The International Monthly Magazine Volume V to No II

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"A beggarly Parisian; yo, yo!" quoth the postilion as he passed, clacking
his long whip.

"Who will answer for his fare?" inquired the conductor.

"I will," replied Nathalie, taking the words out of my mouth.

In a few minutes the young man, who looked bewildered and could not speak,
was safely stowed among Nathalie's other parcels; and the crest of the
hill being gained, we began rolling rapidly down a steep descent. The
little old maid, though in a perfect ecstasy of delight--the incident
evidently appeared to her quite an adventure--behaved with remarkable
prudence. While I was puzzling my head to guess by what disease this poor
young man had been attacked, she was getting ready the remedies that
appeared to her the most appropriate, in the shape of some excellent cakes
and a bottle of good wine, which she fished out of her huge basket. Her
_protege_, made tame by hunger, allowed himself to be treated like a
child. First she gave him a very small sip of Burgundy, then a diminutive
fragment of cake; and then another sip and another piece of cake--insisting
on his eating very slowly. Being perfectly useless, I looked quietly on,
and smiled to see the suhmissiveness with which this fine, handsome fellow
allowed himself to be fed by the fussy old maid, and how he kept his eyes
fixed upon her with an expression of wondering admiration.

Before we arrived at Avignon we knew the history of the young man. He was
an artist, who had spent several years studying in Paris, without friends,
without resources, except a miserable pittance which his mother, a poor
peasant woman living in a village not far from Aix, had managed to send
him. At first he had been upheld by hope; and although he knew that his
mother not only denied herself necessaries, but borrowed money to support
him, he was consoled by the idea that the time would come when, by the
efforts of his genius, he would be able to repay every thing with the
accumulated interest which affection alone would calculate. But his
expenses necessarily increased, and no receipts came to meet them. He was
compelled to apply to his mother for further assistance. The answer was
one word--"impossible." Then he endeavored calmly to examine his position,
came to the conclusion that for several years more he must be a burden to
his mother if he obstinately pursued his career, and that she must be
utterly ruined to insure his success. So he gave up his art, sold every
thing he had to pay part of his debts, and set out on foot to return to
big village and become a peasant, as his father had been before him. The
little money he had taken with him was gone by the time he reached Lyon.
He had passed through that city without stopping, and for more than two
days, almost for two nights, had incessantly pursued his journey, without
rest and without food, until he had reached the spot where, exhausted with
fatigue and hunger, he had fallen, perhaps to perish had we not been there
to assist him.

Nathalie listened with eager attention to this narrative, told with a
frankness which our sympathy excited. Now and then she gave a convulsive
start, or checked a hysterical sob, and at last fairly burst into tears. I
was interested as well as she, but retained more calmness to observe how
moral beauty almost vainly straggled to appear through the insignificant
features of this admirable woman. Her little eyes, reddened with weeping;
her pinched-up nose, blooming at the point; her thin lips, probably
accustomed to sarcasm; her cheeks, with a leaded citron hue; her hair that
forked up in unmanageable curls--all combined to obscure the exquisite
expression of respect and sympathy, perhaps already of love, sparkling
from her kindled soul, that could just be made out by an attentive eye. At
length, however, she became for a moment perfectly beautiful, as, when the
young painter had finished his story, with an expression that showed how
bitterly he regretted his abandoned art, she took both his hands in hers,
and exclaimed: "No, _mon enfant_, you shall not be thus disappointed. Your
genius"--she already took it for granted he had genius--"shall have an
opportunity for development. Your mother cannot do what is necessary--she
has played her part. I will be a--second mother to you, in return f"r the
little affection you can bestow on me without ingratitude to her to whom
you owe your life."

"My life has to be paid for twice," said he, kissing her hand. Nathalie
could not help looking round proudly to me. It was so flattering to
receive the gallant attentions of so handsome a young man, that I think
she tried to forget how she had bought them.

In the exuberance of her hospitality, the little old maid invited both
Claude Richer and myself to spend some time in the large farmhouse of her
brother-in-law. I declined, with a promise to be a frequent visitor; but
Claude, who was rather commanded than asked, could do nothing but accept.
I left them at the diligence office, and saw them walk away, the little
Nathalie affecting to support her feeble companion. For the honor of human
nature let me add, that the conductor said nothing about the fare. "It
would have been indelicate," he said to me, "to remind Mlle. Nathalie of
her promise in the young man's presence. I know her well; and she will pay
me at a future time. At any rate I must show that there is a heart under
this waistcoat." So saying, the conductor thumped his breast with simple
admiration of his own humanity, and went away, after recommending me to
the Cafe de Paris--indeed and excellent house.

I shall say nothing of a variety of little incidents that occurred to me
at Avignon, nor about my studies on the history of the popes who resided
there. I must reserve myself entirely for the development of Nathalie's
romance, which I could not follow step by step, but the chief features of
which I was enabled to catch during a series of visits I paid to the
farmhouse. Nathalie herself was very communicative to me at first, and
scarcely deigned to conceal her sentiments. By degrees, however, as the
catastrophe approached, she became more and more reserved; and I had to
learn from others, or to guess the part she played.

The farmhouse was situated on the other side of the river, in a small
plain, fertile and well wooded. Old Cossu, the owner, was a fine jolly
fellow, but evidently a little sharp in money matters. I was surprised at
first that he received the visit of Claude favorably; but when it came out
that a good part of his capital belonged to Nathalie, every circumstance
of deference to her was explained. Mere Cossu was not a very remarkable
personage; unless it be remarkable that she entertained the most profound
veneration for her husband, quoted his commonest sayings as witticisms,
and was ready to laugh herself into convulsions if he sneezed louder than
usual. Marie was a charming little person; perhaps a little too demure in
her manners, considering her wicked black eyes. She was soon very friendly
with Claude and me, but seemed to prefer passing her time in whispered
conversations with Nathalie. I was let into the secret that their
conversation turned principally on the means of getting rid of the
husband-elect--a great lubberly fellow, who lived some leagues off, and
whose red face shone over the garden-gate, in company with a huge nosegay,
regularly every Sunday morning. In spite of the complying temper of old
Cossu in other respects when Nathalie gave her advice, he seemed
obstinately bent on choosing his own son-in-law. Parents are oftener
correct than romancers will allow, in their negative opinions on this
delicate subject, but I cannot say as much for them when they undertake to
be affirmative.

I soon observed that Nathalie was not so entirely devoted to the
accomplishment of the object for which she had undertaken her journey as
she had promised; and, above all, that she spoke no more of the
disinterested sacrifice of herself as a substitute for Marie. I
maliciously alluded to this subject in one of our private confabulations,
and Nathalie, instead of being offended, frankly answered that she could
not make big Paul Boneau happy and assist Claude in his studies at the
same time. "I have now," she said, "an occupation for the rest of my
life--namely, to develop this genius, of which France will one day be
proud; and I shall devote myself to it unremittingly."

"Come, Nathalie," replied I, taking her arm in mine as we crossed the
poplar-meadow, "have you no hope of a reward?"

"I understand," quoth she frankly; "and I will not play at cross-purposes
with you. If this young man really loves his art, and his art alone, as he
pretends, could he do better than reward me--as you call it--for my
assistance? The word has a cruel signification, but you did not mean it
unkindly."

I looked at her wan, sallow countenance, that had begun for some days to
wear an expression of painful anxiety. At that moment I saw over a
hedge--but she could not--Claude and Marie walking in a neighboring field,
and pausing now and then to bend their heads very close together in
admiration of some very common flower. "Poor old maid," thought I, "you
will have no reward save the consciousness of your own pure intentions."

The minute development of this drama without dramatic scenes would perhaps
be more instructive than any elaborate analysis of human passions in
general; but it would require a volume, and I can only here give a mere
summary. Nathalie, in whom alone I felt particularly interested, soon
found that, she had deceived herself as to the nature of her sentiments
for Claude--that instead of regarding him with almost maternal solicitude,
she loved him with an intensity that is the peculiar characteristic of
passions awakened late in life, when the common consolation is
inadmissible--"after all, I may find better." This was her last, her only
chance of a happiness, which she had declared to me she had never dreamed
of, but which in reality she had only declined because it did not present
itself to her under all the conditions required by her refined and
sensitive mind. Claude, who was an excellent fellow, but incapable of
comprehending her or sacrificing himself, never swerved from grateful
deference to her; but I could observe, that as the state of her feelings
became more apparent, he took greater care to mark the character of his
sentiments for her, and to insist with some affectation on the depth of
his filial affection. Nathalie's eyes were often red with tears--a fact
which Claude did not choose perhaps to notice, for fear of an explanation.
Marie, on the contrary, became more blooming every day, while her eloquent
eyes were still more assiduously bent upon the ground. It was evident to
me that she and Claude understood one another perfectly well.

At length the same thing became evident to Nathalie. How the revelation
was made to her I do not know; but sudden it must have been, for I met her
one day in the poplar-field, walking hurriedly along with an extraordinary
expression of despair in her countenance. I know not why, but the thought
at once occurred to me that the Rhone ran rapid and deep not far off, and
I threw myself across her path. She started like a guilty thing, but did
not resist when I took her hand and led her back slowly towards the
farmhouse. We had nearly reached it in silence when she suddenly stopped,
and bursting into tears turned away into a by-lane where was a little
bench under an elm. Here she sat down and sobbed for a long time, while I
stood by. At length she raised her head and asked me: "Do morality and
religion require self-sacrifice even to the end--even to making half a life
a desert, even to heart-breaking, even unto death?"

"It scarcely belongs to a selfish mortal to counsel such virtue," I
replied; "but it is because it is exercised here and there, now and then,
once in a hundred years, that man can claim some affinity with the divine
nature."

A smile of ineffable sweetness played about the poor old girl's lips. She
wiped her eyes, and began talking of the changing aspect of the season,
and how the trees day by day more rapidly shed their leaves, and how the
Rhone had swelled within its ample bed, and of various topics apparently
unconnected with her frame of mind, but all indicating that she felt the
winter was coming--a long and dreary winter for her. At this moment
Fanfreluche, which had missed her, came down the lane, barking with fierce
joy; and she took the poor little beast in her arms, and exhaled the last
bitter feeling that tormented her in these words: "Thou at least lovest
me--because I have fed thee!" In her humility she seemed now to believe
that her only claim to love was her charity; and that even this claim was
not recognized except by a dog!

I was not admitted to the secret of the family conclave that took place,
but learned simply that Nathalie pleaded with feverish energy the love
that had grown up between Marie and Claude as an insuperable bar to the
proposed marriage between Paul Boneau and her niece. Matters were arranged
by means of large sacrifices on the part of the heroic maid. Paul's face
ceased to beam over the garden-gate on a Sunday morning; and by degrees
the news got abroad that Marie was betrothed to the young artist. One day
a decent old woman in _sabots_ came to the farmhouse: it was Claude's
mother, who had walked from Aix to see him. It was arranged that Claude
should pursue his studies a year longer, and then marry. Whether any
explanation took place I do not know; but I observed that the young man
sometimes looked with the same expression of wondering admiration I had
observed in the diligence at the little Nathalie--more citron-hued than
ever. At length she unhooked the cage of Coco, the parrot, took
Faufreluche under one arm and her blue umbrella under the other, and went
away in company with the whole family, myself included, every one carrying
a parcel or a basket to the diligence office. What a party that was! Every
one was in tears except Nathalie. She bore up manfully, if I may use the
word; laughed, and actually joked; but just as I handed Coco in, her
factitious courage yielded, and she burst into an agony of grief. With
officious zeal I kept at the window until the diligence gave a lurch and
started; and then turning round I looked at Claude and Marie, who were
already mingling their eyes in selfish forgetfulness of their
benefactress, and said solemnly: "There goes the best woman ever created
for this unworthy earth." The artist, who, for an ordinary man, did not
lack sentiment, took my hand and said: "Sir, I will quarrel with any man
who says less of that angel than you have done."

The marriage was brought about in less time than had been agreed upon.
Nathalie of course did not come; but she sent some presents and a pleasant
letter of congratulation, in which she called herself "an inveterate old
maid." About a year afterwards I passed through Lyon and saw her. She was
still very yellow, and more than ever attentive to Fanfreluche and Coco. I
even thought she devoted herself too much to the service of these two
troublesome pets, to say nothing of a huge cat which she had added to her
menagerie, as a kind of hieroglyphic of her condition. "How fare the
married couple?" cried she, tossing up her cork-screw curls. "Still cooing
and billing?"

"Mademoiselle," said I, "they are getting on pretty well. Claude, finding
the historic pencil not lucrative, has taken to portrait-painting; and
being no longer an enthusiastic artist, talks even of adopting the more
expeditious method of the Daguerreotype. In the meantime, half the
tradesmen of Avignon, to say nothing of Aix, have bespoken caricatures of
themselves by his hand. Marie makes a tolerable wife, but has a terrible
will of her own, and is feared as well as loved."

Nathalie tried to laugh; but the memory of her old illusions coming over
her, she leaned down towards the cat she was nursing, and sparkling tears
fell upon its glossy fur.

MADEMOISELLE DE CAMARGO.

From advance sheets of a capital book entitled "Men and Women of the XIXth
Century, by Argene Houssaye," in press by Redfield.

Mademoiselle de Camargo almost came into the world dancing. It is related
that Gritry, when he was scarcely four years of age, had an idea of
musical tunes. Mademoiselle de Camargo danced at a much earlier age. She
was still in arms when the combined airs of a violin and a hautboy caught
her ear. She jumped about full of life, and during the whole time that the
music was playing, she danced, there is no other word for it, keeping time
with great delight. It must be stated that she was of Spanish origin. She
was born at Brussels, the 15th of April, 1710, of a noble family, that had
supplied several cardinals to the sacred college, and is of considerable
distinction in Spanish history, both ecclesiastical and national. Her name
was Marianne. Her mother had danced, but with the ladies of the court, for
her own pleasure, and not for that of others. Her father, Ferdinand de
Cupis de Camargo, was a frank Spanish noble, that is to say he was poor;
he lived at Brussels, upon the crumbs of the table of the Prince de Ligne,
without counting the debts he made. His family, which was quite numerous,
was brought up by the grace of God; the father frequented the tavern,
trusting to the truth that there is a God that rules over children!

Marianne was so pretty that the Princess de Ligne used to call her her
fairy daughter. Light as a bird, she used to spring into the elms, and
jump from branch to branch. No fawn in its morning gayety had more
capricious and easy movements; no deer wounded by the huntsman ever sprang
with more force and grace. When she was ten years old, the Princess de
Ligne thought that this pretty wonder belonged of right to Paris, the city
of wonders, Paris, where the opera was then displaying its thousand and
thousand enchantments. It was decided that Mademoiselle de Camargo should
be a dancing-girl at the opera. Her father objected strenuously:
"Dancing-girl! the daughter of a gentleman, a grandee of Spain!"--"Goddess
of dance, if you please," said the Princess of Ligne, in order to quiet
him. He resigned himself to taking a journey to Paris in the prince's
carriage. He arrived in the style of a lord at the house of Mademoiselle
Prevost, whom the poets of the day celebrated under the name of
Terpsichore. She consented to give lessons to Marianne de Camargo. Three
months after his departure, M. de Camargo returned to Brussels, with the
air of a conqueror. Mademoiselle de Prevost had predicted that his
daughter would be his glory and his fortune.

After having danced at a fete given by the Prince de Ligne, Marianne de
Camargo made her first appearance at the Brussels theatre, where she
reigned for three years as first _danseuse_. Her true theatre was not
there; in spite of her triumph at Brussels, her imagination always carried
her to Paris; notwithstanding when she quitted Brussels she went to Rouen.
Finally, after a long residence in that city, she was permitted to make
her first appearance at the opera. It was on the 5th of May, 1726, for the
famous day of her debut has not been forgotten, that she appeared with all
the brilliancy of sixteen upon the first stage in the world. Mademoiselle
Prevost, already jealous, from a presentiment perhaps, had advised her to
make her first appearance in the _Characters of the Dance_, a step almost
impossible, which the most celebrated dancers hardly had dared to attemp,
at the height even of their reputation. Mademoiselle de Camargo, who
danced like a fairy, surpassed all her predecessors; her triumph was so
brilliant that on the next day all the fashions took their name after her:
hair _a la Camargo_, dresses _a la Camargo_, sleeves _a la Camargo_. All
the ladies of the court imitated her grace; there were not a few that
would have liked to have copied her face!

I have not told all yet: Mademoiselle de Camargo was made by love and for
love. She was beautiful and pretty at the same time. There could be
nothing so sweet and impassioned as her dark eyes, nothing so enchanting
as her sweet smile! Lancret, Pater, J. B. Vanloo, all the painters that
were then celebrated, tried to portray her charming face.

On the second night of Mademoiselle de Camargo's appearance on the stage,
there were twenty duels and quarrels without end at the door of the opera;
every one wanted to get in. Mademoiselle Prevost, alarmed at such a
triumph, intrigued with such success that Mademoiselle de Camargo was soon
forced to fall back to the position of a mere _figurante_. She and her
admirers had reason to be indignant. She was obliged to resign herself to
dancing unobserved with the company. But she was not long in avenging
herself with effect. One day, while she was dancing with a group of
demons, Demoulins, called the devil, did not make his appearance to dance
his solo, when the musicians had struck up, expecting his entrance. A
sudden inspiration seizes Mademoiselle de Camargo; she leaves the other
_figurantes_, she springs forward to the middle of the stage, and
improvises Demoulins's _pas de seul_, but with more effect and capricious
variety. Applause re-echoed throughout the theatre. Mademoiselle de
Prevost swore that she would ruin her youthful rival; but it was too late.
Terpsichore was dethroned. Mademoiselle de Camargo was crowned on that day
queen of the opera, absolute queen, whose power was unlimited! She was the
first who dared to make the discovery that her petticoats were too long.
Here I will let Grimm have his say: "This useful invention, which puts the
amateur in the way of forming an intelligent judgment of the legs of a
dancing-girl, was thought at that time to be the cause of a dangerous
schism. The Jansenists of the pit exclaimed heresy, scandal; and were
opposed to the shortened petticoats. The Molinists, on the contrary, held
that this innovation was in character with the spirit of the primitive
church, which was opposed to the sight of pirouettes and pigeon-wings,
embarrassed by the length of a petticoat. The Sorbonne of the opera had
for a long time great trouble in establishing the wholesome doctrine on
this point of discipline, which so much divided the faithful."

Monsieur Ferdinand de Camargo grew old with a severe anxiety about the
virtue and the salary of his daughter: he only preserved the salary.
Intoxicated with her triumph, Mademoiselle de Camargo listened too
willingly to all the lords of the court that frequented the company of the
actresses behind the scenes; it would have been necessary for the king to
appoint an historiographer, in order to record all the passions of this
_danseuse_. There was a time when all the world was in love with her.
Every one swore by Camargo; every one sang of Camargo; every one dreamed
about Camargo. The madrigals of Voltaire and of the gallant poets of that
gallant era are not forgotten.

However, the glory of Mademoiselle de Camargo was extinguished by degrees.
Like fashion that had patronized her, she passed away by degrees, never to
return. When she insisted upon retiring, although she was only forty years
of age, no one thought of preventing her: she was hardly regretted. There
was no inquiry made as to whither she had gone; she was only spoken of at
rare intervals, and then she was only alluded to as a memory of the past.
She had become something of a devotee, and very charitable. She knew by
name all the poor in her neighborhood. She occasionally was visited by
some of the notabilities of a past day, forgotten like herself.

In the _Amusements of the Heart and Mind_, a collection designed, as is
well known, to form the mind and the heart, Mademoiselle de Camargo is
charged with having had a thousand and more lovers! Without giving the lie
to this accusation, can I not prove it false by relating, in all its
simplicity, a fact which proves a profound passion on her part? A pretty
woman may dance at the opera, smile upon numberless admirers, live
carelessly from day to day, in the noisy excitement of the world; still,
there will be some blessed hours, when the heart, though often laid waste,
will flourish again all of a sudden. Love is like the sky, which looks
blue, even when reflected in the stream formed by the storm. It is thus
that love is occasionally found pure in a troubled heart. But, moreover,
this serious passion of Mademoiselle de Camargo was experienced by her in
all the freshness of her youth.

One morning, Grimm, Pont-de-Veyle, Duclos, Helvetius, presented themselves
in a gay mood, at the humble residence of the celebrated dancer. She was
then living in an old house in the Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre. An aged
serving-woman opened the door.--"We wish to see Mademoiselle de Camargo,"
said Helvetius, who had great difficulty in keeping his countenance. The
old woman led them into a parlor that was furnished with peculiar and
grotesque-looking furniture. The wainscoting was covered with pastels
representing Mademoiselle de Camargo in all her grace, and in her
different characters. But the parlor was not adorned by her portraits
only; there was a _Christ on_ _the Mount of Olives_, a _Magdalen at the
Tomb_, a _Veiled Virgin_, a _Venus_, the _Three Graces_, some _Cupids_,
half concealed beneath some rosaries and sacred relics, and _Madonnas_,
covered with trophies from the opera!

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