The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1875-10-22
FRENCH LIFE.
More Of Arsene HOussaye's SpasmOdIC
Friends

/
| would tell Barthet in the morning'tO
write to some parsonage. He passed the
order to Gaiffe, who passed it on to De
troyes, who prepared the letter in a sense
exactly contrary to what had indicated
l soon, therefore, had to content myself
with Verteuil alone, without, however,
taking away Barthet's salary. "My dear
| friend, l said to him, "yOu are my sec
retary, and you can write plays for the
| theater, instead of letters for the Direc-
tion." But he would not be a secretary
an pdrtSbats; he insisted on his share in
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 laugher, 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
laugher? The Prefect of Police. There
was a great tumult and / was sent for
Luckily, was acquainted with earlier.
But it was not the Prefect 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 Prefect:
imagined, Sir, that l could not do
better than apply to the Prefect of Po-
lice. 1t seems that | could not have
done worse"
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 white cravat to his beer eel
lar, he ought not to have worn ragged
neckclOth at Mile. RachePs. Some re-
gard should be paid to custom, even in
the republic of letters.
He got married to wife who made
him 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
fortune for his wife while he was grad
ually 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
silver nose or else keep out of my way"
The neighbOr was enraged. "See,"
said Barthet, "yOur nose is crimson
Once more l tell you, 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.
NJ. PrOudhOmme will not fail to say
that Barthet must have been a 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 Clesinger, the great |
sculptor and eX-cuirassier, who has al
ways cuirassier in a salon. One day in
a cafe the sculptor was denouncing a
minister who did not give him a million
year in orders, and brought his fist
violently down on the table. The master
of the establishment came to him, repre-
senting in the most deferential manner
that he might "break the marble"
" Marble" said Clesinger, "that's my
business. l am the sculptor Clesinger"
Here he slapped his neighbor's table.
His neighbor was NJ Champagne, IA
nous blade. Monsieur" he said, 81
do not like a noise except sword in
hand" Very WE'LL" said Clesinger,
"we will try that" l was a second at
that singular duel
Barthet was buried at Ivry. He has
not a single friend in that cemetery of
nameless clOds. There were four of us at
his funeral.