French cavalier. This part was invariably played by a person decorated
with a plumed toque, clad in a yellow tunic braided with black,
ornamented with representations of the sun, or of golden palms when
the cavalier was a prince, and wearing buff-leather boots. It was not
imperative that the hero should be French, or wear golden spurs, to
be a French cavalier: the rôle was designed on well defined lines,
and belonged to a particular school. Zamore was a French cavalier,
Orosmane was a French cavalier, Philoctètes was a French cavalier.
The only distinctions between them were as follows: Zamore played in
a cap decorated with peacock feathers, and in a cloak of parrot's
feathers, with a girdle of ostrich plumes. Orosmane played in a long
robe of white taffeta dropping with spangles and trimmed with minever,
in a turban opening out wide like a blunderbuss and decorated with a
crescent of Rhine stones, in red foulard trousers and yellow slippers.
Philoctètes played in a loose coat of red horse-hair, a cuirass of
velvet embroidered with gold, and was furnished with a warlike sword.
Vanhove, in order to play Agamemnon, had a cuirass which cost him a
small fortune, two hundred louis, I believe; it was ornamented by two
trophies, hand-worked--a magnificent bit of work, representing cannons
and drums.
I once said to Lafond--
"M. Lafond, why do you play Zamore in such a shabby girdle? Your
feathers look like fish-bones; they are positively indecent!"
"Young man," replied Lafond, "Zamore is not rich; Zamore is a slave;
Zamore could not afford to buy himself a new girdle every day; I am
true to history."
What was perhaps less true to history was the expansive Stomach which
the girdle enclosed.
Lafond's triumphs in these cavalier parts made Talma nearly die of
envy. One day Geoffroy's articles exasperated him to such a degree
that, on meeting the critic in the wings, he flew at him and bit
him--at the risk of poisoning himself. But as the law of universal
stability decrees that every bullet shall find its billet, the
populace, by degrees, grew tired of Lafond's redundant declamation and
emphatic gestures, which, at the time of which we are speaking, being
used only by a few old-fashioned members of the school of Larive, drew
receipts no longer, even when they played the parts of _chevaliers
français._
Lafond was an odd fellow in other ways besides. Thanks to his Gascon
accent and to his way of saying things, one never knew whether he were
talking nonsense or saying something witty.
He once came into the lounge of the Théâtre-Français when Colson (an
indifferent actor who was often hissed) was blurting out his caricature
of Lafond's trick of over-acting. Colson pulled himself up; but it was
too late: Lafond had heard his voice in the corridor. He made straight
for Colson.
"Eh! Colson, my friend," he said, in that Bordelais accent of which
none but those who have heard and followed it could form any idea,
"they tell me you have been taking me off?"
"Oh! M. Lafond," Colson replied, trying to recover himself, "take you
off?... No, I swear I...."
"All right! all right! that was what I was told.... Come, Colson, do me
a favour."
"What is it, M. Lafond?"
"Act my part before me."
"Oh, M. Lafond...."
"I beg you to do it; I shall really be extremely obliged to you."
"The deuce!" said Colson. "If you really wish it...."
"Yes, I do wish it."
Colson yielded, and began Orosmane's tirade--
"Vertueuse Zaire, avant que l'hyménée...."
and declaimed it from the first line to the last, with such fidelity
of imitation that one might have thought Lafond himself were declaiming.
Lafond listened to the end with the deepest attention, nodding his head
up and down and expressing his approbation by frequent and obvious
signs.
Then, when Colson had finished, he said, "Well! why ever don't you act
like that, my dear fellow? The public would not hiss you if you did!"
In the interval between the first and second acts of _Pierre de
Portugal_, Lucien Arnault was in the wings; during the second act,
Pierre de Portugal, disguised as a soldier of his army, insinuates
himself unrecognised into the house of Inès de Castro, who takes him
for a common soldier.
Lucien saw Lafond advance in a costume resplendent with gold and jewels.
He ran up to him. "Ah! my dear Lafond," he said, "your costume is all
wrong!"
"Have you anything to say against my costume?"
"Rather, I should just think so."
"But it is blatantly new."
"That is precisely what I take exception to: you have put on the garb
of a prince, not that of a common soldier."
"Lucien," replied Lafond, "listen to this: I would rather arouse envy
than pity." Then, turning haughtily on his heels, no doubt in order
to show the back of his costume to Lucien, since he had shown him the
front, he said, "They can ring: Pierre de Portugal is ready."
When, five years later, I read _Christine_ before the Théâtre-Français,
whether or not Lafond was a member of the committee, or whether he
did not care to trouble himself to listen to the work of a beginner,
I had the misfortune to read it in his absence. Although, as we shall
see in its proper place, the play was rejected, the reading excited
some interest, and it was thought that a drama might be made out of it
sooner or later.
One day I saw the door of my humble office open and M. Lafond was
announced. I raised my head, greatly surprised, unable to imagine
why I should be favoured by a visit from the viceroy of the tragic
stage: it was indeed he! I offered him a chair; but he refused it
with a nod of the head, and stopping close to the door, with his
right foot forward and his left hand resting on his hips, he said,
"Monsieur Dumas, do you happen to have, by any chance, in your play,
a well-set-up gallant who would say to that queer queen Christine,
'Madame, your majesty has no right to kill that poor devil of a
Monaldeschi, for this, that, or any other reason'?"
"No, monsieur, no! I have no such gallant in my play."
"You are quite sure you haven't?"
"Yes."
"In that case I have nothing to say to you.... Good-day, M. Dumas."
And, turning on his heel, he went out as he had entered. He had come
to ask me for the part of this well-set-up gallant, as he called it.
Unfortunately, as I had been compelled to acknowledge, I had no such
part in my play.
In the heyday of his popularity M. Lafond never spoke of Talma, or of
M. Talma: he said, _the other person_.
The Comte de Lauraguais, who had been Sophie Arnould's lover, and who,
like the Marquis de Zimènes, was one of the most constant visitors to
the actors' green-room, said one day to M. Lafond, "M. Lafond, I think
you are too often _the one_ and not often enough _the other?_"
Mademoiselle Duchesnois was quite different from Lafond: she was really
kind-hearted, and her great successes never made her vain. She was
born in 1777, one year before Mademoiselle Mars, at Saint-Saulve, near
Valenciennes, and she changed her name, after her début in _Phèdre_,
in 1802, from Joséphine Ruffin to Duchesnois. We have said that she
was Mile. Georges' rival in everything: her rival on the stage, her
rival in love. Harel was the handsome Paris who was the object of this
rivalry. Harel, who was in turn manager of the theatre de l'Odéon and
of the théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, will play a great part in
these Memoirs--the part that a clever man, be it known, has the right
to play everywhere.
Mademoiselle Duchesnois had had to struggle all her life against
her plain looks: she was like one of those china lions one sees
on balustrades; she had a particularly big nose which she blew
stentoriously, as befitted its size. Lassagne did not dare to go
into the orchestra on days when she acted; he was afraid of being
blown away. On the other hand, she had a marvellous figure, and her
body could have rivalled that of the Venus de Milo. She doted on the
part of Alzire, which allowed her and Lafond to appear almost naked.
She possessed a certain simplicity of mind which her detractors
called stupidity. One day--in 1824--people were busy talking about
the inundation of St. Petersburg, and of the various more or less
picturesque accidents that had occurred through this inundation.
I was in the wings, behind Talma and Mademoiselle Duchesnois, to whom
an actress, who had just arrived from the first, or rather from the
second, capital of the Russian Empire, was relating how one of her
friends, overtaken by the flood, had only had time to climb up on a
crane.
"What! on a crane?" said Mademoiselle Duchesnois, in great
astonishment. "Is it possible, Talma?"
"Oh! my dear," replied the actor questioned so oddly, "no one ought to
know better than yourself that it is done every day."
But, in spite of her ugliness, in spite of her simplicity, in spite of
her hiccough, in spite of her nose-blowing, Mademoiselle Duchesnois
possessed the most profoundly tender inflections in her voice, and
could express such pathetic sorrow, that most of those who saw her in
_Marie Stuart_ prefer her to-day to Mademoiselle Rachel. Especially did
her qualities shine when she played with Talma. Talma was too great an
artiste, too superb an actor to fear being outbidden. Talma gave her
excellent advice, which her fine artistic nature utilised, if not with
remarkable intelligence, at least with easy assimilation.
The poor creature retired from the stage in 1830, after having
struggled as long as she could against the pitiless indifference of the
public, and the cruel hints from other actors which generally embitter
the later years of dramatic artistes. She reappeared once again before
her death in 1835, in _Athalie_ at the Opera, I believe.
It was very sad to see her: it inevitably brought to mind the line from
_Pierre de Portugal_--
"Inès, vivante ou non, tu seras couronnée!"
Alas! poor Duchesnois was crowned when she was more than half dead. She
had a son, a good honest lad. After the Revolution of July, Bixio and I
got him a sub-lieutenancy; but he was killed, I believe, in Algeria.
The tragedy of _Pierre de Portugal_ was a success; it was even a great
success; but it only ran fifteen or eighteen nights, and did not bring
in any money.
Lassagne was right.
CHAPTER VI
General Riégo--His attempted insurrection--His escape and flight--He is
betrayed by the brothers Lara--His trial--His execution
We have mentioned that the _École des Vieillards_ ought to have come
after _Pierre de Portugal_, but between the comedy and tragedy two
terrible dramas took place in Madrid and Paris. In Madrid they made a
martyr; in Paris they executed a criminal. The martyr's name was Riégo:
the guilty criminal's Castaing.
Riégo was born, in 1783, in the Asturias, so he would be about forty:
he was of a noble but poor family and, since the invasion of 1808, he
had enlisted as a volunteer. He became an officer in the same regiment
in which he had enlisted; he was taken prisoner and led away to France.
Sent back to Spain, when peace was declared, he attained the rank of
lieutenant-colonel in the same regiment, and, leading this regiment
into insurrection, seduced by him, it proclaimed the constitution of
1812 at las Cabesas-de-San-Juan. It will be seen later that it was
desired that his head should be exposed, in order that his mute lips
and the eyes closed by death might bear witness to the fact that
royalty can be cruel for more than a day's span, and common people
ungrateful. On 27 September he was arrested at Cadiz. Let us say a few
words concerning his arrest and death,--the latter especially, for,
alas I it belongs almost to French history. After his last defeat,
General Riégo wandered in the mountains with a score of his comrades,
all of whom belonged, like himself, to the Liberal party. Fifteen of
these fugitives were officers. They were all exhausted by fatigue and
hunger, and did not know either where to look for shelter or from whom
to beg food, when they caught sight of two men. They made straight for
them. These two men were the hermit of the district of Pédrogil and a
native of Valez named Lopez Lara. The general took them aside.
"My friends," he said to them, "you have a chance to win a fortune for
yourselves and your families."
"What must we do to gain it?" the two men asked.
"Conduct me safe and sound to Carolina, to Carboneras and to Novas de
Tolosa."
"And there...?"
"There I shall find friends who will take me on to Estremadura, where I
have business to transact."
Whether the journey appeared to them too long, or whether they fancied
they had to deal with outlaws, the hermit and his companion declined.
So Riégo arrested them, put them on a couple of mules, and told them
that, whether willingly or under compulsion, they would have to act as
guides to his band. The party waited until nightfall and then set forth.
During the march in the darkness, Riégo talked with his comrades
concerning various events that had recently occurred, from which the
hermit and Lopez Lara soon guessed that they were in the company of
the notorious Riégo. From that moment Lopez Lara's whole thoughts were
filled with the idea of handing Riégo over to the Royalist authorities.
When daytime came, they had to stop. They were near the farm of
Baquevisones: Riégo announced that he meant to ask for shelter there,
so he ordered Lara to knock at the door. Lara obeyed. By chance, his
own brother Matéo opened it. Lara perceived that chance had brought him
the assistance he needed. Riégo, realising that too large an escort
might betray him, would only allow three of his comrades to go in with
him. One of these companions was an Englishman, even more daring than
Riégo. He at once locked the door of the farm behind him and put the
key in his pocket. When they had given the horses fodder, they rested
in the stable, each with his naked sword by his side. Three slept,
while the fourth mounted guard. When Riégo awaked, he discovered
that his horse was unshod. He ordered Lopez Lara to shoe the horse
immediately.
"All right," replied he; "but I must take him to Arguillos to get him
shod."
"No," returned Riégo; "you shall stay here and Matéo shall have him
shod. But the farrier shall come here; the horse shall not go to him."
Lopez appeared to conform with indifference to this order; but, as he
transmitted it to his brother, he managed to say--
"The man who owns the horse is General Riégo."
"So ho!" said Matéo; "arrange for him to be at breakfast by the time I
return; do not leave the place where they are or let them out of your
sight."
Matéo returned, and made a sign to his brother that the commission was
executed. Then to Riégo he said--
"Señor, as the farrier will be here in five minutes, you had better
breakfast, if you wish to proceed on your journey directly your horse
is shod."
Riégo went to breakfast without making any objection. But not so the
Englishman.
The Englishman searched the high road with his field-glasses from a
window as far as he could see. Suddenly a score of armed men came into
sight, headed by an _alcade_ (magistrate).
"General," he exclaimed, "we have been betrayed! There are soldiers
coming."
"To arms!" cried Riégo, rising. He had time to utter this cry, but not
to accomplish its fulfilment. Lopez and Matéo seized their guns and
covered the outlaws with them.
"The first man who moves is dead!" cried Lopez.
"All right," said Riégo, "I surrender; but warn the soldiers who are
coming not to harm us, since we are your prisoners."
The soldiers entered, led by the alcade.
"Shake hands, brother, and do us no harm," said Riégo to the alcade.
After some objection, the alcade greeted Riégo. But, in spite of this,
he told him he must bind his hands. Whereupon, Riégo took out of his
pocket all the money he had with him and distributed it among the
soldiers, asking them to treat him mercifully. The alcade, however,
forbade the soldiers to accept anything. A quarter of an hour later,
the civil commandant arrived from Arguillos with a guard, and they took
the prisoners to Andujar.
When the captives entered that town, the people wanted to tear them
limb from limb. Riégo was accompanied by a French officer. When he
arrived in front of the same balcony from which, a year ago, he had
harangued the people, he pointed to the crowd which surrounded him
howling and shaking their fists and knives at him, and in a tone of
profound sadness he said to the officer, "These people whom you see
so relentless towards me, these people who if I had not been under
the protection of your escort would have butchered me long since,
these people carried me here in triumph only last year; the town was
illuminated the whole night through, and the very same individuals whom
I recognise surrounding me here, who then deafened me with cries of
'Vive Riégo!' now shout 'Death to Riégo!'"
He was taken to the seminary of nobles; his trial lasted over a month.
A decree dated 1 October, the very day on which he was freed from
prison and reached the port of Sainte-Marie, degraded the general of
all his honours; consequently, he was tried by a civil court. The King
of Spain gained a twofold advantage by depriving the general of a
military court martial.
First he knew that the civil court would condemn Riégo to death.
Second, if the sentence were pronounced by a civil court, the death
would be ignominious. Vengeance is such a sweet mouthful that it must
not be permitted to lose any of its flavour.
On 4 November they led Riégo from the seminary of nobles to the
prison of la Tour. The court had not obtained all it demanded. The
attorney-general requisitioned that Riégo should be condemned to
the gallows; that his estate should be confiscated and given to the
Commune; that his head should be exposed at las Cabesas de San-Juan;
that his body should be quartered and one quarter sent to Seville,
another to the isle of Leon, the third to Malaga and the fourth
exposed in Madrid, in the usual places for such exhibitions,--"these
towns being," the attorney-general added, "the principal places where
the traitor Riégo scattered the sparks of revolt."
The alcades decided that the mode of death should be by hanging and
that the goods should be confiscated; but they refused the request
concerning the four quarters.
Once, towards the end of the fifteenth century, the inhabitants of
Imola, a small town in the Romagna, found, on waking up, the four
quarters of a man hanging each by a hook at the four corners of
the square. They recognised the man cut into four quarters for a
Florentine, and wrote to the worshipful Republic to advise them of
the unforeseen accident that had overtaken one of its citizens. The
Republic learnt of this by means of Machiavelli, its ambassador to
the Legations. Machiavelli's only reply was as follows: "Noble lords,
I have but one thing to say to you apropos of the corpse of Ramiro
d'Orco, which was found cut up into four quarters in the square of
Imola, and it is this: the illustrious Cæsar Borgia is the prince who
best knows how to deal with men according to their deserts."
It riled the King of Spain not to be able to deal with Riégo as Borgia
had dealt with Ramiro d'Orco; but he had to content himself with the
prisoner being borne to the gibbet on hurdles and with the confiscation
of his property. Even that would be quite a pretty spectacle.
On 5 November at noon Riégo's sentence was read to him: he listened
to it very calmly. This calmness disturbed the judges for it would
set a bad example if Riégo died bravely. They took him to the chapel,
and under pretence that fasting induced penitence sooner than
anything else, they gave him nothing to eat from that time. Two monks
accompanied him to his cell and never left him. At the prison door,
in the street, he could see a table with a crucifix thereon, and
passers-by placed their alms on the table. These alms were destined to
pay the expenses of his mass and funeral.
On the 7th, at nine in the morning, the prison was besieged by over
thirty thousand curious spectators; a much greater number than that
lined the whole of the route, and formed a double line from the prison
square to the square where the execution was to take place.
Riégo had asked that only Spanish troops should be present during his
last moments. This favour was granted him, because France did not wish
to dip one corner of its white flag in the blood of the unlucky Riégo.
At half-past twelve, after fifty hours of fasting, the general was
led forth to the prison door. He was pale and weak. They had stripped
him of his uniform and they had clothed him in a dressing-gown with
a girdle fastened round his waist; his hands and feet were likewise
bound. He was laid on a hurdle, with a pillow under his head. Monks
walked on both sides of this hurdle to administer spiritual consolation
to him. An ass drew the hurdle, led by the executioner. The victim was
preceded and followed by a corps of cavalry.
It was difficult to get a good sight of the general, so great was the
curiosity of the crowd: his head fell forward on his breast, and he had
only sufficient strength to raise it two or three times to reply to the
exhortations of the priests.
The cortège took nearly an hour to get from the prison to the place of
execution. When the foot of the gallows was reached, the general was
raised from the hurdle, covered with dust, and placed on the first step
of the scaffold. There he made his last confession. Then they dragged
him up the ladder; for, his feet being bound, he could not mount it
himself. All the while a priest kept beseeching God to forgive him his
sins, as he forgave those who had trespassed against him. When they
had hauled him a certain height, those who raised the condemned man
stopped. The act of faith was begun and, at the last word, the general
was hurled from the top of the ladder. At the very instant that the
priest pronounced the word _Jésus-Christ_, which was the signal, the
executioner leapt on the shoulders of the martyr, while two men hung
from his legs, completing the hideous group. Twice the shout of "Vive
le roi!" went up, first from the rows of spectators near by; the
second time from a few individuals alone. Then a man leapt from out the
crowd, stepped towards the scaffold, and struck Riégo's body a blow
with his stick. That night they carried the corpse into the nearest
church, and it was interred in the Campo-Santo by the Brothers of
Charity.
Nothing is known of Riégo's last moments, as no one was allowed to come
near him; the monks, his bitterest enemies, being desirous of throwing
all possible odium on his dying moments.
"The last of the Gracchi," according to Mirabeau, "in the act of death,
threw dust steeped in his own blood into the air. Thence was born
Marius."
Riégo left a song; from that song was born a revolution, and from that
revolution the Republic.
CHAPTER VII
The inn of the _Tête-Noire_--Auguste Ballet--Castaing--His trial--His
attitude towards the audience and his words to the jury--His execution
The second drama which happened in Paris, and which was to have its
denouement on the place de Grève, on the same day that the _École des
Vieillards_ was played, was the poisoning of Auguste Ballet.
We have spoken of the death of poor little Fleuriet, who was as
pretty, fresh and flower-like as her name, and who was carried off in
twenty-four hours without any apparent reason for her death. May I be
forgiven the accusation implied in this statement, for it may be a
calumny; but when the facts cited below are considered, the cause of
her death may be guessed.
On 29 May, two young people arrived in what at that period was
called "une petite voiture," and drew up at the _Tête-Noire_ inn, at
Saint-Cloud. They had set off without leaving word where they were
going. Towards nine o'clock in the evening they were installed in a
double-bedded chamber. One of the couple paid a deposit of five francs.
The two friends walked about together the whole of the next day,
Friday, the 30th; they only appeared at the hotel at dinner-time, and
went out again immediately after their repast for another walk. It was
nine o'clock at night before they returned for the second time. When
going upstairs, one of them asked for a half-bottle of mulled wine,
adding that it need not be sugared, as they had brought sugar with
them. The wine was taken up a few minutes after nine, sugared with
the sugar that they had brought, and made tasty with lemons bought in
Saint-Cloud. The same young man who made the five francs deposit for
the room, who ordered the dinner, and forbade the sugar to be brought
upstairs, mixed the sugar and lemon juice in the bowl of warmed wine.
One of the two seemed to be a doctor; for, having heard that one of
the servants of the house was ill, he went upstairs to see him, before
tasting the prepared wine, and felt his pulse. However, he did not
prescribe anything for him, and returned to his friend's room after an
absence of a quarter of an hour. The said friend had found the wine
very nasty, and had only drunk about a tablespoonful of it. He had
stopped short because of the bitter flavour of the beverage. In the
midst of all this, the chambermaid entered. "I must have put too much
lemon in this wine," said the young man, holding the bowl towards her:
"it is so bitter I cannot drink it." The servant tasted it; but she
spat it out as soon as she had had a mouthful of it, exclaiming, "Oh
yes!... rather, you have made it bitter!" Upon which she left the room.
The two friends went to bed.
Throughout the night the young man who had tasted the wine was seized
with violent spasms of nervous shivering, which did not give him a
moment's rest; he complained to his companion several times that he
could not keep himself still. Towards two o'clock, he had fits of
colic and, at daybreak, about half-past three in the morning, he
said he did not think he would be able to get up, that his feet were
on fire and that he could not possibly put on his boots. The other
young man said he would take a turn in the park, and recommended his
friend to try and sleep in the meantime. But, instead of going for a
walk in the park, the young man whose visit to the sick servant led
people to suppose him a doctor, took a carriage, returned to Paris,
bought twelve grains of acetate of morphine from M. Robin, rue de la
Feuillade, and one drachm from M. Chevalier, another chemist, obtaining
them readily in the capacity of a medical man. He returned to the inn
of the _Tête-Noire_ at eight o'clock, after four hours' absence, and
asked for some cold milk for his friend. The sick man felt no better;
he drank the cup of milk prepared by the young doctor, and almost
immediately he was taken with fits of vomiting which rapidly succeeded
each other. Soon he was seized by colic. Strange to say, in spite of
the attack becoming worse, the doctor again left the patient alone,
without leaving any instructions and without appearing to be uneasy
at a condition of things which was arousing the anxiety of strangers.
While he was absent, the hostess of the hotel and the chambermaid went
up to the sick man and did what they could for him. He was in great
agony. The young doctor returned in about half an hour's time. He found
the patient in an alarming condition; he was asking for a doctor,
insisting that one should be fetched from Saint-Cloud, and he opposed
his friend's suggestion that one should be fetched from Paris. He felt
so ill, he said, that he could not wait.
So they ran for the nearest available; but nevertheless it was not
until eleven o'clock in the morning that the doctor whom they went to
seek arrived. His name was M. Pigache.
The sick man was a little easier by that time. M. Pigache asked to
see the evacuations, but he was told that they had been thrown away.
He ordered emollients, but the emollients were not applied. He came
back an hour later and prescribed a soothing draught. The young doctor
administered it himself to the invalid; but the effect it produced
was prompt and terrible: five minutes after, the patient was seized
by frightful convulsions. In the midst of these convulsions he lost
consciousness, and from that moment never regained it.
Towards eleven o'clock at night, the young doctor, weeping bitterly,
informed a servant that his friend could not survive the night. The
servant ran for M. Pigache, who decided, in spite of the short time he
had attended him, to pay the dying man one more visit. He found the
unhappy youth lying on his back, his neck rigidly strained, his head
uncovered, hardly able to breathe; he could neither hear nor feel;
his pulse was slow, his skin burning; his limbs were stiff and rigid,
his mouth clenched; his whole body was running with a cold sweat and
marked with bluish spots. M. Pigache decided he must at once bleed
the patient freely, and he bled him twice--with leeches and with the
lancet. It made the sick man a little easier. M. Pigache pointed this
out to his young confrère, saying that the condition of the dying
man was desperate and that, as the good effect produced by the two
bleedings was so noticeable, he did not hesitate to propose a third.
But this the young doctor opposed, saying that the responsibility was
too great, and that, if the third bleeding ended badly, the whole of
the responsibility for the ending would rest on M. Pigache. Upon this,
the latter peremptorily demanded that a doctor should be sent for from
Paris.
This course would have been quite easy, for, during that very day,
as the result of a letter despatched by the young doctor couched in
the following terms, "M. Ballet being ill at Saint-Cloud, Jean must
come to him at once, in the gig, with the grey horse; neither he nor
mother Buvet must speak a word of this to a single soul; if anybody
makes inquiry, they must say he is going into the country by order of
M. Ballet," Jean, who was a negro servant, arrived with the grey horse
and the gig. In spite of this facility of communication, the young
doctor made out that it was too late to send for a doctor from Paris.
They waited, therefore, until three o'clock, and at three o'clock Jean
started off with two letters from M. Pigache to two of his medical
friends.
M. Pigache left the house, and as the young doctor accompanied him,
he said, "Monsieur, I think no time should be lost in sending for
the priest of Saint-Cloud; your friend is a Catholic and I think so
badly of his condition that you ought to have the last sacraments
administered to him without delay."
The young man recognised the urgency of the advice, and, going himself
to the house of the curé, he brought him back with the sacristan.
The priest found the dying man in the same unconscious condition. "What
is the matter with your unfortunate friend, monsieur?" asked the priest.
"Brain fever," replied the young man.
Then, as the curé was preparing to administer extreme unction, the
young doctor knelt down, and remained in that position, with clasped
hands, praying to God with such fervour that the sacristan could not
refrain from remarking when they had both left, "What a very pious
young man that was!" The young doctor went out after the priest, and
remained away for nearly two hours.
Towards three o'clock, one of the two doctors that had been sent for
arrived from Paris. It was Doctor Pelletan junior. M. Pigache, informed
of his arrival, came and joined his confrère at the bedside of the sick
man. But, after a rapid examination, both concluded that the patient
was beyond human aid.
Nevertheless, they tried various remedies, but without success. All
this time the young doctor appeared to be overcome with the most
poignant grief--a grief that expressed itself in tears and sobs. These
demonstrations of despair impressed M. Pigache all the more because, in
course of conversation, the young doctor had said to him, "I am all the
more unhappy as I am my unfortunate friend's legatee."
Thereupon M. Pelletan, addressing the weeping young man, said to him,
"Have you reflected, monsieur, on the peril of your position?"
"What do you mean, monsieur?"
"Well, listen! You come, with your friend, for a couple of days to
Saint-Cloud; you are a doctor; you are, anyway, his legatee...."
"Yes, monsieur, I am his residuary legatee."
"Very well: the man who has bequeathed you his entire fortune is dying;
the symptoms of his illness are extremely peculiar and, if he dies, as
is probable, you will find yourself in a very awkward position...."
"What!" exclaimed the young man. "You think I shall be suspected?"
"I think that, at any rate," replied M. Pelletan, "all imaginable
precautions will be taken to ascertain the cause of death. As far as M.
Pigache and myself are concerned, we have decided that there ought to
be a post-mortem examination."
"Oh! monsieur," cried the young man, "you could not do me a greater
service; insist upon it, demand a post-mortem examination, and you will
play the part of a father to me if you do."
"Very well, monsieur," replied Doctor Pelletan, seeing him so much
excited; "do not be troubled. Not only shall the matter be carried
through, but it shall be carried through as delicately as possible, and
we will pay our utmost attention to it."
Between noon and one o'clock--that is to say, within thirty or forty
minutes of this conversation--the dying man expired.
The reader will already have recognised the two principal actors in
this drama by the designation of the place where it happened, and by
the details of the victim's agony.
The dead man was Claude-Auguste Ballet, lawyer, aged twenty-five, son
of a rich Paris solicitor. His friend was Edme-Samuel Castaing, who in
a few days' time would be twenty-seven, doctor of medicine, born at
Alençon, living in Paris, No. 31 rue d'Enfer. His father, an honourable
and universally respected man, was Inspector-General of Forests, and
Chevalier of the _Légion d'honneur._
One hour after the death of Auguste Ballet, M. Martignon, his
brother-in-law, warned by a letter from Castaing that Auguste Ballet
could not live through the day, hurried to Saint-Cloud, where he found
the sick man already dead.
While they were proceeding to search every object in the inn that might
possibly throw some light on the cause of death, Castaing, still at
large, absented himself for nearly two hours. No one knew what he did
in his second absence. He pretended he wanted fresh air, and stated
that he was going for a walk in the bois de Boulogne.
M. Pelletan returned at ten o'clock next morning to make the
post-mortem examination.
He had left Castaing in full possession of his liberty, but when he
returned he found him under the surveillance of two policemen. Castaing
appeared very uneasy at the results to which a post-mortem examination
might lead; but he seemed to feel sure that if the body did not present
any trace of poison, he would be set at liberty immediately.
The examination took place and an extremely circumstantial official
report was drawn up; but nowhere, either in tongue, or in stomach or in
intestines, could they detect the presence of any poisonous substance.
As a matter of fact, acetate of morphine, like brucine and strychnine,
leaves no more trace than is left by congestion of the brain or a bad
seizure of apoplexy. It was because of this, a fact which Castaing
knew well, that when the priest had asked him from what his friend was
suffering, he had replied, "He has brain fever."
When the post-mortem was finished, without having revealed any material
proof against the suspected person, M. Pelletan asked the _procureur du
roi_ if he had any objection to Castaing being informed of the result.
"No," replied _the procureur du roi_; "simply communicate the result to
him in general terms, without making him think it is going to be either
in his favour or to his detriment."
M. Pelletan found Castaing waiting for him upon the staircase.
"Well," he asked the doctor eagerly, "have you concluded and come to
release me?"
"I am unaware," replied M. Pelletan, "whether they mean to release you
or to detain you; but the truth is we can find no trace of violent
death in the body of Auguste Ballet."
In spite of the temporary absence of material proof, Castaing was kept
a prisoner. The preliminary investigation began: it lasted from the
month of June to the end of September.
On 10 November, Castaing appeared at the prisoner's bar. The affair
had created a great sensation even before it was made public; and the
Assize Court presented the appearance usual when an important case is
on--that is to say, so many lovely women and fashionably dressed men
put in an appearance that one might have thought it the first night
of a new play which had been announced with great pomp. The accused
was brought in. An indefinable movement of interest agitated the
spectators: they bent forward and oscillated with curiosity, looking
like a field of corn tossed about by the wind. He was a handsome young
man, well set up, with a pleasant face, although there was something
rather odd in his expression as he looked at you. Without being
elegantly attired, he was dressed with care.
Alas! the preliminary investigation had revealed terrible facts.
Auguste Ballet's death had caused judicial attention to be bestowed
upon this unlucky family, and it was discovered that, since Castaing
had known the family, the father, the mother, the uncle had all
disappeared, struck down mortally within five months of each other,
leaving the two brothers Hippolyte and Auguste a very considerable
fortune; and, finally, Hippolyte died in his turn in Castaing's arms,
without either his brother Auguste or his sister Madame Martignon being
able to get to him. All these deaths had successively concentrated
pretty nearly the whole of the family fortune on the head of Auguste
Ballet.
On 1 December 1822, Auguste Ballet, aged twenty-four, in health of
mind and body at the time, made a will, constituting Castaing, without
any motive, his residuary legatee, with no reservations beyond a few
small bequests to two friends and three servants. Auguste Ballet died
in his turn on 1 June, seven months after his brother. Now this is
what the proceedings had elicited concerning the two points which in
similar cases are specially investigated by those in charge of the
case--namely, Castaing's intellectual and his physical life. With
regard to his intellectual life, Castaing was a hard worker, urged
on by ambition, burning with the desire to become rich; his mother
revealed horrible things concerning him, if a letter that was seized
at her house was to be believed; his father reproached him with his
licentious life and the sorrow with which he overwhelmed both his
parents. In the midst of all this, he worked on perseveringly: he
passed his examinations; he became a doctor.
Anatomy, botany and chemistry were the subjects to which he devoted
most time. Especially chemistry. His note-books were produced, full
of observations, extracts, erasures. They attested the determination
shown in his researches and the profound study he had made of poisons,
of their various kinds, of their effects, of the palpable traces some
leave on different bodily organs, whilst some, quite as deadly and more
insidious, kill without leaving any vestiges perceptible to the eyes of
the most learned and experienced anatomist.
These poisons are all vegetable poisons: brucine, derived from false
angostura; strychnine from Saint-Ignatius nut; morphine from pure
opium, which is extracted from the Indian poppy. Now, it was a strange
and terrible coincidence that on 18 September 1822, seventeen days
before the death of Hippolyte Ballet, Castaing bought ten grains of
acetate of morphine. Twelve days later, Hippolyte, suffering from a
serious pulmonary disease, but not yet in danger, was seized with a
deadly attack and died, as we have said, far from his sister and his
brother, after five days' illness! He died in Castaing's arms.
Then Castaing's fortunes changed: he who had been very hard up
heretofore lent his mother thirty thousand francs and invested under
assumed names or in bearer stock the sum of seventy thousand francs.
The matter was further complicated by matters arising out of the will
of Hippolyte Ballet, questions which will never be properly cleared up,
even in the law courts, and which seemed to imply that Auguste Ballet
became Castaing's accomplice. Hence Auguste's weakness for Castaing;
hence that will in his favour; hence the intimacy between these two
men, who never separated from one another; all these things were
explained, from the moment when, instead of the ordinary bond of pure
and simple friendship, the link between them was supposed to be the
indestructible chain of mutual complicity.
For--and this is the time to return to his outward life, that we have
put to one side in order to speak of the intellectual life--Castaing
was not wealthy: he lived on a moderate income allowed him by his
mother; his own efforts barely produced him five or six hundred francs
per annum; he had a mistress, also very poor, a widow with three
children; he had two other children by her, so the young doctor had to
keep a family of six persons whilst as yet he had no practice. It seems
that he adored his family, especially his children. Letters were found
showing warm fatherly affection in a heart that was consumed, even
more on behalf of others than on his own account, with that thirst of
ambition and that craving for riches which brought him to the scaffold.
We have seen that Castaing's finances suddenly became easier, that he
lent his mother thirty thousand francs and that he invested seventy
thousand francs in assumed names or in bearer bonds.
Then, next, we saw that on 29 May he arrived at Saint-Cloud with
Auguste Ballet, and that, on 1 June, Auguste Ballet died, leaving him
residuary legatee. Castaing was in Paris on the evening he was absent
under pretence of taking a walk: he bought twelve grains from one
chemist and one drachm from a second, of acetate of morphine, or, in
other words, of that vegetable poison which leaves no traces and of
which he had already bought ten grains, seventeen days before the death
of Hippolyte Ballet.
The above is a résumé of the accumulated evidence brought against
Castaing, who had to face the jury under the weight of fifteen charges
relative to the poisoning of Hippolyte Ballet, of thirty-four connected
with the business of the will and of seventy-six relative to the
poisoning of Auguste Ballet. People will remember the different phases
gone through during that long and terrible trial; the steady denials of
the prisoner, and his bearing on receipt of the sentence condemning him
to death; a sentence decided by the turn of only one vote--that is to
say, by seven against five.
The criminal stood, with bared head, and listened with frigid
resignation to the sentence, his hands clasped together, silent, his
eyes and hands raised to Heaven.
"Have you anything to say why sentence should not be carried out?"
asked the judge.
Castaing sadly shook his head, the head so soon to feel the chilly grip
of death.
"No, monsieur," he said in a deep but gentle voice,--"no, I have
nothing to say against the carrying out of the sentence decreed against
me. I shall know how to die, although it is a great misfortune to die,
hurried to the grave by such a dire fate as has overtaken me. I am
accused of having basely murdered my two friends, and I am innocent....
Oh! indeed, I repeat it, I am innocent! But there is a Providence: that
which is immortal in me will go forth to find you, Auguste, Hippolyte.
Oh yes, my friends" (and here the condemned man stretched out both his
arms to heaven most impressively),--"oh yes, my friends, yes, I shall
meet you again, and to me it will be a happy fate to rejoin you. After
the accusation brought against me, nothing human can affect me. Now I
look no longer for human pity, I look only for Heaven's mercy; I shall
mount the scaffold courageously, cheered by the thought of seeing you
again! Oh! my friends, this thought will rejoice my soul even when I
feel.... Alas!" continued the accused, passing his hand across his
neck, "alas! it is easier to understand what I feel than to express
what I dare not utter...." Then, in a lower tone, "You have decided
on my death, messieurs; behold, I am ready to die." Then, turning
to his counsel, Maître Roussel, he said, "Look, look, Roussel, turn
round, come here and look at me.... You believed in my innocence, and
you defended me believing in that innocence; well, it is even so, I
am innocent; take my farewell greetings to my father, my brothers, my
mother, my daughter!" Then, without any pause, he went on, addressing
the amazed spectators: "And you, young people, you who have been
present at my trial; you, my contemporaries, will be present also at my
execution; you will see me there animated with the same courage as now,
and if the shedding of my blood be deemed necessary to society, well, I
shall not regret that it has to flow!"
Why have I related the details of this terrible trial in such fulness?
Is it in order to awake gloomy memories of the past in the hearts of
the members of those two unhappy families who may still be alive?
No! It was because, by reason of the reports connecting poor Fleuriet
with Castaing, I was present at the final tragedy; I begged a day's
holiday from M. Oudard in order to see the end; I was present among the
number of those young people whom the condemned man, in a moment of
exaltation, of delirium, perhaps, invited to his execution; and when
I saw that man so exuberantly young, so full of life, so eager after
knowledge, condemned to death, bidding farewell to his father, his
mother, his brothers, his children, society, creation, light, in those
poignant tones and miserable accents, I said to myself in inexpressible
anguish of heart, "O my God! my God! suppose this man should be another
Lesurques, another Labarre, another Calas!... O my God! my God! suppose
this man be not guilty!"
And, then and there, before the tribunal which had just condemned a man
to death, I vowed that, no matter to what position I might attain, I
would never look upon it as justifiable to punish a sentient, suffering
human being like myself by the deprivation of life.
No, I was not present at the execution; for, I must admit, I could not
possibly have borne such a spectacle; and now twenty-eight years have
flown by between Castaing's execution and Lafourcade's, and they have
been full of such cases, in spite of the penalty of death, which is
meant to be a deterrent and does not deter! Alas! how many wretched
criminals have passed along the route that led from the Conciergerie to
the place de Grève, and now leads from la Roquette to the barrière de
Saint-Jacques, during those twenty-eight years!
On 6 December, at half-past seven in the morning, Castaing was led from
Bicêtre to la Conciergerie. A moment later, the gaoler entered his cell
and told him of the rejection of his petition. Behind the gaoler came
the abbé Montes.
Castaing then turned his attention to his prayers, praying long and
earnestly. He did not utter a single word during the whole of the
time he spent in the vestibule of the Conciergerie, while they were
preparing him for his execution.
When he looked round at the vast crowd that awaited his appearance as
he mounted into the cart, his cheeks grew suddenly purple, and then
gradually subsided to a deathly paleness. He only lifted his head at
the foot of the scaffold; it had remained sunk on his breast during the
journey; then, glancing at the crowd again as he had done on coming
out of the Conciergerie, he knelt at the foot of the ladder and, after
he had kissed the crucifix and embraced the worthy ecclesiastic who
offered it him, he climbed the scaffold, held up by the executioner's
two assistants. He raised his eyes twice quite noticeably to Heaven
while they pinioned him on the fatal block; then, at fifteen minutes
past two, as the quarter chimed, his head fell.
Castaing had experienced the sensation of death that he had not dared
more clearly to define to the audience when he drew his hand across his
neck--Castaing had passed before his Creator--if guilty, to receive
forgiveness, if innocent, to denounce the real criminal.
He had asked to see his father, to receive his benediction _in
extremis_; the favour was refused him. He next asked for this
benediction to be sent him in writing. It was sent to him thus, but was
first passed through vinegar before being handed to him. They feared
the paternal benediction might hide some poison by the aid of which
Castaing might find means to cheat the scaffold of its due.
All was ended by half-past two, and those who wished to have comedy
after tragedy still had time to go from the place de Grève to take
their stand in the queue outside the Théâtre-Français. On that day, 6
December 1823, the _École des Vieillards_ was played.
CHAPTER VIII
Casimir Delavigne--An appreciation of the man and of the poet--The
origin of the hatred of the old school of literature for the new--Some
reflections upon _Marino Faliero_ and the _Enfants d'Édouard_--Why
Casimir Delavigne was more a comedy writer than a tragic poet--Where he
found the ideas for his chief plays
The first representation of the _École des Vieillards_ played by Talma
and Mademoiselle Mars was a great occasion. It was the first time
indeed that these two great actors had appeared together in the same
play.
Casimir Delavigne had laid down his own conditions. Expelled from the
Théâtre-Français under pretext that _his work was badly put together_,
he had profited by the proscription. His _Messéniennes,_ his _Vêpres
siciliennes_, his _Comédiens_ and the _Paria,_ and perhaps even more
than all these, the need felt by the Opposition party for a Liberal
poet to set against Lamartine and Hugo, the Royalist poets of the
period, had made the author of the _École des Vieillards_ so popular
that, with this popularity, all difficulties were cleared away, perhaps
even too smoothly; for, like Richelieu in his litter, Casimir Delavigne
returned to the Théâtre-Français not through the door, but by means of
a gap.
I knew Casimir Delavigne very well as a man, I studied him very much as
a poet: I never could get up much admiration for Casimir Delavigne as
a poet, but I have always had the greatest respect for him as a man.
As an individual, in addition to his uncontested and incontestable
literary probity, Casimir Delavigne was a man of pleasant, polite, even
affable demeanour. The first sight of him gave one the disagreeable
impression that his head was much too big for his small body; but his
fine forehead, his intelligent eyes, his good-natured mouth, very soon
made one forget this first impression. Although a man of great talent,
he was of the number of those who display it only when pen in hand. His
conversation, pleasant and affectionate, was colourless and insipid;
as he lacked dignity of expression and strength of intonation, so he
lacked strength and dignity of actual words. He attracted no notice at
a salon: people needed to have Casimir Delavigne pointed out before
they paid any attention to him. There are men who bear the stamp of
their kingly dignity about with them: wherever these people go they
instantly command attention; at the end of an hour's intercourse
they reign. Casimir Delavigne was not one of them: he would have
declined the power of commanding attention, had it been offered him;
had sovereignty been thrust upon him, he would have abdicated. All
burdens, even the weight of a crown, were embarrassing in his eyes. He
had received an excellent education: he knew everything that could be
taught when he left college; but since he left college he had learnt
very little by himself, had thought but little, had reflected but
little.
One of the chief features of Casimir Delavigne's character--and, in
our opinion, one of his most unlucky attributes--was his submission
to other people's ideas, a submission that could only arise from
want of confidence in his own ideas. Oddly enough, he had created
among his friends and in his family a kind of censorship, a sort of
committee of repression, commissioned to watch over his imagination
and to prevent it from wandering; this was all the more futile since
Casimir Delavigne's imagination, enclosed in decidedly narrow limits,
needed stimulating much more than restraining. The result was that
this Areopagitica, inferior as it was in feeling and, above all, in
style to Casimir Delavigne himself, played sad havoc with what little
picturesqueness of style and imagination in plot he possessed. This
depreciatory cenacle often reminded him that Icarus fell because
he flew too near the sun; and I am sure he did not even dream of
replying, that if the sun melted Icarus's wings, it must have been
because Icarus had false wings fastened on with wax, and that the
eagle, which disappears in the flood of fiery rays sent forth by the
god of day, never falls back on the earth as the victim of a similar
accident.
The result of this abdication of his own will was that just when
Casimir Delavigne's talent was at its best and his reputation was
at its height, he dared not do anything by himself, or on his own
initiative. The ideas that arose in his brain were submitted to this
committee before they were worked into proper shape; the plot decided
upon, he would again put himself in the hands of this commission,
which commented upon it, discussed it, corrected it and returned it
to the poet signed _examined and found correct._ Then, when the plot
became a play and was read before (of course) the same assembly, one
would take a pencil, another a pair of scissors, a third a compass, a
fourth a rule, and set to work to cut all vitality out of the play; to
such purpose that, during the sitting, the comedy, drama or tragedy
was lopped, trimmed and cut about not according to the notions of the
author but as MM. So and So, So and So, So and So thought fit, all
conscientious gentlemen after their own fashion, all talented men in
their own line, wise professors, worthy savants, able philologists, but
indifferent poets who, instead of elevating their friend's efforts by
a powerful breath of inspiration, only thought instead of keeping him
down on the ground for fear he should soar above them to realms where
their short-sighted glance could not follow him.
This habit of Casimir Delavigne, of submitting his will to that of
others, gave him, without his being aware of it himself, a false
modesty, an assumed humility, that embarrassed his enemies and disarmed
those who were jealous of him. How indeed could anyone begrudge a man
his success who seemed to be asking everybody's leave to succeed and
who appeared surprised when he did succeed; or be envious of a poor
poet who, if they would but believe it, had only succeeded through
the addition to his feeble intelligence of abilities superior to his
own; or be vexed with such a quaking victor, who implored people, in
the moment of his triumph, not to desert him, as beseechingly as a
vanquished man might pray them to remain true to him under defeat?
And people were faithful to Casimir Delavigne even to the verge of
fanaticism: they extended hands of flattering devotion in homage to his
renown, the diverging rays of which, like the flame of the Holy Spirit,
became divided into as many tongues of fire as the Casimirian cult
could muster apostles.
We have mentioned the drawbacks, now let us point out the advantages,
of his popularity. His plays were praised abroad before they were
finished, spoken highly of before they were received, in the three
classes of society to which Casimir Delavigne belonged by birth, and
I will even go so far as to say above all by his talent. Thus his
clientèle comprised: through Fortune Delavigne, who was an advocate,
all the law students in Paris; through Gustave de Wailly, professor,
all the students of the Latin quarter; through Jules de Wailly, chief
clerk in the Home Office, all the Government officials.
This sort of family clientèle was extremely useful for the purpose of
doing battle with theatrical managers and publishers.
It knew Casimir and did not allow him to undertake any business
arrangements: he was so modest that he would have unconditionally given
his plays to the comedians, his manuscripts to the publishers without
any agreements. Casimir was aware of his failing in this direction: he
referred publishers and managers to his brother Germain, his brother
Germain referred them to his brother Fortune, and his brother Fortune
managed the affair on a business footing.
And I would point out that all this was done simply, guilelessly, in
kindly fashion, out of the admiration and devotion everybody felt
towards Casimir; without intrigue, for this assistance never prejudiced
anyone who rendered it; and I might even say without there being any
coterie; for, in my opinion, where there is conviction coteries do not
exist.
Now, every friend of Casimir Delavigne was absolutely and perfectly
convinced that Casimir Delavigne was the first lyric poet of his
time, the first dramatic poet of his century. People who never came
in touch with him, and those who were stopped by the vigilant cordon
which surrounded him, acted for and praised him, might well believe
that these opinions emanated from himself, as from the centre to the
circumference; but if they did get to close quarters with him, they
were soon persuaded of the simplicity, the sincerity and the kindliness
of that talented man.
I believe Casimir Delavigne never hated but one of his confrères. But
him he hated well. That man was Victor Hugo. When the author of _Odes
et Ballades_, of _Marion Delorme_ and of _Nôtre-Dame de Paris_ was
taken with the strange fancy of becoming the colleague of M. Droz, of
M. Briffaut and of M. Viennet, I took upon myself to go personally on
his account to ask for Casimir Delavigne's vote. I thought that such an
intelligent person as the author of the _Messéniennes_ would regard it
as the duty of one in his position to help as much as was in his power
in providing a seat for his illustrious rival, a candidate who had done
the Academy the honour of applying for a seat therein.
I was quite wrong: Casimir Delavigne obstinately declined to give his
vote to Victor Hugo, and that with such vehemence and tenacity as I
should have dreamt him incapable of feeling, especially towards me,
of whom he was extremely fond. Neither entreaty nor supplication nor
argument could, I will not say convince, but even persuade him to
agree. And yet Casimir Delavigne knew well enough that he was rejecting
one of the eminent men of his time. I never found out the reason for
this antipathy. It was certainly not on account of their different
schools: I was most decidedly not of the school of Casimir Delavigne,
and he offered me the vote he withheld from Victor Hugo.
The poor Academicians were in a sorry fix in my case; for, if I had put
myself up, I believe they would have elected me! They nominated Dupaty.
Hugo comforted himself by one of the wittiest sayings he ever made.
"I believed," he said, "that one could enter the Academy _par le pont
des Arts_; I was mistaken, for it appears it is by the Pont Neuf that
entrance is effected."
And now that I have criticised the man, perhaps it may be thought that
it will be a much more difficult matter still for me his confrère, his
rival, at times his antagonist, to criticise his poetry. No! my readers
are labouring under a misapprehension: nothing is difficult to whoso
speaks the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Moreover,
I have never written anything about a man that I was not ready to tell
him to his face.
In order to judge Casimir Delavigne fairly, we must glance over the
period at which he was born and in which he lived. We must speak of the
imperial era. What occasioned the burst of hatred that made itself felt
after the appearance of _Henri III_., of _Marion Delorme_ and of the
_Maréchale d'Ancre_, between the new and the old school of poetry and
their representatives?
People have stated the fact without inquiring into its causes: I can
tell you them.
Because, during all the years that Napoleon was levying his toll of
300,000 conscripts, he did not perceive that the poets he looked for,
and looked for so vainly, had been compelled to change their calling,
and that they were in camp, sword, musket or sabre in hand, instead of
pen in hand in their studies. And this state of things lasted from 1796
to 1815--a period of nineteen years.
For nineteen years the enemy's cannon swept down the generation of men
from fifteen to thirty-six years of age. So it came about that when the
poets of the end of the eighteenth century and those of the beginning
of the nineteenth confronted one another, they found themselves hemmed
in on each side by an immense ravine which had been hollowed out by the
grapeshot of five coalitions: at the bottom of this ravine a million of
men were stretched, and among this million of men, snatched away before
they had added to the population, were those twelve poets that Napoleon
had so insistently demanded of M. de Fontanes, without being able to
obtain them from him.
Those who escaped were consumptive poets, considered too feeble to
undertake soldiers' duties, who died young, like Casimir Delavigne and
Soumet. These were bridges thrown across the ravine of which we have
just spoken, but quite unequal to the task allotted them.
Napoleon, with his eighteen years of warfare and his ten years' reign,
the re-constructor of religion, the re-builder of society, he who
established legislation on a firm basis, was foiled in the matter of
poetry. Had it not been for the two men whom we have named--Soumet and
Casimir Delavigne--the thread of continuity would have been broken.
So it came about that Casimir Delavigne, the connecting link between
the old and the new schools, showed always in his poetry a little of
that anæmic quality which was evident in his person; in any work by
Casimir (which never exceeded the limits of one, three or five acts
ordained by the old theatrical régime) there was always something
sickly and airless; his plays lacked breath, as did the man; his work
was as consumptive as the poet.
No one ever made three acts out of his one; no one ever made five acts
out of his three; no one ever made ten acts out of his five. But it was
a simple task to reduce five of his acts to three; three of his acts to
one.
When imagination failed him, and he appealed to Byron or Shakespeare,
he could never attain their sublime heights; he was obliged to stop
short a third of the way up, midway at the very utmost, like a child
who climbs a tree to gather apples and finds he cannot reach the
ripest, which always grow on the highest branches, and are the most
beautiful because they are nearest the sun, save at the risk of
breaking his neck--a risk he is wise enough not to venture to take.
We will make our meaning clearer by a couple of instances: _Marino
Faliero_ and the _Enfants d'Édouard._
In Byron's _Marino Faliero_, the doge plots to revenge himself on the
youthful satirist, who has insulted him by writing on his chair "Marin
Falier, the husband of the fair wife; others kiss her, but he keeps
her." This was a calumny: the fair Angiolina is as pure as her name
implies, in spite of being but eighteen and her husband eighty. It is
therefore to defend a spotless wife, and not to avenge the husband's
outraged honour, that Byron's Marino Faliero conspires, and we hardly
need say that the play gains in distinction by the passage across it of
a sweet and lofty figure, inflamed with devotion, rather than suffused
with repentance.
Now, in Casimir Delavigne's imitation, on the contrary, the wife is
guilty. Héléna (for the poet, in degrading her, has not ventured to
keep her heavenly name) deceives her husband, an old man! She deceives
him, or rather she has deceived him, before the rising of the curtain.
The first lines of the tragedy are concerned with a scarf that she is
embroidering for her lover--a serious blunder in our opinion; for there
could be only one means of making Héléna interesting, if she were to
be made guilty, and that would be to show the struggle in her between
passion and virtue, between love and duty; in short, to have done, only
more successfully, what we did in _Antony._
But we reiterate that it was far better to make the wife innocent, as
Byron does; far better to put a faithful wife alongside the old man
than an adulterous one; far better in the fifth act, where the wife
seeks out her husband, to let him find devotion and not repentance
when his prison doors are opened. When Christ was bowed down under His
bloody agony, God chose the purest of His angels, not a fallen one, to
carry Him the cup of bitterness!
We will pass over the conspiracy which takes place in Venice at
midnight, in the middle of the square of Saint Mark, where fifty
conspirators cry in eager emulation, "Down with the Republic!" In
Venice and at midnight! in Venice, the city of the Council of Ten! in
Venice, the city that never really sleeps, where at least half the
populace is awake while the other half sleeps!
Casimir Delavigne did not venture to borrow anything from Shakespeare's
_Richard III._ but the death of the two princes: instead of that
magnificent historical play by the Elizabethan poet, he substituted
an insignificant little drama, replete with infantine babblings and
maternal tears; of the great figure of Richard III., of the marvellous
scene between the murderer and the wife of the murdered man and of the
assassination of Buckingham, of the duel with Richmond and Richard's
remorse, nothing is left.
The gigantic statue, the Colossus of Rhodes, between whose legs the
tallest galleys can pass, has become a bronze ornament suitable for the
top of a timepiece.
Did Casimir Delavigne even take as much of the subject of the _children
of Edward_ as he might have taken? Has he not turned aside from his
model, Shakespeare, with regard to the dignified way in which the
characters of the heir to the throne and his gentle brother the Duke of
York are treated? We will adduce one example to demonstrate this.
In Casimir Delavigne, when the young Richard takes refuge in
Westminster Abbey, the church possessing the right to offer sanctuary,
the author of the _Messéniennes_, in order to compel the young prince
to come out of the church, causes a letter to be written, apparently
from his brother, inviting him to come back to him at the palace. The
poor fugitive, although surprised at receiving it, puts reliance on
this letter, and comes out of his place of safety. When he reaches the
palace, Richard III. immediately arrests him.
In Shakespeare, the young prince also seeks this refuge. What does
Richard III. do? He sends for the archbishop and says to him, "Has the
crown prince sought refuge in your church?"
"Yes, monseigneur."
"You must give him up to me."
"Impossible, monseigneur."
"Why so?"
"Because the church is a place of sanctuary."
"For guilty men, idiot!" replies Richard, "but not for innocent
ones...."
How small, to my thinking, is Mézence, that scoffer at men and at
gods, by the side of Richard III., who kills his innocent enemies
just as another would kill his guilty enemies. It will be understood
that, since Casimir Delavigne was devoid both of picturesqueness and
dignity, he succeeded much better in comedy than in tragedy; and we
think his two best productions were the two comedies, _Les Comédiens_
and the _École des Vieillards._ It should be clearly understood that
all we have to say is said from the point of view of a rigid standard
of criticism, and it does not therefore follow that Casimir Delavigne
was not gifted with very genuine qualities. These good qualities were:
a facile aptitude for versification which only occasionally rises to
poetic expression, it is true, but which on the other hand never quite
descends to flabbiness and slackness; and, indeed, from the beginning
to the end of his work, from the first line to the last, whatever
else his work may be, it is careful, presentable and particularly
honest; and please note that we have used the word "honest" as the most
suitable word we could choose; for Casimir Delavigne was never the kind
of man to try and rob his public by stinting the work he had in hand
in order to use similar material in his next piece. No; in the case of
Casimir Delavigne, _one got one's money's worth_, as the saying is:
he gave all he possessed, to the last farthing. The spectators at the
first production of each of his new plays had everything he had at that
time to give them. When midnight arrived, and, amidst the cheering of
the audience, his signature was honoured--that is to say, what he had
promised he had performed--he was a ruined man. But what mattered it to
be reduced to beggary! He had owed a tragedy, a drama, a comedy, he had
paid to the uttermost farthing; true, it might perhaps mean his being
compelled to make daily economies of mind, spirit and imagination,
for one year, two years, three years, before he could achieve another
work; but he would achieve it, cost what it might, at the expense of
sleepless nights, of his health, of his life, until the day came when
he died worn out at fifty-two years of age, before he had completed his
last tragedy.
Well, there was no need for the poet of the _Messéniennes_, the
author of the _École des Vieillards_, of _Louis XI._ and of _Don
Juan_ to commiserate himself. He who does all he can does all that
can be expected of him. Nevertheless, we shall always maintain that
Casimir Delavigne would have done better still without his restraining
body-guard; and we need not seek through his long-winded works for
proof of what we assert; we will take, instead, one of the shorter
poems, which the poet wrote under stress of sadness--a similar effort
to M. Arnault's admirable _Feuille_--M. Arnault, who was not only far
less of a poet but still less of a versifier than Casimir Delavigne.
Well, we will hunt up a little ballad which Delavigne relegated to
notes, as unworthy of any other place and which we, on the contrary,
consider a little masterpiece.
"La brigantine
Qui va tourner,
Roule et s'incline
Pour m'entraîner ...
O Vierge Marie!
Pour moi priez Dieu.
Adieu, patrie!
Provence, adieu!
Mon pauvre père
Verra son vent
Pâlir ma mère
Au bruit du vent ...
O Vierge Marie!
Pour moi priez Dieu.
Adieu, patrie!
Mon père, adieu!
La vieille Hélène
Se confira
Dans sa neuvaine,
Et dormira ...
O Vierge Marie!
Pour moi priez Dieu.
Adieu, patrie!
Hélène, adieu!
Ma sœur se lève,
Et dit déjà:
'J'ai fait un rêve,
Il reviendra!'
O Vierge Marie!
Pour moi priez Dieu.
Adieu, patrie!
Ma sœur, adieu!
De mon Isaure
Le mouchoir blanc
S'agite encore
En m'appelant ...
O Vierge Marie!
Pour moi priez Dieu.
Adieu, patrie!
Isaure, adieu!
Brise ennemie,
Pourquoi souffler,
Quand mon amie
Veut me parler?
O Vierge Marie!
Pour moi priez Dieu.
Adieu, patrie!
Bonheur, adieu!"
Scudo, the author of that delightful melody, _Fil de la Vierge_,
once asked Casimir Delavigne for some lines to put to music. Casimir
seized his pen and dashed off _Néra._ Perhaps you do not know _Néra_?
Quite so: it is not a poem, only a simple song: the _Brigantine_ was
relegated to the notes; _Néra_ was excluded from his works.
A day will come--indeed, we believe that day has already come--when the
_Messéniennes_ and _Néra_ will be weighed in the same balance and we
shall see which will turn the scale.
This is _Néra_:--
"Ah! ah!... de la montagne
Reviens, Néra, reviens!
Réponds-moi, ma compagne,
Ma vache, mon seul bien.
La voix d'un si bon maître,
Néra,
Peux-tu la méconnaître?
Ah! ah!
Néra!
Reviens, reviens; c'est l'heure
Où le loup sort des bois.
Ma chienne, qui te pleure,
Répond seule à ma voix.
Hors l'ami qui t'appelle,
Néra,
Qui t'aimera comme elle?
Ah! ah!
Néra!
Dis-moi si dans la crêche,
Où tu léchais ma main,
Tu manquas d'herbe fraîche,
Quand je manquais de pain?
Nous n'en avions qu'à peine,
Néra,
Et ta crêche était pleine!
Ah! ah!
Néra!
Hélas! c'est bien sans cause
Que tu m'as délaissé.
T'ai-je dit quelque chose,
Hors un mot, l'an passé?
Oui, quand mourut ma femme,
Néra,
J'avais la mort dans l'âme,
Ah! ah!
Néra!
De ta mamelle avide,
Mon pauvre enfant crira;
S'il voit l'étable vide,
Qui le consolera?
Toi, sa mère nourrice,
Néra,
Veux-tu donc qu'il périsse?
Ah! ah!
Néra!
Lorsque avec la pervenche
Pâques refleurira,
Des rameaux du dimanche
Qui te couronnera?
Toi, si bonne chrétienne,
Néra,
Deviendras-tu païenne?
Ah! ah!
Néra!
Quand les miens, en famille,
Tiraient les Rois entre eux,
Je te disais: 'Ma fille,
Ma part est à nous deux!'
A la fête prochaine,
Néra,
Tu ne seras plus reine.
Ah! ah!
Néra!
Ingrate! quand la fièvre
Glaçait mes doigts roidis,
Otant mon poil de chèvre,
Sur vous je l'étendis ...
Faut-il que le froid vienne,
Néra,
Pour qu'il vous en souvienne
Ah! ah!
Néra!
Adieu! sous mon vieux hêtre
Je m'en reviens sans vous;
Allez chercher pour maître
Un plus riche que nous ...
Allez! mon cœur se brise,
Néra!...
Pourtant, Dieu te conduise
Ah! ah!
Néra!
Je n'ai pas le courage
De te vouloir du mal;
Sur nos monts crains l'orage
Crains l'ombre dans le val.
Pais longtemps l'herbe verte,
Néra!
Nous mourrons de ta perte,
Ah! ah!
Néra!
Un soir, à ma fenêtre,
Néra, pour t'abriter,
De ta come peut-être
Tu reviendras heurter;
Si la famille est morte,
Néra,
Qui t'ouvrira la porte?
Ah! ah!
Néra!"
CHAPTER IX
Talma in the _École des Vieillards_--One of his letters--Origin of his
name and of his family_--Tamerlan_ at the pension Verdier--Talma's
début--Dugazon's advice--More advice from Shakespeare--Opinions of the
critics of the day upon the débutant--Talma's passion for his art
The _École des Vieillards_ was very successful. A fatal Dud, which had
recently taken place under pretty nearly similar conditions to those
that operated between Danville and the duke, gave the piece just that
appropriate touch which captivated the Parisian public. We ought also
to add that Talma had perhaps never looked finer; the play of emotions
in the part of the old and betrayed lover could not have been rendered
in more moving accents. It was a part that interested the audience from
an entirely different point of view than that of the part of Marino
Faliero, who shares with Danville the lot of a betrayed lover.
Oh! what an inestimable gift a good voice is to the actor who knows
how to use it! How tender were Talma's tones in the first act, how
impatient in the second, uneasy in the third, threatening in the
fourth, dejected in the fifth! The part is gracious, noble, pleasing
and harmoniously consistent throughout. How the old man's heart goes
out to Hortense partly from paternal feeling, partly as a lover! And,
while complaining of the wife who allows herself to be snared, like a
foolish lark, by the mirror of youth and the babblings of coquetry, how
he despises the man who has in some inexplicable way managed to catch
her fancy! Alas! there is in every maiden's heart one vulnerable place,
open to unscrupulous attack.
The wife's part is very much below that of the man. Does Hortense love
the duke or does she not? Is she a flirt or is she not? It is a serious
flaw that the situation is not more clearly defined, and the following
passage shows it: in the fourth act, while Hortense is conversing
with the duke in a salon at one o'clock in the morning, she hears her
husband's footsteps, and hides the duke.
Now, I appeal to all wives: would any wife hide a man whom she did not
love when surprised by her husband, no matter at what hour of the day
or night it might be?
Hortense must love the duke, since she hid him. If Hortense loves the
duke, she cannot escape from an accusation of ingratitude; for it is
impossible to comprehend how an honourable wife, who had a good and
thoughtful husband, young-hearted in spite of his white hairs, could
for one moment fall in love with such a colourless creature as the Duke
Delmas.
With what moving accents does Talma utter the words
"Je ne l'aurais pas cru! C'est bien mal! C'est affreux!"
as he gets up and traverses the stage in despair. No human anguish was
ever more clearly revealed than in this sob.
Vulgar amateurs and second-rate critics praised exceedingly the
character of one of Danville's college chums, in this comedy by Casimir
Delavigne, played with much humour by an actor called Vigny. It is the
part of an old bachelor, who, after remaining in single blessedness
for sixty years, decides to marry on the strength of the description
Danville draws of conjugal happiness, and comes to tell his friend of
his decision at the very moment when he is racked with jealous pangs.
No, indeed, a hundred times no, it is not here where the real beauty
of the _École des Vieillards_ lies. No, it is not that scene wherein
Danville repeats incessantly: "_Mais moi, c'est autre chose!"_ that
should be applauded. No, the matter to be applauded is the presentation
of the deep and agonising torture of a broken heart; what should be
applauded is the situation that gives scope for Talma to display both
dignity and simplicity at the same time, and that shows how much
suffering that creature, born of woman, cradled in grief and brought up
to grief, whom we call _man_, is capable of enduring.
Talma's friends blamed him for playing the part in a frock-coat; he
told them he had been sacrificed to Mademoiselle Mars. They asked him
why he had so easily allowed himself to be made the footstool of an
actress placed above him, the pedestal for one whose renown rivalled
his own: Talma let them say.
He knew well enough that in spite of all Mademoiselle Mars' talent,
all her winsomeness, all her ease of manner on the stage, all the
pretty things she said in her charming voice, everything was eclipsed,
effaced, annihilated, by a single utterance, a sob, a sigh of his. It
must have been a proud moment for the poet when he saw his work thus
finely interpreted by Talma; but it must have been quite a different
matter to Talma, for he felt that the limits of art could be extended
farther, or rather that art has no boundaries. For Talma had been
educated in the spacious school of Shakespeare, which intermingles
laughter with tears, the trivial with the sublime, as they are
intermingled in the pitiful struggle which we call life. He knew what
the drama should aim at: he had played tragedy all his life and had
never ventured to attempt comedy. We will briefly relate how he came to
be the man we knew.
Talma was born in Paris, in the rue des Ménétriers, on 15 January 1766.
When I became acquainted with him he would be about fifty-seven. He
received from his godfather and godmother the names François-Joseph
and from his father that of Talma. In a letter from Talma which I have
by me, it is stated that the name of Talma, which became celebrated by
the deeds of the great artiste, was several times made the subject of
investigation by etymologists.
This autograph letter by Talma is the copy of one in which he replies
in 1822 to a savant of Gruningen, named Arétius Sibrandus Talma, who,
after giving details of his ancestry, asks the modern Roscius if he
cannot lay claim to the honour of relationship with him. This is
Talma's reply:--
"I do not know, monsieur, and it would be a difficult
matter for me to find out, whether you and I are of the
same family. When I was in Holland, more than fifteen
years ago, I learnt that there were many people bearing
the same name as myself in the land of Ruyter and of Jan
de Witt My family mainly inhabited a little strip of
country six leagues from Cambrai, in French Flanders.
This is not the first time, monsieur, that my name has
given rise to discussion with regard to my origin, on the
part of foreigners. About forty or fifty years ago, a son
of the Emperor of Morocco staying in Paris and hearing
mention of my father's name came and asked him if it were
not of Arabian derivation--a question that my father was
unable to answer. Later, an Arab merchant whom I met in
Paris in my youth put the same question to me: I could
not answer him more explicitly than could my father, the
son of His Majesty of Morocco.
"M. Langlais, a distinguished savant, who had made a very
profound study of Oriental languages, told me, at that
time that the word Talma, in the Arabic tongue, meant
_intrepid_, and that it was a very customary name among
the descendants of Ishmael, to distinguish the different
branches of the same family. You may be sure, monsieur,
that such an interpretation ought to make me very proud,
and I have ever done my utmost not to fall short of it.
I have consequently given rein to my imagination and
conjecture that a Moorish family remained in Spain,
embraced Christianity and wandered from that kingdom to
the Netherlands, which were formerly under allegiance to
the Spaniards, and that by degrees members of this family
wandered into French Flanders, where they settled. But,
on the other hand, I have been informed that our name has
a Dutch ending and that it was once very common in one of
the provinces of Holland. This new version has completely
upset my castle in Spain, and conveyed me from the
African deserts to the marshes of the United Netherlands.
Now, monsieur, you ought to be able to decide better than
anyone, certainly better than I, since you speak Dutch,
whether we really came from the North or from the South,
whether our ancestors wore turbans or hats, whether they
offered their prayers to Mahomed or to the God of the
Christians.
"I have omitted to give you another piece of information,
which is not without its relevancy--namely, that the
Count de Mouradgea d'Olisson, who lived in the East
for some years, and who has brought out a work on the
religious systems of Oriental peoples, quotes a passage
from one of their authors which tells us that the king,
or rather the pharaoh, who drove the Israelites out of
Egypt, was called Talma. I have to admit that that king
was a great scoundrel, if the account given of him by
Moses (surely a reliable authority) be correct; but we
must not look too closely into the matter if we wish to
claim so illustrious an origin.
"You see, monsieur, there is not a single German baron
who boasts his sixteen quarterings, not even a king,
throughout the four quarters of the globe, were he
even of the house of Austria, that oldest of all royal
families, who can boast such a lofty descent as mine.
However it may be, monsieur, believe me, I hold it a
much greater honour to be related to so distinguished
a savant as yourself than to be the descendant of a
crowned head. Such men as you work only for the good of
men, whilst others--and by others I mean kings, pharaohs
and emperors--think only of driving them mad. I trust,
monsieur, that, since you seem to have made up your
mind on this matter, you would be so good as to inform
me whether the name we bear is Dutch or Arabian. In any
case, I congratulate myself, monsieur, upon bearing the
name that you have made celebrated.--Believe me, etc. etc.
"TALMA"
This letter serves to give us both positive information concerning
Talma's family and a good idea of his way of looking at things.
Talma often told me that his remotest recollections carried him back to
the time when he lived in a house in the rue Mauconseil, the windows of
which looked towards the old Comédie-Italienne theatre. He had three
sisters and one brother; also a cousin whom his father, who was a
dentist by profession, had adopted.
One day, Lord Harcourt came to Talma's father to have a troublesome
tooth extracted, and he was so pleased with the way the operation was
performed that he urged Talma's father to go and live in London, where
he promised to procure him an aristocratic clientèle. Talma's father
yielded to Lord Harcourt's pressure, crossed the Channel and set up
in Cavendish Square. Lord Harcourt kept his promises: he brought the
French dentist such good customers that he soon became the fashionable
dentist, and included the Prince of Wales,--afterwards the elegant
George IV.,--among his clients.
The whole family followed its head; but Talma's father, considering a
French education better than any other, sent his son back to Paris in
the course of the year 1775. He was then nine years old and, thanks
to having spent three years in England at the age when languages are
quickly picked up, he could speak English when he reached Paris as
well as he could speak French. His father chose M. Verdier's school
for him. A year after he joined the school, great news began to leak
out. M. Verdier, the head of the school, had composed a tragedy
called _Tamerlan._ This tragedy was to be played on Prize Day. Talma
was hardly ten at that time, so it was probable that he would not be
allotted a leading part, even if he were allowed to take any part in it
at all. The assumption is incorrect. M. Verdier gave him the part of
a confidential friend. It was like all such parts,--a score of lines
strewn throughout the play and a monologue at the end.
In this peroration the bosom-friend expatiates on the death of his
friend, who was condemned to death, like Titus, by an inexorable
father. The beginning of this recitation went like a charm; the bulk
of it was successfully delivered also; but, towards the end, the
child's emotion grew to such a pitch that he burst into tears, and
fainted away. This fainting fit marked his destiny, for the child was
an artiste! Ten years later, on 21 November 1787, Talma made his first
appearance at the Théâtre-Français, in the part of Séide.
On the previous day, he paid a visit to Dugazon, and Dugazon gave him
a paper containing the following advice. I copy it from the original,
which is now in my possession.
"Aim at greatness, from your first entry, or at any
rate at something above the common. You must try to
leave your mark and to make an appeal to the spirit of
curiosity. Perhaps it may be better to hit straight than
to strike hard; but amateurs are legion and connoisseurs
are scarce. However, if you can unite both truth and
strength, you will have the suffrages of all. Do not
be carried away by applause; nor allow yourself to be
discouraged by hissing. Only fools allow themselves to
be disconcerted by cat-calls; none but idiots are made
dizzy by applause. When applause is lavished without
discrimination, it injures talent at the very outset of
its career. Some artistes have failed, instead of having
passed through their careers with distinction, because of
faults which genuine criticism might have pointed out or
hissing punished.
"Lekain, Peville, Fleury were all hissed and they are
immortal. A. and B. and C. have succumbed beneath the
hail of too much applause. What has become of them?
"Fewer means and more study, less indulgence and more
discipline, are all pledges of success; if not immediate
and striking, at least permanent and substantial. Do
you want to captivate women and young people? Begin in
the _genre sensible._ 'Tout le monde aime,' as Voltaire
says, 'et personne ne conspire.' At the same time, what
may have been good advice in his day may not be worth
very much in ours. If you want chiefly to delight the
multitude, which feels much and reasons but little, adopt
either a magnificent or an awe-inspiring style: they will
instantly take effect. How is it possible to sustain the
dignified part of Mahomed, the condescension of Augustus,
the remorse of Orestes? The impression to be made by
such parts as Ladislas, Orosmane and Bajazet should be
carefully prepared and it will then be ineffaceable.
"True talent, well supported, and a fortunate début are
a guarantee of immediate popularity; but the artiste
should strive to perpetuate them; he must compel the
public to go on appreciating. After having applauded
from conviction, people should be made to continue their
applause from habit. That collective body of people whom
we call the public has its caprices like any ordinary
individual; it must be coaxed; and (may I go so far as
to say that) if it be won over by good qualities, it is
not impossible to keep its favour by faults; you may
use defects, then, to that end! Nevertheless, you must
be careful that they are those with which your judges
will be in sympathy. Should the case be otherwise, you
may still have defects; but they will be poor relations
dogging the footsteps of your talent and welcomed only
by reason of its greater authority. Molé stammered and
slurred, Fleury staggered and I have been reproached with
over-acting; but Molé had indescribable charms, Fleury an
alluring delivery, and I make people laugh so heartily
that the critic who tries to be solemn at my expense is
never given a hearing.
"There are débutants who shoot up like rockets, shine for
a few months and fall back into utter darkness. There are
several causes for such disasters: their talents were
either forced, or without range, or immature; as the
English say, a few exhibitions have used them up; one or
two efforts have exhausted them. Perhaps, too, deviating
from the path trodden by the masters, they have entered
the crooked labyrinths of innovation, wherein only genius
can lead temerity aright. Perhaps also, and this is more
hopeless still, they have been bad copies of excellent
originals. And the public, seeing that they have aped
defects rather than copied excellences, has taken them
for parodists and called their efforts caricatures. When
a comedian has reached this point, the best thing for
him to do is to escape out of it by the prompters side
door, and fly to Pan to amuse the Basques, or to Riom to
entertain the Auvergnats. But Paris lays claim to you, my
dear Talma, Paris will cleave to you, Paris will possess
you; and the land of Voltaire and of Molière, of which
you will become the worthy interpreter, will not be long
in giving you letters of naturalisation.
"DUGAZON
"20 _November_ 1787"
It is interesting to read the advice that Shakespeare gave two
centuries before, through the mouth of Hamlet, to the players of his
time. It was as follows:--
"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounce it to
you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as
many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier
spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with
your hand, thus; but use all gently: for in the very
torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your
passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that
may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to
hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion
to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the
groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of
nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise: I would
have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it
out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.
"Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be
your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the
action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep
not the modesty of nature: for anything so overdone is
from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first
and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up
to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her
own image, and the very age and body of the time his
form and pressure. Now this overdone or come tardy off,
though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the
judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in
your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O,
there be players that I have seen play, and heard others
praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that
neither having the accent of Christians nor the gait of
Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed,
that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made
men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so
abominably.
"And let those that play your clowns speak no more than
is set down for them; for there be of them that will
themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren
spectators to laugh too; though, in the meantime, some
necessary question of the play be then to be considered:
that's villanous, and shows' a most pitiful ambition in
the fool that uses it."
Let the successors of Lekain and of Garrick, of Molé and of Kemble, of
Talma and of Kean, compare this last advice with the first, and profit
by both!
Talma succeeded, but there was nothing extraordinary about his success.
The débutant was marked out rather by amateurs than by the general
public. It was agreed that his acting was simple and natural. The
account books of the Comédie-Française show that the receipts at
Talma's first appearance amounted to three thousand four hundred and
three francs, eight sous.
Now shall we hear the opinion of the critics on Talma's début? The
_Journal de Paris_ wrote thus: "The young man who has just made his
début in the character of Séide gives promise of most pleasing talents;
he possesses, besides, every natural advantage that it is possible to
desire, in the rôle of a _jeune premier_,--figure, grace, voice,--and
the public were justified in their applause."
We will next see what Bachaumont had to say about him. "The débutant
possesses besides his natural gifts, a pleasing face, and a sonorous
and expressive voice, a pure and distinct pronunciation; he both feels
and can express the rhythm of his lines. His deportment is simple, his
movements are natural; moreover, his taste is always good and he has no
affectation; he does not imitate any other actor, but plays according
to his own ideas and abilities."
Two months later, _Le Mercure_ said, apropos of the revival of Ducis'
_Hamlet_: "We mean soon to speak of a young actor, M. Talma, who has
caught the fancy of playgoers; but we will wait until he has played
more important parts. His taste lies in the direction of tragedy."
It will readily be understood that the appearance of Mademoiselle
Rachel met with a very different reception from these mild
approbations. And the explanation is not far to seek. Mademoiselle
Rachel was a kind of fixed star, which had been discovered in the
high heavens, where she dwelt unmoved, shining brilliantly. Talma,
on the contrary, was a star destined to shine during a definite
period, to describe the gigantic arc that separates one horizon from
another horizon, to have his rising, his zenith, his setting--a
setting equivalent to that of the sun in mid-August, more fiery, more
magnificent, more splendid in his setting than during the noontide of
his brightness. And indeed what a triumphant progress his was! from
Séide to Charles IX., from Charles IX. to Falkland, from Falkland
to Pinto, from Pinto to Leicester, from Leicester to Danville, from
Danville to Charles VI.!
But in spite of the brilliant career that was Talma's lot, he always
regretted that he did not see the full dawn of the modern drama. I
spoke to him of my own hopes several times. "Make haste," he would say
to me, "and try to succeed in my time."
Well, I saw Talma play what very few people outside his own intimate
circle were privileged to see him play--the _Misanthrope_, which he
never dared to put upon the boards of the Théâtre-Français, though he
was anxious to do so; a part of _Hamlet_ in English, particularly the
monologue; also some farcical scenes got up at the Saint-Antoine for M.
Arnault's fête.
Art was Talma's only care, his only thought, throughout his life.
Without possessing a brilliant mind, he possessed fine feeling, much
knowledge and profound discernment. When he was about to create a new
part, he spared no pains in investigating what history or archæology
might have to offer him in the way of assistance; every gift, good
or indifferent, that he possessed, qualities as well as defects,
was utilised by him. A fortnight before his death, when he rallied
a little, and the rally gave rise to the hope that he might again
reappear at the Théâtre-Français, Adolphe and I went to see him.
Talma was having a bath; he was studying Lucien Arnault's _Tibère_, in
which he hoped to make his reappearance. Condemned by a disease of the
bowels to die literally of starvation, he was terribly thin; but he
seemed to find consolation even in his emaciated state and to derive
hope of a success from it.
"Well, my boys," he said to us, as he pressed his hanging cheeks
between his hands, "won't these be just right for the part of old
Tiberius?"
Oh! how great and glorious a thing art is! It shows more devotion than
a friend, is more faithful than a mistress, more consoling than a
confessor!
END OF VOL. II
End of Project Gutenberg's My Memoirs, Vol. II (of 6), by Alexandre Dumas