CHAPTER VII

The house in the rue Chaillot--Four poets and a doctor--Corneille and the Censorship--Things M. Faucher does not know--Things the President of the Republic ought to know

In the year III of the Second French Republic, on the evening of 2 June, M. Louis Bonaparte being president, M. Léon Faucher minister, M. Guizard director of the Fine Arts, the following incident occurred, in a salon decorated with Persian draperies, on the ground floor of a house in the rue de Chaillot.

Five or six persons were discussing art--a surprising fact at a time when the sole topics of conversation were dissolution, revision and prorogation. True, of these five persons four were poets, and one a doctor who was almost a poet and entirely a man of culture. These four poets were: first, Madame Émile de Girardin, mistress of the house in the rue de Chaillot where the gathering took place; second, Victor Hugo; third, Théophile Gautier; fourth, Arsène Houssaye. The doctor's name was Cabarus.

The gentleman indicated under number four held several offices: perhaps he was rather less of a poet than were the other three, but he was far more of a business man, thus equalizing the balance; he was manager of the Théâtre-Français, the resignation of which post he had already sent in three times, and each time it had been refused.

You may perhaps ask why M. Arsène Houssaye was so ready to send in his resignation.

There is a very simple answer: the members of the Théâtre-Français company made his life so unendurable that the poet was ever ready to send to the right about his demi-gods, his heroes, his kings, his princes, his dukes, his marquises, his counts and his barons of the rue de Richelieu, in order to re-engage his barons, his counts, his marquises, his dukes, his princes, his kings, his heroes and his demi-gods of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whom he knew and whose strings he could pull as though he were the Comte de Saint-Germain, who was their familiar friend.

Now why should the members of the Théâtre-Français company make their manager's life so hard? Because he made money, and nothing irritates a member of the Théâtre-Français company so much as to see his theatre _make money._ This may seem inexplicable to sensible folk: it is indeed a mystery; but I have not set myself to explain the fact; I state it, that is all.

Now, in his capacity as manager of the Théâtre-Français, M. Arsène Houssaye thought of something which had not occurred to anyone else. This was that as the day in question was 2 June 1851, in four days' time--that is to say, on 6 June--it would be the two hundred and forty-fourth anniversary of the birth of Corneille.

He translated his thought into words, and turning to Théophile Gautier, he said, "Come now! my dear Théo, you must write for me some sixty lines, for the occasion, upon the Father of Tragedy: it will be much better than what is usually given us on such anniversaries, and the public will not grumble."

Théophile Gautier pretended not to hear.

Arsène Houssaye repeated his request.

"Good gracious! no," said Gautier.

"Why not?"

"Because I do not know anything more tiresome to write than an official panegyric, were it on the greatest poet in the world. Besides, the greater the poet, the more difficult is it to praise him."

"You are mistaken, Théophile," said Hugo; "and if I were in a position at this moment to do what Arsène asks, I would undertake it."

"Would you think of passing in review Corneille's twenty or thirty plays? Would you have the courage to speak of _Mélite_, of _Clitandre_, of the _Galerie du Palais_, of _Pertharite_, of _Œdipe_, of _Attila_, of _Agésilas_?"

"No, I should not mention any one of them."

"Then you would not be extolling Corneille: when a poet is praised, you must praise his bad work loudest of all; when one does not praise, it savours of criticism."

"No," said Hugo, "I do not mean anything like that: I would not undertake a vulgar eulogy. I would describe the agèd Corneille, wandering through the streets of old Paris, on foot, with a shabby cloak on his shoulders, neglected by Louis XIV., who was less generous towards him than his persecutor Richelieu; getting his leaky shoes mended at a poor cobbler's, whilst Louis XIV., reigning at Versailles, was promenading with Madame de Montespan, Mademoiselle de la Vallière and Madame Henriette, in the galleries of Le Brun or in the gardens of Le Nôtre; then I would pay compensation to the poet's shade by showing how posterity puts each one in his proper place and, as days are added unto days, months to months and years to years, increases the poet's fame and decreases the power of the king...."

"What are you looking for, Théophile?" asked Madame de Girardin of Gautier, who had got up hastily.

"I am looking for my hat," said Gautier.

"Girardin is asleep on it," replied Cabarus drily.

"Oh, don't wake him," said Madame de Girardin. "It will make an article!"

"Nevertheless, I cannot go without my hat," said Gautier.

"Where are you off to?" asked Arsène Houssaye.

"I am going to write you your lines, of course; you shall have them to-morrow."

They pulled Théophile's hat from under Girardin's shoulders. It had suffered by reason of its position; but what cared Théophile for the condition of his hat?

He returned home and set to work. The next day, as he had promised, Arsène Houssaye had the verses.

But both poet and manager had reckoned without the Censorship.

These are Théophile Gautier's lines on the great Corneille,--they were forbidden by the dramatic censor, as I have said, in the year III of the Second Republic, M. Louis Bonaparte being president, M. Léon Faucher minister and M. Guizard director of the Fine Arts:--

"Par une rue étroite, au cœur du vieux Paris, Au milieu des passants, du tumulte et des cris, La tête dans le ciel et le pied dans la fange, Cheminait à pas lents une figure étrange. C'était un grand vieillard sévèrement drapé, Noble et sainte misère, en son manteau râpé! Son œil d'aigle, son front, argenté vers les tempes Rappelaient les fiertés des plus mâles estampes; Et l'on eut dit, à voir ce masque souverain, Une médaille antique à frapper en airain. Chaque pli de sa joue, austèrement creusée, Semblait continuer un sillon de pensée, Et, dans son regard noir, qu'éteint un sombre ennui, On sentait que l'éclair autrefois avait lui. Le vieillard s'arrêta dans une pauvre échoppe.

Le roi-soleil, alors, illuminait l'Europe, Et les peuples baissaient leurs regards éblouis Devant cet Apollon qui s'appelait Louis. A le chanter, Boileau passait ses doctes veilles; Pour le loger, Mansard entassait ses merveilles; Cependant, en un bouge, auprès d'un savetier, Pied nu, le grand Corneille attendait son soulier! Sur la poussière d'or de sa terre bénie, Homère, sans chaussure, aux chemins d'Ionie, Pouvait marcher jadis avec l'antiquité, Beau comme un marbre grec par Phidias sculpté; Mais Homère, à Paris, sans crainte du scandale, Un jour de pluie, eut fait recoudre sa sandale. Ainsi faisait l'auteur d_'Horace_ et de _Cinna_, Celui que de ses mains la muse couronna, Le fier dessinateur, Michel-Ange du drame, Qui peignit les Romains si grands, d'après son âme. O pauvreté sublime! ô sacré dénûment! Par ce cœur héroique accepté simplement!

Louis, ce vil détail que le bon goût dédaigne, Ce soulier recousu me gâte tout ton règne. A ton siècle en perruque et de luxe amoureux, Je ne pardonne pas Corneille malheureux. Ton dais fleurdelisé cache mal cette échoppe; De la pourpre où ton faste à grands plis s'enveloppe, Je voudrais prendre un pan pour Corneille vieilli, S'éteignant, pauvre et seul, dans l'ombre et dans l'oubli. Sur le rayonnement de toute ton histoire, Sur l'or de ton soleil c'est une tache noire, O roi! d'avoir laissé, toi qu'ils ont peint si beau, Corneille sans souliers, Molière sans tombeau! Mais pourquoi s'indigner! Que viennent les années, L'équilibre se fait entre les destinées; A sa place chacun est remis par la mort: Le roi rentre dans l'ombre, et le poëte en sort! Pour courtisans, Versaille a gardé ses statues; Les adulations et les eaux se sont tues; Versaille est la Palmyre où dort la royauté. Qui des deux survivra, génie ou majesté? L'aube monte pour l'un, le soir descend sur l'autre; Le spectre de Louis, au jardin de Le Notre, Erre seul, et Corneille, éternel comme un Dieu, Toujours sur son autel voit reluire le feu, Que font briller plus vif en ses fêtes natales Les générations, immortelles vestales. Quand en poudre est tombé le diadème d'or, Son vivace laurier pousse et verdit encor; Dans la postérité, perspective inconnue, Le poëte grandit et le roi diminue!"

Now let us have a few words on this matter, Monsieur Guizard, for you did not reckon things would end here; you did not hope to escape at the cost of a few words written with a double meaning, inserted in a newspaper printed yesterday, published to-day and forgotten on the morrow.

No, when such outrages are perpetrated upon art, it is meet that the culprit should be deprived of his natural judges and taken to a higher court, as your models carried Trélat and Cavaignac to the House of Peers, as your friends carried Raspail, Hubert and Sobrier to the Court of Bourges. And I call upon you to appear, Monsieur Guizard, you who took the place of my friend Cavé, as superintendent of the department of Fine Arts.

Look you, now that things are being cut down all round, has not a letter been economised in the description of your office? and instead of being responsible for the _department_, are you not really responsible for the _departure_ of the Fine Arts? Moreover, I have something to relate that passed between us, three months ago. Do you remember I had the honour of paying you a visit, three months ago? I came to give you notice, on behalf of the manager of the Cirque, that while we were waiting for the _Barrière de Clichy_ we were going to put the _Chevalier de Maison-Rouge_ in rehearsal.

"The _Chevalier de Maison-Rouge_!" you exclaimed.

"Yes."

"But is not the _Chevalier de Maison-Rouge_ a drama written by yourself?"

"Yes."

"Is it not in the _Chevalier de Maison-Rouge_ that the famous chorus occurs--

'Mourir pour la patrie'?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, we will not allow the _Chevalier de Maison-Rouge_ to be played."

"You will not allow the _Chevalier de Maison-Rouge_ to be played?"

"No, no, no, no, no!"

"But why not?"

Then you looked me in the face and you said to me--

"Do you mean to tell me you do not know that the _Chevalier de Maison-Rouge_ contributed to the establishment of the Republic?"

You said that to me, Monsieur Guizard! You made that extraordinary avowal to me, in the year III of the Republic! M. Léon Faucher being minister of the Republic! you, Monsieur Guizard, being director of the Fine Arts of the Republic!

I was so astounded at the reply that I could find nothing else to say than "How the devil does it come about that I, who lost nearly 200,000 francs by the coming of the Republic, am a Republican, whilst you, who gained thereby a post bringing you in 12,000, are a Reactionary?"

True, you did not condescend to explain this anomaly: I left your office without discovering a reason, and now, as I write these lines, I am still at a loss for one!

Now, in the hope that someone more clever than I at guessing riddles might be found, I decided to print what happened to me, three months ago, side by side with what happened to Gautier to-day!

What can one expect? Every man makes use of the tool or of the instrument he has in his hand: some have scissors, and they cut; others have an engraver's tool, and they etch.

What I write, I warn you, M. Guizard, is translated into eight or nine different languages. So we shall have the assistance of learned men in many lands to help us in our researches, and the archæologists of three generations; for, suppose my works live no longer than the time it will take for rats to devour them, it will take those creatures quite a hundred years to eat my thousand volumes. You may tell me that the order to stop M. Théophile Gautier's verses came from a higher source, from the minister. To that I have nothing to say: if the order came from the minister, you were obliged to obey that order. And I must in that case wend my way to M. Léon Faucher. So be it!

O Faucher! is it really credible that you, who are so halfhearted a Republican, you who were so ill-advised, according to my opinion, as to pay a subsidy to the Théâtre-Français to have the dead exhumed and, the living buried,--is it really credible, I repeat, that so indifferent a Republican as yourself, did not wish it said, on the stage that Corneille created, that genius is higher than royalty, and that Corneille was greater as a poet than Louis XIV. was as a monarch?

But, M. Faucher, you know quite as well as I that Louis XIV. was only a great king because he possessed great ministers and great poets.

Perhaps you will tell me that great ministers and poets are created by great kings?

No, M. Faucher, you will not say that; for I shall retort, "Napoleon, who was a great emperor, had no Corneille, and Louis XIII., who was a pitiable king, could boast a Richelieu."

No, M. le ministre, Louis XIV., believe me, was only great as a king because (and Michelet, one of the greatest historians who ever lived, will tell you exactly the same) Richelieu was his precursor, whilst Corneille's precursor was ... who? Jodelle.

Corneille did not need either Condé, or Turenne, or Villars, or de Catinat, or Vauban, or Mazarin, or Colbert, or Louvois, or Boileau, or Racine, or Benserade, or Le Brun, or Le Nôtre, or even M. de Saint-Aignan to help him to become a great poet.

No; Corneille took up a pen, ink and paper; he only had to lean his head upon his hand and his poetry came.

Had you but read Théophile Gautier's lines, M. le ministre,--but I am sure you have not read them,--you must have seen that these verses are not merely the finest Théophile Gautier ever penned, but the finest ever written since verses came to be written. You must have seen that their composition was excellent and their ideas above reproach. A certain emperor I knew--one whom apparently you did not know--would have sent the officer's Cross of the Legion of Honour and a pension to a man who had written those verses.

You, M. le ministre, sent orders that Théophile Gautier's lines were not to be read on the stage of the Théâtre-Français!

But perhaps this order came from higher authority still? Perhaps it came from the President of the Republic?

If it came from the President of the Republic, it is another matter ... and it is with the President of the Republic that I must settle my grievance.

I shall not take long in dealing with the President of the Republic.

"Ah! M. le président de la République," I shall say to him, "you who have forgotten so many things in the overwhelming rush of state affairs, have you, by any chance, forgotten what Monsieur your uncle said of the author of the _Cid_, 'If Corneille had lived in my time, I would have made him a prince.'"

Now that I have said to the President of the Republic, to M. le Ministre de l'Intérieur, and to M. le Chef de Division Chargé du Département des Beaux-Arts, what I had it in my mind to say, let us return to the year 1823, which also possessed its Censorship, but one that was much less severe than that of 1851.