If I have been long without writing to you it is because I have awaited your answer to my letters, being ignorant as to whether you received them. Even now I do not know where to address the letter I am beginning. Then, this is what has happened to me: from March to April I paid off my agreement with the "Revue de Paris" with a composition entitled, "Histoire des Treize," which kept me working day and night; to this were joined vexations; I felt fatigued, and I went to spend some time in the South, at Angoulême; there I remained, stretched on a sofa, much petted by a friend of my sister, of whom I think I have already told you; and I became sufficiently rested to resume my work.
I found in my new dizain and in the "Médecin de campagne" untold difficulties. These two works (still in press) absorb my nights and days; the time passes with frightful rapidity. My doctor [Dr. Nacquart], alarmed at my fatigue, ordered me to remain a month without doing anything—neither reading, writing letters, nor writing of any kind; to be, as he expressed it, like Nebuchadnezzar in the form of a beast. This I did. During this inaction vainglory has had its way. Madame [the Duchesse de Berry] has caused to be written to me the most touching things from the depths of her prison at Blaye. I have been her consolation; and "l'Histoire des Treize" had so interested her that she was on the point of writing to me to be told the end in advance, so much did it agitate her! And an odd thing! M. de Fitz-James writes me that old Prince Metternich never laid the story down, and that he devours my works. But enough of all that. You will read Madame Jules, and when you reach her you will regret having told me to burn your letters. The "Histoire des Treize" [this refers only to one part, "Ferragus"] has had an extraordinary success in this careless and busy Paris.
Forgive my scribbling; my heart and head are always too fast for the rest, and when I correspond with a person I love I often become illegible.
I have just read and re-read your long and delightful letter. How glad I am that you are making the journal I asked of you. Now that this is agreed upon between us I will confide to you all my thoughts and the events of my life, as you will yours to me. Your letter has done me great good. My poor artist [Auguste Borget] is one of my friends. At this moment he is roaming the shores of the Mediterranean, or you would have had by this time a sketch of my chamber or my little salon. I cannot yet tell you his name; but he will perhaps put it on a landscape he is to make in the copy of the "Médecin de campagne" which is destined for you, but cannot be ready before next autumn. He is a great artist, still more a noble heart, a young man full of determination and pure as a young girl. He was not willing to exhibit this year some magnificent studies. He wants to study two years longer before appearing, and I praise the resolution. He will be great at one stroke.
Regnier, who is making the collection of the dwellings of celebrated persons, was here yesterday; my house will be (for you) in the next number, and, to finish up the quarter, he will put in the Observatoire, on the side where M. Arago lives. That is the side I look upon; it is opposite to me.
I hope "Le Médecin de campagne" will appear within the next fortnight. This is the work that I prefer. My two counsellors cannot hear fragments of it without shedding tears. As for me, what care bestowed upon it!—but what annoyances! The publisher wanted to summons me to deliver the manuscript more rapidly! I have only worked at it eight months; yet to all the world this delay—put it in comparison with the work—will seem diabolical. You shall have an ordinary copy, in which I want you to read the composition. Do not buy it; wait, I entreat you, for the handy volume I intend for you, besides the grand copy. You know how much I care that you shall read me in a copy that I have chosen. It is a gospel; it is a book to be read at all moments. I desire that the volume in itself shall not be indifferent to you; there will be a thought, a caress for you on every page.
Before I can hear from you where to address my letters, much time must elapse. I can therefore talk to you at length. To-morrow I will speak of your last letter, which I have near me, very near me, so that it perfumes me. Oh! how a secret sentiment brightens life! how proud it renders it! If you knew what part you have in my thoughts! how many times during this month of idleness, under that beautiful blue sky of Angoulême, I have delightfully journeyed toward you, occupying my mind with you, uneasy about you, knowing you ill, receiving no answers, and giving myself up to a thousand fancies. I live much through you, perhaps too much: betrayed already by a person who had only curiosity, my hopes in you are not devoid of a sort of terror, a fear. Oh! I am more of a child than you suppose.
Yesterday I went to see Madame Récamier, whom I found ill, but wonderfully bright and kind. I had heard she did much good, and very nobly, in being silent and making no complaint of the ungrateful beings she has met. No doubt she saw upon my face a reflection of what I thought of her, and, without explaining to herself this little sympathy, she was charming to me.
In the evening I went to see (for I have been only six days in Paris) Madame Émile de Girardin, Delphine Gay, whom I found almost well of her small-pox. She will have no marks. There were bores there, so I came away—one of them that enemy to all laughter, the bibliophile X … , about whom you ask me for news. Alas! I can tell you all in a word. He has married an actress, a low and obscure woman of bad morals, who, the week before marrying him, had sent to one of my classmates, S … , the editor of the "National," a bill of her debts, by way of flinging him the handkerchief. The bibliophile had said much harm of this actress; he did not then know her. He went behind the scenes of the Odéon, fell in love with her, and she, in revenge, married him. The vengeance is complete; she is the most dreadful tyrant I ever knew. She has resumed her actress allurements, and rules him. There is no talent possible to him under such circumstances. He calls himself a bibliophile and does not know what bibliography is; Nodier and the amateurs laugh at him. He needs much money, and he stays in literature for want of funds to be a banker or a merchant of fashions. Hence his books—"Divorce," "Vertu et Tempérament," and all that he does. He is the culminating point of mediocrity. By one of those chances that seem occult, I knew of his behaving horribly to a poor woman whose seduction he had undertaken as if it were a matter of business. I have seen that woman weeping bitter tears at having belonged to a man whom she did not esteem and who had no talent.
Sandeau has just gone to Italy; he is in despair; I thought him crazy. …
As for Janin, another alas! … Janin is a fat little man who bites everybody. The preface to "Barnave" is not by him, but by Béquet, on the staff of the "Journal des Débats," a witty man, ill-conducted, who was hiding with Janin to escape his creditors. Béquet was a school-mate of mine; he came to me, already an old man from his excesses, to weep over his trouble. Janin had taken from him a poor singer who was all Béquet's joy. The "Chanson de Barnave" is by de Musset; the infamous chapter about the daughters of Sejanus is by a young man named Félix Pyat.
For mercy's sake, leave me free to be silent about these things when they are too revolting. They run from ear to ear in the salons, and one must needs hear them. I have already told you about H … ; well! married for love, having wife and children, he fell in love with an actress named J … , who, among other proofs of tenderness, sent him a bill of seven thousand francs to her laundress, and H … was forced to sign notes of hand to pay the love-letter. Fancy a great poet, for he is a poet, working to pay the washerwoman of Mademoiselle J … ! Latouche is envious, spiteful, and malicious; he is a fount of venom; but he is faithful to his political creed, honest, and conceals his private life. Scribe is very ill; he has worn himself out in writing.
General rule: there are few artists or great men who have not had their frailties. It is difficult to have a power and not to abuse it. But then, some are calumniated. Here, except about the washerwoman's bill, a thing I have only heard said, all that I have told you are facts that I know personally.
Adieu for to-day, my dear star; in future I will only tell you of things that are good or beautiful in our country, for you seem to me rather ill-disposed towards it. Do not see our warts; see the poor and luckless friends of Sandeau subscribing to give him the needful money to go to Italy; see the two Johannots, so united, so hard-working, living like the two Corneilles. There are good hearts still.
Adieu; I shall re-read your pages to-night before I sleep, and to-morrow