CHAPTER XIII

Collaboration--A whim of Bocage--Anicet Bourgeois--_Teresa_--Drama at the Opéra-Comique--Laferrière and the eruption of Vesuvius--Mélingue--Fancy-dress ball at the Tuileries--The place de Grève and the barrière Saint-Jacques--The death penalty

During the interval which had elapsed between the construction of _Richard Darlington_ its first performance, I had blocked out another play entitled _Teresa._ I have said what I thought of _Charles VII._; I hope that my collaborator Anicet will allow me to say the same in the case of _Teresa._ I have no wish to defer expressing my opinion upon this drama: it is one of my very worst, as _Angèle_, also done in collaboration with Anicet, is one of my best. The evil of a first collaboration is that it leads to a second; the man who has once collaborated is comparable to one who lets his finger-end be entrapped in a rolling press: after the finger the hand goes, then the arm and, finally, his whole body! Everything is drawn in--one goes in a man and one comes out a bit of iron wire.

One day Bocage came to see me with a singular idea in his head. As he had just played a man of thirty, in the character of Antony, he had got it into his head that he would do well to play an old man of sixty; it mattered little to him what manner of man it might be. The old man in _Hernani_ and in _Marion Delorme_ rose up before him during his sleep and haunted him in his waking hours: he wanted to play an old man, were it Don Diègue in the _Cid_, Joad in _Athalie_ or Lusignan in _Zaïre._ He had found his old man out at nurse with Anicet Bourgeois; he came to fetch me to be foster-father. I did not know Anicet; we became acquainted on this matter and at this time. Anicet had written the plan of _Teresa._ I began by laying aside the written sketch and begging him to relate me the play. There is something more living and lifelike about a told story. To me a written plot is like a corpse, not a living thing; one may galvanise it but not give it life. Most of the play as it stands to-day was in Anicet's original plan. I was at once conscious of two things, the second of which caused me to overlook the first: namely, that I could never make _Teresa_ anything more than a mediocre play, but that I should do Bocage a good turn. And this is how I did Bocage that service.

Harel, as we have said, had gone from the management of the Odéon to that of the Porte-Saint-Martin. He had Frédérick, Lockroy, Ligier: Bocage was no use to him. So he had broken with him, and, in consequence of this rupture, Bocage found himself without an engagement. Liberty, in the case of an actor, is not always a gift of the gods. Bocage was anxious to put an end to this as soon as possible, and, thanks to my drama, he hoped soon to lose his liberty. That is why he treated _Teresa_ so enthusiastically as a _chef d'œuvre._ I have ever been less able to resist unspoken arguments than spoken ones. I understood the situation. I had had need of Bocage; he had played Antony admirably, and by so doing had rendered me eminent service: I could now do him a good turn, and I therefore undertook to write _Teresa._ Not that _Teresa_ was entirely without merit as a work. Besides the three artificial characters of Teresa, Arthur and Paolo, there were two excellent parts, those of Amélie and Delaunay. Amélie is a flower from the same garden as Miranda in _The Tempest_, Thekla in _Wallenstein_ and Claire in _Comte d'Egmont_; she is young, chaste and beautiful, and, at the same time, natural and poetic; she passes through the play with her bouquet of orange blossom at her side, her betrothal veil on her head, in the midst of the ignoble incestuous passion of Arthur and Teresa, without guessing or suspecting or understanding anything of it. She is like a crystal statue which cannot see through others but lets others see through it. Delaunay is a fine type, a little too much copied from Danville in the _École de Vieillards_, and from Duresnel in the _Mère et la Fille._ However--one must be just to everyone, even to oneself,--there are two scenes in his part which reach to the greatest heights of beauty to be met with on the stage: the first is where he insults Arthur, when the secret of the adultery is revealed to him; the second is where, learning that his daughter is _enciente_, and not desiring to make the mother a widow and the child an orphan, he makes excuses to his son-in-law. The drama was begun and almost finished in three weeks or a month; but I made the same condition with Anicet which I have always made when working in collaboration, namely, that I alone should write the play. When the drama was completed, Bocage took it, and we did not trouble our heads further about it. For three weeks or a month I did not see Bocage again. At the end of that time he came to me.

"Our business is settled," he said.

"Good! And how?"

"Your play is received in advance; you are to have a premium of a thousand francs upon its reading, and it is to be played immediately."

"Where?"

"At the Opéra-Comique."

I thought I must have misunderstood. "What?" I said.

"At the Opéra-Comique," repeated Bocage.

"Oh! that's a fine tale! Who made that up?"

"They are engaging the actors."

"Who are they?"

"Myself, in the first place."

"You do not play the drama all alone?"

"Then there is Laferrière."

"You two will not play it by yourselves?"

"Then a talented young girl who is at Montmartre."

"What is her name?"

"Oh! you will not even know her name; she is called Ida; she is just beginning."

"And then?"

"Then a young man recommended to me by your son."

"What! By my son? At six and a half years of age my son make recommendations of that sort?"

"It is his tutor."

"I see; he wants to get rid of him. But if that one leaves he will have another. Such is the simplicity of childhood! And what is the name of my son's tutor?"

"Guyon. He is a tall fellow of five foot six, with dark hair and eyes, and a magnificent head! He will make us a superb Paolo."

"So much for Paolo? Next?"

"Next we shall have the Opéra-Comique company, from which we can help ourselves freely. They sing."

"They sing, you are pleased to say; but can they speak?"

"That is your affair."

"So, is it settled like that?"

"If you approve. Are you agreeable?"

"Perfectly."

"Then we are to read it to the actors to-morrow."

"Let us do so."

Next day I read it to the actors; two days later the play was put in rehearsal. I knew Laferrière only slightly; but he had already at that period, when less used to the stage, the elements of talent to which he owed his reputation later as the first actor in love-scenes to be found between the Porte-Saint-Denis and the Colonne de Juillet. Mademoiselle Ida had a delicate, graceful, artless style, quite unaffected by any theatrical convention. Bocage was the man we know, endowed with youth, that excellent and precious fault, which is never injurious even in playing the parts of old men. So we were in the full tide of rehearsal, when the year 1832 began and the newspapers of I January announced a fearful eruption of Vesuvius.

I was considerably surprised to receive a visit from Laferrière with a newspaper in his hand, on the 7th or 8th. He was as much out of breath as I was the day I went to Delacroix to buy his _Marino Faliero._

"Hullo!" I said to him, "is the Opéra-Comique burnt down?"

"No, but _Torre-del-Grèco_ is burning."

"It ought to be used to it by now, for, if I mistake not, it has been rebuilt eleven times!"

"It must be a magnificent sight!"

"Do you happen to want to start for Naples?"

"No; but you might derive profit from it."

"How?"

"Read."

He handed me his newspaper, which contained a description of the latest eruption of Vesuvius.

"Well?" I said to him when I had read it.

"Well, do you not think that superb?"

"Magnificent!"

"Put that in my part then. Run your show with Vesuvius; the play would gain by it."

"And your rôle likewise."

"Of course!"

"You infernal mountebank; what an idea!"

Laferrière began to laugh.

There are two men who possess a great advantage for authors in two very different functions, with two very different types of talent: Laferrière is the one, and Mélingue the other. From the very hour when they have first listened to the reading of a work, to the moment when the curtain goes up, they have but one thought: to collect, weld together and work in anything that might be useful to the work. Their searching eyes are not distracted for one instant; not for a second do their minds wander from the point. They think of their parts while they are walking, eating and drinking; they dream of them while they sleep. I shall return to Mélingue more than once in reference to this quality, one of the most precious a great actor can possess.

Laferrière has plenty of pertinacity.

"Well," I said to him, "it is a good idea and I will adopt it."

"Will you really?"

"Yes."

"You promise me?"

"I promise you."

"Very well then.."

"What?"

"It is all the same to you..

"Say on."

"You will do it ..."

"Immediately?"

"Yes."

"Now, at once?"

"I beseech you."

"I have not time."

"Oh! mon petit Dumas! Do me my Vesuvius. I promise you, if you will do it to-day I will know it by to-morrow."

"Once more I tell you I haven't time."

"How long would it take you to do it?"

"How long?"

"Ten minutes ... come, that is all.... I entreat you!"

"Go to the deuce with you!"

"Mon petit Dumas!..."

"All right, we will see."

"You are kind!"

"Give me a pen, ink and paper."

"Here they are!... No, do not get up: I will bring the table up to you ... Come, is it comfortable like that?"

"Splendid! Now, go away and come back in a quarter of an hour."

"Oh! what will you be up to when I am gone?"

"I cannot work when anybody is with me. Even my dog disturbs me."

"I will not stir, mon petit Dumas! I will not utter one word; I will keep perfectly still."

"Then go and sit before the glass, button up your coat, put on a gloomy look and pass your hand through your hair."

"Certainly."

"And I will do my part of the work."

A quarter of an hour later, Vesuvius was making an eruption in Laferrière's part, and he took himself off in great glee and pride.

All things considered, the race of players are a good sort! A trifle ungrateful, at times; but has not our friend Roqueplan proclaimed the principle that "ingratitude is the independence of the heart?..."

At this time, people were tremendously taken up with a forthcoming event, as they were with everything of an artistic nature. King Louis-Philippe was giving a fancy-dress ball. Duponchel had been ordered to design the historic costumes; and people begged, prayed and implored for invitations. It was a splendid ball. All the political celebrities were present; but, as always happens, all the artistic and literary celebrities were absent.

"Will you do something which shall surpass the Tuileries ball?" said Bocage to me.

"What is that?"

"Give one yourself!"

"I! Who would come to it?"

"First of all, those who did not go to King Louis-Philippe's, then those who do not belong to the Académy. It seems to me that the guests I offer you are quite distinguished enough."

"Thanks, Bocage, I will think about it."

I thought about it to some purpose, and the result of my reflections will be seen in one of our forthcoming chapters.

On the 23rd of the month of January,--the next day but one after the anniversary of the death of King Louis XVI.,--the usual place for executions was changed from the place de Grève to the barrière Saint-Jacques. This was one step in advance in civilisation: let us put it down here, by quoting the edict of M. de Bondy.

"We, a peer of France, Préfet de la Seine, etc.; In view of the letter addressed to us by M. le Procureur-général at the Royal Court of Paris:

"Whereas the place de Grève can no longer be used as a place of execution, since the blood of devoted citizens was gloriously spilled there in the national cause: whereas it is important to choose, if possible, a place farther removed from the centre of Paris, yet which shall be easily accessible: whereas, for different reasons, the place situated at the extremity of the rue du faubourg Saint-Jacques seems to suit the requisite conditions; we have decided that--

"Criminals under capital punishment shall in future be executed on the ground at the end of the faubourg Saint-Jacques. COMTE DE BONDY"

This is what we wrote on the subject on 26 November 1849, in an epilogue to _Comte Hermann_,--one of our best dramas,--an epilogue not written to be spoken, but to be read, after the fashion of German plays--

"The death penalty, as applied to-day, has already undergone a great modification, not with respect to its final issue, but with regard to the details which precede the last moments of the condemned.

"Twenty years ago, executions still took place in the centre of Paris, at the most stirring hour of the day and before the greatest possible number of spectators. Thus an external means of support was provided for the doomed man against his own weakness. It did not make the sufferer into a repentant criminal, but a species of cynical victor, who, instead of confessing God upon the scaffold, bore testimony against the inadequacy of human justice, which could, indeed, kill the criminal, but was powerless to extinguish the crime.

"Now, it is quite otherwise. A step has been taken towards the abolition of capital punishment, by transporting the instrument of execution almost outside the precincts of the town, choosing the hour when the majority of the inhabitants of Paris are still asleep, only allowing the criminal during his last moments the rare witnesses that chance or excessive curiosity may attract to the scaffold.

"Nowadays, it is left to the priests who devote themselves to the salvation of the souls of the doomed to tell us if they find as much hardness of heart in the journey between Bicêtre and the barrière Saint-Jacques as they used to find in the journey from the Conciergerie to the place de Grève; and whether there are more tears shed at the foot of the crucifix now, at four o'clock in the morning, than formerly, at four in the afternoon. We firmly believe so. Yes, there are more repentances in the silence and solitude than there ever were in the tumult of the crowd. Now, let us consider that the act of execution, supported by the eager looks of the people, does not correct them or instruct them but only hardens their hearts; let us suppose that the execution takes place in the prison, with priest and executioner as sole witnesses; that, instead of the guillotine,--which, according to Dr. Guillotin, only occasions a feeling of a _slight chill_ on the neck, but which, according to Dr. Sue, causes terrible suffering,--the sole means of execution used is electricity, which kills like lightning, or even one of those stupefying poisons which act like sleep; will it not happen that the hearts of the doomed will soften still more in the night and silence and solitude, than in the open air, were it even at four o'clock in the morning, and in the presence of the few witnesses who are present at the execution, but who, few though they be, will none the less say to the criminal's companions, to his prison friends, '_un tel est bien mort!_' that is to say I such a one died without repenting, pushing the crucifix away from him?"

Since that time, the guillotine has come still nearer to the condemned man: now, they execute in front of the gates of the prison de la Roquette. It is but a few steps from that to executing inside the prison itself. And to descend from the prison courtyard into the dungeon itself is but a single step!