by Gore Vidal
Either my publishers have exaggerated the success of the book or journalists do not read books or even reviews of books. Yet Harper’s Weekly referred to Paris Under the Commune as “a terrifying and entirely fascinating eyewitness account of the siege of Paris and the rising of the Commune, all recorded with that celebrated gift for detail which marks any utterance from Mr. Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler’s pen.” I recall this notice by heart, largely because the only utterance I have ever heard my pen make is a squeak.
The man from the Sun looked very pleased with himself as he asked, “You yourself, sir, are not a Communist?”
“No, no, dear boy.” My voice filled suddenly with catarrh as I deliberately mimicked old Washington Irving at his most gracious. “I am a simple American.”
“Then why have you lived so long abroad?” The Graphic.
“When I was an American consul in Italy, I married a Swiss lady—”
“Is that her?” The dwarf looked over his missal at Emma; in fact, pointed that object at her as if he were an imp from hell with a summons.
“My wife is dead. She died at Paris some years ago. She—”
“What is your name, miss?” The World to Emma.
“Je ne comprends pas, monsieur.” Emma’s face was white, her full lips a straight line of irritability. The French words snapped in the room like a whip.
“My daughter is the Princess d’Agrigente.” Much confusion as we worked as one to get the spelling right. Finally, a compromise: in English she is the Princess of Agrigento. “She is a widow—” I began.
“What did the Prince do?” From the Express.
Emma started to answer, furiously, in English, but a gesture from me stopped her. Raptly John Apgar stared at us, as if at the theatre.
“The Prince had many interests. His father, as I am sure you all know, was a marshal of France and served under the first Napoleon. He was ennobled in Italy. After Waterloo, when Napoleon was defeated—” For once I was spelling out too much. Impatiently they indicated that Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo was known to them.
“Got any children, Princess?”
“Two,” I answered quickly. “In Paris. With their grandmother. The dowager Princess.” Who is charging us—that sovereign bitch from hell—five thousand francs a year for their support, almost a thousand dollars: the entire income Emma realizes from what remains of her husband’s estate. Need I say—yes, I do need to say, even to this journal where it is perfectly irrelevant, that I have never in my life met such a terrible woman as Emma’s mother-in-law. According to legend, she was a prostitute when Lieutenant du Pont, the future marshal and Prince d’Agrigente, met her, but I doubt the story, as she must have been even then as plain—and odoriferous—as an abattoir on an August day.
“Are you planning to write about the change in New York since you lived here?” This from the charming thin man of the Herald, who knows me as a “valued contributor.”
“Indeed. I look forward to a tour of the States. East and West. North and South. I shall attend and write about the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia when it opens—”
“For the Herald?” Again from the most amiable thin youth.
“Where else?” Equal amiability from me—if not total sincerity, for I shall sell my wares to the highest bidder.
“Are you related to Mrs. William Astor?”
This was as startling a question as I have ever been asked. “Certainly not!” I fear I was too sharp.
The mystery was promptly solved: apparently Mrs. Astor’s maiden name was the same as my mother’s—Schermerhorn—something I had not known, although even at Paris we have often been told by amused and bemused travellers of the grandeur of Mrs. Astor’s receptions, of the gorgeous splendour of that New York society which she dominates, having managed to unseat her sister-in-law Mrs. John Jacob Astor III who outranks her, at least according to primogeniture, for J.J. Astor III is the eldest son of that family, and its head.
Once, a half-century ago, I saw the original J.J. Astor crawling along lower Broadway; the old man wore an ermine-lined coat and was supported by my old friend—and his secretary—the poet Fitz-Greene Halleck. All dead.
Questions about my books. But not many. According to the press, I am a famous author in the United States, but this set of overcoats was not certain just why I am celebrated. On the other hand, they are all familiar with my journalism, not only my pieces for Jamie Bennett’s Herald but also those for the Evening Post, where my literary career began. I am the New York press’s perennial authority on European matters.
Politics. Sooner or later that subject always comes up with Americans.
What did I think of the recent arrest and imprisonment of Boss Tweed, who stole millions of dollars from the city of New York whilst building the lavish new Court House. Piously I deplored corruption.
What did I think of General U.S. Grant, whose second term as president is due to end in a year’s time?
I was wary. The corruption of General Grant’s Administration is a matter of some poignancy to me. My capital was administered by the banking house of Jay Cooke, which collapsed in the fall of 1873, bringing on a panic whose effects are still with us—as my capital is not.
Certain Wall Street criminals, among them Jay Gould and Jim Fiske—how well I know their names!—in an attempt to corner gold, brought on a thousand bankruptcies. Whether or not General Grant himself was involved in any of this is a disputed point. Certainly he is known to take large gifts from men like Gould and Fiske. If Grant is not himself a criminal he is a fool. Yet the Republican party protects him, cherishes him, is loath even to let him go now after two terms.
“Do you think General Grant will want a third term?” From the Times, a newspaper particularly devoted to the Grant Administration.
“Since I have never met the General, I can hardly say. But…”
Deliberately I set out to make—well, not my fortune but at least a place for myself where I can survive without fear of poverty the few years left me. “But,” I repeated, “as you know, I am a Democrat, of the Jackson-Van Buren persuasion…”
This caused some interest. There was a marked coolness from the reporters representing the Republican interest (the majority, I fear), but keen sympathy from the others.
“Do you favour Governor Tilden for the Democratic nomination?”
Favour him! All my hopes are based upon that fragile figure obtaining the presidency next year. “Indeed I do. I am not, of course, au courant…” Mistake to use French but the phrase was out.
Odd. In France I think only in French. Now—in this hotel room—what language do I think in? English? No. A mélange!
“I hardly know as much about New York’s affairs as you gentlemen, but I do know that Mr. Tilden’s breaking up of the Tweed ring so pleased the honest people of the state that last year they made him governor. After all, he has stopped the rich stealing from the poor—”
“But that sounds communist, sir.” From the Times.
“I had no idea that honesty and communism were the same.” This evoked some applause. I find it fascinating that communism should so distress the overcoats. Obviously the uprising in Paris frightened the New York burghers—certainly it frightened us Parisians when the Communards seized the city as the Germans withdrew; even more frightening, however, was the revenge of the burghers, who butchered untold thousands for being Communards. I myself saw a child of five slaughtered in a street of Mont Rouge. The world revolution that began in 1848 is not yet finished.
At this point I raised my own banner: “When I last saw Mr. Tilden in Geneva, two summers ago—” The excitement that I had meant to create was now palpable: the overcoats positively steamed. The desultory interview with the expatriate author of successful books unknown to the newspaper press now came alive.
“You are a friend of the Governor?”
“Hardly. But we do correspond. We were first introduced by Mr. Gallatin, who lives in Geneva.” Patiently I spelled the name; explained that Gallatin’s father had been secretary of the treasury under Jefferson.
“I was struck by Mr. Tilden’s, by the Governor’s, extraordinary brilliance, by his intellectual grasp of every subject that he chooses to consider.” This was true enough. Samuel J. Tilden is indeed a most intelligent if narrow man, and though of a cold and formal temperament, he is by no means wholly lacking in charm.
We dined nearly every day for a week on a terrace overlooking Lac Léman. Sometimes we were joined by Gallatin, whose bright European realism was often too much for the dour Americanism of S.J. Tilden.
At one point Tilden suddenly began to describe in detail precisely how he had destroyed Tweed and his ring, which included governors, judges, mayors, aldermen. As he spoke, Tilden’s pale, old child’s face grew flushed and the grey dull eyes suddenly reflected the lake’s blue; for an instant, he was nearly handsome in his animation.
Gallatin and I (and a half dozen others) listened to the weak but compelling voice with fascination. But then Tilden struck for us Europeans (yes, I am one after so many years) a peculiarly hypocritical American note. “To think,” he said to Gallatin, “what has happened to our country since your father’s day! Since the time of Jefferson!”
Gallatin was astonished. “But surely everything is so much better now, Mr. Tilden. The country is so big, so very rich…” This was some weeks before the panic. “Railroads everywhere. Great manufactories. Floods of cheap labour from poor old Europe. America is El Dorado now, whilst in my father’s time it was just a nation of farmers—and not very good farmers at that.”
“You misunderstood me, Mr. Gallatin.” Tilden’s sallow cheeks now each contained a smudge of brick-coloured red. “I speak of corruption. Of judges for sale. Of public men dividing amongst themselves the people’s money. Of newspapers bought, bought by political bosses. Even the Post.” Tilden nodded gravely to me, knowing that I often wrote for that paper. “The Post took a retainer from Tweed. That’s what I mean by the change in our country, this worship of the Golden Calf, of the almighty dollar, this terrible corruption.”
I knew Tilden for only a week, but in that time this was the nearest to passion I had heard him come. In general he was—is—a very cold fish, as they say.
Gallatin’s black eyebrows lifted, simulating amazement. “You know, Mr. Tilden, I used to talk a great deal to my father about the early days of the republic and…well, I do not mean to confound you, sir, but what you describe has always been the rule with us. Certainly in New York we have always given one another bribes and, whenever possible, taken the public money.”
Was Tilden shocked? He has the lawyer’s gift of suddenly ceasing advocacy when unexpected evidence is submitted. The spots of colour left his cheeks. He added water to the splendid Rhône wine in his glass. I noticed that he has a tremor of the hand like mine.
Then, “But surely, Mr. Gallatin, all this changed when the founder of our party, when Mr. Jefferson, was elected president?”
“Nothing ever changes, Mr. Tilden. People are people.”
Is it a trick of my memory that at that moment the letters were brought to the table that assured Tilden of the Democratic nomination for the governorship of New York? I daresay I have moved things about in my memory. In any case, it was on that holiday in Switzerland—Tilden’s first trip to Europe—that the summons came.
“I have no intention of being the candidate for governor.” Tilden was firm as he stood in front of his hotel—trunks, companions, porters, chasseurs all about him.
“You must!” I said. “If not for the people, for the sake of our friend John Bigelow.”
I got something very much like a smile on that. John Bigelow is perhaps Tilden’s only friend. In the thirties the three of us were aspiring lawyers in the city. Both Tilden and Bigelow are a few years younger than I. In those days I did not know Tilden, but I often used to see John Bigelow at the Café Français, usually in the company of my friend Fitz-Greene Halleck. I seem to recall when Halleck and I played at billiards in the back room, Bigelow—a handsome, tall youth from upstate—was moderately disapproving. Once Bigelow shyly asked me to help him write for the newspaper press, and I did.
The ultra-Republican Times wanted to know more about my links with Tilden. “Slight. Slight,” I answered truthfully. But I pray that soon our presently slight connection will be as links of steel.
“I have, at his request, written him occasionally on foreign affairs.” This is true. I cannot say he precisely requested my reports, but he has shown great interest in them, particularly during the last six months when it has become apparent to everyone that he will be not only the Democratic candidate for president in ’76 but the president as well, assuming that General Grant does not seek a third term.
A sudden thud like an earthquake’s tremor ended my encounter with the press: the Pereire had docked. The overcoats fled. Emma’s disgust was as plain as John Apgar’s awe.
I took Emma’s arm. “C’est nécessaire, petite.”
“Comme tu veux, Papa.”
I have not taken Emma into my confidence—on aesthetic grounds. She has had no real experience of the struggle that most lives are, and I would keep her innocent. My wife had a small fortune; and a family Schloss in Unterwalden, Switzerland. When both were lost to us at her death, Emma was safely (I thought) married to Henri d’Agrigente and for a dozen years the two lived splendidly, amassing debts in the Hôtel d’Agrigente, Boulevard de Courcelles.
Meanwhile, I did quite well with my writing; was able to support in some comfort one and a half (the half being the cost of a mistress in a good arrondissement). Then the shock of Paris falling, of Henri dying, of the banker Jay Cooke failing; and my ruin.
Now I must live by such wits as I have left. But Emma must be spared as much as possible the pain of seeing her old father like some once-beautiful poule de luxe of literature try once again to ply his wares on foot, as it were, in streets where once triumphantly he rode.
Well, no self-pity. The world is not easy. I only curse my luck that I am not young. At thirty I would have had no qualms. I could have conquered this city of New York in a week, like Tamburlaine when he took Persepolis!
2
JOHN DAY APGAR’S VICTORIA was at the pier as well as a curiously shaped wagon decorated with the gold legend THE FIFTH AVENUE HOTEL—“To take the trunks, sir,” according to its driver, a withered son of Cork.
Amongst the thousand and one bits of information I have in the last few hours received: more than half the city’s population of a million is foreign-born. Most are from Ireland (as in my day) and Germany. But representatives of the other countries are to be found in ever-increasing numbers. Whole districts of the lower island are devoted to Italians, Poles, Hebrews, Greeks, while the once charming Mott and Pell streets are now entirely occupied by Chinese! I cannot wait to explore this new world, more like a city from the Arabian Nights than that small staid English-Dutch town or village of my youth.
As the victoria left the pier and entered Orton Street, John Apgar indicated tattered beggars, holding out their hands. “We are known as the almshouse of Europe.” He spoke with a mechanical bitterness, no longer even hearing the phrase on his own tongue, for everyone, I gather, uses it.
I suppose to the native New Yorker so many newcomers must be disturbing, particularly when there is not much work for them since the panic of ’73, obliging them to turn to—what else? crime. But for the old New Yorkers with money this constant supply of cheap labour must be a singular joy. One can hire an excellent cook for eighteen dollars a month; a lady’s maid for twelve dollars. Emma and I have been debating whether or not to indulge her in a lady’s maid. Apparently we are the only occupants of a suite in the Fifth Avenue Hotel without personal servants.
The drive
from the pier to the hotel was—well, Rip Van Winkle-ish. I have run out of epithets; and must remember not to use to death that hackneyed image.
I asked the driver to take us through Washington Square Park and then up the celebrated Fifth Avenue.
“You will doubtless find the avenue much changed.” John’s politeness is pleasing, but his gift for saying only the obvious makes him something less than the perfect companion. As a son-in-law, however, he has possibilities.
The law office of the Apgar Brothers in Chambers Street is prosperous. But I was not heartened to learn last summer in Paris that there are nine brothers and that our John is but the third son of the third brother. I think Emma regards him much as I do, but then we usually see things in exactly the same way—so much so that we seldom need to speak our thoughts, particularly on such a delicate subject as the right husband for her.
“Properly speaking, there was no Fifth Avenue in my day. A few brave souls were building houses north of the Parade Ground, as we called Washington Square. But they were thought eccentric, unduly fearful of the summer cholera, of smallpox in the lower island.” I spoke without interest in what I was saying; looked this way and that; could hardly take it all in.
A white sun made vivid each detail of this new city, but gave no warmth. Beside me, Emma shivered beneath the fur rug, as enthralled as I.
Everywhere crowds of vehicles—carts, barouches, victorias, brightly painted horsecars, not to mention other and more sinister kinds of transport: when we crossed Sixth Avenue at Cornelia Street, I gasped and Emma gave a cry, as a train of cars drawn by a steam engine hurtled with deafening sound over our heads at thirty miles an hour!
The horses shied, whinnied; the driver swore. Like a dark rain, ashes fell from the elevated railway above our heads. Emma’s cheek was smudged. Happily, we were not set afire by the bright coals that erupted from the steam engine, falling like miniature comets to the dark avenue below.
