The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1875-10-23
FRENCH LIFE.
More of lAr~enc HOussaye's Spasnosiir
Friends.

More Of Ar~enc IHOussaye's SPasnso di
Friends
/ would tell Barthet in the morning I,
write to some parsonage. He passed TIL
order to Gaiffe, who passed it on to De
troyes, who prepared the letter in a sens,
exactly contrary to what | had indicated
| soon, therefore, had to content mysel
with Nerteuil alone, without, however
taking away Barthet's salary. My deal
friend" | said to him, ''you are nv sec
rotary, and you can write plays for the
| theater, instead of letters for the Direc
ton" But he would not he a secretary
IN partibus; he insisted on his share il
the. Direction. He disarranged every.
thing in his zeal. Here is an instance
One evening, when Rachel was playing
his Sparrow" he saw in the boxes a
man who was laughing heartily between
two Lesbias. : He ran, to the box and
opened it with authority. He spoke to
the Laughter, who laughed in his face.
Upon which the pugnacious poet took
him by the collar and walked him to the
corridor. Who do you suppose was the
Laughter? The Project of Police. There
was great tumult and I was sent for
LUCKILY, l was acquainted with earlier
But it was not the Project whom it was
hard to appease, but Barthet himself
The next morning, to make things end
pleasantly, what does Barthet do but
write this pretty note to the Project
imagined, Sir, that l could not do
better than apply to the Project of Po-
lice. 1t seems that L could not have
done worse"
1 was forced, to my great regret, to
part with Armand Barthet. But / still
remained his friend, as also did Rachel
She invited him to. her suppers, but in
his quality of Bohemia he was rather too
unceremOnious. The Bohemians gene
rally piqued themselves on not being
men of the world. l do not impute this
on them as a crime, but as Barthet did
not wear a white cravat to his beer Gel
lar, he ought not to have worn a ragged
neckcloth at Mile. RachePs. Some re-
gard should be paid to custom, even in
the republic of letters.
He got married to a wife who made
hip in love with marriage But the
money question was always there He
did not come to absolute poverty, but he
was desperate at his inability to make a
fortune for his wife while he was grad
ua1ly losing his own literary capital
He was aggressive even to his last days
of reason, not to speak of his days of
madness. One morning while hunting
he met one of his -neighbors who had a
red nose. My dear fellow" he said,
" forbid you to present yourself before
me again with that nose. Get yourself a
silver nose or else keep out of my way"
The neighbOr was enraged. See,"
said Barthet, "your nose is crimson.
Once more tell you, 1 won't stand it,
The man with the rosy nose was furious;
so was Barthet. A challenge passed and
they fought the next day, to the great
merriment of the country, for Barthet
had sworn he would cut off his neigh
boris nose, but the neighbor instead slit |
Barthet's ear.
: M. Proudhomme will not fail to say |
that Barthet must have been difficult |
man to get on with. But, apart from |
these fantastic gusts of temper, he was |
not only the best of friends, but he
would have thrown himself into the sea |
for the first conner. He was a great |
heart, but bad temper. There was
more than one point of resemblance be-
tween him and C1esinger, the great
sculptor and ex-cuirassier, who has al
ways cuirassier In a salon. One day in
4 cafe the sculptor was denouncing
minister who did not give him million
! year in orders, and brought his fist
down on the table. The master
IF the establishment came to him, repre-
enting in the most deferential manner
hat he might "break the MARBLE"
6 Marble" said Clesinger, CHATS my
business. / am the sculptor Clesinger"
Here he slapped his neighbours table.
His neighbor was NJ. Champagne, ia
nous blade. .sMonsieur," he said, 81
10 not like "a noise except sword in
land." every well,"- said Clesinger,
I'VE will try that" / was a second at
hat singular duel
- Barthet was buried at Ivry. He has
lot single friend in that cemetery of
clods. There were four of us at
iSfuneral.