"What he did?"
"Why, ride alongside the prince's carriage, giving himself airs and posing forson Altesse'saide-de-camp. And, following him as fast as they could get along, a band of asses on donkeys, braying likeimbéciles. Well,bon jour, Messieurs; after all, it's no business of mine. I only thought you might care to know."
On the arrival of the band, I learnt afterwards, they were confronted by foursergents de ville, the two original ones having been reinforced. Gobelot, the man with the brown felt hat, was asked for his passport, and, not being able to produce it, was looked upon with suspicion and closely cross-questioned. Dupont rather entered into my joke and let things go wrong, till it was high time to set them right. Then I was denounced, and it was not without some difficulty made clear to the authorities that the informer was the real culprit. So Gobelot the innocent was only warned to be more careful anothertime, and my name is probably inscribed on some black list at thePréfecture.
* * * * * *
Claude was a most indefatigable worker; as an artist ever severe and uncompromising, studying on the lines of Ingres and Flandrin, loving a bird, a stone, a woman for the sake of the outline they imprinted on his mind, and ever seeking an ideal contour, whether he held the pencil or the brush. His enthusiasm was quite catching; so under his influence I soon began to love drawing for its own sake, and we spent many an evening together studying Dante's stern features from the cast or working from the living model.
He had inherited his classical predilections from his father, who himself had started life as an artist, but had found that large historical landscapesà laPoussin were not easily convertible into bread and butter, and had therefore wisely abandoned art as a profession, and had embraced the administrative career, in which he rose and prospered. His leisure hours he still spent at the easel, but his canvases were not as large as formerly; in his productions he always gave me the impression that he could use more emerald and olive greens, to the exclusion of other colours, on a given space, than any man I had ever known.
He was quite touching in his love for Claude.
"What I have dreamed of and struggled for in vain," he would say, "that boy is going to realise. He is born withdu style. Believe me, my child, outsidele stylethere is no art. From the time ofRaphael down to the present day, nothing is worth recording, nothing remains or will remain, that is notde l'école.La grande école, my child,le style, la ligne, voilà le salut, believe me."
I winced, for I loved, above all the colourists, the Spaniards, the Dutch; but he was so sincere, so convincing, that for the time being I felt as if I could have sold my birthright for a line of beauty.
"He is quite right," Claude would afterwards say to me, "but he puts his finger in his eye, if he thinks he can flatten your bump of colour. Every man is born with his own bumps, and they are bound to grow with him just as his hair does."
And with that we would plunge headlong into the famous discussionsur la forme et la couleur, each doing battle for his god with the energy of youthful fanaticism, and feeling all the while that we would have given anything to be able to exchange bumps with one another. How much further his bump would lead him, I thought, and how admirably he was organised to use it in the service of high art! And he, on the other hand, would say—
"What am I, my dear fellow, as compared to you, born in the purple of art as you are? You hold the trump cards, and will," &c. &c.
Then there was an uncle of Claude's,l'oncle Auguste, whose views clashed fearfully with the artistic aspirations of my friend and of his father. He was a tanner, at the head of a large establishment which he had founded—a self-made man, with a lot of cleverly-grabbed money. In his social intercoursehe had so carefully surrounded himself with inferior intellects, that he could not but shine as a bright light amongst them—a circumstance which led him to form a most exaggerated estimate of his own wisdom and mental powers.
"My dear Jean," he would say to his brother, "I should really have thought your own experiences with those blessed paints would have made a wiser man of you. Surely one victim to the mania in the family should have been enough, without dragging that poor boy into it; a splendid fellow, sane and sound, if it weren't for the rubbish you put into his head. He was cut out for the business; never happier than when he was pottering about at the works. Why, when he was a mere child, he very nearly got drowned in the tan vat." And turning to Claude: "What have you to say to it, you young rascal? Ah well, I know you are hopelessly lost, since you got out of those plaster casts and those bones and muscles into that—What do you call that place, where able-bodied young men, strong and fit for work, sit all day drawing mannikins!Une vraie fabrique de bonshommes! En voilà un métier!"
The same evening l'oncle Auguste was holding forth to some friends he had invited to sit at his feet and at his whist-table—
"Now mark my words, messieurs; we are going to make an artist of that nephew of mine, and one who will surprise the world. He has been received first on a list of I don't know how many hundreds of students at the Life Class of the École des Beaux Arts.Oui, messieurs, art is an heirloom inour family; we hand it down from generation to generation."
But differences of opinion on the merits of the artistic career led to no more than skirmishes; the real tug-of-war between the Duponts, father and son on the one hand, and l'oncle Auguste on the other, came when they exchanged their views on matrimonial alliances. The former to be sure looked upon the tying of the nuptial knot from the ideal point of view; the latter very strongly held the belief that a young man should marry money, and should do so early in life.
"Suppose now," he would argue, "you mean to marry 100,000 francs, why put it off till you are twenty-six or twenty-eight? Why lose the interest of your money for so many years?"
"But perhaps, uncle, my lady-love is still in the nursery, and I must wait awhile till I can declare my undying affection. Yes, I believe she is only just beginning to play the piano, and I really cannot take her till she has done practising her scales, you know. Besides, her father has only lately started collecting the 100,000 francs, and I think he has not got further than 3500."
"God forbid, unhappy boy, that you should be led away to paint one of your classical haloes round the head of some such unfledged chicken, blessed with a fond and shabby father. Remember, young man, you have two things to look forward to that can set you up in this world—matrimony and expectations; expectations and matrimony—and don't forget that in my mind they are very closely connected."
"Don't be angry, my dear uncle, and don't worry till there is cause. As for the 'dot,' I suppose I could do with 100,000 francs as well as any other fellow who has got to take abel appartement orné de glaces, and to put himself into his furniture. But surely you, who know the value of skins, you wouldn't want me to sell mine, with what is inside in the way of body and soul, for that price!"
"See that you get 200,000 then, or three or four; you're worth all that. Lady-love, indeed!sobeautiful, I suppose! Sentiment—romance—eternal love! Eternal fudge! Remember this, Uncle Auguste's fortune was not made to encourage tomfoolery."
Now there was really no reason why Uncle Auguste should deliver himself of that speech. There was no lady-love, no classical halo, and no centime-grabbing father. But the fact was, the uncle trembled lest he should be disappointed in the boy he loved so well. He was already scheming for him, and telling one or two friends of his confidentially, that it was quite worth while treating Claude with respect, as he was the nephew of a very rich uncle. It was not to be long before the uncle was deemed well worthy of respect, as being able to boast of a very clever nephew.
Whilst he was still painting studies at the Atelier Gleyre, and attending classes and lectures at the École des Beaux Arts, Claude started a picture in a queer little studio he had taken for the purpose, at the top of a very tall house in the Rue de Seine, Quartier Latin. Somebody, with an eye to artisticpossibilities, must have converted what was originally a garret into a studio by adding a big projecting window. It had a top light into which all the prying cats of the neighbourhood used to peer, whilst the less inquisitive ones merely made the loose tiles rattle as they prowled along the roof.
There was a second studio of the same kind up there, which was occupied by Giacomo Irmanno, an Italian boy of about seventeen years, with jet-black curly hair. That peculiar underglow of rich bronze colour, so characteristic of the Southern type, lit up Irmanno's perfectly chiselled features. Dupont and I made great friends with him, and I often enjoyed helping him with his work. He could be very morose and look Italian daggers, but that was probably because in his desire to become an artist he was waging war at fearful odds against poverty. He was quite out of his element under northern skies, and spoke French in a way that taught me much Italian.
His only means of support were derived from painting what is called "Les Stations de la Croix." These pictures, destined to decorate the village churches in France and generally in Catholic countries, are produced in a more matter-of-fact than artistic way. The employer with an eye to the advantages of division of labour, has the subjects printed on canvas. Then a batch of Station No. 1, perhaps some six or eight canvases at a time, are given out to artist No. 1, who puts in the landscape and surroundings; from there they go to artist No. 2, who paints the draperies, and finally to No. 3, who fillsin heads, hands, and feet. Irmanno was No. 2. We placed the pictures ready for treatment all round the room. Then we started with one colour, say dark red, for the shade of a certain drapery; when that had been repeated on all the canvases, came the turn of the middle tint, and finally of the light red. Then came the next colour—I need not say they were all prescribed—and when we had made the round with that, the next, and so on until all the draperies were satisfactorily disposed of.
The proceedings were only varied when Irmanno lay down on the red brick floor and groaned, and pretended to have a sort of attack. I did not mind, because when the evil spirit was upon him, he always looked particularly interesting.
Next door, in the twin garret, Dupont was putting heart and soul into the production of his first picture; it was still in its initial stages, but studies small and large, in pencil and in chalks, were gradually covering the walls. His subject was "The raising of the daughter of Jairus," and he would never tire of talking to me about the grand opportunities it afforded to the artist. He would question me too on things connected with mesmerism (I was mesmerising in those days), and would want to know all about the first symptoms of awaking from a trance, of the action of the hand as it makes passes, and the dictates of the eye as it bids the subject sleep or wake. "Christ, the God," he wrote to me in a letter of a later date, "can never be depicted, translated into human forms, but Christ the Healer, Christ the Helper, and He, the lover of children, is perhapsapproachable. Give me a lifetime, and possibly I may decipher a little of what is to be read between the lines of the New Testament."
The summer had set in early and rather savagely, as it will do sometimes in Paris, and the heat in those ex-garrets of the Rue de Seine was stifling.
Rosa Bonheur Sinel did what she could to mitigate the evil. Rosa Sinel was her real name, but somebody had nicknamed her Rosa Bonheur, and in course of time her father had worked himself into the belief that the great artist had been her godmother. She was a precocious little woman, somewhere between the age of ten and fifteen—who can tell the real age of a Parisian child?Le pèreSinel was one of the best known models in Paris. He was a livingécorché, a creature designed for the study of anatomy, for he had a most extraordinary faculty of showing the action of any and every muscle; in fact he could, if the circumstances required, give himself the appearance of having been skinned, scalped, or flayed alive. He was ever boasting of his participation in the great pictorial and plastic works that had made a mark in his days, and always claiming his full share of the laurels awarded to them.
"It is not so much my exceptional figure that has inspired my friends, as it is my experience that has guided them," he told us. "Did not the great Monsieur Delacroix say with his characteristic modesty, when his plafond in the Galerie d'Apollon was uncovered: 'Where should I be without the assistance of my friend Sinel?'Oui, messieurs, he was right, and such a plafond is not produced in aday. 'Art is short and sittings are long,' as the poet says;Voyez, Monsieur Ingres! Many an hour was I nailed to the cross as a thief, before we could get the true agony. I well remember his saying 'Sinel,mon ami, till I knew you, I had no idea what the flexor of a third and fourth toe could do, nor did I know what acting was till I heard you.'"
"Allons donc, blagueur"—from the students—"what do you know about acting?"
"Moderate your language if you please, messieurs. You would not laugh if you knew the position I hold in the theatrical world—" With much dignity—"I am of the Théâtre Français."
"Shut up,tais toi" cries one.
"To be sure you play the fool," shouts another.
"Il n'y a pas de tais toi, messieurs; but I must be off and study my part. To-night I am on with Mademoiselle Rachel. I am cast for 'Le peuple murmure.'"
To return to the daughter, I must say she was the most useful little studio drudge I ever knew. Her appearance was against her, for she was plain and generally unkempt and untidy; the cleanest parts of her apron were the holes, but for all that she was an ever-handy little monkey of all work. She would roast chestnuts on the stove according to her own particular system, and would feed that stove with heterogeneous fuel that it would not have taken from another hand. She would water the garden—a sort of shelf suspended outside the window—would drench unsuspecting but indiscreet cats, and was generally of an aquatic turn of mind. One very hotday we came upon her unexpectedly, and found her perched upon a high stool, her dress tucked up, and her bare feet on the chair rail. She was contemplating with evident satisfaction what she calledle réservoir. It looked very much as if she had been utilising it as a footbath, by way of refreshing herself, but that may or may not have been the case. There was an empty pail that told the story of the reservoir. She had sprinkled part of its contents over the studio floor, forming a quantity of little quivering black pearls, as the water licked up the dust; the rest she reserved to make a pool where the hand of time, or the foot rather, had produced a deep hollow in the red brick floor. The cement of time must have been at work too, to weld the bricks into a compact mass, for the water did not seem to percolate through to the neighbour's ceiling, but stood its ground to bear witness to Rosa Bonheur's aquatic genius.
After this success she had visions of gold-fish and fountains and ofles grandes eaux de Versailles, and she wanted more snubbing than ever.
But water or no water, the heat in the studio remained intolerable. It soon began to tell on Claude, who was not of the most robust, and who was simply overworking himself. He did not like being told so—artists never do; he had got into difficulties with his picture, and now that it was in distress he would not leave it.
It really needs as much patience and perseverance to mature a picture as to rear a child. All goes smoothly for a while, and one's offspring,picture or baby, is a source of happiness. Then comes a hitch, an illness, and everything seems darkness. But just as a father does not give in and say, "Oh, this baby is no use, pitch it aside," so a true picture parent does not gash the canvas of his own painting with a knife, or cast it away because it has the scarlet or yellow fever, or because it tells of a crooked leg or a deformed limb. On the contrary, he sets to work and tends the patient with soothing oils, and with the whole arsenal of remedies his palette affords. Wonderful are the cures that have been effected on canvas, and little does the public know, when it admires the completed work, how desperately the artist has had to struggle at times to preserve even a spark of vitality in it, and how narrowly it escaped destruction at his hands.
Claude had got into a phase of despair. Several studies he had made lately, especially some for the head of the daughter of Jairus, he considered absolute failures.
"Those blessed models," he said, "drive me wild. The rubbish that girl talks whilst I am trying to raise her from the dead, would make a saint swear."
It took a good deal of persuasion to get him away from the studio and the models, but luckily an opportunity for a rest came, when his father had to make an official inspection of some works in the neighbourhood of Lyons and wished Claude to accompany him.
The short holiday that he thus had to submit to would have proved rather dull and uneventful, had it not been for an incident that made a greatimpression on him. In his rambles through the city of Lyons he had come across a fine old building, the gates of which stood hospitably open; the door too, for, having crossed the picturesque courtyard, at one time probably a cloister, there was nothing to prevent his entering the main building, and he soon found himself wandering along the corridors of the City Hospital. He seems at first to have chatted cheerfully with some of the patients, amusing and encouraging them in his pleasant way; but presently, as he passed from ward to ward, and witnessed the acute sufferings of some of the sick, and the dull hopelessness of the incurables, he gradually felt his strength failing him. The long rows of beds began to revolve around him; he mechanically clutched hold of something and—fainted.
So much of the incident he mentioned in a letter to me; as also that he was going daily to the hospital to make some drawings, but the more interesting features of his adventure I did not gather till a week or two later, when we met in Orléans, which place was to be the starting-point for a pedestrian tour we had planned. There he gave me full particulars.
"I felt it coming," he said; "the rail of the bedstead nearest at hand seemed to be going round like a wheel, and I had to wait till it was within reach to catch it. What happened then I don't know. I suppose the good sisters helped me to a seat and watered me till I came round. All I can say is, that there must have been a long interval between getting out of the faint and back to life.It was a curious experience, and one I shall not easily forget. The first thing I became conscious of, was that my eyes were riveted on the lifeless body of a girl laid out on a bed, and covered with a spotless shroud; I thought it was of marble. I saw no one else, and wondered that there was no relative or friend to watch by the corpse; then it occurred to me that they must all have gone to break the news to Jairus. I sat gazing at the girl's large eyelids that lay heavily on the eyes but were not quite closed; at the wax-like features, so beautifully chiselled; and the lock of brown hair, the only living texture, in striking contrast with the cold sculptured pillow and with the stiff rigid fingers that rested on the border of the shroud.
"I felt very tired and leant back, wondering what the colour of her eyes might be. Then—was I dreaming?—I suddenly became aware that they were violet, like the colour of a transparent amethyst. She had opened them, and was looking quietly and unconcernedly at me.
"'J'ai bien dormi,' she said, and I, at one bound, leaped back to life and its realities.
"'Tiens, oui,' I said, 'you look all the better for it. Now what have you been dreaming about, if I may ask?'
"'Oh, about the bon Jésus: I love to dream of Him, it makes me so strong.'
"'And what is your name, mon enfant?'
"'Madeleine, monsieur.'
"I was truly glad to know, for I always regretted the apostle had not told us the name of the daughterof Jairus. Well, I got Madeleine to tell me a little of her history, and the good sisters gave me the rest. Her father was a poor labourer, and she had been in the hospital for the last nine months under treatment for hip disease. She was the sweetest and most lovable of patients, they told me.
"When I went away I said:—
"'Is there anything you want? Shall I bring you a book when I come to-morrow?'
"'No, not a book; bring me a rose, please, a red rose.'
"Well, you can fancy I thought of nothing else but the Jairus's daughter I had found. The next morning I brought her three of the reddest roses I could find, and she beamed with happiness as she fondled them.
"'Oh,ma s[oe]ur,' she said to the nurse, 'you will let me keep them just here by my side; they smell so sweet, and they can't hurt me now the windows are all open. I want to nurse them myself, and when they are tired of living in a glass, I will keep them between the leaves of my prayer-book,' and presently she added: 'I am going to read them all day. You know, monsieur, I can't read really; that's why I didn't want you to bring me a book.'"
Here I interrupted Claude with the question—
"How old is she?"
"How old? Well, really it never occurred to me to ask her age. I suppose it's a sort of grown-up age, but then, to be sure, she is quite a child, poor little thing."
And so on, and so on. Every morning he brought a fresh red rose for the pale girl.Sub rosa, to be sure, was the sketch-book. Now that he had found his long-sought model, he was glowing with the desire to make studies from her, and so he spent the better part of a week by her bedside, pencil in hand. The drawings I thought by far the best things I had ever seen of his; especially one in which he had used a few coloured chalks, and where the amethyst eyes gazed at you wonderingly. I have since sometimes been reminded of those eyes in the work of Gabriel Max.
* * * * * *
We had met in Orleans as I have said, and started on our walking tour in a southerly direction along the banks of the Loire. We were most unconventionally equipped, wearing caps and blouses, and carrying only the artist's knapsacks with a change of clothes and sketch-books.
What can be more glorious than walking, if you have the right boots to tread along in, and the right friend by your side? It was perfect. The river flowed with a will, the birds sang with a soul, and we could not but catch the note and go forward in unison with stream and song. We were in such high spirits that we found it hard to pass a man without hurling a cordialbon jouror a thundering bad joke at him. We helped old women with their bundles, and pauperised small children by giving them sous when they never dreamt of asking for such a thing.
Thus we pushed on, till we reached a town, not the first day, but another. What town I have forgotten;nor do I remember what art treasures may have been accumulated within its walls. I only know that our sketch-books were out, and that we had found a corner of the market-place, from which we could, without being too much noticed, catch the characteristic figures that were buying and selling, sitting, standing, or hanging about.
We had been working some time, when a friendly native of the fair sex, who had evidently taken a discreet interest in our work, requested us, with profuse apologies for the interruption, to give her a few minutes' interview at her shop, as soon as we should have finished.
"It is just over the way," she said; "'Leroux, Smith and Carriage Varnisher,' is written over the door."
In due time we went, and Madame Leroux asked us with some trepidation what might be our charge for a portrait of her little girl. Dupont was at once fully up to the situation, and said—
"Ah, madame, it is not quite easy to give you a direct answer. Charges, you see, vary a good deal according to the style. There is the guaranteed likeness at one price, and there is the family likeness at another, considerably lower to be sure; that again fluctuating according to the amount of chiaroscuro the client desires introduced. What shall we say, my friend?" he asked, turning to me. I started a consultation on the subject in gibberish, to which he readily responded in the same tongue. She was much impressed by our mastery over the strange idiom, and exclaimed admiringly—
"Ah, messieurs, anybody could see you were English."
Returning to business, Dupont further explained—
"It is, above all, the colouring, madame, that makes the difference in price. We can do you a drawing—of the first-class quality to be sure—for two francs twenty-five centimes; coloured, madame, it cannot be produced for less than three francs seventy-five centimes."
It was her turn to consider and mentally to review the means at her disposal for art purposes.
"Well, messieurs," she finally decided, "will you please do the drawing part, and"—pointing to the pots and pans on the shelf—"my husband will lay on the colours."
The little girl was pretty, and we had got our full enjoyment out of the joke, so we set to, Dupont drawing her, and I doing the painting, and finally we presented our joint work as a free gift to Madame Leroux. She was deeply grateful, but looked just a trifle alarmed. Were we princes in disguise, she was wondering, or had she been harbouring peripatetic angels unawares? But she only pressed our hands and said—
"Believe me, Messieurs, I felt it, I knew it from the first, that you were English."
I only hope that Monsieur Leroux, when he came home, was pleased with our performance, and satisfied in his mind that I had given the full amount of colour necessary to constitute a complete work of art.
Leaving the city, we shortly had an opportunity of testing our abilities by the attractions they might possess for the rustic population of France. It was in a charming little place, somewhere not far from Blois, an idyllic spot and a very haven of rest, I should think, in times of peace; but just now it was invaded by a large contingent of visitors, attracted by the holding of the annual fair and of a cattle-market. In ordinary times, I daresay the approaching traveller would have been greeted by the silvery voice of the village church-bell, and the peasants working in the fields would have doffed their capsà laJean François Millet as the Angelus called them to prayer. But we only heard the discordant voices of man and beast, as they rose from the market and the fair, and the devout peasants had left the fields to bow their heads reverently somewhere nearer the centre of festivities.
We found but poor accommodation at the crowded inn, but had learnt by this time not to be particular, and to put up with a bundle of straw for a mattress, and the back of a chair turned upside down for a pillow.
I had left Claude making some studies of oxen that might perhaps some day, under his brush, figure as a background to a sacred subject, and I had sauntered on to the fair. There, having pulled out my sketch-book, I soon became a centre of attraction. An artist was evidently a strange figure in this primitive place, and so a little crowd collected to watch one of the species use his tools. It was on this occasion that I had an opportunity of realisinga truth which I have subsequently so often found confirmed—viz., that there are occasions when I am wanted, and others when I am not wanted. In that particular place I was not wanted. So the boss of a theatrical show, close to whose booth I had taken my stand, told me. He put it in the most courteous language. With me it did not mean business, he could see that. With him it did, and his business was suffering from the unwonted attraction I offered. I at once closed my sketch-book, and he improved the occasion by announcing his performance in stentorian voice to my crowd. It was something about the Assassin's Coffin and the Haunted Wreck—grand drama in so many acts and so many more tableaux, performed by his troupe in all the capitals of Europe.
"Entrez, messieurs! on va commencer. Deux sous l'entrée!" and he was up on his platform, prodding a monkey with a long thin stick, and banging on a drum with a short thick one.
I was moving on, when a lady, also gifted with an eye to business, addressed me, this time to tell me that Iwaswanted.
"You will be here this evening, will you not?" she said. "Would you mind coming and doing some of your drawing in front of my booth; you would attract the people, and once they are there, leave me alone for the rest." I agreed, and in the evening Claude and I started operations. She had placed a bench in front of her booth, which was well lit by a couple of large lamps. Claude was in his element. He harangued the open-mouthed villagers in his best manner. Our connection with the court,he explained, generally made it impossible for us to accept any engagements outside Paris, but, hearing that the good lady who presided over the classical game of Loto had the misfortune to be a widow and an orphan, we had felt it our duty to give her the advantage of our presence on this occasion.
"Yes, gentlemen," he added, "not only has she put before you a most remarkable collection of valuable articles, specimens of which the lucky card-holder may carry home to the wife of his bosom or the child of his headache, but the purchaser of the series of five cards is entitled to have his portrait executed in the latest and most approved style, by your humble servant, and his friend and colleague. Deux sous la carte, messieurs; deux sous la carte!"
We did a good stroke of business for the enterprising widow, and at the same time carried off some first-rate types in our sketch-books. For we placed our models in the centre of the bench, and each of us drew a profile from his side. Of the two sketches, we gave one away and kept the other. The people were refreshingly ignorant; a scrap of conversation between two old women was specially edifying. They were comparing notes after having watched our work from both ends of the bench.
"Well, you see," said one, "there are two of them—they each make half; then they put it together, and that makes one."
"Sure enough, that's just the way it's done," answered the other.
It was on leaving this place that we unexpectedly found ourselves "wanted" by the rural police.
We were trudging along, when we met two gensdarmes on horseback. They pulled up and asked us rather gruffly for our passports. Dupont handed them his, which was of the regulation pattern and therefore easily passed muster; but mine was a British Foreign Office passport, neatly bound in a leather case and signed by Lord Clarendon, and as I produced it from beneath a time-worn French workman's blouse, it seemed, to say the least of it, out of keeping with my appearance. It was very explicit, setting forth that: "We, George William Frederick, Earl of Clarendon, Baron Hyde of Hindon, Peer of &c. &c., request and require in the name of Her Majesty, &c. &c. &c." But the gensdarmes looked in vain for the signalement, the personal description of the bearer, which they considered the very essence of a respectable passport; and so they refused to "allow me to pass freely without let or hindrance." (You see I have the old friend of a document still, and am quoting from it.) In fact they invited us to follow them to the town we had started from in the morning. To this we demurred, and it was not without some difficulty that we persuaded them to run us in in the other direction, only succeeding when Dupont said he had an uncle in the gensdarmerie, who had often told him that the men were so badly paid, that they could not make both ends meet, were it not for an occasional tip from those interested in securing their good offices.
In due time we were marched into a pleasant little town—I forget its name—our captors following close on our heels. We were taken to headquartersand detained, as nobody there could make head or tail of Baron Hyde of Hindon's rescript. It was taken to Monsieur le Maire, before whom we were shortly summoned to appear. He received us courteously.
"I have no doubt, monsieur," he said to me, "that the passport is in perfect order, but I should like to see your signature and any other papers you may have about you that may establish your identity." I produced a washing bill, and the last letter I had received from my father. He looked at these and then selected a thick-set volume from the bookcase. "Mo-sche-les," he said, as he turned over the pages, evidently to assure himself whether my name figured in the register of criminals. Then, turning an inquisitorial eye on me, he sat down to cross-question me, his fingers all the while beating a little bureaucratic tattoo on his knees. I felt as innocent as ever I had felt in my life, and strong in my reliance on Baron Hyde and the British fleet.
"So you are an Englishman?" he asked. "And where was your father born?" "In Prague," I answered. "Quite right," he said, with a glance at the book; "in Prague, in 1794. You are the man;" and before I could say anything, he had got up, and calling to a young lady in the next room, he said, "Just come here, my dear, and look. This is Moscheles' handwriting. Is it not a curious coincidence, just when you are studying the Rondo brillant and the Sonata? This is Monsieur Felix Moscheles, his son.—My daughter, Mademoiselle Julie, messieurs."
It was a very pleasant and timely coincidence. My blouse blushed, I suppose, but Mademoiselle Julie was too polite to notice it. Monsieur le Maire said—
"Well, as I have been officially called upon to find you a lodging, I may as well walk with you to the Hôtel de la Poste, and see that you get a comfortable one. When you have rested, you must come round and take a little supper and music with us."
Our arrival, escorted by the gensdarmes, had caused considerable excitement amongst the natives; our reappearance under the wing of Monsieur le Maire, with whom we were evidently on terms of easy familiarity, at once dispelled all doubts as to our character, and not only were first impressions wiped out, but we took position as the recognised heroes of the day. Besides thus rehabilitating us, Monsieur le Maire profusely apologised for the gensdarmes' blunder.
"The fact is," he said, "they have instructions to look out for two young men who are wanted, and who are supposed to be in the neighbourhood, so they are all on the alert." To which Dupont added—
"Yes, I quite see; if they just weed out all the wrong ones, they can then easily lay hands on the real culprits."
"Il y a de cela," said the Maire good-naturedly.
We spent a very pleasant evening with our friend and his family. The daughter played me the Rondo brillant and the Sonata, both early works of myfather's that I was not quite as familiar with as I felt I must pretend to be. Dupont did a little pretending too, I think, for he got on splendidly with the mother by taking a lively interest in the pedigrees of the leading families in the neighbourhood.
Neither of us fell in love with the daughter, as one of us, if not both, should have done, to make a good story of it; nor, to the best of my knowledge, did Mademoiselle Julie lose her heart to either of us.
* * * * * *
Just one more little incident of the road, to close the record of our excursion. It would not be worth mentioning, had not the future given it significance.
It was towards evening; the sun had gone down behind one set of heavy clouds, and the wind was whipping up another set to join them. We were anxious to get on, and if possible to find a short cut to our destination, so we consulted a man who was mending the road. He had evidently not been talked to for some time, and wanted to make the most of his chance, for instead of a simple answer, he gave us a long yarn about his father's road and his brother's road, and about how his was so smooth we could play at billiards on it, but we couldn't on theirs. When we replied that we didn't want to play, but to walk it, he said we were only chaffing him. "I know you well," he added; "you are the two young men who are staying with Monsieur le Docteur."
We should have done better not to take our cue from this specimen of a billiard-table road-maker, for he misdirected us, and we must have got on to thefather's road when we should have been on the brother's, orvice versâ. And the rain came on and drenched us, and soon there was a good deal of big cloud-rolling above us, and enough of light-flashing to show us there was nothing worth seeing—no house, no shelter of any kind. But we didn't mind; we knew that in an orthodox thunderstorm a friendly beacon of light shining from the window of a cottage is sure, sooner or later, to come to the rescue of the belated traveller; and so we pushed on till we discerned its twinkle. Then we made for it.
We were soon being hospitably received by the three inmates of the friendly cottage—an old man, an old woman, and a dog in the prime of life. The old man made up the fire on the brick hearth for us to dry our clothes by, the woman stirred something that was simmering in the caldron, and the dog sat down and stared at Dupont. He was a beautiful shaggy creature, a sort of shepherd-dog, I think; they called him Rollo. His pedigree might perhaps not have passed muster, but for all that, one felt sure that his sire and his sire's spouse must have been good dogs. I have never forgotten the deep mysterious look in that creature's eyes.
There were some pigs, too, somewhere in immediate proximity to us, but more heard than seen, consigned as they were to a dark corner, where they lustily grunted, whilst some of their relatives, already dismembered, hung up inside the chimney-breast, to be gradually smoked and cured. The old woman fetched a saucepan, and put something in it that bubbled and fizzed, and presently one couldsee floating, quivering particles come together and solidify, and finally emerge in pancake form. Good solid pancakes they were, like counterpanes, not like those flimsy kid-glove sort of pancakes we get in society. We fully enjoyed them, and the coarse peasant's bread and the home-made cider.
Then we went to bed—to palliasse rather, for two big bags filled with straw were laid down for us, and we turned in, or rather on. Our hosts had made us as comfortable as they could, and we felt that all we could do in return was to sleep well and to forget a few francs on the table when we left. The old man was so kind; he knew from the first that we were itinerant painters, and that no discredit attached to our calling. "C'est un métier comme un autre de faire des images,"[3]he said encouragingly. They were a cheerful couple, those two old people, and looked as if they had not known much trouble or worry, and had just collected their wrinkles, as time went on, for what they were worth.
One does sleep soundly on a bag of straw after a thunderstorm and a rustic supper, and I should have done so till sunrise if, some time in the middle of the night, Rollo had not poked his nose into my face. I woke up with a start, and looking round, was surprised to see Dupont standing at the window, gazing into space.
"What's the matter?" I said.
"Nothing," he answered. "It's a wonderful night."
I turned round to go to sleep again, but Rollowas very restless, and a glorious full moon was flooding the kitchen with light, her silver rays forming fantastic patterns on the stone floor, broken as they were by the little lead divisions of the casement and by the flower-pots, bottles, and various nondescript articles on the window-sill.
"I wish you would come to bed, and not stand there as if you were moon-struck," I said at last.
"That's just what I am," he replied. "I wish you would come and be so too."
"As-tu fini?" I growled. "Va te coucher, imbécile,"[4]and with that I dozed off.
But Rollo, I dreamed or I felt it, was sitting gravely by my side and wondering how I could be so rude, his tail all the while beating the ground at regular intervals. I roused myself once more; there stood Dupont as before.
"Hang it all," I said, "I do wish that blessed dog and you would shut up and turn in."
"I wish you'd open up and turn out," he answered. "Come along, don't be anépicier;[5]get up and let's tramp it. It's a splendid night."
"What's the matter, messieurs?" here broke in the old man, whose head and nightcap appeared at the glass door which separated his sleeping-nook from the kitchen, and—"What's the matter?" echoed the wife's voice. When he saw Claude, he simply said, "Oh, c'est ce jeune homme qui souffre de la lune; c'est tout comme Rollo."[6]
I burst out laughing, and—I suppose lunacy is catching—I too felt that I could not lie still, and that a moon that could make that pattern on the floor was not the Philistine orb of the Boulevards, but a heavenly body well worth getting up for.
Soon we were on the move. Every cloud had vanished; Nature was in her most peaceful mood; all was at rest. We walked on, Dupont a little ahead of me, whilst Rollo, who had come with us, never budged from his side. We must have gone some miles when the moon, gradually descending towards the horizon, went down behind a potato-field. We sat on the banks of a ditch and watched it.
"A true circle," said Dupont, "a true circle!"
When it had quite disappeared, we went on. For a while Rollo stood staring after Dupont, then he started off at a slow trot in the direction of home, and was soon out of sight.
"Drole de chien cela,"[7]said I.
"C'est égal, il a du flaire,"[8]rejoined Dupont. Beyond that he was not inclined for conversation, so I relapsed into silence.
And that is all. But I was to remember the moon of that night when once more Dupont and I sat together and watched "the true circle."
New-Year's Day in Paris is, as everybody knows, the most soul-foot-and-purse-stirring day of the year. Everybody has to conciliate everybodyelse. Emperors and kings move their oracular lips to dispel any "black specks" that may be visible on the horizon, and to proclaim the fact that, under their paternal guidance, everything is for the best in the best of States—winding up in all humility, with a filial appeal to the Father of all, and praying that He may devote Himself specially to the interests of His chosen people.
The telegraph boys rush from the palace to the office, and soon the high-priests of the Press trumpet forth the words of the mighty, and explain their oracular utterances to the gaping crowd that stands ready, all the world over, to be gulled, and is ever proud to wear some master's livery and be crushed under the glorious weight of the fetters he forges.
Sometimes the first day of God's new year is specially selected to accentuate the Divine Right of Temporal power enthroned on earth. With breathless expectation we await a sign—it comes—Jupiter has not deigned to wink, or worse still, Jupiter has frowned; he should have turned to the left, and he turned to the right, or—ye other gods protect us!—he did not turn at all! Then suddenly there is a great commotion in the human ant-hill. It is Neptune's ambassador who has been slighted! The courtiers stand aghast, the High Press priests shriek prophetically, and spill vicious inks all over their papers. Vulcan with his big bellows fans the ever-glowing embers of distrust, just to oblige his noble friend Mars, who looks forward to glorious work and fresh laurels. A howling mob of human ants breaks out into rabid patriotism, andcalls upon the State to lead its armies, and on the Church to bless its banners.
To be sure Neptune at once calls for an unlimited credit, to satisfy the ever-neglected claims of the Panic Fund. Up go some things, by leaps and bounds; down go others; bears and bulls hug and gore one another to death, the dogs of war strain on their leashes, whilst the devout ant sets to, and works with a will for six days in the week to fill the arsenals, and then spends the seventh solemnly invoking the aid and the blessings of the Prince of Peace.
How petty the little incidents I can record appear when compared to the fratricidal aspirations of the faithful! Yet I must return to my own little lambs. I had only mentioned New-Year's Day to speak of cards and letters exchanged, and of the tribute of sweets to the sweet, and of tips to the tipsters. All that to tell of a particular letter Claude received on that day. The address was in his own handwriting on an envelope which he had left the summer before with Madeleine.
"When you can write, you let me know," he had said. "The good Sisters have promised me to teach you." And here was the letter:—