Daroga
The Persian
Chief of Police
The Persian
Chief of Police
His names in different version
The Persian, Daroga (Leroux)
El Persa, Daroga (Spanish Translation)
του Πέρση , νταρόγκα/ tou Pérsi , ntarónka (Greek Translation)
Nadir Khan, the Daroga (Phantom by Susan Kay)
The Persian, Daroga (Angel of the Opera by Sam Siciliano)
Ledoux (1925 Movies)
Inspector Raoul Daubert (bassed off of) (1943 Movie)
Inspector Hawkins (based off of) (1989 movie)
The Persian, Daroga (Leroux)
El Persa, Daroga (Spanish Translation)
του Πέρση , νταρόγκα/ tou Pérsi , ntarónka (Greek Translation)
Nadir Khan, the Daroga (Phantom by Susan Kay)
The Persian, Daroga (Angel of the Opera by Sam Siciliano)
Ledoux (1925 Movies)
Inspector Raoul Daubert (bassed off of) (1943 Movie)
Inspector Hawkins (based off of) (1989 movie)
| What is a Daroga? | Astrakhan Cap | Historical Influence on Characterization |
| The Persian Comparative |
| The Persian Comparative |
Origin of DAROGA
Hindi daroga, fr. Per d?roga
n. An overseer; inspector; superintendent; governor: a title (originally Mongol) applied in India to various executive officers.
Daroga Etymology: Hindi ????? daroga, from Persian ???? daaroga. India: a chief officer; especially: the head of a police, customs, or excise station.
??? ?? ????? [jel ka daroga] {m} (also: ?????, ???????, ???????, ?????)
warden {noun}
Warden [jel ka daroga] {m} (also: protector, guardian, Nighwan, warden)
Hindi daroga, fr. Per d?roga
n. An overseer; inspector; superintendent; governor: a title (originally Mongol) applied in India to various executive officers.
Daroga Etymology: Hindi ????? daroga, from Persian ???? daaroga. India: a chief officer; especially: the head of a police, customs, or excise station.
??? ?? ????? [jel ka daroga] {m} (also: ?????, ???????, ???????, ?????)
warden {noun}
Warden [jel ka daroga] {m} (also: protector, guardian, Nighwan, warden)
The Daroga belonged to the Tehran (Téhéran) police
"The Persian might easily have admitted that Erik's fate also
interested himself, for he was well aware that, if the government
of Teheran had learned that Erik was still alive, it would have
been all up with the modest pension of the erstwhile Daroga.
It is only fair, however, to add that the Persian had a noble and
generous heart; and I do not doubt for a moment that the catastrophes
which he feared for others greatly occupied his mind."
~ (The Persian;s Narrative)
interested himself, for he was well aware that, if the government
of Teheran had learned that Erik was still alive, it would have
been all up with the modest pension of the erstwhile Daroga.
It is only fair, however, to add that the Persian had a noble and
generous heart; and I do not doubt for a moment that the catastrophes
which he feared for others greatly occupied his mind."
~ (The Persian;s Narrative)
Astrakhan Cap
Astrakhan cap : 'bonnet d’astrakan' , Now called a Caracul (French) Karakul/قراقلی 'black wool' (Persian), Qaraqul 'black fur' (Turkish).
Also translated as Astrakan hat, although Astrakan cap is more accurate as the definition of cap is a brimless head covering. The Astrakan cap is a head covering made from fur of the Qaraqul breed of Persian Lamb often the fur comes from the aborted lamb fetuses. The fur by which it's made is referred to as Astrakhan. It's sometimes considered an ambassador's hat. It's worn by people of Kabul and by many generations of men in Afghanistan. The hat is peaked and folds flat when taken off. The qaraqul hat is typically worn by men in Central and South Asia. The folding qaraqul was worn by the former king of Afghanistan, Amanullah Khan in 1919. The karakul, which has distinguished all educated urban men heads since the beginning of the 20th century, has fallen out of fashion in Afghanistan.
Also translated as Astrakan hat, although Astrakan cap is more accurate as the definition of cap is a brimless head covering. The Astrakan cap is a head covering made from fur of the Qaraqul breed of Persian Lamb often the fur comes from the aborted lamb fetuses. The fur by which it's made is referred to as Astrakhan. It's sometimes considered an ambassador's hat. It's worn by people of Kabul and by many generations of men in Afghanistan. The hat is peaked and folds flat when taken off. The qaraqul hat is typically worn by men in Central and South Asia. The folding qaraqul was worn by the former king of Afghanistan, Amanullah Khan in 1919. The karakul, which has distinguished all educated urban men heads since the beginning of the 20th century, has fallen out of fashion in Afghanistan.
The Real Persian
A historical account
It is clear Gaston Leroux pulled characteristics from real people for his characters. There were servile Persian people spotted in Paris at the time not just this man. Although I think it's safe to say Gaston was inspired by his description for sure especially if you read the 'Le Gaulois' version. If the Daroga was based off a real man which I believe he was. This man does not match everything Gaston wrote about Daroga, one glaring detail that does not match besides this man wasn't a Daroga, is the fact he died at the age of 82 in 1868. When Gaston Says the story only dated 30 years, calculating a year or two for research it placing the date anywhere between 1875-1881. That is if that date is correct in the first place. Look here for The Persian comparative, between a historical Persian and the Daroga Leroux wrote about in his novel.
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Before we get started it is important to keep in mind there was a lot of rumor circulating about this man at the time. Anything written by Méry should be taken with a grain of salt considering he had a habit of making things up, exaggerating details and frankly is a racist. That being said there is some article that smack more true then others.
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Mohammed Ismaël Khan, was his name or Ismaïl-Khan-Aga-Mohammed or just simply Ismaël, Hadjee Khaleel Khan (his pen name), who's nickname was « le Persan » however this wasn't an uncommon type of nickname at the time for a foreigner of Persian decent. He lived at rue de Rivoli, n° 204. 'Les célébrités de la rue' 1864, claims he lived Rue de Rivoli for 25 years while 'Le Gaulois' August 31, 1868 wrote an article about his death and stated he only lived there for 13 years. And even odder 'Petit Journal' , September 13, 1867 stated 28 years... As you can see detaisl dont'always match up. Both 'Le Gaulois' and 'Les célébrités de la rue' state he received a pension of 2,000 pounds sterling per year and 'La vie quotidienne sous le Second Empire' claims an annual pension of one hundred thousand francs he received from England. He was known to go to the Theatre his favorite was the Théâtres Lyriques, l'Opéra-Comique, and Opéra Italien (Italians). Bellow are the articles written about him.
˜˜˜
Before we get started it is important to keep in mind there was a lot of rumor circulating about this man at the time. Anything written by Méry should be taken with a grain of salt considering he had a habit of making things up, exaggerating details and frankly is a racist. That being said there is some article that smack more true then others.
˜˜˜
Mohammed Ismaël Khan, was his name or Ismaïl-Khan-Aga-Mohammed or just simply Ismaël, Hadjee Khaleel Khan (his pen name), who's nickname was « le Persan » however this wasn't an uncommon type of nickname at the time for a foreigner of Persian decent. He lived at rue de Rivoli, n° 204. 'Les célébrités de la rue' 1864, claims he lived Rue de Rivoli for 25 years while 'Le Gaulois' August 31, 1868 wrote an article about his death and stated he only lived there for 13 years. And even odder 'Petit Journal' , September 13, 1867 stated 28 years... As you can see detaisl dont'always match up. Both 'Le Gaulois' and 'Les célébrités de la rue' state he received a pension of 2,000 pounds sterling per year and 'La vie quotidienne sous le Second Empire' claims an annual pension of one hundred thousand francs he received from England. He was known to go to the Theatre his favorite was the Théâtres Lyriques, l'Opéra-Comique, and Opéra Italien (Italians). Bellow are the articles written about him.
"Raoul now remembered that his brother had once shown him that mysterious person, of whom nothing was known except that he was a Persian and that he lived in a little old-fashioned flat in the Rue de Rivoli. The man with the ebony skin, the eyes of jade and the astrakhan cap bent over Raoul."
~ (The Phantom of the Opera, chapter: The Viscount and the Persian, by Gaston Leroux) |
~ Ref. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5897679/f2.item.r=Le%20Persan.zoom
Les célébrités de la rue
by Charles Yriarte, 1868 (ref https://www.paris-pittoresque.com/perso/13.htm)
by Charles Yriarte, 1868 (ref https://www.paris-pittoresque.com/perso/13.htm)
LE PERSAN
. There is only one Parisian, - since Dr. Veron (French journalist, politician, director of the l'Opéra de Paris, and doctor of medicine) and after M. Auber (French opera composer and director of the Paris Conservatoire), of course, - it is the Persian. The rest are disoriented by M. Haussmann (French official who renovated Paris, helped build the new boulevards The Avenue de l'Opéra), and they are waiting for the universe, which believes itself at the Porcherons (Ancien quartier of Paris, known for cabarets) on the boulevard, has finished its sabbath. . Our Parisians, for the moment, are Turks, Boyards (Serbian warrior class), Federals, Vlachs, Poles, Madgyars, Mexicans and cigar merchants of Havana. Probe the bathtubs, leaf the Betting Book, dine at Verdier's, bet at rue Royale, buy at the Tattersall, love rue Saint-Georges, tell us who throws flowers at la Patti; who is ruined, who breaks the dishes, who is gray, who loves our women, and maintains our dancers; Who gives swords and who receives them? It's Cairo, it's Petersburg, it's London, it's Vienna, it's Bombay, it's Cuba, it's Stambul and it's Lima! "But it is not Paris, and you will see that." . . . Prince Nariskhine treats our dancers, Khalil-Bey held the bank yesterday, Count Branitski shouts "Banco! Mustapha-Pasha writes our newspapers. The Princess of Metternich invents our hats and decree our skirts which Worth performs, M. Mackensie-Grieves gives us the start, M. Mikous does our ballets, Verdi, Offenbach, Ricci and Poniatowski make our operas. Strauss conducts our orchestra, Bischoffsheim builds our theaters, Hottinguer discounts our tickets, Rothschild pays us our dividends, John Arthur lodges us, Imoda refreshes us, Kcherkoff dresses us. . It's sold out! . The Parisian is overwhelmed, he gets confused, he staggers and slips away while scraping the walls. Alone, the Persian keeps his unemotional composure, he has been for twenty-five years a regular of the boulevards, he keeps the same stall at the Opera and the Opéra Italien (Italians). Paris is leaving, the Persian remains, and of all our types so numerous in the past, he is the only one who has remained faithful to us. . And yet this Persian remains an enigma, it is of all those which circulate on the pavement of Paris, the most obscure, the most relentless, and the most consistent. This Asiatic is a sphinx, one can observe it, but can not penetrate it. . He appeared more than twenty-five years ago, to the astonished eyes of Parisians, clothed as yesterday and tomorrow, as already old, as well groomed, polished. As he was then, so he is now. He wears a tall astrakhan cap with a small white silk tassel, this cap he has never has taken off in public, which covers his ears and goes down to the eyebrows. His beard, which grows on the cheekbones and clings under the eyes, is white as flocked silk and silky like it. His eyes are bright at the bottom of the arch dominated by a thick white eyebrow, his lips are closed. His great black batta, which descends to the feet, is the finest sheet; his pants are European style, is of a light blue, he wears a large cashmere under his robe, and his two hands are constantly crossed on his chest, hidden in his broad sleeves. His feet are invisible, his hands are bony and very meticulous. He is gentle, silent; his melancholy resembles resignation; We have seen for five or six years the poor Scudo, his stall neighbor, addressing the conductors in the name of Cima-rosa and Mozart, and gesturing like a madman at his side, without seeming to be moved by his close proximity. . . . It has become legendary and we would miss him if it did not occupy his stall. For more than twenty years, every evening, automatically, he enters the Opera, the Opera-Comique or the Opéra Italien. He has been much less assiduous for a few years at the second theater. He brushed against the walls and hides, extended his hand to the usher, takes the spyglass, sits down without saying a word and does not look up once from the first act to the last. Whether there is excessive applause, whether the audience bursts out, whether the enthusiasm overflows, he remains steadfast. The bouquets rain, the diva ascends to the stars, the Persian sphinx caresses its pipe dream without caring about the clamor. Often his eyes close during an act, the bravos awaken him and he feels no embarrassment. If sleep is still required, he closes his eyes and sleeps like a child. His sleep is peaceful, deep and almost majestic. One would laugh to see us close our eyes to la Patti, but he holds so little space and makes so little noise! but holds so little room for it, and makes so little noise! - I must say that his sleep has even more character than his lucidity, when his eyes reopen to the light, he seems sad, disappointed, and he soon escapes this state of oppression with a new sleep. . Sometimes he is thirsty, he makes a sign and manifests his desire, the usher understands and brings a sorbet. Prince Ismaël rummages in his gandourah robe, takes out a small green velvet case, takes a golden spoon from it, which he wipes delicately after using it, and resumes his resigned attitude. . Méry (journalist) swore to the great gods that he knew him very well, and when I wrote 'Les Célébrités de la rue' I passed my pen to him to paint the Persian. The author of the War of the Nizam, with his incredible imagination, made a fancy Persian, more curious perhaps than the one I am sketching today. Méry had gave birth to him in Amazia (City in India), called him Abbas-Mirza (Qajar crown prince of Iran) on the basis of I don't know what civil status, and when he was pushed a little, the poet assured him that the Prince was descended from the great king of Pontus. What is certain is that one day, when he heard Maubant (an actor at Comédie-Française) sing with his beautiful biting voice these two lines from Mithridates (play by Jean Racine, about the Mithridates VI Eupator who reigned over the kingdom of Pontus): . "Do you doubt that the Black Sea will carry me, in two days, At the places where the Danube river comes to finish its course?" . Prince Ismaël burst out laughing and explained to M. Viennet (French play write), his immortal neighbor, that King Mithridate must have made a big mistake in geography and was ahead of the electric wire when he talked about going from Sinope to Varna in two days, since today it takes seven days with the ocean liner to complete the journey. - This is the last time the Persian spoke in publict. . M. Garcin de Tassy (studied Oriental and Hindustani languages, esp known for Islamic translations) asked him one day in the language he professed to speak, why he was dressed in black. Ismaël replied with a verse from Horace (a Roman lyric poet). He speaks Latin, he writes with M. Buloz (media mogul, French littérateur, magazine editor, and administrator at Comédie-Française), and translates the poems of Azz-Eddin-El-Mocadessi (Author etc.), the 'Les oiseaux et les fleurs/Birds and the Flowers' (A very culturally importaint work), outraged to see that an Oriental scholar, translating this poem from Persian to French, Had removed the flowers and stuffed the birds. - So the Persian is a scholar. . When the Persian legation arrived in 1857, the sudden disappearance of Prince Ismaël seemed to give credence to vague sounds of which the curious Parisians had echoed, but the Persian was in London and did not flee like Ferruk-Khan (a Persian ambassador to the Emperor of the French, negotiator). This Asiatic is a sphinx, a pylon, a cuneiform inscription, an indecipherable hieroglyph; It may perhaps be assured, I say, perhaps, that he wished, ten years before M. de Lesseps (a diplomat, who reducing sailing time on the Mediterranean and Red Seas through the Suez Canal), to compete with him, and to establish a link between the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Azof, which was significantly disturbing the plans of the English and forced him to leave Isfahan to live in exile... . His utopia, if it is one, is worth defining. I believe it to be authentic. . Established a company, call in a lot of capital and go down to the forty-eighth degree of latitude, where the Don river, descending into the Sea of Azof, bends and sees, on the map, to unite the Volga (longest river in Europe) which, in turn, descends to the Caspian Sea. Call a lot of fellahs (agricultural labore and farmers in the Middle East and and North Africa), or if you are, summon the engineer Borel (finished excavation Suez Canal, after slave labor was abolished) with his dredges, and after a month the Russian liners coming out of the Black Sea and the Palus-Méotides (former Sea of Azof). will sail up the Don, across the little canal and down to the Caspian Sea through the widest mouth of the Volga. "That is not all: call the same engineer again; dig another canal from the banks of this little Mediterranean to Tehran (capital of Iran), - I think you can follow me on the map, - dig again from Tehran to Schouster: you are in India and the English are furious. . Isn't it convenient? Was it Méry again that made that rumor circulate? It was possible, but it had to be recorded. . . From the point of view of his daily life, we know that the Prince is ostensibly perfectly gentle, that he lives at Rue de Rivoli, opposite the Tuileries; He has a coupé carriage admirably held for the winter, a victoria carriage for the summer, an English secretary and a valet who never enters his bedroom. He. Was not insensitive, but as a celebrated composer of this time, he has not blown his nose for a long time; he was a simple commissioner in blue velvet who was, in more ardent times, responsible for distributing his scarves-they were paid as a prince. . . The carriages belong to him, the horses are rented, and his cooking comes from a caterer. He gets up between ten and eleven o'clock, and goes to bed on his return from the theater. His valet is Swiss; he has been in his service for thirteen years. This valet never enters his bedroom. Every day, from half past two to five o'clock, the mysterious character drives to the Bois or Parc Monceaux, huddled in the back of his coupé and seems to take no interest in what surrounds him. On his way back from the Bois, he entered Jauret's house, the edible merchant of the Rue Saint-Honoré, and there, choosing his own fruit and early fruits. He never bargains with the marches and shows he has never changed suppliers since coming to Paris. . (if this article was written in 1868 and the Persian was living in his flat for 26 years then he came to live in Paris in 1843.) For twenty-six years the Persian has lived in the same apartment on the Rue de Rivoli, opposite the Tuileries Gardens, and never receives any one there. The most curious of all the details I have collected, the one that best proves to what extent this unique foreigner has renounced movement and life, is that he suppresses fatalism by never opening a single letter addressed to him; he does not allow events to weigh on his life. His valet, or even his concierge, reads everything that happens to have his name on it and has a mission to burn everything without even making a report. (What was he running from? It's very interesting that Ismaïl is having things burned and is obscuring information. He's obviously running from something.) . He had only one moment of tenderness and spontaneous sympathy in his long Parisian existence; it was in regards to the tobacco dealer hired by the Grand Opera. This honorable person, a former resident of Ham (is a French commune located in the department of the Somme in Hauts-de-France, northern France), who used to passed letters, in milk bread to the one who was to be one day the Emperor Napoleon III., had managed to cheer up the melancholy old man, and this one, in a moment of extention, pulled his snuff-box out of his pocket and offered it to him. The tobacconist went to the local money-changer and wanted to entrust the memory to him in exchange for a few louis. - The jewelry was made of copper. . He speaks in monosyllables (words that consist of a single syllable, for one quick sound), suppresses articles as in a telegraphic dispatch, expresses himself in a certain French, and wrote, long before M. de Sartiges (a French diplomat and politician, charge d'affaires in Persia), 'Scènes de la cour de Téhéran' to the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' (a French monthly magazine on cultural and current affairs). He received 'the Quaterly Review' (English Political mag), the 'Frazer Magazine' (English Political mag) , the Times and some extraordinary newspapers published in Asia. As for the French newspapers, he never read them, but he receives the telegraphic despatches on the blue paper of the Havas agency, and every year, towards January 8, he presented himself at the Galerie d'Orleans at Dentu, And asks with a melancholy air l'Annuaire du bureau des longitudes (almanac and calendar for public and civil use). "The rest is the secret of the Chancery of Teheran." . Young Dantan, the famous sculptor to whom we owe this charivaric pantheon in which all the eminent men of this time are represented, once sculpted a kind of bas-relief of the balcony of the Opéra Italien (Italians), in which the Persian occupies its usual place. So there's our type forever classified. . . . . . . . |
LE PERSAN
. Il n'y a plus qu'un Parisien, – depuis le docteur Véron et après M. Auber, bien entendu, – c'est le Persan. Les autres sont dépaysés par M. Haussmann, et ils attendent que l'univers, qui se croit aux Porcherons sur le boulevard, ait fini son sabbat. . . . . . . Nos Parisiens, pour le moment, sont des Turcs, des Boyards, des Fédéraux, des Valaques, des Polonais, des Madgyars, des Mexicains et des marchands de cigares de la Havane. Sondez les baignoires, feuilletez le Betting-Book, soupez chez Verdier, pariez rue Royale, achetez au Tattersall, aimez rue Saint-Georges, dites-nous qui jette des fleurs à la Patti ; qui est-ce qui se ruine, qui brise la vaisselle, qui est-ce qui se grise, qui aime nos femmes et entretient nos danseuses ; qui est-ce qui donne des coups d'épée et qui en reçoit ? C'est le Caire, c'est Pétersbourg, c'est Londres, c'est Vienne, c'est Bombay, c'est Cuba, c'est Stamboul et c'est Lima ! – Mais ce n'est pas Paris et vous l'allez bien voir. . Le prince Nariskhine régale nos danseuses, Khalil-Bey tenait la banque hier, le comte Branitski crie « Banco ! » Mustapha-Pacha rédige nos journaux. La princesse de Metternich invente nos chapeaux et décrète nos jupes que Worth exécute, M. Mackensie-Grieves nous donne le départ, M. Mikous fait nos ballets, Verdi, Offenbach, Ricci et Poniatowski font nos opéras. Strauss conduit notre orchestre, Bischoffsheim construit nos salles de spectacle, Hottinguer escompte nos billets, Rothschild nous paye nos dividendes, John Arthur nous loge, Imoda nous rafraîchit, Kcherkoff nous habille. . C'est complet ! . Le Parisien est débordé, il se trouble, il chancelle et se dérobe en rasant les murs. Seul, le Persan garde son flegme inaltérable, il est depuis vingt-cinq ans l'assidu des boulevards, il garde imperturbablement la même stalle à l'Opéra et aux Italiens. Paris s'en va, le Persan reste, et de tous nos types si nombreux autrefois, c'est le seul qui nous soit resté fidèle. . . Et cependant, ce Persan reste une énigme, c'est de toutes celles qui circulent sur le pavé de Paris, la plus obscure, la plus acharnée, et la plus conséquente. Cet Asiatique est un sphinx, on peut l'observer, on ne le pénètre point. . Il apparut, il y a plus de vingt-cinq ans, aux yeux des Parisiens étonnés, vêtu comme hier et comme demain, aussi vieux déjà, aussi soigné, lustré, poli. Tel il était alors, tel il est aujourd'hui. Il porte un haut bonnet d'astrakan terminé par une petite houppe en soie blanche, bonnet qu'il n'a jamais ôté en public, qui lui couvre les oreilles et descend jusqu'aux sourcils. Sa barbe, qui pousse sur les pommettes et s'attache sous les yeux, est blanche comme la soie floche et soyeuse comme elle. Ses yeux sont vifs au fond de l'arcade dominée par un épais sourcil blanc, ses lèvres sont fermées. Sa grande batta noire, qui descend jusqu'aux pieds, est du drap le plus fin ; son pantalon, à l'européenne, est d'un bleu clair, il porte sous sa robe un large cachemire et tient constamment ses deux mains croisées sur sa poitrine, cachées dans ses larges manches comme dans un manchon. Son pied est imperceptible, sa main est osseuse et très soignée. Il est doux, silencieux, sa mélancolie ressemble à de la résignation ; on a vu pendant cinq ou six années le pauvre Scudo, son voisin de stalle, apostropher les chefs d'orchestre au nom de Cima-rosa et de Mozart, et gesticuler comme un furieux à son côté, sans qu'il parût s'émouvoir de ce singulier voisinage. . Il est devenu légendaire et il nous manquerait s'il n'occupait pas sa stalle. Depuis plus de vingt ans, tous les soirs, automatiquement, il entre à l'Opéra, à l'Opéra-Comique ou aux Italiens. – Il est beaucoup moins assidu depuis quelques années au second théâtre. Il frôle les murs et se dissimule, tend la main à l'ouvreuse, prend la lorgnette, s'assied sans mot dire et ne lève pas une fois les yeux depuis le premier acte jusqu'au dernier. Qu'on applaudisse à outrance, que la salle éclate, que l'enthousiasme déborde, il reste inébranlable. Les bouquets pleuvent, la diva monte aux étoiles, le sphinx persan caresse sa chimère sans prendre souci de ces clameurs. Souvent ses yeux se ferment pendant tout un acte, les bravos le réveillent et il n'en éprouve aucun embarras. Si le sommeil le sollicite encore, il referme les yeux et dort comme un enfant. Il a le sommeil paisible, profond et presque majestueux. On rirait à nous voir fermer les yeux à la Patti, mais lui tient si peu de place, et fait si peu de bruit ! – Je dois même dire que son sommeil a plus de caractère que sa lucidité, quand ses yeux se rouvrent à la lumière, il semble triste, désappointé, et il échappe bientôt à cet état d'oppression par un nouveau sommeil. . Quelquefois il a soif, il fait un signe et manifeste son désir, l'ouvreuse comprend et apporte un sorbet. Le prince Ismaël fouille dans sa gandourah, en sort un petit étui de velours vert, y prend une cuiller d'or qu'il essuie délicatement après s'en être servi, et reprend son attitude résignée. . . Méry jurait ses grands dieux qu'il le connaissait beaucoup, et lorsque j'écrivis les Célébrités de la rue, je lui passai ma plume pour peindre le Persan. L'auteur de la Guerre du Nizam, avec son incroyable imagination, fit un Persan de fantaisie, plus curieux peut-être que celui que j'esquisse aujourd'hui. Méry le faisait naître à Amazia, l'appelait Abbas-Mirza sur la foi de je ne sais quel état civil, et quand on le poussait un peu, le poète assurait que le prince descendait du grand roi du Pont. Ce qui est certain, c'est qu'un jour, en entendant Maubant scander de sa belle voix mordante ces deux vers de Mithridate : . . . . . Doutez-vous que l'Euxin ne me porte, en deux jours, Aux lieux où le Danube y vient finir son cours ? . . le prince Ismaël éclata de rire et expliqua à M. Viennet, son immortel voisin, que Mithridate faisait une grosse faute de géographie et devançait le fil électrique en parlant de se rendre de Sinope à Varna en deux jours, puisque aujourd'hui il en faut sept avec le paquebot pour exécuter le trajet. – C'est la dernière fois que le Persan a parlé en public. . . M. Garcin de Tassy lui a demandé un jour dans la langue qu'il professe, pourquoi il allait ainsi tout de noir vêtu. Ismaël a répondu en citant un vers d'Horace. Il parle latin, il écrit chez M. Buloz et il a traduit le poème d'Azz-Eddin-El-Mocadessi, les Oiseaux et les fleurs, outré de voir qu'un savant orientaliste, en faisant passer ce poème du persan au français, en avait ôté les fleurs et empaillé les oiseaux. – Donc le Persan est un lettré. . . . . . . Lors de l'arrivée de la légation persane en 1857, la subite disparition du prince Ismaël sembla donner créance à des bruits vagues dont les Parisiens curieux s'étaient faits l'écho, mais le Persan était à Londres et ne fuyait pas Ferruk-Khan. Cet Asiatique est un sphinx, un pylône, une inscription cunéiforme, un indéchiffrable hiéroglyphe ; on peut peut-être assurer, – je dis peut-être, – qu'il a voulu, dix ans avant M. de Lesseps, lui faire concurrence et poser un trait d'union entre la mer Caspienne et la mer d'Azof, ce qui dérangeait sensiblement les plans des Anglais et l'a forcé de quitter Ispahan pour vivre dans l'exil. . . . . Son utopie, – si c'en est une, – vaut la peine d'être définie. Je la crois authentique. . Constituez une société, appelez prodigieusement de capitaux et descendez vers le quarante-huitième degré de latitude, à l'endroit où le Don, descendant dans la mer d'Azof, fait un coude et semble, sur la carte, s'unir au Volga qui, lui, descend à la mer Caspienne. Appelez beaucoup de fellahs ou, – si vous y êtes, – convoquez l'ingénieur Borel avec ses dragues, et au bout d'un mois les paquebots russes sortis de la mer Noire et des Palus-Méotides remonteront le Don, traverseront le petit canal et descendront à la mer Caspienne par la plus large embouchure du Volga. – Ce n'est pas tout : appelez encore une fois le même ingénieur ; creusez un autre canal depuis les bords de cette petite Méditerranée jusqu'à Téhéran, – je pense que vous me suivez sur la carte, – creusez encore de Téhéran à Schouster : vous êtes aux Indes et les Anglais sont furieux. . . . Est-ce pratique, ne l'est-ce point ? Est-ce encore Méry qui a fait courir ce bruit-là ? c'est possible, mais il fallait l'enregistrer. . Au point de vue de sa vie de chaque jour, on sait que le prince est ostensiblement d'une douceur parfaite, qu'il habite rue de Rivoli, en face des Tuileries ; il a un coupé admirablement tenu pour l'hiver, une victoria pour l'été, un secrétaire anglais et un valet qui n'entre jamais dans sa chambre à coucher. Il. n'a point été insensible, mais comme un célèbre compositeur de ce temps-ci, il y a longtemps qu'il ne se mouche plus : c'est un simple commissionnaire en velours bleu qui était, en des temps plus ardents, chargé de distribuer ses foulards – on les payait en prince. . Les voitures lui appartiennent, les chevaux sont loués, et sa cuisine vient de chez le traiteur. Il se lève entre dix et onze heures, et se couche en revenant du théâtre. Son valet de chambre est Suisse ; il l'a depuis treize ans à son service. Ce valet n'entre jamais dans sa chambre à coucher. Tous les jours, de deux heures et demie à cinq heures, le mystérieux personnage se rend en voiture au bois ou au parc Monceaux, blotti dans le fond de son coupé et ne semblant prendre aucun intérêt à ce qui l'entoure. En revenant du bois, il entre chez Jauret, le marchand de comestibles de la rue Saint-Honoré, et, là, choisit lui-même ses fruits et ses primeurs. Il ne marchande jamais et passe pour n'avoir jamais changé de fournisseurs depuis qu'il est à Paris. . . . . Depuis vingt-six ans, le Persan habite le même appartement, rue de Rivoli, en face du jardin des Tuileries, et jamais il n'y reçoit personne. Le plus curieux de tous les détails que j'ai recueillis, celui qui prouve le mieux jusqu'à quel point ce singulier étranger a renoncé au mouvement et à la vie, c'est qu'il supprime le fatalisme en n'ouvrant jamais une seule des lettres qu'on lui adresse ; il ne permet pas aux événements de peser sur sa vie. Son valet de chambre, ou même son concierge, lit tout ce qui arrive à son nom et a mission de brûler sans même faire un rapport. . . . . . Il n'a eu dans sa longue existence parisienne qu'un moment d'attendrissement et qu'une sympathie spontanée ; ce fut à l'égard de la buraliste de la location du grand Opéra. Cette honorable personne, ancienne pensionnaire de Ham, qui faisait passer des lettres dans du pain au lait à celui qui devait être un jour l'empereur Napoléon III, était parvenue à dérider le mélancolique vieillard, et celui-ci, dans un moment d'expansion, tira sa tabatière de sa poche et la lui offrit. La buraliste s'en fut chez le changeur du coin et voulut lui confier le souvenir en échange de quelques louis. - Le bijou était en cuivre. . . . Il parle par monosyllabes, supprime les articles comme dans une dépêche télégraphique, s'exprime dans un certain français et a écrit, longtemps avant M. de Sartiges, des Scènes de la cour de Téhéran à la Revue des Deux Mondes. Il reçoit le Quaterly Review, le Frazer Magazine, le Times et quelques journaux extraordinaires publiés en Asie, Quant aux journaux français, il ne les lit jamais, mais il reçoit les dépêches télégraphiques sur le papier bleu de l'agence Havas, et tous les ans, vers le 8 janvier, il se présente, à la galerie d'Orléans, chez Dentu, et demande d'un air mélancolique l'Annuaire du bureau des longitudes. - Le reste est le secret de la chancellerie de Téhéran. . . . . . Dantan jeune, le célèbre sculpteur auquel on doit ce panthéon charivarique dans lequel figurent tous les hommes éminents de ce temps-ci, a sculpté naguère une sorte de bas-relief du balcon des Italiens, dans lequel le Persan occupe sa place habituelle. Voilà donc notre type à jamais classé. . Ref. A Narrative Of A Journey Into Persia And Residence At Teheran: Containing A Descriptive Itinerary From Constantinople To The Persian Capital ~by J. M. Tancoigne 1923, http://www.paris-pittoresque.com/perso/13.htm, Revue encyclopédique, ou Analyse raisonnée des productions les ..., Volume 8 |
Le Monde illustré (1857), Les célébrités de la rue (1864)
Hand copied and translated from a French copy of Les célébrités de la rue by De Charles Yriarte, p.210-220 (1864);
Le Monde illustré, Journal Hebdomadaire, Volume 7, p.410-411 (26 Décebre 1863)
Le Monde illustré, Journal Hebdomadaire, Volume 7, p.410-411 (26 Décebre 1863)
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THE PERSAN . WE had asked M. Méry, who followed him closely, for notes on the Persian. The author of the 'The War on Nizam/la Guerre du Nizam', with a benevolence for which we thank him here, has wanted to write an article which makes us suppress ours. . It is a good fortune which gives price to our book: . ABBAS-MIRZA . Of all the living enigmas which circulate on the pavement of Paris without saying their word to the passers-by, the enigma of the Persian is the most curious, the most obscure, the most relentless in its sphinx like silence. . The Persian has never had a man’s name; it is presumed that his passport could well name him as Abbas-Mirza, and give his birthplace as Amazia (city) where Roman Lucallus discovered the apricot tree, persicus fruit, and the cherry tree, and cerasus the sour cherry, the finest conquered of Rome, Montreuil and Montmorency. . The Persian would therefore descend from Mithridate, King of Pontus (N Anatolia in Asia Minor), whose capitals were Sinope, where Diogenes was born, and Amazia. . A circumstance, noticed by an Oedipus of Living Enigmas, seems to give some credit to this royal f lineage of the Persian. . Milhridate (King of Pontus) was played to the French: the Persian Abbas-Mirza was in his stall and listened to the tragedy with the seriousness of an academic. . When Mithridate (ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus)-Maubant (French actor) had said these two verses: . “Do you doubt that the Black Sea will carry me, in two days, to the places where the Danube river ends its course?” . the Persian bursts out laughing and scandalizes M. Viennet (French playwrite), his neighbor. . The Persian never laughed, the very lines of his face seem to be unable to lend themselves to the contractions of mad hilarity; he was asked what the cause of this exceptional laughte wasr; the question marks were no happier than if they had been placed in front of the great sphinx of the pyramids of Giza. . Then he admitted, in the ent’acte, that Mithridate delivering these two verses in Sinope (place in Turkey), made an enormous mistake in the geography by saying it only takes two days to get to Varna, on the other side of the Black Sea: when today, to make this journey, it takes seven days, with a steamer. . The Persian, in spite of his immutable seriousness, was thus obliged to welcome by his first burst of laughter an enormous blunder, which the tragedy blamed on his ancestor Mithridate. . Here is therefore a corner of veil raised in the mystery surrounding the Persian in Paris. His name is Abbas-Mirza, he is a descendant of Mithridate, he is a native of Amazia, and he buys, in April, at Chevet, the Persian primeurs of Montreuil and Montmorency. . It's a big step in the puzzle. . The Persian wears the costume and the cap that the authors of the enchantments give to the magicians; he passes in front of the displays of our tailors and honors them with a look of contempt. In his eyes, our fashion journal has subscribers who are only funeral directors; he sees in our hatmakers only smokers selling stove pipes by delivery and favoring colds of brain. . M. Garcin de Tassy (studied Oriental and Hindustani languages, esp known for Islam and translations), a Persian language teacher, asked the Persian in French what reason of modesty had pushed him to take such a simple costume. The Persian answered him in Latin: "Persicos odi puer apparatus: I hate Persian luxury. "This quotation from a verse of Horace's attests to the scholarchip of this noble foreigner. . M. Garcin de Tassy asked him in Persian language if he was happy: "Ti sabir chalar bono?" The Persian answered him with a line from the same poet: 'I am happier than the king of Persia: Persarum rege beatior.' . His costume, moreover, strictly conforms to the simple laws of the Persian magi or magicians: these men who, according to Ovid (Roman poet), worked miracles with the powerful juice of herbs: magos potentibus herbis; these herbs were picked with the left hand, hiding the right in a fold of dress; a black robe would destroy the effect of this magical operation. . Our Imperial Academy of Music (orginal Paris Opera) is the favorite theater of the mysterious Persian. . Frivolous observers have concluded that the Persian loved great music and swooned when he heard for the four hundredth time: "Supreme happiness, Oh you whom I love; Oh enchanting moment, I feel your heart beating; you see my fear; forty-five times: grace for me; my flame responds to his flame; the sun refuses the light of his torch; whatever happens or will happen, and a crowd of etc.; it is is a serious error of assumption. The Persian, lulled by the primitive music of Mouzz-Abbi, the Cimarosa of Espahan, hates our music and beats the measure against the velvet of his stall; the chandelier, the splendid chandelier of the ceiling attracts the Persian alone to the Opera. . This requires an explanation: . The Persians, or Parsi, have always worshipped the sun, and I will not blame them: it was for them a visible god, source of life and fertility. Nine hundred years before Christ, Hesiod and Homer made the sun a blond god who traveled daily from east to west on a chariot with four white horses. The Persians still mock this stupid Apollo in their poems today and still prefer the sun to him. . . Our Parisian Persian is always attached to the cult of ancestors and to the memory of Zoroaster, king and legislator of the Persians, and the founder of the solar religion; he knows that Pythagoras worshipped the science known as Zoroastrian, witness this verse of Martial "Pythagore consectalira zoroastridas artes," and as the Persian is a fervent Pythagorean, he continues to give the sun testimonies of respect, when this star appears on the horizon. . By misfortune, the sun of Paris shines by its absence, in winter, and the Persian has no opportunity to make up for it on the moon, the sun of the night. One day of thick fog, he found an expedient, and since that day, already far away, he has made a happier life for himself. At that time, the first dressing rooms of the Academy, then royal of music, were lined with balcony stalls; the Persian rented one of these astronomical observatories in perpetuity, and every evening he would sit there to adore the great chandelier, the only representative of the sun in winter. Three hundred Robert and three hundred Huguenots (French Protestants) passed over his head without distracting him from his chandelier cult. . Suddenly a revolution breaks out in the provisional hall of the Opera, provisional since 1822, provisional like all that is eternal in France, the provisional governments excepted; the balcony boxes are demolished because of public uselessness, and the Persian is expropriated from his pious observatory; he demands an compensation from the director. . The directors of the Parisian theatres are at odds with the sun, and regard it as a personal enemy; if they had a thirty-eight million leagues long extinguisher, they would turn it off in the middle of the day. This hatred is excusable: the sun suppresses revenues and has caused many administrative bankruptcies; the rain, on the contrary, is a Danaë (Argive princess and mother to Perseus) rain for the theatres as well as for the farmers. . The petition of the Persian sun worshipper was rather coldly greeted by the director of the Opera; the petitioner was called a lunatic and was offered to be buried in an ochestra stall with the prospect of turning his back on the hydrogen gas sun, which is an irreverence for a fire worshipper. . . He thought long and hard and finally accepted - "I will always have the resource, the stall," he thought, "to worship the solar chandelier during the entr'actes, which are always quite long." . When Herculaneum's opera was performed, the Persian was overjoyed, and he never missed a single one of its ninety performances. This is the reason for the favor granted to Félicien David's (French composer of Herculanum) opera: Moved by the distress of the Persian, whom I regard as my colleague, I was careful to give, in my poem, the Greek name of Helios (Sun) to our dear and illustrious tenor Roger. One day, in Alphonse Royer's dressing room, Félicien David noticed the frenetic enthusiasm of the Persian, and said to me: - "It seems that I have done well with the local color, the Orientals applaud me. "I left this illusion to the composer. . The Persian thanked me for having given the Opera my translation of Sémiramis (Lydian-Babylonian queen); I thought for a moment that he liked this masterpiece of Rossini; mistake again. Sémiramis begins with a hymn au soleil, Belo gran nume, and all the choristers bow before the sacred fire. Belus (Baʿal) is the earthly image of the sun. . The idle, so numerous on the boulevard, have striven to know the reason that has kept the Persian in Paris for so long, in this city that, in the eighteenth century, dared to pronounce this word: How can one be Persian? . At the court of Tehran, there are two parties: Russian and English; France is little known there; the Persians say: How can one be French? deserved reprisals; and the noble foreigner, accustomed to the Opera, very versed in the science of geography, is the author of an admirable project which, sooner or later, must put Russia at the gates of India. . The project is simple and requires only a small expense; you will be the judge of that: . Look at a map of Asia, and you will see that, around the forty-eighth degree of latitude, the Don, descending to the Sea of Azoff, bends and almost touches the Volga, which descends to the Caspian Sea; on this point, dig, it is a matter of a month, and the Russian liners coming out of the Black Sea and the Meotides swamps will go up the Don, cross the small canal and go down to the Caspian Sea through the widest mouth of the Volga. It is then a question of digging a channel from the shores of this small Mediterranean to Tehran, and from Tehran to Schouster, on the shores of the Persian Gulf; here you are in India. The Foreign Office has found this plan to be fearsome and threatening to its Indian possessions, and has requested that the author be put on trial as a Moscow conspirator. Our Persian has seen a cloud rise in the English Chancery in Isfahan, and, to escape the storm, he left with his treasures and said an eternal farewell to Persia; he has seen Paris, he has made himself a Parisian; he hopes to live long enough to see the execution of his superb project, which is so inexpensively a link between the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Azoff, nəd nion. It is the Isthmus of Suez of the Russians, but with the difference that separates the grain of sand from Mount Athos. . Initiated in all forms of the French language, our Persian Parisian takes care of the translation đu beautiful poem of Azz-Eddin-el-Mocadessi, the Birds and the Flowers. Mr. Garein de Tassy, an orientalist from Marseilles, tried to translate the same work too, but he removed the flowers and stuffed the birds. . Our literature will be enriched by an ea- vre which enjoys in Persia a high and legitimate reputation. Since his arrival in Paris, the Persian has never been disturbed in his works, his walks and his stalls. The arrival of the Persian embassy in 1857 caused him for a moment some emotion; he feared an English perfidy, and avoided for fifteen days the sight of the passers-by of the boulevard and the subscribers of the Opera. It was a vain fear, the ambassador of Esfahan did not think of him. . Eleven years ago, the Persian wrote a series of articles for the Revue des Deuz-Mondes entitled: Scenes from the Court of Tehran. . May the northern sun give long and sweet evenings to the son of the East! |
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LE PERSAN . NOUS avions demandé à M. Méry, qui l'a beau- coup suivi, des notes sur le Persan. L'auteur de la Guerre du Nizam, avec une bienveillance dont nous le remercions ici, a bien youlu rédiger un article qui nous fait supprimer le nôtre. . . C'est une bonne fortune qui donne du prix à notre livre : . ABBAS-MIRZA . De toutes les énigmes vivantes qui circulent sur le pavé de Paris sans dire leur mot aux passants, l'énigme du Persan est la plus curieuse, la plus obscure, la plus acharnée dans son mutisme de sphinx. . Le Persan n'a jamais cu nom d'homme; on présume que son passeport pourrait bien le nonimer Abbas-Mirza, et lui donner pour lieu de naissance Amazia, ville où Lucallus découvrit l'abricotier, persicus, et le cerisier, cerasus, les plus beiles conquètes de Rome, de Montreuil et de Montmorency. . Le Persan descendrait donc de Mithridate, roi de Pont, qui avait pour capitales Sinope, où naquit Diogène, et Amazia. . . Une circonstance, remarquée par un Œdipe d'énigmes vivantes, semble donner un certain crédit à cette royale filiation du Persan. . On jouait Milhridate aux Français : le Persan Abbas-Mirza était dans sa stalle et écoutait la tragédie avec une gravité d'académicien. . Lorsque Mithridate-Maubant eut dit ces deux vers: . . Doutez-vous que l'Euxin ne me porte en deax jours Aux lieux où le Danube y vient finir son cours? . le Persan éclate de rire et scandalise M. Viennet, son voisin. . . Le Persan n'avait jamais ri, les lignes même de sa figure semblent ne pouvoir se · prèter aux contractions de l'hilarité folle; on lui demanda le parce que de ce rire exceptionnel ; les points d'interrogation ne furent pas plus heureux que s'ils eussent été posés devant le grand sphinx des pyramides de Ghizeh. . Alors il fut admis, dans un entr'acte, que Mithridate prononçant ces deux vers à Sinope, commettait une énorme faute de géographie en parlant de se rendre en deux jours à Varna, de l'autre côté de la mer Noire: il faut aujourd'hui sept jours, avec le paquebot à vapeur, pour faire ce trajet. . . Le Persan, malgré sa gravité immuable, était donc obligé d'accueillir par son premier éclat de rire une énorme bévue, que la tragédie mettait sur le compte de son aïeul Mithridate. . Voilà donc un coin de voile soulevé dans le mystère qui environne le Persan de Paris. Il se nomme Abbas-Mirza, il descend de Mithridate, il est natif d'Amazia, et il achète, en avril, chez Chevet, les primeurs persanes de Montreuil et de Montmorency. . C'est un grand pas de fait dans l'énigme. . Le Persan porte le costume et le bonnet que les auteurs des féeriesdonnent aux magiciens; il passe devant les étalages de nos tailleurs et les honore d'un regard de mépris. A ses yeux, notre journal de modes n'a pour abonnés que des employés de pompes funèbres; il ne voit dans nos chapeliers que des fumistes vendant des tuyaux de poèle par livraisons et favorisant les rhumes de cerveau. . Un M. Garcin de Tassy, professeur de langue persane, demanda en français au Persan quel motif de modestie l'avait poussé à prendre un costume si simple. Le Persan lui répondit en latin : « Persicos odi puer apparatus : Je déteste le luxe des Perses. » Cette citation d'un vers d'Horace atteste l'érudition de ce noble étranger. . . . M. Garcin de Tassy lui demanda en langue persane s'il était heureux : « Ti sabir chalar bono? » Le Persan lui répondit par un vers du mème poëte : « Je suis plus heureux que le roi des Perses : Persarum rege beatior. » . Son costume, d'ailleurs, se conforme stricte- ment aux lois simpluaires des mages ou des magiciens perses : ces hommes qui, selon Ovide, opéraient des miracles avec le suc puissant des herbes : magos potentibus herbis; on cueillait ces herbes de la main gauche, en cachant la droite dans un pli de robe; un frac noir détruirait l'effet de cette opération magique. . Notre Académie impériale de musique est le théatre favori du mystérieux Persan. . Les observateurs frivoles ont conclu que le Persan adorait la grande musique et qu'il se pâmait dise en entendant pour la quatre centième fois : Bonheur suprême, Ô toi que j'aime; Ô moment enchanteur, je sens battre ton cœur; tu vois mon effroi; quarante-cinq fois : gráce pour moi; ma flamme répond à sa flamme; le soleil refuse la lumière de son flambeau; quoi qu'il advienne ou qu'il arrive, et une foule d'et-ecætera; c'est une grave erreur de supposition. Le Persan, bercé par la musique primitive de Mouzz-Abbi, le Cimarosa d'Ispahan, déteste notre musique et bat la mesure à contretenips sur le velours de sa stalle; le lustre, le splendide lustre du plafond attire seul le Persan à l'Opéra. . Ceci demande explication: . Les Perses, ou Parsis, ont toujours adoré le soleil, et ce n'est pas moi qui les en blamerai: c'était pour eux un dieu visible, source de la vie et de la fécondité. Neuf cents ans avant Jésus- Christ, Hésiode et Homère firent du soleil un dieu blond qui se promenait tous les jours de l'est à l'ouest sur un char attelé de quatre chevaux blancs. Les Perses se moquent encore aujourd'hui, dans leurs poésies, de ce stupide Apollon, et lui préfèrent toujours le soleil. . Notre Persan parisien est toujours attaché au culte de scs aïeux et à la mémoire de Zoroastre, roi et législateur des Perses, et le fondateur de la religion solaire; il sait que Pythagore a vénéré la science dite zoroastrienne, témoin ce vers de Martial « Pythagore consectalira zoroastridas artes, » et comme le Persan est un fervent pythagoricien, il continue à donner au soleil des témoignages de respect, lorsque cet astre se montre à l'horizon. . . Par malheur, le soleil de Paris brille par son absence, en hiver, et le Persan n'a l'occasion de se dédommager sur la lune, soleil de la nuit. Un jour d'épais brouillards, il a trouvé un expédient, et, depuis ce jour, déjà éloigné, il s'est fait une existence plus heureuse. En ce temps, les premières loges de l'Académie, alors royale de musique, étaient bordées de stalles de balcon; le Persan loua un de ces observatoires astronomiques à perpétuité, et tous les soirs il s'y installait pour adorer le grand'lustre, seul représentant du soleil en hiver. Trois cents Robert et trois cents Huguenots ont passé sur sa tête sans le distraire de son culte lustral. . . . Tout à coup vne révolution éclate dans la salle provisoire de l'Opéra, provisoire depuis 1822, provisoire comme tout ce qui est éternel en France, les gouvernements provisoires exceptés; on démolit les loges de balcon pour cause d'inutilité publique, et le Persan est exproprié de son observatoire pieux ; il demande une indemnité au directeur. . . Les directeurs des théatres parisiens sont brouillés avec le soleil, et le regardent comme un ennemi personnel ; s'ils avaient un éteignoir long de trente-huit millions de lieues, ils l'éteindraient en plein midi. Cette haine est excusable : le soleil supprime les recettes et a causé bien des faillites administratives; la pluie, au contraire, est une pluie de Danaë pour les théatres comme pour ies agricultenrs. . . La pétition du Persan adorateur du soleil fut dono assez froidement accueillie par le direc- teur de l'Opéra ; on traita le pétitionnaire de lunatique et on lui proposa de l'ensevelir dans une stalle d'ochestre avec la perspective de tourner le dos au soleil de gaz hydrogène, ce qui est une irrévérence pour un adorateur du feu. . . Il réfléchit longtemps et finit par accepter - « J'aurai toujours la ressource, la stalle. pensa-t-il, de vénérer le lustre solaire pendant les entr'actes, qui sont toujours assez longs. » . Lorsque l'opéra d'Herculanum fut repré- senté, le Persan tressaillit de joie, et il n'a jamais manqué une seule de ses quatre-vingt- dix représentations. Voici la cause de cette faveur accordée à l'opéra de Félicien David : Ému de la détresse du Persan, que je regarde comme mon coréligionnaire, j'avais eu soin de donner, dans mon poëme, le nom grec d'Hélios (Soleil) à notre cher et illustre ténor Roger. Un jour, dans la loge d'Alphonse Royer, Félicien David remarqua le frénétique enthousiasme du Persan, et me dit :-« Il parait que j'ai bien réussi la couleur locale, les Orientaux m'applaudissent. » Je laissai cette illusion au compositeur. . Le Persan m'a remercié d'avoir donné à l'Opéra ma traduction de Sémiramis; j'ai cru un instant qu'il aimait ce chef-d'euvre de Rossini; erreur encore. Sémiramis commence par un hymne au soleil, Belo gran nume, et tous les choristes se prosternent devant le feu sacré. Bélus est l'image terrestre du soleil. . Les oisifs, si nombreux sur le boulevard, se sont évertués pour connaitre le motif qui a retenu si longtemps le Persan à Paris, dans cette ville qui, au dix-huitiène siècle, a osé prononcer ce mot : Comment peut-on être Persan? . A la cour de Téhéran, il y a deux partis : le russe et l'anglais; la France est peu connue là-bas; les Persans disent: Comment peut-on être Français? représailles méritées; or, le noble étranger, habitué de l'Opéra, très-versé dans la science géographique, est l'auteur d'un projet admirable qui, tot ou tard, doit mettre la Russie aux portes de l'Inde. . Le projet est simple et ne demande qu'une faible dépense; vous allez en juger : . Jetez les yeux sur une carte d'Asie, et vous verrez que, vers le quarante-huitième degré de latitude, le Don, descendant à la mer d'Azoff, fait un coude et touche presque le Volga, qui descend à la Caspienne; sur ce point, creusez, c'est l'affaire d'un mois, et les paquebots russes sortis de la mer Noire et des marais Méotides remonteront le Don, traverseront le petit canal et descendront à la mer Caspienne par la plus large embouchure du Volga. Il s'agit ensuite de creuser un canal depuis les bords de cette petite Méditerranée jusqu'à Téhéran, et de Tėhéran jusqu’à Schouster, aux abords du golfe Persique; vous voilà aux Indes. Le Foreign- Office a trouvé ce plan redoutable et menaçant pour ses possessions indiennes, et il a demandé que l'auteur soit mis en jugement, comme conspirateur moscovite. Notre Persan a vu se lever un nuage dans la chancellerie anglaise d'Ispahan, et, pour se dérober à la tempête, il est parti avec ses trésors en disant à la Perse un adieu éternel; il a vu Paris, il s'est fait Parisien; il espère vivre encore assez longtemps pour voir l'exécution de son projet superbe, qui pose à si peu de frais un trait d'union entre la mer Caspienne et la mer d'Azoff. C'est l'istltme de Suez des Russes, mais avec la différence qui sépare le grain de sable du mont Athos. . Initié dans toutes les formes de la langue française, notre Persan parisien s'occupe de la traduction đu beau poëme d'Azz-Eddin-el-Mocadessi, les Oiseauz et les Fleurs. M. Garein de Tassy, orientaliste marseillais, a essayé de traduire aussi le même ouvrage, mais il en a ôté les fleurs et a empaillé les oiseaux. . Notre littérature va s'enrichirenfin d'une ea- vre qui jouit en Perse d'une haute et légitime réputation. Depuis son arrivée à Paris, le Persan n'a jamais été troublé dans ses travaux, ses promenades et ses stalles. L'arrivée de l'ambassade persane, en 1857, lui causa un instant quelque émotion; il craignit une perfidie anglaise, et se déroba pendant quinze jours à la vue des passants du boulevard et des abonnés de l'Opéra. C'était une crainte vaine, l'ambassadeur d'Ispahan ne songeait pas à lui. . Le Persan a donné, il y a onze ans, à la Revue des Deuz-Mondes, une série d'articles intitulés: Scènes de la cour de Téhéran. . Puisse le soleil du Nord donner encore de longues et douces soirées au nohle fils de l'Orient! |
La vie quotidienne sous le Second Empire
by Maurice Allem, Ubrarie Hachette, 1948, p. 222
by Maurice Allem, Ubrarie Hachette, 1948, p. 222
'There was an old man, dressed in a sort of long black coat which enveloped him to his feet, his face unchanging, which descended a large white beard. It was surmounted by a astrakhan cap on top, to which he did not remove even in the theater. By night we always saw him at the Theatre-Italien Comédie or at the Opera , still motionless, silent, attentive, unless he was asleep. Such a character excited curiosity. Columnists in search of subjects chronically were eager to know who he was, what his name was, where he came from, what he was doing in Paris. One was learned that he came from Persia and his name was Mohammed Ismael. It was believed that he lived richly on an annual pension of one hundred thousand francs he received from England on account of him doing an act of treason against his country. So it was said, but no one could prove it. The writer's with their curiosity satisfied treated it the same as the misery of the sphinx. It was, in any case, he was one of the picturesque faces of Paris at the time. He only was said to have disappeared towards the end of the Second Empire, in 1868, brought down by a stroke.'
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"C'étiat un fort vieillard, vêtu d'une sorte de long manteau noir qui l'enveloppait jusqu'aux pieds; son visage inaltérable, d'où descendait une large barbe blanche, était surmonté d'un haut bonnet d'astrakan que, même au théâtre, il n'ôtait pas. On le voyait ainsi, selon les soirs, au Théâtre-Italien Comedou à I'Opéra, et toujours immobile, silencieux, attentif, à moins qu'il ne sommeillât, Un tel personnage excitait la curiosité. Les chroniqueurs, en quête de sujets de chroniques, étaient avides de savoir qui il était, comment il s'appelait, d'où il venait, ce qu'il faisait à Paris. On apprit qu'il venait de Perse et qu'il s'appelait Mohammed-Ismael. On crut savoir qu'il vivait richement d'une rente de cent mille francs qu'il recevair de I'Angleterre au profit de laquelle il aurait accompli un acte de trahison contre son pays. On le disait. On ne le prouvait pas. Et les chroniqueurs, dans leur curiosité insatisfaite, le traitaient d'énigme et même de sphinx. It était, en tout cas, une des physionomies pittoresques de Paris de son temps. II ne disparut que vers la fin du second Empire, en 1868, abattu par I'apoplexie."
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Le Petit Journal
1867-09-13, p. 2-3
1867-09-13, p. 2-3
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The Persian, a faithful regular in our theaters of Music, whom we recently spoke about, is called Mohamed-Ismael-Khan. Khan is a noble title. He has occupied the second floor of house number 204, rue de Rivoli, for twenty-eight years, and for twenty-eight years he has never been ill. He is eighty-four years old and enjoys a fortune of two or three millions. The Persian lives very simply, never drinks wine; he has a very pronounced taste for early fruit. He has only one servant, a valet. The Persian owns carriages, but not horses; he rents them, including the coachman: he pays separately for his apartment and furniture, which he rents from an upholsterer. From time to time he renews carpets, curtains, etc., at his own expense, and continues to pay the rent to the perfect upholsterer. The life of the Persian is very simple. All his meals are brought to him from outside; he walks in the morning, and in the afternoon, from two to five o'clock, goes punctually to the Bois de Boulogne. In the evening, he goes to the theater, preferably to the théâtres lyriques. At home, no one enters except his valet and his tailor. During the days of June 1848, the Persian, said la Liberté, almost became a victim of insurrection. He had ventured to look out one of the windows of his apartment, when a national guard shot at him. Fortunately, the Persian had time to retreat to his kitchen, and for the next few days he was not seen again. |
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Le Persan , fidèle habitué de nos théâtres de Musique, dont nous avons récemment parlé, se nomme Mohamed-Ismael-Khan. Khan est une désignation nobiliaire. Il occupe depuis vingt-huit ans le premier, étage de la maison numéro 204, rue de Rivoli, et depuis vingt-huit ans il n'a jamais été malade. Il est âgé de quatre-vingt-quatre ans et jouit d'une fortune de deux ou trois millions. Le Persan vit très simplement, ne boit jamais do vin; il a Un goût très prononcé pour les fruits primeurs. Il a un seul domestique, un valet de chambre. Le Persan possède des voitures, mais pas de chevaux; il les loue, cocher compris: Il paye à part son appartement et un mobilier qu'il loue à un tapissier. De temps à autre il rénouvelle à ses frais des tapis des rideaux, etc., et continue à en payer imperturbablement le loyer, au parfait tapissier. La vie du Persan est très simple. On lui apporte tous ses repas du dehors; il se promène à pied le matin, et l'après-midi, de deux à cinq heures, se rend ponctuellement au bois de Boulogne. Le soir, il va au théâtre, de préférence aux théâtres lyriques. Chez lui il n'entre âme qui vive, excepté son valet de chambre et son tailleur. Pendant les journées de juin 1848, le Persan, dit la Liberté, faillit devenir victime de l'insurection. Il s'était aventuré à se montrer à l'une des croisées de son appartement, lorsqu'un garde national le coucha en joue. Le Persan eut heureusement le temps de se retirer dans sa cuisine, et pendant les trais journées on ne le vit plus reparaître. |
Le Petit Journal
Aguast 31, 1868
Aguast 31, 1868
.THE PERSAN... OF PARIS
-- Paris has just seen disappear a character that the Chronicle has killed several times; even if it means resurrecting him the day after tomorrow... by a rectification. . It was a singular, strange, mysterious man and possessing in our capital an incontestable popularity. . He was known of the poor classes as of the rich classes, to such a point that he did not excite any more an indiscreet curiosity, although he did not wear the European atire. . When one saw him passing by one would simply say: Look! there is the Persian. ⸫ He was a grave and absolutely silent man, wearing a cap and the long robe of his country; a kind of dervish lost in the waves of the European population. . . He had a great white beard, which fell on his chest, after having originated on two thirds of his stern face. . . He was a great regular of the Opera... At last Friday's performance of Hamlet he was absent... That denoted an unusual fact in this problematic existence. . . Yesterday morning, Dr. Mary Durand, called in haste, arrived at the Asiatic's house only to note his death. . The Persian from Paris had given up the ghost... ⸫ Méry had been greatly intrigued by the life of this mysterious Persian who passed through the noisy joys of the West without ever showing any movement of displeasure or satisfaction... . He often approached him, but could not get him to speak. . Méry firmly believed that the Persian was a regular at the Opera only because he made his prayers there. . The Persian took, according to the poet, the immense and glittering chandelier of the auditorium for a personification of the sun. . Now, it is known that some Persians still follow the tradition of Zoroaster, which dominated Persia until it was overthrown by Mohammedanism (Outdated term the West used to call the Muslim religion). . It is probable that in Persia, as in the whole of Asia Minor, people first worshipped the cult of stars, and especially the Sun, the Moon and the planets. . Later, Zoroaster appeared as a reformer of this cult, to which he gave more morality and spiritualism. . Zoroaster, while maintaining the religion of the stars as celestial powers, proclaimed the existence of two superior divinities: Ormuhd and Ahriman. . Ormuhd (Ahura Mazda) was light and good. . Ahriman (Areimanios) was darkness and evil. . It was therefore not surprising to see the Persian of Paris seeking in the most sparkling chandelier of our theaters what reminded him of both brightness and divinity!... ⸫ The Persian was a scholar. . Not only did he possess thoroughly the language of Zend (Avestan language), in which Zoroaster wrote his religious works, but also the Pahlavi language, which was once used in the empires of the Medes (ancient Iranian people). . Then he knew Arabic, English, Italian and French well enough to have made literary contributions to the Revue des Deux-Mondes. . Méry, who loved the sun, sought to get closer to this infidel, who adored him like a God... . But the Persian was a savage who who fled even from the society of a poet, . And the author of la Floride did not know much more than I do about the enigmatic character that I am trying to recant here... ⸫ I said that the Persian was a great regular of our Imperial Academy of Music, whose dazzling luster he especially admired... . I must not forget to mention a fact which upset his last pleasures. . In the past the Persian had his stall booked in advance, for the year, at the entrance to the first tier balcony, stage right, to the right of the actor, i.e. next to the old infernal lodge... . A year ago, the balcony stalls were removed and and converted the entire gallery into dressing rooms. . The Persian was forced to take refuge in the the orchestra, among the distracted journalists and elegant idlers. . He endured with a disguised ill bitterness this sudden change in his habits. ⸫ My colleague and friend, M. Charles Yriarte, created, in the Celebrities of the Street, a portrait of the singular character who has just died... . And, as M. Yriarte also skillfully wields the pencil than the pen, I ensures that the portrait is likeness.- Here is if not the drawing at least the legend who accompanies him:... . "The Persian keeps his unemotional composure, for twenty-five years the constant one of the boulevards, he invariably keeps the same stall at the Opera and the Italians. Paris goes away, the Persian remains, and of all our types, so many in the past, he is the only one who has remained faithful to us. . "And yet, this Persian is still an enigma, it is of all those which circulate on the pavement of Paris, the most obscure, the fiercest and the most relentless. This Asian is a sphinx, one can observe him, but can not penetrate it. . "He appeared, more than twenty-five years ago, to the astonished eyes of Parisians, dressed as yesterday and as tomorrow, as old already, as well groomed, polished. As he was then then, as he is today. He wears a high astrakhan cap finished by a small white silk tassel, a cap that he has never taken off in public, which covers his ears and goes down to his to the eyebrow. . "His beard, which grows on his cheekbones and attaches under the eyes, is white like flocked silk and silky like it. His eyes are bright at the bottom of the arch dominated by a thick white eyebrow, his lips are closed. . "His large black batta, which goes down to his feet, is of the finest cloth; his pants, in the European style, are of a light blue he wears under his robe a large cashmere and constantly holds his two hands acrossed his chest, hidden in his wide sleeves as if in a muff. His feet are hidden, his hands are bony and very neat. He is gentle, silent, his melancholy, which resembles resignation; for five or six years we saw poor Scudo, his neighbor in the stall, addressing the conductors in the name of Cimarosa and Mozart, and gesturing madly at next to him, without appearing to be moved by this unique neighbor." ⸫ M. Yriarte reminds us that the Persian arrived silently at the Opera, extended his arm to the usherette who handed him, without saying a word, his Opera glasses, took his place...and never gave the slightest demonstration, whether he dropped off, or applauded... . Most of the time, he would close his eyes, lowered his head and fell asleep. . He woke up at certain passages noisy passages of the operas to the chorus of the blacksmiths of the Trouvère; at the blessing of the daggers, of the Huguenots; at the final of the conspiracy, of Guillaume Tell. . But once the crescendo had subsided, the Persian unemotional resumed his sleep and his dreams... ⸫ The Persian was a prince, Prince Ismael; he had been in Paris for more than forty years. . He lived where he died, on rue de Rivoli. opposite the Tuileries garden. . He went every day to the Bois, in the winter he took a coupé, the summer a victoria; the carriages were his, the horses alone were. rented... . He got up every day at eleven o'clock in the morning, and went to bed when he returned from the theater... . He was served for fifteen years by the the same Swiss valet. . He had his meals brought in from the caterer's and received absolutely nobody... . He never opened a single letter that was addressed to him, in order to live totally isolated from the social movement social movement. - Everything that came to him in the way of correspondence was burned by his servant... . He spoke in monosyllables, (words with only one syllable, because of reluctance to have a conversation.) . And it was forbidden for his suppliers speak to him. . His tailor, who had been dressing him for twenty years, silently took his measurements, but never exchanged a single word with him... ⸫ One of the singularities of prince Ismael was to carry his spoon in his pocket... ⸫ Even at the Opera, when he was thirsty and a sorbet was brought to him, Prince Ismael would rummage in his gandourah (kind of light tunic), take out a small green velvet case, and took a small spoonful of a small golden spoon, which he wiped delicately after delicately after having used it. . At no cost, would he use a one that had been used by another... ⸫ The gentle and silent Persian... from Paris... gave up his soul yesterday to the Creator... without a tremor of pain. I do not believe that the three traditional French candles were lit near his body, not even these candles of snake oil mixed with wax, which give among the Persians, such a bright light... . Prince Ismael, exiled in the middle of our European civilization, has reached the age of eighty, although he did not use he did not use the areka, whose slightly sour fruit is said, in Persia, to have to have the gift of prolonging life... . He preferred the diamonds of the Parisian stores to the large stones which one finds in his country and which, because shine several diffarent colors, are called called cat's eye. . He prefered the singing of La Patti, the pirouettes (a ballet move) of the Fioretti, the rolls of the Miolan, the violin of Joachim, than the noise of the sounds of the ancient Tahanà, that strip of tortoise shell with which one touched, in ancient Persia, the strings of the drum... . He gave the highest honors to Meyerbeer, Rossini, Auber, Verdi even, while neglecting the illustrious Abd-el-Moumen, who was the most famous Persian musician of antiquity... . Was he a sincere Mohammedan like the modern Persians, or a worshipper of fire like the primitive Persians? Did he hope in a better world the -- (?) promised in paradise by the Prophet, and which, according to a miracle affirmed by the Alcoran (translator third Western of the Qur'an), will always be fifteen years old. Was he, on the contrary, the last survivor of these Guebres persecuted by both the contemporary Turks and Persians? . I do not know. . But what I do know is that that in front of these remains of a good man, gentle, inoffensive man, one can repeat, to whatever to whatever faith one belongs, the ancient of mourning and distress of his ancestors, the Layla illalah! cry that was protected long in Persia by burying the which means: There is no other God but God... TIMOTHY TRIMM. |
LE PERSAN... DE PARIS
-- Paris vient de voir disparaître un personnage que la Chronique a tué plusieurs fois; quitte à le ressusciter lelendemain...par une rectification. . C'était un homme singulier, bizarre, mystérieux et possédant dans notre capitale une incontestable popularité. . Il était connu des classes pauvres comme des classes riches, à ce point qu'il n'excitait plus une curiosité indiscrete, bien qu'il ne portât pas le costume européen. . Quand on le voyait passer on disait tout simplement: Tiens! voilà le Persan. ⸫ C'était un homme grave et absolument silencieux, coiffé du bonnet et vêtu de la robe longue de son pays; une manière de derviche perdu dans les flots de la population européenne. . ll avait une grande barbe blanche, laquelle tombait sur sa poitrine, après avoir pris naissance sur les deux tiers de son austère visage. . C'était un grand habitué de l'Opéra... A la représentation d'Hamlet de vendredi dernier il fit défaut... Cela dénotait un fait inaccoutumé survenu dans cette problématique existence. . Hier matin, le docteur Mary Durand, appelé à la hâte, n'arriva chez l'Asiatique que pour constater sa mort. . Le Persan de Paris avait rendu l'âme... ⸫ Méry avait été fort intrigué par la vie de ce Persan mystérieux qui traversait les joies bruyantes de l'Occident sans jamais manifester aucun mouvement de déplaisir ou de satisfaction... . Il l'approcha souvent, mais sans pouvoir le faire parler. . Méry croyait fermement que le Persan n'était si assidu à l'Opéra que parce qu'il y faisait ses prières. . Le Persan prenait, selon le dire du poëte, l'immense et étincelant lustre de la salle pour une personnification du soleil. . Or, on sait que quelques Persans suivent encore le systeme de Zoroastre, qui domina la Perse jusqu'à ce qu'il eût été ïenversé par le mahométisme. . . Il est probable qu'en Perse comme dans toute l'Asie-Mineure, on rendit d'abord un culte aux astres, et surtout au Soleil, la Lune et aux planètes. . Plus tard, parut Zoroastre comme réformateur de ce culte, auquel il imprima lus de moralité et de spiritualisme. . Zoroastre, tout en conservant la religion des astres considérés comme puissances célestes, proclama l'existence des deux divinités supérieures : Ormuhd et Ahriman. . Ormuhd, c'était la lumière et le bien. . Ahriman, c'était les ténèbres et le mal. . Il n'y avait donc rien d'étonnant de voir le Persan de Paris chercher dans le lustre le plus étincelant de nos salles de spectacle ce qui lui rappelait à la fois la clarté et la divinité!.. ⸫ Le Persan était un érudit. . Non seulement il possédait à fond la langue de zend, dans laquelle Zoroastre écrivit ses ouvrages religieux, mais aussi le pehlvi, qui fut autrefois employé dans l'empiré des Mèdes. . Puis il savait l'arabe, l'anglais, l'italien et le français assez parfaitement pour avoir fait des communications littéraires à la Revue des Deux-Mondes. . Méry, qui aimait le soleil, chercha à se rapprocher de cet infidèle,: qui l'adorait comme un Dieu... . Mais le Persan était un sauvage qui fuyait même la,société d'un poëte, . Et l'auteur de la Floride n'en sut pas beaucoup plus que moi sur le personnage énigmatique que j'essaie de retracer ici... .⸫ J'ai dit que le Persan était un grand habitué de notre Académie Impériale de Musique, dont il admirait surtout le lustre éblouissant... . Je ne dois pas oublier de mentionner un fait qui a contrarié ses derniers plaisirs. . Jadis le Persan avait sa stalle à l'année, retenue à l'avance à l'entrée du balcon des premières loges, à la droite de l'acteur, c'est-à-dire à côté de l'ancienne loge infernale... . Il y a un an, on a supprimé les stalles de balcon et converti toute la galerie en loges. . Le Persan fut obligé de se réfugier à l'orchestre, au milieu des journalistes distraits et des élégants désœuvrés. . Il supporta avec une aigreur mal déguisée ce changement subit dans ses habitudes. ⸫ Mon confrère et ami, M. Charles Yriarte, a fait, dans les Célébrités de la Rue, un portrait du singulier personnage qui vient de mourir... . Et, comme M. Yriarte manie aussi habilement le crayon que la plume, je vous assure que le portrait est ressemblant.- Voici sinon le dessin du moins la légende qui l'accmpagne:... . « Le Persan garde son flegme inaltérable, il est depuis vingt-cinq ans l'assidu des boulevards, il garde imperturbablement la même stalle a l'Opéra et aux Italiens. Paris s'en, va, le Persan reste, et de tous nos types, si nombreux autrefois, c'est le seul qui nous soit resté fidèle. . » Et cependant, ce Persan reste une énigme, c'est de toutes celles qui circulent sur le pavé de Paris, la plus obscure, la plus acharnée et la plus conséquente. Cet Asiatique est un sphinx, on peut L'observer, on ne le pénètre point. . » Il apparut, il y a plus de vingt-cinq ans, aux yeux des Parisiens étonnés, vêtu comme hier et comme demain, aussi vieux déjà, aussi soigné, lustré, poli. Tel il était alors, tel il est aujourd'hui. Il porte un haut bonnet d'astrakan terminé par une petite houppe en soie blanche, bonnet qu'il n'a jamais ôté en public, qui lui couvre les oreilles et descend jusqu'aux soureils. . » Sa barbe, qui pousse sur les pommettes et s'attache sous les yeux, est blanche comme la soie floche et soyeuse comme elle. Ses yeux sont vifs au fond de l'arcade dominée par un épais sourcil blanc, ses lèvres sont fermées. . » Sa grande batta noire, qui descend jusqu'aux pieds, est du drap le plus fin; son pantalon, à l'européenne, est d'un bleu clair, il porte sous sa robe un large cachemire et tient constamment ses deux mains croisées sur sa poitrine, cachées dans ses larges manches comme dans un manchon. Son pied est imperceptible, sa main est osseuse et très soignée. Il est doux, silencieux, sa mélancolie ressemble à de la résignation; on a vu pendant cinq ou six années le pauvre Scudo, son voisin de stalle, apostropher les chefs d'orchestre au nom de Cimarosa et de Mozart, et gesticuler comme un furieux à son côté, sans qu'il parût s'émouvoir de ce singulier voisinage. » ⸫ M. Yriarte nous rappelle que le Persan arrivait silencieusement à l'Opéra, tendait le bras à l'ouvreuse qui lui remettait, sans mot dire, sa lorgnette, prenait sa place...et ne se livrait jamais à la moindre démonstration, soit qu'on chutât, soit qu'on applaudît... . Le plus souvent. il fermait les yeux, baissait la tête et s'endormait. . Il se réveillait à certains passages bruyants des opéras au chœur des forgerons du Trouvère; à la bénédiction des poignards, des Huguenots; au final de la conspiration, de Guillaume Tell. . Mais le crescendo une fois calmé, le Persan reprenait flegmatiquement son sommeil et ses songes... ⸫ Le Persan était un prince, le prince Ismaël; il était à Paris depuis plus dé quarante ans. . Il habitait où il est mort, rue de Rivoli. en face, du jardin des Tuileries. . Il allait tous les jours au Bois, l'hiver en coupé, l'été en victoria; les voitures étaient à lui, les chevaux seuls étaient. loués... . Il se levait tous les jours à onze' heures le matin, et se couchait à la rentrée du théâtre... . Il était servi depuis quinze ans par le même valet de chambre suisse. . Il faisait venir ses repas de chez le traiteur et ne recevait absolument personne... . Il n'ouvrait jamais une seule des lettres qui pouvaient lui être adressées, afin dé vivre totalement isolé du mouvement social. - Tout ce qui lui venait en fait de correspondance était brûlé par son domestique... . Il parlait par monosyllabes, . . Et il était fait défense à ses fournisseurs de lui adresser la parole. . Son tailleur, qui l'habillait depuis vingt ans, lui prenait silencieusement mesure, mais n'a jamais échangé un seul mot avec lui... ⸫ Une des singularités du prince ismaël consistait à porter, toujours sa cuillère dans sa poche... .⸫ Même a l'Opéra, quand il avait soif, et qu'on lui apportait un sorbet, le Prince Ismaël fouillait dans sa gandourah, en sortait un petit étui de velours vert, et y prenait une petite cuillère d'or, qu il essuyait délicatement après s'en être servi. . . A aucun prix, il n'eut employé un couvert ayant été mis en usege par un autre... ⸫ Le doux et silencieux Persan... de Paris... a rendu hier son âme au Créateur... sans secousse et sans douleurs. Je ne crois pas qu'on ait allumé près de son corps les trois bougies traditionnelles de France, pas même ces bougies d'huile de serpent mêlée à la cire, qui donnent parmi les Perses, une si éclatante lumiere... . Le prince Ismaël, exilé au milieu de notre civilisation européenne, a atteint l'âge de quatre-vingts ans, bien qu'il n'ait pas fait usage de l'areka, dont le fruit un peu aigre passe, en Perse, pour avoir le don de prolonger la vie... . Il préférait les diamants des magasins Parisiens à ces grosses pierres qu'on trouve dans son pays et qui, parce qu'elles font briller plusieurs sortes de couleurs, se nomment yeux de chat. . Il aimait mieux les chants de la Patti, les pironettes de la Fioretti, les roulades de la Miolan, le violon de Joachim, que le bruit de l'antique Tahanà, cette languette d'écaille de tortue avec laquelle on touchait, dans l'ancienne Perse, les cordes du tambour... . Il donnait la palme à Meyerbeer, à Rossini, à Auber, Verdi même, en négligeant l'illustre Abd-el-Moumen, qui fut le plus célèbre musicien persan de l'antiquité... . Était-il mahométan sincère comme les Perses modernes, ou adorateur du feu comme les Perses primitifs? Espérait-il dans un monde meilleur les h--ris (?) promises au paradis par le Prophète, et qui, d'après un miracle affirmé par l'Alcoran, auront toujours quinze ans. Etait-il au contraire le dernier survivant de ces Guebres persécutés à la fois par les Turcs et les Persans contemporains? . . Je ne le sais. . Mais ce que je sais assurément, c'est que devant ces restes d'un homme bon, doux, inoffensif, on peut répéter, à quelque croyance qu'on appartienne, l'ancien cri de deuil et de détresse de ses ancêtres, le Layla illalah! cri qu'on protéra longtemps en Perse en enterrant les qui signifie: Il n'y point d'autre Dieu que Dieu... TIMOTHÉE TRIMM. |
Dictionnaire des pseudonymes
1887 , p.343
1887 , p.343
Persian (The). We all knew this character with the oriental costume, with the long white beard, with the lacklustre eye, with the bored air; this Turk, or better this Persian, as he is called in Paris, he was seen everywhere, in the Bois, at the theater, at the races, dressed in a long robe, wide pants falling on an aristocratic foot and fine shoes, the waist surrounded by a blue cashmere belt and the head covered with a astrakan cap.
. The theater attracted especially this singular old man; he occupied a balcony stall, always the same one, stage right, at the Opera, at the Opéra-Comique and at the Italians. It was at this last theater that I unwittingly made his acquaintance. It was in 1860; there was a small circle of journalists always seated in the balcony, on the folding seats in the corridor leading to the seats: Scudo, Gabriel Guillemot, Prosper Jourdan, etc., and myself, we met there at almost every performance. The Persian was in front of us, always at the same time, exact at the raising of the curtain, faithful to his eternal armchair, where he came to take his seat, motionless and silent. One day he was coincidentally absent; his seat remained empty, I took it after the first act of the performance. Suddenly I felt a light tap on my shoulder; I turned around, the Persian was behind me. Without uttering a single word, he made an expressive gesture which meant: "Give me back my seat!" I got up immediately and apologized to him with a bow, which he seemed absolutely not to notice, and he sat down, more and more silent and motionless. . The head ticket collector of the theater, the excellent M. Morel, told me about the little scene which took place between him and the Persian each time, on the occasion of renting his seat for the year. He arrived at the opening of the season, would go to the ticket office without saying a word; he deposited a 5oo franc bill on the desk, and he went, without asking for any explanation, to his usual armchair, everyone was careful to not rented it to any one other than to him. When he had a subscription for 5oo francs, the second ticket taker Huyard warned him, upon his arrival, that his seat was not available. The Persian, without showing a sign or saying a word, that he had heard him, went to his seat. Two days later, while coming to the performance, he stopped in front of the ticket office, deposited a new 5oo franc bill gravely, still without word, and entered the house, without waiting for someone to say thank you and offer a receipt. This merry-go-round lasted until the end of the musical season, and began again in the same way the following year. . Méry and Ch. Yriarle have given some interesting details about the life of this strange character, who died suddenly and without having been ill, in August 1868, at the age of 82. His real name was Ismaïl-Khàn-Aga-Mohammed. He had lived in Paris for more than forty years and always in the same apartment, at No. 204 on rue de Rivoli, opposite the Tuileries. As for the origin and motives of his retirement in Europe and France, they are told various stories. The most probable version is this one: The Persian,during the English war in India, had favored, for their benefit, the capture of the city of Herat, whose surrender had hastened the end of the war. His compatriots had exiled the traitor, who had then come to live in France with a pension of 5o,ooo francs, provided by England as a reward for this good service. . According to another version, Ismaïl was the son of an ambassador of the king of Persia who was killed by mistake in a quarrel by English subjects. In atonement for this unintentional crime, the government of Great Britain would have given the orphan a rather large annual pension, which he would have come to collect in Paris. But I prefer the other story. Nothing compelled the child to come and settle so mysteriously and so secretly in Europe in the incident thus related. The first version, concerning the siege of Herat, explains on the contrary the exile of Ismaïl and the strange life he has always led. . Ismaïl was a scholar. He published articles in the Revue des Deux Mondes entitled: Scènes de la Vie persane, which are attributed to him. He is also known to be the author of a French translation of the Persian poem "Les Oiseaux et les Fleurs". |
Persan (Le). Nous avons tous connu ce personnage
au costume oriental, à la longue barbe blanche, à l'oeil atone, à l'air ennuyé ; ce Turc, ou mieux ce Persan, comme on l'appelait à Paris, et qu'on rencontrait partout, au bois, au théâtre, aux courses, vêtu d'une longue robe, d'un pantalon large tombant sur un pied aristocratique et finement chaussé, la taille entourée d'une ceinture en cachemire bleu et la tête couverte d'un bonnet d'astrakan. . Le théâtre attirait surtout ce singulier vieillard; il occupait à l'année une stalle de balcon, toujours la même, à la droite de l'acteur, à l'Opéra, à l'Opéra-Comique et aux Italiens. C'est à ce dernier théâtre que j'ai fait, sans le vouloir, sa connaissance. C'était en 1860; nous étions un petit cercle de journalistes toujours placés au balcon, sur les strapontins du couloir qui conduit aux fauteuils: Scudo, Gabriel Guillemot, Prosper Jourdan, etc., et moi, nous nous retrouvions là à presque toutes les représentations. Le Persan était devant nous, toujours à la même heure, exact au lever du rideau, fidèle à son éternel fauteuil, où il venait se placer immuable et silencieux. Un jour il était par hasard absent; sa place étant restée vide, je la pris après le premier acte du spectacle. Soudain je sens un léger coup frappé sur mon épaule; je me retourne, le Persan était derrière moi. Sans prononcer un seul mot, il fit un geste expressif qui voulait dire : « Rendez-moi ma place! » Je me levai aussitôt et je lui fis mes excuses en le saluant, ce dont il eut absolument l'air de ne pas s'apercevoir, et il s'assit, de plus en plus silencieux et immuable. . Le contrôleur en chef du théâtre, l'excellent M. Morel, me racontait la petite scène qui avait lieu chaque fois entre lui et le Persan à l'occasion de la location de sa place à l'année. Il arrivait à l'ouverture de la saison, passait au contrôle sans dire un mot; il déposait un billet de 5oo francs sur le bureau, et il allait, toujours sans demander aucune explication, à son fauteuil habituel, qu'on n'aurait eu garde de louer à un autre qu'à lui. Quand il avait eu pour 5oo francs d'abonnement, le deuxième contrôleur Huyard le prévenait, à son arrivée, que le prix de sa location était épuisé. Le Persan, sans montrer par un signe ou par un mot qu'il avait entendu, se rendait à sa place. Le surlendemain, en venant à la représentation, il s'arrêtait devant le contrôle, déposait gravement un nouveau billet de 5oo francs, toujours sans mot dire, et entrait dans la salle, sans attendre qu'on lui eût dit merci, et offert un récépissé. Ce manège durait ainsi jusqu'à l'expiration de la saison musicale, et recommençait de la même façon l'année suivante. . Méry et Ch. Yriarle ont donné quelques détails anecdotiques sur la vie de ce bizarre personnage, qui est mort subitement et sans avoir été malade, en août 1868, à 82 ans. Son vrai nom était Ismaïl-Khàn-Aga-Mohammed. 11 habitait Paris depuis plus de quarante ans et toujours dans le même appartement, au n° 204 de la rue de Rivoli, vis-à-vis des Tuileries. Quant à l'origine et aux motifs de sa retraite en Europe et en France, on les raconte de diverses manières. La version la plus vraisemblable est celle-ci: Le Persan, pendant la guerre des Anglais aux Indes, avait favorisé, à leur profit, la prise de la ville d'Hérat, dont la reddition avait hâté la fin de la guerre. Ses compatriotes avaient exilé le traître, qui était alors venu vivre en France avec une pension de 5o,ooo francs, servie par l'Angleterre en récompense de ce bon office. . D'après une autre version, Ismaïl serait le fils d'un ambassadeur du roi de Perse tué par mégarde dans une querelle par des sujets anglais. En expiation de ce crime involontaire, le gouvernement de la Grande-Bretagne aurait fait à l'orphelin une pension annuelle assez forte, qu'il serait venu manger à Paris. Mais je préfère l'autre histoire. Rien ne forçait l'enfant à venir se fixer si mystérieusement et si secrètement en Europe dans le fait ainsi raconté. La première version, relative au siège d'Hérat, explique au contraire l'expatriation d'Ismaïl et la vie singulière qu'il a toujours menée. . Ismaïl était lettré. Il a paru dans la Revue des Deux- Mondes des articles intitulés : Scènes de la Vie persane, et qu'on lui attribue. Il passe aussi pour être l'auteur d'une traduction en français du poème persan les Oiseaux et les Fleurs. |
Les Annales politiques et littéraires : revue populaire paraissant le dimanche
1912-01-07
THE PERSAN
. Paris has just lost one of its originals, Kasagian, the one who was called Le Persian. One of the "mysteries of Paris" that Eugène Sue did not know, this Persian! Kasagian left perhaps because he did not want to see the pickaxe touch the old Opera House. . The Persian was one of these foreigners, famous of all eras, in the time of Cagliostro as of Lord Seymour, without whom without which Paris would not exist. The famous "Parisian elite" is also composed of exotic elements. Russia provides him contingent, Brazil pays its tribute, Turkey Turkey dispatches its own landwehr (German word national armies). The astrakhan cap of the man whom Méry called called Abbas-Mirza, and who was actually called Mohammed-Ismaël Khan, was part of the first part of the first representations. The opera would not have been complete without this white beard. He was a Monday serialist in his own way that The Persian. When the author had seen him applaud or shake his head, he could say: . - I wish a success. . The Persian was an enigma for a long time. He remained, in the end, somewhat problematic. What was this wreckage of the Eastern world, thrown into the heart of Western life, in the middle of the boulevard in the heart of Paris? What storm had, so to speak, blew him here? Terrible legends were repeated about The Persian; they were recounting one of those dramas in which blood flows, a family tragedy in which politics held the first place. When the Persian ambassador, Ferrouck-Khan, arrived at our Opera house, the Persian suddenly disappeared, slipped away, took refuge. No one saw it. He sought, I don't know where, for a retreat; perhaps he remained shut up in some corner of Paris. He was not seen either in London or in Germany. . Some claimed that he was running away in the face of remorse. But the imagination paints all things darker. It was not , perhaps, only a whim, rivalry, disdain. He must be consult, on characters too curious as this one, all the testimonies Presently, I will quote Méry and Charles Yriarte, who has, quite naturally placed Le Persan in his Célébrités de la Rue. Here, in the meantime, is what was told to me by my friend Georges Bell, the comrade of Gérard de Nerval: . - In 1842, a friend and companion of General Allard came to Paris. Allard, this implacable adversary of the English, had, as we know, defended the kingdom of Lahore against them. He knew all of Asia, especially India and Persia. It was he who had organized tin a European fashion, with Ventura, Court and Falcon, the Sikhs the Gourkas, the mountain people of Lahore. If the general of Rundjet-Sing had not been poisoned, the English would have had the Punjab. . "I have heard, Georges Bell wrote to me, "that at a luncheon at the home of the Duke of Choiseul, governor of the Louvre, General Allard had told of the adventures of the Persian. It seems that, commanding the fortress of Herat, an impregnable place, he had s old his city to the English, in return for ten thousand pounds sterling in cash and an annuity of one hundred thousand francs, payable in Paris. This deal became the beginning of the high fortune of Ellenborough and Dalhousie, later governor of the Indies. This was not denied by William Bentinck, before whom it was held, and you know what the name Bentinck means to the Anglo-Indians." . The Persian had lived in Paris since 1812. He had seen the Allies enter, the Bourbons, erect barricades in 1830 and the fall of the trees of liberty in 1848. He was never saw him get emotional. His eyes watched the governments pass by with the governments with the same coldness that he looked upon a ballet or a theater set. . He was leering, that is all. Dancers or ministers, he held the puppets at the end of his his spyglass. He had planned his life methodically, and he never deviated from his physical and moral hygiene. Very religious, that is to say, a good Mohammedan, he prayed three times a day, banging his yellow forehead forehead like that of an old man in Ribera against the window sill. The Persian had an eternal bruise in the middle of his skull from these daily shocks. Three times a day, Mohammed-Ismael Khan prayed like this. . He died at the age of eighty-five. . On Saturday morning, doctor Mary Durand was called. The Persian had just been stricken with a stroke; the doctor went to the house on of the street de Rivoli that. The Persian had lived there for many years. It was too late. And Mohammed asked, in his will, that his body be embalmed and transported to Persia, to Persia where he had never wanted to return. . There is no portrait of the Persian from life. He had never consented to be photographed. In his apartment, richly In his apartment, richly furnished in in the European style, there were no paintings. Charles Yriarte made a sketch of Mohammed one evening at the opera. It will be found in his book. The Persian is sitting in the balcony, unmoved, both hands on the velvet ledge, and he wears on his left ring finger that illustrious diamond that threw fire and flames and dazzled the friends of precious stones. This balcony seat was the usual corner of the Persian. Méry's Tale said that one day (that day, Herculaneum was given), Félicien David, seated in M. Alphonse Royer's box, noticed the frenetic enthusiasm of the Persian. . - Let's go! he said, it seems that I have successful the local color, the Orientals applaud me. . The Persian was, in his own way, a critic, like that superb and terrible Fiorentino (Pier Angelo Fiorentino), whom we called Jupiter feuilletonant. . (To be continued.) JULES CLARETIE of the French Academy |
LE PERSAN
. Paris vient de perdre un de ses originaux, Kasagian, celui qu'on appelait Le Persan. Un des « mystères de Paris » que n'a point connu Eugène Sue, ce Persan! Kasagian est parti peut-être parce qu'il n'a pas voulu voir la pioche toucher à l'ancien Opéra. . Le Persan était un de ces étrangers, fameux à toutes les époques, au temps de Cagliostro comme de lord Seymour, sans lesquels Paris n'existerait pas. Le fameux « Tout-Paris » est aussi composé d'élé- ments exotiques. La Russie lui fournit son contingent, le Brésil lui paye son tribut, la Turquie lui dépêche sa landwehr. Le bonnet d'astrakan de celui que Méry appelait Abbas-Mirza, et qui s'appelait en réalité Mohammed-Ismaël Khan, faisait partie des premières représentations. Un opéra nouveau n'eût pas été complet sans cette barbe blanche. C'était un feuille- toniste du lundi à sa manière que Le Persan. Lorsque l'auteur l'avait vu ap- plaudir ou faire un mouvement de tête, il pouvait dire : . — Je tiens un succès. . Le Persan fut longtemps une énigme. Il demeura, en fin de compte, quelque peu problématique. Quelle était cette épave du monde d'Orient, jetée en pleine vie occidentale, en plein boulevard en plein Paris? Quelle tempête l'avait, pour ainsi dire, roulée jusqu'ici? On répétait, sur Le Persan, des légendes terribles; on contait tout bas un de ces drames où le sang coule, une tragédie de famille où la politique tenait la première place. Lorsque arriva, chez nous, l'ambassadeur de Perse, Ferrouck-Khan, Le Persan disparut tout à coup, s'éclipsa, se terra. Nul ne le vit. II chercha, je ne sais où', une re- traite; peut-être demeura-t-il enfermé en quelque coin de Paris. On ne l'aperçut ni à Londres, ni en Allemagne. . Quelques-uns prétendirent qu'il fuyait devant un remords. Mais l'imagination peint en noir toutes choses. Ce n'était, peut-être, que caprice, rivalité, dédain. Il faut consulter, sur des personnages aussi curieux que celui-ci, tous les témoigna- ges. Tout à l'heure, je citerai Méry et Charles Yriarte, qui a, tout naturelle- ment, placé Le Persan dans ses Célébrités de la Rue. Voici, en attendant, ce que m'a conté mon ami Georges Bell, le camarade de Gérard de Nerval: . — En 1842, un ami et compagnon du général Allard vint à Paris. Allard, cet implacable adversaire des Anglais, avait, comme ion sait, défendu contre eux le royaume de Lahore. Il connaissait toute l'Asie, en particulier l'Inde et la Perse. C'est lui qui avait organisé à l'euro- péenne, avec Ventura, Court et Falcon, les Sikhs, les Gourkas, les montagnards de Lahore. Si le général de Rundjet-Sing n'a- vait pas été empoisonné, jamais les An- glais n'auraient eu le Pendjab. . « J'ai entendu dire, m'écrit Georges Bell, qu'à un déjeuner chez le duc de Choiseul, gouverneur du Louvre, le gé- néral Allard avait conté les aventures du Persan. Il paraît que, commandant la for- teresse d'Hérat, place imprenable, il avait vendu sa ville aux Anglais, moyennant dix mille livres sterling comptant et une rente de cent mille francs, payable à Pa- ris. Ce marché devint le commencement de la haute fortune d'Ellenborough et de: Dalhousie, plus tard gouverneur des In- des. Ce propos ne fut pas démenti par William Bentinck, devant lequel il était tenu, et vous savez ce que ce nom de Bentinck représente pour les Anglo-In- diens. » . Le Persan habitait Paris depuis 1812. Il avait vu entrer les Alliés, partir les Bourbons, se dresser les barricades de 1830 et tomber les arbres de la liberté de 1848. On ne l'a jamais vu s'émouvoir. Son oeil regardait passer les gouverne- ments avec la même froideur qu'il se levait sur un ballet ou un décor de théâtre. . Il lorgnait, voilà tout. Danseuses ou mi- nistres, il tenait les pantins au bout de sa lorgnette. II avait réglé sa vie métho- diquement, et il ne s'est jamais écarté de son hygiène physique et morale. Très religieux, c'est-à-dire bon m'ahométan, il faisait trois fois par jour ses prières, frap- pant son front jaune comme celui d'un vieillard de Ribéra contre l'appui de sa croisée. Le Persan. avait, au milieu du crâne, comme une éternelle ecchymose née de ces chocs quotidiens. Trois fois par jour, Mohàmmed-Ismaël Khan priait ainsi. . II est mort à quatre-vingt-cinq ans. . Samedi matin, on fait appeler le docteur Mary Durand. Le Persan venait d'être frappé d'une attaque d'apoplexie; le doc- teur se rend dans cette maison de la rue de Rivoli que. Le Persan habitait depuis de longues années. Il était trop tard. Et Mohammed demande, dans son testa- ment, que son corps soit embaumé et transporté en Perse, en Perse où il n'avait jamais voulu retourner. . Il n'existe point de portrait du Persan d'après nature. Jamais il n'avait consenti à se faire photographier. Dans son ap- partement, assez richement meublé à l'eu- ropéenne, point de peintures. Charles Yriarte prit un croquis de Mohammed, un soir, à l'Opéra. On le retrouvera dans son livre. Le Persan est assis au balcon, im- mobile, les deux mains sur le rebord de velours, et il porte à l'annulaire gauche cet illustre diamant qui jetait feu et flammes et qui éblouissait les amies des pierres précieuses. Cette place de balcon était le coin d'habitude du Persan. Méry Conte qu'un jour (on donnait, ce jour-là, Herculanum), Félicien David, placé dans la loge de M. Alphonse Royer, remarqua le frénétique enthousiasme du Persan. . — Allons! dit-il, il paraît que j'ai bien réussi la couleur locale, les Orientaux m'applaudissent . Le Persan fut, à sa manière, un criti- que, comme ce superbe et terrible Fioren- tino, que nous appelions Jupiter feuille- tonant. . (A suivre.) JULES CLARETIE de l'Académie française. |
The Persian Comparative
Leroux's Daroga
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Mohammed Ismaël Khan
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Name
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Know as 'The Persian' « le Persan » (all of Paris called him) , or Daroga (Erik's nickname for him), real name not given.
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Mohammed Ismaël Khan, Ismaïl-Khan-Aga-Mohammed or just simply Ismaël, or Khan.
Hadjee Khaleel Khan (pen name) « le Persan » (nickname) Aga Ismaël, neighbour called him Méry called him Abbas-Mirza. (but was prone to making rumors) also basis of him being a prince rumor. |
Birth
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Birth unknown.
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Birth around 1786.
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Blood line
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Came from a royal blood line.
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Méry (journalist) claimed not proven "Prince Ismaël" descended from the great king of Pontus. Infact the article in ~(Les Célébrités de la rue) even hints that Méry was possibly making up rumors. Considering Méry's ouragiouse claims about him one can only take his word with a gain of salt.
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Parentage
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Exact parantage is unknown, came from a royal blood line
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Son of Hadji-Khalil-Khan a Persian diplomat
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Lives
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Lives at in "little appartment at Rue de Rivoli" ~(Foreword). Opposite the Tuileries, address unknown ~(the end of a ghost's love story)
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Live at a rich apartment in the Rue de Rivoli,
n ° 204, opposite the Tuileries, pays 750 francs a month, lived there for 25 years ~(Les célébrités de la rue), 13 years ~(Le Gaulois), 28 years ~(Petit Journal) 40 years ~(Dictionary of pseudonyms by Georges d’Heylli, Paris, Dentu, 1887) |
Languages
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Persian, French....?
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Persian, French, Latin, Italian, Arabic, English
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Pension
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The Daroga came from a royal blood line, which gave him a small income of a few hundred francs a month.
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It was believed, but not proven that he lived on an annual pension of one hundred thousand francs he received from England on account of him doing an act of treason against his country (La vie quotidienne sous le Second Empire)
Received a pension of 2,000 pounds per year. ~(Le Gaulois, Les célébrités de la rue) pension from the English government of 30,000 francs ~(Où est la femme?, 1864) |
Reason for coming to Paris
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The most likely reason was during the war of the English in India, had favored, to their profit, the capture of the city of Herat, whose surrender had hastened the end of the war. His compatriots had exiled the traitor, who had then come to live in France with a pension of 50,000 francs, provided by England as a reward for this good service. (Dictionary of pseudonyms)
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Hobbies
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Going to the Opera (Opera Garnier) Known to all the Opera patrons, keeping tabs on Érik. Likes music.
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Known to go to the Theatre and Opera his favorite was the Théâtres Lyriques, he was known to go to l'Opéra-Comique, l'Opéra Italiens Comédie-Italienne or Théâtre-Italien and La Comédie-Française as well. Falls asleep at the Opera. He would have never been seen at the Opera Garnier becuase he died (in 1868) before it opened (in 1875). He does not drink. Likes fruit.~(Le Petit journal) Uses snuff from a green case with a golden spoon. He translates (translator of the Persian poem the Birds and the Flowers into French), reads poetry, speaks latin. Goes to the Bois or Parc Monceaux in his coupé or small American carrage.
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Theater
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Sits in an orchestra seat ~(performance “Faust” in a house with a “curse” upon it and the terrble event that result , by Leroux)
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Balcony Second stall on the left at the Opera. One evening he moved to the right (possibly Théâtres Lyriques, Salle Le Peletier or Opéra Italiens ( Salle Ventadour ). As well as a year round subscription for an orchestra stall on the left. ~(Où est la femme?, 1864)
He spends a lot of money at the opera. Two thousand francs a year (including his expenses at the buffet, where he occasionally takes an ice cream. ~(Où est la femme?, 1864) balcony stall, always the same one, stage right, the Opéra-Comique and the Italians. ~(Dictionary of pseudonyms by Georges d’Heylli, Paris, Dentu, 1887) |
Eating habbits
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Modest meal brought up from the neighboring restaurant.
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Personality
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Honest man, noble and generous heart, immense melancholy, ardent and sad
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Perfectly gentle, sat still motionless, silent, attentive. Lives simply. His melancholy resembles resignation. Sits down at the opera without saying a word and does not look up once from the first act to the last.
Has a voice is very soft ~(Où est la femme?, 1864) |
Religion
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In the novel he uses Dieu which just simply means god. It can stand for Allah or the Christian god. Possible Islam relgion.
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Zoroastrian, because he was said to worshiped the sun through the great chandelier of the Paris Opera ~(Street Celebrities by Charles Yriarte notes by Joseph Méry(an exagerated fanciful telling)
Other scources claim Islam |
Looks
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Age -
Head - shaved head Skin - ebony complexion, amber complexion gilded by the suns of the Orient Eyes - jade eyes, magnificent eyes, black ardent and sad eyes Face - his poor face was very tired, expressive and masculine Features - regular features Facial hair - jet beard - - Height - medium height Lips - |
Age - An old man
Head - Skin - - Eyes - bright, lacklustre eye Face - unchanging, picturesque of Paris - Features - Facial hair - large white beard, grows on his cheekbones and attaches under the eyes, white like flocked silk Height - medium height Lips - lips are closed thick white eyebrow likened to a Persian sphinx. |
Clothes
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Wears astrakhan cap, dressed in a large, very simple houppelande in the sleeves of which he unconsciously amused himself by twiddling his thumbs.
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Wears a tall astrakhan cap with a small white silk tassel and he never takes it off in public. He wore a long black coat called a batta, which descends to his feet and enveloped him them. He wore light blue European styled pants and cashmere under his robe. His two hands are constantly crossed on his chest, hidden in his broad sleeves, but when seen described as bony and very meticulous.
Black coat (houppelande) could pass for a dress. Sometimes wore a white coat. ~(Où est la femme?, 1864) Dressed in a long robe, wide pants , fine , head covered with astrakan cap.~(Dictionary of pseudonyms by Georges d’Heylli, Paris, Dentu, 1887) Wears modern European clothes espically when coming back from England. |
the Astrakhan cap is common head covering for Persian men of this time. The type that Mohammed Ismaël Khan wears is a taller version ment for diplomates and the type Daroga wore was shorter.
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Servant
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One faithful old servant Darius who was Persian.
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Numerous servants, coachman, ~(Où est la femme?, 1864)
He has only one servant, a valet ~(Le Petit journal) Only valet and his tailor allowed into his house ~(Le Petit journal) English secretary and a Swiss valet, in service for 13 year who never enters his bedroom. He never opening a single letter addressed to him. His valet, or even his concierge, reads everything that happens to have his name on it and has a mission to burn everything without even making a report. ~(Les célébrités de la rue) |
Despite what some Phans may claim, no name was given for his valet or any servant in any article. He was a very private man so much so even after his death none of them said a thing. No Article shown here nor anything I have ever read on him, and I have read a lot, has mentioned any name of his servants. I have cited sevreal artciles here including diffarent version of the famouse Les célébrités de la rue article, which most phans love to quote. If you think his name is "Jean" and if it was an account by Méry he has been proven to be incorrect, exaggerating details, and frankly racist, so, not a credible source, please cite your sources, otherwise, it's hearsay. Thank you!
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As you can see Mohammed Ismaël Khan may have loosly inspired a few details of the Parsian known as the Daroga in Leroux's novel, but it clearly is not him. There were many Persians in Paris at the time and certainly they probabaly would have gone to the Opera.
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Raoul Daubert (1943 Movie)
Edgar Barrier (Actor)
Edgar Barrier (Actor)
Insp. Hawkins (1989 Movie)
Terence Harvey (Actor)
ref https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k65417022