Paris in the Twentieth Century (14 page)

"Poor
poet, " Michel echoed.

"Beside
his lyre, " resumed Uncle Huguenin, "you'll notice Alfred de Musset's
guitar: it's never played nowadays, and you have to be an old amateur like
myself to delight in the vibrations of its slack strings. We're in the music
section of our army now. "

"Oh,
Victor Hugo!" Michel exclaimed. "Uncle, I hope you consider him among
our great captains!"

"In
the first rank, my boy, bearing the flag of Romanticism on the bridge of
Arcole, victor of the battles of
Hernani,
of
Ruy Blas,
of the
Burgraves,
of
Marion de Lorme!
Like
Bonaparte, he was already a general at twenty-five, and defeated the Austrian classics
at every encounter. Never, my son, has human thought been brewed more
vigorously than in that man's skull, a crucible capable of enduring the
highest temperatures known to humanity. I know nothing to exceed him, in
antiquity or modern times, for the violence and the richness of imagination.
Hugo is the highest personification of the first half of the nineteenth
century, and leader of a school which will never be equaled. His complete works
have had seventy-five editions, of which this is the last; he is forgotten like
the rest, my boy, and hasn't killed enough people to be remembered!"

"Uncle,
you have the twenty volumes of Balzac!" exclaimed Michel, standing on a
stool.

"Of
course I do! Balzac is the first novelist in all the world, and several of his
characters have outstripped even Moli
é
re's
types. In this day and age, he wouldn't have had the courage to write
La Com
é
die Humaine."

"Even
so, he described some terrible behavior, and how many of his heroes are true to
life who wouldn't figure badly among us!"

"Probably
you're right, " Monsieur Huguenin replied, "but where would he find
a de Marsay, a Granville, a Chesnel, a
Mirouët
,
a Du Gu
é
nic, a
Montriveau, a Chevalier de Valois, a La Chanterie, or women like Madame de
Maufrigneuse, Eug
é
nie Grandet,
or Pierrette, charming characters of nobility and intelligence and gallantry
and charity and candor—these were men and women he copied, not invented! It's
true that his misers, the financiers protected by the law, the amnestied
thieves would sit for him in great numbers today, and he wouldn't have any
difficulty finding a Crevel, a Nuicingen, a Vautrin, a Corentin, or a Gobseck
among us!"

"Here's
what looks to me, " said Michel, moving on to other shelves, "like a
considerable author. "

"Indeed!
That is Alexandre Dumas, the Murat of literature, interrupted by death at his
nineteen hundred and ninety-third volume! The most entertaining of all
storytellers, whom prodigal nature allowed to abuse... everything without doing
himself harm—his talent, his intelligence, his verve, his energy, even his
physical strength when he took the powder keg of Soissons, his birth, his
color, France, Spain, Italy, the banks of the Rhine, Switzerland, Algeria, the
Caucasus, Mount Sinai, and Naples, especially when he forced entry on the Sp
é
ronare!
What an astonishing personality! It's believed he would have reached his two
thousandth volume if he hadn't been poisoned in the prime of life, eating a
dish he had just invented. "

"What
a pity!" said Michel. "And this dreadful accident claimed no other
victims?"

"Oh
yes, unfortunately, among others Jules Janin
[38]
,
a critic of the period who wrote Latin themes at the bottom of his columns. It
was at a reconciliation dinner Dumas was giving him. And with them also
perished a young writer, Monselet
[39]
,
who has left us a masterpiece, unfinished alas, the
Dictionnaire des Gourmets,
forty-five volumes and he only got as far as
L
—for
larding."

"A
shame, " said Michel, "it certainly sounds promising. "

"Now
here is Fr
é
d
é
ric
Souli
é
[40]
,
a brave soldier, good for a quick turn, and capable of seizing a desperate
position, and Gozlan
[41]
,
a Captain of the Hussars, and M
é
rim
é
e,
a dressing-room General, and Sainte-Beuve, a Quartermaster General, in charge
of supplies, and Arago, a learned officer in the engineers, who has managed to
be forgiven for his knowledge. Look, Michel, here are the works of George Sand,
a wonderful genius, one of the greatest writers of France, finally decorated in
1859 and giving her cross to her son to wear for her. "

"What
are these forbidding-looking books?" asked Michel, pointing to a long row
of volumes concealed by the cornice.

"Move
on quickly, my child; that's the row of philosophers, Cousin
[42]
,
Pierre Leroux
[43]
,
Dumoulin, and so many more; but since philosophy is a matter of fashion, you
won't be surprised that it's no longer read. "

"And
who is this?"

"Renan.
An archaeologist who caused a stir; he tried to deny the Divinity of Christ,
and died thunderstruck in 1892. "

"And
this one over here?"

"This
one's a journalist, an economist, a ubiquist, an artillery General noisier than
he was brilliant, by the name of Girardin.
[44]
"

"Wasn't
he an atheist?"

"Not
in the least; he believed in himself. Now look over here, a bold fellow, a man
who would have invented the French language all over again if need be, and
would be a classic today, if people still attended his classes: Louis Veuillot
[45]
,
the most vigorous champion the Roman Church ever had, and who died excommunicate,
to his amazement. There's Guizot, an austere historian who in his spare time
diverted himself by compromising the Orleans claim to the throne. And you see
this enormous compilation? This is the only
True and Authentic History of the Revolution and of the Empire
,
published in 1895 by order of the government to put an end to the various
uncertainties which dismayed this part of our history. Thiers's chronicles were
ransacked for this work. "

"Oh!"
cried Michel, "here are some fellows who look young and eager. "

"Right
you are; that's the light cavalry of 1860, brilliant, bold, noisy, overleaping
prejudices like fences, dismissing the proprieties like barriers, falling,
getting up again, and running all the faster, breaking their necks and fighting
none the worse for it! Here's the masterpiece of the period,
Madame Bovary,
and
Noriac's
[46]
B
êtis
e humaine,
a vast
subject he couldn't quite encompass; and here are the rest, Assollant
[47]
,
Aurevilly, Baudelaire, Paradol
[48]
,
Scholl
[49]
,
strapping fellows you have to watch out for no matter what, for they're likely
to shoot you in the legs..."

"But
only with gunpowder, " Michel concluded.

"Gunpowder
mixed with salt, and that can sting. Now here's a fellow who has no lack of
talent, a real mascot of the troupe. "

"Edmond
About
[50]
?"

"Yes!
He flattered himself—or his public flattered him—he was going to begin Voltaire
all over again, and in time he reached as far as his ankle; unfortunately in
1869, just when he was finishing his round of visits for the Acad
émie-Française
, he was killed in a duel by a fierce
critic, the famous Sarcey.
[51]
"

"If
this hadn't happened, would he have gone far?"

"Never
far enough, " answered Uncle Huguenin. "Now these, my boy, are the
principal leaders of our literary army: over there, the last rows of obscure
soldiers whose names amaze the readers of old catalogs; continue your
inspection, enjoy yourself; there are five or six centuries here that ask
nothing better than to be glanced at!"

And
that was how the day passed, Michel disdaining the unknowns to return to the
illustrious names, but encountering odd contrasts, turning from a Gautier whose
opalescent style had staled a little to a Feydeau, the licentious heir of
Louvet
[52]
and Laclos, turning back from a Champfleury
[53]
to a Jean Mac
é
[54]
,
the ingenious popularizer of science. His eyes leaped from M
é
ry
[55]
,
who produced wit the way a cobbler produces boots, on commission, to Banville,
whom his Uncle Huguenin declared to be no more than a word juggler; then he
came across Stahl
[56]
,
so scrupulously published by the house of Hetzel, and Karr, a witty moralist
who nonetheless lacked the wit to let himself be pilfered, and Houssaye
[57]
,
who having in another life appeared at the Hotel de Rambouillet, had retained
the absurd style and the pr
é
cieux
mannerisms of the place, and Saint-Victor
[58]
,
still flamboyant after a lifetime of a hundred years.

Then
he returned to his point of departure; he took up several of these beloved
volumes, opened them, read a sentence in one, a page in another, recited from
this one only the chapter headings, and from that one only the titles; he
inhaled that literary fragrance that rose to his brain like a warm emanation of
bygone centuries, shaking hands with all these friends of the past he would
have known and loved, had he had the wit to be born sooner!

Uncle
Huguenin looked on, delighted by his nephew's pleasure, feeling younger just to
watch him. "And what are you thinking now?" he asked him, when he saw
Michel standing motionless, apparently in a trance.

"I'm
thinking that this little room holds enough to make a man happy for his whole
lifetime."

"If
he can read. "

"I
mean that kind of a man. "

"You're
right, on one condition. "

"Which
is?"

"That
he not know how to write. "

"And
why is that, Uncle?"

"Because
then, my boy, he might be tempted to walk in the footsteps of these great
writers."

"What
would be wrong with that?"

"He
would be lost. "

"Oh,
Uncle!" Michel exclaimed, "you're going to draw a moral for me!"

"No,
for if anyone deserves a lesson here, I'm the one.