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The most eloquent page in Liszt's "Chopin" is the narrative of an evening in the Chaussee d'Antin, for it demonstrates the Hungarian's literary gifts and feeling for the right phrase. This description of Chopin's apartment "invaded by surprise" has a hypnotizing effect on me. The very furnishings of the chamber seem vocal under Liszt's fanciful pen.
He mounted the windmill situated on the outskirts of Fleurus to survey the enemy's position. It was a fair scene that lay before him. Straight in front ran the high-road which joined the Namur-Nivelles chaussée, some six miles away to the north-east. On either side stretched cornfields, whose richness bore witness alike to the toils and the warlike passions of mankind.
The worthy man went to the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin just as the banker was returning from the Bourse; they met upon the stairway. "Well, my poor Birotteau!" said du Tillet, with a stealthy glance. "Poor!" exclaimed the debtor proudly, "I am very rich. I shall lay my head this night upon my pillow with the happiness of knowing that I have paid you in full."
Oftentimes there were real riots. But we heard there for the first time the overture of Manfred, Mendelssohn's Symphony in A minor, and the overture to Tannhauser. The modern French school found the doors in the Rue Bergère closed to them, but they were welcomed with open arms at the Chaussée d'Antin. Among them were Reber, Gounod, and Gouvy, and even beginners like Georges Bizet and myself.
'Victor works himself out, he replied. 'We are to go through it all again? 'If you have not the force to contain him. 'How contain him? Up went Colney's shoulders. 'You may see it all before you, he said, 'straight as the Seine chaussee from the hill of La Roche Guyon. He looked for her recollection of the scene. 'Ah, the happy ramble that year! she cried. 'And my Nesta just seven.
The evening of the day on which the Count of Morcerf had left Danglars' house with feelings of shame and anger at the rejection of the projected alliance, M. Andrea Cavalcanti, with curled hair, mustaches in perfect order, and white gloves which fitted admirably, had entered the courtyard of the banker's house in La Chaussee d'Antin.
"And Crebillon," said he. "And la Chaussee, and the younger Crebillon," said some one. "He ought to be more agreeable than his father." "And there are also the Abbes Prevot and d'Olivet." Madame de Pompadour repeated to me this conversation, which I wrote down the same evening. M. de Marigny, also, talked to me about it.
After the second bend the chaussee, just as he anticipated, straightened out and ran clear away between an ever-narrowing double line of poplars to become a bluish blob on the horizon. But of the car nothing was to be seen. For the second time Robin pulled up. He took serious counsel with himself. He estimated that he could see for about three miles along the road.
"Vy, now, Mr Simple," said the woman, "ar'n't you a nice lady's man, to go for to ax me to muddle my way through all the dead dogs, cabbage-stalks, and stinking hakes' heads, with my bran new shoes and clean stockings?" I looked at her, and sure enough she was, as they say in France, bien chaussee. "Come, Mr Simple, let him out to come for his clothes, and you'll see that he's back in a moment."
But on the hard brick pave wheels left no mark. The first side road he came to was likewise paved in brick. In grave perplexity Robin came to a halt. Then his eye fell upon a puddle. It lay on the edge of the footpath bordering the chaussee about five yards beyond the turning. The soft mud which skirted it showed the punched-out pattern of a studded tyre!
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