CHAPTER VI

The "year of trials"--The case of Potier and the director of the theatre of the Porte-Saint-Martin--Trial and condemnation of Magallon--The anonymous journalist--Beaumarchais sent to Saint-Lazare--A few words on censorships in general--Trial of Benjamin Constant--Trial of M. de Jouy--A few words concerning the author of _Sylla_--Three letters extracted from the _Ermite de la Chaussée-d'Antin_--Louis XVIII. as author

My anxiety to bring my readers along, without interruption, to the moment when my lot and that of my mother was settled, by my being placed on the staff as a copying-clerk at twelve hundred francs, has caused me to pass over a host of events of far greater interest, no doubt, to strangers, than those I have related, but which--if egotism may be permitted me--in my own eyes, and to my mind, should take a secondary place.

The year 1823, which we might style the "year of trials," opened by the trial of Potier on 7 January. Those who never saw Potier can form no conception of the influence this great comedian, who was much admired by Talma, had on the public; yet the damages and compensation that M. Serres, the manager of the Porte-Sainte-Martin, demanded from him, may give some idea of the value that was put upon him. One morning Potier, faithful, as M. Étienne would have said, to his _first loves_, took it into his head to return to the Variétés, a project which he carried out, it appears, forgetting to ask M. Serres to cancel his engagement before he left. Now Potier had been acting the part of old Sournois in _Petites Dandaïdes_, with such success both in the way of applause and in packed houses, that M. Serres not only refused to sanction this desertion, but reckoning up the losses which he considered Potier had caused him by his departure, and would cause him in the future, because of this same departure, decided, after sending through the sheriffs officer his account to the famous comedian, to send a duplicate copy of it to the first Chamber of the Royal Court. The odd thing about the account was that the manager of the theatre of Porte-Sainte-Martin claimed absolutely nothing but what was due to him under the terms of his contract. These are the particulars of his claim:--

1. For each day's delay, reckoning at the highest receipts taken in the theatre, from 1 March 1822 to 1 April in the same year, being at a rate of three thousand six hundred and eleven francs ... 144,408 fr. 2. Restitution of money.. 30,000 " 3. Amount paid in advance, forfeited. 20,000 " 4. Damage and compensation.. 60,000 " 5. For one hundred and twenty-two days which have expired since the first claim.... 440,542 " 6. For the seven years and ten months which remain to run before the end of the engagement.. 10,322,840 " 7. Finally, as damages and compensation in respect of this period of seven years.... 200,000 " Total. 11,217,790 "

If the manager of the Porte-Sainte-Martin had had the misfortune to win his case, he would have been obliged to pay Potier, in order to notify the sentence, a registration fee of three to four hundred thousand francs.

The Court condemned Potier to resume his engagement within a week's time: as to damages and compensation, it condemned him, _par corps_, to pay them according to the estimated scale. Three days later, it was known that the matter had been settled, less a discount of eleven million two hundred and seven thousand seven hundred and ninety francs made by the manager.

On 8 February it was the turn of Magallon, the chief editor of the _Album._ Magallon appeared before the seventh Chamber of the Police Correctional Court, accused of having hidden political articles under the cloak of literature, with intent to incite hatred and contempt towards the Government. The Court condemned Magallon to thirteen months' imprisonment and to pay a fine of two thousand francs.

It was a monstrous sentence, and it created great uproar; but a far greater scandal still, or rather, what converted a matter of scandal into an outrage, was that for this slight literary offence, and on the pretext that the sentence exceeded one year, Magallon was taken to the central prison of Poissy, on foot, with his hands bound, tied to a filthy criminal condemned afresh to penal servitude, who, dead-drunk, kept yelling unceasingly the whole way, "Long live galley slaves! honour to, all galley slaves!"

When they reached Poissy, Magallon was put into prison clothes. From that evening he had to live on skilly and learn to pick oakum.... We content ourselves with relating the bare facts; although we cannot resist adding that they happened under the reign of a prince who pretended to be a man of letters, since he had ordered a quatrain from Lemierre and a comedy from Merville....

We have already related that M. Arnault, whose _Marius à Minturnes_ had succeeded, in spite of Monsieur's prediction, paid, in all probability, for this want of respect for the opinion of His Royal Highness by four years of exile, on the return of the Bourbons.

And this was not Louis XVIII.'s first attempt on his _confrères_, the men of letters. Without mentioning M. de Chateaubriand, whom he hounded out of the ministry as though he were a lackey,--an act which caused that worthy gentleman to remark, on receiving his dismissal, "It is strange, for I have not stolen the king's watch!"--without counting Magallon, whom he sent to Poissy chained to a scurvy convict; without counting M. Arnault, whom he banished from the country; there was, besides, a little story of the same kind in connection with Beaumarchais.

More than once has M. Arnault related in my hearing the curious and too little known history of Beaumarchais' imprisonment. These are the facts.

There is always a public Censorship, except during the first two or three months following the accession of princes to the throne, and the two or three months after they are deposed; but when these three months have elapsed, the Censorship reappears on the waters after its plunge, and proceeds to discover some minister, preferably of Liberal or even Republican tendencies, and to lay a snare for him.

When the _Mariage de Figaro_ was running its course, M. Suard was censor, and he was also a journalist. He was one of those who had most bitterly opposed the representation of Beaumarchais' work, and he was largely responsible for the fifty-nine journeys--_du marais à la police_--that the illustrious author made without being able to obtain leave for his play to be performed.

At length, thanks to the intervention of the queen and the Comte d'Artois, the _Folle Journée_, recovered intact out of the claws of these gentlemen, was played on 27 April 1784. M. Suard was vindictive both in his capacity as censor and as a journalist; so that if he could not exercise the Censorship by the use of scissors, he had recourse to his pen. M. Suard was on very familiar terms with the Comte de Provence, and he served the Comte de Provence as a screen when His Royal Highness wished to give vent, incognito, to some petty literary spite. M. le Comte de Provence detested Beaumarchais almost as much as did M. Suard himself; the result was that the Comte de Provence hastened to unburden himself, by means of M. Suard, in the _Journal de Paris_, against the unfortunate _Mariage de Figaro_, which continued its successful run, in spite of M. Suard's signed articles or the anonymous articles of His Royal Highness. In the meantime, Beaumarchais handed over the sum of about thirty or forty thousand francs which he received as author's rights in the _Mariage de Figaro_ to the _association for helping poor foster-mothers._

Monsieur, who had not got a child (a less polite chronicler than myself would say who was incapable of begetting one), and who consequently, owing to his failing in this respect, had not much sympathy with _foster-mothers_, indulged himself, always under the cloak of anonymity, in attacking the man, after having attacked the play, and wrote a letter against him in the _Journal de Paris_, overflowing with venomous spleen. Beaumarchais, who thought he recognised this onslaught as from the hand of M. Suard, proceeded to lash the pedant soundly. As ill-luck would have it, it was His Royal Highness who received the tanning intended for the censor's hide. Monsieur, smarting under the stripes, went with the story of his grievances to Louis XVI., giving him to understand that Beaumarchais was perfectly well aware that he was not replying to the royal censor, but to the brother of the king. Louis XVI.; offended on behalf of Monsieur, commanded the citizen who dared to take the liberty of chastising a royal personage, regardless of his rank, to be arrested and taken to a house of correction--not to the Bastille, that prison being considered too good for such a worthless scamp; and as His Majesty was playing loo when he made this decision, it was on the back of a seven of spades that the order was written for Beaumarchais' arrest and his committal to Saint-Lazare.

Thus we see that, when Louis XVIII. had Magallon taken to Poissy, he remained faithful to Monsieur's traditions.

... Apropos of the Censorship, a good story of the present censor is going the rounds this 6th of June, 1851. We will inquire into it and, if it be true, we will relate it in the next chapter.

This excellent institution furnishes so many other instances of a like nature that its facts and achievements have to be registered regardless of chronological order, where and when one can, lest one run the risk of forgetting them, and that I would indeed be a sad pity!...

_Revenons à nos moutons!_ our poor _moutons_ shorn to the quick, like Sterne's lamb.

I have remarked that the year 1823 was the "year of trials"; let us see how it earned that name.

During the week that elapsed between the Magallon affair and the sentence passed on him, Benjamin Constant appeared before the Royal Court, on account of two letters: one addressed to M. Mangin, procurator-general at the Court of Poitiers, and the other to M. Carrère, sub-prefect of Saumur. As it was a foregone conclusion that Benjamin Constant was to be condemned, the Court sentenced him to pay a fine of a thousand francs and costs.

On 29 January--a week before this happened--the Correctional Police sentenced M. de Jouy to a month's imprisonment, a fine of a hundred and fifty francs and the costs of the trial, for an article in the _Biographie des contemporains_ which had been recognised as his. This article was the biography of the brothers Faucher. The sentence created a tremendous sensation. M. de Jouy was then at the height of his fame: the _Ermite de la Chaussée-d'Antin_ had made him popular, the hundred representations of _Sylla_ had made him famous.

I knew M. de Jouy well: he was a remarkably loyal man, with a delightful mind and an easy pen. I believe he had been a sailor, serving in India, where he knew Tippo-Sahib, upon whom he founded a tragedy, commissioned, or very nearly so, by Napoleon, which was acted on 27 January 1813. The work was indifferent and did not meet with much success.

On the return of the Bourbons, the Court was half-heartedly willing to encourage men of letters, M. de Jouy in particular, who held one of the highest positions among them. It was the more easily managed since M. de Jouy was an old Royalist, and I believe a soldier of Condi's army; it was not a case of making a convert but retaining an old partisan. His articles in the _Gazette_, signed "l'Ermite de la Chaussée-d'Antin," had an enormous success. I heard it said at the time that M. de Jouy was called up before M. de Vitrolles and asked to mention what it was he wanted. What he wanted was the due recognition of his services, namely, the Cross of Saint-Louis,--for, as a rule, straightforward men only desire things they are entitled to;--desiring the Cross, and having deserved it, he asked for it. But they wished to force conditions upon him: they desired that he should not merely be satisfied with refraining from pointing fun at the absurdities of the Restoration; they wanted him to emphasise the glories of the Empire. They wanted him to do a base action before he, a loyal soldier, a clean-handed man, a poet of considerable repute among his _confrères_, could obtain the Cross. What happened? The noted poet, the loyal soldier, the honest man, said that the Cross should go to Hades first, and he showed the person who came to propose these conditions to the door. It was the right way to treat the minister, but it was unlucky for the Cross, which would not have honoured M. de Jouy, but which M. de Jouy would have honoured! And behold M. de Jouy in the Opposition, behold M. de Jouy writing articles in the _Biographie_ which cost him a month's imprisonment, and which increased his popularity twofold. What fools Governments are to refuse a man the Cross he asks, and to grant him the persecution he does not desire, the persecution which will be far more benefit to him, in honour and in worldly goods, than the bit of ribbon which nobody would have noticed! Moreover, M. de Jouy did not write anything so very reprehensible. No; on the contrary, M. de Jouy was distinguished for the suavity of his criticism, the urbanity of his opposition, the courtesy of his anger. The manner adopted by this good Ermite has long since been forgotten; and the generation which followed ours has not even read his works. Heigho! if the said generation reads me, it will read him; for I am about to open his works and to quote some pages from them at hap-hazard. They go back to the first months of the second return of the Bourbons, to the period when all the world lived out in the squares, to the time when everybody seemed eager after I know not what: after a Revolution, one has need to hate men; but after a Restoration, one can do nothing but despise them!

M. B. de L---- is overwhelmed with requests for positions and writes to the Ermite de la Chaussée-d'Antin to beg him to insert the following letters in his paper:--

"MONSIEUR,--We have neither of us time to spare, so I will explain to you the object of my letter in a very few words. I formerly had the honour to be attached to one of the princes of the house of Bourbon; I may even have been so fortunate as to show some proofs of my devotion to that august family at a time when, if not meritorious, it was at least dangerous to allow one's zeal to leak out; but I endeavour not to forget that the Mornays, the Sullys, the Crillons would modestly style this the fulfilment of one's duty. I am unaware upon what grounds people in my province credit me with what I do not enjoy, and to which I am indebted for the hosts of solicitations I receive, without being able to be of service to those who apply to me. I have only discovered one method of escaping from this novel form of persecution--that is, to publish a letter of one of my relatives and the answer I thought fit to make to it. The first is in some measure a résumé of three or four hundred letters that I have received on the same topic. I am the less reluctant to make it public since I reserve to myself the right of holding back the writer's name, and besides, this letter reflects as much credit on the heart of the writer as it displays the good sense of the mind that dictated it.

"B. DE L----"

This is the relative's letter:--

"How glad I am, my friend, that events have brought back our illustrious princes to the throne! What good fortune it is! You have no notion what reputation these events and your stay in Paris give me here. The prefect is afraid of me, and his wife, who never used to bow to me, has invited me twice to dinner. But there is no time to be lost, and we rely on you. Would you believe that my husband has not yet taken any steps whatever to regain his position, pretending that it exists no longer, and that the commission was made up to him in assignats? There isn't a more apathetic man in the whole of France.

"My brother-in-law has laid claim to the Cross of Saint-Louis: he had been waiting for it for nine years when the Revolution broke out. It would be unjust of them not to compensate him for the twenty years of his services, the troubles and the misfortunes he has undergone on his estates; he is counting on you to hasten the prompt despatch of his patent.

"I append a memorandum to my letter, from my oldest son, the marquis; he had the right to his uncle's reversion, and it will be easy for you to obtain it for him. I am anxious that his brother, the chevalier, shall be placed in the navy, but in a rank worthy of his name and the past services of his family. And as my grandson, Auguste de G----, is quite old enough I to become a page, you have only to speak a word on his behalf.

"We are coming to Paris early next month. I shall bring my daughter with me, as I wish to present her at Court. They will not refuse you this favour if you solicit it with sufficient perseverance and willingness.

"Think of poor F----. He failed us, it is true, at the time of the Revolution; but he has made ample amends during the past month: you know he is penniless, and is ready to sacrifice everything for our rulers. His devotion goes even so far as to be willing to take a post as prefect, and he is well fitted for it. Do you not remember the pretty song he made about me?

"M. de B----, son of the late intendant of the province, is coming to see you; try and be useful to him; he is a friend of the family. If they are not going to re-establish intendancies, he will be satisfied with a post as receiver-general; it is the least they can do for a man devoted to his sovereign, one who was imprisoned for six months during the Terror.

"I must not forget to recommend M---- to your notice. He has been blamed for having served all parties, because he has been employed in every Government in France for the last twenty years; but he is a good fellow--you can take my word for it: he was the first to don the white cockade; besides, all he asks is to be allowed to keep his place as superintendent of the posting service. Be sure and write to me under cover of his frank.

"I append my father-in-law's papers: a sum of forty-five thousand francs is still owing to him from the estates of Languedoc; I hope they will not keep you waiting for its reimbursement, and that you will not hesitate to make use of the money if you are under any temporary embarrassment, though this is very unlikely in your present situation. Adieu, my dear cousin. With greetings in which the whole family unite, and expecting the pleasure of seeing you soon in Paris.

"J. DE P----"

_[Answer]_

"PARIS, 15 _June_ 1814

"MY DEAR COUSIN,--You can hardly conceive with what interest I have read the letter you have done me the honour to send me, or with what zeal I have tried to further the just and reasonable demands of all the persons you recommend to my notice. You will, not be more astonished than I have been myself at the obstacles placed in my way, which you would deem insurmountable if you knew as well as I the people with whom we have to deal.

"When I spoke of your son, who has long been desirous of service, and asked for a berth as major in his father's old regiment, they urged, as a not unreasonable objection, that peace was concluded, and that before thinking of a position for the Marquis de V----, they must consider the lot of 25,000 officers, some of whom (would you believe it?) press for the recognition of their campaigns, their wounds, and even go so far as to urge the number of battles in which they were engaged; whilst others more directly associated with the misfortunes of the royal family had returned to France without any fortune beyond the goodwill and complaisance of the king. I then asked, with a touch of sarcasm, what they meant to do for your son and for the multitude of brave Royalists who have suffered so much through the misfortunes of the realm, and whose secret prayers for the recall of the royal family to the throne of its ancestors had been unceasing. They replied that they rejoiced to see the end of all our afflictions and the fulfilment of our prayers.

"Your husband is a very extraordinary man. I can well understand, my dear cousin, all you must be suffering on account of his incredible apathy. To be reduced at the age of sixty-five, or sixty-six at the outside, to a fortune of 40,000 livres income, to bury himself in the depth of a château, and to renounce all chance of an ambitious career, as though a father had no duty towards his children, as though a gentleman ought not to die fighting!

"I am sorry your brother-in-law should have laid claim to the Cross of Saint-Louis before it had been granted to him; for it may happen that the king will not readily part with the right to confer this decoration himself, and that he will not approve of the honour certain persons are anxious to have conferred upon them. You will realise that it would be less awkward not to have had the Cross of Saint-Louis than to find oneself obliged to give it up.

"I did not forget to put forward the claims of your son, the chevalier, and I do not despair of getting him entered for the examination of officers for the Royal Marines. We will then do our utmost to get him passed into the staff of one hundred officers, who are far too conscious of their worth, of the names they bear and of the devotion they profess to have shown at Quiberon.

"Your grandson Auguste is entered for a page; I cannot tell you exactly when he will be taken into the palace, my dear cousin, as your request followed upon three thousand seven hundred and seventy-five other requests, made on behalf of the sons of noblemen or officers slain on the field of battle, though they cannot show the slightest claim on account of services rendered to the State or to the princes.

"You are well advised in wishing to place your daughter at Court, and it will not be difficult when you have found a husband for her whose rank and fortune will entitle her to a position there. If this is not arranged, I do not quite see what she would do there, or what suitable post she could occupy there, however able she may be: maids of honour are not yet reinstated.

"I have presented a petition in favour of F, to which I annexed the pretty song he composed for you; but they have become so exacting that such claims no longer suffice to obtain a post as prefect. I will even go so far as to tell you that they do not think much of your protégé's conversion and of the sacrifices he is prepared to make; his enemies persist in saying that he is not a man who can be relied upon.

"I witnessed his powers of work in former times, and I am convinced that if he would serve the good cause nowadays with half the zeal he formerly exerted on behalf of the bad cause, they would be able very usefully to employ him. But will this ever be put to the test?

"I have not learnt whether intendances are to be re-established, but they seem to think that public receiverships will be diminished, if only in the number of those which exist in departments beyond our bounds. This makes me fear that M. de B---- will have to be satisfied with the enormous fortune his father made in the old revenue days, which he found means to hide during the Revolutionary storms: he must learn to be philosophical.

"Do not be in the least uneasy over the lot of M----. I know him: he has considerable elasticity of character and of principle--for twenty years he has slipped in and out among all parties, without having offended any. He is a marvellously clever fellow, who will serve himself better than anyone else ever will be served: he is no longer superintendent of the posting bureau, having just obtained a more lucrative post in another department of the Government. Do you always take such great interest in his affairs?

"I return you your father-in-law's papers, dear cousin, relative to the debt on the Languedoc estates. From what I can gather, the liquidation does not seem likely to take place yet a while, in spite of the justice of your claim. They have decided that arrears of pay due to troops, the public debt, military pensions and a crowd of other objects of this nature shall be taken into consideration--this measure is evidently the fruit of some intrigue. You should tell F---- to draw up a pamphlet upon the most urgent needs of the State and to endeavour to refer to this debt in the first line of his pamphlet. You have no idea how much the Government is influenced by the multitude of little pamphlets which are produced every day by ill-feeling, anger and hunger with such commendable zeal.

"You will see, my dear cousin, that, at the rate things are going, you must possess your soul in patience. I would even add that the journey you propose to take to Paris will not advance your affairs. According to the police reckoning, there are at this present moment a hundred and twenty-three thousand people from the provinces, of all ranks, of all sexes, of all ages, who are here to make claims, furnished with almost as good credentials as yours, and who will have the advantage over you in obtaining a refusal of being first in the field to put forward their cases. Finally, as I know you are acquainted with philosophy and the best things in literature, I beg you to read over again a chapter in the English _Spectator_, on the just claims of these who ask for posts: it is in the thirty-second section of the seventh volume in the duodecimo edition: history repeats itself.

"Accept, my dear cousin, an expression of my most affectionate greetings, coupled with my sincere regrets.

"B. DE L----"

In 1830, after the Revolution of July, Auguste Barbier produced a poem on the same subject, entitled the _Curée._ When one re-reads those terrible verses and compares them with work by M. de Jouy, the writings of the latter seem a model of that Attic wit which was characteristic of the old school, and Barbier an example of the brutal, fiery, unpremeditated writing I so typical of his Muse.

Meanwhile, at about the period we have reached, whilst Louis XVIII. was hunting down men of letters with that ruthlessness of which we have just cited a few examples, he was laying claim to a place in their midst. Through the foolish advice of his sycophants, the regal author published a little work entitled _Voyage de Paris à Bruxelles._ I do not know whether it would be possible to-day to procure a single copy of the royal brochure, wherein were to be found not only such errors in French grammar as "J'étais déjà un peu gros, à cette époque, pour _monter et descendre de cabriolet_," but, worse still, revelations of ingratitude and heartlessness.

A poor widow risks her head to take in fugitives, and sacrifices her last louis to give them a dinner; Monsieur relates this act of devotion as though it were no more than the fugitives' due, and ends the chapter by saying, "The dinner was execrable!"

It was written in kitchen French, as Colonel Morisel observed to M. Arnault.

"That is easily explained," replied the author of _Germanicus_, "since the work was by a _restaurateur"_.

The _Miroir_, ordered to review the _Voyage de Paris à Bruxelles_, contented itself by saying, "If the work is by the august personage to whom it is attributed, it is above the region of criticism; if it is not by him, it is beneath criticism."

Let us revert to Colonel Morisel, one of the most interesting characters of the time. They could not get up the same kind of trial against the author of the _Messéniennes_, of the _Vêpres siciliennes_, of the _Comédiens_ and of _Paria_, as they did against M. de Jouy and Magallon; they could not imprison him in Sainte-Pélagie or send him to Poissy, bound hand to hand and side by side with a filthy convict; but they could reduce him to poverty, and that is what they did.

On 15 April we read in the Liberal papers: "We hear that M. Ancelot, author of _Louis IX._ and of _Maire du Palais_, has just received letters patent of nobility, and that M. Casimir Delavigne, author of _Vêpres siciliennes_, of _Paria_ and of the _Messéniennes_, has just lost his post in the Library of the Minister of Justice." It was quite true: M. Ancelot had been made a baron, and M. Casimir Delavigne was turned out into the street! It was at this juncture that, on the recommendation of Vatout, who had just published the _Histoire de la Fille d'un Roi_, the Duc d'Orléans appointed Casimir Delavigne to the post of assistant librarian at the Palais-Royal, where, six years later, I became his colleague.

Vatout was an excellent fellow, a trifle conceited; but even his vanity was useful as a spur which, put in motion by the example of others, goaded him to do the work he would otherwise not have attempted. One of his conceits was to pretend he was a natural son of a prince of the House of Orléans--a very innocent conceit, as it did not harm anyone, and nobody considered it a crime; for he used the influence he acquired by his post at the Palais-Royal in rendering help to his friends, and sometimes even to his enemies.... Just at this moment the information I have been seeking concerning the last act of the Censorship has been brought me.

Ah! my dear Victor Hugo, you who are busy trying to wrest from the jury, before whom you are defending your son, the entire abolition of the death penalty; make an exception in favour of the censor, and stipulate that he shall be executed twice over at the next Revolution, since once is not nearly enough.

I wish here to swear on my honour that what I am about to state is actual truth.