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Updated: June 21, 2025
On the long charcoal stove which Daddy under old Barbier's advice had just put up, on the hot plates near, and the glowing range in the background, innumerable pans were simmering and steaming. Here was a table covered with stewed fruits; there another laden with round vegetable pies just out of the oven while a heap of tomatoes on a third lent their scarlet to the busy picture.
And they discussed the war, the political prospect, and Barbier's French letters till nearly midnight. All the exile's nationality had revived, and so lost was he in weeping over France he had scarcely breath left wherewith to curse the Empire.
For after a very short stay at Brussels the nephew had boldly and suddenly pushed over to England, and had spent a fortnight in Barbier's lodgings reconnoitering his uncle. As to the uncle, Xavier had struck him, on closer inspection, as one of the most dissolute young reprobates he had ever beheld.
"Marshal Broglie is encamped under the guns of Prague," says Barbier's journal: "his camp is spoken of as a masterpiece. As there is reason to be shy of the inhabitants, who are for the Queen of Hungary, a battery has been trained upon Prague, the garrison camps upon the ramparts, and Marshal Belle-Isle patrols every night."
Barbier's Jamber was one of the books of poems that I had loved for years, and I knew many of the strophes by heart, for instance, the celebrated ones on Freedom and on Napoleon; I had also noticed how Barbier's vigour had subsided in subsequent collections of poems; in reality, he was still living on his reputation from the year 1831, and without a doubt most people believed him to be dead.
It was gay, foreign, romantic, unlike anything David had ever seen in his northern world. He sat down, with Barbier's stories running in his head. Mademoiselle Delaunay was George Sand independent, gifted, on the road to fame like that great declassee of old; and he was her friend and comrade, a humble soldier, a camp follower, in the great army of letters. Their meal was of the lightest.
Out to all parts streamed the letters which had been so long delayed. Barbier and David, walking together one bitter evening towards Barbier's lodgings, silent, with hanging heads, met the postman on Barbier's steps, who held out a packet. The Frenchman took it with a cry; the two rushed upstairs and fell upon the letters and papers it contained.
Barbier's talk had insensibly determined all his ideas of the imperial regime. How much longer would France suffer the villainous gang who ruled her?
In the mirror of the mind he saw himself perpetually draped in the pathos of exile and the dignity of persecution, and the phrases by which he was wont to impress this inward vision on the brutal English sense had become, in the course of years, an effective and touching habit with him. David had been Barbier's pupil in the first instance at one of the classes of the Mechanics' Institute.
And meanwhile the handsome boy sat opposite, glad to laugh by way of reaction, but at bottom stirred by the same emotion, and ready to share in the same adorations. Gradually David learnt his way about this bygone world of Barbier's recollection.
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