Chapter V (1)

The Boulevards in the forties -- The Chinese Baths -- A favourite
tobacconist of Alfred de Musset -- The price of cigars -- The
diligence still the usual mode of travelling -- Provincials in
Paris -- Parliamentary see-saw between M. Thiers and M. Guizot --
Amenities of editors -- An advocate of universal suffrage --
Distribution of gratuitous sausages to the working man on the
king's birthday -- The rendezvous of actors in search of an
engagement -- Frederick Lemaitre on the eve of appearing in a new
part -- The Legitimists begin to leave their seclusion and to
mingle with the bourgeoisie -- Alexandre Dumas and Scribe -- The
latter's fertility as a playwright -- The National Guards go
shooting, in uniform and in companies, on the Plaine Saint-Denis
-- Vidocq's private inquiry office in the Rue Vivienne -- No
river-side resorts -- The plaster elephant on the Place de la
Bastille -- The sentimental romances of Loisa Puget -- The songs
of the working classes -- Cheap bread and wine -- How they
enjoyed themselves on Sundays and holidays -- Theophile Gautier's
pony-carriage -- The hatred of the bourgeoisie -- Nestor
Roqueplan's expression of it -- Gavarni's -- M. Thiers' sister
keeps a restaurant at the corner of the Rue Drouot -- When he is
in power, the members of the Opposition go and dine there, and
publish facetious accounts of the entertainment -- All
appearances to the contrary, people like Guizot better than
Thiers -- But few entries for the race for wealth in those days
-- The Rothschilds still live in the Rue Lafitte -- Favourite
lounges -- The Boulevards, the Rue Le Peletier, and the Passage
de l'Opera -- The Opera -- The Rue Le Peletier and its
attractions -- The Restaurant of Paolo Broggi -- The Estaminet du
Divan -- Literary waiters and Boniface -- Major Fraser -- The
mystery surrounding his origin -- Another mysterious personage --
The Passage de l'Opera is invaded by the stockjobbers, and loses
its prestige as a promenade -- Bernard Latte's, the publisher of
Donizetti's operas, becomes deserted -- Tortoni's -- Louis-Blanc
-- His scruples as an editor -- A few words about duelling -- Two
tragic meetings -- Lola Montes -- Her adventurous career -- A
celebrated trial -- My first meeting with Gustave Flaubert, the
author of "Madame Bovary" and "Salambo" -- Emile de Girardin --
His opinion of duelling -- My decision with regard to it -- The
original of "La Dame aux Camelias" -- Her parentage -- Alexandre
Dumas gives the diagnosis of her character in connection with his
son's play -- L'Homme au Camellia -- M. Lautour-Mezerai, the
inventor of children's periodical literature in France -- Auguste
Lireux -- He takes the management of the Odeon -- Balzac again --
His schemes, his greed -- Lireux more fortunate with other
authors -- Anglophobia on the French stage -- Gallophobia on the
English stage.

Even in those days "the Boulevards" meant to most of us nothing more than the space between the present opera and the Rue Drouot. But the Credit Lyonnais and other palatial buildings which have been erected since were not as much as dreamt of; if I remember rightly, the site of that bank was occupied by two or three "Chinese Baths." I suppose the process of steaming and cleansing the human body was something analogous to that practised in our Turkish baths, but I am unable to say from experience, having never been inside, and, curious to relate, most of my familiars were in a similar state of ignorance. We rarely crossed to that side of the boulevard except to go and dine at the Cafe Anglais. At the corner of the Rue Lafitte, opposite the Maison d'Or, was our favourite tobacconist's, and the cigars we used to get there were vastly superior to those we get at present in Paris at five times the cost. The assistant who served us was a splendid creature. Alfred de Musset became so enamoured of her that at one time his familiars apprehended an "imprudence on his part." Of course, they were afraid he would marry her.

In those days most of our journeys in the interior of France had still to be made by the mails of Lafitte-Caillard, and the people these conveyances brought up from the provinces were almost as great objects of curiosity to us as we must have been to them. It was the third lustre of Louis-Philippe's reign. "God," according to the coinage, "protected France," and when the Almighty seemed somewhat tired of the task, Thiers and Guizot alternately stepped in to do the safeguarding. Parliament resounded with the eloquence of orators who are almost forgotten by now, except by students of history; M. de Genoude was clamouring for universal suffrage; M. de Cormenin, under the _nom de plume_ of "Timon," was the fashionable pamphleteer; the papers indulged in vituperation against one another, compared to which the amenities of the rival Eatanswill editors were compliments. Grocers and drapers objected to the participation of M. de Lamartine in the affairs of State. The _Figaro_ of those days went by the title of _Corsaire-Satan_, and, though extensively read, had the greatest difficulty in making both ends meet. In order to improve the lot of the working man, there was a gratuitous distribution of sausages once a year on the king's fete-day. The ordinary rendezvous of provincial and metropolitan actors out of an engagement was not at the Cafe de Suede on the Boulevard Montmartre, but under the trees at the Palais-Royal. Frederick Lemaitre went to confession and to mass every time he "created" a new role. The Legitimists consented to leave their aristocratic seclusion, and to breathe the same air with the bourgeoisie and proletarians of the Boulevard du Crime, to see him play. The Government altered the title of Sue and Goubeaux's drama "Les Pontons Anglais" into "Les Pontons," short, and made the authors change the scene from England to Spain. Alexandre Dumas chaffed Scribe, and flung his money right and left; while the other saved it, bought country estates, and produced as many as twenty plays a year (eight more than he had contracted for). The National Guards went in uniform and in companies to shoot hares and rabbits on the Plaine Saint-Denis, and swaggered about on the Boulevards, ogling the women. Vidocq kept a private inquiry office in the Passage Vivienne, and made more money by blackmailing or catching unfaithful husbands than by catching thieves. Bougival, Asnieres and Joinville-le-Pont had not become riparian resorts. The plaster elephant on the Place de la Bastille was crumbling to pieces. The sentimental romances of Madame Loisa Puget proved the delight of every bourgeoise family, while the chorus to every popular song was "Larifla, larifla, fla, fla, fla."

Best of all, from the working man's point of view, was the low price of bread and wine; the latter could be had at four sous the litre in the wine-shops. He, the working man, still made excursions with his wife and children to the Artesian well at Grenelle; and if stranded perchance in the Champs-Elysees, stood lost in admiration at the tiny carriage with ponies to match, driven by Theophile Gautier, who had left off wearing the crimson waistcoats wherewith in former days he hoped to annoy the bourgeois, though he ceased not to rail at him by word of mouth and with his pen. He was not singular in that respect. Among his set, the hatred of the bourgeois was ingrained; it found constant vent in small things. Nestor Roqueplan wore jackboots at home instead of slippers, because the latter chaussure was preferred by the shopkeeper. Gavarni published the most biting pictorial satires against him. Here is one. A dissipated-looking loafer is leaning against a lamp-post, contemptuously staring at the spruce, trim bourgeois out for his Sunday walk with his wife. The loafer is smoking a short clay pipe, and some of the fumes of the tobacco come between the wind and the bourgeois' respectability. "Voyou!" says the latter contemptuously. "Voyou tant que vous voulez, pas epicier," is the answer.

In those days, when M. Thiers happened to be in power, many members of the Opposition and their journalistic champions made it a point of organizing little gatherings to the table-d'hote kept by Mdlle. Thiers, the sister of the Prime Minister of France. Her establishment was at the entrance of the present Rue Drouot, and a signboard informed the passer-by to that effect. There was invariably an account of these little gatherings in next day's papers--of course, with comments. Thiers was known to be the most wretched shot that ever worried a gamekeeper, and yet he was very fond of blazing away. "We asked Mdlle. Thiers," wrote the commentators, "whether those delicious pheasants she gave us were of her illustrious brother's bagging. The lady shook her head. 'Non, monsieur; le President du Conseil n'a pas l'honneur de fournir mon etablissement; a quoi bon, je peux les acheter a meilleur marche que lui et au meme endroit. S'il m'en envoyait, il me ferait payer un benefice, parcequ'il ne fait jamais rien pour rien. C'est un peu le defaut de notre famille.'" I have got a notion that, mercurial as was M. Thiers up to the last hour of his life, and even more so at that period, and sedate as was M. Guizot, the French liked the latter better than the former.

M. Guizot had said, "Enrichissez vous," and was known to be poor; M. Thiers had scoffed at the advice, and was known to be hoarding while compelling his sister to earn her own living. It must be remembered that at the time the gangrene of greed had not entered the souls of all classes of Frenchmen so deeply as it has now, that the race for wealth had as yet comparatively few votaries, and that not every stockjobber and speculator aspired to emulate the vast financial transactions of the Rothschilds. The latter lived, in those days, in the Rue Lafitte, where they had three separate mansions, all of which since then have been thrown into one, and are at present exclusively devoted to business purposes. The Rue Lafitte was, however, a comparatively quiet street. The favourite lounges, in addition to the strip of Boulevards I have already mentioned, were the Rue Le Peletier and the galleries of the Passage de l'Opera. Both owed the preference over the other thoroughfares to the immediate vicinity of the Opera, which had its frontage in the last-named street, but was by no means striking or monumental. Its architect, Debret, had to run the gauntlet of every kind of satire for many a year after its erection; the bitterest and most scathing of all was that, perhaps, of a journalist, who wrote one day that, a provincial having asked him the way to the grand opera, he had been obliged to answer, "Turn down the street, and it is the first large gateway on your right."

But if the building itself was unimposing, the company gathered around its entrance consisted generally of half a dozen men whose names were then already household words in the musical world--Auber, Halevy, Rossini and Meyerbeer, St. Georges, Adam. Now and then, though rarely together, all of these names will frequently reappear in these notes. The chief attractions, though, of the Rue Le Peletier were the famous Italian restaurant of Paolo Broggi, patronized by a great many singers, the favourite haunt of Mario, in the beginning of his career, and l'Estaminet du Divan, which from being a very simple cafe indeed, developed into a kind of politico-literary club under the auspices of a number of budding men of letters, journalists, and the like, whose modest purses were not equal to the charges of the Cafe Riche and Tortoni, and who had gradually driven all more prosaic customers away. I believe I was one of the few habitues who had no literary aspirations, who did not cast longing looks to the inner portals of the offices of the _National_, the bigwigs of which--Armand Marrast, Baron Dornes, Gerard de Nerval, and others--sometimes made their appearance there, though their restaurant in ordinary was the Cafe Hardi. The Estaminet du Divan, however, pretended to a much more literary atmosphere than the magnificent establishment on the boulevard itself. It is a positive fact that the waiters in the former would ask, in the most respectful way imaginable, "Does monsieur want Sue's or Dumas' feuilleton with his cafe?" Not once but a dozen times I have heard the proprietor draw attention to a remarkable article. Major Fraser, though he never dined there, spent an hour or two daily in the Estaminet du Divan to read the papers. He was a great favourite with every one, though none of us knew anything about his antecedents. In spite of his English name, he was decidedly not English, though he spoke the language. He was one of the best-dressed men of the period, and by a well-dressed man I do not mean one like Sue. He generally wore a tight-fitting, short-skirted, blue frock coat, grey trousers, of a shape which since then we have defined as "pegtops," but the fashion of which was borrowed from the Cossacks. They are still worn by some French officers in cavalry regiments, notably crack cavalry regiments.

Major Fraser might have fitly borrowed Piron's epitaph for himself: "Je ne suis rien, pas meme Academicien." He was a bachelor. He never alluded to his parentage. He lived by himself, in an entresol at the corner of the Rue Lafitte and the Boulevard des Italiens. He was always flush of money, though the sources of his income were a mystery to every one. He certainly did not live by gambling, as has been suggested since; for those who knew him best did not remember having seen him touch a card.

I have always had an idea, though I can give no reason for it, that Major Fraser was the illegitimate son of some exalted personage, and that the solution of the mystery surrounding him might be found in the records of the scandals and intrigues at the courts of Charles IV. and Ferdinand VII. of Spain. The foreign "soldiers of fortune" who rose to high posts, though not to the highest like Richards and O'Reilly, were not all of Irish origin. But the man himself was so pleasant in his intercourse, so uniformly gentle and ready to oblige, that no one cared to lift a veil which he was so evidently anxious not to have disturbed. I only remember his getting out of temper once, namely, when Leon Gozlan, in a comedy of his, introduced a major who had three crosses. The first had been given to him because he had not one, the second because he had already one, and the third because all good things consist of three. Then Major Fraser sent his seconds to the playwright; the former effected a reconciliation, the more that Gozlan pledged his word that an allusion to the major was farthest from his thoughts. It afterwards leaked out that our irrepressible Alexandre Dumas had been the involuntary cause of all the mischief. One day, while he was talking to Gozlan, one of his secretaries came in and told him that a particular bugbear of his, and a great nonentity to boot, had got the Cross of the Legion of Honour.

"Grand Dieu," exclaimed Gozlan, "pourquoi lui a-t-on donne cette croix?"

"Vous ne savez pas?" said Alexandre, looking very wise, as if he had some important state secret to reveal.

"Assurement, je ne le sais pas," quoth Gozlan, "ni vous non plus."

"Ah, par exemple, moi, je le sais."

"He bien, dites alors."

"On lui a donne la croix parceque il n'en avait pas."

It was the most childish of all tricks, but Gozlan laughed at it, and, when he wrote his piece, remembered it. He amplified the very small joke, and, on the first night of his play, the house went into convulsions over it.

Major Fraser's kindness and gentleness extended to all men--except to professional politicians, and those, from the highest to the lowest, he detested and despised. He rarely spoke on the subject of politics, but when he did every one sat listening with the raptest attention; for he was a perfect mine of facts, which he marshalled with consummate ability in order to show that government by party was of all idiotic institutions the most idiotic. But his knowledge of political history was as nothing to his familiarity with the social institutions of every civilized country and of every period. Curiously enough, the whole of his library in his own apartment did not exceed two or three scores of volumes. His memory was something prodigious, and even men like Dumas and Balzac confessed themselves his inferiors in that respect. The mere mention of the most trifling subject sufficed to set it in motion, and the listeners were treated to a "magazine article worth fifty centimes la ligne au moins," as Dumas put it. But the major could never be induced to write one. Strange to say, he often used to hint that his was no mere book-knowledge. "Of course, it is perfectly ridiculous," he remarked with a strange smile, "but every now and again I feel as if all this did not come to me through reading, but from personal experience. At times I become almost convinced that I lived with Nero, that I knew Dante personally, and so forth."

When Major Fraser died, not a single letter was found in his apartment giving a clue to his antecedents. Merely a file of receipts, and a scrap of paper attached to one--the receipt of the funeral company for his grave, and expenses of his burial. The memorandum gave instructions to advertise his demise for a week in the _Journal des Debats_, the money for which would be found in the drawer of his dressing-table. His clothes and furniture were to be sold, and the proceeds to be given to the Paris poor. "I do not charge any one with this particular duty," the document went on; "I have so many friends, every one of whom will be ready to carry out my last wishes."

Another "mystery," though far less interesting than Major Fraser, was the Persian gentleman whom one met everywhere, at the Opera, at the Bois de Boulogne, at the concerts of the Conservatoire, etc. Though invariably polite and smiling, he never spoke to any one. For ten years, the occupant of the stall next to his at the Opera had never heard him utter a syllable. He always wore a long white silk petticoat, a splendidly embroidered coat over that, and a conical Astrakan cap. He was always alone; and though every one knew where he lived, in the Passage de l'Opera, no one had ever set foot in his apartment. As a matter of course, all sorts of legends were current about him. According to some, he had occupied a high position in his own country, from which he had voluntarily exiled himself, owing to his detestation of Eastern habits; according to others, he was simply a dealer in Indian shawls, who had made a fortune. A third group, the spiteful ones, maintained that he sold dates and pastilles, and that the reason why he did not speak was because he was dumb, though not deaf. He died during the Second Empire, very much respected in the neighbourhood, for he had been very charitable.

Towards the middle of the forties the Passage de l'Opera began to lose some of its prestige as a lounge. The outside stockjobbers, whom the police had driven from the Boulevards and the steps of Tortoni, migrated thither, and the galleries that had resounded with the sweet warblings--in a very low key--of the clients of Bernard Latte, the publisher of Donizetti's operas, were made hideous and unbearable with the jostling and bellowing of the money-spinners. Bernard Latte himself was at last compelled to migrate.

In the house the ground-floor of which was occupied by Tortoni, and which was far different in aspect from what it is now, lived Louis Blanc. Toward nine in the morning he came down for his cup of cafe au lait. It was the first cup of coffee of the day served in the establishment. I was never on terms of intimacy with Blanc, and least of all then, for I shared with Major Fraser a dislike to politic-mongers, and, rightly or wrongly, I have always considered the author of "L'Histoire de Dix Ans" as such. Though Louis Blanc was three or four and thirty then, he looked like a boy of seventeen--a fact not altogether owing to his diminutive stature, though he was one of the smallest men, if not the smallest man, I ever saw. Of course I mean a man not absolutely a dwarf. I have been assured, however, that he was a giant compared to Don Martinoz Garay, Duke of Altamira, and Marquis of Astorga, a Spanish statesman, who died about the early part of the twenties. These notes do not extend beyond the fall of the Commune, and it was only after that event that I met M. Blanc once or twice in his old haunts. Hence my few recollections of him had better be jotted down here. They are not important. The man, though but sixty, and apparently not in bad health, looked _desillusionne_. They were, no doubt, the most trying years to the Third Republic, but M. Blanc must have perceived well enough that, granting all the existing difficulties, the men at the head of affairs were not the Republicans of his dreams. He had, moreover, suffered severe losses; all his important documents, such as the correspondence between him and George Sand and Louis-Napoleon while the latter was at Ham, and other equally valuable matter, had been destroyed at the fire of the Northern Goods Station at La Villette, a fire kindled by the Communists. He was dressed almost in the fashion of the forties, a wide-skirted, long, brown frock coat, a shirt innocent of starch, and a broad-brimmed hat. A few years later, he founded a paper, _L'Homme-Libre_, the offices of which were in the Rue Grange-Bateliere. The concern was financed by a Polish gentleman. Blanc gave his readers to understand that he would speak out plainly about persons and things, whether past or present; that he would advance nothing except on documentary proofs; but that, whether he did or not, he would not be badgered into giving or accepting challenges in defence of his writings. "I am, first of all, too old," he said; "but if I were young again, I should not repeat my folly of '47, when I wanted to fight with Eugene Pelletan on account of a woman whose virtue, provided she had any, could make no difference to either of us. It does not matter to me that we were not the only preux chevaliers of that period, ready to do battle for or against the charms of a woman whose remains had crumbled to dust by then."[14]

[Footnote 14: M. Eugene Pelletan, the father of M. Camille
Pelletan, the editor of _La Justice_, and first lieutenant to
M. Clemenceau, having severely criticized some passages in M.
Blanc's "Histoire de la Revolution," relating to
Marie-Antoinette, the author quoted a passage of Madame
Campan's "Memoires" in support of his writings. The critic
refused to admit the conclusiveness of the proof, whereupon M.
Blanc appealed to the Societe des Gens de Lettres, which, on
the summing up of M. Taxile Delord, gave a verdict in his
favour. M. Pelletan declined to submit to the verdict, as he
had refused to admit the jurisdiction, of the tribunal. M.
Blanc, who had at first scouted all idea of a duel, considered
himself obliged to resort to this means of obtaining
satisfaction, seeing that M. Pelletan stoutly maintained his
opinion. A meeting had been arranged when the Revolution of '48
broke out. The opponents having both gone to the
Hotel-de-Ville, met by accident at the entrance, and fell into
one another's arms. "Thank Heaven!" exclaimed Thiers, when he
heard of it. "If Pelletan had killed Blanc, I should have been
the smallest man in France."

M. Blanc's allusion to other "preux chevaliers" aimed
particularly at M. Cousin, who, having become a minister
against his will, resumed with a sigh of relief his studies
under the Second Empire. He was especially fond of the
seventeenth century, and all at once he, who had scarcely ever
noticed a pretty woman, became violently smitten with the
Duchesse de Longueville, who had been in her grave for nearly
two centuries. He positively invested her with every
perfection, moral and mental; unfortunately, he could not
invest her with a shapely bust, the evidence being too
overwhelmingly against her having been adorned that way. One
day some one showed him a portrait of the sister of the "grand
Conde," in which she was amply provided with the charms the
absence of which M. Cousin regretted. He wrote a special
chapter on the subject, and was well-nigh challenging all his
contradictors.--EDITOR.]

M. Blanc's boast that he would advance nothing except on proof positive was not an idle one, as his contributors found out to their cost. Every afternoon, at three, he arrived at the office to read the paper in proof from the first line to the last. Not the slightest inaccuracy was allowed to pass. Kind as he was, his reporters' lives became a burden. One of the latter told me a story which, though it illustrates the ridiculousness of M. Blanc's scruples when carried too far, is none the less valuable. A dog had been run over on the Boulevards, and the reporter, with a hankering after the realistic method, had endeavored to reproduce onomatopoeically the sounds uttered by the animal in pain.

"Are you quite sure, monsieur, about your sounds?" asked Blanc.

"Of course, I am as sure as a non-scientific man can be," was the answer.

"Then strike them out; one ought to be scientifically sure. By-the-by, I see you have made use of the word 'howl' (_hurler_). Unless I am mistaken, a dog when in pain yelps (_glapit_). Please alter it."

On another occasion, on going through the advertisements, he found a new one relating to a cough mixture, setting forth its virtues in the most glowing terms. Immediately the advertisement canvasser was sent for, M. Blanc having refused to farm out that department to an agency, as is frequently done in Paris, in order to retain the absolute control over it.

"Monsieur, I see that you have a new advertisement, and it seems to me a profitable one; still, before inserting it, I should like to be certain that the medicine does all it professes to do. Can you personally vouch for its efficiency?"

"Mon Dieu, monsieur, I believe it does all it professes to do, but you can scarcely expect me to run the risk of bronchitis in order to test it upon myself!"

"Heaven forbid that I should be so exacting and indifferent to other people's health, but until you can bring me some one who has been cured, we will not insert it."

Let me come back for a moment to that sentence of Louis Blanc, about the practice of duelling, in connection with one of the most tragic affairs of that kind within my recollection. I am alluding to the Dujarrier-Beauvallon duel. I have been in the habit for years, whenever an important meeting took place in France, to read every shade of English opinion on the subject; and while recognizing the elevated sentiments of the writers, I have no hesitation in saying that not a single one knew what he was writing about. They could not grasp the fact that for a man of social standing to refuse a challenge or to refrain from sending one, save under very exceptional circumstances, was tantamount to courting social death. They knew not that every door would henceforth be closed against him; that his wife's best friends would cease to call upon her, by direction of their husbands; that his children at school would be shunned by their comrades; that no young man of equal position to his, were he ever so much in love with his daughter, would ask her to become his wife, that no parents would allow their daughter to marry his son. That is what backing out of a duel meant years ago; that is what it still means to-day--of course, I repeat, with certain classes. Is it surprising, then, that with such a prospect facing him, a man should risk death rather than become a pariah? Would the English leader-writer, if he be a man of worth, like to enter his club-room without a hand held out to welcome him from those with whom he was but a few weeks ago on the most friendly footing, without a voice to give him the time of day? I think not; and that is what would happen if he were a Frenchman who neglected to ask satisfaction for even an imaginary insult.

I knew M. Dujarrier, the general manager of _La Presse_, and feel convinced that he was not a bit more quarrelsome or eager "to go out" than Louis Blanc. It is, moreover, certain that he felt his inferiority, both as a swordsman and as a marksman, to such a practised shot and fencer as M. de Beauvallon; and well he might, seeing that subsequent evidence proved that he, Dujarrier, had never handled either weapon. Yet he not only strenuously opposed all attempts on the part of his friends to effect a reconciliation, but would not afford a hint to his adversary of his want of skill, lest the latter should make him a present of his life. The present would not have been worth accepting. It would have been a Nessus-shirt, and caused the moral death of the recipient. Consequently, Dujarrier literally went like a lamb to the slaughter rather than be branded as a coward, and he made no secret of his contemplated sacrifice. "I have no alternative but to fight," he said, two days before the meeting, to Alexandre Dumas, who taxed all his own ingenuity, and that of his son, to prevent, at any rate, a fatal issue. The only way to effect this, according to the very logical reasoning of the two Dumases, was to induce Dujarrier, who, as the offended party, had the choice of weapons, to choose the sword. They counted upon the generosity of Beauvallon, who, as a gentleman, on discovering his adversary's utter lack of skill, would disarm, or inflict a slight wound on him. Unfortunately, young Dumas, with the best intentions, unburthened himself to that effect among those most interested in the affair, namely, the staffs of _La Presse_ and _Le Globe_. These two journals were literally at daggers drawn, and some writers connected with the latter went hinting, if not saying openly, that Dujarrier was already showing the white feather. Whether Dujarrier heard of the comments in that shape, or whether he instinctively guessed what they would be, has never been clearly made out, but it is certain that from that moment he insisted upon the use of pistols. "I do not intend my adversary to show me the slightest favour, either by disarming me or by wounding me in the arm or leg. I mean to have a serious encounter," he said. Young Dumas, frightened perhaps at his want of reticence in the matter, begged his father to go and see Grisier,[15] and claim his intervention. Alexandre Dumas, than whom no stauncher friend ever existed who would have willingly risked his own life to save that of Dujarrier, had to decline the mission suggested by his son. "I cannot do it," he said; "the first and foremost thing is to safeguard Dujarrier's reputation, which is the more precious because it is his first duel."

[Footnote 15: The great fencing-master, whom Dumas immortalized
in his "Maitre d'Armes."--EDITOR.]

"His first duel,"--here is the key-note to the whole of the proceedings as far as Dujarrier and his personal friends were concerned. Had Dujarrier been in the position of the editor of his paper, Emile de Girardin,--had he been out before and killed or severely wounded his man, as the latter killed Armand Carrel nine years before,--he might have openly announced his determination "never to go out again" under no matter what provocation. Unfortunately, Dujarrier was not in that position; in fact, it is no exaggeration to say that Dujarrier paid the penalty of M. de Girardin's decision. A great deal of mawkish sentiment has been wasted upon the tragic fate of Armand Carrel; in reality, he had what he deserved, albeit that no one more than M. de Girardin himself regretted his untimely end. Most writers will tell one that Carrel fell a victim to his political opinions; nothing is farther from the truth. Armand Carrel fell a victim to a "question of shop" of which he allowed himself, though perhaps not deliberately, to become the champion. After many attempts, more or less successful, in the way of popular journalism, M. de Girardin, in 1836, started _La Presse_, a serious journal of the same size as the then existing ones, but at half the subscription of the latter, all of which absolutely banded at once against him. Armand Carrel, who was a soldier, and a valiant soldier, a writer of talent, and a gentleman to boot, ought to have stood aloof from that kind of polemics. Emile de Girardin was not the likely man to submit to open or implied insult. His best, albeit his least-known book, "Emile," which is as it were an autobiography, had given the measure of his thoughts on the subject of duelling. "Emile" goes into society as a soldier would go into an enemy's country. Not that he is by nature cruel or bloodthirsty, but he knows that, to hold his own, he must be always ready, not only for defence, but for attack.

"The secret one is bound to preserve with regard to the preparations for a meeting, and those preparations themselves are simply horrible. The care, the precautions to be taken, the secret which is not to leak out, all these are very like the preparations for a crime," he says. "Nevertheless," he goes on, "the horror of all this disappears, when the man, impelled by hatred or resentment, is thirsting for revenge; but when the heart is absolutely without gall, and when the imagination is still subject to all the softer emotions, then, in order not to recoil with fear at the ever horrible idea of a duel, a man must be imbued with all the force of a prejudice which resists the very laws that condemn it."

It was under the latter circumstances that M. de Girardin confronted his adversary. The two men had probably never exchanged a word with one another, they felt no personal animosity; nay, more, the duel was not an _inevitable_ one; and yet it cost one man his life, and burthened the other with lifelong regrets.

Had the issue been different, _La Presse_ would probably have disappeared, and all recrimination ceased. As it was, unable to goad M. de Girardin into a reversal of his decision "never to go out again," and that in spite of nine years of direct insult from a so-called political party, of every kind of quasi-legal vexation, M. de Beauvallon constituted himself a second Armand Carrel, selecting Dujarrier as his victim, the chief not being available. But here all resemblance to Armand Carrel ceased, and the law itself was anxious to mark the difference. In the one case it had been set at nought by two men of undoubted courage and undoubted honour, meeting upon equal terms; in the other, it was proved that, not content with Dujarrier's well-known inferiority, De Beauvallon's pistols had been tried before the encounter. The court could take no cognizance of this, but it marked its disapproval by sentencing Beauvallon to eight years', and one of his seconds, M. d'Ecquevilley, to ten years' imprisonment for perjury. Both had declared on oath that the pistols had not been tried. The Dujarrier duel caused a deep and painful sensation. I have dwelt upon it at greater length than was absolutely necessary, because it inspired me with a resolution from which I have never departed since. I was twenty-seven at the time, and, owing to circumstances which I need not relate here, foresaw that the greater part of my life would be spent in France. I am neither more courageous nor more cowardly than most persons, but I objected to be shot down like a mad dog on the most futile pretext because some one happened to have a grudge against me. To have declined "to go out" on the score of my nationality would not have met the case in the conditions in which I was living, so from that moment I became an assiduous client at Gosset's shooting-gallery, and took fencing lessons of Grisier. I do not know that I became very formidable with either weapon, only sufficiently skilled not to be altogether defenceless. I took care at the same time to let it go forth that a duel to me not only meant one or both parties so severely wounded as not to be able to continue the struggle, but the resumption of the combat, when he or they had recovered, until one was killed. Of course, it implied that I would only go out for a sufficiently weighty reason, but that, if compelled to do so for a trifling one, I would still adhere to my original resolution. Only once, more than twelve years afterwards, I had a quarrel fastened upon me, arising out of the excitement consequent upon the attempt of Orsini. I was the offended party, and, as such, could dictate the conditions of the meeting. I declined to modify in the least the rules I had laid down for my own guidance, and stated as much to those who were to act for me--General Fleury and Alexandre Dumas. My adversary's friends refused to accept the terms. I was never molested afterwards, though an Englishman had not always a pleasant life of it, even under the Second Empire.

In connection with Dujarrier's duel, I may say a few words here of that quasi-wonderful woman, Lola Montes. I say "quasi," because really there was nothing wonderful about her, except perhaps her beauty and her consummate impudence. She had not a scrap of talent of any kind; education she had none, for, whether she spoke in English, French, or Spanish, grammatical errors abounded, and her expressions were always those of a pretentious housemaid, unless they were those of an excited fishwife. She told me that she had been at a boarding-school in Bath, and that she was a native of Limerick, but that when quite a child she was taken to Seville by her parents. Her father, according to her account, was a Spaniard, her mother a Creole. "But I scandalized every one at school, and would not learn." I could quite believe that; what I could not believe was that a girl of her quick powers--for she undoubtedly possessed those--could have spent, however short a time in the society of decent girls of her own age, let alone of presumedly refined school-mistresses, without having acquired some elementary notions of manner and address. Her gait and carriage were those of a duchess, for she was naturally graceful, but the moment she opened her lips, the illusion vanished--at least to me; for I am bound to admit that men of far higher intellectual attainments than mine, and familiar with very good society, raved and kept raving about her, though all those defects could not have failed to strike them as they had struck me. I take it that it must have been her beauty, for, though not devoid of wit, her wit was that of the pot-house, which would not have been tolerated in the smoking-room of a club in the small hours.

When Dujarrier was carried home dying to the Rue Lafitte, a woman flung herself on the body and covered his face with kisses. That woman was Lola Montes. In his will he left her eighteen shares in the Palais-Royal Theatre, amounting in value to about 20,000 francs. She insisted afterwards in appearing as a witness at the trial in Rouen, although her evidence threw not the slightest light upon the matter. She wanted to create a sensation; and she accomplished her aim. I was there, and though the court was crowded with men occupying the foremost ranks in literature, art, and Paris society, no one attracted the attention she did. Even the sober president and assessors sat staring at her open-mouthed when she took her stand behind the little rail which does duty for a witness-box in France. She was dressed in mourning--not the deepest, but soft masses of silk and lace--and when she lifted her veil and took off her glove to take the prescribed oath, a murmur of admiration ran through the court. That is why she had undertaken the journey to Rouen, and verily she had her reward.

It was on that occasion that I became acquainted, though quite by accident, with the young man who, ten or eleven years later, was to leap into fame all of a sudden with one novel. I have already said that the court was very crowded, and next to me was standing a tall, strapping fellow, somewhat younger than myself, whom, at the first glance, one would have taken to be an English country gentleman or well-to-do farmer's son. Such mistakes are easily made in Normandy. When Lola Montes came forward to give her evidence, some one on the other side of him remarked that she looked like the heroine of a novel.

"Yes," he replied; "but the heroines of the real novels enacted in everyday life do not always look like that."

Then he turned to me, having seen me speak to several people from Paris and in company of Alexandre Dumas and Berryer, whom everybody knew. He asked me some particulars about Lola Montes, which I gave him. I found him exceedingly well-informed. We chatted for a while. When he left he handed me his card, and hoped that we should see one another again. The card bore the simple superscription of "Gustave Flaubert." I was told during the evening that he was the son of a local physician of note. Twelve years later the whole of France rang with his name. He had written "Madame Bovary," and laid the foundation of what subsequently became the ultra-realistic school of French fiction.

To return for a moment to Lola Montes. The trial was really the starting-point of her notoriety, for, in spite of her beauty, she had been at one time reduced to sing in the streets in Brussels. That was after she had fled from Calcutta, whither her first husband, a captain or lieutenant James, in the service of the East India Company, had taken her. She landed at Southampton, and, during her journey to London, managed to ingratiate herself with an English nobleman, by pretending that she was the wife a Spanish soldier who had been shot by the Carlists. She told me all this herself, because she was not in the least reticent about her scheming, especially after her scheming had failed. She would, however, not divulge the name of her travelling companion, who tried to befriend her by introducing her to some of his acquaintances, with the view of obtaining singing lessons for her. "But I did not make my expenses, because you English are so very moral and my patron was suspected of not giving himself all that trouble for nothing. Besides, they managed to ferret out that I was not the widow of a Spanish officer, but the wife of an English one; and then, as you may imagine, it was all up. I got, however, an engagement at the Opera House in the ballet, but not for long; of course, I could not dance much, but I could dance as well as half your wooden ugly women that were there. But they told tales about me, and the manager dismissed me."[16]

[Footnote 16: The English nobleman must have been Lord
Malmesbury, who alludes to her as follows: "This was a most
remarkable woman, and may be said by her conduct at Munich to
have set fire to the magazine of revolution, which was ready to
burst forth all over Europe, and which made the year 1848
memorable. I made her acquaintance by accident, as I was going
up to London from Heron Court, in the railway. The Consul at
Southampton asked me to take charge of a Spanish lady who had
been recommended to his care, and who had just landed. I
consented to do this, and was introduced by him to a remarkably
handsome person, who was in deep mourning, and who appeared to
be in great distress. As we were alone in the carriage, she, of
her own accord, informed me, in bad English, that she was the
widow of Don Diego Leon, who had lately been shot by the
Carlists after he was taken prisoner, and that she was going to
London to sell some Spanish property that she possessed, and
give lessons in singing, as she was very poor. On arriving in
London she took some lodgings, and came to my house to a little
concert which I gave, and sang some Spanish ballads. Her accent
was foreign, and she had all the appearance of being what she
pretended to be. She sold different things, such as veils,
etc., to the party present, and received a good deal of
patronage. Eventually she took an engagement for the ballet at
the Opera House, but her dancing was very inferior. At last she
was recognized as an impostor, her real name being Mrs. James,
and Irish by extraction, and had married an officer in India.
Her engagement at the Opera was cancelled, she left the
country, and retired to Munich. She was a very violent woman,
and actually struck one of the Bavarian generals as he was
reviewing the troops. The king became perfectly infatuated with
her beauty and cleverness, and gave her large sums of money,
with a title, which she afterwards bore when she returned to
England." ("Memoirs of an Ex-minister," by the Earl of
Malmesbury.)

Lord Malmesbury is wrong in nearly every particular which he
has got from hearsay. Lola Montes did not retire to Munich
after her engagement at the Opera House had been cancelled, but
to Brussels, and from there to Warsaw. Nor did she play the
all-important part in the Bavarian riots or revolution he
ascribes to her. The author of these notes has most of the
particulars of Lola Montes' career previous to her appearance
in Munich from her own lips, and, as he has already said, she
was not in the least reticent about her scheming, especially
when her scheming had failed. For the story of the events at
Munich, I gather inferentially from his notes that he is
indebted to Karl von Abel, King Ludwig's ultramontane minister,
who came afterwards to Paris, and who, if I mistake not, was
the father or the uncle of Herr von Abel, the Berlin
correspondent of the _Times_, some fourteen or fifteen years
ago.--EDITOR.]

She fostered no illusions with regard to her choregraphic talents; in fact, she fostered no illusions about anything, and her candour was the best trait in her character. She had failed as a dancer in Warsaw, whither she had gone from London, by way of Brussels. In the Belgian capital, according to her own story, she had been obliged to sing in the streets to keep from starvation. I asked her why she had not come from London to Paris, "where for a woman of her attractions, and not hampered by many scruples," as I pointed out to her, "there were many more resources than elsewhere." The answer was so characteristic of the daring adventuress, who, notwithstanding her impecuniosity, flew at the highest game to be had, that I transcribe it in full. I am often reluctant to trust to my memory: in this instance I may; I remember every word of it. This almost illiterate schemer, who probably had not the remotest notion of geography, of history, had pretty well "the Almanach de Gotha" by heart, and seemed to guess instinctively at things which said Almanach carefully abstained from mentioning, namely, the good understanding or the reverse between the married royal couples of Europe, etc.

"Why did I not come to Paris!" she replied. "What was the good of coming to Paris where there was a king, bourgeois to his finger-nails, tight-fisted besides, and notoriously the most moral and best father all the world over; with princes who were nearly as much married as their dad, and with those who were single far away? What was the good of coming to a town where you could not bear the title of 'la maitresse du prince' without the risk of being taken to the frontier between two gendarmes, where you could not have squeezed a thousand louis out of any of the royal sons for the life of you? What was the good of trying to get a count, where the wife of a grocer or a shoemaker might have objected to your presence at a ball, on the ground of your being an immoral person? No, I really meant to make my way to the Hague. I had heard that William II. whacked his wife like any drunken labourer, so that his sons had to interfere every now and then. I had heard this in Calcutta, and from folk who were likely to know. But as I thought that I might have the succession of the whacks, as well as of the lord, I wanted to try my chance at Brussels first; besides, I hadn't much money."

"But King Leopold is married, and lives very happily with his wife," I interrupted.

"Of course he does--they all do," was the answer; "mais ca n'empeche pas les sentiments, does it?" I am very ignorant, and haven't a bit of memory, but I once heard a story about a Danish or Swedish king--I do not know the difference--who married an adventuress like myself, though the queen and the mother of his heir was alive. He committed bigamy, but kings and queens may do things we mayn't. One day, he and his lawful wife were at one of their country seats, and, leaning out of the window, when a carriage passed with a good-looking woman in it, 'Who is this lady?' asked the queen. 'That's my wife,' replied the king. 'Your wife! what am I, then?' said the queen. 'You? well, you are my queen.'[17]

[Footnote 17: Lola Montes was perfectly correct. It was
Frederick IV. of Denmark, only the woman was not an adventuress
like herself, but the Countess Reventlow, whom he had
abducted.--EDITOR.]

"Never mind, whatever my intentions on Leopold's money or affections may have been, they came to nothing; for before I could get as much as a peep at him, my money had all been spent, and I was obliged to part with my clothes first, and then to sing in the streets to get food. I was taken from Brussels to Warsaw by a man whom I believe to be a German. He spoke many languages, but he was not very well off himself. However, he was very kind, and, when we got to Warsaw, managed to get me an engagement at the Opera. After two or three days, the director told me that I couldn't dance a bit. I stared him full in the face, and asked him whether he thought that, if I could dance, I would have come to such a hole as his theatre. Thereupon he laughed, and said I was a clever girl for all that, and that he would keep me on for ornament. I didn't give him the chance for long. I left after about two months, with a Polish gentleman, who brought me to Paris. The moment I get a nice round lump sum of money, I am going to carry out my original plan; that is, trying to hook a prince. I am sick of being told that I can't dance. They told me so in London, they told me in Warsaw, they told me at the Porte Saint-Martin where they hissed me. I don't think the men, if left to themselves, would hiss me; their wives and their daughters put them up to it: a woman like myself spoils their trade of honest women. I am only waiting my chance here; for though you are all very nice and generous and all that kind of thing, it is not what I want."