He was besides of a luxuriant nature, an artist by instinct, and witty fellow; he loved arguments ad hominem, and defended the weak side tooth and nail.

Amongst other peculiarities he gave himself out as “sublimely ignorant,” like Shakspeare, and professed supreme contempt for all savants, “people,” said he, “who only score our points.”  He was, in short, a Bohemian of the country of brains, adventurous but not an adventurer, a harebrained fellow, a Phaeton running away with the horses of the sun, a kind of Icarus with relays of wings.  He had a wonderful facility for getting into scrapes, and an equally wonderful facility for getting out of them again, falling on his feet like a cat.

In short, his motto was, “Whatever it may cost!” and the love of the impossible his “ruling passion,” according to Pope’s fine expression.

But this enterprising fellow had the defects of his qualities.  Who risks nothing wins nothing, it is said.  Ardan often risked much and got nothing.  He was perfectly disinterested and chivalric; he would not have signed the death-warrant of his worst enemy, and would have sold himself into slavery to redeem a negro.

In France and Europe everybody knew this brilliant, bustling person.  Did he not get talked of ceaselessly by the hundred voices of Fame, hoarse in his service?  Did he not live in a glass house, taking the entire universe as confidant of his most intimate secrets?  But he also possessed an admirable collection of enemies amongst those he had cuffed and wounded whilst using his elbows to make a passage in the crowd.

Still he was generally liked and treated like a spoiled child.  Every one was interested in his bold enterprises, and followed them with uneasy mind.  He was known to be so imprudent!  When some friend wished to stop him by predicting an approaching catastrophe, “The forest is only burnt by its own trees,” he answered with an amiable smile, not knowing that he was quoting the prettiest of Arabian proverbs.

Such was the passenger of the Atlanta, always in a bustle, always boiling under the action of inward fire, always moved, not by what he had come to do in America—­he did not even think about it—­but on account of his feverish organisation.  If ever individuals offered a striking contrast they were the Frenchman Michel Ardan and the Yankee Barbicane, both, however, enterprising, bold, and audacious, each in his own way.

Barbicane’s contemplation of his rival was quickly interrupted by the cheers of the crowd.  These cries became even so frantic and the enthusiasm took such a personal form that Michel Ardan, after having shaken a thousand hands in which he nearly left his ten fingers, was obliged to take refuge in his cabin.

Barbicane followed him without having uttered a word.

“You are Barbicane?” Michel Ardan asked him as soon as they were alone, and in the same tone as he would have spoken to a friend of twenty years’ standing.