[Illustration: GUSTAVE COURBET. _From a painting by himself in the Louvre._ [_To face p. 82._] I had often seen Courbet in former days at the Café Royal, where he used to go for his midday meal. As he was something of a _sommité_, a celebrity in art as elsewhere for all his rebellious proclivities, the maître d’hôtel used to receive him with the greatest ceremony, bowing to the ground and rubbing his hands: “Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet. Que pourrai-je offrir à Monsieur ce matin. J’ai un Chateaubriand qui est de toute confiance,” etc., etc., etc. Courbet would sit down with majestic condescension, like a true anarchist, deigning to be waited upon with all the adulation which was due to him. Well, it so happened that after the little scene which I have described in the Place Vendôme, we went on to the Café Royal, where we were received with effusive welcome by the maître d’hôtel. Like everybody else, he began talking about the recent tragedies and inveighing against the Commune. I told him of the arrest of Courbet, his old patron, and he at once launched out into the most violent abuse of him. “Oh! Monsieur, ne me parlez pas de ce sale communeux! Si jamais il ose remettre les pieds ici c’est à moi qu’il aura affaire!” I asked him why he used the word “communeux,” I thought the word was communard. “Oui, Monsieur,” he replied sententiously, “mais on dit _crapule_, _crapuleux_, _commune_, _communeux_, c’est plus méritant.” Courbet was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, and was condemned, moreover, to pay a very heavy fine for the fall of the column—none too severe a punishment in all the circumstances of the case. Some time after the expiration of the six months I was again in Paris, and went to the Café Royal for luncheon. Who should come in a few minutes later but the great Courbet. Up rushed the maître d’hôtel to meet him, and I anticipated a first-rate row. Not a bit of it! To my amazement I heard the old welcome: “Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet! Qu’est-ce-qu’on peut vous offrir ce matin?” etc. The old story, the old refrain, the obsequious bows, the festive rubbing of hands. I could not resist reminding my friend of what he had said a few months before. Ah! he said, that was all so long ago! “D’ailleurs,” he added, “il ne faut pas oublier qu’il a été ministre, et on ne sais jamais ce qui peut arriver!” Old Lady Edward Thynne used to tell a capital story of Courbet, whom she met a few years before 1870 at some artistic gathering in Paris. He had been airing his political views for some minutes, when to draw him out she said: “But then it seems that all this while I have been talking with a real red republican.” “Rouge, Madame,” was the answer, “dites, plutôt, violet,” and then he went off again at score. “But why,” she asked, “do you say that you want to pull down the Tuileries?” “Madame, parce que tant que cette sacrée maison durera il y aura toujours des coquins qui voudront venir y demeurer.”