Prenez garde, étrangers! nous ne savons que faire;

La paix nous berce en vain dans son oisive sphère,

L'arène de la guerre a pour nous tant d'attrait!

Nous froissons dans nos mains, hélas! inoccupées.

Des lyres à défaut d'épées;

Nous chantons comme on combattrait.

Prenez garde! la France, où grandit un autre âge,

N'est pas si morte encor, qu'elle souffre un outrage;

Les partis pour un temps voileront leur drapeau.

Contre une injure, ici, tout grandi, tout se lève,

Tout s'arme, et la Vendée aiguisera son glaive

Sur la pierre de Waterloo.

Vous dérobez des noms! Quoi donc, faut-il qu'on aille

Lever sur tous vos champs des titres de bataille?

Faut-il, quittant ces noms par la valeur trouvés,

Pour nos gloires chez vous chercher d'autres baptèmes;

Sur l'airain de vos canons mêmes

Ne sont-ils point assez gravés?

L'étranger briserait le blason de la France!

On verrait, enhardi par notre indifférence.

Sur nos fiers écussons tomber son vil marteau!

Ah! comme ce Romain qui remuait la terre,

Vous portez, ô Français, et la paix et la guerre

Dans les plis de votre manteau!

Votre aile en ce moment touche, à sa fantaisie,

L'Afrique par Cadix et par Moscou l'Asie;

Vous chassez en courant Anglais, Russes, Germains;

Les tours croulent devant vos trompettes fatales,

Et de toutes les capitales

Vos drapeaux savent les chemins.

Quand leur destin se pèse avec vos destinées,

Toutes les nations s'inclinent détrônées;

La gloire pour vos noms n'a point assez de bruit;

Sans cesse autour de vous les États se déplacent

Quand votre astre paraît tous les autres s'effacent;

Quand vous marchez, l'univers suit.

Que l'Autriche en rampant, de nœuds vous environne,

Les deux géants de France ont foulé sa couronne;

L'histoire, qui des temps ouvre le Panthéon,

Montre, empreints aux deux fronts du vautour d'Allemagne,

La sandale de Charlemagne,

L'éperon de Napoléon.

Allez, vous n'avez plus l'aigle qui, de son aire,

Sur tous les fronts trop hauts portait votre tonnerre

Mais il vous reste encor l'oriflamme et le lys;

Mais c'est le coq gaulois qui réveille le monde,

Et son cri peut promettre à votre nuit profonde

L'aube du soleil d'Austerlitz.

C'est moi qui me tairais! moi qu'enivrai naguère

Mon nom saxon mêlé parmi des cris de guerre;

Moi qui suivais le vol d'un drapeau triomphant;

Qui, joignant aux clairons ma voix entrecoupée,

Eus pour premier hochet le nœud d'or d'une épée;

Moi qui fus un soldat quand j'étais un enfant!

Non, frères! non, Français de cette âge d'attente!

Nous avons tous grandi sur le seuil de la tente;

Condamnés à la paix, aiglons bannis des cieux,

Sachons du moins, veillant aux gloires paternelles,

Garder de tout affront, jalouses sentinelles,

Les armures de nos aïeux."

This was the first sign of opposition against the Government of the

Bourbons of the older branch that Hugo had given.

In the course of that same year, 1827, _Cromwell_ was published. The

poem itself did not raise so much discussion as the preface, which was

a novelty in the poetic world. In 1828 appeared the _Orientales_ and

the _Dernier jour d'un condamné._ Finally, on 16 February 1829, as I

have said, _Henri III._ was played.

Hugo and Lamartine were almost entirely responsible for the revolution

in the poetical world, but the revolutionising of the whole of the

drama had yet to come. Happily _Henri III._ began the work with its

bold and new style. Besides, this representation, the full details

of which I have already given, delighted Hugo, and gave him much

encouragement. We saw each other after the play and he held out his

hand to me.

"Ah!" I cried, "at last I have the chance of grasping your hand!"

I was very happy over my success, but the right to clasp those hands

was the most precious thing I had won.

"Now," said Hugo, "it will be my turn next!"

"When the day comes don't forget me...."

"You shall be at the first reading."

"Is that a promise?"

"It is a definite engagement!"

With that we parted.

And, indeed, the very next day Hugo chose the drama of _Marion Delorme_

from among the different subjects that were already in his mind. For,

just as a mother carries her babe within her until it is ripe for

birth, so we mental creators carry our subjects in our brains before

they are brought forth. Then, one day, he said to himself, "On 1 June

1829 I will begin my drama." And on that date he did actually set to

work upon it.

On the 19th, he had completed the first three acts. On the 20th, at

break of day, as the sun rose and filled his window with its golden

rays, lighting up his room in the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, he

composed the first lines of his fourth act:--

"LE DUC DE BELLEGARDE.

Condamné?

LE MARQUIS DE NANGIS.

Condamné!

LE DUC DE BELLEGARDE.

Bien!... mais le roi fait grâce?..."

Next day, just twenty-four hours later, when the sun was again paying

his accustomed visit, he wrote the last line--

"On peut bien, une fois, être roi par mégarde!"

During those twenty-four hours he had neither eaten, nor drunk,

nor slept; but he had written an act containing nearly six hundred

lines--an act which I take to be a masterpiece; six hundred lines which

to my thinking are among the finest in the French language.

On 27 June _Marion Delorme_ was finished.

CHAPTER XI

Reading of _Marion Delorme_ at the house of Devéria--Steeplechase of

directors--_Marion Delorme_ is stopped by the Censorship--Hugo obtains

an audience with Charles X.--His drama is definitely interdicted--They

send him the brevet of a pension, which he declines--He sets to work on

_Hernani_, and completes it in twenty-four days

Hugo had no need to write to Nodier as I had done, and to wait for

an appointment with Taylor: he was already as famous before _Marion

Delorme_ as I was unknown before _Henri III._

As I have already mentioned, Hugo notified me of a reading at Devéria's

house, and invited Taylor to this reading, together with de Vigny,

Émile Deschamps, Sainte-Beuve, Soumet, Boulanger and Beauchesne--in

fact, the whole Pleiades; and so the reading began.

The first act of _Marion Delorme_ is a masterpiece; there is nothing

in it to which one can take exception, apart from Hugo's mania for

making his characters enter by windows instead of by doors, which here

betrayed itself for the first time. No one could be more free from

envious feelings than I am. So I listened to this first act with the

profoundest admiration, intermingled, however, with some sadness. I

felt how far behind his style I was, and how long it would be before I

attained to it, if I ever should at all. Then came the second and the

last three acts successively. I was seated next to Taylor, and at the

last line of the play he leant over to me and said--

"Well, what do you think of that?"

I replied that I would be hanged if Victor had not shown us his finest

piece of work. And I added, "I am certain he has."

"Why do you think so?"

"Because _Marion Delorme_ shows all the qualities of the work of

a mature man and none of the faults of a young one. Progress is

impossible to one who begins by perfect work or work very nearly

perfect."

I am interested to find I was right, whether from conceit or not; I

still believe that _Marion Delorme_ is, if not quite his best piece

of work, yet one of his best. I congratulated him very heartily and

very sincerely; I had never heard anything to compare with the lines

of _Marion Delorme._ I was overwhelmed by the splendour of their

style, I who lacked style throughout my work. If I had been asked to

exchange ten years of my life in return for some day attaining such a

style as that, I should not have hesitated for one moment, I should

have given them instantly! One thing offended me greatly in the fifth

act: Didier goes to his death without forgiving Marion. I entreated

Hugo to substitute a more humane spirit for that inflexible character.

Sainte-Beuve agreed with me and, between us, we obtained poor Marion's

pardon.

Now came the question of the Censorship. None of us believed that it

would pass the character of Louis XIII., though admirably drawn, simply

because of its accurate drawing and the vividness of its colouring.

True, the act which contained Louis XIII. could have been taken out

without in any way spoiling the interest of the piece, and Crosnier

many times omitted it at the theatre of the Porte-Saint-Martin, without

the public perceiving the omission. It was what critics of petty

words and petty things call a superfetation, a _hors d'œuvre._ What

a magnificent _hors d'œuvre_ it was! What a sublime superfetation! I

would allow anyone to take their choice among my dramas, if I might

but have written the fourth act of _Marion Delorme._ For that matter,

it was a great failing with Victor Hugo, for a time, to compose his

fourth acts so that they could be taken out like separate episodes. The

fourth act of _Hernani_, which contains the stupendous monologue of

Charles V., can be taken out without injury to the play, and it is the

same with the fourth act of _Ruy Blas._ But, because this fourth act

was not an integral part of the play, does it follow that a marvellous

conception ought to be suppressed? Because a woman is beautiful, is it

absolutely necessary to throw her jewels into the water, especially if

they be worth thousands?...

Reports of the reading leaked out in Paris, and there was quite a

steeplechase of theatrical managers to the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs

to obtain _Marion Delorme_. Harel came first. Directly he entered, he

seized hold of the manuscript and, regardless of everything, began

writing on it below the title, "Received by the Odéon theatre, 14 July

1829." It was the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, and Harel

thought he would take _Marion Delorme_ by surprise as the Bastille had

been taken by our fathers! Harel was repulsed with loss; but, as his

name was on the manuscript, he stuck to it that he had taken possession

of it.

A day or two after Harel's attempt, M. Crosnier was announced and

introduced into the drawing-room. Hugo was reading a newspaper; he

rose and showed M. Crosnier to a seat. When M. Crosnier took it, Hugo

himself resumed his seat and waited. But, as M. Crosnier kept silence,

Hugo took up his paper again; which course decided M. Crosnier to open

his mouth.

"Monsieur," he said, addressing Hugo, "I have come to see your father;

I was told he lived here. If it is not taking too much advantage of

your kindness, would you be so good as to tell him I am here?"

"Alas I monsieur," Hugo replied, "my father died a year ago, and I

presume it is with me you desire to speak."

"I wish to speak to M. Victor Hugo."

"I am he, monsieur."

Crosnier could not believe that this slightly built, fresh-coloured

young man, who looked nothing but a boy of twenty, could be the man

about whom there had already been so much stir for the past five or six

years. However, he revealed the object of his visit. He had come to ask

_Marion Delorme_ for the theatre of the Porte-Saint-Martin. Hugo smiled

and gave him the same answer that Harel had received, namely, that the

Théâtre-Français had been promised the first refusal. Crosnier smiled

in his turn, with the fine-edged smile that is peculiarly his own;

then, taking up a pen--

"Monsieur Hugo," he said, "allow me to inscribe my acceptance under

that of my confrère."

"Write what you please, monsieur," said Hugo; "but you must remember

that there are already two acceptances before yours."

"No matter, monsieur; I wish to take my place. For, bless me! who

knows? I may be the one to bring out your play in spite of its having

been already accepted twice!"

And he wrote under Harel's acceptance--

"Received by the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre, 16 July 1829."

Supported by this twofold acceptance, _Marion Delorme_ was presented

to the Théâtre-Français and was received with unanimous applause. I

recollect that as we were leaving the reading, full of enthusiasm

over what we had all heard, Émile Deschamps pointed to a bill which

announced the evening's play and, shrugging his shoulders, exclaimed

compassionately, at the sight of Racine's _chef-d-œuvre_--

"And _they_ are going to play _Britannicus_!..."

None of us to-day, not even Émile Deschamps, would confess to having

given utterance to the above _mot._ I am certain that we should all

have said it in 1829, and more than one who has since paid his visit to

the thirty-nine Academicians envied him the phrase at the moment.

The play was distributed, and immediately after its reception began

to be rehearsed. Mademoiselle Mars played Marion; Firmin, Didier;

Joanny, Nangis; Menjaud, Saverny, etc. But, one morning, the dreadful

news spread abroad that the play had been stopped by the Censor! The

same thing had happened to _Henri III._; the Censor always stopped

everything; it was his business, and then the sentence could afterwards

be relaxed, if the work justified its existence, or the author

clamoured loudly enough. I had remonstrated and _Henri III._ had

escaped safe and sound out of his claws, thanks to M. de Martignac,

who had come to my aid. So Hugo applied to M. de Martignac. But

well-meaning, cultured and even literary as was this model of ministers

past, present and future, he confessed himself powerless. It was a

question that did not merely affect a Valois but a Bourbon; not merely

a predecessor but the grandfather of Charles X. No one but Charles

X. could pronounce judgment on this family question. Hugo decided to

ask an audience of Charles X. and it was granted him. In those days

persons who approached the kings of France had to wear court dress _à

la française_ and a sword. Hugo raised great objections at having to

submit to this disguise; but Taylor undertook to collect the necessary

articles of apparel. He set great store by _Marion Delorme_, and to

gain permission to produce it he would have dressed up Hugo as a

Turk or a Chinaman. The day of the audience came and Hugo went to

Saint-Cloud, where he found the antechamber crowded. Among those in

attendance were Madame du Cayla, who had just put the finishing touch

to the Polignac ministry; and Michaud of the Académie, who was going

to Palestine. Michaud was Reader to the king. He was covered with

as much gold braid as the coats of four generals all put together!

Nevertheless, he was a man of much genius. Hugo was busily talking to

him when the two doors opened and His Royal Highness Monseigneur the

Dauphin was announced. Hugo had never seen the being for whom he had

wished the Arc de triomphe to be raised, except at a distance:--

"Que le géant de notre gloire

Pût y passer sans se baisser!"

He saw what looked like a monkey, yet without a monkey's grace; a

kind of mummy, with its face perpetually contorted with neuralgia,

crossing the hall, responding to all the bows and greetings and homage

with a deep growl, from which you could not make out one single word

clearly. And that was the conqueror of the Trocadero! the pacificator

of Spain! He took no more notice of Madame du Cayla than of the rest.

Perhaps, if some courtier had whispered to him that a great poet

was present, he might have stopped to see what sort of an animal a

poet was. No courtier informed Monseigneur le Dauphin and he passed

without stopping. Soon afterwards, King Charles X. passed through with

as gracious and smiling a presence as his son's was grotesque and

ill-tempered. He greeted Madame du Cayla with a word, shook hands with

Michaud and Victor, bowed to others and entered his audience-chamber.

A moment later, Madame la Comtesse du Cayla was summoned. Without

troubling himself concerning the length of time she had been waiting,

or whether she had come before the other visitors, the last king of the

line of chivalrous kings sent for her first, because she was a woman.

Madame du Cayla remained nearly an hour with the king. This was not too

long wherein to give birth to a ministry which itself a year later was

to give birth to the Revolution of July. Then, when Madame du Cayla

withdrew, the poet was called. Charles X. first recollected that he was

the successor of François I. and then that he was the descendant of

Louis XIV. The poet went in, and we will let him relate what took place

at that remarkable interview in his own words:--

"C'était le sept août.--O sombre destinée!

C'était le premier jour de leur dernière année!

Seuls, dans un lieu royal, côte à côte marchant,

Deux hommes, par endroits du coude se touchant,

Causaient.... Grand souvenir qui dans mon cœur se grave!

Le premier avait l'air fatigué, triste et grave,

Comme un trop faible front qui porte un lourd projet.

Une double épaulette à couronne chargeait

Son uniforme vert à ganse purpurine,

Et l'ordre et la toison faisaient, sur sa poitrine,

Près du large cordon moiré de bleu changeant,

Deux foyers lumineux, l'un d'or, l'autre d'argent.

C'était un roi, vieillard à la tête blanchie,

Penché du poids des ans et de la monarchie!

L'autre était un jeune homme étranger chez les rois,

Un poëte, un passant, une inutile voix...

Dans un coin, une table, un fauteuil de velours

Miraient dans le parquet leurs pieds dorés et lourds;

Par une porte en vitre, au dehors, l'œil, en foule,

Apercevait au loin des armoires de Boule,

Des vases du Japon, des laques, des émaux

Et des chandeliers d'or aux immenses rameaux.

Un salon rouge orné de glaces de Venise,

Plein de ces bronzes grecs que l'esprit divinise,

Multipliait sans fin ses lustres de cristal;

Et, comme une statue à lames de métal,

On voyait, casque au front, luire, dans l'encoignure,

Un garde argent et bleu, d'une fière tournure.

Or, entre le poëte et le vieux roi courbé,

De quoi s'agissait-il?

D'un pauvre ange tombé

Dont l'amour refaisait l'âme avec son haleine:

De Marion, lavée ainsi que Madeleine,

Qui boitait et traînait son pas estropié,

La censure, serpent, l'ayant mordue au pied.

Le poëte voulait faire, un soir, apparaître

Louis-Treize, ce roi sur qui régnait un prêtre;

Tout un siècle: marquis, bourreaux, fous, bateleurs;

Et que la foule vînt, et qu'à travers les pleurs,

Par moments, dans un drame étincelant et sombre,

Du pâle cardinal on crût voir passer l'ombre.

Le vieillard hésitait.--Que sert de mettre à nu

Louis-Treize, ce roi, chétif et mal venu?

A quoi bon remuer un mort dans une tombe?

Que veut-on? où court-on? sait-on bien où l'on tombe?

Tout n'est-il pas déjà croulant de tout côté?

Tout ne s'en va-t-il pas dans trop de liberté?

N'est-il pas temps plutôt, après quinze ans d'épreuve,

De relever la digue et d'arrêter le fleuve?

Certe, un roi peut reprendre alors qu'il a donné.

Quant au théâtre, il faut, le trône étant miné,

Étouffer des deux mains sa flamme trop hardie;

Car la foule est le peuple, et d'une comédie

Peut jaillir l'étincelle aux livides rayons

Qui met le feu dans l'ombre aux révolutions!

Puis il niait l'histoire, et, quoi qu'il en puisse être,

A ce jeune rêveur disputait son ancêtre;

L'accueillant bien, d'ailleurs; bon, royal, gracieux,

Et le questionnant sur ses propres aïeux.

Tout en laissant aux rois les noms dont on les nomme,

Le poëte luttait fermement, comme un homme

Épris de liberté, passionné pour l'art,

Respectueux pourtant pour ce noble vieillard.

Il disait: 'Tout est grave, en ce siècle où tout penche.

L'art, tranquille et puissant, veut une allure franche.

Les rois morts sont sa proie; il faut la lui laisser.

Il n'est pas ennemi; pourquoi le courroucer

Et le livrer, dans l'ombre, à des tortionnaires,

Lui dont la main fermée est pleine de tonnerres?

Cette main, s'il l'ouvrait, redoutable envoyé,

Sur la France éblouie et le Louvre effrayé,

On s'épouvanterait--trop tard, s'il faut le dire,--

D'y voir subitement tant de foudres reluire!

Oh! les tyrans d'en has nuisent au roi d'en haut.

Le peuple est toujours là qui prend la muse au mot,

Quand l'indignation, jusqu'au roi qu'on révère,

Monte du front pensif de l'artiste sévère!

Sire, à ce qui chancelle est-on bien appuyé?

La censure est un toit mauvais, mal étayé,

Toujours prêt à tomber sur les noms qu'il abrite.

Sire, un souffle imprudent, loin de l'éteindre, irrite

Le foyer, tout à coup terrible et tournoyant,

Et, d'un art lumineux, fait un art flamboyant.

D'ailleurs, ne cherchât-on que la splendeur royale,

Pour cette nation moqueuse mais loyale,

Au lieu des grands tableaux qu'offrait le grand Louis,

Roi-soleil fécondant les lis épanouis,

Qui, tenant sous son sceptre un monde en équilibre,

Faisait Racine heureux, laissait Molière libre,

Quel spectacle, grand Dieu! qu'un groupe de censeurs

Armés et parlant has, vils esclaves chasseurs,

A plat ventre couchés, épiant l'heure où rentre

Le drame, fier lion, dans l'histoire, son antre!'

Ici, voyant vers lui, d'un front plus incliné,

Se tourner doucement le vieillard étonné,

Il hasardait plus loin sa pensée inquiète,

Et, laissant de côté le drame et le poëte,

Attentif, il sondait le dessein vaste et noir

Qu'au fond de ce roi triste, il venait d'entrevoir.

--Se pourrait-il? quelqu'un aurait cette espérance?

Briser le droit de tous! retrancher à la France,

Comme on ôte un jouet à l'enfant dépité,

De l'air, de la lumière et de la liberté!

Le roi ne voudrait pas, lui? roi sage et roi juste!

Puis, choisissant les mots pour cette oreille auguste,

Il disait que les temps ont des flots souverains;

Que rien, ni ponts hardis, ni canaux souterrains,

Jamais, excepté Dieu, rien n'arrête et ne dompte

Le peuple qui grandit ou l'Océan qui monte;

Que le plus fort vaisseau sombre et se perd souvent,

Qui veut rompre de front et la vague et le vent,

Et que, pour s'y briser, dans la lutte insensée,

On a derrière soi, roche partout dressée,

Tout son siècle, les mœurs, l'esprit qu'on veut braver,

Le port même où la nef aurait pu se sauver!...

Charles-Dix, souriant, répondit: 'O poète!'

Le soir, tout rayonnant de lumière et de fête.

Regorgeant de soldats, de princes, de valets,

Saint-Cloud, joyeux et vert, autour du fier palais

Dont la Seine, en fuyant, reflète les beaux marbres,

Semblait avec amour presser sa touffe d'arbres;

L'arc de triomphe, orné de victoires d'airain;

Le Louvre, étincelant, fleurdelysé, serein,

Lui répondaient de loin du milieu de la ville;

Tout ce royal ensemble avait un air tranquille,

Et, dans le calme aspect d'un repos solennel,

Je ne sais quoi de grand qui semblait éternel!"

. . . . . . . . . .

The day after this interview and the refusal--for Charles X. refused to

allow _Marion Delorme_ to be played--Victor Hugo's pension, which had

been 2400 francs, was raised to 6000 livres, in compensation. Everybody

knows how the poet refused--we will not say scornfully, but with

dignity--this increase of his pension. A great deal of discussion has

since raged round this refusal. Certain puritans even now hold to the

opinion of the senator of M. Louis Bonaparte, and blame the poet for

keeping his original pension of 2400 francs after the interdiction of

_Marion Delorme_ by Charles X. God have mercy on them! They are now in

the Halls of Elysium and the finest poet of France, and therefore of

the world, is in Jersey! I ask Lamartine's forgiveness for speaking of

Hugo as the first poet of France and of the world: Hugo is exiled, and

Lamartine is too generous not to yield the palm to him. If Lamartine

were banished like Hugo--and, for the sake of his fame, I am sorry that

he is not--I would have said, "The first two poets of France and of the

world!"

One day, in a club, I was speaking of Prince Louis Bonaparte, and

I called him "Monseigneur." It was at the time of Prince Louis

Bonaparte's exile. A voice shouted to me--

"There is no longer any _Monseigneur._"

"I always speak of those who are exiled by that title," I replied.

And my voice was drowned by applause.

When Hugo returned from Saint-Cloud, he found Taylor awaiting him.

The news he brought back was bad enough, like the news of Madame

Malbrouck's page. Taylor was in despair.

"We have nothing else in our portfolios!" he repeated.

At that time the Comédie-Française had ten plays of M. Viennet, four or

five of M. Delrieu, two or three of M. Lemercier, without reckoning M.

Arnault's _Pertinax_ and M. de Jouy's _Julien_, etc. etc. And that was

what Taylor called having nothing in his portfolios!

"We were building on _Marion Delorme_ for the winter season," he said,

"and now our winter season will be ruined!"

Hugo let him go on lamenting and then asked--

"When did you hope to play _Marion Delorme_?"

"Why, either in January or February."

"Ah, good! then we shall have a margin.... Very well...." and he fell

to making a calculation. "This is the 7th of August: come back to me on

the 1st of October."

Taylor returned on the 1st of October. Hugo picked up a manuscript and

gave it to him. It was _Hernani._ Hugo had begun this second work on

17 September and had finished it on the 25th of the same month. He had

taken three days less over its composition than in the case of _Marion

Delorme._ Let us, however, hasten to explain that the plots of both

plays had been matured beforehand in the poet's head.

CHAPTER XII

The invasion of barbarians--Rehearsals of _Hernani_--Mademoiselle Mars

and the lines about the _lion_--The scene over the _portraits_--Hugo

takes away from Mademoiselle Mars the part of Doña Sol--Michelot's

flattering complaisance to the public--The quatrain about the

cup-board--Joanny

There was this time nothing to fear from the Censorship: unless it were

on the ground of modesty, there was nothing in _Hernani_ to which it

could take exception. I really believe I have spoken of the _modesty_

of the Censorship! Upon my word, how shocking of me! but since I have

said it, let it stay!

The piece naturally took the place of his first-born, _Marion Delorme_;

it was read for form's sake, received with shouts of hurrahs and

acclamation--Hugo read very well, especially his own works--the parts

were allotted and the rehearsals started at once. I do not state the

fact of Hugo's fine reading here because I think his manner of reading

had any influence either way on the enthusiasm of his reception, but

because, never having heard him speak at the Tribune, I cannot form

any idea of the style of his public speaking from the very different

opinions I have heard expressed concerning his oratorical style. I

can only say that his speeches when read always seemed to me to be

masterpieces of language and logic.

With the rehearsals began the worries. No one at the Théâtre-Français

felt much real sympathy with the Romantic school save old Joanny; the

rest (and Mademoiselle Mars was first among their number, in spite of

the splendid success she had just achieved in the Duchesse de Guise)

really looked upon the encroachment as a species of invasion by

barbarians, to which they were laughingly obliged to submit. Underneath

the flattery paid us by Mademoiselle Mars, there was always the

mental reservation of an outraged woman. Michelot, professor at the

Conservatoire, a man of the world, with finished manners, showed us his

most gracious and agreeable side; but at heart he loathed us. And as to

Firmin, whose talent was so essential to us--a real talent, although it

had nothing to do with the highest reaches of form, namely, the plastic

side of art--well, his literary judgment was worthless; he merely

possessed a kind of dramatic instinct, which served in lieu of art, and

gave movement and life to his acting. He liked us well enough, because

we supplied him with means to exercise his qualities of action and

life; but he was terribly in fear of the older school, and accordingly

remained neutral in all the literary quarrels, rarely appearing at a

reading, so that he might avoid being obliged to give his opinion. He

was not a stumbling-block, but, on the other hand, he was certainly not

a support.

The play--by which we mean the leading parts--was distributed

between the four principal actors of the Théâtre-Français whom we

have just mentioned. Mademoiselle Mars played Doña Sol; Joanny, Ruy

Gomez; Michelot, Charles V.; and Firmin, Hernani. I have said that

Mademoiselle Mars felt no sympathy with our style of literature; but I

ought to add or, rather, to repeat that, in her theatrical dealings,

she was strictly honourable, and, when she had gone through her first

representation of a part and endured the fire of applause or of

hissings that had greeted the fall of the curtain, no matter what the

play was in which she was acting, she would have died rather than give

in; she would submit to a martyrdom rather than--we will not say deny

her faith, because our School was not included in her creed--break her

word.

But, before this point was reached, there were between fifty and

sixty rehearsals to be gone through, at which an incalculable number

of observations were hazarded at the expense of the author, faces

were made, and pin-pricks given him. And of course it often happened

that these pin-pricks penetrated through the skin and stabbed to the

heart. I have recounted my own sufferings from Mademoiselle Mars during

the rehearsals of _Henri III._; the discussions, quarrels, disputes

even which I had with her, the passionate scenes which, in spite of

my obscurity, I was unable to refrain from causing, no matter what I

risked in the future. The same thing was just as likely to happen to

Hugo, and did happen. But Hugo and I were two absolutely different

characters: he was cold and calm and polished and severe, and harboured

the remembrance of good or ill done him; whilst I am open and quick

and demonstrative, and make game of things, forgetful of ill, and

sometimes of good. So the arguments between Mademoiselle Mars and Hugo

were entirely different from mine. And remember that, on the stage,

dialogues between actor and author usually take place before the

foot-lights--that is to say, between the stage and the orchestra--so

that not a word is lost by all the thirty to forty actors, musicians,

managers, supernumeraries, call-boys, lighters-up, and firemen present

at rehearsals. This audience, as will be understood, always does

its best to catch any episode likely to distract the _ennui_ of the

daily work, the rehearsal itself; this fact considerably adds to the

nervous irritability of the interlocutors and, in consequence, tends to

introduce a certain amount of tartness in the telephonic communications

which take place between the orchestra and the stage.

Things happened somewhat after this fashion. In the middle of the

rehearsal Mademoiselle Mars would suddenly stop.

"Excuse me, my friend," she would say to Firmin or Michelot or Joanny,

"I want a word with the author."

The actor to whom she addressed her remark would bow his assent and

stand motionless and silent where he happened to be.

Mademoiselle Mars would come up close to the footlights, with her hand

shading her eyes, although she knew well enough in what part of the

orchestra to look for the author whom she was pretending to find. This

was her little curtain raiser.

"M. Hugo?" she would ask. "Is M. Hugo here?".

"I am here, madame," Hugo would reply, as he rose from his seat.

"Ah! that is all right!--thanks.... Will you please tell me, M.

Hugo...."

"Madame?"

"I have this line to say--

'Vous êtes, mon lion, superbe et généreux!'"

"Yes, madame; Hernani says to you--

'Hélas! j'aime pourtant d'une amour bien profonde!

Ne pleure pas ... Mourons plutôt! Que n'ai-je un monde,

Je te le donnerais! Je suis bien malheureux!'

And you reply to him--

"Vous êtes, mon lion, superbe et généreux!'"

"Do you like that phrase, M. Hugo?"

"Which?"

'"_Vous êtes, mon lion!_'"

"That was how I wrote it, madame; so I think it is all right."

"Then you stick to your _lion?_"

"I may or may not, madame. If you can find something better, I will

insert it instead."

"It is not my place to do so; I am not the author."

"Very well, then, madame; if that be so, leave what is written exactly

as you find it."

"Really it does sound to me very comic to call M. Firmin _mon lion!_"

"Oh! that is because while acting the part of Doña Sol you think of

yourself as Mademoiselle Mars. If you were a true pupil of Ruy Gomez

de Sylva, a noble Castilian of the sixteenth century, you would only

see Hernani in M. Firmin; you would look upon him as a terrible

robber-chief, who made even Charles V. tremble in his capital; then

you would comprehend how such a woman could call such a man _son lion_,

and you would no longer look upon it as comic!"

"Very well! if you stick to your _lion_ we will say no more. It is my

duty to say what is written, and as the manuscript has '_mon lion!_' I

will say '_mon lion!_' Of course, it is all one to me. Let us go on,

Firmin!

'Vous êtes, mon lion, superbe et généreux!'"

And the rehearsal would be resumed.

But, the next day, when Mademoiselle Mars reached the same place, she

stopped as on the day before and, as on the day before, she approached

the footlights, again going through the pretence of looking for the

author with her hands shading her eyes.

"M. Hugo?" she would say in her harsh voice, the voice of Mademoiselle

Mars and not of Célimène. "Is M. Hugo there?"

"Here I am, madame," Hugo would reply with the same placidity.

"Oh! that is all right. I am glad you are here."

"I had the honour of presenting you my compliments before the

rehearsal, madame."

"True.... Well, have you thought over it?"

"Over what, madame?"

"Over what I said to you yesterday."

"You did me the honour of saying a great many things to me yesterday."

"Yes, that was so ... but I mean about that famous hemistich."

"Which?"

"Oh, good gracious! you know quite well the one I mean!"

"I swear I do not, madame; you make so many neat and valuable

suggestions that I confuse one with the other."

"I mean the line about the _lion._"

"Ah yes! '_Vous êtes, mon lion!_' I remember...."

"Well, have you found another line?"

"I confess I have not tried to think of one."

"You do not then think the line risky?"

"What do you mean by risky?"

"Anything that is likely to be hissed."

"I have never presumed to claim exemption from being hissed."

"That may be; but you should avoid being hissed as much as possible."

"So you think the _lion_ phrase will be hissed?"

"I am certain of it!"

"Then, madame, it will be because you have not rendered it with your

usual talent."

"I shall say it as well as I can.... All the same, I should prefer...."

"What?"

"To say something different...."

"What?"

"To have it altered altogether!"

"For what?"

"To say"--and Mademoiselle Mars made a show of trying to find the word

which she had really been turning over in her mind for three days--"to

say, for instance ... ahem!... say ... ahem!

'Vous êtes, _monseigneur_, superbe et généreux!'

_Monseigneur_ enables the line to be scanned just the same as _mon

lion_, does it not?"

"Quite so, madame; only _mon lion_ lightens the line, and _monseigneur_

makes it heavy."

"I would much rather be hissed for a good line than applauded for a

bad one. Very well, very well ... we will not bother any longer about

it.... I will say your _good line_ without changing anything in it!

Come, Firmin, my friend, let us go on....

'Vous êtes, mon lion, superbe et généreux!'"

It is a well-known fact that, on the day of the first representation,

Mademoiselle Mars said, "_Vous êtes, monseigneur!_" instead of "_Vous

êtes, mon lion!_"

The line was neither applauded nor hissed: it was not worth either

notice.

A little farther on, Ruy Gomez, after having surprised Hernani and Doña

Sol in one another's arms, at the announcement of the king's coming

hides Hernani in a room, the door of which is hidden by a picture.

Then begins the famous scene known by the title of the _scène des

portraits_, which is composed of seventy-six lines and takes place

between Don Carlos and Ruy Gomez, the scene in which Doña Sol listens

as mute and motionless as a statue, in which she only takes part when

the king wishes to have the duke arrested; when she tears off her veil

and flings herself between the duke and the guards, exclaiming--

"Roi don Carlos, vous êtes

Un mauvais roi!..."

This long silence and absence of movement had always been an offence

to Mademoiselle Mars. The Théâtre-Français was used to the traditions

of Molière's comedies or the tragedies of Corneille and was up in arms

against the _mise en scène_ of the modern drama, neither understanding,

as a whole, the passion of action nor the poetry of stillness. The

consequence was that poor Doña Sol did not know what to do with herself

during these seventy-six lines. One day she decided to have the matter

out with the author. You know her way of interrupting the rehearsals

and of advancing to the footlights. The author was in front of the

orchestra and Mademoiselle Mars was behind the footlights.

"Are you there, M. Hugo?"

"Yes, madame."

"Ah, good!... Do me a service."

"With the greatest pleasure.... What is it?"

"Tell me what I am to do here."

"Where?"

"On the stage, while M. Michelot and M. Joanny are holding their

dialogue."

"You are to listen, madame."

"Yes! I am to listen.... I know that; but I find listening rather

tedious."

"Yet you know the scene was originally much longer and I have already

cut it down by twenty lines."

"Yes, but could you not cut out another twenty lines?"

"Impossible, madame!"

"Or, at all events, arrange that I take some sort of part in it."

"But you naturally take part by your very presence. It is a question of

the man you love whose life or death is being debated; it seems to me

that the situation is sufficiently moving and strong to enable you to

wait in patient silence to the close."

"All the same ... it is long!"

"I do not feel it so, madame."

"Very good! then we will say no more about it.... But the public are

certain to ask, 'What is Mademoiselle Mars supposed to be doing with

her hand upon her breast? It was not necessary to give her a part just

to remain standing still, with a veil over her eyes, without saying a

word for half an act!'"

"The public will say that under the hand of Doña Sol--not of

Mademoiselle Mars--her heart is beating; that, beneath the veil of Doña

Sol--not of Mademoiselle Mars--her face is crimsoning with hope or

turning pale with terror; that, during the silence--not of Mademoiselle

Mars but--of Doña Sol, Hernani's lover, the tempest is gathering in her

heart which bursts forth in these words, none too respectful from a

subject to her sovereign--

'Roi don Carlos, vous êtes

Un mauvais roi!...'

And, believe me, madame, it will be sufficient for the public."

"If that is your idea, well and good. It is not on my account I am

troubling myself about it: if they hiss during the scene it will not

be at me they are hissing, as I do not speak one word.... Come on,

Michelot; come on, Joanny; let us proceed.

'Roi don Carlos, vous êtes

Un mauvais roi!..

There, does that satisfy you, M. Hugo?"

"Perfectly, madame." And Hugo bowed and sat down with his imperturbable

serenity.

The next day, Mademoiselle Mars stopped the rehearsal at the same

place, came up to the footlights and, shading her eyes with her hand,

said, in exactly the same voice as that of the day before--

"Are you there, M. Hugo?"

"I am here, madame."

"Well, have you found me something to say?"

"Where?"

"Why, you know where ... in the famous scene where these gentlemen

say a hundred and fifty lines while I stare at them and do not utter

a word.... I know they are charming to contemplate, but a hundred and

fifty lines take a long time to say."

"In the first place, madame, the scene is not a hundred and fifty lines

in length, it is only seventy-six, for I have counted them; then, I did

not make you any promise to put in something for you to say, since, on

the contrary, I tried to prove to you that your silence and immobility,

from which you emerge with terrible _éclat_, is one of the beauties of

the whole scene."

"Beauties, beauties!... I am much afraid the public will not agree with

you."

"We shall see."

"Yes, but you may see a little too late.... So you definitely mean to

have your way in not giving me anything to say through the whole scene?"

"I do."

"It is all one to me; I will go to the back of the stage and let these

gentlemen talk over their business in the front of it."

"You can retire to the back of the stage if you wish, madame, but as

the affairs under discussion are as much yours as theirs, you will

spoil the scene.... When it suits you, madame, the rehearsal shall be

proceeded with."

And the rehearsal was continued.

But, every day, there were some interruptions of the kind to which

we have just drawn attention; this annoyed Hugo greatly, for he was

still only at the outset of his dramatic career, and imagined that the

greatest difficulty was the creation of the play and the most vexatious

that of putting it into proper form; he now discovered that all this

was child's play compared with the rehearsals. At last, one day, he

lost patience and, when the rehearsal was over, he went on the stage

and, approaching Mademoiselle Mars, he said--

"Madame, may I be allowed the honour of a few words with you?"

"With me?" replied Mademoiselle Mars in astonishment at this solemn

beginning.

"With you."

"Where?"

"Where you will."

"Come this way, then"; and, walking first, Mademoiselle Mars led

Hugo into what in those days was called the _petit foyer_ (small

green-room), which was, I believe, situated where nowadays is the salon

belonging to the manager's box. Louise Despréaux was seated in a corner

by herself.

We have mentioned that Louise Despréaux was one of the pet aversions

of Mademoiselle Mars, Madame Menjaud being her favourite. I have

described, in due course, the scene I had with Mademoiselle Mars over

Louise Despréaux concerning the distribution of the part of page to the

Duchesse de Guise. When she saw Mademoiselle Mars and Hugo enter, she

discreetly rose and left the room; although I have strong suspicions

that, with the inquisitiveness of seventeen years of age, she glued

her ear and her rosy young face to the keyhole.

Mademoiselle Mars leant against the mantelpiece, holding her part in

her hand.

"Well, what do you wish to say to me?" she asked.

"I wished to tell you, madame, that I have just made a resolution."

"What is it, monsieur?"

"To ask you to give up your part."

"My part!... Which?"

"The one you asked for in my drama, to my great honour."

"What! the part of Doña Sol," exclaimed Mademoiselle Mars, astounded;

"do you mean this part?" ... And she pointed to the roll of paper which

she held in her hand, frowning her black eyebrows over those eyes which

could on occasion assume an incredibly hard expression.

Hugo bowed.

"Yes," he said, "the part of Doña Sol which you hold in your hand."

"Ah! that is it, is it?" said Mademoiselle Mars; and she struck the

marble chimneypiece with the roll, and stamped on the floor with her

foot. "This is the first time an author has ever asked me to give up my

part!"

"Very well, madame; I think it is time an example should be set and I

will set it."

"But why do you want to take it from me?"

"Because I believe I am right in saying, madame, that when you honour

me with your remarks you appear totally to forget to whom you are

speaking."

"In what way, monsieur?"

"Oh! I am aware that you are a highly talented lady ... but there is

one point, I repeat, upon which you seem to be ignorant, to which

I ought to call your attention; namely, that I also, madame, am a

talented person: take this fact into consideration, I beg of you, and

treat me accordingly."

"You think, then, that I shall act your part badly?"

"I know that you will play it admirably well, madame, but I also know

that, from the beginning of the rehearsals, you have been extremely

rude to me--conduct that is unworthy both of Mademoiselle Mars and of

M. Victor Hugo."

"Oh!" she muttered, biting her pale lips, "you do indeed deserve to

have your part given back to you!"

Hugo held out his hand.

"I am ready to take it, madame," he said.

"And if I do not play it, who will?"

"Oh! upon my word, madame, the first person that comes to hand.... Why,

Mademoiselle Despréaux, for instance. She, of course, does not possess

your talent, but she is young and she is pretty, and so will fulfil two

out of the three conditions the part demands; then, too, she will yield

me the deference to which I am entitled, of the lack of which, on your

part, I have had to complain."

And Hugo stood with his arm stretched out and his hand open, waiting

for Mademoiselle Mars to give him back the part.

"Mademoiselle Despréaux! Mademoiselle Despréaux!" muttered Mademoiselle

Mars. "Ah! indeed that is a good joke!... So it seems you are paying

attentions to Mademoiselle Despréaux?"

"I? I have never spoken a word to her in my life!"

"And you definitely and formally ask me to give you back my part?"

"Formally and definitely I ask you to give me back the part."

"Very well; I shall keep the rôle.... I shall play it, and as no one

else would play it in Paris, I swear."

"So be it. Keep the rôle; only, do not forget what I have said to you

with regard to the courtesy that should obtain between people of our

distinction."

And Hugo bowed to Mademoiselle Mars and left her utterly overcome

by that haughty dignity to which the authors of the Empire had not

accustomed her; they had grovelled before her talent, conscious that,

without her, their plays would not bring them in a halfpenny.

From that day, Mademoiselle Mars was cold but polite to Hugo and, as

she had promised him, when the night of the first representation came,

she played the part to perfection.

Michelot, a very different person from Mademoiselle Mars, was polite

almost to the verge of sycophancy; but as he detested us in his heart

of hearts, when the hour of the struggle came, instead of fighting

loyally and valiantly, as Mademoiselle Mars did, he slyly went over

to the enemy and gave the sharpshooters in the pit the hint where, at

the most opportune moments, they might find our weakest places. Many

liberties were taken with Michelot's part which an actor who had cared

less for popular opinion would never have allowed himself to take. As

a matter of fact, before the representation, we had waged rude warfare

against the risky passages in the part of Don Carlos; I remember among

others having very regretfully made Hugo cut out a quatrain to which

Michelot seemed to cling tenaciously: I have since discovered why.

These four lines were of that charmingly quaint turn which is natural

to Hugo and to no one else.

When Ruy Gomez de Sylva goes back to his niece's house and is on the

point of taking Don Carlos and Hernani by surprise, the latter, fearful

for the reputation of Doña Sol, wishes to hide the king and himself in

the very narrow cupboard which Don Carlos was about to vacate, wherein

he was sufficiently uncomfortable by himself; but the king rebelled

against the suggestion. Is it, indeed, he says--

"Est-ce donc une game à mettre des chrétiens?

Nous nous pressons un peu; vous y tenez, j'y tiens.

Le duc entre et s'en vient vers l'armoire où nous sommes,

Pour y prendre un cigare.... Il y trouve deux hommes!"

For these lines to have their comic effect, they ought to be flung

off with the lightheartedness and easy bearing of a king who numbers

only nineteen years, and who is in the heyday of prosperity (notice

that Charles V. was but nineteen when he was made Emperor of

Germany)--well, they were declaimed in the same tones as Mahomet

saying--

"Si j'avais à répondre à d'autres que Topyre,

Je ne ferais parler que le Dieu qui m'inspire;

Le glaive et l'Alcoran, dans mes terribles mains,

Imposeraient silence au reste des humains!"

It was perfectly idiotie! so, on my persuasion, and in spite of

Michelot's objections, who privately hoped those lines would _produce

their effect_, the erasure was decided on and pitilessly adhered to.

I have said that it was very different with Joanny: he was an old

soldier, the soul of honour and openness, who came to the fourth

rehearsal without his manuscript, for he already knew his part

thoroughly; so if one had to find any fault with him at all, it was

that he became _blasé_, by the thirty to forty general rehearsals,

before the first public performance of the piece.

This first representation was an important affair for our party. I had

won the Valmy of the literary revolution; Hugo must win the Jemmapes

in order that the new school might be well on the way to victory. So,

when the time comes to speak of the first reproduction of _Hernani_, we

will give it the full attention it deserves. But for the moment we must

be slaves to chronology and pass from Victor Hugo to de Vigny, from

_Hernani_ to _Othello._

CHAPTER XIII

Alfred de Vigny--The man and his works--Harel, the manager at

the Odéon--Downfall of Soulié's _Christine_--Parenthesis about

Lassailly--Letter of Harel, with preface by myself and postscript by

Soulié--I read my _Christine_ at the Odéon--Harel asks me to put it

into prose--First representation of the _More de Venise_--The actors

and the papers

Whilst the Théâtre-Français was waiting for the famous 1st of October,

on which Hugo had engaged to provide the unnamed drama at which he

was working, in place of _Marion Delorme_, they decided to rehearse

Shakespeare's _Othello_, translated by Alfred de Vigny, which, in

common with _Henri III._ and _Marion Delorme_, had been received with

enthusiastic acclamation at its reading before the committee.

Alfred de Vigny completed the poetic trinity of the period, although

his work was of a lower order: people talked of Hugo and Lamartine, or

Lamartine and Hugo, and spoke of Alfred de Vigny as of the next rank.

Alfred de Vigny possessed very little imagination, but he had a fine

and correct style; he was known by his romance _Cinq-Mars_, which would

only have met with a medium success had it appeared nowadays, but,

coming as it did at a time of dearth in literature, it had a great run.

When Hugo read _Marion Delorme_ de Vigny had whispered to his

friends--this sort of thing is always said to one's friends--that

Didier and Saverny, the two principal characters in the drama, were an

imitation of Cinq-Mars and de Thou. But I am convinced that, when Hugo

wrote his play, he never even thought of de Vigny's romance.

Besides the novel _Cinq-Mars_, de Vigny had composed several dainty

little poems in the then current manner: Byron had set the fashion for

this kind of poem. Among these five or six charming little poems were

_Eloa_ and _Dolorida._ Finally, he had just published an extremely

touching elegy on two unhappy young people who had committed suicide at

Montmorency, under cover of the noise of the music of a ball.

De Vigny was a very singular man; he was polite and affable and gentle

in all his dealings, but he affected the most utter unworldliness--an

affectation, moreover, that accorded perfectly with his charming

face, its delicate and refined features, encased in long fair curly

hair, making him look like a brother of the cherubim. De Vigny never

descended to earthly things if he could avoid it; if perchance he

folded his wings and rested on the peak of a mountain, it was a

concession which he made to humanity, because, after all, it was

useful to him when he held his brief intercourse with us. Hugo and I

used to marvel greatly at his utter unconsciousness of the material

needs of our nature, which many of us, Hugo and I among the number,

satisfied not only without any feeling of shame but with a certain

sensual enjoyment. None of us had ever surprised de Vigny at table.

Dorval, who for seven years of her life had passed several hours a

day with him, declared to us with an astonishment almost amounting

to terror, that she had never even seen him eat a radish! Now even

Proserpine, a goddess, was not so abstemious as that; carried off by

Pluto to the lower regions, she had, from the first, in spite of the

preoccupation of mind to which her unappetising sojourn had naturally

disposed her, managed to eat seven pomegranate seeds! Nevertheless,

these characteristics did not prevent de Vigny from being an agreeable

companion, a gentleman to his finger-tips, always ready to do you a

kindness and totally incapable of doing you a bad turn. Nobody exactly

knew de Vigny's age; but, judging approximately, as it was known that

de Vigny had served in the guards on the return of Louis XVIII., and

supposing he was eighteen at the time he entered the service, say in

1815, he must have been thirty-two in 1829.

It will be observed that all these great revolutionaries were very

young and that the revolutionary poets were very much like the three

generals of the Revolution of whom I have, I believe, spoken, who

commanded the army of Sambre-et-Meuse, and whose combined ages reckoned

seventy years: Hoche, Marceau and my father.

The coming representation of _Othello_ made a great stir. We all knew

de Vigny's translation, and although we should have preferred to

have been supported by national troops and a French general, rather

than by this poetical condottiere, we realised that we must accept

all the arms we could against our enemies, especially when such arms

came from the arsenal of the great master of us all--Shakespeare.

Mademoiselle Mars and Joanny were allotted the principal parts. They

were powerful auxiliaries, but they were not precisely the kind we

wanted. Mademoiselle Mars and Joanny looked a little awkward in the

habiliments which (dramatically speaking) were not suitable to their

figures. Mademoiselle Mars was a charming woman of the Empire period,

refined, light, delicate, graceful, satirical, possessing none of the

gentle, innocent melancholy of the Moor's mistress; and Joanny, with

his _retroussé_ nose _à la_ Odry and his gestures with no grandeur

or majesty in them, did not recall the gloomy and terrible lover of

Desdemona. The part of Iago that Ducis had replaced by that of Pezarre,

as one replaces a flesh-and-bone leg by a wooden one, fell to the lot

of Perrier, and was to make its appearance in full daylight for the

first time.

So the representation was looked forward to with much impatience; but,

whilst awaiting this solemn occasion, which, as we have mentioned,

was to take place at the Théâtre-Français, another production was

being prepared at the Odéon which was of special importance to me,

namely, the _Christine à Fontainebleau_ by Frédéric Soulié. M. Brault's

_Christine_ died a few days after its birth, as I have said in due

course, and had disappeared without leaving any trace!

The Odéon had been recently reorganised on new lines. Harel, whom we

have seen attempting to seize _Marion Delorme_ at Hugo's house by

surprise, formerly secretary to Cambacérès, formerly sous-préfet of

the department of l'Aisne, formerly préfet of the Landes, a political

refugee in 1815, editor of the _Nain Jaune_ in Belgium, in short, one

of the most versatile men who ever lived, had just been appointed

director of the Odéon, I believe in place of Éric Bernard. He had

opened the theatre with Lucien Arnault's _États de Blois_, which did

not meet with a great success, in spite of the sumptuous manner in

which the piece had been mounted; and, being a good journalist and

clever at handling the triple element which comprises the feuilleton,

the short paragraph and the puff, Harel knew how to set the drums

sounding in favour of my friend Frédéric Soulié's _Christine à

Fontainebleau._

I had not seen Frédéric since the night upon which we had parted

with feelings of coldness towards one another and had each--decided

to go on with our own _Christines._ _Henri III._ and its success and

all the renown it had brought with it had passed without my hearing

mention of Soulié's name. His _Christine_ was finished and that was the

last I heard of him. He had sent me two seats in the gallery for his

_Juliette_ and I had sent him two balcony tickets for my _Henri III._,

and that was the extent of our exchange of politeness. I expected seats

to be sent me for _Christine_, but, to my great astonishment, I did not

receive them. Later, I found out that this was due to Harel, who feared

I should do the play an ill turn, and so opposed tickets being sent me.

As I had no seat for the first production I made no effort to procure

one for myself; and I went to bed quite satisfied that I should hear

first thing next morning whether the play had been received with

applause or hissed at. As a matter of fact, one of my good friends, a

lad who had done nothing then beyond showing promise of talent but who

has since made his mark, Achille Comte, came to my room at seven next

morning. Poor _Christine_ had fallen quite flat. Soulié, apparently,

had conceived the notion of introducing an Italian bandit in the forest

of Fontainebleau, and this had produced the most grotesque effect

imaginable. The day before, I should have thought that this news would

have delighted me after Soulié's treatment of me; but, on the contrary,

it made me feel wretchedly miserable. The innocent and primitive

friendships of our youth are the only real friendships.

The reading of _Marion_ had not only impressed me deeply, but it had

done me immense service: it had opened out to me hitherto undreamed-of

poetic suggestions; it had revealed to me possibilities in the way of

treating poetry of which I had never thought; finally, it had given

me my first idea for _Antony._ The day after the reading of _Marion

Delorme_ I set to work with unusual courage. Before the music of the

lines I had listened to the previous night had ceased ringing in my

ears, I had started, inspired by the harmony of their dying strains;

and the new _Christine_ opened its eyes to the strains of the distant

and melodious echo which still lived in my spirit, although the sound

itself had ceased.

I must be allowed a brief digression on the subject of _Christine_: I

give it as a study in manners and customs and I hope it will not be

mistaken for boasting.

There was in those days, outside the literary world, a big fellow who

was half an idiot, with a long crooked nose and legs like Seringuinos

in the _Pilules du Diable._ He was, I believe, the son of an Orléans

apothecary and he played the young Don Juan to chambermaids and

daughters of the porter, whom he transformed into baronesses and

duchesses in his elegies and sonnets; he wrote a novel which was

published but, I am certain, was never read. This novel was entitled

the _Roueries de Trialph._ His name was Lassailly.

There are certain people who acquire the odd privilege of introducing

the grotesque into the most mournful and heartrending of scenes, and

Lassailly was one of the most highly favoured of these purveyors of the

ridiculous. Once, I had gone to bed and was writing the first scene

between Paula and Monaldeschi and had got to these lines--

"Oh! garde-moi! je serai ta servante!

Tout ce qu'une amour pure ou délirante invente

De bonheurs, oui, pour toi, je les inventerai!

Quand tu me maudiras, moi, je te bénirai--

J'aurai des mots d'amour qui guériront ton âme;

Garde-moi! Je consens qu'une autre soit ta femme;

Je promets de l'aimer, d'obéir à sa loi;

Mais, par le Dieu vivant, garde-moi! garde-moi!..."

Suddenly I heard the door of my sitting room open and a howling being

of some sort or other approached my bedroom; next I saw my bedroom

door open and Lassailly entered, flinging himself on the carpet and

tearing his hair. The apparition was so unexpected, so strange and even

so terrifying that I stretched out my hand for the double-barrelled

pistols I kept in a recess at the head of my bed. When I saw that it

was Lassailly, I pushed the pistols back and awaited an explanation

of this exhibition of buffoonery. The explanation was sad enough: the

poor devil's father had thrown himself into the river and Lassailly

had just learned both that his father had been drowned and that his

body, after having been taken out of the water, was exposed at the

Orléans Morgue, whence it could not be taken away without the payment

of a certain sum of money. Lassailly had not a halfpenny towards this

sum and he had come to ask it of me. At the sight of the son weeping

for his father, who had met with his death in this deplorable manner,

I could only visualize one mental picture: I was not so much impressed

by the son's grief, which, however extravagant in expression, to the

point of grotesqueness, was still, perhaps, sincere at bottom; but

by the thought of the real, unforeseen and irreparable misery of the

poor wretch that had been drawn from the waters of the Loire, pale

and streaming, and sad, with eyes dimmed by death, and face smeared

with river weeds, now laid on the damp stones of the Morgue. I did not

attempt to console Lassailly: one does not offer comfort unless people

ask for it. Rachel weeping for her children in Ramah, and filling the

air with her lamentations, would not be comforted, because they were

not.

"My friend," I said, "let us get to the most pressing part of the

business. You want to go to Orléans, do you not? To bury your father?

You say it will cost you a hundred francs; I think it will cost you

more than that, and I would like to offer you as much as you will need;

but I can only offer you as much as I possess.... Open that chiffonier

drawer, which contains a hundred and thirty-five francs, take a hundred

and thirty and leave me five...."

Lassailly tried to throw himself into my arms, made an attempt to

embrace me and called me his saviour; but I gently pushed him away,

pointed with my hand to the drawer and repeated--

"There, there ... take it; ... take a hundred and thirty francs, and

leave me five."

He took the sum and left, and when he had gone I resumed and finished

my scene between Paula and Monaldeschi. A fortnight later, the first,

and to be accurate also the last, number of a little paper was brought

to me. A critic announced in a prefatory article that it meant to

tell the truth for the first time about the various high-flown false

reputations that sprang up in a night. The article went on to say that

it meant at last to put men and things in the places God had intended

them to occupy.

I This series of the avengers of justice, these literary executions,

began with Alexandre Dumas. The article was signed "Lassailly," and had

brought him in a hundred francs! The man who brought me the paper was

acquainted with what I had done for Lassailly a fortnight before.

"Well," he asked, "what do you say to that?"

"Poor boy!" I replied; "he has perhaps had to bury his mother!"

And I stuffed the journal into the chiffonier drawer from whence he had

taken the hundred and thirty francs which he never paid back. Lassailly

has since died, and the paper was never resuscitated.

Let us now return to the two _Christines._ Directly, as I have said, I

learnt the failure of Soulié's, I finished mine within a month almost,

and it then had the form it now bears. I went, that same day, to find

the manager of the Théâtre-Français, whose name I have forgotten. He

was a kind of mulatto, with big eyes and yellow skin, and, with the

letter of the committee in my hand, M. Brault's _Christine_ having

been played, I asked that mine should be put in rehearsal. There was,

indeed, to be a committee the next day; and the manager replied that

he would lay the matter before them. The committee decided that as it

was a matter of common knowledge that I had altered my work, I ought to

submit to a second reading. But as this second reading was, in reality,

a third reading, I declined the proposal outright. And with this

struggle with the Comédie-Française began a lasting series of friendly

dealings between us. In the middle of the conflict I received a letter

from Harel couched in the following terms:--

"MY DEAR DUMAS,--What do you think of this idea of

Mademoiselle Georges? To play your _Christine_ immediately,

on the same stage and with the same actors as those who

played Soulié's _Christine_? The conditions to be settled by

yourself. You need not trouble your head with the idea that

you will strangle a friend's work, because it yesterday died

a natural death.--Yours ever, HAREL"

I called my servant, and on the epistle which I have above transcribed

I wrote the words--

"MY DEAR FRÉDÉRIC,--Read this letter. What a rascal your

friend Harel is!--Yours, ALEX. DUMAS"

My servant took the letter to the sawmill at la Gare and, an hour

later, he brought me back this answer at the bottom of the same letter.

Frédéric had written--

"MY DEAR DUMAS,--Harel is not my friend, he is a manager.

Harel is not a rascal, only a speculator. I would not do

what he is doing, but I would advise him to accept. Gather

up the fragments of my _Christine_--and I warn you there

are plenty of them--throw them into the basket of the first

rag-and-bone man that passes your way and get your own piece

played.--Yours ever, F. SOULIÉ"

It will be admitted that Harel's letter was a very curious document,

with its preface and its postscript. With this authorisation, I did

not see any difficulty in the way of accepting Harel's offers. My sole

stipulation was that, whether my play were received or not at the

reading of the committee, it should be proceeded with within six weeks

of the date of the agreement.

The reading before the committee was fixed for the following Saturday

and the reading before the actors for Sunday night. I had my reasons

for being suspicious of the committee: it had received me under

reservation of correction and, as the committee of the Théâtre-Français

had given me Samson as reviser, the committee of the Odéon appointed

MM. Tissot and Sainte-Beuve as their advisers. As Cavé rose to leave,

he declared that the play contained some fine passages, but that it

was not suitable for acting. And he was the only friend I had on the

committee!

Harel was completely staggered; for, although he was an able man, he

could not distinguish good poetry from bad, and did not know what was

great or beautiful.

I wish it to be thoroughly understood that I do not mean these remarks

to apply to his doubts about _Christine_, but only to his judgment

generally. He worshipped Voltaire, and, before he died, he had the

happiness to be decorated for his eulogium on the author of _Zaïre._

While I strongly admired Voltaire as a philosopher and narrator, on the

other hand I thought but little of him as a poet, and specially as a

dramatic poet; as a dramatist, his methods are ordinary, worn-out and

melodramatic; as a writer, his lines are poor, sententious and badly

rhymed. It is unfortunate for the philosopher of Ferney, but it must

be, confessed that it is only in his infamous poem the _Pucelle_ that

he is well-nigh unapproachable; and even those who are revolted by

the impiety, historical calumny and patriotic ingratitude of it are

compelled to admire the work, for it is a masterpiece.

In spite of Cavé's opinion and Harel's perturbation, the reading

before the actors was still allowed to take place on the following day:

it had been agreed upon. I say _it had been agreed upon_, because,

if it bad not been, the reading would certainly never have taken

place. And Harel asked permission for Jules Janin to be present at the

reading. Janin had then made over all his rights to Harel, and although

I did not place absolute reliance in the fanciful and capricious taste

of the future prince of critics, I made no opposition to his presence.

I possessed, at that time, the horrifying amount of assurance that

always accompanies inexperience and supreme self-satisfaction. It has

taken a great deal of success to cure me of my conceit!

I read to the actors--that class of people which, taking all things

into consideration, is the quickest at judging beforehand of the effect

of a piece, although every actor, in general, listens to the work that

is being read to him from his own particular point of view, thinks

mainly of the effect of his own part and does not worry himself over

those of his neighbours. The reading was a great success, but Harel was

none the less troubled by an idea that he did not reveal until next

day. He came to me at break of day to propose to me, in all simplicity,

to put _Christine_ into prose. And this was how Harel exhibited himself

to me in all his glory at the very outset. Of course I laughed in his

face and, after laughing at him, I showed him the door.

The following day, the first rehearsal took place, as though no such

suggestion had ever been made. The piece was capitally mounted: Georges

played Christine; Ligier, Sentinelli; Lockroy, Monaldeschi; and

Mademoiselle Noblet, whose début it almost was, played Paula. It had

been decreed on high that the person for whom the latter rôle had been

made was not to play it! "Man proposes, God disposes." Even the two

slight parts of the assassins of Monaldeschi were played by two actors

of the very highest merit, Stockleit and Duparay.

Just as my rehearsals began, Alfred de Vigny's ended. Our relative

partisans were exasperated with us, and with some reason. They

demanded loudly that we should not be played, whilst we demanded with

even louder outcries that we should be played.

The first representation of the _More de Venise_ was introduced with

every appearance of a battle. Mademoiselle Mars had gone over bag and

baggage from the old style of comedy to the new modern school of drama;

we had won over Joanny, Perrier and Firmin, and in short there was not

an actor down to the excellent David, who had accepted the small part

of Cassio, who would not be acting in the Shakespearian exhibition that

was preparing. The rage of the men who for thirty years had monopolised

the Théâtre-Français had to be seen, before an idea could be conceived

of the howls and curses that were flung at us. These gentlemen only

seemed acquainted with Shakespeare through what Voltaire had said

about him, and Schiller by means of M. Petitot. When M. Lebrun and M.

Ancelot had borrowed their _Maria Stuart_ and _Fiesque_ from the German

Shakespeare, they decided that MM. Ancelot and Lebrun had done Schiller

great honour thereby, and a host of articles had demonstrated that very

indifferent works--works only fit for the stage of a fair--were real

classical masterpieces! This time, the public was not going to see

Shakespeare corrected, castrated and docked, but--save for the loss he

must necessarily sustain from translation--the giant himself, who had

kept the crowning place in England during the sixteenth, seventeenth

and eighteenth centuries. If these sacrilegious exhibitions continued,

what could Zaïre say confronted with Desdemona, Ninus with Hamlet or

the _Deux Gendres_ with _King Lear?_ Such pale and sickly counterfeits

of nature and truth must fail and come to nothing or suffer by

comparison!

I opened a paper by chance and in it I read:--

"The representation of the _More de Venise_ is being

prepared for as though there were going to be a battle to

decide some great literary question. It is to settle whether

Shakespeare, Schiller and Goethe are to drive Corneille,

Racine and Voltaire from the French stage."

This was a delicious lapse from truth and exquisitely spiteful; for,

thanks to the notion of the expulsion of the masters, it excited the

bourgeois classes, and the question, which was entirely beside the

mark, by the very form it took, gave justification to those who put it.

No! indeed no! These masters of art were no more driven from their

time-honoured Parnassus than the _bourgeoisie_ drove out the

aristocracy from the positions they had occupied since the beginning

of the monarchy. No, we did not say to these great masters, "Retire

and give up your places to us!" but, "Allow us to aspire to the same

rights with you, if we deserve to do so. The heathen Olympus was large

enough to contain six thousand gods, make then a little space, ye gods

of old France, for the Scandinavian and Teutonic gods. The religion of

Molière, of Corneille and of Racine was ever that of the State; but let

liberty for all religions be proclaimed!"

But they were too narrow and exclusive, and, instead of welcoming

these new gods, instead of hailing all that was lofty in them and

only criticising what was unworthy in them, the political exiles of

yesterday wanted to-day to enforce a literary proscription. It seems

incredibly strange and mysterious, but nevertheless so it was!

In spite of violent opposition, _Othello_ succeeded. The groans of

the jealous African were heard for the first time, and people were

moved and shivered and trembled under the sobs of that terrible wrath.

Joanny, carried away by his part, was often remarkable in his acting,

and once or twice he was sublime. I never saw anything more picturesque

than that great African figure as it strode the stage in the darkness

of night, draped like a spectre in its large white _burnous_,

whispering in a gloomy voice, with arms extended towards Desdemona's

dwelling--

"... Get you to bed on the instant; I will be returned forthwith ..."

Mademoiselle Mars, who was of a much wider discernment in her art than

Joanny, was uniformly excellent; once she was sublime, namely, where,

springing up on her bed, she exclaims, giving the lie in advance to

Iago's accusation--

"He will not say so."

I am writing all this from memory, as will be readily guessed, so I

quote only the parts that stand out most clearly in my mind, after

an interval of twenty-two years. I may therefore be pardoned for not

quoting more than these two instances.

Well, the strange part of the situation was that the Liberal papers,

those which cried up movement and progress in politics, were the

reactionaries in literature; while the Royalist papers, those which

took the side of stagnation and conservatism in politics, were

the revolutionaries in literature. It was still more difficult to

comprehend if one did not know that the _Constitutionnel_, the

_Courrier français_ and the _Pandore_ were edited by MM. Jay, Jouy,

Arnault, Étienne, Viennet, etc., whilst the _Quotidienne_, the _Drapeau

blanc_ and the _Foudre_ were under the management of Merle, Théaulon,

Brisset, Martainville, Lassagne, Nodier and Mély-Jeannin. The one set

worked for the Théâtre-Français and, having usurped the position, meant

to keep it; the others, in general, had only worked for the boulevard

theatres, and these were eager to have a breach made in the classical

ramparts to give access to themselves. Merle was, besides, the husband

of Madame Dorval, whose talent was just beginning to make a sensation

and who had created with incontestable success the rôles of Amélie in

_Trente Ans ou la Vie d'un Joueur_ and of Charlotte Corday in _Sept

Heures_, also of Louise in _l'Incendiaire._ We need not mention the

part of Héléna in _Marino Faliero_, for the part was poor and Madame

Dorval was not able to transform a bad part into a good one.

I have mentioned that the rehearsals of _Christine_ had begun. Let us

leave them to pursue their course and take a peep into the world of

city-life, which we have deserted for a very long time for the world

of the stage. Whilst changing scenes, we will nevertheless conduct

our reader to the house of a comedian who was worth quite as much

attention as the actors we are leaving. Furthermore, he was not among

those who for fifty years had been playing the less conspicuous parts

in the great drama which had attracted all attention and occupied all

minds, during the conclusion of the eighteenth and the beginning of the

nineteenth century. Let us reveal the fact that we are about to speak

of Paul-François-Jean-Nicodème, Comte de Barras.

CHAPTER XIV

Citizen-general Barras--Doctor Cabarrus introduces me to

him--Barras's only two regrets--His dinners--The Princess de Chimay's

footman--Fauche-Borel--The Duc de Bordeaux makes a mess--History lesson

given to an ambassador--Walter Scott and Barras--The last happiness of

the old _directeur_--His death

I have related how my successful play _Henri III._ had launched me

in the world and the curiosity there was excited over its author.

Barras was among the number of those who wanted to be introduced to

me. The name which I inherited from my father was of special historic

significance to the Man of the Convention, the Directoire, 9 thermidor

and 13 vendémiaire.

The history of Barras is known by heart. He was the son of an ancient

Provençal family, and he had entered the army early; he had been

sent to the isle of France and to India, where he had valiantly

taken part in the defence of Pondicherry. He left the service with

the rank of captain, and had come to Paris, where he had led an

extremely dissipated life. Taken from this life of pleasure by his

fellow-citizens of Var, who made him their député, in 1792, he had been

a member of the Convention amongst the Montagnards; was charged with

a mission, the following year, to suppress both the Federalist and

Royalist movement which was agitating the South; had assisted at the

recapture of Toulon from the English; and here had become acquainted

with Major Bonaparte, thus being able to judge the advantage such a

man would be to any party. On 9 thermidor, he was made commander of

the armed forces of Paris: he it was who seized Robespierre and gave

him up to the scaffold. Some days later, he was himself attacked by

the Sections (called by the Convention instead of my father, who could

not, as we have seen, respond to the appeal because of his absence);

he pushed Bonaparte forward, who was on his side on 13 vendémiaire

and against him on 18 brumaire. It was said at that time (but this,

I think, is one of the calumniating statements that conquerors are

only too willing to make, concerning the vanquished, with respect to

their victories, when not fairly won) that Barras was carrying on

negotiations for the return of the Bourbons and twelve millions were

promised to this new General Monk as the price of their restoration.

The events on 18 brumaire having squashed the Bourbon

counter-revolution, Barras, being proscribed by his former protector,

retired to Brussels and then to Rome. He only returned to France in

1816; settling down at Chaillot, where he had since dwelt, and where,

thanks to an income of 200,000 livres which he had saved out of the

various shipwrecks of his political career, he kept a charming and

very luxurious household, waited on by a large retinue of servants. I

specially refer to the number of servants, because Barras always had

at his sumptuous table as many servants as guests, and several times I

have dined there when there were twenty to twenty-five guests.

I was introduced to the old dictator by one of my oldest and best

friends, a man whom I was always delighted to see when I was well and

still more pleased to see if I were ill, namely, Doctor Cabarrus, son

of the handsome Madame Tallien. Cabarrus was then, and indeed still

is, a fine strongly built man, with a sympathetic face and a character

to accord. Endowed with a charming nature, sound learning and untiring

observation, Cabarrus had, less by his social position than by his

own personal work, been thrown into the midst of all the aristocratic

circles--the aristocracies of birth, talent and science. No one could

tell a story better than he, or, rarer gift still, be a better listener

than he: he had a fine, delicate smiling mouth, and showed a lovely set

of teeth when he laughed, which lit up his face. Barras was very fond

of him, which was not astonishing, because everybody who knew Cabarrus

liked him.

So it was Cabarrus who took me, one Wednesday morning, to Barras's

house. I had been warned that the old dictator was always addressed as

_Citizen-general_; there was no compulsion in the matter, of course,

but that was the title which pleased him best.

Barras received us seated in a great arm-chair, which he vacated as

rarely during the last years of his life as Louis XVIII. left his.

He remembered my father perfectly well and the accident that had

prevented his taking command of the armed forces on 13 vendémiaire, and

I recollect that several times that day he repeated over to me this

sentence which I give word for word:--

"Young man, do not forget what an old Republican says to you: I have

but two regrets, I ought rather to call them remorses, which will be

the only ones present at my bedside when I come to die. I have the

two-edged remorse of having, overthrown Robespierre by the 9 thermidor,

and of having raised Bonaparte to power by the 13 vendémiaire."

It will be observed that I have not forgotten what Barras said to me,

although on one of the two points (I will leave my reader to guess

which) I am not entirely of his opinion.

Wednesday was Barras's reception day. Cabarrus had chosen it hoping

that the "Citizen-general" would keep me to dinner, where I should

meet with various representatives of the end of the last century and

of the early days of the present one--representatives who, by the way,

whatever they might be, when inside Barras's house, became subdued

to the Republican spirit, and were simply citizens, whether male or

female. Cabarrus was not disappointed: the old dictator invited us to

stay dinner and, if we did not wish to return to Paris, offered us the

use of a carriage to take us a drive in the woods until the dinner-hour

came. Cabarrus had his business to attend to, and I had mine; so we

accepted the invitation to dinner, but declined the carriage, and took

leave of Barras.

In 1829, Barras was an extremely fine-looking old man of seventy-four.

I can see him now in his arm-chair on wheels, his head and hands

seeming to be the only portions of him which were still alive, but

these appeared to contain vitality enough for his whole body: he wore a

cap which never left his head and which he never took off for anybody.

From time to time, this moral life, if one may use such a phrase, this

artificial life, replete with will-power, deserted him and then he

looked like a dying person.

We returned to dinner. I have dined with Barras three times, and

at each dinner I witnessed an unusually odd incident. On the first

occasion--the one of which I am speaking--we were between twenty

and twenty-five in number. Among the guests was Madame Tallien, who

became the Princess of Chimay. She came accompanied by a footman whose

marvellous plumes were the admiration of the whole company. We had

been introduced into the salon, where the first comers did the honours

of the house to those who arrived later. Barras never appeared except

at the dinner-table. When the dinner-hour arrived, the folding doors

were flung open into the dining-room and each guest found the place

that had been put for him; the bedroom door was then opened and Barras

was wheeled to the centre of the table; then the guests sat down and

attacked the delicate repast with good appetite. Barras's own meal was

very odd: a huge leg of mutton was brought to him and carved in such

a fashion as to bring out all the gravy; the joint was then carried

back to the kitchen, and the gravy was left in Barras's deep plate. He

sopped bread in the gravy and this concoction formed his meal. I never

saw him eat anything else on the three occasions I dined with him.

On this particular day, in the middle of dinner, a great noise was

heard in the kitchen as though a fight were going on, and we could

hear shouts mingled with bursts of laughter. Barras was accustomed to

be admirably waited on and in an unusually silent manner. Not a single

one of the servants who waited behind the guests ever breathed a word

or rattled a plate or jingled the silver. Apart from the luxuriousness

of the food with which the table was loaded, one could have imagined

oneself in a pythagorean school. Only one man was allowed to speak when

he wished and that was the valet-de-chambre, the steward, and, better

still, the friend of Barras. His name was Courtand.

"Courtand!" Barras asked, frowning, "what is all that noise?"

"I do not know, citizen-general," Courtand replied, himself as greatly

astonished at this infraction of the rules of the house; "I will go and

see."

Courtand went out and, five seconds later, re-entered, every face

turning to the door to look at him.

"Well?" asked Barras.

"Oh! it is nothing, citizen-general," Courtand replied, laughing.

"But what was it about?"

"The servants belonging to the citizens present"--and Courtand

pointed towards the guests, who, it should be said, mostly belonged

to Republican opinion--"are plucking feathers from citizen Tallien's

footman and the poor devil shrieks because they pinch his skin a bit

while they are doing it."

"And what has he done to deserve to be plucked alive by the other

servants?" asked Barras.

"He called his mistress _Madame la Princesse de Chimay!_"

"Then he deserves his punishment: his mistress is not called the

Princesse de Chimay, she is called citizen Tallien."

On another occasion--this, too, happened at table--one place remained

empty. The guest who was late was the famous Royalist agent with whom

you are acquainted, Fauche-Borel, who, six months later, was reduced

to misery by the ingratitude of the Bourbons, and committed suicide

by throwing himself from a window at Neuchâtel. He was very intimate

at Barras's house and it was said that it was through his mediation

that the abortive negotiations were entered into in 1792 between the

Bourbons and the old dictator. Well! Fauche-Borel was late: he arrived

at the roast course, with tear-stained face, holding his handkerchief

in his hands.

"Ah! here you are, my dear Fauche-Borel," Barras exclaimed. "Why are

you so late as this?"

"Ah! citizen-general, rather ask why I am so upset."

"Well, my dear fellow, what is the matter?"

"Oh, general, I have seen the most touching, the most moving, the most

instructive spectacle ... I have just come from the Tuileries ..."

"Ah! ah!--and was it there you saw this touching, moving, instructive

scene? You were very lucky, my friend, to have managed to fall on your

feet! Come, tell us what you saw, so that we too may be moved and

softened and edified."

"Well, citizen-general, M. le Duc de Bordeaux spilt some water on the

floor of the great salon where he was playing."

"Really!"

"And the Duc de Damas said to him, 'Monseigneur, you have made a mess

on the floor; I am much distressed about it, but you must wipe it up.'

'What! I must wipe it up!' the young prince exclaimed. 'Why are there

no servants here?' 'There are, but, as the mess was made this time by

your Highness, your Highness must wipe it up.... Go and fetch a mop!'

said the duke to a footman; and, when the man hesitated, he added,

'Do as I command you!' The lackey arrived with a mop five minutes

later, and His Highness shed many tears; but M. de Damas was firm and

Monseigneur was himself obliged to mop up the mess he had made! What do

you say to that, citizen-general?"

"I should say," Barras replied, in the sarcastic tones that were

habitual to him, "that the tutor of the Duc de Bordeaux did quite right

to teach his pupil a trade; so that when his noble parents depart he

will have something in his hands to take to."

Another time--again it happened at table--a famous general, who was an

eminent soldier and a man of striking abilities, then ambassador at

Constantinople, related, with bitter feeling, a scene that took place

during the Revolution.

By chance, Courtand, Barras's valet and steward and a free-spoken

friend, stood behind the general's chair. He touched the general on the

shoulder in the very middle of his story.

"General," he said, "I must stop you--it did not happen at all as you

are telling it: you are slandering the Revolution!"

The general turned indignantly to Barras to call his attention to this

familiarity on the part of his lackey. But Barras broke out--

"Messieurs, Courtand is right! Tell the episode as it happened,

Courtand; re-establish the facts and give a lesson in history to

Monsieur the ambassador."

And Courtand related the facts as they had occurred, to the great

satisfaction of Barras and the amazed astonishment of the company.

When Walter Scott came to Paris to hunt up documents connected with

the reign of Napoleon, whose life he was proposing to write, Barras,

who had some precious papers to show him, desired to see him and

begged Cabarrus--who knew the history of the Revolution as intimately

as did Courtand, but could tell it better than he (we mean no offence

to the memory of Citizen-general Barras)--to invite the celebrated

romance-writer to come and dine with him. Cabarrus began by having a

long conversation with Walter Scott, who, knowing that he was in the

society of the son of Madame Tallien, talked much of all the events

in which Cabarrus's mother had played a part: finally, the messenger

approached the real object of his visit and transmitted Barras's

invitation to the Scottish poet. But Walter Scott shook his head.

"I cannot dine with that man," he replied. "I shall write against him,

and it would be said, as we say in Scotland, 'that _I have flung his

own dinner-plates at his head!_'"

One afternoon, Cabarrus invited me to spend an hour with him in the

afternoon, and I put in my appearance punctual to the time appointed.

"Barras will die to-day," he said to me; "would you like to see him for

the last time before his death?"

"Certainly," I replied; for I was anxious to be able to say later to

people, who had only known him by name, "I saw Barras on the day of his

death."

"Very well, come with me: I am going literally for the purpose of

saying good-bye to him."

We got into a carriage and went to Chaillot. We found Courtand looking

very melancholy, and, when Cabarrus asked him how his master was, he

only shook his head. He showed Cabarrus into the room of the dying

man all the same, and, as I was with Cabarrus, let me go in too. We

expected to find Barras sad and pale and weak and depressed, but he

was merry and smiling and almost rosy-looking, though this colour

was but the flush of fever. We began by apologising for my presence:

I had met Cabarrus in the Champs-Élysées and, learning that he was

going to inquire after Barras, I wished to accompany him. Barras made

me a little friendly inclination with his head to indicate that I was

welcome.

"But," Cabarrus exclaimed, "what did that pessimist of a Courtand tell

me, general? He made out that you were worse; on the contrary, you look

ever so much better!"

"Ah yes!" said Barras, "because you find me alone and cheerful ...

that does not alter the fact that I shall be dead to-night, my dear

Cabarrus! Do you hear that, Dumas? I am like Leonidas and shall sup

to-night with Pluto! I shall be able to tell your father, who would be

happy enough to see you, that I have seen you to-day."

"But what were you laughing at when we came in?" Cabarrus inquired,

trying to turn the conversation from talk of death to matters of life.

"What made me laugh?" Barras replied. "I will tell you. Because I have

just played a capital trick on our rulers.... As I have been a man

of power, they have had their eyes on me; they know I am dying, and

they have been watching for the moment of my death to seize hold of

my papers. I have therefore, since the morning, been busy attaching

my seal to these thirty or forty boxes. After my death, they will be

seized; but I have given directions for counsel to be called in and

the matter will be publicly tried before a court of justice.... This

may last for four or six months or a year ... after which my heirs will

lose, my papers being State property. They will then solemnly open

these forty boxes which you see there, before a council of ministers

... and, instead of the precious papers, which are in a place of

safety, do you know what they will find?"

"No, I confess I have not the slightest idea."

"My laundress's bills for thirty-five years ... and they will take

a lot of adding up, for I have sent plenty of dirty linen to the

laundries since 9 thermidor...."

Barras burst into such a frank and merry peal of laughter that he fell

back exhausted, and that evening he died, as he predicted, shortly

before the Revolution of 1830.

END OF VOL. III

End of Project Gutenberg's My Memoirs, Volume 3 (of 6), by Alexandre Dumas