Part 8
“M. Bourget is not interested in humble people. The vicissitudes, the amours, the miseries of the lower classes, he deems beneath his notice. He concerns himself only with the emotions of the elegant and the rich,” bitter, sardonic M. Octave Mirbeau makes one of his characters remark. And, truly enough, it has to be affirmed that however hard he may have tried to repress his aristocratic proclivities and prejudices when writing for the stage, the author of _Un Divorce_ and _La Barricade_ has remained, despite his endeavours, _l’homme autoritaire, l’homme correct_.
“Je ne connais pas des idées généreuses,” he has announced. “Je ne connais que des idées vraies ou fausses, et il ne vaudrait pas la peine d’écrire si ce n’était pas pour énoncer les idées que l’on croit et que l’on sait vraies.” And in the press, in conferences, in prefaces, the “eminent Academician” (as the clerical _Gaulois_ monotonously designates M. Bourget) has furthermore declared that _Un Divorce_ and _La Barricade_ were written in a rigorously impartial spirit. But other critics maintain that the controversies that have raged around M. Bourget’s dramatic efforts (started with no little pretentiousness by the author himself) establish nothing. The plays speak for themselves.
M. Bourget’s observations have persuaded him that the rebellious spirit prevailing amongst the working classes is a menace to his country:
“C’est cette sensation du danger présent que j’aurais voulu donner dans _La Barricade_ sûr, si j’avais pu y réussir, d’avoir servi utilement ma classe, et par conséquent mon pays.”
But according to M. Pataud, the notorious ex-Secretary of the Syndicate of Electricians, M. Bourget carried away with him a totally false impression of the men and places he professes so closely, and also so impartially, to have studied.
A word about M. Pataud. It was shortly after he had ordered the Electricians’ strike that plunged Paris almost into darkness for two hours,[2] and at the zenith of his fame, that the “Roi de la Lumière” attended a performance of _La Barricade_ at the Vaudeville Theatre. It had been reported that he had served M. Bourget as a model for the character of Thubeuf, the professional agitator in the play. This, M. Bourget emphatically denied. “Let me see for myself,” said M. Pataud. And he requested M. Bourget to send him a ticket of admission to the theatre, and humorously offered to return the compliment by placing a seat in the Bourse du Travail at the dramatist’s disposal.
Well, M. Bourget granted the request: but ignored the invitation to the Labour Exchange. And one night “King Pataud” seated himself, amidst _le Tout Paris_ in the most fashionable of the boulevard theatres. He himself, in spite of his pink shirt, red tie, and “bowler” hat, belonged in a sense to _le Tout Paris_. Was he not “Le Roi de la Lumière”? There were columns about him in the newspapers; he was “impersonated” in every music-hall _revue_, and his picture post cards sold by the thousand. Then, pressing (and sentimental) requests for his autograph; invitations out to dinner and gifts of cigarettes and cigars; and what a stir, what excited cries of “There goes Pataud,” when the great man swaggered down the boulevards with a fine Havana stuck in a corner of his mouth, and the “bowler” hat tilted rakishly over the right eye!
Nor in the Vaudeville Theatre was his triumph less complete. The interest of the brilliant audience was centred on “Fauteuil No. 159”; not on the stage. There sat the man who had but to give the signal and—out would go the lights! So was every opera-glass levelled at him, and so—at the end of the performance—were all the reporters in Paris eager to obtain “King” Pataud’s impressions of the play. “Not bad,” he was reported to have said. “But M. Bourget’s conception of how strikes are conducted is ridiculous. And his strikers are equally absurd.”
I fancy M. Bourget must have regretted that gift of “Fauteuil No. 159” at the time. But to-day he has his revenge—for it was the free seat in the Vaudeville Theatre that led to “King” Pataud’s downfall! After the agitator’s visit to _La Barricade_ it became the fashion amongst the managers to invite the “Roi de la Lumière” to their theatres. Behold him, actually, at the first performance of _Chantecler_—and at the Gymnase, the Variétés, the Palais Royal. But if the public rejoiced over “King” Pataud’s presence at the theatre, his colleagues in the labour world were to be heard grumbling. Pataud (and it was true) was “getting his head turned.” Pataud was neglecting the Bourse du Travail for theatres and brilliant restaurants. But the “Roi de la Lumière” paid no heed to these reproofs, nor to complaints and warnings vigorously expressed. And the crisis came, the storm burst, when “King” Pataud and an electrician came to blows on the boulevards, and were marched off to the police station on a charge of breaking the peace. At the station, the “Roi de la Lumière” was searched. “Ah, you do yourself well, you enjoy life, you have a gay time of it,” grinned the _police commissaire_, after examining the agitator’s pocket-book. It contained bank-notes for a large sum, receipted bills from luxurious restaurants and hotels, and (what of course, particularly delighted the Parisian) the autographed photograph of a certain very blonde and very lively actress. So, indignation and disgust of the Syndicate of Electricians, who had contributed to their secretary’s support. He was called upon to resign. And to-day M. Pataud is an agent for a champagne firm; and the street _gamins_ who once cheered him, now—O supreme insult—apostrophise him as “sale bourgeois.”
Two questions remain for those whose opinion in the Amazing City counts. The first is: Does an Eminent Academician, who, whether he writes in a frock coat or no, professes the conviction that it would not be worth while to produce plays _only_ to reveal the influence and power of men’s emotions, passions and ideals in the shaping of life, unless one had some ulterior clerical, social or political object to serve, stand in the hopeful ways of thought that distinguish the first order of Dramatists? The answer to the question is delivered with an emphatic decision. “Mais—Non”—“Mais,”—a pause and a gesture by an emphatic falling hand—“Non.” Second question: Is a social agitator, who displays himself in a pink shirt and bowler hat in the best seats of fashionable theatres, and who enjoys himself at fashionable restaurants with worldlings—whom he affects to terrorise—a satisfactory Democrat? Same answer, but the “Non” and the confirmatory gesture is more emphatic. “Mais—Non.”
[2] See page 69.
2. M. ALFRED CAPUS. “NÔTRE JEUNESSE” AT THE FRANÇAISE
Through a novel published some years ago, under the title of _Qui Perd Gagne_, I made the acquaintance of a number of Parisians who committed all manner of faults and follies, got into all kinds of dilemmas; and yet compelled a certain sympathy by reason of their good-heartedness and good humour. Never a dull moment in this novel; never, indeed, a moment when there was not some anxious situation to face, some formidable difficulty to overcome. The leading personages were a retired _blanchisseuse_ and her husband. Their names I cannot recall—let them be christened the Belons; and let it be admitted that the atmosphere in which they lived would most assuredly be condemned by the orthodox English critic as “unsavoury.” Laid bare before us in all its tawdriness, all its feverishness, all its swift delirious ups and downs, was the life of the adventurer. A good round dozen of these gentlemen, but the most “enterprising,” the most audacious, the most entertaining amongst them was our friend Belon, who, before becoming the husband of the _blanchisseuse_, and the master of the money realised by the sale of the _blanchisserie_, had been a seedy figure in shady newspaper offices and suspicious gambling clubs. In his unmarried days Belon rejoiced when a bet at baccarat, or a successful operation in the line of canvassing for advertisements, yielded him a louis. He was always “hard up”—always (as he described it) in a “crisis”—but adversity neither disheartened him nor turned his temper.
“Times will change,” predicted Belon, when he surveyed his shabby form in the mirror of a café.
“One of these days you will dine magnificently at Paillard’s,” Belon murmured, when he issued forth (his hunger still unsatisfied) from a greasy restaurant.
“Paris,” he soliloquised, as he swaggered along the boulevards, with a shocking little black cigar in the corner of his mouth, and his hat tilted rakishly on one side, “Paris, I know you well—know your weaknesses, your failings, your vanities. And with this precious knowledge to assist me, I shall undoubtedly succeed.”
Certainly, Belon knew Paris thoroughly—or part of it. He was full of anecdote and scandal. He had amazing stories to tell of personages high up in the _grande monde_, the _monde d’affaires_, and the _demi-monde_, and he told them well. He could be gallant—in a way. Also, when it served his purpose, he could feign a seriousness that inspired confidence. And it was his gaiety, his gallantry, his flashy worldliness, that fascinated the _blanchisseuse_—not a foolish woman by any means, but a practical, amiable soul, still in her thirties, still attractive, still (as the French novelist has it) “_appétissante_,” who saw in her marriage to Belon not only a means of escape from the steamy, stifling atmosphere of her laundry, but a position of importance, even of luxury and brilliancy. Belon she believed capable of great things; Belon, with his enterprise, his audacity, his knowledge of the world, needed only a small capital, such as the sale of the laundry would provide, to become a master of _affaires_, and a leader of men. And then—was not Belon fascinating, and ardent, and tender? Thus, half prosaically, half sentimentally, did the _blanchisseuse_ consider Belon’s eloquently worded proposal; and the result of her deliberations was good-bye to the _blanchisserie_. Affectionately she embraced, liberally she rewarded, Charlotte and Amélie, her assistants. Charlotte and Amélie wept. The future Madame Belon wept. Belon himself was moved to tears by the scene.
“Adieu, mes filles,” sobbed the future Madame Belon.
“Adieu, Madame,” sobbed back Charlotte and Amélie.
“Allons-nous-en, allons-nous-en,” said Belon huskily. And so—in this touching fashion—farewell to the _blanchisserie_.
What changes, when next we beheld the Belons! Madame dressed attractively; and Monsieur, when he went a-gambling, was an ornament of brilliant, if not exclusive, clubs, and a power in busy, handsome newspaper offices. There were, as Belon prophesied, “magnificent dinners” at Paillard’s. There were constant visits to race-courses, theatres and music-halls, and he played high, and he conceived colossal “business” schemes, and he mixed familiarly with personages high up in the _monde d’affaires_, and in the _demi-monde_; one even had _des relations_ with certain personages in the veritable _monde_. But the reader, as he followed Belon et Cie here, there and everywhere, still found himself in a whirl of adventurers, and the adventurers (despite their display) were still surrounded by difficulties. For Belon was too audacious, too “enterprising.” Wonderfully ingenious were his schemes, but their fate was disastrous.
In a word, Belon, with all his knowledge of Paris, overestimated the credulity of the Parisians, and was brought face to face with that unimaginative, relentless personage, the Commissaire de Police. Happier had been Madame Belon in the steamy days of the _blanchisserie_; happier had been Belon when he surveyed his shabby form in the café mirror, saying: “Times will change.” In the Belon _ménage_, not only a constant dread of M. le Commissaire de Police, but bitter, domestic quarrels, even infidelities. But the quarrels were “made up,” the infidelities were pardoned—for, as the troubles thickened, as the situation grew increasingly alarming, so did the Belons become drawn closely together; so did they display many, yes, admirable, yes—even heroic qualities. And when at last the “crisis” arrived, and when the practical, amiable, retired _blanchisseuse_ saved her husband from a disgraceful fate, it was the good heart and good humour that had lived through, and survived, these difficulties which made the point—the very un-English moral—of the story! Thus, after discussing their short, stormy married career in every detail, and with the utmost candour, the Belons agreed that no great harm had been done, since they were better friends than ever! But Paris had become distasteful to them; what a blithe, refreshing change, then, to take up their abode in a quiet villa on the outskirts of the city! A little villa with a porch! A little villa with a garden! A little villa where one would be entirely _chez soi_. “We will plant cabbages,” cried Madame Belon enthusiastically. “We will be happy,” responded Belon, with emotion. So, another and a final change of scene. Behold—as a last tableau—the Belons installed tranquilly, comfortably and affectionately on the outskirts of Paris in a neat, innocent little villa.
Thus, very briefly, the story of _Qui Perd Gagne_. The author, I need scarcely say, was M. Alfred Capus; for who but that inimitable dramatist would have discovered good-heartedness and good humour as underlying qualities in such shady people as the Belons; and who but that genius at clearing up awkward, anxious situations could have got the retired _blanchisseuse_ and her husband so generously and unexpectedly out of their moral, as well as their practical, scrapes?
Thus, a good many years ago, M. Capus, then a comparatively unknown journalist, already possessed those qualities which have made him by far the most popular playwright of to-day: a wonderful tolerance, a wonderful bonhomie, and a wonderful and incomparable talent at finding a way of carrying the treasure of faith in human goodness safely through perilous circumstances! As a consequence of these qualities M. Capus has been called an “optimist.” We are always and always hearing of the “optimism” of M. Capus; but if I may be permitted to differ from the vast majority of his admirers, I would suggest that, so far from being an optimist, M. Capus is, from the ideal point of view, a cynic. True, an amiable cynic. He regards mankind with a smile—not of mockery, because there is nothing unkind in it; a smile of raillery at the idealist’s effort to take the mote out of his brother’s eye and to afflict himself too seriously in his endeavour to get rid of the beam out of his own eye. From the point of view of M. Capus, motes and beams, big faults as well as little ones, belong to human nature. It is a pity, but it cannot be helped. “C’est la vie”—and so let us make the best of it.
And it might be worse! Mankind might be cruel, whereas the average man, the average woman, is kind—the hearts of average men and women are in the right place. Thus, let mankind not be judged too harshly. Since we are what we are, it is inevitable we should commit follies. But let us see to it that our hearts _are_ in the right place, and when the moment arrives we shall know how to make atonement for those follies and pass on undisgraced. “Amusez-vous bien, soyez gais; mais soyez bons.” Such might be M. Capus’ message to mankind; and that message, indeed, he has delivered from the stage. For amongst French playwrights who bring home to us vividly, by means of illustration, French ways of feeling and methods of judgment that are not English methods, M. Alfred Capus stands out as the efficient interpreter of the typical personage recognised by general consent in France as “l’homme qui est foncièrement bon.”
Do not, however, let us suppose that we are in any way helped to a correct understanding of this personage by makers of dictionaries, who tell us that “l’homme qui est foncièrement bon” is a “thoroughly good man.” No. If we leave the thoroughly bad man out of account, no two more opposite types of human character can be compared with one another—no two worthy men can be brought together more certain to quarrel, and mutually to dislike and condemn each other than the “thoroughly good man,” approved by the English standard, and “l’homme qui est foncièrement bon,” recognised as such by general consent in France. Nor is this all. Not only have we here two worthy human beings who, by reason of the different directions wherein the special worthiness of each of them displays itself, cannot agree as friends, but for the services of friendship also their qualifications are so different that upon the occasions when one can help us the other will get us into trouble; and in the moods when we should cleave to the one, we should indubitably avoid the other. The cause of this essential difference is not entirely explained when the fact is stated that righteousness constitutes the predominant characteristic of goodness in England, and kindliness the predominant characteristic in France, because the Englishman is kind also—in his own way. In other words, his righteousness _does_ exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, and the Frenchman who is _foncièrement bon_ has virtues also of his own; he has not merely the good nature of the easy-going publican. What these special virtues really are, and how, whilst they do not make “l’homme qui est foncièrement bon” a “thoroughly good man,” in the English sense of the term, they do make him a lovable and sympathetic human character, one can discover by passing an evening in the society of Chartier, Lucien Briant, Hélène and Laure of _Nôtre Jeunesse_, Monsieur Piégois of the delightful comedy of that name, and Montferrand—the amazing Deputy Montferrand—of _L’Attentat_.
The bonhomie of M. Capus represents a life philosophy as well as a dramatic method, that might not be applied with equal success to British institutions. But used among French social conditions, it demonstrates how neglect of logic, and force of good feeling, may help an intelligent and a humane people to render faulty systems habitable, and make good nature serve as a substitute for, and even as a corrective of, a rigid, an unheroic, an unchristian worship of “respectability” at the expense of human kindness—that is to say, a form of respectability which does not necessarily mean a very ardent love of virtue.
The characters of _Nôtre Jeunesse_ are essentially French. Take Chartier, for instance, the _bonhomme philosophe par excellence_. Chartier, at forty years of age, amused by his own past; tranquil as to the future; well satisfied, in the present, to make the best of his life upon a moderate income—the quarter of a once handsome fortune, considerately left him by a former mistress, the then famous “Pervenche,” who, after she had cost him a million and a half, herself broke off their _liaison_, in the amiable and reasonable fashion related by the Forsaken One himself thus:
_Chartier._ One evening she said to me: “_Mon chéri_, I have been looking into things. You have spent upon me three-fourths of your fortune. It is as much as any woman should expect from any gallant man. I am contented; and grateful to you. I have come across a man who is in love with me; and I am going to be married to him.”... She married an employé at the Louvre. It is an excellent _ménage_.
Take Laure de Roine, Chartier’s sister, the good genius of the play—bonhomie, not only personified, but idealised, invested with all the liveliness and fascination that belong to delightful French womanhood. Laure, some years older than her brother, left a widow, also with a quarter of her handsome wedding portion, remaining through the opportune decease, in the very hour when he seemed bent upon ruining her, after himself, of a husband given to gambling on the Stock Exchange.
Take Madame Hélène Briant, the very charming, vivacious wife of M. Lucien Briant, a lady approaching the perilous age—_i.e._ nearly thirty—reasonably attached to, but not passionately in love with, an amiable but despondent husband, who has become despondent under the authoritative rule of M. Briant _père_, a superior man, and master of the “correct,” frock-coated attitude towards life. Briant _père_ is the tyrant of the Briant household. Hear the charming Hélène in active revolt against this insupportable father-in-law, and her husband’s despondency, as a result of his filial docility, exposing her own case, half playfully, half seriously, to Laure de Roine, everyone’s good genius:
_Hélène._ When I try to react against this general depression; when, in spite of them both, I make it my task to find something cheerful, and worth taking pleasure in, I find myself treated by both Father and Son as a frivolous worldling. Add on to that that I have no children, and live in this deadly provincial atmosphere, full of spiteful gossip, scandal, and vanity. And then try, if you can, to imagine my condition of mind—not forgetting that I am an “honest” woman—and that I am beginning to realise it.
_Laure._ And when a woman begins to realise that she is “honest”——
_Hélène._ Yes; the case is grave.
All these personages explain themselves to us, and claim us, by reason of their vivid humanity, as intimate acquaintances, in the play. Yet not one of them has his or her exact counterpart in English society, for the simple reason that their choice qualities, and entertaining defects, not only belong to the French temperament but are the result of manners, conventions, prejudices and sentiments that do not enter into our actual experiences, although we are in a position to judge, or at any rate correctly to appreciate them, when we have studied them in this dramatic picture....
And now for the situation of the play. It is also essentially French; what the orthodox English critic would probably describe as “disagreeable” and “painful.” But with that neither M. Capus nor ourselves are concerned. Our playwright, true to the canons of his art, has aimed at no more than selecting an episode from _la vie vivante_, and revealing it in its most vital and human moments, and the episode he has chosen is one that has its counterpart, year in, year out, in the gay, irresponsible land peopled by the _jeunesse_ of Paris and the provinces. “Nôtre Jeunesse”—that period, in France particularly, of extravagances and follies; “Nôtre Jeunesse”—those years in the Latin Quarter when irregularity of conduct does not appear reprehensible even to the parental eye.
“C’est de leur âge,” says the bourgeois indulgently, thinking, no doubt, of his own _jeunesse_, when he meets a band of students rejoicing riotously in their corduroy clothes, long, flowing capes and amazing hats. And such wild figures were Chartier and Lucien Briant some twenty years before we meet them. And it is of those days that they are speaking, when M. Capus introduces them to his audience in the Chartier Villa at Trouville. Chartier, of course, is in excellent spirits. But Lucien is nervous and despondent, and becomes still more troubled when his friend reminds him of his _liaison_ with Léontine Gilard, a charming and light-hearted girl, whose pet name Chartier forgets.
Lucien helps his memory; the name was “Loulou.” Let me quote the passage:
_Lucien [with emotion]._ Loulou.
_Chartier._ That’s it! I can see Loulou now: fair hair, blue eyes, very pretty hands. You made a charming couple, the two of you! Well—there you have a memory which shouldn’t be disagreeable, surely.
_Lucien._ Ah, _mon ami_, one never knows the end of adventures of that sort!
_Chartier._ The end? Why didn’t the thing end naturally?
_Lucien._ What do you mean by ending naturally?