Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/248

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. iv. SEPT. 23, 1911.


' Mademoiselle de Maupin ' the only work, moreover, which he asked his daughters not to read, as he felt he could not look them comfortably in the face if they did so.* In 1838 appeared the romance of ' For- tunio,' which had run through Le Figaro the previous year as a feuilleton under the title of ' L'Eldorado ' ; and also a volume of poems, called ' La Comedie de la Mort.' His next work, which was published in 1839, was 'Une Larme du Diable,' which amongst other matter, contained three short stories

  • Le Petit Chien de la Marquise,' ' La

Morte Amour euse,' and ' Une Nuit de Cleopatre ' each a masterpiece in its re- spective genre. In 1843 the delightful account of his travels in Spain, known as ' Tra los Monies,' was published ; in 1852 the ' Emaux et Camees,' and in 1863 ' Le Capitaine Fracasse,' a cape-and-sword ro- mance which had been on the stocks a long time, as it was announced as being " sous presse " in the ' Fortunio ' volume of 1838. Many other works were published from time to time, but with the exception of ' Le Roman de la Momie,' which appeared in 1858, they were more or less of a journal- istic nature.

Notwithstanding his red waistcoat, his frogged redingote, his blague, and his tumul- tuous entries, with the other young bloods of Bohemia, into La Chaumiere and the other dancing-saloons of Montmartre, Theo was naturally of a gentle, and even timid, disposition. All this tapage merely served as a cloak to his real character. Conse- quently, after sharing for some years a set of rooms in the Hue du Doyenne with his friends Arsene Houssaye, Gerard de Nerval, and Camille Kogier, and tasting all the pleasures that Bohemia could give, his thoughts began to turn to domesticity. He married Ernest a G-risi, the sister of the famous Giulia, the singer, and the no less celebrated Carlotta, the dancer, with the latter of whom he had been desperately, but hopelessly, in love. They lived together happily enough, and when she died, she left him, like Thackeray, Math two daughters, who were the joy of his declining years. But in order to provide them with bread and butter, he had to work like a slave at journalism. Like Thackeray again, he de- tested regular work, and he could never keep his study in order. His daughter Judith tells us how he would make an extempore desk of two or three books,


  • Gautier sold this book to the publisher Eugene

Renduel for 1,509 francs. A single copy would fetch double that sum nowadays.


placed one on top of the other ; would hunt for his pen and ink, which were usually nowhere to be found ; and would send over to the grocer's for a quire of paper. He did not care what noise was in the room, and preferred, indeed, to be " un peu derange." But once he was settled down, his pen ran on steadily, and half-sheets of writing paper were soon covered with his beautifully clear and neat handwriting not very unlike Thackeray's, by the way. No erasures were ever made, nor was it necessary to read a proof. " La phrase arrive," he told his daughter, " choisie et definitive : c'est dans ma cervelle que les ratures sont faites."

After a hard day's work, the evenings in the little white villa at Neuilly were spent in acting charades and other forms of amusement, and on Thursday evenings the house was open to friends. Gustave Dore was a frequent visitor : he hated to hear his paintings praised, but loved to be nattered on the manner in which he sang his Tyrolese songs or played the violin, or on his skill as a conjurer or as an organizer of charades and tableaux vivants. Sometimes the sar- donic face of the younger Dumas would peer through the half-open Venetians, and his sinister voice would terrify the girls by exclaiming in the midst of their games : " Quelle famille ! "

The end came after a long illness, during which the great stylist never ceased to indulge in dreams and to project new fashions in writing. A monument was raised to his memory in the volume of elegies called ' Le Tombeau de Theophile Gautier,' in which the introductory poem was written by his master, Victor Hugo,, who was his senior in age by nine years, and was to survive him by thirteen more. In this poem a fine panegyric is bestowed on the dead writer :

Fils de la Grece antique et de la jeune France,

Mage a Thebes, druide au pied du noir menhir.

But the chief interest to English readers lies in the fact that the great poet whose loss we had not long ago to deplore con- tributed no fewer than six pieces to the collection two in English, two in French, one in Latin, and one in Greek. No finer tribute from one poet to another could be found than the ' Memorial Verses,' crowned with the following lines:

Blue lotus-blooms and white and rosy-red We wind with poppies for thy silent head.

And on this margin of the sundering sea Leave thy sweet light to rise upon the dead.

W, F; PRIDEAUX,