The inspiration under which I composed _Antony_--The
Preface--Wherein lies the moral of the piece--Cuckoldom,
Adultery and the Civil Code--_Quem nuptiœ demonstrant_--Why
the Critics exclaimed that my Drama was immoral--Account
given by the least malevolent among them--How prejudices
against bastardy are overcome
_Antony_ has given rise to so many controversies, that I must ask
permission not to leave the subject thus; moreover, this work is not
merely the most original and characteristic of all my works, but
it is one of those rare creations which influences its age. When I
wrote _Antony_, I was in love with a woman of whom, although far from
beautiful, I was horribly jealous; jealous because she was placed in
the same position as Adèle; her husband was an officer in the army;
and the fiercest jealousy that a man can feel is that roused by the
existence of a husband, seeing that one has no grounds for quarrelling
with a woman who possesses a husband, however jealous one may be of
him. One day she received a letter from her husband announcing his
return. I almost went mad. I went to one of my friends employed in
the War Office; three times the leave of absence, which was ready to
be sent off, disappeared; it was either torn up or burnt by him. The
husband did not return. What I suffered during that time of suspense, I
could not attempt to describe, although twenty-four years have passed
over, since that love departed the way of the poet Villon's "old
moons." But read _Antony_: that will tell you what I suffered!
_Antony_ is not a drama, nor a tragedy! not even a theatrical piece;
_Antony_ is a description of love, of jealousy and of anger, in five
acts. Antony was myself, leaving out the assassination, and Adèle was
my mistress, leaving out the flight. Therefore, I took Byron's words
for my epigram, "_People said Childe Harold was myself ... it does not
matter if they did!_ "I put the following verses as my preface; they
are not very good; I could improve them now: but I shall do nothing of
the kind, they would lose their flavour. Poor as they are, they depict
two things well enough: the feverish time at which they were composed
and the disordered state of my heart at that period.
"Que de fois tu m'as dit, aux heures du délire,
Quand mon front tout à coup devenait soucieux:
'Sur ta bouche pourquoi cet effrayant sourire?
Pourquoi ces larmes dans tes yeux?'
Pourquoi? C'est que mon cœur, au milieu des délices,
D'un souvenir jaloux constamment oppressé,
Froid au bonheur présent, va chercher ses supplices
Dans l'avenir et le passé!
Jusque dans tes baisers je retrouve des peines,
Tu m'accables d'amour!... L'amour, je m'en souviens,
Pour la première fois s'est glissé dans tes veines
Sous d'autres baisers que les miens!
Du feu des voluptés vainement tu m'enivres!
Combien, pour un beau jour, de tristes lendemains!
Ces charmes qu'à mes mains, en palpitant, tu livres,
Palpiteront sous d'autres mains!
Et je ne pourrai pas, dans ma fureur jalouse,
De l'infidélité te réserver le prix;
Quelques mots à l'autel t'ont faite son épouse,
Et te sauvent de mon mépris.
Car ces mots pour toujours ont vendu tes caresses;
L'amour ne les doit plus donner ni recevoir;
L'usage des époux à réglé les tendresses,
Et leurs baisers sont un devoir.
Malheur, malheur à moi, que le ciel, en ce monde,
A jeté comme un hôte à ses lois étranger!
À moi qui ne sais pas, dans ma douleur profonde,
Souffrir longtemps sans me venger!
Malheur! car une voix qui n'a rien de la terre
M'a dit: 'Pour ton bonheur, c'est sa mort qu'il te faut?'
Et cette voix m'a fait comprendre le mystère
Et du meurtre et de l'échafaud....
Viens donc, ange du mal, dont la voix me convie,
Car il est des instants où, si je te voyais,
Je pourrais, pour son sang, t'abandonner ma vie
Et mon âme ... si j'y croyais!"
What do you think of my lines? They are impious, blasphemous and
atheistic, and, in fact, I will proclaim it, as I copy them here nearly
a quarter of a century after they were made, they would be inexcusably
poor if they had been written in cold blood. But they were written at a
time of passion, at one of those crises when a man feels driven to give
utterance to his sorrows, and to describe his sufferings in another
language than his ordinary speech. Therefore, I hope they may earn the
indulgence of both poets and philosophers.
Now, was _Antony_ really as immoral a work as certain of the papers
made out? No; for, in all things, says an old French proverb (and,
since the days of Sancho Panza, we know that proverbs contain the
wisdom of nations), we must see the end first before passing judgment.
Now, this is how _Antony_ ends. Antony is engaged in a guilty intrigue,
is carried away by an adulterous passion, and kills his mistress to
save her honour as a wife, and dies afterwards on the scaffold, or at
least is sent to the galleys for the rest of his days. Very well, I
ask you, are there many young society people who would be disposed to
fling themselves into a sinful intrigue, to enter upon an adulterous
passion,--to become, in short, Antonys and Adèles, with the prospect in
view, at the end of their passion and romance, of death for the woman
and of the galleys for the man? People will answer me, that it is the
form in which it is put that is dangerous, that Antony makes murder
admirable, and Adèle justifies adultery.
But what would you have! I cannot make my lovers hideous in character,
unsightly in looks and repulsive in manners. The love-making between
Quasimodo and Locuste would not be listened to beyond the third scene!
Take Molière for instance. Does not Angélique betray Georges Dandin
in a delightful way? And Valère steal from his father in a charming
fashion? And Don Juan deceive Dona Elvire in the most seductive of
language? Ah! Molière knew as well as the moderns what adultery was! He
died from its effects. What broke his heart, the heart which stopped
beating at the age of fifty-three? The smiles given to the young Baron
by la Béjart, her ogling looks at M. de Lauzun, a letter addressed
by her to a third lover and found the morning of that ill-fated
representation of the _Malade imaginaire_ which Molière could scarcely
finish! It is true that, in Molière's time, it was called cuckoldry and
made fun of; that nowadays, we style it adultery, and weep over it.
Why was it called cuckoldry in the seventeenth century and adultery in
the nineteenth? I will tell you. Because, in the seventeenth century,
the Civil Code had not been invented. The Civil Code? What has that to
do with it? You shall see. In the seventeenth century there existed
the rights of primogeniture, seniority, trusteeship and of entail; and
the oldest son inherited the name, title and fortune; the other sons
were either made M. le Chevalier or M. le Mousquetaire or M. l'Abbé,
as the case might be. They decorated the first with the Malta Cross,
the second they decked out in a helmet with buffalo tails, they endowed
the third with a clerical collar. While, as for the daughters, they
did not trouble at all about them; they married whom they liked if
they were pretty, and anybody who would have them if they were plain.
For those who either would not or could not be married there remained
the convent, that vast sepulchre for aching hearts. Now, although
three-quarters of the marriages were _marriages de convenance_, and
contracted between people who scarcely knew each other, the husband
was nearly always sure that his first male child was his own. This
first male child secured,--that is to say, the son to inherit his name,
title and fortune, when begotten by him,--what did it matter who was
the father of M. le Chevalier, M. le Mousquetaire or M. l'Abbé? It
was all the same to him, and often he did not even inquire into the
matter! Look, for example, at the anecdote of Saint-Simon and of M. de
Mortemart.
But in our days, alas, it is very different! The law has abolished
the right of primogeniture; the Code forbids seniorities, entail and
trusteeships. Fortunes are divided equally between the children;
even daughters are not left out, but have the same right as sons to
the paternal inheritance. Now, from the moment that the _quem nuptiœ
demonstrant_ knows that children born during wedlock will share his
fortune in equal portions, he takes care those children shall be his
own; for a child, not his, sharing with his legitimate heirs, is
simply a thief. And this is the reason why adultery is a crime in the
nineteenth century, and why cuckoldom was only treated as a joke in the
seventeenth.
Now, what is the reason that people do not exclaim at the immorality
of Angélique, who betrays Georges Dandin, of Valère who robs his papa,
of Don Juan who deceives Charlotte, Mathurine and Doña Elvire all at
the same time? Because all those characters--Georges Dandin, Harpagon,
Don Carlos, Don Alonzo and Pierrot--lived two or three centuries
before us, and did not talk as we do, nor were dressed as we dress;
because they wore breeches, jerkins, cloaks and plumed hats, so that
we do not recognise ourselves in them. But directly a modern author,
more bold than others, takes manners as they actually are, passion as
it really is, crime from its secret hiding-places and presents them
upon the stage in white ties, black coats, and trousers with straps
and patent leather boots--ah! each one sees himself as in a mirror,
and sneers instead of laughing, attacks instead of approving, groans
instead of applauding. Had I put Adèle into a dress of the time of
Isabella of Bavaria and Antony into a doublet of the time of Louis
d'Orléans, and if I had even made the adultery between brother-in-law
and sister-in-law, nobody would have objected. What critic dreams of
calling Œdipus immoral, who kills his father and marries his mother,
whose children are his sons, grandson and brothers all at the same
time, and ends, by putting out his own eyes to punish himself, a
futile action, since the whole thing was looked upon as the work of
fate? Not a single one! But would any poor devil be so silly as to
recognise a likeness of himself under either a Grecian cloak or a
Theban tunic? I would, indeed, like to have the opinion of some of the
moralists of the Press who condemned _Antony;_ that, for instance of
M. ---- who, at that time, was living openly with Madame ---- (I nearly
said who). If I put it before my readers, the revelation would not fail
to interest them. I can only lay my hands on one article; true, I am at
Brussels and write these lines after two in the morning. I exhume that
article from a very honest and innocent book--the _Annuaire historique
et universel_ by M. Charles Louis-Lesur. Here it is--it is one of the
least bitter of the criticisms.
"_Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin_ (3 May).
_"First performance of Antony, a drama in five acts by M.
Alexandre Dumas._
"In an age and in a country where bastardy would be a
stain bearing the stamp of the law, sanctioned by custom
and a real social curse, against which a man, however
rich in talent, honours and fortune would struggle in
vain, the moral aim of the drama of _Antony_ could easily
be explained; but, nowadays when, as in France, _all
special privileges of birth are done away with_, those
of plebeian as well as of illegitimate origin, why this
passionate pleading, to which, necessarily, there cannot
be any contradiction and reply? Moral aim being altogether
non-existent in _Antony_, what else is there in the work?
Only the frenzied portrayal of an adulterous passion, which
stops at nothing to satisfy itself, which plays with dangers
and murder and death."
Then follows an unamiable analysis of the piece and the criticism
continues--
"Such a conception no more bears the scrutiny of good
common sense than a crime brought before the Assize-courts
can sustain the scrutiny of a jury. The author, by placing
himself in an unusual situation of ungovernable and cruel
passions, which spare neither tears nor blood, removes
himself outside the pale of literature; his work is a
monstrosity, although we ought in fairness to say that some
parts are depicted with an uncommon degree of strength,
grace and beauty. Bocage and Madame Dorval distinguished
themselves by the talent and energy with which they played
the two leading parts of Antony and Adèle."
My dear Monsieur Lesur, I could answer your criticism from beginning to
end; but I will only reply to the statements I have underlined, which
refer to bastardy, with which you start your article. Well, dear sir,
you are wrong; privileges of birth are by no means overcome, as you
said. I myself know and you also knew,--I say _you knew_, because I
believe you are dead,--you, a talented man--nay, even more, a man of
genius, who had a hard struggle to make your fortune, and who, in spite
of talent, genius, fortune, were constantly reproached with the fatal
accident of your birth. People cavilled over your age, your name, your
social status ... Where? Why, in that inner circle where laws are made,
and where, consequently, they ought not to have forgotten that the law
proclaims the equality of the French people one with another. Well!
that man, with the marvellous persistence which characterises him, will
gain his object: he will be a Minister one day. Well, at that day what
will they attack in him?--His opinions, schemes, Utopian ideas? Not at
all, only his birth!--And who will attack it?--Some mean rascal who has
the good luck to possess a father and a mother, who, unfortunately,
have reason to blush for him!
But enough about _Antony_, which we will leave, to continue its run
of a hundred performances in the midst of the political disturbances
outside; and let us return to the events which caused these
disturbances.