter has given her. Sophie Marini had undertaken to collect money as a charitable lady, and fulfils, by so doing, a pious duty. For what had this person been collecting? Oh, that is a perfectly simple matter: for a young girl who has been deserted by a shameful seducer.
"Oh! voilà qui est horrible! s'écrie Rodolphe,—étendu sur une chaise.
—Je ne vous nommerai pas le séducteur, quoique je le connaisse, reprend Sophie; ce serait inutile: il n'est plus en France, il est très-loin, à l'étranger ... en Russie.
—En Russie! répète Clarisse vivement,—sans s'apercevoir que, devant elle, jeune fille et demi-maîtresse de maison, il y a un monsieur qui reste étendu sur une chaise.
—Oui, en Russie, où il occupe une fort belle place! Et, certainement, ce Valdeja aurait bien pu ...
—Valdeja! s'écrie Clarisse."
Well! the poison is shed, the poor child is wounded to the heart! Adèle re-enters. She thinks she will have a meal prepared in the pavilion in the park. The whole company then go out to luncheon. Some minutes later, M. Darcey returns, and he learns that the best wines from his cellar, and the finest fruits from his garden are being served to entertain M. Achille and M. Rodolphe, whom he does not know at all, and Mesdames Sophie Marini and Amélie Laferrier, whom he knows but too well. He asks himself if it is possible his wife can so soon have forgotten the promise she made him, when Amélie, Sophie and Achille appear on the scenes and proceed to talk freely without perceiving the master of the house.
"AMELIE.
Nous voici revenus au point d'où nous étions partis.. Il est charmant, ce parc; mais c'est un véritable labyrinthe.
SOPHIE.
Heureusement, nous n'y avons pas rencontré le Minotaure!
ACHILLE.
Il est à Paris.
DARCEY, qui s'est tenu a l'écart, s'avance près d'Amélie.
Non, monsieur!
Exclamation générale.
ACHILLE.
Ma foi! monsieur, qui se serait douté que vous étiez là à m'écouter? Rien de plus dès obligeant que d'être écouté! Vous excuserez la plaisanterie, j'espère?
DARCEY.
Monsieur ...
ACHILLE.
L'air de la campagne pousse singulièrement aux bons mots, et, sans examiner s'ils sont exacts, la langue s'en débarrasse.
DARCEY.
Je comprends cela â merveille; mais j'ai un grand travers d'esprit: je n'aime pas les fats.
ACHILLE.
Ah! vous n'aimez pas!...
DARCEY.
Ah! vous n'aimez pas!...
DARCEY.
Non, je ne les amie pas; et, quand ils s'introduisent chez moi (regardant les deux dames), dans quelque compagnie qu'ils se trouvent, je les chasse sans balancer.
ACHILLE, sur les épines.
Fort-bien, fort-bien!—Je disais tout à l'heure.
DARCEY, élevant la voix.
Monsieur, vous m'avez compris ...
SOPHIE, à Amélie.
Il n'y a pas moyen d'y tenir: sortons, ma chère! Elle sort en donnant la main à Achille.
DARCEY.
Je serais désolé de vous retenir.
AMELIE.
Monsieur, un pareil outrage.
DARCEY.
Madame Laferrier me permettra-t-elle de la reconduire jusqu'à sa voiture?"
And whilst Darcey turns his back, the following scene takes place between Adèle and Rodolphe.
"RODOLPHE, un bouquet à la main.
Eh bien, où sont dont ces dames?
ADÈLE.
Dieu! M. Rodolphe, parlez! éloignez-vous!
RODOLPHE.
Et pourquoi donc?
ADÈLE.
Mon mari est de retour.
RODOLPHE.
Eh! que m'importe?
ADÈLE.
Il vient de nous faire une scène affreuse.
RODOLPHE, gaiement.
C'est comme cela que je les amie, les maris!
ADÈLE.
Mais, pour moi, monsieur; pour moi, de grâce, parlez!
RODOLPHE.
Pour vous, c'est différent, il s'y a rien que je ne fasse. Mais mon respect, ma soumission me priveront ils de votre présence? Dois-je désormais renoncer à ce bonheur?
ADÈLE.
Il le faut. Je ne puis plus vous voir.
RODOLPHE.
Chez vous, je le comprends; mais dans le monde. Chez vous, amies?...
ADÈLE, avec crainte.
Monsieur, vous me faites mourir!
RODOLPHE.
Un mot de consentement, un seul mot, et je pars; sinon, je reste.
ADÈLE.
Parlez, parlez, je vous en supplie!
RODOLPHE, lui baisant la main.
Ah! que je vous remercie!"
He escapes by the bottom of the garden; then Darcey returns.
"DARCEY.
Leur voiture est sur la route de Paris.... Maintenant, madame, voulez-vous que nous passions au salon?
ADÈLE.
Monsieur, est ce la le commencement du rôle de mari?
DARCEY.
Oui, madame.
ADÈLE, sortant. Alors, malheur à celui qui ose s'en charger!
DARCEY, la suivant des yeux, et sortant après elle.
Malheur à toi, si tu écoutes d'autres conseils que ceux de la raison!"
In the second act, Adèle is the mistress of Rodolphe. Thus, the wife has not even the excuse of seduction; she has not been overcome, given in through weakness, hesitated; she yielded as Sophie Marini or Amélie Laferrier would; then the interest grows. A wife is lost, but without any efforts to save herself!
Valdeja has arrived from Russia; he is gloomier, more bitter, more averse to women than ever. A young girl who loved him, whom he was counting upon marrying, who was almost his betrothed, has written to him through her father that she does not love him, and could not love him. Hence, Valdeja's sadness, his vow to be avenged on other women for the sufferings this one has caused him. Darcey does not know who the young girl is: an extraordinary thing, considering the degree of intimacy between himself and Valdeja, and that that young girl is his sister-in-law. But to proceed!...
Adèle enters. She exercises that insincere tenderness towards her husband, that assiduity which is affected by deceitful women. At the first words, Valdeja is not taken in by it. Adèle tells her husband that she has just learnt that her father is ill; she therefore proposes to go and see him, but she will return to dinner.
"Vraiment! Il est neuf heures du matin, dit Darcey, et à six heures tu seras rentrée?
—A moins qu'on ne me retienne; ce pauvre père si bon!
—Il me semble qu'en envoyant Créponne ou Baptiste s'informer de sa santé ...
—Oh! ce serait d'une indifférence ... Et puis, Clarisse, ma jeune sœur, m'a écrit: elle désire me voir, sans doute au sujet du mariage dont il est question pour elle, tu sais?
—Ah! mademoiselle votre sœur va se marier!"
Here we see Valdeja informed that Clarisse is going to be married, as she has been told that Valdeja had been unfaithful to her. After this, Adèle insists so much on her father's illness, and on the fact that the letter from her sister Clarisse is very urgent, that her husband gives her complete liberty to go where she wished. The eagerness with which she takes advantage of this liberty rouses Valdeja's suspicions, and under pretext of having to make various visits, a letter from a Russian prince to be handed to a M. Laferrier, and so on, he goes out at a venture to follow Madame Darcey, when they announce the arrival of Clarisse.
"Alors, répond Darcey, dites à Adèle que sa sœur est là.
—Madame est sortie.
—C'est étonnant! Je n'ai pas entendu sa voiture, et il y a trop loin pour qu'elle aille à pied.
—Madame avait envoyé Baptiste à la place voisine pour faire avancer un fiacre.
—Un fiacre? C'est singulier! dit Darcey."
Clarisse comes in; her father has nothing whatever the matter with him! but his credit is on the point of being destroyed by bankruptcy. He needs a hundred thousand crowns to save him. Valdeja offers them. But Darcey will not allow a stranger to pay the debts of his family: he puts the hundred thousand crowns at the disposition of Clarisse's father.
Let us pass on to the following scene and we shall see if Adèle d'Hervey—poor Adèle, against whom there has been this outcry because she was a respectable woman!—is not a model of virtue (rosière[1]) compared to Adèle Darcey. Note, particularly, that our confrère Scribe, author of Dix ans de la vie d'une femme and of Héloise et Abeilard, is one of the warmest partizans for a dramatic censorship. Consult the archives of the State Commission oh this point. Further, we will try ourselves to procure these archives, and there will be found stated our three opinions: Eugène Scribe's, Victor Hugo's and that of Alexandre Dumas—a matter not without a certain amount of interest to all who are connected with literature.
Let us return to our drama. The stage represents an elegant boudoir in the house of Madame Laferrier. Adèle is there, waiting for Rodolphe. You will admit that I was not so far wrong in calling Madame Laferrier a disreputable woman. There is, I think, another name to designate women who lend their boudoirs to friends when the latter tell their husbands that their fathers are dying in order to obtain liberty to go and meet their lovers. But set your mind at rest. Adèle and Rodolphe only come there to quarrel. True, the quarrel is sufficiently disgraceful in itself.
"Qu'avez-vous à me reprocher, madame?
—Votre oubli de toutes les convenances. Avant hier, par exemple, quand vous me donniez le bras, oser saluer sur le boulevard mademoiselle Anastasie, une figurante de l'Opéra!
—Du chapeau seulement, sans mains, sans grace, comme on salue tout le monde.
—Je l'avais une vue déjà une fois sortir de chez vous.
—C'est ma locataire. J'amie les arts, moi ...
—Je vous prie de me rendre mes lettres et mon portrait.
—Dès demain, mon valet de chambre Sylvestre vous portera vos lettres, et, quant à votre portrait, a médaillon que j'avais fait faire, qui ne me quittait jamais, le voici, madame.
—C'est bien! le voilà donc revenu dans mes mains. (L'ouvrant pour le regarder.) Dieu! que vois-je? et quelle indignité! Le portrait de mademoiselle Anastasie!
—Est-il possible? C'est délicieux! Je me serai trompé en le prenant ce matin. (Textuel)."
Rodolphe goes out kissing Adèle's hand, calling her cruel, and promising never to forget her kindnesses.
"Ce pauvre Rodolphe! un charmant cavalier! dit Amélie, qui était présente à l'entretien."
One would have thought after the impertinences M. Rodolphe had been permitted to commit, Amélie would scarcely recall ce charmant cavalier to Adèle's memory. Perhaps, though, this might have happened, if the name of Valdeja had not been pronounced. This incident gives another turn to the conversation.
"Valdeja!" exclaims Amélie; "Sophie Marini's deadly enemy?"
"Lui-même ... Sais-tu ce que Sophie Marini a contre lui?
—Elle ne me l'a jamais confié; mais on prétend qu'autrefois elle l'a amie. Puis; il a découvert qu'il avait des rivaux, et il s'est vengé d'une maniéré indigne.
—Comment cela?
—En la faisant trouver à un dîner où il avait invité tous ceux qu'elle avait préférées. On ne dit pas combien il y avait de couverts. (Textuel.)"
At this point, Créponne, Adèle's maid, comes on the scene. She has been hunting for her mistress for six hours past: at Rodolphe's and at Madame Marini's house. Clarisse coming to the house has revealed all: her father is not ill, and she never wrote! What is to be done? Fortunately, Amélie is there.
"Y a-t-il longtemps que vous n'êtes allés, toi et ton mari, chez madame de Longpré, dont tu me parles souvent?
—Quinze jours environ.
—Assieds-toi là, et écris.
—Que veux-tu que je lui écrive?
—Assieds-toi toujours. (Dictant.) 'Si, avant de m'avoir vue, le hasard vous mettait en rapport avec mon père ou mon mari, n'oubliez pas que je suis arrivée aujourd'hui chez vous dans un état affreux; que j'y suis restée longtemps, et que je'en suis repartie en fiacre. Je vous envoie mon chapeau et mon mouchoir. Vous me les renverrez demain par votre femme de chambre.' Date et signe. Commences—tu à comprendre?
—Oui, mon bon ange!"
—En arrivant chez toi, tu te trouveras mal, et je réponds du reste.
—Dieu! que c'est simple et bien! (Textuel.)"
At this moment a servant announces that a gentleman is asking to see madame.
"Il prend bien son temps, répond Amélie; qu'il s'en aille!
—Il prétend qu'il n'est que pour un jour à Paris, et qu'il apporte à madame des lettres et des nouvelles du prince Krimikoff.
—Ce pauvre prince! il pense encore à moi!—
—Dis au monsieur d'attendre là dans la pièce qui touche à ce boudoir; dans un instant, je suis à lui, je le recevrai."
Why in the room adjoining that boudoir we ask? Why, of course, so that the gentleman can hear what is going to be said; there is no deeper motive behind it than that! See for yourself, however: when the servant has gone out, the dialogue continues between Adèle and Amélie.
"Une chose m'inquiète, maintenant: ce sont ces lettres et ce portrait que Rodolphe a entre les mains.
—C'est ta faute; je t'ai dit vingt fois de ne pas écrire. Tu veux toujours faire à ta tête!
—Il n'en a que trois, et il m'a bien promis devant toi de me les renvoyer demain par son valet de chambre.
—Espérons-le! Allons, va-t'en vite!
—De ce côté?
—Oh! non, tu serais vue par cet étranger.
—Eh! mais j'y pense, maintenant, nous sommes là a parler tout haut, et l'on entend de ton petit salon tout ce qui se dit ici.
—Qu' importe! cet étranger ne sait peut-être pas le français."
Adèle is satisfied with the suggestion that a Russian does not understand French, the current language of Russia; she does not reflect that a Russian who cannot talk French would not ask to speak with Amélie, who is not supposed to be a woman who knows Russian. Valdeja enters behind the two women, brought in by a servant.
"Je n'étais pas si mal où j'étais! se dit Valdeja, et, dès qu'à travers cette légère cloison j'ai eu reconnu la voix de madame Darcey, j'eusse mérité de ne plus rien entendre de ma vie, si j'eusse perdu un mot de leur conversation!"
What does Valdeja think of doing now? That is quite simple: to carry off Adèle's handkerchief and letter. Unfortunately, Amélie, when taking her friend home, has carried them away with her. But, do not be uneasy, when she returns she will bring them back, and this will give occasion to a curious scene, as you are about to hear.
Valdeja, who speaks French perfectly, although a foreigner, for he is a Spaniard, has been charged by Prince Krimikoff with a letter for M. Laferrier. This letter begins the affair. So they chat about Prince Krimikoff.
"Dans quel état l'avez-vous trouvé? demande Amélie.
—Fort triste et fort maussade.
—Changé à ce point! Je l'ai vu ici, il y a six ans: il était charmant.
—Je sais cela. Il m'a dit que vous l'aviez trouvé charmant.
—Il vous l'a dit?
—Chut!... Parce que je sais vos heures intimes avec lui, ce n'est pas une raison pour les publier.
—Monsieur! M. Krimikoff est un fat ... Je nie positivement.
—A quoi bon? Parce qu'on arrive du fond de la Russie, nous croyez-vous en dehors de la civilisation? Là-bas, comme ici, la vie bien entendue n'est qu'un joyeux festin; et de quel droit. M. Krimikoff se réserverait il le privilège d'une ivresse exclusive?
—Eh! mais, monsieur, permettez-moi de vous dire que voilà d'affreux principes."
At the same time, as the author is careful to state, Amélie utters these words smiling. Valdeja continues:
"Affreux à avouer, doux à mettre en pratique.
—Monsieur!
—Ne le niez pas, je sais tout ... Car cette lettre que j'ai là, cette lettre n'est pas pour votre mari, comme j'ai dit: elle est pour vous."
It is, indeed, unfortunate that it is for Madame Laferrier and not for M. Laferrier; for, although they talk much about it, the spectators do not see M. Laferrier at all. It would certainly be interesting to see the husband who would adapt himself to such a wife! Listen carefully and follow the turn the conversation is going to take.
"Mais, continue Valdeja, à votre seul aspect, je me suis repenti de m'en être chargé ... Il me semblait cruel de vous apporter, de la part d'un autre, des hommages que j'étais tenté de vous rendre, et de vous voir lire devant moi ce que je n'osais vous dire.
—Un rival?... Permettez! Je ne vous cacherai pas que les brilliantes qualités de M. Krimikoff, m'avaient frappée; cependant, sans le piège qu'il m'a tendu, je serais, je l'atteste, restée irréprochable."
What, then, is the snare Prince Krimikoff has laid for Madame Laferrier? The author does not say. But it must be the same order of snare which Valdeja sets for her. Poor Amélie! Let us admit that she has naturally a great talent for allowing herself to be caught in a trap.
"Irréprochable! s'écrie Valdeja avec chaleur.
—Eh! bon Dieu! de quel mot vous servez-vous la? Qu'est-ce que c'est que vertueuse? (Riant.) Ah!
—Ah! sur mon âme, voilà d'étroites idées, d'anciennes façons bien pauvres, et je croyais la France moins arriérée. Vous arrêter un instant à de pareilles distinctions?
—Ah! madame, j'avais d'abord conçu une meilleure idée de vous!"
You may imagine Amélie's joy at the thought of the good opinion the noble stranger has conceived of her. Valdeja goes on, raising his tones:
"Quand on adopte un régime, il faut tâcher qu'il soit bon. Je ne connais qu'un enseignement respectable, c'est celui de nos passions. La nature y est pour tout, la société pour rien. Plaisir, ivresse, déüre, voilà des mots auxquels nos cœurs répondent.... Vous le savez, vous qui ne pouvez, même en ce moment, contenu vos pensées qui s'allument (il lui prend la main,) vous dont le pouls s'active, dont l'œil s'enflamme et rit là en silence de tous ces aphorismes de vertu.
—Monsieur, Monsieur ...
—A quoi bon ces vains scruples? Je vous comprends, je vous suis, je vous devance peut-être.
—Parlons d'autre chose, je vous prie.
—Voyez, votre mémoire vous domine, vos souvenirs sont dans votre sang; vous vous rappelez tout ce que vaut, dans la vie, un moment d'illusion.
—Laissez-moi!
—Ce que peut un bras qui serre ...
—Laissez-moi!
—Un souffle, qui renverse!
—Oh! grâce! grâce!"
You see very clearly that instead of stopping, Valdeja continues:
"Venez! dit il en prenant Amélie par la taille.
—Écoutez! (On entend le bruit d'une voiture.) C'est mon mari! Voilà sa voiture qui rentre."
Ah! so we are to see this worthy M. Laferrier after all! The noise of the carriage, which would have disturbed anybody else, helps Valdeja, on the contrary, to wind up the scene, which we should agree was becoming difficult between people who have only just met for the first time, one of whom hates and despises the other.
"Vous quitter ainsi, s'écrie Valdeja, sans un gage, sans un souvenir? (Apercevat le mouchoir resté sur la table.) Ah! Ce mouchoir, qui est le votre ...
—Monsieur ...
—Là, là, sur mon cœur; il y restera comme votre image!
—Monsieur, rendez-moi mon mouchoir.
—Jamais! Adieu, adieu, madame!"
And, in spite of Amélie's cries of "My handkerchief, my handkerchief!" Valdeja goes out, forgetting to take leave at his departure. The curtain falls. Let us now see what happens in the third act.
In the first scene of the third act, we are at Valdeja's rooms in a furnished house. He is alone, seated at a table, holding in his hand the handkerchief which he has taken from Madame Laferrier. He waits for his moujik Mourawieff. Mourawieff has been deputed by Valdeja to procure the letters and portrait artfully. Perhaps Valdeja, as a civilised being, ought to have lent assistance to the skill of a moujik only arrived in Paris the previous day, who, consequently, could not be very much up to date in French manners; but he has overlooked this detail, which, as it concerns the reputation of the wife of a friend, deserves, perhaps, that some attention should be paid to the matter.
The consequence is that Mourawieff acts as cunningly as a moujik; he waited for Rodolphe's servant at the door of No. 71 of the rue de Provence, where the frequenter of the café Tortoni stays; he makes sure that the servant is the bearer of the letters and portrait; and, in wrestling terms, he trips him up. Sylvestre falls, loosing letters and portrait. Mourawieff takes possession of them and arrives, running. Do not let us complain: Mourawieff's clumsiness is a skilful move on the part of the author and will give us an excellent scene presently. I say presently, because, before it, there is one which we do not consider very happy—from the moral point of view be it understood: we are not concerning ourselves here, be careful to notice, with the literary merits of the drama. No, we will imagine ourselves Academicians—what more can you desire? we are all mortal!—commissioned to make a report on the most moral play acted in 1832 at the boulevard theatres; our confrère Scribe competes for the prize for morality: we examine his play with all the more care as we know he is a fanatical partisan of the censorship, and we make our report.
The unfortunate scene is that where Valdeja opens the packet and reads the letters addressed to M. Rodolphe by his friend's wife. The perusal of them confirms him in the resolution to leave his friend in ignorance of everything; but he takes upon himself to avenge that friend's honour and to fight a duel with Rodolphe. He therefore takes a brace of pistols and a couple of duelling swords and makes himself ready to go in search of Rodolphe at 71 rue de Provence. He meets the man he is looking for on the threshold of his door. Rodolphe has also, like Valdeja, a brace of pistols in his hands and two swords under his arm.
That Valdeja, who probably wishes a duel without witnesses, should take pistols and swords and go armed like a Malbrouk on his way to the war, in search of the man of whom he has to demand the vindication of a friend's honour, is conceivable enough in all conscience. But that Rodolphe, who has none of these motives, instead of sending his seconds as is done between well-bred people, should come himself and go up the stairs with sword under his arm and pistols in hand, instead of leaving all the weapons in his carriage, is altogether senseless. No matter, for, as we have already said, we are not fishing in those waters. The scene containing this improbable incident is original and well drawn; that is sufficient. Bravo! bravo! bravo! But you shall see where it vexes us that our confrère has taken advantage of the absence of the censorship. The two young people agree to fight with pistols. It is Rodolphe who suggests the weapon.
"Le pistolet, soit! répond Valdeja.
—Chacun les nôtres.
—J'y consens.
—Dites-moi donc,—reprend Rodolphe tenant, ainsi que Valdeja, sa boîte à la main,—nous avons l'air de bijoutiers, courant les pratiques.
—Pourquoi non? La mort est un chaland tout comme un autre, et nos âmes sont, dit on, des joyaux divins.
—Vieilles idées sans base et sans soutien!
—Pour l'un des deux, Rodolphe, le doute aura cessé d'exister aujourd'hui.
—Va comme il est dit!"
Both go out. The second scene of the third act brings us into a room in Évrard's house. The whole family is in a state of rejoicing; Darcey's 100,000 francs have saved Évrard from ruin. They bless Darcey. Albert Melville, Clarisse's future husband, takes advantage of this moment of expansiveness to try to obtain from his fiancée a positive statement as to the state of her affections. Clarisse feels that of a sister for him, the tenderness of a friend, but she will never be in love with him. Albert is resigned; enumerating Clarisse's excellent qualities, he thinks he will be happy in his lot. The scene is interrupted by the arrival of Adèle. For a long time she has not been to her father's house, but, invited by him as well as her husband to a little family gathering, she complies with the invitation. Behind her enters M. and Madame Dusseuil, her uncle and aunt. As for M. Darcey, no one knows if he is coming; Adèle has not seen him since the morning. As they are wondering about his coming, the door opens and he enters pale and constrained.
Now begins a scene, dramatic in its simple domesticity. Darcey has found his wife's letters. The author does not tell us how, for these letters cannot have been put in his way for two hours after the departure of Valdeja; which leads us to surmise that, Valdeja not having returned within two hours, he must be dead. Never mind by what means Darcey has discovered the letters; he has them, and that is the chief point, and he comes as before a family tribunal to ask each member what is the punishment a friend of his ought to inflict on a wife who has deceived him.
"Je pardonnerais, mon frère, dit Clarisse, dans l'espoir d'obtenir par le repentir ce qu'un autre sentiment n'aurait pas en assez de force pour faire naître.
—Moi, je la tuerais! dit Albert."
Adèle's father is questioned in his turn.
"ÉVRARD.
Ma foi, je la mènerais à ses parents; je les ferais juges entre elle et moi; je leur dirais: 'La voilà! le mauvais germe a étouffé le bon; il a porté ses fruits; ils sont murs, récoltez-les! et je la leur laisserais.
DARCEY.
Eh bien, c'est vous qui l'avez jugée.
ADÈLE, avec anxiété.
Mais qui donc?...
DARCEY.
Je ne la tuerai pas, je ne la traînerai pas sur les bancs d'un tribunal; mais je vous la rendrai, mon père! Car, cet homme, c'est moi! Cette femme, c'est votre fille!
ADÈLE.
Ce n'est pas vrai!
ÉVRARD.
Adèle vous a trahir?
ADÈLE.
Je ne suis pas coupable! il ne m'aime plus: c'est un prétexte.
DARCEY.
Et Rodolphe, l'avez-vous oublié depuis hier?
ADÈLE.
Qui, Rodolphe?
DARCEY.
Rodolphe, votre amant!
ADÈLE.
Je ne connais pas de Rodolphe!
DARCEY.
Vous ne connaissez pas de Rodolphe?
ADÈLE.
Non.
DARCEY, lui mettant ses lettres sous les yeux.
Lisez donc! lisez! Voilà les pièces du procès; ces lettres, ce sont les siennes. Adieu!
Justice est faite!..."
Nothing further remains for Darcey to do but to be avenged on Rodolphe; but, as one might expect, he has been killed by Valdeja. In the fourth act, we are at Adèle's house: it is modest to the very verge of mediocrity, for Adèle is short of money; she holds a pen in her hand and has paper before her; she is on the point of humbling herself to her husband and asking help from him. She prefers that humiliation to becoming the mistress of an Italian banker named Rialto. Sophie and Amélie enter. You can guess the scene: the pen is flung across the table, the paper upon which the first letters were already traced is torn up; the proposals of Rialto are accepted. The shameful treaty bears the stamp of self-sacrifice. Albert Melville has lost his position in the offices of the Exchequer; Rialto, who is at the head of all the loans, gets him restored to it and Albert Melville marries Clarisse. What is the reason for this anxiety for the welfare of Albert Melville and Clarisse on the part of the three women? Stop a minute! The marriage of these two young people will cause Valdeja to give way to despair. Whereupon, Valdeja comes forward. He comes on behalf of Darcey, whose kindness of heart is touched by the physical sufferings of the woman: as woman, not as his wife. Adèle is nothing to him personally now, only from the point of view of ordinary humanity; she no longer belongs to his family; she is his neighbour merely. Adèle, who has nearly accepted this conjugal charity, refuses it at the instigation of the two women. Valdeja is more cheerful than usual: he smiles in spite of himself at the contretemps which destroys the prospect of the marriage of Albert and Clarisse for ever. But, when promising to yield herself to Rialto, Adèle asks that Albert's post may be given back to him, and, within ten minutes' time, the post is restored to him, the marriage is arranged and the young folk are wedded! It is not very probable that all this could take place in ten minutes; but one knows that actual times does not exist on the stage. When Valdeja learns that it is the hatred of the three women which has just destroyed his last hope, he renews his oath of hatred, which they listen to with laughter. The curtain falls upon that oath. It rises upon a pretty garden with a summer-house on the left.
For three years Adèle is Rialto's mistress, and she lives with him just as though she were his wife. She has all she wants, even to the lover of her heart's desire. This lover's name is M. Hippolyte. Rialto promises to buy her houses, carriages and horses, and she loathes him. M. Hippolyte gives her a simple bouquet and she worships him. See him enter upon the scenes.
"Bonjour! ma chère Adèle!
—Ah! arrivez donc, monsieur! Je m'entretenais de vous.
—Et, moi, je pensais à vous. Vous le voyez, ma chère Adèle, des fleurs, votre image ...."
It is evident that if Hippolyte has made the conquest of Madame Darcey, it is an affair of the heart in which her mind has no part whatever. Besides, Hippolyte is grave to solemnity. He sends Créponne, the chambermaid, away and stays alone with Adèle. It is she who begins the conversation.
"Voyons, qu'est-ce qui pesé si fort sur la gaieté aujourd'hui? demande-t-elle.
—J'ai quelque chose de si important à te dire.
—Quoi donc?
—Ma chère Adèle, depuis trois mois, je suis aimé de toi; depuis six semaines, j'ai formé le projet d'être ton mari, et je viens te t'annoncer.
—Ah! ah! ah! ah! fait Adèle éclatant de rire.
—Qu'y a-t-il donc de si risible?
—Je ris parce que.... Ah! ah! ah! mais c'est une plaisanterie."
This hilarity, sufficiently ill-timed when confronted with so serious a proposal, does not disconcert Hippolyte in the least. He had come of age the previous day and wished to profit by his majority to marry Adèle in hot haste. Rialto is announced.
"C'est votre père? demande ingénument Hippolyte.
—Oui, mon ami; il faut partir à l'instant, par ici, par la porte de ce pavillion.
—Pourquoi donc?
—Il ne faut pas qu'il vous voie, ou tout serait perdu! Éloignez-vous, de grace!
—Du tout! Je veux voir monsieur votre père, moi; j'ai à lui parler."
You guess why Hippolyte wants to speak to Rialto; Hippolyte, who attributes Adèle's immoderate laughter to playfulness of character, wishes to ask Rialto for his daughter's hand in marriage! Rialto laughs as loudly at this demand as Adèle had done. The poor lover might just as well have demanded the hand of the daughter of Democritus. But Hippolyte insists more pertinaciously to Rialto than he has done to Adèle; his tutor, to whom he has boasted of the virtue and beauty of the woman he loves, comes. The joke continues for about ten minutes; and then Rialto, whose laughter has suffered several checks, thinks it is time to put a stop to it. He sends the lover to the right about and takes Adèle by the arm to go a walk with her. You shall see what happens; and one thing you certainly will not have expected!
"HIPPOLYTE, arrêtant Rialto par le bras.
Monsieur, c'est beaucoup plus grave que vous ne pensez!
RIALTO.
C'est possible; mais, si vous êtes malade du cerveau, je ne suis pas médecin.
ADÈLE.
Mon Dieu! laissons là cet entretien.
HIPPOLYTE.
Non, madame; je forcerai bien monsieur votre père à ne pas me refuser.
RIALTO.
C'est ce que nous verrons.
HIPPOLYTE.
Un mot suffira. Et, puis qu'il n'y a pas d'autre moyen, daignez me répondre, monsieur, connaissez-vous l'honneur?
RIALTO.
Eh bien, oui, je le connais. Qu'est-ce que vous en voulez dire?
HIPPOLYTE.
Tenez-vous au vôtre et à celui de votre famille?
RIALTO.
Sans doute que j'y tiens.
HIPPOLYTE.
Arrangez-vous, alors, pour qu'il ne souffre pas des atteintes que je lui ai portées, et tâchez de réparer avec le mari le dommage que l'amant lui a fait.
RIALTO.
L'amant?
ADÈLE.
Ne l'écoutez-pas!
HIPPOLYTE.
L'amant! Depuis trois mois, madame m'appartient!
RIALTO.
Ah! ah! qu'est-ce que vous me dites là?
HIPPOLYTE.
Ce qui est.
ADÈLE.
C'est une horreur!
HIPPOLYTE.
Et si vous avez un cœur de père ...
RIALTO.
Eh! monsieur, je ne suis pas son père!
HIPPOLYTE.
Vous n'êtes pas son père?
RIALTO.
Ni son père, ni son frère, ni son oncle, ni son mari ... Comprenez-vous, maintenant?
HIPPOLYTE, stupéfie.
Ah! ce n'est pas possible!
RIALTO.
Aïe! aïe! belle dame, vous m'en faisiez donc en cachette? Et mes billets de mille fanes comptaient pour deux, à ce qu'il paraît!
ADÈLE.
Il n'en est rien, je vous jure!
RIALTO.
Ah! ah! ah! Et vous, mon brave, vous voulez épouser des femmes qui vivent séparées de leurs maris, et que des protecteurs consolent!..."
We think we ought to spare our readers, especially our feminine ones, the rest of the scene. This may, indeed, be nature, as they say in studio terms; but it is vile nature! Pah! And to think that once in my life I did something nearly like it in a play entitled Le Fils de l'Émigré! But do not be anxious, when I come to that, I will deal with myself severely!
At the fifth act, we find ourselves in a mean room of wretched appearance. Three years have passed since Adèle has been turned out by Rialto and deserted by Hippolyte. Sophie waits for Adèle. The two women recognise one another.
"Ah! c'est toi, Sophie, dit Adèle.
—Tu me reconnais? C'est heureux! Pour moi, je l'avoue j'aurais en quelque peine ...
—Je suis donc bien changée? reprend Adèle.
—Tu as l'air souffrant ...
—Et toi, depuis trois ans que tu as quitté Paris?...
—J'étais allée en Belgique avec mon mari, lorsqu'il est parti pour ce pays-là, sans le dire à ses créanciers, cm les fournisseurs en sont tous là: se ruiner en entreprises, en spéculations, quand il y a tant d'autres moyens!
—Et il ne lui est rien resté?
—Rien, que des dettes; répond Sophie avec amertume. Mais, moi, j'avais encore des espérances: un oncle paralytique, M. de Saint-Brice; qui, veuf et sans enfants, avait une immense fortune, et je suis revenue en France à Paris, où j'ai appris que, par la grâce du ciel, il venait de mourir. Mais, vois l'horreur, il m'a déshéritée!"
It is Valdeja who induced M. de Saint Brice to strike this great blow; so you see that the love for Sophie felt by the ex-attaché to the Embassy at St. Petersburg has not made much progress. We say the ex-attaché, because during the six years he stays in Paris to attend to the affairs of his friend Darcey and those of his pupil Hippolyte, Valdeja must be no longer attached to but detached from the Embassy. During those last three years Adèle has made the acquaintance of M. Léopold, the son of a rich wine merchant, who has taken up his place as his father's successor; but unfortunately this succession has not lasted long.
"Et tu ne l'as pas abandonné? demande Sophie.
Je le voudrais, dit Adèle; je n'ose pas. Il est si violent, il me tuerait!"
Besides, Adèle has discovered secrets which make her tremble: M. Léopold entices extravagant young men and robs them. She has no hope left except in her sister, to whom she has written.
Créponne enters and gives a letter to Adèle; it is from Clarisse, who is always good and charitable and loving! Her husband has forbidden her to see her sister; but, at two o'clock, hidden by a cloak, she will come on foot. Adèle must arrange to be alone. Sophie reads the letter at the same time with Adèle. She sees in it a means of injuring Clarisse and will meditate upon it.
"Adieu, dit elle à madame Darcey. Si j'ai quelque chose de nouveau, je viendrai te revoir.
—Je crains que Léopold ne se fâche, et que cela ne lui déplaise.
—Eh bien! par exemple!
—Pour plus de sûreté, quand tu auras à me parler, ne monte pas par le grand escalier, où l'on pourrait te voir, mais viens par celui-ci, dont voici la clef."
The key is just the thing Sophie wants to carry out her plan. But now that she has the key, the only thing she is in need of is some money with which to buy food.
"Tu n'aurais pas quelque argent à me prêter dit elle?
—J'en ai si peu!
—Et, moi, je n'en ai pas du tout. Je te rendrai cela dès que j'aurai obtenu ce que je sollicite.
—Bientôt?
—Je te le promets.
—A la bonne heure, car sans cela.... Tiens!"
At this moment M. Léopold arrives; he smells the money, pounces upon it and confiscates it, as he says by order of the police. That will give you an idea of monsieur's ways of procedure; but you will see plenty more. He wants money, much money.
Adèle must ask it from her parents.
"Vous savez bien qu'ils sont morts de chagrin, lui dit Adèle.
—Oui, à ce qu'ils disent, répond Léopold."
This is pretty talk, too pretty, indeed. There is still M. Rialto, but Adèle refuses to apply to him. To M. Hippolyte then....
"ADÈLE.
Plutôt mourir que d'avoir recours à lui!
LÉOPOLD, haussant la voix.
Il le faut, cependant; car je veux, et vous ne me connaissez pas, quand on me résiste.
ADÈLE.
Léopold, Léopold, vous m'effrayez!... (a part).
Ah! Dieu! qui m'arrachera de ses mains?
LÉOPOLD.
Là, au secrétaire ... voilà ce qu'il vous faut pour écrire.
Entre Créponne.
CRÉPONNE, has à Adèle.
Une dame, enveloppée d'un manteau, est là dans votre chambre.
ADÈLE, de même.
C'est ma sœur, c'est Clarisse!LÉOPOLD, l'arrêtant par le bras.
Où vas-tu? Tu ne sortiras pas d'ici que tu n'aies écrit.ADÈLE.
O mon Dieu!
LÉOPOLD, la faisant asseoir au secrétaire.
Allons, une lettre à la Sévigné, et pour cela, je vais dicter: 'Cher Hippolyte....
ADÈLE.
Je ne mettrai jamais cela.
LÉOPOLD.
Hippolyte, tout court.
ADÈLE, écrivant.
'Monsieur....'
LÉOPOLD.
A la bonne heure, je n'y tiens pas. (Dictant.) Monsieur, une ancienne amie bien malheureuse ...
CRÉPONNE.
C'est bien vrai!
LÉOPOLD.
Je ne mens jamais ... (Dictant.) Est menacée d'un affreux danger dont vous seul pouvez le sauver.
ADÈLE.
Mais c'est le tromper!
LÉOPOLD.
Qu'en savez-vous? Je ne mens jamais ... (Dictant.) 'Si tout souvenir, si toute humanité n'est pas éteinté dans votre cœur, venez à son secours! Elle vous attendra aujourd'hui rue ...' Mets ton nom et ton adresse. 'Prenez avec vous de l'or, beaucoup d'or. Vous saurez pourquoi.'
ADÈLE, indignée.
Je n'écrirai jamais cela.
LÉOPOLD, dictant d'un ton impératif.
'Vous saurez pourquoi, et j'ose croire que vous m'en remercierez.' (Lui prenant les mains.)
Allons! écris, je le veux!
ADÈLE.
Mais que prétendez-vous donc faire? le forcer à jouer, le dépouiller?
LÉOPOLD.
Cela me regarde ... Signe!"
Adèle signs and Léopold goes out. But Adèle quickly orders Créponne to run to Hippolyte, to warn him of the snare that is being laid for him. Adèle then goes to her sister. Créponne stays alone talking to herself while putting on her shawl. Whilst addressing herself to this twofold occupation, the door of the little staircase opens slowly, and Albert appears, shrouded in a cloak.
"Encore un qui arrive, dit la femme de chambre. Il en sort donc ici de tous côtés?"
You perhaps suppose that Créponne, who is not tongue-tied, will go up to the newcomer and ask him who he can be to have possession of his mistress's house key? But no, she quietly moves off to the opposite side. Ah! confrère, though you are very clever and ingenious, I would verily rather have committed what they call in theatrical language un loup. True, had Créponne spoken to the man wrapped in a cloak, she would have recognised Albert, whom she would have told that his wife was there and that would have been the end of scene one of the fifth act.
You understand, dear reader? Sophie had sent the key Adèle gave her to Albert, and, when doing so, took good care, of course, to tell Melville that his wife had arranged a meeting with Valdeja; then she writes to Valdeja, in Clarisse's name, to tell him he will find her ... where? I have no notion, for the author of the play does not give the address of the house. It is a needless precaution, and makes no difference, be assured!
Albert, who wishes to hear all, hides in a cupboard. Whilst he is hiding, Valdeja enters! You can guess the situation. Valdeja and Clarisse meet; great is their astonishment, especially on the part of Clarisse; but, finally, they explain matters. The sole thing that Clarisse sees in it all is that she is incurring a real danger.
"Ah! mon Dieu! s'écrie-t-elle, je suis perdue, déshonorée! Qui pourrait me secourir, me protéger?
—Moi, Clarisse! dit Albert sortant du cabinet."
Albert and Valdeja exchange friendly greetings; they have learned to esteem one another. Valdeja goes away by a door at the back. Albert gives money to Adèle; Clarisse gives her a gold chain, then Albert and Clarisse go out by the little staircase. Scarcely have they disappeared before a noise is heard outside, then a pistol shot and cries of "Help! murder!" Adèle rushes terrified towards the stairs, and the curtain falls without any further explanation; but those who are anxious to guess without being told suspect that Léopold has taken Albert for Hippolyte and fired on him. The second part of the fifth act shows Adèle on a pallet-bed, ill and coughing and at death's door. Having spent her last crowns in a lottery, she has nothing to fall back upon but a gold chain which she has given to Sophie to sell. She would fain have chosen a more reliable agency, for she begins to mistrust her former friend; but it is necessary that it should be Sophie who sells the chain. You shall see why.
"Ma chère, cela va mal! dit Sophie en rentrant. Tu sais, cette chaîne que tu tenais de ta sur?
—Eh bien?
—J'ai été pour la vendre chez le bijoutier notre voisin, un vieux qui l'a regardée attentivement; puis il m'a dit: 'De qui tenez-vous cette chaîne?—D'une dame de mes amies.—Qui est elle —Que vous importe?—C'est que, a-t-il ajouté en feuilletant un registre, cette chaîne, à ce qu'il me semble, est au nombre des objets qui, lors de l'affaire Léopold, nous ont été signalés par la police.'"
How can the chain have been marked by the police when Adèle had received it from her sister before the assassination? Then Sophie lost her head; and with good reason, too! When she sees how clever the police are she runs away; the jeweller calls his assistants and they follow her; they know she is there.
"Mais on ignore qui tu es?
—Peut-être, car j'ai rencontré, en montant, la propriétaire.
—Je ne la connais pas.
—En bien, sais-tu quelle est cette femme? Notre ancienne amie!
—Amélie Laferrier?
—Elle-même!"