uch part and
parcel of the history of Paris during the first half of the nineteenth
century as was Napoleon I. of the history of France; Dr. Veron, than
whom there has been no more original figure in any civilized community
before or since, with the exception, perhaps, of Phineas Barnum, to
whom, however, he was infinitely superior in education, tact, and
manners.

Dr. Veron has written his own "Memoirs" in six bulky volumes, to which
he added a seventh a few years later. They are full of interesting facts
from beginning to end, especially to those who did not know intimately
the author or the times of which he treats. Those who did are tempted to
repeat the mot of Diderot when they gave him the portrait of his father.
"This is my Sunday father; I want my everyday father." The painter, in
fact, had represented the worthy cutler of Langres in his best coat and
wig, etc.; not as his son had been in the habit of seeing him. The Dr.
Veron of the "Memoirs" is not the Dr. Veron of the Cafe de Paris, nor
the Dr. Veron of the _avant-scene_ in his own theatre, snoring a duet
with Auber, and "keeping better time than the great composer himself;"
he is not the Dr. Veron full of fads and superstitions and uniformly
kind, "because kindness is as a rule a capital investment;" he is not
the cheerful pessimist we knew; he is a grumbling optimist, as the
journalists of his time have painted him; in short, in his book he is a
quasi-philanthropic illusion, while in reality he was a hard-hearted,
shrewd business man who did good by stealth now and then, but never
blushed to find it fame.

The event which proved the starting-point of Dr. Veron's celebrity was
neither of his own making nor of his own seeking. Though it happened
when I was a mere lad, I have heard it discussed in after-years
sufficiently often and by very good authorities to be confident of my
facts. In June, 1831, Dr. Veron took the management of the Paris Opera,
which up till then had been governed on the style of the old regime,
namely, by three gentlemen of the king's household with a working
director under them. The royal privy purse was virtually responsible for
its liabilities. Louis-Philippe shifted the burden of that
responsibility on the State, and limited its extent. The three gentlemen
of the king's household were replaced by a royal commissioner, and the
yearly subsidy fixed at L32,500; still a pretty round sum, which has
been reduced since by L500 only.

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