And journalists were found contemptible enough to censure him, to call him coward, because he was too fastidious to stoop to their own corrupt, degrading practices, even to save his life.
Among the works he left, as having his affection and which by one of those ironies so common with the law went to his unappreciative family (who might have saved him), was a collection of sweet and delicate poems, entitled _La Guirlande de Marie_, dedicated to her who had shared his prosperity and remained the faithful friend of his adversity.
Here are a few stanzas (from a poem of this collection) inscribed to Henry Mürger, in which he sings the praises of the Bohemia by which he died:—
_Les gais amoureux et les amoureuses Ont depuis des ans, Mürger, déserté La mansarde étroite où leurs voix rieuses Narguaient le bon sens—et la pauvreté!_
_L’amour, aujourd’hui, s’est fait plus morose; Schaunard est rentier, Colline est bourgeois, Les lauriers coupés, et mortes les roses, Ils ont désappris les chemins du bois._
_Rodolphe et Mimi, Marcel et Musette, Dans leurs lits bien clos sont endormis; Mais, vivante encor, leur chanson coquette Eveille en nos vers des refrains amis;_
_Nos rèves, vois-tu, sont restés les mêmes: Roses du matin, rires du printemps, Châteaux en Espagne ou parcs en Bohème Irréels ou vrais,—comme de ton temps!_
_Nous marchons leur pas, nous aussi, sans trève. Vers quel but lointain? Nous n’en savons rien; Baste! Il faut toujours que route s’achève. Quand nous y serons, nous le verrons bien._
_Peu d’argent en poche, et point de bagages, Nul regret d’antan pour nous chagriner, Nous sommes parés pour les longs voyages, Libres: rien à perdre, et tout à gagner!_
And here is a portion of a poem, “_Le Sabot de Noël_,” that is a sort of playful prayer:—
_Mets dans mon sabot de Noël Le jeune espoir qui nous fait libre, Mets le désir profond de vivre Et la fleur qui fleurit au ciel._
_Mets le succès dans les efforts, Le travail sans souci ni doute, Et comme étoile sur ma route L’orgueil simple qui fait les forts._
Poor boy! It was this very “_orgueil simple_” that was his sad undoing.
“If the artist,” says Balzac in a memorable passage of his _Cousine Bette_, “does not hurl himself into his work, like Curtius into the gulf, without reflecting, and if, in this crater, he does not dig like a miner buried under a land-slide, ... his work perishes in the atelier, where production becomes impossible; and he assists at the suicide of his talent.”