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PAUL FEVAL,

A BRETON MAN OF LETTERS.

WHO could have possessed a more attached or more gifted pupil and friend than Socrates did in that paragon of intellect and foresight, Plato of the broad shoulders? Yet we know he made use of this expression in reference to his Boswell, "What absurdities this young man makes me utter?" So it may be imagined that the appearance of one of these pestilent little 18mos in red wrapper covers, marked "Charles Dickens," or the "Hon. Benjamin Disraeli," or "Thomas Carlyle," or other often-heard name, is not always hailed with unmixed pleasure by the writer to whom it is devoted. But there are no men with the circumstances of whose lives the reading public desire more to be acquainted, than with those of writers who have afforded interesting or amusing occupation for their leisure hours. Yet, in general, biography of any other class affords more material in respect to incident and interesting detail. Of course there are exceptions. The life of the author of "Pickwick," by himself, would be, if he indulged exclusively in his good vein, more amusing and interesting than any work of fiction that has come from his "fine golden pen. There is some picturesque variety in the life of our Breton novelist. He has been long before the French public, and the Duke's Motto" and "Bel Demonio" are in the minds and mouths of British playgoers, and are in request at British libraries. Besides, his works, though marked occasionally by absurdity and extravagance, are free from loose morality and irreligion, are picturesque in the descriptive parts, possess a rough sort of humour, and always present an interesting plot. He is now forty-six years and some months old, having been born in the ancient capital of Brittany on the 28th of November, 1817. In one of his wildest stories, "Le Jeu de la

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Mort," he gives a most amusing sketch of the neighbouring picturesque old town, Vitré, amusing his readers with the idea of its having gone to sleep one evening in the middle ages, and woke up yesterday. We have given the passage in full in an article on "Souvestre and Brittany" in this Magazine. He was found by his early preceptor much more attached to the exercises of L'Ecole Buissonière* than those of L'Ecole d'Ecriture, and was not much of a favourite with his superiors or fellows in the college. In several of his works he takes a comic revenge for some of his early wrongs. Professor Quandoquidem, his earliest tutor, has not escaped. Dr. Blimber, or Feeder, B.A., was never so devoted to the old Romans. He gave his twelve small children names from Latin families, and if he found it necessary to bid Paul kneel down, he could find no more simple instrument than the following sentence to effect it, "Prostrate yourself in the attitude which alone befits a delinquent ;" and if the delinquent hesitated, he would add, “I shall invoke the assistance of a servitor to expel you by main force, and thus give you a practical knowledge of the declension of the participle expulsus."

At the breaking out of the July Revolution, professors and pupils did not lose much time about displaying tricolor favours on their persons. Not so the hard-headed young Breton, whose home was a nest of loyalty to the institutions of old. Not being able to conquer his strong and very numerous opponents of the new regime by buffets of fist or ram-charges of head, he patiently took his beatings, and would have died on the spot sooner than acknowledge the godless and selfish king of shopkeepers.

His mother at this time retired to an old manoir of hers at the bottom of Morbihan, and to this house re

* "School among the Bushes," where the sciences taught consisted of "Prisoners' Base," ""Fox and Hounds," &c.

paired many malcontents. Paul was even promised a carbine when an émeute in expectation should occur. While his feelings were in a delightful state of excitement, the rural police paid a visit to the mansion on some indifferent business. The young Cocles openly defied them, but the chief taking him by the ear, led him to his mother and requested her to give him a whipping if he did not behave better.

The novelist has produced several of the old Armorican legends, heard at the large fireplace of this old chateau, such as the "White Lady," "Goodman Poverty," the "Fine Chateau of Cocquerel," the "Night Beauties," and the "Maréchal Gille de Raiz," the Armorican, perhaps the original, Blue Beard.

When the young enthusiast climbed to his dormitory, with his imagination inflamed by fireside narratives of the days of old, he would never willingly let the candle be removed, for as soon as the physical light was extinguished, in came funereal torches, and the De Profundis began to be chanted. A cousin of his, a fair, young, and amiable lady, who had occupied the same chamber some time before, was sure, as soon as the candle was put out, to see seven lamps arranged on the ceiling in the form of a cross, and to be aware of an interior voice recommending the renunciation of earthly enjoyments. The continuance of these phenomena sent her to the cloister.

The honourable stock from which Paul traces his descent were distinguished among the judicial dignitaries of Rennes. He received a legal education, and even reached the privilege of partly pleading a cause. He was appointed to defend a stealer of fowl, and having given the subject his entire attention, and divided his oration into three parts, and got into the centre of the first, as he supposed Cicero or Demosthenes would have done, he was gratified by a general breaking out of laughter among the court authorities, and hearing the judge exclaim, "Enough, Mr. Paul, we have made up our minds." But the lover of his neighbours' fowl was so excited by the defence only just entered on, that he enthusiastically proceeded to enlighten the judge, the audience, and the gens-d'armes on the approved mode of carrying off ducks

and geese without allowing them to cry. His unfortunate advocate made signs to him in vain. Professional pride carried him on, till the judge ordered him to stop, and inflicted on him the maximum penalty of his offence. Paul left the court in fury, flung his cap (à la française) over the mills, and determined he would try the life of a man of letters in Paris.

He was not ill-provided for on his entry into the modern Corinth, and began in his modest garret to do as all other prose humorists did before him, viz., to write a tragedy. One of his college comrades, who had in school-days given him more than one beating, dropped in when he was near the end of his first act, and borrowed his ready money, promising payment next day. As he forgot the fulfilment of his word, Paul called on him, but the fellow only laughed at his greenness. This was so little what the hasty-tempered lender expected, that he bestowed on his shameless jaws a pair of first-rate buffets. A hostile meeting, and a ball fixed in the rascal's thigh, was the consequence. The money was not, however, recovered, the wounded man unblushingly remarking that he needed it to bring round his cure.

Having finished his tragedy, and prepared several social sketches for the papers, he sallied forth, but no manager would read the drama, and the editors of the daily and weekly journals vowed that their offices were piled with copy.

Examining the advertisements, he found an individual in want of an editor for a paper about to be started. He was elected without a dissentient voice, and did not think it too much to advance 400 francs by way of surety. He was appointed associate, editor, director, nay, cashier itself; but before the publication of the first number, his patron walked off with the caisse (cash box), so there were no duties left to discharge either as editor or cashier.

He was next employed by a billposting company to inspect the dead walls of the city, and report on propitious vacancies. He was not obliged to make any advance, and gave great satisfaction to his employers, till he requested his first instalment of wages. The bureau d'affichage looked on this as such a shabby pro

cedure, that they dismissed him on the spot.

Ill-luck does not last for ever. He got office as clerk with the director of a score of incorporated societies, with capitals varying from eight to ten, twenty, and thirty millions (of francs to wit). His patron kept in his ante-chamber, ten negroes arrayed in white, and passed for a nabob. The clerk was to receive a large yearly salary, but he only touched the quota for a month, his employer in that time, having spent (mange) thirteen millions on negroes, oysters, horses, and parasites.

Eugene Jacquot, styling himself "of Mirecourt," his natal town in Loraine, a decent writer, a royalist, and an old Christian like Paul himself, must be quoted at this point of our hero's

career.

"A last attempt among the journalists was as unsuccessful as the former one. Yet he had in his portfolio at the moment, a portion of those works which have since obtained such success. Unfortunately the Ethiopian, Dumas, had already seized on all the issues of the feuilleton by means of his

numerous troop of collaborateurs, negroes even as he, who hoed his phrases, ploughed his chapters, and slavishly abandoned to him their harvest of volumes and glory. Paul did not succeed even in getting a page of his manuscripts read."

Being too proud to return to the protection of his family, and having arrived at his last sou, and fasted for two days, he was seen by his concierge ascending his stairs with a very tottering step. Next day no one saw him descend, and when they mounted to his garret the day after, they found him lying insensible on his mattress with the "Imitation of Christ" by his side. All his other books had been sold or pawned.

He was restored to the enjoyment of life, chiefly by the devotedness of a young woman who lodged in the house, and obtained, in a few days, the office of corrector of the press at one of the newspaper offices. He was here enabled to get possession of a feuilleton for one of his stories, and his time was soon crowded with literary occupation.

There was at the time in Paris a certain literary undertaker who provided writers for editors and vice verså. This man, Antenor Joly,

entered Paul's apartment one evening, and this conference ensued :---

"Do you know London?' 'Not a bit.' Any thing of English literature?' 'A great deal.' "You are our man. Begin this moment, and write the first four chapters of "Les Mystères de Londres" for the Courier Français.' 'Impossible!' 'Nothing is impossible: begin at once.' 'But!' 'No buts-what is that you are scribbling?' 'A romance; "Les Compagnons du Silence." Antenor took up a few pages of the freshly written work, read here and there, threw up his arms in ecstasy, and cried, "Here is instead of French names; substitute beer In with English very thing we need. for wine, and we are in the heart of Grande

the

Bretagne. The first feuilleton must appear to-morrow. Here is a refresher' (deposits a couple of bank notes on table). Sign yourself Sir Francis Trollopp. It will afford local colour.'”

The success of "Les Mystères de Paris" had disturbed the repose of the editor of the Courier Français so much, that he commissioned M. Joly to cross the Channel, and secure some English writer to furnish him with the prestige of his rival. The coming "London Mysteries," and thus abate man, however, produced such a heavy mass of light reading that he would not admit it. But the announcement of the speedy appearance of the promised work had already coloured all the dead walls of the city, and so Antenor Joly, stepping out of his machine like Horace's god, brought Paul to the rescue. It was not till the first volume was nearly written, that Feval visited London; and then, as his biographer assures us, great houses were thrown open to him, and guides and policemen conducted him in safety through casinos, cider-cellars. and the dens of thieves. He made more discoveries in a month than Benjamin Bowbell would in a lifetime.

A lord coveting his neighbour's wife, involves the injured husband so in money embarrassments, that he is obliged to bring her in a halter before "Milord Maire," and sell her to the breaker of the commandment. A lady in love with a policeman, pays a visit to his mother's shop, in the hope of seeing him. She is disappointed; and leaving the house with a heavy heart, espies a beggar-woman sitting at the door. Love inducing sympathy, she drops a sovereign into her lap, whis

pering at the same time, “Priez pour moi et pour lui.”

It must not be supposed from these specimens that Paul cannot sketch pictures faithful in outline and colour, where he has had the advantage of personal inspection. He possesses a lively and powerful imagination: his pieces are rich in colour, and he has all the parts of the machinery of his story under his eye, and at the command of his fingers, during the entire progress of the narrative, letting his readers just know enough, and no more, of the inter-relations of characters and events, so as to produce the greatest amount of eagerness for the result, with the greatest amount of interest in the portion before him for the moment. He succeeds, to a certain extent, in the delineation of delicate, finely-strung characters, such as the blind girl in "Le Jeu de la Mort." But it is in stirring adventure, descriptions of grand and rugged scenery, and the evolving of rough and opposing characters, pushed occasionally to the verge of the grotesque, that his excellence is felt. He is completely at home in his Breton scenes; sketching the peasant character, the monotonous and imbecile fireside-chat, the cunning, the parsimony, the obstinacy, and also the good qualities of the peasantry, as no one but a man of talent, and familiar with country life could

do.

Here is a touch at the charms of the food popular in the neighbourhood of the town of the middle ages before referred to. He is describing the grous (groats, Scotticé), a stirabout of black wheat, made so thick that it may be cut like bread.

"The grous are eaten hot, with melted butter, or skimmed milk. When used with extreme moderation by a person furnished with a stomach of bronze, the grous never cause an indigestion. A peasant of Ile and Vilaine, who sees before him a good piece of grous two pounds weight, half of a pressed sprat, and a pitcher of cider, holds those poor devils in great pity who are reduced to pâtés de foie gras, Venetian rolls, and a long-corked bottle of Bourdeaux."

The famous grous were being prepared in the kitchen of an old manoir belonging to the terrible "John of the Sea." There were assembled the domestics and several neighbours, who occupied forms round the great hearth. The aged woman, Renotte, was spinning with one hand, and

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"And what will prove to you all,' added the dame, as the moral of the story, that the quarry-hole had no bottom, is, that they never found either the coach, or the horses, or the Bishop.'

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Every one seemed deeply impressed by the lofty truth of this announcement. They held their tongues, and listened to the rain falling. 'Good rain,' said Pierre the Merieul and Fancin repeated thatcher.

'Good rain.' That is the good truth,' added Mathurin Houin; 'ah, faith! that

is the good truth, all the same;' and those

who had not yet spoken, repeated, as if rehearsing a part, Good rain,' or perhaps, Ah, that is the truth! Oh, faith, all the same; that is the real truth! We give this as a carefully studied specimen of the conversation of the Breton farmers; and, indeed, must add that, with the exception of the accent and the expressions, the causeries of some Paris salons do not arrive at

deductions much more transcendant."

Then is mentioned the reason of the anthem sung in praise of the rain. Loch Brehaim had been frozen for some days, and the action of the sluices The deliverance was brought by the suspended, and business stopped. good rain ;" hence the hymn.

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"In the name of moral philosophy, what is to become of post horses? Their future lot disturbs the slumbers of thinking people. Will they succeed in securing a position among the omnibuses, or shall we find the unemployed and malcontent animals abetting some new revolution? Already suspicion has fallen on them in reference to the injuries done to the rails after the famous February of 1848. For our part we lay the blame on animals more ignoble. Let the asses take no offence; the comparison does not apply to them.

"The ascent spoken of served during the flourishing days of coach and diligence, as rendezvous to a troop of young Normand beggars, turning the wheel, and chanting to some unknown air, and with an indescribable Normand accent, this strange distich

'Charitais, si vous plait,

Pour l'amour du bon Diais.'

"They girated up along the steep incline, boys and girls, with no more idea of modesty than if they were royal youths of the Marquesas Islands. They bounded in the mud with enthusiastic cries. The horses strained, the travellers stopped their ears, the conductor-this imposing personage whom the railway is about to extinguishborrowed the postilion's whip to frighten the whirling and howling mob. All in vain. Under the burning sun, in the rain,

in the snow, the young Normands, patient and courageous, climbed the hill on their

hands, still singing at the top of their voices, 'Charitais,' &c.

"And to such purpose did the lay and the pantomime work, that the nurses in the rotonde, the cattle-dealers inside, the officers in the coupé, yea, the very bagmen of the imperiale, urged by a common rage, opened purse, and flung on the road a shower of sous. You would suppose that the young industriels would now stop. Ah, dear friends, little you know the Normands! They redoubled their contortions and clamours, convulsive bounds, ignoble laments, frightful miaulings-ay, to such a pitch that we have seen officers drop tears into their pocket-handkerchiefs. And still their long, yellow hairs sweep the mud, their greenish, yellow eyes laugh, and mock you, and their harsh voices act on your eardrum like the teeth of a saw."

We cannot better conclude than by quoting the dedication of "Le Comte Barbebleue."

"They sometimes ask me, my dear good mother, why I am always speaking of Brittany, and why the name of Rennes so often escapes my pen. It is because you are at Rennes, and with you all that I love. I speak of Brittany and Rennes, because I am always thinking of thee; because my heart is with thee, and because, in talking of Rennes and Brittany, I seem talking of thee or to thee. I send thee this book, and if it gives you some pleasant hours it will be my greatest success."

NEW EDITORS-SHAKESPEARE.

"SAVE me from my friends!" is a prayer which many a man has perhaps been tempted to utter once at least in his lifetime. The higher he has stood among his fellows, the oftener will he have been driven thus to vent his annoyance at the wellmeant blundering of some over-zealous admirer. Even if a man of any mark escape receiving such proofs of friendliness on this side the grave, his good luck will hardly follow him far into the land of shadows. If the ghosts of the great departed could speak out to living men, what a worldchorus of angry utterances would deafen our affrighted ears! From poets, statesmen, warriors, philosophers innumerable, one common burst

of many-toned upbraiding would reveal the truth to our awakened senses, and their voices would be heard imploring us to save them from their literary friends, the writers of their lives, or the expounders of their mental utterances.

He who of all the company would have best reason for crying out loudest, would, in all likelihood, betray the least concern. The greatest of English poets has certainly been handled by his friends with special cruelty. Correctors, editors, commentators, have alike conspired to do him grievous wrong in the very effort to set him right with the world. Few of his cotemporaries, if any, met from the first with such scurvy treatment

"The Works of William Shakespeare," edited by W. G. Clark, M.A., J. Glover, M.A., and W. A. Wright, M.A. Cambridge and London. Macmillan & Co., 1863. 1. and II.

Vols.

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