The Parisians ... With illustrations by S. Hall

Front matter

REPRINTED FROM BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE BY EDWARD BIJLWER, LORD LYTTON AUTHOR OF THE 'COMING RACE,' ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY SYDNEY HALL FOUR VOLUMES VOL. III. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON The liight of Translation reserved PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. "The poor woman made no reply, but as he drew her towards him, she leant her head upon his breast AND WEPT QUIETLY," 43 "Suddenly, at the angle op a street, his coachman was stopped — a rough-looking man appeared at the DOOR," 80 "Valerie received her visitor with a coldness she Dm not attempt to disguise," 137 "So the gtrl was dj the habit op taking her work OR her BOOK INTO THE cabinet de travail," . . . BOOK

BOOK VII.

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Chapter I

It is the first week in the month of May 1870. Celebrities are of rapid growth in the salons of Paris. Gustave Eameau has gained the position for which he sighed. The journal he edits has increased its hold on the pubbc, and his share of the profits has been bberaUy augmented by the secret proprietor. Eameau is acknowledged as a power in literary circles. And as critics belonging to the same clique praise each other in Paris, whatever they may do in communities more rigidly virtuous, his poetry has been declared by authorities in the press to be superior to that of Alfred de Musset in vigour — to that of Victor Hugo in refinement ; neither of which assertions would much, perhaps, shock a cultivated understanding. It is true that it (Gustave's poetry) has not gained a wide audience among the public.

But with regard to poetry nowadays, there are plenty of persons who say as Dr Johnson said of the verse of Spratt, " I would rather praise it than read." At all events, Eameau was courted in gay and brilliant circles, and, following the general example of French litUrateurs in fashion, lived well up to the income he received, had a delightful bachelor's apartment, furnished with artistic effect, spent largely on the adornment of his person, kept a coupe' and entertained profusely at the Cafe" Anglais and the Maison Dorte. A reputation that inspired a graver and more unquiet interest had been created by the Vicomte de Mauleon. Eecent articles in the ' Sens Commun,' written under the name of Pierre Firmin, on the discussions on the vexed question of the ple biscite, had given umbrage to the Government, and Eameau had received an intimation that he, as edi tor, was responsible for the compositions of the con tributors to the journal he edited ; and that though, so long as Pierre Firmin had kept his caustic spirit within proper bounds, the Government had winked at the evasion of the law which required every pobt ical article in a journal to be signed by the real name of its author, it could do so no longer.

Pierre Fir min was apparently a nom deplume; if not, his iden tity must be proved, or Eameau would pay the pen alty which his contributor seemed bent on incurring Eameau, much alarmed for the journal that might be suspended, and for himself who might be im prisoned, conveyed this information through the publisher to his correspondent Pierre Firmin, and received the next day an article signed Victor de Mauleon, in which the writer proclaimed himself to be one and the same with Pierre Firmin, and, taking a yet bolder tone than he had before assumed, dared the Government to attempt legal measures against him. The Government was prudent enough to dis regard that haughty bravado, but Victor de Mauleon rose at once into political importance. He had already in his real name and his quiet way estab lished a popular and respectable place in Parisian society.

But if this revelation created him enemies whom he had not before provoked, he was now suf ficiently acquitted, by tacit consent, of the sins formerly laid to his charge, to disdain the assaults of party wrath. His old reputation for personal courage and skill in sword and pistol served, indeed, to protect him from such charges as a Parisian journabst does not reply to with his pen. If he created some enemies, he created many more friends, or, at least, partisans and admirers. He only needed fine and imprisonment to become a popular hero. A few days after he had thus proclaimed him self, Victor de Mauleon — who had before kept aloof from Eameau, and from salons at which he was likely to meet that distinguished minstrel — solicited his personal acquaintance, and asked him to breakfast. Eameau joyfully went.

He had a very natural curiosity to see the contributor whose articles had so mainly insured the sale of the ' Sens Commun! In the dark - haired, keen - eyed, well - dressed, middle-aged man, with commanding port and courtly address, he faded to recognise any resem blance to the flaxen-wigged, long-coated, be-spec tacled, shambbng sexagenarian whom he bad known as Lebeau. Only now and then a tone of voice struck him as famibar, but he could not recoUect where he had heard the voice it resembled. The thought of Lebeau did not occur to him ; if it had occurred it would only have struck him as a chance coincidence. Eameau, like most egotists, was rather a duU observer of men. His genius was not objective. " I trust, Monsieur Eameau," said the Vicomte, as he and his guest were seated at the breakfast table, " that you are not dissatisfied with the re muneration your eminent services in the journal have received."

" The proprietor, whoever he be, has behaved most bberally," answered Eameau. " I take that compbment to myself, cher confrere ; for though the expenses of starting the ' Sens Commun' and the caution money lodged were found by a friend of mine, that was as a loan, which I have long since repaid, and the property in the journal is now exclusively mine. I have to thank you not only for your own briUiant contributions, but for those of the colleagues you secured. Monsieur Sav arin's piquant criticisms were most valuable to us at starting. I regret to have lost his aid. But as he has set up a new journal of his own, even he has not wit enough to spare for another. A propos of our contributors, I shaU ask you to present me to the fair author of ' The Artist's Daughter.' I am of too prosaic a nature to appreciate justly the merits of a roman ; but I have heard warm praise of this story from the young — they are the best judges of that kind of literature ; and I can at least understand the worth of a contributor who trebled the sale of our journal.

It is a misfortune to us, indeed, that her work is completed, but I trust that the sum sent to her through our publisher suffices to tempt her to favour us with another roman in series.' "Mademoiselle Cicogna," said Eameau, with a somewhat sharper intonation of his sharp voice, " has accepted for the repubbcation of her roman in a separate form terms which attest the worth of her genius, and has had offers from other journals for a serial tale of even higher amount than the sum so generously sent to her through your publisher." " Has she accepted them, Monsieur Eameau ? If so, tant pis pour vous. Fardon me, I mean that your salary suffers in proportion as the 'Sens Commun' decbnes in sale." " She has not accepted them. I advised her not to do so untd she could compare them with those offered by the proprietor of the ' Sens Commun.' " " And your advice guides her ?

Ah, cher confrere, you are a happy man! — you have influence over this young aspirant to the fame of a De Stael or a Georges Sand." "I flatter myself that I have some," answered Eameau, smiling loftily as he helped himself to another tumbler of Volney wine — exceUent, but rather heady. " So much the better. I leave you free to arrange terms with MademoiseUe Cicogna, higher than she can obtain elsewhere, and kindly contrive my own personal introduction to her — you have breakfasted already? — permit me to offer you a cigar — excuse me if I do not bear you company ; I seldom smoke — never of a morning. Now to business, and the state of France. Take that easychair, seat yourself comfortably. So ! Listen ! If ever Mephistopheles revisit the earth, how he wiU laugh at Universal Suffrage and Vote by Ballot in an old country bke France, as things to be admired by educated men, and adopted by friends of genuine freedom !

" " I don't understand you," said Eameau. " In this respect at least, let me hope that I can furnish you with understanding." " The Emperor has resorted to a plebiscite — viz., a vote by baUot and universal suffrage — as to certain popular changes which circumstances compel him to substitute for his former personal rule. Is there a single intelligent Liberal who is not against that plebiscite ? — is there any such who does not know that the appeal of the Emperor to universal suffrage and vote by baUot must result in a triumph over all the variations of free thought, by the unity which belongs to Order, represented through an able man at the head of the State? The multitude never comprehend principles ; principles are complex ideas ; they comprehend a simple idea, and the simplest idea is, a Name that rids their action of all responsibibty to thought.

"WeU, in France there are principles super abundant which you can pit against the principle of Imperial rule. But there is not one name you can pit against Napoleon the Third ; therefore, I steer our bttle bark in the teeth of the popular gale when I denounce the plebiscite, and ' Le Sens Com mun ' wdl necessarily faU in sale — it is beginning to fall already. We shall have the educated men with us, the rest against. In every country — even in China, where aU are highly educated — a few must be yet more highly educated than the many. Monsieur Rameau, I desire to overthrow the Empire : in order to do that, it is not enough to have on my side the educated men, I must have the canaille — the canaille of Paris and of the manufacturing towns. But I use the canaille for my purpose — I don't mean to enthrone it.

You comprehend? — the canaille quiescent is simply mud at the bottom of a stream ; the canaille agitated, is mud at the surface. But no man capable of three ideas budds the palaces and senates of civUised society out of mud, be it at the top or the bottom of an ocean. Can either you or I desire that the destinies of France shall be swayed by coxcombical artisans who think themselves superior to every man who writes grammar, and whose idea of a commonwealth is the confiscation of private property?" Eameau, thoroughly puzzled by this discourse, bowed his head, and repbed whisperingly, "Pro ceed. You are against the Empire, yet against the populace! — What are you for? not, surely, the Legitimists? — are you Republican? Orleanist? or what?" "Your questions are very pertinent," answered the Vicomte, courteously, "and my answer shall be very frank.

I am against absolute rule, whether under a Buonaparte or a Bourbon. I am for a free State, whether under a constitutional hereditary sovereign bke the Engbsh or Belgian, or whether, republican in name, it be less democratic than constitutional monarchy in practice, bke the American. But as a man interested in the fate of 'Le Sens Commun! I hold in profound disdain all crotchets for revolutionising the elements of Human Nature. Enough of this abstract talk. To the point. You are of course aware of the violent meetings held by the Socialists, nominally against the plebiscite, really against the Emperor himself?" " Yes, I know at least that the working class are extremely discontented ; the numerous strikes last month were not on a mere question of wages — they were against the existing forms of society.

And the articles by Pierre Firmin which brought me into col bsion with the Government, seemed to differ from what you now say. They approve those strikes ; they appeared to sympathise with the revolutionary meetings at BellevUle and Montmartre." "Of course — we use coarse tools for destroying; we cast them aside for finer ones when we want to reconstruct. "I attended one of those meetings last night. See, I have a pass for aU such assemblies, signed by some dolt who cannot even spell the name he assumes — ' Pom-de-Tair! A commissary of police sat yawning at the end of the orchestra, his secretary by his side, whde the orators stammer out fragments of would-be thunderbolts. Commissary of pobce yawns more weardy than before, secretary disdains to use his pen, seizes his penknife and pares his nads.

Up rises a wild-haired, weak-limbed silhouette of a man, and affecting a solemnity of mien which might have become the virtuous Guizot, moves this resolution — 'The French people con demns Charles Louis Napoleon the Third to the penalty of perpetual hard labour.' Then up rises the commissary of police and says quietly, ' I de clare this meeting at an end.' " Sensation among the audience — they gesticulate — they screech — they bebow — the commissary puts on his greatcoat — the secretary gives a last touch to his nails and pockets his penknife — the audience disperses — the silhouette of a man effaces itself — aU is over." "You describe the scene most wittily," said Eameau, laughing, but the laugh was constrained. A would-be cynic himself, there was a something grave and earnest in the real cynic that awed him.

"What conclusion do you draw from such a scene, cher poke ? " asked De Mauldon, fixing his keen quiet eyes on Eameau. " What conclusion ? WeU, that— that " " Yes, continue." " That the audience were sadly degenerated from the time when Mirabeau said to a Master of the Ceremonies, 'We are here by the power of the French people, and nothing but the point of the bayonet shaU expel us.'" " Spoken Uke a poet, a French poet. I suppose you admire M. Victor Hugo. Conceding that he would have employed a more sounding phraseology, comprising more absolute ignorance of men, times, and manners in uninteUigible metaphor and melo dramatic braggadocio, your answer might have been his ; but pardon me if I add, it would not be that of Common Sense." "Monsieur le Vicomte might rebuke me more politely," said Eameau, colouring high.

" Accept my apologies ; I did not mean to rebuke, but to instruct. The times are not those of 1789. And Nature, ever repeating herself in the production of coxcombs and blockheads, never repeats herself in the production of Mirabeaus. The Empire is doomed — doomed, because it is hostile to the free play of intellect. Any Government that gives ab solute preponderance to the many is hostile to in tellect, for intellect is necessarily confined to the few. " Intellect is the most revengeful of aU the ele ments of society. It cares not what the materials through which it insinuates or forces its way to its seat. "I accept the aid of Pom-de-Tair. I do not demean myself to the extent of writing articles that may favour the principles of Pom-de-Tair, signed in the name of Victor de Mauleon or of Pierre Firmin.

" I wdl beg you, my dear editor, to obtain clever, smart writers, who know nothing about Sociabsts and Internationabsts, who therefore wiU not com mit ' Le Sens Commun ' by advocating the doctrines of those idiots, but who wiU flatter the vanity of the canaille — vaguely ; write any stuff they please about the renown of Paris, 'the eye of the world,' 'the sun of the European system,' &c, of the artisans of Paris as supplying soul to that eye and fuel to that sun — any blague of that sort; — genre Victor Hugo; but nothing definite against life and property, nothing that may not be considered hereafter as the harmless extravagance of a poetic enthusiasm. You might write such articles yourself. In fine, I want to excite the multitude, and yet not to commit our journal to the contempt of the few.

"Nothing is to be admitted that may bring the law upon us except it be signed by my name. There may be a moment in which it would be desirable for somebody to be sent to prison : in that case, I allow no substitute — I go myself. "Now you have my most secret thoughts. I intrust them to your judgment with entire confidence. Monsieur Lebeau gave you a high character, which you have hitherto deserved. By the way, have you seen anything lately of that bourgeois conspirator?" "No, his professed business of letter-writer or agent is transferred to a clerk, who says M. Lebeau is abroad." " Ah ! I don't think that is true. I fancy I saw him the other evening gliding along the lanes of BeUeville. He is too confirmed a conspirator to be long out of Paris ; no place bke Paris for seething brains." "Have you known M. Lebeau long?" asked Eameau.

"Ay, many years. We are both Norman by birth, as you may perceive by something broad in our accent." " Ha ! I knew your voice was famibar to me ; certainly it does remind me of Lebeau's." t * "Normans are bke each other 'in many things besides voice and accent — obstinacy, for instance, in clinging to ideas once formed ; this makes them good friends and steadfast enemies. I would advise no man to make an enemy of Lebeau. "Au revoir, cher confrere. Do not forget to present me to MademoiseUe Cicogna."

Chapter II

On leaving De Mauleon and regaining his coupe, Rameau felt at once bewddered and humbled, for he was not prepared for the tone of careless superiority which the Vicomte assumed over him. He had expected to be much complimented, and he com prehended vaguely that he had been somewhat snubbed. He was not only irritated — he was bewddered, for De Maul^on's pobtical disquisitions did not leave any clear or definite idea on his mind as to the principles which as editor of the 'Sens Commun ' he was to see adequately represented and carried out. In truth, Rameau was one of those numerous Parisian pobticians who have read little and reflected less on the government of men and States. Envy is said by a great French writer to be the vice of Democracies. Envy certainly had made Rameau a democrat. He could talk and write gbbly enough upon the themes of equality and fraternity, and was so far an ultra-democrat that he thought moderation the sign of a mediocre understanding.

De Mauldon's talk, therefore, terribly perplexed him. It was unbke anything he had heard before. Its revolutionary professions, accompanied with so much scorn for the multitude, and the things the multitude desired, were Greek to him. He was not shocked by the cynicism which placed wisdom in using the passions of mankind as tools for the in terests of an individual ; but he did not understand the frankness of its avowal. Nevertheless the man had dominated over and subdued him. He recognised the power of his contributor without clearly analysing its nature — a power made up of large experience of bfe, of cold examination of doctrines that heated others — of patrician calm — of intellectual sneer — of col lected confidence in self. Besides, Rameau felt, with a nervous misgiving, that in this man, who so boldly proclaimed his contempt for the instruments he used, he had found a master.

De Mauleon, then, was sole proprietor of the journalfrom which Rameau drew his resources ; might at any time dismiss him ; might at any time involve the journal in penalties which, even if Rameau could escape in his official capacity as editor, stiU might stop the ' Sens Commun' and with it Rameau's luxurious subsistence. Altogether the visit to De Mauleon had been any thing but a pleasant one. He sought, as the carriage VOL. III. b robed on, to turn his thoughts to more agreeable subjects, and the image of Isaura rose before him. To do him justice he had learned to love this girl as weU as his nature would permit : he loved her with the whole strength of his imagination, and though his heart was somewhat cold, his imagination was very ardent. He loved her also with the whole strength of his vanity, and vanity was even a more preponderant organ of his system than imagina tion.

To carry off as his prize one who had already achieved celebrity, whose beauty and fascination of manner were yet more acknowledged than her genius, would certainly be a glorious triumph. Every Parisian of Eameau's stamp looks forward in marriage to a brilbant salon. What salon more brilbant than that which he and Isaura united could command ? He had long conquered his early impulse of envy at Isaura's success, — in fact that success had become associated with his own, and had contributed greatly to his enrichment. So that to other motives of love he might add the prudential one of interest. Eameau weU knew that his own vein of composition, however lauded by the cbques, and however un rivaUed in his own eyes, was not one that brings much profit in the market. He compared himself to those poets who are too far in advance of their time to be quite as sure of bread and cheese as they are of immortal fame.

But he regarded Isaura's genius as of a lower order, and a thing in itself very marketable. Marry her, and the bread and cheese were so certaiu that he might elaborate as slowly as he pleased the verses destined to immortal fame. Then he shoidd be independent of inferior creatures like Victor de Mauleon. But while Rameau convinced himself that he was passionately in love with Isaura, he could not satisfy himself that she was in love with him. Though during the past year they had seen each other constantly, and their bterary occupations had produced many sympathies between them — though he had intimated that many of his most eloquent love-poems were inspired by her — though he had asserted in prose, very pretty prose too, that she was all that youthful poets dream of, — yet she had hitherto treated such declarations with a playful laugh, accepting them as elegant compbments in spired by Parisian gallantry; and he felt an angry and sore foreboding that if he were to insist too seriously on the earnestness of their import and ask her plainly to be his wife, her refusal would be certain, and his visits to her house might be interdicted.

Stdl Isaura was unmarried, stdl she had refused offers of marriage from men higher placed than him self, — stdl he divined no one whom she could prefer, And as he now leaned back in his coupe he muttered to himself, " Oh, if I could but get rid of that bttle demon Julie, I would devote myself so completely to winning Isaura's heart that I must succeed ! — but how to get rid of Julie ? She so adores me, and is so headstrong ! She is capable of going to Isaura — showing my letters — making such a scene ! " Here he checked the carriage at a cafe on the Boulevard, — descended, imbibed two glasses of ab sinthe, — and then feeling much emboldened, re mounted his coupe and directed the driver to Isaura's apartment.

Chapter III

Yes, celebrities are of rapid growth in the salons of Paris. Far more solid than that of Rameau, far more brilbant than that of De Mauleon, was the celebrity which Isaura had now acquired. She had been unable to retain the pretty suburban viUa at A . The owner wanted to alter and enlarge it for his own residence, and she had been persuaded by Signora Venosta, who was always sighing for fresh salons to conquer, to remove (towards the close of the previous year) to apartments in the centre of the Parisian beau monde. Without formally pro fessing to receive, on one evening in the week her salon was open to those who had eagerly sought her acquaintance — comprising many stars in the world of fashion, as weU as those in the world of art and letters. And as she had now whoUy abandoned the idea of the profession for which her voice had been cultivated, she no longer shrank from the exercise of her surpassing gift of song for the delight of private friends.

Her physician had withdrawn the interdict on such exercise. His skiU, aided by the rich vitality of her consti tution, had triumphed over all tendencies to the malady for which he had been consulted. To hear Isaura Cicogna sing in her own house was a privilege sought and prized by many who never read a word of her literary compositions. A good critic of a book is rare ; but good judges of a voice are numberless. Adding this attraction of song to her youth, her beauty, her frank powers of converse — an innocent sweetness of manner free from all conventional affectation — and to the fresh novelty of a genius which inspired the young with enthusiasm and be guUed the old to indulgence, it was no wonder that Isaura became a celebrity at Paris. Perhaps it was a wonder that her head was not turned by the adulation that surrounded her.

But I bebeve, be it said with diffidence, that a woman of mind so superior that the mind never pretends to efface the heart, is less intoxicated with flattery than a man equaUy exposed to it. It is the strength of her heart that keeps her head sober. Isaura had never yet overcome her first romance of love ; as yet, amid aU her triumphs, there was not a day in which her thoughts did not wistfully, mournfully, fly back to those blessed mo ments in which she felt her cheek colour before a look, her heart beat at the sound of a footfall. Perhaps if there had been the customary finis to this young romance — the lover's debberate renunci ation, his formal fareweU — the girl's pride would ere this, have conquered her affection, — possibly — who knows ? — replaced it. But, reader, be you male or female, have you ever known this sore trial of affection and pride, that from some cause or other, to you mysterious, the dear intercourse to which you had accustomed the secret bfe of your life, abruptly ceases ; you know that a something has come between you and the be loved which you cannot distinguish, cannot measure, cannot guess, and therefore cannot surmount ; and you say to yourself at the dead of solitary night, " Oh for au explanation !

Oh for one meeting more ! All might be so easily set right ; or if not, I should know the worst, and knowing it, could conquer ! " This trial was Isaura's. There had been no ex planation, no last farewell between her and Graham. She divined — no woman lightly makes a mistake there — that he loved her. She knew that this dread something had intervened between her and him when he took leave of her before others so many months ago ; that this dread something stiU continued — what was it ? She was certain that it would vanish, could they but once meet again and not before others. Oh for such a meeting ! She could not herself destroy hope. She could not marry another. She would have no heart to give to another while he was free, whde in doubt if his heart was stiU her own. And thus her pride did not help her to conquer her affection.

Of Graham Vane she heard occasionally. He had ceased to correspond with Savarin ; but among those who most frequented her salon were the Morley s. Americans so weU educated and so well placed as the Morleys knew something about every Engbshman of the social station of Graham Vane. Isaura learned from them that Graham, after a tour on the Continent, had returned to England at the commencement of the year, had been invited to stand for Parbament, had refused, that his name was in the bst published by the ' Morning Post ' of the elite whose arrivals in London, or whose presence at dinner-tables, is recorded as an event. That the 'Athenæum' had mentioned a rumour that Graham Vane was the author of a pobtical pamphlet which, published anonymously, had made no inconsiderable sensation. Isaura sent to England for that pamphlet: the subject was somewhat dry, and the style, though clear and vigorous, was scarcely of the eloquence which wins the admiration of women ; and yet she learned every word of it by heart.

We know how little she dreamed that the celeb rity which she haded as an approach to him was daily making her more remote. The sweet labours she undertook for that celebrity continued to be sweetened yet more by secret association with the absent one. How many of the passages most admired could never have been written had he been never known ! And she blessed those labours the more that they upheld her from the absolute feebleness of sickened reverie, beguded her from the gnawing torture of unsatisfied conjecture. She did comply with Madame de Grantmesnil's command — did pass from the dusty beaten road of bfe into green fields and along flowery river-banks, and did enjoy that ideal by-world. But stdl the one image which reigned over her human heart moved beside her in the gardens of fairyland.