CHAPTER XII

The invasion of barbarians--Rehearsals of _Hernani_--Mademoiselle Mars and the lines about the _lion_--The scene over the _portraits_--Hugo takes away from Mademoiselle Mars the part of Doña Sol--Michelot's flattering complaisance to the public--The quatrain about the cup-board--Joanny

There was this time nothing to fear from the Censorship: unless it were on the ground of modesty, there was nothing in _Hernani_ to which it could take exception. I really believe I have spoken of the _modesty_ of the Censorship! Upon my word, how shocking of me! but since I have said it, let it stay!

The piece naturally took the place of his first-born, _Marion Delorme_; it was read for form's sake, received with shouts of hurrahs and acclamation--Hugo read very well, especially his own works--the parts were allotted and the rehearsals started at once. I do not state the fact of Hugo's fine reading here because I think his manner of reading had any influence either way on the enthusiasm of his reception, but because, never having heard him speak at the Tribune, I cannot form any idea of the style of his public speaking from the very different opinions I have heard expressed concerning his oratorical style. I can only say that his speeches when read always seemed to me to be masterpieces of language and logic.

With the rehearsals began the worries. No one at the Théâtre-Français felt much real sympathy with the Romantic school save old Joanny; the rest (and Mademoiselle Mars was first among their number, in spite of the splendid success she had just achieved in the Duchesse de Guise) really looked upon the encroachment as a species of invasion by barbarians, to which they were laughingly obliged to submit. Underneath the flattery paid us by Mademoiselle Mars, there was always the mental reservation of an outraged woman. Michelot, professor at the Conservatoire, a man of the world, with finished manners, showed us his most gracious and agreeable side; but at heart he loathed us. And as to Firmin, whose talent was so essential to us--a real talent, although it had nothing to do with the highest reaches of form, namely, the plastic side of art--well, his literary judgment was worthless; he merely possessed a kind of dramatic instinct, which served in lieu of art, and gave movement and life to his acting. He liked us well enough, because we supplied him with means to exercise his qualities of action and life; but he was terribly in fear of the older school, and accordingly remained neutral in all the literary quarrels, rarely appearing at a reading, so that he might avoid being obliged to give his opinion. He was not a stumbling-block, but, on the other hand, he was certainly not a support.

The play--by which we mean the leading parts--was distributed between the four principal actors of the Théâtre-Français whom we have just mentioned. Mademoiselle Mars played Doña Sol; Joanny, Ruy Gomez; Michelot, Charles V.; and Firmin, Hernani. I have said that Mademoiselle Mars felt no sympathy with our style of literature; but I ought to add or, rather, to repeat that, in her theatrical dealings, she was strictly honourable, and, when she had gone through her first representation of a part and endured the fire of applause or of hissings that had greeted the fall of the curtain, no matter what the play was in which she was acting, she would have died rather than give in; she would submit to a martyrdom rather than--we will not say deny her faith, because our School was not included in her creed--break her word.

But, before this point was reached, there were between fifty and sixty rehearsals to be gone through, at which an incalculable number of observations were hazarded at the expense of the author, faces were made, and pin-pricks given him. And of course it often happened that these pin-pricks penetrated through the skin and stabbed to the heart. I have recounted my own sufferings from Mademoiselle Mars during the rehearsals of _Henri III._; the discussions, quarrels, disputes even which I had with her, the passionate scenes which, in spite of my obscurity, I was unable to refrain from causing, no matter what I risked in the future. The same thing was just as likely to happen to Hugo, and did happen. But Hugo and I were two absolutely different characters: he was cold and calm and polished and severe, and harboured the remembrance of good or ill done him; whilst I am open and quick and demonstrative, and make game of things, forgetful of ill, and sometimes of good. So the arguments between Mademoiselle Mars and Hugo were entirely different from mine. And remember that, on the stage, dialogues between actor and author usually take place before the foot-lights--that is to say, between the stage and the orchestra--so that not a word is lost by all the thirty to forty actors, musicians, managers, supernumeraries, call-boys, lighters-up, and firemen present at rehearsals. This audience, as will be understood, always does its best to catch any episode likely to distract the _ennui_ of the daily work, the rehearsal itself; this fact considerably adds to the nervous irritability of the interlocutors and, in consequence, tends to introduce a certain amount of tartness in the telephonic communications which take place between the orchestra and the stage.

Things happened somewhat after this fashion. In the middle of the rehearsal Mademoiselle Mars would suddenly stop.

"Excuse me, my friend," she would say to Firmin or Michelot or Joanny, "I want a word with the author."

The actor to whom she addressed her remark would bow his assent and stand motionless and silent where he happened to be.

Mademoiselle Mars would come up close to the footlights, with her hand shading her eyes, although she knew well enough in what part of the orchestra to look for the author whom she was pretending to find. This was her little curtain raiser.

"M. Hugo?" she would ask. "Is M. Hugo here?".

"I am here, madame," Hugo would reply, as he rose from his seat.

"Ah! that is all right!--thanks.... Will you please tell me, M. Hugo...."

"Madame?"

"I have this line to say--

'Vous êtes, mon lion, superbe et généreux!'"

"Yes, madame; Hernani says to you--

'Hélas! j'aime pourtant d'une amour bien profonde! Ne pleure pas ... Mourons plutôt! Que n'ai-je un monde, Je te le donnerais! Je suis bien malheureux!'

And you reply to him--

"Vous êtes, mon lion, superbe et généreux!'"

"Do you like that phrase, M. Hugo?"

"Which?"

'"_Vous êtes, mon lion!_'"

"That was how I wrote it, madame; so I think it is all right."

"Then you stick to your _lion?_"

"I may or may not, madame. If you can find something better, I will insert it instead."

"It is not my place to do so; I am not the author."

"Very well, then, madame; if that be so, leave what is written exactly as you find it."

"Really it does sound to me very comic to call M. Firmin _mon lion!_"

"Oh! that is because while acting the part of Doña Sol you think of yourself as Mademoiselle Mars. If you were a true pupil of Ruy Gomez de Sylva, a noble Castilian of the sixteenth century, you would only see Hernani in M. Firmin; you would look upon him as a terrible robber-chief, who made even Charles V. tremble in his capital; then you would comprehend how such a woman could call such a man _son lion_, and you would no longer look upon it as comic!"

"Very well! if you stick to your _lion_ we will say no more. It is my duty to say what is written, and as the manuscript has '_mon lion!_' I will say '_mon lion!_' Of course, it is all one to me. Let us go on, Firmin!

'Vous êtes, mon lion, superbe et généreux!'"

And the rehearsal would be resumed.

But, the next day, when Mademoiselle Mars reached the same place, she stopped as on the day before and, as on the day before, she approached the footlights, again going through the pretence of looking for the author with her hands shading her eyes.

"M. Hugo?" she would say in her harsh voice, the voice of Mademoiselle Mars and not of Célimène. "Is M. Hugo there?"

"Here I am, madame," Hugo would reply with the same placidity.

"Oh! that is all right. I am glad you are here."

"I had the honour of presenting you my compliments before the rehearsal, madame."

"True.... Well, have you thought over it?"

"Over what, madame?"

"Over what I said to you yesterday."

"You did me the honour of saying a great many things to me yesterday."

"Yes, that was so ... but I mean about that famous hemistich."

"Which?"

"Oh, good gracious! you know quite well the one I mean!"

"I swear I do not, madame; you make so many neat and valuable suggestions that I confuse one with the other."

"I mean the line about the _lion._"

"Ah yes! '_Vous êtes, mon lion!_' I remember...."

"Well, have you found another line?"

"I confess I have not tried to think of one."

"You do not then think the line risky?"

"What do you mean by risky?"

"Anything that is likely to be hissed."

"I have never presumed to claim exemption from being hissed."

"That may be; but you should avoid being hissed as much as possible."

"So you think the _lion_ phrase will be hissed?"

"I am certain of it!"

"Then, madame, it will be because you have not rendered it with your usual talent."

"I shall say it as well as I can.... All the same, I should prefer...."

"What?"

"To say something different...."

"What?"

"To have it altered altogether!"

"For what?"

"To say"--and Mademoiselle Mars made a show of trying to find the word which she had really been turning over in her mind for three days--"to say, for instance ... ahem!... say ... ahem!

'Vous êtes, _monseigneur_, superbe et généreux!'

_Monseigneur_ enables the line to be scanned just the same as _mon lion_, does it not?"

"Quite so, madame; only _mon lion_ lightens the line, and _monseigneur_ makes it heavy."

"I would much rather be hissed for a good line than applauded for a bad one. Very well, very well ... we will not bother any longer about it.... I will say your _good line_ without changing anything in it! Come, Firmin, my friend, let us go on....

'Vous êtes, mon lion, superbe et généreux!'"

It is a well-known fact that, on the day of the first representation, Mademoiselle Mars said, "_Vous êtes, monseigneur!_" instead of "_Vous êtes, mon lion!_"

The line was neither applauded nor hissed: it was not worth either notice.

A little farther on, Ruy Gomez, after having surprised Hernani and Doña Sol in one another's arms, at the announcement of the king's coming hides Hernani in a room, the door of which is hidden by a picture. Then begins the famous scene known by the title of the _scène des portraits_, which is composed of seventy-six lines and takes place between Don Carlos and Ruy Gomez, the scene in which Doña Sol listens as mute and motionless as a statue, in which she only takes part when the king wishes to have the duke arrested; when she tears off her veil and flings herself between the duke and the guards, exclaiming--

"Roi don Carlos, vous êtes Un mauvais roi!..."

This long silence and absence of movement had always been an offence to Mademoiselle Mars. The Théâtre-Français was used to the traditions of Molière's comedies or the tragedies of Corneille and was up in arms against the _mise en scène_ of the modern drama, neither understanding, as a whole, the passion of action nor the poetry of stillness. The consequence was that poor Doña Sol did not know what to do with herself during these seventy-six lines. One day she decided to have the matter out with the author. You know her way of interrupting the rehearsals and of advancing to the footlights. The author was in front of the orchestra and Mademoiselle Mars was behind the footlights.

"Are you there, M. Hugo?"

"Yes, madame."

"Ah, good!... Do me a service."

"With the greatest pleasure.... What is it?"

"Tell me what I am to do here."

"Where?"

"On the stage, while M. Michelot and M. Joanny are holding their dialogue."

"You are to listen, madame."

"Yes! I am to listen.... I know that; but I find listening rather tedious."

"Yet you know the scene was originally much longer and I have already cut it down by twenty lines."

"Yes, but could you not cut out another twenty lines?"

"Impossible, madame!"

"Or, at all events, arrange that I take some sort of part in it."

"But you naturally take part by your very presence. It is a question of the man you love whose life or death is being debated; it seems to me that the situation is sufficiently moving and strong to enable you to wait in patient silence to the close."

"All the same ... it is long!"

"I do not feel it so, madame."

"Very good! then we will say no more about it.... But the public are certain to ask, 'What is Mademoiselle Mars supposed to be doing with her hand upon her breast? It was not necessary to give her a part just to remain standing still, with a veil over her eyes, without saying a word for half an act!'"

"The public will say that under the hand of Doña Sol--not of Mademoiselle Mars--her heart is beating; that, beneath the veil of Doña Sol--not of Mademoiselle Mars--her face is crimsoning with hope or turning pale with terror; that, during the silence--not of Mademoiselle Mars but--of Doña Sol, Hernani's lover, the tempest is gathering in her heart which bursts forth in these words, none too respectful from a subject to her sovereign--

'Roi don Carlos, vous êtes Un mauvais roi!...'

And, believe me, madame, it will be sufficient for the public."

"If that is your idea, well and good. It is not on my account I am troubling myself about it: if they hiss during the scene it will not be at me they are hissing, as I do not speak one word.... Come on, Michelot; come on, Joanny; let us proceed.

'Roi don Carlos, vous êtes Un mauvais roi!..

There, does that satisfy you, M. Hugo?"

"Perfectly, madame." And Hugo bowed and sat down with his imperturbable serenity.

The next day, Mademoiselle Mars stopped the rehearsal at the same place, came up to the footlights and, shading her eyes with her hand, said, in exactly the same voice as that of the day before--

"Are you there, M. Hugo?"

"I am here, madame."

"Well, have you found me something to say?"

"Where?"

"Why, you know where ... in the famous scene where these gentlemen say a hundred and fifty lines while I stare at them and do not utter a word.... I know they are charming to contemplate, but a hundred and fifty lines take a long time to say."

"In the first place, madame, the scene is not a hundred and fifty lines in length, it is only seventy-six, for I have counted them; then, I did not make you any promise to put in something for you to say, since, on the contrary, I tried to prove to you that your silence and immobility, from which you emerge with terrible _éclat_, is one of the beauties of the whole scene."

"Beauties, beauties!... I am much afraid the public will not agree with you."

"We shall see."

"Yes, but you may see a little too late.... So you definitely mean to have your way in not giving me anything to say through the whole scene?"

"I do."

"It is all one to me; I will go to the back of the stage and let these gentlemen talk over their business in the front of it."

"You can retire to the back of the stage if you wish, madame, but as the affairs under discussion are as much yours as theirs, you will spoil the scene.... When it suits you, madame, the rehearsal shall be proceeded with."

And the rehearsal was continued.

But, every day, there were some interruptions of the kind to which we have just drawn attention; this annoyed Hugo greatly, for he was still only at the outset of his dramatic career, and imagined that the greatest difficulty was the creation of the play and the most vexatious that of putting it into proper form; he now discovered that all this was child's play compared with the rehearsals. At last, one day, he lost patience and, when the rehearsal was over, he went on the stage and, approaching Mademoiselle Mars, he said--

"Madame, may I be allowed the honour of a few words with you?"

"With me?" replied Mademoiselle Mars in astonishment at this solemn beginning.

"With you."

"Where?"

"Where you will."

"Come this way, then"; and, walking first, Mademoiselle Mars led Hugo into what in those days was called the _petit foyer_ (small green-room), which was, I believe, situated where nowadays is the salon belonging to the manager's box. Louise Despréaux was seated in a corner by herself.

We have mentioned that Louise Despréaux was one of the pet aversions of Mademoiselle Mars, Madame Menjaud being her favourite. I have described, in due course, the scene I had with Mademoiselle Mars over Louise Despréaux concerning the distribution of the part of page to the Duchesse de Guise. When she saw Mademoiselle Mars and Hugo enter, she discreetly rose and left the room; although I have strong suspicions that, with the inquisitiveness of seventeen years of age, she glued her ear and her rosy young face to the keyhole.

Mademoiselle Mars leant against the mantelpiece, holding her part in her hand.

"Well, what do you wish to say to me?" she asked.

"I wished to tell you, madame, that I have just made a resolution."

"What is it, monsieur?"

"To ask you to give up your part."

"My part!... Which?"

"The one you asked for in my drama, to my great honour."

"What! the part of Doña Sol," exclaimed Mademoiselle Mars, astounded; "do you mean this part?" ... And she pointed to the roll of paper which she held in her hand, frowning her black eyebrows over those eyes which could on occasion assume an incredibly hard expression.

Hugo bowed.

"Yes," he said, "the part of Doña Sol which you hold in your hand."

"Ah! that is it, is it?" said Mademoiselle Mars; and she struck the marble chimneypiece with the roll, and stamped on the floor with her foot. "This is the first time an author has ever asked me to give up my part!"

"Very well, madame; I think it is time an example should be set and I will set it."

"But why do you want to take it from me?"

"Because I believe I am right in saying, madame, that when you honour me with your remarks you appear totally to forget to whom you are speaking."

"In what way, monsieur?"

"Oh! I am aware that you are a highly talented lady ... but there is one point, I repeat, upon which you seem to be ignorant, to which I ought to call your attention; namely, that I also, madame, am a talented person: take this fact into consideration, I beg of you, and treat me accordingly."

"You think, then, that I shall act your part badly?"

"I know that you will play it admirably well, madame, but I also know that, from the beginning of the rehearsals, you have been extremely rude to me--conduct that is unworthy both of Mademoiselle Mars and of M. Victor Hugo."

"Oh!" she muttered, biting her pale lips, "you do indeed deserve to have your part given back to you!"

Hugo held out his hand.

"I am ready to take it, madame," he said.

"And if I do not play it, who will?"

"Oh! upon my word, madame, the first person that comes to hand.... Why, Mademoiselle Despréaux, for instance. She, of course, does not possess your talent, but she is young and she is pretty, and so will fulfil two out of the three conditions the part demands; then, too, she will yield me the deference to which I am entitled, of the lack of which, on your part, I have had to complain."

And Hugo stood with his arm stretched out and his hand open, waiting for Mademoiselle Mars to give him back the part.

"Mademoiselle Despréaux! Mademoiselle Despréaux!" muttered Mademoiselle Mars. "Ah! indeed that is a good joke!... So it seems you are paying attentions to Mademoiselle Despréaux?"

"I? I have never spoken a word to her in my life!"

"And you definitely and formally ask me to give you back my part?"

"Formally and definitely I ask you to give me back the part."

"Very well; I shall keep the rôle.... I shall play it, and as no one else would play it in Paris, I swear."

"So be it. Keep the rôle; only, do not forget what I have said to you with regard to the courtesy that should obtain between people of our distinction."

And Hugo bowed to Mademoiselle Mars and left her utterly overcome by that haughty dignity to which the authors of the Empire had not accustomed her; they had grovelled before her talent, conscious that, without her, their plays would not bring them in a halfpenny.

From that day, Mademoiselle Mars was cold but polite to Hugo and, as she had promised him, when the night of the first representation came, she played the part to perfection.

Michelot, a very different person from Mademoiselle Mars, was polite almost to the verge of sycophancy; but as he detested us in his heart of hearts, when the hour of the struggle came, instead of fighting loyally and valiantly, as Mademoiselle Mars did, he slyly went over to the enemy and gave the sharpshooters in the pit the hint where, at the most opportune moments, they might find our weakest places. Many liberties were taken with Michelot's part which an actor who had cared less for popular opinion would never have allowed himself to take. As a matter of fact, before the representation, we had waged rude warfare against the risky passages in the part of Don Carlos; I remember among others having very regretfully made Hugo cut out a quatrain to which Michelot seemed to cling tenaciously: I have since discovered why. These four lines were of that charmingly quaint turn which is natural to Hugo and to no one else.

When Ruy Gomez de Sylva goes back to his niece's house and is on the point of taking Don Carlos and Hernani by surprise, the latter, fearful for the reputation of Doña Sol, wishes to hide the king and himself in the very narrow cupboard which Don Carlos was about to vacate, wherein he was sufficiently uncomfortable by himself; but the king rebelled against the suggestion. Is it, indeed, he says--

"Est-ce donc une game à mettre des chrétiens? Nous nous pressons un peu; vous y tenez, j'y tiens. Le duc entre et s'en vient vers l'armoire où nous sommes, Pour y prendre un cigare.... Il y trouve deux hommes!"

For these lines to have their comic effect, they ought to be flung off with the lightheartedness and easy bearing of a king who numbers only nineteen years, and who is in the heyday of prosperity (notice that Charles V. was but nineteen when he was made Emperor of Germany)--well, they were declaimed in the same tones as Mahomet saying--

"Si j'avais à répondre à d'autres que Topyre, Je ne ferais parler que le Dieu qui m'inspire; Le glaive et l'Alcoran, dans mes terribles mains, Imposeraient silence au reste des humains!"

It was perfectly idiotie! so, on my persuasion, and in spite of Michelot's objections, who privately hoped those lines would _produce their effect_, the erasure was decided on and pitilessly adhered to.

I have said that it was very different with Joanny: he was an old soldier, the soul of honour and openness, who came to the fourth rehearsal without his manuscript, for he already knew his part thoroughly; so if one had to find any fault with him at all, it was that he became _blasé_, by the thirty to forty general rehearsals, before the first public performance of the piece.

This first representation was an important affair for our party. I had won the Valmy of the literary revolution; Hugo must win the Jemmapes in order that the new school might be well on the way to victory. So, when the time comes to speak of the first reproduction of _Hernani_, we will give it the full attention it deserves. But for the moment we must be slaves to chronology and pass from Victor Hugo to de Vigny, from _Hernani_ to _Othello._