Produced by David Widger
ZIBELINE
By Philippe De Massa
Translated By D. Knowlton Ranous
ALEXANDRE-PHILIPPE-REGNIER DE MASSA
MARQUIS DE MASSA, soldier, composer, and French dramatist, was born in
Paris, December 5, 1831. He selected the military career and received a
commission in the cavalry after leaving the school of St. Cyr. He served
in the Imperial Guards, took part in the Italian and Franco-German Wars
and was promoted Chief of Squadron, Fifth Regiment, Chasseurs a Cheval,
September 10, 1871. Having tendered his resignation from active service,
he was appointed a lieutenant-colonel in the territorial army February
3, 1880. He has been decorated with the Legion of Honor.
The Marquis de Massa is known as a composer of music and as a dramatic
author and novelist. At the Opera Comique there was represented in
1861 Royal-Cravate, written by him. Fragments of two operas by him were
performed at the Paris Conservatory of Music in 1865, and in 1868. The
list of his principal plays follows: ‘Le Service en campagne, comedy
(1882); La Cicatrice, comedy (1885); Au Mont Ida, Fronsac a La Bastille,
and La Coeur de Paris, all in 1887; La Czarine and Brouille depuis
Magenta (1888), and La Bonne Aventure--all comedies--1889. Together with
Petipa he also wrote a ballet Le Roi d’Yvetot (1866); music by Charles
Labarre. He further wrote Zibeline, a most brilliant romance (1892) with
an Introduction by Jules Claretie; crowned by the Academie Francaise.
This odd and dainty little story has a heroine of striking originality,
in character and exploits. Her real name is Valentine de Vermont, and
she is the daughter of a fabulously wealthy French-American dealer in
furs, and when, after his death, she goes to Paris to spend her colossal
fortune, and to make restitution to the man from whom her father won
at play the large sum that became the foundation of his wealth, certain
lively Parisian ladies, envying her her rich furs, gave her the name of
Zibeline, that of a very rare, almost extinct, wild animal. Zibeline’s
American unconventionality, her audacity, her wealth, and generosity,
set all Paris by the ears. There are fascinating glimpses into the
drawing-rooms of the most exclusive Parisian society, and also into
the historic greenroom of the Comedie Francaise, on a brilliant “first
night.” The man to whom she makes graceful restitution of his fortune
is a hero of the Franco-Mexican and Franco-Prussian wars, and when she
gives him back his property, she throws her heart in with the gift. The
story is an interesting study of a brilliant and unconventional American
girl as seen by the eyes of a clever Frenchman.
Later came ‘La Revue quand meme, comedy, (1894); Souvenirs et
Impressions (1897); La Revue retrospective, comedy (1899); and Sonnets’
the same year.
PAUL HERVIEU
de l’Academe Francaise.
LETTER FROM JULES CLARETIE TO THE AUTHOR
MY DEAR FRIEND:
I have often declared that I never would write prefaces! But how can
one resist a fine fellow who brings one an attractive manuscript, signed
with a name popular among all his friends, who asks of one, in the most
engaging way, an opinion on the same--then a word, a simple word of
introduction, like a signal to saddle?
I have read your Zibeline, my dear friend, and this romance--your
first--has given me a very keen pleasure. You told me once that you felt
a certain timidity in publishing it. Reassure yourself immediately. A
man can not be regarded as a novice when he has known, as you have,
all the Parisian literary world so long; or rather, perhaps, I may more
accurately say, he is always a novice when he tastes for the first time
the intoxication of printer’s ink.
You have the quickest of wits and the least possible affectation of
gravity, and you have made as well known in Mexico as in Paris your
couplets on the end of the Mexican conflict with France. ‘Tout Mexico y
passera!’ Where are they, the ‘tol-de-rols’ of autumn?
Yesterday I found, in a volume of dramatic criticism by that terrible
and charming Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, an appreciation of one of your
comedies which bears a title very appropriate to yourself: ‘Honor.’
“And this play does him honor,” said Barbey d’Aurevilly, “because it is
charming, light, and supple, written in flowing verse, the correctness
of which does not rob it of its grace.”
That which the critic said of your comedy I will say of your romance.
It is a pretty fairy-story-all about Parisian fairies, for a great many
fairies live in Paris! In fact, more are to be found there than anywhere
else! There are good fairies and bad fairies among them. Your own
particular fairy is good and she is charming. I am tempted to ask
whether you have drawn your characters from life. That is a question
which was frequently put to me recently, after I had published
‘L’Americaine.’ The public longs to possess keys to our books. It is not
sufficient for them that a romance is interesting; it must possess also
a spice of scandal.
Portraits? You have not drawn any--neither in the drawing-rooms where
Zibeline scintillates, nor in the foyer of the Comedie Francaise,
where for so long a time you have felt yourself at home. Your women are
visions and not studies from life--and I do not believe that you will
object to my saying this.
You should not dislike the “romantic romance,” which every one in these
days advises us to write--as if that style did not begin as far back
as the birth of romance itself: as if the Princess of Cleves had not
written, and as if Balzac himself, the great realist, had not invented,
the finest “romantic romances” that can be found--for example, the
amorous adventure of General de Montriveau and the Duchesse de Langlais!
Apropos, in your charming story there is a General who pleases me very
much. How was it that you did not take, after the fashion of Paul de
Molenes, a dashing cavalry officer for your hero?--you, for whom the
literary cavalier has all the attractions of a gentleman and a soldier?
Nothing could be more piquant, alert, chivalrous--in short, worthy of
a Frenchman--than the departure of your hero for the war after that
dramatic card-party, which was also a battle--and what a battle!--where,
at the end of the conflict, he left his all upon the green cloth. That
is an attractive sketch of the amiable comedienne, who wishes for fair
weather and a smooth sea for the soldier lover who is going so far away.
It seems to me that I have actually known that pretty girl at some time
or another! That chapter is full of the perfume of pearl powder and
iris! It is only a story, of course, but it is a magnificent story,
which will please many readers.
The public will ask you to write others, be sure of that; and you will
do well, my dear friend, for your own sake and for ours, to follow the
precept of Denis Diderot: “My friends, write stories; while one writes
them he amuses himself, and the story of life goes on, and that is less
gay than the stories we can tell.”
I do not know precisely whether these last words, which are slightly
pessimistic, are those of the good Diderot himself. But they are
those of a Parisian of 1892, who has been able to forget his cares and
annoyances in reading the story that you have told so charmingly.
With much affection to you, and wishing good luck to Zibeline, I am
Your friend, JULES CLARETIE
de l’Academie Francaise.
APRIL 26, 1892.
ZIBELINE
BOOK 1.
CHAPTER I. LES FRERES-PROVENCAUX.
In the days of the Second Empire, the Restaurant des Freres-Provencaux
still enjoyed a wide renown to which its fifty years of existence had
contributed more than a little to heighten its fame.
This celebrated establishment was situated near the Beaujolais Gallery
of the Palais-Royal, close to the narrow street leading to the Rue
Vivienne, and it had been the rendezvous of epicures, either residents
of Paris or birds of passage, since the day it was opened.
On the ground floor was the general dining-room, the gathering-place for
honest folk from the provinces or from other lands; the next floor had
been divided into a succession of private rooms, comfortably furnished,
where, screened behind thick curtains, dined somewhat “irregular”
patrons: lovers who were in either the dawn, the zenith, or the decline
of their often ephemeral fancies. On the top floor, spacious salons,
richly decorated, were used for large and elaborate receptions of
various kinds.
At times the members of certain social clubs gave in these rooms
subscription balls of anacreontic tendencies, the feminine element
of which was recruited among the popular gay favorites of the period.
Occasionally, also, young fellows about town, of different social rank,
but brought together by a pursuit of amusement in common, met here on
neutral ground, where, after a certain hour, the supper-table was turned
into a gaming-table, enlivened by the clinking of glasses and the rattle
of the croupier’s rake, and where to the excitement of good cheer was
added that of high play, with its alternations of unexpected gains and
disastrous losses.
It was at a reunion of this kind, on the last evening in the month
of May, 1862, that the salons on the top floor were brilliantly
illuminated. A table had been laid for twenty persons, who were to join
in a banquet in honor of the winner of the great military steeplechase
at La Marche, which had taken place a few days before. The victorious
gentleman-rider was, strange to say, an officer of infantry--an
unprecedented thing in the annals of this sport.
Heir to a seigneurial estate, which had been elevated to a marquisate in
the reign of Louis XII, son of a father who had the strictest notions as
to the preservation of pure blood, Henri de Prerolles, early initiated
into the practice of the breaking and training of horses, was at
eighteen as bold and dashing a rider as he was accomplished in other
physical exercises; and although, three years later, at his debut at St.
Cyr, he expressed no preference for entering the cavalry service, for
which his early training and rare aptitude fitted him, it was because,
in the long line of his ancestors--which included a marshal of France
and a goodly number of lieutenants-general--all, without exception, from
Ravenna to Fontenoy, had won renown as commanders of infantry.
At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Henri’s grandfather, who had
distinguished himself in the American War for Independence, left
his native land only when he was in the last extremity. As soon as
circumstances permitted, he reentered France with his son, upon whom
Napoleon conferred a brevet rank, which the recipient accepted of his
free will. He began his military experience in Spain, returned safe and
well from the retreat from Russia, and fought valiantly at Bautzen and
at Dresden. The Restoration--by which time he had become chief of his
battalion--could not fail to advance his career; and the line was about
to have another lieutenant-general added to its roll, when the events of
1830 decided Field-Marshal the Marquis de Prerolles to sheathe his
sword forever, and to withdraw to his own estate, near the forest of
l’Ile-d’Adam, where hunting and efforts toward the improvement of the
equine race occupied his latter years.
He died in 1860, a widower, leaving two children: Jeanne, recently
married to the Duc de Montgeron, and his son Henri, then a pupil in
a military school, who found himself, on reaching his majority, in
possession of the chateau and domains of Prerolles, the value of which
was from fifteen to eighteen hundred thousand francs.
Having been made sub-lieutenant by promotion on the first day of
October, 1861, the young Marquis, already the head of his house and a
military leader, asked and obtained the favor of being incorporated with
a battalion of chasseurs garrisoned at Vincennes.
Exact in the performance of his military duties, and at the same time
ardent in the pursuit of pleasure, he was able, thanks to his robust
health, to conciliate the exigencies of the one with the fatigues of the
other.
Unfortunately, Henri was fond of gaming, and his natural impetuosity,
which showed itself by an emulation of high standards in his military
duties, degenerated into recklessness before the baccarat-table. At the
end of eighteen months, play, and an expensive liaison with an actress,
had absorbed half his fortune, and his paternal inheritance had been
mortgaged as well. The actress was a favorite in certain circles and had
been very much courted; and this other form of rivalry, springing
from the glitter of the footlights, added so much the more fuel to the
prodigalities of the inflammable young officer.
Affairs were in this situation when, immediately after Henri’s triumph
at the race-track, a bettor on the opposite side paid one of his wagers
by offering to the victor a grand dinner at the Freres-Provencaux.