Chapter 4

[1]Mathieu Dumas.

The Government member—Chodruc-Duclos—His portrait—His life at Bordeaux—His imprisonment at Vincennes—The Mayor of Orgon—Chodruc-Duclos converts himself into a Diogenes—M. Giraud-Savine—Why Nodier was growing old—Stibert—A lesson in shooting—Death of Chodruc-Duclos

Let us bid a truce to politics of which, I daresay, I am quite as tired as is my reader. Let us put on one side those brave deputies of whom Barthélemy makes such a delightful portrait, and return to matters more amusing and creditable. Still, these Memoirs would fail of their end, if, in passing through a period, they did not reveal themselves to the public tinged with the colour of that particular period. So much the worse when that period be dirty; the mud that I have had beneath my feet has never bespattered either my hands or my face. One quickly forgets, and I can hear my reader wondering what that charming portrait is that Barthélemy drew of the deputy. Alas! it is the misfortune of political works; they rarely survive the time of their birth; flowers of stormy seasons, they need, in order to live, the muttering of thunder, the lightning of tempests: they fade when calm is restored; they die when the sun re-appears.

Ah, well! I will take from the middle ofLa Némésisone of those flowers which seem to be dead; and, as all poetry is immortal, I hold that it was but sleeping and that, by breathing upon it, it will come to life again. Therefore, I shall appeal to the poets of 1830 and 1831 more than once.

LE DÉPUTÉ MINISTÉRIEL"C'était un citoyen aux manières ouvertes,Ayant un œil serein sous des lunettes vertes;Il lisait les journaux à l'heure du courrier;Et, tous les soirs, au cercle, en jouant cœur ou pique,Il suspendait le whist avec sa philippiqueContre le système Perrier.Il avait de beaux plans dont il donnait copie;C'était, de son aveu, quelque belle utopie,Pièce de désespoir pour tous nos écrivains;Baume qui guérirait les blessures des villes,En nous sauvant la guerre et la liste civiles,Et l'impôt direct sur les vins.Il disait: 'En prenant mon heureux antidote,Notre pays sera comme une table d'hôteOù l'on ne verra plus, après de longs repas,Quand les repus du centre ont quitté leurs serviettes,Les affamés venir pour récolter les miettes,Que souvent ils ne trouvent pas!'Les crédules bourgeois, que ce langage tente,Les rentiers du jury, les hommes à patente,L'écoutaient en disant: 'Que ce langage est beau!Voilà bien les discours que prononce un digne homme!Si pour son député notre ville le nomme,Il fera pâlir Mirabeau!'Il fut nommé! Bientôt, de sa ville natale,Il ne fit qu'un seul bond jusqu'à la capitale,S'installant en garni dans le quartier du Bac.On le vit à la chambre assis au côté gauche,Muet ou ne parlant qu'à son mouchoir de poche,Constellé de grains de tabac.Grave comme un tribun de notre République,Parfois il regardait evec un œil obliqueCe centre où s'endormaient tant d'hommes accroupis.Quel déchirant tableau pour son cœur patriote!En longs trépignements les talons de sa botteFanaient les roses du tapis.Lorsque Girod (de l'Ain), qui si mal les préside,Disait: 'Ceux qui voudront refuser le subsideSe lèveront debout': le tribun impoli,Foudroyant du regard le ministre vorace,Bondissait tout d'un bloc sur le banc de sa placeComme une bombe à Tivoli.Quand il était assis, c'était Caton en buste;Le peuple s'appuyait sur ce torse robuste;De tous les rangs du cintre on aimait à le voir ...Qui donc a ramolli ce marbre de Carrare?Quel acide a dissous cette perle si rareDans la patère du pouvoir?Peut-être avez-vous vu, dans le cirque hippodrome,Martin, l'imitateur de l'Androclès de Rome,Entre ses deux lions s'avancer triomphant;Son œil fascinateur domptait les bêtes fauves;Il entrait, sans pâlir, dans leurs sombres alcôves,Comme dans un berceau d'enfant.Aujourd'hui, nous avons la clef de ces mystères.Il se glissait, la nuit, au chevet des panthères;Sous le linceul du tigre il étendait la main;Il trompait leur instinct dans la nocturne scène,Et l'animal, sans force, à ce jongleur obscèneObéissait le lendemain!Voilà par quels moyens l'Onan du ministèreÉnerve de sa main l'homme le plus austère,Du tribun le plus chaste assouplit la vertu;Il vient à lui, les mains pleines de dons infâmes;'Que veux-tu? lui dit-il; j'ai de l'or, j'ai des femmes,Des croix, des honneurs! que veux-tu?'Eh! qui résisterait à ces dons magnifiques?Hélas! les députés sont des gens prolifiques;Ils ont des fils nombreux, tous visant aux emplois,Tous rêvant, jour et nuit, un avenir prospère,Tous, par chaque courrier, répétant: 'O mon père!Placez-nous en faisant des lois!'Et le bon père, ému par ces chaudes missives,Dépose sur son banc les armes offensives,Se rapproche du centre, et renonce au combat.Oh! pour faire au budget une constante guerre,Il faudrait n'avoir point de parents sur la terre,Et vivre dans le célibat!Ou bien, pour résister à ce coupable leurre,Il faut aller, le soir, où va Dupont (de l'Eure),Près de lui retremper sa vertu de tribun;Là veille encor pour nous une pure phalange,Cénacle politique où personne ne mangeAu budget des deux cent vingt-un!"

Thiscénaclereferred to our evenings at La Fayette's. Since his resignation, the general was to be found amidst his young, warm, and true friends the Republicans, and, more than once, as said Barthélemy, our callow wrath invigorated the patriotism of the two old men.

Another man received his dismissal at the same time as La Fayette: this was Chodruc-Duclos, the Diogenes of the Palais-Royal, the long-bearded man of whom we have promised to say a few words.

One morning, the frequenters of those stone galleries were amazed to see Chodruc-Duclos go by, clad in shoes and stockings, in a coat only a very little worn and an almost new hat! We will borrow the portrait of Chodruc-Duclos from Barthélemy; and complete it by a few anecdotes, gleaned from personal experience, and by others which we believe are new. When the poet has described all those starving people who swarm round the cellars of Véfour and of the Frères-Provençaux, he proceeds to the king of the beggars—Chodruc-Duclos. These are Barthélemy's lines; they depict the man with that happy touch and that faithfulness of description which are such characteristic features of the talented author ofLa Némésis—

"Mais, autant qu'un ormeau s'élève sur l'arbuste,Autant que Cornuet domine l'homme-buste,[1]Sur cette obscure plèbe errante dans l'enclos,Autant plane et surgit l'héroïque Duclos.Dans cet étroit royaume où le destin les parque,Les terrestres damnés l'ont élu pour monarque:C'est l'archange déchu, le Satan bordelais,Le Juif-Errant chrétien, le Melmoth du palais.Jamais l'ermite Paul, le virginal Macaire,Marabout, talapoin, faquir, santon du Caire,Brahme, Guèbre, Parsis adorateur du feu,N'accomplit sur la terre un plus terrible vœu!Depuis sept ans entiers, de colonne en colonne,Comme un soleil éteint ce spectre tourbillonne;Depuis le dernier soir que l'acier le rasa,Il a vu trois Véfour et quatre Corazza;Sous ses orteils, chaussés d'eternelles sandales,Il a du long portique usé toutes les dalles;Être mystérieux qui, d'un coup d'œil glaçant,Déconcerte le rire aux lèvres du passant,Sur tant d'infortunés, in fortune célèbre!Des calculs du malheur c'est la vivante algèbre.De l'angle de Terris jusqu'à Berthellemot,Il fait tourner sans fin son énigme sans mot.Est-il un point d'arrêt à cette ellipse immense?Est-ce dédain sublime, ou sagesse, ou démence?Qui sait? Il vent peut-être, au bout de son chemin,Par un enseignement frapper le genre humain;Peut-être, pour fournir un dernier épisode,Il attend que Rothschild, son terrestre antipode,Un jour, dans le palais, l'aborde sans effroi,En lui disant: 'Je suis plus malheureux que toi!'"

We will endeavour to be the Œdipus to that Sphinx, and guess the riddle, the mystery whereof was hidden for a long time.

Chodruc-Duclos was born at Sainte-Foy, near Bordeaux. He would be about forty-eight when the Revolution of July took place; he was tall and strong and splendidly built; his beard hid features that must have been of singular beauty; but he used ostentatiously to display his hands, which were always very clean. By right of courage, if not of skill, he was looked upon as the principal star of that Pleiades of duellists which flourished at Bordeaux, during the Empire, under thetitle ofles Crânes(Skulls). They were all Royalists. MM. Lercaro, Latapie and de Peyronnet were said to be Duclos' most intimate friends. These men were also possessed of another notable characteristic: they never fought amongst themselves. Duclos was suspected of carrying on relations with Louis XVIII. in the very zenith of the Empire, and was arrested one morning in his bed by the Chief of the Police, Pierre-Pierre. He was taken to Vincennes, where he was kept a prisoner until 1814. Set free by the Restoration, he entered Bordeaux in triumph, and as, during his captivity, he had come into a small fortune, he resumed his old habits and interlarded them with fresh diversions. The Royalist government, which recompensed all its devoted adherents (a virtue that was attributed to it as a crime), would, no doubt, have been pleased to reward Duclos for his loyalty, but it was very difficult to find a suitable way of doing so, for he had the incurable habits of a peripatetic: he was only accustomed to a nomadic life of fencing, political intrigue, theatre-going, women and literature. King Louis XVIII., therefore, could not entrust him with any other public function than that of an everlasting walker, or, as Barthélemy dubbed it, "Chrétienerrant."

Unfortunately, money, however considerable its quantity, comes to an end some time. When Duclos had exhausted his patrimony, he recollected his past services for the Bourbon cause and came to Paris to remind them. But he had remembered too late and had given the Bourbons time to forget. The business of soliciting for favours, at all events, exercised his locomotive faculties to the best possible advantage. So, every morning, two melancholy looking pleaders could be seen to cross the Pont Royal, like two shades crossing the river Styx, on their way to beg a good place in the Elysian fields from the minister of Pluto. One was Duclos, the other the Mayor of Orgon. What had the latter done? He had thrown the first stone into the emperor's carriage in 1814, and had come to Paris, stone in hand, to demand his reward. After years of soliciting, these two faithful applicants,seeing that nothing was to be obtained, each arrived at a different conclusion. The Mayor of Orgon, completely ruined, tied his stone round his own neck and threw himself into the Seine. Duclos, much more philosophically inclined, decided upon living, and, in order to humiliate the Government to which he had sacrificed three years of his liberty, and M. de Peyronnet, with whom he had had many bouts by the banks of the Garonne, bought old clothes, as he had not the patience to wait till his new ones grew old, bashed in the top of his hat, gave up shaving himself, tied sandals over his old shoes, and began that everlasting promenade up and down the arcades of the Palais-Royal which exercised the wisdom of all the Œdipuses of his time. Duclos never left the Palais-Royal until one in the morning, when he went to the rue du Pélican, where he lodged, to sleep, not exactly in furnished apartments, but, more correctly speaking, inunfurnishedones. In the course of his promenading, which lasted probably a dozen years, Duclos (with only three exceptions, which we are about to quote, one of them being made in our own favour) never went up to anyone to speak to him, no matter who he was. Like Socrates, he communed alone with his own familiar spirit; no tragic hero ever attempted such a complete monologue!—One day, however, he departed from his habits, and walked straight towards one of his old friends, M. Giraud-Savine, a witty and learned man, as we shall find out later, who afterwards became deputy to the Mayor of Batignolles. M. Giraud's heart stood still with fright for an instant, for he thought he was going to be robbed of his purse; but he was wrong: for Duclos never borrowed anything.

"Giraud," he asked in a deep bass voice, "which is the best translation of Tacitus?"

"There isn't one!" replied M. Giraud.

Duclos shook his treasured rags in sad dejection, then returned, like Diogenes, to his tub. Only, his tub happened to be the Palais-Royal.

On another occasion, whilst I was chatting with Nodier, opposite the door of the café de Foy, Duclos passed and staredattentively at Nodier. Nodier, who knew him, thought he must want to speak to him, and took a step towards him. But Duclos shook his head and went on his way without saying anything. Nodier then gave me various details of the life of this odd being; after which we separated. During our talk, Duclos had had time to make the round of the Palais-Royal; so, going back by the Théâtre-Français, I met him very nearly opposite the café Corazza. He stopped right in front of me.

"Monsieur Dumas," he said to me, "Do you know Nodier?"

"Very well."

"Do you like him?"

"With all my heart I do."

"Do you not think he grows old very fast?"

"I must confess I agree with you that he does."

"Do you know why?"

"No."

"Well, I will tell you:Because he does not take care of himself!Nothing ages a man more quickly than neglecting his health!"

He continued his walk and left me quite stunned; not by his observation, sagacious as it was; but by the thought that it was Chodruc-Duclos who had made it.

The Revolution of July 1830 had, for the moment, interrupted the inveterate habits of two men—Stibert and Chodruc-Duclos.

Stibert was as confirmed a gambler as Duclos was an indefatigable walker. Frascati's, where Stibert spent his days and nights, was closed; the Ordinances had suspended the game oftrente-et-un, until the monarchy of July should suppress it altogether. Stibert had not patience to wait till the Tuileries was taken: on 28 July, at three in the afternoon, he compelled the concierge at Frascati's to open its doors to him and to play picquet with him. Duclos, for his part, coming from his rooms to go to his beloved Palais-Royal, found the Swiss defending the approaches to it. Some youths had begun a struggle with them, and one of them, armed with a regulationrifle, was firing on the red-coats with more courage than skill. Duclos watched him and then, growing impatient that anyone should risk his life thus wantonly, he said to the youth—

"Hand me your rifle. I will show you how to use it."

The young fellow lent it him and Duclos took aim.

"Look!" he said; and down dropped a Swiss.

Duclos returned the youth his rifle.

"Oh," said the latter, "upon my word! if you can use it to such good purpose as that, stick to it!"

"Thanks!" replied Duclos, "I am not of that opinion," and, putting the rifle into the youth's hands, he crossed right through the very centre of the firing and re-entered the Palais-Royal, where he resumed his accustomed walk past the bronze Apollo and marble Ulysses, the only society he had the chance of meeting during the 27, 28 and 29 July. This was the third and last time upon which he opened his mouth. Duclos, engrossed as he was with his everlasting walk, would, doubtless, never have found a moment in which to die; only one morning he forgot to wake up. The inhabitants of the Palais-Royal, astonished at having been a whole day without meeting the man with the long beard, learnt, on the following day, from the Cornuet papers, that Chodruc-Duclos had fallen into the sleep that knows no waking, upon his pallet bed in the rue du Pélican.

For three or four years, Duclos, as we have said, had clad himself in garments more like those of ordinary people. The Revolution of July, which exiled the Bourbons, and the trial of the ex-ministers, which ostracised M. de Peyronnet to Ham, removed every reason for his ragged condition, and set a limit to his revenge. In spite of, perhaps even on account of, this change of his outward appearance, Duclos, like Epaminondas, left nothing wherewith to pay for his funeral. The Palais-Royal buried him by public subscription.

General La Fayette resigned his position, and Chodruc-Duclos his revenge. A third notability resigned his life; namely, Alphonse Rabbe, whom we have already briefly mentioned, and who deserves that we should dedicate a special chapter to him.

[1]Cornuet occupied one of those literary pavilions which were erected at each end of the garden of the Palais-Royal; the other was occupied by a dwarf who was all body and seemed to crawl on almost invisible legs.

Alphonse Rabbe—Madame Cardinal—Rabbe and the Marseilles Academy—Les Massénaires—Rabbe in Spain—His return—TheOld Dagger—The JournalLe Phocéen—Rabbe in prison—The writer of fables—Ma pipe

Alphonse Rabbe was born at Riez, in the Basses-Alpes. As is the case with all deep and tender-hearted people, he was greatly attached to his own country; he talked of it on every opportunity, and, to believe him, its ancient Roman remains were as remarkable as those of Arles or Nîmes. Rabbe was one of the most extraordinary men of our time; and, had he lived, he would, assuredly, have become one of the most remarkable. Alas! who remembers anything about him now, except Méry, Hugo and myself? As a matter of fact, poor Rabbe gave so many fragments of his life to others that he had not time, during his thirty-nine years, to write one of those books which survive their authors; he whose words, had they been taken down in shorthand, would have made a complete library; he who brought into the literary and political world, Thiers, Mignet, Armaud Carrel, Méry and many others, who are unaware of it, has disappeared from this double world, without leaving any trace beyond two volumes of fragments, which were published by subscription after his death, with an admirable preface in verse by Victor Hugo. Furthermore, in order to quote some portions of these fragments that I had heard read by poor Rabbe himself, compared with whom I was quite an unknown boy (I had only writtenHenri III.when he died), I wanted to procure those two volumes: I might as well have set to work to find Solomon's ring! But I found them at last, where one finds everything, in the rue desCannettes, in Madame Cardinal's second-hand bookshop. The two volumes had lain there since 1835; they were on her shelves, in her catalogue, had been on show in the window! but they were not even cut! and I was the first to insert an ivory paper-knife between their virgin pages, after eighteen years waiting! Unfortunate Rabbe; this was the last touch to your customary ill-luck! Fate seemed ever against him; all his life long he was looking for a revolution. He would have been as great as Catiline or Danton at such a crisis. When 1830 dawned, he had been dead for twenty-four hours! When Rabbe was eighteen, he competed for an academic prize. The subject was a eulogy of Puget. A noble speech, full of new ideas, a glowing style of southern eloquence, were quite sufficient reasons to prevent Rabbe being successful, or from even receiving honourable mention; but, in this failure, his friends could discern the elements of Rabbe's future brilliancy, should Fortune's wheel turn in his favour. Alas! fortune was academic in Rabbe's case, and Rabbe had Orestes for his patron.

Gifted with a temperament that was carried away by the passion of the moment, Rabbe took it into his head to become the enemy of Masséna in 1815. Why? No one ever really knew, not even Rabbe! He then published hisMassénaires, written in a kind of prose iambics, in red-hot zeal. This brochure set him in the ranks of the Royalist party. A fortnight later, he became reconciled with the conqueror of Zurich, and he set out on a mission to Spain. From thence dated all poor Rabbe's misfortunes; it was in Spain that he was attacked by a disease which had the sad defect of not being fatal. What was this scourge, this plague, this contagious disease? He shall tell us in his own words; we will not deprive him of his right to give the particulars himself—

"Alas! O my mother, thou couldst not make me invulnerable when thou didst bear me, by dipping me in the icy waters of the Styx! Carried away by a fiery imagination and imperious desires, I wasted the treasures and incense of my youth upon the altars of criminal voluptuousness; pleasure,which should be the parent of and not the destroyer of human beings, devoured the first springs of my youth. When I look at myself, I shudder! Is that image really myself? What hand has seared my face with those hideous signs?... What has become of that forehead which displayed the candour of my once pure spirit? of those bleared eyes, which terrify, which once expressed the desires of a heart that was full of hope and without a single regret, and whose voluptuous yet serious thoughts were still free from shameful trammels? A kindly tolerant smile ever lighted them up when they fell on one of my fellows; but, now, my bold and sadly savage looks say to all: 'I have lived and suffered; I have known your ways and long for death!' What has become of those almost charming features which once graced my face with their harmonious lines? That expression of happy good nature, which once gave pleasure and won me love and kindly hearts, is now no longer visible! All has perished in degradation! God and nature are avenged! When, hereafter, I shall experience an affectionate impulse, the expression of my features will betray my soul; and when I go near beauty and innocence, they will fly from me! What inexpressible tortures! What frightful punishment! Henceforth, I must find all my virtues in the remorse that consumes my life; I must purify myself in the unquenchable fires of never-dying sorrow; and ascend to the dignity of my being by means of profound and poignant regret for having sullied my soul. When I shall have earned rest by my sufferings, my youth will have gone.... But there is another life and, when I cross its threshold, I shall be re-clothed in the robe of immortal youth!"

Take notice, reader, that, before that unfortunate journey to Spain, Alphonse Rabbe was never spoken of otherwise than as theAntinous of Aix.An incurable melancholy took possession of him from this period.

"I have outlived myself!" he said, shaking his head sadly. Only his beautiful hair remained of his former self. Accursed be the invention of looking-glasses! By thirty, he had already stopped short of two attempts at suicide. But his hands were not steady enough and the dagger missed his heart. We have all seen that dagger to which Rabbe offered a kind of worship, as the last friend to whom he looked for thesupreme service. He has immortalised this dagger. Read this and tell me if ever a more virile style sprung from a human pen—

THE OLD DAGGER"Thou earnest out of the tomb of a warrior, whose fate is unknown to us; thou wast alone, and without companion of thy kind, hung on the walls of the wretched haunt of a dealer in pictures, when thy shape and appearance struck my attention. I felt the formidable temper of thy blade; I guessed the fierceness of thy point through the sheath of thick rust which covered thee completely. I hastened to bargain so as to have thee in my power; the low-born dealer, who only saw in thee a worthless bit of iron, will give thee up, almost for nothing, to my jealous eagerness. I will carry thee off secretly, pressed against my heart; an extraordinary emotion, mingled with joy, rage and confidence, shook my whole being. I feel the same shuddering every time I seize hold of thee.... Ancient dagger! We will never leave one another more!"I have rid thee of that injurious rust, which, even after that long interval of time, has not altered thy form. Here, thou art restored to the glories of the light; thou flashest as thou comest forth from that deep darkness. I did not imprudently entrust thee to a mercenary workman to repair the injustice of those years: I myself, for two days, carefully worked to repolish thee; it is I who preserved thee from the injurious danger of being at the first moment confused with worthless old iron, from the disgrace, perhaps, of going to an obscure forge, to be transformed into a nail to shoe the mule of an iniquitous Jesuit."What is the reason that thy aspect quickens the flow of my blood, in spite of myself?... Shall I not succeed in understanding thy story? To what century dost thou belong? What is the name of the warrior whom thou followedst to his last resting-place? What is the terrible blow which bent thee slightly?..."I have left thee that mark of thy good services: to efface that imperceptible curve which made thy edge uneven, thou wouldst have had to be submitted to the action of fire; but who knows but that thou mightst have lost thy virtue? Who, then, would have given me back the secret of that blade, strong and obedient to that which the breastplate did notalways withstand, when the blow was dealt with a valiant arm?"Was it in the blood of a newly killed bull that thy point was buried on first coming out of the fire? Was it in the cold air of a narrow gorge of mountains? Was it in the syrup prepared from certain herbs or, perhaps, in holy oil? None of our best craftsmen, not Bromstein himself, could tell."Tell me whom thou hast comforted and whom punished? Hast thou avenged the outlaw for the judicial murder of his father? Hast thou, during the night, engraved on some granite columns the sentence of those who passed sentence? Thou canst only have obeyed powerful and just passions; the intrepid man who wanted to carry thee away with him to his last resting-place had baptized thee in the blood of a feudal oppressor."Thou art pure steel; thy shape is bold, but without studied grace; thou wast not, indeed, frivolously wrought to adorn the girdle of a foppish carpet-knight of the court of Francis I., or of Charles-Quint; thou art not of sufficient beauty to have been thus commonplace; the filigree-work which ornaments thy hilt is only of red copper, that brilliant shade of red which colours the summit of the Mont de la Victoire on long May evenings."What does this broad furrow mean which, a quarter of the length down thy blade to the hilt, is pierced with a score of tiny holes like so many loop-holes? Doubtless they were made so that the blood could drip through, which shoots and gushes along the blade in smoking bubbles when the blow has gone home. Oh! if I shed some evil blood I too should wish it to drain off and not to soil my hands.... If it were the blood of a powerful enemy to one's country, little would it matter if it was left all blood smeared; I should have settled my accounts with this wretched world beforehand, and then thou wouldst not fail me at need; thou wouldst do me the same service as thou renderest formerly to him whose bones the tomb received along with thee."In storms of public misfortunes, or in crises of personal adversity, the tomb is often the only refuge for noble hearts; it, at any rate, is impregnable and quiet: there one can brave accusers and the instruments of despotism, who are as vile as the accusers themselves!"Open the gates of eternity to me, I implore thee! Since itneeds must be, we will go together, my old dagger, thou and I, as with a new friend. Do not fail me when my soul shall ask transit of thee; afford to my hand that virile self-reliance which a strong man has in himself; snatch me from the outrages of petty persecutors and from the slow torture of the unknown!"

"Thou earnest out of the tomb of a warrior, whose fate is unknown to us; thou wast alone, and without companion of thy kind, hung on the walls of the wretched haunt of a dealer in pictures, when thy shape and appearance struck my attention. I felt the formidable temper of thy blade; I guessed the fierceness of thy point through the sheath of thick rust which covered thee completely. I hastened to bargain so as to have thee in my power; the low-born dealer, who only saw in thee a worthless bit of iron, will give thee up, almost for nothing, to my jealous eagerness. I will carry thee off secretly, pressed against my heart; an extraordinary emotion, mingled with joy, rage and confidence, shook my whole being. I feel the same shuddering every time I seize hold of thee.... Ancient dagger! We will never leave one another more!

"I have rid thee of that injurious rust, which, even after that long interval of time, has not altered thy form. Here, thou art restored to the glories of the light; thou flashest as thou comest forth from that deep darkness. I did not imprudently entrust thee to a mercenary workman to repair the injustice of those years: I myself, for two days, carefully worked to repolish thee; it is I who preserved thee from the injurious danger of being at the first moment confused with worthless old iron, from the disgrace, perhaps, of going to an obscure forge, to be transformed into a nail to shoe the mule of an iniquitous Jesuit.

"What is the reason that thy aspect quickens the flow of my blood, in spite of myself?... Shall I not succeed in understanding thy story? To what century dost thou belong? What is the name of the warrior whom thou followedst to his last resting-place? What is the terrible blow which bent thee slightly?...

"I have left thee that mark of thy good services: to efface that imperceptible curve which made thy edge uneven, thou wouldst have had to be submitted to the action of fire; but who knows but that thou mightst have lost thy virtue? Who, then, would have given me back the secret of that blade, strong and obedient to that which the breastplate did notalways withstand, when the blow was dealt with a valiant arm?

"Was it in the blood of a newly killed bull that thy point was buried on first coming out of the fire? Was it in the cold air of a narrow gorge of mountains? Was it in the syrup prepared from certain herbs or, perhaps, in holy oil? None of our best craftsmen, not Bromstein himself, could tell.

"Tell me whom thou hast comforted and whom punished? Hast thou avenged the outlaw for the judicial murder of his father? Hast thou, during the night, engraved on some granite columns the sentence of those who passed sentence? Thou canst only have obeyed powerful and just passions; the intrepid man who wanted to carry thee away with him to his last resting-place had baptized thee in the blood of a feudal oppressor.

"Thou art pure steel; thy shape is bold, but without studied grace; thou wast not, indeed, frivolously wrought to adorn the girdle of a foppish carpet-knight of the court of Francis I., or of Charles-Quint; thou art not of sufficient beauty to have been thus commonplace; the filigree-work which ornaments thy hilt is only of red copper, that brilliant shade of red which colours the summit of the Mont de la Victoire on long May evenings.

"What does this broad furrow mean which, a quarter of the length down thy blade to the hilt, is pierced with a score of tiny holes like so many loop-holes? Doubtless they were made so that the blood could drip through, which shoots and gushes along the blade in smoking bubbles when the blow has gone home. Oh! if I shed some evil blood I too should wish it to drain off and not to soil my hands.... If it were the blood of a powerful enemy to one's country, little would it matter if it was left all blood smeared; I should have settled my accounts with this wretched world beforehand, and then thou wouldst not fail me at need; thou wouldst do me the same service as thou renderest formerly to him whose bones the tomb received along with thee.

"In storms of public misfortunes, or in crises of personal adversity, the tomb is often the only refuge for noble hearts; it, at any rate, is impregnable and quiet: there one can brave accusers and the instruments of despotism, who are as vile as the accusers themselves!

"Open the gates of eternity to me, I implore thee! Since itneeds must be, we will go together, my old dagger, thou and I, as with a new friend. Do not fail me when my soul shall ask transit of thee; afford to my hand that virile self-reliance which a strong man has in himself; snatch me from the outrages of petty persecutors and from the slow torture of the unknown!"

Although this dagger was treasured by the unhappy Rabbe, as we have mentioned, it was not by its means that theaccursed one, as he called himself, was to put an end to his miseries. Rabbe was only thirty and had strength enough in him yet to go on living.

So, in despair, he dragged out his posthumous existence and flung himself into the political arena, as a gladiator takes comfort to himself by showing himself off between two tigers.

1821 began; the death of the Duc de Berry served as an excuse for many reactionary laws; Alphonse Rabbe now found his golden hour; he came to Marseilles and startedLe Phocéen, in a countryside that was a very volcano of Royalism. Would you hear how he addresses those in power? Then listen. Hear how he addressed men of influence—

"Oligarchies are fighting for the rays of liberty across the dead body of an unfortunate prince.... O Liberty! mark with thy powerful inspirations those hours of the night which William Tell and his friends used to spend in striking blows to redress wrongs!..."

When liberty is invoked in such terms she rarely answers to the call. One morning, someone knocked at Rabbe's door; he went to open it, and two policemen stood there who asked him to accompany them to the prison. When Rabbe was arrested, all Marseilles rose up in a violent Royalist explosion against him. An author who had written a couple of volumes of fables took upon himself to support the Bourbon cause in one of the papers. Rabbe read the article and replied—

"Monsieur, in one of your apologues you compare yourself to a sheep; well and good. Then,monsieur le mouton, go on, cropping your tender grass and stop biting other things!"

The writer of fables paid a polite call upon Rabbe; they shook hands and all was forgotten.

However, thePhocéenhad been suspended the very day its chief editor was arrested. Rabbe was set free after a narrow escape of being assassinated by those terrible Marseillais Royalists who, during the early years of the Restoration, left behind them such wide traces of bloodshed. He went to Paris, where his two friends, Thiers and Mignet, had already won a high position in the hôtels of Laffite and of Talleyrand. If Rabbe had preserved the features of Apollo and the form of Antinous, he would have won all Parisian society by his charm of manner and his delightful winning mental attainments; but his mirror condemned him to seclusion more than ever. His sole, his only, friend was his pipe; Rabbe smoked incessantly. We have read the magnificent prose ode he addressed to his dagger; let us see how, in another style, he spoke to his pipe, or, rather, of his pipe.

MA PIPE"Young man, light my pipe; light it and give it to me, so that I can chase away a little of the weariness of living, and give myself up to forgetfulness of everything, whilst this imbecile people, eager after gross emotions, hastens its steps towards the pompous ceremony of the Sacred-Heart in opulent and superstitious Marseilles."I myself hate the multitude and its stupid excitement; I hate these fairs either sacred or profane, these festivals with all their cheating games, at the cost of which an unlucky people consents readily to forget the ills which overwhelm it; I hate these signs of servile respect which the duped crowd lavishes on those who deceive and oppress it; I hate that worship of error which absolves crime, afflicts innocence and drives the fanatic to murder by its inhuman doctrines of exclusiveness!"Let us forgive the dupes! All those who go to these festivals are promised pleasure. Unfortunate human beings! We pursue this alluring phantom along all kinds of roads. To be elsewhere than one is, to change place and affections, to leave the supportable for worse, to go after novelty upon novelty, toobtain one more sensation, to grow old, burdened with unsatisfied desires, to die finally without having lived, such is our destiny!"What do I myself look for at the bottom of thy little bowl, O my pipe! Like an alchemist, I am searching how to transmute the woes of the present into fleeting delights; I inhale thy smoke with hurried draughts in order to carry happy confusion to my brain, a quick delirium, that is preferable to cold reflection; I seek for sweet oblivion from what is, for the dream of what is not, and even for that which cannot be."Thou makest me pay dear for thy easy consolations; the brain is possibly consumed and weakened by the daily repetition of these disordered emotions. Thought becomes idle, and the imagination runs riot from the habit of depicting such wandering agreeable fictions."The pipe is the touch-stone of the nerves, the true dynamometer of slender tissues. Young people who conceal a delicate and feminine organisation beneath a man's clothing do not smoke, for they dread cruel convulsions, and, what would be still more cruel, the loss of the favours of Venus. Smoke, on the contrary, unhappy lovers, ardent and restless spirits tormented with the weight of your thoughts."The savants of Germany keep a pipe on their desks; it is through the waves of tobacco smoke that they search after truths of the intellectual and the spiritual order. That is why their works, always a little nebulous, exceed the reach of our French philosophers, whom fashion, and the salons, compel to inhale more urbane and gracious perfumes."When Karl Sand, the delegate of the Muses of Erlangen, came to Kotzebue's house, the old man, before joining him, had him presented with coffee and a pipe. This token of touching hospitality did not in the least disarm the dauntless young man: a tear moistened his eyelid; but he persisted. Why? He sacrificed himself for liberty!"The unhappy man works during the day; and, at night, his bread earned, with arms folded, before his tumble-down doorway, with the smoke of his pipe he drives away the few remaining thoughts that the repose of his limbs may leave him."O my pipe! what good things I owe to thee! If an importunate person, a foolish talker, a despicable fanatic, comes and addresses me, I quickly draw a cigar from my case and begin to smoke, and, henceforth, if I am condemned to the afflictionof listening, I at least escape the penalty of replying to him. At intervals, a bitter smile compresses my lips, and the fool flatters himself that I approve him! He attributes to the effect of the rash cigar the equivocal heed I pay to his babble.... He redoubles his loquacity; but, stifled by his impertinence, I suddenly emit the clouds of thick smoke which I have collected in my mouth, like the scorn within my breast."I exhale both at once, burning vapour and repressed indignation. Oh! how nauseating is the idiocy of others to him who is already out of love with, and wearied of, his own burdens!... I smother him with smoke! If only I could asphyxiate the fool with the lava from my tiny volcano!"But when a friend who is lovable alike in mind and heart comes to me, the pleasure of the pipe quickens the happiness of the meeting. After the first talk, which rapidly flows along, whilst the lighted punch scatters the spirituous particles which abound in the sparkling flame of the liqueur, the glasses clink together: Friend, from this day and for a year hence, let us drain the brotherly cup under the happiest auspices!"Then we light two cigars, just alike; incited by my friend to talk on a thousand different topics, I often let mine go out, and he gives me a light again from his own.... I am like an old husband who relights a score of times from the lips of a young beauty the flame of his passion, as impotent as many times over. O my friend! when, then, will happier days shine forth?"Tell me, my friend, in those parts from whence thou comest, are men filled with hope and courage? Do they keep constant and faithful to the worship of our great goddess, Liberty? ... Tell me, if thou knowest, how long we must still chafe at the humiliating bit which condemns us to silence?..."How it hinders me from flinging down my part of servitude! How it delays me from seeing the vain titles of tyranny, which oppress us, reduced to powder; from seeing the ashes of a dishonoured diadem scattered at the breath of patriots as the ashes of my pipe are scattered by mine! My soul is weary of waiting, friend; I warn thee, and with horror I meditate upon the doings of such sad waywardness. See how this people, roused wholly by the infamous sect of Loyola, rushes to fling itself before their strange processions! Young and old, men and women, all hasten to receive their hypocritical and futile benedictions! The fools! if the plague passed under a canopythey would run to see it pass by and kneel before it! Tell me, friend, is such a people fit for liberty? Is it not rather condemned to grow old and still be kept in the infantine swaddling clothes of a two-fold bondage?"Men are still but children. Nevertheless, the human race increases and goes on progressing continually, and meanwhile stretches its bonds till they break. The time draws near when it will no longer listen to the lame man who calls upon it to stop, when it will no longer ask its way of the blind. May the world become enlightened! God desires it!... And we, my friend, we will smoke whilst we watch for the coming dawn. Happily, friend, liberty has her secrets, her resources. This people, which seems to us for ever brutalised, is, however, educating itself and every day becomes more enlightened! Friend, we will forgive the slaves for running after distractions; we will bear with the immodest mother who prides herself that her daughters will pass for virgins when they have been blessed. We will not be surprised that old scoundrels hope to sweat out the seeds of their crimes, exhausting themselves to carry despicable images."O my pipe! every day do I owe thee that expressive emblem of humility which religion only places once a year on the brow of the adoring Christian: Man is but dust and ashes.... That, in fact, is all which remains at the last of the tenderest or most magnanimous heart, of hearts over-intoxicated with joy or pride, or those consumed with the bitterest pains."These small remnants of men, these ashes, the lightest zephyr scatter into the empty air.... Where, then, is the dust of Alexander, where the ashes of Gengis? They are nothing more than vain historic phantoms; those great subduers of nations, those terrible oppressors of men, what are they but fine-sounding names, objects of vain enthusiasm or of useless malediction!"I, too, shall soon perish; all that makes up my being, my very name, will disappear like light smoke.... In a few days' time, perhaps at the very spot where I now write, it will not even be known that I have ever existed.... Now, does something imperishable breathe forth and rise up on high from this perishable body? Does there dwell in man one spark worthy to light the calumet of the angels upon the pavements of the heavens?... O my pipe! chase away, banishthis ambitious and baneful desire after the unknown and the impenetrable!"

"Young man, light my pipe; light it and give it to me, so that I can chase away a little of the weariness of living, and give myself up to forgetfulness of everything, whilst this imbecile people, eager after gross emotions, hastens its steps towards the pompous ceremony of the Sacred-Heart in opulent and superstitious Marseilles.

"I myself hate the multitude and its stupid excitement; I hate these fairs either sacred or profane, these festivals with all their cheating games, at the cost of which an unlucky people consents readily to forget the ills which overwhelm it; I hate these signs of servile respect which the duped crowd lavishes on those who deceive and oppress it; I hate that worship of error which absolves crime, afflicts innocence and drives the fanatic to murder by its inhuman doctrines of exclusiveness!

"Let us forgive the dupes! All those who go to these festivals are promised pleasure. Unfortunate human beings! We pursue this alluring phantom along all kinds of roads. To be elsewhere than one is, to change place and affections, to leave the supportable for worse, to go after novelty upon novelty, toobtain one more sensation, to grow old, burdened with unsatisfied desires, to die finally without having lived, such is our destiny!

"What do I myself look for at the bottom of thy little bowl, O my pipe! Like an alchemist, I am searching how to transmute the woes of the present into fleeting delights; I inhale thy smoke with hurried draughts in order to carry happy confusion to my brain, a quick delirium, that is preferable to cold reflection; I seek for sweet oblivion from what is, for the dream of what is not, and even for that which cannot be.

"Thou makest me pay dear for thy easy consolations; the brain is possibly consumed and weakened by the daily repetition of these disordered emotions. Thought becomes idle, and the imagination runs riot from the habit of depicting such wandering agreeable fictions.

"The pipe is the touch-stone of the nerves, the true dynamometer of slender tissues. Young people who conceal a delicate and feminine organisation beneath a man's clothing do not smoke, for they dread cruel convulsions, and, what would be still more cruel, the loss of the favours of Venus. Smoke, on the contrary, unhappy lovers, ardent and restless spirits tormented with the weight of your thoughts.

"The savants of Germany keep a pipe on their desks; it is through the waves of tobacco smoke that they search after truths of the intellectual and the spiritual order. That is why their works, always a little nebulous, exceed the reach of our French philosophers, whom fashion, and the salons, compel to inhale more urbane and gracious perfumes.

"When Karl Sand, the delegate of the Muses of Erlangen, came to Kotzebue's house, the old man, before joining him, had him presented with coffee and a pipe. This token of touching hospitality did not in the least disarm the dauntless young man: a tear moistened his eyelid; but he persisted. Why? He sacrificed himself for liberty!

"The unhappy man works during the day; and, at night, his bread earned, with arms folded, before his tumble-down doorway, with the smoke of his pipe he drives away the few remaining thoughts that the repose of his limbs may leave him.

"O my pipe! what good things I owe to thee! If an importunate person, a foolish talker, a despicable fanatic, comes and addresses me, I quickly draw a cigar from my case and begin to smoke, and, henceforth, if I am condemned to the afflictionof listening, I at least escape the penalty of replying to him. At intervals, a bitter smile compresses my lips, and the fool flatters himself that I approve him! He attributes to the effect of the rash cigar the equivocal heed I pay to his babble.... He redoubles his loquacity; but, stifled by his impertinence, I suddenly emit the clouds of thick smoke which I have collected in my mouth, like the scorn within my breast.

"I exhale both at once, burning vapour and repressed indignation. Oh! how nauseating is the idiocy of others to him who is already out of love with, and wearied of, his own burdens!... I smother him with smoke! If only I could asphyxiate the fool with the lava from my tiny volcano!

"But when a friend who is lovable alike in mind and heart comes to me, the pleasure of the pipe quickens the happiness of the meeting. After the first talk, which rapidly flows along, whilst the lighted punch scatters the spirituous particles which abound in the sparkling flame of the liqueur, the glasses clink together: Friend, from this day and for a year hence, let us drain the brotherly cup under the happiest auspices!

"Then we light two cigars, just alike; incited by my friend to talk on a thousand different topics, I often let mine go out, and he gives me a light again from his own.... I am like an old husband who relights a score of times from the lips of a young beauty the flame of his passion, as impotent as many times over. O my friend! when, then, will happier days shine forth?

"Tell me, my friend, in those parts from whence thou comest, are men filled with hope and courage? Do they keep constant and faithful to the worship of our great goddess, Liberty? ... Tell me, if thou knowest, how long we must still chafe at the humiliating bit which condemns us to silence?...

"How it hinders me from flinging down my part of servitude! How it delays me from seeing the vain titles of tyranny, which oppress us, reduced to powder; from seeing the ashes of a dishonoured diadem scattered at the breath of patriots as the ashes of my pipe are scattered by mine! My soul is weary of waiting, friend; I warn thee, and with horror I meditate upon the doings of such sad waywardness. See how this people, roused wholly by the infamous sect of Loyola, rushes to fling itself before their strange processions! Young and old, men and women, all hasten to receive their hypocritical and futile benedictions! The fools! if the plague passed under a canopythey would run to see it pass by and kneel before it! Tell me, friend, is such a people fit for liberty? Is it not rather condemned to grow old and still be kept in the infantine swaddling clothes of a two-fold bondage?

"Men are still but children. Nevertheless, the human race increases and goes on progressing continually, and meanwhile stretches its bonds till they break. The time draws near when it will no longer listen to the lame man who calls upon it to stop, when it will no longer ask its way of the blind. May the world become enlightened! God desires it!... And we, my friend, we will smoke whilst we watch for the coming dawn. Happily, friend, liberty has her secrets, her resources. This people, which seems to us for ever brutalised, is, however, educating itself and every day becomes more enlightened! Friend, we will forgive the slaves for running after distractions; we will bear with the immodest mother who prides herself that her daughters will pass for virgins when they have been blessed. We will not be surprised that old scoundrels hope to sweat out the seeds of their crimes, exhausting themselves to carry despicable images.

"O my pipe! every day do I owe thee that expressive emblem of humility which religion only places once a year on the brow of the adoring Christian: Man is but dust and ashes.... That, in fact, is all which remains at the last of the tenderest or most magnanimous heart, of hearts over-intoxicated with joy or pride, or those consumed with the bitterest pains.

"These small remnants of men, these ashes, the lightest zephyr scatter into the empty air.... Where, then, is the dust of Alexander, where the ashes of Gengis? They are nothing more than vain historic phantoms; those great subduers of nations, those terrible oppressors of men, what are they but fine-sounding names, objects of vain enthusiasm or of useless malediction!

"I, too, shall soon perish; all that makes up my being, my very name, will disappear like light smoke.... In a few days' time, perhaps at the very spot where I now write, it will not even be known that I have ever existed.... Now, does something imperishable breathe forth and rise up on high from this perishable body? Does there dwell in man one spark worthy to light the calumet of the angels upon the pavements of the heavens?... O my pipe! chase away, banishthis ambitious and baneful desire after the unknown and the impenetrable!"

We may be mistaken, but it seems to us that one would search in vain for anything more melancholy inWertheror more bitter inDon Juan, than the pages we have just read.

Rabbe's friends—La Sœur grise—The historical résumés—M. Brézé's advice—An imaginative man—Berruyer's style—Rabbe with his hairdresser, his concierge and confectioner—La Sœur grisestolen—Le Centaure.

Alphonse Rabbe's most assiduous disciples were Thiers and Mignet;[1]they came to see him most days and treated him with the respect of pupils towards their master. But Rabbe was independent to the verge of intractability; and always ready to rear even under the hand that caressed him. Now, Rabbe discerned that these two writers were already on the way to become historians, had no desire to make a third in a trio with them and resolved to be more true to life than the historians and to write a novel. Walter Scott was then all the rage in London and Paris.

Rabbe seized paper and pen and wrote the title of his novel on the first leaf,La Sœur grise.Then he stopped, and I dare go so far even as to say that this first page was never turned over. True, what Rabbe did in imagination was much more real to him than what he actually did.

Félix Bodin had just begun to inaugurate the era ofRésumés historiques; the publishers, Lecointe and Roret, went about asking for summaries from anyone at all approaching an author; résumés showered in like hail; the very humblest scholar felt himself bound to send in his résumé.

There was a regular scourge of them; even the most harmless of persons were attacked with the disease. Rabbe eclipses all those obscure writers at abound; he published, successively, résumés of the history of Spain, of Portugal and of Russia; all extending to several editions. These three volumes showed admirable talent for the writing of history, and their only defect was the commonplace title under which they were published.

"What are you working at?" Thiers often asked Alphonse Rabbe, as they saw the reams of paper he was using up.

"I am at work on mySœur grise," he replied.

In the summer of 1824, Mignet made a journey to Marseilles where, before all his friends, he spread the praises of Rabbe's forthcoming novel,La Sœur grise, which Mignet believed to be nearly completed. Besides these fine books of history, Alphonse Rabbe wrote excellent articles in theCourrier-Françaison the Fine Arts. On this subject, he was not only a great master but, in addition, a great critic. He was possibly slightly unfair to Vaudeville drama and a little severe on its exponents; he carried this injustice almost to the point of hatred. A droll adventure arose out of his dislike. A compatriot of Rabbe, a Marseillais named M. Brézé (you see we sometimes putMonsieur) was possessed by an ardent desire for giving Rabbe advice. (Let us here insert, parenthetically, the observation that the Marseillais are born advisers, specially when their advice is unsolicited.)

Well, M. Brézé had given endless advice to Rabbe while he was still at Marseilles, advice which we can easily guess he took good care not to follow. M. Brézé came to Paris and met Barthélemy, the poet, at the Palais-Royal. The two compatriots entered into conversation with one another—

"What is Rabbe doing?" asked M. Brézé.

"Résumés."

"Ah! so Rabbe is doing résumés?" repeated M. Brézé. "Hang it all!"

"Quite so."

"What are these résumés?"

"The quintessence of history compressed into small volumes instead of being spun out into large ones."

"How many such résumés does he do in the year?"

"Perhaps one and a half or two at the most."

"And how much does a résumé bring in?"

"I believe twelve hundred francs."

"So, if Rabbe works all the year and has only done one résumé and a half, he has earned eighteen hundred francs?"

"Eighteen hundred francs, yes! by Jove!"

"Hum!"

And M. Brézé began to reflect. Then, suddenly, he asked—"Do you think Rabbe is as clever as M. Scribe?"

The question was so unlooked for and, above all, so inappropriate, that Barthélemy began to laugh.

"Why, yes," he said; "only it is cleverness of a different order." "Oh! that does not matter!"

"Why does it not matter?"

"If he has as much talent as M. Scribe it is all that is necessary."

Again he fell into reflection; then, after a pause he said to Barthélemy—

"Is it true that M. Scribe earns a hundred thousand francs a year?"

"People say so," replied Barthélemy.

"Well, then," said M. Brézé, "in that case I must offer Rabbe some advice."

"You?"

"Yes, I."

"You are quite capable of doing so—what will it be?"

"I must tell him to leave off writing his résumés and take to writing vaudevilles."

The advice struck Barthélemy as a magnificent joke.

"Say that again," he said to M. Brézé.

"I must advise Rabbe to leave off writing his résumés and take to writing vaudevilles."

"My goodness!" exclaimed Barthélemy, "do offer him that advice, Monsieur Brézé."

"I will."

"When?"

"The first time I see him."

"You promise me you will?"

"On my word of honour."

"Whatever you do don't forget!"

"Make your mind quite easy."

Barthélemy and M. Brézé shook hands and separated. M. Brézé very much delighted with himself for having conceived such a splendid idea; Barthélemy with only one regret, that he could not be at hand when he put his idea into execution.

As a matter of fact, M. Brézé met Rabbe one day, upon the Pont des Arts. Rabbe was then deep in Russian history: he was as pre-occupied as Tacitus.

"Oh! I am pleased to see you, my dear Rabbe!" said M. Brézé, as he came up to him.

"And I to see you," said Rabbe.

"I have been looking for you for the past week."

"Indeed."

"Upon my word, I have!"

"What for?"

"My dear Rabbe, you know how attached I am to you?"

"Why, yes!"

"Well, then, in your own interest ... you understand? In your interest ..."

"Certainly, I understand."

"Well, I have a piece of advice to offer you."

"To offer me?"

"Yes, you."

"Give it me, then," said Rabbe, looking at Brézé over his spectacles, as he was in the habit of doing, when he felt great surprise or people began to bore him.

"Believe me, I speak as a friend."

"I do not doubt it; but what is the advice?"

"Rabbe, my friend, instead of making résumés, write vaudevilles!"

A deep growl sounded from the historian's breast. He seized the offerer of advice by the arm, and in an awful voice he said to him—

"Monsieur, one of my enemies must have sent you to insult me."

"One of your enemies?"

"It was Latouche!"

"Why, no ..."

"Then it was Santo-Domingo!"

"No."

"Or Loëve-Weymars!"

"I swear to you it was none of them."

"Tell me the name of the insulting fellow."

"Rabbe! my dear Rabbe!"

"Give me his name, monsieur, or I will take you by the heels and pitch you into the Seine, as Hercules threw Pirithous into the sea."

Then, perceiving that he had got mixed in his quotation—

"Pirithous or some other, it is all the same!"

"But I take my oath ..."

"Then it is you yourself?" exclaimed Rabbe, before Brézé had time to finish his sentence. "Well, monsieur, you shall account to me for this insult!"

At this proposition, Brézé gave such a jump that he tore himself from the pincer-like grip that held him and ran to put himself under the protection of the pensioner who took the toll at the bridge.

Rabbe took himself off after first making a gesture significant of future vengeance. Next day he had forgotten all about it. Brézé, however, remembered it ten years afterwards!

Two explanations must follow this anecdote which ought really to have preceded it. From much study of theConfessionsof Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Rabbe had imbibed something of the character of the susceptible Genevese; he thought there was a general conspiracy organised against him: that his Catiline and Manlius and Spartacus were Latouche, Santo-Domingo and Loëve-Weymars; he evenwent so far as to suspect his two Pylades, Thiers and Mignet.

"They are my d'Alembert and Diderot!" he said.

It was quite evident he believed Brézé's suggestion was the result of a conspiracy that was just breaking out.

Rabbe's life was a species of perpetual hallucination, an existence made up of dreams; and sleep, itself, the only reality. One day, he button-holed Méry; his manner was gloomy, his hand on his breast convulsively crumpled his shirt-front.

"Well," he exclaimed, shaking his head up and down, "I told you so!"

"What?"

"That he was an enemy of mine."

"Who?"

"Mignet."

"But, my dear Rabbe, he is nothing of the kind.... Mignet loves and admires you."

"Ah!helove me!"

"Yes."

"Headmire me!"

"No doubt of it."

"Well, do you know what the man who professes to love and admire me said of me?"

"What did he say?"

"Why, he said that I was a man ofIMAGINATION, yes, he did."

Méry assumed an air of consternation to oblige Rabbe. Rabbe, to revenge himself for Mignet's insult, wrote in the preface of a second edition of his résumés these crushing words—

"The pen of the historian ought not to be like a leaden pipe through which a stream of tepid water flows on to the paper."

From this moment, his wrath against historians,—modern historians, that is, of course: he worshipped Tacitus,—knew no bounds; and, when there were friends present at his house and all historians were absent, he would declaim in thunderous tones—

"Would you believe it, gentlemen, there are in France, at the present moment and of our generation and rank, historians who take it into their heads to copy the style of the veterans, Berruyer, Catrou and Rouille? Yes, in each line of their modern battles they will tell you that thirty thousand men werecut in pieces, or that theybit the dust, or that theywere left lying strewn upon the scene.How behind the times these youngsters are! The other day, one of them, in describing the battle of Austerlitz, wrote this sentence: 'Twenty-five thousand Russians were drawn up in battle upon a vast frozen lake; Napoléon gave orders that firing should be directed against this lake. Bullets broke through the ice and the twenty-five thousand RussiansBIT THE DUST!'"

It is curious to note that such a sentence was actually written in one of the résumés of that date. The second remark that we ought to have made will explain the comparison that Rabbe had hazarded when he spoke of himself as Hercules and of Brézé as Pirithous. He had so effectually contracted the habit of using grand oratorical metaphor and stilted language, that he could never descend to a more familiar style of speech in his relations with more ordinary people. Thus, he once addressed his hairdresser solemnly in the following terms:—

"Do not disarrange the economy of my hair too much; let the strokes of your comb fall lightly on my head, and take care, as Boileau says, that 'L'ivoire trop hâté ne se brise en vos mains!'"

He said to his porter—

"If some friend comes and knocks at my hospitable portal, deal kindly with him.... I shall soon return: I go to breathe the evening air upon the Pont des Arts."

He said to his pastry-cook, Grandjean, who lived close by him in the rue des Petits-Augustins—

"Monsieur Grandjean, the vol-au-vent that you did me the honour to send yesterday had a crust of Roman cement, obstinate to the teeth; give a more unctuous turn to your culinary art and people will be grateful to you."

While all these things were happening, Rabbe fully imagined that he was writing his novel,La Sœur grise.

One day, Thiers came in to see him, as was his custom.

"Well, Rabbe," he said, "what are you at work upon now?"

"Parbleu!" replied Rabbe, "the same as usual, you know! MySœur grise."

"It ought to be nearly finished by now."

"It is finished."

"Oh, indeed!"

"Do you doubt me?"

"No."

"But you do doubt it?"

"Of course not."

"Stay," he said, picking up an exercise-book full of sheets of paper, "here it is."

Thiers took it from him.

"But what is this? You have given me blank sheets of paper, my dear fellow!"

Rabbe sprang like a tiger upon Thiers, and might, perhaps, in 1825, have demolished the Minister of the First of March, had not Thiers opened the book and showed him the pages as white as the dress worn by M. Planard's shepherdess. Rabbe tore his hair with both hands.

"Do you know what has happened to me?" he shouted.

"No."

"Someone has stolen the MS. of mySœur grise!"

"Oh! my God!" exclaimed Thiers, who did not want to vex him; "do you know who is the thief?"

"No ... stay, yes, indeed, I think I do ... it is Loëve-Weymars! He shall perish by my own hand; I will send him my two seconds!"

Loëve-Weymars was not in Paris. For upwards of a fortnight Rabbe laboured under the delusion that he had writtenLa Sœur grisefrom cover to cover, and that Loëve-Weymars was jealous of him and had robbed him of his manuscript.

When such petulant insults fell upon friends like Loëve-Weymars, Thiers, Mignet, Armaud Carrel and Méry, it did not matter; but, when they were directed at strangers less acquainted with Rabbe's follies, affairs sometimes assumed a more tragic aspect. Thus, about this period, he had two duels; one with Alexis Dumesnil, the other with Coste; he received a sword-cut from both of these gentlemen; but these wounds did not cure him of his passion for quarrelling. He used to say that, in his youth, he had been very clever at handling the javelin; unluckily, however, his adversaries always declined that weapon, which refusal Rabbe, with his enthusiasm for antiquity, never could understand.

But if Rabbe admired antiquity madly, it was because he felt it strongly; his piece,Le Centaure, is André Chénier in prose. Let us give the proof of what we have been stating—

THE CENTAUR"Swift as the west wind, amorous, superb, a young centaur comes to carry off the beauteous Cymothoë from her old husband. The impotent cries of the old man are heard afar.... Proud of his prey, impotent with desire, the ravisher stops beneath the deep shade of the banks of the river. His flanks still palpitate from the swiftness of his course; his breath comes hard and fast. He stops; his strong legs bend under him; he stretches one forth and kneels with agility on the other. He lovingly raises his beautiful prey whom he holds trembling across his powerful thighs; he takes her and presses her against his manly breast, sighs a thousand sighs and covers her tear-dewed eyelids with kisses."'Fear not,' he says to her, 'O Cymothoë! Be not terrified of a lover who offers to thy charms the united quality of both man and war-horse. Believe me! my heart is worth more than that of a vile mortal who dwells in your towns. Tame my wild independence; I will bear thee to the freshest rivers, beneath the loveliest of shade; I will carry thee over the green prairies, which are bathed by the Pene or patriarchal Achelous. Seated on my broad back, with thy arms intertwined in the rings of my black hair, thou canst entrust thy charms to the gambols of the waves, without fear that a jealousgod will venture to seize thee to take thee to the depths of his crystal grotto.... I love thee, O young Cymothoë! Drive away thy tears; thou canst try thy power: thou hast me in subjection!'"'Splendid monster!' replies the weeping Cymothoë, 'I am struck with amazement. Thy accents are full of gentleness, and thou speakest words of love! Why, thou talkest like a man! Thy fearful caresses do not slay me! Tell me why! But dost thou not hear the cries of Dryas, my old husband? Centaur, fear for thy life! His kisses are like ice, but his vengeance is cruel; his hounds are flying in thy tracks; his slaves follow them; haste thee to fly and leave me!'"'I leave thee!' replies the Centaur. And he stifles a plaintive murmur on the lips of his captive. 'I leave thee! Where is the Pirithous, the Alcides who dare come to dispute my conquest with me? Have I not my javelins? Have I not my heavy club? Have I not my swift speed? Has not Neptune given to the Centaur the impetuous strength of the storm?'"Then suddenly he bounded away full of courage, confidence and happiness. Cymothoë balanced as if she was hung in a moving net under these green vaults, or like as though borne in a chariot of clouds by Zephyrus, henceforth rids herself of her useless terrors and abandons herself to the raptures of this strange lover."Again he stops and she admires the way nature has delighted to mate in him the lovely form of a horse with the majestic features of a man. Intelligent thought animates his glance, so proud and yet so gentle; beneath that broad breast dwells a heart touched by her charms.... What a splendid slave to Cymothoë and to love!"She soon stops looking; a burning blush covers her cheeks and her eyelids droop; then, as her lover redoubles his caresses, and unfastens her girdle—"'Stay!' she says to him, 'stay, beauteous Centaur! Dost thou not hear the fiery pack of hounds? Do not the arrows whistle in thy ears.... I do not indeed hate thee; but leave me! Leave me!'"But neither Dryas nor his hounds nor slaves come that way, and those were not the reason of Cymothoë's fears. He, smiling—"'Calm thy fright; come, let us cross the river, and do notdread the sacrifice we are about to offer to the powerful Venus on the other side!... Soon, alas! the forests will see no more such nuptials. Our fathers have succumbed, betrayed by the wedding of Thetis and Peleus; we are now few in number, solitary, fugitive, not from man, weaker and less noble than we, but before Death who pursues us. The laws of a mysterious nature have thus decreed it; the reign of our race is nearly over!"'This globe, deprived of the love of the gods who made it, must grow old and the weak replace the strong; debased mortals will have nothing but vain memories of the early joys of the world. Thou art perhaps the last daughter of men destined to be allied with our race; but thou wilt at least have been the most beautiful and the happiest! Come!'"Thus speaks the man-horse, and replacing his delightsome burden on his bare back, he runs to the river and rushes into the midst of the waves, which sparkle round him in diamond sheaves burning with the setting fire of a summer sun. His eyes fixed on those of the beauty which intoxicates him, he swims across the stream and is lost to sight in the green depths which stretch from the other side to the foot of the high mountains...."

"Swift as the west wind, amorous, superb, a young centaur comes to carry off the beauteous Cymothoë from her old husband. The impotent cries of the old man are heard afar.... Proud of his prey, impotent with desire, the ravisher stops beneath the deep shade of the banks of the river. His flanks still palpitate from the swiftness of his course; his breath comes hard and fast. He stops; his strong legs bend under him; he stretches one forth and kneels with agility on the other. He lovingly raises his beautiful prey whom he holds trembling across his powerful thighs; he takes her and presses her against his manly breast, sighs a thousand sighs and covers her tear-dewed eyelids with kisses.

"'Fear not,' he says to her, 'O Cymothoë! Be not terrified of a lover who offers to thy charms the united quality of both man and war-horse. Believe me! my heart is worth more than that of a vile mortal who dwells in your towns. Tame my wild independence; I will bear thee to the freshest rivers, beneath the loveliest of shade; I will carry thee over the green prairies, which are bathed by the Pene or patriarchal Achelous. Seated on my broad back, with thy arms intertwined in the rings of my black hair, thou canst entrust thy charms to the gambols of the waves, without fear that a jealousgod will venture to seize thee to take thee to the depths of his crystal grotto.... I love thee, O young Cymothoë! Drive away thy tears; thou canst try thy power: thou hast me in subjection!'

"'Splendid monster!' replies the weeping Cymothoë, 'I am struck with amazement. Thy accents are full of gentleness, and thou speakest words of love! Why, thou talkest like a man! Thy fearful caresses do not slay me! Tell me why! But dost thou not hear the cries of Dryas, my old husband? Centaur, fear for thy life! His kisses are like ice, but his vengeance is cruel; his hounds are flying in thy tracks; his slaves follow them; haste thee to fly and leave me!'

"'I leave thee!' replies the Centaur. And he stifles a plaintive murmur on the lips of his captive. 'I leave thee! Where is the Pirithous, the Alcides who dare come to dispute my conquest with me? Have I not my javelins? Have I not my heavy club? Have I not my swift speed? Has not Neptune given to the Centaur the impetuous strength of the storm?'

"Then suddenly he bounded away full of courage, confidence and happiness. Cymothoë balanced as if she was hung in a moving net under these green vaults, or like as though borne in a chariot of clouds by Zephyrus, henceforth rids herself of her useless terrors and abandons herself to the raptures of this strange lover.

"Again he stops and she admires the way nature has delighted to mate in him the lovely form of a horse with the majestic features of a man. Intelligent thought animates his glance, so proud and yet so gentle; beneath that broad breast dwells a heart touched by her charms.... What a splendid slave to Cymothoë and to love!

"She soon stops looking; a burning blush covers her cheeks and her eyelids droop; then, as her lover redoubles his caresses, and unfastens her girdle—

"'Stay!' she says to him, 'stay, beauteous Centaur! Dost thou not hear the fiery pack of hounds? Do not the arrows whistle in thy ears.... I do not indeed hate thee; but leave me! Leave me!'

"But neither Dryas nor his hounds nor slaves come that way, and those were not the reason of Cymothoë's fears. He, smiling—

"'Calm thy fright; come, let us cross the river, and do notdread the sacrifice we are about to offer to the powerful Venus on the other side!... Soon, alas! the forests will see no more such nuptials. Our fathers have succumbed, betrayed by the wedding of Thetis and Peleus; we are now few in number, solitary, fugitive, not from man, weaker and less noble than we, but before Death who pursues us. The laws of a mysterious nature have thus decreed it; the reign of our race is nearly over!

"'This globe, deprived of the love of the gods who made it, must grow old and the weak replace the strong; debased mortals will have nothing but vain memories of the early joys of the world. Thou art perhaps the last daughter of men destined to be allied with our race; but thou wilt at least have been the most beautiful and the happiest! Come!'

"Thus speaks the man-horse, and replacing his delightsome burden on his bare back, he runs to the river and rushes into the midst of the waves, which sparkle round him in diamond sheaves burning with the setting fire of a summer sun. His eyes fixed on those of the beauty which intoxicates him, he swims across the stream and is lost to sight in the green depths which stretch from the other side to the foot of the high mountains...."

Is this not a genuine bit of antiquity without a modern touch in it, like a bas-relief taken from the temple of Hercules at Thebes or of Theseus at Athens?

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