ABSTRACT
The term ‘Bohème,’ in something like the sense intended by Murger, is almost certainly contemporary with the Preface to Cromwell, inspired (as Derôme once suggested) by some Romantic orgie de truands. Literary and artistic Paris of the 1830's was crowded with rebellious and impoverished young men, and for its appositeness the word ‘gipsy’ was no doubt soon seized upon and given currency. George Sand, arriving in the capital shortly after the July Revolution, would early have been familiar with it. In succeeding years, her personal grievances led her to see in this ‘gypsy’ life of the artist a noble protest against the pettiness of convention: as, in La Dernière Aldini, Lélio declares: ‘An artist's fatherland is the whole world, the great Bohèmia, as we say.’ In this novel, the word ‘Bohème’ occurs five times, and its importance is emphasized in the climax of the final paragraph: ‘Lélio hesitated a moment, replenished his glass, and sighed deeply. Then, his beautiful dark eyes wet with tears, yet flashing youth and gaiety, he gave us, in a voice of thunder, a toast which we echoed as one man: “Vive la Bohème!” ’ The setting of La Dernière Aldini is Venice, and its tale of grand passion has no obvious connexion with Paris of the 1830's; but the author is certainly up-to-date in her use of the word ‘Bohemia’.
