Fancioulle was an admirable buffoon, and almost one of the
friends of the Prince. But for persons professionally devoted
to the comic, serious things have a fatal attraction, and,
strange as it may seem that ideas of patriotism and liberty
should seize despotically upon the brain of a player, one day
Fancioulle joined in a conspiracy formed by some, discontented
nobles.
There exist everywhere sensible men to denounce those
individuals of atrabiliar disposition who seek to depose
princes, and, without consulting it, to reconstitute society.
The lords in question were arrested, together with Fancioulle,
and condemned to death.
I would readily believe that the Prince was almost sorry
to find his favourite actor among the rebels. The Prince
was neither better nor worse than any other prince; but an
excessive sensibility rendered him, in many cases, more cruel
and more despotic than all his fellows. Passionately enamoured
of the fine arts, an excellent connoisseur as well, he was
truly insatiable of pleasures. Indifferent enough in regard to
men and morals, himself a real artist, he feared no enemy but
Ennui, and the extravagant efforts that he made to fly or to
vanquish this tyrant of the world would certainly have brought
upon him, on the part of a severe historian, the epithet of
"monster," had it been permitted, in his dominions, to write
anything whatever which did not tend exclusively to pleasure,
or to astonishment, which is one of the most delicate forms of
pleasure. The great misfortune of the Prince was that he had no
theatre vast enough for his genius. There are young Neros who
are stifled within too narrow limits, and whose names and whose
intentions will never be known to future ages. An unforeseeing
Providence had given to this man faculties greater than his
dominions.
Suddenly the rumour spread that the sovereign had decided to
pardon all the conspirators; and the origin of this rumour was
the announcement of a special performance in which Fancioulle
would play one of his best _rôles_, and at which even the
condemned nobles, it was said, were to be present, an evident
sign, added superficial minds, of the generous tendencies of
the Prince.
On the part of a man so naturally and deliberately eccentric,
anything was possible, even virtue, even mercy, especially if
he could hope to find in it unexpected pleasures. But to those
who, like myself, had succeeded in penetrating further into the
depths of this sick and curious soul, it was infinitely more
probable that the Prince was wishful to estimate the quality
of the scenic talents of a man condemned to death. He would
profit by the occasion to obtain a physiological experience of
a _capital_ interest, and to verify to what extent the habitual
faculties of an artist would be altered or modified by the
extraordinary situation in which he found himself. Beyond this,
did there exist in his mind an intention, more or less defined,
of mercy? It is a point that has never been solved.
At last, the great day having come, the little court displayed
all its pomps, and it would be difficult to realise, without
having seen it, what splendour the privileged classes of a
little state with limited resources can show forth, on a really
solemn occasion. This was a doubly solemn one, both from the
wonder of its display and from the mysterious moral interest
attaching to it.
The Sieur Fancioulle excelled especially in parts either
silent or little burdened with words, such as are often
the principal ones in those fairy plays whose object is to
represent symbolically the mystery of life. He came upon the
stage lightly and with a perfect ease, which in itself lent
some support, in the minds of the noble public, to the idea of
kindness and forgiveness.
When we say of an actor, "This is a good actor," we make use
of a formula which implies that under the personage we can
still distinguish the actor, that is to say, art, effort,
will. Now, if an actor should succeed in being, in relation
to the personage whom he is appointed to express, precisely
what the finest statues of antiquity, miraculously animated,
living, walking, seeing, would be in relation to the confused
general idea of beauty, this would be, undoubtedly, a singular
and unheard of case. Fancioulle was, that evening, a perfect
idealisation, which it was impossible not to suppose living,
possible, real. The buffoon came and went, he laughed, wept,
was convulsed, with an indestructible aureole about his head,
an aureole invisible to all, but visible to me, and in which
were blended, in a strange amalgam, the rays of Art and the
martyr's glory. Fancioulle brought, by I know not what special
grace, something divine and supernatural into even the most
extravagant buffooneries. My pen trembles, and the tears
of an emotion which I cannot forget rise to my eyes, as I
try to describe to you this never-to-be-forgotten evening.
Fancioulle proved to me, in a peremptory, an irrefutable way,
that the intoxication of Art is surer than all others to veil
the terrors of the gulf; that genius can act a comedy on the
threshold of the grave with a joy that hinders it from seeing
the grave, lost, as it is, in a Paradise shutting out all
thought of the grave and of destruction.
The whole audience, _blasé_ and frivolous as it was, soon
fell under the all-powerful sway of the artist. Not a thought
was left of death, of mourning, or of punishment. All gave
themselves up, without disquietude, to the manifold delights
caused by the sight of a masterpiece of living art. Explosions
of joy and admiration again and again shook the dome of the
edifice with the energy of a continuous thunder. The Prince
himself, in an ecstasy, joined in the applause of his court.
Nevertheless, to a discerning eye, his emotion was not
unmixed. Did he feel himself conquered in his power as despot?
humiliated in his art as the striker of terror into hearts, of
chill into souls? Such suppositions, not exactly justified,
but not absolutely unjustifiable, passed through my mind as
I contemplated the face of the Prince, on which a new pallor
gradually overspread its habitual paleness, as snow overspreads
snow. His lips compressed themselves tighter and tighter, and
his eyes lighted up with an inner fire like that of jealousy
or of spite, even while he applauded the talents of his old
friend, the strange buffoon, who played the buffoon so well in
the face of death. At a certain moment, I saw his Highness lean
towards a little page, stationed behind him, and whisper in his
ear. The roguish face of the pretty child lit up with a smile,
and he briskly quitted the Prince's box as if to execute some
urgent commission.
A few minutes later a shrill and prolonged hiss interrupted
Fancioulle in one of his finest moments, and rent alike every
ear and heart. And from the part of the house from whence this
unexpected note of disapproval had sounded, a child darted into
a corridor with stifled laughter.
Fancioulle, shaken, roused out of his dream, closed his eyes,
then re-opened them, almost at once, extraordinarily wide,
opened his mouth as if to breathe convulsively, staggered a
little forward, a little backward, and then fell stark dead on
the boards.
Had the hiss, swift as a sword, really frustrated the hangman?
Had the Prince himself divined all the homicidal efficacy
of his ruse? It is permitted to doubt it. Did he regret his
dear and inimitable Fancioulle? It is sweet and legitimate to
believe it.
The guilty nobles had enjoyed the performance of comedy for the
last time. They were effaced from life.
Since then, many mimes, justly appreciated in different
countries, have played before the court of ----; but none of
them have ever been able to recall the marvellous talents of
Fancioulle, or to rise to the same _favour_.