Tel est le triste sort de tout livre prêté,Souvent il est perdu, toujours il est gâté.[D]
Tel est le triste sort de tout livre prêté,Souvent il est perdu, toujours il est gâté.[D]
[D]This is the sad lot of every book that is lent: often it is lost, always spoilt.
[D]This is the sad lot of every book that is lent: often it is lost, always spoilt.
The bookstall-keeper acquires gradually a knowledge of the finest or, if not the finest, the most curious editions; and he would be but a poor dealer were he unable to judge of their value. At one time the Pont-Neuf was full of bookshops; and the second-hand dealers in books had their stalls in the Cité, close to Notre Dame and to the Palace of Justice, as well as on the Place de Grèves. But they are now nearly all to be found on the parapets of the left bank.
The picture-dealers, at one time numerous on the quays of the left bank of the Seine, have for years past been gradually disappearing. It was in the curiosity shop already mentioned in connection with Balzac’s “Peau de Chagrin” that a certain Christ, by Raphael, was supposed to be kept hidden away like a treasure. That, however, was more than sixty years ago; and no masterpieces by Raphael are now to be found in the curiosity shops{256}of the left bank. The one place for buying and selling pictures is the Hôtel Drouot, on the other side of the river. Here pictures are sold by auction at the hands of official auctioneers and authorised brokers. In addition to the purchase-money five per cent. must be paid in the way of fees and for the cost of the sale. This charge is thought exorbitant, and it has not been forgotten that at the sale of Marshal Soult’s pictures, when Murillo’s “Conception” was purchased by the Government for the Square Room of the Louvre, nearly 30,000 francs commission had to be paid independently of the 586,000 francs, which was the adjudicated price. The sales about to take place are announced on the walls of the Hôtel Drouot; also in the columns of certain journals, such as theMoniteur des Ventesor theChronique des Arts.
SECOND-HAND BOOKSTALLS.SECOND-HAND BOOKSTALLS.enlarge-image
{257}
THE BUREAU DE BIENFAISANCE ASYLUM AT VINCENNES. 1. The Façade. 2. The Bowling Green.THE BUREAU DE BIENFAISANCE ASYLUM AT VINCENNES.1. The Façade.2. The Bowling Green.enlarge-image
Fencing in France—A National Art—Some Extracts from the Writings of M. Legouvé, One of its Chief Exponents—The Old Style of Fencing and the New.
FENCING is in England the pastime of a few amateurs; in France it is a national art. An ingenious reason has been adduced by M. Legouvé why proficiency with the rapier should be acquired by everyone. “The sword,” he writes, “possesses the finest of all advantages: it is the only weapon with which you can avenge yourself without an effusion of blood. What is nobler for a man of chivalry and skill when he finds himself confronting the man who has offended him, and whom he is privileged to kill, than at once to punish this adversary and to spare his life—to disarm him, that is to say.”
It is in his character of dramatic author, however, that M. Legouvé chiefly values duelling. “What would become of us wretched playwrights without the sword-duel?” he asks. “The pistol is a brutal contrivance, suitable only to dark melodramas and to dénouements.... What do you think could be done in a comedy with a man who haply had received a bullet wound? He is no longer good for anything. But if he has been wounded with a sword, he returns two minutes afterwards with his hand thrust in the folds of his waistcoat and an attempted smile on his face. The young woman says to him, ‘How pale you are!’ ‘I, mademoiselle?’ Then the end of a bandage is somehow perceived. ‘Gracious heavens! you have been fighting a duel,’ she exclaims.” M. Legouvé must now be allowed to continue in his own language: “Ah! l’admirable verbe que le verbese battre! Tous les temps en sont bons.Vous vous battez? battez-vous!... Ne vous battez pas!...Et comme il va bien avec les exclamations: ‘Mon ami! par grâce! Monsieur, vous êtes un lâche!... Arthur! Arthur!... Je me jette à tes pieds!’ Speak not to me of dramatic writing without those two indispensable collaborators: love and the sword.
“Fencing interests me, moreover, simply as an observer. A fencing-school is a theatre at which as many amusing characters may be seen as on any stage. First of all there is a class of fencers who do not fence and never will. Then there are the men who fence in order to reduce their bulk; who have been told by their doctor or their wife that they are too fat, and who, after sweating like oxen, blowing like seals, steaming like boiled puddings, for a couple of hours, tell you in the calmest manner that they have been fencing.
“Then there are the fencing-masters, or professors of fencing, as they prefer to be called. They are generally gay, good-natured, well-meaning fellows, devoted body and soul to their pupils, especially to those pupils who have done them the honour to kill someone in mortal combat. Their weak point is said to be veracity; not on all occasions, but whenever they have the foil in hand. “I have never,” says M. Legouvé, “met a single fencer who would not—say once every year—deny that he had been touched when the hit was palpable. It is so easy to say ‘I did not feel it,’ and a hit not recognised does not count. Ah, if we dramatists could only annul hisses by saying: ‘I did not hear them!’
“My first professor,” continues M. Legouvé, “was an old master known as Père Dularviez. He had a daughter of whom he was exceedingly proud. She was employed in a milliner’s shop, which caused her father some uneasiness as to her possible conduct. There was nothing to justify his uneasiness, but he was uneasy. At last, unable to rest, he wrapped himself up in a cloak and took up his position at the corner of the Rue Traversière, close to the Rue Saint-Honoré, where his daughter worked. ‘You may imagine,’ he said to us, ‘how my heart beat when I saw her appear. I approached her, and averting my face, whispered in her ear a graceful little compliment which I had invented for the occasion. O joy! she turned round and administered to me with all her might a box on the ear. I guarded myselfen tierceand said: ‘My child, you are truly virtuous.’
“Fencing has, moreover, its utilitarian value. It teaches you to judge men. With the foil in hand no dissimulation is possible. After five minutes of foil-play the false varnish of mundane{258}hypocrisy falls and trickles away with the perspiration: instead of the polished man of the world, with yellow gloves and conventional phrases, you have before you the actual man, a calculator or a blunderer, weak or firm, wily or ingenuous, sincere or treacherous.... One day I derived a great advantage. I was crossing foils with a large broker in brandies, rums, and champagnes. Before the passage of arms he had offered me his services in regard to a supply of liquors, and I had almost accepted.... The fencing at an end, I went to the proprietor and said: ‘I shall buy no champagne of that man.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘His wine must be adulterated—he denies every hit.’
“Apply my principle, and you will find it profitable. Some of you are already married. One day you will have daughters to marry. Well, if a suitor presents himself, do not waste time in collecting particulars which are too often false. Say simply to your future son-in-law: ‘Will you have a turn with the foils?’ At the end of a quarter of an hour you will know more about his character than after six weeks of investigations.
“Finally, I like fencing because you cannot learn it. It does, indeed, demand practice, and long practice; but that is not sufficient, it must be your vocation: you must be born a fencer, just as you must be born an artist. And then, when the apprenticeship has been served, what pleasure is enjoyed! I doubt whether there is in external life a single act in which a man feels himself to live more fully than in a vigorous assault.
“Look at the fencer in action. Each member, each muscle is stretched, and each for a different purpose. Whilst the hand glances rapidly and lightly, always tending forwards, the body holds itself back, and the legs, vigorously contracted like a spring, await, for their extension, the signal to be given by the arm as it prepares to make its sudden thrust. The whole of the members are like so many obedient soldiers to whom the general says: ‘March’—‘Halt’—‘Double.’ The general is the head, that head which, at once inspired and calculating as though on a real field of battle, detects at a glance the faults of the enemy, lays traps for him and compels him to fall into them, simulates a retreat in order to give him confidence, and returns suddenly upon him with a frightful assault....
“And to think that this art, complex as it is, in which the whole of the body is engaged, should really be concentrated between the end of the forefinger and the thumb. For there it all is: there resides the delicate and masterly faculty which alone constitutes the superior fencer—tact. Is it not wonderful to see how much sensibility and life flows between these two digits? They tremble, they palpitate beneath the pressure of the foil in contact with their own, as if an electric current communicated to them all its movements. For them the aid of sight is not necessary, for they do more than see the hostile sword; they feel it, they could follow it with their eyes bandaged; and if you add to these magnificent delights of the sense of touch the powerful circulation of the blood which runs in great waves through the veins, the beating heart, the boiling head, the throbbing arteries, the heaving breast, the opening pores; if you join, moreover, to this the delight of feeling your power and your suppleness increase tenfold; if you think, above all, of the ardent joy and bitter grief of self-love, of the pleasure of beating and the vexation of being beaten, and of the thousand vicissitudes of a struggle which terminates and begins again at each fresh thrust—you will understand that there is in the exercise of this art a veritable intoxication, of which the passion for gambling can alone give an idea. It is play without vice and with health superadded.”
M. Legouvé, who, besides being an admirable writer, possesses no superficial knowledge of fencing, next proceeds to a few detailed observations on the art of the foil and its professors. We can hardly do better than preserve his own words. “Fencing,” he says, “has undergone during the last half-century the same revolution as poetry, music, and painting. It has had its romantic period and its contending schools.
“The distinguishing characteristics of the old school were rigidity, grace, and a certain academic elegance. The words themselves express the thing. To practise fencing was to ‘go to the Academy.’ A fencer of the old school could not run to the attack, nor suddenly break off. He neither bent down nor sprang forward, but under all circumstances maintained, more or less, the same attitude. Fencing was in those days, above all things, an art; which, like every art, had the beautiful for aim.
“Very different was the system of the new school. To make hits was its one object. The means were of no importance, provided the result could be obtained. Fencing was now more a combat than an art; its programme{259}included everything, even the ugly. Fencers would now lie on the ground, would avoid a thrust by ducking their head, aim below the belt, and reduce all the qualities of the fencer to one only: rapidity.
“Gomard and Charlemagne were the two last representatives of the old school: Roussel and Lozes the two first of the new one. I have had the honour, in my youth, of fencing with all four; and I do not hesitate to say that, in my opinion, while fully recognising the incomparable quickness of Lozes, the superiority rested altogether with the representatives of the old school. Fencing ran the risk not of being renewed, like poetry, in another form, but of being lost altogether, at least as an art. Then came forward a young man who combined in himself the opposite qualities of the two schools. Every lover of fencing will understand that I am referring to Bertrand. As rapid as Lozes and as regular as Gomard, he borrowed from romanticism its audacity, its inspiration, its occasional rashness, and preserved at the same time the elegance of bearing, the severity of attitude, the caution and the science of the classical school. He may fairly be said, in company with Cordelois and Pons the elder, to have saved the art of fencing. He is an exceptional fencer among exceptional fencers. If I may be allowed to use the expression, there is genius in his art. The fencing-masters who came next were the products, somewhat mixed, of the three schools; the four professors who figure in the first rank being MM. Robert the elder, Gâtechair, Mimiague, and Pons the younger. Robert has a quickness of hand, an accuracy of attitude, and a rapidity of reply which recalls Bertrand. Gâtechair is the most academic of the masters of the present day. There is, however, something a little theatrical in his elegance and in his imposing carriage.
“Mimiague is supple, insinuating, adroit, sure to profit by every opportunity. There is a sort of cajolery in his play. If you ask who is the best of these four professors, I shall recommend you to apply the test of Themistocles. Bring together the principal fencing-masters of Paris, and ask them to write on a slip of paper the names of the two best fencers in Paris. Each of them will give the first vote to himself; but Robert will have all the second votes: from which I conclude that he deserves the first.”
Petty Trades—Their Origins—The Day-Banker—The Guardian Angel—The Old-Clothesman—The Claque—Its First Beginning and Development.
THE police of Paris are very strict in suppressing those trades bordering upon mendicancy, which in London are somewhat freely allowed. Many of the former hawkers of inexpensive trifles have been permanently swept away from the streets of Paris.
The Galileo of the Place Vendôme, however, is still permitted to carry on his business. As soon as the gas is alight, this personage, somewhat fantastically dressed, levels his telescope, after having traced in chalk on the pavement a picture of the moon, with its mountains, ravines, and so forth. In consideration of a slight recognition, varying from 25 to 50 centimes, he shows his clients all the astronomical phenomena, including some which have escaped the notice of the Observatory.
“Nearly all the petty industries not classed in the Dictionary of Commerce are,” says a French writer, “the product of an imagination over-excited by the gnawings of the stomach. The first person who picked up, on the highway, a cigar-end, and then another and another, and who, after chopping them all up, sold the results as smoking-tobacco, did not deliberately adopt this profession in the same way that a person becomes an administrator or a lawyer. It was the necessity of eating that launched him into this career. Presently he held this argument, based upon statistics:—Every day in Paris at least three hundred thousand cigars are smoked. There must, therefore, be somewhere, and particularly beneath the outdoor tables of the boulevard cafés, three hundred thousand fag-ends. Thus the horizon opens to him. He perceives a magnificent commercial enterprise and takes{260}partners. A new kind of manufacturer has now come into being: a manufacturer of unlicensed tobacco.”
Apparently the commodity sells well; and in the retort of a pipe the eclectic composition is as agreeable to the taste as the privileged product of the imperial factories. Some of the contraband dealers in cigar-ends have made a small fortune.
It was simply chance which created the “day-banker” or “banquier à la journée.” Thirty or forty years ago an individual named Poildeloup, living in the quarter of the markets, lent five francs one day to a woman dealing in old clothes, on condition that she should return him the same evening five francs ten centimes. She kept her word, and again borrowed from him. Then other tradeswomen, also out of funds, applied to Poildeloup, who at once saw what a profit he might derive from this daily lending organised on a big scale. The two sous brought to him each evening in excess of the five francs lent in the morning looked less than nothing at first sight; but in fifty days the banker doubled his capital, and in a few years had amassed wealth. Later on, rival banks were established, which reduced the interest by half, charging only five centimes a day on a hundred sous borrowed in the morning and returned at night. These day-banks, content with half the interest charged by the inventor of the business, still do an excellent trade.
One of the most interesting of the small professions is that of the “guardian angel.” This ethereal personage conducts drunkards home to their dwellings. Attached to every large Paris tavern is a guardian angel, whose duty it is to escort any late-staying customer whose legs decline their office, and who needs a guide. He must not quit the person entrusted to his charge until the latter is out of the reach of thieves and safely installed in his own house. The chief quality requisite in this angel is sobriety.
We were speaking just now of the man who collects cigar-ends. Another curious picker-up of unconsidered trifles is the man who is always on the look-out for crusts of bread. A crust of bread is found in all sorts of places: in the street, at the corners of lanes and alleys, on heaps of rubbish. Do not imagine that this man, on the hunt for hard, dirty, disgusting pieces of bread, has fallen so low as to be obliged to live on the fruits of his discoveries. He is the sort of person who believes firmly that nothing in this world is lost, and that one morsel of dry bread, added to another, may be the beginning of a sack of fragments which he will be able to sell for some twenty sous to breeders of rabbits. The rabbit, beloved by the frequenters of barrier-taverns, does not feed on grain and cabbage alone. It also eats a good quantity of bread. It is in order to procure it this article of diet that the trade of crust-collector was invented.
Of the ragpicker mention has been made elsewhere. He is essentially eclectic in his tastes: rags, paper, gloves, glass, broken toys, the necks of bottles, nothing comes amiss to him. He puts into the basket he carries on his shoulder whatever he can find. It is thetrieuror sorter whom the classification of the different objects concerns.
OLD-CLOTHES DEALER.OLD-CLOTHES DEALER.enlarge-image
Another petty trade which should not be forgotten is that of the old-clothesman, who is seen everywhere early in the morning uttering his piercing and well-known cry. He is above all to be met with in the districts where young men abound: in the environs, that is to say, of the School of Law and of the School of Medicine. The old-clothesman is of all the gutter-merchants the most cunning and the most merciless. He wanders around the abodes of the students, knowing well the time when they will probably find it necessary to ease themselves of a portion{261}of their wardrobe. It is, above all, when the Carnival is going on that he does good business. The allowance from home being insufficient for the cost of the masked ball, with its concomitant expenses, he realises money by the sale, now of a light overcoat, now of some other summer garment which can be dispensed with in the depths of winter. If the old-clothesman is waiting for the student, the student is on the look-out for the old-clothesman. The latter enters and the bargaining is at once begun. Whatever the dealer may offer, it is sure, after some haggling as if for form’s sake, to be accepted. Having made his purchase, the old-clothesman hastens with the clothes he has bought for a mere nothing from an improvident student in order to sell them at a moderate rate to a provident one. A story is told of two students, of about the same height and figure, who after a time found that their clothes passed from one to the other, the middleman in the shape of the old-clothesman taking on each transaction his own particular profit. It struck them that the middleman might as well be suppressed; and from that time forward Jules, when he was hard up, sold his clothes to Anatole, while Anatole, when he in his turn fell into an impecunious position, sold them back again to Jules.
LE DÉBARCADÈRE DES BATEAUX-OMNIBUS: VENDORS OF REFRESHMENTS.LE DÉBARCADÈRE DES BATEAUX-OMNIBUS: VENDORS OF REFRESHMENTS.enlarge-image
In the Temple, which gives its name to one of the lower boulevards, there was formerly a market for all kinds of antiquities, including old clothes; while buying and selling of a like character was carried on until a later period in the Marché des Patriarches. Here, even now, the lovers of the economical may provide themselves with shoes at a franc, and boots at three francs and a half.
There are other petty trades at Paris, such as that of the bird-catcher and the pigeon-fancier.
Nor must the sellers of violets at one sou the bunch be forgotten; though they are not to be confounded with the bouquetière in a far more fashionable walk of life. The dealers in groundsel, too, have a trade of their own.
There are many institutions, professions, and classes which, after being originated on the left bank, have crossed the water to flourish on the right. Among these must be included theclaque; though, from whatever quarter it may have sprung, there is now no theatrical district in Paris where it does not thrive.
It originated at the Comédie Française, when{262}that institution had its abode at the theatre now known as the Odéon, where, among other masterpieces, Beaumarchais’sMarriage of Figarowas produced in 1784. Mercier pointed out, about this time, that the masterpiece in question had no need of organised applause. This preconcerted clapping of hands, varied by the stamping of feet and by walking-sticks, had a very bad effect on the taste and temper of the public, and even, at times, on the fortune of a piece. “They clap when the actor appears on the stage; they clap for the author at the end of the play; they clap for the composer, and make more noise than all the instruments of Gluck’s orchestra, which can no longer be heard. This perpetual noise, this artificial excitement, degrades the public taste. An author who was constantly hissed was once advised to construct a machine which would imitate the sound of three or four hundred persons clapping their hands, and to place it in a corner of the theatre under the guidance of some intelligent and devoted friend.”
Another writer on the same subject, M. Prudhomme, tells us in his “Historical and Critical Mirror of Old and New Paris” (1807) that he had once been acquainted with a man who had no means of living but by assisting at first representations. Placed in the middle of the pit, he called attention to the beauties of the piece and led the applause. The name of “Monsieur Claque” had been given to him, and he had hands as hard as the piece of wood with which washerwomen beat their linen. His terms were thirty-six francs if the piece succeeded, and twelve francs if it failed.
The claque, however, did not acquire its greatest importance until the time of the Restoration. At an earlier period Dorat, a popular drawing-room poet, or writer ofvers de société, was in the habit of sending persons to the theatre with a free-admission on the understanding that they were to applaud his piece. By this stratagem he managed to secure a run of several nights for more than one of his works; but at each success he might have applied to himself the exclamation of Pyrrhus after the Battle of Asculum: “One more such victory and I am ruined.”
Dorat did, indeed, ruin himself at the game he is said to have invented; but his invention was not lost to posterity. The claque, however, did not work, in these comparatively primitive days, as an organised body. There was a certain Chevalier de la Morlière, a retired musketeer, who undertook the criticism of all new pieces, and offered to dramatic authors his support or his condemnation. His terms were moderate. A few dinners, a few louis, lent without any fixed term of repayment, a little commission on the pit tickets that passed through his hands: that was all he asked. He had volunteers and paid agents equally at his disposal, the former acting under his advice, the latter at his command. The Chevalier de la Morlière placed himself, moreover, at the service of débutants and débutantes, or rather he imposed his services upon them. One day he took it into his head to become a dramatic author, arguing with himself that after ensuring the success of so many works by others he could do the same for a work of his own. But though he now surpassed himself in the ingenuity of his manœuvres, the work he produced did not succeed. Thereupon he lost all credit. The authors and actors resolved to do without him. His sceptre fell, but only to be taken from time to time by others. Up to this time the claque, as before said, was the work of enterprising individuals who organised it on certain occasions, but not continuously as a permanent institution. Figaro, in Beaumarchais’s comedy, speaks of the play he had written, and goes on to say: “I really cannot understand how it was that I did not obtain the greatest success; for I had filled the pit with excellent workmen, whose hands were like wood.”
The organisation of the claque, as a permanent institution, dates from the time of Napoleon I., and seems to have had for its starting-point the famous rivalry between Mlle. Duchénois and Mlle. Georges. When the struggle between the two tragic actresses came to an end, the forces organised in their service declined to be disbanded. They elected their chiefs, and the leaders treated with managers and authors for regular support. People were still found who would applaud a favourite actor or actress from enthusiasm, duly stimulated by a gratuitous ticket. Thus at one time the whole atelier of David served as claque to an actress much admired by the painter and his pupils, who without support and encouragement might have been crushed, it was thought, by the growing talent and popularity of Mlle. Mars. The claque of David’s atelier was a formidable one, for the great artist had from sixty to eighty students attached to him. This was in 1810, a year or two after the publication of the “Historical and Critical Mirror of Old and New Paris” previously referred to.{263}
Under the Restoration the claque was a regular institution. The quarrels of the Romanticists and Classicists lent it a considerable importance. Impartial in its tastes, it served, turn by turn, and with the same zeal, the “Antony” of the modern drama and the Greek heroines of ancient tragedy. Since 1830 its authority has been universally accepted. Several directors, after trying to dispense with it, have been obliged to conciliate it and accept its conditions—for when the directors have driven it from their house, it has always been brought back by the vanity of the comedians. One alone of the Paris theatres preserved itself from the claque. This was the now defunct Théâtre Italien; though people say of this house that if it had not aclaqueit had aclique.
With the exception of the last-named, all the theatres of Paris have for years past had organised claques, that of the Opéra being the best disciplined. The chiefs of the claques give themselves the title of “undertakers of dramatic successes.” They do not receive a subvention from the “directors,” but a certain number of places each night, which they sell for their own benefit. It is not from the tickets, however, that they derive the bulk of their gains. Some of them make twenty or thirty thousand francs a year; but they derive this from the vanity of the actors, who pay them proportionately to the degree of applause required.
The claque consists of the chief and a number of assistants, generally poor wretches with a passion for the theatre, some of whom are admitted free on condition of contributing as much applause as necessary, while others are admitted simply at a reduced price. The chief attends the rehearsals, and notes the scenes, passages, or phrases which seem most effective. Then he revises his notes by watching the effect of the first performance on the public. After that he knows each precise point at which to come in with his applause; and if the piece is played for a year, the laughter and tears occur at the same given moments. He employs great tact in choosing men, and even women, for his purpose, the fair sex being the best counterfeiters of convulsive emotion. When, therefore, a drama is produced at Paris, a number of lady weepers are distributed amongst the audience, many of them being the devoted wives of male members of the claque. So soon as the old man of the piece recovers his unfortunate daughter, and exclaims, “My darling! Saved!” the lady weepers plunge their faces into their handkerchiefs and sob like children. The thing becomes contagious. The whole female portion of the audience are now, perhaps, like Niobe, all tears, and the newspapers next day declare that the performance was asuccès de larmes.
Doubtless this charlatanism has its comic side. But it is repulsive at the same time; for falsehood is the foundation of the system, and, as M. Eugène Despois says: “It is sad to see men almost exclusively occupied in lying reciprocally. People say that it is only life, that you must conform to it, and that it imposes on no one. ‘Who is deceived? Everyone agrees to the system,’ they argue. That is true. No one is duped; but of what use is all this comedy? After all, of the two parts, that played by theclaqueurs, often with spirit, to dupe the public, and that played by the public who submit to this impudent mystification and daily pretend to be duped, the most shameful is that of the public.”
Of recent years the claque has been made the object of some very lively attacks by writers who understand the dignity of their profession. A certain number of dramatic authors, Émile Augier and Dumas the younger amongst others, have frequently endeavoured to dispense with its mercenary plaudits; but it must be owned that the vanity of a large proportion of the actors, and in particular of the actresses, has frustrated the reform. In the meantime, ere the theatre world has awakened to the dishonourable character of the claque system, the claqueurs grow fat, and in some cases possess their town and country residences. It is true that not everyone can be a chief of the claque; to conquer, or rather to purchase, that important post, a great deal of money is required. Auguste, formerly chief of the claque at the Opéra, paid 80,000 francs for his position, but in a few years he had made his fortune. “More than one well-established dancer paid him a pension,” says Dr. Véron. “The début of each artist brought him a gratuity proportionate to the artist’s pretensions. Towards the end of an engagement and the moment of its renewal more than one singer or actor, in order to deceive at once the public and the director, goes to the Auguste of his theatre and offers him a bag of gold to produce such a paroxysm of applause as shall result in a large increase of salary. Such are the traps laid for the director; and into these traps, shrewd as he may be, he sometimes inevitably falls.”
Dr. Véron, an experienced impresario, is far from denouncing the claque, which, according to him,{264}has a mission. “All who expose themselves to be judged by the public, need,” he says, “for the animation of their courage, that fever of joy which applause produces in them.” That was also the opinion of Talma, who found the public too slow to take the initiative. “The claque,” says Elleviou, “is as necessary in the centre of the pit as the chandelier in the centre of a drawing-room.”
The question has often been raised as to whether not only the claque but even spontaneous applause should not be suppressed. The spectator, abandoned to the power of the illusion, is displeased to find himself disturbed by unexpected noise, which, tearing him from Athens or from Rome, reminds him that he is on the benches of a Paris playhouse.
Several chiefs of claques have become celebrities, or at least notorieties; with two gentlemen named Santon and Porcher among the number. One of these “knights of the chandelier,” as they are familiarly called, has published his reminiscences, entitled, “Memoirs of a Claqueur, containing the theory and practice of the art of obtaining success, by Robert (Castel), formerly chief of the Dramatic Insurance Company, Paris, 1829.”
Different opinions are entertained in theatrical circles as to the utility of the claque, some contending that it is indispensable, while others take a higher view, and hold that the work represented and the actors representing it may advantageously be allowed to stand upon their own merits. Meanwhile, apart from the claque maintained at all the Paris theatres by the management, there are often special claques which are paid by leading members of the company, jealous of one another’s reputation. This is looked upon by the company generally as unfair, and the practice is never avowed. Even in London, especially (if not exclusively) at the opera, a number of energetic men may sometimes be seen—and, above all, heard—working together with a view to the success of some particular “artist.” The claqueurs—at least, at the opera—are usually Italians, from the shops of the Italian wine merchants and dealers in macaroni, vermicelli, truffles, and olives in the neighbourhood of Soho. Wagner is known to have been absolutely opposed not only to the claque but to the most legitimate bursts of applause. The frame of mind in which to enjoy beautiful music should not, indeed, be broken in upon by disturbances from the outside. Not only in Germany, but wherever Wagner is played, the claque is, for the occasion, dispensed with. Even at the Grand Opéra of Paris there was no claque whenLohengrinwas performed; and it may be that if a representation is witnessed in absolute silence from the beginning to the end of each act, the applause is more enthusiastic when at last the moment for plaudits arrives.
In opposition to what takes place at Wagnerian performances wherever given, it may be mentioned that at the dramatic theatres of Paris, as at the lyrical theatres of Italy (when Wagner is not being played), the leading performers are not only applauded, but walk forward and bow their acknowledgment of the applause at the end of any effective scene in which they may have pleased the public, or perhaps only the claque. This destroys all verisimilitude. The singer is applauded as Violetta or as Adrienne Lecouvreur, and acknowledges the applause in the character of Mme. Adelina Patti or of Mme. Sarah Bernhardt.
But whatever may be said against it, the claque is great and, in France at least, will prevail. Nor can it be denied that in some instances and on some individuals it imposes opinions which but for its authority would not be accepted. There is an old fable of a man who, standing in a market-place, was approached by a man leading a pig. “Do you want to buy this sheep?” asked the proprietor of the animal. “It is a pig,” was the reply. “Nothing of the kind; I can assure you your eyes deceive you,” returned the salesman. At that moment a third person came up, and, looking at the quadruped, said to its owner, “How much do you want for that sheep?” The man to whom it had first been offered stared with surprise, and supposed that the third person was out of his mind; but when a fourth, fifth, and sixth person had come up and likewise demanded the price of that “sheep,” he came to the conclusion that his own eyes must be at fault, and bought the animal as mutton.
The business of the claque is to pass off a theatrical pig as a theatrical sheep—and it sometimes succeeds.{265}
The Old Wooden Stalls of Forty Years Ago—The “Lucky Fork”—The Cobblers’ Shops—The Old Cafés.
THE quays on the left bank of the Seine were at one time remarkable for their shops; and the book-stalls of the Quai Voltaire are still celebrated. It was on one of the quays of the left bank that the old curiosity shop stood, so picturesquely described by Balzac, in which the hero of the “Peau de Chagrin,” who had entered the shop merely to pass the time until it should be dark enough for him to throw himself from the Pont Neuf without attracting too much attention, purchased his fatal talisman.
Thirty or forty years ago Paris contained thousands of antique little shops or covered stalls, of which now very few specimens remain. They were painted wooden structures, six feet high by three feet broad, picturesquely situated at the corners of squares or public monuments, by the side of churches or city houses, with plank roofs through which a stove-chimney protruded, and with the street pavement for their floor.
The extermination of these quaint establishments necessarily accompanied the general improvement of the city; they were an eyesore when the thoroughfares had become elegant. By degrees the keepers of these huts, who were once the gaiety and life of the streets, disappeared. They took refuge for the most part in overcrowded houses which had escaped the pickaxe of the architectural improver, though this removal was only a prelude to their final departure. These petty shopkeepers were often intellectually superior to the proprietors of the finest shops on the boulevard, for many a scholar who found that the art or science to which he had sacrificed his life proved ungrateful, would for the sake of his daily bread set up in one of these street huts as a “public writer,” there, as set forth in a previous chapter, writing love-letters for domestic servants or grooms who could not express the sentiments of their bosom with a pen. Schoolmasters without pupils, students who had been plucked at their examinations, and professors without chairs, formed a large proportion of this hut-inhabiting population.
Amongst these primitive establishments were a number of fried-potato shops, which were besieged by street urchins in quest of the traditional halfpennyworth of tritters. In the Rue de la Vieille-Estrapade flourished a shop well known under the sign or title of the “Lucky Fork.” Here might be beheld an enormous metal cauldron, in which constantly simmered a dark-coloured broth of somewhat too odoriferous a character. Floating in this gigantic vessel, tossed hither and thither by the bubbling of the hot liquid, were pieces of tripe, pork, and other even less inviting viands, which the customer had to make a stab at with a sharp fork of huge dimensions. Yet although the aspect of these establishments was not altogether appetising, cleanliness was by no means a quality in which they were deficient. For a halfpenny the consumers had the privilege of a stab with the fork. The patrons of these shops were numerous and varied: porters, workmen, students, tinkers, artists. The poet Berthauld, author of the “Fille du Peuple,” was famed for his skill with the weapon in question; Chartelet the painter and Fourier the philosopher frequently tried their hand with it, not to mention other votaries of the arts and sciences who, unknown at that time, were destined to become celebrated. It used to be a source of great amusement to watch the customers, whatever their trade or profession might be, as, with keen gaze, they awaited some unusually big morsel which was floating towards them, and then suddenly made a thrust at it like eel-spearers. The piece of meat, incessantly dancing and revolving as it was, frequently eluded the prongs of the fork, whereupon cries of irony would escape from the attentive crowd; but when, at the first stab—for a halfpenny, that is to say—one of the combatants had secured a bulky morsel, this victor paraded through the ranks of the spectators, who, as they made way for him, applauded vociferously. Many, however, of the vanquished went to bed on nothing but water and a crust of bread.
There were fruit-stalls, where apples, pears, and even peaches, were sold at prices which have quintupled since then; and huts kept by knife-grinders, who, at a later period, resumed their daily pilgrimage through those quarters of Paris{266}where blunt instruments were most likely to be requiring a cheap edge. There was a bird-shop on the island of Saint Louis where the feathered stock was confided to the care of two enormous white cats, besides other like establishments, unprovided with cats, which were numerous enough in that space which is to-day occupied by the square of the Louvre. Then there were cobblers who, within their little pavement cabins, had no bills to deliver, no rent to pay, no reproaches to bear, no masters whose caprices must be humoured, since their toil from one hour to another produced immediate payment. The spirit of independence which was a characteristic of these artists in leather dated back, indeed, to ancient times. Simon of Athens, the friend of Socrates and the author of the thirty-three dialogues, in which a system of philosophy is set forth with great lucidity, received from Pericles an invitation to quit his shop and go to live with that magnate. “I would not sell my liberty for all the treasures in Greece,” was the reply.
The street cobblers of Paris have frequently given heroic instances of devotion and patriotism. During the massacre of St. Bartholomew they saved many Protestants from the edge of the sword. Their little shops were divided into two compartments, of which the upper one, approached by a small ladder, served as lumber-room for a mass of leather scraps and old shoes. It was here that more than one of the companions of Admiral Coligny found safety.
Some time afterwards, defying the terrible edicts of Richelieu, a Paris cobbler transmitted some vitally important correspondence to the prisoners in the Bastille, by cleverly sewing the letters between the soles of shoes. Later on his shop became a sort of literary rendezvous. Politics were indeed talked there; but it was the latest prose and the latest verse which chiefly occupied the frequenters. The cobbler was at that period accustomed to combine with his leathern functions those of “public-writer.”
French authors and poets have always had a kindness for the cobbler. François Villon wrote what is considered the best of his odes in honour of the “Povres Housseurs,” makers, that is to say, of a species of boots worn in the fifteenth century. It is known that the great Corneille did not think it beneath his dignity to make an intimate friend of the cobbler of the Rue d’Argenteuil.
The free atmosphere which surrounded his wooden shop apparently inspired the artist in leather with a passion for joyous rhymes and a love of literary works, together with a certain fund of satire which attracted men of letters towards him.
The most celebrated Paris cobbler of the eighteenth century was Henry Sellier, whose shop stood in the Rue Quoquereau, to-day the Rue Coq-Héron. This shop was a vile hut of rotten planks, the roof of which, a piece of oil-cloth held up by a couple of broom-handles, was riddled like a sieve. Nevertheless, the proprietor wrote spirited verse, and the success of his poems was such that Louis XIV. received a copy of them, together with their author, in his château at Fontainebleau. The effusions of Sellier, moreover, gained the approbation of Fontenelle, whose good opinion brought them greatly into fashion, and even excited the jealousy of contemporary poetasters. One of Sellier’s critics published a couplet charging him with being assisted by famous collaborators; to which the cobbler, who, whether poet or not, was always ready with a repartee, penned in reply another couplet to the effect that the absence of wit and every other quality from the verses of his accuser sufficiently proved thathe, at least, wrote everything himself.
In 1789 the cobbler’s shop promptly and proudly bore aloft the tricolour cockade; it became a rendezvous for patriots, and a political cabinet in which more than one great popular resolution was passed. When the legislative assembly had declared that the country was “in danger,” all the young shoemakers hastened to enlist; the paternal artists in leather offered their children to France. In those battalions of volunteers which were sometimes disdainfully described as an army of “vagabonds, tailors and cobblers,” the last-named contingent, a numerous one, fought heroically enough.
Under the Restoration the hut of the cobbler was a political and secret rendezvous for the Bonapartists and the Republicans. Much whispering and much writing went on there; many a song, penned by a literary cobbler, issued thence in manuscript, to travel rapidly from workshop to workshop and inflame the political sentiments of partisans. After 1830 the cobbler openly showed his disapprobation of the citizen royalty. The interior of his shop was completely papered with political caricatures; one manuscript satire or cartoon, torn down by the police to-day, was succeeded by another to-morrow. The police, however, were so vigilant that the cobbler at length found it advantageous not to meddle too much with politics, and developed a tendency for frequenting cheap taverns, in which his songs{267}and conversation procured him a satisfactory measure of admiration. He did not become a drunkard, but he sought inspiration in moderate potations. A celebrated advocate had lived for sixteen years in the Rue Coq-Héron, and just beneath the walls of his mansion a cobbler had long been accustomed to hammer at the soles of shoes. A provincial visitor one day asked this cobbler whether he knew the advocate in question. “No, sir,” was the imperturbable reply. The advocate overhead was told of it, and, mystified at such an instance of ignorance, came down to reproach his humble neighbour. “You do not know me?” he said, “and yet we have lived sixteen years side by side!” “Just so,” answered the cobbler, without the least embarrassment; “you have been next door to me for sixteen years, and have not once asked me to drink with you.”
Among the shops and other establishments that have disappeared from Paris may be mentioned the ancient “café,” properly so-called, where coffee was served but smoking forbidden, and the “café estaminet,” where smoking was permitted. Every café is now a café estaminet; though it is the latter term, not the former, which has gone out of use. The serving of beer at cafés was of course an innovation; but the drinking of beer has become so general in Paris that there are now numbers of so-called “brasseries” (literally “breweries,” which these places are not), where beer is the principal if not the only beverage served. In a history of cafés the introduction of music and the development of the café concert—the French music-hall—would have to be noted. Of late years, too, music of a certain kind—especially the music of the Hungarian gipsies—executed by members of the gipsy race more or less authentic, has been introduced into restaurants.
{268}
BOOKSTALLS ON THE QUAI VOLTAIRE.BOOKSTALLS ON THE QUAI VOLTAIRE.enlarge-image
French Governments and the Press—The Press under Napoleon—Some Account of the Leading Paris Papers—TheFigaro.
UNDER the ancient Monarchy journalism could scarcely be said to exist in France, and the censorship exercised over books was so severe that all political works of a critical character written by Frenchmen had to be published in Holland or in England. Arthur Young saw in the absence of newspapers one of the causes of the panic which seized whole classes and entire neighbourhoods on the outbreak of the Revolution. Absurd rumours were put into circulation, and there were no journals by which to test their accuracy; for if the press is sometimes a purveyor of gossip, it is above all a corrector of false intelligence. A decree of the year 1728, to go back no further, punished by branding, the pillory and the gallows, those who printed, composed, or distributed “works considered criminal.” Some years afterwards the parliament of Paris, which at this time was exposed to many attacks, adopted a declaration which condemned to hanging anyone who penned or printed writings which tended to assail religion, to disturb men’s minds, to undermine the authority of the king, or to trouble the order and tranquillity of his dominions. No great use was made of this law, for the Bastille sufficed to silence those who spoke too loudly; but it was always agreeable to know that, if necessary, objectionable writers could have their pens snatched from them for ever.
The Revolution overthrew that majestic edifice in which France had so long slumbered in peace. The Constitution of 1791 set forth that, “the free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious of men’s rights.” It provided that every citizen should be free to “speak, write, print, without his writings being liable to inspection or censorship before publication.”
This uncurbed liberty, however, was necessarily of short duration. In the famous Constitution of 1793, which was never put in force, the{269}Convention guaranteed to every Frenchman “liberty of the press,” a maxim which always looks well as a decoration on the frontispiece of the Constitutional Temple; but the decree of the 29th of March, 1793, modified this excessive licence by a little article couched in these terms:—“Anyone who shall have composed or printed writings which aim at the dissolution of the national representation, and the re-establishment of royalty or any other power which arrogates the sovereignty of the people, shall be arraigned before the tribunal extraordinary and punished with death.” The Convention did not reconstruct the Bastille; but it sent a number of journalists to the guillotine by way of warning to their fellows. The warning, however, was lost on Frenchmen, who, with their natural characteristics, preferred to forfeit their head rather than their tongue, and died jesting at the executioner.
The Directory followed the example of the Convention. The Constitution of the year III. declares, in article 353, that “no one can be prevented from saying, writing, printing, or publishing his thoughts,” but a law of the 27th Germinal, in year IV., added the following clause: “All those shall be punished with death who by their speeches, or their printed writings, whether circulated or placarded, provoke the dissolution of the National Assembly or that of the Executive Directory ... or the re-establishment of royalty, that of the Constitution of 1793, that of the Constitution of 1791, or of any other government, save the one established by the Constitution of 1791, accepted by the French people, etc.” With this important exception the law is clement enough; nor, indeed, were the authorities anxious to enforce the death clause where a milder punishment would serve the turn. The Directory, after the 18th Fructidor, instead of shooting ill-behaved journalists, contented itself with sending out forty-five of them to colonise Sinnamary, at the same time placing the journals under the supervision of the police, who could summarily suppress them. The Directory, moreover, acting perhaps on the principle of equality before the law, imposed a stamp-duty on all journals, so that Thought, like other commodities, began to contribute its share to the State by which it was protected.
With the Consulate, France, as regarded press matters, went straight back to the time of Louis XIV. The first article of a consular decree, issued January 17th, 1800, disposed of journalism once and, if not for ever, at least for a considerable time. It sets forth that the minister of justice shall, so long as the war lasts, allow no more than thirteen political journals, each of which is specified by name, to be published at Paris. The fifth article of this decree provided for the instant suppression of all newspapers inserting articles which might be wanting in “the respect due to the social compact and the sovereignty of the people, or to the glory of the French armies,” or which might print “invectives against the governments and the nations allied to or in friendly relations with the Republic, even though these articles were extracted from foreign periodicals.” Nor did Napoleon’s vigilance cease with this. He despised newspapers, but was afraid of books. Accordingly, while the censorship was re-established for journals, printing and publishing offices were made monopolies, and placed under surveillance as in the best days of the old Monarchy. It was for the master to think, to will, to act for all his subjects; he wished France and all Europe to be occupied with him alone. The police took care that there should be silence around him, and human thought was represented by the voice of the cannon. On the fall of Napoleon a charter was given to France by the restored Monarchy, in which the French were declared to possess the right of publishing and printing their opinions conformably to the laws intended to repress the abuse of this liberty. But the very first bill introduced into the new assembly subjected pamphlets to the censorship, and newspapers to the authorisation of the crown, while printers were required to take out licences, which would only be continued on good behaviour.
In 1815, during the Hundred Days, the emperor established the liberty of the press, and the second Restoration maintained this concession. Only for a time, however; on the assassination of the Duc de Berry, someone discovered that “the real dagger which had stabbed the duke” was a liberal idea; and a law was passed by which a Government authorisation was required before starting a newspaper. The censorship was at the same time re-established, while police courts were empowered to suspend and suppress newspapers on the ground of evil tendencies. Finally, the notorious “ordonnances” of 1830 suppressed liberty of the press altogether. This led to the Revolution of July, and the charter accepted by Louis Philippe on his accession to the throne declared that the censorship was not only abolished but could{270}never be re-established. But the newspaper stamp was maintained, and no one could start a journal without previously depositing a large sum as caution-money, with which to pay damages in case of libel.
After the Revolution of 1848 liberty of the press was once more proclaimed, and it seemed as though France might at last accustom itself to free newspapers, even as Mithridates accustomed himself to poison. Then, however, in 1851, came theCoup d’état, and once more the press was fettered. A system of “warnings” and of “communiqués” was now adopted. The communiqué was a notice addressed to the journal by the Government, which the editor of the journal was obliged to insert. The warnings were of two kinds—first and second; a first warning, administered at will by the authorities, had no immediate effect; but after a second warning, the journal receiving it could be at once suppressed. “This ingenious system was so much admired that it was forthwith adopted,” says M. Laboulaye in an article on the subject, “by the four great states which march at the head of modern civilisation: Spain, Turkey, Austria and Russia.” It was necessary, moreover, under the Second Empire to obtain, before publishing a new journal, an authorisation from the Government. The first newspaper established in France was theGazette de France, founded by the physician of Louis XIII. in 1631; the most widely known and the most highly esteemed being theJournal des Débats, founded by the Bertin brothers in 1789, the great revolutionary year in which also the official organ under all systems of government,Le Moniteur Universel, was started.
Among the contributors to theJournal des Débatsmay be mentioned: Michel Chevalier, Saint-Marc Girardin, John Lemoinne, Prévost Paradol, Renan, and Taine; the dramatic criticisms of the journal were for many years written by Jules Janin, and the musical criticisms by Berlioz.
TheConstitutionnelwas founded at the time of the Restoration in 1815. The most celebrated of its editors was Dr. Véron, for some years manager of the Opera, in which character he produced Meyerbeer’sRobert le Diable. The most famous of the contributors to this journal was Sainte-Beuve, who for a long succession of years published in it every Monday one of those literary articles which, in their collected form, are known throughout the civilised world as “Causeries du Lundi.” Before contributing the “Causeries” to theConstitutionnel(they were continued and concluded in theMoniteur), Sainte-Beuve had published, under the title of “Portraits,” a long series of biographical and critical articles in theRevue de Paris, which, after the cessation of that periodical, he went on with in theRevue des deux Mondes. M. Nestor Roqueplan, who, like Dr. Véron, was for some time manager of the Opera, contributed dramatic criticisms for many years to theConstitutionnel, and no more brilliant articles of the kind were ever penned. The musical critic was at this time the notorious P. A. Fiorentino, who afterwards joined the staff of theMoniteur.
La Pressewas founded in 1836 by Émile de Girardin, and it must always be remembered as the first cheap journal started in France, and indeed in all Europe. Paris has now newspapers at two sous and even one sou; but in 1836 a journal at three sous, the price at whichLa Pressewas issued, seemed a marvel; and M. de Girardin’s enemies of the established journals hinted in no doubtful terms that his journal at three sous could only exist through the aid of a Government subvention. It has been related elsewhere how an innuendo to this effect from Armand Carrel led to a duel in which Carrel, while inflicting a serious wound on M. de Girardin, was himself shot dead. Many years later than 1836, whenLa Pressewas started, the invariable price of a London morning newspaper was fivepence; there was a penny stamp on each number issued, and an impost of eighteenpence on each advertisement. The cheap press has only been rendered possible in England by the removal of the newspaper-stamp, the advertisement-stamp, and finally the duty on paper.
From 1836 to 1856La Pressewas edited by M. de Girardin; his successor was M. Nefftzer, who afterwards founded that excellent paperLe Temps.La Pressethen passed beneath the direction of M. Guéroult, who left it to foundL’Opinion Nationale; and afterwards of M. Peyrat and others. The dramatic, and musical, and artistic feuilleton ofLa Pressewas originally in the hands of the incomparable Théophile Gautier, whose collected articles are as remarkable for searching and subtle criticism as for brilliant description. He was succeeded by Paul de Saint-Victor, whose contributions were scarcely inferior to those of his distinguished predecessor. Paul de Saint-Victor is far less generally known in England than Théophile Gautier. A good idea of his remarkable talent may be formed from his volume on tragedy and comedy, “Les deux Masques.{271}”
When in 1852 it was determined to improve as much as possible the official organ of the newly established Empire, as of previous Governments in France, a number of the most popular writers were tempted to theMoniteurby offers of increased pay. Théophile Gautier quitted thePressefor the official journal, and P. A. Fiorentino, without quitting theConstitutionnel, wrote musical criticisms for it under anom de plumewhich concealed his identity from no one interested in journalism. This last-named journalist, Italian by nationality, was by no means an honour to the French press; he was more than suspected of taking bribes, and when the Society of Men of Letters instituted an inquiry into his conduct, he attacked the secretary of the society so violently in the paper calledLe Corsaire, that a challenge and a duel ensued. Amédée Achard was run through the body, and Fiorentino passed some weeks in prison. Achard did not die, nor did Fiorentino lose his position on the press. The accusation made against him by the Society of Men of Letters was that he acted at once as musical critic and musical agent; and it might fairly be presumed that singers on whose salaries he received a commission were more carefully looked after and more warmly praised than those who did not employ his services. He is said to have attempted to justify himself to some of his friends by representing himself as the “Artists’ advocate”—“L’avocat des artistes;” though his true function, the one which he was understood by the editor of his newspaper and by his readers to have undertaken, was that of critic or judge. To the accusations brought against him by the Society of Men of Letters he replied, however, by a simple denial; and the object of the duel he had sought with Amédée Achard was evidently to prevent such accusations from being brought against him in the future.
Another journal, started under the Empire with imperial support, and with M. Granier de Cassagnac, father of the well-known writer, deputy and duellist of the same name, as editor, calledLe Pays, was well and daringly written, but found no favour with the public. Neither, as a matter of fact, did theMoniteur, notwithstanding the brilliancy of the writers attracted to its columns from other journals.
L’Opinion Nationalefirst appeared in 1859, at the time of the war for the liberation of Italy. The unity of Italy and the independence of Poland were for many years its watchwords; and during the Polish insurrection of 1863, as also during the long agitation that preceded it, this journal was the recognised organ of oppressed nationalities. By English readers interested in theatrical matters,L’Opinion Nationalewill be remembered as the journal in which M. Sarcey, the well-known critic, made his literarydébut. M. Sarcey possesses, as a writer, neither the ingenuity and charm of Jules Janin, nor the dazzling style of Théophile Gautier, or of Paul de Saint-Victor, nor the delicate observation of Nestor Roqueplan; but he is inspired, more perhaps than any other critic, by taste, love, passion for the stage.
Le Mondewas started under that name in 1860 as a substitute forL’Univers, which, placing the Pope before the Emperor and preferring Rome to Paris, had got itself into trouble with the Government. It was edited for many years by M. Louis Veuillot, most vigorous of Ultramontane journalists, and author of several remarkable books, including “Les Odeurs de Paris,” “Les Parfums de Rome,” and a curious study of feudal rights and privileges, as, according to M. Veuillot, they really existed in France before the Revolution.
Le Temps, one of the best of the Paris papers, after having been discontinued for some years, was revived in 1861 by M. Nefftzer, previously editor ofLa Presse.Le Tempssoon took rank as what the French call a serious journal. For many years one of the most interesting features ofLe Tempswas the letter on English affairs contributed from London by M. Louis Blanc. Among the other distinguished contributors toLe Tempsmay be mentioned M. Scherer, the literary critic, and M. Louis Ulbach, chiefly known as a novelist, but who for many years wrote for this journal its theatrical feuilleton. There are plenty of papers published in Paris besides those we have mentioned, some of them in the enjoyment of large circulations, but distinguished by no marked features, or by none that possess special interest for English readers. The best-known, however, of all the Paris journals is theFigaro, published originally under the Restoration, and edited for some time by Nestor Roqueplan. After numerous prosecutions, it ceased to exist; suppressed practically if not formally by the Government.
EDMOND ABOUT. (From the Portrait by Paul Baudry.)EDMOND ABOUT.(From the Portrait by Paul Baudry.)enlarge-image
But in 1854 theFigaro(which, it need scarcely be said, derived its name from the celebrated barber invented by Beaumarchais) was revived by Mme. Villemessant, and it played an important part, though by no means a consistent one, under the Second Empire. This it still continues to do; and whatever its political views may be, it is the{272}most amusing, the most interesting, and one may almost say, the most literary journal in Europe. Among the celebrated writers who have from time to time contributed to its columns may be mentioned Edmond About, Théodore de Banville, Henri Rochefort, B. Jouvin, Albert Wolff, and Henri de Pène, who, for criticising the manners of French subalterns, found himself exposed to the necessity of fighting all the lieutenants and sub-lieutenants of the French army, a task from which he was saved by being almost mortally wounded by the first of his antagonists. The cause of M. de Pène’s encounter with the junior officers of the French army, as represented by the clever swordsman who ran him through the lungs, was an article, written by the contributor to theFigaro, on a ball given at the École Militaire. The youthful officers were, he declared, too constant and too eager in their attendance at the buffet; and he added that when one of them had a plate of cakes offered to him by a waiter, he said he was not sure that he{273}could eat them all, but that he would accept them nevertheless. The jest was an ancient one, but it angered the young bloods of the Military School, and their indignation demanded a victim, who at once offered himself in the person of the author of the injurious statement.
The case of Henri de Pène and of so many other fighting journalists, with the redoubtable Henri Rochefort and Paul de Cassagnac among them, suggests that in France a newspaper-writer should be as much a master of the sword as of the pen. This does not interfere with the fact that one of the most gentle and amiable of modern French writers, M. Ernest Legouvé, possessed the reputation of being the first fencer of his day.