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!"