Chapter VI: The Novel of Style--Gautier, Mérimée, Gérard De Nerval, Musset, Vigny (4)

[210] He (it is some excuse for him that this suggested a better thing in certain _New Arabian Nights_) buys, furnishes, and subsequently deserts an empty house to give a ball in, and put his friends on no scent of his own abode; but he makes this "own abode" a sort of Crystal Palace in the centre of a whole ring-fence of streets, with the old fronts of the houses kept to avert suspicion of the Seraglio of Eastern beauties, the menagerie and beast fights, and the slaves whom (it is rather suggested than definitely stated) he occasionally murders. He performs circus-rider feats when he meets a lady (or at least a woman) in the Bois de Boulogne; he sets her house on fire when it occurs to him that she has received other lovers there; and we are given to understand that he blows up his own palace when he returns to the East. In fact, he is a pure anticipated cognition of a Ouidesque super-hero as parodied by Sir Francis Burnand (and independently by divers schoolboys and undergraduates) some fifty years ago.

[211] I have seen an admirable criticism of this "thing" in one word, "Cold!"

[212] On the cayenne-and-claret principle which Haydon (one hopes libellously, in point of degree) attributed to Keats. (It was probably a devilled-biscuit, and so quite allowable.)

[213] "Théo" has no repute as a psychologist; but I have known such repute attained by far less subtle touches than this.

[214] For more on them, with a pretty full abstract of _Le Capitaine Fracasse_, see the Essay more than once mentioned.

[215] _V. sup._ Vol. I. p. 279-286. Of course the duplication, _as literature_, is positively interesting and welcome.

[216] I--some fifty years since--knew a man who, with even greater juvenility, put pretty much the same doctrine in a Fellowship Essay. He did not obtain that Fellowship.

[217] It might possibly have been shortened with advantage in concentration of effect. But the story (pleasantly invented, if not true) of Gautier's mother locking him up in his room that he might not neglect his work (of the nature of which she was blissfully ignorant) nearly excuses him. A prisoner will naturally be copious rather than terse.

[218] It may amuse some readers to know that I saw the rather famous lithograph (of a lady and gentleman kissing each other at full speed on horseback), which owes its subject to the book, in no more romantic a place that a very small public-house in "Scarlet town," to which I had gone, not to quench my thirst or for any other licentious purpose, but to make an appointment with--a chimney-sweep.

[219] Some might even say he had too much.

[220] For reference to previous dealings of mine with Mérimée see _Preface_.

[221] It is sad, but necessary, to include M. Brunetière among the latter class.

[222] He was never a professor, but was an inspector; and, though I may be biassed, I think the inspector is usually the more "donnish" animal of the two.

[223] And perhaps in actual life, if not in literature, I should prefer a young woman who might possibly have me murdered if she discovered a blood-feud between my ancestors and hers, to one in whose company it would certainly be necessary to keep a very sharp look-out on my watch. The two risks are not equally "the game."

[224] Many a reader, I hope, has been reminded, by one or the other, or both, of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, which also contains the story: and has gone to it with the usual consequence of reading nothing else for some time.

[225] "Mérimée était gentilhomme: Sainte-Beuve ne l'était pas." I forget who said this, but it was certainly said, and I think it was true.

[226] This is not merely a waste of explosives. I have actually seen the story dismissed as a "merely faithful record of the facts" or something of the sort. One was at least obliged to the man for reminding one of Partridge on Garrick.

[227] A very "gentle" reader may perceive something _not_ quite explained, and I should be happy to allow it.

[228] And perhaps--though Mérimée does not allege this--by doing good to his neighbours likewise; for he rescues twelve companions of his own naughtiness from the infernal regions. The mixture of pagan and Christian eschatology, if not borrowed, is exceedingly well and suitably "found."

[229] He had at one time introduced a smirch of grime by which nothing was gained and a good deal lost--the abduction being not at once cut short, and the bear being suggested as the Count's actual sire (see Burton again). But he had the taste as well as the sense to cut this out. The management of the outsiders mentioned above contrasts remarkably in point of art with the similar things which, as noted (_v. sup._ pp. 93-4), do _not_ improve _Inès de las Sierras_.

[230] He blue-spectacled, she black-veiled.

[231] Uncarpeted and polished, French fashion, of course.

[232] Mérimée represents his Englishman (and an Englishman who can read Greek, too!) as satisfied with, and ordering a second bottle of, an extemporised "port" made of ratafia, "quinze sous" _ordinaire_, and brandy! This could deceive few Englishmen; and (till very recent years) absolutely no Englishman who could read Greek at a fairly advanced period of life. From most of the French Novelists of the time it would not surprise us; but from Mérimée, who was constantly visiting England and had numerous English friends, it is a little odd. It may have been done _lectoris gratia_ (but hardly _lectricis_), to suit what even the other novelists just mentioned occasionally speak of as the _Anglais de vaudeville_.

[233] I use this adverb from no trade-jealously: for I have made as many translations myself as I have ever wished to do, and have always been adequately paid for them. But there is no doubt that the competition of amateur translation too often, on the one hand, reduces fees to sweating point, and on the other affects the standard of competence rather disastrously. I once had to review a version of _Das Kalte Herz_, in which the wicked husband persecuted his wife with a "_pitcher_," _Peitsche_ being so translated by the light of nature, or the darkness of no dictionary.

[234] Professed renderings of Spanish plays which never existed. _La Guzla_--a companion volume with an audacious anagrammatising of "Gazul," etc., etc.--is a collection of pure ballads similarly attributed to a non-existent Slav poet, Hyacinthe Maglanovich. Both, in their influence on the Romantic movement, were only second to the work of actual English, German, and Spanish predecessors, and may rank with that of Nodier.

[235] Of the collection definitely called _Nouvelles_.

[236] I have left the shortest story in the volume, _Croisilles_, to a note. It has, I believe, been rather a favourite with some, but it seems to me that almost anybody could have written it, as far as anything but the mere writing goes. Nor shall I criticise _Mimi Pinson_ and other things at length. I cannot go so far as a late friend of mine, who maintained that you must always praise the work of a writer you like. But I think one has the option of silence--partial at any rate.

[237] If anybody pleads for Louis Bertrand of _Gaspard de la Nuit_ as a thirdsman, I should accept him gladly, though he is even farther from the novel-norm than Gérard himself. I once had the pleasure of bringing him to the knowledge of the late Lord Houghton, who, the next time I met him, ejaculated, "I've got him, and covered him all over with moons and stars as he deserves." I hope Lord Crewe has the copy. (For Baudelaire's still less novelish following of _Gaspard_, see below. As far as style goes, both would enter this chapter "by acclamation.")

[238] This has been already referred to above. After one of the abscondences or disappearances brought about by his madness, he was found dead--hanging to a balcony, or outside stair, or lamp-post, or what not, in one of those purlieus of Old Paris which were afterwards swept away, but which Hugo and Méryon have preserved for us in different forms of "black and white." Suicide, as always in such cases, is the orthodox word in this, and may be correct. But some of his friends were inclined to think that he had been the victim of pure murderous sport on the part of the gangs of _voyous_, ancestors of the later "apaches," who infested the capital.

[239] The quality will not be sought in vain by those who read Mr. Lang's own poems--there are several--on and from Gérard.

[240] "Perhaps not, my dear; perhaps not."

[241] What, I suppose, is the "standard" edition--that of the so-called _Oeuvres Complètes_--contains them all, but with some additions and more omissions to and from the earlier issues. And the individual pieces, especially _Sylvie_, which is to be more fully dealt with here than any other, are subjected to a good deal of rehandling.

[242] I may be taken to task for rendering _lisière_ "fringes," but the actual English equivalent "list" is not only ambiguous, not only too homely in its specific connotation, but wrong in rhythm. And "selvage," escaping the first and last objections, may be thought to incur the middle one. Moreover, while both words signify a well-defined edge, _lisière_ has a sense--special enough to be noted in dictionaries--of the looser-planted border of trees and shrubs which almost literally "fringes" a regular forest.

[243] _Angélique_, which used to head _Les Filles du Feu_, in front of _Sylvie_, but was afterwards cut away by the editors of the _Oeuvres Complètes_ for reasons given under the head of _Les Faux Saulniers_ (vol. iv. of that edition), is a specially Sternian piece, mixing up the chase for a rare book, and some other matters, with the adventures of a seventeenth-century ancestress of this book's author, who eloped with a servant, zigzagged as much as possible. It is quite good reading, but a little _mechanical_. Perhaps it is not too officious to remark that _Filles du Feu_ is to be interpreted here in the sense of our "_Faces_ in the fire."

[244] Gérard was a slightly older man than Théo, but they were, as they could not but be, close friends.

[245] Even those who care little for mere beauty of style--or who cannot stand the loss of it in translation--may find here a vivid picture, by a hand of the most qualified, of the mental condition which produced the masterpieces of 1825-1850. And the contrast with the "discouraged generation" which immediately followed is as striking.

[246] Especially, it may be, if one has heard Galuppi's own music played by a friend who is himself now dead.

[247] Some would make it a quintet with Leconte de Lisle, but I think "the King should consider of it" as to this. He is grand _sometimes_: but so are Père Le Moyne and others. It is hit or miss with them; the Four can make sure of it.

[248] It does, of course, deserve, and in this place specially should receive, the credit of being the first French historical novel of the modern kind which possessed great literary merit.

[249] Alexander, though he actually wrote histories of a kind, was far below Alfred in political judgment.

[250] _Vide infra_ on Dumas himself.

[251] About Plato and Homer, who are very welcome, and "Le Mensonge Social," which is, perhaps, a little less so.

[252] But see note 2 on next page.

[253] One wonders if the Black Doctor was so sure of this on his own death-bed?

[254] The first line of Gilbert's swan-song--the only song of his that is remembered. It sets Stello himself on the track which the "Black Doctor" has concealed up to the point. As the original rhythm could not be kept without altering the substance, I have substituted another--not so unconnected as it may seem.--By the way, Vigny has taken as much liberty with French dates in this story as with English facts in the Chatterton one. Gilbert died in 1780, and Louis XV. had passed from the arms of his last mistress, Scarlatina Maligna, six years before, to be actually made the subject of a funeral panegyric by the poet. In fact, the sufferings of the latter have been argued to be pure legend. But this of course affects _literature_ hardly at all; and Vigny had a perfect right to use the accepted version.

[255] Why should a "basket" be specially silly? The answer is that the original comparison was to a "panier _percé_," a basket which won't hold anything. But the phrase got shortened.

[256] He not only, in the face of generally known and public history, makes the man who was positively insolent to George III. a flunky of royalty, but assigns, as the immediate cause of the poet's suicide, the offer to him of a lucrative but menial office in the Mansion House! Now, if not history, biography tells us that Beckford's own death, and the consequent loss of hope from him, were at least among the causes, if not the sole cause, of the _subsequent_ catastrophe.

[257] He has contrived, with the help of the gaoler's daughter Rose, to suppress an earlier inclusion of Chénier's name in the tumbril-list; and thus might have saved him altogether, but for the father's insane reminder to Robespierre.

[258] But she had to go backwards through the circles between Thermidor and Brumaire, and can hardly be said to have "seen the stars" even then. Vigny has, as we shall see, touched on the less enormous and flagrant--but as individual things scarcely less atrocious--crimes of the Directory in the first story of his next book.

[259] There might of course have been spy-subordinates (cf. the case of D'Artagnan and Belleisle), with secret commissions to meet and render futile his disobedience; but nothing of the sort is even hinted.

[260] Vigny, with perfect probability, but whether with complete historical accuracy or not I do not know, represents this useless exposure as wanton bravado on Napoleon's part.

[261] There may perhaps have been some private reasons for his enthusiasm. At any rate it is pleasant to compare it with the offensive manner in which this "heroic sailor-soul" and admirably good man has sometimes been treated by the more pedantic kind of naval historian.