Part 2 (1/2)

”Nathan offre un image de la jeunesse litteraire d'aujourd'hui, de ses fausses grandeurs et de ses miseres reelles; il la represente avec ses beautes incorrectes et ses chutes profondes, sa vie a cascades bouillonnantes, a revers soudains, a triomphes inesperes.

C'est bien l'enfant de ce siecle devore de jalousie ... qui veut la fortune sans le travail, la gloire sans le talent et le succes sans peine, mais qu'apres bien des rebellions, bien des escarmouches, ses vices amenent a emarger le budget sous le bon plaisir du Pouvoir.”

Balzac, we all know, was a little too ready to believe in the depravity of human nature, particularly when men of letters were in question.

Moreover, he was profoundly antagonistic to the creed of the _Bousingots_. His portrait of Nathan is distinctly ill-natured, but it bears out the profound remark of Baudelaire, that if the Restoration had developed in glory Romanticism would never have separated from it. In another extravagant tirade (in ”Beatrix”) Balzac complains that the Revolution of 1830 opened the flood-gates of petty ambition, and the result of modern ”equality” was that everybody did his utmost to become conspicuous. This complaint was very largely true, but as far as the _Bousingots_ are concerned Baudelaire puts the facts in a truer light.

The policy of _juste-milieu_ inevitably caused revolt among the over-excited young men of the day. The _Bousingots_ were part of this revolt, but the best of them had no thought of self-advancement. On the contrary, the testimony of contemporaries goes to show that the saving virtue of the Romantic Bohemia, _Bousingot_ and _Jeune-France_ alike, was disinterestedness. Baudelaire says in extenuation of Petrus Borel himself: ”He loved letters ferociously, and to-day we are enc.u.mbered with pretty, supple writers ready to sell the muse for the potter's field.” a.s.selineau avers that if there was much of the ridiculous in their excesses, there was nothing sordid. ”They never talked of money, or business, or position.” The artist Jean Gigoux,[8] in regretting the past, says that the _rapin_ of his later years, if better dressed, knew less than those of his young days, and was greedy of honours and money, things which the _rapins_ of old sincerely despised. Indeed, it is impossible to read much about the Romantics of 1830, high or low, aristocratic or Bohemian, without coming to the conclusion that they were neither jealous nor mercenary. So the _Bousingots_--though some rolled their eyes and knitted their brows ”as if they would bully the whole universe,” others ”fixed their dark glances on the ground in fearful meditation,” others, ”gloomily leaning against a statue or tree,” threw ”such terrific meaning into their looks as might be naturally interpreted into the language of the witches in 'Macbeth'”[9]--did these things in all sincerity, with an ambition, not to ”get on,” but to ”do something.”

We cannot, then, judge the cla.s.sic _vie de Boheme_ in a true light without taking into account this _mal du siecle_ which with its various symptoms infected the greater part, certainly the more intelligent part, of the younger generation. Many outlived the fever and smiled at its remembrance; but at its height it was powerful. It was a healthy fever in so far as it implied devotion to an ideal, _the_ ideal of true art, which was then born again. Moreover, the ideal consumed in its fire many pettinesses of the artistic soul, the commercialism of some, the haughty vanity of others. Balzac's Lucien de Rubempre was not a true son of 1830 when he sold his independence to corrupt journalism, and Victor Hugo was not only intriguing when he intoxicated young poets by flattering letters. There was a true fellows.h.i.+p of art such as has not existed since. The poet or artist whose name was in everyone's mouth did not for that reason deny his friends.h.i.+p to one who had never published a line or exhibited a picture. If a man had talent he was greeted as brother by all his fellow-craftsmen, high or low. This common brotherhood inspired by one ideal of art suffused and welded together Bohemia with a radiant heat. Only when the radiance became dim did the ma.s.s grow cold and crumble in pieces which retained but the semblance of a spark. Bohemia, to change the metaphor, was not then a block of model dwellings, with nothing in common but steel girders and a stone staircase, but it was a corporation fed by common hopes and warmed at a common hearth. Its more ridiculous defects--its vanities and morbid excitability, its violent defiance of social convention, its pa.s.sion for the exotic and the vivid, its fits of melancholy and its uproarious rejoicings--were not individual vices, but marks of a generation. Its grandeur and its follies are traceable to a common source. Its greatest fault was not extravagance, for that is a venial folly, but ignorance, which even youth cannot wholly excuse. The seed of dissolution really lurking in Bohemia was what Philibert Audebrand has truly called its _enfantillage de l'esprit_.[10] In the flush of Romanticism the zealots neglected those studies which give firmness to the mind. They rejected history and philosophy; being young, they were not well read and they did not care to become so. Foreign literature was a closed book to them, in spite of their professed admiration for Dante, Goethe, Shakespeare, and Byron; even of their own literature their knowledge was sadly defective. ”Tout bien vu,” says M. Audebrand with a shake of the head, ”ils n'avaient pas d'autre docteur que la Blague.” This cap will not fit all the heads, but it has an undeniable texture of truth. When the first ebullition was over, and the Bohemians of 1830 had departed from their joyful college to spread its doctrines in a workaday world, they left nothing but a tradition behind them. Their house had been built upon a light soil, and the time had come to make new and solid foundations. But the tradition did not include such wholesome industry, and Murger's generation, denied the excitement and warmth of building, were content to sit down in the hasty edifice to enjoy only the pastimes of their predecessors, stopping up the ever-widening crevices, that let in a cold blast of public opinion, with the unsatisfactory makes.h.i.+ft of _la blague_.

IV

PARISIAN SOCIETY--LE TOUT PARIS

The events of the time, the spiritual exaltation of young France, and the _eclat_ of the Romantic struggle gave to Bohemia a definite position. This position was accentuated by the smallness of Parisian society. The diversity and complexity of life in a great modern city are such that, even if all other obstacles were swept away, this alone would still make it impossible for Bohemia to rise again. Bohemians must live where rents are low--on the outer circ.u.mference, that is, of a city. In the larger capitals of Europe the inner circle, which contains the commerce and luxury, the hurry and bustle, has extended enormously in the last fifty years or so. The increase of middle-cla.s.s prosperity has thrown far back the alleys and mean houses, to give place to ”residential” districts; the easiness of modern travel has brought vast hotels and a constant foreign population; shops and theatres fill immeasurably more s.p.a.ce. Bohemia is driven to the extremities of the spider's web, so that, in Plato's phrase, it is no longer one, but many.

It would be absurd to imagine a solid cohort formed from Hampstead, Chelsea, and Camden Town, to say nothing of Wimbledon or Hampton Court, for the purpose of forcing some ”Hernani” upon the London public (or its newspaper critics). Public opinion can hardly be corrected when the agents of correction are forced to disperse in the last motor omnibus.

Moreover, this extension of the inner circle has made its inhabitants less susceptible to sudden a.s.saults. Unconventional demonstrations have upon it no more effect than the poke of a finger upon an india-rubber ball. The interests of Bohemia, even if this circle be not entirely indifferent to them, are only a fraction of its mult.i.tudinous preoccupations, which include the fluctuations of the money market, the results of athletic contests in all parts of the globe, the progress of foreign wars, the crimes and railway accidents of the week, the development of aviation, and the safest method of crossing the street.

Bohemia can no longer be pointed to and felt by society as part of itself, and when this is the case the name is nothing but a metaphor.

Speaking of the year 1841, Baudelaire in ”L'Art Romantique” says:

”Paris was not then what it is to-day, a hurly-burly, a Babel inhabited by fools and futilities, with little delicacy as to how they kill time. At that time _tout Paris_ was composed of that choice body of people who were responsible for forming the opinion of the others.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: Les Champs Elysees]

The glory of Bohemia rests partly on this fact. During Louis Philippe's reign this state of society, comparable in some respects with the ideal polity of the Attic philosophers, was, it is true, being disrupted from within. The balance of power between wealth of gold and fecundity of ideas was gradually changing--a change of which Balzac is the immortal epic poet. Yet, though the power of a Nucingen was increasing, and Paris was about to start on its new prosperity as the pleasure-ground of Europe, this precious _tout Paris_ lasted till the reign was over. Paris was small, in extent, in population, in the number of those who formed its opinion. Of its actual compactness as a city I shall speak in a later chapter; suffice it now to say that the boulevards of Montmartre and Montparna.s.se bounded it on the north and south, that the Champs Elysees was still a wilderness, and that outside the fortifications lay open country. The population about 1835 was only 714,000; railways were hardly beginning, factories only tentatively being erected. The working cla.s.ses were chiefly engaged in commerce or _pet.i.ts metiers_, and the heights of Menilmontant smiled as green and as free from slums as the Champs Elysees were free from luxurious hotels.

The pa.s.sing foreign population, though there was a certain number of English attracted by cheap living, was almost negligible. Brazilians and Argentines, Germans and Americans were hardly to be seen; even French provincials walked delicately instead of forming, as they do now, the chief _clientele_ of the Parisian theatres. _Le tout Paris_ was, therefore, a nucleus within a circle of three segments--the middle cla.s.s, the aristocratic families, and Bohemia.

The middle cla.s.s, though the most numerous, was only potentially important at the time. Politics and money-making were its only preoccupations. It was divided, of course, into an infinity of grades, all of which may be ill.u.s.trated from characters in Balzac's ”Comedie Humaine.” There were the bankers and usurers from the Du Tillets down to the Samanons, the successful merchants like Birotteau, the world of officials so accurately described in ”Les Employes,” the judges like old Popinot, and all the men of law from a Desroches down to his youngest clerk. Some were as sordid and bourgeois as the Thuilliers, others luxurious debauchees like the Camusots and Matifats, others, like the Rabourdins, fringed upon the _beau monde_. The sons of men enriched and decorated by Napoleon formed perhaps the cream of the middle cla.s.s, and of these Balzac has given his opinion in describing Baron Hulot's son, who plays so large a part in ”Cousine Bette”:

”M. Hulot junior was just the type of young man fas.h.i.+oned by the Revolution of 1830, with a mind engrossed by politics, respectful towards his hopes, suppressing them beneath a false gravity, very envious of reputations, uttering phrases instead of incisive _mots_--those diamonds of French conversation--but with plenty of att.i.tude and mistaking haughtiness for dignity. These people are the walking coffins which contain the Frenchman of former times; the Frenchman gets agitated at moments and knocks against his English envelope; but ambition holds him back, and he consents to suffocate inside it. This coffin is always dressed in black cloth.”

This sombre portion of the background need, therefore, trouble us no further. It dominated politics and was ignored by _tout Paris_.

The aristocracy of the Faubourg St.-Germain is almost equally negligible. Being legitimists, they sulked after 1830, either living on their country estates or shutting themselves gloomily within the gaunt walls of their _hotels_ in the Faubourg. This retirement, too, was not wholly due to _bouderie_, for many of them, like Balzac's Princesse de Cadignan, suffered heavy financial losses by the Revolution. Their self-denying ordinance caused a great diminution in the general gaiety of Paris for some years. Legitimist drawing-rooms, where a brilliant host of guests had been wont to gather, were hushed and dark while the dowagers gravely discussed the latest news of the d.u.c.h.esse de Berry. The few official _fetes_ were severely boycotted, and even the entertainments of foreign amba.s.sadors suffered. It was an irksome business for the younger members, particularly the ladies of the aristocracy, who eventually gathered courage to break out into small entertainments, and in 1835 there was the first of a series of legitimist b.a.l.l.s, the subscriptions for which went to recompense those whose civil list pensions had been suppressed in 1830. After this the Faubourg St.-Germain became more lively, and certain houses were opened to a wider circle of guests. Eugene Sue, for instance, till he became impossible, was to be found in many legitimist drawing-rooms.

Nevertheless, the Faubourg St.-Germain avoided attracting the public eye by any conspicuous festivities, and this had two effects. In the first place, it brought the more joyous festivities of _tout Paris_ and the riotous celebrations of Bohemia into greater relief; and, in the second, the men of the aristocracy, like the Duc d'Aulnis, were driven to find distraction and amus.e.m.e.nt in a gayer world into which their own womankind was debarred from penetrating. It was they who formed a certain section of _tout Paris_; they were the _viveurs_, the _dandies_, the young bloods of the newly founded Jockey Club, the members of the _pet.i.t cercle_ in the Cafe de Paris, who joined hands with what may be called _la haute Boheme_.

There was, however, a certain amount of neutral ground between the aristocracy of birth and that of wit to be found in the literary _salons_ of the day, which, if not quite so ill.u.s.trious as they had once been, shone with a considerable amount of brilliance. Among the legitimists these were, of course, not to be found, but the aristocracy of Napoleon was represented by the _salons_ of the d.u.c.h.esse de Duras and the d.u.c.h.esse d'Abrantes. The latter, widow of Napoleon's marshal Junot, was a particular friend of Balzac, who was the most notable figure to be found at her house. She was always dreadfully in debt, and after being sold up she died in a hospital in 1838. The _salon_ of the Princess Belgiojoso in the Rue Montparna.s.se attracted particular attention because, with an aristocratic hostess, it had all the _entrain_ of more purely artistic gatherings. Till troubles in Italy called them back to their estates the Prince and Princess Belgiojoso were among the gayest of the gay. The Prince with his boon companion, Alfred de Musset, ruffled it merrily on the boulevard, while the Princess, who had many of the most brilliant men of the day for her lovers, filled her apartments with poets, artists, writers, and, above all, musicians. One who frequented her drawing-room hung with black velvet, spangled with silver stars, says she had a ”fierte glaciale, mais curiosite suraigue.” The splendour of her entertainments was royal, and her concerts were magnificent. To this the _salons_ of Madame Ancelot and Madame Recamier were a striking contrast. The former was composed chiefly of serious men of letters and politicians, while at L'Abbaye-aux-Bois Madame Recamier acted as priestess to the adoration of the aging Chateaubriand. The _salons_ of the pure Romantics made no pretence of splendour and were entirely free from the atmosphere of officialdom. The chief of them were those of Madame Hugo, of Madame Gay (who was succeeded by her daughter, Delphine de Girardin), and of Charles Nodier, the genial librarian of the a.r.s.enal. In all of these, as in the _salon_ of the Princess Belgiojoso, _tout Paris_ was to be found in force. The gatherings round Victor Hugo were a little too much flavoured by the fumes of the censer, but those of the Girardins and of Nodier were of the most charming gaiety. Balzac, in a humorous article, drew a malicious sketch of the exaggerated enthusiasms of Nodier's guests when a poem was read before them. ”Cathedrale!” ”Ogive!”

”Pyramide d'Egypte!” were the approved exclamations of ecstatic approbation. Madame Ancelot[11] confesses that she found the conversation very amusing, but very strange. ”There was never a serious word,” she says, ”never anything profound, sensible, or simple; every word was meant to cause laughter, to make an effect. The more a thing was unexpected--that is, the less it was natural--the more prodigious was its success.” She, no doubt, was prejudiced, and the fact remains that every guest who wrote in after years of Nodier's _salon_, its merry conversation followed inevitably by dancing, did so with most grateful praise, for Nodier died in 1846, leaving his Romantic friends to write regretful reminiscences. The _salon_ of Sophie Gay and her daughter was equally infected by high spirits, but it was less purely literary.

Liszt, Thalberg, and Berlioz made music here; Roger de Beauvoir met Lamartine, and the Marquis de Custine sat by Balzac or Alphonse Karr.

The de Vignys also had a _salon_, and Theodore de Banville speaks most warmly of their kindly hospitality; but there was a certain aloofness about the creator of ”Eloa,” and another of his guests found that in his house colouring seemed absent, so that ”the regular guests seemed to come and go in the moonlight.”[12]

To speak at greater length about the _salons_ of the Romantic period would here be beside the mark. Bohemians, no doubt, were often to be found at Victor Hugo's or Nodier's, but on those occasions they were consciously straying outside their own boundaries. Neither the stately house in the Place Royale nor the librarian's dwelling at the a.r.s.enal was within the domains of Bohemia, and no Bohemian of the time would have dreamed of claiming them, as the later ”Parna.s.siens” might have claimed the _salons_ of Nina de Kallias and Madame Ricard, for parts of their ordinary existence. The case, however, is different with the relations between _le tout Paris_ and Bohemia. _Le tout Paris_ was, as I have said, a nucleus, but a nucleus of disparate and constantly s.h.i.+fting particles. This perfectly undefined body had, of course, no definite place of a.s.sembly, but so far as it could be identified with any particular locality it may be said to have congregated on the boulevard.

The Boulevard des Italiens--_the_ boulevard--was the chosen spot for the saunterings of the chosen few, a fact which by itself is a proof of the smallness and privacy of Paris compared with the present day, when this same boulevard is flooded from morning till night by a hurrying stream of indistinguishable humanity. In the days of Louis Philippe n.o.body, except an ignorant foreigner, ventured to appear on this sacred preserve in the afternoon without some semblance of a t.i.tle. The t.i.tle may have been so small as a peculiarly elegant waistcoat, a capacity for drinking, or a happy invention for practical jokes, or it may have been the reputation for a ready wit and a trenchant pen; but whosoever dared to show himself in this select society was sure to have some particular justification for making himself conspicuous, otherwise he was certain to be quizzed out of existence. The newcomer, if he survived a short but swift scrutiny, entered an informal though exclusive club of which every member was known to the others--he was known, that is, to ”all Paris.”

All Paris, in a sense, it truly was, not because the greatest poets and statesmen belonged to it--for they had better things to do than to waste so much time--but because it served as the central intelligence department or, I might almost say, as the brain of Paris. A word uttered there was round the town in two hours; there a poet was made or a play d.a.m.ned--in the twinkling of an eye. One day of its activity furnished all the wit of the next day's newspapers, which is hardly surprising when so many of its members were journalists. _Le tout Paris_ was not hide-bound in its requirements; it admitted high birth as one qualification for members.h.i.+p, wealth if accompanied by good manners as another, but a certain way to its heart was by a brilliant handling of the pen. In spite of the exaggeration of the Parisian scenes in ”Illusions Perdues,” there is no unreality in Balzac's picture of Lucien's sudden rise from impoverished obscurity to fame and money.

Lucien, the provincial poet, after his disappointing elopement with Madame de Bargeton, retires discomfited to a garret in the Quartier Latin. The door of rich protectors is shut in his face, no publisher will read his poems or accept his novels. The serpent arrives in the shape of Lousteau, who shows him the devilish power of journalism. By a lucky chance Lucien is asked to write a dramatic criticism for a new paper. He succeeds brilliantly, and he has Paris at his feet. The publisher cringes before his power and publishes all that he had formerly rejected; with money, fine clothes, and a reputation, he can answer stare for stare and return the impertinences of Rastignac and de Marsay; even Madame de Bargeton in the Faubourg St.-Germain cowers from his revengeful epigrams. So long as he remains a power in the Press he is flattered and caressed and plumes himself, a b.u.t.terfly only just emerged, in the glittering _tout Paris_ of his day.