.^-^^^ ^' v^^ 1i. :xon?sri on A/T! A T // m^ /o"^ o '^^ 7j'<:i.^ m. \\] ... X^ ^ll^o J CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY MUSIC Cornell University Library ML 420.G19M61 1913 Pierre Garat, singer and exquisite :his 3 1924 022 456 234 The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022456234 PIERRE GARAT "^'""'^.r PIERRE GARAT SINGER AND EXQUISITE HIS LIFE AND HIS WORLD (1762—1823) BY BERNARD MIALL WITH 35 ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS S97-S99 FIFTH AVENUE {All rights reserved) NOTE Some thirty or forty writers of the Revolutionary period make passing mention of a strange, brilUant figure, who by his artistry in his own person, as a singer of romances and a leader of fashion, won a place unique in his world. After his death a few contemporaries wrote obituary notices or brief memoirs, and a Frenchman has written his biography. I have tried from those passing glimpses which the letters of his time afford, aided— let me acknow- ledge the debt— by the Garai of M. Lafond, to reconstruct his image for English readers. He was not a person of any political importance, but his was a figure unique in a strange period ; it is impossible that we should look upon his like again. He was an egoist, and an egoist is often interesting, because we are all egoists; he was a lover, and a very sincere, fine artist ; a gay and gallant figure, full of courage and the pride of life. If in my endeavour to show him as he walked 5 Note his world I have at times said overmuch of that world, and allowed the image of the man to grow dim, it is that the material to be used is scanty, out of all proportion to the stir my hero made when alive. BERNARD MIALL. Ilfracombe, yune, 1913. CONTENTS PAOB CHAPTER I BOYHOOD AND HOME LIFE The legend of Garat— His origin — The Venice of the Atlantic— The Basques — Why mountaineers are given to dance and song — Ustaritz — The Garat family— The Parliament of Bordeaux — Garat' s father — The Garat brothers — Birth of Garat — The musical foster-mother — Schooldays — Illness and home life ........ 15 CHAPTER II TWO SOUTHERN CAPITALS The city of Bordeaux — Its Parliament — The tone of its society in Garat's boyhood — Young on Bordeaux — The theatre — The luxury of its citizens — Barbezieux — Prosperity of Guyenne — No reason why Garat should be a Republiqan — At Ustaritz — Basque dances and ballads — Garat at Bayonne — Young on Bayonne and Beam — The return to Bordeaux — Musical studies : Beck — The Opera — Garat's real musical training — His first audiences — He is to be a lawyer . 36 CHAPTER III THE YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY To Paris — Why Garat did not become an actor — Paris in 1782 — A nation of idlers — Sensation caused by Garat's talents — Paris gossip : Aeronautics ; Mesmer ; Cagliostro — The golden age of France — Society in 1782 — How Paris amused itself— 7 Contents PAGE The Opera ; the Palais-Royal ; the Tuileries ; the Champs Elysees, etc.— Longchamps — Dancing— Garat in society — His success — To meet the Queen — The concert in the Invalides ........ 59 CHAPTER IV AT COURT — EARLY ADVENTURES To Versailles — He sings before the Queen — All doors open to him — De Vaudreuil ; La Borde and la Borde ; the financiers ; Grimod — Mrae. Vigee Le Brun ; the evenings at the Palais- Royal ; her supper-parties ; Talma ; Azevedo — Saint- Georges — Garat forsakes the law — The Roman father — Garat without resources — The Queen to the rescue — Garat given a sinecure at Court — The Italian singers — Garat's admiration for Gluck — The musical arbiter of Paris . . -83 CHAPTER V THE EDUCATION OF A DANDY The education of a dandy — The psychology of dandyism — He becomes a leader of fashion — A day in Garat's life : the Palais-Royal ; the toilet ; a morning in Paris ; at the Opera ; the Trianon — Expenses of life in Paris — Debt — A new sinecure — Garat seeks his father's forgiveness — The Roman parent's reply — The psychology of vicarious asceticism — Two kinds of parasites . . 102 CHAPTER VI THE END OF THE OLD PARIS. A VISIT HOME Garat and the theatre — The Italian singers — Mozart — Garat's first concerts — Society in Paris before the Revolution — Its morality — " Sensibility " — Cagliostro — Freemasonry — Manner and manners — More Parisian gossip — Garat visits Bordeaux — Beck — The benefit concert — A reconciliation — The end of a period ...... 122 8 Contents CHAPTER VII THE REVOLUTION PAGE The end of the old world— The Revolution— How Jacobins were made — Garat rejects the new ideas — How different specta- tors saw different aspects of the Revolution : Morris ; Mme. Le Brun ; Mine. Junot — The Assembly weakens — Mob rule — The alteration in manners — The Terror — Paris unsafe — Garat is left penniless — He sings for a living — Why he was not a Jacobin — The effect of his training on i his character — Life in Paris during the Revolution — Garat in the salons — The tragedy of Mme. de Sainte-Amaranthe — Mme. de Beauharnais ....... 140 CHAPTER VIII FLIGHT FROM PARIS Paris becomes dangerous — Marat at the house of Talma — Garat risks his head — Richard, O mon roi /-—Garat arrested — He sings himself free — He leaves Paris for Rouen — Mme. Dugazon's courage — The stage during the Terror — Charles IX — The Ami des lois — The escape of the Comedians — The stage after the Terror — The nobility of the noblesse — The simple life — Causes of emigration . . 164 CHAPTER IX MUSIC AND THE TERROR Hard times — Garat and Rode in Rouen — A haven of refuge — Social life among the refugees — Garat and Mile, du Hamel — The first concerts — Boieldieu — The King's death — Further concerts — Difficulties — Mile, de Roussellois — More concerts — Punto — Mme. de Chastenay — Figures in Rouen society — Further concerts — A stormy scene — The Terror in Rouen — Louchet and Legendre — Lambert — The law of suspects — The prisons fill — Garat arrested — Imprisoned in Saint-Yon — Lacroix — Life in prison — Garat penniless — Rode and 9 Contents PASE Boieldieu to the rescue — The " benefit " concert — Garat the life of his prison — The Troubadour— Who was the mysterious rival ? — Thermidor and release — More concerts — The pri- soners' banquet . . . . . . .185 CHAPTER X PASTURES NEW After release — More concerts— TAe Troubadour — Commercial and social stagnation — Famine — Garat and Rode decide to visit England — Difficulty of leaving France — The voyage — They land in Hamburg — France in Hamburg — Concerts — The young Lafond — Holland, Belgium, England— rThe return to Paris ........ 216 CHAPTER XI THE NEW PARIS Paris after the Terror — A city up to auction — Changes — Wealth and poverty — ^The passing of a civilization — The new society of the Directoire — "At home out of doors" — Paris keeps carnival — A world of young people — Garat's welcome to the new Paris — He becomes the " rage " — Princely fees — The new salons : Tallien, Barras, the financiers, etc. — The Mus- cadins — The Concert Feydeau — Garat's apotheosis — Garat gets his queue cut off — ^The king of dandies — Garat satirized — Riot in the theatre — Garat repeats his foreign triumphs . 223 CHAPTER XII PROFESSOR 6F singing AND THE MODE More concerts — Garat at rehearsals — The idol of Paris — Feminine pursuit of Garat — Longchamps restored — Garat the pattern of Muscadins — The men of the paole d'honneu — The respon- sibilities of a dandy — Garat's appearance — His unpunctuality — At Mme. Junot's — His sincerity as an artist — An inspira- tion — The Conservatoire — Garat becomes a professor — He bids farewell to the platform — The night of the " Infernal Machine" — Garat's last public appearance — Garat at the Opera ........ 247 10 Contents CHAPTER XIII A CHANGING WORLD — A LOVE AFFAIR PAQB The society of the Consulate — A changing world — Garat's rela- tions with the new rulers — Malmaison ; Talleyrand ; Mme. de Montesson — Garat and Napoleon — Mme. Recamier — Lucien Bonaparte — Garat at the Tuileries — He is decorated — Napoleon's favour lost — Garat's salary is withheld — ^Jose- phine ; Mme. Saint-Jean d'Angely — Mme. Tallien ; Mme. Junot ; Jaubert — Garat's affair with Mme. de Kriidener — Her early life — Her third visit to Paris — She meets Garat — Her public worship of the singer — He snubs her — Valerie — An inspired Press agent — Napoleon snubs her — Saint, confessor to a Tsar, and evil genius of Napoleon . . . 268 CHAPTER XIV A LOVER OF WOMEN Garat the lover — The psychology of fickleness — The cry of the race — Garat the slave of impulse — Mme. Dugazon — Mile. Roussellois — The morals of the Directoire — The Duchesse de Fleury and her lovers — In prison — Andre Chenier — Maltia Garat — Mme. de Bellegarde — Garat's children : their history — Lesser loves — Mile. Duchamp . . . 300 CHAPTER XV THE SINGER AND WRITER OF SONGS The old romances of the ancien rigtme and the Directory — Music during the Revolution — Garat as singer of romances — Garat as composer — Other composers whose songs he sang — His manner of singing them — A great teacher — His theories and methods — His pupils — Fabry Garat — An anec- dote : " Roubespierry the upright man " — Garat's other brothers and his sister . . . . . .319 11' Contents CHAPTER XVI THE RESTORATION — THE END PAOB The Restoration — Old friends — Garat's journey to the south — The approach of age — The old age of the beau — The tragedy of the old singer — The surrender to Time — Last years — Gerard ; Kalbrenner — The Conservatoire — The desire of immortality — Mile. Duchamp — ^Why the aged artist so often marries a pupil — Garat's hopes — The tragedy of their non-fulfilment — Retirement — The yellow boots — The last illness — Old friends — Lubbert and Fabry Garat — Dreams of past great- ness — He sings in silence — Death of Garat — Cherubini — Memorial performance at the Opera — A tribute . . 337 INDEX 357 12 ILLUSTRATIONS PIERRE-JEAN GARAT AT THE ZENITH OF HIS CAREER Frontispiece BORDEAUX BORDEAUX BAYONNE PIERRE-JEAN GARAT . DOMINIQUE-JOSEPH GARAT THE TRIBULATIONS OF THE PEDESTRIAN THE GARDEN OF THE PALAIS-ROYAL . THE GALLERIES OF THE PALAIS-ROYAL A PUBLIC PROMENADE THE FRINCESSE DE LAMBALLE MARIE ANTOINETTE . MME. VIG^E LE BRUN . FASHIONS, 1 789-1 796-1 701 MME. DUGAZON AS HiVJ^rA IN FOLLE POUR I^ AMOUR PRISONERS TAKEN BEFORE A REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE OLD ROUEN . ADRIEN BOi'ELDIEU 13 1 FACING PAGE . 36 • 40 48 • 58 58 60 • 68 72 • 74 . 80 • 84 ■ 92 . 104 AMOUR . . 112 Y COMMITTEE 168 • 186 . . 190 Illustrations MME. DE CHASTENAY . A PRISON DURING THE TERROR THE WOES OF THE CAPITALIST MME. TALLIEN LES INCROYABLES : 1 796 A CABRIOLET . A PUBLIC BALL MME. JUNOT . LE SUPREME BON TON FRASCATI MME R^CAMIER EXCURSIONISTS TALMA MME. DE KRUDENER . CARICATURES IN MARTINET'S BOOKSHOP MME. DUGAZON .... From the miniature by Jacques in the Morgan Collection. AN AFTERNOON CALL FACUJO PASE . 194 . 204 224 . 236 . 238 . 238 . 248 260 . 266 270 274 . 280 . 280 . 286 . 290 • 304 • 314 (With very few exceptions the illustrations to this volume are from the author's photographs of contemporary prints in the British Museum. I take this opportunity of thanking the officials of the Department of Prints and Drawings for their courtesy. The portrait of Mme. Dugazon facing page 304 is reproduced from the large miniature by Jacques in the Pierpont Morgan Collection, by special permission of Dr. Williamson, trustee, and all rights of reproduction are strictly reserved. — B.M.) 14 PIERRE GARAT CHAPTER I BOYHOOD AND HOME LIFE The legend of Garat— His origin— The Venice of the Atlantic— The Basques — Why mountaineers are given to dance and song — Ustaritz — The Garat family — The Parliament of Bordeaux — Carat's father— The Garat brothers — Birth of Garat — The musical foster-mother — Schooldays — Illness and home life. There died in Paris, in the spring of 1823, an old man at the age of sixty-one, a professor of singing, or, to be more exact, of " perfecting the art of song and of vocal music " : a pillar of the French Conservatoire, almost a foundation-stone, for he had taught its more promising pupils since a date only three years later than its institution. He left behind him a widow, of disputed legitimacy, who had been a favourite pupil ; two illegitimate children, whose mother was cousin to a king ; a collection of popular songs, and a legend of sur- passing brilliance. Legend is the word, for little more remains. Here and there, in the body of personal memoirs 15 Pierre Garat that enshrine the living human history of the Revolution and the Empire, we encounter a chance mention of one Garat : prince of singers, leader of exquisites, the beloved of great ladies : a poseur of inimitable effrontery and amazing success, yet a sincere and eminent artist. The writer is visit- ing chez Tallien, chez Barras, chez R^camier, at Malmaison or the Tuileries, and there as a matter of course is Garat, the human nightingale, the leader of preposterous fashion, the idol of gilt or gilded youth. "All Paris cuts the capers Garat cuts." He discards the letter r as cacophonous, and all Paris is on its paole d'honneu to boycott the offending soimd. He leads the modes that make the Muscadin, the Incroyable, resplendent as a cock pheasant or gloomy as a British ostler. A dramatist presumes to satirize both luminary and satellites : the bloods of Paris, like marvellous parti-coloured turtles, heads barely emerging from fold upon fold of lawn or muslin, legs protruding from the ample skirts^ of prodigious gold-encrusted coats : all the cudgel -bearing exquisites of the city invade the theatre, leap upon the stage, threaten the author, engage in battle, and ruin the offending piece. When he has been but a year in Paris the fame of the law-student with the wonderful self-trained voice awakens the curiosity of Marie Antoinette, and it is a royal coachi with six horses that bears him to the Trianon. He becomes the Queen's singing- i6 Boyhood and Home Life master ; and it is not long, be sure, before the hostesses of Paris are competing to ensure his presence. The most brilliant reception gains a lustre if Garat sings. He gives concerts during the Terror ; he writes songs in prison ; he visits the capitals of Europe, and everywhere he triumphs. So dazzling a personage is, of course, beloved, but is no Don Juan of the common kind : he is less pursuer than pursued. If old age came to him early, if it was bitter to lose the worship of a frivolous time, to submit to wrinkles, to don a new coat, or even yellow boots, and yet to see Paris unstirred ; if, above all, it was bitter to lose the supremely flexible voice that was the living body of his art, at least he found a labour that he loved, and for a generation there were few French singers who did not owe something of their art to Garat. And this brilliant poseur, this incomparable artist, this Adonis of a hundred goddesses, moved in the most stirring period of modem history : sang at the Trianon, tasted prison under the Terror, was a leader of the new society of the Directoire, an intimate of the Bonaparte households, and saw the return of the Bourbons. To be a supreme and adored artist, an unrivalled amateur of the pose, the lover of brilliaxit women, the shaper of a generation of singers, and to live in such an age 1 If the moral of his life be doubtful, the decorative value and the romance are at least not easy to 17 B Pierre Garat eclipse. Here is one of those figures that should be put on record, if only to fill a gap in the vast portrait gallery of the French Revolution. The task is not without its difficulties.' Apart from a few brief obituaries,^ no contemporary wrote his life . He left no notes for memoirs ; his lovers have kept their own counsel ; his pupils have sung, but have not spoken. To take the outlines traced by Jal, Miel, and Carat's uncle Joseph, to set one's palette in accordance with the writers of Souvenirs and Memoires, to place a touch here and a touch there, until the canvas bears some semblance of the living figure : this is the most one may accomplish. But the figure is so typical, yet so original, and the setting so full of eternal human interest, that no attempt to reconstruct the man and the stage he moved upon should be wholly void of profit. How did he come to be a singer ? More : how did he come to be that perhaps unparalleled phenomenon— a singer absolutely self-taught, who technically was scarcely a musician, yet whose art was admitted by all, musicians included, to be supreme ? • It has been performed, for Carat's compatriots, by M. Pierre Lafond. It is only fair to add that M. Lafond's search for authori- ties has been so exhaustive that his successors can do little more than follow in his footsteps. = One by Jal, in his DicHonnaire Critique de Biographie et ePHistmre; one by Dominique-Joseph Garat, in the Revue Encyclopidique for 1823 ; one by Miel, in the Mimoires de la Sociite d^Emulation de Cambrai. These are the only notices of any value. 18 Boyhood and Home Life Born of the solid, cultivated bourgeoisie which made Bordeaux the intellectual centre, as it was the commercial capital of the South, there would seem at first sight to be little to explain him. It is true that his father was a Basque, and the Basques, according to Voltaire, are " a small people who dance and skip on the summit of the Pyrenees " : a people, therefore, addicted to a form of exercise which is calculated at least to develop the lungs, if not related directly to the singer's art. But the peasant race he sprang from, in its literal descent from the Pyrenees to the plain, which was the corollary of a social ascent to a. level of respectable professional eminence, had never shown signs of regarding the arts as more than a decoration, a grace of easy living. His mother, a Bordelaise, came of the same " nobility of the gown," the class that yielded the Girondists to the scaffold and immortality ; a people who surpassed their descendants in the graces of culture as they did in material display, ; clad, very literally, in purple and fine linen, dining off gold or silver, patrons of the opera, amateurs of Latin verse, admiring and often living by oratory. Venturous traders they were too, builders and owners of ships, the Venetians of the West, with villas on the Garonne in place of palaces beside the Brenta. In an age when the majority of public performers were still " beyond the law," it required no ordinary impulse to lead the son of such stock along the path thaj Garat followed. 19 Pierre Garat The humbler strata of such a people did produce many great singers. With oratory no mere accom- plishment, but a serious means of winning power and fame and fortune ; in a country whose capital city boasted a large and wealthy cultured class and one of the finest operas in Europe, this is not surprising. But in Garat's case there were accidents of life, factors purely fortuitous, touches of the finger of fate, that might well have pre- destined a Vergniaud or a Guadet, no less than a Garat, to serve the Muse of song. Before we glance at these circumstances, or the city which conditioned his youth, let us once for all examine our hero's parentage, in the wider sense of the word. " Hidden away amid the gorges of the Pyrenees, where the Gauls, the Franks, and the Saracens have ever in vain assaulted their liberty, the Basques have escaped the observation of the philosophers as the sword of the conquerors . Rome dared not include them in the host of nations whom she counted as in her chains. Around them the nations have a score of times changed their lan- guage and their laws ; but the Basques still display their true character ; they still obey the same laws ; they speak the tongue they spoke three thousand years ago. With them all things have resisted the centuries, and it may be said that behind their mountains 20 Boyhood and Home Life they have found an asylum against time and their oppressors." These are the words of Dominique-Joseph Garat, uncle to our singer, of whom more anon. To say more than he says of the Basques would hardly be profitable, for they still remain the mystery of Europe. We must, however, remember that they are a mountain people. It is not entirely fanciful to regard this fact as of some significance. They are a people who have produced many notable singers, and a considerable literature of ballads. In a mountain country the limgs grow strong and capacious, the diaphragm powerful and swiftly responsive to control. Men see one another far ofif upon the hills, and shout their greetings or directions across still or windy valleys. The low- land singer has often to suffer long training before the vocal members will assume the natural position for shout or song ; hence the " throaty " voice of the highly-trained but indifferent singer ; to the mountaineer the shout is natural. Mountain life, again, involves solitude, and the solitary is apt to be inarticulate. Moreover, his emotions know long periods of disuse ; he is therefore sub- ject, upon stimulus, to explosive discharges of nervous energy. Such discharges, as the good Spencerian will remember, must, if articulate expression be denied, find vent in violent move- ment, or in laughter, a spasm of the diaphragm and vocal chords. Now what is the dance but 21 Pierre Garat violence controlled by rhythm? or primitive song but a rhythmical and artificial laugh or lament- made rhythmic not only for the added delight of rhythm, but as a mnemonic aid, an assistance to voluntary reproduction? The philosopher will pre- dict that the mountaineer will dance and sing, and so he does. The Highlander with his bagpipe is no real exception, but a further proof : the strut of the piper is almost a dance, and all the mechanism of song is brought into play, with the sole exception of the vocal chords ; and as for bag- pipe-music, is it not almost invariably the music of violent dancing? Mountain pipers and mountain singers in their thousands explain our Garat : the mountaineer is always justified in singing and dancing, and— psychologically speaking at least— in playing the bagpipe. If other Garats did not sing, we shall see that there were moments when they could not refrain from dancing. Here, for instance, is a case in point, which goes far to justify Voltaire's epigram and the pre- diction of the psychologist. In the breathing-space that followed the Terror three Garat brothers came together beneath the trees of the Allies de Tourny, one of the favourite promenades of the city. It was long since they had met, and they had survived the Terror. Political dififerenoes were forgotten ; they remembered only their affection. Grave, worthy gentlemen, long past the flush of youth, what was the nature of their greeting? How did 22 Boyhood and Home Life they express their joy? By the GaUic kiss or the British hand-clasp ? No ! Race told : instinctively, as one mian, the three leapt into the air and broke into a Basque dance. A son of such stock, we may take it that Garat was exceptionally representative rather than excep- tional. Racially speaking, he had a right to sing. We shall see presently that he was almost inevitably predestined a singer by the accidents of life. So much for the racial factor. Let us now once for all trace the family descent from Ustaritz to the capital of Guyenne. Starting from Bayonne and ascending the Adour, the traveller may presently turn aside to the course of the Nive, a river that rises in the Spanish Pyrenees. Along its banks runs a poplar-shaded highway, which leads at length to Ustaritz. Brooks traverse the lowlands, gleaming amid thickets of golden gorse, and broom, the planta genesta of the Angevin kings, and the giant almond -scented heather, the brtiyere or briar of the smoker, with its heavy spires of whitish or mauve-tinged blossom. Mauve and gold and emerald and silver, and a soft air quick with butterfly and dragon-fly, musical with waters and the song of bird and insect. Beyond lies a park -like champaign, the approaches interspersed with fields of maize, like giant flags of emerald silk laid out to dry in the sun. Through the undulating land of foot-hills, 23 Pierre Garat their wooded meadows pied with a hundred flowers, the winding paths lead upward beneath thfe shade of oak and pine and chestnut, or twinkling beneath the shadows of rustling poplars. Beyond, looming superb and many-coloured in the crystal Southern air, changing like mother-of-pearl as the cloud-shadows pass and the sun wheels, rises the background of the Pyrenees : at first the spurs all scarred with rocky outcrops, smothered with briar and gorse and broom ; then scattered woods of oak and pine, and again the wastes of rock and heather ; and above all, in the shifting lights of the upper air, tortured and riven, stricken by frost and time, swept by invisible winds or flying streamers of cloud, the stupendous peaks of naked rock, crested by eternal snows. Nestling between two mountain spurs, gleaming amid its orchards, is the village of Ustaritz : a place of cleanly houses of red and white ; timbter- framed houses, the frames and shutters painted red, roofed with red tiles, the walls yearly washed with white. Near by, upon a wooded hill, the Bilzaar met of old : the folk -mote of the Basque elders, where they gathered by a table of stone, and where, late into the eighteenth century, they still made the laws of the Basque people. Near by, too, but farther up the moimtain, is the village of Sare, whence the family of Garat sprang. Early in the seventeenth century one Garat migrated : down the hill, as far as Ustaritz. Here one Pierre 24 Boyhood and Home Life de Garat dwelt in the early part of the century, and to him, for want of better information, we must give the topmost place in the Garat pedigree. Then came Johannes de Garat, who married a " demoiselle Darque, dame de Maltia," which latter name was given to one of Garat's brothers. Son of Johannes, Pierre espoused a d'Aubadine d'Etche- goyen, and begat another Pierre, born in 1709, who was the grandfather of our singer. This Pierre studied medicine— in those days no inexpensive trade to learn ; hence the Garat family must by then have been people of substance. On the roads of French and Spanish Navarre, Pierre, an equestrian physician, was long a familiar figure. He was a man of various attainments : a statis- tician, a philosopher, even a politician. He, by a wife who bore the curiously Highland patro- nymic of Macaye, had four sons and two daughters, all of whom reached maturity., His home still stands—" Garatdhea," the house of the Garats ; but altered now, for a Basque " American," a returned and enriched emigrant, converted it years ago into a dwelling half villa, half chalet. All the four sons were sent to the seminary of Larressorre ; all studied for the Bar, and one for the priesthood also. Paris was not then the sole intellectual capital of France. As Edinburgh, in the days of Scott, was a brilliant social and intellectual centre, so 25 Pierre Garat was Bordeaux before the Revolution . In those days a provincial capital offered ample scope for able men : in some cases more than Paris, where the Court and the nobles were supreme. The Parliament of Bordeaux offered a dignified career to men of the stamp of Vergniaud, Guadet, Gen- sonnd, all men of repute before they took their fatal way to Paris. Before Paris drained the provinces of talent, leaving them stagnant and an easy prey to the bureaucracy, before France had paid, as the penalty for mob rule, the price of excessive centralization, the native of Bordeaux was " a citizen of no mean city," and the advocate of Bordeaux' Parliament held a proud and privileged position. Dignified figures were these advocates : " wearing the ermine of councillors ; powdered, bewigged, in gowns of silk, of quiet or vivid colour according to the season, long coats with vest and breeches all of silk, white stockings and shoes bearing large buckles of gold and silver ; leaning on their tall gold -headed canes." Cultured, scholarly, proud and independent, they contributed in no small degree to the social brilliance of the city . Dominique, the eldest son of the mountaineer doctor, and the father of our singer, was born in 1735. He was admitted to the Bar of Parliament in 1755. He is described as a man of open, liberal mind, with a rich and cultivated imagination, and a fine flow of eloquence. 26 Boyhood and Home Life Dignified jurist though he was, he danced in pubhc on at least two occasions. One of these we shall remember ; the other was many years earlier. At the theatre certain actors were dancing the Basque national dance : the tnutchikoiak, a violent, skipping form of exercise. So miserably did they acquit themselves that our worthy advocate leapt upon the stage and gave a demonstration, to actors and audience, as to how the dance was performed upon his native mountains. As a result of this levity the scandalized Parliament suspended him for a period of some days, for compromising the dignity of his cloth. In 1789 he was sent to the National Assembly by his native bailiwick of Ustaritz. Appointed one of those commissaries of the Third Estaite' who sought to negotiate the union of the Three Estates, after the fall of the Bastille he was among those who accompanied Louis on his melancholy journey to Paris. Like many a Bordelais, he welcomed the new ideas, although a supporter of the monarchy. He did not change his opinions with the advent of mob rule, so there were many who called him a reactionary . In the Assembly he strove manfully to prevent the fusion of Beam and the Basque country to form the Department of Basses Pyrenees. The Devil, he remarked in an eloquent speech, had once spent seven years among the Basques in order 27 Pierre Garat to learn their tongue : but he mastered only two vf ords— bay and ez, " yes " and " no." How could the Bdamais, who were surely not cleverer than the Devil, ever learn the Euskarian tongue, or keep house with the Euskarian? At the dissolution of the Assembly he returned to Ustaritz. The Parliament of Bordeaux was no more, and the southern capital was presently swept by the scourge of the Terror. Dominique Garat served awhile as President of the Municipal Council of Ustaritz, but in 1799 he died: heart- broken, it was said, like many another, by the violence of that Revolution from which he had hoped so much. Laurent, the second son,' although advocate at the Bordeaux JBar, took orders and entered the College of Guyenne as professor, and was eventually Vice-Principal. He would seem to have died about 1773. The third son, Dominique -Joseph, author of the Notice sur Garat in the Revue Encydopedique, had the greatest worldly success of the brothers. Born in 1749, he was sent in 1789 ^s deputy to the' States-General; in 1792 he succeeded Danton as Minister of Justice ; he was afterwards Minister of the Interior, was imprisoned during the Terror, and on his release became Minister of Public ' M. Lafond speaks of him on p. 10 as the second son, and on p. 26 as the fifth. There were, however, only four sons. 28 Boyhood and Home Life Instruction. He was also ambassador to Naples, a member of the Council of Apcients, a member of the Institute of France, a Senator, and a Count of the Empire. Whether he was the windbag and oppo/rtunist that some have thought him', " whosie cowardice and incapacity were largely responsible for the fall of the Gironde," or whether, as others held, he was " a liberal, scholarly, and upright philosopher," is a problem to be left for other pens to solve. One may remark, however, in passing, that if in his Memoirs he correctly reports the insane sus- picions of Robespierre, it would have required something more than his courage and competence to save his compatriots from their fate. To him, at all events, as Minister of Justice, fell the task of reading the sentence of his death to Louis XVI. The passage in Lamartine's The Girondists, describing the drive to the Temple, and the tragic scene within, is too well known to be quoted here. He lived to see the Bourbons restored, whose recall he steadily opposed, regretting that his brother Dominique had not survived to witness that event. He did not see their failure : he died in Ustaritz, in 1833, after years of quiet retire- ment, his only intimate the parish priest. L.6on, the fourth brother, remained in his native country ; his life was quiet and uneventful . There were two sisters : Theodore, noted for her beauty 29 Pierre Garat and intelligence, who took the veil, and eventually became superior of a convent in Bayonne ; and Manuela, who married a M. Herembourg. Dominique, the father of our singer, married Mile. Frangoise Gonteyron, whose father had been surgeon to the Mardchal de Saxe. He practised in and about Bordeaux, chiefly as a surgeon- accoucheur. Of this marriage were born five children, of whom Pierre, the singer, was the eldest ; the others were Maltia, Francisque, Theodore (a girl), and Fabry. Pierre-Jean Garat was bom in 1762,' on the 27th of April, in the Rue D^sirade, and was baptized in the church of St. Nicolas. The house he was born in still stands, as No. 40 Rue Buhan, but has been partly rebuilt. It was a street of lawyers. The houses, like many in the older quarters of Bordeaux, are architecturally dis- tinguished, with wide carriage-gates, wrought-iron grilles, and stone staircases, but are now mostly inhabited by families of the petite bourgeoisie . According to a custom usual in the wealthier circles of French society, though becoming less fashionable among the more cultivated of the nobility, our hero, having been born, was banished from his home. ' Several authorities have the date of his birth as 1764, and his birthplace as Ustaritz, but the birth certificate (reproduced by Lafond) is plainly and legibly dated 1762. 30 Boyhood and Home Life The French home is as a rule well filled, for the French family holds together ; it is compact, and is conducted methodically. To nurse a child, to guide it through the shoals of teething, to evoke the faculties of locomotion and self-control— these duties would remove the very mainspring of the French home, or, rather, would give it an impos- sible extra load. The French mother is often her husband's business partner or adviser ; the ftiend and guardian of her boys ; the supervisor of her daughters' education ; and a social unit into the bargain. So the French home of a certain stand- ing knows no nursery. It may contain children, but they are responsible members of society, little men and women of the world. Carpets are safe from the accidents of infantile digestion ; mahogany and rosewood do not sufifer from the infants' inquiries into the properties of materials ; elderly people and guests are not affrighted by stifled yells, by sudden irruptions from the nursery. When the child is fit to take his place in the family circle the family is willing to receive him. What- ever the French mother niay miss, the institution is in some circles part of the national life, and was, in some degree, the making of Garat. Mme. Carat's father, in his quality of surgeon- accouoheur, had the pick of all the foster-mothers of a large tract of country. At Barsac, in a land of vineyards and singers, he made his choice. We have seen that the Basque may be expected 31 Pierre Garat to dance or sing ; we have seen that on occasion he actually does at least dance, and we know of his leaning toward oratory. But now for the determining circumstance, now for the finger of Destiny. The Garats' wet-nurse, so M. Lafond informs us, was a phcenix. He does not tell us that she passed through any fiery apotheosis ; yet phoenix she may be called, for in song, if not in fire, she yielded of her life to the infant. In other words, she sang, as an accompaniment and stimulus to the process of alimentation. Man, if he have sought out many inventions, is in the earlier stages desperately imitative, and here was a child who had, we may suppose, inherited the vigorous lungs, the irritable yet responsive diaphragm, and the explosive nervous system of the true Euskarian. Very soon, when he was not sucking, he sang. What in another child is only the squalling that develops the organs, and dissipates a surplus of nervous energy, was in Garat controlled by rhythm and melody ; he fed, he sang, he slept, and sang again. " With a few notes," says his uncle, " she could do with him what she would ; these notes, strung into phrases of song, were engraved upon the ear and the voice of the child, before any word or phrase of his native tongue ; literally Garat began to sing before he began to speak." Here surely we have the determining factor of Garat 's career. Not that every child whose nurse 32 Boyhood and Home Life sings over its cradle becomes a singer of European fame ; but here was a child bom of a race pre- disposed to rhythmical utterance or gesture, and by chance those very orgaais which differentiated him from others were the first to be appealed to in infancy. The rhythmic and melodic centres were the first to receive stimulation ; and this, so that they were not overtaxed, was to ensure that as he grew older his impulses of play would spend themselves through these very centres. Art is itself the expression of the play-instinct, and if the impulse of play, in the developing child, be directed into the channels of artistic produc- tion, we are like to have a supreme artist. We shall see that in Carat's case this is precisely what occurred, and it was by the self-imposed control of such impulses that he received his artistic education. The time came for the musical suckling to return to the paternal roof. " In this house, where all were much, even too much occupied with verse and prose, singing and dancing, the nurse would soon give the first exhibition of their talent. All were astounded : there is no other word, but it was above all the baby that was the marvel. The family had no doubt that some great future lay before the child, but as they had no conception that music could add dignity to the dignity of human nature and power to the power of social institutions, this extraordinary child was educated 33 c Pierre Garat by the ordinary means of teaching Latin and all that accompanies the approach to that superb tongue. As soon as he could read and write he was sent first to Bordeaux, then to Barbezieux. The organization of Garat and his nurse had irrevocably determined his vocation and the nature of his celebrity." At Bordeaux he overheard the singing and piano lessons given by the best masters of the town to the sons of wealthy merchants. At Barbezieux was a young Parisian, a prodigal son, established as classical master. He was a devoted amateur of the violin. On every possible occasion Garat would listen to his playing, and remember all that he heard, to reproduce it vocally. " Before he was twelve years of age he knew at least fifty pieces of instrumental music ; they were engraved upon his mind with such a force of impression that a listener with a good ear could easily distinguish between those which he had heard on the piano and those which had been played on the violin." Already his ruling passion possessed him, obsessed him. All his leisure was spent in hearing or repeating music, no matter how com- plex. The physical strain, and more especially perhaps the emotional strain — for Garat, with all his artificiality, was the most emotional of singers and assiduous of artists— proved too extreme for the growing child to bear. At last his people heard 34 Boyhood and Home Life of his illness. His father and one of his uncles rode over from Bordeaux. So horrified were they by his appearance that they rode incontinently home, bearing the boy by turns upon their saddles. In his new life at home he was forbidden to sing. He was taught to play as a normal child. An adoring mother and grandmother nursed himi back to health. He was taken frequently to bullfights as an antidote to an excess of music, and acquired a certain liking for them. But he soon recovered his strength, and with his recovery resumed his self -directed musical education. It was easy to forbid him to hear or to make music, but not so easy to enforce obedience. If the music-lessons overheard in a boarding-school had inspired him, what of B'ordeaux, where the very air was full of music? For of the rest of his boyhood much was spent in the capital of Guyenne, amid a society of merchant princes, of accomplished jurists, of versatile priests ; a city surrounded by a pleasant land of summer villas, of river -side pleasaunces ; a city where the opera, the concert, and the " musical evening " were part of the fabric of social life. But the city of Bordeaux and its inhabitants must be left to another chapter, together with the original but effectual manner in which the boy formed that unparalleled voice, which was the admiration not alone of amateurs, but of the greatest musicians of the time, of whose works it made him the unrivalled interpreter. 35 CHAPTER II TWO SOUTHERN CAPITALS The city of Bordeaux — Its Parliament — The tone of its society — Garat's boyhood — Young on Bordeaux — The theatre — The luxury of its citizens — Barbezieux — Prosperity of Guyenne — No reason why Garat should be a Republican — At Ustaritz — Basque dances and ballads — Garat at Bayonne — Young on Bayonne and Beam — The return to Bordeaux — Musical studies : Beck — The opera— Garat's real musical training — His first audiences — He is to be a lawyer. Meanwhile the old order was approaching dissolution. The tempest was as yet remote, but even now, in many parts of France, the prophetic eye might have foretold it. It is per- tinent, therefore, to wonder what the boy Garat might have seen of the handwriting on the wall. The probability is that he saw nothing at all. We shall find him, later, in the last days of the Monarchy, the friend of Marie Antoinette, the protege of the King's brother'; an impenitent dandy during the days of the carmagnole; a leader of muscadins the moment reaction dared to raise its head. In a bourgeois, the son of a parliamentarian, a Girondist by birth and train- 36 h. y. 2 < S (I) § I a o Two Southern Capitals ing, this may seem to call for explanation. Let us consider if his boyhood supplies it. Firstly, what manner of city was Bordeaux, was Bayonne ; what manner of country Guyenne and the Basses Pyrenees? The "wise and honest" Young saw them but a few years later ; on the very eve of the revolutionary storm. We shall find his description illuminating. But Bordeaux is too proud a city to be passed over lightly ; it is meet that she be duly intro- duced. How early the Gauls were here none knows, but here Rome found them', and made their city the capital of Lower Acquitaine. A four- square stronghold, with walls and lofty towers, commanding the roadstead where the galleys lay beached or moored ; so Ausonius describes it, that Bordelais of the fourth century. When Rome fell Bordeaux shared her degradation. But ere the Normans came to England she was prosperous again, and again a capital : soon to be a strong- hold of the English kings for full three hundred years. Bordeaux ships were seen upon Exe and Humber, Dart and Thames and Dee, bearing wine and oil, silk and fish and hides. The Roman origin of the city and a passion for generalization led Lamartine astray. The Girondists came from Bordeaux ; they were republican ; therefore the Republic had its origin in Bordeaux, from the days of its 37 Pierre Garat Roman forum a home of the republican spirit. We know now that Lamartine was wrong ; France held no actual republicans until the King was revealed a traitor ; but independent and jealous of its rights the city was and had been; in 1548 resisting the salt -tax by force of arms, and a century later joining the Eronde. Its interests were twofold— commercial and parliamentary. The King must not overburden contoierce nor override the Parliament. All the Parliaments of France were in a sense one body, and beside their function of supreme tribunal they had a consultative function ; by them the King's edicts must be registered before they could become the law of France ; they were, in some sort, a national Senate. Like other Senates, they upheld not only the interests of the people— which for them was the bourgeoisie— hut their own. Their continued existence, their dignity, their powers and rights, were jealously guarded. In a sense they may be said, by reaction, to have precipitated the Revolution. An attempt was made by Louis XV, and again by Louis XVI, to replace the Parlia- ments by Estates, intended by the monarch to be Jocile assemblies, but likely, once established, to get out of hand. The opposition of the jealous Parliaments was too strong. Such a body it was that gave the tone to society in Bordeaux. The parliamentarians were almost a 38 Two Southern Capitals lesser nobility ; their interests were far from democratic ; neither had they anything to gain by flattering or arousing the democracy. They were for the Crown, but against its abuses ; for a con- stitutional check upon power, but for the retention of the reins in their own hands. Nor had they, in Bordeaux, the same reasons as elsewhere for regarding the noblesse and the Church with jealousy. In Paris all the higher places were held by courtiers ; the bourgeois went in plain black, swordless, bespattered by the silken dandy as he urged his rattling cabriolet along the reeking or dusty streets of thte city. In Bordeaux the bourgeois had it all his own way ; he was in possession ; like a noble, he wore a sword, and went delicately, clad in silks and satins, lawns and laces . Wealth was general ; culture was general; it was, in some respects, a golden age, and the basis of life was not, as in Paris, rotten. There was, then, every reason why Garat should lead a careless, happy boyhood, imbibing all the prejudices and opinions of his class, which were far from democratic in any Jacobin sense. There were other reasons also, psychological reasons, which would make it impossible for the Jacobin ideology to seduce him' ; and in the case of a man who lived through the Revolution and the Terror we must, to understand him, consider such points. But let us, before Garat grows older, return to 39 Pierre Garat the invaluable Young. In the August of 1787 he drives into Bordeaux, through the pleasant vine- yards of Barsac, amid scattered country-seats of wealthy Bordeaux merchants. " Much as I had read and heard of the commerce, wealth, and magnificence of the city, they greatly surpassed my expectations." The quay disappoints him ; no quay, but a muddy river-beach; the ships that lie along the crescent -shaped reach of the Garonne ha.ve to be unloaded by means of lighters. But he admires the Blace Royale, with the " statute " of " Lewis XV," and the quarter of the Chapeau Rouge is " truly magnificent, con- sisting of noble houses, built like the rest . . . of white hewn stone." The old Chateau Trompette, the fort, which " occupies near half a mile of the shore," has been bought by speculators, who intend to replace it by a fine square " and new streets to the amount of 1,800 houses," " one of the most splendid additions to a city that is to be seen in Europe." ' Then we come to what touches " This speculation ruined the unhappy promoter, Mangin de Montmirail. Having made an immense fortune by purchasing a forest and cutting a canal for the transport of timber, he bought Saint-Cloud and exchanged it for the Chateau. Before he could commence operations in Bordeaux he had been black- mailed in Paris to the tune of some millions, and once free of Paris the governor of the Chiteau, backed by the Minister of War, refused to evacuate the fortress unless barracks were built for his troops. Montmirail was finally bankrupt, saving a pension of ;^i2o out of the wreck. Such were the vicissitudes of commerce in the good old days. 40 Two Southern Capitals Garat more closely. " The theatre, built about ten or twelve years ago, is by far the most magnificent in France. I have seen nothing that approaches it. . . , The entrance . . . leads also to an elegant oval concert-room and saloons. . . . The establishment of actors, actresses, singers, dancers, orchestra, etc., speak the wealth and luxury of the place. I have been assured that thirty to fifty louis a night have been paid to a favourite actress from Paris. Larrive, the first tragic actor of Paris, is now here at 500 livres a night. . . . Dauberval, the dancer, and his wife (the Mile. Theodore of London) are retained . . , at a salary of 28,000 livres (£1,225)." He speaks of the luxurious life of the place. " Great entertainments, and many served on plate : high play is a much worse thing : — and the scandalous chronicle speaks of merchants keeping the dancing and singing girls of the theatre at salaries which ought to import no good to their credit." After dirty linen, a word as to clean. The ship- owners of Nantes used to send their family wash to the West Indies, the water of certain mountain streams of San Domingo giving a more exquisite whiteness than the rivers of France. Here is a sybaritic note ! If the merchants of Bordeaux did the same we do not know, but we do know that a hundred pairs of sheets was reckoned a decent provision for a family. 41 Pierre Garat A busy, brilliant, enterprising community it is as Young sees it ; is there not even " a new tide corn-mill, very well worth viewing," where the water pours through canals of hewn stone into a vast reservoir, turning the wheels that move twenty-four pairs of stones, and escaping at the ebb ? A venture the cost of which Young gives as £350,000, very properly adding, " I know not how to credit such a sum." Everywhere he sees signs of prosperity ; new streets built and build- ing or marked out for the future ; all dating from' " the peace . . . and from the colour of the stone of those streets next in age it is plain that the spirit of building was at a stop during the war." But now all is activity ; rents and the cost of living are going up, " a sure sign of prosperity." Larrive,' during Young's visit, very appropriately plays the part of the Black Prince in Pierre le. Cruel; for the Black Rrince, we must remember, was Prince of Acquitaine, and here, with Joan, the " Fair Maid of Kent," he held his Court, and Bordeaux was his headquarters during his campaign in Navarre in support of Pedro the Cruel. Nothing, as yet, of the traditional France of the ancien regime. At Barbezieux, indeed, where Garat first went to school, our traveller waxes ' So great was the enthusiasm caused by Larrive's visit to Bordeaux that all the roads leading to his lodging were strewn with boughs of laurel. 42 Two Southern Capitals indignant, on account of the great amount of waste land near markets so abundant. The chief pro- prietors were the Due de Bouillon and the Prince de Soubise, and " all the signs I have seen yet of their greatness are wastes, landes, deserts, fern, ling. — Go to their residence, wherever it may be, and you would probably find them' in the midst of a forest, very well peopled with deer, wild boars, and wolves . Oh I if I was the legislator of France for a day I would make such great lords skip again ! " But it is the agricultural expert who speaks here : who had seen elsewhere in France women grovelling on their knees, filling their aprons with fern and leaves and nettles for their cattle, and villages of windowless hovels whose floor was the reeking soil. Here the population was not starving ; it was merely absent. Garat the school- boy, if he spared time from' his music, would see nothing here to arouse his pity or fire his heart ; only a fine country for a scamper or a bird's-nesting expedition . As for the country round Bordeaux, much of it was held by wealthy bourgeois ; it was a land of country houses, whither they retired in the autumn of life or the summer of the year ; a country of river-side villas, of model farms, gardens, vine- yards, groves, and meadows. For the peasants, they were a prosperous, cleanly people, industrious 43 Pierre Garat and content . No : Guyenne was not France . No wonder that the Terror found reason for offence in Bordeaux, purging with blood and fire that home of traitors who dared perchance to regret the good old days I But now, while Garat returned to health, enjoy- ing the shows of the city, loitering on the quays, snuffing the magic odours of river and shipping and the cargoes of ships, or joining, of an evening, the well-dressed, leisurely strolling crowds, who took the air beneath the trees of Alices de Tourny ; now, while Bordeaux was at the height of its fortunes, spreading on every hand, seeking new markets— since the wars with England had lost France her colonies— speculating, saving, spending, entertaining : the cmcien regime mtist have seemed far from unbearable and very far from its end. No sights here to arouse the boy's indignation ; no insolent nobles to crowd him off the sidewalk, or bespatter him with mud, or to block the way to a career ; if taxes were heavy, Bordeaux could pay them : was able, on occasion, to resent imposition. Parliament, filled by the sons of merchants, shipowners, and jurists, was guardian of their interests ; the spirit of change still slumbered, to awaken did occasion call ; not to undo the King, but to teach him' proper kingship. All, in short, was propitious to a normal boy- hood. And once the inhibition of physical 44 Two Southern Capitals weakness and parental prudence was withdrawn, there was nothing to distract the boy from follow- ing his natural bent. For a time, when a course of good feeding and easy amusement had restored him sufficiently to travel, he was sent to complete his recovery amid his father's native mountains. At the home of the Garat family, that pleasant white-walled house, red-roofed, red-timbered, amid the changing green of windy, tossing leaves, he spent some pleasant months, and here, as must be once life has assumed a direction, all things tended to ensure his vocation. Dancers and singers were the Basques, as we have seen ; dance and song were their national medium of expression ; in moments of exaltation, at seasons of worship or ceremony, at fairs and markets, on saints' days and holidays, at weddings or municipal processions. You may picture the growing boy, a little at a loss in that placid upland town, rising eagerly on summer dawns, before the lark had outsung the thrush, to ta!ke his way over the thyme -scented, heather-misted hillsides, or climbing the mountain spurs beneath the shade of secular chestnuts, where the golden discs of sun- light swayed upon the brown earth ; or higher still, amid pine and broom' and juniper, toward some distant hamlet whose fair-day or feast-day had struck, or where both commerce and the saints were to be served at once ; wandering, lonely and high-hearted, with a joy in the sun, the fresh herb- 45 Pierre Garat scented air, the rolling green foot-hills, and the snow-capped amethyst peaks ; in his own upwelling youth, and that shy, intimate sense of personality which is in youth so wonderful ; a joy in these things that now and again must find expression, lest it grow unendurable, in song as unforced as the lark's overhead, or in a sudden scamper against the morning breeze ; or coming abruptly, amid the lofty thickets of broom and heather, upon some larger hillside trail, along which peasants, in their stiff holiday bravery, stride beside their sturdy mules or asses, which bear, in the creaking double panniers that still carry the P.yrenean traveller, their country produce to market, or their wives or children to the feast. You may see him at length achieving the last long rise, beholding below him, like a hill of coloured ants, the busy town, white and red amid the green, set out like a child's toy or a painted map, but all alive ; the arterial byways a-fhrong with jostling corpuscles of black and red and green ; the rolling hum of the crowd, the sudden cries of chapmen, and the clear throb of bells rising mingled in that pellucid air. And the slight fatigue that succeeded, as he walked' the long miles, to the delight that found utterance in song or rapid motion : that pleasant austerity, that dear aloofness which comes of solitude on the high hills, all vanish at the human thrill of the scene below ; he moves downward refreshed, the throb of the festa thrilling his very heart, 46 Two Southern Capitals all anticipation and impatient elation, until at last, when he breaks into the humming place, he is ready, in spite of white hands and silken clothes and silver buckles, to be no more than a delighted boy ; ready to give and take, to exchange salted pleasantries with the men, eager glances with the girls ; to watch or join in the dancing, to win applause for his singing. No easy dancing this, but somewhat after the fashion of our ancient folk-dances ; the zpata dantza, gorrai dantza, pordon dantza, handed from father to son, danced strenuously by lusty young bachelors to the music of pipe and horn, fife ' and tambor, the latter struck by a special finger-ring. The dancers go before the mayor and council on days when those worthies walk in procession, or on saints' days before priest and acolyte and choristers, advancing decorously in two unbroken files ; or in the evening, or on Sunday afternoon, the more general figures are danced by all whO' will in the public place. A gay crowd, these Basque yeomen ; the men wearing the national sleeveless coat, hanging often from one shoulder, a coloured waistcoat, a red girdle, breeches of cloth or velvet buttoned below the knees, white stockings, and sandals of plaited ' The fife, or flute, was an instrument with only three stops, and was often played, in company with a minute tambourine, by a single player ; the left hand would hold and play the flute while the right hand struck the tambourine, which was slung from the neck. 47 Pierre Garat hemp, attached by a lacing of leather thongs, and on the long hair the national biretta of blue or red. The women wear the same Basque jacket, but fitted snugly to the figure, and a short petticoat with many gathers upon the hips ; the hair coiled at the back of the head and bound in a many- coloured kerchief, or hanging to the waist, or even to the heels, in a long, splendid plait. After business, after food, when the wine gets to work, there are songs, ballads, and folk-tales, all noted and remembered by the boy ; and later still, as he goes homeward over the darkening hills, pleasantly wearied, glad of the company of shepherd or farmer or mtile-coper, the songs are gone over again, the tales are retold, or perhaps those older tales, of magic and miracle, dragon and demon and saint, which are shy of the open day and the common sense of the market-place, are told as they should be, in the falling dusk of the immemorial hills. Be sure that when presently he went to Bayonne, where it seems Dominique's parents had a house, he was not shy of repeating dance or song. Sing- ing as he did in his cradle, his voice was natural as a bird's, and the Bayonnais, though music-mad, were not over-critical as to training. Every other Bayonnais played the violin, the 'cello, or— as was fitting in a frontier town— the mandolin or guitar ; song was heard continually in the cobbled streets, 48 Two Southern Capitals under the wrought -iron balconies of the shuttered windows ; songs were written upon any and every subject, upon any and every pretext : lampoon or epigram, scandal or anecdote soon went the round of the city. Song, indeed, supplied the place of a popular press, and every family had its collection of songs in manuscript. Mme. d'Aulnoy tell us " in all Guyenne and about Bayonne people have voices naturally, and only good masters are lacking." She did not think highly of a concert at the Jacobins in the Bourg Neuf . " Very fine voices, . . . but one could not take pleasure in hearing them, for they had neither method nor style." The Bayonnais were perhaps less critical, or for them the song was the thing. Garat, at least, you may suppose they heard with pleasure ; you may fancy him, brown and eager from the hills, his young boy's dignity and conscious respect for his new silken clothes continually disappearing beneath the Southern vivacity of the enthusiast ; full of the curious mountain ballads, and very ready to sing them : ' or taking part in some grave dis- cussion of the national dances, and giving, in the decorous Bayonne salons, his version of the intricate steps. If in Bordeaux song was forbidden, here ' The music of these songs was originally developed from that of the Gregorian chant. The air was repeated for each verse, and each verse, as a rule, had a refrain, often in different time. Youth, love, the song of birds, the beauty of spring, were the subjects of these folk-songs. 49 D Pierre Garat it was encouraged, and the phcenix nurse and the mountain ballad -singers were succeeded by Lamberti, with whom Garat studied the elements of music. Here again no political trouble was visible. Bayonne, the old frontier city, deserted by the nobles, was, like Bordeaux, a paradise of the bourgeoisie ; a lively, cultivated, sociable folk, prosperous, living a genial and easy life. Of an evening the promenades of the old Spanish-looking city were gay with strollers ; the ramparts of the fortifications, the banks of the Nive and Adour, the alleys of P,aulmy and Les Marines ,- the children and sometimes the ladies in the cacolet, the double pannier, the ass or mule gay with bells and woollen tassels. Later in the evening the lamplit balconies of the salons made the ancient streets cheerful, and in a town so Spanish in aspect one may imagine, as in Spain, the fascinated lover suck- ing his cane or fingering his guitar below the beauty-laden window. What does Young say of Bayonne ? " By much the prettiest town I have seen in France ; the houses not only well built of stone, but the streets wide. . . . The river is broad, and many of the houses being fronted to it, the view from the bridge is fine . The promenade is charming ; it has many rows of trees, whose heads join and form a shade delicious in this hot climate. In the even,ing it was thronged with well-dressed people of both SO Two Southern Capitals sexes, and the women, through all the country, are the handsomest I have seen in France." Young, unfortunately, only skirted the true Basque country. We could well have done with his impressions of Ustaritz ; but the Basque moun- tains were at least as prosperous as B.^arn, arid our traveller speaks of Beam in no uncertain voice :— " In coming hither (to Bayonne) from Pau I saw what is very rare in that kingdom: clean and pretty country girls ; in most of the provinces hard labour destroys both person and complexion." On the road to Monein he comes " to a scene which was so new to me in France that I could hardly believe my own eyes. A succession of many well-built, tight, and comfortable farming cottages, built of stone and covered with tiles ; each having its little garden, inclosed by dipt thorn hedges, with plenty of peach and other fruit-trees. ... To every house belongs a farm. . . . The men are all dressed with red caps like the high- landers of Scotland," by which he means that the biretta is shaped like the tam-o'shanter. " There are some parts of England (where small yeomen still remain) that resemble this country of Bdarn ; but we have very little equal to what I have seen in this ride of 12 mi. from' Pau to Monein. . . . An air of neatness, warmth, and comfort breathes over the whole . . . even in the coops SI Pierre Garat for their poultry and the sties for their hogs." A peasant, as our author observes, does not think of his pigs' comfort unless his own is assured. All through the Lower Pyrenees he sees marks of the same comfort and plenty. At home the Enclosures Acts were doing their worst ; the sunny, peasant -owned south was a contrast to poor land- hungry, fast-breeding England, ill-drained and aguish, where an uneducated aristocracy was driving a degenerating, disinherited populace along its fatal road to factory and mill and city slum. Yet it was France that revolted ; in England a few ricks were burned. After some stay in this pleasant country of French Navarre, the capital reclaimed our singer, and he returned : across the vast sandy waste of the Landes, desert so long that they were once thought unfit for Christian habitation, and the Court (vide Young) had considered the project of populating them with Moors expelled from Spain. Along the white sandy roads, through a world of ling and heather, gorse and broom, tamarisk and pines, past still ponds and scurfy lagoons, whence the eels, on nights of autumn tempest, find their way in the roaring dark overland to the compelling sea. Half-eager, half- regretful he must have returned, for he was leaving and returning to a home. 52 Two Southern Capitals With his return to Bordeaux his musical studies reached another stage. His master was Beck, who was to be conductor of the orchestra of the Grand- Theatre when the latter was opened (which was not until 1780): one of the leading musicians of the city. A native of Mannheim, the son of a councillor to the Prince Palatine, who was him- self a distinguished violinist, he was exiled from the Fatherland on account of an unfortunate duel. He adopted a musical career, first in Paris, then in Bordeaux, where he died, in 1809, in his eightieth year. Beck continued the work of Lamberti, teaching Garat the elements of music, and he also began to discipline his voice. Either his teaching was mostly directed to the latter end, or Garat was an indifferent student in respect of theory, for years later we find those who knew Garat well debating as to whether he could read at sight. It is true that it was the fashion, as Garat was so largely self-taught, having never studied in any famous school of vocalism or under any noted singer, to represent him as a sort of human nightingale, a singer who sang purely by instinct. This was absurd, for, as we shall see, his training, if unusual, was lengthy and assiduous. With the theory of music— which we are free to suppose he rather neglected— he also learned the clavecin, a primitive piano, or more precisely a species of harpsichord : sufficiently well, at all 53 Pierre Garat events, to accompany himself at need. But his real school was the opera, where he heard all the best singers of the day ; for in those days, ere culture had forsaken the provincial capitals and the mercantile classes, Bordeaux commanded the finest singers. Rameau, Sacchini, and Gluck were the composers most in vogue, aiid the boy, enrap- tured, never missed a representation. His delight in these performances may be gauged by his marvellous memory ; for he was soon able to sing, after hearing it once or twice, the music of an opera from prelude to finale : overture, men's parts, women's parts, choruses, instrumental passages— in short, the whole melodic score from end to end. It was now that his real schooling began : Garat was made by Garat, not by Beck. In the paternal mansion in the Rue Buhan he passed hours of almost every day alone in his own chamber, with shutters closed, the curtains drawn, the doors locked.; and there, in darkness and privacy, where neither sound nor sight could distract him, he gave his absorbed attention to every part, every aspect of his craft : breathing, resonance, timbre, attack ; singing one note, one phrase, one passage again and again until delivery and execution and expres- sion were alike perfect : trying again and again, until larynx and tongue and palate were all in just and perfect position for harmonious vibration : trying, too, all manner of experiments to discover 54 Two Southern Capitals how different qualities of voice were to be pro- duced : gaining thus an extraordinary command of every nerve and muscle, until correct singing, and even the correct expression of emotion, became almost subconscious, so that it was said of him' that none ever expressed emotion more simply, directly, and naturally. By such means he increased his control of lungs, diaphragm, vocal chords, tongue, palate, lips, nostrils, until he could at will assume a voice of any quality he desired, and could even reproduce personal peculiarities. His powers of mimicry were developed with as much pains as his natural voice. Nor was his training all done at home. When a famous singer, or one he desired to mimic, descended upon Bordeaux, Garat would be present at every public appearance of his model ; would follow him through the city, loiter behind him on the promenade, watch him in society, in salon or foyer, drinking in not only every accent, but every gesture, every aspect of the man, until he could mentally, so to speak, project himself into the other's skin, the result being that he would sing the parts taken by his model with such faith- ful perfection that his listeners, unless they saw him, were completely deceived. His voice was eventually neither bass nor baritone nor tenor nor alto, but a combination of all ; the whole gamtit of the human voice, in pitch and quality and expression, was conquered in those years of perseverance in his darkened chamber. SS Pierre Garat As the schooling achieved its object, as Garat grew toward manhood, he became known in Bordeaux as a prodigy, a marvellously gifted ataateur ; though, as he was yet in his own country, it is likely that few realized how gifted. But his powers of repetition and mimicry, no less than his higher gifts, were always in demand, and he was by no means backward in response. In the Allies de Toumy, that pleasant and favourite promenade of the Bbrdelais people, shadowed and sheltered by the splendid trees so few of which remain to-day, it was his custom, as it was the custom of all his little world, to walk of an evening, to see and to be seen ; and heire, surrounded by friends, he would sing in the open air. These gatherings were his first considerable audiences. Once, it is related, as he returned with Azevedo— a native of Bordeaux, like himself, who was later, like himself, to win fame in Paris — from the first performance in Bordeaux of Gluck's Orpheus, with Saint-Huberty ' as the leading singer, the two broke out into song, repeating passage after passage, discussing its beauty, and again bursting into song, until all sense of time was ' Mile, de Saint-Huberty was received in the South with the honours due to divinity. We read of her entering Marseilles by sea in a gorgeously decorated barge with eight rowers ; surrounded by flowers and sheltered by a silken awning ; after her three hundred boats all decorated with flags and flowers. On landing salutes were fired, and she reclined upon a sort of throne while the dignitaries of the seaport paid their homage. 56 Two Southern Capitals lost and the last loiterers had withdrawn, so that the two spent the whole night abroad singing Orpheus to the trees and stars. His audiences were appreciative. On another occasion he was singing a Gascon air, surrounded by friends, when a neighbouring group became unduly noisy, disturbing the enchanted listeners. One of his companions, one B'rochon, of a parlia- mentary family, later himself an advocate, whipped out his dress -sword and approached the offenders, threatening to transfix the first who should again interrupt his enjoyment of the singer. These informal parties were not his only audiences. 'He sang much in the salons of ■Bordeaux, accompanied by a friend, or striking chords on his clavecin ; his song some old Basque ballad or an aria from the latest opera of Gluck or Rameau. He sang, too, in the numerous concerts directed by his teacher, Bleck, the best of which were given by the Soci^t^ du Musde, of which all the cultured spirits of Guyenne were members. ^Whether Garat sang at these seems doubtful, for in 1782 he proceeded to Paris ; yet Lafond, who states that he did, gives the date of the foundation of the society as 1783. Be this as it may, he seem's to have sung in such good company as that of Saint-Huberty, Gervais, Punto, and possibly Rode ; the two latter his colleagues at a later date, when the Terror found them in, Rouen . 57 Pierre Garat But his brilliant boyhood was drawing to a close . His father, conceiving the profession of advocate as the most worthy open to a B'ordelais, despatched him to Paris to commence his reading for the Bar. The faculty of Toulouse was more generally re- sponsible for the training of the youthful talent of Bordeaux. We do not know precisely why Garat was sent to Paris, but the presence of his uncle may have had something to do with the decision : Dominique-Joseph was then a promi- nent author, crowned by the Academy, and soon to be appointed Professor of History at the Athen^um. At all events, to Paris he pro- ceeded, in his twentieth year. It was the autumn of 1782. S8 A PIERRE-JEAN CARAT. From an ckliiiti: bv L.iloml. j» ^5^«r n I '■ DOMINIQrE-JOSEPH GAKAT, COTN'T (iF THE EMPIRE. From mi cngrai'iiig. CHAPTER III THE YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY Why Garat did not become an actor — Paris in 1782 — A nation of idlers — Sensation caused by Garat's talents — Paris gossip — Aeronautics; Mesmer; Cagliostro — The golden age of France — Society in 1782 — How Paris amused itself — The Opera; the Palais-Royal; the Tuileries; the Champs Elysees &c. — Longchamps — Dancing — Garat in society — His success — To meet the Queen — The concert in the Invalides. The journey to Paris was a time of magic. To be twenty, with Paris as one's oyster, and a suc- cessful uncle as the knife : and this in the days when Paris was truly Paris I As the coach rocked and rolled across France, did Garat believe that his destiny was really to wear the ermine? It is probable. He had his excellent bourgeois pride : the comedian, the opera- singer, was still an outlaw, in some degree an outcast, even though a popular demigod and the favourite of princes. If on that journey he had thoughts of the theatre as a career, he would soon have realized, on reaching Paris, what was the true position of the actor, and what position he himself might reach ; but the world of the theatre was not unknown to him. 59 Pierre Garat We may suppose that the uncle was useful to him ; was proud of this marvellous nephew ; de- lighted to set his feet on the steps of the social ladder ; for Paris almost at once was keenly aware of his presence. But after obtaining his social footing, after presenting letters and feeling his way, we may guess that his first preoccupation was Paris herself : Paris at the height of her fame, her brilliance, her corruption. The first sight of Paris in those days was apt to be a cause of disillusion. The streets were not only narrow, but unspeakably filthy. In the dry, sunny streets of Bordeaux the substantial citizen— merchant, advocate, shipowner, or captain — walked in dignity and embroidered silks, bearing a sword or tasselled cane : as good a man to look at as any, and as good to his own thinking. In Paris the man of modest means or saving dis- position went habited in dreary black ; for the streets had no pavements, and the young bloods, dashing by in cabriolets, spattered the pedestrian with the vile mud of an unscavenged city. Worse than mud lay underfoot at times, for Paris knew no public abattoir; the herds of cattle that fed the city were driven carelessly into the narrow streets and pole-axed wherever convenient— to the butcher ; even before private houses the gutters reeked with blood and offal. At night there was darkness, save only in the resorts of society. 60 4 ^^ 2 ^ H ■S>, ^ fc'r."«. ' The Young Man from the Country The second impression which the stranger to Paris received was the immensity of the popula- tion, and its idleness. " I remember a foreigner," says Thiebault, " who, having left Longchamps (incredibly crowded) at an early hour, went through the Tuileries and found them packed with people ; tried to enter Saint-Germain I'Auxerrois, but could not ; went to pay some visits, to find that no one had left home, and finished his day at the theatre, where he had the greatest difficulty in the world to find a place. ' What a city I ' he said, ' where Longchamps, the promenades, the churches, the salons, and the theatres are all crammed at the same time, and where you find everybody in each of these places, although you would think any one alone would hold them all I ' " It was a plain sign of the times. France was dying of an excess of unproductive mouths ; Paris was the capital, and her chief business was to be amused. Life in such a city was a dizzy affair. Few men had a saner nature than Gouverneur Morris, who was sobered, moreover, by a wooden leg ; but even he complains : "A man in Paris lives in a sort of whirlwind which turns him round so fast that he can see nothing, and as all men and things are in the same vertiginous situation you can neither fix yourself nor your object for regular examination. Hence the people of this metropolis are under the necessity of pro- 6i Pierre Garat nouncing their definitive judgement from the first glance, and being thus habituated to shoot flying they have what the sportsmen call a quick sight. It is true that like other sportsmen they somte- times miss, but they have a thousand other excuses beside the want of skill." They were not long in winging Garat, and their aim was a little wide. Bachaumont, who wrote the chfonique scandal- euse of the time, has an entry under October 31st : " A young Bbrdelais named Garat, son of an advocate of the same name, and nephew of Garat the man of letters who has settled in Paris, has come to find his uncle. He is endowed with the most beautiful and marvellous voice, and there- fore hopes to meet with success in Paris. Without knowing a note of music [a mistake the young scamp was only too willing should be made] he imitates, with a perfection of illusion, the voices of all the actors and actresses, all the instruments of an Orchestra, and by himself he will execute an entire Opera. The first composers of this capital, MM. Piccini, Sacchini, Gretry, Philidor, could not credit this prodigy, and were convinced by their own ears. This unique talent has quickly made him popular among the celebrated actresses and the fashionable cocottes of the capital, and he is for whosoever will have him. He is only eighteen years old ; he is not unhandsome .... 62 The Young Man from the Country To-day it is Mme. Dugazon who has taken posses- sion of him. Those who are interested in him are vexed that he wastes himself in this way. However, before his voice and his talent are lost, as they soon will be, it is hoped he will appear at Court, and there is much talk of engaging the Queen to hear him." A little smoke, in Paris, was held to argue a large fire. A brilliant boy, intoxicated with life and his first glimpse of the world, an eager squire of equally eager dames, he may easily have seemed a greater rake than he was. At all events, it took some thirty years for his voice to disappear ; as for his talent, it never did other than increase. Well for him, perhaps, that Mme. Dugazon had assumed possession of him' ; the connection was lasting, and was like to save him from worse adventures . He was twenty, not eighteen ; he was very soon writing music ; and he came to Paris to study law. Apart from' these few discrepancies, the paragraph describes his position fairly enough. To be the talk of Paris while yet in his nonage, after a sojourn of only a few weeks, was no small triumph for a young man from the provinces. What else did Paris talk of that wet autumn? Its gossip will give us the note of the time. Hypnotism and aerial navigation « have a modern ' In the following year Montgolfier sent up a sheep, a cock, and a duck in a fire-balloon ; Des Rosiers and d'Arlands hung over 63 Pierre Garat sound ; but Paris, in this autumn of 178 2, is chattering of both. Mesmer ' is in Paris, divulging his secret to whosoever will pay him a hundred pounds ; he and his disciples are working their marvellous cures ; their salons are crowded and their purses full. Cagliostro, also, purveyor of eternal youth. Freemason and occultist, is protected by no less a personage than the Cardinal de Rohan, whose chief anxiety at present is recon- ciliation with Marie Antoinette. A Chinese cafe has just been opened ; M . d'£tienne has surprised the city by the construction of a roof -garden ; a Paris for half an hour, descending black as sweeps; and the first hydrogen balloon was successfully launched by Charles and Robert. Blanchard eventually crossed the Channel with Dr. Jeffries, an American, in January, 1785. ' Mesmer was the " discoverer " not of what is to-day erroneously termed mesmerism — that is, of hypnotism — but of "animal mag- netism." The "magnetizer" hypnotized himself as much as his patient. The process of " magnetization '' consisted in a " laying-on of hands,'' and the making of passes in a "circuit." The operator felt, by " magnetic sympathy," the condition of the patient's organs, and by means of " magnetism " drew forth the disease. That is, he hypnotized himself into believing that he felt by physical divination what was really diagnosed by his subconscious intelligence from visible or tangible symptoms. Naturally the best physician was the best diviner. As for the good done to the patient, that was a matter of suggestion. Trances occurred on occasion ; sometimes con- vulsions, and the true catalepsis ; but they were not produced intentionally. De Puysegur discovered that the best results were obtained by purposely inducing the trance or catalepsis, and then applying suggestion. A committee, of which Franklin and Lavoisier were members, "exposed" Mesmer, and his followers saw their patients fall away. 64 The Young Man from the Country gambler, one Sieur Loiret, has hurled a rich merchant over a staircase and killed him', he him- self having been discovered with the merchant's mistress, and all disreputable Paris is intensely interested in the fate of the murderer and the frail subject of the quarrel. A prince of the house of Rohan is declared bankrupt for an enormous sum, and both he ajid his wife are found guilty of extensive embezzlement. Certain ladies of the Opera are so touched by his misfortune that they beg him to withdraw the handsome " pensions " which he allows them, and to employ the money in assisting his own discharged domestics. All Paris is laughing over The Cabbage and the Turnip, a poem which has taken the place of a duel. A witty noble has lost his wealth, and with it his friends. One of these, the Abb^ Delille, has not only deserted him, but has spoken of him con- temptuously. " I cannot fight you," says the wit, " but unless you apologize I shall publish this poem." The Abb^ is obdurate ; the poem appears ; 14,000 copies are sold; the Queen knows it by heart. A still more terrible effort is held over the Abba's head, and he surrenders. Tarn Jones in London is the latest success at the Theatre Italien, with Mme. Dugazon in the leading role. A long and historic quarrel is afoot between the Parliament of Besangon, unwilling to overtax an impoverished province, and the King. All Paris is agog to read the latest news of the dispute. 6s E Pierre Garat A new dancer has come over from London : Mile. Bacelli, greatly praised; but her style turns out to be the old style. Nothing more of importance, save that various royalties are being inoculated for smallpox ; the King's youngest brother is always requiring to have his debts paid ; the Court is growing daily more corrupt and more extra- vagant ; the middle classes are growing restive at the abuse of privilege ; M . de Mirabeau's son has written an attack upon lettres de cachet, being himself in prison ; while the musical world of Paris, and scarcely lesis the greater world, is divided into two camps in respect of two musical feuds— the Gluck-Piccini feud and the Mara-Todi quarrel. Socially, it was a strange world that our young law -student found at his feet. Writing in old age, after the Restoration, men who had survived the Revolution saw it through a golden mist. " Was there ever a more wonderful period than the early years of the reign of Louis XVI ? Who did not live through the years bordering upon 1789 knows not what the pleasure of life m'ay be," said Talley- rand to Guizot ; and Chateaubriand : " He has seen nothing who did not see the pomp of Versailles." They speak, these aged relics of the ancien regime, of the exquisite urbanity of manners, the perfect elegance of life, the marvellous pageant of society. The light that never was on land or sea is not the sole prerogative of childhood. Actually, there 66 The Young Man from the Country were many flies in the ointment : much of the population of Paris lived in infected slums, in cellars, in mere holes in the ground, flooded when- ever the Seine rose or the rain fell abimdantly ; the dregs of the old criminal population of the city and the result of that stream of incompetence and degeneracy which, no less than youth and energy, sets in from the country to the capital. Thi^bault speaks of the utter hideousness of these people, exceeding anything to be seen three generations later. And they, like the courtiers, were largely idle ; they, too, amused themselves ; they, or the smarter riff-raff' of the city, no less dangerous, no more moral, were to be seen on the boulevards, the promenades, and at all but the selecter spectacles of Paris. The wealthiest could not wholly avoid the sight of them. Even the Court was not, one fancies, quite the magical world the old monarchists imagined. The " grand manner " at its best was doubtless a thing to delight in ; but it was often arrogance, insolence, bad instead of good breeding. Below the surface the corruption was frightful. This is not to say that every Parisian was a scoundrel. Scoundrelism is a matter of the con- science : the ideals of that age were so low that it was easy to live up to them, which is in a sense to be upright. Places were sold unblush- ingly ; blackmail and embezzlement were the 67 Pierre Garat foundation of many noble fortunes ; it was a selfish world, a callous world, an obtuse world — too obtuse to be often actively wicked. Without being censorious, one may say that it was im- moral ; for it professed, and in some degree believed, the old moral laws, but evaded them' privately, or, if wealthy enough, unblushingly. Marriages then more than ever were arranged ; the women were married from the convent ; both men and women inevitably looked for romance outside the home. If they did not actually engage in intrigue, they were careful to give the impression that they did so. The worst eccentricities of fashion had been abandoned, thanks to public opinion and the simpler German tastes of Marie Antoinette. The coiffure was low ; but paniers or paches gave the fashionable lady the figure of a " Hottentot Venus," tottering on impossibly high heels. Rouge and patches were de rigueuf in high circles. The men were beginning to carry the hat under the arm ; the powdered hair was held at the back in a bag ; the coat was braided or embroidered ; and the well-dressed man wore two watch-chains, loaded with innumerable charms. The bearing out of doors was stiff and haughty ; within doors " a marvellous suppleness attacked the spine, a complacent smile succeeded the severe one, and conversation was full of adulation and servility." 68 The Young Man from the Country Where did this world amuse itself? Much of the social life of Paris was lived out of doors. Ready money was not too abundant ; entertain- ment on any scale of magnificence was a terrible business. A Rohan estimated that no man of position could live on less than £60,000 a year. It was easier to keep up appearances, for those who were not wealthy, if the social existence was passed away from home; it was always less troublesome. Moreover, the promenades of Paris were the meeting-places of society, where news was exchanged and parties made up. First on the list of these fashionable resorts at which the young Garat began to appear we should place the garden of the Palais-Royal, the residence of the Orleans family. This garden was the' resort, all day, of idlers of all degrees ; in the surrounding wings were cafes, frequented by that brigade of persons with no visible means of or object in living which is found in every capital ; and booksellers' shops which published the popular news-sheets, lampoons, and ballads of the day, and were always the foci of a humming, gossiping crowd. On Sundays and fete-dsiys the world, his wife, and his offspring went thither. It was a very large garden before new buildings hemmed it in ; "to the left was a very wide and very long alley, covered with enormous trees, which formed a vault impenetrable to the sun. There 69 Pierre Garat assembled the respectable world, in very fine feathers. As for the other world, it took refuge further off under the quinconces. " The Opera was then close at hand ; it belonged to the Palace. On summer nights the opera was over at half-past eight, and all the elegant world left even before then, in order to stroll in the garden. It was then the fashion for women to carry huge bouquets, which, together with the scented powders with which all perfumed their hair, absolutely embalmed the air one breathed. Later . . . these evenings were prolonged until two in the morning ; there was music by moonlight, in the open air. Artists and amateurs, among others Garat and Azevedo, used to sing there. Others played the harp and the guitar ; the famous Saint- Georges often played the violin ; the crowd would flock thither." So Mme. Le Brun : one of Garat's first hostesses. By the following year he was sing- ing at her suppers, with Azevedo, Richer, Todi, Saint -Huberty ; while Gr^try, Sacchini, and Martini would play snatches from their forthcoming operas. But this is to anticipate. This garden of the Palais-Royal was the battle- field of the Gluckists and the Piccinists.' "All ' Piccini was the champion of the Italian school of opera and of singing ; for him the music and the singer were supreme. Gluck aimed at reducing music " to its true function of seconding poetry." Marmontel, La Harpe, d'Alembert, and Rousseau were for Gluck. Volumes were written on the subject, which attracted more notice and caused more feeling than the condition of France. 70 The Young Man from the Country the amateurs were divided into two parties, who raged against one another. There the partisans of the two composers disputed with such violence that more than one duel resulted." Here you would see the Marquise de GroUier, Mme. de Verdun, the Marquise de Sabran, the Comtesse de S^gur, and many another Parisian hostess; here supper-parties were recruited after the theatre ; and after supper there would be more music, or charades, or the reading of verse, or dancing. Next in popularity to the garden of the Palais - Royal were the gardens of the Tuileries. These were the habitual resort of the beauties of the city. Day after day you might see the same faces ; half your acquaintance would pass, and a thousand others, unknown, but at last as familiar as friends. As all went thither to see and be seen, but were not all of the same social world, nicknames were freely bestowed. Young men attended daily to gain a glimpse of unknown idols, perchance to scrape their acquaintance ; following some ravishing beauty in her peregri- nations, criticizing her for the benefit of friends or listeners, loudly, in the tone of a blase man of the world. Here, on certain days, were rows of booths, a genuine Vanity Eair ; selling gloves, laces, ribbons, books and papers, cakes and children's toys. In 1788 a Pole appeared, who in three minutes, for 71 Pierre Garat the sum of one franc, produced an admirable silhouette, cut out of black paper. He must have made a fortune but for the Revolution ; not only was the silhouette portrait popular, but this par- ticular artist was prompt and accommodating ; point out the lady of your dreams, whom you had first caught a glimpse of five minutes earlier, or followed, perchance, for half a season, and in three short minutes, after one comprehending glance, he would hand you her portrait, to be carried next your heart, beneath that beautifully embroidered waistcoat . After the Tuileries, the Champs Elys^es. Here the day began early; at six in the morning you might buy a glass of milk at the cowkeeper's tent. Here was much the same exhibition of fashion and leisure ; here, too, the young man from the provinces was to gaze upon the world of Paris, rufBe it with the rest, and eventually win supre- macy as the true arbiter of fashion, the perfect exquisite. But as yet the making of the dandy had hardly comtnenced. The Boulevard du Temple was the Rotten Row of Paris. Every day, but especially on Thursday, the alleys were full of carriages : coming and going, or stationed under the trees, under whose boughs that glittering silken world moved in a sea of laughter and perfume, plashed with the living gold of the sun or the coolness of flicker- ing shadow. Here the younger men came on 72 The Young Man from the Country horseback, continually reminding their steeds to be troublesome. Here the famous courtesans of the city came to eclipse virtue, or to exhibit their latest conquest. Birth they had not ; virtue they had not ; beauty was shared by others ; what was left but to make a wonder of their essential charac- teristic—a genius for waste? Two horses were not always enough for these ladies; four were common ; and one Mile. Renard once appeared with those four covered with paste diamonds. As for their carriages, they partook of the nature of a state -coach, and were more suited to the theatre or the carnival than for an afternoon drive. One side of the Boulevard du Temple was lined with cafes, where thickly-rouged old women gravely watched the spectacle, returning home to the dissipation of loto. One of these worthies, hear- ing that La Perouse was absent to circumnavigate the world, is said to have exclaimed, " Well, he must indeed be an idle man ! " After which she went homeward to her loto or solitaire. Here, when you wearied of mingling with the crowd, or watching from the vantage of the cafe, you might turn into the Fantoccini of Carlo Perici, to watch the latest marionette play. Later in the day the Coliseupi drew its patrons ; a vast rotunda in the Champs Elysees, where sanded alleys sur- rounded a lake, the scene of water-tournaments and the like diversions. The Coliseum included a large concert-hall, where an excellent orchestra 73 The Young Man from the Country . . . Amid an innumerable quantity of remark- able carriages there shone each year some fifty dazzling turn-outs, of which a dozen or so seemed the cars of goddesses rather than the chariots of mere mortals. The world seemed to give itself up to merriment during these three days ; but the extravagances of some of the courtesans were carried to such a point that the police were obliged to intervene, lest they should too far eclipse the great and royalty itself. Thus Duth6, the charming woman who told the Comte d'Artois ' that after eating a Savoy cake he must take tea.— du the '— was arrested, despite her influential lovers, right in the middle of the avenue and taken to Fors I'fiveque." i Her carriage had " a body decorated with doves, arabesques and other ornaments, by the most famous painter in this genre, a pupil of Boucher's, and was upholstered with sachets of sweet perfumes ; it was borne upon a gilt shell, rimmed with mother-of-pearl, upheld by bronze Tritons. The hubs of the wheels were of solid silver ; the white horses were shod with silver, harnessed with gold and heavy green silk, and— supreme indecency !— wore plumes. On this shell advanced Duthd, in tights of flesh-coloured taffetas, covered by a very transparent chemisette of organdie ; she wore a ' cash-box ' hat of black gauze— that is, it had no bottom." 2 Undeterred by disaster, a rival of this Aspasia indulged in six ' Thiebault. == Mme. de Crequy. 75 Pierre Garat played in the evening and the leading singers appeared. The stairs of this hall were the rendez- vous of all the budding elegants of Paris. Here they formed up, a phalanx of masculine critics, to stare at the women who entered or left ; here Philippe Egalite, then merely the Due de Chartres, might be seen arm-in-arm with the Marquis de Genlis. The usual tone of the criticisms lanced at passing beauty was embarrassing to the virtuous ; but the critic, after raising a cackle of laughter, squared his shoulders and felt that he, too, was a wit and a dog and a true Parisian. Not unlike the' Coliseum, and on the Boulevard du Temple, the Vauxhall garden was crowded on summer nights. It was merely an enclosed pro- menade, where people strolled by day ; surrounded by covered stands of seats, whence at night they watched a display of fireworks. The B'ois de Boulogne was then, as now, fre- quented by riders and pedestrians. But of all the promenades of Paris the most famous was Long- champs. For three days, in April, the spectacle was unmatched in Europe. " All that a vast city, a brilliant and sumptuous court, great fortunes, and extravagance limited only by the impossibility of exceeding it, all that the rivalry of the richest people and the fashions of the maddest could produce of magnificence, was to be witnessed here. 74 The Young Man from the Country . . . Amid an innumerable quantity of remark- able carriages there shone each year some fifty dazzling turn-outs, of which a dozen or so seemed the cars of goddesses rather than the chariots of mere mortals. The world seemed to give itself up to merriment during these three days ; but the extravagances of some of the courtesans were carried to such a point that the police were obliged to intervene, lest they should too far eclipse the great and royalty itself. Thus Duthe, the charming woman who told the Comte d'Artois ' that after eating a Savoy cake he must take tea.— du the ' — was arrested, despite her influential lovers, right in the middle of the avenue and taken to Fors I'Ev^que." i Her carriage had " a body decorated with doves, arabesques and other ornaments, by the most famous painter in this genre, a pupil of Boucher's, and was upholstered with sachets of sweet perfumes ; it was borne upon a gilt shell, rimmed with mother-of-pearl, upheld by bronze Tritons. The hubs of the wheels were of solid silver ; the white horses were shod with silver, harnessed with gold and heavy green silk, and— supreme indecency !— wore plumes. On this shell advanced Duthd, in tights of flesh-coloured taffetas, covered by a very transparent chemisette of organdie ; she wore a ' cash-box ' hat of black gauze— that is, it had no bottom'." ^ Undeterred by disaster, a rival of this Aspasia indulged in six '■ Thiebault. ' Mme. de Crequy. 75 Pierre Garat horses, whose harness and reins were encrusted with paste ; but " as she mounted her rolling throne she was warned that if she passed her gates in this equipage it would conduct her to prison." " I remember ... a sky-blue caleche, on which doves fluttered across trailing white clouds . . . drawn by four horses whose harness was in chiselled or embroidered silver." > It was here that people watched for Garat, in his later days of triumph, to learn the latest way of folding a cravat, the length of waistcoat for the coming season, the amount of gold that the coat might carry. For the crowd of spectators was not the least amazing part of the show. The roadway was lined with people of all conditions. " It is impossible to unite Frenchmen without exciting gaiety and a wealth of pointed sallies ; according to his condition and the opinion formed of him, every person at all known received his dose. Nothing escaped this kind of inquest : carriage, toilette, face, fortune, the manner in which the latter was acquired, conduct, reputation, career, merit, all was judged . As no consideration checked or troubled the members of this tribunal, they did not moderate their remarks, and as nothing escaped investigation, and everything was debated at the top of the voice, one might make an ample harvest there of epigrams, jests, and anecdotes ; for the unique spectacle, the incredible luxury, and the ' Thiebault. 76 The Young Man from the Country general excitement could not save this Holy Week carnival, this saturnalia of the Passion, from the popular laugh." i For excursions there was Versailles, Marly-le- Roi, Saint-Cloud, and many another park or garden. But the promenades were for summer, or the milder days of winter, and then only for thq daytime. In winter, as well as summer, the world danced ; and it danced, as it lived, very largely in public, for in these happy days the lower classes were well in hand. Those that served you, whom you therefore could not escape, were washed, shaven, powdered, and upholstered in plush and velvet, silk and gold lace ; trained to behave like automata, for next to good manners no manner at all is best ; thus they could not offend you. Those that did not serve you went in fear of the police and the troops ; it was therefore possible to disport oneself as though Paris were one's private garden ; a little thickness of skin, or an armour of pride, proof against ridicule, and you were safe from any serious annoyance. Dancers had the choice of public balls : one: in the Place du Carrousel ; Ranelagh, for the spring and summer ; Vauxhall, for the winter ; and later, in the early days of the Revolution the " Foreigners' Club," in the Rue du Mail. Ranelagh was a brilliant sight ; the lawn, sur- ' Thiebault. 77 Pierre Garat rounded by chairs, shops, and lottery-offices, was in the evening the favourite show-place of fashion- able Paris. Here, on summer nights, you might see the Queen herself, with the ladies of her Court, prominent among them the beautiful Duchesse de Guise. From nine to twelve the Rotunda was open for dancing ; and when all was over the dancers drove slowly back, in the delicious summer night, beneath the silent trees of the Bois de Boulogne, entering Paris by the Porte-Maillot. Vauxhall was a little more popular. Here, besides a few of the great world, were many of the half -world ; it was a place for mistresses rather than wives. The Foreigners' Club was more select ; subscribers were subject to inquiry ; it was open every day to men and twice a week to womien, once for music, once for dancing. After the flight of the King it was closed, as being too aristocratic. Lastly, there was the Bal des Avocats, in the Rue Mauvais-Gargons . With all these distractions for the idle, and all these idlers to distract, the study of the law had a formidable rival. We may suppose that the boy, being human, gave himself a few weeks' grace ; there was his uncle to see, letters to present^ acquaintances of the Bordeaux theatre to look up ; and then he must take a week or two to learn the ropes, to find his way about Paris. ... In the meantime, wherever he went he sang, and 78 The Young Man from the Country already was a marked man. He was not as yet the severe and impeccable artist ; full of meridian spirits and a boy's mischievous humour, he was given to vocal caricature, to mimicry, to the imita- tion of instruments, to all manner of musical monkey-tricks, which, given the taste of Paris, by no means lessened the interest in his talents. Had you been to the opera that night? Wait until the fruit is on the table ; some charming lady, of the one world or the other, will pray M. Garat toi give a taste of his quality. Nothing loth, he will sing ; give you bass, tenor, soprano, contralto, violin solo, anything you will. But wait imtil the critics get to work : you will have an example of the most admirable criticism of all— a delicate caricature of some singer's every fault, so delicate that you would swear, were you in the next room, that this was So-and-so, whose tremolo was so odiously affected ; or poor So-and-so, whose com- pass was so fine, but whose ear was so uncertain ; or Chose, whose execution would be quite toler- able if it were not that, once a week or so, his voice gives out on the upper A and resembles a cracked whistle. Get him to the piano, he will sing whole operas : Rameau, Gretry, Philidor, Piccini, Sacchini, and Gluck— above all, Gluck. Are you tired of opera ? Then ask for something simpler : he has a whole repertoire of Easque songs, which he will sing you in French if you prefer; anid all is sung so perfectly, ballad or opera or mimicry, 79 Pietre Garat that you are speechless half the time with laughter, half the time because of that lump in the throat. . . . Not bad-looking, this prodigy of a law- student ; well-made, well-poised, graceful, with a fine, nervous hand and a pretty foot and ankle ; wearing his clothes to perfection ; with a brown, impertinent, exasperating face ; eyes sleepy, the nose tilted, the chin a little receding, the faulty mouth with curiously lifted corners, not closing very well on the teeth : one of those mouths that often goes with a perfect articulation, a peculiar lightness and grace of speech. Deep in the chest, as a singer should be, with an easy carriage ; full of reserve strength, with the sound heart, the steady nerves, the elastic, well-knit vascular organ- ism that belong to the great singer and emit that influence which we call magnetism. He has sung at Bordeaux with Azevedo, Mile, de Saint- Huberty, and Punto ; you have heard them speak of him with wonder ; now they can produce him to justify their praises. Gluck has left Paris, but the other great composers must all hear him. " Where has he studied? " is the natural question. Nowhere, save for a few lessons in Bordeaux ; and he is sorry— he does not read music at sight. General amazement— to sing as no one in Paris can sing, and to know not a note of music ! Wide of the truth ; but Garat, slyly watching these eminent faces, half-proud and half-amused, says nothing to lessen the marvel. Legros, the opera- 80 p '1 /l THE PRINCESSE DE LAMBALLE. From an ciwriVi'iiiil. To /a^je p. So. The Young Man from the Country singer, is inclined to patronize. " What a pity," he drawls, " that he sings without understanding music I " Sacchini turns upon hiffi. " Without understanding music ! But I tell you Garat is music itself ! " Gr^try tells him' not to worry further about rules. " If he knew the danger of infringing some rule of art we should lose what we find so rarely, the outpouring of a happy instinct, to gain what we hear everywhere, the accents of convention." It is not long before his fame reaches Court. The Queen longs to meet this prodigy ; will the Princesse de Lamballe hear him and report? There was in those days a gay young canon in Paris, who hoped one day to be bishop. Bachau- mont tells us the story. " Wit, philosopher, gallant, courtier," he was delighted to oblige the Princess. " Under the pretext of enabling her to hear M. Garat, that astonishing phenomenon even to the most able Musicians, he obtained permis- sion to hold a reception. . . . Too narrowly lodged in his canonical quarters to receive Her Most Serene Highness, he demanded of his father, the Baron d'Espagnac, the use of the Invalides, whither were invited many Duchesses, Ladies of the Court, and gentlemen." The reception, which was held on the last day of 1782, was eminently successful, although the fact that the guests were received by Mme. Gilibert, the Abbd's cousin, who was the daughter 81 F Pierre Garat of an inspector of police, the wife of another, and sister of a third, seems to have been regarded as somewhat tactless. The Princesse de L'amballe gave such a report to the Queen that the latter, a few days later, sent Garat an invitation by M. de Vaudreuil, Director of the Queen's Household, requesting him to sing at Versailles, and asking him to choose his day and his hour. Perhaps she feared to interrupt his study of the law ! The day chosen was the I2th of January, 1783. Where Garat lived at this period— whether with his uncle or alone — we do not know : wherever it was, his neighbours must have been somtewhat surprised when one of the royal carriages, drawn by six horses, stopped at the law-student's door. 82 CHAPTER IV AT COURT— EARLY ADVENTURES To Versailles — He sings before the Queen — All doors open to him — De Vaudreuil ; La Borde and la Borde, the financiers ; Grimod — Mme. Vigee Le Brun; the evenings at the Palais- Royal ; her supper-parties — Talma ; Azevedo — Saint-Georges — Garat forsakes the law — The Roman father — Garat without resources — The Queen to the rescue — Garat given a sinecure at Court — The Italian singers — Garat's admiration for Gluck — The musical arbiter of Paris. We may judge that the drive to Versailles was nervous work. Garat had courage and assurance, impertinence if you will ; he was not without social ease, for the art of song is essentially a social art. He had not, however, yet found himself, either socially or as a dandy ; he was still the clever provincial ; the polished assurance of later years was a slow psychological growth. As often happens in the case of Garat, we may choose between two accounts of the fateful inter- view. One is that of our tattler Bachaumont, who wrote at the time and is supported by other sources ; the other that of Jal, who wrote years later. Bachaumont writes under the date of 83 Pierre Garat January 13th. Paris had spent a dull week; beyond the processional entry of the Papal Nuncio, bearing the holy swaddling-bands which the Pope had blessed and sent, as custom was, for the wear- ing of the Dauphin (who then, by the way, was about to be weaned), the city had little to talk of or to anticipate. All the better, no doubt, for Garat ; but the length of the record and the wording show that he was already a personage. We left him in his coach, speeding out of Paris behind six fast horses. It was only ten miles to Versailles ; but at Sevres, a little more than half- way, the horses were changed, and Garat no doubt stepped out to stretch his limbs and impress the loitering spectators. At Versailles he was driven to the house of the Duchesse de Polignac, then Grand Mistress of the Palace. In the ante-chamber less fortunate musicians were assembled : a com- plete orchestra, to be summoned if required ; which apparently they were not. Garat was taken directly to the salon. It was a goodly audience that awaited him : the Queen, the Comte de Provence, the Comte d'Artois, " and a host of lords and ladies," curious to see and to hear the latest sensation of' Paris. " He had not foreseen this spectacle : the pomp and majesty thereof impressed him to the point of striking him speechless and depriving him of his faculties." Alarming ordeal for a little law- student, who came to gaze and adjpaire, only to 84 MARIE ANTOINETTE. Fivm llic painliii!^ hy Mme. liga' U Bitin. To lace p, «4, At Court — Early Adventures find himself the victim' I " The Queen and M . le Comte d'Artois, who perceived his embarrass- ment, reassured him' by a welcome full of kind- ness . They encouraged him ; he recovered his ease." The Queen, with the graciousness that she could assume, if she did not always do so, re- marked that she had heard of his skill as a musician and had desired to meet him. Garat, still somewhat intimidated, replied that he feared her Majesty had been deceived : he was only a student, who sang for pleasure, but of music he knew nothing ; he barely knew how to sing : he knew only a few songs in the Southern diaject, a few Basque ballads, learned as a child in Bordeaux or among the Euskarian hills. How far was this humility genuine? Garat liked, on occasion, to produce a dramatic surprise ; from a freakish sense of humour as much as anything ; moreover, the manners of the day were more than a little servile. However that may be, the Queen was still encouraging : let M . Garat Sing his songs . Salieri, the Queen's accompanist, was waiting at the clavecin. Garat, thus encouraged, sang one of his favourite Basque or Gascon ballads, afterwards translating it into Erench ; he recovered con- fidence ; he sang others ; his success was, as usual, astonishing. If he had feared that the Court, with its superfine amateurs, would be less enchanted with his art than was Paris he was fully reassured. " But do you not know any operatic music ? " asked 85 Pierre Garat the Queen. " I have learned no operatic music, madame, for my father has not allowed me to waste my time over anything but the study of the law." Versailles was not so far from Paris but that his hearers knew precisely what this was worth. A general laugh was the result. " But yesterday, madame, I went to the opera : it was Armida that I heard there ; perhaps I remember something." Salieri, at the Queen's request, took the score and again accompanied. It was a revelation. Garat sang firstly some of the gems of the opera ; he proceeded to counterfeit the voices of the leading singers; eventually he sang, from memory, prac- tically the whole opera. The Queen led the applause : it was a scene of sincere enthusiasm ; he had exceeded all expectations, and had also been devilishly amusing. Artois, perhaps misled by his musical gymnastics into undervaluing his natural voice, intended to be complimentary. " He sang extremely well already, and when he had studied music. . . ." This was too much for Salieri, who leapt from his seat : " He study music, sire ! But he is music itself ! " Artois was not to be flurried. " None the less, I recommend him to study ! " It was after some excruciating piece of mimicry, while laughter was yet twitching at his lips, that the sense of the place and occasion came upon him suddenly. Here was he, student of law, son of the worthy advocate, the Roman father, 86 At Court — Early Adventures Dominique Garat, of the Parliament of Bor- deaux, surrounded by the great ones of the earth and . . , playing the exquisite buffoon. " My God I " he cried, with boyish frankness and enjoy- ment, " what would my father say if he could see me now ! " We are told that the Mar^chal de Duras replied : " Monsieur, we shall see that he shall have no cause to regret it " ; which might mean anything. Before leaving he accompanied the Queen, sing- ing with her, and also with Artois. In after days, in his wilder moments, even Marie Antoinette was not sacred to his genius for mimicry ; he would reproduce not only her voice, but her fault of occasionally singing flat. 'He went home to Paris famous where before he had been remarked. It was, as we shall see, a landmark in his life. According to Jal, Dominique Garat accompanied his son to Versailles, and afterwards, perturbfed at his success and its possible effects, exacted a promise that he would keep his head and assidu- ously study the law. But Jal wrote forty years after the event. -He is contradicted by Grimm', who wrote at the time, and by other sources. More- over, the exclamation, " What would my father say?" bears upon it the stamp of truth to life. It is hardly likely, again, had Dominique been in Paris all these months, that his son could have been publicly the lover of Mme. Dugazon. Possible 87 Pierre Garat it is that Dominique-Joseph accompanied the boy ; the similarity of name would account for the con- fusion ; certainly we h3,ve no reason to believe that the father was then in Paris. Socially, Garat was now fairly launched. In respect of musical society all doors were already open to him. If some houses of the noblesse had been inaccessible before, we may be sure that they now unclosed, for within a few days all Paris had learned of his success. First of the houses he frequented we should mention that of de Vaudreuil, Director of the Queen's Household, a brilliant, fascinating person- age, reputed the lover of Mme. Polignac, the bosom' friend of Artois ; according to one great lady " the only man who knew how to speak to a woman of the world." His speciality in that respect appears to have been an exaggerated reverence. Even in that age he was the type, the model of the complete courtier. Perhaps we to-day should find his manner a little flowery ; his manners, at all events, were then considered perfect. His chief fault would seem to have been a desire always to be in the limelight, always to pull the strings, if the two similes may be employed together ; he was also a trifle avaricious. It was his duty on a certain occasion to go to M . de Calonne in respect of the settlement of the latest batch of debts of the Comte d'Artois, which Louis XVI had to settle 88 At Court — Early Adventures periodically. " That matter settled," said the Comte, " let us now deal with my debts ; for I too have debts which you must pay." " And where would you have me get the money?" "That is no business of mine ; that is for you to decide." His debts were duly paid, " for the first duty of the Minister of Finance was to liquidate the prodigalities of the royal family and its favourites." If de Vaudreuil was a courtier and a parasite, he was also a generous patron. It is true that his patronage was not likely to embarrass him financially, since money fell into his hands for the asking. We shall presently see how he assisted Garat ; but for his zealous interest, indeed, so fine an artist might have made an indifferent lawyer, or would perhaps have been forced to adopt the profession of actor. At Gennevilliers, de Vaudreuil's chateau, the Comte d'Artois was a constant guest ; the two were inseparable. Talleyrand was another inti- mate ; but there is no need to cite further names, for all the Court and all that was best in fashionable and intellectual Paris was to be encountered at Gennevilliers. Two houses also frequented by Garat were those of two financiers ; the one Benjamin de la Borde, the other Jean-Joseph de La Borde ; both from the same part of France as Garat, but, in spite of the similarity of name, unrelated. Benjamin, a song-writer, the son of a Bordeaux magnate, 89 Pierre Garat every penny of her very considerable earnings . At the age of twenty she herself, despite earnest warnings, married Le Brun, also a painter, and a dissolute gambler, and again all her earnings were seized. By the time she left France, in 1789, he had squandered more than £40,000 of her making . She had already painted a prodigious number of princes, courtiers, and aristocrats, and after her marriage the young girl became one of the most popular, if one of the most informal, hostesses of Paris. The gossips of the city, aware of the large sums she was earning, and of course exaggerating them, declared that her curtains were of cloth of gold, that she lit her fire with banknotes, and burned only aloes wood. The truth was that she barely had pocket-money, and received her friends in a modest room that was her bedchamber at night. " Great ladies, great lords, notable men in literature and art, all came to this room : . . . the crowd was often so great that marshals of France, for want of a seat, would sit on the ground, and I remember the Mardchal de Noailles, very stout and very old, had one evening the greatest trouble to get up again. "... The famous composers : Gr6try, Sacchini, Martini, often played portions of their operas before the first night. Our habitual singers were Garat, Azevedo, Richer, Mme. Todi, my sister-in- law. . . . Garat above all may be cited as 92 MME. VIGEK LE BKU.V AND DAUGHTER. From the paiiiti}i« by herself. At Court — Early Adventures possessed of the most extraordinary talent ever known. Not only did no difficulties exist for this flexible throat ; but in the matter of expression he had no rival. I believe no one ever sang Gluck as -well as he. . . ." Other artists were Viotti, violinist ; Jarnovic, Maestrino, and " Prince Henry of Prussia, an excellent amateur. . . . Salentin played the hautboy, Hulmandel and Cramer the piano. . . . Mme. Montgeron was already in the first rank as pianist . . . and distinguished as a composer." In the garden of the Palais -Royal, when the opera was over, and the brilliant crowd loitered about the exit, she would make up her supper-parties, with half the Court and all the city to choose from. " The ease, the gentle gaiety which reigned at these light evening repasts gave them a charm that no gathering will ever know again. A sort of confidence and intimacy reigned among the guests ; and as well- bred people can always banish stiffness without inconvenience, it was at such suppers that the good society of Paris showed itself superior to that of all Europe." Sometimes these suppers took place in the city ; more often in Mme. Le Brun's apartment. The guests assembled about nine. Politics was for- bidden ; the talk was of letters or the incident of the day. " Sometimes we amazed ourselves by 93 Pierre Garat charades in action, and sometimes the Abb^ Delille or Le Brun-Pindare would read us some of his verses . At ten we sat at table ; my supper was of the simplest." At other times her circle would meet at a dance ; eight persons only took the floor in the stately figures of the time. At other timfes — and no doubt she met Garat then— M. de Riviere was the host : charge d'affaires of the Court of Saxony. 'Here the guests acted or sang in comedies or comic opera. " All the actors were excellent except Talma. NO' doubt you smile. The fact is that Talma, who played the lover to us, was awkward and embarrassed, ajnd no one could then have foreseen that he would have become an inimitable actor. My surprise was great when I saw our jeune premier surpass Larrive and supplant le Kain." Talma, at this time, was of Garat's age : to be precise, a year younger ; the son of a domestic servant who became a London dentist, he came from London to Paris to study under Mole, Fleury, and Dugazon ; we may be sure, then, that Garat knew him well. His public debut did not take place until 1787. Garat's mlost constant companion at this date was perhaps his fellow-townsman, Azevedo. He was, by origin, a Portuguese Jew ; he seems to have arrived in Paris about the same time as Garat ; he also was greatly admired and patronized by the Court. Although a fine artist, the taint of 94 At Court — Early Adventures the Ghetto hung about him ; the suppleness of the courtier became, on occasion, the servility of the flunkey or the insolence of the parasite ; according to Bachaumont — who, as he printed his Memoires in England, was not always careful to be accurate or considerate — he accepted a blow in public and apologized rather than fight : an exhi- bition which must have ruined any one but an actor. •His voice was a fine baritone ; his success so great that he was even compared to Garat, with whom he so often sang. The difference between the two was expressed by the Abb^ Arnaud, one of the warmest partisans of Gluck in the Gluck- Piccini campaign. " One," said the Comte de Guibert to Arnaud, " is the work of art ; the other, of nature." " Wrong 1 " cried the Abbd ; " to sing as Garat sings long study was essential, and art is as needful as nature." But de Guibert was right in this sense — that Azevedo was a singer by force of training, while Garat was a singer perfected by study. Another companion of Garat's at this date was the Chevalier Saint -Georges, the idol of half the young bloods of Paris. His father was M. de Boulogne, a wealthy Creole of Guadeloupe, a farmer -general ; his mother was a negress. He was, for a mulatto, undeniably handsome ; his physique was superb, his muscular strength pro- 95 Pierre Garat A few years earlier, at a time when he was impli- cated, on account of his position in the service of the house of Orleans, in political discussions, he was attacked by night by six men armed with cudgels, and received a terrible beating. Orleans was eager to avenge his servant ; but it was whispered that the outrage was not political ; that the assailants were members of the police, the instruments of a jealous woman. After this his admirers were envious of the privilege of escorting him. We may picture Garat as making one of the convoy ; until, not jealousy, but his growing fame, and the desire to have satellites of his own, urged him to avoid assemblies in which he could be but a secondary light. Until the December of 1782 Garat gave a certain amount of time to the study of the law. He was not a diligent student ; he was hardly a student at all ; but there was no definite deflection . Paris was too delightful to neglect ; he must see thte city first ; afterwards he could settle down. So perhaps he reasoned, if he reasoned at all. But after the presentation at Court he deserted the law entirely. What, precisely, he expected his future to be we do not know. Li^ was good; his father was wealthy. Perhaps he did not consider the matter at all. He soon had cause to do so. Dominique Garat heard of his son's success and his defection. The 98 At Court — Early Adventures boy must be pulled up, must be saved. His head was turned. To play the buffoon before Court and Queen was bad enough ; to desert an honourable calling was worse. He cut off his son's allowance. Already the boy was in debt. He was bound to wear clothes ; once equipped, once Paris was thoroughly explored, he might draw in his horns. Return to the law he would not. Music was his passion, his profession. How he expected to live by it we do not know. He would not consider the stage, although many urged him to sing in opera. Presumably his father knew he would not con- sider it, or his action would have seemed calcu- lated to force him to tread the boards. Apart from any repugnance to the law — and it is probable that he loathed it — he was already an admired and considered person : even a person of some influence. He could not become a mere schoolboy, a clerk, an apprentice, a nobody. Did he carry his troubles to the Queen? It is possible ; certain it is that she very promptly knew of them. In the meantime did his uncle help him, or Azevedo, or Saint-Georges, or de Vaudreuil, or even Dugazon? We do not know. It was de Vaudreuil who came to the rescue : de Vaudreuil or the Queen, or both. Garat was an institution at Court ; he must obviously be allowed to live . To make him a lawyer was absurd ; besides, the boy had debts. To give him money 99 Pierre Garat digious ; he excelled in every physical sport, and as a fencer was supreme. But his attainments were not merely physical ; he was, as we have seen, a remarkable violinist, whose skill drew crowds in the garden of the Palais -Royal, when his friends could persuade him to play there by moonlight. His education had been, for those days, unusually complete ; his manners were perfect ; he was, in short, a coffee -coloured Crichton. A perfect dancer, he rode like a centaur ; he was also an unrivalled skater. In the first place master of horse to Mme. de Montesson, he was at this time captain of the guard to the Due de Chartres. It was not strange that this huge, exquisite half-breed had a veritable court of admirers : not only of the opposite sex. The first school of arms in Paris was that of the famous La Boissiere ; poet and swordsman, he had taught many of the best swoxds in Paris, including the redoubtable Saint-Georges. 'His school, says Thiebault, " was the rendezvous of the best fencers . . . forming the escort, and, so to speak, the court of the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a true king- at-arms, and the first man in the world in all matters of agility, strength, and skill. You can imagine the effect he produced on me, who yielded to no one in the matter of admiration and enthu- siasm. . . . The strongest fencers in the world were all ambitious to fence with him; not to dispute 96 At Court — Early Adventures his advantage, but only to be able to say, ' I have fenced, or I fence, with Saint-Georges ! ' "... Saint -Georges had retained a very great deference for his former master, the aged La Boissiere. As soon as he had assumed his fencing costume he would stand before him to receive his lesson : a courtesy lesson, which only lasted a minute or two, but vs^hich was very curious to witness. ... I still seem to see him' and hear him call out, in his brusque tone and his great voice : ' That won't do, my children. . . . Begin that again, children I ... At the right moment . . . that's better . . . that's good. Children, that's good ! ' And you will understand how this man fascinated us, electrified us." ' ' An anecdote related by Thiebault is perhaps worth repeating for those who have not read his Mdmoires : Saint-Georges was one day watching a game of tennis. Among the players was a young noble, in the household of the King, a new-comer to Paris. Turning suddenly, he beheld, against the net, the face of the great mulatto. In a fit of youthful impertinence or insanity he threw the ball at the Chevalier's nose. A challenge from Saint-Georges appeared to amuse him immensely. He was somewhat sobered when his friends informed him that he was already as good as dead; and they proceeded to enlighten him as to whom Saint-Georges was. At the meeting he said to Saint-Georges : " Sir, I cannot defend my life against you ; but I can play you for it. Here are two pistols \ only one is loaded ; we will select them at hazard and fire point-blank at the same moment. The lucky man will blow out the other's brains; but chance will decide." After this Saint- Georges was willing to listen to his seconds, and the younger man apologized. In the wars of the Revolution Saint-Georges was a colonel of Chasseurs; but he did not serve long, and in 1801 he died in poverty. 97 G Pierre Garat A few years earlier, at a time when he was impU- cated, on account of his position in the service of the house of Orleans, in political discussions, he was attacked by night by six men armed with cudgels, and received a terrible beating. Orleans was eager to avenge his servant ; but it was whispered that the outrage was not political ; that the assailants were members of the police, the instruments of a jealous woman. After this his admirers were envious of the privilege of escorting him. We may picture Garat as making one of the convoy ; until, not jealousy, but his growing fame, and the desire to have satellites of his own, urged him to avoid assemblies in which he could be but a secondary light. Until the December of 1782 Garat gave a certain amount of time to the study of the law. He was not a diligent student ; he was hardly a student at all ; but there was no definite defection . Paris was too delightful to neglect ; he must see thte city first ; afterwards he could settle down. So perhaps he reasoned, if he reasoned at all. But after the presentation at Court he deserted the law entirely. What, precisely, he expected his future to be we do not know. Lifb was good; his father was wealthy. Perhaps he did not consider the matter at all. He soon had cause to do so. Dominique Garat heard of his son's success and his defection. The 98 At Court — Early Adventures bdy must be pulled up, must be saved. His head was turned. To play the buffoon before Court and Queen was bad enough ; to desert an honourable calling was worse. He cut off his son's allowance. Already the boy was in debt. He was bound to wear clothes ; once equipped, once Paris was thoroughly explored, he might draw in his horns. Return to the law he would not. Music was his passion, his profession. How he expected to live by it we do not know. He would not consider the stage, although many urged him to sing in opera. Presumably his father knew he would not con- sider it, or his action would have seemed calcu- lated to force him to tread the boards. Apart from any repugnance to the law — and it is probable that he loathed it — he was already an admired and considered person : even a person of some influence. He could not become a mere schoolboy, a clerk, an apprentice, a nobody. Did he carry his troubles to the Queen? It is possible ; certain it is that she very promptly knew of them. In the meantime did his uncle help him, or Azevedo, or Saint-Georges, or de Vaudreuil, or even Dugazon? We do not know. It was de Vaudreuil who came to the rescue : de Vaudreuil or the Queen, or both. Garat was an institution at Court ; he must obviously be allowed to live . To make him a lawyer was absurd ; besides, the boy had debts. To give him money 99 Pierre Garat was necessary. The only matter that called for thought was the pretext for giving. Money was always to be had at Court for those who needed it. What was the Treasury for? The way was found. De Vaudreuil, the insepar- able friend of the Comte d'Artois, had him appointed secretary to the cabinet in that prince's household. Bachaumont has an entry under the date September 19, 1783: — " M. Garat, of whom mention has several times been made on account of his singular talent, which during the last year has sparkled in this capital, has just been attached to the Court by a position as honorary secretary to the cabinet of the Comte d'Artois, which position his Royal Highness granted at the request of M. le Comte de Vaudreuil." Bachaumont's next entry speaks of the Italian singers. In this connection it may be mentioned that shortly after Carat's arrival in Paris he was introduced to the leading singers of the Italian theatres and the Italian school. He had never before heard the Italian method of vocalization in its full perfection. The result was the immediate perfection of his own methods ; it was the completion of his education as a singer. But if he learned much from the Italian school of song, he did not admit the supremacy of Italian 100 At Court — Early Adventures music. It was always a regret with him that he had arrived in Paris too late to know Gluck. Gluck's music and Gluck's principles were to him impeccable ; and he became the supreme inter- preter of the old Viennese master, though he never sang a note of his music upon the stage. It is a proof of the real soundness of Carat's taste that he so promptly recognized the old master's genius. He never treated Gluck's music to the flourishes with which he embroidered the melodies of other composers ; as much, perhaps, to add interest to their poverty of invention as to display the marvellous virtuosity of his execution. His flourishes, however elaborate, were always justly placed ; they were as natural as the trill of a nightingale or the lilt of a robin ; they expressed emotion rather than concealed it. •His taste won recognition early. Two months before the Court came to the rescue he was present at the first performance of a grand opera entitled Bayard. The public seemed inclined to a favour- able verdict ; but Garat disliked it and advised its rejection. The fate of Bayard was sealed. lOI CHAPTER V THE EDUCATION OF A DANDY The education of a dandy — The psychology of dandyism — He becomes a leader of fashion — A day in Carat's life : the Palais- Royal; the toilet; a morning in Paris; at the opera; the Trianon — Expenses of life in Paris — Debt — A new sinecure — Garat seeks his father's forgiveness — The Roman parent's reply — The psychology of vicarious asceticism — Two kinds of parasites. Of course, he was getting spoiled. Women will play with a boy who would fear a man. He has no less fire in him, but he has less audacity, more reverence, more fear, if it be merely of taking a false step. A woman might trust herself on a desert island with a boy ; not so with a man whoi knew her weakness and could read the tides of her being. And for such as had no fear of con- sequences a boy was the easier prey. So it was' that Garat was made much of, as a pretty boy whom one could pet without too greatly arousing, a censorious world ; tasting all the delights of flirtation without the dangers. But the half -world was more enterprising, and the singer was, after all, a man ; he must quickly have grown a dangerous pet. I02 The Education of a Dandy A little spoiled, then, a little dazzled, he begajn by marvelling at this bright and leisured world and then by imitating it. Birds of a feather flock together, and who would join the flock must acquire the plumage. Emerson says somewhere that " the sense of being perfectly well dressed gives a feeling of inward satisfaction that religion is powerless to bestow." As to the psychology of the fact he is silent ; but the statement contains the secret of dandyism. Exquisitely aware of self, loving himself as a young girl loves her beauty, his clothes must have meant much to him. As the mind of a lover becomes the soul of the beautiful body which he loves, so Garat's mind became the spirit of his clothes. Clothes reflect the manners of the time, but they also react upon them. At the approach of the Revolution the fashions of the ancien regime, were swept away like autumn leaves and the grand manner died. Much of the Parisian day was spent in seeing and in being seen. Our budding exquisite becomes aware that eyes are upon him. " It's Garat ! That is Garat ! " — the whisper follows him abroad. He is Garat, the unique, the marvellously gifted artist, the darling of the Court. His education as an exquisite commences. As in Bordeaux he drilled his voice, note by note, until the entire register was perfect, so now he drills 103 Pierre Garat his bearing, his gesture, his accent, his bow. His rusticity is sloughing off. There were dandies in Bordeaux. The Bordeaux magnate was luxurious as to material ; his silks and satins were of the best, his linen of the finest, but his comfort was dear to him. Our eyes might fail to differentiate between him and the complete Parisian ; but a provincial upon coming to Paris would soon become aware of his defects. The fashions of twenty years ago are to-day well-nigh incomprehensible ; we could hardly tell shop-girl from duchess were each arrayed in her best. They are hideous to our eyes, and unmean- ing. But when they were current they were not merely tolerable ; they were an open book, in which we could read the wearer's social position and character and wealth. Now we have forgotten the language. The fashions of a decade ago are as absurd as another nation's conventions ; but the man who has lived with those conventions forgets their absurdity ; to him they are the stuff of morality. So the fashion we are used to is the alphabet of beauty. Garat was learning this new language. That subtle thing called style would dawn upon him more and more completely, becoming at last the language of something well-nigh sacred. He would become aware of his rusticity as a man convicted of sin; the tailor mlist heal him. 104 The Education of a Dandy Garat, being an artist, had much of the woman in his nature : the love of his own beauty and vitality ; the love of the sunshine of approval ; the fastidious shrinking from criticism and hostility. He was also acutely sensitive to all the subtle effects of clothes. Moreover, even a Frenchman may be something of a snob. The Court, the great nobles, the society of Paris : these in Bordeaux were mere legends. Even to his lucid Gallic mind the idea of a great and powerful prince must have been impressive. And of a sudden he was petted by the great ones of the earth : according to the old ideology, the greatest of the earth. It must have been a trifle overwhelming at the outset. But as the education of the dandy proceeded, as the curious spiritual pride which comes of a carefully wrought and considered physical envelope was evolved and intensified, as he found himself a marked and envied man, he would feel that he, too, was somebody. The very fact that he had no historic name, no legendary apparatus to impress his fellows, would cause him to empha- size his individual self. He was not a Rohan or a Cond^ ; let him then at least be Garat. So came arrogance ; so, in part as a defence, an exquisite impertinence. I have seen a peacock erect its glories and commence the dance of court- ship when regarded by a bird of an alien species. Garat was eyed very understandingly by females los Pierre Garat of his own species. He peacocked, therefore, ever more proudly. The love of admiration has a sexual basis, in birds and in men, and Garat was both a man and a peacock. The love of a brilliant actress ; the kindly friend- ship of great ladies ; the interest of powerful courtiers and of princes : these also filled him with the pride of life. And presently, as he became known as the musical arbiter of Paris, who could make or damn an opera, the envying youth of Paris began to admit his supremacy. The French mind has always possessed a great capacity for creating demigods : witness Robespierre ; witness the history, the resur- rections, of the Napoleonic idea . The youth of Paris were used to worshipping the successful actor while they scorned him. Garat they could not presume to scorn. When he found others imitating the folds of his cravat, the set of his hair, the very peculiarities of accent or carriage, his initiation as a dandy was complete. A solemn responsibility, a kind of consecration, was laid upon every detail of his person and his conduct. And this was a boy of twenty-one I Small wonder if he was a little spoiled ! It is a tribute to his character that we can accuse him of no really offensive impertinence, no ill-natured arro^ gance. No one slapped his face or challenged him. Men obviously liked and admired him, if io6 The Education of a Dandy few were very intimate ; Rode and Boieldieu were evidently strongly attached to him ; his uncle even, with all an uncle's privileges and temptations, speaks always kindly and even admiringly. The truth is probably that a keen critical faculty and a mordant sense of humour saved him, as a rule, from serious fatuity. What was a day in his life in this his twenty- first year? Overnight he was late at the Palais-Royal, where the torches that flared by the singers cast a fitful glow upward on the leaves of the plane-trees ; to those, who loitered below the sudden -flapping leaves glowed golden or faintly green upon a sky of the jettiest black, or in shadow hovered black as iron upop a depth of a wonderful deep blue. The light fell also on the moonlit fagade of the vast Palace, touching it to a mellower gloom' about the lighted windows ; moving stealthily, like a sudden flash of darkness, on the unlit, moonless wings, the shadow of singer or player passed huge as a cloud ; a keen eye saw it faintly overhead (for the light lingered imperceptibly in the breath-laden air) as a vast Brocken spectre. Overhead in the blue a shield of silver, and one dim star, and the shifting, diminishing shafts of the central glow ; beneath, like a bed of dim yellow flowers, the sea of faces, the eyes here and there gleaming as drops of dew in a garden ; here and there, too, like a brighter 107 Pierre Garat blossom, the red or gold or yellow of silk or satin or velvet. High over the murmur and hiss of voices, and the distant click of glasses, rang Garat's tenor, pathetic as a violin ; or the violin, human as a voice, played by a great mulatto, gorgeous in silk and gold ; or mingling with the two, like the graver notes of a 'cello, Azevedo's bass, weaving a fabric of lovely sound. When they broke up the opera was not half dis- cussed ; and Garat must walk with Saint -Georges to a certain house, for a mtouthful of late supper and more song; for Mme. Dugazon was to be there after her evening's triumph, and he must escort her as far as her lodging. So to-day he rises late, thankful for a delicious cup of coffee and another delightful day. . . . He washes luxuriously, admiring his strong, delicate hands, the supple wrist, touched with a jetty down. . . . He ought to play the violin instead of the clavichord : it shows the fingers better. . . . He powders his hair with a perfumed powder, dresses it in the " pigeon-wing " mode ; and lastly ties it at the back in a silken bag ; he dons the shirt of snowy lawn, the tight silken breeches, the white silk stockings, and the shoes with golden buckles ; the cravat achieved, it is the turn of the poplin waistcoat, with its pattern of rich embroidery ; now he adjusts the sword until it hangs at the admired angle, and finally assumes the coat : with full, square skirts, a snugly-fitting waist, wide cuffs, io8 The Education of a Dandy and porcelain buttons. Then, being satisfied with the sheen of stocking, the sit of breeches, the fall of waistcoat, and the hang of coat, he places his three-cornered hat carefully upon his head, and is ready for the future. Out in the sunlight he picks his way ; carefully, down the quieter streets, for it rained in the early morning ; looking up now and again, from placing his slender feet — what good fortune that it is a pleasure to behold them, since he must walk so warily !— lat the diamond- paned casements of the old frowning houses, whose eaves nearly meet overhead ; there is only a blue river of dazzling sky ; you would think nothing could be brighter until a pigeon wings across, the sun catching the snowy plumage under the wings. . . . After nine full hours of silence, he longs for speech, for by adoption and his mother's blood he is a Gascon ; so he strolls down the Avenue du Bois, very erect, very haughty, since here already one meets da moitde, his face quite pure of expression, save perchance of an austere vacuity, until he reaches the triangle of pavement, sur- rounded by Tronchin chairs, between the Avenue, the Arc de Triom'phe de I'Etoile, and the RUe de Presbourg. Here is the Club des Pannes, the chief temple of Parisian gossip, whose deity is Rumour. Primed with the latest scandal, happy because his cravat has been admired, pleased and annoyed because De X has copied his buttons — he will have to get a new set, and they were 109 Pierre Garat costly — he saunters on to the Bois, where the tiders are chiefly masculine ; but a few carriages go by, and the crowd of strollers is already dense. Up the long ride, flashing blue and golden in the sun, gay against the sombre trees of the horizon, comes a group of horsemen ; Saint -Georges goes thunder- ing past, with a cavalcade of friends ; they pull up, ride back and halt, the horses fidgeting. They have been to the swimming-school ; the fencing- school ; now they are for Versailles — ^or who was it said tennis ? Garat should play tennis ; why doesn't he? he is the very build. Garat has no intention of playing tennis ; he might not excel, and he prefers to excel. . . . They are off, with gay cries of salute ; Garat replaces his hat, and returns idly. An old Basque song is haunting him ; he has turned the words into French, but a rhyme evades him', pest upon it ! Well, the rhyme can wait : these are those verses of his own ; Dugazon liked them ; how would the air go? He turns out of the Bbis through the busy Porte de la Muette, humming as he goes ; up the Avenue Bois de Boulogne^ oblivious of the stream of returning loungers ; passing the Club des Pannes without noticing a waving hand ; and at last, as he enters the Champs Elysees, the air is complete ; in the open space he sings it under his breath, and is content. . . . The walk ha;s given him an appetite ; he buys a g\a.&s of milk at the tent. And here, by good luck, is Azevedo, no The Education of a Dandy from a morning's work at his new part. He must have Carat's opinion ; Garat must hear his great aria. Garat Hstens, as they walk toward the Tuileries ; they stop at a cafe, and sit outside in the sun. Garat watches as well as he listens; if Azevedo does not cure himself of one or two little mannerisms, he will sooner or later regret it, fot he, Garat, will mimic them . . . and before a certain lady. Well, and shall they lunch together? No; Garat has an appointment. . . . Till to- night, then, at the Palais. . . . Dugazon awaits him very much at ease, in a ravishing peignoir of transparent chiffon. The lunch is so-so ; it does not matter ; he is genuinely in love. She, too, is full of the new opera. Azevedo has the loveliest aria. . . . She sings a bar under her breath ; Garat continues . . . . Now, how did he know? For until to-day not a soul saw the score . . . yet he has the thing note -perfect. . . . Garat loves a mystery ; he teazes her. Then to her dressing-room, where she changes. . . . She is full of the trials of life . . . she wishes she were not married. . . . Garat is still in love, but he is not sure that he regrets the marriage. . . . She drives him as far as the Palais-Royal, having to pay a visit ; he buys a paper in the garden, and lingers a moment by the sundial, but the crowd is too mixed. . . . ■What shall he do? There is a concert ... or they say the marionettes are good this week ; the III Pierre Garat patter is wickedly clever in respect of poor Delille. . . . No, he will see Gr^try. Grdtry is hammer- ing at a piano littered with manuscript music. Garat is of all men the most welcome ; he comes like an angel, with an angel's voice. Let him try the new solo ... it has never yet been sung. . . . Three hours of strenuous singing, the room gradually filling ; Piccini looks in at last, and the eternal abuse of Gluck recommences. . . . Garat escapes. He dines, and calls upon Mme. Le Brun ; she begs him to sup with her that night, and asks his opinion of her latest pictui-e. He does noit stay long ; there are too many English, who do not seem to know who he is. . . . Home to change ; then he drops into the Palais -Royal once more ; a new lampoon is out ; he settles down, on the edge of a crowd of acquaintances, to wait until the hour of the opera. He takes his place at the entry and watches the entering crowd ; d'Artois strolls up with de Vaudreuil ; the one genial, the other exquisite ; de Chartres and de Genlis swagger by, the coppery Orleans features flushed with drink. It is a gala night. The Prince stops. What does Garat think the chances of the opera? Is it true that he has heard the music? Garat avers, gravely, that the music is good ; the opera should be a success ; it is not Gluck, but there are beauties in it. A dozen listeners spread the news like an infection ; he has made the success of the pieoq before it has 112 MME. DUGAZON. (As Xiiia in Folic pour I'mnour.) Front a litJiograpli in colour. To face p 112, The Education of a Dandy been played ; composer and artist will go home happy, and to-morrow their creditors will look up certain debts they had almost written off as bad. As the overture commences he strolls to his box ; sitting well forward, grave, collected, with languid eyelids ; gently nodding with approval, or waving time with one slender, nervous hand. After the great aria, in the third scene, he softly, inaudibly claps his hands, and the house thimders applause. He strolls behind the scenes in the interval ; past the dancers' foyer, a crowd of muslin dancers and silken citizens ; by Azevedo's door the director, beaming, greets him' ; de Chartres passes, with a pretty young girl on his arm. . . . Azevedo is nervous ; his great scene is to come ; but Garat leaves him happy ; he is always cheerful, with the deep cheerfulness of immense vitality. He returns to the theatre ; you can no longer hear behind the scenes, the setting of the Temple scene creates such an uproar ; in the theatre a great lady beckons with her fan, and he seeks her box. . . . When all is over he escorts her to her chair; Mme. Le Brun is soon dis- covered ; the night is chilly, so they go straight to her apartment, a party of eight or ten. After supper Garat must sing ; and, singing, he reviews the opera, criticizing it by the medium' of mimicry ; it is kindly enough, but pitilessly true . . . it is a tearful party that endeavours to sober down while a poet reads his verses .... He must 11.3 H Pierre Garat leave early, for at another house he will find Dugazon ; in these days twice a day is not too often to meet her. . . . The moon is out again as he sees her to her door, but is clouded as he goes at last homeward, down the middle of the wider side -streets, the handle of his sword loosened in its scabbard, humming below his breath the old Basque song, for the rhyme he sought hais! been found at last. . . . Other days, and they were many, were spent at Versailles. Nominally, he gave the Queen lessons ; actually, he was a favourite ; one of those beings, half-courtier and half-friend, who may be permitted to see royalty off its guard and share in its moments of distraction. They sang often together ; the Queen, whose tastes were simple, loved the old Basque songs which he had learned in the villages about Ustaritz. In the shadowy park of the Trianon they wandered on sunny mornings ; Marie Antoinette dressed more simply than any of her ladies-in-waiting ; conversing, singing, dancing on the lawns, gathering flowers, or watching the carp among the lily-stems. Or the afternoon was spent in the new Trianon Theatre, a delightful little building, a casket of rose and white, where Apollo, on the ceiling, led the Muses across the clouds of heaven. Here Garat sang his favourite airs from Gluck, the Queen serving as accompanist or joining him in the duets ; his audience the King, Monsieur, 114 The Education of a Dandy d'Artois, de Vaudreuil, Esterhazy, Guiche, with the ladies Guiche, Polignac, Polastron, and a score of others, bearers of historic names, many of whose houses were open to him, for he was a general favourite personally, not only for his perfect voice. It is not probable, however, that he made one of the dramatic society which so often per- formed in this theatre ; his birth was not suffi- cient ; and had that obstacle not existed, there is reason to believe that he might have distrusted his own powers of acting. Garat was not a man willingly to appear at a disadvantage. The education of our dandy was proceeding apace. He was not only the arbiter of musical taste ; he was becoming, in every sense, " the fashion." This was an affair that called for money. Mme. Le Rrun might achieve a social success no less than her artistic triumph ; and, winning it, might wear a simple robe of muslin or of linen, or, for that matter, a painter's pinafore. She was a painter, and a woman, and the painter was permitted such licence. Garat was half-way between the Court and the stage ; for him fine feathers were a necessity of life. The society he mixed in did not set him the example of economy. The Princess de Guemen^e- Rohan, bankrupt, like her husband, owed £2,400 to her shoemaker alone ; another Rohan, the Cardinal, paid over £4,000 for an embroidered IIS Pierre Garat alb ; M . de Montmorin was indebted to his tailor to the extent of £7,000. If Garat had not to maintain the position of such persons as these, he had at least to rival Azevedo and his colleagues, Saint -Georges and his followers, and outshine the mob of actors and singers, spoiled favourites of fortune and the Court. Moreover, as a leader of fashion, the tailors, shoemakers, breeches -makers, hosiers, and haber- dashers of Paris would comijjete for his custom by the time-worn method of offering unlimited credit ; and having him well in their toils would commence to make his life a burden. The salary of a secre- tary to the cabinet of the Comte d'Artois was in- sufficient to meet such demands. More money he must have ; and, as usual, it must be the nation's money ; the patron of art — financiers were an honourable exception — preferred to be the instru- ment rather than the fount of patronage. Again de Vaudreuil came to the rescue, after consulting with Marie Antoinette. In the June of 1784 a certain Sieur Morel, connected with the Opera on its literary side, had been appointed Administrator-General of the Royal Lottery of France. In September of the same year the lottery was further burdened by three annual " pensions," each of £240 : one in favour of Garat, one for friend Azevedo, and one for Louet, whose skill at the clavecin was admired by the kindly Queen. 116 The Education of a Dandy This further sum did not always suffice ; twice, in the years imtnediately before the Revolution, Carat's indebtedness reached a crisis, and on both occasions his debts were settled by Marie Antoinette. He was then more than singer to the Queen' : he might fairly call himself a friend ; his affection and respect and gratitude were deep and sincere ; to the end of his life he looked back on the days spent beside her as the happiest he had known. Scandal, aware of his reputation with women, and eager, in later days, to blacken a woman so cruelly destroyed, declared him her lover ; but there is no reason why we should accept the suggestion. We can hardly believe that Mme. Dugazon did so, who endangered her head by her public avowal of loyalty ; this was hardly the action of a jealous woman. Of course, it is possible to retort that she may have been incapable of jealousy ; but why champion her at the expense of the Queen? It was after the bestowal of this second sinecure that Garat, once more breathing the air of Paris freely, able to give himself entirely to the life he loved, proud of his success and the practical recognition it had won, approached his father with a view to reconciliation ; a little, perhaps, for the pleasure of proving him wrong. There is no doubt, however, that Garat loved the sturdy parliamen- tarian, and had suffered from the estrangem'ent . Dominique Garat 's reply was worthy of the 117 Pierre Garat ornament of a Roman forum : " I am not unaware, my son, that in degenerate Rome ballad -singers and actors were the favourites of emperors." It was a harsh reply ; but human. It is difficult to realize, in these days, the scorn, hatred, jealousy, and contempt with which the steady -going bourgeois regarded the actor. He, the merchant, banker, or advocate, had to serve long years of apprenticeship, to live cleanly and toil unceas- ingly, and was fortunate if he won a position of some dignity and ease ; it was bitter to see the nobles who bled him, despised him, insulted him, and blocked the way to all national service, making much of mere empty-headed rogues who came from God knows where, lived evil lives, and for all merit had a trick of mouthing and posturing. As for their women ! Moreover, the actor might at any moment be haled off the stage to prison, and the brand of prison, in an unjust world, was never effaced by mere innocence. Garat's father was not peculiar. It is possible, of course, that he did not realize the boy's own dislike of the stage. It is possible that he had believed it so impracticable that the boy should continue penniless and without a profes- sion that he regarded an immediate surrender as inevitable, probably thought the threat sufficient. But there was no surrender. Garat was expected to play the part of the Prodigal Son. If now and again he consorted with swine, he was not reduced ii8 The Education of a Dandy to the husks they had eaten ; but fared with them sumptuously upon wholesome diet. Never was prophet of disaster more disappointed. There is temp^ in the laconic reply. Finding that he was wrong, he could not give in. He was an upright man and a man of his word. The " man of his word " will cheerfully see himself proved wrong, will see himself the author of tragedy and disaster ; but what he said he will perform. In this case, however, the tragedy was lacking. The man whom life has defeated seeks to live again in his children, and this time to succeed. His son's follies are dreadful to him ; they fill him with rage and despair ; it is as though one stole his own long-deferred opportunities. The success- ful man, except in the grip of mental or physical decay, is more concerned that his son shall not disgrace him. Dominique Garat was successful ; it is probable that this was his attitude. Yet, in the younger man's place, it is probable that he, Dominique, would gladly have followed the same path. Garat's love of his art was pro- found, and he was its unapproached master ; he was, moreover, feeling his way to the writing of songs. To him the course he took can hardly have seemed a short cut to the Pit. But it was impossible for Dominique to see with a young man's eyes. Few of us can escape from the moment and ourselves of the moment. 119 Pierre Garat The grandmother, to whom exertion is dangerous and noise a pain, commends her granddaughters to silence and a measured bearing as to a moral duty. The old man who shrinks from' new experi- ence, having barely sufficient vitality to meet the demands of his environment, condemns the nomadic nostalgia of the boy, counselling an office-stool and an early bedtime. The old debauche takes refuge in snarling scandal, condemning a natural licence, even a healthy freedom ; or seeks consolation in religion ; the future is no longer full of imttiinent promise, so he turns to those who exploit his plight, offering, upon conditions, a future free of physical disabilities. The old, when they have not the detachment and the honesty to know that they regret the delights of physical life, are meanly, if unconsciously, jealous of the young. Rare indeed is the man who can take his stand on the experience not of his own persoh, but on that of the race ; who can admit that he is chiefly thankful for those moments of violent joys, of fugitive and unprofitable delight, when the tide of life was at its fullest. The object of life is to live, but we conceal the truth with many words, although the civilizations and religions of the world are based upon this rock. So, with wry faces, we condemn youth for drinking the cup whose refusal were a sin against youth and life. If Dominique Garat was partly right he was certainly largely wrong, after the fashion of 1 20 The Education of a Dandy humanity. Perhaps Carat's life was happier and more beneficial as he lived it than it would have been had he helped to clog and complicate exist- ence as an advocate. He lived by the joys of others, not by their woes ; a distinction, however, that has always been held discreditable. We give the name of parasite so readily to those who purvey the pleasant things ; and thereby we make them ignoble and taint the pleasure of life, since only the philosopher and the religious can stand against a bad name. Yet the true parasite is he who sucks the blood of the perplexed and afflicted, and weaves his web to snare their feet. Garat, how- ever, overcame the poison of scorn ; not as philo- sopher, but as religious ; for the artist is the devotee of beauty, and the dandy the worshipper of beauty and the human self. 121 CHAPTER VI THE END OF THE OLD PARIS. A VISIT HOME Garat and the theatre — The Italian singers — Mozart — Garat's first concerts — Society in Paris before the Revolution — Its morality — " Sensibility " — Cagliostro — Freemasonry — Manner and manners — More Parisian gossip — Garat visits Bordeaux — Beck — The benefit concert — A reconciliation — The end of a period. The years between 1784 and 1789 were the happiest of Garat's life, and in some respects the most brilliant. As befits a happy period, their history was not remarkable. Two years after the scathing rebuke administered by his father, the singer paid a visit to Bordeaux ; he efifected a reconciliation, was feasted and admired to his heart's content, and returned to fresh triumphs in Paris. During these years he became a Free- mason ; twice he ran into debt, to be rescued by the Queen herself ; for the rest, he went his way ; always a student, always a sincere artist ; but otherwise lounging, tattling, posing, making love, and always talking and making music ; the modern Orpheus, the prince of amateurs, the darling of the Trianon, the Brummel of the city. 132 The End of the Old Paris Much of his day was spent at the theatre or among persons and things theatrical. Every evening saw him in his loge or fauteuil: sometimes at the Comedie, often at the Opera, most often at the Com^die-Italienne. He never tired of hearing these marvellous singers : the tnale soprani, now only names — Farinelli, Cafarelli, Orsini, Bernachi ; the rivals, Todi and Mara, whose respective merits at one time aroused a storm of partisan feeling comparable to the battle of Gluckists and Piccinists ; Mengotti, Gabrielli, Grassini ... all wonders of virtuosity, professors of // bel canto, products of a childhood of arduous training. But if he admired their skill, if he listened with delight to the operas of the Italian school, he was never in doubt as to the supremacy of Gluck, and when the genius of Mozart had at last obtained a hear- ing in Paris Garat was one of the first to realize the true calibre of the ill-fated German. He came to Paris too late to meet Mozart ; unhappily, perhaps, for the latter, who, after a childhood of amazing brilliance, had been expelled from the paternal roof for presuming to fall in love. Sent to Paris with his mother, he found himself that tragic figure, a prodigy grown up and forgotten ; before the fight was won his beloved mother died, and three years before Garat left Bordeaux Mozart had returned miserably to Salzburg. As it was, Garat played a considerable part in making him known to the Parisians, singing his operas at Court 123 Pierre Garat or in Paris, and winning a particular fame for certain airs out of Don Giovanni. He had never yet sung in public ; his position and his traditions made it impossible. He did, however, appear at certain private concerts ; the famous Concerts Spirituels of the Court, where he sang, not for the first time, in company with the superhuman Saint-Huberty. Did he sing also at the Caveau? It is almost certain ; we know that Azevedo did so. The Caveau was a kind of academy of song. It had been originally founded, in 1729, by a grocer-poet, Gallet, who gave weekly musical dinners at the back of his shop ; it was afterwards transferred to the Cabaret Landelle in the Rue de Buci, at the sign of the Caveau: whence the name. Famous before the mid-century, it a,ttracted the attention of the nobility ; for some reason trouble ensued, and the meetings were abandoned. In 1759 they recommenced, and were so successful that the Revolution merely caused their temporary suppression. It is probable also that he was often a guest at the Chateau de la Muette, near the gate of that name, in Passy, where Mme. Filleul was hostess of a brilliant circle, including both the Cheniers, Pastoret, Pange, and others. Were we required in a phrase to describe the principal pursuits of Parisian society in the years 124 The End of the Old Paris before the advent of change, we might reply, with a fair show of justification : scandal, the theatre, and intrigue. Gallic society has always assembled mainly for the purpose of speech, and in a period of easy morals the chief purpose of speech is to talk scandal. It must be so, unless the laxity of morals be sanctioned by an easy philosophy ; and in the years we are considering the old sanctions were still sufficiently admitted — in practice if not in theory — to give a piquancy to transgression. Laxity of life, the criticism of that laxity, and the theatre : they made a natural trinity. The theatre assisted laxity, profited by it, criticized it, expressed and exalted it. For many centuries France had relegated to celibacy those who felt no early vocation for the domestic life. Thereby she extirpated, bred out of the race, not only many natural celibates, but many who, by the accident of self-control, or tem'- perate blood, or a shrinking from the ugliness of life, or a superabundance of unselfish enthusiasm, or a mere lack of wealth, were set aside before they had realized their own natures. The natural result was to make natural temperance a some- what unusual characteristic. Moreover, the French family continued to control the marriage of its members . Marriage was not by inclination ; naturally, therefore, it often entailed repug- I2S Pierre Garat nance ; naturally romance was shy of the domestic hearth. At a period somewhat earlier than that we are considering a wave of " sensi- bility," of romanticism of a kind, produced a new literature and a new vital atmosphere. It was not strange, therefore, that many members of a leisured, highly-nourished aristocracy made roman- tic or venal intrigue the serious business of life. So general was illicit love that irregular connections were almost respectable. Had they been openly and generally regarded as respectable, half their charm had evaporated. Here, then, the function of scandal : a criticism that gave the transgressor a sense of transgression, of unlawful liberty, with- out alarming his conscience. So general, that a lady who had no lover, who perhaps desired none, would take unlimited pains to appear to have one. As for the men, they were permitted any folly, any monstrosity of extravagance. To ruin oneself for a cocotte was then, as later, a passport to, circles of the highest ton . As for expense of time : the Marquis of Villeroy, in order to visit his mistress unquestioned, dressed himself in the apron and cap of a lemonade-seller, and every morning bore a cup of chocolate to Mile. Duboscq of the Comddie-Frangaise . This system of morality — for it almost amounted to a system — had one good and healthy result : the free and unrestrained intercourse of the sexes in. society. At a time when in England the women, 126 The End of the Old Paris of an evening, sat primly massed at one end of the drawing-room, and conversation was a lost art, the Frenchwoman, without loss of caste or self- respect, might receive callers at any hour of the day ; in her salon, her bedchamber, her dressing- room, or even her bath. The- latter habit was innocent enough. It was and is the custom on the Continent for the bather to wear a sheet ; and many ladies bathed in an opaque mixture of milk and water. The artificiality, arrogance, and narrow self- satisfaction of an earlier period had evoked the inevitable reaction. If Lavoisier, Laplace, and others were earnestly inquiring into the true nature of the world and its inhabitants ; if Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and Mably were inquiring into the nature of society and the validity of its sanctions, so, too, the veriest worldling went through life with open eyes and ears. It was an eager, curious, receptive age ; the Parisian liked to call himself the New Athenian, for ever seeking out some new thing. The result was not, as might have been hoped, a spirit of lucid inquiry, but a readiness to believe without question, and an orgy of " sensibility." Elegant aristocrats talked, quite insincerely, of the return to nature ; rather more sincerely of the beauties of nature. Marie Antoinette, at the Trianon, wore simple " shepherdess " dresses of 12/ Pierre Garat muslin, and erected a dairy whose utensils were of Sevres porcelain ; great ladies bore beribboned crooks ; hats and coiffures were a ta hergere, a. la laitiere ; the fite champHre, with its deliberately simple delights, drew people to meadow or forest or park ; and this highly sophisticated, satiated, worldly society delighted in and wept over tales of the innocent loves of children, of pseudo -classic nymphs and shepherds, or of quite impossible savages. The world looked backward over its shoulder, and saw perfection. In the beginning was the golden age, when all were equal, all vir- tuous, all beautiful, all happy. In the beginning men were truly wise ; even as lately as the days of Greece there were philosophers whose wisdom had never been approached. If we would be wise and happy, we should seek to re-enter the past. It is as difficult to-day to read Emile or La Nouvelle HHoise as it is to wade through Pamela or Sir Charles Grandison or Clarissa Harlowe. But the Frenchman of those days not only read these in- terminable, inflated, super-sentim^ental productions ; he revelled in tHem, wept over them', raved over them, recited them. " After the first few pages," says Thi^bault, " I was in delirium. Indeed I did not read, I devoured the book. The days were not enough ; I employed the nights in read- ing ; and from emotion to emotion, from amaze- ment to amazement, I arrived at Saint-Preux' last letter, no longer weeping but crying, bellowing 128 The End of the Old Paris like an animal ! It was three in the morning. . . . I was frightened at the state I was in ... it was impossible to sleep ... it was a week before I dared to resume the last volume of this book, which I could only finish by reading half a page or a quarter of a page at a time. . . ." This was the effect of the Nouvelle Helo'ise on a boy ! So far the love of simplicity, of nature, of simple virtue was purely a literary pose. At first sight Freemasonry seems to have little connection with this pose. But one of the great popularizers of Freemasonry was Cagliostro ; and in his hands it professed to reveal not only the secrets of nature, but the wisdom of the past. Blind to the future as to the present, the inquiring mind could turn only to the past ; and astrology, occultism, mag- netism, and the like seemed to be so many magic doors whereby the initiate might attain a short cut to wisdom. The trouble with society at large was simply that it had grown too intelligent, or at least too inquiring, for the pitiful amount of knowledge at its disposal. It thirsted for more and had not a notion how to obtain it. Cagliostro was in Paris during the years we are chronicling ; the affair of the Diamond Necklace was the beginning of his downfall. He had, however, left his mark : he was the introducer of hypnotism and he increased the popularity of Freemasonry.' ' Cagliostro was the first of the many charlatans who have brought hypnotism into disrepute. A valuable aid to mental discipline 129 I Pierre Garat As Garat was a Mason, a brief description of the masonic movement in France will be in place. The old " operative " masonry — a kind of syndicalism, akin to a vast guild or trades union — was extinct upon the Continent. The new " speculative " masonry dated from' 1725. The first lodge in Paris was founded by Lord Derwentwater. The " mystery," at first an amusement of the nobility, was put to Jacobite uses ; it soon became suspect in other ways ; Louis XV and the Pope sought to suppress it, and the Jesuits to capture it. A wild confusion of Dresden rituals, Scottish and the cure of many nervous and mental diseases, it was employed by him to mystify, amaze, impress, and control. Cagliostro had travelled in various Oriental countries where the uses of hypnotism are understood. How far he employed it in the affair of the Diamond Necklace, if he did so employ it at all, we shall never know ; certain it is that the hypothesis would explain much that is obscure. We do know that he worked many remark- able " cures " ; also that apparently sane persons related the most stupendous marvels in respect of his feats of occultism, and were able to believe, for example, that his beautiful young wife was sixty years of age. All this smells of hypnotism dishonestly used. It is almost impossible to set limits to the power which a skilful and dishonest hypnotist might obtain. Once a victim has been reduced to catalepsis, the condition of trance may instantly be reproduced by the use of a signal, a word, a bar of music. Anything suggested to the cataleptic will be seen, felt, or heard with all the vivid detail which the subliminal mind bestows upon a dream. The writer has found it possible, by a process not generally known, to enable the subject to remember such a trance as an actual experience. It is also possible to produce a kind of waking trance in which all that is suggested is seen, and remembered later. Hence, probably, the astonishing success of Cagliostro, who, but for his connection with de Rohan, might have proceeded from triumph to triumph. 130 The End of the Old Paris rituals, Rosicrucian elements and the like, was still further complicated by Cagliostro, the Grand Cophta of the Egyptian system, his own contribu- tion to the " craft." Other charlatans followed suit, and Freemasonry became such a pasture of rascality that the Mot de Semestre or biennial password was introduced, for the purpose of elimination. At the time Garat arrived in Paris there was a rivalry between the original Grand Lodge of France and the Grand Orient. Garat became an initiate of the Lodge of the Seven Sisters, so called, of course, in honour of the Muses. What, at the time of his entry, was Freemasonry, and what its appeal? The lodge appears to have been a species of literary-musical-debating society ; and the appeal, very probably, lay in the fact that the lodge offered a greater freedom, both social and intellectual, than the salon. The movement was not diefinitely anti -Catholic ; but the Mason was not only free from the society and the scrutiny of priests ; he might be confident that nothing he might say would ever be repeated to a priest. In a society where most women went to confession and almost every social assembly included at least one cleric, this was no small consideration. Speculation need know no limits, need fear no reprisals. Moreover, all kinds of social restraints and complications were avoided ; here you could meet the enemy of your patron, mistress, wife, or mother, although his or her salon 131 Pierre Garat might be forbidden ground ; here you encountered some of the greatest intellects of the age in their happier moments. For this lodge of the Seven Sisters numbered among its adepts Voltaire, Lalande, Franklin, Helvetius, Fontanes, Vernet, Greuze, Houdon, Piccini, and many another. Almost every lodge, moreover, had its orchestra ; and at every meeting a collection was taken for charitable purposes. The conscience, the ear, the eye, the intellect — all were soothed or delighted. Poets read their verses ; members played in dialogues ; even choral music was attempted. It was a mode of social gathering more select, more convenient, more stimulating than the salon. ■Women also had their lodges, and were present at certain meetings, and an early friend of Carat's, the ill-fated Princesse de Lamballe, was Grand Mistress of the Scottish lodges in France. With all the " sensibility " of public taste and the elegance of certain seigneurs, the general standard of manners would seem' to have been less perfect than survivors of the Revolution, look- ing back to an age when all things were beheld through the genial eye of youth, were anxious to believe. In January, 1783, a few days before Garat's first appearance at Court, a curious duel took place. A set of verses had been circulating in Paris, entitled Les Jeunes-gens du sUcle, which gave but 132 The End of the Old Paris a melancholy account of the manners of the rising generation. " Beauties who flee licence," they commence, " avoid all our young men ! At the sight of these overgrown children Love has deserted France ; they have frightened pleasure away ; and their sole equipment is ignorance and nullity. . . . Despite their fragile appearance, they spend all their time in running about ; they are importu- nate in town, important at Court ; ... at the play they look sulky, and everywhere stupidity guides them and scorn awaits them. . . . They are awkward with damsels, indecent with women. . . . All their hopes are founded on their faces and their air ; they put all the taste which they think is theirs into their clothing. They prefer de- bauchery to the gentler pleasures. . . . While they degrade youth, are they to pluck its flowers ? " These verses sadly hurt the feelings of one Chevalier de RoncheroUes, who stated, in the com- pany of certain officers of the Guard, that the author had earned a thrashing. The friends of the author, M. de Champcenets, warned him of the threat. Thereupon he challenged de Ronche- roUes ; they fought, and were both wounded ; but two days later the poet appeared at the Opera " covered with glory." These were golden years : a new prosperity seemed to have fallen upon the Court ; M . de 133 Pierre Garat Calonne scattered gold into eager hands, and the magic purse was always renewed. What did Paris talk of during these years? Chief of scandals was the affair of the Diamond Necklace . Of de Rohan, therefore ; of the Queen ; of Cagliostro ; of the possibilities of aerial naviga- tion ; of Montgolfier, Blanchard, Charles, and Robert ; of the respective merits of hot air and of hydrogen ; the perfections of Todi and Mara, Gluck, Piccini, and Mozart ; the plans of Necker, the freaks of courtesans, and the follies of the King's brother. Then, as at length the rain of gold failed, again of the plans of M . Necker ; and ever and again as the end drew nigh of the want of money, the want of bread, the want of a plan to set everything right and to please everybody. There was talk, too, of Liberty, and the rights of man ; for men, it was discovered, were equal and really virtuous, but had sought out many inven- tions. But in spite of later beliefs there was no talk of a Republic. The Diamond Necklace has been the inspiration of many writers, and has nothing to 'do with our singer. Carlyle has dealt with Cagliostro. It is enough to say that in this summer of 1786, when Garat at last left Paris, the magician was reduced to solitary confinement in the Bastille. De Rohan had been absolved by the Parliament of Paris ; the popular tongue was busy embroidering the famous scandal ; and the golden age of Calonne was already drawing to a close. 134 A Visit Home It was then that Garat paid a visit to Bordeaux ; perhaps pressed by creditors (it was during the next year that the Queen first paid his" debts)), perhaps in need of repose, perhaps to revive his laurels in his native air, perhaps merely anxious to effect a reconciliation with his father. He had left Bordeaux a harum-scarum prodigy, a haunter of the theatre, an Apollo of the pr!o- menade. He returned an accomplished courtier, secretary to the King's brother, and the first singer in France. All Bordeaux knew of his success, and the wealthy port was eager to welcome its brilliant son. Not so Dominique Garat. The prodigal sought to approach him personally ; his friends inter- ceded ; his relations endeavoured to soften the unbending parent : all was to no effect. A happy accident intervened. Beck, our hero's old master, despite his term at the Opera, was in low water at the time of Garat's visit. His friends and pupils, who were many, and some who were mindful of his services to music and the city, had decided to promote a benefit concert. Where could they find a greater attraction than Garat ? Garat had never yet appeared upon a public platform, for the Concerts Spiritaels were scarcely in the category of public entertainments. To do so, even for a kindly purpose, might yet further I3S Pierre Garat / alienate his father. He did not refuse his conser^, but made it conditional upon that of Dominique. The reply of the latter was characteristic. " Since his son's talents had cost him an honourable pro- fession, he was at least happy that they should enable him to perform a worthy deed." The concert was held in the hall of the/Musee : a literary and artistic society, founded in 1783, under the patronage of the Queen ; supported by all the lettered lawyers and merchants of the city." His father was a member ; so was his uncle Laurent ; his younger brother, Maltia, had read papers before its meetings, and on one occasion was " laureate." The date of the concert was September the 8th. The programme does not bear Garat's name. Here again the susceptibilities of the father were spared ; possibly those of Garat himself ; the name of Garat must not be sullied by appearing as that of a public entertainer. But it was, of course, an open secret that Garat was to sing. The items offered by the programme included a chaconne ; a Gloria; the overture to Pandora, an ' M. Lafond claims that Garat used to sing at the Musee concerts before leaving Bordeaux ; also that he appeared beside Punto, Rode, Gervais, and Saint-Huberty. The Musee was founded in 1783, and Garat left Bordeaux in 1782. Moreover, at the time of Garat's departure Rode was only eight years of age. If he did appear in such company and at the Musee it may have been on the occasion of the Beck concert. 136 A Visit Home opera by Beck, arranged for the clavichord and played by Storiac ; a violin concerto by Morani ; and a cantata. The Roman father was present in the audience. Was it an unwilling pride in his brilliant son, or curiosity, or affection that seduced him ; or merely his duty, on a charitable occasion, as a prominent Bordelais and a member of the Musee? Perhaps he was so sure of himself that be did not choose to believe that his presence was likely to involve a meeting. If so, he was deceived. Garat sang, with his usual success, his usual power of evokirjg emotion ; amid the applause that followed the father opened his arms ; the son rushed into them, and all was forgotten. Garat spent some pleasant months in the ancient port ; feasted and honoured by all who knew him, courted by those who were yet strangers. When Bordeaux set out to entertain an honoured guest the result was notable. The luxury of her merchant princes was no whit behind that of Paris ; if the cut of their coats was less elegant than that to be seen at Versailles, at least the stuffs were sumptuous, the colours gay ; the bearing of the wearers was stately and their manners genial. Money was plentiful in those days ; the trade of Bordeaux filled a deeper purse than that of M. de Calonne. The general standard of living was probably more solidly generous than in Paris ; the 137 Pierre Garat meats and fruits and wines more varied, the display of plate and linen on a richer scale. The wide shady streets of the city — even the muddy, breezy river-frontage — mlist have been welcome after the foul narrow streets of the capital, where even the public promenades were at times unbearable with dust and refuse. The busy, sturdy, chattering crowd of quay and market and Chamber of Commerce was a change from the sullen, filthy, half -troglodyte populace of Paris, relieved only by some few oases of brilliant idlers. No one has written the record of those months, but they must have been a golden memory. We picture him the centre of many a genial dinner — in the stately old h6tels of the port, or the pleasant country-houses that made a vast garden city of suburbs — rising, as the fruit was tasted, and the afternoon breeze, entering the shaded rooms, fluttered the vine -leaves on the silver dishes, while the autumn sun, finding entry through sun- blind or shutter, barred silken coat and powdered cheek and golden fruit with splashes of molten silver-golden radiance ; enchanting the solid merchants, sturdy sea-captains and stately lawyers, and their grey-headed, rosy-faced, perfumed ladies, with the melody of Orfeo or Armide, or perhaps of Le Nozze di Figaro. He must have sung too at those water-parties, whose gaily-decked barges swept swiftly up the broad reaches of the Garonne, between the noble 138 A Visit Home woodlands, tawny now with autumn, and the white villages, with their belfried churches so soon to be silent, their naves desolate and defiled by the rains and the rotting of leaves ; landing at some pleasant villa and feasting deliciously beneath some grape -laden pergola ; the scarlet leaves and tendrils, the pendent bloom -laden grapes, translu- cent like jewels in the sun, casting their cool shadows, touched with a bluish bloom like that of the luscious fruit, over snowy marble and flower- bright silks. ■Had the courtly scholars of Bordeaux set aside their Horace and Virgil and Catullus for Diderot, Mably, Rousseau, Voltaire ? Did they speak less of the rights of Parliament and more of the rights of man ? Had the goddess Liberty, whose face, had the mask but fallen, was that of Ate, already her votaries in the busy Southern capital ? Perhaps ; there was even a sense, it may be, that the years were ripe for change, that the end of a period was near, that the future was big with Fate ; but none saw Liberty turned Licence, red of hand as of cap, shrieking through the blighted streets, her breath foul with human carrion and her eyes insane with the lust of brute revenge. 139 CHAPTER VII THE REVOLUTION The end of the old World — The Revolution — How Jacobins were made — Garat rejects the new ideas — How different spectators saw different aspects of the Revolution : Morris ; Mme. Le Brun; Mme. Junot — The Assembly weakens — Mob rule — The alteration in manners — The Terror — Paris unsafe — Garat is left penniless — He sings for a living — Why he was not a Jacobin — The effect of his training on his character — Life in Paris during the Revolution — Garat in the salons — The tragedy of Mme. de Sainte-Amaranthe — Mme. de Beauharnais. This is a history not of the Revolution but of Garat ; yet the Revolution was in one sense the crisis of his life ; it involved his friends, and reduced him to the status of a public artist. If our record of his life during this period are some- what meagre, we can at least watch the crumbling of his social world, mark the fate of his friends, and ask what aspect of the years of anarchy was to him most prominent. 'We left him returned from Bordeaux, reconciled with his father, apparently established for life. The next three years of his life were happy, and had no history. One thing we know : that he developed not only as a singer, but as a dandy ; that 140 The Revolution increasing magnificence of dress twice resulted in a financial impasse, and on both occasions it was the Queen who paid his debts. He was as much as ever at Versailles ; the approaching crisis made no difference to the amusements of the Court. In the summer of 1789 both his father and his uncle were deputies of the Third Estate. The Girondists were mostly sons of a prosperous town, where life was easy and wealth general. To them the tales of downtrodden, starving peasants, of feudal and fiscal .tyranny, of human beings fed on bark and grass and nettles, were as tales of a Highland famine to an alderman of London. The iron had not entered their souls . Their careers were not blocked by privileged and incompetent nobles. To them the Revolution was a matter of financial and constitutional reform. Between them and the deputies of the famine-stricken regions, where smuggling or brigandage were the only alternatives to starvation, a psychological gulf was fixed, as between them and the demagogue-deputies of districts aroused by the preaching of the Jacobin ideology . > Garat, the son and nephew of such men, familiar from childhood with the prominent Girondists, a member of that world of courtiers whose " sensi- bility " and humanitarianism were, in a way, the determining cause of the catastrophe of the Revolu- tion, would have been one of the first to accept 141 Pierre Garat the new hopes, the new behefs : that a happier day was to dawn upon France, a reign of justice, ease, and efficiency in place of corruption, waste, and famine ; one of the first also to realize the terrible mistake which the leaders of the Revolution had made. The difference between anarchy and revolution is that the latter is organized and constructive, the former is unorganized or destructive. Anarchy in France was at last organized, and was tenfold the bloodier for that ; but the Revolution fell to pieces . If a despot needs to use the iron hand, still more do the leaders of a revolt. But the King's army, as Necker told him in 1789, could not be counted on to oppose the people. The Third Estate believed themselves the leaders of the people, and could not imagine the necessity of opposing them. The people them- selves were the first to possess an adequate armed force. Poor Lafayette, the idealist, recruited a citizen guard, which promptly became one of the worst instruments of anarchy. The Revolution started with the touching assumption that man is by nature virtuous, and is corrupted only by bad institutions. In the process of changing institutions it proved what might have been foretold — what thoughtful spec- tators did foretell — that uncultivated men deprived of the restraints which make collective life possible revert to ancestral, perhaps to pre-human, savagery. 142 The Revolution In the case of the French populace the means of restraint had for centuries been what is broadly called the police of the nation. In the case of the bourgeoisie it was public opinion. The police of the nation crumbled at a touch, and the peasant was left, having no personal religion nor breeding nor philosophy, and therefore no personal restraint, a cruel, acquisitive, unbridled savage. Once his anger was excited by a few windy lies repeated until, by a process of hypnotic suggestion, they were to him as true as the teachings of religion, once he realized that he could avenge himself in perfect safety for years of poverty and ill -treat- ment, for his own uncouthness and ignorance, only one conclusion was possible. In the case of the bourgeois leaders of the populace, many had personal beliefs or restraints. But for others, especially those who had the grudge of the unsuccessful man against the world, or the hatred of the unfortunate man for the cruelty of the world, or who entertained personal hatreds, the sudden removal of the restraint of public opinion was too dangerous a release ; the pressure within was too great. Such men have no private standards : they are ruled by the public conscience. The unsuccessful man is fond of surrounding him- self by his inferiors, for these give him the admira- tion his superiors refuse. The ideology of the unsuccessful Jacobin filtered through to the dregs of society, and returned to him as approval of his 143 Pierre Garat vilest deeds. No one was above him, for such power as existed was at his disposal. A violent man could readily obtain a following. When those above him were infected also, and ordered him, in the name of patriotism and civic virtue, to commit the very crimes that tempted him, it became an act of religion to kill, to steal, to betray. We do not know precisely when Garat abandoned hope, and saw the Revolution as it was. We may suppose that it was before the end of 1789. By that time the Terror was abroad in the provinces, and the emigration had set in ; the Assembly was proved impotent and craven ; the mob was already supreme . This, however, is a matter of speculation. It is curious to see how differently the Revolution appeared, in its early days, to different observers. Gouverneur Morris, arriving in Paris in January, 1789, was struck chiefly by the corruption of society. But in April he perceived that there might be " warm work." " The revolution is a strange one ; the few people who set it in movement look with astonishment at their own work." He reminds us continually that Paris was a large city. The crimes and follies that crowd a page of history were distributed over a wide expanse of space and duration . Consider the entry for the day of the Reveillon riot : " There is, it seems, a riot in Paris and the troops are at work somewhere. 144 The Revolution ... I believe it is very trifling." And two days later : " We have had a little riot yesterday, and the day before, and I am' told that some have been killed, but the affair was soi distant . . . that I know nothing." So a Hampstead scholar might write of a riot in Lambeth if the telegraph wires by some accident were destroyed. By July he already foresaw something of what was to pass . " The soldiery . . . will not act against the people. They are treated by the nobles, and parade about the streets huzzaing for the Tiers. ' Libert^ ' is now the general cry, and ' Autoritd ' is a name, not a real existenqe. . . . The sword has slipped out of the monarch's hand. . . . These things in a nation not yet fitted for the enjoyment of freedom . . . give me frequently suspicions that they will greatly overshoot their mark. . . . The disorders to be apprehended from anarchy make as yet no impression." They did on some. Catherine of Russia fore- saw the end. " When will Caesar come? For he will come, be sure ! " And at home little Mme. Le Brvm, the sensitive, quick-witted bourgeoise and artist, had a keener eye to^ the populace than the dignified Morris, and a greater fear of them. She begins in a very different tone : " The horrible year 1789 commenced, and already terror was seizing upon all wise minds." One evening she was giving a concert — one of those at which Garat used to sing — and her guests arrived in a state of 14s K Pierre Garat consternation. They had been that morning at Longchamps, and " the populace, gathered at the barrier . . . had insulted those who went by in carriages in the raost terrifying manner ; wretched creatures leaped upon the steps of the carriages, shouting : ' Next year you will be behind your carriages and we shall be inside ! ' " — an interest- ing sidelight on the popular interpretation of the Declaration of Independence, that much-misunder- stood document. " As for me," says Mme. Le Brim, " I had little need to learn fresh details to foresee the horrors that were preparing., I know beyond doubt that my house . . . was marked by malefactors. Sulphur was thrown into our cellars through the chutes. If I showed myself at my window filthy sans-culottes would threaten me with their fists ; a thousand sinister rumours reached me from every side ; at last I lived in a continual state of pro- found anxiety and distress. My health altered sensibly. . . . What was the use of living? The terror with which the future inspired me disgusted me with life ; and yet I divined only a portion of the crimes which were committed later. ... I had so changed that . . . my mother recognized me only by my voice." Poor little lady L Her manners were of the simplest ; she had rarely a franc to bless herself with ; first her stepfather and then her husband appropriating her very Targe earnings. Fabulous 146 The Revolution rumours of these earnings and of the suppers at which Garat sang reached the ears of the " section." She was about to escape to Italy when her salon was entered " by a vast crowd of national guards with their muskets. Most of them were drunk, ill-clad, with frightful faces. . . . Scarcely listen- ing to me, they replied, ' You will not leave, citoyenne, you will not leave.' ... I was left in a cruel anxiety, when I saw two re-enter, who did not terrify me. . . . ' Madame,' said one, ' we are your neighbours ; we come to advise you to go, and as soon as possible. You could not live here ; you are so changed that we are dis- tressed.' " How often were similar scenes enacted during the following years I The sudden irruption of drunken ruffians, who had been meditating the day's coups at the " section " or the Jacobins ; the timid benevolent neighbours, joining the party from fear, yet courageous enough, on how many occasions, to give help or advice at the risk of life ! Mme. Junot is equally emphatic as to the horror of those days. "We had no childhood, no youth. . . . Hardly had my young mind developed when I had to apply it wholly to watching every word and gesture ; for who could then feel safe from' the results of the slightest investigation ? " Even games were dangerous ; her father was once on the point of arrest because, in playing with a child, his daughter had cried, according to the rules of 147 Pierre Garat their game : " Thou shah be Monsieur the Dauphin ! " Garat must have heard from his uncle how early the Assembly was degraded. In October, 1789, when it had sat but two months, Montgolfier, the famous aeronaut, was writing : " One dare no longer hope anything from a captive king and an Assembly forced to direct its proceedings according to the opinion of the vilest of the populace." " An Assembly of cowards," in the eyes of Mme. Roland. " Every member," said Thibaudeau, who voted for the death of Louis, " regulates his behaviour and chooses his words in the dread that they will be imputed to him as a crime." The reports of the sessions had to be carefully falsified for public] consumption : for the credit of the Assembly and the safety of the reporter. Meanwhile manners had altered, not for the better; had become "republican." Dress also reflected the chaos of politics. The long -skirted coat gave way to the English coat ; breeches to pantaloons ; silk stockings to high boots ; the three-cornered hat to the round hat ; powder was abandoned by naany, and the hair hung loose above the shoulders. In the salons the talk was all of politics. But Garat, the exquisite, pursued his way unmoved. Not for him these graceless innova- tions ; nor did he at a later date, when the coach- man's coat, the carmagnole, the baize breeches, 148 The Revolution and the cap of Liberty were a passport and a safe- guard, ever deviate from the strict elegance of the fashions of the ancien regime. Usually we speak of the Terror as comlnencing in 1793. In actual fact it began, in the provinces, as early as August, 1789. From that date there was no security of life or property in France. Here and there at first, as\ isolated instances of vengeance, and later as an organized system of brigandage, a vast business coup, the peasants of France began to burn and pillage chateaux, to hunt, kill, and torture nobles and their wives, and to kill or enslave their children . The armed forces that should have kept order too often led the people. The nobles renounced their feudal privilsges too late. For years the peasants had heard talk of the rights of man, of brotherhood, equality, and liberty. Now they, the people, were more than the equals of the aristocrat; they were sovereign. Their turn had oome . The aristocrat who remained in France was killed. The aristocrat who left France was outlawed. In either case his property became the nation's. Enterprising Jacobins made immense fortunes by hunting out valuable properties, informing upon or killing the owners, and acquiring the property from the State ; some- times paying a trifle for it, sometimes not paying at all. No man who held property was safe. No 149 Pierre Garat man whose clothing or skin or speech was clean was safe. The informer was everywhere. The Revolution became a vast business operation, a licensed brigandage. No man could count upon any help but his own. As a result the nobles left France in their thousands. Those who had the courage to remain, in order to save their estates, were cast into prison and guillotined. France reaped the result of cen- turies of carelessness and oppression. The Revolu- tion became an orgy of vindictive envy, unleashed avarice, insensate vengeance. Paris, too, became unsafe at last, and as the nobles departed the salons of the city closed. Still, in Republican circles, the change was not so notice- able to the ordinary member of society. Morris was able to live much as usual until late in 1792. To a certain extent it was so with Garat. The Court was gone ; many of the aristocratic hostesses of Paris had left the country; but the Girondist faction were in power, and the salons of the Republican hostesses were never more brilliant. But with the emigration a great change had come upon his life . When d' Artois fled the country his pensions ceased. He was left, without a pro- fession, to face the world. For a time, in spite of the seriousness of such a step, the stage must have seemed the probable solution of the problem. Martin, his friend, who ' ISO The Revolution at this time helped him, urged the theatrical career. But for the darling of the Court, the arbiter of musical taste, the professor of exquisite dress, to become an outlaw, forbidden marriage or burial, liable at any moment to sum!mary imprisonment, was, after all, unthinkable. A dwindling society sought distraction feverishly in concerts and social functions. Garat became a paid singer. It was a successful move. Thousands who had never been so fortunate as to hear him, save by chance of an evening under the trees of the Palais - Royal, might purchase the privilege now. Hostesses were still delighted to ensure the success of their entertainments by contriving his presence. Some of the houses he frequented were open when he left Paris ; at others the company grew always less, and there were intervals of dread- ful silence, when the muffled roar of an approaching crowd, the beating of a drum, or the rhythmic thud of a party of national guards was heard from the world withttut. People sat with drawn faces, avoiding each other's eyes, until the danger had passed. Some might have expected Garat, the Bordelais, the nephew of Domini que -Joseph, to have become the minstrel of the Revolution. But even had his gratitude and affection towards his early patrons been less, even had his common sense been feebler, there were factors in his psychology which would Pierre Garat save him at once from being a Jacobin, and from suffering as did some from the terrors of the period. These factors were the result of his long self- imposed training. Morally this training had its dangers, but it also had its advantages. It made him intensely aware, as only a womlan is as a rule aware, of him- self, as a person, as a 'body, as a medhanism'; intensely a lover of himself, so that when he aged it was the ageing of a lover that he mourned. And if his self-consciousness was intensely developed, so also was his sub -consciousness : for the musical executant labours always to increase the sensibility of the subliminal self; its response to the evocation of feeling, in the shape of a prompt excitation of and a half-instinctive expression of emotion. A man with a natural voice or a (juick intelligence may sing a song beautifully or act a part well now and again by dint of emotional inspiration or by sheer force of intellect; but if he is to sing or act well always, when tired or dispirited or uninspired^, his sub- conscious self must be his eager colleague, must respond to the slightest call, must do what he is too dull or too weary to do ; and the object of his training is to educate that unconscious colleague to the desired perfection of unfailing response. But he too — and this is of greater significance — must be quick to respond to its promptings. For this reason, doubtless, musicians are peculiarly IS2 The Revolution subject to impulse, and unable or unwilling to check impulse. In an age when temptation was regarded as opportunity there was danger here to a man who, in losing the old inhibitions, the old standards, had achieved no new faith, no new sanc- tion or inhibition ; danger, because the unbridled woman is always the inferior of the imbridled man. Moral in any Puritan sense Carat's life could hardly be, his age and his nation being what they were. Moral in a wider sense we may believe that hfe was ; he had loyalty, and the courage of loyalty, and in spite of affectation and a certain polished insolence he found no real enemies, even after his death ; and there must have been, behind his insolence, a genuine superiority, for the occasions in his life when he was made to look foolish were singularly few. He seems to have had beneath his fantastic mask a native sweetness of disposition; undoubtedly he had that so-called animal magnetism, whidii so often comes of a sound, virile organism' and an intense awareness of self and the passing moment. But there was safety, too, in this awareness ; safety in his insolence, his egoism, his affectation of the mannered exquisite ; safety more especially in the result of his long self-schooling — his intense response to emotion in art, his intense power of expressing emotion. Art was both a call upon emotion and an outlet for emotion, and the call and expenditure were intense. He aged early ; there is the proof. IS3 Pierre Garat Here, apart from loyalty, comtnon sense, and the loss of beauty, is another reason why he was no Jacobin, but rather what in those days was reckoned a reactionary. We have seen that his youth had witnessed no flagrant injustice, no dis- heartening ugliness, no appalling welter of waste and suffering, such as men saw in other parts of France ; he had passed it in a genial, interested world, where the new ideas assumed no demagogic flavour. The mob, as he was to see it in Paris, could only shock, disgust, or terrify. He had not the makings of a Jacobin because Jacobinism was a release of suppressed emotion, and Garat had already such a release, perfected, since infancy, by years of training, until all its channels were deeply scoured, with a capacity equal to all demands. This fact, and his necessary egoism, explain why he was always more beloved than lover ; it was this fact also that saved him wholly from the madness of the age. The Jacobin, a suppressed, unpractised emotionalist — suppressed by asceticism, or respectability, or high position, or sheer lack of culture — was suddenly confronted with a new ideology. His every nerve thrilled by the injustice and imperfection of human society, afloat on the full tide of humanistic ideology, he was so blunt of perception, or so over-familiar with the unquestioned presence of the mob, as to be blind to its true nature or deluded by its cheaply-won watchwords; or, if keen of sense, IS4 The Revolution so fired by pity and hatred of its ugliness as to see only the injustice of its defects ; in either case he was religiously convinced of the value of institutions, and attributed to the great unwashed the noble and generous intellectual passion for the finer things of life that swept him headlong down his own course. The m'ob was his idol, which he remade in his own image, and called it God. He did not say : Let there be no base people ; let us see that the future does not breed them. He said : None are base, except by an unjust law. Garat, provided already with an outlet for his emotions, was not to be so trapped. Aware of himself before others, a lover of beauty, a hater of the unseemly, with no preconceived ideas of reform, he might well accept the new ideas in so far as they promised a wider career to ability and a lessening of insensate privilege ; but once the mob was in full control, once Paris and the Jacobins ' were strangling or hypnotizing France, he could only regard the Revolution with hatred, fear, and regret. More : he probably did his best to regard it as little and as seldom as possible. And here his art and his egoism came again to the rescue. What mental and physical havoc the horrors of the Terror worked in some sensitive natures we have already seen. Yet others lived through that period unmoved, untouched, dying ' I use the word Jacobins in a somewhat general sense ; actually the Cordeliers were, in Paris, the more violent. ISS Pierre Garat afterwards of sheer old age : a sure sign that they had never been mentally and physically stricken. Others — apparently genial and harmless persons — massacred their thousands as they toyed with their lunch or took their -snufif. The explanation of much that puzzles is that in times of warfare, revolt, famine, or cosmic disaster the human organism makes itself a defence, a kind of spiritual armour. It may be religion ; it may be a political creed, which is indeed a religion ; it may be the love of noble things, or a hatred of the ignoble ; it may be a drain upon the emotion that leaves no response to further appeals. With Garat his art was an answer to his emotional needs. Further calls upon his emotion were superfluous, and therefore, by the simple laws of psychology, painful. He was an egoist ; he shrank from the painful. You may imagine him, therefore, endowed with a voluntary blindness and deafness ; a power of intentional inhibition ; the ability to say to himself : This I will not see, or I will forget it ; or if I must see and remember, it shall not affect me ; it is nothing ; it has no meaning. The attitude is ignoble only if the desire to live, the desire to preserve self, is ignoble. To him, considering what years he was to live through, it was at least useful ; and it was, with his glorious voice, the outcome of those years of self -schooling in his father's house. 156 The Revolution Such an attitude, moreover, was not so difficult to support as may at first appear. Apart from the Palais -Royal, the route of the tumbrils, the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and such localities, the life of the city was outwardly much as usual. Organized crime is gregarious ; only now and again did some drunken mob of furies, figures of a night- mare, the dregs of a thousand years of misgovem- ment, sweep howling into the quiet backwaters of the city. We picture France during the Terror and the years of rapine that preceded it as one vast inferno, where a cultured accent, a collected gait, clean linen or a clean skin might bring instant death by torture. Yet the truth is that Paris was so large, and the Jacobins of purest water so few, that they could not attend to the whole city. Taine estimated their numbers in Paris as only 5,000 among a total population of 700,000. From 1789 to 1792 Gouverneur Morris — a foreigner, it is true, and for a time accredited representative of a foreign republic — was able to live in Paris much the life that would have been his in any capital of Europe. Once a mob pursued his carriage, at a time when the possession of a carriage merited death ; but he thrust his wooden leg out of the door. " Lost," he said, " in the defence of American liberty ! " It was an imagina- tive statement, but it saved his life. For the rest, we are surprised, in reading his cool, shrewd record, to find how little he saw of 157 Pierre Garat actual violence ; how little the actual material horrors of the time impressed him. And indeed, if he avoided certain quarters of the city, a mto might have lived through the whole Revolution without incurring danger or beholding violence. The case is unlikely, yet such cases there must have been. Garat, however, was to some extent behind the scenes. A courtier himself, the murders of aristo- crats in the provinces must have reached his ears, as remote happenings indeed, as a murder in Chester would seem to a Londoner. The murders in the streets of Paris were common knowledge ; but Paris was a great city. He mlast have known, too, precisely what the show of government by Assembly was worth. His uncle was not only a member, but a journalist : a journalist who dared not tell the truth. All reports were expurgated for the benefit of the public : more still for the safety of the reporter. " Of what was merely a riot," said Joseph Garat, " I used to make a coherent picture ; of their shrieks I made observa- tions ; of their furious gestures, attitudes ; and when I could not inspire esteem I tried to convey emotions." We may suppose that the nephew knew the truth ; though it is doubtful whether, in those days, the worthy Dominique -Joseph, who was cer- tainly something of a time-server, was particularly anxious for the company of his reactionary and impenitent nephew. IS8 The Revolution By dint of discretion and the action of his peculiar temperament, Garat found hfe in Paris tolerable until the end of 1792. He made not the slightest effort to conciliate public opinion. He adopted neither the English coat nor the carmagnole, neither pantaloons nor high boots, neither the cap of Liberty nor the round hat, neither the chevelure a Titus nor the true Republican tangle. He went his way, attending, such salons as were open, singing at some of these and at concerts for money ; singing of young love, shepherdesses, the zephyrs of spring, the rosebud, and other innocent properties of the time. In this he was not singular. During the Terror itself Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was writing La Chaumiere indienne; Berquin published the Journal des Enfants ; the theatres were full of vaudevilles ; the song-writers were busy as usual. He sang, as we have seen, at numerous concerts ; he attended his usual haimts, so long as they were open. He had long been a visitor at the house of Mme. de Sainte-Amaranthe ; then he was accom- panied on the harp by an old acquaintance, Mme. Gilibert, the daughter of the major of the Invalides, who was mistress of ceremonies at the concert given by the Abbd d'Espagnac in honour of that unfor- timate lady the Princesse de Lamballe, and was now, like the singer, reduced to making music for a living. Here, of old, he had met Louis de Narbonne, the lover of Mme. de Stael j de 159 Pierre Garat Vaudreuil, his early patron ; Tilly, de Rohan, Condorcet, the Abb^ Delille of Cabbage and Turnip fame, and many another ; nearly all to disappear, one by one ; nearly all, by the time he left Paris, in exile, in prison, or dead. As the Revolution progressed the company became Republican : consisting more especially of Garat's own friends and countrymen, the Girondists, friends of his father and uncle. Happily for him- self he left Paris before the catastrophe which destroyed them', and that later tragedy which fell upon his hostess and her daughter. Mme. de Sainte-Amaranthe was one of those ladies known to the polite youth of Paris as " demi- castors." That is, she was wealthy, and her position was assured, but her salon was frequented by men rather than by women. Thidbault speaks of her daughter with enthusiasm. She had, before he saw her, retired from the world for* a few months, occupied in the production of a child : the father, it was whispered, being the Comte d'Artois. She returned, resuming her visits to Vauxhall, when young Thi^bault, who frequented the place, " but without his mother," thought her " so far more beautiful than before that she seemed more than human." Robespierre was finally an intimate of Mme. de Sainte-Arrlaranthe's salon. After the fall of the Girondists his visits continued. Was his hostess venal, or did she encourage his attentions for the 1 60 The Revolution sake of safety, or did he force himself upon her as a guest ? She would not have dared to refuse him'. The beautiful daughter had married a M. de Sartiges. This was nothing to Robespierre, who by all accounts paid vigorous court to her. Not long before the culmination of the Terror, Trial and Robespierre were, with others, at supper with the mother and daughter and de Sartiges. Robespierre, flushed with victory, drank more deeply than was his wont, and eventually boasted of his plan " to sicken France of liberty by drenching her with blood." In the morning Trial, who had remained sober, rushed round to Robespierre. "You betrayed everything at supper ! " he cried. " You have confided in people of whom it is impossible to be certain ! " Robespierre's action was immediate. His hostess, her daughter, and her son-in-law, and all those who had been present at the supper — even the servants — were arrested on a charge of attempt- ing to poison the "saviour of France." All were promptly condemned and executed — it is farcical to say " tried." Only the young and lovely girl kept her courage, and sought to cheer the others by her gaiety. The condemned victims were clad in red mantles for the journey in the tumbril. Mme. de Sartiges laughed. " Would not any one think we were off to a Mardi gras procession ? " Another house at which Garat often sang was i6i L Pierre Garat that of Mme. de Beauharnais. It was not until 1794 that the guillotine made her a widow. Her salon was open during the whole of the Terror, and as long as Garat remained in Paris was the rallying-point of men of the most varied opinions : Mably, Clootz, Saint -Aldegonde, Bailly. 'Here he might have met Morris, who, unaffected by any post-Revolutionary glamour, throws a curious light on the simplicity of home life during the ancien regime. Early in 1789 he was asked to dine: at 3.0, the fashionable hour. Anxious to be ptmctual, he arrived at 3.15. In the salon he found no expectant company, but "dirty linen and no fire." A waiting -woman removed the one ; a valet lit the other, with' three sticks. The fire smoked; a window was opened ; between the two Morris was smoked and frozen. About 4.0 the guests began to arrive. " I begin," says Morris, " to suspect that I shall have the honour ... to dine with that excellent part of the species who devote them- selves to the Muses .... The gentlemen begin to compliment their respective works. . . . Towards five Madame slips in to announce dinner and the hungry poets advance to the charge. As thiey bring good appetites ... I console myself that for this day at least I shall escape indigestiion. A very narrow escape too, for some rancid butter of which the cook had been very liberal puts me in bodily fear." He resolves "never again to occupy the place from which perhapis I had excluded a worthier personage." 162 The Revolution This was in March. In November he went again, still to find " a coterie who bemoaned the insensibility of the world to their literary efforts." Josephine had as yet hardly estabUshed her position ; but as the unsuccessful poet naturally develops into the Jacobin, the future of her salon might have been foretold, even had her husband not been a general of the Revolutionary army. Th^ company cannot always have been congenial to Garat, who, as the Revolution progressed, must have held the Jacobin gospel in ever -increasing disgust. But we must remember that he was now working for his living, and therefore came into contact with his fellow -guests in an especial and a non -political mood. He did not always dine; he often appeared, so to speak, with the dessert ; sang, allowed a few eager ladies to make love to him, and departed to another salon, or the theatre, or the chambers of some musical friend, or the dressing-room of his mistress. Here again he may in a measure have evaded the political excitement of the time. It is certain that he did his utmost to ignore the Revolution, as the safest and the pleasantest course for an artist to pursue. 163 CHAPTER VIII FLIGHT FROM PARIS Paris becomes dangerous — Marat at the house of Talma — Garat risks his head — O Richard, d mon roil — Garat arrested — He sings himself free — He leaves Paris for Rouen — Mme. Dugazon's courage — The stage during the Terror — Charles IX — The Ami des lois — The escape of the Comedians — The stage after the Terror — The nobility of the noblesse — The simple life — Causes of emigration. It was at the house of Talma that Garat received the first plain warning that Paris was no place for a dandy of royalist sympathies. It was the i6th of October, 1792. For the aristocrat, the honest man, the man of breeding, for the quiet or cleanly, the provinces were a hell from which all had fled who did not court death. Man, the kindly creature depraved by laws, had cast them off and was busily seizing the goods of " traitors." Patriotism had become a business in real estate. Mme. Talma was giving a reception in honour of Dumouriez, the victor of Valmy. Now it hap- pened, some time before^ that Dumouriez was forced to punish two volunteer battalions for lack of discipline. This came to the ears of the " Friend 164 Flight from Paris of the People." Man being virtuous by nature had no need of laws and was perfectly justified in breaking them. Dumouriez, therefore, should be punished. Marat ran foaming to the Jacobins and demanded that their comlmissaries should reproach Dumouriez for leaving his army " to abandon himself to orgies in the house of an actor and the company of the Opera nymphs." Many of the baser Jacobins lived upon the immoral earnings of women, which doubtless gave a stiffening of righteous indignation to the scandalized meeting. Accompanied by four delegates the " Friend of the People " hasted to Talma's house in the Rue Chantereine . A brilliant company was present : most of the deputies of the Gironde, stately and substantial men of the robe, men of letters and scientists, and the leading actors and actresses of Paris, including Garat, and Dugazon, if not his wife. Marat and his honest citizens rushed like madtnen through the salons to confront Dumouriez. " Citizen," he cried, " a deputation of the Friends of Liberty went to the War Office to deliver despatches that concerned thee. They went to thy house, but found thee nowhere. We ought not to have to seek thee in such a house as this, amidst a rabble of concubines and counter-revolu- tionaries." All were silent; but Talma advanced. " Citizen Marat, by what right do you come to my house to insult our wives and sisters? " And then Dumouriez : " Am I not to rest after the 165 Pierre Garat fatigues of war, surrounded by the arts and my friends, without being insulted by indecent epithets ? " Marat was apparently for once at a loss. The brilliant, contemptuous company, the shuffling of his awkward companions, his failure to make a sensation, were too much for him. He stamped off with his Friends of Liberty, shouting, " This house is a nest of counter-revolutionaries ! " Saint -Georges, the gigantic mulatto, was with diffi- culty restrained from following him. Presently, the general indignation being a little appeased, Dugazon went through the salons, bearing a little pan of perfumes, censing the groups of anxious talkers. The air being purified, CandoUe played the piano, Lef^vre the flute, and Garat sang. Next day the Ami du peuple displayed the heading : " Great Conspiracy discovered by Citizen Marat. Great assembly of Girondists and counter-revolu- tionaries at the house of citizen Talma." This was a warning. A little later Garat came near, by his own imprudence, to losing his life. The days of the Terrorist reaction had come : the days when all went in fear of being " suspeict of being suspect " : when the reactionaries spent their time in domiciliary visits ; the days of the informer and the " acquirer of national property." The' massacres of September had left all Paris quaking. But the theatres were open as usual ; more than usual^ for there were new theatres ; men i66 Flight from Paris sought oblivion in a few hours' amusement ; in the theatre, moreover, failing a riot, one was fairly safe from arrest. Louis XVI was in the Temple, awaiting trial. Garat, one evening, in the foyer of the Opera, began to sing the well-known song from one of Gr6try's operas, O Richard, 6 mon roi! Was it a piece of contemptuous impertinence, or the foolhardy action of a man exasperated, or the result of sheer absence of mind? We can only guess. There were, of course, plenty of patriots to report the offence in the proper quarter ; adding details, no doubt, as to the aristocratic dress, the finicking cleanliness, the arrogant bearing of this servant of a ci~devant. He was on .the point of imprisonment and trial when he was saved by Danton . Danton was a confirmed playgoer ; he was also one of the few notable men to retain thte old fashions of dress ; he may well have felt some sympathy for Garat, and certainly would not have regarded him as a danger to the nation. The third warning was not long deferred. Garat was abroad one evening — going, perhaps, from one salon to another — when he was arrested by a patrol of National Guards preceded by scouts with fixed bayonets. The Convention had decreed that all persons failing to produce their cards of citizenship should be immediately arrested. Garat, by ill luck, had not his card upon his person. 167 Pierre Garat He was taken to the section -house. The officer in cominand of the patrol began his interrogation. " Your profession? " " I sing." " That," retorted the officer, " is not a profession. I also sing." " Possibly," drawled our hero, " but I sing better than you. The case is not the same." " Oh 1 you will have to prove that ! " Garat, always fond of an innocent coup de theatre, immediately attacked one of the most florid romances of his repertoire : a thing of trills, roulades, and " dying falls " ; a performance so astonishing, in that grimy guard-house, that his captors not only released him, but escorted him homfe in triumph . Orpheus sang himself once out of Hades ; Garat sang himself out of the guard -house. He did not pare to risk a second test of his powers. For a known servant of the Court, an obvious dandy, and a man of aristocratic sjrmpathies, the capital was now altogether too risky a residence. It is possible, too, that he feared the vengeance of a Jacobin rival ; if so, he did not wholly escape it by fleeing from Paris. He left the city with Rode, his friend and fellow- townsman, then leader of the second violins at. the Th^itre Feydeau. It was in the last days of December, 1792. He made, like so many other refugees, for Rouen ; probably because the dis- tance was not too great, and because the city seemed comparatively safe. 168 Flight from Paris We have seen that Garat was in no sense a politician ; politics was not his " affair," and his attachment to the ancien regime was chiefly one of gratitude and loyalty. Mme. Dugazon, his some- time mistress — for that fiery passion had died a natural death — was more definitely a royalist, and was fully as courageous and reckless as her truant lover. Late in the Revolution, when the Queen had already become the hated Madame Veto, she was playing the part of the maid in Ev^nements imprevues. The Queen was in her box. In this opera there is a duet between the valet and thle maid ; the valet confiding to the latter his love for his master : Painte mon maitre tendrement . To which Mme. Dugazon had to reply, Ah! comme j'aime ma maltresse! A harmless sentiment ; but the singer, turning toward the Queen, laid her hand upon her heart, sang the words in a voice tremu- lous with emotion, and bowed as she sang. There were instant cries of " To prison I to prison I " — and it must be remembered that the mummer was as liable as ever to be haled from the stage to the gaol at the slightest offence ; only the jurisdic- tion was altered. Mme. Dugazon's reply was to show her contempt for her audience : not, as did her Jacobin husband upon an equally famous occasion, by throwing her wig in their faces, but by waiting for the uproar to cease and repeating the line with renewed emphasis. For a wonder her courage was loudly cheered. 169 Pierre Garat Later, when Garat had left the city, in the thick of the Terror, the audience requested her — it was a habit of the time — to sing some violent and execrable verses reflecting on the royal family. She refused, walked off the stage, and left the theatre. The world of the theatre was, needless to state, fully as divided in its sympathies as the greater world. Garat was not only a confirmed playgoer and acquainted with half the stage of Paris ; he came very near, at one time, to treading the boards for a living. Before we follow him to Rouen it will be interesting to note the vicissitudes of these his friends, before and after his own departure to safer regions. Foremost among the theatrical companies of Paris was that long known as the King's Comedians, of whom Talma and Dugazon were the leading members. Under the ancien regime the Gentlemen of the Chamber exercised a supreme authority over actors and actresses ; they might imprison them at will, without ceremony, without trial. An offending actress, who let fall a too salacious phrase, was ordered there and then to her cell ; if engaged to sup in the city with some noble admirer, the latter would drive her to her prison, the supper following in hampers. Priests would neither bury nor marry members of the dramatic profession unless they renounced their 170 Flight from Paris calling. It is not astonishing that Garat, despite repeated incitemients, could not bring himself to adopt such a trade. In 1789 the authority of the Commune replaced that of the Gentlemen ; not at once, however ; for a time both authorities issued orders simul- taneously. At Bailly's order the name of the theatre at which the King's Comedians appeared was altered from the Th^dtre Frangais to the Theatre National. Here, on the 4th of November, 1789, the company presented Ch^nier's Charles IX. The success of the piece was stupendous, for it represented a king of France in the character of a butcher of his people. The Court forbade any further representation . Two years later Mirabeau was one night in the theatre. It pleased him to demand, in a stentorian voice, the resuscitation of Charles IX. Naudet replied that this was impossible, two of the com- pany being ill. Talma retorted that if all his companions were as good patriots as he the play could be given. The result was a duel. Naudet accused Talma of hiding in a loft when called out as a National Guard to quell a riot. Talma replied that he had repaired to an upper floor for purposes of strategy and observation — a curious defence, in view of his own account of his eyesight. They fought on the following day ; the distance was twenty paces. " Thanks to my abominable sight," 171 Pierre Garat said Talma, " I could not even see Naudet," who was a small man. " ' What are you looking for? ' cried a second. ' Faith, for Naudet ! ' Naudet advances ten paces. ' Do you see me now? ' he cried. And indeed I did see him, as in a fog. I fired : my ball must have missed him by ten feet; he fired in the air." Talma was then dismissed by the Comedians. Bailly informed them that they could not act both as parties and as judges, and ordered them to allow Talma to play until the Commune had con- sidered the matter. The Comedians ignored his warning. Fleury, noted for his grands seigneurs, informed the public of their decision. Out rushed Dugazon, denouncing his comrades, who intended, he complained, to expel not only Talma but him- self. A frightful uproar ensued ; the stage was stormed, and the benches of the theatre were smashed. Armed intervention was necessary to restore order. Bailly, next day, summoned the Comedia,ns before his bar and ordered them to obey. They refused. Bailly retorted by closing the theatre. Dugazon, as the instigator of the riot, was confined to his rooms for a week. The Comedians eventually gave way. On Sep- tember 28th Talma appeared with Dugazon in Charles IX. Both won frantic applause. The majority of the company were naturally enough enemies of the Revolutioji. The spoiled 172 Fligiht from Paris favourites of a prodigal Court, they were now the slaves of a violent, unreasonable, tyrannical mob. The quarrel soon came to a head. The revolu- tionaries left the theatre and established themselves at the theatre of the Palais-Royal, afterwards the Comedie. It was known first as the Theitre Frangais and then as the Theitre de la Repub- lique. Talma and Dugazon were of course the leading actors. Here revolutionary fustian was performed, such as Despotisme renverse, a piece in which armed mobs pillaged shops and houses while the French Guards assisted and applauded them. In the case of other plays every word that might wound the susceptibilities of a tender patriot was erased. Such words as valet, marquis, slave, etc., were forbidden. Lines that flattered kings or priests were turned into attacks upon them. No matter how grotesque the phrasing, how atrocious the rhyme, how lame the rhythm, all lines that offended patriotism had to be changed to please the audience. To return to the parent theatre : in January, 1793, ^ month after Garat had left Paris, the re- maining Comedians represented the Ami des lois. This was known to be a frankly reactionary piece. The occasion is interesting as showing how many people were not tnerely sick of the waste and licence of anarchy, the cowardice of the Assembly, and the brutality of the mob, but had the courage to reveal their indignation. A curious and audacious 173 . Pierre Garat crowd spent the night before the performance at the doors of the theatre. L'atni des lots might well have been called The Anti-Jacobin. It proved to be a well -merited attack upon the " false patriots, whitewashed without, with souls of hypocrites " who were devastating France. " Let all these charlatans, plebeian thieves, insolent braggarts of patriotism, purge this enfranchised soil of their aspect ! War, eternal war to the creators of anarchy ! " Here, in the plainest of language, was spoken what thousands were thinking but dared not whisper. The excitement was delirious. The spectators were promptly denounced, with true popular logic, as an assembly of — emigres! Anaxagoras Chaumette was the accuser ; the Com- mune, on the 1 2th of January, forbade the play. It was already announced for the 13th. The crowd was as great as ever on the 13th, but when the curtain rose the actors read the decree of the Commune. There was instant uproar of whistling, groaning, and hissing, and many voices clamoured for the play. The theatre was suddenly fiUed with armed men, and two caimon were un- limbered in the Rue de Buci. Nothing daunted, the audience continued thieir protests. Santerre, in uniform, sought to overawe them'. " Down with the shaggy general I " was the cry. " To the door ! Silence I The play, or death I " 174 Flight from Paris The mayor of Paris appeared : Chambon, him- self an actor, who died soon after as a result of injuries received that night. The tumult increased. The people demanded that the matter should be referred to the Convention, which was then sitting " in permanence " to try the King. Chambon and the author went to the bar of the Convention. After a noisy debate the Convention declared the Commune to have exceeded its powers. The news was brought to the theatre, where the audience eagerly awaited it. The applause was frantic, and the piece was immediately played, the curtain falling at i a.m. on the 14th. The next move on the part of the discomfited Commune was to declare all theatres closed. The Executive Council quashed the decree, but autho- rized the prohibition of such plays as might give rise to disorder. The Commtme, of course, proscribed the Ami des lots. During the Terror the Convention decreed that any theatre producing plays likely to deprave the mind or " arouse the shameful superstition of royalty " should be closed, and the directors punished according to the rigour of the law. The Commune had a long memory. In Sep- tember it found its opportunity. The offending play was harmless enough : Pamela, an adaptation of Richardson's novel ; but to the sensitive patriot certain of the speeches savoured of royalism. At the Jacobins the theatre was denounced as a nest ^75 Pierre Garat of counter-revolutionaries. It was closed, and the members of the company arrested in the night. The men were imprisoned in the Madelonettes, the women in Sainte-Pdlagie. Five months later they were transferred to Picpus and Les Anglaises. Mold alone escaped arrest : a patriot of the purest, whose door bore the legend, " Here dwells the Republican Mole." He profited by his free- dom to play the part of Marat at a minor theatre . Now for the last act. Champville, nephew of Prdville, the great comedian, was arrested with the company, but released. He went to CoUot d'Herbois, himself an actor ; but a bad actor, as Robespierre, Danton, and Fabre were bad poets ; not likely, therefore, to show clemency to genius. " Off with you I " cried CoUot ; " you are lucky to be out of it ; you and your friends are all counter-revolutionaries. The principal, will be guillotined and the rest deported." CoUot meant the rest to meet a bloodier fate. That very day he sent to Fouquier-Tinville a note of accusation. Six names — those of Dazincourt, Fleury, Lange, Raucourt, Louise Contat, and Emilie Contat were followed by a capital G. The " trial " was fixed for the 1 4th of July, 1794. Within twenty -four hours of the trial all would have been over. On the 14th the usual crowd which assembled, on the quays and bridges, 176 Flight from Paris to watch the tumbrils and insult the already doomed, was larger than ever. But no Comedians appeared in the lugubrious procession. A clerk of the Committee of Public Safety, of whom we know that he was named Labassifere, stole the accusing documents which Collot was forwarding to Tinville. Fresh documents had to be prepared. These too disappeared. And then — before the accusing papers could a third time be drafted — the 9th of Thermidor had arrived. The Comedians were saved. Released, they re- opened in the Rue Feydeau with the Death of Ccesar. Paris received them with open arms.' For their colleagues of the Th^dtre National these were difficult days. Duzagon was known to have preached moderation as a crime ; although loaded with favours by the royal family he was one of that nightmare army which brought the King from Versailles to Paris. After Thermidor he wa? playing the part of a valet. His master, in the play, upbraided him : " We've no more use for thee or thy filthy race." Heartfelt applause ! Dugazon, stung to the quick, advanced to the edge of the stage and flung his wig at the spectators. A rush was made at him ; but a resourceful stage- carpenter sent him down to the lower regions by way of a trap, and he fled by a back exit. Fusil, returning from Lyons with blood on his hands, was met with cries of " Down with the ' See Maupas' Les Comidiens hors de la loi. 177 M Pierre Garat murderer ! " He was ordered for his life to sing the Reveil da Peuple, the anti-Terrorist hymn. His voice failed. Talma, no singer, read thie hymn, the quaking Fusil holding a torch to light him. Even Talma was accused of betraying his old comrades, the Comedians. He justified himself. " The reign of Terror has cost me many tears and the greater number of my friends are dead on the scaffold." He was applauded. He spoke the truth. He barely escaped the guillotine at the time of the Girondist tragedy, and later did his utmost to save his colleagues, as Larrive and Mile. Contat testified. Trial, the creature of Robespierre, his companion at the fatal Sainte-Amiaranthe supper, had the audacity to return to the boards. He was then a member of the Commune. The audience forced him to bpg for his life on his knees. Next day the Commtine expelled him. He died by his own hand. Lastly, a word as to the all -conquering Saint - Huberty, who before the Revolution, and for a time in its earlier days, sang beside Garat on the concert-platform. ' The Comte d'Entraigues was her lover : a noble of the strongest royalist opinions . Early in the Revolution the two left France. Lausanne was their refuge. D'Entraigues sincerely loved his mistress, and at Lausanne married her, in December, 1790. They led a wandering life; at Trieste, where thfe Comte was arrested, and his 178 Flight from Paris wife contrived his escape ; in Vienna, Gratz, and finally in England. In London, it seems, d'Entraigues had some political mission to fulfil for the Emperor of Russia. One evening they were entering their carriage when a servant assassinated both. Before we follow Garat in his new career, let us for a moment finally consider the world that was passing away. We have seen something of its outer aspect, as it appeared to the external observer. It was, to all appearances, a corrupt, selfish, immoral, frivolous, and cynically elegant world. Within, it presented, as may be imagined, a very different appearance. Compare a typical English home of the wealthier classes with the columns of a " society " paper, and you will appreciate just such a difference. Surprise has often been expressed, by the super- ficial 'observer, that the men lajnd women of a corrupt and superficial age knew how to die nobly. It is true, as we have seen, that many natures encased themselves in a kind of spiritual armour ; true also that many, long before they died, were worn, by successive shocks, to a condition of apathy or insensitiveness, in which death, as the last scene of a world grown hideous, was welcome or indifferent. But the real answer is, that they had learned to live nobly : that is, as became a noble, race. It is true that manner was everything; men 179 Pierre Garat won place and power by charm of address; a pension was awarded for a bon mot, an embassy for an epigram. And as to please was the aim of the gentleman, so to afflict others with one's woes or infirmities was the unpardonable sin. These were to be borne in private, with pious resignation or patient stoicism. " The people of the great world," wrote Portalis, " live to the last moment. Mme. D died lately as she returned from the promenade ; she was failing a long time ; each moment might have been her last ; no matter, she always went out." Suffering, age, infirmity, were for the closet, the bedchamber. To please, never to offend or sadden, was from childhood the aim of good breeding. Life was the art in which all were masters. Is it so wonderful that such a generation knew how to meet a clean and sudden end gallantly, gaily, gracefully as it had lived ? If not so admirable as a whole as some of our memoirists would have us believe, there was yet very much in that age too precious to be lost. Lost it was utterly: to the race, to the world. Thousands of years of evolution produced a flower ; it has perished ; it has left no seed. There was, in the best men and women of that age, an amenity, a gay humanity, a tolerance, a sweetness of temper that have rarely since appeared in French society or letters ; and save as the work of time they cannot again appear. 1 80 Flight from Paris Financially the age was preposterous ; out- wardly it was artificial. But who can read the memoirs and letters of the great ladies of the time without recognizing that here were spirits most truly " gentle," flowers of a civilization not worth indeed the cost, but worth much, and leaving the world for decades a poorer place for their absence? The philosophers of the eighteenth century had done their work. Life, being a thing gracious and beautiful, was worshipped upon the altars ; love, maternity, health, beauty, grace, good-will, the fundamental facts and beauties of life, frankly accepted, refined only by beauty of gesture, were the familiar deities of the home. If Hymen was not among these deities, that was natural in a nation ignorant of romantic marriage. Women deceived their husbands, but not their lovers. Those lovers could be heroic ; they defended their mistresses' honour by the sword ; one well-known gallant, escaping from the chamber of his beloved, had two fingers jammed in the door ; to save her from discovery he cut them' off with the uninjured hand. Artificial abroad, life at home was almost austere in its simplicity. As in all true civiliza- tions, the truly well-bred was at home the simple and spontaneous ; for civilization is only the school which allows us to cast off restraints without mutual offence. i8i Pierre Garat The " return to nature " had its practical side. Women began once ttiore to nurse their children ; the Comtesse de Neuilly was awarded a gold medal by the Academy of Rouen for the best of a con- course of poems upon the advantages of giving suck to one's children. Mme. de Salabery was painted in the act of suckling her child. No hands less gentle than the mother's might bathe and tend the tender limbs ; the mother taught the child to read ; the children worshipped these young, fair, gracious mothers with a love that was idolatry, literally kissing the ground they trod. It is characteristic of the age that the children of the Due d'Orl^ans kissed the footsteps of Mme. de Genlis . Ideas of hygiene were general. The child was plunged, in the morning, into ice-cold water, to hairden it, or encouraged to run, in the lightest of garments, in the Tuileries gardens. Children could hear no unwholesome tales from' superstitious nurses ; no uncleanly habits or gross words offended their fastidious senses ; they ate at » table, played in the salon. And the so-called atheistic philosophers had done more for Christian ideals than ever the Churches had accomplished ; children, as well as their elders, were full of a desire, not always very practical, more thlati a little sentimental, but perfectly sincere, to serve or succour their inferiors. They ceased to press the half -starved tenants of their estates ; on the con- 182 Flight from Paris trary, they distributed corn and rice and money during seasons of famine. Many lived upon gold that fell like manna from the hands of the King's treasurer ; if their tenants were oppressed it was by the tax-collectors. Hence their feeling of philanthropy was quite secure. The peasants, for a time, were equally simple. The seigneur's lady and her children were often seen among the poor, risking infection, on errands of mercy. The seigneur, when he was known, and a kindly man, was a minor paternal deity, ; the roturier took a vicarious pride in his stately courtesy, his benign smile, his splendid raiment ; his lady was worshipped as little lower than the angels. If the estate could not support the family in comfort the seigneur sought employment at Court ; his affairs would be managed by an intendant, often of mean birth, and therefore merci- less. More remarkable even than the charity of the poor for the poor, which is a phrase rather than a fact, is that solid reality, the cruelty of the enriched poor man. So long as the seigneur was just, and provided relief after a bad harvest, the peasant dissociated him from the Government. The Government was the King's ; but the King, good man, did not know half his servants did. But gradually the peasantry became less simple. Their own seigneur might not oppress them, yet taUle, poll-tax, gabelle, 183 Pierre Garat corvee, an'd the rest of the dues that ground them down, which they had so long regarded as the King's, were simply imposed for the benefit of the very nobles who now and again remitted a due ar gave a few sacks of corn. Unsuccessful and embittered bourgeois, especially petty lawyers, began to play the demagogue. The peasant had deciphered the writing on the wall ; the demagogue dotted the i's and crossed the t's. His mind was incapable of containing two ideas at one time, or of balancing and comparing them. Many parts of France were untouched by hard- ship ; many seigneurs were kindly and conscien- tious landlords ; but when the peasant had been long befooled by promises of liberty and equality, when every prohibition was removed, when envy and greed and egotism took the guise of patriotism, sanctioning the worst excesses, the simple peasant, the kindly child of nature, the virtuous, natural man, lynched the seigneurs and the ladies who had fed him in famine and tended him' in sick- ness with that same hysterical assumption of patriotic virtue to be observed in a crowd of Florida " crackers " hunting a possibly unoffending negro. 184 CHAPTER IX MUSIC AND THE TERROR Hard times— Garat and Rode in Rouen — A haven of refuge — Social life among the refugees — Garat and Mile, du Hamel — The first concerts — Boieldieu — The King's death — Further concerts — Difficulties — Mile, de Roussellois — More concerts — Punto — Mme. de Chastenay — Figures in Rouen society — Further concerts — A stormy scene— The Terror in Rouen — Louchet and Legendre — Lambert — The law of suspects — The prisons fill — Garat arrested — Imprisoned in Saint- Yon — Lacroix — Life in prison — Garat penniless — Rode and Boieldieu to the rescue — The "benefit" concert — Garat the life of his prison — The Troubadour — Who was the mysterious rival ? — Thermidor and release — More concerts — The prisoners' banquet. Although a lack of grain, and more generally a national deficiency of production, coupled with an excess of unproductive expenditure, was the prime cause of the Revolution, fully ten years went by before either people or Government applied itself seriously to remedy the deficit. Worse, in all parts of France revolutionary, or rather Jacobin, mobs set fire to ricks and granaries, threw cargoes into river, canal, or harbour, and scuttled or burned vessels. For ten years there was a constant bread famine in France. Wages were high, even when i8s Pierre Garat reckoned in currency, but the scarcity of provisions more than offset the increase. To men without property or business interests or salaried employ- ment the problem of living was for years a grim' business. More than ever, none the less, the world required to be amused. The business of amusing Paris having become too risky, Garat, in company with Rode, a mere boy of sixteen, set out, as we have seen, for Rouen. Rouen, like so many of the provincial capitals of the eighteenth century, was the home of a wealthy, cultivated bourgeoisie ; it was also, to a great extent, a city of refuge. Thfe two musicians found themselves known by reputa- tion ; to many of the refugees they were known in person. It was not many weeks before they made their first bow to the Rouen public. Rouen, we learn from Mme. de Chastenay, was a kind of oasis in the devastated wilderness of France. The inhabitants of the countryside were mostly wealthy farmers, a peaceable, moderate folk, who were in favour of legal equality, a fair dis- tribution of taxes, and the election by the people of the secondary agents of the Government. For them the Revolution was over, and the Constitution in force. The working classes of the town, numbering some 100,000, were also a peaceable, kindly folk ; as for the bourgeoisie, they were divided into legal and mercantile families, for 186 OLD ROUEN — 182I. From the cuilraviiisl by Byrne and Filler after the painting bv G. Letcis. Music and the Terror Rouen was an old Parliament town.. Between the town and the gown there was a certain amount of bitterness ; the lawyers were more extreme, the merchants were wealthier. But on the whole, as compared with other cities of France, Rouen was a haven of peace. Even the National Guard, in Paris the accom- plice and instigator of crime, was in Rouen sober and orderly . The town was built of wood ; its ruin had been the ruin of all ; it was therefore in the interests of all to keep the peace. Until shortly before Garat's arrival the Presi- dent of the Department of Seine-Inf^rieure was the Marquis d'Herbouville, Mme. de Chastenay's uncle, while the military division was commanded by M. de Liancourt, an ardent military reformer. Both these gentlemen had a plan for helping the King to escape to Rouen. They were purposely indiscreet, wishing the city to grow accustomed to the idea ; the result was an influx of Royalists . Rouen, moreover, was a port on the way to England . On the loth of August there was terrible news from Paris : the mob was supreme ; the King was a prisoner. Liancourt emigrated. Herbouville remained to keep order ; but the troops revolted or threw down their arms and made off for Paris or the frontiers. The city was the quieter for their absence. The National Guard kept order to such good purpose 187 Pierre Garat that in a city of 110,000 workers there was neither fire nor pillage. Then came the proclaitiation of Brunswick, and the declaration that the country was in danger. The general requisition did good service by draining off the younger men and those of Jacobin sympathies. When Garat and Rode arrived the city had settled down to a quiet, humdrum existence. There were clouds in the distance ; but in the meantime life was endurable enough. Impoverished nobles, idle lawyers, anxious merchants, all combined to form a society ; in the daytime they took long country walks, studied the classics, or botany, or music ; in the afternoon they held concert -parties ; in the evening they played cards . Many, for greater safety, assumed a Jacobin deportment ; daughters cut and sewed carmagnoles or pantaloons for fathers and brothers ; many a harmless Royalist or Constitutional Republican was the terror of his neighbours until they discovered that he, good man, went equally in fear of them ! It was to such a society that Garat now appealed in his quality of professional singer. He could hardly have done better ; not only because Rouen was as safe as any part of France, but because, to this collection of refugee courtiers, ruined Parisians, and homeless Royalists, his name was 188 Music and the Terror a household word ; to hear Garat, the darling of the Trianon, the minstrel of a happier world so lately passed away, the aged beaux and pious spinsters who sought only refuge and oblivion, the young girls who tended bewildered mothers, the young men who sought to evade conscription, or awaited a chance of escape to England or to Prussia, would gather from their quiet lodgings in the grassy suburbs of the city, and for an hour or two forget their shawls and sabots and panta- loons, thinking themselves back in the Paris of three years ago. Immediately upon their arrival in the city the two friends waited upon an old lady who lived in the precincts of the abbey of Saint-Ouen : one Mile, du Hamel, a sprightly and amiable spinster, who had accepted, in the quality of paying guest, a wealthy and eccentric old gentleman, by name M. de Lampulet. In practice M. de Lam'pulet was a philanthropist ; in theory he was a musician . His favourite recreation was to stand for hours at a time holding his violin, sweeping the bow to and fro at a distance of an inch from the strings, an expression of ecstasy upon his face. This he called " playing mentally." The days were to come when Garat was to " sing mentally." Did he, in those sadder years, remember the old eccentric of Saint-Ouen? Mile, du Hamel had two nieces, one of whom. Mile, de Flavigny, was an excellent pianist. Little 189 Pierre Garat Mme. de Chastenay • was a frequent caller, and was herself both singer and pianist. Introduced by Mile, du Hamel, and assisted by this little company of artists and amateurs, which was increased by Adrien Boieldieu, a young pianist of considerable local repute, the new-comers gave their first public concert on the loth of January. Tickets were obtainable from Citizen Perrier, lute- player, in the Rue des Carmes, at the price of three francs. Garat was of course the star per- former ; young Boieldieu was his accompanist and solo pianist. The Journal de Rouen for the i ith of January contained an enthusiastic notice of the concert : " We shall count, in future, with a confidence highly satisfactory to ourselves, upon the talent of Citizen Garat. Compass, clarity, and flexibility in a voice of the most beautiful tone were the principal qualities which struck the connoisseurs, and the impression experienced by those who have heard this young virtuoso is not to be communi- cated to those who have so far been deprived of that pleasure. A proper feeling of gratitude on the part of Citizen Garat, inspired by the enthu- siasm of his audience, procured for us the pleasure of hearing two charming French romances which were not on the programme. The second, to the very last line, appeared to us to justify the opinion ' Then a brilliant girl of twenty-one ; " Madame " was a Qourtesy title; she was technically a canoness. 190 ADRIEN BOIELDIEU. Froui an eii^ravin^. To face p. rqo. Music and the Terror which was immediately formed of the abilities of Citizen Garat." A second concert was arranged for the 21st of January : the artists Garat, Rode, Boieldieu, ajid Delmare, the singer ; the hall, as before, that of the ci-devant consuls of the city. During the afternoon the news arrived of the King's execution. Half Rouen was a stricken city. Our friends were in a dilemma. Established in life, as some of them were, by the kindness of the royal family ; sincerely attached to the Queen ; haters of the Parisian democracy, if not all enthu- siastic monarchists, it was more than they could do to sing upon this day of mourning. The risk of postponement was by no means negligible, even in Rouen, but they decided to incur it. A few hours before the time fixed for the concert the performance was postponed until the 28th, the sudden illness of Rode being given as the reason of postponement. On the 28th Garat sang an Italian aria by Prati, an aria by Gluck, and the first scene of the latter's Orfeo ; Delmare sang an aria from' Rameau's Dardanus ; Rode played a symphony by Haydn and two pieces by Viotti ; Boieldieu played a sonata and a potpowrri of his own composition. In the meantime the Royalist society of Rouen, unable but courageously eager to shake off the imminent horror of the times, sought distraction 191 Pierre Garat more industriously than ever. Further concerts followed on the i8th and 27th of February. These were held in the hall of the library of the Grey- friars' convent, from which the monks had been expelled. At the first Delmare again assisted. Garat sang fragments by Gluck, Cimarosa, Sarti, Paisiello, and Rameau ; Rode played morceaux by Viotti and Sterkel, Boieldieu a concerto and sonata of his own. At the second concert Rode, Garat, and Boieldieu executed a jmtpourri, in those days a much -beloved form' of composition. The next concert was announced for March i ith. It was to be held in one of the halls of the old Chambre des Comptes. The friends had been forced to migrate from the Cordeliers. It is probable that the Jacobins found their patriotism too lukewarm. For there were, of course, Jacobins in Rouen, and their power was increasing. Small as were their numbers, they were so dreaded that even among Garat's audiences many who until lately had worn the silken breeches, the embroidered waistcoat, the laced hat and coat, the lawn and lace and powder of the ancien regime, were now careful to appear in grotesque, flapping pantalons, their feet in sabots, the carmagnole re- placing the courtier's coat, the tricolor scarf the embroidered waistcoat, and a couple of pistols and rapier. Garat, now as always, absolutely and implacably scorned such concessions. Had he been a leader among Jacobins his elegance had 192 Music and the Terror been forgiven him ; being an artist, a ci-devant courtier, whose politics were at least suspect, his defiance of opinion was highly displeasing to the shaggy patriots. Whatever the source of the rumour, it was whispered that the concert of the i ith would be proscribed. Fearing, perhaps, to involve their hearers, our musicians took energetic measures. In the Journal de Rouen they published a state- ment that the necessary precautions would be taken to ensure public tranquillity ; and in fact the concert was held, and no disturbance occurred. The measures taken were both a bribe and a blind. Garat and Rode, accompanied by Mile . Roussellois, prima donna of the Rouen theatre, gave a concert in the hall of the Friends of Equality, the takings being contributed toward the equipment of the volunteers of the department. Mile.- Roussellois, be it said in passing, the mother of Mme. Fay and the grandmother of Leontine Fay, was long the idol of the Rouen public. She was an amusing and eccentric person, whose ruling passion was angling. She was by no means regular at rehearsals, but might often be found on the banks of the Seine, or literally in its waters, her petticoats girt to the waist, thigh- deep in the current, rod in hand. After this proof of patriotism our friends took heart, notwithstanding the abolition of worship and 193 N Pierre Garat the closing of the churches, to give a " grand spiritual concert " at the Bureau des Finances. The occasion was the 29th of March in Easter Week; and again Mile. Roussellois assisted. This concert was a triumphant success. Garat gave the Stabat Mater of Pergolesi, and with Mile. Roussellois sang the famous duet from Orfeo. On the 8th of April the two singers gave another concert for the benefit of Boieldieu. On the following day the municipality of Rouen was to make public pro- clamation, on the Champ-de-Mars, that Dumouriez was a traitor to his country. The times were critical ; fearing to be suspected of singing re- actionary songs, Garat had the words of his Italian arias translated and distributed among the audience. It was about this time that Punto came to Rouen : the celebrated cornet who led the orchestra of the Varietes Amusantes in Paris. He always played upon a silver cornet, professing that the vibrations of silver were purer than those of brass. His name was actually Jean Wengel Stich. An old friend of both singer and violinist, he at once made one of their circle. Punto and Rode especially frequented the Chastenay household, practising long mornings with the little canoness, who presently appeared at their concerts, although her name, of course, would not be advertised. Her piano was in the salon of her uncle d'Herbouville. 194 s^i; ■^ :P''' MME, VICTORINE DE CHASTENAY. To face p. 104. Music and the Terror Garat would seem to have accompanied them at times ; Henri de Chastenay, a tolerable singer, began to sing " in the manner of Garat," much to the elder man's amusement. Little Mme. Victorine perhaps saw less of the darling of her sex, his reputation hardly fitting him for the society of young unmarried women. They were intimates, of course, of the household of Mile, du Hamel ; and of other hostesses of the time we must mention Mme. du Bourg, to whose salon every visitor to Rouen found his way. Such visitors were many, before the Terror. They consisted partly of aristocrats quietly leaving the country, and partly of those who feared, by emigration, to lose their estates for ever, and there- fore sought to remain in hiding until mtore tranquil times . Mme. du Bourg, who presented a combination of wit, sociability, gaiety, and devoutness charac- teristic of her countrywomen, had apartments in the house of her cousins, M. and Mme. de la Pallu. A member of her circle was Boisard the poet, whose latter years were passed in devoted attendance upon Mme. de Fontette, once his mis- tress, now stricken with dumbness. Boisard was her mouthpiece ; he read the movement of her lips, he spoke for her, replied to her, and thlanks to his wit and charm her salon was always well attended. As the spring came on the members of this little society made up water-parties on the 195 Pierre Garat Seine, setting out in the large, covered vessels then plentiful in the port of Rouen. The amuse- ments of this circle were innocent enough : song, instrumental music, cards, verse-writing, charades, and the translation of the classics. Punto at once became a member of this circle, Mme. de Chastenay arranging his compositions for piano and concert, and occasionally accompanying him in public. Garat in the meantime replenished his pockets by taking pupils, three of whom often sang with him, while one, Mme. Gr^court, gave concerts of her own. Further concerts were given by Garat, Rode, and Boieldieu, now assisted by Bunto, on the 13th May and the loth June, while on the 20th June they gave an evening concert in the ancient convent of Saint-Louis, for the benefit of Broche the organist, who was Boieldieu's master. Broche, as a Rouen worthy, merits a brief mention. He was the son of a beadle, who, having studied the clavichord at home, was for a time organist at Lyons, then studied in Bologna, and returning to Rouen, after an absence of five years, became organist to the cathedral, a place which he retained vmtil the closing of the churches. His character was harsh and disagreeable, but his powers of execution and improvization were so remarkable that the Due de Bouillon appointed him his clavichord-player. One day, we are told, the Chevalier Saint-Georges and Punto bore him 196 Music and the Terror a challenge, as a result of which he spent an hour and a half at the clavichord, improvising upon ai motif of three notes, without once repeating him- self or departing from his subject, and, what is more remarkable, continuing to charm his hearers. As a composer he was equally noted in his day for his Masses and his drinking songs. He him- self was a faithful client of the Chaudron, a cabaret on the old market-place, in whose honour one of his Bacchic songs was written, and he considered that no poor drinker could be a good musician. The next concert was a " benefit " performance in favour of Garat, Rode, and Punto. It was arranged for June 29th, postponed, as one of the three was ill, until July 9th, and again post- poned on account of the heat, or so the public notices declared. The pretext given may well have been the true one; for the summer of 1793 was peculiarly hot. It was eventually given on the 23rd, in the hall of the old Bureau des Finances. Two new performers appeared at this concert, Kreutzer and Rethaller, both refugees from Paris. Rethaller had played the clarionette in the band of the Bodyguard of Louis XVI. A husband and father, he succeeded in obtaining employment at the Rouen theatre, but was for a time imprisoned with his wife and children. On the 13th of August a concert was given by Garat, Rode, P.unto, Boieldieu, and Hermann, the clavichord -player. The price of the seats was 197 Pierre Garat raised to five livres, perhaps because the little company was growing more numerous. It is usual to find at least two versions of most of the incidents of Carat's life. The story of this concert is no exception. The more likely legend relates that Garat, amid the usual scenes of enthu- siasm, had sung an aria from Piccini's Atys, another by Cimarosa, and a third by Zingarelli. He was then singing a romance of Boieldieu's composi- tion, the latter accompanying him', when certain of his hearers clamoured for the Carmagnole . Such a request was common emough in the theatre in those days, and might have been made at a concert. Garat, the story runs, refused to sing the abominable thing, Boieldieu violently closed his piano, and both left the hall. A warrant was issued the same evening ; Boieldieu fled, but Garat was arrested. The second version of the legend is still more improbable, and comes from a suspect source. It represents Garat tremulously obeying, while Boieldieu throws his instrument across the hall ; a remarkable feat of strength. •We know that Garat was the last person to allow his audience to bully him. His courage was never in question ; moreover, the cause of his arrest was in no way connected with his concerts. Probably the truth is that some time before Garat's arrest the two artists were requested, by that section of the public which was irritated 198 Music and the Terror by his dress and manner, to sing the Carmagnole, and that they refused. Garat had given offence to the " pure patriots " almost immediately after his arrival in Rouen. Not only did he retain the garments and the air of the ci-^evant Court ; he did not conceal his sympathy for the victims of what was known as " the affair of the Red Sea." Shortly before he left Paris Leclerc and Aumont had drawn up a mani- festo in favour of the imprisoned King. Forty persons were arrested and several guillotined on a charge of having signed this document. It was not known, at first, how many or who would be inculpated ; probably the affair was not carried to its logical end. It was not certain that Garat had not signed ; in any case his sympathies were with the unhappy King. Rouen had for long been a city of refuge and a haven of peace. The city was therefore suspect in the eyes of the Terrorists of Paris. That it escaped, eventually, as lightly as it did was due not merely to the accident of Robespierre's fall. Wherever the Committee of Public Safety sent its " representatives on mission," they were forced to rely very largely upon the local Jacobin forces. Here and there, where a city had openly opposed the Revolution, they were supported by the Revo- lutionary Army ; but they were, as a rule, dependent upon the local forces of Jacobinism. 199 Pierre Garat Many of these representatives were peaceable men, who left the capital in fear and trembling. The dread Committee bade them avenge the Revolu- tion in blood. They had to save, not only their own necks, but those of their wives and children. When they found a city divided, with a half -patriot, half-criminal population to applaud and collabo- rate in every panic-stricken deed of blood, the sanctions of every-day life were dissolved ; the commands of his superiors, the applause of his colleagues and inferiors, and the feeling that he must strike or be stricken, was enough to make a monster of many a weak and inoffensive bourgeois. Sometimes they left Paris smarting, whose blood had always been bitter with envy, the sense of failure, and a greedy jealousy ; hating from boyhood the world that had no place for them, they hated in manhood the opponents of the Revolution that promised them power and recognition. The Latin has always been easily gulled by words. Add to such embittered hatred a hysterical sense of duty, a sense of " the country m danger," a patriotism that sees a traitor in every man not a real or pretended fanatic ; add, too, the morbid, exacerbated hatred of physical imper- fection, of ugliness and stupidity, disease and degeneracy, which none but the bourgeois can feel in its utmost virulence, because none has suffered from them', been threatened, swamped, opposed by them as he— give such men command of a 200 Music and the Terror mob of brigands, ex -galley slaves, deserters, , and criminals whom they believe to be " patriots," and the provincial Terror is half explained. In Rouen the criminal mob was absent. Public opinion, on the whole, was royalist, or constitu- tional . The Jacobins were few ; in a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants their power was not extreme. The result was a world of the grimmest comedy. Men held posts under the Committee of Public Safety to avoid suspicion ; they adopted a trucu- lent and ogre-like manner for thfe same reason, and those who had heart to laugh and eyes to see enjoyed many a comedy of sheep in wolves' clothing, intensely fearing one another, yet in fact perfectly good-hearted people, and as far as they dared be harmless. The lust of blood is in all of us, to awaken when called upon, to leap when the leash of social restraint is snapped. We should like to deny it, but the fact remains ; else it were impossible to recruit or use an army, to form' a hunt, or to lynch a negro. But the utter abandonment of the com- missaries to that dark ancestral passion depended upon two factors — approval or command from above, approval and support from below. In each factor fear played its part, and the fear of those below was the keenest. The people of Rouen were not Jacobins ; more, they refused to dance to the piping of the Jacobins. 201 Pierre Garat Attempts were made to arouse them, but in vain. For this reason, and not primarily because the " representatives on mission " in Rouen were of different stuff from their fellows, the Terror dealt almost kindly with the Norman capital. Where else could Garat have remained so long at large — making no secret of his hatred of mtvb rule, and exhaling the very atmosphere of Versailles ? He was not so to remain much longer. On the 29th of August a Committee of Public Sg,fety was installed in Rouen ; Louchet and Legendre were sent thither as " representatives of the people." At once the small Jacobin party of Rouen was in power ; moderate men assumed the mask of Jacobins ; royalists even increased the " republican- ism " of their attire ; the social life of the city was suddenly extinguished. One of the first measures taken by the Rouen Committee was a notice, issued on the 8th Sep- tember, to the effect that all strangers must within fourteen days leave the territory of the Commime . Garat ignored this order : either from arrogance or because he had nowhere to go . In the meantime Rode was taken by the army as a bandsman, but was enabled, by the kindly offices of a " repre- sentative," to return ; Punto, enrolled in the National Guard, was for ever on patrol duty. The days of concerts were over. That Garat escaped 202 Music and the Terror enrolment was due perhaps to the fact that one of his hands was crippled ; so much so that his accom- paniments, when he played them' himself, consisted merely of chords struck with the one sound hand. Then came the " law of suspects," and the prisons began to fill. Rouen was no longer sanctuary, but a trap. Fortunately Lambert, presi- dent of the Committee of Surveillance, was merely a sincere patriot, and a kindly man ; his sister also, a spinster of forty-five, detested injustice and persecution as honestly as she detested a traitor. Many a family of ruined aristocrats was saved by Lambert and his like ; men who had the wit to know who could and who would not harm the State ; and many an aristocrat was saved the risk of dangerous appearances upon guard by the kind- ness of artisan neighbours who acted as substi- tutes. If the history of the Revolution in Paris makes us sigh for humanity, the history of the Terror in some of the provincial capitals is the best antidote to despair. We must remember that Paris was the objective of all the outlaws, brigands, broken men and criminals of France, while from Rouen the more hot-headed energumens were gradually drained by the army. None the less, the prisons filled ; filled and overflowed, so that abbeys, convents, and any suit- able buildings in the hands of the Nation were requisitioned to supplement them. 203 Pierre Garat Carat's turn was at hand. On the ist of Frimaire the police entered his rooms, searched them, and put him under arrest, in pursuance of a municipal resolution of the i6th of November. At first, the prisons being filled faster than thiey were created, our singer was merely imprisoned in his apartments. He was presently removed to the priory of Saint - L6, but seven days later was transferred to the abbey of Saint -Yon. What he thought of the safety of his head we do not know ; he was not in any case one to wear his heart on his sleeive. He was at all events an acquisition to the prisoners. " His talents, his agreeable nature and his happy character made him the delight of the place." Actually the greater number of those imprisoned were eventually released ; but it is likely that few expected release. The arrival of Lacroix in Rouen must have been sufficiently alarming. The lieu- tenant of Danton, he appeared with all the blatant display of the typical commissary, wearing the red bonnet, seated in a coach drawn by six horses. Garat, when he heard of the cavalcade, may well have recalled the day when six horses from the royal stables drew him in triumph to Versailles. Berry, Conservator of Rouen, a kindly adven- turer who went daily to the Jacobins and in secret helped many a gentle unfortunate, was an old friend of the dread Lacroix, and hastened to visit him. " Friend," said the commissary, " when I see 204 Music and the Terror myself in the glass I say to myself : ' What a scoundrel you are ! ' All the same, I mean to make myself spoken of ; I shall be guillotined before a fortnight is up, for certain, but remember Lacroix will make himself spoken of before he dies." But this is to anticipate ; Lacroix did not lose his head until the April of 1794. On the 2 1st Thermidor of the year II a list of the five hundred prisoners of Saint-Yon was drawn up. We find our singer inscribed as No. 172 : — " Garat, Pierre-Jean, thirty years, artist, domi- ciled in Rouen for nineteen months. — No income. — Arrested end of Brumaire year II. P-retext : Stranger, suspect.— Order of the Committee of Surveillance of Rouen." In another list — there are always two versions to choose from — we find him' qualified as " Musician, 35, rue Grajid-Pont, entered Yon the 22 Frimaire." Life in prison, apart from the ever-present fear, which at least was not aggravated by soli- tude, was by no means insupportable. The old grey buildings, reeking with damp and alkaline mould, were no cheerful residence ; and the silence of a dungeon would to some have been prefer- able to the cries and revolutionary choruses of the National Guards on duty about the prisons. However, there was no solitary confinement ; the 205 Pierre Garat courts and paddocks of the abbey were open for exercise, for several hours in the day ; and at all times the prisoners seem to have enjoyed a large measure of personal freedom'. Meals were taken in the great refectory, where there were twenty-four tables. These meals, unhappily for Garat, were provided at the prisoners' expense. He himself ate at table No. I with three companions : a father and son, by name Midy, and a farmer, Bdtille, whose neigh- bours had denounced him as an aristocrat. For a generation Garat set the fashion in song and in dress ; his name, during his lifetime, was a household word ; yet in one sense he remains a mythical figure ; apart from his songs we have barely a line of his writing, and of his speech hardly a hundred words have been preserved. Here — in respect of what ? — of his dinners in prison ! — we at least obtain a testimonial of the real man. Young remarked, upon seeing the pigsties of B:6arn, that before a man thinks of his pig's comfort his own must be well assured. We might as truly say that when, in a time of war and revolution, while no man's life is worth a day's purchase, men con- cern theniselves with the meals of a friend who is fifty miles away, that friend has a rare genius for attracting love. That women loved Garat is nothing ; women of a certain type will always love a popular idol. But in spite of a lifelong pose, in spite of impudence and affectation, the men 206 Music and the Terror who knew him as he was regarded him' with sincere affection, did not forget him when their own world was in ruins, and loyally co-operated to relieve him when their own lives were far froto secure. This is a piece of definite knowledge. To be literal : our singer had to starve or depend on charity. He wrote to Rode, then a " volunteer " in the Dordogne regiment, in garrison at Havre. Rode contrived to return for the occasion, and with the aid of Boieldieu proceeded to organize a concert. The tickets were sold at the old price of three livres, by Citizen Brifere, Rue Grand-Pont, and Citizen Perrier, lute -player, Rue des Carmes ; the concert was held in the hall of the Bureau des Finances. Cardon, a pupil of Rode's, commenced with a morceau by Haydn ; Boieldieu played one of his own sonatas ; while Delmare and Desfoss^s sang. The occasion was by no means without risk to the performers. These also encountered certain obstacles. A letter is extant written by Rode to the Commune of Rouen, which is worth quoting : — " Liberty, Equality. " Rouen, the 2 ist Ventose, the year 2nd of the French Republic. One and Indivisible. " Not knowing that I ought to have applied to the Commune for authorization to give a concert, 207 Pierre Garat I presented a petition to the administrators of the district, and having reUed upon them I announced the concert for to-day, when, going thither a second time to ask permission to remove 200 chairs from the Temple of Reason [otherwise Rouen Cathedral] I was told that I must apply to the Commune ; for which reason I address this petition to thee. President, persuaded as I am that the arts, being children of liberty, should be encouraged by those who maintain the latter. As for me I come from defending her against the brigands of La Vendue and am profiting by the permission given me to leave the batallion for the time being to m'ake use of my talents. I there- fore beg thee to authorize my concert and to allow me to proctire the 200 chairs which I require. I count on the justice due to a republican soldier. " Health and fraternity. "P. Rode." Was Rode in fact a " republican soldier " ? Mme. de Chastenay informs us that he was im- pressed as a clarinette, but was able eventually to evade service, perhaps to leave it before his time had expired. Republican or not, it needed some courage to give a concert whose object, if not avowed, was to supply a Royalist prisoner with funds . No sooner was the concert over than Rode placed 208 Music and the Terror the takings in Garat's hands . It was time ; he owed the Nation no less than £6 for feeding him ! He had then been sixty -five days in prison. That he made haste to pay his host the Nation we know from a receipt, dated the 17th of Messidor. On the back of this receipt is a protest in Garat's hand : — " I am an artist and have no means of living other than by my talent. I have been deprived of my liberty for eight months ; for a long time already I have been at my wits' end to live here and pay the necessary expenses ; in other words, I do not see that I can pay what is asked of me. — Garat." His signature is followed by a Masonic sign. It was a strange society that lived in these old conventual buildings. Men, women, children; nobles, ecclesiastics, tradesmen, farmiers ; detained as emigres, as suspects, as aristocrats ; the victims of poverty, folly, misfortune, or the cupidity of those who sought their goods. They made them- selves some sort of a life, as those will whose habits and conditions are similar ; a kind of routine was followed ; certain individuals were accorded or claimed a kind of eminence ; a kind of ceremony was observed in small matters ; there were games, common jokes, amiable pleasantries, and new-comers were initiated by mysteries or courteously and ceremoniously received. Whether our singer sang or not, he at least con- 209 o Pierre Garat tinued to write music. Most notable of the com- positions which saw the light of prison is The Troubadour. The French verse is so indifferent that it will hardly bear translation into English rhyme. 'However, the contents are of interest because they propose a problem ; and if the reader suffers in reading he must remember that the French verse is if anything a little worse : — "O you who know the woe forlorn Of lovers far apart, give ear! The pitiful adventure mourn A Troubadour has suffered here. A mark for darkest calumny, Though innocent in prison thrown. His talent and his liberty Are lost, and oh, his dear, his own ! The Troubadour ere youth began Was wont of love to chant the lays, And when at length he stood a man He made the thing he used to praise; And always happy did he live So long as he extolled his dear; To sing of love, and love to give. Was this the treason brought him here? When he beheld unrighteous men His native country drawing nigh To sing of war to warriors then He bade his dearest one good-bye. An aged, envious Troubadour The judge's justice overthrew. And freedom's loss he must endure Who sang of freedom all he knew. 2IO Music and the Terror Far from his kin, far from his dear The Troubadour for ay complains, For having sung thro' every year Is now no solace to his pains. Oh, now at least no envy bear The Troubadour whose voice is lost ! But give him back at least his fair! Shall he, now dumb, in love be crost? For ever from his love removed. No more of her to hear men's speech : Oh, if at last her voice beloved His prison might in solace reach ? Alas ! for in this place of dreads No words of love the locks command; Oh, who will grudge the tears he sheds Who always loved his native land ? " One at least of Garat's biographers has sought to read biography in this song. How far we are justified in so doing is quickly evident upon a close examination of the lines. Whether he left a mistress in Paris is uncertain. His affair with Mme. Dugazon was a thing of the past ; and although he was always pursued we do not know that he was always captive. But at least his assertion that he sang to warriors is purely imaginative. Certain members of the fashionable audiences of Rouen may indeed have been called to defend their country, but the strains of Gluck, Rameau, or Cimarosa can hardly have served to inspire them. As for the aged and envious troubadour, he may be as mythical as Garat's mission to men of war. 211 Pierre Garat If real, who was he? And was Garat truly his victim? Actually Carat's opinions and manners were quite sufficient to earn imprisonment. He was a servant of the ci-devant Court, therefore suspect ; he was a stranger, illegally remaining within the Commune. However, a certain document relating to the imprisonment of suspects, preserved in the Library of Rouen, contains a note to the effect that Carat's arrest was due " to Citizen Cre . . . then on mission in Rouen." The latter part of the name has been erased. One Crancourt was appointed to confer with the commissaries in Rouen, in respect of raising a revolutionary army. One Crenier was sent thither by the Committee of Ceneral Security, to stimulate the lukewarm patriotism of the city. Two of the more sanguinary Jacobins of Rouen were named Crenet and Crandcourt. As for their being troubadours, many a Jacobin wrote bad verses and remembered when in power to guillotine his critics. Some have suggested a rival in the affec- tions of Mile. Roussellois, who was of course credited with having courted Garat, and success- fully ; and there is some reason to believe that she did so . Some have declared for Grdtry ; but we have no reason to think he was in Rouen. Readers of Mme. de Chastenay will probably vote for the father or lover or husband of Carat's favourite pupil, whose name was Cr6court. Finally, 212 Music and the Terror the words of the song were not by Garat, but by one of his friends. Le Troubadour and a com- panion song, La Mie du Troubadour, " romances by Citizen Garat imprisoned in Saint-Yon, air by Citizen Garat," were published after his release and were extremely popular. As for the loss of voice so touchingly lamented, it is possible that our singer caught a sore throat in the draughty chambers and corridors of the damp and ancient abbey ; possible that like a prudent artist he was chary of singing in such surroundings. If he did lose his voice, however, such loss was only temporary ; for we hear that his talent made him the " delight of the place." Months went by ; at length, almost unforeseen, when it seemed that the last sane head in France must fall, while the decent manhood of the race was fighting upon the frontiers and wondering at the news from Paris ; wondering at the strange " repre- sentatives of the People " or " Commissaries with the Army " who spied upon and overruled officers experienced in the field — at length the news ran through France that the Terrorists were dead. In Rouen, a city full of the peculiar Norman caution, the reaction was not immediate. One un- happy suspect was condemned and executed on the I ith of Thermidor. The municipality waited to divine the direction of the political cat. Slowly reassured, it at length opened the prisons, and on 213 Pierre Garat the 4th of Fructidor the Committee of General Security passed a resolution releasing Citizen Garat and removing the seals from his apartments. On the 8th he was free. He owed the Nation not only nearly ten months in prison, and his life, but a large number of breakfasts and dinners. On the day after his release he wrote a letter to the municipality : — " Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. " To the Citizens the Mayor and Municipal Officers of the Revolutionary Commune of Rouen. " Citizens, " The Citizen Garat, musician, imprisoned more than nine months ago in the prison of Yon, and set at liberty the eighth of Fructidor, asks for the discharge of the considerable sum of money which is demanded of him' for his long detention ; explaining that having absolutely lost his profes- sion, which he could exercise only at liberty, it is impossible for him to pay the smallest sum. " Garat. " Health and fraternity. " Presented the 9 Fructidor year 2 of the republic one and indivisible. Garat c/o Citizeness Brifere Rue Grand Pont no. 35'-" Whether his petition was granted we do not know. Probably he was given time to pay. At all events, he was soon at work again ; the released 214 Music and the Terror prisoners resumed their old avocations ; those who had escaped imprisonment came out of hiding. Almost at once Garat commenced to arrange for fresh concerts. He had formerly, it would seem, lodged with Mm.e. Briere, and returned to her upon his release, but almost at once went to live, as he had lived before, with Boieldieu. This we know from an official document which contains these words : — " Leave with Citizen Garat at the house of Citizen Boieldieu, Rue Grand-Pont, a copy of this order," etc. Henceforth, Rode being absent, Boieldieu was his chief collaborator and intimate friend. In these premises the pianist's mother, it appears, conducted a dressmaking establishment or magasin de modes. A little later, but better late than never, Rouen was sluggishly stirred by the reaction, and the prison which had held five hundred suspects received the Jacobins in their turn. On the fifth day after Garat's release no less than thirty-two were arrested. In the following year a banquet was held in Rouen, on the anniversary of the 9th of Thermidor, by the ex-prisoners of Saint-Yon, the banqueting- hall in which they celebrated their deliverance being their old refectory. Garat, however, was not in France. 215 CHAPTER X PASTURES NEW After release — New concerts — The Troubadour — Commercial and social stagnation — Famine — Garat and Rode decide to visit England — Difficulty of leaving France — The voyage— They land in Hamburg — France in Hamburg — Concerts — The young Lafond — Holland, Belgium, England — The return to Paris. Garat may well have spent much of his time in the prison of Saint -Yon in efforts to write music ; however, the Troubadour and its companion song are apparently all that have survived that period, although many an air may there have occurred to him, to be written down at a later time. His know- ledge of music was essentially that of a singer ; if he never read music with ease it is probable that he never wrote it fluently. However, on leaving Saint-Yon he formed a kind of partnership with Boieldieu. The latter was himself a song -writer, and Garat by singing his songs could ensure their immediate success. He in return was Garat's accompanist, and may well have given him technical aid in the practice of an unfamiliar art. Boieldieu had a career to make ; Garat had not only to live in the future, but to pay for his dinners 216 Pastures New in the past. The friends approached two artists then in the city— Salentin, professor of music in the National Institute of Paris, and Monnier, actor or singer in the old Rouen theatre, who had been a fellow-prisoner with Garat, and like him may- have owed the nation money. Ten days after Carat's liberation a concert was given in the hall of the ci-devant consuls. The price of entry was again five livres. His public was in a mood to be melted. F.or the first time in years, although the future was still uncertain, men and women dared to breathe, to give rein to the finer emotions. Carat's reappearance was in some sort a symbol of renewed life and hope, of deliverance after peril. Never, perhaps, was he welcomed with greater enthusiasm. •When at length he sang his Trojibadour his hearers could not contain their delight. By the date of the next concert — the second day of the third decade of Brumaire — Rethaller was released from prison, and the programme was completed by four native artists : Schneider, cornet ; Griot and Mile . Maleix, violins ; and Lombard, a basso. This was the first of a series of three concerts, the receipts of which were divided among the performers. Finally Carat and his accompanist organized a concert which was to be given in the hall of the Bureau des Finances. A curious reluctance was exhibited by the authorities whose permission was 217 Pierre Garat required. The Committee of Instruction was requested to authorize the concert and the loan of three hundred chairs from the Cathedral — formerly the Temple of Reason, but now the Temple of the Supreme Being. The Committee replied that neither it nor the Council -General of the Commune could give the desired permission. It has been seen that reaction in Rouen was tardy ; perhaps the enthusiasm exhibited upon Carat's release appeared a little " suspect." However, after much delay permission was accorded and the concert was given. It was the last. Perhaps the three hundred chairs were not filled. Perhaps, having sought Rouen as a refuge, Garat longed to return to a wider public, or craved merely for change. Perhaps the vengeance of the mysterious Gre still pursued him. It is a fact, however, that the Terror left France exhausted ; in a state of commercial and social collapse. The relief of the anti -Terrorist reaction was fugitive. A vast proportion of the soil of France had changed hands : that is, had been confiscated by the nation and sold or given to purchasers or informers. Many of the new owners were quite incapable of exploiting their booty ; and as the capable manhood of France was at the front they could not, even if competent, have obtained the labour necessary to exploitation. This fact, together with the reckless issue of assignats 218 Pastures New and the law of the maximum, had ruined France as a productive country. Nothing but the grip of starvation or an iron tyranny could restore her. She was soon to know both. When the first delight of reaction had gone by the world of Rouen no longer sought amusement. Distraction was no longer an antidote, a palliative. The danger was over, but the world lay in ruins ; anarchy, if anything, was more hopeless for the cessation of the Terror. Food was dearer than ever and money scarcer : in many households bread was not eaten for months unless some member of the family entered the " bread-line " to receive the municipal ration. At a happy moment Rode, who was still in garrison at Havre, wrote suggesting a visit to London. Those imigr^s who had escaped early, with some relics of their fortune, formed a colony in almost every foreign capital, and promised a profitable audience. Although the Terror was ostensibly over, the anarchy that had served as its basis was still extant. It was no easy matter to obtain permission to travel in France ; and those who left the country were in danger of being inscribed as emigres. In any village the traveller might be held up and con- ducted by an officious mob of patriots to the guard- house or municipality, where he was examined or perhaps imprisoned. No traveller was safe without a passport or certificate of citizenship. 219 Pierre Garat Eventually, the port of Havre was reached with- out mishap, and the friends began to inquire for a vessel which should take them as passengers to an English port. Leading France at this time was no easy matter. The cities still swarmed with suspicious and malevolent spies, informers, and officials ; every commune was, in a sense, as autonomous as it was anarchical. However, the requisite papers were at length obtained, and having satisfied themselves that they were not counted as emigres the two friends embarked. For some reason which is not clear— haste at the last moment, or the hazard of contrary winds— they proceeded not to London but to Hamburg. Whatever the reason of their change of place, the change was fortunate. The old Hansa town, so full of wealthy merchants, lovers and patrons of music, was a greater Teutonic Bordeaux. More- over, it contained what no city of France was ever to see again : a society of Fj-ench aristocrats of the ancien regime, wearing their accustomed costume, bearing themselves in the manner of Versailles. To Garat it must have been like a return to the past. Here he found old friends, not of the Court only, but compatriots. It must have been a strange experience for this penniless, shipwrecked musician, 220 Pastures New fresh from the haggard faces, the exacerbated nerves of France, to hear once more the easy, happy diction and gaze upon the unUned features of Frenchmen to whom the Terror was but an ugly tale. They had their troubles, and found it not always easy to live, but the long years of horror, drawn out until horror was scarcely dreadful, were to them a legend. At the theatre two Frenchmen were employed ; one, an ex-Guardsman and a noble, as an actor ; one, a fellow-townsman, as prompter. Another compatriot was the Marquise de Pelleport, whose life was made a burden by an outrageous German landlady. Of better-known figures, of nobles of the Court and the provinces, the list is too long to recite. Beaumarchais was here ; d'Argens, damned by an unlucky marriage, and Rivarol, no very welcome addition to the colony ; Mme . de Genlis and her son-in-law the Comte de Valence ; the Comtesse de With; one of the Potocke ; M. and Mme. Montaigu and the Bisht>p of Clermont ; M . d'Argicourt, and M . d'Osseville ; the Marquise de Bouill6, and the Duchess de Bouillon, dressed now in sober grey, given to charitable works among her compatriots. Of those who were not content to live on the remnants of former wealth, but of necessity or from choice sought to live by industry or talent, we may mention the Comtesse de Neuilly, who had turned modiste; the Marquis de Romans 221 Pierre Garat and the Comtesse d'Asfeld, wine merchants ; Mme. de Tess6, a farmer; M. de Viel-Castel, editor of the Spectateur du Nord. We might name others ; many of them, like the Bourbons, having learned nothing ; s^till looking forward to their eventual return to Paris, little guessing that when they did return it would be, in how many cases, by leave of the despot whose authority they never admitted. In Hamburg our singer discovered a young violinist, Lafond, then only twelve years of age, who had already won himself a name. Garat befriended him, appeared on the platform with him, and eventually taught him to sing. As a singer the child was no less successful than as violinist, and the concerts held by Garat, Rode, Lafond and others obtained a success that must have reminded both audience and artists of the days before the deluge. Their purses filled, the artists resumed their original intention : travelling by way of Holland an^d. Belgium to London. Each capital had its French colony, an imchanged fragment of the old France . Everywhere Garat found familiar faces ; everywhere he was welcomed as a link with the past ; everywhere his marvellous artistry won him renewed fame. 222 CHAPTER XI THE NEW PARIS Paris after the Terror — A city up to auction — Changes — Wealth and poverty — The passing of a civiUzation — The new society of the Directoire — "At home out of doors" — Paris keeps carnival — A world of young people — Garat's welcome to the new Paris — He becomes the " rage " — Princely fees — The new salons : Tallien, Barras, the financiers, etc. — The Muscadins — The Concert Fey deau — Garat's apotheosis — Garat gets his queue cut off — The king of dandies — Garat satirized — Riot in the theatre — Garat repeats his foreign triumphs. Paris drew him back, as she draws all her children. Arriving by diligence, depressed by the sight of a devastated France, where the once fruitful meadow lay fallow and the prey of weeds which invaded the very highways, and wolves himted in packs at night, or boldly issued from the woods by daylight, the traveller, on alighting at the barrier, was surrcamded by a crowd of sallow, unshaven patriots : men of the true shaggy " purity," pro- fessional informers, spies, police agents, who fumbled the exile's papers, ransacked his baggage, tracked him to his lodgings, and eyed him as he 223 Pierre Garat went abroad; furtively learning his business and his habits, in the hope that he might prove suspect. Uneasy under this sinister inspection of the city's unsavoury guardians, you may picture the returned exile hastily hailing a carriage. He approaches the line of rickety vehicles, of whose drivers not a few wear renonants of liveries under their, top- coats, and mentions his address. " One ! " " Two I " " Three I " is the answer. Three francs ? No, three thousand— payable in asslgnats. Paper is at its lowest ; France, after five years of popular rule, is more hopelessly bankrupt than ever. -When the Republic seeks to strike an account of assets and liabilities, income and expenditure, seventy- three of the departments are unable to send the figures required : they have not the money to pay the needful accountants' work 1 The bargain struck, the carriage sets off, through littered streets with reeking gutters, in some of which the grass has grown ; for horses are few, and only lately all carriages were declared suspect. What a city it is that greets his eyes ! Had the enemies of France marched upon the capital and sacked it, and marched away, leaving the delivered inhabitants to rush into crazy carnival, its aspect were no stranger I And enemies indeed have sacked it, but enemies from within ; and a liberated people is indeed holding carnival. Paper 1 No wonder that the paper-mills of 224 THE WOES OF THE CAPITALIST, From a coloured print. The New Paris France have failed to supply all the paper needed*] Every man's pockets are stuffed with paper; his waistcoat is lined with it ; the expenses of a day are enough to stuff a scarecrow ! Paper on the walls ; paper on acres of hoardings ; paper under- foot ; paper flying like snow in the dusty breeze ! It is a city of posters, of a sudden decorated as though for the triumph of a king : perchance that Emperor who already beholds his throne. Proclamations, advertisements, police -orders, and again proclamations : and everywhere, printed in huge letters, or painted, or scrawled in chalk, the significant words : National Property to be Sold! Churches, convents, palaces, hotels, are deserted or put to strange uses ; and everywhere is more paper ; the walls are plastered ; old posters, sodden with rain or peeling off by weight of their multiple layers, droop and flap upon the walls, or hang in fluttering strips ; the quieter streets are littered with their debris, as though an army of picnickers had passed. And indeed all life is now something of a picnic, or rather a feverish bivouac. The churches have lost their crosses ; on each a pike points starkly, bearing a cap of liberty, that has once, perhaps, borne a bleeding head with glazing, half -shut eyes. Over the doors are the words : The French People believes in the immortality of the Soul and the existence of a Supreme Being. 225 P Pierre Garat The gates of grey old convents are gay with tricolored bunting, coloured posters, lamps of coloured glass ; they are dancing-halls, at thirty sous, a livre, or five livres ; or are busy with drays and porters, and horses too unsound to be sent to the armies ; they are warehouses, factories, foimdries. From the windows of princely hotels hang multi-coloured garments, drying ; across the majestic courtyards they flutter on running cords ; you may see a blowzy housewife, bust half bare, head out of window, hauling them in like a string of lively fish or a train of Japanese kites. The old salons are the dining-rooms of cheap pensions, or restaurants, or supper-rooms, or worse ; the lesser rooms are tenements. But now we reach the heart of the city. It is as though the debris of a coronation day had been left through Carnival ; as though Carnival had come to stay. Flags, flying from windows, strung across the streets ; Venetian masts ; festoons of coloured paper ; devices of coloured lamps ; trees of liberty long dead. And everywhere cafds, restaurants, lemonade -sellers, ice-cream shops, pastry-cooks, ribbou'-shops, milliners, medicine- vendors, toyshops, booksellers ; in the ground floors of palaces, in booths, in convents, in courtyards ; the city has become a bazaar, a monstrous fair I It is as though the Palais Royal had littered and populated half Paris. The Palais Royal itself, that " academy of riot," 226 The New Paris is given over to women of the town and their bullies : there are few but support some discredited Jacobin, some dwindling member of the National Guard. In the shops and the galleries they make pretence of varied comtnferce ; in the upper stories of the palace their trade is only one. There they dwell, a name upon each door, or perhaps an indecent print. In the Tuileries the trees are down ; but there are flower-beds, lawns, and statues. A statue of Rousseau stands there, leading Nature by the hand. In a few years' time he will be replaced by Meleager. " Religion is coming back ! " cries an honest citizen : " behold St. Roche and his dog I " In the Place de la Revolution the statue of Liberty moulders ; her neck shows places whence the plaster has fallen. She awaits, the daring whisper, the royal touch for scrofula. In the Champs Elysdes the trees have run wild ; they meet overhead, in avenues of pleasant shade. Avoid the thickets : but the lawns are innocent enough : gay with children in carmagnoles of striped cotton, children in perambulators, impelled by contented parents. Around them a world of caf^s, whose lights at night ring the place with fire. Only the Jardin des Plantes has improved. The collections of Versailles and the Trianon have been moved hither ; and the first scientists of France are at work here, lecturing, investigating, doing notable things ; their ranks thinned by the Terror. 227 Pierre Garat Here and there, from the vantage of a carriage, the home -comer spies beyond a garden wall, a hastily constructed fence or motley hoarding, a great open space, surrounded by blackened walls. What hotel, palace, or convent stood here he hardly knows ; for the streets are all renamed. Now the site is gay with the tawdry finery of circus and fair and bazaar ; swings, bandstands, dancing -tents, lawns, banks of seats, fountains ; places where you may dance, innocently enough, or seek adven- ture, or sup in an undergroimd grotto with a nymph whose price is on the bill. And all day long are auctions. " Half Paris is selling the other half ! " A world has passed away, a civilization, an epoch ; leaving behind it its dwellings, its goods and chattels, its treasures, its household gods. National Property these, for the most part ; for money is cheap and all else dear. But patriots have been rewarded ; speculators have bought far and wide ; creditors of the State have taken their pay ; and all day the auctioneer is busy. The chairs, tables, hangings, beds, bureaux, pictures, statues, plate, and jewels of the emigres are all for sale ; some growing dusty in locked and silent salons ; some huddled in lofts ; more displayed pell-mell in the lower rooms of the very hotises they adorned. Curio-shops are legion; their contents 228 The New Paris overflow on the pavements ; the quays are lined with all manner of treasures and rubbish ; the returning emigre may see his mother's portrait hanging askew between a warming-pan and a gridiron. Bread is still lacking. The farmers of nobles' estates are forced by law to supply their landlords with a little flour. In Paris the Comlmune gives a daily ration: wherefore 150,000 strangers have flocked into the city. Yet if most are poor, many are rich. Men risen by murder and betrayal, or mere peculation and cunning, hold palaces that cost a king's ransom, or estates that were once the wealth of princes ; broad acres of forest and comland and vineyard ; but the trees are felled, the fields are faUow, and the grapes may rot ungathered. Half France lies unproductive. Property passes from hand to hand, not as a thing to be exploited, but something from which a little wealth may be wrested ere it be resold. For the men that might exploit it, they are fighting the outer enemy. A nation up to auction ! A civilization is dead, and the effects are being liquidated ; the relics of a ruling race. From the days when the Celt and German drifted westward from the plains of Asia, or southward from the northern forests ; when the cave-men of Gaul first painted their dwellings with coloured images of beasts, perhaps in hope to 229 Pierre Garat charm thither their living kind; when the brown men of the Mediterranean made Italy their home, and the pale Finns of the North launched their craft on the fiords of Norway ; through all these years the soil of France had been moulding a civilization, a ruling breed, a people whose primal, life-giving passions evolved into the emotions, the sentiments, the beliefs, the arts and the knowledge that make the civilized man. Now this race, the work of ages, was dispossessed as an unjust steward ; exiled, in a great measure destroyed, and utterly brought low. The lesser racfe was left in power, to whom distorted, blunted simulacra of the achievements of ages had sifted downward : for the civilization of a degenerate people is always a degenerate form of that of its rulers, not a perfected form of that of the people of the soil, nor a developed form of that of savagery. And the basic, disinherited people itself, neither crafty savages nor civilized barbarians, these too were left, the men mere food for powder, the women ineffectually tilling the lessened fields or reaping the easier harvest of the streets. Into the hands of such as these had fallen the booty, the loot of France. Despite anarchy, despite a wasted country, there was wealth and a wealthy class. Those who returned not penniless from exile found their hastily saved gold at a premium. But the city was possessed by a horde of enriched buyers and 230 The New Paris sellers ; informers and betrayers ; contractors and stock-jobbers ■ riggers of the money-market, buyers of trash to be sold for infinite resale; sutlers, shoemakers, clothiers, fleshers, horse- copers to the armies ; the administrators of national goods ; an army of locusts, embezzling, having embezzled, or about to embezzle ; a class that some- times barely knew the use or the names of the articles they bought or sold so freely. Such were the new Parisians. What sort of a society did they make? In great measure a society that was " at home only out of doors " ; that Hved in public : supporting over six hundred public ballrooms, scores of theatres, dozens of concert -halls, and thousands of cabarets, caf^s, restaurants, and gaming-houses. At night the whole city was a maze of coloured lights ; from' Montmartre you might watch the ascent of fire- works from twelve different pleasure-gardens. For all Paris was keeping carnival ; all the world was athirst to live, to taste, to enjoy, to dance, to love. As a mature woman whom secluded life has kept ignorant of sex will sometimes finally love with disastrous passion, a Caliban as likely as a Ferdinand, so a whole generation, whose youth was passed in the shadow of terror, in a world of fear, repression, and sordid stoicism, now ran wild as a colt loosed upon windy hills. 231 Pierre Garat Thereby a certain salvation was achieved. For among the rest, as wild as they for pleasure, were the impoverished nobles, the gently nurtured bourgeoisie, who had lived through the Revolution or were slowly returning from abroad. For a time a sort of democracy was a fact ; before the classes settled into strata, or drew apart into coteries, all classes lived and tasted life in public. The sons and daughters of nobles who lived on the few supplies grudgingly doled them by their tenants, eking them out with savings or the sale of house- hold treasures, were proud of their successes in economy ; breeding went gaily in often-washed muslin, or coats long shabby with wear ; and rich vulgarity, attempting to reach distinction by dis- play, recognized superiority and aped it. Young girls of noble or gentle birth robed themselves in Greek fashion, in a few yards of stuff and ribbon ; the leaders of plutocracy adopted the fashion, exaggerated it, omitted the chemise as concealing the limbs, and at length, for a week, went in chemises alone. As the cultured classes became established manners and dress assumed a certain simple elegance ; but the transition stage saw the most wonderful medley of fashions, outrageous and grotesque, that the world has ever known. The older people, saddened incurably, or unable to adapt themselves, held aloof. The yotmger generation, being free of the fear of death, eager 232 The New Paris to forget the past, thirsted for life, for pleasure, for the lust of the eye and the gratification of the senses . Because the body must be simply arrayed, and because they no longer feared to hold it dear, they conceived a worship of the body. Men took to athletics ; foot-races in the parks, wrestling, ball -play, juggling upon bars or trapezes ; they attended fencing -schools and dancing academies ; took pride in mighty thews and a clean skin. •Women to a certain extent followed suit ; with them the worship of the body took the form of revealing its beauty, by robes of a single thickness, cross-girdled under the breasts, revealing the calf and thigh at the side ; the feet were enCased in sandals, and rings were worn on the toes . Morality was easy, and because this was so, and because parents could not agree in so mixed a world, marriages were few ; so marriage-marts were held : a pension for young ladies with dowries was estab- lished, where aspiring husbands were nightly entertained. Such was the outward Paris : as a stranger might see it, or a social outcast ; and at first it was largely a city of folk who were in a sense outcast, of people uprooted or unsettled. Inwardly it was of course in process of crystallization ; the newly enriched here, there, and everywhere, but especially on the Chaussee d'Antin; the less wealthy worlds were more confined to their several qxiarters, being as yet unable to keep carriages. 233 Pierre Garat Garat, on his return, found himself welcomed by all these worlds ; eventually even by the home- less world which lived and mingled and entertained in public. Like his friends, of the theatres, his welcome was warm indeed. If for a time, for reasons to be seen, his eminence as dandy ceased to increase, at least, in this new world so eager to love and live he was more than ever the idol of women. In the salons of the richer but more established world, the homes of the rulers of France, no enter- tainment was complete without his presence. The days of singing to a couple of hundred borrowed chairs, to three-franc audiences, were over : his fee was £60 to £80 per appearance. The young men of the city, with their square baggy coats, high collars, and tight pantaloons, bearers of huge knotted clubs, whom one day he was to lead, were eclipsed for the time by this dandy of the anclen regime. He was the fashion, the rage, a demi-god of the night. When he sang the guests crowded about him, stood upon chairs to watch him ; women wept and kissed his hand. You might see him continually in the salons of Barras, and in the train of that queen of the new society, Mme. Tallien : the latter he visited " almost daily, to sing some of his beautiful Italian airs." Mehul or Cherubini would take the piano, and while he rested, or gracefully received the adoration of his latest pursuer. Rode would play the violin. 234 The New Paris Perhaps because he was so continually called Orpheus he now began to accompany himself upon the lyre : an instrument, for that matter, entirely to the taste of a society which, largely because a Greek robe of muslin cost only a few francs, and was therefore worn by young girls of the impoverished nobility, whose presence was eagerly courted and their fashions adopted by mushroom wealth, was in love with classical costumes and allusions. Armand Sdguin, the chemist, who had provided the armies with leather, was another of his constant patrons ; Ouvrard also, a young multi- millionaire, who entertained in half a dozen princely chiteaux ; Hainguerlot, a fraudulent army con- tractor ; and Van Der Berghe, Perregaux, Tilliere, Dalessart, Pourtalfes, and Le Couteux, among the new financial magnates. At the home of the Etchegoyens, also financiers, like himself Basques by descent, and even distantly related, he met many compatriots. He did not, as we have already seen, confine himself to any one circle ; as a guest he might have avoided those of extreme opinion ; as a professional singer he went every- where. Fouch^ and Sieyfes were his hosts no less than entertainers of royalist opinions ; Mmes . de Montesson, de Lameth, de Viennais, the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, the Due de Fitz-James, by their fre- quent invitations provided him with a society that recalled his earlier years. Of the Governmental hostesses, Mme. Tallien, 235 Pierre Garat perhaps, was she who most often required his services. Being a Bordelais, he could not readily forget Teresa Cabarrus, Comtesse de Fontenay, " Our Lady of Pity." If he found it not so easy to enter the house of the butcher of Bordeaux, at least he was paid for his services ; moreover, the butcher was a reformed character and had been a chief instrimient in ending Robespierre's Terror. When Mme. Tallien, deserting her Director, became in her final avatar the Princesse de Chimay, Garat was as ever a friend and servitor. He was welcome also in Huguenot circles : in the home of de Corancez, father of Mme. de Cavaignac, a truly musical house, where our singer met Gr^try, Gossec, Lesueur, and others, singing their songs, to the accompaniment of Baillot the violinist. Here he met the flower of intellectual France : Joseph de Ch^nier, pursued by the calum- nious nickname of Cain ; Bemardin de Saint- Pierre ; Florian ; Laplace, Laharpe, Lagrange ; and with them Greuze, now a dissolute and aged wreck of his former self. At the house of de Corancez' elder daughter, Mme. de Foissy, he was present every Tuesday, when Baillot and Rode played the violin, and La Marre and Bodiot the bass viol. Besides chamber music and Garat's own voice the guests were privileged to hear Mme. de Foissy herself at the piano, while Miles, de Chevilly, Bouill^e, and Cloisiau sang. Of fashionable hostesses other than Mme. Tallien 236 &^^ ms.^ The New Paris we may cite Mmes. Hamelin, de Canisy, de Fleury, R^camier, de Montaigu, de Brissac, de Lostanges, among others, all of the old nobility; lastly, but not least, the future Empress of the French, whose interior Morris has described for us. We might extend the list through pages : Mmes . Regnault de Saint -Angely, Sophie Gay, Hainguerlot, etc., etc. Of the hosts of Paris we may mention, besides Barras and Tallien, Lucien Bonaparte, Cambacdrfes, Marat, Dupaty, Laborde, and the Rastignacs ; of the old world, the brothers de Noailles, de I'Aigle, de Montrond, d'Orsay, d'Hautefort, de Perigord, etc. In the homes of such men as Vernet, Boilly, Isabey, and their like, he was himself at home. The musical society of the capital he encountered not only in these many salons, but also at the receptions held in the house of the Erards, whose fame was then beginning. Here were his tried comrades Rode and Boieldieu, and his old friends Mehul, Cherubini, Lesueur, Gretry, etc. So much for his relations with the inner world of Paris. With many of its members he had been long familiar ; for the outer world, the world " at home only out of doors," he was known (save by hearsay, perhaps by sight) only to the few who remembered the Concerts Spirituels of pre- Revolutionary days. Now he was again to make his bow to this larger audience, to win his greatest triumphs, his greatest notoriety ; to encounter also 237 Pierre Garat a momentary check which, although for once in his Ufe he was made to look ridiculous, was eventually a happy crisis in his life as leader of fashion. It was in 1795 that he commenced his appear- ances at the Concerts Feydeau. Before speaking of his relations with his new public, let us consider for a moment what that public was . One might say, Chaos at Carnival ; for in the early days of the Thermidorean reaction society was as yet formless, was composed of a hundred cliques, and the owners of millions were but slowly learning to spend them'. Meanwhile the best society was not seldom to be found at the public balls. The muscadins, the " gilded youth " of Frdron, came into being while Garat was absent from Paris. They were a class of young men who might have been said to be drunken with life. To protect themselves from the remtaiants of Robespierrism, they adopted the club, the bdton, the " executive power." Despite an affected brutality of manner, which at times became a real violence, and a general licence of behaviour, they were the avengers of civilization. Theirs were the joys of fine clothes, full purses, fair women, wine, song, music, art, and the dance ; and these delights they were ready to defend with their lives. They were supported by all that was joy-loving, generous, and gay in feminine France. The uniform of the muscadin 238 LES INCR0YABLES^I796. From a coloured citi^ra-i'iiiQ after Vonct. A CABRIOLET. Froiii a litliograpSi. The New Paris was a square, shapeless coat, varied from month to month by all kinds of intentional misfits, with buttons low in the back, and two long tails ; the legs, encased in tight pantaloons and top boots, were as like stilts as might be, and a splay-footed, knock-kneed or bow-legged form of progress was adopted. The cravat was enormous, " a goitre of muslin," rising to the lips ; the face was barely revealed between the boat-shaped hat and the bottle-neck shoulders. Infinite variety ensued, but thus, on Garat's return, was the typical muscadin. The muscadin was a violent person. He wore a black collar ; the Jacobin a red. " Devil of a chouan I " cried a Jacobin one day ; " for whom are you in mourning?" "For you!" said the other, blowing out his brains. " Strike ! " was his motto. " Personal defence is a legitimate and natural privilege ! " Garat the royalist would be tolerated by such. Garat the idol of Paris would command respect. Garat the musician they adored. But they could not support a man dressed as a noble of the ancien regime as their leader ; and it became presently patent that he was assuming or was accorded such a position . We shall see what occurred ; we shall see that while Garat was undisputed king of incroyabies he never truly led the muscadins. It is perhaps correct to say that his leadership coincided with the passage from muscadin to incroyable . 239 Pierre Garat This important point considered, let us proceed to the Concert Feydeau. The mushroom millionaires, having heard that the nobles of the ancien regime were wont to delight their guests with orchestral and vocal music, were most willing to do the same. Their wives were positively heroic ; women of forty began to learn the piano and travelled with a clavichord. Concerts became as universal as balls. The Utopia of musicians was at hand. But of all concerts the concert -in -chief was the Concert Feydeau. It was— to cite MM. Gon court— the Field of the Cloth of Gold of the Directory. " To produce a sensation at the Concert Feydeau a woman would wear two years' income on her back . The modistes were besieged, the day before the concert, by a cloud of femmes de chambre ; offering a hundred francs for a hat, on condition that no duplicate appeared at the concert. Three days beforehand Paris stood in a queue at the box-office of the Feydeau, demanding boxes . . . whence wigs inlaced with gold, hats loaded with diamonds, and robes of lace might be exhibited. . . . On the day the crowd is enough to make any one despair of entering. . . . Biting verses are written on this Longchamps of the incroyables and impossibles! Martainville puts on the boards The Concert of the Rue de Feydeau or The Amusement of the Day; ... at the Ambigu is the Concert of the Rue 240 The New Paris Feydeau or The Folly of the Day. Ridiculed, their garments insulted, the habitues of the Feydeau hiss the piece at the Ambigu; there is a little cudgel-play ; cries of Down with the Jacobins ! Down with the Muscadins! and a little set-to on leaving ; the Parisians wonder whether the fashions will cause a civil war. "Feydeau is not only the haunt of muscadins. It is niore than the show-place of elegancies, novelties, smiles, ribbons, glances, head-dresses ; more than the salon of fashion : it is a concert, the finest concert in Paris. One by one, you may hear the pure and sonorous violin of Mme. Larduner, the expressive voice of Mme. Barbier, the cornet of Punto, the violin of Baillot, the harp of Mme. Molinos ; Rousseau also and Guiraux and Mme. Storace. But who is this? The restless heads grow more restless ; feathers sway and flutter ; gold glitters ; scented fans tremble. A sympa- thetic murmur precedes some one who comes forward. Who is it? It is Garat I Garat, the spoilt child of success ! Garat, for whom the late queen sent six horses ! Garat, whose larynx is a whole opera ! Garat, who counterfeits all voices, all qualities, all the actors and actresses, all instru- ments .... The Orpheus in strange garments ; the cheeky fellow who threatens M. de Talleyrand never to dine with him again, for he has been kept thirty minutes waiting ! Garat, who is paid sixty pounds for singing a couple of airs ! 241 Q Pierre Garat " Garat reigns ; the romance governs ... it has travelled over all Fjance. Garat sings . . . eyes are filled with tears ; gentle hands thank him for having sung. But a smile, at once confused and grateful, is seen fluttering on feminine lips ; fans open and are a screen to shelter shame. . . . Garat ! The witty buffoon of the rondeau called Visitandines! the singer, below the breath, of ethereal obscenities. Garat sings : — " • One day this autumn . . . ' It is the famous Girl of Gascony, which he could not deny to the pleading of the whole hall. . . . The women blush obviously, and in secret laugh, and the applause of a thousand hands rewards the singer . " Happy Garat I The Seine would return your ring, did you throw it in 1 Happy Garat ! You might say, to Fashion : ' O my divine goddess and guardian, all men complain of their lot, but I beg you to change no single thing in mine. The graces, the pleasures besiege me; they all long for me, and I let them draw me after them. They worship me ; I let them do so ; my costume, my speech, my bearing, all make an epoch in the world. A romance of mine is an event ; a chromatic cadence the news of the day ; a cold a public disaster. ... It is too much felicity for a mortal ! " 242 The New Paris Such was the triumph of Garat in the new world. But in citing the brothers Goncourt we have in a measure anticipated. Before he con- quered his public wholly, before the incroyables accepted him as king, there was a crisis ; and the wit that saved him was not his own . Other than muscadins and incroyables fre- quented the Feydeau ; or shall we say that among them were youths of republican leanings? The authorities are none too clear. What we do know is that Garat continued to appear, lordly and imper- tinent, in powdered hair, queue, and the full dress of old Versailles. He disdained the " square coat " as he contemned the carmagnole. This was a contempt of opinion . The news ran through Paris ; and one day the audience was ripe for mischief. Blaise Martin was to sing with him; once and always a violinist, but also an actor and an admirable singer, with a compass comparable to Garat's. When it was Garat's turn to sing, that befell which had never been known before : he was hissed I From' all parts of the hall came the hisses, with a rhythmical chorus of " Z,a queue, la queue! " Garat stared and retired to the wings, where he found Martin. "What's the matter with them?" "You will be hissed," replied the other, "so long as you retain your queue." "Does it prevent me from singing truly?" said Garat. " No." " Well then, they are wrong ! " With this logical retort, he again ascended the platform. 243 Pierre Garat Louder than ever were the hisses. Garat stood firm and waited for silence ; but there was no silence. The uproar, on the contrary, increased; there were shouts, insulting yells, and cries of " La queue!" Garat stood amazed. Martin, from the wings, called hivci, saying that he would sing first and thus obtain a hearing for Garat. Garat returned to the wings, when Martin, with a sudden stroke of a pair of shears, cut off the offending queue. Garat was inclined to retaliate, but Martin, giving him no time for reflection or for action, dragged him upon the boards, with his hair falling about his face : a spectacle received with a burst of unanimous applause. Amiably accepting defeat, he sang, and never was his reception more wildly enthusiastic. Martin he forgave in due course. Conversion to the chevelure d Titus, the crop, or the dog's ear cut, the square tail-coat, the skin- tight pantaloons, and high top-boots would have been too servile a submission. He accepted the new fashions, but he wore them with a difference. His hair was dressed in a shock of little curls, which gave him the look of a poodle ; his coat was cut with " haddock's tails," the skirts turned back and buttoned ; his pantaloons descended to the swell of the calf, and his boots were of soft leather, with the tops turned over. A vast cravat allowed only the upper part of his face to be seen, and his hat was high-crowned instead of low. His striped waistcoats bore two rows of prodigious 244 The New Paris buttons ; and his overcoats were laden with a series of diminishing capes. By these changes, however, he became an incroyable and the accepted monarch of their race. Hence he was despotic arbiter of taste and bearing, music and fashion. In connection with Carat's restoration as supreme dandy we must refer once more to The Concert of the Rue Feydeau or the Folly of a Day, by Perrin and Commaille, which was played at the Ambigu. The play represented the crowd of lady's-maids besieging the milliners, bidding for hats of unique design for the morrow's concert, and lackeys waiting at the box-office to obtain boxes advantageous for display. Garat himself was represented as a fatuous and ridiculous dolt, and a second person qualified him as a muscadin. Garat and his friends were warned of what was coming. The first night at the Ambigu saw them in their seats. When the word muscadin was launched as a term of abuse, they rose, led by Garat, hissing, shouting, booing the author, leapt upon the stage, and sent for Perrin, in order to bid him suppress the word which had outraged their feelings . Perrin replied ; all were silent to hear him. " Gentlemen, the word was not in the text. It shall be to-morrow and the actor will repeat it." Thereupon such a tumult arose that the theatre had to be evacuated. 245 Pierre Garat Next day Garat and his friends returned in even greater force, having bought all the canes and heavy cudgels to be obtained. The unsympathetic portion of the audience did as much, as did the actors, musicians, stage carpenters, call-boys, etc. The riot was worse than before. No one ever heard Inore than the first scenes of the offending comedy, Garat had not lost sight of Lafond, the yotmg singer and violinist of his Hamburg days. In 1797 he presented him at the Feydeau. Under Garat's guidance the boy of fourteen was soon the rival of Kreutzer and Viotti. Before this date he had once more visited Rouen, where he was sure of the warmest welcome. Thence, after a stay of several weeks, he pro- ceeded to Havre. Boieldieu was his companion and at Rouen his host j the series of concerts which they gave in the former's native city were so successful, as the pianist remarks in a letter to a friend, that all his Rouen debts were paid. In the following year Garat made a second foreign tour. He visited various capitals ; the Monitear Officiel speaks of him as in Madrid : " Garat the singer is at the present moment delighting Madrid." Did he, on his journey home, perhaps visit Ustaritz, where his father dwelt in retirement ? 246 CHAPTER XII PROFESSOR OF SINGING AND THE MODE More concerts — Garat at rehearsals — The idol of Paris — Feminine pursuit of Garat — Longchamps restored — Garat the pattern of muscadins — The men of the/ao/e d'honneu — ^The responsi- bilities of a dandy — Garat's appearance — His unpunctuality — At Mme. Junot's — His sincerity as an artist — An inspiration — The Conservatoire — Garat becomes a professor — He bids farewell to the platform — The night of the " Infernal Machine " — Garat's last public appearance — Garat at the Opera When after renewed foreign triumphs our singer returned to Paris the Concert Feydeau was no more. Later, in the year VIII, it was replaced by the concerts of the Rue de Clery. The director responsible for these was Bondy, ex-prefect of the Seine ; advised by Cherubini, Br^val, Perignon, Duvernoy, de Crisnoy, and Devilliers. The orchestra, of twenty-four players, was conducted by Grasset ; the choral singing by Plantade . Tickets for twelve concerts were sold for 72 francs, and there were more than six hundred sub- scribers . Garat was a frequent performer at these concerts. One of his greater efforts was the production of 247 Pierre Garat portions of Gluck's Iphigenia in Tauris, and Orpheus; two acts of the former opera were per- formed and nearly the whole of the latter. The artists who assisted him were Blangini, Martinelli, and Mmes. B'xanchu, Bolla, Durat, Armand, Duver- noy. Roche and Kreutzer were the solo violinists of these concerts, and the symphonies of Haydn held a place of honour on the programme. At rehearsals an amusing glimpse of Garat the artist — one might say the natural Garat — was seen. Each singer was accustomed to bring to rehearsals one of his pupils, as understudy, or, on occasion, to double his part. Garat, too languid or too experienced to consider it proper that he himself should rehearse, used to make his pupil sing his parts. However, he was never fully satisfied with the pupil's performance, and proceeded to give a meticulous practical lesson on the platform' ; sing- ing fevery passage himself, and insisting on repe- tition luitil all was perfect. The result was that rehearsals were lengthy ; but they were enlivened by scenes of comedy which delighted every one but Garat. After a few years these concerts were continued in another part of Paris, but the public did not follow, and they shortly came to an end. Garat was by this time the idol or the jest of leisured Paris. Represented on the stage, the subject of epigrams and satires, he received every 248 P-i ~5 =i'£ . ^•^^^ ^ flC^-^Aipfe^- Professor of Singing and the Mode day a sheaf of verses, sent him by admirers of either sex. He was sought, as performer, by every aspiring hostess ; he was welcomed, as guest, by the best of intellectual France. A hard worker, he found ample time for play. A leader of fashion, eventually king of the incroyables, the profession of exquisite was as arduous as that of singer. It was his duty, as arbiter of fashion, to be seen at the right places and at the right time. This, as all Paris was dancing, meant attendance at all the more fashionable ballrooms. In the Hotel Biron, the H6tel d'Aligre, the Cercle d'Harmonie, the Vauxhall in the Rue de Bondy, the Bal de rfichiquier, the Pavilion Saint-Honord, the Maison d'Orsay, and the famous Bal des Victimes one was sure to see Garat on the days when and in the place where attendance was a social duty ; his dark, sleepy eyes shining half -maliciously beneath his shock of curly tresses, his impertinent nose nearly touching his vast cravat, his slender feet and calves apparently too fragile to support the bottle-necked oblong of heavy tail-coat and gaily-striped waistcoat which formed the body of the incroyable. At the Bal des Victimes he received supreme honours, which declared him, incontestably, the most fashionable man in France ; with Tr^nis, later Comte de Chatillon, the perfect dancer, and in a social sense a rival, he was the partner of Mme. Tallien on the occasion of her appearance coiffee a la Titus; 249 Pierre Garat in English, with a head of short curls. It was a historical occasion; the other guests abandoned the floor, those behind the foremost forgetting decorum and climbing upon chairs, to see Garat and Trdnis and the divine Teresa tread a measure at the Bal des Victimes. Judge if Garat was pursued by his fair adorers ! It was an age of generosity ; those ladies who now, after the burden and heat of the Revolu- tion, once more encountered their lovers of the ancien regime, were ready to accord them any favour, even to that of loving them again. As emigris returned, as the destitute recovered, as the refugees reappeared, there were many such meetings. As for the women of the younger world, a youth of fear and repression had taught them to ask for what they wanted. We obtain an idea of the pursuit to which Garat was accustomed, and also a flavour of his sometimes delicious im- pertinence, in his reply to a young woman, who indignantly complained of having received an extremely crude declaration. " Tut ! " said Garat, "so such things happen to women also?" In the year 1797 the Republican Calendar ceased to be compulsory. Anniversaries were no longer " suspect." New Year's Day was cele- brated that year, as a day of deliverance out of the bonds of Egypt. Carriages came into vogue once more — cabriolets, phaetons, buggies, carrioles, 250 Professor of Singing and the Mode everything that was light and ran upon two wheels. Anglomania seized the drivers, whose ambition it was to look like their own conception of an English coachman. Weri-woll! was the fashionable salu- tation. [Query : very well, acquired from English grooms ?]■ In this year, with the reintroduction of carriages, the festival of carriages was also restored : Long- champs, with a difference, for now the cabriolet, the buggy, the " wisky " was all the rage. Again that carnival of luxury and ostentation set out from and returned to Paris ; again the famous courtesans passed in triumph ; the great ladies of the new world, Mmes. Recamier and Tallien, " shone like gentle suns in the crowd " ; Franconi, the ring- master, dispatched his band in a gorgeous gondola on wheels ; after it his troop of riders ; after them a vehicular epigram, a huge derelict carriage, suspended by ropes in place of straps, held together by knotted cords, the wheels patched, the whole drawn at a funeral pace by six skeleton horses. Within were six men even thinner than the horses, and the sides of the carriage bore the legend : Car of the Rentiers, the " independent gentlemen." But all eyes are not on the carriages. Observe the cohorts of the muscadins, a year or two later the Incroyables ; their eyes, full of a brutal and assumed indifference, or a languid and humble arrogance, are restless ; there is a turning of 2SI Pierre Garat bodies, for the head cannot be turned ; chins lift almost from their encircling cravats ; lunettes are perched upon inquiring noses. It is Garat they seek : this year and for many a year ; Garat, whose attire this day will be 3 work of reflective and responsible art ; his cravat will set the fashion in cravats until he alters it ; his walk, his coat, his waistcoat — the number of pocket-flaps, the number and size of buttons — oh, a host of details must all be noted and remem- bered ; and if one has the honour of his acquaint- ance perhaps he will divulge the name of the haberdasher who can give lessons in the confection of the real cravat. He is seen at length with a company of followers : amazing figures, delicately fingering their knotted cudgels ; eyes and noses visible between the hat and the masterpiece of muslin that escapes from the high-collared coat ; walking with a slow, curious swagger, speaking in high, affected tones, the lips not moving, the consonants omitted. Behind them a retinue of curious spectators ; before them way is made ; on either side the throng admires or temerariously derides. These followers of Garat's are the men of the black collars, the men of the paole d'honneu. For at the height of his influence, at the summit of bis career, as a piece of genuine affectation or a secret, stupendous jest, Garat demonstrated the 252 Professor of Singing and the Mode full extent of his power by infecting Paris with garatism: a disease of articulation, which ran its course, through many phases, like a fever no self- respecting person could escape. Was the origin of the pose mechajnical ? Did it arise from the difficulty of moving the lower jaw, which fitted so snugly its nest of folded muslin? Was it psychological — did it arise from the desire to preserve, even in speaking, an immo- bile and expressionless face? Did the letter R, that glory of sonorous French, indeed, as Garat professed, offend his fastidious ear? Surely not, for he never ignored it as a singer ! Be that as it may, Garat began to lisp, to zezayer ; he declared the letter R an outlaw. And at once all Paris began to lisp ; it murmured, it spoke in a gentle, infantile prattle ; and the languid pronunciation was followed by languid looks and attitudes ; great hulking cudgel -bearers, proud of their muscles, riders, runners, fencers, swimmers, leaned upon mantel or chair-back as though too weary to stand, or sank limply upon sofas, in the posture of one about to swoon. But the cudgel never left the hand ; and if some sacri- legious democrat laid his paws upon the " black collar " the gentle " ze vous tuewai " was likely to prove suddenly true. These languid lispers more than once beat off charges of mounted troops . Whether the attack upon other letters of the 253 Pierre Garat alphabet was also due to Garat is not clear. D was for a time taboo ; then Ch, then G, and so forth. Finally the disease attacked all France, though sparing the lower orders, and there were thousands who spoke a kind of baby-language or " nigger French." The satirists, be sure, were busy; here is a passage from the Journal des Incroyables ou les Honimes d paole d'honneu, the date being the year III. It describes a scene at the theatre: " Tout d'un coup des c'is d'enfant pa'tent du fond d'une loze, ou tou'ne les yeux de ce c6td pou' fai'e cesser le b'uit ; mais quelle est la su'p'ise commune I la Duza'din en t'avail d'enfant, et ce n'^tait aut'e gose que le petit poupon qui avait atti'e nos ega'ds ! " The date of this fashion, we have seen, was 1795 : the year of Garat's return to Paris. Was it a result of his ambition to acquire the Brittanic " phlegm " ? Or was it a deliberate advertisement? Whatever the truth, it was a fashion that lasted, and one fact is curiously arresting : during these years Garat's art was at its highest, its most sincere, and never, on the platform, was his articulation other than perfect. As Garat made the fashions, so they helped to make him, by bearing his name. Coats, cravats, canes, spy-glasses, boots, gloves, waist- coats : all were d La Garat. Proud of a neat ankle, a slender foot, he went to a lady's shoe- 254 Professor of Singing and the Mode maker for his boots : a fashion at once followed by all the elegant youth of Paris. His eminence carried with it a serious responsi- bility. He set the fashions for an extravagant world to which wealth was returning. As a result, in spite of his fees as a singer, which for those days were extraordinary, he was usually in debt. There was now, alas ! no Marie Antoinette to pay his debts. The embroidery of a coat cost £120; his waistcoats were lined with the most costly satin ; his cravat demanded yards of the finest batiste, and his slippers were adorned by diamond buckles. At the risk of repetition, we must cite, for the last time, a few impressions of this Tsar of the modes as he appeared to his contemporaries. His head and shoulders were compared to the end of a Bologna sausage. Mme. Junot has a brief impression : " Garat thrust his head for a moment out of the vast length of muslin in which he was swathed and which served him as cravat ; then he took up a spy-glass which resembled rather a reading-glass." Here is a fuller description, of a somewhat later date, for whiskers appear : " Leader of the incrayables, one must have seen him, his hair cut very short on the nape, curled and trained over the forehead; with his tiny whiskers framing his cheeks, the face imprisoned between the coat-collar, which covered the neck, and the cravat enclosing the chin ; the hair hiding the forehead, revealing nothing of his comical, 2»S5 Pierre Garat grimacing face but his little piercing eyes and his gimlet nose. . . . And those long coats, pierced with pockets on every side, adorned with enormous revers, and extravagant collars ; the ample over- coats, with enormous hanging skirts, with four, five, or even six capes, the diminishing gradation of which was not unlike a monstrous toadstool, with narrow sleeves so long that they had to be turned back to show the finger-tips ; and the gloves with yellow gauntlets, decorated on the back with elaborate embroidery and ornament ; and the waistcoat, with two rows of huge buttons, dark and light materials joined in vertical stripes. . . . On the puce coat with collar of velvet the nankeen breeches and silken stockings and the buckled slippers, which constituted his evening dress. Nankeen pantaloons he reserved for the city, he wore them at times stopping at the ancle and strapped tightly, or sometimes split up the side and buttoned ; sometimes they were fastened with a buckle or brooch." To such a luminary every- thing was permissible. If once he was deprived of his queue to please the manhood of Paris, a time soon came when they would have worn the Celestial pigtail had he so ordained. His retorts remind us of a famous English poseur: " M. Garat, you are a true nightingale I" "Go to the devil, sir, the nightingale sings out of tune ! " " Garat, have 256 Professor of Singing and the Mode you seen So-and-so's picture at the exhibition? A beautiful thing ! " " If it is beautiful I have seen it." " My dear M. Garat, one does not point at people with one's finger ! " " No ? With what does one point ? " We have seen that he threatened Talleyrand that he would never again visit his house, because he had been forced to wait. Garat himself was usually late. Here is an anecdote which gives some idea of the popularity of the man, the intense curiosity to see and hear him. Treilhard, the Director, did not know Garat, and was not of his world. Socially ambitious, he conceived the idea of securing Garat as an attraction. Dominique- Joseph, the ex-Minister, was often approached by those who desired introduction to his nephew, or were anxious to obtain his services. To the old Euskarian Treilhard applied, and not unsuccess- fully. He hastened to send forth his invitations, having also obtained the services of Lays, Charon, and Piccini. A numerous company appeared on the appointed day : but no Garat. The dinner -hour passed : no Garat. Treilhard talked nervously, but his guests were cold or impatient ; he divulged an im- portant piece of news, concerning the crossing of the Rhine by the French troops ; at length, in despair, he gave the signal for dirmer. The guests ate their soup in chilly silence ; a dreadful gloom was on the company, when in walked Garat. A 257 R Pierre Garat thousand pardons, but he had lost his way, not knowing that part of Paris. An ill-mannered duke, dining improbably in the wilds of Clapham, might have employed such a tone. Yet a smile appeared on every face ; those who had not seen Garat saw him ; those who had not heard him were to hear ; if some had seen and heard already, it was an experience which never palled. When after dinner he was led to the piano the delight of his hearers was delirious ; yet most of them were absolutely unmusical, even uncultured. But Garat, capable of slighting a Director, was never known to slight his art. Mention has been made of his sincerity of ex- pression. All affectation fell away from him when he sang. Once he appeared in Mme. Junot's salon with his pupil Nourrit,' about to appear on the stage. Nourrit had a beautiful voice but sang utterly without expression. Garat was finally exasperated. " But how you sing those lines ! " he cried, and with the appropriate gesture, in a voice fit to bring tears to the eyes, he sang : — " ' Je vats revoir ma charmante mattresse. Adieu plaisirs, grandeurs, richesse ! ' ■Wretched fellow- ! Haven't you a mistress whom you left a mtonth ago and don't you long to see her again? " " Father of the celebrated Nourrit. 258 Professor of Singing and the Mode This recalls a somewhat similar occasion. Garat was singing the passionate duet which follows the duel scene in Don Giovanni. The lady was cold and correct. " What, madame ! " cried Garat : " so calm, with the corpse at your feet ! " Mme. Junot's was one of the houses in which he was truly at home. It may be mentioned here that in 1806 Junot returned from Parma with loot of a kind that enchanted Garat : a hundred or more manuscript copies of pieces by Cimarosa, Fioraventi, Guglielmi, and other Italian masters. Mme. Junot at once advised the singer of the arrival of this treasure, and he spent days in going through it, sometimes seated at the piano, some- times pacing to and fro, reading it, as he could by then, without much difficulty, and singing below his breath. It was in this salon, again, that he first sang Cherubini's aria from Les Abencerages:— " Suspended a ces murs mes armes, ma banniere." 'Here his affectations left him ; he was simple, natural, delightful. With General Clouet, himself a singer, he would argue for hours the respective merits of Handel and Haydn : a species of musical criticism which never failed to attract an attentive audience. He would sing for hours ; sometimes, tiring of the grand manner, sitting at the piano, playing accompaniments with two fingers, he would return to his old Basque airs, or the boleros of Aragon, or snatches of 259 Pierre Garat Crescentini : Numi se giusti siete, Addio! or Clori la pastorella. With a little pressing he would sing certain compositions of his own, to which we shall return later. Is the following an example of his sincerity in art, or his love of attracting attention? Coupigny had supplied him with a " romance " to be set to music. Whenever the two met Garat replied, " I have not hit upon an idea as yet." One day Coupigny was walking down the Rue Neuve-des- Petits -Champs. Hearing a sound of some one rurming behind him, he turned ; it was Garat, who seized him by the arm, dragged him up the stairs of a neighbouring house, and, halting on the first landing, exclaimed, " I've got it ! " and incontinently sang the romance through at the top of his voice. The inhabitants of the house began to open their doors ; heads were projected over the banisters ; finally they began to approach ; but Garat, having finished, tore down the stairs like a monkey, dragging the bewildered poet with him. He was, of course, spoiled, and had his little vanities. Eventually one had to beg him to sing. He required some considerable persuasion before consenting. History does not relate if his first refusal was ever accepted. It is time to refer to Garat's career as teacher. At the height of his fame he was able to commence 260 MME. JUN'OT. (Ducliesse d'AhrantL'S ; iicc Laure Pernion.) From a hthogrnpli. To lace p. 260. Professor of Singing and the Mode the work that in his later years filled his life. It was, for him, as we shall see, a happy chance. When the National Guard was created in 1790 a corps de musique was established. From this evolved the Conservatoire, which three years later, in November, 1793, was founded under the namfe of the National Institute of Music. This, to a certain extent, replaced the old Royal College of Singing, founded in 1784 by the Comte de Breteuil, a member of the royal household. Sarrette, the first principal of the corps de musique, was the first director of the Institute. The first professors were Gainfes and Rode, both fellow-citizens of Garat's, Baillot, Kreutzer, Jeanson, Levasseur, Vanderlick, Devienne, and Valentin ; while Gr^try, Gossec, Cherubini, Lesueur, and M6hu] were among the visiting inspectors. The latter, with two others, were instructed "to develop the theories of the musical art." In 1796 Garat was engaged to assist them as " professor of the class of perfecting song " : as we should say, of the " finishing " class. The idea of thus employ- ing Garat was due to Sarrette, who was familiar with his brilliant and illuminating conversation on the subject of music, and in especial the technique of song. Garat was of all men the right man in the right place ; his whole life had been devoted to perfecting his own talent ; being keenly self- conscious and analytical, as the great dandy must be, he was able to explain the processes of his 261 Pierre Garat own training ; he had already been highly suc- cessful with his pupils, and his very name was an advertisement. In the event he was such a professor as the Conservatoire has never seen since, as is proved by the list of .his successes . The day of his decline as singer and exquisite was still remote ; when it came, the Conservatoire was a solace, a refuge, almost a home. Here, among young and eager pupils, he was able to savour that adoration, that wondering enthusiasm, that affection which was once his due from the world. From the first, however, he was at home ; his fellow-teachers were for the most part old and tried friends, who rated his abilities at their true worth, which alone meant much to Garat : Gavinifes, " who may be regarded as the head and fotmder of the French school of violin -playing ; Baillot, the best player of his time ; Rode, with his graceful technique ; Kreutzer, who with neither the grace of Rode nor the mechanical precision of Baillot, possessed a dashing energy and a power of expressing impassioned feeling " ; ' Boieldieu, his old comrade of the Rouen days ; Jadin ; Devienne, whose songs he sang ; " Gr^try, Gossec, and Cherubini, whose greatest works he interpreted with so much grace and charm." Other members of the staff were Eller, professor of couiiterj>oint, the composer of L habit du Chevalier de Grammont ; ' Lafond. 262 Professor of Singing and the Mode B'enoist, organist ; and Adam, professor of the piano, late music-master to the children of Marat and the children of half the dignitaries of the Imperial Court. These were his especial friends ; but the staff of the Conservatoire actually numbered i lo. They were divided into three classes, and their salaries were determined by a decree of the 1 6th Thermidor, 1795. Garat, as professor of the first class, received a salary of £100, with the right to retire after twenty years upon half- pay : a beggarly sum, even for an artist employed by a Government, and a ridiculous income for one who had often earned as much in a single evening. However, he loved his art ; he was an affectionate friend, and essentially sociable, and admiration was as sunshine. The knowledge that he was advancing his art and the hero-worship of a generation of students was his real reward. By law he was obliged to give fifteen lessons a month, but twice a month could be excused if he could find a substitute. To avoid interrupting the narrative of his further career, the history of his connection with the Conservatoire may well be given here. He was, with his pupils, to the fore in all concerts or important festivals held in the Con- servatoire. We have a few records of such. In 1 80 1, before the Minister of the Interior, there was a students' concert ; four months later, on 263 Pierre Garat the anniversary of the foundation of the Conser- vatoire, the first stone of the library was laid hy Chaptal, Minister of the Interior : an occasion marked by the striking of medals, an address by Chaptal, and a concert given. by the students. A banquet followed, at which the prize-winners among the students were present, and at nine o'clock a ball was opened. The usual procedure in the ca.se of students of singing was for Lays and Plantade to take them through a course of vocalization and the study of operatic parts ; they were then passed on to Garat, who " finished " them, teaching them the delicacies of production and vocalization of which he was such a master ; last of all they were passed on to Laine, who trained them in " lyric declama- tion." It is not altogether surprising that Garat was not on the best of terms with Lays and Plantade ; the latter in particvdar he regarded with absolute hatred, a most unusual thing for Garat. With the rest of his staff his relations were of the happiest. Garat's career as a concert-singer was now to be closed. During the Consulate his uncle, Dominique -Joseph, was once mkare a person of importance, and anxious to forget that he had ever been a Jacobin. It was tolerable that a nephew of his should gain a hundred pounds ^ year in a Government institution ; but now that 264 Professor of Singing and the Mode the free-and-easy days of tl^ Directory were over it was impossible that a relation should for money perform in public. He therefore offered the singer a respectable income on condition that he would bid farewell to the public. Garat consented, un- willing to offend his uncle or to damage his prospects ; the more readily, perhaps, as the sums to be made by singing at concerts were not com- parable to those earned by appearing at private receptions and dinner-parties. Once only did he again appear in public, and on that occasion we may suppose that his unple agreed to his doing so. This was in the year IX, on the 3rd of Nivose. Haydn's Creation was to be performed at the Opera. It was to be almost a State performance ; the First Consul was ex- pected with all his staff. Steibelt, the popular pianist, had arranged the oratorio for the orchestra ; the chorus of the Opera was reinforced by that of the Th^itre Feydeau. Garat, who with the Abbe Rose had been responsible for all the rehearsals, was to sing the part of Gabriel. The hour struck ; the body of the Opera, brilliantly illuminated, was full from gallery to floor ; the women in marvellous toilettes, the men in the magnificence of uniform. The curtain rose, revealing Gabriel, in the person of Garat, more fantastically dressed than ever ; " his collar rose above his head, and his face, not unlike a monkey's, was barely visible amid a forest of 265 Pierre Garat curls." Beside him was Mm'e. Barbier-Wal- bonne, a figure of classic simplicity. The violins were tuned ; the orchestra attacked the introduc- tory bars, when a sudden detonation startled the crowded assembly. The audience sat and stared or whispered, uneasy or curious, when the door of the First Consul's box was opened, and Napoleon entered with Lannes, Lauriston, Berthier, and Duroc. Presently Josephine followed, pale and agitated, with Mmes. Murat and Duroc and Colonel Rapp. The rumour ran, from' seat to seat, from parterre to gallery, that the First Consvd had narrowly escaped death. The detonation had been caused by the explosion of the historic " infernal machine " of the Rue Saint-Nicaise. Eight persons lay dead or dying without ; twenty- eight were wounded ; forty-six houses were damaged. The performance continued, but was artistically a failure ; the audience for once had other things than music and the fashions in mind. So much, for the present, for his career at the Conservatoire, and the end of his fame as a concert- singer. Henceforth Garat was in all ways more difificult of access. In promising his uncle to appear no more in public it was probably agreed that he was to sing for no hostess below a certain social standard. Henceforth he was to be heard in fewer salons, and those the more famtvus ; but he was thereby not the loser ; his hearers were better equipped to appreciate his art, and the com- 266 Professor of Singing and the Mode petition to secure him was only equalled by the eagerness of the public to gain access to the houses of his patrons or friends. By becoming a little remote, a little mythical, so to speak, he only became more wonderful. As a dandy he stood alone, " the promoter and the slave of the fashions, marching with tiny steps along the streets and promenades of Paris, amid a wondering and admiring population, full of thought for his own person ; . . . wearing a light blue coat or a riding -coat of alpaca with a double row of buttons, a cloth waistcoat, often red, . . . breeches of chamois -leather, and black boots — very soon they will be red — adorned in front with a golden tassel." ' In his quality as professor at the Conservatoire he had, of course, much to do with the Opera. His pupils were constantly making their debut on its boards ; he must be there to encourage, to criticize, and to taste the reward of labour. He was almost as often seen at the Theatre de la Cour, where the grand opera of Zingarelli, Bianchi, or Paer was represented, or the opera bouffe of Cimarosa, Farinelli, or Paisiello ; or again at the Oddon, where Picard directed an Italian company. The green-rooms of all Paris were his club ; and in things dramatic, as in matters of music or of fashion, he was always the arbiter, the ready adviser, the kindly but supreme pontiff. ' Lafond. 267 CHAPTER XIII A CHANGING WORLD— A LOVE AFFAIR The society of the Consulate — A changing world — Carat's relations with the new rulers — Malmaison ; Talleyrand ; Mme. de Montesson — Garat and Napoleon — Mme. Recamier — Lucien Bonaparte — Garat at the Tuileries — He is decorated — Napoleon's favour lost — Garat's salary is withheld — Josephine j Mme. Saint-Jean d'Angely — Mme. Tallien ; Mme. Junot ; Jaubert — Garat's affair with Mme. de Kriidener — Her early life — Her third visit to Paris — She meets Garat — Her public worship of the singer — He snubs her — Valerie — An inspired press agent — Napoleon snubs her — Saint, confessor to a Tsar, and evil genius to Napoleon. Thf: society of the Consulate was another world than that of the Directoire. The world of young people, thirsty for pleasure, was gradually darkened by the return of emigres, not always the most admirable of their class, soured by dis- appointment and exile, embittered by humiliation and insult, contemptuous of the new rulers and all who accepted them, censorious, ill-natured, cynical . Of these some held aloof ; others eagerly sought office ; and the official world itself assumed a definite hierarchy, a military and aristocratic tone. 268 A Changing World To seize the exact flavour of the Paris of those days is not easy. According to the point of view, society presented many different aspects, as must be the case with a large and heterogeneous com- munity. Mime, de Chastenay, living the some- what sheltered life of a gentlewoman of the old world adapting herself to the new, speaks of the period as a golden age ; of society as a world of young households, eager for innocent if breath- less pleasures ; a world of affectionate husb'ands and wives, of simple if gregarious tastes ; a world gradually shadowed by the return of the remnants of a more sophisticated age, cynical, bitter, and immoral. Others describe it as a world of brutal and odious young men and wanton women. To others, to whom the splendours of the ancien regime were unknown, it was a world of superla- tive elegance and interest. One found according to what one brought. The clear eyes of Young and Morris, even of Thi^bault, saw the bygone splendours of Versailles as a little tawdry, and the society of monarchical Paris as in need of a dose of corrective laughter. One thing is clear : apart from men of letters and science, politicians and philosophers, the older generation lived in retirement, unable to adapt themselves to the new conditions, or too saddened to care to do so ; excepting the " new people " who were learning the uses of prosperity. The licence and anarchy of the city were extreme 269 Pierre Garat to an outside observer. Vice was not concealed ; hypocrisy was not yet a sin of the age. But the estabhshed member of society, moving in his orbit, saw a world moderately decorous, whose simplici- ties and extravagances were alike diminishing, until the rise of a new royalty brought back conditions that were in many respects an interrupted con- tinuation of the old. The official world began to take itself with increasing seriousness. Men and women who bore the ancient names of France were welcomed, if willing to bury the hatchet — should we say the blade of the guillotine? Napoleon, who brooded much over the remote and legendary glories and the latter-day deficiencies of his own descent, and had in youth been miserably poor and a foreigner in France, had a grudging respect for rank arid wealth and elegance as eager as his thirst for power ; he was, to be brief, a snob ; and realizing that the old gods had never been completely de- throned in the hearts of men, he boldly set them up in public, as a bid for the support and respect of those who would have derided or conspired against a soldier of the old " shaggy " breed. •With the return and emergence of the emigres came the gradual settling of society into strata ; Paris once more cohered into definite circles, each with its hierarchy, and the upper strata of these circles mingled on the official and social plane. The literary salons were reconstituted ; the 270 A Changing World political salons became also fashionable ; the rulers of France had learned how to live in palaces . By 1800 the First Consul had left Luxembourg for the Tuileries. Virtually he was a prince already. The " radiation " and return of emigres proceeded ; returning prosperity, the spirit of militarism, foreign adventure and foreign booty soon eclipsed the frugal elegances of the later Directory which had followed the carnival of early reaction . Satins and velvets replaced muslin ; vivid colours glowed in salons used to white and sober browns or greys ; and the tone of official society became dry, cynical, cortectly and heavily trivial. But this was the work of some years. At the date at which we resume our narrative " the children were still as tall as their parents," and the sense of relief and liberation that marked the Thermidorean reaction had not wholly evaporated. Anxious to do the correct thing, self-conscious and fearful of criticism, the new rulers were in- dustrious patrons of music. Eager to head the march of fashion, they naturally made much of Garat. 'He was often the guest of Josephine, who wel- comed him with the nervous, diffident, but genuine hospitality of the weak, kindly woman not very 271 > Pierre Garat sure of her position. At Malmaison he often encountered Gr^try, and the fiact that the two met frequently would seem to dispose of the theory that the elderly composer was the mysterious and jealous "old troubadour" of Rouen. Music was the fashion of the day : which js to say that Garat was assiduous in all the Govern- ment salons. To mention the houses he frequented would be, as usual, to give a list of the leading salons of Paris. Talleyrand was often his host ; selecting Garat as chief entertainer on those official occasions when he opened his doors as Minister of Foreign Affairs. In 1 80 1, by order of the First Consul, we hear of his giving a State concert to the King and Queen of Etruria, at which Garat, Rode, Nader- mann, Steibelt, and Mme. Branchu were the per- formers. Garat had forgiven the ex -bishop his half -hour's detention. Lucien Bonaparte was another host ; at the Junots', we have seen, he was at home; beside these the salons of Mme. Regnault de Saint-Jean d'Angely, Cambacerfes, Marat, Jaubert, Mme. Recamier, etc., were among those which most often saw him. The great recep- tions and sumptuous dinners given by the millionaires of the day were still incom|plete without the singer. Of these financiers the Etchegoyens were compatriots ; others were Hain- guerlot, S^guin, Ouvrard, Per!regaux, etc. Mme. de Montesson, half-sister to the mother 272 A Changing World of Mme. de Genlis and the widow of figalit^'s father, was one of the first of the ancieti regime to open her doors to the new Paris. She at once became intimate with the Bonaparte circle ; Napoleon was glad of her countenance, for he already saw the necessity of conciliating the world of emigres, and obtaining their support ; Josephine, called to grandeurs as imfamiliar as they were oppressive after the informality of her salon of indifferent poets, was more than glad to win the friendship and follow the counsel of a wise and benevolent " great lady." It was at a ball given by Mme. de Montesson that Mme. de Stael made one of her last appearances in Paris before her exile, vairjly hoping to encqunter Napoleon there. Like Mme. de Kriidener and many another, she would have been only too willing to play Egeria to the hope of France ; but the Corsican had his own ideas, and they were not sentimental in the manner of Mmes. de Stael or de Kriidener. His dread of such ladies was comical, and led to his fearing even to renew the acquaintance of the modest and charming Mme. de Chastenay, whose intelligence had so impressed him at their meeting years before. Mme. de Kriidener, as we shall see, fared no better at Napoleon's hands than at Garat's. It was this double rebuff which drove her from Paris, and was in part responsible for her subsequent career as a saint. 273 s Pierre Garat Although on this particular occasion represented by Josephine, the First Consul was a ftequient and familiar guest in Mme. de Montesson's house. One day, after dijeuner, the company retired to the salon, where Garat was discovered with Steibelt. Garat and Napoleon seem to have regarded one another with the mutual jealousy of men both to a certain extent charlatans, and both idols of the public, but of utterly different worlds. However, when Garat was persuaded to sing the soldier listened with the greatest attention and every evidence of pleasure. The song was Plantade's romance :— " Le jour se live, amour m'inspire, y^'ai vu Cloi dans mon sommeil." Napoleon begged for an encore. Steibelt, hoping to make an equally favourable impres- sion, went to the piano aind commenced one of his own sonatais. He had not been playing long when Napoleon abruptly rose, took leave of his hostess, and departed. Mme. de Montesson found him' charming, as indeed he could be to elderly ladies whose intelli- gence or character he respected. She said as much. " Charming ! " cried Steibelt furiously. " Charming I The man's a vandal ! Ask Garat." This was unhappy : for Garat had been heard to the end and asked for more. " Hie is charm>- ing," he repeated gravely, with the look of 274 1/ ^ i I { nii^ A{\\{', II MME. RECAMIER. h'foin a ailiogiapli by BiXrhlozzi. A Changing World portentous sagacity which went so drolly with face and costume. " He is delightful. He is a great man I " Mme. R^camier, at the height of her fame and beauty, was now established in the H6tel de Rainy at Clichy. Her circle, comprising, among a host of notabilities, Lucien Bonaparte, Berthier, Ouvrard, Benjamin Constant, Chateaubriand, Junot, Beauharnais, Mme . de Stael, and of foreigners Lord and Lady Yarmouth, the Duchess of Courland, Prince Gregor Gagarin, Princes Trubetzkoy, Pignatelli, and so forth, would often spend hour after hour enchanted by the feeling, brilliance, and variety of Garat's art. Lucien Bonaparte, as we have seen, was often himself the host. As Minister of the Interior he gave many ofificial receptions. At one such the First Consul appeared with Mme. Laetitia, Fouche, 'Cambacdr^s, and Mme. Rdcamier. Mme. Lucien being unwell, Mme. Bacciochi did the^ honours of the house. When dinner was announced Napoleon, whose manners were at times already imperially bad, went forward to the dining-room alone, where he seated himself at the middle of the table, leaving the others to place themselves at hazard. Mme. Laetitia, as Napoleon always called his mother, took the chair to his right, and beyond her sat Mme. R^camier. Napoleon had counted on enjoy- ing the beauty as his neighbour, and Mme. Laetitia had hinted as mtich in a whisper ; 27 s Pierre Garat but the fair R^camier failed to hear, or did not wish to . Napoleon was inclined to sulk ; how- ever, looking round at those who were not yet seated, his eye caught Carat's. " Well, Garat, sit you here ! " he cried. After dinner the usual concert began ; the women seated in a circle facing the performers, the men standing behind them ; Napoleon, however, sat alone beside the piano. Garat sang some fragments of Gluck, and in duQ course made way for others ; but presently, at the close of a sonata. Napoleon rapped loudly on the piano, crying : " Garat ! Garat I " For once Garat needed no persuasion, but sang the favourite scene from Orfeo. It says much for his powers that Paris never wearied of it. When the chrysalid was discarded and the Empero^- stood revealed our singer was in constant demand at the State concerts given at the Tuileries . They were held in the Hall of the Marshals, in the presence of the Imperial family and the whole Court. The Bonaparte contingent sat in front; the ladies of the Court were relegated to rows of chairs on either side ; the dignitaries of the State stood behind them'. One evening, arriving with Martin to sing at such a concert, Garat discovered that the chairs reserved for the two artists were somewhat with- drawn from the rest, in the recess of a windiaw;. He coolly removed the tickets from the chairs and placed them upon two chairs reserved for 276 A Changing World two dignitaries of the Court, whose cards he removed to the window. The chamberlain, perceiving this, protested, but in vain ; Garat's reply was that unless he received satisfaction he would not sing. The unhappy chamberlain, fore- seeing a fiasco, could only appeal to the Emperor. " These gentlemen," said Napoleon indulgently, " have their dignity. Put them where they will." This reply being conveyed to Garat, he at once replaced the cards in question, assuring the cham- berlain : " We shall do our utmost to satisfy a Sovereign who is so good as to show such indul- gence to persons who perhaps have too much vanity." Upon the institution of the Legion of Honour, Garat, it seems, was decorated. One biographer speaks of his hiding the decoration as one ashamed of it ; and of Fouche, at a reception, maliciously turning back the revers of his coat and thus revealing it. However, Mme. de Chastenay, from whose pages the incident is cited, speaks of Garat the philosopher ; it would seem that the uncle was in question. For fourteen years no ribbons or order had been worn, and it was at first the fashion to deride Napoleon's decorations. Dominique-Joseph, " the unwilling Jacobin," the ex -Conventional, steeped in political prejudice, was far more likely to be ashamed of the decora- tion, or to feign the general attitude, than the singer. 277 Pierre Garat Alas ! these happy relations between the autocrats of France and of fashion were not enduring. Garat had a demoniacal talent for pricking bladders. A child of the old Court, accustomed to the adoration of the ancient France and the new, it was impossible for him to become a coi:i,rtier of the servile kind. Whether he was responsible for some bitingly indiscreet epigram, or whethei* he displayed a tendency to treat with Napoleon ajs one i>ower with another, thte First Consul turned upon him, and not for the first time descended to petty spite. It is possible that certain of Garat's compositions displeased him. Some saw General Mareau in Garat's Belisaire; 'Bayard and Henri IV may have been equally suspect ; though if so the fault was the poet's. Moreover, Napoleon knew that Garat openly re- gretted the Court of Louis XVI, and probably suspected that he was always drawing invidious if secret comparisons. Again, he remained the friend of Josephine. The result, in any case, was that Garat's salary as professor at the Conserva- toire was unpaid for the last fourteen months of the Empire. This, however, is to anticipate ; in those days Napoleon had degenerated. Although Garat's relations with Napoleon were ultimately strained, he was always the friend and admirer of Josephine, and after her divorce was as assiduous in his attentions as before. Miel 278 A Changing World relates an incident which shows that even with the Empress he could make himself very much at home. He had been invited to a reception at the house of the Chancellor, Cambacer^s, at which Josephine was present. He was eventually pressed to sing, but as he was on the point of retiring he refused, protesting that it was too late ; his voice had already gone to bed. To descend from Imperial circles, we find Garat in the saloli of Mme. Regnaud de Saint -Jean d'Angely : a beautiful and witty woman and a fine singer. Her salon was artistic and literary ; Garat was an intimate friend. Of the Philistine world she entertained such examples as Pignatelli, Marmont, Junot, Duroc, Savary, and Beauhar- nais : a company of embryo counts or dukes of the Empire. She was one of the few hostesses to eschew the fashions of the Directoire and the Empire ; the salons of her hotel and chateau were still as they were in the days of Louis XVI . Saint- Jean d'Angely himself, soon to be Count of the Empire, was something of a poet, and Garat in later years would often sing his productions. Mme. Tallien was presently to be Princesse de Chimay ; the passion that saved so many Bordelais and heartened the reformed Terrorist to depose Robespierre had quickly cooled, and a divorce freed " Our Lady of Pity " for another avatar. In all her transformations Garat was her friend, 279 Pierre Garat and the greater number of Tallien's official recep- tions were adorned by his presence. One anecdote has come down to us in respect of these recep- tions. One evening a Mass by Cherubini was to be performed. Cardinal Maury, a parvenu prelate with a booming voice, continued his dis- course and ignored all appeals for silence. Garat approached him, stood before him', caught his eye. " Chut, Monseigneur ! Mass is about to begin I " Before the astonished Maury could recover the music had comtnenced. Of his intimacy with the Junot household we have spoken. There he met Steibelt, Crescentini, Nadermann, Boieldieu, Dusseck ; of painters Girodet-Trioson, Lefevre, Vivant-Denon ; of literary men Nepomucene Lemercier, a friend and collaborator ; Delille, now married, and one actor. Talma. Jaubert, a Girondist advocate, now Councillor of State, later Senator, Count, and Governor of the Bank of France, was a friend from home. At his hotel, or at Issy in the sumtner, a beautiful chateau bought of Contat the actress, Talleyrand, Cambac^r^s, Maury, Boissy-d'Anglas, Fontanes, and a host of other legislators were habitues ; and in moments of silence, when the music and applause was stilled, what shadowy, pathetic shapes came thither from their nameless graves? In the spring of 1802, in one of these brilliant 280 EXCURSIONISTS— " TO VERSAILLES, ST. CLOUD, XEUILLY," ETC. Front ait aigraviiig published by MarUtict. TALMA. from a ll/liOi^rapJi. Tu fact p. 2S0. A Love Affair salons, Garat met with the strangest of all his many adorers, and a love affair began which of all his adventures has the strongest flavour of comedy. A cynic's comedy, perhaps, and to Julie de Kriidener no comedy at all, but one of the factors that sent her wandering down the path that eventually led to sainthood and a grave on the shores of the Crimea. For she fared at Garat's hands no better than at Napoleon's ; twice within as many years she, whose life had been a long irresponsible triumph, as brilliant socially as her lover's, was firmly and irrefutably snubbed. The experience was a landmark in her life. The friend of Saint -Pierre, Gay, Constant, Chateaubriand ; the heroine of a dozen romances ; the friend, model, and rival of Mme. de Stael ; the friend of Josephine and the Queens of Holland and Prussia ; the spiritual adviser and confessor of the Tsar of Russia ; the founder of the Holy Alliance and the power that sent Napoleon to St. Helena ; the mystic and evangelist whose latter years were a long pilgrimage of charity — Barbe -Julie de Kriidener is one of the most fantastic figures of history. The story of her relations with Garat may well be told here, in its chronological place, for the greater wealth of detail available, as well as the extraordinary character of the woman, differentiates it from those longer or happier affairs concerning 281 A Love AfRir salons, Garat met with the strangest of all his many adorers, and a love aflfair began which of all his adventures has the strongest flavour of comedy. A cynic's comedy, perhaps, and to Julie de Kriidener no comedy at all, but one of the factors that sent her wandering down the path that eventually led to sainthood and a grave on the shores of the Crimea. For she fared at Garat's hands no better thaii at Napoleon's ; twice within as many years she, whose life had been a long irresponsible triumph, as brilliant socially as her lover's, was firmly and irrefutably snubbed. The experience was a landmark in her life. The friend of Saint-Pierre, Gay, Constant, Chateaubriand ; the heroine of a dozen romances ; the friend, model, and rival of Mme. de Stael ; the friend of Josephine and the Queens of Holland and Prussia ; the spiritual adviser and confessor of the Tsar of Russia ; the founder of the Holy Alliance and the power that sent Napoleon to St . Helena ; the mystic and evangelist whose latter years were a long pilgrimage of charity — Barbe -Julie de Kriidener is one of the most fantastic figures of history. The story of her relations with Garat may well be told here, in its chronological place, for the greater wealth of detail available, as well as the extraordinary character of the woman, differentiates it hpm those longer or happier affairs concerning 281 Pierre Garat which we know little but the names of those concerned. In the first place we find that ber biographers are as Imtitually inconsistent as Carat's. Dominique- Joseph Garat, in his memoir of Suard the Acade- mician, states that the beautiful Mme. de Kr , unjustly neglected by hier husband, found herself, in 1782, alone on the stream of Parisian society. She met Suard ; a passionate friendship ensued ; a correspondence, which had been in Carat's hands ; eventually the lady, after thanking her Maker at the altar for giving her her lover, wearied the elderly philosopher with her protestations and her voluminous letters ; at length he demanded her permission to marry ; she gave it, and con- soled herself with the friendship of Bemardin de Saint-Pierre. Now the bulk of her biographers claim that this story is absolutely mythical. And it is certainly a fact that in 1782 Julie Wietinghoff, as she was then, was living, a young unmarried girl, at her parents' house in Riga. We should not refer to the matter here, but for the fact that Suard's mistress wearied him as Julie de Kriidener wearied Garat and her own husband ; and that her whole behaviour, and her epistolary style, are those of the Mme. de Kriidener we know. Is the error by chance one of date? To confine ourselves to the admitted facts : she 282 A Love AfFair was the daughter of Wietinghoff of Riga— a wealthy landowner and speculator of ancient German descent, and his wife Julie Miinnich, herself the daughter of a soldier who commanded armies against Turks and Tartars, and was twenty years an exile in Siberia. In 1783 the girl of nineteen was married to Baron Kriidener, a successful diplo- matist, already twice divorced, and a mJan some twenty years the senior of his bride. Kriidener was presently appointed ambassador to Venice. Julie was incurably a romantic, and an egoist of the introspective Russian type. She was in love — with love ; with the idea of a passionate and unceasing devotion to her commbn-sense, busy husband. Her days were spent in the endeavour to prove her affection by a thousand attentions, which were usually unnoticed ; when noticed, the girl was kindly told to be calm, to be less impetuous . Kriidener was removed to Copenhagen. There was a third in the household : the secretary, Alexis de Stakiev, a kindred soul. But the kinship was perceived by the man alone. Devoted to his chief, he eventually fled, leaving a declaration— to Kriidener. " I worship her," he said, " because she loves you. Were she to love you less I should love her no more." Kriidener was so incredibly foolish as to show the letter to his young wife. At last she was the object of the absorbing passion she had dreamied 283 Pierre Garat of ! The experience was so inspiring that she at once began a series of conquests ; her undying passion for her husband was cured. Ill-health and the birth of a daughter led her to beg her husband to send her south. With her two children, her stepdaughter, and a governess she started on the adventure of life. In 1789 she was in Paris. The Abbe Barth^lemy and Bernardin de Saint -Pierre, an old friend of her grandfather the Marshal, wel- comed and loved her as a daughter. Travel through France followed ; her social triumphs were continuous. Then she met her first love' — the Comte de Fr6geville — and proceeded to Paris under his escort. On the flight of the King to Varennes she felt herself unsafe ; with her lover dressed as a lackey she at length, in obedience to her husband, returned to Copenhagen. The husband accepted the fact of the hussar with a good grace, but attempted to draw the line at a menage a trois, which the lady insisted on. Eventually he sent her to Riga, her lover escorting her as far as Berlin, where they parted, apparently by no means heartbroken. Sated for a time with love, her incurable egoism and introspection resulted in a passing religious phase. At last, hearing that her husband was in debt, she rushed off to fling herself at his feet and beg his forgiveness. The two proceeded from Denmark to Berlin, where she met the chivalrous 284 A Love Affair de Stakiev. " The poor man," she wrote com- placently, " looks very ill and wretched." Later, in a novel, she killed him. Cynics said the wish was father to the thought. A few weeks only and she found the society of Berlin and her husband insupportable. With his consent she left him, ostensibly in search of health, for Leipsic, where she met Jean-Paul Richter. A few months at Riga followed, and a year at Lausanne, in Gibbon's old residence. Lausanne admired her to her own satisfaction. It was here that she invented the " shawl dance " as described in Valerie; as described also, later, in the pages of Mme. de Stael's Delphine. We are reminded of the " plastic poses " of Lady Hamilton as described by Mme. Le Brun. Which was the copy and which the original ? Wanderings in Germany followed, and another attem^pt to play the ambassadress in Berlin. Then again Riga, and again Berlin,. This brings us to 1801. Kriidener was prosper- ing, which fact his wife attributed to her prayers. But on the 23rd March the Emperor Paul sent a dispatch to his ambassador to the effect that unless the King of Prussia immediately took action against England he would cross the frontier with 80,000 men. At the foot of the dispatch was a postscript by Pahlen, Governor of St. Petersburg. " His Imperial Majesty is to-day in bad health. 285 Pierre Garat Serious consequences may ensue." They did; a few hours after the words were written Paul was strangled by the Palace conspirators, directed by Pahlen. Kriidener was uneasy about his debts. Dis- illusioned, perhaps, as to the efificacy of prayer, his wife decided upon a trip to the baths of Toeplitz. Visits to Geneva followed, and a long stay at Copp^e as the guest of Mme. de Stael. Being beautiful, the Russian was not jealous of Mme. de Stael. But she also bad literary ainbitions and was always unwilling to be out- shone. However, she received her full meed of admiration, and served her good-natured hostess as the model for DelpMne: a fact which partially explains the similarity of the later Valerie. In December, 1801, we find her once more in Paris, in a small apartment near the Madeleine. For a time an intimate friendship with Chateau- briand sufficed her. But in the spring of 1802 she met Garat. " She was then," says Sainte-Beuve, " still com- paratively young [she was thirty-seven, not thirty- three, as Jacob has it] ; she was always beautiful, deliciously graceful, slender, j^le, blond, with those tresses of an ashen fairness which only Valirie has ; with eyes of a deep blue, a tender voice, in speaking full of sweetness and music ; one of the charms of the Livonian women. Her waltz was 286 BARHE-JULIE DE KKUDENER. From ilie paintiiiii by Aiit^clica Kantfmann. A Love Affair intoxicating ; her dance admirable." It was always intolerable tq her not to be noticed and admired ; intolerable that any should outshine her. It was a meeting of two supreme egoists. Let us call them egoists in classification, not in judg- ment. To judge is merely childish : it is to blame the effect for the cause. Egoists, after all, are responsible for most of the really useful work of the world, for most of its joy and beauty. They desire perfection in all they do, because it is theirs. The great artist desires perfection in what he creates for its own sake, which is beauty : the artist of the second degree desires perfection in the manner of creating, which is himself. The egoist is a lover of per- fection, and his desire is that he himself shall be perfect . From a fop he may become a saint ; it is a chjange of taste rather than a change of heart . He still desires to be perfect, but his egoism has transcended man ; he desires his gods to appreciate him. 'He is his own child. He desires that personal immortality which he may taste as mortal, which is fame. Not now, nor ever, can he bear to be unperceived. When the world betrays him he treads the path to heaven. Julie de Kriidener found Garat the idol of the women of Paris. Many found favour in his eyes. It became intolerable that she should not. It was enough ; he should be her victim. 287 Pierre Garat In the event she was his — or her own? She was the xVatcher of the mind, the heart ; he of the bodily gesture. Gesture in song and in social life was his delight ; if men gave that their meed of admiration he was content. For her, the gesture of the mind, even her own appreciation of that gesture, was the great thing. He was a materialist ; she a sentimentalist. He was French ; she was Russian . It was inevitable that she should be the loser. What was it that she loved? Not man, nor even the love of man, but the image of herself as a lover. Hers was the supremer jegoism'. And it was for that image of herself as lover that she demanded the love of others. Let us remember that she was thirty-seven. It was many years since she had been a mother. She had reached an age when women not controlled by fear, or a sense of humour, ,or intellect are apt to lose the sense of proportion. Wherever Garat appeared she made it her business to be. For months, night after night, this beautiful blond creature, so unlike the more sensual beauties of France, with the wreath of blue flowers glowing pale above the bluer eyes, was always to the fore in that circle of resplendent women who surrounded the magical singer, " following every gesture of the artist, weeping, sobbing, screaming even with delight, when the prodigious talent of the singer awoke the applause 288 A Love Affair of the hearers. More than once, giving way to a kind of vertigo, despite the presence of three or four hundred persons, all electrified by Carat's voice, she would throw herself into the arms of this Orpheus, or fall at his feet ,as if to adore him." It is possible that Garat found this pleasant — for a time. But worse was to follow. To outshine others— to have won this paragon from all Paris — in that lay the delight. Paris, however, continued to woo, and Garat was not always unattainable. The lady grew jealous, and jealousy was long out of fashion ; worse, she expressed her jealousy in public. " Under the empire of jealousy and anger she addressed the most tender reproaches to her unfaithful lover, without heeding the witnesses of these incredible scenes." Without heeding them I — we may be sure thiat their presence gave the affair its flavour 1 She found her emotional gesture as wronged yet forgiving mistress adorable ; there- fore there must be spectators to adore. Worse still I It was not enough to be under the eye of her lover half the evening, to receive him at night ; he must be occupied with her, as she with him, all day. She began to write him letters : "full of exaltation, sensibility and tears." Perhaps Garat felt, at last, that she was making herself and him ridiculous. Pferhaps he was ashamed for her. Such things will make a man brutal. 289 T Pierre Garat One can imagine the attitude of the French- man to such a Teuto -Slavonic bombardment. " My good pretty woman, I am a man, but a busy man. Love is good ; if you favour me I am grateful ; but is there any need to make words about the matter? " What he did say, returning a letter of pheno- menal length and sensibility, was this : — " All this would do very well in a novel, but in real life it is altogether too lengthy and too romantic ; don't, then, send me any more of your manuscripts, but get them printed ; and I will willingly accept the dedication." We do not know the exact length and number of her letters to Garat ; but at a later date she was accustomed to write four or five times a day to the Tsar Alexander I. If she was as prolific with her love-letters, it is hardly astonishing that a busy mian, whose day was filled with practice, rehearsal, teaching, social functions, and singing, should at last be driven to brutality. The means Garat took was effectual. Never had the idea of herself as a voluble and tiresome female presented itself to her. The man must be a brute. She could perhaps forgive a slight to her beauty or her love, but a slight to her literary powers was unpardonable. Her besetting sins were an eternal flux of words and the necessity of delight- ing in the spectacle of her own life. Her writings 290 A Love AfFair were cult and ritual. Garat had blasphemed. The rupture was complete and immediate. It is said that while the lady was smarting under this rebuff she came upon a caricature of her lover, depicting him smothered in a huge square-cut coat, the head half buried, the hair hanging in " dog's ears." Hating him for the m'oment, she was willing to see him with the eyes of spite. Her next letter was a model of brevity : — " It was not you I loved. It was a phantom I myself created, which was not even made in your image. This phantom' had a heart, which you never had ; it would probably embarrass you to possess one. The illusion has vanished. I see you as you are ; I am forced to recognize that I have never loved you." There is truth here, but not all the truth. It is probable that she never loved any man : only her idea of the man as she would have him', and the spectacle of herself in love. During her stay in Paris Mme. de Kriidener had often encountered the First Consul in the salons of official friends. Napoleon had consistently avoided her ; he regarded her as an eccentric bore who might become mischievous. He was always afraid of literary women. Impressed with the vanity of love, Mmfe. de Kriidener turned her attention to literature. We have seen that she could not bear to be 291 Pierre Garat outshone. This is literally the truth. Knowing that Mme. R^camier was to be a guest at a certain reception, Mme. de Kriidener induced Benjamin- Constant to request the beauty to appear that evening in inconspicuous garments, lest she should eclipse the beauty of the older woman. Mme. de Stael had recently published her Delphine. As the avowed model of Delphine, Mme. de Kriidener was at first delighted. Presently, however, the old jealousy began to work. Through the suminer of 1801 and the winter and spring of 1802 she was busily employed upon various stories, and eventually recast Valerie, a manuscript commenced at Geneva. She must eclipse even Mme. de Stael. In the midst of this work her husband died. A brief period of seclusion followed. The con- templation of penitence enlarged her religious experiences . In August she left Paris and wintered at Lyons. There Valerie was printed, but not yet published. From Lyons she wrote an extraordinary series of letters to Dr, Gay, requesting him' to write certain verses to her which can only be described as literary " puffs." Shown to friends, Valerie was of course satisfactorily admired. In the spring of 1803 the authoress returned to Paris. She writes, to friends, that Chateaubriand, Saint-Pierre and others are enchanted with Valirie. The year was passed in a conspiracy of advertisement worthy 292 A Love Affair of an American press -agent. At length, in December, the book appeared. She had kept her masterpiece of advertising for the last moment. Day after day for several days she made the round of all the fashionable shops, asking for articles d. la Valerie: " shawls, hats, feathers, wreaths, or ribbons d la Valerie. When they saw this beautiful and elegant stranger step out of her carriage and ask for fancy articles which she invented on the spur of the moment the shop- keepers were seized with a polite desire to satisfy her by any means in their power. Moreover, the lady would pretend to recognize the article she had asked for. If the unfortunate shop-girls ... denied all knowledge of the articles, she would smile graciously, and compassionate them for their ignorance of the new novel, thus turning all into eager readers of Valerie." The manoeuvre was repeated from shop to shop, from day to day. For at least a week the shops of Paris were full of articles d la Valerie. Scarcely a soul in Paris was ignorant of the novel and its story. " The success of Valerie," she remarks, " is complete and unheard of . . . there is something supernatural in such success. ... It is the will of Heaven that the ideas and the purer morality of the book should be spread throughout France, where such thoughts are little known " ! This is a proof, not of hypocrisy, but of an amazing power of self-deception. 293 Pierre Garat And what was Valine? The story of her life in Venice, told in letters ; with the difference that the virtuous secretary died of a broken heart. It contained, like Delphine, a lengthy description of the famous shawl -dance. Mme. de Stael made her heroine commit suicide ; Valine is the innocent object, not the victim, of passion. As the authoress of this marvellously successful romance Mme. de Kriidener was more in evidence than ever. Yet . . . Napoleon continued to ignore her. He had escaped the daughter of Necker, but she had the figure of a grenadier and the face and hands of a housemaid. Why not eclipse her as Valerie had eclipsed Delphine? Why not become the Egeria of the ascending Numa? It is impossible to be sure that such ambitions were not hers when we remember her faculty for intimate friendships with sovereigns and the cunning of the plan whereby she ensnared the Tsar of Russia. This, at all events, is history : Napoleon was a voracious reader of romances. Barbier, librarian to the Council of State, used to provide a supply of volumes, which were placed on a, table with those whose authors had sent them as presentation copies. Mme. de Kriidener, as a first step to the favour of the First Consul, sent him an anonymous copy of the edition which was printed in Lyons. Napoleon came upon it, opened it at random, read 294 A Love Aifeir a few pages, and threw it aside in contempt. On the following day he spoke to Barbier : — " You forget I dislike romances in the form of letters. They are good enough for women who have time to waste." Mme. de Kriidener, by dint of canvassing her friends and conducting an advertising campaign of peculiar skill, had been overwhelmed with favourable opinions, and no doubt believed the book to be a work of unmistakable genius. The First Consul would inquire whose work it was, would be told, and the charm would begin to work. Hearing no more of her book, she sent a second copy, magnificently bound, with a letter begging the First Consul to accept it. Barbier left book and letter on the table. In the evening Napoleon, attracted by the bind- ing, picked up the book and opened it. He read a few pages, and realized that he had seen the book before ; he opened the letter and read it . He rang violently for Barbier. "Sir," he said, "tell this crazy Mme. de Kriidener to write in Russian or German, but to deliver us from this insupportable stuff ! Mme. de Stael has found her fellow : the same pathos, the same babbling ! " Barbier repeate"d these words, not to the authoress, but to a mutual friend. Mme. de Kriidener was infuriated, but persevering. She was willing to give the barbarian a further chance. 29s Pierre Garat A third corrected edition was published in Paris under her own name. Again Napoleon found the book in his hands. It went into the fire, un- opened. " Women," he told Barbier, " might spare me trouble by burning their books with their old love-letters ! " This was the end. Mme. de Kriidener never forgave him. When the Due d'Enghien was murdered Mme. de Kriidener left Paris. Where the rulers com- mitted such crimes there she could no longer stay. Yet — had the murder never been committed, would she not have fled as swiftly? When she returned it was as the spiritual guardian and confessor of Napoleon's destroyer. A sudden death impressed her. The conception of Julie de Kriidener appearing at the judgment- seat without due preparation was disturbing. The sight of a Moravian cobbler led her to investigate the Moravian community. Later she met Jung- Stilling, and her religious career commenced. Man had scorned her. Her deity was as much her own work as any of the phantoms she had loved, but she was now safe against any further rebuff. If one fashions the gods in one's own image, one can always make them' appreciative. The old vanity showed itself in a tendency to attach herself to sovereigns. The sight of the sufferings of Louisa of Prussia increased her hatred 296 A Love Affair of Napoleon. She began presently to predict his downfall . For a time she was connected with Maria de Kummrin and Fontaine : two corrupt promoters of Christian colonies, who did not always succeed in keeping out of prison. Her religion was a fervid Evangelism, coloured by Quietism ; her letters were full of rhapsodies on the joys of re- generation and the goodness and love of God, and of mystical rhapsodies and predictions. In 1 8 1 2 she began to foretell the downfall of " the living scourge of Europe, the new Attila." In the following year she commenced her long pilgrimages of evangelization and almsgiving. In 1 8 14, after the abdication of Napoleon, she clamoured for his exile for life " to a desert isle in the farthest seas." It was then that she com- menced an extraordinary series of letters to Mile. Stourdza, maid of honour to the Empress Eliza- beth. They contained constant references to the Tsar, the " white angel," the " regenerator of the world," and a statement that she would soon meet him. She foretold the flight of Napoleon from Elba. These letters were of course eventually shown to Alexander, then much interested in matters of religious reformr, having recently, with Mme. de Kriidener's brother and Galitzin, founded a Bible Society in St. Petersburg. It was after Napoleon's flight, as Alexander was hastening from Vienna to join his army, that the 297 Pierre Garat first meeting took place. Alexander had retired to his rooms, wearied out. " When," he thought, "am I ever to meet this Mme. de Kriidener?" At that moment Volkonsky stated that a Mme. de Kriidener insisted upon an interview. The interview might colloquially be called a spiritual *' dressing -down." It reduced the Tsar to tears of penitence. Mmie. de Kriidener's ascend- ancy over him was immediate and complete. She followed him to Paris ; for four months his inter- views with her were constant . Paris chuckled, until it realized that the blue -eyed Valerie of legend was a white-haired woman in rough monastic garments . Paris wondered, grew anxious, and pro- vided sirens, knowing the old Alexander. He would not meet them. Metternich imported others from Vienna ; the Emperor laughed at them . During these months Mme. de Kriidener dictated the plan of the Holy Alliance and planned the future of Europe. In September Paris beheld the strange spectacle of the Tsar and his mentor kneeling before thfe army of Russia, drawn up in review on the Plaine des Vertus. When Alexander left for St. Petersburg it was agreed that his con- fessor was to follow him. However, the next three years were passed in wandering from place to place, in Switzerland and Germany, preaching, praying, and giving alms : much to the grievance of the police, since Mme. de Kriidener's methods had the undesirable effect of collecting vast quantities of 298 A Love Affair sick, destitute, and broken people, who were very difficult to deal with. Before she could rejoin Alexander those who feared her influence had turned him against her. They met again, but the spell was broken. Eventually she departed for the Crimea with a party of Swiss and German colonists. But the end was near. The first winter was a hard one; she was worn out with the excesses of religious emotion and a victim of incurable disease. On the morning of Christmas, 1824, she died, in the presence of her daughter Julie. She was buried for a time in the Armenian church at Kurasu- Basar. Eleven months later Alexander came to pray by her remains. A few days later, struck down by disease, he died at Taganrog. She had outlived Garat, the man she loved with folly, by two years. Napoleon, the man who would not love her, whom she hated in the depths of her being, had died nearly four years earlier " in a desert island in the farthest seas." 299 CHAPTER XIV A LOVER OF WOMEN Garat the lover — The, psychology of fickleness — The cry of the race — Garat the slave of impulse — Mme. Dugazon — Mile. Roussellois — The morals of the Directoire — The Duchesse de Fleury and her lovers — In prison : Andre Chenier — Maltia Garat — Mme de Bellegarde — Garat's children : their history — Lesser loves — Mile. Duchamp. While our singer is yet at the zenith of his glory, before his forces fail, or his fees decrease, before a fickle public, dazzled by barbaric soldiers, forgets the importance of a perfect cravat : while the vocalist is yet unrivalled, and before the exquisite has lost his disciples, let us consider two aspects of the man which hitherto we have barely regarded : the lover of women, and the writer of songs. Let us frankly admit that monogamy is not natural to unregenerate man. For too vast a por- tion of the history of the human species the husband was the survivor of many dead in battle or the chase ; the supply of women was accordingly excessive. Those civilizations which have adopted monogamy have been under a continual stress. 300 A Lover of Women In times of social flux divorce has suddenly appeared, or concubinage, or they have been cursed by that eternal plague the " social evil." Legal monogamy is a corollary of peace, an intense respect for property, and the increasing individuality of women in a position of economic dependence. The more strongly it is established the more nominal it is in fact. Half the nations of the world have recognized the fickleness of man as a fact of human nature, and have practised polygamy or divorce, thereby saving man from a diseased conscience. If in Garat we find this fickleness more than commonly pronounced we may call him a rake, a Don Juan, a seducer, an immoral person ; and if we are capable of so doing we probably feel that we have closed the question. It is more philosophical, more charitable, more interesting to look to the root of things. If Garat went from flower to flower, or rather if he, the rose, welcomed butterfly after butterfly, what was the secret of his catholicity? Why was he not rather ,to be typified— since we venture among figures— by the bird-cage on which the birds of the air may per- chance alight, attracted by the food within, but which holds its captive in security? To delve no more deeply, we must remember that Garat was a man of mixed race, whose whole life was a training in obedience to the instinctive 301 Pierre Garat self. Muscle and mind and impulse were patiently drilled to express emotion, and when the lesson was learned they were ready to answer to its call, to be its unfailing servants. If the subliminal self was trained to respond with the fitting gesture, the conscious self was also trained to express or enhance the subliminal response. The executive artist whose instrument is his body is at times the slave of his servants . Trained to listen to the voice of emotion, to evoke and express it, when a mightier than he evokes it he can but obey. The dead within us, whose cry for life is love, know nothing of results ; the impulse that leads to a trivial fugitive kiss rises from depths as profound as the passion that founds a race. As our environment varies, so the ancestral influences that dominate us suffer change. The circumstances of Carat's life were always changing. His boyhood was passed amid the soUd bourgeois decencies of Bordeaux and Bayonne, or the quiet of the Euskarian hills . He came to Paris at its wildest period ; his Mecca was a world above the moralities of the herd; his playground a world below them. For a season he was in the shadow of death, he whose body was as dear to him as the fairest woman's, because as the player and the posturer whose instrument was himself he was aware of it utterly, and found his joy in that awareness ; he passed out into a world renewed whose cult was that of life and the body so nearly lost ; a world 302 A Lover of Women of women, no longer dazed with dread, thirsty for life and eager to give their beauty, eager that others should share their love for it ; displaying and concealing that beauty in such proportions as to render it most provocative. He had no religious beliefs. He did not conceive the body to be foul nor its food a poison. He had not learned to deny life. He had, in short, the morals of his age : the morals of a bachelor in a world of generous and easy women. To him the only sin was excess ; if he sinned it once, it was to leam the virtue of temperance, for he was an artist, and his instrument was himself. Otherwise— let us frankly admit it- given the man and his age there was no conceiv- able reason why he should ever play the part of a Joseph. If he loved himself with passion, and desired others so to love him, if he was rather the wooed than the wooer, he was not, as a lover, either passive or insincere. This we know : he had the reputation of being a gallant lover ; to whom the well-beloved of the hour was truly the long-desired, the fore -ordained ; and he sought with all his faculties to give her happiness. Fidelity was diffi- cult, but when he became a father he seems for a time to have achieved it. Yet he was never completely a father, and in that fact lay some of the sadness of his later years. 303 Pierre Garat Of Mme. Dugazon, the brave and loyal, there is not much more to say than has been said. The affair was truly one of Time's revenges. For the lovers of the fair Dugazon had been legion, but they had given more than they received. It was her turn now to love in earnest, and to love the longer. Beautiful both in feature and in form, with a face, a voice, and a manner full of ever- changing charm, she was ten years Carat's senior : a dangerous age to such a woman. She conceived a reckless, half-maternal passion for the brilliant boy, so rich in those treasures of youth, enthusiasm, and freshness to which she herself was slowly and reluctantly bidding farewell. Garat was equally intoxicated ; for a time the beautiful, generous woman was his whole world ; it was a first passion, and one that knew no restraints. Paris was keenly interested; many prophesied disaster. However, the years went by, and the singer still remained the official cavalier of the beautiful Dugazon. By the time the whole world was used to the affair it was dying a natural death. But it was easier for Mme. Dugazon to be faithful than for Garat; for the woman of much experience, rather than the singer, who, as he found his feet, was courted and flattered by younger women and women of another world. It is probable that she suffered, but we hear of no reproaches. Jealousy in the world of society was ridiculo.us : in the world of the stage it was almost improper. 304 MME. DUGAZON. Fiomjiic ininiafiire bv Jacques in Utc Picrpout Morgan Collection. (Reproduced by special permission : all riglits reserved. j To face p. 304. A Lover of Women They were no more than friends at the outbreak of the Revolution ; the disasters predicted had not overtaken Garat . When we consider what Paris was, we may fairly conclude that Garat had many reasons for gratitude to the beautiful actress ; he might well have fallen into worse hands. Mme. Dugazon's emotional career, before she met Garat, was extremely varied; but therein it did not differ from that of any other actress ; she did not sin against her lights. All else that we know of her is pleasant ; and her own sex loved her. As such matters were then regarded, the social status of the secretary of the King's brother, member of an old Parliamentary family, was such that a great lady might without scandal favour him. Scandal, indeed, whispered the name of a queen ; but no name was unsullied in the golden age of manners. In Court, in the city, and behind the scenes Garat was more than a notoriety ; he was liked for his gaiety, his good-h\unour, his imperti- nent wit, and his voice was responsible for a host of declarations. It became the fashion to sigh for the singer who made one weep. The multi- plicity of his " affairs " was probably exaggerated ;, he was a busy man, a hard worker both as dandy and as singer ; he could afford no way of life that involved a physical or emotional strain ; the singer must be as careful of his condition as a boxer. Moreover, he was a romantic ; it was a romantic 305 u Pierre Garat age ; the ladies who adored him, wept when he sang, and trembled to reward him, would have expected his attentions to continue, if only for the sake of appearances, for at least a few weeks or months. We can afford to ignore rumour, and to believe that most of his adventures were genuine passions, and that he commonly limited himself to one at a time. If we are to believe the historian, his second official passion was for the darling of the Rouen public; the madcap lover of flowing waters and the open air ; the sportswoman who might be found wading thigh -deep along the shoal banks of the Seine, intently watching her bobbing float, while an angry company waited for rehearsal in the half- lit, empty theatre. Whether he supplanted the envious troubadour who corrupted justice, or whether, the singer fairly out of the way behind the walls of Saint-Yon, the mysterious enemy sup- planted him, the pen of rumour has not recorded. It may be even that the passion is mythical ; on the other hand, after Carat's return from his first foreign tour we find Mile. Roussellois in Paris, appearing with Garat at the Concert Fey dean. In the motley world of the Directoire the siege of Carat's heart commenced with renewed vigour ; it was a time when every woman was eager to love, 306 A Lover of Women to bestow her treasures of beauty and tenderness. For the young a childhood of terror and repression was over ; those who were older hastened to make up for the wasted years, to seize a little joy before youth was flown. The Goddess of Reason was dethroned; in her place was life. The cult of the body was supreme ; the age of innocence was renewed ; romance purified everything . It was an age of frank physical existence ; as the men heaped on fresh upholstery, growing ever less human in shape, the women proceeded to disrobe. For a week they hovered on the brink of nudity, then returned to the provocative. From a wilderness of Eves our singer was saved by again falling in love : with the madcap Duchesse de Fleury. The daughter of the Comte de Coigny, the sister of the Due de Coigny, she was married to de Fleury at fourteen. " Her face was enchant- ing ; her glance burning ; her shape that of Venus, and her mind remarkable." ' Nigritta was her name at home ; given her for her olive com^plexion, her crisp black tresses, and her dark eyes. Her own name for herself was Zilia, " daughter of the Sun " ; a name borrowed from the Lettres d'une Peravienne of Mme. de Graffigny. " With a keen imagination and an ardent mind," she was a warm- hearted, natural, high-spirited girl, with a strain of wildness that held nothing too adventurous or eccentric. She had the true aristocrat's contempt ' Mme. Vigee Le Brun. 307 Pierre Garat of opinion and of consequences. Her marriage was not happy. Her husband succeeded to the ducal title in 1788. A bosom friend of the Duchesse de Chartres, she was indispensable to the latter on all social occasions. In the salons of the Palais-, Royal she was as though at home, one of a company that included Mmes. de Beauveau, de Luxembourg, de S6gur, de Talleyrand. She was the enfant terrible of the Court. Mme. de Laval, one day, defended the prerogatives of the nobles, which Turgot had attacked. " Whatever respect I may have for the King," cried the little Duchess, " I should never consider that I owe what I am to him. I know nobles have made sovereigns, but I defy you to tell me what king has made us nobles I " Mme. de Genlis tells us a story which has nothing to do with Garat ; but it serves to illus- trate her frank unconventionality. Remember the scene is the palace of a de Rohan, and the period the ancien regime- " She was at supper at Versailles, at the Princesse de Guemenee's, where there was a large company as usual. Mme. de Fleury had been to Court and was in full Court dress. Instead of removing her train befqre she came in she took it off in the salon. Mme. de Guemen6e, laughing, advised her also to remove her enormous pannier. 'Gladly!' cried Mme. de Fleury. At this unex- pected reply several ladies ran towards her, 308 A Lover of Women encouraging her to do ro, as a jest ; they removed her pannier, her superb petticoat, undressed her, in short, and in a twinkling of the eye there she stood in her long body and palatine, in a petticoat as short as an inverted basin, on which her two great pockets (a basis for the pannier) quivered as she walked. All this in the presence of fifty persons 1 Mme. de Fleury remained in this strange costume all the evening, from half -past nine, until two in the morning, as though she had done the simplest thing in the world." Husband and wife emigrated in 1791. De Fleury joined the Royalist army at Coblentz ; his wife proceeded to Rome. There she found a society of Fitz-Jameses, Polignacs, Grimaldis, de Rohans, and the like. It was altogether too oppressive for the young grass-widow : with supreme contempt for such a detail as the law concerning emigres she returned to France. Her welcome took the form of imprisonment in Saint- Lazare. There she found Andr6 Chenier ; there, in his last days, he wrote foir her that flower of poignant and imforced pathos, the Jeune Captive. For her, too, he wrote the ode which speaks of the " gentle white dove " :— " Blanche et douce colombe, amiable prisonniere. Quel injuste ennemi te cache a la lumiirel" She was more of a magpie than a dove ; some might say of a hawk. Prison had no power to 309 Pierre Garat break her spirit. Fellow-prisoners, those she rose up and lay down with, intimate companions of her long months, were removed in batches to the tumbril ; she was still all gaiety, all song and laughter. The Duchesse de Biron was with her; Horace Walpole has the news from! the Princesse d'Hennin : " The poor Duchesse de Biron is again arrested and at the Jacobins, and with her * une jeune ^tourdie qui ne fait que chanter toute la joum6e ' ; and who, think you, may that be ?— only our pretty little wicked Duchesse de Fleury ! — by her singing and not sobbing I suppose she was weary of her Tircis, and is glad to be rid of him." This is in October, 1793. And Tircis?— poor Tircis is the handsome Lauzvm, now Due de Biron, husband of her friend in misfortune, not as yet the brilliant leader of Republican cavalry. They had met at the house of a de Coigny. He, perhaps her first lover, was her lover for quite a season. In her exile she writes to him from Naples : " The moon in this country of enchantments is more truly our divinity than in other lands ; the ocean seems to be here only to reflect and adore her ; it stirs unwillingly, and when it complains it is clear that it is love alone that has disturbed it." Not the absence of Tircis ; not the presence of his melancholy wife ; not the long months in prison could silence song or laughter. Ch^nier was one of the last to bid her an eternal farewell ; 310 A Lover of Women he died only two short days before the fall of the Incorruptible. Laughing, as she had entered, the beautiful Zilia quitted her prison. There was reason for her gaiety in prison. She loved, and there are times when love must laugh ; or surrender to fears too hideous for the light, sweet heart of a Zilia, De Montrond was her fellow- prisoner ; in the days of renewed hope she obtained her freedom from de Eleury, and became a willing wife. The strange, motley woxld of the Directoire was no place for a woman's second dream of love ; the happy pair retired into solitude . Solitude, alas ! refused them ; they returned to Paris . They fared no better; there was a fresh divorce. Had Zilia heard the Troubadour in the days before the deluge ? She heard him now ; she loved, she surrendered. There was no question of marriage. But then, as she said, in reply to some one who complained that divorce made adultery pointless : " Ah, but one cannot marry them all ! " Since she had not married, she could not divorce him. The inevitable rupture was softened : her next lover was Garat's brother. Maltia Garat, the younger brother, had followed in the footsteps of his uncle ; he was a legislator, a member of the Tribunate ; incidentally the lover of the Marquise de Condorcet.' She, it appears, ' Maltia Garat's salon, presided over by Mme. de Condorcet, was the headquarters of the Republican opposition. During the rest 3" Pierre Garat bore his loss with equanimity, perhaps because his small political value was destroyed. He had become a member of the Tribimate at the time of its creation, in 1799 ; but as a politician he was not remarkable, if we may judge him by the following couplet :— " Pourquoi ce petit homme est-il au Tribunai ? Cest que ce petit homme a son oncle au Senat" He had the courage, however, to sit as a member of the Republican Opposition, and was expelled by Napoleon with twenty others. Maltia, who for some unknown reason preferred to be known as Mailla-Garat, and was actually known as Mailla or Mail, appears to have been less gallant a lover than his brother. Rumour speaks of another of time's revenges : reports that the mad- cap Zilia laughed no longer. Who knows?— it was long before she took another lover. Shall we attribute this to the fidehty or the cruelty of Maltia? Rumour says they had long been parted. It was in 1 8 1 3 that Mme. de Montrond bestowed her hand— informally still— upon i^tienne de Jouy, the " hermit of the Chaussde d'Antin." But her laughing days were over. When the Bourbons were restored her father retiurned to Exance ; with of the Empire he was employed in the Archives. He retired, at the time of the first Restoration, into private life, emerging only during the Hundred Days. 312 A Lover of Women him she found a refuge, and in him an asylum for her afifections. She died in 1820, at the age of forty -nine. It was time ; she was a butterfly of the golden age, and the new world was to her a grey and melancholy place. For a time, in the days when the eternal lover wore the face of Garat, she lived at Meudon, with Mmes. de Bellegarde. The three ladies shared a house in the outskirts of the town. It was there that Mme. Le Brun came to know them. Calling on Mme. de Fleury at Meudon, or perhaps upon Mme, Le Brun, or visiting his brother Maltia, Garat met the Comtesse de Bellegarde. His afifair with Mme. de Kriidener, which was not of his seeking, followed his rupture with Mme. de Fleury. Had he met the Comtesse de Belle- garde at the time ? History is silent ; if he had, his summary treatment of Valdrie is perhaps explained. For the Comtesse de Bellegarde was his next conquest, or the next to conquer him ; and because he truly loved her, or because, being truly a great lady, he respected and feared her, his relations with her were lasting, and had all the respectability of an informal marriage. She was a member of the house of Savoy, cousin to the King of Sardinia. She lived with her sister, Aurore de Bellegarde, and was a prominent figure 313 Pierre Garat in the more exclusive circles of the society of the Directoire. Garat's connection with her lasted for many years. It was at first concealed from the eyes of the world; but a daughter was born in 1803, and a son followed. The sister, Aurore, closed her eyes.; she may herself have been in need of practical charity. The world also closed its eyes as far as it could ; Mme . de Bellegarde was a lady whom the new society was eager to conciliate. It is possible that Garat con- tinued to yield to lesser loves ; but the connection had in many ways the force of a marriage. In some Latin societies, whose members enjoy unlimited leisure, and in which marriages are deter- mined by economic or family reasons, conjugal infidelity is purely a matter of private taste ; but the so-called irregular, or let us say the extra - domestic relation, cannot be broken or infringed without disgrace. White-haired octogenarians still find their way, for a few hours of every afternoon, to the salon of the beloved "friend." The reason is easy to grasp : with leisure, and the habit of the established afternoon call, an affection springs up that is independent of passion . In the Paris t)f the Empire such relations existed, but were rare ; in the case of Garat, whose every hour was occupied, love was and remained a passion, but little more. In the course of time it came to a natural end. During the Directoire and the early Empire the 314 A Lover of Women ladies de Bellegarde were much in society : in particular they had a very warm friendship for Talleyrand. So long as the connection lasted, Garat was their escort thither. The valet de chambre was accustomed to announce them : " Mesdames de Bellegarde and Garat." The singer, between one woman who sought to dis- semble their relations and a hundred who sought to make it plain that they envied her lot, was bound in time to permit himself further adventures ; for this reason or another the relation was officially broken. The ladies de Bellegarde continued to call on the ex -Bishop of Autun. Garat, as always, still frequented his salon. The valet de chambre, like the singer, was the slave of the subliminal self : when the Comtesse de Bellegarde entered his announcement was still the same : " Mesdames de Bellegarde and Garat " I The daughter of Mme. de Bellegarde, born in Messidor of the year X, was registered as the natural daughter of Pierre-Jean Garat, professor at the Conservatoire de Musique, and Adelaide Victoire de Bellegarde. Her history is curious. At the age of .twenty - five she met— we may suppose at the house of one of the Garats— a tax-collector of Ustaritz, Paulin Soubiron. She married him. A true Parisian, she was not content in the leafy solitude of the Pyrenean foothills. On the roads of Ustaritz, she was known to complain, one never 31S Pierre Garat met anything but donkeys ! Early a widow, she returned to Paris rather than continue in the South. Her httle fortune, invested, yielded an income of something like £120 ; it was a modest living. She was not a mother ; to her the dearest thing in the world was the memory of her father. As Mme. Soubiron Garat de Bellegarde she was long an habitue of the circle of her father's friends ; par- ticularly attached to the Boieldieu family, she often visited them in Rouen. In Paris she had a little house in the Boulevarde Montmartre, which was almost a Garat museum : a shrine to the singer's memory. So her life slipped away. Her only brother, Garat de Ch^noise,' who served awhile in the body- guard of Louis XVIII and Charles X, had died in 1837. In old age a fall resulted in serious injury, and she was taken to the maison de santi. A characteristic incident of her stay there is recorded : the chaplain of the establishment having entered her room to pay her a visit, she angrily showed him the door. When at length she left the maison de sante her courage and her strength were broken : for the short remainder of her life she lodged, in absolute seclusion, with one of the attendants of the hospital. She died in 1882, in her eightieth year. When Garat's coimection with Mme. de Belle- ' Chenoise was a title of the Bellegarde family. 316 A Lover of Women garde relapsed into friendship the singer was no longer young. Society had changed; Paris was a far more complex world than the world of his youth. He was no longer, in the world, quite the figure he had been : he seldom sang, and although he by no means became a recluse the best part of his life was perhaps passed in the classrooms of the Conservatoire. To the girl students, aspirants to the platform or the stage, their senior professor, the ornament of courts and the lover of great ladies, was a heroic and romantic figure. To them he was irresistible as ever ; and if hero- worship led them to more human relations, they were doubly finished for their part in life ; for the general conditions and the morals of the stage had hardly improved since Carat's youth. It was now, in middle age, that he took to live with him one such pupil, who failed him indeed as pupil, but was his companion until his death ; perhaps his wife. Of her, the last of many conquests, we shall speak in due place. There is his record. He was, as his least friendly biographer allows, a gallant nlan. It was not easy for him to refuse what was offered in generosity, often in love. But he wronged no one ; if he was unfaithful, fidelity was more than could have been required of him. His morals, as we have said, were those of his time and race ; and they had their qualities. He was not capricious : he was 317 Pierre Garat not selfish : and it took a Russian to accuse him of being heartless. His lifelong search after the well-beloved left him, in the end, betrayed ; his children were hardly his own ; and the only mistress with whom he ever shared a home was childless. In his case adventure was its own reward. 318 CHAPTER XV THE SINGER AND WRITER OF SONGS The old romances of the anden rigime and the Directory — Music during the Revolution — Garat as singer of romances — Garat as composer — Other composers whose songs he sang — His manner of singing them — A great teacher — His theories and methods — His pupils: Fabry Garat — An anecdote " Roubespierry the upright man " — Garat's other brothers and his sister. In old provincial houses, behind the high glazed doors and the moth-eaten silken curtains of ancient rosewood bookcases ; in quiet country parsonages, where the contents of the music -cupboard have accumulated through long Victorian years ; within old chintz-covered music-stools, or stored in dusty lofts, perhaps beside the small square-ended pianos or long -derelict claviers that once tinkled to their accompaniments, you may find, yellow with age, marked with mould and worn by long-dead fingers, certain songs brought long ago by venturesome travellers from Paris, or imported by the London music-sellers when the Regent was the First Gentleman ; songs with a tinkling, rippling accom- paniment, full of trills and runs, roulades and dying 319 Pierre Garat falls ; songs of roses, and moonlight, and the love of gentle shepherdesses. You will ask for them in vain at the music-shops of to-day, and if you sing them tlhey will sound strange and unnatural in the comfortable modern gaslight. Once they were sung by all Europe, and the old stale properties were alive, the shepherdesses were flesh and blood ; the trills and runs made no one nervous lest the singer's voice should crack or flatten, but were the throbs of living emotion ; and eyes were wet when the tinkling strings were still. All ages sing the thing they are not. In the mannered, exquisite Court of Louis XVI the romance, the rustic idyll, was the only song in fashion. Music reflected the "sensibility" of the age ,- the " return to nature," the longing for chaste simplicity. The fashion was started, the historians tell us, by the Sieur de Beaumarchais, whose opera, Le Manage de Figaro, contained a song our grand- fathers knew : r avals une marraine. As the poet writes most readily in cities, so the romance -writers of the day, giving expression to faculties repressed by life, wrote of all that was most opposed to the world they knew. The world they wrote of was a world of false rusticities, deliberate simplicities, genuine tenderness. It reflected but refined on the world of painters ; of Watteau, Kauffman, Boucher, Fragonard, Greuze. It was a world where the day was always fair, the season always warm ; a 320 The Singer and Writer of Songs world of peasant -girls, neat and sweet and fragrant as no French peasant ever was ; of shepherdesses who lay, clothed in gauze or satin, on banks of moss, yet did not die of pneumonia ; of shepherds learned in the classics, who wooed the coy hearts of their mistresses with rustic pipe or song. All this was only the machinery ; it was accidental, a mere fashion . The real essence of thtese romances was the longing for simple and beautiful emotion, for the recognition of the simple and eternal things of life, that before the Revolution was making itself felt beneath the artificiality and pomp of the ancien regime. They expressed, these songs, a genuine love of Nature which was already perceptible in letters, and was later to find a fuller if hardly more genuine expression in romanticism. The silence of dawn, the cry of birds, the charm of running water, the coolness and mystery of the woods : all that was farthest from a silken, mannered world of aristo- crats. The music was similarly a mingling of the natural and the artificial, the realistic and the affected. Much of it consisted of " fireworks " ; of trills, roulades, fiorituri, that were meant to try the singer's utmost art, and triumphantly to exhibit the genius of such vocalization as Garat's. Yet it aimed also at description ; those rippling, murmuring melodies evoked a sense of brooks flickering over pebbly beds ; of the rhythm' of 321 X Pierre Garat treetops tossing in a May wind ; of the tinkle of sheep-bells, and the song of birds before dawn. The Revolution brought no change in the quality of songs ; the butchers of the Terror not only hummed these gaily plaintive mfelodies ; they even wrote them. Their victims also continued their accustomed strain, unsilenced by the shadow of the scaffold. Fabre d'feglantine, only a few days before his death, wrote the words to Limare's melody : // pleut, il pleat, bergere, which was sung by the victims of Tinville as the tumbrils bore them to their death ; it was during the Terror that Laharpe wrote his pastoral, O ma tendre musette, and Garat his Troubadour and La Mie da Trouba- dour. It was by singing these tender little poems, with an exquisite sensibility, a touching sincerity, an infallible charm, that Garat won his place in the heart of Paris. He was not merely the brilliant artist, the witty companion, the gallant lover, the impeccable dandy ; he was the man who brought tears into the heart and the eyes, who refreshed the weariness of age, and uttered aloud the secret of love. To give a list of his favourite songs were use- less ; the titles to-day are only names. But some few of these titles, chosen at random, will give some idea of the fashion of song : Boaton de rose; Charmant ruisseaa; Te Men aimer, 6 ma chire Zelie ; Le feuiUe de rose; Le menestrel exiU; 322 The Singer and Writer of Songs Le jour se leve ; Que j'aime les hirondelles ; Le premier baiser de V amour. . . . And the airs are by such men as Pradher, Plantade, Devienne, Blangini. As for the words, there was riot a poet in France but sooner or later tried his hand at the romance ; among those whose efforts were haippiest were Millevoye, Riboutt^, de Cubieres, and Mmes. de Salm and Sophie Gay. Garat himself maintained for years, so far as the general world was concerned, the legend that he was not acquainted with music. Naturally, in musical circles, among the prominent composers of the time, at the opera among experts, in the green-room and at rehearsals, the extent of his ignorance would soon be betrayed. Whatever were the deficiencies of his musical education, his ordinary way of life would rapidly complete it. He was not an aocomplished pianist ; his performances, it will be remembered, were limited to a one-handed accompaniment. How far he was able to write music we do not, shall probably never know. It is probable that he wrote the melodies, manufac- tured, by ear, some sort of an accompaniment, and asked some friend to correct it. Be this as it may, his songs are still full of delicacy, freshness, and melody. It is not likely however, that they will ever enjoy resuscitation ; not only are the words, for the mbst part, as bad as such things can be— that alone would in nowise 323 Pierre Garat affect their popularity ; witness the century's popular English " ballads "—but the subjects, and the manner of treatment, are in a taste that is not that of to-day nor likely to return. His librettist as a rule ^vas anonymous. Let us hope the poet was not himself. We are forced to admit that like many musicians his literary taste was not remlarkable. The worst fault of the worst verses set by Garat is a trick of elision, the dropping of the article, the result being a sort of " nigger " French whose effect is entirely comic. However, there are notable exceptions ; and the best of these are the work of N^pomucene Lemercier. The most popular of Garat's own songs were, of course, the Troubadour and the companion Reponse ; Dans le printentps de mes annees; La char me use ; Le Cid; Le chant arabe ; Le premier baiser de F amour; MUe. de Lafayette; Je t'aim'e tajit. One, the Convoi du pauvre, suggested by Vigneron's picture of a pauper's funeral followed by a dbg, is a gem of false pathos. Certain songs of Garat's were not published, nor did he sing them in all companies. Among them is the Complainte de Marie Antoinette, the words of which are to modem ears excruciating, on account of the fault already mentioned. Other songs of a royalist tinge were Bayard, Henri IV et Gabrietle, and Belisaire, this last alluding to the trial of Moreau. It is rumoured that Napoleon's final disapproval of Garat, and his petty revenge, 324 The Singer and Writer of Songs were due to the political colour of these songs. Possibly, however, Garat suffered from the fact that his brother Maltia was a convinced Republican. A song sung by Garat was assured of popularity ; he was accordingly besieged by thfem. Boieldieu wrote many, some of which have survived. Others, full of tender, genuine feeling, were the work of Albanesi, who for ten years was attached to the Concerts SpiritUels of the old Court. Later in his career he sang many romances by Blangini. Born in Turin about the time of Garat's arrival in Paris, Blangini was chapel-master to Pauline Borghese, and, according to his own memoirs — he was one of those who kiss and tell, or worse, who say that they have kissed — the relation was eventually more inti- mate. Her interest, or the merit of his songs, or both, brought him into high favour with the Bona- parte family, and he was for a season musical superintendent at the Court of Jerome, King of Westphalia. On the return of the Bourbons, a musical Vicar of Bray, he filled the same post to Louis XVIII. Queen Hortense wrote the words of some of Garat's favourite songs. They were set to music by Plantade or Carbonnel. This latter, a Viennese, had come to Paris at the age of five, was a pupil at the Opera at the age of nine, and entered the Royal School of Singing. A professor of some eminence, his songs were vastly popular ; the two most successful, perhaps, being Brigitte and Pauvre 325 Pierre Garat Lise d: quinze aus, both sung by Garat. During the Empire Carbonnel was Garat's usual accom- panist. Alvimare was another of Garat's favourite com- posers. Jeune troubadour qui chante et fait la guerre and Pret d partir pour ta terre africaine were songs dear to our great -grandmothers. Son of a wealthy family, he was ruined by the Revolu- tion . Fortunately he played the harp with ability ; he was harpist at the Opera, and gave lessons to Josephine . At the Restoration he recovered his estates, and Paris knew him no more. You could not offend M. Alvimare more deeply, in the peace- ful years of his old age, when he lived in retirement in the town of his birth, than by referring to the harp, or the Opera, or anything relating to music. Lastly we should name Martini. He is immor- talized by one beautiful song that has never been forgotten :— "Plaisirs d^ amour ne durent qu'un moment. Chagrin d'dmour dure toute la vie.'' The rest lie in oblivion, disturbed only by musical scholars, forgotten and outgrown as La Nouvelle Heloise, Delphine, and Valerie are forgotten. Of his manner of singing these romances some- thing has already been said. The man who could assume and maintain, unconsciously almost, a life- Ipng pose of artificiality, could also, when his art 326 The Singer and Writer of Songs called to the resources of trained subconsciousness, pour out his ever -fresh emotions in song of such assured and accustomed technical perfection that his whole attention could be given to the meaning of the song. The result was perfect expression- perfect in completeness, in spontaneity, in truth, in poignancy. The French make use of the expres- sion it dit un romance ; and the word is just : a perfect singer does truly speak his song, speaks its meaning to the utmost, as naturally and easily as in ordinary speech. The language lends itself to a lightness and subtlety of articulation, and trains the lips of those who speak it to achieve those qualities, so that the best French song contains the musical beauty of the vocal organ together with all the subtle beauty of perfect speech. These qualities are rarely met with in the English singer, whose voice is often merely an instrument of music. Part of Garat's charm lay in his supreme command of diction, of speaking with perfect ease and com- petence through and in his singing. This was due in some degree to assiduous training ; and also to the physical accident ; the flexible, slightly pro- jecting lips, a little tilted at the corners, the light jawbone, and the flexibility of the whole mask. His incredible trills, " embroideries," fiorituri, with which he sometimes electrified his hearers, were introduced only in the more artificial of these romances, and the composers of the time admit that they were always employed with justice, as 327 Pierre Garat part of the language of his art. They were never inexpressive. In singing great music he took no such hberties, but sang with a large simplicity and a passion that perhaps have never since been equalled. Before we conclude our consideration of Garat the musician, let us examine his methods of teaching. For a generation he was officially and actually the first teacher of singing in France. One might almost say that he founded a school of singing, and although the generation whose art he formed has itself passed away, his influence is still extant in the best traditions of the operatic stage. Never a voluble person— for his art expressed the whole man — upon one subject he could talk with brilliance. It is said that hi,s friend Sarrette con- ceived the idea of securing Garat for the Conserva- toire not on account of his voice, but after hearing him discuss his beloved art. It was well for Garat. The grey days were to come ; his art of song and his art of personal gesture failed him^ ; but he was saved the worst bitterness of age, for teaching had by then become the work of his life. He was more and more unhappy in society, in the outer world, but in the Conservatoire he was still Garat, a glory and a legend, a man among friends and worshippers. His lessons were a delight to his pupils. He 328 The Singer and Writer of Songs spoke, when interested, not in the drawl of the incroyahle, but with all the fire and eloquence of the Gascon, and his method of teaching, which was largely by example, was enlivened by siiatches of delicious mimicry, and anecdotes of the great personages of three Courts and the famous singers of bygone days. " Professor of perfecting the art of song " until 1818, in that year the Comte de Pradel, Director- General of the Household of Louis XVIII, sent Garat on a journey through the South of France, commissioning him to recruit any promising singers he might discover. On his return his title was changed to that of " Professor of vocal music." Plantade and Lays were his colleagues ; the latter an indifferent teacher, while the former was detested by Garat, who seldom conceived an active dislike. Garat himself, however, remained the glory of the Conservatoire . His methods of teaching and the principles which he professed reveal something of the man and his art. His chief method was simplicity itself; it consisted of criticism by song, and here the talent for mimicry, which as a boy he had developed for the delight of his friends, proved to be of the greatest service. When one of his pupils, after long preparation at other hands, was given a romance or an aria to study, Garat, without looking at the music, would call upon him to sing it through. 'He would listen without a word, and 329 Pierre Garat then, again without the music, would himself sing the air as it should be sung, with emphasis, phrasing, articulation, and quality of tone all per- fect as only he could make them. The contrast was like that between a lujup of clay and a living creature. The pupil, bidden to sing again, would this time interpret the song with something like a tolerable art. If he were too obtuse the master would proceed to a. gentle caricature, so witty and so just as to overcome even the victim with laughter I. He did not uphold himself as the only model. He encouraged his pupils to hear all the great singers, reminding them that it was only by hearing the great artists of his day, and talking with eminent musicians, that he himself had reached his un- paralleled position. He had no patience with the notion that singing is merely a matter of voice., The proper manner of breathing, the proper time to breathe, the importance of continuing the tone instead of attacking each syllable with a sort of bark, the method of suppressing asperities and softening awkward conjunctions of consonants without impairing the purity and freedom of articu- lation—all these were points on which he never ceased to insist. Above all he preached the neces- sity of hard work, of serious practice, of a mastery of the technical resources of vocalization which will leave the singer free to give his mind to expression, which is, so to speak, the perfect speech of song. 330 The Singer and Writer of Songs For the sole end of sonig, he declared, is dramatic : it is to express " the emotions of the human soul at a given moment, in a given place." The sounds produced by the singer are simply a medium by which he expresses and comlmunicates an idea, a state of mind ; by themselves they are valueless ; they are justified only by the communicated sensation . His. teaching and his conversation on musical subjects proved abundantly that his mind was of no ordinary quality ; that he was capable of pro- found analysis, sustained and logical thought, and original observation. His principles may to-day seem almost obvious, but they were conceived, by a mere boy, during the feverish activities of youth, for his self-imposed training in the closed chamber at home was based upon these very tenets. The discontinuance of his salary made no difference to his work ; it was a labour of love. His enthusiasm was inspiring; his pupils were eager to please him, eager to improve, to grasp the "beauties of the music they interpreted, to master the means of interpretation. Cherubini, Boieldieu, M^hul and others were at this period engrossed in the development and improvement ' of the French opera . Garat was largely to be thanked for this development, for it was he who trained the singers who were to interpret the new music ; and his interest in them amounted to devotion, for even when age was upon 331 rierre uarat him he would accompany them to rehearsals at the Opera, be present to cheer and advise them on first nights, and was the first to congratulate them when the curtain fell. Indifference or lack of ambition he could not vmderstand. How should he, when the breath of his life was admiration? We remember Mme. Junot's account of his exasperation with the frigid Nourrit, who sang so languidly of his absent mistress. He managed, nevertheless^ to make a respectable artist of Nourrit, who eventually appeared in Gluck's Orfeo. As the curtain fell Garat hurried on to the stage. " After such a success," he cried, " you can aspire to anything ! " " I am delighted to have pleased you," said the placid Nourrit, " and I thank you for your encouragement. But I have no ambition." "You have no ambition!" cried Garat. "Then what are you doing here ? " Was it in part the old egoism, the desire for personal glory, to extend beyond the limit of his own days, for immortality, in, short, that made him so eager for the success of his disciples ? Perhaps : but Garat's egoism was not ignoble, if at times it was a little grotesque. It only amounted to this : he worshipped life : life in himself, as he was exquisitely aware of self ; and beauty : the beauty he himself expressed, since the expression itself was joy. 332 The Singer and Writer of Songs To English readers the names of those he trained are to-day but names : Ponchard, L^vasseur, Desperamons, Roland: Mmes. Buret, Dorlise, Hallinger, Philis, Branchu : it is idle to extend the list . One pupil, however, we may justly mention : Fabry Garat, his youngest brother, and at the end his most faithful companion. Born in 1775, Fabry, like his brother, had a tenor voice of beautiful quality, which indeed recalled that of Pierre. His training, however, was interrupted. In very early childhood he was taught by Garat, who, as he mastered his art, sought to pass on the knowledge acquired ; but he was only eight years old when the latter left for Paris, and on the outbreak of war he was enrolled as a soldier of the Revolution. He left the army in 1800, at the age of twenty-five, returned to Bor- deaux, and began to study music under Mengozzi, a singer, and Ferrari. Proceeding to Paris, he entered the class of Gerard, a professor of the Italian school, who prepared the students of the Conservatoire for Garat. Fabry also had the benefit of his brother's advice, with the result that he became an admirable singer, though technically a little defective. Hearing the brothers sing together, the similarity of their voices, and the difference, were at once apparent. He had the same beautifully expressive and limpid articulation, and as a singer of romances won a name of his own. Even less of a musician 333 Pierre Garat than his brother, he too wrote romances, which were published in eight collections ; and at one period he even gave lessons. For a time he was employed in the Ministry of Finances, a:nd was sent to Flanders ; but on the partition of Belgium was forced to adopt the musical profession for a living. For many years he toured through the provinces, giving concerts, and if his talents were eclipsed by his brother's genius, none the less the name of Garat was a precious financial asset. After a time he returned to his old occupation as sub-director of the department of indirect taxa- tion. Eventually he was sent to Vaugirard as collector of taxes. Unlike his famous brother, he lived to an advanced age, and his voice was almost as long-lived as himself.' He it was, as we shajl see, who tended Garat in his last melancholy days. He himself died an old man, leaving a son who became sub -prefect of Dax. ■Here we may most fittingly refer to the third ' Lafond quotes an anecdote which is quite irrelevant, but amusing enough to translate. At Vaugirard Fabry used to give weekly dinners, at which Jules Garat, a nephew, a physician at Bordeaux, was a frequent guest. At the first of these dinners he met a brisk, vigorous, httle old man, the famous surgeon Soubervielle who, in spite of sixty years in Paris, had a Gascon accent of the good old flavour, which amazed even the young provincial fresh from Gascony. The conversation turned upon Robespierre. The English of the following may be presumed to give some idea of the rusticity of the old surgeon's accent : " Oh,, yoong mon ! Roubespierry was ma friend, an' it was a glory an 334 The Singer and Writer of Songs brother : Francisque, a lover and amateur of letters, and a singer also. He was six years the junior of our hero. He joined the army of the Sarabre-et- Meuse as a volunteer, but in 1797, when Dominique-Joseph was sent as ambassador to Naples, he accompanied his uncle as secretary. On his return to France he entered the administra- tion of the customs, eventually being stationed at Bordeaux, where he died at the age of eighty-two. Garat had but one sister : Theodore, god- daughter of his aunt, the superior of a convent in Bayonne. This sister married a M. Lubbert, by whom she had two sons : one of them, a lover of music, and a friend of Fabry Garat, was the latter's companion on his visits to the singer in the days of which we have yet to speak. It will be seen that Garat was the sole member of his family to be a reactionary. That, at least,, is hardly the term ; he welcomed the Revolution, but the mob he could only hold in abhorrence. The man whose respect— we might say love and admira- honour to me ; I said so to Mossieu day Lamartine an' he put it in his worrk on the Girondins." " But Robespierre," ventures the student, " was a scoundrel ; he drenched himself with blood ! " " Oh, yoong mon, a mon of bloud ! He, the maist upright o' men ! A brave mon ! A mon o' bloud, never ! Now hear me : Henriot, his friend, a good citizen, brave and full o' convictions, he went to Roubespierry and he tould him : ' To finish 'em at one single blow, ye must cut off a hundred thousand heads.' What did Roubespierry? He guillotined his friend Henriot I An' after that ye tell me he was a mon o' bloud ! " Truly a delightful example of the " retrospective illusion " ! 335 Pierre Garat tion — ^for his own person, whose every gesture and action is considered and controlled, whose every utterance is a striving after beauty, can hardly regard as a brother, still less as a divinely- appointed ruler, the undisciplined roaring dema- gogue, intoxicated with a silly phrase, whose aspect and voice are an offence, and who reeks to heaven of dirt and sweat. Respect of self and arrogaht self-love are as the poles apart. Moreover, Garat was never ungrateful, and the kindness of Marie Antoinette and many of her Court was a gracious memory that was with him to the last. For their destroyers he could feel only hatred ; he shrank, therefore, from regarding them ; if his political sympathies were negligible, it was because by an act of will he avoided thought upon a painful subject. 336 CHAPTER XVI THE RESTORATION— THE END The Restoration — Old friends — Garat's journey to the South — The approach of age — The old age of the beau — The tragedy of the old singer — The surrender to Time — Last years — Gerard ; Kalbrenner — The Conservatoire — The desire of immortality — Mile. Duchamp — Why the aged artist so often marries a pupil — Garat's hopes — The tragedy of their non-fulfilment — Retirement — The yellow boots — The last illness — Old friends — Lubbert and Fabry Garat — Dreams of past greatness — He sings in silence — Death of Garat — Cherubini — Memorial performance at the Opera — A tribute. It may be imagined that the fall of Napoleon was by no means disagreeable to Garat. As a Royalist member of a moderate republican family, he was not regarded with favour by the magnates of the Empire ; and his salary, no negligible resource now that he no longer sang nightly for princely fees, was restored at the coming of the Bourbons . For other and less interested reasons, however, the return of the Bourbons meant much to him. In the storm and stress of the later Empire, amid a new barbarian generation, who regarded a frock- coat and white breeches, ei coachman's redingote 337 Y Pierre Garat and high top-boots as a sufficient costume for a gentleman, his position was no longer quite what it had been. People still whispered his name as he passed, but it was not always with admiration. The return of the Bourbons was a fugitive renewal of youth. Louis XVIII he had never known intimately ; but Artois had been almost friend as well as patron ; and with the Bourbons came a host of faithful emigres in whom absence had not effaced the memory of the Orpheus from the Midi. Thirty-five years or more had been the length of their exile, and few were improved, either in quality or in manner, but it probably took time to make the discovery ; and in the meanwhile new salons were opening, old stories were being retold, and friends who parted as youths were re-exploring one another's characters. And in the new salons, as in the old, sang Garat, the human nightingale, eternally youthful, and he sang the old songs. It was not for long. Those whom the gods have loved should die young. They pay a price for the divine favour, and the payment leaves them poor in old age. Garat was perhaps endowed at birth with less than a full measure of vitality ; twice during his youth his constitution showed signs of failure ; and he lived at high pressure . We need not suppose him, as some have done, a victim of dissipation ; he was intensely fastidious, he loved 338 The Restoration — The End and respected himself, and, above all, he loved his art, and knew only too "well how it must sufifer by any imprudence. He was a polygamist rather than a rake, but a serial, not a simultaneous polygamist ; and mere polygamy never killed any one. Man the machine has a certain maximum life ; if his pace is rapid, the journey is quickly over. We cannot consider Garat's life, and, above all, his art, without realizing that here was a man who lived intensely at every moment of the day. There were no periods of lethargy, of indifference ; the exquisite was ;a restrained enthusiast ; the artist was an enthusiast in action. There were no periods of repose. So it was that at an age when the average man tells himself, a little wistfully, that he is only in his prime our singer found hjim'self failing . At first the difference was imperceptible. Then the poison of age worked more swiftly : lining the cheeks, thinning the hair, stiffening the limbs, veiling the voice. For nearly fifty years he had been Garat, the irresistible, the ever-young. He still contrived to be Garat ; but it was with an effort ; the resources of the toilet were invoked to hide the ravages of time. The beau should never grow old, nor the great singer, The beau in his youth is a beautiful animal, whose gestures and raiment are equally beautiful. In his age beauty of person and movement fail 339 Pierre Garat him, and what was beauty of adornment becomes the jest of fools. The beau loves himself, as a woman may, who knows the hour ripe for the gift of her beau,ty. The beau's love is the world. He longs to give himself, that he may receive approval. But apart from the world, he loves himself for his own sake. The skin like satin ; the strong, comely limb'S' ; the shapely frame, beautiful as a racehorse or a statue ; the clear eye, the sober nerves, the fresh- ness of ever -restored youtb : these are things to love, to adorn, to use for the joy of others. But who shall love himself when his skin is harsh and wrinkled, his limbs stiff and shrunken, his teeth broken, his cheeks furrowed, his eyes dim? The body that was his delight has become his penance ; he cannot offer it to others ; he is humiliated ; he longs to hide like a stricken beast. And the great singer I He is used to the joy of perfect physical performanice, of mental and physical competence. A few beautiful words and phrases of music inspire him with living emotion. He knows the joy of expression ; the rich blood coursing generously, bathing the nerves in delight ; the thrill in the throat and bteast that tells of perfect production ; the joy of song, unforced as a bird's, that while it lasts is his very self, the expression of body and soul ; and the heady joy of popularity, of being the centre of panic delight, 340 The Restoration — The End the focus of a storm of aesthetic and emiotional rapture . Now it was all over. The old age of the singer is hard to bear, for it is not his skill that forsakes him : it is the very instrument upon which he plays that decays and fails him. Not only in singing, but all his life he knows the sweets of popularity. He may tell himself that men are mostly fools ; that few men think of him at all, and none for more than a few moments. But such words are meaningless. What matters is that wherever he goes all the world, as he comes into touch with it, regards him with a thrill of gratitude, interest, envy, admiration. The springs of joy are deep as the springs of life. Before man was man approval, popularity, the respect of the head or tribe meant security ; the surcease of a thousand harrowing fears and a vast advantage in the eternal struggle. As long as man is man popularity will delight him, in spite of all his wisdom', wrapping him in a warm glow of spiritual content, like the consciousness of salvation, or a perfectly fitting coat. These joys our singer must now surrender. It was not a dignified surrender. The vivid, sleepy, impertinent face with the olive flush of youth had been arresting, pleasing, lovable in the eyes of a thousand women ; and it had harmonized, had " gone " with the fantastic style of clothing that 341 Pierre Garat was the expression of an exuberant age. Now, when all men dressed like soldiers or groom's, another type of countenance was needful. 'Had his features been stem, dignified, reposeful, with a basis of " beautiful bone," he might have played the part of the " grand old man " ; as it was he foresaw that Garat the octogenarian, should there ever be such a person, would be referred to as " that queer little old fellow," the " funny little old man." 'He sought to fight the years with the aid of his tailor. 'His costumes, in a sober age, grew more brilliant in hue, more eccentric in cut. His tiny foot at least was left him, and his slender han,ds. He went gay as a humming-bird, with little, mincing steps, an apostle of the cult of the person in a gross material age. He certainly caught the eye ; people turned in the street to watch him. The cry was still " That's Garat ! " but the worship was not the same. He was something of a joke as well as a celebrity. He did not at first become morose ; only a little hurt ; as one the gods have deserted, he knows jiot why. The result on his life was that he no longer sought to conquer new fields ; he even withdrew from fields already won. He was to be seen, in those days, only in thfe salons of those who had known him long. He still sang — if sufficiently pressed. The power 342 The Restoration — The End of the voice was gone ; but the perfect art, that was the sumnoiary of a lifetime of thought and experience and labour, was still untouched ; was more supreme than ever. One of the last houses he frequented was that of Gerard, the painter, a friend of long standing, created baron by Louis XVIII. There he met all the leading figures of the worlds of politics, letters, art, music, and science ; there, f)erhaps,_ his voice was heard for the last time. What memories it must have awakened in that company of ageing men : successful, solidly established in a time of peace ; what vistas of storm and hatred and terror, what memories of brighter worlds submerged ! As the art of gesture arid raiment began to fail him the art of music became more than ever dear. He was often to be met with in the studio of Kalbrenner, the violinist, an old professional comrade, when the company was one of artists. But his best hours were passed at the Con- servatoire. One art had not betrayed him: as a teacher he was as great as ever. Arid here, at least, in this world of artists and bourgeois, he was still Garat, the unique and incomparable, the perfect artist, the exquisite, the legendary orna- ment of Courts, the lover of great ladies. He could still dress of a morning, even though his limbs were stiff, with a little thrill of anticipatory 343 Pierre Garat pleasure ; there was still the little sensation when he entered — always half an hour late — still gay, with a twinkling eye and a masterly langour, which soon gave way to the competent air of a man who has come into his kingdom. Here the glances of pretty women still centred upon his person ; there was no criticism here, but a genuine hero-worship, arid now and again a glance, a blush, that fired the blood for a mt)ment and made him forget the doom of age. In this atmosphere of youth he breathed a familiar air ; for his heart was still that of a boy. And the consultations with his colleagues, the witty " score " off his pet enemy, and the suppressed chuckle that followed, the talk of old days when the visiting staff dropped in ; the presence of tried comrades, fellow-witnesses of the drama of the past ; and the lessons, the sense of power that came with talking of his beloved art ; the pleasure felt in a just phrase, a happy illustration. And at the Opera he was still Garat ; of an evening on first nights, when the singers waited for his verdict ; or in the daytime, on the great empty stage, at rehearsal, when the company would hang upon his lips ... and now and again he would sing a few bars, and there would be a little stir of half -suppressed applause ; the power was gone, the tone a little veiled, but the phrasing, the plot, emphasis, the perfect articulation . . . there again he was still Garat. 344 The Restoration — The End But at home, in his lonely rooms, he had long known evil hours. "When forty winters shall besiege thy brov^. . . ." It was then that the truth face4 him and would not be cajoled ; his life was ebbing relentlessly, ever faster, and in a little he, Garat, to whom life and joy had been so dear, he, who could give the world such beauty, whose cunning of beautiful creation was still untouched, would go down into the darkness and would not be. . . . Was his marriage — if we may call it that — brought about by the desire, unconscious or avowed, for children? Probably not. The desire of the individual to continue upon the earth finds its general expression in the paternal instinct ; for the childless, or those too egotistical to find a satisfaction in vicarious life, there are the con- solations of religion. It is likely that to Garat the egoist the former consolation did not occur ; the latter were not for him. Had his children been beneath the same roof with him, had he occu- pied himself with their future, he might have found such consolation ; but his children were hardly his own ; of their relations with him we know nothing, except that his daughter worshipped his memory. Was it as a delightful father or as a legend of social success ? Most of all perhaps, even more than the loss 345 Pierre Garat of youth, of physical competence, did he feel the loss of glory, admiration, adulation. 'He found it still, in a measure, among his pupils . Girls of a certain age keenly interested in an art are given to a hero -worship that ignores the facts of age . Lovers of love, they may easily become lovers of the object of adoration. History assures us that Garat was irresistible ; such as these would find him so when for women of the larger world the magic had faded. Did he fall genuinely in love, as an ageing man will, with comely youth and strength? Did he design, deliberately, as so many old singers have done, to secure for himself the worship which was deserting him? Did he seek a companion to cheer the desolate home of a man whose activities were failing? Did he, as he had so often done before, half in gratitude or half in vanity, respond to the passion that he had not intended to awaken? Or did he seek a temporary imniortality in the art of one favourite pupil, for whom he would expend all his wealth of taste and experience and knowledge? Whatever the motives, the fact amounted to this : that many years before his death, before the fight with age had defeated him, while the lover was still irresistible, he took to live with him a beautiful pupil, a girl with a grave, lovely voice, whom he nicknamed Madame Contralto. He had a companion in his home ; he had 346 The Restoration — The End admiration ; there was one person in whose eyes he would always be wonderful.' Then, gradually, his egoism seized upon her. •His own voice was failing ; hers would outlast his life . It was to be a marvellous voice : the soul of Garat in the body of a yoimg and beautiful woman. He foresaw a new conquest of the old scenes of triumph ; he saw himself, ageing but not ill -content, leading her from salon to salon, or watching her debut before the brilliant audience of the Opera ; recognizing, in every limpid syllable, every liquid note, every phrase and quiver of the song, his own training, his own tastes, his own personality. She should be his instrument, his voice ; and when at last the pageant he loved so well was over, for him, his voice would still be on the earth, in Paris, creating beauty, expressing that inner self for whose continued existence he fought as dying men fight for breath. He loved her with the jealous passion of an age- ing man ; with the hungry worship of youth, fresh- ness, and beauty that the young cannot understand, because such treasures are to them familiar things. He loved her with the tenderness of a childless man, for his own children were in another's care. ' His family denied the marriage ; the girl herself passed as his widow. The actual ceremony of marriage was still not very usual in theatrical circles, where it had so long been forbidden by law. Both Garat and Mile. Duchamp would have regarded the civil ceremony with indifference. 347 Pierre Garat He loved her with the jealous criticism of a man whose great possessions are to pass to an heir. He knew himself failing ; he knew, none better, the frailty of woman, the audacity of man. He feared rivals ; the loss of his chance of renewed glory ; the loss perhaps of a precious investment, for she would earn great sums, and he would live, as of old, like a prince. So many would gladly steal her, for her beauty or her voice ! So he was chary of letting her go forth, except for her health ; then she must be wrapped warmly, and go plainly clad, so as to attract no attention ; " muiifled up like I know not what," on high pattens, lest her feet be wetted by the gutter ; arid if she went out in the rain his anxiety broke out in angry scolding. And the training ? Poor Mme . Contralto ! The time was so short — not a day, not an hour must be lost. Scales, eternal scales; early rising, for the old sleep so little ; exercises, single notes, intervals, "attacks," "glides," "continued tones"; it^was a very treadmill of art ! Half-child, half-wife, his hope for the future, the continuation of his dear self, his hope of im- mortality, the hope of a drowning man : judge if she was dear I — if dear as a conception rather than as a person. Yet it was w^hispered, and then spoken, for the fact was at lejigth imconceale:d, that a jealous, loving severity had become some- 348 The Restoration — The End thing worse. He " maltreated " her, so one biographer says ; one, it is true, who did not loive his subject. At all events, the domestic atmo- sphere was at length variable, even stormy. Poor pretty Mme. Contralto had quarrelled with her people, ofifended her friends, given up the adornments and delights of youth, to devote her- self to her hero . She did not complain ; but at length Fabry Garat felt ashamed for his brother's sake. He spoke to Jal : "You have influence with my brother ; try to make him ashamed of his severity to the poor woman." Jal waited his time, and one day spoke ; they were walking on the boulevards ; Garat with his little, mincing steps, his half -shut eyes alert to see who marked him. Why, ventured the historian of the Navy, was Garat so severe with the good and gentle Mme. Contralto? "After a long silence, and a hesitation which betrayed the shame he felt for his conduct, he said, in a low voice, ' The unhappy creature I She is growing deaf and is singing out of tune 1 ' " Deaf ! Out of tune ! The obtuse and worthy Jal was disgusted. As if that was an excuse 1 Poor butterfly, by the cruelty of the gods a chrysalis once more, and denied his metamor- phosis I His conduct was not chivalrous, not dignified, not generous ; but how terribly human I If we realize what a tragedy it was to hlim, we 349 Pierre Garat may ascribe it to his credit that he never complained until Jal pressed him. She was beautiful still, but he had seen and loved so much beauty. She was childless ; was it an added grief ? She was kind ; but there are ills that kindness can har*dly solace. He grew a little morose, they say ; he went out seldom, save to his beloved work. Jal gives us another picture. It was a year before his death. He was in his fifty-ninth year, but an old man. The last phase had come quite suddenly ; for a time he fought gallantly ; but now he fought no more. He was old. It was a beautiful afternoon in April. Jal hiad called for Garat, and they were strolling on the Bouvelard des Varidtes. They met Habeneck the elder arid Kreutzer, the old violinist. The four men stopped for a chat. Garat, however, fell silent, staring at the groxmd between his feet, only raising his eyes, now and again, to give a furtive glance at the passers-by. The others sought to rally him, but to no effect. Silence among Parisians is a crime ; Kreutzer and Habeneck, a thought offended, went their way. Jal gave the singer a shake : "I shall leave you, too, if you don't tell me whiat is the matter with you. Are you ill? Shall I see you home ? You look worried ; what is troubling you? Are you in trouble? Come, what is it ? " 350 The Restoration — The End Garat raised his head. He pointed at the passing crowd. " Twenty years ago they would never have passed roe without remarking that I am wearing yellow boots to-day ! Ungrateful creatures ! " " Ungrateful I " says Jal the unsympathetic. " Sublime utterance of an old coquette who once set the fashion, and is now forsaken ! " • Poor butterfly I He was not rich, in those days. He had denied himself, perhaps, to buy these yellow boots ; paid several visits to the ladies' cobbler ; given precise instructions ; promised himself a small sensation. And he stood, half -sulky, half- resentful, his April day spoiled ; like a child punished and ignored, it does not know why. So might a king in exile feel, for whom trains and trams do not tarry, and whom no man salutes . The end came swiftly. He was not ill ; he was old, and the mainspring of life was broken. He went abroad no more. Towards the end he seems to have accepted his fate like the gallant man he really was. We hear no more of his moroseness. He received all who came to see him : friends and relatives ; and he was by no means forsaken. ' His costume on this occasion comprised "a green coat, under an overcoat of chestnut brown, pantaloons of that red cloth which jockeys wear, and boots of a soft leather, yellow in hue." 351 Pierre Garat Most frequent of all his callers was his nephew, Emile Lubbert, a lover of music and a lively talker. He encouraged the old man to speak of his pupils, especially of Ponchard, who was singing some of Lubbert's compositions as well as Carat's, and of Mme. Rigaut-Pallard, " of whom Garat himself had spoken as having a talent for which no perfection or beauty of song was too difficult of attainment " ; of Carat's compositio/ns, and who was singing them ; of his past triumphs, and the sad, good days of old when a queen was his friend. Fabry Carat also was an assiduous caller ; and the musical gossip of Paris would always cheer the failing artist. Alone, with his Mme. Contralto, who served him tenderly, but alas 1 was growing deaf, he would sit for hours, half-reclining, dreaming of his past glories. The world served other gods, his altar was deserted ; a solitary worshipper, he him- self burned incense before it. The old days on the hills of Ustaritz ; the nights beneath the balconies of Bayonne or the trees of Bordeaux ; the long journey to Paris ; the meeting with thq beautiful Dugazon ; the delirium of first love ; the wonderful day when six horses led him in triumph to Versailles ; the colour and the sunlight and the pathos of the old forgotten France ; the days among the sunlit groves of the Trianon, where a white- robed queen made merry with her ladies ; the 352 The Restoration — The End cloud of the Terror, and the renewal of life ; the strange carnival of Paris ; and the pride of utter success when Paris owned him king of modes and song. . . . Dominique -Joseph tells us that a friend one day asked him if when he was alone he still felt an interest in music. , " Always," said Garat. " Can you recall it very clearly? " " Eetter than ever." " Do you ever try to sing? " " No; I know that is impossible ; but my memory sings in silence, and I never sang better." " He sang in silence when his voice was lost ; when he was soon to lose speech and life itself." 'He died of old age, in his sixty-first year, he who had lived so fully. He did not suffer ; death was to him the final ebbing of departing life. At three o'clock of the morning, when the tide of life runs lowest, on the first day of March, he breathed his last ; it was the painless advent of eternal sleep. He was buried in P^re-Lachaise ; his tomb may be seen to-day near those of his fellow-artists — Gretry, Dupont, M^hul, Delille, Ginguene. A portrait-bust surmounts it, and his daughter lies in the same grave. The inscription is simply :— Garat and Soubirand de Bellegarde.' ^ An incorrect spelling of Soubiron, due to the stone-mason. The number of the grave is 298, nth division. 353 z Pierre Garat At the funeral was Cherub ini. As the body was borne down the staircase of the house he was heard to grumble : " The invitations were for twelve . . . it is now half -past . . . but I might have guessed as much. This devil of a Garat— he's so unpunctual, if he said he'd he buried at twelve he'll never turn up before four o'clock, you'll see." His uncle, Dominique-Joseph, has spoken a kindlier epitaph : " Never perhaps did a man leave the world at sixty years who was guilty of so few deceptions, of so little unkindness. His faults one pardoned ; they were only singularities, almost as astonishing as his talents ; people laughed at the one while they admired thte other." And Jal, no unqualified admirer, even in speak- ing of the woes of Mme. Contralto, admits that " he was, after all, a gallant man. She wept hisj loss, and for long wore mourning." A few days after the funeral, at the Opera, there was a memorial performance : Mme. Rigaud, one of Garat's favourite pupils, sang the romance iBelisaire, which under the Empire had been for- bidden. "This simple, touching melody, sung by that voice, so sweet and yet so powerful, dissolved the hearers in tears. The singer herself could not resist the general emotion ; she wept with the rest, and could hardly finish the song. There let us leave him'. He was a man of many faults and many virtues ; and if, at the term of 354 The Restoration — The End those strange and moving years through which he lived, he was able to die regretted and beloved, we jnay say that the virtues were indeed the greater. He gave untold delight to a generation, and he gave pain to few. He was an honest artist and a gallant man. Peace to his dust ! 3SS INDEX Actors, bourgeois contempt of, ii8; outlaws, ii8; subject to the Gentlemen of the Chamber, 170 ; to the Commune, 171 ; mostly royalist, 173 Adour, River, 23 Aeronautics, 63-4, 134 Alexander I., relations with Mme. de Kriidener, 281, 290, 296-9 Alvimare, 326 Ambigu, riot at the, 245-6 Ami des lois, prohibited, 173-4; vicissitudes of, 174-6 Ami du peuple discovers a "con- spiracy," 166 Anarchy, signs of, 142 ; psycho- logy of, 143-4, 149 Ancien regime, manners of, 66 ; morals, 125-7 Angely, Mme. d', 272, 279 Anglomania, 251 Army, untrustworthy, 142 Arnaud on Garat, 95 Artois, Comte d', 75, 84-9, 100, 112 ; emigrates, 150 ; 160 ; returns, 338 Assembly, National, cowardice of, 144, 148 Auctions of National Property, 228 Aulnoy, Mme. d', cited, 49 Avocats, Bal des, 78 Azevedo, 56, 70, 80, 92, 94-5, 99, 108, iio-ii, 1 12-13, 124 Bacciochi, Mme, 275 Bachaumont cited, 62-3, 81-2, 83-7. 95. 100 Baillot, violinist, 241, 261-2 Bailly, 171 ; his relations with the Comedians, 172 Barbezieux, Young on, 43 Barbier, 294-6 Barbier-Walbonne, Mme., 266 Barras, 16, 234, 237 Basque country, the, 45-8 Basques, character of, 19, 20-l ; dances, 23, 27, 45, 47 ; music and dances, 47 ; costumes, 47 ; legends, 48 Bayard, opera, damned by Garat, lOI Bayard, song by Garat, 278 Bayonne, 23 ; love of music in, 48-9 ; society of, 50 ; Young on, 50 Beauharnais, Mme. de (see Joseph- ine), 102-3, 237 Beck teaches Garat, 63 ; benefit concert for, 135 Bellegarde, Aurora de, 313-15 Bellegarde, Comtesse de, her relations with Garat, 313-15 Bellegarde, Mme. Soubiron de, Garat's daughter, 315-16, 353 Berry, Conservator of Rouen, 204 Besan?on, the Parliament of, and Louis XVI, 65-6 Biron, Due de, 310 Biron, Duchesse de, 310 357 Index Black Prince, the, at Bordeaux, 42 Blanchard, aeronaut, 64 Blangini, 323-5 Boieldieu, 190-2, 194, 196-8, 207, 21S-16, 237, 246, 262, 325, 337 Boisard, 195 Bonaparte, Jerome, 325 Bonaparte, Lucien, 237, 275 Bonaparte, Madame Mere, 275-6 Bonaparte, Napoleon, s«fi Napoleon Bonaparte, Pauline, 325 Borde, la, 89-90 Borde, La, 89-90 Bordeaux, city of, 19 ; before the Revolution, 26 ; in Roman times, 37 ; wealth of, 39 ; Young on, 40 ; theatre at, 41 ; opera at, 54 ; Garat revisits, 122 ; 135 ; last days of ancien regime in, 137-9 Boulogne, Bois de, 74-5, 78 Boulogne, M. de, 95 Bourg, Mme. de, 195 Bourgeoisie, wealth and culture of, 39 ; during the Revolution^ 143 Branchu, Mme., 248, 333 Brigandage, 149 Broche, organist, 196-7 Brunswick, manifesto of, 188 Cabbage and the Turnip, the, 65 Cagliostro, 69 ; a mason and hypnotist, 129-30, 134 Calonne, M, de, 89, 134 Cambaceres, 278 CandoUe, 166 Carbonnel, 325 Carriages, suspect, 157 Catherine of Russia, 145 Cavaignac, 236 Caveau, the 124-5 Chamber, Gentlemen of the, 170 Chambon, 175 Champcenets, M. de, curious duel of, 133 Champs Elysees, 72-3 ; under the Directoire, 227 Champville intercedes for the Comedians, 176 Charles, aeronaut, 64 Charles IX, production of, 171 ; prohibited, 171 ; demanded by Mirabeau, 171 ; produced in 1791, 172 Chastenay, Henri de, 195 Chastenay, Mme. de, 186, 190, 194-6, 208, 212, 269, 277 Chateau Trompette, at Bordeaux, ruins Mangin, 40 Chateaubriand, 66, 275, 284 Chaumette, 174 Chenier, Andre, in prison 309 ; death of, 310 Chenier, Joseph, 236 Cherubini, 234, 237, 247, 261, 331, 354 Clarissa Harlowe, 128 Clery, Rue de, concerts in the, 247 Clouet, General, 259 Coliseum, the, 73 CoUot d'Herbois, designs to guillotine the Comedians, 176 Commune, disputes with the Con- vention concerning theatres, 17s Concert Feydeau, the 238, 240-7 Concerts Spirituels, 135, 237 Condorcet, 160 Condorcet, Mme., 311-12 Conservatoire, the French, 15, 261-4, 317. 343-4 Consulate, society under the, 268- 71 Contat, Louise and Emilie, 176 Corancey, 236 Coupigny, 260 Courtesans, magnificence of, 73 Dances, Basque, 23, 27 Dances, public, 77-8, 249 Dandy, Garat's education as a, 102-6 Danton saves Garat, 102-6 358 Index Dauberval, 41 Dazincourt, 176 Delille, Abbe, 65, 94, 160, 280 Delmare, 191-2 Delphine, 285-6 Derwentwater, Lord, revives Masonry, 130 Despotisme renverse, 173 Devienne, 262, 323 Diamond Necklace, the, 129, 134 Diderot, 127 Directoire, Paris under the, 223-46 Duchamp, Mile., 317 ; goes to live with Garat, 346 ; his jealous care of, 346-9, 354 Dugazon, 94 ; at Talma's recep- tion, 165-6, 169-70 ; denounces his comrades, 172 ; a Jacobin, 177 ; hunted off the stage, 177 Dugazon, Mme., becomes Garat's mistress, 63 ; in Tom Jones, 65 ; 87, 94, 108, iio-ii, 117; a royalist, 169 ; risks her head, 169 ; refuses to sing revolu- tionary songs, 170 ; leaves the Comedians, 173 ; 211, 304-5 Dumouriez at Talma's reception, 164-6, 194 Duthe, Mile., 75 Egalite (Due d'Orleans), 74, 95, 112 Emigration of nobles commences, ISO Emigres in Hamburg, 221-2 ; return of, 232 Entile, 128 Enghien, Due d', 296 Entraigues, M. and Mme. d', assassination of, 178-9 Espagnac, Abbe d', gives concert introducing Garat, 81-2, 159 Etchegoyen, 25, 235, 272 Fabre d'Eglantine, 176 Fashions of the ancien regime, 68 ; language of, 104 ; before the Revolution, 148 ; during the Revolution, 159 ; during the Directoire, 238, 244, 252 ; a la Garat, 254; a la Valerie, 293 Feydeau, Concert, the, 238, 240-6, 247 Fickleness, psychology of, 300-3 Filleul, Mme., 124 Fleury, Duchesse de, 237 ; her love affairs, 307-1 1 ; her relations with Garat, 312-13 Fontaine, 297 Fontette, Mme. de, 195 Foreigner's Club, the, 77-8 Fostermother, Garat's musical, 31-4 Fouche, 235, 277 Fouquier-Tinville, 176 Freron, 238 Fronde, the, 38 Fusil, 178 Gallet, founder of the Caveau, 124 Garat, Dominique, 26-7, 30, 87 ; disowns his son, 99, 117-9, 135 ; is reconciled, 137, 141 Garat, Dominique-Joseph, 18, 28, 58, 88, 131, 158, 257, 264, 277, 282, 353, 354 Garat, Fabry, 30, 333-5, 349, 352 Garat, Francisque, 30, 335 Garat, Jules, 334 Garat, Laurent, 28, 136 Garat, Leon, 29 Garat, Maltia, 30, 136 ; the lover of Mme. de Condorcet, 311-12 ; of the Duchesse de Fleury, 311-12 Garat, Manuela, 30 Garat, Pierre, physician, 25 Garat, Pierre-Jean, 15-16 ; his birth, 30 ; early education, 33-5 ; music forbidden, 35 ; his boyhood, 36-58 ; life at Ustaritz, 45-8 ; at Bayonne, 48-52 ; returns to 359 Index Bordeaux, 53 ; his system of self- training, 54-5 ; goes to Paris to study law, 58-9 ; sensation caused by his arrival in Paris, 79-80 ; the Princesse de Lamballe hears him, 81-2 ; the Queen sends a coach for him, 82-3; he sings at Court, 84-7 ; Mme. Le Brun on his voice, 92-3 ; he abandons the law, 98 ; cut off by his father, 99 ; given place and pension at Court, 99-100 ; his education as a dandy, 102-6 ; a day in his life, 107-14; a further pension, 116 ; debts paid by the Queen, 117; his life in Paris, 122-4; champions Mozart, 124 ; sings at private concerts, 124 ; a Mason, 130-1 ; revisits Bordeaux, 135 ; sings at Beck's benefit, 136 ; reconciled to his father, 137 ; left penniless when Artois emi- grates, 150 ; why he avoided the stage, 151 ; becomes a paid singer, 151 ; why he was not a Jacobin, 152-6 ; at Talma's house on the occasion of Marat's entry, 165-6 ; sings a royalist song, 167 ; saved by Danton, 167 ; arrested by a patrol, 167 ; sings himself free, 168 leaves Paris for Rouen, 186 his first concert in Rouen, 190 further concerts, 191-2 ; refuses to sing revolutionary songs, 198 ; arrested, 204 ; in prison, 204 ; a benefit concert held to pay for his meals, 207-8 ; writes The Troubadour, 210-12 ; released, 214 ; givesmoreconcerts,2i8-i9; decides to leave France, 219 ; arrives in Hamburg, 220 ; visits London and other capitals, 222 ; returns to Paris, 223 ; success and high fees, 234 ; at the Con- cert Feydeau, 240-6 ; his queue cut off, 244 ; as teacher, 248 ; as a leader of the new fashions, 249 ; a dancer, 249-50 ; a leader of fashion, 254-6 ; anecdotes, 258-60 ; appointed professor at the Conservatoire, 261-2 ; re- nounces singing in public, 265 ; his last appearance, 265 ; at the Opera, 267 ; life under the Con- sulate, 272-3 ; his relations with Napoleon, 276-8 ; is decorated (?), 277 ; meets Mme. de Kriide- ner, 281-2 ; his affair with her, 287-91 ; other love-affairs, 300-18 ; his children, 315-16 ; as composer, 319-26; as singer, 326-8 ; as teacher, 328-32 ; age approaches, 338-46 ; takes Mile. Duchamp to live with him, 346-9 ; the tragedy of the yellow boots, 350-1 ; death, 353 ; his last unpunctuality, 354 ; burial, 3S4 Garat, Theodore, 335 Garat, Theodore, niece of above, 335 Garat family, the, 23 Garat de Chenoise, son of Pierre- Jean, 316 " Garatchea,'' 25 GaraHsnt, i6, 252-4 GenUs, de, 112 Genlis, Mme. de, 182, 220 Gerard, Baron, 343 Gervais, 57 Gilibert, Mme., 81, 159 Girondists, the, 19, 26, 141, 160 Gluck, 70, loi, 248 Gluck-Piccini feud, the, 66, 70 Golden age, belief in a, 128 Goncourt, MM., cited, 240-2 Gonte3n:on, Mile., 30 Gossec, 236, 261 Grain, scarcity of, 183-5, 229 Grandison, Sir Charles, 128 Gre — , Citizen, mystery of, 212 360 Index Gretry, 62, 70, 80, 112, 236, 261-2 Greuze, 236 Grimm, 87 Grimod de la Reyniere, 90-1 Griot, 217 Guibert, de, 95 Guizot, 66 Habeneck, 350 Hainguerlot, 235 Hamburg, Garat's visit to, 220 ; emigres in, 220-2 Hamel, Mile, du, 189, 195 Heloise, La Nouvelle, 128-9 Henri IV el Gabrielle, 278 Herbouvilie, Marquis d', 187, 194 Hermann, 197 Holy Alliance, the work of Mme. de Kriidener, 298 Hortense, Queen, 281, 325 Hypnotism, 63 ; possibilities of, 130 incroyables, Us, 239, 251-2 Incroyables, Journal des, 254 " Infernal Machine," the, 265-6 Informers, 149-50 Illicit love, romance of, 126 Italian singers, the, 100 Jacobin, why Garat was not a, 152-6 Jacobins, psychology of the, 143-4 ; business enterprise of, 149 ; psychology of, 152-5 : weakness of, in Rouen, 200-2 ; their in- creased power in Rouen, 202 Jal cited, 18, 83, 87-8 ; intercedes for Mile. Duchamp, 349 ; 350-1, 354 Jardin des Plantes, the, 227 Jaubert, 280 Jesuits seek to capture Free- masonry^ 130 Joan, the " Fair Maid of Kent," 42 Josephine, 278-9 Jung-Stilling, 296 Junot, 259 Junot, Mme., on childhood during the Terror, 147-8 ; describes Garat, 255 ; 258-9, 280 King's Comedians, the, adventures of, during the Revolution, 171 ; their theatre closed by the Commune, 175 ; arrested, 176 ; imprisoned, 176 ; to be guillo- tined, 176-7 ; narrow escape of, 177 Kreutzer, 197, 246, 248, 350 Kriidener, Baron de, 283-6 Kriidener, Mme. de, 273 ; story of, 281-2 ; her love-affairs, 283-5 5 her relations with Garat, 286- 91 ; her relations with Napoleon, 291-6 ; writes Valerie, 292-6 ; becomes a saint, prophetess, and mentor to Alexander I, 296-8 ; prophesies Napoleon's downfall, 297 ; responsible for the Holy Alliance, 298; death of, 299 Kummrin, Maria, 297 Labassiere saves the Comedians, 177 Lacroix in Rouen, 204-5 Laetitia Bonaparte, 275-6 Lafayette, 142 Lafond, violinist, 222, 246 Lafond, P., Garat's biographer, cited, 18, 32, 57, 267 Lamartine, 29, 38, 335 Lamballe, Princess e de, hears Garat, 81-2 ; a Freemason, 132, 159 Lambert, 50, 203 Lampulet, 189 Lange, 176 Laplace, 127, 236 Larrive, 41-2, 94 361 Index Lavoisier, 127 Lays, 264 Le Brun, Mme. Vigee, cited, 70 ; as hostess, 92-4, 112-14; foresees the Terror, 145-6; health affected by anxieties, 146-7, 307, 313 Le Brun-Pindare, 94 Le Couteux, 235 Le Kain, 94 Lefevre, 166 Legendre, 202 Legros, 80 Lemercier, 324 Lesueur, 236-7, 261 Liancourt, M. de, 187 Lombard, 217 Longchamps, descriptions of, 74- 7. 251-2 Louchet, 192 Louis XVI, 29, 88, 114, 167; a prisoner, 187 ; news of his death, 191 Louis XVIII, 338 Louise, Queen of Prussia, 281 Lubbert, Emile, 335, 352 Mably, 127 Magnetism, so-called, 64 Mail, Mailla, see Garat, Maltia Maleix, Mile., 217 Malmaison, 16 Mangin, ruin of, 40 note Mara-Todi feud, 66, 123 Marat upbraids Dumouriez in Talma's salon, 165-6 Marie-Antoinette, 16, 64, 68 ; de- sires to hear Garat, 80, 81 ; sends a coach for him, 82-3 ; her delight with his voice, 85-6; assists him financially, 99-100; her relations with the singer, 114; pays his debts, 117; her simple tastes, 127-8 ; gossip concerning, 134, 141 ; at the theatre during the Revolution, 169, 336 Marionettes, Perici's, 73 Martin, 150; cuts off Garat's queue, 243-4 Martini, 70, 326 Maury, Cardinal, 280 Mehul, 234, 237, 261, 331 Mesmer, 64 Metternich, 298 Miel, 18, 278 Mimicry, Garat's powers of, 55 Mirabeau, 66, 171 Mole, 176 Monnier, 217 Montesson, Mme. de, 96, 235, 272-4 Montgolfier, 63 ; despairs of the Revolution, 148 Morality of the ancien rigime, 126-7 Morris, Gouverneur, cited, 61-2, 144-5, 150; his wooden leg saves his life, 157, 269 Mountaineers, characteristics of, 21 Mozart, 123-4 Muscadins, 16, 238-9 ; riot of, at the Ambigu, 245-6 ; at Long- champs, 251-2 ; Miinnich, Marshal, 383 Nantes, luxury of shipowners of. Napoleon, 273-5 '> his relations with Garat, 276-8, 281 ; with Mme. de Kriidener, 291, 294-6, 299 Narbonne, L. de, 159 » National Guard, anarchy of, 142; in Rouen, 187-8 National Property, sale of, 225, 228 Naudet, his duel with Talma, 171-2 Necker, 134, 142 Neuilly, Comtesse de, 182, 221 Nive, River, 23 Noailles, M. de, 92 362 Index Nobles renounce feudal privileges, 149; training of, 179-80; stoicism of, 180; manners of, 180 ; their bearing on the scaffold, i8o ; the cult of simplicity among, 181-2 ; charity of, 182 ; their parasitism, 183 ; beloved by peasantry, 183 ; hunted and massacred by, 184 Nourrit, a pupil of Garat's, 258, 332 Opinion, pubhc, psychology and effects of, 143 Orfeo, Gluck's, 56, 138, 191, 276 Ouvrard, 235, 272 Pahlen, concerned in assassination of Paul, 285-6 Palais-Royal, the, 69 ; music in garden of, 70, 93 ; evenings in garden, 107-8 ; under the Directoire, 226 Pamela, 128 ; suppressed by Commune, 175 Paole d'honneu, men of the,, 252-4 Parasites, 121 Paris before the Revolution, 60-2, 66 ; corruption of, 67-8 ; end of the old, 122-34 ; during the Terror, 157; under the Directoire, 223-46 Parliament, advocates in, 26, 39 Parliaments, the French, 38-9 Paul, assassination of, 285-6 Pauline, Borghese, 325 Peasantry, roused by bourgeois demagogues, 184 Philidor, 62 Piccini, 62 Polignac, Mme. de, 84 Ponchard, a pupil of Garat's, 333, 352 Pradher, 323 Preville, 176 Provence,Comte de (Louis XVIII), 84 Punto, 57, 80, 136 ; arrives in Rouen, 164, 196 Ranelagh, 77-8 Raucourt, 176 Recamier, Mme., 16, 237, 275 Republicans Calendar abolished, 249 Restoration, the, 337 Restraint, social, psychology of, 143-4 Rethaller, 197 Revolution, the, of 1789, 140-63 ; different aspects of, 144-5 1 ^^ act of popular brigandage, 149, 150 Richer, 92 Richter, Jean-Paul, 285 Rigaut-Pallard, Mme., 352 Riviere, de, 94 Robert, aeronaut, 64 Robespierre, 29 ; his betrayal of Mme. Sainte-Amaranthe and family, 160-1, 176, 198 ; an anec- dote, 334-5 Rode, 136 ; leaves Paris with Garat, 168, 186, 191-3, 196-7 ; with the army, 204, 207, 209, 237 ; a professor at the Con- servatoire, 261 Rohan, Cardinal de, 64, 114, 134 Rohan-Guemenee, bankruptcy of, 65. "5 Roland, Mme., 148 Romances, popularity of, 320-3 RoncheroUes, Chevalier de, fights a curious duel, 133 Rosiers, Des, aeronaut, 63 Rouen during the Terror, 186; peaceable state of, 186-7 > royal- ists in, 188-9 )■ strangers ordered to leave, 302 ; prisons in, 203-8 ; the Thermidorean reaction in, 213-1S Rousseau, 127, 227 Rousseilois, Mile., 193 ; her love of angling, 193-4, 212, 306 363 Index Sacchini, 62, 70, 80 Saint-Georges, the Chevalier de, 70,95-7.98. 108, no Saint-Huberty, Mile, de, 56, 70, 80, 136 ; assassinated, 178-9 Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de, 159, 284 Sainte-Amaranthe, Mme., 159 Sainte-Beuve, 286 Salabery, Mme. de, 182 Salentin, 217 Salieri, 85-6 San Domingo, the family wash sent to, 41 Sara, origin of the Garat family, 24 Sarrette founds the Conservatoire, 261 Sartiges, Mme. de, tragic end of, 161 Schneider, 217 Seguin, 235 Segur, Mme. de, 71 Sensibility, 127-9 September, massacres of, 166 Seven Sisters, Lodge of the, 13 1-2 Silhouettes, in Tuileries gardens, 72 Singing, Royal College of, 261 Societe de Musee, the, Bordeaux, 57, 136 Songs by Garat, 321-6 Soprani, male, 123 Soubervielle on Robespierre, 334-S "oie Soubiron, Paulin, 315 Soubiron de Bellegarde, Mme., daughter of P.-J. Garat, 315-16, 353 Stael, Mme. de, 159, 273, 285-6, 294 Stakiev, de, 283-5 Steibelt, 274 Stourdza, Mile., 297 Suard, 282 Talleyrand, 66, 257, 272, 315 Tallien, 16, 236 Tallien, Mme. (Teresa Cabarrus), 234-7, 249-50, 279-80 Talma, 94 ; Marat visits his house, 164-S, 170-1 ; his duel with Naudet, 171-2; dismissed by the King's Comedians, but rein- stated, 172 ; leaves the Come- dians, 173 ; accused of treachery, 178, 280 Talma, Mme., 164 Taxes, pre-Revolutionary, 183-4 Teacher, Garat as, 261-2 Temple, Boulevard du, 72-3 Terror, the, commences in pro- vinces in, 1789, 149 ; life during the, 159 Theatre de la Republique, 173 Theatre, Francais, 173 Theatre National, 175 Theatre, the, during the Revolu- tion, 170-8 Theodore, Mile., 41 Thermidor, 213 Thibaudeau cited, 148 Thiebault cited, 61, 67, 75-7, 96-7, 128-9, ^^0. 209 Third Estate, the, 192 Tide-mill at Bordeaux, 42 Todi, 92 Tom fortes in London, 65 Treilhard, 257-8 Trenis, 249-50 Trial, 141 ; suicide of, 178 Trianon, private theatre at the, I 14-15 Tuileries, the, 16, 71-2 ; under the Directoire, 227 Ustaritz, 23-4 Valerie, 285-6, 292-4 Vaudreuil, de. Director of House- hold to Marie-Antoinette, 88-9 ; appoints Garat secretary to Artois, 99-100 ; 112, 160 364 Ube (Sreabam press, UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, WOKING AND LONDON. (fornell MniuEraitg 3tl)ata, SJern ^otk THE GIFT OF SXr% VJut:t»> OLx.A>oa,.^>v^ IX^. vita