Chapter 17

16Author of the explosion at theCafé Terminus.

17The assassin of Carnot.

18Inability to pay this fine involving further imprisonment, the real term of the editors condemned for two years became in most cases three years or three years and a half. It should be noted, however, that a considerable proportion of them were condemned for contumacy, they having made good their escape to England or Belgium before their cases were tried.

19M. Gabriel Girond has written a volume entitledCempuison this educational experiment, which no educator or student of education can afford to neglect. Maurice Devaldès, also, in a brochure entitledL’Education et la Liberté, compares the educational experiment of Tolstoy at Yasnaïa-Poliana with M. Robin’s experiment at Cempuis, to the advantage of the latter.

20Believed by many to have been managed by the police in order to sow dissensions and cause divisions in the ranks of the anarchists.

21In Russia, where many of the most violentpropagandistes par le faitare men of letters or scientists, the situation is quite different.

22Reclus’ daughters have entered intounion libreopenly with their father’s entire approval. A man of Elisée Reclus’ standing would not aid and abet such a course without profound conviction.

23A strike of pick-and-shovel labourers, to supervise which the government hurried 75,000 soldiers into Paris, although there were no signs of violence.

24Certain anarchists hold that it is proper for an anarchist to penetrate into the unions, so that he does not preside at their formation nor hold office therein,—an attitude which is amusingly analogous to that of the scrupulous Episcopalian dame who drew the line of the permissible in Lent just this side of white kid slippers.

25Communist-anarchists, in spite of the wordSocialistesin their title.

26Vaillant threw a bomb in the French Chamber.

27Bresci killed King Humbert of Italy.

28Estimated in France officially, and hence conservatively, as 40,000.

29Special laboratories, with walls constructed to minimise the force of a shock were erected at this time at four different points in Paris,—Montrouge, Aubervilliers, Berey, and Le Point du Jour.

30Salsou, who attempted to assassinate the Shah of Persia, was atrimardeur.

31Whence the slang verbwatrinerand the substantivewatrinade.

32Another version is that Pini, having voted twice, was condemned to three months’ imprisonment, and that it was to avoid this that he left the country.

33Frustrated by a faithful dog.

34This sentence was commuted to long-term imprisonment by President Grévy.

35Le terme(rent) in Paris must be paid quarterly and in advance. It is due on the 1st, and must be paid on the 8th or 15th (according to its amount) of January, April, July, and October.

36There is a distinct class of men and women in Paris ready at any moment to cry à bas or vive, no matter whom or what, for a five-franc piece. Napoléon Hayard, known as the “empereur des camelots,” who died recently at a ripe age, was known to Parisians for many years as an organiser of manifestations.

37It was Rochefort who declared the mysterious shooting of Labori during the Dreyfus trial at Rennes to be a fictitious manœuvre.

38The curious filing of the hammer of Salsou’s pistol, which rendered impossible—according to a portion of the expert testimony—its discharge, lent a certain colour of truth to this accusation.

39As lately as 1902 the anarchist spy service was recruited in this fashion, and so openly that spies might almost be said to have been advertised for.

40M. Andrieux’sLa Révolution Socialewas probably not the last journal of its class.

41The militant anarchist’s knowledge of the code and of legal procedure is also phenomenal. There is nothing he enjoys better, when in good humour, than to remind his judge of a forgotten or wilfully neglected formality.

42Baumann shot a priest who was personally unknown to him for the sake of the propaganda.

43Ravachol was attempting to make a convert an hour and a half after the explosion of the rue de Clichy.

44Passanante attempted to assassinate King Humbert of Italy.

45The prosecution of Tailhade was probably a sop to the Russian diplomats, his article having been specially directed against the czar.

46Ravachol justified these acts to himself on the ground that the living and still more the dead had no right to hold wealth in unproductiveness while human beings were starving. The proceeds of both these deeds were religiously consecrated by him to thepropagande.

47The probable author of the explosion at theRestaurant Véry.

48Accused of complicity in various overt acts, but not condemned.

49Ravachol’s masterful sneer at the church on his way to the guillotine was not, it seems, pure perverseness. Ravachol had taken a real liking to the prison priest, whom he admitted to be a good fellow, but he had such a horror of being claimed by the church after his death as an eleventh-hour penitent that he had requested the priest not to assist at his execution. To this request the priest had answered,—could anything well be moremaladroit?—“I cannot avoid it. I shall be there by the same right as the headsman.”

50TheGuesdistesand theJeunesse Blanquistewere the most important exceptions.

51Hostile, that is, except at the eleventh hour of their congress, when they usually contrive to vote resolutions of harmony.

52Leader of theParti Socialiste Révolutionnaire.

53Leader of theFédération des Travailleurs Socialistes.

54There is no socialist daily, however, which is not under capitalistic control.

55There has long been a shelf in one of the book-stalls of the arcade of theOdéondevoted exclusively to works on Socialism. Whether this device is due to business insight or propagandist fervour, it is equally significant.

56Leader of theGroupe des Socialistes Independants.

57Commemorating the Bloody Week of the Commune.

58Burned at the stake in the sixteenth century.

59Somecoopératives socialisteshave been established.

60Leader of theParti Ouvrier Français.

61Leader of theParti Ouvrier Socialiste Révolutionnaire.

62The illustration of the Place Maubert shows one of its humble latter-day distinctions. It is the market-place for theMégotiersof the Quarter, gatherers of cigar and cigarette stubs, who carry canes with which to rake up these tobacco remnants.

63Michelet.

64Jules Vallès.

65Whence the wordfrondeur(captious), currently applied to the students to this day.

66La Harpe, the autocrat of the literary world, appeared before his class one day in a red Phrygian cap, and devoted a portion of his lecture-hour to declaiming revolutionarychansons.

67It would be superfluous to name their present habitués, since they are as yet too young to be famous.

68The accompanying illustration is a portrait sketch of the son of Felix Gras in his favourite seat at one of these cabarets, above which some artist has scrawled his caricature.

69TheGrilleand theNoctambules, the best-knowncafé-concertsof theQuartier, are purely professional affairs. Their performers are not students, and students make up only a small part of their audiences.

70There were martyrs to conviction on both sides in the Dreyfus case, as there were under the last empire.

71More than once during the Dreyfus affair theQuartierseemed to be on the verge of an eruption; but the lying, contemptible manœuvres of Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards alike threw cold water on both its military and its anti-military enthusiasm.

72Haraucourt has recently been elevated to the position of librarian of one of the principal libraries of Paris.

73Jacques Le Lorrain has just died of consumption. A short time before his death he had the happiness of having his remarkable poetical playDon Quixoteperformed at theThéâtre Victor Hugo.

74TheSalonswere held in the Louvre at this period.

75Dècheandpurée(the latter akin to the Americanism “in the soup”) are Bohemian slang formisère.

76A law which commutes the penalty, but without expunging the condemnation from the record.

77Since these lines were written, word has come, alas! that Bibi is dead.

78TheCabaret du Père Lunette—on the edge of the Latin Quarter—and its near neighbour, theChâteau Rouge(also calledLa Guillotine), were notorious criminal resorts in the days, not so very remote, before the piercing of the rue Lagrange and the enlarging of the Place Maubert rendered innocuous one of the most dangerous corners of Paris. TheChâteau Rougewas recently demolished, and the Père Lunette ceased several years back to be anything but an insipid show-place for tourists. Neither has ever been an organic part of theQuartierlife.

79Practical joker seems to be the only possible translation of the wordfumiste, but it is a most inadequate one.

80The rue de Croissant is filled with newspaper offices.

81Se coucher à la belle étoileis to be without a lodging other than the pavement.

82Ma tante= the pawn-shop.

83A name given to the younger poets of the more eccentric schools.

84Discontinued with the discontinuance of its provocation, the fête of theBœuf Gras.

85Père la Pudeur, a name applied originally to the French Anthony Comstock, M. Bérenger.

86TheBal Gavarniand theBal Monnierheld at Montmartre in 1902 and 1904 respectively—as a tribute to the memory of two great French caricaturists—and the open-air Montmartre festivals,Le Couronnement de la Rosière Montmartroise(1903) andLe Mariage de la Rosière Montmartroise(1904), though similar in conception to the cavalcade of theVache Enragée, proved less effective from this particular point of view.

87Henry Mürger.

88Déménager à la cloche de boisis to move secretly without paying one’s rent.

89TheRat Morthas completely changed its character of late years. Only at thedéjeunerand the dinner hours is any hint of its former self obtainable.

90The slope from these boulevards to the rue de Lamartine and the rue St. Lazare (between the rue de Clichy and the rue de Rochechouart) is affiliated with Montmartre, and by a stretching of the point may be said to belong to it; but its population is too largely made up of bourgeois and the exploitingcocottesof theOlympia,Moulin Rouge,Casino de Paris, andFolies-Bergèresto admit of its being absolutely co-ordinated with the Butte.

91Calledlogementto distinguish it from theappartement, which is more pretentious. The kitchen of thelogementis provided with running water and gas; and the gas company is required by law to furnish the tenant who does not pay more than 500 francs a year rent a new gas range,gratis. Ateliers are relatively dearer, and the artist does not easily find an atelier in which he can live and work for less than 600 francs.

92Recently deceased.

93At Montmartre, as in all parts of Paris, hand-carts may be hired for a few sous an hour.

94Cyrano de Bergerac.

95A seaside resort.

96It is not a rare thing for a Montmartre organ to speak of a trip to the Grands-Boulevards or the Latin Quarter as “un départ vers les pays étrangers désignés sous le nom des Etats-Unis de Paris.”

97The wordhydropathewas absolutely without significance in this connection. It was hit upon by the merest chance, and welcomed because it suggested nothing that could mislead or occasion dispute.

98Salis died several years ago.

99One of these just beginning to be known, and hence sure soon to be spoiled, began with improvised tables made by placing boards upon wine-casks, and with other paraphernalia in keeping.

100Deceased.

101The French free-stage movement, which involved revolutionary thought as well as revolutionary form, was launched at Montmartre, and was identified with Montmartre through all its polemic period,—up to the moment, in fact, when it became Parisian, having gained its cause.

102Alexandre is about to leave Montmartre for the Grands-Boulevards.

103Maquereauis a type name for a criminal loafer who lives by the prostitution of his mistress.

104Biribiis the name given to the African battalion to which recalcitrant soldiers are assigned.

105Les Opinions de M. Jerôme Coignard.M. Coignard belongs to the eighteenth century.

106Since M. France wrote these words, the images of the Christ have been removed from the French courts.

107As evidence that M. Barrucand’s scheme for free bread deserves to be considered as something more than the Utopian ideal of a littérateur, it should be mentioned that the economist L. Auby advocated the same thing (winter of 1903-04) in as conservative an organ as theAnnales Parlementaires.

108Dubois-Dessaulle, while acting as a newspaper correspondent in Abyssinia in the spring of 1904, was assassinated by natives. He was a martyr to his conscientious belief that it is a crime to carry arms.

109J.-H. Rosny is the signature of the Rosny brothers, who have to be treated as one person in their relations to thought and literature.

110Several of the persons here named are also writers of fiction or poetry.

111Lately deceased.

112Lately deceased.

113This title may perhaps be paraphrased by the American colloquialism “Out of It.”

114Henri Fouquier, an older conservative journalist (recently deceased), of so much distinction that he was considered a possible Academician, published about this time an article in theXIXeSièclein which he ridiculed the blowing up of the house of the bourgeois as an act devoid of common sense, but declared comprehensible a desire to blow up the Chamber of Deputies, the Prefecture of Police, or the Palace of the President.

115“I surely have the right,” he said, “to quit the theatre when the piece becomes odious to me, and even to slam the doors behind me in going out, at the risk of troubling the tranquillity of those who are satisfied.”

116Author ofDémolissonsandDe Mazas à Jérusalem.

117On the occasion of this lecture Xavier Privas was assisted by an actor and an actress who recited appropriate poems and by thechansonnierTrimouillat. The hall was entirely without light except for a single lamp before the lecturer. In the accompanying illustration the standing figure is Trimouillat.

118A translation of this play has been successfully produced in America (1904) under the titleBusiness is Business.

119La Cageis well known, nevertheless, since it is given several private representations every season.

120Forbidden by the censorship, but a favourite at the amateur theatricals of the anarchistic groups.

121Under the ban of the censorship from 1891 to 1900.

122Forbidden by the censorship, but given a representation—by invitation—at which literary and artistic Paris was fully represented.

123Prohibited by the censorship at the time it was written. The prohibition was removed in the winter of 1904.

124No notice is taken here of Richepin as a writer of romances.

125Technically, “d’avoir commis une provocation directe au crime de meurtre, laquelle provocation, non suivie d’effet, avait pour but un acte de propagande anarchiste.”

126The court in detaching this violent passage from its philosophical and artistic setting made Tailhade’s offence appear much graver than it really was.

127“What I have had especially in view has been to serve the cause of progress, of knowledge; that is to say, the Revolution,” wrote the editor ofLe Décadent.

128The minor French poets are so little known in England and America that it would be superfluous to mention by name the members of these bizarre coteries.

129The Magiques,Romanistes, andMagnificistesare possible exceptions. But theMagiquespossessed at one time such an unquiet spirit as Paul Adam, and theMagnificistesoppose the tyranny of science and magnify “les êtres.” TheRomanistes, it is true, accept relatively regular poetic forms, but they attack the Christian church and admit the destruction of nationality. The union of the Latin peoples, which they advocate, they regard simply as an intermediate step preparatory to the union of the whole human race.

130Meunier, who is primarily a sculptor, is a Belgian; but his artistic career has been sufficiently identified with Paris to warrant his introduction here.

131Deceased.

132See Chapter XVI.

133Dagnan-Bouveret may have a religious purpose, but scarcely a humanitarian one.

134The French worddessinateuris currently applied to illustrators, freehand draughtsmen, and lithographic sketch artists; in fact, to all workers in black and white, and even to certain workers in colour for purposes of reproduction. It is used above because there seems to be no single English word equally inclusive. No hard-and-fast distinction is made here between thedessinateurswho are primarily caricaturists and those who are not.

135Willette, usually classed as a revolutionary socialist, is said by his intimates to have been a Bonapartist always at heart. However this may be, there is no necessary conflict between Bonapartism and the revolutionary ardour which Willette has displayed too often and too unequivocally to admit of any misunderstanding regarding his attitude towards the actual condition of things.

136M. Bérenger, familiarly known asPère-la-Pudeur, is an uncompromising censor of public morals.

137Steinlen is also a painter, but his works in this field, with the exception of certain fascinating studies of cats, are little known outside the circle of his friends, and are not equal to his drawings.

138Recently deceased.

139L’assiette au beurre= the plate of butter. To have anassiette au beurreis to belong to the wealthy; that is, to be able to eat butter on one’s bread (or as the French more often say) on one’s spinach.

140The artistic merit of theAssiette au Beurrehas sadly fallen off of late.

141Even these have made important concessions, as did Verdi in Italy.

142Produced at theGrand Opéra.

143Béranger.

144Compare the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel.

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