CHAPTER IV

The Comédie-Française at Dresden--Georges returns to the Théâtre-Français--The _Deux Gendres_--_Mahomet II._--_Tippo-Saëb_--1814--Fontainebleau--The allied armies enter Paris--Lilies--Return from the isle of Elba--Violets--Asparagus stalks--Georges returns to Paris

Mademoiselle Georges left for Dresden the day after her arrival at Brunswick. The giant who had been confounded at Beresina had, Anteus-like, recovered his strength as he neared Paris. Napoleon left Saint-Cloud on 15 April 1813. He stopped on the 16th at Mayence, left it on the 24th, and reached Erfürt the same day.

Napoleon was still in command of forty-three millions of men at this time, and had as his allies against Russia all the kings who had been present at the theatrical entertainments recently mentioned by us. But Napoleon had lost his prestige. The first bloom of his glory had been smirched; the invincible one had been proved vulnerable. The snowy campaign of 1812 had chilled all the friendships professed towards him. Prussia set the example of defection.

On 3 May--that is to say, eighteen days after his departure from Paris--Napoleon despatched couriers to Constantinople, Vienna and Paris from the battlefield of Lutzen, where slept twenty thousand Russians and Prussians, to announce a fresh victory. Saxony had been won back in a single battle. On 10 May, the emperor installed himself at Dresden, in the Marcolini Palace. On the 12th, the King of Saxony, who had taken refuge on the frontiers of Bohemia, returned to his capital. On the 18th, Napoleon proposed an armistice.

As it was ignored, he fought and won the battles of Bautzen and of Lutzen on the 20th and 21st. On 10 June, the emperor returned to Dresden, still in hopes of the desired armistice.

On 16 June, MM. de Beausset and de Turenne were appointed to look after the Comédie-Française. M. de Beausset's work was to see to the stage management of the theatre, to obtain lodgings for the actors and to arrange the repertory. M. de Turenne took upon him the invitations and all matters connected with court etiquette. On 19 June, the company of the Comédie-Française arrived. It consisted of the following actors and actresses: MM. Fleury, Saint-Phal,

Baptiste junior, Armand, Thénard, Vigny, Michot, Bartier; and Mesdames Thénard, Émilie Contat, Mézeray, Mars and Bourgoin. We have followed the observances of etiquette _à la_ M. de Turenne, and placed these gentlemen and ladies in the order of their seniority.

All was ready to receive them by 15 June. Lodgings, carriages and servants had all been hired in advance. An hour after their arrival, the thirteen artistes were duly installed. At midnight, on the following day, Mademoiselle Georges also arrived in Dresden. By one o'clock the Duc de Vicence had taken up his residence with her. The next day, at seven o'clock in the morning, she was received by the emperor. That very day, a courier was sent off to command Talma and Saint-Prix to set out for Dresden instantly, no matter in what part of France they might be when the order reached them. The order reached Saint-Prix in Paris, and found Talma in the provinces. Twelve days after, Talma and Saint-Prix arrived, and the company of the Comédie-Française was complete.

A theatre had been arranged for comedy in the orangery belonging to the palace occupied by the emperor.

Tragedies, which require far more staging and much more scenery, were to be performed in the town theatre. The first representation of comedy took place on 22 June; it consisted of the _Gageure imprévue_ and the _Suites d'un bal masqué._. The first representation of tragedy was _Phèdre_, played on the 24th. But these entertainments were very different from those at Erfürt! A veil of sadness had crept over the past; a cloud of fear hung over the future. People remembered Beresina; they foresaw Leipzig. Talma looked in vain among the audience for the kings who had applauded him at Erfürt. There was only the old and faithful King of Saxony, the last of those crowned heads who remained true to Napoleon.

The performances lasted from 22 June until 10 August. The emperor invited either Talma or Mademoiselle Mars or Mademoiselle Georges to lunch with him most mornings. They talked of art. Art had always filled an important place in Napoleon's mind. He was in this respect not only the successor, but also the heir to Louis XIV. It was on these occasions that he gave expression to those incisive appreciations peculiar to himself, and to his opinions on men and on their works. It must have been fine indeed to listen to Napoleon's appreciation of Corneille and his criticism of Racine. And it should be remembered that, to be able to speak of Corneille or of Racine, his powerful mind had to put aside for the moment all thought of the material world which was beginning to press heavily upon him. It is true that he was continually being deluded by hopes of peace; but on the evening of 11 August all hopes of that nature were dispelled.

On the 12 th, at three o'clock in the morning, M. de Beausset received the following letter from Alexandre Berthier, Prince of Neuchâtel:--

"MY DEAR BEAUSSET,--The emperor commands me to tell you that the French actors who are here must leave either to-day or to-morrow morning at the latest, to return to Paris. Have the goodness to inform them of this.--Yours, etc.,

"ALEXANDRE"

The actors left, and then the battle of Leipzig took place. The Empire's dying struggle had begun. The actors meanwhile returned to Paris. Mademoiselle Georges resumed her ascendency at the Comédie-Française, after an absence of five years. Raucourt, though still alive, had practically abandoned her career. For a long time past the theatrical life had weighed upon her; she only acted when obliged, and remained almost all the year round in the country. When Mademoiselle Georges was reinstalled, it was arranged that she should become a full member of the company, and her absence was reckoned as though she were present. She reappeared as Clytemnestre when she was still only twenty-eight years of age. Her success was immense. There had not been many changes during those last five years at the Théâtre-Français. The important pieces played during the absence of Mademoiselle Georges were, _Hector_ and _Christophe Colombo_ to which we have referred; the _Deux Gendres,_ by M. Étienne; _Mahomet II_., by M. Baour-Lormian; and _Tippo-Saëb,_ by M. de Jouy.

The success of the _Deux Gendres_ was not contested, and it could not be contested. But since people must always contest some point or other in the case of an author of any merit, the paternity of M. Étienne's comedy was contested.

A worm-eaten manuscript written by a forgotten Jesuit was dragged out of some bookcase or other, and it was said that M. Étienne had robbed this unlucky Jesuit. It should be stated that the plot of the _Deux Gendres_ was the same that Shakespeare had utilised two centuries before, in _King Lear_, and that M. de Balzac made use of twenty-five years later, in _Père Goriot._ All these polemical discussions greatly annoyed M. Étienne, and probably hindered him from writing a sequel to the _Deux Gendres. Mahomet II._ met with but indifferent success: the play was lifeless and dull.

Nevertheless, M. Baour-Lormian was a meritorious writer: he left, or rather he will leave, a few poems charged with melancholy feeling, all the more striking as such a sentiment was entirely unknown during the Empire, which can offer us, in this respect, nothing save the _Chute des Feuilles_ by Millevoie, and the _Feuille de Rose_ by M. Arnault. Besides, the _Chute des Feuilles_ was written before, and the _Feuille de Rose_ after, the Empire.

Let me quote a few of M. Baour-Lormian's pleasant lines:--

"Ainsi qu'une jeune beauté Silencieuse et solitaire, Du sein du nuage argente La lune sort avec mystere.... Fille aimable du ciel, à pas lents et sans bruit, Tu glisses dans les airs où brille ta couronne; Et ton passage s'environne Du cortège pompeux des soleils de la nuit.... Que fais-tu loin de nous, quand l'aube blanchissante Efface, à nos yeux attristés, Ton sourire charmant et tes molles clartés? Vas-tu, comme Ossian, plaintive et gémissante, Dans l'asile de la douleur Ensevelir ta beauté languissante? Fille aimable du ciel, connais-tu le malheur?"

We must now return to Mademoiselle Georges.

Mademoiselle Georges, as we have remarked, found, it seems, the Théâtre-Français pretty much as she had left it. She resumed her old repertory. Is it not curious that during the nine years she was at the Théâtre-Français Mademoiselle Georges, who has created so many rôles since, only created those of Calypso and of Mandane there?...

All this time, the horizon in the North was growing darker and darker: Prussia had betrayed us; Sweden had deserted us; Saxony had been involved in the rout at Leipzig; Austria was recruiting her forces against us. On 6 January 1814, Joachim Murat, King of Naples, signed an armistice with England, the expiration of which had to be notified three months in advance. On the 11th, he promised the Emperor of Austria to go to war against France with thirty thousand men; in exchange for which the Austrian monarch guaranteed the throne of Naples to him and his heirs.

Napoleon then began the marvellous campaign of 1814, that titanic struggle in which a single man and one nation faced two emperors, four kings and six nations of the first rank, including Russia, England, Prussia and Spain.

If we turn over the pages of the repertory of the Théâtre-Français for the whole of the year 1814, the only new play we shall find is the _Hôtel garni_, a comedy in one act, and in verse, by Désaugiers.

Meanwhile, at each fresh victory, Napoleon lost a province. Driven-to bay at Fontainebleau, he abdicated. Three days later, the allied forces marched into Paris, and Napoleon left for the isle of Elba. There were still two factions at the Comédie-Française, as there had been during the time of the Revolution. Talma, Mars and Georges remained loyally faithful to the emperor. Raucourt, Mademoiselle Levert, Madame Volnais espoused the Royalist cause. Raucourt was the first to tear down the eagle which decorated the imperial box. Poor soul! she little knew that those whom she helped to recall would refuse her Christian burial, one year later!

The same kings who had been present at the Erfürt representations, as Napoleon's guests and friends, came as enemies and conquerors to see the same plays in Paris. Everybody knows the terrible reaction that took place at first against the Empire. The actors who remained faithful to the emperor were not persecuted, but they were made to exclaim as they came on the stage, "Vive le roi!"

One day Mademoiselle Levert and Madame Volnais outdid even the exacting demands of the public: they came on the stage, in the _Vieux Célibataire_, with huge bouquets of lilies in their hands.

So things went on until 6 March 1815. On that day a strange, incredible, unheard-of rumour spread through Paris, and, from Paris, to all the four quarters of the earth. Napoleon had landed. Many hearts trembled at the news; but few were more agitated than those of the faithful actors who had not forgotten that once, when he was master of the world and emperor he had conversed upon art and poetry with them.

Nevertheless, nobody dared express his joy: hope was faint, the truth of the rumour uncertain.

According to the official newspapers, Napoleon was wandering, hunted and beaten, among the mountains, where he could not avoid being captured before long. Truth, like everything that is real, makes itself seen in the end. A persistent rumour came from Gap, from Sisteron, from Grenoble; the fugitive of the _Journal des Débats_ was a conqueror round whom the people rallied in intoxicated delight. Labédoyère and his regiment, Ney and his army corps rallied round him. Lyons had opened its gates to him, and from the heights of Fourvières the imperial eagle had started on the flight which, from tower to tower, was to bring it at last to the towers of Nôtre Dame.

On 19 March, the Tuileries was evacuated: a courier was sent to carry this news to Napoleon, who was at Fontainebleau. People expected him all day long on the 20th; they felt confident that he would make a triumphal entry along the boulevards. Mars and Georges had taken a window at Frascati's. They wore hats of white straw, with enormous bunches of violets in them. They attracted much notice, for it was known that they had been persecuted for a year at the Comédie-Française on account of their attachment to the emperor.

The bouquets of violets symbolised the month of March: the King of Rome's birthday was in the month of March, and also the return of Napoleon. From that day violets became a badge. People wore violets in all sorts of fashions--in hats, hanging by their sides, as trimmings to dresses. Some, more fanatic than others, wore a gold violet in their buttonholes, as an order of chivalry. There was quite as great a reaction against the Bourbons as there had been in their favour a year before.

When Talma, Mars and Georges appeared, they were overwhelmed with applause. Georges saw the emperor again at the Tuileries. By dint of his powerful character, Napoleon seemed to have put everything behind him. One might have said he had not left the château of Catherine de Médicis save, as had been his custom, to bring back news of a fresh victory. The only thing that distressed him was that they had taken away some of his favourite pieces of furniture.

He missed greatly a little boudoir, hung with tapestry that had been worked by Marie-Louise and the ladies of the Court.

"Would you believe it, my dear," he said to Georges, "I found asparagus stalks on the arm-chairs!" This was the worst with which he reproached Louis XVIII.

The return of the god was of as short duration as the apparition of a ghost. Waterloo succeeded Leipzig; Saint-Helena, the isle of Elba. It was a more terrible, a more melancholy counterpart! Leipzig was but a wound, Waterloo was death; the isle of Elba was but exile, Saint-Helena was the tomb!

One might almost say that he carried everything away with him. We again turn over the leaves of the repertory of the Théâtre-Français and we do not find any play of importance produced throughout the year 1815. The lilies reappeared and the poor violets were exiled;--with the violets, Georges exiled herself. She went to the provinces, where she remained for several years; she reappeared in 1823, more beautiful than she had ever been. She was then thirty-eight.

I will find an opportunity to pass in review the men of letters and the literary works of the Empire, to which, on account of my callow youth, I have scarcely referred, during the period in which these men and their works flourished. Indeed, when Georges made her début, the two men who were to add to her reputation by means of _Christine, Bérengère_ and _Marguerite de Bourgogne, Marie Tudor_ and _Lucrèce Borgia_, were still wailing at their mothers' breasts. Taken all round, whatever people may say, these five rôles were Georges' greatest successes. Meanwhile, on 12 April 1823, the great actress played in _Comte Julien_ at the Odéon.