The Portland daily press., 1881-08-02
TUESDAY MORNING.sAUG 2.
Dufaure'S Eccentricities.

iran Mail Gazette.
The veteran, NJ. Dufaure, whose death M.
Leon Say announced last night in the Senate,
was remarkable for his success in all his under
takings; for his crusty manner, his lucid intel
lect, his indifference to all the gauds of life
and for his sustaining power at work, which
enabled him to retain for nearly 80 years the
best practice at the Paris bar. NJ Dufaure's
exterior was in perfect correspondence with his
disposition and mental faculties. There was
something in him of the gnared, knotty oak.
he grew and developed in obedience to some
Unborn principle, and in utter independence Of
shifting modes and crowd-leading fashions. To
court he often went when there was a king,
but nothing could twist the hard-grained jurist
into courtier. And yet in all his life he was
never in rebellion against any of the generally
accepted conventions of society. His sturdy
nature found an element of nutrition in the
observation of those unwritten laws which the
French call les moeurs, and the old English
call good manners. M Dufaure, before old
age had bent him, was of middle height and
solidly built
The visage of NJ. Dufaure was of a rugged
outline. 1t must have been ugly before the
severe mental strain to which his brain was
subjected liked his seal upon it. His physiog-
nomy was more rude and harsh than STERN
Sternness is akin to majesty, and M. Dufaure
was the homelest of men. A laborer cast in
the same mould that he was would have been
superior sort of churl. lie Paysan du Dan
ube" was the nickname the late NJ. de Remu-
sat gave him. Rather wild boar out of the
woods" said Guizot but not come to tear up
the vine of constitutional monarchy" And
truly there was in Dufaure much of that ami
NAL. The horse, the dog, and many another
euadruped take in wide horizons, and like to
watch what is going forward at distance. The
wild boar, to pursue NJ. Guizot's smile, goes
terre-a-terre with nose to the ground, seeking
for pignuts and toothsome roots. 1t has tusk
that rends, and is rough and bristly. M. Du-
faures irony WIS of a kind that rent an adver-
sary; it was cruel and flowed spontaneously;
and yet there was a very soft side to the tough
Old lawyer Early habits OF strict economy
into which his careful, managing wife entered,
survived the acquisition of great wealth; but
he was ever ready to break through them to
crafty within, taste or passion of any of his
three children. When Nine. Dufaure stood
in the way of paternal generosity, he slipped
bundles OF bank notes into the hand of the ION
or daughter wanting money, winked, and then
went off saying, with his nasal twang: "I
fault bien que la jeunnesse s. amuse un peu."
Nj. Gambetta, in his speech at the Palais de
Justice, was horribly lacerated by the irony
OF NJ. Dufaure, who, when he saw that he had
inflicted bad wounds, attempted to pour balm
into them. / heard the victim describe his
sensations 10 years after he had experienced
them, with graphic force which showed how
ranking at the time the wound must have
been.
Nj. Dufaure was a native of the brandy-vine
district of the Charente, in which he pur-
chased, bit by bit, an estate bordering for sew
en- miles strait road. In the long vacation
his chief pleasure was to go there and walk
every morning between his breakfast and his
lunch along the dusty highway to the end of
his domain and back again. In these walks
he was coarsely shod, wore blouse to protect
himself from the dust, broad -brimmed peas
ants hat, and leaned on knobby stick. The
country was prosaic. There was nothing to
see, unless rolling uplands covered with short,
scrubby vines. These vines the old lawyers
eye surveyed lovingly. He had that passion
for acquiring land which distinguishes the
French peasant-a class from which his father
spranc.