by
Allan Porter © 1981
Once upon a time there lived in a narrow and sunless street of Paris, one of those men with a pale face, dull and sunken eye, one of those satanic and bizarre beings such as,.E.T.A. Hoffmann dug up in his tales and dreams.
He was Giacomo the photographer collector. Though but thirty years of age, he passed already for old and worn out. His figure was tall, but bent like that of an old man. His hair was long, but white. his hands were strong and sinewy, but dried up and covered with wrinkles. His costume was miserable and ragged. He had an awkward and embarrassed air; his face was pale, sad, ugly and even insignificant. People rarely saw him in the streets, except on the days when they sold rare and curious photographs at auction.
Then he was no longer the same indolent and ridiculous man; his eyes were animated, he ran, walked.stamped his feet; he had difficulty in moderating his joy, his uneasiness, his anguish and his grief He came home panting, gasping, out of breath; he took the cherished photo, devoured it with his eyes, and looked at it and loved it as a miser does his treasure,.a father his daughter, a king his crown.
This man had never spoken to anyone, unless it were to the auctioneer and to the second-hand dealers..He was taciturn and a dreamer, somber and sad. He had but one idea, but one love, but one passion: photographs. And this love, this passion burned within him, used up his days, devoured his existence.
Often in the night, the neighbors saw through the windows of the shop a light which wavered, then advanced, retreated, mounted, then sometimes went out.Then they heard a knocking at their door and it was Giacomo coming to relight his candle, which a gust of wind had blown out..
These feverish and burning nights he passed among his photographs. He ran through the store rooms, he ran through the galleries of his phototheque with ecstasy and delight. Then he stopped, his hair in disorder, his eyes fixed and sparkling.His hands, warm and damp, trembled on touching the wood of the shelves.and boxes.
He took a portfolio, turned over the leaves, felt the paper, examined the gilding, the cover, the images, the plate, the folds in the picture, and the arrangement of the portraits to the final velour casette.Then he changed its place, put it on a higher shelf, and remained for entire
hours looking at its name plate and form.
He went next to the photographs, for they were his cherished children. He took one of them, the oldest, the most used, the dirtiest; he looked at its albumen with love and happiness; he smelt its holy and venerable chemicals; then his nostrils filled with joy and pride,
and a smile came upon his lips.
This passion had entirely absorbed him. He scarcely ate, he no longer slept, but he dreamed whole days and nights of his fixed idea: photographs. He dreamed of all that a royal phototheque should have of the divine, the sublime and the beautiful, and he dreamed of making for himself as big a phototheque as that of the King. How freely he breathed, how proud and strong he felt, when he cast his eye into the immense galleries where the view was lost in images! He raised his head? Photos! He lowered it? Photos! To the right, to the left, still more photos!
In Paris he passed for a strange and infernal man, for a savant and a sorcerer.Yet he scarcely knew how to read. Nobody dared speak to him. so severe sad pale was his face. He had a wicked an treacherous air, and yet be never touched a child to hurt it. It is true that he never gave anything to charity.
He saved all his money, all his goods, all his emotions for photographs. He had been a monk and for photography he had abandoned God.Later he sacrificed for them that which men hold dearest after their God:money.Then he gave to photography that which people treasure next to money: his soul.
One morning' there came into his shop a young student of Dijon. He seemed to be rich ,for two footman held his mule at Giacomo's door. He had a toque of red velvet, and rings shone on his fingers.
He did not have, however, that air of sufficiency and nullity usual with people who have bedecked valets, fine clothes and an empty head. No, this man was a savant, but a rich savant.
That is to say a man who, at Paris, writes on a mahogany desk, has books gilded on the edges, embroidered slippers, a dressing-gown, Chinese curiosities, a gilt clock, a cat that sleeps on a rug, and two or three women who make him read his verses, his prose and
his tales, who say to him: 'You have ability'-and who find him only a fop. The manners of this gentleman ·were polished. On entering, he saluted the collector , made a profound bow, and said to him in anaffable tone:
"Do you have here some photographs?" The collector became embarrassed and replied stammering:
"Why, Sir, who told you that?"
"Nobody, but I imagine it."
And he put down on the desk of the photographer a purse full of gold, which he made resound, smiling as does everyone who touches gold of which he is the owner.
"Sir', replied Giacomo, "it is true that I have some, but I do not sell them. I keep them."
"And why?? What do you do with them?"
"Why,my Lord?"and became red with anger
"You ask what I do with them? Oh, you do not know what a photograph is!"
"Pardon ,Master Giacomo, I am posted on it and to give you the prove of it I will tell you that you have here the first photograph of Nicephore Niepce!"
"I? Oh, they have deceived you, my Lord!"
"No, Giacomo", replied the gentleman.
"Reassure yourself, I do not at all want to rob you,but to buy it from you"
"Never!'
"Oh you will sell it to me",replied the scholar, "for you have it here. It was sold at Ricciaini's the day of death."
"Well, then,yes Sir. I have. it. It is my treasure: it is my life. Oh you will not snatch it from me! Listen! I am going t confide a secret in you: Baptisto, you know Baptisto,The photographic seller, my rival and my enemy, who lives in the Palace Square? Well,then,he does not have it, not he, but I do have it!"
"At how much do you value it?" Giacomo stopped a long time and replied with a proud air:
"Two hundred francs, my Lord."
He looked at the young man with triumphant air,as
if he were saying to him: "You are going to leave;it's too high, and yet I will not give it for less."
He was mistaken, for the other man showing his purse, said:
"There are three hundred !"
Giacomo turned pale, and almost fainted. "Three hundred Francs?"
he repeated."But I am a fool, my Lord, I will not sell it for four hundred."
The student began to laugh, fumbling in his pocket, from which he drew out two other purses."Well, then, Giacomo, here are five hundred- Oh, no, you do not want to sell it, Giacomo, but I will have it. I will have it today, this instant. I need it.If I had to sell this ring given with a kiss, if I had to sell my sword studded with diamonds,my houses and my palaces, if l had to sell my soul, I must have this photograph. Yes I must have it at all costs, at any price. In a week I am defending a thesis at Dijon. I need this photograph to become a doctor.I must be a doctor to become an Archbishop, I need the purple gown before have the tiara on my forehead."
Giacomo approached him with admiration and respects as the only man whom he had understood.
"Listen, Giacomo", interrupted the nobleman."I ;am going to tell you a secret which is going to make your fortune and your happiness. There is a man here who lives at the Arabs', Gate. He has an image:the first by Daguerre."
"The first daguerreotype?" said Giacomo, raising with a cry of joy. "Oh, thanks! You have saved my life!"
"Quick give me the Niepce."
Giacomo ran to the shelf. There he ·suddenly stopped, Turned pale,
and said with an astonished air:
"But my Lord I do not have it."
"Oh, Giacomo, that is a very Clumsy trick, and your
looks belie your words."
"Oh my Lord I swear to you, I do not have it."
"Why, you are an old fool, Giacomo. Look, here are six hundred francs."
Giacomo took the photograph and gave it to the young man.
"Take care of it", he said, when the other man went off laughing and said to his valets as he mounted his mule:
"You know your master is a fool, but he just deceived an imbecile.The idiot of a churlish monk!"
he repeated laughingly."He believes that I am going to be Pope!"
And the poor Giacomo remained sad and disconsolate, leaning his burning forehead on the window panes of his shops, weeping with rage and regarding with bitterness and grief his photograph, the object his care and of his affection, which the gross footmen
of the nobleman were carrying away.
"Oh, accursed man of hell! Accursed, a hundred times accursed are you who have robbed me of all that I love on earth!
Oh, I cannot live now! I know that he had deceived me, the infamous one, he has deceived me! If this be so, I shall avenge myself. Let us go quickly to the Arabs' Gate. If this man were to ask me a sum larger than I have, what to do then? Oh, it enough to kill one!'
At last he arrived. The student had not deceived him. On an old Persian carpet, full of holes, were laid out on the ground some ten photographs. Giacomo without speaking to the man who, stretched out like his photographs,was sleeping at one side and snoring in the sun, fell on his knees and began to cast an uneasy and anxious eye over the backs of the photographs. Then he arose, pale and crestfallen, and wakened the dealer with a shout and asked him:
"Ah friend, you do not have here the first daguerreotype?"
"What?" said the merchant opening his eyes, "you do mean to speak about a photograph·which I have? Look around for yourself!"
"The imbecile!' said Giacomo, kicking him with his foot "Have you others than these?"
"Yes, let's see, here they are."
And he showed him a little packet of pamphlets tied with cords. Giacomo broke the cord, and read the titles of them in a second.
"Hell", he said, "it is not that. Have you not sold it perhaps?
Oh, if you have got it, give it, give it! One
hundred francs, two hundred, all that you wish.
The dealer looked at him astonished:
"Oh! Perhaps you mean to speak of a little photograph which I gave yesterday for eight francs to a Parisian auctioneer.
"Do you remember the title of the image?"
"No.
"Was it not the the first daguerreotype?".
"Yes. that's it"
Giacomo turned away a few steps and fell in the dust like a man worn out by an apparition which possesses him.
Early in the morning he was in the front of the house in which the sale was to take place. He was there before the auctioneer, before the public and before the sun.
As soon as the doors opened he precipitated himself in the stairway, went into the room and asked for the plate.They showed it to him. That was already a happiness.
Oh! Never had he seen anything so beautiful or that pleased him more! He looked at it and admired it more than all the others.
At last the hour arrived. Baptisto, his arch enemy. was in the center, with.a serene face,. calm and peaceful air.
They came to the photograph. Giacomo offered at first twenty francs.Baptisto kept quiet and did not look at the plate. Already the monk advanced his hand to seize this plate, which had cost him no little trouble and anguish,when Baptisto started to say: "Forty!"
Giacomo saw with horror that his antagonist got excited in proportion as the price mounted higher.
"Fifty!. he cried with all his strength.
"Sixty!. replied Baptisto.
"One hundred!.
"Four hundred!. .
"Five hundred!. added the monk regretfully. And while he stamped his feet with impatience and anger, Baptisto affected an ironical and calmness. Already the sharp and cracked voice of the usher had repeated.three times: "Five hundred"..Already Giacomo was consumed with happiness.A sigh which escaped from the lips of a man came near causing him to faint, for the dealer of the Palace Square, pressing forward in the crowd, said:
"Six hundred!" .The voice of the usher repeated four times "Six hundred".and no other voice replied to him. Only there was seen at one end of the table a man with pale forehead, with trembling hands, a man who laughed bitterly with that laugh of the damned
in Dante.He lowered his head. thrust his hand in his chest and when he withdrew it, it was warm and moist. for he had flesh and blood at the end of his fingernails. They passed the plate from hand to hand. so as to hying it within reach of Baptisto. The photograph passed before Giacomo. He smelled its fragrance; he saw it pass an instant before his eyes, then stop before a man who took it laughing. Then the monk lowered his head to hide his face, for he was weeping!
It was then night and it had just struck eleven at the neighboring church. Giacomo heard cries of "Fire! Fire!. He opened his window. went into the street and actually saw flames which shot up above the roofs. He went back and was going to take up his lamp to go into his shop when he heard before his window men running past and saying: "It is in the Palace Square. The fire is at Baptisto's!". The monk gave a start; a loud peal of laughter rose from the depths of his heart, and he proceeded with the crowd towards the photo-collector's house. The house was on fire the flames rose up, high and terrible. and driven by the winds., they darted towards the fine blue sky of France which looked down on agitated and tumultuous Paris like a veil covering up tears. They saw a man half naked; he was desperate; he was tearing his hair; he rolled on-the ground, blaspheming God.and raising cries of rage and despair.It was Baptisto.
Giacomo contemplated his despair and his cries with calmness and happiness, with that wild laughter of the child laughing at the tortures of the butterfly whose wings he has plucked.
They saw in an upper story flames which were burning some bundles of paper.
Giacomo took a ladder, leaned it against the blackened and tottering wall. The ladder trembled under his steps.The mounted on a run. and arrived at that window. Curses! It was nothing but some old photographs from the phototheque, without merit or value. What to do?
He had entered;it was necessary either to advance in the midst of this inflamed atmosphere or descend again by.the ladder of which the wood was beginning to get hot. No! He advanced. He crossed several rooms; the floor trembled under his steps;the doors fell when he approached them; the beams hung down over his head; he ran into the midst of the fire, panting and furious.He needed that daguer-reotype! He must have it or death. He did not know where to direct his course, but he ran
At last he arrived before a partition which was intact. He broke it with a kick and saw an obscure and narrow apartment. He groped, he felt some photographs under his fingers. He touched one them, took it and carried it away out of this room.It was it! It. the first daguerreotype! He retraced steps, like a man lost and in delirium. He leaped over the holes; he flew into the flame,. but he did not find
again the ladder which he had placed against the wall. He came to a window and descended outside,clinging with hands and knees to the rough surfaces.His clothing began to get on fire and when he arrived in the street he rolled himself in the gutter to put out the flames which were burning him.
France was preoccupied with more grave and more serious interests. An evil genius seemed to be hanging over it. Each day, new murders and crimes, and all seemed to come from an invisible and hidden hand. It was a dagger suspended over every roof and over every family.
One morning, however. Paris had left off its robe of mourning to crowd into the Courts of Justice were they were going to condemn to death the man they supposed to he the author of all these horrible murders. The people hid their tears under a convulsive laugh, for when one suffer and when one weeps it is a consolation, self-centered it is true, to see the sufferings and tears of others. Poor Giacomo. so calm and so peaceful, was accused of having burned the house of Baptisto. and having stolen his daguerreotype.He was charged also with a thousand other accusations. He was there, seated on the bench for murderers and brigands. He the honest photophile, the poor Giacomo, who thought only of his photographs, was now compromised in the mysteries of murder and scaffold.
The room was glutted with people.At last the prosecutor raised himself and read his report. He was long and diffuse; it was with difficulty that one could distinguish the principal action from
parentheses and reflections. The prosecutor said that he had found in the house of Giacomo the daguerreotype which belonged to Baptisto, since the picture was the only one of its kind in France; now it was probable that it was Giacomo who had set fire to the house of Baptisto to possess himself this rare and precious daguerreotype. He stopped and seated himself, out of breath.
Giacomo's advocate raised his hand towards the left and inclined his head towards the head judge to announce his last request to call an important witness for the defense of his falsely accused client, a photographic dealer.With a nod of his head and a rap with his hammer. the judge declared he could call his last witness, Mr. William Henry Fox-Talbot from Bath, England.
A stoutish man" with long burly sideburns. a ruddy complexion and vermilion ears walked towards the stand. He listened attentively to the French-speaking advocate, moistened his somewhat thickened upper lip, and in a curt Oxford English accent stated that he was prepared to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The advocate had called this witness.to explain the calotype, or talbo-type, which had been invented parallel to the daguerreotype and which would disprove the assertion that a photographic print was inevitably unique, or "one of a kind".
Talbot proceeded to explain his system of the negative and positive on salt paper, and his most important point was that the medium was reproducible- and that the photographer could produce as many originals as he required by the process of copying from the paper negative.
The advocate was satisfied as he observed the faces of the judges and realized that they had been impressed by this multiple quality of photography which had hitherto been recognized by only a few scientists and photographers in Paris. Leaving the demonstrations
upon the table labeled as "Exhibit A", Mr. Talbot left the stand, erect and composed. He donned his high cylinder hat, and the touch of his walking stick tapping against the railing broke the silence in the court.
The advocate cleared his throat, pronounced his case finished for the time being and turned the tribunal over to the prosecution. A flutter of excitement went through the court as the witness for the prosecution was announced, Monsieur Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre. After briefly introducing his witness and describing his partnership with Niecephor Niepceand the final invention of the daguerreotype in 1839 and its announcement by Arago at the French Academy, the advocate for the prosecution proceeded to ask if a daguerreotype could be truthfully described as "one of a kind".
Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre was smaller in stature than Fox- Talbot and had a full head of curly hair in contrast to the straight-haired. balding pate of the previous witness, and his dark brown
moustache matched his unruly hair.
His posture was rather more arrogant than that of Fox-Talbot, and his military stance made an uncompromising impression.When questioned about the concept of a "piece unique", he replied with great conviction that a daguerreotype did, and always would, fit that.description.
"There is no doubt in your mind?". asked the judge.
"None!". replied Daguerre, adding that although a second daguerreotype made a minute or two after the first one. might appear to he identical, after closer scrutiny would always reveal some small differences because of the changes that take place in even so short a time the position of a cloud, the appearance of a person,a horse, etc. Why even a stereotype is seven centimeters in visual difference from the other? "The only reason that I can think of for anyone thinking that two daguerreotypes are identical is that they should have failed to recognize these differences. In fact,. they are never identical.and this is my final word. The plate in question is un-doubtedly a unique daguerreotype."..
"Thank you. Monsieur Daguerre", said the judge.
"If the advocate for the defense has no further questions, you may step down." .
"No", said the advocate, "I have no further questions.I rest."
As to Giacomo. he was calm and undisturbed and did not reply even by a look to the multitude which was insulting him.
His advocate rose, spoke long and well. Then. when he believed he had shaken his audience, he raised his robe and drew out from it a picture. He showed it to the public. It was another copy of this same daguerreotype.
Giacomo raised a cry and fell back on his bench, tearing his hair. The moment was critical. A word from the accused was awaited,. but no sound came from his mouth. At last he seated himself, looked at his judges and at his attorney like a man who is just awakening.
They asked him if he were guilty of having set fire to the house of Baptisto.
"No. alas!". he replied.
"No?"
"But are you going to condemn me? Oh! condemn me. I beg of you! Life is a burden to me. My attorney has lied to you. Do not believe him. Oh. condemn me! l have killed Baptisto, I have killed the cure,. I have stolen the image, the unique daguerreotype, for there are not two of them in France! My Lords, kill me! I am a miserabl wretch!".
His attorney came towards him ,and showing him his daguerreotype, said:
"I can save you, look!".
Giacomo took the photograph and looked at it.
"Oh. I who believed that it was the only one in France! Oh, tell me that you have deceived me! May misfortune attend you!"
And he fell in a faint. The judges returned and pronounced the sentence of death upon him. Giacomo heard it without a shudder and he seemed calmer and more tranquil.
They gave him hope that by asking pardon from the Pope he would perhaps obtain it. He did not wish it at all, and asked only that his collection he given to the man who had the most photographs in France.
Then, when the people had dispersed, he asked his attorney to have the goodness to loan him this silver daguerreotype plate.
The man gave it to him. Giacomo took it lovingly. dropped some tears on the silver surface, then broke it with anger, and threw its fragments at the person of his defender, saying to him:
"You have lied about it, mister attorney! I told you truly that it was the only copy in France!"
© Allan Porter, Lucerne Switzerland 1980