Rachel and some of her fellow-actors -- Rachel's true character
-- Her greediness and spitefulness -- Her vanity and her wit --
Her powers of fascination -- The cost of being fascinated by her
-- Her manner of levying toll -- Some of her victims, Comte
Duchatel and Dr. Veron -- The story of her guitar -- A little
transaction between her and M. Fould -- Her supposed charity and
generosity -- Ten tickets for a charity concert -- How she made
them into twenty -- How she could have made them into a hundred
-- Baron Taylor puzzled -- Her manner of giving presents --
Beauvallet's precaution with regard to one of her gifts --
Alexandre Dumas the younger, wiser or perhaps not so wise in his
generation -- Rachel as a raconteuse -- The story of her _debut_
at the Gymnase -- What Rachel would have been as an actor instead
of an actress -- Her comic genius -- Rachel's mother -- What
became of Rachel's money -- Mama Felix as a pawnbroker --
Rachel's trinkets -- Two curious bracelets -- Her first
appearance before Nicholas I. -- A dramatic recital in the open
air -- Rachel's opinion of the handsomest man in Europe -- Rachel
and Samson -- Her obligations to him -- How she repays them --
How she goes to Berryer to be coached in the fable of "The Two
Pigeons" -- An anecdote of Berryer -- Rachel's fear of a "warm
reception" on the first night of "Adrienne Lecouvreur" -- How she
averts the danger -- Samson as a man and as an actor --
Petticoat-revolts at the Comedie-Francaise -- Samson and Regnier
as buffers -- Their different ways of pouring oil upon the
troubled waters -- Mdlle. Sylvanie Plessy -- A parallel between
her and Sarah Bernhardt -- Samson and Regnier's pride in their
profession -- The different character of that pride -- "Apollo
with a bad tailor, and who dresses without a looking-glass" --
Samson gives a lesson in declamation to a procureur-imperial --
The secret of Regnier's greatness as an actor -- A lesson at the
Conservatoire -- Regnier on "make-up" -- Regnier's opinion of
genius on the stage -- A mot of Augustine Brohan -- Giovanni, the
wigmaker of the Comedie-Francaise -- His pride in his profession
-- M. Ancessy, the musical director, and his three wigs.
There were few authors of my time who came in contact with Rachel
without writing about her; there were absolutely none who have
represented her in her true character. Either her genius blinded them to
her faults, or else they were content to perpetuate the popular belief
in her amiability, good nature, generosity, etc. The fact is, that
Rachel off the stage was made of very ordinary clay. She had few of the
good qualities of her race, and a good many of the bad ones; she was
greedy to a degree, and could be very spiteful. All these drawbacks, in
the eyes of most of her biographers, were redeemed by her marvellous
tragic abilities on the stage, by a wonderful "gift of the gab," by a
"happy-go-lucky," "hail-fellow, well-met" manner off the stage to those
whom she liked to propitiate. Nevertheless, there were times when she
had not a single friend at the Comedie-Francaise, and though her
champions attributed this hostility to jealousy of her great gifts, a
moment's consideration would show us that such a feeling could scarcely
have influenced the men who to a great extent shared her histrionic
triumphs, viz., Beauvallet, Regnier, Provost, Samson, and least of all
the latter. Still, all these would have willingly kept her out of the
Comedie-Francaise after she had left it in a huff. She was difficult to
get on with; her modesty, assumed in everyday life, was a sham, for woe
to the host who, deceived by it, did not at once make her the queen of
the entertainment! And, in reality, nothing in her warranted such a
temporary elevation. She was witty in her way and after her kind--that
is, she had the quick-wittedness of the French woman who is not an
absolute fool, and who has for many years rubbed elbows with everything
distinguished in art and literature. Notwithstanding this intimacy, I am
doubtful whether she had ever read, let alone appreciated, any of the
masterpieces by the writers of her own days that did not directly bear
upon her profession. I exclude fiction--I mean narrative fiction, and
especially that of a sensational kind, of which she was probably as fond
as the meanest concierge and most romantic milliner-girl.
Nevertheless, provided one did not attempt to analyze it, the power of
fascinating the coldest interlocutor was there. To their honor be it
said, her contemporaries, especially the men, rarely made such an
attempt at analysis. They applauded all she said (off and on the stage),
they tolerated all she did, albeit that they paid the cost of many of
her so-called "amiable tricks," which were mainly so many instances of
greed and nothing else. One evening she was dining at Comte Duchatel's,
the minister of Louis-Philippe. The table was positively laden with
flowers, but Rachel did not care much about them; what she wanted was
the splendid silver centre-piece. But she was too clever to unmask her
batteries at once, so she began by admiring the contents, then at last
she came to the principal point. The host was either in one of his
generous or foolish moods, and made her a present of it there and then.
Rachel knew, though, that even with a grand seigneur like Comte
Duchatel, there are "les lendemains de l'enthousiasme," especially when
he is a married man, whose wife does not willingly submit to have her
home stripped of its art-treasures. The tragedienne came in a hackney
cab; the comte offered to send her back in his carriage. She struck the
iron while it was hot. "Yes, that will do admirably; there will be no
fear of my being robbed of your present, which I had better take with
me." "Perfectly, mademoiselle," replied the comte; "but you will send me
back my carriage, won't you?"
Dr. Veron was despoiled with even less ceremony. Having taken a fancy to
some silver saucers or cups in which the proprietor of the
_Constitutionnel_ offered ices to his visitors, she began by pocketing
one, and never rested until she had the whole of the set. In short,
everything was fish to her net. She made her friends give her bibelots
and knickknacks of no particular value, to which she attached some
particular legend--absolute inventions for the greatest part--in order
to sell them for a thousand times their original cost. One day she
noticed a guitar at the studio of one of her familiars. "Give me that
guitar; people will think it is the one with which I earned my living on
the Place Royale and on the Place de la Bastille." And as such it was
sold by her to M. Achille Fould for a thousand louis. The great
financier nearly fell into a fit when the truth was told to him at
Rachel's death; he, in his turn, having wanted to "do a bit of
business." In this instance no Christian suffered, because buyer and
vendor belonged to the same race. Of course the panegyrists of Rachel,
when the story came to their ears, maintained that the thousand louis
were employed for some charitable purpose, without, however, revealing
the particular quarter whither they went; but those who judged Rachel
dispassionately could not even aver that her charity began at home,
because, though she never ceased complaining of her brother's and her
sisters' extravagance, both brother and sisters could have told very
curious tales about the difficulty of making her loosen her
purse-strings for even the smallest sums. As for Rachel's doing good by
stealth and blushing to find it fame, it was all so much fudge. Contrary
to the majority of her fellow-professionals, in the past as well as the
present, she even grudged her services for a concert or a performance in
aid of a deserving object, although she was not above swelling her own
hoard by such entertainments.
The following instance, for the absolute truth of which I can vouch, is
a proof of what I say. One day the celebrated Baron Taylor, who had been
the director of the Comedie-Francaise, came to solicit her aid for a
charity concert; I am not certain of the object, but believe it was in
aid of the Christians in Persia or China. The tickets were to be a
hundred francs each. Sontag, Alboni, Rosine Stoltz, Mario, Lablache,
Vieuxtemps, and I do not know how many more celebrated artists had
promised their services.
It was in 1850 when M. Arsene Houssaye was her director, and I am
particular about giving the year, because Rachel refused on the pretext
that her director would never give her leave to appear on any other
stage. Now, it so happened that no woman ever had a more devoted friend
and chivalrous champion than Rachel had in Arsene Houssaye. His
friendship for her was simply idolatry, and I verily believe that if she
had asked him to stand on his head to please her, he would have done so,
at the risk of making himself supremely ridiculous--he who feared
ridicule above everything, who was one of the most sensible men of his
time, who was and is the incarnation of good-nature, to whom no one in
distress or difficulties ever appealed in vain.
Baron Taylor argued all this, but Rachel remained inflexible. "I am very
sorry," he said at last, rising to go, "because I am positive that your
name on the bill would have made a difference of several thousand francs
in the receipts."
"Oh, if you only want my name," was the answer, "you may have it; you
can make an apology at the eleventh hour for my absence on the score of
sudden indisposition--the public at charity concerts are used to that
sort of thing; besides, you will have so many celebrities that it will
make very little difference. By-the-by"--as he was at the door--"I think
my name is worth ten or twenty tickets." Taylor knew Rachel too well to
be in the least surprised at the demand, and left ten tickets on the
mantelpiece.
That same afternoon he met Count Walewski, and as a matter of course
asked him to take some tickets.
"Very sorry, cher baron, but I have got ten already. You see, poor
Rachel did not know very well how to get rid of the two hundred you
burdened her with as a lady patroness; so she wanted me to have twenty,
but I settled the matter with ten. As it is, it cost me a thousand
francs."
Taylor did not say another word--he probably could not; he was struck
dumb with astonishment at the quickness with which Rachel had converted
the tickets into money. But what puzzled him still more was the fact of
her having offered Walewski double the quantity of tickets he had given
her. Where had she got the others from? He was coming to the conclusion
that she had offered twenty in order to place ten, when he ran against
Comte Le Hon, the husband of the celebrated Mdlle. Musselmans, the
erstwhile Belgian ambassador to the court of Louis-Philippe, who averred
frankly that he was the father of a family, though he had no children of
his own.
Taylor thought he would try another chance, and was met with the reply,
"Cher baron, I am very sorry, but I have just taken five tickets from
Mdlle. Rachel. It appears that she is a lady patroness, and that they
burdened her with two hundred; fortunately, she told me, people were
exceedingly anxious to get them, and these were the last five."
"Then she had two hundred tickets after all," said Baron Taylor to
himself, making up his mind to find out who had been before him with
Rachel. But no one had been before him. The five tickets sold to Comte
Le Hon were five of the ten she had sold to Comte Walewski. When the
latter had paid her, she made him give her five tickets for herself and
family, or rather for her four sisters and herself. Of Comte Le Hon she
only took toll of one, which, wonderful to relate, she did not sell.
This was Rachel's way of bestirring herself in the cause of charity.
"Look at the presents she made to every one," say the panegyrists. They
forget to mention that an hour afterwards she regretted her generosity,
and from that moment she never left off scheming how to get the thing
back. Every one knew this. Beauvallet, to whom she gave a magnificent
sword one day, instead of thanking her, said, "I'll have a chain put to
it, mademoiselle, so as to fasten it to the wall of my dressing-room. In
that way I shall be sure that it will not disappear during my absence."
Alexandre Dumas the younger, to whom she made a present of a ring, bowed
low and placed it back on her finger at once. "Allow me to present it to
you in my turn, mademoiselle, so as to prevent you asking for it." She
did not say nay, but carried the matter with one of her fascinating
smiles. "It is most natural to take back what one has given, because
what one has given was dear to us," she replied.
Between '46 and '53 I saw a great deal of Rachel, generally in the
green-room of the Comedie-Francaise, which was by no means the
comfortable or beautiful apartment people imagine, albeit that even in
those days the Comedie had a collection of interesting pictures, busts,
and statues worthy of being housed in a small museum. The chief ornament
of the room was a large glass between the two windows, but if the
apartment had been as bare as a barn, the conversation of Rachel would
have been sufficient to make one forget all about its want of
decoration; for, with the exception of the elder Dumas, I have never met
any one, either man or woman, who exercised the personal charm she did.
I have been told since that Bismarck has the same gift. I was never
sufficiently intimate with the great statesman to be able to judge,
having only met him three or four times, and under conditions that did
not admit of fairly testing his powers in that respect, but I have an
idea that the charm of both lay in their utter indifference to the
effect produced, or else in their absolute confidence of the result of
their simplicity of diction. Rachel's art of telling a story, if art it
was, reminded one of that of the chroniclers of the _Niebelungen_; for
notwithstanding her familiarity with Racine and Corneille, her
vocabulary was exceedingly limited, and her syntax, if not her grammar,
off the stage, not always free from reproach.
I do not pretend, after the lapse of so many years, to give these
stories in her own language, or all of them; there are a few, however,
worth the telling, apart from the fascination with which she invested
them.
One evening she said to me, "Do you know Poirson?"
I had known Poirson when he was director of the Gymnase. He afterwards
always invited me to his soirees, one of which, curiously enough, was
given on the Sunday before the Revolution of '48. So I said, "Yes, I
know Poirson."
"Has he ever told you why he did not re-engage me?"
"Never."
"I'll tell you. People said it was because I did not succeed in 'La
Vendeenne' of Paul Duport; but that was not the cause. It was something
much more ridiculous; and now that I come to think of it, I am not sure
that I ought to tell you, for you are an Englishman, and you will be
shocked."
I was not shocked, I was simply convulsed with laughter, for Rachel, not
content with telling the story, got up, and, gradually drawing to the
middle of the room, enacted it. It was one of those ludicrous incidents
that happen sometimes on the stage, which no amount of foresight on the
part of the most skilful and conscientious manager or actor can prevent,
but which almost invariably ruins the greatest masterpiece. There were
about eight or nine actors and actresses in the room--Regnier, Samson,
Beauvallet, etc. It was probably the most critical audience in Europe,
but every one shook, and Mdlle. Anais Aubert went into a dead faint.
Regnier often averred that if Rachel had been a man, she would have been
the greatest comic actor that ever lived; and it is not generally known
that she once played Dorine in "Tartuffe," and set the whole of the
house into a perfect roar; but on that evening I became convinced that
Rachel, in addition to her tragic gifts, was the spirit of
Aristophanesque comedy personified. I am afraid, however, that I cannot
tell the story, or even hint at it, beyond mentioning that Poirson is
reported to have said that Rachel did not want a stage-manager, but a
nurse to take care of her. The criticism was a cruel one, though
justified by appearances. It was Mama Felix, and not her daughter, who
was to blame. The child--she was scarcely more than that--had hurt
herself severely, and instead of keeping her at home, she sent her to
the theatre, "poulticed all over," as Rachel expressed it afterwards.
Mama Felix was the only one who was a match for her famous daughter in
money matters. What the latter did with the enormous sums of money she
earned has always been a mystery. As I have already said, they were not
spent in charity. Nowadays, whatever other theatres may do, the
Comedie-Francaise dresses its pensionnaires as well as its societaires
from head to foot; it pays the bootmaker's as well as the wigmaker's
bill, and the laundress's also. Speaking of the beginning of her career,
which coincided with the end of Rachel's, Madeleine Brohan, whose
language was often more forcible than elegant, remarked, "Dans ma
jeunesse, on nous mettait toutes nues sur la scene; nous etions assez
jolies pour cela." But Rachel's costumes varied so little throughout her
career as to have required but a small outlay on her part. Nor could her
ordinary dresses and furniture, which I happened to see in April, 1858,
when they were sold by public auction at her apartments in the Place
Royale, have made a considerable inroad on her earnings. The furniture
was commonplace to a degree; such pictures and knickknacks as were of
value had been given to her, or acquired in the manner I have already
described; the laces and trinkets were, undoubtedly, not purchased with
her own money. It is said that her brother Raphael was a spendthrift. He
may have been, but he did not spend his celebrated sister's money; of
that I feel certain. Then what became of it? I am inclined to think that
Mdlle. Rachel dabbled considerably in stocks, and that, notwithstanding
her shrewdness and sources of information, she was the victim of people
cleverer than she was. At any rate, one thing is certain--she was nearly
always hard up; and, after having exhausted the good will of all her
male acquaintances and friends, compelled to appeal to her mother, who
had made a considerable hoard for her other four sisters, and perhaps
also for her scapegrace son; for, curiously enough, with Mama Felix
every one of her children was a goddess or god, except _the goddess_.
This want of appreciation on the mother's part reminds me of a story
told to me by Meissonier. His granddaughter, on her fifteenth or
sixteenth birthday, had a very nice fan given to her. The sticks were
exquisitely carved in ivory, and must have cost a pretty tidy sum, but
the fan itself, of black gauze, was absolutely plain. The donor probably
intended the grandfather's art to enhance the value of the present, and
the latter was about to do so, when the young lady stopped him with the
cry, "Voila qu'il va me gater mon eventail avec ses mannequins!" The
irony of non-appreciation by one's nearest and dearest could no further
go.
Mama Felix, then, was very close-fisted, and would never lend her
daughter any money, except on very good security, namely, on her jewels.
In addition to this, she made her sign an undertaking that if not
redeemed at a certain date they would be forfeited; and forfeited they
were, if the loan and interest were not forthcoming at the stipulated
time, notwithstanding the ravings of Rachel. This would probably account
for the comparatively small quantity of valuable jewelery found after
her death.
Some of the ornaments I have seen her wear had an artistic value utterly
apart from their cost, others were so commonplace and such evident
imitations as to have been declined by the merest grisette. One day I
noticed round her wrist a peculiar bracelet. It was composed of a great
number of rings, some almost priceless, others less valuable but still
very artistic, others again possessing no value whatsoever, either
artistically or otherwise. I asked her to take it off and found it to be
very heavy, so heavy that I remarked upon it. "Yes," she replied, "I
cannot wear two of the same weight, so I am obliged to wear the other in
my pocket." And out came the second, composed of nearly double the
number of rings of the first. I was wondering where all those rings came
from, but I refrained from asking questions. I was enabled to form my
own conclusions a little while afterwards, in the following way:
While we were still admiring the bracelet, Rachel took from her finger a
plain gold hoop, in the centre of which was an imperial eagle of the
same metal. "This was given to me by Prince Louis Napoleon," she said,
"on the occasion of my last journey to London. He told me that it was a
souvenir from his mother, and that he would not have parted with it to
any one else but me."
I cannot remember the exact date of this conversation, but it must have
been shortly after the Revolution, when the future emperor had just
landed in France. About three or four weeks afterwards we were talking
to Augustine Brohan, who had just returned from London, where she had
fulfilled an engagement of one or two months. Rachel was not there that
night, but some one asked her if she had seen Prince Louis in London.
"Yes," she replied; "he was going away, and he gave me a present before
he went." Thereupon she took from her finger a ring exactly like that of
Rachel's. "He told me it was a souvenir from his mother, and that he
would not have parted with it to any one but me."
We looked at one another and smiled. The prince had evidently a jeweller
who manufactured "souvenirs from his mother" by the dozen, and which he,
the prince, distributed at that time, "in remembrance of certain happy
hours." The multiplicity of the rings on Rachel's wrist was no longer a
puzzle to me. I was thinking of the story in the "Arabian Nights," where
the lady with the ninety-eight rings bewitches the Sultans Shariar and
Shahzenan, in spite of the jealousy and watchfulness of the monster to
whom she belongs, and so makes the hundred complete.
Among the many stories Rachel told me there is one not generally
known--that of her first appearance before Nicholas I. Though she was
very enthusiastically received in London, and though she always spoke
gratefully of the many acts of kindness shown her there, I am inclined
to think that she felt hurt at the want of cordiality on the part of the
English aristocracy when they invited her to recite at their
entertainments. This may be a mere surmise of mine; I have no better
grounds for it than an expression of hers one day when we were
discussing London society. "Oui, les Anglais, ils sont tres aimables,
mais ils paraissent avoir peur des artistes, comme des betes sauvages,
car ils vous parquent comme elles au Jardin des Plantes." I found out
afterwards that it was a kind of grudge she bore the English for having
invariably improvised a platform or enclosure by means of silken ropes.
Certain is it that, beyond a few casual remarks at long intervals upon
London, she seemed reluctant to discuss the subject with me. Not so with
regard to Potsdam after her return whence in August, '51. In the
beginning of July of that year she told me that she had a special
engagement to appear before the court on the 13th of that month. I did
not see her until a few weeks after she came back, and then she gave me
a full account of the affair. I repeat, after the lapse of so many
years, I cannot reproduce her own words, and I could not, even half an
hour after her narrative, have reproduced the manner of her telling it;
but I can vouch for the correctness of the facts.
"About six o'clock, Raphael [her brother], who was to give me my cues,
and I arrived at Potsdam, where we were met by Schneider, who had made
the engagement with me. You know, perhaps, that Schneider had been an
actor himself, that afterwards he had been promoted to the directorship
of the Royal Opera House, and that now he is the private reader to the
king, with the title of privy or aulic councillor.
"Schneider is a very nice man, and I have never heard a German speak our
language so perfectly. Perhaps it was as well, because I dread to
contemplate what would have been the effect upon my nerves and ears of
lamentations in Teutonized French."
"Why lamentations?"? I asked.
"Ah, nous voila!" she replied. "You remember I was in mourning. The
moment I stepped out of the carriage, he exclaimed, 'But you are all in
black, mademoiselle.' 'Of course I am,' I said, 'seeing that I am in
mourning.' 'Great Heaven! what am I to do? Black is not admitted at
court on such occasions.' I believe it was the birthday of the Czarina,
but of course I was not bound to know that.
"There was no time to return to Berlin, and least of all to get a dress
from there, so Raphael and he put their heads together; the result of
which conference was my being bundled rather than handed into a
carriage, which drove off at full speed to the Chateau de Glinicke. I
could scarcely catch a glimpse of the country around Potsdam, which
seemed to me very lovely.
"When we got to Glinicke, which belongs to Prince Charles, I was handed
over to some of the ladies-in-waiting of the princess. Handed over is
the only word, because I felt more like a prisoner than anything else,
and they tried to make 'little Rachel' presentable according to their
lights. One of them, after eyeing me critically, suggested my wearing a
dress of hers. In length it would have done very well, only I happen to
be one of the lean kine, and she decidedly was not, so that idea had to
be abandoned. They may be very worthy women, these German ladies, but
their inventiveness with regard to dress is absolutely _nil_. When the
idea suggested by the first lady turned out to be impracticable, they
were a bout de ressources. You may gather from this, mon ami, that the
beginning and the end of their strategie de la toilette are not far
apart. There was one thing that consoled me for this sudden exhaustion
of their limited ingenuity. Between the half-dozen--for they were half a
dozen--they could not find a single word when the first and only device
proved impossible of realization. Had there been the same number of
French women assembled, it would have been a kind of little madhouse; in
this instance there was a deep silence for at least ten minutes,
eventually broken by the knocking at the door of one of the maids, with
Herr Schneider's compliments, and wishing to know what had been decided
upon. The doleful answer brought him to the room, and what six women
could not accomplish, he, like the true artist, accomplished at once.
'Get Mdlle. Rachel a black lace mantilla, put a rose in her hair, and
give her a pair of white gloves.' In less than ten minutes I was ready,
and in another ten, Raphael, Schneider, and I embarked on a pretty
little steam-yacht lying ready at the end of the magnificent garden for
'l'Ile des Paons' (Pfauen-Insel, Peacock Island), where we landed
exactly at eight. But my troubles and surprises were not at an end. I
made sure that there would be at least a tent, an awning, or a platform
for me to stand under or upon. Ah, oui! not the smallest sign of either.
'Voila votre estrade,' said Schneider, pointing to a small lawn,
separated from the rest of the gardens by a gravelled walk three or four
feet wide. I declined at once to act under such conditions, and insisted
upon being taken back immediately to the station, and from thence to
Berlin. Poor Schneider was simply in despair. In vain did he point out
that to any one else the total absence of scenery and adjuncts might
prove a drawback, but that to me it would only be an additional
advantage, as it would bring into greater relief my own talent; I would
not be persuaded. Finding that it was fruitless to play upon my vanity
as an artist, he appealed to me as a femme du monde. 'The very absence
of all preparations,' he said, 'proves that their majesties have not
engaged Mdlle. Rachel of the Comedie-Francaise to give a recitation, but
invited Mdlle. Rachel Felix to one of their soirees. That Mdlle. Rachel
Felix should be kind enough, after having partaken of a cup of tea, to
recite something, would only be another proof of her well-known
readiness to oblige;' and so forth. Let me tell you, mon cher, that I
have rarely met with a cleverer diplomatist, and Heaven knows I have
seen a lot who imagined themselves clever. They could not hold a candle
to this erstwhile actor; nevertheless I remained as firm as a rock,
though I was sincerely distressed on Schneider's account."
"What made you give in at last?" I inquired. "Was it the idea of losing
the magnificent fee?"
"For once you are mistaken," she laughed, "though Schneider himself
brought that argument to bear as a big piece of artillery. 'Remember
this, mademoiselle,' he said, when he could think of nothing else;
'remember this--that this soiree may be the means of putting three
hundred thousand or four hundred thousand francs into your pocket. You
yourself told me just now on board the yacht that you were very anxious
for an engagement at St. Petersburg. I need scarcely tell you that, if
you refuse to appear before their majesties to-night, I shall be
compelled to state the reason, and Russia will be for ever closed to
you. Apart from pecuniary considerations, it will be said by your
enemies--and your very eminence in your profession causes you to have
many--that you have failed to please the Empress. After all, the fact
that all the ordinary surroundings of the actress have been neglected
proves that you are not looked upon as an actress by them, but as une
femme du monde.'"
"That persuaded you?" I remarked.
"Not at all."
"Then it was the money."
"Of course you would think so, even if I swore the contrary a hundred
times over; but if you were to guess from now till to-morrow, you would
never hit upon the real reason that made me stay."
"Well, then, I had better not try, and you had better tell me at once."
"Strange as it may seem to you, it was neither the gratification of
being treated en femme du monde nor the money that made me stay; it was
the desire to see what I had been told was the handsomest man in Europe.
I did see him, and for once in a way rumour had not exaggerated the
reality. I had scarcely given my final consent to Schneider, when the
yacht carrying the imperial and royal families came alongside the
island, and the illustrious passengers landed, amidst an avalanche of
flowers thrown from the other vessels. Schneider presented me to the
King, who was also good-looking, and the latter presented me to the
Czar.
"Immediately afterwards the recital began. At the risk of taxing your
credulity still further, I may tell you that I, Rachel, who never knew
what 'stage-fright' meant, felt nervous. That man to me looked like a
very god. Fortunately for my reputation, the shadows of night were
gathering fast; in another twenty minutes it would be quite dark, and I
felt almost rejoiced that my audience could scarcely distinguish my
features. On the other hand, Raphael, who only knew the part of
Hippolyte by heart, and who was obliged to read the others, declared
that he could not see a line, and candles had to be brought in. It was a
glorious evening, but there was a breeze nevertheless, and as fast as
the candles were lighted, they were extinguished by the wind. To put
ordinary lamps on the lawn at our feet was not to be thought of for a
moment; luckily one of the functionaries remembered that there were some
candelabra with globes inside, and by means of these a kind of 'float'
was improvised. Still the scene was a curious one. Raphael close to me
on the edge of the lawn, with one of these candelabra in his left hand.
Behind, to the left and right of us, a serried crowd of generals, court
dignitaries in magnificent uniforms. In front, and separated by the
whole width of a gravel walk, the whole group of sovereigns and their
relations, and behind them the walls of the mansion, against which the
tea-table had been set, and around which stood the ladies-in-waiting of
the Queen of Prussia and the Empress of Russia. A deep silence around,
only broken by the soft soughing of the wind in the trees, and the
splashing of a couple of fountains near, playing a dirge-like
accompaniment to Raphael's and my voice.
"The recital lasted for nearly an hour; if I had liked I could have kept
them there the whole night, for never in my career have I had such an
attentive, such a religiously attentive, audience. The King was the
first to notice my fatigue, and he gave the signal for my leaving off by
coming up and thanking me for my efforts. The Emperor followed his
example, and stood chatting to me for a long while. In a few minutes I
was the centre of a circle which I am not likely to forget as long as I
live. Then came the question how Raphael and I were to get back to
Berlin. The last train was gone. But Schneider simply suggested a
special, and a mounted messenger was despatched then and there to order
it. After everything had been arranged for my comfortable return, the
sovereigns departed as they had come, only this time the yacht, as well
as the others on the lake, were splendidly illuminated. This was my
first appearance before Nicholas I."
There was no man to whom Rachel owed more than to Samson, or even as
much; but for him, and in spite of her incontestable genius, the
Comedie-Francais might have remained closed to her for many years, if
not forever. Frederick Lemaitre and Marie Dorval were undoubtedly, in
their own way, as great as she, yet the blue riband of their profession
never fell to their lot. And yet, when she had reached the topmost rung
of the ladder of fame, Rachel was very often not only ungrateful to him,
but her ingratitude showed itself in mean, spiteful tricks. When
Legouve's "Adrienne Lecouvreur" was being cast, Samson, who had forgiven
Rachel over and over again, was on such cool terms with her that the
authors feared he would not accept the part of the Prince de Bouillon.
Nevertheless, Samson, than whom there was not a more honourable and
conscientious man, on or off the stage, accepted; he would not let his
resentment interfere with what he considered his duty to the institution
of which he was so eminent a member. This alone ought to have been
sufficient to heal the breach between the tutor and the pupil; any woman
with the least spark of generosity, in the position of Rachel towards
Samson, would have taken the first step towards a reconciliation.
Rachel, as will be seen directly, was perfectly conscious of what she
ought to do under the circumstances; she was too great an actress not to
have studied the finer feelings of the human heart, and yet she did not
do it. On the contrary, she aggravated matters. Every one knows the
fable of "The Two Pigeons" which Adrienne recites at the soiree of the
Princesse de Bouillon. Now, it so happened that the great barrister and
orator, Berryer, was considered a most charming reciter of that kind of
verse. Berryer, a most simple-minded man, took special delight in
sharing the most innocent games of young children. He was especially
fond of the game of "forfeits"; and so great was his fame as a diseur,
that the penalty generally imposed upon him was the reciting of a fable.
But great diseur as he was, he himself acknowledged that Samson could
have given him a lesson.
At every new part she undertook, Rachel was in the habit of consulting
with her former tutor; this time she went to consult Berryer instead,
and, what was worse, took pains that every one should hear of it. "Then
my heart smote me," she said afterwards, when by one of those
irresistible tricks of hers she had obtained her tutor's pardon once
more. It was as deliberate a falsehood as she ever uttered in her life,
which in Rachel's case means a good deal. The fact was, the affair, as I
have already said, had been bruited about, mainly by herself at first;
the public showed a disposition to take Samson's part, and she felt
afraid of a "warm reception" on the first night.
Under these circumstances she had recourse to one of her wiles, which,
for being theatrical, was not less effective. At the first rehearsal,
when Adrienne has to turn to Michonnet, saying, "This is my true friend,
to whom I owe everything," she turned, not to Regnier, who played
Michonnet, and to whom the words are addressed, but to Samson, at the
same time holding out her hand to him. Samson, who, notwithstanding all
their disagreements, very felt proud of his great pupil, who was,
moreover, of a very affectionate disposition, notwithstanding his
habitual reserve, fell into the trap. He took her proffered hand; then
she flung herself into his arms, and the estrangement was at an end,
for the time being. Rachel took great care to make the reconciliation as
public as possible.
I was never very intimate with Samson, but the little I knew of him I
liked. I repeat, he was essentially an honourable and honest man, and
very tolerant with regard to the foibles of the fair sex. There was need
for such tolerance in those days. Augustine Brohan, Sylvanie Plessy,
Rachel, and half a dozen other women, all very talented, but all very
wayward, made Buloz' life (he was the director of the Comedie-Francaise,
as well as the editor of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_) a burden to him.
He who could, and often did, dictate his will to men who already then
were famous throughout Europe, frequently found himself powerless
against women, who, however celebrated, were, with the exception of
Rachel, nothing in comparison with the former. He was, it is true,
overbearing to a degree, and disagreeable besides, but his temper proved
of no avail with them; it only made matters worse. "Apres tout," he said
one day to Madame Allan, who was the most amenable of all, "je suis le
maitre ici." "Ca se peut, monsieur," was the answer, "mais nous sommes
les contres maitre."[23]
[Footnote 23: The play upon the word is scarcely translatable.
"Contre-maitre" in the singular means foreman; as it is used
here it means against the master.--EDITOR.]
In nearly all such troubles Regnier and Samson had to act as buffers
between the two contending parties; but, as Augustine Brohan explained
once, the two were utterly different in their mode of casting oil upon
the troubled waters. "Regnier," she said, "c'est le bon Dieu des
Chretiens, qui se fait tres souvent mener par le nez par des mots. Du
reste son nez s'y prete.[24] Samson c'est le Dieu juste, mais vengeur
des Juifs, qui veut bien pardonner, mais seulement apres soumission
complete et entiere. Samson ne vous promet pas le ciel, il vous offre
des compensations solides ici bas."
[Footnote 24: Regnier's nose was always a subject of jokes
among his fellow-actors. "It is not because it is large," said
Beauvallet, "but because it is his principal organ of
speech."--EDITOR.]
It would be difficult to paint the contrast between two characters in
fewer words. In 1845, when Mdlle. Sylvanie Plessy seceded from the
Comedie-Francaise, Regnier wrote a kind epistle, recommending her to
come and explain matters either personally or by letter. "Let your
letter be kind and affectionate, and be sure that things will right
themselves better than you expect."
Samson also wrote, but simply to say that if she did not come back _at
once_ all the terrors of the law would be invoked against her. Which was
done. The Comedie-Francaise instituted proceedings, claiming two hundred
thousand francs damages, and twenty thousand francs "a titre de
provision."[25] The court cast Mdlle. Plessy in six thousand francs
_provision_, deferring judgment on the principal claim. Two years later
Mdlle. Plessy returned and re-entered the fold. Thanks to Samson, she
did not pay a single farthing of damages, and the Comedie bore the costs
of the whole of the lawsuit.[26]
[Footnote 25: Damages claimed by one of the parties, pending
the final verdict.--EDITOR.]
[Footnote 26: Curiously enough, it was Emile Augier's
"Aventuriere" that caused Mdlle. Plessy's secession, just as it
did thirty-five years later, in the case of Mdlle. Sarah
Bernhardt.--EDITOR.]
Both Samson and Regnier were very proud of their profession, but their
pride showed itself in different ways. Regnier would have willingly made
any one an actor--that is, a good actor; he was always teaching a great
many amateurs, staging and superintending their performances. Samson, on
the other hand, had no sympathy whatsoever with that kind of thing, and
could rarely be induced to give it aid, but he was very anxious that
every public speaker should study elocution. "Eloquence and elocution
are two different things," he said; "and the eloquent man who does not
study elocution, is like an Apollo with a bad tailor, and who dresses
without a looking-glass. I go further still, and say that every one
ought to learn how to speak, not necessarily with the view of amusing
his friends and acquaintances, but with the view of not annoying them. I
am a busy man, but should be glad to devote three hours a week to teach
the rising generation, and especially the humbler ones, how to speak."
In connection with that wish of Samson, that every man whose duties
compelled him, or who voluntarily undertook to speak in public, should
be a trained elocutionist, I remember a curious story of which I was
made the recipient quite by accident. It was in the year '60, one
morning in the summer, that I happened to meet Samson in the Rue
Vivienne. We exchanged a few words, shook hands, and each went his own
way. In the afternoon I was sitting at Tortoni's, when a gentleman of
about thirty-five came up to me. "Monsieur," he said, "will you allow
me to ask you a question?" "Certainly, monsieur, if it be one I can
answer," I replied. "I believe," he said, "that I saw you in the Rue
Vivienne this morning talking to some one whose name I do not know, but
to whom I am under great obligations. I was in a great hurry and in a
cab, and before I could stop the cabman both of you had disappeared.
Will you mind telling me his name?" "I recollect being in the Rue
Vivienne and meeting with M. Samson of the Comedie-Francaise," I
answered. "I thought so," remarked my interlocutor. "Allow me to thank
you, monsieur." With this he lifted his hat and went out.
The incident had slipped my memory altogether, when I was reminded of it
by Samson himself, about three weeks afterwards, in the green-room of
the Comedie-Francaise. I had been there but a few moments when he came
in. "You are the man who betrayed me," he said with a chuckle. "I have
been cudgelling my brain for the last three weeks as to who it could
have been, for I spoke to no less than half a dozen friends and
acquaintances in the Rue Vivienne on the morning I met you, and they all
wear imperials and moustaches. A nice thing you have done for me; you
have burdened me with a grateful friend for the rest of my life!"
And then he told me the story, how two years before he had been at
Granville during the end of the summer; how he had strolled into the
Palais de Justice and heard the procureur-imperial make a speech for the
prosecution, the delivery of which would have disgraced his most
backward pupil at the Conservatoire. "I was very angry with the fellow,
and felt inclined to write him a letter, telling him that there was no
need to torture the innocent audience, as well as the prisoner in the
dock. I should have signed it. I do not know why I did not, but judge of
my surprise when, the same evening at dinner, I found myself seated
opposite him. I must have scowled at him, and he repaid scowl for scowl.
It appears that he was living at the hotel temporarily, while his wife
and child were away. I need not tell you the high opinion our judges
have of themselves, and I dare say he thought it the height of
impertinence that I, a simple mortal, should stare at him. I soon came
to the conclusion, however, that if I wanted to spare my
fellow-creatures such an infliction as I had endured that day, I ought
not to arouse the man's anger. So I looked more mild, then entered into
conversation with him. You should have seen his face when I began to
criticize his tone and gestures. But he evidently felt that I was
somewhat of an authority on the subject, and at last I took him out on
the beach and gave him a lesson in delivering a speech, and left him
there without revealing my name. Next morning I went away, and never set
eyes on him again until three weeks ago, when he left his card, asking
for an interview. He is a very intelligent man, and has profited by the
first lesson. During the three days he remained in Paris I gave him
three more. He says that if ever I get into a scrape, he'll do better
than defend me--prosecute me, and I'm sure to get off."
I have never seen Samson give a lesson at the Conservatoire, but I was
present at several of Regnier's, thanks to Auber, whom I knew very well,
and who was the director, and to Regnier himself, who did not mind a
stranger being present, provided he felt certain that the stranger was
not a scoffer. I believe that Samson would have objected without
reference to the stranger's disposition; at any rate, Auber hinted as
much, so I did not prefer my request in a direct form.
I doubt, moreover, whether a lesson of Samson to his pupils would have
been as interesting to the outsider as one of Regnier's. Of all the
gifts that go to the making of a great actor, Regnier had naturally only
two--taste and intelligence; the others were replaced by what, for want
of a better term, one might call the tricks of the actor; their
acquisition demanded constant study. For instance, Regnier's appearance
off the stage was absolutely insignificant; his voice was naturally
husky and indistinct, and, moreover, what the French call nasillarde,
that is, produced through the nose. His features were far from mobile;
the eyes were not without expression, but these never twinkled with
merriment nor shone with passion. Consequently, the smallest as well as
largest effect necessary to the interpretation of a character had to be
thought out carefully beforehand, and then to be tried over and over
again materially. Each of his inflections had to be timed to a second;
but when all this was accomplished, the picture presented by him was so
perfect as to deceive the most experienced critic, let alone an
audience, however intelligent. In fact, but for his own frank admission
of all this, his contemporaries and posterity would have been never the
wiser, for, to their honour be it said, his fellow-actors were so
interested in watching him "manipulate himself," as they termed it, as
to never breathe a word of it to the outside world. They all
acknowledged that they had learned something from him during rehearsal.
For instance, in one of his best-known characters, that of the old
servant in Madame de Girardin's "La Joie fait peur,"[27] there is a
scene which, as played by Regnier and Delaunay, looked to the spectator
absolutely spontaneous. The smallest detail had been minutely regulated.
It is where the old retainer, while dusting the room, is talking to
himself about his young master, Lieutenant Adrien Desaubiers, who is
reported dead.
[Footnote 27: There are several English versions of the play,
and I am under the impression that the late Tom Robertson was
inspired by it when he adapted "Caste." I allude to that scene
in the third act, where George d'Alroy returns unexpectedly and
where Polly Eccles breaks the news to her sister.--EDITOR.]
"I can see him now," says Noel, who cannot resign himself to the idea;
"I can see him now, as he used to come in from his long walks, tired,
starving, and shouting before he was fairly into the house. 'Here I am,
my good Noel; I am dying with hunger. Quick! an omelette.'" At that
moment the young lieutenant enters the room, and having heard Noel's
last sentence, repeats it word for word.
Short as was the sentence, it had been arranged that Delaunay should
virtually cut it into four parts.
At the words, "_It is I_," Regnier shivered from head to foot; at "_Here
I am, my good Noel_," he lifted his eyes heavenwards, to make sure that
the voice did not come from there, and that he was not labouring under a
kind of hallucination; at the words, "_I am dying with hunger_," he came
to the conclusion that it was a real human voice after all; and at the
final, "_Quick! an omelette_," he turned round quickly, and fell like a
log into the young fellow's arms.
I repeat, the whole of the scene had been timed to the fraction of a
second; nevertheless, on the first night, Regnier, nervous as all great
actors are on such occasions, forgot all about his own arrangements,
and, at the first sound of Delaunay's voice, was so overcome with
emotion that he literally tumbled against the latter, who of course was
not prepared to bear him up, and had all his work to do to keep himself
from falling also. Meanwhile Regnier lay stretched at full length on the
stage, and the house broke into tumultuous applause.
"That was magnificent," said Delaunay after the performance. "Suppose we
repeat the thing to-morrow?"
But Regnier would not hear of it; he stuck to his original conception in
four tempi. He preferred trusting to his art rather than to the frank
promptings of nature.
That is why a lesson of Regnier to his pupils was so interesting to the
outsider. The latter was, as it were, initiated into all the resources
the great actor has at his command wherewith to produce his illusion
upon the public. Among Regnier's pupils those were his favourites who
never allowed themselves to be carried away by their feelings, and who
trusted to these resources as indicated to them by their tutor. He was
to a certain extent doubtful of the others. "Feelings vary; effects
intelligently conceived, studied, and carried out ought never to vary,"
he said. Consequently it became one of his theories that those most
plentifully endowed with natural gifts were not likely to become more
perfect than those who had been treated niggardly in that respect,
provided the vocation and the perseverance were there. The reverse of
Samson, who was proudest of Rachel, Regnier was never half as proud of
M. Coquelin as of others who had given him far more trouble. Augustine
Brohan explained the feeling in her own inimitable way: "Regnier est
comme le grand seigneur qui s'enamourache d'une paysanne a qui il faut
tout enseigner; si moi j'etais homme, j'aimerais mieux une demoiselle de
bonne famille, qui n'aurait pas besoin de tant d'enseignement."
Mdlle. Brohan exaggerated a little bit. Regnier's pupils were not
peasant children, to whom he had to teach everything; a great many, like
Coquelin, required very little teaching, and all the others had the
receptive qualities which make teaching a pleasure. The latter, boys and
girls, had to a certain extent become like Regnier himself, "bundles of
tricks," and, what is perhaps not so surprising to students of
psychology and physiology, their features had contracted a certain
likeness to his. At the first blush one might have mistaken them for his
children. And they might have been, for the patience he had with them.
It was rarely exhausted, but he now and then seemed to be waiting for a
new supply. At such times there was a frantic clutch at the shock,
grey-haired head, or else a violent blowing of the perky nose in a large
crimson chequered handkerchief, its owner standing all the while on one
leg; the attitude was irresistibly comic, but the pupils were used to
it, and not a muscle of their faces moved.
Those who imagine that Regnier's courses were merely so many lessons of
elocution and gesticulation would be altogether mistaken. Regnier,
unlike many of his great fellow-actors of that period, had received a
good education: he had been articled to an architect, he had even
dabbled in painting, and there were few historical personages into whose
characters he had not a thorough insight. He was a fair authority upon
costume and manners of the Middle Ages, and his acquaintance with Roman
and Greek antiquities would have done credit to many a professor. He was
called "le comedien savant" and "le savant comedien." As such, whenever
a pupil failed to grasp the social or political importance of one of the
_dramatis personae_ of Racine's or Corneille's play, there was sure to be
a disquisition, telling the youngster all about him, but in a way such
as to secure the attention of the listener--a way that might have
aroused the envy of a university lecturer. The dry bones of history were
clothed by a man with an eye for the picturesque.
"Who do you think Augustus was?" he said one day when I was present, to
the pupil, who was declaiming some lines of "Cinna." "Do you think he
was the concierge or le commissionnaire du coin?" And forthwith there
was a sketch of Augustus. Absolutely quivering with life, he led his
listener through the streets of Rome, entered the palace with him, and
once there, became Augustus himself. After such a scene he would
frequently descend the few steps of the platform and drop into his
armchair, exhausted.
Every now and then, in connection with some character of Moliere or
Regnard, there would be an anecdote of the great interpreter of the
character, but an anecdote enacted, after which the eyes would fill with
tears, and the ample chequered handkerchief come into requisition once
more.
Regnier was a great favourite with most of his fellow-actors and the
employes of the Comedie-Francaise, but he was positively worshipped by
Giovanni, the wigmaker of the establishment. They were in frequent
consultation even in the green-room, the privilege of admission to which
had been granted to the Italian Figaro. The consultations became most
frequent when one of the members undertook a part new to him. It was
often related of Balzac that he firmly believed in the existence of the
characters his brain had created. The same might be said of Regnier with
regard to the characters created by the great playwrights of his own
time and those of the past. Of course, I am not speaking of those who
had an historical foundation. But Alceste, Harpagon, Georges Dandin,
Sganarelle, and Scapin were as real to him as Orestes and Oedipus, as
Augustus and Mohammed. He would give not only their biographies, but
describe their appearance, their manners, their gait, and even their
complexion. The first time I heard him do so, I made sure that he was
trying to mystify Giovanni; but Rachel, who was present, soon undeceived
me. And the Italian would sit listening reverently, then start up, and
exclaim, "Ze sais ce qu'il vous faut, Monsu Regnier, ze vais faire oune
parruque a etonner Moliere lui-meme." And he kept his word, because he
considered that the wig contributed as much to, or detracted from, the
success of an actor as his diction, and more than his clothes. When
Delaunay became a societaire his first part was that of the lover in M.
Viennet's "Migraine." "Voila Monsu Delaunay, oune veritable parruque di
societaire. Zouez a present, vous etes sour de votre affaire."
One day Beauvallet found him standing before the window of Brandus, the
music-publisher in the Rue de Richelieu. He was contemplating the
portrait of Rossini, and he looked sad.
"What are you standing there for, Giovanni?" asked Beauvallet.
"Ah, Monsu Bouvallet, I am looking at the portrait of Maestro Giovanni
Rossini, and when I think that his name is Giovanni like mine, when I
see that abominable wig which looks like a grass-plot after a month of
drought, I feel ashamed and sad. But I will go and see him, and make him
a wig for love or money that will take twenty years off his age." He
went, but Rossini would not hear of it, or rather Madame Rossini put a
spoke in his wheel. Giovanni never mentioned his name again. It was
Ligier who brought Giovanni to Paris, and for a quarter of a century he
worked unremittingly for the glory of the Comedie-Francaise, and when
one of the great critics happened to speak favourably of the "make-up"
of an actor, as Paul de St. Victor did when Regnier "created Noel,"
Giovanni used to leave his card at his house. It was Giovanni who made
the wigs for M. Ancessy, the musical director at the Odeon, who, under
the management of M. Edouard Thierry, occupied the same position at the
Comedie-Francaise. M. Ancessy was not only a good chef d'orchestre, but
a composer of talent; but he had one great weakness--he was as bald as
a billiard-ball and wished to pass for an Absalom. Giovanni helped him
to carry out the deception by making three artistic wigs. The first was
of very short hair, and was worn from the 1st to the 10th of the month;
from the 11th to the 20th M. Ancessy donned one with hair that was so
visibly growing as to cover his ears. From the 20th to the last day of
the month his locks were positively flowing, and he never failed to say
on that last evening in the hearing of every one, "What a terrible
nuisance my hair is to me! I must have it cut to-morrow."