Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
ll
y-
VILLIERS
de lisle
ADAM
HIS LIFE
AND WORKS
VILLIERS
de
I'lsle
ADAM
HIS LIFE
AND WORKS
London
William Heinemann
MDCCCXCIV
LF V757
EL 28819
2.1.%. S(^
All rights
reserved.
TO
THE EVER BLESSED MEMORY OF THE UNKNOWN INDIVIDUAL WHO FIRST INTRODUCED ME TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE,
IS
BY MARY LOYD.
TO THE READER.
I^^^^HE
Adam
are so
little
it
known
in this
country, that
may
not be out
some
satire
details concern-
The most
radiant
stinging
;
fancy
and more
of
his
contravention,
run
through
stories.
And
viii
TO THE READER.
more
life.
of the
Parisian
peculiarly
Bohemian
side
of
The
its
charaleristic of Villiers'
magnificent thoroughness.
tales bears the impress, not
So
that
every
word, as
it
And
this
meaning, again,
satire,
is
almost
grave or gay,
good-humoured or severe, always tending to the support of what is true and noble, and to the punishment (or, at all events, the discountenance) " of wickedness and vice."
The
poet's
immediate friends
may have
blamed and deplored the extreme Bohemianism into which his needy circumstances drove
him.
We, who
work
work accomplished
for
the face of
can
have no room
for the
any
out giving
was capable
of imparting.
TO THE READER.
ix
No modern
perhaps,
of
writer,
with
the
exception,
Edgar Poe, whom Villiers so passionately admired, has his power of dignifying the horrible. And none, I believe (not even Pierre Loti, that master of the art of
portraying nature, to the extent of making
his readers alually feel the heat of the
sun
describes), excels
him
in calling up,
and
the beauty of an
autumn
bloom of
certain
Brevity, they
brevity
easy,
is
not
on a
centrated
power
same well-considered
de
I'lsle
Adam.
Of
is
his life
in
will
say nothing.
Its story
unfolded
^
"
La Torture par
'
"Le Convive
des
"Antonia,"
" L'Enjeu."
TO THE READER.
note.
sad enough
story
it
is,
full
of
deceptions.
The
history of a great
and un-
fitness for
common
charm he never so
wisely
death
in
by pseans of admiration when the brave heart that had vainly ached for just one responsive throb was stilled in the silence
of the grave.
There
is
a growing interest
among
culti-
its
most
brilliant
feel
convinced that
and works of one who, negleled and depreciated as he was to within a few months
of his premature death by
few,
is
all
but a selel
now acclaimed
glories of
heartily
TO THE READER.
XI
and
his
reputation rests.
Mary
Loyd,
3[n
^emonam.
HE
were being
prepared
the press.
The thought
that his
book
months of a
illness.
And
to that public
that those
who have
them
will
share
my
ful talent
me
that one
spared,
who might yet, if he had been have done much invaluable work in
and
literary research,
literature
should have
been cut
his days."
off prematurely,
Eequi0cat in pace.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
First
I.
meeting
old
Family
ties
Illustrious
origin
of
Villiers
The
the family
Motto and coat-of-arms of The Cur of Ploumilliau the parsonage " LTntersigne His parents Genealogy of the De Carfort Aunt Kerinou of the Marquis de ITsle Adam His golden dream The inheritance seeker
and M. de
Villiers at
"
Peculiarities
The
treasure seeker
CHAPTER
Birth of Villiers de ITsle
II.
Adam His baptism His childhood Stolen by mountebanks School life St. Brieuc LavalRennes His first poem His early portrait " L'Amour et la Mort " Elegy Literary plans Family devotion and tenderness " Our Matthias " Departure for
Paris
xvi
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
Paris
III.
PAGK
in literature
The reign of the common-place The poets The defenders of the Beautiful "Le Parnasse Contemporain" "Les Parnassiens" Catulle Mends and the "Revue FanTriumphal entry of de ITsle Poems Friendships Stphane Adam Mallarm and Lon Dierx " Claire Lenoir Appearance of Dr. Triboulat Bonhomet A few
taisiste "
Villiers
First
"
words touching this personage " Le Roman d'une Nuit," by Catulle Mends Death of the " Revue Fantaisiste " The Blue Dragon Hotel The Rue de Douai Villiers de I'Isle Adam,
37
CHAPTER
Early influences
IV.
father
Charles Baudelaire My Their intimacy The Htel d'Orlans Literary and philosophical and the gatherings Lon Cladel The Princess Hegelian philosophy " Tullia Fabriana Preface Eccentricities of The of Do6lor Bonhomet Do6lor C. "Ellen" and "Morgane" Sensations of Adam conloneliness The Marquis de Paris the course of tinues poisoner, Comte operationsThe the PommeraisThe apartment Courty de Kerinou Aunt marquis Honor The Rue Matthew's decorations His
relations with Villiers
Villiers
Isis
"
style
original
I'Isle
at
his
profitable
financial
la
in
St.
52
CONTENTS.
xvii
CHAPTER
The legend
to
V.
PAGE
The succession de ITsle Adam the throne of Greece the throne " Le Lion de a candidate Numidie " The Moor of Venice Nemesis An imperial audienceThe Marquis and Baron Rothschild The Due de Bassano and
of the hoaxer hoaxed
Villiers
for " "
Villiers
de ITsle
AdamThe
last
ad
of the
comedy A
Kerinou
poet's conclusion
Death
VI.
of
Aunt
7
Separation
CHAPTER
My
return to
search
stages
Paris The Htel d'Orlans My Our reunion The earlier of his lawsuit The historical drama of
for Villiers
"Perrinet
the Porte
Leclerc" Paul
St.
Clves,
dire6lor
of
Martin Theatre The Marchal Jean de I'lsle Adam, according to Messrs. Lockroy and Anicet Bourgeois Villiers' fury
Intervention of cation A duel arranged Settlement on the ground Result of the alion Biographer's reservations Documentary evidence ....
Letters to the press
randum
87
CHAPTER
VII.
Le Pin Galant, near Bordeaux Arrival of Villiers with his play "The New World" The Ameri.
can centenary competition The chara6ler of Mrs. Andrews The legend of Ralph Evandale
116
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
Villiers'
VIII,
PAGE
members of
the jury
Dramatic scene
house of Vilor
Hugo
The
Bordeaux theatres
Mdlle.
Little
Aime
An
131
Madame Aime
Tessandier
CHAPTER
Restful days
fair
IX.
Villiers
life
The and the Talks about bygone days Charles Baudelaire His true nature His strange homeJeanne Duval Edgar Poe Richard Wagner " Axel The Cabala and the occult sciences religious sentiments Quotations " L'Eve Future
real Villiers
sex
"
Villiers'
"
144
CHAPTER
A
X.
metamorphosis An ambitious pastry-cook Appearance of the newspaper, *' La Croix et l'Epe " Its political, artistic, and literary programme Lord E His strange suicide The wax figure A nolurnal conversation The American engineer and his master, Edison First conception of "L'Eve Future" Villiers de I'Isle Adam and Thomas Alva Edison
157
CONTENTS.
A
XIX
CHAPTER XL
Villiers'
absent-mindedness
later
ness
despair
justification
culties
His departure from Bordeaux Godefrin's A year Bohemian poverty Want of money His pride His conscientiousand the young ness Drumont's book manner of JewA good answer of dayHis midnight wanderings His and Anatole France
Villiers'
diffi-
His
PAGE
terrible careless-
artistic
Villiers
Villiers'
life
dislike
light
Villiers
165
CHAPTER Xn.
1879 The Rue des Martyrs and the Rue Rochechouart The poet's room His extraordinary indifference Lon Dierx " La Dvoue "
in
Strange
habits
Villiers
the
street
Montmartre Nodlurnal declamations Villiers as a composer Two operas, " Esmeralda " and " Prometheus " Melomania
Boulevard
The
Villiers
as a
musical
performer A
Xin.
strange
couple
178
CHAPTER
First introdudlion
house of Charles Baudelaire Failure of "Tannhauser" at the Paris Opera in 1861 Portrait and charaler of Richard Wagner His friends
and champions
His
XX
CONTENTS.
PAGE
The
ITsle
his
202
CHAPTER
XIV.
Villiers' filial ten-
"
"La Rpublique des K. Huysmans Catulle Mends Lettres The "Contes Cruels" Two quotations A study by of His high as a talker and a mimic M. G. Guiches of Dr. Triboulat Some unpublished Bonhomet Bonhomet the commander-in-chief Bonhomet the ermine-hunter Bonhomet the of the Scriptures Bonhomet's Bayreuth The true adventures Adam An unopinions of de A rupture expedled
The
letter
Villiers' contributions to
the
"Figaro"
J.
Villiers'
spirits
loss
illusion
Villiers
traits
ful-
filling
letter
.at
political
Villiers
I'lsle
toast
219
CHAPTER
Fragments of a journal kept
fashion bewitched
in
XV.
1879
-^
woman
of
Villiers
mystery
Meetings
My
Opinions of the pressThe plans of the future councillor departure from Paris Our separation
.
Villiers
237
CONTENTS.
xxi
CHAPTER
Closing years
Little
XVI.
PAGE
Villiers'
Birth
of a son
Totor and his father Cruels" Appearance of "L'Eve Future" in the "Gaulois"The "Vie Moderne" The murderous treatment of the " Nouveau Monde " at the Thtre des Nations The deaths of the marquis and the marquise J. K. Huysmans His opinion of Villiers' work " A Rebours " "Triboulat Bonhomet " " Propos d'au-del"
"Contes
" L'Amour Supreme " Akdysseril " L'Eve Future Ledtures Belgium Return " Histoires Insolites to Paris Prosperity " Nouveaux Contes Cruels " Axel Sickness Letter from K. Huysmans, detailing the moments and the death of Con"
"
"
in
"
"
"
J.
last
Villiers
clusion
251
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First
CHAPTER meeting Family origin of Genealogy of the family of L'Isle AdamThe old Emigrs Good King Louis XVIII. and M. de Motto and coat-of-arms of the family The Cur of Ploumilliau the parsonage "L'Intersigne" His Parents Genealogy of the De Carforts Aunt Kerinou Peculiarities of the Marquis de ITsle Adam His golden dream The inheritance seeker The treasure seeker. NE Thursday morning in NovemI.
ties
Illustrious
Villiers
Villiers
Villiers at
ber,
1858,
was
in
the dining-
room
and
solitary
;
of
my
I
father's
house
at
Fougres.
was eating
I
my
sad
old nurse
and
my
heart swelled as
looked
panes,
and thought of
leafless
my
brothers,
more
pilu-
who were
frolicking
through the
woods which so
lived, in
There
my grandfather
an old manor-
trees,
my
This time
had been
left
some childish misdemeanour or some ill-learnt lesson. Suddenly I heard the rumble of a carriage
on the rough pavement of our
street,
I
gene-
and soon
saw a
I
hired
chaise
stop
before
our windows.
know when
not
why my
by a vigorous hand)
after,
clanged
moment
the door
fair
young
man
furs,
rushed
in like
a whirlwind.
He vaulted
I
which
I
and
from
lifting
me
up, before
my
astonishment, he kissed
saying, "
Good
day,
my
little
3
"
!
know me
But
I
am
did
know him
filled
by the demon of
I
How
often
had
listened
open-mouthed, forgetful of
my
plate, while
my father recounted at
the family
traits
I
True,
un-
my
father meant,
but
it
had
for
me
the unknown.
from
I
Paris,
see
asking
me
questions, laughing at
my
prattle
me
at
my ease at
once),
and stop-
ping every
his
now and then to push back with hand a thick lock of fair hair which kept
over his eyes.
said he
off to St.
falling
to
my
astounded
little
Germain, the
come,
all
When /
punish-
me
in
my
later
and
comforter
Ten minutes
seated in the
little
Such was
Villiers
my
first
never-to-be-forgotten
bloom youth and the first blush of his wongenius his brow and eyes radiant
de
I'lsle
Adam, then
in all the
illusions,
those glorious
life,
in his
saddest
and
whose
melancholy
phantoms
and
resigned.
As
But
I
between
Villiers
and
my
father,
and
later,
by
inheri-
tance,
between
Villiers
intelle6lual than
anything
The
family
bond which
It
unites us seems to
I
me very slight.
should be sought,
But that
is little
matter.
and
fog.
all
At
that
all
events, such
was
his hatred
of
was conventional, that his Titanic dreams became historical fa6ls concerning which he would admit of no discussion. All those who have heard him speak of his ancestors, of their riches, of " the stately sea-
beaten
manor-house," in
will
I
which
his
early
understand, without
what
mean.
Yet, in those
and
for him,
and
had studied the subje6l profoundly, and his genius illuminated for him all that was prosaic and dull in provincial and Parisian
archives.
I
He
know a
the
life
certain
work of
is
his,
dealing with
Villiers
of the
Marchal de
a master-
will
to
it
at
a more
opportune moment.
At
present
origin.
am
chiefly
The
and de
France.
de ITsle
Adam, Seigneurs de
Chailly,
Villiers
de ITsle
the
Adam
lie
originated in
de
name took
occupied the
army.
In
fa6l,
the brilliant
is
name
of Villiers
de risle
Adam
cele-
known
for
me
to
add anything
what
order of date
Pierre,
Marshal of France
in
1437;
and
Philippe,
Rhodes against Suliman in The nephew of this last, Franois, 1 52 1. Marquis de Villiers de I'lsle Adam, was
1550.
The
De Courson, and
where
of this
Adam
family.
The grandson
in his turn, in
At
to
England with
his family.
shall
give
when
come
it
in
which
occurred.
At
of
had greatly declined from its ancient splendour. I will not go into the causes of this change suffice it to say, that
;
De
Adam
when
return.
Meanwhile, the
all
the
were
VILLI ERS
certain
DE
L'ISLE
Villiers
ADAM.
Deschamps, a
royalist,
Mons. de
rich
asked
I'lsle
name
of
De
Adam, which he
extin6l,
affirmed to be completely
and
to
gave him a
claim.
Thus
its
it
came
when
De
illustrious
name and
which
it I
had no earthly
this
As
De
Villiers,
may be
:
describe
them
"
"
Mottoes
a
1
Va
oultre
and
also "
La main
de
l'Isle
uvre.
Ail those familiar with
Villiers
Adam
and
to
ep
is
Va oultre
" "
Go forward
His
clear,
"
!
This
what
its
he always did.
piercing
prophetic glance
reaching in
flight far
beyond the
!
human thought
"
La
main
l'uvre !"
"
Hand
at
work
"
!
Yes,
in
death
In his
failing strength
hands
which sounds
like a knell,
'*
Look
my
I
tomb."
return to
my
story.
The
old emigre
to leave the
in
marquis,
bones of a
de
I'lsle
Adam
England,
little
Bay
of St. Brieuc.
He
left
four children,
One, Gabrielle,
lo
Sacr
Cur de
Jsus.
The
other
a Mons. du
Rumain.
during
or
his
The
in
life.
He was
all
a wise and
man.
He
refused
honours, and
would never leave the poor parish of Ploumilliau, of which he was for half a century
the devoted re6lor.
It
was written
simple priest
at that
time
the
was
all
care)
in
who knew
:
The
green-shuttered windows,
its
tangle
of
ivy,
clematis,
and
tea-roses,
ii
me with
of profound peace.
The
all
trees of a neightrellised
hausting
summer
heats.
Between them was a hollow niche holding the image of some happy saint.
fire.
Silently
to
dismounted, fastening
my
I
horse
raised
the
window-shutter,
I
and
as
the knocker
the
cast a
traveller's
glance at
horizon
behind
me.
But so brightly
and
oak and
covered lake
reilel
the sky,
so beautiful
was nature
that
in
in the
calm
spot, at that
I
moment when
'
the silence
still
falls,
dangling
*
my
thou
'
!
thought,
who
and to
whom,
after
'neath cruel
12
Stars
so
joyful
at the
start,
so saddened
its
now the
palm-trees
whose
bitterness thou
sharest
with brothers
who
sit
thee
down upon
haunt thee
in the
!
desire to die
Come
'"
I cite
only
because
it
seems
to
me
it
to
be exceedingly
is
really
a psycho-
document
one
The
young
renunciation of
sister
the world
Villiers
and brother of
irresistible
the family
earthly interest of
younger members on
is
13
However
this
may have
Villiers
the Marquis
Joseph de
of Malta " de la
in
consequence of that
He
obtained a
dispensation
from
the
the
Pope,
and married
Villiers.
who was
mother of our
The Marquis de
this family.
ITsle
Adam
The
In 1370 Olivier
At
first
reform of
De
It
Carfort family
appears in the
for
Le
and
Le Nepveu, were lords of La Roche, Crnan, Du Clos, La Cour, La Ville Anne, Lescout, and La Coudraye. They bore as arms, De gueules six billettes d'argent, 3, 2, i au chef de mme."
or
Carfort, Beruen,
*'
The Nepvou,
14
I
my
long dissertation
on these genealogical
but one
details.
There was
of mail
weak spot
in the coat
woven
The
polished
crows of
literature,
knew
and wound
and
their beak-thrusts
They
did not
fail
to
do
it
very name
Villiers
used to
flies.
stung by poisonous
precise
But good,
clear,
proofs
are worth
more
roars,
and
if
in that
he
still
sword
possible to be at the
15
who
some remnants of
life
and
Brittany
those days,
the
household
Rue
disposition
Brieuc.
perilous whimsicality of
more
To
all
depi(5l
it,
the profound
And
besides,
one
man.
The Marquis de
I'lsle
Adam
was
in the
same way,
i6
one of
!
"
My
has
!
linger to gaze
upon
not,
the reddening
forest
I
;
crests
of
the
neighbouring
I
instinlively,
though why
know
noxious presence of
my
fellow-men.
I
Yes,
shun them
of
For
feel that
bear in
my
many
a forgotten king."
in the exer-
an outlet
and a defence against its allurements, the marquis formed the wild projel of realizing his visions by becoming a man of business. And a singular business man was he this
tall,
thin marquis
Always
in
the clouds
full
but spending
all
17
He asserted,
ensued,
many
signed to people
who had no
right to them,
and
this
On
depended.
He
undertook, in consideration
by
right.
This
every
brilliant proje6l
once
country
in
dire6lion,
searching
lating
formidable
mass
of information.
sufficiently
inte-
gain,
ended by conimaginary
in-
and
his
This
came
il
i8
and
his
Lower
Brittany.
For
and
his
every agency
and
scriveners
still
It
easily
made
fresh gaps
in
his
patrimony.
And
this
by
the
existed
his
own
fancy.
He
mute guardians of the fabulous riches placed in them by former generations in times of trouble and civil war. Where, for example, was the huge fortune
of the Villiers de
I'lsle
19
The
seeker
work with the same ardour and conviftion as heretofore. In the neigh-
de
I'lsle
Adam.
I
had.
He
;
has spoken to
this
me me
very seriously
buried for
and eloquently of
centuries
treasure,
he has shown
com-
Fortunately
Villiers,
to be had,
and
this
in a
dream
it
wonderful manner
I
powerful works.
"
Le Vieux de
la
Montagne," the
I
full
and
have held
20 in
my
hands.
have immediately
it
fol-
lowed that of
continuation,
"
Axel," of which
"
is
the the
as
The Adoration
of
Magi
" is
the conclusion.
CHAPTER
Birth of Villiers de
I'lsle
IL
childhood
St.
Adam His baptism His Stolen by mountebanks School poem Brieuc Laval Rennes His Mort" Elegy "L'Amour His Literary plans Family devotion and tenderness Our Matthias Departure
first
life
early portrait
et la
*'
"
for Paris.
delicate
home
company of her good aunt Kerinou. The existence of these two women was solitary
and
sad, the anxiety
Mdme. de
monotony;
soul,
Adam
alone breaking
its
in the
life.
goodness of God,
Her
faith
was
at
22
last
God
who was
Never did a great artist have a more admirDuring her long life she never wavered once in her faith in him, and in his genius. She believed in her son with the same
able mother
!
was hailed by these two lonely women. Here was a being to love, to cherish, to bring up sunshine breaking in upon the monotony of their darkness. The marquis, too, was radiant as he gazed on this offshoot of the Villiers de I'lsle Adam. Here -was someone who would restore the glory of the old race. Ah! he would endow his son with fabulous wealth. He would force the
advent of
Back he went to his excavations, the marquise and her aunt seeing him depart this time with less regret, for hope and consolation smiled on the two good women
its
breast
23
The Bishop
to
November, 1838,
father,
his
father,
The venerable prelate bestowed on his godson his own Christian name of Matthias.
I
men
early-
child-
hood
is
above
and
laboriously
first
developed.
One
incident of these
with fanold,
He was
when
his
nurse lost
strolling
A
and
band of
mountebanks,
who were
legitimate
prize,
laid
hands on him.
Some days
in the
He was
24
idea of pro-
Those who were acquainted with Villiers will easily imagine what wonderful and humorous tales he would weave out of such an adventure. It was worth listening
to,
when,
in pi6luresque style,
he would con-
had
ill-
Italy,
rescued
lass,
and restored
Romany
began
his education
wards continued
it
at the
Lyce
at
Laval.
There
his genius
began
The
him, the
breath of
artistic
enthusiasm
fell
were
his
25
studies,
which,
Rue de
Corbin.
At
him
this
de risle
it
Adam
was
sufficient to see
few moments
Inspiration
it
to
be convinced of
his vocation.
beamed on
sparkled
in his discourse, in
on
and
filled
light.
His
alarmed the
correl
provincial
society,
little.
of
But
who
entered the
magic
sessed
remained there
fascinated and
that
dazzled.
extraordinary magnetic
all
which he preserved
depth of thought
uncanny.
his
life,
felt
the influence.
The
him
to pro-
nounce
his
altar of art,
was
26
wound
It
fields
and lanes
en-
trancing creatures, of
said, "
whom
he has so well
There are
certain helpmates
life's
is
who
en-
dawning beauty."
will not
profane the
will
only say,
They
and she
died.
On
all
a sudden, suffering
even
sorrow,
Villiers.
turn
to
song,
lines,
and so
was with
These
written at seventeen
disdainful scoffer our
years of age
by the
generation
knew
artist's existence.
27
I.
!
charmants glantiers
soleil,
rayon, verdure
un murmure
rveries,
fleurs chries
:
De
Bocage encor tout plein de chastes Six mois se sont passs loin de vos
J'avais besoin
de vous
revoir.
Oh De
l'avenir,
Souriant simplement au
Se perdant avec moi dans ces vertes alles ? Eh bien parmi les lis de vos sombres valles,
!
Vous ne
printemps
lilas
profondes rames
Comme
les
beaux jours
Un
Et ne
Ne me demandez
La pauvre jeune
fille
en ce monde venue
et
Pour consoler
pour mourir
Morte et je suis encore en proie l'existence C'est donc cela la vie ? Et dj mon enfance A-t-elle disparu loin de ce cur bris ?
!
28
Ainsi
me
voil seul
Cela s'appelle
" le Pass."
IL
Hlas
!
je
me
souviens.
Du
Et
fleuve
harmonieux
ails
Les chants
la lune,
du
en glissant parmi
les teintes
blancs nuages,
Souvent illuminait
des feuillages
Du
Le
clair
Modulait
de sa chanson perle.
;
Les
Et
fleurs,
comme deux
Comme Comme
Nous
son
joli
douce
allions, enlacs,
j'avais cet
ge peine,
Souvent
le
En
Et moi je contemplais mon amante pensive, Et nous nous en allions, seuls, auprs de la rive.
Sa main sur
Et
les
mon
paule et
le front sur
ma
main
frmissements de
la nuit solitaire
Emportaient dans
qu'une prire,
Tous
les
29
III.
Puis, le rveil
la
mort
l'existence qui
!
change
temps
vieillard glac
qu'as-tu fait de
mon
ange
?
l'as-tu
mise, hlas
et froide et
pour toujours
Qu'as-tu
Qu'as-tu
fait
de l'enfant jeune
et pleine
de charmes,
fait
!
du
Oh
i
amours ?
IV.
jeunes colombes,
Qu'avait-elle donc
Est-ce
Retournant au pays, nous laissent pour adieu. fait pour mourir la premire?
un crime de
N'est-il
pas
pardon de Dieu
Ne me
souriez plus,
campagne immortelle
Je suis seul maintenant ; si ce n'tait pour elle, Je n'avais pas besoin de vos fraches beauts;
N'ai-je pas
?
:
Les
lis
femme
triste et fier
mon
me.
lampe
Mais je ne pleure plus la douleur a ses charmes. Et d'ailleurs, mon Dieu, mes yeux n'ont plus de larmes, Et mon cur seul porte le deuil.
30
lovely eglantine
sunlit glades
On
Since
saw those
all
fair
and much-loved
flowers,
Which
yet
fill
Six weary
And
The
Dost thou remember, Forest, lovely yet, pretty graceful child who wandered by,
Heaven and
Fate,
And
Alas
straying with
!
me
the
lilies
hidden
no more
!
spring-time
Lilacs
Your
Still
The may
still
No
Dumb
silent valley
It
was
all
a dream,
!
to
pass^not
And
Where she
now,
me
To
Dead
!
comfort others
then herself
to die
Can
it
be
Forsaken
31
!
Thou
alone
!
art just,
am
I've
I've learnt
but oh Thou strikest hard done with earthly dreams the bitter meaning of " The Past
! !
"
!
k
Alas
!
I see
it still
The
The moonbeams creeping slow athwart the fleecy clouds Touched with their silver light the dusk and massy shades,
Seen through the twilight of the lovely night.
The
The
flowers
had bowed
their
sleep,
feel
How How
As arm
upon the mossy path and how soft the masses of her hair arm we walked 'neath the tall poplar
trees,
To
listen to
And how
As
far
alone.
My
32
And
The
III.
came
hoary-headed Time
Where
ah
1
my
love ?
still,
whither
she gone?
That
child, so full of
is
life,
of
?
Where
And
IV.
tomb
some young
!
turtle
doves
first?
Why
crime?
And
is
immortal country
fields
And
it
was but
for her
That your
blooming beauty seemed so sweet plumbed the depths which ingulf all hope? The lilies wither, and the roses fade away
fresh
to
me
Have
I not
earthly
My
sad and
burns within
my
soul,
33
And
this,
Lord,
is
why
its
My
eyes
have no more
tears.
And my
Villiers
heart hides
lonely misery
never
loved
truly,
deeply,
in-
No
other
woman
dead Breton
girl.
His imagination
may have been swept away by the rustle of some passing robe, his senses may have been
captivated, his artistic feeling interested,
by
sad
memory.
experience
of sorrow
This
first
terrible
He sought
and
in excessive adlivity,
and radiant
mined
his
en-
34
veloped his
"
drama,
choly splendour
he plans a wonderful
trilogy,
titles
of
Le
Vieux de
Montagne,"
will
Isis,"
and, above
life
all,
he pours forth
all
in lines
pulsating with
and glow,
the tumultuous
!
was
agi-
de
I'lsle
Adam
sympathy,
and
immeasurable
tenderness
There
in his
is
him by
his
own people
the in-
early days.
an
artist is
darkened by the
narrow-mindedIn the
the contrary
love of lucre,
of his family.
case of Villiers de
I'lsle
Adam,
was the
fa6l.
The
35
all
it
was a
question
of "their
Matthias."
They lauded
a pedestal.
him on
genius,
to
His vocation,
his
many
articles of faith to
them.
And
they proved
it.
was
their
that
it
was
own
might expand
souls,
in full
at the
very sight of
whom
the self-
important
bourgeois
to realize their
little
de
risle
faith,
to their childlike
for
was with brain and pen to reconquer them the fortune and the celebrity which
had won by blood and sword
!
their ancestors
36
The nun
of
he sold at an enormous
loss,
but
little
manorSt.
He
for
and following
not be
left
his son,
accom-
who would
will
!)
behind, he started
God's
CHAPTER
Paris
III.
The reign of the common-place in literature The poets The defenders of the Beautiful " Le Par-
nasse Contemporain
Triumphal Friendships "Claire Lenoir" Appearance of Dr. Triboulat Bonhomet A few words touching personage " Le
Mends and the
"
Revue
entry of Villiers
Roman
the
Mends Death
of
"Revue Fantaisiste "The Blue Dragon Hotel The Rue de Douai Villiers de ITsle Adam, accord-
and
had become,
literary point
from the
mon-place.
and
The gods
of
of this
Olympus were
of
composers
serial
operettas,
manufa6lurers
38
and fattened on
yet ignorant
of,
mordial rules of
art.
The
censure, which
and sprightly whims of the Offenbach School, could never be severe enough on truly artistic
It
Madame
As
for
Bovary," and
of
sentence
against Baudelaire.
those poets
who pursued
their
insult
in too
bad
press
taste, to
be thrown
in their faces.
The
arrows of
pierce
keenest
satire,
wherewith to
whomsoever aspired to any great ideal. Vilor Hugo, exiled as he was, alone succeeded in stirring the masses to their depths.
In the face of
all this
opprobrium, the
last
39
illustrious
hero of the
performance of
"
on the
common
stifled
be dead,
stupidity.
and
at the
lie in
very moment
in
limbs and
soar with
!
lofty
Certain
youths,
in
banded together
same
ing,
common-place and
as
defenceless
they
and mediocrity. They resolved to defend the sacred domain of literature with all their
40
threatened
to
proclaim the
is
power of
due
to syntax, to
The
critics
the
newspapers,
the
drew upon their usual arsenal of gibes and jeers, and old jokes
chroniclers of the small ones,
down
these rash
strange nicknames,
passibles."
made
" at
Revues
and
to conclude,
who (thanks to his lucky daring) had become a millionaire, ventured to publish the first number of their colle6led poems, " Le
Parnasse Contemporain," they were held up
to public laughter
and indignation as
"
Les
Parnassiens
In spite
of jests and insults, they pursued their course, and what is still more admirable and touching.
VILLIERS DE
pursued
it
L'ISI.E
ADAM.
41
Of
been
them, as of every
the true judge
;
posterity has
and
native obscurity those who, from the heights of their brilHant existence,
made game
of the
Where
are
now
the
and witty
quill-drivers,
who poured
forth their
?
now familiar to us To cite only the chief among them, have all ? we not Franois Coppe, Sully Prudhomme,
Alphonse Daudet,
Catulle Mends,
Lon
first
Cladel,
Glatigny,
and
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam ?
publication of these
France" was not a colle6lion of verses, it was just simply a review in which prose and poetry
representatives of "la jeune
new
joyously alternated.
in tone,
title, its
old,
and
it
had not a contributor who counted more than In short, it was five-and- twenty summers. the " Revue Fantaisiste," whose direlor was
42
poor as Job and handsome as Apollo, by name Catulle Mends. The offices of this
review were in
the
Passage
Mires,
now
I'lsle
Here
lance,
Villiers
de
Adam
will
broke his
first
and
my
readers
known but amusing work, in which " the former direftor of the " Revue Fantaisiste
a
little
home
nasse Contemporain
"
"The
ing
office 'was
;
a somewhat strange-lookof
place
hangings
green
and
rose-
wonder
at the
mahogany cupboards
to sulk at
and
the
tables.
at the
leathern
manuscript cases.
and would
o'clock,
fain
have been
boudoir
towards three
Banville, giving
came Thodore de
Orpheus
43
and Balzac, at one and the same time so lyric and so truly Parisian Charles Asselineau, with his long soft hair already grey, and on
;
though
ironic,
;
which
Lon
who
of
graciously vouchsafed
his
us the
support
name
Charles
Monselet,
slight,
half-frightened
gracefully
haughty,
somewhat fallen away from grace perhaps, who had donned an elaborate lay costume for His Eminence Montravelling purposes seignor Beau Brummel He used to bring
'
:
'
numbered now amongst the most perfedl pages in French literature. There, too, Albert
Glatigny, with his vagrant flow of speech,
hand on
smiling like
some young
by
44
to us those
whose
rhymes seem
It
sound of
kisses."
was in this abode, with its strange charm, where the three twin sisters. Youth, Poetry, and Poverty, seemed that Villiers de I'lsle
into the world
self,
to
Paris,
parchments
positions.
office
and
his
At
by storm, and he soon became one of the chief editors of the " Revue Fantaisiste."
The
descendant
of the
"
He
Villiers
brought with
him some manuscript poems, which were published that very year by Scheuring of Lyons, with much luxury of paper and printing, under
the
title
dedicated to the
Comte Alfred
45
now
already a glimpse
conventionalism.
It is not, to
be
sure,
by
uncertainties,
its
weaknesses,
gropings
"
in the dark,
here and
there, as in "
and
**
Le Chant du
first
Calvaire,"
These
tain the
full
of bitterness.
He
was
free,
then, from
when he
adored
left
the family
circle,
where he was
like a deity,
he met everywhere, on
an enthusiastic wel-
come.
The
and
as
it
was of glowing
to
fanaticism.
He
and he found
who, through
all
two friends
remained
the
trials
46
faithful
him till death, and after it I speak of M. Stphane Mallarm and M. Lon Dierx. Every friend of Villiers must,
like
myself,
vow an
author
infinite
gratitude to
supported
the
of
the
"
Nouveau
ill-
Monde
" in
envied them.
No artist's
could
even
de
I'lsle
Adam made
his dbuts
Revue
story.
What makes
is
this
it
work
there
peculiarly interesting to us
that in
first
worked up
figure
till
life.
It will
be understood
of Dr.
refer to
the
striking
47
and
atheistic
bourgeois
and ferociously
portrait,
egotistic.
In drawing his
own
Bonhomet
which seems to
of
me
:
to
sum up
I
;
the original
"
My physiognomy is that
have reason to
briefly, I
my
century,
of which
am
world."
tions,
own
convic-
he
says
"My
religious
ideas
are
God
has
created
man
in
a.nd
mce versa."
Villiers
to Flaubert
a sort of
whom
he endued with a
the passions of
all
mouth he placed the jokes and the aphorisms which he colleled in conversation and in life, or which his profound and ironic wit invented for him. This do6lor makes one shudder rather than laugh, and the circumstantial pedantry
with which he relates the alarming adventures
of " that
discreet
and
scientific
personage,
48
Dame
But
this "
the
shall frequently
have occasion,
of
in the
honorary
member
many academies
and professor of physiology," whose greatest enjoyment, according to his biographer, was
to kill swans, in order to hear their dying
song.
must
little
register the
decease
the
poetical
review,
in
tried
their
budding
It
by the censure,
in the
name
of public morality.
The so-called
its
diredlor,
comedy in verse, entitled, **A Night's Romance" ("Le Roman d'une Nuit"). The piece was far from being a good one, but, though frivolous and mediocre, it was not
and one wonders on reading
it
criminal,
how
and the review which published it The poet had to go francs fine.
to
500
Ste.
to
49"
Money was
scarce,
demands of justice were satisfied, the cashbox was empty. The contributors cheerfully celebrated the obsequies of their literary offspring,
to live in a furnished
money
in his pockets,
and owned,
in the
Rue
real furni-
likewise a groom,
surnamed
who opened
as
were
word.
in possession of the necessary passIn one of his articles in the " Patrie,"
Want
I
of space forbids
me
to cite the
whole, but
risle
and striking
Villiers
Heres
50
Villiers
And
all
at once
little
a young man,
wavering
in his
down
to
it,
deep and magic accents of which none of us can ever forget, a melody he has improvised
in the street, a vague, mysterious melopza,
which accompanies (thereby doubling the depth and agitation of the impression it
makes) Charles Baudelaire's beautiful sonnet:
Nous aurons des lits pleins d'odeurs lgres Des divans profonds comme des tombeaux,' etc.
'
Our beds shall be scented with sweetest perfume, Our divans be as cool and as dark as the tomb
' '
!
"
Then, while
all
are
still
under the
air,
spell,
humming
or else
abruptly breaking
off,
he
rises,
leaves the
corner
of
the
room,
and
rolling
another
audience
cigarette,
casts over
his stupified
VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM.
51
Thus appeared
house of
the
Rue de Douai,
I'lsle
CHAPTER IV. Early influences Charles Baudelaire My father Their intimacyThe His relations with Htel d'Orlans Literary and philosophical gatherand the Hegelian philoings Lon Cladel "The Princess Tullia Fabriana" sophy " The original of Preface Eccentricities of Dodor Bonhomet Dodor C "Ellen" and " Morgane Sensations of loneliness The MarParis the course of quis de ITsle Adam continues profitable financial operations The poisoner, Pommerais The apartment Comte Courty de Honor The marquis Aunt Kerinou the Rue Matthew's decorations.
Villiers
Villiers
Isis
"
style
"
at
his
la
in
St.
influences felt
by an
life
artist
in his
early intellectual
effaceable
leave an in-
mark on
his existence.
At
Villiers fell
my
father.
53
The ascendancy
" Satanic
"
exercised over
him by the
have been
his
poet seems to
inauspicious.
me
It
to
somewhat
taste for
developed
it
led
him astray from the exercise of his talent, naturally clear and simple in its expression, instigating him to bury it in clouds of whimsical
drawn
and make
irony,
it
so difficult to
I
read.
Let
it
be understood that
do not
one
of
speak
Villiers'
here of
which
was
was
and the
"
and rendered
But
pitiless
and
terrible.
du
Mal
"
intellel at
him with
class
that
"
mania
pater
for
le
stare,
54
most
L'Eve Future."
My father's
influence,
by Villiers' own acknowledgment, very useful and precious to him. He often told me that
he would have risen much higher
listened to
him more.
mind
full
much more
the
eccentricities,
by the
for
soli-
who was
and
silence.
Up
of Villiers de
Adam
in Paris,
my father's
man
young poet's triumphant entry into the capital, attra6led more than any other person by the brilliant dawn of the budding genius, and
55
reefs
on
wholesome
tutorship.
From
that day,
it
was soon after that he paid that first Fougres my recollelion of which
described at the
visit to
I
have
work.
to
commencement of
is
this
Here,
insert
perhaps,
the
fittest
place
an
is
amusing
offered
letter,
the facsimile
inquiring
of
which
It is
to
the
reader.
addressed to
my
In
father,
Villiers
first volume of poems. M. Lemenant, the lawyer- friend in whose house the letter was written, was a worthy and eccentric man, an old schoolfellow of the
poet's at
little
Laval, who,
by
and
by
his
and
briefs,
He
56
rich.
some verses
to
him
in the "
Premires Posies."
dear good poet,
"
"
My
And how
in
are you
I
Better
hope.
in the
If
were
your place,
should be
rudest health.
But
let that
be as
it
may,
am
for at this
moment,
your seventy-second
game
" If,
of chess.
starting for
good
enough to give me warning, so that I may compose in your glory, and for the wonderment of the world in general, a funeral march It is the fashionable key, and on in E flat.
fashion
" I
I
take
my
stand
have no
letters
from
I
my
interesting
family.
Lemenant and
me
me
to ask
your
Don't swear at
publish
and wide.
and
it
I
And,
is
yours,
!
will
Now,
ask
57
sane
man
should lend
money
to his friend
Do
you desire
will
modern
"
selfishness
This
it
!
may
bore you
but
you
richly de-
serve
"
The proofs
of Master Perrin
*
'
are comical
Lemenant and
little
am
going to write
him a
his
**
poor brains.
all
It is
'" L'ujaige de
Don Ivan f
Don Juan
dej pchevrj dv
golfe:
"
'
L'usage de
et des pcheurs
du
golfe.'
"
printed
this
man's extraordinary
style.
Too much of a joke, isn't it ? Between ourselves, a man who has such a notion must be
58
mad
just fancy a
in this
paper
style
It really is
(if
and
in
my
colle6led
I
works
they
are
ever published)
Zut ! This
or,
is
my
definition.
He
is
you prefer
it,
Gutenbergian Press
the grave of
"
human thought
is
Now,
let
" Montfort
a town, or rather
it
am
right in calling
a town
in
it,
stay
'
full
of mud,
and
of calm.
that
We
live
cheerful-
ness.'
"
The
!
coming from
There is a mill here, a real mill, exa6lly like Rosa Bonheurs pilures (still life). " Lemenant pours daily from our open window his san6limonious speeches, and his
metaphysico-transcendental spleen.
59
The few
and
*
accompany
efifel
his
discourse to
the
air,
II
a des bott,
bott, bott.'
I
The which
pro-
duces an
him.
"
whereon
heartily congratulate
We
which
triples the
and
peacefully go on
making rhymes
in the
A
If
bientt,
"
Believe in
my
clasp your
hand and
embrace you.
me
a reassuring word
Ni
At
an
hotel
Rue
Richelieu,
the
As
I
Htel
stay.
d'Orlans
I
where
often
its
and gladly
vaulted entrance
moved.
its
second-floor windows,
my
is familiar,
and at each
6o
turn
seem
to see the
proud outline of
my
father's face.
Here he Hved
brothers and
and here
my
students at the
We
de risle
Adam and
little
apartment.
it
We
at
gaze
the
open-mouthed
feature, with
wild
gestures,
This hotel
then,
it
Rue
of our
all
modern
caravanserais.
In spite of
the alterations
made by
still
its
new owners,
origin.
was the old town-house of the Cardinal Armand de Richelieu, and the principal building, reached by a flight of stone
For
this
XIII.
6i
my
father
and of VilHers,
son was an
artist,
the
evenings,
to
floor,
some
at
philosophers.
Villiers,
a second coun-
seen
by chance
one of these
on
my memory,
stature,
His mighty
his
long
his
pallid
complexion,
wild
eyes,
his
his
gloomy
countenance,
He
laire,
whom,
am ashamed
to say,
do not
recollect.
As my
father
the philo-
much
coffee
II
62
was drunk, and an incalculable number of The host pipes and cigarettes consumed.
was
the
in
German
de
I'lsle
school
of
philosophy,
which
Adam.
His friend
initiated
him
but
Pomes
virils "
found a
somewhat unfriendly auditor in Villiers. His mind and soul soared too far above realities
to preoccupy themselves about the sufferings
life.
On
and splendour of the views of the German thinker, filled him with the greatest enthusiasm. He began to put forward the theories
of the speculative philosophy in the curious
tale of
*'
have already
in
spoken
novel, "
Some
first
years
later,
1862,
he
published the
I
volume of a mysterious
sis,"
to
If
their tFieir
63
This
first
volume,
my
father.
It
gained for
which
at this date
may seem
The
in
than good
qualities.
gloomy, improbable,
the inexperience of a
young hand.
An
work.
When
and when time had calmed down the exuberance of his fancy, he himself recognized all the imperfelions of his early efforts, and
" I sis,"
presses himself:
collelion of works,
the
title
I
of
which
it is
will appear,
hope,
at short intervals
for
it
is
the great
64
finished, the
work
will
be
its
The
to
" Isis "
be inherent
in
betrayed in
The
jests
many
ance of "Claire
Fantaisiste,"
satirical
Lenoir"
"
the
"
"Revue
of
the
Tintamarre
and other
sheets had
by the young writer. One sentence especially had become celebrated. It had been placed by the author in the lips of Dr. Bonhomet himself, " Je lui fus grat de cette injure." Villiers
the
strange
expressions employed
claimed
noun
ingratitude, so
was on his side, but he doubtless forgot that the French language
Logically, reason
laughs at logic.
my
tion,
pen, reminds
me
which haunted
is
death,
The Htel
65
a certain Dr.
who had
possible
it is
For the rest, he was an excellent man, of a most charitable nature, and a very But his gloomy face, distinguished savant.
a certain
mode
any manifestation of
art,
Thenceforward,
Dr.
became a sort of dummy, on whose frame Villiers hung, from day to day, all the
wily sophisms,
terrible or
all
all
the
make
the
in
savant Triboulat
modern
literature.
first
The
Besides
" Claire
Le-
noir" and
two dramas
of
There
I
is
fine sentence in
Morgane," which
it
seems to
me
66
Adam
"
I
at this
epoch
drink to thee,
!
O
!
forest,
thou giver of
!
oblivion
To
To
you, too,
wild roses
oaks, intoxicated
And
to you,
ye
who
myself, in pride
and
solitude
The
had
this
author of
" I
"
L'Eve Future
"
always
the world.
to
me
even
when
friend
beside a
nay,
woman
even
in
loved, or with a
enthusiastically
the
affedlionate
circle
of
my own
immediate
family."
While the son thus took his place in the sunshine of literature, what became of the
proud marquis, the gentle
whirl of
Parisian
saintly marquise,
all
the noisy
still
The
marquis,
67
more taken up his lucrative speculations. He was surrounded by a flight of birds of prey,
business agents, and such
lean appearance,
like,
of strange and
who were engaged in sharing amongst themselves the last remnants of his
patrimony.
He
had established on
fine,
his
own
account a
Record
air,
Office, where,
with a
self-sufficient
he gave out
brevets of nobility.
and thus
trial
it
course of the
la
homopath,
laid
before
a pompous
certificate
that the
accused, being of noble birth, had an incontestable right to bear the title of
"comte"
(which
title
he had assumed
!).
in
order to im-
1863,
somewhere about
68
New
first
my
quise de Villiers de
taken apartments
close to the Place
in
the
Vendme, in the house now occupied, I believe, by the photographer, M. Lejeune. I remember the drawing-room was very large, very high up, with very little furniture, and on that dark December
day
it
made one
rather shivery.
The mar;
quise appeared to
me like
a shadow
she was
When my father
She
spoke of Matthias,
at his business.
was
She added
was
ill
in
would
In a
little
perceived a
framed in an was all that could be seen of her. She had a long, mobile nose, and small bright eyes, and talked a great Certain phrases which fell perpetually deal.
doll-like face,
whose
frilled
immense
cap,
from her
lips struck
my
Her
69 at
my
memory, and
little
moment
is
clear tremu-
Matthias
to
have a
"You know, Hyacinthe, Matthias is going man The emperor is going decoration.
a famous
!
to decorate Matthias.
Matthias
it
will
be de-
corated."
I
was
all
a dream
Nobody thought then, no " since, of giving the " Croix has thought one
Villiers
de
I'lsle
CHAPTER
The legend of
the
to the throne of Greece
V.
hoaxer hoaxed
The
succession
Villiers
de ITsle
Adam
Le Lion de Numidie"
imperial
"The Moor
audience
of Venice"
The
NemesisAn
The Due de Bassano and Villiers de ITsle Adam The last a6l of the comedy A poet's conclusion
Death of Aunt Kerinou
Separation.
HERE
the
is
life
but
has gone
so
through so
far
from the
it
necessary to re-esta-
blish
My readers
71
Here some words of preamble are needed, and my frivolous pen must needs make an
excursion into the grave and wearisome realm
of contemporary political
assured,
history.
Be
re-
my reader
it
shall
which the
its
imperial
government shone
with
happened
be
in
want of a king.
The
little
life,
great powers
who
nfer a young
had
at that
whom
they
might confer on
council,
Napoleon HI.
in the
and whether that candidate would be a Frenchman. Briefly, the newspapers were full of stories about, and comments on
candidate,
this
The newsfree
rein
to
definite choice
on
72
so justly
King of Denmark, the emperor named "the taciturn prince " by the
I
the emperor,
his decision
and
let
be waited
Thus matters stood, when one morning early in March the tall marquis burst like a
whirlwind into the dreary drawing-room
in the
Rue
in
St.
by all his family. This was the strange news registered that day in the
to be shared
columns
"
of several
Parisian
newspapers
good authority that a new candidature has just been announced for the
learn on
We
throne of Greece.
is
The
over
de
Villiers
the
Philippe
last
Auguste
descendant of
first
Grand Master
the emperor's
his intimates
At
private reception,
one of
73
The new
aspirant to kingly
far will
produced on imagi-
by
such a perusal.
black
on a white charger,
very
As
for
it all
seriously,
though
"
he
doubted of ultimate
success.
" Sire
!
worn white money is the one thing you want Your majesty's father will see you get it
he majestically buttoned
with wear, "
!
!
Farewell
am
"
!
He
But
me
might truly
however, that
the
all.
hoaxee would
when
Villiers
was the
chief
little
circle at the
Rue de Douai
74
and of some
he had a
and a thick black head of hair, whom the Parnassians nicknamed " Le Lion de Numidie," although he only hailed
I
from Montpellier.
will call
him by no other
lion has clipped
penance to society
and good temper, with a much-dreaded shrewdness and surprising powers of observation, this jolly
constitution, with delightful spirits
he not been
as
it
affli6led
was unwarrantable.
lion
The Numidian
talent
for
mimicry and
Villiers,
rible, cold,
his
powers
irony,
of
declamation.
who had
and serious
which makes
its
all
the weaknesses of
human
nature
target,
in his jolly
He
longed for a
VILLI ERS
DE LISLE ADAM.
75
good
in putting
him
that
some
playing
the "
and the more so as it was absolutely necessary, to keep the local colour, that the alor
should stain his face and arms black.
let that
" I "
Don't
;
your man here is my hand on it!" With astonishing patience and gravity, Villiers
helped his friend to rehearse, and told him
am
where
to
get
"made
called,
up."
to
Then a
dress
rehearsal
was
masterpiece,
but,
summoned
all
the
poets,
and dragoon."
When
and face as black as those of the King of Dahomey, made his entrance, a general shout went up at the sight of the Numidian lion, who richly
76
justified his
The
took
it
been duped.
first
He
well,
to laugh at his
own
He
remained
and
in
his
turn discovered
Then
it
was
family
pretensions,
The son
of
was to be seduced by the mirage of the throne and royal crown then
sparkling on the horizon
!
The
perpetrator of
made
his calculations
admirably
I'lsle
Adam
illustrious
and hightherefore,
sounding
it
Greek throne a monarch who owed everything to him, might choose amongst the flower of the French nobility a person on
77
whom
The
thing only
became improbable, laughable, and grotesque, when one knew the two chief personages, the king, and the king's
father.
Many
in,
of begging
letters.
not remain
idle,
nor dally
gems and
tempted him
friends,
acknowledged to
himself.
good
ence,
by his him in
their sleeves,
and sent
Some days
drew up Honor, and
Rue
St.
gave to the astonished concierge a letter sealed with the imperial arms, and addressed to the
Comte
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam;
the audience
was granted, and fixed for an early date. For the first and only time in his life, the He poet found a tailor who gave him credit.
78
own room,
would address
to the sovereign.
On his
side,
was announced
to receive
him
was related that his father, the marquis, had had a long and cordial interview with Baron Rothschild. But where the Numidian lion really showed the wisdom of the serpent, was in his manner of preparing his vi6lim for the impending audience. The writer, who was then in the throes of his novel, " Isis," had his imagination filled with those gloomy adventures which give such a romantic and
mysterious colour to the history of Italian
principalities in the sixteenth century.
He
whose walls opened, whose ceilings descended, whose floors gaped, to stifle or en-
79
and
fatal
The
familiars of the
;
he told
him a heap of tragic anecdotes relating to the morrow of the second of December, and having as their scene this palace, which, according to him, was as
operatic stage.
full
of trap-doors as an
Many
people, he insinuated,
who had
;
entered that
little
du Carrousel have never been seen to come out so let Villiers beware, for if any favourite had an interest in his disappearance, a trapdoor, a dungeon, might open suddenly under
his feet.
absolutely refuse
to explain himself to
himself!
At
thias,
away made
to
the
Tuileries
before starting,
to
his will,
and sent
it
my
father.
8o
what passed
is
at
the Tuileries
Villiers'
it is
version
so impressed
What seems
Due de
Palace.
to
Bassano,
who
the funlions of
fathom Matthias's
by clever
by a personage unlike any he had ever met in his long and adventurous career. As for
the poet, his already heated imagination soon
carried
him
upon
deeply
significant smiles
8i
coming another time, count," said the duke, rising; "his majesty is engaged, and commissioned
me
is
to receive you."
There
took the
spite "
man
of
my
L'Eve Future,"
cannot wonder at
it.
Vil-
liers
two muscular and threatening fellows dressed in black, and that he expeled every moment
to be cast into a
dungeon.
I
" For,"
he would
add, "
King of Denmark, and that his obje6l in summoning me to the Tuileries was to get rid of an
inconvenient and dangerous rival; but
ness,
my cold-
tion of
Sbirri,
my dignity, the good style and moderamy words, doubtless impressed the
and
I
was allowed to depart in peace." The claimant went home with hanging
to death.
II
82
He
never
a week.
At
last the
news-
by announcing the
rival,
final
the second
who ascended
title
under the
of
George
I.
The
last a6l
of the
fell,
mere fancy. He never doubted but that he had had the most serious chance of success and to the
was
all
;
last
day of
his life
he would describe,
in his
may
laugh
would the
happy,
if
a gentle poet
had borne the sceptre of the country which saw Aphrodite's immortal beauty rise from
the sparkling,
foam-crested sea-waves
the
83
Doubtless,
the
reign
of
Philippe,
felt
within her
!
The
poet's
alas
one.
And
what, indeed,
is
The hero
of
in
let
this
veracious history.
" Un trne pour celui qui rve, Un trne est bien sombre aujourd'hui.
Fate des vanits humaines,
t
^
Souvent
La
Il
Il est
"
To him whose
throne
is
life is full
of dreams
now
a dreary seat.
vanity,
girt about,
84
The
which
saw
in
my
life.
The departure
rible
family;
up
to
had been
life
without too
for the
many jolts,
in
most part
an annuity, necessarily
the ghost
The
dwelling in the
Rue
St.
Honor was
The mar-
some funds
He
had
(in
Unrecked of by the common herd. It's like some ermine-covered pine. Whose branches crown and sceptre make,
And
85
left it
his pockets
were
utterly-
Villiers
went
to live alone, to
his
life,
Soon
Rollin,
after,
Paris
where
had completed
my
studies, to
the battle of
life
was beginning.
forward
time.
to
I
my
father,
re-
On
which we
call
all
bear within
us,
memory,
he appeared
full
to
me
as a legendary personage,
I
liked to
make
my
.
me
every story he
knew about
little
me
in
86
my
up and bring
to life the
Neither did
later,
would become
my own
it
most
revered teacher,
my
surest,
most
faithful,
and
most precious
lived side
friend.
But so
was
to be.
to
1880,
we
by
side in an absolute
and constant
intelledlual intimacy.
And
if,
much
that
is
wretched,
mediocre
and unworthy, it is to Villiers de I'lsle Adam that I owe it he it is, who, on those dark
;
nights,
when our
mud
of Lutetia,
me
remains for
life
me
I
of which
daily witness.
My
CHAPTER VI. return to Paris The Htel d'Orlans My search Our reunion The stages of lawsuit The drama of "Perrinet Leclerc Paul Clves, dire6lor of the Porte Martin Theatre The Marchal Jean de ITsle
for
Villiers
earlier
his
historical
"
St.
Adam, according
to Messrs.
fury
Letters the press memorandum Intervention of M. de Provocation A du arranged Settlement on the ground Result of the action Biographer's reservations Documentary evidence. OWARDS the autumn of 1876, at
summons A
Bourgeois
Villiers
Villiers'
el
in
returned to Paris,
dazzled
my
eyes
still
by the
gloomy
fir-
Through
88
my
father,
whose death
me
everywhere, teaching
me
the better to
appreciate and admire the sublimity of those landscapes for which he had always had a sort
of passionate fondness.
My entry into
France
was
still
and I hurried to the old Htel d'Orlans, where we had spent so many years together, while I, alas was too young and frivolous to profit by the counsels of that wise and gene!
rous mind.
Whether
I
it
was by chance, or by
but
know
not,
was given
past.
my
my
first
night was
During
lived through
many an many
some
my
eyes,
looming
in the
shadow and
these
as quickly
Amongst
de
last,
the
con-
big
fair
head of
Villiers
I'lsle
Adam
me
with
seeming to gaze
on
me
intently,
and
to reproach
my
89
Ah, no
had
not, indeed,
had up
me from
But
two
him and
my
father.
The
I
Every
la
habitu,
lived,
nor could
He
almost
all
those
to
me had
of this
made
in
his acquaintance
unearthly hours,
out-of-the-way brasseries.
None
information was of much service to me, and I was beginning rather to despair, when a sud-
me to
take refuge
I
was and
90
hesitation, in spite of
the lapse of years, in spite of the change which the fight for existence had wrought in his
appearance,
recognized
him
There are
care,
some strong
changeable.
individualities
alter.
which age,
They
are un-
And
Villiers
He
rear,
was coming
his hat,
which
the
thin threadbare
his
shirt,
What
his
had treated him with condign scorn. matter! As he came towards me, I
ageing features.
beneath the
grey, the full
fair
mouth smiled as
some
secret
91
far
from earth
at that
to
me some-
human
tale.
rabble through
which he passed,
all
As he drew
first
memory
of our
my
board
"
Good morning,
I
cousin
you don't
"
!
know me.
sleep,
am
His usually
into
we fell
each
other's arms,
populo.
union,
92
It
was during that first evening's converse, which cemented the friendship of our manhood's years, that Villiers de
I'lsle
Adam
of the
recounted to
me
the
earlier stages
most
fantastic
lawsuit,
which
amused and interested all Paris for several months, and of which I desire now to relate
the apparently improbable incidents.
It
1876, that
my
cousin Matthias
was dreaming
St.
it
Martin Theatre,
usually
faade, lighted
up as
was on
He
drew near
and started on
seeing,
below the
title
of the
drama
in five acts,
own
by
illus-
Marshal Jean de
line
Villiers
itself.
93
What
"
!
me? Ha!
The
ha!
and he hastened
Porte St.
to the
name
who had
full
been
in
his time
though
not
literary
was
of
of others.
He
with
awe
and the moment he saw him he hurried with outstretched hands to meet him and place
him
in the
Villiers
trembling,
and
" Sir
he
cried,
with a
tragic gesture,
clowns,
fourteenth
century,
94
VILLIERS
DE
L'ISLE
ADAM.
this
infamy to be comsir,
and
call
upon you,
to
withdraw
"
!
my
dear
Villiers, it is
impossible
cried Clves,
his
profound astonishment,
it
would be
!
my my
are
ruin.
It
engagements
nothing
to
engagements
These
have
non-
me.
You
should
this
never accepted
it.
It
.
Enough,
I
sir.
Very good,
authors,
"
I
shall
the
left
say.
Where
They
are dead!"
for
"Well
children,
heirs,
That
cur,
that Simon,
whose name
enough
in
Republic of yours
Well,
we
shall
95
For the
do you refuse
The unlucky manager had become speechless, but he made a sign with his head which
seemed
to signify that
it
was impossible
the
poet,
to
"Very
well,
then," said
"you
shall hear
from
me
"
!
And
he went out
in
a fury.
Those who can recollect Villiers de I'lsle Adam's idolatrous worship for the memory of
his ancestors will
rage
when
historical
Adam
as a disloyal
nable traitor
own
mad
own head
the crown torn from that of the All this was absolutely
rightful sovereign.
Jean de
I'lsle
man
of
96
of Burgundy, was,
true, the
most ardent
As
Henry
V.,
who
into the
after
Bastille,
whence he
death.
that
prince's
Thenceforward he warred ceaselessly against the British, from whom he recaptured Pontoise in 1435.
of the case.
Such are the historical facts But the authors of " Perrinet
little
Leclerc" cared
for
that.
To
those
mine
tion,
to supply their
own
lack of imagina-
and
its
personages
merely
obliging
dummies,
to
be dressed
a
up
in
glory
or
and they simply took in all good faith, never dreaming that there would appear, five
traitor,
They wanted
de
Villiers
I'lsle
Adam,
hundred years
after
the
fulfilment
of the
ours, a poet
97
Never did
this business.
Villiers
show such
alivity,
such
For
my own
part,
my know-
me
his indignation,
he rather enjoyed
the adventure.
cial
The
the
struggle,
and freed his mind for a while from the dreams which so incessantly haunted it. And that arch-scoffer must
new
life,
have
felt
a curious
that
secret
amusement
in
obliging
all
army of
solicitors, barristers,
judges, and their deputies, to occupy themselves with the affairs of an illustrious old
and
incomprehensible
manuscripts
of the
thirteenth century,
under
the
reign
Grvy,
Wilson, and
the
But
The very
morning
memorable performance,
98
there
several
letter
daily
papers
from the
last of
De
Tlsle
Adams,
in
which he
brilliantly
from opprobrium.
He blasted in a few
literary
second-hand
wares, the
tors
;
collabora-
and he
declared
that
he was
their
new
freak.
The collateral
"
held the
this
bills, its
success
much
increased
then,
by
fresh
puff.
Forward,
the
all
officers,
A clever
and
intelligent
young
barrister,
an acquain-
tance of Villiers, eagerly seized on this opportunity of distinguishing himself; for this alion
was
vards,
do with
it
soon
became famous.
99
The
the
representatives
of Lockroy and of
file
their
answer to
summons duly served upon them a summons praying that they might be forbidden to
they libelled and calumniated the direl ancestor of the plaintiff, " the said Philippe
Auguste
Matthias de Villiers de
letters,
I'lsle
Adam, man of
Here-
The defendants' answer was rather clever. They asked the tribunal to rule that the
was inadmissible firstly, because he offered no proof of his boasted direl
plaintiff's plea
:
de
I'lsle
Adam
Monk
of St. Denis, authorized the writers of " Perrinet Leclerc " in presenting the condu6l of
the Marshal de
I'lsle
Adam
during the
in
civil
an un-
thirdly,
Marshal de
I'lsle
Adam
loo
him,
conscience
or
personal
any a6lion on
that score.
Thus the fight began. And how, for some weeks, Matthias was
undiscoverable.
libraries
He
and the archives, amongst which his clear mind called up all that gloomy and romantic period which began at the infancy
of Charles VI. and ended on the day
when
the
When
Pressed by poverty,
;
but they
archives,
leave
to
support
his
against
firstly,
the
authors
of " Perrinet
Leclerc
by the
his de-
proof, resting
on authentic records, of
I'lsle
Adam whose
loi
secondly,
which
make him
was true that the so-called Chronicle of the Monk of St. Denis did contain a sentence which permitted any doubt on
that score,
it
And, he added,
was
established,
on the other
were held
in sus-
and that, in any case, it was sufficient to read the manuscript to be convinced that it was a partial work, and that its author belonged to that falion which was hostile to the Duke of Burgundy, the friend of De I'lsle Adam.
picion
all
by
competent
historians,
To
this
memorandum, addressed to the judges. I do not know what has become of this manuscript.
I
taken, with so
much
zeal
Axel,"
it
may have
it
In
I02
new
life
of the
Marshal de
Adam
is
a masterpiece of
and magnificent
and investigating
I
faculty of
its
author.
joined Villiers
The
adversaries were
armed
at all
points,
tion to
go before the
courts.
have
pages of these
name shown no proof of diredl descent from the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, had been authorized, at the time of the return of the Bourbons, to add the
recolle6lions,
how a
name
tent,
of L'Isle
Adam
pie,
to
its
own
patronymic.
armed cap
and lance
in rest, to
103
young
bore,
name he
seems, of his
Honestly
of
glory on the
name
De
I'lsle
rage and
stupefalion
may be
him
the
much
salt,
by the highit
Leclerc."
Incredible as
seems
in
these days,
when
best-known
men in
Paris.
He fancied
the author of
Isis " to
be some scribbling
believed to be ex-
name which he
I04
officer
exercise
beautiful
amenities
his
of our
French language,
communication
was
sive,
and aggres-
name
of
Villiers
de
I'lsle
that
himself by that
name usurped
appeared, and
it.
forthwith
all
the
venomous
talent
the failures
this lucky
wind-
leine
Along the boulevards, from the Madeto the Gymnase, at the hour of the
little
poisonous speeches
:
were
to
!
"
That poor
Villiers
Adam
at all
It
!
always thought so
It
seems he
is
really the
Ah why
!
lips
of slan-
Shame on
those
dastards
to pierce
managed
All those
my friend
to the heart.
105
well,
knew
mask
of scorn
soul,
which must
anonymous
pride.
were
inflicted
on
his
and on the
was waited
upon by two poet-friends of the writer, who came from the Comte Philippe Auguste de
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam
was
the
;
to
demand
to
their
reparation
principal.
for
the outrage
offered
The
adversary
flinching
brave,
and
accepted
without
meeting which
was
proposed to him
conferred,
it
was arranged
little
should go,
on a
bourhood of Vsinet.
party,
thought
it
io6
he fancied.
documents
The
was a loyal, good-hearted, and very chivalrous man. He appeared on the ground at the appointed
Villiers
was amazing.
M. de
offered
him the most courteous apology, adding that it was only on the preceding evening that he had learnt the truth. It was worth hearing Villiers, with his tragic gestures, and the perpetual wagging of his front fair lock, retail
the incidents of this coup de thtre.
" Sir
"
!
he would
hand,
his brave
cry, "
I
my
my
when
and resigned
evident
effort, that,
French
for a
I
officer as
he was,
fight
I
coward than
opened
I
my
arms.
folded him to
my
heart.
told
him he was
107
dead
and in my whose representative I was father's name and my own, I authorized, nay, I besought him to continue to bear the name
of Villiers de I'lsle
Adam
fine in
"
!
lawsuits,
must come
an end
and one
gave
their
decision
extraordinary
Adam
Bourgeois."
As my
it
inadmissible
because, as
the
marshal was
historical property,
to
show him
;
in
best
especially
when he based
judgment,
writers of "Perrinet
Monk
Villiers
The preamble
judgment established those diredl ties of descent which made him the last representative of that famous and heroic warrior who
was the
Duke of Burgundy.
io8
When
lips,
past.
Were
and not altogether unreasonable horror of foot-notes, I would infli6l one on my readers, propos to this trial, to state that I have
related the
recollecflion
whole of
it
from recollelion
graven upon
pi6luresque recitals of
regretted cousin.
In thus
trust
in
any
But
in
any case
shall
which
I
may be
shall
do no prejuif I
dice to the
memory
I
of Villiers,
frankly
confess that
entertain
some
serious doubt
made by
the
his
opponent
duel.
on the scene
poet was in
of
the
intended
The
all
habit of dramatizing
daily
life
into
enchanting
Their
but
groundwork
was generally
true,
he
109
incidents,
in
instinl,
audience.
is
my
suspicion
cin6l
and nobly-expressed
his adversary,
addressed to
necessarily,
all
him by
this
and which,
At
events
in
the right.
"Sir,
"
I
can only
bow
have
is
whose ranks
figures the
Marshal Jean,
whose memory, in spite of what anyone may say, remains above all suspicion.
"
This does
not,
no
181 5,
and inserted
rizes
in the
'
Borgue de Villement,
of Villiers that of
add
to his
name
De
"
risle
Adam.
to
There appears
me
to
be no objel to
my
and
manders
Rohans,
"
the
Order of
St.
is
Louis
marshals to France,
etc., etc.
which
if,
allied to the
And,
in
conclusion,
contrary to
my
expelations,
this letter
While
am
may be
by
glad that
in
in
spiteful attacks of
"
To
"
the Editor of
"Sir,
This
is
my
answer to the
article
you
have published concerning me. I desire that it may suffice for all those of your colleagues
of the press,
to
my
week.
my
was
sole obje6l
of the play
Perrinet Leclerc,'
to establish
my own
family.
Now
years
may remark
(with others
it)
whose duty
calls
them
I
to
consider
could
afford to smile at
jel.
I
may
was only
112
the
which obhged
at
all.
It
produce any such proofs seems strange, then, that this reto
me
the
desist
a gap in
my
family genealogy.
Now
In
it
genealogy
is
five centuries
'
mean
nothing.
'
They should
The
Europe are concerned, are indisputable evidence all over the world, and that Order would
not give a careless decision concerning the
bear.
"That a
and that
of the order,
by me
113
my
cal-
repeat,
merely a matter
In any case,
I
shall
I'lsle
Adam
as
diredlly as
in spite of the
Chronique de
"
St. Denis,'
fa6l.
to
be proud of the
I
am
had
in
vexing
my
that
so.
memory
and
it is
affirmed
make
And
for
my
it
only answer,
this
thought
preciously.
They
.
There
in
is
as
much
gap
my
family
a wonderful thing
how
114
which are an
centuries of publicly-admitted
;
on the signatures of ambassadors and and on consuls, both French and English
;
legal investigation
An
inves-
tigation of
what
?
Of my
claims to
be of
left to
noble descent
bow
to
One
alone,
among
to
prove
my
*
contention.
The
text of the
'
Declaration
as follows
:
runs
Notum
tamur ut
"
adhibeatur.
'
"S
in
quarterings
the
genealogy
*"We, Bishop
with the
De
Verdalle
Knights
of
Malta,
bear witness
it
has
etc.,
that,
etc'
"
How
pronounce
How
late.
it ?
You come
fadls
"
!
in too
CHAPTER
Le Pin
Galant,
VIL
" The New World The American centenary competition The charadler of Mistress Andrews The legend of Ralph Evandale.
with his play
"
near
Bordeaux
Arrivai
of
Villiers
H LE
I
Villiers
gown
in the
followed his
movements from
In
afar
my
retirement
my
every morning,
liers,
whose
was well known to me, had given way to some eccentricity or some dangerous al of violence. I kept on writing to beseech him
117
and
to
my
redolent of
and
ideal with
spreading
he
heartening silence,
in
fell
dis-
not
to the
my
One
a
letter
brought
me news
published on
I
have not
that in
document
fresh per-
know
he refuted,
some
authenticity
last
of the
name he
letter,
bore.
The
sentence of the
however, which
is
it,
for ever
as being
am on
the
Pin Galant,
not far
ii8
Lovers of another
silent than that of
style of conversation,
more
human
faa."
He duly appeared
It
a few days
later,
without
torrid afternoons
known only
bouring
He
was simply
a loose
trousers,
(
!
),
and a
In his
The
alarmed
me
At
first
thought he was using them as a carpet-bag, for he brought no sign of any other luggage But my mistake only lasted a few with him. Hardly had he entered, when, minutes. after the first cordial greetings, he pulled out
of his vast pockets five thick
manuscript
119
he exclaimed,
"
the
'New World'
at the
your
majesty and
contained, in
my good
cousin
The books
his magnificent
good the manuscript of drama in five a6ls, entitled ** Le Nouveau Monde," which had gained the first place, the year before, in the comtruth,
petition instituted in
States,
and
will
his
manuscript at Bordeaux,
if I
think
it
be of interest to scholars
give some
of this dramatic
qualities,
its
admirable
In
1880
de
I'lsle
Adam
it
found a pub-
lisher bold
enough
to issue
to
at his
own
risk,
and
his
name deserves
be recorded.
It
was M. Richard,
printer
and
publisher, of
is
The pamphlet
Villiers
now almost
out of print.
had pre-
I20
ceded
play
by an "Address
I
to
the
in
Reader,"
its
to
which
shall
return later,
quote
in its entirety,
because
it
explains
far better
than
could
"In 1875 a dramatic competition was announced by the theatrical press of Paris. A medal of honour, even a sum of 10,000 francs, and other temptations, were offered to the French dramatic author who should most
powerfully
recall, in
States, the
hundredth
fell
The two examining juries were thus composed. The first, of the principal critics of The second, of the French theatrical press.
M. Vi6lor Hugo, honorary
Emile Augier, 06lave
president, Messrs.
Feuillet,
and Ernest
"
New
Perrin, administrator-
121
The
manuscripts
these
manuscripts in what
tellelual order.
"
may be
in-
M. Thodore
Michalis,
More than a year elapsed while the gentleof the theatrical press were examining
men
"
the dramas.
The titles of the sele6led works were published, and among them appeared that of
the
"
by.
At
an
last,
1876,
official
me
the
that the
'
competing
passed
with
most
The
author.
attralions
of
the
programme had
was not the medal of honour, nor even the dream of the ten thousand
it
Yet
122
francs,
to compete.
above
ment.
was the proposed subje6l the conditions imposed for its treatIt
From
the theatrical
point of view,
had always dreamt of being an innovator in historical drama. His idea was that
Villiers
which was to be portrayed, should be imported into the framework of some personal
intrigue,
in
of
the
in his lan-
frilion
And
in
the
For the rules of the competition dilated, amongst other obligations, that the work must be
tunity for realizing this conception.
written
was only
Le Nouveau
Monde"
is,
before
all else,
a symbolic drama,
123
and each of
its
which he or she
is
Thus, in
Lord Raleigh
the principle
of
royalism,
typified
as
in
Stephen
of
Ashwell
liberty.
he has
"
the
principle
In
my
preface, "
totally
Lord
Cecil,
under a
veil of
almost
many
King
It
others.
He
is,
as
it
sovereign,
of England."
is
hardly
my
place,
in these personal
recollelions, to
merits of this
work of
But
may
details of
known
its
to the
atten-
To
those of us
who
by the terrible invasion of commonplace ideas, " Le Nouveau Monde" remains one of the best constru6led, deepest, and most
culated
It
124
Andrews with the salt of his Attic wit. To some superficial minds this character may seem impressed with romantic exaggeration. Yet it has been
the chara6ler of Mistress
learnedly imagined and laboriously premeditated
by a
it
writer
who was
neither a novice
Villiers fore-
nor a simpleton
in literature.
saw
jests
that
would be exposed
self-important
to the
cheap
the
of
those
gentry,
critics
In his "Address
to the
his
Reader " he has taken pains to explain conception, and this page of his, full of
cannot
to
fail
my
readers.
It
seems
me
charm must
up by the
"
Mistress
of that
Here it is Andrews is the sombre refle6lion feudalism of which Lord Cecil represide,
and
find
myself
endued.
This woman's
personality
is
VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM.
formed by the cohesion of
intelledlual
125
and
be
strilly
human.
Some
pecuHarities of the
There-
in
I
case,
have had
halo,
to
legendary
to
make her a
It
sort
of
American Melusina.
even the
possibility,
has appeared to
me
to
of
the
charafter,
alually
a sign, in
centuries,
the daughter
silence,
of a race haunted
by melancholy, by
and by
fate.
even as mirrors and goblets would shiver, and daggers flash, against the arras of an
ancient palace wherein
been
held.
126
VILLI ERS
DE
L'ISLE
ADAM.
and
make themselves
acceptable,
But what
this
was
that
"mysterious
mark
alually impressed
gory print
What
"
the legendary
Andrews
describes
? it
An
old
woman, Mistress
Noella,
by the
light of a camp-fire, in
the
New
was almost
less
performance of
play at the
good reasons
it
first,
is
as
good as unpub-
further,
it
is
an admirable prose-
is
the future;
recite
it,
pale,
trembling,
127
midnight lamp
terrifying,
story
and
and
terrified himself
by
his
own
will recall
as they
infedlious
read these
lines
the
tragic
dread which he
declamation.
"
One evening
Wars
of the
In coat of
stone
staircase,
marvelling
at
the
festive
sounds.
guests.
A
His
celebrating
his
second
and
the
neighbouring
barons,
round
him,
in friendly healths.
From
and
in
whom
hell-
in his heart.
Silently he
and disappeared.
Mean-
The noble
128
tapestry-
was pushed back by a gauntletted hand. It was Ralph this time, with vizor raised.
Fungh
ward,
fell
traitorously
on
his
father,
and
in-
in his throat,
up to the
death,
;
Fungh, stricken
to
then,
Ralph drew
blood.
and
his face
Then, bruising
wrists
of
the
widowed
he dragged
knees shaking
manor
sacrilegious
union.
Terrified
though
he
utter a well-deserved
129
solemnized.
race
!
Thus was the guilty marriage And the shadow fell upon their They gave life to a posterity of
line
demons, an accursed
of wicked men,
illustrious
on
girl
gloomy
Now
the race
is
extinl.
One
fled
her
tell
!
Where
is
she
Nobody can
terrible night
when
their
from generation
to generation.
They
impress
It is
And
whenever death strikes one of them, the sinister hand appears upon the brow of the
unhappy being, a ghostly, shining hand, which the everlasting night alone can efface
!
Pray then
for
Edith
E vandale,
"
!
the last of
it
will
have been
I30
understood,
she
who now
conceals herself
As
and
woman
are
still
concludes her
story,
while
all
bending forward
in silent
and breathless
moonlight
attention, the
unhappy woman
the
" Yes," "
!
herself appears
falling
standing
among them,
on her alone.
she
ir
Villiers'
CHAPTER
members
Vi(5lor
VIII.
of the jury
Hugo
The
Y
Dramatic
Villiers leaves
Little
me away,
arrived,
and we are
from Bordeaux!
To
return.
When Villiers
lawsuit,
which excited
"
his rage,
Nouveau
Monde
and
its
He
132
that his
had received the praises of Vilor Hugo, of Emile Augier and 06lave Feuillet, of Ernest Legouv even and that was all. No medal of honour, much less the
!
He
was,
it is
true, too
life
at
to feel
much
surprised
dead
leaves, but
events, have
made
stage.
some
effort to
their choice
performed
on some great
Parisian
flood of benignant
commonplace was the only answer to his inquiries and his imperious demands, and the gifted author of the "Nouveau Monde" had to undergo the humiliation (surely, in another
life, it
shall
be reckoned
in his
favour
!)
of see-
M. Armand
d'Artois,
performed
133
would have been too much even for a being gifted with more patience than my poor
Villiers possessed.
As
Hugo,
first
scandal
at the
in
the
Avenue de
In the
my
late
vene-
he dared to accuse
the promises
first to
break
all
He mentioned
made some
allu,
L
to
who
never
"
opening
"
!
his
mouth
to
except
cry
fury,
Sabaoth
unable
contain
his
pallid face,
he shot at the
Homer
not un-
a question of age
certain glance,
"
!
Slowly, with
his
Villiers
134
No,
sir,
nor
folly either
"
!
Then, leaving
unlimited
the startled
and
at
dawn next
five thick
copybooks containing
for
such a
trivial
Then
at once,"
he
said, as
he brought the
bethought
I
me
vengeance.
lization
!
Don't you
is
chance there
here for
some provincial theatre, to be first to accept and mount and play a piece by the Comte Villiers de I'lsle Adam, which has been crowned by the approbation of a committee
counting
among
its
members those
of literature,
?
idols of
middle-class
lovers
Legouv,
first
"
?
Feuillet, Augier,
and Hugo
a
I
But, in the
in
**
place,
"
is
there
theatre
replied,
Bordeaux
There are
three,"
without count-
135
strollers' booths."
Bordeaux
did, in
theatres
the
and the
up
to
a good
much
insight,
and
in
most
reliable
good
taste.
himself a
name
at the Caf
as a
most successful
called
He
was
then,
and presumably
is still,
Godefrin.
relations
bethought
me
deaux.
known our
view.
We
and
full
managerial
136
apartment.
had been
to the barber
his well-curled
air,
and he marched vi6loriously through the streets of Bordeaux with his manuscript under
his arm.
he was,
in reality,
as
agitated as a dbutante
who
time.
hears the
call-
first
And
yet there
was nothing
inaccessible in the
!
demeanour of
young, free
the impresario
He
was
still
swagger,
He
deference.
young woman,
tall
and
feet
pale, dressed in
Allow me
to
my
is
best
said Godefrin
"
she
con-
sumed with a
I
and
!
ay,
and
in
brilliantly
you
"
?
your play
There was no answer from Villiers. All out of curl already, he had retired into a corner,
137
between
let
his fingers.
!
Well,
us begin to read
" said
at last,
to
barrassing.
We seated ourselves
at
the poet at
the table,
we
random on the
seats scattered
And
life,
the course of
I
my
but never,
think,
was
tibly
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam
At
the beginning
Villiers seated
him-
of
its
and then, with a searching glance all round, he opened the manuscript and began
his eyes,
"
tableau the
"
first
Swinmore
Swinmore manor-house,
At
the rear
"
138
Here he interrupted
chair, and,
fittings
from his
jump about
dragging
armchairs
unhooking the
haviour with
inconsequent
:
sentences
and
incomprehensible words
"
night
iron-work
the distance,
sea!
Ha
is
gold enrichments
!
ha
ha
the
distant
voices!
Ahoy!
!
the
departing
here
is
! ! !
the smiling
Mary
voices approach
the
voices again
Suddenly he perceived the piano, threw himself upon the keyboard, and striking some
melancholy chords, he sang
voice,
^^
in
a plaintive
then,
still
accom-
in sepulchral accents,
in
house
which
have never
VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM.
given happiness, nor enjoyed
it
!
139
which
yes
forsake thee
is
duties in
!
my
eyes
God
!
"
be
my judge
the corre6l
Adieu, tombeaic
Startled
and
terror-stricken,
pressed
lips,
in a corner,
whence
a6lress
in her hands,
and
in a
Meandis-
locks and
had
left
manded, ''Well,
this
sir,
mysterious
is
symbolism
:
Everything,
everything
in that
young
fruit,
tree
which
is
to bear
the
in
Old World
my
not ?"
I40
dear
your idea
it
is
wonderful, but
must
humbly admit
beg of you
symbolism
?
itself to
intelligence from
what
have heard.
my May I
to read
"
me
"
and he moved
We surrounded him.
and made him
sit
down and
?"
I
me.
"Are you
prophet,
stark
mad
cried, sternly;
"
and
is
who
poet's brain,
Deuce take
it
It
upsetting
furniture,
will
and bawling
to
you
manage
your play.
141
(and
took
it
go and
sit
down
and
let
me
As
I
commonhe retired
in that
spoke
his face
darkened
into a recess,
his eyes
and
homet,
"
be
it
"
!
Very good a family reading So " Bravo " cried Godefrin, " now we
!
! !
shall
we are
I
about,
and admire
But
must draw
I
my
story to a close.
read
If
raised
my
saw Godefrin
and
authority,
while
little
felt
in
every word
it
shaped
instinl with
movement, and
suffering
and when
last page,
142
it
my
She had
Oh,
sir,
dear
sir,
beg you
to
"
!
me
Andrews
" It is
on
and
am
sacrifice in
of work in a
way worthy
!
of
its
own and
knew
its
author's merits."
He
little
the
temperament, more
capricious
than
played at Bordeaux.
scene
I
de
I'lsle
Adam was
fair
in Paris, and,
seduced by the
Barnum.
It is greatly to
be regretted that
first
per-
am
convinced
143
merits,
and
everyone
stage
will
agree with
me
that no Parisian
pensionnaire ; for
of the
justly,
gifted
and considered one of our finest and most tragic alresses, and Godefrin was a
now,
her
Comdie
true
eyes,
moment
!
That
it
it
to
become the
fairest
!
your
diadem as a
tragic alress
CHAPTER IX. Restful days The and the sexTalks about bygone days Charles Baude His true natureHis strange home-life Jeanne Duval Edgar Poe Richard Wagner "Axel" The Cabala and the occult sciences sentiments Quotations " L'Eve
real
Villiers
Villiers
fair
laire
Villiers' religious
Future."
^^^^^^HOSE
far
life,
my
me
friend
city
as one
of
my
pleasantest memories.
For
where we spent some weeks together, the mantle of bitter scorn and scepticism in which
he wrapped himself on the boulevards seemed
to
penetrated far
to
and he allowed me
145
in the
depths
Thus
I'lsle
came
but
to
know
at last a
de
Adam
little
resembling
nightly
the
by
and
his
all
his
work
is
en-
On
deaux, as
we wandered
the banks of the great river, under the graceful arches of the pine-trees, through which the
pale
and
mysterious
moonbeams
slanted,
me and
to
poet's
life ?
Did woman play a great part in the I think so, though he had few
L
146
much misunderstood
personage,
Don
once,
and that
fields
were the
cradle,
may
come down
with his
to earth,
he would
fall
in love
bare
The
After
a disappointment of this
he would throw
At such
times
like
a redhot
iron,
but beneath
his imprecations
man
who
whom
it
147
he
could
art,
portal.
Happily
his
love
for
it,
and
his
consciousness
of his
own
genius,
consoled
him
for his
many
in
mortifications.
He
the
loved,
these
intimate
and
often
happy years of
all
my
father,
and
above
to
Charles
Baudelaire,
whose
a ghost. the
ofifice
They
of the
"
Revue
Fantaisiste," whither,
from time to
time,
" Fleurs
Pomes en Prose." Baudelaire and Villiers had too much in common not to be quickly drawn together.
quisitely-polished " Petits
From
first
meeting they
were frequently
Villiers
was one of the few friends who were present at the poet's terrible death. For my
own
part,
as a poetical craftsman,
chara6ler as an individual.
From
all
had
heard
(for
148
seemed
to
me
to
be wanting
in sincerity,
and
be eternally posing, not only before the public, but before the little circle over which
he habitually presided.
Villiers
this in
if I
expressed
I
his
He
declared that
;
swam
I
that
what
that
And
it
was
the
in
some ways,
that
exquisitely
good
in others.
Would
my impotent
fire,
Villiers'
friend
plain
and analyze
"
heart, as
he expressed
ledged associate.
liers, "
To
be
the Pope."
149
"
A Catho-
possessed by a devil," Villiers would add, and a supporter of authority who admitted none but his own, and that of his vices, which he cherished as works of art, and of which he
"
was inordinately proud." Nothing could have been more strikingly curious than the description given
poet's home-life.
He
of
Chinese
monsters,
frightful
idols, fantastic
and generally
pilures of the
by the horror-loving
In the midst of this
nightmare
about,
scene
Baudelaire
moved
slowly
cold,
silent,
and
pale,
himself half-
frightened,
like
hideous
dream.
And
girl,
as
mistress of this
a coloured
silks,
almost a negress,
named
gaudy
I50
Maison
gasp
sup-
last
I
many
perversities.
was to Charles Baudelaire that Villiers owed one of his greatest artistic enjoyments, his acquaintance with the works of Edgar Poe. He was a very bad English scholar, and
without his friend's wonderful translations,
and
probably, have
poem,
in
"
to recite
was the will of fate that he should owe yet more to Baudelaire. It was in his house that he saw
such a striking manner.
it
And
human genius
before
whom
151
May, 1 86 1
Richard
alas
and noble artistic friendships of which, so few examples exist, and the bond of
In a
shall
speak more
fully,
as
is fitting,
of the intimacy
One
work (Part II., " Le Monde Tragique," scene 8), was entirely written at Bordeaux. For the purposes of this play Villiers had profoundly studied the Cabala and the occult Yet his sciences, both past and present. mind was too powerful and too analytical to
152
He
them a phase of the philosophical evolution of centuries, and he also found in them dramatic elements of the highest order. But I venture to assert, from what I have known of him, that it would be a mistake
to reckon the author of the
"Nouveau Monde"
and higher
far
among contemporary
His
cabalists.
and not altogether unremuneratively, by that long-haired young sar, Josphin Pladan.
Though
may overwhelm
at the
and Rohan
dawn
I'lsle
Goethe
in
in
Germany and
Villiers
de
Adam
truth.
And
work and
characfter
The
study of the
153
study of the
nature,
all
He
God was
the Devil
in Hell.
which he endured
all his
hope and
life,
consola-
tion in prayer.
His
of most great
failures,
artists,
was
of faults and
fighting the
good
with a
And
doubtless
God
ness.
will
"One
Villiers'
wrote M. G.
Guiches, very
truly, the
day
18,
August
his eyes
1889),
"was the
strong, honest,
154
throughout
his copious
On
Baudelaire, he
was
in
the
habit of noting
down memoranda
of daily
life,
It is
mourn
its
for
a dead child.
It
glory.'
Among
God
!
litanies to the
Virgin
thou,
my
be heard
Thou who
pent
of
!
standest on Calvary
!
Thou who
ser!
canst pardon
Glory
!
human tears Light of the eastern star Thou soul of chastity Thou resignation of
!
the poor!'
"To
book,
atro-
ciously cynical
of his
lately-published
he answered boldly:
'Such things
155
come back
in
to
bed.'"
As
am
a vein of quotation,
Revue Blanc" by M.
" receiving a visit
I
remember," he says,
Villiers
*
from
was reading
I
can see
leaves, looking at
asked
with much pantomimic alarm. how much that grand book had
told
He
cost,
and
sous
him the
*
price,
somewhere about
ten francs.
'
!
The
was
his reply.
try parson's
remark.
delighted at having
made
me, droning
it
bass,
in
a Tyrolese jodel
interrupt-
now and
I
156
But
talks to
register here
on the
eventhat
me one
birth to
to give
famous novel,
this
motto attached to
" Transitoriis
qure
CHAPTER
of the newspaper,
X.
political,
artistic,
Lord E W A nolurnal His strange suicide The wax conversation The American engineer and conception of " L'Eve Future" master, Edison de ITsle Adam and Thomas Alva Edison.
and literary programme
First
Villiers
his
de
I'lsle
Adam,
for
the
first
time
in his Hfe,
had found
He
the boulevards and of the newspaper offices the unwonted spelacle of a Villiers in brand-
new
clothes
and a
brilliantly
smart
silk
hat
iS8
Villiers, in fine,
who
Riche,
and had
in
his
every night at
men),
the celebrated
first-floor
room so
De Concourt.
change
in
in
The
the poet's
worthy of a place
retired
con-
fe6lioner,
devoured by
political
and
literary
making fancy
biscuits
gave him a
a very
Many
an ambitious vulgarian
not content
But
this pastry-cook,
who
shall
be
when, out of
all
who
159
downs of the astounding newspaper which was the outcome of this strange union. I have only time to throw some hasty
the ups and
was
critic,
and
article-writer at
The
him absolutely
and
own
"
political, artistic,
firstly,
newspaper
"
and
newspaper
should
make
"
stir in
the capital.
!
more than
gratified
La Croix
et l'Epe," the
title
!),
(high-sounding
claimed, in matters of
politically,
it
artistically, it
;
above Raphael
i6o
and exclusively Wagnerian. At the end of six months the newspaper disappeared, the confe6lioner went back to his province, and
Villiers
in
hopes,
thanks
But
"
!
all is
not lost!
Next
winter,
Many we
shall see
It
was during
dividual
novel, "
the
first
into Brbant's,
He was
"
Villiers
used to
I
way,
his
and
saw
at
once
expression of
i6i
was Lord
His
tragic
in Paris for
some time.
He
Stretched beside
waxen
modelled by a great
artist,
was
in
known
London
young nobleman.
Was
afflil
this suicide
of those strange
manias which
English aristo-
some
?
families of the
cracy
Or was
in the
of
to
doll
The
young attach
He
1 62
by her magnificent beauty but he held her mind and soul, and everything in her that was not material, in the deepest abhorrence. Hence arose the slowly-developed madness which ended in his death. These things were related one night at the restaurant, before Villiers and a small circle of habitus. An American engineer an electrician, as they call them over there rose from his seat, and quietly said, " I am sorry your
cured him."
Scott
!
would have given his doll life, soul, movement, love " The assembled company,
I
but
Villiers,
picked up his
will
elelricity
an almighty
These fa6ls and this no6lurnal conversation gave birth to " L'Eve Future," one of the most original works of this end of the century.
163
Those who have perused this masterpiece of eloquent raillery, by the poet who, to use M. Henri Laujol's happy expression, "had vowed a monkish hatred against modern science, that handmaid of utilitarianism," will doubtless recollel that the general notion and argument of the story follow almost identically
the
fa(5ls
I
have just
related.
But
Villiers
half-artists
who
it
are
and work
it
it
out
to their
in his
brain.
was only
after revolving
it,
that
first
wonder-
Menloe Park and its terrifying proprietor, Thomas Alva Edison, he read to me in 1879. When the great inventor himself came to Paris in 1889 to see our exhibition, somebody sent him De I'lsle Adam's book. He read it through without putting it down, and said to one of his intimates, " That man is greater
than
I.
He creates!" He
fell
desired to
alas
!
poor
i64
This
is
deeply to be
curious and
regretted.
more
sation
Bonhomet and the father of the phonograph ? Soon after he had related the curious origin of his contemplated work to me, my eccentric
friend suddenly disappeared from
my
sight.
Villiers'
CHAPTER XI. absent-mindedness His carelessness His departure from Bordeaux Godefrin's despair A year Bohemian poverty A Want of money His pride His conscientiousness Drumont's book and the young Jew A good answer manner of His midnight wanderings His
terrible
later
justification
Villiers' difficulties
artistic
Villiers
Villiers'
life
dis-
like
MOST
Villiers,
his
dying day,
was
ness,
his perpetual
absent-minded-
tant
break
off,
for
long
daily
months
relations,
on
end,
most
intimate
to
fulfil
the
The
uncertainty of
continually on the
i66 alert;
you could never tell when he would come or when he would go. I have described
his
sudden apparition
in
my
house at Bor-
deaux.
We
rose
at early
I
dawn
went
and when
Villiers
was already late. I inquired after he had gone out, and hours passed
In vain
I
sought him.
A
long
He
had
received a letter
writer,
demanding the immediate return of the manuscript of the " Nouveau Monde." His conversation was one flood of recriminations. For my own part, inured long since as I was to the poet's offhand ways, I was only halfsurprised, and I did my best to console the unhappy direlor, whom I have not had the good fortune to meet since that interview. Towards me Villiers preserved an unbroken
silence.
Indeed,
167
articles,
me
packets containing
own
hand, proved
I'lsle
late
De
Adam,"
and that
It
still
lived in his
memory.
to
was difftcult, after all was said and done, bear him a grudge because of his exaspera-
he had only
you
would gaze
puzzled
sin
;
at
air,
exclaiming,
"What! I did that! impossible you must be chaffing me " that nobody could keep their countenance nor their bad temper long. Personally I was not to see him for two years. Alas when we met again in Paris in 1879, 1 saw that poverty was slowly accomplishing its destru6live work. Never had the Bohemian life which he so courageously accepted, seemed more utterly dreary. He needed all his power of hopefulness to
! !
i68
endure
But though
his heart
and
its
bad
food,
want of
care,
late
hours
life.
tavern
from the
his
life.
infernal
was only a respite, and that he would always have a longing for that eccentric and feverish existence which devoured him body and soul and
I
But
felt it
last
we
was the time of our closest intimacy. Before reviving some memories of
it,
frequently brought
in life
and
after death, of
bird, a lover of
own bad
169
company he frequented. To those who only knew him casually these accusations bear an appearance of truth fatal to the poet's good
name.
the hard
his inner
trials
know
how
little
wiseacres.
And we know
how,
little
by
little,
this gifted
too,
by
little,
and
to
after
it.
many
a revolt, he
grew accustomed
May
Bohemian manner of
life
of
de
I'lsle
Adam.
It will
give
me
an
new
light.
The
faithful
autobiography of a
writer
own
talents,
I70
But
it
would
likewise be a healthy
many
from
ruin,
Though
there are
some
highly
ones
too,
which
lowered
and
crushed
down by
bread.
True as
it
may be
I
that
more
ning the
final vilory.
And
all
money.
This condition of penury must have been
all
be almost an apotheosis.
name he
bore, he
171
ignoble
which
in these
literary
He
carried
and no matter how pressing need was, he would never send a hastilypage,
finished
printer.
first
nor even
read
sentence,
to
the
He
low,
when
the
in that clear
he
always
used
when
is
own
writings.
According
to sell himself.
And
will
record an authen-
ticated anecdote
"
La
in
Jewish
community
I'lsle
Adam.
noble
172
name, a
poverty
nice
and
in
straits
!
of
probably
to
little
who then
looked, perhaps
was sent
to call
upon him.
Villiers,
struggling
with the
direst
poverty,
often
was living in a big, bare, dark, cold room, somewhere on the heights of Montmartre, where he
without half a franc
in his pocket,
still
table,^
bailiffs
had despised.
last
found the
ter of the
Order of
servile,
John of Jerusalem.
Unluously
show of respe6l, the messenger of the synagogue explained its desire, concluding by
saying that there could be no bargaining
with a writer of such distinlion, and that the
Comte Villiers de I'lsle Adam had only to name his own price. Then he waited in silence for the answer of Villiers, who had
listened without interrupting, rolling a cigarette in his white fingers, his absent glance half
173
over his
When
clear
his
interlocutor
him
his
blue
eyes,
now
a
with
sudden
voice,
"
flame,
he answered
?
in
ringing
My
"
!
price, sir
It
Thirty pieces
of
silver
Then,
rising
and
wrapping
might
"
!
Begone,
sir
my
subjel.
stepmother to
Adam,
forcing
life
him from
the
life,
his
to
Bohemian
and
vagabond Parisian
well-established
to such habits
he gradually became
accustomed.
Serious and
and overfed
him
all,
bit-
places
of entertainment,
which,
under the
174
name
taverns,
swarm between
Yet
of idleness
and debauchery
being
if
If Villiers, without
rich,
had pos-
he could have
have dreamed
and
his
written,
I,
who was
and
affirm
"Chat Noir" would have known him less, and, what is more to the purpose, less intimately. But driven by dire necessity to pitch his tent in some empty lodging or
eloquent frequenters of the
"
being,
dainty
poet,
charming
as he was, of the
hideous dwellings
into
which
his
evil
fate
make
words
and to
say, in the
175
?
"
!
home
was walking the pavements, on the terraces of cafs, and with his elbow on the
stained tavern tables, that he imagined, discussed,
his finest
works.
Every imaginative
and
being, moreover,
Villiers
more
especially
this need.
He
could not
clearly
ideas
discussion,
to discuss
and
therefore without
with.
them
to him,
his
own
fireside,
in friendly gatherings,
woman
his
Bohemian
he had to
fall
back on
the
and clash
noisily
women.
to truth to say that
owe
it,
however,
176
Villiers'
He was
essen-
a night-bird.
He
and always
Even
the
in his
best
until
kindly
friends
stars
blinked
of the sky.
critic
of the
"Temps," M.
I'lsle
tells us, in
a kindly sketch
memory
of
De
Adam,
literary
some
work on which he was engaged, he went one day to look him up at his lodgings at Montmartre. He was received smilingly, announced the obje6l of his he but when
visit,
plexed,
and troubled.
at last,
He
began
he
to
to stammer,
and
"
almost in
tears,
exclaimed
talk to
How
me
you about my ancestors, the illustrious grand master and the famous marshal, in
bright sunshine like
this,
at ten
o'clock in
177
was in utter dismay, and the witty critic had to exert himself to the utmost to restore him to his equareally
He
from him.
CHAPTER
1879
XII.
the The Boulevard Montmartre Nodlurnal declamations a composer Two operas, " Esmeralda and " Prometheus Melomania a musical performer The Lon
poet's
*'
Villiers in
street
Villiers as
"
"
Villiers
as
strange couple.
1879
Villiers inhabited
in
a room
in a furnished hotel
the
Rue
Rue
Clauzel.
I
Chance had
living at the
made
us neighbours, for
was
corner of the
the
Rue
I
out in
all
and from
my balcony
could see
it
over Paris.
just as
As
to the poet's
was
commonplace
in
as might
a tenth-rate furnished
bed, chair, and
mahogany
uiiMiiiiiiiniK
179
Should
this last
happen
to
gape
The extreme
assisted
I
indifference
of the
life
great
greatly
him
in
in
never
knew him
the
the
morrow,
literal
But he never
not been for the
I
back
and had
it
care of
some devoted
friends,
really believe
bed
for
want of
Luckily, a sort
lived in the
careless.
i8o
But, above
others, there
woman, a
retired
my eyes. The
She treated
him with a
most passionately devoted mistress might have envied. The great writer, with the Bohemian
indifference of the
nothing,
used,
when he came
it.
This
excellent soul
would
come
could,
in
on
tiptoe,
to their place.
shirt,
and lay
it
on the foot of the bed. WhenVilliers took into his head to get up and go out, about
he would put on the
first
thing that
made by
this
admirable woman,
whom we
'MiiiiimMiiiMiMinMMiniiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiMMii
i8i
"
La Dvoue,"
of her.
" the
devoted
When
became the
poet's neighbour,
often
made use
and
I
coats
and trousers of
;
he slept
often
my
countenance when
in
my friend dressed
for while
I
was long and thin, he was short and broad. But he went on unmoved, and never suspe6led
anything.
The
coached.
He
into
which a penny
roll
had
was
he
would
" ?
call
out
threateningly,
"
!
What's that
said the
waiter,
and
bowl down,
he departed.
He
82
I
sitting
up
in
which covered
was a pouchful of his favourite Maryland tobacco, books of cigarette papers, and piles of sheets covered with his fine and
delicately-formed
handwriting.
He
never
especially
five.
I
As soon
in front of
saw me (sometimes
stood
him
for ten
aware of
my
and exclaim,
"What, is that you, cousin? What o'clock The window, the window " and before is it
!
jump out
Then he would
niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiimiiiiiiiiniiiiJMriiiiiiiiiiiui
183
hand through
his
heavy
forelock, look at
me
had
if
These
antics usually
prose,
and when
I
would
talks
sit
down
and our
would begin.
At
last,
towards
and by dint of persecution, I contrived to drag him from between the sheets, and out we went into the streets.
six o'clock,
it
arm-in-
arm with
place and
Villiers,
it
more or
less
It
became a strange
a hybrid, complex,
of treading
root in
it,
contradi6lory being, by
By
dint
for so
many
years,
he had taken
and was, so
to speak,
one of the
84
VILLIERS DE
I.'ISLE
ADAM.
and so
limited, in
moving mass,
that,
once
Amongst
and which
some are dramatic, some comic, some hideous. Some are sad, some poetic, others mad but
;
all attral
And
de
in
no case
more so than
in that of Villiers
I'lsle
Adam,
his
gait,
and
much dreaded speech and laughter belied. He knew all the secrets, all the hidden
irony of his
sores, all the grandeur, of the merciless streets
of Paris.
tions together,
me
he knew every
detail.
He
would ex-
plain,
IIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIirilMMMIIIIimiMIIIIIIIMIIJMIIIIMii
185
charm of
his talk,
of houses generally
matched
history
murderous ones,
;
that
some
For he
many
a strange story in
haunted houses
in Paris
than
in
any other
town
in
Europe.
inhabited himself.
And
him with delight. I make no doubt whatever he would have liked to live there. But it was especially when we reached the Boulevard Montmartre " l'heure de l'absinthe," that Villiers became my most invaluable guide and cicerone. All that population of charlatans which swarms before the cafs, money-lenders, money-getters, and rogues sham litterateurs and sham artists jourfilled
nalists, venal, if
mongers, masters
stealers
the
art of blackmail,
i86
unmasked
in the
them
all
in short, sharp,
vengeful sentences,
And
one
felt
how
and
his substance.
They meanwhile
They dreaded
So they bowed themselves down before him, and as soon as he was past they stabbed him in the back. After these walks, Villiers often came and
ing iron.
my
Breton
for
me
and
this
made
was in the habit of feeding. There were two things besides the fa6l of our friendship which had the precious gift of
retaining
Villiers
:
in
my
evening hours
my
ment of the
little
sitting-room.
PIMIIIIIIIIIIimillinillllMIMIIIIIIimillllllllllllllllllllMIHIIIIMh
187
On
much
soft
clear nights
we used
to
spend
smoking
of roofs,
to lose
Now
and then
erel
Villiers
and stretching out his white hand, as though to claim the attention
and very
pale,
some passage out of whatever work he might be engaged upon. His memory was so good that he knew by heart almost everything he had ever written. In such surroundings the effel was profoundly impressive. High over our heads the twinkling stars; at our feet the huge city, its continuous roar
voice
rising towards us
;
eloquent flow,
clear,
sonorous, and
strangely melodious.
self
He
up
at the
sound of
his
own
voice, and,
gestures raised to
88
to belong to earth.
with admiration.
ceased to speak,
it
thus
me
all
I
L'Eve
state
Future," and
remember the
the Night."
room, and
and, striking
some powerful
full
chords,
strength of his
Dieu du
to music,
Ciel en qui
f ai foi !
"
If Villiers
and original a composer as he was a writer. Music is, of all the arts, the one which requires the greatest number of innate and,
^
In the
final
edition
this
chapter bears
the
title
"God."
mtlllllMIIMIIMIIHIMIMIIMnHIIMIIIIIII
189
degree.
feeling for
ear,
his
his earliest youth he had a rhythm and time, a correlness of and a musical memory, which astonished teachers. Yet he was never a good
From
pupil,
because in
this,
as in everything else,
humdrum
daily
task.
But,
though
he
literature, his
and
very prose
life
is
musical.
he composed or
of
improvised
melodies,
goodly
number
strange
unfor-
songs,
melopia,
which
colledled.
The
re-
friends
I
have heard
him
sing,
and
to
which
have already
ferred,
poem by
Charles Baudelaire
Nous aurons des lits pleins d'odeurs lgres, Des divans profonds comme des tombeaux.
Our beds shall be scented with sweetest perfume, Our divans be as cool and as dark as the tomb.
igo
I
remember two other compositions of his on lines by the author of the " Fleurs du Mal." One, " Le Vin de l'Assassin," is the
song of a man who has
killed his wife,
and
'*
:
si
je
le
puis."
Je
*'
will
forget
entitled
her!
if
can!"
(**
In
the
other,
"),
"Recueillement"
Meditation
he had which he
to
"
Entends,
ma
"
!
nuit qui
marche
my
dear
list
step!"
I
remember,
too,
some warlike
Villiers
ironico-popular songs
which
power.
in
He
in
1870,
collaboration with
some other
artists in
to while
;
away
first
accompani-
uiiiuuuiHiMiMiiiiiiiiiiiuii:!:
iiiiiiiMimimiimmiiiiiiiMiiiiiniiiiimmiiiwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
niMiiiiiiiMmiiiiiiiiiiniiiiir
191
add to these short-lived works a sort of comic opera, which never had a definite title, but whose chief and veryludicrous charalers were a king, Paf, and
his
in
words
Si
ma
prire criminelle
les
Pouvait toucher
If then
dieux retors
my
criminal appeal
for once, the wily
Should touch,
gods
^Bl
the
to the
shall, I
list
think,
the
more
serious
head
(I
an air in his
choruses,
scenery,
orchestration,
dire6lions
Esmeralda" of Vi6lor Hugo, so murderously handled by Mdlle. Bertin, the other on the
"
Prometheus Unbound
"
of ^schylus, put
into verse
by
my
father.
Those few
privi-
192
the piano,
in declaring
am
me
that he affeled
them
in a
many a
flash of
highest order.
slightest artistic
Anybody
susceptible of the
being
stirred,
when, after a
and
a
all
cunningly
mingled
in
seeming disorder,
"
Villiers, in
Esmeralda."
la
brune
Heure o tous les chats sont gris. Narguons Pape et bulle Dansons
!
Et
raillons
uiimnmniiiiuii';
iHiiiiiiMimimMiimiMiiimiininiMiMiniiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinii'
193
Now
To
Paris beggars
and
their
king
!
Now we'll pradlise all our wiles On our sport old Bacchus smiles
Merry fingers dancing snap At Pope or bull, nor care a rap
!
Let April soak or June embrown The shabby plumes we've worn so long, We'll gaze on them without a frown,
And
Laughing at your sorry plight, Shabby plumes we've worn so long Soaked by April's showers light, Burnt by June's relentless sun
!
Claude Frollo's
horror
air,
with an accompaniment
of Satanic laughter,
:
made one
shiver with
Eh
bien, oui
qu'importe
Dmon
Si tu
qui m'enivres
livres.
Qu'voquent mes
Je
194
Le
prtre infidle
mon
ciel
moi
ill,
In
I
terrified
awe
law
!
bow
to
its
Friend raised in
my
heart
!
By
I'll
yield
me
to thee
of sin
Having accentuated
furious energy, Villiers
seat, in
his
raised
and walk up and down the room, his hands to heaven, and his eyes flashing,
:
mon
ciel
moi
195
Very
audience
different
when
with
its
fears)
Je t'aime, apaise ton effroi, Sur les vents aux rapides ailes
J'arrive
de loin jusqu'
toi.
Le marteau sur le fer, que mon cur s'est troubl. J'ai mont sur ce char ail Dans mon empressement oubliant ma chaussure,
Et
la
pudeur au sein
voil.
la pierre
!
douleurs
Un
S'appesantit sur
ma
paupire
I love thee
The
me
!
here.
196
hammer
fall,
With
Than
In
my
Of modesty,
With
I sprang,
feet unsandalled,
bosom
bare,
Upon my
air.
Oh, cruel
My
sorrow-laden
And from my
compositions of Villiers de
Adam
to
make musicians
brier
down
some of
But
of their
have been jealous and are loath to admit that an outfugue and counterpoint, can
to.
sider, ignorant of
As
a general
may be
right.
But
it is
Villiers
was an
exception to
all rules,
and
197
Gwendoline
"
that fal.
The
come upon
to
Villiers
The
Wagner.
music.
its
He
only associated
!
with musicians
Oh, ye
gods
My
evenings at
at
accompanist,
and
critic
As
a pianist
he was
fingering
singer,
far
his
As
his
;
broke
delivery
it
to listen to him.
198
It
was during one of these fits of music madness that he brought me a very odd couple of musicians, brother and sister Cor-
sicans, called,
think,
Olivetti.
The man
was a
My
he
arrived.
He was
a huge red
his neck,
silk
and round
and
he wore a
head.
soft
grey
felt hat,
with an immense
Although a charming
pianist,
he was
of the
almost starving.
" Internationale,"
He was
member
in trouble
with
He
had also been compromised during the Commune, and was forced to hide and to live from
hand
to
lessons
and the
His
sister, Giulia,
;
a pretty soprano
was a handsome soft-eyed Italian she had voice and some musical
199
made her
it
sing
Wagner,
and hear
his
captivated and
and
selling pigs.
America.
her,
and
She took her brother there with have no doubt that he is not quite
now he
has
money
Fortunately
did not
all
Villiers'
musical acquaintances
mian
flavour.
He owed
to
music a friend-
whole of
his intellelual
life.
His intimacy
enjoyment to
with Richard
of consolation
Wagner was
and
intellelual
him,
it
inspired
some of
finest
The example
of that marvellous
and mighty
to his
and scorned
200
latest hour,
injustice ever
faith in his
own
Villiers to endure,
on
laurels,
and and
him immovably
in his convilions
Though
in
my
relation of
I I
some
speak
can no
The
But
less, it
was considered
it
Nowadays no woman
self
complete
if
into ecstasies
Lohengrin" and
Tannhauser."
Every
self-respe6ling pianist
overtures,
and
all
our
i
young
20I
The
!
outcast
Well,
God
be praised
It is
but the
way
of the world.
CHAPTER
First introdution of
XIII.
Villiers at the
Wagner and
in
house of
at
Failure of "Tannhauser" the Paris Opera 1861 Portrait and chara6ler of Richard Wagner His friends and champions His intimacy with Reminiscences of youth and early poverty Augusta Holmes
Charles
Baudelaire
Villiers
his
Villiers' visit
to
Triebchen The"Rheingold"
artistic
at
Munich Villiers
faith.
de risle Adam's
confession of
T was, as I think
at the
house of Baudelaire
Adam
met Richard Wagner. This meeting marks the date of what was, perhaps, the
bitterest
moment
in the
stormy
life
of the
great composer.
He
corous
memory
By
dint of
203
approval of Paris
hauser
" to the
and
offered "
Tann-
Imperial
Academy
of Music.
The
to
known
in-
individualities to
different
;
and he roused,
alas
more hatred than devotion. The chorus of evil-speaking, abuse, and scorn, which rose
from every side after the performance of his
work
other
in Paris,
;
so
much
It
in
his
element as
a desperate
fight.
seemed to
fresh strength
and redoubled
to each torrent
of abuse by
some proud
defiance thrown in
At
this
moment,
then,
204
shining with
determination, Villiers,
as he was,
young and
enthusiastic
met him
This
development,
steady,
their slow,
thin,
strongly-marked
hooked nose,
ironical
And
on his
selel spirits,
who,
his quarrel
and defended and admired him. His strong friendship with Catulle Mends, Baudelaire, Villiers, and a few others, dated from this epoch but similarity of tastes, and a
;
way
and
men
attraled the
205
musician
besides,
towards
each
other.
They
were,
united by a
common
about,
Wandering
two friends seldom separated before the dawn. Once, as they went down a long dreary street
which ends
the
at the
window
high house.
despaired
;
There
there
it
was
had
that he
had
really
he
almost
died
of
and poetic
French
his
works.
stuffed
He
with
told
Villiers,
in
that
Teutonisms which
all
made
conversation so odd-sounding,
the extra:
how,
towards
1839,
left
impelled
in
by
destiny,
he suddenly
Riga,
the
theatre
of
which town he condu6led the orchestra, and embarked on a sailing-ship which was going to
London, intending
fearful
2o6
and reached the end of his journey. Almost unknown as he was, and in a most precarious
pecuniary position, he saw the doors of the
Parisian theatres scornfully shut in his face.
man
to write
aroused derision.
To
be
brief,
penniless,
when
some
sum
ran
trembled in every
when
first
my fingers over the keys, but I soon found, to my exquisite joy, that I was still a musician." And now the muse of inspiration poured
out upon him the fulness of her riches.
The
memory
Il
207
it
he had seen
deep
fiords,
his imagination
The
Flying Dutchman."
And
Wagner,
indifferent
now
genius,
and with
*'
com-
But
ing
if I
lyric poem which Der Fliegende Hollander." was to give way to the temptation
all Villiers'
of recalling
his
conversations concernfriend,
great and
musically-gifted
this
one of
my
recolle6lions of himself.
"
Axel
"
more eloquent, and indeed prolix, than when his theme was Richard Wagner. One felt
that a part of the soul of the master
literally
had
and when he paraphrased in words some one of his works, he gave you, so to speak, an illusion of music.
entered
his
;
2o8
Mends has dedicated to the glory of the German maestro, he relates that Villiers had written down one
In the fine book which Catulle
of these paraphrases,
I
prelude to
"
Lohengrin."
come upon it. If the former direlor of the Revue Fantaisiste " has the work of his late
in his possession,
it,
comrade
all
to publish
he
will
lovers of literature.
Such was Villiers' passionate cultus for Wagner, that, in spite of all his poverty, I
might say penury, he would contrive to make
long journeys into Switzerland and
in
Germany
and the music of the author of " Tristan and Isolt." During one of these distant extion,
came upon a young girl whom he had already met in Paris, and whose splendid talents, now well known and uncontested, he had been among
peditions to Triebchen, near Lucerne, he
the
first
to recognize
and applaud
refer to
Villiers
was en-
209
fire,
admirably
gifted, filled
sacrifice
with sacred
on the
altar of art,
and making
light, in
Long
after-
written
in
an enthusiastic and
his
stirring strain,
detailed
recollelions of
young musician. I I must premise quote two passages from it. that Villiers saw her for the first time at
his intercourse with the
Versailles,
in the
house of her
father,
Mr.
Rue de
l'Orangerie,
was
"
his
oriental
relande,'
to
me
"
to
in-
telligent voices
any
register
delicate shades
2IO
of a musical work.
to mistrust those
am
generally inclined
cleverly-managed organs,
which often
initiated
(to
But
accent,
and
'
was enchanted with the Sirne,' the Chanson du Chamelier,' and the Pays
I
'
des
Rves,'
not
to
mention
the
Hymne
inter-
Irlandais,'
preted
so
pine-encircled
glades
and
It
was altogether a bright spot, musically speaking, pointing to an inevitably brilliant future. The evening ended with some passages from Wagner's Lohengrin,' lately published in
'
passionately
itself."
Here
is
:
Triebchen
Two
man war
VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM.
house
;
211
in spite of his
great
Munich,
the
part of the
Httle
!
NibelungenHed.'
"'A
less
'
sentiment for
my
wishes,
mademoiselle
said
Wagner,
the
of
after
he had
listened to her
with
clear-sighted
*I
and
prophetic
attention
genius.
do not
want
come within
'
it.
word of
espe-
advice
Do
cially not to
"
mine
Richard
Wagner did
at
gold' to be played
Munich.
Although
Nibelungenlied.'
His
four
was
to
give a
representation
this,
lasting
successive evenings, of
the great
his
of his
life.
work young
'
and
King
'
of Bavaria,
had broken
Rheingold
was
to
be played by
royal
command.'
Wag-
212
ner,
who had
refused
all
participation
and
all
assistance, anxious
in
was about to be destroyed, had forbidden any friend of his to attend the performance.
And many
to
musicians and
men
of letters,
travelled
Germany to hear the master's music, hardly knew whether to obey his distressing
upon anybody who counas
tenances
that
massacre,
my
personal
However, the
Richter,
letter
of
Kapellmeister
the
re-
Hans
orchestra at
we took advantage
to depart, almost
"
I
on the
have before
me
as
rather a bitter
one,
me
to Munich, and
which he
says,
'So
213
how
!
well
sages in
to atone
for
'
!
much
that might
appear incomprehensible
"
The
'
falsi-
fied
by the
triumph of the
opera
Rhein-
gold
apparent,
telligible
only fully
in-
when seen
it
Nibelungenlied,'
of which
is
the key.
were present
his threats
and
prohibitions,
and
first
the
to the
Abb
Liszt,
ing of
book belonging
to the illustrious
musician"
was one of the to hurry to Bayreuth in 1876, when, thanks to the sumptuous munifiI
Need
add that
Villiers
Frenchmen
Wag-
great dream.
214
I
which existed
two written by
nevertheless
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam, which,
would
to scholars,
in
worthy
every way to
become the
works.
fitting
Villiers, in
mouth of the beloved master, has summed up all his own artistic and religious convi6lions. When we consider how hard and miserable was the life of him who poured out his soul
versation, put into the
and
read
"
fession
it
of an
artist's
faith,
we can
hardly
One
we were
sitting in
the darkening
we
when
whether
it
215
had succeeded
'
Rienzi,'
Tannhauser,'
Lohengrin,'
'
The
'
Meistersinger
and
Parsifal,'
all ?
Whether,
he had been
sufficiently freethinking
that
in
navian myths,
had so magnificently illustrated in the NibeThis question was almost lungen Ring.
Tristan
and
Isolt,'
viz.,
that
in
that work, in
sionate
love
scornfully ascribed
to
the
name of God
Wagsmile,
ner fixed on
me
*
wonderful eyes.
2i6
*
if
did
not feel
in
my
my
in
living light
of which
you speak,
it,
works, which
I
bear witness to
corporated
the whole
all
have
in-
of a
liar,
of an ape
to
How
I
could
be childish
a frenzy
to
;
enough
work myself up
?
into
should
know
prayer
be
an imposture
My
art is
my
and,
write
otherwise than as he
betray
it
thinks.
Those who
thenceforth
for
lie,
in their
work, which
valueless,
becomes
sterile
and
no true work of
art can
be accomplished
Yes he who
!
some low
tries to
money,
make a
of
art,
a so-called work
a corpse.
the
Should such a
traitor
pronounce
name
nounces
it
would have
it
i
as
it it is,
gives,
by
his
to
him who
utters
No human
being can
own
genus,
who
recognize in
truth that
The
first
sign that
marks the
real artist
faith
;
for in
every
artistic
produlion worthy of
human
and the
unity of the
soul.
The work
always lack
fills,
of a
man
without
artist,
work of an
warms, and
be
like
because
will
the soul.
It will
life
always
by some
be
trivial
At
the
same time
let this
clearly understood:
if,
modes of
consum-
more or
less
mately
skilful
in
the
manufa6lure of their
2i8
put one
off
the scent,
will
assimilate
re-
on
The true
together,
artist,
he who can
gifts
create,
and put
needs
united.
and transfigure
great
Faith.
his
ideas,
these two
indissolubly
Knowledge and
As
in
"
my work
owe
CHAPTER
le
XIV.
contributions the press The La Rpublique des Lettres Catulle Mends K. Huysmans The Contes Cruels" Two quotations of high His A study by M. G. Guiches a and a mimic Some unpublished of Dr. Triboulat Bonhomet Bonhomet the commander-inchief Bonhomet the ermine-hunter Bonhomet the of the Scriptures Bonhomet's true adventures opinions of Bayreuth The de Adam An unexpeled A rupture.
the marquis " Figaro "
Villiers'
A monomania
'*
Villiers'
filial
tender-
for speculation
letter
from
to
"
*'
J.
Villiers'
spirits
loss
illusion
Villiers as
traits
talker
ful-
filling
letter
at
political
Vil-
liers
risle
toast
EANWHILE,
lost in
a poor and
leading
of privaold lady-
remote quarter of
a lonely existence
tion
Paris,
made up
a
frail
and
sacrifices,
still
220
living.
hunger,
in
putting out
I
The
marquise, as
have
finding her
in
of her boy.
son
he
poured out
upon
his
mother.
especially
When
of
he spoke of his
(he
parents,
her
never
did
and those gentlemen of the boulevards never heard him profane the sacred name of father
or of mother in their company), the tears
would come
off to the
The moment
his
some considerable
trouble.
Time,
far
from
221
had only
intensified
it.
Age and
alivity,
till
infir-
and he
walked the
streets
from morning
night on
Nohe
much
attention, but
would
try to insist
on whirling Matthias
he used
away
with him, and making him share in the execution of the extraordinary plans
to pro-
pound
daily.
Hence
lively discussions,
which ended
part,
laugh on
Villiers'
who would
exclaim,
"
!
The
and visions
year of his
letter,
as long as he lived.
The very
state of this
"My
"
dear Matthias,
We
desire to
22
fortune to you.
Mr.
who
at
this
moment
the
room, and
tion
who
is
(which
have had
he
in
my
and
hands), also a
good
furniture to match.
Besides
place,
this,
will
with
a magnificent feudal
meadows, and
of
forest,
and
several
leagues
wherein
we
shall
prowess as sportsmen.
(in
And we
shall
own
me to
although the
him
to place his
copy very
easily.
223
He
The
honour
be
it
said,
But
to a
new magazine,
La Rpublique des
artistic to
Lettres,"
have any
chance of longevity
century.
in
this
Revue
Fantaisiste,"
artists
were
all
heavy
but
harness of
and thought.
had preserved
and coura-
and empty platitudes. To this well-trained phalanx some youthful spirits had joined themselves, and here De
beautiful,
risle
Adam
ship with a
talent, J.
young
writer of special
and
original
K. Huysmans.
This acquaintance
224
was
tender,
later,
into a deep,
Providence
had
marked out the now justly celebrated author "A Rebours," and so many other deep and clever works, to soften by his presence and his delicate strong-heartedness the cruel
of
colle6l-
a great
artist.
This
work,
His symbolism
"
is
de la Foule
and
"
Vox
shines brilliantly in
"Vera;"
his
deep and
produces
"
La Machine
L'Etna chez
Cleste," "
which
last
the
And
in those brilliant
pages
225
was concerning
:
"
L'Annonciateur
I
"
that
its
author wrote
" If
write
is
fine litera-
yet
it is
my
think."
He
own
idio-
"
Alas
we
are like
some mighty
enveloped
in a triple
and of parchment.
One
down by
to
inheritance
as
a sacred
charge,
2 26
embalm
tomb
lies
our crime)
filled
many a we do
with com-
moner perfume, scentless and melancholy phials not worth reclosing, whose virtue weakens and melts away under every passing breath." It would be wrong to imagine Villiers as a splenetic and silent person in everyday life, notwithstanding the bitterness of his irony and his immense range of thought. He was gifted,
on the contrary, with a robust cheerfulness,
never more
of his
Paris
apparent
than
when he was
rein,
he had given
itself in his
which expressed
case
by an
But he soon
When
I'lsle
these
good
fellows
saw
De
out
Adam
note-
coming, they
would get
their
colle6led
227
So
own
and mutilated, and impudently signed with names which bore no resemblance to his
own.
These underhand
thefts,
mean
even
in the
"
remark-
Adam, published
this
When
pilfering," says
M. Guiches,
"
when he under-
His
naturally as
itself,
within
itself
his
simplicity
strainedness.
Sudden
2 28
no longer outstretched
disenchantment."
it
Villiers
was
far
from professional
men,
an atmo-
sorts of un-
expe6led conceits.
It
was
like
a perpetual
show of
and
fireworks,
crackers,
Bengal
and
Roman
candles, used to
seem
inexhaustible.
was not only a good story-teller, he could mimic like a great and original alor,
and he thus gave the innumerable personages created by his imagination an air of genuine,
if
He
often
fantastic
reality,
simulating, as
he
and
their attitudes.
Amongst
if
all
these crea-
tions,
which seem as
illuslittle
229
adventures
down
in
away
in his
company,
be reincarnated
occupy.
in
every position a
man
could
He was
and
remember some of
there
is
commanding-in- chief,
who
harangues
his
He
points out to
them
let
us have no
230
and ex-
snowy whiteness, hides himself with a wonderful silent gun, charged with ink, and
marks
its
is,
perhaps,
Bonhomet
After a
beggar
to
fulfil
all
shall not
another."
and
army of workmen,
prophecy to the
its
letter,
I
neighbour
but
little
known
231
de
I'lsle
Adam,
Gautier,
Catulle
divine
Wagner, and
of
at the per-
formance
"Parsifal"
and
the
"
Nibeall
lungenlied."
The
great master,
who was
among whom was that Grand Duke who is now Czar of all the Russias. Wagner had talked so often about Triboulat Bonhomet
that, willy nilly,
For
this
purpose
From
stifled
murmur of
As
little
un-
hilarity.
He
knew
well
his
Bonhomet had a
very comic
232
At
full
last the
The Grand
Duke
of Saxe-Weimar,
who
them.
Villiers,
with a
of lively terror.
There,
eyes, his
open
homet
bone!).
himself, in flesh
It
and bone
was Liszt! From the very first line of the manuscript, which minutely described the dolor, the whole audience had
been struck with the resemblance between
the great pianist and Triboulat
Bonhomet,
bore a
dress,
gestures, habits,
all
striking similarity.
One
VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM.
than the rest
233
Liszt himself.
the
fits
As the
situation
worked
itself out,
of laughter
became
After this
little,
up
till
now, of the
of the
that though
political
of the
truth
author
is,
The
he was Royalist by
lic
racial instinft
and Catho-
politics, in
and
platitude,
suit of
La
self the
dorffs.
more than
He
'
"That day no
V.
Inferno,
canto
234
was no longer at the head of the newspaper, and was convinced of the incontestabihty of the
claims of the future Charles XI. to the throne of France.
this
More
on
this
serious
persons than
Villiers, after
minute research,
head.
the pretensions of
have shared
Jules Favre,
his convilions
who defended
his
claim.
much
evi-
the authenticity of
which
in the
it
would be hard
to disprove,
showing
that at
all
events Louis
XVIL
Temple.
The Comte
d'Hrisson, in a
curious
called "
Le Cabinet
all
very
and a perusal
by documentary
and
sceptical minds.
^ Since the publication of the Comte d'Hrisson's book, another has appeared on this knotty point, " L'Enfant du
VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM.
235
still,
However
dorffs,
that
may
be, Villiers
was
in
when an
few
monarch
in
Villiers
was
sitting,
right.
Comte de
forty
years
had devoted
everything
intellel,
tune
he looked upon as
The august guest lost his temper (on what account I know not) with his old and faithful
servant, and, before
all
into
upon the
An
Dauphin of
France.
236
glass in hand,
" Sire "
!
he
health.
Your
dispute.
You have
the ingratitude of a
king!"
CHAPTER
XV.
of a candidate the the Conseil Gnral Opinions of the press Meetings The plans of the future councillor My departure from Paris Our separation Descrip^Bi^ 1880 by G. Guiches. of
mystery
Villiers
Fragments of a journal kept in 1879 A woman of fashion bewitched Villiers and Mar' Yvonne
at
elecSlions
tion
Villiers in
UN TING
any traces
am
endeavouring
to
relate,
have
come
about
time,
is
This journal
I
of Villiers, with
whom
was living in almost daily intercourse, and though it may be devoid of any other
merit,
it
has at
all
it
and that
it
faithfully
my
original impressions.
From
238
it,
one of the
life
last incidents in
of
which
was a
witness.
The
reader
will, I
am
the
"
sure, forgive
monotony of
06lober, 1879.
for
from Bayreuth
some
days, and
gave
me
hears
it.
A distant
relation of
my
ing, elegant,
and deplorably
now passing through Paris. She has come to make some purchases, to buy a trousseau,
and
is
I
to
silks.
God
alone
knows what is inside the head of a young and fashionable woman coming to Paris, with
a pocketful of money, to
It
*
do her shopping
dressmakers,
' !
appears to
me
beyond shops,
however,
to
milliners,
Yesterday,
Madame
to
de
come
my
house to
talk
about our
own
part
239
me
her
list
of engage-
made
of an hour, in
had not been previously acquainted. Well when Mar' Yvonne, my Breton servant,
.
!
brought
in
the
lamp
still
at
six
o'clock,
my
sofa,
sitting
on the
Villiers,
who, standing
comic gestures,
how
the
how
King of Bavaria valsed! Who can tell the miracle was accomplished ? These
all
description
During
lungen
performance
astonishing
imitated one
with queer
refle6lions,
vile
puns,
and
bitter jests.
He
and with astonishing power, all the august, illustrious, and crackbrained people he had met at Bayreuth, from the
240
king and the princesses down to the crazylooking musical professors from the
universities.
German
He
gave us
in
magnificent
description of the
way
and tyrannical maestro, Wagner, ruled the little court with his iron rod, and lorded it
over the king just as an usher in a school
will
lord
it
He
was, in
short, as
and
said,
irresistible.
*
Yes,'
my young
in
relative
!
am
is
furious
my
He
When
all
the Paris
came back I found him disputing He was with Mar' Yvonne in my bedroom.
I
"
my
;
wardrobe,
'
some white
want,'
cravats.
*
Ah,
he said
serious
'
!
very serious
ties,
most serious
ties
He
wrapped three up in an old newspaper, and was going away without speaking to me after
a hearty silent handshake.
tion
tal
I
tried to ques-
of
all
capi-
about
by-and-by
'
!
and he went
off bursting
with
laughter.
his
There was an alarming look in eyes which made me suspel some terrible
I
:
am
sure,
sir,
that
Monsieur
is
plotting
something.
He
has
brought
as
"
shiny as the
What
can
it all
'
mean
"
projels
November, 1879. There were no matrimonial plans, and Villiers' new mad projel
surpasses for comicality the best conception
He
1
has offered
7th Arrondisse-
ment
Gnral
of the
Seine, which
Nor
is
is this all
Bonhomet
supported by
all
his
expenses.
still
it
It
is
seems utterly
per-
improbable, and
absolutely true.
He
has bewitched
242
dowagers, and
Those
shirts
which
it
His adversary
is
his black
The
'
Figaro
'
is,
as
it
always,
sym-
pathetic
to Villiers, but
looks
upon the
Some
of the great
phrases.
talk with
ness,
writer
with
I
many
laudatory
my
I
and
upon it as at all a matter of humbug. I am certain he has a secret hope and desire of success. How full of contradidlion
poet,
fall
is
the
this
human breast This admirable artist par excellence, has just let
!
to
me
this phrase,
incomprehensible as
243
I
After
all,
hold
man
this
is
public
and end
brain,
in
office.'
Fortunately
flitting
across
his
it
mighty
himself
and he
has,
will
soon laugh at
He
me
moreover,
no chance
may
He
told
what alarmed some worthy delegates who interviewed him, by stating that, if he was honoured by eledlion, he should demand,
from the aesthetic point of view, the demolition
of several monuments, such as the Opera House, the Church of St. Sulpice, and
the Panthon.
And
he also
Prison
Let
me add
article
to these fragments of
per-
from an
de
I'lsle
Adam
to
the
glory
of
Mdlle.
Augusta
Holmes.
244
" I
January,
1880.
If
my memory
serves me,
my
M. de Hrdia.
It
may be
being
added,
by the way,
nowaI
had
obtained, as
of six hundred
eledlors
my
worthy anta-
Figaro
'
triumph
letters
were content.
just
:
to
what concerns us
is
this
At
Academy
of
much
discussed,
I
and
one evening
declared at a party.
245
red
contrary to
elelion has
all
the
whims),
first
was
successful in
this venture,
my
care,
when
the proper
moment
arrived,
would be
to point out to
and
member
is
of the
official
smile
me
So
dismissed
I
my
dubbed them prosy, in order to gratify their little vanity, and I was not at all surprised to hear that it was those two members
who,
if
favour of the
by an
enthusiastic
What
poets
adventure.
me
246
I
but providence
in
Thenceforward, in spite of
tion for Villiers,
my
deep
affec-
and our years of close intimacy, I only held rare communication with him, with here and there a hasty meeting
rarer
still.
Does
?
this
faith-
less-hearted
contrary,
gold.
No, indeed
is
He
had, on the
what
But
in order to
demonstrate his
affec-
tion to you,
He
lived so
much
if
in the
far-away land of
dreams, that
stantly
and tangibly of your existence, you came little by little to hold a vague and shadowy place in his mind, like the sweet and far-off memory of some loved and longAnd this was my fate. New lost friend. elements, too, and more intimate affelions,
entered into his
life
;
reputation brought
him new
friendships
into
and
His
new
last
admirers,
more
fullest.
Then
247
came
and death,
friendship.
if life
without, alas
knitted
the strands
old
his
What
is
matter
it is
my
!
hard,
at all
meet again Here then end my personal reminiscences. I owe my ability to add in one last chapter some details of the poet's later life to the numerous articles concerning him published immediately after his death. Amidst these
shall
articles, filled,
many
fix
there
all
is
one
the attention of
artists.
"
was published by M. G. Guiches in the Nouvelle Revue," and has already been
subtle author (whose psycho-
logical researches
He
has shown
in
a strikingly true
life,
248
reproduce
it,
it
here.
am When
I
let
to
and the
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam
of
1880,
resuscitated
before
him.
"
He
would
raise
head,
telle6lual beauty.
The broad
forehead, lined
ex-
as
it
book of
art.
The deep
depressions on the
The
light blue
bore
all
the
external
chara6leristics
swimming in the light of his mystic visions, or dimmed with the tears which any
balls,
religious
emotion or deep
artistic feeling
would
bring to them,
made
his
glance strangely
VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM.
luminous.
All the
life
249
seemed
The
animal or
its
smallness
want of decision
in pralical matters.
The
mous-
up
la
quetaire,
of the anxiety of a
of daily
life,
and
tasting,
utter.
From
sometimes low,
of
some old savant, half-mad with learning, when he discovers the precious meaning of some
like
the laughter
ancient inscription,
the diabolic
250
moss-grown
land."
towers of the
Father-
"
"
CHAPTER XVI. widow Closing years Birth of a son father Success of the "Contes Totor and the Cruels Appearance of " L'Eve Future
Villiers'
Little
his
"
"
in
Moderne "The murderous treatment of the "Nouveau Monde" at the Thtre des Nations The deaths of the marquis and the marquise J.K.Huysmans "ARebours" His opinion " Triboulat Bonhomet " " Propos of Villiers' work d'au-del " Akdysseril ""L'Amour Supreme
'
Gaulois
"The
" Vie
"
Prosperity " Histoires Insolites " Nouveaux Contes Cruels" "Axel" Sickness Letter
Paris
"
Lelures in Belgium
Return
to
moments
Conclusion.
in
this
obviously
The
entrance
of this
all
upon
whom
the
252
now
jealously
gined that
was ended for him. It is worthy of remark how much Villiers' literary fertility gained in amount and
all
in regularity
from
this time.
Doubtless his
him
of
for the
in
realities
life
pradlical fashion.
I
burdensome,
I
de
Adam.
know
was without any education, of the I am aware that the liaison gave rise to much calumny on the part of the poet's enemies, and much sadness and But I astonishment on that of his friends.
humblest extraction, and
know,
years that
woman was
of his
by her
affe6lion
and that
in
253
knew
in this world.
And
know,
lastly,
that
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam,
on the very brink of eternity, did not think this humble companion unworthy of that supreme a6l of self-sacrifice by which he gave
her the right to bear his
name
before
God
all
and men.
For
all
widow
late
husband, and
believe
shall best
con-
in respelful
As soon
as
little
Vilor
("
Totor," as he
was called in the intimacy of his family circle) had left his first baby lispings behind him, and was able to toddle a little, he became the constant companion of his father's walks. In the daytime one was seldom to be met without the
other,
to
be something
at
once
and
254
amount of
Some
and thus earn a little money. Meanwhile " L'Eve Future" was nearly finished. Some
of his friends, knowing the writer's
difficulties,
deavour to get
literary
life,
this,
published as a
Although
Villiers
daily slices
made
hard necessity.
It
was the
"
Gaulois
"
which
had the idea of offering the profound and startling work of the gifted writer as intellectual food to its readers
all
of
them
habitual
admirers of Ohnet,
The
issue
had to be stopped
255
left
middle-class public
off
subscribing in swarms.
was not great to looked upon the appearance of " L'Eve Fu" ture " in the serial columns of the " Gaulois It was not till two as a sort of gigantic joke.
setting
worthy of
it
in the beautiful
and luxu-
La Vie Moderne,"
Villiers even-
He
ought never to
a
have allowed
failure
opening night.
256
purpose.
One
at
one evening,
my
present,
told
me
This remarkable
finest
still
historical
some
intelli-
gent and
manager.
But
hardly
know
A
faith,
cruel
however,
less cruel by his strong religious was reserved to Villiers in the end of The two lights which had for so 1883.
many
his
warm
affe6lion over
out,
otherwise dreary
life,
went
almost
The marquise
Avenue
to
till
little
dwelling in the
Malakoff
Life
The marquis
brilliant
his
dreams, deaf
and blind
day
in
some
and the
the next!
257
The
silent
illusions of the
all
and tenderer,
In her day-dreams
(their dagger-thrusts
filial
last
throb
love.
that
by
maternal
Poor
the
Villiers
wept
sorely,
his
dead
spent
all
money he possessed
having them
(not
much, poor
buried,
fellow!), in
fittingly
Totor."
It
was
at this
moment
that he gave
up
having inherited
amongst which survived one or two remnants of former grandeur, a grand piano by
Pape,
and
Louis
XV.
table
with fine
copper mounts.
Providence owed Villiers some compensation for such bitter sorrows, borne with so
much
Christian resignation
s
and
if
the void
258
some strong and considerate friendships, which surrounded him even on his deathbed, did much to lessen it. Among these friends, none was more useful and more congenial to him than M. J. K. Huysmans. Until the year 1884, the two writers had frequently met at close quarters without making acquaintance. Each was afraid of the other's exterior, and neither realized their great psychological and inentirely
filled,
yet
tellelual
resemblance.
This
resemblance
of his
wildest flights,
condensed
his
into
most
original, best
"A
Rebours."
as
I
Knowing
from
of Villiers' nature,
my own
sensations,
what
exquisite
259
book
that
the
book
to the author of
de F Isle Adam.
it
But
Future
and
" Axel."
"He
whose scattered works he still noted some seditious passages, and in which some thrills of morbid emotion still
vibrated, but
least of
'
de risle Adam,
which,
Claire Lenoir,'
an overwhelming sense of
reader.
on the
story
close discussion
and
it
26o
reproduces.
*
said
of
on inserted
tales of
in the
Vera,'
ness
of
the story
full
of an
exquisite
tenderness.
We
phantoms of the American author, but a warm, translucent, almost celestial vision, the opposite, though in an identical style, of Beatrice and Ligeia, those pallid spe6lres raised by the inexorable nightmare of the
opium-eater.
operation
to
its
of the
human
will,
but not as
weaknesses and
failures,
under the
influence of terror.
trary, its
It studies,
on the con-
and
posing
on intangible things."
" there exists
Villiers,
" But,"
he went on to say,
261
of
more keen and clearly-defined a side gloomy jesting and cruel raillery. This
rise,
gives
cations of
to that sad
One
de
Les Demoi-
selles
'
L'Affichage Cleste,'
*
La Machine
Gloire,'
Le
and inventive
order.
All
in these
lighted
Des
little
use
own
its
little
patron saint"
Villiers
:
we find
effigies
Vox
Populi" of
in
"
a golden
of Leconte de L'Isle
and of Flaubert."
This great book,
"
risle
bond which united Huysmans to Villiers de Adam in what was to prove a lasting
202
consideration and was most beneficial to the latter, softening to him many a blow, many a bitterness, and many a humiliation. If he had lived long enough it might have given him a taste for a regular, sober, retired and studious existence, and have drawn him away by degrees from the terrible manner of life which ended by consuming his strength. But it was too late. By the time Huysmans knew him, death had marked him for his
friendship,
tender
own
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam
'*
produced a great
Nouveau
L'Eve Future" (1883 came "Triboulat Bonhomet," the first volume of a long series he projected, which was to relate with minute detail all the adventures and discoveries
that of
to 1886).
Monde" and
First of
all
of the
worthy do6lor.
expresses
This
is
how
the
author
himself
on
the
subje6l
in the preface
work
"We
first
of
all,
263
manner
*'
Next,
parable and
story of
bility
'
us the
for
shoulders.
fear, this
is
as
we have some
some
reason to
incontestable, obtains
we
shall
anecdotes of which he
aphorisms of which he
is
*'
Bonhomet the swan-hunter, " The Paper of Dr. Triboulat Bonhomet on the Utilization of Earthquakes,' " and the " Banquet of the
'
Eventualists."
"Propos d'au-dela"
Brunhoff),
(i
vol.,
published prose
and
the
superb
by poem,
" Akedysseril,"
which reproduces in
realistic
East Indies.
with
"
204
full
"L'Amour Supublishers,
in its
final
a whimsical covering.
to this
Villiers
To
dreamers and to
lists in
pages
fancy and
irony, struggle
The
the
portant
first
work of
his literary
life,
a long preface,
at
was published
I
M. G. Guiches,
have
its
will
only
ment none
it
"
know no precedent
it,
for
it.
my
book,
like
nor analogous to
Whether
for-
rence,
do not think
its
*
it
will
be utterly
famous
'
rather of the
et
quibusdam
265
L'Eve Future" caused a sort of stupor of astonishment amongst the ranks of the critics. These gentlemen really It was not did not know what to say to it. like anything that was generally written, and, besides, Villiers' reputation made them Yet it was imposfear some mystification. sible to deny that this one book contained more imagination, more scientific knowledge, and more art than all the other works appearing at the same time put together. The re"
The appearance of
jests,
all
it,
diluted
of them,
without
much understanding
acclaimed
Villiers
writer, his
much
preoccupation
in
Belgium, that
literature-
ever succeeds
in
France.
The
following
head-
266
quarters at Brussels,
the author of
"
offers to
Villiers,
him
art.
off,
men and
by
He
started,
occasion, like
Some
M. Guiches
I
in the
that Villiers
that a
toires
had
left
new
Insolites,"
was about
appear
Quantin's.
"
My
dear
"
I
M
*
cannot
till
send to the
to-
morrow, as
from a le6lure,
and
am
success
have had.
267
beg of you
the
post just
going)
with
publishers
absence.
compHments,
is
in
the
author's
I
This
constantly done.
so
will
But
to-morrow to
for the
And
least
in
I
I
have, besides,
all
the proofs
off.
At
in
advance
at
my
le6tures,
which
am
about to read,
extrals. to
My
dear M"
You send me no
am
my
for
works,
of
268
me, and
am
am
giving
and hope
to bring
back a
start
little
money.
shall not
be able to
It can-
back
till
Saturday or Sunday.
*
Histoires Insolites*
Hearty greetings
"
ViLLIERS.
**
P.S.
!
"
accent
"
"
My
dear Friend,
off.
Huge
Three
I
columns about
the
me
in
every paper.
147.
am
at
Hasty greetings
" P.S.
Send the
'
lelure."
Thus did
upon him.
Alas
it
to
make
269
She hated this great gentleman, this poet, who had always borne with magnificent scorn the deepest wounds
him seem more
she gave him, scarce feeling them, indeed,
to
him
at birth
by
his
god-
ideal.
And
all
his disdain,
Everything smiled on
1888.
Villiers in that
year
was free from want; he had grown famous publishers received him with
;
He
a friendly smile
as "
Master
;
" at
pentier s
buzzed
the
flatteringly
around him.
"
Axel
" (in
great
lites "
" Histoires
Inso-
and the
Nouveaux Contes
Cruels,"
He
And lo
sick-
came upon him like a terrible, implacable enemy, threw its arms about him, overthrew
2 70
and convulsed
in
agonizing suffering.
weary
woods and
;
had
retired
to
Nogent-sur-Marne
and
you how he
last
left
Nogent
for
Jean de
there,
his
hours
passed
sacrifice
worthy of
appealed to
true
and heartbreaking
poet's end.
details the
story of the
my
its
request,
in spite of
memory
of the
sake of paying a
last
is
homage
to his friend
and comrade.
Here
his letter:
271
Dear
Sir,
"
I"
to me.
liers
in
'
by no means a stranger I have read your words about VilL'Hermine,' and several times, if
does not deceive me, our late
You
my memory
fore,
friend mentioned
that
I
you to me.
to
knew, there-
had
ward appearance only was unfamiliar, when Landry ^ spoke to me of the book you thought
of writing.
" Villiers
to
have had
I
am
who certainly
may be
as the
of our day.
first
years
ago
(in
1876) at the
*
who managed the Rpublique des Lettres,' on which we were both writing. But our
^
M. G. Landry, head
clerk to
M.
seller,
whom
cannot
book.
sufficiently
me
during
my
272
we
We
of
'
recommenced.
and
He
used to come
occasions
with me,
these
were
to those who met him. Susand justly on the defensive as he generally was when he met literary people,
memorable ones
picious,
the hesitating
mode
of expression in which
he usually took refuge the moment he felt he had let himself go too far, was laid aside
in the congenial
atmosphere of
faithful friend-
ship
any
he would
life,
own
in a
remember,
father
in
this
conne6lion,
one
14th of July,
the
of Lucien
rouge.
After dinner,
273
" But
raising
far
something
beyond
yond the widest range of possibility. There was a punchbowl always flaming, as it were, in his brain. How often have I seen him in the
morning, just out of bed and hardly awake,
holding forth as brilliantly as
when
of an
evening he would
"
tell
us astounding anec!
rarer.
Sickness
in his bed.
him shivering
Weary
grew worse. Dr. Robin recognized the symptoms of cancer, but disguised the truth, asserting that the malady was one of the digestive organs, and fortunately Villiers believed him.
One day
that he
was more
in.
suffering than
to
man complained
It
me
about
was, as a matter of
with damp.
He
said he
would
like to leave
274
it,
nurses to
turn and
move him
in
in his bed.
mentioned
Rue
Oudinot
letter
Paris,
later
had a
in their
convinced of his
plans,
speedy recovery,
to give
full
of
amongst others
up going to the
brasseries
quietly in
some corner
far
journalism.
"
all
He who had
his life
was now
comparative affluence,
at-
tentive friend,
for him,
had
on
and
I,
my part,
had
at
my disposal
a tolerable
sum which
me
began
about
'Axel,' which
stocks,
and
275
to
remodel,
suppressing
some
theories in
And
first
silent.
For the
the end-
He
beheld
life
as
it
his
became frightful. A sort of straw-coloured shadow crept over his features, and in the wasted face the eyes lived
strength failed, his emaciation
on,
seeming
In spite
Madame Mry
Laurent, a
ing
And
here must
of his marriage.
not disclose,
Villiers
hung back,
276
him
in
order
mother, with
pelled
whom
Im-
by our argument,
name, he at
last
consented.
But when
put us
came
to fixing the
necessary papers
raised
objelions,
together,
and
finally
shut
himself
to
up
be
in
we had
silent too.
The
friends
Stphane
wiles to
Guiches, and
know what
employ
him
to yield.
He
was growing hourly weaker, and we began to fear he would die before we could get the
documents necessary
gether.
for
the
it
marriage
to-
occurred to
me
277
was a gentle and compassionate monk, who had already helped Barbey d'Aurevilly
to die.
story,
I
He
had
communion
from
i
"He
for
simply answered:
there.
I
me
will
him.'
Five minutes
he
left
the sick-
Time
pressed,
and
it
was
difficult to
get
hold
of the certificates
about
Of
the few
(his
friends
caf
who
still
remained
faithful to
him
ones
Paris were
shut up
day
It
in his office,
and myself.
was
ill,
and had
Laurent
Madame
waters.
Mry
was
away taking
There was a wild hunt after the necessary documents. Guiches and M. de Malherbe (a
clerk at Quantin's bookshop,
who was
to
be
278
one of the
to
it,
devoted themselves
us,
with the
help of an employ
7th Arrondissement,
the
Mairie of the
admirer of
difficulties
at,
Villiers,
we
sary certificates.
The marriage
took place in
the sick-room.
to reveal the
And here
truth.
hesitate
somewhat
will
whole
But you
make
fals,
this letter,
and you
all
will
of
them absolutely
which
send you,
On
the whole,
they should
of such a
"
man
it
When
became necessary
know
There was a terrible moment how of silence. Villiers lay in agony with his eyes Ah he was spared nothing. His closed.
to write.
!
279
And
while
we were
all
looking at each
added
can
make make
a cross as
did for
my
first
marriage.'
And we
her to
the mark.
M. de
Malherbe, and
I,
tasted a
little
champagne
to us.
which
Villiers insisted
on offering
Then
came
to celebrate the
it
And
then
was
that
we
to
priest's
wife used
In spite of her
Jean shut
visits
had
to
and
was a heartbreak to the unhappy man, who dreaded dying alone in the night.
this
When
dilion, the
women
are not
rule,
28o
eyes
fell
fatigue,
and we
" I
left
him.
to see
went
day, and
all
He
could no longer
and look
at
The evening
wan
I
and
felt
I
as
late,
was I had to hurry away, for it was very and the convent was closing for the
night.
"
early next
*
morning
His
made me jump
I
out of bed.
Villiers is dead,'
said to myself,
and
shall
it
was too
say
?
true.
my
room.
What more
Better say
come
their
wares,
able
draw
281
and cease
inquiry.
" Little
funeral,
at
Dierx, and
And
yet
will
pronounced the
St.
benedilion, in the
Church of
Franois
Xavier.
Our own
*
we
applied,
to the
office
of the
and
M.
I
Magnard,
never can
sum necessary
"
expenses of the
give you more
Villiers' life,
my
dear
sir,
will
and
will furnish
details of that
forlorn,
extraordinary
penniless,
existence,
starving,
as to
make
282
so
relate to
you
"In
heart.
conclusion, dear
sir,
I
have
it
to wish
all
do
with
my
May
regret for
its
own
injustice
in
that
public
"Believe me,
etc.,
"J. K. HUYSMANS."
The
M. Henri de
Villiers
whom
de
Adam
room.
have
life
of that great
Philippe
and great
artist,
the
Comte
de
Auguste Matthias de
Villiers
I'lsle
Adam,
283
"
On
as a
November
the house of
Invalides,' the
brown-robed
monk
I
saw before me Villiers de risle Adam lying on his deathbed. We are alone together, he and I. The little room is
behind me, and
very quiet, clean with the cleanliness of the
cloister
coldly calm.
On
and the half-closed eyes of the who shall scoff no more, gazing
coffin
it
lifelessly at the
waiting on the
as though
it
floor,
seem
on
died
to contemplate
I
were a
friend.
kneel on a prie-dieu,
I
and gaze
the
have known
and loved.
is all
ciated
by long and
But the
284
head seems
marbles,
Sightless
to
and whitest of
bereft
it
stands
and voiceless as
of
made
glorious,
seems to
lived,
fill
the room.
Villiers
seems
to
and fought,
faith
and sung,
exile.
It
in
which
was as solemnly
as
it
would and
I
dais,
Adam
of
wounds, and
thirst,
had
at last,
God who
whole of
being.
As
looked at
in
his
285
was
and pralising what he beHeved. It was his faith alone which kept him straight to the
end of the book of and
his
life,
on the
he inherited
I
it
father.
And
man
he
is
free,
life
of
emptiness, of
of
many
pangs, which
health,
brought him
"
nothing,
neither
nor
Death did not come upon Villiers unawares he watched its slow approach with
;
perfe6l calmness.
He bore the
Cross of Malta
was beginning.
He
knew, in
humble
trust, that
come
for
286
his
own judgment on
Azrael
'
Death
'
!
those
"
FINIS.
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