CHAPTER IV

De Leuven makes me his collaborator--The _Major de Strasbourg_--My first _couplet-Chauvin_--The _Dîner d'amis_--The _Abencérages_

I had naïvely told de Leuven of my failure to translate Bürger's beautiful ballad; but as he had made up his mind to make me a dramatic author, he consoled me by telling me it was his father's opinion that some German works were absolutely untranslatable, and that the ballad of _Lénore_ was first among these. Seeing that de Leuven did not lose hope, I gradually regained mine. I may even venture to say that, a few days after this, I achieved a success.

Lafarge had laughed hugely at de Leuven's idea of making me his collaborator. For, indeed, what notice would the Parisian stage take of an uneducated child; a poor provincial lad, buried away in a small town in the Ile-de-France; ignorant both of French and foreign literatures; hardly acquainted with the names of the great; feeling only a tepid sympathy with their most highly praised masterpieces, his lack of artistic education having veiled their style from him; setting to work without knowing the theory of constructing a plot, an action, a catastrophe, a _dénoûment_; having never read to the end of _Gil Blas_, or _Don Quixote_, or _le Diable boiteux_--books which are held by all teachers to be worthy of universal admiration, and in which, I confess to my shame, the man who has succeeded to the child does not even to-day feel a very lively interest; reading, instead, all that is bad in Voltaire, who was then regarded as the very antithesis of politics and religion; having never opened a volume of Walter Scott or of Cooper, those two great romance-writers, one of whom understood men thoroughly, the other of whom divined God's workings marvellously; whilst, on the contrary, he had devoured all the naughty books of Pigault-Lebrun, raving over them, _le Citateur_ in particular; ignorant of the name of Goethe, or Schiller, or Uhland, or André Chénier; having heard Shakespeare mentioned, but only as a barbarian from whose dunghill Ducis had collected those pearls called _Othello_, _Hamlet_ and _Romeo and Juliet_, but knowing by heart his Bertin, his Parny, his Legouvé, his Demoustier.

Lafarge was unquestionably in the right, and Adolphe must have had plenty of time to waste to undertake such a task, the hopelessness of which alone could take away from its ridiculousness. But Adolphe, with that Anglo-German stolidness of his, manfully persevered in the work undertaken, and we sketched out a scheme of a comedy in one act, entitled the _Major de Strasbourg_: it was neither good nor bad. Why the Major of Strasbourg, any more than the Major of Rochelle or of Perpignan? I am sure I cannot tell. And I have also completely forgotten the plot or development of that embryonic dramatic work.

But there was one incident I have not forgotten, for it procured me the first gratification my _amour-propre_ received. It was the epoch of patriotic pieces; a great internal reaction had set in against our reverses of 1814 and our defeat of 1815. The national couplet and Chauvinism were all the rage: provided you made _Français_ rhyme with _succès_ at the end of a couplet, and _lauriers_ with _guerriers,_ you were sure of applause. So, of course, de Leuven and I were quite content not to strike out any fresh line, but to follow and worship in the footsteps of MM. Francis and Dumersan. Therefore our _Major de Strasbourg_ was of the family of those worthy retreating officers whose patriotism continued to fight the enemy in couplets consecrated to the supreme glory of France, and to the avenging of Leipzig and Waterloo on the battlefields of the Gymnase and the Varies. Now, our major, having become a common labourer, was discovered by a father and son, who arrived on the scene, I know not why, at the moment when, instead of digging his furrows, he was deserting his plough, in order to devote himself to the reading of a book which gradually absorbed him to such an extent that he did not see the entrance of this father and son--a most fortunate circumstance, since the brave officer's preoccupation procured the public the following couplet:--

JULIEN (apercevant le major)

N'approchez pas, demeurez où vous etes: Il lit ...

LE COMTE

Sans doute un récit de combats, Ce livre?

JULIEN (regardant par-dessus l'épaule du major, et revenant à son père)

C'est _Victoires et Conquêtes._

LE COMTE

Tu vois, enfant, je ne me trompais pas: Son cœur revole aux champs de l'Allemagne! Il croit encor voir les Français vainqueurs....

JULIEN

Mon père, il lit la dernière campagne, Car de ses yeux je vois couler des pleurs.

When my part of the work was done, I handed it over to de Leuven, who, I ought to mention, was very indulgent to me; but this time, when he came to the couplet I am about to quote, his indulgence ascended into enthusiasm: he sang the couplet out loud--

"Dis-moi, soldat, dis-moi, t'en souviens-tu?"

He sang it over twice, four times, ten times, interrupting himself to say--

"Oh! oh! that couplet will be done to death if the Censorship lets it pass."

For, from that time, the honourable institution called the Censorship was in full vigour, and it has gone on increasing and prospering ever since.

I confess I was very proud of myself; I did not think such a masterpiece was in me. Adolphe ran off to sing the couplet to his father, who, as he chewed his toothpick, asked--

"Did you make it?"

"No, father; Dumas did."

"Hum! So you are writing a comic opera with Dumas?"

"Yes."

"Why not make room in it for your _froide Ibérie_? It would be just the place for it."

Adolphe turned on his heels and went off to sing my couplet to Lafarge.

Lafarge listened to it, winking his eyes.

"Ah! ah! ah!" he cried, "did Dumas compose that?"

"Yes, he made it."

"Are you sure he did not crib it from somewhere?"

Then, with touching confidence, Adolphe replied--

"I am quite certain of it: I know every patriotic couplet that has been sung in every theatre in Paris, and I tell you this one has never yet been sung."

"Then it is a fluke, and he will soon be undeceived."

De la Ponce read the couplet too; it tickled his soldierly taste, remainding him of 1814, and he took an early opportunity to compliment me on it.

Alas! poor couplet, but indifferently good though thou wert, accept nevertheless thy due meed of praise, at any rate from me. Whether gold or copper, thou wert, at all events, the first piece of literary coin I threw into the dramatic world! Thou wert the lucky coin one puts in a bag to breed more treasure therein! To-day the sack is full to overflowing: I wonder if the treasure that came and covered thee up was much better than thyself? The future alone will decide--that future which to poets assumes the superb form of a goddess and the proud name of Posterity!

The reader knows what an amount of vanity I possessed. My pride did not need to be encouraged to come out of the vase in which it was enclosed and swell like the giant in the _Arabian Nights:_ I began to believe I had written a masterpiece. From that day I thought of nothing else but dramatic literature, and, as Adolphe was some day to return to Paris, we set ourselves to work, so that he could carry away with him a regular cargo of works of the style of the _Major de Strasbourg._ We never doubted that such distinguished works would meet with the success they deserved, from the enlightened public of Paris, and open out to me in the capital of European genius a path strewn with crowns and pieces of gold. What would the well-disposed people say then, who had declared to my mother that I was an idle lad and that I should never do anything? Go spin, you future Schiller! Spin, you future Walter Scott! spin!... From this time a great force awoke in my heart, which held its place against all comers: determination--a great virtue, which although certainly not genius, is a good substitute for it--and perseverance.

Unluckily, Adolphe was not a very sure guide; he, like myself, was groping blindly. Our choice of subjects revealed that truth. Our second opera was borrowed from the venerable M. Bouilly's _Contes à ma fille._ It was entitled le _Dîner d'amis._ Our first drama was borrowed from Florian's _Gonzalve de Cordoue_: it was entitled _les Abencérages._

O dear Abencérages! O treacherous Zégris! with what crimes of like nature you have to reproach yourselves! O Gonzalve de Cordoue! what young poets you have led astray into the path upon which we entered so full of hope, from which we returned shattered and broken.

Poor lisa Mercœur! I saw her die hugging to her heart that Oriental chimera; only she stuck fast to it, like a drowning man to a floating plank; while we, feeling how little it was to be relied on, had the courage to abandon it and to let it float where it would on that dark ocean where she encountered it and stuck to it.

But then we did not know what might be the future of these children, wandering on the highways, whom we sought to seduce from their lawful parents, and whom we saw die of inanition, one after the other, in our arms.

These labours took up a whole year, from 1820 to 1821. During that year two great events came about, which passed unnoticed by us, so bent on our work were we, and so preoccupied by it: the assassination of the Duc de Berry, 13 February 1820; the death of Napoleon, 5 May 1821.