Dumas' Paris. Mansfield Milburg Francisco

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СКАЧАТЬ and then unsung, Balzac was grinding out his pittance – in after years to grow into a monumental literary legacy – in a garret.

      Eugène Sue had not yet taken to literary pathways, and was scouring the seas as a naval surgeon.

      The drama was prolific in names which we have since known as masters, Scribe, Halévy, and others.

      George Sand, too, was just beginning that grand literary life which opened with “Indiana” in 1832, and lasted until 1876. She, like so many of the great, whose name and fame, like Dumas’ own, has been perpetuated by a monument in stone, the statue which was unveiled in the little town of her birth on the Indre, La Châtre, in 1903.

      Like Dumas, too, hers was a cyclopean industry, and so it followed that in the present twentieth century (in the year 1904), another and a more glorious memorial to France’s greatest woman writer was unveiled in the Garden of the Luxembourg.

      Among the women famous in the monde of Paris at the time of Dumas’ arrival were Mesdames Desbordes-Valmore, Amable Tastu, and Delphine Gay.

      “For more than half a century this brilliant group of men and women sustained the world of ideas and poetry,” said Dumas, in his “Mémoires,” “and I, too,” he continued, “have reached the same plane … unaided by intrigue or coterie, and using none other than my own work as the stepping-stone in my pathway.”

      Dumas cannot be said to have been niggardly with his praise of the work of others. He said of a sonnet of Arnault’s – “La Feuille” – that it was a masterpiece which an André Chénier, a Lamartine, or a Hugo might have envied, and that for himself, not knowing what his “literary brothers” might have done, he would have given for it “any one of his dramas.”

      It was into the office of Arnault, who was chief of a department in the Université, that Béranger took up his labours as a copying-clerk, – as did Dumas in later years, – and it was while here that Béranger produced his first ballad, the “Roi d’Yvetot.”

      In 1851 Millet was at his height, if one considers what he had already achieved by his “great agrarian poems,” as they have been called. Gautier called them “Georgics in paint,” and such they undoubtedly were. Millet would hardly be called a Parisian; he was not of the life of the city, but rather of that of the countryside, by his having settled down at Barbizon in 1849, and practically never left it except to go to Paris on business.

      His life has been referred to as one of “sublime monotony,” but it was hardly that. It was a life devoted to the telling of a splendid story, that of the land as contrasted with that of the paved city streets.

      Corot was a real Parisian, and it was only in his early life in the provinces that he felt the bitterness of life and longed for the flagstones of the quais, for the Tuileries, the Seine, and his beloved Rue de Bac, where he was born on 10th Thermidor, Year IV. (July 28, 1796). Corot early took to painting the scenes of the metropolis, as we learn from his biography, notably at the point along the river bank where the London steamer moors to-day. But these have disappeared; few or none of his juvenile efforts have come down to us.

      Corot returned to Paris, after many years spent in Rome, during the reign of Louis-Philippe, when affairs were beginning to stir themselves in literature and art. In 1839 his “Site d’Italie” and a “Soir” were shown at the annual Salon, – though, of course, he had already been an exhibitor there, – and inspired a sonnet of Théophile Gautier, which concludes:

      “Corot, ton nom modest, écrit dans un coin noir.”

      Corot’s pictures were unfortunately hung in the darkest corners – for fifteen years. As he himself has said, it was as if he were in the catacombs. In 1855 Corot figured as one of the thirty-four judges appointed by Napoleon III. to make the awards for paintings exhibited in the world’s first Universal Exhibition. It is not remarked that Corot had any acquaintance or friendships with Dumas or with Victor Hugo, of whom he remarked, “This Victor Hugo seems to be pretty famous in literature.” He knew little of his contemporaries, and the hurly-burly knew less of him. He was devoted, however, to the genius of his superiors – as he doubtless thought them. Of Delacroix he said one day, “He is an eagle, and I am only a lark singing little songs in gray clouds.”

      A literary event of prime importance during the latter years of Dumas’ life in Paris, when his own purse was growing thin, was the publication of the “Histoire de Jules César,” written by Napoleon III.

      Nobody ever seems to have taken the second emperor seriously in any of his finer expressions of sentiment, and, as may be supposed, the publication of this immortal literary effort was the occasion of much sarcasm, banter, violent philippic, and sardonic criticism.

      Possibly the world was not waiting for this work, but royalty, no less than other great men, have their hobbies and their fads; Nero fiddled, and the first Napoleon read novels and threw them forthwith out of the carriage window, so it was quite permissible that Napoleon III. should have perpetuated this life history of an emperor whom he may justly and truly have admired – perhaps envied, in a sort of impossible way.

      Already Louis Napoleon’s collection of writings was rather voluminous, so this came as no great surprise, and his literary reputation was really greater than that which had come to him since fate made him the master of one of the foremost nations of Europe.

      From his critics we learn that “he lacked the grace of a popular author; that he was quite incapable of interesting the reader by a charm of manner; and that his style was meagre, harsh, and grating, but epigrammatic.” No Frenchman could possibly be otherwise.

      Dumas relates, again, the story of Sir Walter Scott’s visit to Paris, seeking documents which should bear upon the reign of Napoleon. Dining with friends one evening, he was invited the next day to dine with Barras. But Scott shook his head. “I cannot dine with that man,” he replied. “I shall write evil of him, and people in Scotland would say that I have flung the dishes from his own table at his head.”

      It is not recorded that Dumas’ knowledge of swordsmanship was based on practical experience, but certainly no more scientific sword-play of passe and touche has been put into words than that wonderful attack and counter-attack in the opening pages of “Les Trois Mousquetaires.”

      Of the duel d’honneur there is less to be said, though Dumas more than once sought to reconcile estranged and impetuous spirits who would have run each other through, either by leaden bullet or the sword. A notable instance of this was in the memorable affaire between Louis Blanc of L’Homme-Libre and Dujarrier-Beauvallon of La Presse. The latter told Dumas that he had no alternative but to fight, though he went like a lamb to the slaughter, and had no knowledge of the code nor any skill with weapons.

      Dumas père was implored by the younger Dumas – both of whom took Dujarrier’s interests much to heart – to go and see Grisier and claim his intervention. “I cannot do it,” said the elder; “the first and foremost thing to do is to safeguard his reputation, which is the more precious because it is his first duel.” The Grisier referred to was the great master of fence of the time who was immortalized by Dumas in his “Maître d’Armes.”

      Dumas himself is acknowledged, however, on one occasion, at least, to have acted as second – co-jointly with General Fleury – in an affaire which, happily, never came off.

      It was this Blanc-Dujarrier duel which brought into further prominent notice that most remarkable and quasi-wonderful woman, Lola Montez; that daughter of a Spaniard and a Creole, a native of Limerick, pupil of a boarding-school at Bath, and one-time resident of Seville; to which may be added, on the account of Lord Malmesbury, “The СКАЧАТЬ