My Days of Adventure | Page 8

which nobody could then be anything at all in France. In the same way
he coached Evelyn Jerrold, son of Blanchard and grandson of Douglas
Jerrold, both of whom were on terms of close friendship with the
Vizetellys. But while Brossard was a clever man, he was also an
unprincipled one, and although I was afterwards indebted to him for an
introduction to old General Changarnier, to whom he was related, it
would doubtless have been all the better if he had not introduced me to
some other people with whom he was connected. He lived for a while
with a woman who was not his wife, and deserted her for a girl of
eighteen, whom he also abandoned, in order to devote himself to a
creature in fleshings who rode a bare-backed steed at the Cirque de
l'Impératrice. When I was first introduced to her "behind the scenes,"
she was bestriding a chair, and smoking a pink cigarette, and she
addressed me as mon petit. Briefly, the moral atmosphere of Brossard's
life was not such as befitted him to be a mentor of youth.

Let me now go back a little. At the time of the great Paris Exhibition of
1867 I was in my fourteenth year. The city was then crowded with
royalties, many of whom I saw on one or another occasion. I was in the
Bois de Boulogne with my father when, after a great review, a shot was
fired at the carriage in which Napoleon III and his guest, Alexander II
of Russia, were seated side by side. I saw equerry Raimbeaux gallop
forward to screen the two monarchs, and I saw the culprit seized by a
sergeant of our Royal Engineers, attached to the British section of the
Exhibition. Both sovereigns stood up in the carriage to show that they
were uninjured, and it was afterwards reported that the Emperor
Napoleon said to the Emperor Alexander: "If that shot was fired by an
Italian it was meant for me; if by a Pole, it was meant for your
Majesty." Whether those words were really spoken, or were afterwards
invented, as such things often are, by some clever journalist, I cannot
say; but the man proved to be a Pole named Berezowski, who was
subsequently sentenced to transportation for life.
It was in connection with this attempt on the Czar that I did my first
little bit of journalistic work. By my father's directions, I took a few
notes and made a hasty little sketch of the surroundings. This and my
explanations enabled M. Jules Pelcoq, an artist of Belgian birth, whom
my father largely employed on behalf of the Illustrated London News,
to make a drawing which appeared on the first page of that journal's
next issue. I do not think that any other paper in the world was able to
supply a pictorial representation of Berezowski's attempt.
I have said enough, I think, to show that I was a precocious lad, perhaps,
indeed, a great deal too precocious. However, I worked very hard in
those days. My hours at Bonaparte were from ten to twelve and from
two to four. I had also to prepare home-lessons for the Lycée, take
special lessons from Brossard, and again lessons in German from a
tutor named With. Then, too, my brother Edward ceasing to act as my
father's assistant in order to devote himself to journalism on his own
account, I had to take over a part of his duties. One of my cousins,
Montague Vizetelly (son of my uncle James, who was the head of our
family), came from England, however, to assist my father in the more
serious work, such as I, by reason of my youth, could not yet perform.

My spare time was spent largely in taking instructions to artists or
fetching drawings from them. At one moment I might be at
Mont-martre, and at another in the Quartier Latin, calling on Pelcoq,
Anastasi, Janet Lange, Gustave Janet, Pauquet, Thorigny, Gaildrau,
Deroy, Bocourt, Darjou, Lix, Moulin, Fichot, Blanchard, or other artists
who worked for the Illustrated London News. Occasionally a sketch
was posted to England, but more frequently I had to despatch some
drawing on wood by rail. Though I have never been anything but an
amateurish draughtsman myself, I certainly developed a critical faculty,
and acquired a knowledge of different artistic methods, during my
intercourse with so many of the dessinateurs of the last years of the
Second Empire.
By-and-by more serious duties were allotted to me. The "Paris
Fashions" design then appearing every month in the Illustrated London
News was for a time prepared according to certain dresses which Worth
and other famous costumiers made for empresses, queens, princesses,
great ladies, and theatrical celebrities; and, accompanying Pelcoq or
Janet when they went