CHAPTER II

Great explanations about the bear-steak--Jacotot--An ill-sounding epithet--A seditious felt hat--The carabiniers who were too clever--I quarrel with King Charles-Albert over the Dent du Chat--Princes and men of intellect

I returned to Florence in 1842 for a very sad and distressing ceremony; I returned to attend the funeral of the Duc d'Orléans.

It is one of the singular features of my life to have known all the princes; and, with the most Republican ideas imaginable, to have been attached to them with the deepest affection of my heart. Now, who informed me at Florence of the death of the Duc d'Orléans? Prince Jérôme-Napoléon. I had just dined at Quarto--a charming country-house four miles from Florence--with the father of the ex-King of Westphalia, when, taking me aside, he said--"My dear Dumas, I am going to tell you news which will cause you much pain."

I looked at him with anxiety.

"Monseigneur," I said to him, "I have received news of my two children this morning; they are well; except for accidents which may have happened to them, I am prepared for anything."

"Well, the Duc d'Orléans is dead!"

I confess this came upon me like a thunderbolt. Uttering an exclamation and bursting into tears I threw myself into the prince's arms.

"Oh! monseigneur," I said to him, "I have cared for but two princes, for him and for you. For him more than for you, I frankly admit; now I have but you to care for."

Was it not a strange thing to see a man weeping for a duke of Orléans in the arms of a Bonaparte? I left for Livorno that same night, and next day I went on board the steamer at Genoa. The sea was rough, and landed me quite done up in the City of Palaces; I found at _table d'hôte_ a friend who had arrived from Naples more tired even than myself: he offered to return with me by post-chaise, but on condition we crossed by the Simplon, which he had never seen. I accepted. We hired a sort of cariole and started. When we had crossed the Simplon and got clear of the Valais, we pulled up at the door of the _Poste_ inn at Martigny. The host, hat in hand, politely came and invited us to take a meal in his house in passing. We thanked him and said we had dined at Sion, so he retired as politely as he had come. "What a delightful inn-keeper!" my friend said to me.

"You think so?"

"Why, yes."

"If I told him my name I think I should probably be obliged to give him a drubbing while we waited for our relay of horses."

"Why?"

"Because, instead of making capital out of a joke I played on him, he had the silliness to be vexed at it and to wish I was dead."

"You?"

"Oh yes, me!"

"Bah!"

"Just recall it to him and tell him that we will stay a little time if perchance he can give us a beef-steak of bear flesh."

"Hi! Monsieur!... _Monsieur le maître de l'hôtel!_" exclaimed my friend, before I had had time to stop him. The _maître de l'hôtel_ turned round.

"My companion here says he will stop for dinner with you if you have by chance a steak of bear flesh."

I have seen many faces express agitation in my life; in consequence of terrible news, unexpected accidents, serious wounds ... but I never saw any face more concerned than that of the unfortunate _maître de poste_ at Martigny.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, seizing his hair with both hands, "again! always the same cry!... Is no traveller to pass by without making the same joke?"

"Yes!" resumed my companion, "I read about it in M. Alexandre Dumas's _Impressions de Voyage_ ..."

"The _Impressions de Voyage_ by M. Alexandre Dumas!" shrieked the wretched inn-keeper; "are there still people who read it?"

"Why should they not read it?" I ventured to ask.

"Because it is an atrocious book, full of lies; people have been burned at the stake who did not deserve it as much as that man.... Oh! M. Alexandre Dumas!" went on the unlucky vendor of soup, passing from rage to exasperation, "if only I ever get hold of him in private one of these days! but I shall have to go to Paris to get even with him. He will not go through Switzerland again, he dare not! he knows I am waiting to strangle him: I have told him so. All right; if you see him, if you know him, tell him once more from me, tell him every time you meet him, tell it him over and over again."

He went into his house like a madman, like one furious and driven to despair.

"What is the matter with your master?" I asked the postilion....

"Ah! people say he has been infected with a sort of craze, which a gentleman from Paris caused him when he passed by here."

"And so he wishes to kill the gentleman from Paris?" "Yes, he wishes to kill him."

"Outright."

"Without mercy."

"Suppose the gentleman from Paris suddenly said to him, 'Here I am!' What would he do."

"Oh! he would fall down dead in a fit, without a doubt."

"All right, postilion. When you return, you tell your master that M. Alexandre Dumas has passed by, that he wishes him long life and all kinds of prosperity. Now start!"

"Ah! that's a good joke!" said the postilion, setting off at a galop. "Ah! Yes, I'll tell him, indeed! he shall know it, and how he will tear his hair at not having recognised you.... Come! Grise, come, gee up!"

My companion was very thoughtful.

"Well," I asked him, "a penny for your thoughts?"

"I am trying to discover the reason for that man's hatred against you."

"You do not understand it?"

"No."

"You remember the bear beef-steak in my _Impressions de Voyage_?"

"Of course! it is the first thing that I read in it."

"Well, it was at that good fellow's house that the incident of M. Alexandre Dumas eating a bear-steak in 1832 happened."

"Well?"

"Many others like you read of the bear-steak; so, one fine day, a traveller, more curious, or with less appetite, than others said, when he looked at the menu--

"'Have you any bear?'

"'Excuse me?' the host replied.

"'I asked if you had any bear.'

"'No, monsieur, none.'

"And, for the moment, the incident was closed. Then one, two days or a week later, a second traveller puts his alpenstock in the comer behind the door, flings his hat on a chair, shakes the dust from his shoes and says to the _maître de l'hôtel_--

"'Ah! I am at Martigny, surely?'

"'Yes, monsieur.'

"'At the _Hôtel de la Poste_?'

"'This is the _Hôtel de la Poste._'

"'It is here one can get bear to eat then.'

"'I do not understand.'

"'I say that this is where one can taste bear.'

"The _maître de l'hôtel_ looked at the traveller in amazement.

"'Why here more than anywhere else?' he asked.

"'Because it was here that M. Dumas had it.'

"'M. Dumas?'

'Yes, M. Alexandre Dumas.... Do you not know M. Alexandre Dumas?'

"'No.'

'The author of _Henri III.,_ of _Antony_ and of _La Tour de Nesle_?'

"'I have not the pleasure of his acquaintance.'

'Ah! he says, in his _Impressions de Voyage,_ that he ate bear at your inn ... but, as you have none in the house at the moment, we will not trouble about it: we will have it some other time. Come, what have you got?'

'Monsieur can choose for himself, here is the menu!'

'Oh! I cannot be bothered! Give me what you like: since you have no bear, I don't care what it is.'

"And, with a disgusted air, finding it all very poor, the second traveller ate the dinner they served him.

"Next day, or the day after, or the following week, a traveller came in who, without saying anything, put his knapsack down, seated himself at the first table he came to and knocked against a glass with a knife, shouting--"'Garçon!'

"The waiter came.

"'What can I do for you, monsieur?'

"'A bear-steak.'

"'Ah! ah!'

"'Be quick and let it be underdone!'

"The waiter never budged.

"'Well, don't you understand me, donkey?'

"'Only too well.'

"'All right then, order my steak.'

"'But monsieur seems to want a special sort of steak.'

"'A steak of bear's flesh.'

"'Yes ... We haven't it.'

"'What, you haven't any?'

"'No.'

"'Go and fetch your master.'

"'But, monsieur, my master ...'

"'Go and fetch your master!'

"'But, monsieur.'

"'I tell you to go and fetch your master!'

"The traveller rose with such imperiousness that the waiter saw there was only one thing for him to do--to obey. He disappeared saying--

"'I am going to fetch him. I am going.'

"'You asked to see me, monsieur,' said the _maître de l'hôtel_ in five minutes' time.

"'Ah! that is all right!'

"'Had I only known monsieur specially wished to speak to me ...'

"'I wished to see you because your waiter is such a fool!'

"'That is possible, monsieur.'

"'An impertinent fellow.'

"'Has he had the impudence to neglect monsieur?'

"'He is an idiot, and he will ruin your establishment.'

"'Oh! oh! this is becoming serious.... If monsieur will tell me what he has to complain of.'

"'Well! I ask him for a bear-steak and he pretends not to understand.'

"'Ah! ah! it is ...'

"'Have you bear or have you not?'

"'Monsieur, allow me ...'

"'Have you bear?'

"'Really, monsieur ...'

"'Bear or death. Have you bear?'

"'Really, monsieur, no.'

"'You should have admitted it at once then,' said the traveller, reloading his knapsack.'

"'What is the matter, monsieur?'

"'I am going.'

"'Why are you going?'

"'Because I am going.'

"'But why?'

"'Because I only came to your cookshop to taste bear. As I find you haven't any, I am going to look for it elsewhere.'

"'Still, monsieur ...'

"'Come, _furth!_ and out the traveller went, saying, 'It seems you show special favour to M. Alexandre Dumas; but it also seems to me that a traveller in Burgundy wines is worth much more attention than a man of letters.'

"The inn-keeper stands dumbfounded.

"Now, you know, my dear fellow, that blessed _Impressions de Voyage_ has been widely read, printed and reprinted: not a day passed but some eccentric traveller would ask for a bear-steak. French and English appear to have gone to the _Hôtel de la Poste_ to drive the unlucky inn-keeper to distraction. Never was Pipelet, when he refuses to give his hair to Cabrion, to Cabrion's friends and acquaintances, more unhappy, tormented or desperate than the unhappy, tormented and desperate _maître de poste_ of Martigny. A French inn-keeper would have taken the bull by the horns and changed his signboard; instead of the words _Hôtel de la Poste,_ he would have put, _Hôtel du Bifteck d'Ours._ He would have bought up all the bears in the surrounding mountains; and, when they fell short, he would have provided beef, wild boar, horse, anything, so long as it was flavoured with some unknown sauce or other. He would have made his fortune in three years' time and retired at the end of it, buying his stocks to the extent of 100,000 francs, and he would have blessed my name. The present man made his fortune all the same, but more slowly, and through such incessant fits of anger that he ruined his health--and cursed my name.

"What harm has that done you?"

"It is always disagreeable to be cursed, my friend."

"But, after all, what truth is there in your bear-steak story?"

"Some and none?"

"What do you mean by some and none?"

"Three days before I went by, a man had been on the hunt for a bear and had wounded it mortally; but, before it died, it had killed the man and devoured part of his head. In my capacity of dramatic poet, I put the thing into a scene, that is all. The same thing happened to me as did to Werner at the inn of Schwartzbach, to his drama of _Vingt Quatre Février."_

"What happened to Werner?"

"Ah! upon my word, my dear friend, you ought to buy my _Impressions de Voyage_ and open the first volume and you will know."

Whereupon, we continued on our way.

That, dear readers, is the pure truth, revealed for the first time, concerning the bear-steak which made such a stir in the world twenty years ago. Ah, well! I have never been fortunate with my strokes of fame.

One of my creations, which had almost as European a celebrity as the bear-steak, was Jacotot; not the inventor of the famous method of orthography; but a Jacotot of my own; the Jacotot of my _Impressions de Voyage._

"Ah! yes, yes, the waiter in the café at Aix." Precisely, dear readers; you see, indeed, how celebrated Jacotot is since you remember his name."

"Who doesn't remember the name of Jacotot!"

"I can, then, say openly, that I made Jacotot's fortune, for he is rich and has retired; Jacotot has a town-house in Aix and a country-house on the lake of Bourget. Yet, like the master of the posting-inn at Martigny, Jacotot holds me in execration, he loathes me and curses me! The reason for such ingratitude? I wounded his _amour propre_; again because of putting him in my book; the number of enemies my dramatic talent has made me is incalculable! Any man who is not, like myself, overcome with a passion for the picturesque, any writer who does not feel compelled to paint when he writes, who had occasion to bring Jacotot upon the scenes for the first time, would have said simply, 'Jacotot comes on.' He would not have thought it necessary to state whether Jacotot was beautiful or ugly, well dressed or ill, young or old. But to me '_Jacotot enters_' seemed insufficient, and I had the misfortune to say, 'Jacotot entered; _he was nothing but a coffee-house waiter.'_ This was the first wounding epithet for Jacotot who, it is true, was a coffee-house waiter, but who, no doubt, desired to be taken for a solicitor's clerk. I went on: 'He stopped in front of us, a stereotyped smile _on his fat, stupid face,_ which must have been seen to have been appreciated.'"

That was what really embroiled me with Jacotot, the physical portrait I drew of him; all the good I was able to say of him, which has immortalised him, has not effaced from his memory the unhappy epithet I applied to his face.

In the year of grace 1854, nearly a quarter of a century after the publication of the unlucky _Impressions de Voyage_ which fell foul of many susceptibilities, there was a traveller on the road to Aix who had a desire to know Jacotot: he went to the café and did as I had done. He called Jacotot: the _maître du café_ came to him.

"Monsieur," he said, "the person for whom you are inquiring has made his fortune and retired."

"Ah! _diable!_" said the traveller. "I wanted to see him."

"Oh! you can see him."

"Where?"

"At his home."

"Oh! but to disturb him, solely and simply to say that I have a desire to see him is perhaps really a little too inquisitive."

"Eh! stay though, you can see him without disturbing him."

"How?"

"That is he, over there, against his door, with his hands in his pockets and his body in the sun."

"Thanks."

The traveller got up, went across to the other side of the square and passed two or three times in front of Jacotot. Jacotot perceived that it was he whom the traveller wanted; and, as he was a capital fellow, when his _amour-propre_ is not over-excited, he smiled at the traveller. The traveller was emboldened by the smile.

"You are M. Jacotot, I believe?" he asked him.

"Yes, monsieur, at your service."

"So you have retired?"

"Two years since, as you see!... I am a citizen, a good citizen now," and he struck his stomach with the palms of his two hands.

"I offer you my congratulations, Monsieur Jacotot."

"You are indeed good."

"I know some one who has not been injured by your bit of good fortune."

"Who, monsieur?"

"Alexandre Dumas, the author of the _Impressions de Voyage."_

Jacotot's face became discomposed.

"Alexandre Dumas," he repeated.

"Yes."

"Is it because he said I had a stupid face?" exclaimed Jacotot, slamming the door violently as he went into his house.

The traveller had paid his farewell call on Jacotot, for, from that moment, if Jacotot caught sight of him on one side, he turned away in another direction.

In the same country I have a third enemy, very much more serious than the two others, and for a thing of almost as little importance, and he is His Majesty Charles-Albert, King of Sardinia. During my sojourn at Aix I made two excursions: one to Chambéry and the other to the Dent du Chat. Both were made noteworthy: one by an act of great imprudence, the other by a serious accident; imprudence and accident would probably have passed over unnoticed had I not pointed them out in those fatal _Impressions de Voyage._ The imprudence was to go into the capital of Savoy wearing grey hats, as my companions and I did. You will ask, dear readers, what imprudence there was in wearing grey hats instead of black felt ones. There would have been none in 1833, but it was very unwise in 1832; and here is an extract of a few lines from my _Impressions de Voyage_--

"At four p.m. of the same day we reached Chambéry. I will say nothing about the public monuments of the capital of Savoy; I was not able to enter into any of them because I wore a grey hat. It seems that a dispatch from the Tuileries had called forth the strictest measures against the seditious felt, and that the King of Sardinia did not wish to be exposed to a war against his beloved brother Louis-Philippe d'Orléans over such a futile matter. As I insisted, and declaimed energetically against the injustice of such a proceeding, the Royal Carabiniers, who were on guard at the palace gate, said facetiously to me that, if I absolutely persisted, there was at Chambéry a building inside which they were allowed to take me, namely, the prison. As the King of France, in his turn, would probably not wish to be exposed to a war against his dear brother Charles-Albert, over so unimportant a personage as his ex-librarian, I replied to my interlocutors that they were doubtless very charming for Savoyards and very witty for carabiniers, but I would insist no longer."

Savoy is a singular country: Jacotot was angry because I said an injurious thing about him; the carabiniers were angry because I paid them a compliment. So much for the imprudence. Let us now pass to the accident.

After supper, a dozen bathers, joyous companions, four of whom, alas! are now dead, proposed, in order not to leave one another, to go and see the sun rise from the top of the Dent du Chat. It is a sharp-pointed mountain peak which owes its name to its shape, and its bare, verdureless cone looks down upon Aix. The suggestion was acceded to; they put on their boots and dressed for the journey, then they set out. I did the same as the others, although I have not much taste for making ascents; I suffer from giddiness; and, to be high up, even if there is no danger, is more painful to me than actual danger which may present itself under quite another form. As in the case of Chambéry, let me be permitted to quote a few passages from my _Impressions de Voyage_; it will absolve the reader from turning back to it--

"We began to climb at half-past twelve midnight; it was a strange sight, that march by torchlight. At two, three-quarters of our way were done, but the remaining part was so dangerous and difficult that our guides made us halt to wait for the first rays of dawn. When this appeared we continued our way, which soon became so steep that our breasts nearly touched the slope on which we were walking in single file. Each one displayed his skill and strength, clinging, with his hands, to the heath and little shrubs and, with his feet, to the roughness of the rock and to the inequalities in the ground. We heard the stones which we loosened roll down the slope of the mountain, which was as steep as a roof; and then we followed them with our eyes till we saw them fall into the lake, with its blue sheet, which lay stretched out a quarter of a league below us. Our guides themselves could not help us, as they were busy trying to discover the best way; but, from time to time, they advised us not to look behind us for fear of turning faint or giddy: and their admonitions, made in short, concise tones, told us the danger was very real.

"Suddenly, one of our comrades who followed immediately after them uttered a cry which made our flesh creep. As a means of support he had tried to place his foot on a stone already shaken by the weight of those who had preceded him. The stone broke away and the branches to which he had also clung, not being strong enough to bear the weight of his body alone, broke between his hands.

"'Catch hold of him!' shouted the guides.

"But this was easier said than done. Each one of us had already great difficulty in holding himself up. So he passed by us without a single one of us being able to stop him; we thought he was lost and, with the perspiration of terror on our brows, we watched him breathlessly until he was close to Montaigu, the last of us all, and he stretched out a hand and seized him by the hair. For one moment it was doubtful if both would not fall; it was a short but awful moment, and I will answer for it that none of those who were there will forget the length of the second, while we watched the two men swaying over a precipice of two thousand feet depth, not knowing whether they were going to be precipitated over, or succeed in catching hold of the ground again.

"We reached at last a little fir wood which, without making the path less steep, made it more comfortable because of the facility the trees offered us of catching hold of their branches or leaning against their trunks. The opposite border of the little forest almost touched the base of bare rock, whose shape has given its name to the mountain; holes irregularly hollowed out in the stone afforded us a sort of staircase which led to the summit.

"Only two of us attempted this last climb; not that the journey was more difficult than that we have just accomplished, but it did not promise us a more extended view, and the one we had in front of us was far from compensating us for our fatigue and bruises. We therefore left them to climb up their steeple and we sat down to extract stones and thorns from ourselves. Meanwhile, the climbers reached the top of the mountain, and, as proof of having captured it, they lit a fire and smoked their cigars round it.

"They came down in a quarter of an hour, taking good care to put out the fire they had lit, curious though they were to know if the smoke had been noticed down below. We ate a small meal, then our guides asked us if we wanted to return by the same route, or to take another and a longer one, but much easier. We unanimously chose the latter. By three o'clock we were in Aix, and, in the centre of the square, the gentlemen had the proud pleasure of still seeing the smoke of their beacon fire. I asked them if, now that I had had so much enjoyment, I might be allowed to go to bed. As every one probably felt the need of doing the same, they told me there was no objection. I believe I should have slept for thirty-six hours on end if I had not been awakened by a great noise. I opened my eyes, it was dark; I went to the window, and I saw all the town of Aix in a commotion. The population, including children and old people, had come out on the public square, as in former times they did during riotings in Rome. Every one was talking at once, and snatching at glasses, and looking up into the air fit to break their spines; I thought there must be an eclipse of the moon. I dressed quickly to go and see my share of the phenomenon, and went down armed with my spy-glasses. The whole atmosphere was coloured with a red reflection, the sky seemed inflamed; the Dent du Chat was on fire! The fire lasted for three days. On the fourth, they brought our smokers in a bill of 37,500 francs odd. The smokers thought the sum a little too strong for a dozen arpents of wood, the situation of which made it impossible to get at. Consequently, they wrote to our ambassador at Turin to try to get something cut down in the bill. He must have managed it very well, because the bill returned to them in a week's time to be paid was reduced to 780 francs.

"Thanks to my grey hat, which had aroused the susceptibilities of the Chambéry Carabiniers, and to the