That there is a real distinction between a short-story in French and
a French short-story, Ludovic Halévy’s fictional work illustrates
perfectly, for in theme, tone, and treatment it is French. More
specifically still, it is Parisian. As Professor Brander Matthews
observes in his discerning introduction to _Parisian Points of View_,
a collection of our author’s stories, “Cardinal Newman once said that
while Livy and Tacitus and Terence and Seneca wrote Latin, Cicero wrote
Roman; so while M. Zola on the one side, and M. Georges Ohnet on the
other, may write French, M. Halévy writes Parisian.” His was indeed
the Parisian point of view, his the sympathetic understanding of the
pursuits, the temperament, the ideals, of the dwellers in the Capital
of Europe.
One service above others Halévy rendered to his Paris: while so many
writers have given an unfortunate though piquant character to the
French short-story by depicting chiefly the _roué_ and the woman of
easy manners, the vulgar money-king and the broken-down noble, the
complacent pander and the sordid tradesman of Paris, this writer mostly
chose to depict other types. He knew the gay city as few other writers
of his day knew it, yet nearly all of his little fictions may be read
aloud in a mixed company. The explanation of this wholesome spirit is
simple--unlike the others, Halévy had not come up from the provinces
with eyes ready to pop out at the city sights. From boyhood he knew all
sides of Parisian life, and saw things in correct perspective, so he
did not interpret light-heartedness to be lightness, nor gayety to be
abandon. All sorts and conditions of men move in his stories, but the
vicious, the sensual, the mean, are no more prominent in the Paris he
paints than they are in the real Paris--and that means that they exist
in much the same numerical proportion as in any other metropolis.
Halévy’s life does not lend itself to anecdote, for it lacked stirring
events, yet his every large step marked a specific advance in his work.
On the first day of January, 1834, he was born in Paris, of Hebrew
parents. His father, Léon Halévy, had attained to some distinction as a
poet, and his uncle, Fromental Halévy, was not only director of singing
at the Opera, but a celebrated composer as well. Upon completing his
formal education at the _lycée Louis-le-Grand_, the youth entered the
civil service in the Ministry of State, in six years rose to be _chef
de bureau_ at the Colonial Office, and finally became editor of the
publications of the Legislative Corps. In these public offices he
gained that inside view of official life which is apparent in his works.
Very early Halévy began to know the theatre, for through his uncle’s
influence he was as a youngster of fourteen on the free-list of the
principal theatres of Paris. Scarcely was he a man before he began the
writing of numberless books for operas, burlesques, and dramas, the
materials for which he had been gathering while meeting theatrical
people of all grades. By and by some of these were published, some were
acted, and at length he enjoyed a vogue. In collaboration with Henri
Meilhac he wrote a number of opera books, notably _La Belle Hélène_,
_Blue-Beard_, _The Grand-Duchess of Gerolstein_, _The Brigands_ (all
with music by Offenbach), _Carmen_ (founded on Mérimée’s story), with
music by Bizet, and _The Little Duke_, with music by Lecocq. These
bright operettas and operas are typical of that mocking and practical
spirit of the Second Empire which laughed away the old ideals with a
zest worthy of a nobler occupation. His heavier play, _Frou-Frou_,
though well known about a generation ago, is not so meritorious as his
dramatic skits and sketches.
But Halévy’s work for the stage bore heavily upon his later success,
for when he left the dramatic field to give almost exclusive service to
the novel and shorter fiction, he by no means forgot the training of
the earlier period. Always his understanding of the people of the stage
is apparent. In many a tale these folk appear, and never is the hand
that leads them forward ungentle, even when the words of the introducer
are tinged with irony.
As for form, it is not especially in his plot-structure that we see
traces of Halévy’s training in the drama, for he seldom emphasizes
plot at all. But when he does depart from his favorite sketch form to
attempt the short-story, he still writes simply; and so inevitably do
the incidents succeed one another that there scarcely seems to be even
a plot. Halévy’s early apprenticeship to the drama is most clearly
seen, however, in his precision of outline, clear characterization,
sense of dramatic values, unerring climax, and suppression of needless
details.
Halévy took an active part in the Franco-Prussian War, vivid
impressions of which he has given us in _Notes and Memories_ and _The
Invasion_--volumes which are half chronicle, half story-telling, and
wholly delightful. After the catastrophe of Sedan, his fictional work
dealing with theatrical folk began to appear. _Madame Cardinal_
(1870), _Monsieur Cardinal_ (1871), _The Little Cardinals_ (1880),
and _Criquette_ (1883), are not really novels, but connected
stories and sketches, giving a panorama of people and affairs
theatrical--naturally, not of the loftiest tone. Halévy has drawn
no more vivid characters than the Cardinals, father and mother,
with their comedy anxiety as to the immoralities of their young
ballet-dancing daughters, Pauline and Virginie, whose love affairs
are portrayed with gayety and comical reality. The little Criquette
is an actress who makes her début at the Theatre Porte-Saint-Martin.
About this interesting central figure flit a score of perfect types
of player-folk--clown, provincial manager, ardent young actor, the
demi-mondaine actress, authors, chorus girls, and all the rest.
_Criquette_ is Halévy’s longest tale, and shows the sketch-artist and
_raconteur_ at his best.
But American readers doubtless know Ludovic Halévy most affectionately
by his “Abbé Constantin,” which has gone through more than one hundred
and fifty editions in France, besides numberless printings in other
lands. In its first year of issue, 1882, at least thirty-five editions
were required to meet the demand. It is a novelette in length, and
a simple story in plot. Charming, ingenuous, idyllic, popular with
all classes, it is a refreshing breath from rural France. The large
estate of Longueval, comprising the castle and its dependencies, two
fine farms and a forest, is announced for sale at auction. The Abbé
Constantin, a warm-hearted, genial, self-sacrificing priest, quite
the typical Abbé of romance--“a Curé, neither young, nor gloomy, nor
stern; a Curé with white hair, and looking kind and gentle”--has been
for three decades the village priest. He is disconsolate at the thought
that all his associations must be broken up, and is all the more
distressed when he hears that an American millionaire has bought the
property. Lieutenant Jean Renaud, his godson, the orphaned son of the
Abbé’s old friend, the village doctor, is about to sit down at meat
with the old priest when two ladies arrive--the wife of the millionaire
purchaser of Longueval, Mrs. Scott, and her sister, Miss Bettina
Percival. How these bright and fascinating women win the heart of the
benevolent priest, and adapt themselves to their new surroundings, and
how Lieutenant Jean and Miss Bettina find their happiness, furnish the
incidents for this crystal little romance.
“A Marriage for Love” (1881) is the most popular of Halévy’s longer
short-stories. A young French officer marries a well-bred and ingenuous
girl. Soon each discovers that the other has kept a diary from
childhood. Thinking that the declarations of love which she sees
written in her husband’s journal refer to some other woman, the young
wife cries out, but is consoled by his protests, and it is agreed that
they shall read aloud passages from their own diaries, turn about.
With all the naïveté which it seems the special province of English
eighteenth-century and French nineteenth-century writers to depict,
these young people disclose in this fashion the birth and growth of
their mutual love. A simple story enough, yet refreshing in the midst
of so many Gallic records of marital infidelity.
Of Halévy’s shorter stories several stand out in particular. “Princess”
tells with admirable directness how “the bourgeois heroine ...
contrives to escape the lawyers ... and marry a real prince.” “A Grand
Marriage” is the equally uncomplicated narrative of how the betrothal
of an alert young Parisienne is arranged by her parents, with the
clever and worldly-wise assistance of the prospective bride.
“The Most Beautiful Woman in Paris” is more a study than a story, yet
the firmly wrought, breezy narrative style of the author is here at
its best. The story runs that a social connoisseur, Prince Agénor,
upon seeing at the Opera the wife of a lawyer, pronounces her to be
the most beautiful woman in Paris. Then ensue flattering newspaper
notices, the inflamed ambition of the advertised beauty, costly gowns,
a new coupé--all that madame may appear fittingly at a social function
at which it is announced that she is to appear, as well as the Prince.
Madame does appear, but she is neglected because the Prince forgets
to come to make her acquaintance--he has already found another “most
beautiful woman in Paris.” The author’s narration is lively, as
always, and his social observation confident and minute, while his
characteristic, playful irony is second only to that of another unique
story, “The Chinese Ambassador.”
In this we have as a _motif_ the unsettled political conditions
existing at the close of the Franco-Prussian War. The story is
told with delightful humor, in diary form, by a Chinese Ambassador
Extraordinary who has been sent to France and England with rich
presents to placate the French and English governments, and also to
arrange official reparation, for the massacre of some foreign residents
in China. Then follow a series of confusions. There is no longer an
Emperor in France, there are three rival French Republics, and another
_coup d’état_ seems imminent. So the Ambassador, not knowing whom to
approach, keeps the presents, and waits. Soon he goes to England,
where he meets the Queen. She accepts the apologies as well as the
presents, but in conversation with some French women at a social
function in London he finds that there are three claimants to the
French throne, Napoleon III, the Duke of Orleans, and the Count of
Paris--all in exile--to say nothing of the three rival presidents,
Gambetta, Thiers, and Favre. He is again much in doubt as to which to
approach with his mission, as he receives such contrary advice from all
quarters. Upon his return to Paris, however, he finds the government
has again changed its capitol, and that a seventh government is in
the ascendancy--the Commune. When he learns that Paris is burning, he
concludes that it is “a dead, destroyed, and annihilated city.” In two
weeks, however, order is restored, and the Ambassador decides that it
is still the most beautiful city in Europe, and the most brilliant, for
the Republic of M. Thiers is now undisputed. To him he delivers his
mission.
“The Story of a Ball Dress” is couched in an old form--the ball dress
tells its own story; but we have a kaleidoscopic picture of the change
of affairs before, during, and after the war--that war which plays so
large a part in the writings of both Daudet and Halévy.
“The Insurgent,” first published in 1872, follows, in translation.
It is without doubt Ludovic Halévy’s most intense and dramatic short
narrative, yet none is more simply told. In this expanded anecdote the
writer actually becomes the Insurgent, and so vigorous, so sympathetic,
is the portraiture that every word comes sincerely and naturally
from the soul of the speaker. Halévy does not speak _as_ such a one
would--he _is_ the Insurgent--life, breath, and word. It is a miracle
of compression--not the compression of conscious literary art, but
the tense, naïve, open brevity of one who has no embroideries for his
words, no masks for his sentiment, no apologies for his acts, but goes,
as with the cleavage of an axe, straight to the heart of what he means.
Yet with all of this brusk, speedy simplicity, abrupt, halting and
rudely frank in style, there is a note of poignant pathos at the close
that leaves the eye misty and the heart warm.
In no one of Halévy’s stories do we see so clearly the application of
his robust, sincere literary creed as confessed in his own words:
“We must not write simply for the refined, the blasé, and the
squeamish. We must write for that man who goes there on the street with
his nose in his newspaper and his umbrella under his arm. We must
write for that fat, breathless woman whom I see from my window, as she
climbs painfully into the Odéon omnibus. We must write courageously for
the _bourgeois_, if it were only to try to refine them, to make them
less _bourgeois_. And if I dared, I should say that we must write even
for fools.”
THE INSURGENT
(_L’INSURGÉ_)