Chapter 42

between twelve and one, at a house in the Faubourg Saint-Jacques, near the hospital of the Val-de-Grace. The letter told me how to proceed. There being no concierge in the house, I was to provide myself with a 'dark lantern,' and to go up four flights of stairs, where I should find a door with a cross chalked upon it. It would be opened by my giving a particular knock. My previous danger notwithstanding, I had not the least suspicion of this being a trap. I did not for one moment connect the letter with the other event, the recollection of which, strange as it may seem to you, did not obtrude itself at all then. But there was another reason for the absence of caution on my part. In one of its corners the letter bore a sign, not exactly that of a secret society, but agreed upon among certain patriots.

"In short, a little before twelve o'clock that night, I went to the place appointed. I had no difficulty in finding the house, and reached the fourth story without meeting a soul. There was the door, with the cross chalked on it. I knocked once, twice, without receiving an answer. Still, the thought of evil never entered my head. I began to think that I had been the victim of a hoax of some youngsters of the École des Beaux-Arts, most of whom were aware of my political opinions. I was just turning round to go down again, when a door by the side of that indicated was slowly opened, and a young girl with a lighted candle appeared on the threshold. Though both the candle and my lantern did not shed much light, I perceived that, at the sight of me, she turned very pale, but, until she spoke, I failed to recognize her. Then I saw it was Clémentine, my model. She scarcely gave me time to speak. 'It is you, M. David,' she said, in a voice trembling with fear and emotion. 'You,' she repeated. 'For Heaven's sake, go!--go as quickly as you can! If you stay another moment, you will be a corpse; for God's sake, go! And let me beg of you not to breathe a word of this to any one; if you do, my mother and I will pay for this with our lives. For God's sake, go. I did not know that you were the person expected. Go--go!'

"I do not think I answered a single word. I felt instinctively that this was no hoax, as I had imagined, but terrible reality. I went downstairs as fast as I could, but it was not until I got into the street that a connection between the two events presented itself to me. Then I decided to wait and watch. I hid myself in the doorway of a house a few steps away. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed when half a dozen individuals arrived, one by one, and disappeared into the house that sheltered Clémentine and her mother. One of them, I feel sure, was the man whom I suspected of having attempted my life before. A few years more went by, during which I often thought of my former model; and then, one day, I felt I would like to see her again. In plain daylight this time, I repaired to the house of the Faubourg Saint-Jacques, clambered up the stairs, and knocked at the door I had such good cause to remember. The door was opened by a workman, and a rapid glance at the inside of the room showed me that he was a lastmaker. 'Mademoiselle Clémentine?' I asked. The man stared at me, and said, 'No such person lives here.' I made inquiries on all the lower floors--nobody had ever heard of her. Clémentine had disappeared. I never saw her again until a few days ago, when I walked by your side behind the body of Cortot. I should not have recognized her but for the bronze Christ she carried under her arm, and which attracted my notice. If what I surmise be correct, she must have reached the last stage of misery; for I feel convinced that nothing but absolute want would make her part with it. I have, however, failed to trace it in any of the bric-à-brac shops on the quays, and I believe that I have pretty well inquired at every one; so I must fain be content until fate throws her again across my path."

So far the story as told by the great sculptor himself. During the next eight years, in fact up to the Coup d'État, I met him frequently, and, curiously enough, rarely failed to inquire whether in his many wanderings through Paris he had caught a glimpse of his former model. I felt unaccountably interested in the fate of that woman whom I had never seen, and, if we had been able to find her, would have endeavoured to find a decent home for her. But for about three years my inquiries always met with the same answer. Then, one evening in the latter end of '46 or beginning of '47, David told me that he had met her on the outer boulevards, arm in arm with one of those terrible nondescripts of which one is often compelled to speak again and again, and which, as far as I am aware, are nowhere to be found as a class except in the French metropolis and great provincial centres. Clémentine evidently wished to avoid David. A little while after, he met her again, and this time followed her, but, though by no means a coward, lacked the courage to enter the hovel into which she had disappeared with her companion. The last time he saw her was in the middle of '47, in the Rue des Boucheries. She seemed to have returned to her old quarters, and she was by herself. Until she spoke, David did not recognize her. Her face was positively seamed with horrible scars, "wounds inflicted by her lovers"--Heaven save the mark! She asked him to help her, and he did; but she had scarcely gone a few steps when she was arrested and taken to the prison of l'Abbaye de St. Germain, hard by, whither David followed to intercede for her. He was told to come back next morning, and that same evening communicated the affair to me. I decided there and then to accompany him, in order to carry out my plan of redeeming that human soul if possible. I failed, though through no fault of my own, but my attempt brought me in contact with a personage scarcely less interesting in his own way than David, namely, M. Canler, the future head of the Paris detective force. It was through him that I got an insight into some of the most revolting features of criminal life in Paris. But, before dealing with that subject, I wish to devote a few more lines to David, whom I had the honour of numbering among my friends till the day of his death, albeit that the last few years of his life were spent away from France, whither he returned, however, to die in '56. After the Coup d'État he was exiled by Louis-Napoléon--ostensibly, for his political opinions; in reality, because he had refused to finish the monument for Queen Hortense's tomb after her son's fiasco at Boulogne.

Writing about France and Frenchmen, I feel somewhat reluctant to make too lavish a use of the words "patriot" and "patriotism," especially with the patriots and the patriotism of the Third Republic around me. But I have no hesitation in saying that, to David d'Angers, these words meant something almost sacred. Sprung from exceedingly poor parents, he had amassed, by honest work, a fortune which, to men born in a higher sphere and with far more expensive tastes, might seem sufficient. Seeing that he was frugality and simplicity personified, that his income was mainly spent in alleviating distress, and that his daughter was even more simple-minded than her father, he had nothing to gain by the advent of a republic, nothing to lose by the establishment of a monarchy or empire, and his ardent championship of republican institutions--such as he conceived them--was prompted solely by his noble nature. That Louis-Napoléon should have exiled such a man was an error his warmest friends could scarcely forgive him. But David never complained, any more than he ever uttered a harsh word against the memory of Flaxman, who, in his youth, had shut his doors against him under the impression that he was a relation of Louis David who had voted for the death of Louis XVI. On the contrary, the memory of the great English sculptor was held in deep reverence.

And so David departed, a wanderer on the face of the earth with his daughter. He first endeavoured to settle in Brussels, but the irresistible desire to behold once more what he himself considered his greatest work, the monument to Marcos Botzaris, attracted him to Greece. A friend, to whom he communicated his intention, wrote to him, "Do not go." He gave him no further reason; he even withheld from him the fact that he had been at Missolonghi a twelvemonth previously. The explanation of this reticence may be gathered from David's letter to him a few days after his, David's, return. I have been allowed to copy it, and give it verbatim.

"Long before our vessel anchored near the spot where Byron died, I caught a glimpse of the tumulus erected at the foot of the bastion, in honour of Botzaris and his fellow-heroes. It made a small dark spot on the horizon, and above it was a speck, much smaller and perfectly white. I knew instinctively that this was my statue of the 'young Greek girl,' and I watched and watched with bated breath, fancying as the ship sped along that the speck moved. Of course, it was only my imagination, the presumptuous thought that the marble effigy would start into life at the approach of its creator.

"Alas, would I had proceeded no further--that I had been satisfied with the mirage instead of pushing on in hot haste towards the reality! For the reality was heart-rending, so heart-rending that I wept like a child, and clenched my fists like a giant in despair. The right hand of the statue, the index finger of which pointed to the name, had been broken; the ears had disappeared, one of the feet was broken to atoms, and the face slashed with knives. It was like the face of the girl that had sat for me, when I last saw it, under the circumstances which, you may remember, I told you. The whole was riddled with bullets, and some tourists, British ones probably, had cut their names on the back of the child. And so ends the most glorious chapter of my artist's career--the model itself fallen beyond redemption, the work mutilated beyond repair, the author of it in exile.

"I felt powerless to repair the mischief. I did not stay long. Perhaps I ought not to complain. I knew that Byron had been buried near the fortifications at Missolonghi, but all my efforts to find the spot have proved useless.[74] The house where he breathed his last had been pulled down. Why should the Greeks have more reverence for Botzaris or Mavrocordato than they had for the poet? and if these three are so little to them, what must I be, whose name they probably never heard? Still, as I stood at the stern of the departing vessel, I felt heart-broken. I have no illusions left."

[Footnote 74: Of course, David meant the spot where the remains had been interred at first.--EDITOR.]

I firmly believe that the injury done to the statue hastened David's death. His work has since been restored by M. Armand Toussaint, his favourite pupil, who gave his promise to that effect a few days before the great sculptor breathed his last. The monument was, however, not brought to Paris until 1861, and when M. Toussaint had finished his task, he invited the press and the friends of his famous master to judge of the results. It was at the door of his studio that I saw the woman, whose adventures I have told in the preceding notes, for the first time. A fortnight later, she died at the hospital of La Charité, at peace, I trust, with her Maker. "Fate, Providence, call it what you will," as David himself would have said, had brought me to the spot just in time to alleviate the last sufferings of one who, though not altogether irresponsible for her own errors, was to a still greater extent the victim of a system so iniquitous as to make the least serious-minded--provided he be endowed with the faintest spark of humanity--shudder. I allude to the system pursued by the Paris detective force in their hunt after criminals--a system not altogether abandoned yet, and the successful carrying out of which is paid for by the excruciating tortures inflicted upon defenceless though fallen women--but women still--by the _souteneur_. I refrain from Anglicizing the word; it will suggest itself after the perusal of the following facts, albeit that, fortunately with us, the creature itself does not exist as a class, and, what is worse, as a class recognized by those whose first and foremost duty it should be to destroy him root and branch.

* * * * *

The morning after Clémentine's arrest, David and I repaired to the prison of l'Abbaye Saint-German. When the sculptor sent in his name, the governor himself came out to receive us. But the woman was gone; she had been transferred, the previous night, to the dépôt of the préfecture de police, "where," he said, "if you make haste, you will still find her." He gave us a letter of introduction for the official charged to deal with refractory "filles soumises," or offending insoumises, because, then as now, these unfortunates were not tried by an ordinary police magistrate in open court, but summarily punished by said official, the sentences being subject, however, to revision or confirmation by his superior, the chief of the municipal police. Nay, the decisions were not even communicated to these women until they were safely lodged in Saint-Lazare, lest there should be a disturbance; for they were not examined one by one; and, as may be imagined, the contagion of revolt spread easily among those hysterical and benighted creatures.

When we reached the préfecture de police the judging was over, but, on our sending in our letter, we were admitted at once to the official's room. After David's description, he remembered the woman, and told us at once that she had not been sent to Saint-Lazare, but liberated. Some one had interceded for her--no less a personage than Canler, who, though at the time but a superintendent, was already fast springing into notice as a detective of no mean skill. "What had he done with her?" was David's question. "I could not tell you," was the courteous reply; "but I will give you his address, and he will no doubt give you all the information in his power and consistent with his duty." With this we were bowed out of the room.

We did not succeed in seeing Canler until two days afterwards, or, rather, on the evening of the second day; for, at that period, he was entrusted with the surveillance of the theatres on the Boulevard du Temple. I may have occasion to speak of him again, so I need not give his portrait here. He was about fifty, and, unlike one of his successors, M. Claude, the type of the old soldier. Of his honesty there never was, there could have never been, a doubt, nor was his intelligence ever questioned. And yet, this very honest, intelligent man, in his all-absorbing pursuit, the detection and chasing of criminals, was sufficiently dishonest and unintelligent to foster, if not to inaugurate, a system subversive of all morality.

David's name was a passport everywhere, and, no sooner had it been sent in, than Canler came out to him. The sculptor stated his business, and the police officer made a wry face. "I am afraid, M. David, I cannot help you in this instance. To speak plainly, I have restored her to her souteneur." We both opened our eyes very wide. "Yes," came the remark, "I know what you are going to say. I can sum up all your objections before you utter them. But I could not help myself; the fellow rendered me a service, and this was the price of it. Without his aid, one of the most desperate burglars in Paris would still be at large. As it is, I have got him safe under lock and key. Very shocking, no doubt; mais, à la guerre comme à la guerre." Then, seeing that we did not answer, he continued: "As a rule, I do not explain my tactics to everybody; but you, M. David, are not everybody, and, if you like to meet me when the theatre is over, I shall be pleased to have a chat with you."

At half-past twelve that night we were seated at a restaurant near the Porte Saint-Martin, and, after a few preliminary remarks, Canler explained.

However great an artist you may be, M. David, you could not produce a statue without the outlay for the marble, or for the casting of it in bronze. You, moreover, want to pay your _praticien_, who does the rough work for you. Our _praticiens_ are the informers, and they want to be paid like the most honest workmen. The detection of crime means, no doubt, intelligence, but it means also money. Now, money is the very thing I have not got, and yet, when I accepted the functions I am at present fulfilling, I gave my promise to M. Delessert not to neglect the detective part of the business. I wish to keep my word, first of all, because I pledged it; secondly, because detection of crime is food and drink to me; thirdly, because I hope to be the head of the Paris detective force one day. The Government allows a ridiculously small sum every year for distribution among informers, and rewards among their own agents; it is something over thirty thousand francs, but not a sou of which ever reached my hands when I accepted my present appointment, and scarcely a sou of which reaches me now. I was, therefore, obliged to look out for auxiliaries, sufficiently disinterested to assist me gratuitously, but, knowing that absolute disinterestedness is very rare indeed, I looked for my collaborateurs among the very ones I was charged to watch, but who, in exchange for my protection in the event of their offending, were ready to peach upon their companions in crime and in vice. I need not trouble you by enumerating the various categories of my allies, but the souteneur, the most abject of them all, is, perhaps, the most valuable.

"He is too lazy to work, and, as a rule, has not got the pluck of a mouse, consequently he rarely resorts to crime, requiring the smallest amount of energy or daring. He furthermore loves his Paris, where, according to his own lights, he enjoys himself and lives upon the fat of the land; all these reasons make him careful not to commit himself, albeit that at every minute of the day he comes in contact with everything that is vile. But he gets hold of their secrets, though the word is almost a misnomer, seeing that few of these desperadoes can hold their tongue about their own business, knowing all the while, as they must do, that their want of reticence virtually puts their heads into the halter. But if they have done 'a good stroke of business,' even if they do not brag about it in so many words, they must show their success by their sudden show of finery, by their treating of everybody all round, etc. The souteneur is, as it were, jealous of all this; for though he lives in comparative comfort from what his mistress gives him, he rarely makes a big haul. His mistress gone, the pot ceases to boil; in fact, he calls her his _marmite_. In a few days he is on his beams' ends, unless he has one in every different quarter, which is not often the case, though it happens now and then. But, at any rate, the incarceration of one of them makes a difference, and, under the circumstance, he repairs, as far as he dares, to the préfecture, and obtains her liberation in exchange for the address of a burglar or even a murderer who is wanted. I have known one who had perfected his system of obtaining information to such a degree as to be able to sell his secrets to his fellow-souteneurs when they had none of their own wherewith to propitiate the detectives. He has had as much as three or four hundred francs for one revelation of that kind, which means twenty or thirty times the sum the police would have awarded him. Of course, three or four hundred francs is a big sum for the souteneur to shell out; but, when the marmite is a good one, he sooner does that than be deprived of his revenues for six months or so. I have diverted some of those secrets into my own channel, and Clémentine's souteneur is one of my clients; that is why I gave her up. Very shocking, gentlemen, but à la guerre comme à la guerre."

M. Canler furthermore counselled us to leave Clémentine alone. He positively refused to give us any information as to her whereabouts; that is why I did not meet with her until five years after David's death, too late to be of any use to her in this world.