THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL ENDOWED BY THE DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC SOCIETIES PQ2U76 .VU Z6U This book is due at the LOUIS R. WILSON LIBRARY on the last date stamped under "Date Due." If not on hold it may be renewed by bringing it to the library. DATE RFT DUE RET DATE DUE KEI - Form No. 573 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/villiersdelisleaOOdupo VILLIERS de l'Isle ADAM HIS LIFE AND WORKS from the French of Vicomte Robert dUi Pontavice de Heussey By Lady Mary Loyd New York Dodd, Mead and Company MDCCCXCIV All rights reserved. TO THE EVER BLESSED MEMORY OF THE UNKNOWN INDIVIDUAL WHO FIRST INTRODUCED ME TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE, THIS TRANSLATION IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED BY MARY LOYD. m.9 V757*DxL 85 TO THE READER. HE writings of Villiers de 1'Isle Adam are so little known in this country, that it may not be out of place, before the adventurous reader embarks on the perusal of the follow- ing recollections, to endeavour, in the most cursory manner, to give some details concern- ing them. The most stinging satire and the most radiant fancy ; the keenest appreciation of nature, especially in her gloomier and more mysterious moods, and a constant endeavour to enforce the immutable truths of religion and morality, and the inevitable results of their contravention, run through all his stories. And nothing more genuinely witty can be imagined than some of his sketches i viii TO THE READER. of the more peculiarly Bohemian side of Parisian life. The characteristic of Villiers' work which must strike the thoughtful stu- dent most, is its magnificent thoroughness. Every one of his tales bears the impress, not only of laborious preparation, but of the most conscientious elaboration. So that every word, as it finally stands, is indispensable to the true comprehension of the authors mean- ing. And this meaning, again, is almost always of the highest; the satire, 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 dis- countenance) " of wickedness and vice." The poet's immediate friends may have blamed and deplored the extreme Bohemian- ism into which his needy circumstances drove him. We, who inherit the result of his life- work — a work accomplished in the face of constant difficulty and discouragement — can have no room for any feeling but admiration for the man who never published a line with- out giving it the highest polish he was capable of imparting. TO THE READER. ix No modern writer, with the exception, perhaps, of Edgar Poe, whom Villiers so passionately admired, has his power of digni- fying 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 actually 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, 1 or the exotic bloom of certain phases of existence in Paris. 2 Brevity, they say, is the soul of wit. Truly, in this case, brevity is the strength of style, and it is not easy, on a first perusal, to realize the con- centrated power this same well-considered brevity gives to that of Villiers de Flsle Adam. Of his life I will say nothing. Its story is unfolded in the pages which succeed this 1 " La Torture par l'Esperance." 2 "Le Convive des dernieres Fetes," "Antonia," "L'Enjeu." X TO THE READER. note. A 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 paeans 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 its most brilliant form on the other, and I feel convinced that this sketch of the life and works of one who, neglected and de- preciated as he was to within a few months of his premature death by all but a selecl: few, is now acclaimed as one of the chief glories of modern literary France, will be heartily 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 writers 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 sgemoriam. HE author of the following recol- lections has passed into the silent country while the sheets of this translation were being prepared for 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 illness. And to that public I 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 who might yet, if he had been spared, have done much invaluable work in literature and literary research, should have been cut off prematurely, "in the flower of his days." Eeqtuegcat m pace* VILLIERS de lisle ADAM HIS LIFE AND WORKS VILLIERS DE L'lSLE ADAM. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. First meeting— Family ties — Illustrious origin of Villiers — Genealogy of the family of LTsle Adam —The old Emigres— Good King Louis XVIII. and M. de Villiers — Motto and coat-of-arms of the family — The Cure of Ploumilliau — Villiers at the parsonage — " LTntersigne " — His parents — Genealogy of the De Carfort — Aunt Kerinou — Peculiarities of the Marquis de ITsle Adam — His golden dream — The inheritance seeker — The treasure seeker CHAPTER II. Birth of Villiers de ITsle Adam — His baptism — His childhood— Stolen by mountebanks— School life- — St. Brieuc — Laval — Rennes — His first poem — His early portrait — " L' Amour et la Mort " — Elegy — Literary plans — Family devotion and tenderness — " Our Matthias " — Departure for Paris b xvi CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. PAGE Paris — The reign of the common-place in literature — The poets — The defenders of the Beautiful — "Le Parnasse Contemporain " — "Les Parnas- siens " — Catulle Mendes and the " Revue Fan- taisiste" — Triumphal entry of Villiers de ITsle Adam — First Poems — Friendships — Stephane Mallarme and Leon Dierx — " Claire Lenoir " — Appearance of Dr. Triboulat Bonhomet — A few words touching this personage — " Le Roman d'une Nuit," by Catulle Mendes— Death of the " Revue Fantaisiste "—The Blue Dragon Hotel — The Rue de Douai- — Villiers de ITsle Adam, according to Francois Coppee 37 CHAPTER IV. Early influences — Charles Baudelaire — My father — His relations with Villiers — Their intimacy — The Hotel d'Orleans — Literary and philosophical gatherings — Leon Cladel — - Villiers and the Hegelian philosophy — " Isis " — The Princess Tullia Fabriana — Preface — Eccentricities of style — The original of Doctor Bonhomet — Doctor C. — "Ellen" and " Morgane " — Sensations of loneliness — The Marquis de ITsle Adam con- tinues at Paris the course of his profitable financial operations — The poisoner, Comte Courty de la Pommerais — The apartment in the Rue St. Honore — The marquis — Aunt Kerinou — Matthew's decorations 52 CONTENTS. xvii CHAPTER V. PAGE The legend of the hoaxer hoaxed — The succession to the throne of Greece — Villiers de ITsle Adam a candidate for the throne — " Le Lion de Numidie " — " The Moor of Venice " — Nemesis — An imperial audience — The Marquis and Baron Rothschild — The Due de Bassano and Villiers de ITsle Adam— The last act of the comedy— A poet's conclusion — Death of Aunt Kerinou — Separation 70 CHAPTER VI. My return to Paris — The Hotel d'Orleans — My search for Villiers — Our reunion — The earlier stages of his lawsuit — The historical drama of "Perrinet Leclerc" — Paul Cleves, director of the Porte St. Martin Theatre— The Marechal Jean de ITsle Adam, according to Messrs. Lockroy and Anicet Bourgeois — Villiers' fury — Letters to the press — A summons — A memo- randum — Intervention of M. de Villiers — Provo- cation — A duel arranged — Settlement on the ground — Result of the action — Biographer's reservations — Documentary evidence .... 87 CHAPTER VII. Le Pin Galant, near Bordeaux — Arrival of Villiers with his play — "The New World" — The Ameri- can centenary competition — The character of Mrs. Andrews — The legend of Ralph Evandale . 116 V i xviii CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. PAGE Villiers' rage against the members of the jury — Dramatic scene at the house of Victor Hugo — Villiers leaves Paris — The Bordeaux theatres — Godefrin, director of the Theatre Francais — An extraordinary reading — Little Mdlle. Aimee — Madame Aimee Tessandier 131 CHAPTER IX. Restful days — The real Villiers— Villiers and the fair sex — Talks about b) 7 gone days — Charles Baudelaire — His true nature — His strange home- life — Jeanne Duval — Edgar Poe — Richard Wag- ner — " Axel " — The Cabala and the occult sciences — Villiers' religious sentiments — Quota- tions — " L' Eve Future " 144 CHAPTER X. A metamorphosis — An ambitious pastry-cook — Appearance of the newspaper, " La Croix et l'Epee " — Its political, artistic, and literary pro- gramme — Lord E W . — His strange suicide — The wax figure — A nocturnal conversa- tion — The American engineer and his master, Edison — First conception of "L'Eve Future" — Villiers de ITsle Adam and Thomas Alva Edison 157 CONTENTS. xix CHAPTER XI. PAGE Villiers' absent-mindedness — His terrible careless- ness — His departure from Bordeaux — Godefrin's despair — A year later — Bohemian poverty — A justification — Want of money — Villiers' diffi- culties — His pride — His artistic conscientious- ness — Drumont's book — Villiers and the young Jew — A good answer — Villiers' manner of life — His midnight wanderings — His dislike of day- light — Villiers and Anatole France 165 1879 — The Rue des Martyrs and the Rue Roche- chouart — The poet's room — His extraordinary indifference — Leon Dierx — "La Devouee " — Strange habits — Villiers in the street — The Boulevard Montmartre — Nocturnal declama- tions — Villiers as a composer — Two operas, " Esmeralda " and " Prometheus " — Melomania — Villiers as a musical performer — A strange couple 178 First introduction of Wagner and Villiers at the house of Charles Baudelaire — Failure of "Tann- hauser" at the Paris Opera in 1861 — Portrait and character of Richard Wagner — His friends and champions — His intimacy with Villiers — CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XIII. XX CONTENTS. Reminiscences of his youth and early poverty — Augusta Holmes — Villiers' visit to Triebchen —The "Rheingold" at Munich— Villiers de l'lsle Adam's artistic confession of faith . . . 202 CHAPTER XIV. The marquis and the marquise — Villiers' filial ten- derness — A monomania for speculation — A letter from the marquis — Villiers' contributions to the press — The "Figaro" — "La Republique des Lettres " — Catulle Mendes — J. K. Huysmans — The "Contes Cruels" — Two quotations — Villiers' high spirits — His loss of illusion — A study by M. G. Guiches — Villiers as a talker and a mimic — Some unpublished traits of Dr. Triboulat Bonhomet — Bonhomet the commander-in-chief — Bonhomet the ermine-hunter — Bonhomet ful- filling the letter of the Scriptures — Bonhomet's true adventures at Bayreuth — The political opinions of Villiers de l'lsle Adam — An un- expected toast — A rupture 219 CHAPTER XV. Fragments of a journal kept in 1879 — A woman of fashion bewitched — Villiers and Mar Yvonne — A mystery — Villiers a candidate at the elections of the Conseil General — Opinions of the press — Meetings — The plans of the future councillor — My departure from Paris — Our separation — Description of Villiers in 1880 by G. Guiches . 237 CONTENTS. xxi CHAPTER XVI. PAGE Closing years — Birth of a son— Villiers' widow — Little Totor and his father — Success of the " Contes Cruels " — Appearance of " L'Eve Future" in the "Gaulois"— The "Vie Moderne " The murderous treatment of the " Nouveau Monde " at the Theatre des Nations — The deaths of the marquis and the marquise — J. K. Huysmans — " A Rebours " — His opinion of Villiers' work — "Triboulat Bonhomet "-— " Propos d'au-dela" — " Akedysseril " — " L' Amour Supreme " — "L'Eve Future " — Lectures in Belgium — Return to Paris — Prosperity — " Histoires Insolites " — "Nouveaux Contes Cruels" — "Axel" — Sick- ness — Letter from J. K. Huysmans, detailing the last moments and the death of Villiers — Con- clusion 251 r z Q- • ' ■ / ' 7 ^tarL^^ c^^y^ ^) £t ^ 0 ^ rZj&c^ Xe. Art*. eL ,07^ fM ^_ JU^^^ VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. CHAPTER I. First meeting — Family ties — Illustrious origin of Villiers — Genealogy of the family of LTsle Adam — The old Emigres — Good King Louis XVIII. and M. de Villiers — Motto and coat-of-arms of the family — The Cure of Ploumilliau — Villiers at the parsonage — " LTntersigne" — His Parents — Genealogy of the De Carforts — Aunt Kerinou — Peculiarities of the Mar- quis de ITsle Adam — His golden dream — The inheritance seeker — The treasure seeker. NE Thursday morning in Novem- ber, 1858, I was in the dining- room of my father's house at Fougeres. I was eating my sad and solitary luncheon under the eye of a cross old nurse ; and my heart swelled as I looked B 2 VILLIERS DE LISLE ADAM. at the cheerful winter sun outside the window panes, and thought of my brothers, more fortunate than myself, who were frolicking through the leafless woods which so pictu- resquely crown the village of St. Germain. There my grandfather lived, in an old manor- house amongst the trees, and ever} 7 Thurs- day, according to custom, my family spent the day with him. This time I 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, gene- rally as silent as the grave, and soon I saw a hired chaise stop before our windows. I know not why my heart began to beat so fast when the bell (pulled by a vigorous hand) clanged noisily. A moment after, the door of the dining-room opened, and a fair young man with a large head, and wrapped in rich furs, rushed in like a whirlwind. He vaulted lightly over the table at which I was sitting, and lifting me up, before I had recovered from my astonishment, he kissed me heartily, saying, " Good day, my little man — you don't VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 3 know me ! I am your cousin Matthias ! " But I did know him well ! For long he had filled my childish imagination, haunted already by the demon of literature. How often had I listened open-mouthed, forgetful of my plate, while my father recounted at the family board the adventures, the oddities, the traits of genius of Cousin Matthias! True, I un- derstood but vaguely what my father meant, but it had for me all the mysterious charm of the unknown. Meanwhile the unexpected guest had asked for food, having come straight from Paris, without warning, as was his way. I see him now, opposite me, eating heartily, asking me questions, laughing at my prattle (he had put me at my ease at once), and stop- ping every now and then to push back with his hand a thick lock of fair hair which kept falling over his eyes. " You know," said he to my astounded attendant, " I am off to St. Germain, the little chap with me. When / come, all punish- ments are stopped." Willy nilly, she had to wrap me in my cloak and comforter ! Ten minutes later 4 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. Cousin Matthias and I, seated in the little hired gig, were bowling along the frosty road which led from the town of Fougeres to the village of St. Germain. Such was my first never-to-be-forgotten meeting with Philip Augustus Matthias de Villiers de l'lsle Adam, then in all the bloom of his youth and the first blush of his won- derful genius — his brow and eyes radiant with those beautiful illusions, those glorious dreams, which attended his entrance into life, which never abandoned him in his saddest hours, and whose melancholy phantoms hovered over the hospital bed on which he died, high-spirited to the last, hopeful and resigned. As has been seen, our families were kin. But I think that the cousinship between Villiers and my father, and later, by inheri- tance, between Villiers and myself, was more intellectual than anything else. The family bond which unites us seems to me very slight. It should be sought, I think, in the alliance of both our families with that of De Kersauson. But that is little matter. What is far more VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 5 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 I fancy he rather enjoyed deepening the fog. At all events, such was his hatred of all that was conventional, that his Titanic dreams became historical facts concerning which he would admit of no discussion. All those who have heard him speak of his an- cestors, of their riches, of " the stately sea- beaten manor-house," in which his early youth was passed, will understand, without further insisting, what I mean. Yet, in those rare, and for him, wearisome moments, when he returned to earth, Villiers knew his family history perfectly, and in its minutest detail. He had studied the subject profoundly, and his genius illuminated for him all that was prosaic and dull in provincial and Parisian archives. I know a certain work of his, dealing with the life of the Marechal de Villiers de Tlsle Adam, which is a master- piece of clearness, eloquent expression, and erudition. I will return to it at a more 6 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. opportune moment. At present I am chiefly concerned with the poet's origin. The illustrious family of Villiers de 1' Isle Adam, Seigneurs de Villiers de ITsle Adam and de Chailly, originated in the He de France. Several knights of the name took part in the Crusades, others occupied the highest positions about the court and in the army. In fact, the brilliant name of Villiers de Flsle Adam is constantly flashing across the pages of our history. But the most cele- brated amongst these great noblemen, too well known for me to add anything to what has already been written concerning them, are, in order of date : Pierre, who was Grand- master and Porte Oriflamme of France in 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 1 52 1. The nephew of this last, Francois, Marquis de Villiers de l'lsle Adam, was " Grand Louvetier de France " in 1 550. The grandson of Francois married, about 1670, a daughter of the old house of De Courson, and VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 7 settled in the bishopric of St. Brieuc, where he founded the Breton branch of the Villiers de l'lsle Adam family. The grandson of this last, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, married in his turn, in 1780, a Mdlle. de Kersauson. At the time of the Revolution, he emigrated to 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 come- dian Lockroy, an action of which I shall give the details when I come to that part of the poet's life in which it occurred. At the time of the Revolution the house of De l'lsle Adam had greatly declined from its ancient splendour. I will not go into the causes of this change ; suffice it to say, that when the naval officer emigrated with those belonging to him, his income barely sufficed for the strictest necessaries of life. It follows, that once established abroad, he did not for sometime attempt to return. Meanwhile, the Bourbons having returned to France, all the so-called servants of the august exiles were clamouring for the reward of their services. 8 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. A certain Mons. de Villiers Deschamps, a rich man, and an excellent royalist, asked permission to revive the name of De Tlsle Adam, which he affirmed to be completely extin6t, and to which a distant relationship gave him a claim. Good Louis XVIII., delighted with a petition which would cost him nothing but a signature, granted without hesitation the prayer of his loyal subject. Thus it came about, that until the day when its luxurious peace was disturbed by the poet's inopportune interference, the family of De Villiers, all unconscious of the fraud, bore an illustrious name and a famous coat-of-arms to which it had no earthly title. As I have spoken of the arms of the De Villiers, this may be the proper place to describe them : " D'or au chef d'azur charge d'un dextrochere vetu d'un fanon d'hermines." Mottoes : " Va oultre ! " and also " La main a 1 ceuvre. All those familiar with Villiers de l'lsle Adam and his wonderful books, will recog- nize that these two proud mottoes seem to have been made for him. VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 9 " Va oultre ! " " Go forward ! " This is what he always did. His clear, prophetic glance piercing the heavens, and reaching in its impetuous and aspiring flight far beyond the horizon of ordinary human thought ! " La main a l'ceuvre ! " ' ' 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 in death ! In his last days he used to watch, sadly enough, the failing strength of those poor brave 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 flesh is ripening for the tomb." I return to my story. The old emigrd marquis, Armand, not choosing to leave the bones of a Villiers de ITsle Adam in 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 Legue and the tossing expanse of the Bay of St. Brieuc. He left four children, two sons and two daughters. One, Gabrielle, io VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. became a nun, and died not long ago, a sister of the Sacre Cceur de Jesus. The other married, when no longer young, a Mons. du Rumain. This worthy couple never showed any great tenderness for their nephew, either during his life or after his death. The youngest brother, Victor, entered the priest- hood very early in life. He was a wise and saintly man. He refused all honours, and would never leave the poor parish of Plou- milliau, of which he was for half a century the devoted rector. His nephew has dedi- cated to him one of the most extraordinary of his tales, " L'Intersigne." It was written in 1875 m tne presbytery of the good and simple priest ; and the sojourn of the great and unhappy poet (whose life at that time was all storm, agitation, and care) in the peace of that quiet retreat, inspired him with these wonderful lines, which none who knew and loved him can read without emotion : " The rural aspect of this house, with its green-shuttered windows, its three stone steps, its tangle of ivy, clematis, and tea-roses, covering the walls and reaching the roof VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. n (whence a little cloud of smoke escaped through a chimney topped by a vane), in- spired me with a feeling^of calm, of well-being, of profound peace. The trees of a neigh- bouring orchard showed through the trellised enclosure, their leaves all rusted by the ex- hausting summer heats. The two windows of the only storey shone with the western fire. Between them was a hollow niche holding the image of some happy saint. Silently I dismounted, fastening my horse to the window-shutter, and as I raised the knocker I cast a traveller's glance at the horizon behind me. But so brightly did that horizon shine over the wild and distant forests of oak and pine, whither the last birds were winging their belated way, so solemnly did the waters of a distant reed- covered lake refle6l the sky, so beautiful was nature in the calm air of that deserted spot, at that moment when the silence falls, that I stood mute, the knocker still dangling in my grasp. ' O thou ! ' I thought, ' who findest not the refuge of thy dreams, and to whom, after many a weary march 'neath cruel i2 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. stars — so joyful at the start, so saddened now — the land of Canaan with its palm-trees and running waters comes not with the dawn. Heart made for other exile than that whose bitterness thou sharest with brothers who love thee not ! Behold, here mayst thou sit thee down upon the stone of melancholy — here mayst thou dream such dreams as might haunt thee in the tomb, wouldst thou truly desire to die ! Come hither, then, for here the sight of the heavens shall transport thee into oblivion V" I cite this passage, not only because it seems to me to be exceedingly beautiful, but because it really is a psycho- logical document — one of the very rare in- stances in which a writer has permitted his published work to reflect his personal emo- tion. The renunciation of the world by the young sister and brother of Villiers was not perhaps altogether the result of an irresistible vocation. In these old races, the family spirit is traditional, and the sacrifice of the earthly interest of its younger members on the altar of the birthright of the eldest, is VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 13 still not unfrequently made. However this may have been, the Marquis Joseph de Villiers de ITsle Adam, Knight of the Order of Malta " de la Langue de France," remained in consequence of that fact the only repre- sentative of his mighty line. He obtained a dispensation from the Pope, and married Mdlle. Marie Francoise le Nepveu de Car- fort, who was the mother of our Villiers. The Marquis de ITsle Adam did not dero- gate from his dignity by allying himself with this family. The knight Roland de Carfort took the Cross in 1248. In 1370 Olivier de Carfort allied himself with the Dukes of Brittany. At the time of the first reform of the nobility in 1669, tne De Carfort family proved seven generations. It appears in the registers of nobility from 1425 to 1535, for the parishes of Cesson, Le Fceil, St. Turiaff, and Plaintel, in the bishopric of St. Brieuc. The Nepvou, or Le Nepveu, were lords of Carfort, Beruen, La Roche, Crenan, Du Clos, La Cour, La Ville Anne, Lescouet, and La Coudraye. They bore as arms, " De gueules a six billettes d'argent, 3, 2, 1 au chef de meme." 14 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. I ask indulgence for my long dissertation on these genealogical details. There was but one weak spot in the coat of mail woven of pride and haughty scorn with which Vil- liers endued himself before he descended into the terrible lists of life. 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 directed against his family pride. They did not fail to do it ! His right to everything was disputed, ances- tors, nobility, his very name ! Villiers used to roar like a lion stung by poisonous flies. But good, clear, precise proofs are worth more to the actual public than the loudest roars, and if in that country beyond the grave he still troubles concerning trivial earthly 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 exces- VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 15 sively poor ; and Mdlle. de Carfort was no richer than the marquis. Nevertheless, thanks to an old aunt, Mdlle. Daniele Kerinou, who had adopted her and who possessed a modest competence; thanks, too, to some remnants of fortune, and to the fabulous cheapness of life in Brittany in 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 Houvenagues at St. Brieuc. But the singular disposition and the perilous whimsicality of the head of the family spoilt everything. I do not believe that there has ever existed either in reality or in fiction a character more extraordinary than that of the father of Villiers. To depict it, even approximately, would need all the raciness of Dickens, all the profound power of observation of Balzac. And besides, I should be carried too far by the subject. I will content myself, therefore, with sketching one salient trait of this wonderfully original man. The Marquis de l'lsle Adam was possessed with an effulgent dazzling vision of gold. His son was haunted in the same way, 16 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. and he has thus described himself in one of his novels : " My sole inheritance, alas ! has consisted in his dazzling hopes and dreams ! Indifferent to the political cares of the century and of the Fatherland — indifferent, too, to the temporary results of the criminal failures of their representatives — I linger to gaze upon the reddening crests of the neighbouring forest ; instinctively, though why I know not, I shun the ill-omened moonlight and the noxious presence of my fellow-men. Yes, I shun them ! For I feel that I bear in my soul the reflected glory of the barren wealth of many a forgotten king." But whereas the writer found in the exer- cise of his art an outlet for his besetting idea, and a defence against its allurements, the marquis formed the wild project 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 activity, but spending it all in placing shares in the VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 17 most chimerical of undertakings ! 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 brilliant project once formed, the marquis went forth, beating up the country in every direction, searching private libraries, public archives, and church registers ; talking to old people, and accumu- lating a formidable mass of information. Then, when he considered himself sufficiently armed, apprizing those who were most inte- rested. Some, seduced by the hope of gain, allowed themselves to be tempted, and after long and expensive litigation, ended by con- signing the marquis and his imaginary in- heritances to all the gods of Erebus. This discoverer of doubtful inheritances soon be- came the terror of every attorney, lawyer, 1 8 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. and sheriffs' officer in Lower Brittany. For his haughty self-confidence carried him every- where, into every office, every agency ; and his cool pride, his aristocratic ways, and his illustrious name, awed the worthy scriveners of a remote province, where people are still simple enough to respecf certain things. It will 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 the second speculation undertaken by this astonishing person was as fantastic as the first. Dreaming, as he did incessantly, of delusive treasure, he soon began to imagine that it existed elsewhere than in 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 l'lsle Adam, which had enabled them to take rank amongst the most VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 19 gorgeous courtiers of France ? The seeker of inheritances became a treasure seeker, and set himself to work with the same ardour and conviction as heretofore. In the neigh- bourhood of Quintin stood the ruins of an old castle, which had formerly belonged to the Villiers de Flsle Adam. The marquis bought a concession, hired labourers, and set about his researches. I 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 me very seriously and eloquently of this treasure, buried for centuries ; he has shown me the plan of the subterranean hiding-place, and he endeavoured to find capitalists to assist his father in com- pleting his excavations. Fortunately money was not to be had, and Villiers, not having been able to carry out this dream in a practical way, has realized it in a wonderful manner in one of his most powerful works. I speak of the book entitled " Le Vieux de la Montagne," the full and complete manuscript of which I have held 2o VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. in my hands. This drama, according to the poet's design, should have immediately fol- lowed that of " Axel," of which it is the continuation, as " The Adoration of the Magi " is the conclusion. CHAPTER II. Birth of Villiers de l'lsle Adam — His baptism — His childhood — Stolen by mountebanks — School life — St. Brieuc — Laval — Rennes — His first poem — His early portrait — "L'Amour et la Mort 5 ' — Elegy — Literary plans — Family devotion and tenderness — " Our Matthias " — Departure for Paris. HILE her husband was thus spend- ing himself in a feverish and ruinous activity, the gentle and delicate marquise lived sadly on at home in the 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 Mdme. de Flsle Adam alone breaking its monotony; but a fervent piety, a rare gentleness of soul, and a strong hope in the goodness of God, supported her through life. Her faith was at 22 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. last rewarded, and 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 admir- able mother ! During her long life she never wavered once in her faith in him, and in his genius. She believed in her son with the same simple trust with which she believed in her God. It is easy to conceive with what joy the advent of 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 l'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 earth to render up the treasure hidden in its breast ! Back he went to his excava- tions, the marquise and her aunt seeing him depart this time with less regret, for hope and consolation smiled on the two good women from the baby's cradle. VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 23 The Bishop of St. Brieuc stood godfather to the new-comer, and baptized him, 28th November, 1838, in the presence of his grand- father, 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 have seldom succeeded in making the early years of their heroes interesting. For child- hood is above all things a period of silent incubation, during which soul and mind are secretly and laboriously developed. One incident of these first years spent at St. Brieuc must, however, be reported, for later the ima- gination of Villiers embroidered it with fan- tastic details. He was about seven years old, when his nurse lost him out walking. A band of strolling mountebanks, who were going to Brest, met the strayed child, and looking on the sprightly fair-haired boy as their legitimate prize, laid hands on him. Some days later his father found him at Brest in the booth of his strolling captors. He was 24 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. already the pet of the company, and there appeared to be such a bond of affection between the chief of the poor rope-dancers and the boy, that the marquis, overjoyed to get back his son, relinquished all idea of pro- secution. 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 picturesque style, he would con- jure up the memories of the two years he had spent amongst those admirable, though ill- favoured gipsies, visiting successively Italy, Germany, the Tyrol, and chivalrous Hungary — rescued and restored at last to his family through the devotion of a beautiful Romany lass, the last descendant of a time-honoured race, etc., etc. Villiers began his education at the school of St. Brieuc, but soon after- wards continued it at the Lycee 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 his first verses were written. Between whiles he concluded his VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 25 classical studies, which, once finished, his family settled with him at Rennes, in a house in the Rue de Corbin. At this time Villiers de l'lsle Adam was seventeen years old, and it was sufficient to see him for a few moments to be convinced of his vocation. Inspiration beamed on his full pale forehead, it 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 correct provincial society, of which, by the way, he saw but little. But those few privileged mortals who entered the magic circle of his intimacy, remained there fascinated and dazzled. Villiers already pos- sessed that extraordinary magnetic power which he preserved all his life, and of which every friend of his has felt the influence. The depth of thought in one so young was almost uncanny. All in fact he needed, at the time of his arrival at Rennes, to fit him to pro- nounce his vows before the altar of art, was 26 VILLIERS DE I/ISLE ADAM. that his heart should bleed under the divine wound of love, the agonizing consecration of every true poet. It 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 whom he has so well said, " There are certain helpmates who en- noble every one of life's joys, certain radiant maidens whose love is only positively given once. Yes, some few saintly souls, ideal in their dawning beauty." I will not profane the sacred passion of these two young hearts by trying to describe it. I will only say, They loved, and she died. On a sudden, suffering unfolded and spread the poet s budding wings. In an artist's youth, all his feelings, even sorrow, turn to song, and so it was with Villiers. These lines, written at seventeen years of age by the disdainful scoffer our 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. VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 27 L O charmants eglantiers ! soleil, rayon, verdure ! Frais salut que la terre offre dans un murmure De zephirs renaissants, aux coeurs emplis d'espoir, Bocage encor tout plein de chastes reveries, Six mois se sont passes loin de vos fleurs cheries : J'avais besoin de vous revoir. Oh ! vous souvenez-vous, foret delicieuse, De la jolie enfant qui passait gracieuse, Souriant simplement au ciel, a l'avenir, Se perdant avec moi dans ces vertes allees ? Eh bien ! parmi les lis de vos sombres vallees, Vous ne la verrez plus venir. O printemps ! 6 lilas ! 6 profondes ramees ! Comme autrefois vos fleurs, qu'elle avait tant aimees, Sous vos senders deserts exhalent leurs amours ; I/aubepine s'enlace au banc de la charmille, L'oiseau chante, le ciel est bleu, le soleil brille : Rien n'a change dans les beaux jours ! Silencieux vallon ! cela n'etait qu'un reve, Un songe radieux qui maintenant s'acheve Et ne laisse apres lui qu'un amer souvenir . . . Ne me demandez pas ce qu'elle est devenue, La pauvre jeune fille en ce monde venue Pour consoler et pour mourir ! Morte ! et je suis encore en proie a l'existence ! C'est done cela la vie ? Et deja mon enfance A-t-elle disparu loin de ce cceur brise ? 28 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. Seigneur, vous etes grand, mais vous etes severe ! Ainsi me voila seul : c'est fini sur la terre ; Cela s'appelle : " le Passe." II. Helas ! je me souviens. Les vents au sein des ombres, Du fleuve harmonieux plissaient les vagues sombres ; Les chants ailes du soir s'etaient evanouis ; Et la lune, en glissant parmi les blancs nuages, Souvent illuminait les teintes des feuillages Du clair obscur des belles nuits. Le rossignol, cache sous Tepaisse feuillee, Modulait les soupirs de sa chanson perlee, Les fleurs, dans leurs parfums, s'endormaient a leur tour Et comme deux rayons reunissent leur flamme, Tous deux nous unissions nos ames dans une ame, Et nos deux cceurs dans notre amour. Comme son joli pied se posait sur la mousse ! Comme sa chevelure etait soyeuse et douce ! Nous allions, enlaces, sous les hauts peupliers ; Elle avait dix-sept ans; j'avais cet age a peine, Souvent le rossignol retenait son haleine En ecoutant nos pas legers. Et moi je contemplais mon amante pensive, Et nous nous en allions, seuls, aupres de la rive. Sa main sur mon epaule et le front sur ma main ; Et les fremissements de la nuit solitaire Emportaient dans les cieux, ainsi qu'une priere, Tous les doux songes du chemin. VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 29 III. Puis, le reveil ! la mort ! l'existence qui change ! O temps ! vieillard glace ! qu'as-tu fait de mon ange ? Ou Tas-tu mise, helas ! et froide et pour toujours? Qu'as-tu fait de l'enfant jeune et pleine de charmes, Qu'as-tu fait du sourire et qu'as-tu fait des larmes, Oh ! qu'as-tu fait de nos amours? IV. Voyez comme les fleurs viennent bien pres des tombes ! On dirait un bouquet que les jeunes colombes, Retournant au pays, nous laissent pour adieu. — Qu'avait-elle done fait pour mourir la premiere ? Est-ce un crime de vivre ? et l'amour, sur la terre, N'est-il pas le pardon de Dieu ? Ne me souriez plus, 6 campagne immortelle ! Je suis seul maintenant ; si ce n'etait pour elle, Je n'avais pas besoin de vos fraiches beautes ; N'ai-je pas vu l'abime 011 tombent toutes choses ? Les lis meurent dans l'ombre ou se fanent les roses : Les cypres seuls restent plantes. Elle est sous les cypres, la pale jeune femme ! Mon amour triste et fler brule encor dans mon ame, Comme une lampe d'or veille sur le cercueil. Mais je ne pleure plus : la douleur a ses charmes. Et d'ailleurs, 6 mon Dieu, mes yeux n'ont plus de larmes, Et mon cceur seul porte le deuil. 3o VILLIERS DE LTSLE ADAM. I. O lovely eglantine ! O sunlit glades ! Fresh greeting offered by the murmuring earth On circling breezes to all hopeful hearts, Since last I saw those fair and much-loved flowers, Which yet fill all your memory-haunted groves, Six weary months have passed, And I have longed to look on you again ! Dost thou remember, Forest, lovely yet, The pretty graceful child who wandered by, Smiling her simple faith in Heaven and Fate, And straying with me through your verdant maze?- Alas ! the lilies hidden in your green depths Shall see her pass no more ! O spring-time ! Lilacs ! O deep greenwood shades Your flowers, erstwhile so dear to her sweet soul, Still shed their scent o'er your deserted paths, The may still twines the bench within the grove, Birds sing, the sky is blue, the sun still shines, No change has come upon your summer-tide ! Dumb silent valley ! It was all a dream, A radiant dream, too soon, alas ! to pass — And leaving but a bitter sense of loss — Where she is now, I pray you, ask me not ! That sweet young creature, sent into this world To comfort others — then herself to die ! Dead ! Can it be ? And I must still live on ! Is this Life's fate ? And has my youth indeed Forsaken for ever this poor broken heart ? VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 3i Lord, Thou art just, but oh ! Thou strikest hard ! I am alone ! I've done with earthly dreams ! IVe learnt the bitter meaning of " The Past ! " II. 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 souls were joined as though in one sun ray, Could feel our happy hearts beating in one great love ! How firm her dainty step upon the mossy path ! How silken and how soft the masses of her hair ! As arm in 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 I loved to gaze upon her thoughtful face, As far along the bank we wandered all alone, My shoulder 'neath her hand, while mine caressed her brow, 32 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. And all 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 ! 0 hoary-headed Time ! Where hast thou hid my love? For ever cold and still, ah ! whither is she gone ? That child, so full of life, of young resistless charm, Where is her magic smile ? and where her melting tears? And where the vanished glory of our loves ? IV. Mark now, how lush the flowers grow near a tomb ! Just like the nosegays some young turtle doves Might leave for farewell offering, ere they fly Into their native country ! Why should she die first ? Is life a crime? And is not earthly love God's own forgiveness ? Smile then no more, O immortal country fields ! 1 stand henceforth alone. And it was but for her That your fresh blooming beauty seemed so sweet to me ! Have I not plumbed the depths which ingulf all earthly hope ? The lilies wither, and the roses fade away 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, VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 33 Like to the golden lamp which burns before a corpse. But I can weep no more, in spite of sorrow's charm, And this, O Lord, is why : My eyes have no more tears, And my heart hides its lonely misery ! Villiers 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, impregnable, proud, wrapped up in its sad fidelity to that early memory. This first terrible experience of sorrow hastened the prodigiously rapid intellectual development of the young writer. He sought and found refuge in excessive activity, and Inspiration, great and radiant consoler, illu- mined his mind and beamed upon his heart. Vast conceptions, gigantic projects, such as are always formed by youthful artists, en- D 34 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. veloped his spirit 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 " Le Vieux de la Montagne," will become the chief work, the crowning point of his existence as a thinker; he imagines his mysterious novel, " Isis," and, above all, he pours forth in lines pulsating with life and glow, all the tumultuous grief of his tortured and sorrow-laden soul ! During this period, while his genius was agi- tatedly beating her wings like a captive eagle, Villiers de l'lsle Adam found at the home- fireside constant encouragement, unceasing sympathy, and immeasurable tenderness ! There is something admirably touching and rare in this worship of him by his own people in his early days. Generally the youth of an artist is darkened by the ill-will, the in- stinctive mistrust of art, the narrow-minded- ness, the love of lucre, of his family. In the case of Villiers de l'lsle Adam, the contrary was the fact. The mother, the old aunt, the VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 35 treasure-seeking marquis, disagreeing in all else, formed a perfect union when it was a question of singing the praises of " their Matthias." They lauded him, they exalted him on to a pedestal. His vocation, his genius, 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 called to enact, convinced that it was their own absolute duty to sacrifice every- thing in order that the genius of the family might expand in full freedom, these admirable souls, 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 victory of the last of the Villiers de l'lsle Adam, who, according to their childlike faith, was with brain and pen to reconquer for them the fortune and the celebrity which their ancestors had won by blood and sword ! 36 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. All hastened to the rescue. The nun of the Sacred Heart, the abbe, 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 manor- house at Legue and the old residence at St. Brieuc. He abandoned the excavations for ten treasures, and the search for half a hundred inheritances, and following his son, accom- panied by his wife, and having in tow the old aunt, who would not be left behind, he started for Paris, to the cry of " Dieu le volt!" (It is God's will !) with the same confidence in which his crusader ancestors had departed to Jerusalem. CHAPTER III. Paris — The reign of the common-place in literature — The poets — The defenders of the Beautiful — " Le Par- nasse Contemporain " — " Les Parnassiens" — Catulle Mendes and the " Revue Fantaisiste " — Triumphal entry of Villiers de ITsle Adam — First Poems — Friendships — Stephane Mallarmeand Leon Dierx — "Claire Lenoir" — Appearance of Dr. Triboulat Bon- homet — A few words touching this personage — " Le Roman d'une Nuit," by Catulle Mendes — Death of the "Revue Fantaisiste "—The Blue Dragon Hotel— The Rue de Douai — Villiers de ITsle Adam, accord- ing to Francois Coppee. T the time of the exodus of Villiers and his family, Paris had become, from the artistic and literary point of view, the paradise of the com- mon-place. The gods of this Olympus were composers of operettas, manufacturers of serial novels, historiographers of the latest scandals, poets of the drawing-room, of the 38 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. boudoir, nay, of the cafe concerts. All these lived and fattened on their trade, honoured, and almost celebrated, clinging to the title of artist, yet ignorant of, or despising, the pri- mordial rules of art. The censure, which smiled sanctimoniously 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 ridiculous prosecution of the author of " Madame Bovary," and of the sentence against Baudelaire. As for those poets who pursued their divine chimera with fervour and disinterested- ness, no jest was reckoned too coarse, no insult in too bad taste, to be thrown in their faces. The press was perpetually sharpening the arrows of its keenest satire, wherewith to pierce whomsoever aspired to any great ideal. Victor Hugo, exiled as he was, alone suc- ceeded 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- VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 39 scurely in the dreary town of Versailles, he, the author of the " Romanceros," rhyming sickly madrigals to Chloris ; while the divine Theophile Gautier, the illustrious hero of the first performance of " Hernani," cast the last blossoms of his astonishing intellect on the common track of the newspaper feuilleton. Poetry and art seemed in truth to be dead, stifled by the triumph of materialistic stupidity. But poetry and art are as immortal as the starry heavens, and at the very moment in which they seemed to lie in their last agony, they were silently making ready to spread their vigorous limbs and soar with lofty flight into the blue realms of the ideal ! Certain youths, very young and poor, banded together in the same faith, the same deep and passionate love of the beautiful, the same lively hatred of the common-place and the vulgar, formed the bold project of revolt- ing, weak and almost defenceless as 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 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. threatened it ; to proclaim the power of rhythm, the respecl; that is due to syntax, to affirm, in short, that no work can be really artistic without a constant jealousy for form. The critics of the chief newspapers, the chroniclers of the small ones, drew upon their usual arsenal of gibes and jeers, and old jokes turned out as new, to scoff down these rash youths. They were given strange nicknames, " Formists," "Stylists," " Fantaisistes," " Im- passibles. ,, Songs were made about them, they were caricatured, made to play the parts of idiots in the " Revues " at the end of each year, and to conclude, when a young pub- lisher, who (thanks to his lucky daring) had become a millionaire, ventured to publish the first number of their collected 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 L'ISLE ADAM. 41 pursued it in spite of the direst poverty. Of them, as of every artist, posterity has been the true judge ; and it has sent back to their native obscurity those who, from the heights of their brilliant existence, made game of the poor little feverish-eyed, shabby-coated poets. Where are now the names of those sparkling and witty quill-drivers, who poured forth their sarcasms on the obscure Parnassians ? And, on the other hand, the names of these same Parnassians, are they not now familiar to us all ? To cite only the chief among them, have we not Francois Coppee, Sully Prudhomme, Alphonse Daudet, Leon Cladel, Glatigny, Catulle Mendes, and Villiers de l'lsle Adam ? Res miranda! The first publication of these new representatives of "la jeune France" was not a collection of verses, it was just simply a review in which prose and poetry joyously alternated. Gaily covered, cheerful in tone, with an attractive and well-sounding title, its editor was nineteen years old, and it had not a contributor who counted more than five-and- twenty summers. In short, it was the " Revue Fantaisiste," whose director was 42 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. a native of Bordeaux, newly arrived in Paris, poor as Job and handsome as Apollo, by name Catulle Mendes. The offices of this review were in the Passage Mires, now Passage des Princes. Here Villiers de l'lsle Adam broke his first lance, and my readers will doubtless appreciate this quotation from a little known but amusing work, in which the former director of the " Revue Fantaisiste " has presented, in a style at once witty and feeling, the picture of the home of the " Par- nasse Contemporain " : — " The office was a somewhat strange-look- ing place ; hangings of green and rose- coloured chintz, like a smiling meadow, seemed to gaze in wonder at the mahogany cupboards and tables. A lounge (seldom unoccupied) at the back of the room appeared to sulk at the leathern arm-chair and the cardboard manuscript cases. It was half drawing-room, and would fain have been all boudoir ! " Hither, every afternoon, towards three o'clock, came Theodore de Banville, giving us freely, with the good-nature of a youthful maestro, his intoxicating mixture of Orpheus VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 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 ; Leon Golzan, who graciously vouchsafed us the support of his name ; Charles Monselet, Jules Noriac, Philoxene Boyer, dreaming of Shakespeare, and Charles Baudelaire, slight, elegant, a little stealthy, almost alarming with his half-frightened air, gracefully haughty, with the attraction 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 travelling purposes : ' His Eminence Mon- seignor Beau Brummel ! ' He used to bring us those wonderful prose poems, which are numbered now amongst the most perfect pages in French literature. There, too, Albert Glatigny, with his vagrant flow of speech, hand on hip, his necktie undone, his waistcoat too short, and obstinately ignorant of braces, smiling like some young faun, wearied out by the tendernesses of the nymphs, would recite 44 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. to us those amorous strophes of his, whose rhymes seem to re-echo the sound of kisses." It was in this abode, with its strange charm, where the three twin sisters, Youth, Poetry, and Poverty, seemed to have met together, that Villiers de l'lsle Adam made his entry into the world of letters. He presented him- self, almost immediately on his arrival in Paris, his pockets stuffed with his family parchments and his own manuscript com- positions. At the very outset he took the office 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 has often been described in enthusiastic terms by those who were eye-witnesses of it. " 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 pub- lished that very year by Scheuring of Lyons, with much luxury of paper and printing, under the title of " Premieres Poesies " (First Poems). The book was dedicated to the Comte Alfred VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 45 de Vigny. In this collection of verse, now hardly to be found, there is already a glimpse of the profound original thinker, scornful of all conventionalism. It is not, to be sure, by any means a piece of perfection, but through its uncertainties, its weaknesses, its gropings in the dark, here and there, as in " Hermosa " and " Le Chant du Calvaire," there beams the flash of genius. These first years of Villiers in Paris con- tain the few truly happy moments of a life full of bitterness. He was free, then, from the anxiety of earning his daily bread, and when he left the family circle, where he was adored like a deity, he met everywhere, on his first appearance, with an enthusiastic wel- come. The originality of his gestures and demeanour, and his profound, passionate, and picturesque speech, full as it was of glowing imagery, aroused amongst young people an admiration which amounted to fanaticism. He was the spoiled child of the Parnassians, and he found in their coterie the two friends who, through all the trials and hardships, and all the mortifications of his life, remained 46 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. faithful to him till death, and after it; I speak of M. Stephane Mallarme and M. Leon Dierx. Every friend of Villiers must, like myself, vow an infinite gratitude to the two excellent-hearted poets who, having supported the author of the " Nouveau Monde " in the hours of his despondency and darkest poverty, showed him, in his last ill- ness, a care, a delicate tenderness, a devotion, and a disinterestedness, which the tenderest woman might have envied them. No artist's existence, even in the direst tribulation, could be completely wretched, while brightened and warmed by the flame of such sturdy friendship. Villiers de l'lsle Adam made his dibut, then, in the " Revue Fantaisiste," with a tale called " Claire Lenoir," a strange, mysterious, terrifying story. What makes this work peculiarly interesting to us is that in it there appears, for the first time, a character which has become almost legendary, and on the creation of which the writer worked up till the end of his life. It will be understood that I refer to the striking figure of Dr. Triboulat Bonhomet, the personification of VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 4 7 the scientific and atheistic bourgeois — a monstrous Prud'homme, transcendently fool- ish and ferociously egotistic. In drawing his own portrait, Bonhomet writes this sentence, which seems to me to sum up the original idea of his author : "My physiognomy is that of my century, of which I have reason to believe myself the archetype ; briefly, I am a doctor, a philanthropist, and a man of the world." Again, speaking of his own convic- tions, he says : " My religious ideas are limited to the absurd conviction that God has created man in His own image, and vice versa." This Dr. Triboulat Bonhomet was to Villiers what "le garcon" was to Flaubert : a sort of imaginary personage, whom he endued with a complete personality, with all the passions of a real and complicated character, in whose mouth he placed the jokes and the aphorisms which he collected in conversation and in life, or which his profound and ironic wit invented for him. This doctor makes one shudder rather than laugh, and the circumstantial pedantry with which he relates the alarming adventures of " that discreet and scientific personage, 48 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. Dame Claire Lenoir, widow," adds to the terror of her story. But I shall frequently have occasion, in the course of these notes, to quote the sayings of this " honorary member of 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, I must register the decease of the poetical little review, in which so many talents tried their budding wings. It passed away in the second year of its existence, beaten to death by the censure, in the name of public morality. The so-called outrage had been committed by its director, Catulle Mendes, and took the form of a one- a6l comedy in verse, entitled, " A Night's Romance" ("Le Roman dune Nuit"). The piece was far from being a good one, but, though frivolous and mediocre, it was not criminal, and one wonders on reading it how judges were found to condemn the author of such a tiny spark to a month's imprisonment, and the review which published it to 500 francs fine. The poet had to go to Ste. VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 49 Pelagie 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 cele- brated the obsequies of their literary offspring, and most of them went to live in a furnished inn in the Rue Dauphine, famous in the annals of contemporary literature as the Blue Dragon Hotel. Four years later, we find them gathered once more round their former chief. Fortunehad smiled on Catulle Mendes ; he had money in his pockets, and owned, in the Rue de Douai, an apartment containing real furni- ture and a piano ; likewise a groom, surnamed Covielle, who opened the door to such visitors as were in possession of the necessary pass- word. In one of his articles in the " Patrie," these meetings of the future Parnassians have been admirably reproduced by Francois Cop- pee. Want of space forbids me to cite the whole, but I quote this portrait of Villiers de l'lsle Adam, which represents him with perfect and striking truthfulness. "Suddenly, round the assembled poets, runs the universal cry of joy, ' Villiers ! Here's 50 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. Villiers ! ' And all at once a young man, with light blue eyes, a little 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 melop&ia, 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 legeres 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 spell, humming the last notes of his air, or else abruptly breaking it off, he rises, leaves the piano, goes as though to hide himself in the corner of the room, and rolling another cigarette, casts over his stupified audience VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 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 Catulle Mendes, in the Rue de Douai, the Comte Auguste Philippe Villiers de l'lsle Adam."— Patrie, Feb. 26, 1883. CHAPTER IV. Early influences — Charles Baudelaire — My father — His relations with Villiers — Their intimacy — The Hotel d'Orleans — Literary and philosophical gather- ings — Leon Cladel — Villiers and the Hegelian philo- sophy — " Isis " — " The Princess Tullia Fabriana" — Preface — Eccentricities of style — The original of Doctor Bonhomet — Doctor C. — " Ellen " and "Morgane" — Sensations of loneliness — The Mar- quis de l'lsle Adam continues at Paris the course of his profitable financial operations — The poisoner, Comte Courty de la Pommerais — The apartment in the Rue St. Honore — The marquis — Aunt Kerinou ■ — Matthew's decorations. gj^PlP T sometimes happens that strong influences felt by an artist in his early 7 intellectual life leave an in- effaceable 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. VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 53 The ascendancy exercised over him by the " Satanic " poet seems to me to have been somewhat inauspicious. It developed his taste for extremes and for mystification, it led him astray from the exercise of his talent, naturally clear and simple in its expression, instigating him to bury it in clouds of whim- sical metaphor, or to allow himself to be drawn into the obscurities, the affectations, the over-refinements, which sometimes dis- figure his work, and make it so difficult to read. Let it be understood that I do not speak here of irony, which was one of Villiers' most powerful weapons, and which was originally, in his case, thoroughly good- natured, though the hardships of life, and the wicked stupidity of those who considered themselves " the pink of gentility," sharpened it, and rendered it pitiless and terrible. But his connection with Baudelaire, the in- fluence which the author of the " Fleurs du Mai " gained over his heart and intellect at the threshold of his literary career, inspired him with that mania for making the middle class stare, " epater le bourgeois," and for 54 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. mystifying his readers, from which he was never able to free himself even in his most deeply thought-out work, " 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 if he had listened to him more. But there was nothing strange in the fa6l that his nervous nature, his mind full of every sort of curiosity, his youth, indeed, should have been much more captivated by the wilful eccentricities, the exotic life, the dandyism, and the cool per- versity of Charles Baudelaire, than by the counsels of his Breton relative, who was for ever preaching to him sobriety, labour, soli- tude, and silence. Up to the time of the arrival of the family of Villiers de l'lsle 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, attracted more than any other person by the brilliant dawn of the budding genius, and VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 55 dreading for 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, Matthias became part of the family, and it was soon after that he paid that first visit to Fougeres my recollection of which I have described at the commencement of this work. Here, perhaps, is the fittest place to insert an amusing letter, the facsimile of which is offered to the inquiring reader. It is addressed to my father, and dated from Montfort, a small town in the department of Ille-et-Vilaine. In it Villiers alludes to the printing of his 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 poet's at Laval, who, having profited but little 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 and briefs, in his native province. He died young and 56 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. rich. Villiers dedicated some verses to him in the " Premieres Poesies." " My dear good poet, " And how are you ? Better I hope. If I were in your place, I should be in the rudest health. But let that be as it may, I am certain that the one thing that you pine for at this moment, is your seventy-second game of chess. " If, however, you should be thinking of starting for the land of shadows, be good enough to give me warning, so that I may compose in your glory, and for the wonder- ment of the world in general, a funeral march in E flat. It is the fashionable key, and on fashion I take my stand ! " I have no letters from my interesting family. Lemenant and I are in the depths of poverty, which facl forces me to ask your permission to put off the repayment of your kindly help. Don't swear at me ! I publish the praise of your amiability far and wide. And, besides, the fault is yours, and it will teach you to be too good-natured ! Now, I ask VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 57 you, whether in this nineteenth century, any sane man should lend money to his friend ? Do you desire to see the finger of scorn pointed at you in every drawing-room you enter ? I will denounce you to the whole of society as a traitor to the principle of modern selfishness ! " This may bore you — but you richly de- serve it ! " The proofs of ' Master Perrin ' are comical to the last degree. " Lemenant and I have had several hearty laughs at his expense. I am going to write him a little jeering letter which will puzzle his poor brains. " Here is a specimen of his manner. It is all the same from beginning to end. " ' Lujaige de Don Ivan & def pechevrf dv golfe: " 1 L'usage de Don Juan et des pecheurs du golfe.' " Here you have an impossible rhyme, printed in this man's extraordinary style. Too much of a joke, isn't it ? Between our- selves, a man who has such a notion must be 58 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. mad ; just fancy a book printed on yellow paper in this style ! Lemenant vows it would be quite phosphorescent. It really is comical, and in my collected works (if they are ever published) I might afford myself such a luxury, but at present ! Zut ! This is my definition. He is the ne phis ultra of a grinning, superannuated typographer, or, if you prefer it, the weird ink-scratcher of the Gutenbergian Press ! and, in other words, the grave of human thought ! " Now, let us go on to less casual matters. " Montfort is a town, or rather — stay ! I am right in calling it a town — full of mud, and of calm. — We live in it, under the wing of that good old seraph whose name is ' cheerful- ness.' " The country swarms with worthy people, and one hardly knows oneself, coming from Paris ! " There is a mill here, a real mill, exactly like Rosa Bonheur's pictures (still life). " Lemenant pours daily from our open window his sanctimonious speeches, and his metaphysico-transcendental spleen. VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 59 " The few terrified passers-by listen, listen, — and accompany his discourse to the air, * II a des bott, bott, bott.' The which pro- duces an effect whereon I heartily congratulate him. "We live in the square, which triples the interest of the view, and I peacefully go on making rhymes in the midst of the tumult. A bientot, dear kind poet ! " Believe in my true faithful friendship ! I clasp your hand and heartily embrace you. If you have time, send me a reassuring word about your health. " VlLLIERS DE L'ISLE AdAM." At the very end of the Rue Richelieu, almost opposite the Theatre Francais, stands an hotel — the Hotel d' Orleans— where I often and gladly stay. I cannot pass under its vaulted entrance without being deeply moved. As I gaze on the inner court with its steep flight of steps, and glance at the second-floor windows, all the ghosts of my youthful school-days rise up around me, every corner of the dwelling is familiar, and at each 6o VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. turn I seem to see the proud outline of my father's face. Here he lived for twelve years, and here my brothers and I, students at the College Rollin, spent our Sunday holidays. We used to be present in clouds of tobacco smoke, at endless discussions between Villiers de 1'Isle Adam and the master of the little apartment. We did not understand much, it must be admitted, but we used to gaze open-mouthed at the wild gestures, the chamois-like bounds, the contortions of every feature, with which our cousin Matthias used to embellish his arguments. This hotel in the Rue Richelieu had not then, it has not now, the commonplace aspect of our modern caravanserais. In spite of all the alterations made by its new owners, the walls of the building still bear the marks of its illustrious origin. For this was the old town-house of the Cardinal Armand de Richelieu, and the prin- cipal building, reached by a flight of stone steps of great dignity of form, has preserved all the majestic simplicity of the architectural style of the time of Louis XIII. VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 61 In the days of my father and of Villiers, the hotel was kept by a worthy couple whose son was an artist, and hence, scattered through the rooms, were tapestries, frescoes, pictures, and trophies of arms, which heightened the quaint air of the dwelling. Hither, in the evenings, to a modest apartment on the second floor, came some dreamers, some thinkers, some philosophers. Besides the face of Villiers, a second coun- tenance, seen by chance at one of these reunions, remains graven on my memory, that of Leon Cladel. His mighty stature, his long hair, his pallid complexion, his gloomy countenance, his wild eyes, his reddish-brown beard, really gave him that air attributed to him by Catulle Mendes, of a fallen angel. He used to come with his friend Baude- laire, whom, I am ashamed to say, I do not recollect. As my father was much occupied with philosophy at this period of his life, the philo- sophers were the most numerous and eager guests at these gatherings, where much coffee 62 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. was drunk, and an incalculable number of pipes and cigarettes consumed. The host was at that time passionately interested in the German school of philosophy, which soon laid hold of the profound mind of Vil- liers de l'lsle Adam. His friend initiated him into the brilliant spiritualist theories of Hegel, whose fervent disciple he was ; but the humanitarian and socialistic projects of the author of the " Poemes 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 enthu- siasm. He began to put forward the theories of the speculative philosophy in the curious tale of " Claire Lenoir," which I have already spoken of. Some years later, in 1862, he published the first volume of a mysterious novel, " I sis," the continuation of which never appeared, in which the Hegelian principles and system are developed and carried out to VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 63 their extremest limit. This first volume, entitled " Tullia Fabriana," was dedicated to my father. It gained for its author some expressions of admiration from Baudelaire, which at this date may seem excessive. In truth, this novel contains more faults than good qualities. The passion for roman- ticism of which Villiers never could rid him- self, here breaks out in 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 exube- rance of his fancy, he himself recognized all the imperfections of his early efforts, and " I sis," which was originally to consist of six volumes, was not continued. In the preface to " Tullia Fabriana " the author thus ex- presses himself: "Tsis' is the title of a collection of works, which will appear, I hope, at short intervals ; it is the collective formula for a series of philosophical novels, the x of a problem of the Ideal ; it is the great 64 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. unknown : once finished, the work will be its own definition." The absolute need for oddity which seems to be inherent in Villiers, is betrayed in " Isis " in a very evident manner. The eccentricities of its style attracted many jests in the smaller papers. Already, at the appear- ance of "Claire Lenoir" in the "Revue Fantaisiste," the " Tintamarre " and other satirical sheets had made copious game of the strange expressions employed by the young writer. One sentence especially had become celebrated. It had been placed by the author in the lips of Dr. Bonhomet him- self, " Je lui fus grat de cette injure." Villiers claimed that, as ingrat is the qualifying ad- jective derived from the noun ingratitude, so the adjective derived from gratitude must be grat. Logically, reason was on his side,' but he doubtless forgot that the French language laughs at logic. This name of Bonhomet, coming back to my pen, reminds me that this bold concep- tion, which haunted Villiers' brain until his death, is not purely imaginary. The Hotel VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 65 d'Orleans possessed at that time, as physician in ordinary, a certain Dr. C , who had the most ill-favoured countenance it is possible to imagine. For the rest, he was an excellent man, of a most charitable nature, and a very distinguished savant. But his gloomy face, 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. Thenceforward, all unconscious, the worthy Dr. C became a sort of dummy, on whose frame Villiers hung, from day to day, all the wily sophisms, all the strange fancies, all the terrible or grotesque fads, which make the savant Triboulat Bonhomet a unique type in modern literature. The first years in Paris (1859- 1863) were a most prolific period. Besides " Claire Le- noir " and " I sis," the writer gave the public two dramas full of gloomy splendour, which were never acled — " Ellen" and " Morgane." There is a fine sentence in " Morgane," which I desire to quote here, because it seems to me 66 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. admirably characteristic not only of the style, but of the turn of mind of Villiers de l'lsle Adam at this epoch : " I drink to thee, O forest, thou giver of oblivion ! To you, dew-laden grasses ! To you, too, O 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-reflecting waves, and who stretch away, like I myself, in pride and solitude ! " The author of " L'Eve Future" always had this sense of being alone in the midst of the world. " I have always," he wrote to me a few years before his death, " felt alone, even when beside a woman I loved, or with a friend — nay, even in the enthusiastically affectionate 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 saintly marquise, the good aunt Kerinou, amidst all the noisy whirl of Parisian life ? The marquis, still VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 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 like, of strange and lean appearance, who were engaged in sharing amongst themselves the last remnants of his patrimony. He had established on his own account a sort of branch of the Record Office, where, with a fine, self-sufficient air, he gave out brevets of nobility. Unfortunately his choice of the persons he ennobled was not always judicious ; and thus it came about that in the course of the trial of the poisoner, Courty de la Pommerais, the counsel for that doclor, criminal enough, although a homoeopath, laid before the tribunal a pompous certificate signed by the Marquis Joseph de Villiers de l'lsle Adam, Dean of the Order of the Knights of Malta, and attesting the fact that the accused, being of noble birth, had an incon- testable 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 63 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. New Year's Day, my father took me, for the first time, to visit the old Marquis and Mar- quise de Villiers de l'lsle Adam. They had taken apartments in the Rue St. Honore, close to the Place Venddme, 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 distinguished- looking. When my father spoke of Matthias, her face beamed. She told us with a faint smile that the marquis was at his business. She added that her aunt Kerinou was ill in bed, but that she would like to see us. In a great old-fashioned bed, I perceived a little old lady, whose doll-like face, framed in an immense frilled cap, was all that could be seen of her. She had a long, mobile nose, and small bright eyes, and talked a great deal. Certain phrases which fell perpetually from her lips struck me, because they made my father laugh in spite of himself. Her VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 69 intonation rests within my memory, and at this moment I can hear the little clear tremu- lous voice repeating, " You know, Hyacinthe, Matthias is a famous man ! — Matthias is going to have a decoration. — The emperor is going to decorate Matthias. — Matthias will be de- corated." I need hardly add that it was all a dream of the old lady's. Nobody thought then, no one has thought since, of giving the " Croix " to the author of "Axel." Villiers de Flsle Adam was one of those men whom no govern- ment decorates. CHAPTER V. The legend of the hoaxer hoaxed — The succession to the throne of Greece — Villiers de ITsle Adam a candidate for the throne — " Le Lion de Numidie" — "The Moor of Venice" — Nemesis — An imperial audience — The Marquis and Baron Rothschild — The Due de Bassano and Villiers de ITsle Adam — The last act of the comedy — A poet's conclusion — Death of Aunt Kerinou — Separation. HERE is concerning this epoch in the life of Villiers a wonderful legend which has remained cele- brated in the literary world ; but in passing from mouth to mouth it has gone through so many transformations, and fallen so far from the truth, that it is necessary to re-esta- blish it in its pristine simplicity. My readers will perceive that the vis comica of the terrible joke of which the young writer was a victim had no need of graces and embellishments. VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 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 history. Be re- assured, my reader ! it shall be but a short one. In the year of grace, 1863, then, a time at which the imperial government shone with its brightest radiance, the Hellenic nation happened to be in want of a king. The great powers who protected the heroic little nation to which Byron had sacrificed his life, France, Russia, and England, looked about for a young constitutional tyrant whom they might confer on their protSgie. Napoleon III. had at that epoch the casting vote in the council, and men were asking themselves anxiously whether he would put forward a candidate, and whether that candidate would be a Frenchman. Briefly, the newspapers were full of stories about, and comments on this absorbing subjecl. : the Greek question was the question of the hour. The news- mongers could fearlessly give free rein to their imagination, for whilst the other nations seemed to have fixed their definite choice on 72 VILLIERS DE I/ISLE ADAM. the son of the King of Denmark, the emperor — so justly named "the taciturn prince " by the friend of his dark days, Charles Dickens — the emperor, I say, held his peace, and let his decision be waited for. Thus matters stood, when one morning early in March the tall marquis burst like a whirlwind into the dreary drawing-room in the Rue St. Honore brandishing a newspaper, and in an indescribable state of excitement, soon to be shared by all his family. This was the strange news registered that day in the columns of several Parisian newspapers : " We learn on good authority that a new candidature has just been announced for the throne of Greece. The candidate this time is a French grand seigneur well known all over Paris — the Comte Philippe Auguste de Villiers de l'lsle Adam, last descendant of the august line which has produced the heroic defender of Rhodes and the first Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. At the emperor's last private reception, one of his intimates having inquired concerning the probability of this candidate's success, his majesty smiled VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 73 enigmatically. The new aspirant to kingly honours has our best wishes." Those who have followed me so far will easily imagine the effecT; produced on imagi- nations like those of the Villiers family by such a perusal. Already they beheld their Matthias entering Athens, dressed in black velvet, proudly seated on a white charger, surrounded by his splendid Palikares ! As for Matthias himself, he took it all very seriously, though he doubted of ultimate success. " Sire ! " said the old marquis gravely, as he majestically buttoned his coat, worn white with wear, " money is the one thing you want ! Your majesty's father will see you get it ! Farewell ! I am going to see Rothschild ! " He went, and was seen no more for a week. But let me quickly explain the origin of this extraordinary adventure. It might truly be called the hoaxer hoaxed, with the quali- fication, however, that the hoaxee would never believe in a hoax at all. In the days when Villiers was the chief figure of the little circle at the Rue de Douai 74 VILLIERS DE ! L'ISLE ADAM. and of some literary caboulets (as were then called certain cafes where writers congregated), he had a rival, 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 from Montpellier. I will call him by no other name, for since those days the lion has clipped his mane, cut his claws, and done public penance to society ! Gifted with a wonderful constitution, with delightful spirits and good temper, with a much-dreaded shrewdness and surprising powers of observation, this jolly Colossus would have been invulnerable, had he not been afflicted with a vanity as strange as it was unwarrantable. The Numidian lion had pretensions to being an admirable a6lor, and never lost an opportunity of showing off his talent for mimicry and his powers of declamation. Villiers, who had already practised that ter- rible, cold, and serious irony, which makes all the weaknesses of human nature its target, soon perceived the weak place in his jolly boon companion's armour. He longed for a VILLIERS DE I/ISLE ADAM. 75 joke, insinuated himself into the lion's good graces, and by degrees succeeded in putting him off his guard. He then explained to him that some friends of his were desirous of playing the " Moor of Venice " on a stage hired 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 neces- sary, to keep the local colour, that the acior should stain his face and arms black. " Don't let that hinder you," cried his friend boldly ; " I am your man ; here is my hand on it!" With astonishing patience and gravity, Villiers helped his friend to rehearse, and told him where to get " made up." Then a dress rehearsal was called, to take place at the usual trysting-place of the band of poets. I need not say there never had been a question of playing Shakespeare's masterpiece, but, all the same, Villiers had summoned all the poets, " horse, foot, and dragoon." When Othello, in his splendid dress, his hands 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 76 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. justified his title. The Provencal was too sharp not to perceive at once that he had been duped. He took it well, and was the first 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. He remained Villiers' friend, and in his turn discovered the defect in his coat of mail. Then it was that he laid a snare for his vanity, his patri- cian pride, his foolish family pretensions, which almost betokened genius. The son of the treasure-seeker 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 l'lsle Adam could not seem anything abnormal to the public. The name was illustrious and high- sounding ; it was not impossible, therefore, that the sovereign, desirous of placing on the Greek throne a monarch who owed every- thing to him, might choose amongst the flower of the French nobility a person on VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 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- pectant king soon received the usual avalanche of begging letters. Our Matthias did not remain idle, nor dally with his golden dream. This throne which glistened with gems and precious stones through the blue smoke-clouds of his ciga- rette, tempted him much more than he acknowledged to himself. Instigated by his good friends, who were laughing at him in their sleeves, he drew up a request for an audi- ence, and sent it to the Tuileries. Some days afterwards, a magnificent estafette drew up before the house in the Rue St. Honore, and gave to the astonished concierge a letter sealed with the imperial arms, and addressed to the Comte Villiers de l'lsle Adam; the audience was granted, and fixed for an early date. For the first and only time in his life, the poet found a tailor who gave him credit. He 78 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. ordered a sumptuous evening coat, with all its 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 news- papers contained some paragraph concerning the " French candidate." It was announced that the emperor was about to receive him : it 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 victim for the impending audience. The writer, who was then in the throes of his novel, " Isis," had his imagination filled with those gloomy ad- ventures 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- VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 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 victim ; 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 hav- ing as their scene this palace, which, accord- ing to him, was as full of trap-doors as an operatic stage. 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 trap- door, a dungeon, might open suddenly under his feet. Above all, he must absolutely refuse to explain himself to any but the emperor himself ! At last the great day came, and poor Mat- thias, very pale and agitated in his brand-new clothes, got into a hired carriage, and drove away to the Tuileries ; before starting, he made his will, and sent it to my father. 80 VILLIERS DE LISLE ADAM. It is difficult to tell exactly what passed at the Tuileries : Villiers' version is so impressed with romance that it is not easy to disentangle the real from the imaginary. What seems certain is that the poet was received by the Due de Bassano, who at that time fulfilled the functions of Grand Chamberlain of the Palace. Doubtless the old diplomatist tried to fathom Matthias's intentions 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 put his foot down without insulting precautions, responded coldly to the advances of his inter- locutor, upon whom he cast glances and deeply significant smiles which were quite unintel- ligible to the chamberlain, and finally stated, courteously but firmly, that he was resolved to speak to nobody but the emperor himself. VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 81 " I must ask you, then, to take the trouble of coming another time, count," said the duke, rising; "his majesty is engaged, and com- missioned me to receive you." There is no doubt that the chamberlain took the man of genius for a lunatic, and, in spite of my admiration for the author of " L'Eve Future," I 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 expected every moment to be cast into a dungeon. " For," he would add, " I saw, the instant I entered, that Bas- sano had been gained over to the son of the King of Denmark, and that his objecl in sum- moning me to the Tuileries was to get rid of an inconvenient and dangerous rival ; but my cold- ness, my dignity, the good style and modera- tion of my words, doubtless impressed the Sbirri, 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. G 82 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. He barricaded himself into his room, and never left it for a week. At last the news- papers put an end to his anxieties and his ambitious hopes, by announcing the final nomination of his fortunate rival, the second son of King Christian IX., who ascended the throne of Greece under the title of George I. The last ac~l of the comedy had been played out, the curtain fell, but the principal actor never would believe that it was all mere fancy. He never doubted but that he had had the most serious chance of success ; and to the last day of his life he would describe, in his picturesque and glowing conversation, the splendid things that he would have accom- plished, if fortune had favoured him, and he had become king. Reader, you may laugh ! but yet, would much harm have been done ? would the Greeks have been less 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 ./^Eschylus, of Anacreon, VILLIERS DE LISLE ADAM. 83 of Aristophanes ? Doubtless, the reign of Matthias would not have resembled that of our late highly-respe6lable Louis Philippe, but perhaps, fired by his genius, the Greece of Miltiades and Themistocles, of Marathon and Salamis, might have felt her ancient soul stir within her! The poet's kingdom is not alas ! of this world, and his crown is a thorny one. And what, indeed, is a throne that it should be so eagerly desired ? The hero of this adventure has told us in some very beau- tiful lines : let them form the conclusion of this veracious history. " Un trone pour celui qui reve, Un trone est bien sombre aujourd'hui. Faite des vanites humaines, A ses pieds saignent bien des haines, Souvent il voile bien des peines ! La foule obscure reste au seuil : Sapin couvert d'hermines blanches. II a sceptre et lauriers pour branches ; II est forme de quatre planches Absolument comme un cercueil ! " 1 1 "To him whose life is full of dreams A throne is now a dreary seat. Summit of earthly vanity, By bloody hatreds girt about, 8 4 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. The old aunt, Mdlle. Kerinou, never rose from the great canopied bed in which I saw her at the end of that memorable year, for the first and only time in my life. Her pure and simple soul took wing to the gardens of Para- dise, escorted by all her hopes and illusions. The departure of the good old lady was a ter- rible event for the Villiers de l'lsle family; up to now, thanks to her income, it had been possible to pursue the jog-trot journey of life without too many jolts, but her fortune, being for the most part in 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. Honore 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 ! " VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 85 working some problematic bitumen lakes) made acquaintance with the police court. I hasten to add that he left it with head erect and clean hands, but his pockets were utterly- empty. 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 theroof of the Brotherhood of St. Jean deDieu. Soon after, I left Paris and the College Rollin, where I had completed my studies, to enter an English university. For me, too, the battle of life was beginning. Thence- forward I only heard of Villiers from time to time. I used to read his books, which he sent to my father, and often the newspapers re- ported his eccentricities and his deep sayings to me. On that interior stage which we all bear within us, and which men call memory, he appeared to me as a legendary personage, full of strange attraction, and I liked to make my father tell me every story he knew about our cousin Matthias. Certainly I little thought then, that these recollections and anecdotes would help me in 86 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. my riper age to call up and bring to life the genial figure of the great Breton artist. Neither did I suspect that, some years later, this great artist would become my own most revered teacher, my surest, most faithful, and most precious friend. But so it was to be. During three years, from 1877 to 1880, we lived side by side in an absolute and constant intellectual 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 wretched, much that is mediocre and unworthy, it is to Villiers de l'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. In order then to conclude these notes, it remains for me to relate that part of the poet's life of which I was the almost daily witness. CHAPTER VI. My return to Paris — The Hotel d'Orleans — My search for Villiers — Our reunion — The earlier stages of his lawsuit — The historical drama of "Perrinet Leclerc " — Paul Cleves, director of the Porte St. Martin Theatre — The Marechal Jean de ITsle Adam, according to Messrs. Lockroy and Anicet Bourgeois — Villiers' fury — Letters to the press — A summons — A memorandum — Intervention of M. de Villiers — Provocation — A duel arranged — Settlement on the ground — Result of the action — Biographer's reservations — Documentary evidence. OWARDS the autumn of 1876, at the close of a long journey in Switzerland, I returned to Paris, my eyes still dazzled by the glamour of virgin snows, inaccessible peaks, glistening glaciers, and the great blue lake wherein melancholy Chillon reflects its gloomy keep. Through that land of mountain, fir- 88 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. wood, and torrent, the spirit of my father, whose death I 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 Hotel d' Orleans, 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 it was by chance, or by a delicate attention on the part of the old host of the inn, I know not, but I was given my fathers old room, and my first night was haunted by the shadows of the past. During those silent watches I lived through many an episode of my schoolboy days again, and many familiar faces passed before my eyes, some faintly looming in the shadow and as quickly disappearing, others clearly outlined and con- stantly recurring. Amongst these last, the big fair head of Villiers de l'lsle Adam con- stantly reappeared, his eyes seeming to gaze on me intently, and to reproach me with my VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 89 long neglect. Ah, no ! I had not, indeed, forgotten him. But the adventures and wor- ries of life had up to this prevented me from seeking him out, and, since the childish days already referred to, I had never beheld him. But I resolved not to leave Paris this time without finding him, and binding our two selves together with bonds as strong and as affectionate as those which had once united him and my father. The next evening, before the dinner hour, I sought him along the boulevard. Every habitue", every lounger, from the Cafe de la Paix to the Cafe de Madrid, knew Villiers de Tlsle Adam, but nobody knew where he lived, nor could tell where he might be found. He was, so they said, peculiarly a night-bird, and almost all those who mentioned him to me had made his acquaintance at unearthly hours, in out-of-the-way brasseries. None of this information was of much service to me, and I was beginning rather to despair, when a sud- den downpour of rain drove me to take refuge in the entry of the Passage Gouffroy. I was mechanically watching the play of light and 90 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 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, I recognized him ! There are some strong individualities which age, care, even sickness, cannot alter. They are un- changeable. And Villiers was one of these. He was coming into the passage from the rear, a big bundle of manuscript under his arm, with that elastic yet hesitating tread I 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 was worn red with age, the thin threadbare frock-coat which concealed his shirt, the trousers with their frayed hem, Fortune, that jade, had treated him with condign scorn. What matter! As he came towards me, I read neither discouragement nor despair upon his ageing features. There was the same pale uncertain blue eye, lost in its dream, and beneath the fair moustache, already turning grey, the full mouth smiled as at some secret VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 91 vision. 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-look- ing passers-by, in the scornful indifference of the great thinker to the human rabble through which he passed, all unseeing, like the sleep- walker of some oriental tale. As he drew near to me, the memory of our first meeting in the dining-room of the old house at Fougeres came back to me, and touching his shoulder gently, I addressed him 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, cousin ! you don't know me. I am your cousin Robert !" He started like a man suddenly roused from sleep, and raised his eyes to mine. His usually lustreless glance brightened ; we fell into each other's arms, and embraced shamelessly coram populo. Doubtless Heaven smiled on our re- union, for the setting sun was making the wet pavements and roofs shine again, as arm in arm we went out upon the boulevards. 92 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. It was during that first evening's converse, which cemented the friendship of our man- hood's years, that Villiers de l'lsle Adam recounted to me the earlier stages of the strange action which he was about to bring against the Lockroy family and the heirs of the melodramatic playwright, Anicet Bour- geois — a 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 St. Martin Theatre, its facade, lighted up as it usually was on important occasions, attracted his attention. He drew near to the advertisement boards, and started on seeing, below the title of the play of which a reproduction was to be given that night, " Perrinet Leclerc," an historical drama in five acts, by Messrs. Lockroy and Anicet Bourgeois, the name of his own illus- trious ancestor, the Marshal Jean de Villiers de l'lsle Adam, occupying a line by itself. VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 93 " What ! " roared the poet, " they have put the glorious marshal on the stage unknown to me? Ha! ha! We'll have some fun!" and he hastened to the box office. The Porte St. Martin Theatre was at that time under the management of a very worthy fellow of the name of Paul Cleves, who had been in his time a good actor, and who, though not literary himself, was full 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 aclor personifying that famous warrior whose de- scendant the poet was. But, after the second act, Villiers reappeared in the unfortunate Cleves' private room, pale, trembling, and bristling with fury. " Sir ! " he cried, with a tragic gesture, "two ignorant and conceited clowns, Lockroy and Bourgeois, have en- deavoured to degrade one of the most illus- trious warriors of the 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 this infamy to be com- mitted, and I call upon you, sir, to withdraw the play to-morrow." f< But, my dear Villiers, it is impossible ! " cried Cleves, when he had recovered from his profound astonishment, "consider! it would be my ruin. It would be certain bankruptcy ! my engagements " "Ruin, bankruptcy, engagements! These are nothing to me. You should have warned me before you accepted this non- sensical stuff." " I never accepted it. It has been in the repertory since 1834 ! " " Enough, sir. I understand you to refuse ? Very good, I shall apply to the authors — the authors, I say. Where are the authors ? " " They are dead !" "Well for them! But they must have left children, heirs, representatives. That cur, that Simon, whose name is not even Lockroy, has a descendant who has made stir enough in this third Republic of yours ! Well, we shall VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 95 see ! For the last time, Cleves, do you refuse to withdraw the play ? " The unlucky manager had become speech- less, but he made a sign with his head which seemed to signify that it was impossible to grant such a request. " Very well, then," said the poet, " you and your accomplices shall hear from me ! '* And he went out in a fury. Those who can recollect Villiers de Flsle Adam's idolatrous worship for the memory of his ancestors will understand this outbreak of rage when I state that this unlucky so-called historical drama by Messrs. Lockroy and Bourgeois represented the Marechal de Flsle Adam as a disloyal nobleman and an abomi- nable traitor — traitor, not in favour of the Duke of Burgundy, nor of the Duke of Orleans, 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 rightful sovereign. All this was absolutely contrary to the truth. Jean de Flsle Adam, the friend and right-hand man of the Duke 96 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. of Burgundy, was, it is true, the most ardent partisan of John the Bold, and took possession of Paris in his name. As to the English, Jean refused the splendid offers of Henry V., who cast him into the Bastille, whence he only emerged after that prince's death. Thenceforward he warred ceaselessly against the British, from whom he recaptured Pon- toise in 1435. Such are the historical facts of the case. But the authors of " Perrinet Leclerc" cared little for that. To those makers of melodramas, history was but a mine to supply their own lack of imagina- tion, and its personages merely obliging dummies, to be dressed up in glory or infamy, according to the needs of their case. They wanted a traitor, and they simply took Villiers de ITsle Adam, in all good faith, never dreaming that there would appear, five hundred years after the fulfilment of the events they were putting on the stage, in this fin-de-siecle and gaping Paris of ours, a poet who was ready to make himself the champion and the vigorous defender of his outraged ancestor ! VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 97 Never did Villiers show such activity, such physical and moral energy, as in the course of this business. For my own part, my know- ledge of him leads me to the opinion that, in spite of all his indignation, he rather enjoyed the adventure. The excitement of the judi- cial struggle, the newspaper polemics, the ransacking of libraries both far and near, put a new interest into his life, and freed his mind for a while from the dreams which so inces- santly haunted it. And that arch-scoffer must have felt a curious secret amusement in obliging all that army of solicitors, barristers, judges, and their deputies, to occupy them- selves with the affairs of an illustrious old gentleman who had been dead for four hun- dred and fifty years, to decipher the quaint and incomprehensible manuscripts of the thirteenth century, and to busy themselves, under the reign of Grevy, Wilson, and Co., with the concerns of Charles VI. the Bienaime, of John the Bold, and of the fatally fascinating Isabeau of Bavaria. But to begin at the beginning. The very morning after that memorable performance, H 98 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. there appeared in several daily papers a haughty and indignant letter from the last of the De l'lsle Adams, in which he brilliantly vindicated his right to defend his illustrious relative from opprobrium. He blasted in a few scorching phrases, conceived in ineffable scorn for all dealers in such second-hand literary wares, the work of the two unlucky collabora- tors ; and he finally declared that he was about to appeal to the laws of the country to obtain for them the chastisement of their crime of treason against the national glory. There was much giggling along the boule- vards at the poet's new freak. The collateral heirs of the acting rights of the play turned a deaf ear to his threat, and " Perrinet Leclerc " still held the bills, its success much increased by this fresh puff. Forward, then, the officers, the formalities, the dusty papers, all the creaking machinery of the law ! A clever and intelligent young barrister, an acquain- tance of Villiers, eagerly seized on this oppor- tunity of distinguishing himself; for this action was to stir both the law courts and the boule- vards, and those who had to do with it soon became famous. VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 99 The representatives of Lockroy and of Anicet Bourgeois had to file their answer to the summons duly served upon them — a sum- mons praying that they might be forbidden to continue the performances of a play wherein they libelled and calumniated the direct ances- tor of the plaintiff, " the said Philippe Auguste Matthias de Villiers de l'lsle Adam, man of letters, which summons has been personally delivered at the defendants' house. Here- with a copy, whereof the price," etc., etc., etc. The defendants' answer was rather clever. They asked the tribunal to rule that the plaintiff's plea was inadmissible : firstly, be- cause he offered no proof of his boasted direct descent from the illustrious house of Villiers de l'lsle Adam ; secondly, because the chro- nicles of the time, and notably that of the Monk of St. Denis, authorized the writers of " Per- rinet Leclerc " in presenting the conduct of the Marshal de l'lsle Adam during the civil wars of the reign of Charles VI. in an un- favourable light ; thirdly, because the said Marshal de l'lsle Adam being an historical personage, any writer might criticise or praise ioo VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. him, according to conscience or personal opinion, without being liable to any action on that score. Thus the fight began. And now, for some weeks, Matthias was undiscoverable. He buried himself in the libraries 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 Jeanne d' Arc led the weak-kneed Charles VI I. to Rheims, to be anointed king. When the lawsuit began, nothing remained to Villiers of the family inheritance. Pressed by poverty, father and son had parted with everything ; but they still preserved the precious family archives, and the poet possessed irrefragable proof of his descent. When, therefore, he had sufficiently studied the formidable heap of documents bearing on the ten years of civil war which stained the close of the reign of Charles VI., he prayed leave to support his request against the authors of " Perrinet Leclerc " : firstly, by the proof, resting on authentic records, of his de- scent from that Marshal de l'lsle Adam whose VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. honour he claimed to defend ; secondly, by proving that no contemporary chronicler gave to his ancestor that odious character which Messrs. Lockroy and Bourgeois had dared to make him play in the history of his time. And, he added, if it was true that the so-called Chronicle of the Monk of St. Denis did con- tain a sentence which permitted any doubt on that score, it was established, on the other hand, that these memoirs had no character for authenticity, that they were held in sus- picion by all competent historians, and that, in any case, it was sufficient to read the manu- script to be convinced that it was a partial work, and that its author belonged to that faction which was hostile to the Duke of Burgundy, the friend of De l'lsle Adam. 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 posthumous publication of the works of the author of "Axel," may have it in their pos- session. In it the great writer appears in a io2 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. new light. This sketch of the life of the Marshal de l'lsle Adam is a masterpiece of clearness and style, a gifted and magnificent word-picture of the end of the thirteenth cen- tury, 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 faculty of its author. Thus matters stood when I joined Villiers in Paris. 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 unexpected event, a tragi- comic incident, gave a fresh interest to the affair. I have related, in the early pages of these recollections, how a family bearing the name of Villiers, but which had shown no proof of direct; 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 name of L'lsle Adam to its own patronymic. Just as our Villiers was emerging from his tent, armed cap a pi£ y and lance in rest, to VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 103 defend his ancestral glory and good fame against the calumnies of two playwrights, the representative of this other family, a young officer, very proud of the great name he bore, and exceedingly ignorant, as it seems, of his real origin, returned from Africa. Honestly believing himself the scion of those heroes who had shed glory on the name of De l'lsle Adam, his rage and stupefaction may be imagined when, hardly had he arrived home, ere his friends and relations placed before him various newspapers, which reported with much comment, and wit seasoned with Attic salt, the particulars of the action brought by the high- born poet against the guilty authors of " Per- rinet Leclerc." Incredible as it seems in these days, when the press penetrates every- where, the young warrior appears to have ignored till then the existence of one of the best-known literary men in Paris. He fancied the author of " I sis " to be some scribbling adventurer who had picked up for himself, out of history, a name which he believed to be ex- tinct. In the heat of his indignation, he wrote a letter to a great daily paper, and as the io 4 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. officer knew more about the cavalry sword- exercise than about the amenities of our beautiful French language, his communication was at once plain-spoken, rude, and aggres- sive, claiming his right to bear the name of Villiers de l'lsle Adam, and avowing that any other person calling himself by that name usurped it. This warlike missive soon appeared, and forthwith all the venomous small fry of the press, all the envious scrib- blers, all the failures whom Villiers' talent had overshadowed, and whom his bitter jests had wounded, pounced upon this lucky wind- fall. Along the boulevards, from the Made- leine to the Gymnase, at the hour of the absinthe queen, their little poisonous speeches were to be heard on every side : " That poor Villiers! Don't you know? — Not De ITsle Adam at all ! — It 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 ! for this time at least they managed to pierce my friend to the heart. All those VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 105 who knew him well, knew that beneath his strange exterior and his cold mask of scorn Villiers had a noble ardent soul, which must have suffered cruelly under the thousand anonymous stings which were inflicted on his pride. But the blood of the marshal and the grand master boiled in his veins, and on the very day of the insult the officer was waited upon by two poet-friends of the writer, who came from the Comte Philippe Auguste de Villiers de l'lsle Adam to demand reparation for the outrage offered to their principal. The adversary was brave, and accepted without flinching the meeting which was proposed to him ; and the seconds having conferred, it was arranged that all should go, armed with swords, the day after the next following, on a little expedition to the neigh- bourhood of Vesinet. Meanwhile, one of the seconds of Matthias, a sensible man, though a violent Parnassian, struck by the exceed- ingly correct demeanour of the other party, thought it might not be altogether useless to submit to him certain genealogical proofs which would demonstrate to him that right 106 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. was not altogether on his side, as 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, and sent them to the cavalry lieutenant with an urgent request that he would read them before the hour fixed for the meeting. The result was amazing. M. de Villiers was a loyal, good-hearted, and very chivalrous man. He appeared on the ground at the appointed hour, advanced towards the real Villiers de l'lsle 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 per- petual wagging of his front fair lock, retail the incidents of this coup de thidtre. "Sir!" he would cry, " my sword dropped from my hand, when I heard this pale young man, with his brave and resigned face, tell me, with an evident effort, that, French officer as he was, he would rather pass for a coward than fight in support of a lie. I opened my arms. I folded him to my heart. I told him he was VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 107 worthy to be allied with the illustrious dead whose representative I was ; and in my fathers name and my own, I authorized, nay, I besought him to continue to bear the name of Villiers de l'Isle Adam!" But everything, even lawsuits, must come to an end ; and one fine morning the judges gave their decision in the extraordinary case of " L'Isle Adam versus Simon, alias Lockroy, and Anicet Bourgeois." As my reader will be prepared to learn, the tribunal refused the poor poet's appeal, deeming it inadmissible because, as the marshal was historical property, every author had a right to show him in whatever light suited him best ; especially when he based his judgment, as in the case of the writers of "Perrinet Leclerc," on the evidence of contemporary documents and memoirs, such as the Chronicle of the Monk of St. Denis. But one conso- lation Villiers had. The preamble of the judgment established those direct ties of descent which made him the last represen- tative of that famous and heroic warrior who was the friend of the great Duke of Burgundy. 108 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. When I learnt these events from the poet's lips, they were already in the limbo of the past. Were I not possessed with an instinctive and not altogether unreasonable horror of foot-notes, I would inflict one on my readers, a propos to this trial, to state that I have related the whole of it from recollection — a recollection graven upon my memory by the picturesque recitals of my gifted and much regretted cousin. In thus summing up, with- out actually vouching for the facts of the story, I trust I have not trangressed in any particular against the truth. But in any case I shall be very glad to accept any verification which may be kindly submitted to me. I think further, that I shall do no preju- dice to the memory of Villiers, if I frankly confess that I entertain some serious doubt concerning the alleged handsome retraction made by his opponent on the scene of the intended duel. The poet was in the habit of dramatizing all the incidents of his daily life into enchanting stories. Their groundwork was generally true, but he VILLIERS DE LISLE ADAM. 109 would arrange the scene, invent incidents, and create personages, in obedience appa- rently to his aesthetic instinct, or perhaps rather to his wild innate longing to mystify his audience. In this particular case my suspicion is supported by the following suc- cinct and nobly-expressed letter, addressed to him by his adversary, and which, necessarily, put an end to their difference. At all events this document proves that our author was in the right. " Paris, 11 February 16th, 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 l'lsle Adam whose name is written in such glorious characters upon the pages of our history, and in 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 fact that no VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. a royal ordinance, dated September 7, 1815, and inserted in the ' Bulletin des Lois,' autho- rizes my grandfather, Vicomte Joseph-Gabriel, son of Francois- Ignace de Villiers des Champs, and of Dame Deshere le Borgue de Villement, his wife, to add to his name of Villiers that of De Tlsle Adam. " There appears to me to be no object to be gained by going into the genealogy of my family, which has given knights and com- manders to the Order of St. Louis and marshals to France, — which is allied to the Rohans, etc., etc. "And, in conclusion, if, contrary to my expectations, the explanations contained in this letter do not appear to you to suffice, pray be assured that I hold myself entirely at your disposal. [Signed) " G. Villiers de l'Isle Adam." While I am about quoting the documents bearing on this curious business, the reader may be glad that I should conclude by giving the principal passages of the fine letter written by Villiers to the newspapers of the day, in VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. in answer to the mean and spiteful attacks of which he was then the object. "Paris (undated, probably 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 my sole object in bringing an action against the proprietors of the play ' Perrinet Leclerc,' was to establish the genealogical succession of my own family. Now I may remark that for eight-and-thirty years I committed the grave indiscretion of never giving that question a thought, believ- ing it (with others whose duty calls them to consider it) so clearly established that I could afford to smile at any discussion of the sub- ject. I may further remark that it was only ii2 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. the request of counsel on the other side which obliged me to produce any such proofs at all. It seems strange, then, that this re- proach should be made to me by the very adversaries who attacked me on this point at the moment when I myself was about to desist from the struggle. "It has been asserted that there is a gap in the sequence of my family genealogy. Now genealogy is an exa6l science, which no more admits of a mistake than does algebra. In it ' 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 evi- dence 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 I bear. " That a clerk should write a 3 instead of a 9 on the hasty copy of a title of the order, and that (in spite of the opportunities given by me during two years for free and open investigation) such an error should be quoted VILLIERS DE D'ISLE ADAM. 113 against the absolute authoritativeness of my title-deeds, is, I repeat, merely a matter cal- culated to raise a smile. In any case, I shall bring the facts before the French Record Office. " I descend from Jean de Flsle Adam as directly as any of you gentlemen descends from his own father ; and, in spite of the ' Chronique de St. Denis,' I have some reason to be proud of the fact. " I am asked what interest I had in vexing my soul concerning a play which outrages his pure and sacred memory ; and it is affirmed that I simply desired to puff myself by doing so. A man is but that which his own thoughts make him. And for my only answer, I would beg those who have had this thought concerning me, to guard it preciously. They are quite worthy of it, and I shall never care to claim either their sympathy or esteem. . . . " There is as much truth in this assertion as in that which claims to have discovered a gap in the direct: succession of my family about the year 1535. It is a wonderful thing to note how lightheartedly a lawyer will cast 1 ii4 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 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 whereby provincial bishops have recognized three centuries of publicly-admitted family rights ; on the signatures of ambassadors and consuls, both French and English ; and on that of the Minister of Justice himself! " I have no right to submit myself to any leeal investigation on this head. An inves- delation of what ? Of mv claims to be of noble descent ? But the only course left to the law courts themselves must be to bow to those claims, which are established by the only tribunal to which I can in honour appeal. One alone, amon^ the signatures with which these parchments swarm, suffices to prove my contention. The text of the 1 Declaration of the Order of Malta' runs as follows: ' Xotum facimus et in verbo veritatis attes- tamur ut in judicio pleno ac indubia fides adhibeatur. . . . " ' We declare under our seal and that of the Papal Bull published this day, that Armand de FIsle Adam, admitted a knight of this VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 115 Order, has proved his quarterings in the most indisputable manner. " ( We, Caumartin, Intendant de Cham- pagne, bear witness to the correctness of the genealogy of, etc., etc., etc. a< We, Bishop of St. Brieuc, ourselves con- nected through the family of De Verdalle with the Knights of Malta, bear witness that for the last three hundred years it has been matter of public notoriety that, etc., etc., etc.' " How can you expect any law court to pronounce for or against, in such a matter ? How can any newspaper chatter affect it ? Centuries have rolled by. You come in too late. These are accomplished facts ! " CHAPTER VII. Le Pin Galant, near Bordeaux — Arrival of Villiers with his play — "The New World" — The American centenary competition — The character of Mistress Andrews — The legend of Ralph Evandale. HILE Villiers was thus struggling with the gentlemen of the wig and gown in the Paris law courts, I followed his movements from afar with considerable anxiety. In my retirement in one of those pretty one-storied houses near Bordeaux which the people in the south poetically term a " Chartreuse," I trembled as I tore asunder the wrapper of my Paris paper every morning, lest I should learn that Vil- liers, whose fearfully over-excited condition was well known to me, had given way to some eccentricity or some dangerous aci of violence. I kept on writing to beseech him VILLIERS DE LISLE ADAM. 117 to leave Paris, and to come and share my solitude, redolent of the healthy odour of the pine forests, enlivened by the impetuous rush of the great river dotted with white and fluttering sails, and ideal with its spreading horizons bathed in the purple and gold of the exquisite southern sunsets. But, alas ! he wrapped himself in dis- heartening silence, and his shadow fell not on the snow-white steps which led to the Pin Galant, as my temporary dwelling was called. One day, however, the " Figaro " brought me news of his speedy arrival, in the form of a letter published on its first page, and bear- ing his signature. I have not this document before me, but I know that in it he refuted, in his usual sarcastic style, some fresh per- fidious insinuation concerning the imperfect authenticity of the name he bore. The last sentence of the letter, however, which gave me a lively thrill of joy, is for ever graven on my memory. I quote it, as being exceedingly characteristic. " I am on the point of starting for Pin Galant, not far n8 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. from the Spanish frontier. Lovers of another style of conversation, more silent than that of human tongues, are requested to note this fa&." He duly appeared a few days later, without having otherwise announced himself. It was on one of those torrid afternoons known only to the inhabitants of the south, that Villiers arrived on foot from the neigh- bouring village, whither the omnibus from Bordeaux had brought him. He was simply dressed, in black kerseymere trousers, a loose grey overcoat trimmed with fur ( ! ), and a well-worn but shiny chimneypot hat. In his hand he victoriously flourished a huge walk- ing-stick. The big pockets of his unseason- ably thick overcoat bulged in a manner which alarmed me for their solidity. At first I thought he was using them as a carpet-bag, for he brought no sign of any other luggage with him. But my mistake only lasted a few minutes. Hardly had he entered, when, after the first cordial greetings, he pulled out of his vast pockets five thick manuscript pamphlets, piling them one upon the other, VILLIERS DE LISLE ADAM. 119 and his white, prelatical hand waving with the air of a bishop a sort of benedictory gesture, he exclaimed, " Like Columbus at the feet of his Spanish sovereign, even so lay I the 'New World' at the feet of your majesty and my good cousin ! " The books contained, in good truth, the manuscript of his magnificent drama in five acts, entitled "Le Nouveau Monde," which had gained the first place, the year before, in the com- petition instituted in honour of the United States, but which had not yet found an opening on the Parisian stage. Before relating the adventures of Villiers and his manuscript at Bordeaux, I think it will be of interest to scholars if I give some explanation of the origin of this dramatic work, which, in spite of its admirable qualities, is almost unknown at this present time. In 1880 Villiers de l'lsle Adam found a pub- lisher bold enough to issue it at his own risk, and his name deserves to be recorded. It was M. Richard, printer and publisher, of the Passage de T Opera. The pamphlet is now almost out of print. Villiers had pre- 120 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. ceded his play by an " Address to the Reader," to which I shall return later, in its proper time and place, and by a very short preface, which I quote in its entirety, because it explains far better than I could the peculiar circumstances which gave birth to the work. " In 1875 a dramatic competition was an- nounced 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 acts, the episode of the proclamation of the inde- pendence of the United States, the hundredth anniversary of which fell on July 4th, 1876. " The two examining juries were thus com- posed. The first, of the principal critics of the French theatrical press. The second, of M. Victor Hugo, honorary president, Messrs. Emile Augier, Octave Feuillet, and Ernest Legouve, members of the French Academy, Mr. Grenville Murray, representing the " New York Herald," and M. Perrin, administrator- general of the Theatre Frangais. VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 121 " The preliminary jury were to select five manuscripts ; the final jury, to class these manuscripts in what may be called their in- tellectual order. " Six months were allowed for writing the works, and about a hundred plays, signed with mottoes only, were forwarded to the in- ternational agency of M. Theodore Michaelis, the inaugurator of the competition. " More than a year elapsed while the gentle- men of the theatrical press were examining the dramas. " The titles of the selected works were pub- lished, and among them appeared that of the ' Nouveau Monde.' " Two more months passed by. At last, on the 22nd of January, 1876, an official notice signed by the superior jury informed me that the ' Nouveau Monde,' had of all the competing works, passed with most honour through the double ordeal." The attractions of the programme had been well arranged to tempt any dramatic author. Yet it was not the medal of honour, nor even the dream of the ten thousand 122 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. francs, which induced the creator of Bonhomet to compete. It was the proposed subject ; above all, the conditions imposed for its treat- ment. From the theatrical point of view, Villiers had always dreamt of being an inno- vator in historical drama. His idea was that the characteristics of the nation, or the event which was to be portrayed, should be im- ported into the framework of some personal intrigue, in which each individual of the dramatis persona should personify in his lan- guage, attitude, or actions, some one of the numerous elements produced by the friction of the incidents of the story. And in the very terms of the programme by which the competitors were bound, he found the oppor- tunity for realizing this conception. For the rules of the competition dictated, amongst other obligations, that the work must be written with special reference to July 4th, 1 776 ; at the same time requiring a drame intime y in which the event of the 4th July was only to be superadded to the story. In the author's mind, then, " Le Nouveau Monde " is, before all else, a symbolic drama, VILLIERS DE L ; ISLE ADAM. 123 and each of its personages admirably repre- sents the idea, the principle, the nation, of which he or she is the mouthpiece. Thus, in Lord Raleigh Cecil the author has incarnated the principle of royalism, as in Stephen Ashwell he has typified the principle of liberty. " In my play," writes Villiers in his preface, " Lord Cecil, under a veil of almost totally imaginary circumstances, replaces and sums up Lord Percy, General Howe, and many others. He is, as it were, the golden sovereign, stamped with the effigy of the King of England." It is hardly my place, in these personal recollections, to endeavour to heighten the merits of this work of Villiers. But I may be permitted to lay stress on some details of an original production, so little known to the literary public, and yet so worthy of its atten- tion. To those of us who are not yet emas- culated by the terrible invasion of common- place ideas, " Le Nouveau Monde" remains one of the best constructed, deepest, and most passionate dramas of the present day. It has had the great honour of being sneered at i2 4 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. by M. Francisque Sarcey, who has besprinkled the character of Mistress Andrews with the salt of his Attic wit. To some superficial minds this character may seem impressed with romantic exaggeration. Yet it has been learnedly imagined and laboriously premedi- tated by a writer who was neither a novice nor a simpleton in literature. Villiers fore- saw that it would be exposed to the cheap jests of those self-important gentry, the critics of the weekly papers. In his " Address to the Reader" he has taken pains to explain his conception, and this page of his, full of an intense personality, so wonderfully and rhythmically written, cannot fail to charm my readers. It seems to me it must make every true artist desire to read that " Nouveau Monde" so lately cut up by the feuilletonists. Here it is : " Mistress Andrews is the sombre reflection of that feudalism of which Lord Cecil repre- sents the brighter side, and I find myself obliged to say a few words in explanation of the almost fantastic character with which she is endued. This woman's personality is VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 125 formed by the cohesion of intellectual and sensitive elements of far too high an order to be strictly human. Some peculiarities of the character seem to be ultra-feminine. There- fore, in order to legitimatize them in her case, I have had to surround her with a legendary halo, to make her a sort of American Melusina. It has appeared to me to be logically indispensable to the vitality, even the possibility, of the character, to endow her with a mysterious mark, actually imprinted in her flesh, a gory impress which shall appear only at the hour of death, — a sign, in fact, the heritage of the curse of centuries, 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 of a race haunted by melancholy, by silence, and by fate. A thousand shattered splen- dours appear athwart this gloomy character, even as mirrors and goblets would shiver, and daggers flash, against the arras of an ancient palace wherein some ducal orgy had been held. This having been said, some excla- 126 VILLIERS 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 was that " mysterious mark actually impressed upon this woman's flesh," this gory print which was only to appear at the death hour ? What " the legendary halo" which surrounds the terrible Mistress Andrews ? An old woman, Mistress Noella, describes it 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 entirely suppressed in the shape- less performance of this fine play at the Theatre des Nations, must be inserted here, for several good reasons : first, for the sake of the curious, for it is as good as unpub- lished ; further, it is an admirable prose- poem, whose place is marked in the antho- logies of the future; and finally, it is a wonderful example of the peculiar genius of Villiers de l'lsle Adam. The few friends who have heard him recite it, pale, trembling, and haggard, under the VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 127 light of the midnight lamp — terrifying, and terrified himself by his own story — will recall as they read these lines the tragic and infectious 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. A thousand lamps shone on the guests. His father, Fungh Evandale, was celebrating his second marriage, and the neighbouring barons, sitting round him, pledged each other in friendly healths. From the threshold Ralph beheld the newly-wedded wife, white as her coronet of pearls ; and in the bride he recognized the pale girl whom he had long loved in his secret soul. A hell- born feeling rose in his heart. Silently he closed the door, and disappeared. Mean- while the songs had ceased. Leaning thought- fully on her elbow, on the nuptial couch, the young chatelaine watched her lord. The noble 128 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 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 plunged his dagger in his throat, up to the cross-hilt. Fungh, stricken to death, in- stinctively put his hand on the wound ; then, with a maledictory gesture, he laid his gory fingers on the face of the unnatural son who gazed unmoved upon his agony. Ralph drew himself up, his heart sullied by his crime, and his face branded with his father s blood. Then, bruising in his mailed hands the two wrists of the widowed bride, 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 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 129 anathema. Thus was the guilty marriage solemnized. And the shadow fell upon their race ! They gave life to a posterity of demons, an accursed line of wicked men, who have rendered themselves illustrious on the earth by their crimes and their gloomy amours. Now the race is extinct. One girl only survives, and she destroyed her property and burnt her dwelling before she fled her country. Where is she? Nobody can tell! Nevertheless, she will be recognized in her last hour, for, since the terrible night when their young ancestress beheld the bloody hand on the face of the parricide, that accusing hand-print, graven on the flesh of the Evan- 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 Evandale, the last of her race, unknown, forgotten ! " This Edith Evandale, it will have been K 130 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. understood, is she who now conceals herself under the name of Mistress Andrews. As the old woman concludes her story, and while all are still bending forward in silent and breathless attention, the unhappy woman herself appears standing among them, the moonlight falling on her alone. " Yes," she says in a low despairing voice, " pray ! " CHAPTER VIII. Villiers' rage against the members of the jury — Dramatic scene at the house of Victor Hugo — Villiers leaves Paris — The Bordeaux theatres — Godefrin, director of the Theatre Francais — An extraordinary reading — Little Mdlle. Aimee — Madame Aimee Tessandier. Y quotations have carried me away, and we are far from Bordeaux! To return. When Villiers arrived, he was more furious than ever with Paris and the Parisians in general, and with literary committees and theatrical mana- gers 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 victims. He had, indeed, received the official notice, signed by the superior jury, and announcing 132 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. that his drama had taken the highest and most honourable place in passing through the twofold ordeal. It had received the praises of Victor Hugo, of Emile Augier and Octave Feuillet, of Ernest Legouve even ! and that was all. No medal of honour, much less the ten thousand francs! He was, it is true, too well acquainted with the side-scenes of life at this 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 some effort to have the play of their choice performed on some great Parisian stage. Nothing of the kind. A flood of benignant commonplace was the only answer to his in- quiries 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 fellow- competitors, 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. VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 133 It would have been too much even for a being gifted with more patience than my poor Villiers possessed. As a first step the poet went and made a scandal at the Olympian abode of Vi6lor Hugo, in the Avenue de Clichy. In the presence of the usual body-guard, Vacquerie, Lockroy, Catulle Mendes, and my late vene- rable compatriot, L , he dared to accuse the honorary president of the superior jury of having been the first to break all the promises signed with his august name. He mentioned the demigod's age to him, and made some allu- sion to literary integrity in general. L , who usually sat silent in these gatherings, never opening his mouth except to cry " Sabaoth ! " unable to contain his fury, angrily advanced towards the intruder, and indignantly shaking the beautiful white curls which framed his pallid face, he shot at the blasphemer this eloquent apostrophe, which Homer or Henri Monnier might have been glad to take a note of : " Integrity, sir, is not a question of age ! " Slowly, with his un- certain glance, Villiers scanned the worthy i 3 4 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. elder from head to foot, then gently answered, " No, sir, nor folly either ! " Then, leaving the startled coterie, horrified at his unlimited audacity, he hurried to the Porte St. Martin, snatched his manuscript from the secretary's claws, and at dawn next day, laden with the five thick copybooks containing his five acts, and without vulgar care for such a trivial thing as luggage, he took the through train to Bordeaux. " Then at once," he said, as he brought the story of the adventures of his play to a close, " I bethought me of you, of the provinces, of vengeance. I dreamt of murder, of decentra- lization ! Don't you see what a splendid chance there is here for the manager of some provincial theatre, to be first to accept and mount and play a piece by the Comte Villiers de l'lsle Adam, which has been crowned by the approbation of a committee counting among its members those idols of middle-class lovers of literature, Legouve, Feuillet, Augier, and Hugo ? But, in the first place, is there a theatre in Bordeaux ? " " There are three," I replied, " without count- VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 135 ing the strollers' booths." Bordeaux did, in fact, possess in those days three important theatres : the Grand Theatre, which was de- voted to operatic performances, the Theatre Louit, which had no particular line, and the Theatre Francais, which was entirely given up to comedy and drama. The then manager of the latter was a Parisian artiste, a good actor, and an excellent administrator, pos- sessed of great boldness, much insight, and most reliable good taste. He has since made himself a name at the Cafe de Suede, and in the theatrical world, as a most successful organizer of provincial and dramatic tours. He was then, and presumably is still, called Godefrin. We had had some casual relations with each other, and as soon as Villiers im- parted his new project to me, I bethought me of the director of the Theatre Frangais of Bor- deaux. I wrote to him, therefore, making known our idea and asking for an early inter- view. We had not long to wait. The answer came, overflowing with enthusiasm for Villiers and full of gratitude to myself, and the very next evening found us sitting in the managerial 136 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. apartment. Villiers had been to the barber ; his well-curled moustache had a conquering air, and he marched victoriously 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 debutante who hears the call- boy's bell for the first time. And yet there was nothing inaccessible in the demeanour of the impresario ! He was still young, free from any professional swagger, and very affable. He received Villiers with admiring deference. A young woman, tall and slight and pale, dressed in dark colours, rose to her feet on our entrance, and surveyed Villiers with curiously brilliant eyes. " Allow me to introduce you to little Mdlle. Aimee, my best pensionnaire" said Godefrin ; " she is con- sumed with a desire to play a tragic part, and I believe she will succeed ; ay, and brilliantly ! Perhaps, dear sir," turning to Villiers, " you will be able to find her a part in your play ? " There was no answer from Villiers. All out of curl already, he had retired into a corner, VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 137 whence he watched us with his suspicious, de- jected, startled gaze, nervously rolling a ciga- rette between his fingers. "Well, let us begin to read ! " said I at last, to break a silence which was becoming em- barrassing. We seated ourselves ; the poet at the table, we at random on the seats scattered about the room. And the reading began. I have witnessed many strange scenes in the course of my life, but never, I think, was I present at anything so fantastically, irresis- tibly funny as that sight of Villiers de l'lsle Adam reading the sheets of his drama to Godefrin the manager. At the beginning things went fairly well. Villiers seated him- self, 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 his eyes, and then, with a searching glance all round, he opened the manuscript and began : " Act the first — tableau the first — Swinmore — the great saloon of Swinmore manor-house, near Auckland, in the county of Cumberland. At the rear " 138 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. Here he interrupted himself, rose from his chair, and, with the objecl: of explaining the fittings of the scene to Godefrin, began to jump about the room, knocking over seats, dragging armchairs about, unhooking the arms on a small trophy which hung upon the wall, and accompanying his erratic be- haviour with inconsequent sentences and incomprehensible words : " The balcony of wrought iron-work — night — a moon — stars — there, in the distance, thy silver streak, O sea ! — gold enrichments — Ha ! ha ! ha ! they come, the voices ! the distant and prophetic voices ! — the departing voices ! — Ahoy ! ahoy ! from the boat — here is Ruth, the sad lady of the castle — here is the smiling Mary ! — the voices again — the voices approach ! — the voices die away ! ! ! — " Suddenly he perceived the piano, threw himself upon the keyboard, and striking some melancholy chords, he sang in a plaintive voice, u A dieti, prairie ! Adieu, berceau! Adieu, tombeau! Adieu, patrie ! "' then, still accom- panying himself, recited in sepulchral accents, " Farewell, old house ! in which I have never VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 139 given happiness, nor enjoyed it ! the duty for which I forsake thee is the most sacred of all duties in my eyes ! God shall be my judge — yes ! — Adieu, tombeatt ! " Startled and terror-stricken, the correct frock-coated manager, pale and with com- pressed lips, had taken refuge in a corner, whence his wild southern eyes every now and then shot imploring glances at me. The actress had buried her head in her hands, and I could see her pretty shoulders shaking in a tempest of convulsive laughter. Mean- while, Villiers, with bristling locks and dis- trustful eyes, had left the piano, and, standing with folded arms before Godefrin, he de- manded, "Well, sir, have you understood this mysterious symbolism ? Everything, everything is in that : the parting from the old country, the uprooting of the young tree which is to bear the foliage, the fruit, the perfume of the corrupt Old World in a newer and purer one. That, the exposition of the idea of my play, is clearly established, is it not ? " In spite of his astonishment, poor Godefrin found breath to answer, " Doubtless, 140 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. dear sir, your idea is wonderful, but I must humbly admit it has not evolved itself to my intelligence from what I have heard. May I beg of you to read me your piece quietly, without thinking about the scenery, action, or symbolism ? " 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. I dragged him back, and made him sit down and listen to me. "Are you stark mad ? " I cried, sternly; " and do you suppose the manager of a theatre is a prophet, who can penetrate the mysteries of a poet's brain, and discover what his ideas are before he condescends to put them into good, plain, intelligible prose ? Deuce take it ! It is not by pushing about chairs, upsetting furniture, and bawling to the piano, that you will manage to make Godefrin understand your play. Take my advice ; give me your VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 141 manuscript " (and I took it out of his hand) ; "■go and sit down in that farthest corner, and let me give a complete, ordinary, common- place reading of your piece." As I spoke his face darkened ; he retired into a recess, and rolling his eternal cigarette, his eyes on the ground, he answered in that hollow voice which he always used when he desired to personify Doctor Triboulat Bon- homet, " Very good ! a family reading ! So be it ! " " Bravo ! " cried Godefrin, " now we shall be able to understand what we are about, and admire in proportion." But I must draw my story to a close. For two hours I read without stopping, except to rest for a few minutes between the acts. If I raised my eyes, I saw Godefrin listening with an air of authority, and Villiers lost in distant dreams, while little Mdlle. Aimee's keen, ardent, con- centrated gaze was rivetted on myself. I felt and understood that she drank in every word I pronounced, and that every character, as it shaped itself before her mental vision, became instinct with life, movement, and suffering ; and when I reached the foot of the last page, 142 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM, it was her that my eyes instinctively sought. She had risen, quivering with excitement, and hastening to Villiers, she seized both his hands, exclaiming, " Oh, sir, dear sir, I beg you to let me play the part of Mistress Andrews ! " " It is an admirable play," said the impresario, on his side, " and I am ready to make any sacrifice in order to mount such a fine piece of work in a way worthy of its own and its authors merits." Alas, poor Godefrin ! He little knew the poetic temperament, more capricious than April sunshine, more changeable than the sea. The " Nouveau Monde" was never to be played at Bordeaux. A few months after the scene I have just described, Villiers de l'lsle Adam was back in Paris, and, seduced by the fair promises of Chabrillat, at that time re- organizing the Ambigu, he withdrew his piece from the director of the Bordeaux theatre, to confide it to this suddenly-arisen literary Barnum. It is greatly to be regretted that Bordeaux should not have had the first per- formance of this fine play. I am convinced that Villiers' work would there have achieved VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 143 the enthusiastic success which it merits, and everyone will agree with me that no Parisian stage could have furnished an artist more capable of interpreting the gloomy role of the heroine than little Mdlle. Aimee, M. Godefrin's pensionnaire ; for Madame Aimee Tessandier, of the Comedie Francaise, is now, and justly, considered one of our finest and most gifted tragic actresses, and Godefrin was a true prophet when he predicted that her success would be great. Little Mdlle. Aimee of those bygone days ! If chance should bring these lines before your eyes, you may perhaps forget for a moment your recent glories in the house of Moliere, and give a thought to the distant past ! That part of Mistress Andrews, madame, was a very beautiful creation, and one which might well inspire such an artistic individuality as yours. It might have marked an important stage in your triumphal march ; it might, even now, did you choose to take it back and play it to the life, become the fairest pearl in your diadem as a tragic aftress ! CHAPTER IX. Restful days — The real Villiers — Villiers and the fair sex — Talks about bygone days — Charles Baude- laire — His true nature — His strange home-life — Jeanne Duval — Edgar Poe — Richard Wagner — "Axel" — The Cabala and the occult sciences — Villiers' religious sentiments — Quotations — " L'Eve Future." HOSE days spent with my friend far from the cares and noise of city life, have remained with me 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. I penetrated far into his inner nature, and he allowed me to VILLIERS DE LISLE ADAM. 145 perceive the ideal and beautiful personality which he so jealously concealed in the depths of his soul. Thus I came to know at last a Villiers de l'lsle Adam but little resembling the one who used to delight the nightly frequenters of the brasseries at Montmartre by his wit, his strange imaginings, 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 all his work is en- folded. 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 intellectual and sentimental his- tory. Did woman play a great part in the poet's life ? I think so, though he had few 146 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. adventures and fewer passionate attachments. But, like that much misunderstood personage, Don Juan, Villiers was continually seeking that divine emotion which he never felt but once, and that in his early youth, during the short existence of that first and purest love of which the green Breton fields were the cradle, the setting, and the grave. If he chanced to catch sight of one of those celestial faces which make one believe that angels may come down to earth, he would fall in love with his own ideal. But as soon as he ap- proached a woman more closely, his pitiless spirit of analysis laid bare all the moral ugli- nesses and littlenesses veiled by her physical beauty. The angel disappeared, and brutal reality clipped the wings of his dream. After a disappointment of this sort, he would throw himself with a sort of frenzy into the wildest orgies of midnight debauchery. At such times his sarcasms about love and women burnt like a redhot iron, but beneath all his imprecations one felt that there lay the despair of a man who has held for one short moment the key of Eden, and from whom it has been snatched VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 147 before he could open the sacred portal. Happily his art, his love for it, and his consciousness of his own genius, consoled him for his many mortifications. He loved, in these intimate and often retrospective conversations, to go back over the first happy years of his residence in Paris, to his friendly relations with my father, and above all to Charles Baudelaire, whose memory haunted him like a ghost. They had made acquaintance at the office of the " Revue Fantaisiste," whither, from time to time, the author of the " Fleurs du Mai" would bring some of his original and ex- quisitely-polished " Petits Poemes en Prose." Baudelaire and Villiers had too much in common not to be quickly drawn together. From the date of their first meeting they were frequently in each other's company, and Villiers was one of the few friends who were present at the poet's terrible death. For my own part, while greatly admiring Baudelaire as a poetical craftsman, I did not like his character as an individual. From all I had heard (for I never knew him personally), he 148 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. seemed to me to be wanting in sincerity, and to be eternally posing, not only before the public, but before the little circle over which he habitually presided. Villiers would leap with rage if I expressed this in his presence. He declared that I swam in a sea of stupid prejudice ; that what I took for affectation in Baudelaire was really the essence of his extraordinary nature ; that he could not be nor behave otherwise. And he would try to explain this strange, terribly complicated character to me, diabolical as it was in some ways, exquisitely good in others. Would that my impotent pen could reproduce the fire, the eagerness, and the brilliancy of Villiers' speeches in defence of his departed friend ! Baudelaire had condescended to ex- plain and analyze himself, to lay bare his heart, as he expressed it, before this privi- ledged associate. " In his youth," said Vil- liers, " he halted between two ambitions. To be the greatest actor in the world, or else to be — the Pope." Although he had shouldered a musket and worn the workman's blouse in 1848, he gave himself out as a Catholic and a VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM. 149 supporter of constituted authority.