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BY THE SAME WRITER

POEMS

(Collected Edition in

Two

Volumes),

1902.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF BROWNING

1SS6, 1006.

AUBREY BEARDSLEY.

1S98, 1905,

THE SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE.

PLAYS, ACTING,
CITIES.

AND

MUSIC.

1899,

1903.

1903.

STUDIES IN PROSE AND VERSE,

SPIRITUAL ADVENTURES.

1904,

1905.

THE FOOL OF THE WORLD AND OTHER POEMS.

1900,

STUDIES IN SEVEN ARTS.

WILLIAM BLAKE.
CITIES OF ITALY.

1906.

1907.

1907.

THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT

IN ENGLISH POETRY.

1909.

FIGURES OF SEVERAL CENTURIES.

CITIES

1916.

AND SEA-C0AST8 AND ISLANDS.

1918,

COLOUR STUDIES

IN PARIS

1-1-

stjSphane

By

J.

-r

mallarm^

McN. Whistler.
[Frmitispiece.

COLOUR STUDIES
IN PARIS

ARTHUR SYMONS

LONDON

CHAPMAN AND HALL,

1918

Ltd.

SS'

TO ISEULT GONNE
There is a iveary, salt, and hitter thing
That eats my heart. I know not what it

is.

Tristan and Iseult: Act Two.

CONTENTS
PAEIS

......

PA as

THE GINGERBREAD FAIR AT VINCENNES

MONTMARTRE AND THE LATIN QUARTER

23

AND IDEAS

39

THE POET OF THE BATS

49

SONGS OF THE STREETS

59

A BOOK OF FRENCH VERSES

67

AT THE AJVIBASSADEURS

77

YVETTE GUILBERT

79

PARIS

LA MELINITE

MOULIN-ROUGE

DANCERS AND DANCING

LEON BLOY

93

THE THANKLESS BEGGAR

VICTOR HUGO AND WORDS

91

105

115

A TRAGIC COMEDY

127

PETRUS BOREL

135

....

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
STKPIIANE MALLARMl^, BY WHISTLER

Frontispiece

HAVEAi>
)r\s, AND
DE GOURMOXT, ARTHUR SYMOXS,
LOCK ELLIS

I?E?.rY

ARISTIDE BKUANT

COVER OF

'

LE MIRLITOX

'

YVETTE GUILBERT
YVETTE GUILBERT (cARICATURE)
FACSIMILE MS.

'

LA MI^IJXITE

'

GEORGE SAXD
PETRUS BOREL (mEDALLIOX)

PAUL VERLAIXE
FACSIMILE MS. STEPHANE MALLARME
FACSIMILE MS. PAUL VERLAIXE

COLOUR STUDIES IN PARIS

: !!

PARIS
My

Paris is a land where twilight days

Merge into violent nights of black and gold ;
Where, it may be, the flower of dawn is cold
Ah, but the gold nights, and the scented ways

Eyelids of women, little curls of hair,

A little nose curved softly, like a shell,
A red mouth like a wound, a mocking veil
Phantoms, before the dawn, how phantom-fair

And

every

Or with

woman

with beseeching eyes,

enticing eyes, or amorous.

Offers herself, a rose,

rose's place

1894.

and craves of us

among our memories.

THE GINGERBREAD FAIR AT

VINCENNES

The tram

rolls

shme, on the

way

heavily through the

to Vmcennes.

sun-

The sun

glow of a furnace
we are in the second week of May, and the
hour is between one and two in the afternoon.
beats on one's head like the

From

the Place Voltaire,

all

along the dingy

boulevard, there are signs of the

little

stalls,

fair

first,

with the refuse of ironmonger

and pastry-cook, then

little

booths,

then a

few roundabouts, the wooden horses standing

motionless.
At the Place de la Nation we
have

reached the

fair

Already the

itself.

roundabouts swarm in gorgeous

shooting-galleries

with

lofty

Metropolitan, Tir de Lutece

inactivity

names

Tir

lead on to the

establishments of cochonnerie, the gingerbread

pigs,

which have given

its

name

to the Foire

COLOUR STUDIES

au pain

depice.

each with

pillars,

IN PARIS

From between
its airy statue, we

can look

and

alleys of

right on, through lanes of stalls

the

two

dusty trees, to the railway bridge which crosses

the other end of the Cours de Vincennes, just
before

it

subsides into the desolate Boulevard

Soult and the impoverished grass of the ram-

Hardly anyone passes

parts.
is

up

late, sleeps till three.

along, watching the

women

behind

the

fair,

which

I saunter slowly

drowsy attitudes of the

their

stalls,

the

men who

Only the photoand as you pause a

lounge beside their booths.

grapher

is

moment

in activity,

to note his collection of grimacing

and lachrymose likenesses (probably very like),

a framed horror is thrust into your hand,
and a voice insinuates Six pour im sou,
:

Monsieu?'

To

stroll

through the

fair just

now

is

to

have a sort of " Private View."

disguises has not yet begun.

The hour of
The heavy girl

who, in an hour's time, will pose in rosy tights

and cerulean tunic on those trestles yonder in

on the ladder-staircase
of her " jivin wardo," her " living waggon," as
the gipsies call it, diligently mending, with the

front of the theatre,

sits

GINGERBREAD FAIR AT VINCENNES

help of scissors and thread, a piece of canvas

which

soon to be a castle or a lake.

is

tamer in

his shirt-sleeves

is

lion-

chatting with the

proprietress of a collection of waxworks.

fairy

queen

is

washing

And

gi'eat tub.

to lounge in the

last

week's tights in a

booths and

same

theatres

With

deshabille.

seem
their

vacant platforms, their closed doors, their too

visible masterpieces of coloured canvas,

stand, ugly

they

and dusty, every crack and patch

exposed by the

downpour of the sunlight.

Here is the show of Pezon, the old liontamer, who is now assisted by his son oppopitiless

site, his rival

and constant neighbour, Bidel.

The Grand Theatre Cocherie announces

grand feerie in three acts and twenty

bleaux.

concert

international succeeds

very dismal-looking Temple de

is

Theatre Macketti

the

Here
Grande

artistique at

premiere fois a Paiis) has for companion

Juliano

Laurent^ inimitable dompteur {pour

one sou.

is

ta-

la Gaiete.

here the

Musee Vivant ; here a Galerie

la

its

et

sesfauvcs: Fosse aua Lions.

There

a very large picture of a Soudanese giant

il

est

hauteur

ici,

le

geant Soudanais

2m. 20 de

outside a very small tent

the giant.

COLOUR STUDIES

IN PARIS

very black in the face, and very red as to his

habihments, holds a

palm of

his

little

black infant in the

hand, and by his

side,

carefully

avoiding (by a delicacy of the painter) a too

direct inspection, stands a

who

gendarme,

ex-

tends five fingers in a gesture of astonishment,

somewhat out of keeping with the

flourish side

in

which the

by

perfect

Theatres des Illusions

placidity of his face.

side with

Musees

artistiques,

latest explosive Anarchist, or

double Clime du boulevard du Temple

" great attraction

and

coloured

nymphs and

of the moment.

designed

freely

is

the

Highly

pictures

of

naiads are accompanied by such

and
which

seductive
as this,

"

Le

recommendations

ingenious
I

copy textually.

cannot

reproduce the emphasis of the lettering

Etoiles Animees,
velle attraction

par

le

Miles de VAir.

Nou-

professeur Julius.

Pou?'-

quoi Mile. Isaure est-eUe appelee Deesse des

Eaux ?

Cest par sa grace

et

son pouvoir

mysterieux de paraitre au milieu des

Eaux

limpides, devant tous les spectateurs qui devien-

dront ses Admirateurs.

En

belle

Isaure devient Syrene

"par

ses

jeux

sveltes

et

et

Plein Theatre la

Nayade I charme

souples,

apparait en

GINGERBREAD FAIR AT VINCENNES

Plehi Mer,

et presentee par le

a chaque representation.

professeur Julius

Plusieurs pales imita-

teurs essay ent de copier la belle Isaure, inais

le

vrai Public, amateur

du Vrais

et

du Peau,

dira que la Copie ne vaut pas Voriginal.

there

is

And

a Jardin mysterieux which represents

an improbable

harem, with

accompaniment of performing
this tent 1 pause,

an undesirable
reptiles.

Before

but not for the sake of

its

announcement in the doorway sits a beautiful young girl of about sixteen, a Jewess,
with a face that Leonardo might have painted.
;

A red frock reaches to her knees, her thin legs,

in white tights, are crossed nonchalantly

her black hair there

in

the sparkle of false

is

diamonds, ranged in a tiara above the gracious

contour of her forehead
motionless, looking

and she

sits there,

straight before her with

eyes that see nothing, absorbed in some vague

reverie, the

Monna

Lisa of the Gingerbread

Fair.

II
It

is

cennes

half-past three,
is

and the Cours de Vin-

a carnival of colours,

sounds and

10

COLOUR STUDIES

movements.

IN PARIS

Looking from the Place de

la

Nation, one sees a long thin line of customers

along the

stalls

of bonbons and gingerbread,

and the boulevard has the

air

of a black-edged

sheet of paper, until the eye reaches a point

where the shows begin. Then the crowd is seen

in black patches, sometimes large, extending
half across the road, sometimes small

now and then one

of the black patches thins

rapidly as the people

or there

one
one's

is

point

back

every

mount the platform,

movement from

a simultaneous

of

the

attraction

to

roundabouts

the repertoire Pauhis,

are

front

in

At

another.

squealing

there

is

continuous deafening rumble of drums, with

an inextricable jangle and jumble of brass
bands, each playing a different tune,
once, and

all

close together.

all

at

Shrill or hoarse

moment, to be drowned
the next by the intolerable drums and corAs one moves slowly down the long
nets.
avenue, distracted by the cries, the sounds,
coming from both sides at once, it is quite
another aspect that is presented by those dingy
voices are heard for a

platforms, those gaping canvases of but an

hour ago. Every platform

is

alive

with

human

GINGERBREAD FAIR AT VINCENNES

frippery.

11

clown in reds and yellows, with

a floured and rouged face, bangs a big drum,

an orchestra (sometimes of one, sometimes of

"blows through brass" with the full

power of its lungs fulgently and scantily
fifteen)

attired ladies throng the foreground, a

man

in plain clothes squanders the remains of a

voice in

and

howhng

in the

the attractions of the interior,

background, at a

opulent lady

sits

at the

little

table,

an

receipt of custom,

with the business-like solemnity of the dame

du

comptoii' of a superior restaurant.

sionally there
indifferent

is

waltz,

a pas
at

seiil,

times

Occa-

more often an
an impromptu

comedy. Outside Bidel's establishment a tired

and gentle dromedary rubs its nose against

the pole to which it is tied
elsewhere a
swings
a
trapeze
on
a man addresses
monkey
the crowd with a snake about his shoulders,
and my Monna Lisa, too, has twined a snake
around her, and stands holding the little malevolent head in her fingers, like an exquisite
and harmless Medusa.
Under the keen sunlight every colour stands
out sharply, and to pass between those two
;

long lines of gesticulating figures

is

to plunge

COLOUR STUDIES

12

IN PARIS

into an orgy of clashing colours.

women wear

the coarsest of worsted tights,

the usual tint of which

colour,

but

it

All the

varies,

is

intended to be flesh-

through

the shades,

all

from the palest of pink to the brightest of

red.

Often the tights are patched, sometimes they

patched.
The tunic may be
mauve, or orange, or purple, or blue it is
generally open in front, showing a close-fitting
jersey of the same colour as the tights.
The
are not even

arms are bare, the

faces, as a rule,

with discretion and

restraint.

made up

There

is

one

woman, who must once have been very beautiful,

man

who

appears in ballet skirts

there

is

and hood, warriors in

plumes and cuirass but for the most part it
is the damsels in flesh-coloured tights and
jerseys who parade on the platforms outside
in blue-grey cloak
;

the theatres.
it is

When

they break into a waltz

always the most dissonant of mauves, and

and purples that choose one another as

partners.
As the girls move carelessly and
clumsily round in the dance, they continue
the absorbing conversations in which they are
pinks,

mostly engaged.

Rarely does anyone show

the slightest interest in the crowd whose eyes

GINGERBREAD FAIR AT VINCENNES

are

fixed

all

They stand

so
or

thirstingly

move

upon

as they are

and that

chanically, indifferently,

them.

told,

is all.

13

me-

Often,

but not always, well-formed, they have occasionally

pretty faces

as

brilliant little creature,

There

well.

who forms one

is

of the

crowd of warriors outside the Theatre Cocherie,

who has quite an individual type of charm
and intelligence. She has a boyish face, little
black curls on her forehead, a proud, sensitive

mouth, and black eyes

As

INIiss

Angelina,

librist e et

danseuse, goes through a very ordi-

like, as

sion), Julienne's

she
it

is

gymnasiarque equi-

artiste

nary selection of steps

and the

of wit and defiance.

full

learning

(" rocks,"

" scissors,"

they are called in the profeseyes devour every

how

herself without

to do

it,

telling

and

movement

will practise

anyone^ until she

can surprise them some day by taking Miss

Angelina's place.

Ill

But
the

it is

fair

is

at night, towards nine o'clock, that

at its

best.

The painted

faces,

the crude colours, assume their right aspect,

COLOUR STUDIES

14

IN PARIS

become harmonious, under the

The dancing pinks and

artificial

hght.

reds whirl on the plat-

forms, flash into the gaslight, disappear for an

instant into a solid shadow, against the light,

emerge

vividly.

The moving black masses

surge to and fro before the booths

side

one sees

from the

lines of rigid figures, faces that

the light shows in eager profile.

Theatre Cocherie there

is

turns a dazzling glitter,

across the road

Outside the

a shifting light which

moment by moment,

plunges like a sword into

it

one of the trees opposite, casts a glow as of

white

fire

over the transfigured green of leaves

and branches, and then

falls off, baffled

As the

impenetrable leafage.

by the

light drops sud-

denly on the crowd, an instant before only

dimly

visible, it

throws into

fierce relief the

intent eyes, the gaping mouths, the unshaven

cheeks, darting into the hollows

pointing

teeth,

wrinkle.

of one

among

tall

is

girl

at the

the warriors

or grimaces.

there

cruelly

at

At every return
;

it

of broken

every scar

and

dazzles the eyes

end of the platform,

she turns

away her head,

In the middle of the platform

a violent episode of horse-play

man

in plain clothes belabours two clowns with a

GINGERBREAD FAIR AT VINCENNES

sounding

and

lath,

in turn belaboured

is

15

then

the three rush together pell-mell, roll over one

another,

bump down

the steps to the ground,

recommence, with the vigour and gusto

Further on a
of schoolboys in a scrimmage.
white clown tumbles on a stage, girls in pink,
and black, and white move vaguely before a
return,

dark red curtain,

brilliant red breeches sparkle,

a girl en gar^on, standing at one side in a

graceful pose which reveals her fine outlines,

shows a motionless silhouette, cut out sharply

against the light
beats, a large

in Louis

the bell rings, the

drum

blonde-wigged woman, dressed

XIV

costume, cries her wares and

holds up placards, white linen with irregular

black lettering.

Outside a boxing booth a

melancholy lean

man

horn

his

blows inaudibly into a

cheeks puff, his fingers move, but

not a sound can be heard above the thunder

of the band of Laurent le Dompteur.

Before

the ombres chinoises a lamp hanging to a tree

on a dark red background, on

the gendarme who moves across the platform,
on the pink and green hat of madame, and
on her plump hand supporting her chin, on
sheds

its

light

monsieur's irreproachable silk hat and white

COLOUR STUDIES

16

whiskers.

Near by

IN PARIS

a theatre

is

where

tliey are

giving the Cloches de CoDieviUe, and the plat-

form

is

thronged with lounging

They turn

girls in tights.

their backs unconcernedly to the

crowd, and the light

falls

on pointed shoulder-

one distinguishes the higher vertebra?

blades,

A man

of the spine.

dressed in a burlesque

female costume kicks a print dress extravagantly into the

with mincing

air,

airs,

flutters a ridiculous fan,

with turns and somersaults.

People begin to enter, and the platform clears

a line of figures marches along the narrow

footway running the length of the building, to

a curtained entrance at the end.
in front melts

The crowd

away, straggles across the road

to another show, straggling back again as the

drum

begins to beat and the line of figures

marches back to the

In

stage.

front, at the outskirts of the

crowd, two

youngsters in blouses have begun to dance,

kicking their legs in the air to the strains of

mazurka
blind man,
a

sits

and now two

in the space

women

circle.

between two booths,

holding a candle in his hand, a pitiful

object

the light

falls

on

his

straw hat, the

white placard on his breast, his face

is

in

GINGERBREAD FAIR AT VINCENNES

As

shadow.
fat

woman

pause before a booth where a

in tights flourishes a pair of

gloves, I find myself

by the

side of

and she

boxing

my Monna

Her show

Lisa of the enchanted garden.

over,

17

watching the others.

is

is

She

wears a simple black dress and a dark blue

apron her hair is neatly tied back with a ribbon.

She is quite ready to be amused, and it is not
;

only

I,

but the

little

professional lady,

who

laughs at the farce which begins on a neigh-

bouring stage, where a patchwork clown comes

out arm in arm with a nightmare of a pelican,
the brown legs very human, the white body

and monstrous orange

fantastic.

tree

bill

very fearsome and

A pale Pierrot languishes against a

I see

him

back, I can

as I turn to go, and, looking

still

distinguish the melancholy

figure above the waltz of the red,

and purple

under the

turning of those

human

lights,
dolls,

smile, their painted colours.

and pink,

the ceaseless

with their fixed

COLOUR STUDIES

18

IN PARIS

IV
It

for

is

half-past eleven,

One by one

the night.

extinguished
little

faint

and the

fair is

over

the lights are

glimmers appear

in

the

square windows of dressing-rooms and

sleeping-rooms

silhouettes cross

and re-cross

the drawn bhnds, with lifted arms and huddled

The gods of tableaux vivants, negmodern in attire, stroll off across the

draperies.

ligently

road to find a comrade, rolling a cigarette

between

their

INlonna

fingers.

Lisa passes

rapidly, with her brother, carrying a market-

And

ing basket.

it

is

a steady

movement

townwards
stopping, from time to time, to buy a great
gingerbread pig with Jean or Suzanne scrawled
Outside one
in great white letters across it.
booth, not yet closed, I am arrested by the
;

the very stragglers prepare to go,

desolation of a
thin,

suffering,

crossed,

who

little

frail

painted

sits

face,

still

down

moving

pink legs

wearily at the

holds in his hands.

the open spaces roundabouts

circle of

his

with a

motionless by the side of

the great drum, looking

cymbals that he

creature,

lights,

turn,

encircled

by

turn,

In
a

a thin

GINGERBREAD FAIR AT VINCENNES

line

of

shadows.

black

little

wind

is

day of

heat,

will

rising

The sky

19

darkens,

the night, after this

be stormy.

And

still,

to

the waltz measure of the roundabouts, turning, turning frantically, the last lingerers defy

the midnight, a dance of shadows.

1896.

MONTMARTRE AND THE

LATIN QUARTER

MONTMARTRE AND THE LATIN

QUARTER
Of

places for a holiday, Paris, to

all

mind,

the most recreative

is

but not the

To

Paris of the English tourist.

my

the English

tourist Paris consists in the Champs-Elysees

and the Grands Boulevards, with, of course,
the shops in the Rue de RivoU. In other

words, he selects out of

what

always reminds

me

Paris precisely

The Rue de

least Parisian.

is

all

of Boulogne

Rivoli

the one

is

the Englishman's part of Paris, as the other

is

the Englishman's part of France, and their

further resemblances are

many and

The Champs-Elysees have

their hours of interest

it

their

may

intimate.

moments and
be admitted

that they are only partially Anglicised.

As

Grands Boulevards, which are always,

certainly, attractive to any genuine lover of

for the

cities,

to

any

real

amateur of crowds, they

23

COLOUR STUDIES

24

are, after all,

They
that

not Parisian, but cosmopolitan.

are simply
great,

the French equivalent of

complex, inextricable concourse

of people which

we

find instinctively crowd-

London, along Piccadilly

ing, in

down

IN PARIS

the Unter den Linden

the Prado

in Venice,

in Berlin,

in Madrid, over

about the Piazza

who have come together

of the earth, who have, if

crowding of people

from

all

the ends

tourist likes to

meet

tourist,

mutual attraction

enough who have, undoubtedly, the curiosity

of an exhibition or an ethnological museum
but from whom you will never learn the
characteristics of the country in which you
;

find

them.

What

city or in a nation

however
it,

really of interest in a

is

not that which

common

differentiated, in

nations and
in

is

cities,

but that which

it

has,

with other
is

unique

the equivalent of which you will search

for in

vain elsewhere.

Now

the two parts

of Paris which are unique, the equivalent of

which you will search for

are

And

the

Latin

Quartier

in

vain elsewhere,

and Montmartre.

these are just the quarters which the

English tourist, as a
fancying,

though

rule,

he

knows

least

about

may, that he knows

MONTMARTRE AND LATIN QUARTER

25

them, because he has climbed Montmartre as

MouHn-Roiige, and gone leftward

one Saturday night as far as BuUier.
far as the

have often, when sitting at the Brasserie

d'Harcourt, on the

"les serious" side,

the

Boulevard Saint-Michel, tried

side facing the

to imagine that gay, noisy, and irresponsible

throng which surges in and out of the doors,

overflows the terrasse, and scatters up and

down

the street

imagine

vain, to

London.

No,

some day more

but always in

That

simply unthinkable.
to be the Strand

it

is

tried,

so to speak, in terms of

it,

it is

Piccadilly (or

have

or less

?)

will

approximate to the

continental idea of the necessary comforts of

life,

that

it

civilised

will

city,

have

its

cafes like every other

and so redeem England from

the disgrace of being the only country where

men have
I
it

to drink, like cattle, standing

have no doubt,
will

come.

is

is

But there

youth
vesces,

effervescence

and youth
or

in

only in one

never be a

will

It

and Suzanne.

simply the

that,

merely a matter of time

Boul' Mich' in London.

as Marcelle

as impossible

is

The

Boul' Mich'

of

irrepressible

London never

man

here,

in

effer-

one

COLOUR STUDIES

26

woman
tells

British

morahst

indeed fortunate that

we have

there.

us

it

is

IN PARIS

The

stern

not a Boulevard Sahit-JNlichel in our midst

we have

and never can have, a

d'Harcourt and he points to the vice which
No doubt whatever vice is to
flaunts there.
that

not,

be found in the Quartier, does very much

But is it not really less vicious,
flaunt itself.
in

a certain

thincf in

than

sense,

London, which takes

ously as well as cautiously,

of evil-doing and has

all

is

itself so

seri-

so self-convinced

the unhealthy excite-

ment of an impotent but

persistent Puritan

However, be this as it may, the

peculiarity of the youth of the Latin

conscience
real

the corresponding

Quarter

is

its

friendly gaiety,

terous sociabihty,

its

its

very bois-

extraordinary capacity

for prolonging the period of its existence

the existence of that volatile quantity, youth

into
thirties.

the period

You may

of

beards and

say, if

you

like,

the past
that

it is

grown-up men should know

better than to run about the street with long
hair and large hats, singing and shouting from
eleven in the evening till two in the morning.

ridiculous, that

It has its ridiculous side, certainly,

but

it is

MONTMARTRE AND LATIN QUARTER

remarkable, above

and

all,

as a survival of youth,

implies a joie de vivre, which

it

valuable and not a very

The

and the

place

is

a very-

common quality.
moment where

Quartier Latin becomes

27

what

the

shall I say

upon those fine Sunday

afternoons when the band plays in the
Luxembourg Gardens. Does everyone know
its

best

self,

are

Manet's picture of the scene

the long frock-

coats, the long hair, the very tall

hats, the

and the enchantment of those green trees over and

between and around it all? Well, the real
voluminous

skirts of the ladies,

thing

is

as delightful

when

am

even as a Manet

and

in Paris, in the fine weather, I

consider that

Sunday

a part of

not spent just as those people

it

is

in the picture spend

is

not quite Sunday

it.

Early in the

if

after-

Marcelle and
noon groups begin to form
Suzanne bring their sewing, or a book of
verses, for a pretence, and each has her little
;

about

circle

band-stand
little

her.

fill

The

gradually,

chairs

around

the

the tables of the

green buvette spread further and further

outwards, leaving just room for the promenade

which

will

soon begin, that church-parade of

COLOUR STUDIES

28

IN PARIS

such another sort from the London one, so

bhthely
within this fair,
This quiet church of leaves.

Further out again, along the terrace, between

the last trees and the hne and curve of the
balustrade, there

is

an outer, quite

different,

And

rim of mothers and nurses and children.

now
in

the band

Fmist

is

playing,

it is

the ballet music

and the shimmery music, coming

the sunlights of such an

like sunshine into

afternoon, just here and now, sounds almost

do always when they are

keeping. Marcelle and Suzanne,

beautiful, as things

beautifully in

between

two

poetry of the

shouts of

laughter,

moment they
;

feel

the

are even silent,

biting meditatively the corner of a fanciful

handkerchief.

which

trails

the chairs

And

the slowly moving throng

around the narrow alley between

is

throng which

no longer the
last

noisy, irrepressible

night acted the farce of the

monome from door to door of the d'Harcourt

it is the other, more serious, more sentimental
side of that vivid
is

youth which incarnates and

the incarnation of the

Up

at

Qu artier

Latin.

Montmartre, how different

is

the

MONTMARTRE AND LATIN QUARTER

how

atmosphere, yet

typically Parisian

29

To

Montmartre you have to go right

through Paris, and I always think the route
followed by that charming omnibus, the
" Batignolles-Clichy-Odeon," shows one more
reach

of Paris, in the forty or

takes, than

any other route

an April evening
I

am

fifty

minutes that

know.

It

it
is

nine o'clock has just struck.

tired of turning over the

books under

the arcades of the Odeon, and I

mount

the

The heavy wheels rattle over the

rough stones, down the broad, ugly Rue de
omnibus.

We

Tou'rnon.

curve through narrow, wind-

ing streets, which begin to

blossoming

out

candles,

we

as

stopping-place.

into

grow

windowfuls

Catholic,

of

near Saint- Sulpice, our

After

we have

left

waxfirst

the broad,

always somewhat prim and quiet open space,

by the formidable bulk of the

curious, composite church, it is by more or
less featureless ways that we reach the Boulevard Saint-Germain, coming out suddenly
dominated

under the

trees, so beautiful, I

in that odd, acute glitter

always think,

which gas-light gives

There are always a good many people

waiting here my side of the imperial is soon
them.

COLOUR STUDIES

30

We

full.

and the two horses

speed, as they invariably do at

cross the road,

start at full

that

IN PARIS

particular

Saints-Peres.

place,

The

down

street

is

the

Rue

des

long and narrow,

few people are passing all the life of the

street seems to be concentrated behind those
lighted windows, against which we pass so
;

close.

catch a glimpse of interiors

with a red table-cloth, a lamp upon

sewing

she leans forward,

a table

it,

and the

a girl
lights

Another room, an old

woman holding a candle moves across the
window in another I see the back of an

crimson her cheek.

arm-chair, just a tuft of blonde hair over-

topping

it

several books.

drawn,

two candles on the

there are

Farther on, the curtains are

can see only a silhouette, the face

and bust of a woman, clearly outlined,

sits motionless.

looms up

We
now

as she

turn the corner, are on

Pont
The heavy masonry of the Louvre

the Quai, and

des Arts.

table,

in front

crossing slowly the

to right and left below,

the Seine, draped in shadow, with sharp points

of white and red where the lights strike the
water.

Then begins the

jolting

and rumbling

over the horrible pavement of the Louvre,

MONTMARTRE AND LATIN QUARTER

31

the sudden silence as the wheels glide over

we emerge, through that

impossibly narrow archway, into the Rue de
Rivoli in two minutes we are at the Palais
Royal. For a moment I see the twisting
currents of cabs, down the Avenue de I'Opera,
and then we are in the interminable Rue
the asphalte, and

de Richelieu, broken only by the long, but

new, monotony of the dreary Bibliotheque
Nationale, and that odd, charming
opposite, with

dingy

trees,

its
its

old houses,

At

seats.

its

and
is

way

square
its

we have
and we edge

last

reached the Grands Boulevards,

our

little

fountain,

slowly across, between the omnibuses

The boulevard

cabs.

is

the hour of the theatres

not crowded,

and then

it

am

facing that side of the street which I never

care for, the virtuous side (despite Julien's).

When we

turn up the

Rue Le

Peletier, out

of the broad, lighted space stretching on in

a long vista between the trees and lamp-posts,

we

find ourselves, ere long, in a

sphere

the

first,

Chaussee

Montmartre.

that

ambiguous

d'Antin,

As we

toil

then

new atmoquarter

the

of

franker

up the steep Rue

Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, past that severe but

COLOUR STUDIES

32

IN PARIS

eccentric church which seems trying to block

watch curiously the

windows, with their lights and

our way, but in vain,

significant

their blinds.

wards,
if

get

As the horses turn aside, Clichydown there, just before me, as

;

end of the

at the other

street, across

the

broad open space of the Place Blanche, are

the red bulk and waving

Rouge. And that

of Montmartre.

They
it

tell

me

that

is

sails

of the Moulin-

one of the landmarks

Montmartre

not what

is

once was, in the great days of the Chateau-

Rouge, of the Boule- Noire.

And

even in

my

time there has been a certain falling away

for

have

not seen the death of the Elysde-

Montmartre, and the

of

its

trivial resurrection,

out

ashes, of a certain characterless Trianon-

Concert

some of the

Still, if

glories of

are gone, IMontmartre remains,

unique.

In no other city can

IMontmartre

and

it

I recall

remains

anything

in itself so sordidly picturesque as those crawl-

ing heights, w^hich lead up to the Butte, so

wonderful as the vision of the city which the

Butte gives one.

by night

it is

know

JNIontmartre chiefly

not a place for the day

and

MONTMARTRE AND LATIN QUARTER

the view of Paris which I

am

33

thinking of

is

When

you have
cHmbed as high as you can chmb, ending
almost with ladders, you reach a dreary little
strip of ground, in which a rough wooden
paling seems to hold you back from falling
the view of Paris by night.

Under a wild
like to see it, the city floats away
a vague, immense vision of forests

sheer into the abyss of Paris.

sky, as 1
endlessly,

of houses, softened by fringes of actual forest

here and there a dome, a toAver, brings sud-

denly before the eyes a definite locality

but

most part it is but a succession of

light and shade, here tall white houses coming
up out of a pit of shadow, there an unintelligible mass of darkness, sheared through by
an inexplicable arrow of light. Right down

for the

below,

one looks straight into the lighted

windows, distinguishing the outline of the

lamp on the table, of the

while,
about the room
;

there

is

nothing but a

figure

which moves

in the far
faint,

distance,

reddish haze,

rising dubiously into the night, as if the lusts

of Paris

smoked

to the skies.

Night

after

night I have been up to this odd, fascinating

little

corner, merely to look at all I

had

left

COLOUR STUDIES

34

behind

and

which

tion

IN PARIS

have been struck by the attracview obviously has

this

for

the

somewhat unpleasant and unimpressionable

who

people

inhabit the neighbourhood.

Aris-

and heroines, the lady on

her way to Saint-Lazare, the gentleman who
tide Bruant's heroes

knows
from

perhaps

La

Roquette, they rest

their labours at times, and, leaning over

wooden

the

to

paling, I

gifts of

am

sure enjoy

Perhaps

impressionistically.

this

is

Paris

one of the

the esprit Montmartj-e, that philosophy

more
Here at

of the pavement which has always been

or less localised

Montmartre of
almost

in

this

course,

district.

and of

essentially,

it

the

really

Parisian cafe-concerts, which exist in

Paris.

are

The

all

the

establishments

public balls,

in the

are after an order of their

Berg^re

is

Champs-Elys^es

own

the Folies-

an unsuccessful attempt to imitate

an English music-hall, and a successful attempt

to attract the English public

and Paris which amuses

Paris,

Montmartre.

The

deurs

but amusing
itself,

goes to

cabaret of Aristide Bruant

has lost something of

since

its

special

character

Bruant took to singing at the Ambassa;

the Concert Lisbonne, which was once

MONTMARTRE AND LATIN QUARTER

35

become ordinary
but there is still the true ring of Montmartre
in the Carillon, that homely little place in the

so pleasantly eccentric, has

Rue

de

la

Tour-d'Auvergne, and the baser

kind of JNIontmartre wit in the Concert des

Concierges, not far
evening,

is

off.

there not the

And

then, to end the

Rat Mort,

of which a

conscientious English lady novelist once gave

The Rat JNIort, which

sums up Montmartre not

so fanciful a picture

ends the evening,

wisely,

perhaps,

not

"some emotions and

1904.

prudently,

a moral."

but

with

PARIS AND IDEAS

PARIS
I

HAVE been turning over

called

me

AND IDEAS
a book which has

up many memories, and which has

thinking about people and ideas.

book

is

called

set

The

French Portraits : being Appre-

of the Writers of Young France, is

published in Boston and it is written by an
ciations

American,
but in a

who

spirit

writes

somewhat

hysterically,

of generous appreciation.

It

is

pretentious, as the people in the Latin Quarter

are pretentious

that

and on behalf of

is

ideas.

to

say, innocently,

It all keeps

step,

gallantly enough, to a march, not Schumann's,

of the followers of David against the Philistines.

One seems to see a straggling company
wandering down at night from the heights of

Montmartre the thin faces, long hair,

brimmed tall hats and wide-brimmed
:

hats, the

flat-

soft

broken gestures, eager voices, des-

perate light-heartedness.
89

They have not more

COLOUR STUDIES

40

IN PARIS

talent than people over liere

more

likely to waste, as

talent they have

book
siasts

they are

mv^h

called, whiitevv'^r

it is

but these people

whom

th'c

up before us are after all the enthuof ideas, and their follies bubble up out

calls

much

of a drunkenness at least as

Few

material.

of the idealists

have been virtuous

that

spiritual as

have knoAvii

to say, they have

is

chosen their virtues after a somewhat haphazard

plan

of their

own

have loved absinthe, others

but
we,

some of them

dirt, all idleness

why expect everything at once ? Have

who lack ideas and ideals, enough of the

solid virtues to

put into the balance against

these weighty abstractions

question

have

still

especially

but

only ask the

we

a great deal to learn from Paris, and

on matters of the higher morality.

Well, this writer, in

liberal

persist in thhiking that

his

vague,

heated,

way, scatters about him, in this large

book of

his,

many

excellent criticisms of people

and things flinging them in our faces, indeed,

and as often the stem without the flower as
;

the flower without the stem.

He

tells

us about

Verlaine and jNIallarm^, about Barres, Glared

Schwob,

JNlaeterlinck,

Mor^as, Pierre Louys,

PARIS

AND IDEAS

41

and a score of others

not as precisely as
one might have wished, often indeed rather
;

misleadingly, but always with

freshness of a personal interest.

reader might,

it

true,

is

at

least

An

the

unwary

imagine that the

chapter on JNIaeterlinck records an actual con-

an actual walk through Brussels

versation,

instead of a conversation wholly imaginary,

made up

of scraps out of the essays, rather

casually tossed together.

indeed be beset by

Such a reader will

and will perhaps

pitfalls,

come away with several curious impressions

such as that Adolphe Rett^ is a great poet
and Henri de Regnier not a poet at all. But
books are not written for unwary readers, and
pitfalls are

only dangerous to those

not the agility to avoid them.

who have

The

especially Valloton's clever outlines

reproduced from

Remy

admirable volumes of

portraits,

(mostly

de Gourmont's two

Le Livre

des Masques),

give a serious value to these pages, and there

are, in all,

As I

more than

fifty portraits.

turn over the pictures, recognising face

am

reminded of many nights and

days during the ten years that I have known
Paris, and a wheel of memory seems to turn
after face, I

COLOUR STUDIES

42

my

in

head

is

out

like a kaleidoscope, flashing

the pictures of

The

IN PARIS

my own

that I keep there.

great sleepy and fiery head of Verlaine

many

in so

He

of them.

back in

lies

his

corner at the Cafe Francois Premier, with his

eyes half shut

he drags on

my arm

we

as

go up the boulevard together he shows me

his Bible in the little room up the back stairs
;

he nods
as

he

book

his nightcap over a great picture

up

sits

in

bed at the hospital.

me on

IVIallarm^ as he opens the door to

see

that

exquisite

Rue de Rome, with his

manner of welcome. Catulle INIend^'s

lectures

on the poetry of the Parnassians,

fourth floor of the

reading Glatigny's verses with his suave and

gliding intonation.

1 see

Maeterlinck in

all

the hurry of a departure, between two port-

manteaus

by

his

own

Marcel Schwob in a quiet corner

fireside,

of Hamlet.

discussing the

JNIaurice

Barr^s

first

quarto

stands

before

an after-luncheon camera, with the Princess

Mathilde on his arm, in an improvised group

on the lawn.
air,

Jean Moreas, with

thunders out a

poem

of his

waitress in a Bouillon Duval.

by the

side of

his practical

Adolphe Rette

own

I find

to

myself

at a strange

PARIS

AND IDEAS

43

performance in which a play of Tola Dorian

is

followed by a play of Rachilde.

Merrill introduces

me

Stuart

to an editor at

Bullier, Viele-Griffin speaks

the

English with an

evident reluctance at the office of the Mercure

de France, where Henri de R^gnier

under

his eye-glass.

and there are

know, or
like

whom

is

a varied company,

whom

do not

have met only out of Paris,

In those houses, those hos-

Verhaeren.

pitals,

It

the others

all

silent

is

many of the ideas on which,

unconsciously, how many of us

those cafes,

consciously or

now living, came into

while, how many ideas,
are

existence.

of

Mean-

any particular

importance to anybody, have come into existence in the

London drawing-rooms and

of the period, where our

men

of letters meet

a mutually
"
shop " ?
resolve not to talk

one

Ideas,

it

may

achievement

ment

with

another,

is

comfortable

be objected, are one thing

quite another.

is

Yes, achieve-

quite another, but achievement

sometimes be

clubs

left

may

out of the question not

how much
has been actually done by the younger men
but think how Maeterlinck
I have named
unprofitably.

It

is

too soon to see

COLOUR STUDIES

44

has brought a

new

IN PARIS

soul into the

brought (may one not say

drama

has

the soul into

?)

Think what Verlaine has done for

French poetry, ending a tradition, which only

drama.

waited extinction, and creating in

new law
full

And, coming down

to the very youngest school of

(or

is

place a

of freedom, of legitimate freedom,

of infinite possibilities.

there, as I write, a

already

its

?),

still

**

Naturists

"

younger one

there not a significant ferment

is

of thought, a convinced and persuasive re-

statement of great principles, which

every

generation has to discover over again for

self,

or,

under some new form

to be exact, nearly

all

it-

All these men,

these men, have

thought before writing, have thought about

writing, have thought about other things than
\\Titing.

They have taken

theories, they

have not hesitated to lay a foun-

dation before building.

not always been

solid,

piece of architecture.
in

France

as so

is

much

England,

the trouble to form

The foundation

has

nor the building a fine

But

at least literature

not a mere professional business,

of what passes for literature

it is

not written for money, and

is

in

it is

not written mechanically, for the mere sake of

AND IDEAS

PARIS

45

producing a book of verse or prose.

In Paris

the word art means a very serious and a very

definite thing

a thing for which otherwise

very unheroic people will cheerfully sacrifice

may have of worldly

success.
Over here I know remarkably few
people who seem to me to be sacrificing as
much for art as almost any one of those disorderly young men who walk so picturesquely
whatever chances they

in the

Luxembourg Gardens when

Well, the mere

plays.

mere

perhaps preposterous

faithfulness to a

theory of one's duty to

to write literature,

is

art,

the mere attempt

both an intellectual and

a moral quality, which

recognise for what

the band

desire to excel, the

it

is

it
is

worth while to

worth, even

if

the

outcome of it, for the moment, should but be

some Pere Ubu in all the shapelessness of the

Where we have

embryo.
life will in

ment.

time work out

And

own

life,

accomplish-

are the

first

about to begin,

we must

still,

ideas,

I think, look to France.

1900.

germ of

wliich

for

stirrings of life

its

the

THE POET OF THE BATS

THE POET OF THE BATS

Visitors to the Salon du
cannot

fail

Champ

de Mars

to have noticed a full-length por-

by Whistler, the portrait of a gentleman

of somewhat uncertain age, standing in an
trait

attitude half chivalrous, half funambulesque,

hand lightly posed on a small cane. There

is something distinguished, something factitious, about the whole figure, and on turning
his

to the catalogue one could not but be struck

by a certain fantastic appropriateness in the

name, Comte Robert de INIontesquiou-Fezensac, even if that name conveyed no further
significance.

To

those

who know something

of the curiosities of French hterary society,

the picture has

its

interest as a portrait of the

oddest of Parisian " originals," the

French "

typical

from whose cult of the

hortensia Oscar Wilde no doubt learnt the
aesthete,"

worship of the sunflower; while to readers

49

COLOUR STUDIES

50

Huysmans

of

has

it

IN PARIS

the further interest of

being a portrait of the real des Esseintes, the

hero of that singular and remarkable romance
of the Decadence, ^/ Ucbours.
likely that

many

that

it

scarcely

is

of the people, or indeed any

of the English people

knew

It

was

who saw

the picture,

also the portrait of a poet,

the poet of the bats, Lcs Chauvcs-Sowis, an

enormous volume of

five

hundred

closely

printed pages.

The Comte de

INIontesquiou, though living,

and a personage, and of

the

papers for purely

none the

less a

late a

mundane

whom

more

told

may

divers in

reasons,

is

whom

all

legendary being, of

the stories that are told

true, of

/(///

very likely be

at all events nothing can be

Has

fantastic than the truth.

he,

or had he, really a series of rooms, draped in

different tones, in

one of which he could only

read French, in another only Latin

really gild the

inlay

it

back of the

tortoise,

with jewels, so that

it

Did he
and then

might crawl

over the carpet in arabesques of living colour,

until the poor beast died of the

orchestra of

its

Did he

really invent

perfumes, an

orchestra of

unwonted splendour?
an

burden of

THE POET OF THE BATS

51

on which he could play the subtlest

liqueurs,

harmonies of the senses

He

certainly at

one time possessed an incredible wardrobe,

from which he would select and combine, with
infinite labour, the

costume of the day

apolo-

on a certain misty afternoon, for not

employing the Scotch symphony which had
once before so perfectly suited a similar day

gising,

" but
it

it

takes

On

"

my

servant so long to prepare

one occasion a distinguished French

one of the most recent of Academiwas astonished, on opening a letter from

writer,
cians,

the

Comte de Montesquiou,

to find

along

with the letter a manuscript copy of Balzac's

Cure de Tours, written in an illiterate hand.

Nothing whatever was said about it, and on
meeting his correspondent, the Academician
inquired if it was by oversight that the manu" Oh, no," was the
script had been enclosed.
answer, " the fact is, my cook and my butler
are always quarrellmg, and in order to occupy

them and keep them out of mischief, I give

them Balzac's stories to copy out and T
;

send the copies to

I sent to

my

friends.

Leconte de Lisle

a short one."

Pere Goiiot
only sent you

COLOUR STUDIES

52

Until

IN PARIS

year or two ago, the

Montesquiou indulged

in the

Comte de

hixury of enjoy-

ing an artistic reputation without having done

anything, or at least without having puhlished.

was known that he wrote poems, hut no

one had seen them he had resolved to outIt

^lallarme Mallarm6, and he succeeded so well

that

was generally supposed that these

it

vague, shrouded poems were the quintessence

of what was perversely exquisite in spirit and
in

form, probably few in

doubt not

less

faultless

the veil was

number, but no

tlian

All

original.

huge
volume of the Chauves-Sowis appeared, and
the reticent and mysterious poet was found

at

once

press-notices,

soliciting

recite
*'

dropped

his

Pavillion "

poems, giving receptions

at

poems.

to

say what

They

apparently

rigid

but

is

thinks of

entirely

many

these are the principal

{Preludes),

one

It

are divided, according

plan, into a great

Tenebres

his

them what they

poems.

his

at

to

and buttonholing

Versailles,

thought of

difficult

the

paying actresses

distinguished poets, to ask

really

little

these
to

an

unintelligible

divisions, of

which

ZaimpJi, Demi-Teintes
{Ijiterludes),

Betes

et

THE POET OF THE BATS

Gens (Ombres
de la

Lune

Chinoises),

53

Penombj'es

Office

{Litanies et Antiennes), Clairih'e

Feu

{Co7'yphees)i Jets de

et

Eaux

d'Ai'tifice

{Aqua-Teintes), Ijunatiques^ Vieilles Lunes et

Lunes Rousses, Candidates (Neomenies), Syzygie {Ombre portee), Anden Regime. All this
is

supposed to represent "une concentration

du mystere nocturne," and a prose commentary, which certainly makes darkness more
visible, is

added, because, the author

tells us,

" des sollicitudes amies veulent qu'un leger

permette a des

fil

esprits curieux et bienveillants

de reconnaitre vite

le

labyrinthe,

expressement, d'apprecier

la

plus

et,

division

archi-

tectonique, voire architecturale, peut-etre le

du poeme." Probably nothing

more calmly crazy than this book in which
there is all the disorder without any of the
meilleur merite

delirium of madness

book

certainly has

bilities

was

its

ever written

interest.

The

the

possi-

of verse for the expression of fluent,

contorted,

and

interminable nonsense

have

never been more cogently demonstrated than

in

the pages from which

these

two

stanzas

cull

at

random

COLOUR STUDIES

54

IN PARIS

Terrcur des Troglodytes,

Sur leurs tapis dc Turquics,
Et dc tous Ks rats de tcs

Batrakhomyomakhycs,

Homerc

Meridarpax,
Volcur dc portionculc;
Tioxartes ct Pbikharpax,
:

Par qui

This

Peleioii rcculc.

quite an average specimen

is

manner of the poet of the

bats

if,

of the

however,

one prefers a greater simplicity, we need but

turn the page, and we read
La

nuit tous Ics chats sent gris,

Toutcs

Ics souris sont fauvcs

Chauvcs-souris ct chat-chauvcs,
Chats-chauvcs chauvcs-souris

It

is

not a quahty that the author would

probably appreciate, but the quality that most

impresses in this book

in

to

it,

it.

the extraordinary

must have been required

diligence that

produce

is

There

is

to

not a spontaneous verse

from beginning to end few would seem

have required thought, but none could

have

failed to

demand

labour.

has that funambulesque

portrait

when

ambling along

it

is

stolidly

air

At

its

best

of the AVhistler

not playing tricks

;

it

it

is

but the quintessential

THE POET OF THE BATS

des Esseintes,

the father and

child

55

of the

Decadence, well, des Esseintes has no

to fear in the

merely

Montesquiou-Fezensac.
1895.

real

rival

Comte Robert de

d^ A

^t*-<T^

[To fact p.

57.

SONGS OF THE STREETS

fo^^-

%^^'co.^ yivfiu^

UyW^O^

To fact

p. 59.

SONGS OF THE STREETS

The
it

is,

verse of Aristide Bruant, written, as

to be sung, and before the casual and

somewhat
ret

disorderly audience of a small caba-

near what

martre

was once the Elysee-Mont-

written, as

it

is,

mainly in the slang

of the quarter, the uncomely argot of those

boulevards eooterieurs which are the haunts of
all

that

is

most sordidly depraved

in Paris,

this verse is yet, in virtue of its rare qualities

of simplicity, sincerity, and poignant directness, verse of really serious,

and not incon-

Like the powerful

designs of Steinlen, which illustrate them,
these songs are for the most part ugly
siderable, literary merit.

enough, they have no charm or surprise of

sentiment, they appeal to one by no imported
elegances,

by none of the conventionalities of

pathos or pity.

They take the

59

real life of

COLOUR STUDIES

60

IN PARIS

poor and miserable and vicious people, their

sentiments,

real

typical

their

emotion or experience

as

moments

of

in the very terrible

and very blasphemous song of the rain, and

the poor soaked vagabond ready to " curse

God and

die

"

and

they say straight out, in

the fewest words, just what such people would

really say, with a

wonderful art in the repro-

Take,

duction of the actual vulgar accent.

up a Mazas, who

for instance, the thief, shut

writes to

him

nil

his ^;7//'

pen

Rose, asking her to send

d'oseillc (a little

"oof")

Tu

dois ben 9a a ton p'tit homme

Qu'a p't'et' ete mediant pour toi,
Mais qui t'aimait ben, car, en somme,
Si j'te flaupais, tu sais pourquoi.

present qu'mo v'la dans

Ics

planques

Et

qu'je n'peux pus t'coller dcs tas,

Tu

n'te figur's pas c'que tu

Faut que
^.a

m'manques,

Mazas.

j'te

d'mande

encor' que qu'chosc,

s'rait qu' t'aill's voir

Vas-y, dis, j't'en

un peu mes vieux.

ma

p'tit' Rose,
Malgre qu't'es pas bien avec eux.
Je n'sais rien de c'qui Icur arrive.
Vrai, c'est pas pour fair' du pallas,
Mais j'voudrais bien qu'moman m'ecrive,
A Mazas.
pri',

SONGS OF THE STREETS

Then

there

the decrepit old beggar

is

"hly-Uvered" creature {jai

who

les

the

blancs)

fois

laments his useless cowardice in regard

to matters

of

and

assault

come

Ma

is

events he

all

no violent end himself

to

tete

but

battery,

candid enough to think that at

will

61

aura des ch'veux blancs,

alle

workman, with his Faut pus

(Ttout fa
faut pus de rien ; the streetwalker, her lover and her jealousies, the

the socialist
.

grave-digger,

Comm'

who

ends

all

des marie's, couverts d' flours,

Tous les matins on m'en apporte,

Avec leurs parfums, lours odours.
Moi j'trouv' que 9a sent bon, la morte.
.

J'les

Et

prends dans mcs bras, k

pis j'les berce.

Et

mon

tour,

pis j'les couche,

En

r'inflant la goule d'amour

Qui s'eshappe encor' de lour bouche.

You may

say that these are not agreeable

people to be introduced

to,

and here

is

a book,

open to everyone not to

But such people exist in real life, and
read.
they are brought before us here, as they so
rarely are in the literature which professes to
certainly,

be

which

realistic,

it is

with an absolute realism.

Bruant's

COLOUR STUDIES

62

IN PARIS

somewhat macabre
by
preference,
the darker
humour
side of these dark and shadowed hnes but if
taste lies in the direction of a
;

he gives us,

there
at

is

that he leaves out of the picture,

events he introduces nothing into

all

which

much

is

not to be found in the reality which

Compare,

professes to copy.

it

les

it

for instance,

giieux of Bruant with those of Richepin.

Bruant
but

is

exact

human document,
observation

a bit of crude

Richepin

gives

us

nothing but impossible rhetoric about impos-

And who would

sible persons.

the pseudo-philosophy,

not give

the pretentious

all

and

preposterous pessimism of the writer of L,cs

Blasphemes for

this little casual, irresponsible

comment on the end of a nameless

soldier who had been guillotined for committing
moral, the

murder
pour el 'Tonquin,
crever I'casaquin
Riviere.

S'i'a'rait parti
I's's'rait fait

Comm'

Un

jour on aurait p't'et' grave,

Sur un marbre ou sur un pave,

L'nom

So

resigned,

under

in

whatever

d'sa mierc.

so

desperate

fate

may

send,

resignation
are

these

CiNQOlilit

Le NoMtko:

ANKtE.

Ckktimh.

10

Le JOURNAL
Mirliton
ILLUSTRi

frt8aapl
Paris,

frJ's

irr#guli6romcul un

douwinede

in an: Ztt.

fois

par d.

Dip&rtements, nn

ulU

fr.

(IIEA(I) 84, IOllV*ll> RSCKECIIOIAIir, fJIDtt

Directeur:
I/ES

Pit I

ARISTIDE

DOS

(D<?ESin

d' marzoit^.

COVER OF

'

BRUANT

de Jkan Culloo)

pics d'boullonl

LE MIRLITON

'

[To face

'p. 6-J

SONGS OF THE STREETS

children of the gutter

63

philosophers, in their

way, since they can accept fortune or misfortune without surprise,

brutal
delights

if

also

without thank-

Their resignation, their savageries,

fulness.

affections,
;

all

drunken

gaieties,

Bruant has

these

obscene

realised

and

presented in the two volumes of

Dans

which sum up,

contemporary

as nothing else in

literature does, the

where that

life is

whole

most

interesting, in Paris,

Rue,

of the streets,

and
along the dreary sweep

of the outer boulevards.

1895.

life

la

typical, curious,

A BOOK OF FRENCH VERSES

A BOOK OF FRENCH VERSES

Years

ago,

when

was

in Paris,

and used

go and see Verlaine every week in his

hospital, I remember he burst out suddenly
one day into eulogies of Charles Cros, and
asked me if I had ever read Le Coffret dc
Santal.
On my saying no, he urged me to

to

and began to speak, in his generous

way, of what it seemed to him he had learnt
from that poet of one book. It was a good
while before I succeeded in finding a copy
but at last I got it, and read it, I remember,
at that time, with an enchantment which I

read

it,

cannot entirely recapture as I turn over the

Not long afterwards

pages again to-day.

was

at a literary house,

and

overheard some-

one being addressed as Dr. Cros.

if he was related to Charles Cros

he told me.

Finding
67

me

I
;

asked him

his brother,

enthusiastic,

he

COLOUR STUDIES

68

me
man

IN PARIS

new

talked freely, giving

quite a

Charles Cros as a

of science,

idea of
believe

the discoverer of something or other, as well

brother luid
his

number

left

death in 1888

me

Dr. Cros told

as a fantastic poet.

that his

of jMS. poems, at

that they were in his

would be glad to publish

possession, that he

them, but that Charles Cros was so

known

own
little

no publisher could be found

I promised to
to undertake the publication.
write something about Lc Cqffret de SantaU
but, other things coming in the way, I wrote
that

nothing.

and

had almost

when, as

his book,

way back from

reminded of

my

lost sight of the

I

man

in l*aris on my
was unexpectedly
I was talking with

was

Spain, I

promise.

Yvette Guilbert, whose knowledge of French

literature has often surprised

all

*'
:

but

when

never more surprised than

a propos of nothing at

me

Why

she

was
said,

have you

never translated anything from Charles Cros

you,

who have

from Verlaine
Cros

prise.

" I said,

"But

"

many things
But do you know Charles

translated so
**

forgetting to conceal

my

sur-

adore him," she said, and began

A BOOK OF FRENCH VERSES

to quote his verses.

one of his poems.

keep both

my

69

promised to translate

To-day

it

occurs to

me

to

promises.

Well, as I turn out this Sandal-xvood Casket,

full

of bibelots d'emplois incertains,

made out

of

seem to find
myself at that moment in French literature
when the Parnasse was becoming not less
artificially naive and perverse at once.
It
belongs to the period of Les Amours Jamies
of Tristan Corbiere and the Rimes de Joie of
Theodore Hannon, both of which you will find
praised and defined in Huysmans' A Rebours ;
but it is more genuine, and more genuinely
poetical than either.
Learning much from
Gautier in his form, from Baudelaire for his
atmosphere, and, more than from either, from
sourires, fleurs, baiser's, essences, I

the popular songs of

many

countries, he

seems

to anticipate Verlaine in

Des choses absurdes vraiment,

metre and sentiment.

And

yet he has

the habit of writing in which boats had

Mat de nacre et voile en

Rames d'i voire.

satin,

still

COLOUR STUDIES

70

He

IN PARIS

be accepting every

seems at times to

commonplace of poetry, but the commonplaces turn diaphanous under his touch, and

come

to us with little pallid, pathetic graces,

like toys

in

tears,

or as

if

Dresden China

shepherdesses had begun to weep.

Ma

It

is

all

bcIlc

amie

est

morte

Et

voil^ qu'on la porte

En
En

terre, cc matin,

souliers de satin.

poetry

made up by one who

has

lived a faint, scarcely passionate, over-dainty

life

avec lesfleurs, avec hsfemmes.

You might

be deceived into thinking him more

more unreal, than he is.
Ce

real, or

n'est plus I'hcure dcs tendrcsses

Jalouses, ni dcs faux sermcnts,

but of a kind of remembering tenderness, in

which there is something of the senses, something of chaste ideals, and more self-pity than
really

poignant

sorrow.

Lento, perhaps the best

is

wonderfully touching,

The poem called

poem in the volume,
as it murmurs almost

sobbingly in one's ear, going on to an effect

A BOOK OF FRENCH VERSES

71

really of slow music, in its delicate, returning

cadences.

It gives us, in its evasive, whimsi-

cally ironical

way, a sort of philosophy of just

these perfumed sensations which can so easily

turn painful or overpowering.

Mais

il

ne faut pas croire a I'ame des contours,

child's surprise
and it is with
more macabre sense of the soiling
mystery of death, and the end of beauty, that
a poem called Wasted Words, which 1 have
translated for a specimen, sums up the attitude of the universe towards woman and of

it cries,

with a

a darker,

woman

towards the universe

After the bath the chambermaid

Combs out your hair. The peignoir
In pleated folds. You turn your head
To hear the mirror's madrigals.

falls

Does not the mirror's voice remind

Your pride
This body, fair in vain,
:

Decrepit shelter of a kind

Of soul, must find the dust again.

Then shall this delicate flesh forsake

The bones it veiled, and worms intrude
Where all is emptiness, and make

busy nest

in solitude.

COLOUR STUDIES

72

IN PARIS

There, no more white; but brown earth strewn

Heavily on your bony cheeks.
No gleaming lustres, but the moon.
These are the words your mirror speaks.

You

listen

with a soulless smile.

to heed the thing they say;

Too proud

woman mocks at time, the while

To-morrow feeds on yesterday.

For

That

characteristic enough, in

is

of old sentiment and new, in

cessful

nity

aim at

but

it

is

effect,

touches

its

not unsuc-

its

in its fantastic

moder-

more emphatic than most of

these poems, which are

indeed

.at

times as

sharp and clear as a Latin epigram, but more

often

vague,

floating,

really

and at

songs,

perfumed
word
that rePerfume is indeed the
cries.
turns oftenest under one's pen as one tries to
times

daintily

disquieting,

little

evoke the actual atmosphere of these pages.

The Sandal-wood Casket

is

or contains one, scenting

a cabinet of scents,
all

its

other stuffs

modern
poets the suggestive value of perfumes, but no
one has ever used them with such constant
Exotic always, now
and elaborate felicity.
and

trinkets.

Chinese,

now

Baudelaire has taught

Ethiopian,

now

all

gipsy,

now

the

A BOOK OF FRENCH VERSES

now

discord of a night of insomnia,

73

the pene-

harmony of a haschisch dream,

perfumes steam up out of all these pages yes,
trating, unreal

even natural perfumes, out of the hayfields

and hedges of the real country. For Charles

Cros is not so morbid as one is at first inclined
Is it really with any sincerity
to suppose.
that he says
liser

lame

"

me
And is

" Je

tue a vouloir
all this

me

civi-

Parisian exoti-

cism really a kind of revenge of nature upon

one not naturally, or not exclusively, limited

to what is most like the bibelot in humanity ?

At

all

events,

here, in

the midst of these

and pathetic sentimen-

tender,

and

talities,

are the delightfully

fantastic,

humorous Gi'ains

de Sel, which one should have heard their

them
immor-

writer sing for the full enjoyment of

the

Hareng

tality of its

whom

it

is

Saur, which has a

little

own, among people hardly aware

by

the Chanson de Sculpfeui^s^

which sums up Montmartre

Homme, which

and the Brave

anticipates Aristide

Bruant.

A set of fifteen di:zains parodies Coppee, doing

Annals of the Poor better than he could
do them. It was the time of paradoxes when
his

COLOUR STUDIES

74

IN PARIS

book was written it has indeed always

been very French, and in every time very
modern, to have irony or humour for a part of

this

one's
is

equipment

as a poet

very French, and in his

modern.
1891).

and Charles Cros

own time was

very

YVETTE GUILBERT

"-^^ y^M/u^<y

i-^z^

"^

^^
{To face p.

77.

AT THE AMBASSADEURS
To
/^,

YVETTE GUILBERT

That was

The blithe Ambassadeurs

Sunday of the Fete des Fleurs;

Yvette.

Glitters, this

Here are the flowers, too, living flowers that blow

A night or two before the odours go;
And all the flowers of all the city ways
Are laughing, with Yvette, this day of days.
Laugh, with Yvette ? But I must first forget
Before I laugh, that I have heard Yvette.
For the flowers fade before her; see, the light
Dies out of that poor cheek, and leaves it white
She sings of life, and mirth, and all that moves
Man's fancy in the carnival of loves

And

chill shiver

takes

me

as she sings

The pity of unpitied human things.

1894.

77

YVETTE GUILBERT
She

is

thin,

tall,

angular,

little

most

awkward, as she
wanders on to the stage with an air of vague
Her shoulders droop, her arms
distraction.
She doubles forward in an
hang limply.

winningly

and

automatic

bow

girlishly

in

response to the thunders

and that curious smile breaks

out along her lips and rises and dances in
her bright blue eyes, wide open in a sort
of applause,

of child-like astonishment.

auburn,

rises

in

Her

hair, a bright

masses above a large

soft

She wears a trailing dress,

striped yellow and pink, without ornamentaHer arms are covered with long black
tion.

pure forehead.

gloves.
is

The applause

a hush of suspense

stops suddenly
;

she

is

there

beginning to

sing.

And

with the

difference

first

note you realise the

between Yvette Guilbert and

79

all

COLOUR STUDIES

80

the

Andr^ RafFalovich
so subtly that

my

sonnet by Mr.

states just that difference

must quote

interpretation

If

of the world.

rest

IN PARIS

to help out

it

you want hearty laughter, country mirth

Or frantic gestures of an acrobat,

Heels over head or floating lace skirts worth

I know not what, a large eccentric hat
And diamonds, the gift of some dull boy
Then when you see her do not wrong Yvette,
Because Yvette is not a clever toy,

tawdry

doll in fairy limelight set.

And

should her song sound cynical and base

At first, herself ungainly, or her smile
Monotonous wait, listen, watch her face
The sufferings of those the world calls vile

She

sings,

You

and as you watch Yvette Guilbert,

too will shiver, seeing their despair.

Now
from
said

to

me

Yvette Guilbert was exquisite

the

first

under

my

moment.
breath,

come upon the

G alette,

and

shiver

cold

flesson

*'

as

stage.

Exquisite

first

She

run

down my

which no dramatic

art,

Sainte
I felt

back,

that

save that of

I had
was not quite this
was expecting, so poignant, so human.

heard about her, but

that I

song

Sarah Bernhardt, had ever given me.

.^

"

saw her

sang

as I listened to the

it

YVETTE GUILBERT

81

that I could scarcely endure the pity of

made me

It

was wicked

that I

feel

I,

it.

to

have looked at these dreadfully serious things

But it
charm that she

lightly.

is

not

by

her

you, and
charm could be

personal
I

thrills

that her personal

admit

called

in

must be said, too, that she can

do pure comedy that she can be merely,
question.

It

gay.

deliciously

There

is

one of her songs

which she laughs, chuckles, and

in

rapid flurry of

broken words

trills

and phrases,

with the sudden, spontaneous, irresponsible

mirth of a
herself

is

in

But where she is most

a manner of tragic comedy which
bird.

has never been seen on the music-hall stage

from the beginning.

sad

and

essentially

one

sees

in

Forain's

is

the profoundly

serious

comedy which

It

marvellous

designs

those rapid outlines which, with the turn of

you the whole existence o'f

those base sections of society which our art
in England is mainly
forced to ignore.
a pencil, give

People
call
is

call

the art of Forain immoral, they

Yvette Guilbert's songs immoral.

That

merely the conventional misuse of a con-

ventional word.

The

art of

Yvette Guilbert

COLOUR STUDIES

82

drama of the streets,

she shows you the seamy

before you the real

of the pot-house
of

side

She brings

the art of realism.

certainly

is

IN PARIS

life

life

behind

the

scenes

she

calls

But there

is

not a touch of sensuality about her, she

is

things

by

right

their

names.

neither contaminated nor contaminating

I

what she

sings

personal,

dramatic

as others write

she

simply a great, im-

is

who

artist,

realism

sings

it.

In one of her songs,

Sainte

GaJette,

praying in her room, at nightfall, to

of

" Sainte

the

"Our

omnipotent

great

The

Galette."

powerful
is

Cash "

she

Quartier Breda,

represents a denizen of the

Lady

by

verses

are

really

the music, a sort of dirge or litany,

intensely pathetic.

And

as

Yvette Guil-

bert sings, in her quiet, thrilling voice, which

becomes
notes,

harsher,

for

effect,

in

the

lower

which becomes a moan, an absolute

heart-breaking moan, in that recurrent

of "Sainte Galette,"

it

is

me
to

the

she

my

made me
eyes.

words are

shiver

the note of sheer

She

tragedy that she strikes.

;

cry

literally

shook

she brought tears

Je suis pocharde where

more commonplace Yvette

In

YVETTE GUILBERT
Guilbert

be

brings into

merely

83

what might

vulgar

so easily

of

representation

drunken woman something of that tragic

savour which gives artistic value as well as
moral sanction to her most hazardous assump-

Her gamut

tions.

wide

the purely comic

in

is

with an inflection of the voice, a bend

of that curious long thin body which seems

to be

embodied gesture, she can suggest, she

can portray, the humour that

coarse (I will admit),

is

chuckle, stutter

Her

unctuous even.

voice can be sweet or harsh

lilt,

dry, ironical,

it

can

it

moan

can chirp,
or laugh,

Nowhere

be tipsy or distinguished.

is

she

conventional nowhere does she even resemble

any other French singer. Voice, face, gest;

ures,

pantomime

purely her own.

all

She

are
is

different,

all

are

a creature of con-

and suggests at once all that is

innocent and all that is perverse. She has
trasts,

the pure blue eyes of a child, eyes that are

gleam with a wicked ingenuousness, that close in the utter abasement

of weariness, that open wide in all the ex-

cloudless, that

pressionlessness
perfect,

and

of surprise.

perfect,

too,

Her
is

naivete

that

is

strange

COLOUR STUDIES

84

IN PARIS

subtle smile of comprehension that closes the

period.

great impersonal

artist,

depend-

ing as she does entirely on her expressive

power,

dramatic

her

for being

moved,

capabilities,

for rendering the

whom we

of those in

do not look

her

gift

emotions
for just

that kind of emotion, she affects one

all

the

removed from what

she sings of an artist whose sympathy is
an instinct, a divination. There is something
automatic in all fine histrionic genius, and
I find some of the charm of the automaton
The real woman, one
in Yvette Guilbert.

time as being, after

all,

fancies,

is

the slim,

looks so pleased and so

applaud her, and

who

bright-haired girl

whom

amused when you

it

pleases to please

you just because it is amusing. She could

not tell you how she happens to be a great
artist

how

she has found a voice

for

the

comedy of cities how it is that she

makes you cry when she sings of sordid
"That is her secret," we are acmiseries.
customed to say and I like to imagine that

tragic

it

is

a secret which

she

herself has

never

fathomed.

The

difference

between Yvette Guilbert and

ii^
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;

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5U
III

'A

\<V

'^/'w-

-^^-"JS^,

""^^^^

^>i>t^^^^^
y^

YVETTE GUILBERT
[To

face,

-p.

84.

YVETTE GUILBERT

85

every other singer on the variety stage

is

the

between Sarah Bernhardt and every

There are plenty of women
other actress.
who sing comic songs with talent here is a
difference

woman who
comedy and

sings

" creation " has

meaning

in

sings

it

come

new

with genius.

variety of

The word

enough
regard to any new performance on
to have a casual

the stage, but in this case

it is

an epithet of

This new, subtle, tourmentee

simple justice.

way

tragic

of singing the miseries of the poor and

the vices of
creation

it

the miserable

is

absolutely a

new

brings at once a

order of

manner of presentment
the comic repertoire, and it lifts the

subject and a novel

into

entertainment of the music-hall into a really

high region of

art.

To

hear her sing six

songs, all quite different in tone

Curieuse,

phinee,

La

Terre,

Les Demoiselles a

toujours plaisir

range

is.

which

B Granger's

is

One

is

La

Petite

MorMarier, and Qa fait

to realise

Lisette,

how wide

song, for instance.

La

her

Terre,

serious to the point of solemnity,

which the whole effect consists in the

and
deep feeling and the delicately varied intonain

tion given to the refrain at every recurrence,

COLOUR STUDIES

86

gave

me much more

pleasure than Beranger's

de quinze ans."

Lisette, the "grisette

phinee

sheer tragedy

is

clever, eccentric,

son,

of a

Moi'-

by that

a song

it is

never quite satisfactory per-

Jean Lorrain, and

life

IN PARIS

it tells

the horror

all

enslaved by morphine.

Words and

music are singularly apt and mutually

pressive,

and the

-ex-

of the voice, into a sort

rise

of dull, yet intense monotony, at the words

*'

je suis hallucinee,"

is

one of the most

thrill-

ing effects that even Yvette has ever obtained.

The whole thing

it

is

is,

as a

expressive,

and

sordid,

horrible, crazed, as

piece of acting, incomparably

it

is

always restrained within

La

the severest artistic limits.

and

Qli

tional,

Petite Curieuse

fait toujours plaisi?^ are

as

songs

neatly done, quite

slight,

finished in their way,

more conven-

and with some of that

perverse naivete which was,

believe,

Yvette

Guilbert's earliest discovery in method.

Les

Demoiselles a Marie7% the most cynical and

subtle of her studies in the

young lady of the

method

to a far finer per-

period, carries this

fection.
it is

In what

it

says and

excessively piquant

distinctively

French

wit,

what

it

suggests

really witty, with a

it

has

all

the fine

YVETTE GUILBERT

87

malice of Les Demoiselles de Peiisionat^ and

an even

finer,

siveness.

It

secret of

because a more varied, expres-

is

in this expressiveness that the

Yvette Guilbert

and the secret

lies,

of the expressiveness

is,

attention to detail.

Other people are content

with making an

partly, a conscientious

effect, say,

twice in the course

Yvette insists on getting the full

meaning out of every line, and, with her, to
grasp a meaning is to have found an effect.
It is genius, which must be born, not made
and it is also that " infinite capacity for taking
pams." I remember her saying to me, " Other
of a song.

women

are just as clever as I am, but

make up my mind
always do

it.

I succeed."

if I

that I will do a thing I

I try,

and

try,

There the true

and

try, until

artist spoke,

and

the quality I claim for Yvette Guilbert, above

all

other qualities,

an

artist as

great, as

1900.

any

is

that she

is

a true artist,

genuine, and in her

actress

on any

stage.

own way

as

DANCERS AND DANCING

JLiju^mJ^

^/m.^

/fu^ 'iiu cuJ>

^C^

cJ)c^^ rivu^u^

^cgtLt^ ^Au.t^

91

COLOUR STUDIES

92

flu

IN PARIS

Ll6 IL, ulik^

DANCERS AND DANCING

It was in May, 1892, that, having crossed

the streets of Paris from the hotel where I

was staying, the Hotel Corneille,

Quarter (made famous by Balzac
story, Z. Marcas), I

in the Latin
in his

superb

Le

Jardin

found myself in

I saw for the first time La

She danced in a quadrille young
and girlish, the more provocative because she
played as a prude, with an assumed modesty

de Paris, where
Melinite.

decoUetee nearly to the waist, in the Oriental

She had long black curls around her

face and had about her a depraved virginity.
And she caused in me, even then, a curious
fashion.
;

comes into the

verses I wrote on her.
There, certainly, on
the night of May 22nd, danced in her feverish,
sense of depravity that perhaps

her

perverse,

her

Melinite, to her

enigmatical

own image
93

beauty.

in the mirror

La

COLOUR STUDIES

94

A shadow smiling
Back to a shadow
as

she cadenced

IN PARIS

in the night

Olivier

Valse des

INletra's

Roses.

The

chahut,

which she danced,

is

the suc-

one might ahnost say the renaissance,

cessor,

of the cancan.

Roughly speaking, the cancan

died with the Bal

JNIabille,

the cliahut was born

with the Jardin de Paris.

The

effervescent

Bal Bullier of the Quartier Latin, in

its

change

from the Closerie des Lilas, of the days of

Murger, may be said to have kept the tradition
of the

tiling,

and, with the joyous and dilapi-

dated Moulin de

la

Galette of the heights of

Montniartre, to have led the

way

in the estab-

lishment of the present school of dancing.

But

it

was at the Jardin de

Paris, about the

year 1884, that the chalmt, or the quadrille

7iafuraliste,

made

its

appearance, and, with

Goulue and Grille-d'Egout, came

dance

is

is

which the steps are punctuated by

d' amies (or

high kicks), with

ecart (or "the splits") for parenthesis.

d'armes

The

simply a quadrille in delirium

quadrille in

k port

to stay.

La

le

g?'and

Le port

done by standing on one foot and

holding the other upright in the

air

le

grand

DANCERS AND DANCING

by

ecai't

sitting

on the

95

with the legs

floor

Beyond these two fun-

absolutely horizontal.

damental rules of the game, everything almost

to the fantasy of the performer, and the

is left

fantasy of the whirling people of the ^loulin

Rouge, the Casino, the Jardin de Paris, the

Elysee Montmartre, is free, fertile, and peculiar.
Even in Paris you must be somewhat
ultra-modern to appreciate

and to

it,

join,

night after night, those avid circles which form

and there on the ball-room

a waltz-rhythm ends, and a placard

so rapidly, here
floor, as

bearing the word "Quadrille"

from the musicians'

Of

all

the

stars

hung out

gallery.

of the chahut, the most

charming, the most pleasing,

Still

is

is

La

Goulue.

young, though she has been a choreo-

graphic celebrity for seven or eight years

still

fresh, a veritable "

cream

"

women

among

queen of curds and

the too white and the too red

of the Moulin

Rouge

simple, ingenuous air which

last refinement, to

To dance

is,

she has that

perhaps, the

the perverse, of perversity.

the chahut, to dance

it

with

infinite

excitement, and to look like a milkmaid

surely,

is

a triumph of natural genius

that,

Grille-

COLOUR STUDIES

96

IN PARIS

d'Egout, her companion and

She

interesting.

is

dark, serious, correct, per-

fectly accomplished in her art,

of

it,

not so

rival, is

and a professor

but she has not the high

spirits,

La Goulue.

entrain, the attractiveness, of

the

In

Nini-Patte-en-l'Air, a later, though an older,

leader of the quadrille

naturaliste, and, like

Grille-d'Egout, a teacher of eccentric dancing,

we

find, perhaps,

the most typical representa-

tive of the chahut of to-day.

she

is

not pretty, she

She

Her

almost ghastly

not young,

coarse, irregular

worn and haggard,

her mouth is drawn into an

face
;

is

thin, short of stature,

heavy eyebrows,

dark, ^\ith
features.

is

is

acute, ambiguous, ironical smile

her roving

eyes have a curious, intent glitter.

She has

none of the gaminerie of La Goulue hers is

a severely self-conscious art, and all her ex:

But with
done, with what tireless

travagances are perfectly deliberate.

what mastery they are

agility, what tireless ingenuity in invention
Always cold, collected, " the Maenad of the
Decadence,"

it is

and she has a particular trick

the origin of her nickname a particular

that she dances

"
with a sort of " learned fury

quiver of the foot as the leg

is

held rigid in

DANCERS AND DANCING

which

the air

is

97

her sign and signature.

After these three distinguished people come

La MeUnite, Rayon d'Or, La

Sauterelle, Etoile Filante, and many another
of whom La JMehnite is certainly the most
many.

There

is

She

interesting.

slim, boyish in figure,

is tall,

Eastern fashion, in a long

decolletee in the

slit

she dances with a dreamy absorption, a conventional

as of perverted sanctity, remote,

air,

And

ambiguous.

then there

La Macarona

is

of the Elysee-Montmartre, whose sole

title

to

distinction lies in the extraordinary effrontery

of her costume.

II

On my way
stopped
I

to

Nini-Patte-en-l' Air's

second-hand bookstall, where

at a

purchased a particular edition which I had

long been seeking, of a certain edifying work

Opening the book

of great repute.
I

found myself at Chapter

SoUtudinis
read.

Then

went on to

Of

et Silenti.

at

random,

XX, De Amove

" Relinque curiosa," I

put the book in

my

pocket and

Nini-Patte-en-l' Air's.

course,

had been

at

the Trafalgar

COLOUR STUDIES

98

Square Theatre
not

when the

two

IN PARIS

Saturdays ago, was

it

unaccountable British pubhc

had applauded so frankly and so vigorously

glimpse

first

England.

of a

(juddrille

But now

see

what

would

fancied

in

naturaliste

was going,
from

to a special invitation

its

in response

Madame
interest

Nini, to

me

far

more, a private lesson in the art of the chahut.

I

found the hotel, but not, at

In the bar no one

door.

the front

first,

knew

of a front

door, but I might go upstairs, they said,

liked

right.

that way,
I

went

if 1

through the door on the

upstairs,

found a waiter, and

presently Nini-Patte-en-l'Air bustled into the

room, and told

home.

Nini

is

me

to

make myself

quite at

charming, with her intense

nervous vivacity, her quaint seriousness, her

little

professional airs

befitting the directress

of the sole ecole du chahut at present existing

in the world.

stage,

and the

We

have

little,

all

seen her on the

plain, thick-set

woman

with the vivid eyes and the enigmatic mouth,

is

just the

same on the stage and

off.

She

is

the same because she has an individuality of

her own, which gives her, in her
dancing, a place apart

own kind

of

an individuality which

DANCERS AND DANCING

is

99

by a degree of accomplishment
which neither La Goulue nor Grille-

reinforced

to

La Sauterelle nor Rayon-d'Or,

moment pretend. And I found that

d'Egout, neither

can for a

she takes herself very seriously

that she

is

justly proud of being the only chahut dancer

who

has

as the

made an

only one
of her

difficulties

tant

once

at

talked of

art

out of a caprice, as well

who has conquered all the

own making, the only execuand

faultless

many

brilliant.

thing, I of Paris

and she of

immense

London, for which she professes an

enthusiasm

then she told

ant tour in America, and

me

We

of her triumph-

how

she conquered

America by the subtle discretion of her dessous,

which were black. Blue, pink, yellow, white,
she

experimented with

all

colours

but the

American standpoint was only precisely found

and flattered by the factitious reserve of black.
Then, as she explained to
of her

art,

chair in

she would

me

all

the technique

jump up from

which she was

sitting,

the arm-

shoot a sudden

and do the grand

But the pupils ? Oh,
ecart on the hearthrug.
the pupils were coming and Madame and I
had just finished moving the heavy oak table

leg, surprisingly, into

the

air,

COLOUR STUDIES

100

into a corner,

when

the door opened, and they

came in.
I was introduced,
a big

woman

IN PARIS

to

firstly,

La

Tdn^breuse,

of long experience,

whom

found to be more supple than her figure

dicated.

Eglantine came next, a

handsome, dignified-looking
eyes and eyebrows

she

came

Epi-d'Or,

English

London.
little

little

They

sat

yet

in-

strong,

with

dark

second year,

America.

in

timid,

blonde,

school-girls,

in her

is

and has been with Nini

girl,

tall,

gay,

Then
rather

who makes her debut in

down meekly, like good

and each came forward

as

she was called, went through her exercises,

and returned to her

those exercises

and when a

seat

And

was not a large room,

It

tall girl

by the door.

lay at full length on the

and Nini bent over her, seized one of

her legs, and worked it about as if it were a
piece of india-rubber, the space seemed quite

floor,

sufficiently occupied.

When

Eglantine took

her third step towards n?e, kicking her hand

on the level of her eyes at each step, I tried

to push back my chair a little closer to the
and the big girl,
wall, in case of accidents
;

La

Ten^breuse,

when

she did the culbute, or

DANCERS AND DANCING

somersault, ending with the

the spHts, finished

at,

101

grand

almost on,

ecart, or

my

feet.

saw the preparatory exercises, le hrisement^ or

dislocation, and la serie, or the high-kick, done
by two in concert and then the different
;

poses of the actual dance itself

which the leg

la

guitar e, in

held almost at right angles

is

with the body, the ankle supported by one

hand

le

port darmes, in which the leg

is

held

hand clasping the heel of the

a position of great difficulty, on which

upright, one

boot
le

salut militaire

is

a slight variation

la

Jambe

which requires the

most elaborate acrobatic training, and which
derrii're la tete, a position

is

do

perhaps as painful to see as

;

le

croisement,

it

must be

which ends a figure and

to
is

done by two or four dancers, forming a sort

of cross-pattern by holding their heels together
in the air,

on a

level with the

eyes

and

le

grand ecart, or the splits, which is done either

by gliding gradually out (the usual method),
in the air,

jump

which the split is done

and the body falls violently to the

or by a sudden

in

ground, like a pair of compasses which have

opened out by

their

own

weight.

It

was

all

very instructive, very curious, very amusing.

COLOUR STUDIES

102

" Relinque

curiosa,"

But

pocket.

was

mood

said

IN PARIS
the

book

in

my

from being in that

far

watched these extraordinary contortions, done so bhthely, yet so

seriously, by Tenebreuse, Eglantine, and Epimonastic

d'Or

as

Nini-Patte-en-l'Air giving

with that professional

air

now more

ever on her attentive face.

after

discreet,

order;

so

sense.

a fashion,

comically

am

her

in

orders

fixed than

It

was

its

methodical

indiscreet,

in

all

so

another

avid of impressions and sensa-

was a new sensation,

an impression of something not easily to be
I sat and pondered, my chair
seen elsewhere.
pushed close back to the wall, Nini-Patte-enI'Air by my side, and before me Tenebreuse,

tions

and

here, certainly,

Eglantine, and Epi-d'Or.

1897.

LEON BLOY: THE THANKLESS

BEGGAR

LEON BLOY: THE THANKLESS

BEGGAR
The
called

que

Octave Mirabeau has

plus somptiteux

le

temps, of

that he

whom

writer

whom Remy

is uii

ecrivain

de

notix

de Gourmbnt has said

de plus grands createurs d'hnages

la terre ait portes, is

markable." In

indeed " himself re-

Le Mendiant

lugrat, a journal

kept during the years 1892-1895, which forms

autobiography, he writes

a sort of

" J'ai

vecu, sans vergogne, dans une extreme solitude, peuplee des ressentiments et des desirs

fauves que
enfantait,

mon

execration des contemporains

ecrivant ou vociferant ce

paraissait juste."

" Ecrivant

for the writing of this strange

genius

is

at times

qui

me

ou vociferant,"
pamphleteer of

an almost inarticulate cry

of rage or of disgust.

fond du gouifre," he

" Je suis I'enclume au

cries, in a letter to

de Groux, written at a time when

105

Henry

his wife,

COLOUR STUDIES

lOG

IN PARIS

believed to be at the point of death, had re-

ceived extreme unctiou, " renckime de Dieu,

qui

me

fait souifrir aiiisi

Ij'enckmie de Dieu, au fond

je le sais bien.

du goufFre

C est une bonne

Soit.

cape " des

invites a friend to

Lieux

d'imbeciles dans la solitude."

and

his

hjfs

sharpened

hunger

make

Communs ou Ton

venir ht^ro'iquement ronger avec

which he

is

place pour

In the dedication of his

retentir vers Lui."

new book he

parce qu'il m'aime,

his es-

dine pour

moi des cranes

It is a dish on

his teeth all his life,

deadly.

Bloy

tells

us that

on alms, and he affirms that

it is the duty of man toward man, and especially of Christian toward Christian, to supply
he

lives entirely

the need of one whose poverty is honourable.

" Pourquoi voudrait-on que je ne m'honorasse
pas d'avoir ete
*

mendiant

un mendiant,

ingrat

'

"

et,

un

surtout,

His journal

is

the

up his
voice against the rich man who has thrown
him the crumbs from his table. Here is no
anarchism, no political or social grievance it
is the outcry of a Catholic and an aristocrat

journal of Lazarus at the gate, lifting

of letters, unable to "

make

his

way

in the

world," because he will not "prostitute him-

LEON BLOY THE THANKLESS BEGGAR

:

self" to

man

any

claim his right

it

gratitude to

the giver for

of the

gift

That

which Bloy sets before

Catholic, he beheves
that the promises

taken

literally,

provide

will

almsgiving,

"

to live,

without shame, and without

and to claim
spirit

Has

servile or lying tasks.

the right to

107

and
for

us.

in

of the

more than the

Bloy

a fervent

is

God, he believes
Bible are to be

that, literally,
his

problem

the

is

"the Lord

Man,

servants.

in

but the instrument, often the

is

unwilhng instrument, of God Bloy is therefore ready to receive help from his enemies
and to bastinade his friends, in perfect good
;

" I recognise a friend," he says simply,

faith.

"by

his giving

me money."

He

statement of the dependence of

is

the living

man on man,

man on God, who can

through man. Where he is alone
that

is,

of

act only
is

in his

pride in that humiliation of himself, and in

on the duty of others to give

him what he is in need of. The most eloquent

his insistence

of his pleadings against the world's

places

is

planche.

he

common-

CXLIV, Avoi?^ du pain sur la

Quand il ny en a que quelques miettes,

No.

says, ^a se

man^e

encore.

Quand

il

y en a

COLOUR STUDIES

108
t?'op,

fa ne se

mange pas

pierjxs et cest avec

le

L\ PARIS

die touty

pain sur

fa devient dcs

la

planche des

bourgeois de Jerusalem que fut lapide

le

proto-

7nartjjr.

But

not merely in his quality of

it is

man

and of Christian that Bloy demands alms, it

as the prophet and familiar friend of God.

is

do not doubt Bloy's sincerity in believing that

he has a " message " to the world. His message, he tells us,

and

it is

de notijier la gloire de Dieu,

is

to notify the glory of

God by

spoiling

the Egyptians, scourging the money-changers

out of the Temple, and otherwise helping to

cleanse the

gutters

of creation.

It

is

his

mission to be a scavenger, and to spare the

who might be
an employer who

cesspool of a friend

useful, or

the dunghill of

has

useful, materially,

criminal.

With

been

would be an act almost

this

conviction in his soul,

with a flaming and devouring temperament

which must prey on something if it is not to

prey mortally on itself, it is not unnatural that
he has never been able to " write for money."

The

artist

may

indeed write for money, with

only comparative harm to himself or to his

art.

He

permits himself to do something

LEON BLOY THE THANKLESS BEGGAR

109

which he accounts of secondary importance.

But the prophet, who

cry his message

message

is

a voice,

to change a syllable of his

is

a wilful

lie.

crucifixion of the bourgeois

own making.

bourgeois, after

and
it,

all,

Coinmuns

is

on a cross of the

Now

it

to

is

the

that Bloy appeals for alms,

from the bourgeois that he receives

it is

as

With

sin.

not absolute truth, truth to

is

Bloy's Exegese des Lieiuv

bourgeois'

must always

to sin the unpardonable

him whatever
conviction,

is

he declares (and, indeed, proves)

lessly."

am

*'

thank-

not sure that the conventional

estimation of gratitude as one of the main

virtues, of gratitude in all circumstances

and

for all favours received, has not a profoundly

bourgeois origin.
clearly

have never been able

to recognise the

necessity,

or even

the possibility, of gratitude towards anyone

for

whom

affection,
benefits.

have not a feeling of personal

quite apart from any exchange of
I

The

what is called a
and the prompt return of

conferring

favour, materially,

a delicate sentiment, gratitude, seems to

me

a kind of commercialism of the mind, a mere

business transaction, in which an honest ex-

COLOUR STUDIES

110

change

IN PARIS

not always either possible or needful.

is

The demand

for gratitude in return for a gift

comes largely from the respect which most

money from the idea that
money is the most " serious " thing in the
world, instead of an accident, a compromise,
the symbol of a physical necessity, but a thing
having no real existence in itself, no real importance to the mind which refuses to realise
Only the miser really possesses
its existence.
it in itself, in any significant way
for the
people have for

miser

an

is

others

it

idealist,

the poet of gold.

a kind

is

synonym

for being

say

necessary,

it

is

To

all

of mathematics, and a

You may

" respected."

almost as necessary as

breathing, and I wull not deny

Only

it.

deny that anyone can be actively grateful

the power of breathing.
He cannot con-

will

for

ceive

of himself without

that

To

power.

conceive of oneself without money, that

is

say without the means of going on living,

at

once to conceive of the

human

right,

to that

mere human

that one

more

is

to assistance.

man

right,

one

in
is

is

the mere

right,
If,

to

addition

convinced

of genius, the right becomes

plainly evident,

and

if,

in addition,

one

LEON BLOY THE THANKLESS BEGGAR

:

111

has a divine "message" for the world, what

further need be said

That, I take

it,

is

the

argument of Bloy's conviction. It is a problem which I should like to set before Tolstoi.
I am not sure that the meekest and the most
arrogant enemy of our civilisation would not
join hands, Tolstoi's with a gift in
freely
freely

it,

offered

and humbly, which Bloy's would take,

and proudly.

1902.

VICTOR HUGO AND WORDS

VICTOR
The

HUGO AND WORDS

Hugo

centenary of

gives this collec-

tion a special interest as the last thing

from

the hand of the master whose astonishing

career began in

literary

On

1816.

the pages of the Post -script urn de

writes
erre,

Mais

one of
Vie he

de religions

les fondateici^s

07it

V analogic nest pas toujours la logique.

The whole

of this book

analogies.

It

of a

ma

new

is

a vast exercise in

comes to us

as with the voice

revelation

denies, nor does

ning to end
range

over

it

it

even argue

it

And

affirms.

Vimagination

memoir e

est la servante.

common

la

est

sense,

from begin-

the affirmations

U intelligence

the universe.

Vepouse,

of a witty

neither proves nor

viatti'esse,

est

la

There, on the side

is

one affirmation.

Here, in the language of an apocalyptic mysticism,

is

another

Et

cest

toujours

de

V immanent, toujours present, toujours tangible,

115

COLOITR STUDIES IN PARIS

116

toujours

inexplicable,

toujours

i?iconcevable,

que sort ragenouillemeni

tonjoui's incontestable,

There are 270 pages of the most

images in the world images which

humain.

elo(j[iient

seem to bubble out of the brain

like unin-

habitable worlds out of the creating hands oi

mad

it

Every image detaches itself

away with supreme confidence
and perhaps arrives somewhere
soon becomes invisible. Mon-

mouth and

jNIacedon are at one for ever in

gaily,

deity.
floats

into space

certainly

these astonishing pages

every desire of the

by

mere

heart seems to

fulfil

ance

no longer a truism

there

is

itself

its

utter-

A B

have become miraculous again, as they were

in the beginning.

une permission.
birds

mission,

And

these

Qiiest-ce que t ocean

When
may

little,

fly

hard,

scattered violently in
like fireworks,

they

all

the ocean

Cest

is

a per-

where they

please.

sharp sentences are

directions

fall like

they

rise

comets, lighting

up patches of impenetrable darkness.

They

succeed one another so rapidly that the eyes

can scarcely follow them

behind

it

When

and each leaves

the same blackness.

Victor

Hugo

thought that he was

VICTOR HUGO AND WORDS

117

thinking,

he was really listening to the

articulate

murmur

that words

in-

make among

themselves as they await the compelling hand

He

was master of them all,

and they adored him, and they served him so

of their master.

and so swiftly that he never needed

to pause and choose among them, or think
twice on what errand he should send them.
They had started on their errand before he
willingly

had finished the message he had to give them.

Par le ciel, dont la mort est le noir machiniste,
Le sage sur le sort s'accoude, calme et triste,
Content d'un peu de pain et d'une goutte d'eau,
Et, pensif, il attend le lever du rideau.
Is

not this epigram rather than poetry,

genuity rather

than imagination

not show, in the words of

little

of

le

M. de

in-

Does

it

Regnier, a

gigantesque effort du prosateur qui

boite d'une antithese fatigante ?

Or take

this

line,

La

which

among

vie est

it

un torchon orne d'une

dentelle,

has seemed worth giving by

the

Tas de

characteristic of

Pierres, a line certainly

Hugo

a line of poetry, or

itself

is

it

can one accept

not

it

as

rather, like the

COLOUR STUDIES

118

IN PARIS

we have

wliole passage which

of mere prose logic

sonorous, ingenious,

quoted, an effort

Poem

poem,

follows

made

exterior,

most part out of a commonplace which

itself

out to vast

They

size.

the

for

puffs

are like clusters

of glittering images round the faint light of a

tiny idea.

One cannot

read

them without

admiration for their astonishing cleverness

still

one cannot

tion,

without

They

are

feel

anything but cold admira-

either

interest

sympathy.

or

the mathematical piling up

of a

gi\en structure, in a given way, always the

same.

Poem

poem

repeats

like

an

echo

always the same admirable form, finished to

a kind of hard clear surface, off which the
slips,

without

difficult to

penetrating

read a

instance, with

its

poem

it.

like Soh^

It

is

mind
really

dAvril, for

facile forty-five stanzas, so

apt, so eloquent, so elegant, so generalised, in

which so many pretty things are said about

love,

but in which love never speaks with

own

voice.

its

All these resonant poems about

Babel, and hell, and

le

grand Eire contain

splendid images, and rise into a fine oratory

but they come to us like the voice of a crowd,

not the voice of a man.

VICTOR HUGO AND WORDS

Among

119

the fragments in these pages are

some epigrams of a Latin sharpness and

savour.
Take this one, A un Critique

Un

aveugle a

le

tact tres

fin, tres

net, tres clair;

Autant que le renard des bois, il a le flair;

Autant que le chamois des monts, il a rouie;
Sa sensibilite, rare, exquise, inouie,
Du moindre vent coulis lui fait un coup de poing ;
Son oreille est subtile et delicate au point
Que lorsque un oiseau chante, il croit qu'un taureau
beugle.

Quel

flair
quel tact
aveugle.
!

quel gout

Oui,

mais

est

il

There, in that merely logical development of

an

idea, in that strictly calculated progression,

you

will

the method which really

find

lies

hidden in most of the more eloquent, the

more obviously

volume.

poetical,

poem which

largeness and loftiness,

tagnes,

is

poetical, if

in its choice of detail

ing

" is

passages

in

impresses

Du Haut

by

its

des 3on-

one looks into

;

this

it,

only

the " mental cartoon-

inadequate, mechanical.

It begins

Voici les Apennins, les Alpes et les Andes.

Tais-toi, passant, devant ces visions si grandes.
Silence,

homme

Dieu.

histrion

Les monts contemplent

COLOUR STUDIES

120

Then comes

IN PARIS

a powerful and vivid statement of

ct sombre de I'abime,
L'cntree ct la sortie etrange dc la nuit,

Le drame formidable

of which the mountains are the spectators

then the reflection

Pour tux, I'homme
finally, a

un pcuple s'evapore

n'cst pas,

geographical conclusion

there

not in

obvious, a

little

somethhig a

this

all

made up

Is

it

vision

Hugo when Hugo

is

not an effect

know

but

can be found in

his finest self,

how much

in

little

of rhetoric rather than an authentic vision

That the authentic

Balkan, sans voir Stamboul, chantc son noir salcm

Sina voit Tinfiiii, mais non Jerusalem.
Is

we

all

of his work, as in

the whole, or almost the whole, of this last

volume of

it,

we

sincere rhetoric

because

it is

find that fundamentally in-

which

is

none the

less insincere

thundered from the hilltop

The testament of Victor Hugo, Post-scripi 117/1

de ma Vie, is after all not the last
publication of a ^mter whose energy seems
to survive death.

Here

is

Dernicre Gerhe,

the last sheaf, a collection of poems, of which

VICTOR HUGO AND WORDS

the earliest dates from 1829.
part the

poems

121

For the most

are complete, but there

is

small collection of fragments, called Tas de

Pierr^es,

single

lines,

couplets

and stanzas

end of the volume are some disconnected scenes and speeches from one or

and

at the

two unfinished

plays,

line

Aventure de

Don

Cesar Maglia, Gavoulagoule.

i

all

The poems contained in this volume are

characteristic of Hugo, but not character-

istic

of

Hugo

Le Rideau

Take, for example,

at his best.

Ce monde, fete ou deuil, palais ou galetas,

Est chimerique, faux, ondoyant, plein d'un tas
De spectres vains, qu'on nomme Amour, Orgueil,
Envie.

L'immense ciel bleu pend, tire sur I'autre vie.

Le vrai drame, ou deja nos coeurs sont rattaches,
Les personnages,

vrais, helas

It did not matter

nous sont caches.

there were always

more

words, and more and more, ready to do his

bidding.

Listen

Pourquoi Virgile

est-il

inferieur a

Homere ?

Pourquoi Anacreon est-il inferieur a Pindare ?

Pourquoi Menandre est-il inferieur a Aristophane ? Pourquoi Sophocle est-il inferieur a

COLOUR STUDIES

122

IN PARIS

Eschyle?

Pourquoi Lysippe

Phidias

Pourquoi David

inferieur a

est-il

est-il

inferieur a

Pourquoi Thucydide est-il inferieur a

llerodote? Pourquoi Ciceron est-il inferieur
Isaie?

a Demosthcne?
There are eight more similar queries, and
there the series ends, but there is no reason
why it should ever have ended.
"

The

of his

myth-making character
imagination," says JNIr. Havelock Ellis,
primitive and

" the tendency to regard metaphors as real,

and to accept them as the basis of his mental

constructions and doctrines, these tendencies,

which

Hugo

shared

with

the

savage,

are

dependent on rudimentary emotions and a

high degree of ignorance regarding the precise
relationship of things."

Which he

shared

^vith

the savage,

with that primitive being which

root of every great poet.
also a

is

philosopher loses nothing as a poet

also the poet to

work of

and leaves

whom

who

sufficient,

the

the

The poet who

he adds meaning to beauty.

is

at

is

yes,

it

his

the vast

But there is.

joy of making

has no curiosity concerning

hands

who makes

to others to explain

beauty,

it.

"Le

VICTOR HUGO AND WORDS

beau, c'est la forme," declares

forme est

essentielle

des entrailles

memes de

"

Hugo.

absolue

et

123

I'idee."

La

elle

vient

To

work,

with Hugo, was almost an automatic process

an enormous somnambulism carried his ^oul

about the world of imagination. Read the
Proviontoriuni Sonmii in this testament

it is

a picture in fifty pages, and each sentence

is

Ideas

a separate picture.

ideas

come and

away and return visible and audible

helping to make the colours of the

go, drift
ideas

picture.

There

is

beauty in

Hugo

thing that

this

wrote

book, as in everythere

is

the great

poetic orator's mastery of language.

made

poetry was never

Hugo's

to be " overheard "

his prose

knocks hard at the ear for instant

hearing.

Even when he dreams, he dreams

oratorically

he

is

he would have you

on

asleep

glimpses.

Le

a son suaire

Patmos.

spectre blanc

He

realise that

has

strange

coud des vianches

et devient Pierrot.

Quant a

la

quantite de comedie qui peid se meler an reve,

qui ne Ta eprouve

On

rit

endormi.

Little passing thoughts, each

leap out

Ueclio

est la i^ime

an analogy,

de la nature.

Ce

COLOUR STUDIES

12J<

IN PARIS

qui fait que la musique plait iant au

commun

des homines y cent que ccst dc la 7'everie tout^

faite.

Every sentence contains an

forms an epigram.

and

the

trumpets."
back,

it is

voice

*'

of

AVhen
as if

All

one

it

is

loud
is

antithesis

or

clamour, clangour,
uplifted

angel-

ended, and one looks

tried to recall the shapes

and colours of an avalanche of clouds seen

by night over a wide and tossing sea.
1902.

A TRAGIC COMEDY

GEORdE SAND

Y'lo face p. 127.

A TRAGIC COMEDY
In one of the letters now published in their
complete form for the first time, Alfred de
Musset writes
" La posterite repetera nos
noms comme ceux de ces amants immortels
qui n'en ont plus qu'un a eux deux, comme
:

Romeo

On

et Juliette,

comme

Heloise et Abelard.

ne parlera jamais de I'un sans parler de

name of George
Sand instinctively calls up the name of Alfred
de Musset, and that his name instinctively
It is true that the

I'autre."

up hers. But does posterity really repeat

the names of " the lovers of Venice " in the
same spirit as it repeats the names of the
calls

lovers

the

of

name

company
This

or

of " the learned

name
third

Verona,

is

even

as
"

nun

it

repeats

and her lover?

asks to be admitted into the

And

posterity queries, "

Pagello

"
?

a question on which the last ''word

will probably never

be said
127

but the most

COLOUR STUDIES

128

IN PARIS

important documents in the case, certainly,

now been pubhshed

are those which have

in

George Sand's careful

They were preserved by

as entire a condition as
scissors left

her,

it

them.

clear, as

is

and there

is

a justification of herself;

no doubt that they

in her

own

them

through,

eyes.

It

possible to read

still

is

admitting

while

and,

justified her

troubles that she had to suffer from

child

Musset,

like

actually to

than with

take

her.

extravagance,

sympathise,

to

JNIusset's letters,

sentimentality,

and

with

George

Sand's

who

all their

literary

affec-

starts of feeling,

hysteria even, are the letters of a

really in love,

not

if

with JNIusset rather

sides,

tations, petulances, fits

is

the

a spoilt

man who

really suffers acutely.

letters

maternal,

are

affec-

tionate, reasonable, soothing, at times worried

into a little energy of feeling

letters of a

the

woman who

man whom

but they are the

has never really loved

she has left for another.

as vingt-trois ans, et voila

que

certainly,

one

of

is

the

the

Tu

j'en ai trente-

et-un," she says, in one of the last of

and there,
much.
In

"

them

explanation of

first

letters

after

Musset's flight from V^enice, he writes to her

A TRAGIC COMEDY

129

Tu t'etais trompee tu t'es crue ma maitresse,

tu n'etais que ma mere " and she answers,
"

*'

She calls him " Mon petit

enfant," and cries, " Ah qui te

Peu importe

mon

frere,

"

soignera et qui soignerai-je

de moi et

qui voudrai-je prendre soin

de
"

The
coming when

d^sormais
and,

Qui aura besoin

woman

real

speaks there,

does in the story,

it

not the word of a lover.

It expresses the

need of an organisation, the besoin de

mateimelle soUicitude qui

cette

veille?'

Betweea

sur

un

impulse of love there

an instinct that

who

may

woman

of

writes

her

its

It

is

etais

fatigue.

steps

It

is

woman

But a very

in

present

when

the

lover to her

comme un

pere,

notre enfant a tous deux."

true that Musset, genuine as his letters

seem to be
is

in a

sake.

former lover: *'Je I'aimais

et tu

habituee

compassion and the

be heroism

comedy
of

et

iiourrii^

a great gulf.

is

renounces love for

harsh kind

s'est

etre souffrant

this instinct of

it is

in their expression of a real feeling,

not always absorbed in

of other interests.

it

A month

to the exclusion
after

he has

left

Venice, in the midst of a troubled and very

serious letter, he says suddenly

COLOUR STUDIES

130

Je ni'en vaisfaire un roman.

noire histoire

il

IN PARIS
J'ai

me semble que

Men envie d'ecrire

me gneriraii et

cela

rri'eUverait le coeur.

He

asks

readily

her
she

is

permission
writing

about herself or him at

which

she

something
all,

else,

gives

not

a part of her un-

deviating course of work, which flows onward,

then and always, without change of direction,

While he reads JVerther

and meditates the Co?ifessio?i dun Enfant du
Sicclc, a book certainly made out of the best
of his heart and the most honest part of his
senses, she is asking him to correct her proofs
for the Revue des Deux Mondes, and to insert
any

or in

direction.

the chapter-divisions, which she

meet
but

letters

become more

exciting.

They

and Musset forgets everything

The letter from Baden is an
love.

again,

his

outcry almost of agony.

Je suis perdu,
inonde d' amour ; je ne
rush

afraid in

Later in the

her haste she has forgotten.

book the

is

ma?ige, sije marche,

si

The words gasp and

vois-tu,
sais

plus

je suis noye,
si

je

viSy si

je

je respire, sijeparle; je

Je faimey ma chair. Pagello

is no longer between them, but there is someshe tries to
thing, as before, between them

sais

que j'aime.

A TRAGIC COMEDY
love

him

131

again, seems about to succeed,

then there

which these

In some of the brief

letters end.

last letters she, too,

seems to

and the

suffer,

distressing reasonableness of tone gives

to a less guarded emphasis.

herself,

and

the new, inevitable parting with

is

way

But she recovers

and with the cry of Mes

enfa?is,

mes

enfans! leaves him.

Such value

as the episode

the rarer genius of the two

may
is

have had to

to be found,

perhaps, in the phrase of Musset, true most

mon grand et brave George,

tu asfait un homme d\in enfant.
The amount
"
of
self-improvement " derived by George
Sand from the same experience is a more

likely

Soisjiere,

was to
write a few songs and a few comedies which
were worth any '' expense of spirit " whatever
and if George Sand helped to make him the
man who was capable of writing these, she

negligible quantity.

did well.

JNlusset at least

Her own

sentimental education

done without JNlusset

we might have had one EUe
easily enough
et Lui the less, but we should have had one

could probably have

;

Lucrezia

Floriani

the

more.

Pagello, Chopin or Pierre Leroux,

Musset
it

or

mattered

COLOUR STUDIES

132
little

to

her

interest to her

each

life,

or so to her work.

IN PARIS

added

an

appreciable

and an appreciable volume

But of no man could

it

be said that he had been needful to her, that

he had helped to make her what she was.

She went through life taking what she wanted,

and she ended her days in calm self-content,
It
the most famous of contemporary women.
is

possible that in the future she will be re-

membered chiefly as the friend or enemy of

some of the greatest men of her time.
1904.

PETRUS borel

I'lrrUUS

EUKEL
[To face p. 135.

PETRUS BOREL
The name

a laughing-stock to
to the Bourgeois.

thrope,"

that

it

is

come to be
the Phihstine, a byword

of Petrus Borel has

His nickname,

remembered, but

was of

his

own

it

*'le

lycan-

forgotten

is

christening.

What

Gautier said of him as a friend, and Baudelaire as a critic

all

that and the fact that he

was the chief of a cenacle and

roi qui

but a few seekers after lost

s'en allait," all

reputations have forgotten.

fantastic

"un

He

is

a figure

but not grotesque, a defier of order

He

dreamed of conquering the world. He was a dandy, whether

with a " gilet a la Robespierre " or naked
under a tiger-skin. His whole work, scattered
in reviews and journals, and never reprinted,
is contained in a novel, a book of short stories,
but a slave of

letters.

and a book of

verse.

135

None

of

them

are

COLOUR STUDIES

186

accessible,

and one, not the

IN PARIS
least remarkable,

exists only in its original edition of 1833, of

which

have a copy.

done them

No

one has ever yet

entire justice.

Pierre-Joseph Borel de Hauterive was born

Lyons 26 June, 1809, and died at MostaThe

ganem, in Algeria, on 14 July, 1859.
events of his life are of no great importance,
but his ill-luck was continuous. He was set
in

to be an architect, and built a few houses and

the once famous Cirque of the Boulevard du

But he preferred the studios of his

His books
friends, and was soon penniless.
brought him no money, he founded newspapers with names such as Le Satan, JUdne
do7\ and wrote articles, stories and poems
wherever he could get them taken finally,
Temple.

in

1846, through the help

Mme.

of Gautier and

de Giradin, was appointed Inspector

of Colonies at Mostaganem.

There he

a house for himself which he called

Pensee."

'*

built

Haute

In 1848 he was turned out of

his

and afterwards removed to another. He

married, and had a son, Alderan- Andre-Petrus-

post,

Benoni
1859.

and died

in

misery in

the

year

P^TRUS BOREL
The jeune
self

et

fatal poete has described him-

under an imaginary name in the preface

of one of his books

by

187

exactitude

its

confirmed

is

the portraits painted and the eulogies

all

The two mottoes on

written by his friends.

the title-page of Rapsodies render

One

with great exactness.

its

character

chosen from

is

The former

Regnier, one from IVIalherbe.

affirms the author to be,

Hautain, audacicux, conseiller de lui-meme,

se heurte a ce qu'il aime.

Et d'un coeur obstine

The
clares

second, in the

name

of the book, de-

Vous, dont

les

censures s'etendent

Dessiis les ouvrages de tous,

Ce

livre se

moque de

vous.

Nothing more remained to be said, only

there is a long preface the end is fine irony
" Heureusement que pour se consoler de tout
le tabac de
cela, il nous reste I'adultere
papel
espagnol
et
du
pour cigariMaryland
He names himself " Un loup-cervier."
tos."
:

*'

Mon

thropie
it,

and

republicanisme,
!

"

The word

c'est

de

la

lycan-

caught, he recaptured

" le lycanthrope " will be

found among

COLOUR STUDIES

188

IN PARIS

The book

his titles for himself.

begins and

ends with an avowal of poverty, and between

that

dreams,

ending what romantic

and

beginninop

what towers, chatelaines, what

have only

to

faction

poignard, and

the

'*

a tattered

skies,"

if

satis-

cloak,

one can also

"taste one's sorrows in an elegant tea-cup."

The sombre Carlovingian manner

Is

Hugo

from

it

is

there.

already that the romantic

properties find their

way

this sort of antithesis

into these pages,

and

Enfer si ta peine est ma peine,

Qu'en ce moment tu dois souffrir!
I

and all the gay and fierce

love-songs were what everybody was writing.
It

was

What

in the air,

is

personal comes

where the vagabond

companions

is

in,

life

here for instance,

of Petrus and his

indicated in a single quaint

stanza
Chats de coulisse, endeves

Devant

la salle ebahie
Travcrsant, ridcaux leves,
Le Theatre de la vie.

And

there

is

throughout

the ceaseless refrain which returns

his

whole work

P^TRUS BOREL

139

Naitre, souffrir, mourir, c'est tout dans la nature

Ce que I'homme pergoit; car elle est un bouquin

Qu'on ne peut dechiffrer un manuscrit arabe
Aux mains d'un muletier hors le titre et le fin
II n'interprete rien, rien, pas une syllable.
:

The wolf barks

harshly enough, and to

little

purpose, in the political pieces, but has not

Champavert

yet tasted blood.

hardly anti-

is

cipated in Agarite, the one dainty fragment

of dialogue, with
this,

however,

is

instant of drama.

its

in the interval,

with a desperate epilogue

It

is

curious

how many

Few

and we end

" J'ai faim."

things which Petrus

Borel could not achieve he

to others.

All

left as

an impetus

readers probably have paid

any heed to the motto of the fifth Ariette

oubliie of the Romances sans Paroles:
Son joyeux, importun d'un clavecin sonore.

poem

Verlaine's

of what

which

called

Doleance and

there

the "Parle, que

be discerned in "

not

is

But he has taken from

lament.

May

a miraculous transposition

Borel only suggests in his

is

he needs

is

*'

is,

poem,

a personal
it

all

that

besides the line quoted,

veux-tu?" which may

Que voudrais-tu de moi ?

me

une main

frele "

come from

COLOUR STUDIES

140

Sans doute unc main

tu?

Indiscret, d'ou viens

IN PARIS

blanche,

Un beau
Dans de

doigt prisonnier

riches joyaux a frappe sur ton anche

D'ivoire ct d'ebenier?

Of

lament, in which the

a bitter, personal

"clavecin sonore"
has

Verlaine

mere

is

made

dream of music
twilight
no more than
piece.
But to him, as to
given the

in the Rapsodies,

to

Madame

others,

poem
It

its

was Pctrus

not to be found

is filled

it

with a grave

in its cold ardour,

its

anticipates

almost worthy of him.

is

conscious of
"

is

romantic equipment, and

under that cloak,

and

it

but in the form of a prologue

Pidiphar.

and remote phantasy, and

its

impulse.

first

Petrus Borel's best

in

but a master-

that,

and

vague,

scarcely heard

divine

who had

starting-point,

floating,

naked

Baudelaire,

Baudelaire was

and has defined

merit,

un etrange poemc, d'une

self

sonorite

si

it

as,

eclatante

et d'une couleur presque primitive a force

d'intensite."

The poem

adversaries in the soul

solitude,

given

and death.

the

first,

is

a cavalcade of three

the world, a mystic's

The

picture of each

young, gay in his

is

steel corslet

PlilTRUS

on
a

his caparisoned horse

bony mule

BOREL
;

141

the second bestrides

the third, a hideous gnome,

bears at his side a great fishhook, on which

hangs nets of unclean creatures. And so, he

ends, after praising and cursing each in turn,
with admiration and hate.
Ainsi, depuis long-temps, s'entrechoque et se taille

ces

Cet infernal trio,

lis ont pris, les

trois fiers spadassins

mechants,

pour leur champ de

bataille,

Mon pauvre coeur,

Mon pauvre coeur

meurtri sous leurs coups assassins,

navre, qui s'affaisse et se broie,

Douteur, religieux, fou, mondain, mecreant

Quand finira la lutte, et qui m'aura pour proie,
Dieu le sait
du Desert, du Monde ou du Neant
!

In the year 1833 a book of between four

and five hundred pages was published in Paris

by the firm of Eugene Renduel, under the
title

Petrus

CJiampavert.
Bo7'el,

le

Coiites

Immoraux,

Lycanthrope.

The

thirty-eight pages contain a Notice su?'

pa?'
first

Champ-

by the author, and professing

that Petrus Borel was dead, and that his real
name had been Champavert. Some of the
poems published two years before in the Rapsodies are quoted, and some biographical notes,
avert, written

not perhaps imaginary, are given.

The

rest of

COLOUR STUDIES

142

IN PARIS

the book contains seven stories,

de

sieur

CArgentitTe^

named

Mon-

Jaquez

rAccusateui\

Banaon, le Charpentier (La Havane), Don

Andrea Vesalius^ rAnatomiste (Madrid), IVirec
Fingered Jack, lObi (La Jamaique), Dina, la
Belle. Jiuve (Lyon), Passercau, tUcolier (Paris),

and Chainpavcrt,

Each has

le

Lycanthrope

(Paris).

on

a motto, or a series of mottoes,

the fly-leaf of

its title,

mostly from the Bible,

and from contemporary poets, Gerard, Gautier,

Each

Musset.

number

own

story

is

divided into a great

of divisions, and every division has

more often

title,

in

These

Latin, or Proven9al than in French.

seven

though not immoral,

stories,

profess to be, in the

its

English, Spanish,

defiant

as

they

manner of the

day, are as extraordinary as any production of

the

human

and

iniquities

All are studies in horrors

brain.
;

above

all,

Written by anyone

blood.

revolting, for they spare

deeds

they would be

immense
which

no

is

self-pity

bitter,

in the
else

shedding of

they would be

detail of

pitiless

monstrous

but for their

cruel but for their irony,

personal,

and

magnificent arraignment of things.

crude, extravagant, built

at

times

They

are

up out of crumbling

BOREL

PJ^TRUS

143

and far-sought materials they are deliberatelyimprobable, and the persons who sin and suffer
in them are males all brain and females all
idols and ideals.
They are as far from reality
a world
as intention and style can make them
;

of vari-coloured puppets swinging on unregulated

wires.

And

yet these violences and

and all this digging in graveyards

and fumbling in the dead souls of the
treacherous and the unforgiving, have something in them or under them, a sincerity, a
real hatred of evil and unholy things, which
crudities

keeps us from

impulse

may well

suffering
fore us in

away, as our

turning
be, in

mere

disgust.

first

A man,

from some deadly misery, leaps beironical gymnastics, and comes down

with his mortal laugh, a clown, in the arena.

what makes the book tragic, a buffoon's

criticism of life
there is philosophy in it, and

That

is

an angry pathos.

Can the

sense of horror become, to those

accustoming themselves to it, a kind of luxury,

In another later book
like drunkenness ?
Borel
la

tells

us that

it

can

" Car

il

y a dans

douleur une volupte mysterieuse dont

malheureux

est

avide

le

car la souffrance est

COLOUR STUDIES

144

comme

savoureuse

writers have had

genius

Hugo had

Many

bonheur."

le

it,

IN PARIS
great

as a small part of their

it,

for instance, together

with

his passion for the tragically grotesque.

But

in

one writer horror seems to be

this

almost the whole substance of

Whenever he seems about

open the door to

to

beauty, horror shuts to the door.

suggest, he

is

minute, and

dreams.

his

will

He

does not

number every

circumstance, which others would turn from.

At

times horror finds a voice in sucli a litany

Dina and the boatman chant on their dreadful voyage

or, with an appalling irony, in
as

where two negroes, fighting to

death, stop suddenly at the sound of the
convent bell striking eight, draw apart, kneel,

that scene

repeat the " Angelus " each taking his turn,

pray silently for one another's

rise

We

souls,

and then

and hack and tear each other to pieces.

shudder and wonder, and find the horror

almost insupportable

but we do not, as in a

story of Pierre Louys, sicken at the calm, deliberate cruelty of the writer.

horror
to

is

an obsession

become an
It

is

its

In Petrus Borel

danger

is

at times

absurdity.

one of the defects of

his hasty, defiant

BOREL

PlilTRUS
that

art,

he

we

pleased

it

are not always sure whether,

absurd, he

is

him

to write a style which

lery of the senses before

tated her nerves,

her apathy

all

full

mon,

storax,

musk."

woman is
hardly know how

which

awakened
with the most

she burned incense and

And

he

will

you
and

tell

" pyramidally virtuous

is

irri-

she surrounded herself

"
;

often things are obomhre,

the Biblical "overshadowed."

and Spanish rudely decorated

ally

more accurate than

this

form of

many

that

she shook around her amber, cinna-

that a
I

all

of syringa, jasmine, vervain,

roses, lilies, tuberoses

benzoin

that excited and

heavily scented flowers

with vases

was half

Huysmans "Depraved

she covered herself

And

Listen to this jewel-

she sought ardently for

grief,

when

absurd intentionally.

is

splendour and half rage.

by

145

English

his pages, gener-

in the seekers after

local colour in his time.

He

has

from the pompous

are done with an uneven

varieties of dialogue

to the abject, but

all

energy.

To be
as

delivered from

most of the beautiful

well as the discomforting things of the

world, was the continual prayer of one

liked to be called

"un

lycanthrope."

who

"La

COLOUR STUDIES

146

IN PARIS

souffrance," he said, " a fait de

moi un loup
and the world to him was a thing
" sur leqiiel je crache, que je meprise, que je
repousse du pied." He reahsed that to think
feroce,"

too closely about

so

life

was to be unhappy.

who goes
the man who

that varying image of himself

through the best of

thinks and dies.

his stories

AVhat

is

logic there

certain of the preposterous scenes,

their

summit

who wants
but

And

in

in the dialogue

is

often in

which reach

between the man

to be guillotined ("not publicly,

your back garden

")

and M. Sanson, the

The bour-

state mechanician of the guillotine.

geoisie itself

is

concentrated in one vast be-

wilderment in the professional gentleman who

doubts, with strict politeness, the sanity of a

strange visitor

manner

"

mies que

j'ai

seulement,

who

addresses

him

after this

Je jure par toutes vos oesophagoto-

mes

saines et entieres faculties

le service

que

rendre n'est point dans

les

one splendid, frantically

je vous prie de

moeurs."
original,

which gives the whole accent to

me

But the
sentence,

this strange

Pen de chose, je voudrais simpleis

ment que vous me guillotinassiez."
The whole story of Passereau, in which this

story,

"

P^TRUS BOREL
is

147

the most significant of several audacious

and

unparalleled

humour which

terrible,

macabre

has a

incidents,

is

if

you

but

will,

and at that time new. It has been

since, and we find Baudelaire, con-

personal,

seen

sciously or not, taking the

his

murderous drunkard's

exact details of

Le Vin

action, in

de L^ Assassin, from the well in which Pas-

The very words

Passereau alors," we

sereau drowns his mistress.

are almost the same.
read, " avec

tomber sur
de

la

un grand
elle,

margelle,"

"

effort,

une a une,
just

detache et

les pierres bris^es

the

as

drunkard

Baudelaire was to confess afterwards

Je

I'ai jetee

au fond d'un

Et j'ai meme pousse

Tous les paves de la

Huysmans

is

fit

in

puits,

sur elle

margelle.

anticipated, not only

in

such

a passage as I have quoted, but in that sketch

of an earher des Esseintes

" Sometimes, the

bad weather, having gone on without intermission, he remained cloistered for a whole
month, surrounded perpetually by lamps, by
torches, flooded
light

by a splendid

artificial

reading, writing sometimes, but

often drunk or asleep.

day-

more

His door was closed

COLOUR STUDIES

148

IN Px\RIS

against everyone but Albert,

who came

very

not
readily, to shut himself up with him
crazed by the same delirium, the same suffering, the same desolation, but for the oddity
;

of the thing, for the chance of taking

life

in

a w^rong sense and of parodying this rectilineal

bourgeoisie."

word
in

Is

not almost to the very

it

characterising

it,

the plan of existence

Rebours?

may

If a wild but living sketch

be com-

pared, at whatever distance, with a flawless

picture,

it

might be

said that there

is

some-

thing in the power of creating a sense of

suspense at the opening of a story, and in

developing

it

horror of the

to the explicit

end, in which Petrus Borel sometimes reminds

us of Poe.

Still

more does he

at times

How

to anticipate Villiers de L'Isle-Adam.

like a first sketch

suicide

by

is

the idea of

and the mock-pedantic

to the '* Commission des

guillotine,

form of the
Petitions "

of Villiers

seem

letter
''

Dans un moment ou

la

nation

est dans la penurie et le tresor phtisique

au

un moment ou les d^contribuables ont vendu jusqu'a leurs

troisieme degr^, dans

licieux

bretelles

pour solver

les taxes, sur-taxes,

con-

P^TRUS BOREL
super-taxes,

re-taxes,

tre-taxes,

149

impots et contre-impots,

archi-taxes,
et

tailler

retailler,

capitations, archi-capitations et avanies

un moment ou

votre

dans

monarchic oberee et

votre souveraine piriforme branlent dans

manche,

and so
"

To

ments.

est

il

du devoir de tout bon

citoyen,"

forth.
!

sing of love
It

"

he says in the Testa-

a catalogue of his work; not

is

Beddoes was more funereal.

Is this obsession

of blood, this continual consciousness of

or the

evil,

any but the dark conof things, a mere boastful affectation

this inability to
traries

le

see

only possible

way

of

expressing a

personality so full of discontent, and

bitter

knowledge of reasoned complaint? All his

stories have such a dissection, such a passing
of all things through so bitter a crucible.
" Pauvre Job au fumier," he calls himself in
a poem, which seems to be sincere.
P^trus Borel's next and last complete work,
his "triste ^pop^e," as

published

till

years

six

The mood

has

changes in

the course

pages

the style

he called

again

is

after

it,

was not

Champavert.

changed,

or

rather

of the interminable

elaborated, and used with

COLOUR STUDIES

150
a

singular,

Madame

paradoxical

Piitiphar,

anticipations

is

The name,
nature to call up

effort.

of a

which are

IN PARIS

far

from being

grati-

Never was virtue so magnanimously or

more preposterously presented, praised, and
carried unshaken through unheard-of tribuBeings so transcendently moral and
lations.
so consistently led by their merits and good
deeds into pitfalls which the smallest worldly

fied.

common-sense would have avoided, do not

exist in fiction.

meant to

refer to

accuracy

the

"

There

"where
where

are

sentence in the book, not

them, defines with perfect

manner of
certain

their

cases,"

Ave

treatment.
are

told,

reason has so stupid an

air,

logic has so absurd a figure, that

one

really

has to be extremely serious

if

one does not

Deborah or Patrick
MacAVhyte the more saintly, the more heroic ?
It would be difficult to say, especially as, by

laugh in their faces."

Is

a further freak of their clu-onicler, they are

most part to speak in a language

so formal and artificial that the feeling it is
meant to convey is only to be faintly seen
through it. Here is Deborah speaking, at a

set for the

moment

of

crisis,

to her husband.

" Veuillez

PETRUS BOREL
croire

que

"je ne

me

je

151

vous estimer," she says

sais

point assez impertinente

suis

pour

supposer I'auteur de votre delicatesse et

prdsumer que
vous

eussiez

sans
ete

mais, sans fatuite,

vos rapports

avec moi

homme

un malhonnete
il

m'etoit bien permis de

penser que, livre a vous-meme, sans

liens,

sans serments, sans dilection emplissant votre

ou vous

coeur, place dans la fatale alternative

vous etes trouve, vous auriez pu preferer manquer al'exigence de vos vertueux principes,"

and much more but no, the faultless man

would have been quite capable of doing it
all, on his own account.
It is from the very
:

explicit

and perilous

Madame

trial

of his virtue by

who is meant
the Pompadour

Putiphar

the worst side of

book takes

its

name.

the snares of evil are

to typify

that the

Here, as elsewhere,

but vaunted

to be

trampled upon, and the pictures which are

called

up

" flowers, candles, perfumes, sofas,

ribbons,

vases,

damask,

lovely

voice,

mandoline, mirrors, jewels, diamonds, necklaces,

rings,

woman

earrings, a

lovely and gracious

lying back languorously," are but the

prologue to a condemnation.

COLOUR STUDIES

152

The

story itself begins with an arraignment

of Providence, as

man

IN PARIS

" If there

to God.

follow

to

There

is

woe to him prestrange way " Such

!

in

own

virtue,

and

in a way, God's puppets.

a sentence which might liave been

written by
state,

as,

it

are these martyrs of their

they are shown

a Providence,

is

ways

often acts in strange

destined

ways of

to justify the

if

Thomas Hardy,

an image

like

so clearly does

one of

very centre of his philosophy.

his

"

own, the
have often

heard that certain insects were

made

amusement

man

of children

perhaps

it

for the

also

was

same pleasures of superior

who delight in torturing him, and
disport themselves in his groans." There he
states his own problem
the book is to be
an illustration of it hence the horrors and
the angelic natures that endure them.
But
he has no explanation to give, and can but
bow down, like a later mouthpiece of Villiers,
created for the
beings,

" before the darkness."

It

is

from

this

gloomy and hopeless point

of view that the whole horrors of the story

are presented,

volume.

up

to page 250 of the second

Then, suddenly, comes a change of

P^TRUS BOREL
direction,

and the

hundred

pages are

sixty out of the six

written from

"When I took
book my mind

point of view.
to write

last

153

this

doubts, of negations, of errors.

new

this

up
was
But

my

pen
of

full

know

not by what mysterious means light has come

to

me on

the way.

have constrained my-

the whole of this book to

self in

make

vice

flourish and dissoluteness overcome virtue

1 have
I have crowned roses with rottenness
perfumed iniquity with nard I have poured
;

overflowing happiness into the lap of infamy

have brought the firmament down to the

gutter I have put dirt in the sky not one
I

of

my

brave heroes has not been a victim

everywhere

and good

have shown

evil as the oppressor

the oppressed."

as

affirms, all these cruel

accumulated destinies

have turned upon him, after

interpret them,

"There

God

suffers

action of

man.

pains to
lie.

a Providence," he cries now, a

is

tributed sin

all his

and have given him the

of Vengeance.

suffers,

And now, he

God

The

just

man,

from some ancestral or

and
or

" Croyez a

evil

is

he

if

at-

destroyed by the

some destroying power

un Dieu punisseur ici has

in
I

COLOUR STUDIES

164

he

cries,

IN PARIS

enigma with-

or the world will be an

an absurd, impossible charade.

And he brings the great symbol of useful
destruction, the French Revolution, to end
out a

his

secret,

arraignment of the cruelty of things by a

man

vengeance in which

the shearer, the people

the sheep shearing

giants like a rag between

crushing

its

And

him

when

for
all

takes back his rights,

it

is

its fists.

the approach of the hour

those miseries that he has sung, and

mountains more of them,

weigh down

shall

the ultimate scale of the balances of the wrath

of God.

In

sudden illumination,

this

ends a book

outburst, which
dissonances,
sincere,

nobility,

we

or

see

tending
certain

convictions underlying

and uncertain

full

absurdities,

errors,

noble

this prophetic

all

of clouds,

but always

blindly

brave
that

is

towards

and serious
contradictory

in a creature of passionate

eccentric imagination.

When

and

a people,

says, revolts against its deities, its first act

he
is

That is what he does

where none of his deities are

to break their images.

in these pages,

allowed to be logical.

A book

so incoherent defies analysis, but

it

p:^trus
is

not

difficult to see

followed in
like
full

many

dungeon

borel

how

155

closely the truth

is

of the details, the Defoe-

scenes, in particular,

which are

of a painful reality, passing at least once, in

the death-scene of Fitz-Harris, into notes as

of an instrumental solo, as he cries in the last

ecstasy of death in the pit's
shines like a carbuncle

all is

darkness,

"All

flaming, caressing,

wavering, dusty."

For the actual part of these scenes Petrus

Borel has an invaluable model in the narrative
of de Latude. No one, so far as I know, has
the very striking resemblance be-

identified

tween scenes

in which, equally,

horror to horror.
Devoile, ou

My

we grope from

copy of Le Despotism

memoir es de Henri Masers De

Latude, detenu pendant trenie-cinq ans dans

divers prisons d^Etat,

is

dated 1790, " imprime

aux frais de M. de I.atude," and authenticated

by his signature, in his own handwriting, at
the foot of the

preliminary Avertissement.

names of the governors of the prison,

and of fellow-prisoners are taken by Borel
from de Latude, in one instance almost word
and the characterisation of Guyonfor word
the
first
Governor of the Donjon of
net,
All the

COLOUR STUDIES

156

Vincennes
Borel
as

calls

he

him

called

is

M. de Guyonnet,"

(" I'honnete

his successor,

"

IN PARIS

homme

as

delicat et honnete,"

by de Latude), of Rougemont,

who,

both narratives,

in

is

repre-

sented as the same odious tyrant, tampering

with the prisoners' food, bricking up the

light left in their

windows, suppressing their

walks in the open

puant,
calls

un

him,

air,

pince-maille,
in

is

"

un sot, un fat, un
un belitre," as Borel

The

both identical.

"un mauvais

magistrate,"

de

is

Latude,

seen at

who

en

charlatan

much

prints

manicre de

greater length in

perhaps

the

"de

propos," he writes to the Minister,

Donjon de

moins de prisonniers qu'u

N'incennes,

ou

la Bastille, et

oublier."

In that phrase are exceeded

horrors of

Madame

Pompadour who

Putiphar in his pages,

veracious and

il

de
all

le

y a
I'y

the

Putiphar.

Whatever was the good or

of the

most

" II feroit a-

ghastly letter in the world.

transferer au

terrible

by Borel

lieutenant-general of police, defined

as

little

evil reputation

figures

I find, in

as

^ladame

the evidently

documented pages of de Latude,

confirmation enough to justify that part of

Borel's

characterisation

which

is

concerned

PJ^TRUS BOREL

157

with her vindictive and destroying

"

What

then has been

"

questions.

At the

my crime

"

frivolity.

de Latude

age of twenty-three years,

misled by an access of ambition which was

simply absurd,

displeased la Marquise de

Pompadour, I offended her, if you will, and

At forty years,
that is a good deal to admit.
worn out by seventeen years of captivity and
of tears "
but not yet nearly at the end of
either.
And he affirms " Also she has never
given liberty, as it is asserted, to any of those
:

whom
down

she has hurled into chains

she shut

dungeon walls their sighs

and their anger." And he names (Borel names
them after him) a Baron de Venae, who was
imprisoned in the Donjon for nineteen years
for ever in the

having given the Pompadour a piece of

for

good advice which " humbled her pride " a

Baron de Vissec, seventeen years imprisoned
on the suspicion that he had spoken against
;

her

a Chevalier de Rochequerault, suspected

of being the writer of a pamphlet against her,

imprisoned for twenty-three years.

Latude's

books,

in

ways, represent the

scarcely less

moment

Borel and
impressive

of her death, and

their natural hopes that a personal

vengeance

COLOUR STUDIES

158

would be
thought

set right at

de Latude
to

last

" I

by the law.

saw the sky purple with shame,"

tells us.

"

me that there could

my

IN PARIS

Not even

the idea

came

be any delay in breaking

For de Latude and for the

innocent prisoners of Borel no key unlocks
a door, and it is Borel who represents the
dying woman writing a great " no " in a last
chains."

refusal of mercy.

All

this,

then, and the episode of Malsherbes

visiting a prisoner in the

pit

of a dungeon,

drawing him up into the

light,

and then per-

suaded by

false tidings to

leave

him

to

his

and is used by Borel as

which has so much of the

fate, is historical fact,

part of a story,

document where

it

Not

of a story-teller.
artificial

way,

aux-Cerfs.

seems most the invention

less real, in its

properly

the adventure of the Parc-

is

Borel seeks too often such local

colour as "azederach," a Syrian tree, or the

plants " mahaleb

comes

"

and "

aligousier."

in here as in other

Pedantry

ways and places

as,

for instance, in the return to old spellings in

avoit, touts,

abyme, gryllons.

Pedantry passes

into ignorance in certain English words,

we may set partly to

which

the credit of those printers

P]fiTRUS

whom

he

BOREL

159

account on one of his

calls to

Strange metaphors flourish on

pages.

pages, as

when

"

il

lui

all

last

the

sembloit qu'il venoit de

contracter avec les pieues de son cachot, avec

ses

fers,

eternal,

un hymen

indissoluble,

ne devant rompre qu'a

la

un hymen

mort."

There

windy howlings, the " Lycanthropie " I

suppose, and at times grave silences, like this,
with its sombre air as of Villiers " Elle etoit
du nombre de celles qui jamais ne s'efFacent."
Everywhere there is, in Baudelaire's phrase
about him, " le charme de la volonte " and
are

the sign that "

as the

aimait ferocement

same great

after his exact

1907.

il

critic

les lettres,"

characterised him,

manner, in an adverb.

NOTES ON PARIS AND

PAUL VERLAINE

THE ABSINTHE-DRINKER
Gently

Far
Far

wave the visible world away.

hear a roar, afar yet near,
off and strange, a voice is in my ear,
And is the voice my own ? the words I say
Fall strangely, like a dream, across the day;
And the dim sunshine is a dream. How clear,
New as the world to lovers' eyes, appear
The men and women passing on their way
off,

The world

very fair. The hours are all

dance of mere forgetfulness.
I am at peace with God and man.
O glide,
Sands of the hour-glass that I count not, fall
Serenely scarce I feel your soft caress.
Rocked on this dreamy and indifferent tide.

Linked

is

in a

Boulevard Saint Germain.

Aux Deux Magots.

Pans, 1890.

I'Al

I.

l.Kl.AI

M,
[JTu face p. ICO.

AT THE CAFE FRANCOIS

PREMIER
Literary French Bohemia congregates
certain cafes of the Boulevard St. ^Michel

in

in

the Cafe Vachette, the Soleil d'Or, the Cafe

When

was in Paris in
1890 it was at the Fran9ois Premier that
Verlaine had taken up his headquarters,
possibly for no other reason than that it was
Fran9ois Premier.

The

near the hotel where he was then living.

cafe
less

is

situated high

frequented end

Rue Gay-Lussac.
friends the
It

is

up the boulevard,

just at
There

the corner of the

used to meet

my

Decadents and the Symbolistes.

an evening in

to half-past eleven.

May
I am

the clock points

strolling along in

front of the crowded caf6s, watching

delightful

at the

effervescence

of

life

the

all this

noisy,

pleasant gaiety of the Boul' Mich' near mid165

166

COLOUR STUDIES

night.

Suddenly

hind

me

Symons

"

IN PARIS

I hear a strident voice be-

Comment
Jean

allez-vous,

Monsieur

IVIoreas.

turn,

"

It

is

he asks

me

to

come with him

Moreas

is

Greek, and

blue-black

features,

and

to the cafe.

he has the dark

hair,

and

half-savage,

which characterise the

An eternal monocle sticks

half-sullen black eyes

modern Athenian.
jauntily

in

his

eye.

As we walk up

the

boulevard he begins to talk about his poems.

At

that time

a volume,

Moreas

Le

who has since published

Pelerin Passionne, which

has

him a certain vogue had published

two volumes Les Sijrtes and Les Cantilenes.

given

There
these

is

a slight but genuine inspiration in

fragmentary songs and ballads

finds touches of naive

tic grace,

one

charm, a faintly fantas-

a quaint, archaic simplicity.

just been reading the Cantilmes, and I told

how some

of the pieces had charmed me.

began to

recite,

waving

out the consonants with

had

him

He

his

arm and

all

the emphasis of

rolling

Moreas has two subjects of

conversation, his own poems and Havilet.
He does not recite Hamlet, but the poems he

his

iron voice.

recites at every opportunity,

with a

fine dis-

NOTES ON PARIS AND PAUL VERLAINE

regard of surroundings.

167

have heard him

chanting them in a restaurant to the waitress,

the charming CeHne, surprised but impartial.

In time we reach the Cafe Frangois Premier,

at the corner of the

Rue Gay-Lussac.

Voices

Charles

There we
Vignier, author of a book of

verses called

Centon, with his pale, elegant,

hail us

find

from a table to the

right.

perverse face, his blond plausiveness, always a

veiled sneer about

his lips.

He

dubious story, with a feigned

telling a

is

air

of remote-

and the others are laughing. Opposite

to him is Fernand Langlois, the young artist,
whom I had met one memorable night at
ness,

He

Verlaine's.

is

incredibly

and youthful, with an

air

and thin

tall

already of exhaus-

tion, a tired

grey look upon his features

speaks in a

soft,

caressing,

he

feminine voice,

with the accents of a petted

girl

he

fixes

brown eyes upon you with a troubling

intensity.
Then there is a musician whose
name I forget it is not known to fame

large

commonplace, bourgeois
there are others,

men who

sort of person.

men who have

have only

written

And

printed and
verses.

The

conversation, out of compliment to me, turns

COLOUR STUDIES

168

IN PARIS

They are very anxious

them about Swinburne.
known by name in France,

upon English poetry.

to

know

all I

can

tell

Swinburne is well
and since then an admirable prose translation
of the Poems and Ballads has been

They question me about

Mourey.

Gabriel

made by

Tennyson, about Browning, about Rossetti

know who

they want to

new

the

novelists

repeating to

may
them know
when

past

they

new

insist

them some English

that they

of

are the

finally

how

hear

English.

the door

appears, followed

is

sounds

it

poets,

on

my

poetry, so

for

none

Midnight has long

flung open, and A^erlaine

by a noisy crowd of young

leaning on his stick, his grey

men.

Verlaine

hat

pushed back, he gesticulates, explodes

is

is

When

into conversation.

prevailed

upon

talk about

to

sit

things

at last he can be
down, he too joins in the

English.

\^erlaine at

one

time spent some years in England, and he

very proud of his knowledge of English.
conversation has become disjointed.
talking in a low voice to a

down by
some of

his side

Moreas

is

his resonant verses,

The

Vignier,

with his sceptical, ironical smile on his

is

is

man who

lips,

sat

thundering out
with that grand

NOTES ON PARIS AND PAUL VERLAINE

wave of the arm

more

And now

ordered.

all

*'

bocks

"

around

169

are being

there

is

money, the sound of

glasses being laid down, a hubbub of voices
men push past us on their way to the door, the
women arrange their hats and nod farewells.

movement, a

It

"

closing time.

is

on

rattle of

ferme

the

slowly,

shouts

"

On

ferme,

the

gerant.

unwelcome warning

We are almost the

last to go,

Messieurs,

Slowly,
is

and we

one by one, through the only door

for our passage.

we

stroll

after

down

the

obeyed.
file

left

out,

open

In groups of two or three

the boulevard, refreshingly cool

heated

interior.

walk

with

Fernand Langlois, and we talk of art, of

Gustave Moreau, of Puvis de Chavannes, of

One after another

has dropped off, and when we come to the
Rue Racine, I too say good-bye, and make
my way homeward to my hotel under the
Burne-Jones, of Rossetti.

shadow of the Odeon.

II

THE MAN
Not many
serious

years ago Paul \^erlaine

now

are

critics

whom

beginning to speak

of as the greatest hving French poet

An

ahnost unknown, even in France.

Httle circle of

the

wisdom

Decadents and
venerate

to

and the kindness to pay

the cafes.

Certain

independent

was

Sijinholistes

him

as

odd
had

master,

for his absinthe at

writers,

Huysmans

like

of these narrow cliques

did

something to widen a reputation which had

so far been merely

something vague, some-

thing rather scandalous.

Lang
this

of

more

somely

Paris,

or less

presented

Jules

Then

the

Lemaitre,

Andrew
took

up

obscure writer and hand-

him

to

the

boulevards.

To-day they interview him in the Figaro,

and the Gaulois tells you which hospital he
is in at the moment.
170

NOTES ON PARIS AND PAUL VERLAINE

The

poet I have

greatest living French

called him,

and

171

do not know whose claims

can really be held to surpass the claims of

the author of Romances sans

and

Paroles

The former volume

Sagesse.

seeing in Coppee's book-case, and I

remember
remember

wondering whether Coppee had ever thought

of Verlaine as a serious
Lisle, Sully
ville

very

Leconte de

rival.

Prudhomme, Theodore de Ban-

own

admirable poets, each in his

all

way

different

" succeeded," as

it

is

all

who

poets

called

but

have

for

one

would rather have written the little song of

the wind II pleure dans mon coeur than
even Un Acte de Charite, than even Le Vase

Brise,

than even the

new

note

the Odes

of

deftest

The

Fiinambulesques.

of

Verlaine's

French verse his form is

new. For the first time the French language
has become capable of all the delicate songpoetry

is

in

fulness of the English language

impracticable lines which Victor

Verlaine has broken.

art,

full

is

new

of reticence,

Hugo

His verse

cal as Shelley's, as fluid, as

the magic

those

one.

is

magical
It

is

stiff,

bent,

as lyri-

though

a twilight

of perfumed shadows.

COLOUR STUDIES

172

of

hushed

melodies.

It

IN PARIS
suggests,

impressions, with a subtle

giv^es

it

avoidance of any

too definite or precise effect of line or colour.

The words

now

are

dently commonplace

words

of

the piano by a
of a scented

confi-

of the boudoir,

The

impressions are

melody evoked from

hand in the darkness

as a

frail

room

now

words

the street

remote and fleeting

recherche,

Qu' est-ce que c'est que cc bcrccau soudain

Qui lentcmcnt dorlotc mon pauvrc etre ?
Que voudrais-tu de moi, doux chant badin ?
Qu' as-tu voulu, fin refrain incertain,
Qui vas tantot mourir vers la fenetre
Ouverte un peu sur le petit jardin ?

Or, again, the impressions are as close and

vivid as the

circling

flight

of the

wooden

horses at the fair of St. Gilles, in Brussels

Tourncz, tournez, bons chevaux de bois,
Tournez cent tours, tournez mille tours
Tournez souvent et tournez toujours,
Tournez, tournez au son des hautbois

Or, again, they are as sharp, personal, and

brutal as the song of prisoners turning " the
mill of destiny "

NOTES ON PARIS AND PAUL VERLAINE

173

Allons, freres, bons vieux voleurs,

Doux vagabonds,
Filons en fleur,

Mes

chers,

mes bons

Fumons philosophiquement,
Promenons-nous
Paisiblement

Rien

The

faire est

doux.

apparent contradiction between

the

exquisite and the brutal part of Verlaine's

work
is

almost

all

of the

simply the outcome

work
of

is

exquisite

temperament

which has always been untamable, a career

which has been impervious to every influence
but the sudden, overwhelming influence of
the

moment

towards

good, or towards

Paul Verlaine was born at Metz, March

1844.
His father, an officer, received
baptism

of

fire

at

Waterloo.

evil.

30,
his

Verlaine

spent his childhood at Montpellier, was educated at Paris, and, at the age of twentythree,

brought out, under the wing of the

Parnasse Contemporain, a volume of verse,

Poemes Saturniens. It was at the same

time that Coppee published his first volume,
equally unnoticed then, Le Reliquaire.
Two
years later Verlaine

made

a sort of literary

COLOUR STUDIES

174

success with
in

tlie

honour of

happiness

all

first

and

his girl-wife that

year,

it

was

he published

La Bonne Chanson.

a tiny book of verse,

When,

Next

Fetes Galantes.

occurred his unhappy marriage

1870,

marriage at
in

IN PARIS

four years later, the

Romances sans

Paroles appeared, Verlaine had already given

way

to

every kind of self-indulgence, and

with a sort of
trailing

mad Bohemian

strange

companion,

gaiety was

the

young

Arthur Rimbaud, over France, Brussels,

Germany, and England.
The pilgrimage
was ended by a pistol-shot (I have heard
Verlaine talk of it, very coolly) and for
eighteen months Verlaine was in solitary
confinement at IMons.
He came out of
prison a fervent Catholic, and after seven
years' silence a volume of religious poems,
Sagesse (1881) one of the most sincere books
ever written was published obscurely at the
poet,

office

of a Catholic publisher

Palme.

Verlaine's

genuine, but

it

able influence

faith

is

named

Victor

unquestionably

has never had a very appreci-

upon

misery, in penury,

pense of his friends

his conduct.

now
in

Always

in

lodging at the ex-

some miserable garni,

NOTES ON PARIS AND PAUL VERLAINE

now, a

little

175

more comfortably and without

expense, in hospital, he has published Jadis

et

Naguere

book of poems which

every side of his

represents
(1888), a

(1884), a

Amour

work.

pendant to Sagesse, and Parallele-

ment (1889),

antithesis.

its

volume

Dedicaces (sonnets

privately printed

of

to his

and he has written

audits, and
Les Poetes

friends) appeared in 1890,

a book of criticism,

one or two collections of

new volume

tales in prose.

poems, Bonhem% long exBonheur Happipected, appeared in 1891.

of

ness

who
who

strange

to

be chosen by one

has apparently had so

has grasped

as to crush
is

title

it

it

irony which

mark

was doubtless
of the

full

of

it,

or

with so feverish a haste

in the grasp.

perfectly aware

little

of the
his

But

many

\^erlaine

touches of

strange career, and

it

not without a consciousness

word that he
poems Sagesse

significance of the

named a volume
Wisdom.

of

his

Ill

BONHEUR
Some

years ago, in a book rather of con-

than

fession

two

criticism,

Paul

Verlaine

(somewhat too formperhaps) of dividing his poetic work into

announced
ally,

of

his intention

parallel

series.

be

to

sections,

distinct

Sagesse,

published

in

Amour, Bonheur,

were to " make for rigliteousness " ParalUlebetween

ment was to be frankly sensual
them, he imagined, the whole man that
composite, though not complex
strange,
;

nature

would

Bonheur,
trilogy,

the

be fully and
third

part,

finally expressed.

completing

the

appeared in 1891.

Bonheur

is

written very

much

of Sagesse, and a great part of

in the style
it

might be

on internal evidence, to a period

It has
anterior to Amour and Parallelement.
none of the perversity, moral and artistic, of
assigned,

176

NOTES ON PARIS AND PAUL VERLAINE

177

the latter book, despite a few experiments

Nor

upon metre and rhyme.

space de-

is

voted, as occasionally in AinouVy to the

mere

The

verse

courtesies

of literary friendship.

has an exquisite simplicity, a limpid clearness,

a strenuous rejection of every sort of artistic
"

dandyism

"

the word
et

is

Verlaine's

que cet arsenal,

Chics fougueux et froids, mots sees, phrase redondante,

Et cetera, se rende a I'emeute grondante
Des sentiments enfin naturels et reels.
I take these

lines

from a poem which

new "Art Poetique."

and magical poem itself

be considered a
that delicate

ideal of the art

about

it

In
the

Verlaine said nothing

sincerity, except, inferentially,

fleeting

to

the

expression of something almost too

vague for words.

all,

sang

may

and then, not

last fine shade.

INIusic first

of

all

and before

colour, but the nuance, the

Poetry

is

to be something

winged soul in flight " towards

other skies and other loves." To express the
inexpressible, he speaks of beautiful eyes

intangible, a

behind a

veil,

of the full palpitating sunlight

of noon, of the blue

swarm

of clear stars in

COLOUR STUDIES

178

autumn sky

a cool

he makes

and the verse

p^se ou qui pose

"

" sans rien en

which

the essential poetry.

Now,

of poetical counsel, he

tells

first

of

which

in

his confession of faith has the ex-

quisite troubled beauty

is

IN PARIS

all,

lie

in

lui

qui

commends as
this new poem

us that art should,

be absolutely clear and sincere

it

the law of necessity, hard, no doubt, but

the law;

mcs
meme.

L'art,

Foil!

cnfants, c'est d'etre absolument

d'un art qui blaspheme ct

fi

soi-

d"un art qui

pose,

Et vive un vers Men simple, autremcnt

c'est

la

prose.

The
simple."

verse

Bonheur

in

There

is

poem

is

indeed

*'

addressed

friend " Mon ami, ma plus

meilleure which even \^erlaine

Men
to

belle amitie,

"

has

ma

hardly

excelled in a kind of plaintive sincerity, full

of the beauty of simple

human

feeling, seek-

ing and finding the most direct expression

Aussi, precieux toi plus cher que tous les
Que je fus et serai si doit durer ma vie,

moi

Soj^ons tout I'un pour I'autre en depit de

Soyons tout I'un a I'autrc en toute bonne

I'cnvie,
foi.

NOTES ON PARIS AND PAUL VERLAINE

Verlaine speaks to his friend as

if

179

he would

say more for friendship than has ever been

He

would fain find words close

and gracious enough to express all the intimacy and charm of their friendship
said before.

mes yeux, qui ne pleureront

Elle verse a

Un

paisible sommeil,

"

plus,

la nuit transparente

legers benissent, troupe errante

Que de reves

De

dans

souvenirs futurs et d'espoirs revolus.

Remembrances

again"

how

lish

And

to be, and

hopes returned

Eng-

lovely a verse, French or

the emotion, temperate and re-

strained through

most of the poem,

the end into exaltation

at

rises

Afin qu'enfin ce Jesus-Christ qui nous crea

fasse grace et fasse grace au monde immonde

Nous

D'autour de nous alors unis

Definitivement, et dicte

quote

place in

this stanza

paix

sans seconde

poem

Alleluia.

not only because of

expression
emotion but because

the

culminating

its

of
it

is

its

the

an

example of Verlaine's most charNote the rhyme at the

acteristic technique.
beginning of the first line and at the end of
excellent

the second, the alliteration, the curious effect

COLOUR STUDIES

180

IN PARIS
"

produced by the repetition of " fasse grace

(itself

an assonance), the tormented rhythm

throughout, the arbitrary and extraordinary

and

position

of

transposition

cannot be said that

all

accents.

It

these experiences are

always and equally successful

but

it is

useless

deny that \'erlaine has widened the capacities of French verse.

He has done what
Goncourt has done in his prose he has conto

tributed

the

to

language, which, within

its

own

of

destruction
its

narrow

But how

perfection.

classical

limits,

had

great a gain

there has been, along with this inevitable loss

In the hands of the noisy

Decadents,

the

brainsick

both

Symbolistes,

claiming

school of

little
little

school

Verlaine

as

of
a

master, these iimovations have of course been

carried

to the furthest limits of unconscious

caricature.

In

arose about a

Paris,

factitious

clamour

young Greek, Jean Moreas, a

person

who

talent

for verse,

at

one time had a very distinct

which he wrote

in regular

more of foreign idiom

Athenian origin would lead one to

metre, and without

than his
expect.
"

il

As one

repudie

of his admirers calmly remarks,

toute regie preetablie

pour

la

NOTES ON ?ARIS AND PAUL VERLAINE

contexture

de

vers."

ses

From

these

181

ex-

travagances Verlaine has always held aloof;

and

an

in

article

published in 1890 he has

given his opinion very frankly on those young

confreres

who

reproach him, he

tells us,

" with

having kept a metre, and in this metre some

and rhymes

caesura,

Mon DieiW
'

he adds,

broken verse quite

'

for the

sufficiently."

In Bonheur,

time in his work, there

first

poem

end of the Hnes.

"I thought I had

at the

a concession to

is

one

young confreres written in irregular unrhymed verse

verse, however, which is still verse, and not
delirious prose.
There are also two poems in
assonant verse, one of them in lines of fourshort

these

teen syllables, metrically quite regular.

to

difficult

see

any reason

of rhymes, but at

without disdain

Almost
personal

all

all

les

is

for the rejection

events they are rejected

frankly for a caprice.

the poems in Bonheur are closely

confessions of weakness, confessions

of penitence, confessions of

avec

It

gens et dans

''

I'ennui de vivre

les choses," confessions

of good attempts foiled, of unachieved resolutions.

With

a touch of characteristic self-

criticism Verlaine says in

one place

COLOUR STUDIES

182

IN PARIS

Mais, hclas je ratiocine

Sur mes fautcs ct mcs doiileurs,
!

Espece de mauvais Racine

Analysant jusqu'a mcs plcurs.

And

in its

there

are

analysis,

measure and degree

times

when

this

is

true

becomes

confession

not to the advantage of the poetry.

But, here as in Sagesse, the really distinguishing

work

an outpouring of desires that speak

is

the language of desire, of prayers that go up

to

God

as prayers, not as literature

of con-

fessions that have no reticences.

One

of the finest pieces

tells

the story of

that endeavour to rebuild the ruined house

which Verlaine made at the time of his

conversion, after those calm and salutary
eighteen months of seclusion. This intensely
personal poem, which is really a piece of the
of

life

most exact autobiography, becomes a symbol

of
to

all lives
rise,

Towards

that have fallen, that have struggled

that have failed in the endeavour.

the

end

the

emotion

rises

in

crescendo, half of despair, half of hope, as he

cries

out in the very fury of helplessness against

the worst of foes

NOTES ON PARIS AND PAUL VERLAINE

183

Vous toujours, vil cri de haro,

Qui me proclame et me diffame,
Gueuse incpte, lache bourreau,
Horrible, horrible, horrible

femme

Vous, I'insultant mensonge noir.

La haine

longue,

Vous qui

seriez le desespoir.

ranee,

I'affront

Si la Foi n'etait I'Esperance.

Et I'Esperance le pardon,
Et ce pardon une vengeance.
Mais quel voluptueux pardon.
Quelle savoureuse vengeance

Elsewhere he writes of
**

last

home

his Hfe in hospital

perhaps, and best, the hospital "

of his child-wife, for whose

memory he

has

so strange a mixture of regretful complaint

and unassuaged self-reproach and always he

returns to the burden of " Priez avec et pour
le pauvre Lelian
;

IV

EPIGRAMMES
In

book of Epigrammes, Verlaine

tells us he has tried to do something of what
Goethe did in the Westoestlicher Divan, but
" en sourdine, h ma maniere."
And, indeed,
this little

there

is

new

note, as of a personality for

once somewhat impersonal, concerned with

general questions (always individually appre-

hended), with the interest of moral ideas, the

charm of

exterior

things.

The book was

written in the calm retirement of that beau-

which

tiful

and fantastic

hospital, Saint-Louis,

lies,

like a

walled city of the middle

little

ages, in the midst of the squalid

taining neighbourhood of the

Martin.
quiet,

It

was

written

^NTitten in a

quietly,

and from memory,

as

and enter-

Canal Saint-

time of unusual

without excitement,

one might say, a

mem-

ory for once of the head, not of the heart or

184

NOTES ON PARIS AND PAUL VERLAINE

In the introductory verses we

the senses.

calming

find ah'eady the real, evasive Verlaine,

down,

as he

fancies or fears, to a certain in-

" Les extremes opinions

difference.

"

of the

more or less abandoned as for

of woman, "on finit par s'habituer";

past are to be

the wiles

the sharper clarion notes of the day

fou de I'aurore

clairon

"

fade

into

under the fading sunset one is

and not too unwilling for sleep.

fluting
tired,

185

Quand nous irons, si je dois encor

Dans I'obscurite du bois noir,

Quand nous

Au bord

"

le

dim

simply

la voir,

serons ivrcs d'air et de lumiere

de

la claire riviere,

Quand nous serons

De ce Paris aux

.d'un

moment depayses

coeurs brises,

Et si la bonte lente de la nature

Nous berce d'un reve qui dure,
Alors, allons dormir

Dieu

se

This, then,

such a

du dernier sommeil

chargera du re veil.

mood

is

the note of the book

the

memory

and in

of certain quaint or

charming impressions comes up very happily.

Japanese

art,

comme un

" lourd

oiseau

"
:

comme un

crapaud, l^ger

the Ronde de Nuit, seen

COLOUR STUDIES

186
at

Amsterdam

IN PARIS

Cazals' latest portrait of him-

the spectral back view which serves as

self,

book

frontispiece to the

the haunting sound

of a barrel-organ
Bruit humain, fait dc

Dans
it

cris ct

de lentes souffranccs

sokil couchaiit au loin d'un long cliemin

Ic

such sights and sounds as these that

is

Verlaine

evokes,

wrought

little

most

for the

And

verse.

poem on

in

series

of

delicately

poems, more carefully written,

than

part,

there

is

the ballet

much

of his later

one specially charming

Mon age mur qui ne grommelle

En somme qu'encorc tres pcu
Aime
D'un

And

pcle-mele
ou camaieu.

le joli

ballet turc

the poem,

if

we mistake

not,

is

a remini-

scence of a certain memorable evening at the

Alhambra, and

it

recalls quaintly, deliciously,

a certain quaint and delicious paradox which

summed up
life

and

art

a personal
:

and poetical view of

" J'aime Shakspeare," said Ver-

laine, " mais j'aime

mieux

le ballet

CONFESSIONS
The

Confessions

Verlaine

of

graphical notes from

1844,

the

autobiowhen

year

he was born, to 1871, the year which proved

the disastrous turning-point in his Hfe

are

unhke the confessions of anyone else,

and have a charm of their own as individual
They tell, in a
as the charm of his verse.
vague and yet precise way, in a manner of
extreme simplicity which suggests even more
than it says, and by means of a series of little
quite

facts,

little

impressions

" nuances

presque

mes yeux,

leur im-

infinitesimales qui ont, a

portance tr^s serieuse"

vie

the

beaucoup en nuances."

this in

story of

And

an easy, casual manner

"une

they

tell all

(as it

would

seem), mainly by means of an extraordinary

visual

"

memory.

furent precoces

Les yeux surtout chez moi

je fixais tout, rien ne m'^chap187

COLOUR STUDIES

188

pait de formes, de

me

jour

osite

du

couleurs, d'ombres.

que

fascinait et bien

dans robscurit6,

m'y

IN PARIS

j'^tais

poltron

une

la nuit m'attirait,

Le
curi-

poussait, j'y cherchais je ne sais quoi,

du

nuances

peut-etre."

The book, despite the dehberate

" n'importe, sans
of its method

evasiveness

blanc,

gris,

des

pesantir,

tout

plus m'ap-

en choisissant,
trop m'y

simplement

elaguant, eludant

pas

voici," is

a subtle piece of psychology, the half-unconscious self-revelation of a

man who

has always

been the creature of violent and uncertain

who

instinct,

who

has never possessed himself, but

has always been curious as to his

qualities,

own

not quite understanding them, and

yet always so anxious to " confess."

In

this

book, and not alone in the chapters relating

to his childhood, he

is

always childlike in his

frankness, his simplicity, and in the sincere,

natural

way

in

and infirmities
and the rest.

And

which he speaks of

"

la

manie,

la

his follies

fureur de boire,"

in all the later part of the book, the

story of his falling in love, his marriage, "with

but a hint of that "espece d'enfer intermittent,"

which married

life

too soon became.

NOTES ON PARIS AND PAUL VERLAINE

there

is

again

all

things.

189

an ingenuous directness which has

the charm of a child's narrative of

This love story (hinted

in

at

La

Bonne Chanson, which he tells

remained the dearest to him of his books) is
one of the prettiest idylls of young love ever
us has always

written.

It

is

like

humanity and

more

its

nothing

virginal dehcacy.

disorderly side of a

then far from reticent,

little

we

admirably precise,

strained.

into the

Nor does

else in its intense

life

the

which was even

hear but

little

significant,

literature

Of
:

and

that
re-

come very much

scheme of these notes, though such

indications as there are have a real biographical

value, as, for instance, the story of
literary instinct

how

the

awoke, at the age of fourteen,

with the surreptitious reading of Baudelaire's

Fleurs du Mai, which the child was so far

from understanding as to imagine even that

Les
s'appelait tout bonnement
the book
*'

fleurs de

Mai'^

VI

DEDICACES
Verlaine's

book of poems

latest

is

truly-

described on the title-page as nouvelle edition

In

augmentee.

its

first,

privately

it

that Verlaine has ever published.

one of the
it

printed,

was scarcely more than a pamphlet.

final shape it is much the largest book

edition,

In

its

to be

best, nor, indeed, could

for

it is

It

is

not

one expect

an informal bundle of friendly

greetings, rather than a careful selection of

verse,

much

chosen for

own

sake.

In verse,

of which was written to order

order, that

we

its

is,

at

the

of a most friendly disposition

are not likely to find the

more poignant

sentiment, or the more exquisite form, which

we

find in Sagesse, for instance, or in the Fetes

Galantes.

On

the contrary,

that

it

is

only natural

come across many instances of

slovenliness of workmanship which mars

that one should

190

NOTES ON PARIS AND PAUL VERLAINE

much

so

of Verlaine's later work, in

its

191

exag-

geration of certain curious virtues of style

which he was one of the

instance, there

is

first

to discover.

For

the enjamhement, or running

of one line into another, to which Verlaine has

been so singularly successful

air

in giving just that

of choice simplicity which

surprises of his

is

manner of writing.

one of the
Here, only

too often, the lines run into one another merely

because they happen to come in that way, with

rhymes

at the

of syllables.
for the

end of a certain counted number

Then the sonnets the book is

most part written

in this

form

are

constructed after every shape, possible and

impossible, in alternate short and long lines,
in short lines with a long line at the end, in
infinite

malformations of rhyme-arrangement,

and

note with

(I

less regret) in that curious

form, "la queue en I'air," which Huysmans

compares to " certains poissons japonais en

polychrome qui posent sur leur socle, les

ouies en has." And, while few of the sonnets
terre

are without a

touch of the familiar magic,

there are not a few which have but one touch.

Yet, after

all

our reservations are made, the

book contains a large amount of

really excel-

COLOUR STUDIES

192

lent work,

and almost

all

IN PARIS

of it

is

of personal

full

interest, and, indeed, interest of various kinds.

What

medley of names

among

here

I find

these Dedicaces: famous names, Coppee, Dierx,

Mallarme, Huysmans, Leon Cladel, by the side

of anarchists after the order of Paterne Berrichon, eccentrics like Bibi-Puree, the fag and

butt of the Latin Quarter

" cabaretier

of the

Rodolphe
JMiiller "

miraculeux

La Com de

Un

And

some

there are

little

the

is

Chat-Noir,

and even the " Gerant du

Salis,

a musician, a painter

charming

"

then there

doctors, a sculptor,

London, with a

friends in

miniature of Fountain Court:

la fontaine est,

dans

Temple,

le

coin exquis de ce coin delicat.

there are certain

under discreet

initials,

women,

too, addressed

now with

little

homely

the elegy on the death and funeral

of - E's " goldfinch

details, as in

Tu
"

II

repris, et cela

me

aurait peut-etre

parut aussi beau

mieux

fait sur

mon chapeau

"
!

"

more charming poem on " Ph's

little dog that died in babyhood, "Ses pattes
freles en I'air, comme les oiseaux "
now more
intimately and more pathetically personal^ as
or the even

^H*.^^

^>-b.-uA^'

-t*^t^

^^^t^uJ

<jJ^

-^

FACSIMILE OF MS. BY STEPHANE MALLARM6

[To face p. 192.

NOTES ON PARIS AND PAUL VERLAINE

in the verses,

"Encore pour

desolate ending

Et
Et

193

G.," with their

m'ennuie, ainsi la pluie,

me pleure et je m'essuie
Les yeux parce que je m'ennuie,
Parce que je suis vieux et parce que
je

je

And,

je t'aime.

two splendid and resonant

sonnets to Arthur Rimbaud, touched with that
exaltation which informs everything that Veragain, there are

laine writes of his

the

first,

dead friend

one of them,

poem

being perhaps the finest

in the

book. In these sonnets the mainly familiar style

is lifted,

as

Tailhade

it is

also in the sonnet to

Laurent

Le pretre

et sa chasuble

enorme d'or jusques aux

pieds

where the words assume a sort of

hieratic

splendour, as of the very vestments they de-

Somewhat the same note reappears

the sonnet to Villiers de I'lsle Adam, and

scribe.

in

again in the early sonnet to Charles Morice

Imperial, royal, sacerdotal

with

five

however,

work

others,

is

is

from Amour.

comparatively

in general,

which
rare

in

reprinted,

This note,
Verlaine's

but seldom heard in these

COLOUR STUDIES

194

More

DMicaces.

IN PARIS

vaguely and singularly pathetic

Fernand Langlois
Haut commc

Commc

is

the

sonnet

on

really characteristic

le solcil,

vagucment

pale

comme

la

lune,

proverbe espagnol,
II a presque la voix tendre du rossignol,
Tant son coeur fut clement h ma triste fortune.

And

dit

le

more characteristic of the general

tone of the volume is this brave, frank, openair

Ou

still

sonnet to Irenee Decroix

sont les niiits

de grands chemins aux chants

bacchiques

Dans les Nords noirs et dans les verts Pas-de-Calais,

Et les canaux periculeux vers les Belgiques
Oil, gris,

on chavirait en hurlant des couplets

Car on riait dans ces temps-1^. Tuiles et briques

Poudroyaient par la plaine en hameaux assez laids
Les fourbouyeres, leurs pipes et leurs bourriques
Devalaient sur Arras, la ville aux toits follets
Poignardant, espagnols, ces ciels epais de Flandre
Douai brandissait de son cote, pour s'en defendre.
Son lourd beffroi carre, si leger cependant;

Lille et sa bi^re et ses

Bruissaient.

Des bonnes
It

is

moulins k vent sans nombre

Oui, qui nous rendra, cher ami, I'ombre

nuits, et les

this

beaux jours au

simpler,

humoured way of taking

more
life,

rire

easily

ardent

good-

without asking

NOTES ON PARIS AND PAUL VERLAINE

much

too

or revolting too desperately, which

becoming Verlaine's

is

195

(dare one say

final

made up of so
many irreconcilable elements, we get here
mainly the less poignant side not so much

final?)

Of

creed.

a nature

that
Moi, I'ombre du marquis de Sade, et ce, parmi
Parfois des airs naifs et faux de bon apotre,

but the

facile, childlike

part of that simplicity

which can be so terribly and inconveniently

Here, then, for the present
in earnest.
for

with

Verlaine

we can count

only on

moment as it passes, not on any

memory of the moment that has gone before,
or any probability as to the moment that is
the actual

to

come

after

whole matter
Bah

here

is

the conclusion of the

nous aurons eu notre plasir

Qui n'est pas celui de tout le monde

Et

le loisir

de notre desir.

Aussi benissons la paix profonde

Qu'a defaut d'un tressor moins subtil

Nous donnerent

ces ainsi soit-il.

VII
"

INVECTIVES "

NEVER read a book with more

book of

this

since the death

why

it

regret than

which has appeared

Invectives,

of Verlaine.

do not see

should not have been written,

if

the

writing of a petulance helped to clear that

But what might have been

amusement to Verlaine,

petulance away.

a sort of sad or vexed

in

some

sleepless

hour in

should

hospital,

never have been taken for more than what

it

was, and should never, certainly, have gone

further than one of the best-locked cupboards
in Vanier's publishing office.

should like

to think that Verlaine never intended

go further
first

and

am

it

know

But

to

quite sure that, in the

instance, he never did intend

further.

it

Vanier, and

to

go

know

that whatever Vanier got hold of he was not

likely to lose

Gradually the petulances would

196

NOTES ON PARIS AND PAUL VERLAINE

197

have heaped themselves one upon another,

had come to about the size of a

book.
Then there would be the suggestion
why should we not make a book of
until they

them

Then

would turn into earnest

Verlaine would be persuaded that he was a
great satirist it was so easy to persuade him
?

jest

of anything

And now

here

is

the book.

Well, the book has some admirable things

in

it,

will

and, as perhaps the most admirable, I

quote a piece called Deception

"Satan de

"

Diable d'argent
Parut le Diable
Qui me dit " L'homme intelligent
sort,

Et raisonnable,
te voici, que me veux-tu?
Car tu m'evoques

Que
Et

je crois, l'homme tout

Que tu m'invoques.

vertu.

me mets, suis-je gentil?

ton service
Dis ton voeu naif ou subtil;
Betise ou vice?
Or

je

Que

dois-je

pour

ta sagesse

faire plaisir

L'impuissance ou bien
Croissant sans cesse

le
?

desir

COLOUR STUDIES

198

IN PARIS

ou bien I'abus?
que puis-je?"

L'indifference
Parle,

Jc repondis "Tout vins sont bus,

Plus de prestige,
:

La femme trompe

et

rhomme

aussi,

Je suis malade,

JE

VEUX MOURIR."

Le Diable: "Si

C'est la I'aubade.

Qu

tu m'offres,

je rentre.

Tuer m'offusque.
Bon pour ton Dieu.

En

Bas.

Je ne suis pas

ce point brusque."

Diable d'argent et par la mort

Partit

Me

le

Diable,

laissant en prole a ce sort

Irremediable.

In such a poem as

this

we have

the Verlaine

of the finer parts of Parallelement

of the

little

jokes for and against

But what
M. Moreas,

the pointless attack on Leconte de Lisle, the

unworthy rage against M. Rod, the

squibs,

against doctors and

the complaints

magistrates, the condescension to the

of

Here is
which must flame

M. Raoul Ponchon

devouring rage,

political

neither a

nor a fine malice, justifying

its

manner

itself out,

existence, as

the serpent does by the beauty of

its

coils.

NOTES ON PARIS AND PAUL VERLAINE

Verlaine's

too

furies,

which were frequent, were

and too near the

brief,

much

surface, to be of

use to him in the making of

was a big

199

art.

He

and his furies meant no more

than the squalhng and kicking of a baby.
His nature was essentially good-humoured,
child,

finding pleasure on the smallest opportunity

often despondent, and for reasons enough, but

for the

most

part,

and

ill-health, poverty,

in spite of everything

interminable embarrass-

ments full of a brave gaiety.

He often
grumbled, even then, with a sort of cheerfulness
and when he grumbled he used very
colloquial language, some of which you will
;

not find in the dictionaries of

These poems are

his

grumblings

fortunately, they are written

can read them in

listening to

And what
and man

them

How

French.

only, un-

down, and we

print, critically, instead of

in sympathetic

injustice they

classical

amusement.

do him, alike as poet

impossible

it

will be,

now

that this book has appeared, to convince any-

one to

whom

Verlaine

is

but a name, that

the writer of these Invectives was the most

charming, the most lovable of men.

will recover

from

it,

for,

The poet

at all events, there

COLOUR STUDIES

200
are

IN PARIS

the Fetes Galantes, the

Paroles, Sagesse,

Amour, and the

one need but turn

Well, the

and

this

many

to,

man

book

others,

which

and which are there

But the man

all eyes.

Romances sans
for

soon become a legend,

no doubt, be one of the

will

will,

contradictory chapters of the legend.

In a few years' time Verlaine

will

have be-

come

as distant, as dubious, as distorted, as

Gilles

de Retz.

that

shadow of

he has

but

He

will

unknown

horror from which

emerged.

latterly

refuse to believe

once more re-enter

that

he was

People will
not always

drunk, or singing Chansons ponr die.

will see in his sincere Catholicism

des Esseintes,

saw

in

fictions

in

the

"

Des
d'un amour
it

They

only what

book of Huysmans,

reveries

clandestines,

occulte pour une

des

Madone

byzantine qui se muait, a un certain moment,

en une Cydalise egaree dans notre

And

they will

see,

siecle."

perhaps, only a poetical

licence in such lines as these, in which, years

ago, Verlaine said

all

that need ever be said

in excuse, or in explanation of the

of himself:

problem

^^-

^^^^-t^-'^x*-?

C^^-o^/^

/^
FACSIMILR OF

M.S.

BY PAUL VERI.AINE
[To

/((C p. 200.

i^ yi^

cK'^.^

-^^'^Xt

-fA^,,,

^OTES ON PARIS

AND PAUL VERLAINE

Un mot

encore, car je vous doit

Quelque lueur en definitive
Concernant la chose qui m'arrive
Je compte parmi les maladroits.
J'ai

perdu

ma

vie et je sais bien

Que tout blame

moi s'en va fondre

que repondre
vraiment ne Saturnien.
sur

cela je ne puis

Que

je suis

201

A PRINCE OF COURT PAINTERS

A PRINCE OF COURT PAINTERS

All Watteau

Imaginary Portrait
which Walter Pater wrote in the form of
extracts from the diary of Watteau's neighis

in that

bour and friend at Valenciennes, the daughter

of Antoine Pater, "maitre sculpteur," and
the sister of Jean Baptiste Pater, Watteau's

The family

Walter Pater
came from that part of Flanders, and was,

only

pupil.

of

indeed, closely connected with the family of

the

painter,

and in writing these extracts

from the diary it amused him to reconstruct

what might well have been some of his family
papers.

went

For the

facts

to the carefully

of Watteau's Hfe he

documented essay of the

Goncourts, and especially to the contemporary

narrative which they printed

from a MS.

new
we have

M.

the

life

of Watteau, by

for the first

biography,

in

In

Virgile Josz,

time a quite trustworthy

which

some new

205

facts

are

COLOUR STUDIES

206

IN PARIS

and some slight but important

corrections made.
How well M. Josz knows
established

the

and

life

Fragonard

study of

previous

century

18th

of the

art

has

his

already

His new book has the charm of a

shown.

and it is everywhere
founded upon precise documents. He has
the art of weaving a narrative full of colour,
brilliant historical novel,

full

of picturesque detail, in which careful

and

research

subtle

become part

criticism

No

of an unfatiguing entertainment.
serious

critic

and historian

of

art

really

at

the

present day has so light a touch, so easy a

mastery over
ing

this

study of

le

And,

his material.

minute,

learned,

plus grand,

le

plus mysterieux,

plus'trouhlant genie du xviii^

finds,

after read-

and sympathetic
siecle,

one

le

still

on turning to Pater's Prince of Court

Painters, that
analysed,

all

praised

Watteau

is

faultlessly,

there, divined,

in

that hardly

imaginary portrait.

Watteau went through

in hiding, sick, restless, distrustful

with himself and his work

home
from

in the world.

one always

life like

unsatisfied

never really at

His malady drove him

an unsuccessful search

place to place, in

A PRINCE OF COURT PAINTERS

after

tranquil

obscurity,

207

the incessantly

in

renewed hope of some new place

in

which

he could be perfectly well, not distracted by

friends or by cares, alone with his work.

From

youth

his

weary

was

he

of most

most desires always a critic, and

most of that which he cared most to render.
It was his delight and his labour to look on
at a life which was not his, and in which he
pleasures,

He

did not desire to mingle.

is

himself that

melancholy spectator of pleasures in which

he does not share,
corner of so

many

whom

he has placed in the

of his pictures

ferent, poised for the

or V Indif-

dance to which he brings

an aged smile and a joyless knowledge of the

steps of the measure.

exquisite

woman

goes through

from too

life

in

He

most
modern painting, and
creates the

with a careful withdrawal

close a contact with

painter of fetes galantes, he

is

women.

The

never the dupe

of those sentimental reveries in which there

is

no frank abandonment of the

His

brush

and no wit
its

has both coquetry and raillery,

in paint

comments on

Watteau

flesh or spirit.

is

was ever so

discreet in

life,

the only painter of la galanterie

COLOUR STUDIES

208

who

IN PARIS

has given seriousness to the elegance of

moment, who has fixed that

moment in an attitude which becomes eternal.
And he has done so alike by his intellectual
passing

that

human comedy,

of the

conception

of

and by the

distinction, the distinguished skill

life,

For a

of his technique.

similar

gravity in

treatment of "light" subjects, and for

the

a similar

them beauty and

we must come down to Degas.

skill

distinction,

giving

in

For Degas the

and the cafe replace

comedy of masks and the after-

the Italian

ballet

noon conversation in a park. But in Degas

there is the same instantaneous notation of
movement and the same choice and strange
richness of colour

with a quite comparable

fondness for seizing what

life,

at

and what
play.

never cruel.

true in artificial

sad and serious in humanity

is

But

is

Watteau,

He

Degas,

unlike

is

has almost an envy of these

elegant creatures, and of their capacity for

taking no thought for the

gives

morrow

them immortality, thinks

temporary joys.
music, sees their

He

listens

hands and

he, as

he

sadly of the
to

the

lips join,

same
and is

himself never ready for that Embarquement

A PRINCE OF COURT PAINTERS

209

pour Cythere towards which he sees them

moving. It is with disillusioned, not with
mocking, eyes that he looks upon those to

whom
are

world

the

he seems

those,

to

Happy

unspoilt.

still

is

say,

who can be

happy.

Watteau was a great

lover of music, and he

has placed instruments of music even in hands

do

that

Like music,

handle.

and

gaiety,

know how

not

his

bow and

painting

is

look

rarely

to hold

at

a sad

pictures

his

without receiving almost a musical sensation.

It

a music of lute and clavichord, in which

is

the

sob

strings

sometimes one
of Galluppi

music

till

There

is

and the

may

rustle,

and

Browning
come with your

cold

quills

say, as

" In you

says

creep through every nerve."

a certain

chill in this

music of the

pictures which could never, unlike the music

itself,

have sounded merry when Gilles and

Finette were
is

alive.

The

colour of

Watteau

always the colour of bright things faded,

of rose-petals in the old age of roses.

is

There

melancholy in the subdued grace of

lines,

full

of active

women, themselves

languor.
like

And

delicate

in

his
his

music,

COLOUR STUDIES

210
there

IN PARIS

something almost disquieting, some

is

of the mystery of music.

For Watteau

woman

the world

ful thing in

is

the most beauti-

something of a toy,

perhaps, or an ornament, flowers or jewels

and her clothes must be as beautiful as herself.

He paints what no one else has painted a
:

fiisson

made woman.

desire,

with

But he

paints without

of tender, melancholy

a kind

respect for the soul of the flesh, embodied in

fine silks,

him she is a
has made her

For

be loved.

loving to

fragile,

bibelot,

not a mistress, and he

after his

own

He

heart.

paints

her cheek and her face with the same tenderness, the

same passionate

And

ecstasy.

he

has put into her eyes not only that dainty

malice with which she fights and conquers,

but also that dainty mystery with which she

attracts

and

retains.

The woman
and

civilised,

of

Watteau

woman

is

and in the best

a mason's son, he had,

all

society.

his

stinctive aversion for la bas peuple

through

whom

And

women,

his

life,

clothed

Born
an

in-

the people

one must elbow one's way.

if

they are not in fancy dress,

and playing romantic

parts, are

always

women

A PRINCE OF COURT PAINTERS

who have

the leisure to be beautiful, to play,

The Frenchwoman

at Hfe.

211

begins to exist in

and he has fixed a type, which

his pictures,

remains what most Frenchwomen would wish

These piquant, enigmatical creatures

to be.

supreme worldly elegance. The suspicion of thought which he has hinted at in

their swift eyes is a reticence which would
have

promise

and*^

remain

free.

They have the

woman has for a man,

man and she a woman.

mystery which a
because he

is

With Watteau Flemish

painting ends and

He

was a devout
student of Rubens, and learnt from him
various secrets, a different but not lesser life
of the flesh, a more tempered but not less
French painting begins.

splendid
in

life

of the clothes.

elegance

creates a

may

it

as

new

not be

He

adds as

much

he omits in amplitude

thing,
said,

which

is

French.

he

And

with M. Josz, that he does

more than anyone has yet done towards the

creation of English painting?

In that year

which he spent in London, just before

death,

his

work

had

an immense success.

an immediate

When

Frederick

his

and
the

Great, twenty years after his death, wanted

COLOUR STUDIES

212

buy some of
answered " Tous
to

IN PARIS

his pictures,
les

his intendant

ouvrages que Watteau

a fait sont presque tous en Angleterre, ou on

en

fait

un

cas

infini."

Vandyke, had been

there, been admired
visit

of

in
;

Holbein,

Rubens,

England, had painted

but

Watteau and the

it is

only after the

sight of this deli-

and vaporous colour,

cacy, finesse, this clear

this arresting of fine shades, this evocation of

new,

sensitive,

modern beauty, that the

and are there not in

the work of Watteau qualities which anticipate Reynolds and Gainsborough, as there
are qualities which anticipate both Constable
and Turner ?
English begin to paint

1903.

ODILON REDON

ODILON REDON
The name

of Odilon

Redon

is

but few people in France, and to

people in England.

known
still

to

fewer

Artistic Paris has never

had time to think of the artist who lives so

quietly in her midst, working patiently at
the record of his visions, by no means discouraged by lack of appreciation, but probably
Here and there the
tired of expecting it.
finer and more alert instinct of some man

who
art

has himself brought

Huysmans,

new

INIallarme,

gifts

Charles

to his
JMorice,

Emile Hennequin has divined what there

is of vision and creation in this strange, grotesque world which surges only half out of
chaos the world of an artist who has seen

day and night.

The work
that which

of Odilon
is

most

Redon

his later work,

characteristic
215

of

him

COLOUR STUDIES

216

of a series of lithographic albums,

consists
all

IN PARIS

published since 1880

Bans

Reve,

le

Edgar Poe, Les Origines, Hommage a Goya,

La

Tentation de Saint Antoine,

Gustave

Flaubert, Pieces Modernes, and Les Fleurs de

Each album contains from six to ten

in large folio, printed on beau papier

Mai.
plates

de Chine, without text, often without

title,

or with a vague and tantalising legend, such

as

Au

gible,

reveil,fapergus la Deesse de V Intelli-

au

So, without an

profit severe et dur.

attempt to conciliate the average intelligence,

without a word of explanation, without a sign
of apology for troubling the

countrymen,

album

after

Odilon

So

album.

produced that

it

Redon

brains

has

of his

out

sent

little effect

have they

has taken ten years to

sell

twenty-foiu' out of the twenty-five copies of

Dans

Reve.

le

"Reste I'exemplaire."

Odilon Redon

His sense
rather

for

for

a creator of nightmares.

is

pure beauty

normal

beauty

is
;

but
for

slight,

he

or

begets

upon horror and mystery a new and strange

kind

of

terrifies,

beauty

beauty,

but which

all

which
is

the same.

astonishes,

which

yet, in his finest work,

Often the work

is

not

ODILON REDON
beautiful at

all

He

ineffective.

what he
window which
without

sees,

and he

He

swarms
gtssent

toutes

sortes

animal

sees chaos,

The

him.

before

gulfs

its

through a

sees

voyages scarcely

realised,

scious of its direction.

peoples

he

looks out upon a night

His imagination voyages in

stars.

not

worlds

a genuine visionary

is

paints

can be hideous, never

it

217

d'effroyable

and vegetable

life,

con-

which
abyss

betes ^ sur-

the germs

The

of things, a creation of the uncreated.

world and
gaze,

men become

become transformed

apparitions,

which

for

voila

He

tout!

dreams, especially
dedicated some

scarcely

his

into symbols, into

can

he

give

the soul and

paints

bad dreams.

its

no

He

its

has

of his albums to Flaubert,

to Poe, to Baudelaire

him

under

Cest une apparition

account often enough.

spectral

so

but their work

much

as

is

to

a starting-point.

His imagination seizes on a word, a chance

phrase, and transforms it into a picture
which goes far beyond and away from the

as

author's

intention

has

legend the

for

" L'ceil,

comme un

in

the

casual

design which

words of Poe

ballon bizarre,

se

dirige

COLOUR STUDIES

218

We

vers rinfini."

actual balloon

The

see

LN PARIS

an actual eye and an

the thing

grotesque.

is

sensation produced by the

Odilon Redon
of

infinitude,

above

is,

all,

work of

a sensation of

world beyond the

visible.

Every picture is a little corner of space,

where no eye has ever pierced. Vision suc-

A cunning

ceeds vision, dizzily.

of lines

one the sense of something

gives

without beginning or end

floating

tresses,

spiral

has to be done by

Redon

come

has

to

or

coils,

seem to reach

which

winding or unwinding for ever.

this

arrangement

And

out,
as all

and white,
more by mere

black

express

shadow than one could have conceived possible.

One gazes into a mass of blackness,
out of which something gradually disengages

itself,

with the slowness of a night-

mare pressing
all

that,

closer

which twines roses

of

Death.

tainly his

dark

body

and

charm,

The

And, with

in the hair of the vision

design.

masterpiece.

huge

closer.

sentiment of grace,

La

Mort,

is

cer-

The background

is

coils

which terminate the

are darker than

the background, and

the

plunge heavily into space, doubling hugely

ODILON REDON
upon themselves,

coils

The

irony.

vague poverty-stricken
glimmering under the

face,

of windy

tresses

as

head,

death's

yet

one of light

is

which becomes beautiful

terror

roses

smoke

of living

the effect of the picture

into

219

is

passes

it

the

little

white,

faint,

of hair and

tendrils

which stream

roses

along and away with an effect of surprising

charm,

the

lines

running

out

from

separated

the

head

delicate

in

And

curves, to be lost in the night.

below,

by a blotch of

sheer blackness, one sees a body, a beautiful,

slender supple body,

with a

glittering

strange acute whiteness, with a delicate

raised

Below, in
fine

empty temples of the

to the

morbid

column,

frightful

its

flesh

the

continuation of the

of the

huge and

arm

skull.

body,

heavy

the black

coils,

which

seem endless. The legend is from Flaubert.

Death speaks, saying: Mon ironie depasse
toutes les autre s.

Ammonaria and Le Sphinx

are

et la

from the same album, which

Chimere

illustrates

Le Tentation de Saint Antoine, and are

characteristic, though not the
finest,
examples

of

Redon's

work.

The

scene

of

COLOUR STUDIES

220

Ammonaria

before the temple of Serapis,

is

Alexandria.

at

whom

IN PARIS

It

Christian

is

they are scourging

martyr

she writhes under

the blows, in the cruel sunlight

one

feels

the anguish of the bent and tortured figure,

The other design renders

suffering visibly.

that marvellous dialogue between the Sphinx

and the Chimera.

secret

"
!

" C'est que je garde

mon

" Je songe et je

says the Sphinx.

Et mon regarde que rien ne

peut devier, demeure tendu a travers les
choses sur un horizon inaccessible.
Moi,"
calcule.

Chimera, "je suis leg^re et joy-

replies the

euse

"

and

it

is

a veritable hilarity that one

discovers, looking at

it

rightly, in the regard

spasm of ironic
laughter in the blots of blackness which are
its eyes, in the mouth that one divines, in
the curl and coil of the whole figure.
In the
calm gaze and heavy placid pose of the
Sphinx, lines of immeasurable age above
of the strange creature

its

eyes,

there

is

crushing force which

weighs on one like a great weight, something

The power of the Chimera is of

mind and over souls. Vague, terrible,

external.

the

a mockery, a menace,

it

has the vertigo of

ODILON REDON
the gulf in

ward those

its

"new

those

flowers,

and

eyes,

221

perfumes,

those

not to be found in the world.

design

Chimera,

the

wings and

tail,

turns on

itself,

jaws in a vast ironic bark

yeux

verts,

towiioie,

aboie.

more wonderful, more

avec

les

The design

Ailes.
it

is

on

distending

its

la

chimere aux

More
is

cardinaux

terrible,

Le Diable
sous

ses

black upon black, and

only slowly that a huge and solemn,

is

almost a maternal

face,

looms out upon one

Satan, placid, monstrous, and winged,

cradles softly the little

large

them
hands, under the shadow of

And

wings.

who

vague huddled figures

of the seven deadly sins, holding

his

its

leaping

disquieting

Peches

sept

larger

from

fire

and

glittering

light

nostrils,

spitting

to-

which are
In another

pleasures,"

unfelt

men

draws

it

there

is

another

Satan,

in
his

val-

iantly insurgent against the light that strikes

him,

figure

of

power

superb

in

revolt.

Yet another design shows us Pegasus, his

beautiful ^ying broken, a wing that had felt
the high skies, falling horribly upon the
all the agony and resistance of the
rocks
:

splendid

creature

seen

in

the

trampling

COLOUR STUDIES

222

IN PARIS

hoofs and heaving sides, and the head caught

Again one sees a delicate

landscape of trees and birds, a bit

back by the
twilight

fall.

of lovely nature, and in

it,

with the trouble

nightmare, coming there inex-

of a vague

Le Joueur, a man who holds on his

shoulders an immense cube painfully
the
man and the trees seem surprised to see
each other. There is another landscape, a
primeval forest, vague and disquieting, and
plicably,

a solitary figure, the figure of a

man who

is

some forgotten deity of a

the forest and the man are at one,

half a tree, like

lost race

and

hold

And

converse.

there are heads,

heads floating in space, growing on stalks,

couched on pedestals

eyeballs,

which voyage

phantasmally across the night, which emerge

out of nests of fungus, which appear, haloed
in light, in the space of
pillars

sky between huge

there are spectral negroes, there are

centaurs, there are gnomes, a Cyclops (with

the right accent of terrifying and yet comic

reality),

embryonic

formless

little

shapes,

and, persuasively, the Sciapodes of Flaubert

"La

tete le plus has possible, c'est le secret

du bonheur

II

y doit avoir quelque

part,"

ODILON REDON
Flaubert,

says

dont

les

" des

figures

223
primorciiales,

corps ne sont que les images," and

Redon has drawn them, done the impossible.

The Chimera glides mystically through the
whole

series.

Death, the

irony

Life,

the

dream Satan, the visible prince of darkness,

pass and repass in the eternal dance of
;

apparitions.

1903.

pEiNTED IN Great Britain by

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
bhunswick st., stamford st., s.e, 1,
and bungay, suffolk.

c^fW

AA

001