Chapter IV: Part 4

The house we wanted was in a little side street that leads off the Boulevard Montmartre. It was a very narrow and plain little street, and I was somewhat disappointed. Yet it was not a shabby street, for there are none such in Paris; all was neat and clean, and as I caught sight of a birdcage hanging in one of the windows and a basket of ferns in another I was reassured and rang the bell.

The landlady wore a white cap, a winning smile and a big white apron. A bunch of keys dangling at her belt gave the necessary look of authority. She was delighted to see me--everybody is glad to see you in Paris--and she would feel especially honored if I would consent to remain under her roof. She only rented her rooms to those who were sent to her by her friends, and among her few dear friends none was so dear as Monsieur ze Secretaire of ze Young Men Christians.

And so I was shown the room--away up and up and up a dark winding stairway of stone steps with an iron balustrade. It was a room about the size of a large Jordan-Marsh drygoods-box.

The only thing that tempted me to stay was the fact that the one window was made up of little diamond panes set in a leaden sash, and that this window looked out on a little courtway where a dozen palms and as many ferns grew lush and green in green tubs and where in the center a fountain spurted. So a bargain was struck and the landlady went downstairs to find her husband to send him to the Gare Saint Lazare after my luggage.

What a relief it is to get settled in your own room! It is home and this is your castle. You can do as you please here; can I not take mine ease in mine inn?

I took off my coat and hung it on the corner of the high bedpost of the narrow, little bed and hung my collar and cuffs on the floor; and then leaned out of the window indulging in a drowsy dream of sweet content. 'Twas a long, dusty ride from Dieppe, but who cares--I was now settled, with rent paid for a week!

All around the courtway were flower-boxes in the windows; down below, the fountain cheerfully bubbled and gurgled, and from clear off in the unseen rumbled the traffic of the great city. And coming from somewhere, as I sat there, was the shrill warble of a canary. I looked down and around, but could not see the feathered songster, as the novelists always call a bird. Then I followed the advice of the Epworth League and looked up, not down, out, not in, and there directly over my head hung the cage all tied up in chiffon (I think it was chiffon). I was surprised, for I felt sure it could not be possible there was a room higher than mine--when I had come up nine stairways! Then I was more surprised; for just as I looked up, a woman looked down and our eyes met. We both smiled a foolish smile of surprise; she dodged in her head and I gazed at the houses opposite with an interest quite unnecessary.

She was not a very young woman, nor very pretty--in fact, she was rather plain--but when she leaned out to feed her pet and found a man looking up at her she proved her divine femininity beyond cavil. Was there ever a more womanly action? And I said to myself, "She is not handsome--but God bless her, she is human!"

Details are tiresome--so suffice it to say that next day the birdcage was lowered that I might divide my apple with Dickie (for he was very fond of apple). The second day, when the cage was lowered I not only fed Dickie but wrote a message on the cuttlefish. The third day, there was a note twisted in the wires of the cage inviting me up to tea.

And I went.

* * * * *

There were four girls living up there in one attic-room. Two of these girls were Americans, one English and one French. One of the American girls was round and pink and twenty; the other was older. It was the older one that owned the bird, and invited me up to tea. She met me at the door, and we shook hands like old-time friends. I was introduced to the trinity in a dignified manner, and we were soon chatting in a way that made Dickie envious, and he sang so loudly that one of the girls covered the cage with a black apron.

With four girls I felt perfectly safe, and as for the girls there was not a shadow of a doubt that they were safe, for I am a married man. I knew they must be nice girls, for they had birds and flower-boxes. I knew they had flower-boxes, for twice it so happened that they sprinkled the flowers while I was leaning out of the window wrapped in reverie.

This attic was the most curious room I ever saw. It was large--running clear across the house. It had four gable-windows, and the ceiling sloped down on the sides, so there was danger of bumping your head if you played pussy-wants-a-corner. Each girl had a window that she called her own, and the chintz curtains, made of chiffon (I think it was chiffon), were tied back with different-colored ribbons. This big room was divided in the center by a curtain made of gunny-sack stuff, and this curtain was covered with pictures such as were never seen on land or sea. The walls were papered with brown wrapping-paper, tacked up with brass-headed nails, and this paper was covered with pictures such as were never seen on sea or land.

The girls were all art students, and when they had nothing else to do they worked on the walls, I imagined, just as the Israelites did in Jerusalem years ago. One half of the attic was studio, and this was where the table was set. The other half of the attic had curious chairs and divans and four little iron beds enameled in white and gold, and each bed was so smoothly made up that I asked what they were for. White Pigeon said they were bric-a-brac--that the Attic Philosophers rolled themselves up in the rugs on the floor when they wished to sleep; but I have thought since that White Pigeon was chaffing me.

White Pigeon was the one I saw that first afternoon when I looked up, not down, out, not in. She was from White Pigeon, Michigan, and from the very moment I told her I had a cousin living at Coldwater who was a conductor on the Lake Shore, we were as brother and sister. White Pigeon was thirty or thirty-five, mebbe; she had some gray hairs mixed in with the brown, and at times there was a tinge of melancholy in her laugh and a sort of half-minor key in her voice. I think she had had a Past, but I don't know for sure.

Women under thirty seldom know much, unless Fate has been kind and cuffed them thoroughly, so the little peachblow Americaine did not interest me. The peachblow was all gone from White Pigeon's cheek, but she was fairly wise and reasonably good--I'm certain of that. She called herself a student and spoke of her pictures as "studies," but she had lived in Paris ten years. Peachblow was her pupil--sent over from Bradford, Pennsylvania, where her father was a "producer." White Pigeon told me this after I had drunk five cups of tea and the Anglaise and the Soubrette were doing the dishes. Peachblow the while was petulantly taking the color out of a canvas that was a false alarm.

White Pigeon had copied a Correggio in the Louvre nine years before, and sold the canvas to a rich wagon-maker from South Bend. Then orders came from South Bend for six more Louvre masterpieces. It took a year to complete the order and brought White Pigeon a thousand dollars. She kept on copying and occasionally receiving orders from America; and when no orders came, potboilers were duly done and sent to worthy Hebrews in Saint Louis who hold annual Art Receptions and sell at auction paintings painted by distinguished artists with unpronounceable names, who send a little of their choice work to Saint Louis, because the people in Saint Louis appreciate really choice things.

"And the mural decorations--which one of you did those?" I remarked, as a long pause came stealing in.

"Did you hear what Mr. Littlejourneys asked?" called White Pigeon to the others.

"No; what was it?"

"He wants to know which one of us decorated the walls!"

"Mr. Littlejourneys meant illumined the walls," jerked Peachblow, over her shoulder.

Then Anglaise gravely brought a battered box of crayon and told me I must make a picture somewhere on the wall or ceiling: all the pictures were made by visitors--no visitor was ever exempt.

I took the crayons and made a picture such as was never seen on land or sea. Having thus placed myself on record, I began to examine the other decorations. There were heads and faces, and architectural scraps, trees and animals, and bits of landscape and ships that pass in the night. Most of the work was decidedly sketchy, but some of the faces were very good.

Suddenly my eye spied the form of a sleeping dog, a great shaggy Saint Bernard with head outstretched on his paws, sound asleep. I stopped and whistled.

The girls laughed.

"It is only the picture of a dog," said Soubrette.

"I know; but you should pay dog-tax on such a picture--did you draw it?" I asked White Pigeon.

"Did I! If I could draw like that, would I copy pictures in the Louvre?"

"Well, who drew it?"

"Can't you guess?"

"Of course I can guess. I am a Yankee--I guess Rosa Bonheur."

"Well, you have guessed right."

"Stop joking and tell me who drew the Saint Bernard."

"Madame Rosalie, or Rosa Bonheur, as you call her."

"But she never came here!"

"Yes, she did--once. Soubrette is her great-grandniece, or something."

"Yes, and Madame Bonheur pays my way and keeps me in the Ecole des Beaux Arts. I'm not ashamed for Monsieur Littlejourneys to know!" said Soubrette with a pretty pout; "I'm from Lyons, and my mother and Madame Rosalie used to know each other years ago."

"Will Madame Rosalie, as you call her, ever come here again?"

"Perhaps."

"Then I'll camp right here till she comes!"

"You might stay a year and then be disappointed."

"Then can't we go to see her?"

"Never; she does not see visitors."

"We might go visit her home," mused Soubrette, after a pause.

"Yes, if she is away," said Anglaise.

"She's away now," said Soubrette; "she went to Rouen yesterday."

"Well, when shall we go?"

"Tomorrow."

* * * * *

And so Soubrette could not think of going when it looked so much like rain, and Anglaise could not think of going without Soubrette, and Peachblow was getting nervous about the coming examinations, and must study, as she knew she would just die if she failed to pass.

"You will anyway--sometime!" said White Pigeon.

"Don't urge her; she may change her mind and go with you," dryly remarked Anglaise with back towards us as she dusted the mantel.

Then I expressed my regret that the trinity could not go, and White Pigeon expressed her regret because they had to stay at home. And as we went down the stairs together we chanted the Kyrie eleison for our small sins, easing conscience by the mutual confession that we were arrant hypocrites.

"But still," mused White Pigeon, not quite satisfied, "we really did not tell an untruth--that is, we did not deceive them--they understood--I wouldn't tell a real whopper, would you?"

"I don't know--I think I did once."

"Tell me about it," said White Pigeon.

But I was saved, for just as we reached the bottom stair there was a slight jingling of keys, and the landlady came up through the floor with a big lunch-basket. She pushed the basket into my hands and showering us with Lombardy French pushed us out of the door, and away we went into the morning gray, the basket carried between us. The basket had a hinged cover, and out of one corner emerged the telltale neck of a bottle. It did not look just right; suppose we should meet some one from Coldwater?

But we did not meet any one from Coldwater. And when we reached the railway-station we were quite lost in the crowd, for there were dozens of picnickers all carrying baskets, and from the cover of each basket emerged the neck of a bottle. We felt quite at home packed away in a Classe Trois carriage with a chattering party of six High-School botanizing youngsters. When the guard came to the window, touched his cap, addressing me as Le Professeur, and asked for the tickets for my family, they all laughed.

Fontainebleau was the fourth stop from Paris. My family scampered out and away and we followed leisurely after. Fontainebleau is quite smug. There is a fashionable hotel near the station, before which a fine tall fellow in uniform parades. He looked at our basket with contempt, and we looked at him in pity. Just beyond the hotel are smart shops with windows filled with many-colored trifles to tempt the tourist. The shops gradually grew smaller and less gay, and residences with high stone walls in front took their places, and over these walls roses nodded. Then there came a wide stretch of pasture, and the town of Fontainebleau was left behind.

The sun came out and came out and came out; birds chirruped in the hedgerows and the daws in the high poplars called and scolded. The mist still lingered on the distant hills, and we could hear the tinkle of sheep-bells and the barking of a dog coming out of the nothingness.

White Pigeon wore flat-soled shoes and measured off the paces with an easy swing. We walked in silence, filled with the rich quiet of country sounds and country sights. What a relief to get away from noisy, bustling, busy Paris! God made the country!

All at once the mists seemed to lift from the long range of hills on the right and revealed the dark background of forest, broken here and there with jutting rocks and beetling crags. We stopped and sat down on the bank-side to view the scene. Close up under the shadow of the dark forest nestled a little white village. Near it was the red-tile roof of an old mansion, half-lost in the foliage. All around this old mansion I could make out a string of small buildings or additions to the original chateau.

I looked at White Pigeon and she looked at me.

"Yes; that is the place!" she said.

The sun's rays were growing warmer. I took off my coat and tucked it through the handle of the basket. White Pigeon took off her jacket to keep it company, and toting the basket, slung on my cane between us, we moved on up the gently winding way to the village of By. Everybody was asleep at By, or else gone on a journey. Soon we came to the old, massive, moss-covered gateposts that marked the entrance to the mansion. A chain was stretched across the entrance and we crawled under. The driveway was partly overgrown with grass, and the place seemed to be taking care of itself. Half a dozen long-horned Bonnie Brier Bush cows were grazing on the lawn, their calves with them; and evidently these cows and calves were the only mowing-machines employed. On this wide-stretching meadow were various old trees; one elm I saw had fallen split through the center--each part prostrate, yet growing green.

Close up about the house there was an irregular stone wall and an ornamental iron gate with a pull-out Brugglesmith bell at one side. We pulled the bell and were answered by a big shaggy Saint Bernard that came barking and bouncing around the corner. I thought at first our time had come. But this giant of a dog only approached within about ten feet, then lay down on the grass and rolled over three times to show his goodwill. He got up with a fine, cheery smile shown in the wag of his tail, just as a little maid unlocked the gate.

"Don't you know that dog?" asked White Pigeon.

"Certainement--he is on the wall of your room."

We were shown into a little reception-parlor, where we were welcomed by a tall, handsome woman, about White Pigeon's age.

The woman kissed White Pigeon on one cheek, and I afterwards asked White Pigeon why she didn't turn to me the other, and she said I was a fool.

Then the tall woman went to the door and called up the stairway: "Antoine, Antoine, guess who it is? It's White Pigeon!"

A man came down the stairs three steps at a time, and took both of White Pigeon's hands in his, after the hearty manner of a gentleman of France. Then I was introduced.

Antoine looked at our lunch-basket with the funniest look I ever saw, and asked what it was.

"Lunch," said White Pigeon; "I can not tell a lie!"

Antoine made wild gesticulations of displeasure, denouncing us in pantomime.

But White Pigeon explained that we only came on a quiet picnic in search of ozone and had dropped in to make a little call before we went on up to the forest. But could we see the horses?

Antoine would be most delighted to show Monsieur Littlejourneys anything that was within his power. In fact, everything hereabouts was the absolute property of Monsieur Littlejourneys to do with as he pleased.

He disappeared up the stairway to exchange his slippers for shoes, and the tall woman went in another direction for her hat. I whispered to White Pigeon, "Can't we see the studio?"

"Are we from Chicago, that we should seek to prowl through a private house, when the mistress is away? No; there are partly finished canvases up there that are sacred."

"Come this way," said Antoine. He led us out through the library, then the dining-room and through the kitchen.

It is a very comfortable old place, with no extra furniture--the French know better than to burden themselves with things.

The long line of brick stables seemed made up of a beggarly array of empty stalls. We stopped at a paddock, and Antoine opened the gate and said, "There they are!"

"What?"

"The horses."

"But these are broncos."

"Yes; I believe that is what you call them. Monsieur Bill of Buffalo, New York, sent them as a present to Madame Rosalie when he was in Paris."

There they were--two ewe-necked cayuses--one a pinto with a wall-eye; the other a dun with a black line down the back.

I challenged Antoine to saddle them and we would ride. The tall lady took it in dead earnest, and throwing her arms around Antoine's neck begged him not to commit suicide.

"And the Percherons--where are they?"

"Goodness! we have no Perches."

"Those that served as models for the 'Horse Fair,' I mean."

White Pigeon took me gently by the sleeve, and turning to the others apologized for my ignorance, explaining that I did not know the "Marche aux Chevaux" was painted over forty years ago, and that the models were all Paris cart-horses.

Antoine called up a little old man, who led out two shaggy little cobs, and I was told that these were the horses that Madame drove. A roomy, old-fashioned basket phaeton was backed out; White Pigeon and I stepped in to try it, and Antoine drew us once around the stable-yard. This is the only carriage Madame uses. There were doves, and chickens, and turkeys, and rabbits; and these horses we had seen, with the cows on the lawn, make up all the animals owned by the greatest of living animal-painters.

Years ago Rosa Bonheur had a stableful of horses and a kennel of dogs and a park with deer. Many animals were sent as presents. One man forwarded a lion, and another a brace of tigers, but Madame made haste to present them to the Zoological Garden at Paris, because the folks at By would not venture out of their houses--a report having been spread that the lions were loose.

"An animal-painter no more wants to own the objects he paints than a landscape-artist wishes a deed for the mountain he is sketching," said Antoine.

"Or to marry his model," interposed White Pigeon.

"If you see your model too often, you will lose her," added the Tall Lady.

We bade our friends good-by and trudged on up the hillside to the storied Forest of Fontainebleau. We sat down on a log and watched the winding Seine stretching away like a monstrous serpent, away down across the meadow; just at our feet was the white village of By; beyond was Thomeray, and off to the left rose the spires of Fontainebleau.

"And who is this Antoine and who is the Tall Lady?" I asked, as White Pigeon began to unpack the basket.

"It's quite a romance; are you sure you want to hear it?"

"I must hear it."

And so between bites White Pigeon told me the story.

The Tall Lady is a niece of Madame Rosalie's. She was married to an army officer at Bordeaux when she was sixteen years old. Her husband treated her shamefully; he beat her and forced her to write begging letters and to borrow money of her relatives, and then he would take this money and waste it gambling and in drink. In short, he was a Brute.

Madame Rosalie accidentally heard of all this, and one day went down to Bordeaux and took the Tall Lady away from the Brute and told him she would kill him if he followed.

"Did she paint a picture of the Brute?"

"Keep quiet, please!"

She told him she would kill him if he followed, and although she is usually very gentle I believe she would have kept her word. Well, she brought the Tall Lady with her to By, and this old woman and this young woman loved each other very much.

Now, Madame Rosalie had a butler and combination man of business, by name of Jules Carmonne. He was a painter of some ability and served Madame in many ways right faithfully. Jules loved the Tall Lady, or said he did, but she did not care for him. He was near fifty and asthmatic and had watery eyes. He made things very uncomfortable for the Tall Lady.

One night Jules came to Madame Rosalie in great indignation and said he could not consent to remain longer on account of the way things were going on. What was the trouble? Trouble enough, when the Tall Lady was sneaking out of the house after decent folks were in bed, to meet a strange man down in the evergreens! Well I guess so!!

How did he know?

Ah, he had followed her. Moreover, he had concealed himself in the evergreens and waited for them, to make sure.

Yes, and who was the man?

A young rogue of a painter from Fontainebleau named Antoine de Channeville.

Madame Rosalie took Jules Carmonne at his word. She said she was sorry he could not stay, but he might go if he wished to, of course. And she paid him his salary on the spot--with two months more to the end of the year.

The next day Madame Rosalie drove her team of shaggy ponies down to Fontainebleau and called on the young rogue of an artist. He came out bareheaded and quaking to where she sat in the phaeton waiting. She flecked the off pony twice and told him that as Carmonne had left her she must have a man to help her. Would he come? And she named as salary a sum about five times what he was then making.

Antoine de Channeville seized the wheel of the phaeton for support, gasped several gasps, and said he would come.

He was getting barely enough to eat out of his work, anyway, although he was a very worthy young fellow. And he came.

He and the Tall Lady were married about six months after.

"And about the Brute and--and the divorce!"

"Gracious goodness! How do I know? I guess the Brute died or something; anyway, Antoine and the Tall Lady are man and wife, and are devoted lovers besides. They have served Madame Rosalie most loyally for these fifteen years. They say Madame Rosalie has made her will and has left them the mansion and everything in it for their ownest own, with a tidy sum besides to put on interest."

It was four o'clock when we got back to the railroad-station at Fontainebleau. We missed the train we expected to take, and had an hour to wait. White Pigeon said she did not care so very much, and I'm sure I didn't. So we sat down in the bright little waiting-room, and White Pigeon told me many things about Madame Rosalie and her early life that I had never known before.

* * * * *

Early in the century there lived in Bordeaux a struggling artist (artists always struggle, you know) by the name of Raymond Bonheur. He found life a cruel thing, for bread was high in price and short in weight, and no one seemed to appreciate art except the folks who had no money to buy. But the poor can love as well as the rich, and Raymond married. In his nervous desire for success, Raymond Bonheur said that if he could only have a son he would teach him how to do it, and the son would achieve the honors that the world withheld from the father.

So the days came and went, and a son was expected--a firstborn--an heir. There wasn't anything to be heir to except genius, but there was plenty of that. The heir was to bear the name of the father--Raymond Bonheur.

Prayers were offered and thanksgivings sung.

The days were fulfilled. The child was born.

The heir was a girl.

Raymond Bonheur cursed wildly and tousled his hair like a bouffe artist. He swore he had been tricked, trapped, seduced, undone. He would have bought strong drink, but he had no money, and credit, like hope, was gone.

The little mother cried.

But the baby grew, although it wasn't a very big baby. They named her Rosa, because the initial was the same as Raymond, but they always called her Rosalie.

Then in a year another baby came, and that was a boy. In two years another, but Raymond never forgave his wife that first offense. He continued to struggle, trying various styles of pictures and ever hoping he would yet hit on what the public desired. Mr. Vanderbilt had not yet made his famous remark about the public, and how could Raymond plagiarize it in advance?

At last he got money enough to get to Paris--ah, yes, Paris, Paris, there talent is appreciated!

In Paris another baby was born--it was looked upon as a calamity. The poor little mother of the four little shivering Bonheurs ceased to struggle. She lay quite still, and they covered her face with a white sheet and talked in whispers, and walked on tiptoe, for she was dead.

When an artist can not succeed, he begins to teach art--that is, he shows others how. Raymond Bonheur put his four children out among kinsmen in four different places, and became drawing-master in a private school. Rosa Bonheur was ten years old: a pug-nosed, square-faced little girl in a linsey-woolsey dress, wooden shoon, with a yellow braid hanging down her back tied with a shoestring. She could draw--all children can draw--and the first things children draw are animals.

Her father had taught her a little and laughed at her foolish little lions and tigers, all duly labeled.

When twelve years of age the good people with whom she lived said she must learn dressmaking. She should be an artist of the needle. But after some months she rebelled and, making her way across the city to where her father was, demanded that he should teach her drawing. Raymond Bonheur hadn't much will--this controversy proved that--the child mastered, and the father, who really was an accomplished draftsman, began giving daily lessons to the girl. Soon they worked together in the Louvre, copying pictures.

It was a queer thing to teach a girl art--there were no women artists then. People laughed to see a little girl with yellow braid mixing paints and helping her father in the Louvre; others said it wasn't right.

"Let's cut off the braid, and I'll wear boy's clothes and be a boy," said funny little Rosalie.

Next day, Raymond Bonheur had a close-cropped boy in loose trousers and blue blouse to help him.

The pictures they copied began to sell. Buyers said the work was strong and true. Prosperity came that way, and Raymond Bonheur got his four children together and rented three rooms in a house at One Hundred Fifty-seven Faubourg Saint Honore.

Rosalie saw that her father had always tried to please the public; she would please no one but herself. He had tried many forms; she would stick to one. She would paint animals and nothing else.

When eighteen years old, she painted a picture of rabbits, for the Salon. The next year she tried again. She made the acquaintance of an honest old farmer at Villiers and went to live in his household. She painted pictures of all the livestock he possessed, from rabbits to a Norman stallion. One of the pictures she then made was that of a favorite Holland cow. A collector came down from Paris and offered three hundred francs for the picture.

"Merciful Jesus!" said the pious farmer; "say nothing, but get the money quick! The live cow herself isn't worth half that!"

The members of the Bonheur family married, one by one, including the father. Rosa did not marry: she painted. She discarded all teachers, all schools; she did not listen to the suggestions of patrons, and even refused to make pictures to order.

And be it said to her credit, she never has allowed a buyer to dictate the subject. She followed her own ideas in everything; she wore men's clothes, and does even unto this day.

When she was twenty-five, the Salon awarded her a gold medal. The Ministere des Beaux Arts paid her three thousand francs for her "Labourge Nivernais."

Raymond Bonheur grew ill in Eighteen Hundred Forty-nine, but before he passed out he realized that his daughter, then twenty-seven years old, was on a level with the greatest masters, living or dead.

She began "The Horse Fair" when twenty-eight. It was the largest canvas ever attempted by an animal-painter. It was exhibited at the Salon in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-three, and all the gabble of jealous competitors was lost in the glorious admiration it excited. It became the rage of Paris. All the honors the Salon could bestow were heaped upon the young woman, and by special decision all her work henceforth was declared exempt from examination by the Jury of Admission. Rosa Bonheur, five feet four, weighing one hundred twenty pounds, was bigger than the Salon.

But success did not cause her to swerve a hair's breadth from her manner of work or life. She refused all social invitations, and worked away after her own method as industriously as ever. When a picture was completed, she set her price on it and it was sold.

In Eighteen Hundred Sixty she bought this fine old house at By, that she might work in quiet. Society tried to follow her, and in Eighteen Hundred Sixty-four the Emperor Napoleon and Empress Eugenie went to By, and the Empress pinned to the blue blouse of Rosa Bonheur the Cross of the Legion of Honor, the first time, I believe, that the distinction was ever conferred on a woman.

And now at seventy-four she is still in love with life, and while taking a woman's tender interest in all sweet and gentle things, has yet an imagination that in its strength and boldness is splendidly masculine.

Rosa Bonheur has received all the honors that man can give. She is rich; no words of praise that tongue can utter can add to her fame; and she is loved by all who know her.

MADAME DE STAEL

Far from gaining assurance in meeting Bonaparte oftener, he
intimidated me daily more and more. I confusedly felt that no
emotion of the heart could possibly take effect upon him. He
looks upon a human being as a fact or as a thing, but not as a
fellow-creature. He does not hate any more than he loves; there
is nothing for him but himself; all other things are so many
ciphers. The force of his will lies in the imperturbable
calculation of his selfishness.
--_Reflections_

Fate was very kind to Madame De Stael.

She ran the gamut of life from highest love to direst pain--from rosy dawn to blackest night. Name if you can another woman who touched life at so many points! Home, health, wealth, strength, honors, affection, applause, motherhood, loss, danger, death, defeat, sacrifice, humiliation, illness, banishment, imprisonment, escape. Again comes hope--returning strength, wealth, recognition, fame tempered by opposition, home, a few friends, and kindly death--cool, all-enfolding death.

If Harriet Martineau showed poor judgment in choosing her parents, we can lay no such charge to the account of Madame De Stael.

They called her "The Daughter of Necker," and all through life she delighted in the title. The courtier who addressed her thus received a sunny smile and a gentle love-tap on his cheek for pay. A splendid woman is usually the daughter of her father, just as strong men have noble mothers.

Jacques Necker was born in Geneva, and went up to the city, like many another country boy, to make his fortune. He carried with him to Paris innocence, health, high hope, and twenty francs in silver. He found a place as porter or "trotter" in a bank. Soon they made him clerk.

A letter came one day from a correspondent asking for a large loan, and setting forth a complex financial scheme in which the bank was invited to join. M. Vernet, the head of the establishment, was away, and young Necker took the matter in hand. He made a detailed statement of the scheme, computed probable losses, weighed the pros and cons, and when the employer returned, the plan, all worked out, was on his desk, with young Necker's advice that the loan be made.

"You seem to know all about banking!" was the sarcastic remark of M. Vernet.

"I do," was the proud answer.

"You know too much; I'll just put you back as porter."

The Genevese accepted the reduction and went back as porter without repining. A man of small sense would have resigned his situation at once, just as men are ever forsaking Fortune when she is about to smile; witness Cato committing suicide on the very eve of success.

There is always a demand for efficient men; the market is never glutted; the cities are hungry for them--but the trouble is, few men are efficient.

"It was none of his business!" said M. Vernet to his partner, trying to ease conscience with reasons.

"Yes; but see how he accepted the inevitable!"

"Ah! true, he has two qualities that are the property only of strong men: confidence and resignation. I think--I think I was hasty!"

So young Necker was reinstated, and in six months was cashier, in three years a partner.

Not long after, he married Susanna Curchod, a poor governess.

But Mademoiselle Curchod was rich in mental endowment: refined, gentle, spiritual, she was a true mate to the high-minded Necker. She was a Swiss, too, and if you know how a young man and a young woman, countryborn, in a strange city are attracted to each other, you will better understand this particular situation.

Some years before, Gibbon had loved and courted the beautiful Mademoiselle Curchod in her quiet home in the Jura Mountains. They became engaged. Gibbon wrote home, breaking the happy news to his parents.

"Has the beautiful Curchod of whom you sing, a large dowry?" inquired the mother.

"She has no dowry! I can not tell a lie," was the meek answer. The mother came on and extinguished the match in short order.

Gibbon never married. But he frankly tells us all about his love for Susanna Curchod, and relates how he visited her, in her splendid Paris home. "She greeted me without embarrassment," says Gibbon, resentfully; "and in the evening Necker left us together in the parlor, bade me good-night, and lighting a candle went off to bed!"

Gibbon, historian and philosopher, was made of common clay (for authors are made of clay, like plain mortals), and he could not quite forgive Madame Necker for not being embarrassed on meeting her former lover, neither could he forgive Necker for not being jealous.

But that only daughter of the Neckers, Germaine, pleased Gibbon--pleased him better than the mother, and Gibbon extended his stay in Paris and called often.

"She was a splendid creature," Gibbon relates; "only seventeen, but a woman grown, physically and mentally; not handsome, but dazzling, brilliant, emotional, sensitive, daring!"

Gibbon was a bit of a romanticist, as all historians are, and he no doubt thought it would be a fine denouement to life's play to capture the daughter of his old sweetheart, and avenge himself on Fate and the unembarrassed Madame Necker and the unpiqued husband, all at one fell stroke--and she would not be dowerless either. Ha, ha!

But Gibbon forgot that he was past forty, short in stature, and short of breath, and "miles around," as Talleyrand put it.

"I quite like you," said the daring daughter, as the eloquent Gibbon sat by her side at a dinner.

"Why shouldn't you like me--I came near being your papa!"

"I know, and would I have looked like you?"

"Perhaps."

"What a calamity!"

Even then she possessed that same bubbling wit that was hers years later when she sat at table with D'Alembert. On one side of the great author was Madame Recamier, famous for beauty (and later for a certain "Beauty-Cream"), on the other the daughter of Necker.

"How fortunate!" exclaimed D'Alembert with rapture; "how fortunate I sit between Wit and Beauty!"

"Yes, and without possessing either," said Wit.

No mistake, the girl's intellect was too speedy even for Gibbon. She fenced all 'round him and over him, and he soon discovered that she was icily gracious to every one, save her father alone. For him she seemed to outpour all the lavish love of her splendid womanhood. It was unlike the usual calm affection of father and daughter. It was a great and absorbing love, of which even the mother was jealous.

"I can't just exactly make 'em out," said Gibbon, and withdrew in good order.

Before Necker was forty he had accumulated a fortune, and retired from business to devote himself to literature and the polite arts.

"I have earned a rest," he said; "besides, I must have leisure to educate my daughter."

Men are constantly "retiring" from business, but someway the expected Elysium of leisure forever eludes us. Necker had written several good pamphlets and showed the world that he had ability outside of money-making. He was appointed Resident Minister of Geneva at the Court of France. Soon after he became President of the French East India Company, because there was no one else with mind broad enough to fill the place. His house was the gathering-place of many eminent scholars and statesmen. Necker was quiet and reserved; his wife coldly brilliant, cultured, dignified, religious. The daughter made good every deficiency in both.

She was tall, finely formed, but her features were rather heavy, and in repose there was a languor in her manner and a blankness in her face. This seeming dulness marks all great actors, but the heaviness is only on the surface; it often covers a sleeping volcano. On recognizing an acquaintance, Germaine Necker's face would be illumined, and her smile would light a room. She could pronounce a man's name so he would be ready to throw himself at her feet, or over a precipice for her. And she could listen in a way that complimented; and by a sigh, a nod, an exclamation, bring out the best--such thoughts as a man never knew he had. She made people surprise themselves with their own genius; thus proving that to make a good impression means to make the man pleased with himself. "Any man can be brilliant with her," said a nettled competitor; "but if she wishes, she can sink all women in a room into creeping things."

She knew how to compliment without flattering; her cordiality warmed like wine, and her ready wit, repartee, and ability to thaw all social ice and lead conversation along any line, were accomplishments which perhaps have never been equaled. The women who "entertain" often only depress; they are so glowing that everybody else feels himself punk. And these people who are too clever are very numerous; they seem inwardly to fear rivals, and are intent on working while it is called the day.

Over against these are the celebrities who sit in a corner and smile knowingly when they are expected to scintillate. And the individual who talks too much at one time is often painfully silent at another--as if he had made New-Year resolves. But the daughter of Necker entered into conversation with candor and abandon; she gave herself to others, and knew whether they wished to talk or to listen. On occasion, she could monopolize conversation until she seemed the only person in the room; but all talent was brighter for the added luster of her own. This simplicity, this utter frankness, this complete absence of self-consciousness, was like the flight of a bird that never doubts its power, simply because it never thinks of it. Yet continual power produces arrogance, and the soul unchecked finally believes in its own omniscience.

Of course such a matrimonial prize as the daughter of Necker was sought for, even fought for. But the women who can see clear through a man, like a Roentgen ray, do not invite soft demonstration. They give passion a chill. Love demands a little illusion; it must be clothed in mystery. And although we find evidences that many youths stood in the hallways and sighed, the daughter of Necker never saw fit by a nod to bring them to her feet. She was after bigger game--she desired the admiration and approbation of archbishops, cardinals, generals, statesmen, great authors.

Germaine Necker had no conception of what love is.

Many women never have. Had this fine young woman met a man with intellect as clear, mind as vivid, and heart as warm as her own, and had he pierced her through with a wit as strong and keen as she herself wielded, her pride would have been broken and she might have paused. Then they might have looked into each other's eyes and lost self there. And had she thus known love it would have been a complete passion, for the woman seemed capable of it.

A better pen than mine has written, "A woman's love is a dog's love." The dog that craves naught else but the presence of his master, who is faithful to the one and whines out his life on that master's grave, waiting for the caress that never comes and the cheery voice that is never heard--that's the way a woman loves! A woman may admire, respect, revere and obey, but she does not love until a passion seizes upon her that has in it the abandon of Niagara. Do you remember how Nancy Sikes crawls inch by inch to reach the hand of Bill, and reaching it, tenderly caresses the coarse fingers that a moment before clutched her throat, and dies content? That's the love of woman! The prophet spoke of something "passing the love of woman," but the prophet was wrong--there's nothing does.

So Germaine Necker, the gracious, the kindly, the charming, did not love. However, she married--married Baron De Stael, the Swedish Ambassador. He was thirty-seven, she was twenty. De Stael was good-looking, polite, educated. He always smiled at the right time, said bright things in the right way, kept silence when he should, and made no enemies because he agreed with everybody about everything. Stipulations were made; a long agreement was drawn up; it was signed by the party of the first and duly executed by the party of the second part; sealed, witnessed, sworn to, and the priest was summoned.

It was a happy marriage. The first three years of married life were the happiest Madame De Stael ever knew, she said long afterward.

Possibly there are hasty people who imagine they detect tincture of iron somewhere in these pages: these good people will say, "Gracious me! why not?"

And so I will at once admit that these respectable, well-arranged, and carefully planned marriages are often happy and peaceful.

The couple may "raise" a large family and slide through life and out of it without a splash. I will also admit that love does not necessarily imply happiness--more often 't is a pain, a wild yearning, and a vague unrest; a haunting sense of heart-hunger that drives a man into exile repeating abstractedly the name "Beatrice! Beatrice!" And so all the moral I will make now is simply this: the individual who has not known an all-absorbing love has not the spiritual vision that is a passport to Paradise. He forever yammers between the worlds, fit for neither Heaven nor Hell.

* * * * *

Necker retired from business that he might enjoy peace; his daughter married for the same reason. It was stipulated that she should never be separated from her father. She who stipulates is lost, so far as love goes--but no matter! Married women in France are greater lions in society than maidens can possibly hope to be. The marriage-certificate serves at once as a license for brilliancy, daring, splendor, and it is also a badge of respectability. The marriage-certificate is a document that in all countries is ever taken care of by the woman and never by the man.

And this document is especially useful in France, as French dames know. Frenchmen are afraid of an unmarried woman--she means danger, damages, a midnight marriage and other awful things. An unmarried woman in France can not hope to be a social leader; and to be a social leader was the one ambition of Madame De Stael.

It was called the salon of Madame De Stael now. Baron De Stael was known as the husband of Madame De Stael. The salon of Madame Necker was only a matter of reminiscence. The daughter of Necker was greater than her father, and as for Madame Necker, she was a mere figure in towering headdress, point lace and diamonds. Talleyrand summed up the case when he said, "She is one of those dear old things that have to be tolerated."

Madame De Stael had a taste for literature from early womanhood. She wrote beautiful little essays and read them aloud to her company, and her manuscripts had a circulation like unto her father's bank-notes. She had the faculty of absorbing beautiful thoughts and sentiments, and no woman ever expressed them in a more graceful way. People said she was the greatest woman author of her day. "You mean of all time," corrected Diderot. They called her "the High Priestess of Letters," "the Minerva of Poetry," "Sappho Returned," and all that. Her commendation meant success and her indifference failure. She knew politics, too, and her hands were on all wires. Did she wish to placate a minister, she invited him to call, and once there he was as putty in her hands. She skimmed the surface of all languages, all arts, all history, but best of all she knew the human heart.

Of course there was a realm of knowledge she wist not of--the initiates of which never ventured within her scope. She had nothing for them--they kept away. But the proud, the vain, the ambitious, the ennui-ridden, the people-who-wish-to-be, and who are ever looking for the strong man to give them help--these thronged her parlors.

And when you have named these you have named all those who are foremost in commerce, politics, art, education, philanthropy and religion. The world is run by second-rate people. The best are speedily crucified, or else never heard of until long after they are dead.

Madame De Stael, in Seventeen Hundred Eighty-eight, was queen of the people who ran the world---at least the French part of it.

But intellectual power, like physical strength, endures but for a day. Giants who have a giant's strength and use it like a giant must be put down. If you have intellectual power, hide it!

Do thy daily work in thine own little way and be content. The personal touch repels as well as attracts. Thy presence is a menace--thy existence an affront--beware! They are weaving a net for thy feet, and hear you not the echo of hammering, as of men building a scaffold?

Go read history! Thinkest thou that all men are mortal save thee alone, and that what has befallen others can not happen to thee?

The Devil has no title to this property he now promises. Fool! thou hast no more claim on Fate than they who have gone before, and what has come to others in like conditions must come to thee. God himself can not stay it; it is so written in the stars. Power to lead men! Pray that thy prayer shall ne'er be granted--'t is to be carried to the topmost pinnacle of Fame's temple tower, and there cast headlong upon the stones beneath. Beware! beware!!

* * * * *

Madame De Stael was of an intensely religious nature throughout her entire life; such characters swing between license and asceticism. But the charge of atheism told largely against her even among the so-called liberals, for liberals are often very illiberal. Marie Antoinette gathered her skirts close about her and looked at the "Minerva of Letters" with suspicion in her big, open eyes; cabinet officers forgot her requests to call, and when a famous wit once coolly asked, "Who was that Madame De Stael we used to read about?" people roared with laughter.

Necker, as Minister of Finance, had saved the State from financial ruin; then had been deposed and banished; then recalled. In September, Seventeen Hundred Ninety, he was again compelled to flee. He escaped to Switzerland, disguised as a pedler. The daughter wished to accompany him, but this was impossible, for only a week before she had given birth to her first child.

But favor came back, and in the mad tumult of the times the freedom of wit and sparkle of her salon became a need to the poets and philosophers, if city wits can be so called.

Society shone as never before. In it was the good nature of the mob. It was no time to sit quietly at home and enjoy a book--men and women must "go somewhere," they must "do something." The women adopted the Greek costume and appeared in simple white robes caught at the shoulders with miniature stilettos. Many men wore crape on their arms in pretended memory of friends who had been kissed by Madame Guillotine. There was fever in the air, fever in the blood, and the passions held high carnival. In solitude, danger depresses all save the very strongest, but the mob (ever the symbol of weakness) is made up of women--it is an effeminate thing. It laughs hysterically at death and cries, "On with the dance!" Women represent the opposite poles of virtue.

The fever continues: a "poverty party" is given by Madame De Stael, where men dress in rags and women wear tattered gowns that ill conceal their charms. "We must get used to it," she said, and everybody laughed. Soon, men in the streets wear red nightcaps, women appear in nightgowns, rich men wear wooden shoes, and young men in gangs of twelve parade the avenues at night carrying heavy clubs, hurrahing for this or that.

Yes, society in Paris was never so gay.

The salons were crowded, and politics was the theme. When the discussion waxed too warm, some one would start a hymn and all would chime in until the contestants were drowned out and in token of submission joined in the chorus.

But Madame De Stael was very busy all these days. Her house was filled with refugees, and she ran here and there for passports and pardons, and beseeched ministers and archbishops for interference or assistance or amnesty or succor and all those things that great men can give or bestow or effect or filch. And when her smiles failed to win the wished-for signature, she still had tears that would move a heart of brass.

About this time Baron De Stael fades from our vision, leaving with Madame three children.