(_With some Notes on a Detective Melodrama at the Ambigu._)
DEAR MR. PUNCH,--When I announced my intention of running over to Paris
for a few days, my friend BUZZARD looked at me with a stony contempt.
"To Paris?" he said, "at this time of year! Why, you must be mad. What
on earth are you going to do there?" I tried to explain to BUZZARD,
whose frigid superiority frightens me, that I liked Paris, that I was
going there _pour me dégourdir_; that it was just as possible to
breakfast at LEDOYEN'S or VOISIN'S, and to dine at DURAND'S or JOSEPH'S
in September as at any other time; that a few theatres were still open;
that the Boulevards were there for the _flâneur_; but I failed to
penetrate his scorn, even with the most idiomatic French at my command.
However, I determined that BUZZARD, like the weight of the elephant in
the problem, must be neglected; and here I am in the Rue de Rivoli with
another madman like unto myself. We take our _café complet_ in bed; we
wear beautiful French ties, made of _foulard_, with two vast ends
floating like banners in the Parisian breeze--in a word, we are
thoroughly enjoying ourselves in an entirely non-British fashion--which
I take, indeed, to be of the essence of a pleasant holiday. What care we
for the echoes of the Trades Union Congress; for the windiest of KEIR
HARDIE'S blatancies; for the malignities of Mr. CHAMBERLAIN, or the
failure of Lord ROSEBERY'S _Ladas_ at Doncaster? We are in Paris, and
the sight of a _cuirassier_ trotting past with his great black
_crinière_ waving behind, or of the lady bicyclists scudding by in
knickerbockers, excites us more than even the latest ravings of the
newest woman in London. BUZZARD be blowed! You may tell him I said so.
[Illustration]
I want to let Mr. CONAN DOYLE know that there is a great opening for
him here. If I may judge by the latest detective drama, the ideas of
the Parisian public with regard to the acumen and general power of
a detective are still very primitive. Yet GABORIAU did something in
this line, and, in the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_, did not _d'Artagnan_
show himself on the occasion of a certain duel to be a detective of
unmatchable force? Still the fact remains that the play-going Parisian
public is easily satisfied in the matter of detectives. Listen, if you
doubt me, to a plain unvarnished account of "_La Belle Limonadière_,"
the "_Grand drame nouveau en cinq actes, huit tableaux_," which is now
running gloomily, but with immense success, at the _Ambigu_.
_Madame de Mazerolles_, a wealthy widow, is, in the first Act, robbed
and brutally murdered by her stepson, _Roland_, a dissipated young
man, who is incited to the commission of the crime by his wicked
mistress _Sabine_. _Vidocq_, the great representative of the new
school in detection (_circa_ A.D. 1820), is away at the time, and in
his absence the investigation falls to his rival _Yvrier_, who belongs
to the old school. In the chamber of death _Yvrier_ soon makes up
his mind that the guilty person is one _Henri Lebrun_, a faithful
and gigantic old soldier, much given to beating his breast with both
fists and talking at large about his services to his country, his
immaculate honesty and his domestic virtues. Suddenly _Vidocq_ enters.
He discovers that the assassin has entered by a certain door because
a cobweb has been disturbed, he picks up a red flower dropped by the
assassin, he pours contempt on the crass stupidity of _Yvrier_--all
quite in the best Sherlock Holmes style. But nothing comes of it
all. Poor _Henri Lebrun_, still beating his breast with fists, is
arrested, and after a painful interview with his only daughter (whom
he discovers to have been the mistress of _George_, the son of _Madame
Mazerolles_), he becomes sublime, accuses himself quite unnecessarily
of the murder he had never committed, and is marched off to prison
amid the execrations of the populace, the triumph of the crass
_Yvrier_, and the loudly expressed determination of _Vidocq_ to bring
the guilty to justice and save the life of the innocent _Lebrun_.
Time passes. _Lebrun_, overwhelmed by an entire absence of proofs,
is tried and condemned to death. It is the morning appointed for
his execution. The curtain rises in the upper floor of a restaurant
commanding an extensive view of the guillotine. The sight-seers troop
in. First of all comes _Roland_, the murderer, disguised in black as
a wicked Marquis, and accompanied by the infamous _Sabine_. _Hélène
Lebrun_, the daughter of the condemned man, also troops in to slow
music in black. There is a commotion at the door, and the obsequious
innkeeper backs on to the stage ushering in _Milord Sir John Stilton_
and his son "_Shames_." _Sir John_ is dressed in an enormous green
swallow-tailed coat with brass buttons, a striped yellow waistcoat, a
pair of yellow knickerbockers, and stockings brilliantly striped with
red and black. On his head he wears a low-crowned hat. In one hand
he carries an umbrella, while a telescope dangles from his Shoulders
by a strap. In short, he is _tout-ce-qu'il-y-a de plus Anglais_. His
son _Shames_ is even more aggressively British. _Sir John_ orders
lunch: "_vous donner moa bifteck_" is the obvious formula. _Shames_
concurs with a "Yehs, Pappah," which provokes roars of laughter. But
stay, what is this? _Sir John_ takes _Shames_ aside: they talk in
beautiful French. Can it be? Yes, by Heaven, it is the great _Vidocq_
with his faithful _Coco-Latour_! We breathe again, for now we know
that the innocent man is safe. The procession, however, approaches.
The condemned man speaks from below to his daughter in the balcony.
He declares his innocence. Now good _Vidocq_, to the rescue. Display
all your arts, convict the guilty, disguised Marquis, and save the
estimable _Lebrun_! But _Vidocq_ looks on impassive, a dull thud is
heard and the head of the innocent rolls into the basket. Immediately
afterwards _Yvrier_ staggers in. Too late, he says, he has been
convinced of _Lebrun's_ innocence. At the last moment _Lebrun_ looked
at him with eyes in which there was no trace of guilt. That last look
did it, and now _Yvrier_ in a passion of repentance offers himself to
help _Vidocq_, even in the most subordinate capacity, to track down
the guilty, and to remove the stain from _Lebrun's_ name. I pass over
the padding, during which _Vidocq_ appears, for no earthly reason, in
numerous disguises, and come to the last scene. _Roland_ has all but
killed _George Mazerolles_ in a duel, he has murdered _Sabine_, who,
before dying, rounds on him, and he is now, by a strange conjunction
of circumstances, in the very room in which he murdered _Madame
Mazerolles_. Thither also comes everybody else. _Vidocq_, who is
tracking _Roland_, discovers, through a paper belonging to the late
_Madame Mazerolles_, that _Roland_, her murderer, was her son, not
her step-son, and that he, _Vidocq_, is the father of _Roland_. In
his youth _Vidocq_ had been a soldier. Somewhere he had met _Madame
Mazerolles_. "_Nous nous sommes aimés entre deux batailles, entre
deux victoires_," and _Roland_ was the fruit of their love. Horror of
horrors! What is he to do? First he tells _Roland_ that he killed, not
his step-mother, but his mother. At this awful intelligence, _Roland_
faints in an armchair for precisely ten seconds. Recovering himself,
he is fain to escape. _Vidocq_, all his fatherly instincts aroused,
says he shall. The weak _Yvrier_ consents, when suddenly, from behind
a curtain, appears _Hélène Lebrun_ in black. The murderer of her
father must not escape, she declares, whereupon the great detective,
vowing that his son shall never be food for the guillotine, shoots him
dead with a toy pistol in the region of the left waistcoat pocket.
Tableau! Curtain!
There, _Mr. Punch_, you have the French _Sherlock_ on the stage. A
wonderful man, is he not?
Yours, as always,