CHAPTER VIII

First performance of _Robert le Diable_--Véron, manager of the Opéra--His opinion concerning Meyerbeer's music--My opinion concerning Véron's intellect--My relations with him--His articles and _Memoirs_--Rossini's judgment of _Robert le Diable_--Nourrit, the preacher--Meyerbeer--First performance of the _Fuite de Law_, by M. Mennechet--First performance of _Richard Darlington_--Frédérick-Lemaître--Delafosse--Mademoiselle Noblet

Led away into reminiscences of Escousse and of Lebras, whom we followed from the failure of _Pierre III._ to the day of their death, from the evening of 28 December 1831, that is, to the night of 18 February 1832, we have passed over the first performances of _Richard Darlington_ and even of _Térésa._ Let us go back a step and return to the night of 21 October, at one o'clock in the morning, to Nourrit's dressing room, who had just had a fall from the first floor of the Opéra owing to an ill-fitting trap-door.

The first representation of _Robert le Diable_ had just been given. It would be a curious thing to write the history of that great opera, which nearly failed at the first representation, now reckons over four hundred performances and is the _doyen_ of all operas now born and, probably, yet to be born. At first, Véron, who had passed from the management of the _Revue de Paris_ to that of the Opéra, had from the first hearing of Meyerbeer's work,--in full rehearsal since its acceptance at the theatre of the rue Lepeletier,--declared that he thought the score detestable, and that he would only play it under compulsion or if provided with a sufficient indemnity. The government, which had just made, with respect to that new management, one of the most scandalous contracts which have ever existed; the government, which at that period gave a subsidy to the Opéra of nine hundred thousand francs, thought Véron's demand quite natural; and convinced, with him, that the music of _Robert le Diable_ was execrable, gave to its well-beloved manager sixty or eighty thousand francs subsidy for playing a work which now provides at least a third of the fifty or sixty thousand francs income which Véron enjoys. Does not this little anecdote prove that the tradition of putting a man at the Opéra who knows nothing about music goes back to an epoch anterior to the nomination of Nestor Roqueplan,--who, in his letters to Jules Janin, boasts that he does not know the value of a semibreve or the signification of a natural? No, it proves that Véron is a speculator of infinite shrewdness, and that his refusal to play Meyerbeer's opera was a clever speculation. Now, does Véron prefer that we should say that he was not learned in music? Let him correct our statement. It is common knowledge with what respect we submit to correction. There is one point concerning which we will not admit correction: namely, what we have just said about Véron's intellect. What we here state we have repeated a score of times _speaking to him in person,_ as a certain class of functionaries has it. Véron is a clever man, even a very clever man, and it would not be doubted if he had not the misfortune to be a millionaire. Véron and I were never on very friendly terms; he has never, I believe, had a high opinion of my talent. As editor of the _Revue de Paris_ he never asked me for a single article; as manager of the Opéra, he has never asked me for anything but a single poem for Meyerbeer, and that on condition I wrote the poem in collaboration with Scribe; which nearly landed me in a quarrel with Meyerbeer and wholly in one with Scribe. Finally, as manager of the _Constitutionnel_, he only made use of me when the success which I had obtained on the _Journal des Débats_, the _Siècle_ and the _Presse_ had in some measure forced his hand. Our engagement lasted three years. During those three years we had a lawsuit which lasted three months; then, finally, we amicably broke the contract, when I had still some twenty volumes to give him, and at the time of this rupture I owed him six thousand francs. It was agreed that I should give Véron twelve thousand lines for these six thousand francs. Some time after, Véron sold the _Constitutionnel._ For the first journal that Véron shall start, he can draw upon me for twelve thousand lines, at twelve days' sight: on the thirteenth day the signature shall be honoured. Our position with regard to Véron being thoroughly established, we repeat that it is Véron's millions which injure his reputation. How can it be admitted that a man can both possess money and intellect? The thing is impossible!

"But," it will be urged, "if Véron is a clever man, who writes his articles? Who composes his _Memoirs?_"

Some one else will reply--"He did not; they are written by Malitourne."

I pay no regard to what may lie underneath. When the articles or the _Memoirs_ are signed Véron, both articles and _Memoirs_ are by Véron so far as I am concerned: what else can you do? It is Véron's weakness to imagine that he can write. Good gracious! if he did not write, his reputation as an intellectual man would be made, in spite of his millions! But it happens that, thanks to these deuced articles and those blessed _Memoirs_, people laugh in my face when I say that Véron has intellect. It is in vain for me to be vexed and angry, and shout out and appeal to people who have supped with him, good judges in the matter of wit, to believe me; everybody replies, even those who have not supped with him: That is all very well! You say this because you owe M. Véron twelve thousand lines! As if because one owes a man twelve thousand lines it were a sufficient excuse for saying that he has intellect! Take, for example, the case of M. Tillot, of the _Siècle_, who says that I owe him twenty-four thousand lines; at that rate, I ought to say that he has twice as much intellect as Véron. But I do not say so; I will content myself with saying that I do not owe him those twenty-four thousand lines, and that he, on the contrary, owes me something like three or four hundred thousand francs or more, certainly not less.

But where on earth were we? Oh! I remember! we were talking about the first night of _Robert le Diable._ After the third act I met Rossini in the green-room.

"Come now, Rossini," I asked him, "what do you think of that?"

"Vat do I zink?" replied Rossini.

"Yes, what do you think of it?"

"Veil, I zink zat if my best friend vas vaiting for me at ze corner of a wood vis a pistol, and put zat pistol to my throat, zaying, 'Rossini, zu art going to make zur best opera!' I should do it."

"And suppose you had no one friendly enough towards you to render you this service?"

"Ah! in zat case all vould be at an end, and I azzure you zat I vould never write one zingle note of music again!"

Alas! the friend was not forthcoming, and Rossini kept his oath.

I meditated upon these words of the illustrious maestro during the fourth and fifth acts of _Robert_, and, after the fifth act, I went to the stage to inquire of Nourrit if he was not hurt. I felt a strong friendship towards Nourrit, and he, on his side, was much attached to me. Nourrit was not only an eminent actor, he was also a delightful man; he had but one fault: when you paid him a compliment on his acting or on his voice, he would listen to you in a melancholy fashion, and reply with his hand on your shoulder--

"Ah! my friend, I was not born to be a singer or a comedian!"

"Indeed! Then why were you born?"

"I was born to mount a pulpit, not a stage."

"A pulpit!"

"Yes."

"And what the deuce would you do in a pulpit?"

"I should guide humanity in the way of progress.... Oh! you misjudge me; you do not know my real character."

Poor Nourrit! He made a great mistake in wanting to have been or to appear other than he was: he was a delightful player! a dignified and noble and kindly natured man! He had taken the Revolution of 1830 very seriously, and, for three months, he appeared every other day on the stage of the Opéra as a National Guard, singing the _Marseillaise_, flag in hand. Unluckily, his patriotism was sturdier than his voice, and he broke his voice in that exercise. It was because his voice had already become weaker that Meyerbeer put so little singing in the part of Robert. Nourrit was in despair, not because of his failure, but because of that of the piece. In common with everyone else, he thought the work had failed. Meyerbeer was himself quite melancholy enough! Nourrit introduced us to one another. Our acquaintance dates from that night.

Meyerbeer was a very clever man; from the first he had had the sense to place a great fortune at the service of an immense reputation. Only, he did not make his fortune with his reputation; it might almost be said that he made his reputation with his fortune. Meyerbeer was never for one instant led aside from his object,--whether he was by himself or in society, in France or in Germany, at the table of the hotel _des Princes_ or at the Casino at Spa,--and that object was success. Most assuredly, Meyerbeer gave himself more trouble to achieve success than in writing his scores. We say this because it seems to us that there are two courses to take. Meyerbeer should leave his scores to make their own successes; we should gain one opera out of every three. I admire the more this quality of tenacity of purpose in a man since it is entirely lacking in myself. I have always let managers look after their interests and mine on first nights; and, next day, upon my word! let people say what they like, whether good or ill! I have been working for the stage for twenty-five years now, and writing books for as long: I challenge a single newspaper editor to say he has seen me in his office to ask the favour of a single puff. Perhaps in this indifference lies my strength. In the five or six years that have just gone by, as soon as my plays have been put on the stage, with all the care and intelligence of which I am capable, it has often happened that I have not been present at my first performance, but have waited to hear any news about it that others, more curious than myself, who had been present, should bring me.

But at the time of _Richard Darlington_ I had not yet attained to this high degree of philosophy. As soon as the play was finished, it had been read to Harel, who had just left the management of the Odéon to take up that of the Porte-Saint-Martin, and, be it said, Harel had accepted it at once; he had immediately put it in rehearsal, and, after a month of rehearsals, all scrupulously attended by me, we had got to 10 December, the day fixed for the first performance. The Théâtre-Français was in competition with us, and played the same day _La Fuite de Law_, by M. Mennechet, ex-reader to King Charles X. In his capacity of ex-reader to King Charles X., Mennechet was a Royalist. I shall always recollect the sighs he heaved when he was compelled, as editor of _Plutarque français_, to insert in it the biography of the Emperor Napoléon. Had he been in a position to consult his own personal feelings only, he would certainly have excluded from his publication the Conqueror of Marengo, of Austerlitz and of Jena; but he was not the complete master of it: since Napoléon had taken Cairo, Berlin, Vienna and Moscow, he had surely the right to monopolise fifty or sixty columns in the _Plutarque français._ I know something about those sighs; for he came to ask me for that biography of Napoléon, and it was I who drew it up. In spite of the competition of the Théâtre-Français there was a tremendous stir over _Richard._ It was known beforehand that the play had a political side to it of great significance, and the feverishness of men's minds at that period made a storm out of everything. People crushed at the doors to get tickets. At the rising of the curtain the house seemed full to overflowing. Frédérick was the pillar who supported the whole affair. He had supporting him, Mademoiselle Noblet, Delafosse, Doligny and Madame Zélie-Paul. But so great was the power of this fine dramatic genius that he electrified everybody. Everyone in some degree was inspired by him, and by contact with him increased his own strength without decreasing that of the great player. Frédérick was then in the full zenith of his talent. Unequal like Kean,--whose personality he was to copy two or three years later,--sublime like Kean, he had the same qualities he exhibits to-day, and, though in a lesser degree, the same defects. He was just the same then in the relations of ordinary life,--difficult, unsociable, capricious, as he is to-day. In other respects he was a man of sound judgment; taking as much interest in the play as in his own part in the suggestions he proposed, and as much interest in the author as in himself. He had been excellent at the rehearsals. At the performance itself he was magnificent! I do not know where he had studied that gambler on the grand scale whom we style an ambitious man; men of genius must study in their own hearts what they cannot know except in dreams. Next to Frédérick, Doligny was capital in the part of Tompson. It was to the recollection I had of him in this rôle that the poor fellow owed, later, the sad privilege of being associated with me in my misfortunes. Delafosse, who played Mawbray, had moments of genuine greatness. One instance of it was where he waits at the edge of a wood, in a fearful storm, for the passing of the post-chaise in which Tompson is carrying off Jenny. An accident which might have made a hitch and upset the play at that juncture was warded off by his presence of mind. Mawbray has to kill Tompson by shooting him; for greater security, Delafosse had taken two pistols; real stage-pistols, hired from a gunsmith,--they both missed fire! Delafosse never lost his head: he made a pretence of drawing a dagger from his pocket, and killed Tompson with a blow from his fist, as he had not been able to blow out his brains. Mademoiselle Noblet was fascinatingly tender and loving, a charming and poetic being. In the last scene she fell so completely under Frédérick's influence as to utter cries of genuine not feigned terror. The fable took on all the proportions of reality for her. The final scene was one of the most terrible I ever saw on the stage. When Jenny asked him, "What are you going to do?" and Richard replied, "I do not know; but pray to God!" a tremendous shudder ran all over the house, and a murmur of fear, escaping from every breast, became an actual shriek of terror. At the conclusion of the second act Harel had come up to my _avant-scène_:[1]--I had the chief _avant-scène_ by right, and from it I could view the performance as though I were a stranger. Harel, I say, came up to entreat me to have my name mentioned with that of Dinaux: the name, be it known, by which Goubaux and Beudin were known on the stage. I refused. During the third act he came up again, accompanied this time by my two collaborators, and furnished with three bank-notes of a thousand francs each. Goubaux and Beudin, good, excellent, brotherly hearted fellows, came to ask me to have my name given alone. I had done the whole thing, they said, and my right to the success was incontestable. I had done the whole thing!--except finding the subject, except providing the outlines of the development, except, finally, the execution of the chief scene between the king and Richard, the scene in which I had completely failed. I embraced them and refused. Harel offered me the three thousand francs. He had come at an opportune moment: tears were in my eyes, and I held a hand of each of my two friends in mine. I refused him, but I did not embrace him. The curtain fell in the midst of frantic applause. They called Richard before the curtain, then Jenny, Tompson, Mawbray, the whole company. I took advantage of the spectators being still glued to their places to go out and make for the door of communication. I wanted to take the actors in my arms on their return to the wings. I came across Musset in the corridor; he was very pale and very much moved.

"Well," I asked him; "what is the matter, my dear poet?"

"I am suffocating!" he replied.

It was, I think, the finest praise he could have paid the work,--the drama of _Richard_ is, indeed, suffocating. I reached the wings in time to shake hands with everybody. And yet I did not feel the same emotion as on the night of _Antony!_ The success had been as great, but the players were nothing like as dear to me. There is an abyss between my character and habits and those of Frédérick which three triumphs in common have not enabled either of us to bridge. What a difference between my friendship with Bocage! Between Mademoiselle Noblet and myself, pretty and fascinating as she was at that date, there existed none but purely artistic relations; she interested me as a young and beautiful person of promising future, and that was all. What a difference, to be sure, from the double and triple feelings with which Dorval inspired me! Although to-day the most active of these sentiments has been extinguished these twenty years; though she herself has been dead for four or five years, and forgotten by most people who should have remembered her, and who did not even see her taken to her last resting-place, her name falls constantly from my pen, just as her memory strikes ever a pang at my heart! Perhaps it will be said that my joy was not so great because my name remained unknown and my personality concealed. On that head I have not even the shadow of a regret. I can answer for it that my two collaborators were more sadly troubled at being named alone than I at not being named at all. _Richard_ had an immense success, and it was just that it should: _Richard_, without question, is an excellent drama. I beg leave to be as frank concerning myself as I am with regard to others.

Twenty-one days after the performance of _Richard Darlington_ the year 1831 went to join its sisters in that unknown world to which Villon relegates dead moons, and where he seeks, without finding them, the snows of yester year. Troubled though the year had been by political disturbances, it had been splendid for art. I had produced three pieces,--one bad, _Napoléon Bonaparte_; one mediocre, _Charles VII._; and one good, _Richard Darlington._

Hugo had put forth _Marion Delorme,_ and had published _Notre-Dame de Paris_--something more than a _roman_, a book!--and his volume the _Feuilles d'Automne._

Balzac had published the _Peau de chagrin_, one of his most irritating productions. Once for all, my estimation of Balzac, both as a man and as an author, is not to be relied upon: as a man, I knew him but little, and what I did know did not rouse in me the least sympathy; as regards his talent, his manner of composition, of creation, of production, were so different from mine, that I am a bad judge of him, and I condemn myself on this head, quite conscious that I can justly be called in question.

But to continue. Does my reader know, omitting mention of M. Comte's theatre and of that of the Funambules, what was played in Paris from 1 January 1809 to 31 December 1831? Well, there were played 3558 theatrical pieces, to which Scribe contributed 3358; Théaulor, 94; Brazier, 93; Dartois, 92, Mélesville, 80; Dupin, 56; Antier, 53; Dumersan, 55; de Courcy, 50. The whole world compared with this could not have provided a quarter of it! Nor was painting far behind: Vernet had reached the zenith of his talent; Delacroix and Delaroche were ascending the upward path of theirs. Vernet had exhibited ... But before speaking of their works, let us say a few words of the men themselves.

[1] At the front of the stage.--TRANS.