XII + 

Paris + 

After a brief stay at the Hotel St. Honoré, Louis found permanent quarters on the seventh floor of a rooming hotel, at the southeast corner Rue Monsieur le Prince and Rue Racine, in the Latin Quarter. Nearby were the “Boule Miche” toward the east, the Odeon, the Luxembourg Palace and its gardens to the southwest. From this lofty perch which he always reached on the run, two steps at a time, the City of Paris spread before him to the north, and on the small balcony, reached by casement doors, he would sometimes sit in the twilight and be caught by the solitary boom of the great bell of Notre Dame. + 

Early he had discovered that the French of his High School, for excellence in which he had taken first prize in a matter of course way, was not quite the colloquial French he now heard, spoken with exasperating rapidity and elision. As to the bill of fare, the menu, at the first attempt he perspired awhile in anguish, then put his finger on a line at random, and set down the result in a special notebook. He must learn current French in a hurry. He engaged a teacher to come every day at a fixed hour. When on the streets, he walked close to the people ahead, to catch every word; in this way his ear caught up words, locutions, intonations, and emphasis; and soon he began to feel he was on the way, even though he did not understand a tenth of what he heard. + 

He early visited the American Legation, complied with requirements, received information and advice, was told to buy certain textbooks, and was referred to a certain Monsieur Clopet as the very best tutor in mathematics. At the Legation he made the startling discovery that the Beaux Arts entrance examinations were to begin in six weeks; and furthermore, he had scanned the Program of Admission, and was startled again at the range of subjects he was not up on. Was he downhearted? Not a bit. It was a certainty he would pass because he must pass. He had come to Paris from faraway Chicago with that sole end in view; so why argue? He knew it meant six weeks of the hardest work he had ever done. He figured on eighteen hours a day. He knew he was in physical condition. He would allot one hour each day to gymnasium work, and keep on simple diet. What stood uppermost in his mind and gave him self-reliance to face any task, was his assurance: Had he not been trained in discipline and self-discipline by Moses Woolson? Had he not been trained and tried by that great teacher in the science and the art of thinking, of alertness, of close attention and quick action, in economy of time, in sharp analysis, in the high values of contemplation? + 

He lost no time in calling upon Monsieur Clopet. He was greeted in simple gracious words by a small dark man, who, to Louis’s joy, spoke only French. The preliminaries over, Monsieur Clopet asked: “And what are the books you have under your arm?” + 

Louis replied: “Books I was told at the American legation I would need.” + 

“Ah, yes, let me see them.” He took the books, selected a large work on Descriptive Geometry, and began to turn the pages. “Now observe: Here is a problem with five exceptions or special cases; here a theorem, three special cases; another nine, and so on and on, a procession of exceptions and special cases. I suggest you place the book in the waste basket; we shall not need of it here; for here our demonstrations shall be so broad as to admit of no exception!” + 

At these amazing words Louis stood as one whose body had turned to hot stone, while his brain was raging. Instantly the words had flashed, there arose a vision and a fixed resolve; an instantaneous inquiry and an instant answer. The inquiry: If this can be done in Mathematics, why not in Architecture? The instant answer: It can, and it shall be! no one has⁠—I will! It may mean a long struggle; longer and harder than the tramp through the forest of Brown’s Tract. It may be years from now, before I find what I seek, but I shall find it, if otherwhere and otherwise, with or without guide other than my flair, my will and my apprehension. It shall be done! I shall live for that!⁠—no one, no thing, no thousand shall deter me. The world of men, of thoughts, of things, shall be mine. Firmly I believe that if I can but interpret it, that world is filled with evidence. I shall explore that world to seek, to find. I shall weigh that world in a balance. I shall question it, I shall examine and cross-examine, I shall finally interpret⁠—I shall not be withheld, I shall prevail! + 

During the immense seconds of this eidolon, Louis found himself shaking hands with Monsieur Clopet in parting, promising to join his class on the morrow. This he did. The class consisted of about twenty young men, mostly French, a few from other lands, no Englanders, no other American. Louis wished an exclusively French atmosphere⁠—he was beginning feebly to think in French and wished no disturbance of the process. He had told his French tutor that he knew the grammar by heart and could conjugate all the irregular verbs; that what he wished, and he wished it done in a hurry, was to acquire the language of the man on the street first of all, to acquire what fluency he might in the short time before him, to increase his vocabulary, a hundred new words memorized every day. It must be talk, talk, talk, and read, read, read, to each other⁠—daily papers, general history in particular, read aloud to each other, read and correct, talk and correct, and hammer away in the sweat of their brows. His tutor could not long stand the pace and begged to be excused. Louis got another, wore him out. The third one stuck. He saw into Louis’s plan and it amused him greatly, so much so that he joined in, jovially, and made a play of it. A petit verre started him off nicely. He possessed a rare art of conversation, was full of anecdote, personal incident and reminiscence, knew his Paris, had the sense of comedy to a degree, looked upon life as a huge joke, upon all persons as jokes, and upon Louis as such in particular⁠—he would amuse himself with this frantic person. At once he spoke to Louis en camarade, vieux copain, as one Frenchman to another. He made running comments on the news of the day, explained all sorts of things Louis was beginning to note in Paris life, put him in the running. He had a gift of mimicry, would imitate the provincial dialects and peasant jargon, with fitting tone and gesture, and, taking a given topic or incident, would relate it in terms and impersonations ranging in series from gamin to Academician. In these moods he was simply “killing.” And when Louis told a story, he would mimic it delightfully. But the man knew his French, and spread out the language before Louis in a sort of landscape which awoke imagination. At times he would wax eloquent concerning his mother tongue, as he revealed its resources and its beauty, its clarity, its precision, its fluidity, and he earnestly advised Louis that he must without fail go each Sunday to the Church of St. Roch, there to hear in the sermon the marvelous beauty of the language, as uttered there by one who, through lifelong discipline, had attained to its perfection of form and vocal melody. + 

This tutor man suited Louis; he was wholly human, and well versed. Also well built, well under middle age, seldom sat for long, but paced the floor, or lolled here or there by moments. His voice was suave, his manner frank and free. He had an air, was well bred. He was either an unconscious or a crafty teacher, a rara avis, he knew how to get results. The daily lesson lasted one hour, and Louis daily plowed on, at high tension. + 

At Monsieur Clopet’s class he was well received by the young gentlemen there. He returned their salutations and an atmosphere of savoir faire prevailed. All were hard put to it to keep up their notes as a lecture progressed. Monsieur Clopet was gentle, polished, forceful. “One must work; that is what one is here for.” As a drill master he was a potent driver, as an expounder he made good his word to Louis in a method and a manner, revealing, inspiriting, as he calmly unfolded, step by step, a well reasoned process in his demonstrations which were so simple, so inclusive, so completely rounded as to preclude exception; and there was not a book in sight; but ever in sight was Monsieur Clopet, making something teachable out of what at first seemed an abstraction in three dimensions. + 

Louis was especially pleased at the novelty of saying je dis⁠—“I say”⁠—at the beginning of a demonstration. It humanized matters, brought them home, close up, a sort of challenge. How much more intelligent and lively to begin: “I say the sum of the angles of any triangle equals two right angles” than the formal impersonal statement: “The sum of the angles of any triangle equals two right angles.” The latter statement one may take or leave. The former is a personal assertion and implies, “I will show you.” In fact, it was this “I say” and this “I will show you” that made up the charm of Monsieur Clopet’s teaching method. For Louis had but little use for what is called “proof.” In his secret heart he did not believe that anything could be proved, but believed as firmly that many things might be shown. From long practice as listener and observer, he had reached this conclusion, and as time went on, in his studies he became convinced that all abstractions were assumptions⁠—that abstract truth was a mirage. As Monsieur Clopet’s course covered mainly descriptive geometry and the science of arithmetic, with plain and solid geometry as incidentals, Louis met his bugbear in this very science of arithmetic. He seemed to bump his head against invisible walls, a blockade which seemed to hold him a prisoner to inner consciousness, instead of the free open of outward consciousness⁠—a working of the intellect detached from reality⁠—therefore detached from life; but it was an examination requirement, so Louis stuck to the treadmill and learned how, by “rigorous logic,” it might be proved that two and two make four. It was not that he lacked the sense that the study of numbers had its charm, and might exercise a fascination for those who had a mathematical career in view. It was against what he deemed the impertinence of rigid logic that he rebelled, for once we assume an abstraction to be real, he thought, we lose our anchorage which is in the real. + 

At the end of the first half hour Monsieur Clopet always called a recess. From his pocket he drew forth his pouch and his little book of rice papers; so did the others. There was sauntering, spectacular smoking and conversation. The cigarette finished, work was resumed. Louis thought this gay, immediately procured the findings, and learned to “roll his own.” After recess the students were put through their paces at the blackboard for the final half-hour. + 

For Louis all this was exhilarating. He soon felt he was making sure headway. His fellow pupils were most amiable, and began to remark upon his improving French. Early in the game, however, they had taken him in hand regarding his attire, for Louis had made his first appearance clad in a flannel suit, a white cap and white canvas shoes. They were serious about it. “We would have you know, friend, you are not properly dressed. You are a student now, an aspirant for the Beaux Arts. Only the working classes wear the casquette. Gentlemen wear the chapeau, and only sporting people wear such clothes and shoes. You shall dress like a student and be one of us.” As soon as it could be done, Louis appeared in tall silk hat, an infant beard, long tail coat, and trousers of dark material, polished shoes, kid gloves, and jaunty cane. Louis felt self-conscious, but he was met with so voluble a chorus of approval that he changed his tone, studied carefully the student manner so as to be one of them⁠—they were such good fellows. + 

Swiftly fled the days; thus moved the work; nightly Louis sat in his room on the seventh, at his small desk, a candle at each side, black coffee and wet towel as aids. He codified the Clopet notes, arranged his French vocabulary, read history by the hour, for he knew this latter would be highly important; and so it went day and night⁠—work, work, work. About midway in the game Louis’s brain seemed to be overcome by a fog. Everything was blurred as in a mist, his memory lost its grip. His knowledge of athletics told him he had overtrained and run stale. A three days’ change of scene and complete diversion put him right; memory returned, the mist lifted; after that, no trouble. + 

The great day of the Examinations was now near at hand. Louis’s French tutor had cautioned him to be careful not to use slang when addressing the professors; and Monsieur Clopet had said in open class, “I don’t know as to the rest of you, but there is one among you who will pass brilliantly in his mathematics, and he is an American.” + 

So, several days before the examinations, which were to begin early in October, Louis stopped all work, relaxed completely, and, in a state of confidence amused himself with the sights and sounds of Paris, and enjoyed a few long sleeps. He wandered here and there and everywhere, immensely amused and satisfied. Paris seemed made for him. All was really new to him, but did not seem strange or alien as had England. The people seemed rather like his own people of the Middle West; more cultured, more polite, more refined, to be sure, but withal, a certain temperamental likeness he believed to exist between raw Chicago and finished Paris. He believed he had observed a similar affinity between Boston and London. To Louis’s view the barrier of language was most unfortunate, for the two peoples at large appeared to possess the same lighthearted spirit of adventure. Paris, though filled with historic monuments did not seem old; it gave rather an impress of ever self-renewing youth and its people seemed light hearted. + 

Wherever he went he found the city well ordered and cleanly, with architectural monuments everywhere; and in the parks and gardens he went through the old experience of surprise that the children could speak French so well. In the Luxembourg Gardens he watched them in groups with their nurses and perambulators and toys, and to him the children were like flowers and the nurses stately flowers, and the babble and child laughter and twittering made delicate and merry music. Never had he seen such child-happiness, such utter joy in living; and he felt convinced this must be the child-key to France. Window-shopping also was his keen delight as he traversed the boulevards and the Rue de la Paix. He even ventured to enter, and was not met with scowls⁠—nor did he hear a word equivalent to the “damned Yankees.” The crowds upon the boulevards were varied, interesting and cosmopolite. Yes, there was an atmosphere; this atmosphere was Paris; Paris was to be his home; its air of hospitality, of world-welcomer and host, found in him a ready and a heartfelt response. + 

In the French language Louis had by now acquired a very fair degree of ease, and a vocabulary sufficiently covering the colloquial and the literary for his present purpose. His accent was good and on the way to becoming Parisian. Thus, prepared, with all his hard, gruelling work back of him, he felt at ease, but with a due sense of the close call he had had⁠—six weeks! Had he been trained by any teacher other than Moses Woolson, in his high school days, and had he not all his life been in fine physical condition⁠—which means no nerves⁠—it is doubtful if he could have stood the strain of preparation. + 

The examinations were to be, severally, written, drawn, and oral. They were to cover a period of three weeks. The number of candidates for admission was large, covering all departments. + 

The great trial was now under way. The free hand drawing, the mechanical drawing, and an esquisse en loge of a simple architectural project, went smoothly enough for Louis; perhaps with some difficulty for others. The real test for him would lie in the oral examinations, which were conducted in little amphitheatres, a professor presiding, and all aspirants free to come and go, as they did in a steady stream. Louis himself had been one of these wanderers awaiting his turn. The candidate under fire thus was by no means lonely; indeed, he deeply wished to be alone with his inquisitor. + 

Came Louis’s turn for mathematics. For audience he had some twenty strange faces, all rather scared. The examining professor, elderly and of quiet poise, received him most courteously as a stranger in the land, a guest of France, and an aspirant to the Beaux Arts; that it was a pleasure to welcome him, that he need not feel in the least embarrassed, that the inquisition would proceed at a moderate pace, and that Louis was free to solve any problem in any way he liked, the objective being solely to discover the extent of his understanding, not of his memory. Then the examining professor settled to the work. For over an hour⁠—Lord knows how long it was⁠—he put Louis through a steady gruelling⁠—always kindly, however⁠—such as Louis had never known, never dreamed of, never believed could be so. In the midst of it he recalled Monsieur Clopet’s “I don’t know about the rest of you” and he came of a sudden into his true stride, which he held to the end. For, after a heartbreaking crisis, he suddenly found himself actually thinking in terms of mathematics, and, accordingly, lost all fear, relaxed and let his mind go free. From beginning to end he did not make a fluke. At the close, the examining professor, who had become quite interested when he found he could increase the difficulties, pressed Louis’s hand and said: “I felicitate you, Monsieur Sullivan: you have the mathematical imagination which is rather rare. I wish you well.” + 

Now, of all things Louis might have said he did not possess, the mathematical imagination would head the list in a large way. He knew, in a small way, he had been charmed in his high school by the novelties of the ideas set forth in geometry and algebra. But there they were simply discipline, founded categorically on the books. And in the books was no imagination that he could discern. Perhaps, after all, it was the freedom of Monsieur Clopet’s classroom and Louis’s enthusiasm at each beautiful demonstration, and the many pointed questions he asked of Monsieur Clopet, that had led the latter to speak as he did concerning “an American.” However this may be, Louis found the open world of mathematics; that it was possible to think in such terms as it was possible to think in French⁠—for doing this latter, also, was an act of imagination. And now from the secret places of this new world there came a Siren call which perturbed Louis sadly for many years. Toward this new world Louis turned many a wistful thought thereafter: It was a land of Romance. + 

Now came the questioning in History, and Louis was equally startled at the method. He was well prepared according to the books, which he had visualized into a moving picture, but he was not prepared for the shock. + 

Three questions only, were asked⁠—the replies covered one hour and a half of constant talking. Louis had supposed that questions and answers would be categorical, after the manner of procedure he had been taught in America, where, to epitomize, it might be said the chief interest centered around the exact date of the discovery of America. Now Louis felt the earth leave him, as the first question came: “Monsieur, will you be kind enough to tell me the story of the Hebrew People?” Then the earth came back, but the question remained immense. Still the situation was not altogether infelicitous, for Louis had read considerably in the Bible, and had heard far more than he had read⁠—in spite of the fact that John Edelman had cautioned him that no one should read the Bible before the age of mental maturity, which he had placed at forty, and was reserving that treat for himself. So Louis began safely with the desert tribes, the sojourn in Egypt, the wandering in the desert, carrying the story down to the destruction of Jerusalem, and the captivity. He also sketched the patriarchal age, the prophets in captivity, the final triumph of ritual over inspiration and righteousness. The charm of this examination lay in the fact that Louis was encouraged by the examining professor to give a pictorial and rather dramatic recital, and the professor’s frequent questioning concerning what Louis had said and as to why he thought thus or so. He, for instance, asked Louis what had impressed him most vividly in the story of the Jews, and Louis said: The emergence and vivid personality of Jehovah, their God. + 

The next question now followed: “I would like an account of the ten emperors of Rome.” Another half-hour of talk as Louis covered the ground, from the bookish point of view, and made a few remarks on his own account, which led the professor to say: “You do not seem to be in sympathy with Roman civilization.” + 

“No,” said Louis, “I feel out of touch with a civilization whose glory was based on force.” + 

Then came the third question: “Monsieur, I see you have a certain faculty, a bit crude as yet, of making word pictures, of discerning something real beneath the glamour of the surface, which it is the particular business of the true historian to uncover. Now, therefore, as this is to be the last question, do your best and give me an intimate account of the times of Francis First.” Louis did this with joy. On account of Leonardo’s part in it, he had studied the period with especial care and devotion. He had seemed to live in this time, and with its people, its manners, its customs, its thoughts, it stood forth for him as a very present picture of the past. + 

At the close the examining professor smiled. He said: “The object of these examinations is not to ascertain an array of facts devoid of shaping context, but to discern the degree of intelligence possessed by the candidate; to ascertain his capacity for interpretation, and if he possess, to any perceptible degree, the faculty of constructive imagination⁠—without which the pursuit of history is merely so much wasted time. I am agreeably surprised at times to find this latter quality present, and in you it is vivid, amazing and rash. To be sure you are not expected to be profound in historic knowledge, but you have shown me, in your faithful way, that instinctively, you know how to go about it, so I say: Continue, continue. After some years you will begin to understand a little, and as you mature, you may perhaps feel inclined to turn the teachings of history upside down. I can now do no less for your gratification and as well my own, than to give you the highest rating, and to wish you happiness. I shall doubtless have been long gone hence before your studies shall have matured into a valuable and personal idea; a contribution to the knowledge of mankind, but courage, courage⁠—and Adieu!” + 

Thus Louis, in Paris, spent an hour and a half answering three history questions. At home he would have been asked perhaps five times as many questions, all categorical in nature, and would have been through with them in a half an hour. It was this immense difference in matter and manner, especially as applied to mathematics and history, that opened Louis’s eyes to the quality and reach of French thought; to its richness, its firmness, its solidity, and above all, the severity of its discipline beneath so smooth a surface. + 

Examinations over, Louis received his card of admission to the school, good until the age of thirty. Then he made his entrée into the atelier of Monsieur Emil Vaudremer, practicing architect. He much preferred an atelier libre⁠—or free⁠—independent⁠—to the official ateliers of the École. There were a number of such ateliers, under the care of architects of distinction, men who had been winners of the Grand Prix de Rome⁠—veritable Polar Star of the École. As Eugene Letang had come from the Atelier Vaudremer, it seemed but natural that Louis should feel at home there. + 

The Director of the École gave out the program of a three-months projet; the twenty-four-hour sketches were made en loge, and filed as briefs; whereupon, to Louis’s surprise, everybody vanished. So Louis bethought him to vanish. + 

During his preparatory work he had discovered three small volumes by Hippolyte Taine devoted to the Philosophy of Art in Greece, in Italy, and in the Neatherlands. From these works he derived three strong impressions, novel shocks: First, that there existed such thing as a Philosophy of Art; second, that according to M. Taine’s philosophy the art of a people is a reflex or direct expression of the life of that people; third, that one must become well acquainted with that life in order to see into the art. All this was new and shining. He knew it was true of Boston and Chicago. In the volume on Italy, however, occurred a statement which struck Louis as of most sinister import for him: It alarmed him. It was to this effect: That, concerning the work of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, the Last Judgment was obviously done on momentum, as compared with the vigor of the ceiling. Now Louis had never trusted the care of his eyesight to anyone, nor did he now propose to entrust it in M. Taine’s keeping. He was averse to taking things on say-so. It was his pride that he could see. But, could his eye detect so subtle a change in the work of a great artist as was implicated in the word momentum and which M. Taine had said was obvious? He had many sinkings at the heart because of this. He must go to Rome, to verify; for the worth of his whole scheme seemed to rest in this delicate balance. It was vital. There must be no doubt. He must, beyond question, be sure of the quality of his eyesight. To Rome he went, quaking but courageous. + 

The Sistine Chapel! One steady sweep of the eye! It was easy⁠—oh, so easy! So self-evident! Thus a cumulating agony ended forever in a supreme moment of relief; and Louis knew, once and for all, that he could see anything that eye could see. He would not have used the word “momentum”⁠—an academic word⁠—he would have called it the work of a man powerful even in old age. Louis spent three days in Rome⁠—two of them in the Sistine⁠—alone there, almost all the time. Here he communed in the silence with a Super-Man. Here he felt and saw a great Free Spirit. Here he was filled with the awe that stills. Here he came face to face with his first great Adventurer. The first mighty man of Courage. The first man with a Great Voice. The first whose speech was Elemental. The first whose will would not be denied. The first to cry yea! in thunder tones. The first mighty Craftsman. The man, the man of super-power, the glorified man, of whom he had dreamed in his childhood, of whom he prophesied in his childhood, as he watched his big, strong men build stone walls, hew down trees, drive huge horses⁠—his mighty men, his heroes, his demigods; a powerful presentiment which he had seen and felt in the glory of the sunrise; which he had heard in the voice of spring; and which, personified through the haze of most mystical romantic trances, he believed in, he had faith in⁠—that faith which is far removed from fancy, that faith which is near its source and secure. + 

Now was he in that veritable dreamed-of Presence. Here was that great and glorious personality. Here was power as he had seen it in the mountains, here was power as he had seen it in the prairies, in the open sky, in the great lake stretching like a floor toward the horizon, here was the power of the forest primeval. Here was the power of the open⁠—of the free spirit of man striding abroad in the open. Here was the living presence of a man who had done things in the beneficence of power. And Louis gazed long and long, as one enthralled. And with his own eyes, with his own responses, he discerned more and more. There seemed to come forth from this great work a mystery; he began to see into it, and to discern the workings of a soul within. From beneath the surface significance there emerged that which is timeless, that which is deathless, that which in its immensity of duration, its fecundity, its ever-present urge, we call life. And in this great outpouring which encompassed him, he saw the Dreamer at his work. For no hand, unaided, could do this; no intellect unaided could do this; Imagination alone could do this; and Imagination, looked into, revealed itself as uncompromising faith in Life, as faith in man, and especial faith in his wondrous powers. He saw that Imagination passes beyond reason and is a consummated act of Instinct⁠—the primal power of Life at work. Thus Louis pondered as he viewed o’er and o’er the Persian Sibyl. Forty-nine years have come and gone since a youth of eighteen thought these thoughts without words; alone in the Sistine. + 

“There was a child went forth every day.” + 

Louis saw Florence and does not know how he came to break the golden chains that bound him there, a too willing captive. It needed full six weeks to part a net that seemed but of gossamer; or was it the fragrance of Lotus Land? + 

And the rocky coast of the Riviera, alive with beauty and with color implanted by the hand of man near the water’s edge, on the crags which came down from the foot of the mountains to indent the sea⁠—precious spots in memory’s hold. And the solid blue sea, with sky as solid blue⁠—ineffable blue⁠—wondrous blue⁠—Mediterranean and Riviera⁠—sea and mountain range, a revelation and a piercing joy⁠—how could such things be? Then on to Nice, to Paris⁠—and hard work again. + 

Louis was keyed for every form of anticipated effort; keen and anxious to observe, to analyse, to compare; to start on the second phase of his program, the purport of which was to ascertain what the Great School had to give, what Monsieur Vaudremer had to give, and to get close to the glowing heart of French Culture, as nearly as he might. It was his purpose to live, in fact; to absorb, to contemplate. He felt he had no time to lose, that he must press on. Insatiable curiosity urged him. + 

He went back to his old quarters on the seventh, with its northward spreading view. Nightly he sat long at his desk, a candle at each side, and, pondering his books of history slowly he persuaded the peoples of the past to come forward to meet him until they seemed of his own day, and he of theirs, in a dramatic moving present, a spectacle, a processional of the races and the nations, whose separate deeds seemed to flow from their separate thoughts, and whose thoughts and deeds seemed, as he himself progressed, toward them, to coalesce into a mass movement of mankind, carrying the burden of a single thought. What was that thought? He did not know. He could not see. But he knew it was there, he could feel it in the atmospheric depths of the centuries, a single ever-present thought, which since the beginning had been the Lodestar of the Man of the past. Thus became vaguely outlined an image of Man as a vast personality, within which were gathered all the powers, all the thoughts of the races, all vicissitudes of the civilizations⁠—a presence which seemed to move steadily, silently, across the depths, onward into the modern day, indistinct but real, following the turn of each leaf of the Calendar. This strange presence he had evoked Louis could not banish, it seemed to be immense and to stir immediately behind the veil of appearances. He would some day locate this phantasm, he said, and meet it as real; for in it, he said, was that secret men called truth. Thus history became for Louis a moving drama, and he sole spectator. And it was in this sense that he studied the history of architecture⁠—not merely as a fixation here and there in time and place, but as a continuous outpouring never to end, from the infinite fertility of man’s imagination, evoked by his changing needs. These were hours of deepest contemplation, the beginning of his self-education. + 

The Atelier Vaudremer gave on a courtyard, reached by a passageway leading from the Rue de Bac, about a mile west of where Louis lived. It was at the ground level, a rough affair, like a carpenter’s shop, large enough to accommodate about twenty young ruffians. Here it was the work was done amid a cross fire of insults, and it was also here that Monsieur Emil Vaudremer came to make his “criticisms.” He was one of the dark Frenchmen, of medium size, who carried a fine air of native distinction; a man toward whom one’s heart instantly went out in respectful esteem bordering on pride and affection. His personality was calm, deliberate yet magnetic, a sustained, quiet dignity bespeaking a finished product. His “criticisms” were, therefore, just what one might expect them to be, clear, clean-cut, constructive, and personal to each student, in each case, with that peculiar sympathy with the young which comes from remembrance of one’s own youth. Always, however, he was disciplinarian, and one felt the steady pressure. Louis thought the exigent condition that one hold to the original sketch in its essentials, to be discipline, of an inspired sort, in that it held one firmly to a thesis. + 

Monsieur Vaudremer⁠—otherwise Le Patron, had to his credit as executed works, the Church of the Sacred Heart, of Mont Rouge, and the Prison Mazzas. He was considered, therefore, a rising and highly promising young member of his profession⁠—he was forty-five. This condition may be better understood when it is made known that winners of the Grand Prix are usually close under thirty. + 

Louis entered heart and soul into the atelier life, with all its tumult and serious work, and its curious exacting etiquette at the times of arrival and departure. He now spoke French well enough to be treated en camarade, and the package of thieves’ slang, which he carried in his sleeve and sprinkled on occasions, raised his standing to one of esteem, to such extent that he no longer was required to carry wood for the stove or clean the drawing boards. The intimate life of the atelier with its free commingling of the younger and the older students seemed to Louis invaluable in its human aspects, so much so that he became rather more absorbed in the work of others than in his own, for he always felt himself to be in the position of observer. The Atelier, the School, came to be for him but part of a larger world called Paris, and Paris but a part of a larger world called France, and France but a part of a larger world called Europe, all in contradistinction to his native land; the continuously finished as against the raw or decadent. The sense of stable motion he noted everywhere. As time went on it became clearer and clearer to him what the power of culture meant. He began to realize that Paris was not of a day, but of busy and sad centuries. He studied carefully all its monuments and each seemed to speak to him of its own time. He attended unforgettable midnight masses at Notre Dame; he spent many hours in the museums; he followed closely the exhibits at the School, especially the exhibits of the second or higher class. He familiarized himself thoroughly with the theory of the School, which, in his mind, settled down to a theory of plan, yielding results of extraordinary brilliancy, but which, after all, was not the reality he sought, but an abstraction, a method, a state of mind, that was local and specific; not universal. Intellectual and aesthetic, it beautifully set forth a sense of order, of function, of highly skilled manipulation. Yet there was for him a fatal residuum of artificiality, which gave him a secret sense of misery where he wished but too tenderly to be happy. And there came the hovering conviction that this Great School, in its perfect flower of technique, lacked the profound animus of a primal inspiration. He felt that beneath the law of the School lay a law which it ignored unsuspectingly or with fixed intention⁠—the law he had seen set forth in the stillness of the Sistine, which he saw everywhere in the open of life. Thus crept over him the certitude that the book was about to close; that he was becoming solitary in his thoughts and heart-hungry, that he must go his way alone, that the Paris of his delight must and should remain the dream of his delight, that the pang of inevitable parting was at hand. + 