Last among the living comes Fulgence Ridal.No writer of our times possesses more of the exuberant spirit of pure comedy than this poet,careless of fame,who will fling his more commonplace productions to theatrical managers,and keep the most charming scenes in the seraglio of his brain for himself and his friends.Of the public he asks just sufficient to secure his independence,and then declines to do anything more.Indolent and prolific as Rossini,compelled,like great poet-comedians,like Moliere and Rabelais,to see both sides of everything,and all that is to be said both for and against,he is a sceptic,ready to laugh at all things.Fulgence Ridal is a great practical philosopher.His worldly wisdom,his genius for observation,his contempt for fame ("fuss,"as he calls it)have not seared a kind heart.He is as energetic on behalf of another as he is careless where his own interests are concerned;and if he bestirs himself,it is for a friend.Living up to his Rabelaisian mask,he is no enemy to good cheer,though he never goes out of his way to find it;he is melancholy and gay.His friends dubbed him the "Dog of the Regiment."You could have no better portrait of the man than his nickname.
Three more of the band,at least as remarkable as the friends who have just been sketched in outline,were destined to fall by the way.Of these,Meyraux was the first.Meyraux died after stirring up the famous controversy between Cuvier and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire,a great question which divided the whole scientific world into two opposite camps,with these two men of equal genius as leaders.This befell some months before the death of the champion of rigorous analytical science as opposed to the pantheism of one who is still living to bear an honored name in Germany.Meyraux was the friend of that "Louis"of whom death was so soon to rob the intellectual world.
With these two,both marked by death,and unknown to-day in spite of their wide knowledge and their genius,stands a third,Michel Chrestien,the great Republican thinker,who dreamed of European Federation,and had no small share in bringing about the Saint-Simonian movement of 1830.A politician of the calibre of Saint-Just and Danton,but simple,meek as a maid,and brimful of illusions and loving-kindness;the owner of a singing voice which would have sent Mozart,or Weber,or Rossini into ecstasies,for his singing of certain songs of Beranger's could intoxicate the heart in you with poetry,or hope,or love--Michel Chrestien,poor as Lucien,poor as Daniel d'Arthez,as all the rest of his friends,gained a living with the haphazard indifference of a Diogenes.He indexed lengthy works,he drew up prospectuses for booksellers,and kept his doctrines to himself,as the grave keeps the secrets of the dead.Yet the gay bohemian of intellectual life,the great statesman who might have changed the face of the world,fell as a private soldier in the cloister of Saint-Merri;some shopkeeper's bullet struck down one of the noblest creatures that ever trod French soil,and Michel Chrestien died for other doctrines than his own.His Federation scheme was more dangerous to the aristocracy of Europe than the Republican propaganda;it was more feasible and less extravagant than the hideous doctrines of indefinite liberty proclaimed by the young madcaps who assume the character of heirs of the Convention.All who knew the noble plebeian wept for him;there is not one of them but remembers,and often remembers,a great obscure politician.
Esteem and friendship kept the peace between the extremes of hostile opinion and conviction represented in the brotherhood.Daniel d'Arthez came of a good family in Picardy.His belief in the Monarchy was quite as strong as Michel Chrestien's faith in European Federation.Fulgence Ridal scoffed at Leon Giraud's philosophical doctrines,while Giraud himself prophesied for d'Arthez's benefit the approaching end of Christianity and the extinction of the institution of the family.
Michel Chrestien,a believer in the religion of Christ,the divine lawgiver,who taught the equality of men,would defend the immortality of the soul from Bianchon's scalpel,for Horace Bianchon was before all things an analyst.
There was plenty of discussion,but no bickering.Vanity was not engaged,for the speakers were also the audience.They would talk over their work among themselves and take counsel of each other with the delightful openness of youth.If the matter in hand was serious,the opponent would leave his own position to enter into his friend's point of view;and being an impartial judge in a matter outside his own sphere,would prove the better helper;envy,the hideous treasure of disappointment,abortive talent,failure,and mortified vanity,was quite unknown among them.All of them,moreover,were going their separate ways.For these reasons,Lucien and others admitted to their society felt at their ease in it.Wherever you find real talent,you will find frank good fellowship and sincerity,and no sort of pretension,the wit that caresses the intellect and never is aimed at self-love.
When the first nervousness,caused by respect,wore off,it was unspeakably pleasant to make one of this elect company of youth.
