Chapter 7

The artist's family was of the small nobility of France. The name Palmella was given him in remembrance of the great friendship between his father's sister and the Duchess de Palmella, who was the wife of the Portuguese Ambassador to France. The real family name was Busson; the "du Maurier" came from the Château le Maurier, built in the fifteenth century, and still standing in Anjou or Maine. It belonged to du Maurier's cousins, the Auberys, and in the seventeenth century it was the Auberys who wore the title of du Maurier; and an Aubery du Maurier, who distinguished himself in that century, was Louis of that name, French Ambassador to Holland. The Auberys and the Bussons married and intermarried, the Bussons assuming the territorial name of du Maurier.

George du Maurier's grandfather's name was Robert Mathurin Busson du Maurier, _Gentilhomme verrier_--gentleman glass-blower. Until the Revolution glass-blowing was a monopoly of the _gentilshommes_, no commoner might engage in the industry, at that time considered an art. The Busson genealogy dates from the twelfth century. The novelist made use of many of the names which occur in papers relating to his family history, in _Peter Ibbetson_.

Du Maurier's father was a small _rentier_, deriving his income from the family glass-works in Anjou. He was born in England, whither the artist's grandfather had fled to escape the Revolution and the guillotine, returning to France in 1816.

His grandmother was a bourgeoise, by name Bruaire, a descendant of Jean Bart, the admiral. His grandfather was not rich, and while in England mainly depended on the liberality of the British Government, which allowed him a pension of twenty pounds a year for each member of his family. He died a schoolmaster at Tours.

The mother of the artist was an Englishwoman married to his father at the British Embassy in Paris, and the artist was born in Paris on March 6, 1834, in a little house in the Champs Elysées. His parents removed to Belgium in 1863, where they stayed three years. When the child was five they came to London, taking 1 Devonshire Terrace, Marylebone Road--the house which had been formerly occupied by Charles Dickens. Du Maurier remembered riding in the park, on a little pony, escorted by a groom, who led his pony by a strap. One day there cantered past a young woman surrounded by horsemen; at the bidding of his groom he waved his hat, and the lady smiled and kissed her hand to him. It was Queen Victoria with her equerries.

The father grew very poor. He was a man of scientific tastes, and lost his money in inventions which never came to anything. After a year in Devonshire Terrace the family had to wander again, going to Boulogne, where they lived at the top of the Grand Rue. Here the artist said they lived in a beautiful house, and had sunny hours and were happy.

Apropos of du Maurier's early homes, Sir Francis Burnand, in his _Records and Reminiscences_, tells an amusing story, which, whilst of necessity abbreviating, we shall try to give as nearly as possible in his own words. Some members of the _Punch_ staff who, with the proprietors, were visiting Paris during the Exhibition year of 1889, took a drive in the neighbourhood of Passy. Du Maurier, who had not stayed in Paris for some years, pointed out house after house as being his birthplace. He started with the selection of a small but attractive suburban residence, afterwards correcting himself and pointing to a house much more attractive-looking than the first. Soon, however, the puzzled expression which his companions had noticed in him before, returned to his face, and he called a halt for the third time, pointing to a large house in an extensive garden with a fountain. "No," he exclaimed with conviction, "I was wrong. This is where I was born. There's the fountain, there are the green shutters! and in _that_ room!" The party descended again and poured out libations. After the sleepy stage of a long drive had been reached, du Maurier awoke, and, as if soliloquising, muttered, "No, no, I was wrong, absurdly wrong. But I see my mistake." And he aroused his companions to view a fine mansion approached by a drive.

"Yes," he exclaimed, "the other places were mistakes. It is so difficult to remember the exact spot where one was born. But there can be no doubt about this. _Cocher! Arrêtez! s'il vous plaît_," he cried, and he was about to open the door and descend, when William Bradbury, of the party, stopped him.

"No, you don't, Kiki; you've been born in three or four places already, and we've drunk your health in every one of 'em; so we won't do it again till you've quite made up your mind where you _were_ born."

In vain du Maurier protested. "You bring us out for a holiday, you take us about everywhere, and you won't let a chap be born where he likes." But Mr. Bradbury was inexorable; the door was closed, the coachman grinned, cracked his whip, and away they went, the party siding with Mr. Bradbury in objecting to pulling up at every inn to toast the occasion.

Sir Francis speaks of what fun du Maurier was at such times, and of never remembering having seen him so boyish, so "Trilbyish" as on the occasion of the memorable visit.

From Boulogne du Maurier was brought by his family to Paris, to live in an apartment on the first floor of the house No. 80 in the Champs Elysées. In the artist's manhood the ground and first floor were a café, and he said he felt sorry to look up at the windows from which his mother used to watch his return from school, and see waiters bustling about and his home invaded.

§ 2

He went to school at the age of thirteen, in the Pension Froussard, in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. He remembered with affection his master Froussard, who became a deputy after the Revolution of 1848. He owned to being lazy, with no particular bent; but he worked really hard, he confessed, for one year. He made a number of friends, but of his comrades at that school only one distinguished himself in after life, Louis Becque de Fouquière, the writer, whose life has been written by M. Anatole France.

The artist went up for his _bachot_, his baccalaureate degree, at the Sorbonne, and was plucked for his written Latin version. It vexed him and his mother, for they were poor at the time, and it was important that he should do well. His father was then in England. Du Maurier crossed to him before informing him of his failure, miserable with the communication he had to make. They met at the landing at London Bridge, and at the sight of his utterly woebegone face, guessing the truth, his father burst into a roar of laughter, which, said the son afterwards, gave him the greatest pleasure he ever experienced.

His father was scientific, and hated everything that was not science. Du Maurier, with his enthusiasm for Byron, had to meet this attitude as best he could. His father never reproached him for the failure in the _bachot_ examination. He had made up his mind that his son was intended for a scientist, and determined to make him one, putting him as a pupil at the Birkbeck Chemical Laboratory of University College, where he studied chemistry under Dr. Williamson. The son's own ambition at that time was to go in for music and singing. "My father," he said, "possessed the sweetest, most beautiful voice that I have ever heard; and if he had taken up singing as a profession, would most certainly have been the greatest singer of his time. In his youth he had studied music at the Paris Conservatoire, but his family objected to his following the profession, for they were Legitimists and strong Catholics, and held the stage in that contempt that was usual at the beginning of the last century."

The artist himself as a youth was crazy about music, and used to practise his voice wherever and whenever he could. But his father discouraged him. The father died in his arms, singing one of Count de Ségur's songs.

He remained at the Birkbeck Laboratory for two years, leaving there in 1854, when his parent, still convinced of the future before his son in the pursuit of science, set him up on his own account in a chemical laboratory in Barge Yard, Bucklersbury, in the City. The house is still standing. "It was," says du Maurier, "a fine laboratory, for my father, being a poor man, naturally fitted it up in the most expensive style." "The only occasion," he continues, "on which the sage of Barge Yard was able to render any real service to humanity was when he was engaged by the directors of a Company for working certain gold mines in Devonshire which were being greatly boomed, and to which the public was subscribing heavily, to go down to Devonshire to assay the ore. I fancy they expected me to send them a report likely to further tempt the public. If this was their expectation, they were mistaken, for after a few experiments I went back to town and told them that there was not a vestige of gold in the ore. The directors were of course very dissatisfied with this statement, and insisted on my returning to Devonshire to make further investigation. I went and had a good time of it down in the country, for the miners were very jolly fellows; but I was unable to satisfy my employers, and sent up a report which showed the public that the whole thing was a swindle, and so saved a good many people from loss."

Du Maurier told the story of this business in _Once a Week_ in 1861; it is written in a highly amusing strain.

We have taken relevant extracts, as follows, from the amusing story, partly because it exhibits the artist for the first time as an Author, and partly because it continues the narrative of his life:--

§ 3

"Somebody who took a great interest in me (my father) had just established me in the City as an analytical chemist and mining engineer. Now, if there was one thing in the world for which I was peculiarly, and I may even say extraordinarily, unfit, it was that very useful profession; but it is a well-known fact that the fondest parents are not always the most discriminating in the choice of professions for their sons. So I had spent two years in a school of chemistry, attending lectures and performing analyses, qualitative and quantitative, and various other chemical experiments, which I used to think very droll and amusing, in order to fit myself for my future career, and at length, thanks to my father's kindness, I found myself master of a laboratory which had been arranged in a manner regardless of expense, with water and gas laid on in every possible corner, and bottles, chemical stoves, and scales, &c., of a most ornamental brightness and perfection.

"Here I waited for employment daily, and entertained my friends with sumptuous hospitality at lunch and supper; here also I occasionally astonished my mother and sister by dexterously turning yellow liquids into blue ones, and performing other marvels of science--accomplishments which I have almost entirely forgotten (in my prospectus it was stated that assays of ore and analyses of minerals, &c., would be most carefully conducted, and all business of the kind attended to, with great steadiness and despatch); and pending the advent of work, the scene of my future operations was enlivened by athletic sport and every kind of jollification, which helped me to endure the anxiety of my parents at seeing me start on the serious business of life so young." He goes on to say that, thanks to kindness of friends of his family, employment came: he was given an order for analysing various specimens of soil from a friend's estate. "I conducted these experiments with proper earnestness, and he paid me for them with becoming gravity. I now thank him kindly for the same (it would have been undignified to do so then) and sincerely hope that he has found my scientific research beneficial to his land." Then the gold contagion suddenly broke out and committed great ravages. "I caught it one rainy afternoon near the Exchange; my mother and sister instantly became affected, but my father, who was of a stout habit and robust temperament, and gifted with a very practical turn of mind, fortunately escaped, and devoted himself to our cure. Thanks to his judicious nursing, I was the first to recover." "The gold fever raged worse and worse, and I waited impatiently for it to give me employment; at length it did so, in a few months from the period of its birth: somebody introduced me to somebody else, who introduced me to the chairman of the Victoria Gold and Copper Mine, situated near Moleville, in Blankshire."

Then follows an interview with the directors. "It was necessary that in my interview with the directors next day, I should cram them with every possible technical term that had ever been invented for the purpose."

He manages to squeeze "lodes," "gossans," "costeanings," and other impressive words into almost every sentence. It produces a great effect on the directors.

The offer of a guinea and a half a day to go down the mine inspires a wild impulse to embrace the whole board in the person of the venerable fat old fellow who makes the offer. This is restrained. "I told him I would think of the matter, and return him an answer the following day; and, after bouncing myself first into the office-clerk and then into the fire-place, I eventually succeeded in making an unconcerned exit."

"I pass over my triumphant sensations and the family bliss, only chequered by anxiety lest the Victoria Gold and Copper Mine should come to grief before I got there."

He then travels through enchanting scenery, and is conducted to the mine. "Some five and twenty or thirty shaggy rough-looking men were about. These were the miners. Their appearance was not reassuring, and when the engineer left me alone with them, with a parting injunction that I was to make them feel I had an iron will at once, I confess I felt myself uncomfortably young, and a little bit at a loss.

"We proceeded to business at once, however; and as I met their first little symptoms of insubordination with one or two acts of summary justice (which I will spare the reader, but which, emanating from me, caused me unlimited astonishment), I soon established a proper authority over them, and we thenceforward got on together capitally."

We are then given extracts from a mining diary--significantly left off at a particular stage of the proceedings--used as a sketch-book. An unfavourable report as to the finding of gold is sent in to the board.

"The miners did not believe in the mine, and as they perceived that I did not either, they believed in me to a most flattering extent." He soon got very much attached to the miners, and used to tell stories about foreign lands while they were distilling the pure mercury, or performing other innocent operations suggested by the board, enlightening them on various subjects where he felt their ignorance to be equal to his own. "My letters home contained descriptions and sketches of them, and my mamma became interested in their spiritual welfare." Surrounded by the halo of memory, they afterwards seemed to him primitive gentlemen worthy of King Arthur's Round Table. He describes existence between the hours of work as full of charm owing to the friendship of surrounding farmers and small gentry. In a "Trilby" way he describes how he "rode, and wrestled, and boxed with them! and fell in love with their sisters, and sketched them, and sang Tyrolese melodies to them, ... blessing the lucky stroke of fortune which had made him mining engineer to a gold mine without any gold, and managed by gentlemen who obstinately persisted in ignoring the latter important fact, in spite of his honest endeavours to persuade them of it." "I have," he says, "only to hum a certain 'jodel' chorus, and the whole scene returns to me, surrounded by that peculiar fascination which belongs to past pleasures--a phenomenon far more interesting to me than the most marvellous phenomenon of science."

Every artist is an experimental psychologist, the material for his art is really always some mental experience. He wishes to communicate with his public in the spirit of this experience. With Scott it was the old associations of places, with du Maurier the associations of "old times," of personal memory. This was the frame of mind the interpretation of which absorbed him in his literary art, distinguishing it, except in his early _Cornhill_ work, from his art with the pencil.

There is not much in the remaining part of the gold-mine narrative which can be shown to bear upon the artist's career. The conclusion of the story shows his forfeiture of the regard of the directors by openness of speech to the shareholders as to the proceedings at the mine.

Such was his experience of a mine in Devonshire and of relationship with the miners, who, with the limited experience of the mining classes in those days, had some difficulty in "placing" du Maurier with his, to them, unusual physical delicacy and yet more unusual personal charm.

§ 4

The literary gift in the above narration will, we think, be evident even in our quotations. But during the greater part of his life du Maurier's literary gift remained unknown to the general public, though more than one editor under whom he served on _Punch_ urged him to take a writer's salary and be on the literary as well as on the artistic staff. It was said that he relied with comfort upon this second talent to support him in the event of his sight failing him altogether. There was a space of thirty years between the above contribution to _Once a Week_ and the writing of his first novel, _Peter Ibbetson_. But it is in that novel that he again returns to the story of his career, through boyhood and youth, leading up to the period in which his father started him in the laboratory.

Du Maurier had in 1856, when his father died, practically the choice of two arts, painting and singing, in both of which he seemed to have a chance of distinguishing himself. And as the essay of 1861 was so soon afterwards to prove, there was really another alternative, that of authorship, for the gifted analytical chemist. He decided then to forsake the chemistry to which he had been trained, but remained undecided about everything else.

In 1856, at the age of twenty-two, he returned to Paris with his mother, to live in the Rue Paradis-Poissonière, very poor, very dull, and very miserable, as he himself has said; but almost at the entrance of what he describes as the best time of his life--that period in which, deciding to follow art as a profession, he entered the studio of Gleyre. Those were the joyous Quartier Latin days. He has described Gleyre's studio in _Trilby_. The happy life there lasted a year: Whistler and Poynter, as is well known, were his fellow-students.

The studio of Gleyre was inherited from Delaroche, and afterwards handed down to Gerome. Whistler, Poynter, du Maurier, Lamont, and Thomas Armstrong were the group of _Trilby_, Lamont was "the Laird," Aleco Ionides "the Greek," and Rowley is supposed to have been "Taffy."[4]

In 1857 du Maurier went on to the Antwerp Academy, where the masters were De Keyser and Van Lerins. It was in the latter's studio that the disaster of his life occurred. He was drawing from a model, when suddenly the girl's head seemed to him to dwindle to the size of a walnut. He clapped his hand over his left eye, and wondered if he had been mistaken. He could see as well as ever. But when in its turn he covered his right eye he learned what had happened. His left eye had failed him. It might be altogether lost. It grew worse, until the fear of blindness overtook him. In the spring of 1859 he went to a specialist in Dusseldorf, who, while deciding that the left eye was lost, said that with care there was no reason to fear losing the other. Du Maurier was never able to shake off the terror of apprehension. He was apparently a hopeless invalid at Christmas-time in 1859, "in some dreary, deserted, dismal Flemish town," in hospital. Turning over _Punch's Almanack_, the delight the paper afforded him in such unhappy circumstances was "a thing not to be forgotten." It fired him with a new ambitious dream. The astonishing thing was that before another year was over the dream was beginning to come true: he was in England, making friends with Keene, who introduced him to John Leech, whom he was destined to succeed at _Punch's_ table.

The artist left Antwerp in 1860, and for several months he and Whistler lived together in Newman Street. Their studio has been described. Stretched across it was a rope like a clothes-line, from which floated a bit of brocade, their curtain to shut off the corner used as a bedroom. There was hardly even a chair to sit on, and often with the brocade a towel hung from the line.

§ 5

In the autumn of 1860 the artist began to contribute to _Once a Week_. Then followed a contribution to _Punch_ for which he continued to draw as an occasional contributor chiefly of initial letters and the like, until he reached the stage of contributing regular "Pictures" with legends beneath in 1864. It was not until 1865, however, that his full pages in _Punch_ became frequent. In that year he succeeded Leech at the _Punch_ table.

His career practically began with his marriage to Miss Emma Wightwick. Following the example of his master, Thackeray, he courageously married upon "prospects," as soon as ever the promise of regular employment for his pencil seemed to be secure. This was the year in which he illustrated Mrs. Gaskell's _Sylvia's Lovers_. "My life," he once said, "was a very prosperous one from the outset in London; I was married in 1863, and my wife and I never once knew financial troubles. My only trouble has been my fear about my eyes. Apart from that I have been very happy."

Upon marrying, du Maurier moved to Great Russell Street, and, later, to rooms in Earl's Terrace, Kensington, the house where Walter Pater died.

In the days when he was living in Great Russell Street the journalistic world of London was very Bohemian. It is true that Leech had not made a good Bohemian, but it was not until some time after du Maurier's accession to the _Punch_ table that the weekly dinner lost an uproarious gaiety that is recognised as the true Bohemian note. Mr. Punch and his staff all improved their tone, Bohemia is now only a memory. It is the very genius of Mr. Punch that makes him respond to the moment and become the most decorous figure in the world in decorous times.