Villiers de L'Isle-Adam. His Life and His Works.

iii!!
ll
y-
VILLIERS
de lisle
ADAM
HIS LIFE
AND WORKS
VILLIERS DE l'iSLE ADAM.
VILLIERS
de
I'lsle
ADAM
HIS LIFE
AND WORKS
from the French of
Vicomte Robert du Pontavice de Heussey
By Lady Mary Loyd
London
William Heinemann
MDCCCXCIV
LF V757
EL 28819
2.1.%. S(^
All rights
reserved.
TO
THE EVER BLESSED MEMORY OF THE UNKNOWN INDIVIDUAL WHO FIRST INTRODUCED ME TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE,
IS
THIS TRANSLATION GRATEFULLY DEDICATED
BY MARY LOYD.
TO THE READER.
I^^^^HE
writings of Villiers de I'lsle
Adam
are so
little
it
known
in this
country, that
may
not be out
of place, before the adventurous
reader embarks on the perusal of the follow-
ing recollerions, to endeavour, in the most

cursory manner, to give
ing them.
some
satire
details concern-
The most
radiant
stinging
;
and the most

of
fancy
the keenest appreciation
nature, especially in her gloomier
and more
mysterious moods, and a constant endeavour

to enforce the
immutable truths of religion

results
all
and morality, and the inevitable

their
of
his
contravention,
run
through
stories.
And
nothing more genuinely witty
can be imagined than some of his sketches
viii
TO THE READER.
more
life.
of the
Parisian
peculiarly
Bohemian
side
of
The
its
charaleristic of Villiers'
work which must

dent most,
is
strike the thoughtful stu-
magnificent thoroughness.
tales bears the impress, not
Every one of his

conscientious
only of laborious preparation, but of the most

elaboration.
So
that
every
word, as
it
finally stands, is indispensable to
the true comprehension of the author's meaning.
And
this
meaning, again,
satire,
is
almost
always of the highest; the
grave or gay,
good-humoured or severe, always tending to the support of what is true and noble, and to the punishment (or, at all events, the discountenance) " of wickedness and vice."
The
poet's
immediate friends
may have
blamed and deplored the extreme Bohemianism into which his needy circumstances drove
him.
We, who
inherit the result of his lifein
work
work accomplished
for
the face of
constant difficulty and discouragement
can
have no room
for the
any
feeling but admiration
man who never

it
published a line with-
out giving
the highest polish he
was capable
of imparting.
TO THE READER.
ix
No modern
perhaps,
of
writer,
with
the
exception,
Edgar Poe, whom Villiers so passionately admired, has his power of dignifying the horrible. And none, I believe (not even Pierre Loti, that master of the art of
portraying nature, to the extent of making
his readers alually feel the heat of the
sun
and the damp of the fog he
describes), excels
him
in calling up,
and
in the fewest words,
the beauty of an
autumn
sunset, the dreariness
of a wild winter night, the horror of a long

corridor in one of the prisons of the Spanish
Inquisition,^ or the exotic
bloom of
certain
phases of existence in Paris.^

say, is the soul of wit.
Brevity, they
Truly, in this case,

it is
brevity
easy,
is
the strength of style, and

first
not
on a
perusal, to realize the conthis
centrated
power
same well-considered
de
I'lsle
brevity gives to that of Villiers
Adam.
Of
is
his life
in
will
say nothing.
Its story
unfolded
^
the pages which succeed this

l'Esprance."
dernires
Ftes,"
"
La Torture par
'
"Le Convive
des
"Antonia,"
" L'Enjeu."
TO THE READER.
note.
sad enough
story
it
is,
full
of
struggle and failure, of brilliant hopes and

bitter
deceptions.
The
history of a great
soul, full of that peculiar simplicity
and un-
fitness for
coping with everyday cares which

;
so often accompany genius
and with that
sad and too
common
close, so eternally dis-
honouring to the public which turns a deaf

ear to the living charmer,
charm he never so
wisely
death
in
an hospital ward, followed
by pseans of admiration when the brave heart that had vainly ached for just one responsive throb was stilled in the silence
of the grave.
There
is
a growing interest
among
culti-
vated people on this side of the Channel in

the extraordinary development of literature
in
I
its
most
brilliant
form on the other, and

this sketch of the life
feel
convinced that
and works of one who, negleled and depreciated as he was to within a few months
of his premature death by
few,
is
all
but a selel
now acclaimed
as one of the chief
glories of
heartily
modern literary France, will be welcomed by the many sympathetic
TO THE READER.
XI
English admirers of our gifted neighbours,
and that the knowledge they may thereby

acquire of the great French writer's
life
and
labour will inspire them with a desire to be-
come acquainted with the remarkable group

of tales,
plays,
and novels on which
his
reputation rests.
Mary
Loyd,
3[n
êmonam.
HE
author of the following recol-
lerions has passed into the silent
country while the sheets of this

translation
for
were being
prepared
the press.
The thought
that his
book
was about to be presented to the English

public helped to cheer the last
months of a
long and trying

I
illness.
And
to that public
submit these pages,
in the confident belief
that those
who have
the patience to read
them
will
share
my
admiration for the grace-
ful talent
of their author, and will regret with
me
that one
spared,
who might yet, if he had been have done much invaluable work in
and
literary research,
literature
should have
been cut
his days."
off prematurely,
"in the flower of
Eequi0cat in pace.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
First
I.
meeting
old
Family
ties
Illustrious
origin
of
Villiers
Genealogy of the family of L'Isle Adam

Emigrs Good King Louis XVIII.
Villiers
The
the family
Motto and coat-of-arms of The Cur of Ploumilliau the parsonage " LTntersigne His parents Genealogy of the De Carfort Aunt Kerinou of the Marquis de ITsle Adam His golden dream The inheritance seeker
and M. de
Villiers at
"
Peculiarities
The
treasure seeker
CHAPTER
Birth of Villiers de ITsle
II.
Adam His baptism His childhood Stolen by mountebanks School life St. Brieuc LavalRennes His first poem His early portrait " L'Amour et la Mort " Elegy Literary plans Family devotion and tenderness " Our Matthias " Departure for
Paris

xvi
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
Paris
III.
PAGK
in literature
The reign of the common-place The poets The defenders of the Beautiful "Le Parnasse Contemporain" "Les Parnassiens" Catulle Mends and the "Revue FanTriumphal entry of de ITsle Poems Friendships Stphane Adam Mallarm and Lon Dierx " Claire Lenoir Appearance of Dr. Triboulat Bonhomet A few
taisiste "
Villiers
First
"
words touching this personage " Le Roman d'une Nuit," by Catulle Mends Death of the " Revue Fantaisiste " The Blue Dragon Hotel The Rue de Douai Villiers de I'Isle Adam,
according to Franois Coppe
37
CHAPTER
Early influences
IV.
father
Charles Baudelaire My Their intimacy The Htel d'Orlans Literary and philosophical and the gatherings Lon Cladel The Princess Hegelian philosophy " Tullia Fabriana Preface Eccentricities of The of Do6lor Bonhomet Do6lor C. "Ellen" and "Morgane" Sensations of Adam conloneliness The Marquis de Paris the course of tinues poisoner, Comte operationsThe the PommeraisThe apartment Courty de Kerinou Aunt marquis Honor The Rue Matthew's decorations His
relations with Villiers
Villiers
Isis
"
style
original
I'Isle
at
his
profitable
financial
la
in
St.
52

CONTENTS.
xvii
CHAPTER
The legend
to
V.
PAGE
The succession de ITsle Adam the throne of Greece the throne " Le Lion de a candidate Numidie " The Moor of Venice Nemesis An imperial audienceThe Marquis and Baron Rothschild The Due de Bassano and
of the hoaxer hoaxed
Villiers
for " "
Villiers
de ITsle
AdamThe
last
ad
of the
comedy A
Kerinou
poet's conclusion
Death
VI.
of
Aunt
7
Separation
CHAPTER
My
return to
search
stages
Paris The Htel d'Orlans My Our reunion The earlier of his lawsuit The historical drama of
for Villiers
"Perrinet
the Porte
Leclerc" Paul
St.
Clves,
dire6lor
of
Martin Theatre The Marchal Jean de I'lsle Adam, according to Messrs. Lockroy and Anicet Bourgeois Villiers' fury
Intervention of cation A duel arranged Settlement on the ground Result of the alion Biographer's reservations Documentary evidence ....
Letters to the press
randum
summons A memoM. de Villiers Provo-
87
CHAPTER
VII.
Le Pin Galant, near Bordeaux Arrival of Villiers with his play "The New World" The Ameri.
can centenary competition The chara6ler of Mrs. Andrews The legend of Ralph Evandale
116

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
Villiers'
VIII,
PAGE
rage against the

at the
members of
the jury
Dramatic scene
house of Vilor
Hugo
Villiers leaves Paris
The
Bordeaux theatres
Mdlle.
Godefrin, direcSlor of the Thtre Franais

extraordinary reading
Little
Aime
An
131
Madame Aime
Tessandier
CHAPTER
Restful days
fair
IX.
Villiers
life
The and the Talks about bygone days Charles Baudelaire His true nature His strange homeJeanne Duval Edgar Poe Richard Wagner " Axel The Cabala and the occult sciences religious sentiments Quotations " L'Eve Future
real Villiers
sex
"
Villiers'
"
144
CHAPTER
A
X.
metamorphosis An ambitious pastry-cook Appearance of the newspaper, *' La Croix et l'Epe " Its political, artistic, and literary programme Lord E His strange suicide The wax figure A nolurnal conversation The American engineer and his master, Edison First conception of "L'Eve Future" Villiers de I'Isle Adam and Thomas Alva Edison
157

CONTENTS.
A
XIX
CHAPTER XL
Villiers'
absent-mindedness
later
ness
despair
justification
culties
His departure from Bordeaux Godefrin's A year Bohemian poverty Want of money His pride His conscientiousand the young ness Drumont's book manner of JewA good answer of dayHis midnight wanderings His and Anatole France
Villiers'
diffi-
His
PAGE
terrible careless-
artistic
Villiers
Villiers'
life
dislike
light
Villiers
165
CHAPTER Xn.
1879 The Rue des Martyrs and the Rue Rochechouart The poet's room His extraordinary indifference Lon Dierx " La Dvoue "

in
Strange
habits
Villiers
the
street
Montmartre Nodlurnal declamations Villiers as a composer Two operas, " Esmeralda " and " Prometheus " Melomania
Boulevard
The
Villiers
as a
musical
performer A
Xin.
strange
couple
178
CHAPTER
First introdudlion
of Wagner and Villiers at the
house of Charles Baudelaire Failure of "Tannhauser" at the Paris Opera in 1861 Portrait and charaler of Richard Wagner His friends
and champions
His
intimacy with Villiers

XX
CONTENTS.
PAGE
The
ITsle
Reminiscences of Augusta Holmes
his
youth and early poverty Villiers' visit to Triebchen
"Rheingold" at Munich Villiers de Adam's artistic confession of faith

.
. .
202
CHAPTER
XIV.
Villiers' filial ten-
The marquis and the marquise derness A monomania for speculation
"
from the marquis

press
"La Rpublique des K. Huysmans Catulle Mends Lettres The "Contes Cruels" Two quotations A study by of His high as a talker and a mimic M. G. Guiches of Dr. Triboulat Some unpublished Bonhomet Bonhomet the commander-in-chief Bonhomet the ermine-hunter Bonhomet the of the Scriptures Bonhomet's Bayreuth The true adventures Adam An unopinions of de A rupture expedled
The
letter
Villiers' contributions to
the
"Figaro"
J.
Villiers'
spirits
loss
illusion
Villiers
traits
ful-
filling
letter
.at
political
Villiers
I'lsle
toast
219
CHAPTER
Fragments of a journal kept
fashion bewitched
in
XV.
1879
-^
woman
of
Villiers
and Mar Yvonne
mystery
of the Conseil Gnral
Meetings
My
Opinions of the pressThe plans of the future councillor departure from Paris Our separation
.
Villiers
a candidate at the eletions
Description of Villiers in 1880 by G. Guiches
237

CONTENTS.
xxi
CHAPTER
Closing years
Little
XVI.
PAGE
Villiers'
Birth
of a son
Totor and his father Cruels" Appearance of "L'Eve Future" in the "Gaulois"The "Vie Moderne" The murderous treatment of the " Nouveau Monde " at the Thtre des Nations The deaths of the marquis and the marquise J. K. Huysmans His opinion of Villiers' work " A Rebours " "Triboulat Bonhomet " " Propos d'au-del"
"Contes
widow Success of the
" L'Amour Supreme " Akdysseril " L'Eve Future Ledtures Belgium Return " Histoires Insolites to Paris Prosperity " Nouveaux Contes Cruels " Axel Sickness Letter from K. Huysmans, detailing the moments and the death of Con"
"
"
in
"
"
"
J.
last
Villiers
clusion
251
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VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM.
First
CHAPTER meeting Family origin of Genealogy of the family of L'Isle AdamThe old Emigrs Good King Louis XVIII. and M. de Motto and coat-of-arms of the family The Cur of Ploumilliau the parsonage "L'Intersigne" His Parents Genealogy of the De Carforts Aunt Kerinou Peculiarities of the Marquis de ITsle Adam His golden dream The inheritance seeker The treasure seeker. NE Thursday morning in NovemI.
ties
Illustrious
Villiers
Villiers
Villiers at
ber,
1858,
was
in
the dining-
room
and
solitary
;
of
my
I
father's
house
at
Fougres.
was eating
I
my
sad
luncheon under the eye of a cross
old nurse
and
my
heart swelled as
looked

sun outside the window-
at the cheerful winter
panes,
and thought of
leafless
my
brothers,
more
pilu-
fortunate than myself,
who were
frolicking
through the
woods which so
lived, in
resquely crown the village of St. Germain.
There
my grandfather
an old manor-
house amongst the
trees,
and every Thurs-
day, according to custom,
my
family spent the

I
day with him.
This time
had been
left
behind, as a punishment for
some childish misdemeanour or some ill-learnt lesson. Suddenly I heard the rumble of a carriage
on the rough pavement of our
street,
I
gene-
rally as silent as the grave,
and soon
saw a
I
hired
chaise
stop
before
our windows.
know when
not
why my
heart began to beat so fast
the bell (pulled

noisily.
by a vigorous hand)
after,
clanged
moment
the door
of the dining-room opened, and a
fair
young
man
furs,
with a large head, and wrapped in rich
rushed
in like
a whirlwind.
He vaulted
I
lightly over the table at
which
I
and
from
lifting
me
up, before
was sitting, had recovered
my
astonishment, he kissed
saying, "
Good
day,
my
little
me heartily, man you don't
3
"
!
know me
But
I
am
your cousin Matthias

well
!
did
know him
For long he had
filled
my childish imagination, haunted already

literature.
by the demon of
I
How
often
had
listened
open-mouthed, forgetful of
my
plate, while
my father recounted at
the family
traits
I
board the adventures, the oddities, the

of genius of Cousin Matthias!
True,
un-
derstood but vaguely what
my
father meant,
but
it
had
for
me
the unknown.
all the mysterious charm of Meanwhile the unexpeled
guest had asked for food, having come straight
from
I
Paris,
without warning, as was his way.

heartily,
see
him now, opposite me, eating
asking
me
questions, laughing at
my
prattle
(he had put
me
at
my ease at
once),
and stop-
ping every
his
now and then to push back with hand a thick lock of fair hair which kept
over his eyes.
said he
off to St.
falling
You know," attendant, " I am

"
to
my
astounded
little
Germain, the
come,
all
chap with me.
When /
punish-
ments are stopped."

Willy
cloak
nilly,
she had to wrap

!
me
in
my
later
and
comforter
Ten minutes

I,
Cousin Matthias and
seated in the
little
hired gig, were bowling along the frosty road
which led from the town of Fougres to the

village of St. Germain.
Such was
Villiers
my
first
never-to-be-forgotten
meeting with Philip Augustus Matthias de

of his
derful
bloom youth and the first blush of his wongenius his brow and eyes radiant
de
I'lsle
Adam, then
in all the
with those beautiful
illusions,
those glorious
life,
dreams, which attended his entrance into
which never abandoned him

hours,
in his
saddest
and
whose
melancholy
phantoms
and
hovered over the hospital bed on which he

died, high-spirited to the last, hopeful
resigned.
As
But
I
has been seen, our families were kin.

think that the cousinship
between
Villiers
and
my
father,
and
later,
by
inheri-
tance,
between
Villiers
and myself, was more

else.
intelle6lual than
anything
The
family
bond which
It
unites us seems to
I
me very slight.
should be sought,
think, in the alliance
of both our families with that of
But that
is little
matter.
De Kersauson. What is far more

urgent
is
to establish the absolutely incon-
testable nobility of the origin of the great

writer.
In his lifetime a sort of mysterious
legendary haze gathered round his personality,
and
fog.
all
fancy he rather enjoyed deepening the
At
that
all
events, such
was
his hatred
of
was conventional, that his Titanic dreams became historical fa6ls concerning which he would admit of no discussion. All those who have heard him speak of his ancestors, of their riches, of " the stately sea-
beaten
manor-house," in
will
I
which
his
early
youth was passed,

further insisting,
rare,
understand, without
what
mean.
Yet, in those
and
for him,
wearisome moments, when
he returned to earth, Villiers knew his family

history perfe6lly,
and
in its minutest detail.
had studied the subje6l profoundly, and his genius illuminated for him all that was prosaic and dull in provincial and Parisian
archives.
I
He
know a
the
life
certain
work of
is
his,
dealing with
Villiers
of the
Marchal de
a master-
de Tlsle Adam, which

return
piece of clearness, eloquent expression, and

erudition.
I
will
to
it
at
a more
opportune moment.
At
present
origin.
am
chiefly
concerned with the poet's
The
and de
France.
illustrious family of Villiers
de ITsle
Adam, Seigneurs de
Chailly,
Villiers
de ITsle
the
Adam
lie
originated in
de
Several knights of the
name took
part in the Crusades, others
occupied the
highest positions about the court and in the
army.
In
fa6l,
the brilliant
is
name
of Villiers
de risle
Adam
constantly flashing across
the pages of our history.
But the most

to
cele-
brated amongst these great noblemen, too

well
known
for
me
to
add anything
what
has already been written concerning them,

are, in
order of date
Pierre,
who was Grandin
master and Porte Oriflamme of France

1355;
Jean,
Marshal of France
in
1437;
and
Philippe,
Grand Master of the Order of
the Knights of Malta, the heroic defender

of the Island of
Rhodes against Suliman in The nephew of this last, Franois, 1 52 1. Marquis de Villiers de I'lsle Adam, was
1550.
"Grand Louvetierde France "in

daughter of the old house of
The
grandson of Franois married, about 1670, a
De Courson, and

settled in the bishopric of St. Brieuc,
where
of this
he founded the Breton branch of the VilHers

de risle
last,
Adam
family.
The grandson
a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, married

1780, a Mdlle. de Kersauson.
in his turn, in
At
to
the time of the Revolution, he emigrated
England with
his family.
And here should
be related an incident which has an important

bearing on the curious lawsuit brought by
Villiers against the
descendants of the comeI
dian Lockroy, an adlion of which

the details
poet's
life
shall
give
when
come
it
to that part of the
in
which
occurred.
At
of
the time of the Revolution the house

risle
had greatly declined from its ancient splendour. I will not go into the causes of this change suffice it to say, that
;
De
Adam
when
the naval officer emigrated with those
belonging to him, his income barely sufficed

for the stridlest necessaries of life
It follows,
that once established abroad, he did not for
some time attempt to
return.
Meanwhile, the
all
Bourbons having returned to France,
the
so-called servants of the august exiles
were
clamouring for the reward of their services.
VILLI ERS
certain
DE
L'ISLE
Villiers
ADAM.
Deschamps, a
royalist,
Mons. de
rich
man, and an excellent
asked
I'lsle
permission to revive the
name
of
De
Adam, which he
extin6l,
affirmed to be completely
and
to
which a distant relationship
gave him a
claim.
Good Louis XVIII.,
delighted with a petition which would cost
him nothing but a

hesitation the
signature, granted without
prayer of his loyal subjel.

about, that until the day
Thus
its
it
came
when
luxurious peace was disturbed by the poet's
inopportune interference, the family of

Villiers, all
De
unconscious of the fraud, bore an

a famous coat-of-arms to
title.
illustrious
name and
which
it I
had no earthly
this
As
have spoken of the arms of the
De
Villiers,
may be
:
the proper place to
describe
them
"
"
D'or au chef d'azur charg

"
!
d'un dextrochre vtu d'un fanon d'hermines."
Mottoes
a
1
Va
oultre
and
also "
La main
de
l'Isle
uvre.
Ail those familiar with
Villiers
Adam
and
his wonderful books, will recog-
nize that these
two proud mottoes seem

for him.
to
have been made

"
ep
is
Va oultre
" "
Go forward
His
clear,
"
!
This
what
its
he always did.
piercing
prophetic glance
the heavens, and
reaching in
impetuous and aspiring

horizon of ordinary
flight far
beyond the
!
human thought
"
La
main
l'uvre !"
"
Hand
at
work
"
!
Yes,
ceaselessly at work, even in the darkest hours
of misery, that hand of the artist and the
gentleman, at once so delicate and so brave,
whose labour only rested

last
in
death
In his
days he used to watch, sadly enough, the

of those poor brave
failing strength
hands
which could no longer hold the pen, and he

uttered one night, to one of his faithful friends,
this phrase,
which sounds
like a knell,
'*
Look
my
I
flesh is ripening for the
tomb."
return to
my
story.
The
old emigre
to leave the
in
marquis,
Armand, not choosing

Villiers
bones of a
de
I'lsle
Adam
England,
returned to France towards 1820, and died,
soon after the birth of the poet, in a
little
manor-house, whose only tower overlooks the

port of
Lgu and the tossing expanse of the
Bay
of St. Brieuc.
He
left
four children,
two sons and two daughters.
One, Gabrielle,
lo

ago, a sister
became a nun, and died not long

of the
married,
Sacr
Cur de
Jsus.
The
other
when no longer young,

for their
after
a Mons. du
Rumain.
during
This worthy couple never showed

nephew, either
death.
any great tenderness

his
life
or
his
The
youngest brother, Vilor, entered the priest-
hood very early

saintly
in
life.
He was
all
a wise and
man.
He
refused
honours, and
would never leave the poor parish of Ploumilliau, of which he was for half a century
the devoted re6lor.
His nephew has dedi-
cated to him one of the most extraordinary

of his
in
tales, " L' Intersigne."
It
was written
1875 in the presbytery of the good and

;
simple priest
and the sojourn of the great

life
and unhappy poet (whose
at that
time
the
was
all
storm, agitation, and
care)
in
peace of that quiet retreat, inspired him with

these wonderful lines, which none
who knew
:
and loved him can read without emotion

"
The
rural aspe6l of this house, with its

its
green-shuttered windows,
its
three stone steps,
tangle
of
ivy,
clematis,
and
tea-roses,
covering the walls and reaching the roof

(whence a
spired
little
ii
smoke escaped through a chimney topped by a vane), incloud

of
me with
a feeling of calm, of well-being,
of profound peace.
The
all
trees of a neightrellised
bouring orchard showed through the

enclosure, their leaves
rusted by the ex-
hausting
summer
heats.
The two windows
of the only storey shone with the western
Between them was a hollow niche holding the image of some happy saint.
fire.
Silently
to
dismounted, fastening
my
I
horse
raised
the
window-shutter,
I
and
as
the knocker
the
cast a
traveller's
glance at
horizon
behind
me.
But so brightly
did that horizon shine over the wild

distant forests of
last
and
oak and
pine, whither the
birds were winging their belated way,
so solemnly did the waters of a distant reed-
covered lake
reilel
the sky,
so beautiful
was nature
that
in
in the
calm
air of that deserted
spot, at that
I
moment when
'
the silence
still
falls,
stood mute, the knocker

grasp.
dangling
*
my
thou
'
!
thought,
who
findest not the refuge of thy dreams,
and to
whom,
after
many a weary march
'neath cruel

12
Stars
so
joyful
at the
start,
so saddened
its
now the
land of Canaan with
palm-trees
and running waters comes not with the dawn.

Heart made
for other exile than that
whose
bitterness thou
sharest
with brothers
who
sit
love thee not
Behold, here mayst thou

the stone of melancholy
thee
down upon
here mayst thou dream such dreams as might
haunt thee
in the
!
tomb, wouldst thou truly

hither,
desire to die
Come
'"
then, for here
the sight of the heavens shall transport thee

into oblivion
!
I cite
this passage, not
only
because
it
seems
to
me
it
to
be exceedingly
is
beautiful, but because

logical
really
a psycho-
document
one
of the very rare in-
stances in which a writer has permitted his
published work to reflel his personal emotion.
The
young
renunciation of
sister
the world
Villiers
and brother of
by the was not
perhaps altogether the result of an

vocation.
spirit
is
irresistible
In these old races,
the family
traditional, and the sacrifice of the

its
earthly interest of
younger members on
is
the altar of the birthright of the eldest,

Still
13
not unfrequently made.

been,
However
this
may have
Villiers
the Marquis
Joseph de
de F Isle Adam, Knight of the Order
of Malta " de la
in
Langue de France," remained

fa6l the only repre-
consequence of that
sentative of his mighty line.
He
obtained a
dispensation
from
the
the
Pope,
and married
Villiers.
Mdlle. Marie Franoise le

fort,
Nepveu de Cardid not dero-
who was
mother of our
The Marquis de
this family.
ITsle
Adam
gate from his dignity by allying himself with
The
knight Roland de Carfort

1248.
took the Cross in
In 1370 Olivier
de Carfort allied himself with the Dukes of

Brittany.
At
the time of the
first
reform of
the nobility in 1669, the
De
It
Carfort family
proved seven generations.

registers of nobility
appears in the
for
from 1425 to 1535,
the parishes of Cesson,
Le
Fil, St. Turiaff,
and
Plaintel, in the bishopric of St. Brieuc.
Le Nepveu, were lords of La Roche, Crnan, Du Clos, La Cour, La Ville Anne, Lescout, and La Coudraye. They bore as arms, De gueules six billettes d'argent, 3, 2, i au chef de mme."
or
Carfort, Beruen,
*'
The Nepvou,
14
I

ask indulgence for
my
long dissertation
on these genealogical
but one
details.
There was
of mail
weak spot
in the coat
woven
of pride and haughty scorn with which Villiers
endued himself before he descended

life.
into the terrible lists of
The
polished
vipers of the boulevards, the jealous carrion-
crows of
literature,
knew
well that to poison
and wound
this invulnerability, their bites
and
their beak-thrusts
must be direled against
his family pride.
They
did not
fail
to
do
it
His right to everything was disputed, ancestors, nobility, his
very name
Villiers
used to
flies.
roar like a lion
stung by poisonous
precise
But good,
clear,
proofs
are worth
more
roars,
to the alual public than the loudest
and
if
in that
country beyond the grave

earthly
he
still
troubles concerning trivial
matters, he will rejoice that his Breton cousin
has endeavoured to establish incontestably

his relationship with those heroes of the
sword
from whom, himself a hero of the pen, he so

worthily descended. Unfortunately,
it is
possible to be at the
same time exceedingly well-born and excs-

sively poor
;
15
and Mdlle. de Carfort was no

Nevertheless, thanks
richer than the marquis.
to an old aunt, Mdlle. Danile Kerinou,
who
had adopted her and who possessed a modest

competence; thanks,
fortune,
in
too, to
some remnants of
life
and
to the fabulous cheapness of

in
Brittany
those days,
the
household
might have lived with dignity, dividing the

year between the modest residence on the
sea-coast and the
little
old house in the
Rue
disposition
Houvenagues at St. and the

I
Brieuc.
But the singular
perilous whimsicality of
the head of the family spoilt everything.
do not believe that there has ever existed
either in reality or in filion a chara6ler
more
extraordinary than that of the father of Villiers.
To
all
depi(5l
it,
even approximately, would need

all
the raciness of Dickens,
the profound
power of observation of Balzac.

I
I
And
besides,
should be carried too far by the subje6l.

Will
content myself, therefore, with sketching
one
man.
salient trait of this wonderfully original
The Marquis de
I'lsle
Adam
was
possessed with an effulgent dazzling vision of

gold.
His son was haunted
in the
same way,
i6

in
and he has thus described himself

his novels
:
one of
!
"
My
sole inheritance, alas
has
!
consisted in his dazzling hopes and dreams
Indifferent to the political cares of the century
and of the Fatherland

their representatives
indifferent, too, to the

failures of
I
temporary results of the criminal
linger to gaze
upon
not,
the reddening
forest
I
;
crests
of
the
neighbouring
I
instinlively,
though why
know
shun the ill-omened moonlight and the
noxious presence of
my
fellow-men.
I
Yes,
shun them
of
For
feel that
bear in
my
soul the reflele^ glory of the barren wealth
many
a forgotten king."
in the exer-
But whereas the writer found

cise of his art
an outlet
for his besetting idea,
and a defence against its allurements, the marquis formed the wild projel of realizing his visions by becoming a man of business. And a singular business man was he this
tall,
thin marquis
Always
in
the clouds
full
of morgue, and haughty as a descendant of the

" Porte Oriflamme of France " might well be
gifted,
truly,
;
with an all-devouring alivity,

it
but spending
all
in placing shares in the

most chimerical of undertakings
!
17
He asserted,
and with some show of reason, that during

the Revolution, and the troublous times that
ensued,
many
inheritances were wrongly as-
signed to people
who had no
right to them,
and
this
to the detriment of the real heirs.
On
this supposition his principal speculation
depended.
He
undertook, in consideration
of a certain percentage, to have restored to
the injured families the properties which were

theirs
by
right.
This
every
brilliant proje6l
once
formed, the marquis went forth, beating up

the
country
in
dire6lion,
searching
private libraries, public archives, and church

registers
;
talking to old people, and accumu-
lating
formidable
mass
of information.
sufficiently
inte-
Then, when he considered himself

armed, apprizing those
rested.
who were most Some, seduced by the hope of

litigation,
gain,
allowed themselves to be tempted, and after
long and expensive
ended by conimaginary
in-
signing the marquis

heritances to
all
and
his
the gods of Erebus.
This
discoverer of doubtful inheritances soon be-
came
the terror of every attorney, lawyer,
il
i8

sheriffs' officer in
and
his
Lower
Brittany.
For
and
his
haughty self-confidence carried him everyoffice,
where, into every
every agency
his cool pride, his aristocratic ways,

illustrious
and
name, awed the worthy
scriveners
still
of a remote province, where people are
simple enough to respe6l certain things.

will
It
easily
be conceived that such under-
takings and the failure which generally crowned
them, far from augmenting the redoubtable

marquis's income,
made
fresh gaps
in
his
patrimony.
And
this
the second speculation undertaken
by
astonishing person was as fantastic as

first.
the
Dreaming, as he did incessantly,

elsewhere than
in
of delusive treasure, he soon began to imagine

that
it
existed
his
own
fancy.
He
persuaded himself that the soil of
old Armorica concealed subterranean caves,
mute guardians of the fabulous riches placed in them by former generations in times of trouble and civil war. Where, for example, was the huge fortune
of the Villiers de
I'lsle
Adam, which had
enabled them to take rank amongst the most

gorgeous courtiers of France
set himself to
?
19
The
seeker
of inheritances became a treasure seeker, and
work with the same ardour and conviftion as heretofore. In the neigh-
bourhood of Quintin stood the ruins of an

old castle, which had formerly belonged to the
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam.
I
The marquis bought
a concession, hired labourers, and set about

his researches.
know not whether he had
discovered in his family archives, some proof,

or even any vague indication, which might lead to success.
His son was convinced he
had.
He
;
has spoken to
this
me me
very seriously
buried for
and eloquently of
centuries
treasure,
he has shown
the plan of the
subterranean hiding-place, and he endeavoured

to find capitalists to assist his father in
com-
pleting his excavations.
Fortunately
Villiers,
money was not
to be had,
and
not having been able to carry out

in
this
in a
dream
a pradlical way, has realized

in
it
wonderful manner
I
one of his most
powerful works.
"
speak of the book entitled
Le Vieux de
la
Montagne," the
I
full
and
complete manuscript of which
have held
20 in
my
hands.
This drama, according to the
poet's design, should
have immediately
it
fol-
lowed that of
continuation,
"
Axel," of which
"
is
the the
as
The Adoration
of
Magi
" is
the conclusion.
CHAPTER
Birth of Villiers de
I'lsle
IL
childhood
St.
Adam His baptism His Stolen by mountebanks School poem Brieuc Laval Rennes His Mort" Elegy "L'Amour His Literary plans Family devotion and tenderness Our Matthias Departure
first
life
early portrait
et la
*'
"
for Paris.
H LE her husband was thus spendI
ine himself in a feverish and ruinous

alivity,
the gentle and
delicate
marquise lived sadly on at

in the
home
company of her good aunt Kerinou. The existence of these two women was solitary
and
sad, the anxiety
which the undertakings
of the head of the family caused

risle
Mdme. de
monotony;
soul,
Adam
alone breaking
its
but a fervent piety, a rare gentleness of
and a strong hope
in the
life.
goodness of God,
supported her through
Her
faith
was
at
22

rewarded, and
last
God
granted her most
ardent desire, by sending her in November,

1838, a son
who was
the joy, the belief, the
hope, and the pride of her simple existence.
Never did a great artist have a more admirDuring her long life she never wavered once in her faith in him, and in his genius. She believed in her son with the same
able mother
!
simple trust with which she believed in her God.

It is
easy to conceive with what joy the

this child
was hailed by these two lonely women. Here was a being to love, to cherish, to bring up sunshine breaking in upon the monotony of their darkness. The marquis, too, was radiant as he gazed on this offshoot of the Villiers de I'lsle Adam. Here -was someone who would restore the glory of the old race. Ah! he would endow his son with fabulous wealth. He would force the
advent of
earth to render up the treasure hidden in
Back he went to his excavations, the marquise and her aunt seeing him depart this time with less regret, for hope and consolation smiled on the two good women
its
breast
from the baby's cradle.
23
The Bishop
to
of St. Brieuc stood godfather
the new-comer, and baptized him, 28th

in the
November, 1838,
father,
presence of his grand-
his
father,
and Mdlle. de Kerinou.
The venerable prelate bestowed on his godson his own Christian name of Matthias.
I
have no intention of following step by

;
step the progress of the childhood of Villiers
the most talented biographers of famous
men
early-
have seldom succeeded

years of their
making the For heroes interesting.

in
all
child-
hood
is
above
things a period of silent
incubation, during which soul and mind are

secretly
and
laboriously
first
developed.
One
incident of these
years spent at St. Brieuc
must, however, be reported, for later the imagination of Villiers embroidered

tastic details.
it
with fanold,
He was
about seven years
when
his
nurse lost
strolling
him out walking.

child,
A
and
band of
mountebanks,
who were
going to Brest, met the strayed
looking on the sprightly fair-haired boy as

their
legitimate
prize,
laid
hands on him.
Some days
in the
later his father
found him at Brest
booth of his strolling captors.
He was
24
already the pet of the company, and there
appeared to be such a bond of affe6lion
between the chief of the poor rope-dancers
and the boy,

secution.
that the marquis, overjoyed to

all
get back his son, relinquished
idea of pro-
Those who were acquainted with Villiers will easily imagine what wonderful and humorous tales he would weave out of such an adventure. It was worth listening
to,
when,
in pi6luresque style,
he would con-
jure up the memories of the two years he
had
ill-
spent amongst those admirable, though
favoured gipsies, visiting successively
Italy,
Germany, the Tyrol, and chivalrous Hungary
rescued
lass,
and restored
at last to his family
through the devotion of a beautiful
Romany
the last descendant of a time-honoured

Villiers
race, etc., etc.
began
his education
at the school of St. Brieuc, but soon after-
wards continued
it
at the
Lyce
at
Laval.
There
his genius
began
to trouble his soul.
The
divine visions of poetry hovered round
him, the
breath of
artistic
enthusiasm
fell
glowing on his brow, and

written.
his first verses
were
his
Between whiles he concluded

classical
25
studies,
which,
once finished, his

time Villiers
family setded with him at Rennes, in a house

in the
Rue de
Corbin.
At
him
this
de risle
it
Adam
was seventeen years old, and

for a
was
sufficient to see
few moments
Inspiration
it
to
be convinced of
his vocation.
beamed on
his full pale forehead,
sparkled
in his discourse, in
which the tumult of ideas
pressed disorderly one on the other, trembled
on
his full lips already curled with irony,
and
filled
his clear blue eyes with a disturbing
light.
His
large, fair, dishevelled head, his
strange gestures, his disorderly style of dress,
alarmed the
correl
provincial
society,
little.
of
which, by the way, he saw but

those few privileged mortals
But
who
entered the
magic
sessed
circle of his intimacy,
remained there
fascinated and
that
dazzled.
Villiers already pos-
extraordinary magnetic
all
which he preserved
depth of thought
uncanny.
his
life,
power and of which
every friend of his has

in
felt
the influence.
The
one so young was almost
All in fa6l he needed, at the time

fit
of his arrival at Rennes, to
him
to pro-
nounce
his
vows before the
altar of art,
was
26
that his heart should bleed under the divine
wound
It
of love, the agonizing consecration of
every true poet.
was amongst the green
fields
and lanes
of Brittany that there arose for him, to vanish
almost immediately in death, that tender vision

of
womanhood which was
his fleeting, but his
only earthly love.
She was one of those
en-
trancing creatures, of
said, "
whom
he has so well
There are
certain helpmates
life's
is
who
en-
noble every one of
joys, certain radiant
maidens whose love

once.
their
only positively given
Yes, some few saintly souls, ideal in
dawning beauty."
will not
profane the
sacred passion of these two young hearts by

trying to describe
loved,
it.
will
only say,
They
and she
died.
On
all
a sudden, suffering
unfolded and spread the poet's budding wings.

In an artist's youth,
his
feelings,
it
even
sorrow,
Villiers.
turn
to
song,
lines,
and so
was with
These
written at seventeen
disdainful scoffer our
years of age
by the
generation
knew
so well, have their natural
place here, marking, as they do, the close of
the child's and the birth of the
artist's existence.
27
I.
!
charmants glantiers
soleil,
rayon, verdure
Frais salut que la terre offre dans
un murmure
rveries,
fleurs chries
:
De
zphirs renaissants, aux curs emplis d'espoir,
Bocage encor tout plein de chastes Six mois se sont passs loin de vos
J'avais besoin
de vous
revoir.
Oh De
vous souvenez-vous, fort dlicieuse,
l'avenir,
la jolie enfant qui passait gracieuse,

ciel,
Souriant simplement au
Se perdant avec moi dans ces vertes alles ? Eh bien parmi les lis de vos sombres valles,
!
Vous ne
la verrez plus venir.
printemps
lilas
profondes rames
Comme
autrefois vos fleurs, qu'elle avait tant aimes,

;
Sous vos sentiers dserts exhalent leurs amours

L'aubpine s'enlace au banc de
L'oiseau chante,
la charmille.
:
le ciel est bleu, le soleil brille
Rien n'a chang dans

Silencieux vallon
les
beaux jours
cela n'tait qu'un rve,
Un
songe radieux qui maintenant s'achve

laisse aprs lui
Et ne
qu'un amer souvenir
Ne me demandez
La pauvre jeune
pas ce qu'elle est devenue,
fille
en ce monde venue
et
Pour consoler
pour mourir
Morte et je suis encore en proie l'existence C'est donc cela la vie ? Et dj mon enfance A-t-elle disparu loin de ce cur bris ?
!
28

!
Seigneur, vous tes grand, mais vous tes svre
Ainsi
me
voil seul
c'est fini sur la terre

:
Cela s'appelle
" le Pass."
IL
Hlas
!
je
me
souviens.
Les vents au sein des ombres,

sombres
;
Du
Et
fleuve
harmonieux
ails
plissaient les vagues

;
Les chants
la lune,
du
soir s'taient vanouis

les
en glissant parmi
les teintes
blancs nuages,
Souvent illuminait
des feuillages
Du
Le
clair
obscur des belles nuits.
rossignol, cach sous l'paisse feuille,

les soupirs
Modulait
de sa chanson perle.
;
Les
Et
fleurs,
dans leurs parfums, s'endormaient leur tour

rayons runissent leur flamme,
unissions nos
comme deux
Tous deux nous
mes dans une me.
Et nos deux curs dans notre amour.
Comme Comme
Nous
son
joli
pied se posait sur la mousse
sa chevelure tait soyeuse et
douce
allions, enlacs,
sous les hauts peupliers

;
Elle avait dix-sept ans
j'avais cet
ge peine,
Souvent
le
rossignol retenait son haleine
En
coutant nos pas lgers.
Et moi je contemplais mon amante pensive, Et nous nous en allions, seuls, auprs de la rive.
Sa main sur
Et
les
mon
paule et
le front sur
ma
main
frmissements de
la nuit solitaire
Emportaient dans
les cieux, ainsi
qu'une prire,
Tous
les
doux songes du chemin.
29
III.
Puis, le rveil
la
mort
l'existence qui
!
change
temps
vieillard glac
qu'as-tu fait de
mon
ange
?
l'as-tu
mise, hlas
et froide et
pour toujours
Qu'as-tu
Qu'as-tu
fait
de l'enfant jeune
et pleine
de charmes,
fait
!
du
sourire et qu'as-tu fait des larmes,
Oh
i
qu'as-tu fait de nos
amours ?
IV.
Voyez comme On dirait un bouquet que

les fleurs
viennent bien prs des tombes

les
jeunes colombes,
Qu'avait-elle donc
Est-ce
Retournant au pays, nous laissent pour adieu. fait pour mourir la premire?
un crime de
N'est-il
vivre ? et l'amour, sur la terre.

le
pas
pardon de Dieu
Ne me
souriez plus,
campagne immortelle
Je suis seul maintenant ; si ce n'tait pour elle, Je n'avais pas besoin de vos fraches beauts;
N'ai-je pas
vu l'abme o tombent toutes choses
?
:
Les
lis
meurent dans l'ombre o
se fanent les roses
Les cyprs seuls restent plants.
Elle est sous les cyprs, la ple jeune
femme
Mon amour Comme une
triste et fier
brle encor dans
mon
me.
lampe
d'or veille sur le cercueil.

:
Mais je ne pleure plus la douleur a ses charmes. Et d'ailleurs, mon Dieu, mes yeux n'ont plus de larmes, Et mon cur seul porte le deuil.

30

I.
lovely eglantine
sunlit glades
Fresh greeting offered by the murmuring earth
On
circling breezes to all hopeful hearts,

last I
Since
saw those
all
fair
and much-loved
flowers,
Which
yet
fill
your memory-haunted groves,
Six weary
months have passed.

I
And
have longed to look on you again
The
Dost thou remember, Forest, lovely yet, pretty graceful child who wandered by,
Smiling her simple faith in
Heaven and
Fate,
And
Alas
straying with
!
me
through your verdant maze?

in
the
lilies
hidden
your green depths

!
Shall see her pass
no more
!
spring-time
Lilacs
deep greenwood shades
Your
Still
flowers, erstwhile so dear to her sweet soul,

o'er
shed their scent

still
your deserted paths,

shines.
i
The may
twines the bench within the grove.

is
Birds sing, the sky
blue, the sun
still
No
change has come upon your summer-tide

!
Dumb
silent valley
It
was
all
a dream,
!
radiant dream, too soon, alas
to
pass^not
And
leaving but a bitter sense of loss

is
Where she
now,
pray you, ask
me
That sweet young
creature, sent into this world
To
Dead
!
comfort others
then herself
to die
Can
it
be
Is this Life's fate ?
And I must still live on And has my youth indeed

!
Forsaken
for ever this
poor broken heart

Lord,
I
31
!
Thou
alone
!
art just,
am
I've
I've learnt
but oh Thou strikest hard done with earthly dreams the bitter meaning of " The Past
! !
"
!
k
Alas
!
I see
it still
Out of the shadowy night

;
The
gentle river flowed in darkly rippling waves
Fallen into dreamless sleep, the birds had hushed their

songs,
The moonbeams creeping slow athwart the fleecy clouds Touched with their silver light the dusk and massy shades,
Seen through the twilight of the lovely night.
The
nightingale from out the green
and bosky shade
Sighed forth his passion in his pearly-throated song,
The
flowers
had bowed
their
heads in deep and perfumed
sleep,
And we, whose

Could
love
!
souls were joined as though in one sun ray,
feel
our happy hearts beating in one great
How How
firm her dainty step

silken
in
As arm
upon the mossy path and how soft the masses of her hair arm we walked 'neath the tall poplar
trees,
(She was but seventeen, and I was hardly more,)
Often the nightingale would seem to hold his breath,
To
listen to
our lightly falling steps.
And how
As
far
loved to gaze upon her thoughtful face.

all
along the bank we wandered brow.
alone.
My
shoulder 'neath her hand, while mine caressed her
32

all
And
the rustlings of the lovely night
Carried to Heaven, as though they were a prayer,
The
sweet and dreamy fancies of the hour
III.
Then, with Death's awful change, the sad awakening
came
hoary-headed Time
Where
ah
1
hast thou hid

is
my
love ?
For ever cold and
still,
whither
she gone?
That
child, so full of
is
life,
of
?
Where
her magic smile
young resistless charm, and where her melting tears?
And
where the vanished glory of our loves ?
IV.
Mark now, how

Might leave
Is life a
lush the flowers grow near a
tomb
Just hke the nosegays
some young
!
turtle
doves
first?
for farewell offering, ere they fly
Into their native country
Why
should she die
crime?
And
is
not earthly love
God's own forgiveness ?

Smile then no more,
immortal country
fields
1 stand henceforth alone.
And
it
was but
for her
That your
blooming beauty seemed so sweet plumbed the depths which ingulf all hope? The lilies wither, and the roses fade away
fresh
to
me
Have
I not
earthly
Beneath the shadows which the cypress loves
Beneath the cypress sleeps that woman young and pale,
My
sad and
faithful love still
burns within
my
soul,

Like to the golden lamp which burns before a corpse. But I can weep no more, in spite of sorrow's charm,
33
And
this,
Lord,
is
why
its
My
eyes
have no more
tears.
And my
Villiers
heart hides
lonely misery
never
loved
truly,
deeply,
in-
genuously, but this once.
No
other
woman
ever took in his existence the place of the

gentle,
dead Breton
girl.
His imagination
may have been swept away by the rustle of some passing robe, his senses may have been
captivated, his artistic feeling interested,
by
the charm of the perturbing mystery which
surrounds the eternal problem of the softer

sex,
but the poet's heart remained untouched,

its
impregnable, proud, wrapped up in

fidelity to that early
sad
memory.
experience
of sorrow
This
first
terrible
hastened the prodigiously rapid intelle6lual
development of the young writer.
He sought
and
and found refuge

Inspiration, great
in excessive adlivity,
and radiant
consoler, illuhis heart.
mined
his
mind and beamed upon
Vast conceptions, gigantic projels, such as

are always formed by youthful
artists,
en-
34

spirit
veloped his
"
with their luxuriant growth.
In this one year, he conceives the idea of a
drama,
Morgane," impressed with a melan;
choly splendour
he plans a wonderful
trilogy,
which eventually, under the three

"
titles
of
Axel," " L'Adoration des Mages," and "

la
Le
Vieux de
Montagne,"
will
become the chief
work, the crowning point of his existence as

a thinker; he imagines his mysterious novel,
**
Isis,"
and, above
life
all,
he pours forth
all
in lines
pulsating with
and glow,
the tumultuous
!
grief of his tortured
and sorrow-laden soul

his genius
During this period, while

Villiers
fireside
was
agi-
tatedly beating her wings like a captive eagle,
de
I'lsle
Adam
found at the home-
constant encouragement, unceasing
sympathy,
and
immeasurable
tenderness
There
in his
is
something admirably touching and
rare in this worship of
him by
his
own people
the in-
early days.
Generally the youth of

ill-will,
an
artist is
darkened by the
stin6live mistrust of art, the

ness, the
narrow-mindedIn the
the contrary
love of lucre,
of his family.
case of Villiers de
I'lsle
Adam,
was the
fa6l.
The
mother, the old aunt, the

treasure-seeking marquis, disagreeing in
else,
35
all
formed a perfe6l union when

of singing the
praises
it
was a
question
of "their
Matthias."
They lauded
a pedestal.
him, they exalted
him on
genius,
to
His vocation,
his
the certainty of his success, of his
future glory, were so
many
articles of faith to
them.
And
they proved
it.
Persuaded that Paris was the only stage
worthy of the great part which their Matthias
was
their
called to ena6l, convinced
that
it
was
own
absolute duty to sacrifice every-
thing in order that the genius of the family
might expand
souls,
in full
freedom, these admirable
at the
very sight of
whom
the self-
important
bourgeois
smiled and shrugged
their shoulders, resolved to sell everything,
to realize their
little
fortune, and, their small
purse in hand, to go and await in some out-of-
the-way corner in the formidable town the

final
vi6lory of the last of the Villiers
de
risle
faith,
Adam, who, according
to their childlike
for
was with brain and pen to reconquer them the fortune and the celebrity which
had won by blood and sword
!
their ancestors

36

All hastened to the rescue.
The nun
of
the Sacred Heart, the abb, the old aunt
the marquis was indefatigable in calling in

his funds;
he sold at an enormous
loss,
but
without a shadow of regret, his
little
manorSt.
house at Lgu and the old residence at

Brieuc.
He
abandoned the excavations
for
ten treasures, and the search for half a hundred

inheritances,
and following
not be
left
his son,
accom-
panied by his wife, and having in tow the old

aunt,
who would
will
!)
behind, he started
for Paris, to the cry of

is
God's
"Dieu le volt!" (It with the same confidence in
which his crusader ancestors had departed to

Jerusalem.
CHAPTER
Paris
III.
The reign of the common-place in literature The poets The defenders of the Beautiful " Le Par-
nasse Contemporain
" " Les Parnassiens" Catulle

Fantaisiste "
Triumphal Friendships "Claire Lenoir" Appearance of Dr. Triboulat Bonhomet A few words touching personage " Le
Mends and the
"
Revue
entry of Villiers
de ITsle Adam First Poems Stphane Mallarm and Lon Dierx

this
Roman
the
d'une Nuit," by Catulle
Mends Death
of
"Revue Fantaisiste "The Blue Dragon Hotel The Rue de Douai Villiers de ITsle Adam, accord-
ing to Franois Coppe.
the time of the exodus of Villiers

his family, Paris
artistic
and
had become,
literary point
from the
mon-place.
and
of view, the paradise of the com-
The gods
of
of this
Olympus were
of
composers
serial
operettas,
manufa6lurers
novels, historiographers of the latest
scandals, poets of the drawing-room, of the
38

All these
boudoir, nay, of the caf concerts.

lived
and fattened on
yet ignorant
of,
their trade, honoured,

to the title of
and almost celebrated, clinging

artist,
or despising, the pri-
mordial rules of
art.
The
censure, which
smiled san6limoniously on the short skirts
and sprightly whims of the Offenbach School, could never be severe enough on truly artistic
and conscientious work.

*'
It
was the epoch of

the
the ridiculous prosecution of the author of
Madame
As
for
Bovary," and
of
sentence
against Baudelaire.
those poets
who pursued
their
divine chimera with fervour and disinterestedness,
no jest was reckoned too coarse, no
insult
in too
bad
press
taste, to
be thrown
in their faces.
The
was perpetually sharpening the

its
arrows of
pierce
keenest
satire,
wherewith to
whomsoever aspired to any great ideal. Vilor Hugo, exiled as he was, alone succeeded in stirring the masses to their depths.
In the face of
all this
opprobrium, the
last
survivors of the admirable phalanx of romantic
poets had wrapped themselves in scornful

silence.
Emile Deschamps lay dying ob-
39
scurely in the dreary town of Versailles, he,
the author of the " Romanceros," rhyming

sickly madrigals to Chloris
;
while the divine
Thophile Gautier, the

first
illustrious
hero of the
performance of
"
Hernani," cast the last

intellel
blossoms of his astonishing
on the
common
stifled
track of the newspaper feuilleton.

in truth to
Poetry and art seemed
be dead,
stupidity.
by the triumph of materialistic
But poetry and art are as immortal as the

starry heavens,
and
at the
lie in
very moment
in
which they seemed to

vigorous
their last agony,
they were silently making ready to spread

their
limbs and
soar with
!
lofty
flight into the
blue realms of the ideal
Certain
youths,
in
banded together
young and poor, the same faith, the same

very
beautiful, the
deep and passionate love of the
same
ing,
lively hatred of the
common-place and
as
the vulgar, formed the bold projel of revolt-
weak and almost
defenceless
they
were, against this formidable tyranny of folly
and mediocrity. They resolved to defend the sacred domain of literature with all their
young strength against the invasion which
40

it
;
threatened
to
proclaim the
is
power of
rhythm, the respe6l that

affirm, in short, that
artistic
due
to syntax, to
no work can be really

chief
without a constant jealousy for form.

of
The
critics
the
newspapers,
the
drew upon their usual arsenal of gibes and jeers, and old jokes
chroniclers of the small ones,
turned out as new, to scoff

youths.
"
down
these rash
They were given
strange nicknames,
Formists," "Stylists," " Fantaisistes," " Im-
passibles."
Songs were made about them,
they were caricatured,

of idiots in the "
year,
lisher,
made
" at
to play the parts
Revues
the end of each
and
to conclude,
when a young pub-
who (thanks to his lucky daring) had become a millionaire, ventured to publish the first number of their colle6led poems, " Le
Parnasse Contemporain," they were held up
to public laughter
and indignation as
"
Les
Parnassiens
" (the Parnassians).
All this rage, however, far from crushing
these chivalrous young votaries of the ideal,

filled their
hearts with fresh courage.
In spite
of jests and insults, they pursued their course, and what is still more admirable and touching.
VILLIERS DE
pursued
it
L'ISI.E
ADAM.
41
in spite of the direst poverty.

artist,
it
Of
been
them, as of every
the true judge
;
posterity has
and
has sent back to their
native obscurity those who, from the heights of their brilHant existence,
made game
of the
poor Httle feverish -eyed, shabby-coated poets.
Where
are
now
the
names of those sparkHng
and witty
quill-drivers,
who poured
forth their
?
And, on the other hand, the names of these same

sarcasms on the obscure Parnassians
Parnassians, are they not
now familiar to us To cite only the chief among them, have all ? we not Franois Coppe, Sully Prudhomme,
Alphonse Daudet,
Catulle Mends,
Lon
first
Cladel,
Glatigny,
and
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam ?
Res miranda! The
publication of these
France" was not a colle6lion of verses, it was just simply a review in which prose and poetry
representatives of "la jeune
new
joyously alternated.
in tone,
title, its
Gaily covered, cheerful
with an attralive and well-sounding

editor
was nineteen years
old,
and
it
had not a contributor who counted more than In short, it was five-and- twenty summers. the " Revue Fantaisiste," whose direlor was

42

in Paris,
a native of Bordeaux, newly arrived
poor as Job and handsome as Apollo, by name Catulle Mends. The offices of this
review were in
the
Passage
Mires,
now
I'lsle
Passage des Princes.
Here
lance,
Villiers
de
Adam
will
broke his
first
and
my
readers
doubtless appreciate this quotation from
known but amusing work, in which " the former direftor of the " Revue Fantaisiste
a
little
has presented, in a style at once witty and

feeling, the pi6lure of the
home
of the " Par-
nasse Contemporain
"
"The
ing
office 'was
;
a somewhat strange-lookof
place
hangings
green
and
rose-
coloured chintz, like a smiling meadow, seemed

to gaze in
wonder
at the
mahogany cupboards
to sulk at
and
the
tables.
lounge (seldom unoccupied)
at the
back of the room appeared

It
leathern
arm-chair and the cardboard
manuscript cases.
was half drawing-room,

all
and would
o'clock,
fain
have been
boudoir
" Hither, every afternoon,
towards three
Banville, giving
came Thodore de
us freely, with the good-nature of a youthful

maestro, his intoxicating mixture of
Orpheus
43
and Balzac, at one and the same time so lyric and so truly Parisian Charles Asselineau, with his long soft hair already grey, and on
;
his lips that smile, tender
though
ironic,
;
which
none but Nodier ever had before him

Golzan,
Lon
who
of
graciously vouchsafed
his
us the
support
name
Charles
Monselet,
Jules Noriac, Philoxne Boyer, dreaming of
Shakespeare, and Charles Baudelaire,

elegant, a
his
little
slight,
stealthy, almost alarming with

air,
half-frightened
gracefully
haughty,
with the attralion and charm of beauty in

distress, rather like
a very delicate bishop,
somewhat fallen away from grace perhaps, who had donned an elaborate lay costume for His Eminence Montravelling purposes seignor Beau Brummel He used to bring
'
:
'
us those wonderful prose poems, which are
numbered now amongst the most perfedl pages in French literature. There, too, Albert
Glatigny, with his vagrant flow of speech,
hand on
hip, his necktie
undone, his waistcoat

faun, wearied out
too short, and obstinately ignorant of braces,
smiling like
some young
by
the tendernesses of the nymphs, would recite
44

amorous strophes of
to re-echo the
his,
to us those
whose
rhymes seem
It
sound of
kisses."
was in this abode, with its strange charm, where the three twin sisters. Youth, Poetry, and Poverty, seemed that Villiers de I'lsle
into the world
self,
to
have met together,
Adam made his entry of letters. He presented himin
almost immediately on his arrival

his
Paris,
pockets stuffed with his family
parchments
positions.
office
and
his
own manuscript com-
At
the very outset he took the
by storm, and he soon became one of the chief editors of the " Revue Fantaisiste."
The
brilliant apparition of the last
descendant
of the
Grand Master of the Knights of Malta

it.
has often been described in enthusiastic terms
by those who were eye-witnesses of
"
He
impressed us," says M. Henri Laujol, "as
being the most magnificently gifted young
man of his generation."
Villiers
brought with
him some manuscript poems, which were published that very year by Scheuring of Lyons, with much luxury of paper and printing, under
the
title
of " Premires Posies " (First Poems).
The book was
dedicated to the
Comte Alfred

de Vigny.
In this collection of verse,
is
45
now
hardly to be found, there
already a glimpse
of the profound original thinker, scornful of

all
conventionalism.
It is not, to
be
sure,
by
any means a piece of

its
perfe6lion, but through

its
uncertainties,
its
weaknesses,
gropings
"
in the dark,
here and
there, as in "
and
**
Le Chant du
first
Calvaire,"
Hermosa there beams
the flash of genius.
These
tain the
full
years of Villiers in Paris conlife
few truly happy moments of a
of bitterness.
He
was
free,
then, from
the anxiety of earning his daily bread, and
when he
adored
left
the family
circle,
where he was
like a deity,
he met everywhere, on
an enthusiastic wel-
his first appearance, with
come.
The
originality of his gestures
and
demeanour, and his profound, passionate, and

piluresque speech,
full
as
it
was of glowing
to
fanaticism.
imagery, aroused amongst young people an
admiration which amounted
He
was the spoiled

all
child of the Parnassians,
and he found
who, through
all
in their coterie the
two friends
remained
the
trials
and hardships, and

life,
the mortifications of his
46
faithful

to
;
him till death, and after it I speak of M. Stphane Mallarm and M. Lon Dierx. Every friend of Villiers must,
like
myself,
vow an
author
infinite
gratitude to
the two excellent-hearted poets who, having
supported
the
of
the
"
Nouveau
ill-
Monde
" in
the hours of his despondency and
darkest poverty, showed him, in his last
ness, a care, a delicate tenderness, a devotion,
and a disinterestedness, which the tenderest
woman might have

existence,
envied them.
No artist's
could
even
in the direst tribulation,
be completely wretched, while brightened and
warmed by the flame

Villiers
of such sturdy friendship.
de
I'lsle
Adam made
his dbuts
then, in the "

called " Claire
terrifying
Revue
Fantaisiste," with a tale
Lenoir," a strange, mysterious,
story.
What makes
is
this
it
work
there
peculiarly interesting to us
that in
appears, for the
first
time, a chara6ler which
has become almost legendary, and on the

creation of which the writer
worked up
figure
till
the end of his

that
I
life.
It will
be understood
of Dr.
refer to
the
striking
Triboulat Bonhomet, the personification of

the
scientific
47
and
atheistic
bourgeois
monstrous Prud'homme, transcendently foolish
and ferociously
portrait,
egotistic.
In drawing his
own
Bonhomet
writes this sentence,
which seems to
of
me
:
to
sum up
I
;
the original
idea of his author
"
My physiognomy is that
have reason to
briefly, I
my
century,
of which
believe myself the archetype

doctor, a philanthropist,
am
and a man of the
world."
tions,
Again, speaking of his
own
convic-
he
says
"My
religious
ideas
are
limited to the absurd convilion that
God
has
created
man
in
His own image,
a.nd
mce versa."
Villiers
This Dr. Triboulat Bonhomet was to
what "le garon" was

imaginary personage,
to Flaubert
a sort of
whom
he endued with a
the passions of
complete personality, with
all
a real and complicated chara6ler, in whose
mouth he placed the jokes and the aphorisms which he colleled in conversation and in life, or which his profound and ironic wit invented for him. This do6lor makes one shudder rather than laugh, and the circumstantial pedantry
with which he relates the alarming adventures
of " that
discreet
and
scientific
personage,
48

Claire
Dame
But
this "
Lenoir, widow," adds to
the
terror of her story.

I
shall frequently
have occasion,
of
in the
course of these notes, to quote the sayings of
honorary
member
many academies
and professor of physiology," whose greatest enjoyment, according to his biographer, was
to kill swans, in order to hear their dying
song.
For the moment,

of
must
little
register the
decease
the
poetical
review,
in
which so many talents

wings.
its
tried
their
budding
It
passed away in the second year of
existence, beaten to death
by the censure,
in the
name
of public morality.
The so-called
its
outrage had been committed by
diredlor,
Catulle Mends, and took the form of a oneal
comedy in verse, entitled, **A Night's Romance" ("Le Roman d'une Nuit"). The piece was far from being a good one, but, though frivolous and mediocre, it was not
and one wonders on reading
it
criminal,
how
judges were found to condemn the author of

such a tiny spark to a month's imprisonment,
and the review which published it The poet had to go francs fine.
to
500
Ste.
to
49"
Plagie and the review had to pay the fine.
Money was
scarce,
and by the time the
demands of justice were satisfied, the cashbox was empty. The contributors cheerfully celebrated the obsequies of their literary offspring,
and most of them went

inn in the
to live in a furnished
Rue Dauphine, famous in the annals

Four
years
later,
of contemporary literature as the Blue

Hotel.
Dragon we find them

chief.
gathered once more round their former
Fortunehad smiled on Catulle Mends; he had
money
in his pockets,
and owned,
in the
Rue
de Douai, an apartment containing

ture and a piano
Covielle,
;
real furni-
likewise a groom,
surnamed
who opened
the door to such visitors
as
were
word.
in possession of the necessary passIn one of his articles in the " Patrie,"
these meetings of the future Parnassians have
been admirably reproduced by Franois Coppe.
Want
I
of space forbids
me
to cite the
whole, but
risle
quote this portrait of Villiers de

perfe6l
Adam, which represents him with

truthfulness.
and striking
"Suddenly, round the assembled poets, runs

the universal cry of joy,
*
Villiers
Heres
50
Villiers

'
And
all
at once
little
a young man,
with light blue eyes, a
wavering
in his
walk, chewing a cigarette, tossing back his
disordered locks, and twisting his small, fair
moustache, enters, wearing a haggard look,
shakes hands absently, sees the open piano,

sits
down
to
it,
and nervously touching the
keys, sings in a voice which trembles, but the
deep and magic accents of which none of us can ever forget, a melody he has improvised
in the street, a vague, mysterious melopza,
which accompanies (thereby doubling the depth and agitation of the impression it
makes) Charles Baudelaire's beautiful sonnet:
Nous aurons des lits pleins d'odeurs lgres Des divans profonds comme des tombeaux,' etc.
'
Our beds shall be scented with sweetest perfume, Our divans be as cool and as dark as the tomb
' '
!
"
Then, while
all
are
still
under the
air,
spell,
humming
the last notes of his

it
or else
abruptly breaking
off,
he
rises,
leaves the
piano, goes as though to hide himself in the
corner
of
the
room,
and
rolling
another
audience
cigarette,
casts over
his stupified

51
a comprehensive glance, the glance of Hamlet

as he lies at Ophelia's
feet,
during the repre-
sentation of the death of Gonzago.

"
Thus appeared
to us, eighteen years ago,
in those pleasant gatherings at the
house of
the
Catulle Mends, in the
Rue de Douai,
Comte Auguste Philippe Villiers de Adam." Patrie, Feb. 26, 1883.
I'lsle
CHAPTER IV. Early influences Charles Baudelaire My father Their intimacyThe His relations with Htel d'Orlans Literary and philosophical gatherand the Hegelian philoings Lon Cladel "The Princess Tullia Fabriana" sophy " The original of Preface Eccentricities of Dodor Bonhomet Dodor C "Ellen" and " Morgane Sensations of loneliness The MarParis the course of quis de ITsle Adam continues profitable financial operations The poisoner, Pommerais The apartment Comte Courty de Honor The marquis Aunt Kerinou the Rue Matthew's decorations.
Villiers
Villiers
Isis
"
style
"
at
his
la
in
St.
sometimes happens that strong
influences felt
by an
life
artist
in his
early intellectual
effaceable
leave an in-
mark on
his existence.
At
the time of his initiation into literature,
Villiers fell
under two such influences, that
of Charles Baudelaire, and that of
my
father.
53
The ascendancy
" Satanic
"
exercised over
him by the
have been
his
poet seems to
inauspicious.
me
It
to
somewhat
taste for
developed
it
extremes and for mystification,
led
him astray from the exercise of his talent, naturally clear and simple in its expression, instigating him to bury it in clouds of whimsical
metaphor, or to allow himself to be

into the obscurities, the affecftations,
drawn
the over-refinements, which sometimes disfigure his work,
and make
irony,
it
so difficult to
I
read.
Let
it
be understood that
do not
one
of
speak
Villiers'
here of
which
was
most powerful weapons, and which

thoroughly goodlife,
was
originally, in his case,
natured, though the hardships of
and the
wicked stupidity of those who considered

themselves
it,
"
the pink of gentility," sharpened

it
and rendered
But
pitiless
and
terrible.
his connedlion with Baudelaire, the in-
fluence which the author of the " Fleurs
du
Mal
"
gained over his heart and
intellel at
the threshold of his literary career, inspired
him with
class
that
"
mania
pater
for
le
stare,
making the middle bourgeois," and for
54

from which he was
in his
mystifying his readers,
never able to free himself even

deeply thought-out work,
"
most
L'Eve Future."
My father's
influence,
on the contrary, was,
by Villiers' own acknowledgment, very useful and precious to him. He often told me that
he would have risen much higher
listened to
him more.
if he had was nothing But there
strange in the fa6l that his nervous nature,

his
mind
full
of every sort of curiosity, his
youth, indeed, should have been
much more
the
captivated by the wilful

exotic
life,
eccentricities,
the dandyism, and the cool per-
versity of Charles Baudelaire, than
by the
for
soli-
counsels of his Breton relative,
who was
ever preaching to him sobriety, labour,

tude,
and
silence.
Up
to the time of the arrival of the family

I'lsle
of Villiers de
Adam
in Paris,
my father's
relations with Villiers
had merely been those
which usually exist between a youth and a
man
considerably his senior; but, after the
young poet's triumphant entry into the capital, attra6led more than any other person by the brilliant dawn of the budding genius, and

dreading
for
55
him the formidable
reefs
on
which so many great
men make shipwreck
during their apprentice days, he drew Villiers
towards him, and took him, so to say, under

his
wholesome
tutorship.
From
that day,
it
Matthias became part of the family, and
was soon after that he paid that first Fougres my recollelion of which
described at the
visit to
I
have
work.
to
commencement of
is
this
Here,
insert
perhaps,
the
fittest
place
an
is
amusing
offered
letter,
the facsimile
inquiring
of
which
It is
to
the
reader.
addressed to
my
In
father,
and dated from

alludes
to
Montfort, a small town in the department of

Ille-et- Vilaine.
it
Villiers
first volume of poems. M. Lemenant, the lawyer- friend in whose house the letter was written, was a worthy and eccentric man, an old schoolfellow of the
the printing of his
poet's at
little
Laval, who,
having profited but
by
his earlier education at school,
and
by
his
subsequent study of transcendental
philosophy in Paris, wisely devoted himself

to the care of the parental acres
in his native province.
and
briefs,
He
died young and
56
rich.

Villiers dedicated
some verses
to
him
in the "
Premires Posies."
dear good poet,
"
"
My
And how
in
are you
I
Better
hope.
in the
If
were
your place,
should be
rudest health.
But
let that
be as
it
may,
am
certain that the
one thing that you pine

is
for at this
moment,
your seventy-second
game
" If,
of chess.
however, you should be thinking of

the land of shadows, be
starting for
good
enough to give me warning, so that I may compose in your glory, and for the wonderment of the world in general, a funeral march It is the fashionable key, and on in E flat.
fashion
" I
I
take
my
stand
have no
letters
from
I
my
interesting
family.
Lemenant and
are in the depths of
poverty, which fa6l forces
me
me
to ask
your
permission to put off the repayment of your

kindly help.
Don't swear at
publish
the praise of your amiability far
and wide.
and
it
I
And,
besides, the fault
is
yours,
!
will
teach you to be too good-natured
Now,
ask
57
you, whether in this nineteenth century, any
sane
man
should lend
money
to his friend
Do
you desire
will
to see the finger of scorn
pointed at you in every drawing-room you

enter
?
denounce you to the whole
of society as a traitor to the principle of
modern
"
selfishness
This
it
!
may
bore you
but
you
richly de-
serve
"
The proofs
of Master Perrin
*
'
are comical
to the last degree.

"
Lemenant and
little
have had several hearty

I
laughs at his expense.
am
going to write
him a
his
**
jeering letter which will puzzle
poor brains.
all
Here is a specimen of his manner. the same from beginning to end.
It is
'" L'ujaige de
Don Ivan f
Don Juan
dej pchevrj dv
golfe:
"
'
L'usage de
et des pcheurs
du
golfe.'
"
Here you have an impossible rhyme,

in
printed
this
man's extraordinary
style.
Too much of a joke, isn't it ? Between ourselves, a man who has such a notion must be
58

;
mad
just fancy a
in this
paper
style
book printed on yellow Lemenant vows it

!
would be quite phosphorescent.

comical,
It really is
(if
and
in
my
colle6led
I
works
they
are
ever published)
might afford myself

!
such a luxury, but at present
Zut ! This
or,
is
my
definition.
He
is
the ne plus ultra of a

if
grinning, superannuated typographer,
you prefer
it,
the weird ink-scratcher of the

!
Gutenbergian Press
the grave of
"
and, in other words,

!
human thought
is
Now,
let
us go on to less casual matters.
" Montfort
a town, or rather
it
am
right in calling
a town
in
it,
stay
'
full
of mud,
and
of calm.
that
We
live
under the wing of

is
good old seraph whose name
cheerful-
ness.'
"
The
!
country swarms with worthy people,

oneself,
and one hardly knows

Paris
"
coming from
There is a mill here, a real mill, exa6lly like Rosa Bonheurs pilures (still life). " Lemenant pours daily from our open window his san6limonious speeches, and his
metaphysico-transcendental spleen.

"
59
The few
terrified passers-by listen, listen,
and
*
accompany
efifel
his
discourse to
the
air,
II
a des bott,
bott, bott.'
I
The which
pro-
duces an
him.
"
whereon
heartily congratulate
We
live in the square,
which
triples the
interest of the view,
and
peacefully go on
making rhymes
in the
midst of the tumult.

!
A
If
bientt,
"
dear kind poet
Believe in
my
true faithful friendship

heartily
clasp your
hand and
embrace you.
you have time, send

"
me
a reassuring word
about your health.
Ni
At
an
hotel
ViLLIERS DE l'IsLE AdAM."
the very end of the
Rue
Richelieu,
almost opposite the Thtre Franais, stands
the
As
I
Htel
stay.
d'Orlans
I
where
often
its
and gladly
cannot pass under
vaulted entrance
without being deeply
moved.
its
gaze on the inner court with

the ghosts of
steep flight of steps, and glance at the

all
second-floor windows,
my
youthful school-days rise up around me, every
corner of the dwelling
is familiar,
and at each
6o

I
turn
seem
to see the
proud outline of
my
father's face.
Here he Hved
brothers and
for twelve years,

I,
and here
my
students at the
Collge RoUin, spent our Sunday holidays.
We
used to be present in clouds of tobacco
smoke, at endless discussions between Villiers
de risle
Adam and
the master of the
little
apartment.
it
We
at
did not understand much,

to
must be admitted, but we used

the
gaze
the
open-mouthed
feature, with
wild
gestures,
chamois-like bounds, the contortions of every
which our cousin Matthias used

in the
to embellish his arguments.
This hotel
then,
it
Rue
Richelieu had not
has not now, the commonplace aspel
of our
all
modern
caravanserais.
In spite of
the alterations
made by
still
its
new owners,
the walls of the building

of
its illustrious
bear the marks
origin.
was the old town-house of the Cardinal Armand de Richelieu, and the principal building, reached by a flight of stone
For
this
steps of great dignity of form, has preserved

all
the majestic simplicity of the architelural
style of the time of Louis
XIII.

In the days of
6i
my
father
and of VilHers,
the hotel was kept by a worthy couple
son was an
artist,
whose and hence, scattered through
the rooms, were tapestries, frescoes, pilures,
and trophies of arms, which heightened the

quaint air of the dwelling.
Hither,
in
the
evenings,
to
apartment on the second

dreamers, some
thinkers,
floor,
modest came some

a
some
at
philosophers.
Besides the face of

tenance,
Villiers,
a second coun-
seen
by chance
one of these
reunions, remains graven

that of
his
on
my memory,
stature,
Lon Clad el.

hair,
His mighty
his
long
his
pallid
complexion,
wild
eyes,
his
his
gloomy
countenance,
reddish-brown beard, really gave him that air

attributed to
fallen angel.
him by Catulle Mends, of a
He
laire,
used to come with his friend Baude-
whom,
am ashamed
to say,
do not
recollect.
As my
father
was much occupied with

life,
philosophy at this period of his
the philo-
sophers were the most numerous and eager

guests at these gatherings, where
much
coffee
II
62
was drunk, and an incalculable number of The host pipes and cigarettes consumed.
was
the
at that time passionately interested
in
German
de
I'lsle
school
of
philosophy,
which
soon laid hold of the profound mind of Villiers
Adam.
His friend
initiated
him
into the brilliant spiritualist theories of

;
Hegel, whose fervent disciple he was

the author of the "
but
the humanitarian and socialistic proje6ls of
Pomes
virils "
found a
somewhat unfriendly auditor in Villiers. His mind and soul soared too far above realities
to preoccupy themselves about the sufferings
of humanity or the miseries of real
life.
On
the other hand, the Titanic poetry, the breadth
and splendour of the views of the German thinker, filled him with the greatest enthusiasm. He began to put forward the theories
of the speculative philosophy in the curious
tale of
*'
Claire Lenoir," which

of.
have already
in
spoken
novel, "
Some
first
years
later,
1862,
he
published the
I
volume of a mysterious
sis,"
the continuation of which never
appeared, in which the Hegelian principles
and system are developed and carried out
to
If
their tFieir

extremest
limit.
63
This
first
volume,
entitled " Tullia Fabriana,"
my
father.
It
gained for
was dedicated to its author some

Baudelaire,
excessive.
expressions of admiration from
which
at this date
may seem
The
in
In truth, this novel contains more faults
than good
qualities.
passion for roman-
ticism of which Villiers never could rid himself,
here breaks out
gloomy, improbable,
melodramatic adventures, worked out with

all
the inexperience of a
young hand.
An
overflowing wealth of imagination does not

suffice to conceal the inherent vices of the
work.
When
the writer's talent had ripened,
and when time had calmed down the exuberance of his fancy, he himself recognized all the imperfelions of his early efforts, and
" I sis,"
which was originally to consist of six

In the preface
volumes, was not continued.

to
" Tullia
Fabriana " the author thus ex"'Isis'

is
presses himself:
collelion of works,
the
title
I
of
which
it is
will appear,
hope,
at short intervals
for
the colle61;ive formula
a series of philosophical novels, the

;
of a problem of the Ideal
it
is
the great
64

:
unknown once own definition."
finished, the
work
will
be
its
The
to
" Isis "
absolute need for oddity which seems

in
Villiers,
is
be inherent
in
betrayed in
very evident manner.
The
jests
eccentricities of its style attracted in the smaller papers.
many
Already, at the appearin
ance of "Claire
Fantaisiste,"
satirical
Lenoir"
"
the
"
"Revue
of
the
Tintamarre
and other
sheets had
made copious game
by the young writer. One sentence especially had become celebrated. It had been placed by the author in the lips of Dr. Bonhomet himself, " Je lui fus grat de cette injure." Villiers
the
strange
expressions employed
claimed
that, as ingrat is the qualifying ad-
jelive derived from the
noun
ingratitude, so
the adje6live derived from gratitude must be

grat.
was on his side, but he doubtless forgot that the French language
Logically, reason
laughs at logic.
This name of Bonhomet, coming back to
my
tion,
pen, reminds
me
that this bold concepVilliers'
which haunted
is
brain until his
death,
not purely imaginary.
The Htel
65
d'Orlans possessed at that time, as physician

in ordinary,
a certain Dr.
who had
possible
the most ill-favoured countenance

to imagine.
it is
For the rest, he was an excellent man, of a most charitable nature, and a very But his gloomy face, distinguished savant.
a certain
mode
of expressing himself at once
whimsical and pompous, his positivism, his

disdainful scorn for
any manifestation of
art,
the extraordinary shape of his hats and cut of

his clothes,
heated the poet's imagination.

all
Thenceforward,
Dr.
unconscious, the worthy
became a sort of dummy, on whose frame Villiers hung, from day to day, all the
wily sophisms,
terrible or
all
the strange fancies,
all
the
grotesque fads, which
make
the
in
savant Triboulat
Bonhomet a unique type
modern
literature.
first
The
years in Paris (1859- 1863) were
a most prolific period.
Besides
" Claire
Le-
noir" and
" Isis," the writer

full
gave the public
two dramas
were never a6led
of
gloomy splendour, which " Ellen" and " Morgane."

**
There
I
is
fine sentence in
Morgane," which
it
desire to quote here, because
seems to
me
66

style,
I'lsle
admirably chara6leristic not only of the

but of the turn of mind of Villiers de
Adam
"
I
at this
epoch
drink to thee,
!
O
!
forest,
thou giver of
!
oblivion
To
you, dew-laden grasses
To
you, too,
wild roses
growing beneath the
oaks, intoxicated
by the moisture dripping

!
from their heavy foliage
And
to you,
ye
wild sea-shores, where hover at eventide the

salt
odours of the star-refle6ling waves, and

stretch away, like
"
!
who
myself, in pride
and
solitude
The
had
this
author of
" I
"
L'Eve Future
"
always
sense of being alone in the midst of
the world.
have always," he wrote
to
me
a few years before his death,
" felt alone,
even
when
friend
beside a
nay,
woman
even
in
loved, or with a
enthusiastically
the
affedlionate
circle
of
my own
immediate
family."
While the son thus took his place in the sunshine of literature, what became of the
proud marquis, the gentle
whirl of
Parisian
saintly marquise,
all
the good aunt Kerinou, amidst

life ?
the noisy
still
The
marquis,
67
possessed by his visions of wealth, had once
more taken up his lucrative speculations. He was surrounded by a flight of birds of prey,
business agents, and such
lean appearance,
like,
of strange and
who were engaged in sharing amongst themselves the last remnants of his
patrimony.
He
had established on
fine,
his
own
account a
sort of branch of the
Record
air,
Office, where,
with a
self-sufficient
he gave out
brevets of nobility.
Unfortunately his choice
of the persons he ennobled

judicious
;
and thus
trial
it
was not always came about that in the

for that do6lor,
course of the
la
of the poisoner, Courty de
Pommerais, the counsel

the
tribunal
criminal enough, although a
homopath,
laid
before
a pompous
certificate
signed by the Marquis Joseph de Villiers de

risle
Adam, Dean of the Order of the Knights

fa6l
of Malta, and attesting the
that the
accused, being of noble birth, had an incontestable right to bear the title of
"comte"
(which
title
he had assumed
!).
in
order to im-
pose upon his clients
Towards the end of
1863,
somewhere about
68

Year's Day,
New
first
my
father took me, for the
time, to visit the old

I'lsle
Marquis and Mar-
quise de Villiers de
taken apartments
close to the Place
in
the
Adam. They had Rue St. Honor,
Vendme, in the house now occupied, I believe, by the photographer, M. Lejeune. I remember the drawing-room was very large, very high up, with very little furniture, and on that dark December
day
it
made one
rather shivery.
The mar;
quise appeared to
me like
a shadow
she was
dressed in black, pale, sad, and distinguishedlooking.
When my father
She
spoke of Matthias,
at his business.
her face beamed.
told us with a faint
smile that the marquis
was
She added
that her aunt Kerinou
was
ill
in
bed, but that she
would
like to see us.

I
In a
little
great old-fashioned bed,

old lady,
perceived a
framed in an was all that could be seen of her. She had a long, mobile nose, and small bright eyes, and talked a great Certain phrases which fell perpetually deal.
doll-like face,
whose
frilled
immense
cap,
from her
lips struck
me, because they made

of himself.
my
father laugh in spite
Her

intonation rests within
this
69 at
my
memory, and
little
moment
is
can hear the
clear tremu-
lous voice repeating,
Matthias
to
have a
"You know, Hyacinthe, Matthias is going man The emperor is going decoration.
a famous
!
to decorate Matthias.
Matthias
it
will
be de-
corated."
I
need hardly add that
was
all
a dream
of the old lady's.
Nobody thought then, no " since, of giving the " Croix has thought one
Villiers
to the author of "Axel."
de
I'lsle
Adam was one of those men whom no government

decorates.
CHAPTER
The legend of
the
to the throne of Greece
V.
hoaxer hoaxed
The
succession
Villiers
de ITsle
Adam
candidate for the throne"
Le Lion de Numidie"
imperial
"The Moor
audience
of Venice"
The
NemesisAn
Marquis and Baron Rothschild
The Due de Bassano and Villiers de ITsle Adam The last a6l of the comedy A poet's conclusion
Death of Aunt Kerinou
Separation.
HERE
the
is
concerning this epoch in

of Villiers a wonderful
life
legend which has remained celebrated in the literary world

in passing from mouth to mouth
it
;
but
has gone
so
through so
far
many transformations, and fallen

truth, that
it is
from the
it
necessary to re-esta-
blish
in its pristine simplicity.
My readers
will perceive that the vis comica of the terrible
joke of which the young writer was a vi6lim
had no need of graces and embellishments.
71
Here some words of preamble are needed, and my frivolous pen must needs make an
excursion into the grave and wearisome realm
of contemporary political
assured,
history.
Be
re-
my reader
it
shall
be but a short one.
In the year of grace, 1863, then, a time

at
which the
its
imperial
government shone
with
brightest radiance, the Hellenic nation

to
happened
be
in
want of a king.
The
little
life,
great powers
who
prote6led the heroic
nation to which Byron had sacrificed his

^,
France, Russia, and England, looked about

constitutional tyrant
\\\.\r protge.
nfer a young
had
at that
whom
they
might confer on
council,
Napoleon HI.
in the
epoch the casting vote
and men were asking themselves
anxiously whether he would put forward a
and whether that candidate would be a Frenchman. Briefly, the newspapers were full of stories about, and comments on
candidate,
this
absorbing subjedl: the Greek question
was the question of the hour. mongers could fearlessly give

seemed
to
The newsfree
rein
to
their imagination, for whilst the other nations
have fixed their
definite choice
on

72
the son of the
so justly
King of Denmark, the emperor named "the taciturn prince " by the
I
friend of his dark days, Charles Dickens
the emperor,
his decision
say, held his peace,

for.
and
let
be waited
Thus matters stood, when one morning early in March the tall marquis burst like a
whirlwind into the dreary drawing-room
in the
Rue
in
St.
Honor brandishing a newspaper, and
an indescribable state of excitement, soon
by all his family. This was the strange news registered that day in the
to be shared
columns
"
of several
Parisian
newspapers
good authority that a new candidature has just been announced for the
learn on
We
throne of Greece.
is
The
candidate this time

all
a French grand seigneur well known

Paris
over
de
Villiers
Comte de I'lsle Adam,
the
Philippe
last
Auguste
descendant of
the august line which has produced the heroic
defender of Rhodes and the

of the Knights of Malta.
last
first
Grand Master
the emperor's
his intimates
At
private reception,
one of
having inquired concerning the probability of

this candidate's success,
his majesty smiled
VILLIERS DE LISLE ADAM.

enigmatically.
73
The new
aspirant to kingly
honours has our best wishes."
Those who have followed me so

easily imagine the effel
far will
produced on imagi-
nations like those of the Villiers family
by
such a perusal.
Already they beheld their

in
Matthias entering Athens, dressed

velvet, proudly seated
black
on a white charger,
very
surrounded by his splendid Palikares !
As
for
Matthias himself, he took
it all
seriously,
though
"
he
doubted of ultimate
success.
" Sire
!
said the old marquis gravely, as

his coat,
worn white money is the one thing you want Your majesty's father will see you get it
he majestically buttoned
with wear, "
!
!
Farewell
am
going to see Rothschild
"
!
He
But
went, and was seen no more for a week.

let
me
quickly explain the origin of

It
this extraordinary adventure.
might truly
be called the hoaxer hoaxed, with the qualification,
however, that
the
all.
hoaxee would
never believe in a hoax at

In the days
figure of the
when
Villiers
was the
chief
little
circle at the
Rue de Douai
74

literary caboulets (as
and of some
he had a
called certain cafs

rival,
were then where writers congregated),
a splendid fellow with pale
skin, eagle eyes,
and a thick black head of hair, whom the Parnassians nicknamed " Le Lion de Numidie," although he only hailed
I
from Montpellier.
will call
him by no other
lion has clipped
name, for since those days the

his
mane, cut his claws, and done public

!
penance to society
Gifted with a wonderful
and good temper, with a much-dreaded shrewdness and surprising powers of observation, this jolly
constitution, with delightful spirits
Colossus would have been invulnerable, had
he not been
as
it
affli6led
with a vanity as strange
was unwarrantable.
lion
had pretensions to being an admirable a6lor, and never lost an

opportunity of showing
off his
The Numidian
talent
for
mimicry and
Villiers,
rible, cold,
his
powers
irony,
of
declamation.
who had
already pra6lised that ter-
and serious
which makes
its
all
the weaknesses of
human
nature
target,
soon perceived the weak place
in his jolly
boon companion's armour.
He
longed for a
VILLI ERS
DE LISLE ADAM.
75
joke, insinuated himself into the lion's

graces,
good
and by degrees succeeded

friends of his
in putting
him
that
off his guard.
He then explained to him

were desirous of
stage hired
some
playing
the "
Moor of Venice " on a
for that purpose,
but that they could find no
one capable of undertaking the part of Othello,
and the more so as it was absolutely necessary, to keep the local colour, that the alor
should stain his face and arms black.
let that
" I "
Don't
;
hinder you," cried his friend boldly

;
your man here is my hand on it!" With astonishing patience and gravity, Villiers
helped his friend to rehearse, and told him
am
where
to
get
"made
called,
up."
to
Then a
dress
rehearsal
was
take place at the

I
usual trysting-place of the band of poets.
need not say there never had been a question

of playing Shakespeare's
all
masterpiece,
but,
the same, Villiers had "horse,

foot,
summoned
all
the
poets,
and dragoon."
When
and face as black as those of the King of Dahomey, made his entrance, a general shout went up at the sight of the Numidian lion, who richly
Othello, in his splendid dress, his hands
76
VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM,

title.
justified his
The
took
it
Provenal was too
sharp not to perceive at once that he had
been duped.
first
He
well,
and was the
to laugh at his
own
strange get-up, but
anyone who intercepted the look with which

he favoured the descendant of the Grand
Master of the Order of Malta could have

foretold his speedy revenge.
Villiers' friend,
He
remained
and
in
his
turn discovered
the defedl in his coat of mail.
Then
it
was
that he laid a snare for his vanity, his patrician

pride,
his
foolish
family
pretensions,
which almost betokened genius.

the treasure-seeker
The son
of
was to be seduced by the mirage of the throne and royal crown then
sparkling on the horizon
!
The
perpetrator of
the hoax had
made
his calculations
admirably
the candidature of Villiers de
I'lsle
Adam
could not seem anything abnormal to the

public.
The name was

;
illustrious
and hightherefore,
sounding
it
was not impossible,
that the sovereign, desirous of placing on the
Greek throne a monarch who owed everything to him, might choose amongst the flower of the French nobility a person on
77
whom
he designed to bestow a crown.
The
thing only
became improbable, laughable, and grotesque, when one knew the two chief personages, the king, and the king's
father.
Many
people were taken
in,
and the ex-
pe6lant king soon received the usual avalanche
of begging
letters.
Our Matthias did

glistened
not remain
idle,
nor dally
with his golden dream.

with
This throne which

precious stones
gems and
through the blue smoke-clouds of his cigarette,
tempted him
friends,
much more than he

Instigated
at
acknowledged to
himself.
good
ence,
who were laughing

it
by his him in
their sleeves,
he drew up a request for an audito the Tuileries.
and sent
Some days
drew up Honor, and
afterwards, a magnificent estafette
before the house in the
Rue
St.
gave to the astonished concierge a letter sealed with the imperial arms, and addressed to the
Comte
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam;
the audience
was granted, and fixed for an early date. For the first and only time in his life, the He poet found a tailor who gave him credit.
78

all its
ordered a sumptuous evening coat, with
appendages, and then he shut himself up in

his
own room,
to study before the glass his
entry, his gestures,
and the speech which he
would address
to the sovereign.
On his
side,
the terrible Southern, in whose
ear Nemesis ceaselessly whispered, did not

lose his time.
Every day one or two newsIt
papers contained some paragraph concerning

the " French candidate."
that the
it
was announced
to receive
emperor was about
him
was related that his father, the marquis, had had a long and cordial interview with Baron Rothschild. But where the Numidian lion really showed the wisdom of the serpent, was in his manner of preparing his vi6lim for the impending audience. The writer, who was then in the throes of his novel, " Isis," had his imagination filled with those gloomy adventures which give such a romantic and
mysterious colour to the history of Italian
principalities in the sixteenth century.
He
dreamt of nothing but palaces full of murderous

snares,
whose walls opened, whose ceilings descended, whose floors gaped, to stifle or en-
79
tomb the imprudent mortals who allowed

themselves to be allured into the luxurious
and
fatal
dwellings of tyrants and princes.
The
contriver of the trick took admirable

;
advantage of the predisposition of his vi6lim
he reminded him that the
familiars of the
;
Tuileries were not over-scrupulous
he told
him a heap of tragic anecdotes relating to the morrow of the second of December, and having as their scene this palace, which, according to him, was as
operatic stage.
full
of trap-doors as an
Many
people, he insinuated,
who had
;
entered that
little
door on the Place
du Carrousel have never been seen to come out so let Villiers beware, for if any favourite had an interest in his disappearance, a trapdoor, a dungeon, might open suddenly under
his feet.
Above all, he must
absolutely refuse
to explain himself to
any but the emperor
himself!
At
thias,
last the great
day came, and poor Matand drove

he
very pale and agitated in his brand-new
clothes, got into a hired carriage,
away made
to
the
Tuileries
before starting,
to
his will,
and sent
it
my
father.
8o

It is difficult to tell exally
what passed
is
at
the Tuileries
Villiers'
it is
version
so impressed
with romance that
not easy to disentangle
the real from the imaginary.

certain
is
What seems
that the poet
was received by the

at that time fulfilled
Due de
Palace.
to
Bassano,
who
the funlions of
Grand Chamberlain of the

intentions
Doubtless the old diplomatist tried
fathom Matthias's
by clever
questioning, but he found himself confronted
by a personage unlike any he had ever met in his long and adventurous career. As for
the poet, his already heated imagination soon
carried
him
into oblivion of his present where-
abouts, to believe himself the hero of one of
those dark and mysterious court intrigues, the
dramatic histories of which he had lately been

perusing.
He refused to utter, would scarcely

down without insulting precautions,
inter-
put his foot
responded coldly to the advances of his

locutor,
upon
whom he cast glances and

and
deeply
significant smiles
which were quite unintelfinally stated,
ligible to the chamberlain,
courteously but firmly, that he was resolved

to speak to
nobody but the emperor himself

"I
8i
must ask you,
then, to take the trouble of
coming another time, count," said the duke, rising; "his majesty is engaged, and commissioned
me
is
to receive you."
There
took the
spite "
no doubt that the chamberlain

of genius for a lunatic, and, in
man
of
my
admiration for the author of

I
L'Eve Future,"
cannot wonder at
it.
Vil-
liers
used to relate that he was escorted
through the apartments to the staircase by
two muscular and threatening fellows dressed in black, and that he expeled every moment
to be cast into a
dungeon.
I
" For,"
he would
add, "
saw, the instant
entered, that Bas-
sano had been gained over to the son of the
King of Denmark, and that his obje6l in summoning me to the Tuileries was to get rid of an
inconvenient and dangerous rival; but
ness,
my cold-
tion of
Sbirri,
my dignity, the good style and moderamy words, doubtless impressed the
and
I
was allowed to depart in peace." The claimant went home with hanging
head, in great terror of the secret police,
fancying he was going to be arrested, thrown

into prison,
and perhaps put
to death.
II
82
He
never
barricaded himself into his room, and

left it for
a week.
At
last the
news-
papers put an end to his anxieties and his

ambitious
hopes,
by announcing the
rival,
final
nomination of his fortunate

the throne of Greece
the second
son of King Christian IX.,
who ascended
title
under the
of
George
I.
The
last a6l
of the
fell,
comedy had been played

but the principal alor
it
out, the curtain
never would believe that
mere fancy. He never doubted but that he had had the most serious chance of success and to the
was
all
;
last
day of
his life
he would describe,
in his
piluresque and glowing conversation, the

splendid things that he would have accomplished,
if
fortune had favoured him, and he
had become king.

Reader, you
may
laugh
but yet, would

?
much harm have been done

Greeks have been
less
would the
happy,
if
a gentle poet
had borne the sceptre of the country which saw Aphrodite's immortal beauty rise from
the sparkling,
foam-crested sea-waves
the
country of Homer, of yEschylus, of Anacreon,

of Aristophanes
?
83
Doubtless,
the
reign
of
Matthias would not have resembled that of
our late highly-respelable Louis
Philippe,
but perhaps, fired by his genius, the Greece

of Miltiades and Themistocles, of Marathon
and Salamis, might have

stir
felt
her ancient soul
within her
!
The
poet's
alas
of this world, and his
kingdom is not crown is a thorny

a throne that
?
it
one.
And
what, indeed,
is
should be so eagerly desired

this
tiful
The hero
of
adventure has told us

lines
:
in
some very beau-
let
them form the conclusion of
this
veracious history.
" Un trne pour celui qui rve, Un trne est bien sombre aujourd'hui.
Fate des vanits humaines,
t
^
ses pieds saignent bien des haines,

il
Souvent
voile bien des peines

:
La
Il
foule obscure reste au seuil
Sapin couvert d'hermines blanches.

a sceptre et lauriers pour branches
;
Il est
form de quatre planches

!
Absolument comme un cercueil

'
"
To him whose
throne
is
life is full
of dreams
now
a dreary seat.
vanity,
girt about,
Summit of earthly By bloody hatreds
84
The
old aunt, Mdlle. Kerinou, never rose

in
from the great canopied bed
which
saw
her at the end of that memorable year, for the

first
and only time

escorted by
in
my
life.
Her pure and

illusions.
simple soul took wing to the gardens of Paradise,

all
her hopes and
The departure
rible
of the good old lady was a terI'lsle

it
event for the Villiers de
family;
up
to
now, thanks to her income,
had been
life
possible to pursue the jog-trot journey of
without too
for the
many jolts,
in
but her fortune, being
most part
an annuity, necessarily
died with her, and at her death these poor

Bretons, exiled in cruel, terrible Paris, saw
the ghost
of penury rise up before them.
The
dwelling in the
Rue
St.
Honor was
given up, and the furniture sold.
The mar-
quise went back to the country, in the hope

of raising
some funds
the marquis was a quia.
He
had
(in
connection with a wild society for
It cloaks full oft the bitterest griefs,
Unrecked of by the common herd. It's like some ermine-covered pine. Whose branches crown and sceptre make,
And
coffin-like, the thing is built.

"
!
Hollow, and formed of planks of wood
85
working some problematic bitumen lakes)
made acquaintance with

hasten to add that he
the police court.
left it
with head ere6l
and clean hands, but

empty.
his pockets
were
utterly-
Father and son separated, and
Villiers
went
to live alone, to
begin that sad pilgrimage
through Parisian lodging-houses, which lasted

all
his
life,
and closed in the Rue Oudinot, under

left
theroof of the Brotherhood of St. Jean de Dieu.
Soon
Rollin,
after,
Paris
and the Collge
where
had completed
my
studies, to
enter an English university.
the battle of
life
was beginning.
For me, too, Thence-
forward
time.
to
I
only heard of Villiers from time to
used to read his books, which he sent
my
father,
and often the newspapers

that interior stage
re-
ported his eccentricities and his deep sayings

to me.
On
which we
call
all
bear within
us,
and which men
memory,
he appeared
full
to
me
as a legendary personage,
I
of strange attradlion, and

father
tell
liked to
make
my
.
me
every story he
knew about
our cousin Matthias.

Certainly
I
little
thought then, that these
recollerions and anecdotes would help
me
in
86

riper age to call
my
up and bring
to life the
genial figure of the great Breton artist.
Neither did
suspel that, some years
later,
this great artist
would become
my own
it
most
revered teacher,
my
surest,
most
faithful,
and
most precious
lived side
friend.
But so
was
to be.
During three years, from 1877
to
1880,
we
by
side in an absolute
and constant
intelledlual intimacy.
And
if,
even now, the
love of the ideal and of the imperishably

beautiful consoles
me for much that is horrible,

much
that
is
much
that
is
wretched,
mediocre
and unworthy, it is to Villiers de I'lsle Adam that I owe it he it is, who, on those dark
;
nights,
when our
feet trod the
mud
of Lutetia,
eloquently pointed out to
me
the starry way.

it
In order then to conclude these notes,
remains for
life
me
I
to relate that part of the poet's
of which
was the almost
daily witness.
My
CHAPTER VI. return to Paris The Htel d'Orlans My search Our reunion The stages of lawsuit The drama of "Perrinet Leclerc Paul Clves, dire6lor of the Porte Martin Theatre The Marchal Jean de ITsle
for
Villiers
earlier
his
historical
"
St.
Adam, according
to Messrs.
fury
Lockroy and Anicet

to
Letters the press memorandum Intervention of M. de Provocation A du arranged Settlement on the ground Result of the action Biographer's reservations Documentary evidence. OWARDS the autumn of 1876, at
summons A
Bourgeois
Villiers
Villiers'
el
the close of a long journey

Switzerland,
I
in
returned to Paris,
dazzled
my
eyes
still
by the
glamour of virgin snows, inaccessible peaks,

glistening glaciers,
and the great blue lake

its
wherein melancholy Chillon reflects

keep.
gloomy
fir-
Through
that land of mountain,
88

spirit of
wood, and torrent, the
my
father,
whose death
yet mourned, had been with
me
everywhere, teaching
me
the better to
appreciate and admire the sublimity of those landscapes for which he had always had a sort
of passionate fondness.
My entry into
France
was
still
haunted by the paternal presence,
and I hurried to the old Htel d'Orlans, where we had spent so many years together, while I, alas was too young and frivolous to profit by the counsels of that wise and gene!
rous mind.
Whether
I
it
was by chance, or by
but
a delicate attention on the part of the old host

of the inn,
father's
know
not,
was given
past.
my
old room, and
my
first
night was
haunted by the shadows of the

those silent watches
I
During
lived through
episode of my schoolboy days again, and

familiar faces passed before
faintly
many an many
some
my
eyes,
looming
in the
shadow and
these
as quickly
disappearing, others clearly outlined and constantly recurring.
Amongst
de
last,
the
con-
big
fair
head of
Villiers
I'lsle
Adam
me
with
stantly reappeared, his eyes
seeming to gaze
on
me
intently,
and
to reproach
my
VILLIERS DE LISLE ADAM.

long neglect.
forgotten him.
ries of life
89
Ah, no
had
not, indeed,
But the adventures and worto this prevented
had up
me from
seeking him out, and, since the childish days

already referred
to,
I
had never beheld him.
But
resolved not to leave Paris this time
without finding him, and binding our

selves together with
affe6lionate as those
two
bonds as strong and as

which had once united
him and
my
father.
The
I
next evening, before the dinner hour,
sought him along the boulevard.
Every
la
habitu,
every lounger, from the Caf de
Paix to the Caf de Madrid, knew Villiers de

risle
Adam, but nobody knew where he

tell
lived,
nor could
where he might be found.
He
was, so they said, peculiarly a night-bird, and
almost
all
those
who mentioned him

at
to
me had
of this
made
in
his acquaintance
unearthly hours,
out-of-the-way brasseries.
None
information was of much service to me, and I was beginning rather to despair, when a sud-
den downpour of rain drove

in the entry
me to
take refuge
I
of the Passage Gouffroy.
mechanically watching the play of light
was and
90
shade caused by the shower, when suddenly,
and without an instant s
hesitation, in spite of
the lapse of years, in spite of the change which the fight for existence had wrought in his
appearance,
recognized
him
There are
care,
some strong
changeable.
individualities
alter.
which age,
even sickness, cannot
They
are un-
And
Villiers
was one of these.

from the
He
rear,
was coming
into the passage
a big bundle of manuscript under his

I
arm, with that elastic yet hesitating tread
so well remembered, taking quick, short steps,
looking preoccupied and flurried at once, as
he passed through the throng.
Poor great poet judging by

!
his hat,
which
the
was worn red with age, the frock-coat which concealed

jade,
thin threadbare
his
shirt,
trousers with their frayed hem. Fortune, that
What
his
had treated him with condign scorn. matter! As he came towards me, I
read neither discouragement nor despair upon
ageing features.
uncertain blue eye,
There was the same pale lost in its dream, and

at
beneath the
grey, the full
fair
moustache, already turning
mouth smiled as
some
secret

vision.
91
He was, in good sooth,
far
from earth
at that
moment, and there seemed
to
me some-
thing proud and noble, amidst that jostling,
pushing crowd of wet, muddy, common-looking passers-by, in the scornful indifference of

the great thinker to the
human
tale.
rabble through
which he passed,
all
unseeing, like the sleep-
walker of some oriental
As he drew
first
near to me, the
memory
of our
meeting in the dining-room of the old

addressed him
house at Fougres came back to me, and

touching his shoulder gently,
I
with a slight variation of the words he used
when he found me,
a child in disgrace, eating
my
solitary breakfast at the deserted family

:
board
"
Good morning,
I
cousin
you don't
"
!
know me.
sleep,
am
your cousin Robert
He started like a man

and raised
suddenly roused from
his eyes to mine.

;
His usually
into
lustreless glance brightened
we fell
each
other's arms,
and embraced shamelessly coram
populo.
union,
Doubtless Heaven smiled on our refor the setting sun
wet pavements and roofs

in
was making the shine again, as arm
arm we went out upon the boulevards.
92
It
was during that first evening's converse, which cemented the friendship of our manhood's years, that Villiers de
I'lsle
Adam
of the
recounted to
me
the
earlier stages
strange alion which he was about to bring

against the Lockroy family and the heirs of
the melodramatic playwright, Anicet Bourgeois
most
fantastic
lawsuit,
which
amused and interested all Paris for several months, and of which I desire now to relate
the apparently improbable incidents.
It
happened, then, one winter evening in
1876, that
my
cousin Matthias
was dreaming
along the Boulevard du Crime, when, as he
passed before the Porte

its
St.
it
Martin Theatre,
usually
faade, lighted
up as
was on
important occasions, attraled his attention.
He
drew near
to the advertisement boards,
and started on
seeing,
below the
title
of the
play of which a reprodu6lion was to be given

that night, " Perrinet Leclerc," an historical
drama
in five acts,
by Messrs. Lockroy and
Anicet Bourgeois, the name of his

trious ancestor, the
own
by
illus-
Marshal Jean de
line
Villiers
itself.
de risle Adam, occupying a

"
93
What
"
!
roared the poet, " they have put
the glorious marshal on the stage

to
me? Ha!
The
ha!
unknown We'll have some fun!"

box
office.
and he hastened
Porte St.
to the
Martin Theatre was at that

of Paul Clves,
time under the management of a very worthy

fellow of the
name
who had
full
been
in
his time
a good alor, and who,

himself,
though
not
literary
was
of
respectful admiration for the literary merits
of others.
He
had a reverence not unmixed
with
awe
for the eccentric genius of Villiers,
and the moment he saw him he hurried with outstretched hands to meet him and place
him
in the
managerial box, so that he might
not lose a word nor a gesture of the alor

personifying that famous warrior whose de-
scendant the poet was.

act,
But, after the second
Villiers
reappeared in the unfortunate

pale,
"
!
Clves' private room,

bristling with fury.
trembling,
and
" Sir
he
cried,
with a
tragic gesture,
"two ignorant and conceited

illus-
clowns,
Lockroy and Bourgeois, have enwarriors

of the
deavoured to degrade one of the most

trious
fourteenth
century,
94
VILLIERS
DE
L'ISLE
ADAM.
whose name it is my glory to bear, and whose reputation it is my duty to defend

!
You have allowed

mitted,
this
infamy to be comsir,
and
call
upon you,
to
withdraw
"
!
the play to-morrow."

" But,
my
dear
Villiers, it is
impossible
cried Clves,
when he had recovered from

" consider
!
his
profound astonishment,
it
would be
!
my my
are
ruin.
It
would be certain bankruptcy

"
engagements
nothing
to
" Ruin, bankruptcy,
engagements
These
have
non-
me.
You
should
this
warned me before you accepted

sensical stuff."
"
I
never accepted
it.
It
.
has been in the
repertory since 1834 !"

"
Enough,
I
sir.
understand you to refuse

apply to the authors
are the authors
"
?
Very good,
authors,
"
I
shall
the
left
say.
Where
They
are dead!"
for
"Well
children,
them! But they must have

representatives.
is
heirs,
That
cur,
that Simon,
whose name
not even Lockroy,

stir
has a descendant who has made

this third
enough
in
Republic of yours
Well,
we
shall

see
to
!
95
For the
last time, Clves,

"
?
do you refuse
withdraw the play
The unlucky manager had become speechless, but he made a sign with his head which
seemed
to signify that
it
was impossible
the
poet,
to
grant such a request.
"Very
well,
then," said
"you
and your accomplices
shall hear
from
me
"
!
And
he went out
in
a fury.
Those who can recollect Villiers de I'lsle Adam's idolatrous worship for the memory of
his ancestors will
understand this outbreak of
rage
when
state that this unlucky so-called
historical
drama by Messrs. Lockroy and

I'lsle
Bourgeois represented the Marchal de
Adam
as a disloyal
nobleman and an abomi-
nable traitor
traitor, not in favour of the Duke

Duke
of Orleans,
of Burgundy, nor of the
but traitor to his
own
country, to his poor
mad
king, delivering both over to the English
power, and aiding Henry V. to place upon his
own head
the crown torn from that of the All this was absolutely
rightful sovereign.
contrary to the truth.
Jean de
I'lsle
the friend and right-hand
man
of
Adam, the Duke
96

it is
of Burgundy, was,
true, the
most ardent
partisan of John the Bold,
and took possession

to the English,
offers of
of Paris in his name.
As
Jean refused the splendid
Henry
V.,
who
him only emerged

cast
into the
after
Bastille,
whence he
death.
that
prince's
Thenceforward he warred ceaselessly against the British, from whom he recaptured Pontoise in 1435.
of the case.
Such are the historical facts But the authors of " Perrinet
little
Leclerc" cared
for
that.
To
those
makers of melodramas, history was but a
mine
tion,
to supply their
own
lack of imagina-
and
its
personages
merely
obliging
dummies,
to
be dressed
a
up
in
glory
or
infamy, according to the needs of their case.
and they simply took in all good faith, never dreaming that there would appear, five
traitor,
They wanted
de
Villiers
I'lsle
Adam,
hundred years
after
the
fulfilment
of the
events they were putting on the stage, in this

fin-de-siecle
and gaping Paris of

to
ours, a poet
who was ready

ancestor
!
make himself the champion

his outraged
and the vigorous defender of
97
Never did
this business.
Villiers
show such
alivity,
such
physical and moral energy, as in the course of
For
my own
part,
my know-
ledge of him leads

spite of all
me
to the opinion that, in
his indignation,
he rather enjoyed
the adventure.
cial
The
the
excitement of the judi-
struggle,
newspaper polemics, the
ransacking of libraries both far and near, put

a
and freed his mind for a while from the dreams which so incessantly haunted it. And that arch-scoffer must
new
interest into his
life,
have
felt
a curious
that
secret
amusement
in
obliging
all
army of
solicitors, barristers,
judges, and their deputies, to occupy themselves with the affairs of an illustrious old
gentleman who had been dead for four hundred and

fifty
years, to decipher the quaint
and
incomprehensible
manuscripts
of the
thirteenth century,
and to busy themselves,

of
under
the
reign
Grvy,
Wilson, and
the
Co., with the concerns of Charles VI.
Bienaim, of John the Bold, and of the fatally

fascinating Isabeau of Bavaria.
But
to begin at the beginning.

after that
The very
morning
memorable performance,
98

appeared
in
there
several
letter
daily
papers
haughty and indignant

the
from the
last of
De
Tlsle
Adams,
in
which he
brilliantly
vindicated his right to defend his illustrious

relative
from opprobrium.
He blasted in a few
literary
scorching phrases, conceived in ineffable scorn

for all dealers in such
second-hand
wares, the
tors
;
work of the two unlucky

finally
collabora-
and he
declared
that
he was
their
about to appeal to the laws of the country to

obtain for
them the chastisement of
crime of treason against the national glory.
There was much giggling along the boulevards at the poet's
new
freak.
The collateral
"
heirs of the adling rights of the play turned a
deaf ear to his threat, and " Perrinet Leclerc

still
held the
this
bills, its
success
much
increased
then,
by
fresh
puff.
Forward,
the
all
officers,
the formalities, the dusty papers,

!
the creaking machinery of the law
A clever
and
intelligent
young
barrister,
an acquain-
tance of Villiers, eagerly seized on this opportunity of distinguishing himself; for this alion
was
to stir both the
law courts and the bouleto
vards,
and those who had
do with
it
soon
became famous.
99
The
the
representatives
of Lockroy and of
file
Anicet Bourgeois had to
their
answer to
summons duly served upon them a summons praying that they might be forbidden to
continue the performances of a play wherein
they libelled and calumniated the direl ancestor of the plaintiff, " the said Philippe
Auguste
Matthias de Villiers de
letters,
I'lsle
Adam, man of
Here-
which summons has been personally

etc., etc., etc.
delivered at the defendants' house.
with a copy, whereof the price,"
The defendants' answer was rather clever. They asked the tribunal to rule that the
was inadmissible firstly, because he offered no proof of his boasted direl
plaintiff's plea
:
descent from the illustrious house of Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam
secondly, because the chro-
nicles of the time,
and notably that of the
Monk
of St. Denis, authorized the writers of " Perrinet Leclerc " in presenting the condu6l of
the Marshal de
I'lsle
Adam
during the
in
civil
wars of the reign of Charles VI.

favourable light
;
an un-
thirdly,
because the said

being an historical
Marshal de
I'lsle
Adam
personage, any writer might criticise or praise
loo

according
to
him,
conscience
or
personal
opinion, without being Hable to
any a6lion on
that score.
Thus the fight began. And how, for some weeks, Matthias was
undiscoverable.
libraries
He
buried himself in the
and the archives, amongst which his clear mind called up all that gloomy and romantic period which began at the infancy
of Charles VI. and ended on the day
when
the
Jeanne d'Arc led the weak-kneed Charles VI I.

to Rheims, to be anointed king.
When
lawsuit began, nothing remained to Villiers
of the family inheritance.

father
Pressed by poverty,
;
and son had parted with everything

still
but they
archives,
preserved the precious family
and the poet possessed irrefragable

sufficiently studied
proof of his descent.
When, therefore, he had

the ten years of
civil
the formidable heap of documents bearing on
war which stained the

request
"
:
close of the reign of Charles VI., he prayed
leave
to
support
his
against
firstly,
the
authors
of " Perrinet
Leclerc
by the
his de-
proof, resting
on authentic records, of
I'lsle
scent from that Marshal de
Adam whose

honour he claimed
proving that
to
loi
by no contemporary chronicler gave

defend
;
secondly,
to his ancestor that odious charaler
which
Messrs. Lockroy and Bourgeois had dared to
make him
play in the history of his time.

if it
was true that the so-called Chronicle of the Monk of St. Denis did contain a sentence which permitted any doubt on
that score,
it
And, he added,
was
established,
on the other
hand, that these memoirs had no chara6ler

for authenticity, that they
were held
in sus-
and that, in any case, it was sufficient to read the manuscript to be convinced that it was a partial work, and that its author belonged to that falion which was hostile to the Duke of Burgundy, the friend of De I'lsle Adam.
picion
all
by
competent
historians,
To
this
second appeal Villiers added a long
memorandum, addressed to the judges. I do not know what has become of this manuscript.
I
hope that those persons who have under-
taken, with so
much
zeal
and devotion, the

in their pos-
posthumous publication of the works of the

author of
session.
"
Axel,"
it
may have
it
In
the great writer appears in a
I02

light.
new
This sketch of the

I'lsle
life
of the
Marshal de
Adam
is
a masterpiece of
clearness and style, a gifted
and magnificent
word-pi6lure of the end of the thirteenth century, a strong
and closely-reasoned piece of
work, in which the fervent eloquence of his

pleading for the thesis he defends never fetters
the
critical
and investigating
I
faculty of
its
author.
Thus matters stood when

in Paris.
joined Villiers
The
adversaries were
armed
at all
points,
and only waited the close of the vaca-
tion to
go before the
courts.
All at once, an unexpedled event, a tragi-
comic incident, gave a fresh interest to the

affair.
I
have
related, in the early
pages of these
name shown no proof of diredl descent from the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, had been authorized, at the time of the return of the Bourbons, to add the
recolle6lions,
how a
family bearing the
of Villiers, but which had
name
tent,
of L'Isle
Adam
pie,
to
its
own
patronymic.
Just as our Villiers was emerging from his
armed cap
and lance
in rest, to
103
defend his ancestral glory and good fame

against the calumnies of two playwrights, the representative of this other family, a
officer,
young
bore,
very proud of the great

it
name he
and exceedingly ignorant, as
seems, of his
real origin, returned from Africa.
Honestly
of
believing himself the scion of those heroes
who had shed

Adam,
his
glory on the
name
De
I'lsle
rage and
stupefalion
may be
him
the
imagined when, hardly had he arrived home,

ere his friends and relations placed before
various newspapers, which reported with
much
comment, and wit seasoned with Attic

particulars of the adlion brought
salt,
by the highit
born poet against the guilty authors of " Perrinet
Leclerc."
Incredible as
seems
in
these days,
when
the press penetrates every-
where, the young warrior appears to have

iornored
till
then the existence of one of the

literary
*'
best-known
men in
Paris.
He fancied
the author of
Isis " to
be some scribbling
believed to be ex-
adventurer who had picked up for himself, out

of history, a
tin6l.
name which he
In the heat of his indignation, he wrote
a letter to a great daily paper, and as the
I04
officer
knew more about

than about
the
the cavalry sword-
exercise
beautiful
amenities
his
of our
French language,
communication
was
sive,
at once plain-spoken, rude,
and aggres-
claiming his right to bear the
name
of
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam, and avowing

calling
that
any other person
himself by that
name usurped
appeared, and
it.
This warlike missive soon

all
forthwith
all
the
venomous
talent
small fry of the press,

blers,
all
the envious scribVilliers'
the failures
had overshadowed, had wounded, pounced upon

fall.
whom and whom
his bitter jests
this lucky
wind-
leine
Along the boulevards, from the Madeto the Gymnase, at the hour of the
little
absinthe queen, their
poisonous speeches
:
were
to
!
be heard on every side

Don't you
!
"
That poor
Villiers
Adam
at all
It
!
know ? Not De I'lsle was a name he took

!
always thought so
It
seems he
is
really the
son of a small grocer at Guingamp."
Ah why
!
cannot we sear the

?
lips
of slan-
derers with a red-hot iron
Shame on
those
dastards
to pierce
for this time at least they
managed
All those
my friend
to the heart.
105
who knew him

Villiers
well,
knew
that beneath his
strange exterior and his cold
mask
of scorn
had a noble ardent

stings which
soul,
which must
have suffered cruelly under the thousand
anonymous
pride.
were
inflicted
on
his
But the blood of the marshal and the

in his veins,
officer
grand master boiled
and on the
very day of the insult the
was waited
upon by two poet-friends of the writer, who came from the Comte Philippe Auguste de
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam
was
the
;
to
demand
to
their
reparation
principal.
for
the outrage
offered
The
adversary
flinching
brave,
and
accepted
without
meeting which
was
proposed to him
conferred,
it
and the seconds having

that
all
was arranged
little
should go,
armed with swords, the day

following,
after the next
on a
expedition to the neigh-
bourhood of Vsinet.
Meanwhile, one of the
seconds of Matthias, a sensible man, though
a violent Parnassian, struck by the exceedingly corre6l
demeanour of the other
party,
thought
it
might not be altogether useless to

proofs
submit to him certain genealogical
which would demonstrate to him that right
io6

his side, as
was not altogether on
he fancied.
After a severe struggle he induced Villiers to
lend him those famous and precious family-
documents
for the space of twenty-four hours,

to the cavalry lieutenant with
and sent them
an urgent request that he would read them

before the hour fixed for the meeting.
result
The
was a loyal, good-hearted, and very chivalrous man. He appeared on the ground at the appointed
Villiers
was amazing.
M. de
hour, advanced towards the real Villiers de

risle
Adam, made him a bow, and
offered
him the most courteous apology, adding that it was only on the preceding evening that he had learnt the truth. It was worth hearing Villiers, with his tragic gestures, and the perpetual wagging of his front fair lock, retail
the incidents of this coup de thtre.
" Sir
"
!
he would
hand,
his brave
cry, "
I
my
sword dropped from

face, tell
my
when
heard this pale young man, with

me, with an
and resigned
evident
effort, that,
French
for a
I
officer as
he was,
fight
I
he would rather pass

in support of a
lie.
coward than
opened
I
my
arms.
folded him to
my
heart.
told
him he was

worthy to be
allied with the illustrious
;
107
dead
and in my whose representative I was father's name and my own, I authorized, nay, I besought him to continue to bear the name
of Villiers de I'lsle
Adam
fine in
"
!
But everything, even

to
lawsuits,
must come
an end
and one
morning the judges

the
gave
their
decision
extraordinary
case of " L'Isle
Adam
versus Simon, alias
Lockroy, and Anicet

reader will be prepared
Bourgeois."
As my
it
to learn, the tribunal
refused the poor poet's appeal, deeming
inadmissible
because, as
the
marshal was
historical property,
every author had a right
to
show him
;
in
whatever light suited him

his
best
especially
when he based
judgment,
as in the case of the

Leclerc,"
writers of "Perrinet
on the evidence of contemporary

of St. Denis. had.
documents and memoirs, such as the Chronicle

of the
lation
Monk
Villiers
But one consoof the
The preamble
judgment established those diredl ties of descent which made him the last representative of that famous and heroic warrior who
was the
friend of the great
Duke of Burgundy.
io8

I
When
lips,
learnt these events from the poet's
they were already in the limbo of the
past.
Were
not possessed with an instin6live
and not altogether unreasonable horror of foot-notes, I would infli6l one on my readers, propos to this trial, to state that I have
related the
recollecflion
whole of
it
from recollelion
graven upon
pi6luresque recitals of
regretted cousin.
my memory by the my gifted and much

summing
up, with-
In thus
out a6lually vouching for the fa6ls of the

story,
I
trust
have not trangressed
in
any
particular against the truth.

I
But
in
any case
shall
be very glad to accept any verification
which
I
may be
kindly submitted to me.

I
think further, that
shall
do no prejuif I
dice to the
memory
I
of Villiers,
frankly
confess that
entertain
some
serious doubt
concerning the alleged handsome retraction
made by
the
his
opponent
duel.
on the scene
poet was in
of
the
intended
The
all
habit of dramatizing
daily
life
the incidents of his

stories.
into
enchanting
Their
but
groundwork
was generally
true,
he

would arrange the scene, invent
109
incidents,
and create personages,

rently
to
his aesthetic
in
obedience appaor perhaps
instinl,
rather to his wild innate longing to mystify

his
audience.
is
In this particular case
my
suspicion
cin6l
supported by the following sucletter,
and nobly-expressed
his adversary,
addressed to
necessarily,
all
him by
this
and which,
put an end to their difference.
At
events
in
document proves that our author was

" Paris,
the right.
^'February i6th, 1877.
"Sir,
"
I
can only
bow
before the incontest-
ably authentic title-deeds which you
have
been so good as to communicate to me, and
which indeed establish unanswerably your

descent from that family of Villiers de
I'lsle
Adam whose name

in
is
written in such glorious
chara6lers upon the pages of our history, and
whose ranks
figures the
Marshal Jean,
whose memory, in spite of what anyone may say, remains above all suspicion.
"
This does
not,
however, alter the fa6l that
no

7,
a royal ordinance, dated September
181 5,
and inserted
rizes
in the
'
Bulletin des Lois,' autho-
my grandfather, Vicomte Joseph-Gabriel,

le
son of Franois- Ignace de Villiers des Champs,
and of Dame Dsher

his wife, to
Borgue de Villement,
of Villiers that of
add
to his
name
De
"
risle
Adam.
to
There appears
me
to
be no objel to
be gained by going into the genealogy of

family,
my
and
which has given knights and comto
manders
Rohans,
"
the
Order of
St.
is
Louis
marshals to France,
etc., etc.
which
if,
allied to the
And,
in
conclusion,
contrary to
my
expelations,
this letter
the explanations contained in

suffice,
do not appear to you to

I
pray be assured that

at your disposal.
hold myself entirely
(Signed) " G. Villiers de l'Isle Adam."
While
am
about quoting the documents

should conclude by giving
bearing on this curious business, the reader
may be
by
glad that
the principal passages of the fine letter written

Villiers to the
newspapers of the day,
in

answer to the mean and
in
spiteful attacks of
which he was then the objedl.
"Paris (undated, prdhably January, 1877).
"
To
"
the Editor of
"Sir,
This
is
my
answer to the
article
you
have published concerning me. I desire that it may suffice for all those of your colleagues
of the press,
who have been good enough
to
devote their precious time to me, and busy

themselves with
my
name, during the past
week.
"It has been claimed that

in
my
was
sole obje6l
bringing an a6lion against the proprietors

*
of the play
Perrinet Leclerc,'
to establish
the genealogical succession of
my own
family.
Now
years
may remark
that for eight-and-thirty
committed the grave indiscretion of
never giving that question a thought, believing

it
(with others
it)
whose duty
calls
them
I
to
consider
so clearly established that
could
afford to smile at
jel.
I
any discussion of the subit
may
further remark that
was only
112

request of counsel
the
on the other side
which obhged
at
all.
It
produce any such proofs seems strange, then, that this reto
me
proach should be made to

adversaries
the
who attacked moment when I myself was about

from the struggle.
is
me by the very me on this point at

to
desist
"It has been asserted that there

the sequence of
a gap in
my
family genealogy.
Now
In
it
genealogy
is
an exaft science, which no more
admits of a mistake than does algebra.

'
five centuries
'
mean
nothing.
'
They should
have been described as twelve generations.'

"
The
records of the Order of Malta, in
which the whole nobility of France and of
Europe are concerned, are indisputable evidence all over the world, and that Order would
not give a careless decision concerning the
descendants of a Grand Master such as the
one whose name
bear.
"That a
and that
clerk should write a 3 instead of a

title
9 on the hasty copy of a

(in spite of
of the order,
the opportunities given
by me
during two years for free and open
investigation) such an error should be quoted
VILLIERS DE D'ISLE ADAM.

against the absolute authoritativeness of
title-deeds,
is,
113
my
cal-
repeat,
merely a matter
In any case,
I
culated to raise a smile.
shall
bring the fa6ls

Ofhce.
" I
before the French Record
descend from Jean de

and,
I
I'lsle
Adam
as
diredlly as
any of you gentlemen descends

;
from his own father

'
in spite of the
Chronique de
"
St. Denis,'
fa6l.
have some reason
to
be proud of the
I
am
asked what interest
had
in
vexing
my
that
so.
soul concerning a play which outrages his
pure and sacred

I
memory
and
it is
affirmed
simply desired to puff myself by doing
A man is but that which his own thoughts

him.
make
And
for
my
it
only answer,
this
would beg those who have had

concerning me, to guard
are quite worthy of
to claim either their
"
it,
thought
preciously.
They
.
and I shall never care sympathy or esteem.

.
.
There
in
is
as
much
truth in this assertion
as in that which claims to have discovered a
gap
the direl succession of

It is
my
family
about the year 1535.

to note
a wonderful thing
how
lightheartedly a lawyer will cast

I
114
doubt on the records of the Order of Malta,
which are an
article of faith to the nobility of

;
the whole world
on the signed attestations

family
whereby provincial bishops have recognized

three
rights
centuries of publicly-admitted
;
on the signatures of ambassadors and and on consuls, both French and English
;
that of the Minister of Justice himself!

"
I
have no right to submit myself to any

on
this head.
legal investigation
An
inves-
tigation of
what
?
Of my
claims to
be of
left to
noble descent
But the only course
the law courts themselves must be to
bow
to
those claims, which are established by the
only tribunal to which
can in honour appeal.
One
alone,
among
the signatures with which

suffices
*
these parchments swarm,
to
prove
my
*
contention.
The
text of the
'
Declaration
as follows
:
of the Order of Malta
runs
Notum
facimus et in verbo veritatis attesin judicio

.
tamur ut
"
pleno ac indubia fides
adhibeatur.
'
We declare under our seal and that of the

Armand
this
Papal Bull published this day, that
de risle Adam, admitted a knight of

Order, has proved his
*"
"S
in
quarterings
the
most indisputable manner.
We, Caumartin, Intendant de Chamof, etc., etc., etc.
pagne, bear witness to the correlness of the
genealogy
*"We, Bishop
with the
of St. Brieuc, ourselves con-
ne6led through the family of
De
Verdalle
Knights
of
Malta,
bear witness
it
that for the last three hundred years
has
etc.,
been matter of public notoriety

etc.,
that,
etc'
"
How
can you expe<5l any law court to

for or against, in such a matter
?
pronounce
How
late.
can any newspaper chatter affel
it ?
Centuries have rolled by.
You come
fadls
"
!
in too
These are accomplished
CHAPTER
Le Pin
Galant,
VIL
" The New World The American centenary competition The charadler of Mistress Andrews The legend of Ralph Evandale.
with his play
"
near
Bordeaux
Arrivai
of
Villiers
H LE
I
Villiers
was thus struggling

Paris law courts,
with the gentlemen of the wig and
gown
in the
followed his
movements from
In
afar
with considerable anxiety.

in
my
retirement
one of those pretty one-storied houses

trembled as
Paris paper
near Bordeaux which the people in the south

poetically term a " Chartreuse,"
I
I
tore asunder the wrapper of

lest I
my
every morning,
liers,
should learn that Vil-
whose
fearfully over-excited condition
was well known to me, had given way to some eccentricity or some dangerous al of violence. I kept on writing to beseech him

to leave Paris,
solitude,
117
and
to
come and share
my
redolent of
the healthy odour of
the pine forests, enlivened
rush of the great river

fluttering sails,
by the impetuous dotted with white and

its
and
ideal with
spreading
horizons bathed in the purple and gold of the

exquisite southern sunsets.
But,
alas
!
he
heartening silence,
wrapped himself and his shadow
in
fell
dis-
not
on the snow-white steps which led

Pin Galant, as
called.
to the
my
temporary dwelling was

"
One
a
letter
day, however, the " Figaro
brought
me news
of his speedy arrival, in the form of

its first
published on
I
page, and bearthis

it
ing his signature. before me, but

I
have not
that in
document
fresh per-
know
he refuted,
in his usual sarcastic style,
some
fidious insinuation concerning the imperfe6l
authenticity
last
of the
name he
letter,
bore.
The
sentence of the
however, which
is
it,
gave me a lively thrill of joy, graven on my memory. I quote

exceedingly chara6leristic.
point of
starting
for
"
I
for ever
as being
am on
the
Pin Galant,
not far
ii8

frontier.
from the Spanish
Lovers of another
silent than that of
style of conversation,
more
human
faa."
tongues, are requested to note this
He duly appeared
It
a few days
later,
without
having otherwise announced himself.
was on one of those
torrid afternoons
known only
bouring
to the inhabitants of the south,
that Villiers arrived on foot from the neighvillage,
whither the omnibus from
Bordeaux had brought him. dressed, in black kerseymere
He
was simply
a loose
trousers,
(
!
grey overcoat trimmed with fur
),
and a
In his
well-worn but shiny chimneypot hat.
hand he vi6loriously flourished a huge walking-stick.
The
big pockets of his unseason-
ably thick overcoat bulged in a manner which
alarmed
me
for their solidity.
At
first
thought he was using them as a carpet-bag, for he brought no sign of any other luggage But my mistake only lasted a few with him. Hardly had he entered, when, minutes. after the first cordial greetings, he pulled out
of his vast pockets five thick
manuscript
pamphlets, piling them one upon the other,

and
his white, prelatical
119
hand waving with

Like Columbus at
feet of
"
!
the air of a bishop a sort of benedilory

gesture,
he exclaimed,
"
the feet of his Spanish sovereign, even so lay

I
the
'New World'
at the
your
majesty and
contained, in
my good
cousin
The books
his magnificent
good the manuscript of drama in five a6ls, entitled ** Le Nouveau Monde," which had gained the first place, the year before, in the comtruth,
petition instituted in
States,
honour of the United

not yet found an
but which had
opening on the Parisian stage.

Before relating the adventures of Villiers
and
will
his
manuscript at Bordeaux,
if I
think
it
be of interest to scholars
give some
explanation of the origin
of this dramatic
qualities,
work, which, in spite of

is
its
admirable
almost unknown at this present time.

Villiers
In
1880
de
I'lsle
Adam
it
found a pub-
lisher bold
enough
to issue
to
at his
own
risk,
and
his
name deserves
be recorded.
It
was M. Richard,
printer
and
publisher, of
is
the Passage de l'Opra.
The pamphlet
Villiers
now almost
out of print.
had pre-
I20

his
ceded
play
by an "Address
I
to
the
in
Reader,"
its
to
which
shall
return later,
proper time and place, and by a very

I
short preface, which
quote
in its entirety,
because
it
explains
far better
than
could
the peculiar circumstances which gave birth

to the work.
"In 1875 a dramatic competition was announced by the theatrical press of Paris. A medal of honour, even a sum of 10,000 francs, and other temptations, were offered to the French dramatic author who should most
powerfully
recall, in
a work of four or five a6ls,
the episode of the proclamation of the inde-
pendence of the United

anniversary of which
"
States, the
hundredth
fell
on July 4th, 1876.
The two examining juries were thus composed. The first, of the principal critics of The second, of the French theatrical press.
M. Vi6lor Hugo, honorary
Emile Augier, 06lave
president, Messrs.
Feuillet,
and Ernest
"
Legouv, members of the French Academy,
Mr. Grenville Murray, representing the
New
York Herald," and M.
Perrin, administrator-
general of the Thtre Franais.

"
121
The
preliminary jury were to sele6l five

;
manuscripts
the final jury, to class
these
manuscripts in what
tellelual order.
"
may be
called their in-
Six months were allowed for writing the
works, and about a hundred plays, signed
with mottoes only, were forwarded to the

ternational agency of
in-
M. Thodore
Michalis,
the inaugurator of the competition.

"
More than a year elapsed while the gentleof the theatrical press were examining
men
"
the dramas.
The titles of the sele6led works were published, and among them appeared that of
the
"
Nouveau Monde.' Two more months passed

*
by.
At
an
last,
on the 22nd of January,

notice signed
1876,
official
me
the
that the
'
by the superior jury informed Nouveau Monde,' had of all

works,
competing
passed
with
most
honour through the double ordeal."
The
author.
attralions
of
the
programme had
been well arranged to tempt any dramatic
was not the medal of honour, nor even the dream of the ten thousand
it
Yet
122

which induced the creator of Bonhomet
all,
francs,
to compete.
above
ment.
was the proposed subje6l the conditions imposed for its treatIt
From
the theatrical
point of view,
had always dreamt of being an innovator in historical drama. His idea was that
Villiers
the charaleristics of the nation, or the event
which was to be portrayed, should be imported into the framework of some personal
intrigue,
in
which each individual
of
the
dramatis person should personify
in his lan-
guage, attitude, or a6tions, some one of the
numerous elements produced by the

of the incidents of the story.
frilion
And
in
the
very terms of the programme by which the

competitors were bound, he found the oppor-
For the rules of the competition dilated, amongst other obligations, that the work must be
tunity for realizing this conception.
written
with special reference to July 4th,
1776; at the same time requiring a drame

intime, in
was only
which the event of the 4th July to be superadded to the story.
In the author's mind, then, "
Le Nouveau
Monde"
is,
before
all else,
a symbolic drama,
123
and each of
its
personages admirably reprethe mouthpiece.
sents the idea, the principle, the nation, of
which he or she
is
Thus, in
Lord Raleigh
the principle
Cecil the author has incarnated
of
royalism,
typified
as
in
Stephen
of
Ashwell
liberty.
he has
"
the
principle
In
my
play," writes Villiers in his
preface, "
totally
Lord
Cecil,
under a
veil of
almost
imaginary circumstances, replaces and
sums up Lord Percy, General Howe, and
many
King
It
others.
He
is,
as
it
were, the golden

effigy of the
sovereign,
stamped with the
of England."
is
hardly
my
place,
in these personal
recollelions, to
endeavour to heighten the

Villiers.
merits of this
work of
But
may
be permitted to lay stress on some

an original produ6lion, so
literary public,
tion.
little
details of
known
its
to the
and yet so worthy of
atten-
To
those of us
who
are not yet emas-
by the terrible invasion of commonplace ideas, " Le Nouveau Monde" remains one of the best constru6led, deepest, and most
culated
passionate dramas of the present day.
It
has had the great honour of being sneered at
124
by M. Francisque Sarcey, who has besprinkled
Andrews with the salt of his Attic wit. To some superficial minds this character may seem impressed with romantic exaggeration. Yet it has been
the chara6ler of Mistress
learnedly imagined and laboriously premeditated
by a
it
writer
who was
neither a novice
Villiers fore-
nor a simpleton
in literature.
saw
jests
that
would be exposed
self-important
to the
cheap
the
of
those
gentry,
critics
of the weekly papers.
In his "Address
to the
his
Reader " he has taken pains to explain conception, and this page of his, full of
cannot
to
fail
an intense personality, so wonderfully and

rhythmically written,
to
it
my
readers.
It
seems
me
charm must
make every true artist " Nouveau Monde " so

feuilletonists.
desire to read that

lately cut
:
up by the
"
Mistress
of that
Here it is Andrews is the sombre refle6lion feudalism of which Lord Cecil represide,
sents the brighter
and
find
myself
obliged to say a few words in explanation of
the almost fantastic charaler with which she

is
endued.
This woman's
personality
is

formed by the cohesion of
intelledlual
125
and
sensitive elements of far too high an order to
be
strilly
human.
Some
pecuHarities of the
charaler seem to be ultra-feminine.

fore,
There-
in
I
order to legitimatize them in her
case,
have had
halo,
to
surround her with a
legendary
to
make her a
It
sort
of
American Melusina.
even the
possibility,
has appeared to
me
to
to be logically indispensable to the vitality,
of
the
charafter,
endow her with a mysterious mark,

imprinted in her
shall
flesh,
alually
a gory impress which
appear only at the hour of death,

fa6l,
a sign, in
centuries,
the heritage of the curse of
with the extraordinary horror of
which popular tradition surrounds her name.

I
have desired thus to create the type of a
strange, stormy, embittered soul
the daughter
silence,
of a race haunted
by melancholy, by
and by
fate.
thousand shattered splen-
dours appear athwart this gloomy chara6ler,
even as mirrors and goblets would shiver, and daggers flash, against the arras of an
ancient palace wherein
been
held.
This having been
some ducal orgy had said, some excla-
126
VILLI ERS
DE
L'ISLE
ADAM.
mations in the part, antiquated ones, perhaps,

explain
and
make themselves
acceptable,
pronounced as they are by a being of so

peculiar a nature."
But what
this
was
that
"mysterious
mark
alually impressed
gory print
upon this woman's flesh," which was only to appear

?
at the death hour
What
"
the legendary
halo" which surrounds the terrible Mistress
Andrews
describes
? it
An
old
woman, Mistress
Noella,
by the
light of a camp-fire, in
the
midst of the virgin forest of the
New
World. The splendidly-related legend, which
was almost
less
entirely suppressed in the shapethis fine
performance of
play at the
Thtre des Nations, must be inserted here,

for several
good reasons
it
first,
for the sake
of the curious, for

lished
;
is
as
good as unpub-
further,
it
is
an admirable prose-
poem, whose place

logies of
is
the future;
marked in the anthoand finally, it is a
wonderful example of the peculiar genius of

Villiers
Adam. The few friends who have heard him

de
I'lsle
recite
it,
pale,
trembling,
and haggard, under the

light of the
127
midnight lamp
terrifying,
story
and
and
terrified himself
by
his
own
will recall
as they
infedlious
read these
lines
the
tragic
dread which he
threw into his
declamation.
"
One evening
the knight Ralph Evandale,
returning to his castle from the
Wars
of the
Roses, heard on the mountain the sound of

singing in his ancestral
halls.
In coat of
mail and with lowered vizor he climbed the
stone
staircase,
marvelling
at
the
festive
sounds.
guests.
A
His
thousand lamps shone on the

father,
Fungh Evandale, was

marriage,
sitting
celebrating
his
second
and
the
neighbouring
barons,
round
him,
pledged each other
in friendly healths.
From
and
in
the threshold Ralph beheld the newly-wedded

wife, white as her coronet of pearls
;
the bride he recognized the pale girl
whom
he had long loved born feeling rose

closed the
door,
in his secret soul.
hell-
in his heart.
Silently he
and disappeared.
Mean-
while the songs had ceased. Leaning thoughtfully
on her elbow, on the nuptial couch, the
young chtelaine watched her lord.
The noble
128
thane unbuckled his sword before the great
hanging mirror, when suddenly the
tapestry-
was pushed back by a gauntletted hand. It was Ralph this time, with vizor raised.
Fungh
turned, and, recognizing him, joyfully
stretched out his arms.
But the cruel son,
impelled by some foul demon, started for-
ward,
fell
traitorously
on
his
father,
and
in-
plunged his dagger

cross-hilt.
in his throat,
up to the
death,
;
Fungh, stricken
to
stin6lively put his
hand on the wound
then,
with a maledi6lory gesture, he laid his gory

fingers
on the face of the unnatural son who
gazed unmoved upon his agony.
Ralph drew
blood.
himself up, his heart sullied by his crime,
and
his face
branded with his father s

in his
Then, bruising
wrists
mailed hands the two

bride,
of
the
widowed
he dragged
her, half-naked, dishevelled, her
knees shaking
with terror, into the adjacent oratory, and
would have constrained the chaplain of the

old
manor
to bless, in that very hour, their
sacrilegious
union.
Terrified
though
he
was, the priest gathered courage before the

altar,
and would only
utter a well-deserved

anathema.
129
solemnized.
race
!
Thus was the guilty marriage And the shadow fell upon their They gave life to a posterity of
line
demons, an accursed
of wicked men,
illustrious
who have rendered themselves

amours.
on
girl
the earth by their crimes and their
gloomy
Now
the race
is
extinl.
One
fled
only survives, and she destroyed her property
and burnt her dwelling before she

country.
her
tell
!
Where
is
she
Nobody can
Nevertheless, she will be recognized in her

last hour, for, since the
terrible night
when
their
young ancestress beheld the bloody

Evan-
hand on the face of the parricide, that accusing

hand-print, graven on the flesh of the
dales, has perpetuated itself
from generation
to generation.
They
are conceived with that

!
impress
It is
the law of their birth
And
whenever death strikes one of them, the sinister hand appears upon the brow of the
unhappy being, a ghostly, shining hand, which the everlasting night alone can efface
!
Pray then
for
Edith
E vandale,
"
!
the last of
her race, unknown, forgotten
This Edith Evandale,
it
will
have been
I30

is
understood,
she
who now
conceals herself
under th^ name of Mistress Andrews.

the old
As
and
woman
are
still
concludes her
story,
while
all
bending forward
in silent
and breathless
moonlight
attention, the
unhappy woman
the
" Yes," "
!
herself appears
falling
standing
among them,
on her alone.
she
says in a low despairing voice, " pray
ir
Villiers'
CHAPTER
members
Vi(5lor
VIII.
of the jury
rage against the
scene at the house of

Paris
Hugo
The
Y
Dramatic
Villiers leaves
of the Thtre Franais
Little
Godefrin, dire6lor An extraordinary reading Mdlle. Aime Madame Aime Tessandier.

Bordeaux theatres
quotations have carried

far
me away,
arrived,
and we are
from Bordeaux!
To
return.
When Villiers
he was more furious than ever

with Paris and the Parisians in general, and with literary committees and theatrical managers
in particular. This time it was no longer " Perrinet Leclerc," nor the loss of his
lawsuit,
which excited
"
his rage,
but the suc**
cession of injustices of which the
Nouveau
Monde
and
its
author had been the vi6lims.
He
had, indeed, received the official notice,
signed by the superior jury, and announcing
132
that his
drama had taken the highest and

in
most honourable place

twofold ordeal.
It
passing through the
had received the praises of Vilor Hugo, of Emile Augier and 06lave Feuillet, of Ernest Legouv even and that was all. No medal of honour, much less the
!
ten thousand francs!
He
was,
it is
true, too
life
well acquainted with the side-scenes of

this
at
end of the century
to feel
much
surprised
at seeing the gold turn into
dead
leaves, but
he had hoped that those who had instituted the

competition would, at
all
events, have
made
stage.
some
effort to
have the play of
their choice
performed
on some great
Parisian
Nothing of the kind.
flood of benignant
commonplace was the only answer to his inquiries and his imperious demands, and the gifted author of the "Nouveau Monde" had to undergo the humiliation (surely, in another
life, it
shall
be reckoned
in his
favour
!)
of see-
ing the second-rate play of one of his fellowcompetitors,
M. Armand
d'Artois,
performed
on the Paris boards, while his own slumbered

in the
manuscript boxes of the manager of
the Porte St. Martin Theatre.

It
133
would have been too much even for a being gifted with more patience than my poor
Villiers possessed.
As
Hugo,
first
step the poet
scandal
at the
in
went and made a Olympian abode of Vilor

Clichy.
the
Avenue de
In the
presence of the usual body-guard, Vacquerie,
Lockroy, Catulle Mends, and

rable compatriot,
my
late
vene-
he dared to accuse
the promises
the honorary president of the superior jury of
having been the
first to
break
all
signed with his august name.

the demigod's age to him, and
He mentioned
made some
allu,
sion to literary integrity in general.
L
to
who
never
"
usually sat silent in these gatherings,
opening
"
!
his
mouth
to
except
cry
fury,
Sabaoth
unable
contain
his
angrily advanced towards the intruder, and
indignantly shaking the beautiful white curls
which framed his blasphemer

this
pallid face,
he shot at the
eloquent apostrophe, which

" Integrity, sir, is
Homer
or Henri Monnier might have been

:
glad to take a note of
not un-
a question of age
certain glance,
"
!
Slowly, with
his
Villiers
scanned the worthy
134
elder from head to foot, then gently answered,

"
No,
sir,
nor
folly either
"
!
Then, leaving
unlimited
the startled
coterie^ horrified at his
audacity, he hurried to the Porte St. Martin,
snatched his manuscript from the secretary's

claws,
and
at
dawn next
day, laden with the

his five
a<5ls,
five thick
copybooks containing
for
and without vulgar care

Bordeaux.
"
such a
trivial
thing as luggage, he took the through train to
Then
at once,"
he
said, as
he brought the
story of the adventures of his play to a close,

"
I
bethought
I
me
of you, of the provinces, of
vengeance.
lization
!
dreamt of murder, of decentrasee
Don't you
is
chance there
here for
what a splendid the manager of
some provincial theatre, to be first to accept and mount and play a piece by the Comte Villiers de I'lsle Adam, which has been crowned by the approbation of a committee
counting
among
its
members those
of literature,
?
idols of
middle-class
lovers
Legouv,
first
"
?
Feuillet, Augier,
and Hugo
a
I
But, in the
in
**
place,
"
is
there
theatre
replied,
Bordeaux
There are
three,"
without count-

ing the
fal,
135
strollers' booths."
Bordeaux
did, in
possess in those days three important

:
theatres
the
Grand Theatre, which was dehad no particular

line,
voted to operatic performances, the Thtre

Louit, which
and the
Thtre Franais, which was entirely given
up
to
comedy and drama.
The then manager

artiste,
of the latter was a Parisian

a6lor,
a good
and an excellent administrator, pos-
sessed of great boldness,
much
insight,
and
in
most
reliable
good
taste.
He has since made

de Sude, and
himself a
name
at the Caf
the theatrical world,
as a
most successful
called
organizer of provincial and dramatic tours.
He
was
then,
and presumably
is still,
Godefrin.
We had had some casual

new projel
to me,
I
relations
with each other, and as soon as Villiers imparted his
bethought
me
of the direlor of the Thtre Franais of Bor-
deaux.
wrote to him, therefore, making

idea and asking for an early interhad not long to wait. The answer
known our
view.
We
came, overflowing with enthusiasm for Villiers
and
full
of gratitude to myself, and the very

in the
next evening found us sitting
managerial
136

Villiers
apartment.
had been
to the barber
his well-curled
air,
moustache had a conquering
and he marched vi6loriously through the streets of Bordeaux with his manuscript under
his arm.
But, as the sequel will show, this
pretence of assurance concealed a horrible

state of nervousness;
he was,
in reality,
as
agitated as a dbutante
who
time.
hears the
call-
boy's bell for the
first
And
yet there
was nothing
inaccessible in the
!
demeanour of
young, free
the impresario
He
was
still
from any professional

affable.
swagger,
and very and

slight
He
received Villiers with admiring
deference.
young woman,
tall
and
feet
pale, dressed in
dark colours, rose to her

Villiers "
on our entrance, and surveyed

Mdlle. Aime,
;
with curiously brilliant eyes.

introduce you to
pensionnaire^'
little
Allow me
to
my
is
best
said Godefrin
"
she
con-
sumed with a
I
desire to play a tragic part,

;
and
!
believe she will succeed
ay,
and
in
brilliantly
Perhaps, dear sir," turning to Villiers, "

will
you
"
?
be able to find her a part
your play
There was no answer from Villiers. All out of curl already, he had retired into a corner,
137
whence he watched us with

rette
"
his suspicious, de-
je6led, startled gaze, nervously rolling a ciga-
between
let
his fingers.
!
Well,
us begin to read
" said
at last,
to
break a silence which was becoming em-
barrassing.
We seated ourselves
at
the poet at
the table,
we
random on the
seats scattered
about the room.

I
And
life,
the reading began.

in
have witnessed many strange scenes
the course of
I
my
but never,
think,
was
present at anything so fantastically, irresis-
tibly
funny as that sight of
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam
reading the sheets of his drama to
Godefrin the manager.

things went fairly well.
self,
At
the beginning
Villiers seated
him-
coughed, moistened his
lips in the glass
of water before him, tossed back, with his

usual gesture, the long fair lock which, in spite
of
its
recent curling, would keep falling over
and then, with a searching glance all round, he opened the manuscript and began
his eyes,
"
A61 the first
tableau the
"
first
Swinmore
the great saloon of
Swinmore manor-house,
near Auckland, in the county of Cumberland.
At
the rear

"
138

himself, rose
Here he interrupted
chair, and,
fittings
from his
with the obje6l of explaining the
of the scene to Godefrin, began to
jump about
dragging
the room, knocking over seats,

about,
armchairs
unhooking the
arms on a small trophy which hung upon

the wall, and accompanying his erratic be-
haviour with
inconsequent
:
sentences
and
incomprehensible words
"
night
The balcony of wrought a moon stars there, in
iron-work
the distance,
thy silver streak,
sea!
Ha
is
gold enrichments
!
ha
ha
they come, the voices

!
the
distant
and prophetic voices
voices!
Ahoy!
!
the
departing
ahoy! from the boat
here
is
! ! !
Ruth, the sad lady of the castle
the smiling
Mary
voices approach
here the the voices die away

!
the
voices again
Suddenly he perceived the piano, threw himself upon the keyboard, and striking some
melancholy chords, he sang
voice,
^^
in
a plaintive
Adieu, prairie / Adieu, berceau! Adieu,

!
''
tombeau! Adieu, patrie
then,
still
accom-
panying himself, recited

" Farewell, old
in sepulchral accents,
in
house
which
have never

given happiness, nor enjoyed
it
!
139
the duty for

all
which
yes
forsake thee
is
the most sacred of

shall
duties in
!
my
eyes
God
!
"
be
my judge
the corre6l
Adieu, tombeaic
Startled
and
terror-stricken,
frock-coated manager, pale and with com-
pressed
lips,
had taken refuge
in a corner,
whence
a6lress
his wild southern eyes every
then shot imploring glances at
now and me. The
had buried her head
in her hands,
and
in a
could see her pretty shoulders shaking
tempest of convulsive laughter.
Meandis-
while, Villiers, with bristling

trustful eyes,
locks and
had
left
the piano, and, standing Godefrin, he de-
with folded arms before
manded, ''Well,
this
sir,
have you understood

?
mysterious
is
symbolism
:
Everything,
everything
in that
the parting from the
old country, the uprooting of the
young
fruit,
tree
which
is
to bear
the foliage, the
the
in
perfume of the corrupt
Old World
newer and purer one.

of the idea of
is it
That, the exposition
my
play, is clearly established,
not ?"
In spite of his astonishment, poor
Godefrin found breath to answer, " Doubtless,
I40

sir,
dear
your idea
it
is
wonderful, but
must
humbly admit
beg of you
symbolism
?
has not evolved
itself to
intelligence from
what
have heard.
my May I
to read
"
me
your piece quietly,
without thinking about the scenery^ a6lion, or

Villiers shrugged his shoulders, his whole physiognomy expressing ineffable scorn and disdain. He turned to me Are you com" ing ? he said then taking up his hat and cane, and his manuscript " Madam sir I
**
:
wish you good morning
"
and he moved
towards the door.
We surrounded him.
and made him
sit
dragged him back,

listen to
down and
?"
I
me.
"Are you
prophet,
stark
mad
cried, sternly;
"
and
is
do you suppose the manager of a theatre
who
can penetrate the mysteries of a
poet's brain,
and discover what

prose
his ideas are
before he condescends to put them into good,

plain, intelligible
is
?
Deuce take
it
It
not by pushing about chairs,
upsetting
furniture,
will
and bawling
to
to the piano, that
you
manage
your play.
make Godefrin understand Take my advice give me your

;
yiLLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM.

manuscript
"
"
141
(and
took
it
out of his hand)
go and
sit
down
in that farthest corner,
and
let
me
As
I
give a complete, ordinary,
commonhe retired
in that
place reading of your piece."
spoke
his face
darkened
into a recess,
his eyes
and
rolling his eternal cigarette,
on the ground, he answered
hollow voice which he always used when he

desired to personify Dolor Triboulat Bon-
homet,
"
be
it
"
!
Very good a family reading So " Bravo " cried Godefrin, " now we
!
! !
shall
be able to understand what

in proportion."
we are
I
about,
and admire
But
must draw
I
my
story to a close.
For two hours

a6ls.
read
without stopping, except to rest for a few
minutes between the

eyes,
I
If
raised
my
saw Godefrin
and
listening with an air of
authority,
Villiers lost in distant dreams,
while
little
Mdlle. Aime's keen, ardent, conI
centrated gaze was rivetted on myself.
felt
and understood that she drank

I
in
every word
it
pronounced, and that every charadler, as

itself
shaped
before her mental vision, became

life,
instinl with
movement, and
suffering
and when
reached the foot of the
last page,
142
it
was her that

risen,
my
eyes instinftively sought.
She had
quivering with excitement, and
hastening to VilHers, she seized both his hands,

exclaiming,
let
"
Oh,
sir,
dear
sir,
beg you
to
"
!
me
play the part of Mistress
Andrews
" It is
an admirable play," said the impresario,
on
his side, "
and
am
ready to make any
sacrifice in
order to mount such a fine piece
of work in a
way worthy
!
of
its
own and
knew
its
author's merits."
Alas, poor Godefrin

poetic
He
little
the
temperament, more
capricious
than
April sunshine, more changeable than the

sea.
The " Nouveau Monde" was never to be
played at Bordeaux.
scene
I
few months after the

Villiers
have just described,

back
de
I'lsle
Adam was
fair
in Paris, and,
seduced by the
promises of Chabrillat, at that time re-
organizing the Ambigu, he withdrew his piece
from the dire6lor of the Bordeaux theatre,

to confide
it
to this suddenly-arisen literary
Barnum.
It is greatly to
be regretted that
first
Bordeaux should not have had the

formance of
that Villiers'
this fine play.
I
per-
am
convinced
work would there have achieved

the enthusiastic success which
it
143
merits,
and
everyone
stage
will
agree with
me
that no Parisian
could have furnished an artist more
capable of interpreting the gloomy rle of the

heroine than
little
pensionnaire ; for
of the
justly,
M. Godefrin's Madame Aime Tessandier,

Mdlle. Aime,
Franaise,
is
gifted
and considered one of our finest and most tragic alresses, and Godefrin was a
now,
her
Comdie
true
prophet when he prediled that
success would be great.

Little Mdlle.
If
Aime of those bygone days

for a
chance should bring these lines before your
eyes,
you may perhaps forget
moment
!
your recent glories in the house of Molire,
and give a thought

beautiful creation,
to the distant past
That
part of Mistress Andrews,
madame, was a very
and one which might well

in
inspire such an artistic individuality as yours.

It
might have marked an important stage

;
your triumphal march

did you choose to take
the
life,
it
might, even now,

it
it
back and play

pearl
in
to
become the
fairest
!
your
diadem as a
tragic alress
CHAPTER IX. Restful days The and the sexTalks about bygone days Charles Baude His true natureHis strange home-life Jeanne Duval Edgar Poe Richard Wagner "Axel" The Cabala and the occult sciences sentiments Quotations " L'Eve
real
Villiers
Villiers
fair
laire
Villiers' religious
Future."
^^^^^^HOSE
far
life,
days spent with
my
me
friend
city
from the cares and noise of
have remained with
as one
of
my
pleasantest memories.
For
us they were days of delicious and beneficial

repose.
In that quiet sunny southern spot
where we spent some weeks together, the mantle of bitter scorn and scepticism in which
he wrapped himself on the boulevards seemed
to
drop from his shoulders.
penetrated far
to
into his inner nature,
and he allowed me
145
perceive the ideal and beautiful personality
which he so jealously concealed

of his soul.
Villiers
in the
depths
Thus
I'lsle
came
but
to
know
at last a
de
Adam
little
resembling
nightly
the
one who used to delight the

his wit, his strange imaginings,
frequenters of the brasseries at Montmartre
by
and
his
disconnected manner of life.
This was the real
man, the dreamer, the philosopher, the poet,

the true lover, incarnated in the superhuman
character of Axel, and concealed beneath the
cloak of irony in which

folded.
all
his
work
is
en-
On
those cloudless balmy nights at Bor-
deaux, as
we wandered
in close converse along
the banks of the great river, under the graceful arches of the pine-trees, through which the
pale
and
mysterious
moonbeams
slanted,
while above us rose the hill-slopes covered
with the heavy purple and golden bunches of

the ripening grapes, he would go back over
his past
life,
and would recount to
me and
to
himself his intelle6lual and sentimental history.
poet's
life ?
Did woman play a great part in the I think so, though he had few
L
146
adventures and fewer passionate attachments.

But, like that
much misunderstood
personage,
Don
once,
Juan, Villiers was continually seeking
that divine emotion which he never felt but
and that
in his early youth, during the

first
short existence of that
and purest love of
which the green Breton

catch
sight
fields
were the
cradle,
the setting, and the grave, /if he chanced to

of one of those celestial faces
which make one believe that angels
may
come down
with his
to earth,
he would
fall
in love
own ideal. But proached a woman more

spirit of analysis laid
as soon as he apclosely, his pitiless

all
bare
the moral ugli-
nesses and littlenesses veiled by her physical

beauty.
The
angel disappeared, and brutal
reality clipped the
wings of his dream.

sort,
After
a disappointment of this
he would throw
himself with a sort of frenzy into the wildest

orgies of midnight debauchery.
his sarcasms about love
At such
times
like
and women burnt

all
a redhot
iron,
but beneath
his imprecations
one felt that there lay the despair of a
man
who
has held for one short
moment the key of

has been snatched
Eden, and from
whom
it

before
147
he
could
art,
open the sacred

his
portal.
Happily
his
love
for
it,
and
his
consciousness
of his
own
genius,
consoled
him
for his
many
in
mortifications.
He
the
loved,
these
intimate
and
often
retrospe6live conversations, to go back over

first
happy years of
all
his residence in Paris,
to his friendly relations with
my
father,
and
above
to
Charles
Baudelaire,
whose
memory haunted him like had made acquaintance at

"
a ghost. the
ofifice
They
of the
"
Revue
Fantaisiste," whither,
from time to
time,
the author of the

his
" Fleurs
would bring some of
du Mal original and ex-
Pomes en Prose." Baudelaire and Villiers had too much in common not to be quickly drawn together.
quisitely-polished " Petits
From
the date of their

in
first
meeting they
were frequently
Villiers
each other's company, and
was one of the few friends who were present at the poet's terrible death. For my
own
part,
while greatly admiring Baudelaire

I
as a poetical craftsman,
did not like his
chara6ler as an individual.
From
all
had
heard
(for
never knew him personally), he
148

to
seemed
to
me
to
be wanting
in sincerity,
and
be eternally posing, not only before the public, but before the little circle over which
he habitually presided.
Villiers
this in
would leap with rage

presence.
if I
expressed
I
his
He
declared that
;
swam
I
in a sea of stupid prejudice
that
what
that
took for affe6lation in Baudelaire was really

;
the essence of his extraordinary nature
he could not be nor behave otherwise.

he would try to explain
And
it
this strange, terribly
complicated chara6ler to me, diabolical as
was
the
in
some ways,
that
exquisitely
good
in others.
Would
my impotent
pen could reproduce
fire,
the eagerness, and the brilliancy of
Villiers'
speeches in defence of his departed

Baudelaire had condescended to exhimself,
it,
friend
plain
and analyze
"
to lay bare his
heart, as
he expressed
before this privi-
ledged associate.
liers, "
In his youth," said Vil-
he halted between two ambitions.
To
be the greatest a6tor
in the world, or else to
be
the Pope."
Although he had shouldered

in
a musket and worn the workman's blouse
1848, he gave himself out as a Catholic and a

supporter of constituted authority.
lic
149
"
A Catho-
possessed by a devil," Villiers would add, and a supporter of authority who admitted none but his own, and that of his vices, which he cherished as works of art, and of which he
"
was inordinately proud." Nothing could have been more strikingly curious than the description given
by the author of "Axel" of the
poet's home-life.
He
lived near Neuilly, in

full
an apartment with large high rooms,

oddly-shaped
Indian
furniture,
of
Chinese
monsters,
frightful
idols, fantastic
and generally
carvings of animals, the walls of which were
hung with dark and revolting

torture scenes, painted
pilures of the
Spanish School, mutilations, executions, and
by the horror-loving
In the midst of this
Ribeira and his pupils.
nightmare
about,
scene
Baudelaire
moved
slowly
cold,
silent,
and
pale,
himself half-
frightened,
like
one who walks through a
hideous
dream.
And
girl,
as
mistress of this
strange dwelling, there was a creature stranger

still
a coloured
silks,
almost a negress,
named
Jeanne Duval, always shivering, and wrapped

in
gaudy
past her youth, thin, cringing,
I50
and without any charm but that of her glowing

eyes.
faithful,
Violent, bad-tempered, untruthful, un-
greedy, intemperate, and depraved,

in the
she died a drunkard's death
Maison
gasp
sup-
Dubois, idolized and petted to her
last
I
by Baudelaire, who loved her deeply,

pose for the sake of her
It
many
perversities.
was to Charles Baudelaire that Villiers owed one of his greatest artistic enjoyments, his acquaintance with the works of Edgar Poe. He was a very bad English scholar, and
without his friend's wonderful translations,
and
his enthusiastic talk
on the subjel of the

the
great American story-teller, he would never,
probably, have
made acquaintance with
"Strange Tales," nor with that wonderful
poem,
in
"
The Raven," which he used
to recite
was the will of fate that he should owe yet more to Baudelaire. It was in his house that he saw
such a striking manner.
it
And
for the first time the only
human genius
before
whom
he ever completely and unreservedly
bowed down, Richard Wagner. This meeting,

the most important event, according to Villiers,
in his intellelual life,
took place in the month of
151
May, 1 86 1
The wizard of music had called to

fine,
thank Baudelaire for a

published in the
entitled "
"
and, for those days,
very courageous study of himself and his work,
Revue Europenne," and
Richard
Wagner and Tannhauser."
This was the beginning of one of those beautiful
alas
and noble artistic friendships of which, so few examples exist, and the bond of
In a
shall
which was only to be severed by death.

future chapter of these recollerions,
I
speak more
fully,
as
is fitting,
of the intimacy
between these two highly-gifted beings, so well

formed
for
mutual understanding, the creator
of Eisa and the creator of Axel.
Already, at the time of his sojourn in the

south of France, Villiers was at work on that
great philosophical
only appeared after
drama of " Axel," which he was dead.
One
of the most wonderful scenes in the
work (Part II., " Le Monde Tragique," scene 8), was entirely written at Bordeaux. For the purposes of this play Villiers had profoundly studied the Cabala and the occult Yet his sciences, both past and present. mind was too powerful and too analytical to
152
VILLIERS de L'ISLE ADAM.
be profoundly smitten by such theories.

merely saw
in
He
them a phase of the philosophical evolution of centuries, and he also found in them dramatic elements of the highest order. But I venture to assert, from what I have known of him, that it would be a mistake
to reckon the author of the
"Nouveau Monde"
and higher
far
among contemporary
His
cabalists.
ideal soared further
than the magic art cultivated so assiduously,
and not altogether unremuneratively, by that long-haired young sar, Josphin Pladan.
Though
the occult sciences
may overwhelm
at the
and infatuate the
intelligence of Pladan at the
close of this century,
and Rohan
dawn
I'lsle
of the Revolution, to such vigorous geniuses

as
Goethe
in
in
Germany and
Villiers
de
Adam
truth.
France they are but a step to be
boldly taken in the approach towards divine
And
should like to say here, to the honour
of the great writer whose
work and
characfter
have been so much misunderstood, that Villiers

de risle
fervent
Adam was all his life a convinced and

Roman
Catholic.
The
study of the

philosophy of
all
153
times and every country, the

the study of
faith.
study of the
nature,
all
human mind, and
only strengthened his
He
firmly believed that
God was
good, and that
the Devil
in Hell.
was wicked, in Heaven, in Purgatory, Through all those hours of physical

suffering
agony and moral

the source of
all
which he endured
all his
before his soul escaped to Paradise, he found

his
hope and
life,
consola-
tion in prayer.
His
indeed, like the lives

full
of most great
failures,
artists,
was
of faults and
but whenever he had a chance of
fighting the
good
fight in the cause of reliit
gion and of our divine ideal, he did
with a
fervour and an enthusiasm which proved the

sincerity of his convi6lions.
And
doubtless
God
ness.
will
count that to him for righteous-
"One
Villiers'
of the most deeply-rooted feelings in

soul,"
wrote M. G.
Guiches, very
truly, the
day
18,
after the poet's death (" Figaro,"
August
his eyes
1889),
"was the
strong, honest,
tender, religious sentiment

fill
which would make
with tears whenever the divine
mysteries were spoken of in his presence.
154

life,
Neither the promiscuous caf
throughout
which he always preserved his haughty inde-
pendence of heart and mind, nor
his copious
and inventive flow of banter, ever touched

with the faintest stain the royal ermine of his
faith.
On
those loose sheets on which, like
Baudelaire, he
was
in
the
habit of noting
down memoranda
his thoughts, side
of daily
life,
by side with prosaic and naive resolutions,

a sin to
such as 'not to smoke so much,' phrases like

the following occur
:
It is
mourn
its
for
a dead child.
It
has entered into
glory.'
Among
God
!
these fragments, too, are touching
litanies to the
Virgin
thou,
my
Mother of the good Mother thou who

*
!
intercedest, sure that thou shalt
be heard
Thou who
pent
of
!
standest on Calvary
!
Thou who
ser!
canst pardon
Heel that crushest the
Whiteness of the eternal dawn

!
Glory
!
human tears Light of the eastern star Thou soul of chastity Thou resignation of
!
the poor!'
etc., etc., etc.
"To
book,
an author who told him the

title
atro-
ciously cynical
of his
lately-published
he answered boldly:
'Such things

should never be written.
that will
155
Those are words
come back
in
to
you on your deathwill cite
bed.'"
As
am
a vein of quotation,
one more charming anecdote on the same

subjeft, related in the "
Revue Blanc" by M.
" receiving a visit
I
Henri Laujol, one of Villiers' earliest comrades.

"
I
remember," he says,
Villiers
*
from
one day, while
was reading
I
Hckel's History of the Creation.'
can see
him now, turning over the

hand,
leaves, looking at
the woodcuts, and weighing the book in his
asked
with much pantomimic alarm. how much that grand book had
told
He
cost,
and
sous
him the
*
price,
somewhere about
ten francs.
'
!
The
catechism costs only two

It
was
his reply.
try parson's
remark.
was a regular counBut Villiers was so

it
it
delighted at having
made
that he spent his

to
whole afternoon repeating

out in every sort of key,
me, droning
it
now falsetto, now

;
bass,
and then again

ing himself, of his voice.
in
a Tyrolese jodel
interrupt-
now and
I
then, to laugh at the top
could get nothing else out of
him the whole of that day."
156

I
But
must turn from our bygone

an incident of
his hfe
talks to
register here
on the
eventhat
boulevards, which he related to

ing,
me one
birth to
and which was

"
to give
famous novel,
this
L'Eve Future," which apit
peared long afterwards at Brunhoff's, with
motto attached to
" Transitoriis
qure
CHAPTER
of the newspaper,
X.
Ametamorphosis An ambitious pastry-cookAppearance
"La Croix et l'Epe" Its

figure
political,
artistic,
Lord E W A nolurnal His strange suicide The wax conversation The American engineer and conception of " L'Eve Future" master, Edison de ITsle Adam and Thomas Alva Edison.
and literary programme
First
Villiers
his
OT long before the famous Lockroy

lawsuit, Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam,
for
the
first
time
in his Hfe,
had found
himself in a regularly established

position.
He
had given the frequenters of
the boulevards and of the newspaper offices the unwonted spelacle of a Villiers in brand-
new
clothes
and a
brilliantly
smart
silk
hat
a Villiers with a grave face and a well-filled

pocket-book, whose fingers rattled keys and
five-franc pieces together in his pockets
iS8
Villiers, in fine,
who
breakfasted at the Caf

table
Riche,
and had
in
his
every night at
Brbant's (that restaurant so dear to literary
men),
the celebrated
first-floor
room so
graphically described in the journals of the
De Concourt.
change
in
in
The
reason of this ephemeral

life is
the poet's
worthy of a place
the "Arabian Nights."
retired
con-
fe6lioner,
devoured by
political
and
literary
ambition, and convinced, doubtless, that his

success in
making fancy
biscuits
gave him a
right to put his fingers into the great political

pie,
desired to found a newspaper to be the

This, in
itself, is
organ of his opinions.

ordinary
fa6l,
a very
not particularly worthy of note.

is
Many
an ambitious vulgarian
not content
without a newspaper slavishly devoted to his

interests.
But
this pastry-cook,
who
shall
be
nameless, became absolutely heroic, and un-
doubtedly worthy to be mentioned to posterity
when, out of
all
the starving writers
who
trod the cruel and horrible Paris pavescoffer, Villiers
ments, he chose that unmerciful
del Isle Adam,

ego.
as his representative and a/êr
159
play or a story might be written about
downs of the astounding newspaper which was the outcome of this strange union. I have only time to throw some hasty
the ups and
touches on the canvas.

Villiers
was
chief editor, reporter,
critic,
and
article-writer at
one and the same time.
The
confelioner was diredlor, manager, and cashier.
He gave the poet five hundred francs a month,

and
left
him absolutely
and
free to express his
own
"
political, artistic,
literary opinions, exaling
two things only
firstly,
that " his
newspaper
"
should mention him, individually, every day
and
secondly, that " his
newspaper
should
make
"
stir in
the capital.
!
His desire was

Cross and Sword
more than
gratified
La Croix
et l'Epe," the
title
!),
(high-sounding
claimed, in matters of
religion, the right of
every soldier to swear

;
round oaths and go to mass

throne of France
bolist painters
politically,
it
supported the claim of the Naundorffs to the

;
artistically, it
;
put the sympoetically,

it
above Raphael
proclaimed Stphane Mallarm the prince of
rhyme, and defended the School of the Incom-
i6o

;
prehensibles and musically, it was belligerently
and exclusively Wagnerian. At the end of six months the newspaper disappeared, the confe6lioner went back to his province, and
Villiers
found himself back on the boulevards,

still
poorer than ever in pocket, but rich

splendid
critical
in
hopes,
and answering the hypo" Yes,
condolences of his fellow-journalists

yes
!
with his usual phrase,
thanks
But
"
!
all is
not lost!
Next
winter,
Many we
shall see
It
was during
this period of relative pros-
perity that he caught a glimpse of the in-
dividual
novel, "
who gave him
the
first
idea for his
L'Eve Future." One evening he saw coming
into Brbant's,
arm-in-arm with one of the attachs of the

British
Embassy, a young Englishman whose

both handsome and sad-looking,"
tell
singular face aroused his imagination.

**
He was
"
Villiers
used to
I
me, in his enthusiastic

in the
way,
his
and
saw
at
once
expression of
eyes that grave and scornful look of
melancholy which always betokens a hidden

despair."

This young man's name
initials)
(I
i6i
only give the

.
was Lord
His
tragic
end attracted attention
in Paris for
some time.
He
destroyed himself, very deliberately, some
days after Villiers met him.
Stretched beside
him, in a magnificent dress, bespattered with

his blood,
figure,
was found an admirably-made lay representing a young woman, whose

face,
waxen
modelled by a great
artist,
was
in
the portrait of a young lady well
known
London
for her brilliant beauty,
and who had
been engaged to be married to the eccentric
young nobleman.
Was
afflil
this suicide
merely the result of one

hereditary
of those strange
manias which
English aristo-
some
?
families of the
cracy
Or was
in the
the mysterious catastrophe

affair
of
to
some dramatic and passionate love

be read on the young man's deathbed
?
presence of the wonderful
doll
The
young attach
inclined to this latter opinion.
According to his view, Lord
had been the vidlim of an extraordinary

fatality.
He
adored the physical loveliness

;
of the young girl
he was perpetually haunted
1 62

;
by her magnificent beauty but he held her mind and soul, and everything in her that was not material, in the deepest abhorrence. Hence arose the slowly-developed madness which ended in his death. These things were related one night at the restaurant, before Villiers and a small circle of habitus. An American engineer an electrician, as they call them over there rose from his seat, and quietly said, " I am sorry your
friend did not apply to
cured him."
Scott
!
me I might have "You! how?" "How! Great

;
!
would have given his doll life, soul, movement, love " The assembled company,
I
being sceptical as to miracles, burst out laughing, all
but
Villiers,
in rolling his cigarette.
who seemed to be absorbed "You may laugh,
stranger," said the
picked up his
will
American gravely, as he hat and stick, "but the time

master, Edison, will
is
come when my great
teach you that
elelricity
an almighty
power," and with that he went out.
These fa6ls and this no6lurnal conversation gave birth to " L'Eve Future," one of the most original works of this end of the century.
163
Those who have perused this masterpiece of eloquent raillery, by the poet who, to use M. Henri Laujol's happy expression, "had vowed a monkish hatred against modern science, that handmaid of utilitarianism," will doubtless recollel that the general notion and argument of the story follow almost identically
the
fa(5ls
I
have just
related.
But
Villiers
was not one of those

the
half-artists
who
it
are
satisfied with their first idea,
and work
it
it
out
moment chance has presented

It
to their
in his
brain.
was only
after revolving
mind, pondering and brooding over
it,
that
he began to write his novel, the

ful
first
wonder-
pages of which, with their description of
Menloe Park and its terrifying proprietor, Thomas Alva Edison, he read to me in 1879. When the great inventor himself came to Paris in 1889 to see our exhibition, somebody sent him De I'lsle Adam's book. He read it through without putting it down, and said to one of his intimates, " That man is greater
than
I.
can only invent.
He creates!" He
fell
desired to
alas
!
make the author's acquaintance, but,

Villiers,
poor
already stricken by the
i64
disease of which he died, could not respond

to Edison's invitation.
This
is
deeply to be
curious and
regretted.
Can anything more
more
sation
interesting be imagined than a conver-
between the progenitor of Dr. Triboulat
Bonhomet and the father of the phonograph ? Soon after he had related the curious origin of his contemplated work to me, my eccentric
friend suddenly disappeared from
my
sight.
Villiers'
CHAPTER XI. absent-mindedness His carelessness His departure from Bordeaux Godefrin's despair A year Bohemian poverty A Want of money His pride His conscientiousness Drumont's book and the young Jew A good answer manner of His midnight wanderings His
terrible
later
justification
Villiers' difficulties
artistic
Villiers
Villiers'
life
dis-
like
of daylightVilliers and Anatole France.
MOST
Villiers,
disconcerting thing about
which used to exasperate

till
his best friends
his
dying day,
was
ness,
his perpetual
absent-minded-
which led him to forget the most imporappointments,

to
his
tant
break
off,
for
long
daily
months
relations,
on
end,
most
intimate
to
and only occasionally
fulfil
the
engagements he might make with editors of

reviews or publishers.
his
The
uncertainty of
movements kept one
continually on the
i66 alert;
you could never tell when he would come or when he would go. I have described
his
sudden apparition
in
my
house at Bor-
deaux.
His departure was just as unexpe6led.

;
We
rose
had talked the whole night long

I
it
;
at early
I
dawn
went
to get a little rest,
and when
Villiers
was already late. I inquired after he had gone out, and hours passed
In vain
I
without his return.
sought him.
Without beat of drum he had disappeared,

melted away like a shadow.
A
long
few days after

face.
met Godefrin with a

just
He
had
received a letter
from the inconstant
writer,
dated from Paris,
demanding the immediate return of the manuscript of the " Nouveau Monde." His conversation was one flood of recriminations. For my own part, inured long since as I was to the poet's offhand ways, I was only halfsurprised, and I did my best to console the unhappy direlor, whom I have not had the good fortune to meet since that interview. Towards me Villiers preserved an unbroken
silence.
Indeed,
might have thought

if
him dead, and myself forgotten,
the post had
VILLIERS DE L'lSLE ADAM.

not brought
tales,
167
articles,
me
packets containing
or fanciful conceits of his, cut out of
newspapers and magazines, and which, addressed as they were by his

that he
own
hand, proved
I'lsle
was not "the

I
late
De
Adam,"
and that
It
still
lived in his
memory.
to
was difftcult, after all was said and done, bear him a grudge because of his exaspera-
ting carelessness, for
when you next met him,

months, he
left
if
after a disappearance of five or six
would address you as

the night before.
If
he had only
you
you reproached him, he
would gaze
puzzled
sin
;
at
you with an innocent and

particular
air,
seemingly quite unconscious of his
and then he had such a
exclaiming,
"What! I did that! impossible you must be chaffing me " that nobody could keep their countenance nor their bad temper long. Personally I was not to see him for two years. Alas when we met again in Paris in 1879, 1 saw that poverty was slowly accomplishing its destru6live work. Never had the Bohemian life which he so courageously accepted, seemed more utterly dreary. He needed all his power of hopefulness to
! !
way of oh, come, come

I
i68

it.
endure
But though
his heart
his imagination as brilliant, his
was as stout, mind as a6live

to tire
as ever, the bodily frame
was beginning and the

air of
and
its
machinery to break down, thanks to
bad
food,
want of
care,
late
hours
life.
and noxious tobacco-laden

Living as
I
I
tavern
did in Paris the whole of that year,

little
contrived to withdraw him a
from the
his
life.
infernal
round which was destroying

I
was only a respite, and that he would always have a longing for that eccentric and feverish existence which devoured him body and soul and
I
But
never deceived myself.
felt it
hastened his end.
This year of grace 1879 was the

spent together, and
it
last
we
was the time of our closest intimacy. Before reviving some memories of
it,
desire to defend Villiers against an

is
unjust accusation, which

against him.
frequently brought
in life
He has been accused, both

low company.
It
and
after death, of
being a dissipated tavernhas been
bird, a lover of
asserted that his want of success arose principally from his
own bad
condu6l, his want of
moral sense, his indolence, and the doubtful
169
company he frequented. To those who only knew him casually these accusations bear an appearance of truth fatal to the poet's good
name.
the hard
But we who were acquainted with

life,
his inner
and have watched him through

of his laborious existence,
trials
know
how
little
he deserved the reproaches of these
wiseacres.
We knew the nobility of his nature,
the innate delicacy of his tastes, his passion

for work, his scorn of material enjoyments.
And we know
how,
little
by
little,
this gifted
being was driven by evil fortune to live in an
atmosphere unworthy of him, and how,

little
too,
by
little,
and
to
after
it.
many
a revolt, he
grew accustomed
May
be permitted, then, within the space
of a few lines, to attempt the justification of
the slipshod and

Villiers
Bohemian manner of
life
of
de
I'lsle
Adam.
It will
give
me
an
opportunity of showing the original and complex chara6ler of the artist in a
new
light.
The
faithful
autobiography of a
writer
living in Paris during the last twenty years,
without any other means of support than his
own
talents,
would be a gloomier and a sadder
I70

" Inferno."
book than Dante's

sort
But
it
would
likewise be a healthy
and instructive one, a of warning beacon which should save

a young- and promising
life
many
from
ruin,
shame, and death.
Though
there are
some
indomitable natures which rise higher and
gain in strength through the struggle with

misfortune, there are
gifted
many more, and

are
highly
ones
too,
which
lowered
and
crushed
down by
bread.
despicable cares, grinding
poverty, and anxiety concerning the earning of daily
True as
it
may be
I
that
energy, moral strength, and artistic convi6lion
form a solid suit of armour, yet

thinnest silver cuirass
is
hold that the
more
useful for win-
ning the
final vilory.
And
all
that which hin-
dered Villiers from climbing to the highest
eminence was above
things his want of
money.
This condition of penury must have been
all
the more prejudicial and painful to him,
because the dbut of his career was so successful as to
be almost an apotheosis.
Excessively proud, and with a lively sentiment for the illustrious
name he
bore, he
171
would never, when poverty came upon him,

undertake any of those lucrative,
jobs,
if
ignoble
which
in these
days are always to be

world.
had about the

for his ancestry, his
literary
He
carried
his respeft for his calling as far as his respe(fl
and no matter how pressing need was, he would never send a hastilypage,
finished
printer.
first
nor even
read
sentence,
to
the
He
and re-read everything,

finally,
low,
then loud, and
when
the
whole was weeded and correled, he would

declaim
it
in that clear
sonorous voice which

reciting
his
he
always
used
when
is
own
writings.
According
to him, the worst crime
a writer can commit

in this connelion
I
to sell himself.
And
will
record an authen-
ticated anecdote
which ends with a remark
by the author of "L'Eve Future" which

almost touches the sublime.
Immediately after the appearance of
"
La
in
France Juive," the
Jewish
community
Paris looked about for a writer equal to the
task of returning the murderous
blows of the terrible

suggested Villiers de
knockdown Drumont. Somebody
I'lsle
Adam.
noble
172

brilliant
talent,
name, a
poverty
nice
and
in
straits
!
of
probably
to
be had very cheap
little
glossy well-combed Jew,

still
who then
looked, perhaps
looks, after the censor-
ship in the back office of a fashionable publisher,
was sent
to call
upon him.
Villiers,
struggling
with the
direst
poverty,
often
was living in a big, bare, dark, cold room, somewhere on the heights of Montmartre, where he
without half a franc
in his pocket,
still
possessed an old easy-chair, a ricketty
table,^
and a poor asthmatic piano, which the
bailiffs
had despised.
last
found the
ter of the
Here the young Jew descendant of the Grand MasSt.
Order of
servile,
John of Jerusalem.
Unluously
and with an exaggerated
show of respe6l, the messenger of the synagogue explained its desire, concluding by
saying that there could be no bargaining
with a writer of such distinlion, and that the
Comte Villiers de I'lsle Adam had only to name his own price. Then he waited in silence for the answer of Villiers, who had
listened without interrupting, rolling a cigarette in his white fingers, his absent glance half

hidden by the thick lock that
brow.
fell
173
over his
When
clear
his
interlocutor
speaking, he raised his
had ceased head, and fixing on

filled
him
his
blue
eyes,
now
a
with
sudden
voice,
"
flame,
he answered
?
in
ringing
My
"
!
price, sir
It
has not altered

!
since the days of our Saviour
Thirty pieces
of
silver
Then,
rising
and
wrapping
around him his tattered old dressing-gown,

he pointed to the door with a gesture that
the illustrious marshal,
his ancestor,
*'
might
"
!
have envied, and added,

But
I
I
Begone,
sir
have wandered from

Villiers
my
subjel.
was saying that poverty had been a hard

de
I'lsle
stepmother to
Adam,
forcing
life
him from
the
life,
his
youth up to shape his

habits of a
to
Bohemian
and
vagabond Parisian
well-established
to such habits
he gradually became
accustomed.
Serious and
people, as well as self-important
and overfed
middle-class folk, used to reproach

terly
him
all,
bit-
with the carelessness of his existence,

with
with his slipshod behaviour, above
his assiduous frquentation of those no6lurnal
places
of entertainment,
which,
under the
174

of wine-shops, brasseries, and
artists'
name
taverns,
swarm between
the Faubourg Mont-
martre and the Boulevard de Clichy.
Yet
how many good

so-called
life
excuses there were for this
of idleness
and debauchery
being
if
If Villiers, without
rich,
had pos-
sessed a few pounds a year,
he could have
made for himself, somewhere in the formidable

city,
ever so small a corner where he might

his brilliant beautiful dreams,
have dreamed
and
his
written,
and thought, without anxiety
concerning his daily pittance,

friend,
will
I,
who was
and
affirm
that the witty
"Chat Noir" would have known him less, and, what is more to the purpose, less intimately. But driven by dire necessity to pitch his tent in some empty lodging or
eloquent frequenters of the
and the " Rat Mort
"
dreary hotel room, he had such a horror,

aristocratic
artist
being,
dainty
poet,
charming
as he was, of the
hideous dwellings
into
which
his
evil
fate
had penned him,
that he fled from them, preferring to

all
make
words
Paris his home,
and to
say, in the
of Bruant's working man, " T'es dans la rue,

va, t'es chez toi
"
!
175
?
"
!
You're in the gutter

"
then you are at

It
home
was walking the pavements, on the terraces of cafs, and with his elbow on the
stained tavern tables, that he imagined, discussed,
and partly wrote, some of
his finest
works.
Every imaginative
and
being, moreover,
wants some nervous excitement to quicken

his brain process,
Villiers
more
especially
was the vi6lim of

evolve his
to his
this need.
He
could not
clearly
ideas
and present them
own mind without

somebody
If prosperity
discussion,
to discuss
and
therefore without
with.
them
had been granted
to him,
he might have found

at
all this in artistic circles,
his
own
fireside,
in friendly gatherings,
perhaps in the drawing-room of some

of fashion.
woman
his
Poor as he was, and driven into

life,
Bohemian
he had to
fall
back on
the
wild nolurnal habits, and on

of the tavern, where ideas
hubbub and words meet

and the
and clash
noisily
through clouds of tobacco

rattle of glasses
smoke, amidst the
noisy laughter of loose

I
women.
to truth to say that
owe
it,
however,
176
Villiers'

love of late hours was not altogether
the result of circumstances.

tially
He was
essen-
a night-bird.
He
hated the daylight,
and always
called the sun a hideous planet,
which, he declared, lighted nature up badly,
and spoiled her beauty.

days,
his
Even
the
in his
best
until
he never became quite himself

little
kindly
friends
stars
blinked
down at him out The brilliant

Anatole France,
dedicated to the
that,
of the sky.
critic
of the
"Temps," M.
I'lsle
tells us, in
a kindly sketch
memory
of
De
Adam,
literary
being in want of exa6l information con-
cerning the poet's ancestors for
some
work on which he was engaged, he went one day to look him up at his lodgings at Montmartre. He was received smilingly, announced the obje6l of his he but when
visit,
the master of the house looked perdoubtful,
plexed,
and troubled.
at last,
He
began
he
to
to stammer,
and
"
almost in
tears,
exclaimed
talk to
How
can you expedl
me
you about my ancestors, the illustrious grand master and the famous marshal, in
bright sunshine like
this,
at ten
o'clock in

the morning ?"
177
was in utter dismay, and the witty critic had to exert himself to the utmost to restore him to his equareally
He
nimity and obtain the necessary information
from him.
CHAPTER
1879
XII.
the The Boulevard Montmartre Nodlurnal declamations a composer Two operas, " Esmeralda and " Prometheus Melomania a musical performer The Lon
poet's
The Rue des Martyrs and the Rue Rochechouart

room His extraordinary indifference Dierx La Dvoue " Strange habits
*'
Villiers in
street
Villiers as
"
"
Villiers
as
strange couple.
1879
Villiers inhabited
in
a room
in a furnished hotel
the
Rue
des Martyrs, nearly at the corner

of the
Rue
Clauzel.
I
Chance had
living at the
made
us neighbours, for
was
corner of the
Rue Rochechouart and

flats,
the
Rue
I
de Maubeuge, at the very top of an enormous

house
room,
let
out in
all
and from
my balcony
could see
it
over Paris.
just as
As
to the poet's
was
commonplace
in
as might
have been expeled

lodging-house.
a tenth-rate furnished
bed, chair, and
mahogany
uiiMiiiiiiiniK
179
chest of drawers, an imitation Wilton carpet,
and the inevitable wardrobe with a lookingglass in

it.
Should
this last
happen
to
gape
open, one perceived on every shelf, not linen,
nor clothes of any description, but piles of

manuscript, books, newspapers, and magazines.
The extreme
assisted
I
indifference
of the
life
great
writer to the material comforts of
greatly
him
in
in
bearing the pangs of poverty.

take thought
for
never
knew him
the
the
morrow,
literal
sense of the term,
though he thought and talked a great deal

about the future in general.
But he never
not been for the
I
troubled his head as to whether he had a

shirt to his
back
and had
it
care of
some devoted
friends,
really believe
he would have ended by going out-of-doors

half-dressed, or
in
by spending several months

clothes.
bed
for
want of
Luckily, a sort
of earthly providence seemed to watch over
him, and supply his
most pressing needs.

faithful friends,
One of his best loved and most

Lon Dierx,
for Villiers
lived in the
same house, and

so,
looked after him without seeming to do
was as touchy as he was
careless.
i8o

all
But, above
others, there
woman, a
retired
was a worthy midwife, who had attached
herself to the poet with a canine devotion
which used to bring the tears to

jests,
idol,
my eyes. The
She treated
the snubbing, even the furies of her
could not dishearten her.

delicate
him with a
tenderness which the
most passionately devoted mistress might have envied. The great writer, with the Bohemian
indifference of the
man who owns

in at
nothing,
used,
when he came
dawn, worn out
with holding forth and discussing, to leave

his
door unlocked, and the key in
it.
This
excellent soul
would
seize her opportunity,
come
could,
in
on
tiptoe,
take his poor, stained,
shabby garments, mend them as best she
and then restore them
to their place.
shirt,
Often she would bring a clean

it
and lay
it
on the foot of the bed. WhenVilliers took into his head to get up and go out, about
he would put on the
first
the time the gas was being lighted in the

streets,
thing that
came under his hand, without ever noticing

the changes in and additions to his wardrobe
made by
this
admirable woman,
whom we
'MiiiiimMiiiMiMinMMiniiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiMMii

had nicknamed
one."
I
i8i
"
La Dvoue,"
of her.
" the
devoted
When
became the
poet's neighbour,
often
made use
and
I
coats
and trousers of
;
She would put mine beside him while

saw
he slept
often
had a struggle to keep

I
my
countenance when
in
my friend dressed
for while
I
my cast-off clothes, up him a most peculiar appearance,
which used to give
was long and thin, he was short and broad. But he went on unmoved, and never suspe6led
anything.
The
coached.
waiter of the hotel had also been
He
used to enter Villiers room,
every day towards noon, carrying a large
bowl of soup, been cut up.

awake,
"
into
which a penny
roll
had
Should the poet be asleep, he

If Villiers
took care not to rouse him.
was
he
would
" ?
call
out
threateningly,
"
!
What's that
" Breakfast, sir
said the
waiter,
and
hastily putting the
bowl down,
he departed.
Mechanically Villiers would
swallow bread and soup, and think no more

of the almost daily recurring incident.
He
never had any other meal before his evening one.
82
I

got into the habit of going to see him
in the after-
between three and four o'clock I generally found him noons.
sitting
up
in
bed, supported by several pillows, hard at work,
and only stopping

rette,
his writing to roll a cigalight.
which, as often as not, he did not

quilt,
Lying on the eiderdown

his knees,
which covered
was a pouchful of his favourite Maryland tobacco, books of cigarette papers, and piles of sheets covered with his fine and
delicately-formed
handwriting.
He
never
wrote with anything but pencil, which made

the compositors' work very
difficult,
especially
as in reading his work over he would generally alter
one word out of

as he
five.
I
As soon
in front of
saw me (sometimes
stood
him
for ten
minutes before he was
aware of
my
presence, so completely did his

start,
work absorb him), he would

.'*
and exclaim,
"What, is that you, cousin? What o'clock The window, the window " and before is it
!
could do anything to stop him, he would

of bed, and, regardless of weather or
jump out
temperature, throw the
window wide open.
Then he would
get back into bed, put his
niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiimiiiiiiiiniiiiJMriiiiiiiiiiiui
183
hand through
his
heavy
forelock, look at
me
had
if
in a confused sort of way, and end by burst-
ing out laughing.
These
antics usually
the result of sending tobacco, cigarettes, and

sheets of paper flying across the room, and,
there was any wind, whirling round the table.

I
used to rush to the rescue of the precious
prose,
and when
I
had colle6led and put the

I
scattered manuscript in order as well as

could,
would
talks
sit
down
in the only armchair,
and our
would begin.
At
last,
towards
and by dint of persecution, I contrived to drag him from between the sheets, and out we went into the streets.
six o'clock,
The street Ah when one walked

!
it
arm-in-
arm with
place and
Villiers,
it
was no longer a commonsymmetrical assemblage
more or
less
of paving-stones, asphalte side-walks, road-
ways, shops, and houses.
It
became a strange
entity, with a million different living existences
a hybrid, complex,
of treading
root in
it,
contradi6lory being, by
turns mysterious, terrible, cynical, innocent,

cruel, loving, tragic, or grotesque.
it
By
dint
for so
many
years,
he had taken
and was, so
to speak,
one of the
84
VILLIERS DE
I.'ISLE
ADAM.
Strangest produ6ls, the most striking types, of

that world, at once so great
and so
limited, in
which certain figures stand out with such

clearness from the
moving mass,
that,
once
seen, they can never be forgotten.
Amongst
and which
those physiognomies which seem to form an

integral part of the street crowd,
one misses there when death removes them,
some are dramatic, some comic, some hideous. Some are sad, some poetic, others mad but
;
all attral
your attention, and even obtrude
themselves on your notice, by some personal

originality of appearance.
And
de
in
no case
more so than
in that of Villiers
I'lsle
Adam,
his
with his supple and yet uncertain
gait,
immeasurable scorn of the laws of fashion, and

that sleep-walking look which the cruel
and
much dreaded speech and laughter belied. He knew all the secrets, all the hidden
irony of his
sores, all the grandeur, of the merciless streets
of Paris.
In the course of our perambula-
tions together,
he would point out to
me
houses of whose secret dramas, comedies, or

idylls,
he knew every
detail.
He
would ex-
plain,
with that sort of stammer which added
IIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIirilMMMIIIIimiMIIIIIIIMIIJMIIIIMii
185

to the
charm of
his talk,
that the exterior

their
interior
of houses generally
matched
history
that there were
murderous ones,
;
broken-hearted ones, gay ones
that
some
were passionate, some sepulchral, some voluptuous, ay,
and some haunted even.
For he
averred, and quoted
many
a strange story in
support of his opinion, that there were more
haunted houses
in Paris
than
in
any other
town
in
Europe.
Several of them he had
inhabited himself.
And
the recent events in
the house on the Quai Voltaire would have
him with delight. I make no doubt whatever he would have liked to live there. But it was especially when we reached the Boulevard Montmartre " l'heure de l'absinthe," that Villiers became my most invaluable guide and cicerone. All that population of charlatans which swarms before the cafs, money-lenders, money-getters, and rogues sham litterateurs and sham artists jourfilled
nalists, venal, if
not already bought, scandalin
mongers, masters
stealers
the
art of blackmail,
of other men's ideas, well-dressed
blackguards, elegantly apparelled demi-mon-
i86
daines, swindlers, rastaquoueres, he
unmasked
in the
them
all
in short, sharp,
vengeful sentences,
burning with implacable scorn.

very bitterness of his
satire,
And
one
felt
how
these beasts of prey must have devoured his

flesh
and
his substance.
They meanwhile
pretended to respe6l, while hating and fearing

him.
They dreaded
those terrible sarcasms,
which the next day's papers would noise

abroad, as the galley-slave dreads the brand-
So they bowed themselves down before him, and as soon as he was past they stabbed him in the back. After these walks, Villiers often came and
ing iron.
shared the simple dinner which
my
Breton
cook used to prepare
for
me
and
this
made
a change for him from the indescribable and
poisonous eating-house stews on which he
was in the habit of feeding. There were two things besides the fa6l of our friendship which had the precious gift of
retaining
Villiers
:
in
my
house during the
evening hours
my
balcony, and an excellent
piano by Pleyel, which was the chief adorn-
ment of the
little
sitting-room.
PIMIIIIIIIIIIimillinillllMIMIIIIIIimillllllllllllllllllllMIHIIIIMh
187
On
much
soft
clear nights
we used
to
spend
of our time leaning over the balcony,
smoking
and letting our dreamy thoughts, grave or gay, wander across

almost
silently,
the great tumultuous-looking sea
of roofs,
to lose
whose dark, motionless waves seemed

themselves in the mists of the horizon.
Now
and then
erel
Villiers
would draw himself up,
and stretching out his white hand, as though to claim the attention
and very
pale,
of the night, he would recite in a ringing
some passage out of whatever work he might be engaged upon. His memory was so good that he knew by heart almost everything he had ever written. In such surroundings the effel was profoundly impressive. High over our heads the twinkling stars; at our feet the huge city, its continuous roar
voice
rising towards us
;
while from the lips of the

fell
poet the harmoniously balanced periods

in even,
eloquent flow,
clear,
sonorous, and
strangely melodious.
self
He
would work him-
up
at the
sound of
his
own
voice, and,
his eyes fixed in a sort of ecstasy
gestures raised to
and his God, he seemed no longer
88
to belong to earth.
with admiration.
ceased to speak,
it
And I listened, dumb And when at last he seemed to me that a lamp

that the world
Villiers
had suddenly gone out, and was darkened around me.

recited to
thus
me
all
I
the finest passages of "

vividly
L'Eve
state
Future," and
remember the
we were both put by the chapter headed "The Puppet addresses

of wild delight into which
the Night."
We would re-enter the drawingVilliers,

still
room, and
shivering with the
excitement of inspiration, would rush to the

piano,
and, striking
some powerful
full
chords,
would begin with the

voice the
the
first
strength of his
magnificent choral invocation in

"
a6l of " Lohengrin "
Dieu du
to music,
Ciel en qui
f ai foi !
"
If Villiers
had applied himself
instead of choosing literature as his profession,

I
believe he might have been as remarkable
and original a composer as he was a writer. Music is, of all the arts, the one which requires the greatest number of innate and,
^
In the
final
edition
this
chapter bears
the
title
"God."
mtlllllMIIMIIMIIHIMIMIIMnHIIMIIIIIII
189
SO to speak, instin6live qualities, and these

natural gifts he possessed to an extraordinary-
degree.
feeling for
ear,
his
his earliest youth he had a rhythm and time, a correlness of and a musical memory, which astonished teachers. Yet he was never a good
From
pupil,
because in
this,
as in everything else,
he loathed routine, and would not submit to

a
humdrum
daily
task.
But,
though
he
journeyed into the domain of

qualities as
thither,
literature, his
a gifted musician followed him

his
and
very prose
life
is
musical.
In the course of his
he composed or
of
improvised
melodies,
goodly
number
strange
unfor-
songs,
melopia,
which
colledled.
tunately have never been

best known, which
all his
The
re-
friends
I
have heard
him
sing,
and
to
which
have already
ferred,
interprets that wonderful

:
poem by
Charles Baudelaire
Nous aurons des lits pleins d'odeurs lgres, Des divans profonds comme des tombeaux.
Our beds shall be scented with sweetest perfume, Our divans be as cool and as dark as the tomb.
igo
I
remember two other compositions of his on lines by the author of the " Fleurs du Mal." One, " Le Vin de l'Assassin," is the
song of a man who has
killed his wife,
and
every verse ends with this exclamation by

the murderer, to which the music gives an
unspeakable and indescribable horror

l'oublierai
'*
:
si
je
le
puis."
Je
*'
will
forget
entitled
her!
if
can!"
(**
In
the
other,
"),
"Recueillement"
Meditation
he had which he
obtained a striking effel with the lingering
and mysterious accompaniment

had
set
to
that beautiful line
"
Entends,
ma
"
!
chre, entends la douce
nuit qui
marche
" List, oh,
my
dear
list
to the night's soft
step!"
I
remember,
too,
though somewhat vaguely,
some warlike
Villiers
ironico-popular songs
which
used to declaim with incomparable
power.
in
He
had composed them
in
1870,
collaboration with
some other
artists in
the same corps of francs-tireurs,
to while
;
away
the long night-watches of the siege
so that the noise of the Prussian artillery,
answering our own, was their
first
accompani-
uiiiuuuiHiMiMiiiiiiiiiiiuii:!:
iiiiiiiMimimiimmiiiiiiiMiiiiiniiiiimmiiiwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
niMiiiiiiiMmiiiiiiiiiiniiiiir

ment.
If
I
191
add to these short-lived works a sort of comic opera, which never had a definite title, but whose chief and veryludicrous charalers were a king, Paf, and
his
prime minister, Toe, and the chief joke
in
which was a serenade beginning with the
words
Si
ma
prire criminelle
les
Pouvait toucher
If then
dieux retors
my
criminal appeal
for once, the wily
Should touch,
gods
^Bl
the
to the
shall, I
list
think,
have pretty well exhausted

in
of the poet's compositions
the
lighter class of music.
more
serious
He was no stranger style. He carried in his

scores,
for
head
(I
do not believe he ever noted down

life)
an air in his
choruses,
scenery,
two complete opera

and
orchestration,
dire6lions
etc., etc., etc.
One was composed on

"
the subje6l of the
Esmeralda" of Vi6lor Hugo, so murderously handled by Mdlle. Bertin, the other on the
"
Prometheus Unbound
"
of ^schylus, put
into verse
by
my
father.
Those few
privi-
192
leged persons who, like myself, had the good

luck to hear Villiers interpret the principal
scenes of these two operas on

will, I
the piano,
in declaring
am
sure, willingly join
me
that he affeled
most unexpe6led manner, and revealed, rising above numerous
them
in a
gross faults and signs of musical inexperience,
many a
flash of
genius and beauties of the
highest order.
slightest artistic
Anybody
susceptible of the
emotion could hardly help

brilliant intro-
being
stirred,
when, after a
du6lion, in which the tinkling of glasses, the

clash of swords, the whirl of the dance,
and
a
the shouts of the revellers were
all
cunningly
mingled
in
seeming disorder,
"
Villiers, in
strident beggar's voice, began the wild open-
ing chorus of his
Esmeralda."
Vive Clopin, Roi de Thune Vivent les gueux de Paris

!
Faisons nos coups
la
brune
Heure o tous les chats sont gris. Narguons Pape et bulle Dansons
!
Et
raillons
nous dans nos peaux
Qu'Avril mouille ou que Juin brle
La plume de nos chapeaux
uiimnmniiiiuii';
iHiiiiiiMimimMiimiMiiimiininiMiMiniiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinii'
193
Now
To
a merry health we bring
Paris beggars
and
their
king
!
Now we'll pradlise all our wiles On our sport old Bacchus smiles
Merry fingers dancing snap At Pope or bull, nor care a rap
!
Let April soak or June embrown The shabby plumes we've worn so long, We'll gaze on them without a frown,
And
turn our sorrows to a song
Laughing at your sorry plight, Shabby plumes we've worn so long Soaked by April's showers light, Burnt by June's relentless sun
!
Claude Frollo's
horror
air,
with an accompaniment
of Satanic laughter,
:
made one
shiver with
Eh
bien, oui
qu'importe
Le destin m'emporte, La main est trop forte,

Je cde sa
loi
!
Dmon
Si tu
qui m'enivres
livres.
Qu'voquent mes
Je
me la livres me livre toi

O
194

Reois sous ton
aile
!
Le
prtre infidle
L'enfer avec elle

C'est
mon
ciel
moi
For good then, or

'Tis Destiny's will
ill,
In
I
terrified
awe
law
!
bow
to
its
Friend raised in
my
heart
!
By
I'll
magic's black art
If thou grant her to me,
yield
me
to thee
Receive 'neath thy wing

This priest
full
of sin
All the heaven I desire

Is her kiss, in hell fire
!
Having accentuated
furious energy, Villiers
seat, in
this last phrase with
would spring from
his
an indescribable state of excitement,
raised
and walk up and down the room, his hands to heaven, and his eyes flashing,
:
repeating in every sort of tone

L'enfer avec elle
C'est
mon
ciel
moi
195
Very
audience
different
were the sensations of the
when
the poet, Hghtly touching the
notes with his deHcate hands, began the slow,
melancholy rhythm of the admirable chorus of

the Oceanides in the " Prometheus Unbound,"
with
its
arpeggio accompaniment like the beat-
ing of distant wings.
(Having calmed the paternal
fears)
Je t'aime, apaise ton effroi, Sur les vents aux rapides ailes
J'arrive
de loin jusqu'
toi.
peine ai-je entendu dans notre grotte obscure
Le marteau sur le fer, que mon cur s'est troubl. J'ai mont sur ce char ail Dans mon empressement oubliant ma chaussure,
Et
la
pudeur au sein
voil.
Oh, corps dessch sur

Oh, meurtrissures
et
la pierre
!
douleurs
Un
nuage effrayant de pleurs
S'appesantit sur
ma
paupire
I love thee
Prithee calm thy fear
The
fleet-winged winds have brought
me
!
here.
Hastening thy trembling heart to cheer
196

Scarce did I hear the
hammer
fall,
With
iron clang, in our dark grot,

terror-struck, forgetting all
Than
In
my
wild haste, and recking not with close-veiled breast-
Of modesty,
With
I sprang,
feet unsandalled,
bosom
bare,
obeying love's behest.

car,
Upon my
and clove the
air.
Oh, wasted body on the stones
Oh, cruel
bruises, bitterest pain

spirit groans,
My
sorrow-laden
And from my
eyes the teardrops rain
have said enough,
think, about the

I'lsle
compositions of Villiers de
Adam
to
make musicians
brier
regret that his friend Chapoet's
would never take seriously the
desire that he should endeavour to note
down
some of
But
of their
his beautiful inspirations in writing.
in all times musicians

art,
have been jealous and are loath to admit that an outfugue and counterpoint, can
to.
sider, ignorant of
do any work worth listening

rule they
As
a general
may be
right.
But
it is
Villiers
was an
exception to
all rules,
and
a pity that the

composer of
"
197
Gwendoline
"
did not recognize
that fal.
The
passion for melody used to

in
come upon
to
Villiers
regular crises, attacks of music
madness which lasted from a fortnight

three weeks.
lived for counterpoint.
for him,
During these periods he only
The
only great men,
were Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and

Everything he wrote referred to
Wagner.
music.
Everything he did had music for
its
end and aim.

his
Every piano he came across in nightly wanderings served him to express
his devotion to the art.
He
only associated
!
with musicians
and such musicians
Oh, ye
gods
My
evenings at
home were turned

which he was
into real splendid concerts, at
at
one and the same time conduior, orchestra,

soloist,
accompanist,
and
critic
As
a pianist
he was
fingering
singer,
far
from attaining perfelion
his
and time were both bad.

voice
As
his
;
was unsteady, and often

in
broke
but there was such fervour and fiery

his
enthusiasm and convi6lion
delivery
and declamation, that

felions
;
in spite of his imper-
it
was a deep delight
to listen to him.
198
It
VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM.'
was during one of these fits of music madness that he brought me a very odd couple of musicians, brother and sister Cor-
sicans, called,
think,
Olivetti.
The man
was a
sort of a thin sunburnt giant, with a
black stubbly beard, long negleled hair falling
over his shoulders, and the eyes of an incendiary.
My
Breton servant always locked

as
up the plate-box as soon
he
arrived.
He was
invariably dressed in velvet, brown,

;
ribbed velvet, very threadbare

scarf was rolled round
a huge red
his neck,
silk
and round
and
he wore a
head.
soft
grey
felt hat,
with an immense
brim, vi6loriously cocked on one side of his
Although a charming
pianist,
he was
of the
almost starving.
" Internationale,"
He was
member
and had been
in trouble
with
the Italian, Russian, and French police.
He
had also been compromised during the Commune, and was forced to hide and to live from
hand
to
mouth on a few ill-paid
lessons
and the
poor salary of an accompanist to the singers

in tenth-rate tea-gardens.
His
sister, Giulia,
;
a pretty soprano
was a handsome soft-eyed Italian she had voice and some musical

knowledge.
Villiers
199
made her
it
sing
Wagner,
which she hated, and

to see
and hear
his
was irresistibly funny bounds of rage, and angry

would persist in
airs.
shouts of indignation, when she
warbling her Italian
Fortune has smiled few months after

I
on the pretty Giulia.
made her acquaintance she

married a Chicago gentleman
a considerable pile of dollars
salting,
captivated and
who had made
and
selling pigs.
by cutting up, She now lives in
America.
her,
and
She took her brother there with have no doubt that he is not quite
such an energetic Socialist

in his pocket.
now he
has
money
Fortunately
did not
all
Villiers'
musical acquaintances
possess such a startlingly Bohe-
mian
flavour.
He owed
to
music a friend-
ship and an admiration which brightened the
whole of
his intellelual
life.
His intimacy
enjoyment to
with Richard
of consolation
Wagner was
and
not only a source
intellelual
him,
it
inspired
some of
finest
his noblest thoughts
and some of the
pages he ever wrote.
The example
of that marvellous
and mighty
to his
genius, insulted, opposed,
and scorned
200

without this flood of hatred and
latest hour,
injustice ever
faith in his
being able to break down his

prodigious powers, helped
own
Villiers to endure,
on
his part, the disdainful
smiles and indifference of his contemporaries,
strengthened him in his lofty disdain of those

well-beaten paths wherein mediocre
intelli-
gences gather their quickly-fading

fixed
laurels,
and and
him immovably
in his convilions
his artistic faith.
Though
in
my
relation of
I I
some
fals concerning this friendship
speak
can no
with veneration of Richard Wagner,
longer hope to receive any blows in the good

cause.
is
The
author of "Tristan and Isolt"
hallowed by fashion, and politicians no
longer dare to bring the ridiculous accusation of

lack of patriotism against his admirers.
But
twenty years ago, and

the correl thing to run
less, it
was considered
it
down Wagner's music

or not.
whether you were acquainted with
Nowadays no woman
self
of fashion thinks herfall
complete
if
she does not

in "
into ecstasies
over the right places

"
Lohengrin" and
Tannhauser."
Every
self-respe6ling pianist
thumps the master's
overtures,
and
all
our
i
young

girls
20I
study Eisa, and try to ape her
drooping and mystic postures.

of yesterday
is
The
!
outcast
the idol of to-day
Well,
God
be praised
It is
but the
way
of the world.
CHAPTER
First introdution of
XIII.
Villiers at the
Wagner and
in
house of
at
Failure of "Tannhauser" the Paris Opera 1861 Portrait and chara6ler of Richard Wagner His friends and champions His intimacy with Reminiscences of youth and early poverty Augusta Holmes
Charles
Baudelaire
Villiers
his
Villiers' visit
to
Triebchen The"Rheingold"
artistic
at
Munich Villiers
faith.
de risle Adam's
confession of
T was, as I think
at the
have already said,

in 1861,
first
house of Baudelaire
that Villiers de I'lsle
Adam
met Richard Wagner. This meeting marks the date of what was, perhaps, the
bitterest
moment
in the
stormy
life
of the
great composer.
He
secretly nursed a ran-
corous
memory
of these sufferings, and, after
the war, his unworthy and undignified abuse

of Paris betrayed
the feeling.
By
dint of
203
hard work and patience, combined with his

genius, he
had forced Germany to receive

in his genera-
and recognize him as a master

tion.
But he was determined to have the

also,
approval of Paris
hauser
" to the
and
offered "
Tann-
Imperial
Academy
of Music.
The
to
history of his failure, complete, crushing,

is
almost unique in theatrical history,

all.
known
in-
Wagner's was one of those strange

which nobody could be
he must rouse either blind admira-
individualities to
different
;
tion or violent hatred,
and he roused,
alas
more hatred than devotion. The chorus of evil-speaking, abuse, and scorn, which rose
from every side after the performance of his
work
other
in Paris,
;
would have broken down any

others, the great
man but, unlike most German master was never

in
so
much
It
in
his
element as
a desperate
fight.
seemed to
endow him with

scorn,
fresh strength
and redoubled
to each torrent
and he generally replied
of abuse by
some proud
defiance thrown in
the teeth of the tastes, the conventionality,

the prejudices, and the jealousies of the day.
At
this
moment,
then,
when Wagner was
204

all
shining with
the light of his indomitable
determination, Villiers,
as he was,
young and
enthusiastic
met him
for the first time.
This
interview never faded from his recolle6lion.
Richard Wagner, with his high, remarkable

forehead, almost terrifying in
his
its
development,
steady,
deep blue eyes, with
their slow,
magnetic glance, his

features,
thin,
strongly-marked
changing from one shade of pallor
to another, his imperious-looking
hooked nose,
ironical
his delicate,- thin-lipped, unsatisfied,
mouth, his exceedingly strong proje6ling and

pointed chin, seemed to the poet like the
archangel of celestial combat.

side, in those
And
on his
hours of bitterness, the soul of
the great musician must have been strongly
drawn towards those few

in spite
selel spirits,
who,
of adverse clamour, boldly took up
his quarrel
and defended and admired him. His strong friendship with Catulle Mends, Baudelaire, Villiers, and a few others, dated from this epoch but similarity of tastes, and a
;
way
and
of looking at dreams and reality,
men
things, identical with the other's, specially
attraled the
young poet and the already

grey-haired
205
musician
besides,
towards
each
other.
They
were,
united by a
common
about,
passion for midnight walks.
Wandering
careless of weather, hour, or locality, through
the mysterious sleeping streets of Paris, the
two friends seldom separated before the dawn. Once, as they went down a long dreary street
which ends
the
at the
Quai Saint Eustache, Wag-
ner suddenly pointed, with a tragic gesture, to
window
of a garret at the very top of a
high house.
despaired
;
There
there
it
was
had
that he
had
really
he
almost
died
of
hunger, had meditated suicide, and there, too,

in the
midst of the blackest poverty, he had
written one of his most powerful
and poetic
French
his
works.
stuffed
He
with
told
Villiers,
in
that
Teutonisms which
all
made
conversation so odd-sounding,
the extra:
ordinary adventures of his youth in Paris
how,
towards
1839,
left
impelled
in
by
destiny,
he suddenly
Riga,
the
theatre
of
which town he condu6led the orchestra, and embarked on a sailing-ship which was going to
London, intending
fearful
go thence to Paris. A storm wrecked the vessel on the Norto
2o6

;
wegian coast but Wagner did not lose courage,
and reached the end of his journey. Almost unknown as he was, and in a most precarious
pecuniary position, he saw the doors of the
Parisian theatres scornfully shut in his face.
Spurred by necessity, he tried to write ballads

for the concerts, but, alas
!
he was not the

hidden
lair,
man
to write
French romances, and
his efforts only

in that
aroused derision.
To
be
brief,
garret, like a fox buried in his
penniless,
starving, he was meditating suicide,
when
musical publisher came and proposed to him

to arrange
some
operatic airs for the cornet
piston; and so the cornet piston was the
instrument of Richard Wagner's salvation
Living with the utmost economy, he contrived,
by the end of a year of unexampled
privation, to get together the necessary

for hiring a piano.
" I
sum
ran
trembled in every
limb," he said to Villiers, "
when
first
my fingers over the keys, but I soon found, to my exquisite joy, that I was still a musician." And now the muse of inspiration poured
out upon him the fulness of her riches.
The
memory
of the shipwreck in which he had so
Il

lately shared, of the sea as
207
it
he had seen
under the awful flashes of the tempest, the
deep
fiords,
the bluff promontories, haunted

;
his imagination
then suddenly he saw, flying
across the foggy Scandinavian sea swift as an
arrow, illuminated by a dazzling lightning flash,
the dreary ship of that legendary hero, "
The
Flying Dutchman."
And
in the bare, cold,
Parisian garret, Richard
Wagner,
indifferent
now
to all physical suffering, alone with his
genius,
and with
*'
his shabby, hired piano,
com-
posed and wrote that splendid

he christened
But
ing
if I
lyric poem which Der Fliegende Hollander." was to give way to the temptation
all Villiers'
of recalling
his
conversations concernfriend,
great and
musically-gifted
another volume would have to be grafted on

to
this
one of
my
recolle6lions of himself.
"
Never, indeed, was the author of
Axel
"
more eloquent, and indeed prolix, than when his theme was Richard Wagner. One felt
that a part of the soul of the master
literally
had
and when he paraphrased in words some one of his works, he gave you, so to speak, an illusion of music.
entered
his
;
2o8
Mends has dedicated to the glory of the German maestro, he relates that Villiers had written down one
In the fine book which Catulle
of these paraphrases,
I
think the one of the

I
prelude to
"
Lohengrin."
do not think it has
ever been published

to "
have never been able
come upon it. If the former direlor of the Revue Fantaisiste " has the work of his late
in his possession,
it,
comrade
all
and can be induced
to publish
he
will
deserve the gratitude of
lovers of literature.
Such was Villiers' passionate cultus for Wagner, that, in spite of all his poverty, I
might say penury, he would contrive to make
long journeys into Switzerland and
in
Germany
order to enjoy the company, the conversa-
and the music of the author of " Tristan and Isolt." During one of these distant extion,
came upon a young girl whom he had already met in Paris, and whose splendid talents, now well known and uncontested, he had been among
peditions to Triebchen, near Lucerne, he
the
first
to recognize
and applaud
refer to
Mdlle. Augusta Holmes.
Villiers
was en-
raptured at once with this young and beautiful

artist,
209
fire,
admirably
gifted, filled
sacrifice
with sacred
ready to make any
on the
altar of art,
and making
light, in
her sturdy confidence, of
the thousand obstacles which bar a woman's
entrance into the road to glory.
Long
after-
wards, in 1885, the great writer, in a charming

article,
written
in
an enthusiastic and
his
stirring strain,
detailed
recollelions of
young musician. I I must premise quote two passages from it. that Villiers saw her for the first time at
his intercourse with the
Versailles,
in the
house of her
father,
Mr.
Dalkeith Holmes, in the

the grain, by
Rue de
l'Orangerie,
whither he had been carried off rather against
M. Camille Saint Saens, who

:
was
"
his
companion that day
That evening, we heard some
oriental
melodies, the earliest musical thoughts of the

future authoress of 'Les Argonautes,' 'Lutce,'
'
relande,'
and 'Pologne,' and which seemed

be already almost free from the
to
me
"
to
conventionalities of the old style of music.
Augusta Holmes had one of those

which can adapt
itself to
in-
telligent voices
any
register
and indicate the most
delicate shades
2IO

I
of a musical work.
to mistrust those
am
generally inclined
cleverly-managed organs,
which often
initiated
(to
the appreciation of an un-
audience) immensely heighten the
value of a commonplace composition.

in this case the air
But
accent,
was worthy of the

*
and
'
was enchanted with the Sirne,' the Chanson du Chamelier,' and the Pays
I
'
des
Rves,'
not
to
mention
the
Hymne
inter-
Irlandais,'
which the young composer

that
preted
so
pine-encircled
glades
and
It
distant heaths rose before our mind's eye.
was altogether a bright spot, musically speaking, pointing to an inevitably brilliant future. The evening ended with some passages from Wagner's Lohengrin,' lately published in
'
France, and to which Saint Saens introduced

us.
The young composer was

new
'
passionately
smitten with the
music, and her admira-
tion for the author of
Tristan and Isolt' has
never since belied
itself."
Here
is
:
the account of the meeting at

"
Triebchen
Two
months before the Ger-
met Mdlle. Holmes at Triebchen, near Lucerne, in Richard Wagner's own

I
man war

house
;
211
her father having,
in spite of his
great
age, decided to take the journey to

in
Munich,
order that the young composer might hear

first
the
part of the
Httle
!
NibelungenHed.'
"'A
less
'
sentiment for
my
wishes,
mademoiselle
said
Wagner,
the
of
after
he had
listened to her
with
clear-sighted
*I
and
prophetic
attention
genius.
do not
want
to be, to a creative genius like yours,

stifles all
the manchineel-tree whose shadow the birds that
come within
'
it.
word of
espe-
advice
Do
not belong to any school
cially not to
"
mine
Richard
Wagner did
at
not wish the Rhein'
gold' to be played
Munich.
Although
the score had been published, he obje6led to
the work being seen apart from the three

other portions of the
'
Nibelungenlied.'
His
four
great dream, ultimately realized at Bayreuth,
was
to
give a
representation
this,
lasting
successive evenings, of
the great
his
of his
life.
But the impatience of
work young
'
and
fanatical admirer, the

all
King
'
of Bavaria,
had broken
bounds, and the

*
Rheingold
was
to
be played by
royal
command.'
Wag-
212
ner,
who had
refused
all
participation
and
all
assistance, anxious
in
and saddened by the way

his great masterpiece
which the unity of
was about to be destroyed, had forbidden any friend of his to attend the performance.
And many
to
musicians and
men
of letters,
travelled
amongst them myself, who had twice
Germany to hear the master's music, hardly knew whether to obey his distressing
upon anybody who counas
injunlion or not. *" I shall look
tenances
that
massacre,
my
personal
enemy,' he said to us.

" Mdlle.
Holmes, although driven into sub!
mission by the threat, was reduced to despair

"
However, the
Richter,
letter
of
Kapellmeister
the
re-
Hans
who was conducing
orchestra at
Munich, having somewhat
assured Wagner, his resentment against the

passionate zealots of his music softened, and
we took advantage
to depart, almost
"
I
of the momentary calm

sly.
I
on the
have before
me
as
write a letter, and
rather a bitter
one,
which Wagner wrote

in
me
to Munich, and
which he
says,
'So

you have gone with your friends to see
people can toy with a serious work
well
!
213
how
!
well
count on some inexterminable pasit,
sages in
to atone
for
'
!
much
that might
appear incomprehensible
"
The
'
predi6lions of the master were

brilliant
falsi-
fied
by the
triumph of the
opera
Rhein-
gold
a triumph more foreseen than alually

for
this
is
apparent,
telligible
only fully
in-
when seen
it
in conjun6lion with the

*
three other portions of the
Nibelungenlied,'
of which
is
the key.
All his adherents
were present
his threats
at the performance, in spite of
and
prohibitions,
and
first
seeing that night, in

visitors' gallery,
the
remember row of the

I
Mdlle. Holmes, sitting next
to the
Abb
Liszt,
and following the renderorchestral score-
ing of
the opera in the
book belonging
to the illustrious
musician"
("Vie Moderne," Paris, 1885).

first
was one of the to hurry to Bayreuth in 1876, when, thanks to the sumptuous munifiI
Need
add that
Villiers
Frenchmen
cence of the King of Bavaria, Richard

ner was able at
last to realize his
Wag-
great dream.
214
I
VILLIERS DE UISLE ADAM.

should like to close this veracious chro-
nicle of the fraternal relations
which existed
between the great German master and the

great French thinker, by quoting a page or
two written by
nevertheless
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam, which,
would
though almost unknown

be
to scholars,
in
worthy
every way to
become the
works.
fitting
preface of his colle6led
Villiers, in
a purely imaginary con-
mouth of the beloved master, has summed up all his own artistic and religious convi6lions. When we consider how hard and miserable was the life of him who poured out his soul
versation, put into the
and
read
"
his conscience in this magnificent con-
fession
it
of an
artist's
faith,
we can
hardly
without deep emotion.

twilight evening
One
we were
sitting in
the darkening
room looking over the garden,
the rare words
we
interchanged, with long
spaces of silence between them, scarcely disturbing our pleasing

meditations,
when
asked Wagner, without useless perambulation,
whether
it
was, so to speak, artificially
(by dint of science and intelle6lual power).

that he
*
215
had succeeded
'
in investing his works,

*
Rienzi,'
Tannhauser,'
Lohengrin,'
'
The
'
Flying Dutchman,' even the
Meistersinger
and
Parsifal,'
over which he was already
brooding, with that strongly mystic quality
which emanates from them

in short,
all ?
Whether,
he had been
sufficiently freethinking
and independent of conscience to be no more

of a Christian than the subje6l of these lyric
dramas demanded of him and, finally,whether

;
he looked at Christianity in the same light

as
that
in
which he viewed those Scandithe symbolism of which he
navian myths,
had so magnificently illustrated in the NibeThis question was almost lungen Ring.
by something which had struck me very much in one of his principal

authorized, indeed,
operas,
'
Tristan
and
Isolt,'
viz.,
that
in
that work, in
which the most intense pasis
sionate
love
scornfully ascribed
to
the
influence of a love philtre, the

is
name of God
never mentioned a single time.

" I shall
always remember the look
Wagsmile,
ner fixed on
me
*
out of the depths of his
wonderful eyes.
Why,' he said with a
2i6
*

I
if
did
not feel
in
my
my
in
inmost soul the

faith
all
living light
and love of that Christian

and
which
of which
you speak,
it,
works, which
I
bear witness to
corporated
the whole
all
have
in-
my mental powers, as well as of my lifetime, would be the works

!
of a
liar,
of an ape
to
How
I
could
be childish
a frenzy
to
;
enough
work myself up
?
into
about what at bottom
should
know
prayer
be
an imposture
My
art is
my
and,
believe me, no true artist can sing otherwise
than as he believes, speak but of what he

loves,
write
otherwise than as he
betray
it
thinks.
Those who
thenceforth
for
lie,
in their
work, which
valueless,
becomes
sterile
and
no true work of
art can
be accomplished
without disinterestedness and sincerity.

"
'
Yes he who
!
for the sake of
some low
tries to
interests, for success, or for
money,
make a
of
art,
fi6litious faith stir in
a so-called work
betrays himself, and only brings forth
a corpse.
the
Should such a
traitor
pronounce
name
of God, not only does that
not signify to the listener
name what he who promean, but being,
nounces
it
would have
it
i
as
it it is,

a word, and therefore a living thing,
gives,
by
his
supreme profanation, the He

it.
to
him who
utters
No human
being can
be deceived by such a device, and the author

of
it
can only be valued at his proper worth

his
by those of his want of

selves.
"
is
*
own
genus,
who
recognize in
truth that
which they are them-
The
first
sign that
marks the
real artist
faith
;
a burning, precise, sacred, unalterable
for in
every
artistic
produlion worthy of
human
being, the artistic value
and the
living value are blended together, in the dual
unity of the
body and the

faith
soul.
The work
always lack
fills,
of a
man
without
artist,
can never be the

it
work of an
warms, and
be
like
because
will
that living flame which raises, enraptures,

fortifies
the soul.
It will
life
always
a corpse, galvanized into

machine.
by some
be
trivial
At
the
same time
let this
clearly understood:
if,
on the one hand. Know-
ledge alone can only produce clever amateurs,

great inventors of " methods," of
alion, of expressions,
modes of
consum-
more or
less
mately
skilful
in
the
manufa6lure of their
2i8
mosaics, and also shameless plagiarists, who,

to
put one
off
the scent,
will
assimilate
millions of incongruous sparks of intelligence,
which lose their brightness when they

minds,
re-
appear out of the tinselled emptiness of such
on
the other hand, Faith alone can
only produce and give vent to those sublime

cries of the soul which, because they cannot
p7'operly formulate themselves, appear, alas
to the vulgar, to be but incoherent clamour.
The true
together,
artist,
he who can
gifts
create,
and put
needs
united.
and transfigure
great
Faith.
his
ideas,
these two
indissolubly
Knowledge and
As
for myself, since
you ask me, above all things I am a Christian,
and the accents which touch you
in
"
my work
owe
their inspiration to that alone.'
CHAPTER
le
XIV.
marquis and the marquise

ness
contributions the press The La Rpublique des Lettres Catulle Mends K. Huysmans The Contes Cruels" Two quotations of high His A study by M. G. Guiches a and a mimic Some unpublished of Dr. Triboulat Bonhomet Bonhomet the commander-inchief Bonhomet the ermine-hunter Bonhomet the of the Scriptures Bonhomet's true adventures opinions of Bayreuth The de Adam An unexpeled A rupture.
the marquis " Figaro "
Villiers'
A monomania
'*
Villiers'
filial
tender-
for speculation
letter
from
to
"
*'
J.
Villiers'
spirits
loss
illusion
Villiers as
traits
talker
ful-
filling
letter
at
political
Vil-
liers
risle
toast
EANWHILE,
lost in
a poor and
leading
of privaold lady-
remote quarter of
a lonely existence
tion
Paris,
made up
a
frail
and
sacrifices,
lived on, supported
and consoled by her great

Yes, the old marquis
in
love for her Matthias.
and marquise were
still
the land of the
220
living.

Poverty, age, and suffering, cold and
hunger,
had not succeeded
in
putting out
I
their feeble lamp.

said,
The
marquise, as
have
only lived for and in her son, and she

trials,
bravely endured the cruellest buckler against

all
all ills
finding her
in
and her consolation
her sorrows in the worship and tenderness
of her boy.
son
he
Villiers was more than a good was an admirable son. I think he

all
poured out
the treasures of tenderness

in that great heart of his
which were garnered
upon
his
mother.
especially
When
of
he spoke of his
(he
parents,
her
never
did
mention them except to
his closest intimates,
and those gentlemen of the boulevards never heard him profane the sacred name of father
or of mother in their company), the tears
would come
off to the
into his eyes.

in
The moment
his
pen brought him
any money, he would tear

the old
Avenue Malakoff (where
people inhabited two modest rooms), to share

his
earnings with them, and would return

face.
from such expeditions with a radiant
Nevertheless, the marquis used to cause him
some considerable
trouble.
Time,
far
from
221
calming the old nobleman's mania for speculation,
had only
intensified
it.
Age and
alivity,
till
infir-
mity had not diminished his
and he
walked the
streets
from morning
night on
the look-out for wonderful opportunities.
Nohe
body, luckily, paid him
much
attention, but
would
try to insist
on whirling Matthias
he used
away
with him, and making him share in the execution of the extraordinary plans
to pro-
pound
daily.
Hence
arose occasional and

in a hearty
lively discussions,
which ended
part,
laugh on
Villiers'
and the indignant
retirement of his father,

" Well, in spite of all
will
who would
exclaim,
"
!
your talent, Matthias, you
never be anything but an empty dream

old marquis kept his dreams
The
and visions
year of his
letter,
as long as he lived.
The very
death he wrote his son the following
which depi6ls the extraordinary

astonishing visionary's
longest psychological study
state of this
mind better than the

:
" 2\thjuly, 1883.
"My
"
dear Matthias,
We
desire to
make known our good
22

I
fortune to you.
hereby introduce to you,

is
Mr.
who
at
this
moment
the
possessor of 25,000 francs, and who, at this
time of writing, owns a well-furnished dining-
room, and
tion
who
is
about to furnish his recepsatin curtains
rooms with splendid pink

I
(which
have had
he
in
my
and
hands), also a
good
piano, a superior sofa,
furniture to match.
Besides
place,
this,
will
have a beautiful country

residence
fields,
with
a magnificent feudal
with turrets, a park,

vineyards,
meadows, and
of
forest,
and
several
leagues
wherein
we
shall
be able to exercise our
prowess as sportsmen.
(in
And we
shall
own
a perfe6lly regular manner) some mines,

I
the riches of which
expert you to help
me to
work, with our
own capital. "Your father,
"Joseph de Villiers de l'Isle Adam."

This period of
Villiers'
life,
although the
necessary investigations for the writing of
"L'Eve Future" absorbed him very much, was

exceedingly produ6live, and his literary notoriety enabled
him
to place his
copy very
easily.
223
He
contributed tales to several daily papers

literary
which piqued themselves on their

columns.
The
" Figaro," which, to its
honour
be
it
said,
always liked and appreciated him,
used to receive his work with deference.

his
But
to a
most alive collaboration was given

"
new magazine,
La Rpublique des
artistic to
Lettres,"
a publication too purely
have any
chance of longevity
century.
in
this
matter- of- fa6l
In the office of the " Rpublique
des Lettres " he found

his earlier days,
many of the friends of who had rallied round the

"
former direlor of the

Catulle Mends.
Revue
Fantaisiste,"
artists
Like himself these

in the
were
all
growing old and grey

life
heavy
but
harness of
and thought.
All of them had

all
lost the greater part of their illusions,
had preserved
intal their sacred
and coura-
geous love of the ideal and the

their indignant horror of
and empty platitudes. To this well-trained phalanx some youthful spirits had joined themselves, and here De
beautiful,
risle
Adam
laid the foundation of his friend-
ship with a
talent, J.
young
writer of special
and
original
K. Huysmans.
This acquaintance
224

to ripen,
was
tender,
some years manly affe6lion.
later,
into a deep,
Providence
had
marked out the now justly celebrated author "A Rebours," and so many other deep and clever works, to soften by his presence and his delicate strong-heartedness the cruel
of
death-agony of the poet.
shall return later
to the subje6l of this intimacy.

Villiers also
busied himself with
colle6l-
ing his scattered tales into a volume called

"
Contes Cruels," which, published the following

as
year by Calmann Levy, set the seal upon his

reputation
better
a great
artist.
This
work,
perhaps than any other, shows the
author's complex, original,

talent.
plified in
His symbolism
"
is
and many-sided magnificently exem-
such pieces of writing as " Impatience
de la Foule
and
"
Vox
Populi "his mysticism

;
shines brilliantly in
"Vera;"
his
deep and
produces
bitter sense of philosophical raillery
those strangely attra6live, almost prophetic

tales,
"
La Machine
L'Etna chez
Gloire," " L'Affichage

soi," to
Cleste," "
which
last
the
recent anarchical struggles in Paris give a

striking reality.
And
in those brilliant
pages

of
**
225
L'Annonciateur," which even one fresh

"
from the perusal of Gustave Flaubert's

rodias
tion,
Hemust needs read with profound emo"

all
the poet and the idealist pours forth
the overflowing wealth of his imagination.

It
was concerning
:
"
L'Annonciateur
I
"
that
its
author wrote
" If
think great thoughts,

I
people will say that what

ture
;
write
is
fine litera-
yet
it is
but the clear expression of

all
;
my
thought, and not literature at
for that has
no real existence, beyond being the clear expression of what

I
think."
He
has elsewhere described his
own
idio-
syncrasy, and his destiny as an artist and a

thinker, in these remarkable
bolic terms
:
and sadly sym-
"
Alas
we
are like
some mighty
crystal vase of Eastern story, filled with the
pure essence of dead roses, and hermetically
enveloped
in a triple
covering of wax, of gold,
and of parchment.
One
single drop of the
essence thus preserved within the precious
urn (the fortune of a whole race, handed
down by
to
inheritance
as
a sacred
charge,
hallowed by the ancestral blessings), suffices
perfume many vessels of pure water, which
2 26
in their turn will
embalm
the air of the

set, for
tomb
or dwelling wherein they are

year.
But (and herein
lies
our crime)
filled
many a we do
not resemble those other jars
with com-
moner perfume, scentless and melancholy phials not worth reclosing, whose virtue weakens and melts away under every passing breath." It would be wrong to imagine Villiers as a splenetic and silent person in everyday life, notwithstanding the bitterness of his irony and his immense range of thought. He was gifted,
on the contrary, with a robust cheerfulness,
never more
of his
Paris
apparent
than
when he was
rein,
struggling with difficulty.

life,
In the early days

in all
he had given
itself in his
companies, to that enjoyment of the fadl of

living
which expressed
case
by an
overflow of wit and humour.

perceived, alas
!
But he soon
that the raptures of his audi-
ence were not disinterested.

literary
When
I'lsle
these
good
fellows
saw
De
out
Adam
note-
coming, they
would get
their
books, and his sayings, his ideas for stories,

his
colle6led
humorous fancies, were all carefully by these skimmers of the literary

pot.
227
So
that the poor poet, opening a news-
paper or magazine at random, would find his
own
ideas and creations shamefully travestied
and mutilated, and impudently signed with names which bore no resemblance to his
own.
These underhand
thefts,
and many another
mean
treachery, poisoned a naturally sincere
and simple nature.
M. G. Guiches has very
happily reproduced the change which took

place in the poet's heart, alually affeling
even
in the
"
his physical appearance, in a
remark-
able study of Villiers de I'lsle
Adam, published
this
When
"Nouvelle Revue," May, 1890. he at last became aware of
pilfering," says
M. Guiches,
"
when he under-
stood the interested objel of the raptures
which used to encourage his ready tongue,

there was a sudden realion within him.
soul,
His
naturally as
itself,
open as the day, shrank

ingenuousness intrenched
within
itself
his
behind a distrust as excessive as his
simplicity
had once been.
His speech grew
hesitating, shorn of its
former frank uncon-
strainedness.
Sudden
flashes of suspicion filled

2 28

sudden shyness.
;
his eyes with
His hand was
no longer outstretched
disenchantment."
it
waited yours, and
was only offered with the indolence bred of

But when
vard,
far
Villiers
was
far
from the bouleliterary

in
from professional
men,
when he was warmed and revived
an atmo-
sphere of sincere friendship and admiration,
he became himself again, and his dazzling

gaiety poured itself forth in
all
sorts of un-
expe6led conceits.
It
was
like
a perpetual
show of
and
fireworks,
and the supply of squibs

lights
crackers,
Bengal
and
Roman
candles, used to
seem
inexhaustible.
was not only a good story-teller, he could mimic like a great and original alor,
and he thus gave the innumerable personages created by his imagination an air of genuine,
if
He
often
fantastic
reality,
simulating, as
he
would, their looks and voices, their gestures
and
their attitudes.
Amongst
if
all
these crea-
tions,
which seem as
they belong to the
dreams of Hoffman, Edgar Poe, or Dean

Swift, Villiers' favourite
was always the
illuslittle
trious Triboulat Bonhomet, " the son of

Dr.
229
Amour Bonhomet, who had

in the coal mines."
adventures
down
During many a dehghtful evening, and
in
the course of those long midnight rambles
through Paris which used to pass so quickly
away
in his
company,
have witnessed many
of the metamorphoses of that remarkable and

scientific individual.
For Bonhomet, accord-
ing to his creator's notion, was, while always
continuing the archetype of his century, to
be reincarnated
occupy.
in
every position a
man
could
He was
and
to be, turn about, professor,
minister of state, police agent, philosopher,

explorer,
lefturer.
I
remember some of
these transmigrations, which were never published,

Villiers
having been prevented by

a General Bonhomet,
death from putting them into circulation.

First of
all,
there
is
commanding-inchief,
who
harangues
his
troops before the battle.
He
points out to
them
that the idea of glory
quite out of date, and calls
and patriotism is upon them to court
death in defence of agriculture, manufa6lures,
and commerce, the three sources of the prosperity of France.

" Soldiers
!
let
us have no
230

for hollow
more empty enthusiasm

ploded Utopias
!
and ex-
Fight, conquer, and die for

"
!
the safety of our railway system
Then, as a pendant to Bonhomet the slayer

of swans, there was Bonhomet the erminehunter, who, having read that one of these
immaculate creatures dies as soon as a stain
snowy whiteness, hides himself with a wonderful silent gun, charged with ink, and
marks
its
thus exterminates several dozen
But the boldest conception of all
is,
perhaps,
Bonhomet
After a
the religious man.

visit to
Patmos, the details of which
beggar
to
fulfil
all
description, the do6lor determines
the letter of the Scriptures, " that there
shall not
remain of Jerusalem one stone upon
another."
And having observed, as he passed

walls,
through the holy places, that arches,

houses were
still
and
standing, he returns to Jeru-
salem, accompanied by a contra6lor and an
army of workmen,
prophecy to the
its
to accomplish the scriptural
letter,
I
and leave no stone upon

final farewell
neighbour
must not bid a
to the do6lor without detailing an authentic
but
little
known
anecdote, in which he plays

the chief part.
Villiers
231
During the autumn of 1879,
de
I'lsle
Adam,
together with Judith
Gautier,
Catulle
Mends, and many other

assist
musical adepts, had gone to Bayreuth to see

the
divine
Wagner, and
of
at the per-
formance
"Parsifal"
and
the
"
Nibeall
lungenlied."
The
great master,
who was
powerful at the Bavarian Court, presented

Villiers to
the king and his august guests,
among whom was that Grand Duke who is now Czar of all the Russias. Wagner had talked so often about Triboulat Bonhomet
that, willy nilly,
the poet had to agree to give
a reading from his works.
For
this
purpose
the whole court was assembled.
From
stifled
the outset there was a
murmur of
laughter and a rustle of unfurling fans.
As
the reading proceeded, the gaiety of the
audience increased, growing quite noisy, and
unchecked by the presence of the king, who,

for that matter, laughed louder than the rest.
Villiers
was much astonished, and a

enough that
side,
little
un-
easy even, at this extraordinary
hilarity.
He
knew
well
his
Bonhomet had a
very comic
but he never expe6ted to
232

merriment among per-
raise such a gust of
sonages so grave and important.

reader ceased and cast a glance,
suspicion,
At
full
last the
tempest of laughter rose so high that the

of vague
round his audience.
The Grand
Duke
of Saxe-Weimar,
who
sat beside him,
touched his shoulder, and pointed to a person

sitting just opposite
little
them.
Villiers,
with a
sharp cry, dropped the manuscript from
his trembling fingers,
and gave evident signs

in front of him, sur-
of lively terror.
There,
rounded by a bevy of beautiful women, gazing

at
him with shining
eyes, his
enormous mouth huge hands

(principally
open
in stentorian laughter, his
leading the applause, was Dr. Triboulat Bon-
homet
bone!).
himself, in flesh
It
and bone
was Liszt! From the very first line of the manuscript, which minutely described the dolor, the whole audience had
been struck with the resemblance between
the great pianist and Triboulat
Bonhomet,
bore a
and as the description went on the likeness

increased
dress,
gestures, habits,
all
striking similarity.
One
person alone did not
perceive the identity, and he laughed louder

than the rest
233
Liszt himself.
the
fits
As the
situation
worked
itself out,
of laughter
became
almost convulsing, for Villiers read on with

the most imperturbable gravity.
After this
incident quelgiornopi nonsileggemmo avante !^

I
have spoken but

convi6lions
little,
up
till
now, of the
of the
that though
political
of the
truth
author
is,
" Contes Cruels."
The
he was Royalist by
lic
racial instinft
and Catho-
by convi6lion, he considered contemporary

the depth of his heart, as a low and
politics, in
vulgar science, the triumph of lying, hypocrisy
and
platitude,
and an end unworthy of the pur-
suit of
minds inspired by the divine breath.

Croix et l'Epe," he constituted him-
Nevertheless, during his short career as editor

of "
La
self the
dorffs.
champion of the cause of the NaunI
fancy that the strange mystery
which even now surrounds the origin of his

claim, fired the poet's imagination
more than
the personal qualities of the starveling pretender.
He
'
remained a Naundorffist even after he

further leaf we did uncover."
"That day no
V.
Inferno,
canto
234
was no longer at the head of the newspaper, and was convinced of the incontestabihty of the
claims of the future Charles XI. to the throne of France.
this
Let no one hastily conclude that

his fancy.
was nothing but
More
on
this
serious
persons than
Villiers, after
minute research,
head.
the pretensions of
have shared
Jules Favre,
his convilions
who defended
the Naundorffs before the French tribunals,
was persuaded of the rightfulness of

clients'
his
claim.
Since that time

light,
much
evi-
dence has come to
the authenticity of
which
in the
it
would be hard
to disprove,
showing
that at
all
events Louis
XVIL
did not die
Temple.
The Comte
d'Hrisson, in a
curious
called "
book published some years ago, and
Le Cabinet
Noir," has elucidated

clearly,
it is
all
this strange affair
very
and a perusal
of his work, supported as

evidence,
is
by documentary
calculated to inspire doubt as to
the rival pretensions of the two branches of
the Bourbon family in the most incredulous
and
sceptical minds.
^ Since the publication of the Comte d'Hrisson's book, another has appeared on this knotty point, " L'Enfant du

235
still,
However
dorffs,
that
may
be, Villiers
was
in
1879, an enthusiastic partisan of the Naun-
when an
incident which took place that
year completely separated them.
few
faithful followers of the
monarch
in
expelancy had joined together to give a

dinner in his honour.
silent
Villiers
was
sitting,
and absorbed, on the prince's

guests was the old
for
right.
Among the who F

,
Comte de
forty
years
had devoted
everything
intellel,
energy, time, and for-
tune
to the welfare and success of him whom

his legitimate sovereign.
he looked upon as
The august guest lost his temper (on what account I know not) with his old and faithful
servant, and, before
all
the assembled com-
pany, he so overwhelmed him with reproaches
and abuse that the poor old man burst

sobs.
fell
into
stupor of indignant astonishment

little
upon the
gathering; and in the
midst of the general silence, Villiers rose,

Temple," by the Baron de Gaugler, published by Savine.
An
authoritative work, proving the right of the Naundorffs
to style themselves the descendants of the
Dauphin of
France.
236

and turned towards the prince.
said,
"
I
glass in hand,
" Sire "
!
he
drink your majesty's
health.
Your
claims are certainly beyond

all
dispute.
You have
the ingratitude of a
king!"
CHAPTER
XV.
of a candidate the the Conseil Gnral Opinions of the press Meetings The plans of the future councillor My departure from Paris Our separation Descrip^Bi^ 1880 by G. Guiches. of
mystery
Villiers
Fragments of a journal kept in 1879 A woman of fashion bewitched Villiers and Mar' Yvonne
at
elecSlions
tion
Villiers in
UN TING
any traces
through old papers for

I
might possess of the

life
I
I
dear dead friend whose
am
endeavouring
to
relate,
have
come
about
across several sheets of notes, written

this
time,
is
towards the end of 1879.

full
This journal
I
of Villiers, with
whom
was living in almost daily intercourse, and though it may be devoid of any other
merit,
it
has at
all
events this one, that

life,
it
was drawn from the

reproduces
and that
it
faithfully
my
original impressions.
From
238
it,

therefore,
I
cull the story of
one of the
life
last incidents in
the poet's Parisian
of
which
was a
witness.
The
reader
will, I
am
the
"
sure, forgive
monotony of
my endeavouring to vary my tale by the quotation

:
06lober, 1879.
for
Matthias has been back
from Bayreuth
some
days, and
gave
me
only yesterday an exemplification of the extra-
ordinary bewitching power of his conversation over every
human being who
hears
it.
A distant
relation of
my
own, young, charmfrivolous, is just
ing, elegant,
and deplorably
now passing through Paris. She has come to make some purchases, to buy a trousseau,
and
is
I
really believe her sole mission in life
to
match ribbons and
silks.
God
alone
knows what is inside the head of a young and fashionable woman coming to Paris, with
a pocketful of money, to
It
*
do her shopping
dressmakers,
' !
appears to
me
that nothing exists for her

lace
beyond shops,
however,
to
milliners,
vendors, jewellers, and so forth.
Yesterday,
Madame
to
de
come
my
house to
was good enough rest a moment, and

of the country.
talk
about our
own
part

But she had shown
ments, and
239
me
her
list
of engage-
made
her conditions beforehand.

clock, neither
Half an hour by the

less,
she was to spend with me.

is,
more nor Towards
half-past two, that
after the first quarter
of an hour, in
came Matthias, with whom she

. .
had not been previously acquainted. Well when Mar' Yvonne, my Breton servant,
.
!
brought
in
the
lamp
still
at
six
o'clock,
my
sofa,
charming cousin was

gazing admiringly at
in the
sitting
on the
Villiers,
who, standing
middle of the room, was demonstrating
to her, with unutterably
comic gestures,
how
the
how
King of Bavaria valsed! Who can tell the miracle was accomplished ? These
all
performances of his beggar
description
they must be seen to be realized.
During
yesterday afternoon Villiers played the piano,

sang,
and aled through the whole of the Nibetrilogy, interspersing his

stories,
lungen
performance
astonishing
imitated one
with queer
refle6lions,
vile
puns,
and
bitter jests.
He
after the other,
and with astonishing power, all the august, illustrious, and crackbrained people he had met at Bayreuth, from the
240
king and the princesses down to the crazylooking musical professors from the
universities.
German
He
gave us
in
magnificent
description of the
way
which the impetuous
and tyrannical maestro, Wagner, ruled the little court with his iron rod, and lorded it
over the king just as an usher in a school
will
lord
it
over a lower boy.
He
was, in
short, as
he can be now and then, inimitable

*
and
said,
irresistible.
*
Yes,'
my young
in
relative
!
am
is
furious
and delighted too

all
never was so much entertained

life
!
my
He
When
more amusing than
all
the Paris
theatres put together.'
came back I found him disputing He was with Mar' Yvonne in my bedroom.
I
"
turning over the contents of

to choose himself
my
;
wardrobe,
'
some white
want,'
cravats.
*
Ah,
these are what

ties,
he said
serious
'
!
very serious
ties,
most serious
ties
He
wrapped three up in an old newspaper, and was going away without speaking to me after
a hearty silent handshake.
tion
tal
I
tried to ques-
'Hush! a mystery! you shall know importance

him.
!
of
all
capi-
about

it
by-and-by
'
!
and he went
off bursting
with
laughter.
his
There was an alarming look in eyes which made me suspel some terrible
I
:
humbug. She said

Matthias
cross-questioned Mar* Yvonne.

'
am
sure,
sir,
that
Monsieur
is
plotting
something.
He
has
brought
said to me, "

that
me two shirts to iron, and he You understand, Mar' Yvonne,
they must be shiny

!
as
"
shiny as the
inside of your saucepans
What
can
it all
'
mean
"
Has he any matrimonial
projels
November, 1879. There were no matrimonial plans, and Villiers' new mad projel
surpasses for comicality the best conception
of the immortal Labiche.
He
1
has offered
himself as a candidate in the
7th Arrondisse-
ment
at the elelions to the Conseil
Gnral
of the
Seine, which
are to take place on

!
the loth of next January

the progenitor of
Nor
is
is this all
Bonhomet
supported by
the Royalist committee in Paris, which intro-
duces him, patronizes him, and pays

ele6lioneering
all
his
expenses.
still
it
It
is
seems utterly
per-
improbable, and
absolutely true.
He
has bewitched
the most solemn
242

stiffest
sonages, captivated the
dowagers, and
gained the enthusiastic support of the clergy

of his parish.
Those
shirts
and cravats were

appears he has
for his meetings, of
which
it
already held two, both brilliantly successful.

"
His adversary
is
the redoubtable negro,

all
Hrdia, a red Republican for

skin.
his black
All the newspapers to-day are talking
of this unexpeled candidature, and laughing

at
it.
The
'
Figaro
'
is,
as
it
always,
sym-
pathetic
to Villiers, but
looks
upon the
whole thing as somewhat of a poetic fancy.
Some
old Royalist papers, however, such as
the 'Gazette de France,' support the claims
of the great
phrases.
talk with
ness,
writer
with
I
many
laudatory
This very day
have had a long

that, in
my
I
cousin about the whole busi-
and
have convinced myself
spite of pleasantries at heart look
and banter, he does not
upon it as at all a matter of humbug. I am certain he has a secret hope and desire of success. How full of contradidlion
poet,
fall
is
the
this
human breast This admirable artist par excellence, has just let
!
to
me
this phrase,
incomprehensible as

coming from
his
lips
*
:
243
I
After
all,
hold
Bulwer's opinion that the really successful
man
this
is
should begin by literature, go on to

life,
public
and end
brain,
in
office.'
Fortunately
flitting
but a dream of ambition
across
his
it
mighty
himself
and he
has,
will
soon laugh at
He
me
moreover,
no chance
of being eleled, whatever his illusions

be.
may
He
told
himself that he had some-
what alarmed some worthy delegates who interviewed him, by stating that, if he was honoured by eledlion, he should demand,
from the aesthetic point of view, the demolition
of several monuments, such as the Opera House, the Church of St. Sulpice, and
the Panthon.
And
he also
desires, with the
object of providing a refuge for literary men,

to obtain the re-establishment of the Debtors'
"
!
Prison
Let
me add
article
to these fragments of
per-
sonal notes the following passage extraled
from an
have already mentioned,

Villiers
and which was dedicated by
de
I'lsle
Adam
to
the
glory
of
Mdlle.
Augusta
Holmes.
244
" I
VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. had been chosen as the candidate of
the RoyaHst committee at the ele6lions for

the Conseil Gnral of Paris, on the loth of
January,
1880.
If
my memory
serves me,
my
candidature was for the 17th Arrondisse-
ment, in opposition to that redoubtable revolutionist,
M. de Hrdia.
It
may be
being
added,
by the way,
that the results of these elelions,
within five-and-twenty votes,
nowaI
days perfe6lly well known beforehand,

of the honour of being beaten.
"
I
had
accepted the nomination solely for the sake
obtained, as
expe6led, the suffrages

;
of six hundred
eledlors
my
worthy anta-
gonist (whose touching fugitive poetry the

'
Figaro
'
was then publishing) obtained the

his
resulting majority of a thousand or twelve
hundred votes to which he owes
triumph
and thus both men of

"
letters
were content.
just
:
But with regard
to
what concerns us
is
now, the amusing part of the business
this
At
that time the projel of an
Academy
of
Lyric Composition for the town of Paris was

already
much
discussed,
I
and
one evening
before the great day
declared at a party.

before
245
two of the most matter-of-fa6l and

if,
red
Republican of the councillors, that

all its
contrary to
elelion has
expe6lation (for after
all
the
whims),
first
was
successful in
this venture,
my
care,
when
the proper
moment
arrived,
would be
to point out to
the commission the pralical competence
and
usefulness of the eminent composer as a possible
member
is
of the
official
jury of this body.

self- satisfied
Then, with that gentle and which

individuals, those
smile
so eminently chara6leristic of such
two guileless ones called
me
So
a poet (which always entertains me), and
dismissed
I
my
projel to the limbo of space.
dubbed them prosy, in order to gratify their little vanity, and I was not at all surprised to hear that it was those two members
who,
if
report speaks truly, influenced the

in
commission the next year

musician,
favour of the
and had her placed upon the jury

majority.
"
!
by an
enthusiastic
What
poets
our municipal councillors are

I
did not see the end of this wonderful
adventure.
Important family events called
me
back into Brittany, at the end of 1879, as
246
I

visit
;
then thought for a short

I
but providence
in
ruled otherwise, and
have never been
Paris since, except as a casual visitor.
Thenceforward, in spite of
tion for Villiers,
my
deep
affec-
and our years of close intimacy, I only held rare communication with him, with here and there a hasty meeting
rarer
still.
Does
?
this
imply that he was

!
faith-
less-hearted
contrary,
gold.
No, indeed
is
He
had, on the
what
popularly called a heart of
But
in order to
demonstrate his
affec-
tion to you,
he needed your bodily presence.
He
lived so
much
if
in the
far-away land of
dreams, that
stantly
you did not remind him con-
and tangibly of your existence, you came little by little to hold a vague and shadowy place in his mind, like the sweet and far-off memory of some loved and longAnd this was my fate. New lost friend. elements, too, and more intimate affelions,
entered into his
life
;
his increasing literary
reputation brought
him new
friendships
into
and
His
new
last
admirers,
and forced him
more
regular and constant literary produlion.
years were certainly his
fullest.
Then
247
came
sickness, the hospital ward,

!
and death,
friendship.
if life
without, alas
our having met again and reof our

faith
is
knitted
the strands
old
his
What
is
matter
it is
my
!
hard,
at all
that events short and soon we
meet again Here then end my personal reminiscences. I owe my ability to add in one last chapter some details of the poet's later life to the numerous articles concerning him published immediately after his death. Amidst these
shall
articles, filled,
many
fix
of them, with inaccuracies

stories,
and absurd apocryphal

which should
It
there
all
is
one
the attention of
artists.
"
was published by M. G. Guiches in the Nouvelle Revue," and has already been
subtle author (whose psycho-
often referred to in the pages of this book.
The young and
logical researches
have not withered up his
heart) has succeeded perfe6lly in fathoming the
hidden depths of the nature of the author of

"Axel."
He
has shown
in
a strikingly true
and touching way the slow metamorphosis of

that ingenuous nature, in the midst of the hypocrisies,
the cruelties, and the villainies of
life,
248
and he has given the most admirable and

speaking word-portrait of the poet that
acquainted with.
I
reproduce
it,
it
here.
am When
I
the reader has perused
let
him turn back
to
the pilure at the beginning of this volume,
and the
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam
of
1880,
resuscitated
by the magic of the pen and the

appear
his
lifelike
art of the graver's tool, will
before
him.
"
He
would
raise
head,
proudly tossing back his hair with a noble

gesture,
and you saw
his face in all its in-
telle6lual beauty.
The broad
forehead, lined
with parallel wrinkles, proclaimed the supreme
harmony of the mental powers which had

panded
it,
ex-
as
it
were, into a superb page in the
book of
art.
The deep
depressions on the
temples denoted the mathematical aptitude of
which he so often gave proof.

eyes
The
light blue
bore
all
the
external
chara6leristics
which betoken the possession of exceptional

powers of memory, and the prominent eye-
swimming in the light of his mystic visions, or dimmed with the tears which any
balls,
religious
emotion or deep
artistic feeling
would
bring to them,
made
his
glance strangely

luminous.
All the
life
249
of the countenance had
gathered towards and remained in the upper

part of the face
that
it
the lower part was so reduced

to disappear.
seemed
The
animal or
sensual chara6leristics of the face were ren-
dered invisible by the fa6l that the swelling

contour of the cheeks concealed the angle of
the jawbones, while the chin, hidden under a
Louis XIII. beard, betrayed by

his
its
smallness
want of decision
in pralical matters.
The
mous-
slight moustache, often twisted
up
la
quetaire,
was out of harmony with the expresfull
sion of the mouth,
of the anxiety of a
dreamer who scents danger from afar, pursued

into the excesses of his
dream by the torments

even
yet, the bitter-
of daily
life,
and
tasting,
ness and painful humiliation of the solicitations
which necessity had driven him to

"
ter,
utter.
mouth issued strange laughsometimes ingenuous, long and hearty,

that
From
sometimes short and jerky,

yet
shrill,
sometimes low,
of
some old savant, half-mad with learning, when he discovers the precious meaning of some
like
the laughter
ancient inscription,
or, again, like
the diabolic
250
gaiety of those old

in
gnomes who are described ancient German books as inhabiting the

belfry
moss-grown
land."
towers of the
Father-
"
"
CHAPTER XVI. widow Closing years Birth of a son father Success of the "Contes Totor and the Cruels Appearance of " L'Eve Future
Villiers'
Little
his
"
"
in
Moderne "The murderous treatment of the "Nouveau Monde" at the Thtre des Nations The deaths of the marquis and the marquise J.K.Huysmans "ARebours" His opinion " Triboulat Bonhomet " " Propos of Villiers' work d'au-del " Akdysseril ""L'Amour Supreme
'
Gaulois
"The
" Vie
"
Prosperity " Histoires Insolites " Nouveaux Contes Cruels" "Axel" Sickness Letter
Paris
"
L'Eve Future "
Lelures in Belgium
Return
to
from J. K. Huysmans, and the death of Villiers
detailing the last
moments
Conclusion.
in
f^^ss^^^HE most important event

part of Villiers'
life
is
this
obviously
the birth of his son.
The
entrance
of this
all
into his dreary existence

child,
upon
whom
he could pour out
the
252

till
tenderness of his heart,
now
jealously
treasured up, gave fresh energy and buoyancy

to the great
and unhappy poet, who had imaearthly happiness
gined that
was ended for him. It is worthy of remark how much Villiers' literary fertility gained in amount and
all
in regularity
from
this time.
Doubtless his
paternal responsibilities obliged

first
him
of
for the
in
time to face the
realities
life
pradlical fashion.
I
never was acquainted with the person

bears the
Villiers
brilliant, if
I'lsle
who now name of

that she
burdensome,
I
de
Adam.
know
was without any education, of the I am aware that the liaison gave rise to much calumny on the part of the poet's enemies, and much sadness and But I astonishment on that of his friends.
humblest extraction, and
know,
also, that for ten
years that
woman was
the brave and faithful companion of the great

artist
;
that she softened the closing bitterness

life
of his
by her
affe6lion
that she shared his

sickness,
and devotion poverty, nursed him in

;
and that
in
bearing him a son she
gave him the one pure happiness that he ever
253
knew
in this world.
And
know,
lastly,
that
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam,
lying on his deathbed,
on the very brink of eternity, did not think this humble companion unworthy of that supreme a6l of self-sacrifice by which he gave
her the right to bear his
name
before
God
all
and men.
For
all
these reasons, the
widow
of Villiers has a right to the deference of
admirers and friends of her

I
late
husband, and
believe
shall best
show mine by wrapping

all
the story of this liaison, which after

cerns nobody but the a6lors in
silence.
it,
con-
in respelful
As soon
as
little
Vilor
("
Totor," as he
was called in the intimacy of his family circle) had left his first baby lispings behind him, and was able to toddle a little, he became the constant companion of his father's walks. In the daytime one was seldom to be met without the
other,
and there used
to
be something
at
once
comic and touching
in Villiers' delight, asto-
nishment, and admiration over the prattlings of

his little son.
The "Contes Cruels," published by Calmann

Levy, appeared
in 1881,
and
in spite of the in-
254
difference of the Parisian public to all really

artistic
work, the book was too powerful and
too original not to create a certain

sensation.
amount of
Some
of the chief critics scornfully
gave the work a few laudatory sentences, and

straightway the press followed like a flock of
sheep.
that
So great is the power of journalism a few weeks made Villiers famous. He
took advantage of this revival of popularity to

place his copy in various papers and magazines,
and thus earn a little money. Meanwhile " L'Eve Future" was nearly finished. Some
of his friends, knowing the writer's
difficulties,
proposed to occupy themselves with the en-
deavour to get
literary
life,
this,
the crowning effort of his

serial.
published as a
Although
Villiers
the idea of seeing his

to the public
in
work cut up and served
daily slices
made
shiver with horror, he accepted, driven by
hard necessity.
It
was the
"
Gaulois
"
which
had the idea of offering the profound and startling work of the gifted writer as intellectual food to its readers
all
of
them
habitual
admirers of Ohnet,
Tarb, and Montpin.

at the tenth
The
issue
had to be stopped

number,
for the
255
left
middle-class public
off
subscribing in swarms.
was not great to looked upon the appearance of " L'Eve Fu" ture " in the serial columns of the " Gaulois It was not till two as a sort of gigantic joke.
setting
The disappointment Villiers, who had always
years later (in 1884) that his book found a
worthy of
it
in the beautiful
and luxu-
riously got-up review, "
La Vie Moderne,"
Villiers even-
then published by Charpentier.

tually
became one of the most assiduous contri-
butors to this truly artistic publication,

I will only mention in the most summary manner the ridiculous performance of the " Nouveau Monde," which took place at the Thtre des Nations in 1883. There is no use now in raking up old quarrels but Villiers was cruelly played upon and shamefully de;
ceived on that occasion.
He
ought never to
a
have allowed
his play to see the footlights

its
under conditions which made

foregone conclusion.
I
failure
opening night.
was not present on the There were six performances.

I
Mdlle. Rousseil was simply grotesque, and
have been assured that she aled badly on
256
purpose.
One
at
one evening,
was the massacre, and he

of
brothers
in the
my
present,
told
me
that the hubbub
auditorium was deafen-
ing. VilHers led the clamour,
armed with ahuge

airs.
key, on which he whistled noisy Tyrolean
This remarkable
finest
still
historical
drama, perhaps the
ever written on that particular subjel,
awaits the good pleasure of

artistic
some
intelli-
gent and
manager.
But
hardly
know
whether that rare bird exists in France.
A
faith,
cruel
and twofold separation, rendered,
however,
less cruel by his strong religious was reserved to Villiers in the end of The two lights which had for so 1883.
many
his
years cast a ray of
warm
affe6lion over
out,
otherwise dreary
life,
went
almost
suddenly, one and the marquis died

interval in their
after the other.
The marquise
Avenue
to
till
quietly at a few months'
little
dwelling in the
Malakoff
Life
had not been unfriendly
them on the whole.

last
The marquis
brilliant
his
hour lived in his
dreams, deaf
and blind
to all reality, seeing each
day
in
some
fascinating mirage the fortune
and the
glory he was to attain
the next!
257
The
silent
illusions of the
all
marquise were more

concentrated as they
and tenderer,
were on her Matthias.

glory,
In her day-dreams
she saw him crowned with an aureole of
and the plaudits of the newspapers

were always concealed
tenderness) beguiled
heart
so absorbed
till
(their dagger-thrusts
from her by his

its
filial
last
throb
love.
that
by
maternal
Poor
the
Villiers
wept
sorely,
prayed devoutly at the bedside of

parents,
his
dead
spent
all
money he possessed
having them
(not
much, poor
buried,
fellow!), in
fittingly
and then went back with

little
a burst of passionate tenderness to his

"
Totor."
It
was
at this
moment
that he gave
up
living in furnished lodgings,
having inherited
from the old couple their simple furniture,
amongst which survived one or two remnants of former grandeur, a grand piano by
Pape,
and
Louis
XV.
table
with fine
copper mounts.
Providence owed Villiers some compensation for such bitter sorrows, borne with so
much
Christian resignation
s
and
if
the void
258
caused by the loss of his parents was never
some strong and considerate friendships, which surrounded him even on his deathbed, did much to lessen it. Among these friends, none was more useful and more congenial to him than M. J. K. Huysmans. Until the year 1884, the two writers had frequently met at close quarters without making acquaintance. Each was afraid of the other's exterior, and neither realized their great psychological and inentirely
filled,
yet
tellelual
resemblance.
This
resemblance
was, however, not identical.

liers
allowed his dreams to
For while Vileddy at the mercy
of contrary winds across the broad sphere of speculative thought,
of his
Huysmans, more master own thoughts, and holding the reins

its
of his imagination even in
wildest flights,
condensed
his
into
one of the strongest,

allude to
most
original, best
conceived and best exeI
cuted books of modern times.
"A
Rebours."
as
I
Knowing
from
did the innermost depths

I
of Villiers' nature,
can imagine, judging
my own
sensations,
what
exquisite

pleasure the perusal of this fascinating
259
book
must have given him.

eyes
fill
can see his blue
with tears as he turns over those

art.
pages instinl with living and immortal
Such emotions are amongst the noblest and

most beautiful
in life
!
But that which must

Villiers
is
have specially touched

tant
"
that
the
accomplished writer had devoted an imporpassage

in his
book
to the author of
L'Eve Future." I reproduce here, shortening it a little, Huysmans' opinion of the

works of
Villiers
de F Isle Adam.
it
But
should state that

publication of his
"
was formed before the two masterpieces, " L'Eve
Future
and
" Axel."
"He
then turned his attention to Villiers

in
whose scattered works he still noted some seditious passages, and in which some thrills of morbid emotion still
vibrated, but
least of
'
de risle Adam,
which,
with the exception at
Claire Lenoir,'
no longer shed such

horror
an overwhelming sense of
reader.
on the
was evidently inspired by those of Edgar Poe, whose love of

This
last
story
close discussion
and
taste for the horrible
it
26o
reproduces.
*
The same might be

was
later
said
of
L' Intersigne,' which

'
on inserted
tales of
in the
Contes Cruels,' a colle6lion of
indisputable talent, amongst which was one,

'
Vera,'
which Des Esseintes [the hero of

as a master-
Huysmans' book] looked upon

piece in miniature.
In this last the fancifulis
ness
of
the story
full
of an
exquisite
tenderness.
We
no longer have the gloomy
phantoms of the American author, but a warm, translucent, almost celestial vision, the opposite, though in an identical style, of Beatrice and Ligeia, those pallid spe6lres raised by the inexorable nightmare of the
opium-eater.
This story also treats of the
operation
to
its
of the
human
will,
but not as
weaknesses and
failures,
under the
influence of terror.
trary, its
It studies,
on the con-
excitement under the impulse of a
convi6lion, developing into a fixed idea,
and
demonstrates that power which succeeds even

in
pervading the very atmosphere, and imits will
posing
on intangible things."
" there exists
Villiers,
" But,"
he went on to say,
another side in the temperament of

far
261
of
more keen and clearly-defined a side gloomy jesting and cruel raillery. This
rise,
gives
not to the paradoxical mystifi-
cations of
Edgar Allan Poe, but
to that sad
banter of the heavy-hearted jester in which

Swift revelled.
"
One
de
series of short pieces,

Bienfilatre,'
'
Les Demoi-
selles
'
L'Affichage Cleste,'
*
La Machine
Gloire,'
Le
plus beau dner
du monde,' reveal a power of banter of a

singularly
bitter
and inventive
order.
All
the impurity of contemporary utilitarianism,

all
the ignominy of the century, are glorified
in these
works, whose pungent irony so deEsseintes."
lighted
Des
little
further on, in an anthology which
use
Des Esseintes has had

"
printed for his
own
its
little
chapel with Baudelaire as

the "
patron saint"
Villiers
:
we find
effigies
Vox
Populi" of
in
"
superb coin, struck
a golden
mould, with the
of Leconte de L'Isle
and of Flaubert."
This great book,
"
Rebours," was the
risle
bond which united Huysmans to Villiers de Adam in what was to prove a lasting
202

the
consideration and was most beneficial to the latter, softening to him many a blow, many a bitterness, and many a humiliation. If he had lived long enough it might have given him a taste for a regular, sober, retired and studious existence, and have drawn him away by degrees from the terrible manner of life which ended by consuming his strength. But it was too late. By the time Huysmans knew him, death had marked him for his
friendship,
tender
manly affelion of which
own
Villiers
de
I'lsle
Adam
'*
produced a great
deal between the publication of the "
Nouveau
L'Eve Future" (1883 came "Triboulat Bonhomet," the first volume of a long series he projected, which was to relate with minute detail all the adventures and discoveries
that of
to 1886).
Monde" and
First of
all
of the
worthy do6lor.
expresses
This
is
how
the
author
himself
on
the
subje6l
in the preface
placed at the head of this
work
"We
first
of
all,
in order to initiate the
public into the character of Do6lor Bonhomet,
263
give three tales which illustrate in a general
manner
*'
his individual peculiarities.
Next,
the do(5lor himself takes up his

tells
parable and
story of
bility
'
us the
more than strange

heavy responsihis
Claire Lenoir,' the
for
which we leave entirely on

If,
shoulders.
fear, this
is
as
we have some
some
reason to
personage, whose atual existence

popularity,
incontestable, obtains
we
shall
soon publish, not without regret, certain

is
anecdotes of which he
the hero, and certain

the author."
Claire Lenoir," con-
aphorisms of which he
is
*'
This volume, besides
tains the admirable ironical allegory of
Bonhomet the swan-hunter, " The Paper of Dr. Triboulat Bonhomet on the Utilization of Earthquakes,' " and the " Banquet of the
'
Eventualists."
"Triboulat Bonhomet" was followed by
"Propos d'au-dela"
Brunhoff),
(i
vol.,
published prose
and
the
superb
by poem,
" Akedysseril,"
which reproduces in
realistic
fashion the dazzlingly splendid visions of the
East Indies.
with
"
Then, almost simultaneously
L'Eve Future," another dreamy work,
204
full

of dignity and sadness,
"L'Amour Supublishers,
in its
final
preme," appeared at the

and, in
same 1886, "L'Eve Future"
form appeared in the booksellers' shop-fronts

garbed
" in
a whimsical covering.
to this
Villiers
gave the key

it
book when he dedicated

scoffers."
Its
To
dreamers and to
lists in
pages
are indeed the

pions,
which those two chameternally
fancy and
irony, struggle
together without either coming out the vilor.
The
the
author wrote for this book, the most im-
portant
first
work of
his literary
life,
a long preface,
at
part of which only
was published
I
the beginning of the volume.

in the
M. G. Guiches,
have
remarkable study from which
already frequently quoted in the course of this
work, has reproduced the original text in

entirety.
I I
its
will
only
cite the following frag-
ment none
it
"
know no precedent
it,
for
it.
my
book,
like
nor analogous to
Whether
for-
arouses anger or merely meets with indiffeI
rence,
do not think
its
*
it
will
be utterly
gotten, for in truth

treat of the
famous
'
gloomy pages do not De omni re scibile,' but

"
aliis.'
rather of the
et
quibusdam
265
L'Eve Future" caused a sort of stupor of astonishment amongst the ranks of the critics. These gentlemen really It was not did not know what to say to it. like anything that was generally written, and, besides, Villiers' reputation made them Yet it was imposfear some mystification. sible to deny that this one book contained more imagination, more scientific knowledge, and more art than all the other works appearing at the same time put together. The re"
The appearance of
viewers, to get out of their difficulty, launched

into
vague praises or puerile
jests,
all
it,
diluted
with sugary compliments, and
of them,
without
much understanding
acclaimed
the "incontestable intellelual superiority of

this original conception."
Villiers
writer, his
was forthwith consecrated a great renown crossed the Channel, and
penetrated across the frontier, causing
much
preoccupation
in
Belgium, that
literature-
loving country, always on the watch for what-
ever succeeds
in
France.
The
following
year an association for providing courses of

ledlures on different subje6ls, having
its
head-
266
quarters at Brussels,
the author of
"
made lucrative L'Eve Future."
offers to
Villiers,
although he was already sorely stricken by

the malady which was eventually to
carry
him
art.
off,
gladly accepted this opportunity of
publicly enunciating his ideas on
men and
by
He
started,
and had not
occasion, like
Baudelaire, to complain of his reception
the worthy Belgians.

great.
His success was very
Some
hasty notes, written by him to
a friend, and published by

"
M. Guiches
I
in the
Nouvelle Revue," enable us to follow the

reproduce them
should add, to
course of his triumphs.

here.
I
that Villiers
that a
toires
had
left
make matters clear, Paris just at the moment

Les Hisat to
new
colle6lion of his tales, "
Insolites,"
was about
appear
Quantin's.
"
My
dear
"
I
M
*
write in great haste. Gil Bias

'
cannot
till
send to the
for the note

in
to-
morrow, as
have just come
from a le6lure,
and
am
very tired in spite of the astonishing

I
success
have had.

"
I
267
beg of you
the
(in great haste,
post just
going)
to send out the presentation copies
with
publishers
absence.
compHments,
is
in
the
author's
I
This
constantly done.
can yet earn 800 francs by le6lures here,

I
so
will
cannot come back so soon.

give up
the whole of
But
to-morrow to
for the
drawing up notes and other matters

book.
And
least
in
I
I
have, besides,
all
the proofs
of another book to correl right

"
off.
At
500 copies have been sold
in
advance
at
Belgium through have read, or
my
le6tures,
which
am
about to read,
extrals. to
go on Tuesday to Lige, then Antwerp, Ghent, etc., and shall be in

Greetings
"
!
Paris in less than ten days.

"
My
dear M"
You send me no
books, and yet
you have no idea of the enthusiasm with which

I
am
received here, nor that two or three
hundred book-lovers are buying

been written solely to be used
fires.
my
for
works,
which, rightly or wrongly, do not seem to have

lighting
The newspapers say wonderful things
of
268

I
me, and
am
very much pleased
am
giving
Ie6lures in several towns,
and hope
to bring
back a
start
little
money.
shall not
be able to
It can-
back
till
Saturday or Sunday.
*
not be possible that the
Histoires Insolites*
are not even stitched yet.
Hearty greetings
"
ViLLIERS.
**
P.S.
!
"
have already caught the Belgian
accent
"
"
My
dear Friend,
Great haste, post just
off.
Huge
Three
I
success, five recalls, the queen, etc.
columns about
the
me
in
every paper.
147.
am
at
Grand Hotel, No.

"
"
Hasty greetings
ViLLIERS DE l'IsLE AdAM.
" P.S.
Send the
'
Histoires Insolites' for
lelure."
Thus did
upon him.
fortune, so long perverse towards
the poet, consent at last to shower her smiles
Alas
she only did
it
to
make

the final blows
269
she was preparing to deal

cruel
!
She hated this great gentleman, this poet, who had always borne with magnificent scorn the deepest wounds
him seem more
she gave him, scarce feeling them, indeed,
thanks to that sovereign balm of fancy which
had been given
to
him
at birth
by
his
god-
mother, the fairy queen of the
ideal.
And
now, to avenge herself for

she was about to
call
all
his disdain,
the forces of agonizing
physical suffering to her aid.
Everything smiled on
1888.
Villiers in that
year
was free from want; he had grown famous publishers received him with
;
He
a friendly smile
as "
he heard himself addressed

the evening parties at Char-
Master
;
" at
pentier s
the smaller fry of the literary world
buzzed
the
flatteringly
around him.
"
Axel
" (in
"Revue Indpendante") was making a

stir.
great
lites "
His books, the

"
" Histoires
Inso-
and the
Nouveaux Contes
Cruels,"
were being bought.

ness
He
himself was asto-
nished at the sudden realion.
And lo
sick-
came upon him like a terrible, implacable enemy, threw its arms about him, overthrew
2 70
him, cast him on his bed groaning, shivering,

lost
and convulsed
in
agonizing suffering.
short time before, the poor poet,
weary
of Paris, and longing for green

water,
woods and
;
had
retired
to
Nogent-sur-Marne
and
thither death sent his pale-faced emis-
saries to take possession of him.
Another pen, reader, more worthily than

mine, will
tell
you how he
last
left
Nogent
for
the house of the Brothers of St.
Jean de
there,
how and how he

Dieu
;
his
hours
passed
died, after accomplishing a final
sacrifice
worthy of
appealed to
For I have one who was the deeply-moved

all his
life.
witness and the chief support of Villiers' last
agony, the last to bid him farewell on the

shores of eternity,
to relate
in
all its
true
and heartbreaking
poet's end.
details the
story of the
M. Huysmans understood the motive of
my
its
request,
and he has consented,
in spite of
bitterness, to revive the
memory
of the
sad hours spent by that deathbed, for the
sake of paying a
last
is
homage
to his friend
and comrade.
Here
his letter:
271
"Paris, April 21, 1892,
Dear
Sir,
"
and Brother Writer,

are
I"
to me.
liers
in
'
by no means a stranger I have read your words about VilL'Hermine,' and several times, if
does not deceive me, our late
You
my memory
fore,
friend mentioned
that
I
you to me.
to
knew, there-
had
do with one whose out-
ward appearance only was unfamiliar, when Landry ^ spoke to me of the book you thought
of writing.
" Villiers
was very dear
to
me, and like

I
you (especially on evenings when

to
have had
I
endure some very empty chatter)
am
haunted by the presence of him
who certainly
may be
as the
bracketed with Barbey d'Aurevilly

.
two most astonishing conversationalists

I
of our day.
first
knew him many
years
ago
(in
1876) at the
*
house of Catulle Mends,
who managed the Rpublique des Lettres,' on which we were both writing. But our
^
M. G. Landry, head
clerk to
M.
seller,
whom
cannot
book.
sufficiently
Savine, the bookthank for the sym-
pathy, help, and information he has given

the writing of
me
during
my
272
friendships and our tastes alike differing,
we
soon drifted apart.

publication
We
of
'
met again after the Rebours,' and thence-
forward, far from the boulevards, our friendly

relations
recommenced.
and
He
used to come
occasions
on Sundays, with his

dine
child, little Totor, to
with me,
these
were
to those who met him. Susand justly on the defensive as he generally was when he met literary people,
memorable ones
picious,
the hesitating
mode
of expression in which
he usually took refuge the moment he felt he had let himself go too far, was laid aside
in the congenial
atmosphere of
faithful friend-
ship
and true admiration;
and, safe from
any
fear of plagiarism or treachery,
he would
life,
launch out and talk about his
own
in a
fashion at once poetic and realistic, ironical
and madly gay.

"
I
remember,
father
in
this
conne6lion,
one
14th of July,
when he came and dined with

Monthe sat down to the
Descaves, at
the
of Lucien
rouge.
After dinner,
piano, and, lost in a sort of dream, he sang,

in his
cracked and quavering voice, bits of
273
Wagner, mixed up with choruses of barrack

songs, and joining
all
together with strident
laughter, wild jokes,
and quaint rhymes.

talent for
into
" But
raising
far
nobody ever had such a

its
and transforming a joke
something
beyond
apparent scope, and even be-
yond the widest range of possibility. There was a punchbowl always flaming, as it were, in his brain. How often have I seen him in the
morning, just out of bed and hardly awake,
holding forth as brilliantly as
when
of an
evening he would
"
tell
us astounding anec!
dotes and inimitable stories over our coffee
But our meetings grew
rarer.
Sickness
in his bed.
prostrated him, laid
him shivering
Weary
of Paris, he settled at Nogent, and soon
grew worse. Dr. Robin recognized the symptoms of cancer, but disguised the truth, asserting that the malady was one of the digestive organs, and fortunately Villiers believed him.
One day
that he
was more
in.
suffering than
to
usual, the sick
man complained
It
me
about
the house he was

fat,
was, as a matter of
as cold as a cellar, sunless, almost rotted
with damp.
He
said he
would
like to leave
274
it,

and added that he needed
skilful
I
nurses to
turn and
move him
in
in his bed.
mentioned
the Brothers of St. Jean de Dieu in the
Rue
Oudinot
letter
Paris,
and two days
later
had a
from him saying he was settled

of
in their
house, thanks to the mediation
with the direlor,
Coppe which obtained for him

of
admission.
I
exceptionally easy terms
found him there delighted with the change,
convinced of his
plans,
speedy recovery,
to give
full
of
amongst others
up going to the
brasseries
on the boulevards and to work
quietly in
some corner
far
from the buzz of
journalism.
"
all
He who had
been so unlucky and so poor

in
his life
was now
comparative affluence,
and no longer haunted by detestable pecuniary

anxieties.
Mallarm, a very sincere and
at-
tentive friend,
for him,
had
on
opened a secret subscription
and
I,
my part,
had
at
my disposal
a tolerable
sum which
the faithful Francis
Poilevin had confided to

obje6l.
" Villiers
me
with the same
began
at this time to talk
about
'Axel,' which
was then on the
stocks,
and

which
he
desired
it
275
to
remodel,
suppressing
some
theories in
which, from the CathoHc
point of view, he thought were unorthodox.
And
first
then suddenly he grew

life,
silent.
For the
the end-
time, perhaps, in his
that gift of fancy,

all
which had enabled him to forget

imagination, failed him.
really
is,
less sufferings of life in the fairyland of his
He
beheld
life
as
it
understood that cruel reality was
about to wreak her vengeance on him, and

then his long martyrdom began.
"
The digestive functions ceased to work,
his
became frightful. A sort of straw-coloured shadow crept over his features, and in the wasted face the eyes lived
strength failed, his emaciation
on,
seeming
to pierce the very soul of the on-
lookers with their terrifying glance.

of the efforts of
friend
In spite
Madame Mry
Laurent, a
who nursed him and
petted him, bring-
ing
him the most nourishing food and authentic
wines, he could not eat, and death approached
with rapid strides.

"
And
here must
of his marriage.
come in the sad episode For reasons which he did

hesitated,
not disclose,
Villiers
hung back,
276

to
would not answer when we spoke

timidly,
his little
him
and with much circumlocution, about

son,
and suggested that

he had long
in
order
to legitimize the child
he should marry the

lived.
mother, with
pelled
whom
Im-
by our argument,
that probably after
his death the Minister of Public Instrudlion
would grant a pension

his
it
to the child that bore
name, he at
last
consented.
But when
put us
came
to fixing the
day and getting the

he
off,
necessary papers
raised
objelions,
together,
and
finally
shut
himself
to
up
be
in
such obstinate silence that
we had
silent too.
The
friends
habit of visiting him,
who were in the Madame Mry Laurent,

Gustave
Stphane
wiles to
Mallarm, Lon Dierx,

I
Guiches, and
myself, did not

to induce
know what
employ
him
to yield.
He
was growing hourly weaker, and we began to fear he would die before we could get the
documents necessary
gether.
for
the
it
marriage
to-
Sick with anxiety,
occurred to
me
one morning to apply to the almoner of the

Brothers of St. Jean de Dieu, a Franciscan
from the Holy Land, the Rev. Pre Sylvestre.
277
was a gentle and compassionate monk, who had already helped Barbey d'Aurevilly
to die.
story,
I
He
reminded him of the lamentable

for Villiers
which he already knew,

his hand.
had
confessed to him and received the
communion
from
i
"He
for
simply answered:
there.
I
'Well, just wait

to
me
will
go up and say a word

later,
him.'
Five minutes
he
left
the sick-
room, and Villiers had consented to an immediate marriage.

"
Time
pressed,
and
it
was
difficult to
get
hold
of the certificates
which were scattered
about
in different registry offices.
Of
the few
(his
friends
caf
who
still
remained
faithful to
him
and newspaper acquaintances had of

left in
all
course long since abandoned him), the only
ones
Paris were
Lon Dierx, who was
shut up
day
It
in his office,
and myself.
Gustave Guiches, was summer-time. Mallarm

fled to the country.
was
ill,
and had
Laurent
Madame
waters.
Mry
was
away taking
There was a wild hunt after the necessary documents. Guiches and M. de Malherbe (a
clerk at Quantin's bookshop,
who was
to
be
278

wife's witnesses)
one of the
to
it,
devoted themselves
us,
and between the three of

at
with the
help of an employ
7th Arrondissement,
the
Mairie of the
admirer of
difficulties
at,
Villiers,
M. Raoul Denieau, an who smoothed down many
which we should have stumbled
we
contrived on the very day appointed
for the marriage to bring together the neces-
sary certificates.
The marriage
took place in
the sick-room.
to reveal the
And here
truth.
hesitate
somewhat
will
whole
But you
make
fals,
whatever use you think right of
this letter,
and you
all
will
judge whether, amongst the

true,
of
them absolutely
which
send you,
to strengthen the authoritative accuracy of your
book, these particular ones should be given to

the public.
On
the whole,
think myself that
they should
of such a
"
for the details of the suffering
man
it
as Villiers are worth learning.

to sign the re-
When
became necessary
gisters, the wife stated that
she did not
know
There was a terrible moment how of silence. Villiers lay in agony with his eyes Ah he was spared nothing. His closed.
to write.
!
cup overflowed with bitterness and humilia-

tion
!
279
And
while
we were
all
looking at each
other, almost broken-hearted, the wife

'
added
can
make make
a cross as
did for
my
first
marriage.'
And we
took her hand and helped

After the ceremony
her to
the mark.
the four witnesses, Mallarm, Dierx,
M. de
Malherbe, and
I,
tasted a
little
champagne
to us.
which
Villiers insisted
on offering
Then
the Rev. Pre Sylvestre

religious marriage.
came
to celebrate the
it
And
then
was
that
we
to
had an opportunity of realizing the

kindness of heart.
Villiers'
priest's
wife used
spend the day with him.
In spite of her
false position, the Brothers of St.
Jean shut
their eyes to this infringement of the letter of

their rules.
But of course her

;
visits
had
to
end with the day
she had to leave at twilight,
and
was a heartbreak to the unhappy man, who dreaded dying alone in the night.
this
When
he had pronounced the marriage beneRev. Pre Sylvestre said

in rather
dilion, the
a hurried voice, 'Although
women
are not
rule,
allowed to spend the night here as a

I
have obtained permission that now you are
married you shall not be separated again.'
28o

of giving this last
Villiers'
The monk had thought

filled
happiness to the dying man.

with tears
;
eyes
fell
he made a gesture, then
back exhausted, almost fainting from
fatigue,
and we
" I
left
him.
to see
went
him the next
day, and
all
the following days.
He
could no longer
speak, but would squeeze your hand gently,
and look
at
you with great sad patient eyes.

before his death he received
The evening
wan
I
the last sacrament, and lay half-conscious, his

face grown hollow
and
his throat rattling.
felt
I
the end was very near, but overwhelmed
as
late,
was I had to hurry away, for it was very and the convent was closing for the
night.
"
ring at the bell
early next
*
morning
His
made me jump
I
out of bed.
Villiers is dead,'
said to myself,
and
shall
it
was too
say
?
true.
wife sank sobbing into a chair in

*'
my
room.
What more
Better say
nothing of the literary vultures
on that corpse, of the reporters
who settled who used to

and place
to
come
their
daily to await his decease
wares,
who were now
able
draw

their pay,
281
and cease
their constant calls of
inquiry.
" Little
use either in telling you about the
funeral,
at
which the mourners, Mallarm,

I,
Dierx, and
sheltered the poor unconscious
orphan boy as best we could from the pelting

rain.
And
yet
will
say one other word
concerning that funeral ceremony, at which

the
Rev. Pre Sylvestre
pronounced the
St.
benedilion, in the
Church of
Franois
Xavier.
Our own
*
resources being exhausted,

I,
we
applied,
Gustave Guiches and

Figaro,'
to the
office
of the
and
M.
I
Magnard,
never can
with a kindly courtesy which

forget,
offered to place at our disposal the

to defray the
sum necessary
"
expenses of the
give you more
Villiers' life,
decent burial of our friend.

Others,
my
dear
sir,
will
complete information concerning
and
will furnish
you with the
details of that
forlorn,
extraordinary
penniless,
existence,
starving,
and clouded by troubles so great

his condition at times without
I
as to
make
parallel in its misery.

self to those
have confined my-
sad incidents which immediately
282
preceded his death, and, as you have narrated

the beginning of his
its close.
life,
so
relate to
you
"In
heart.
conclusion, dear
sir,
I
have
it
to wish
all
your book good luck, and
do
with
my
May
your work kindle some spark of
regret for
its
own
injustice
in
that
public
which so resolutely refused to acknowledge

the talent of Villiers before his death.
"Believe me,
etc.,
"J. K. HUYSMANS."
The
next day, Tuesday, 20th August, 1889,
a few hours before the burial,
M. Henri de
Villiers
Lavedan, a young writer

risle
whom
de
Adam
had inspired with one of those
enthusiastic attachments which he alone could

create,
asked permission to gaze once more

in the
on the features of the dead man who had

been so dear to him, and prayed long
quiet
little
room.
desire to place here, as

I
the conclusion of the work in which
have
endeavoured to outline the

believer
life
of that great
Philippe
and great
artist,
the
Comte
de
Auguste Matthias de
Villiers
I'lsle
Adam,

these lines instin6l with
feeling,
283
deep and sincere

after
which were written immediately

:
this farewell visit
"
On
an August morning, wet and dreary

evening,
in
as a
November
the house of
the Brothers of St. Jean de Dieu, which stands

in
the quiet quarter of the
Invalides,' the
brown-robed
monk
I
gently closed the door
saw before me Villiers de risle Adam lying on his deathbed. We are alone together, he and I. The little room is
behind me, and
very quiet, clean with the cleanliness of the
cloister
and the death-chamber
coldly calm.
On
the chimney-piece the flame of the candles
burns high and motionless, undisturbed by any

breath of air
gifted scoffer
;
and the half-closed eyes of the who shall scoff no more, gazing
coffin
it
lifelessly at the
waiting on the
as though
it
floor,
seem
on
died
to contemplate
I
were a
friend.
kneel on a prie-dieu,
I
and gaze
the
face of the master
have known
and loved.
is all
The narrow bed on which he

too wide for his poor body, emacruel suffering.
ciated
by long and
But the
284

fore-
proud and beautiful head, whose great
head seems
marbles,
Sightless
to
have been carved out by death
for posterity in the firmest
and whitest of
bereft
it
stands
out with a royal dignity.

it
is,
and voiceless as
of
thought, of everything that

that splendid head
It
still
made
glorious,
seems to
lived,
fill
the room.
Villiers
seems
to
be the head of him who
would have been, had he
and fought,
faith
and sung,
exile.
It
in
one of those ages of
which
he loved, and loved with the
bitter love of the
was as solemnly
beautiful under the
shadow of those cotton curtains, have been under a gold-fringed

could have fancied
I
as
it
would and
I
dais,
beheld the corpse of one

I'lsle
of his ancestors, a Villiers de
Adam
of
the crusading times, who, worn out by fever,

fatigue, long marches,
wounds, and
thirst,
had
at last,
on some burning shore of Palestine,
rendered up his gallant soul to

called
"
it.
God who
Visions and beliefs.

Villiers*
These were the
whole of
being.
As
looked at
in
him lying there with a poor rosary
his
folded hands, his whole frame stretched out

with a tired air (betokening as
ness as resignation),
that he
I
285
much wearicould not but remember
was
a steadfast Christian, beHeving,
and pralising what he beHeved. It was his faith alone which kept him straight to the
end of the book of and
his
life,
to the last line,
to his last breath, without a blot
on the
escutcheon which descends to his son as stainless as

**
he inherited
I
it
from his own
father.
And
man
imagine that the severe and noble
expression on the calm features of this Christian
of letters comes of the joy of feeling
he
is
free,
delivered at last from this

folly,
life
of
emptiness, of
of
many
pangs, which
health,
brought him
"
nothing,
neither
nor
wealth, nor love, nor glory.
Death did not come upon Villiers unawares he watched its slow approach with
;
perfe6l calmness.
He bore the
Cross of Malta
he was well prepared to meet the King of

Terrors, and
when he drew near and stood

and a gentleman, hoping perhaps
before him, he received the accolade fearlessly,

like a soldier
that his reward

his
was beginning.
He
knew, in
humble
trust, that
the hour had
come
for
286
his
own judgment on
high, for that of his
work here below, and doubtless he repeated

mentally that motto of Hassan-ben-Sabbah
which he placed at the head of his own poem,

'
Azrael
'
Death
'
!
those
who are about to
live salute thee
"
FINIS.
C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO. CHISWICK PRESS TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.

:
Sunlooha, London.
21
Bedford street,
December
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Villiers de L'Isle-Adam. His Life and His Works.

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iii!!

VILLIERS DE l'iSLE ADAM.

from the French of

Vicomte Robert du Pontavice de Heussey

By Lady Mary Loyd

THIS TRANSLATION GRATEFULLY DEDICATED

writings of Villiers de I'lsle

of place, before the adventurous

reader embarks on the perusal of the follow-

ing recollerions, to endeavour, in the most

and the most

the keenest appreciation

nature, especially in her gloomier

mysterious moods, and a constant endeavour

immutable truths of religion

and morality, and the inevitable

nothing more genuinely witty

can be imagined than some of his sketches

work which must

strike the thoughtful stu-

Every one of his

only of laborious preparation, but of the most

finally stands, is indispensable to

the true comprehension of the author's meaning.

always of the highest; the

inherit the result of his lifein

constant difficulty and discouragement

feeling but admiration

man who never

published a line with-

the highest polish he

and the damp of the fog he

in the fewest words,

sunset, the dreariness

of a wild winter night, the horror of a long

phases of existence in Paris.^

Truly, in this case,

the strength of style, and

perusal, to realize the conthis

brevity gives to that of Villiers

the pages which succeed this

struggle and failure, of brilliant hopes and

soul, full of that peculiar simplicity

coping with everyday cares which

so often accompany genius

and with that

sad and too

close, so eternally dis-

honouring to the public which turns a deaf

an hospital ward, followed

vated people on this side of the Channel in

form on the other, and

as one of the chief

modern literary France, will be welcomed by the many sympathetic

English admirers of our gifted neighbours,

and that the knowledge they may thereby

labour will inspire them with a desire to be-

come acquainted with the remarkable group

and novels on which

author of the following recol-

lerions has passed into the silent

country while the sheets of this