CHAPTER XIII

Alfred de Vigny--The man and his works--Harel, the manager at the Odéon--Downfall of Soulié's _Christine_--Parenthesis about Lassailly--Letter of Harel, with preface by myself and postscript by Soulié--I read my _Christine_ at the Odéon--Harel asks me to put it into prose--First representation of the _More de Venise_--The actors and the papers

Whilst the Théâtre-Français was waiting for the famous 1st of October, on which Hugo had engaged to provide the unnamed drama at which he was working, in place of _Marion Delorme_, they decided to rehearse Shakespeare's _Othello_, translated by Alfred de Vigny, which, in common with _Henri III._ and _Marion Delorme_, had been received with enthusiastic acclamation at its reading before the committee.

Alfred de Vigny completed the poetic trinity of the period, although his work was of a lower order: people talked of Hugo and Lamartine, or Lamartine and Hugo, and spoke of Alfred de Vigny as of the next rank. Alfred de Vigny possessed very little imagination, but he had a fine and correct style; he was known by his romance _Cinq-Mars_, which would only have met with a medium success had it appeared nowadays, but, coming as it did at a time of dearth in literature, it had a great run.

When Hugo read _Marion Delorme_ de Vigny had whispered to his friends--this sort of thing is always said to one's friends--that Didier and Saverny, the two principal characters in the drama, were an imitation of Cinq-Mars and de Thou. But I am convinced that, when Hugo wrote his play, he never even thought of de Vigny's romance.

Besides the novel _Cinq-Mars_, de Vigny had composed several dainty little poems in the then current manner: Byron had set the fashion for this kind of poem. Among these five or six charming little poems were _Eloa_ and _Dolorida._ Finally, he had just published an extremely touching elegy on two unhappy young people who had committed suicide at Montmorency, under cover of the noise of the music of a ball.

De Vigny was a very singular man; he was polite and affable and gentle in all his dealings, but he affected the most utter unworldliness--an affectation, moreover, that accorded perfectly with his charming face, its delicate and refined features, encased in long fair curly hair, making him look like a brother of the cherubim. De Vigny never descended to earthly things if he could avoid it; if perchance he folded his wings and rested on the peak of a mountain, it was a concession which he made to humanity, because, after all, it was useful to him when he held his brief intercourse with us. Hugo and I used to marvel greatly at his utter unconsciousness of the material needs of our nature, which many of us, Hugo and I among the number, satisfied not only without any feeling of shame but with a certain sensual enjoyment. None of us had ever surprised de Vigny at table. Dorval, who for seven years of her life had passed several hours a day with him, declared to us with an astonishment almost amounting to terror, that she had never even seen him eat a radish! Now even Proserpine, a goddess, was not so abstemious as that; carried off by Pluto to the lower regions, she had, from the first, in spite of the preoccupation of mind to which her unappetising sojourn had naturally disposed her, managed to eat seven pomegranate seeds! Nevertheless, these characteristics did not prevent de Vigny from being an agreeable companion, a gentleman to his finger-tips, always ready to do you a kindness and totally incapable of doing you a bad turn. Nobody exactly knew de Vigny's age; but, judging approximately, as it was known that de Vigny had served in the guards on the return of Louis XVIII., and supposing he was eighteen at the time he entered the service, say in 1815, he must have been thirty-two in 1829.

It will be observed that all these great revolutionaries were very young and that the revolutionary poets were very much like the three generals of the Revolution of whom I have, I believe, spoken, who commanded the army of Sambre-et-Meuse, and whose combined ages reckoned seventy years: Hoche, Marceau and my father.

The coming representation of _Othello_ made a great stir. We all knew de Vigny's translation, and although we should have preferred to have been supported by national troops and a French general, rather than by this poetical condottiere, we realised that we must accept all the arms we could against our enemies, especially when such arms came from the arsenal of the great master of us all--Shakespeare. Mademoiselle Mars and Joanny were allotted the principal parts. They were powerful auxiliaries, but they were not precisely the kind we wanted. Mademoiselle Mars and Joanny looked a little awkward in the habiliments which (dramatically speaking) were not suitable to their figures. Mademoiselle Mars was a charming woman of the Empire period, refined, light, delicate, graceful, satirical, possessing none of the gentle, innocent melancholy of the Moor's mistress; and Joanny, with his _retroussé_ nose _à la_ Odry and his gestures with no grandeur or majesty in them, did not recall the gloomy and terrible lover of Desdemona. The part of Iago that Ducis had replaced by that of Pezarre, as one replaces a flesh-and-bone leg by a wooden one, fell to the lot of Perrier, and was to make its appearance in full daylight for the first time.

So the representation was looked forward to with much impatience; but, whilst awaiting this solemn occasion, which, as we have mentioned, was to take place at the Théâtre-Français, another production was being prepared at the Odéon which was of special importance to me, namely, the _Christine à Fontainebleau_ by Frédéric Soulié. M. Brault's _Christine_ died a few days after its birth, as I have said in due course, and had disappeared without leaving any trace!

The Odéon had been recently reorganised on new lines. Harel, whom we have seen attempting to seize _Marion Delorme_ at Hugo's house by surprise, formerly secretary to Cambacérès, formerly sous-préfet of the department of l'Aisne, formerly préfet of the Landes, a political refugee in 1815, editor of the _Nain Jaune_ in Belgium, in short, one of the most versatile men who ever lived, had just been appointed director of the Odéon, I believe in place of Éric Bernard. He had opened the theatre with Lucien Arnault's _États de Blois_, which did not meet with a great success, in spite of the sumptuous manner in which the piece had been mounted; and, being a good journalist and clever at handling the triple element which comprises the feuilleton, the short paragraph and the puff, Harel knew how to set the drums sounding in favour of my friend Frédéric Soulié's _Christine à Fontainebleau._

I had not seen Frédéric since the night upon which we had parted with feelings of coldness towards one another and had each--decided to go on with our own _Christines._ _Henri III._ and its success and all the renown it had brought with it had passed without my hearing mention of Soulié's name. His _Christine_ was finished and that was the last I heard of him. He had sent me two seats in the gallery for his _Juliette_ and I had sent him two balcony tickets for my _Henri III._, and that was the extent of our exchange of politeness. I expected seats to be sent me for _Christine_, but, to my great astonishment, I did not receive them. Later, I found out that this was due to Harel, who feared I should do the play an ill turn, and so opposed tickets being sent me.

As I had no seat for the first production I made no effort to procure one for myself; and I went to bed quite satisfied that I should hear first thing next morning whether the play had been received with applause or hissed at. As a matter of fact, one of my good friends, a lad who had done nothing then beyond showing promise of talent but who has since made his mark, Achille Comte, came to my room at seven next morning. Poor _Christine_ had fallen quite flat. Soulié, apparently, had conceived the notion of introducing an Italian bandit in the forest of Fontainebleau, and this had produced the most grotesque effect imaginable. The day before, I should have thought that this news would have delighted me after Soulié's treatment of me; but, on the contrary, it made me feel wretchedly miserable. The innocent and primitive friendships of our youth are the only real friendships.

The reading of _Marion_ had not only impressed me deeply, but it had done me immense service: it had opened out to me hitherto undreamed-of poetic suggestions; it had revealed to me possibilities in the way of treating poetry of which I had never thought; finally, it had given me my first idea for _Antony._ The day after the reading of _Marion Delorme_ I set to work with unusual courage. Before the music of the lines I had listened to the previous night had ceased ringing in my ears, I had started, inspired by the harmony of their dying strains; and the new _Christine_ opened its eyes to the strains of the distant and melodious echo which still lived in my spirit, although the sound itself had ceased.

I must be allowed a brief digression on the subject of _Christine_: I give it as a study in manners and customs and I hope it will not be mistaken for boasting.

There was in those days, outside the literary world, a big fellow who was half an idiot, with a long crooked nose and legs like Seringuinos in the _Pilules du Diable._ He was, I believe, the son of an Orléans apothecary and he played the young Don Juan to chambermaids and daughters of the porter, whom he transformed into baronesses and duchesses in his elegies and sonnets; he wrote a novel which was published but, I am certain, was never read. This novel was entitled the _Roueries de Trialph._ His name was Lassailly.

There are certain people who acquire the odd privilege of introducing the grotesque into the most mournful and heartrending of scenes, and Lassailly was one of the most highly favoured of these purveyors of the ridiculous. Once, I had gone to bed and was writing the first scene between Paula and Monaldeschi and had got to these lines--

"Oh! garde-moi! je serai ta servante! Tout ce qu'une amour pure ou délirante invente De bonheurs, oui, pour toi, je les inventerai! Quand tu me maudiras, moi, je te bénirai-- J'aurai des mots d'amour qui guériront ton âme; Garde-moi! Je consens qu'une autre soit ta femme; Je promets de l'aimer, d'obéir à sa loi; Mais, par le Dieu vivant, garde-moi! garde-moi!..."

Suddenly I heard the door of my sitting room open and a howling being of some sort or other approached my bedroom; next I saw my bedroom door open and Lassailly entered, flinging himself on the carpet and tearing his hair. The apparition was so unexpected, so strange and even so terrifying that I stretched out my hand for the double-barrelled pistols I kept in a recess at the head of my bed. When I saw that it was Lassailly, I pushed the pistols back and awaited an explanation of this exhibition of buffoonery. The explanation was sad enough: the poor devil's father had thrown himself into the river and Lassailly had just learned both that his father had been drowned and that his body, after having been taken out of the water, was exposed at the Orléans Morgue, whence it could not be taken away without the payment of a certain sum of money. Lassailly had not a halfpenny towards this sum and he had come to ask it of me. At the sight of the son weeping for his father, who had met with his death in this deplorable manner, I could only visualize one mental picture: I was not so much impressed by the son's grief, which, however extravagant in expression, to the point of grotesqueness, was still, perhaps, sincere at bottom; but by the thought of the real, unforeseen and irreparable misery of the poor wretch that had been drawn from the waters of the Loire, pale and streaming, and sad, with eyes dimmed by death, and face smeared with river weeds, now laid on the damp stones of the Morgue. I did not attempt to console Lassailly: one does not offer comfort unless people ask for it. Rachel weeping for her children in Ramah, and filling the air with her lamentations, would not be comforted, because they were not.

"My friend," I said, "let us get to the most pressing part of the business. You want to go to Orléans, do you not? To bury your father? You say it will cost you a hundred francs; I think it will cost you more than that, and I would like to offer you as much as you will need; but I can only offer you as much as I possess.... Open that chiffonier drawer, which contains a hundred and thirty-five francs, take a hundred and thirty and leave me five...."

Lassailly tried to throw himself into my arms, made an attempt to embrace me and called me his saviour; but I gently pushed him away, pointed with my hand to the drawer and repeated--

"There, there ... take it; ... take a hundred and thirty francs, and leave me five."

He took the sum and left, and when he had gone I resumed and finished my scene between Paula and Monaldeschi. A fortnight later, the first, and to be accurate also the last, number of a little paper was brought to me. A critic announced in a prefatory article that it meant to tell the truth for the first time about the various high-flown false reputations that sprang up in a night. The article went on to say that it meant at last to put men and things in the places God had intended them to occupy.

I This series of the avengers of justice, these literary executions, began with Alexandre Dumas. The article was signed "Lassailly," and had brought him in a hundred francs! The man who brought me the paper was acquainted with what I had done for Lassailly a fortnight before.

"Well," he asked, "what do you say to that?"

"Poor boy!" I replied; "he has perhaps had to bury his mother!"

And I stuffed the journal into the chiffonier drawer from whence he had taken the hundred and thirty francs which he never paid back. Lassailly has since died, and the paper was never resuscitated.

Let us now return to the two _Christines._ Directly, as I have said, I learnt the failure of Soulié's, I finished mine within a month almost, and it then had the form it now bears. I went, that same day, to find the manager of the Théâtre-Français, whose name I have forgotten. He was a kind of mulatto, with big eyes and yellow skin, and, with the letter of the committee in my hand, M. Brault's _Christine_ having been played, I asked that mine should be put in rehearsal. There was, indeed, to be a committee the next day; and the manager replied that he would lay the matter before them. The committee decided that as it was a matter of common knowledge that I had altered my work, I ought to submit to a second reading. But as this second reading was, in reality, a third reading, I declined the proposal outright. And with this struggle with the Comédie-Française began a lasting series of friendly dealings between us. In the middle of the conflict I received a letter from Harel couched in the following terms:--

"MY DEAR DUMAS,--What do you think of this idea of Mademoiselle Georges? To play your _Christine_ immediately, on the same stage and with the same actors as those who played Soulié's _Christine_? The conditions to be settled by yourself. You need not trouble your head with the idea that you will strangle a friend's work, because it yesterday died a natural death.--Yours ever, HAREL"

I called my servant, and on the epistle which I have above transcribed I wrote the words--

"MY DEAR FRÉDÉRIC,--Read this letter. What a rascal your friend Harel is!--Yours, ALEX. DUMAS"

My servant took the letter to the sawmill at la Gare and, an hour later, he brought me back this answer at the bottom of the same letter. Frédéric had written--

"MY DEAR DUMAS,--Harel is not my friend, he is a manager. Harel is not a rascal, only a speculator. I would not do what he is doing, but I would advise him to accept. Gather up the fragments of my _Christine_--and I warn you there are plenty of them--throw them into the basket of the first rag-and-bone man that passes your way and get your own piece played.--Yours ever, F. SOULIÉ"

It will be admitted that Harel's letter was a very curious document, with its preface and its postscript. With this authorisation, I did not see any difficulty in the way of accepting Harel's offers. My sole stipulation was that, whether my play were received or not at the reading of the committee, it should be proceeded with within six weeks of the date of the agreement.

The reading before the committee was fixed for the following Saturday and the reading before the actors for Sunday night. I had my reasons for being suspicious of the committee: it had received me under reservation of correction and, as the committee of the Théâtre-Français had given me Samson as reviser, the committee of the Odéon appointed MM. Tissot and Sainte-Beuve as their advisers. As Cavé rose to leave, he declared that the play contained some fine passages, but that it was not suitable for acting. And he was the only friend I had on the committee!

Harel was completely staggered; for, although he was an able man, he could not distinguish good poetry from bad, and did not know what was great or beautiful.

I wish it to be thoroughly understood that I do not mean these remarks to apply to his doubts about _Christine_, but only to his judgment generally. He worshipped Voltaire, and, before he died, he had the happiness to be decorated for his eulogium on the author of _Zaïre._ While I strongly admired Voltaire as a philosopher and narrator, on the other hand I thought but little of him as a poet, and specially as a dramatic poet; as a dramatist, his methods are ordinary, worn-out and melodramatic; as a writer, his lines are poor, sententious and badly rhymed. It is unfortunate for the philosopher of Ferney, but it must be, confessed that it is only in his infamous poem the _Pucelle_ that he is well-nigh unapproachable; and even those who are revolted by the impiety, historical calumny and patriotic ingratitude of it are compelled to admire the work, for it is a masterpiece.

In spite of Cavé's opinion and Harel's perturbation, the reading before the actors was still allowed to take place on the following day: it had been agreed upon. I say _it had been agreed upon_, because, if it bad not been, the reading would certainly never have taken place. And Harel asked permission for Jules Janin to be present at the reading. Janin had then made over all his rights to Harel, and although I did not place absolute reliance in the fanciful and capricious taste of the future prince of critics, I made no opposition to his presence. I possessed, at that time, the horrifying amount of assurance that always accompanies inexperience and supreme self-satisfaction. It has taken a great deal of success to cure me of my conceit!

I read to the actors--that class of people which, taking all things into consideration, is the quickest at judging beforehand of the effect of a piece, although every actor, in general, listens to the work that is being read to him from his own particular point of view, thinks mainly of the effect of his own part and does not worry himself over those of his neighbours. The reading was a great success, but Harel was none the less troubled by an idea that he did not reveal until next day. He came to me at break of day to propose to me, in all simplicity, to put _Christine_ into prose. And this was how Harel exhibited himself to me in all his glory at the very outset. Of course I laughed in his face and, after laughing at him, I showed him the door.

The following day, the first rehearsal took place, as though no such suggestion had ever been made. The piece was capitally mounted: Georges played Christine; Ligier, Sentinelli; Lockroy, Monaldeschi; and Mademoiselle Noblet, whose début it almost was, played Paula. It had been decreed on high that the person for whom the latter rôle had been made was not to play it! "Man proposes, God disposes." Even the two slight parts of the assassins of Monaldeschi were played by two actors of the very highest merit, Stockleit and Duparay.

Just as my rehearsals began, Alfred de Vigny's ended. Our relative partisans were exasperated with us, and with some reason. They demanded loudly that we should not be played, whilst we demanded with even louder outcries that we should be played.

The first representation of the _More de Venise_ was introduced with every appearance of a battle. Mademoiselle Mars had gone over bag and baggage from the old style of comedy to the new modern school of drama; we had won over Joanny, Perrier and Firmin, and in short there was not an actor down to the excellent David, who had accepted the small part of Cassio, who would not be acting in the Shakespearian exhibition that was preparing. The rage of the men who for thirty years had monopolised the Théâtre-Français had to be seen, before an idea could be conceived of the howls and curses that were flung at us. These gentlemen only seemed acquainted with Shakespeare through what Voltaire had said about him, and Schiller by means of M. Petitot. When M. Lebrun and M. Ancelot had borrowed their _Maria Stuart_ and _Fiesque_ from the German Shakespeare, they decided that MM. Ancelot and Lebrun had done Schiller great honour thereby, and a host of articles had demonstrated that very indifferent works--works only fit for the stage of a fair--were real classical masterpieces! This time, the public was not going to see Shakespeare corrected, castrated and docked, but--save for the loss he must necessarily sustain from translation--the giant himself, who had kept the crowning place in England during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. If these sacrilegious exhibitions continued, what could Zaïre say confronted with Desdemona, Ninus with Hamlet or the _Deux Gendres_ with _King Lear?_ Such pale and sickly counterfeits of nature and truth must fail and come to nothing or suffer by comparison!

I opened a paper by chance and in it I read:--

"The representation of the _More de Venise_ is being prepared for as though there were going to be a battle to decide some great literary question. It is to settle whether Shakespeare, Schiller and Goethe are to drive Corneille, Racine and Voltaire from the French stage."

This was a delicious lapse from truth and exquisitely spiteful; for, thanks to the notion of the expulsion of the masters, it excited the bourgeois classes, and the question, which was entirely beside the mark, by the very form it took, gave justification to those who put it.

No! indeed no! These masters of art were no more driven from their time-honoured Parnassus than the _bourgeoisie_ drove out the aristocracy from the positions they had occupied since the beginning of the monarchy. No, we did not say to these great masters, "Retire and give up your places to us!" but, "Allow us to aspire to the same rights with you, if we deserve to do so. The heathen Olympus was large enough to contain six thousand gods, make then a little space, ye gods of old France, for the Scandinavian and Teutonic gods. The religion of Molière, of Corneille and of Racine was ever that of the State; but let liberty for all religions be proclaimed!"

But they were too narrow and exclusive, and, instead of welcoming these new gods, instead of hailing all that was lofty in them and only criticising what was unworthy in them, the political exiles of yesterday wanted to-day to enforce a literary proscription. It seems incredibly strange and mysterious, but nevertheless so it was!

In spite of violent opposition, _Othello_ succeeded. The groans of the jealous African were heard for the first time, and people were moved and shivered and trembled under the sobs of that terrible wrath. Joanny, carried away by his part, was often remarkable in his acting, and once or twice he was sublime. I never saw anything more picturesque than that great African figure as it strode the stage in the darkness of night, draped like a spectre in its large white _burnous_, whispering in a gloomy voice, with arms extended towards Desdemona's dwelling--

"... Get you to bed on the instant; I will be returned forthwith ..."

Mademoiselle Mars, who was of a much wider discernment in her art than Joanny, was uniformly excellent; once she was sublime, namely, where, springing up on her bed, she exclaims, giving the lie in advance to Iago's accusation--

"He will not say so."

I am writing all this from memory, as will be readily guessed, so I quote only the parts that stand out most clearly in my mind, after an interval of twenty-two years. I may therefore be pardoned for not quoting more than these two instances.

Well, the strange part of the situation was that the Liberal papers, those which cried up movement and progress in politics, were the reactionaries in literature; while the Royalist papers, those which took the side of stagnation and conservatism in politics, were the revolutionaries in literature. It was still more difficult to comprehend if one did not know that the _Constitutionnel_, the _Courrier français_ and the _Pandore_ were edited by MM. Jay, Jouy, Arnault, Étienne, Viennet, etc., whilst the _Quotidienne_, the _Drapeau blanc_ and the _Foudre_ were under the management of Merle, Théaulon, Brisset, Martainville, Lassagne, Nodier and Mély-Jeannin. The one set worked for the Théâtre-Français and, having usurped the position, meant to keep it; the others, in general, had only worked for the boulevard theatres, and these were eager to have a breach made in the classical ramparts to give access to themselves. Merle was, besides, the husband of Madame Dorval, whose talent was just beginning to make a sensation and who had created with incontestable success the rôles of Amélie in _Trente Ans ou la Vie d'un Joueur_ and of Charlotte Corday in _Sept Heures_, also of Louise in _l'Incendiaire._ We need not mention the part of Héléna in _Marino Faliero_, for the part was poor and Madame Dorval was not able to transform a bad part into a good one.

I have mentioned that the rehearsals of _Christine_ had begun. Let us leave them to pursue their course and take a peep into the world of city-life, which we have deserted for a very long time for the world of the stage. Whilst changing scenes, we will nevertheless conduct our reader to the house of a comedian who was worth quite as much attention as the actors we are leaving. Furthermore, he was not among those who for fifty years had been playing the less conspicuous parts in the great drama which had attracted all attention and occupied all minds, during the conclusion of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. Let us reveal the fact that we are about to speak of Paul-François-Jean-Nicodème, Comte de Barras.