A Tramp's Wallet Part 19

"It just ain't, if they'd only let us alone; but they won't-them blessed Peelers I mean. How would you like it?" he continued, appealing to me with as hard a look in the face as if I had been his most implacable enemy, "how would you like it, if you had looked up a jolly good pitch, and a reg'lar good comp'ny was a looking on-at the west end, in a slap up street, where there ain't no thoroughfare-and jist as you're a doin' the basin, and the browns is a droppin' into the 'at, up comes a Peeler.

Then it's 'Move on!' You must go;" he stared harder than ever, and thumped his hand on the table; "I say you _must_ go, and lose p'raps a pick up as 'u'd keep you for a week. How would you like that?"

"I should expostulate."

"Spostallate!-would you?" a slight curl of the lip, expressive of contempt at my ignorance of the general behaviour of policemen. "Ah! if you say 'bo!' to a Peeler he pulls you, and what's the consequence? Why, a month at the Steel!"-which hard name I understood to be given to the House of Correction.

"But the police are not unreasonable," I suggested.

"Well, p'raps some of 'em ain't," he remarked, "but you can't pick out your policemen, that's where it is."

"Do the police never interfere with you here?" I asked.

"They used to it; and I've had to beg back my traps more than once from the borough of the Police Correctionell, as they call it; but then that was 'cause I was hignorant of the law. When they see that I could git a 'onest living, an old cove in a c.o.c.ked hat ses he to me, ses he, 'You're a saltimbanc, you are. Wery good. You go to the borough of police for public morals, and the minister (not a parson, mind you, but the 'ed hinspector), if he's satisfied with your character he'll give you a ticket."

"And did he?"

"Course he did; and I'm now one of the reg'lar perfession. I aint to be hinterfered with; leastways, without I'm donkey enough to go on the cross and be took up. _That's_ the ticket," he exclaimed triumphantly, pulling out a bronze badge, "I'm number thirty-five, I am."

"And can you perform anywhere?"

"No; the police picked out thirteen good places-'pitches,' we calls 'em-where we can play. Ther's the list-thirteen on 'em all of a row-beginning on the Boulevards at the Place de la Colonne de Juilliet, and ending in the Champs Elysees." He unfolded a neatly written doc.u.ment that plainly defined the limits of Paris within which he, in common with his co-professors, was allowed to display his abilities.

With a small gratuity for the new light thrown upon the subject of street performances, I parted from my enterprising countryman, wis.h.i.+ng him every success.

I have sometimes wondered whether-considering that we have all sorts of licensed people about us; people who are licensed to cram us upon steam-boats; to crowd us into omnibuses; to jolt us in ramshackle cabs; to supply us with bad brandy and other adulterated drinks; licentiates for practising physic; licentiates for carrying parcels; licentiates for taking money at their own doors for the diversions of singing and dancing; licentiates for killing game with gunpowder, which other people have been licensed to make-whether, I say, it would not be wise to license in England out-of-door as well as in-door amus.e.m.e.nts.

CHAPTER XXVI.

PeRE PANPAN.

"Monsieur Panpan lives in the Place Valois," said my friend, newly arrived from London on a visit to Paris, "and as I am under a promise to his brother Victor to deliver a message on his behalf, I must keep my word even if I go alone, and execute my mission in pantomime. Will you be my interpreter?"

The Place Valois is a dreamy little square formed by tall houses: graced by an elegant fountain in its centre; guarded by a red-legged sentinel; and is chiefly remarkable in Parisian annals as the scene of the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Duc de Berri. There is a quiet, melancholy air about the place which accords well with its traditions; and even the little children who make it their playground on account of the absence of both vehicles and equestrians, pursue their sports in a subdued, tranquil way, hanging about the fountain's edge, and dabbling in the water with their little fingers. Monsieur Panpan's residence was not difficult to find. We entered by a handsome porte-cochere into a paved court-yard, and, having duly accounted for our presence to the watchful concierge who sat sedulously peering out of a green sentry-box, commenced our ascent to the upper regions. Seeing that Monsieur lived on the fourth floor, and that the steps of the s.p.a.cious staircase were of that shallow description which disappoint the tread by falling short of its expectations, it was no wonder that we were rather out of breath when we reached the necessary elevation; and that we paused a moment to collect our thoughts, and calm our respiration, before knocking at the little backroom door, which we knew to be that of Monsieur Panpan.

Madame Panpan received us most graciously, setting chairs for us, and apologising for her husband, who, poor man, was sitting up in his bed, with a wan countenance, and hollow glistening eyes. We were in the close heavy air of a sick chamber. The room was very small, and the bedstead occupied a large portion of its s.p.a.ce. It was lighted by one little window only, and that looked down a sort of square shaft which served as a ventilator to the house. A pale child, with large wandering eyes, watched us intently from behind the end of the little French bedstead, while the few toys he had been playing with lay scattered upon the floor.

The room was very neat, although its furniture was poor and scanty; and by the brown saucepan perched upon the top of the diminutive German stove, which had strayed, as it were, from its chimney corner into the middle of the room, we knew that the pot-au-feu was in preparation.

Madame, before whom was a small table covered with the unfinished portions of a corset, was very agreeable-rather coquettish, indeed, we should have said in England. Her eyes were bright and cheerful, and her hair drawn back from her forehead a la Chinoise. In a graceful, but decided way, she apologised for continuing her labours, which were evidently works of necessity rather than of choice.

"And Victor, that good boy," she exclaimed, when we had further explained the object of our visit, "was quite well! I am charmed! And he had found work, and succeeding so well in his affairs? I am enchanted! It is so amiable of him to send me this little cadeau!"

Monsieur Panpan, with his strange l.u.s.trous eyes, if not enchanted, rubbed his thin bony hands together as he sat up in the bed, and chuckled in an unearthly way at the good news. Having executed our commission, we felt it would be intrusive to prolong our stay, and therefore rose to depart, but received so pressing an invitation to repeat the visit, that, on the part of myself and friend, who was to leave Paris in a few days, I could not refuse to comply with a wish so cordially expressed, and evidently sincere. And thus commenced my acquaintance with the Panpans.

I cannot trace the course of our acquaintance, or tell how, from an occasional call, my visits became those of a bosom friend; but certain it is, that soon each returning Sunday saw me a guest at the table of Monsieur Panpan, where my couvert and serviette became sacred to my use; and, after the meal, were carefully cleaned and laid apart for the next occasion. This, I afterwards learned, was a customary mark of consideration towards an esteemed friend among the poorer cla.s.s of Parisians. I soon learned their history. Their every-day existence was a simple, easily read story, and not the less simple and touching because it is the every-day story of thousands of poor French families. Madame was a stay-maker; and the whole care and responsibility of providing for the wants and comforts of a sick husband; for her little Victor, her eldest born; and the monthly stipend of her infant Henri, out at nurse some hundred leagues from Paris, hung upon the unaided exertions of her single hands, and the scrupulous and wonderful economy of her management.

One day I found Madame in tears. Panpan himself lay with rigid features, and his wiry hands spread out upon the counterpane. Madame was at first inconsolable and inexplicable, but at length, amid sobs, half suppressed, related the nature of their new misfortune. Would Monsieur believe that those miserable nurse-people, insulting as they were, had sent from the country to say, that unless the three months nursing of little Henri, together with the six pounds of lump sugar, which formed part of the original bargain, were immediately paid, cette pauvre bete (Henri that was), would be instantly dispatched to Paris, and proceedings taken for the recovery of the debt? Ces miserables!

Here poor Madame Panpan could not contain herself, but gave way to her affliction in a violent outburst of tears. And yet the poor child, the cause of all this sorrow, was almost as great stranger to his mother as he was to me, who had never seen him in my life. With scarcely a week's existence to boast of, he had been swaddled up in strange clothes; intrusted to strange hands; and hurried away some hundred leagues from the capital, to scramble about the clay floor of an unwholesome cottage, in company perhaps with some half-dozen atomies like himself, as strange to each other as they were to their own parents, to pa.s.s those famous mois de nourrice which form so important and momentous a period in the lives of most French people. Madame Panpan was however in no way responsible for this state of things; the system was there, not only recognised, but encouraged; become indeed a part of the social habits of the people, and it was no wonder if her poverty should have driven her to so popular and ready a means of meeting a great difficulty. How she extricated herself from this dilemma, it is not necessary to state; suffice it to say, that a few weeks saw cette pet.i.te bete Henri, happily domiciled in the Place Valois; and, if not overburdened with apparel, at least released from the terrible debt of six and thirty francs, and six pounds of lump-sugar.

It naturally happened, that on the pleasant Sunday afternoons, when we had disposed of our small, but often sumptuous dinner; perhaps a gigot de mouton with a clove of garlic in the knuckle; a frica.s.see de lapins with onions, or a fricandeau, Panpan himself would tell me part of his history; and in the course of our salad; of our little dessert of fresh fruit, or currant jelly; or perhaps, stimulated by the tiniest gla.s.s of brandy, would grow warm in the recital of his early experiences, and the unhappy chance which had brought him into his present condition.

"Ah, Monsieur!" he said one day, "little would you think, to see me cribbed up in this miserable bed, that I had been a soldier, or that the happiest days of my life had been pa.s.sed in the woods of Fontainebleau, following the chase in the retinue of King Charles the Tenth of France.

I was a wild young fellow in my boyhood; and, when at the age of eighteen I drew for the conscription and found it was my fate to serve, I believe I never was so happy in my life. I entered the cavalry; and, in spite of the heavy duties and strict discipline, it was a glorious time. It makes me mad, Monsieur, when I think of the happy days I have spent on the road, in barracks, and in snug country quarters, where there was cider or wine for the asking; to find myself in a solitary corner of great, thoughtless Paris, sick and helpless. It would be something to die out in the open fields like a worn-out horse, or to be shot like a wounded one. But this is terrible!-and I am but thirty-eight."

We comforted him in the best way we could with sage axioms of antique date, or more lively stories of pa.s.sing events; but I saw a solitary tear creeping down the cheek of Madame Panpan, even in the midst of a quaint sally; and, under pretence of arranging his pillow, she bent over his head and kissed him gently on the forehead.

Pere Panpan-I had come by degrees to call him "Pere," although he was still young; for it sounded natural and kindly-continued his narrative in his rambling, gossiping way. He had been chosen, he said, to serve in the Garde Royale, of whom fifteen thousand sabres were stationed in and about the capital at this period; and in the royal forest of Fontainebleau, in the enjoyment of a sort of indolent activity, he pa.s.sed his happiest days; now employed in the chase, now in the palace immediately about the person of the king, in a succession of active pleasures, or easy, varied duties. Panpan was no republican. Indeed, I question whether any very deep political principles governed his sentiments; which naturally allied themselves with those things that yielded the greatest amount of pleasure.

The misfortunes of Pere Panpan dated from the revolution of eighteen hundred and thirty. Then the glittering pageantry in the palace of Fontainebleau vanished like a dream. The wild clatter of military preparation; the rattling of steel and the trampling of horses; and away swept troop after troop, with sword-belt braced and carabine in hand, to plunge into the mad uproar of the streets of Paris, risen, stones and all, in revolution. The Garde Royale did their duty in those three terrible days, and if their gallant charges through the enc.u.mbered streets, or their patient endurance amid the merciless showers of indescribable missiles, were all in vain, it was because their foe was animated by an enthusiasm of which they knew nothing, save in the endurance of its effects. Panpan's individual fate, amid all this turmoil, was lamentable enough.

A few hours amid the dust; the sweltering heat; the yellings of the excited populace; the roaring of cannon and the pattering of musketry; saw the troop in which he served, broken and scattered, and Panpan himself rolling in the dust, with a thousand lights flas.h.i.+ng in his eyes, and a bra.s.s b.u.t.ton lodged in his side!

"Those villains of Parisians!" he exclaimed, "not content with showering their whole garde meuble upon our heads, fired upon us a diabolical collection of missiles, such as no mortal ever thought of before:-bits of broken bra.s.s; little plates of tin and iron rolled into sugar-loaves; crushed brace-buckles; crooked nails and wads of metal wire;-anything, indeed, that in their extremity they could lay their hands on, and ram into the muzzle of a gun! These things inflicted fearful gashes, and, in many cases, a mere flesh-wound turned out a death-stroke. Few that got hurt in our own troop lived to tell the tale."

A few more days and the whole royal cavalcade was scattered like chaff before the wind, and Charles the Tenth a fugitive on his way to England; a few more days and the wily Louis Philippe was taking the oath to a new const.i.tution, and our friend, Panpan, lay carefully packed, bra.s.s b.u.t.ton and all, in the Hotel-Dieu. The bra.s.s b.u.t.ton was difficult to find, and when found the ugly fissure it had made grew gangrened, and would not heal; and thus it happened that many a bed became vacant, and got filled, and was vacant again, as their occupants either walked out, or were borne out, of the hospital gates, before Panpan was declared convalescent, and finally dismissed from the Hotel-Dieu as "cured."

The proud trooper was, however, an altered man; his health and spirits were gone; the whole corps of which he had so often boasted was broken up and dispersed; his means of livelihood were at an end, and, what was worse, he knew of no other in the exercise of which he could gain his daily bread. There were very many such helpless, tradeless men pacing the streets of Paris, when the fever of the revolution was cooled down, and ordinary business ways began to take their course. Nor was it those alone who were uninstructed in any useful occupation, but there were also the turbulent, dissatisfied spirits; builders of barricades, and leaders of club-sections, whom the late excitement, and their temporary elevation above their fellow workmen, had left restless and ambitious, and whose awakened energies, if not directed to some useful and congenial employment, would infallibly lead to mischief.

Panpan chuckled over the fate which awaited some of these ardent youths: "Ces gaillards la!" he said, "had become too proud and troublesome to be left long in the streets of Paris; they would have fomented another revolution; so Louis Philippe, under pretence of rewarding his brave 'soldats laboureurs,' whom he was ready to shake by the hand in the public streets in the first flush of success, enrolled them in the army, and sent them to the commanding officers with medals of honour round their necks, and special recommendations to promotion in their hands.

They hoped to become Marshals of France in no time. Pauvres diables!

they were soon glad to hide their decorations, and cease bragging about street-fighting and barricades, for the regulars relished neither their swaggering stories nor the notion of being set aside by such parvenus; and they got so quizzed, snubbed, and tormented, that they were happy at last to slide into their places as simple soldats, and trust to the ordinary course for promotion."

As for Panpan, his street wanderings terminated in his finding employment in a lace manufactory, and it soon became evident that his natural talent here found a congenial occupation. He came by degrees to be happy in his new position of a workman. Then occurred the serious love pa.s.sage of his life-his meeting with Louise, now Madame Panpan. It was the simplest matter in the world: Panpan, to whom life was nothing without the Sunday quadrille at the barriere, having resolved to figure on the next occasion in a pair of bottes vernis, waited upon his bootmaker-every Parisian has his bootmaker-to issue his mandates concerning their length, shape, and general construction. He entered the boutique of Mons. Cuire, when, lo!

he beheld in the little back parlour, the most delicate little foot that ever graced a shoe, or tripped to measure on the gra.s.s. He would say nothing of the owner of this miracle; of her face-which was full of intelligence; of her figure-which was gentille toute a fait-but for that dear, chaste, ravis.h.i.+ng model of a foot! so modestly pose upon the cus.h.i.+on. Heaven!-and Panpan unconsciously heaved a long sigh, and brought with it from the very bottom of his heart a vow to become its possessor. There was no necessity for anything very rash or very desperate in the case, as it happened, for the evident admiration of Panpan had inspired Louise with an impromptu interest in his favour, and he being besides gentil garcon, their chance rencontre was but the commencement of a friends.h.i.+p which ripened into love,-and so the old story over again, with marriage at the end of it.

Well! said M. Panpan, time rolled on, and little Louis was born. This might have been a blessing, but while family cares and expenses were growing upon them, Panpan's strength and energies were withering away.

He suffered little pain, but what there was seemed to spring from the old wound; and there were whole days when he lay a mere wreck, without the power or will to move; and when his feeble breath seemed pa.s.sing away for ever. Happily, these relapses occurred only at intervals, but by slow degrees they became more frequent and more overwhelming. Madame Panpan's skill and untiring perseverance grew to be, as other resources failed, the main, and for many, many months, the whole support of the family.

Then came a time when the winter had pa.s.sed away, and the spring was already in its full, and still Panpan lay helpless in bed with shrunken limbs and hollow, pallid cheeks,-and then little Henri was born.

Pere Panpan having arrived at this crisis in his history, drew a long breath, and stretched himself back in his bed. I knew the rest. It was soon after the event last named that I made his acquaintance, and the remainder of his simple story, therefore, devolves upon me.

The debility of the once das.h.i.+ng soldier increased daily, and as it could be traced to no definite cause, he gradually became a physiological enigma; and thence naturally a pet of the medical profession. Not that he was a profitable patient, for the necessities of the family were too great to allow of so expensive a luxury as a doctor's bill; but urged, partly by commiseration, and partly by professional curiosity, both ardent students and methodical pract.i.tioners would crowd round his simple bed, probing him with instruments, poking him with their fingers, and punching him with their fists; each with a new theory to propound and establish; and the more they were baffled and contradicted in their preconceived notions, the more obstinate they became in their enforcement. Panpan's own thoughts upon the subject always reverted to the bra.s.s b.u.t.ton, although he found few to listen to or encourage him in his idea. His medical patrons were a constant source of suffering to him, but he bore with them patiently; sometimes reviving from his prostration as if inspired, then lapsing as suddenly into his old state of semi-pain and total feebleness. As a last hope, he was removed from his fourth floor in the Place Valois, to become an inmate of the Bicetre, and a domiciled subject of contention and experiment to its medical staff.

The Bicetre is a large, melancholy-looking building, half hospital half madhouse, situated a few leagues from Paris. I took a distaste to it on my very first visit. It always struck me as a sort of menagerie, I suppose from the circ.u.mstance of there having been pointed out to me, immediately on my entrance, a railed and fenced portion of the building, where the fiercer sort of inhabitants were imprisoned. Moreover, I met with such strange looks and grimaces; such bewildering side-glances or moping stares, as I traversed the open court-yards, with their open corridors, or the long arched pa.s.sages of the interior, that the whole of the inmates came before me as creatures in human shape indeed, but as possessed by the cunning or the ferocity of the mere animal. Yet it was a public hospital, and in the performance of its duties there was an infinite deal of kindly attention, consummate skill, and unwearying labour. Its a.s.sociations were certainly unhappy, and had, I am sure, a depressing effect upon at least the physically disordered patients. It may be that as the Bicetre is a sort of forlorn hope of hospitals, where the more desperate or inexplicable cases only are admitted, it naturally acquires a sombre and ominous character; but in no establishment of a similar kind (and I have seen many) did I meet with such depressing influences.

Panpan was at first in high spirits at the change. He was to be restored to health in a brief period, and he really did in the first few weeks make rapid progress towards convalescence. Already a sort of gymnasium had been arranged over his bed, so that he might, by simple muscular exercises, regain his lost strength; and more than once I have guided his tottering steps along the arched corridors, as, clad in the gray uniform of the hospital, and supported by a stick, he took a brief mid-day promenade.

We made him cheering Sunday visits, Madame Panpan, Louis, the little Henri, and I, and infringed many a rule of the hospital in regard to his regimen. There was a charcutier living close to the outer walks, and when nothing else could be had, we purchased some of his curiously prepared delicacies, and smuggled them in under various guises. To him they were delicious morsels amid the uniform soup and bouillon of the hospital, and I dare say did him neither good nor harm.

Poor Madame Panpan! apart from the unceasing exertions which her difficult position demanded of her; apart from the hara.s.sing days, the sleepless nights, and pecuniary deficiencies which somehow never were made up; apart from the shadow of death which hovered ever near her; and the unvarying labours which pulled at her fingers, and strained at her eyes, so that her efforts seemed still devoted to one ever unfinished corset,-there arose another trouble where it was least expected; and alas! I was the unconscious cause of a new embarra.s.sment. I was accused of being her lover. Numberless accusations rose up against us. Had I not played at pat-ball with Madame in the Bois de Boulogne? Yes, pardi!

while Panpan lay stretched upon the gra.s.s a laughing spectator of the game; and which was brought to an untimely conclusion by my breaking my head against the branch of a tree. But had I not accompanied Madame alone to the Champs Elysees to witness the jeu-de-feu on the last fete of July? My good woman, did I not carry Louis pick-a-back the whole way?

and was not the crowd so dense and fearful, that our progress to the Champs Elysees was barred at its very mouth by the fierce tornado of the mult.i.tude, and the trampling to death of three unhappy mortals, whose shrieks and groans still echo in my ear? and was it not at the risk of life or limb that I fought my way along the Rue de la Madeleine, with little Louis clinging round my neck, and Madame hanging on to my coat-tail? Amid the swaying and eddying of the crowd, the mounted Garde Munic.i.p.ale came das.h.i.+ng into the thickest of the press, to s.n.a.t.c.h little children, and even women, from impending death, and bear them to a place of safety. And if we did take a bottle of Stra.s.sburger beer on the Boulevards, when at length we found a freer place to breathe in, faint and reeling as we were, pray where was the harm, and who would not have done as much? Ah, Madame! if you had seen, as I did, that when we reached home the first thing poor Madame Panpan came to do, was to fall upon her husband's neck, and in a voice broken with sobs, and as though her heart would break, to thank that merciful G.o.d who had spared her in her trouble, that she might still work for him and his children! you would not be so ready with your blame.

But there was a heavier accusation still. Did you not, sir, entertain Madame to supper in the Rue de Roule? with the utmost extravagance too, not to mention the omelette soufflee with which you must needs tickle your appet.i.tes, and expressly order for the occasion? And more than that: did you not then take coffee in the Rue St. Honore, and play at dominoes with Madame in the salon? Alas, yes! all this is true, and the cause still more true and more sad; for it was under the terrible impression that Madame Panpan and her two children-for they were both with us, you will remember, even little Henri-had not eaten of one tolerable meal throughout a whole week, that these unpardonable acts were committed on the Sunday. An omelette soufflee, you know, must he ordered; but as for the dominoes, I admit that that was an indiscretion.