_Dangerous innovations in Sacchi's company.--My attempts to arrange
matters, my threats, prognostications, and obstinate persistence on the
point of honour to support my proteges--things sufficient to move
reasonable mirth against me._
The grant of the theatre at San Salvadore for the next year had hardly
been handed over to Sacchi, when the other troupe, who were expelled to
make room for him, engaged the theatre at Sant'Angelo, which he was
leaving, and began at once to plot revenge. They tried, by flatteries
and promises of money (always needed by Italian comedians), to
circumvent the best actors of the company, among whom were Cesare
Derbes, the excellent Pantalone, and Agostino Fiorelli, the famous
Tartaglia. In fact, they did seduce these two champions of impromptu
comedy to desert Sacchi's ranks and join their squadron, more with the
object of weakening our forces than of strengthening theirs, since their
own members were unfit for any performances but those of the so-called
cultivated drama.
This desertion mortified the sharers in Sacchi's company, and they
whispered their misfortune in my ears. For my own part, I was sorry to
think that the quartette of masks, real natural wonders, who made such
pleasant mirth in concert, should be scattered. I determined, therefore,
to try whether I could not dissuade these two actors from the somewhat
shabby step they had resolved on. When I remonstrated with Derbes, who
was my gossip, the answer he gave me ran as follows: "Precisely because
I feared that you would attempt to separate me from my new comrades, and
because I know my inability to refuse you anything, I concealed the
agreement from your eyes, and signed it in secret, so that I might not
have it in my power to comply with your request. It grieves me that I
am no longer able to meet your wishes." On hearing this preposterous
excuse, I lost my humour for a moment, and burst into serious
reproaches. He assumed a theatrical air of sorrow, and defended himself
by repeating the complaints which were current among the disaffected
members of Sacchi's troupe. I contented myself with prophesying that he
would find himself without place or part in his new company, adding by
way of menace that I should well know how to make him repent of his
desertion to the enemy.
Then I repaired to Fiorelli with as much solicitude as though I were
bent on averting some grave disaster from myself. Him I found more
tractable. He had not signed his agreement; and I was able to reconcile
him with his old comrades, and to make him subscribe a paper, by which
he promised to remain with them for the next three years.
A bad system of etiquette divides the actors and actresses of every
troupe in Italy into first, second, third, and so forth. It happened at
this time that Sacchi had dismissed his first actress, Regina Cicucci, a
very able artist, but one who had not won great fame with Venetian
playgoers. "What a fine stroke of business it would be," said he to me
one day, "if we could rob our rivals of their first actress, Mme.
Caterina Manzoni! The revenge would be complete and just, and I should
be provided with a leading lady. I am afraid, however," he added, "that
my company would not suit her." Signora Manzoni was my good friend. I
appreciated her talents, her personal attractions, her cultivated
manners, and her educated mind. She had often asked me whether I could
not introduce her into Sacchi's company; and though I did not usually
mix myself up with such affairs, the present occasion and Sacchi's
speech inclined me to attempt a negotiation.
Accordingly, I made proposals to the lady, which she welcomed with great
delight and profuse expressions of gratitude. Some differences with
regard to appointments and other details arose. These I settled, like an
able broker, and brought the bargain to an agreement. When I presented
the papers for her signature, the beautiful young woman met me with an
air of sadness, which added to her charms. She looked as though she had
not the courage to address me. I did not understand what this meant, and
strove to hearten her up. At length she told me, dropping a few lovely
tears, that her former friends and comrades, when they got wind of her
meditated desertion, had come to her weeping violently, and had flung
themselves at her feet imploring her not to abandon them to certain
ruin. Moved by a spirit of compassion, she had signed a paper which
obliged her to remain with them for some years to come.
Although I knew the tenderness of her heart, I did not think her
capable of such a breach of promise through mere sensibility. She must
have had stronger reasons for breaking the engagement she had entered
into with me; and if she ever writes her Memoirs, we shall hear of
them.[36] Perhaps I ought to have lost my jovial humour, as I did with
Derbes. I could not do so in the face of so much beauty. I only told
her, with a smile upon my lips, that she was her own mistress; Sacchi
might get a first actress of any sort he could; I should have wit enough
to make the person as able an artist as my fair renegade. With these
words I engaged myself to a new point of honour.
I have never regretted that I treated Signora Manzoni in this courteous
fashion. She has always shown me the attentions of delicate and cordial
politeness; and it is only justice to declare that she possesses
qualities which would be estimable in a gentlewoman. A few years after
the events related here she married, retired from the profession, and
devoted herself to the education of her two little boys in sound moral
and religious principles.
When I reported the failure of my negotiation to Sacchi, he replied
roughly: "I knew that the person in question could never have adjusted
herself to my company." Then he pushed forward his correspondence for
the engagement of another prima donna.
I should like my readers to believe that my intervention in the affair I
have described was due principally to my regard for the Cavaliere[37]
who granted his theatre at my request to Sacchi's company. Really afraid
that their internal dissensions, rivalries, and intrigues might reduce
them to a state of impotence, and that his interests would suffer in
consequence, I wished to avoid having any share in this disaster. A
barren and old-fashioned delicacy!