CHAPTER II

_Lucrèce Borgia_--Discouragement--First conception of the Historical Romances

In the midst of all this a great literary event had happened. Victor Hugo had had his first prose drama, _Lucrèce Borgia,_ performed at the théâtre Porte-Saint-Martin. It is difficult to believe it, but it is a fact, that during this stormy atmosphere literature sprang to life, and grew and increased from flower to fruit.

The play was splendidly put on. Georges and Frédérick played the principal parts. It contained powerfully moving passages, and had an immense success. Let us state that we owe this glowing picture of a portion of the life of the Duchesse d'Este to the absence of the censorship.

From the night of 2 February 1833 began the real life of the author of _Lucrèce Borgia_ and of _Orientales,_ as it appeared in his representation of his beautiful drama, _Marion Delorme._ You, lovely Princess Negroni, know what we mean, you, in whom he discovered the love and devotion that blessed every hour of his life in this his natal land as also in foreign lands.

Ah! dear Comtesse Dash, you may rightly say that, unluckily, the most interesting facts of these Memoirs are those which I cannot write down!

I witnessed the fresh success of Victor Hugo with great delight--although _friends_ had thrown some clouds across our early friendship--a joy all the greater as, having temporarily renounced the theatre myself, Hugo at that period represented the whole school.

Why had I renounced it? One experiences moments of lassitude and of disgust in life, quite beyond one's own control. I was passing through such a period. I had been deeply hurt--not by the failure of the _Fils de l'Émigré,_ for the play was poor; it had justly failed. I acknowledge and submit to the hard lessons which the public give an author--this simplicity, let us remark in passing, is a part of my strength--but, in the simplicity of my heart, I did not understand the fury of the Press against me. They indeed knew one thing--or rather two--

That I had fallen ill during the second or third act of the work; that I had left France in consequence of the troubles of June--namely, at the beginning of the rehearsals; that, finally, I was hardly responsible for a third of the work, and they attacked me concerning my five or six preceding successes. No wonder I was staggered. But, in other ways, this retiring into my shell, which I am not so presumptuous to compare with that of Achilles, was of great advantage with respect to my literary life, which it split into two divisions. Without the failure of the _Fils de l'Émigré,_ and the explosion of hatred which followed it, I should probably never have done anything but theatrical work. On the contrary, during the year's silence which I kept with regard to the stage, I published my first impressions of my travels, which was very successful among the booksellers, and I prepared my volume entitled, _Gaule et France,_ an unfinished but wonderful book, wherein the double vision of poet supplements the knowledge of the historian. Then, too, this latter work, which absorbed me completely, by precipitating me into the intoxication of unknown matters, was of still greater advantage to me than to the public for which I intended it: it did not teach the public much, but it taught me a great deal. I was, I repeat, profoundly ignorant in history. When I began a historical drama, I did not investigate the whole century in which my heroes had lived, but merely the two or three years during which my action took place and the event which formed the catastrophe of the drama was accomplished. I made a hole after the fashion of well-sinkers; I dived like fishermen. True, by dint of digging, I sometimes brought up an ingot of gold; by diving, I at times came to the surface with a pearl; but it was merely chance. The studies I was compelled to make about the French Monarchy, from Cæsar's invasion of the Gauls to the invasion of the French Republic in Europe, unfolded before my eyes that magnificent continuity of eighteen centuries wrongly styled the history of France, under Charlemagne, Philippe-Auguste, François I., Louis XIV. and Napoleon, which has become the history of the world. I viewed with amazement the marvellous advantage there was to be derived from these changes of dynasty and of morals and of customs. I made acquaintance with the men who summed up a reign, with the men who summed up a century, with those, also, who represented a period. I saw appear, like meteors lost to the vulgar gaze in the night of time, those rare chosen spirits of Providence which pass with fire on their brows, bearing the thoughts of God, unconscious themselves of what they carry and not realising their mission until they go to render up their account to Him who bestowed it upon them.

I confess I was at first dazzled before this awful Sinai, its summit thundered upon by the superb trinity of the men we call Cæsar, Charlemagne and Napoleon. I then understood that there was to be done for this great and beauteous France what Walter Scott had done for poor little Scotland, an illustrated, picturesque and dramatic story of the past--a bringing to life again of all the great dead--a kind of last judgment of all those who had worn a crown, whether of laurels, of flowers or of gold. But, I admit, if I had been dazzled by this historical revelation, I was overwhelmed by the work it imposed on the historian, and I fell prostrate, saying to myself: Happy indeed is the man who shall accomplish this gigantic mission! but God knows full well I have not the vanity to imagine it will be mine.

Yet I proceeded with my work with a growing courage, amidst the doubts and laughter of all my friends. When I meet some one whom I have not seen for some time, he will say to me--

"So it is you!"

"Yes, it is I. What is there surprising in that?"

"I thought you were dead."

"Why?"

"Because you have been doing nothing."

"Who told you that?"

"Why! nobody is talking of you."

"I have written a book."

"Ah yes! your _Impressions de Voyages._ I read that, it was very funny; you're a fine joker."

"Why am I a joker?"

"Would you have me believe that you have tasted bear's flesh and caught trout with a bill-hook?"

"Of course, there is absolutely nothing else in my _Impressions de Voyages._ But I am writing a history now." "You write a history! You are wrong."

"Why so?"

"Stick to drama, my dear fellow; you know you are dramatic through and through."

"Does it therefore follow that because, as you say, I am dramatic before everything else I ought not to write drama? Is there nothing dramatic outside the stage, and could one not put drama into a novel?"

"A novel! You want to do a romance after the style of Walter Scott?"

"Why not?"

But my interlocutor shook his head.

"Walter Scott has depicted localities, characters, manners; you must take the novel from Walter Scott's hands, as Raphael took art from Perugino's, and add the passions."

"If I were you--though I have no advice to offer you--I would stick to the theatre."

"Let me try."

"Oh! you are a free agent!"

So my questioner left me with a shrug of his shoulders, as much as to say, "There goes another to destruction!" Am I lost, or have I, as I said Raphael did to Perugino, taken romance from the hands of Walter Scott to give him a push forward? Have I taught a little of the history of my country to my contemporaries by causing them to read _la Comtesse de Salysbury, le Bâtard de Mauléon, Isabeau de Bavière, Jehanne la Pucelle, Ascanio, la Reine Margot, la Dame de Montsoreau, les Quarante-Cinq, les Trois Mousquetaires, Vingt ans après, le Vicomte de Bragelonne, le Chevalier d'Harmental, la Fille du Régent, Balsamo, le Collier de la Reine, Ange Pitou, la Comtesse de Charny et le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge?_ The future must decide. In any case, the metamorphosis of the dramatic poet into a romance-writer dates from 1833, and the probable cause was the failure of the _Fils de l'Émigré._