CHAPTER V

CLAIRE PRADIER

About the year 1844, when Victor Hugo visited his friend on Sundays and holidays, he used to find seated at his private table, in accordance with his own permission, a tall girl of eighteen, very fair, very pale, with very black eyes--two prunes, as he said, dropped in a saucer of milk. Often she did not hear him enter. Bending her willowy neck and undeveloped bust over her books, she was immersed in study, perhaps also in rêverie. Sometimes he kissed her affectionately, at other times bowed formally. The lowly assistant-mistress of a suburban school, marvelling at the great man's condescension, would rise blushing, and submit her pale brow to his lips. She would then ask permission to return to her task: the examinations were near at hand, and, as she was going in for a diploma, she must work.

Sometimes Victor Hugo smilingly took up the books scattered on the table, weighed the value of each with a glance, then, pushing them all aside with the back of his hand, sat down, saying: "Now then, Claire, I will be your tutor to-day," and the lesson began, vivid, enthusiastic, brilliant as a poem.

The reader would be justly disappointed if we failed to relate the story of the girl to whom this "magician of words" thus unveiled the beauties of the French language. Besides, a deeper acquaintance with the daughter may lead to a better understanding of the mother; therefore, we append a short sketch of Claire Pradier.

I

She was born in Paris in 1826. Her father, the sculptor, undertook the care of her early childhood, while her mother, as we have learnt, was in Germany and Belgium. He put her out to nurse at Vert, near Mantes, with a married couple named Dupuis, and sometimes combined a visit to her with a little sport, in the shooting season.

He brought her back to Paris on October 15th, 1828. From letters of his which have been preserved, we are justified in believing that he derived some satisfaction from his educational rôle. His pen is prolific in praise of the child with "the locks of pale gold," "the roguish brown eyes," "the apple-red cheeks," whose "nose ends in a pretty tilt" which reminds him agreeably of Juliette's.

He discovers in his daughter a fine nature, plenty of intelligence, and so much feeling, that he hesitates for a time whether he shall apply his efforts to checking its development, or to cultivating it--in the first case, he would turn Claire into a semi-idiot in order not to let her passions become too strong for her happiness, and in the second, he might make of her an artist capable of the most splendid impulses and the noblest fulfilment.

If Pradier is to be believed, the child herself decided in favour of the latter. At the age of three, guided by paternal suggestion in the studio of the Rue de l'Abbaye, she chose for her favourite plaything a stuffed swan. From her games with this handsomely fashioned bird she imbibed a taste for pure lines and fine pose. She also listened to music given at Pradier's house by sculptors and painters who aped the art of Ingres. She derived so much delight from it that she could never afterwards meet any of these self-engrossed performers without begging for a kiss. Finally, by his studies of dress, his clever manipulation of draperies, which he always preferred to the higher parts of his profession, Pradier taught her to appreciate light and colour. She had a vivid appreciation of the latter, and, during her short life, a mere trifle such as the blue of the sky, or the tint of a rose, gave her the most exquisite pleasure.

Having thus cultivated the sensibilities of the flower committed to his charge, Pradier was rewarded by the prestige attached to his rôle of master and guide; the father reaped in tenderness what the artist had expended in intelligence and effort. From her earliest infancy Claire showed a marked preference for this man, so ardent, so gay, who taught her to breathe and live among works of art; all her life she felt for him an affection that neither his mistakes nor his carelessness, or even his injustice, could damp. Meanwhile, ever prolific in good intentions, always ready with vows and promises, the artist was forming high hopes and ambitions for his daughter.

"We must hope," he wrote to Juliette on that October 15th, 1828, when he took the child away from her nurse, "that she will live to grow up, and that we shall make a distinguished personage of her." A little later, on September 28th, 1829, he writes: "Dear friend, you are fortunate in the possession of a Claire who will be a great solace to you in your old age." Again, on July 4th, 1832: "Who can love her better than I do, especially now that I see her rare intelligence developing so satisfactorily and encouragingly for our designs?"

He planned for his little daughter the most singular and unexpected gifts: once it was to be the proceeds of his bust of Chancellor Pasquier, a commission he owed to Juliette and her friendship with the subject; another time it was the price of a house he possessed at Ville d'Avray and wished to sell; again, he designed to settle upon Claire the sum of 2,000 frs. he had lent to a cousin--fine words, as empty as the hollow mouldings that decorated the studio of the man. The cousin never returned the loan, the house at Ville d'Avray was sold, by order of the court, at a moment when the mortgage upon it far surpassed its value, and the bust of Chancellor Pasquier, though ordered, was never even rough-cast by Pradier.

Juliette had determined to live with Victor Hugo in the conditions of poverty indicated in a former chapter. Her natural delicacy prompted her to make the future of her child secure, and at the same time to release the poet from all anxiety on that score. In the latter part of the year 1833, therefore, she wrote to Pradier asking him to acknowledge Claire. The answer of the sculptor was as follows:

"DEAR FRIEND,

"Your letter did not displease me at all, as you seem to have feared that it would. Its motive was too praiseworthy to cause me any sentiment contrary to your own. The only thing that vexes me is that I should be unable to do at once what you desire, and what I fully intend to do eventually, though in a manner carefully calculated not to interfere with the future or tranquillity of any other person. It grieves me that you do not realise what I feel towards you and Claire! I believed that all your hopes were centred in me! I am so crushed with debt that I cannot think of executing my intentions at present. Good-bye, get well and hope only in me. You have not lost me, either of you--far from it! Good-bye, your very devoted friend, and much more,

"J. PRADIER."[34]

It is easy to guess how annoyed Juliette was at the receipt of such a letter. She expressed her disgust to Victor Hugo in various notes in which she abuses her former lover: "Wretched driveller, stupid scoundrel, the vilest and most idiotic of men, a coward without faith"--such are the principal epithets she applies to him.

It has been said that the author of _Lucrèce Borgia_ interfered and obtained from Pradier the acknowledgment of Claire.[35] This is absolutely incorrect. It is probable indeed that the poet made the attempt; it seems certain that with the assistance of Manière, the attorney, he extracted from the sculptor the promise of an allowance; but there was no official recognition, and soon we shall find the father of Claire more disposed to repudiate her than to allow her the protection of his name.

For the moment he merely agreed that Juliette should put the child to school at Saumur with a Madame Watteville, whose Paris representative was a certain Monsieur de Barthès. He would have liked Victor Hugo and his friend to undertake the sole responsibility of the arrangements, but they prudently declined to do so, though they lavished kindness, caressing letters, advice, and treats, upon the little exile.

On May 28th, 1835, Claire, having suffered some childish ailment, received from her mother a doll and the following letter:

"Good morning, my dear little Claire. I hope you will be quite well again by the time you read this letter. Now that you are convalescent I can discuss serious matters with you. This is what I wish to say: Foreseeing that you may be in need of recreation, I send you from Paris a charming little companion who is most amiably disposed to amuse you. But, as it would not be fair that the expenses of her maintenance should devolve upon you during the time of her stay with you, I also send you a big purse of money for her upkeep. Spend it wisely, in accordance with your needs.

"Monsieur Toto is no less anxious about her, than devoted to you. He therefore adds an enormous basket of provisions. I hope the little girl will not have eaten them all up on the way, and that there will still be something left for you.

"This is not all. I have also been thinking of your clothes, dear little one, and I send you a shawl for your walks, a white frock with drawers to match, a figured foulard frock, a striped frock without drawers, and a sleeved pinafore.

"Good-bye, dear good child. You must tell me if my selection is to your taste. Love me and enjoy yourself, so that I may find you tall and plump and pretty, when I come to see you again.

"J. DROUET."

At other times, Victor Hugo himself wrote affectionately to his friend's child. It is necessary to read these letters, so full of thoughtful tenderness, to gain a better knowledge of the warmth of the poet's heart. Much should be forgiven him in consideration of it.

"We love you very much," he wrote to Claire on May 23rd, 1833, "and you have a sweet mother who, though absent, thinks a great deal about you. You must get well quickly, and thank the good God in your prayers every night for giving you such a good little mother, as she on her part thanks Him for her charming little daughter."[36]

And a few days after, in a postscript to a letter to Juliette: "Monsieur Toto sends love and kisses to his little friend, and wishes he could still have her to travel everywhere with him. But, above all, he would like to caress her and look after her as his own child."[37]

_As his own child_--those words were indeed characteristic of Victor Hugo's feeling concerning the little girl thus thrown across his path by chance, and unhesitatingly adopted by him. At first, Claire either did not realise, or was unwilling to return, his affection. She was jealous of the big gentleman who stole some of her mother's attention from her. She was reserved and disagreeable. Juliette was indignant, but the poet did not relax his efforts to win her. With the authority of Pradier, who was only too pleased to delegate it to him,[38] he placed Claire, on April 15th, 1836, in a school at St. Mandé, 35, Avenue du Bel-Air, kept by a Madame Marre. From that moment, whether he paid her a surprise visit in the parlour on Thursday afternoons, with a Juliette beaming from the enjoyment of the trip, or whether she spent Sundays with her mother, Claire Pradier insensibly grew to connect Victor Hugo with Juliette in her affections, to give to them both equal respect, and to link them together in her prayers. Exceedingly sensitive by nature, more eager for love than for learning, she fell into habits of day-dreaming in school, or out in the meadows, and only seemed to recover the brightness of cheeks and eyes when the lovers fetched her, and toasted her little cold, contracted fingers in their warm ones. Then the apartment in the Rue St. Anastase resounded with her merry chatter, and she joined eagerly in the rites of which Victor Hugo was the god and Juliette the priestess.

In 1840, when she had attained her fifteenth year, Claire's mother thought it right to confide to her the secret of her irregular birth. She told her also of Pradier's neglect, and Victor Hugo's goodness. She exhorted her to be simple in her ideas, and not to set her ambitions too high. Claire manifested much chagrin and vexation at first, but presently her natural piety awoke and Juliette was able to write: "Claire is for ever in church." Victor Hugo took upon himself to open the girl's eyes to the practical side of life, and to point out to her the necessity of preparing for a profession as early as possible.[39] In response to these appeals to her reason, Claire soon accepted her lot with a brave heart. It was settled that at the age of eighteen, that is to say in 1844, she should be engaged as an assistant mistress in Madame Marre's school, in exchange for board and lodging, but without salary. She agreed also to study for a diploma, and she hoped, when once she had gained it, to find some honourable and paid employment, by Victor Hugo's help.

Claire fell to work with an ardour, a good-humour, and an intelligence, that drew from Juliette the warmest commendation for her daughter and gratitude for Victor Hugo.

II

One cannot but wonder whether Claire Pradier was really happy at heart, or whether that eighteen-year-old brow, pure and fair as Juliette's own, perchance concealed a spirit weighed down by melancholy. She was good-looking certainly, and knew it. In her chestnut locks, her eyes, whose hue wavered between soft black and the blue of ocean, her rounded cheeks, often hectic with fever, the distinction of a tall figure and stately walk, she united--

"À la madonne auguste d'Italie La flamande qui rit à travers les houblons."[40]

But beauty is no consolation to one who feels herself already touched by the icy finger of death, and who has, besides, no incentive to prolong the struggle for life. Claire felt thus.

Already, in earliest childhood, she had shown a delicate temperament, uncertain health, more nerves than muscle, more sensitiveness than vitality. During the whole of 1837, her cough never left her. In the years that followed, her figure scarcely showed any of the curves of youth. When her looks were praised, she smiled faintly, and her voice, which was lovely and caressing enough to recall to Victor Hugo the softest cadences of _Les Feuillantines_, scarce dared pronounce the word "to-morrow." Hence proceeded low spirits, which she was never able to shake off, though she usually managed to conceal them from her mother. Presentiments also beset her. "I often dream of those I love," she wrote to her mother, "and when I wake up, I long to sleep on for ever."

Mobile as the chisel he manipulated so skilfully, volatile as the dust of the plaster which powdered him, Pradier gave Claire neither regular assistance nor moral support. He had married, and was the father of several legitimate children. Unfortunate as was the celebrity of his wife and far-reaching the scandals provoked by her, he yet desired to preserve before his natural daughter a primly respectable attitude, and a modesty quite Calvinistic. He was as careful to avoid the occasions of meeting her, as Claire herself was eager to provoke them. The more she overwhelmed him with little presents, worked by her own fingers, tender evidences of an unconquerable affection, the more indifferent and discourteous he showed himself, forgetting to pay her monthly allowance, forgetting to give her New Year's presents, forgetting even to keep his appointments with her, leaving her to wait patiently in the cold studio of Rue de l'Abbaye while he played the gallant on the boulevard.

He had, nevertheless, permitted the girl to make the acquaintance of his legitimate children, and had gone so far as to put his youngest child, Charlotte Pradier, at the same school, when he sent his two sons to Auteuil to a boarding-school. In the month of May, 1845, Claire, with an impulse natural in a girl of nineteen, wished to give the two school-boys the pleasure of a sisterly letter; she got Charlotte to write also. The sculptor heard of it and this is how he treated her trivial indiscretion:

"MY DEAR BIG CLAIRE,

"I have seen the headmaster of ... who has informed me that you and Charlotte have written to J....[41] Pray write as seldom as possible. I do not think young girls should use their pens to reveal their sentiments. Such a habit is too easily acquired; they should know how, yet not do it. Besides, the children see each other every fortnight, and that is enough. Please do not sign yourself _Pradier_ to them any more. Such a thing becomes known and might cause gossip. You do not need the name, to be loved and respected. Be frank and fear nothing. Your good time will come some day. You must be prudent in all respects. The children must accustom themselves to your position as it is; they will take more interest in you later. Also, as I am on these subjects, pray use some other formulæ in your letters to me than 'adored father,' or 'beloved.' I am not accustomed to them. Such epithets are only appropriate to a god. Call me anything else that comes natural to you. It is unnecessary that I should prompt you; your feelings will be your best guide. Please write more legibly, for I receive your letters at night; and, above all, write only when you have something special to say. You must not become a scribbler about nothing--I mean for the mere pleasure of using your pen."[42]

How such a letter must have wounded the heart which once beat so tenderly for Pradier! Neither the caresses of Juliette nor the soothing words of Victor Hugo were able to comfort Claire.[43] One month after her father had thus disowned her, she went up for her examination, and, partly through grief, partly through timidity, failed utterly. It was the last stroke.

Not that her constitution showed any immediate sign of the shock it had sustained, or broke down at once. Her physical appearance remained unchanged, but death entered her soul and lurked there henceforward, as sometimes it lies under the depths of waters which flow calmly to outward seeming. She made her will.

From that moment Claire Pradier lived like those resigned invalids who, raising their gaze to the heaven above them, no longer heed the passing of the hours, while they await the supreme summons. She waited. Her mother, seeing her still apparently healthy, failed to realise her condition, and took the beginning of this mute colloquy with death for a mere return of her daughter's former depression. Nevertheless, an incident which happened in the month of February 1846 gave to Juliette also one of those presentiments which cannot deceive. Like Claire, she waited.

It was not for long. On March 21st, 1846, having gone to St. Mandé to see the young assistant mistress, she took with her the design and material for a piece of work Victor Hugo had asked for. The idea was to embroider his family coat of arms on coarse canvas, in colours selected by himself. This complicated heraldic work was to adorn the backs of two Gothic arm-chairs in his rooms in the Place Royale.

Contrary to her usual habit, Claire showed very little interest in the poet's plans; she listened absently and spoke very little. A dry cough shook her frame from time to time, her cheeks burned with fever. Juliette walked home by way of the Avenue de Bel-Air, the Barrière du Trône, and the Faubourg St. Antoine. Victor Hugo, who was always anxious about her, was to meet her half-way. He did so; she was walking slowly, with bent head, and when he asked for news of his embroidery, she burst into tears. The poet understood in an instant. By his instructions, Claire was removed to Rue St. Anastase the very next day; Triger, her mother's doctor, was instructed to visit her daily. Not venturing to pronounce at once the dread name of consumption, he spoke of a chill and chlorosis. Claire scarcely heeded, and indicated by a feeble gesture that she was too spent to care. The head she tried to raise from the pillow, fell back as if too heavy for the frail neck. Her large dark eyes gazed through space at some melancholy vision. Her hands upon the white sheets hardly retained strength to clasp themselves in a caress or a prayer.

She begged that Pradier might be informed of her illness. He wrote first, and then came. He demonstrated his affection by theatrical gestures and well-chosen words. Then he placed a villa, which he said he possessed at Auteuil, at the disposal of the invalid and her mother. The so-called villa proved to be one floor in a tenement house, 57, Rue de La Fontaine. Claire was taken there in the early part of May. Her mother accompanied her. Victor Hugo visited them nearly every day, but neither the compliments of "Monsieur Toto" nor the roses he brought his ex-pupil, nor the exhortations of Doctor Louis, whom he brought with him one day, were successful in restoring colour to the countenance of one whose blood-spitting left her every day paler and more exhausted. Claire hardly dared raise herself in bed; icy sweats drenched her, and she moaned continuously, in a manner terribly painful to those who were forced to stand by, helpless.

On June 6th, she asked to see the Vicar of St. Mandé, her confessor. On the 16th, she received the Last Sacraments. On the 18th, delirium supervened, and she expired on the 21st. They buried the girl in the first place at Auteuil, but when her will was read, in which she had written, "I desire to be buried in the cemetery of Saint-Mandé. I also beg that Monsieur l'Abbé Chaussotte should celebrate my funeral Mass, and that green grass should be grown on my grave," Victor Hugo and Pradier agreed to have the coffin exhumed. The ceremony took place on July 11th. Juliette, who was more dead than alive, was not present; but Victor Hugo and Pradier walked together behind the funeral car, leading the white procession of Claire's young pupils and companions. The sculptor, always full of intentions, plans, and chatter, discoursed in a low voice of the magnificent tomb he would raise with his own hands to the memory of his daughter. It should be, he said, "a sacred debt; I shall execute it with so much love that my chisel will never before have fashioned anything so chaste or so beautiful."

After the long, slow journey through Paris in the sunshine, they reached the cemetery of Saint Mandé. Near the tomb of the poet's friend, Armand Carel, a freshly dug grave yawned, gloomy and covetous. There was some singing, some blessing, the turmoil of a congested crowd; then they separated, but not without a renewal of Pradier's promise.

Eight years later he died himself, without having discharged his "sacred debt." One more resolve had fizzled out in empty words. Victor Hugo was then living precariously in exile, but as soon as he heard of the sculptor's end, he wrote off and ordered a decent headstone for Claire, and directed that the grave should be sown with green grass. Upon the tomb were carved four of the lines he had erstwhile written for Juliette's consolation, and he set about composing others. Thus it came about that, to the very last, Claire Pradier was protected by the father of Léopoldine against two of the fears that had most alarmed her youthful imagination, "a neglected grave in some distant cemetery, and a faded memory in the hearts of men."