CHAPTER IV

A few words on _La Tour de Nesle_ and M. Frédérick Gaillardet--The _Revue des Deux Mondes_--M. Buloz--The _Journal des Voyages_--My first attempt at Roman history--_Isabeau de Bavière_--A witty man of five foot nine inches.

Let us leave Italy--to which we shall soon return--and come back to our plays, which, by an innocent subterfuge, as a moral author called it, I had played in the capital of His Imperial Highness the Grand-Duke of Tuscany.

Two had already been acted at Paris in the month of April 1832, at which date we have arrived_--Antony_ and _Richard;_ but there were still two to be performed, _La Tour de Nesle_ and _Angèle._ May I be prevented, now I come to speak of the making of the first of these plays, from saying anything which may arouse the dormant susceptibilities of M. Gaillardet! Since 2 June 1832, that is to say for the past twenty-five years, I have composed upwards of forty dramas and eight hundred volumes; it will, therefore, be taken for granted that I have no interest whatever in laying claim to one paternity more or less. But the matter made such a stir at the time, it unravelled itself so ostensibly, that I have scarcely the right to pass it over in silence; but, whilst we are upon the subject, I promise only to cite the facts of which I have proof, and to divest those facts of any sentiment either of hatred or of attack. Since that time, M. Gaillardet has left France for America, Paris for New Orleans. To my great joy, he has, I am told, made a fortune out there; to my still greater joy, my books, so I am assured, have not been detrimental to his good fortune. So much the better! Happy he to whom Providence gives a double share of rest, and, when scarcely a third of life is passed, after a brilliant début, permits him to throw down his pen and to rest on his laurels, French laurels, which are the most to be envied of any, and to repose on a bed of American flowers, brightest of all the flowers that bloom! In the darkness which, though dispersed for a time, gradually returns to envelop him once more in its beloved shade, such a man, like Horace, keeps happy things for the present and puts care behind him till the morrow; such a man knows not the daily struggle and nightly labour; he does not live by lamplight, but by the light of the sun. He lies down when the robin sings his evening song and wakes when the lark begins to sing; nothing disturbs the order of Nature for him; his day is day and his night is night; and, when his last day or final night comes, he has lived his life within its natural limits. I shall have gone through mine hurrying along on the brakeless engine of work. I shall not have sat down at any table belonging to those lengthy banquets where people stay till they become intoxicated; I shall have tasted from all sorts of cups; and the only ones I shall have drained to the dregs (for man's existence, however rapid, always has time for doing this) will have been the bitter cups!

At this time, in 1832, however, I had not yet become the being I now am. I was then a young man of twenty-nine, eager after pleasure, eager for love and for life, eager after everything, in fact, but hatred. It is a strange thing that I have never been able to hate on account of any personal wrong or injury. If I have harboured any antipathy in my heart, if I have shown, either in my words, or in my writings, any aggressive sentiment, it was against those people who set themselves against the growth of art, and who opposed progress in politics. If to-day, after twenty-five years have elapsed, I attack, M. Viennet, M. Jay, M. Étienne, the whole of the Académie, in short, or, at any rate, the major portion of its members, it is not in the least because these gentlemen collectively signed petitions against me or, individually, prohibited my plays; it is because they hindered France from marching towards the supreme conquest of art, and founding a universal monarchy of the intellect. If, after thirty years, I bear a grudge against Louis-Philippe, it is not because he stopped my salary when I gave myself to literature, or because he demanded my resignation when I had a drama received at the Théâtre-Français; it is because this would-be citizen-king had a rooted aversion to new ideas, an instinctive distaste for all movements which tended to advance the human race. Now, how can you expect me, who am all for progress, to admit without question, on whatever side I meet them, death, or inaction, which is the likeness of death!

Already, in 1832, I began to find that, working for the theatre--I will not say did not occupy my time sufficiently, but--occupied my mind too much in one direction. I had, as I have mentioned, tried to write some short novels: _Laurette, Le Cocher de Cabriolet, La Rose rouge._ I have told how I had them printed, under the title _Nouvelles Contemporaines,_ at my own expense, or, rather, at that of my poor mother, and that six copies were sold at 3 francs a copy; which left me 582 francs out of pocket. One of the six sold copies, or, rather, probably, one of the three or four hundred copies that were given away, fell into the hands of the editor of the _Revue des Deux Mondes,_ and he made up his mind that, poor as these stories were, the author who had written them could, by dint of working, make something as a novel-writer.

That editor was M. Buloz; who, under the reign of Louis-Philippe, had become a power in the State; now he still is a powerful influence in literature. Be it clearly understood, M. Buloz is not a power on account of his personal literary abilities, but by the literary merits of others of whom he made free use. Hugo, Balzac, Soulié, de Musset and I had invented the facile style of literature; and we have succeeded, whether ill or well, in making a reputation with that fluent style of writing.

M. Buloz had himself invented the boresome style of literature and, for good or for ill, made his fortune out of it, wearisome though it was. It is not in the least the case that, when M. Buloz takes it into his head to write, he is not as tiresome as, or even more so than, Monsieur So and So; but it is not enough merely to write in order to produce real literature. M. Nisard explained once, with difficulty, laboriously and wearisomely, what ease of style in literature was. We will ourselves try to tell, in as amusing a way as we can, what the laboured style of literature is. True, we could put a reference here and say, "See M. Désiré Nisard or M. Philarète Chasles"; but we know our readers would rather believe us than go and look for themselves. MM. Désiré Nisard and Philarète Chasles will be dealt with in their own turn. Let us now turn our attention to M. Buloz.

M. Buloz, first a compositor, then a foreman in a printing house, was, in 1830, a man between thirty-four or five years of age, of pale complexion, with a thin beard, eyes that did not match properly, features of no particular character and yellowish, sparsely grown hair; as regards temperament, he was taciturn and almost gloomy, disinclined to speak, because of an increasing deafness, cross-grained on his good days, brutal on his bad ones, and, at all times, doggedly obstinate. I knew him through Bixio and Bocage. Both were intimate with him at that time.[1] M. Buloz has since been to them, as he has been to everybody, faithless in friendship when not downright ungrateful for service done him. I do not know how he gets on with Bixio now; but I believe he is very horrid to Bocage. We were not rich in those days; we had our meals in a little restaurant in the rue de Tournon, adjoining the _hôtel de l'Empereur Joseph II.,_ where, I can assure you, they served very bad dinners at six sous the plateful.

M. Ribing de Leuven had a newspaper, which sold very badly, a _journal de luxe,_ and wealthy people took up the fad and ruined themselves over it; it was called _Le Journal des Voyages._ Adolphe and I persuaded M. de Leuven to sell this paper to Buloz.

Buloz, Bocage, Bonnaire and, I believe, even Bixio, collected some funds and became proprietors of the above-mentioned paper, which took the title of _La Revue des Deux Mondes._ This occurred in 1830 or 1831. We all set to work with our best efforts on this newspaper, which we looked upon as a child belonging to all of us and loved with a paternal affection. The first milk I gave it to feed on was a _Voyage en Vendée,_ which is partly to be found in these Memoirs. Then, this is what happened to me: I have told how profoundly ignorant I was in history and of my great desire to study it. I heard a great deal of talk about the Duc de Bourgoyne and I read the _Histoire des ducs de Bourgoyne,_ by Barante. For the first time, a French historian let himself have free play in picturesque writing of history and in simplicity in the telling of legends.

The work begun by the romances of Sir Walter Scott had by now matured in my mind. I did not yet feel strong enough to write a long novel; but there was then a kind of literature being produced which kept a middle course between the novel and the drama, which had some of the influence of the one and much of the arresting qualities of the other, wherein dialogue alternated with narrative; this type of literature was termed "_Scènes historiques."_

With my inclinations already biased towards the theatre, I set myself to dissect, to relate and to put these historical scenes into dialogues from the _Histoire des ducs de Bourgoyne._ They were taken from one of the most dramatic periods of France, the reign of Charles VI.; they provided me with the dishevelled personage of the mad king, with the poetic figure of Odette, the imperious and licentious character of Isabel of Bavaria, the careless one of Louis d'Orléans, the terrible character of John of Burgundy, the pale and romantic one of Charles VII.; they gave me l'Ile-Adam and his sword, Tanneguy-Duchatel and his axe, the Sire de Giac and his horse, the Chevalier de Bois-Bourdon and his gold doublet and Perinet-Leclerc and his keys. But they offered me still more; I, who was already a creator of scenes, they provided with a well-known stage upon which to plan my characters, since the events all took place in the neighbourhood of Paris or in Paris itself. I began to compose my book, driving it before me as a labourer urges forward his plough, without knowing exactly what is going to happen. The result was _Isabeau de Bavière._

As fast as I finished these scenes, I took them to Buloz, who carried them to the printing office, and printed them, and, every fortnight, the subscribers read them.

From that time there sprang up in my work my two chief qualities, those which will give a value to my books and to my theatrical works in the future; dialogue, which is the groundwork of drama; and the gift of narrative, which is the foundation of romance. These qualifications--you know how frankly and unguardedly I talk of myself--I have in a superior degree. At that period, I had not yet discovered two other qualities in myself, none the less important, which are derived from one another--gaiety and a lively imagination People are lighthearted because they are in good health, because they have a good digestion, because they have no reason for sadness. That is the cheerfulness of most people. But with me gaiety of heart is persistent, not the light-heartedness which shines through grief--all sorrow, on the contrary, finds me either full of compassion for others, or profoundly depressed with myself--but which shines through all the worries, material vexations and even lesser dangers of life. One has a lively imagination because one is lighthearted; but this imagination often evaporates like the flame of spirits or the foam on champagne. A merry man, spirited and animated of speech, is, at times, dull and morose when alone in front of his paper with pen in hand. Now work, on the contrary, excites me; directly I have a pen in my hand, reaction sets in; my most freakish fancies have often sprung out of my dullest days, like fiery lightnings out of a storm. But, as I have said, at this period of my youth, I did not recognise in myself either this imagination or this lightness of spirit.

One day, I introduced Lassailly to Oudard. He wanted help, I think. My letter, instead of being dismal, was merry, but with a gaiety that was importunate and full of sympathy. Lassailly read the letter, which he was to take in person, and, turning towards me, he said with a stupefied air--

"Well! this is comical!"

"What?"

"Why, you possess wit!"

"Why should I not? Are you envious?"

"Ah! you are probably the first man of five foot nine who has ever been witty!"

I remembered this saying more than once whilst creating Porthos, it was more pregnant than it seemed at the first utterance. My brevet for wittiness was, then, bestowed on me by Lassailly, a good fellow, who was not lacking in a certain sort of merit, but who, as regards wit, was as badly equipped by nature as the fox whose tail was cut off was with cunning. Besides, at that period I should have recognised the marvellous quality of mirthfulness which I had latent within my soul, fearfully hidden from all eyes. Then, the only mirth permissible was satanic, the mirth of Mephistopheles or of Manfred. Goethe and Byron were the two great sneerers of the century. In common with others I had put a mask on my face. Witness my portrait sketches of that period: there is one of Devéria, written in 1831, which, with a few alterations, could perfectly stand for the portrait of Antony. This mask, however, was gradually to fall and to leave my real face to be disclosed in the _Impressions de Voyages._ But, I repeat, in 1832 I was still looked upon as a Manfred and a Childe Harold. But, when one is of an impressionable temperament, this kind of whim only takes one during a headstrong period; and, the times themselves, being gloomy and terrible, were instrumental to the success both of my début as a democratic poet and also as a romance writer.

[Footnote 1: M. Buloz's ambition was to have a review. I had the good fortune to help him in this ambition; I think I have previously said how; may I be excused if I repeat myself.]