"Would you sell any other picture for which you could get the same

price?"

"Any other, but not that one."

"And why not this one?"

"Because I have been told so often that it is bad that I have taken an

affection for it, as a mother loves her poor, weakly, sickly deformed

child. In my studio, poor pariah that it is! it stands for me to look

it in the face when people look askance at it; to comfort it when

people humiliate it; to defend it when it is attacked. With you, it

would have at all events a guardian, if not a father; for, if you were

to buy it, it would be because you love it, as you are not a rich man.

In the case of the prince, in place of sincere praise there would be

that of courtiers: 'The painting is good, because Monseigneur has

bought it. Monseigneur is too much of an artist and a connoisseur to

make a mistake. Criticism must be at fault, the old witch! Detestable

old Sibyl!' But in the hands of a stranger, an indifferent person, whom

it cost nothing and who had no reason for taking its part, no, no, no.

My poor _Marino Faliero_, do not be anxious, thou shalt not go!"

And it was in vain that I begged and prayed and urged him; Delacroix

stuck to his word. Certain that the Duc d'Orléans should not think

my action wrong, I went as far as eight thousand francs. Delacroix

obstinately refused. The picture is still in his studio. That was just

like the man, or, rather, the artist!

At the Salon of 1826, which lasted six months, and was three times

replenished, Delacroix exhibited a _Justinien_ and _Christ au jardin

des Oliviers_, wonderful for their pain and sadness; they can now be

seen in the rue Saint-Antoine and the Church of St. Paul on the right

as you enter. I never miss going into the church when I pass that

way, to make my oblation as a Christian and an artist should before

the picture. All these subjects were wisely chosen; and as they were

beautiful and not bizarre they did not raise a stir. People indeed said

that _Justinien_ looked like a bird, and the _Christ_, like.... some

thing or other; but they were harking back more to the past than the

present. But, suddenly, at the final replenishing, arrived ... what?

Guess ... Do you not remember?--No--The _Sardanapale._ Ah! so it did!

This time there was a general hue-and-cry.

The King of Assyria, his head wrapped round with a turban, clad

in royal robes, sitting surrounded with silver vases and golden

water-jugs, pearl collars and diamond bracelets, bronze tripods with

his favourite, the beautiful Mirrha, upon a pile of faggots, which

seemed like slipping down and falling on the public. All round the

pile, the wives of the Oriental monarch were killing themselves,

whilst the slaves were leading away and killing his horses. The attack

was so violent, criticism had so many things to find fault with in

that enormous canvas--one of the largest if not the largest in the

Salon--that the attack drowned defence: his fanatical admirers tried

indeed to rally in square of battle about their chief; but the Academy

itself, the Old Guard of _Classicism_, charged determinedly; the

unlucky partizans of _Sardanapale_ were routed, scattered and cut to

pieces! They disappeared like a water-spout, vanished like smoke, and,

like Augustus, Delacroix called in vain for his legions! Thiers had

hidden himself, nobody knew where. The creator of _Sardanapale_,--it

goes without saying that Delacroix was no longer remembered as the

painter of _Dante_, of the _Massacre de Scio_ or of _Grèce sur les

ruines de Missolonghi_, or of _Christ au jardin des Oliviers_, no, he

was the creator of _Sardanapale_ and of no other work whatever!--was

for five years without an order. Finally, in 1831, as we have already

said, he exhibited his _Tigres_, his _Liberté_ and his _Assassinat de

l'Évêque de Liège_, and, round these three most remarkable works, those

who had survived the last defeat began to rally. The Duc d'Orléans

bought the _Assassinat de l'Évêque de Liège_, and the government, the

_Liberté._ The _Tigres_ remained with its creator.

CHAPTER XII

Three portraits in one frame

Now--judging by myself at least--next to the appreciation of the work

of great men, that which rouses the most curiosity is their method of

working. There are museums where one can study all the phases of human

gestation; conservatories where one can almost by the aid of the naked

eye alone follow the development of plants and flowers. Tell me, is

it not just as curious to watch the varying phenomena of the working

of the intellect? Do you not think that it is as interesting to see

what is passing in the brain of man, especially if that man be an

artist like Vernet, or Delaroche or Delacroix; a scientist like Arago,

Humboldt or Berzélius; a poet like Goethe, Hugo or Lamartine, as it

is to look through a glass shade and see what is happening inside a

bee-hive?

One day I remarked to one of my misanthropic friends that, amongst

animals, the brain of the ant most resembled that of man.

"Your statement is not very complimentary to the ant!" replied the

misanthrope.

I am not entirely of my friend's way of thinking. I believe, on the

contrary, that the brain of man is, of all brains, the most interesting

to examine. Now, as it is the brain--so far, at least, as our present

knowledge permits us to dogmatise--which creates thought, thought

which controls action and action which produces deeds, we can boldly

say that to study character, to examine the execution of works which

are the productions of temperament, is to study the brain. We have

described Horace Vernet's physical appearance: small, thin, slight,

pleasant to look at, good to listen to, with his unusual hair, his

thick eyebrows, his blue eyes, his long nose, his smiling mouth beneath

its long moustache, and his beard cut to a point. He is, we added, all

life and movement. Vernet, at the end of his career, will, indeed, be

one who has lived a full life, and, when he stops, he will have gone

farthest; thanks to the post, to horses, camels, steamboats and the

railroad, he has certainly, by now (and he is sixty-five), travelled

farther than the Wandering Jew! True, the Wandering Jew goes on foot,

his five sous not permitting him rapid ways of locomotion, and his

pride declining gratuitous locomotion. Vernet, we say, had already

travelled farther than the Wandering Jew had done in a thousand years;

his work itself is a sort of journey: we saw him paint the _Smala_ with

a scaffold mounting as high as the ceiling and terraces extending the

whole length of the room; it was curious to see him, going, coming,

climbing up, descending, only stopping at each station for five

minutes, as one stops at Osnières for five minutes, at Creil for ten

minutes and at Valenciennes for half an hour--and, in the midst of

all this, gossiping, smoking, fencing, riding on horseback, on mules,

on camels, in tilburys, in droschkys, in palanquins, relating his

travels, planning fresh ones, impalpable, becoming apparently almost

invisible: he is flame, water, smoke--a Proteus! Then there was another

odd thing about Vernet: he would start for Rome as he would set out

for Saint-Germain; for China as if for Rome. I have been at his house

six or seven times; the first time he was there--the oddness of the

thing fascinated me; the second time he was in Cairo; the third, in

St. Petersburg; the fourth, in Constantinople; the fifth, in Warsaw;

and the sixth, in Algiers. The seventh time--namely, the day before

yesterday--I found him at the Institute, where he had come after

following the hunt at Fontainebleau, and was giving himself a day's

rest by varnishing a little eighteen-inch picture representing an Arab

astride an ass with a still bleeding lion-skin for saddle-cloth, which

had just been taken from the body of the animal; doing it in as sure

and easy a manner as though he were but thirty. The ass is crossing

a stream, unconscious of the terrible burden it bears, and one can

almost hear the stream prattling over the pebbles; the man, with his

head in the air, looks absently at the blue sky which appears through

the leaves; the flowers with their glowing colours twining up the

tree-trunks and falling down like trumpets of mother-of-pearl or purple

rosettes. This Arab, Vernet had actually come across, sitting calm and

indifferent upon his ass, fresh from killing and skinning the lion.

This is how it had happened. The Arab was working in a little field

near a wood;--a wood is always a bad neighbour in Algeria;--a slave

woman was sitting twenty paces from him, with his child. Suddenly, the

woman uttered a cry ... A lion was by her side. The Arab flew for his

gun, but the woman shouted out to him--

"Let me alone!"

I am mistaken, it was not a slave woman, but the mother who called out

thus. He let her alone. She took her child, put it between her knees

and, turning to the lion, she said to it, shaking her fist at the

animal--

"Ah, you coward! to attack a defenceless woman and child! You think to

terrify me; but I know you. Go and attack my husband instead, who is

down there with a gun ... Go, I tell you! You dare not; you wretch!

It is you who are afraid! Go, you jackal! Off with you, you wolf, you

hyæna! You have a lion's skin on your back but you are no lion!"

The lion withdrew, but, unfortunately, it met the Arab's mother, who

was bringing him his dinner. It leapt on the old woman and began to

eat her. At the cries of his mother the Arab ran up with his gun, and,

whilst the lion was quietly cracking the bones and flesh with its

teeth, he put the muzzle of his gun into the animal's ear and killed it

outright. In conclusion, the Arab did not seem to be any the sadder for

being an orphan, or in better spirits for having killed a lion. Vernet

told me this whilst putting the finishing touches to his picture, which

ought to be completed by now.

Delaroche worked in a very different way; he led no such adventurous

life; he had not too much time for his work. With Delaroche, work

is a constant study and not a game. He was not a born painter, like

Vernet; he did not play with brushes and pencils as a child; he learnt

to draw and to paint, whilst Vernet never learnt anything of the kind.

Delaroche is a man of fifty-six, with smooth hair, once black and now

turning grey, a broad bare forehead, dark eyes fuller of intelligence

than of vivacity, and no beard or whiskers. He is of middle height,

well-set up, even to gracefulness; his movements are slow, his speech

is cold; words and actions, one clearly feels, are subjected to

reflection, and, instead of being spontaneous, like Vernet's, only

come, so to speak, as the result of thought. Just as Vernet's life is

turbulent, emotional and, like a leaf, carried unresistingly by the

wind that blows, so the life of Delaroche, of his own free will, was

tranquil and sedentary. Every time Delaroche went a journey,--and he

went very few, I believe,--it was necessity which compelled him to

leave his studio: it was some real, serious, artistic business which

called him away. Wherever he goes, he stays, plants himself down and

takes root, and it costs him as much pain to go back as it did to

come. No one could less resemble Vernet in his method of working than

Delaroche. Vernet knows all his sitters through and through, from the

aigrette on the schako to the gaiter-buttons. He has so often lived

under a tent, that its cords and piquets are familiar objects to

him; he has seen and ridden and drawn so many horses, that he knows

every kind of harness, from the rough sheep-skin of the Baskir to the

embroidered and jewel-bespangled saddle-cloths of the pacha. He has,

therefore, hardly any need of preparatory studies, no matter what his

subject may be. He scarcely sketches them out beforehand: _Constantine_

cost him an hour's work; the _Smala_, a day. Furthermore, what he does

not know, he guesses. It is quite the reverse with Delaroche. He hunts

a long time, hesitates a great deal, composes slowly; Vernet only

studies one thing, the locality; this is why, having painted nearly all

the battlefields of Europe and of Africa, he is always riding over hill

and dale, and travelling by rail and by boat.

Delaroche, on the contrary, studies everything: draperies, clothing,

flesh, atmosphere, light, half-tones, all the effects of Delaroche

are laboured, calculated, prepared; Vernet's are done on the spur of

the moment. When Delaroche is pondering on a picture, everything is

laid under contribution by him: the library for engravings, museums

for pictures, old clothes' shops for draperies; he tires himself out

with making rough sketches, exhausts himself in first attempts, and

often puts his finest talent into a sketch. A certain feeling of

laboriousness in the picture is the result of this preparatory fatigue,

which, however, is a virtue and not a fault in the eyes of industrious

people.

Like all men of transition periods Delaroche was bound to have great

successes, and he has had them. During the exhibitions of 1826, 1831

and 1834, everyone, before venturing to go to the Salon, asked, "Has

M. Delaroche exhibited?" But from the period, the intermediate year,

in which he united the classical school of painting with the romantic,

the past with the future, David with Delacroix, people were unjust

to him, as they are towards all who live in a state of transition.

Besides, Delaroche does not exhibit any longer; he scarcely even works

now. He has done one composition of foremost excellence, his hemicycle

of the Palais des Beaux-Arts, and that composition, which, in 1831,

was run after by the whole of Paris and annoyed most artists. Why? Has

Delaroche's talent become feebler since the time when people stood in

rows before his pictures and fought in front of his paintings? No,

on the contrary, he has improved; he has become more elevated and

masterly. But, what would you expect! I have compared Paul Delaroche

with Casimir Delavigne, and the same thing happened to the poet as to

the painter; only, with this difference, that the genius of the poet

had decreased, whilst that of the painter not only did not remain

stationary, but went on progressing constantly. At the present time,

one needs to be among the most intimate of the friends of Delaroche to

have the right to enter his studio. Besides, he is not even any longer

in Paris: he is at Nice; he is said to be ill. Hot sun, beautiful

starlit nights, an atmosphere sparkling with fireflies, will cure the

soul, and then the body will soon be cured!...

There is no sort of physical resemblance between Delacroix and his

two rivals. He is like Vernet in figure, almost as slender as he,

very neat and fashionable and dandified. He is fifty-five years old,

his hair, whiskers and moustache, are as dark as when he was thirty;

his hair waves naturally, his beard is scanty, and his moustache, a

little bristly, looks like two wisps of tobacco; his forehead is broad

and prominent, with two thick eyebrows below, over small eyes, which

flash like fire between the long black eyelashes; his skin is brown,

swarthy, mobile and wrinkled like that of a lion; his lips are thick

and sensual, and he smiles often, showing teeth as white as pearls.

All his movements are quick, rapid, emphatic; his words are pictures,

his gestures speaking; his mind is subtle, argumentative, quick at

repartee; he loves a discussion, and is ever ready with some fresh,

sparkling, telling and brilliant hit; although of an adventurous,

fanciful, erratic talent, at the same time he is wise, temperate in

his use of paradox, even classical; one might say that Nature, which

tends to equilibrium, has posed him as a clever coachman, reins well in

hand, to restrain those two fiery steeds called imagination and fancy.

His mind at times overflows its bounds; speech becomes inadequate, his

hand drops the brush, incapable of expressing the theory it wishes to

uphold, and seizes the pen. Then those whose business it is to make

phrases and style and appreciate the value of words are amazed at the

artist's facility in constructing sentences, in handling style, in

bringing out his points; they forget the _Dante_, the _Massacre de

Scio_, the _Hamlet_, the _Tasso_, the _Giaour_, the _Evêque de Liège_,

the _Femmes d'Alger,_ the frescoes of the Chamber of Deputies, the

ceiling of the Louvre; they regret that this man, who writes so well

and so easily and so correctly, is not an author. Then, immediately,

one remembers that many can write like Delacroix, but none can paint as

he does, and one is ready to snatch the pen from his hand in a movement

of terror.

Delacroix holds the middle course between Vernet and Delaroche as

regards rapidity of working: he works up his sketches more carefully

than the former, less so than the latter. He is incontestably superior

to both as a colourist, but strikingly inferior in form. He sees the

colour of flesh as violet, and, in the matter of form, he sees rather

the ugly than the beautiful; but his ugliness is always made poetical

by deep feeling. Entirely different from Delaroche, he is attracted

by extremes. His struggles are terrible, his battles furious; all the

suppleness and strength and extraordinary movements of the body are

drawn on his canvas, and he even adds thereto, like a strange varnish

which heightens the vivid qualities of his picture, a certain automatic

impossibility which does not in the least disconcert him. His fighters

seem actually to be fighting, strangling, biting, tearing, hacking,

cleaving one another in two and pounding one another about; his swords

are broken in two, his axes bloody, his heaps of bodies damp with

crushed brains. Look at the _Bataille de Taillebourg_, and you will

have an idea of the strength of his genius: you can hear the neighing

of the horses, the shouts of men, the clashing of steel. You will find

it in the great gallery of Versailles; and, although Louis-Philippe

curtailed the canvas by six inches all round because the measurement

had been incorrectly given, mutilated as it is, dishonoured by being

forced into M. Fontaines' Procrustes' bed, it still remains one of the

most beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful, of all the pictures in the

whole gallery.

At this moment, Delacroix is doing a ceiling at the Hôtel de Ville. He

leaves his home at daybreak and only returns to it at night. Delacroix

belongs to that rugged family of workers which has produced Raphael and

Rubens. When he gets home, he takes a pen and makes sketches. Formerly,

Delacroix used to go out into society a great deal, where he was a

great favourite; a disease of the larynx has compelled him to retire

into private life. Yesterday I went to see him at midnight. He was in

a dressing-gown, his neck wrapped in a woollen cravat, at work close

to a big fire, which made the temperature of the room 30°.[1] I asked

to see his studio by lamplight. We passed through a corridor crowded

with dahlias, agapanthus lilies and chrysanthemums; then we entered the

studio. The absence of the master, who had been working at the other

end of Paris for six months, had made itself felt; yet there were four

splendid canvases, two representing flowers and two fruit. I thought

from a distance that these were pictures borrowed by Delacroix from

Diaz. That was why there were so many flowers in the anteroom. Then,

after the flowers, which to me were quite fresh, I saw a crowd of old

friends hanging on the walls: _Chevaux anglais qui se mordent dans une

prairie_, a _Grèce qui traverse un champ de bataille au galop_, the

famous _Marino Faliero_, faithful companion of the painter's sad moods,

when he has such moods; and, last, by itself, in a little room at the

side of the great studio, a scene from _Goetz von Berlichingen._ We

parted at two o'clock in the morning.

[1] 30° Cent.=85° Fahr.

CHAPTER XIII

Collaboration--A whim of Bocage--Anicet

Bourgeois--_Teresa_--Drama at the Opéra-Comique--Laferrière

and the eruption of Vesuvius--Mélingue--Fancy-dress ball

at the Tuileries--The place de Grève and the barrière

Saint-Jacques--The death penalty

During the interval which had elapsed between the construction of

_Richard Darlington_ its first performance, I had blocked out another

play entitled _Teresa._ I have said what I thought of _Charles VII._;

I hope that my collaborator Anicet will allow me to say the same in

the case of _Teresa._ I have no wish to defer expressing my opinion

upon this drama: it is one of my very worst, as _Angèle_, also done

in collaboration with Anicet, is one of my best. The evil of a first

collaboration is that it leads to a second; the man who has once

collaborated is comparable to one who lets his finger-end be entrapped

in a rolling press: after the finger the hand goes, then the arm and,

finally, his whole body! Everything is drawn in--one goes in a man and

one comes out a bit of iron wire.

One day Bocage came to see me with a singular idea in his head. As he

had just played a man of thirty, in the character of Antony, he had got

it into his head that he would do well to play an old man of sixty; it

mattered little to him what manner of man it might be. The old man in

_Hernani_ and in _Marion Delorme_ rose up before him during his sleep

and haunted him in his waking hours: he wanted to play an old man, were

it Don Diègue in the _Cid_, Joad in _Athalie_ or Lusignan in _Zaïre._

He had found his old man out at nurse with Anicet Bourgeois; he came

to fetch me to be foster-father. I did not know Anicet; we became

acquainted on this matter and at this time. Anicet had written the plan

of _Teresa._ I began by laying aside the written sketch and begging

him to relate me the play. There is something more living and lifelike

about a told story. To me a written plot is like a corpse, not a living

thing; one may galvanise it but not give it life. Most of the play as

it stands to-day was in Anicet's original plan. I was at once conscious

of two things, the second of which caused me to overlook the first:

namely, that I could never make _Teresa_ anything more than a mediocre

play, but that I should do Bocage a good turn. And this is how I did

Bocage that service.

Harel, as we have said, had gone from the management of the Odéon

to that of the Porte-Saint-Martin. He had Frédérick, Lockroy,

Ligier: Bocage was no use to him. So he had broken with him, and,

in consequence of this rupture, Bocage found himself without an

engagement. Liberty, in the case of an actor, is not always a gift of

the gods. Bocage was anxious to put an end to this as soon as possible,

and, thanks to my drama, he hoped soon to lose his liberty. That is

why he treated _Teresa_ so enthusiastically as a _chef d'œuvre._ I

have ever been less able to resist unspoken arguments than spoken

ones. I understood the situation. I had had need of Bocage; he had

played Antony admirably, and by so doing had rendered me eminent

service: I could now do him a good turn, and I therefore undertook

to write _Teresa._ Not that _Teresa_ was entirely without merit as a

work. Besides the three artificial characters of Teresa, Arthur and

Paolo, there were two excellent parts, those of Amélie and Delaunay.

Amélie is a flower from the same garden as Miranda in _The Tempest_,

Thekla in _Wallenstein_ and Claire in _Comte d'Egmont_; she is young,

chaste and beautiful, and, at the same time, natural and poetic; she

passes through the play with her bouquet of orange blossom at her

side, her betrothal veil on her head, in the midst of the ignoble

incestuous passion of Arthur and Teresa, without guessing or suspecting

or understanding anything of it. She is like a crystal statue which

cannot see through others but lets others see through it. Delaunay is

a fine type, a little too much copied from Danville in the _École de

Vieillards_, and from Duresnel in the _Mère et la Fille._ However--one

must be just to everyone, even to oneself,--there are two scenes in

his part which reach to the greatest heights of beauty to be met with

on the stage: the first is where he insults Arthur, when the secret of

the adultery is revealed to him; the second is where, learning that his

daughter is _enciente_, and not desiring to make the mother a widow

and the child an orphan, he makes excuses to his son-in-law. The drama

was begun and almost finished in three weeks or a month; but I made

the same condition with Anicet which I have always made when working

in collaboration, namely, that I alone should write the play. When the

drama was completed, Bocage took it, and we did not trouble our heads

further about it. For three weeks or a month I did not see Bocage

again. At the end of that time he came to me.

"Our business is settled," he said.

"Good! And how?"

"Your play is received in advance; you are to have a premium of a

thousand francs upon its reading, and it is to be played immediately."

"Where?"

"At the Opéra-Comique."

I thought I must have misunderstood. "What?" I said.

"At the Opéra-Comique," repeated Bocage.

"Oh! that's a fine tale! Who made that up?"

"They are engaging the actors."

"Who are they?"

"Myself, in the first place."

"You do not play the drama all alone?"

"Then there is Laferrière."

"You two will not play it by yourselves?"

"Then a talented young girl who is at Montmartre."

"What is her name?"

"Oh! you will not even know her name; she is called Ida; she is just

beginning."

"And then?"

"Then a young man recommended to me by your son."

"What! By my son? At six and a half years of age my son make

recommendations of that sort?"

"It is his tutor."

"I see; he wants to get rid of him. But if that one leaves he will have

another. Such is the simplicity of childhood! And what is the name of

my son's tutor?"

"Guyon. He is a tall fellow of five foot six, with dark hair and eyes,

and a magnificent head! He will make us a superb Paolo."

"So much for Paolo? Next?"

"Next we shall have the Opéra-Comique company, from which we can help

ourselves freely. They sing."

"They sing, you are pleased to say; but can they speak?"

"That is your affair."

"So, is it settled like that?"

"If you approve. Are you agreeable?"

"Perfectly."

"Then we are to read it to the actors to-morrow."

"Let us do so."

Next day I read it to the actors; two days later the play was put in

rehearsal. I knew Laferrière only slightly; but he had already at that

period, when less used to the stage, the elements of talent to which he

owed his reputation later as the first actor in love-scenes to be found

between the Porte-Saint-Denis and the Colonne de Juillet. Mademoiselle

Ida had a delicate, graceful, artless style, quite unaffected by any

theatrical convention. Bocage was the man we know, endowed with youth,

that excellent and precious fault, which is never injurious even in

playing the parts of old men. So we were in the full tide of rehearsal,

when the year 1832 began and the newspapers of I January announced a

fearful eruption of Vesuvius.

I was considerably surprised to receive a visit from Laferrière with a

newspaper in his hand, on the 7th or 8th. He was as much out of breath

as I was the day I went to Delacroix to buy his _Marino Faliero._

"Hullo!" I said to him, "is the Opéra-Comique burnt down?"

"No, but _Torre-del-Grèco_ is burning."

"It ought to be used to it by now, for, if I mistake not, it has been

rebuilt eleven times!"

"It must be a magnificent sight!"

"Do you happen to want to start for Naples?"

"No; but you might derive profit from it."

"How?"

"Read."

He handed me his newspaper, which contained a description of the latest

eruption of Vesuvius.

"Well?" I said to him when I had read it.

"Well, do you not think that superb?"

"Magnificent!"

"Put that in my part then. Run your show with Vesuvius; the play would

gain by it."

"And your rôle likewise."

"Of course!"

"You infernal mountebank; what an idea!"

Laferrière began to laugh.

There are two men who possess a great advantage for authors in two

very different functions, with two very different types of talent:

Laferrière is the one, and Mélingue the other. From the very hour

when they have first listened to the reading of a work, to the moment

when the curtain goes up, they have but one thought: to collect, weld

together and work in anything that might be useful to the work. Their

searching eyes are not distracted for one instant; not for a second do

their minds wander from the point. They think of their parts while they

are walking, eating and drinking; they dream of them while they sleep.

I shall return to Mélingue more than once in reference to this quality,

one of the most precious a great actor can possess.

Laferrière has plenty of pertinacity.

"Well," I said to him, "it is a good idea and I will adopt it."

"Will you really?"

"Yes."

"You promise me?"

"I promise you."

"Very well then.."

"What?"

"It is all the same to you..

"Say on."

"You will do it ..."

"Immediately?"

"Yes."

"Now, at once?"

"I beseech you."

"I have not time."

"Oh! mon petit Dumas! Do me my Vesuvius. I promise you, if you will do

it to-day I will know it by to-morrow."

"Once more I tell you I haven't time."

"How long would it take you to do it?"

"How long?"

"Ten minutes ... come, that is all.... I entreat you!"

"Go to the deuce with you!"

"Mon petit Dumas!..."

"All right, we will see."

"You are kind!"

"Give me a pen, ink and paper."

"Here they are!... No, do not get up: I will bring the table up to you

... Come, is it comfortable like that?"

"Splendid! Now, go away and come back in a quarter of an hour."

"Oh! what will you be up to when I am gone?"

"I cannot work when anybody is with me. Even my dog disturbs me."

"I will not stir, mon petit Dumas! I will not utter one word; I will

keep perfectly still."

"Then go and sit before the glass, button up your coat, put on a gloomy

look and pass your hand through your hair."

"Certainly."

"And I will do my part of the work."

A quarter of an hour later, Vesuvius was making an eruption in

Laferrière's part, and he took himself off in great glee and pride.

All things considered, the race of players are a good sort! A trifle

ungrateful, at times; but has not our friend Roqueplan proclaimed the

principle that "ingratitude is the independence of the heart?..."

At this time, people were tremendously taken up with a forthcoming

event, as they were with everything of an artistic nature. King

Louis-Philippe was giving a fancy-dress ball. Duponchel had been

ordered to design the historic costumes; and people begged, prayed and

implored for invitations. It was a splendid ball. All the political

celebrities were present; but, as always happens, all the artistic and

literary celebrities were absent.

"Will you do something which shall surpass the Tuileries ball?" said

Bocage to me.

"What is that?"

"Give one yourself!"

"I! Who would come to it?"

"First of all, those who did not go to King Louis-Philippe's, then

those who do not belong to the Académy. It seems to me that the guests

I offer you are quite distinguished enough."

"Thanks, Bocage, I will think about it."

I thought about it to some purpose, and the result of my reflections

will be seen in one of our forthcoming chapters.

On the 23rd of the month of January,--the next day but one after

the anniversary of the death of King Louis XVI.,--the usual place

for executions was changed from the place de Grève to the barrière

Saint-Jacques. This was one step in advance in civilisation: let us put

it down here, by quoting the edict of M. de Bondy.

"We, a peer of France, Préfet de la Seine, etc.; In view of

the letter addressed to us by M. le Procureur-général at the

Royal Court of Paris:

"Whereas the place de Grève can no longer be used as a

place of execution, since the blood of devoted citizens

was gloriously spilled there in the national cause:

whereas it is important to choose, if possible, a place

farther removed from the centre of Paris, yet which shall

be easily accessible: whereas, for different reasons, the

place situated at the extremity of the rue du faubourg

Saint-Jacques seems to suit the requisite conditions; we

have decided that--

"Criminals under capital punishment shall in future

be executed on the ground at the end of the faubourg

Saint-Jacques. COMTE DE BONDY"

This is what we wrote on the subject on 26 November 1849, in an

epilogue to _Comte Hermann_,--one of our best dramas,--an epilogue

not written to be spoken, but to be read, after the fashion of German

plays--

"The death penalty, as applied to-day, has already undergone

a great modification, not with respect to its final issue,

but with regard to the details which precede the last

moments of the condemned.

"Twenty years ago, executions still took place in the centre

of Paris, at the most stirring hour of the day and before

the greatest possible number of spectators. Thus an external

means of support was provided for the doomed man against his

own weakness. It did not make the sufferer into a repentant

criminal, but a species of cynical victor, who, instead of

confessing God upon the scaffold, bore testimony against the

inadequacy of human justice, which could, indeed, kill the

criminal, but was powerless to extinguish the crime.

"Now, it is quite otherwise. A step has been taken towards

the abolition of capital punishment, by transporting the

instrument of execution almost outside the precincts of the

town, choosing the hour when the majority of the inhabitants

of Paris are still asleep, only allowing the criminal during

his last moments the rare witnesses that chance or excessive

curiosity may attract to the scaffold.

"Nowadays, it is left to the priests who devote themselves

to the salvation of the souls of the doomed to tell us if

they find as much hardness of heart in the journey between

Bicêtre and the barrière Saint-Jacques as they used to find

in the journey from the Conciergerie to the place de Grève;

and whether there are more tears shed at the foot of the

crucifix now, at four o'clock in the morning, than formerly,

at four in the afternoon. We firmly believe so. Yes, there

are more repentances in the silence and solitude than there

ever were in the tumult of the crowd. Now, let us consider

that the act of execution, supported by the eager looks of

the people, does not correct them or instruct them but only

hardens their hearts; let us suppose that the execution

takes place in the prison, with priest and executioner as

sole witnesses; that, instead of the guillotine,--which,

according to Dr. Guillotin, only occasions a feeling of a

_slight chill_ on the neck, but which, according to Dr. Sue,

causes terrible suffering,--the sole means of execution used

is electricity, which kills like lightning, or even one of

those stupefying poisons which act like sleep; will it not

happen that the hearts of the doomed will soften still more

in the night and silence and solitude, than in the open

air, were it even at four o'clock in the morning, and in

the presence of the few witnesses who are present at the

execution, but who, few though they be, will none the less

say to the criminal's companions, to his prison friends,

'_un tel est bien mort!_' that is to say I such a one died

without repenting, pushing the crucifix away from him?"

Since that time, the guillotine has come still nearer to the condemned

man: now, they execute in front of the gates of the prison de la

Roquette. It is but a few steps from that to executing inside the

prison itself. And to descend from the prison courtyard into the

dungeon itself is but a single step!

CHAPTER XIV

The peregrinations of Casimir Delavigne--_Jeanne

Vaubernier_--Rougemont--His translation of Cambronne's

_mot_--First representation of _Teresa_--Long and short

pieces--Cordelier Delanoue and his _Mathieu Luc_--Closing

of the Taitbout Hall and arrest of the leaders of the

Saint-Simonian cult

Whilst the Opéra-Comique was rehearsing _Teresa_, the Théâtre-Français

was preparing for a great occasion. Casimir Delavigne, the dramatic

Coriolanus, after having been rejected by the Volscians of the

boulevards, with _Marino Faliero_ in his hand, instead of falling

beneath the dagger of M. de Mongenet, had been received back

triumphantly into the Théâtre-Français. The flight, after all, had

been but a passing coolness after the immense success of the _École

des Vieillards._ Casimir had had a sort of decline; Mademoiselle

Mars had not been able to uphold the _Princesse Aurélié_, a kind of

Neapolitan imbroglio which everybody has forgotten to-day, happily for

the memory of its author. Then the presence of Victor Hugo and myself

at the Théâtre-Français annoyed Casimir Delavigne. He well understood

that his popularity was only a political one: he possessed neither the

lofty poetry of Victor, nor the movement and life of my ignorant and

incorrect prose; in a word, he was ill at ease when close to us. He

gave vent to a phrase concerning me which well summed up his thought--

"The work that deuced Dumas does is bad; but it prevents people from

seeing the goodness of mine."

So he had migrated to the Porte-Saint-Martin, because we were at the

Théâtre-Français, and now he returned to the Théâtre-Français because

we were at the Porte-Saint-Martin. He returned to it with one of his

mixed works, half classical and half romantic, which do not belong

to any sort of school; literary hermaphrodites, which bear the same

relation to intellectual productions as, in Natural History, do mules,

_i.e._ animals which cannot reproduce themselves, to the ordinary

productions of nature: they make a species, but not a race.

The work that Casimir Delavigne brought back to the Théâtre-Français

was _Louis XI._,--according to our opinion, one of his most mediocre

dramas, the least studied as history, and one which, engineered by a

clever artifice which we will shortly relate, through the frail sickly

period of its youth to its maturity, only owes its patent of longevity

to the rather egotistic favour accorded by a player who was crazy to

play this rôle because it was an unusual type which suited him. Do not

be deceived, it is not _Louis XI._ that lives to-day, but Ligier.[1] We

will refer again to Casimir Delavigne's drama on the occasion of its

first performance.

The first performance of _Teresa_ was announced for the 5th or 6th of

February. Meanwhile the Odéon gave _Jeanne Vaubernier._ It was thus

that certain authors conceived the idea of reviving the name of the

_Comtesse du Barry_, that poor woman who was neither worthy of her high

prosperity nor her deep misfortune, and who, according to Lamartine's

fine expression, dishonoured both the throne and the scaffold. MM.

de Rougemont, Laffitte and Lagrange were the authors of _Jeanne

Vaubernier._ Rougemont was a clever man who, towards the close of his

life, had a strange fate. The _Duchesse de la Vaubalière_ brought

him a septuagenarian reputation. It was Rougemont who translated the

military substantive flung by Cambronne in the face of the English,

on the terrible night of Waterloo, into the pompous, redundant and

pretentious phrase which has become of European and world-wide fame:

"The Guard dies, and does not return!" As far as I can remember, the

drama of _Jeanne Vaubernier_--such as it was, with six tableaux, its

Zamore, the ungrateful traitor, its prison and its executioner--was a

very poor concern. I have not seen it, and will not therefore discuss

it any further. But, from the ghost of this drama, from the fallen

statue, from the least broken fragments which could be made to do

duty, the authors composed a little comedy in which Madame Dorval's

wit was charmingly light. Dear Dorval! I can see her as she was that

successful night, a night which, thanks to her, was saved from being a

failure: she was enchanted, never suspecting that the comedy of _Jeanne

Vaubernier_ would be a chain she would have to wear for eighteen months

at the Porte-Saint-Martin, from six to eight o'clock in the evening,

before the benches which did not fill up until the beginning of the

great drama! To Georges--especially after her reconciliation with

Dorval--it was to be a matter of keen remorse, this punishment which

she inflicted on her rival in expiation of her triumphs, and which

compelled her to leave the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre to go and bury

herself in the Théâtre-Français.

The day of the first performance of _Teresa_ arrived. The confusion

of styles, the beginning of drama at the Opéra-Comique, had piqued

the curiosity of the public, and people clamoured to get in. I have

already said that the thing was not worth the trouble. Laferrière had

given me a good idea with his story of Vesuvius; the exhibition was

highly applauded. I recollect that when I entered the wings, after the

first act, that excellent fellow Nourrit, who had just been praising

the description of the town wherein he was to die, threw himself upon

my neck in his enthusiasm. The piece unfolded itself slowly, and with

a certain majestic dignity, before a select audience. The character of

Amélie, which was very well carried out, made a great hit, and did not

fail in any of its appearances. Madame Moreau-Sainti was ravishingly

beautiful, and as sympathetic as a bad part allowed. Laferrière came

and went, warming up the parts taken by others by his own enthusiastic

warmth. Bocage was superb. A misfortune happened to the actor

recommended by my son. Unfamiliarity with stage-craft had obliged Guyon

to give up the part of Paolo to go more deeply into dramatic studies.

Féréol had taken his place; they had added some barcarolle or other

for him to sing whilst he was acting, and he played the rest of his

rôle singing. Alexandre found himself with two tutors instead of one!

The curtain went up for the fourth act. From that moment the piece was

saved; in it are the letter scene between the father and the daughter,

and that of the quarrel between the father-in-law and son-in-law. These

two scenes are very fine, and produced a great sensation. This fourth

act had an amazing triumph. Usually, if the fourth act is a success,

it carries the fifth one with it. The first half of the fifth act of

_Teresa_ is, moreover, remarkable in itself; it is the scene of the

excuses between the old man and the young one. It does not become

really bad till _Teresa_ asks Paolo for poison. All this intriguing

between the adulterous woman and the amorous lackey is vulgar, and

has not the merit of being really terrible. But the impression of the

fourth act and of the first half of the fifth was so vivid that it

extended its influence over the imperfections of the _dėnoûment._ In

short, it was a success great enough to satisfy _amour-propre_, but not

to satisfy the claims of art. Bocage was really grand at times. I here

pay him my very sincere compliments for what he then performed. He had

improved as a comedian, and was then, I think, at the height of his

dramatic career. I think so, now I have somewhat outgrown my youthful

illusions; I will therefore tell him, in all frankness, at what moment,

according to my opinion, he took the wrong road and adopted the fatal

system of nervous excitement under the dominion of which he now is.

When the first rage for _Teresa_ had passed they made me a proposal

to change the play into one of three acts, so that it might become a

stock piece. I refused to do it; I did not wish to make a mutilated

play out of a defective one. Anicet, who had a half-share in the work,

urged me so pressingly that I suggested he should perform the operation

himself. He set to work bravely, pruned, cut, curtailed, and one day

I was invited by some player or other, whose name I forget, who was

coming out in the rôle of Arthur, to go and see the piece reduced to

three acts. I went, and I found it to be more detestable and, strange

to say, longer than at first! Lengthiness does not exist on the stage,

practically speaking. There are neither long plays nor short; only

amusing plays and wearisome ones. The _Marriage de Figaro_, which lasts

five hours, is not so long as the _Épreuve nouvelle_, which lasts one

hour. The developments of _Teresa_ taken away, the play had lost its

artistic interest, and, having become more boresome, seemed longer.

One day Cordelier Delanoue came to me looking depressed.

"What is the matter?" I asked him.

"I have just been reading to the Théâtre-Français."

"What!"

"A three-act drama in verse."

"Entitled?"

"_Mathieu Luc._"

"And they have refused it?"

"No, they have accepted it, subject to correction."

"Did they point out what corrections they wanted?"

"Yes; the piece is too long."

"And they demand curtailment?"

"Exactly! and I have come to read it to you."

"So that I may point them out to you?"

"Yes."

"Read it, then!"

Delanoue began to read his three acts. I followed the play with the

greatest attention. I found, whilst he was in the act of reading, a

pivot of interest on which the play could advantageously turn, and

which he had passed over unnoticed.

"Well?" said he when he had finished.

"They were right: it is too long by a third."

"Then it must be cut down."

"No, on the contrary."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You must turn the play into five acts."

"But when they already think it too long by a third?"

"That is neither here nor there.--Listen."

And I told him how I understood the play. Delanoue reconstructed his

_scenario_ under my direction, wrote out his play afresh, read it in

five acts to the committee, which had thought it too long in three, and

it was received with unanimity. The piece was played in five acts--not

at the Théâtre-Français, but, consequent on some revival or other, at

the Théâtre de Odéon, and it succeeded honourably without obtaining a

great success.

Some days before the performance of _Teresa_ an event had happened

which engrossed the attention of Paris. We will take the recital of it

from the _Globe_, which was in a perfect position for telling the truth

in this instance--

"To-day, 22 January, at noon, MM. Enfantin and Olinde

Rodrigues, leaders of the Saint-Simonian religion, laid

their plans to go to the Taitbout Hall, where they were to

preside over the preaching, when a Commissary of Police,

escorted by a Municipal Guard, put in an appearance at No.

6 Rue Monsigny, where they lived, to forbid them to go out,

and prevented all communication between the house and the

outside world, in virtue of the orders which they declared

they possessed.

"Meantime M. Desmortiers, _procureur du roi_, and M.

Zangiacomi, Examining Magistrate, assisted by two

Commissaries of Police and escorted by Municipal Guards

and troops of the line, went to the Taitbout Hall. M.

Desmortiers signified to M. Barrault, who was in the hall,

that the preaching could not take place, and that he had

come to enjoin the meeting to break up. The _procureur du

roi_ immediately appeared in the hall with M. Barrault and

there said: 'In the name of the Law and of Article 292 of

the Penal Code I have come to close this hall and to seal

up all the doors.' The assembly was immediately broken up,

and seals were put to the doors of the Taitbout Hall. M.

Zangiacomi and M. Desmortiers then repaired to No. 5 (6) Rue

Monsigny, where they found MM. Enfantin and Rodrigues; they

declared that they were the bearers of two search-warrants,

one against M. Enfantin and the other against M. Rodrigues,

and that they had come to search the house. They seized M.

Enfantin's correspondence, all the account-books and the

bills-due books."

Free to-day from the prosecution of MM. Zangiacomi and Desmortiers, the

Saint-Simonians are not at all rid of us, and we shall hunt them out

again in their retreat at Ménilmontant.

[1] See critical analysis of _Louis XI._ in _Études dramatiques._

CHAPTER XV

Mély-Janin's _Louis XI._

Three days after _Térésa_ the _Louis XI._ of Casimir Delavigne was

played. I have spoken of Mély-Janin's drama entitled _Louis XI._,

which had deeply impressed Soulié and me in 1827. It had, no doubt,

also impressed Casimir Delavigne, who was most sensitive to such

impressions. Casimir seemed to have been created and brought into

this world to prove that the system of innate ideas is the falsest of

philosophical systems. We are about to devote a few lines to the study

of the _Louis XI._ of 1827 and that of 1832, Mély-Janin's drama and

that of Casimir Delavigne. We do not wish to say that these two men

were of the same substance; but, having Walter Scott ostensibly as

ally, the journalist found himself, one fine night, a match for the

dramatic author. We say _ostensibly_, because Casimir Delavigne did

not himself totally scorn alliance with the Scottish bard; only, as

Walter Scott was still unpopular in France with many people, because of

his _History of Napoléon_, Casimir, in his capacity of _National_ poet

(it was upon that nationality the fragile pyramid of his talent was

specially founded), did not want openly to confess that alliance.

Let us begin with Mély-Janin. At the rising of the curtain one sees a

landscape, representing the château of Plessis-les-Tours, a hostelry

and a _smiling countryside,_ after the fashion of the time. Wherever

anything is not copied from Walter Scott we find, as in that _smiling

countryside_, a specimen of the style of the Empire. Isabelle, the

rich heiress of Croy, is on the stage with her maid of honour, her

attendant, her confidential friend; a theatrical device invented

to enable one of the principal characters to confide in another a

secret which the teller has known for ten years, and with which the

general public now becomes acquainted. In ancient tragedy, when this

functionary is a man, he is called Euphorbus (?), Arcas or Corasmin;

when a woman, she is called Julia, Œnone or Fatima, and bears the

innocent title of confidant. Well, Isabelle confides to the woman who

accompanies her in her flight that she has come from the court of

Burgundy to the court of France because Duke Charles, fearing to see

her dispose of her immense wealth, wished to force her to marry either

the Comte de Crèvecœur or the Comte de la Marck, nicknamed the Boar of

the Ardennes. She informs her (this same Eléonore, who has not left

her side for one moment) that she has found protection, safe although

not particularly entertaining, in King Louis XI. The sole anxiety she

feels is to know if _he_, whom she has not had time to forewarn of her

flight, will have the perseverance to follow her, and the skill to

find her again. This is a point upon which Eléonore, well informed as

she is, cannot instruct her; but, as Éléonore has learnt nearly all

she knows and the public all it needs to know, one sees advancing from

the distance two men dressed like decent citizens, who come forward

in their turn and gossip quite naturally of their affairs in the very

place in all France least suitable for the conversation to be held.

Isabelle turns round, sees them and says--

"I see the king coming this way; he is accompanied by his crony

Martigny. The simplicity of his costume shows that he wishes to keep

his incognito. Here he is; let us withdraw."

And Isabelle de Croy and her confidant withdraw to the _garden side_,

having seen Louis XI. and his confidant, whom they must see in order

that the public may know that Louis XI. and his confidant are about to

take part in the scene, whilst Louis XI. and his confidant, who do not

need to see Isabelle and her confidant, and who indeed ought not to see

them, do not see them.

You may tell me this is not a very accurate reproduction of the habits

of Louis XI., who, after the nature of cats, foxes and wolves, can see

in the night on all sides of him and behind, too, and is represented

as not able to see things that are in front of him; but I can only

reply that this was how the thing was done on the French stage in the

year of grace 1827, even amongst poets who had the reputation of being

innovators. It will be seen that things had not changed much in 1832.

The hatred which was entertained against us can easily be imagined,

since we had undertaken to change customs as convenient as these. It

was enough to add in parentheses, and in another style of typography,

when speaking of those who come on--as Mély-Janin does, for instance,

when speaking of the king and his crony Martigny--(_They come on from

the back of the stage, and cannot perceive the comtesse and Éléonore

hidden by the trees._) The matter was no more difficult than that!

Do not forget, if I do, to remind me of the story of the monologue

of Tasso. Louis XI. is also with his confidant, only his confidant

is called _le compère_ Martigny. They come forward, chatting and

disputing; but do not be anxious, they have kept the most important

part of their conversation, that which it is urgent the public should

know, until their entrance upon the stage; so, after a few unimportant

words, exchanged between Louis XI. and his crony, the king says to

Martigny--

"Let us return to the business we have in hand. What news

have the secret emissaries you sent to the court of Burgundy

brought you? Does Charles know that the Comtesse de Croy has

withdrawn into my States? Does he know that I have given her

shelter?"

You see that the old fox Louis XI. wants the emissaries of the crony

Martigny to have informed their master, in order that it may be

repeated to himself, that the Duc de Bourgogne knows that the Comtesse

de Croy has withdrawn to his States, and that he has given her shelter!

As if Louis XI. had need of the emissaries of others! As if he hadn't

his own secret spies, who, at all hours, made their way, under all

sorts of disguises, noiseless, into his private cabinet, where they

were accustomed to talk of his affairs! You must clearly understand

that the two interlocutors would not have come there if the secret

emissaries of the crony Martigny had not arrived. As a matter of fact,

they have returned, and this is the news they have brought: Charles the

Bold knows all; he flew into a violent passion when he learnt it; he

sent the Comte de Crèvecoeur immediately to fetch back Isabelle. They

have learnt, besides, that a young Scotsman, by name Quentin Durward,

has joined the two suitors who aspire to the hand of Isabelle, the

Comte de Crèvecoeur and the Boar of Ardennes, and has the advantage

over them by being loved in return.

"But where, then, has he seen the countess?"

Wait! Here is a clever rase, which prepares us for the

_dénoûment_--

"That is what I cannot find out," replies Martigny; "it is

certain, however, that he has paid her frequent visits at

Herbert's tower."

"At Herbert's tower, sayest thou?"

"Yes; you know that the countess, before surrendering

herself to the protection of your court, had already made

an attempt to escape. The duke, under the first impulse of

anger, had her shut up in Herbert's tower; there she was

strictly guarded, and yet they say that, by some secret

passage, Quentin Durward found means to get to her."

Louis XI. does not know this; and, as he is no doubt ashamed of not

knowing it, instead of replying to Martigny's question, he says--

"But hast thou not tried to attract this young man to my

court?"

"He had left that of the Duc de Bourgogne some time after

the countess."

"He will, no doubt, follow in her track."

As you see, Louis XI. is really much more subtle than he appears. He

continues--

"Martigny, we must watch for his arrival. If he comes, my

favour awaits him ... But what art thou looking at?"

You, I presume, who are not Louis XI., have no doubt what crony

Martigny is looking at? Why! he is looking towards the young man

for whom the king's favours are waiting. This is called _ad eventum

festinare_, moving towards the _dénoûment_; it is recommended in the

first place by Horace, and in the second by Boileau. Thanks to his

disguise, and to a breakfast which he offers to the traveller, Louis

XI. learns that he who has just come is, indeed, the man he is looking

for, that his name is Quentin Durward, that he is a Scot; that is to

say, as nobly born as a king, as poor as a Gascon, and proud, upon my

faith! as proud as himself. The old king, indeed, gets some wild cat

scratches from time to time; but he is used to that: these are the

perquisites of an incognito. Here is an instance. Martigny has gone to

order the breakfast.

"Tell me, Maître Pierre," asks Quentin Durward of the king,

"what is that château which I see in the distance?"

"It is the royal residence."

"The royal residence! Why, then, those battlements, those

high walls, those large moats? Why so many sentinels posted

at regular distances? Do you know, Maître Pierre, that it

has rather the air of a fortress or of a prison than of the

palace of a king?"

"You think so?"

"Why such great precautions?... Tell me, Maître Pierre, if

you were king, would you take so much trouble to defend your

dwelling?"

"But it is as well to be on one's guard; one has seen places

taken by surprise, and princes carried away just when they

least expected such a thing. It seems to me, besides, that

the king's safety demands ..."

"Do you know a surer rampart for a king than the love of his

subjects?"

"No, of course ... yet ..."

"If my lot had placed me on the throne I would rather be

loved than feared; I would like the humblest of my subjects

to have free access to my person; I should rule with so

much wisdom that none would have approached me with evil

intention."

That is not recommended either by Horace or by Boileau, but by the

leader of the _claque._[1] The fashion of giving advice to a king is

always creditable to an author: it is called doing the work of the

opposition; and such clap-trap methods appeal to the gallery.

In spite of the advice given by Mély-Janin to Charles X. which the

latter should have followed as coming from a friend, he appointed the

Polignac Ministry. We know the consequences of that nomination.

Martigny returns. The meal is ready; they sit down to the table. The

wine loosens their tongues, especially the small white wine which is

drunk on the banks of the Loire. Quentin Durward then informs the king

that he is not engaged in the service of any prince, that he is seeking

his fortune, and that he has some inclination to enlist in the Scots

Guards, where he has an uncle who is an officer.

Here, you see, the drama begins to run on all fours with the romance.

But what a difference between the handling of the romance-writer and

that of the dramatist, between the man called Walter Scott and the

man called Mély-Janin. Now, as the conversation begins to become

interesting, the king rises and goes away without giving any other

reason for his departure than that which I myself give you, and which I

am obliged to guess at. If you question it, here is his bit--

"Adieu, Seigneur Quentin; we shall see each other again.

Rely upon the friendliness of Maître Pierre. (_Aside to

Martigny_) Be sure to tell him that which concerns him; I

leave thee free to do what thou deemest fitting."

"Be at ease, sire."

Left alone with Quentin Durward, Martigny at once informs him that the

Comtesse de Croy has taken refuge at the court of King Louis XI., and

lives in the ancient château which he points out to him. Then Quentin

Durward implores Martigny to go into the castle and give a letter to

Isabelle.

"Ah! Sir Durward, what are you thinking about?" exclaimed

Martigny, who in his capacity as a citizen of Tours does not

know that the title of _Sir_ is only used before a baptismal

name.

"You must, it is absolutely imperative!" insists Quentin.

"I beg you to believe that if the thing were possible.

(_Aside_) I am more anxious to get in than he. (_Aloud_)

Listen, I foresee a way."

You do not guess the way? It is, indeed, a strange one for a man who

does not dare to put a love-letter behind walls, doors, curtains,

tapestries and portières. You shall know the method employed before

long.

Quentin Durward, left alone, informs the audience that the Comte

de Crèvecoeur, who comes to claim Isabelle, shall only have her at

the expense of his own life. In short, he talks long enough to give

Martigny time to enter the château, to see Isabelle, and to put the

method in question into practice--

"Well?" asks Quentin.

"I have spoken to her."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing at all; but she blushed, went pale and fainted."

"She fainted? What happiness!"

"When she regained consciousness she talked of taking the

air. Look, look, turn your eyes in that quarter."

"My God! It is she! (_To Martigny_) Go away, I implore you!"

(_Martigny hides behind a mass of trees._)

The method employed by the man who did not dare to get a note conveyed

into a closed room guarded by a confidant was to make Isabelle come out

into the open air, in full view of the château de Plessis-les-Tours.

Not bad, was it? Isabelle is in a tremble. And with good reason! She

knows that Martigny is the King's confidant, and she has her doubts

about Martigny being at a safe distance, Martigny, a gallant naturally

full of cunning, since he has better emissaries than those of the king,

and tells Louis XI. things he does not know. So she only comes on to

say to Quentin: "Be off with you!" Only, she says it in nobler terms

and in language more befitting a princess--

"Go away, I entreat you!"

"One single word!"

"I am spied upon, ... they might surprise us!"

"But at least reassure my heart. What! go without seeing me!

... Ah! cruel one! You do not know how much absence ..."

"I must be cautious for both of us, Seigneur Durward; they

will explain everything to you. Go away!... Let it be

enough for the present to know that you are loved more than

ever. Go!"

"But this silence ..."

"Says more than any words ..."

"Adieu, then!"

[_He kisses the Countess's hand_.]

"Come, depart!" says Eléonore.

[_Quentin goes out at one side and the Countess at the

other_.]

"And we will go and inform the king of all that has

happened," says Martigny, coming out from behind his thicket

of trees.

END OF ACT I

We clearly perceived that rascal Martigny hiding himself behind that

thicket; well, look what took place, notwithstanding: Isabelle and

Quentin Durward, who had greater interest in knowing it than we, had

no suspicion! Who says now that Youth is not confident? But now let us

pass on to the first act of _Louis XI._ by Casimir Delavigne, and let

us see if the national poet is much stronger and more realistic than

the royalist poet.

[1] Hired applauders.

CHAPTER XVI

Casimir Delavigne's _Louis XI_

Here is very little incident in the drama we have just been analysing.

Very well, there is less still in the tragedy which we are about to

examine.

Mély-Janin's _mise-en-scène_ is quite improbable enough, is it not?

Well--Casimir Delavigne's is more improbable still. In the first place,

the landscape is the same. Here is the description of it--

"_A countryside--the château of Plessis-les-Tours in the back ground, a

few scattered cottages at the side._ IT IS NIGHT."

You must know that if I underline the last three words it is

not without a motive. As the curtain rises, Tristran, who is on

sentry-duty, stops and compels a poor peasant named Richard to go back

into his cottage instead of letting him go to Saint-Martin-des-Bois, to

obtain the consolations of religion for a dying man. The scene has no

other importance than to show in what manner the police of Louis XI.

act in the neighbourhood of Plessis-les-Tours. The peasant re-enters

his cottage, Tristran goes back into the fortress, and leaves the place

to Comines, who arrives on the scene, holding a roll of parchment, and

seats himself at the foot of an oak tree. It is still night. Guess why

Comines comes there, in that particular place, where the police guard

so strictly that they do not even allow peasants to go out to obtain

the viaticum for the dying, and where they can be seen from every

loophole in the château? Comines comes there to read his _Mémoires_,

which deal with the history of Louis XI.

"But," you will say, "he cannot read because it is dark!"

"Wait! the dawn is coming."

"But, if dawn comes, Comines will be seen."

"He will hide behind a tree."

"Would it not be much simpler, especially at such an hour, _i.e._ four

o'clock in the morning, for him to re-read his _Mémoires_ in his own

home, in his study, with pen and ink at hand, in case he has anything

to add; with his pen-knife and eraser close by, if he has something to

delete?"

"Yes, certainly, it would be much simpler; but don't you see that the

author needs Comines to do this particular business out of doors; so

poor Comines must, of course, do what the author wishes!" Comines

himself knows very well that he would be better elsewhere, and he has

not come there of his own will. He does not hide from himself the

danger he is incurring if they see him working at such a task, and if

his manuscripts were to fall under the king's notice. But listen to him

rather than to me--

"_Mémoires de Comines!_ Ah! si les mains du roi

Déroulaient cet écrit, qui doit vivre après moi,

Où chacun de ses jours, recueillis par l'histoire,

Laisse un tribut durable et de honte et de gloire,

Tremblant on le verrait, par le titre arrêté,

Pâlir devant son règne à ses yeux présenté!"

I ask you what would have become of the historian who could have made

Louis XI. turn pale! But, no doubt, Comines, who knew the rebels of

the war of the _Bien Public_, the jailor of Cardinal la Balue and

especially the murderer of Nemours,--since he calculated on marrying

his daughter to the son of the victim,--absorbed in I know not what

spirit of pre-occupation, reading his _Mémoires_ in so dangerous a

place as this, will keep one eye open whilst he reads his _Mémoires_

with the other. Not a bit of it! You can judge whether or not this is

what is meant by the stage-direction: _Doctor Coitier passes at the

back of the stage, looks at Comines and goes into Richard's cottage_."

Thus, just as Louis XI. did not see Isabelle, though it was to his

interest to see her, so Comines, who is anxious not to be seen, is

seen and does not himself see. You tell me such absent-mindedness

cannot last long on the part of such a man as Comines. Second mistake!

Instead of waking out of his rêveries--"_He remains absorbed in his

reading_." With this result, that Coitier comes out of the peasant's

cottage and says--

"Rentrez, prenez courage:

Des fleurs que je prescris composez son breuvage;

Par vos mains exprimés, leurs sues adoucissants

Rafraîchiront sa plaie, et calmeront ses sens."

Take particular note that these lines are said at the back of the

stage, that Comines is between the audience and the person who utters

them and that Comines--extraordinary to relate!--does not hear them,

whilst the public, which is at a double, triple, quadruple distance

from the doctor, hears them perfectly. Never mind! "_Without perceiving

Coitier_" our historian continues--

"Effrayé du portrait, je le vois en silence

Chercher un châtiment pour tant de ressemblance!"

It seems to me that knowing so well to what he is exposing himself,

this was the moment or never for Comines to look round him. There is no

danger! He acts as children do who are sent to bed before their mother,

and who are so afraid in their beds that they shut their eyes in order

not to see anything. Only, there is this difference, that with children

the danger is fictitious, whilst in the case of Comines it is real;

children are children, and Comines is a man, a historian, a courtier

and a minister. Now, I perfectly understand the terror of children; but

I do not understand Comines's imprudence. And Coitier sees him, comes

up to him and actually claps him on the shoulder, before Comines has

either seen or heard Coitier.

"COITIER (_clapping Comines on the shoulder._)--

Ah! Seigneur d'Argenton, salut!

Comines, _tressaillant_

Qui m'a parlé?

Vous!... Pardon, je rêvais ..."

You might even, my dear Comines, say that you were sleeping, and that

your sleep was heavy and imprudent.

Now why does Coitier, in his turn, bring Comines out of his dreams? Why

does he loiter outside Plessis-les-Tours, whilst the king is waiting

for him impatiently? Comines points this out to him; for poor Comines,

who takes little care of his own safety, looks to the well-being of

others, which ought to be Coitier's own affair, who is a doctor, rather

than his, who is a minister.

"COMINES.

Mais, vous, maître Coitier, dont les doctes secrets

Out des maux de ce roi ralenti les progrès,

Cette heure, à son lever, chaque jour vous rappelle:

Qui peut d'un tel devoir détourner votre zèle?"

Coitier might well reply to him: "Et vous?" ... for it is more

surprising to see a historian under an oak at four o'clock in the

morning, than a doctor upon the high road. But he prefers rather to

reply--

"Le roi! toujours le roi! Qu'il attende!..."

You tell me that it is in order to reveal the character of the person;

that Coitier does not love the king, whom he attends, and that, this

morning, in particular, he is angry with him for a crime which he had

failed to commit the previous day. It would have been more logical for

Coitier to be angry with Louis XI. for the crimes he has committed

than for those which he has failed to commit, all the more since, with

regard to the former, he would have had plenty to choose from. However,

here is the crime--

"COITIER.

Hier, sur ces remparts,

Un pâtre que je quitte attira ses regards;

Des archers du Plessis l'adresse meurtrière

Faillit, en se jouant, lui ravir la lumière!"

Which is equivalent to saying that the poor devil for whom Coitier,

the night before, had ordered _a draught of the soothing syrup which

would cool his wound_, had received an arrow from a cross-bow, either

in the arm or in the leg, it matters not where. But how can a draught

cool a wound unless the remedy be so efficacious that it can both be

administered as a drink and applied as a poultice? Now we will return

to the question we proposed a little while ago: Why, instead of going

to attend the king, who is impatient for him, does Coitier rouse

Comines out of his dreams? Bless me, what a question! Why, to develop

the tragedy. Now, this is what one learns in the development: that

Comines, who, in conjunction with Coitier, has saved Nemours, takes

with both hands all that Louis XI. gives him, in order to give it all

back again, in the future, to his future son-in-law. Coitier complains

bitterly, on his side, of the life led by the doctor to a king, and in

such round terms, that, if the king heard, he would certainly change

his doctor. The conversation is interrupted by Comines's daughter,

Marie, who arrives on foot, quite alone, at half-past four in the

morning!--where from, do you think? From looking for St. Francis de

Paul. Where has she been to look for him? History does not say, no more

than it does where Marie slept; it is, however, a question natural

enough for a father to address to his daughter. But Marie relates such

beautiful stories of the saint, who only needs canonisation to make him

a complete saint, that Comines thinks of nothing else but of listening

to her.

"MARIE.

Le saint n'empruntait par sa douce majesté

Au sceptre pastoral dont la magnificence

Des princes du conclave alleste la puissance:

Pauvre, et, pour crosse d'or, un rameau dans les mains,

Pour robe, un lin grossier, traînant sur les chemins;

C'est lui, plus humble encor qu'an fond de sa retraite!

COITIER.

Et que disait tout has cet humble anachorète,

En voyant la litière où le faste des cours

Prodiguait sa mollesse au vieux prélat de Tours,

Et ce cheval de prix dont l'amble doux et sage

Pour monseigneur de Vienne abrégeait le voyage?

MARIE.

Tous les deux, descendus, marchaient à ses côtés."

Attention! for I am going to put a question to which I challenge you to

give an answer--

_Tous les deux, descendus, marchaient à ses côtés!_"

Who is it who walks beside the humble anchorite? Was it the litter?

Was it the old prelate? Was it monseigneur from Vienna? Was it the

horse? If we take the sense absolutely given by the construction of

the sentence, it was not the prelate of Tours and the monseigneur of

Vienna who stepped down, the one from his litter, the other from his

horse, but the horse and the litter, on the contrary, who stepped

down, the one from the old prelate of Tours, the other from the

monseigneur of Vienna. The difficulty of understanding this riddle no

doubt decides Coitier to return to the king, leaving Marie alone with

her father. Then, Marie tells the latter a second piece of news, much

more interesting than the first, namely, that the Comte de Rethel has

arrived.

"MARIE.

Berthe, dont je le tiens, l'a su du damoisel

Qui portait la bannière où, vassal de la France,

Sous la fleur de nos rois, le lion d'or s'élance!"

Which means, if I am not deceived, that the Comte de Rethel bears the

arms of gules either of azure on a golden lion, with a fleur-de-lys

_au chef._ One thing makes Marie especially happy: that the Comte de

Rethel is going to give her news of Nemours, whom he left at Nancy. In

fact, Nemours, whose father has been executed, cannot return to France

without exposing himself to capital punishment. Chanting is heard at

this juncture; it is the procession of St. Francis de Paul, which is

coming.

"_Entendez-vous ces chants, dans la forêt voisine?_"

Says Marie--

"_Le cortège s'avance et descend la colline._"

No doubt, in his capacity as historian, Comines will be curious to see

so extraordinary a man as St. Francis de Paul. You are wrong. "Come

in!" says Comines drily; and he and his daughter leave the stage,

just as the head of the cortège appears in sight. But why on earth do

they leave the stage? Is there any reason for it? Yes, indeed, there

is a reason. Among the people in the procession is Nemours,--for the

supposed Comte de Rethel is no other than Nemours,--and neither Comines

nor Marie must know that he is there. Now what is Nemours doing under

the title of the Comte de Rethel? He has come to assassinate the king;

but before risking the stroke, he desires to receive absolution from

St. Francis de Paul. Now we know where the saint comes from; we have

learnt it in the interval; he comes from Frondi, five or six hundred

leagues away. Very well, will you believe that during the whole of that

long journey, with the saint in front of him, Nemours could not find a

more convenient place in which to ask absolution for the crime he wants

to commit, than the threshold of the château of the man he intends to

assassinate? We can now sum up the improbabilities of the first act

thus--

Comines is out of doors at four o'clock in the morning: first

improbability. He comes, before break of day, to read his _Mémoires_

twenty yards from the château of Plessis-les-Tours: second

improbability. He does not look around him as he reads them: third

improbability. Coitier, in order to chat with him about matters they

both know perfectly well, keeps the king waiting for him: fourth

improbability. Marie arrives alone, at four in the morning: fifth

improbability. Her father never asks where she has slept: sixth

improbability. Nemours, after waiting for fifteen years, returns to

France in disguise to avenge the death of his father by assassinating

a king who is dying, and who, in fact, will die the following day:

eighth improbability. Finally, he wishes to receive absolution from

Saint Francis de Paul, and instead of making his confession in a room,

in a church, in a confessional, which would be the easiest thing to do,

he comes to confess at the gates of the château: ninth improbability,

which alone is worth all the eight other improbabilities!

Shall I go any further, and shall I pass on from the first to the

second act? Bless me, no; it is too poor a job. Let us stop here. I

only wanted to prove that, when the audience grumbled, nearly hissed

and even hissed outright, at the first performance, it was not in

error, and that when it did not come to see _Louis XI._ during the

eight or ten times it was played, it was in the right. But is it true

that the public did not go to it? The takings of the first four nights

will show this--

First performance 4061 francs

Second " 1408 "

Third " 1785 "

Fourth " 1872 "

Finally, why this failure during the first four representations, and

why such great success at the twentieth, thirtieth and fortieth? I am

going to tell you. M. Jouslin de la Salle was manager for nearly six

months, and, after he took up the management, not a play was a failure.

He created successes. When he saw that, at the fourth performance,

_Louis XI._ brought in eighteen hundred francs, he ordered those

few persons who came to hire boxes to be told that the whole of the

theatre was booked up to the tenth performance. The report of this

impossibility to get seats spread over Paris. Everybody wanted to have

them. Everybody had them. It was a clever trick! Now let some one else

than I take the trouble to undertake, in respect of the last four acts,

the work which I have just done in respect of the first, and they will

see that, in spite of Ligier's predilection for this drama, it is one

of the most indifferent of Casimir Delavigne's works.

END OF VOLUME V

NOTE

(_BÉRANGER_)

AU RÉDACTEUR DU JOURNAL _LA PRESSE_

Je reçois d'un ami de Béranger la réclamation suivante. Comme quelques

autres personnes pourraient avoir pensé ce qu'une seule m'écrit,

permettez-moi de répondre, par la voie de votre journal, non-seulement

à cette dernière, mais encore à toutes celles qui ne seraient pas

suffisamment renseignées sur la signification du mot "philosophe

épicurien."

Voici la lettre du réclamant:

"PASSY, PRÈS PARIS, 5 _septembre_ 1853

"MONSIEUR,--J'ai lu les deux ou trois chapitres de vos

_Mémoires_ où vous parlez de Béranger, et où vous copiez

plusieurs de ses belles et prophétiques chansons. Vous

faites l'éloge de ce grand homme de cœur et d'intelligence.

C'est bien! cela vous honore: celui qui aime Béranger doit

être bon. Cependant, monsieur, vous posez cette question,

qui me semble un peu malheureuse pour vous; vous dites:

'Maintenant, peut-être me demandera-t-on comment il se fait

que Béranger, républicain, habite tranquillement avenue de

Chateaubriand, n° 5, à Paris, tandis que Victor Hugo demeure

à Marine-Terrace, dans l'île de Jersey.'

"Vous qui appelez M. Béranger votre père, vous devriez

savoir ce que tout le monde sait: d'abord, que le modeste

grand poète n'est pas un _philosophe épicurien_, comme il

vous plaît de le dire, mais bien un philosophe pénétré

du plus profond amour de l'humanité. M. Béranger habite

Paris, parce que c'est à Paris, et non ailleurs, qu'il peut

remplir son beau rôle de dévouement. Demandez à tous ceux

qui souffrent, n'importe à quelle opinion ils appartiennent,

si M. Béranger leur a jamais refusé de les aider, de les

secourir. Toute la vie de cet homme de bien est employée à

rendre service. À son âge, il aurait bien le droit de songer

à se reposer; mais, pour lui, obliger, c'est vivre.

"Quand il s'agit de recommander un jeune homme bon et

honorable, quand il faut aller voir un prisonnier et lui

porter de paternelles consolations, n'importe où il y a du

bien à faire, l'homme que vous appelez un _épicurien_ ne

regarde pas s'il pleut ou s'il neige; il part et rentre,

le soir, harassé, mais tout heureux si ses démarches ont

réussi; tout triste, tout affligé si elles ont échoué. M.

Béranger n'a de la popularité que les épines. C'est là une

chose que vous auriez dû savoir, monsieur, puisque vous vous

intitulez son fils dans vos _Mémoires_ et un peu partout.

"Pardonnez-moi cette lettre, monsieur, et ne doutez pas un

moment de mon admiration pour votre beau talent et de ma

considération pour votre personne.

"M. DE VALOIS

"Grande rue, 80, à Passy"

Voici, maintenant, ma réponse:

"MONSIEUR,--Vous m'avez--dans une excellente intention,

je crois--écrit une lettre tant soit peu magistrale pour

m'apprendre ce que c'est que Béranger, et pour me prouver

qu'il ne mérite en rien la qualification de _philosophe

épicurien_ que je lui donne.

"Hélas! monsieur, j'ai peur d'une chose: c'est qu'en

connaissant très-bien Béranger, vous ne connaissiez très-mal

Épicure!

"Cela me paraît fort compréhensible: Béranger habitait

Passy en l'an de Notre-Seigneur 1848, tandis qu'Épicure

habitait Athènes en l'an du monde 3683. Vous avez connu

personnellement Béranger, et je répondrais que vous ne vous

êtes certainement jamais donné la peine de lire un seul des

trois cents volumes que, au dire de _Diogine Laërce_, avait

laissés le fils de Néoclès et de Chérestrate.

"Non, vous avez un dictionnaire de l'Académie dans votre

bibliothèque; vous avez pris ce dictionnaire de l'Académie;

vous y avez cherché le mot ÉPICURIEN, et vous avez lu la

définition suivante, que le classique vocabulaire donne de

ce mot:

"ÉPICURIEN, sectateur d'Épicure. Il signifie, par extension,

_un voluptueux, un homme qui ne songe qu'à son plaisir._"

"D'abord, monsieur, vous auriez dû songer, vous, que je ne

suis pas de l'Académie, et qu'il n'est point généreux de me

battre avec des armes que je n'ai ni forgées ni contribué à

forger.

"Il en résulte que je ne me crois pas obligé d'accepter sans

discussion vos reproches, et de recevoir sans examen la

définition de MM. les Quarante.

"Hélas! moi, monsieur, j'ai lu--mon métier de romancier

français m'y force--non-seulement les _Fragments d'Épicure_

publiés à Leipzig en 1813, avec la version latine de

Schneider, mais aussi le corps d'ouvrage publié par

Gassendi, et renfermant tout ce qui concerne la vie et la

doctrine de l'illustre philosophe athénien; mais aussi la

_Morale d'Épicure_, petit in-8° publié en 1758 par l'abbé

Batteux.

"En outre, je possède une excellente traduction de Diogène

Laërce, lequel, vivant sous les empereurs Septime et

Caracalla, c'est-à-dire 1680 ans avant nous et 500 ans après

Épicure, devait naturellement mieux connaître celui-ci que

vous et moi ne le connaissons.

"Je sais bien, monsieur, que Timon dit de lui:

"Vint, enfin, de Samos le dernier des physiciens; un maître

d'école, un effronté, et le plus misérable des hommes!"

"Mais Timon le _sillographe_,--ne pas confondre avec Timon

le _misanthrope_, qui, vivant cent ans avant Épicure, ne

put le connaître;--Timon le _sillographe_ était un poète et

un philosophe satirique: il ne faut donc pas, si l'on veut

juger sainement Épicure, s'en rapporter à Timon le satirique.

"Je sais bien, monsieur, que Diotime le stoïcien le voulut

faire passer pour un voluptueux, et publia, sous le nom

même du philosophe qui fait l'objet de notre discussion,

cinquante lettres pleines de lasciveté, et une douzaine de

billets que vous diriez être sortis du boudoir de M. le

marquis de Sade.

"Mais il est prouvé, aujourd'hui, que les billets étaient de

Chrysippe, et que les lettres étaient de Diotime lui-même.

"Je sais bien, monsieur, que Denys d'Halicarnasse a dit

qu'Épicure et sa mère allaient purgeant les maisons par

la force de certaines paroles; que le jeune philosophe

accompagnait son père, qui montrait à lire à vil prix

aux enfants; qu'un de ses frères--Épicure avait deux

frères--faisait l'amour pour exister, et que lui-même

demeurait avec une courtisane nommée Léontie.

"Mais vous connaissez Denys d'Halicarnasse, monsieur:

c'était un romancier bien plus qu'un historien; ayant

inventé beaucoup de choses sur Rome, il a bien pu en

inventer quelques-unes sur Épicure. D'ailleurs, je ne vois

pas qu'il y eût grand mal au pauvre petit philosophe en

herbe d'accompagner sa mère, _qui purgeait les maisons avec

des paroles, et son pire, qui apprenait à lire à vil prix

aux enfants._

"Je voudrais fort que tous nos enfants apprissent à lire, et

plus le prix que les précepteurs mettraient à leurs leçons

serait vil, plus je les en estimerais,--en attendant que le

gouvernement nous donnât des maîtres qui leur apprissent

à lire pour rien! Quant à cette accusation qu'Épicure

_demeurait avec une courtisane nommée Léontie_, il me

semble que Béranger nous dit quelque part qu'il a connu

très-intimement deux grisettes parisiennes, l'une nommée

Lisette, l'autre Frétillon; supposez que deux grisettes de

Paris fassent l'équivalent d'une courtisane d'Athènes, et

l'auteur des _Deux sœurs de charité_ et du _Dieu des bonnes

gens_ n'aura rien à reprocher, ni vous non plus, monsieur, à

l'auteur des trente-sept livres de _la Nature._

"Je sais bien, monsieur, que Timocrate accuse notre

philosophe de n'être pas bon citoyen, et lui reproche

d'avoir eu une complaisance indigne et lâche pour Mythras,

lieutenant de Lysimachus; je sais bien encore qu'Épictète

dit que sa manière de parler était efféminée et sans pudeur;

je sais bien, enfin, que l'auteur des livres de _la Joie_

dit qu'il vomissait deux fois par jour parce qu'il mangeait

trop.

"Mais, monsieur, l'antiquité, vous ne l'ignorez pas, était

fort cancanière, et il me semble que Diogène Laërce répond

victorieusement à tous ces méchants propos par des faits.

"Ceux qui lui font ces reproches, dit le biographe

d'Épicure, n'ont agi, sans doute, que par excès de folie.

"Ce grand homme a de fameux témoins de son équité et de sa

reconnaissance; l'excellence de son naturel lui a toujours

fait rendre justice à tout le monde. Sa patrie consacra

cette vérité par les statues qu'elle dressa pour éterniser

sa mémoire; son nom fut célébré par ses amis,--dont le

nombre était si grand, que les villes qu'il parcourait ne

pouvaient les contenir,--aussi bien que par les disciples

qui s'attachèrent à lui à cause du charme de sa doctrine,

laquelle avait, pour ainsi dire, la douceur des sirènes. _Il

n'y eut_, ajoute le biographe, _que le seul Métrodore de

Stratonice, qui, presque accablé par l'excès de ses bontés,

suivit le parti de Carnéade!_"

"Diogène Laërce continue, et moi avec lui:

"Sa vertu fut marquée en d'illustres caractères par _la

reconnaissance et la piété qu'il eut envers ses parents_, et

par la douceur avec laquelle il traita ses esclaves; témoin

son testament, où il donna la liberté à ceux qui avaient

cultivé la philosophie avec lui, et particulièrement au

fameux Mus.

"Cette même vertu fut, enfin, généralement connue par la

bonté de son naturel, _qui lui fit donner universellement à

tout le monde des marques d'honnêteté et de bienveillance_;

sa piété envers les dieux et _son amour pour sa patrie_

ne se démentirent pas un seul instant jusqu'à la fin de

ses jours. _Ce philosophe eut, en outre, une modestie si

extraordinaire, qu'il ne voulut jamais se mêler d'aucune

charge de la République._

"Il est encore certain que, _malgré les troubles qui

affligèrent la Grèce, il y passa toute sa vie_, excepté deux

ou trois voyages qu'il fit sur les confins de l'Ionie, _pour

visiter ses amis_, qui s'assemblaient de tous côtés, _afin

de venir vivre avec lui dans un jardin qu'il avait acheté au

prix de quatre-vingts mines._"

"En vérité, monsieur, dites-moi si, en faisant la part de la

différence des époques, ce portrait d'Épicure ne convient

pas de toutes façons à notre cher Béranger?

"N'est-ce pas, en effet, de Béranger que l'on peut dire que

_son bon naturel lui a toujours fait rendre justice à tout

le monde;_ que _le nombre de ses amis est si grand, que

les villes ne peuvent les contenir_; que _le charme de sa

doctrine a la douceur de la voix des sirènes_; que _sa vertu

fut marquée en d'illustres caractères par la reconnaissance

et la piété qu'il eut envers ses parents_; que _son amour

pour sa patrie ne se démentit pas un instant jusqu'à la

fin de ses jours_, et qu'enfin, _il fut d'une modestie si

extraordinaire, qu'il ne voulut jamais occuper aucune charge

dans la République?_

"En outre, ce fameux jardin qu'Épicure avait acheté

quatre-vingts mines, et où il recevait ses amis, ne

ressemble-t-il pas fort à cette retraite de Passy et à cette

avenue Chateaubriand où tout ce qu'il y a de bon, de grand,

de généreux, a visité et visite encore le fils du tailleur

et le filleul de la fée?

"Maintenant, monsieur, passons à ce malencontreux reproche

de volupté, d'égoïsme et de gourmandise qu'on a fait à

Épicure, et qui cause votre vertueuse indignation contre

moi et contre tous ceux qui, d'après moi, pourraient tenir

Béranger pour un _philosophe épicurien._

"Vous allez voir, monsieur, que ce reproche n'est pas mieux

fondé que celui qu'on me fait, à moi qui n'ai peut-être pas

bu dans ma vie quatre bouteilles de vin de Champagne, et qui

n'ai jamais pu fumer un seul cigare sans être vingt-quatre

heures malade, de ne savoir travailler qu'au milieu de la

fumée du tabac, des bouteilles débouchées et des verres

vides!

"Un demi-setier de vin," dit Dioclès dans son livre de

_l'Incursion_, "suffisait aux épicuriens, et _leur breuvage

ordinaire n'était que de l'eau._"

"Le témoignage de Dioclès ne vous suffit pas? Soit! Prenez,

parmi les épîtres d'Épicure lui-même, une lettre adressée à

un de ses amis, et voyez ce qu'il dit à cet ami:

"Quoique je me tienne pour _satisfait d'avoir de l'eau et du

pain bis_, envoyez-moi _un peu de fromage cythridien, afin

que je puisse faire un repas plus excellent_, quand l'envie

m'en prendra."

"Dites-moi, monsieur, cette sobriété du philosophe athénien

ne ressemble-t-elle pas beaucoup à celle du chansonnier _que

j'appelle mon père_, et qui veut bien, dans une lettre que

je reçois de lui en même temps que la vôtre, m'appeler son

fils?

"Après tout cela, et pour corroborer ce que j'ai eu

l'honneur de vous dire sur ce pauvre Épicure,--si

calomnié, comme vous voyez, par Timon, par Diotime, par

Denys d'Halicarnasse, par Timocrate, par Épictète, par le

dictionnaire de l'Académie, et même par vous!--laissez-moi

vous citer deux ou trois des maximes qui faisaient le fond

de sa philosophie, et vous serez forcé d'avouer qu'elles

sont moins désolantes que celles de la Rochefoucauld.

V

"Il est impossible de vivre agréablement sans la prudence,

sans l'honnêteté et sans la justice. La vie de celui qui

pratique l'excellence de ces vertus se passe toujours dans

le plaisir; de sorte que l'homme qui est assez malheureux

pour n'être ni honnête, ni prudent, ni juste, est privé de

ce qui peut faire la félicité de la vie."

XVI

"Le sage ne peut et ne doit jamais avoir qu'une fortune

très-médiocre; mais, s'il n'est pas considérable par les

biens qui dépendent d'elle, l'élévation de son esprit et

l'excellence de ses conseils le mettent au-dessus des

autres."

XVII

"Le juste est celui qui vit sans trouble et sans désordre;

l'injuste, au contraire, est toujours dans l'agitation."

XXIX

"Entre toutes les choses que la sagesse nous donne pour

vivre heureusement, il n'y en a point de si précieuse qu'un

véritable ami: c'est un des biens qui nous procurent le plus

de joie dans la médiocrité!"

"Je regrette, monsieur, de ne pouvoir pousser plus loin les

citations; mais je tiens à deux choses: la première, à vous

répondre poste pour poste, et la seconde, en vous répondant

poste pour poste, à vous prouver que, lorsque j'applique une

épithète quelconque à un homme de la valeur de Béranger,

c'est que j'ai la conviction, non-seulement instinctive,

mais encore raisonnée, que cette épithète lui convient.

"J'espère donc que vous aurez l'obligeance d'écrire sur

votre dictionnaire de l'Académie, en marge de la très-fausse

définition donnée par la docte assemblée du mot ÉPICURIEN,

ces mots, qui lui serviront de correctif:

"Sectateur d'Épicure, c'est-à-dire philosophe professant

qu'un ami est le premier des biens que puisse nous accorder

le ciel; que la médiocrité de la fortune est une des

conditions de la sagesse; que la sobriété est la base la

plus solide de la santé, et qu'enfin il est impossible de

vivre, non-seulement honnêtement, mais encore agréablement,

ici-has, sans la prudence, l'honnêteté et la justice.--NOTA.

Les épicuriens ne buvaient qu'un setier de vin par jour,

et, le reste du temps, se désaltéraient avec de l'eau pure.

Épicure, les jours de gala, mangeait sur son pain,--que,

les autres jours, il mangeait sec,--un peu de fromage

cythridien."

"Et, ce faisant, monsieur, vous serez arrivé à avoir

vous-même et vous contribuerez à donner aux autres une idée

un peu plus exacte de l'illustre philosophe dont j'ai eu, à

votre avis, le malheur de dire que notre grand chansonnier

était le disciple.

"Il me reste, en terminant, à vous remercier, monsieur, de

votre lettre, qui, malgré l'acrimonie de certaines phrases,

me paraît, au fond, inspirée par un bon sentiment.

"Veuillez agréer mes salutations empressées.

"ALEXANDRE DUMAS

"BRUXELLES, 7 _septembre_ 1853"

NOTE

(_DE LATOUCHE_)

"Si cette comédie fût tombée, au théâtre, sous l'accusation de manquer

aux premiers principes de la vie dans les arts, je l'aurais laissée

dans l'oubli qu'elle mérite peut-être; mais elle a été repoussée par

une portion du public, dans une seule et douteuse épreuve, sous la

prévention d'impudeur et d'immoralité; quelques journaux de mes amis

l'ont traitée d'obscénité révoltante, d'œuvre de scandale et d'horreur.

Je la publie comme une protestation contre ces absurdités; car, si

j'accepte la condamnation, je n'accepte pas le jugement. On peut

consentir à ce que le chétif enfant de quelques veilles soit inhumé par

des mains empressées, mais non qu'on écrive une calomnie sur sa pierre.

"Ce que j'aurais voulu peindre, c'était la risible crédulité d'un roi

élevé par des moines, et victime de l'ambition d'une marâtre: ce que

j'aurais voulu frapper de ridicule, c'était cette éducation qui est

encore celle de toutes les cours de l'Europe; ce que j'aurais voulu

montrer, c'était la diplomatie rôdant autour des alcôves royales; ce

que j'aurais voulu prouver, c'était comment rien n'est sacré pour la

religion abaissée au rôle de la politique, et par quels éléments divers

les légitimités se perpétuent.

"Au lieu de cette philosophique direction du drame, des juges prévenus

l'ont supposé complaisant au vice, et flatteur du propre dévergondage

de leur esprit. Et, pourtant, non satisfait de chercher une

compensation à la hardiesse de son sujet dans la peinture d'une reine

innocente, et dans l'amour profondément pur de celui qui meurt pour

elle, le drame avait changé jusqu'à l'âge historique de Charles II,

pour atténuer le crime de sa mère, et tourner l'infirmité de sa nature

en prétentions de vieillard qui confie sa postérité à la grâce de Dieu.

"Mais, comme l'a dit un critique qui a le plus condamné ce qu'il

appelle l'incroyable témérité de la tentative, la portion de

l'assemblée qui a frappé d'anathème _la Reine d'Espagne_; ce public

si violent dans son courroux, si amer dans sa défense de la pudeur

blessée, ne s'est point placé au point de vue de l'auteur; il n'a pas

voulu s'associer à la lutte du poète avec son sujet; il n'a pas pris

intérêt à ce combat de l'artiste avec la matière rebelle. Armée d'une

bonne moralité bourgeoise, cette masse aveugle, aux instincts sourds et

spontanés, n'a vu, dans l'œuvre entière, qu'une espèce de bravade et de

défi; elle s'est scandalisée de ce qu'on voulait lui cacher, et de ce

qu'on osait lui montrer. Cette draperie à demi soulevée avec tant de

précaution, cette continuelle équivoque l'ont révoltée. Plus le style

et le faire de l'auteur s'assouplissaient, se voilaient, s'entouraient

de réticences, de finesse, de nuances pour déguiser le fond de la

pièce, plus on se choquait vivement du contraste.

"Que voulez-vous!" m'écrivait, le soir même de mon revers, un de mes

amis,--car je me plais à invoquer d'autres témoignages que le mien dans

la plus délicate des circonstances où il soit difficile de parler de

soi,--"que voulez-vous! une idée fixe a couru dans l'auditoire; une

préoccupation de libertinage a frappé de vertige les pauvres cervelles;

des hurleurs de morale publique se pendaient à toutes les phrases, pour

empêcher de voir ce qu'il y a de naturel et de vrai dans la marche de

cette intrigue, qui serpente sous le cilice et sous la gravité empesée

des mœurs espagnoles. On s'est attaché à des consonnances; on a pris

au vol des terminaisons de mot, des moitiés de mot, des quarts de mot;

on a été monstrueux d'interprétation. Il y a eu, en effet, hydrophobie

d'innocence. J'ai vu des maris expliquer à leurs femmes comment telle

chose, qui avait l'air bonhomme, était une profonde scélératesse.

Tout est devenu prétexte à communications à voix basse; des dévots

se sont révélés habiles commentateurs, et des dames merveilleusement

intelligentes. Il y a de pauvres filles à qui les commentaires sur

les courses de taureaux vont mettre la bestialité en tête! Et tout ce

monde-là fait bon accueil, le dimanche, aux lazzi du Sganarelle de

Molière? Il y a de la pudeur à jour fixe."

"Il se présentait, sans doute, deux manières de traiter cet aventureux

sujet. J'en avais mûri les réflexions avant de l'entreprendre. On

pouvait et on peut encore en faire une charade en cinq actes, dont

le mot sera enveloppé de phrases hypocrites et faciles, et arriver

jusqu'au succès de quelques-uns de ces vaudevilles qui éludent aussi

spirituellement les difficultés que le but de l'art; mais j'ai craint,

je l'avoue, que le mot de la charade (_impuissant_) ne se retrouvât au

fond de cette manière d'aborder la scène. Et puis, dans les pièces

de l'école de Shakspeare et de Molière, s'offrait une autre séduction

d'artiste pour répudier cette vulgaire adresse: chercher les moyens

de la nature, et n'affecter pas d'être plus délicat que la vérité.

Les conséquences des choix téméraires que j'ai faits m'ont porté à

résister à beaucoup d'instances pour tenter avec ce drame le sort des

représentations nouvelles. Encourager l'auteur à se rattacher à la

partie applaudie de l'ouvrage qu'on appelait dramatique, pour détruire

ou châtrer celle qu'il espérait être la portion comique, était un

conseil assez semblable à celui qu'on offrirait à un peintre, si on

voulait qu'il rapprochât sur les devants de sa toile ses fonds, ses

lointains, ses paysages, demi-ébauchés pour concourir à l'ensemble, et

qu'il obscurcît les figures de son premier plan.

"Il fallait naïvement réussir ou tomber au gré d'une inspiration naïve.

Je crois encore, et après l'événement, qu'il y avait pour l'auteur

quelques chances favorables; mais le destin des drames ne ressemble pas

mal à celui des batailles: l'art peut avoir ses défaites orgueilleuses

comme Varsovie, et le capricieux parterre ses brutalités d'autocrate.

"Ce n'est ni le manque de foi dans le zèle de mes amis, ni le sentiment

inconnu pour moi de la crainte de quelques adversaires, ni la bonne

volonté refroidie des comédiens qui m'ont conduit à cette résolution.

Les comédiens, après notre disgrâce, sont demeurés exactement fidèles

à leur première opinion sur la pièce. Et quel dévouement d'artiste

change avec la fortune? Le leur m'a été offert avec amitié. Je ne le

consigne pas seulement ici pour payer une dette de gratitude, mais

afin d'encourager, s'il en était besoin, les jeunes auteurs à confier

sans hésitation leurs plus périlleux ouvrages à des talents et à des

caractères aussi sûrs que ceux de Monrose, de Perrier, de Menjaud et

de mademoiselle Brocard, dont la grâce s'est montrée si poétique et la

candeur si passionnée.

"Mais, au milieu même de notre immense et tumultueux aréopage, entre

les bruyants éloges des uns, la vive réprobation des autres, à travers

deux ou trois partialités bien rivales, il m'a été révélé, dans

l'instinct de ma bonne foi d'auteur, qu'il n'y avait pas sympathie

entre la donnée vitale de cette petite comédie et ce public d'apparat

qui s'assied devant la scène comme un juge criminaliste, qui se

surveille lui-même, qui s'impose à lui-même, qui prend son plaisir en

solennité, et s'électrise de délicatesse et de rigueur de convention.

Que ce fût sa faute ou la mienne, qu'au lieu de goûter, comme dit

Bertinazzi, _la chair du poisson_, le public de ce jour-là se fût

embarrassé les mâchoires avec les arêtes, toujours est-il que j'ai

troublé sa digestion.

"Devant le problème matrimonial que j'essayais à résoudre sous la

lumière du gaz, au feu des regards masculins, quelques dignes femmes

se sont troublées peut-être avec un regret comique, peut-être avec

un soupir étouffé. Mais j'avais compté sur de plus universelles

innocences; j'espérais trouver la mienne par-dessus le marché de la

leur. J'ai mal spéculé. Il s'en est rencontré là de bien spirituelles,

de bien jolies, de bien irréprochables; mais pouvais-je raisonnablement

imposer des conditions générales?

"J'ai indigné les actrices de l'Opéra, j'ai scandalisé des

séminaristes, j'ai fait perdre contenance à des marquis et à des

marchandes de modes! Vous eussiez, dès la troisième scène du premier

acte, vu quelques douairières dont les éventails se brisaient, se

lever dans leur loge, s'abriter à la hâte sous le velours de leur

chapeau noir, et, dans l'attitude de sortir, s'obstiner à ne pas le

faire pour feindre de ne plus entendre l'acteur, et se faire répéter,

par un officieux cavalier, quelques prétendues équivoques, afin de

crier au scandale en toute sécurité de conscience. L'épouse éplorée

du commissaire de police s'enfuit au moment où l'amoureux obtient

sa grâce.--Ceci est un fait historique.--Elle a fui officiellement,

enveloppée de sa pelisse écossaise! Je garde pour moi quelques curieux

détails, des noms propres, plus d'une utile anecdote, et comment la

clef forée du dandy était enveloppée bravement sous le mouchoir de

batiste destiné à essuyer les sueurs froides de son puritanisme. Mais

j'ai été perdu dans les cousins des grandes dames, qui se sont pris

à venger l'honneur des maris, quand j'ai eu affaire aux chastetés

d'estaminet et aux éruditions des magasins à prix fixe.

"Seulement, Dieu me préserve d'entrer en intelligence avec les

scrupules de mes interprètes. Ma corruption rougirait de leur pudeur.

"J'ai été sacrifié à la pudeur, à la pudeur des vierges du parterre;

car, aller supposer que j'ai pu devenir victime de la cabale, ce serait

une bien vieille et bien gratuite fatuité. Contre moi, quelques lâches

rancunes? Et d'où viendraient elles? Je n'ai que des amitiés vives et

des antipathies candides. A qui professe ingénument le mépris d'un

gouvernement indigne de la France, pourquoi des ennemis politiques? Et

pourquoi des ennemis littéraires à l'auteur d'un article oublié sur _la

Camaraderie_, et au plus paresseux des rédacteurs d'un bénin journal

qu'on appelle _Figaro?_

"Mais je n'ai pas voulu tomber obstinément comme tant d'autres après

vingt soirées de luttes, entre des enrouements factices, des sifflets

honnêtes et des applaudissements à poings fermés. Imposer son drame

au public, comme autrefois les catholiques leur rude croyance aux

Albigeois; chercher l'affirmation d'un mérite dans deux négations

du parterre; calculer combien il faut d'avanies pour se composer un

succès, c'est là un de ces courages que je ne veux pas avoir. Il

appartenait, d'ailleurs, à la reine d'Espagne de se retirer chastement

du théâtre; c'est une noble princesse, c'est une épouse vierge, élevée

dans les susceptibilités du point d'honneur de la France.

"Quelques-uns aiment mieux sortir par la fenêtre que trébucher dans

les escaliers; à qui prend étourdiment le premier parti, il peut être

donné encore de rencontrer le gazon sous ses pas; mais, pour l'autre,

et sans compter la multiplicité des meurtrissures, il expose votre robe

de poète à balayer les traces du passant.

"Cependant, au fond d'une chute éclatante, il y a deux sentiments

d'amertume que je ne prétends point dissimuler; mais je ne conseille

à personne autre que moi de les conseiller: le premier est la joie de

quelques bonnes âmes, et le second, le désenchantement des travaux

commencés. Ce n'est pas l'ouvrage attaqué qu'on regrette, mais

l'espérance ou l'illusion de l'avenir. Rentré dans sa solitude, ces

pensées qui composaient la famille du poète, il les retrouve en deuil

et comme éplorées de la perte d'une sœur, car vous vous êtes flatté

d'un avenir plus digne de vos consciencieuses études; le sort de

quelques drames prônés ailleurs avait éveillé en vous une émulation.

Si le triomphe de médiocrité indigne, il encourage; s'il produit la

colère, il produit aussi la confiance, et, à force d'être coudoyé à

tout moment par des grands hommes, le démon de l'orgueil vous avait

visité; il était venu rôder autour du lit où vous dormiez en paix;

il avait évoqué le fantôme de vos rêveries bizarres; elles étaient

descendues autour de vous, se tenant la main, vous demandant la vie,

vous jetant des sourires, vous promettant des fleurs, et, maintenant,

elles réclament toutes l'obscurité pour refuge. Ainsi tombe dans le

cloître un homme qu'un premier amour a trompé.

"Mais, je le répète, que ce découragement ne soit contagieux pour

personne. Ne défendez pas surtout le mérite de l'ouvrage écarté comme

l'unique création à laquelle vous serez jamais intéressé. N'imitez

pas tel jeune homme qui se cramponne à son premier drame, comme une

vieille femme à son premier amour. Point de ces colères d'enfant contre

la borne où vous vous êtes heurté. Il faudrait oublier jusqu'à une

injustice dans les travaux d'un meilleur ouvrage. Que vos explications

devant le public n'aillent pas ressembler à une apologie, et songez

encore moins à vous retrancher dans quelque haineuse préface, à vous

créneler dans une disgrâce, pour tirer, de là, sur tous ceux que

vous n'avez pas pu séduire. Du haut de son buisson, la pie-grièche

romantique dispute peut-être avec le croquant; mais, si, au pied du

chêne ou il s'est posé un moment, l'humble passereau, toujours moqueur

et bon compagnon, entend se rassembler des voix discordantes, il va

chercher plus loin des échos favorable.

"Je ne finirai pas sans consigner ici un aveu dont je n'ai pu trouver

la place dans la rapide esquisse de cet avertissement. Je déclare que

je dois l'idée première de la partie bouffone de cette comédie à une

grave tragédie allemande; plusieurs détails relatifs à la nourrice

Jourdan, à un excellent livre de M. Mortonval; la réminiscence d'un

sentiment de prêtre amoureux, au chapitre vu du roman de _Cinq-Mars_,

et, enfin, une phrase tout entière, à mon ami Charles Nodier. Cette

confession est la seule malice que je me permettrai contre les

plagiaires qui pullulent chaque jour, et qui sont assez effrontés

et assez pauvres pour ne m'épargner à moi-même ni leur vol, ni leur

silence. La phrase de Nodier, je l'avais appropriée à mon dialogue avec

cette superstition païenne qui pense éviter la foudre à l'abri d'une

feuille de laurier, avec la foi du chrétien qui essaye à protéger sa

demeure sous un rameau bénit. L'inefficacité du préservatif n'ébranlera

pas dans mon cœur la religion de l'amitié.

"H. DE LATOUCHE

"AULNAY, _le_ 10 _novembre_ 1831"