Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/28

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xviii
MURGER AND HIS WORK.

trusion, the master of the establishment seeing to this. But if he overwhelmed us with attention it was on account of the ambition he himself had to write. He even showed himself more especially friendly towards Trapadoux and other literati, whose advice he would ask. At closing time this refreshment housekeeper and courtier of the Muses would stand beside the counter smiling or not at the customer, according to whether the latter was a wielder of the pen or the brush.

“The almost daily frequenters of the Café Momus were, besides Murger and his group of intimates, Champfleury, already known to the reading public, André Thomas, the romance writer, Monselet, fresh looking and plump as an abbé of the last century, Jean Journet, the chemist of Carcassonne, who had constituted himself the apostle of the ‘phalanstere,’ Gustave Mathieu, the poet, Pierre Dupont, the bucolic songster, the strange but captivating Baudelaire, author of the Fleurs du Mal, Fauchery, who already handled the graver, whilst hoping to handle the pen, Gérard de Nerval, who related to us his travels in the East prior to writing them, the bibliophilist Asselineau, with his eternal white cravat, etc. We had also, though more rarely, a visit from M. Arsène Houssaye. The editor of the Artiste did not sit down, he only came to ask how the copy he had ordered from his young protégés, Champfleury, Murger, and Monselet, was getting on. Nor must I forget on the list of those who have passed through the smoky temple of Momus, the painter Bonvin,[1] the actor Rouvière, who at that time was a pupil of Delacroix and

  1. ↑ Bonvin, whose death is recorded while these sheets are passing through the press, was the son of a rural constable. After commencing life as inspector of the market at Poissy, he studied painting. His works have often fetched high prices, but he never profited by them, as they were sold by him to picture dealers for very moderate sums. He was, indeed, always a poor
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