Confessions Of Con Cregan, the Irish Gil Blas

These preparations being made, we began our meal, and I opened my narrative. The reader must not feel offended with me if I ventured to draw upon my imagination for the earlier facts of my history. Nature had not been generous to me in the article of a father: what great harm if I invented one for myself? Fortune had placed my birth beneath the thatched roof of an Irish cabin: was it not generous of me to call it the ancient baronial seat of the Cregans? She started me poor and in rags: I was above repining, and called myself rich and well-nurtured. But why weary my reader with such a recital? If it was necessary to raise the foundation on fiction, the after-events of my career I was satisfied to state pretty nearly as they happened, merely altering the reasons for my journey to the New World, which I ascribed to my search after a great inheritance belonging to my family, who were originally from Andalusia, and grandees of Spain.

“And this of course you failed in,” said my friend, who rather felt this portion of my story less interesting than certain other and more stirring passages.

“On the contrary,” said I, “I succeeded perfectly. I not only discovered the banker in whose hands my family wealth was deposited, but established my claim most satisfactorily, and received a very large sum in gold, with bills to a high amount on various mercantile houses, besides leaving in his hands an important balance, for which I had no immediate necessity.” After a slight sketch of my Mexican progress, – very little embellished or exaggerated, – I narrated my voyage to Europe and my capture at Malaga exactly as they occurred, circumstantially recording every detail of name and date I could remember down to the very moment of my reaching Paris.

“One question more, my dear friend,” said M. Paul, after some fifty very searching interrogatories, as closely argued as the cross-examination of a counsel at law. “One question more, and I have done. I know you ‘ll not be offended at the liberty I am about to take, – nay, I feel you ‘ll be even gratified with my candor. Tell me frankly, as between man and man, is there one word of truth in all this, or is it not downright moonshine, – sheer invention from beginning to end?”

I started to my legs, my face crimson with anger, but, as suddenly recovering myself, said, “You were right, sir, to bespeak a degree of command over my feelings before you ventured upon this freedom, which if I cannot altogether pardon, yet I will not resent.”

“So it is true, then,” said he, with a degree of melancholy in his voice I could not fathom.

“Of course it is,” rejoined I.

“Sorry to hear it; deeply, sincerely sorry, – that’s all,” replied he, in the self-same manner; “I cannot express to you one-half of my disappointment.”

“Sorrow! disappointment!” exclaimed I. “May I ask what possible interest you could have in supposing me to be an impostor and a cheat?”

“Hard names these,” said he, laughing, “but I will explain myself. If the story that you have just told me were fiction, I could give you three hundred francs a day to write feuilletons for the ‘Débats.’ If one-half of it were even invention, you ‘d be worth two hundred on the ‘Siècle’ or the ‘Presse;’ say you stole the material, and you ‘d still do admirably for the ‘Mode.’

“Are you – so conversant with a hundred thousand things – ignorant that the grand principle of division of labor has extended itself from the common arts of manufacture to the operations of genius; and that, nowadays, no man would think of composing an entire work himself, any more than he would of turning mason, carpenter, slater, locksmith, and glazier, were he about to build a house? On the contrary, having fixed upon the site, and determined the proportions of his future edifice, he surrounds himself with competent and skilful hands in all the several walks of constructiveuess, reserving to himself that supervision and direction which could not be practicable were he engaged in actual labor. Thus is he a master-builder in fiction, selecting his artificers, storing his materials, apportioning the quantity, keenly watching the variations in public taste, and producing at last a mass and variety that no one brain – however fertile and assiduous – could be capable of. This,” said he, drawing himself up proudly, “this is my walk. By the aid of this discovery, – for it is mine, and mine only, – I am enabled to draw tears in the ‘Débats,’ and convulse with laughter in the ‘Constitutionnel;’ and while writing of the torrid zone in one journal, I have an Icelander as my hero in another. Men stare at the range of my knowledge of life under aspects so various and discordant; and well may they wonder, were I to draw upon my own unassisted faculties. But it is men like you, Cregan, I want, – shrewd, sharp, ready-witted dogs; quick to remark, and quicker to report. What say you, then, will you join my corps in the fiction-foundry over which I preside?”

“Were I but capable – ”

“You are eminently so. We need no literary ability, no craft of authorship, – no more than the child who picks the wool in the factory is called on to direct the loom that weaves it into cloth. Let me finish the article; I ‘II give it the gloss for sale! What say you? Five thousand francs a year, free admission to every theatre in Paris, and a dinner at ‘La Trou aux Bois ‘ – where you dined yesterday – every Sunday?”

“A bargain,” cried I, in ecstasy.

“Concluded by both parties, who thus acknowledge their hand and seal,” cried he, tossing off a glass of champagne; and then, rising from the table, he prepared to take his leave. “I conclude,” said he, “that you ‘ll not continue your residence here much longer. Seek out some quarter less near to heaven, and more accessible to poor human nature.”

I promised to follow the advice, and we separated: he to repair to his haunts, – the cafés, the editorial snuggeries, and other gossip shops of Paris; and I to seek out a more congenial abode, and one more befitting the favorable turn which Fate had now imparted to my fortune.

The afternoon of that same day saw me installed in a pleasant little apartment overlooking the garden of the Luxembourg, and where, from a little terrace, I could inhale the odor of the orange blossoms, and see the children at play amid the plashing of fountains and the waving of the tall grass. It was, as I discovered, the quarter of the whole artiste class, – poets, painters, actors, sculptors, feuilletonists, and caricaturists; nor was it difficult to ascertain the fact, as a certain extravagance of beard, various modifications of hat, and peculiarly cut coats and trousers presented themselves at every moment. Resolving to don “the livery of my race,” I made my appearance in a suit of coffee-brown, hat and russet boots to match; as for beard, a life of seclusion for several weeks had only left me the task of retrenchment; and the barber whose services I invoked had but to ask my career to impress me with that artiste stamp that makes every full-faced man a mock “Holbein,” and every thin one a bad Vandyke.

“The novelists wear it straight across, and square below the chin, sir,” said he. “This is a plate of Monsieur Eugène Sue; but there is a certain dash of energy about Monsieur’s eyes – a kind of ‘beauté insolente,’ if I may be pardoned the phrase – that would warrant the beard to be pointed. May I venture to trim Monsieur as Salvator Rosa?”

“Use your own discretion, Monsieur Palmyre,” said I; “the responsibility is great, and I will not clog it by even a suggestion.”

To say that I could not have known myself on arising from his hands is no exaggeration, so perfectly changed had my features become in their expression. As a disguise, it was perfect; and this alone was no small recommendation.

As I walked the alleys of the Luxembourg, where at every instant men travestied like myself came and went, I could not help recalling the classical assertion that “no two augurs could meet face to face without laughing,” and I wondered excessively how we artistes surveyed each other and preserved even a decent gravity.

My career as a litterateur began the next day, and I received a short editorial summons from the office of “La Tempête” to furnish a feuilleton of a hundred and twenty-four lines; the postscript adding that as Admiral Du Guesclin had just arrived from Macao, some “esquisses des moeurs Chinoises” would be well timed. Of China I only knew what a lacquered tea-tray and the willow pattern could teach me; but I set to work at once, and by assuming my sketches to be personal adventures and experiences, made up a most imposing account of Chinese domesticity.

The article had an immense success: the air of veracity was perfect; and the very officers of the fleet were so deluded by the imposition as to believe they must have frequently met me at Shang-kee-shing or Fong-wong-loo.

Thus was I launched into a career, of all others the most amusing, the most exciting, and, I must also add, the most dissipated. Living apart from all mankind in a little circle of our own, where we only recognized the world as we ourselves were pleased to paint it, our whole lives were one long scoff and sneer at everybody and everything. Friendship meant the habit of meeting at dinner; the highest nobility of soul was his who paid the reckoning.

If there was little actual happiness among us, there was certainly no care nor any touch of sorrow. A great picture condemned, a poem cut to pieces, a play hissed off, only suggested a “souper de consolation,” when the unlucky author would be the first to cut jokes upon his own failure, and ridicule the offspring of his own brains. Who could look for sympathy where men had no feeling for themselves? Even thieves, the proverb tells us, observe “honor” with each other; but we were worse than thieves, since we actually lived and grew fat upon each other’s mishaps. If one exhibited a statue at the Louvre, another was sure to caricature it for the Passage de l’Opéra. If one brought out a grand drama at the Français, a burlesque was certain to follow it at the Palais-Royal. Every little trait that near intercourse and familiarity discloses, every weakness that is laid bare in the freedom of friendly association, were made venal, and worth so much a line for “Le Voleur” or “L’Espion.”

As to any sulking, or dreaming of resenting these infractions, he might as well try to repress the free-and-easy habits of a midshipman’s berth. They were the “masonry of the craft,” which each tacitly subscribed to when he entered it.

All intercourse was completely gladiatorial, not for display, but for defence. Everlasting badinage on every subject and on everybody was the order of each day; and as success was to the full as much quizzed as failure, any exhibition of vanity or self-gratulation met a heavy retribution. Woe unto him whose romance went through three editions in a fortnight, or whom the audience called for at the conclusion of his drama!

As for the fairer portion of our guild, being for the most part ostracized in general society, they bore a grudge against their sex, and affected a thousand airs of mannishness. Some always dressed in male attire; many sported little moustaches and chin-tufts, rode man-fashion in the Bois de Boulogne, fought duels; and all smoked. Like other converts, they went farther in their faith than the old believers, and talked Communism, Socialism, and Saint Simonianism, with a freedom that rose high above all the little prejudices ordinary life fosters.

If great crimes, such as shock the world by their enormity, were quite unknown among us, all the vices practicable within the Law and the Code Napoléon were widely popular; and the worst of it all was, none seemed to have the remotest conception that he was not the beau-ideal of morality. The simple fact was, we assumed a very low standard of right, and chose to walk even under that.

With Paris and all its varied forms of life I soon became perfectly familiar, – not merely that city which occupies the Faubourg St. Honoré, or St. Germain, not the Paris of the Boulevards or the Palais-Royal only, but with Quartier St. Denis, the Batignolles, the Cité, and the Pays Latin. I knew every dialect, from the slang of fashion to the conventional language of its lowest populace. I heard every rumor, from the cabinet of the Minister down to the latest gossip of the “Coulisses:” what the world said and thought, in each of its varying and dissimilar sections; how each political move was judged; what was the public feeling for this or that measure; how the “many-headed” were satisfied or dissatisfied, whether with the measures of the Ministry, or the legs of the new danseuse; and thus I became the very perfection of a feuilletoniste. There is but one secret in this species of literature, – the ever-watchful observation of the public; and when it is considered that this is a Parisian public, the task is not quite so easy as some would deem it. This watchfulness, and a certain hardihood that never shrinks from any theme, however sacred to the conventional reserves of the general world, are all the requisites.

I have said it was a most amusing life; and if eternal excitement, if the onward rush of new emotions, the never-ceasing flow of stimulating thoughts, could have sufficed for happiness, I might have been, and ought to have been, contented. Still, the whole was unreal. Not only was the world we had made for ourselves unreal, but all our judgments, all our speculations, our hopes, fears, anticipations, our very likings and dislikings! Our antipathies were mock, and what we denounced with all the pretended seriousness of heartfelt conviction in one journal, we not unfrequently pronounced to be a heaven-sent blessing in another. Bravos of the pen, we had no other principle than our pay, and were utterly indifferent at whom we struck, even though the blow should prove fatal. That we should become sceptical on every subject; that we should cease to bestow credence on anything, believing that all around was false, hypocritical, and unreal as ourselves, was natural enough; but this frame of mind bears its own weighty retribution, and not even the miserable victim of superstitious fear dreads solitude like him whose mind demands the constant stimulant of intercourse, the torrent of new ideas, that whirls him along, unreflecting and unthinking.

It will be easily seen that all my narrative of myself met but little faith in such company. They unhesitatingly rejected the whole story of my wealth; and my future restoration to rank and riches used to be employed as a kind of synonym for the Greek calends. The worst of all this was, their disbelief infected even me, and I gradually began to look upon myself as an impostor. My hope – the guide-star that cheered me in many a dark and gloomy period – began to wane, and I felt that ere long all those aspirations which had spirited me on in life would lie cold and dead within me, and that my horizon, would extend no further than where each daily sun sunk to rest. To show any discontent with my walk, to evince in the slightest degree any misgivings that we of “La petite Presse” did not give laws to taste, morals, jurisprudence, and legislation, would have been high treason. To imply a doubt that we held in our hands, not alone the destinies of Paris, but of Europe, – of all civilization, – would have been a rank and outrageous heresy. Like the priest, the journalist can never unfrock himself. The mark of the ink, more tenacious than the blood on Lady Macbeth’s fingers, will “never out.” What, then, could I do? For, wearied of my calling, I yearned for a little truth, for a new glimpse of reality, however short and fleeting.

Full of these thoughts, I repaired one morning to the Trou-aux-Bois, where fortunately I found my friend Paul alone, – at least, except three secretaries, to whom he was dictating by turns, he had no one with him! “Wait till I have finished this ‘Attack of Wolves on a Caravan,’” said he, “and the ‘Death of Jules de Tavanne by Poison,’ and I ‘m your man. Meanwhile, step into my study; there are masses of newspapers and letters which you can read freely.”

He did not detain me long. Apparently the wolves were weak, and soon beaten off, and the poison was strong, and soon did its work; for he joined me in less than half an hour.

My explanation was listened to patiently, and, what surprised me more, without astonishment. He saw nothing exaggerated or high-flown in the difficulties I started, and even went the length of confessing that many of my objections had occurred to his own mind. “But then,” said he, “what is to be done? If you turn soldier, are you always certain that you will concur in the justice of the cause for which you fight? Become a lawyer, and is not half your life passed in arraigning the right and defending the wrong? Try medicine; and where will be your ‘practice’ if you only prescribe for the really afflicted, and do not indulge the caprices and foster the complainings of the ‘malade imaginaire ‘? As an apothecary, you would vend poisons; as an architect, you would devise jails and penitentiaries; and so to the end of the chapter. Optimism is just as impracticable as it is dangerous. Accept the world as you find it, not because it is the best, but because it is the only policy; and, above all, be slow in changing a career where you have met with success. The best proof that it suits you is, that the public think so.”

Being determined on my course, I now affected a desire to see life in some other form, and observe mankind under some other aspect. To this he assented freely, and, after a few moments’ discussion, suddenly bethought him of a letter he had received that very morning. “You remember the Duc de St. Cloud, whom you met at dinner the first day you spent here?”

“Perfectly.”

“Well, he was, as you are aware, ordered off to Africa, to take a high military command a few days after, and has not since returned to France. This day I have received a letter from him, asking me to recommend some one among my literary acquaintances to fill the office of his private secretary. You are exactly the man for the appointment. The duties are light, the pay liberal, the position agreeable in every way; and, in fact, for one who desires to see something of the world which the Boulevard du Gent and the Café de Paris cannot show him, the opportunity is first rate.”

The proposal overjoyed me! Had I been called on to invent a post for myself, this was exactly the thing I should have fancied. A campaign against the Arabs; the novelty of country, people, and events; a life of adventure, with a prince for my companion, – these were the very crowning desires of my ambition.

“I ‘ll write about it this very day: there will be a mail for Algiers made up this evening, and not a moment shall be lost in making the application.”

I could not express one half my gratitude for this opportune kindness; and when I again turned my steps toward Paris, my heart had regained the buoyant elasticity which had so often lifted me above all the troubled waves of life.

CHAPTER XXXII. MOI ET MON PRINCE

In less than a fortnight after the interview I have just recorded, I received a letter from De Minérale, enclosing another, addressed to himself, and whose royal seal at once proclaimed the writer. De Minérale’s was only a few lines, thus: —

“Dear C, – I forward you the ‘Duke’s’ reply to my note, bywhich you will see that we have been in time, and fortunateenough to secure your appointment. Lose not a moment infulfilling the instructions contained in it, and dine withme to-day at the ‘Frères,’ at seven.

“Yours,

“P. deM.

”The Duke’s epistle, almost equally brief, was to the effect:

“Headquarters, Oran.

“My Dear De Minérale, – Of course I remember perfectly ourfriend the ‘Quatorzième,’ whose lucubrations in the journalsI have since been much amused with. In some respects hewould suit me well, being a fellow of high animal spirits, great readiness, and, if I mistake not, well fitted for therough usage of a campaign. But it strikes me that if hisposition be such as you represent it, the exchange would beanything but profitable. This is a land of few pleasures andno luxuries. Tell him that we never see truffles, thatchampagne is only a tradition, and, except Moorish damsels, who never show us more of their faces than a pair of eyes, – darting fire and anger, – we have no beauties. Yet if, despite all these drawbacks, he be still willing to tempthis fortune, and trust to ‘a razzia’ for the rest, let himcall on Count du Verguoble, at the ‘Ministère de la Guerre,’where he will find everything in readiness for hisappointment.“Should he desire it, he can also receive his commission inmy own regiment, the 13th Chasseurs-à-cheval; and as he willnot be called on for duty, he might as well accept anappointment that will at least give him forage for hishorses and some other advantages.

“Send me all the new things that are out, and tell me whatyou and Alphonse are doing. ‘Mes amitiés’ to our fairfriend in the Rue Ponchaule, and the like – indiscriminately – to all the others.