the "Odeon," he compounded to receive the proceeds of the first three
nights, in lieu of a share of each representation whilst the piece
should run. The play had been greatly talked of, the steam had been got
up in every way, and the public was in a fever. It is customary enough
in Paris for dramatic authors, in order at once to get paid for their
labours, to barter their _droits d'auteur_ for the entire profits of the
first representations. Scribe does it at the FranASec.ais. When the tickets
are sold at the usual prices, this financial arrangement is regular
enough, and concerns nobody but author and manager. But that would not
satisfy Balzac, who is notorious for his avarice. He set the brokers to
work, and drove the prices up to the highest possible point, fifteen
francs for a stall, instead of five, a hundred francs for a box and so
forth. "Under such circumstances," says Mr Gutzkow, "it cannot be
wondered if people forgot _Eugenie Grandet_ and the _PA"re Goriot_, and
hissed his play. To-day, nearly a hundred criticisms of _Quinola_ have
appeared. It is my belief, that, instead of reading them, Balzac is
counting his five-franc pieces." The drama fell from want of merit as
well as from the indignation excited by the author's greed. Although
Balzac's books are read and admired--some of them at least--personally
he is most unpopular. He is accused, and not without reason, of
arrogance and avarice. His assumption and conceit are evident in his
works. He has sacrificed his fame to love of gold; for one good book he
has produced two that are trash; by speculating on his reputation, he
has undermined and nearly destroyed it. Moreover, he has committed the
enormous blunder of affecting to despise the press, which consequently
shows him no mercy. For a fortnight after the appearance of
_Quinola_--which, although defective as a dramatic composition, was not
without its merits--the unlucky play served as a daily laughing-stock
and whipping-post to the battalion of Parisian critics. Janin led the
way; a host of minor wasps followed in his wake, and threw themselves
with deafening hum and sharp sting against the devoted head of M. de
Balzac. He bore their aggravating assaults with great apparent
indifference, consoled for want of friends by well-lined pockets.
At the "Ambigu Comique," Mr Gutzkow attended a performance of the
_Mousquetaires_, a melo-drama founded on Dumas's romance of _Vingt Ans
AprA"s_. Its success was prodigious; it was performed the whole of last
winter and spring, upwards of one hundred and fifty nights, always to
crowded houses. The novel was dramatised by Dumas himself, with the
assistance of one of his literary subordinates, M. Auguste Maquet. One
or two of the actors at the "Ambigu" are to form part of the troop at M.
Dumas's new theatre, now erecting, and which will open, it is said, this
autumn. It is built by a company, and Dumas has engaged to write for it
a certain number of plays yearly. The Duke of Montpensier gives it his
name.
It will be the twenty-third theatre in Paris. Mr Gutzkow lifts up his
hands and eyes in astonishment and admiration. "And this is granted," he
says, "to that same Alexander Dumas, who, two years ago, publicly
declared, that the stage and modern literature, in France especially,
suffer from the indifference of the king!" He proceeds to compare this
good-humoured facility with the scanty amount of encouragement given to
theatricals in Prussia, with which he appears as moderately satisfied as
with various other matters in the Fatherland. In Berlin, he says,
although another theatre is sadly wanted, there is little chance of its
being conceded either to a dramatic author or to any one else. But to
follow him in his complaints, would lead us from Paris.
It is somewhat strange that Mr Gutzkow, himself a dramatist, and who
tells us that his chief object in visiting Paris was to see the
remarkable men of France, did not make the acquaintance of M. Dumas. We
infer, at least, that he did not, for the above passing reference is all
that his book contains touching the distinguished author of _AngA"le and
Antony_, of _Monte Christo_ and the _Mousquetaires_. To numerous other
_littA(C)rateurs_, of greater and less merit, he sought and obtained
introductions, and of them gives minute and interesting details. In
Germany, as in England, Dumas is better known and more popular than any
other French novelist; but, independently of that circumstance, as a
brother dramatist, we wonder Mr Gutzkow neglected him. Perhaps, since he
blames Balzac for overproduction, and speaks with aversion to the system
of bookmaking, he eschewed the society of Dumas for a similar reason.
Balzac is believed, at any rate, to write his books himself, although
they suffer from haste; but Dumas has been openly and repeatedly accused
of having his books written for him, and of maintaining a regular
establishment of literary aide-de-camps, perpetually busied in the
fabrication of tale, novel, and romance, whose productions he copies and
signs, and then gives to the world as his own. His immense fertility has
been the origin of this charge, which may be false, although appearances
are really in favour of its truth. It seems physically impossible that
one man should accomplish the mere pen and ink work of M. Dumas's
literary labours; and even if, like Napoleon, he had the faculty of
dictating to two or three different secretaries at once, it would
scarcely account for the number of volumes he annually puts forth. From
a clever but violent pamphlet, published in Paris in the spring of 1845,
under the title of _Fabrique de Romans; Maison Alexander Dumas & C{ie.}_
we extract the following statement, which, it cannot be denied, is
plausible enough:--
"It is difficult to assign limits to the fecundity of writer, and to fix
the number of lines that he shall write in a given time. Romance-writing
especially, that frivolous style, has a right to travel post, and to
scatter its volumes in profusion by the wayside. Nevertheless, time must
be taken to consider a subject, to arrange a plan, to connect the
threads of a plot, to organize the different parts of a work; otherwise
one proceeds blindfold, and finishes by getting into a blind alley, or
by meeting insurmountable obstacles. Allowing for these needful
preparations, supposing that an author takes no more repose than is
absolutely necessary, eats in haste, sleeps little, is constantly
inspired; in this hypothesis, the most skilful writer will produce
perhaps fifteen volumes a-year--FIFTEEN VOLUMES, do you hear, Monsieur
Dumas? And, even in this case, he will assuredly not write for fame; we
defy him to chasten and correct his style, or to find a moment to look
over his proofs. Ask those who work unassisted; ask our most fertile
romance-writers, George Sand, Balzac, EugA"ne Sue, FrA(C)dA(C)ric SouliA(C); they
will all tell you, that it is impossible to reach the limit we have
fixed; that they have never attained it.
"You, M. Dumas, have published THIRTY-SIX volumes in the course of the
year 1844; and for the year 1845, you announce twice as many.
"Well, we make the following simple calculation:--The most expert
copyist, writing twelve hours a-day, hardly achieves 3900 letters in an
hour, which gives, per diem, 46,800 letters, or sixty ordinary pages of
a romance. At that rate he can copy five octavo volumes a month, and
sixty in a year, but he must not rest an hour or lose a second. You,
Monsieur Dumas, are a penman of first-rate ability. From the 1st of
January to the 31st of December you work regularly twelve hours a-day,
you sleep little, you eat in haste, you deprive yourself of all
amusements, you hardly travel at all, you are never seen out of your
house: consequently, if we suppose that your dramatic compositions, the
bringing out of your plays, your correspondence with newspapers and
theatres, importunate visitors, a few casual articles--as, for example,
your letters in the _Democratie Pacifique_; (a series of five letters
containing a fierce attack on the ThA(C)atre FranASec.ais, and on its
administrator M. Buloz)--supposing, we say, that all these various
occupations monopolize only one half of your time, we understand that
you may have _copied_ THIRTY volumes in the course of the year 1844--but
only thirty! the six others must have been the result of your son's
labours. Now, if you are going to publish twice as much this year as you
did during the last one, how will you manage? You must either give up
sleeping, and work the twenty-four hours through, or you must teach your
manufacturers to imitate your hand-writing. There is no other plan
possible. To deliver your manuscripts to the printers as they are
delivered to you, would be to furnish proofs against yourself."
The author of this pamphlet is himself a novelist, and allowance must be
made for his jealousy of a successful rival. But there are grounds for
his attack. M. Dumas is known to work hard: literary labour has become a
habit and necessity of his life; but he is not the man to chain himself
to the oar and renounce all the pleasures of society and of Paris, even
to swell his annual budget to the enormous sum which it is reported, and
which he has indeed acknowledged it, to reach. We have seen works
published under his name, whose perusal convinced us that he had had
little or nothing to do with their composition or execution. The
internal evidence of others was equally conclusive in fixing their _bona
fide_ authorship upon their reputed author. _Au reste_, Dumas troubles
himself very little about his assailants, but pursues the even tenor of
his way, careless of calumniators. The most important point for him is,
that his pen, or at least his name, should preserve its popularity; and
this it certainly does, notwithstanding that his enemies have more than
once raised a cry that "_le Dumas baisse sur la place_." On the
contrary, the article, whether genuine or counterfeit, was never more in
demand, both with publishers and consumers. In Paris, as Mr Gutzkow
says, every thing is a speciality; it requires half a dozen different
shops to sell the merchandise that in England would be united in one.
One establishment deals in lucifer-matches and nothing else; chips and
brimstone form its whole stock in trade: it is the _spA(C)cialitA(C) des
allumettes chimiques_. Yonder we find a spacious _magasin_ appropriated
to glove-clasps; here is another where _clysopompes_ are the sole
commodity. We were aware of this peculiarity of French shopkeeping, but
were certainly not prepared to behold, as we did on our last visit to
Paris, a shop opened upon the Place de la Bourse, exclusively for the
sale of Monsieur Dumas's productions. This, we apprehend, is the _ne
plus ultra_ of literary fertility and popularity. "Le Dumas" has become
a commercial _spA(C)cialitA(C)_. The bookseller who wishes to have upon his
shelves all the productions of the author of the _Corricolo_, must no
longer think of appropriating any part of his space to the writings of
others; or if he persists in doing so, he had better take three or four
shops, knock down the partitions, and establish a _magasin monstre_,
like those of which ambitious linendrapers have of late years set the
fashion in the ChaussA(C)e d'Antin and Rue Montmartre. Curiosity prompted
us to enter the Dumas shop and procure a list of its contents. The
number of volumes would have stocked a circulating library. We were
gratified to find--for we have always taken a strong interest in
Alexander Dumas, some of whose bettermost books we have honoured with a
notice in Maga--that several of his works were out of print. On the
other hand, five or six new romances, from two to four volumes each,
were, we were informed by the obliging Dumas-merchant, on the eve of
appearing. It was a small instalment of the illustrious author's annual
contribution to the fund of French _belles lettres_.
In the _Galerie des Contemporains Illustres_, by M. de Lomenie, we find
the following remarks concerning M. Dumas:--
"He has written masses of romances, feuilletons by the hundred. In the
year 1840 alone, he published twenty-two volumes. He has even written
with one hand the history that he turned over with the other, and heaven
knows what an historian M. Dumas is! He has published _Impressions de
Voyages_, containing every thing, drama, elegy, eclogue, idyl, politics,
gastronomy, statistics, geography, history, wit--every thing excepting
truth. Never did writer more intrepidly hoax his readers, never were
readers more indulgent to an author's gasconades. Nevertheless, M. Dumas
has abused to such an extent the credulity of the public, that the
latter begin to be upon their guard against the _discoveries_ of the
traveller."
The public, we apprehend, take M. Dumas's narratives of travels at their
just value, find them entertaining, but rely very slightly on their
authenticity. It has been pretty confidently affirmed and generally
believed, that many of his excursions were performed by the fireside;
that rambles in distant lands are accomplished by M. Dumas with his feet
on his _chenets_ in the ChaussA(C)e d'Antin, or in his country retirement
at St Germains. Nor does he, when taxed with being a stay-at-home
traveller, repel the charge with much violence of indignation. At the
recent trial at Rouen of a sprig of French journalism, a certain
Monsieur _de_ Beauvallon, (truly the noble particle was worthily
bestowed,) the accused was stated to be extraordinarily skilful with the
pistol; and in support of the assertion, a passage was quoted from a
book written by himself, in which he stated, that in order to intimidate
a bandit, he had knocked a small bird off a tree with a single ball. The
prisoner declared that this wonderful shot was to be placed to the
credit of his invention, and not to his marksmanship. "I introduced the
circumstance," said he, "in hopes of amusing the reader, and not because
it really happened. M. Dumas, who has also written his travelling
impressions, knows that such license is sometimes taken." Whereupon
Alexander, who was present in court, did most heartily and admissively
laugh.
Apropos of that trial--and although it leads us away from Mr Gutzkow,
who makes but a brief reference to the orgies, revived from the days of
the Regency, which the evidence given upon it disclosed--M. Dumas
certainly burst upon us on that occasion in an entirely new character.
We had already inferred from some of his books, from the knowing _gusto_
with which he describes a duel, and from his intimacy with Grisier, the
Parisian Angelo, to whom he often alludes, that he was cunning of fence
and perilous with the pistol. But we were not aware that he was looked
up to as a duelling dictionary, or prepared to find him treated by a
whole court of justice--judge, counsellors, jury, and the rest--as an
oracle in all that pertains to custom of cartel. We had reason to be
ashamed of our ignorance; of having remained till the spring of the year
1846 unacquainted with the fact that in France proficiency with the pen
and skill with the sword march _pari passu_. Upon this principle, and as
one of the greatest of penmen, M. Dumas is also the prime authority
amongst duellists. With our Gallic neighbours, it appears, a man must
not dream of writing himself down literary, unless he can fight as well
as scribble. To us peaceable votaries of letters, whose pistol practice
would scarcely enable us to hit a haystack across a poultry-yard, and
whose entire knowledge of swordsmanship is derived from witnessing an
occasional set-to at the minors between one sailor and five villains,
(sailor invariably victorious,) there was something quite startling in
the new lights that dawned upon us as to the state of hot water and
pugnacity in which our brethren beyond the Channel habitually live. When
Hannibal Caracci was challenged by a brother of the brush, whose works
he had criticised, he replied that he fought only with his pencil. The
answer was a sensible one; and we should have thought authors' squabbles
might best be settled with the goosequill. Such, it would seem, from
recent revelations, is not the opinion on the other side of Dover
Straits; in France, the aspirant to literary fame divides his time
between the study and the shooting gallery, the folio and the foil.
There, duels are plenty as blackberries; and the editor of a daily paper
wings his friend in the morning, and writes a _premier Paris_ in the
afternoon, with equal satisfaction and placidity. Not one of the men of
letters who gave their evidence upon the notable trial now referred to,
but had had his two, three, or half-dozen duels, or, at any rate, had
_fait ses preuves_, as the slang phrase goes, in one poor little
encounter. All had their cases of Devismes' pistols ready for an
emergency; all were skilled in the rapier, and talked in Bobadil vein of
the "affairs" they had had and witnessed. And greatest amongst them all,
most versed in the customs of combat, stood M. Dumas, quoting the code,
(in France there is a published code of duelling,) laying down the law,
figuring as an umpire, fixing points of honour and of the duello, as,
at a tourney of old, a veteran knight.
Mr Gutzkow is not far wrong in qualifying the champagne orgies of the
Parisian actresses and newspaper scribes, as a resuscitation of the
_mA"urs de RA(C)gence_. It appears that these gentlemen journalists live
in a state of polished immorality and easy profligacy, not unworthy the
days of Philip of Orleans, whom M. Dumas, be it said _en passant_, has
represented in one of his books as the most amiable, excellent, and
kind-hearted of men, instead of as the base, cold-blooded, and reckless
debauchee which he notoriously was. In France, to a greater extent than
in England, the success of an actress or dancer depends upon the manner
in which the press notices her performances. Theatrical criticisms are a
more important feature in French than in English newspapers, are more
carefully done, and better paid.
"As an artist," said Mademoiselle Lola Montes, the Spanish _bailerina_,
who formerly attracted crowds to the Porte St Martin theatre--less,
however, by the grace of her dancing, than by the brevity of her
attire--"I sought the society of journalists."
Miss Lola is not the only lady of her cloth making her chief society of
the men on whose suffrage her reputation, as an actress, depends. In
Paris, people are apt to pin their faith on their newspaper, and,
finding that the plan saves a deal of thought, trouble, and
investigation, they see with the eyes and hear with the ears of the
editor, go to the theatres which he tells them are amusing, and read the
books that he puffs. Actresses, especially second-rate ones, thus find
themselves in the dependence of a few _coteries_ of journalists, whom
they spare no pains to conciliate. We shall not enter into the details
of the subject, but the result of the system seems to be a sort of
socialist republic of critics and actresses, having for its object a
reckless dissipation, and for its ultimate argument the duelling pistol.
"In Paris," says Mr Gutzkow, "the critics are often dilettanti, who seek
by their pen to procure admission into the boudoirs of the pretty
actresses. The theatrical critic is a _petit maA(R)tre_, the analysis of a
performance a declaration of love." And favours are bartered for
feuilletons. It does not appear, however, that these Helens of the
foot-lamps often lead to serious rivalries between the Greeks and
Trojans of the press. A pungent leading article, or a keen opposition of
interests, is far more likely to produce duels than the smiles or
caprices even of a LiA(C)venne or an Alice Ozy. In these days of extinct
chivalry, to fight for a woman is voted _perruque_ and old style; but to
fight for one's pocket is correct, and in strict conformity with the
commercial spirit of the age. A's newspaper, being ably directed, rises
in circulation and enriches its proprietors. Journalist B, whose
subscribers fall off, orders a sub-editor to pick a quarrel with A and
shoot him. The thing is done; the paper of defunct A is injured by the
loss of its manager, and that of surviving B improves. The object is
attained. "The history of the _ProcA"s Beauvallon_," we quote from Mr
Gutzkow, "so interesting as a development of the modern _Mysteries of
Paris_, arose apparently from a rivalry about women, but in reality was
to be attributed to one between newspapers. It is tragical to reflect,
that for the _Presse_ Emile de Girardin shot Carrel, and that now the
manager of the same paper is in his turn shot by a new rival, on account
of the _Globe_ or the _Epoque_. We are reminded of the poet's words:
_Das ist der Fluch der bA¶sen That!_"
It will be remembered that De Girardin, the founder of the _Presse_,
killed Armand Carrel, the clever editor of the _National_, in a duel.
The _Presse_ was started at forty francs a-year, at a time when the
general price of newspapers was eighty francs. The experiment was bold,
but it fully succeeded. The thing was done well and thoroughly; the
paper was in all respects equal to its contemporaries; in talent it was
superior to most of them, surpassed by none. De Girardin and his
associates made a fortune, the majority of the other papers were
compelled to drop their prices, some of the inferior ones were ruined.
The innovation and its results made the bold projector a host of
enemies, and he would have found no difficulty in the world in getting
shot, had he chosen to meet a tithe of those who were anxious to fire
at him. But after his duel with Carrel he declined all encounters of the
kind, and fought his battles in the columns of the _Presse_ instead of
in the Bois de Boulogne. Had he not adopted this course he would long
ago have fallen, probably by the hand of a member of the democratic
party, who all vowed vengeance against him for the death of their idol.
As it is, he has had innumerable insults and mortifications to endure,
but he has retaliated and borne up against them with immense energy and
spirit. On one occasion he was assaulted at the opera, and received a
blow, when seated beside his wife, a lady of great beauty and talent.
The aggressor was condemned to three years' imprisonment. The _Presse_
being a conservative paper, and a strenuous supporter of the Orleans
dynasty, the opposition and radical organs of course loudly denounced
the injustice and severity of the sentence. De Girardin was once
challenged by the editors of the _National en masse_. His reply was an
article in his next day's paper, proving that the previous character and
conduct of his challengers was such as to render it impossible for a man
of honour to meet any one of them. Mr Gutzkow made the acquaintance of
Girardin. "At the sight of the slender delicate hand which slew the
steadfast and talented editor of the _National_, I was seized with an
emotion, the expression of which might have sounded somewhat too
_German_. Girardin himself affected me; his daily struggles, his daily
contests before the tribunals, his daily letters to the _National_, his
uneasy unsatisfied ambition, his unpopularity. One may have shot a man
in a duel, but in order to remember the act with tranquillity, the
deceased should have been the challenger. One may have received a blow
in the opera house, and yet not deem it necessary, having already had
one fatal encounter, to engage in a second, but it is hard that the
giver of the blow must pass three years in prison. Such events would
drive a German to emigration and the back-woods; they impel the
Frenchman further forward into the busy crowd. Bitterness, melancholy,
nervous excitement, and morbid agitation, are unmistakeably written upon
Girardin's countenance."