the Cure of Ars, closed his mortal life in that little village near
Lyons which will probably be henceforth for ever associated with his
name. "A common consent," says Dr. Manning, in a preface to the book
before us, "seems to have numbered him, even while living, among the
servants of God; and an expectation prevails that the day is not far
off when the Church will raise him to veneration upon her altars." He
was the son of a farmer of Dardilly, near Lyons, and appears to have
inherited virtue from both his parents. God gave him neither graces of
person nor gifts of intellect. His face was pale and thin, his stature
low, his gait awkward, his manner shy and timid, his whole air common
and unattractive. His education was so defective that his teachers
hesitated to recommend him for ordination. But the want of human
learning seems to have been supplied by supernatural illumination.
When he went to Ars, virtue was little known there. To say that he
speedily wrought an entire reformation is but a faint expression of
the extraordinary effect of his ministry. Drunkenness and quarreling
were soon unknown. At the sound of the midday _Angelus_ the laborers
would stop in their work to recite the _Ave Maria_ with uncovered
head. Men and women used to repair to the church after their work was
done, and often came again to pray at two or three o'clock in the
morning. The cure himself, it may be said, never left the church
except to discharge some function of his ministry, to take one scanty
meal a day, of bread or potatoes, and to sleep two or three hours. In
the seventh year of his ministry he founded an asylum for orphan or
destitute girls which he called "The Providence." It is believed that
he was miraculously assisted in providing food and clothing for these
poor children. Once the stock of flour was exhausted, except enough to
make two loaves. "Put your leaven into the little flour you have,"
said the cure to the baker, "and to-morrow go on with your baking as
usual." "The next day," says this person, "I know not how it happened,
but as I kneaded, the dough seemed to rise and rise under my fingers;
I could not put in the water quick enough; the more I put in, the more
it swelled and thickened, so that I was able to make, with a handful
of flour, ten large loaves of from twenty to twenty-two pounds each,
as much, in fact, as could have been made with a whole sack of flour."
It was in consequence partly of circumstances of this nature connected
with the Providence, and partly of the reputation of M. Vianney as a
spiritual director, that a stream of pilgrims set in toward Ars that
has continued to flow ever since. Before the close of his life, as
many as eighty thousand persons are said to have visited him in a
single year, by a single route. Most of them came to confess; many to
be cured of deformities or disease; others to ask advice in special
difficulties. The number of cures effected at his hands was
prodigious. His labors in the confessional were almost beyond belief;
for thirty years he spent in this severest of all the duties of a
parish priest sixteen or eighteen hours a day. Penitents were content
to await their turn in the church all night, all the next day--even two
{576} days. Devout persons were so eager to get relics of him during
his life, that whenever he laid aside his hat or his surplice the
garment was immediately appropriated. So after a time he never put on
a hat, and never took off his surplice.
It seemed at last that his humility could no longer endure the
veneration that was paid him. He resolved to retire to a quiet place,
and spend the rest of his life in prayer. He attempted to escape
secretly by night; but one of his assistant priests discovered his
purpose, and contrived to delay him, until the alarm was sounded
through the village. The inhabitants were roused at the first stroke.
The clangor of the bell was soon mingled with confused cries of "M. le
cure!" The women crowded the market-place and prayed aloud in the
church; the men armed themselves with whatever came first to hand;
guns, forks, sticks, and axes. M. Vianney made his way with difficulty
to the street door, but the villagers would not let him open it. "He
went from one door to another," says his old servant, "without getting
angry; but I think he was weeping." At last he reached the street, and
stood still for a moment, considering how to escape. His assistant
made a last effort to persuade him to remain. The populace fell at his
feet, and cried, with heart-rending sobs, "Father, let us finish our
confession; do not go without hearing us!" And thus saying, they
carried rather than led him to the church. He knelt before the altar
and wept for a long time. Then he went quietly into his confessional
as if nothing had happened.
We would gladly quote the whole of the beautiful scene of which we
have attempted to give an outline; but our space forbids. We must pass
over also the graphic description of the abbe's death and funeral, as
well as the narrative of the extraordinary sufferings which made his
life one long purgatory. Let our readers get the book, and they will
find it as interesting as a romance.
THE LIFE OF JOHN MARY DECALOGNE,
STUDENT IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS.
Translated from the French. 18mo., pp. 162. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet.
This edifying narrative of the short and almost angelic career of a
school-boy who died in the odor of sanctity, in his seventeenth year,
was a great favorite with our fathers and grandfathers, but we believe
has long been out of print. Its re-publication is a praiseworthy
adventure, which we hope will have the success it deserves. The book
is especially recommended to lads preparing for their first communion.
_The New Path_, for June (New York: James Miller, publisher), is
devoted wholly to the fortieth annual exhibition of the National
Academy of Design. Our spicy little contemporary has no mercy on the
artists.
_Truebner's American and Oriental Literary Record_, the first number of
which was published in London last March, is "a monthly register of
the most important works published in North and South America, in
India, China, and the British Colonies; with occasional notes on
German, Dutch, Danish, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and
Russian books." We believe it is the first systematic attempt to bring
the young literature of America and the East before the public of
Europe. We commend it to the attention of our book-writing and
publishing friends.
The American News Company issue a little pamphlet on _The Russo-Greek
Church, by a former resident of Russia_. Its aim is to expose the
absurdity of the attempts at union between the Russian and Protestant
Episcopal Churches.
----
BOOKS RECEIVED.
History of England from the fall of Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth.
By James Anthony Froude, M.A. New York: Charles Scribner & Company.
The History of the Protestant Reformation, etc. By M.J. Spalding,
D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore. Fourth revised edition. Baltimore: John
Murphy & Company.
Ceremonial for the use of the Catholic Churches in the United States
of America. Third edition, revised and enlarged. Baltimore: Kelly &
Piet.
Meditations and Considerations for a Retreat of One Day in each Month.
Compiled from the writings of Fathers of the Society of Jesus.
Baltimore: Kelly & Piet.
The Year of Mary. Translated from the French of the Rev. M. d'Arville,
Apostolic Prothonotary. Edited and in part translated by Mrs. J.
Sadlier. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham.
------
{577}
THE CATHOLIC WORLD,
VOL. I., NO. 5. AUGUST, 1865.
Translated from Etudes Religieuses, Historiques, et Litteraires,
par des Peres de la Compagnie de Jesus.
DRAMATIC MYSTERIES OF
THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES.
BY A. CAHOUR, S. J.
The drama of the Middle Ages ends with a sort of theatrical explosion.
Everything disappears at once, under all forms and on every side. It
included, like that of earlier times, "mysteries" drawn from the Old
and the New Testament; "miracles" and plays borrowed from legends,
tragedies inspired by the acts of the martyrs and by chivalric
romances, by ancient history and by modern history; "moralities" whose
allegorical impersonations represent the vices and the virtues; pious
comedies like those of Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre, upon
the Nativity of Jesus Christ, upon the Adoration of the Magi, upon the
Holy Family in the desert; profane comedies like those of the "Two
Daughters" and the "Two Wives" by the same princess; ludicrous farces
like that of Patelin the Advocate; licentious farces _ad nauseam;_
finally, the _"Soties,"_ satirical plays in which the _Clercs de la
Basoche_ and the _Enfants sans souci_ renewed the audacity of
Aristophanes without reviving his talent. There were representations
for all solemn occasions, for the patron-feasts of cities and
parishes, for the assemblies of a whole country, for the "joyous
entry" of kings and princes. There were also scenic _entremets_ for
banquets; and nearly all these displays were made with proportions so
gigantic, with so much pomp and expense, that everybody must have
participated in them, priests and magistrates, lords and citizens,
carpenters and minstrels. The representation of a "mystery" became the
affair of a whole city, of a whole province. The hangings of the
theatre, the costume of the actors, exhibited the most beautiful
tapestries, the richest dresses, the most precious jewels of the
neighboring chateaux, and even the ornaments of the churches--copes
for the eternal Father, dalmatics for the angels.
One of our most ingenious and learned critics, whom it is impossible
not to cite frequently when writing upon the dramatic poetry of the
sixteenth century, M. Sainte-Beuve, in speaking of this prodigious
fecundity, has remarked, that "when things are close to their end they
often have a final season of remarkable brilliancy--it is their
autumn--their vintage; {578} or it is like the last brilliant
discharge in a piece of fireworks." Perhaps there is no better
illustration of this phenomenon than that of a pyrotechnic display,
which multiplying its jets of light, and illuminating the entire
horizon at the very moment of its extinction, disappears into the
night and leaves naught behind but its smoke. What is there left, in
fact, after all this theatrical effervescence? One natural and truly
French inspiration alone--the immortal farce of Patelin, dating from
the second half of the fifteenth century, and revived at the
commencement of the eighteenth by Brueys and Palaprat.
However, despite its poverty, this dramatic epoch merits our close
attention. In giving us a picture of the public amusements of our
forefathers, it will indicate, on the one hand, the nature of their
morality and their literary tastes, and on the other, the causes of
the decline of the old Christian drama at the verge of the revolution
which delivered over the French stage to the ideas and the philosophy
of paganism.
If we wished to give a catalogue of the productions of the fifteenth
and the sixteenth centuries, we might easily compile it from the
history of the brothers Parfait, the _"Recherches"_ of Beauchamps, and
the _"Bibliotheque"_ of the Duke de la Valliere. Such a task, however
abridged, would require a long chapter, and we neither have time to
undertake it nor are we sorry at being obliged to omit it. Passing
straight to our goal, let us occupy ourselves with the tragic dramas
alone, and even here we must put bounds to our inquiry under penalty
of losing ourselves in endless and uninteresting details. All that
which characterizes the Melpomene of the fifteenth and the
commencement of the sixteenth centuries is found in the two great
works, "The Mystery of the Passion," and "The Mystery of the Acts of
the Apostles." In these, and we may almost say in these only, shall we
study its power and its originality.
"The Mystery of the Passion" is the work of two Angevin poets, named
alike Jehan Michel. The first, born toward the end of the fourteenth
century, after having been a canon and at the same time secretary of
Queen Yolande of Aragon, mother of the good King Rene, Count of Anjou
and of Provence, became bishop of Angers, February 19, 1438, and died
in the odor of sanctity, September 12, 1447. The second Jehan Michel,
a very eloquent and scientific doctor, as la Croix du Maine informs
us, was the chief physician of King Charles VIII., and died in
Piedmont, August 22, 1493. He edited and printed, in 1486, the work of
his namesake.
This mystery was played at Metz and at Paris in 1437, and at Angers
three years afterward upon the commencement of the episcopacy of its
first author. It is a gigantic trilogy, into which are fused and
co-ordinated all the dramatic representations borrowed for three
centuries from the canonical and apocryphal gospels.
"It is," remarks M. Douhaire, in his eleventh lecture on the History
of Christian Poetry before the Renaissance,--"it is a great central
sea into which flow all the streams of a common poetic region. From
the refreshing pictures of the patriarchal life of Joachim and Ann to
the sublime scenes of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the saints
of the ancient law, all, or nearly all, that has caught our eyes
before is here found anew, sometimes as a reminiscence, sometimes in
the lifelike and spirited form of a dialogue. The legend of the death
of the Holy Virgin, the legends of the apostles, of Pilate, and of the
Wandering Jew, have alone been omitted; whether because they appeared
to the authors of the mystery to break the theological unity of their
work, or because their length excluded them from a composition already
swollen far beyond reasonable limits."
The mystery opens with a council held in heaven upon the redemption
{579} of the human race. On the one side Mercy and Peace, in
allegorical character, implore pardon for our first parents and their
posterity. On the other, Justice and Truth demand the eternal
condemnation of the guilty. To conciliate them, there must be found a
man without sin who will freely die for the salvation of all. They go
forth to seek him on the earth. To the council of heaven succeeds that
of hell. Lucifer in terror convokes his demons to oppose the
redemption of the world. During their tumultuous deliberation the four
virtues return in despair to heaven. They have failed to find the
generous and pure victim necessary for expiation. The Son of God
offers himself, and the mystery of the incarnation is decreed.
[Footnote 114] St. Joachim espouses St. Ann, and Mary is born of the
union so long sterile. Then follows the scenic display of all the
legendary and gospel narratives of her education, her marriage with
St. Joseph, the incarnation of the Word, the birth of Jesus Christ,
and all the wonders of his infancy up to his dispute in the temple
with the doctors. It is at this point that the great drama completes
its first part, which is entitled "The Mystery of the Conception." It
is adapted, after the style of the time, for ninety-seven persons.
[Footnote 114: This is the idea of St. Bernard dramatized. _In festo
Annunciationis B.M.V. Sermo primus_, No. 9; vol. i., p. 974.]
The second part, which has given its name to the entire drama, is the
"Mystery of the Passion of Jesus Christ." It is divided into four
"days," each of which has its appropriate actors. The first day, which
is for eighty-seven persons, extends from the preaching of St. John
the Baptist, in the wilderness, to his beheading. The second requires
a hundred persons. It comprises the sermons and miracles of our
Saviour, and ends with the resurrection of Lazarus. The third
commences with the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem and
ends with Annas and Caiphas. This day is for eighty-seven persons,
like the first. The fourth requires five hundred. It is the
representation of all the scenes in the tribunal of Pilate and at the
court of Herod, at Calvary and at the holy sepulchre.
The third part, entitled "The Resurrection," represents Jesus Christ
manifesting himself to his disciples in different places after he has
risen from the tomb; then his ascension and entrance into heaven in
the midst of concerts of angels; and finally, the descent of the Holy
Spirit upon the apostles assembled together in an upper chamber. We
have two different forms of this third part. One is in three days; the
other in one. The former has only forty-five persons; one hundred and
forty are needed for the latter.
These three dramas, of which the trilogy of the Passion is composed,
were played for a century and a half, sometimes together, sometimes
separately. When represented at Paris, in 1437, at the entrance of
Charles VII., they closed with a spectacle of the final judgment.
[Footnote 115] There are even found amplifiers who carry it back as
far as the origin of the world. It will be difficult to say how much
time the performance of this agglomeration of dramas required. Some
idea, however, can be formed from a representation of the Old
Testament, arranged about 1500, which set out with the creation of the
angels and did not arrive at the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ
until after twenty-two days. Was the trilogy of the two Angevin poets
sometimes preceded by this immense prelude? We cannot tell. But the
length of the spectacle would render this conjecture incredible, since
the "Triumphant Mystery of the Acts of the Apostles," played at
Bruges, in 1536, lasted forty days, morning and afternoon. {580} These
spectacles commenced ordinarily at nine in the morning. Then at eleven
o'clock the people went to dinner, and returned again two hours after.
[Footnote 115: "All along the great Rue St. Denis," according to
Alain Chartier, "to the distance of a stone's throw on both sides,
were erected scaffoldings of great and costly construction, where
were played The Annunciation of Our Lady, The Nativity of our Lord,
his Passion, his Resurrection, Pentecost, and the Last Judgment, the
whole passing off quite well." (Beauchamps' _Recherches sur les
theaters de France,_ t. i., p. 254-256).]
This drama, thirty or forty times longer than our longest classical
tragedies, contains, at the least, sixty-six thousand verses. It was
printed for the first time, in 1537, in two volumes folio, and proved
its popularity by three different editions within four years. The
emphasis of its title attests, moreover, the immense success of its
representation at Bruges the year before. It was the composition of
two brothers, Arnoul and Simon Greban, born at Compiegne. Arnoul, by
whom it was conceived and commenced about 1450, was a canon of Mans.
He died before he had finished versifying it. Simon, monk of St.
Riquier, in Ponthieu, completed it during the reign of Charles VII.,
and, consequently, before 1461. Their dramatic composition is divided
into nine books. They have left to the "directors" of the spectacle
the care of dividing it into more or fewer days, according to
circumstances.
The first book commences with the assembling of the disciples in the
upper chamber, and represents the election of St. Matthias, the
descent of the Holy Spirit, and the earlier preaching of the apostles
when braving the persecutions of the synagogue. The second book
extends from the martyrdom of St. Stephen to the conversion of St.
Paul. The third is filled with the legendary traditions concerning the
apostleship of St Thomas in India. The fourth brings back the
spectacle to Jerusalem, where Herod dies after having cut off the head
of St. James the Greater; then the scene is transferred to Antioch,
where St. Peter, at the solicitation of Simon the Magician, is put
into prison, and obtains his liberty by restoring to life the son of
the prince of that city who had been dead ten years. The fifth book
contains, first, the preaching of St. Paul at Athens, where he
converts St. Denis, the future apostle of France; then, the death of
the Blessed Virgin, at which the apostles are present, brought
together suddenly by a miracle. The sixth book is consecrated to the
apostleship and martyrdom of St. Matthew in Ethiopia, of St. Barnabas
in the Isle of Cyprus, of St. Simon and St. Jude at Babylon, and,
finally, of St. Bartholomew, whom Prince Astyages flayed alive. In the
seventh book, St. Thomas ends his apostleship in India, slain by the
sword; St. Matthias is stoned to death by the Jews; St. Andrew is
crucified by the provost of Achaia; the Emperor Claudius dies and Nero
succeeds him. In the eighth book, St. Philip and St. James the Less
suffer martyrdom at Hierapolis. The two princes combine with the
apostles against Simon the Magician and bring his miracles to naught.
St Paul recalls Patroclus to life, who had fallen from a high window
while sleeping over the apostolic sermon. In the ninth and last book,
Simon the Magician, availing himself of his most powerful enchantments
in order to deceive the Romans, having caused himself to be lifted
into the air by the demons, falls at the voice of St. Peter and is
killed. Nero avenges him by imprisoning St. Peter and St. Paul--puts
to death Proces and Martinian, their gaolers, whom they had converted
and by whom they were set at liberty--arrests the two apostles anew,
and condemns one to be crucified, the other to be beheaded. Then,
terrified by the successive apparitions of the two martyrs, who
announce to him the vengeance of heaven, he invokes the demons,
demands their counsel, kills himself, and the devils bear away his
soul to hell.
When we add that each book is filled with striking conversions, that
some terminate with the baptism of a whole city or a whole people, and
that the apostles insure the triumph of the gospel even in death, a
sufficient idea will have been given of the historic procession and
the moral unity of this drama, or rather of this epic worked up in
dialogue and arranged for the {581} stage. But in order to get a
clearer notion of its theatrical power and poetic features, it is
necessary to direct our attention, in the first place, to the interest
of the legends which are here blended constantly with history; and, in
the second place, to the fairy art and the magnificence of the
spectacle.
Here, for instance, is an example of the legendary poetry interwoven
in the piece. We borrow it from the third book. Gondoforus, king of
India, wishes to build a magnificent palace; but he is in want of
architects, and therefore sends his provost Abanes to Rome in search
of one. The messenger mounts at once on a dromedary: he is followed by
a servant leading a camel. In three and a half hours they are at
Caesarea in Palestine, where the apostle St. James is dwelling. St.
Michael had descended from heaven to anticipate the arrival of Abanes,
and commands the apostle, in the name of our Lord, to offer himself as
architect. Directed by the archangel, he accosts Abanes and tells him
that he is the man he seeks. They breakfast together and set out, not
this time on a dromedary and a camel, but in a ship conducted by
Palinurus, who had just arrived, bringing St. James, the son of
Zebedee, from Spain to Palestine. While they are making the voyage,
the king of Andrinopolis is holding counsel upon the manner of
celebrating the nuptials of his daughter Pelagia, who is espoused to
the young chevalier Denis; and the result of this deliberation is that
he must invite everybody who can come. The apostle and the Provost
disembark at Andrinopolis at very moment when the herald the
proclamation, in the name of the king, summoning to the banquet
citizens of all conditions and even rangers--pilgrims and wayfarers.
St. Thomas consequently is present at the nuptial feast. A young
Jewess chants a roundelay:
There is a God of Hebrew story.
Dwelling in eternal glory
Who first of all things claims our love:
Who made the earth, sea, sky above,
And taught the morning stars to sing.
High would I laud this virtuous king,
And blaming naught, his praises ring
Through every hall, through every grove.
There is a God of Hebrew story,
Dwelling in eternal glory,
Who first of all things claims our love. [Footnote 116]
[Footnote 116: She commences in Hebrew: A sarahel zadab aheboin, Aga
sela tanmeth thavehel Elyphaleth a der deaninin, etc. Then she
translates her roundelay into French.]
St. Thomas, charmed with this song, begs that it may be repeated, and
the king's butler boxes his ears.
Ere the morrow shall be through,
Thy hand its fault will sorely rue,
says the apostle, adding--
'Twere better for thy purgatory,
To suffer anguish transitory.
This prediction is not tardy of accomplishment. The butler is sent to
the fountain by the cup-bearer. A lion comes up, and with a snap of
his teeth bites off the guilty hand, while the poor man dies repentant
and commending his soul to God. In the banquet hall all is gay
confusion, when presently a dog enters with the dissevered hand. The
king, informed of the prophecy and its accomplishment, prostrates
himself with his whole family at the feet of the apostle, who blesses
him. All at once there appears a branch of palm covered with dates.
The wedded couple eat of it and then fall asleep. In their dreams
angels counsel them to preserve their virginity. After having baptized
the king of Andrinopolis and all his household, St. Thomas renews his
journey with his guide, and arrives in India.
Gondoforus and his brother Agatus salute the architect whom Abanes has
brought. "Well, master, at what school did you study your art?" "My
master surpasses all others in excellence." "And of whom did he learn
his science?"
"Master and teacher had he none,
He learneth from himself alone."
"Where is he?"
"In a country far away,
He lives and ruleth regally:
The sons of men his servants be,
His twelve apprentices are we."
{582}
The king, amazed at the knowledge of the stranger, gives him a vast
sum of gold, for the construction of his palace. But it was not an
earthly edifice that the apostle proposed to build--it was a heavenly
and spiritual edifice whose materials were alms and good works. He
therefore distributes among the beggars whom he meets all the money
which has been given him. At the end of two years, Gondoforus comes to
see the building, and not finding it, he thus addresses St. Thomas and
Abanes:
"Scoundrels without conscience born,
Where has all my money gone?
My trust in you has cost me dear.
THOMAS
Sire, therewith I did uprear
A palace fair, of rare device
For you--
AGATUS.
Where is't?
THOMAS.
In Paradise."
The Indian king, who does not understand that style of architecture,
throws St. Thomas and Abanes into prison. Scarcely has he returned
home with his followers, when Agatus suddenly dies. The angels descend
in haste to bear his soul to heaven. [Footnote 117] "What do I see?"
he cries. "The palace which Thomas has made for thy brother," replies
Raphael. "Great God, but I am not pure enough to be its porter!" "Thy
brother," said Uriel, "has made himself unworthy of it. But if thou
desirest, we will supplicate our Lord to restore thee to earth, and
this palace shall be thine when thou hast repaid the king his money."
The soul of Agatus joyfully agreed to this, and was restored to its
body by Uriel. Then Agatus, as soon as life returned, arose and told
Gondoforus all that he had seen, proposing to reimburse him for all
the expenses of this heavenly palace the possession of which he
desired. The amazed king, wishing to secure the beautiful palace for
himself, goes and flings himself at the feet of St. Thomas, beseeching
baptism for himself and court.
[Footnote 117: "Although the arts of the middle ages," says Father
Cahier, "did not adopt an absolutely invariable form for the
representation of souls, the most ordinary symbol is that of a
small, nude figure escaping from the mouth, like a sword drawn from
the sheath." _Monagraphie de la Cathedrale de Bourges_, p. 158, note
2.]
When the "Mystery of the Acts of the Apostles" was played at Bruges in
1536, so perfect was the representation of this legend and the other
marvels of the piece, says the old historian Du Berry, that many of
the hearers thought it real and not feigned. They saw, among a
thousand other wondrous sights, the provost of the king of the Indies
enter riding on a huge dromedary, very well constructed, which moved
its head, opened its mouth, and ran out its tongue. When the butler
was punished, they saw a lion steal up and bite off the hand, and a
dog who bore it still bleeding into the midst of the feasters. These
were not the only animal prodigies that passed under the eyes of the
spectators. In the representation of the sixteenth book, for example,
two sorcerers, irritated against St. Matthew, caused a multitude of
serpents to appear, and the apostle summoned forth from the earth a
very terrible dragon which devoured them. In another part of this same
book, St. Philip, having been led before the god Mars, makes a dragon
leap forth from the mouth of the idol, which kills the son of the
pagan bishop, two tribunes, and two varlets. In the course of the
seventh book, a still more extraordinary automaton appears. St. Andrew
delivers Greece from a monstrous serpent fifty cubits long. "Here,"
says the note introduced for the ordering of the mystery, "an oak must
be planted, and a serpent must be coiled beneath the said oak,
glaring, and must vomit forth a great quantity of blood and then die."
The marvels of the art multiply themselves infinitely and in all
directions. We see, for example, idols crumbling into powder at the
voice of the apostles, and temples crushing the pagans in their fall.
We see Saul {583} struck down from his horse by a great light out of
heaven; St. Thomas walking over red-hot iron; St. Barnabas fast bound
upon a cart-wheel over a pan of live coals, which burn him to cinders.
[Footnote 118] We see, also, the apostles borne through the air to
assist at the death of the Virgin. "Here lightning must be made in a
white cloud, and this cloud must float around St. John, who is
preaching at Ephesus, and he must be borne in the cloud to the gates
of Notre Dame." A moment after, "thunder and lightning must burst
forth from a white cloud which shall veil over the apostles as they
preach in different countries, and bear them before the gates of Notre
Dame." While the apostles are carrying the body of the Holy Virgin to
the tomb, chanting _In exitu Israel de Egypto_, "a rosy cloud in shape
like a coronet must descend, on which should be many holy saints
holding naked swords and darts." A mob of Jews come to lay hands on
the shrine. "As soon as they touch it, their hands must be glued to
the litter and become withered and black; and the angels in the cloud
must cast down fire upon them and a storm of darts." The sacrilegious
Jews are struck with blindness. Some of them are converted and recover
their sight. Five remain obstinate. The devils come to torment them,
and finally strangle them. "Here their souls rise in the air and the
devils bear them away." Lastly, we have the Assumption of the Holy
Virgin. "Here Gabriel puts a soul into the body of Mary, after Michael
has rolled away the stone. And the Virgin Mary rises to her knees, a
halo of glory round her like the sun. Then a grand pause of the organ
or anthem, while Mary is being placed in the cloud on which she will
ascend. The angels should sing as they disappear _Venite ascendamus_,
and the angels ought to surround the Virgin and bear her above Gabriel
and the other angels." Lifted thus above nine choirs of angels, she
elicits vast admiration, and beholding from the height of heaven St.
Thomas, who could not arrive in time to assist at her death and
receive her last benediction, she throws him her girdle.
[Footnote 118: "Daru will pretend to burn Barnabas, and will burn a
feigned body, and will lower Barnabas under the earth."]
Thus in this drama, requiring forty days and five hundred and thirty
persons [Footnote 119] for its performance, heaven, air, earth, hell,
all participated in the movement and the spectacle. What kind of a
theatre was required for such scenic action? In the sixteenth century
men saw theatres with two stages for the miracles of Notre Dame. The
Mysteries of the Acts of the Apostles and of the Passion required
three. Heaven was on high, hell below, earth in mid-space. Let us
attempt to build anew these theatres before the eyes of our readers.
[Footnote 119: This is the number of actors employed in the
representation made at Bruges in 1536, according to the calculation
of M. Chevalier de Saint-Amand. Cahier, "_Monographie de la
Cathedrale de Bourges,_" p. 153. We find only 484 persons in the
"_Repertoire, des noms contenus au jeu des actes des apotres_." See
the edition of this "Mystery" published at Paris in 1541 by Arnoul
and Charles les Angliers, under this title: "_Les catholiques
OEuvres et Actes des Apotres_."]
Paradise was an amphitheatre in form. High above appeared the Deity,
seated upon a golden throne and overlooking all--the stage and the
audience. At the four corners of his throne sat four persons
representing Peace, Mercy, Justice, Truth. At their feet were nine
choirs of angels ranged by hierarchies upon the steps. There was space
also for the blessed spirits and for the organ which accompanied the
celestial chants. Everything flashed and glittered. The painter and
the carver were prodigal of their wonders. Of this we can form a
judgment from a description of the paradise displayed at Bruges on the
representation of the "Triumphant Mystery of the Acts of the
Apostles." According to a contemporary narrative, five hundred and odd
actors, sallying forth from the abbey of St. Sulpice on Sunday
afternoon, April 30, 1536, bore with them in great pomp the apparatus
of a spectacle which they were about to give at the amphitheatre of
the _Arenes_. {584} They had a paradise twelve feet long, and eight
feet wide. "It had all around it open thrones painted to resemble
passing clouds, and both without and within were little angels as
cherubim and seraphim, powers and dominations, in bas-relief, their
hands joined and always moving. In the middle was a seat fashioned
like a rainbow, upon which was seated the Godhead--Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost; and behind were two gold suns revolving continuously in
opposing orbits. At the four corners were seats on which reposed
Justice, Peace, Truth, and Mercy, richly clothed; and beside the said
Godhead were two small angels chanting hymns and canticles to the
music of the players on the flute, the harp, the lute, the rebec, and
the viol, who circled about the paradise."
The same account describes a hell fourteen feet in length and eight in
width. "It was made in the fashion of a rock, upon which was raised a
tower always burning and sending forth flames. At the four corners of
the said rock were four small towers, within which appeared spirits
undergoing diverse torments, and on the fore-edge of the rock writhed
a great serpent, hissing and emitting fire from his mouth and ears and
nostrils; and along the passages of the said rock twined and crawled
all kinds of serpents and great toads."
"The form and dimensions of this fiery cavern varied according to the
exigencies of the dramatic action; but its place was invariably in the
lower part of the theatre. In this were assembled all the _diablerie_,
usually comprising a dozen principal personages; and from thence
issued a terrible storm of howls and shrieks. Lucifer was there, and
Satan, Belial, Cerberus, Astaroth, Burgibus, Leviathan, Proserpine,
and other devils great and small. The gate through which they passed
when coming to earth to torment mankind, appeared in shape like the
enormous jaws of a dragon, and was called hell's mouth." [Footnote
120]
[Footnote 120: At the representation of the "Mystery of the Passion"
at Metz, in July, 1437. "The mouth of hell was exceedingly well
made, for it opened and shut when the devils wished to enter or go
forth, and it had a great steel under-work." _Chronique de Metz_,
MS.; composed by a cure of St. Eustache, cited by Beauchamps, in the
_Recherches sur les theatres_.'']
Limbo, when demanded by the peculiar features of the play, as in the
Mystery of the Resurrection, was placed below hell, and was symbolized
by a huge tower with slits and gratings on all sides, in order that
the spectators might catch glimpses of the spirits confined there. As
these spirits were only statuettes, there was stationed behind the
tower a body of men who howled and shrieked in concert, and when
anything was to be said to the audience, a strong and lusty voice
spoke in the name of all. [Footnote 121] When a purgatory was needed,
it was located and constructed after nearly the same manner.
[Footnote 121: "_Mysteres inedits du XVe siecle_" published by
Achille Jubinal, t.i., preface, p. xlii. (Paris, 1837). Let us
remark here in passing, that M. Jubinal, who is better acquainted
with the manuscripts of the middle ages than with his catechism, has
confounded limbo with purgatory. ]
The stage, properly so called, which was on a level with the audience,
represented earth--that is, the different countries to which the
dramatic action was successively transferred. It therefore required a
vastly greater space than hell or paradise; the one symbolized by a
cavern, and the other by an amphitheatre. It was divided into
compartments, and inscriptions indicated the countries and the cities.
This division was effected by scaffolds entirely separate, when there
was room enough. Thus at the "Mystery of the Passion," represented at
Paris in 1437, at the entrance of King Charles VII., the scaffolds
occupied the whole of the Rue St. Denis for a distance of a stone's
throw on either side, and the more remote stage, on which the last
judgment was exhibited, was before Le Chatelet. The spectators were
obliged to travel from one part to the other with the actors. But they
remained seated, and could see the whole without change of place, at
the performance of the same mystery, given the same year at Metz, in
the {585} plain of Veximiel. For the vast semicircle destined for the
assembly had nine rows of seats, and behind were the grand chairs for
the lords and dames assembled from all parts of the province, and even
from Germany. It was the same at Bruges on the preceding year at the
representation of the "Acts of the Apostles." The enclosure occupied
the whole space of the ancient amphitheatre, commonly called the Ditch
of the Arenes. It had two stages, and vast pavilions protected the
spectators from the inclemency of the weather and the heat of the sun.
But three years after, in 1541, when the burgesses of Paris played
that immense drama in the hall of l'Hotel de Flandre, or when the
Fraternity of the Passion gave their representations for a century and
a half, at their theatre of the Trinity, in a hall one hundred and
twenty-nine feet long and thirty-six feet deep, how were local
distinctions indicated? Then the stage, in default of space, was
divided by simple partitions, and inscriptions, indicating beyond
mistake the houses, cities, and diverse countries, were more
indispensable than ever. We may remark, finally, that in the great
mysteries, divided by days, it was easy during the temporary
suspension of the play to give a new aspect to the stage by a change
of scenery. Sometimes, also, as in the preceding century, the actors
were obliged to inform the audience that they were transported from
one place to another by saying, "Here we come to Bethlehem--to
Jerusalem. We are making sail for Rome--for Athens, etc." And the
illusion was kept up, as far as could be, by the cessation of the
music, in the interval during which, to use an expression of M.
Sainte-Beuve, the mighty train swept on across space and time.
Passing from the architecture of the theatre to the physiognomy of the
actors, let us study the manner in which they were recruited. There
were stock companies, and extemporized companies. Of the first
description were the "Fraternity of the Passion," so celebrated in the
history of the representations of the "mysteries" at the end of the
middle ages. There were also the burgesses of Paris, artisans of all
handicrafts, who, at the end of the fourteenth century, assembled at
the village of St. Maur, near Vincennes, to give on festal days their
pious spectacles. Interdicted June 3, 1398, by ordinance of the
provost of Paris, who mistrusted this novelty, they obtained from King
Charles VI., by letters patent of December 4, 1402, permission to play
even at Paris, and at the same time their society was elevated into a
permanent fraternity, under the title of _De la Passion de Notre
Seigneur,_ and was installed near the gate St. Denis in the ancient
hospital of the Trinity, then for some time disused.
It would appear that in certain provinces, cities, and even parishes,
had, like Paris, their association of miracle-players. But, most
commonly, these companies were improvised, and consisted of
volunteers. This was the case at the gigantic representations of the
Mystery of the Acts of the Apostles at Bruges and at Paris. We have
still "the cry and public proclamation made at Paris, Thursday, the
sixteenth of December, 1540, by the command of our lord the king,
Francis I. by name, and monsieur the provost of Paris, summoning the
people to fill the parts necessary for the playing of said mystery."
At eight o'clock of the morning there were assembled at the Hotel de
Flandre, where the "mystery" was to be performed, all those who were
charged with its management, rhetoricians, gentlemen of the long robe
and the short, lawyers and commoners, clergymen and laity, in vast
numbers. They paraded through the streets in fine apparel, all well
mounted according to their estate and capacity, preceded by six
trumpeters and escorted by numerous sergeants of the provost, who kept
the crowd in check. They halted at every square, and, after a triple
flourish of trumpets, a public crier made the proclamation, which was
in bad rhyme. Ten days {586} after, on St. Stephen's day, the large
hall of the Hotel de Flandre--the usual place, says the narrative, for
making the records and holding the rehearsals of the mysteries, was
filled with a crowd of burgesses and merchants, clergy and laity, who
came to exhibit their talents in the presence of the commissioners and
lawyers deputed to hear the voice of each person, retaining and
remunerating them according to the measure of their excellence in the
parts required. The selections having been made, the rehearsals
commenced and continued every day until the performance of the
mystery, which was played at the beginning of the next year.
Whoever deemed himself of any value responded generously to these
appeals, not only among the _bourgeois_ and gentlemen--artisans and
magistrates--but also the cures and their vicars, the canons, and
sometimes even the friars. Women alone were excluded, the female parts
being always filled by men. The participation of the clergy in these
scenic diversions is readily accounted for, when one considers the
moral aim and the religious character of the plays. All these dramas
represent the mysteries and history of Christianity. All commence,
either with readings from the Holy Scripture or by the chanting of the
hymns of the Church, or by the recitation of the Ave Maria--the whole
assemblage kneeling and joining in the services. All ended, moreover,
as in preceding centuries, with the _Te Deum_. The spectacle was
frequently interrupted by preaching, and more than once, at the end of
a dramatic day, actors and spectators might be seen wending their way
to church to offer up thanks to heaven. Beside, did not the clergy
find themselves on their own ground, in these plays, instituted in
order to increase the solemnity of their sacred days, and evincing
unquestionable traces of a liturgic origin? Let us add finally, with
Dom Piolin, that a distinction was rigorously maintained between
profane pieces and those whose aim was the edification and the
instruction of the faithful; that while zealously keeping in check all
acting which could possibly be turned to license, the clergy furthered
with all their power the exhibiting of the "mysteries." The learned
Benedictin presents to us the chapter of St. Julien at Mans
preventing, in 1539, the ringing of the cathedral bells in order not
to interrupt a representation of the Miracle of Theophilus; and
stopping them again, in 1556, and, in addition, hastening the morning
offices and delaying those of evening, in order to accommodate them to
the time of the performance of the "Mystery of the Conception of the
most Holy Virgin."
After the distribution of parts, all the actors were obliged on the
spot to pledge themselves by oath and under penalty of a fine never to
be absent from the rehearsals. A second appeal to the public good-will
was necessary to secure a wardrobe for the hundreds of players, who on
the day of exhibition wore sometimes the richest jewels and the most
beautiful stuffs of a whole province. The magnificence of the
spectacle at Bruges, in 1536, would strike us as incredible, if the
author of the narrative which has preserved us the details, had not
taken the precaution to forewarn his readers at the start that he kept
within the truth. As illustrating its splendor, take the following
examples, gathered here and there from the volume.
St. James the Lesser wore a scarf estimated at 450 gold crowns. The
girdle of St. Matthew was valued at more than 500 crowns sterling.
Queen Dampdeomopolis, who was mounted on an ambling pad which was
covered with a housing of black velvet and had a gold fringed harness,
wore a petticoat of cloth of gold, beneath a robe of crimson damask
bordered with gold chains, while down the front ran a rich beading of
precious stones, rubies and diamonds, of the value of more than 2,000
crowns. This is not all. From head to foot gold and jewels glittered
{587} on her person. Her head-dress was surmounted by a white feather,
and on her forehead hung by a little thread of black silk a huge
oriental pearl. The wife of Herod Agrippa had for her girdle a great
gold chain of more than 1,000 crowns in value; from which hung
chaplets carved in facets. She had on her neck another great chain and
a collar of pearls, whence hung a ring and sprig of four diamonds, and
on her stomacher was a _dorure_ which bore a gold dog having a great
ruby hanging from its neck, and a great pearl suspended to the tail.
All these princesses--and they could be counted by dozens--had with
them their maids, their squires, and their pages, handsomely clothed.
There were likewise princes, kings, and emperors, who came from all
quarters of the world.
Nothing approaches to the magnificence of Nero. It would carry us too
far out of our way if we should mention in detail the numerous and
brilliant cortege which preceded the formidable emperor when the
actors issued from the abbey of St. Sulpice, where they robed
themselves before entering the theatre. First came a troop of
musicians composed of a fifer, six trumpeters, and four players on the
tamborine; next the grand provost of Rome, mounted on a splendid horse
caparisoned with violet-colored satin, fringed with white silk; then
four cavaliers attending the ensign-bearer of Nero; presently four
companies of Moors crowned with laurels and bearing, some, masses of
gilded silver, others, vases of silver and gold or _cornucopiae_
filled with _fleurs de lis_--or the armorial bearings of the empire
inter-worked on triumphal hats. Lastly, a horse appeared covered to
the ground with flesh-colored velvet, bordered with tracery of gold,
into which were woven the devices of Nero. This horse, conducted by
two lackeys clothed also with flesh-colored velvet, bore a cushion of
silk and cloth-of-gold in Turkish work, on which lay three crowns, the
first, solid gold; the second, all pearls; the third, composed of
every kind of precious stone of marvellous beauty and richness--and
these three crowns formed the imperial head-gear.
Next there came into sight another horse, whose harness and caparison
were of blue satin, fringed with gold and bestrewn with stars made of
embroidery of gold stuff on a violet field. The two lackeys who led it
by the bridle, had their heads uncovered and were clothed with velvet
of a violet crimson, purfled with gold, slashed with broad slashes,
through which the lining of white satin showed itself in folds. This
was the saddle-horse of the emperor.
Afterward came six players on the hautboy clothed in sarcinet of a
violet crimson.
Nero appeared last, borne on a high tribunal eight feet wide and ten
long, and covered to the earth with cloth-of-gold, strewn with large
embroidered eagles, "copied as closely as possible from the life." The
chair on which he was seated was entirely covered with another
cloth-of-gold crimped. His _sagum_, or military cloak, was of blue
velvet all purfled with gold, with large flowers in needle-work after
the antique; the sleeves slashed, and displaying beneath the
undulating folds of the lining, which was of gold stuff on a violet
field. His robe, a crimson velvet, adorned with flowers and interlaced
with gold thread, was lined with velvet of the same color. The cape
was serrated, the points interblending, and was bestrewn with a
profusion of great pearls, and at each point hung a great tassel of
other pearls. His hat, of Persian velvet and of _a tyrannical
fashion_, was bordered with chains of gold and strewn with a great
quantity of rings. His gold crown, with its triple branches, was
filled with gems so numerous, so varied, and of so great a price that
it is impossible to specify them. And his collar was not less
garnished. His buskins, of Persian velvet, with small slashes, were
laced with chains of gold, and some rings hung from his {588} garters.
He placed one of his feet upon a casket which enclosed the imperial
seal and was covered with silver cloth sown with gems, thus
symbolizing that the power of the empire was his, and that all things
were submissive to him. In his hand was a battle-axe well gilded. His
port was haughty and his mien very magnificent. The tribunal, with the
monarch upon it, was borne by eight captive kings, the drapery
concealing from the audience everything save their heads, on which
rested crowns of gold. A troupe of musicians followed with trumpets,
clarions, tamborines, and fifes. The procession was closed by
twenty-four cavaliers, captains, chevaliers, squires,
cup-bearers--some wearing the imperial livery, others clad according
to their pleasure; and by chariots which were loaded with the
emperor's baggage and _vivanderie_, and were drawn by eighteen or
twenty horses.
Nero's sagum, with its splendid flower-work _after the antique_, his
hat of _tyrannical fashion_, his battle-axe, the eagles embroidered on
the drapery which covered his tribunal, the laurel crowns which begirt
the brows of his Moorish guards, the _cornucopiae_, the vases of gold
and silver which they carried, all indicate a tendency toward
historical costume. This is also seen in the robes of the seventy-two
disciples _approaching the ancient manner_--the caps of the high priests,
Josephus and Abiachar, made _according to the Jewish manner_--the
dagger of Polemius, king of Armenia, the golden handle of which was
prepared _after the antique_--the robe, _fashioned after the Hebrew
manner_, which was worn by the young Jew whom we saw singing at the
marriage of Pelagia and Denis. But apart from these examples and some
others which are found here and there in the pompous catalogue of the
actors of Bruges, everybody used great liberty and much fancifulness
in the choice of habiliments. Each person took the most beautiful
things he could lay hands on. The cortege of Nero closed, as we have
seen, by cavaliers dressed _after their own pleasure_. The marechal of
Migdeus, king of Greater Ynde, and his valet, had taffeta clothes
while bearing on their shoulders bars of iron and mallets. The lord of
Quantilly, author of the relation from which we have derived our
details, after having spoken of a group of eighteen or twenty persons
blind, halt, demoniac, lepers and vagabonds, confesses that they were
too well clad to accord with their condition.
Thus far we have concerned ourselves with the history of the mysteries
and their representation; we shall now proceed to a critical
retrospect of the subject.
The trilogy of the "Mystery of the Passion" and the "Triumphant
Mystery of the Acts of the Apostles," deserve an important place in
the history of French dramatic art, not only because they characterize
the epoch of which they were the two chief works, but also because
they have an intimate and an essential connection with the tragic
masterpieces of the eighteenth century--a connection also which has
been little noticed. We propose to consider the literary value and the
influence of those two plays, commencing with an estimate of the _mise
en scene_ and the spectacle whose fairy-like pomp and immense
popularity we have just taken in view.
The dramatic writers and the managers of the "mysteries" were well
aware that to move the multitude the eye is of greater power than the
ear. We have seen that they directed all their energies to the marvels
of stage effect. But they did not listen to the precept of the poet, a
precept founded on the very nature of art, which enjoins that only
those things should be interwoven into the composition which can be
witnessed without incredulity and without disgust. If the devils
intervene, they must be introduced with their bat-shaped wings ever
moving, and fire issuing from their nostrils, their mouth, and their
ears, while they held in their hands {589} fiery distaffs shaped like
serpents; that Cerberus, porter of hell, should have on his helmet
three heads emitting flame, and that the keys he carried in his hand
should seem to have just issued from a furnace, they sparkled so; that
the long and hideous breasts of Proserpine should drip incessantly
with blood, and with jets of fire at intervals; that Lucifer should
have a casque vomiting forth flames unceasingly, and should hold in
his grasp handfuls of vipers which moved in fiery twists. It was then
everywhere fire, and, above all, real fire--for the contemporary
authority who furnishes us with the details is particular to tell us,
two several times, that there were people employed to feed this fire.
The fire thus carried about by the devils in all their goings and
comings, and ever bursting from the mouth of hell when opened, became
naturally the occasion of numerous accidents. We have an example of
this nature which might have been tragical, but by good luck was only
ludicrous, in the performance of the "Mystery of St. Martin" at
Seurre, in 1496. At the commencement of the spectacle, which lasted
three days, and opened with a scene of _diablerie_, the man who held
the role of Satan having wished, says an official report of this
epoch, to ascend to earth, caught fire in his nether garments, and was
severely burnt. But he was so suddenly rescued and reclothed, that,
without any one being aware of the accident, he went through with his
part and then retired to his house. The affair had occurred in the
morning between seven and eight o'clock. When he returned at one in
the afternoon, the interval allowed, according to usage, for the
audience to dine in being now over, he addressed to Lucifer, who was
the cause of his misadventure, four impromptu verses that the public
applauded exceedingly, but their grossness prevents our reproducing
them.
These material imitations of physical nature and these exaggerations
of the spectacle appear everywhere. When they wished, for example, to
represent a martyr, it was necessary that the victim should be visibly
tortured. We have even, in the representation of the "Mystery of the
Acts of the Apostles," St. Barnabas disappearing adroitly and leaving
his counterfeit presentment in the hands of the executioner, who binds
it upon a wheel and sets it revolving over a burning brazier before
the eyes of the spectators. When St. Paul was decapitated, it was
requisite that his head, as it fell to the ground, should leap three
times, and that at each bound, in accordance with the tradition, a
fountain should gush forth. When they represented the crucifixion of
our Lord, and the despair of Judas, it was necessary that the Saviour
of the world should be seen nailed to the cross for the space of three
hours, and that the traitor be hung miserably from a tree. On the
performance of the "Mystery of the Passion" before the people of
Lorraine in 1437, God, according to a chronicler of the time, was
impersonated by "Sir Nicole don Neuf-Chastel, who was cure of St.
Victor at Metz, and would have nearly died on the cross, had he not
been succored; and another priest had to be put in his place to
perfect the representation of the crucifixion. The next day the said
cure, after having reposed, played the resurrection and bore his part
superbly. Another priest, who was called Messire Jehan de Nicey, and
who was chaplain of Metrange, acted Judas, and was almost killed by
hanging, for his heart failed him, and he was right speedily cut
down."
The taste of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for these
materialistic representations was such that for the scenic features of
the longer mysteries they contented themselves sometimes with a simple
pantomime. Indeed, on September 8, 1424, at the solemn entry of the
Duke of Bedford, the English Regent of France, the children of Paris,
to adopt the expression of Sauval, played the Mystery of the Old and
New Testament without {590} speech or sign, as if they had been images
carved on a frieze.
The infancy of art, which appeared everywhere at this epoch in the
representation of the "Mysteries," was especially visible in their
style and in their composition. A rapid examination of its literary
faults will suffice to show that the French drama of the middle ages,
progressive, if not as regards its truthfulness, at least in the pomp
of its spectacle, was in rapid decline in respect to poetry.
The first and gravest literary fault of this drama in its
decadence--that which includes all the others--is the absence of all
that makes the soul and life of the drama--of everything which
distinguishes it most essentially from history. There is neither plot,
nor peripetia, nor characters, nor passions. In the thirteenth
century, Ruteboeuf, in the Miracle of Theophilus, bestows on his hero
a passionate nature, and develops the action not by events in their
ordinary sequence, but by the stormy struggles of the heart and the
agitations of conscience. One principal personage is put upon the
stage, and a single incident carries the play rapidly forward to a
unique denouement. Jean Bodel, in the "Play of St. Nicholas," less
skilled than his contemporaries in making his intrigue keep step to
the movements of passion, consoled himself with laying violent hands
on the legend, to which he gives an entirely new form. In the
fourteenth century we find no longer, it is true, in the anonymous
authors of the "Miracles of Notre Dame" either that creating power, or
those passionate intrigues, or that simple and rapid movement, but at
least we meet with some true pathos in certain scenes, and in a great
number of monologues there are pronounced and well-sustained
characters in the female parts, especially while the dramatic interest
concentrates on one person. Open the two most celebrated works of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries--the "Mystery of the Passion" of the
two Jehan Michels, and the "Triumphant Mystery of the Acts of the
Apostles" of the brothers Greban--there is nothing more than a pure
and simple _mise en scene_ of history or of legend, unrolling itself
slowly as the events arrive in their chronological order. There is no
unity either of time or of place, as in the past; nor is there unity
of action. Personal interest has ceased; the passions have ceased;
vigorous characterizations have ceased. Everybody speaks frigidly from
one end of the piece to the other, and for forty days, and one can
scarcely find throughout the plays a terse or impassioned line. There
is no progression in the movement; no advance in intrigue; no fresh
complication; the tiresome dramatist jogs along without troubling
himself about denouement.
This drama, which has no longer a dramatic art save in its dialogue
and its spectacle--is it then absolutely without poetry? Some critics
seem to have thought so, since they dwelt only on its absurdities and
its literary poverty. And it must be avowed that puerility,
triviality, indecency even, so dominate there, that it is easy, when
approaching it, to give one's self over to a universal disgust.
Others, recognizing its poverty as a whole, have found some redeeming
features. Of this number are M. Onesime Le Roy, whose patriotic
admiration of the Artesian works has perhaps led him too far, and M.
Douhaire, who has better controlled his enthusiasm. M. Douhaire is, in
our opinion, the critic who was not only the first to study, but has
also most clearly comprehended the religious beauties of the later
mediaeval "mysteries." "We appeal," he says in 1840, in his lectures
on the History of Christian Poetry,--"we appeal to the memory and the
emotions of the reader. Who is there that does not recall with the
most ineffable sentiments of joy those graceful scenes of the gospel
of the Nativity of our Lady, the interior of the house of Joachim, his
retirement among the shepherds, the triumphal song of St. Ann after
the birth of Mary, the life of the {591} Virgin in the temple? Who has
not present in his memory the grand pictures of the Gospel of
Nicodemus, the conversations of the patriarchs in limbo, the descent
of Jesus Christ into hell, the silent apparition of Charinus and
Leucius in the Sanhedrim, the terrible portrayal of the last days of
Pilate, and that personification of the Jew in Ahasuerus whose
grandeur surpasses the loftiest conceptions of profane poetry? But it
is not alone for its depth, it is also for its form, or at least for
the arrangement and effect of its combinations, that our mysteries are
remarkable. Doubtless in respect to theatrical art they are more than
defective. They have indeed, to speak truly, no art at all. The events
are not co-ordinated with a preconceived idea, and distributed in a
manner to lead forward to a catastrophe or to a final peripetia. The
order of facts is habitually that of time. They are historic dialogues
and nothing more. But as in history the divine and the human, the
supernatural and the real, are almost always blended together, the
composers of the 'mysteries' have diligently worked out this
interrelation. Aided by the construction of their theatres, which
permitted them to move many scenes, they combined these actions in a
manner to elicit extraordinary effects, unfolding simultaneously to
the eye of the spectator heaven, earth, hell. They initiated him into
the secret of life, showed to him the mysterious warfare of souls, and
by this spectacle made his spirit pass through terrors that any other
drama would be powerless to produce."
Subscribing entirely, and it is an easy thing for us, to the judgment
of the author of the "Course upon Christian Poetry," let us guard
ourselves from going too far by extending the conclusion beyond the
premises. Where does M. Douhaire find these poetical beauties which he
offers for our admiration? In the trilogy of the "Mystery of the
Passion." Now this vast dramatic composition is nothing more, in fact,
than an agglomeration of the "mysteries" which preceded the work of
the two Jehan Michels. These charming scenes, these grand pictures,
which are met with here and there, are only the fragments of a more
ancient poetry, that have been gathered up anew. When the dramatists
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries enter upon original
composition, the decline of poetry is seen everywhere, in the detail
as well as in the whole, in the style as in the conception. We know of
but one merit which truly belongs to them--it is the happy development
they have given to stage effect by a simultaneous presentation of
heaven, hell, and the earth--shadowing forth by this triple
theatrical action the incessant intervention of the supernatural
powers in the destinies of humanity. But while this conception is
majestic, its literary execution is wretched. We have a proof in the
"Triumphant Mystery of the Acts of the Apostles," written from
beginning to end without verve, or coloring, or nobleness, by the two
most celebrated dramatic poets of their age, whom Marot calls--
"The two Grebans of high-resounding line."
Having noticed the literary poverty of the dramatic poetry of this
epoch, we will now point out the principal sources of its faults. They
are two. The first is a misconception of the dramatists respecting the
nature of the types proposed for the imitation of art. The second is a
consequence of the popularity and the indefinite length of their
spectacles.
It is impossible to compare the meagreness, the languor, and the
stupidity of the two brothers Greban with the bright and graceful
vivacity of the writer who praises them, without being amazed at the
eulogies he bestows, and demanding what can be the reason of this
misjudgment on the part of a poet, the most spiritual and the most
delicate of the reign of Francis I. It comes from the false idea which
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries formed of the dramatic style,
or, to speak more {592} exactly, of the entire dramatic art. In place
of seeking the ideal, they sought reality, and, what is worse, it was
in the commonest realities that the dramatists of that time searched
after the type of their language and the morals of their heroes. We
have already remarked the same aberration of public taste in the far
too materialistic imitations of the spectacle.
"Under a literary and dramatic point of view," says M. Sainte-Beuve,
"that which is the essential characteristic of the mysteries of the
sixteenth century is its low vulgarity and its too minute triviality.
The authors had but one aim. They sought to portray in the men and
events of other times the scenes of the common life which went on
under their eyes. With them the whole art was reduced to this
imitation, or rather to this faithful _facsimile_. If they exhibited a
populace, it was recognizable at once as that of the market-places or
of the city. Every tribunal was a copy of the Chatelet or of the
Parliament. The headsmen of Nero, of Domitian, Daru, Pesart, Torneau,
Mollestin, seemed taken from the _Place du Palais de Justice_ or from
Montfaucon. . . . What the public above all admired, was the perfect
conformity of the dialogue, and of the other features of the play,
with everyday realities. The good townsmen could not cease gazing at
and listening to so natural an imitation of their daily customs and
their domestic bickerings. All contemporary praise bears upon this
exact resemblance. It is in this way that common and uncultured
minds--strangers to the intimate and profound joys of art--readily
accept false coin, and content themselves with pleasures at a low
price."
This habitual imitation of the common life and of everything trivial
is found even in scenes of a wholly ideal nature in heaven and in
hell. The language of God and of paradise is vulgar; that of the
devils is grotesque, sometimes even indecent. At the commencement of
the mysteries of the brothers Greban, while the apostles have
assembled together in an upper chamber to elect St. Matthias, Lucifer
orders the demons to wander over the earth, and before going the evil
spirits request his benediction. He replies to them:
"Devils damned, in malediction
O'er you each, with power blighted,
My paw I stretch, of God accursed,
From sins and misdeeds all absolving,
Up! Set forth!" etc.
When Satan and Astaroth bring the souls of Ananias and Saphira to
hell, Lucifer is so transported with joy that he bids the demon hosts
exult:
"Let the crowd of the damned,
Here, before my tribunal,
Sing an anthem infernal!"
Belial and Burgibus, he adds, will lead the treble: Berits, Cerberus,
and some others, the tenor; Astaroth and Leviathan, the bass. At once
they all begin to chant in chorus:
"The more he has, the more he asks for
Our grand devil, Lucifer.
Does he wish the sky to pour
Souls by thousands running o'er?
The more they come, he longs for more,
For his appetite is sore.
The more he has, the more he asks for,
Our grand devil, Lucifer."
Lucifer, deafened by their hubbub, stops his ears, and tries to
silence them. Impossible! "On with the song!" cries Belial, and the
uproar continues.
The "Mystery of the Passion" also commences with a scene in hell, the
tone of which appears still more singular. God is in consultation with
the heavenly court upon the redemption of the human race. Lucifer,
alarmed, convokes his assembly.
"Devils of hell-fire, horned and terrible,
Infamous dogs, why sit ye idle?
Start up, ye fat ones, young, old, and naked;
Serpents atrocious, hump-backed and twisted."
The devils hastily assemble. Satan is the first to respond to the
gracious appeal.
"What is't thou wishest, bull-dog outrageous--
Fetid, infected, abhorrent, mendacious?
For thee we have forfeited heaven and all,
To suffer such evils as no one can measure--
And now, is cursing your only pleasure?"
Belial calls Lucifer a _bag full of rottenness,_ whose only food is
toads, and {593} complains also that it is his nature to torment them.
"This constant habit with the mystery-makers of representing the
demons as insulting each other in their colloquies," says M. Douhaire,
"is born of a profound thought. We are told that the wicked despise
each other. It is this which the Christian dramatists put into action.
Nothing can give a more terrible idea of hell than these disputes,
where the demons mutually accuse each other of sufferings which cannot
be abated."
Here is a reflection full of justice, and indispensable for a right
interpretation of the moral aim of the "mysteries." But there still
remains the literary and philosophical remark of M. Saint-Beuve upon
the general tendency of this epoch to a reproduction of the morals and
language of the most common and vulgar life. For the dramatists might
have represented the wickedness of the demons--the horror and disorder
of hell--without seeking their phrases in a vocabulary of the lowest
stamp.
The frequent change from seriousness to buffoonery, from the beautiful
to the burlesque, has a similar origin in the tastes of our ancestors
for the actualities of ordinary life, where these transitions are
habitual. But it also rose out of the necessity of keeping up the
interest of a spectacle which continued many days, sometimes many
weeks. Variety was a necessity. That popular assembly would consent to
weep or even to be serious morning and evening for a month? Let us
take an example where triviality, liveliness, and morality are all
united together, We borrow it from M. Onesime Le Roy, who found it in
an unedited "Mystery of the Passion." and published it in 1837.
The anonymous dramatist, after having depicted in beautiful and
touching scenes the sweet virtues and good deeds of St. Joachim and
St. Ann, brings on the stage two knaves who wish to make experiments
on their pious simplicity. "The fellow, who has more than one trick in
his bag," says the learned critic from whom we transcribe the
analysis, "pretending that cold weather makes him insane, styles
himself Claquedent [chatterer]; and the other is called Babin, which
word, according to the lexicographer Rouchi, signifies 'foolish,'
'imbecile.' Babin, despite his name and simple air, is more artful
than even Claquedent, whom he persuades to imitate madness and to let
himself be bound, the better to excite compassion. Claquedent, tied up
with cords by Babin, begins to gnash his teeth and to utter piteous
cries, which bring the wife of Joachim. This holy woman wishes to
relieve him. Babin shouts out not to touch him:
"Ha, good dame! be wary,
Touch him not, I pray thee,
Lest, perchance, he slay thee!"
After a long scene of horrible contortions on one side, and of tender
compassion on the other, Babin says he is going to lead away
Claquedent, and receives money from the charitable dame, who bids him
take good care of his friend, and to return _when the money is gone_.
Babin, upon the latter part of this advice, replies pleasantly, "O
madame, _without fail!_" As soon as Ann has gone away, Claquedent says
to Babin, "Quick, untie me!" But the latter, wishing to profit, like
Raton, from the misfortune which another Bertrand has brought on
himself, says to him,
Wait awhile, I beg you, do;
You have what is best for you;
And since I am a trifle clever,
I will manage all this silver.
Claquedent, who sees himself caught in a snare, fills the air with his
shrieks, which have no sham in them now. Babin is not at all
frightened, and tells him, with a remarkable allusion to the fable of
the fox and the goat,
Adieu, good Claquedent. In the well
Till to-morrow you must dwell.
"Murder! a thief, a thief!" cries the entrapped rogue, while the
other, as he runs off, doubtless tells {594} everybody he meets on the
way not to approach the infuriated man. "Don't touch him. He will bite
you!" Finally, they come to Claquedent's assistance, and when they
inquire who put him in this condition, he replies:
_Un laroncheau, plein de malfalct_.
(A roguish fellow full of mischief).
"All the comedy of this scene," says M. Onesime Le Roy, "lies in this
single word, _un laroncheau_" a diminutive of _larron_ (rogue), who
has taken in a triple scamp, who thinks himself past mastery! It is
thus that Patelin says of another scamp, his younger brother, "He has
deceived me, who have deceived so many others." "Is there not," adds
M. Douhaire,--"is there not, moreover, in this burlesque and merry
episode, a lesson for those very foolish persons who from excess of
goodness are so easily victimized by the ruses of professional
beggars?"
These gay scenes quite naturally turn to farce, and these moralities
degenerate into satires. This occurs, and in a deplorable manner, even
in the representation of the gravest and most solemn "mysteries." The
Fraternity of the Passion, perceiving that the people grew tired of
their pious spectacles, called to their rescue a mischievous and merry
troupe, whose duty it was to attract the crowd to their hall at the
Hospital de la Trinite. It was the _Enfants sans souci_ company,
celebrated at the end of the fourteenth century, and composed of young
gentlemen of family, who, having invented a kingdom founded on the
faults and vices of the human race, called it the Fool's Kingdom,
named as its king the Prince of Fools, and styled their plays
"Fooleries" (sotties)--plays which they made upon everybody, in a
fantastic and allegorical form. At the court and among the subjects of
the prince figure his well-beloved son, the "Prince of Jollity," the
"Mother Fool," the "Affianced Fool," the "Fool Occasion," the
"Dissolute Fool," the "Boasting Fool," the "Cheating Fool," the
"Ignorant Fool," the "Corrupt Fool," and twenty other personages whose
names and qualities vary according to the requirements of the farce,
and of a satire which spared none. In a _sottie_ played on Shrove
Tuesday, in 1511, and directed against Pope Julius II., then at war
with Louis XII., the "Mother Fool" represents the Church. In another
_sottie_ where _l'ancien monde_ is introduced, the "Dissolute Fool" is
dressed as a churchman, the "Boasting Fool" as a _gendarme_, and the
"Lying Fool" as a merchant. It was the scandalous conduct of these
young Aristophaneses, whose licentiousness equalled their boldness,
which, in 1547, provoked the order of the Parliament against the
representation of "mysteries." The Hospital de la Trinite reverted to
its first destination, and the Fraternity of the Passion, driven from
their theatre after a century and a half of popularity, could only
obtain permission on the following year to construct a new stage at
the Hotel de Bourgogne, on the express condition that they would play
only profane subjects, which should also be lawful and proper. They
accepted this new mode of existence; but their time was past, and
their glory was constantly in a decline. However, they held out
bravely till 1588, at which period they leased their theatre to a
company of travelling comedians, who for some years had been trying to
establish themselves in Paris. The cleverest of them, we are told by
the brothers Parfait, attempted to preserve their fame by giving out
that the religious title of their fraternity did not permit them to
play profane pieces. They had realized this a trifle late in the day;
some forty years too late indeed!
The resuscitation of the Greek theatre, four years after the
parliamentary decree, completed the ruin of the medieval spectacles.
They still played the miracles in the provinces, they even composed
new ones. But the pious representations went out, changing more and
more; and the {595} next century, which was that of Boileau, merely
amused itself with ridiculing them. However, in the very simplicity of
the miracles there was something too popular to be completely
forgotten, in countries where the faith and the innocent manners of
our good ancestors survived. On May 18, 1835, M. Guizot, then
minister, recommended to the attention of his historical
correspondents the still surviving traditions of the moralities and
mysteries of the middle ages. "There are yet preserved on festal days,
in certain districts of France," said he, "certain popular dramatic
performances. It will not be a useless labor to examine and note down
these relics of the past, before modern civilization and the usages of
the common language cause their disappearance."
The author of "Researches into the Mysteries which have been
represented in Maine," Dom Piolin, has traced these performances from
the end of the sixteenth century up to the present time. He finds the
last one at Laval, during the procession of Corpus Christi. "At its
origin," he says, "one of the principal features of this fete, the
one, at least, which peculiarly attracted the attention of the mob,
consisted in scenes from the Old and New Testament which were
represented on theatres erected along the route of the procession, but
chiefly at the main court of the Convent des Cordeliers, they
belonged, unquestionably, to the miracles' proper, having retained
that characteristic simplicity and brevity which is found in the most
ancient pieces. We know that King Rene established a similar custom in
the city of Aix. Afterward, when the _marionettes_ were introduced
into France by Catharine de Medicis, puppets were substituted for the
players. This theatre--a remnant of the ancient manners--continued
until the end of the restoration, the last performance being in ??37."
M. Douhaire closes his "Course upon the History of Christian Poetry"
by account of a foreign performance, extending from the creation of
the world to the resurrection of the dead, of which he was an
eye-witness. It was in 1830, at a small town on the banks of the
Loire. "What I came to see," he adds, "was the 'Mystery of the
Passion' played by puppets. I did not suppose, before this curious
adventure, that there could be any existing trace of the scenic plays
of the middle ages; but I have since learnt that there still remain
many considerable vestiges in our western and southern provinces--where
not only professional actors and puppets represent the principal
scenes of both Testaments, but even families amuse themselves with
this holy recreation on days of solemn feasts."
Permit us to mention, in our turn, the performance of a mystery
witnessed by men still alive, and whose simplicity carries one quite
back to the middle ages. We get the fact from the president of the
modern Bollandists. At the commencement of our century a good priest
of French Hainaut took upon himself to bring out the "Mystery of the
Passion," for the welfare of his flock. An appeal was made to all
well-disposed people, and, as at Paris in 1437, for the "Mystery of
the Acts of the Apostles," the parts were distributed to the burgesses
and artisans of every description, according to the measure of their
talent in such case required. A Judas was wanting. The priest at once
hit upon the apothecary of the place, whose modesty kept him in his
laboratory, and he went in search of him. "My friend," said he, "we
are going, as you know, to represent a fine 'mystery,' and it is
necessary, for the common good, that you should do something. I have
found your place. Your role is Judas." "But M. le cure, my memory is
not worth a sou, and you would never be able to stuff so many words
into my head." "Exactly so, my friend. I have selected for you the
shortest part, and I pledge myself to teach you it in no time."
Straightway our man is enrolled in the {596} company. The solemn day
arrives. The parish and all the country round are there. The spectacle
commences, and the actors, duly costumed and seated on benches along
each side of the stage, rise in turn to go through with what they have
to say. The moment of the kiss of Judas is at hand. The poor
apothecary remains glued to his chair, pale with terror. The priest,
who is all eyes, hastens to him, and forces him to get up. Arrived
before the person who represents Jesus Christ, he falls on his knees,
trembling in every limb, and crying with joined hands, "Oh Lord! thou
well knowest it was not my fault! It is monsieur the cure who forces
me."
This grand trilogy of the "Mystery of the Passion"--which history
exhibits as closely connected with puppet shows and village
performances, naive even to the grotesque--has quite another
importance and quite another destiny in the eyes of philosophy, which
discerns therein the principal features of the modern dramatic art.
Let us not quit this subject before presenting a confirmation of the
thesis which the readers of these essays have already seen maintained
in an article where Corneille, Racine, and even Voltaire himself were
shown to be unconsciously the lineal successors of our old dramatists
far more than of AEschylus, of Sophocles, and of Euripides. The father
of French tragedy, who discoursed upon his art with so much philosophy
and toiled night and day to make our poetry Aristotle's--Pierre
Corneille, after having for half a century attempted himself, and seen
attempted around him, every possible denouement, was led to recognize
the necessity in this particular of going contrary to the tragic art
of the Greeks. "The ancients," he wrote at the close of his career,
"very often content themselves in their tragedies with depicting vices
in such a manner as to cause us to hate them, and virtues so as to
cause us to love them, without troubling themselves with recompensing
good actions or punishing bad ones. Clytemnestra and her paramour slay
Agamemnon, and go free. Medea does the same with her children, and
Atreus with those of her brother. It is true that by carefully
studying the actions which were selected for the catastrophe of their
tragedies, there were some criminals whom they punished, but by crimes
greater than their own. . . . Our drama hardly tolerates such
subjects. . . . . It is the interest which we love to extend to the
virtuous that has obliged us to resort to this other mode of finishing
the dramatic poem by punishing the bad actions and by recompensing the
good. It is not a precept of art, but a custom, which we have
observed."
Whence originated this custom Corneille gave his own century the
credit of it; but it is from the middle ages that it dates. What
tragic drama was it which was the most important--the most popular--the
longest played--of that first epoch of the modern theatre? Was it not
the "Mystery of the Passion," which we have seen commencing with a
simple dramatizing of the gospel--growing century by century--and
ending with an immense trilogy, extending from the fall of man to the
birth of our Saviour, from the passion and the death of the Saviour to
his resurrection, from the establishment of the Church to the last
judgment--that solution of human doctrines which regulates all things
retribution for the wicked and recompense for the good, and by making
virtue rise victorious from its battle with the passions? What the
middle ages show us in the "mystery" which was its masterpiece,
appears without exception in all those dramatic compositions which
have come down to us. We have already remarked, and it is moreover a
fact recognized by all scholars, that there is not a tragic drama of
this epoch, whatever may be its subject, which does not close with the
_Te Deum_ or with some other chant of joy, of triumph, or of
forgiveness. Its denouement is always homage rendered by the justice
{597} heaven avenging innocence, or by mercy bestowing on the guilty
repentance and pardon.
In speaking three years ago upon the liturgic origin of the modern
tragedy, and the influence of Christianity on the dramatic passions,
we ended by saying that we need no longer seek, as has been too often
done, in Corneille or Racine for the restorers of the ancient tragedy;
that those great dramatists, it is true, received from Greece the
science of the pageant and the _mise en scene_; but that as much as
they approach the Greek art in their literary form, so much they
depart from it not only by their denouement but also by the moral
character of their intrigue. It was impossible, in fact, to change the
nature of the tragic denouement without changing that of the passions
and of the events which led to them. Let us develop this conclusion of
our essay by showing what it is that prevents our comprehending French
tragedy and defining it.
Voltaire has said, "To compress an illustrious and interesting event
into the space of two or three hours, to introduce the _personae_ only
when they ought to appear, to never leave the stage empty, to
construct an intrigue which shall be probable as well as striking, to
say nothing useless, to instruct the mind and to move the heart, to be
always eloquent in verse, and with an eloquence appropriate to each
character represented, to make the dialogue as pure as the choicest
prose, without the constraint of the rhyme appearing to fetter the
thoughts, and never to admit an obscure or harsh or declamatory
verse--these are the conditions which are exacted from a tragedy of
_our_ day, before it can pass to posterity with the approbation of
critics, without which it can never have a true reputation."
This definition, or rather this exposition, otherwise so clear and so
elegant, of the demands of our Melpomene, are far from being complete.
In the time of Euripides, a Greek could have said almost as much. It
is because Voltaire has only taken into account the style and the
_mise en scene_, the laws of which were at Athens what they are at
Paris. The difference between the ancient tragedies and the modern
tragic art consists essentially in their moral character and in that
alone. Christianity, by modifying the passions of the human heart, has
been able to modify them on the stage likewise. It is, then, from the
philosophy of the drama that we ought to set out with Aristotle to
study its nature.
The French tragedy, such as our own great century has made it, is the
representation of an action more probable than real, more ideal than
historic, wholly noble, serious, and becoming, restricted to one
place, accomplished in a few hours, without any interruption, except
the interval of the acts, constructed with the majestic simplicity of
the epic, drawing its startling changes from the play of passions
rather from that of events, and leading forward the mind by admiration
and enthusiasm to emotions of pity and of terror.
It is not the Greek tragedy--although the ancient Melpomene has
transmitted to our time its _cothurnus_, its _mise en scene_, its
triple unity, its heroes themselves, with their terrors and their
tears. The poetic form is the same, the moral force is entirely
different. On the Athenian stage, the will was subjugated by a brutal
fatality; upon ours, the will makes the destiny. Vice becomes more
terrible, virtue more magnanimous, and the struggles of the soul hold
a larger place than the tricks of fortune. The heroes of the ancient
tragedy, to become endurable with us, would have not only to take on
something of our character, of our manners, of our sentiments, and,
above all, of our conscience, but it would be necessary to change
their mode of action, and to lead them to a denouement by paths wholly
new.
Returning to the trilogy of the Passion, let us conclude this essay
with a {598} reflection which appears to us of a nature to throw great
light upon the popularity and the gigantic proportions of this
"mystery." The middle age, so penetrated with Christian beliefs and
ideas, loved it only because it found there the supreme manifestation
of Divine Providence, at once merciful and just. It had been induced
to thus represent the whole history of the human race, only to give to
that manifestation all the development demanded by the religious
conscience and the ethics of nations. There was needed the
representation of sin and the fall of the first man to explain the
justice and the pardon of Cavalry: there was needed the spectacle of a
universal judgment to solve the grand tragedy of human destinies.
We may blame the literary tastes of our good ancestors, but not their
philosophy. It has established on an immovable basis the fundamental
laws of our dramatic art. We may laugh at the puerile simplicity of
their theatre, but let us laugh reverently, since we find in their
literary infancy the germ, the strength, the character of the manhood
of the great century.
------
Translated and Abridged from the Civilta Cattolica.
ANTONIO CANOVA.
_Memorie di Antonio Canova, scritte da Antonio d'Este, e publicate per
cura, di Alessandro d'Este_. Firenze: Felice Le Monnier. 1864.
"It must be known," says Signor Antonio d'Este, "that when the learned
Missirini undertook to publish the artist-life of Canova, he had
recourse to me as the only person living who could inform him
thoroughly and truly of the principles of the Venetian artist, and
instruct him in some details of a life which I had known intimately
for the space of fifty years. . . . I put upon paper whatever might
serve to illustrate not only the disposition and character of my
friend, but also the excellent qualities of his heart. . . . I was
disappointed when the illustrious writer, in sending back my
manuscript, said: 'I have made use of many things, and of some
anecdotes, but not of all, since they appeared to me too familiar.' To
tell the truth, such an answer hurt my self-love, and offended the
unquenchable affection which I felt for Canova."
Hence the book before us. The author has apparently endeavored chiefly
to exhibit Canova the artist as a model for the studious, but he has
not overlooked Canova the citizen and the Christian. He begins with
him in the humble Possagno, and shows us his life in Venice, where his
genius first displayed itself, even in the degenerate school with
which alone he was then acquainted. It was in Rome that the young
sculptor saw the ancient purity in its full splendor. It burst upon
him like a sudden revelation. For several days he was like one in a
trance. Then, with his conceptions enlightened, his manner fixed, and
his aim determined, he threw himself into his work. Yet he was never a
servile copyist of Greek or Roman models. He imbibed the spirit of the
classical school, but his genius never was trammelled by imitation.
The last group which he carved under the inspiration drawn from the
ancient masterpieces,--his _Daedalus and Icarus_,--compared with his
_Theseus_, the first work which he executed in Rome, shows in a marked
{599} manner the change in his style--we might almost say his
conversion to the true principles of art.
From this time Canova, though endowed with rare modesty, and always
ready to take advice, showed a fixed resolution to free sculpture from
the mannerism then so common; and neither the advice of friends nor
the abuse of evil-minded critics could shake his purpose.
Nature undoubtedly lavished talents upon him with unsparing hand; but
he was without a parallel in the industry and care with which he
fostered the divine flame. His whole time not passed in labor was
devoted to monuments and museums of art. With his friend d'Este he
often paid a reverential visit to the famous horses at the Quirinal,
before which he gave free vent to his fancy. He used to spend many
hours in contemplating these masterpieces. Long before sunrise he
would spring from his bed and shut himself up in his studio. He took
no relaxation--scarcely even food and rest. After hammering at the
marble all day, he examined it by candlelight, and dreamed about it at
night. He so consumed himself in work that his friends had to wrench
the tools from his hands by force. But if he laid down the chisel, it
was only to return to the study of ancient masterpieces. Not content
with contemplating the works themselves under every possible aspect,
he tried to study out what instruments the artists probably made use
of. He would throw open his studio, and then hide or disguise himself
in order to overhear the honest opinions of his visitors. Extravagant
praise always made him suspicious. Once he was so much pained at a
lavish eulogium upon one of his works that he ran, all trembling, to
his friend Hamilton, and begged him to point out some defect in it;
and having obtained the criticism that he asked, he ran home again in
great glee to correct the fault. He gladly accepted criticism from the
ignorant as well as the learned. One day, when he was quite old, and
recognized as the first sculptor of the time, he begged d'Este to move
to a certain spot a beautiful group that he had finished. Several
laborers were called in to move it. When they had done their task, one
of them, with that connoisseur-air which the Roman laborer knows so
well how to assume, shrugged his shoulders and exclaimed:
"Well, perhaps the marchese" (Canova bore this title in his later
years) "knows best; but to me this statue seems to have the goitre."
The pupils in the studio sprang up in a rage and loaded the poor man
with abuse, and in the midst of the noisy dispute Canova rushed into
the room, and with some difficulty learned what was the laborer's
offence. He darted a glance of fire at the marble.
"Bravo!" he exclaimed after a moment's pause. "You are right. 'Take
this watch--it is yours--you have done me a great service."
So saying, he threw his watch and chain upon the man's neck; and
taking up a chisel began immediately to retouch the statue.
At the age of twenty-five, Canova was selected by Volpato to execute
the monument of Clement XIV., and it is not too much to say that the
restoration of the art of sculpture dates from this immortal work. The
governments of Venice, Russia, Austria, and France invited him to take
up his residence in their respective capitals; but he was never happy
out of Rome; the ground seemed to burn under his feet whenever he was
away from his beloved studio and the great works of the ancient
sculptors. Few artists ever enjoyed so high a reputation in Europe
during their lifetime as Canova, and few certainly ever sought it
less. He was wholly absorbed in love for his art. and eagerness for
its advancement.
But the character of a great artist, according to the Italian ideal,
is not complete without a touch of oddity, and Canova was not free
from some amiable eccentricities. His love passage with the Signorina
Volpato, and the {600} way he got out of it, will perhaps furnish the
subject for a poem by some future Goldoni; but we have no space to
tell of it here.
D'Este describes the moral character of Canova extremely well. He was
upright, brave, and sincere, an ardent patriot, and a sensible,
practical Christian. In the midst of his labors he was not insensible
to the dark clouds which obscured the political horizon, and he felt
so deeply the misfortunes which threatened his country that he took
the pains to retouch his _Dancing Girls_ because their expression was
too joyful to accord with his own sadness of heart. He was still
employed on this work when the pope was carried into captivity. He
felt the misfortune as a personal affliction, and on the statue wrote
these words: "Modelled in the most unhappy days of my life, June,
1809."
A few weeks after the establishment of the Roman republic, a National
Institute was erected, and Canova was chosen a member. He accepted the
appointment willingly, in the hope of being useful to Rome and to her
artists; but when, on the evening appointed for his formal admission,
the oath of membership was tendered to him, and he heard the words, "I
swear hatred to princes," etc., he sprang to his feet, cried out in
his Venetian dialect, _"Mi non odio nessun!"_ (I hate no one), and left
the hall.
------
From The Month.
CONSTANCE SHERWOOD.
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
BY LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON.
CHAPTER IX.
On the next morning Mr. Congleton called me into the library from the
garden, where I was gathering for Muriel a few of such hardy flowers
as had survived the early frost. She was wont to carry them with her
to the prisons; for it was one of her kindly apprehensions of the
sufferings of others to divide the comfort wherewith things seemingly
indifferent do affect those that be shut out of all kinds of
enjoyments; and where a less tender nature should have been content to
provide necessaries, she, through a more delicate acquaintanceship and
light touch, as it were, on the strings of the human heart, ever
bethought herself when it was possible to minister if but one minute's
pleasure to those who had often well-nigh forgotten the very taste of
it. And she hath told me touching that point of flowers, how it had
once happened that the scent of some violets she had concealed in her
bosom with a like intent did move to tears an aged man, who for many
years past had not seen, no not so much as one green leaf in his
prison; which tears, he said, did him more good than anything else
which could have happened to him.
I threw down on a bench the chrysanthemums and other bold blossoms I
had gathered, and running into the house, opened the door of the
library, where, lo and behold, to my no small agitation and amaze, I
discovered Edmund Genings, who cried out as I entered:
"O my dear master's daughter and well-remembered playmate, I do greet
you with all mine heart; and I thank God that I see you in so good a
condition, as I may with infinite gladness {601} make report of to
your good father, who through me doth impart to you his paternal
blessing and most affectionate commendations."
"Edmund," I cried, scarce able to speak for haste, "is he in London?
is he in prison?"
"No, forsooth," quoth Mr. Congleton.
"No, verily," quoth Edmund; both at the same time.
"Thy fears, silly wench," added the first, "have run away with thy
wits, and I do counsel thee another time to be at more pains to
restrain them; for when there be so many occasions to be afraid of
veritable evils, 'tis but sorry waste to spend fears on present
fancies."
By which I did conjecture my uncle not to be greatly pleased with
Edmund's coming to his house, and noticed that he did fidget in his
chair and ever and anon glanced at the windows which opened on the
garden in an uneasy manner.
"And wherefore art thou then in London?" I asked of Edmund; who thus
answered:
"Because Mr. James Fenn, who is also called Williesden, was taken and
committed close prisoner to the Marshalsea a short time back; which,
when my dear master did hear of, he was greatly disturbed and
turmoiled thereby, by reason of weighty matters having passed betwixt
him and that gentleman touching lands belonging to recusants, and that
extraordinary damage was likely to ensue to several persons of great
merit, if he could not advertise him in time how to answer to those
accusations which would be laid against him; and did seek if by any
means he could have access to him; but could find no hope thereof
without imminent danger not to himself only, but to many beside, if he
had come to London and been recognized."
"Wherein he did judge rightly," quoth my uncle; and then Edmund--
"So, seeing my master and others of a like faith with him in so great
straits touching their property and their lives also, I did most
earnestly crave his licence, being unknown and of no account in the
world, and so least to be suspected, to undertake this enterprise,
which he could not himself perform; which at last he did grant me,
albeit not without reluctance. And thus resolved I came to town."
"And has your hope been frustrated?" Mr. Congleton asked. To whom
Edmund--"I thank God, the end hath answered my expectations. I
committed the cause to him to whom nothing is impossible, and
determined, like a trusty servant, to do all that in me did lie
thereunto. And thinking on no other means, I took up my abode near to
the prison, hoping in time to get acquainted with the keeper; for
which purpose I had to drink with him each day, standing the cost,
beside paying him well, which I was furnished with the means to do. At
last I did, by his means, procure to see Mr. Fenn, and not only come
to speak to him, but to have access to his cell three or four times
with pen and ink and paper to write his mind. So I have furnished him
with the information he had need of, and likewise brought away with me
such answers to my master's questions as should solve his doubts how
to proceed in the aforesaid matters."
"God reward thee, my good youth," Mr. Congleton said, "for this thing
which thou hast done; for verily, under the laws lately set forth,
recusants be in such condition that, if not death, beggary doth stare
them in the face, and no remedy thereunto except by such assistance as
well-disposed Protestants be willing to yield to them."
"And where doth my father stay at this present time?" I asked; and
Edmund answered:
"Not so much as to you, Mistress Constance, am I free to reply to that
question; for when I left, 'Edmund,' quoth my master, 'it is a part of
prudence in these days to guard those that be dear to us from dangers
ensuing on what men do call our perversity; and as these new laws
enact {602} that he which knoweth any one which doth hear mass, be it
ever so privately, or suffers a priest to absolve him, or performs any
other action appertaining to Catholic religion, and doth not discover
him before some public magistrate within the space of twenty days next
following, shall suffer the punishment of high treason, than which
nothing can be more horrible; and that neither sex nor age be a cause
of exemption from the like penalties, so that father must accuse son,
and sister brother, and children their parents;--it is, I say, a
merciful part to hide from our friends where we do conceal ourselves,
whose consciences do charge us with these novel crimes, lest theirs be
also burdened with the choice either to denounce us if called upon to
testify thereon, or else to speak falsely. Therefore I do charge thee,
my son Edmund' (for thus indeed doth my master term me, his unworthy
servant), 'that thou keep from my good child, and my dear sister, and
her no less dear husband, the knowledge of my present, but indeed
ever-shifting, abode; and solely inform them, by word of mouth, that I
am in good health, and in very good heart also, and do most earnestly
pray for them, that their strength and patience be such as the times
do require.'"
"And art thou reconciled, Edmund?" I asked, ever speaking hastily and
beforehand with prudence. Mr. Congleton checked me sharply; whereupon,
with great confusion, I interrupted my speech; but Edmund, albeit not
in words yet by signs, answered my question so as I should be
certified it was even as I hoped. He then asked if I should not be
glad to write a letter to my father,--which he would carry to him, so
that it was neither signed nor addressed,--which letter I did sit down
to compose in a hurried manner, my heart prompting my pen to utter
what it listed, rather than weighing the words in which those
affectionate sentiments were expressed. Mr. Congleton likewise did
write to him, whilst Edmund took some food, which he greatly needed;
for he had scarce eaten so much as one comfortable meal since he had
been in London, and was to ride day and night till he reached his
master. I wept very bitterly when he went away; for the sight of him
recalled the dear mother I had lost, the sole parent whose company I
was likewise reft of, and the home I was never like to see again. But
when those tears were stayed, that which at the time did cause sadness
ministered comfort in the retrospect, and relief from worse fears made
the present separation from my father more tolerable. And on the next
Sunday, when I went to the Charter House, with my cousins and Mistress
Ward, I was in such good cheer that Polly commended my prating; which
she said for some days had been so stayed that she had greatly feared
I had caught the infectious plague of melancholy from Kate, whom she
vowed did half kill her with the sound of her doleful sighing since
Mr. Lacy was gone, which she said was a dismal music brought into
fashion by love-sick ladies, and such as she never did intend to
practise; "for," quoth she, "I hold care to be the worst enemy in
life; and to be in love very dull sport, if it serve not to make one
merry." This she said turning to Sir Ralph Ingoldby, the
afore-mentioned suitor for her hand, who went with us, and thereupon
cried out, "Mercy on us, fair mistress, if we must be merry when we be
sad, and by merriment win a lady's love, the lack of which doth so
take away merriment that we must needs be sad, and so lose that which
should cure sadness;" and much more he in that style, and she
answering and making sport of his discourse, as was her wont with all
gentlemen.
When we reached the house, Mrs. Milicent was awaiting us at the door
of the gallery for to conduct us to the best place wherein we could
see her majesty's entrance. There were some seats there and other
persons present, some of which were of Polly's acquaintance, with whom
she did keep up a {603} brisk conversation, in which I had occasion to
notice the sharpness of her wit, in which she did surpass any woman I
have since known, for she was never at a loss for an answer; as when
one said to her--
"Truly, you have no mean opinion of yourself, fair mistress."
"As one shall prize himself," quoth she, "so let him look to be valued
by others."
And another: "You think yourself to be Minerva."
Whereupon she: "No, sir, not when I be at your elbow;" meaning he was
no Ulysses.
And when one gentleman asked her of a book, if she had read it:
"The epistle," she said, "and no more."
"And wherefore no more," quoth he, "since that hath wit in it?"
"Because," she answered, "an author who sets all his wit in his
epistle is like to make his book resemble a bankrupt's doublet."
"How so?" asked the gentleman.
"In this wise," saith she, "that he sets the velvet before, though the
back be but of buckram."
"For my part," quoth a foppish young man, "I have thoughts in my mind
should fill many volumes."
"Alack, good sir," cries she, "is there no type good enough to set
them in?"
He, somewhat nettled, declares that she reads no books but of one
sort, and doats on _Sir Bevis and Owlglass_, or _Fashion's Mirror_,
and such like idle stuff, wherein he himself had never found so much
as one word of profitable use or reasonable entertainment.
"I have read a fable," she said, "which speaks of a pasture in which
oxen find fodder, hounds, hares, storks, lizards, and some animals
nothing."
"To deliver you my opinion," said a lady who sat next to Polly's
disputant, "I have no great esteem for letters in gentlewomen. The
greatest readers be oft the worst doers."
"Letters!" cries Polly; "why, surely they be the most weighty things
in creation; for so much as the difference of one letter mistaken in
the order in which it should stand in a short sentence doth alter the
expression of a man's resolve in a matter of life and death."
"How prove you that, madam?" quoth the lady.
"By the same token," answered Polly, "that I once did hear a gentleman
say, 'I must go die a beggar,' who willed to say, 'I must go buy a
dagger.'"
They all did laugh, and then some one said, "There was a witty book of
emblems made on all the cardinals at Rome, in which these scarlet
princes were very roughly handled. Bellarmine, for instance, as a
tiger fast chained to a post, and a scroll proceeding from the beast's
mouth--'Give me my liberty; you shall see what I am.' I wish," quoth
the speaker, "he were let loose in this island. The queen's judges
would soon constrain him to eat his words."
"Peradventure," answered Polly, "his own words should be too good food
for a recusant in her majesty's prisons."
"Maybe, madam, you have tasted of that food," quoth the aforesaid
lady, "that you be so well acquainted with its qualities."
Then I perceived that Mistress Ward did nudge Polly for to stay her
from carrying on a further encounter of words on this subject; for, as
she did remind us afterward, many persons had been thrown into prison
for only so much as a word lightly spoken in conversation which should
be supposed even in a remote manner to infer a favorable opinion of
Catholic religion; as, for instance, a bookseller in Oxford, for a
jest touching the queen's supremacy in ecclesiastical matters, had
been a short time before arrested, pilloried, whipped, and his ears
nailed to a counter, which with a knife he had himself to cut through
to free himself; which maybe had not been taken much notice of, as
nothing singular in these days, the man being a Catholic and of no
great note, but that much talk had {604} been ministered concerning a
terrible disease which broke out immediately after the passing of that
sentence, by which the judge which had pronounced it, the jury, and
many other persons concerned in it, had died raving mad; to the no
small affright of the whole city. I ween, howsoever, no nudging should
have stopped Polly from talking, which indeed was a passion with her,
but that a burst of music at that time did announce the queen's
approach, and we did all stand up on the tiptoe of expectation to see
her majesty enter.
My heart did beat as fast as the pendulum of a clock when the cries
outside resounded, "Long live Queen Elizabeth!" and her majesty's
voice was distinctly heard answering, "I thank you, my good people;"
and the ushers crying out, "La Royne!" as the great door was thrown
open; through which we did see her majesty alight from her coach,
followed by many nobles and lords, and amongst them one of her
bishops, and my Lord and my Lady Surrey, kneeling to receive her on
the steps, with a goodly company of kinsfolks and friends around them.
Oh, how I did note every lineament of that royal lady, of so great
power and majesty, that it should seem as if she were not made of the
same mould as those of whom the Scriptures do say, that dust they are,
and to dust must they return. Very majestic did she appear; her
stature neither tall nor low, but her air exceedingly stately. Her
eyes small and black, her face fair, her nose a little hooked, and her
lips narrow. Upon her head she had a small crown, her bosom was
uncovered; she wore an oblong collar of gold and jewels, and on her
neck an exceeding fine necklace. She was dressed in white silk
bordered with pearls, and over it a mantle of black silk shot with
silver threads; her train, which was borne by her ladies, was very
long. When my lord knelt, she pulled off her glove, and gave him her
right hand to kiss, sparkling with rings and jewels; but when my lady,
in as sweet and modest a manner as can be thought of, advanced to pay
her the same homage, she did withdraw it hastily and moved on. I can
even now, at this distance of time, call to mind the look of that
sweet lady's face as she rose to follow her majesty, who leant on my
lord's arm with a show of singular favor, addressing herself to him in
a mild, playful, and obliging manner. How the young countess's cheek
did glow with a burning blush, as if doubting if she had offended in
the manner of her behavior, or had anyways merited the repulse she had
met with! How she stood for one moment irresolute, seeking to catch my
lord's eye, so as to be directed by him; and failing to do so, with a
pretty smile, but with what I, who loved her, fancied to be a
quivering lip, addressed herself to the ladies of the queen, and
conducted them through the cloisters to the garden, whither her
highness and my lord had gone.
In a brief time Mistress Milicent came to fetch us to a window which
looked on the square, where a great open tent was set for a collation,
and seats all round it for the concert which was to follow. As we went
along, I took occasion to ask of her the name of a waiting-gentleman,
who ordered about the servants with no small alacrity, and met her
majesty with many bows and quirks and a long compliment in verse.
"Tis Mr. Churchyard," she said; "a retainer of his grace's, and a poet
withal."
"Not a _grave one_, I hope," said Polly.
"Nay," answered the simple gentlewoman, "but one well versed in
pageants and tournaments and suchlike devices, as well as in writing
of verses and epigrams very fine and witty. Her majesty doth sometimes
send for him when any pageant is on hand."
"Ah, then, I doubt not," quoth Polly, "he doth take himself to be no
mean personage in the state, and so behaves accordingly."
{605}
Pretty Milicent left us to seek for Mistress Bess, whom she had charge
of that day; and now our eyes were so intent on watching the spectacle
before us that even Polly for a while was silent. The queen did sit at
table with a store of noblemen waiting on her; and a more goodly sight
and a rarer one is not to be seen than a store of men famed for so
much bravery and wit and arts of state, that none have been found to
surpass them in any age, who be so loyal to a queen and so reverent to
a woman as these to this lady, who doth wear the crown of so great a
kingdom, so that all the world doth hold it in respect, and her hand
sought by so many great princes. But all this time I could not
perceive that she so much as once did look toward my Lady Surrey, or
spoke one single word to her or to my Lady Lumley, or little Bess, and
took very scanty notice also of my Lady Berkeley, his grace's sister,
who was a lady of so great and haughty a stomach, and of speech so
eloquent and ready, that I have heard the queen did say, that albeit
Lady Berkeley bent her knee when she made obeisance to her, she could
very well see she bent not her will to love or serve her, and that she
liked not such as have a man's heart in a woman's body. 'Tis said that
parity breedeth not affection, or affinity respect, of which saying
this opinion of the queen's should seem a notable example. But to see
my Lady Surrey so treated in her own husband's father's house worked
in me such effects of choler, mingled with sadness, that I could
scarce restrain my tears. Methought there was a greater nobleness and
a more true queenly greatness in her meek and withal dignified
endurance of these slights who was the subject, than in the sovereign
who did so insult one who least of all did deserve it. What the queen
did, others took pattern from; and neither my Lord Burleigh, nor my
Lord Leicester, or Sir Christopher Hatton, or young Lord Essex (albeit
my lord's own friend ), or little Sir John Harrington, her majesty's
godson, did so much as speak one civil word or show her the least
attention; but she did bear herself with so much sweetness, and,
though I knew her heart was full almost to bursting, kept up so brave
an appearance that none should see it except such as had their own
hearts wounded through hers, that some were present that day who since
have told me that, for promise of future distinction and true nobility
of aspect and behavior, they had not in their whole lives known one to
be compared with the young Countess of Surrey.