Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1874-06-03
With the Oldest Living Artist.
Translated for Appleton's journal.

With the Oldest Living Artist.
Translated for Appletons journal.
recently had the pleasure of paying
a visit to the Oldest man in France, to
the learned Baron Waldeck, who COM
pleted his one hundred and eighth year
the 18th of March.
Only certain number of artists and
very old men know this excellent and
venerable old man, who has seen the
entire population of France twice re-
newed around him since 1776. Such
men are very rare, and, at the advise Of
several prominent persons, I took the
pious resolution to make pilgrimage
to the patriarch, and to narrate his life
to the Parisians, who, like all mankind,
are fond of biological curiosities."
At the upper end of the Rue de Mar
tyrs, beyond the outer boulevard, the
pupil of Wen and Proudhon occupies a
suite of rooms, where he lives with his
centenarian himself opened the door to
me, and received me with the utmost
affability. [ entered a small studio fill
ed with medallions, easels, paintings,
and water color sketches. M de Wal
deck seated himself in a large easy
chair. His body was wrapped closely
in chestnut colored dressing gown,
and his head was covered with cap of
the same color with a large visor.
Underneath this necessary shade I be-
held two small twinkling eyes protected
by gold spectacles, snow white beard,
and few tufts of silvery hair, pale
face, a very few wrinkles in the fore
head, and the head slightly inclined. I
thought I had before me one of the al
chemists of Albrecht Durer, or the orr
ginal Of one of Holbein's paintings.
AS soon as [ had told him frankly
why [ had come to visit him, he said
to me:
cam I not a biological curiosity?
Nevertheless, few people come to see
me; but [ work a great deal and do not
like to be disturbed. But what you
have told me pleases greatly. The
Parisians hardly know that they have
intheir midst man as aged as am, you
say? A man who has seen passing away
before his eyes Louis XVI, and the revo-
buttons of 1889, Bonaparte and bis first
empire, Louis XVIII, and the July
monarchy, the February revolution and
the second empire, the 4th of Septem-
Der, Commune and M. Theirs. On the
18th of March [ completed my 1OS year.
Well, [ am convinced that [ shall go
great deal further than that. I have
crossed the threshold of the period
when one dies. Don't you see it ??
There is no longer any reason why
there should be an end of me- [ am
slowly eternalizing myself, and my
archaeological studies lead me to believe
that [ am arriving at a petrifaction that
will last for centuries.
"Your archaeological studies Then
you are still at work?
"What I never worked so hard as in
the last ten years. Look here. This is
a manuscript which will soon be publish
ed by Didot. [ was in my 1O2d year
when I began writing it. It is an ency-
clop@dia of western archaeology, and
will embrace three volumes"
"You have travelled great deal ?"
90 have passed twenty years in Am
erica. At that time [ was captain of
vessel, after having been one of Bona
parties staff officers in Egypt. For
nearly fifeen years [ studied Mexican
antiquities, and my encyclopaedia,
which [ commenced in my old age, |
when was upward of 100 years old, |
goes to establish that Egyptian civil
zation descended from American civil
cation in word, that the new world is
the old, and that which we now call the |
old world is simply the new.