but collapsed on the ground: Eugénie attempted to lift him, but was unable to do so, and refrained obstinately from summoning assistance. All night he was obliged to lie on the tiled floor, and the next morning he was so ill that the doctor was summoned. (The latter diagnosed diabetes, syphilis, heart disease and bronchitis, to say nothing of the acute arthritic affection of his knee.) He at once pronounced Verlaine to be dying. His friends were warned, and a priest was sent for. But they arrived too late. By mid-day he had fallen into a coma, and at 7 P.M. on Wednesday, January the 8th, he died.

9

The news of Verlaine's death spread like wildfire through the cafés of the Quartier Latin and across the river to the more reputable quarters of the rive droite. His intimate friends, Lepelletier, Cazals, Barrès and Mallarmé, hastened at once to the rue Descartes, and there, by the light of one candle, the death-mask, which now hangs in the Carnavalet, was drawn from the tired features of the pauvre Lélian. A committee was formed to arrange for the funeral: Robert de Montesquiou and then Vanier and others, and finally the Ministry of Public Instruction, promised to defray the expenses. The funeral was to be in the nature of an apology, almost of an expiation. From the narrow precincts of the rue Descartes, under the

bright sunshine of that 10th of January, the hearse, rocking under orchids and white lilac, bore Verlaine across the river and through the spacious gaiety of Paris to the huddled quiet of the Batignolles Cemetery. The pallbearers were Lepelletier, Montesquiou, Barrès, Mendès and Coppée. All who had derided and shunned Verlaine during his lifetime flocked to do him homage at his death : the crowd numbered some 5000 persons. He was buried in the small granite vault which held the ashes of his mother and father.

10

The organisers of this apotheosis had been seriously exercised as to whether or no Eugénie Krantz should be allowed to attend the funeral. In the end the decision, largely owing to the insistence of Maurice Barrès, was given in her favour she was driven to the cemetery in the company of Madame Rachilde. She stood there by the grave-side, a stout and solitary figure, listening in astonishment to the declamations of Mendès and Coppée, bewildered by all those serious and tidy people, by the orchids and the crowd beyond. Suddenly a flash of comprehension lit her tear-stained features. Flinging herself on her knees she stretched forward towards the coffin. "Paul!" she screamed, "Paul! Ils sont tous là."

VII

VERLAINE'S LITERARY POSITION

"Il est fou, dites-vous? Je le crois bien. Et si je doutais qu'il le fût, je déchirerais les pages que je viens d'écrire. Certes il est fou. Mais prenez garde que ce pauvre insensé a créé un art nouveau et qu'il y a quelque chance qu'on dise un jour: C'était le meilleur poète de son temps."

ANATOLE FRANCE.

VII

1

Or all civilised races the French are perhaps the most gifted, as they are certainly the most charming; but they have one basic defect: they have no sense of infinity. They possess, indeed, every quality of the brain and soul; but they possess these qualities in so vivid, so self-realised, so precise a manner that there is no scope for expansion there are no gradations. Thus they have patriotism but no public spirit,' foresight but no vision, wit but no humour, personality but no individualism, discipline but no order. They are logical without being consequent, consistent without being consecutive, generous without being liberal. They have none of our cheerful and blundering intuition. In short, a serious and intellectual nation, who are sometimes efficient and often brilliant, but who cannot proceed except in grooves. In practical and objective affairs, such as the great European War, this peculiar adaptation of the French genius works admirably. In more subjective businesses, such as literature and politics, it is apt to be conventional and short-sighted; it