DOI issue:
Vol. 6, No. 1 (February, 1916)
DOI article:Bradley, William Aspenwall: The goncourts and their circle
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49980#0140
either of the others. This was abstract mathematical
science, which he claimed was the most immaterial of
all the arts.
“Even in music,” he said, “there is the beating of the
sonorous waves against the tympanum. Mathematics
is the mute music of numbers / ’ ’
In 1851, the Goncourts’ cousin, the Comte de Ville-
deuil, a young man just out of college, came to Paris,
where he started a paper called L’Eclair, with the
collaboration of Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, then
twenty-nine and twenty-two years old respectively.
Meeting with little success — finding, indeed, the great-
est difficulty in keeping afloat, they decided, if possible,
to interest Gavarni in their undertaking.
It seemed an audacious idea. The artist was then at
the very zenith of his great reputation. The three kins-
men were, on the contrary, just beginning to make their
modest debut in the world of letters, the Goncourts hav-
ing published, at this time, but one, unsuccessful, novel.
But perhaps it was their very audacity that pleased the
older man. At any rate, when they met at dinner, for
the first time, at the Maison d’Or, he proposed for their
publication the series of the Manteau d’Arlequin.
Furthermore, he signified a desire to extend the ac-
quaintance thus begun, by inviting them to call. This
they did a few days later, and Gavarni showed them
through the old house, with its grim wall and rusty
grills on the street, which had been a counterfeiters’ den
under the Directoire. Later it had been acquired by
Josephine’s modiste, Leroy, who used the iron chamber,
where the false coin had been manufactured, to press
Napoleon’s mantles, embroidered with golden bees.
To this house they returned many times. There, in
100
science, which he claimed was the most immaterial of
all the arts.
“Even in music,” he said, “there is the beating of the
sonorous waves against the tympanum. Mathematics
is the mute music of numbers / ’ ’
In 1851, the Goncourts’ cousin, the Comte de Ville-
deuil, a young man just out of college, came to Paris,
where he started a paper called L’Eclair, with the
collaboration of Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, then
twenty-nine and twenty-two years old respectively.
Meeting with little success — finding, indeed, the great-
est difficulty in keeping afloat, they decided, if possible,
to interest Gavarni in their undertaking.
It seemed an audacious idea. The artist was then at
the very zenith of his great reputation. The three kins-
men were, on the contrary, just beginning to make their
modest debut in the world of letters, the Goncourts hav-
ing published, at this time, but one, unsuccessful, novel.
But perhaps it was their very audacity that pleased the
older man. At any rate, when they met at dinner, for
the first time, at the Maison d’Or, he proposed for their
publication the series of the Manteau d’Arlequin.
Furthermore, he signified a desire to extend the ac-
quaintance thus begun, by inviting them to call. This
they did a few days later, and Gavarni showed them
through the old house, with its grim wall and rusty
grills on the street, which had been a counterfeiters’ den
under the Directoire. Later it had been acquired by
Josephine’s modiste, Leroy, who used the iron chamber,
where the false coin had been manufactured, to press
Napoleon’s mantles, embroidered with golden bees.
To this house they returned many times. There, in
100