The Immortal

er their cupola they are beginning to get mouldy. The Académie is a taste that is going out, an ambition no longer in fashion. Its success is only ap

ar fellow; now's your time." Or perhaps, brusquely, with a friendly scolding, "Well, so you don't mean to be one of us." When it's a man in society who is to be caught a translator of Ariosto or a writer of amateur plays, there is a gentler and more insinuating way of playing off the trick. And if our fashionable writer protests that he is not a gun of sufficient calibre, the Recruiting-Academidan br

fe is centred in the Académie; and when he says to you, "If you only knew the joy of it," with a smack of the tongue like a man eating a ripe peach, he is saying what he really means, and so his bait is the more alluring and dangerous. But when once the hook has been swal

ng your

been carried along in tow for these ten years. And there's De Salèle, and Gu

get into the Académ

r watered down. There's an end to originality, an end to bold neck-or-nothing strokes. The liveliest spirits never move for fear of tearing their green coats. It is like putting children into their Sunday clothes and saying "Amuse yourselves, my dears, but don't get dirty." And they do amuse themselves, I can tell you. Of course, they have the adulation of the Academical taverns, and their fair hostesses. But what a bore it is! I speak from experience, for I have let

ydet: Danjou, the shephe

oisillon, "elect him, do; and then I shall be rid of him." And now she looks up to him as a god; he is always next her at table; and her contempt has changed into an abject admiration. It is like a savage, falling down and quaking before the idol he has carved. I know what Academic society is, with all its foolish, ludicrous, mean little intrigues. You want to get into it! What for, I should like to know? You have the happiest life in the world. Even I, who am not set upon anything, was near envying you, when I saw you with your sister at Clos-Jallanges: a perfect house on a hill-side, airy rooms, chimney-corners big enough to get into, oak

g's whistle, an organ, and the bells of Sainte-Clotilde, all united at the moment, as from time to time the noises of a great town will do, in a thundering tutti; and the outrageous babel, c

st the flowering and dense thickets of plane and maple grew all along the balustrades, which were loaded with ivy and clematis: and within this verdant screen the pigeons lighted, the bees wandered, and under a beam of yellow li

but it has not that smell of bluebells and thyme that I found in the others. Your "God in Nature" has rather a flavour of the Academic bay; and I

, and a yard of red ribbon relieved against the black of his gown, emphasising with the solemn movements of his wide sleeves the well-worn joke from Racine or Molière, or his own rounded periods in the style of Vic't-d'Azir

into dead leaves. 'Look here,' he went on with rising animation, 'a man is not to be called an historian because he has expanded unpublished material into great octavo volumes, which are shelved unread among the books of information, and should be labe

fellow, who made the poor man read o

m tell us that the will was a lever, a lever with which you might lift anything anywhere, that I

he historian, and began to plead for Astier-R

lot of us were hoed, and stubbed, and grubbed! One or two did not take kindly to the process, but the old fellow went at it with his tools and his nails, till he made us all as neat and as flat as a schoolroom bench. And see the results of his workmanship! A few rebels, lik

?' said Freydet, with

you again. And to think that we have public schools to provide us with this sort of pedagogue, and th

n, Védrine calmly uttered these strong remarks, without the slightest play of feature in his broad face, pale and

ustomed to respect 'But,' he said, 'if you are such an enemy o

imperturbable sang-froid and his pretty-miss complexion, as a prob

makes of my husband! All the restorations at Mousseaux, the new gallery towards the river, the concert-room, the chapel, all were done by V

h is I have too many ideas, and am just tormented with them. To relieve me of a few is to do me a real service. My brain is like a railway junction, where the engines are getting up steam on all the lines at once. The young man saw that. He has not many ideas. So he purloins mine, and brings them before the public, quite certain that I shall not protest But he does not take me in. Don't I know when he is going to filch! He preserves his

t had no floor and no ceiling, all the upper storeys had fallen through and showed the blue sky between the huge iron girders, now twisted by the fire, which had divided the f

ian, Assyrian, and Ninevite monuments-before deciding on Védrine's plan, which would raise an outcry among architects, but was certainly impressive. A soldier's tomb: an open tent with the canvas looped back, discl

the cemetery. Now, at last, after much time and trouble, the canopy was up, 'and that young rascal, Astier, will get some credit from it,' added the sculptor with a smile in which was no touch of bitterness. Then h

in spite, of the fogs of the neighbouring river and the bitter cold winds, without a single sneeze (his own expression), having the healthful strength of the great artists of the Renaissance, as well as their large mould of countenance and fertile imagination. Now he was as weary of sculpture and architecture as if he had been writing a t

of the plaster exaggerated the anatomical emphasis characteristic of Védrine. Rather than smooth away the force, he gives his work an unfinished earthy surface, as of someth

tone of sincerity. The other wink

ou are accustomed to it; and I do not feel sure of the

ome uncertainty, knowing the taste of great ladies, as it is displayed in the stereotyped chatter, which at the Salon on five-shilling days runs up and down the picture-rooms, and

all the hypocrisies of society, the most shameless, the most amusing, is the pretended taste for art. It's enough to make you di

e-blackened walls, Presently they came to the principal court, formerly gravelled, but now a field, in which were mingled wild grasses, plantain, pimpernel, groundsel, and myriads of tiny stems and heads. In the middle,

said Védrine, pointing to a board over the half-open d

IN

g in all i

pecimen.' He went nearer and called, 'Fage! Fage!' but the humble workshop was empty. In front of the window was the binder's table, on which, among a heap of parings, lay his shears. Under a press were some green ledgers capped with copper. Strange to remark, everything in the room-the sewing-press,

ike a hairdresser's shop, otto of roses and macassar, mingled with the stifling fumes, of glue. Védrine called once more in the

's at a try

droom walls, which are covered with photographs bearing the owners' names, and headed "To Albin," "To my dear little Fage." There is never any lady to be seen

is ugly,

fect m

no mo

learned, with a marvellous memory. We shall probably find him wandering about in some corner of the building. He is a gr

oden bridge, resting on the supports of the staircase, between high walls on which were dimly visible the remains of huge frescoes, cracked, decayed, and blackened with soot, the hind

he next floor they found much the same thing, only that here, the roof having given way, the gallery was nothing but a long terrace of brambles climbing up to the undestroyed arcades and falling down in disordered waving festoons to the level of the courtyard. From this second floor could be seen the roofs of the n

wild exuberant vegetation of every species which ran riot over the whole building. 'If Crocodilus

at of a metallic green and his large wide 'topper.' Most people in the neighbourhood knew this hat, which, set on

legance the deformity of his back. Their words were not audible, but Astier seemed much excited. He brandished his stick and bent himself forward over the fac

g the action of the two men, whose conversation at this moment suddenly stopped, the humpback going into his house with a gesture which seemed to say, 'As you please,' w

me? What a mysterious little fellow it is! But I dare say th

ame, Vé

kles and grey hairs and other changes, with which life disguises the outer man, the schoolfellows found each other just what they were when they sat together in class: one wilful, high-spirited, rebellious; the other obedient and submissive, with a tendency to indolence, which had been fostered by his quiet country life. After all Védri

turn, and were seated on the benches or standing in a line against the parapet of the quay. Foul and grimy, with the hair and beard of human dogs, and dressed in the filthiest rags, they waited like a herd, neither moving nor speaking to each other, but peeri

he way in which he took Freydet off, saying as he did so, 'You may as well go with me as far as the Institute,' it was clear that he did not approve the habit of mooning in the streets when you ought to be better employed. Leaning gently on his favourite's arm, he began to tell him of his rapturous delight at having chanced upon a most astonis

y-his candidature for the first place in the Académie that should be vacant. It would be delightful when the master and the scholar sat together under the dome! 'And you will find how pleasant it is, and how comfortable. It cannot be imagined till you are there.' The moment of entrance, he seemed to say, put an end to the m

mentioned his name. The booksellers and the vendors of engravings and curiosities, standing at the

en I was a lad. I said to myself then, "I will get into that;" and I have got in. Now, my boy, it is your turn to use your will. Good luck to you.' He stepped briskly in a

full-orbed eyes was the same expression as had been on the visages of the human dogs who waited before the barracks