Page:Dumas - Tales of Strange adventure (Methuen, 1907).djvu/68

56 d'Orléans to wit and Prince Jerome Napoleon.

The former, as is very generally known, had a charming talent as an engraver. I possess proofs of his that are models of what an etching or a mezzotint should be.

As for the latter I have some verses of his, the existence of which he has probably forgotten, of a republican cast which once cost him a heavy imposition at the Gymnasium of Stuttgart, and which were given to me at Florence in 1839 or 1840 by the fascinating Princesse Mathilde.

In especial I had heard speak of the Princess of Orange as being one of those highly gifted women who, when they are not called Elizabeth or Christina, are known as Madame de Sévigné or Madame de Staël.

The final result was that, when the Prince of Orange was called to succeed his father on the throne of Holland, the idea almost inevitably suggested itself to my mind to make the journey to Amsterdam to be present at the coronation of the new King and offer my accumulated thanks in person to the ex-Prince of Orange.

I started accordingly on the 9th May, 1849. Next day the morning papers announced the fact that I was on my way to Amsterdam to write an account of the coronation festivities. They had said the same when on October 3rd, 1846, I left Paris for Madrid. I beg pardon of the journals that are so good as to chronicle my doings; but when I accept the invitations of Princes, I go as a guest and not as a reporter.

This small matter explained, I come back to the house of my departure. Besides the pleasure of locomotion and the satisfaction of the craving to breathe from time to time a different air, a delightful surprise awaited me. Just as I was passing from the waiting room on to the platform of the railway station, I felt someone twitch the skirts of my coat.

"Where are you off" to like that?" asked the individual who had taken this means of attracting my attention.

I uttered a cry of wonder:

"And you?" I asked in return.

"I am going to Holland."

"Why, so am I."

"To see the Coronation?"

"Precisely."

"So am I. Have you been invited formally. Eh?"

"No; but I know the King to be an artistic Prince, and as the breed is grown scarce since the death of the Duke of Orleans, I am anxious to see him crowned."

My travelling companion was Biard. You must know Biard by name, if you do not know him personally. Biard, as you are aware, is the gifted painter of the clever Revue de la Garde Nationale dans un Village, Le Baptêmie du Bonhomme Tropigue, Les Honneurs Partagés, the designer of the poetical canvas showing two Laplanders, at the foot of an iceberg cracking and tottering to its fall, shooting past each in his canoe and embracing as they go by, the delineator of those delightful portraits of women full of charm and brilliancy which were to be seen at the exhibitions of the last two years. More than this,—it is one of my bad habits to think of the man first, the artist second, in these cases,—he is the charming talker, the indefatigable narrator, the world-wide traveller, the kind-hearted friend, the ungrudging fellow-artist, who is so ready to forget his own claim.s whenever he speaks of other men's,—in a word such a travelling companion as I hope my readers may have to go round the world with, and as I was enchanted to have found to share my Dutch excursion.

It was a year or two since we had met. What a strange life we lead, to be sure; we are delighted to meet, enchanted to see each other, we spend hours, days, a week in enjoyment of the chance pleasure of each others society, we come back in the same railway carriage, and drive home in the same cab, we shake hands declaring with the utmost seriousness, "Well, well, how silly it is never to see each other; let us manage better in future,"—and we never meet again! Each returns to his own life, throws himself into his own work again, builds his own pile, ant-hill or giant's castle, the true magnitude of which only posterity can adjudicate, and its duration time decide.

A jovial night of good talk it was that night on the road to Brussels seated between Biard and my son. There were five or six other passengers in the Diligence; I wonder if they could make anything of our conversation. I have my doubts. After fifty leagues of road and five or six hours' travelling, I wonder whether they thought us men of intellect or simple idiots; I cannot tell. Our