L'enfant et la reine morte
The Child and the Dead Queen
Pierre Mille
FIRST CAHIER OF THE TENTH SERIES
CAHIERS DE LA QUINZAINE, appearing sixteen times a year, PARIS, 8, rue de la Sorbonne, ground floor.
We published in our earlier editions and in our first five series, 1900-1904, such a great number of documents, of texts forming dossiers, of information and commentaries; such a great number of cahiers of letters — novels, dramas, dialogues, poems and tales; such a great number of cahiers of history and philosophy; and these documents, information, texts, dossiers and commentaries, these cahiers of letters, history and philosophy were so considerable that we cannot think of giving even the most succinct statement of them here; to know what has appeared in the first five series of the cahiers, one need only send a money order of five francs to M. Andre Bourgeois, administrator of the cahiers, 8, rue de la Sorbonne, ground floor, Paris, fifth arrondissement; in return one will receive the analytical summary catalogue, 1900-1904, of our first five series.
This catalogue was properly established to give, as far as possible, an image in brief, an abridgment of our earlier editions and our first five series; everything is classified there in order; one need only read it to find, in their place, the references requested.
TEN YEARS ALREADY PAST
Charles Peguy
Ten years already past. — For several years I had been regularly committing that abuse of power which I had managed to reserve for myself: for the first Sunday in October, the first cahier of each series.
I shall not commit this abuse of my power this year; as one has just seen, on the cover, our subscribers will be doubly happy; first, that the series begins at ground level; second, that it begins with the second cahier by our collaborator M. Pierre Mille; so that this summer’s holidays will have been framed, as it were, between the two cahiers by our collaborator.
I shall not commit this abuse of my power for a year or two. For a year already I have devoted myself entirely to the preparation, and during the two full years to come, during this entire tenth series, which is beginning, during the entire following eleventh series, we shall devote ourselves entirely to the execution, to the perfect completion, I do not say merely of the greatest enterprise we have ever undertaken, but of the first great enterprise we have conceived, whose plan we have formed since the beginning of our existence.
One will find hereafter the design, the principles, the foundations, the details of this operation; our collaborator Pierre Mille has done us the kindness of allowing us to present this announcement at the head of a cahier that was entirely his.
I place in full confidence in the hands of our friends, in the hands of our subscribers, in the hands of the public itself the fate of this operation; without any hesitation and without any doubt I appeal to the devotion, the loyalty, the friendship of some; to the devotion, the loyalty of others; to the friendship of all; to the justice of all; notably to the justice of the general public; I count moreover, and I know from numerous precedents that I may count, on the goodwill and good fellowship of most of our colleagues.
For the first time in our life we are undertaking an operation that addresses itself no longer merely to the ordinary public of our cahiers but to the entire public; we must come out of it to our honor; this operation must be highly honorable for us; it must have a highly honorable outcome for us; it must succeed grandly; it must count in the history of our house; it must have a completion, a consummation, a crowning worthy of us, worthy of what we are, of what we have done already, of what we have become; and even one that infinitely surpasses what we have become; it must attain, must obtain its full breadth, its full amplitude; it must reach, then, through the care of our friends, through the care of our subscribers, through the good care of the public itself, it must reach the whole public, what one calls, rather improperly, the general public; it must overflow on all sides beyond the ordinary public of our cahiers.
the founder and manager CHARLES PEGUY
DECENNIAL OF THE CAHIERS DE LA QUINZAINE
To celebrate the tenth anniversary of their founding (first of January 1900 — first of January 1910), the CAHIERS DE LA QUINZAINE will publish by subscription a commemorative edition of POLYEUCTE.
This edition shall bear the name: Edition of the Decennial of the Cahiers de la Quinzaine; or, more briefly: edition of the decennial.
The true beauty of a book must be understood as the beauty of the written work; the absence of illustration; the beauty of the typography; the beauty of the printing; the absence of polychromy; the beauty of the paper; the limited number of copies.
First, no written work offers the publisher a text as beautiful as the text of Polyeucte, a text that itself brings so much and of such beauty, so perfect, so total, and so infinite a beauty.
The title of the book shall be: POLYEUCTE, MARTYR, tragedy (Christian), 1640.
The book shall naturally comprise: for the head italics and perhaps the tail: the epistle to the queen regent; the abridgment of the martyrdom of Saint Polyeuctus, written by Simeon Metaphrastes and reported by Surius; the examination of the play.
The body of the book shall be made solely of the five acts of the tragedy, in roman type.
Except for the unavoidable indications of the title and printing, there shall naturally not be a single line in the book, not a word of the book, not a comma that is not by Corneille, from the text of Corneille; one does not expect us to be barbarous enough to go weigh down, to alter a text — especially and infinitely less such a text — to dishonor it with our miserable commentaries.
Likewise — and in parallel — I would say almost symbolically — there shall naturally not be a single sign in the entire book that is not of pure typography; one does not expect us either to be barbarous enough to go weigh down, to alter the typography of a text — especially of an old text — with miserable modern illustrations.
It is evident moreover that we do not wish to make an archaic and artificial edition, falsely archaic, falsely, artificially old, but an originating edition, which shall be entirely from us and entirely ours; there is no question, there can be no question of making an imitation edition, an edition of pieces and fragments borrowed from, imitated from the editions of the seventeenth century.
The text shall be established by M. Peguy, former student of the former Ecole Normale Superieure, from the editions published during Corneille’s lifetime.
The typography shall be of exactly the same family as the ordinary typography of the cahiers. Which is to say that the book shall be composed by hand, in late-eighteenth-century characters (Didot) from the Mayeur foundry (Allainguillaume and company, successors), 21, rue du Montparnasse, Paris, sixth arrondissement.
The typographic composition, the reading and correction of typographic proofs, the layout, the imposition, the printing shall be entrusted to our ordinary printers, the ERNEST PAYEN printing house, 13 and 15, rue Pierre-Dupont, Suresnes, Seine; in a word, everything concerning typographic manufacture and printing. This house shall place at the service of this solemn edition all the art and all the experience that thirty years of practicing this craft have won it.
Moreover, and particularly, the layout shall be done page by page on the copy and drawn page by page on the first proofs by M. Peguy, founder-manager of the Cahiers de la Quinzaine and secretary of the editorial board.
Moreover, the typographic and textual reading of the proofs shall be done and assured, in addition to the printers, by M. Peguy; by M. Andre Bourgeois, administrator of the cahiers; by M. Jacques Maritain, professor agrege of philosophy.
The volumes shall be bound by the house of Gaston Cantrel, 26, rue Boissonade, Paris, fourteenth arrondissement. They shall be delivered to subscribers bound, covered under a second cover in a case itself wrapped in a protective package.
However, subscribers who wish to receive their copies unbound need only give us the order when sending their subscription. These copies shall be delivered in collated sheets, flat, unfolded, uncovered, the two covers apart, in a large case itself wrapped in a protective package. This solution presents, as is known, the considerable advantage that the situation remains entirely intact for the binder. And one must never prevent anyone from mounting, if they have the good taste for it, the fine papers as guards like an atlas.
Thus the typography shall be perfectly pure and perfectly appropriate; the printing (in two colors, red and black) as perfectly beautiful as can be obtained on a hand press.
The rarity of this edition — I mean its bibliographic rarity — shall be immediately maximal; it shall from the very principle, from the origin, be statutorily raised not merely to its proper maximum, to a fortuitous maximum, but even to the total maximum possible. For no copy shall be put into commerce.
Literally, not a single copy shall be given or sold.
The rarity of an edition can be understood in two senses:
First, and in this first sense, that the edition in question is rare among editions, that there are very few editions of the same sort, of the same family, issued from the same house, manufactured by the same printers for the same publisher.
Second, and in this second sense, that internally within the edition the copies of this edition are themselves very few in number.
In these two senses the edition of Polyeucte that we are preparing shall have not only a maximal rarity, but a total rarity. A limit rarity.
First, this edition itself shall not merely be rare; it shall be UNIQUE. It is the edition of the decennial of the cahiers. We have waited ten years to produce it. And a decennial unfortunately does not come again.
It shall therefore have a character of sort, of family, and of date that is rigorously unique.
Second, the rarity of the edition understood in the second sense — not the exterior sense, but the interior sense, as the rarity of copies within the edition — shall not be merely maximal. It shall be equally TOTAL. For not a single copy shall be put into commerce. Put into commerce, that is to say, sold to all comers after the completion of manufacture. There shall be, there shall never exist any copies except those subscribed and regularly inscribed before the commencement of manufacture. Aside from the two copies of the legal deposit, which are, as is known, required by the law of 29 July 1881 on the freedom of the press, article 3, not a single copy shall be given or sold, not a single copy shall be printed, shall rigorously not be printed, that has not been previously subscribed and regularly inscribed before the commencement of manufacture.
The administration and guarantee of this rarity shall be carried out with the ordinary seriousness of our house. This rarity shall be automatically controlled by two means that shall intersect perpendicularly:
First, and without any exception, the copies shall be NUMBERED at the press and PRINTED each IN THE NAME OF THE SUBSCRIBER.
Second, and collectively, the day after the subscription has been closed, a recapitulative, numerical and nominative statement of subscriptions shall be established by M. Andre Bourgeois, administrator of the cahiers, in the form of an authentic document.
Thus these two means shall control and confirm themselves between them.
This statement shall itself automatically form the golden book of the decennial of the cahiers.
The format adopted is the grand-jesus in-folio. It is the largest of typographic formats. It is also the only one in which the fine papers can develop their full beauty.
The papers shall be graduated, and proportionally the prices shall themselves be stepped on ten degrees:
First paper. — Copies on English laid paper; the copy: 85 francs
Second paper. — Copies on alfa; the copy: 70 francs
Third paper — where the family of vellums begins. — Copies on white vat vellum; the copy: 120 francs
Fourth paper. — Copies on white mold-made vellum; the copy: 200 francs
Fifth paper — where the family of Hollands begins. — Copies on mold-made Holland, tinted vellum; text reimposed; the copy: 500 francs
Sixth paper. — Copies on mold-made Holland, white laid; text reimposed; the copy: 700 francs
Seventh paper. — Copies on mold-made Holland, yellow laid; text reimposed; the copy: 900 francs
Eighth paper. — Copies on Whatman; the copy: 1,200 francs
Ninth paper — where the family of Japans begins. — Copies on Japan from the Imperial Manufactory; text reimposed; the copy: 3,000 francs
Tenth and last paper. — Copies on old mold-made Japan; text reimposed; the copy: 5,000 francs
These cares and conditions shall make of this edition a unique monument.
This edition shall be a classical edition; in the full force of the term; essentially and most purely classical; very pure; the most classical edition of a classical work; without romanticism, without any barbarity, and also without any byzantinism.
The manufacture, as careful as it is, of so considerable a work must require a very long time and much labor; we beg the persons who will be so kind as to subscribe for one or more copies to send their subscription as promptly as possible to M. Andre Bourgeois, administrator of the cahiers, 8, rue de la Sorbonne, ground floor, Paris, fifth arrondissement.
We shall ask them to be so kind as to write not only very exactly, but very legibly, their name and address.
THE CHILD AND THE DEAD QUEEN
Pierre Mille
Queen Isabella of Spain is dead.
It was one of those last evenings. I was informed that His All-Powerfulness “Monsieur Pierre” was doing me the grace of summoning me to his little bedtime. I had dined at the home of two of his principal slaves, remarkable in his eyes, the one for his excessively long beard and his astonishing inability to understand the simplest things among those that all children know: this is the one he calls “papa”; the other, whom he calls “mama,” and whose “very soft skin” he appreciates — I am reporting his own words — and a submission deserving of his wishes. Monsieur Pierre is seven years old, and he protects me: I rushed, as was my duty, to meet his desires.
He was already undressed. A respectful nursemaid had put on his nightshirt, that long, long, and fine, and so white shirt that I cannot see it on him without imagining that he is about to fly away, that he is already flying, so that it makes pretty folds, straight on the upper body, curved and tenderly undulating below his little feet, under a very gentle wind, in the midst of a sky full of stars.
He kissed me. He puts, in kissing, a delicious condescension. He feels that he gives pleasure, and he is happy about it with all his magnificent heart. He kisses in this way dogs, cats, horses — such large beasts, more beautiful than men! — and sometimes also the pebbles in the garden, when he approves of their physiognomy: to give them pleasure, I assure you! And after all that, if it is you all the same that he kisses, you are seduced, conquered, honored. It is inexplicable.
When he had felt that, with my neck in his round arms, my head beneath his light hair, I had become his willing property, he said to me quite calmly:
— Do you know where you will take me tomorrow?
I had absolutely no idea: one can never know with him! Last year he took me, for a whole week and every day, to the Neuilly fair to see the Talking Dog. It was a very interesting animal, I do not deny it. His master, a distinguished personage who looked like a barman turned cap-hunter, claimed that if the canine race, despite its intelligence, is not gifted with speech, it is because its mouth is not shaped like ours. So he made Fido bark, squeezing the corners of his mouth, he put his tongue against his teeth, his tongue on the soft palate, his tongue down, his tongue up; and Fido thereupon pronounced very difficult words, like “apocalypse,” “dictionary,” and “caramel.” It was very curious, but insufficient for Monsieur Pierre, who always hoped that, knowing how to speak, this dog would take the opportunity to tell dog stories. Another time one had to go with him, without respite, to the palace of Versailles, “where the Great King lived,” as a certain edition of Perrault’s tales that was given to him affirms.
And he was very moved, Monsieur Pierre, once there, because of the connections he had established, I do not know how, between Donkey Skin and that monarch. It was Donkey Skin, according to him, whom Louis XIV had seen, in a dress the color of the sky, on three steps of pink marble, or bathing, undressed, in the most amusing and most childish of basins, the one where there are such big bronze frogs that spit water. And after that, having become husband and wife, all dressed in rose gold for innocent nuptials, they arrived, through the great hall of mirrors, which never ends, in the royal chamber, where the armchairs are gold, the bed is gold, the walls are gold. Donkey Skin, of course! — it is Donkey Skin: a marvelous princess among sheep. And Louis XIV, he is painted in a portrait: he is a king handsome in the manner of little boys and little girls, which is the true manner. We mean, Monsieur Pierre and I, that he has long flowing hair, of a sunlight blond. But for the height of magnificence, this hair falls upon a sky-blue mantle, studded with lilies.
I believe also that the particular interest that Monsieur Pierre takes in Louis XIV comes from the fact that he himself is always called “the little prince.” And for children, words are sorcerers; they create things. So why should he not become king later? It is natural, in growing up, to rise in rank. And then his parents are very right-thinking persons, since they belong to our best bourgeoisie, the one that is rich, very rich, and that can trace back two generations of ancestors, nearly to 1789, the dawn of time! There is much talk at their home of the things it is fitting to speak of, and consequently of kings, of the respect one owes to kings, of the greatness France had when it had kings, and the ancestors of the family were somewhere, one does not know where, in the fields or in the shops; and also of the kings who reign today, abroad, of whom one never hears anything but good, since it is forbidden to speak ill of them! Whereas it is the contrary for the little people who govern us. The newspapers that did not drag them through the mud — would they not look as if they were paid? All this comes to reestablish, in our French bourgeoisie, the one that is rich, very rich, and that can trace back two generations of ancestors, nearly to 1789, a vigorous monarchist sentiment. Through the conversations held at table, and especially at tea time, when, receiving persons one knows little, it is good form to accentuate the right-thinking attitude, this sentiment easily penetrates the youth.
… So Monsieur Pierre, still holding me prisoner in his arms, repeated:
— Don’t you know where you will take me? You will take me to see the queen.
— Which queen? said I.
— The queen who is dead. I want to see her.
It was of Queen Isabella of Spain that he wished to speak. And I promised, like a coward. I always do everything he wants, because I understand why he wants it, by virtue of a miracle for which I bless heaven. Sometimes we plant before us, in our long conversations, solitary and magical words, like lion, ship, cavern, serpent, axe, crown, and we communicate to each other what their fecund light brings forth in us: things of which you have no idea, you sad serious folk, but which are secret, very secret, and will eternally remain our common treasure. I already knew that he had complained of having seen the King of Italy very poorly, who is not very tall, and even Edward VII, because of the crowd. I guessed that he wanted to see a queen. His mother, who had been, like all Paris, to visit the chapel of rest, had said, quite imprudently, “that it was not frightening.” He had therefore decided that he would go, and imposed his will.
And the next day, we set out for the Hotel de Castille, avenue Kleber. Monsieur Pierre was all excited. Not that he felt any anxiety about seeing, for the first time, a human form forever motionless. Children are like the immortal gods: they do not know what death is. But the enchantment of royal grandeurs was upon him. He had wanted to be made very handsome and feared he was not yet handsome enough. If he did not know the words of etiquette and protocol, the thing preoccupied him. We arrived before the dwelling of the sovereign.
— This is it, said I.
Monsieur Pierre felt a shiver of respect before raising his eyes. But he raised them. And then he looked at me, with his pure eyes, whose language I understand so well; his eyes that said: “You wouldn’t want to deceive me!”
— It is only a hotel, he said at last, to summarize an immense crowd of reflections and mute doubts. A hotel like all hotels.
He was thinking: “Like mine,” but he did not say it, already having the proud modesty of a great lord.
Before the concierge’s lodge, he wanted to sign the register. One does not resist a single one of his desires; he is always so grave, so firm, so royal! So they brought him a large chair and he signed: Pierre Mouvenot, in long slanted letters.
Common folk in their Sunday best, shopkeepers, beautiful curious women in mourning went up and down a great staircase with marble flagstones; and all along the walls, breastplates, swords, gauntlets shone softly in the drowsy air. That made me think that there were breastplates too, and swords, and gauntlets, bought at the fairest price, in the home of Monsieur Mouvenot senior. And when we had glanced at a small salon, of quite bourgeois appearance, where one saw many photographs in plush frames and furniture like that found at every upholsterer’s, we at last entered the chapel of rest.
The walls and floor were hung in black. Black crapes fell over the chandeliers and chimneys, the curtains were lowered; and by the light of tall candelabras with multiple arms, one perceived on a pedestal of silvered black velvet a white figure, superhumanly, inhumanly white, which no longer had any gaze. A mixed crowd, outwardly respectful, profoundly indifferent at the bottom of its heart, passed, passed, and flowed away. And I, I felt a great pity and a great sadness come over me before this body, aged, thin, inert, and this bouquet of white lilacs dying at the foot of the dead woman. I thought of the destiny of this woman who had reigned fifty years, then traveled the roads of exile, for many reasons, none of which was petty: because the times had changed, because she had had a woman’s heart, and because the great Catherine of Russia herself could no longer be the whole great Catherine, because peoples now have an undisciplined soul.
But Monsieur Pierre pulled me by the hand. He wanted to leave. He was cold, he was disappointed, he had fallen from a dream.
— There are no guards, he said to me bitterly in the street. And I thought there would be guards, to wear the breastplates that do nothing on that staircase, no more than on ours. There was no park, no statues, no lords, no gold as at Versailles. The salons are like ours, the furniture is like ours, there are photographs like ours; perhaps the same photographs. It is not what I thought. Everything is like at home.
Toward avenue Hoche, however, he brightened. Imperceptibly, the comparisons he had made had made him proud. He crossed the threshold of his door more “princely” and more gently imperious than ever, for it was at his home as at a queen’s, perhaps more beautiful.
But I was melancholic. I love him so much! First he is my blond shadow. And I love him also for his easy, delicate, light nobility; for the refinement that has formed, in so few generations, in this family with a plebeian name, as in so many others that live — it is he who said it — like kings. And then, will it be for them… for them as for the other kings, those who wore crowns? — It is quite ridiculous to grow old: one sees things all black. My blond shadow is happier!
POSTHUMOUS MEMOIRS OF PAUL JONES
Pierre Mille
Paul Jones, the famous corsair of the American Wars of Independence, had been buried in Paris, in a Protestant cemetery that had long since vanished and on which buildings had been erected. Through the care of the French government, his coffin has just been exhumed and returned to the ambassador of the United States. — the newspapers, July 1906
… In the beginning, I recall that we lived beneath a large garden, and it was rather damp. But Parisians fortunately have a mania for building, and soon we had a roof, like everyone else. Besides, we were not very numerous: a few Swiss, two or three Englishmen who had been diplomats, a bit stupid but well-bred, and a great devil of a man, named Simonnot, more than two meters tall, thick and broad in proportion. He cut a fine figure, and the Constituent Assembly had given him a plaque proclaiming that he had deserved well of the fatherland. That is why he affected airs of superiority.
We were all Protestants; that is to say that among us religious discussions were rather frequent. But they maintained themselves in the tone of good company; they were, if I dare express myself so, our health. The Swiss generally claimed to be reactionaries, on the pretext that they had had misfortunes on the 10th of August; fortunately, like most old soldiers, they were not very combative. The most difficult to live with was Simonnot. He insisted on keeping his heart between his legs, in a lead vase, and said that this vase was also a mark of esteem and admiration given him by the Constituent Assembly. This vanity seemed rather ridiculous to us, but he did not accept jokes. In sum, despite everything, we formed a rather quiet little society, and no one will be surprised if I add that it was very exclusive.
One fine day, all that was changed; men came, armed with shovels and picks, who turned our little hermitage upside down. I had grown accustomed to rest; their agitation seemed to me both disturbing and coarse. However, I felt inwardly flattered when I understood that it was I they were looking for. Simonnot was furious: they left him in his corner, and I suppose he has not yet gotten over it! When these people discovered me, they showed signs of satisfaction and one of them exclaimed: “It is astonishing how well preserved he is!” It had been one hundred and thirteen years since anyone had paid me this compliment; it pleased me. “Such,” I thought, “are the advantages of hygiene and sobriety.” Shortly after, I was presented to the prefect of the Seine. This high magistrate exclaimed quite vigorously:
— He must be sent away at once, before he is claimed by my colleague the prefect of police!
I had some small peccadilloes to reproach myself with, but they dated from the time when I was a corsair, and I dare affirm that for a very long time my conduct has been above all reproach. I therefore thought it right to protest.
— They fear, no doubt, said I, that I will cause disorder, as in the old days when I ravaged the coasts of England. But they are wrong, and I assure you that my temperament has become very mild.
The prefect of the Seine replied to me courteously:
— Do not think, admiral, that anyone intends to arrest you. But persons in your situation are subject, under the regulations, to police surveillance, and it is forbidden for them to go out without authorization, which is generally granted only after a petition of several months. Now His Excellency the ambassador of the United States, Mr. McCormick, wishes to see you immediately on pressing business. I have promised to take you to him at once.
I hastened my preparations for departure. The ambassador of the United States! I was proud that my first visit was to a personage of this importance! However, we were not permitted to leave until I had submitted to the visit of a certain doctor who subjected my person to the most offensive examination. He began by declaring that I had the same defect in my right ear as on the bust that the sculptor Houdon made of me. Naturally! I could not change myself to please him. After which he drew a measuring tape from his pocket, measured me like a cord of wood:
— He is 1 meter 71, and he should only be 1 meter 70. Perhaps he is an impostor!
I have never been patient. If I could have picked up a cobblestone, I would have thrown it at his face. Franklin would not have made such a fuss, and yet he was a great man: he invented lightning rods. But I restrained myself and managed to make this scientist understand that after one hundred and thirteen years of retreat and horizontal position, there was nothing extraordinary in my having grown one centimeter. He finally let himself be convinced.
I must confess that this little altercation had put me in a rather bad temper. We crossed Paris in a new sort of carriage, which I was told had twenty horses (the most curious thing is that one cannot see these horses: I suppose they are underneath). I was no longer accustomed to the open air, and the carriage shook me so much that I had not regained my composure, and felt on the contrary all a-tremble, when we arrived at Mr. McCormick’s.
This gentleman is moreover fairly well-bred; he greeted me with great demonstrations of pleasure and deference. But recovering all my sailor’s frankness, I told him very rudely that if it was to have me rolled about in ill-sprung wagons and measured by measuring-inspectors who did not even have the manners of a recruiting sergeant that I had been disturbed, I asked to go back where I came from; that besides, I no longer felt any disposition for active service; and that I needed nothing more than peace and tranquility.
I must acknowledge that Mr. McCormick showed much tact. He replied that despite all my merit, which must be praised to the skies, the government of Washington had no intention of imposing a command on me, all the more so as a recent experiment, conducted by Russia in the Black Sea, had demonstrated that ships maneuvered much better when there was no longer anyone to direct them; but that they needed my return in the United States, which would not fail to excite the liveliest enthusiasm, in order to induce Congress to vote new credits for the navy; and that to speak frankly, it was for this reason that he had taken the liberty of disturbing my rest.
He was also kind enough to specify, to my great relief, that no speech would be asked of me: my presence would suffice.
All these points having been settled to our common satisfaction, I concerned myself only with passing agreeably the time that separated me from my departure for America. I was asked what might interest me. By professional habit, I would have liked to see a funeral. As there was none for the moment, I was taken to the garden party at the Austrian embassy. In less distinguished fashion, it reminded me of the old Palais-Royal, but — I do not know if my new situation has something to do with it — the women of the twentieth century leave me rather cold. I miss Theroigne de Mericourt, who left me an excellent memory: the Parisian women of the Third Republic, though more dressed, seem to me less fine than that person, difficult to govern but charming.
I am also much afraid of having made a gaffe. I was presented to M. Clementel, minister of the colonies. I went straight to him, hand outstretched, and I said to him:
— Delighted, sir! The colonies interest me infinitely and we must have common relations: I was a slave trader.
My friend the ambassador seemed very scandalized. He explained to me that ministers of the colonies do not concern themselves at all with the slave trade. I was quite astonished: then what are they for? I nonetheless presented my excuses with good grace, and M. Clementel, who is a very witty man, did not seem to hold it against me. We even became very good friends, and he took me all the way to Auvergne to see a race of those carriages I have already spoken of and which have their horses hidden under their bellies. It is the most exciting thing in the world. These carriages are very fast, but much harder to drive than the others, which is not extraordinary given the position of the horses: they crash into every bridge, hook the trees, overturn in the ditches, and throw their passengers in the air, as a frying pan does crepes. I said to M. Clementel:
— I observe with pleasure, sir, that the dead are going faster and faster!
He deigned to smile. All things considered, we had an excellent journey. However, all this tumult is beginning to tire me. I am still staying with His Excellency Mr. McCormick. He had said to me, indeed, from the first day: “You are my guest until you have your new home.” But I am no longer accustomed to being housed so grandly. I feel quite disoriented. So Mr. McCormick, as well as General Horace Porter, have kindly placed themselves at my disposal to help me choose my permanent installation. I was leaning toward modern style, but General Horace Porter exclaimed:
— Do not commit this error of taste. This art nouveau is already old. The true fashion is Empire style, which will moreover be as new for you.
Well then, why not something Louis XVI? I once knew a bed in rosewood… But I do not belong to myself!
DIARY OF A CONDEMNED MAN
Pierre Mille
They have just taken another weeping willow from the Auteuil nurseries to replant it on Alfred de Musset’s grave. The soil of Pere-Lachaise does not suit this plant, which quickly wastes away and soon expires on the poet’s tomb. — the newspapers, 1906
Our family is very numerous. The branch to which I belong has been established for a very long time near Auteuil, not far from the Seine, in a pleasant spot. There one enjoys the view of a beautiful artificial pond; irrigation canals, beds of tulips give an almost Dutch air to this landscape, and sometimes red fish, rising to the surface of the brown water, open a perfectly round mouth and look at us with their stupid eyes.
Being simple in our ways, the decency of these surroundings and the small life of these small things suffice to keep us in a state of always-equal felicity. What I have just said proves that the country is rather damp; but our health is far from suffering for it. For our most distant ancestors lived on the banks of rivers: the Euphrates has reflected the somewhat affected sorrow of our attitudes. We have had, from the most remote epochs, Semitic relations, and if it were one day discovered that we accompanied one of the ten tribes led into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, there would be no cause for surprise: Nebuchadnezzar, as is known, was a vegetarian, and we of the great family of the Salix Babylonica are, it is time to confess it, vegetables. In common language, we are called weeping willows.
I have just alluded to our melancholic appearance. It is an air we adopted during the great captivity, to please our friends, and we have kept it ever since, like the Mortemarts their great nose, or the Habsburgs their jaw. But for us it is only a mark of purity of race that we care to maintain, nothing more. At bottom, we are in no way of a sad temperament. We have nothing in common with the birches, who always look as if they are cold and asking to be dressed; or with the casuarinas of Reunion, to which Leconte de Lisle gave an undeserved reputation: the casuarinas are merely macabre pranksters; they amuse themselves at night rubbing their branches one against another, to imitate the noise of a skeleton coming out of its tomb, and thus frighten little negroes and little poets. We hold them in great contempt.
Our only defect, which has deceived men about our true character, is to always resemble little old men, whatever our age — which no doubt comes from the antiquity of our origin — and to be unable to live without water, a habit we acquired long ago on the quays of Babylon.
But intimately, we are rather cheerful. We love the reflections of the sky in the fishy pools, the great reeds whose spikes of seeds appear all in purple velvet, like the handles of the halberds that the Swiss carry in churches, the spangled flight of kingfishers, the green wing of screaming teal. We are the good quiet guardians of the teeming fecundity of the waters. In short, usually we live very old; and it is a great comfort to escape the worry of an early end.
There is only one of us, in this nursery of the city of Paris, who is condemned to die in the flower of his age, and that is I: they are going to send me to adorn Alfred de Musset’s grave! You will say what you like, it is not fair.
All my comrades have had good careers. Some have been placed with city councillors, who have sentimental gardens and English-style wives. Some have been planted in parks, simply so that there should be something hypocritically funereal in the places where people come to make merry; and those do not get bored: they see every Sunday things to make the negundo maples blush, the only ones that are white. There is another who has a very restful position, at Ermenonville, above Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The cenotaph of this great man is adorned with a white marble bas-relief, on which are engraved these words: The man of nature and of truth. Nature is represented, on this bas-relief, by a woman who possesses six breasts, three on each side. It is very rare to encounter, in nature and in truth, women who possess six breasts, but for us weeping willows, this is only a detail of no importance: the one at Ermenonville has his head in the sun and his feet in the water, he enjoys a pleasant solitude, he is growing fat, he is good for centuries; one could not wish for more. Whereas I, I am warned: I must go wither all my illusions above the head of Alfred de Musset, because of a young person named Lucie, whom I have never known and who wept while playing the piano. I shall be alone, wheezy, and I am not yet fifteen!
My destiny is fatal: I shall be the tenth weeping willow who will not have been able to endure this mortal sentry duty. We all die, in single file, with a mute and disdained heroism, in order to honor French literature, without anyone having even once thought of giving a single one of us the academic palms. This dreadful regime began, for weeping willows, under the reign of the tyrant Napoleon III, but nothing has changed under the Third Republic. There is a small monument, next to a large omnibus stop, boulevard Malesherbes, for Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette; a column, with an angel on top, all in gold, for the martyrs of the July Days; pensions for the victims of the 2nd of December. And nothing has ever been done for us, victims of romanticism!
I demand an expiatory meeting at the Grand Orient, rue Cadet, with speeches by politicians and the reading of our biographies. It is the least!
France seeks to excuse its conduct by saying that Alfred de Musset demanded that we be made to undergo this painful treatment: is that a reason? And if Admiral Bruix, who is also at Pere-Lachaise, had asked to be buried under green seaweed, how would they have managed? And Dumont d’Urville under a breadfruit tree?
If there still exist just men on earth, they will think that we have a right to reparation. Too long have we lent, to the point of dying from it, our shade to the effigy of Alfred de Musset, without receiving a word of praise or even of pity. It is our turn: let them now place a bust of Alfred de Musset beside all the weeping willows that have already died. And subsidiarily, let them leave me alone!
THE LANGUAGE OF NATURE
Pierre Mille
“I should like to possess a beautiful garden and to live at the edge of a wood.” Thus once spoke the sage Sylvestre Bonnard, whose dear and gentle memoirs had the deserved fortune of having for publisher M. Anatole France. And I, who never had, in all my life, any other ambition than to live as that good scholar knew how to live, between my beloved books, my sleeping cat, my servant who chatters just enough to remind me that the living are busybodies, I still lacked the little house, the wood and the garden. But closing my eyes, I could see them. The house was of pale red bricks, or of old pink sandstone. The wood was planted with birches and ashes, which make a pretty sound because their leaves never fall asleep and whisper all together. In the garden, nothing but flowers whose names I know — phlox, sunflowers, roses, and soapworts: they are my old friends, and they come to say good morning according to the months and seasons. They say to me: “You are growing old, growing old! Watch the shadows that your memories now cast on your soul grow longer. But grow old without doing harm, and working.” The wood does not begin before a meadow planted with apple trees. There grazes an old gray mouse-colored horse, snoring as he browses. Yes, I could see all that! So these holidays I set off to find my domain.
I went to a station, I do not know which, and I took a train for anywhere. It had scarcely started when I put my head out the window. Perhaps it is here! Need I go so far, when I have read so many things all suggesting that nature is so beautiful around Paris? Madame Roland, in her youth, went no farther than Meudon; she called it “lovely Meudon”; she went there “in fresh light clothes, with a gauze veil and some flowers”; she saw deer pass, and contemplating the majesty of the silent woods, “dreamed,” she says, “of what she still lacked.” For that lady had, it seems, precocious impulses.
I believe the woods still exist and even the deer, so hard is nature to kill! But it was impossible for me to see them: a barrier separated me from them. It was a very ridiculous and very strange barrier, made of a long avenue of iron or steel posts bearing opaque signs of painted wood. On them one read: Gasoline for automobiles, 55 centimes per liter. Or else they announced that the Lumiere brand was the best for cycles and motorcycles. A little farther on, a painting spread out, large as a cathedral: it represented a nurse chatting with a soldier; and meanwhile her nursling was growing fat all by himself, because his baby bottle was patented.
Seized with horror, I took another train, faster. But I no longer dared look at anything. I sensed too well what would happen to me. However, someone shouted at me — it was somewhere near Les Andelys — in a very imperious voice:
— Here are the ruins of Chateau-Gaillard. Admire the great ruins, the sublime ruins of Chateau-Gaillard!
I evoked the majesty of my memories, the history of the fortress, built for giants, which Richard the Lionheart, seven centuries ago, built in a few months on a chalk cliff, nearly inaccessible. He loved it, called it his daughter, and this stone daughter could be seen as far as Evreux. I turned my head to see it, and I saw it: in imitation. It covered a vast painted canvas, of which it modestly formed the background. But in the foreground, enormous and plump, Richard the Lionheart was mixing a glass of Cordonnier absinthe. He added, with a delighted air: “That’s my health!”
These Anglo-Normans have every vice. I suspected as much. France must have sunk very low to be forced to ally itself with such people. I fled; I ran all the way to Switzerland, by night, to have nothing to fear. I did not even stop at Lucerne: it is too civilized. I am sure that the environs of Lucerne are now nothing but fields, lakes, forests, valleys, glaciers of billboards. Led by an intrepid guide, I reached a wild spot, at six thousand feet of altitude. The air was pure, eagles soared, a chamois took flight, sending pebbles tumbling; no noise, and we were alone. “O nature!” I cried, “here you are at last! I come to you, naive as a little child. I shall learn your language, I shall speak no other.” And I raised my eyes, candid, at last reassured. A mountain! sheer, it bounded the landscape. It rose so high into the sky that the eagles could not reach it; but how white its surface was, scraped, cleaned! From top to bottom, in letters of purple and gold, wide as a boulevard, tall as the pyramids, it announced this: The best sausages are Schweitzer sausages! In the evening, these magical words were illuminated by electric light. Such is the language of nature, in Switzerland.
All the caves, since the fateful publications of M. Martel, having been likewise illuminated by electric light, transformed into a sort of metropolitan railway, and consequently papered with advertisements, I did not even think of taking refuge in them. Exhausted from fatigue and sorrows, I collapsed on a bench. But is it, alas, useful to say it, the backrest bore these words, branded by cautery: Mallez Brothers, garden furniture, wolf traps. I burst into tears. Then, full of pity, the chamois drew near. On his two flanks, skillfully traced with clippers, an inscription appeared. I read: Touring Club.
As he was tame, he began eating perfected beet pulp from a bag attached to his neck by a medallion bearing, in three colors, the portrait of the manufacturer: a bald man with a great beard. Then he moved away, astonished by my contempt.
I heard, beside me, a voice saying:
— The Tribulat Bonhomet of Villiers de l’Isle-Adam was not wrong. Soon we shall fill the sky with advertisements, with luminous projectors. For the sky is empty, the sky is empty! It was the congress of free thought that said so. The sky must not be empty! We shall people it with chocolate, American pills, hygienic aperitifs, champagne, and anti-skid tires. But I still have one space to let: it is between Vega in the Lyre, the Three Wise Men, and the Hunter Orion: would you like it, to advertise a good pornographic novel, or The Nude Through Paris, photographs from nature? Good title, sir, good title!
He added:
— I am the director of the world advertising trust for billboards. There is not an inch on earth that is not ours. And in eight days, you will see the sky! Or rather, you will never see it again. It is discouraging for men to see the sky. So we are moralizers: the sky conquered, we shall annex Death.
— Death? said I.
— Yes, sir! There lies an immense resource for advertising, and I am stupefied — stupefied and happy, both at once — that no one has ever suspected it. Our statutes are filed, our shares are about to be issued, and I am not telling you this to sell you a packet; they are all taken; the syndicate of the great Parisian banks will not release them except well above par. At the same time, what splendors will parade through the streets! Imagine what pomp funerals will have, which yet will all be free, once people are so kind as to apply to us! Yes, the more plumed carriages there are, the more stewards, the more wreaths, the freer funerals will be in future! We shall set but one condition: the right to inscribe on those carriages, those wreaths, the hats of those stewards, this simple notice: “This dead man is dead because he did not take the Tibetan Tisane of the Bluffers!”
Or: “He was a hundred and three, and not a single gray hair. That is the result of Comagene!”
He said further:
— I need not add that we shall do the same for tombs, whose construction we shall take upon ourselves. “If his automobile had had Gold Nail tires, he would not have gone head over heels!” That is what one will be able to read in our necropoli, illustrated by monuments due to Prix de Rome winners, as much as possible, because of the democratic suppleness of their talent.
— Alas! said I, and I who only wanted to possess a beautiful garden and live at the edge of a wood…
— A garden, he replied, why not? In a garden there are flowers. With flowers one can trace characters. Characters, that can serve only for advertising. If you wish…
THE GARDENS OF THE WIDOW
Pierre Mille
M. Lepine has, it appears, the Place de la Roquette having been demolished, discovered in Paris another public square where henceforth capital executions will take place. — the newspapers, 1906
… It is certain that one cannot guillotine the condemned to death on rue de la Sante, where they are lodged at present. Such a contrast between the word and the thing would mark a disloyalty that I would qualify as incompatible with the eminent state of our civilization.
On the other hand, it is impossible to cut off their heads at the Place de la Roquette, since the Place de la Roquette no longer exists. That is clear.
Excellent logicians had concluded from this that the condemned to death would not die, and I personally saw no objection to this. But M. Lepine, prefect of police, claimed the imprescriptible right that society has to guillotine its children. He found a good spot, and if he does not say which, it is because he wishes to keep such a precious secret. I am obliged to cite here a few words from a remarkably brilliant interview he was kind enough to grant one of my colleagues.
— Permit me, said our distinguished prefect of police, to keep to myself alone a piece of information of this importance. Yes, I have found a spot as discreet as the rue Messier, which I was formerly obliged to abandon. There is, in Paris, a deserted street, a square, a crossroads — use what word you will — that is “ideal” for Deibler’s work: and if you would take the trouble to study the city map, you would find it as I did. Can you not guess? No? Then so much the better. You will spare me the inevitable complaints of the neighborhood.
Thus spoke M. Lepine to this reporter, who did not guess. What am I saying? He does not even seem to have tried to guess. A journalist! Ah! rather than hear my profession accused of having failed in its professional duties, I resolved to devote my vigils to the solution of the problem; I resolved to spare neither meditations nor steps. How lacking in imagination my colleagues are! Why! they have had the public search, in the Champs-Elysees, at Saint-Cloud, even under the shade of the forest of Saint-Germain, for rolls of gold hidden in flower pots, hose pipes, or sardine tins; they have had them count three billion grains of wheat in a jar; they have had them travel, in motorboats, twenty thousand leagues under the seas — for no one would now dare affirm that it was above — and they did not even think of promising fifty poor louis to the mortal who would discover “the square, street, or crossroads,” the deserted place, in short, that M. Lepine knows in Paris! Shall I tell you: they have been utterly beneath everything. But I am going to cover myself in glory, for I know M. Lepine’s secret, and such was the art of my deductions that there remains for this magistrate only one thing to do: appoint me chief of the Surete. And let him not delay! Otherwise I shall ask for a bit more: his own functions. For I have always wanted to walk, at Mardi Gras, at the head of the fatted ox.
Do not think my success was easy, immediate, overwhelming. Genius is only a long patience! I put a vain modesty in acknowledging that I had to grope, to start over several times, to demolish with my rigorous hands the constructions I thought finished. Had I not first supposed that it was a question of the waiting hall of the old Orleans station, the Pantheon, or the Petit Palais of the Champs-Elysees? People will kindly admit, in my excuse, that these buildings are absolutely empty, devoid of use, and that moreover, for the Pantheon, it contains a magnificent fresco by M. Bonnat representing Saint Denis walking with a firm foot, his head in his hand; not to mention terrible paintings by Baron Gros. But a more careful examination of the data of the problem forced me to set aside these first hypotheses; the new sphinx of the boulevard du Palais took care to specify, indeed, that it is a question not of a covered place, but of “a street, square, or crossroads.”
Thus, faithful to the teachings of my illustrious masters in crime literature, Gaboriau, Edgar Poe, and Conan Doyle, I arrived at narrowing the field of my investigations.
And I first discovered the courtyard of the Institut. One would have said it was a meadow, and the most bucolic. An abundant grass grew there, thick but short. I suspect that the concierge of this little deserted park cuts it, at regular intervals, to feed his rabbits. This grass excepted, nothing in this courtyard, absolutely nothing! Neither man nor beast. From three very ugly vases, obviously funerary, petrified flames sprang forth. From the belly of a Minerva, in the back, a tap protruded. That was all. A great silence fell from the somber walls. And I thought that those walls, pierced with many windows — some of which were guillotine windows — belonged to the State. And who executes? The State. It appeared to me that it would be at home there, that no one would have anything to say. Was it then in the courtyard of the Institut that M. Lepine had thought? One will admit that there were some grounds for presuming so. To clear up my doubts, I sent in my card to M. Pingard.
— … Et ubi solitudinem faciunt, patibulum appellant, he replied, with an erudition not exempt from bitterness, to the questions that pressed upon my lips. However, I must confess, the project of which you speak is not without presenting some advantages. Better a scaffold from time to time than a statue every day. It is less cumbersome. And it is impossible, if we do not find a more useful destination for our courtyard, that we shall not have a statue put in it: the monument to Wireless Telegraphy, for example, or a Triumph of the Republic, which would be very painful, sir! For you will notice that we already have the Minerva-with-the-Tap. That should suffice.
— But finally, I continued, you have not been officially notified?
— Unofficially, replied M. Pingard with discretion, unofficially perhaps we have been sounded out. But we are not the only ones. Are you unaware that very close to us, on the other side of the Seine…
— Say no more, said I, I understand: you are alluding to the square of the courtyard of the Louvre! I should have thought of it sooner. Do not take offense if I leave you rather abruptly: I am running where duty calls me.
How could I have forgotten it for a moment! The square of the Louvre is the only place where no one has ever been murdered, for the reason that no one has ever been seen there. This remarkable fact has been noted in several specialized works. Currently, I must add, it does possess one inhabitant. That is the Marquis de La Fayette, who died in 1834.
He has been planted there in effigy, and on horseback. Having rushed to pay him a visit, I had some trouble recognizing him. Not only was his steed black and gray, a thing already quite contrary to history, which has never spoken to us of anything but this liberal gentleman’s white horse, but the liberal gentleman himself was all spotted. Let us dare say the word: he was piebald! This peculiarity, rather frequent in certain mammals, is very rare in man. I could not repress the expression of my astonishment.
— Marquis, I said to him, is it really you?
— It is myself, he replied: Marie-Paul-Joseph-Roch-Yves-Gilbert de Motier de La Fayette. And during my life, I was as white as anyone. Unfortunately, the Americans, who are rich people, insisted on giving the French Republic my statue in metallized plaster, and the metallization did not hold, because of the weather. I am fading, my dear sir! But do not let that prevent you from telling me what brings you here.
I explained to him in a few words the mission I had assumed.
— It would be, he said, an excellent idea to have me attend once more the spectacles of which I was so often a witness, at the most interesting period of my life. This square is moreover vast, well-aired, and as at the Institut, the State is at home here. But I much fear that I shall be left to my solitary decrepitude: a few steps away, alas! when you have passed through the narrow wickets that separate me from the rue de Rivoli, you will meet another vaster desert which, for many years, has been insistently asking that it be found a destination. You may be sure that it, and no other, is what the prefect of police intended.
— The Palais-Royal! I cried, illuminated.
— Yes, the Palais-Royal, repeated M. de La Fayette. And since the wooden galleries have been demolished, is it not fair that they be replaced by the gallows?
The remaining stories in this cahier include: “Cows and the Academy,” “A Great Maligned One,” “Brief Conversation Between Four Great Personages,” “The Wisdom of the Bull,” “A Speech by Madame Severine,” “Administrative Competitions,” “Inaugurations,” “The Phantom and the Elections,” “Gallia, gentium pacificatrix,” “The Talking Dog,” “About Love, Quite Simply,” “The Truth About the Agrach and the Agrachian,” “Apologue,” “Which of the Two?”, “The School of Plein-Air,” “The New Jungle Book,” “The Emperor,” “We Are Going to Drive Them Mad.” Due to the extreme length of this cahier (approximately 180 pages of prose), these stories are available in the French source text at the Archive.org link above.