rails and held upright by weights and counterweights, were claimed by
their owner to be a new invention, despite the fact that similar dolls
were not unusual in Italy. At any rate they were a novelty in France
and to them King Louis XIV accorded special privileges. Nevertheless
before long they had over-stepped them and trespassed upon the rights
of the actors of the opera. The latter complained to the King. He
issued fresh interdictions. The marionettes subsided: only to break
forth again. In 1697 the Italian actors in the _Hôtel de Bourgogne_
incurred disfavor at court and were temporarily put out of their
theatre. Bertrand immediately installed his puppets in triumph upon
their vacated stage which he, in turn, was eventually enjoined to quit
by a subsequent order of the King. Thus the struggle continued.
In 1720 further privileges were obtained by the marionettes, six or
seven at a time being allowed to sing, dance or recite upon the stage.
Immediately the famous showman, Francisque, engaged three prominent
poets to write new plays for his burattini, Fuzilier, Lesage, and
d’Orneval. They set about creating a quite new form of dramatic art,
a master stroke which has persisted ever since, the well known _opéra
comique_. The first one, _L’ombre du cocher poète_, was given in a
booth in the Foire Saint Germain and was so enthusiastically received
that the jealous antagonism of directors and singers of the opera
was aroused more violently than ever, but the opéra comique remained
popular. Piron composed for the burattini an opéra bouffe, La Place,
Dolet, Carolet, all invented puppet parodies on the plays and actors
of the day. Favert composed his first drama for the pupazzi and Valois
d’Orville inaugurated the _Revues de fin d’année_, a criticism of the
year’s dramatic production by the mocking marionettes.
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are quite rightly called the
golden age of marionettes. The puppets were executed and managed with
utmost skill, the mise-en-scène imitated the magnificence of the larger
theatres. The greater the impertinences the greater the popularity
of the puppets,--what wonder that the Comédie Française complained
of them as a “concurrence déloyale.” But with the entrance into the
puppet shows of the spectacular, the decline of the French marionettes
began. It is true that despite his crude and rather broad repartee so
popular in the two fairs, his jokes of doubtful taste relished upon
the boulevards, Polichinelle continued to be the vogue among the upper
classes. He was called to perform in the salon of the Duc de Bourbon,
of the Duc de Bourgogne, of the Duchesse de Berry, and of the Duc de
Guise at Meudon. At one time, indeed, the Duchesse de Maine had a
puppet stage built at her chateau of Sceaux and plays and epigrams
written for it by her friend and secretary, the academician Malezieu,
which finally involved an altercation between Polichinelle and the
Academy. At the same Castle of Sceaux in 1746 the Comte d’Eu had a
company of marionettes brought in and he operated and spoke for them
himself. Voltaire, present at this occasion, forgot his quarrel with
the burattini for having poked fun at his _Mérope_ and _Oreste_ and
took a hand himself at the manipulating. Eventually he found himself
composing for them and inviting them into his own castle, Cirey, where
he may have learned many things about the traditional Italian drama
from studying the personaggi of the puppet stage.
At this time, indeed, Fourre, Beaupré, Audinot, Nicolet and Servandoni
were making lasting names for themselves as directors of marionette
theatres but it gradually came to pass that, as the audiences grew
cold, witty jests were replaced by spectacular surprises such as the
mechanical triumphs achieved by the puppets of Bienfait. We read of
M. Pierre’s show. “Here are to be seen in every detail, mountains,
castles, marine views; also figures that perfectly imitate all natural
movements without being visibly acted upon by any string, storm,
rain, thunder, vessels perishing, soldiers swimming.” We hear of
Audinot’s exhibition of life-sized _bamboches_ imitating with striking
resemblance celebrities of the day, displaying the follies and vices of
the eighteenth century courts. Children were seen acting with puppets
and there were innumerable military pieces such as, _The Bombardment of
Antwerp_, or _The Taking of Charleroi_. Poor Polichinelle, indeed! We
will scarcely be surprised to find him struggling along as best he can
and finally suffering a last indignity by losing his little wooden head
for the edification of the Parisian mob on the very day, at the very
hour, when the unfortunate monarch Louis XVI was guillotined.
Everywhere puppets have originated among the common people: they are
primarily an expression of popular taste. Nevertheless, this rude show
of the masses has frequently aroused the curiosity of artists and some
of them have found in the very naïveté of the dolls unexpected artistic
possibilities. The delightful potentialities have been developed into
an exquisite and unique art genre in many countries, particularly in
France.
We have seen the kings and courts entranced by the burattini of
Brioché and his followers. Lesage, Piron and other dramatists were
engaged in writing plays for the fantoches; even the great Voltaire
entertained his distinguished guests at Cirey with his own puppet
shows. Rousseau was interested in them. Gounod wrote “The Funeral
March of a Marionette.” Charles Magnin, learned member of the Académie
Française, devoted himself to the task of chronicling the long history
of puppetry. Charles Nodier, persistent visitor of the Parisian shows,
is called by some Polichinelle’s laureate for the many sparkling pages
in his works that are devoted to the marionette.
We shall not be so greatly surprised, therefore, to learn that George
Sand had her own puppet theatre at her estate, Nohant, where for thirty
years she herself arranged the plays and dressed the dolls while her
son, Maurice, sculptured them and acted as director. It was called,
_Théâtre des amis_ and the first performance was given in 1847. This
was a very crude affair got up by Maurice Sand and Eugene Lambert
(painter of cats) for themselves and a circle of intimate friends. The
stage itself was merely a chair with its back turned to the audience, a
cardboard frame arranged in front of it with a curtain to be rolled up
and down. The operator knelt upon the seat of the chair, on his hands
were placed the puppets, which consisted merely of dresses hung upon
sticks of wood for the head, scarcely carved at all. Being tremendously
successful, this performance was followed by others. Thus the theatre
grew.
[Illustration: GEORGE SAND’S PUPPET THEATRE AT NOHANT
[From Ernest Maindron’s _Marionettes et Guignols_]]
George Sand developed very decided theories about her little dolls.
She writes that she prefers the sort which may be manipulated on three
fingers to those moved by means of wires. Her feeling was that when
she thrust her hands into the empty skirts of the inanimate puppet
it became alive with her soul in its body, the operator and puppet
completely one. She disapproved of realistic puppets. The faces of her
dolls were carved with great skill but purposely left crude, painted
in oil without varnish to get the strongest effect, with real hair and
beards and special attention given to getting light into the eyes.
There were, eventually, over one hundred dolls including such as
Pierrot, Guignol, Gendarme, Isabelle della Spade, Capitaine, also well
known types and personages of the day. Very popular and subsequently
famous was the _Green Monster_ at Nohant. It appears that in one of the
early plays the cast called for a green monster. Upon the maker of the
marionettes devolved the task of supplying one. Madame Sand, nothing
daunted, discovered an old felt slipper. By using the opening as the
wide jaws of the dragon and lining it with red to represent the inside
of the mouth, a very effective, long snout was presented which, with
a hand slipped inside, could be opened and closed most fearfully and
threateningly. It was a highly successful _green monster_. Whenever it
appeared there was much applause, and nobody ever seemed to notice or
to care that it had been manufactured out of _blue_ felt.
The repertoire of the Théâtre des amis was varied, sometimes fantastic
whimsies, sometimes travesties on daily events; sometimes the managers
grew ambitious and presented spectacular scenes with ballets; the
literary side of the production was always emphasized. These shows,
the best of their sort, continued through most troublesome times of
political upheaval and George Sand has written some touching paragraphs
upon the fact that hearts sorely grieved by these national trials,
could find distraction and a moment’s respite with the marionettes.
The puppets, too, had their vicissitudes. At one time, Victor Borie,
who was assisting, in attempting to represent a fire, burnt down
the whole stage. It was built up anew with more puppets and better
equipment. Madame Sand dressed the new dolls as she had the old. More
helpers had to be called in, all talented persons who entered into
the work with enthusiasm. The audience always contained celebrated
people, representatives of literature, art, music and statesmanship.
Once when the puppets presented a parody upon _La Dame aux Camellias_
(presumably not for young ladies) Dumas, fils, came to see and enjoy
the production. In 1880 the puppets moved from Nohant to Passy to the
home of Maurice Sand, where a large theatre had been prepared for them.
Here there were over four hundred elaborate dolls. But in 1889 Maurice
Sand died and the Théâtre des amis disappeared. A book written about it
was published in 1890.
[Illustration: PUPPETS OF GEORGE SAND’S THEATRE AT NOHANT
[From Ernest Maindron’s _Marionettes et Guignols_]]
Equally illustrious and possibly more exquisite, more precious,
were the puppets of the _Erotikon theatron de la rue de la Santé_,
established in 1862. Here it is said puppetry was raised to an ideal
level. Here, an enthusiastic press of the day proclaimed, here was
the proof of how highly developed a naïve and simple art may become
in the hands of rare spiritual and æsthetic personalities. Another
journal, _Le Boulevard_, exclaimed, “Again a new theatre! An intimate
theatre, Erotikon theatron, that is to say _Theatre of Amorous
Marionettes_. Reassure yourselves, everything that transpires is most
conventional; the blows of the cudgel are always protectors of
morality and if a mother would not see fit to bring her daughter, on
the other hand, painters and literateurs of talent take delight in it.”
It was indeed an exceptional experiment, a gathering of artists,
sculptors, musicians, actors, authors; Lemercier de Neuville, the
guiding spirit, assisted in his efforts by Carjat and Gustave Doré,
and also by Amedée Rolland, Jean Dubois, Henri Monnier, Théodore de
Banville, Bizet, Poulet Malasses, Champfleury, Duranty, Henri Dalage
and others, each contributing something toward the perfection of the
whole. M. Lemercier de Neuville was in the beginning architect, mason,
painter, machinist, carpenter, decorator, hairdresser and tailor,
actor, singer, dancer and imitator. Alfred Delvau has written an
entertaining history of this bizarre little theatre. The project seems
to have been suggested informally at the home of M. Amedée Rolland, by
a group of distinguished men of letters who had been lunching together,
among them De Neuville, who proceeded to transform the idea thus
lightly suggested into a concrete reality.
The auditorium seated only twenty people; its walls were painted with
mural decorations by artists of the group, as was the proscenium arch
of the stage. The stage itself was only a trifle over two yards wide,
but it was well equipped for the presentation of quite elaborate
faeries. For the most part, however, there were merely the pupazzi upon
the stage, which M. de Neuville worked himself upon his fingers. Their
faces were modelled with unsurpassed refinement and animation, their
creator having lavished his heart and talent in the making of them.
His _Pierrot Guitariste_ was, according to Maindron, the most charming
of all puppets, in gesture and bearing a masterpiece of mechanical and
plastic art. Others have called it the most highly perfected puppet
ever created. Another remarkable doll was the violoncellist who could
enter, bow in one hand, instrument in the other, seat himself, tune up
and play. There was a Spanish dancer particularly graceful and alluring
as well as a wonderful ballet, worked on one horizontal string, which
glided in and out and back and forth. Sarah Bernhardt was represented
among these fascinating pupazzi and Jules Simon, Coquelin, cadet, and
other celebrities familiar in Paris. As de Neuville lived among the
individuals he was representing what wonder that his mimicry was close
to perfection?
This altogether rare little theatre unfortunately endured for only
a year and produced in all but six or seven delightful if slightly
shocking pieces, although more had been written for it. Perhaps the
dissimilarity of talents comprising it was too great, but at least its
inspired cynicisms, amusing audacities and exquisite spectacles have
won the lasting acclamations of the French press, of royalty and of the
greatest geniuses of the day.
[Illustration:
SIVORI
PIERROT GUITARISTE
COQUELIN CADET
Puppets of Lemercier de Neuville, Erotikon theatron de la rue de la
Santé
[Reproduced from Ernest Maindron’s _Marionettes et Guignols_]]
In the shadow play, as well as in the play of pupazzi, French artists
have attained great successes. The first _Ombres Chinoises_, so
called, of importance started simply enough about 1770 when Dominique
Seraphin, a young man of twenty-three, established his little show in
Versailles. In the beginning for the amusement of children, little
comical dialogues such as _The Broken Bridge_, or _The Imaginary
Invalid_ (from Molière), were presented by silhouette figures with
articulated limbs. In 1774 after a few years of unusual success,
Seraphin moved to Paris where, under royal protection, his little
shadows became very well established. Although they had been ensconced
in the Palais Royal by favor of the king yet they managed through the
cleverness of Seraphin to sustain themselves in popular favor after the
overthrow of royalty. Indeed they were said to be the first to avail
themselves of advertisements in the form of posted placards.
The advertisement was rather charming:
“Venez, garçon, venez fillette,
Voir Momus à la silhouette.
Qui, chez Seraphin, venez voir
La belle humeur en habit noir.
Tandis que ma salle est bien sombre
Et que mon acteur n’est que l’ombre
Puisse, Messieurs, votre gaîté
Devenir la réalité.”
Long after the death of Seraphin, until 1870 in fact, the show
continued in the hands of his descendants, presenting pieces especially
written for it, with music composed to accompany the shadows.
It was the art critic, Paul Eudel, who first published an illustrated
volume of such fairy pieces and melodramas composed by his grandfather
in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Half a century later
Lemercier de Neuville, who was interested in _pupazzi noir_ as well as
in other puppets, published another collection of little plays with
fifty illustrations and with explanations of designs and methods of
producing the shadows. De Neuville had enlarged the scope but had not
changed the principles of the art. He presented animals who opened
their jaws, processions and caricatures of celebrities such as Sarah
Bernhardt, Zola, and others.
[Illustration: TABLEAU
From a shadow play of _The Prodigal Son_ at the Chat Noir
[Designed by Henri Rivière]]
Then a little later came the wonderful shadows, now designated as
_Ombres Françaises_, and shown at the Chat Noir, famous cabaret of
Montmartre where gathered literary and artistic Bohemia. “The Chat Noir
has an art of its own,” writes Anatole France, “that is at once mystic
and impious, ironical, sad, simple and profound, but never reverential.
It is epic and mocking in the hands of the precise Caran d’Ache. It has
a bland and melancholy viciousness in Willette, who is, as it were,
the Fra Angelico of the cabarets. It is symbolic and naturalistic with
the very capable Henri Rivière. The forty scenes of the ”Tentation“
of St. Anthony amaze me. They exhibit lovely coloring, daring fancy;
impressive beauty and forcible meaning. I put them far above the
imps depicted by the austere Callot.” These comedies, spectacles,
military epics, oratorios, mysteries, Greek scenes, burlesques and
pantomimes, were indeed conceived with a certain large poetic glamour.
It was Caran d’Ache who made the great artistic contribution of giving
up articulation of individual figures, for the most part, to move great
numbers of them along. He invented perspective in shadows, using masses
of figures in different planes and producing a sense of solidarity
and immensity. His masterpiece, _Epopée_, the evocation of the Grand
Army of Napoleon, presented with epic grandeur company after company
of cuirassiers in long lines, the profiles diminishing in height as
the figures receded from the eyes. It conveyed, as one critic avers,
the idea of great space and of a vast army of men marching in serried
ranks “to victory or to death.” A few single figures were allowed to
stand out distinctly like the Little Corporal on horseback, there was
little speech only music and an occasional command. The effect of this
military silhouette was most impressive.
Next came Henri Rivière, who added the variety of color to the shadows,
and furthermore, by the use of two magic lanterns, created dissolving
views so that the background might be altered at will. The subjects
of his elaborate pantomimes were such as _The Wandering Jew_, _The
Prodigal Son_, and _The Temptation of St. Anthony_. Of the latter,
Rehm has given us an admiring appreciation. “We saw the sun setting
into the sea, the forests trembling in the morning breeze; we saw
deserts stretching out into the infinite, the oceans surging, great
cities flaming up in the evening with artificial lights and the moon
silvering the ripples of the rivers upon which barges were silently
and slowly gliding along. He (Rivière) employs everything from the
picturesque style of watercolor spread on with a brush to the imitation
of Japanese color prints, pen sketch and poster style, Gothic or
Pre-Raphaelite characteristics and naturalistic impressionism. In _The
Sphinx_ where the conquerors of all centuries, from the Pharaohs to
Napoleon, file past this monument of eternity; in his _March of the
Stars_ where shepherds and their flocks, beggars, slaves and fishermen,
and the Wise Men from the East make their pilgrimage to the Virgin
with the Divine Child; in the _Enfant Prodigue_ where the son of the
patriarch sets out for Egypt accompanied by his herds, his caravan, his
riders,--to return, a beggar,--everywhere we see this art, dreamlike
and philosophic, legendary, fantastic, sublime, creating ecstatic
illusions.” Of _The Sphinx_, a collaboration of Rivière and Caran
d’Ache, Jules Lemaître writes, “Here we have a true epic poem, simple
yet grandiose.”
Thus the magic touch of genius has transformed naïve shadows into
something altogether wonderful while crude pupazzi, animated with
thumb and fingers of the artist, have grown gloriously sophisticated.
The marionettes that are moved by wire or string also had their
renaissance in the sympathetic, stimulating atmosphere of Paris. Their
technical development J. M. Petite has called a veritable triumph of
ingeniousness, of prestidigitation, and of mechanics. The first of the
_Operator-Magicians_ was Thomas Holden, who came to Paris around 1875.
His puppets performed the most perilously difficult feats. Following in
his footsteps came two brothers who rivalled him in skill; Alfred and
Charles de Saint-Genois, who took the names of Dickson and John Hewelt
respectively. The puppets of Dickson are said to have operated as if
by magic. They were mute and appeared on the stage singly, but the
perfect elasticity and the winged grace of their gestures seemed truly
supernatural. They were displayed at the celebrated theatre of Robert
Houdin.
John Hewelt gave productions of quite a different nature. He
constructed not only a marionette stage for his actors, but an
orchestra of puppets with an animated little leader, and diminutive
spectators in the front boxes, a little lady with an opera glass,
another with a fan, perfectly gowned in the latest fashions, applauding
or chatting after the approved manner. Upon the stage appeared
startlingly lifelike figures impersonating Yvette Guilbert and other
celebrated actresses and actors of the day. Hewelt stood concealed on
a platform overlooking and manipulated his puppets by three controls,
with his feet as well as his hands. But despite his unsurpassed
inventiveness, his production did not quite satisfy the spirit. One
marvelled at the difficulties overcome more than at the beauty of the
performance.
As ingenious mechanically as the shows of John Hewelt and Dickson, but
conceived and carried out in a far more inspired and artistic manner,
were the puppets of the Galérie Vivienne. _Le Petit Théâtre de M. Henri
Signoret_ (1888–1892) has been immortalized in the writings of Anatole
France, most rare and delicate critic. It was an undertaking seriously
entered upon by some of the artistic spirits in Paris who desired to
witness intelligent and sympathetic performances of the classic drama
of all lands; Greek plays, the mysteries of the Middle Ages, Italian
and Spanish comedy of the sixteenth century. Apparently the stage of
the day did not satisfy this desire. After encountering insurmountable
difficulties in assembling an adequate cast of good actors, it was
decided to use marionettes. Forty friends, all artists, combined to
help the director, who was the fastidious literateur, M. Signoret. The
result was a brilliant success.
The theatre was like a little jewel case in its delicate detail;
it seated only two hundred and fifty people. The puppets were most
carefully constructed. The same skeleton framework was used for them
all but individual heads, hands and chests were put on each frame
which was finally costumed according to design. Both the modelling of
the faces and the costuming were the inspired creations of artists.
The marionettes were moved on rails in grooves or slides, the arms
and neck being wired and manipulated by pedals from underneath. The
audience was seated low so that the mechanism was invisible. The
public who patronized this marionette theatre, indeed, consisted
of such interesting people as Jules Lemaître, Émile Faguet, Anatole
France, Hugues Leroux, and they were unanimous in their approval.
The repertoire included classic drama of every epoch: _The Birds_ by
Aristophanes, _Abraham_ by the Abbess Hrotswitha, _Gardien Vigilant_
by Cervantes, _The Tempest_ by Shakespeare, _Tobie_ and _The Legend of
St. Cecelia_ by M. Boucher, _L’Amour dans les Enfers_ by Amédée Pigeon
written expressly for the marionettes of M. Signoret.
But let the fluent pen of the illustrious and enthusiastic witness
picture them to you. “I have already made the avowal,” declares Anatole
France, “I love the marionettes and those of M. Signoret please me
particularly. These marionettes resemble the Egyptian hieroglyphics,
that is to say, something mysterious and pure and when they represent a
drama of Shakespeare or Aristophanes I think I see the thoughts of the
poet being unrolled in sacred characters upon the walls of the temple.”
Of the representation of _The Tempest_ he writes: “M. Signoret’s
marionettes have just acted Shakespeare’s _Tempest_. It is hardly an
hour since the curtain of the little theatre fell on the harmonious
group of Ferdinand and Miranda. I am still under the charm; as Prospero
says, ‘I do yet taste some subtleties of the Isle.’ What a delightful
play! And how true it is that exquisite things are doubly exquisite
when they are unaffected....