Eugène Viollet le Duc (1814-1879), ephemeral professor of aesthetics and architecture at the National School of Fine Arts. Photograph by Nadar. Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.
"The day of the January 29, 1864 is legendary in the annals of the School of Fine Arts, in the language of the place, it was a " Babylonian ruckus. " Count Nieuwerkerke, acting superintendent of Fine Arts, came to install the new teacher he was accompanied by Merimee, who played the character of fidus Achates, and Theophile Gautier, responsible for reporting in Monitor Official the success of the first lesson. We dreaded murmurs, perhaps even some protest but was not expected at most tremendous charivaris who had never received a master of education. Just Viollet-le-Duc was he sitting in his chair and had he opened his mouth to say "Gentlemen" - it was the only word he could pronounce - the uproar began.
In the great hall of the auditorium, decorated by Paul Delaroche, students crowded in abnormal numbers, the terraces, corridors and all the surrounding area was occupied zero free space fighters were loyal to the rendezvous. The exclamation was enormous, made all sorts of shouting chants cock, trumpeting elephants, roaring lions, hens clucking, braying donkeys, neighing horses, yowling cat, husky tiger, yelping of foxes, barking dog, all these cries were mingled in the midst of a storm which was packed with insults. Nieuwerkerke was standing and gesturing, Viollet-le-Duc was good and still want to talk about unnecessary trouble, we heard a huge roar. Two days later, Merimee told the scene before me at Countess Nadaillac and said "The lungs of these young people are of remarkable strength I've never had so much fun."
Viollet-le-Duc, he does not amused, either Nieuwerkerke; the screams were not enough for these kids distracted by their own noise is launched against the teacher's provision that the projectiles are had taken care to bring apples, eggs, balls of paper mache and even some big bucks. After half an hour, Nieuwerkerke withdrew, followed by Viollet-le-Duc and his retinue of friends. Everybody clapped their hands the victory was complete and the group behind the triumphant daubers surrounding Nieuwerkerke they emerged in a row, four by four, this time silent, as if they did train at a high character, and thus crossed over the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. When Nieuwerkerke going through the gate, he turned, and the whole band, laughing, gave him a derisory hello. The folly of which his soul was full could not contain himself, he raised a threatening finger towards those young people whose numbers even exonerated and shouted: "I find you, you guys." At the moment the event changed his purpose, she gave Viollet-le-Duc, who, they said, had "His package ; she spoke more than Nieuwerkerke and became, by implication, beyond a personal insult.
Nieuverkerke no attempt to head, but he did steal. Always accompanied by Viollet-le-Duc, Mérimée, Théophile Gautier, a few officials of the school, he returned to his lodgings in the Louvre by foot, rue des Beaux-Arts, the Quai Malaquais, instead of Institute and the Pont des Arts. Ten paces behind him walked the students, which joined the curious. It seemed that we had distributed the roles and we had a rehearsal previously, both the quick wit and mocking the French - Le Parisien was quickly improvised "saw" which was the bloodiest of ironies. A group sang the first verse of the famous air William Tell :
O Heaven! you know if my dear Matilda!
A second group responded immediately by an offensive parody:
At its Mathilde, O heavens it is expensive!
then the song was interrupted, and after a moment of silence, all in chorus shouted "Hey Beaver!" and they resumed their romance Rossini. Nieuwerkerke leaned Theophile Gautier, who told me, and said "Ahoy! Beaver 'What does that mean?" Gautier, who was not in the rest of malice, which had many expenses workshop on the awareness and understanding who excelled at half-word, looked down and replied: "I do not know." was indeed difficult to explain, so difficult that I give up here, using the wisdom of the readers. All I can say is that Nieuwerkerke had recently built a house to Park Monceau and they will find in treatises on natural history how beavers beat the soft earth where his hut is built.
The event, always singing and always crying, went to the Louvre, behind Nieuwerkerke in the courtyard of Museums. Police warned we had run gourma, students decamped, saluting the last time the Superintendent of the name of Castor and, as a force of good example is the law, were arrested Theophile Gautier, who was taken to the station where he began to mature a plan of escape, when it was issued by Viollet-le-Duc, and Merimee Nieuwerkerke itself. It said the brigadier of policemen: "Why did you stop sir?" Brigadier replied "A length of her hair, I took it for an insurgent." Often since, Gautier told of the most pleasant in the world, he called his "time in captivity?
When the report of the scuffle was taken to the Emperor, he laughed, shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. Princess Mathilde was outraged and spoke of this people, who had his reputation dragged through the mud. " She was very ill Eugene Giraud one of his familiar witty, who wanted to appease him and said: "Emilien lose nothing." Indeed, Emilien, that is to say, the Earl of Nieuwerkerke, was appointed to the Senate shortly after, the princess and said seriously: "he was well off this." [...]
The event, which was addressed to the Superintendent of Fine Arts, Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, confessed lover, if not declared to be a princess of the blood, person of some importance, though secondary, is the first that occurred in the street. It was tough, which would been excessive, or understand its meaning. In sum, students of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts did not want to point Viollet-le-Duc they sent him back to his gothic festivals of Compiegne, restorations diocesan buildings, and they asked another teacher, they had . By decree of October 26, 1864, Taine took possession of the chair of aesthetics; the ovation they gave him proved that the opposition had nothing systematic and that it had addressed only individuality whose titles were too unreliable. I'm not sure that Viollet-le-Duc has feuded for his misadventure in the Empire. Few men have been more than met him by Napoleon III and Empress adverse after-hours, he did more than to forget he probably remembered that Nestor Roqueplan said "Ingratitude is the independence of the heart." It was independent until heroism. "
Maxime Du Camp, Souvenirs half a century , t. 1,
Paris, Hachette, 1949 (book written in 1882).
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