I
go to meet the members of the Spanish colony, which includes some types
which are most interesting.
I have gathered a large number of stories and anecdotes in this way,
some of which I have incorporated in my books.
ESTEVANEZ
Don Nicolas Estevanez was a good friend of mine. During my sojourns in
Paris, I met him every afternoon in the Cafe de la Fleur in the
Boulevard St. Germain.
When I was writing _The Last of the Romantics_ and _Grotesque
Tragedies_, Estevanez furnished me with data and information
concerning life in Paris under the Second Empire.
When I last saw him in the autumn of 1913, he made a practice of coming
to the cafe with a paper scribbled over with notes, to assist his memory
to recall the anecdotes which he had it in mind to tell.
I can see him now in the Cafe de la Fleur, with his blue eyes, his long
white beard, his cheeks, which were still rosy, his calm and always
phlegmatic air.
Once he became much excited. Javier Bueno and I happened on him in a
cafe on the Avenue d'Orleans, not far from the Lion de Belfort. Bueno
asked some questions about the recent attempt by Moral to assassinate
the King in Madrid, and Estevanez suddenly went to pieces. An anarchist
told me afterwards that Estevanez had carried the bomb which was thrown
by Morral in Madrid, from Paris to Barcelona, at which port he had taken
ship for Cuba, by arrangement with the Duke of Bivona.
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