Old Tavern Signs Part 8

"There entered in his house so green Full many a light-winged guest; They gaily frisked and feasted well And blithely sang their best.

"I found a couch for sweet repose Of yielding verdure made; The host himself, he o'er me spread His cool and grateful shade.

"Then asked I what I had to pay, Whereat his head he shook; O blest be he for evermore From root to topmost nook!"

CHAPTER VIII

THE SIGN IN POETRY

[Ill.u.s.tration: Zum Goldnen Hirsch Leonberg, Wurttemberg]

CHAPTER VIII

THE SIGN IN POETRY

"Er ging nicht in den Krug, Er wohnte gar darinnen."

JOACHIM RACHEL.

Like a prophetic star the sign seems to stand over the birth-house of many a poet. Or shall we not agree with Chateaubriand who saw in the eagle on the house in Bread Street, London, where Milton was born, an "augure et symbole"? And is it not a curious coincidence that the greatest French comedy-writer was born "a l'enseigne du Pavillon des Cinges dans la Rue des etuves Saint-Honore" in Paris? One of the most ingenious reconstructions of Robida (the architect of Vieux Paris, never to be forgotten by any visitor of the Parisian World's Fair of 1900) was this birthplace of Moliere's that took its name from the mighty corner-beam, covered with carved monkeys. Truly, Milton had hoped less from the eagle on his father's house than from the gentle star of Venus under which he was born. In his family Bible, one of the many autograph treasures of the British Museum, he has registered his birth with his own hand: "John Milton was born the 9th of December, 1608, die Veneris, half an hour after 6 in the morning." It availed him little to be born on the day of Venus, and the promise given to the "children of Venus" by an old German calendar of 1489, "They shall sing joyfully and free from care," was not fulfilled in his life. His marriage was an unhappy one. Taine said of him: "Ni les circonstances ni la nature l'avaient fait pour le bonheur." But the eagle on the house of his childhood proved to be a true symbol of his great future, for like an eagle he soared to the highest heights of poetical creation. Schiller was born in Marbach in the neighboring house to the "Golden Lion," whose landlord his grandfather had been.

Considering that all houses in earlier times were distinguished by such symbols, even the most pious could not help being born under a sign. Calvin, the French Puritan, was even born in an inn, the "gra.s.se hotellerie des Quatre Nations" at Noyen in Picardy. On the other hand, merry souls seem to have preferred saints as patrons of their birthplace, for Gavarni, the ingenious cartoonist, came into the world at Paris "a l'enseigne de Sainte Opportune, Rue des Vieilles Haudriettes."

Sometimes Fate seems to mock the highflying ambitions of a great poet, by changing the house of his birth into a common public-house, as happened in the case of Chateaubriand, "the gentilhomme ne" and his birthplace in the Rue des Juifs at Saint-Malo. On the other hand, Rabelais's birthplace in Chinon, which became a tavern after his death, should have been one from the first hour of his life; for his was like the "etrange nativite" of his hero Gargantua: "Soubdain qu'il fut ne, ne cria comme les aultres enfans: 'Mies, mies'; mais a haulte voix s'escrioit: 'a boire, a boire, a boire!' comme invitant tout le monde a boire." A little poem tells us the story how his study was transformed into a wine-cellar for merry revelers:--

"La chacun dit sa chansonette La le plus sage est le plus fou

La cave s'y trouve placee Ou fut jadis le cabinet, On n'y porte plus sa pensee Qu'aux douceurs d'un vin frais et net."

The oldest poetical tradition of tavern signs we find, perhaps, in the songs of Villon, who sometimes has been called the Paul Verlaine of the fifteenth century, on account of his similar vicissitudes in life.

A child of the people, he is not ashamed of his low origin:--

"Sur les tumbeaux de mes ancestres Les ames desquels Dieu embra.s.se, On n'y voyt couronnes ne sceptres."

Living the life of the common people, he mingles freely with them, and in his wordly poems many a tavern adventure is told with zest. As a roaming scholar he wanders from place to place and, having rarely a penny in his purse, he acquires easily the art of dining without paying:--

"C'est bien trompe, qui rien ne paye, Et qui peut vivre d'advantaige, Sans debourser or ne monnoye En usant de joyeux langaige."

And although he arrives at the tavern door riding shank's mare, poor devil that he is,--

"Il va a pied, par faulte d'asne,"--

he is rich in fascinating stories to win the landlord's favors and to secure ample credit. Full of self-a.s.surance, he demands always the best of everything, "boire ypocras a jour et a nuyctee" (day and night to sip Hypokras), one of Falstaff's various favorite drinks.

Curious sign-names Villon mentions; as, the tin plate,--

"le cas advint an Plat d'estain,"--

or, the golden mortar ("le mortier d'or"), and even "the pestle." The mortar was really a chemist's sign. To-day, even, we may see, in a little French provincial town over the door of a druggist, a bear diligently braying some wholesome herb, in a mortar, an "Ours qui pile."

"Or advint, environ midy, Qu'il estoit de faim estourdy; S'en vint a une hostellerie Rue de la Mortellerie, Ou pend l'enseigne du Pestel a bon logis et bon hostel; Demandant s'en a que repaistre.

Ouy vraiment, ce dist le maistre, Ne soyez de rien en soucy Car vous serez tres bien servy, De pain, de vin et de viande."

The animal kingdom is represented by the mule, "la Mulle," an inn frequented by Rabelais, too, the red donkey ("un asne rouge"), and the white horse that, like all the painted horses, had the bad habit of never moving ("le cheval blanc qui ne bouge"). We have seen above that the "White Horse" was popular in Italy, too, although an old Italian proverb pretends that it is just as capricious as a beautiful woman and a source of continual annoyances:--

"Chi ha cavallo bianco e belle moglie Non e mai senza doglie."

The most famous of all the cabarets immortalized by Villon is "le trou de la Pomme de Pin," as he usually calls it. In the "Repues Franches,"

from which we quoted the story of the Hotel du Pestel we read:--

"Et vint a la Pomme de Pin

Demandant s'ils avoient du bon vin, Et qu'on luy emplist du plus fin Mais qu'il fust blanc et amoureux."

We see that our poet-tramp hated adulteraters of wine ("les taverniers qui brouillent nostre vin") not less sincerely than his old Roman colleague Horace. In his older days he regretted the dissipation of his youth, sadly reflecting upon what a comfortable age he could have now if ...

"J'eusse maison et couche molle!

Mais quoy? je fuyoye l'escolle, Comme faict le mauvays enfant....

En escrivant cette parole A peu que le cueur ne me fend."

The tavern of the "Pomme de Pin" stood near the Madeleine Church--not the famous one we all know, but an old building in the "cite," Rue de la Lanterne, which was pulled down in the time of the Revolution.

Rabelais loved the place and praised this pineapple higher than the golden apple that young Paris once gave to Venus, thus creating endless troubles among men and G.o.ds:--

"La Pomme de Pin qui vaut mieux Que celle d'or, dont fut troublee Toute la divine a.s.semblee."

Sainte-Beuve has called this tavern, connected with so many proud names in French literature, "la veritable taverne litteraire, le vrai cabaret cla.s.sique," a t.i.tle which to-day is deserved by the "Cabaret du Chat Noir," the creation of such gifted artists as Henri Riviere, Willette, and, last but not least, Steinlen, the painter of its sign.

Next in literary celebrity stands "La Croix de Lorraine," where Moliere used to relax from his strenuous life as poet and actor and get merry over the blinking gla.s.s, "a.s.sez pour vers le soir etre en goguettes." Among the guests ponderous Boileau sometimes appeared, although he seems to have taken his admonition in the "Art poetique,"

"connaissez la ville," rather seriously and to have made quite extensive studies of the Parisian public-houses. We find him in the "Diable," who had his quarters in those days very near the Sainte Chapelle, and in "La Tete Noire," a counterpart of "The Golden Head"

in Malines where Durer lodged on his journey through the Netherlands.

It would be amusing to count how many immortal works have been created over a tavern table. Have we not heard that in our days Mascagni wrote the incomparable overture to his "Cavalleria Rusticana" on the little marble table of a modern cafe? Racine is supposed to have written his "Plaideurs" on the tavern table of the "Mouton Blanc" in Paris, and this happy circ.u.mstance seems to have affected his style very agreeably and to have made the play easier for a modern reader than the solemn dramas which are so difficult to enjoy if one does not happen to be a Frenchman. How attractive a place this "Mouton Blanc"

was we might imagine from the little rhyme:--

"Ah! que n'ai-je pour sepulture Les Deux Torches ou le Mouton!"

What gifted fathers earned through tavern creations the prodigal sons sometimes lost again in gambling. Louis Racine spent the little fortune his father had left him in the "Epee de bois," the same place where the comedy-writer Marivaux once gambled away his paternal heritage, regaining it soon, to be sure, by new and charming productions. It is mostly the stimulating company of comrades and fellow-artists, the freedom from petty household cares, that draws the poet to a quiet tavern corner; but sometimes, too, a charming landlady is the attractive force which may become so irresistible as to bind him forever in marriage bonds. Maybe, too, the tavern-bill was growing so hopelessly big that the poor dreamer saw no other solution. This was the reason why La Serre married the landlady of the "Trois ponts d'or," it being understood that "contrat de mariage valait quittance alors entre cabaretiere et poete," as Michel-Fournier expresses the matter.