Fragments Of An Autobiography Part 22

[Ill.u.s.tration: musical notation]

in which, after the first eight bars, the following interesting modulation is introduced:

[Ill.u.s.tration: musical notation]

"The piece is what we Germans would call tame. He also showed me two ma.n.u.script compositions, an Introduction and Fugue in C major, and a sort of pastoral Fantasia with a brilliant Rondo in A major, which I had to play to him, and, when I added a missing [natural music symbol] to the MS., he declared it was 'worth gold' to him. Clara, who was with me, and had already mustered up sufficient courage to sing my 'Fruhlingslied' and 'Botschaft' to Rossini's satisfaction, was obliged to repeat both songs before the singers, Ponchard and Leva.s.seur, who had just come in. I accompanied, and, in answer to the Maestro's remark that I had enough flow of melody to write an opera, I said: 'What a pity that I am not young enough to become your pupil!' and when, referring to my playing from his ma.n.u.scripts, he dubbed me 'King of Pianists,' I told him that whatever I was, I owed to the old school and the old master Clementi. At the mention of that name he went to the piano and played parts of his sonatas by heart.

"On another occasion he would have it there were barricades in my 'Humoristische Variationen,' so boldly did they seem to a.s.sail time-worn traditions; and as for the 'Grande Valse,' he found the t.i.tle too una.s.suming. 'Surely,' he insisted, 'a waltz with some angelic creature must have inspired you, and _that_ the t.i.tle ought to express. t.i.tles, in fact, should pique the curiosity of the public.' That is a view uncongenial to me; however, I did not discuss it."

At the dinner my father spoke of, the conversation turned on Meyerbeer and on macaroni. He seemed much attached to both, more though to the latter, I thought, and to other productions of the Italian chef, than to the chef-d'uvres of his Franco-German colleague. He would speak in very appreciative terms of Meyerbeer, but he did not seem displeased when disparaging remarks on the works of his rival were made.

One of the stories current concerning the two masters was this:--

Rossini was going along the Boulevards with a friend, when they met Meyerbeer, and exchanged cordial greetings.

"And how is your health, my dear Maestro?" asks Meyerbeer.

"Shaky, cher maitre, very shaky. My digestion, you know, my poor head.

Alas! I'm afraid I am going down hill."

They pa.s.s on. "How could you tell such stories?" asks the friend; "you were never in better health, and you talk of going down hill."

"Ah, well," answered Rossini, "to be sure--but why shouldn't I put it that way? It gives him so much pleasure."

Another time the following short dialogue:--

"Eh bien, cher maitre, que faites-vous maintenant?"

Meyerbeer: "Je me corrige toujours."

Rossini: "Moi je m'efface."

Whatever may have been the relative merits of the two masters in matters musical, it is certain that Rossini was acknowledged _facile princeps_ in all concerning the cuisine, and we used to listen with due respect to his remarks on the mysteries of the culinary art.

Cremieux, the eminent lawyer, who was a guest at that dinner, had the reputation of being the plainest man in France, a sort of missing link.

A story is told of him and Alexandre Dumas. The great novelist was unmistakably of the mulatto type, and Cremieux, who must have been addicted to making personal remarks, indiscreetly questioned him as to his descent. "Was your father a mulatto?" he asked. "Yes," answered Dumas, "my father was a mulatto, my grandfather a negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey; my family began where yours ends."

Quick at repartee as Dumas was, he did not always have the last word, as on an occasion when he received a letter from some playwright--I have forgotten his name--offering to collaborate with him in the writing of a play. "It is not usual," replied Dumas, "to yoke a horse and an a.s.s together." "Comment done!" retorted the other. "How dare you, sir, insinuate that I am a horse?"

That Villa Rossini I visited ten years later under very different circ.u.mstances. It was in May 1871, after the terrible events that marked the reign of the Commune. I had not witnessed these, but had crossed over from London shortly after the Versailles troops had succeeded in making themselves masters of Paris.

The villa stood in its own grounds. The munic.i.p.ality had desired to present Rossini with the site; he would not, however, accept the gracious offer unreservedly, and so it was arranged that he should occupy it on very advantageous terms.

As I pa.s.sed the gates that led to the grounds I knew so well, the first thing that struck me was a notice posted up and signed by the military authorities, to the effect that all unexploded bombs and other projectiles should be buried underground, awaiting the time when they would be collected by competent artillerymen.

I left others to do the burying, and made for the house. There was no Madame Rossini on the look-out, as she used to be in former days, ready to guard the approaches to her husband's study with Cerberus-like fidelity. It was some time before I could find anybody at all. A man-servant finally emerged from the bas.e.m.e.nt; he was the only soul on the premises, and evidently much shaken by recent events. It needed n.o.body to open the door, for one could walk in through large gaps in the walls, where the sh.e.l.ls had done their work. Part of the staircase had been blown away, but enough of it stood to take me to the upper floor, to the room in which, three years ago, Rossini had died. The house until lately had been occupied by his widow; now all the furniture had been removed; but a large iron safe stood in the middle of the music-room, like a solid island, surrounded by a sea of brick and mortar rubbish.

I had looked round in vain for something worth preserving as a memento of this my last visit to the great Maestro's house, and had found nothing better than fragments of wall-paper and pieces of a shattered looking-gla.s.s. As I gave a final look at the scene of destruction, I descried a black-bordered paper all but buried in a thick layer of debris. Where all else was destroyed, that paper seemed a living thing.

I brought it to the surface, and found it was an old copy of _The Musical World_, containing the obituary notice of Giacomo Rossini. When I returned to London I gave it to J. W. Davison, the editor of the journal in which it was published, so that it might be preserved to record the incidents of the master's life, and to attest the grievous disasters that befell the villa he loved so well.

CHAPTER X

PARIS AFTER THE COMMUNE

I well remember Paris emerging from her trials. It is difficult to-day to realise the magnitude of the disaster which laid low the beautiful capital of France. When I arrived within its shattered walls, the monster conflagration that would have destroyed the whole city, had it not been for the timely arrival of the Versailles troops, was all but subdued. The firemen, however, were still kept busily engaged, for clouds of smoke and tongues of fire would at intervals burst forth from the smouldering ruins. Tottering walls on the one hand, huge _facades_ of masonry on the other, marked the places where but yesterday glorious specimens of architecture, ancient and modern, had stood. There was the sh.e.l.l of what had been the Tuileries, that palace built in the 16th century, which had seen so much of the history of France. Mobs had pillaged and sacked it; within its state-rooms one crowned head had been forced to wear the cap of liberty, a humiliation which did not save it from the knife of the guillotine. Some fifty years later a bourgeois king had to fly for his life from the palace; and last, it was an unfortunate Empress who had to make good her escape, and seek refuge on the sh.o.r.es of England.

There would be no more pillaging and sacking now; the venerable specimen of the Renaissance style was destroyed. To-day the stranger is just shown the place where the Tuileries stood; then, as the walls crashed down, burying treasures and relics of bygone days in their fall, one was appalled by the tragedy enacted before one's eyes. I had my little personal recollections too. I had danced there more than once with some of the fairest Parisians; I had drunk the future Emperor's champagne with a conviction that it was quite the best of its kind, and was evidently intended to make us understand that our host meant business, imperial business, pretty sure to be settled ere long, whether we liked it or not.

Well, one fine old building is gone, I thought, as I turned away from the ruins, but at least the Louvre is saved. That marvel of architecture was intact. The princ.i.p.al works of art it contained had been taken to places of supposed safety, and the whereabouts of the Venus of Milo were said to be known only to some few persons, who had dug a hole and therein buried her. Much else had been providentially saved; there were large gaps in the Rue de Rivoli, but the unique old Tour St. Jacques had escaped unscathed. At the Palais de Justice the fire had stopped short on the threshold of the exquisite Sainte Chapelle, one of the most perfect works of the thirteenth century. I had with some difficulty obtained permission to roam over the ruins of that Palais de Justice and the Prefecture de Police, and whilst the firemen were working to subdue the flames wherever they broke out afresh, I used my brush to make a sketch of the huge maze before me. There were bundles of official papers at my feet; _Actes de Naissance_ and _Actes de Deces_, charred only, and quite easy to decipher, but as I touched them, they crumbled to ashes.

Some seemingly well-preserved parchments I consigned to my pocket, but a few hours later I found little more than dust in their place. The Hotel de Ville, too, which had fallen a prey to the flames, had many an a.s.sociation for me. Henri Lehmann, during the time I was studying under him, had been commissioned to decorate the great hall with a series of pictures. I had lent an apprentice's hand, and had seen them grow under his brush, as, in an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time, he produced what was thought to be the best work of his life--work destined to hand down his name to posterity as one of the most fertile and distinguished painters of the second empire. Ingres, too, who in those days was considered the greatest draughtsman since the time of Raphael, had contributed a masterpiece to the decoration of the hall, a _plafond_, "The Apotheosis of Napoleon I." This work I had also seen in progress.

On the occasion of a visit to his studio I recollect a lady asking him, in effusive language, where he had found the models for the ideally cla.s.sical horses attached to the triumphant car of the great conqueror.

Ingres led her straight to the window. "There are my models, madam," he said bluntly, pointing to the cab-stand.

I wandered through Paris day after day, and everywhere the ghastly traces of war, as it really is, confronted me; blood-stained flagstones, broken-down gun-carriages, barricades that had been stormed, and homes that had been wrecked. Everywhere the iron shutters of the shops were riddled with shot or broken open. One climbed as best one could over a heterogeneous ma.s.s of _impedimenta_, collected for attack or defence, or thrown away in precipitate flight. Every effort had been made to prevent petroleum being poured into the bas.e.m.e.nt of the houses. The gratings in the streets had been boarded over and otherwise secured against those female fiends the Petroleuses. Some of the wealthiest quarters of Paris were known to be undermined, and it was only in the nick of time that the Versailles troops arrived to prevent the execution of such written orders as, "Faites sauter le quartier de la Bourse."

The fas.h.i.+onable quarters and the suburbs of Paris had suffered terribly from the bombardment. I wandered for days over fragments of every mortal thing that had once been whole, past dismantled batteries, along the barren wastes of the Bois de Boulogne, and through avenues of wrecked villas. Costly furniture and works of art had been shattered to atoms by the enemy's bombs. In one place I came across a Louis Quinze sofa and chairs that had evidently been carried out for removal, and stood waiting so placidly, that they seemed to invite you to sit down and rest; and in one of the gardens there was a cottage piano, which appeared none the worse for its adventures; two coffee-cups stood unharmed upon it, showing that some two persons had taken their demie-ta.s.se by the side of that piano.

The most striking effects of shot and sh.e.l.l showed themselves on the ornamental ironwork which had once enclosed those suburban villas. It seemed as if they had vented their fiercest pa.s.sions on those beautifully designed gates and railings French art excels in producing.

One could not suppress a feeling of pity as one saw them writhing in anguish and stretching out their weird iron arms as if in supplication.

Here they were unhinged and started from their sockets; there their limbs, once so perfectly poised, were twisted into unsightly shapes, and stood out amongst the wreckage in fantastic and uncanny figures.

I had wended my way one afternoon to the revolutionary quarter of Belleville, and had got into conversation with a workman of more than average intelligence. Not feeling at our ease within earshot of the "Mouchards," as the growling, spying, myrmidons of the police are termed, and not liking the looks of the _gensdarmes a cheval_ with their revolvers at half-c.o.c.k, we had adjourned to one of the numerous establishments kept by the _Marchand de Vins, Traiteur_, which take the place of our public-houses. There my workman became confidential and declared himself a Communist to the backbone. He scorned the idea that the German was his enemy.

"If I'm to fight at all," he said, "let me find an enemy for myself. Let me shoot the _richard en face_, the capitalist who has been exploiting me and mine. We'll make him and the like of him disgorge his plunder, and then we'll start a fresh deal. As for the Germans, my dear sir, I dare say there are a lot of jolly good fellows amongst them, and plenty who would take a b.u.mper, a _canon de vin_, with us, if they were here now, and drink to the perdition of the bourgeois."

"That is all very well," I answered, "but I'm pretty sure you were just like the rest, and went tearing along the boulevards and shouting 'A Berlin!' And you would have been only too jolly glad to get the Rhine, if you had had a----"

"The Rhine, monsieur!" he interrupted me, "the Rhine! Do you think I know what the blessed thing is; and, supposing we had got it, do you think they'd have given me any of it?"

That was twenty-eight years ago, and since then many a workman has learnt that he does not get his share of the "blessed thing" he has to fight for. I wonder whether he will give up fighting, or whether he will see to it that he gets his share.

It was an impressive sight that met the eye in the Place Vendome. There was the famous column lying prostrate in huge fragments like so many mill-stones, with the bronze legends commemorating the conqueror's march, battered and crushed out of all seeming in their fall. Those gigantic vertebrae of the mighty pillar made one ponder on the vicissitudes of greatness, and on the ups and downs of heroic symbols.

One could not help marvelling at the audacity of the men who had ruptured that spinal cord of patriotic self-glorification.

It was an artist, and a great one too, who planned and directed the destruction of the work of art, Courbet, the most uncompromising of painters and of demagogues. I was living in Paris at the time his first great works were exhibited, and I recollect what a storm of abuse they raised. His "Enterrement a Ornans," a large and striking picture, crudely realistic, depicting, as it did, mourners at the open grave, with reddened noses and swollen eyes, was considered a deliberate insult offered to all idealists, romanticists, and mannerists. His picture, "La Baigneuse," was simply derided by the critics; there was no drawing, no modelling. "C'est un sac de noix!" A bag of nuts, not a woman of flesh and blood.

Well, Courbet's work has outlived criticism; history remembers him as a _chef d'ecole_.

The only time I recollect meeting him was on the occasion of an international gathering of artists in Antwerp in 1861. He was quite a boon companion, and had a marked objection to retiring to rest before daylight. He would sing us jolly songs, one of which, "C'est l'amour qui nous mene,"[13] was a favourite of his.

The Commune went to work very systematically to bring down the huge column. An incision was made at the base in the shape of a notch; a double pulley was attached to the bal.u.s.trade at the top, and another fixed to the ground in the Rue de la Paix, a rope pa.s.sing through both to a capstan. When this was set in motion, after some preliminary difficulties had been overcome, the column oscillated for a moment, and then came cras.h.i.+ng down in three colossal sections on to a bed of sand, fascines, and straw prepared for it, there to break up into a thousand smaller fragments. The statue of the great Emperor had lost its head and one arm.

An act of vandalism, we say. Yes, but of vandalism with a purpose. We can fancy Courbet declaring: "The work of art must be sacrificed as a warning to those who would honour and perpetuate the memory of selfish aggressors."