The works of Charles Paul de Kock

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Contents

CHAPTER VIII Sister Anne Appears CHAPTER IX What is She Doing There? The Village Dance, CHAPTER X Story of Sister Anne CHAPTER XI A Day in the Wood CHAPTER XII How We Love at Twenty Years

CHAPTER XIII Dubourg Once More Plays the Gentleman. New Acquaintances . im ers Helen Ge US ES, CHAPTER XIV The Visit to the Wood CHAPTER XV ¥éte, Dinner, Fireworks and Surprise CHAPTER XVI

The Impromptu Comedians. Events Which are Startling . . . . 2 . +. .

Introduction

Propre have often repeated and have also sometimes contested the story of how Pope Gregory XVI received the famous author Chateaubriand, and immediately asked him,—

< How is my dear son Paul de Kock (Mi figlio Paolo di Kocko)?”

Nothing could prove better than this interest of the pope, the ingenuousness of an author who is popular throughout the world, and of whose works America is about to possess a complete and artistic translation, thanks to an enterprising publisher.

Who is this author? What novelist, very gay, very Gallic, could preoccupy a pope at the Vatican? Imagine his Holiness reading “ Frere Jacques”; fancy the chief of Christendom inquiring of the author of “The Genius of Christianity” as to the health of the smiling painter of the petits bourgeois and the Parisian grisettes! It is a fact which outweighs all literary criticism, and Gregory XVI did not dream that he created in that moment a living criticism.

xvi INTRODUCTION

Paul de Kock, like Alexander Dumas the elder, was and has remained popular not only in France, but out of France. Gérard de Nerval relates, in his “ Journey to the Orient,” that when he passed through Vienna, in 1844, all the ladies of the social world were interested in the characters of “The Mysteries of Paris,” the famous novel of Eugène Sue. They believed that they spoke French, and expressed themselves feelingly in the tongue of Prince Rodolpho, Chaurineur, or Fleur de Marie.

Today Eugéne Sue is a little forgotten, we no longer hear the language of his heroes in Vienna, or elsewhere; but the stories of Paul de Kock always have readers, for the power of his gayety is persistent. ‘ Laughter is the gift of man alone,” said Rabelais, in his old French tongue. The over-delicate reproach Paul de Kock for the freedom of his humor; but had not the great Balzac also his detractors? and is it not currently said that that immortal painter of human nature did not have the gift of “artistic writing”?

Side by side with the great painters, Paul de Kock bears a strong similarity to the Flemish masters whom Louis XIV called “painters of baboons,” but who have immortalized the life of their time, the era of a people. The Teniers, the Brauwers, the Van Ostades have illustrated all the manners of their world; and their smokingrooms, their taverns, and their laugh-provoking

INTRODUCTION xvii fairs deserve to be painted upon the walls of the Louvre, as much as the rosy canvases of a Watteau or the delicious faces of a Prudhon. In fact, it is the variety of subjects which constitutes the charm of a gallery of paintings.

Here is a man who has given a complete résumé of his time in his work. He has bestowed upon posterity a little world which has disappeared, somewhat as the Italian Fogazzarro is doing today, whom, however, Catholic and dreamer as he is, I do not compare with Paul de Kock. It is his treatment of “the little world” which pleases me. Charles Dickens also, when he illustrated the middle class or the humble people of London, reproduced this little world. The misfortunes of Mr. Pickwick might be compared to the experiences of M. Dupont at the country party, or to those of M. Choublanc in search of his wife.

Yes, a complete past seems to exist, to breathe and be reanimated, to smile, to love and hate, in the immense work of Paul de Kock. It is, today, like the picture of a Paris which has disappeared, which is abolished; of a Paris light, simple, familiar, happy, of such good humor that it will laugh at nothings. Would you like to know how the smaller tradespeople lived at the end of the last century,— those people who were so healthy and so amiable? Open Paul de Kock, and imagine a family book, illustrated by Charlet, a refrain by

XViil INTRODUCTION

Béranger! It is the image of a sane and humorous life, where pessimism has not yet committed its ravages, and where no one has dreamed of the Zarathustra of that marvellous and terrible Nietzsche!

I spoke of the Flemish painters. It is rather interesting to note that the novelist of Parisian life in the time of the Restoration and of Louis Philippe is of an origin which connects him intimately with the artists of the Low Countries. Paul de Kock proceeds to the delineation of Belleville and Romainville exactly in the manner of the Dutch painters, and he undoubtedly possessed the Dutch temperament. His father was in fact a Hollander. The elder de Kock was that banker Kock who entertained the patriots so generously at his house at Passy that he was suspected of being an agent of the royal party. He died on the scaffold, with Hébert and Anacharsis. Clootz. Madame de Kock, the widow, knew the Hébertists, —de Ronsin, de Proly and de Pereyra. Her son tells the story in the novel of “The Man with Three Pairs of Trousers.” The tale, this time, has a double and historic significance. But it is not safe to take it literally. I have seen the only portrait of M. de Kock the father. It is that of a tall, superb, handsome man, not in military costume, but in a coat of German cut, which is more severe than the French fashion. He wore his hair powdered, and no beard; his nose was fine and

INTRODUCTION xX long, and his complexion fresh and rosy, like that of the northern races. In Paris he was called the handsome Hollander, and the portrait gives ample excuse for the title. Paul de Kock was the son of a revolutionist, but he was a reactionist.

“I have seen so many changes!” he said to me, pointing to the carriageway of the boulevard, under his windows. ‘‘ And so many people have fallen! There, at the corner of the theatre, a poor devil dropped with a ball in his head! I see him still!”

What would the father, Conrad de Kock, the soldier of Dumouriez, the colonel of Jemappes and of Valmy, have said to that? He had seen many such things, and, moreover, he died himself at twenty-eight. His other son, the brother of the novelist, became a famous man, a statesman and minister in Holland.

Paul de Kock was born at Passy, the 21st of May, 1793, but he was always essentially a Parisian. He was seventy years old when I knew him. He was without fixed habitation for some years ; then one fine day chance led him upon the Boulevard Saint Martin, beside the theatre. No doubt you would often have noticed an old man at the window of the entresol, his elbows resting on the balcony, an embroidered cap upon his head. He had a bright eye, a face which was still handsome, long white hair, a short mustache; his cravat was carefully tied. He had the appear-

XX INTRODUCTION ance of a retired officer. He studied the passersby, the carriages; he listened to the noise, he breathed the air, he observed, he enjoyed the freshness, and especially the boulevard. This was Charles Paul de Kock, or, rather, Paul de Kock, as he was popularly known.

For more than half a century Paul de Kock lived at 8 Boulevard Saint Martin, and, one looking at the other, they had seen many things. It was on this work-table, in this library, where his own complete works filled the shelves, that he wrote nearly all that he has left. The instrument of labor and the worker grew old together. How easy it is to divine, in this environment, the labor, the correct life, the gentle and calm existence of the writer,— the writer who bore so honorably and so well his title of Man of Letters !

There are three portraits in existence of Paul de Kock, which indicate admirably the three phases of this long life so well employed.

The first is a miniature by I do not know what pupil of Madame de Mirbel,—a masterpiece. These beautiful and living miniatures have been replaced by photographs, yet the most unalterable of these are more alterable than they.

This shows us a young man of thirty years, the hair black, and carefully arranged, the beard shaved, the chin blue. He is at his desk, before his papers, dressed in a green dressing-gown with black bands, such as they wore in 1820. The

INTRODUCTION xxi dress is correct, and of a finished elegance. The shirt has frills of the fashionable sort, and there is lace on the cuffs also. It is the Paul de Kock of the Restoration,—fine talker, fine waltzer, handsome man, whom one imagines charming, whom one points at, saying, “It is he!” Jules Janin has related that in the carriage in which he rode to Paris, from Saint Etienne to the coach office, they talked of nothing but Paul de Kock.

The second portrait is a canvas by Gigoux. The man is forty to fifty years old ; always robust, thoughtful, the hair a little longer, and falling over the brow, as if blown by a contrary wind, still black, the eye deep, almost meditative. One can understand, on seeing this, the melancholy touches in some of the books of Paul de Kock.

The third is the beautiful photograph of Bertall, his illustrator. It is Paul de Kock at seventy years, vigorous, solid, with square shoulders and stout legs. He leans upon his cane, less from necessity than from a feeling of propriety. He wears a white vest, his coat buttoned up, and a high cravat. He might be General Rourgachard if he were not Paul de Kock. His eyes are thoughtful, his lip ironical under the white mustache, and ready to utter a witticism,— not a mot, in the sense of the day, but an observation, a fine remark. The nose is straight, the brow high, and modelled by time, but not wearied; the hair is thick and fine, gray rather than white.

Xxil INTRODUCTION

For this sage, who concealed his life, an entire biography might be read in these three portraits.

The child of Passy, the son of the guillotined banker who was the good friend of Hébert (Père Duchesne), was brought up as he pleased, as were all the young men of the time of the First Empire. He was destined first of all for commerce, and was placed in a banking-house. The establishment of Scherer and Finguerlin was at the corner of Rue Taitbout and the Boulevard. There, while he regulated his accounts, kept day-books, straightened his balances, Paul de Kock wrote. His employers, who gladly closed their eyes upon the clerk’s manuscripts, retired, and their successor, a ferocious broker, turned the young novelist-clerk out of doors. Paul de Kock was then nineteen. He carried his novel, his first novel, back and forth through Paris; it was everywhere refused, everywhere disdained. It was called “ The Child of my Wife,” and Pigault-Lebrun himself might have had a good laugh over it, except that he never laughed at anything. At last, weary of useless attempts, the young man decided to issue his first novel at his own expense, and, determined to indulge no longer in such luxuries, to break his literary pen and return to his accountant’s implement.

But we little know what destiny has in store for us. The future smiled upon the author; the day came when he was even offered a contract

INTRODUCTION xxiii with his publisher. A contract! What fortune! What dreams! Paul de Kock seized the contract, signed it with both hands. “I am a novelist!” he exclaimed.

He was not only a novelist, but a dramatist. He wished to frighten people, this man who always wanted to amuse his world. He created his roaring villains with black beards, before he caused the innocent ladies in jaconet gowns to blush. His melodramas—it was the melodrama then— were “Catherine de Courlande,” “The Portuguese Troubadour,” “The Battle of Viellane,” “ Madame de Valnoir.”

How Sister Anne, the good Sister Anne, would have wondered at them! How the Milkmaid of Montfermeil would have wept if she could have listened to them! How Carotine would have laughed if she could have heard them, — and Piffard and Chipolette, and M. Choublanc, and M. Cherami, and the entire Gogo family !

He did some comic operas also; among others, “The Muleteer,” of which Hérold composed the music. Then came the novels, the joy of an epoch, the gayety of the Restoration — better than that, of five or six reigns, the good blood of four or five generations. You will name them all, — “ A Good Child,” “ Monsieur Dupont,” “ Nor Never nor Ever,” and many others.

But Paul de Kock had strangled himself under that famous contract which Barba had offered him.

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It made the fortune of the publisher, but not that of the author. More than once, as he grew old, I think he must have repeated: “If youth but knew! In growing old? —I do not myself understand!”

He remained always young, he died young, and knew nothing of the fierce melancholy of contemporary romance, of our realism, of that wind of despair which animates— while drying possibly, who knows? — the creations of these latter years.

“You make people shiver,” he said to me one day; “but when do you amuse them?”

“Tt is because the moment is not gay, and the thermometer is not at the gayety point.”

“As for me, at my age,” replied Paul de Kock, “I shall still play with paper kites!”

I believe that he kept his word, that he went always in summer to this pretty Romainville house, of which the gardens and the fêtes were spared for some time.

Romainville! The name itself is charming, and sounds attractive, like a little festival bell. Romainville! The dinner upon the grass, the boys rolling and playing catch; while the young girls in light dresses, and the stout ladies, gather about the melon brought from the city, and laugh at the jokes and pleasantries of the little clerks on a holiday, or the middle-aged citizens who are taking an outing. The stupid donkeys which will not go must be pushed from behind, until

INTRODUCTION XXV they decide to advance, the stubborn things! They sweat, they groan, they are beaten! The struggle with the donkeys makes part of every féte, as it does of every success.

Ah, what pretty decorations in these laugh-provoking novels! Romainville! Bagnolet! The Prés Saint Gervais! It is a part of the suburbs which still smells of the country, and where the Parisians eager for verdure, for freshness, can go in search of green grass, of forgetfulness. They need to forget even the sorrows of yesterday, for in the place where the dinner is spread upon the grass the defenders of Romainville were slain by the Wurtembergers.

At the time when Paul de Kock wrote, Belleville was a village and Romainville a hamlet; one could roll in the fields, in the spot where now one would run against walls. Paul de Kock is the annalist of a fabulous time; it is as remote as that of Gregory of Tours. The Parisian of that period scarcely ever left Paris; a journey to Versailles, on the days when the fountains played, seemed more hazardous than a trip to Tunis today, — it was an event of importance, which would only be equalled now by a voyage to Samarkand. An adventure full of daring was seen in the trip from Paris to Havre, where one went to see the ocean; and many of our old Parisians, habituated to the sight of the brook in the Rue de Bac, have left this world without a glimpse of

XXVi INTRODUCTION the sea. Today all the beaches are advertised like the fashionable plays, and even have large colored notices, like the summer theatres. Ah, how far, far, this is from the Paris of Paul de Kock, of Monsieur Dupont and of My Neighbor Raymond!

But during the lifetime of Paul de Kock the Romainville of his novels still existed; at his hands it survived in the house of the romancer. They amused themselves there, as in the good old times, composing charades, executing operettas, with Paul de Kock for impressario, and Henri de Kock, the son of the popular romancer, himself a novelist and dramatist, as director, — Henri de Kock, who sang the lorette as his father celebrated the grisette. They played at swinging, at bowls, at ball, at ninepins, at all the games; even song was not neglected. Only old people really know how to laugh.

Paul de Kock, in comparison with others, could write very easily. His manuscripts were models of neatness, and guiltless of an erasure. There were entire volumes thrown upon the paper as they were to remain, without correction. The ideal of Paul de Kock was to have a flowing style. “I have the flowing style.”

In his place, one might have exclaimed, “I have color,” and another, “I have force.” He aspired to be neither the Nile nor Niagara, but the little clear brook, which runs smiling over the

INTRODUCTION XXVII white pebbles, between dewy banks of cresses. He does not seek for images. He does not lengthen his phrases. He traces value for value, and, if his meaning is clear, that is sufficient for him. He says merely what he wishes to say, and no one need suppose that he wishes merely to amuse. He paints all that he has seen. His sketches and pictures are those of an artist who has been touched by the truth, of an ingenuous observer, of a Charlet, who would mock at the epic.

Do not disdain them, these brave and gay stories, full of verve, full of life, full of salt; and if they are coarse occasionally, and a little broad, what does it matter? These humble middle-class dramas, these comedies where the little world lives, where a corner of our society is moving, where one is jovial and in excellent health, with a suggestion of emotion, a heart which beats, and good red lips which certainly do not speak the language of a select few!

There is sunshine in this region, and the breeze brings the freshness of the lilacs and the odors of springtime. The bonnets are white, the faces are rosy; there are songs in the air; the people eat in circles and dance in circles. The grass is the accomplice of love. Forward, the clerks, the grisettes, the small tradesmen, the employés, the foot-soldiers and the cooks! Whether good or bad, the orchestra grinds away forever ; the green

XXVill INTRODUCTION leaves, the blue sky, the picnic in the wood, are all yours. The dinner is finished, the basket of provisions is empty. The wine has passed from the bottles into the tumblers. They have thrown upon the grass the rinds of the melon which papa carried in his arms, and the crumbs of the pie which mamma brought in her handkerchief from rue Thevenot to Romainville. They must dance, hold each other’s hands, turn, drag each other about, almost strangle; and when they have lost their breath and fall to the ground, everyone looks around with a red face, but with animation and gayety. The beautiful parties, the wild foolishness, the escapades at the Près Saint Gervais, the love-making which is carried on the length of the wheatfield, the kisses in the hedge, the adventures and misadventures of love in the fields! The omelets soufflés, the fireworks which do not go off, the torn gowns, the waffles, les mirlitons, the caterpillars in the cream, and the cream in the salad,—all these are things which only happen in the stories of Paul de Kock. All are accidents at which one laughs, that amuse without disturbing, that divert but do not pervert. They console us, and help us to forget.

How many people have you found, glued to the desks of the reading-rooms, absorbed in the novels of Paul de Kock, which others would have gladly condemned— what do I say ? — would have burned as immoral. The idea of calling those good

INTRODUCTION XXI1X fellows immoral! They never inspire anything but the love of good girls, full of health, who fear neither word nor gesture, — amiable companions, with whom one would always be content, and whose company one would not wish to lose. The girls of Paul de Kock have blood in their heart, and the heart on the lips. Their kisses sound frank, and their hands strike hard. They have no affectation, no false modesty, and no false sentimentality. The flowers of rhetoric, of passionate poets, have no attraction for them. They are without artificiality, and laugh as frankly as Beranger’s Good Girl, who is their cousin. They sometimes bring the odor of the furnace, of the shop or the farm, but never of the hospital. If Francine or Mimi is lymphatic, Zizine has iron in her blood. They laugh in the face of consumption, and are delighted to show their white teeth. What good comrades are the women of Paul de Kock, by the side of the pale Bohemian creations of Murger!

These little people go and come, fall in love, marry, separate, make mistakes, detest each other, adore each other, make jokes, play comedies, and weep on occasion (very little and for the moral). They live, in a word! How marvellous it is! It is a race apart, in a series of literary creations, something which is only found there, which Paul de Kock has brought into the world, or, rather, which he has painted as he saw it, as it is, or, alas!

XXX INTRODUCTION as it was. It will remain, for these volumes will live, although some have despised them. They have been read and reread by others; and the witty people say they were written for the cooks.

“The cooks? Well, and why not?” said Paul de Kock, somewhere. “I would not be ashamed to have written for the chimney-sweeps, even. That would simply prove that the chimney-sweeps know how to read.”

The great writers, like Theophile Gautier, for instance, have not disdained to praise Paul de Kock; and I find in the “ Portraits Contemporains ” of the author of “Le Capitaine Fracasse” and of “ Mademoiselle de Maupin” some important pages in which the delicate poet does justice to the popular novelist.

“We feel,” he says, that there is in him a sort of comic force, which is lacking in others. At present, he appears to us in a more serious light, if one can apply such a word to Paul de Kock. Certain of his novels produce upon us the effect of the ‘Last of the Mohicans’ by Fenimore Cooper. We seem to be reading the history of the Last of the Parisians.’

Theodore de Banville, the poet, has not hesitated to write : —

Joy,— such was in fact the gift, marvellous and rare, which was possessed, among all others, by the inexhaustible romancer, Charles Paul de Kock ; and it is through this that he holds his place among the most illustrious poets. It is through this that he

INTRODUCTION XXXI has in his laughter something of the mighty laugh of Rabelais. It is through this that he has in his veins a drop of the blood of Molière.

He knew how to laugh and to make others laugh. His domain was joy ; yet the drama, and even the melodrama, have their part in his gay and natural stories. This is evident in the novel of “Sister Anne,” which begins brilliantly the artistic and admirable edition which an American publisher is issuing, as a monument to the popular candor of the Gallic spirit; Sister Anne, the mute who finds speech in her dying moment, might be the story of the drama of the Fates.

At the present time a cheap edition of Paul de Kock finds as many buyers in France as the works of Victor Hugo. The Good Fellow is appreciated as well as the Great Man, in spite of the lapse of years. I once cited, in a critical article, the opinion of an English writer, without a peer, upon the author of “ Sister Anne.”

Bulwer, the famous author of “ Pelham,” and of that exciting story, “ Eugene Aram,” which is a powerful drama of the courts, expressed his sentiments to Paul de Kock with enthusiastic admiration. I have his letter in an autograph collection of-my own. He declares that he finds in no other author a comic vein equal to that of De Kock, and he says this at the very hour when the inimitable Charles Dickens had just published in the Morning Chronicle his sketches of English life,

XXXIl INTRODUCTION at the period when “ Oliver Twist” was still in course of publication, and after the astonishing Mr. Pickwick had been born.

In the Edinburgh Review of next January I shall give expression to my opinion upon your talent in a manner which ought to be agreeable to you. If there are any restrictions, it will be the fault of my editor and not of myself; but I hope that there will be none. I do not know how to convey to you my sympathy for your sorrow, Genius has been given to man as a compensation for his misfortunes and his inevitable torments. Your work reflects life in a fashion so amiable and so indulgent, that it evidently mirrors a joyous character and a satisfied heart. Excuse me for writing you this letter in English, but I do not know your language well enough to express sufficiently in French my enthusiastic admiration and my profound respect.

I am, dear sir, your grateful and devoted friend,

Epwarp Butwer-Lytron.

This is the opinion of the eminent English novelist, upon the popular story-teller, the great entertainer of clerks in novelty shops, and also of the great ladies, who gladly sent to the circulating libraries in search of the volumes of Paul de Kock. I have had looked up, in the Edinburgh Review, the article which Bulwer-Lytton promised with so much friendly feeling to Charles Paul de Kock. It was published in the number of January, 1837, and has for title, “Paul de Kock: Complete Works of Paul de Kock ( Paris, 1834). ‘ Zizine,’ by Charles Paul de Kock; four volumes, 12mo, Bruxelles, 1836.” In fact, it is of “ Zizine” that Bulwer speaks especially, mingling with his appre-

INTRODUCTION XXXill ciation the name of Wordsworth, and comparing the gay, bright literature of Paul de Kock with what he calls the literature of the morgue. The grisettes of the novelist are contrasted with the sentimentalities of the Lélia of George Sand, and of the ascetic deprivations of Balzac’s “ Peau de Chagrin.” I quote the criticism of the English novelist, but do not reproduce it. It might be found and reprinted, as a matter of curiosity. It is evident that Bulwer has seized the real quality and naturalness of Paul de Kock’s talent. They are certainly stories of a “joyous character” and a “satisfied heart.” In rereading them, one finds himself in the presence of an impenitent optimism which defies all criticism. One seems to be reading the stories of a vanished time. It is moral archæology. One perceives in these books a France smiling and light, a Paris which is a good child, a people frankly natural, whose life is full of sweet repose. “ When I read M. de Florian,” said Marie Antoinette, “it seems to me that I am drinking whey.” Paul de Kock is not whey; sometimes he seems a little blue: but he has the cordial good humor of the drinkers of Charlet. He is simple and idealistic in his manner. The Colonel de Berly, when his nephew, Gustave the Good-for-nothing, assured him that he hoped to find in marriage the happiness he had vainly sought in the whirl of intrigues and folly (this is the manner of Paul de Kock), replied: My dear, youth must

XXXIV INTRODUCTION pass. You have had a good time. You have sown your wild oats; so much the better. That reassures me in regard to your future.”

This is the morality of Paul de Kock. It is that of Pigault-Lebrun, the author of “The Child of the Carnival.” It is even that of Béranger, who drinks, down there in his corner, to the god of the good-natured people. It is this morality which displeased Bulwer-Lytton a little. Ernest Renan, who detested Béranger, certainly considered it mediocre; and yet there is something of this “tant mieux” in Renanism.

I have just indicated the paradoxical criticism of Bulwer, who compares Paul de Kock to Balzac, and even nearly sacrifices Balzac to Paul de Kock. There was a time when for readers all the French romances were written by Paul de Kock, as all the comedies played at all the theatres were written by M. Scribe"; of this a certain anecdote, which I have taken an ironical pleasure in relating, is a diverting testimony.

One morning Balzac, the sovereign master, was taking a walk in the suburbs of Paris. He descended the slopes of Livry, toward Montfermeil, and in order to shorten the road turned to walk through a ploughed field. A garde cham-