Part 31

The story of “Camille,” or “La Dame aux Camelias,” as it is termed in the original, is founded very largely on fact. The central figure of Dumas’ pathetic drama had genuine existence. Her name was Marie Duplessis. She was as lovely in person and as elegant in manner as she is portrayed on the stage. Indeed, the theatric picture was almost a photograph, and the incidents of Marie’s life have been closely followed. The Armand was a young and excessively romantic physician, who, having met the beautiful cocotte at an opera ball, fell so desperately in love with her that he wished to make her his wife. She had too much good sense and prudence, independent of feeling, to permit such a sacrifice; but his devotion and generosity touched her nearly, and soon awoke an answering passion. In spite of her errors, she seems to have been intrinsically a fine and noble woman, who, under favorable circumstances, might have been pure and true. So much was she impressed by his chivalry that she cast off her admirers, purchased a handsome villa near Versailles, and begged her new lover to share it with her. He did so; for he was infatuated with Marie, and would not listen to the sober counsels of his family and friends. His father, in very moderate circumstances, was sorely troubled at the conduct of his son, who had no thought nor care for anything but his mistress. The old gentleman, unable to influence the head-strong boy, sought an interview with the lady of the camellias, and begged her to break off the connection. She undertook the task, and succeeded where his family had failed. Her success, however, was obtained at the expense of truth and her own heart; for she made her lover believe that her attachment to him was waning.

Armand, with all the gloom of the Inferno weighing upon his spirits, went to Italy, trusting that absence and travel would enable him to forget the woman he now deemed unworthy of him. He was gone a twelvemonth. He bore separation much better than she, as men usually do. Before half that time the charming lorette fell ill and died. The doctors asserted that her ailment was consumption, but the poets insisted it was a clear case of broken heart. Her death, with her previous history and romantic reformation, moved the curiosity and appealed to the sentiment of Paris, especially after the tale had been told in gushing style, and in any number of short paragraphs in one of the gossipping journals.

When the villa at Versailles was advertised for sale, with its elegant furniture and dainty articles of virtu, a crowd gathered, and the bidding was so spirited by reason of active competition, that everything brought nearly double its actual value. Dumas, then quite young, was present, and secured, as a memento, a handsome ring which Marie had worn.

Six months after, some one called at Dumas’ house to see him personally. The author found the stranger to be a pale and melancholy young man, who said he had come with the hope of buying the ring that had been purchased at the sale. Further conversation revealed the fact that the stranger had been Marie’s lover; that he had given her the ring; and now, overwhelmed by the news of her death, of which he had just been apprised, he begged, as a special favor, that he might be permitted to purchase what to him had such inestimable value.

Dumas, deeply touched by the story, insisted upon making a present of the trinket to the bereaved youth, and afterwards wrote out the tender tale which has since drawn tears from half the world.

[Sidenote: CHARACTER OF THE ADVENTURESS.]

The adventuress is usually favored by nature, and carries her fair face and symmetrical form to the best market. If not handsome, she is winning, has great _chic_, clear insight, a thorough understanding, and the weaknesses of our common humanity.

Good and kind at first, she has become what man has made of her; and in the vocation she has chosen, vanity and self are her impelling powers. Her beauty is a commodity she offers to the highest bidder. She receives large sums, but she squanders them recklessly; for display is almost the only passion of her being. She shines in the Bois; bets desperately at Baden; turns heads at Vienna; shocks the proprieties of London; dashes resplendent along the Nevski, in the height of the gayeties of Petersburg; creates a sensation at Florence; astonishes the staid Germans at Berlin; interrupts the opera at Madrid; and finally, furnishes the subject of a letter for the New York Herald.

[Sidenote: CAREER AND FATE OF A COQUETTE.]

Her career is necessarily brief, for her reign must end when years begin to tell. Between twenty and thirty-five her golden harvest must be gathered. Not unfrequently she dies by her own hand; but oftener she has learned prudence ere her charms have waned, and is contrite when it is no longer easy or graceful to sin. It is a great mistake to suppose that the adventuress is invariably drawn out of the Seine, and exposed at the Morgue. No longer able to repeat her triumphs, she likes to withdraw from Paris, in some retired town seek the consolations of religion, and bestow charity upon the poor. She is more interesting at forty than in the flush of her glowing youth; since then the flame of her self-love has been allowed to smoulder, and the radiance of her true womanhood returns once more.

The fourth circle of the demi-monde are those priestesses of Venus who sin without satisfaction, and laugh without gayety. They are not materially different in Paris from what they are in other cities. They have gone down by slippery and sable steps, but not to a level with despair. They do not despair and live, in the air of France; for with despair comes the pan of charcoal. They have intervals akin to cheerfulness, and highly-spiced sensations bounding from pleasure to delirium. They need not cease to hope or fear, since there is still a deeper deep; and that is the fifth circle, whose representatives frequent the streets at night, the cheaper cafés, and the common gardens, in search of means to continue in their horrid trade. Even these are not so degraded as the same kind of unfortunates are with us. They do not drink; they do not swear; they do not importune strangers rudely; they do not from the first disgust in their effort to attract. They have apartments of their own, a certain kind of society and a species of freedom that women, however fallen, always enjoy in France. They are not labelled outcasts, as in England and America, and therefore, in their darkest hours, they have glimpses of the heaven of hope. Careless and improvident as they are in their youth, they frequently provide for the future as years go on, and come to their end through confession and ecclesiastical forgiveness of all their transgressions.

[Sidenote: THE LOWEST CLASSES.]

The sixth class, the lowest and last of the semi-mundanes, are more nearly pariahs than any others of their kind. They rarely make any provision for to-morrow, since to-morrow is as dismal and as painful as to-day. Almost always in want, their wastefulness is such that they would be poor if every month were marked by a shower of gold. It is they who accost strangers at night on the Boulevards; ask loungers in the cafés to buy coffee and wine for them; make _poses_ and smoke cigars in the streets; and are sometimes arrested for brawls, intoxication, and pilfering. When they have reached this grade of degradation they cannot go back; they cannot stand still; they cannot fall lower. They put formidable obstacles in their proper path, and are their own worst enemies. Such elasticity and endurance as they may have is soon spent. Before a great while, a damp cellar or dingy garret is broken open, a suffocating odor is perceived, the rude bed holds a corpse; a brazier of charcoal tells the story, and adds another to the countless tragedies which invariably keep the balance with life.

The gardens of Paris, like the Mabille, the Closerie de Lilas, the Château Rouge, and many others reveal another feature of the under-world. The Mabille, to which strangers generally go, is the least indecorous, and, I may add, the dullest. There half a dozen couples, the women being generally of the lowest demi-monde class, are paid so much per night for dancing of the most extraordinary sort. What it lacks in delicacy is made up in energy. The greatest ambition of the cocottes is to kick the hats from the heads of their partners, and to throw their drapery into the wildest confusion. Their movements belong rather to gymnastics than the quadrille, which they pretend to execute, and when their leaping and plunging begin to pall upon the spectators, they have recourse to the shamefully indecent can-can.

[Sidenote: MABILLE, CHÂTEAU ROUGE, AND PRADO.]

The Mabille draws strangers, as honey draws flies. Eminently respectable and altogether staid persons go there, and closely observe the dancers, without any apparent disapproval too, when they would be supremely shocked at home at the slightest intimation of such licentious conduct. I have observed pious matrons from New England watching the saltatorial goddesses through their spectacles, as they might watch the gambols of unknown animals. The Mabille soon grows wearisome, and few persons frequent it on their second visit to Paris.

The Château Rouge is a more extended, demonstrative, and free-and-easy place of resort than the Mabille. It is much more democratic also; the prices of admission for men (women are admitted without charge) being one franc, instead of three. To encourage attendance, prizes are offered to those who shall be present the greatest number of nights during the season, and the announcement of the prizes is placarded upon the wall, so that every one may see them. Silk gowns are the temptations for the gentler, and watches for the sterner sex. I should imagine that some of the girls expected a reward for lifting their gaiters in a direct line above their heads, so often do they attempt it, and so generally do they succeed.

The Closerie de Lilas, called the Prado in winter, is the place where the students and the grisettes go in crowds, and where they whirl and make merry for the pure love of the thing. The attendance is very large on Thursday and Sunday nights, when I have seen five or six hundred persons of both sexes, flushed with wine, and dancing like mad dervishes. The revels there are fast and furious enough. License reigns supreme, and Bacchus and Venus seem to inspire the orgies. Paris always limits its public exhibitions, and minions of the law are ever present to keep licentiousness within bounds. Without stimulants the grisettes and cocottes become wild with excitement as the music of Offenbach pours out under the sky to infect them with its sensuous frenzy. Doubtless the students and their lemans enjoy themselves to the utmost; for they could not counterfeit enjoyment so excellently. They smoke, and drink, and laugh, and talk, and chat, and caper together without the smallest reserve or restraint, as if they had not, and never would have, any other thought than of the present moment and its absorbing pleasure.

[Sidenote: A DELIRIUM OF DANCING.]

When the weather is unfavorable, they have their balls in a large, covered space; and to see and hear them leaping, tumbling, screaming, and roaring in one confused and palpitating mass, impresses the self-contained and impassive Anglo-Saxon very strangely. Those French revellers have few concealments. They do their wooing in the presence of hundreds; they have their little quarrels in the midst of their carnival of glee. Elise appeals to Jacques with shrugs and starts, and streaming eyes; and Victoire complains of neglect, and emphasizes his jealousy to Marguerite before the giddy throng, as if they were in the privacy of their own apartments. They make up their differences with petting words and copious caresses, and enact their melodramas regardless of curious eyes and smiling lookers-on.

There are resorts, and not a few, in Paris, of a more private character, where decorum is not observed, and where restraint is not practised. All evil passions are there let loose, and vices revealed that would be repulsive to any but morbid minds. Such shameful entertainments are declared to be in imitation of ancient Grecian revels and Roman rites. The claim is noteworthy, for Paris, in its most revolting and secret sins, never forgets to assure itself and the external world that such entertainments are sanctioned by classicism. These may be imagined: they certainly cannot be described.

[Sidenote: FAST SUPPERS.]

The _petits soupers_ of the under-world are reckoned by many among the attractions of the French capital. They occur at many of the restaurants, though at Peter’s and the Café Helder they are given with the most flavor. These little suppers begin after midnight, and continue until dawn, and though the best of them are private, the public ones, or rather those in public places, have enticements for the masculine mind, on account of the eccentric women to be found at them. At Peter’s and the Café Helder are spacious saloons, provided with small tables; and about one o’clock in the morning, parties of gayly-dressed ladies, with their gallants, and often without gallants, begin to arrive. Many come in carriages, but some on foot, albeit the pedestrians are attired like stage queens. The majority of the women are lorettes, of different grades, but not a few of them are the inferior actresses of the Gaîté, Variétés, and Gymnase, and the ballet girls of the Vaudeville, Ambigu, and Folies Dramatiques. There they completely unbend, cast reserve to the breezes, take easy positions, chatter like magpies, blow small clouds of smoke at the frescoed ceiling, or keep time to the clinking of champagne glasses with their symmetrical feet. Those unescorted are entirely willing to be invited to partake of salads, ices, or wines by the gentlemen who drop in from mere curiosity, or from a desire to make feminine acquaintances.

Between two and three o’clock the sexes become adjusted to each other; everybody is eating and talking, drinking and smoking, at the same time. The handsome rooms resound with feasting and merriment. Glasses rattle, forks clatter, tongues wag, songs are sung, toasts given amid the highest glee and enthusiasm.

Standing in a chair, with a beaker of sparkling Clicquot, is the pretty soubrette of the Gymnase, making a mock-heroic speech; and at the end of every sentence she is greeted with the clapping of hands and loud huzzas. Near her the graceful danseuse of the Folies, encircled by the arms of the dramatic critic of the _Figaro_, is offering a toast in a goblet of Château Margaux, and at the other end of the saloon, two brunette deities are giving a bit of the can-can, in the midst of vociferous cheering.

Stretched on a velvet sofa, her heels elevated above her head, Marie Basquinette, a famous adventuress, who has just come from London, is entertaining her listeners with a droll account of the awkwardnesses and stupidities of the English. (Whenever the French wish to be particularly funny, they always caricature John Bull; and many of them really believe that no Briton can, by any possibility, appear other than uncouth and ridiculous.)

The French prints of well-dressed carousals with which we are so familiar, might be actual photographs of the _petits soupers_ and their surroundings at the Café Helder. As the night wanes apace, and as the east grows gray, the revellers begin to disappear. There is something ghastly in the daylight surprise after a debauch, and the Parisians flee from it as if it brought sermons and endless prayers.

[Sidenote: THE DANGEROUS CLASSES OF PARIS.]

What we should call the dangerous classes would seem, from the fair outside of Paris, to have no existence there; and yet, as the police well know, many of the most cunning thieves, audacious burglars, and desperate scoundrels are native and to the manner born. They keep out of sight by day, and are rarely seen in the fashionable quarters, unless they have some special mission of villany. These fellows have their organizations and their amusements, and herd together and hold nocturnal revel in out-of-the-way dens, where no one but the gendarme or government spy would think of looking for them.

Having some desire to become acquainted externally with French scoundrels, I mentioned my desire to a private detective, who promised to take me to the district known as the Batignolles, where, he said, many of the choicest miscreants of the city were in the habit of assembling on Sunday nights. He told me that, while there was not likely to be trouble or danger, it would be well to be armed; and so, with two revolvers each, we sprang into a calèche, one stormy Sunday evening, at the Grand Hôtel, and drove to our point of destination.

After nearly an hour’s ride through narrow and dreary streets, over rough pavements, and past malodorous neighborhoods, he stopped before a tall stone building, that looked like a deserted mill.

[Sidenote: VISITING A DEN OF THIEVES.]

Not a light was visible anywhere, and, as the night was dark, I asked my guide if he were not mistaken in the locality. He assured me that he was not, and, taking my hand, told me he would lead the way. I could see nothing; but after we had stumbled along for a few seconds, a flash of lightning revealed a long, narrow stone staircase before us, and down this we slowly crept. At the base was a heavy oaken door, which appeared as if it might withstand a battering-ram, and I was wondering how we were to open it, when the detective put his mouth to the key-hole, and gave a peculiar whistle. The door swung open at once; we stepped into a dismal vestibule, and were confronted by a huge figure, who grunted out, “_Tout bien_,” as he recognized my companion, slammed to the door, and bolted it securely. So large a Frenchman I had hardly seen. He was a giant in proportions, and I discovered by a few phrases, that he was an Alsatian. He knew what we wanted, and told us, pointing in the direction, to go to the main hall, where, to translate him freely, the boys were very lively, and having a good time.

A few steps brought us to the hall,—it should have been called a cellar,—and in it were some fifty of the most villanous-looking men and coarsest women I had ever had the misfortune to encounter. It was evident, at a glance, that they were thieves, robbers, and assassins; the slightest acquaintance with phrenology and physiognomy made that clear—that some of them were of the sneak, some of the burglar, and others of the desperado order. The place was dimly lighted with a few sputtering candles; the ceiling was low, and the air mephitic. A few of the men were standing and smoking pipes; but the greater part sat at rough tables drinking and talking in hoarse tones, with vile oaths, on subjects in which it was natural they should be interested.

A murder that had been committed a fortnight before in Marseilles, an account of which had been printed in the Paris journals, occupied much of their attention. They were very laudatory of the skilful manner in which the crime had been perpetrated, and of the adroitness displayed by the criminal in getting away. They had not a particle of pity for the victim, an old and inoffensive man, whose throat had been cut while he was asleep in bed, that a trunk in his apartment might be broken open and plundered of a thousand francs.

The women, if they might be termed such, were more brutal and bloodthirsty in their dispositions, judging from their expression, than the men themselves. They were, as I was informed, either thieves themselves or aids and accomplices of the thieves. Some of them were what we should style shoplifters; others made it their business to obtain information from servants in regard to private residences, and imparted it to the burglars with whom they consorted.

[Sidenote: LOOKING AT A MURDERESS.]

One Amazon, who had a mustache and slight whiskers, had committed two murders, the detective said—one in Lyons, and the other in the arrondissement Vaugirard. She had been so adroit that she could not be convicted on trial, though there was not the least shadow of doubt of her guilt. She was a species of she devil in that tophet, and, as I perceived, was looked up to as something of an oracle. She planned many of the boldest robberies, and was herself regarded as absolutely fearless. She must have been very strong; for she was as broad across the shoulders as a grenadier, and her rolled-up sleeves showed that she had muscle like a black-smith. I would much rather have encountered a masculine ruffian and assassin than that virago, who seemed fierce and cruel, not from passion, but from nature. There was a tigress look about her which made my flesh creep and my hair bristle. She appeared so bloodthirsty that I should not have been surprised if she had sprung upon me and fastened her fangs in my neck.

The thieves and robbers in the cellar knew the detective of course, as they know detectives all the world over; nodded to him familiarly, and asked him in an argot—which had to be translated to me—if he had been successful in making any arrests recently.

I observed that they changed their tone of talk as we entered, determined not to give him any clew to their latest crimes. They continued, however, to discuss the exploits of the members of their profession, and to express the warmest admiration for the greatest scoundrels. It hardly seemed possible that human beings could be so hardened and so vicious, and that they could find their chief gratification in disorder, violation of law, and revolting iniquity. These fellows were more like brutes than men in semblance. Their eyes had a fierce and lurid expression; their mouths were sensual and coarse; their jaws had a heavy, animal-like firmness; and their whole faces were dark and forbidding. I noticed that many of them drank spirits, which is uncommon in France, and that the largest potations did not sensibly affect them.

Three or four of the gang were so repulsive in feature that I felt a curiosity respecting their history, and made inquiry thereabout of the detective.

[Sidenote: HISTORY OF A HOUSE-BREAKER.]