THE BOULEVARDS (_continued_).
The Opéra Comique of Paris--I Gelosi--The Don Juan of Molière--Madame
Favart--The Saint-Simonians.
The Boulevard des Italiens derives its name from the so-called Comédie
Italienne, the original Opéra Comique of Paris, which owes its existence
to letters patent granted to it as far back as 1676. One of the most
celebrated establishments on this boulevard is the Café Cardinal, at
the corner of the Rue Richelieu. It justifies its title by exhibiting
the bust of the famous political prelate, concerning whom the great
Corneille, after receiving, first benefits, then injuries, at his hands,
wrote these lines:--
"Qu'on parle mal ou bien du fameux cardinal,
Ni ma prose, ni mes vers n'en diront jamais rien.
Il m'a fait trop de bien pour en dire du mal,
Il m'a fait trop de mal pour en dire du bien."[A]
[A] "Whether good or evil be spoken of the famous Cardinal, neither my
prose nor my verse shall say a word of him. He has done too well by me
for me to speak ill of him; he has done too ill by me for me to speak
well of him."
Formerly known as the Café Dangest, the title it now bears has belonged
to it only since the year 1830. Just round the corner stands the house
of the well-known music publishers, Messrs. Brandus and Co., founded by
Moritz Schlesinger, who, as a young man, brought out many of Beethoven's
works, and was indeed one of Beethoven's first appreciators. During the
_coup d'État_ of 1851 M. Brandus's hospitable residence was the scene of
an outrage which threatened to become a tragedy on a large scale. He was
entertaining a party of friends, among whom were M. Adolphe Saxe, the
inventor of saxophones, and the eminent musical critic of the _Times_,
the late Mr. J. W. Davison. The boulevards and many of the streets
leading out of them were full of troops, for the most part in a state
of great excitement, and some infantry soldiers at the corner of the
Boulevard des Italiens and the Rue Richelieu believed, or affected to
believe, that shots had been fired at them from M. Brandus's windows.
Possibly some bullets discharged by the soldiers themselves had glanced
back from the house or one of the neighbouring houses, and fallen into
the street. The troops, in any case, forced M. Brandus's door, and his
servant, who went downstairs to remonstrate with the invaders, was at
once shot dead. The soldiers then made their way into the room where M.
Brandus and his guests were at table, arrested them, and brought them
down to the boulevard with the intention of shooting them in a formal
manner, as if by way of example. Fortunately, the general in command
was an amateur of music and a personal friend of Adolphe Saxe: whom he
particularly remembered, moreover, as having fought with courage against
the insurgents during the sanguinary days of June, 1848. Saxe at once
declared that the accusation made by the soldiers was entirely without
basis, and the general did not hesitate to accept his assurance. He
enjoined him, however, to hurry away as quickly as possible from the
boulevard, which was about to be "swept" by a fusillade. Saxe and his
friends managed narrowly to escape.
The Opéra Comique Theatre, or Comédie Italienne, as it was more
generally called, was founded originally in the Hôtel de Bourgogne; and
it was only in 1783 that it was re-established on the boulevard to which
the Comédie Italienne was to give its name.
The Opéra Comique of France descends indeed in a straight line from the
most ancient dramatic entertainments given in that country. These were
introduced in the sixteenth century by natives of the land to which the
French owe nearly all the lighter and more ornamental part of their
civilisation, from opera and the drama to ices and confectionery: from
architecture, pictures, and statues, to gloves, fans, gambling-houses,
and masked balls.
In 1576 Henri III. invited from Venice to Paris a company known as
"I Gelosi." The actors were "jealous" or "zealous" to please; and a
contemporary writer informs us that after playing at the Hôtel de
Bourgogne, where everyone was charged four sous for admission, they took
possession of the Hôtel du Petit Bourbon, where such crowds assembled
that "the four best preachers in Paris could not together have collected
such a congregation." The same writer adds that on the 26th of June
following the Parliament forbade "I Gelosi" to play their comedies any
longer, as they taught "nothing but impropriety." The Italian actors,
however, resisted the Parliamentary decree, and they obtained from the
king letters patent permitting them to continue their performances,
"consisting," says Mézerai, "of pieces of intrigue, amourettes, and
agreeable inventions for awakening and exciting the softest passions."
The Italian actors presented these letters patent to the Parliament the
month following, when the letters were rejected, and they themselves
forbidden to present to the Court such documents, under a penalty of ten
thousand Paris livres. The Italians, however, appealed once more to the
king, when Henri III. granted express permission, in virtue of which
they re-opened their theatre in December, 1577. As, however, the country
was now agitated by political troubles, "I Gelosi" discreetly returned
to their native land. A few years afterwards a second troop of "Gelosi,"
and then a third, came to Paris; and later on Henri IV. brought from
Pavia a new company, which stayed in Paris for two years.
[Illustration: BOULEVARD DES ITALIENS.]
Cardinal Mazarin (or Mazarini) did much to familiarise Parisians both
with Italian operas and Italian plays; and about 1660 one of several
Italian companies which had recently visited Paris obtained permission
to play at the Hôtel de Bourgogne alternately with the French actors.
But at last, in their love of satire, the Italian actors forgot
themselves so far as to turn into ridicule no less a personage than
Mme. de Maintenon. "The king," says the Duke de Saint-Simon, writing
on this very subject, "drove out very precipitately the whole troop
of Italian actors, and would suffer no others in their place. As long
as they restricted themselves to indecency, or even impiety, nothing
but laughter was excited." But they took the liberty of playing a
piece called _The False Prude_, in which Mme. de Maintenon was easily
recognised. Accordingly, everyone went to see it; but after three or
four representations, the actors were ordered to close their theatre and
quit the kingdom within a month.
This caused a great noise; and if the actors lost their establishment by
their boldness and folly, the Government which drove them out did not
gain by the freedom with which the ridiculous incident was criticised.
The Lieutenant of Police, accompanied by an army of commissaries,
sergeants, and constables, had invaded and seized the manuscript of
_The False Prude_. Jherardi, the harlequin of the troupe, hurried to
Versailles, where he begged and entreated, but without being able to
move Louis XIV., who had so many times protected the Italian comedians.
"You came to France on foot," said the king, "and you have gained enough
here to go back in carriages."
During their stay in Paris the Italian actors expelled by Louis XIV.
had accustomed themselves to play in French, and the celebrated comedy
writer, Regnard, had entrusted them with several of his pieces. This
rendered them more than ever disliked by the French actors, with whom
they were always in rivalry. The pieces performed by the Italian actors
consisted for the most part, and always when they confined themselves to
their own language, of mere dramatic sketches, for which dialogue was
supplied by the actors themselves.
It was not until 1716 that the Italian actors re-appeared in France, and
they now played at a theatre in the Palais Royal, occupied alternately
by them and by the company of the Grand Opera. In time the Italian
company varied their pieces, and even introduced songs in the midst of
the dialogue. This at once exposed them to attacks from the Opéra, or
Académie Royale de Musique, as it was called; and in conformity with the
privileges secured to the Opéra, the Italians were forbidden to sing.
Soon afterwards they produced a piece in which a donkey was brought
on to the stage and made to bray, whereupon one of the actors cried
out to the animal, "Silence! singing is forbidden on these boards."
Ultimately, as the result of much opposition and many minatory decrees,
an arrangement was made between the Italian actors and a company of
French actors and singers which led to the establishment of the French
Opéra Comique.
At last the Italian and the French actors played together; but French
wit and Italian wit were said not to harmonise, and in order to simplify
matters, the Italians, with the exception of one or two who had adopted
the French language, were sent out of the country. The theatre now
given up to French comic opera continued, however, to be called the
Théâtre Italien, to receive afterwards, in memory of Mme. Favart and her
husband, the title of Salle Favart, and at a later period, under the
Republic, that of Opéra Comique.
The performances of the Italians came permanently to an end in 1783. In
spite of the jealousy with which they were regarded by the great bulk of
the theatrical profession, the Italian actors had an excellent effect
on the development of the French stage, which, when the first troupe of
Gelosi arrived in Paris, had no substantial existence. Molière profited
much by their performances and borrowed freely from their productions,
taking from them, according to his well-known saying, "his property"
(that is to say, all that naturally belonged to him through affinity and
sympathy) wherever "he found it." Apart from many other subjects and
scenes, Molière borrowed his version of _Don Juan_ from the Italians.
Much of it, including most of its philosophy and wit, belongs in the
very fullest sense to the great comic dramatist of France. But the very
title, _Festin de Pierre_--an incorrect and, indeed, unintelligible
translation of _Il Convitato de Pietra_--is enough to show the origin of
Molière's admirable work.
The new establishment had been only ten years on the Boulevard des
Italiens when its name was altered definitely from Comédie Italienne
to Opéra Comique. A few years later the establishment was moved to the
Rue Feydeau, where it was destined to enjoy a long life and a merry
one. Meanwhile, the house which had given its ancient name to the
Italian boulevard remained unoccupied--or but rarely occupied--for some
considerable time, until, in 1815, the celebrated Catalani opened it for
serious Italian opera.
The Théâtre des Italiens now became the most fashionable theatre in
Paris. Here Madames Pasta, Malibran, Grisi, Persiani, MM. Rubini,
Tamburini, Lablache, etc., were heard. Here, too, Rossini for a time
acted as musical director.
This theatre, like all others, was soon destined to perish by fire; and
Italian opera has of late years led a somewhat wandering life in France,
to find itself ultimately without any home at all.
The early history of the Opéra Comique, from the middle of the
eighteenth until the first days of the nineteenth century, is
sufficiently represented by the lives of two of its most distinguished
ornaments: Mme. Favart and her successor in parts of the same kind,
Mme. Dugazon. Mme. Favart--Duronceray by her maiden name--was the wife
of Charles Simon Favart, the well-known dramatist, who for many years
supplied the Opéra Comique with all its good pieces. The marriage took
place in 1745, and immediately afterwards the Opéra Comique, as an
establishment recognised and subventioned by the State, was suppressed.
Favart had some time before made the acquaintance of Marshal Saxe, who
may be said to have played almost as great a part in connection with the
stage as with the camp; and he was now invited by the famous commander
to organise a company for giving performances at the head-quarters, and
for the entertainment of the army in Flanders generally. Favart hurried
to Brussels, where Marshal Saxe was about to arrive; and on reaching
the head-quarters, the commander-in-chief gave an entertainment to
the ladies whose husbands were serving on his staff, and to the wives
generally of the officers. The performance consisted of national dances
by the Highland contingent, whose scanty costumes are said to have at
once amused and scandalised the ladies. Then a piece of Favart's was
played; and with so much success, that it became the fashion to attend
Favart representations as often as they were given. Marshal Saxe told
Favart that it was part of his policy to give theatrical entertainments,
and the manager soon saw that his musical comedies interested the
officers sufficiently to take them away from cards and dice, to which
previously they had given themselves up with only too much devotion.
The marshal pointed out to Favart, moreover, that a lively couplet, a
few happy lines, would have more effect on French soldiers than the
most eloquent harangues. Besides amusing his own people and keeping
them out of mischief, Marshal Saxe found Favart's Comic Opera Company
useful in promoting his negotiations with the enemy. Having heard
of the Favart performances, the enemy desired much to see them; and
the representations given in the enemy's camp had no slight effect
in facilitating peace arrangements. Mme. Favart--Mlle. Chantilly, to
describe her by her stage name--was a member of the operatic company
engaged by the marshal to follow the army of Flanders; and the
commander-in-chief--as, with a man of his well-known temperament, was
sure to happen--fell in love with the charming _prima donna_. Mme.
Favart was at last obliged to make her escape, and, forsaking the camp,
returned to the capital. Here she appeared at the so-called Italian
Theatre, which was really the Opéra Comique under another name.
That Mme. Favart was greater as an actress than as a vocalist (which
may be said of so many singers who have distinguished themselves at
the Opéra Comique of Paris) is beyond doubt. "She is not a singer,"
said Grétry, the composer; "she is an actress who speaks song with the
truest and most passionate accent." "What a wonderful woman!" exclaimed
Boieldieu, after a representation of his _Caliph of Bagdad_. "They say
she does not know music; yet I never heard anyone sing with such taste
and expression, such nature and fidelity."
Boieldieu, through Auber, his successor, brings us to modern times.
With Ambroise Thomas, the composer of _Mignon_, and Bizet, the composer
of _Carmen_, the Opéra Comique has always been the most French of all
the French musical theatres. At the Grand Opéra, or Académie, nearly
all the successful works have been composed by foreigners: by Lulli,
Gluck, Piccinni, Spontini, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Donizetti, and Verdi. The
most popular works at the Opéra Comique have, on the other hand, been
composed by Frenchmen. _La Dame Blanche_, for instance, of Boieldieu;
the _Fra Diavolo_, _The Black Domino_, _The Crown Diamonds_ of Auber;
the _Mignon_ of Ambroise Thomas, and the _Carmen_ of Bizet, have all
been due to the genius of Frenchmen.
The Opéra Comique, since its formal separation from all connection with
Italy, has itself had strange and tragic adventures. The last of these
was its destruction by a terrible fire, in which more than one hundred
lives were lost. Since this catastrophe, which took place on the 22nd of
May, 1887, the Opéra Comique has been provisionally established in the
Place du Châtelet.
To make an inevitable excursion which here presents itself, the Rue
Monsigny, deriving its name from one of the most famous composers
connected with the Opéra Comique, will always be remembered as the
head-quarters of the Saint-Simonians during the first meeting of that
strange association, founded by Saint-Simon, lineal descendant of the
duke who wrote the famous _Memoirs_. The aims of the Saint-Simonians,
visionary as they may have been, were at least noble; and the society
numbered among its members some of the most able and high-minded
young men of the day. The truth of this latter assertion is proved
by the distinguished part played by many of the Saint-Simonians
in very different spheres after the society had come to an end.
Michel Chevalier, the political economist, Duveyrier, the dramatist,
and Félicien David, the composer, may be mentioned among those
Saint-Simonians whose names will be familiar to many Englishmen.
Saint-Simon, founder of the sect named after him, began his self-imposed
career with a sufficiently large fortune to enable him to test various
modes of existence. His purpose was, after studying society, to reform
it. He had resolved to study it thoroughly in all its phases: all
those, at least, which offered any special intellectual or physical
character. Without apparently having conceived any system beforehand,
he was constantly working towards one, making observations and writing
down notes. That he might waste no time from sluggishness or sloth, he
ordered his servant to wake him every morning with these significant
words: "Rise, Count; you have great things to do." (_Levez-vous,
Monsieur le Comte, vous avez de grandes choses à faire._) The great
political principle that he ultimately adopted was that "all legislation
should be for the benefit of the poorest and most numerous class," which
was little more than a variation of Jeremy Bentham's "greatest good of
the greatest number."
He lived in aristocratic society a life of pleasure, studied science
among scientific men, and finally, occupying himself with books
and newspapers, made himself the centre of all kinds of literary
gatherings. When, however, he had, according to his own previously
formed conception, completed his knowledge of life, he had exhausted his
means of living, and was quite unable to turn to account his accumulated
experience. The descendant of the proud duke could only keep himself
alive by copying manuscripts and by doing clerk's work in the Government
Pawn Office, or _Mont-de-Piété_. At last his misfortunes were too great
for him, and he endeavoured to commit suicide. But the bullet with which
he had intended to blow his brains out glanced along the frontal bone
and destroyed one of his eyes, without inflicting any mortal wound. The
unhappy experimentalist had now had a bitter experience of poverty,
which may or may not have been in his general programme. His enthusiasm
ended in any case by inspiring a few rich men who possessed the money
necessary for carrying out his ideas.
Saint-Simon's mantle fell upon Le Père Enfantin, who presided over
the Saint-Simonian family in the Rue Monsigny, until pecuniary
embarrassments caused the learned and venerable father to give up the
publication of the admirably written Saint-Simonian journal, _The
Globe_, and to retire from a house for which, unhappily, rent had to
be paid, to a house and garden of his own at Ménilmontant. Here he
collected around him forty disciples, determined to work together
under Le Père Enfantin's direction. "Poets, musicians, artists,
engineers, civil and military," says a writer, fully in sympathy with
the Saint-Simonians, even if he was not himself a member of their body,
"applied themselves by turns to the hardest and rudest labours.
"They repaired the house, regularly swept and kept in order the rooms,
offices, and courtyard, cultivated the grounds, covered the walks with
gravel, which they procured from a pit they had themselves with much
toil opened, and so on. To prove that their ideas upon the nature
of marriage and the emancipation of women were not founded upon the
calculations of a voluptuous selfishness, they imposed upon themselves
the law of strict celibacy. Every morning and evening they refreshed
their minds with the discourses of Le Père Enfantin, or sought in the
life of one of the Christian saints, read aloud by one of them to the
rest, examples, precepts, encouragement. Hymns, the music to which had
been composed by one of their number, M. Félicien David, served to
exalt their souls, while soothing their labour. At five o'clock the
horn announced dinner. The workmen then piled their tools, ranged the
wheelbarrows round the garden, and took their places, after having
chanted in chorus the prayer before meat. All this the public were
admitted to see: a spectacle in which a sneering, jesting nation only
marked the singular features, by turns simple and sublime, but which
was assuredly deficient in neither broad aim nor in abstract grandeur.
For in this practice of theirs the apostles of Ménilmontant went far
beyond their own theories, and were sowing around them unconsciously the
seeds of doctrine which were destined one day to throw their own into
oblivion."
It was on the 6th of June, amidst the roar of the cannon in the Rue
Saint-Méry, and not far from the bloody theatre whence arose the
cries of the combatants--it was on this very 6th of June that for the
first time since they had entered it, the Saint-Simonian family threw
open the doors of their retreat. "At half-past one," writes M. Louis
Blanc, "they were assembled, standing in a circle in front of the
house, while outside a second circle, formed of those whom the inmates
of Ménilmontant termed the exterior family, was a small group of
spectators, attracted by the curiosity of the thing."
No sooner had the Government suppressed the formidable insurrection,
which was finally stamped out in its last retreat at the corner of the
Rue Saint-Méry, than, as if to assert the authority it had gained, it
commenced proceedings against the Saint-Simonians, a noble-minded,
highly moral body of men, who were accused, nevertheless, of spreading
immoral doctrines. In his defence, Le Père Enfantin admitted, while
rejecting with indignation the charge of immoral teaching, that one
of the main objects of Saint-Simonianism was the reorganisation of
property. "The misery," he said, "of the working classes and the wealth
of idle men are the main causes of the evils we seek to remedy. But
when we say that there ought to be an end to that hereditary misery and
hereditary idleness which are the results of the existing constitution
of property, founded, as it is, on the right of birth, our opponents
charge us with an intention of overturning the State.
"It is of no use for us to urge that this transformation of property
can only be effected progressively, pacifically, voluntarily: that it
can be effected much better than was the destruction of feudal rights,
with every imaginable system of indemnity, and with even greater
deliberation than you apply to the expropriations which you now effect
for purposes of public utility: we are not listened to; we are condemned
off-hand as reckless disturbers of order. Unweariedly we seek to show
you that this transformation is called for by all the present and future
wants of society: that its actual progress is marked out in the most
palpable manner by the creation of the code of commerce, by all the
habits of industry which have sprung up on every side, encouraging the
mobilisation of property, its transference from the idle and incapable
to the laborious and capable hand; we show you all this, but still you
cry out, shutting your eyes, 'Your association is dangerous!'"
In the end Enfantin, Duveyrier, and Michel Chevalier were condemned to
a year's imprisonment and a fine of a hundred francs each, other less
prominent members being let off with smaller degrees of punishment.
Simonianism, as an organised thing, was now extinct, but its principles
did not die with the organisation, and in the best forms of socialism
and of democracy were soon to show themselves anew.
The Rue Marivaux, another of the most interesting outlets from this part
of the Boulevards, commemorates the witty and agreeable comedy writer
who invented the half bantering, half complimentary style of dialogue to
which the name of "marivaudage" is given.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: THE 6TH OF JUNE: THE LAST OF THE INSURRECTION.]