DICKENS IN PARIS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 23, 27 January 1923, Page 18

DICKENS IN PARIS

FRENCH LITERARY CIRCLES

WELCOME TO ENGLISH WHITER.

Dickens came to Paris for a holiday in the ■winter of 1846, and, as became a family man, was not slow in finding a house within nodding distance of' that monument of Parisian respectability, the Arc da Triomphe, writes " V.S.P." in the " Christian Science Monitor." The house was at 48, Rue de Courcelles^and we find him describing it to Forster in the most uproarious fashion, as ".the most ridiculous, extraordinary, unparellelled, and preposterous " in the world, being " something between a baby house, a shades, a haunted castle, and a mad kind of clock." Part of Dickens's correspondence from Paris was in French, and in quite good French too, although we are told his accent was not particularly brilliant.

At first he was not very fctfd of French things, and on his seconoj day he managed to find everything .at fault. He fell into the facile vices of. the tourist —those of comparing unnecessarily and of making easy generalisations. Nothing was as fine as his beloved and smutty London ! He finished by laughing at the French as he had laughed at everything else in life, and we find him gradually making his way into Paris literary circles. Through Regnier of the Comedie Francaise he met many of the literary lights of the day. Forster writes: "We supped •with Dumas himself, and Eugene Sue, and met ' Theophile Gautier and' Alphonse Karr. We saw Lamartine, and had much friendly intercourse with Scribe and with the kind, good-natured Amedee Pichot."

Dickens also called on Victor Hugo, who, " addressed very charming flattery, in the best taste " to the Englishman, who was delighted with the visit. Dickens was never a hurler of epithets like Hugo, but.one feels the two men must have had much in common ; one the painter of the mob in Notre Dame de Paris; the other who gave us the lurid picture of ,the' Gordon Riots. Both writers were enchanted with the colour of human character, Hugo preferring the " purple and gold " and the darker shades to Dickens's bizarre colourings. Dickens's. second stay in Paris was, if anything, more literary. This time we find him working hard in an apartment in the Champs Elysees. He was well known in France then; his fame had crossed the Channel to take a permanent place in the Frenchman's heart. The " Moniteur," a daily newspaper of the time (1855-56) was publishing " Martin Chuzzlewit " as a feuilleton and many of his other books had been translated. Fame had smiled simnily on Dfckens, and we hear of him'as a frequent guest of Scribe, the dramatist. He also met Auber, who was very prouft of having once been to Stoke Xewington; and the Brownings; and Eaw much of Thackeray, who was always crossing over to see his daughters. In fact, all Dickens s friends at this time were artists in some capacity, and'he appears to have enjoyed every moment of their company. It is true he was not greatly impressed by George Sand; but then he; was no De Musset! ■ ' ■

As Regnier's friend Dickens was always welcome in the Green Room of the Comedie Francaise. although he was not an admirer of the drama, as presented there. He describes many of the plays in his letters to Forster, and they are full of the funniest dramatic . criticism over penned^ L/md myself wondering if the Cockney*was not too strong in Dickens to allow him to appreciate the' almost glacial finesse of the French drama of the period. Drawing-room subtleties had little place in the Dickensian sense of humour. He was for the-loud laughter rather than the amused cough or titter I think he must have had Lamb's love of honest English humour, and that he too longed for that joyous "0 La! 0 La! Bobby" of Dicky Suett. Manners may make the man but they would ruin Dickens's humour; and this is probably one of the explanations of his deliriously unorthodox criticism of the famous theatre: "There is" a dreary classicality at that establishment calculated to freeze the marrow." V

Time had brought its revenges on the French stage: "The Grillon dv Foyer — 'The Cricket on the Hearth"— has been one of the most popular plays in tne Pans repertoires for many years. So the year passed .on. with its work and pleasure, in happy' contrast with those sordid early days. Now Dickens could look out of the window of his apartment in tile Champs Elysees and see the Emperor and Empress driving to or from St. Cloud; Ary Scheffffer, the great Xhitch painter living in Paris, was begging to be allowed to paint the writer's portrait j "Little Dorrit" was being written; and the great men of France were his friends.