Vie de Bohème: A Patch of Romantic ParisWilliams, Orlo
History
Vie de Bohème: A Patch of Romantic Paris
Williams, Orlo
Paris (France) -- Intellectual life; Paris (France) -- Social life and customs
It was then that Henry Murger's Bohemia was definitely formed, a society
described by one of them as "ce demi-quarteron de poètes à l'outrance,
mais absolument inédits, réunis dans un tas, sans vestes ni semelles, ne
doutant de rien, ni de leur lendemain, ni de leur génie, ni du génie de
leur voisin, ni de l'éditeur à venir, ni du succès, ni des belles dames,
ni de la fortune--de rien, si ce n'est de leur dîner du soir, trop
convaincus, d'ailleurs, quant à la question de leur déjeuner du matin."
Their names were the brothers Bisson, Lelioux, Noel, Nadar, Guilbert,
Vastine, the brothers Desbrosses, Cabot, Villain, Tabar, Chintreuil,
Pottier, Karol, Schann, and Vernet. They called themselves the "Société
des Buveurs d'Eau," but they were by no means so quixotic as Murger
draws that society in "Scènes de la Vie de Bohème." It was simply a
union for mutual help, the rules of which did not bar any commercial
occupation. The members lived as they pleased or as they could, and
water was only a compulsory beverage at the official monthly meetings,
when they all submitted their work to the criticism of their brethren.
Their ordinary occupations were various enough. Noel gave drawing
lessons; another was a judicial stenographer; Jacques Desbrosses,
nicknamed Christ--the original of "Jacques D----" in "Scènes de la Vie
de Bohème"--and Cabot drew designs for monumental masons; the other
Desbrosses, called Gothique, earned a little money by painting
door-signs for midwives; Schann, the original of Schaunard, was a
musician, and Wallon, Murger's Colline, who joined the society later,
eked out his barren philosophy by giving lessons; Chintreuil, afterwards
to become a well-known artist, was then a bookseller's assistant, with
Champfleury for his colleague; and Nadar, otherwise F. Tournachon, whom
Alphonse Karr describes as "a kind of giant with immense legs, long
arms, a long body with a shaggy head of red hair above it, and staring,
intelligent, flashing eyes," was the poet and journalist who became a
celebrated balloonist and an immensely successful photographer. His
caricature hangs in the section of the Musée Carnavalet devoted to early
aeronautics in Paris.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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