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Updated: July 20, 2025
But nothing could well be more drowsy and desultory than this industry as I saw it practised, with the aid of two or three brown peasants and under the eye of a solitary douanier who strolled on the little quay beneath the western wall.
The same may be said of Picasso in his most abstract works: but not of all his followers, nor of all Mallarmé's either. Was he really a great painter? A new generation is beginning to ask the question that we answered, once and for all as we thought, ten years ago. Yes, of course, the douanier was a remarkable painter.
Down jumped Terry to see why he should be challenged in this unexpected place, and the Prince joined him. "Your papers, if you please," demanded the official. Terry produced those which had been given us at the custom-house in Grimaldi. "But these are Italian papers. Where are those for France?" asked the douanier. "This is not France," said the Prince, before Terry could speak.
By the time he had arrived at Paris he felt sleepy and dull after an aggravating doze or two on the way, and had almost forgotten the red-haired child with the vivid blue eyes, until, to his astonishment, he saw her alone parleying with a douanier, over two great boxes, for one of which there seemed to be no key.
Bless ye, my Custom House officers in green and grey; permit me to grasp the welcome hands that descend into my travelling-bag, one on each side, and meet at the bottom to give my change of linen a peculiar shake up, as if it were a measure of chaff or grain! I have nothing to declare, Monsieur le Douanier, except that when I cease to breathe, Calais will be found written on my heart.
The perfect instance in modern art of this sort of original painting raised to the highest excellence is that of Henri Rousseau, the true primitive of our so eclectic modern period. No one can have seen a picture of this most talented douanier without being convinced that technique for purely private personal needs has been beautified to an extraordinary degree.
"Sir, the fellow who had shot him was almost out of his mind; he held him on his knees and wept. Sir, no," the vestryman gave himself a shake and his gestures expressed the aversion he felt "I would not like to be a douanier!" The old man's voice had grown deeper and hoarser it was a sign of the sympathy he felt now it got its former even-tempered ring again.
The inscription above the arch, "To a happy and prosperous entrance," seemed a mockery in the old douanier days, when delays and extortions vexed the soul of the visitor, and produced a mood anything but favourable to the enjoyment of the Eternal City. But now the grievances are over. The occupation of the place is gone.
But as the Countess doesn't care to come back into France, I hope it won't matter much." As he spoke, a douanier lounged out of his little whitewashed lair, and asked for that which Terry had just said he had not. "I have no papers," Terry informed him, with a smile so agreeable that one hoped it might take away the sting.
They feel withal that, if persiflage be the great thing, there never was such a persifleur. He is the realized ideal of every one of them; the thing they are all wanting to be; of all Frenchmen the most French. He is properly their god, such god as they are fit for. Accordingly all persons, from the Queen Antoinette to the Douanier at the Porte St. Denis, do they not worship him?
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