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Produced by Rene Anderson Benitz, Suzanne Shell and the | |
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net | |
[Illustration: THE REAL LATIN QUARTER Book Cover] | |
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Variations in hyphenation, capitalization, and | |
spelling have been retained as in the original. Minor printer errors | |
have been amended without note. Obvious typos have been amended and | |
are listed at the end of the text. Some illustrations have been | |
relocated for better flow. Brief descriptions of illustrations | |
without captions have been added in parentheses where appropriate. | |
[Illustration: THE REAL LATIN QUARTER] | |
[Illustration: IN THE GARDENS OF THE LUXEMBOURG | |
_WATER COLOR DRAWING BY_ | |
F. HOPKINSON SMITH | |
PARIS, 1901] | |
THE REAL | |
LATIN QUARTER | |
By F. BERKELEY SMITH | |
[Illustration: (portrait of woman)] | |
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR | |
INTRODUCTION AND FRONTISPIECE BY | |
F. HOPKINSON SMITH | |
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY | |
NEW YORK . NINETEEN HUNDRED AND ONE | |
Copyright, 1901 | |
by | |
Funk & Wagnalls Company | |
Registered | |
at | |
Stationers' Hall | |
London, England | |
Printed in the | |
United States of America | |
Published in | |
November, 1901 | |
[Illustration: (teapot with cup)] | |
CONTENTS | |
Page | |
Introduction 7 | |
Chapter | |
I. In the Rue Vaugirard 11 | |
II. The Boulevard St. Michel 29 | |
III. The "Bal Bullier" 52 | |
IV. Bal des Quat'z' Arts 70 | |
V. "A Dejeuner at Lavenue's" 93 | |
VI. "At Marcel Legay's" 113 | |
VII. "Pochard" 129 | |
VIII. The Luxembourg Gardens 151 | |
IX. "The Ragged Edge of the Quarter" 173 | |
X. Exiled 194 | |
[Illustration: (wine bottles with glass)] | |
INTRODUCTION | |
"Cocher, drive to the rue Falguiere"--this in my best restaurant French. | |
The man with the varnished hat shrugged his shoulders, and raised his | |
eyebrows in doubt. He evidently had never heard of the rue Falguiere. | |
"Yes, rue Falguiere, the old rue des Fourneaux," I continued. | |
Cabby's face broke out into a smile. "Ah, oui, oui, le Quartier Latin." | |
And it was at the end of this crooked street, through a lane that led | |
into a half court flanked by a row of studio buildings, and up one pair | |
of dingy waxed steps, that I found a door bearing the name of the author | |
of the following pages--his visiting card impaled on a tack. He was in | |
his shirt-sleeves--the thermometer stood at 90 deg. outside--working at his | |
desk, surrounded by half-finished sketches and manuscript. | |
The man himself I had met before--I had known him for years, in | |
fact--but the surroundings were new to me. So too were his methods of | |
work. | |
Nowadays when a man would write of the Siege of Peking or the relief of | |
some South African town with the unpronounceable name, his habit is to | |
rent a room on an up-town avenue, move in an inkstand and pad, and a | |
collection of illustrated papers and encyclopedias. This writer on the | |
rue Falguiere chose a different plan. He would come back year after | |
year, and study his subject and compile his impressions of the Quarter | |
in the very atmosphere of the place itself; within a stone's throw of | |
the Luxembourg Gardens and the Pantheon; near the cafes and the Bullier; | |
next door, if you please, to the public laundry where his washerwoman | |
pays a few sous for the privilege of pounding his clothes into holes. | |
It all seemed very real to me, as I sat beside him and watched him at | |
work. The method delighted me. I have similar ideas myself about the | |
value of his kind of study in out-door sketching, compared with the | |
labored work of the studio, and I have most positive opinions regarding | |
the quality which comes of it. | |
If then the pages which here follow have in them any of the true | |
inwardness of the life they are meant to portray, it is due, I feel | |
sure, as much to the attitude of the author toward his subject, as much | |
to his ability to seize, retain, and express these instantaneous | |
impressions, these flash pictures caught on the spot, as to any other | |
merit which they may possess. | |
Nothing can be made really _real_ without it. | |
F. HOPKINSON SMITH. | |
Paris, August, 1901. | |
[Illustration: (city rooftop scene)] | |
CHAPTER I | |
IN THE RUE VAUGIRARD | |
Like a dry brook, its cobblestone bed zigzagging past quaint shops and | |
cafes, the rue Vaugirard finds its way through the heart of the Latin | |
Quarter. | |
It is only one in a score of other busy little streets that intersect | |
the Quartier Latin; but as I live on the rue Vaugirard, or rather just | |
beside it, up an alley and in the corner of a picturesque old courtyard | |
leading to the "Lavoir Gabriel," a somewhat angelic name for a huge, | |
barn-like structure reeking in suds and steam, and noisy with gossiping | |
washerwomen who pay a few sous a day there for the privilege of doing | |
their washing--and as my studio windows (the big one with the north | |
light, and the other one a narrow slit reaching from the floor to the | |
high ceiling for the taking in of the big canvases one sees at the | |
Salon--which are never sold) overlook both alley and court, I can see | |
the life and bustle below. | |
[Illustration: LAVOIR GABRIEL] | |
This is not the Paris of Boulevards, ablaze with light and thronged with | |
travelers of the world, nor of big hotels and chic restaurants without | |
prices on the menus. In the latter the maitre d'hotel makes a mental | |
inventory of you when you arrive; and before you have reached your | |
coffee and cigar, or before madame has buttoned her gloves, this | |
well-shaved, dignified personage has passed sentence on you, and you pay | |
according to whatever he thinks you cannot afford. I knew a fellow once | |
who ordered a peach in winter at one of these smart taverns, and was | |
obliged to wire home for money the next day. | |
In the Quartier Latin the price is always such an important factor that | |
it is marked plainly, and often the garcon will remind you of the cost | |
of the dish you select in case you have not read aright, for in this | |
true Bohemia one's daily fortune is the one necessity so often lacking | |
that any error in regard to its expenditure is a serious matter. | |
In one of the well-known restaurants--here celebrated as a rendezvous | |
for artists--a waiter, as he took a certain millionaire's order for | |
asparagus, said: "Does monsieur know that asparagus costs five francs?" | |
At all times of the day and most of the night the rue Vaugirard is busy. | |
During the morning, push-carts loaded with red gooseberries, green peas, | |
fresh sardines, and mackerel, their sides shining like silver, line the | |
curb in front of the small shops. Diminutive donkeys, harnessed to | |
picturesque two-wheeled carts piled high with vegetables, twitch their | |
long ears and doze in the shady corners of the street. The gutters, | |
flushed with clear water, flash in the sunlight. Baskets full of red | |
roses and white carnations, at a few sous the armful, brighten the cool | |
shade of the alleys leading to courtyards of wild gardens, many of which | |
are filled with odd collections of sculpture discarded from the | |
ateliers. | |
[Illustration: (donkey cart in front of market)] | |
Old women in linen caps and girls in felt slippers and leather-covered | |
sabots, market baskets on arm, gossip in groups or hurry along the | |
narrow sidewalk, stopping at the butcher's or the baker's to buy the | |
dejeuner. Should you breakfast in your studio and do your own | |
marketing, you will meet with enough politeness in the buying of a pate, | |
an artichoke, and a bottle of vin ordinaire, to supply a court welcoming | |
a distinguished guest. | |
Politeness is second nature to the Parisian--it is the key to one's | |
daily life here, the oil that makes this finesse of civilization run | |
smoothly. | |
"Bonjour, madame!" says the well-to-do proprietor of the tobacco-shop | |
and cafe to an old woman buying a sou's worth of snuff. | |
"Bonjour, monsieur," replies the woman with a nod. | |
"Merci, madame," continues the fat patron as he drops the sou into his | |
till. | |
"Merci, monsieur--merci!" and she secretes the package in her netted | |
reticule, and hobbles out into the sunny street, while the patron | |
attends to the wants of three draymen who have clambered down from their | |
heavy carts for a friendly chat and a little vermouth. A polished zinc | |
bar runs the length of the low-ceilinged room; a narrow, winding | |
stairway in one corner leads to the living apartments above. Behind the | |
bar shine three well-polished square mirrors, and ranged in front of | |
these, each in its zinc rack, are the favorite beverages of the | |
Quarter--anisette, absinthe, menthe, grenadine--each in zinc-stoppered | |
bottles, like the ones in the barber-shops. | |
At the end of the little bar a cocher is having his morning tipple, the | |
black brim of his yellow glazed hat resting on his coarse red ears. He | |
is in his shirt-sleeves; coat slung over his shoulder, and whip in hand, | |
he is on the way to get his horse and voiture for the day. To be even a | |
cocher in Paris is considered a profession. If he dines at six-thirty | |
and you hail him to take you as he rattles past, he will make his brief | |
apologies to you without slackening his pace, and go on to his plat du | |
jour and bottle of wine at his favorite rendezvous, dedicated to "The | |
Faithful Cocher." An hour later he emerges, well fed, revives his | |
knee-sprung horse, lights a fresh cigarette, cracks his whip like a | |
package of torpedoes, and goes clattering off in search of a customer. | |
[Illustration: (rooftop)] | |
The shops along the rue Vaugirard are marvels of neatness. The | |
butcher-shop, with its red front, is iron-barred like the lion's cage in | |
the circus. Inside the cage are some choice specimens of filets, rounds | |
of beef, death-masks of departed calves, cutlets, and chops in paper | |
pantalettes. On each article is placed a brass sign with the current | |
price thereon. | |
In Paris nothing is wasted. A placard outside the butcher's announces an | |
"Occasion" consisting of a mule and a donkey, both of guaranteed | |
"premiere qualite." And the butcher! A thick-set, powerfully built | |
fellow, with blue-black hair, curly like a bull's and shining in pomade, | |
with fierce mustache of the same dye, waxed to two formidable points | |
like skewers. Dangling over his white apron, and suspended by a heavy | |
chain about his waist, he carries the long steel spike which sharpens | |
his knives. All this paraphernalia gives him a very fierce appearance, | |
like the executioner in the play; but you will find him a mild, kindly | |
man after all, who takes his absinthe slowly, with a fund of good humor | |
after his day's work, and his family to Vincennes on Sundays. | |
The windows, too, of these little shops are studies in decoration. If it | |
happens to be a problem in eggs, cheese, butter, and milk, all these are | |
arranged artistically with fresh grape-leaves between the white rows of | |
milk bottles and under the cheese; often the leaves form a nest for the | |
white eggs (the fresh ones)--the hard-boiled ones are dyed a bright | |
crimson. There are china hearts, too, filled with "Double Cream," and | |
cream in little brown pots; Roquefort cheese and Camembert, Isijny, and | |
Pont Leveque, and chopped spinach. | |
[Illustration: (overloaded cart of baskets)] | |
Delicatessen shops display galantines of chicken, the windows banked | |
with shining cans of sardines and herrings from Dieppe; liver pates and | |
creations in jelly; tiny sausages of doubtful stuffing, and occasional | |
yellow ones like the odd fire-cracker of the pack. | |
[Illustration: (women at news stand)] | |
Grocery shops, their interiors resembling the toy ones of our childhood, | |
are brightened with cones of snowy sugar in blue paper jackets. The | |
wooden drawers filled with spices. Here, too, one can get an excellent | |
light wine for eight sous the bottle. | |
As the day begins, the early morning cries drift up from the street. At | |
six the fishwomen with their push-carts go their rounds, each singing | |
the beauties of her wares. "Voila les beaux maquereaux!" chants the | |
sturdy vendor, her sabots clacking over the cobbles as she pushes the | |
cart or stops and weighs a few sous' worth of fish to a passing | |
purchaser. | |
The goat-boy, piping his oboe-like air, passes, the goats scrambling | |
ahead alert to steal a carrot or a bite of cabbage from the nearest | |
cart. And when these have passed, the little orgue de Barbarie plays its | |
repertoire of quadrilles and waltzes under your window. It is a very | |
sweet-toned organ, this little orgue de Barbarie, with a plaintive, | |
apologetic tone, and a flute obbligato that would do credit to many a | |
small orchestra. I know this small organ well--an old friend on dreary | |
mornings, putting the laziest riser in a good humor for the day. The | |
tunes are never changed, but they are all inoffensive and many of them | |
pretty, and to the shrunken old man who grinds them out daily they are | |
no doubt by this time all alike. | |
[Illustration: (cat on counter)] | |
It is growing late and time for one's coffee. The little tobacco-shop | |
and cafe around the corner I find an excellent place for cafe au lait. | |
The coffee is delicious and made when one chooses to arrive, not stewed | |
like soup, iridescent in color, and bitter with chicory, as one finds it | |
in many of the small French hotels. Two crescents, flaky and hot from | |
the bakery next door, and three generous pats of unsalted butter, | |
complete this morning repast, and all for the modest sum of twelve sous, | |
with three sous to the garcon who serves you, with which he is well | |
pleased. | |
I have forgotten a companionable cat who each morning takes her seat on | |
the long leather settee beside me and shares my crescents. The cats are | |
considered important members of nearly every family in the Quarter. Big | |
yellow and gray Angoras, small, alert tortoise-shell ones, tiger-like | |
and of plainer breed and more intelligence, bask in the doorways or | |
sleep on the marble-topped tables of the cafes. | |
[Illustration: (woman carrying shopping box)] | |
"Qu'est-ce que tu veux, ma pauvre Mimi?" condoles Celeste, as she | |
approaches the family feline. | |
"Mimi" stretches her full length, extending and retracting her claws, | |
rolls on her back, turns her big yellow eyes to Celeste and mews. The | |
next moment she is picked up and carried back into the house like a | |
stray child. | |
At noon the streets seem deserted, except for the sound of occasional | |
laughter and the rattle of dishes coming from the smaller restaurants as | |
one passes. At this hour these places are full of workmen in white and | |
blue blouses, and young girls from the neighboring factories. They are | |
all laughing and talking together. A big fellow in a blue gingham blouse | |
attempts to kiss the little milliner opposite him at table; she evades | |
him, and, screaming with laughter, picks up her skirts and darts out | |
of the restaurant and down the street, the big fellow close on her | |
dainty heels. A second later he has overtaken her, and picking her up | |
bodily in his strong arms carries her back to her seat, where he places | |
her in her chair, the little milliner by this time quite out of breath | |
with laughter and quite happy. This little episode affords plenty of | |
amusement to the rest of the crowd; they wildly applaud the good-humored | |
captor, who orders another litre of red wine for those present, and | |
every one is merry. | |
[Illustration: (city house)] | |
The Parisian takes his hour for dejeuner, no matter what awaits him. It | |
is the hour when lovers meet, too. Edmond, working in the atelier for | |
the reproduction of Louis XVI furniture, meets Louise coming from her | |
work on babies' caps in the rue des Saints-Peres at precisely twelve-ten | |
on the corner of the rue Vaugirard and the Boulevard Montparnasse. | |
Louise comes without her hat, her hair in an adorable coiffure, as | |
neatly arranged as a Geisha's, her skirt held tightly to her hips, | |
disclosing her small feet in low slippers. There is a golden rule, I | |
believe, in the French catechism which says: "It is better, child, that | |
thy hair be neatly dressed than that thou shouldst have a whole frock." | |
And so Louise is content. The two breakfast on a ragout and a bottle of | |
wine while they talk of going on Sunday to St. Cloud for the day--and so | |
they must be economical this week. Yes, they will surely go to St. Cloud | |
and spend all day in the woods. It is the second Sunday in the month, | |
and the fountains will be playing. They will take their dejeuner with | |
them. Louise will, of course, see to this, and Edmond will bring | |
cigarettes enough for two, and the wine. Then, when the stars are out, | |
they will take one of the "bateaux mouches" back to Paris. | |
Dear Paris--the Paris of youth, of love, and of romance! | |
* * * * * | |
The pulse of the Quarter begins really to beat at 6 P.M. At this hour | |
the streets are alive with throngs of workmen--after their day's work, | |
seeking their favorite cafes to enjoy their aperitifs with their | |
comrades--and women hurrying back from their work, many to their homes | |
and children, buying the dinner en route. | |
Henriette, who sews all day at one of the fashionable dressmakers' in | |
the rue de la Paix, trips along over the Pont Neuf to her small room in | |
the Quarter to put on her best dress and white kid slippers, for it is | |
Bullier night and she is going to the ball with two friends of her | |
cousin. | |
In the twilight, and from my studio window the swallows, like black | |
cinders against the yellow sky, dart and swoop above the forest of | |
chimney-pots and tiled and gabled roofs. | |
It is the hour to dine, and with this thought uppermost in every one's | |
mind studio doors are slammed and night-keys tucked in pockets. And arm | |
in arm the poet and the artist swing along to that evening Mecca of good | |
Bohemians--the Boulevard St. Michel. | |
[Illustration: (basket of flowers)] | |
CHAPTER II | |
THE BOULEVARD ST. MICHEL | |
From the Place St. Michel, this ever gay and crowded boulevard ascends a | |
long incline, up which the tired horses tug at the traces of the | |
fiacres, and the big double-decked steam trams crawl, until they reach | |
the Luxembourg Gardens,--and so on a level road as far as the Place de | |
l'Observatoire. Within this length lies the life of the "Boul' Miche." | |
Nearly every highway has its popular side, and on the "Boul' Miche" it | |
is the left one, coming up from the Seine. Here are the cafes, and from | |
5 P.M. until long past midnight, the life of the Quartier pours by | |
them--students, soldiers, families, poets, artists, sculptors, wives, | |
and sweethearts; bicycle girls, the modern grisette, the shop girl, and | |
the model; fakirs, beggars, and vagrants. Yet the word vagrant is a | |
misnomer in this city, where economy has reached a finesse that is | |
marvelous. That fellow, in filth and rags, shuffling along, his eyes | |
scrutinizing, like a hungry rat, every nook and corner under the cafe | |
tables on the terrace, carries a stick spiked with a pin. The next | |
instant, he has raked the butt of your discarded cigarette from beneath | |
your feet with the dexterity of a croupier. The butt he adds to the | |
collection in his filthy pocket, and shuffles on to the next cafe. It | |
will go so far at least toward paying for his absinthe. He is hungry, | |
but it is the absinthe for which he is working. He is a "marchand de | |
megots"; it is his profession. | |
[Illustration: TERRACE TAVERNE DU PANTHEON] | |
One finds every type of restaurant, tavern, and cafe along the "Boul' | |
Miche." There are small restaurants whose plat du jour might be traced | |
to some faithful steed finding a final oblivion in a brown sauce and | |
onions--an important item in a course dinner, to be had with wine | |
included for one franc fifty. There are brasseries too, gloomy by day | |
and brilliant by night (dispensing good Munich beer in two shades, and | |
German and French food), whose rich interiors in carved black oak, | |
imitation gobelin, and stained glass are never half illumined until the | |
lights are lit. | |
[Illustration: A "TYPE"] | |
All day, when the sun blazes, and the awnings are down, sheltering those | |
chatting on the terrace, the interiors of these brasseries appear dark | |
and cavernous. | |
The clientele is somber too, and in keeping with the place; silent | |
poets, long haired, pale, and always writing; serious-minded lawyers, | |
lunching alone, and fat merchants who eat and drink methodically. | |
Then there are bizarre cafes, like the d'Harcourt, crowded at night with | |
noisy women tawdry in ostrich plumes, cheap feather boas, and much | |
rouge. The d'Harcourt at midnight is ablaze with light, but the crowd is | |
common and you move on up the boulevard under the trees, past the shops | |
full of Quartier fashions--velvet coats, with standing collars buttoning | |
close under the chin; flamboyant black silk scarfs tied in a huge bow; | |
queer broad-brimmed, black hats without which no "types" wardrobe is | |
complete. | |
On the corner facing the square, and opposite the Luxembourg gate, is | |
the Taverne du Pantheon. This is the most brilliant cafe and restaurant | |
of the Quarter, forming a V with its long terrace, at the corner of the | |
boulevard and the rue Soufflot, at the head of which towers the superb | |
dome of the Pantheon. | |
[Illustration: (view of Pantheon from Luxembourg gate)] | |
It is 6 P.M. and the terrace, four rows deep with little round tables, | |
is rapidly filling. The white-aproned garcons are hurrying about or | |
squeezing past your table, as they take the various orders. | |
"Un demi! un!" shouts the garcon. | |
"Deux pernod nature, deux!" cries another, and presently the "Omnibus" | |
in his black apron hurries to your table, holding between his knuckles, | |
by their necks, half a dozen bottles of different aperitifs, for it is | |
he who fills your glass. | |
[Illustration: ALONG THE "BOUL' MICHE"] | |
It is the custom to do most of one's correspondence in these cafes. The | |
garcon brings you a portfolio containing note-paper, a bottle of violet | |
ink, an impossible pen that spatters, and a sheet of pink blotting-paper | |
that does not absorb. With these and your aperitif, the place is yours | |
as long as you choose to remain. No one will ask you to "move on" or pay | |
the slightest attention to you. | |
Should you happen to be a cannibal chief from the South Seas, and dine | |
in a green silk high hat and a necklace of your latest captive's teeth, | |
you would occasion a passing glance perhaps, but you would not be a | |
sensation. | |
[Illustration: (hotel sign)] | |
Celeste would say to Henriette: | |
"Regarde ca, Henriette! est-il drole, ce sauvage?" | |
And Henriette would reply quite assuringly: | |
"Eh bien quoi! c'est pas si extraordinaire, il est peut-etre de | |
Madagascar; il y en a beaucoup a Paris maintenant." | |
There is no phase of character, or eccentricity of dress, that Paris has | |
not seen. | |
Nor will your waiter polish off the marble top of your table, with the | |
hope that your ordinary sensibility will suggest another drink. It would | |
be beneath his professional dignity as a good garcon de cafe. The two | |
sous you have given him as a pourboire, he is well satisfied with, and | |
expresses his contentment in a "merci, monsieur, merci," the final | |
syllable ending in a little hiss, prolonged in proportion to his | |
satisfaction. After this just formality, you will find him ready to see | |
the point of a joke or discuss the current topics of the day. He is | |
intelligent, independent, very polite, but never servile. | |
[Illustration: (woman walking near fountain)] | |
It is difficult now to find a vacant chair on the long terrace. A group | |
of students are having a "Pernod," after a long day's work at the | |
atelier. They finish their absinthe and then, arm in arm, start off to | |
Madame Poivret's for dinner. It is cheap there; besides, the little | |
"boite," with its dingy room and sawdust floor, is a favorite haunt of | |
theirs, and the good old lady, with her credit slate, a friendly refuge | |
in time of need. | |
At your left sits a girl in bicycle bloomers, yellow-tanned shoes, and | |
short black socks pulled up snug to her sunburned calves. She has just | |
ridden in from the Bois de Boulogne, and has scorched half the way back | |
to meet her "officier" in pale blue. The two are deep in conversation. | |
Farther on are four older men, accompanied by a pale, sweet-faced woman | |
of thirty, her blue-black hair brought in a bandeau over her dainty | |
ears. She is the model of the gray-haired man on the left, a man of | |
perhaps fifty, with kindly intelligent eyes and strong, nervous, | |
expressive hands--hands that know how to model a colossal Greek | |
war-horse, plunging in battle, or create a nymph scarcely a foot high | |
out of a lump of clay, so charmingly that the French Government has not | |
only bought the nymph, but given him a little red ribbon for his pains. | |
[Illustration: (omnibus)] | |
He is telling the others of a spot he knows in Normandy, where one can | |
paint--full of quaint farm-houses, with thatched roofs; picturesque | |
roadsides, rich in foliage; bright waving fields, and cool green | |
woods, and purling streams; quaint gardens, choked with lavender and | |
roses and hollyhocks--and all this fair land running to the white sand | |
of the beach, with the blue sea beyond. He will write to old Pere | |
Jaqueline that they are all coming--it is just the place in which to | |
pose a model "en plein air,"--and Suzanne, his model, being a Normande | |
herself, grows enthusiastic at the thought of going down again to the | |
sea. Long before she became a Parisienne, and when her beautiful hair | |
was a tangled shock of curls, she used to go out in the big boats, | |
with the fisherwomen--barefooted, brown, and happy. She tells them of | |
those good days, and then they all go into the Taverne to dine, filled | |
with the idea of the new trip, and dreaming of dinners under the | |
trees, of "Tripes a la mode de Caen," Normandy cider, and a lot of new | |
sketches besides. | |
[Illustration: (shop front)] | |
Already the tables within are well filled. The long room, with its newer | |
annex, is as brilliant as a jewel box--the walls rich in tiled panels | |
suggesting the life of the Quarter, the woodwork in gold and light oak, | |
the big panels of the rich gold ceiling exquisitely painted. | |
At one of the tables two very chic young women are dining with a young | |
Frenchman, his hair and dress in close imitation of the Duc d'Orleans. | |
These poses in dress are not uncommon. | |
A strikingly pretty woman, in a scarlet-spangled gown as red as her | |
lips, is dining with a well-built, soldierly-looking man in black; they | |
sit side by side as is the custom here. | |
The woman reminds one of a red lizard--a salamander--her "svelte" body | |
seemingly boneless in its gown of clinging scales. Her hair is | |
purple-black and freshly onduled; her skin as white as ivory. She has | |
the habit of throwing back her small, well-posed head, while under their | |
delicately penciled lids her gray eyes take in the room at a glance. | |
She is not of the Quarter, but the Taverne du Pantheon is a refuge for | |
her at times, when she grows tired of Paillard's and Maxim's and her | |
quarreling retinue. | |
"Let them howl on the other bank of the Seine," says this empress of | |
the half-world to herself, "I dine with Raoul where I please." | |
And now one glittering, red arm with its small, heavily-jeweled hand | |
glides toward Raoul's open cigarette case, and in withdrawing a | |
cigarette she presses for a moment his big, strong hand as he holds near | |
her polished nails the flaming match. | |
[Illustration: ALONG THE SEINE] | |
Her companion watches her as she smokes and talks--now and then he leans | |
closer to her, squaring his broad shoulders and bending lower his | |
strong, determined face, as he listens to her,--half-amused, replying to | |
her questions leisurely, in short, crisp sentences. Suddenly she stamps | |
one little foot savagely under the table, and, clenching her jeweled | |
hands, breathes heavily. She is trembling with rage; the man at her side | |
hunches his great shoulders, flicks the ashes from his cigarette, looks | |
at her keenly for a moment, and then smiles. In a moment she is herself | |
again, almost penitent; this little savage, half Roumanian, half | |
Russian, has never known what it was to be ruled! She has seen men grow | |
white when she has stamped her little foot, but this big Raoul, whom she | |
loves--who once held a garrison with a handful of men--he does not | |
tremble! she loves him for his devil-me-care indifference--and he enjoys | |
her temper. | |
But the salamander remembers there are some whom she dominated, until | |
they groveled like slaves at her feet; even the great Russian nobleman | |
turned pale when she dictated to him archly and with the voice of an | |
angel the price of his freedom. | |
"Poor fool! he shot himself the next day," mused the salamander. | |
Yes, and even the adamant old banker in Paris, crabbed, stern, | |
unrelenting to his debtors--shivered in his boots and ended in signing | |
away half his fortune to her, and moved his family into a permanent | |
chateau in the country, where he keeps himself busy with his shooting | |
and his books. | |
* * * * * | |
As it grows late, the taverne becomes more and more animated. | |
Every one is talking and having a good time. The room is bewildering in | |
gay color, the hum of conversation is everywhere, and as there is a | |
corresponding row of tables across the low, narrow room, friendly | |
greetings and often conversations are kept up from one side to the | |
other. The dinner, as it progresses, assumes the air of a big family | |
party of good bohemians. The French do not bring their misery with them | |
to the table. To dine is to enjoy oneself to the utmost; in fact the | |
French people cover their disappointment, sadness, annoyances, great or | |
petty troubles, under a masque of "blague," and have such an innate | |
dislike of sympathy or ridicule that they avoid it by turning | |
everything into "blague." | |
This veneer is misleading, for at heart the French are sad. Not to speak | |
of their inmost feelings does not, on the other hand, prevent them at | |
times from being most confidential. Often, the merest exchange of | |
courtesies between those sharing the same compartment in a train, or a | |
seat on a "bus," seems to be a sufficient introduction for your neighbor | |
to tell you where he comes from, where he is going, whether he is | |
married or single, whom his daughter married, and what regiment his son | |
is in. These little confidences often end in his offering you half his | |
bottle of wine and extending to you his cigarettes. | |
[Illustration: LES BEAUX MAQUEREAUX] | |
If you have finished dinner, you go out on the terrace for your coffee. | |
The fakirs are passing up and down in front, selling their wares--little | |
rabbits, wonderfully lifelike, that can jump along your table and sit on | |
their hind legs, and wag their ears; toy snakes; small leaden pigs for | |
good luck; and novelties of every description. Here one sees women with | |
baskets of ecrivisse boiled scarlet; an acrobat tumbles on the | |
pavement, and two men and a girl, as a marine, a soldier, and a | |
vivandiere, in silvered faces and suits, pose in melodramatic attitudes. | |
The vivandiere is rescued alternately from a speedy death by the marine | |
and the soldier. | |
Presently a little old woman approaches, shriveled and smiling, in her | |
faded furbelows now in rags. She sings in a piping voice and executes | |
between the verses a tottering pas seul, her eyes ever smiling, as if | |
she still saw over the glare of the footlights, in the haze beyond, the | |
vast audience of by-gone days; smiling as if she still heard the big | |
orchestra and saw the leader with his vibrant baton, watching her every | |
movement. She is over seventy now, and was once a premier danseuse at | |
the opera. | |
But you have not seen all of the Taverne du Pantheon yet. There is an | |
"American Bar" downstairs; at least, so the sign reads at the top of a | |
narrow stairway leading to a small, tavern-like room, with a sawdust | |
floor, heavy deal tables, and wooden stools. In front of the bar are | |
high stools that one climbs up on and has a lukewarm whisky soda, next | |
to Yvonne and Marcelle, who are both singing the latest catch of the day | |
at the top of their lungs, until they are howled at to keep still or are | |
lifted bodily off their high stools by the big fellow in the "type" hat, | |
who has just come in. | |
[Illustration: MOTHER AND DAUGHTER] | |
Before a long table at one end of the room is the crowd of American | |
students singing in a chorus. The table is full now, for many have come | |
from dinners at other cafes to join them. At one end, and acting as | |
interlocutor for this impromptu minstrel show, presides one of the | |
best fellows in the world. He rises solemnly, his genial round face | |
wreathed in a subtle smile, and announces that he will sing, by earnest | |
request, that popular ballad, "'Twas Summer and the Little Birds were | |
Singing in the Trees." | |
There are some especially fine "barber chords" in this popular ditty, | |
and the words are so touching that it is repeated over and over again. | |
Then it is sung softly like the farmhand quartettes do in the rural | |
melodrama outside the old homestead in harvest time. Oh! I tell you it's | |
a truly rural octette. Listen to that exhibition bass voice of Jimmy | |
Sands and that wandering tenor of Tommy Whiteing, and as the last chord | |
dies away (over the fields presumably) a shout goes up: | |
"How's that?" | |
"Out of sight," comes the general verdict from the crowd, and bang go a | |
dozen beer glasses in unison on the heavy table. | |
"Oh, que c'est beau!" cries Mimi, leading the successful chorus in a new | |
vocal number with Edmond's walking-stick; but this time it is a French | |
song and the whole room is singing it, including our old friend, | |
Monsieur Frank, the barkeeper, who is mixing one of his famous | |
concoctions which are never twice quite alike, but are better than if | |
they were. | |
The harmonic beauties of "'Twas Summer and the Little Birds were Singing | |
in the Trees" are still inexhausted, but it sadly needs a piano | |
accompaniment--with this it would be perfect; and so the whole crowd, | |
including Yvonne, and Celeste, and Marcelle, and the two Frenchmen, and | |
the girl in the bicycle clothes, start for Jack Thompson's studio in the | |
rue des Fourneaux, where there is a piano that, even if the candles in | |
the little Louis XVI brackets do burn low and spill down the keys, and | |
the punch rusts the strings, it will still retain that beautiful, rich | |
tone that every French upright, at seven francs a month, possesses. | |
[Illustration: (Bullier)] | |
CHAPTER III | |
THE "BAL BULLIER" | |
There are all types of "bals" in Paris. Over in Montmartre, on the Place | |
Blanche, is the well-known "Moulin Rouge," a place suggestive, to those | |
who have never seen it, of the quintessence of Parisian devil-me-care | |
gaiety. You expect it to be like those clever pen-and-ink drawings of | |
Grevin's, of the old Jardin Mabille in its palmiest days, brilliant with | |
lights and beautiful women extravagantly gowned and bejeweled. You | |
expect to see Frenchmen, too, in pot-hats, crowding in a circle about | |
Fifine, who is dancing some mad can-can, half hidden in a swirl of point | |
lace, her small, polished boots alternately poised above her dainty | |
head. And when she has finished, you expect her to be carried off to | |
supper at the Maison Doree by the big, fierce-looking Russian who has | |
been watching her, and whose victoria, with its spanking team--black and | |
glossy as satin--champing their silver bits outside, awaiting her | |
pleasure. | |
But in all these anticipations you will be disappointed, for the famous | |
Jardin Mabille is no more, and the ground where it once stood in the | |
Champs Elysees is now built up with private residences. Fifine is gone, | |
too--years ago--and most of the old gentlemen in pot-hats who used to | |
watch her are buried or about to be. Few Frenchmen ever go to the | |
"Moulin Rouge," but every American does on his first night in Paris, and | |
emerges with enough cab fare to return him to his hotel, where he | |
arrives with the positive conviction that the red mill, with its slowly | |
revolving sails, lurid in crimson lights, was constructed especially for | |
him. He remembers, too, his first impressions of Paris that very morning | |
as his train rolled into the Gare St. Lazare. His aunt could wait until | |
to-morrow to see the tomb of Napoleon, but he would see the "Moulin | |
Rouge" first, and to be in ample time ordered dinner early in his | |
expensive, morgue-like hotel. | |
I remember once, a few hours after my arrival in Paris, walking up the | |
long hill to the Place Blanche at 2 P.M., under a blazing July sun, to | |
see if they did not give a matinee at the "Moulin Rouge." The place was | |
closed, it is needless to say, and the policeman I found pacing his beat | |
outside, when I asked him what day they gave a matinee, put his thumbs | |
in his sword belt, looked at me quizzically for a moment, and then | |
roared. The "Moulin Rouge" is in full blast every night; in the day-time | |
it is being aired. | |
Farther up in Montmartre, up a steep, cobbly hill, past quaint little | |
shops and cafes, the hill becoming so steep that your cab horse | |
finally refuses to climb further, and you get out and walk up to the | |
"Moulin de la Galette." You find it a far different type of ball from | |
the "Moulin Rouge," for it is not made for the stranger, and its | |
clientele is composed of the rougher element of that quarter. | |
[Illustration: (street scene)] | |
A few years ago the "Galette" was not the safest of places for a | |
stranger to go to alone. Since then, however, this ancient granary and | |
mill, that has served as a ball-room for so many years, has undergone a | |
radical change in management; but it is still a cliquey place, full of a | |
lot of habitues who regard a stranger as an intruder. Should you by | |
accident step on Marcelle's dress or jostle her villainous-looking | |
escort, you will be apt to get into a row, beginning with a mode of | |
attack you are possibly ignorant of, for these "maquereaux" fight with | |
their feet, having developed this "manly art" of self-defense to a point | |
of dexterity more to be evaded than admired. And while Marcelle's | |
escort, with a swinging kick, smashes your nose with his heel, his pals | |
will take the opportunity to kick you in the back. | |
So, if you go to the "Galette," go with a Parisian or some of the | |
students of the Quarter; but if you must go alone--keep your eyes on the | |
band. It is a good band, too, and its chef d'orchestre, besides being a | |
clever musical director, is a popular composer as well. | |
Go out from the ball-room into the tiny garden and up the ladder-like | |
stairs to the rock above, crowned with the old windmill, and look over | |
the iron railing. Far below you, swimming in a faint mist under the | |
summer stars, all Paris lies glittering at your feet. | |
* * * * * | |
You will find the "Bal Bullier" of the Latin Quarter far different from | |
the "bals" of Montmartre. It forms, with its "grand fete" on Thursday | |
nights, a sort of social event of the week in this Quarter of Bohemians, | |
just as the Friday afternoon promenade does in the Luxembourg garden. | |
If you dine at the Taverne du Pantheon on a Thursday night you will find | |
that the taverne is half deserted by 10 o'clock, and that every one is | |
leaving and walking up the "Boul' Miche" toward the "Bullier." Follow | |
them, and as you reach the place l'Observatoire, and turn a sharp corner | |
to the left, you will see the facade of this famous ball, illumined by a | |
sizzling blue electric light over the entrance. | |
The facade, with its colored bas-reliefs of students and grisettes, | |
reminds one of the proscenium of a toy theater. Back of this shallow | |
wall bristle the tops of the trees in the garden adjoining the big | |
ball-room, both of which are below the level of the street and are | |
reached by a broad wooden stairway. | |
The "Bal Bullier" was founded in 1847; previous to this there existed | |
the "Closerie des Lilas" on the Boulevard Montparnasse. You pass along | |
with the line of waiting poets and artists, buy a green ticket for two | |
francs at the little cubby-hole of a box-office, are divested of your | |
stick by one of half a dozen white-capped matrons at the vestiaire, hand | |
your ticket to an elderly gentleman in a silk hat and funereal clothes, | |
at the top of the stairway sentineled by a guard of two soldiers, and | |
the next instant you see the ball in full swing below you. | |
[Illustration: (portrait of man)] | |
There is nothing disappointing about the "Bal Bullier." It is all you | |
expected it to be, and more, too. Below you is a veritable whirlpool of | |
girls and students--a vast sea of heads, and a dazzling display of | |
colors and lights and animation. Little shrieks and screams fill your | |
ears, as the orchestra crashes into the last page of a galop, quickening | |
the pace until Yvonne's little feet slip and her cheeks glow, and her | |
eyes grow bright, and half her pretty golden hair gets smashed over her | |
impudent little nose. Then the galop is brought up with a quick finish. | |
"Bis! Bis! Bis! Encore!" comes from every quarter of the big room, and | |
the conductor, with his traditional good-nature, begins again. He knows | |
it is wiser to humor them, and off they go again, still faster, until | |
all are out of breath and rush into the garden for a breath of cool air | |
and a "citron glace." | |
And what a pretty garden it is!--full of beautiful trees and dotted with | |
round iron tables, and laid out in white gravel walks, the garden | |
sloping gently back to a fountain, and a grotto and an artificial | |
cascade all in one, with a figure of Venus in the center, over which the | |
water splashes and trickles. There is a green lattice proscenium, too, | |
surrounding the fountain, illuminated with colored lights and outlined | |
in tiny flames of gas, and grotto-like alcoves circling the garden, each | |
with a table and room for two. The ball-room from the garden presents a | |
brilliant contrast, as one looks down upon it from under the trees. | |
[Illustration: (portrait of woman)] | |
But the orchestra has given its signal--a short bugle call announcing a | |
quadrille; and those in the garden are running down into the ball-room | |
to hunt up their partners. | |
The "Bullier" orchestra will interest you; they play with a snap and | |
fire and a tempo that is irresistible. They have played together so long | |
that they have become known as the best of all the bal orchestras. | |
The leader, too, is interesting--tall and gaunt, with wild, deep-sunken | |
eyes resembling those of an old eagle. Now and then he turns his head | |
slowly as he leads, and rests these keen, penetrating orbs on the sea of | |
dancers below him. Then, with baton raised above his head, he brings his | |
orchestra into the wild finale of the quadrille--piccolos and clarinets, | |
cymbals, bass viols, and violins--all in one mad race to the end, but so | |
well trained that not a note is lost in the scramble--and they finish | |
under the wire to a man, amid cheers from Mimi and Celeste and "encores" | |
and "bis's" from every one else who has breath enough left to shout | |
with. | |
[Illustration: A TYPE OF THE QUARTER | |
By Helleu.--Estampe Moderne] | |
Often after an annual dinner of one of the ateliers, the entire body of | |
students will march into the "Bullier," three hundred strong, and take a | |
good-natured possession of the place. There have been some serious | |
demonstrations in the Quarter by the students, who can form a small army | |
when combined. But as a rule you will find them a good-natured lot of | |
fellows, who are out for all the humor and fun they can create at the | |
least expense. | |
But in June, 1893, a serious demonstration by the students occurred, for | |
these students can fight as well as dance. Senator Beranger, having | |
read one morning in the "Courrier Francais" an account of the revelry | |
and nudity of several of the best-known models of the Quarter at the | |
"Quat'z' Arts" ball, brought a charge against the organizers of the | |
ball, and several of the models, whose beauty unadorned had made them | |
conspicuous on this most festive occasion. At the ensuing trial, several | |
celebrated beauties and idols of the Latin Quarter were convicted and | |
sentenced to a short term of imprisonment, and fined a hundred francs | |
each. These sentences were, however, remitted, but the majority of the | |
students would not have it thus, and wanted further satisfaction. A mass | |
meeting was held by them in the Place de la Sorbonne. The police were in | |
force there to stop any disturbance, and up to 10 o'clock at night the | |
crowd was held in control. | |
[Illustration: (portrait of woman)] | |
It was a warm June night, and every student in the Quarter was keyed to | |
a high state of excitement. Finally a great crowd of students formed in | |
front of the Cafe d'Harcourt, opposite the Sorbonne; things were at | |
fever heat; the police became rough; and in the row that ensued, | |
somebody hurled one of the heavy stone match-safes from a cafe table at | |
one of the policemen, who in his excitement picked it up and hurled it | |
back into the crowd. It struck and injured fatally an innocent outsider, | |
who was taken to the Charity Hospital, in the rue Jacob, and died there. | |
On the following Monday another mass meeting of students was held in the | |
Place de la Sorbonne, who, after the meeting, formed in a body and | |
marched to the Chamber of Deputies, crying: "Conspuez Dupuy," who was | |
then president of the Chamber. A number of deputies came out on the | |
portico and the terrace, and smilingly reviewed the demonstration, while | |
the students hurled their anathemas at them, the leaders and men in the | |
front rank of this howling mob trying to climb over the high railing in | |
front of the terrace, and shouting that the police were responsible for | |
the death of one of their comrades. | |
The Government, fearing further trouble and wishing to avoid any | |
disturbance on the day of the funeral of the victim of the riot in the | |
Place Sorbonne, deceived the public as to the hour when it would occur. | |
This exasperated the students so that they began one of those | |
demonstrations for which Paris is famous. By 3 P.M. the next day the | |
Quartier Latin was in a state of siege--these poets and painters and | |
sculptors and musicians tore up the rue Jacob and constructed barricades | |
near the hospital where their comrade had died. They tore up the rue | |
Bonaparte, too, at the Place St. Germain des Pres, and built barricades, | |
composed of overturned omnibuses and tramcars and newspaper booths. They | |
smashed windows and everything else in sight, to get even with the | |
Government and the smiling deputies and the murderous police--and then | |
the troops came, and the affair took a different turn. In three days | |
thirty thousand troops were in Paris--principally cavalry, many of the | |
regiments coming from as far away as the center of France. | |
[Illustration: ECOLE DES BEAUX ARTS] | |
With these and the police and the Garde Republicaine against them, the | |
students melted away like a handful of snow in the sun; but the | |
demonstrations continued spasmodically for two or three days longer, and | |
the little crooked streets, like the rue du Four, were kept clear by the | |
cavalry trotting abreast--in and out and dodging around corners--their | |
black horse-tail plumes waving and helmets shining. It is sufficient to | |
say that the vast army of artists and poets were routed to a man and | |
driven back into the more peaceful atmosphere of their studios. | |
But the "Bullier" is closing and the crowd is pouring out into the cool | |
air. I catch a glimpse of Yvonne with six students all in one fiacre, | |
but Yvonne has been given the most comfortable place. They have put her | |
in the hood, and the next instant they are rattling away to the Pantheon | |
for supper. | |
If you walk down with the rest, you will pass dozens of jolly groups | |
singing and romping and dancing along down the "Boul' Miche" to the | |
taverne, for a bock and some ecrivisse. With youth, good humor, and a | |
"louis," all the world seems gay! | |
CHAPTER IV | |
BAL DES QUAT'Z' ARTS | |
Of all the balls in Paris, the annual "Bal des Quat'z' Arts" stands | |
unique. This costume ball is given every year, in the spring, by the | |
students of the different ateliers, each atelier vying with the others | |
in creation of the various floats and corteges, and in the artistic | |
effect and historical correctness of the costumes. | |
The first "Quat'z' Arts" ball was given in 1892. It was a primitive | |
affair, compared with the later ones, but it was a success, and | |
immediately the "Quat'z' Arts" Ball was put into the hands of clever | |
organizers, and became a studied event in all its artistic sense. Months | |
are spent in the creation of spectacles and in the costuming of students | |
and models. Prizes are given for the most successful organizations, and | |
a jury composed of painters and sculptors passes upon your costume as | |
you enter the ball, and if you do not come up to their artistic | |
standard you are unceremoniously turned away. Students who have been | |
successful in getting into the "Quat'z' Arts" for years often fail to | |
pass into this bewildering display of beauty and brains, owing to their | |
costume not possessing enough artistic originality or merit to pass the | |
jury. | |
[Illustration: (coiffeur sign)] | |
It is, of course, a difficult matter for one who is not an enrolled | |
member of one of the great ateliers of painting, architecture, or | |
sculpture to get into the "Quat'z' Arts," and even after one's ticket is | |
assured, you may fail to pass the jury. | |
Imagine this ball, with its procession of moving tableaux. A huge float | |
comes along, depicting the stone age and the primitive man, every detail | |
carefully studied from the museums. Another represents the last day of | |
Babylon. One sees a nude captive, her golden hair and white flesh in | |
contrast with the black velvet litter on which she is bound, being | |
carried by a dozen stalwart blackamoors, followed by camels bearing nude | |
slaves and the spoils of a captured city. | |
[Illustration: (photograph of woman)] | |
As the ball continues until daylight, it resembles a bacchanalian fete | |
in the days of the Romans. But all through it, one is impressed by its | |
artistic completeness, its studied splendor, and permissible license, so | |
long as a costume (or the lack of it) produces an artistic result. One | |
sees the mise en scene of a barbaric court produced by the architects of | |
an atelier, all the various details constructed from carefully studied | |
sketches, with maybe a triumphal throne of some barbaric king, with his | |
slaves, the whole costumed and done in a studied magnificence that | |
takes one's breath away. Again an atelier of painters may reproduce the | |
frieze of the Parthenon in color; another a float or a decoration, | |
suggesting the works of their master. | |
The room becomes a thing of splendor, for it is as gorgeous a spectacle | |
as the cleverest of the painters, sculptors, and architects can make it, | |
and is the result of careful study--and all for the love of it!--for the | |
great "Quat'z' Arts" ball is an event looked forward to for months. | |
Special instructions are issued to the different ateliers while the ball | |
is in preparation, and the following one is a translation in part from | |
the notice issued before the great ball of '99. As this is a special and | |
private notice to the atelier, its contents may be interesting: | |
BAL DES QUAT'Z' ARTS, | |
Moulin Rouge, 21 April, 1899. | |
Doors open at 10 P.M. and closed at midnight. | |
The card of admission is absolutely personal, to be taken by the | |
committee before the opening of the ball. | |
[Illustration: (admission card)] | |
The committee will be masked, and comrades without their personal | |
card will be refused at the door. The cards must carry the name and | |
quality of the artist, and bear the stamp of his atelier. | |
Costumes are absolutely necessary. The soldier--the dress suit, | |
black or in color--the monk--the blouse--the domino--kitchen | |
boy--loafer--bicyclist, and other nauseous types, are absolutely | |
prohibited. | |
Should the weather be bad, comrades are asked to wait in their | |
carriages, as the committee in control cannot, under any pretext, | |
neglect guarding the artistic effect of the ball during any | |
confusion that might ensue. | |
A great "feed" will take place in the grand hall; the buffet will | |
serve as usual individual suppers and baskets for two persons. | |
The committee wish especially to bring the attention of their | |
comrades to the question of women, whose cards of admission | |
must be delivered as soon as possible, so as to enlarge their | |
attendance--always insufficient. | |
Prizes (champagne) will be distributed to the ateliers who may | |
distinguish themselves by the artistic merit and beauty of their | |
female display. | |
[Illustration: (photograph of woman)] | |
All the women who compete for these prizes will be assembled on | |
the grand staircase before the orchestra. The nude, as always, is | |
PROHIBITED!?! | |
The question of music at the head of the procession is of the | |
greatest importance, and those comrades who are musical will please | |
give their names to the delegates of the ateliers. Your good-will | |
in this line is asked for--any great worthless capacity in this | |
line will do, as they always play the same tune, "Les Pompiers!" | |
THE COMMITTEE--1899. | |
For days before the "Quat'z' Arts" ball, all is excitement among the | |
students, who do as little work as possible and rest themselves for the | |
great event. The favorite wit of the different ateliers is given the | |
task of painting the banner of the atelier, which is carried at the head | |
of the several corteges. One of these, in Bouguereau's atelier, depicted | |
their master caricatured as a cupid. | |
The boys once constructed an elephant with oriental trappings--an | |
elephant that could wag his ears and lift his trunk and snort--and after | |
the two fellows who formed respectfully the front and hind legs of this | |
knowing beast had practised sufficiently to proceed with him safely, at | |
the head of a cortege of slave girls, nautch dancers, and manacled | |
captives, the big beast created a success in the procession at the | |
"Quat'z' Arts" ball. | |
[Illustration: (portrait of man)] | |
After the ball, in the gray morning light, they marched it back to the | |
atelier, where it remained for some weeks, finally becoming such a | |
nuisance, kicking around the atelier and getting in everybody's way, | |
that the boys agreed to give it to the first junk-man that came around. | |
But as no junk-man came, and as no one could be found to care for its | |
now sadly battered hulk, its good riddance became a problem. What to do | |
with the elephant! that was the question. | |
At last the two, who had sweltered in its dusty frame that eventful | |
night of the "Quat'z' Arts," hit upon an idea. They marched it one day | |
up the Boulevard St. Germain to the Cafe des deux Magots, followed by a | |
crowd of people, who, when it reached the cafe, assembled around it, | |
every one asking what it was for--or rather what it was?--for the beast | |
had by now lost much of the resemblance of its former self. When half | |
the street became blocked with the crowd, the two wise gentlemen crawled | |
out of its fore and aft, and quickly mingled, unnoticed, with the | |
bystanders. Then they disappeared in the crowd, leaving the elephant | |
standing in the middle of the street. Those who had been expecting | |
something to happen--a circus or the rest of the parade to come | |
along--stood around for a while, and then the police, realizing that | |
they had an elephant on their hands, carted the thing away, swearing | |
meanwhile at the atelier and every one connected with it. | |
The cafes near the Odeon, just before the beginning of the ball, are | |
filled with students in costume; gladiators hobnob at the tables with | |
savages in scanty attire--Roman soldiers and students, in the garb of | |
the ancients, strut about or chat in groups, while the uninvited | |
grisettes and models, who have not received invitations from the | |
committee, implore them for tickets. | |
Tickets are not transferable, and should one present himself at the | |
entrance of the ball with another fellow's ticket, he would run small | |
chance of entering. | |
"What atelier?" commands the jury "Cormon." | |
The student answers, while the jury glance at his makeup. | |
"To the left!" cries the jury, and you pass in to the ball. | |
But if you are unknown they will say simply, "Connais-pas! To the | |
right!" and you pass down a long covered alley--confident, if you are a | |
"nouveau," that it leads into the ball-room--until you suddenly find | |
yourself in the street, where your ticket is torn up and all hope of | |
entering is gone. | |
It is hopeless to attempt to describe the hours until morning of this | |
annual artistic orgy. As the morning light comes in through the | |
windows, it is strange to see the effect of diffused daylight, | |
electricity, and gas--the bluish light of early morning reflected on the | |
flesh tones--upon nearly three thousand girls and students in costumes | |
one might expect to see in a bacchanalian feast, just before the fall of | |
Rome. Now they form a huge circle, the front row sitting on the floor, | |
the second row squatting, the third seated in chairs, the fourth | |
standing, so that all can see the dancing that begins in the morning | |
hours--the wild impromptu dancing of the moment. A famous beauty, her | |
black hair bound in a golden fillet with a circle wrought in silver and | |
studded with Oriental turquoises clasping her superb torso, throws her | |
sandals to the crowd and begins an Oriental dance--a thing of grace and | |
beauty--fired with the intensity of the innate nature of this | |
beautifully modeled daughter of Bohemia. | |
As the dance ends, there is a cry of delight from the great circle of | |
barbarians. "Long live the Quat'z' Arts!" they cry, amid cheers for the | |
dancer. | |
The ball closes about seven in the morning, when the long procession | |
forms to return to the Latin Quarter, some marching, other students and | |
girls in cabs and on top of them, many of the girls riding the horses. | |
Down they come from the "Moulin Rouge," shouting, singing, and yelling. | |
Heads are thrust out of windows, and a volley of badinage passes between | |
the fantastic procession and those who have heard them coming. | |
Finally the great open court of the Louvre is reached--here a halt is | |
made and a general romp occurs. A girl and a type climb one of the | |
tall lamp-posts and prepare to do a mid-air balancing act, when | |
rescued by the others. At last, at the end of all this horse-play, the | |
march is resumed over the Pont du Carrousel and so on, cheered now by | |
those going to work, until the Odeon is reached. Here the odd | |
procession disbands; some go to their favorite cafes where the | |
festivities are continued--some to sleep in their costumes or what | |
remains of them, wherever fortune lands them--others to studios, where | |
the gaiety is often kept up for days. | |
Ah! but life is not all "couleur de rose" in this true Bohemia. | |
"One day," says little Marguerite (she who lives in the rue Monge), "one | |
eats and the next day one doesn't. It is always like that, is it not, | |
monsieur?--and it costs so much to live, and so you see, monsieur, life | |
is always a fight." | |
And Marguerite's brown eyes swim a little and her pretty mouth closes | |
firmly. | |
"But where is Paul?" I ask. | |
"I do not know, monsieur," she replies quietly; "I have not seen him in | |
ten days--the atelier is closed--I have been there every day, expecting | |
to find him--he left no word with his concierge. I have been to his cafe | |
too, but no one has seen him--you see, monsieur, Paul does not love me!" | |
I recall an incident that I chanced to see in passing the little shop | |
where Marguerite works, that only confirms the truth of her realization. | |
Paul had taken Marguerite back to the little shop, after their dejeuner | |
together, and, as I passed, he stopped at the door with her, kissed her | |
on both cheeks, and left her; but before they had gone a dozen paces, | |
they ran back to embrace again. This occurred four times, until Paul and | |
Marguerite finally parted. And, as he watched her little heels disappear | |
up the wooden stairs to her work-room above, Paul blew a kiss to the | |
pretty milliner at the window next door, and, taking a long whiff of his | |
cigarette, sauntered off in the direction of his atelier whistling. | |
[Illustration: A MORNING'S WORK] | |
It is ideal, this student life with its student loves of four years, but | |
is it right to many an honest little comrade, who seldom knows an hour | |
when she is away from her ami? who has suffered and starved and slaved | |
with him through years of days of good and bad luck--who has encouraged | |
him in his work, nursed him when ill, and made a thousand golden hours | |
in this poet's or painter's life so completely happy, that he looks back | |
on them in later life as never-to-be-forgotten? He remembers the good | |
dinners at the little restaurant near his studio, where they dined among | |
the old crowd. There were Lavaud the sculptor and Francine, with the | |
figure of a goddess; Moreau, who played the cello at the opera; little | |
Louise Dumont, who posed at Julian's, and old Jacquemart, the very soul | |
of good fellowship, who would set them roaring with his inimitable | |
humor. | |
What good dinners they were!--and how long they sat over their coffee | |
and cigarettes under the trees in front of this little restaurant--often | |
ten and twelve at a time, until more tables had to be pushed together | |
for others of their good friends, who in passing would be hailed to join | |
them. And how Marguerite used to sing all through dinner and how they | |
would all sing, until it grew so late and so dark that they had to puff | |
their cigarettes aglow over their plates, and yell to Madame Giraud for | |
a light! And how the old lady would bustle out with the little oil lamp, | |
placing it in the center of the long table amid the forest of vin | |
ordinaires, with a "Voila, mes enfants!" and a cheery word for all these | |
good boys and girls, whom she regarded quite as her own children. | |
It seemed to them then that there would never be anything else but | |
dinners at Madame Giraud's for as many years as they pleased, for no one | |
ever thought of living out one's days, except in this good Bohemia of | |
Paris. They could not imagine that old Jacquemart would ever die, or | |
that La Belle Louise would grow old, and go back to Marseilles, to live | |
with her dried-up old aunt, who sold garlic and bad cheese in a little | |
box of a shop, up a crooked street! Or that Francine would marry Martin, | |
the painter, and that the two would bury themselves in an adorable | |
little spot in Brittany, where they now live in a thatched farm-house, | |
full of Martin's pictures, and have a vegetable garden of their own--and | |
a cow--and some children! But they DID! | |
[Illustration: A STUDIO DEJEUNER] | |
And those memorable dinners in the old studio back of the Gare | |
Montparnasse! when paints and easels were pushed aside, and the table | |
spread, and the piano rolled up beside it. There was the buying of the | |
chicken, and the salad that Francine would smother in a dressing into | |
which she would put a dozen different things--herbs and spices and tiny | |
white onions! And what a jolly crowd came to these impromptu feasts! How | |
much noise they used to make! How they danced and sang until the gray | |
morning light would creep in through the big skylight, when all these | |
good bohemians would tiptoe down the waxed stairs, and slip past the | |
different ateliers for fear of waking those painters who might be | |
asleep--a thought that never occurred to them until broad daylight, and | |
the door had been opened, after hours of pandemonium and music and | |
noise! | |
In a little hotel near the Odeon, there lived a family of just such | |
bohemians--six struggling poets, each with an imagination and a love of | |
good wine and good dinners and good times that left them continually in | |
a state of bankruptcy! As they really never had any money--none that | |
ever lasted for more than two days and two nights at the utmost, their | |
good landlord seldom saw a sou in return for his hospitable roof, which | |
had sheltered these six great minds who wrote of the moon, and of fate, | |
and fortune, and love. | |
For days they would dream and starve and write. Then followed an auction | |
sale of the total collection of verses, hawked about anywhere and | |
everywhere among the editeurs, like a crop of patiently grown fruit. | |
Having sold it, literally by the yard, they would all saunter up the | |
"Boul' Miche," and forget their past misery, in feasting, to their | |
hearts' content, on the good things of life. On days like these, you | |
would see them passing, their black-brimmed hats adjusted jauntily over | |
their poetic locks--their eyes beaming with that exquisite sense of | |
feeling suddenly rich, that those who live for art's sake know! The | |
keenest of pleasures lie in sudden contrasts, and to these six poetic, | |
impractical Bohemians, thus suddenly raised from the slough of despond | |
to a state where they no longer trod with mortals--their cup of | |
happiness was full and spilling over. They must not only have a good | |
time, but so must every one around them. With their great riches, they | |
would make the world gay as long as it lasted, for when it was over they | |
knew how sad life would be. For a while--then they would scratch | |
away--and have another auction! | |
[Illustration: DAYLIGHT] | |
Unlike another good fellow, a painter whom I once knew, who periodically | |
found himself without a sou, and who would take himself, in despair, to | |
his lodgings, make his will, leaving most of his immortal works to his | |
English aunt, go to bed, and calmly await death! In a fortunate space of | |
time his friends, who had been hunting for him all over the Quarter, | |
would find him at last and rescue him from his chosen tomb; or his good | |
aunt, fearing he was ill, would send a draft! Then life would, to this | |
impractical philosopher, again become worth living. He would dispatch a | |
"petit bleu" to Marcelle; and the two would meet at the Cafe Cluny, and | |
dine at La Perruse on filet de sole au vin blanc, and a bottle of Haut | |
Barsac--the bottle all cobwebs and cradled in its basket--the garcon, as | |
he poured its golden contents, holding his breath meanwhile lest he | |
disturb its long slumber. | |
There are wines that stir the soul, and this was one of them--clear as a | |
topaz and warming as the noonday sun--the same warmth that had given it | |
birth on its hillside in Bordeaux, as far back as '82. It warmed the | |
heart of Marcelle, too, and made her cheeks glow and her eyes | |
sparkle--and added a rosier color to her lips. It made her talk--clearly | |
and frankly, with a full and a happy heart, so that she confessed her | |
love for this "bon garcon" of a painter, and her supreme admiration for | |
his work and the financial success he had made with his art. All of | |
which this genial son of Bohemia drank in with a feeling of pride, and | |
he would swell out his chest and curl the ends of his long mustache | |
upwards, and sigh like a man burdened with money, and secure in his | |
ability and success, and with a peaceful outlook into the future--and | |
the fact that Marcelle loved him of all men! They would linger long over | |
their coffee and cigarettes, and then the two would stroll out under the | |
stars and along the quai, and watch the little Seine boats crossing and | |
recrossing, like fireflies, and the lights along the Pont Neuf reflected | |
deep down like parti-colored ribbons in the black water. | |
[Illustration: (pair of high heeled shoes)] | |
CHAPTER V | |
"A DEJEUNER AT LAVENUE'S" | |
If you should chance to breakfast at "Lavenue's," or, as it is called, | |
the "Hotel de France et Bretagne," for years famous as a rendezvous of | |
men celebrated in art and letters, you will be impressed first with the | |
simplicity of the three little rooms forming the popular side of this | |
restaurant, and secondly with the distinguished appearance of its | |
clientele. | |
[Illustration: MADEMOISELLE FANNY AND HER STAFF] | |
As you enter the front room, you pass good Mademoiselle Fanny at the | |
desk, a cheery, white-capped, genial old lady, who has sat behind that | |
desk for forty years, and has seen many a "bon garcon" struggle up the | |
ladder of fame--from the days when he was a student at the Beaux-Arts, | |
until his name became known the world over. It has long been a | |
favorite restaurant with men like Rodin, the sculptor--and Colin, the | |
painter--and the late Falguiere--and Jean Paul Laurens and Bonnat, | |
and dozens of others equally celebrated--and with our own men, like | |
Whistler and Sargent and Harrison, and St. Gaudens and Macmonnies. | |
These three plain little rooms are totally different from the "other | |
side," as it is called, of the Maison Lavenue. Here one finds quite a | |
gorgeous cafe, with a pretty garden in the rear, and another | |
room--opening into the garden--done in delicate green lattice and | |
mirrors. This side is far more expensive to dine in than the side with | |
the three plain little rooms, and the gentlemen with little red | |
ribbons in their buttonholes; but as the same good cook dispenses from | |
the single big kitchen, which serves for the dear and the cheap side | |
the same good things to eat at just half the price, the reason for the | |
popularity of the "cheap side" among the crowd who come here daily is | |
evident. | |
[Illustration: RODIN] | |
It is a quiet, restful place, this Maison Lavenue, and the best place I | |
know in which to dine or breakfast from day to day. There is an air of | |
intime and cosiness about Lavenue's that makes one always wish to | |
return. | |
[Illustration: (group of men dining)] | |
You will see a family of rich bourgeois enter, just in from the country, | |
for the Montparnasse station is opposite. The fat, sunburned mama, and | |
the equally rotund and genial farmer-papa, and the pretty daughter, and | |
the newly married son and his demure wife, and the two younger | |
children--and all talking and laughing over a good dinner with | |
champagne, and many toasts to the young couple--and to mama and papa, | |
and little Josephine--with ices, and fruit, and coffee, and liqueur to | |
follow. | |
All these you will see at Lavenue's on the "cheap side"--and the | |
beautiful model, too, who poses for Courbel, who is breakfasting with | |
one of the jeunesse of Paris. The waiters after 2 P.M. dine in the front | |
room with the rest, and jump up now and then to wait on madame and | |
monsieur. | |
It is a very democratic little place, this popular side of the house of | |
M. Lavenue, founded in 1854. | |
And there is a jolly old painter who dines there, who is also an | |
excellent musician, with an ear for rhythm so sensitive that he could | |
never go to sleep unless the clock in his studio ticked in regular time, | |
and at last was obliged to give up his favorite atelier, with its | |
picturesque garden---- | |
"For two reasons, monsieur," he explained to me excitedly; "a little | |
girl on the floor below me played a polka--the same polka half the | |
day--always forgetting to put in the top note; and the fellow over me | |
whistled it the rest of the day and put in the top note false; and so I | |
moved to the rue St. Peres, where one only hears, within the cool | |
court-yard, the distant hum of the busy city. The roar of Paris, so full | |
of chords and melody! Listen to it sometimes, monsieur, and you will | |
hear a symphony!" | |
[Illustration: "LA FILLE DE LA BLANCHISSEUSE" | |
By Bellanger.--Estampe Moderne] | |
And Mademoiselle Fanny will tell you of the famous men she has known for | |
years, and how she has found the most celebrated of them simple in their | |
tastes, and free from ostentation--"in fact it is always so, is it not, | |
with les hommes celebres? C'est toujours comme ca, monsieur, toujours!" | |
and mentions one who has grown gray in the service of art and can count | |
his decorations from half a dozen governments. Madame will wax | |
enthusiastic--her face wreathed in smiles. "Ah! he is a bon garcon; he | |
always eats with the rest, for three or four francs, never more! He is | |
so amiable, and, you know, he is very celebrated and very rich"; and | |
madame will not only tell you his entire history, but about his | |
work--the beauty of his wife and how "aimables" his children are. | |
Mademoiselle Fanny knows them all. | |
But the men who come here to lunch are not idlers; they come in, many of | |
them, fresh from a hard morning's work in the studio. The tall sculptor | |
opposite you has been at work, since his morning coffee, on a group for | |
the government; another, bare-armed and in his flannel shirt, has been | |
building up masses of clay, punching and modeling, and scraping away, | |
all the morning, until he produces, in the rough, the body of a | |
giantess, a huge caryatide that is destined, for the rest of her | |
existence, to hold upon her broad shoulders part of the facade of an | |
American building. The "giantess" in the flesh is lunching with him--a | |
Juno-like woman of perhaps twenty-five, with a superb head well poised, | |
her figure firm and erect. You will find her exceedingly interesting, | |
quiet, and refined, and with a knowledge of things in general that will | |
surprise you, until you discover she has, in her life as a model, been | |
thrown daily in conversation with men of genius, and has acquired a | |
smattering of the knowledge of many things--of art and literature--of | |
the theater and its playwrights--plunging now and then into medicine and | |
law and poetry--all these things she has picked up in the studios, in | |
the cafes, in the course of her Bohemian life. This "vernis," as the | |
French call it, one finds constantly among the women here, for their | |
days are passed among men of intelligence and ability, whose lives and | |
energy are surrounded and encouraged by an atmosphere of art. | |
In an hour, the sculptor and his Juno-like model will stroll back to the | |
studio, where work will be resumed as long as the light lasts. | |
[Illustration: A TRUE TYPE] | |
The painter breakfasting at the next table is hard at work on a | |
decorative panel for a ceiling. It is already laid out and squared up, | |
from careful pencil drawings. Two young architects are working for him, | |
laying out the architectural balustrade, through which one, a month | |
later, looks up at the allegorical figures painted against the dome of | |
the blue heavens, as a background. And so the painter swallows his eggs, | |
mayonnaise, and demi of beer, at a gulp, for he has a model coming at | |
two, and he must finish this ceiling on time, and ship it, by a fast | |
liner, to a millionaire, who has built a vault-like structure on the | |
Hudson, with iron dogs on the lawn. Here this beautiful panel will be | |
unrolled and installed in the dome of the hard-wood billiard-room, where | |
its rich, mellow scheme of color will count as naught; and the cupids | |
and the flesh-tones of the chic little model, who came at two, will | |
appear jaundiced; and Aunt Maria and Uncle John, and the twins from | |
Ithaca, will come in after the family Sunday dinner of roast beef and | |
potatoes and rice pudding and ice-water, and look up into the dome and | |
agree "it's grand." But the painter does not care, for he has locked up | |
his studio, and taken his twenty thousand francs and the model--who came | |
at two--with him to Trouville. | |
At night you will find a typical crowd of Bohemians at the Closerie des | |
Lilas, where they sit under a little clump of trees on the sloping dirt | |
terrace in front. Here you will see the true type of the Quarter. It is | |
the farthest up the Boulevard St. Michel of any of the cafes, and just | |
opposite the "Bal Bullier," on the Place de l'Observatoire. The terrace | |
is crowded with its habitues, for it is out of the way of the stream of | |
people along the "Boul' Miche." The terrace is quite dark, its only | |
light coming from the cafe, back of a green hedge, and it is cool there, | |
too, in summer, with the fresh night air coming from the Luxembourg | |
Gardens. Below it is the cafe and restaurant de la Rotonde, a very | |
well-built looking place, with its rounding facade on the corner. | |
[Illustration: (studio)] | |
At the entrance of every studio court and apartment, there lives the | |
concierge in a box of a room generally, containing a huge feather-bed | |
and furnished with a variety of things left by departing tenants to this | |
faithful guardian of the gate. Many of these small rooms resemble the | |
den of an antiquary with their odds and ends from the studios--old | |
swords, plaster casts, sketches and discarded furniture--until the place | |
is quite full. Yet it is kept neat and clean by madame, who sews all day | |
and talks to her cat and to every one who passes into the court-yard. | |
Here your letters are kept, too, in one of a row of boxes, with the | |
number of your atelier marked thereon. | |
At night, after ten, your concierge opens the heavy iron gate of your | |
court by pulling a cord within reach of the family bed. He or she is | |
waked up at intervals through the night to let into and out of a court | |
full of studios those to whom the night is ever young. Or perhaps your | |
concierge will be like old Pere Valois, who has three pretty daughters | |
who do the housework of the studios, as well as assist in the | |
guardianship of the gate. They are very busy, these three daughters of | |
Pere Valois--all the morning you will see these little "femmes de | |
menage" as busy as bees; the artists and poets must be waked up, and | |
beds made and studios cleaned. There are many that are never cleaned at | |
all, but then there are many, too, who are not so fortunate as to be | |
taken care of by the three daughters of Pere Valois. | |
[Illustration: VOILA LA BELLE ROSE, MADAME!] | |
There is no gossip within the quarter that your "femme de menage" does | |
not know, and over your morning coffee, which she brings you, she will | |
regale you with the latest news about most of your best friends, | |
including your favorite model, and madame from whom you buy your wine, | |
always concluding with: "That is what I heard, monsieur,--I think it is | |
quite true, because the little Marie, who is the femme de menage of | |
Monsieur Valentin, got it from Celeste Dauphine yesterday in the cafe in | |
the rue du Cherche Midi." | |
In the morning, this demure maid-of-all-work will be in her calico dress | |
with her sleeves rolled up over her strong white arms, but in the | |
evening you may see her in a chic little dress, at the "Bal Bullier," or | |
dining at the Pantheon, with the fellow whose studio is opposite yours. | |
[Illustration: A BUSY MORNING] | |
Alice Lemaitre, however, was a far different type of femme de menage | |
than any of the gossiping daughters of old Pere Valois, and her lot was | |
harder, for one night she left her home in one of the provincial towns, | |
when barely sixteen, and found herself in Paris with three francs to her | |
name and not a friend in this big pleasure-loving city to turn to. After | |
many days of privation, she became bonne to a woman known as Yvette de | |
Marcie, a lady with a bad temper and many jewels, to whom little Alice, | |
with her rosy cheeks and bright eyes and willing disposition to work in | |
order to live, became a person upon whom this fashionable virago of a | |
demi-mondaine vented the worst that was in her--and there was much of | |
this--until Alice went out into the world again. She next found | |
employment at a baker's, where she was obliged to get up at four in the | |
morning, winter and summer, and deliver the long loaves of bread at the | |
different houses; but the work was too hard and she left. The baker paid | |
her a trifle a week for her labor, while the attractive Yvette de Marcie | |
turned her into the street without her wages. It was while delivering | |
bread one morning to an atelier in the rue des Dames, that she chanced | |
to meet a young painter who was looking for a good femme de menage to | |
relieve his artistic mind from the worries of housekeeping. Little Alice | |
fairly cried when the good painter told her she might come at twenty | |
francs a month, which was more money than this very grateful and brave | |
little Brittany girl had ever known before. | |
[Illustration: (brocanteur shop front)] | |
"You see, monsieur, one must do one's best whatever one undertakes," | |
said Alice to me; "I have tried every profession, and now I am a good | |
femme de menage, and I am 'bien contente.' No," she continued, "I shall | |
never marry, for one's independence is worth more than anything else. | |
When one marries," she said earnestly, her little brow in a frown, | |
"one's life is lost; I am young and strong, and I have courage, and so I | |
can work hard. One should be content when one is not cold and hungry, | |
and I have been many times that, monsieur. Once I worked in a fabrique, | |
where, all day, we painted the combs of china roosters a bright red for | |
bon-bon boxes--hundreds and hundreds of them until I used to see them in | |
my dreams; but the fabrique failed, for the patron ran away with the | |
wife of a Russian. He was a very stupid man to have done that, monsieur, | |
for he had a very nice wife of his own--a pretty brunette, with a | |
charming figure; but you see, monsieur, in Paris it is always that way. | |
C'est toujours comme ca." | |
CHAPTER VI | |
"AT MARCEL LEGAY'S" | |
Just off the Boulevard St. Michel and up the narrow little rue Cujas, | |
you will see at night the name "Marcel Legay" illumined in tiny | |
gas-jets. This is a cabaret of chansonniers known as "Le Grillon," where | |
a dozen celebrated singing satirists entertain an appreciative audience | |
in the stuffy little hall serving as an auditorium. Here, nightly, as | |
the piece de resistance--and late on the programme (there is no printed | |
one)--you will hear the Bard of Montmartre, Marcel Legay, raconteur, | |
poet, musician, and singer; the author of many of the most popular songs | |
of Montmartre, and a veteran singer in the cabarets. | |
[Illustration: MARCEL LEGAY] | |
From these cabarets of the student quarters come many of the cleverest | |
and most beautiful songs. Here men sing their own creations, and they | |
have absolute license to sing or say what they please; there is no | |
mincing of words, and many times these rare bohemians do not take the | |
trouble to hide their clever songs and satires under a double entente. | |
No celebrated man or woman, known in art or letters, or connected with | |
the Government--from the soldier to the good President of the Republique | |
Francaise--is spared. The eccentricity of each celebrity is caught by | |
them, and used in song or recitation. | |
Besides these personal caricatures, the latest political questions of | |
the day--religion and the haut monde--come in for a large share of | |
good-natured satire. To be cleverly caricatured is an honor, and should | |
evince no ill-feeling, especially from these clever singing comedians, | |
who are the best of fellows at heart; whose songs are clever but never | |
vulgar; who sing because they love to sing; and whose versatility | |
enables them to create the broadest of satires, and, again, a little | |
song with words so pure, so human, and so pathetic, that the applause | |
that follows from the silent room of listeners comes spontaneously from | |
the heart. | |
It is not to be wondered at that "The Grillon" of Marcel Legay's is a | |
popular haunt of the habitues of the Quarter, who crowd the dingy little | |
room nightly. You enter the "Grillon" by way of the bar, and at the | |
further end of the bar-room is a small anteroom, its walls hung in | |
clever posters and original drawings. This anteroom serves as a sort of | |
green-room for the singers and their friends; here they chat at the | |
little tables between their songs--since there is no stage--and through | |
this anteroom both audience and singers pass into the little hall. There | |
is the informality of one of our own "smokers" about the whole affair. | |
Furthermore, no women sing in "Le Grillon"--a cabaret in this respect is | |
different from a cafe concert, which resembles very much our smaller | |
variety shows. A small upright piano, and in front of it a low platform, | |
scarcely its length, complete the necessary stage paraphernalia of the | |
cabaret, and the admission is generally a franc and a half, which | |
includes your drink. | |
In the anteroom, four of the singers are smoking and chatting at the | |
little tables. One of them is a tall, serious-looking fellow, in a black | |
frock coat. He peers out through his black-rimmed eyeglasses with the | |
solemnity of an owl--but you should hear his songs!--they treat of the | |
lighter side of life, I assure you. Another singer has just finished his | |
turn, and comes out of the smoky hall, wiping the perspiration from his | |
short, fat neck. The audience is still applauding his last song, and he | |
rushes back through the faded green velvet portieres to bow his thanks. | |
[Illustration: A POET-SINGER] | |
A broad-shouldered, jolly-looking fellow, in white duck trousers, is | |
talking earnestly with the owl-like looking bard in eyeglasses. Suddenly | |
his turn is called, and you follow him in, where, as soon as he is seen, | |
he is welcomed by cheers from the students and girls, and an elaborate | |
fanfare of chords on the piano. When this popular poet-singer has | |
finished, there follows a round of applause and a pounding of canes, | |
and then the ruddy-faced, gray-haired manager starts a three-times-three | |
handclapping in unison to a pounding of chords on the piano. This is the | |
proper ending to every demand for an encore in "Le Grillon," and it | |
never fails to bring one. | |
It is nearly eleven when the curtain parts and Marcel Legay rushes | |
hurriedly up the aisle and greets the audience, slamming his straw hat | |
upon the lid of the piano. He passes his hand over his bald pate--gives | |
an extra polish to his eyeglasses--beams with an irresistibly funny | |
expression upon his audience--coughs--whistles--passes a few remarks, | |
and then, adjusting his glasses on his stubby red nose, looks | |
serio-comically over his roll of music. He is dressed in a long, black | |
frock-coat reaching nearly to his heels. This coat, with its velvet | |
collar, discloses a frilled white shirt and a white flowing bow scarf; | |
these, with a pair of black-and-white check trousers, complete this | |
every-day attire. | |
But the man inside these voluminous clothes is even still more | |
eccentric. Short, indefinitely past fifty years of age, with a round | |
face and merry eyes, and a bald head whose lower portion is framed | |
in a fringe of long hair, reminding one of the coiffure of some | |
pre-Raphaelite saint--indeed, so striking is this resemblance that the | |
good bard is often caricatured with a halo surrounding this medieval | |
fringe. | |
In the meantime, while this famous singer is selecting a song, he is | |
overwhelmed with demands for his most popular ones. A dozen students and | |
girls at one end of the little hall, now swimming in a haze of pipe and | |
cigarette smoke, are hammering with sticks and parasols for "Le matador | |
avec les pieds du vent"; another crowd is yelling for "La Goularde." | |
Marcel Legay smiles at them all through his eyeglasses, then roars at | |
them to keep quiet--and finally the clamor in the room gradually | |
subsides--here and there a word--a giggle--and finally silence. | |
"Now, my children, I will sing to you the story of Clarette," says the | |
bard; "it is a very sad histoire. I have read it," and he smiles and | |
cocks one eye. | |
His baritone voice still possesses considerable fire, and in his heroic | |
songs he is dramatic. In "The Miller who grinds for Love," the feeling | |
and intensity and dramatic quality he puts into its rendition are | |
stirring. As he finishes his last encore, amidst a round of applause, he | |
grasps his hat from the piano, jams it over his bald pate with its | |
celestial fringe, and rushes for the door. Here he stops, and, turning | |
for a second, cheers back at the crowd, waving the straw hat above his | |
head. The next moment he is having a cooling drink among his confreres | |
in the anteroom. | |
Such "poet-singers" as Paul Delmet and Dominique Bonnaud have made the | |
"Grillon" a success; and others like Numa Bles, Gabriel Montoya, | |
D'Herval, Fargy, Tourtal, and Edmond Teulet--all of them well-known over | |
in Montmartre, where they are welcomed with the same popularity that | |
they meet with at "Le Grillon." | |
Genius, alas, is but poorly paid in this Bohemia! There are so many who | |
can draw, so many who can sing, so many poets and writers and sculptors. | |
To many of the cleverest, half a loaf is too often better than no | |
bread. | |
You will find often in these cabarets and in the cafes and along the | |
boulevard, a man who, for a few sous, will render a portrait or a | |
caricature on the spot. You learn that this journeyman artist once was a | |
well-known painter of the Quarter, who had drawn for years in the | |
academies. The man at present is a wreck, as he sits in a cafe with | |
portfolio on his knees, his black slouch hat drawn over his scraggly | |
gray hair. But his hand, thin and drawn from too much stimulant and too | |
little food, has lost none of its knowledge of form and line; the sketch | |
is strong, true, and with a chic about it and a simplicity of expression | |
that delight you. You ask why he has not done better. | |
[Illustration: THE SATIRIST] | |
"Ah!" he replies, "it is a long story, monsieur." So long and so much of | |
it that he can not remember it all! Perhaps it was the woman with the | |
velvety black eyes--tall and straight--the best dancer in all Paris. | |
Yes, he remembers some of it--long, miserable years--years of struggles | |
and jealousy, and finally lies and fights and drunkenness; after it was | |
all over, he was too gray and old and tired to care! | |
One sees many such derelicts in Paris among these people who have worn | |
themselves out with amusement, for here the world lives for pleasure, | |
for "la grande vie!" To the man, every serious effort he is obliged to | |
make trends toward one idea--that of the bon vivant--to gain success and | |
fame, but to gain it with the idea of how much personal daily pleasure | |
it will bring him. Ennui is a word one hears constantly; if it rains | |
toute le monde est triste. To have one's gaiety interrupted is regarded | |
as a calamity, and "tout le monde" will sympathize with you. To live a | |
day without the pleasures of life in proportion to one's purse is | |
considered a day lost. | |
If you speak of anything that has pleased you one will, with a gay | |
rising inflection of the voice and a smile, say: "Ah! c'est gai | |
la-bas--and monsieur was well amused while in that beautiful | |
country?" "ah!--tiens! c'est gentil ca!" they will exclaim, as you | |
enthusiastically continue to explain. They never dull your enthusiasm | |
by short phlegmatic or pessimistic replies. And when you are sad | |
they will condone so genuinely with you that you forget your | |
disappointments in the charming pleasantry of their sympathy. But all | |
this continual race for pleasure is destined in the course of time to | |
end in ennui! | |
The Parisian goes into the latest sport because it affords him a | |
new sensation. Being blase of all else in life, he plunges into | |
automobiling, buys a white and red racer--a ponderous flying juggernaut | |
that growls and snorts and smells of the lower regions whenever it | |
stands still, trembling in its anger and impatience to be off, while its | |
owner, with some automobiling Marie, sits chatting on the cafe terrace | |
over a cooling drink. The two are covered with dust and very thirsty; | |
Marie wears a long dust-colored ulster, and he a wind-proof coat and | |
high boots. Meanwhile, the locomotive-like affair at the curbstone is | |
working itself into a boiling rage, until finally the brave chauffeur | |
and his chic companion prepare to depart. Marie adjusts her white lace | |
veil, with its goggles, and the chauffeur puts on his own mask as he | |
climbs in; a roar--a snort, a cloud of blue gas, and they are gone! | |
There are other enthusiasts--those who go up in balloons! | |
"Ah, you should go ballooning!" one cries enthusiastically, "to be 'en | |
ballon'--so poetic--so fin de siecle! It is a fantaisie charmante!" | |
In a balloon one forgets the world--one is no longer a part of it--no | |
longer mortal. What romance there is in going up above everything with | |
the woman one loves--comrades in danger--the ropes--the wicker cage--the | |
ceiling of stars above one and Paris below no bigger than a gridiron! | |
Paris! lost for the time from one's memory. How chic to shoot straight | |
up among the drifting clouds and forget the sordid little world, even | |
the memory of one's intrigues! | |
"Enfin seuls," they say to each other, as the big Frenchman and the chic | |
Parisienne countess peer down over the edge of the basket, sipping a | |
little chartreuse from the same traveling cup; she, with the black hair | |
and white skin, and gowned "en ballon" in a costume by Paillard; he in | |
his peajacket buttoned close under his heavy beard. They seem to brush | |
through and against the clouds! A gentle breath from heaven makes the | |
basket decline a little and the ropes creak against the hardwood clinch | |
blocks. It grows colder, and he wraps her closer in his own coat. | |
"Courage, my child," he says; "see, we have gone a great distance; | |
to-morrow before sundown we shall descend in Belgium." | |
"Horrible!" cries the Countess; "I do not like those Belgians." | |
"Ah! but you shall see, Therese, one shall go where one pleases soon; we | |
are patient, we aeronauts; we shall bring credit to La Belle France; we | |
have courage and perseverance; we shall give many dinners and weep over | |
the failures of our brave comrades, to make the dirigible balloon | |
'pratique.' We shall succeed! Then Voila! our dejeuner in Paris and our | |
dinner where we will." | |
Therese taps her polished nails against the edge of the wicker cage and | |
hums a little chansonette. | |
"Je t'aime"--she murmurs. | |
* * * * * | |
I did not see this myself, and I do not know the fair Therese or the | |
gentleman who buttons his coat under his whiskers; but you should have | |
heard one of these ballooning enthusiasts tell it to me in the Taverne | |
du Pantheon the other night. His only regret seemed to be that he, too, | |
could not have a dirigible balloon and a countess--on ten francs a | |
week! | |
[Illustration: (woman)] | |
CHAPTER VII | |
"POCHARD" | |
Drunkards are not frequent sights in the Quarter; and yet when these | |
people do get drunk, they become as irresponsible as maniacs. Excitable | |
to a degree even when sober, these most wretched among the poor when | |
drunk often appear in front of a cafe--gaunt, wild-eyed, haggard, and | |
filthy--singing in boisterous tones or reciting to you with tense voices | |
a jumble of meaningless thoughts. | |
The man with the matted hair, and toes out of his boots, will fold his | |
arms melodramatically, and regard you for some moments as you sit in | |
front of him on the terrace. Then he will vent upon you a torrent | |
of abuse, ending in some jumble of socialistic ideas of his own | |
concoction. When he has finished, he will fold his arms again and move | |
on to the next table. He is crazy with absinthe, and no one pays any | |
attention to him. On he strides up the "Boul' Miche," past the cafes, | |
continuing his ravings. As long as he is moderately peaceful and | |
confines his wandering brain to gesticulations and speech, he is let | |
alone by the police. | |
[Illustration: (portrait of woman)] | |
You will see sometimes a man and a woman--a teamster out of work or with | |
his wages for the day, and with him a creature--a blear-eyed, slatternly | |
looking woman, in a filthy calico gown. The man clutches her arm, as | |
they sing and stagger up past the cafes. The woman holds in her | |
claw-like hand a half-empty bottle of cheap red wine. Now and then they | |
stop and share it; the man staggers on; the woman leers and dances and | |
sings; a crowd forms about them. Some years ago this poor girl sat on | |
Friday afternoons in the Luxembourg Gardens--her white parasol on her | |
knees, her dainty, white kid-slippered feet resting on the little stool | |
which the old lady, who rents the chairs, used to bring her. She was | |
regarded as a bonne camarade in those days among the students--one of | |
the idols of the Quarter! But she became impossible, and then an | |
outcast! That women should become outcasts through the hopelessness of | |
their position or the breaking down of their brains can be understood, | |
but that men of ability should sink into the dregs and stay there seems | |
incredible. But it is often so. | |
[Illustration: (portrait of woman)] | |
Near the rue Monge there is a small cafe and restaurant, a place | |
celebrated for its onion soup and its chicken. From the tables outside, | |
one can see into the small kitchen, with its polished copper sauce-pans | |
hanging about the grill. | |
Lachaume, the painter, and I were chatting at one of its little tables, | |
he over an absinthe and I over a coffee and cognac. I had dined early | |
this fresh October evening, enjoying to the full the bracing coolness of | |
the air, pungent with the odor of dry leaves and the faint smell of | |
burning brush. The world was hurrying by--in twos and threes--hurrying | |
to warm cafes, to friends, to lovers. The breeze at twilight set the dry | |
leaves shivering. The sky was turquoise. The yellow glow from the | |
shop windows--the blue-white sparkle of electricity like pendant | |
diamonds--made the Quarter seem fuller of life than ever. These fall | |
days make the little ouvrieres trip along from their work with rosy | |
cheeks, and put happiness and ambition into one's very soul. | |
[Illustration: A GROUP OF NEW STUDIOS] | |
Soon the winter will come, with all the boys back from their country | |
haunts, and Celeste and Mimi from Ostende. How gay it will be--this | |
Quartier Latin then! How gay it always is in winter--and then the rainy | |
season. Ah! but one can not have everything. Thus it was that Lachaume | |
and I sat talking, when suddenly a spectre passed--a spectre of a man, | |
his face silent, white, and pinched--drawn like a mummy's. | |
[Illustration: A SCULPTOR'S MODEL] | |
He stopped and supported his shrunken frame wearily on his crutches, and | |
leaned against a neighboring wall. He made no sound--simply gazed | |
vacantly, with the timidity of some animal, at the door of the small | |
kitchen aglow with the light from the grill. He made no effort to | |
approach the door; only leaned against the gray wall and peered at it | |
patiently. | |
"A beggar," I said to Lachaume; "poor devil!" | |
"Ah! old Pochard--yes, poor devil, and once one of the handsomest men in | |
Paris." | |
"What wrecked him?" I asked. | |
"What I'm drinking now, mon ami." | |
"Absinthe?" | |
"Yes--absinthe! He looks older than I do, does he not?" continued | |
Lachaume, lighting a fresh cigarette, "and yet I'm twenty years his | |
senior. You see, I sip mine--he drank his by the goblet," and my friend | |
leaned forward and poured the contents of the carafe in a tiny | |
trickling stream over the sugar lying in its perforated spoon. | |
[Illustration: BOY MODEL] | |
"Ah! those were great days when Pochard was the life of the Bullier," he | |
went on; "I remember the night he won ten thousand francs from the | |
Russian. It didn't last long; Camille Leroux had her share of | |
it--nothing ever lasted long with Camille. He was once courrier to an | |
Austrian Baron, I remember. The old fellow used to frequent the Quarter | |
in summer, years ago--it was his hobby. Pochard was a great favorite in | |
those days, and the Baron liked to go about in the Quarter with him, and | |
of course Pochard was in his glory. He would persuade the old nobleman | |
to prolong his vacation here. Once the Baron stayed through the winter | |
and fell ill, and a little couturiere in the rue de Rennes, whom the old | |
fellow fell in love with, nursed him. He died the summer following, at | |
Vienna, and left her quite a little property near Amiens. He was a good | |
old Baron, a charitable old fellow among the needy, and a good bohemian | |
besides; and he did much for Pochard, but he could not keep him sober!" | |
[Illustration: BOUGUEREAU AT WORK] | |
"After the old man's death," my friend continued, "Pochard drifted from | |
bad to worse, and finally out of the Quarter, somewhere into misery on | |
the other side of the Seine. No one heard of him for a few years, until | |
he was again recognized as being the same Pochard returned again to the | |
Quarter. He was hobbling about on crutches just as you see him there. | |
And now, do you know what he does? Get up from where you are sitting," | |
said Lachaume, "and look into the back kitchen. Is he not standing there | |
by the door--they are handing him a small bundle?" | |
"Yes," said I, "something wrapped in newspaper." | |
"Do you know what is in it?--the carcass of the chicken you have just | |
finished, and which the garcon carried away. Pochard saw you eating it | |
half an hour ago as he passed. It was for that he was waiting." | |
"To eat?" I asked. | |
"No, to sell," Lachaume replied, "together with the other bones he is | |
able to collect--for soup in some poorest resort down by the river, | |
where the boatmen and the gamins go. The few sous he gets will buy | |
Pochard a big glass, a lump of sugar, and a spoon; into the goblet, in | |
some equally dirty 'boite,' they will pour him out his green treasure of | |
absinthe. Then Pochard will forget the day--perhaps he will dream of the | |
Austrian Baron--and try and forget Camille Leroux. Poor devil!" | |
[Illustration: GEROME] | |
Marguerite Girardet, the model, also told me between poses in the studio | |
the other day of just such a "pauvre homme" she once knew. "When he was | |
young," she said, "he won a second prize at the Conservatoire, and | |
afterward played first violin at the Comique. Now he plays in front of | |
the cafes, like the rest, and sometimes poses for the head of an old | |
man! | |
[Illustration: A. MICHELENA] | |
"Many grow old so young," she continued; "I knew a little model once | |
with a beautiful figure, absolutely comme un bijou--pretty, too, and | |
had she been a sensible girl, as I often told her, she could still have | |
earned her ten francs a day posing; but she wanted to dine all the time | |
with this and that one, and pose too, and in three months all her fine | |
'svelte' lines that made her a valuable model among the sculptors were | |
gone. You see, I have posed all my life in the studios, and I am over | |
thirty now, and you know I work hard, but I have kept my fine | |
lines--because I go to bed early and eat and drink little. Then I have | |
much to do at home; my husband and I for years have had a comfortable | |
home; we take a great deal of pride in it, and it keeps me very busy to | |
keep everything in order, for I pose very early some mornings and then | |
go back and get dejeuner, and then back to pose again. | |
[Illustration: A SCULPTOR'S STUDIO] | |
"In the summer," she went on, "we take a little place outside of Paris | |
for a month, down the Seine, where my husband brings his work with him; | |
he is a repairer of fans and objets d'art. You should come in and see us | |
some time; it is quite near where you painted last summer. Ah yes," she | |
exclaimed, as she drew her pink toes under her, "I love the country! | |
Last year I posed nearly two months for Monsieur Z., the painter--en | |
plein air; my skin was not as white as it is now, I can tell you--I was | |
absolutely like an Indian! | |
[Illustration: FREMIET] | |
"Once"--and Marguerite smiled at the memory of it--"I went to England to | |
pose for a painter well known there. It was an important tableau, and I | |
stayed there six months. It was a horrible place to me--I was always | |
cold--the fog was so thick one could hardly see in winter mornings going | |
to the studio. Besides, I could get nothing good to eat! He was a | |
celebrated painter, a 'Sir,' and lived with his family in a big stone | |
house with a garden. We had tea and cakes at five in the studio--always | |
tea, tea, tea!--I can tell you I used to long for a good bottle of | |
Madame Giraud's vin ordinaire, and a poulet. So I left and came back to | |
Paris. Ah! quelle place! that Angleterre! J'etais toujours, toujours | |
triste la! In Paris I make a good living; ten francs a day--that's not | |
bad, is it? and my time is taken often a year ahead. I like to pose for | |
the painters--the studios are cleaner than those of the sculptor's. Some | |
of the sculptors' studios are so dirty--clay and dust over everything! | |
Did you see Fabien's studio the other day when I posed for him? You | |
thought it dirty? Tiens!--you should have seen it last year when he was | |
working on the big group for the Exposition! It is clean now compared | |
with what it was. You see, I go to my work in the plainest of clothes--a | |
cheap print dress and everything of the simplest I can make, for in half | |
an hour, left in those studios, they would be fit only for the | |
blanchisseuse--the wax and dust are in and over everything! There is | |
no time to change when one has not the time to go home at mid-day." | |
[Illustration: JEAN PAUL LAURENS] | |
And so I learned much of the good sense and many of the economies in the | |
life of this most celebrated model. You can see her superb figure | |
wrought in marble and bronze by some of the most famous of modern French | |
sculptors all over Paris. | |
There is another type of model you will see, too--one who rang my bell | |
one sunny morning in response to a note written by my good friend, the | |
sculptor, for whom this little Parisienne posed. | |
She came without her hat--this "vrai type"--about seventeen years of | |
age--with exquisite features, her blue eyes shining under a wealth of | |
delicate blonde hair arranged in the prettiest of fashions--a little | |
white bow tied jauntily at her throat, and her exquisitely delicate, | |
strong young figure clothed in a simple black dress. She had about her | |
such a frank, childlike air! Yes, she posed for so and so, and so and | |
so, but not many; she liked it better than being in a shop; and it | |
was far more independent, for one could go about and see one's | |
friends--and there were many of her girl friends living on the same | |
street where this chic demoiselle lived. | |
At noon my drawing was finished. As she sat buttoning her boots, she | |
looked up at me innocently, slipped her five francs for the morning's | |
work in her reticule, and said: | |
"I live with mama, and mama never gives me any money to spend on myself. | |
This is Sunday and a holiday, so I shall go with Henriette and her | |
brother to Vincennes. It is delicious there under the trees." | |
[Illustration: OLD MAN MODEL] | |
It would have been quite impossible for me to have gone with them--I was | |
not even invited; but this very serious and good little Parisienne, who | |
posed for the figure with quite the same unconsciousness as she would | |
have handed you your change over the counter of some stuffy little shop, | |
went to Vincennes with Henriette and her brother, where they had a | |
beautiful day--scrambling up the paths and listening to the band--all at | |
the enormous expense of the artist; and this was how this good little | |
Parisienne managed to save five francs in a single day! | |
There are old-men models who knock at your studio too, and who are | |
celebrated for their tangled gray locks, which they immediately | |
uncover as you open your door. These unkempt-looking Father Times and | |
Methuselahs prowl about the staircases of the different ateliers daily. | |
So do little children--mostly Italians and all filthily dirty; swarthy, | |
black-eyed, gypsy-looking girls and boys of from twelve to fifteen years | |
of age, and Italian mothers holding small children--itinerant madonnas. | |
These are the poorer class of models--the riff-raff of the Quarter--who | |
get anywhere from a few sous to a few francs for a seance. | |
And there are four-footed models, too, for I know a kindly old horse who | |
has served in many a studio and who has carried a score of the famous | |
generals of the world and Jeanne d'Arcs to battle--in many a modern | |
public square. | |
Chacun son metier! | |
CHAPTER VIII | |
THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS | |
In this busy Quarter, where so many people are confined throughout the | |
day in work-shops and studios, a breathing-space becomes a necessity. The | |
gardens of the Luxembourg, brilliant in flowers and laid out in the | |
Renaissance, with shady groves and long avenues of chestnut-trees | |
stretching up to the Place de l'Observatoire, afford the great | |
breathing-ground for the Latin Quarter. | |
If one had but an hour to spend in the Quartier Latin, one could not | |
find a more interesting and representative sight of student life than | |
between the hours of four and five on Friday afternoon, when the | |
military band plays in the Luxembourg Gardens. This is the afternoon | |
when Bohemia is on parade. Then every one flocks here to see one's | |
friends--and a sort of weekly reception for the Quarter is held. The | |
walks about the band-stand are thronged with students and girls, | |
and hundreds of chairs are filled with an audience of the older | |
people--shopkeepers and their families, old women in white lace caps, | |
and gray-haired old men, many in straight-brimmed high hats of a mode of | |
twenty years past. Here they sit and listen to the music under the cool | |
shadow of the trees, whose rich foliage forms an arbor overhead--a roof | |
of green leaves, through which the sunbeams stream and in which the fat, | |
gray pigeons find a paradise. | |
[Illustration: THE CHILDREN'S SHOP--LUXEMBOURG GARDENS] | |
There is a booth near-by where waffles, cooked on a small oven in the | |
rear, are sold. In front are a dozen or more tables for ices and | |
drinkables. Every table and chair is taken within hearing distance of | |
the band. When these musicians of the army of France arrive, marching in | |
twos from their barracks to the stand, it is always the signal for that | |
genuine enthusiasm among the waiting crowd which one sees between the | |
French and their soldiers. | |
If you chance to sit among the groups at the little tables, and watch | |
the passing throng in front of you, you will see some queer "types," | |
many of them seldom en evidence except on these Friday afternoons in the | |
Luxembourg. Buried, no doubt, in some garret hermitage or studio, they | |
emerge thus weekly to greet silently the passing world. | |
A tall poet stalks slowly by, reading intently, as he walks, a well-worn | |
volume of verses--his faded straw hat shading the tip of his long nose. | |
Following him, a boy of twenty, delicately featured, with that purity of | |
expression one sees in the faces of the good--the result of a life, | |
perhaps, given to his ideal in art. He wears his hair long and curling | |
over his ears, with a long stray wisp over one eye, the whole cropped | |
evenly at the back as it reaches his black velvet collar. He wears, too, | |
a dove-gray vest of fine corduroy, buttoned behind like those of the | |
clergy, and a velvet tam-o'-shanter-like cap, and carries between his | |
teeth a small pipe with a long goose-quill stem. You can readily see | |
that to this young man with high ideals there is only one corner of the | |
world worth living in, and that lies between the Place de l'Observatoire | |
and the Seine. | |
Three students pass, in wide broadcloth trousers, gathered in tight at | |
the ankles, and wearing wide-brimmed black hats. Hanging on the arm of | |
one of the trio is a short snub-nosed girl, whose Cleo-Merodic hair, | |
flattened in a bandeau over her ears, not only completely conceals them, | |
but all the rest of her face, except her two merry black eyes and her | |
saucy and neatly rouged lips. She is in black bicycle bloomers and a | |
white, short duck jacket--a straw hat with a wide blue ribbon band, and | |
a fluffy piece of white tulle tied at the side of her neck. | |
The throng moves slowly by you. It is impossible, in such a close | |
crowd, to be in a hurry; besides, one never is here. | |
Near-by sit two old ladies, evidently concierges from some atelier | |
court. One holds the printed program of the music, cut carefully from | |
her weekly newspaper; it is cheaper than buying one for two sous, and | |
these old concierges are economical. | |
In this Friday gathering you will recognize dozens of faces which you | |
have seen at the "Bal Bullier" and the cafes. | |
The girl in the blue tailor-made dress, with the little dog, who you | |
remember dined the night before at the Pantheon, is walking now arm in | |
arm with a tall man in black, a mourning band about his hat. The girl is | |
dressed in black, too--a mark of respect to her ami by her side. The | |
dog, who is so small that he slides along the walk every time his chain | |
is pulled, is now tucked under her arm. | |
One of the tables near the waffle stand is taken by a group of six | |
students and four girls. All of them have arrived at the table in the | |
last fifteen minutes--some alone, some in twos. The girl in the scarlet | |
gown and white kid slippers, who came with the queer-looking "type" | |
with the pointed beard, is Yvonne Gallois--a bonne camarade. She keeps | |
the rest in the best of spirits, for she is witty, this Yvonne, and a | |
great favorite with the crowd she is with. She is pretty, too, and has a | |
whole-souled good-humor about her that makes her ever welcome. The | |
fellow she came with is Delmet the architect--a great wag--lazy, but | |
full of fun--and genius. | |
The little girl sitting opposite Yvonne is Claire Dumont. She is | |
explaining a very sad "histoire" to the "type" next to her, intense in | |
the recital of her woes. Her alert, nervous little face is a study; when | |
words and expression fail, she shrugs her delicate shoulders, accenting | |
every sentence with her hands, until it seems as if her small, nervous | |
frame could express no more--and all about her little dog "Loisette!" | |
[Illustration: AT THE HEAD OF THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS] | |
"Yes, the villain of a concierge at Edmond's studio swore at him twice, | |
and Sunday, when Edmond and I were breakfasting late, the old beast saw | |
'Loisette' on the stairs and threw water over her; she is a sale bete, | |
that grosse femme! She shall see what it will cost her, the old miser; | |
and you know I have always been most amiable with her. She is jealous | |
of me--that is it--oh! I am certain of it. Because I am young and | |
happy. Jealous of me! that's funny, is it not? The old pig! Poor | |
'Loisette'--she shivered all night with fright and from being wet. | |
Edmond and I are going to find another place. Yes, she shall see what it | |
will be there without us--with no one to depend upon for her snuff and | |
her wine. If she were concierge at Edmond's old atelier she would be | |
treated like that horrid old Madame Fouquet." | |
The boys in the atelier over her window hated this old Madame Fouquet, I | |
remember. She was always prying about and complaining, so they fished up | |
her pet gold-fish out of the aquarium on her window-sill, and fried them | |
on the atelier stove, and put them back in the window on a little plate | |
all garnished with carrots. She swore vengeance and called in the | |
police, but to no avail. One day they fished up the parrot in its cage, | |
and the green bird that screamed and squawked continually met a speedy | |
and painless death and went off to the taxidermist. Then the cage was | |
lowered in its place with the door left ajar, and the old woman felt | |
sure that her pet had escaped and would some day find his way back to | |
her--a thing this garrulous bird would never have thought of doing had | |
he had any say in the matter. | |
So the old lady left the door of the cage open for days in the event of | |
his return, and strange to tell, one morning Madame Fouquet got up to | |
quarrel with her next-door neighbor, and, to her amazement, there was | |
her green pet on his perch in his cage. She called to him, but he did | |
not answer; he simply stood on his wired legs and fixed his glassy eyes | |
on her, and said not a word--while the gang of Indians in the windows | |
above yelled themselves hoarse. | |
It was just such a crowd as this that initiated a "nouveau" once in one | |
of the ateliers. They stripped the new-comer, and, as is often the | |
custom on similar festive occasions, painted him all over with | |
sketches, done in the powdered water-colors that come in glass jars. | |
They are cheap and cover a lot of surface, so that the gentleman in | |
question looked like a human picture-gallery. After the ceremony, he was | |
put in a hamper and deposited, in the morning, in the middle of the Pont | |
des Arts, where he was subsequently found by the police, who carted him | |
off in a cab. | |
[Illustration: THE FONTAINE DE MEDICIS] | |
But you must see more of this vast garden of the Luxembourg to | |
appreciate truly its beauty and its charm. Filled with beautiful | |
sculpture in bronze and marble, with its musee of famous modern pictures | |
bought by the Government, with flower-beds brilliant in geraniums and | |
fragrant in roses, with the big basin spouting a jet of water in its | |
center, where the children sail their boats, and with that superb | |
"Fontaine de Medicis" at the end of a long, rectangular basin of | |
water--dark as some pool in a forest brook, the green vines trailing | |
about its sides, shaded by the rich foliage of the trees overhead. | |
On the other side of the Luxembourg you will find a garden of roses, | |
with a rich bronze group of Greek runners in the center, and near it, | |
back of the long marble balustrade, a croquet ground--a favorite spot | |
for several veteran enthusiasts who play here regularly, surrounded for | |
hours by an interested crowd who applaud and cheer the participants in | |
this passe sport. | |
This is another way of spending an afternoon at the sole cost of one's | |
leisure. It takes but little to amuse these people! | |
Often at the Punch and Judy show near-by, you will see two old | |
gentlemen,--who may have watched this same Punch and Judy show when they | |
were youngsters,--and who have been sitting for half an hour, waiting | |
for the curtain of the miniature theater to rise. It is popular--this | |
small "Theatre Guignol," and the benches in front are filled with the | |
children of rich and poor, who scream with delight and kick their | |
little, fat bare legs at the first shrill squeak of Mr. Punch. The three | |
who compose the staff of this tiny attraction have been long in its | |
service--the old harpist, and the good wife of the showman who knows | |
every child in the neighborhood, and her husband who is Mr. Punch, the | |
hangman, and the gendarme, and half a dozen other equally historical | |
personages. A thin, sad-looking man, this husband, gray-haired, with a | |
careworn look in his deep-sunken eyes, who works harder hourly, daily, | |
yearly, to amuse the heart of a child than almost any one I know. | |
The little box of a theater is stifling hot in summer, and yet he must | |
laugh and scream and sing within it, while his good wife collects the | |
sous, talking all the while to this and to that child whom she has known | |
since its babyhood; chatting with the nurses decked out in their | |
gay-colored, Alsatian bows, the ribbons reaching nearly to the ground. | |
A French nurse is a gorgeous spectacle of neatness and cleanliness, and | |
many of the younger ones, fresh from country homes in Normandy and | |
Brittany, with their rosy cheeks, are pictures of health. Wherever you | |
see a nurse, you will see a "piou-piou" not far away, which is a very | |
belittling word for the red-trousered infantryman of the Republique | |
Francaise. | |
Surrounding the Palais du Luxembourg, these "piou-pious," less fortunate | |
for the hour, stand guard in the small striped sentry-boxes, musket at | |
side, or pace stolidly up and down the flagged walk. Marie, at the | |
moment, is no doubt with the children of the rich Count, in a shady spot | |
near the music. How cruel is the fate of many a gallant "piou-piou"! | |
Farther down the gravel-walk strolls a young Frenchman and his | |
fiancee--the mother of his betrothed inevitably at her side! It is under | |
this system of rigid chaperonage that the young girl of France is given | |
in marriage. It is not to be wondered at that many of them marry to be | |
free, and that many of the happier marriages have begun with an | |
elopement! | |
[Illustration: THE PALACE OF THE LUXEMBOURG] | |
The music is over, and the band is filing out, followed by the crowd. A | |
few linger about the walks around the band-stand to chat. The old lady | |
who rents the chairs is stacking them up about the tree-trunks, and long | |
shadows across the walks tell of the approaching twilight. Overhead, | |
among the leaves, the pigeons coo. For a few moments the sun bathes | |
the great garden in a pinkish glow, then drops slowly, a blood-red disk, | |
behind the trees. The air grows chilly; it is again the hour to | |
dine--the hour when Paris wakes. | |
In the smaller restaurants of the Quarter one often sees some strange | |
contrasts among these true bohemians, for the Latin Quarter draws its | |
habitues from every part of the globe. They are not all French--these | |
happy-go-lucky fellows, who live for the day and let the morrow slide. | |
You will see many Japanese--some of them painters--many of them taking | |
courses in political economy, or in law; many of them titled men of high | |
rank in their own country, studying in the schools, and learning, too, | |
with that thoroughness and rapidity which are ever characteristic of | |
their race. You will find, too, Brazilians; gentlemen from Haiti of | |
darker hue; Russians, Poles, and Spaniards--men and women from every | |
clime and every station in life. They adapt themselves to the Quarter | |
and become a part of this big family of Bohemia easily and naturally. | |
In this daily atmosphere only the girl-student from our own shores seems | |
out of place. She will hunt for some small restaurant, sacred in its | |
exclusiveness and known only to a dozen bon camarades of the Quarter. | |
Perhaps this girl-student, it may be, from the West and her cousin from | |
the East will discover some such cosy little boite on their way back | |
from their atelier. To two other equally adventurous female minds they | |
will impart this newest find; after that you will see the four dining | |
there nightly together, as safe, I assure you, within these walls of | |
Bohemia as they would be at home rocking on their Aunt Mary's porch. | |
There is, of course, considerable awkwardness between these bon | |
camarades, to whom the place really belongs, and these very innocent | |
new-comers, who seek a table by themselves in a corner under the few | |
trees in front of the small restaurant. And yet every one is exceedingly | |
polite to them. Madame the patronne hustles about to see that the dinner | |
is warm and nicely served; and Henriette, who is waiting on them, none | |
the less attentive, although she is late for her own dinner, which she | |
will sit down to presently with madame the patronne, the good cook, and | |
the other girls who serve the small tables. | |
[Illustration: WHAT IS GOING ON AT THE THEATERS] | |
This later feast will be augmented perhaps by half the good boys and | |
girls who have been dining at the long table. Perhaps they will all come | |
in and help shell the peas for to-morrow's dinner. And yet this is a | |
public place, where the painters come, and where one pays only for what | |
one orders. It is all very interesting to the four American girls, who | |
are dining at the small table. "It is so thoroughly bohemian!" they | |
exclaim. | |
But what must Mimi think of these silent and exclusive strangers, and | |
what, too, must the tall girl in the bicycle bloomers think, and the | |
little girl who has been ill and who at the moment is dining with | |
Renould, the artist, and whom every one--even to the cook, is so glad to | |
welcome back after her long illness? There is an unsurmountable barrier | |
between the Americans at the little table in the corner and that jolly | |
crowd of good and kindly people at the long one, for Mimi and Henriette | |
and the little girl who has been so ill, and the French painters and | |
sculptors with them, cannot understand either the language of these | |
strangers or their views of life. | |
"Florence!" exclaims one of the strangers in a whisper, "do look at that | |
queer little 'type' at the long table--the tall girl in black actually | |
kissed him!" | |
"You don't mean it!" | |
"Yes, I do--just now. Why, my dear, I saw it plainly!" | |
Poor culprits! There is no law against kissing in the open air in Paris, | |
and besides, the tall girl in black has known the little "type" for a | |
Parisienne age--thirty days or less. | |
The four innocents, who have coughed through their soup and whispered | |
through the rest of the dinner, have now finished and are leaving, but | |
if those at the long table notice their departure, they do not show it. | |
In the Quarter it is considered the height of rudeness to stare. You | |
will find these Suzannes and Marcelles exceedingly well-bred in the | |
little refinements of life, and you will note a certain innate dignity | |
and kindliness in their bearing toward others, which often makes one | |
wish to uncover his head in their presence. | |
CHAPTER IX | |
"THE RAGGED EDGE OF THE QUARTER" | |
There are many streets of the Quarter as quiet as those of a country | |
village. Some of them, like the rue Vaugirard, lead out past gloomy | |
slaughter-houses and stables, through desolate sections of vacant | |
lots, littered with the ruins of factory and foundry whose tall, | |
smoke-begrimed chimneys in the dark stand like giant sentries, as if | |
pointing a warning finger to the approaching pedestrian, for these | |
ragged edges of the Quarter often afford at night a lurking-ground for | |
footpads. | |
In just such desolation there lived a dozen students, in a small nest of | |
studios that I need not say were rented to them at a price within their | |
ever-scanty means. It was marveled at among the boys in the Quarter that | |
any of these exiles lived to see the light of another day, after | |
wandering back at all hours of the night to their stronghold. | |
Possibly their sole possessions consisted of the clothes they had on, a | |
few bad pictures, and their several immortal geniuses. That the | |
gentlemen with the sand-bags knew of this I am convinced, for the | |
students were never molested. Verily, Providence lends a strong and | |
ready arm to the drunken man and the fool! | |
The farther out one goes on the rue Vaugirard, the more desolate | |
and forbidding becomes this long highway, until it terminates at | |
the fortifications, near which is a huge, open field, kept clear | |
of such permanent buildings as might shelter an enemy in time of | |
war. Scattered over this space are the hovels of squatters and | |
gipsies--fortune-telling, horse-trading vagabonds, whose living-vans | |
at certain times of the year form part of the smaller fairs within | |
the Quarter. | |
[Illustration: (factory chimneys along empty street)] | |
And very small and unattractive little fairs they are, consisting of | |
half a dozen or more wagons, serving as a yearly abode for these | |
shiftless people; illumined at night by the glare of smoking oil | |
torches. There is, moreover, a dingy tent with a half-drawn red curtain | |
that hides the fortune-telling beauty; and a traveling shooting-gallery, | |
so short that the muzzle of one's rifle nearly rests upon the painted | |
lady with the sheet-iron breastbone, centered by a pinhead of a | |
bull's-eye which never rings. There is often a small carousel, too, | |
which is not only patronized by the children, but often by a crowd of | |
students--boys and girls, who literally turn the merry-go-round into a | |
circus, and who for the time are cheered to feats of bareback riding by | |
the enthusiastic bystanders. | |
These little Quarter fetes are far different from the great fete de | |
Neuilly across the Seine, which begins at the Porte Maillot, and | |
continues in a long, glittering avenue of side-shows, with mammoth | |
carousels, bizarre in looking-glass panels and golden figures. Within | |
the circle of all this throne-like gorgeousness, a horse-power organ | |
shakes the very ground with its clarion blasts, while pink and white | |
wooden pigs, their tails tied up in bows of colored ribbons, heave and | |
swoop round and round, their backs loaded with screaming girls and | |
shouting men. | |
It was near this very same Port Maillot, in a colossal theater, built | |
originally for the representation of one of the Kiralfy ballets, that a | |
fellow student and myself went over from the Quarter one night to "supe" | |
in a spectacular and melodramatic pantomime, entitled "Afrique a Paris." | |
We were invited by the sole proprietor and manager of the show--an | |
old circus-man, and one of the shrewdest, most companionable, and | |
intelligent of men, who had traveled the world over. He spoke no | |
language but his own unadulterated American. This, with his dominant | |
personality, served him wherever fortune carried him! | |
So, accepting his invitation to play alternately the dying soldier and | |
the pursuing cannibal under the scorching rays of a tropical limelight, | |
and with an old pair of trousers and a flannel shirt wrapped in a | |
newspaper, we presented ourselves at the appointed hour, at the edge of | |
the hostile country. | |
[Illustration: (street scene)] | |
Here we found ourselves surrounded by a horde of savages who needed no | |
greasepaint to stain their ebony bodies, and many of whose grinning | |
countenances I had often recognized along our own Tenderloin. Besides, | |
there were cowboys and "greasers" and diving elks, and a company of | |
French Zouaves; the latter, in fact, seemed to be the only thing foreign | |
about the show. Our friend, the manager, informed us that he had thrown | |
the entire spectacle together in about ten days, and that he had | |
gathered with ease, in two, a hundred of those dusky warriors, who had | |
left their coat-room and barber-shop jobs in New York to find themselves | |
stranded in Paris. | |
He was a hustler, this circus-man, and preceding the spectacle of the | |
African war, he had entertained the audience with a short variety-show, | |
to brace the spectacle. He insisted on bringing us around in front and | |
giving us a box, so we could see for ourselves how good it really was. | |
During this forepart, and after some clever high trapeze work, | |
the sensation of the evening was announced--a Signore, with an | |
unpronounceable name, would train a den of ten forest-bred lions! | |
When the orchestra had finished playing "The Awakening of the Lion," the | |
curtain rose, disclosing the nerveless Signore in purple tights and | |
high-topped boots. A long, portable cage had been put together on the | |
stage during the intermission, and within it the ten pacing beasts. | |
There is something terrifying about the roar of a lion as it begins with | |
its high-keyed moan, and descends in scale to a hoarse roar that seems | |
to penetrate one's whole nervous system. | |
But the Signore did not seem to mind it; he placed one foot on the sill | |
of the safety-door, tucked his short riding-whip under his arm, pulled | |
the latch with one hand, forced one knee in the slightly opened door, | |
and sprang into the cage. Click! went the iron door as it found its | |
lock. Bang! went the Signore's revolver, as he drove the snarling, | |
roaring lot into the corner of the cage. The smoke from his revolver | |
drifted out through the bars; the house was silent. The trainer walked | |
slowly up to the fiercest lion, who reared against the bars as he | |
approached him, striking at the trainer with his heavy paws, while the | |
others slunk into the opposite corner. The man's head was but half a | |
foot now from the lion's; he menaced the beast with the little | |
riding-whip; he almost, but did not quite strike him on the tip of his | |
black nose that worked convulsively in rage. Then the lion dropped | |
awkwardly, with a short growl, to his forelegs, and slunk, with the | |
rest, into the corner. The Signore turned and bowed. It was the little | |
riding-whip they feared, for they had never gauged its sting. Not the | |
heavy iron bar within reach of his hand, whose force they knew. The vast | |
audience breathed easier. | |
"An ugly lot," I said, turning to our friend the manager, who had taken | |
his seat beside me. | |
"Yes," he mused, peering at the stage with his keen gray eyes; "green | |
stock, but a swell act, eh? Wait for the grand finale. I've got a | |
girl here who comes on and does art poses among the lions; she's a | |
dream--French, too!" | |
A girl of perhaps twenty, enveloped in a bath gown, now appeared at the | |
wings. The next instant the huge theater became dark, and she stood in | |
full fleshings, in the center of the cage, brilliant in the rays of a | |
powerful limelight, while the lions circled about her at the command of | |
the trainer. | |
"Ain't she a peach?" said the manager, enthusiastically. | |
"Yes," said I, "she is. Has she been in the cages long?" I asked. | |
[Illustration: (portrait of woman)] | |
"No, she never worked with the cats before," he said; "she's new to the | |
show business; she said her folks live in Nantes. She worked here in a | |
chocolate factory until she saw my 'ad' last week and joined my show. We | |
gave her a rehearsal Monday and we put her on the bill next night. She's | |
a good looker with plenty of grit, and is a winner with the bunch in | |
front." | |
"How did you get her to take the job?" I said. | |
"Well," he replied, "she balked at the act at first, but I showed her | |
two violet notes from a couple of swell fairies who wanted the job, and | |
after that she signed for six weeks." | |
"Who wrote the notes?" I said, queryingly. | |
"I wrote 'em!" he exclaimed dryly, and he bit the corner of his stubby | |
mustache and smiled. "This is the last act in the olio, so you will have | |
to excuse me. So long!" and he disappeared in the gloom. | |
* * * * * | |
There are streets and boulevards in the Quarter, sections of which are | |
alive with the passing throng and the traffic of carts and omnibuses. | |
Then one will come to a long stretch of massive buildings, public | |
institutions, silent as convents--their interminable walls flanking | |
garden or court. | |
The Boulevard St. Germain is just such a highway until it crosses the | |
Boulevard St. Michel--the liveliest roadway of the Quarter. Then it | |
seems to become suddenly inoculated with its bustle and life, and from | |
there on is crowded with bourgeoise and animated with the commerce of | |
market and shop. | |
An Englishman once was so fired with a desire to see the gay life of the | |
Latin Quarter that he rented a suite of rooms on this same Boulevard St. | |
Germain at about the middle of this long, quiet stretch. Here he stayed | |
a fortnight, expecting daily to see from his "chambers" the gaiety of a | |
Bohemia of which he had so often heard. At the end of his disappointing | |
sojourn, he returned to London, firmly convinced that the gay life of | |
the Latin Quarter was a myth. It was to him. | |
[Illustration: (crowded street market)] | |
But the man from Denver, the "Steel King," and the two thinner | |
gentlemen with the louis-lined waistcoats who accompanied him and whom | |
Fortune had awakened in the far West one morning and had led them to | |
"The Great Red Star copper mine"--a find which had ever since been a | |
source of endless amusement to them--discovered the Quarter before they | |
had been in Paris a day, and found it, too, "the best ever," as they | |
expressed it. | |
They did not remain long in Paris, this rare crowd of seasoned genials, | |
for it was their first trip abroad and they had to see Switzerland and | |
Vienna, and the Rhine; but while they stayed they had a good time Every | |
Minute. | |
The man from Denver and the Steel King sat at one of the small tables, | |
leaning over the railing at the "Bal Bullier," gazing at the sea of | |
dancers. | |
"Billy," said the man from Denver to the Steel King, "if they had this | |
in Chicago they'd tear out the posts inside of fifteen minutes"--he | |
wiped the perspiration from his broad forehead and pushed his | |
twenty-dollar Panama on the back of his head. | |
"Ain't it a sight!" he mused, clinching the butt of his perfecto between | |
his teeth. "Say!--say! it beats all I ever see," and he chuckled to | |
himself, his round, genial face, with its double chin, wreathed in | |
smiles. | |
"Say, George!" he called to one of the 'copper twins,' "did you get on | |
to that little one in black that just went by--well! well!! well!!! In a | |
minute!!" | |
Already the pile of saucers on their table reached a foot high--a record | |
of refreshments for every Yvonne and Marcelle that had stopped in | |
passing. Two girls approach. | |
"Certainly, sit right down," cried the Steel King. "Here, Jack,"--this | |
to the aged garcon, "smoke up! and ask the ladies what they'll | |
have"--all of which was unintelligible to the two little Parisiennes and | |
the garcon, but quite clear in meaning to all three. | |
"Dis donc, garcon!" interrupted the taller of the two girls, "un cafe | |
glace pour moi." | |
"Et moi," answered her companion gayly, "Je prends une limonade!" | |
"Here! Hold on!" thundered good-humoredly the man from Denver; "git 'em | |
a good drink. Rye, garsong! yes, that's it--whiskey--I see you're on, | |
and two. Deux!" he explains, holding up two fat fingers, "all straight, | |
friend--two whiskeys with seltzer on the side--see? Now go roll your | |
hoop and git back with 'em." | |
"Oh, non, monsieur!" cried the two Parisiennes in one breath; "whiskey! | |
jamais! ca pique et c'est trop fort." | |
At this juncture the flower woman arrived with a basketful of red roses. | |
"Voulez-vous des fleurs, messieurs et mesdames?" she asked politely. | |
"Certainly," cried the Steel King; "here, Maud and Mamie, take the lot," | |
and he handed the two girls the entire contents of the basket. The | |
taller buried her face for a moment in the red Jaqueminots and drank in | |
their fragrance. When she looked up, two big tears trickled down to the | |
corners of her pretty mouth. In a moment more she was smiling! The | |
smaller girl gave a little cry of delight and shook her roses above her | |
head as three other girls passed. Ten minutes later the two possessed | |
but a single rose apiece--they had generously given all the rest away. | |
[Illustration: (portrait of woman)] | |
The "copper twins" had been oblivious of all this. They had been hanging | |
over the low balustrade, engaged in a heart-to-heart talk with two | |
pretty Quartier brunettes. It seemed to be really a case of love at | |
first sight, carried on somewhat under difficulties, for the "copper | |
twins" could not speak a word of French, and the English of the two chic | |
brunettes was limited to "Oh, yes!" "Vary well!" "Good morning," "Good | |
evening," and "I love you." The four held hands over the low railing, | |
until the "copper twins" fairly steamed in talk; warmed by the sun of | |
gaiety and wet by several rounds of Highland dew, they grew sad and | |
earnest, and got up and stepped all over the Steel King and the man from | |
Denver, and the two Parisiennes' daintily slippered feet, in squeezing | |
out past the group of round tables back of the balustrade, and down on | |
to the polished floor--where they are speedily lost to view in the maze | |
of dancers, gliding into the whirl with the two brunettes. When the | |
waltz is over they stroll out with them into the garden, and order wine, | |
and talk of changing their steamer date. | |
The good American, with his spotless collar and his well-cut clothes, | |
with his frankness and whole-souled generosity, is a study to the modern | |
grisette. He seems strangely attractive to her, in contrast with a | |
certain type of Frenchman, that is selfish, unfaithful, and mean--that | |
jealousy makes uncompanionable and sometimes cruel. She will tell you | |
that these pale, black-eyed, and black-bearded boulevardiers are all | |
alike--lazy and selfish; so unlike many of the sterling, good fellows of | |
the Quarter--Frenchmen of a different stamp, and there are many of | |
these--rare, good Bohemians, with hearts and natures as big as all | |
out-doors--"bons garcons," which is only another way of saying | |
"gentlemen." | |
As you tramp along back to your quarters some rainy night you find many | |
of the streets leading from the boulevards silent and badly lighted, | |
except for some flickering lantern on the corner of a long block which | |
sends the shadows scurrying across your path. You pass a student perhaps | |
and a girl, hurrying home--a fiacre for a short distance is a luxury in | |
the Quarter. Now you hear the click-clock of an approaching cab, the | |
cocher half asleep on his box. The hood of the fiacre is up, sheltering | |
the two inside from the rain. As the voiture rumbles by near a | |
street-light, you catch a glimpse of a pink silk petticoat within and a | |
pair of dainty, white kid shoes--and the glint of an officer's sword. | |
Farther on, you pass a silent gendarme muffled in his night cloak; a few | |
doors farther on in a small cafe, a bourgeois couple, who have arrived | |
on a late train no doubt to spend a month with relatives in Paris, are | |
having a warming tipple before proceeding farther in the drizzling rain. | |
They have, of course, invited the cocher to drink with them. They have | |
brought all their pets and nearly all their household goods--two dogs, | |
three bird-cages, their tiny occupants protected from the damp air by | |
several folds of newspaper; a cat in a stout paper box with air holes, | |
and two trunks, well tied with rope. | |
[Illustration: (street market)] | |
"Ah, yes, it has been a long journey!" sighs the wife. Her husband | |
corroborates her, as they explain to the patronne of the cafe and to the | |
cocher that they left their village at midday. Anything over two hours | |
on the chemin-de-fer is considered a journey by these good French | |
people! | |
As you continue on to your studio, you catch a glimpse of the lights of | |
the Boulevard Montparnasse. Next a cab with a green light rattles by; | |
then a ponderous two-wheeled cart lumbers along, piled high with red | |
carrots as neatly arranged as cigars in a box--the driver asleep on his | |
seat near his swinging lantern--and the big Normandy horses taking the | |
way. It is late, for these carts are on their route to the early morning | |
market--one of the great Halles. The tired waiters are putting up the | |
shutters of the smaller cafes and stacking up the chairs. Now a cock | |
crows lustily in some neighboring yard; the majority at least of the | |
Latin Quarter has turned in for the night. A moment later you reach your | |
gate, feel instinctively for your matches. In the darkness of the court | |
a friendly cat rubs her head contentedly against your leg. It is the | |
yellow one that sleeps in the furniture factory, and you pick her up and | |
carry her to your studio, where, a moment later, she is crunching | |
gratefully the remnant of the beau maquereau left from your | |
dejeuner--for charity begins at home. | |
CHAPTER X | |
EXILED | |
Scores of men, celebrated in art and in literature, have, for a longer | |
or shorter period of their lives, been bohemians of the Latin Quarter. | |
And yet these years spent in cafes and in studios have not turned them | |
out into the world a devil-me-care lot of dreamers. They have all | |
marched and sung along the "Boul' Miche"; danced at the "Bullier"; | |
starved, struggled, and lived in the romance of its life. It has all | |
been a part of their education, and a very important part too, in the | |
development of their several geniuses, a development which in later life | |
has placed them at the head of their professions. These years of | |
camaraderie--of a life free from all conventionalities, in daily touch | |
with everything about them, and untrammeled by public censure or the | |
petty views of prudish or narrow minds, have left them free to cut a | |
straight swath merrily toward the goal of their ideals, surrounded all | |
the while by an atmosphere of art and good-fellowship that permeates the | |
very air they breathe. | |
If a man can work at all, he can work here, for between the | |
working-hours he finds a life so charming, that once having lived | |
it he returns to it again and again, as to an old love. | |
How many are the romances of this student Quarter! How many hearts have | |
been broken or made glad! How many brave spirits have suffered and | |
worked on and suffered again, and at last won fame! How many have | |
failed! We who come with a fresh eye know nothing of all that has passed | |
within these quaint streets--only those who have lived in and through it | |
know its full story. | |
[Illustration: THE MUSEE CLUNY] | |
Pochard has seen it; so has the little old woman who once danced at the | |
opera; so have old Bibi La Puree, and Alphonse, the gray-haired garcon, | |
and Mere Gaillard, the flower-woman. They have seen the gay boulevards | |
and the cafes and generations of grisettes, from the true grisette of | |
years gone by, in her dainty white cap and simple dress turned low at | |
the throat, to the tailor-made grisette of to-day. | |
Yet the eyes of the little old woman still dance; they have not grown | |
tired of this ever-changing kaleidoscope of human nature, this paradise | |
of the free, where many would rather struggle on half starved than live | |
a life of luxury elsewhere. | |
And the students are equally quixotic. I knew one once who lived in an | |
air-castle of his own building--a tall, serious fellow, a sculptor, who | |
always went tramping about in a robe resembling a monk's cowl, with his | |
bare feet incased in coarse sandals; only his art redeemed these | |
eccentricities, for he produced in steel and ivory the most exquisite | |
statuettes. One at the Salon was the sensation of the day--a knight in | |
full armor, scarcely half a foot in height, holding in his arms a nymph | |
in flesh-tinted ivory, whose gentle face, upturned, gazed sweetly into | |
the stern features behind the uplifted vizor; and all so exquisitely | |
carved, so alive, so human, that one could almost feel the tender heart | |
of this fair lady beating against the cold steel breastplate. | |
Another "bon garcon"--a painter whose enthusiasm for his art knew no | |
bounds--craved to produce a masterpiece. This dreamer could be seen | |
daily ferreting around the Quarter for a studio always bigger than the | |
one he had. At last he found one that exactly fitted the requirements of | |
his vivid imagination--a studio with a ceiling thirty feet high, with | |
windows like the scenic ones next to the stage entrances of the | |
theaters. Here at last he could give full play to his brush--no subject | |
seemed too big for him to tackle; he would move in a canvas as big as a | |
back flat to a third act, and commence on a "Fall of Babylon" or a | |
"Carnage of Rome" with a nerve that was sublime! The choking dust of the | |
arena--the insatiable fury of the tigers--the cowering of hundreds of | |
unfortunate captives--and the cruel multitude above, seated in the vast | |
circle of the hippodrome--all these did not daunt his zeal. | |
Once he persuaded a venerable old abbe to pose for his portrait. The | |
old gentleman came patiently to his studio and posed for ten days, at | |
the end of which time the abbe gazed at the result and said things which | |
I dare not repeat--for our enthusiast had so far only painted his | |
clothes; the face was still in its primary drawing. | |
"The face I shall do in time," the enthusiast assured the reverend man | |
excitedly; "it is the effect of the rich color of your robe I wished to | |
get. And may I ask your holiness to be patient a day longer while I put | |
in your boots?" | |
"No, sir!" thundered the irate abbe. "Does monsieur think I am not a | |
very busy man?" | |
Then softening a little, he said, with a smile: | |
"I won't come any more, my friend. I'll send my boots around to-morrow | |
by my boy." | |
But the longest red-letter day has its ending, and time and tide beckon | |
one with the brutality of an impatient jailer. | |
On my studio table is a well-stuffed envelope containing the documents | |
relative to my impending exile--a stamped card of my identification, | |
bearing the number of my cell, a plan of the slave-ship, and six red | |
tags for my baggage. | |
The three pretty daughters of old Pere Valois know of my approaching | |
departure, and say cheering things to me as I pass the concierge's | |
window. | |
Pere Valois stands at the gate and stops me with: "Is it true, monsieur, | |
you are going Saturday?" | |
"Yes," I answer; "unfortunately, it is quite true." | |
The old man sighs and replies: "I once had to leave Paris myself"; | |
looking at me as if he were speaking to an old resident. "My regiment | |
was ordered to the colonies. It was hard, monsieur, but I did my duty." | |
The morning of my sailing has arrived. The patron of the tobacco-shop, | |
and madame his good wife, and the wine merchant, and the baker along the | |
little street with its cobblestone-bed, have all wished me "bon voyage," | |
accompanied with many handshakings. It is getting late and Pere Valois | |
has gone to hunt for a cab--a "galerie," as it is called, with a place | |
for trunks on top. Twenty minutes go by, but no "galerie" is in sight. | |
The three daughters of Pere Valois run in different directions to find | |
one, while I throw the remaining odds and ends in the studio into my | |
valise. At last there is a sound of grating wheels below on the gravel | |
court. The "galerie" has arrived--with the smallest of the three | |
daughters inside, all out of breath from her run and terribly excited. | |
There are the trunks and the valises and the bicycle in its crate to get | |
down. Two soldiers, who have been calling on two of the daughters, come | |
up to the studio and kindly offer their assistance. There is no time to | |
lose, and in single file the procession starts down the atelier stairs, | |
headed by Pere Valois, who has just returned from his fruitless search | |
considerably winded, and the three girls, the two red-trousered soldiers | |
and myself tugging away at the rest of the baggage. | |
It is not often one departs with the assistance of three pretty femmes | |
de menage, a jolly old concierge, and a portion of the army of the | |
French Republic. With many suggestions from my good friends and an | |
assuring wave of the hand from the aged cocher, my luggage is roped and | |
chained to the top of the rickety, little old cab, which sways and | |
squeaks with the sudden weight, while the poor, small horse, upon whom | |
has been devolved the task of making the 11.35 train, Gare St. Lazare, | |
changes his position wearily from one leg to the other. He is evidently | |
thinking out the distance, and has decided upon his gait. | |
"Bon voyage!" cry the three girls and Pere Valois and the two soldiers, | |
as the last trunk is chained on. | |
The dingy vehicle groans its way slowly out of the court. Just as it | |
reaches the last gate it stops. | |
"What's the matter?" I ask, poking my head out of the window. | |
"Monsieur," says the aged cocher, "it is an impossibility! I regret very | |
much to say that your bicycle will not pass through the gate." | |
A dozen heads in the windows above offer suggestions. I climb out and | |
take a look; there are at least four inches to spare on either side in | |
passing through the iron posts. | |
"Ah!" cries my cocher enthusiastically, "monsieur is right, happily for | |
us!" | |
He cracks his whip, the little horse gathers itself together--a moment | |
of careful driving and we are through and into the street and rumbling | |
away, amid cheers from the windows above. As I glance over my traps, I | |
see a small bunch of roses tucked in the corner of my roll of rugs with | |
an engraved card attached. "From Mademoiselle Ernestine Valois," it | |
reads, and on the other side is written, in a small, fine hand, "Bon | |
voyage." | |
I look back to bow my acknowledgment, but it is too late; we have turned | |
the corner and the rue Vaugirard is but a memory! | |
* * * * * | |
But why go on telling you of what the little shops contain--how narrow | |
and picturesque are the small streets--how gay the boulevards--what they | |
do at the "Bullier"--or where they dine? It is Love that moves Paris--it | |
is the motive power of this big, beautiful, polished city--the love of | |
adventure, the love of intrigue, the love of being a bohemian if you | |
will--but it is Love all the same! | |
"I work for love," hums the little couturiere. | |
"I work for love," cries the miller of Marcel Legay. | |
"I live for love," sings the poet. | |
"For the love of art I am a painter," sighs Edmond, in his atelier--"and | |
for her!" | |
"For the love of it I mold and model and create," chants the | |
sculptor--"and for her!" | |
It is the Woman who dominates Paris--"Les petites femmes!" who have | |
inspired its art through the skill of these artisans. | |
"Monsieur! monsieur! Please buy this fisherman doll!" cries a poor old | |
woman outside of your train compartment, as you are leaving Havre for | |
Paris. | |
"Monsieur!" screams a girl, running near the open window with a little | |
fishergirl doll uplifted. | |
"What, you don't want it? You have bought one? Ah! I see," cries the | |
pretty vendor; "but it is a boy doll--he will be sad if he goes to | |
Paris without a companion!" | |
Take all the little fishergirls away from Paris--from the Quartier | |
Latin--and you would find chaos and a morgue! | |
L'amour! that is it--L'amour!--L'amour!--L'amour! | |
[Illustration: (burning candle)] | |
TRANSCRIBER'S AMENDMENTS: | |
Page 25: dejeuner amended to dejeuner. | |
Page 25: Saints-Peres amended to Saints-Peres. | |
Page 36: aperatif amended to aperitif. | |
Page 37: boite amended to boite. | |
Page 51 & 63: Celeste amended to Celeste. | |
Page 52: gayety amended to gaiety. | |
Page 57: a a amended to a. | |
Page 60: glace amended to glace. | |
Page 64: Quatz amended to Quat'z'. | |
Page 67: Pres amended to Pres. | |
Page 78: sufficently amended to sufficiently. | |
Page 161: Artz amended to Arts. | |
Page 196: MUSEE amended to MUSEE. | |
End of Project Gutenberg's The Real Latin Quarter, by F. Berkeley Smith | |
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