Potier, having grown old, played at the Porte Saint Martin towards the
close of his life. He was the same in the street as he was on the stage.
Little boys would follow him, saying: “There is Potier!” He had a small
cottage near Paris and used to come to rehearsals mounted on a small
horse, his long thin legs dangling nearly to the ground.
Tiercelin was a Hellenist. Odry is a connoisseur of chinaware. The
elephantine Lepeintre junior runs into debt and lives the life of a
_coquin de neuveu_.
Alcide Tousez, Sainville and Ravel carry on in the green room just as
they do on the stage, inventing cock-and-bull yarns and cracking jokes.
Arnal composes classic verse, admires Samson, waxes wrath because the
cross has not been conferred upon him. And, in the green room, with
rouge on his nose and cheeks and a wig on his head, talks, between two
slaps in the face given or received, about Guizot’s last speech, free
trade and Sir Robert Peel; he interrupts himself, makes his entry upon
the stage, plays his part, returns and gravely resumes: “I was saying
that Robert Peel----”
Poor Arnal recently was driven almost insane. He had a mistress whom he
adored. This woman fleeced him. Having become rich enough she said to
him: “Our position is an immoral one and an end must be put to it. An
honest man has offered me his name and I am going to get married.” Arnal
was disconsolate. “I give you the preference,” said the belle, “marry
me.” Arnal is married. The woman left him and has become a bourgeoise.
Arnal nearly lost his reason through grief. This does not prevent him
from playing his pasquinades every night at the Vaudeville. He makes
fun of his ugliness, of his age, of the fact that he is pitted with
small-pox--laughs at all those things that prevented him from pleasing
the woman he loved, and makes the public laugh--and his heart is broken.
Poor red queue! What eternal and incurable sorrows there be in the
gaiety of a buffoon! What a lugubrious business is that of laughter!
MADEMOISELLE GEORGES. October, 23, 1867.
Mlle. George came to see me to-day. She was sad, and elegantly dressed
in a blue dress with white stripes. She said: “I am weary and disgusted.
I asked for Mars’ reversion. They granted me a pension of two thousand
francs which they do not pay. Just a mouthful of bread, and even that I
do not get a chance to eat! They wanted to engage me at the Historique
(at the Théâtre Historique). I refused. What could I do there among
those transparencies! A stout woman like me! Besides, where are the
authors? Where are the pieces? Where are the roles? As to the provinces,
I tried touring last year, but it is impossible without Harel.* I don’t
know how to manage actors. How do you think I can get on with these evil
doers? I was to have finished the 24th. I paid them on the 20th, and
fled. I returned to Paris to visit poor Harel’s tomb. It is frightful,
a tomb! It is horrible to see his name there on the stone! Yet I did not
weep. I was dry-eyed and cold. What a strange thing is life! To think
that this man who was so clever, so witty, should die an idiot! He
passed his days doing like this with his fingers. Not a spark of reason
remained. It is all over. I shall have Rachel at my benefit; I shall
play with her that chestnut “Iphigênie”. We shall make money, but I
don’t care. Besides, I’m sure she wouldn’t play Rodogune! I will also
play, if you will permit me, an act of “Lucrèce Borgia”. You see, I am
for Rachel; she is an artful one, if you like. See how she checkmates
those rascally French actors! She renews her engagements, assures for
herself pyrotechnics, vacations, heaps of gold. When the contract is
signed she says: “By the bye, I forgot to tell you that I have been
enceinte for four months; it will be five months before I am able to
play.” She does well. If I had done the same thing I shouldn’t have to
die like a dog on a litter of straw. Tragedians, you see, are comedians
after all. That poor Dorval, what has become of her, do you know? There
is one to be pitied, if you like! She is playing I know not where, at
Toulouse, at Carpentras, in barns, to earn her living! She is reduced
like me to showing her bald head and dragging her poor old carcass on
badly planed boards behind footlights of four tallow candles, among
strolling actors who have been to the galleys, or who ought to be there!
Ah! Monsieur Hugo, all this is nothing to you who are in good health and
well off, but we are poor miserable creatures!”
* M. Harel was manager of the Porte St. Martin Theatre.
Mlle. Georges lived with him.