Abolished by the National Convention of 1793, re-established in 1795, reformed by the first Napoleon in 1803, and remodelled in 1816 on the restoration of the Bourbons, the Académie Française, despite its changes of fortune, name, and government, is a liberal and splendid institution. It consists of forty members, whose office it is to compile the great dictionary, and to enrich, purify, and preserve the language. It assists authors in distress. It awards prizes for poetry, eloquence, and virtue; and it bestows those honors with a noble impartiality that observes no distinction of sex, rank, or party. To fill one of the forty fauteuils of the Académie Française is the darling ambition of every eminent Frenchman of letters. There the poet, the philosopher, the historian, the man of science, sit side by side, and meet on equal ground. When a seat falls vacant, when a prize is to be awarded, when an anniversary is to be celebrated, the interest and excitement become intense. To the political, the fashionable, or the commercial world, these events are perhaps of little moment. They affect neither the Bourse nor the Budget. They exercise no perceptible influence on the Longchamps toilettes. But to the striving author, to the rising orator, to all earnest workers in the broad fields of literature, they are serious and significant circumstances.
Living out of society as I now did, I knew little and cared less for these academic crises. The success of one candidate was as unimportant to me as the failure of another; and I had more than once read the crowned poem of the prize essay without even glancing at the name or the fortunate author.
Now it happened that, pacing to and fro under the budding acacias of the Palais Royal garden one sunny spring-like morning, some three or four weeks after the conversation last recorded, I was pursued by a persecuting newsvender with a hungry eye, mittened fingers, and a shrill voice, who persisted in reiterating close against my ear:--
"News of the day, M'sieur!--news of the day. Frightful murder in the Rue du Faubourg St. Antoine--state of the Bourse--latest despatches from the seat of war--prize poem crowned by the Académie Française--news of the day, M'sieur! Only forty centimes! News of the day!"
I refused, however, to be interested in any of those topics, turned a deaf ear to his allurements, and peremptorily dismissed him. I then continued my walk in solitary silence.
At the further extremity of the square, near the Galerie Vitrée and close beside the little newspaper kiosk, stood a large tree since cut down, which at that time served as an advertising medium, and was daily decorated with a written placard, descriptive of the contents of the Moniteur, the Presse, and other leading papers. This placard was generally surrounded by a crowd of readers, and to-day the crowd of readers was more than usually dense.
I seldom cared in these days for what was going on in the busy outside world; but this morning, my attention having been drawn to the subject, I amused myself, as I paced to and fro, by watching the eager faces of the little throng of idlers. Presently I fell in with the rest, and found myself conning the placard on the tree.
The name that met my astonished eyes on that placard was the name of Hortense Dufresnoy.
The sentence ran thus:--
"Grand Biennial Prize for Poetry--Subject: The Pass of Thermopylæ,--Successful Candidate, Mademoiselle Hortense Dufresnoy."
Breathless, I read the passage twice; then, hearing at a little distance the shrill voice of the importunate newsvender, I plunged after him and stopped him, just as he came to the--
"Frightful murder in the Rue du Faubourg Saint ..."
"Here," said I, tapping him on the shoulder; "give me one of your papers."
The man's eyes glittered.
"Only forty centimes, M'sieur," said he. "'Tis the first I've sold to-day."
He looked poor and wretched. I dropped into his hand a coin that would have purchased all his little sheaf of journals, and hurried away, not to take the change or hear his thanks. He was silent for some moments; then took up his cry at the point where he had broken off, and started away with:--
--"Antoine!--state of the Bourse--latest despatches from the seat of war--news of the day--only forty centimes!"
I took my paper to a quiet bench near the fountain, and read the whole account. There had been eighteen anonymous poems submitted to the Academy. Three out of the eighteen had come under discussion; one out of the three had been warmly advocated by Béranger, one by Lebrun, and the third by some other academician. The poem selected by Beranger was at length chosen; the sealed enclosure opened; and the name of the successful competitor found to be Hortense Dufresnoy. To Hortense Dufresnoy, therefore, the prize and crown were awarded.
I read the article through, and then went home, hoping to be the first to congratulate her. Timidly, and with a fast-beating heart, I rang the bell at her outer door; for we all had our bells at Madame Bouïsse's, and lived in our rooms as if they were little private houses.
She opened the door, and, seeing me, looked surprised; for I had never before ventured to pay her a visit in her apartment.
"I have come to wish you joy," said I, not venturing to cross the threshold.
"To wish me joy?"
"You have not seen a morning paper?"
"A morning paper!"
And, echoing me thus, her color changed, and a strange vague look--it might be of hope, it might be of fear--came into her face.
"There is something in the Moniteur" I went on, smiling, 'that concerns you nearly."
"That concerns me?" she exclaimed. "Me? For Heaven's sake, speak plainly. I do not understand you. Has--has anything been discovered?"
"Yes--it has been discovered at the Académie Française that Mademoiselle Hortense Dufresnoy has written the best poem on Thermopylæ."
She drew a deep breath, pressed her hands tightly together, and murmured:--
"Alas! is that all?"
"All! Nay--is it not enough to step at once into fame--to have been advocated by Béranger--to have the poem crowned in the Theatre of the Académie Française?"
She stood silent, with drooping head and listless hands, all disappointment and despondency. Presently she looked up.
"Where did you learn this?" she asked.
I handed her the journal.
"Come in, fellow-student," said she, and held the door wide for me to enter.
For the second time I found myself in her little salon, and found everything in the self-same order.
"Well," I said, "are you not happy?"
She shook her head.
"Success is not happiness," she replied, smiling mournfully. "That Béranger should have advocated my poem is an honor beyond price; but--but I need more than this to make me happy."
And her eyes wandered, with a strange, yearning look, to the sword over the chimney-piece.
Seeing that look, my heart sank, and the tears sprang unbidden to my eyes. Whose was the sword? For whose sake was her life so lonely and secluded? For whom was she waiting? Surely here, if one could but read it aright, lay the secret of her strange and sudden journeys--here I touched unawares upon the mystery of her life!
I did not speak. I shaded my face with my hand, and sat looking on the ground. Then, the silence remaining unbroken, I rose, and examined the drawings on the walls.
They were water-colors for the most part, and treated in a masterly but quite peculiar style. The skies were sombre, the foregrounds singularly elaborate, the color stern and forcible. Angry sunsets barred by lines of purple cirrus stratus; sweeps of desolate heath bounded by jagged peaks; steep mountain passes crimson with faded ferns and half-obscured by rain-clouds; strange studies of weeds, and rivers, and lonely reaches of desolate sea-shore ... these were some of the subjects, and all were evidently by the same hand.
"Ah," said Hortense, "you are criticizing my sketches!"
"Your sketches!" I exclaimed. "Are these your work?"
"Certainly," she replied, smiling. "Why not? What do you think of them?"
"What do I think of them! Well, I think that if you had not been a poet you ought to have been a painter. How fortunate you are in being able to express yourself so variously! Are these compositions, or studies from Nature?"
"All studies from Nature--mere records of fact. I do not presume to create--I am content humbly and from a distance to copy the changing moods of Nature."
"Pray be your own catalogue, then, and tell me where these places are."
"Willingly. This coast-line with the run of breaking surf was taken on the shores of Normandy, some few miles from Dieppe. This sunset is a recollection of a glorious evening near Frankfort, and those purple mountains in the distance are part of the Taunus range. Here is an old mediæval gateway at Solothurn, in Switzerland. This wild heath near the sea is in the neighborhood of Biscay. This quaint knot of ruinous houses in a weed-grown Court was sketched at Bruges. Do you see that milk-girl with her scarlet petticoat and Flemish faille? She supplied us with milk, and her dairy was up that dark archway. She stood for me several times, when I wanted a foreground figure."
"You have travelled a great deal," I said. "Were you long in Belgium?"
"Yes; I lived there for some years. I was first pupil, then teacher, in a large school in Brussels. I was afterwards governess in a private family in Bruges. Of late, however, I have preferred to live in Paris, and give morning lessons. I have more liberty thus, and more leisure."
"And these two little quaint bronze figures?"
"Hans Sachs and Peter Vischer. I brought them from Nuremberg. Hans Sachs, you see, wears a furred robe, and presses a book to his breast. He does not look in the least like a cobbler. Peter Vischer, on the contrary, wears his leather apron and carries his mallet in his hand. Artist and iron-smith, he glories in his trade, and looks as sturdy a little burgher as one would wish to see."
"And this statuette in green marble?"
"A copy of the celebrated 'Pensiero' of Michel Angelo--in other words, the famous sitting statue of Lorenzo de Medici, in the Medicean chapel in Florence. I had it executed for me on the spot by Bazzanti."
"A noble figure!"
"Indeed it is--a noble figure, instinct with life, and strength, and meditation. My first thought on seeing the original was that I would not for worlds be condemned to pass a night alone with it. I should every moment expect the musing hand to drop away from the stern mouth, and the eyes to turn upon me!"
"These," said I, pausing at the chimney-piece, "are souvenirs of Switzerland. How delicately those chamois are carved out of the hard wood! They almost seem to snuff the mountain air! But here is a rapier with a hilt of ornamented steel--where did this come from?"
I had purposely led up the conversation to this point. I had patiently questioned and examined for the sake of this one inquiry, and I waited her reply as if my life hung on it.
Her whole countenance changed. She took it down, and her eyes filled with tears.
"It was my father's," she said, tenderly.
"Your father's!" I exclaimed, joyfully. "Heaven be thanked! Did you say your father's?"
She looked up surprised, then smiled, and faintly blushed.
"I did," she replied.
"And was your father a soldier?" I asked; for the sword looked more like a sword of ceremony than a sword for service.
But to this question she gave no direct reply.
"It was his sword," she said, "and he had the best of all rights to wear it."
With this she kissed the weapon reverently, and restored it to its place.
I kissed her hand quite as reverently that day at parting, and she did not withdraw it.
"God sent art, and the devil sent critics," said Müller, dismally paraphrasing a popular proverb. "My picture is rejected!"
"Rejected!" I echoed, surprised to find him sitting on the floor, like a tailor, in front of an acre of canvas. "By whom?"
"By the Hanging Committee."
"Hang the Hanging Committee!"
"A pious prayer, my friend. Would that it could be carried into execution!"
"What cause do they assign?"
"Cause! Do you suppose they trouble themselves to find one? Not a bit of it. They simply scrawl a great R in chalk on the back of it, and send you a printed notice to carry it home again. What is it to them, if a poor devil has been painting his very heart and hopes out, day after day, for a whole year, upon that piece of canvas? Nothing, and less than nothing--confound them!"
I drew a chair before the picture, and set myself to a patient study of the details. He had chosen a difficult subject--the death of Louis XI. The scene represented a spacious chamber in the Castle of Plessisles-Tours. To the left, in a great oak chair beside the bed from which he had just risen, sat the dying king, with a rich, furred mantle loosely thrown around him. At his feet, his face buried in his hands, kneeled the Dauphin. Behind his chair, holding up the crucifix to enjoin silence, stood the king's confessor. A physician, a couple of councillors in scarlet robes, and a captain of archers, stood somewhat back, whispering together and watching the countenance of the dying man; while through the outer door was seen a crowd of courtiers and pages, waiting to congratulate King Charles VIII. It was an ambitious subject, and Müller had conceived it in a grand spirit. The heads were expressive; and the textures of the velvets, tapestries, oak carvings, and so forth, had been executed with more than ordinary finish and fidelity. For all this, however, there was more of promise than of achievement in the work. The lights were scattered; the attitudes were stiff; there was too evident an attempt at effect. One could see that it was the work of a young painter, who had yet much to learn, and something of the Academy to forget.
"Well," said Müller, still sitting ruefully on the floor, "what do you think of it? Am I rightly served? Shall I send for a big pail of whitewash, and blot it all out?"
"Not for the world!"
"What shall I do, then?"
"Do better."
"But, if I have done my best already?"
"Still do better; and when you have done that, do better again. So genius toils higher and ever higher, and like the climber of the glacier, plants his foot where only his hand clung the moment before."
"Humph! but what of my picture?"
"Well," I said, hesitatingly, "I am no critic--"
"Thank Heaven!" muttered Müller, parenthetically.
"But there is something noble in the disposition of the figures. I should say, however, that you had set to work upon too large a scale."
"A question of focus," said the painter, hastily. "A mere question of focus."
"How can that be, when you have finished some parts laboriously, and in others seem scarcely to have troubled yourself to cover the canvas?"
"I don't know. I'm impatient, you see, and--and I think I got tired of it towards the last."
"Would that have been the case if you had allowed yourself but half the space?"
"I'll take to enamel," exclaimed Müller, with a grin of hyperbolical despair. "I'll immortalize myself in miniature. I'll paint henceforward with the aid of a microscope, and never again look at nature unless through the wrong end of a telescope!"
"Pshaw!--be in earnest, man, and talk sensibly! Do you conceive that for every failure you are to change your style? Give yourself, heart and soul, to the school in which you have begun, and make up your mind to succeed."
"Do you believe, then, that a man may succeed by force of will alone?" said Müller, musingly.
"Yes, because force of will proceeds from force of character, and the two together, warp and woof, make the stuff out of which Nature clothes her heroes."
"Oh, but I am not talking of heroes," said Müller.
"By heroes, I do not mean only soldiers. Captain Pen is as good a hero as Captain Sword, any day; and Captain Brush, to my thinking, is as fine a fellow as either."
"Ay; but do they come, as you would seem to imply, of the same stock?" said Müller. "Force of will and force of character are famous clays in which to mould a Wellington or a Columbus; but is not something more--at all events, something different--necessary to the modelling of a Raffaelle?"
"I don't fancy so. Power is the first requisite of genius. Give power in equal quantity to your Columbus and your Raffaelle, and circumstance shall decide which will achieve the New World, and which the Transfiguration."
"Circumstance!" cried the painter, impatiently. "Good heavens! do you make no account of the spontaneous tendencies of genius? Is Nature a mere vulgar cook, turning out men, like soups, from one common stock, with only a dash of flavoring here and there to give them variety? No--Nature is a subtle chemist, and her workshop, depend on it, is stored with delicate elixirs, volatile spirits, and precious fires of genius. Certain of these are kneaded with the clay of the poet, others with the clay of the painter, the astronomer, the mathematician, the legislator, the soldier. Raffaelle had in him some of 'the stuff that dreams are made of.' Never tell me that that same stuff, differently treated, would equally well have furnished forth an Archimedes or a Napoleon!"
"Men are what their age calls upon them to be," I replied, after a moment's consideration. "Be that demand what it may, the supply is ever equal to it. Centre of the most pompous and fascinating of religions, Rome demanded Madonnas and Transfigurations, and straightway Raffaelle answered to the call. The Old World, overstocked with men, gold, and aristocracies, asked wider fields of enterprise, and Columbus added America to the map. What is this but circumstance? Had Italy needed colonies, would not her men of genius have turned sailors and discoverers? Had Madrid been the residence of the Popes, might not Columbus have painted altar-pieces or designed churches?"
Müller, still sitting on the floor, shook his head despondingly.
"I don't think it," he replied; "and I don't wish to think it. It is too material a view of genius to satisfy my imagination. I love to believe that gifts are special. I love to believe that the poet is born a poet, and the artist an artist."
"Hold! I believe that the poet is born a poet, and the artist an artist; but I also believe the poetry of the one and the art of the other to be only diverse manifestations of a power that is universal in its application. The artist whose lot in life it is to be a builder is none the less an artist. The poet, though engineer or soldier, is none the less a poet. There is the poetry of language, and there is also the poetry of action. So also there is the art which expresses itself by means of marble or canvas, and the art which designs a capitol, tapers a spire, or plants a pleasure-ground. Nay, is not this very interfusion of gifts, this universality of uses, in itself the bond of beauty which girdles the world like a cestus? If poetry were only rhyme, and art only painting, to what an outer darkness of matter-of-fact should we be condemning nine-tenths of the creation!"
Müller yawned, as if he would have swallowed me and my argument together.
"You are getting transcendental," said he. "I dare say your theories are all very fine and all very true; but I confess that I don't understand them. I never could find out all this poetry of bricks and mortar, railroads and cotton-factories, that people talk about so fluently now-a-days. We Germans take the dreamy side of life, and are seldom at home in the practical, be it ever so highly colored and highly flavored. In our parlance, an artist is an artist, and neither a bagman nor an engine-driver."
His professional pride was touched, and he said this with somewhat less than his usual bonhomie--almost with a shade of irritability.
"Come," said I, smiling, "we will not discuss a topic which we can never see from the same point of view. Doing art is better than talking art; and your business now is to find a fresh subject and prepare another canvas. Meanwhile cheer up, and forget all about Louis XI. and the Hanging Committee. What say you to dining with me at the Trois Frères? It will do you good."
"Good!" cried he, springing to his feet and shaking his fist at the picture. "More good, by Jupiter, than all the paint and megilp that ever was wasted! Not all the fine arts of Europe are worth a poulet à la Marengo and a bottle of old Romanée!"
So saying, he turned his picture to the wall, seized his cap, locked his door, scrawled outside with a piece of chalk,--"Summoned to the Tuileries on state affairs," and followed me, whistling, down the six flights of gloomy, ricketty, Quartier-Latin lodging-house stairs up which he lived and had his being.
Müller and I dined merrily at the Café of the Trois Frères Provençaux, discussed our coffee and cigars outside the Rotonde in the Palais Royal, and then started off in search of adventures. Striking up in a north-easterly direction through a labyrinth of narrow streets, we emerged at the Rue des Fontaines, just in front of that famous second-hand market yclept the Temple. It was Saturday night, and the business of the place was at its height. We went in, and turning aside from the broad thoroughfares which intersect the market at right angles, plunged at once into a net-work of crowded side-alleys, noisy and populous as a cluster of beehives. Here were bargainings, hagglings, quarrellings, elbowings, slang, low wit, laughter, abuse, cheating, and chattering enough to turn the head of a neophyte like myself. Müller, however, was in his element. He took me up one row and down another, pointed out all that was curious, had a nod for every grisette, and an answer for every touter, and enjoyed the Babel like one to the manner born.
"Buy, messieurs, buy! What will you buy?" was the question that assailed us on both sides, wherever we went.
"What do you sell, mon ami ?" was Müller's invariable reply.
"What do you want, m'sieur?"
"Twenty thousand francs per annum, and the prettiest wife in Paris," says my friend; a reply which is sure to evoke something spirituel, after the manner of the locality.
"This is the most amusing place in Paris," observes he. "Like the Alsatia of old London, it has its own peculiar argot, and its own peculiar privileges. The activity of its commerce is amazing. If you buy a pocket-handkerchief at the first stall you come to, and leave it unprotected in your coat-pocket for five minutes, you may purchase it again at the other end of the alley before you leave. As for the resources of the market, they are inexhaustible. You may buy anything you please here, from a Court suit to a cargo of old rags. In this alley (which is the aristocratic quarter), are sold old jewelry, old china, old furniture, silks that have rustled at the Tuileries; fans that may have fluttered at the opera; gloves once fitted to tiny hands, and yet bearing a light soil where the rings were worn beneath; laces that may have been the property of Countesses or Cardinals; masquerade suits, epaulets, uniforms, furs, perfumes, artificial flowers, and all sorts of elegant superfluities, most of which have descended to the merchants of the Temple through the hands of ladies-maids and valets. Yonder lies the district called the 'Forêt Noire'--a land of unpleasing atmosphere inhabited by cobblers and clothes-menders. Down to the left you see nothing but rag and bottle-shops, old iron stores, and lumber of every kind. Here you find chiefly household articles, bedding, upholstery, crockery, and so forth."
"What will you buy, Messieurs?" continued to be the cry, as we moved along arm-in-arm, elbowing our way through the crowd, and exploring this singular scene in all directions.
"What will you buy, messieurs?" shouts one salesman. "A carpet? A capital carpet, neither too large nor too small. Just the size you want!"
"A hat, m'sieur, better than new," cries another; "just aired by the last owner."
"A coat that will fit you better than if it had been made for you?"
"A pair of boots? Dress-boots, dancing-boots, walking-boots, morning-boots, evening-boots, riding-boots, fishing-boots, hunting-boots. All sorts, m'sieur--all sorts!"
"A cloak, m'sieur?"
"A lace shawl to take home to Madame?"
"An umbrella, m'sieur?"
"A reading lamp?"
"A warming-pan?"
"A pair of gloves?"
"A shower bath?"
"A hand organ?"
"What! m'sieurs, do you buy nothing this evening? Holà, Antoine! monsieur keeps his hands in his pockets, for fear his money should fall out!"
"Bah! They've not a centime between them!"
"Go down the next turning and have the hole in your coat mended!"
"Make way there for monsieur the millionaire!"
"They are ambassadors on their way to the Court of Persia."
"Ohe! Panè! panè! panè!"
Thus we run the gauntlet of all the tongues in the Temple, sometimes retorting, sometimes laughing and passing on, sometimes stopping to watch the issue of a dispute or the clinching of a bargain.
"Dame, now! if it were only ten francs cheaper," says a voice that strikes my ear with a sudden sense of familiarity. Turning, I discover that the voice belongs to a young woman close at my elbow, and that the remark is addressed to a good-looking workman upon whose arm she is leaning.
"What, Josephine!" I exclaim.
"Comment! Monsieur Basil!"
And I find myself kissed on both cheeks before I even guess what is going to happen to me.
"Have I not also the honor of being remembered by Mademoiselle?" says Müller, taking off his hat with all the politeness possible; whereupon Josephine, in an ecstasy of recognition, embraces him likewise.
"Mais, quel bonheur!" cries she. "And to meet in the Temple, above all places! Emile, you heard me speak of Monsieur Basil--the gentleman who gave me that lovely shawl that I wore last Sunday to the Château des Fleurs--eh bien! this is he--and here is Monsieur Müller, his friend. Gentlemen, this is Emile, my fiancé. We are to be married next Friday week, and we are buying our furniture."
The good-looking workman pulled off his cap and made his bow, and we proffered the customary congratulations.
"We have bought such sweet, pretty things," continued she, rattling on with all her old volubility, "and we have hired the dearest little appartement on the fourth story, in a street near the Jardin des Plantes. See--this looking-glass is ours; we have just bought it. And those maple chairs, and that chest of drawers with the marble top. It isn't real marble, you know; but it's ever so much better than real:--not nearly so heavy, and so beautifully carved that it's quite a work of art. Then we have bought a carpet--the sweetest carpet! Is it not, Emile?"
Emile smiled, and confessed that the carpet was "fort bien."
"And the time-piece, Madame?" suggested the furniture-dealer, at whose door we were standing. "Madame should really not refuse herself the time-piece."
Josephine shook her head.
"It is too dear," said she.
"Pardon, madame. I am giving it away,--absolutely giving it away at the price!"
Josephine looked at it wistfully, and weighed her little purse. It was a very little purse, and very light.
"It is so pretty!" said she.
The clock was of ormolu upon a painted stand, that was surmounted by a stout little gilt Cupid in a triumphal chariot, drawn by a pair of hard-working doves.
"What is the price of it?" I asked.
"Thirty-five francs, m'sieur," replied the dealer, briskly.
"Say twenty-five," urged Josephine.
The dealer shook his head.
"What if we did without the looking-glass?" whispered Josephine to her fiancé. "After all, you know, one can live without a looking-glass; but how shall I have your dinners ready, if I don't know what o'clock it is?"
"I don't really see how we are to do without a clock," admitted Emile.
"And that darling little Cupid!"
Emile conceded that the Cupid was irresistible.
"Then we decide to have the clock, and do without the looking-glass?"
"Yes, we decide."
In the meantime I had slipped the thirty-five francs into the dealer's hand.
"You must do me the favor to accept the clock as a wedding-present, Mademoiselle Josephine," I said. "And I hope you will favor me with an invitation to the wedding."
"And me also," said Müller; "and I shall hope to be allowed to offer a little sketch to adorn the walls of your new home."
Their delight and gratitude were almost too great. We shook hands again all round. I am not sure, indeed, that Josephine did not then and there embrace us both for the second time.
"And you will both come to our wedding!" cried she. "And we will spend the day at St. Cloud, and have a dance in the evening; and we will invite Monsieur Gustave, and Monsieur Jules, and Monsieur Adrien. Oh, dear! how delightful it will be!"
"And you promise me the first quadrille?" said I.
"And me the second?" added Müller.
"Yes, yes--as many as you please."
"Then you must let us know at what time to come, and all about it; so, till Friday week, adieu!"
And thus, with more shaking of hands, and thanks, and good wishes, we parted company, leaving them still occupied with the gilt Cupid and the furniture-broker.
After the dense atmosphere of the clothes-market, it is a relief to emerge upon the Boulevart du Temple--the noisy, feverish, crowded Boulevart du Temple, with its half dozen theatres, its glare of gas, its cake-sellers, bill-sellers, lemonade-sellers, cabs, cafés, gendarmes, tumblers, grisettes, and pleasure-seekers of both sexes.
Here we pause awhile to applaud the performances of a company of dancing-dogs, whence we are presently drawn away by the sight of a gentleman in a moyen-âge costume, who is swallowing penknives and bringing them out at his ears to the immense gratification of a large circle of bystanders.
A little farther on lies the Jardin Turc; and here we drop in for half an hour, to restore ourselves with coffee-ices, and look on at the dancers. This done, we presently issue forth again, still in search of amusement.
"Have you ever been to the Petit Lazary?" asks my friend, as we stand at the gate of the Jardin Turc, hesitating which way to turn.
"Never; what is it?"
"The most inexpensive of theatrical luxuries--an evening's entertainment of the mildest intellectual calibre, and at the lowest possible cost. Here we are at the doors. Come in, and complete your experience of Paris life!"
The Petit Lazary occupies the lowest round of the theatrical ladder. We pay something like sixpence half-penny or sevenpence apiece, and are inducted into the dress-circle. Our appearance is greeted with a round of applause. The curtain has just fallen, and the audience have nothing better to do. Müller lays his hand upon his heart, and bows profoundly, first to the gallery and next to the pit; whereupon they laugh, and leave us in peace. Had we looked dignified or indignant we should probably have been hissed till the curtain rose.
It is an audience in shirt-sleeves, consisting for the most part of workmen, maid-servants, soldiers, and street-urchins, with a plentiful sprinkling of pickpockets--the latter in a strictly private capacity, being present for entertainment only, without any ulterior professional views.
It is a noisy entr'acte enough. Three vaudevilles have already been played, and while the fourth is in preparation the public amuses itself according to its own riotous will and pleasure. Nuts and apple parings fly hither and thither; oranges describe perilous parabolas between the pit and the gallery; adventurous gamins make daring excursions round the upper rails; dialogues maintained across the house, and quarrels supported by means of an incredible copiousness of invective, mingle in discordant chorus with all sorts of howlings, groanings, whistlings, crowings, and yelpings, above which, in shrillest treble, rise the voices of cake and apple-sellers, and the piercing cry of the hump-back who distributes "vaudevilles at five centimes apiece." In the meantime, almost distracted by the patronage that assails him in every direction, the lemonade-vendor strides hither and thither, supplying floods of nectar at two centimes the glass; while the audience, skilled in the combination of enjoyments, eats, drinks, and vociferates to its heart's content. Fabulous meats, and pies of mysterious origin, are brought out from baskets and hats. Pocket-handkerchiefs spread upon benches do duty as table-cloths. Clasp-knives, galette, and sucre d'orge pass from hand to hand--nay, from mouth to mouth--and, in the midst of the tumult, the curtain rises.
All is, in one moment, profoundly silent. The viands disappear; the lemonade-seller vanishes; the boys outside the gallery-rails clamber back to their places. The drama, in the eyes of the Parisians, is almost a sacred rite, and not even the noisiest gamin would raise his voice above a whisper when the curtain is up.
The vaudeville that follows is, to say the least of it, a perplexing performance. It has no plot in particular. The scene is laid in a lodging-house, and the discomforts of one Monsieur Choufleur, an elderly gentleman in a flowered dressing-gown and a gigantic nightcap, furnish forth all the humor of the piece. What Monsieur Choufleur has done to deserve his discomforts, and why a certain student named Charles should devote all the powers of his mind to the devising and inflicting of those discomforts, is a mystery which we, the audience, are never permitted to penetrate. Enough that Charles, being a youth of mischievous tastes and extensive wardrobe, assumes a series of disguises for the express purpose of tormenting Monsieur Choufleur, and is unaccountably rewarded in the end with the hand of Monsieur Choufleur's daughter; a consummation which brings down the curtain amid loud applause, and affords entire satisfaction to everybody.
It is by this time close upon midnight, and, leaving the theatre with the rest of the audience, we find a light rain falling. The noisy thoroughfare is hushed to comparative quiet. The carriages that roll by are homeward bound. The waiters yawn at the doors of the cafés and survey pedestrians with a threatening aspect. The theatres are closing fast, and a row of flickering gas-lamps in front of a faded transparency which proclaims that the juvenile Tableaux Vivants are to be seen within, denotes the only place of public amusement yet open to the curious along the whole length of the Boulevart du Temple.
"And now, amigo, where shall we go?" says Müller. "Are you for a billiard-room or a lobster supper? Or shall we beat up the quarters of some of the fellows in the Quartier Latin, and see what fun is afoot on the other side of the water?"
"Whichever you please. You are my guest to-night, and I am at your disposal."
"Or what say you to dropping in for an hour among the Chicards?"
"A capital idea--especially if you again entertain the society with a true story of events that never happened."
"Allons donc!--
'C'était de mon temps
Que brillait Madame Grégoire.
J'allais à vingt ans
Dans son cabaret rire et boire.'
--confound this drizzle! It soaks one through and through, like a sponge. If you are no fonder of getting wet through than I am, I vote we both run for it!"
With this he set off running at full speed, and I followed.
The rain soon fell faster and thicker. We had no umbrellas; and being by this time in a region of back-streets, an empty fiacre was a prize not to be hoped for. Coming presently to a dark archway, we took shelter and waited till the shower should pass over. It lasted longer than we had expected, and threatened to settle into a night's steady rain. Müller kept his blood warm by practicing extravagant quadrille steps and singing scraps of Béranger's ballads; whilst I, watching impatiently for a cab, kept peering up and down the street, and listening to every sound.
Presently a quick footfall echoed along the wet pavement, and the figure of a man, dimly seen by the blurred light of the street-lamps, came hurrying along the other side of the way. Something in the firm free step, in the upright carriage, in the height and build of the passer-by, arrested my attention. He drew nearer. He passed under the lamp just opposite, and, as he passed, flung away the end of his cigar, which fell, hissing, into the little rain-torrent running down the middle of the street. He carried no umbrella; but his hat was pulled low, and his collar drawn up, and I could see nothing of his face. But the gesture was enough.
For a moment I stood still and looked after him; then, calling to Müller that I should be back presently, I darted off in pursuit.
The rain beat in my face and almost blinded me, the wind hustled me; the gendarme at the corner of the street looked at me suspiciously; and still I followed, and still the tall stranger strode on ahead. Up one street he led me and down another, across a market-place, through an arcade, past the Bourse, and into that labyrinth of small streets that lies behind the Italian Opera-house, and is bounded on the East by the Rue de Richelieu, and on the West by the Rue Louis le Grand. Here he slackened his pace, and I found myself gaming upon him for the first time. Presently he came to a dead stop, and as I continued to draw nearer, I saw him take out his watch and look at it by the light of a street-lamp. This done, he began sauntering slowly backwards and forwards, as if waiting for some second person.
For a moment I also paused, hesitating. What should I do?--pass him under the lamp, and try to see his face? Go boldly up to him, and invent some pretence to address him, or wait in this angle of deep shade, and see what would happen next? I was deceived, of course--deceived by a merely accidental resemblance. Well, then, I should have had my run for my pains, and have taken cold, most likely, into the bargain. At all events, I would speak to him.
Seeing me emerge from the darkness, and cross over towards the spot where he was standing, he drew aside with the air of a man upon his guard, and put his hand quickly into his breast.
"I beg your pardon, Monsieur," I began.
"What! my dear Damon!--is it you?" he interrupted, and held out both hands.
I grasped them joyously.
"Dalrymple, is it you?"
"Myself, Damon--faute de mieux."
"And I have been running after you for the last two miles! What brings you to Paris? Why did you not let me know you were here? How long have you been back? Has anything gone wrong? Are you well?"
"One question at a time, my Arcadian, for mercy's sake!" said he. "Which am I to answer?"
"The last."
"Oh, I am well--well enough. But let us walk on a little farther while we talk."
"Are you waiting for any one?" I asked, seeing him look round uneasily.
"Yes--no--that is, I expect to see some one come past here presently. Step into this doorway, and I will tell you all about it."
His manner was restless, and his hand, as it pressed mine, felt hot and feverish.
"I am sure you are not well," I said, following him into the gloom of a deep, old-fashioned doorway.
"Am I not? Well, I don't know--perhaps I am not. My blood burns in my veins to-night like fire. Nay, thou wilt learn nothing from my pulse, thou sucking Æsculapius! Mine is a sickness not to be cured by drugs. I must let blood for it."
The short, hard laugh with which he said this troubled me still more.
"Speak out," I said--"for Heaven's sake, speak out! You have something on your mind--what is it?"
"I have something on my hands," he replied, gloomily. "Work. Work that must be done quickly, or there will be no peace for any of us. Look here, Damon--if you had a wife, and another man stood before the world as her betrothed husband--if you had a wife, and another man spoke of her as his--boasted of her--behaved in the house as if it were already his own--treated her servants as though he were their master--possessed himself of her papers--extorted money from her--brought his friends, on one pretext or another, about her house--tormented her, day after day, to marry him ... what would you do to such a man as this?"
"Make my own marriage public at once, and set him at defiance," I replied.
"Ay, but...."
"But what?"
"That alone will not content me. I must punish him with my own hand."
"He would be punished enough in the loss of the lady and her fortune."
"Not he! He has entangled her affairs sufficiently by this time to indemnify himself for her fortune, depend on it. And as for herself--pshaw! he does not know what love is!"
"But his pride----"
"But my pride!" interrupted Dalrymple, passionately. "What of my pride?--my wounded honor?--my outraged love? No, no, I tell you, it is not such a paltry vengeance that will satisfy me! Would to Heaven I had trusted only my own arm from the first! Would to Heaven that, instead of having anything to say to the cursed brood of the law, I had taken the viper by the throat, and brought him to my own terms, after my own fashion!"
"But you have not yet told me what you are doing here?"
"I am waiting to see Monsieur de Simoncourt."
"Monsieur de Simoncourt!"
"Yes. That white house at the corner is one of his haunts,--a private gaming-house, never open till after midnight. I want to meet him accidentally, as he is going in."
"What for?"
"That he may take me with him. You can't get into one of these places without an introduction, you know. Those who keep them are too much afraid of the police."
"But do you play?"
"Come with me, and see. Hark! do you hear nothing?"
"Yes, I hear a footstep. And here comes a man."
"Let us walk to meet him, accidentally, and seem to be talking."
I took Dalrymple's arm, and we strolled in the direction of the new comer. It was not De Simoncourt, however, but a tall man with a grizzled beard, who crossed over, apprehensively, at our approach, but recrossed and went into the white house at the corner as soon as he thought us out of sight.
"One of the gang," said Dalrymple, with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "We had better go back to our doorway, and wait till the right man comes."
We had not long to wait. The next arrival was he whom we sought. We strolled on, as before, and came upon him face to face.
"De Simoncourt, by all that's propitious!" cried Dalrymple.
"What--Major Dalrymple returned to Paris!"
"Ay, just returned. Bored to death with Berlin and Vienna--no place like Paris, De Simoncourt, go where one will!"
"None, indeed. There is but one Paris, and pleasure is the true profit of all who visit it."
"My dear De Simoncourt, I am appalled to hear you perpetrate a pun! By the way, you have met Mr. Basil Arbuthnot at my rooms?"
M. de Simoncourt lifted his hat, and was graciously pleased to remember the circumstance.
"And now," pursued Dalrymple, "having met, what shall, we do next? Have you any engagement for the small hours, De Simoncourt?"
"I am quite at your disposal. Where were your bound for?"
"Anywhere--everywhere. I want excitement."
"Would a hand at écarté, or a green table, have any attraction for you?" suggested De Simoncourt, falling into the trap as readily as one could have desired.
"The very thing, if you know where they are to be found!"
"Nay, I need not take you far to find both. There is in this very street a house where money may be lost and won as easily as at the Bourse. Follow me."
He took us to the white house at the corner, and, pressing a spring concealed in the wood-work of the lintel, rung a bell of shrill and peculiar timbre. The door opened immediately, and, after we had passed in, closed behind us without any visible agency. Still following at the heels of M. de Simoncourt, we then went up a spacious staircase dimly lighted, and, leaving our hats in an ante-room, entered unannounced into an elegant salon, where some twenty or thirty habitués of both sexes had already commenced the business of the evening. The ladies, of whom there were not more than half-a-dozen, were all more or less painted, passées, and showily dressed. Among the men were military stocks, ribbons, crosses, stars, and fine titles in abundance. We were evidently supposed to be in very brilliant society--brilliant, however, with a fictitious lustre that betrayed the tinsel beneath, and reminded one of a fashionable reception on the boards of the Haymarket or the Porte St. Martin. The mistress of the house, an abundant and somewhat elderly Juno in green velvet, with a profusion of jewelry on her arms and bosom, came forward to receive us.
"Madame de Sainte Amaranthe, permit me to present my friends, Major Dalrymple and Mr. Arbuthnot," said De Simoncourt, imprinting a gallant kiss on the plump hand of the hostess.
Madame de Ste. Amaranthe professed herself charmed to receive any friends of M. de Simoncourt; whereupon M. de Simoncourt's friends were enchanted to be admitted to the privilege of Madame de Ste. Amaranthe's acquaintance. Madame de Ste. Amaranthe then informed us that she was the widow of a general officer who fell at Austerlitz, and the daughter of a rich West India planter whom she called her père adoré, and to whose supposititious memory she wiped away an imaginary tear with an embroidered pocket-handkerchief. She then begged that we would make ourselves at home, and, gliding away, whispered something in De Simoncourt's ear, to which he replied by a nod of intelligence.
"That harpy hopes to fleece us," said Dalrymple, slipping his arm through mine and drawing me towards the roulette table. "She has just told De Simoncourt to take us in hand. I always suspected the fellow was a Greek."
"A Greek?"
"Ay, in the figurative sense--a gentleman who lives by dexterity at cards."
"And shall you play?"
"By-and-by. Not yet, because--"
He checked himself, and looked anxiously round the room.
"Because what?"
"Tell me, Arbuthnot," said he, paying no attention to my question; "do you mind playing?"
"I? My dear fellow, I hardly know one card from another."
"But have you any objection?"
"None whatever to the game; but a good deal to the penalty. I don't mind confessing to you that I ran into debt some months back, and that...."
"Nonsense, boy!" interrupted Dalrymple, with a kindly smile. "Do you suppose I want you to gamble away your money? No, no--the fact is, that I am here for a purpose, and it will not do to let my purpose be suspected. These Greeks want a pigeon. Will you oblige me by being that pigeon, and by allowing me to pay for your plucking?"
I still hesitated.
"But you will be helping me," urged he. "If you don't sit down, I must."
"You would not lose so much," I expostulated.
"Perhaps not, if I were cool and kept my eyes open; but to-night I am distrait, and should be as defenceless as yourself."
"In that case I will play for you with pleasure."
He slipped a little pocket-book into my hand.
"Never stake more than five francs at a time," said he, "and you cannot ruin me. The book contains a thousand. You shall have more, if necessary; but I think that sum will last as long as I shall want you to keep playing."
"A thousand francs!" I exclaimed. "Why, that is forty pounds!"
"If it were four hundred, and it answered my purpose," said Dalrymple, between his teeth, "I should hold it money well spent!"
At this moment De Simoncourt came up, and apologized for having left us so long.
"If you want mere amusement, Major Dalrymple," said he, "I suppose you will prefer roulette to écarté!"
"I will stake a few pieces presently on the green cloth," replied Dalrymple, carelessly; "but, first of all, I want to initiate my young friend here. As to double écarté, Monsieur de Simoncourt, I need hardly tell you, as a man of the world, that I never play it with strangers."
De Simoncourt smiled, and shrugged his shoulders.
"Quite right," said he. "I believe that here everything is really de bonne foi; but where there are cards there will always be danger. For my part, I always shuffle the pack after my adversary!"
With this he strolled off again, and I took a vacant chair at the long table, next to a lady, who made way for me with the most gracious smile imaginable. Only the players sat; so Dalrymple stood behind me and looked on. It was a green board, somewhat larger than an ordinary billiard-table, with mysterious boundaries traced here and there in yellow and red, and a cabalistic table of figures towards each end. A couple of well-dressed men sat in the centre; one to deal out the cards, and the other to pay and receive the money. The one who had the management of the cash wore a superb diamond ring, and a red and green ribbon at his button-hole. Dalrymple informed me in a whisper that this noble seigneur was Madame de Ste. Amaranthe's brother.
As for the players, they all looked serious and polite enough, as ladies and gentlemen should, at their amusement. Some had pieces of card, which they pricked occasionally with a pin, according to the progress of the game. Some had little piles of silver, or sealed rouleaux, lying beside them. As for myself, I took out Dalrymple's pocket-book, and laid it beside me, as if I were an experienced player and meant to break the bank. For a few minutes he stood by, and then, having given me some idea of the leading principles of the game, wandered away to observe the other players.
Left to myself, I played on--timidly at first; soon with more confidence; and, of course, with the novice's invariable good-fortune. My amiable neighbor drew me presently into conversation. She had a theory of chances relating to averages of color, and based upon a bewildering calculation of all the black and red cards in the pack, which she was so kind as to explain to me. I could not understand a word of it, but politeness compelled me to listen. Politeness also compelled me to follow her advice when she was so obliging as to offer it, and I lost, as a matter of course. From this moment my good-luck deserted me.
"Courage, Monsieur," said my amiable neighbour; "you have only to play long enough, and you are sure to win."
In the meantime, I kept following Dalrymple with my eyes, for there was something in his manner that filled me with vague uneasiness. Sometimes he drew near the table and threw down a Napoleon, but without heeding the game, or caring whether he won or lost. He was always looking to the door, or wandering restlessly from table to table. Watching him thus, I thought how haggard he looked, and what deep channels were furrowed in his brow since that day when we lay together on the autumnal grass under the trees in the forest of St. Germain.
Thus a long time went by, and I found by my watch that it was nearly four o'clock in the morning--also that I had lost six hundred francs out of the thousand. It seemed incredible. I could hardly believe that the time and the money had flown so fast. I rose in my seat and looked round for Dalrymple; but in vain. Could he be gone, leaving me here? Impossible! Apprehensive of I knew not what, I pushed back my chair, and left the table. The rooms were now much fuller--more stars and moustachios; more velvets and laces, and Paris diamonds. Fresh tables, too, had been opened for lansquenet, baccarat, and écarté. At one of these I saw M. de Simoncourt. When he laid down his cards for the deal, I seized the opportunity to inquire for my friend.
He pointed to a small inner room divided by a rich hanging from the farther end of the salon.
"You will find Major Dalrymple in Madame de Ste. Amaranthe's boudoir, playing with M. le Vicomte de Caylus," said he, courteously, and resumed his game.
Playing with De Caylus! Sitting down amicably with De Caylus! I could not understand it.
Crowded as the rooms now were, it took me some time to thread my way across, and longer still, when I had done so, to pass the threshold of the boudoir, and obtain sight of the players. The room was very small, and filled with lookers-on. At a table under a chandelier sat De Caylus and Dalrymple. I could not see Dalrymple's face, for his back was turned towards me; but the Vicomte I recognised at once--pale, slight, refined, with the old look of dissipation and irritability, and the same restlessness of eye and hand that I had observed on first seeing him. They were evidently playing high, and each had a pile of notes and gold lying at his left hand. De Caylus kept nervously crumbling a note in his fingers. Dalrymple sat motionless as a man of bronze, and, except to throw down a card when it came to his turn, never stirred a finger. There was, to my thinking, something ominous in his exceeding calmness.
"At what game are they, playing?" I asked a gentleman near whom I was standing.
"At écarté," replied he, without removing his eyes from the players.
Knowing nothing of the game, I could only judge of its progress by the faces of those around me. A breathless silence prevailed, except when some particular subtlety in the play sent a murmur of admiration round the room. Even this was hushed almost as soon as uttered. Gradually the interest grew more intense, and the bystanders pressed closer. De Caylus sighed impatiently, and passed his hand across his brow. It was his turn to deal. Dalrymple shuffled the pack. De Caylus shuffled them after him, and dealt. The falling of a pin might have been heard in the pause that followed. They had but five cards each. Dalrymple played first--a queen of diamonds. De Caylus played the king, and both threw down their cards. A loud murmur broke out instantaneously in every direction, and De Caylus, looking excited and weary, leaned back in his chair, and called for wine. His expression was so unlike that of a victor that I thought at first he must have lost the game.
"Which is the winner?" I asked, eagerly. "Which is the winner?"
The gentleman who had replied to me before looked round with a smile of contemptuous wonder.
"Why, Monsieur de Caylus, of course," said he. "Did you not see him play the king?"
"I beg your pardon," I said, somewhat nettled; "but, as I said before, I do not understand the game."
"Eh bien! the Englishman is counting out his money."
What a changed scene it was! The circle of intent faces broken and shifting--the silence succeeded by a hundred conversations--De Caylus leaning back, sipping his wine and chatting over his shoulder--the cards pushed aside, and Dalrymple gravely sorting out little shining columns of Napoleons, and rolls of crisp bank paper! Having ranged all these before him in a row, he took out his check-book, filled in a page, tore it out and laid it with the rest. Then, replacing the book in his breast-pocket, he pushed back his chair, and, looking up for the first time since the close of the game, said aloud:--
"Monsieur le Vicomte de Caylus, I have this evening had the honor of losing the sum of twelve thousand francs to you; will you do me the favor to count this money?"
M. de Caylus bowed, emptied his glass, and languidly touching each little column with one dainty finger, told over his winnings as though they were scarcely worth even that amount of trouble.
"Six rouleaux of four hundred each," said he, "making two thousand four hundred--six notes of five hundred each, making three thousand--and an order upon Rothschild for six thousand six hundred; in all, twelve thousand. Thanks, Monsieur ... Monsieur ... forgive me for not remembering your name."
Dalrymple looked up with a dangerous light in his eyes, and took no notice of the apology.
"It appears to me, Monsieur le Vicomte Caylus," said he, giving the other his full title and speaking with singular distinctness, "that you hold the king very often at écarté."
De Caylus looked up with every vein on his forehead suddenly swollen and throbbing.
"Monsieur!" he exclaimed, hoarsely.
"Especially when you deal," added Dalrymple, smoothing his moustache with utter sang-froid, and keeping his eyes still riveted upon his adversary.
With an inarticulate cry like the cry of a wild beast, De Caylus sprung at him, foaming with rage, and was instantly flung back against the wall, dragging with him not only the table-cloth, but all the wine, money, and cards upon it.
"I will have blood for this!" he shrieked, struggling with those who rushed in between. "I will have blood! Blood! Blood!"
Stained and streaming with red wine, he looked, in his ghastly rage, as if he was already bathed in the blood he thirsted for.
Dalrymple drew himself to his full height, and stood looking on with folded arms and a cold smile.
"I am quite ready," he said, "to give Monsieur le Vicomte full satisfaction."
The room was by this time crowded to suffocation. I forced my way through, and laid my hand on Dalrymple's arm.
"You have provoked this quarrel," I said, reproachfully.
"That, my dear fellow, is precisely what I came here to do," he replied. "You will have to be my second in this affair."
Here De Simoncourt came up, and hearing the last words, drew me aside.
"I act for De Caylus," he whispered. "Pistols, of course?"
I nodded, still all bewilderment at my novel position.
"Your man received the first blow, so is entitled to the first shot."
I nodded again.
"I don't know a better place," he went on, "than Bellevue. There's a famous little bit of plantation, and it is just far enough from Paris to be secure. The Bois is hackneyed, and the police are too much about it.
"Just so," I replied, vaguely.
"And when shall we say? The sooner the better, it always seems to me, in these cases."
"Oh, certainly--the sooner the better."
He looked at his watch.
"It is now ten minutes to five," he said. "Suppose we allow them five hours to put their papers in order, and meet at Bellevue, on the terrace, at ten?"
"So soon!" I exclaimed.
"Soon!" echoed De Simoncourt. "Why, under circumstances of such exceeding aggravation, most men would send for pistols and settle it across the table!"
I shuddered. These niceties of honor were new to me, and I had been brought up to make little distinction between duelling and murder.
"Be it so, then, Monsieur De Simoncourt," I said. "We will meet you at Bellevue, at ten."
"On the terrace?"
"On the terrace."
We bowed and parted. Dalrymple was already gone, and De Caylus, still white and trembling with rage, was wiping the wine from his face and shirt. The crowd opened for me right and left as I went through the salon, and more than one voice whispered:--
"He is the Englishman's second."
I took my hat and cloak mechanically, and let myself out. It was broad daylight, and the blinding sun poured full upon my eyes as I passed into the street.
"Come, Damon," said Dalrymple, crossing over to me from the opposite side of the way. "I have just caught a cab--there it is, waiting round the corner! We've no time to lose, I'll be bound."
"We are to meet them at Bellevue at ten," I replied.
"At ten? Hurrah! then I've still five certain hours of life before me! Long enough, Damon, to do a world of mischief, if one were so disposed!"