[1] "Quand Cromwell passe en Irlande, il marque le nombre et la qualité des gens massacrés, et puis c'est tout. Et cependant quels beaux massacres! Quelle occasion pour pénétrer le lecteur de la froide fureur qui poussait les épées des fanatiques!"--Taine: _Essay on Guizot_. XXVII THÉOPHILE GAUTIER On a certain day in the beginning of January 1830, three young men might have been seen making their way along a newly paved road in the neighbourhood of the Champs Élysées in Paris, towards a solitary house, the first of a future street. One of them, a fair-haired youth of nineteen, with a slight stoop and a quick, bird-like walk, and with manuscripts sticking out of all his pockets, was the amiable, refined fantast, Gérard de Nerval, a poet whose chief occupation it was to run himself off his legs in the service of his friends. By his side walked, with stately bearing and Castilian gravity of countenance, the pale, black-bearded Petrus Borel, who as the eldest (already twenty-two) was the central figure of a group of young art enthusiasts. A little behind followed, with lagging steps and much inward perturbation, an olive-complexioned, regular-featured, handsome young fellow of eighteen, whom his two friends had promised to introduce to the master of the lonely house, Victor Hugo, in whose home they themselves were welcome guests, a piece of good fortune envied them by many. Twice did young Gautier mount the steps behind De Nerval and Borel as if his shoes were weighted with lead. He was hardly able to breathe; the cold sweat stood on his brow, and he could hear the beating of his heart. Each time they reached the door and one of the others was about to ring the bell, he turned and rushed down again, pursued by his shouting, laughing companions. The third attempt was successful, as in the fairy tales. The young man, feeling as if his legs would hardly bear him, had just sat down for an instant on the top step to recover himself, when the door opened, and in a stream of light like that which forms the halo round Phœbus Apollo, Victor Hugo himself in all his honour and glory stood revealed to their gaze against the dark background of the stair, attired in a very ordinary black coat and grey trousers, and as carefully shaved as any common philistine. He smiled at the sight of the agitated youth, but did not seem much surprised; for he was accustomed to seeing young poets and painters blush, and turn pale, and stammer on his threshold. He was evidently about to walk out into the street like an ordinary mortal, which was a greater surprise to Gautier than it would have been to see him drive through the town on a triumphal car drawn by five white horses, with a goddess of victory holding a golden crown over his head. But he turned back to his study with the young men, and Théophile Gautier listened in silence to the conversation which followed; he was too embarrassed to take part