B 431427

ARTES
LIBRARY
1837
VERITAS
EZUMID HERMANDY-
SCIENTIA
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
FLURIBUS UNDM
SUMA
[PIS FENINSULAM WIGEND.
BEHIND THE SCENES
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANCAISE.
BEHIND THE SCENES
OF
45-5-49
THE COMÉDIE FRANCAISE
AND OTHER RECOLLECTIONS
BY
ARSENE HOUSSAYE
TRANSLATED AND EDITED, WITH NOTES
BY
ALBERT D. VANDAM
AUTHOR OF “FAMOUS BOHEMIANS," "GENIUS EN NÉGLIGE," FTC
LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL
LIMITED
1889
WESTMINSTER
PRINTED BY NICHOLS AND SONS,
25, PARLIAMENT STREET.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
The
What the Revolution of '48 did for literary journalism-
M. Arsène Houssaye as a literary free-lance
decline of the Comédie Française M. Houssaye sum-
moned to the Elysée Rachel presents him to the
Prince-President-M. Houssaye is offered the director-
ship of the Comédie Française-He accepts-Insurrec-
tion of the sociétaires-They appeal to the Minister—
Rachel to the rescue
PAGE
1
16
•
CHAPTER II.
Rachel offers Houssaye to make a tour round the world
and to play his tragedy, Sapho-The cabal at the
Comédie continues-M. Houssaye appointed in spite of
the opposition-M. Houssaye and Rachel refused the
privilege of the free-list-They pay for their seats—
An evening at the Comédie in '49-M. Houssaye's re-
ception by the comedians
CHAPTER III.
Rival directors-M. Houssaye remains master of the field
-A playwright of the old school and a director of the
new-A visit from Alfred de Musset-A visit from
Augustine Brohan-Mdlles. Anais and Denain-MM.
Provost, etc.-Victor Hugo and Rachel-The sociétaires
threaten to leave the Comédie-M. Houssaye prepares a
countermove-Contemplated engagements of Frédérick
Lemaître and Bocage-Offenbach-Rachel's reappear-
ance
37
vi
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
Innovations-A faithful henchman-Count d'Orsay-De
Morny-The life of a director of the Comédie Française
—The Prince-President and his entourage at the Elysée
CHAPTER V.
Renewed attempts to oust M. Houssaye-Rachel, Alexandre
Dumas, and Victor Hugo to the rescue
CHAPTER VI.
Bird's-eye view of the French stage in the nineteenth
century
CHAPTER VII.
Reforms needed at the Comédie Française-The part a
director should play-The company of the Comédie
Française in 1850
•
PAGE
65
97
106
137
CHAPTER VIII.
The director's four secretaries Their functions — The
actress-mother-The Reading Committee-A play by
M. Mazères-Some members of the staff of the Comédie
Française
•
149
CHAPTER IX.
The trials and tribulations of a director-Emile Augier-
A love play off the stage by Augustine Brohan and
Alfred de Musset
•
170
CHAPTER X.
A bundle of letters
. 196
CONTENTS.
vii
CHAPTER XI.
A retrospect Ponsard and Charlotte Corday-Opposition
to the piece-Victor Hugo interferes-A revival of
Molière
•
PAGE
. 208
·
CHAPTER XII.
More intrigues-Victor Hugo and Angelo-Rachel in
London-The censorship-Balzac as a playwright
234
Madelein
CHAPTER XIII.
Madeleine Brohan-Her débuts-Old and new plays .
CHAPTER XIV.
Jules Sandeau's Malle. de la Seiglière-The sources of M.
Sardou's Theodora Jules Lacroix and the late Mr.
Watts Phillips' plays on the same subject-The Comédie
Française in 1851-The Coup d'État in its effect on the
Comédie Française -The censorship and the memory
of Louis XIV. De La Chaume-Vacher, the chief
of the claque; his functions; their philosophy-The
green-room of the Comédie Française
CHAPTER XV.
The Coup de État-Count (afterwards Duke) de Morny-
Official interference with the Comédie Française A mot
of Casimir Delavigne-The whole of Marivaux should
be in the modern repertory
CHAPTER XVI.
The Comédie Française in 1852-Its debts-Napoleon III.
and de Morny continue the traditions of Napoleon I.-
. 257
. 281
297
viii
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Reorganisation of the orchestra-Rachel-Side-lights
of theatrical life-Rachel and Pradier-The censorship
and Napoleon III.-First nights-Gounod-The Muse
of history
. 317
CHAPTER XVII.
The Comédie Française in 1853-Rachel in Mme. de
Girardin's Lady Tartuffe — Rachel
Achille Fould
Napoleon III. and the Comédie Française-Balzac's Lys
de la Vallée on the stage-Two suppers at Rachel's
CHAPTER XVIII.
358
The Comédie Française in 1854-Bressant-Alfred de
Musset-Bache-A heaven-born tragic actress-Rachel 409
CHAPTER XIX.
The Comédie Française in 1855-Alfred de Musset at the
Tuileries-Baron James de Rothschild-The work of a
director of the Comédie Française.
CHAPTER XX.
•
The Comédie Française in 1856-Comedies with a purpose
-
Georges Sand - The beginning of the end — M.
Houssaye resigns-Another director appointed-Retro-
spect
•
456
483
CHAPTER XXI.
Random recollections.
. 506
x
BEHIND THE SCENES
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
CHAPTER I.
THE Revolution of 1848, so profitable to briefless
and other barristers, was disastrous to authors and
artists. That small republic starved in the midst of
the bigger one.
Towards the month of June I had
not a penny left. I had sold my last share in the
Bank of France for five hundred francs. The price
of copy in the newspapers was simply ridiculous.
Girardin coolly spoke of a penny (English) a line.
Doctor Véron (Constitutionnel), who had increased
the width of his columns by half, had cut down his
prices in the same proportion. One day that I was
twitting him with splitting his five-franc pieces in
twain he replied, "Come and dine with me every
day." But could I shut up the house like that,
seeing that I had more friends than ever to come
and take pot-luck? That period of the Revolution
was "hard times" indeed. I was part proprietor
of the Artiste, and my property was tantamount to
ay
B
2
BEHIND THE SCENES
a white elephant. Fortunately I had still some
pictures left. I sold a Boucher, a Prud'hon, and a
Diaz to an English painter, Anderson, who gave
me ten thousand francs for them. I might have
got through the season, but I went back to the
Bourse, where I gambled so badly-or so well-as
to quickly lose the ten thousand francs, besides
several others. Though I was by no means a
born gambler, I began to fancy that I'd "come a
cropper" at last. I became afraid, and swore to set
foot no more in the Greek temple. It will be seen
how I kept my oath.
A son had been born to me while the Revolution
was at its height. It was the blessing on home
and hearth when the former was tumbling to ruin,
but the mother had eyes only for her son, and,
for that matter, the father also. Much against my
will I took my wife and child to the country. My
father, though the Revolution had in no way
affected him, would not have given me five hundred
francs to save my life; but his home, thanks be to
God! was always open to me. We were welcomed
with open arms, and he said very nicely, "You had
better stop with us also." In those days, however,
there was but one city for me to live in, excited as
I was by both the political and literary fevers.
Hence I only remained for a few days at Bruyères,
telling them that I had many strings to my bow,
and was not in the least afraid of the future, which,
after all, was true.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
3
As it was, I had already gone through a great
deal. My father was a millionaire, but his curse
was the only thing he had given me at my start
in the world. I had given up soldiering for poet-
izing the latter trade had brought me little more
than the former. Nevertheless, after my Bohemian
existence, I had had several slices of luck, for it
appears to have been written on high that I should
come in contact with all things, from gilded misery
to palaces built on sand, with castles conjured up
by the fumes of champagne for a background or
horizon.
When I got back to Paris, I manfully resumed
work. At one and the same time I published
"Chamfort" in the Revue des Deux Mondes, "The
Republic of Plato" in the Artiste, "Sketches of
Celebrated Actresses" in the Constitutionnel, and
"Hands full of Roses and Blood," in Alphonse
Karr's paper, which at that time bore no other title
than The Journal; Charpentier was bringing out
my Portraits of the Eighteenth Century.
In a
word, in order to forget my bad luck at the Bourse
I worked from morn till night, passing from the
game of money to the game of mind. I had sent
away my cook, and I took a hurried lunch at the
Café d'Orsay, where I was always sure to meet with
friends—among others Gleyre and Ziem.* I dined
here, there, and everywhere, oftenest at the Café
* Painters of eminence, some of whose canvasses are at present
in the Louvre.-[Transl.]
B 2
4
BEHIND THE SCENES
de Paris, in company of Roqueplan, La Chaise,
Gilbert de Voisins, Daugny, Beauvoir, Heeckeren,
Malitourne, and Véron. The latter, "doing the
grand," frequently paid the bill for his contribu-
tors, for he did not like sad faces around him.
My acquaintance with Doctor Véron dated from
the metamorphosis of the Constitutionnel in 1844.
He had sent for me and de Musset (Alfred) at the
same time, in order to fill the intervals of the
Wandering Jew. It was like his confounded
theatrical impudence, for he still believed himself
to be the director of the Opera. Nevertheless it
was no use disguising the matter: Sue's was the
big piece, we were nothing but so many ballets. I
had published my stories of actresses in the Consti-
tutionnel. Doctor Véron's appreciation of me was
based above all upon my commerce with those
ladies. He was very fond of women-but as seen
from the wings. He valued the moralists who
studied the everlasting womanly (das ewig Weib-
liche of Goethe) in the actress. I owed him a
debt of gratitude, because in the days when I had
not a penny wherewith to bless myself he had
come to me. "How much an article do you
want?" "A hundred francs; that's what Girardin
pays me." "Very well, I'll give you two hundred.'
But how he had come down since the 24th of
February!
My wife came back to Paris, and I felt in despair
at no longer being able to give her the superfluous
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
5
the superfluous, that daily bread of woman.
The further I perceived, the clearer I perceived
the abyss, for I could not break with my magnifi-
cent habit of spending without reckoning.
It was at that time that Rachel, that tragic
figure, came into my existence like a smiling
image of Fate.
*
The Comédie Française was at its seventh year
of lean kine when one evening a mysterious indi-
vidual, dressed from head to foot in black, called
at my house and bade me accompany him to the
Elysée. The Elysée was certainly not the Prefec-
ture of Police, but, seeing that I was the friend of
Thoré and Sobrier, seeing that I had saved Esquiros
from being tried by court-martial, I had a notion
that I was wanted by the gentlemen of the political
detective police. "Who wants me, and why am I
wanted?" I asked. "I don't know," replied the
man in black. And to all my questions he vouch-
safed the same answer, "I don't know."
I was very busy putting up a piece of Gobelins
in my study. It was all that was left to me of my
very transitory splendour. I had been living in
the apartment of M. de Voltaire, but an uncle, by
making a new will shortly before his death, had at
one fell swoop despoiled me of a million and a-half
of francs. It was the Parthian shot, after which he
turned his face to the wall and died.
6
BEHIND THE SCENES
I put a few more nails into my tapestry, after
which I went into my wife's room. When I told
her of the man in black she began to cry, and
caught her child to her breast. "Don't cry," I
said; "if they wanted to arrest me they would not
take the roundabout way of sending to the Elysée
for me." Nevertheless as I kissed the mother and
child I felt rather uneasy myself. I had not con-
spired against the Republic, but I frequented a
circle which only cared for Napoleon on the battle-
field.
When I joined my man I was in black myself.
A private carriage was waiting at the door.
In
When I got to the Elysée I was ushered into one
room, then into a second, then into a third.
the latter Mdlle. Rachel, smiling all over her face,
came towards me. She appeared to be quite at
home. But was not she at home everywhere?
Besides, at that time she was "the mistress" of the
house.
I still failed to understand the meaning of all
this, but the preface was not a long one.
"Would you like to be director of the Comédie
Française?" she asked me point-blank.
"I didn't know you had a grudge against me,'
I replied.
"You know that a tragédienne has always got
wrongs to avenge."
I am pre-
"Well, take your revenge then.
pared for any and every thing while you are with
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
17
me.
Besides, it will amuse me to be President of
the Republic of the House of Molière, seeing that
I cannot be President of the Republic at the Elysée."
The world is divided into actors and spectators.
The latter are no doubt the happier of the two,
because they have merely to be passive; still, I
preferred passing at once among the former, less
for the pleasure of "taking the stage" myself than
for the sake of knowing the "behind the scenes ”
of life. I must have been plentifully endowed with
illusions to have been able to keep some until the
very end. While we were talking, a few person-
ages that had been something in the past and
others who were to be something in the future went
in and out, after which I was presented to Prince
Louis Napoleon. He paid me a compliment about
one of my books-I do not remember which-he
had read while in prison; and then with his bass
voice, so strongly contrasting with his dreamy
looks, he expressed his firm determination to re-
store to the Théâtre Français all its splendour-
and all its tragedies.
He thoroughly knew the constitution of the
Théâtre Français, and would not as much as by
a hair's breadth alter the "Decree of Moscow.*
To him the decree was tantamount to the Holy
Ark, but he wanted a despotic republic to succeed
the parliamentary one at the institution.
* The decree sent by Napoleon I. by which the Comédie Fran-
çaise is still mainly governed,-[Transl.]
8
BEHIND THE SCENES
M. de Persigny asked me whether I was prepared
to hold my own with the actors-in-ordinary of the
king, who no longer wanted a king, and who
debated in so admirable a parliamentary fashion
during the whole of the day as to have no "go" left
in them for the evening-who so capitally manage
their house as to find the receipts dwindle down to
tragic or comic amounts-according to the view
one took of them.
On one occasion said receipts had come down to
the magnificent sum of fifty-three francs. That
was in the summer. "But now that we had got
to the autumn,” added Major Fleury, "they go up
to a hundred and fifty-three francs."
The Prince's dull eyes lighted up.
"It appears,
commandant, that you go behind the scenes."
"Even so, monseigneur; one is bound to face
all kinds of battles."
I replied that I could not have been sent for at
a more propitious moment, and thanked the Pre-
sident for having thought of me.
"You owe me no thanks," said the Prince, "they
are due to Mdlle. Rachel. The names of ten men
of letters were placed before her: she chose yours,
I do not know why."
I bowed to Mdlle. Rachel.
"Do you know why I chose you?" she said.
It is because I know less of you than of the
others."
I had met Mdlle. Rachel twice or thrice at Count
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
9
Walewski's, at Count Obreskoff's, at Doctor Véron's,
but I was not counted among her intimate friends.
Like most women she liked the unknown. She
had, however, once asked me for a drama on the
antique pattern on the subject of Sappho. But whom
had she not asked for a tragedy?
The Prince, while talking about the masterpieces
of Corneille and Racine, spoke also of modern
work. It was his wish that Mdlle. Rachel should
interpret Hugo, de Vigny, Dumas, de Musset, and
others. Mdlle. Rachel promised to study at once
Angelo and Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle, as a matter
of giving hostages to the modern school. Besides,
she herself was anxious to try a fall in the inter-
pretation of her contemporaries.
I went away with her, pleased with everybody,
even with myself, but above all with the illustrious
actress. She made me get into her carriage, and
drove me back to the Rue du Bac, telling me not
to forget that I was to dine with her on the morrow
to talk over the repertory.
But when the morrow came I was already no
longer director of the Théâtre Français.
This is what had happened. At the first news,
which came from Rachel - for I had not said a
word - the Comedians met and "elected them-
selves "
into a watch committee - to guard the
public interest. They took an oath on the plaster
busts of Talma and Mdlle. Mars that they would
have a master no more. Their enthusiasm pro-
10
BEHIND THE SCENES
duced a thrill in the portrait of Molière. They
threw themselves into six hackney cabs and went
to the Minister of the Interior. To look at them
in their evening dress and white ties one would
have taken them to belong to a third-class funeral.
And in fact they meant nothing less than my ob-
sequies.
The Minister always receives the Comedians, even
on days when he receives no one. He is perfectly
right. Those who amused him from behind the
footlights must be more amusing still in private
life, when nature drops the mask. It will not do,
though, to make too sure of this, because the actor
is always acting, even before his looking-glass. It
is the history of the coquettish woman over again.
The then Minister's name was Ferdinand Barrot,
a clever man of the world, all the cleverer for his
assumption of good-natured simplicity. But this
time the Comedians were cleverer than he was;
they played their game so carefully that he was
taken in by their lamentations. They proved to
him that it was in the highest degree impolitic to
meddle with their republic. "It would alarm
people with regard to the designs of the Prince ;
people would not fail to accuse him of beginning
with the Théâtre Français in order to finish with
France; the papers would be sure to say in every
key that the two republics would cease to exist
before long."
Though the Minister had received orders to coun-
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
11
tersign my nomination, he reassured the Comedians,
and promised to defend their cause with the Pre-
sident. He had not a moment's doubt that the
Prince, who was very fond of them, would leave
them full liberty of action.
All this was narrated by a paper which concluded
its article in the following words:
"And that is why M. Arsène Houssaye was direc-
tor of the Théâtre Français for five minutes.'
""
I was at Rachel's when the paper containing the
article was brought in. We had sat down to dinner
in company with Rebecca (one of Rachel's sisters),
and were as jolly as possible, when all of a sudden
Rachel smashed her glass.
6:
Why this bit of tragedy?"
"Read," she said, handing me the paper.
"There is no occasion to break your glass."
"Don't you know that it brings good and bad
luck at the same time? Good luck to one's self,
bad luck to others."
At the same moment Rebecca, reaching across
the table for the paper, upset the salt.
"That's more serious," I said.
We all three took some salt to throw it over our
shoulders.
"Yes," said Rachel, "this means a cataclysm.
Wait for me here. I'll take my carriage and get
the news."
It
Her carriage always came for her at eight.
was at the door then. But she had scarcely crossed
12
BEHIND THE SCENES
a
the threshold when a Talleyrand in embryo, a
genuine diplomatist, who was afterwards Ambas-
sador at St. Petersburg, came up.
"Well," she said to him, "are they trying to
make fools of us?"
"No, the Prince is very vexed at all this, but it
appears that it is easier to enter the Tuileries,
booted and spurred and riding-whip in hand, than
to effect an entrance to the house of Molière. We
are meeting with obstacles not to be overcome."
The diplomatist and Rachel had by this time got
as far as the dining-room, where a consultation was
held in company with Rebecca and another comer,
Mme. de Sennerville, a kind of "swell show-
woman, "well in with journalists, actresses, minis-
ters, well in with everybody, a strange character if
ever there was one, and often sketched by Daumier
and Gavarni.
99
"After all," said the diplomatist on entering, "I
am the bearer of golden words on a silver platter.'
"Speak," said Rachel in a tone of feverish
anxiety.
66
'Well then, the Citizen-Comedians in Ordinary of
the King, the Citizen-Comedians of the Republic, in
consideration of your having sung the Marseillaise
with a flag that showed more red than tricolour,
because you managed so well to hide the blue and
the white . . . .
""
"On my heart," interrupted Rachel, kissing the
ambassador.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
1.3
“The citizens aforenamed offer you an engage-
ment for five years.'
""
Rachel's features assumed an expression of
sovereign disdain. "And how much do these
gentlemen deign to offer little Rachel to get them
out of their misery."
They have left the amount open.
"You surprise me," said Rachel in a tragical-
comic tone.
A smile played on the diplomatist's lips. "Yes,
the amount has been left open because they depend
on your disinterestedness; but it has been agreed
behind the wings that should you require more
than thirty thousand francs the contract will not be
signed."
6
"That's what I expected. No doubt they'll
give me an extra ten francs for fire and light'
when I act." *
*The French expression is feux only, and has its origin in the
following custom. Under Louis XIV. the singers and instrument-
alists of the king's orchestra received, in addition to their appoint-
ments, bread, wine, and various other food, on the occasion of the
six principal feasts of the Church. These meals were partaken of
in the palace. But on the feasts of St. Louis and St. Martin,
seeing that they might fall on a Friday, the meat was replaced by
a donation in money. In 1700 the bread and wine were also defi-
nitely converted into an equivalent sum, proportionate to the talent
and position of the recipients, and became a genuine douceur. To-
wards the end of the eighteenth century this supplementary salary,
which amounted in many cases to sixty francs per day, was applied
to the purchase of wax-candles, which the principal artists preferred
in their dressing-rooms to the ordinary tallow-candles supplied by
the management. It was ther only that the expression "bread
14
BEHIND THE SCENES
66
Surely they will. Equality and fraternity is
their motto. Seeing that they get no more than
ten francs when they play one act, why should you
get more because you happen to be playing five.
You are killing yourself for the public, true enough,
but they say that it is not for them."
"You'll
Rachel had taken a seat by my side.
begin by taking your coffee with us, even if you
have already taken yours at the Elysée," she said
to the future ambassador; "after which you'll take
back on your silver platter your words of gold.
That kind of business is not quite good enough for
me." And remembering an epigram of a fellow-
actress with regard to her, she added: "I am
not a Jewess but a Jew when I discuss money
matters.” *
Never had the great actress libelled herself more
than when saying this. I am too fond of the
truth to shrink from demolishing a generally-
accepted idea. Mdlle. Rachel was lavish with
everything—with her talent, with her health, with
her money.
She never did anything but give.
Never did want, however hidden, appeal in vain to
her. She ended by giving her life: she died in
harness to give to her children.
Had she been a
Jew (in the acceptation of Mdlle. Judith's meaning)
she would have left millions. She only left a com-
and wine" was changed to "fires," which exists up to the present
day.-[Transl.]
* Mdlle. Judith had said: "Mdlle. Rachel is not a Jewess, she
is a Jew."
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
15
paratively small fortune; she would have left none
at all but for her father, who at last took the man-
agement of her affairs in his own hands. It is not
generally known, nowadays, how much she earned
in her halcyon days at the Théâtre Français-thirty-
six thousand francs per annum-about as much as
Patti earns in one evening. Truly, I gave her five
hundred francs a night for "fires," but what was
it after all? Just sufficient to give a dinner next
day to her theatrical and journalistic cronies, or
more often to give away in charity to a poor woman
who suffered in secret. I have seen Rachel at
work, and much will be forgiven to her, for she
gave much.
"Is this your ultimatum?" asked the am-
bassador in extraordinary of the Prince, an hour
afterwards.
"Yes," replied the actress; "tell your master
that if he means to govern France as they govern
the house of Corneille, he'll not be long at the
Elysée."
"Don't worry yourself about that; if he doesn't
remain at the Elysée it's because he'll move to the
Tuileries."
16
BEHIND THE SCENES
CHAPTER II.
WHEN the ambassador was gone, Rachel invited me
to make a small tour round the world with her. The
moment they no longer enacted tragedies in France
there ceased to be a France, according to her. She
wanted to go to America, return to England once
more, push as far as Russia-in one word, to attempt
all sorts of adventurous things. I admit that with
my
love for the romantic I was almost tempted to
book a seat on the car of Thespis. "Be this as it
may," she said; "I do not wish you to have
wasted even so much as a day; you are going to
write me a tragedy and I'll play it, in no matter
what theatre. We have already spoken of a Sappho;
well, to work, to work." We separated like friends
for ever and aye, and before I went to bed I had
written the first hundred lines of Sappho. That
grandiose love passion, ascending, ascending, as-
cending, until death, was to be embodied into three
acts.
"After all," said I to myself, "I prefer being
acted myself by Rachel than to make her act the
work of others." So for the next few days I
worked hard at my tragedy.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
17
The very next morning I got a note from Rachel,
saying, “There is something new in the wind, I'll
come and tell you." But seeing that I do not like
being a constant candidate, I did not trouble much
about it. A few days later I met her at dinner at
Doctor Véron's, who had founded at the Constitu-
tionnel, or rather at his own house, a power by the
side of the other powers.
It was so to speak the
ante-chamber of the future Empire.
It was especially Mdlle. Rachel who said the best
things that night. When she was "in good form "
there was a delightful "go" about her; it was a
running stream of pearls, and hard but glistening
pebbles; for her wit was many-sided-at times very
cutting and brutal, at others very delicate. Mdlle.
Rachel presided, in company with her handsome
friend, Mdlle. Rhea—a living marble, dragged into
the tomb of oblivion afterwards by a Russian
prince. Among the guests were Roqueplan, Boilay,
Malitourne, Cassagnac, Sainte-Beuve.
They were talking about a coup d'état at the
Théâtre Français. It was Roqueplan who pro-
posed this other 18th of Brumaire. According to
him they ought to throw the whole lot there and
then out of the windows.
"Where are the grenadiers?" I asked.
"We are the grenadiers, all of us," said Véron,
pointing to the journalists. "You wait till to-
morrow and see whether we are well armed or
not."
C
18
BEHIND THE SCENES
"The grenadiers," I retorted, looking towards
Mdlle. Rachel and Mdlle. Rhea, "here they are, the
grenadiers, armed to the teeth.”
"Yes," chimed Roqueplan, "for a coup d'état
Mdlle. Rachel is the first grenadier of France."*
These and other sallies were the order of the
evening. Nevertheless Véron and his band of
journalists kept their word. For the next few days
there was a running fire against the Comedians,
"who would have no more" of Mdlle. Rachel.
Their sittings in committee were narrated in full,
flanked by the amount of their nightly receipts.
"Nevertheless,” said one paper, "these receipts
would be worse still if they had not struck Mdlle.
Rachel's name from the free list, which measure.
obliges her to take a box every evening, just for
the sake of annoying them a bit."
The cause of the Comedians was energetically
taken up by the "advanced"
papers, which main-
tained that they (the Comedians) ought to starve to
death rather than desert their principles. Hence
they had to be saved in spite of themselves, and that
is probably why the Minister of the Interior wrote
me one day the following letter :
"MY DEAR MONSIEUR HOUSSAYE,
"Your nomination decided upon a month ago is
* An allusion to Théophile Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne, sur-
named "the First Grenadier of France," by reason of his great
acts of courage on the battle-field. Fell at Oberhausen (Bavaria)
in 1800, at the age of forty-seven.-[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
19
signed at last, but will be published only to-morrow.
Come and see me about six, in order to settle your
' entry on the scene.'
The first words the
"FERDINAND BARROT."
Minister said when I came
into his room were,
"Here is your nomination.
The Prince signed it an hour ago. The Comedians
know nothing about it. You are going to enter
upon your campaign. Get out of it as best you
can. You have full liberty of action. I do not
wish to see you any more. You are absolute
director until the day when you'll make a blunder;
for be it known to you, man of wit, that man is
not perfect."
I gathered from this that if I was absolute
director the Minister washed his hands of the whole
thing, and that I should be left utterly by myself
to confront the tragédiennes and Comedians-Cæsar
and Pompey, Figaro and Basilio, the powers most
to be feared.
We shook hands.
(6
Good-bye," said the Minister, "we'll see how
you set about it."
I went straight to Rachel, who had written to
me an hour previously:
"Don't forget to come and dine with me, dear
director. I have got some bad news for you. In
spite of all I could do and say to the contrary you
have been appointed.
"RACHEL."
C 2
20
BEHIND THE SCENES
"Do you know," she asked, "how the thing
was managed? The Minister kept on refusing be-
cause he warned the Prince that the Comedians
were determined to close the theatre rather than
open the door to a director, no matter whom. But
last night during the Ministerial Council at the
Elysée our ambassador slipped into the carriage of
M. Ferdinand Barrot and of course caught him on
his return. They drove back together to the
ministry. Our friend pleaded so eloquently—for
military eloquence is after all the best-that the
Minister pledged him his word for to-day. Show
me your papers, that I may know whether to cry
victory, for I have done all this."
Mdlle. Rachel recited aloud for her own amuse-
ment, "In the name of the French people, the
President of the Republic, on the report of the
Minister of the Interior, appoints M. Arsène Hous-
saye Provisional Director of the Théâtre of the
Republic."
We were still at the period when the word "pro-
visional" invested all the governmental decrees
with a semblance of transition; "provisional "
-everything was provisional.
"That's all right," said Mdlle. Rachel, "Napo-
leon and Barrot, two good signatures, to say
nothing of the French people, who have been
allowed to have a finger in the pie. I am of
opinion that you may take me to the Théâtre
Français to-night. I shall no longer be looked
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
21
upon as a pariah by M. Samson, President of the
Committee of Public Safety."
"I don't mind going to the Théâtre Français,"
I replied, "but only as a simple spectator. I do not
wish to begin with the worries of power to-night.
The attendants might take it into their heads to
present me with nosegays."
"You are right, and I don't mind enjoying the
amenities of my disgrace once more. You'll see
how these poor checktakers play the game of M.
Samson. They bow to me as to a stranger."
Mdlle. Rachel lived in the Rue de Rivoli, within
a stone's throw of the theatre. We went thither
on foot though her carriage was waiting for her.
As the reader will perceive, our entry was not a
triumphal one.
When we wished to pass by the contrôle * the
individual charged with the checking of the free
list made a sign to Mdlle. Rachel to stop. I wanted
to pass on, but Mdlle. Rachel said: "No, the man is
right; I am no longer on the free list, seeing that I
no longer belong to the company."
"That is true," said the man respectfully but
firmly. "Mdlle. Rachel has been struck from the
list."
We went out merrily to the ticket-office.
"Can
*The contrôle is a kind of semi-rostrum, semi-sheep-pen, in
which generally three sable-clad individuals keep watch. The pre-
sentation of your card, should you be ever so well known, is of no
use, for the "manager in front," as he exists with us, is never “in
front" in the evening.—[Transl.]
22
BEHIND THE SCENES
you give me one seat in a stage-box on the ground
floor?" said Mdlle. Rachel.
I was not at all certain of having sufficient
money to pay for the whole of the box, so Rachel's
words sounded golden to me.
"Yes, mademoiselle, we split our boxes now-a-
days," came the answer.
"Until you split up altogether," retorted Rachel.
The retort was "pat" under the circumstances;
you could get a seat anywhere, for there was not a
soul in the house. I wanted to pay, but the actress
enjoyed the thing too much in her own right to
allow me to do so. When inside once more, it was
"Are you
my turn to be taken by the shoulders.
on the free list, monsieur ?"
I had not been to the Théâtre Français for some
time. They did not remember me. I went back.
"Yes," I said, "I have been on the list these ten
or more." They asked my name.
years or more.
Houssaye."
"Arsène
The employé, who probably did not waste his
time in reading my books, thought that my Christian
name and surname made but one word. Instead
therefore of looking in the "H" he looked at the "A."
Of course he did not find it there.
"Your name is
not down, monsieur," he said.
"Look in the 'H'," I said. He looked, expecting
no doubt to find Harsène Houssaye. "Your name
is not down, monsieur," he said a second time.
"(
Delightful," exclaimed Rachel, "you'll have to
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
23
pay for your seat also." And in fact I went back
to the ticket-office, where I threw down a twenty-
franc piece for two seats in the box, in order to
have plenty of elbow-room in the event of another
stray set invading it.
"Do you know," said Rachel to the employé,
you are going to have a magnificent house
to-night ?"
"that
At last we were allowed to pass. The attendant
gave us her best smile. She came towards us like
a soul in purgatory, living only with the shade of
the departed. "How pleased I am to see you,
Mdlle. Rachel. You have no idea how bored we
are here now that we no longer play tragedy. Or
rather you have but to
am with nothing to do;
occupied in the stalls.
look for yourself. Here I
scarcely two or three seats
I sincerely hope that you
are coming back." With this she showed us into
the box.
To whatever side one turned, the sight was
heartrending. Seeing that there was scarcely a
soul in the house there was not much animation
behind the footlights. And still they were inter-
preting two masterpieces in verse and in prose.
The Barber of Seville and the Aventurière (Emile
Augier). The principals were at their post; the
whole of the genius of the first theatrical company in
the world was simply "sparring for so much wind.”
The moment the actors noticed us in our box
they significantly glanced at each other.
"What
24
BEHIND THE SCENES
in the name of all that is good do they want here,"
they seemed to ask one another.
We here and there caught some words whispered
in a very low voice. They fancied that we had
come to see them for the last time previous to our
departure for America. "Take care," said Rachel
all of a sudden to Got, who had come close to her,
"take care, we have paid for our seats, and we
have the right to hiss."
The
Got did not belong to the committee of public
safety; he voted for comedy, but he also voted for
tragedy. In a little while Regnier came close to
us. We knew each other; he greeted me with that
subtle smile of his-a kind of two-edged smile-
and expressed by a look to Mdlle. Rachel his vexa-
tion at being obliged to fight against her.
women, on the other hand, were irreconcilable ; not
one would submit graciously to the domination of
the great tragédienne. They failed to understand
that her glory and genius would cast some of their
lustre on them. Good sense is contagious like
imbecility; the more talent there is in a theatre the
more will the average talent increase. It is the
story of average beauty in a drawing-room.
"What a pity," said Rachel suddenly; "look how
well these people act.”
"Yes," I replied, "but also look how dull and cold
everything is around them. The scenery wants
more colour, and the house wants more light."
"Surely you are joking. More light in order the
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
25
better to show the solitude."
brought the programme.
The attendant had
"I should like to know
the night's takings," said Rachel to her.
A moment afterwards the woman came back:
“Well, mademoiselle, it isn't much to boast of;
there's three hundred and sixty-three francs, in the
house."
"Ye gods of Eschylus and Corneille!" said
Mdlle. Rachel tragically.
Her anger against the theatre was gone; the
amount wounded her in her deep affection for the
house of Molière. "Three hundred and sixty-three
francs," she repeated; "the place is lost; what can
we do to save it?"
One of those splendid inspirations that often
prove the salvation of empires recurred to me.
"The thing is simple enough," I said to the
actress ; “to-morrow I'll increase the price of the
seats."
She looked at me to see whether I had not sud-
denly been struck mad, but she almost immediately
grasped my meaning, and, taking my hand in hers,
said, "You are a born theatrical manager."
*
*
Next morning my nomination was published in
the papers.
I was awakened by a deputation from
the market-women, who have always had some
particular friends in the ministries, and who get
the news before the Journal Officiel. In Paris
Dame Fortune appears
to you in that guise.
26
BEHIND THE SCENES
Subsequent to this I was appointed director of the
Opera. Though this quasi-royalty was not of my
seeking, I have been obliged to pay for the nosegays.
The first time we were obliged to throw the doors
wide open to provide ingress for a downright
sheaf of autumn roses, violets, and camellias.
"This is only a sample of what is to come,” said
the handsome spokeswoman of the band.
"Yes, yes," I replied, "the men of law are busy
making up a bouquet of flowers in their best style."
As will be seen I did not in the least deceive my-
self about the reception in store for me.
Charles Blanc, chief of the Fine Arts Section,
had gone the night before, towards the end of
the performance, to announce to the ladies and
gentlemen Comedians the fact of a new director
having been imposed on them by the will of Prince
Louis Napoleon and Mdlle. Rachel. A midnight
council had been held in the green room. There
had been a general promise to resist heroically; an
oath had been taken to this effect before all the
gods of Comedy; the shades of Molière and Baron,
Lekain and Talma, had been called upon to bear
witness to the oath.
At the first faint streak of dawn the Comedians
had sprung to arms, and lo and behold the lawyers
and process-servers of the Comédie in council
assembled without so much as a moment's ad-
journment! As a matter of course, attorneys and
process-servers alike were armed to the teeth as if
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
27
for a war of extermination. To a lawyer the law
is a two-edged sword that strikes for or against, as
the case may be. They counselled resistance and
battle. They had four army corps: the ordinary
tribunal, "in the first instance," the Court of Appeal,
the Court of Cassation, the Council of State. The
battle did not seem in the least doubtful. To enter
upon the struggle was simply gaining time; and a
Minister who misused his pen to sign the like
decrees would assuredly have fallen from power
before the termination of the pleadings. And
why the Minister only? The President of the
Republic was after all only a provisional magistrate;
he would be succeeded by another who loved the
male Comedians better than the female ones, and
who would reshape the republic of the Comedians.
That was how the men thought. The women simply
fancied they were enacting a comedy.
The Minister had told me in the morning that
the Director of the Department of Arts would pre-
sent me to the Comedians in the afternoon.
Instead of rehearsing on the stage, the Comedians
rehearsed in their committee-room. But it was no
longer the same prose they were declaiming. M.
Samson did not ask leave to speak-he took leave.
The women, that day more terrible than the men,
had asked to be admitted to the committee of re-
sistance to imbue themselves with warlike ideas.
One above all, the chambermaid, as Molière had
created her, the "golden jaw" of the company,
28
BEHIND THE SCENES
Mdlle. Brohan, showed herself irresistible in her
arguments.
The great actor had only reluctantly admitted
the women, for, according to him, women had ever
been the Republic's ruin. But the inspired "slavey"
of Molière put her arms akimbo in such a fashion
as to there and then compel the compliment from
him that she was the female sutler-nay, the life
and soul-of the regiment.
"Sutler!" she yelled. "Why not Joan of Arc?
Is there aught wanting for the character?"
They debated a long while to determine whether
they should protest against my entry by a dignified
absence.
"No," exclaimed Beauvallet, "we'd be accused
of flying before the enemy; we have the advantage
in number; let us await him without stirring.
And he recited a few lines of a tragedy. In reality
he was far less in earnest than the others. It is
a well-known fact that tragedians are the least
thorough of all actors in their professional con-
victions. They are often seen to laugh at the
wings, while comedians always preserve the sobriety
befitting their ministry.
We, Charles Blanc and I-two enemies-arrived
at two o'clock. We had been chatting about paint-
ing and sculpture, we had not said a word about the
theatre. I am bound to say that when we got as
far as the building I felt slightly moved. By
virtue of a decree-one of the blind decrees of
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
29
Providence and the Republic-I was going to enter
without preamble a house which was not mine own,
the house of Molière, the house of Corneille, the
house of Racine, the house of Beaumarchais. All
those grand figures appeared to look very sternly
at me. It was not the Comedians that inspired me
with fear; it was the gravity of the part I was to
play. Public opinion was awaiting my acts, for
public opinion had set its mind upon the deserted
theatre becoming once more the theatre of the
nation par excellence.
I went in with a firm step, strong in the con-
sciousness of my good intentions. It was or-
dained that I should not meet with a single
friendly face.
The very stage-door keeper was
armed to the teeth. He stopped me as I passed
his lodge, not to present arms to me, but to give
me a legal document. It was an injunction in due
form to abstain, at the risk of losing all my own
property, from exercising the functions of director.
It was what I expected.
"This belongs to the property-room," I said
to the concierge; "you'll take it up to the stage
before the performance."
This ingenious idea to welcome me at the door
with a bit of law-paper was due to the ingenious
M. Samson, celebrated for his ingenious comedies.
He has been called "a sham comic, a sham poet, a
sham good-natured, simple-minded man." A sham
poet he was, but not a sham comic nor of sham
30
BEHIND THE SCENES
good-nature. He was brave in his choler. They
had told me that day, "Take care, he is a make-
believe thunderbolt of war." Not so make-believe
in the latter capacity as all that.
In the ante-chamber the three ushers who bore
three comedy names, La Chaume, Beaubillet, De
Brie, had received instructions to keep me waiting
for five minutes. But after five seconds I proposed
to Charles Blanc to go in at any risk. La Chaume
ventured to open the door of the committee-room.
I asked Charles Blanc to go in first. "No," he
said, "the honour of standing the first volley
belongs to you."
There was an icy silence. One might have
heard the grass grow beneath the ruins of the
theatre. The Comédie was in full muster; every
"line" had its two or three copies.
M. Charles Blanc spoke in the Minister's name.
The latter was fully aware of the gravity of
the situation. A director was imposed on the
Comedians, when the Comedians wished to govern
themselves. But while admitting their talents
while on the stage, might there not be a doubt
about the result of their administration? The
public had deserted the Théâtre Français: was not
this the fault of the repertory? They had offended
Mdlle. Rachel, who with them had been the pride
and the fortune of the theatre. There was to be
peace. Such was the desire of the Minister, the
will of the President of the Republic
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
31
Then I spoke, but merely to say that it was not
necessary for me to recite my creed beforehand,
that I preferred to speak by my acts only. I had
made up my mind to any and every thing in order
to be “useful,” even to being disagreeable. I had
not come to the house of Molière to find board and
lodging for myself, nor was I hankering after
glory; but to re-establish the principles-the firm
as it were of Molière.
A speech had been expected. M. Samson had
told his adherents that I spoke little but badly. As
for himself, he spoke much. It was as if he was
speaking for a wager. For more than half an hour
he kept us spellbound by his golden words; sense-
less drivel, decked out in the cast-off garment of
common-place. I was fairly nonplussed. It was
not Molière that inspired M. Samson; it was not
difficult to perceive that he had been dandled on
the knees of the disciples of Colin d'Harleville and
of Andrieux, of art in its dotage.
Before so many burgraves* I was reminded of
the admirable remark of Louis XIV., which is
engraved on stone at Versailles. "In everything the
first requisite is youth." Youth, that is the true
revolution which transforms and makes fruitful
theatres as well as nations. I was young, hence I
felt myself strong before all the burgraves of
the company.
* A term borrowed from Victor Hugo's play of that name, and
which in French has become synonymous with "old fogy," some-
times with "doddering old fogy."—[Transl.]
32
BEHIND THE SCENES
"Are they all going to speechify like this?" I
asked of Augustine Brohan.
"Yes," she answered, smiling that winning smile
of hers. "After the men it will be the women's
turn. Every sociétaire has the right to speak." *
"Let us hope that the women will be satisfied
with giving their opinions, by lifting their hats." +
"Perhaps but we'll neither escape the speeches
of Provost, nor those of Ligier and Beauvallet.
Still Regnier is too downright an actor to say a
word."
During the speech of M. Samson I was taking
the measure of my company. I only knew these
ladies and gentlemen from a distance. I had only
been to the green-room of the Comédie Française
once in company of Roger de Beauvoir, when Mdlle.
Doze acted.
I had met Mdlle. Anaïs and Mdlle. Brohan in
society, but had only seen the other actresses in the
Femmes Savantes or in the Precieuses Ridicules.
I was wondering why Mme. Allan, Mdlle. Nathalie,
Mdlle. Judith, M. Got, M. Delaunay, M. Monrose,
*
As I may have occasion to use the the words sociétaire and
pensionnaire-for which there is no proper English equivalent-
now and then, I beg to inform the reader that a sociétaire of the
Comédie Française has a share in the profits of the theatre, in
addition to his or her salaire. A pensionnaire has merely an engage-
ment.-[Transl.]
† A custom still prevailing in the French law-courts, where
assessors concur in the president's views by lifting their barrettas.
-[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
33
were not there, just as one wonders, when going to
the Académie, at the absence of Alphonse Karr,
Henri de Pène (since dead), and Théodore de Ban-
ville. I remembered afterwards that I had only to
deal with the sociétaires.
*
Everything comes to an end; all the white neck-
ties and dress-coats went out solemnly.
"Behold
the end of the
ginaire," I said.
ceremony in the Malade Ima-
"The imaginary invalid is the
Comédie, seeing that there is not as much as a
smile."
66
Truly," whispered M. Charles Blanc, "but the
invalid is not an imaginary one."
The actresses looked as if they should like to
continue the conversation; Mdlle. Brohan passing
in front of me said that she did not agree with a
single word that had been said. "If I had spoken,
she added, "you would have been simply crushed
by my arguments."
I have forgotten to mention that, in the guise of
peroration, M. Samson had informed me of the
contents of the legal document-the nosegay that
had been handed to me at the door. I was strictly
forbidden to interfere with the concerns of the
Théâtre Français. On that very day an action for
damages would be begun against me for the loss
the Comédie would suffer by my nomination. M.
Samson added, in order to frighten me still more,
no doubt, that the damages claimed would be con-
D
34
BEHIND THE SCENES
siderable, that he was pleased to know that I was
possessed of property which would go to paying
the debts of the Comédie, seeing that I prevented
the Comédie from paying them itself.
Now, as a matter of fact, I had not as much as a
brick or an ear of wheat to call my own, but every
man of energy can find a fortune beneath a ruin.
M. Samson furthermore did not fail to remind
me of Molière's saying, "Comedy takes its own
wherever it finds it." He wound up by saying that
he thought me too much of a gentleman to disturb
the peace of the Comedians in Ordinary of the
Republic. "The decree appointing you is an abuse
of power; you'll tear it up, and you'll give a lesson
in behaviour to those who pretend to govern us."
As for me, I had ceased to listen. When they
were all gone, M. Charles Blanc held out his hand
and said, "A man forewarned is worth two. Be-
sides you are not by yourself. Good-bye!
""
It was all very well for him to say that I was
not by myself; I felt very isolated indeed. I sat
musing for a while to ask myself by what kind of
action, more or less violent, I could emphasise my
nomination, for I was so "provisional" that I felt
the ground give way under me. The Comedians
might refuse to act, and, much as I might attempt,
I could not multiply myself and “ go on " when the
curtain rose. Besides, who could say how the
courts-we were in a "provisional" Republic-
would take this strange action? For after all it
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
35
was of no use to disguise the fact that the Comedians
had the right to call themselves master in their own
house. Until now they had never had a director—
they had governed themselves at their own sweet
will. They were going straight to their ruin, but
that was their own look-out, to borrow their own
words. They swore by all their gods that it was
their art they were defending. They professed to
care little or nothing for the moneys the public
might bring to their exchequer; they said that they
were only acting for the sake of applause-the
unalloyed gold of the Comedian.
""
I caught myself pleading their cause instead of
mine. What business had I here, after all? Had
I not better stick to my own eagle-nook in the
proud dignity of the man of letters, ever master of
his own thoughts? As it was, I had merely be-
come the obsequious servant of opportunity. The
Minister had said to me, "You are the master.'
But above me stood the Minister, above the Min-
ister stood the President of the Republic, above the
President stood public opinion, above public
opinion stood Mdlle. Rachel. This struggle with
the Comedians was perilous to say the least; one
might almost wager on my getting the worst of it.
Everyone was on their side-journalists and spec-
tators alike. If I brought back the public to the
house the Comedians would say, "This is our
doing." If the public failed to come back they
would say, "This is his work."
D 2
36
BEHIND THE SCENES
It was getting dusk, a cold greyish dusk-I felt
as if a shroud was being wrapped round me. The
fire had gone out, and the only thing I could dis-
tinguish in the gathering darkness of the committee-
room was the bust of Molière, the melancholy
gravity of his features increased by the ambient
shadows.
"Nevertheless," I went on musing, as if speak-
ing to Molière, "what could be more glorious to a
man who loves the master-minds than to gild
anew this their illustrious home; to give their
works in a brilliant framework; to summon all
the valiant intellects-Hugo, Dumas, Musset, Vigny,
Balzac, Augier; to oppose the work of the living to
the work of the deathless; to prove that France has
not fallen from her high estate, and that her intel-
lectual life breathes as freely as ever?"
The Molière in marble was a sceptic who vouch-
safed not the least encouragement of those splendid
ideas, but I went into the directorial sanctum with
renewed determination.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
37
CHAPTER III.
A GENTLEMAN of about fifty was writing at a
mahogany desk in the austerely-furnished director's
room. "This, then, is the kingdom, I exclaimed
sadly. The gentleman rose, bowed to me, and
resumed his writing imperturbably. I failed to
account for his presence. Why was he there?
To whom was he writing?
"It is next week's repertory," he said, pushing
his spectacles up to his forehead.
"Oh, indeed. And who makes out this reper-
tory ?",
"I do."
"I'd feel obliged, monsieur, by your giving me
your card; here is mine.'
"I am M. Sevestre." *
(6 Oh, I see-M. Sevestre! You are the director
of the Montmartre Theatre, and you come here to
write out your repertory ? "
"No, monsieur, I am no longer director of the
Montmartre Theatre; I am director of the Théâtre
* The name was ennobled afterwards. M. Edmond Sevestre died
a hero's death before the walls of Paris.
38
BEHIND THE SCENES
Français, or, to give it its present name, the
Theatre of the Republic."
"And, pray, by virtue of what decree?"
"I have been appointed by the ladies and gen-
tlemen sociétaires at the very moment when you
were nominated by the Minister."
66
Really. And as such you claim the right to
occupy this mahogany writing-table?"
66
Yes, monsieur; I am but doing my duty."
"Well, monsieur, I am very sorry, but you
must allow me to have this writing-table in
mahogany taken to the Montmartre Theatre."
"C
It
By no means, monsieur. First of all, because
this writing-table in mahogany is part and parcel
of the establishment, and consecrated as such.
was on this table that M. Buloz used to correct his
proofs for the Revue des Deux Mondes, and that
M. Lockroy* corrected the mistakes in Mdlle.
Rachel's spelling."
"Monsieur, and dear fellow-worker, you are at
home in comedy. One perceives it at a glance.
So make your mind easy. I shall not dispute you
your mahogany. Monsieur," I added, dropping
my bantering tone, "I represent the Minister of
the Interior, who has given me right of domicile
here. You are too well versed in the manners of
good society, having played 'first old gentleman,'
to oblige me to resort to armed force."
* The great actor, father of M. Edouard Lockroy, who has been
Minister of Public Instruction and of Commerce during the Third
Republic. [Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
39
He continued to draw up his repertory. I rang
the bell, which was answered by La Chaume.
"Monsieur de la Chaume," I said, taking care
not to forget the prefix, "be kind enough to rid
me of this bit of mahogany furniture. Seeing that
everything is contested to me here, even the privi-
lege to write, you'll send to my house and tell
them to bring back a small inlaid writing-table
which is in my study."
La Chaume appeared undecided for a moment.
He was in the presence of two men, two masters,
two authorities, which seemed, perhaps, equally
weighty to him. La Chaume was also of Louis
XIV.'s opinion, that the first requisite everywhere
is youth, but especially in the house of Molière,
which had become a convent. The misanthropical
figure of the cashier had left its sombre reflex on
every other figure. Hence, he took my side, at all
costs, even at the risk of dismissal. It was an act
of heroism. La Chaume remained my friend ever
afterwards.
When M. Sevestre saw that I had thoroughly
made up my mind to blow up the writing-table, as
one blows up a citadel, he consulted his watch,
and, like a sensible man, considered that it was
time to go and dine. I was left master of the
place. Half-an-hour later my little writing-desk,
the handiwork of Boulle himself, and on which I
had written nearly all my books, was brought to
It was my turn to write out the "bill" for
me.
40
BEHIND THE SCENES
the next week. I fancy that it was not altogether
the same as that of the other director. I sub-
stituted Alfred de Musset for M. de Wailly, who
that very evening rushed madly into my room,
exclaiming, "Seeing that you take away my
living, M. le directeur, you may just as well take
my head."
It was a small bullet-head, of which
one might have made a skittle-ball.
"Monsieur," I replied, "I do not want your
head. I have come here to play the comedies I
like, and not to play a game of skittles. I am fair,
but
very obstinate; keep your head, which is dark,
on your shoulders for a better opportunity."
The evening was stormy throughout. I felt pre-
parations for war everywhere around me.
On my
return home to dinner I found Gérard de Nerval
waiting for me. Though he had been mad three
times, he was nevertheless an excellent adviser.
We talked a long while about the two literatures
confronting each other. He had become eclectic,
moved in turns by his sympathy for that of the
living and his admiration for that of the dead. Since
the night before, I myself had become eclectic; I
no longer liked but one school-the school of
masterpieces. I had found out that there was as
much of the "conventional"
among the
young
"romanticists 99
as among the academical bur-
graves. Racine painting the passions of the
seventeenth century in the garb of the ancients
was as bold as Shakespeare in his creations. And
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
41
was not Molière truer than the whole set of modern
apostles? Were not the works of Pierre Corneille
eternally young, whence Hugo, de Vigny, Dumas,
de Musset, and the others, had drunk their
inspiration in large draughts? Hence I concluded
my paradox by the following verdict: "In France,
in order to have done with the 'classicists,' we
have but to suppress the Campistrons in tragedy,
the Mazères and Empis in comedy. All the others
are 'romanticists,' seeing that they are creators."
Gérard agreed with me. "You are right," he
said; "but what are you going to do by-and-by,
when the Mazères, Empis, and all the funeral mutes
of the Comédie, will besiege your doors?"
"I'll receive them very cheerfully, but I shall
not play their works.'
""
"After all, you have but one voice in the
reading committee."
"I have already thought of that, but when they
read a piece my features will so effectually show
that I am bored as to make everyone around me
yawn during the reading."
"Remember, that M. Samson belongs to that
school, and that he himself will read you some
comedies.' ""
"I promise you several black balls for M.
Samson beforehand."
"Beauvallet will read you the tragedies of Cam-
pistron.'
""
"In that case I'll condemn him to play them.
42
BEHIND THE SCENES
Besides, between the poetry of Beauvallet and that
of Samson there is a wide gulf indeed. Beauvallet
has flirted with 'romanticism.""
Gérard was not convinced.
"We appear to
forget that the Comédie Française is within an ace
of its ruin. It will devour you and everything you
possess."
"I like the post of danger."
"Well, you have got one with a vengeance."
Gérard spoke truly. Even before the Revolu-
tion of February, the Comedians had made theirs
by restoring M. Buloz to his cherished study of the
Revue des Deux Mondes. The Comedians of the
Rue de Richelieu imagined that, with the advent
of the Republic, there would be crowded houses
every evening. They commenced by singing the
Marseillaise; I mean, that Mdlle. Rachel, hugging
a tricolour, recited the hymn of Rouget de l'Isle in
her most impulsive style. To some the thing was
horrible, to others it was sublime; to everybody it
was grandiose. But there is no occasion for the
Marseillaise, except at periods of great excitement.
The Comédie Française rolled up its flag and enacted
comedy before empty benches, because the real
comedy was being enacted in the streets.
The monarchs of the theatrical republic came to
the conclusion that if they no longer made money
it was owing to Mdlle. Rachel. For a long while
already there had been discussions with regard to
the days following Mdlle. Rachel's performances.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
43
Nobody would act on those days. After having
proscribed the director they proscribed the tragic
actress. Thanks to God and the Republic they
would be free at last to make money without the
despotism of either actress or director. A report
of the general manager and a letter from a
sociétaire will convey a sufficiently vivid idea
of the perils then threatening the Comédie
Française. It was poor, and the poor do not
inspire confidence. It had become timid, and the
very soul of the theatre is boldness.
Consequently the situation of the Comédie
Française in 1849 was very critical. The report
of the general manager, M. Edmond Sevestre, to
the minister, dated 22nd June, shows a deficit, for
that year only, of a hundred and three thousand
francs, to be added to the former debts, without
mentioning three hundred thousand francs due
for rent and former liabilities. M. Edmond
Sevestre, in language shorn of all artifice, said,
"If the National Assembly does not come to the
Comedians' rescue, the cashier will be unable to
pay at the end of the month." To quote a sen-
tence from the report itself: "The figures, which
speak for themselves, show that the situation
admits of no delay." The cashier of the Comédie
Française states his inability to indicate "a single
method by which the management could obtain a
loan of ten thousand francs, even for a single hour."
*
44
BEHIND THE SCENES
Chatting as we went, Gérard and I had got as far
as the door of the theatre. He did not want to come
in.
He was a man of peace, and did not like
comedy behind the scenes, thinking that it was
too animated in tone. On entering my room I
found myself in the midst of war once more. La
Chaume came to tell me that M. Brindeau was
furious, and M. Samson beside himself. Mdlle.
Denain threatened to have me taken to For
l'Evêque.* Mademoiselle said she would confine
herself to handing me over to the journalists. In
fact, my repertory had satisfied no one.
"That's what I expected," I said to La Chaume;
"I know these ladies and gentlemen. Since they
ceased to make money they draw up the repertory
for themselves; I shall always make it out with a
view to the public. There has been enough of
private theatricals." La Chaume warned me that
I was to have a great many visits. First of all
M. Brindeau, who wanted to make me jump out of
the window; then M. Empis, who wanted to read
a piece next morning. I was much more afraid of
M. Empis than of M. Brindeau. A piece by M.
Empis! I was under the impression that this gen-
tleman was reposing beneath his epitaph long ago.
Shall I go and tell M. Brindeau that you'll
see him, because he acts to-night?" asked La
Chaume.
66
* A place of incarceration for recalcitrant Comedians during the
eighteenth century.-[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
4.5
Yes," I replied, "let's begin by the more
pleasant of the two."
Almost immediately afterwards the Comedian
burst into the room like a thunderclap, but there
was a great deal of cry for very little wool. My
Olympian beard disarmed his choler, though he
had promised his comrades to be terrible. I had
risen from my seat to show him that I was as tall
as he, and I graciously offered him a chair. Five
minutes after he had come in he was simply
delightful. We chatted for a moment about the
future of the theatre. He understood that I agreed
a great deal better with his own notions than the
burgraves of the institution, but he had enlisted
under their colours and he was bound to give me
battle. He offered me his hand when leaving, and
resumed his terrific look to go back to his com-
rades.
"Well ?" asked Beauvallet of him.
"Well, I showed him the stuff I was made of.
I told him that we did not want his repertory, but
he argued so well that I did not fling him out of
the window."
"What a pity!" exclaimed Mdlle. Brohan;
"you had worked yourself to such a beautiful
pitch."
One who did not
in was M. Empis.
offer me his hand when coming
This man of the world-this
mighty writer in the civil service-had become a
member of the French Académie owing to a wager
46
BEHIND THE SCENES
of Doctor Véron, whose ideas about the power of
journalism were not like those of Emile de
Girardin. Doctor Véron had wanted to prove that
the Constitutionnel was able to make an acade-
mician in the teeth of public opinion. Its enemy,
Alfred de Vigny, presented himself; the Consti-
tutionnel started the candidature of M. Empis.
Politics had already begun to play their part at the
Académie. The Constitutionnel compelled M.
Thiers, M. Molé-all the enemies of the Guizot
Ministry, against which it was fighting-to vote for
M. Empis, and M. Empis was elected. Requiescat
in pace.
I asked him to sit down in the very arm-chair
vacated by the comedian.
"Monsieur,” he said, "you appear not to know
who I am."
"I know who you are, monsieur, and I know
why you are come."
"Monsieur, I have come to ask you to summon
the committee to-morrow, to listen to a comedy,
which which is 'destined' for the Théâtre
Français."
"Monsieur, who can answer for destiny? At
any rate, you will not read it to-morrow, nor the
day after. I alone am responsible for my acts
here. I have got a literary ideal which is not at
all yours.
I have not come to the Comédie
Française to play the comedies I do not like. I
speak frankly to you to avoid all misunderstand-
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
47
ing, and your own loyalty will bear me no grudge
for doing so. It is a question of principle."
My exceeding calm manner exasperated the
academician. He looked at me with an air of
pity; one could see that he was taking the mea-
sure of his own literary worth, and that he-he,
one of the Forty-considered me a hundred fathoms
below him.
"But, monsieur, I belong to the Académie
Française."
"I do not dispute the fact, but you are aware
that M. de Molière did not belong to it, though he
wrote, for his period, pretty clever comedies.
You are one of the Forty, but were you one of
The Ten Thousand' you would not frighten
me."
The academician absolutely bounded off his
chair. "Monsieur, if I did not control myself I
should fling you out of the window."
"Faith, monsieur," I replied, remaining quietly
in my corner by the fire, "the novelty of the idea
is not altogether yours, for M. Brindeau came here
a few minutes ago with the self-same intention.
Seeing that M. Brindeau is a comedian, I saw well
enough that he was only acting; as for your
speaking like this, I put it down to your love of
figurative style. Nevertheless, if you persist in
your intention, you who are a man of the world,
I shall simply show you the door." And seeing
that M. Empis, who had thrown off all restraint,
48
BEHIND THE SCENES
came towards me threateningly, I rose quietly and
opened the window.
The fresh air calmed him at once. "I am going,
monsieur, I am going." He went out with a kind
of "tragedy dignity," saying to La Chaume that
it was strange indeed for a man like he was to be
forbidden to set foot at the Comédie, which, when
he was at the "civil list," he had "exempted" from
paying its rent for many years. When La Chaume
repeated these words to me I felt sorry for having
opened the door. I could not deny the rights
acquired by M. Empis. I wrote to him imme-
diately that he should read his piece at one of the
next sittings of the committee. And he did read
his piece. It was rejected unanimously. He was
awaiting the decision in my room, where he had
almost opened the window to throw me out. I
went up to him and told him "straight" that his
play had been rejected. He looked at me without
saying a word. I told him why it had been refused.
It was an historical comedy; I analysed the sub-
ject, which in no way lent itself to the stage; I
showed him that with all his talent he could not
succeed in constructing a comedy where Scribe,
who to him was the all-accomplished master in
quasi-historical comedy, had failed. I managed
to convince him. I expected to find an angry
man; I found a resigned one. When, after the
most violent outbursts, he came to himself again,
there was not a better man living. The bad school
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
49
of stage-craft had spoiled him. Had he come a
little later he might have done wonders, for he
had an original turn of mind. I remember a
witticism of his. When in his turn he became
director-for the reader is aware that he succeeded
me-he listened patiently to a most detestable play
-a comedy in verse, in which there was neither
comedy nor verse. All at once a line stands out.
"Upon my word, that's a capital line," he says.
"I wonder how it got in there?"
An unexpected visit consoled me for the de-
parture of M. Empis. It was Alfred de Musset's.
He came to tell me cordially that he would remain
on my side in this unparalleled struggle for did
we not share the same ideas and the same sym-
pathies in theatrical art? "Unfortunately," he
added, we are not making money, and money
is the sinew of genius."
66
'You are right; the receipts of yesterday and
those of to-day put together would not make
enough to offer a nice little supper to the actresses.
Nevertheless, if you'll write me a five-act comedy,
either in verse or in prose, I'll give you at once
a voucher of ten thousand francs on the Bank of
France. And it will be cheap at the price, for
while I am playing you, the bill of the Comédie
Française will not belong to the grandsons of
Andrieux,' who always write the same comedy
because the same comedy is always applauded."
The great poet had always been badly paid for
E
'
50
BEHIND THE SCENES
his masterpieces. We were in a period when the
five-franc piece had still a magic ring about it.
Ten thousand francs almost appeared a fortune to
him. He took up his hat, saying:
"Good-bye, my dear Houssaye. I am going to
write the first lines of my comedy."
Unfortunately he went into the Café de la
Régence on his way home. He sat down to play
a game of chess, and according to an expression
invented by himself "he absinthed" (absented)
himself from himself until one o'clock in the morn-
ing, absences similar to those of Byron when at
Venice. Such men would be gods if they were
not men.
"A friend at last," I said to myself when he was
gone.
"A friend, for it wanted some courage to
cross the green-room on his way to mine."
They announced Mdlle. Brohan. She was an
enemy, but an enemy in petticoats is still a friend.
She came into the room like a burst of sunshine,
with her youth in full bloom, showing her thirty-
two teeth, her eyes flashing and her voice golden.
"Don't fancy," she said, holding out her hand,
"that I have come to see the director of the
Théâtre Français; I come to see Arsène Houssaye.
I detest the director; I like the poet.
""
“You have mistaken the door," I said to her;
"there is no longer a poet here.”
If there were two different men in me, there
were three or four different women, and real
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
51
women, in her. There was the blue stocking, and
the woman who made fun of the blue stocking;
there was the believer and the sceptic; the ideal
mistress and the woman with the stentorian voice.
Her inquisitive mind, well enlightened, had taken
ship for almost every clime; her handsome brow
had knocked against every cloud. Those who
knew her only from the outside did not know her
at all, but Emile Augier, the Duke de Morny,
Octave Feuillet, Alfred de Musset, who paid her
court, had caught a glimpse of the abyss in which
God had thrown a handful of all things. She was
very fond of her art, but she was too fond of wit.
This strange woman was simply a very upright
She has been able to hold up her head in
the best of society because she has always had
clean hands. Whatever the passion of her wor-
shippers, she never would condescend to bear its
mark. Not a trinket, not a bracelet, not an ear-
ring, not a diamond, but what was her own, bought
by her, by her paid for. People had the greatest
trouble to make her accept as much as a bouquet.
One day I sent her some white lilac in a vase of
old porcelain; when the lilac was withered she
broke the vase.
man.
Though on that evening she had only entered
my room to deny the director, she went away
resolved to fight for me. I had scored a capital
point, for I understood well enough that in this
theatrical war one woman was worth two men,
E 2
52
BEHIND THE SCENES
And still her own royalty was at stake. In
Mdlle. Rachel's absence she was queen, for there
was nothing but comedy left; but she was too
clever and too much of a woman to be bored any
longer in solitude.
After her came Mdlle. Anaïs. For several lustres
already they had called her the everlasting Anaïs.
She had refused to grow old, and kept up a hand-
to-hand fight with time as the charming de Brie
had done in former days. Years, though they
were to the number of sixty, had left no trace as
yet on those features so softly rounded, which kept
their infantine, nay, their ingenuous looks. It was
the habit of acting; the dye of the actress had
given off" on the woman. The evening before
I had dandled her grandson on my knees, so I
looked at her with unfeigned curiosity. She had
not even been obliged to "make up," so much
did the candle-light maintain the illusion.
66
"Mademoiselle," I said, "I had the grandson of
your grandmother on my knee yesterday."
66
She smiled; not a single one of her teeth was
missing. Well," she said, "it's the grandmother
herself who has come to tell you that she means to
act the young girl for a long while yet."
Then she told me that there was a schism between
her and the whole of the company, for having taken
the cudgels for me and for Mdlle. Rachel.
up
I caught up a red-lead pencil and put two
strokes.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
53
66
Still," continued Mdlle. Anaïs, "you'll not get
over Célimène.”
"Mdlle. Denain no doubt wants her own battle
of Denain."*
"Yes. Good-bye, for Léander is waiting for
me.”
The lover Léander was one of the foremost per-
sonages of the Republic. Mdlle. Anaïs had married
very often; she had never committed a mésalliance.
One might say the same thing of nearly all the
women of the Comédie Française. Certain regard
is due to Molière, as well as to noble birth.
This time it was the turn of Provost.
"I have waived all ceremony to come and see
you; but it is not a visit to the director," he said.
"Yes," I answered cordially. "I know this
formula well.'
66
"You are a gentleman," he resumed; "they
have pitchforked you in here, and you are wasting
your time. You risk your own property."
He then told me that the lawyers of the Comédie
were convinced that I should lose all my property,
notwithstanding my being the representative of
the Government. I was running all these risks
without the slightest prospect of gain. In those
days the director had a thousand francs per month,
and five hundred francs for carriage expenses.
* An allusion to the brilliant victory of De Villars over Prince
Eugène, in 1712, called by some the battle of Denain (from the
town of that name near Valenciennes).-[Transl.]
54
BEHIND THE SCENES
That was all; not a penny of the profits, though
the latter appeared a very remote contingency
indeed.
Provost-like Samson, like Regnier, like all the
others--had made up his mind to fight to the bitter
end, nay, to tender his resignation, to enlist else-
where. These gentlemen had a great many friends
in high places; they had, above all, a great many
flatterers. They all fancied that they would make
but a mouthful of the young man, who was already
sufficiently compromised through his friendship
with Thoré, Sobrier, Esquiros. The whole of the
"Theatrical Commission" had already protested,
because I had been appointed without their having
been consulted. M. de Morny had been to the
green-room, and said that he would go and see the
Prince and have me revoked at the first blunder
I committed. So my reign was to be but a
short-lived one. The whole of the Council of
State was also on the side of the Comedians, so
that, if the law courts pronounced in my favour—
which seemed nothing short of impossible to Pro-
vost-the Council of State would still decide against
me.
He explained to me that the thought of
abdicating was too much for them, and very
graphically predicted my ruin. The theatre was
losing at the rate of two thousand francs a day.
"Well," I answered, "I think I can manage to
get through a few more days. But what if the
theatre were to earn a thousand francs a night ?”
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
55
"You would be none the better for it, seeing
that you do not share in the profits.”
"True; but you are too proud to accept money
earned under my management."
"Don't let us talk of that; it's so much waste
of time-the more that we have made up our
minds to refuse to act. Take me, for instance;
they offer me twenty-five thousand francs per
annum and three months' leave at the Palais-
Royal."
"Well, go to the Palais-Royal. I'll take Sain-
ville from there."
"Would you desecrate the house of Molière to
such an extent?"
"My dear Provost, I like you much in all your
parts, except in the one you are playing at this
moment. But I swear to you that, if the Comédie
refuses its duty for to-morrow, the place will not be
shut up for any length of time. Before two days
have passed over our heads, should it cost me a
hundred thousand francs, I, who have not a penny
to bless myself with, will have the best company
in Paris."
O youth, O youth, be thou blessed!
La Chaume came in to tell me that Mdlle. Rachel
wished to see me.
"And to begin with," I said to Provost, "I
shall have Mdlle. Rachel, without mentioning
Mdlle. Brohan; the antique peplum and the
modern chambermaid's apron."
56
BEHIND THE SCENES
Mdlle. Rachel entered the room as if entering
Provost got up to go.
her own.
"Pray, don't go on my account, M. Provost,"
she said, with a patronising air. "M. Arsène
Houssaye, my temporal and spiritual director,
intends to manage above-board. There will be an
end of all those nocturnal conclaves of the Council
of Ten."
"Mademoiselle," said Provost, "we are protect-
ing the dignity of the Comédie Française."
"Is it because you are presided over by Pasquin-
Samson? For I accuse no one but him, though he
was my master. I may say this to you, who
refused to admit me to your class on the pretext
that I should never be worth anything. Which
verdict, after all, does not make you the less a
great comedian." At this last sally Provost bowed
and went out. Rachel turned to me. "Well, my
dear director, have you raised the prices of the
seats ? "
"I mean to do so to-morrow." I rang the bell
and gave instructions to send the following simple
line to all the papers: "The prices of the seats at
the Théâtre Français are raised."
There was a knock at the door, and Victor Hugo
came in. He exchanged an almost tragical greet-
ing with Mdlle. Rachel. Until now drama and
tragedy had not embraced each other.
"To see you both together in my room is to me
a most gratifying event," I said.
"You appear to
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
57
me like the two symbols of my ideal with regard
to the theatre: the antique world and the new-
Eschylus and Shakespeare."
"Well," chimed in Rachel, "the daughter of
Eschylus is going to embrace Shakespeare."
They embraced cordially enough; but I had a
notion that it was less the daughter of Eschylus
than the charming woman, called Rachel, whom
the poet was saluting. It had been said at her
début that Rachel was not handsome; by dint of
will and genius she had become handsome, not only
with the beauty of intelligence but with the beauty
that inspires desire.
The interview lasted for more than an hour.
Mdlle. Rachel, who was lavish with her promises,
said to Victor Hugo that she wished to play Angélo,
Marion Delorme, Hernani, and even Lucrèce
Borgia. She had already studied the part of La
Thisbe, and she recited its principal scene with so
much force and sentiment as to make Victor Hugo
exclaim, "Once more I see Mme. Dorval plus
style."
He held out his hand.
take care of your chariot."
"Good-bye, Thespis,
"And don't be afraid of the spokes put into your
wheels," added Rachel.
Meanwhile the news spread in the green-room
that all the enemies of the theatre were assembled
in my room like a band of conspirators. M. Samson,
shaking with laughter, repeated some epigrams of
58
BEHIND THE SCENES
his own making against the poet that had written
Hernani. In view of such attempts at insurrection
the Comedians decided upon calling an extraordinary
meeting at midnight, at the house of the president
and senior fellow-sociétaire, that grand artist and
abominable semainier,*
At midnight I returned home without knowing
whether the illustrious burgraves would condescend
to leave their Olympus for the boards. Neverthe-
less, I had made up my mind to reorganise a com-
pany, at any cost, from the different theatres.
Besides, assuming the sociétaires to tender their
resignation, had I not the pensionnaires? Got, a
comic; Monrose, a Figaro; Delaunay, a lover.
There was a whole bevy of young and handsome
fugitives from the Conservatoire, who did not care a
snap for the traditions of the school ;-Fix, Rebecca,
Favart, Théric, Luther. How many Comedians
like Bocage and Rouvière might I not have had for
the mere asking? There was still time to enhance
the glory of the Théâtre Français by the grand
figure of Frédérick Lemaître. I could recall Ben-
jaud; I could send for Bressant. Mme. Plessy
was coming back from Russia. Mme. Doze was
longing to tread the boards again. The début of
Madeleine Brohan was already spoken of. Not to
mention the unforeseen, which plays so great a part
in all parts.
* From semaine (week). It is still the custom at the Comédie
Francaise for each sociétaire to superintend rehearsals and general
stage-management in rotation for a week.-[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
59
Next morning a paper published a paragraph to
the effect that the sociétaires quitted the Théâtre
Français to make up a company at the Salle Ven-
tadour. The coast was free, and I composed there
and then on paper the most glorious company in
the world.
I wrote to the Minister as follows: "What we
wanted yesterday at the Comédie was a director,
what will be wanting to-morrow will be the Come-
dians; we must prepare for any and every cata-
strophe. I am still in the belief that everything
will end in a capital bit of comedy, nevertheless I
wish to be on my guard against the threats of
messieurs the sociétaires, who intend to organise
another Comédie Française at the Salle Ventadour.
I have not the slightest doubt of being able to
make up in four-and-twenty hours a most excellent
company of actors, strangers to the Théâtre
Français; for instance, Frédérick Lemaître, Bocage,
Rouvière, Mélingue. Mdlle. Rachel will look after
the women. Moreover, we have besides the socié-
taires a most brilliant personnel at the Comédie.
Frédérick Lemaître would be admirable in Tartuffe
and in L'Avare (the Miser); Bocage would be
highly interesting in the whole of the repertory;
Rouvière is a genuine tragedian, and Mélingue a
veritable creator of parts. They are actors belong-
ing to the true trace, with the stamp of Shakespeare
about them, who up till now have only wanted the
right house to extend their fame. I yield to no
60
BEHIND THE SCENES
man in my admiration of the finished, traditional
(too traditional), legendary (too legendary) art of
the sociétaires, but we should, nevertheless, not
applaud at their whims. If they persist in their
mad idea of going to play at the Salle Ventadour
they might carry with them the public of the
eleventh hour, and continue to take a hundred
and fifty francs a night; but they will not oust the
house of Molière. I don't give them six weeks of
existence at this playing at truant.'
""
I could not run a theatre without actors, and I
did not want to go without having shown fight.
Hence I resolved, come what might, to keep up
the Théâtre Français with the best French come-
dians, as I had already decided not to play any-
thing, besides the old masterpieces, but the works
of Hugo, Dumas, Alfred de Musset, and the younger
aspirants to dramatic fame, not a single act which
I considered antiquated, albeit that it had been
and was still considered fashionable at the Théâtre
Français.
66
I went at once to Frédérick Lemaître. On my
way thither I met Offenbach. Will you help me
in a revolution at the Comédie Française?" I
asked him.
"Of course I will," came the answer.
not a man of noise ?"
"Am I
"Very well, then; I engage you as leader of
the orchestra. There are only two violins now at
the Théâtre Français, you shall have four." That
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
61
same evening Offenbach majestically took his seat
in the orchestra, and it proved his stirrup-cup; for
it was at the Théâtre Français that he composed
his freshest melodies. I was equally instrumental
in bringing out Gounod in the choruses to Ulysses,
a charming opera, which would have delighted
Homer and Theocritus.
pro-
Frédérick Lemâitre fell into my arms at the
spect of playing Tartuffe at the Théâtre Français;
unfortunately he was not free, because he could
not break his engagement at the Boulevard at a
moment's notice. He asked for a delay of three
months.
Bocage would not enter the house of Molière
unless its front doors were thrown wide open to
him. He fancied he was Molière himself because
he happened to have the latter's face. Still, as yet
he had not written a Misanthrope.
I began to get very uneasy. To be director of
the Comédie Française when there were no longer
any Comedians was likely to set the groundlings
laughing at, instead of with, me. That evening,
however, the Comedians in Ordinary to the Republic,
knowing that I meant to have comedy without
them, were all at their posts; consequently they
averted the coup d'état that would have upset the
Académie, the training-school for actors and singers,
and the literature cherished by the French middle
classes.
After the performance, the Comedians who had
62
BEHIND THE SCENES
condescended to act the repertory imposed by me
wanted to take their revenge. Their board of
legal guardians held a meeting in the green-room.
It was resolved that the action-at-law should begin
the next morning by a claim for three hundred
thousand instead of one hundred thousand francs
damages. It was more in accordance with what I
deserved, for I had played Molière and Alfred de
Musset.
Seeing that the Comédie Française had a legally
constituted council of supervision entirely devoted
to the rebellious sociétaires, I named one also the
following morning. It was composed of three or
four retired Ministers. Its president began by
telling me that we had to be guided entirely by
circumstances. Everything was provisional. A
new Minister might put me in the wrong within a
week by virtue of the decree of Moscow.
I had already noticed that the moment one wants
to hold one's own by means of men of law they at
once try to make one lose one's footing by "hum-
ming and hahing," hence I decided to take counsel
only with myself. The Comedians, therefore, no
longer cared to risk a struggle against themselves :
they had sufficient good sense to perceive that the
Parisian is fond of revolutions. Not only were
they all at their posts, but they acted better than
usual, wishing to show that comedy-acting outside
the Comédie Française was nowhere. Neverthe-
less we did not become faster friends for all that.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
63
They pretended to obey only themselves, albeit
that I made out the repertory, and as I wished my
rule to be a mild one I myself pretended to believe
that they were still governing themselves. The
action-at-law was being vigorously pursued. It is
well known, however, that in Paris law-suits drag
their weary length along unless one of the con-
tending parties be a native of Normandy.* The
only native of Normandy the Comédie could boast
of was Pierre Corneille; it was he who pleaded its
cause most eloquently through the voice of Mdlle.
Rachel.
The Comedians, though sensible folk, did not fail
to make fun of me for raising the prices of the
seats when the house was empty. Very soon,
however, they were delighted at their house being
full; but they did not for a moment attribute the
change to my doings. In fact, the situation was
most critical. The public was on my side, but all
the papers were on that of the sociétaires—even the
papers supposed to be inspired by the Elysée. The
repertory consisted mainly of pieces belonging to
the old school, the taste for which was gone. A
report of the general manager to the Minister
showed the Comédie to be in debt to the amount
of half-a-million of francs. There was neither
scenery nor dresses. The theatrical commission
at the Ministry of Arts had placed before the
* A popular allusion to the sharpness and love of litigation
of the natives of Normandy.-[Transl.]
64
BEHIND THE SCENES
Council of State a project for reorganising the
Comédie Française which would paralyse all my
bold schemes. I had the right to dictate another
repertory, but the masterpieces no longer "drew;"
to such a degree had people forgotten the road to
the Comédie Française. "How to make a bold
stroke ?" that was the question. Rachel was there
my sheet-anchor," as Mdlle. Brohan had said,
for the spiteful epigrams on Sarah Bernhardt are
by no means novel.* But Rachel, after a magni-
ficent "reappearance" in Phèdre, had caught
bronchitis, which disabled her from performing for
some time.
* The French equivalent for "sheet anchor" is "planche de
salut," literally "a plank to hold on by for dear life."—[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
65
CHAPTER IV.
AMIDST these perplexities, Roqueplan, the director
of the Opera, an intimate friend of mine, paid me
an opportune visit. I asked him whether he would
lend me his corps de ballet in order to play the
Bourgeois Gentilhomme or the Mariage de Figaro.
"I shall be delighted," he said.
" But your
burgraves will never consent to act on the same
boards with the personnel of the Opera. I know
their principles."
CC
Well, they'll have to change them. Molière was
fond of spectacular effects. He was within an ace
of dancing in the ballets himself with Louis XIV.”
True, but M. Samson always fancies himself at
the Conservatoire. When before the footlights he
acts as if he were giving a lecture on acting, and all
this with the object of getting the Legion of
Honour. He'll yell that the house of Molière is on
fire if you dare play Molière in the way Molière
wanted to be played."
"These gentlemen are already making noise
enough, as it is, about Offenbach, who is going to
have six violins in the orchestra," said Verteuil.
"Provost is taking Heaven to witness with out-
F
66
BEHIND THE SCENES
stretched arms, and Ligier consults the echoes of
the place to know whether Offenbach is to accom-
pany him in the narrative of Théraméne.'"*
I have omitted to mention that at my advent at
the Comédie Française I found a very valuable
secretary-general in M. Verteuil.
He was a
genuine representative of the traditions of good-
fellowship and liberality that used to preside at the
house of Molière. Consequently M. Thierry and
the other managers have as it were consolidated
his prerogatives. M. Empis alone promised him-
self to keep M. Verteuil at a distance, but it was M.
Verteuil who kept M. Empis at a distance.
"Never mind them," I said to Roqueplan, "I
have the promise of your corps de ballet, if only
for one evening."
"With all my heart; I delight in desperate
enterprises."
"Still I could not stage' the Mariage de
Figaro in one day any more than the Bourgeois
Gentilhomme."
"After that," I said, to give Verteuil some
courage, “after that who knows but that Offen-
bach may draw."
I will not attempt to describe the indignation of
the committee when they heard of Offenbach's
engagement as leader of the orchestra. Of course
* One of the characters in Racine's Phèdre, whose narrative of
the death of Hippolytus is as great a stock recitation in France as
Hamlet's soliloquy in England.—[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
67
the main reason of that engagement was the re-
newal of spectacular plays; and besides, in this house
-melancholy as a tomb, peopled by nothing but
shadows-light, life, and noise were the very things
wanted. In a few days from this, on the occasion
of the revival of the Coupe Enchantée, to which I
invited all the journalists, to which the public came
of its own accord-because I had raised the prices
of the seats-at which at my request the President
of the Republic occupied his box, the house had
undergone a metamorphosis. The "gilding" had
been "done up," the curtain repainted, the chan-
delier and candelabra ablaze with gas, crimson
carpets covered the staircases, and each spectator
was presented wth a programme printed on satin.
The sociétaires were aghast at my lavish expen-
diture. To fill their cup to the brim they saw me
take my seat quite unconcernedly in the stage-box
on the ground-floor tier, which had not happened
since the days of M. de Remusat, court-marshal
and superintendent of the theatres under Napo-
leon I.
All this was, after all, nothing more than a mere
act of courtesy to the public. I wanted to tell
them that, when the day came for the reappearance
of Mdlle. Rachel, or for the first performance of a
new piece by Hugo, Dumas, de Musset or Augier,
the house of Molière would still be the house of
Molière with the grand Comedians who had been
in a fair way of "unlearning" how to enact comedy.
F 2
68
BEHIND THE SCENES
The public likes prodigals; on that night it made
up its mind that the theatre was going to revive
on its very ruins. Roqueplan said to me:
"The theatre has had seven years of lean kine;
you are going to give it seven years of fat kine."
"I should think so," chimed in Brohan.
" We
already have three;" and she there and then named
the three obese beauties.
Nevertheless, while waiting for the seven fat
kine predicted, what was I to do when in a few
days I should have to pay a hundred thousand francs
salary and the expenses of a phenomenal month
that had only yielded fifteen thousand francs to-
wards it? The Comedians fully expected that on
that day I should remain at home and play the
Misanthrope to myself.
While, in this rough battle, I was surrounded on
all sides by enemies, there came to me one ally
who saw the President of the Republic almost every
day-the Count d'Orsay; and in that same week I
made a friend of one of my foes-the Count de
Morny. One day the Count d'Orsay's card was
brought to me. I had seen him at a dinner at
Lamartine's, but we were at opposite ends of the
table, and he went away immediately after the
repast, to my great regret, for he was a character
that naturally attracted me.
"Oh, I know him well enough," exclaimed
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
69
Rachel, who happened to be in my room;
and say how d'ye do to him."
"I'll go
He came in, bowed to her with his winning smile,
and asked her to introduce him to me, but I begged
her to present me to the count. D'Orsay was a
born charmer. Nature had been very kind to him,
casting his lot among the superiors of this world,
endowing him with grace as well as strength, bring-
ing into relief the lines of intelligence in his features,
and softening this relief by a smile that comes from
the heart and appeals to the heart. He belonged
to those having no need of scutcheons, so well do
they carry their nobility on their faces. One might
have taken him for a living page torn from the
“book of heraldry."
In those days he was still very handsome and
very animated, though death had already set its
mark upon him.
"I am not at all surprised to see you here," he
said to Rachel, "because it was for the purpose of
seeing you that I came to see Arsène Houssaye;
you are playing Phèdre to-night, and I should
consider it a real treat to be there, but there is
not a single seat either in the stalls or in the dress-
circle."
66
True," I replied, "but there still remains my
box, which I shall be only too delighted to place at
your disposal."
"Well," he said, "I accept it in the friendly
way it is offered, for it is the best box in the
70
BEHIND THE SCENES
house; and in my turn I am going to offer it to
the Duchess de Gramont, who means to bring
Guiche." Guiche was the heir to the title.
And in fact d'Orsay and de Guiche came that
night with the duchess, who insisted upon keep-
ing a seat for me in my box. The evening
was a thoroughly delightful one. The duchess, like
d'Orsay, was very witty; Guiche had all the "go"
of a gentleman who was "cock-sure" of every-
thing; Rachel made us two or three friendly signs;
she was highly pleased with us, for we were not
the last to applaud her Eschylesque way of acting.
A small door in my box opened directly on the
stage; we went and shook hands with the great
actress; the duchess herself advanced a few steps
on the stage to tell Rachel how much she admired
her. Not but that Phèdre was thoroughly accus-
tomed to that kind of worship; it may safely be
said that she was the actress of good society, even
at the period when she had been declaiming the
Marseillaise. To the compliments of the Duchess
de Gramont, Rachel, who was never caught napping,
replied very cordially:
"How could I fail to act well when I saw two
Hippolytes in the stage-box?"
From that day d'Orsay and I became genuine
friends; he often came to my room and to my box.
I often went to see him at his studio or rather at his
hall, for he was the first to give the Parisians a
notion of those large apartments-drawing-room,
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
71
workshop, study, smoking-room, and conservatory
with couches, hammocks, etc., in one. D'Orsay at
that time occupied himself with sculpture; he
modelled a medallion of my head which had some-
thing British about it. He talked a great deal of
Lord Byron, of whom he read me some letters,
which were very interesting by reason of their
laboured style. To judge from those letters it
always appeared to me that Lord Byron was
afraid of being caught in the act of either giving
way to his feelings or of saying something foolish.
In them he compared d'Orsay to Gramont. "Why
have you become so much of an Englishman? I
love my country, not my countrymen, but at
twenty-one consider the 'world as my oyster.' One
may play at being a Lovelace as much as one likes;
one may still believe that the women of this misty
land of ours are angels; take care lest you find out
that those eyes raised to heaven are thus lifted
much more through intoxication than through
ecstasy." In another letter he says: "If I had to
begin my life over again, I would go and live
obscurely in Paris, pass my time at the play, not
write a line even to women; but one does not re-
commence one's life, which, after all, is a very
lucky thing."
At my advent at the Théâtre Français, Morny
was not one of my friends, because he was the
friend of the Comedians; I might say, although he
was their friend, seeing that I came to save theni
72
BEHIND THE SCENES
from impending disaster.
I had met him at the
Per-
receptions and balls of the Countess Le Hon, but we
were simply on bowing terms, nothing more.
signy said to me one day, "Mind de Morny, he is
for having made fun of the
with you
very angry
theatrical commission.'
و,
The best way to conquer the anger of men, like
that of savage beasts, is to make straight for them;
that is why I went one morning to the Niche à
Fidèle. Everybody knows that this was the name
given to the tiny Morny hotel built in the shadow
of the grand mansion of Mme. Le Hon, at the Rond-
Point in the Champs Elysées.
66 Oh, it's you," he said, assuming an official air.
Nevertheless he held out his hand.
"You are
making a revolution at the Théâtre Français ?"
"Yes, and it is in order to carry it out to the
end that I have come to talk with you."
' Very well, you had better begin by having
breakfast with me; a very summary breakfast I
warn you."
The ice was broken. The Count de Morny had
received me in his picture-gallery, which was at the
same time his drawing-room. I did not fail, in
passing through it to the dining-room, to express
my admiration of some of his pictures. I happened
to hit the right mark, and the praise went straight
to his heart.
"After all," he said, taking his seat, "I suspect
that you are in the right with regard to the Théâtre
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
73
Français; but I am a stickler for principles, and as
a member of the theatrical commission I do not
want you to make fun of us."
"Indeed, are you so much a stickler for principles
as all that? There is no such a thing as principles-
you should only look to men; and if I am not
one I'll burn myself like a moth at the legendary
candles of the Théâtre Français."
"Well, just tell me your plans."
"I have only one, and it is very simple. I'll
begin by having the public with me at the risk
of remaining at loggerheads with the Comedians
and the theatrical commission. Besides, am I not
there at my own risk, seeing that they are already
claiming a hundred thousand francs damages?"
"And you are not afraid of having to pay
tlhem ? ?
"Not in the least.'
"And you are not afraid of the Comedians?"
"Still less. They threaten to establish another
theatre. So much the worse for them if they do.
I am with Rachel at the Comédie Française; it will
still be the Comédie Française if they are not there,
for I shall engage Frédérick Lemaître, Bocage,
Rouvière, Mélingue, Fechter, Bressant. As for the
women, I have no fear whatsoever. Give me ten
women and I'll make ten actresses of them. The
only art is to put women in their suitable frames.”
M. de Morny, who had drunk two glasses of
Haut-Sauterne, exclaimed:
74
BEHIND THE SCENES
"Bravo, I am one of yours."
It was the death-knell of the theatrical commis-
sion.
Our intimacy became so great that the brother
of the future Emperor invited me to breakfast twice
a week with him, of course in order to "talk
theatres, plays, and pictures."
If I remember
rightly we "talked women also.
"9
At that period he was only half a political man,
standing with one foot in Orleanism and the other
in Bonapartism. He had not implicit confidence
in his elder brother, doubting whether he had suffi-
cient of the French dare-devil about him. He said
that he was too taciturn and too socialistic. He
also doubted Europe's sympathy for him. He was
rather a "chum" of the Orleans princes.
No one could be more genuine than M. de
Morny. When he took to you it was with all his
heart. But he did not open the door of this heart
to you without having previously looked through
the trap. And seeing that he had the faculty of
judging men at a single glance, to conciliate him
was so much time lost unless he had made a sign
to that effect. If he turned away there was no
appeal. That is why dislike, antipathy, hatred
grew rank around him. During the whole period
of my management, whether at his own house, at
mine, or at the theatre, not a cloud darkened our
friendship. But I intend to give a full-length of
de Morny at the proper time-at the Coup d'Etat.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
75
He has been slandered in a rubbishing History
of the Second Empire,* but Morny was one of those
who defy any and every opinion. He stalked
proudly along, amidst all his acts-good or bad-
knowing that much would be conceded to him-
even unto the bloodshed perpetrated in them.
These two new friendships Morny's and
d'Orsay's - did much to strengthen the older
ones. Hugo and de Musset did not for a moment
question my ultimate success, but Alexander
Dumas, Théophile Gautier, Gozlan, Janin, Augier,
had for a short while given me up as lost. They
veered round against almost the whole of the
theatrical press, which was already intoning my
De Profundis.
The first of my ambitious dreams was to include
in my repertory the whole of the comedies of
Molière; not only as he used to have them played,
but as he would have played them nowadays,
with the whole of the scenery and adjuncts of the
representations given before royalty at Chambord,
Versailles, and St. Germain, added to the new
scenery and adjuncts which emphasises the doings
of the modern stage. Thanks to my friend Nestor
Roqueplan, who gave me unlimited powers at the
Opera, I mounted the Bourgeois Gentilhomme with
the soli, choruses, ballets, and other divertissements
* Mémoires sur le Second Empire, by M. de Maupas, which
the translator of the present work has also translated.
[Transl.]
76
BEHIND THE SCENES
that had delighted Louis XIV. and his court on the
14th October, 1670. It only wanted Lulli to make
the thing complete.* All the dances and songs
were reproduced as closely as possible from those
of the seventeenth century. The audiences were
delighted while listening to the symphonies, the
ariettas, the duos, the chacones, the choruses of
that charming musician whose genius has not been
sufficiently appreciated. The Turkish solemnity
of the fourth act was interrupted by the bursts of
laughter from the whole of the house. As a matter
of course there were some refractory cavillers, som-
nolent occupants of the orchestra stalls, who talked
about the profanation of the memory of Molière-
for playing him as he used to play himself. But it
is impossible to satisfy everybody-and Molière
into the bargain.
Though still keeping themselves on their guard,
the journalists, who in those days did not prostrate
themselves before a manager because he happened
to be successful, came to congratulate me, with
Jules Janin at their head. At that period he was
still "the prince of the critics." Of course I com-
municated the compliments to the Comedians,
though nearly all had been opposed to so sump-
tuous a revival-unable to understand that in matters
* Jean-Baptiste Lulli, the composer of the original music to the
ballets of Molière's plays.
† "Not the prince of critics," as has so often been written. The
distinction is a subtle one.-[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
77
theatrical in order to reap money one must sow it
first.
The gulf between the Comedian and the journal-
ists was a small one indeed. Our constantly meet-
ing made us accustomed to our frequent encounters.
I had been their friend formerly, and in a short
time I became their friend again. During the years
that followed, the theatre was sometimes at war
with the theatrical press, never with itself. No-
thing is easier than to govern the Théâtre Français.
So thoroughly does it work by itself by virtue of
its traditions, the masterpieces of its repertory, and
the acting of its Comedians, that most frequently
the director might be represented by the statue
of silence. As a king of France has wittily
said, "One should only enact the king once a
week.'
""
Before recounting word for word the official and
intimate history of the Théâtre Français during
my management, I will take leave to publish
two extra-judiciary acts that bear closely upon it.
The reader remembers that on the first day of my
managerial assumption I was gracefully welcomed
by an injunction of the trust committee handed to
me by a process-server. On that very morning I
made up my mind, if not to reply by the next post,
to reply at least by a later one, in the same grace-
ful terms and on paper bearing the Government
stamp. The following is the document handed to
me in 1849 in the name of the sociétaires. I omit
78
BEHIND THE SCENES
the preamble as well as the name and qualifications
of the legal functionary.
"Whereas, the Comédie Française, after having
had to submit to an oppressive management which
was hurtful both to its dignity and interests, has
obtained from the Government of the Republic the
restitution of its former rights, which allowed it to
govern itself without outside interference, except
that of the State, whose duty it is in virtue of its
subsidy.
"Whereas, the appointment of a director is an
abuse of power, the more that the Council of State
is considering a plan for reorganising the Théâtre
Français.
"Whereas the President of the Council of State
had reassured the sociétaires with regard to the
future under the conviction that they would be
left their own masters under the protection of the
Government represented by a simple inspector of
the national theatres.
"Whereas their house is imperilled owing to the
appointment of a director contrary to all expecta-
tion-of a director who may ruin the Comédie.
66
Awaiting the institution of proceedings against
him before the properly constituted courts—having
also consulted the trust committee of the Comédie
Française-
"The Comédie Française has hereby notified to
M. Arsène Houssaye, at the very hour when he is
about to assume his function, that it will oppose
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
79
itself to his administration by all legal means within
its power.
"That it furthermore intends to hold him respon-
sible out of his private property, and in anticipa-
tion claims the sum of a hundred thousand francs
thereon, the above-named sum representing but a
small fraction of the damages suffered by them.
"And in order to acquaint him with all this, I,
the undersigned, process-server, have left the pre-
sent intimation, the cost of which is seven francs
eighty-five centimes, with the porter of the Théâtre
Francais."
And now I must ask the reader to peruse the
notice made in my name a year afterwards.
66
Whereas, a twelvemonth ago, MM. the Socié-
taires of the Théâtre Français legally warned M.
Arsène Houssaye, who had been appointed director
of the Comédie Française when these gentlemen
wished to remain a republic, not to interfere in
their affairs on the penalty of paying a hundred
thousand francs damages.
"Whereas, they declared him responsible for the
unavoidable ruin of the theatre under a director
appointed by the State.
"Whereas, notwithstanding the fatal manage-
ment introduced by M. Arsène Houssaye to this
celebrated theatre, by producing the works of
Hugo, Musset, Gozlan, Ponsard, Scribe, and other
rubbishing authors, friends of the director.
"Whereas, M. Arsène Houssaye has placed Offen-
80
Behind thE SCENES
bach at the head of an orchestra, at the cost of a
few additional violins.
"Whereas, the management was in the right in
its lavishness of scenery and dresses, etc., in one
word, in the accessories and decorations, among
which were noticed Gobelin tapestries, furniture by
Boulle, a real breakfast with real champagne, and
other scandalous follies.
"Whereas, he has not only raised the allowances
for fires of the sociétaires, but considering that the
pensionnaires and all the hardworking and de-
serving employés of the theatre have been better
paid.
"Whereas, the spectators themselves are indig-
nant at having to ascend staircases elegantly car-
peted and at receiving at 'first nights' programmes
printed on satin.
(6
Whereas, and in despite of all these mad acts,
there remains, with the approval of the Minister,
a hundred thousand francs surplus to divide, M.
Arsène Houssaye does hereby summon the socié-
taires, under all kinds of penalties dire in the event
of their refusal, to come within four-and-twenty
hours to each take their share of said hundred
thousand francs.
"In virtue whereof I, the undersigned, process-
server, and speaking to him personally or to his
concierge, have left the present intimation, the cost
of which is ten francs five centimes, to M. Samson,
as well as to everyone of the sociétaires."
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
81
Thus at the end of a twelvemonth, though the
debts that had become proverbial were paid, I
notified—through the intermediary of the law-to
the sociétaires their having to present themselves
at the pay-office to receive their due share from a
former prefect, of whom we had made a minister of
finances-I mean a cashier.
Great was the surprise in the green-room, for
such a thing had not happened within the memory
of man. They had shared naught but hopes these
many years. On that day my enemy M. Samson
flung himself round my neck, asking that so auspi-
cious a day should not be allowed to pass without
a feast. The feast was followed by a ball, in which
the senior member himself danced a gavotte.
*
At this period of my life not a day was wasted.
If the reader has a mind to know the existence of a
director of the Théâtre Français about the year
1850 let him digest the following lines. I lived in
the Rue du Bac at the angle of the Rue de Verneuil
in an apartment on the first floor, with a balcony
set out with flowers, chiefly roses, and where, if 1
remember rightly, I tried to grow strawberries, for
I have always been fond of a bit of "nature" in
my life.
A pretty home, with a drawing-room,
hung with red and enlivened with modern paintings
by Delacroix, Theodore, Rousseau, Diaz, Decamps,
Meissonnier, Marilhat, and Théophile Gautier. Two
bedrooms leading into one another—a cot in the one,
G
82
BEHIND THE SCENES
a small bookcase in the other. Not a single book
in the latter. A handsome dining-room hung with
tapestry representing human figures. It is eight
o'clock, I shake off my drowsiness, get into my
slippers, take up a pen, and for the next two hours it
travels quickly along the paper, provided it is not
interrupted by the child romping on and about my
knees, or the wife appearing like the morning star.
Sometimes I take both for an excursion on the
balcony, and when ten o'clock strikes I am dragged
into the dining-room, where the table, coquettishly
laid, is a feast to the eyes as well. The fare is none
the less real, for we always expect one or two
friends to drop in. Now and then I am foolish
enough to ask for my letters and the papers, when
the sunlight in the picture becomes obscured by
clouds; but the child tears the things from me when
my face becomes overshadowed. One friend drops
in, then another, a joke here, a philosophical re-
mark there; in one word, breakfast is delightful.
We quit the table in capital spirits to go to town.
At half-past eleven my brougham puts me down at
the Théâtre Français and waits for me.
I read my
correspondence, more or less official, more or less
private, three lines at the time, intending to re-
peruse the latter. If something important is going
on at the theatre, there are, in addition, fifty re-
quests for boxes or stalls. M. Philistine Podsnap
asks for a box "no matter how bad;" Roqueplan
asks for a box "no matter how good;" a journalist
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
83
has been
"It is for
writes to me: "It is for Mme. X., who
confined only recently; " another says:
myself;" Mdlle. A.B. of the Varietés: "It is in
order to take a lesson from Mdlle. Brohan; " Mdlle.
C.D.: "It's to throw a nosegay to Mdlle. Rachel; "
Dumas and Janin ask a box every day, without
saying for why or for whom. Neither the one nor
the other know anything about it. M. Mazères
writes in prefectorial style. Verteuil throws his
letter on the fire, but all of a sudden snatches it
back. "We must not refuse him a box, he might
take it into his head to read us a comedy."
No reading committee to-day. They are begin-
ning the preliminary rehearsals of an almost-for-
gotten piece, and the rehearsals of Angelo for Rachel.
I
go for a moment on to the stage to point out
several bits of “stage business"; I prove to Provost
that he has not got a cold, and to Samson that he is
younger than ever. I talk to Geffroy and Beau-`
vallet about a scene that has to be painted or
touched up.
When the rehearsal runs smoothly,
unless it is the dress-rehearsal or the last before
that, I run away to my carriage, for I am bound to
go to my friends of the press-Armand Bertin,
Doctor Véron, Emile de Girardin. I also have to
call upon my friends at the Elysée.
The Comédie Française is a state within a state,
because, though the actors confine themselves pretty
well within their own precincts, the actresses stray
nearly everywhere-into the world of sport, into
G 2
84
BEHIND THE SCENES
the diplomatic world, into the literary world.
There is always an affair of state in the affairs of
Mdlle. Rachel. In France, when tragedy is all
right, everything else is all right.
But if per-
chance the great actress should set the public
against her by some occult whim, uneasiness pre-
vails in the public mind. I have also to call upon
the Minister if he be my friend, if not I must not
arouse his antipathies or his prejudices. After that,
there are the official visits to the gentlemen of the
press, when the critics' names are Janin, Théophile
(Gautier), Fiorentine, Thierry, Saint-Victor, but the
latter being friends they are more at my house than
I am at theirs. As for the others, I do not call on them.
When I meet them I pretend to be certain that they
are delighted with the theatre, the play, and the
actors. There is nothing that disarms criticism so
much as to take an unfavourable article for a veiled
compliment. I get back to the theatre at two
o'clock, the hour for receiving callers, the hour
fatal to him who delights in solitude.
Crossing the waiting-room I already run against
three or four impatient visitors of both sexes, for in
that kind of society preliminaries are not much
relished. At the Théâtre Français, thanks to the
repertory and the Comedians, one has only visitors
of standing. Most often I open my doors to every-
body, giving audience in the recess of a window,
in front of the fire, in the committee room. It
is thus that Ministers who wish to waste as little
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
85
time as possible, and not to be worried with a great
deal of palaver, should receive their callers. In fact
such was the system of de Morny when he ap-
pointed himself Minister of the Interior on the 2nd
December, 1851. At the Théâtre Français the
callers are all persons of note: ambassadors,
sociétaires, principal members of the Opera or
other theatres, ministers or chiefs of departments
at the ministries, foreign princes, dramatic authors,
critics and journalists; in one word, the cream of
Paris society.
All these finished up by chatting in the most
familiar and unconstrained manner. A great many
had come to ask impossible favours, nearly all de-
parted without having obtained the smallest; but
one was rewarded, or thought he was, by a witticism
from Dumas or Gozlan; another thought himself
more than rewarded by a smile from Mdlle. Rachel
or Mdlle. Brohan. By this time it is four o'clock,
everyone is gone; I call Verteuil, for my two other
secretaries are never there. They are no doubt
watching over the innocence of some ingénues for-
gotten by their mother; Mdlle. Luther is so very
pretty. The reader does not know my two secre-
taries, Armand Barthet and Adolphe. I am very
fond of seeing them and listening to them in prose
or in verse, but when work is to be done I send for
Verteuil, for he is the real secretary of the Comédie.
While I write the private letters I dictate the
official ones to him. When that is done we devise
86
BEHIND THE SCENES
about the applications for orders; I take care to be
as polite as possible in refusing when I cannot
bestow the favour of a box. Still, do what I will,
I am making enemies at the rate of one a day.
It is the relish of life, the pepper in the stew. As
a matter of course, it is through this that I have
fallen out with my best friends, those who do not
understand why one should refuse the moon to
them if they choose to ask for it. It is five o'clock,
and I breathe freely for an hour, going whither the
wind carries me, and very happy at being permitted
to sniff the fresh air undisturbed. Woe betide him or
her who should stop me in my flight to talk comedy.
And so I stroll until six o'clock, when it is time to
meet my wife in her carriage in the Champs Elysées
or in the Tuileries beneath the orange-trees. The
Tuileries were still fashionable in those days. We
return together to the Rue du Bac; unfortunately I
do not dine at home, for one of the hardest tasks of
a director of the Comédie Française is his being
obliged to dine almost every day elsewhere than at
his own table. He dines, more or less officially,
with ministers, princes, editors, and other theatrical
managers. One is bound to do one's business, but
how often have I called to mind Racine running
away from Mme. de Maintenon's dining-room where
the king was to dine, saying, in order to get his
liberty: "Mme. Racine is waiting for me with such
a beautiful carp, stewed à la Normande, that she
would cry if I were not there to enjoy it." I have
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE,
87
often imitated the author of Phèdre; nay, I have
accepted invitations to ministerial dinners, where
the crush is too great to be missed, and decided to
remain at home. Besides, one of my sisters was
always staying with us, lest my wife should feel
too lonely. She had a bouquet almost every day,
which was a sign, as it were, to come and join me in
the small stage-box on the ground-floor tier, where
she had a kind of drawing-room for her friends.
And when I was dining out I never stayed long
after the meal. On the pretext of joining the
smokers, I escaped as quickly as possible so as to
be in good time at the Théâtre Français. Seeing
that I was like a chum with the actors and actresses
they liked to see me in the house when I was not
in my own room. There are days in the theatre
when the actor does not see a living soul. It is
well known that the audience, to be a real audience
to him should not be exclusively composed of
strangers-he should meet here and there with a
known face or a sympathetic look. He only acts
well when he feels that there is someone more or
less a friend in the house, and in my box there was
always someone of that description, a political or
literary personage. Being obliged-for fairness'
sake-to play comedies which I did not like, I
had not the stoicism to see them out; it would have
been a torture to my mind. On such occasions I
remained in my room, where, besides, there was
always something to do. Though I had a holy
88
BEHIND THE SCENES
horror of mere documents, I was obliged now and
then to look to the details of my administration,
but I never lingered over them. In a small corner
of my memory the figures of my budget were
jostling each other. I have always made mistakes
with my pen-never mentally. I am perhaps born
a mathematician, as I am born a poet. Hence I
was never obliged to fall asleep over wearisome
accounts or tales.
:
"To
On that particular night we are playing Marion
Delorme. Judith is enacting the handsome sinner.
Victor Hugo comes behind and kisses her on the fore-
head. It is the whole extent of his compliment, but
she feels herself consecrated by it. Alfred de Musset,
passing by her side, kisses her on her arm.
whom could I give my other arm ?" she asks. The
nod is as good as a wink to Alfred de Vigny, albeit
that he is not blind. He bends over her, taking her
hands. Judith takes time by the forelock. "You'll
let me play Kitty Bell,* won't you?" But Alfred
de Vigny never gives "yes" for an answer.
The clock strikes nine, and at the same moment
Baciocchi enters like a whirlwind.
"My dear Houssaye, will you be my second in an
affair that will be terrible, for I mean to kill my
adversary?"
"What in the name of all that's good has he
done to you?"
* In his drama of Chatterton, produced for the first time in
1835.-[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
89
"You ask what he has done to me. Have not
you read the Independance Belge of this morning?
I am twitted with being the surintendant des menus
plaisirs of the Elysée. I have already spoken to
Niewerkerke, who'll be one of my seconds."
"I am exceedingly sorry," I say to Baciocchi,
"but I am already engaged in a similar affair with
Roger de Beauvoir. They are to fight to-morrow ;
besides, your adversary is a friend of mine. He
was wrong to publish that joke of questionable
taste, but I believe that you were equally wrong in
reading it, for if you go out with him the encounter
will make so much noise that the name of surin-
tendant des menus plaisirs will stick to you for
ever.'
99
"Nonsense; blood washes out everything."
"On the contrary; blood marks everything."
But Baciocchi will not give in. He is certain
to fight. He did fight.
He did fight. Two valiant swords if
ever there were any. The two men pinked each
other, but if sufficient blood was not shed to wash
out there was sufficient to stain.
Up till now Baciocchi was a more or less political
friend of the Prince, at present he is the surintendant
des menus plaisirs of the Elysée. The real facts of the
case are these, that Baciocchi is merely the surinten-
dant of his own menus plaisirs.* The Prince need
* The words surintendant des menus plaisirs, as used in this
instance, convey an inuendo not at all justified by their original
signification. The administration of the silver, the private enter-
90
BEHIND THE SCENES
cast no nets in mid-ocean to catch the Aphrodites;
they somehow swim to the shores of the Elysée by
themselves. For instance: is not society talking
this very day of that handsome marchioness C. T.,
who went to ask the President for a prefecture for
her husband? Seeing that she was more attractive
than ever with her magnificent bust clearly out-
lined beneath her scarlet velvet dress, the President
while chatting to her happened to place his hand
on it, as one would on some tempting fruit. She
drew back indignantly, whereupon the Prince re-
sumed his demure figure of the Chief of the State,
and dismissed the handsome marchioness, telling
her that she should be "Prefectess, more or less."
After her audience with the Prince she came to ask
me for a box, and she told me the story, winding
up with the exclamation which is the moral of the
whole affair:
"Don't you think I made an idiot of myself?"
It is ten o'clock, the evening's receipts are
tainments, and ceremonial of the king's chamber, under the Bour-
bon monarchy, was quite a different thing from what is hinted at
here. It was chiefly concerned with the ordering of the theatrical
representations, the pageants, and solemnities at court. It had,
moreover, within its jurisdiction the ordinary administration of the
Théâtre Français, the Italian Comic and Grand Operas. There
were three superintendents—not one—all of whom were noblemen
of ancient lineage. They assumed in turns the active functions
for a twelvemonth-that is to say, they were personally responsible
to the sovereign, albeit that they delegated their more onerous
duties to an intendant, who paid as much as 10,0001. sterling for
bis appointment. [Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
91
brought to me, and for a moment I feel the excite-
ment of the gambler. Is he to attribute the
increase—if increase there be-to his play, or to
luck which has simply dealt him good cards? If
the receipts have gone up he does not worry himself
with such questions, he thinks that sufficient for
the day is the good thereof, and lets to-morrow
take care of itself. If the receipts are going down
he strikes his forehead on the chance of its emitting
a good idea. Has he not a trump or two in reserve
in his repertory which he might play? I took
counsel with Verteuil, sometimes with an actor
happening to come in, most often with myself
alone; for the director is after all the best judge,
seeing that he is impersonal.
At eleven there is bad news; one actor has lost
a relative, another has caught cold. But there is
good news also. Mdlle. X. has been abducted; I am
not in the least uneasy, she can be easily replaced.
Besides, the man who has carried her off will only
be too glad to bring her back, her talent enhanced
by a great-love passion. But
But my tribulations are
not at an end, for Mdlle. Y., who will not be com-
forted about the departure of Ulysses, asks for leave
of absence- to run after him.
For a moment to-morrow's performance looks
doubtful, but I have faced greater difficulties be-
fore now. To-morrow, when the three legendary
thumps resound from behind the "teazer," every-
body will be at his post.
92
BEHIND THE SCENES
It is half-past eleven and the last entr'acte. I
go to
my box for a minute; they are in the tiny
drawing-room, eating ices, and I hear all about the
performance.
"This one has been magnificent, that one sub-
lime, but for Heaven's sake get rid of some of the
others."
"I can't interfere, they are sociétaires.'
"True, it's as at the Académie, when M. Victor
Hugo and M. Viennet are seated side by side; they
are both 'immortals,' whatever one may say or
do."
""
Midnight: I go back to my room where to-
morrow's bill is awaiting me. It is as difficult to
correct the proofs of the bill of the Théâtre
Français as a page of philosophy. The bill is an
image in which "all the vanities" jostle each other
for the foremost place; it has to strike and electrify
the
eyes of the public, but every name has also to
be boldly defined. If only a single letter were
illegible Floridor or Fracasse would cry "murder
next morning. At midnight I have the right to go
away, but there is a great deal of " supping"
going on in these days in joyous and devil-may-
care company. Most often I escape from these
improvised symposia, preferring to stroll home by
way of the Tuileries and Pont Royal in the chaste
and beautiful company of Madame "the Moon "
and Mesdemoiselles "the Stars."
2
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
93
Though the Prince never wore his heart upon his
sleeve, not even in his most intimate and familiar
moments, he was not at all "stand offish" with his
friends. Etiquette was not very strictly observed
at the Elysée; after all it was not so very long ago
that he had led the life of a simple citizen of the
United States, without dragging a court after him.
He was only too happy to be in France and to
breathe his native air not to be pleased with every-
thing, except with the Orleanists who kept up a
vigorous war against him in the National Assembly
under the Republican mask.
One morning when he had sent for me-I do not
remember for what I happened to come in at the
breakfast hour. He just got into the dining-room
when my name was taken in. On the impulse of
the moment he was about to send me for a stroll in
the garden, but he checked himself and told me to
sit down to breakfast.
Some of his suite were already in the dining-
room. Persigny, Toulongéon, Fleury, Prince Murat,
Baciocchi, were standing about waiting for him.
At his request they had preceded him, he being
engaged for a little while on some ambassadorial
business. They left off talking as he took his seat, in
case he wished to say something, but he kept silent
at first, as if engrossed with other things. Prince
Murat spoke to me about Mdlle. Rachel, which
brought the Prince's thoughts back to his surround-
ings. Having cleared his deep bass voice to sing
94
BEHIND THE SCENES
the praises of the tragédienne, he took the oppor-
tunity of pronouncing a eulogy on tragedy-no
doubt because tragedy is the apotheosis of princes.
With him everything was the means to the end.
It is sufficiently well known that he did not love
art for art's sake. Though he had written in verse
himself—though he had tried eloquence in solemn
prose—he was no more gifted with the poetic than
with the artistic sentiment. The "continuator ".
as distinct from the successor-of Napoleon I. was
a utilitarian. What he loved most in the vault of
Heaven was his own star; what he loved most in the
forest was the noise of the chace; what he loved
most in the valley was the smoke of the railway
engine; what he loved most in this marvellous
garden of the Elysée was the view of the Palace of
the Tuileries.
I admit feeling some emotion in answering the
Prince. It was no longer a mere breakfast-party,
it was a congress with everyone looking on. They
had scarcely had time to judge me at my work,
and now they wanted to judge me at oratory. If
I happened to utter a few fine truisms couched in
redundant phraseology I was lost as a director.
There was a profound silence that became very
terrible to me. Fortunately I had something to
say.
I began by reminding the Prince-President that in
Paris there were several kinds of pit. One might
open the doors of the Théâtre Français as wide as
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
95
one could to the people, they would not be
likely to come to it, for the simple reason that the
people only go where they enjoy themselves.
They have a holy horror of Alexandrines (twelve
feet verses), and they kick against the exalted teach-
ings of master-minds. Hence it is not for the
people that one should govern the Théâtre Fran-
çais. When art shall be brought within the
appreciation of everybody it will no longer be art;
democracy is not fond of summits-when it scales
the mountain it is to knock it down. The good
and the beautiful are not always synonymous, the
people love the one and greet the other, but from
a distance. Do what one may, two kinds of spec-
tacles will always be necessary-that which appeals
to the intellect, that which appeals to the eyes.
You may smash the aristocracy that boasts its coats
of arms, you'll never destroy the aristocracy of
nature. The descendant of a Montmorency goes to
the spectacle that pleases the eye; the son of the
ragpicker will go to the spectacle that appeals to
the intellect, if God has placed His own divine
mark on his front. Hence we must leave to the
Théâtre Français all its supremacy. The attempt
to descend would be an attempt of high treason
against literature. The spectator will have to rise
and still to rise. Let us give him the spectacle of
Le Cid and of Le Misanthrope, let us endeavour
to remind him of Eschylus and Shakespeare, let
us show him his own moral doings as in a mirror,
96
BEHIND THE SCENES
let us make him laugh after having made him cry
—that is all right; but to make a school for politics
of the Théâtre Français, instead of a school for the
teaching of the beautiful and the true-that would
be wrong.
The real mission and genius of the
stage are to elevate the soul to the appreciation of
all the great feelings of heroism, virtue, and patriot-
ism-but of patriotism freed from all party spirit.
I was interrupted by one of the guests, who
maintained that there was no patriotism without
party spirit, because the genius of France was al-
ways represented by a man.
"That is just where the danger lies," I said,
"because the Parisian pit is always disposed to tilt
against the powers that be. Under Napoleon I. it
applauded everything savouring of republicanism
or royalism; under the Restauration it applauded
everything that was republican or imperialist;
under the Second Republic Mdlle. Rachel has sung
the Marseillaise, but it was Mdlle. Rachel, and not
the Marseillaise, that was applauded."
The Prince, who was not at all obstinate, said:
"Perhaps you are right."
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
97
CHAPTER V.
ONE evening, just as I was fancying myself tho-
roughly master in the place, Regnier in his costume
of Figaro entered my room, looking altogether
upset.
"My dear director, I am utterly vexed and
grieved. M. Mazères has this moment left my
dressing-room, where he showed me the copy of the
decree appointing him director of the Comédie
Française."
Mdlle. Rachel followed on the heels of Regnier.
She had met M. Mazères at the door of the
theatre.
"For two twos he would have embraced me,"
she said with a kind of tragic shudder, "but do not
be afraid, my dear Houssaye."
Thereupon she kissed me, snatched up a pen and
wrote to the Minister:-
“MONSIEUR LE MINISTRE,
"I have just been told that, thanks to you, M.
Arsène Houssaye remains director of the Comédie
Française. I went immediately to congratulate and
embrace him. Pray allow me, Monsieur le Ministre,
H
98
BEHIND THE SCENES
to humbly thank you for having secured to the
theatre of the Rue Richelieu a man who commands
the sympathies of my fellow-actors and the devotion
of your very grateful and very respectful servant,
RACHEL."
"Servant is too much!" I said to the tragé-
dienne.
"Not a bit too much to-day; to-morrow the
servant will be a queen before the Minister."
Regnier suggested to Rachel that she had
better write to the President of the Republic.
Beauvallet had just come in-Rachel handed him
the letter.
"I do not understand," he said. "Mazères is
appointed, and you thank the Minister for allowing
us to keep Arsène Houssaye."
"Surely, Beauvallet, you are not so dense as all
that. Isn't it better than to write idiotically, 'You
give us M. Mazères and we do not want him' ? and
now I am going to write to the President."
"It is too late to write," said Regnier.
Rachel threw down her pen.
"Very well then, I am going to the Elysée ;
that's all."
I wanted to hold her back, but she went off like
an arrow from a bow.
When a man comes in for a slice of luck the
gratulations are few enough, but if he gets a blow
to his pride there appears a whole host of mutes
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
99
who are pleased to see another man thrown over-
board, and who like to watch his face before the
sea swallows him. Unfortunately for the latter I
put a good face on the matter to the many friends
and numberless foes alike.
My dear boy, assuredly it wasn't worth while
to be director for so short a time. But after all,
so wags the world, everything is provisional now-a-
days," the latter said.
"Not so provisional as all that, because I wish
to remain here during the period of the fat kine,
according to the prediction of Roqueplan."
"But M. Mazères has been appointed in your
stead."
"What's that to do with me? Tell him that
I'll not go unless dislodged by his bayonets."
"But remember that he has been appointed by
the Orleanists. M. Baroche is for him and with
him."
"M. Mazères has only a Minister on his side, I
have got an actress-a man is always beaten by a
woman."
Mdlle. Fix rushed into the room, very pale
indeed.
66 M. Mazères has been at it. He wants to
change the bills for the week. He is going to give
my part to Mme. Favart. I told him that I should
go and see the director. Whereupon he yelled,
The director! I am the director.'
*
Uor M
H 2
100
BEHIND THE SCENES
M. Mazères, it appears, had been appointed in my
stead by M. Baroche, who had not consulted the
President of the Republic. The Minister obeyed
the Orleanists of the National Assembly, who
wanted to prove that Prefect Mazères was a price-
less jewel of a man, but Mdlle. Rachel was not to be
got over in that way. At the Elysée, where she was
admitted at once, the President gave her authority to
see the Minister, in his stead. He gave her besides a
note written by Persigny and signed by him :-
"MY DEAR MINISTER,
"Let us keep M. Arsène Houssaye and Mdlle.
Rachel."
But the nomination had been signed, and the
Minister was of opinion that he could not go back
from his word. He had already received a letter
from Alexander Dumas, couched in the following
terms:
"MONSIEUR LE MINISTRE,
"I happen to be at Mdlle. Rachel's at the
moment she writes to you to give you her opinion
about M. Arsène Houssaye as a director. I have
no right whatsoever to recommend you no matter
whom, but I have the right to tell you that in the
twenty-two years during which my play of Henry
III. has been enacted at the Comédie Française I
have never seen art represented so well, and artists
so cordially treated, as by M. Arsène Houssaye.
My opinion on this point has the more real value
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
101
seeing that it is thoroughly disinterested. I have
got a theatre whereon to play my pieces, and con-
sequently stand in no need of the patronage of
such or such a director at the Rue de Richelieu.
Hence, M. le Ministre, it is for the sake of art and
artists alike, and in your own interest, that I take
the liberty of telling you that not only has no one
managed the Théâtre Français better, but that no
one will manage it so well as, let alone better than,
M. Arsène Houssaye.
"ALEXANDRE DUMAS."
On that same afternoon, in the National As-
sembly, Victor Hugo had already twitted M.
Baroche with wishing to re-convert the Comédie
Française into a theatre for "the ghosts of the dear
departed" by appointing M. Mazères. But M.
Baroche held his ground because the nomination of
M. Mazères was, I believe, the first act of his
ministry. He had just been appointed instead of
M. Ferdinand Barrot. He thought that the conces-
sion to the Orleanists would leave him more elbow-
room in other respects. Politics spoil everything
because they are as it were "the soul of ambition."
M. de Remusat, like M. Vitet, was much more a
friend of mine than of M. Mazères. But seeing
that the Orleanists wished to get into power once
more, they commenced by the small outwork
fortress of the Comédie Française. That was why
M. Baroche, who had perhaps one foot in their
camp, would not give in.
102
BEHIND THE SCENES
1
During the whole of next day M. Mazères was
the Platonic director of the Comédie Française.
In vain did Alfred de Musset, Emile Augier, Pon-
sard, write to the Minister, begging him to tear up
the nomination of this other director. M. Baroche
held out. Mdlle. Rachel called thrice without being
admitted to his presence; while he had received-
as a kind of deputation, as it were, come to con-
gratulate him—three or four authors belonging to
the school of M. Mazères. I had made up my mind
to the inevitable, and was already thinking about
having my small Boulle writing-table taken back
to my home, when the great actress said to me:
"It's not all over.
I have sworn to see the
Minister, and see him I shall."
She bravely presented herself at the dinner
hour—not at the ministry, but at M. Baroche's
domicile.
M. Baroche sent her word unceremoniously that
he was going out to dinner at the Minister of
Justice's, and that he had not a minute to spare
to speak to her. What did Mdlle. Rachel do? She
jumped into the carriage which was waiting for M.
Baroche. The coachman took it for granted that
it was all right-so right, in fact, that he did not
say a word to the Minister. When the footman
opened the door, there was great surprise on the
part of M. Baroche, who did not recognise Mdlle.
Rachel. She told him her name, her age, and her
qualifications.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
103
"As for your qualifications, mademoiselle, I know
them."
"You do not want them, apparently, seeing that
you compel me to leave the Théâtre Français.”
"On the contrary, mademoiselle, M. Mazères will
offer you better terms."
"Perhaps; but I do not want him at any
price. If M. Houssaye goes I beg to tender you
my resignation. I have got a line from the
Prince, who, no more than myself, wishes for M.
Mazères."
“Where are you going, mademoiselle ?”
"To the Place Vendôme."
"Well, if you'll allow, I'll see you as far."
"Very well, my carriage can come on.'
M. Baroche explained to Mdlle. Rachel that to
tear up a nomination which was already causing
such a sensation in Paris would assume the import-
ance of an event.
"The Prince," he said, "will have to give in to
political combinations."
"2
"That may be, but I'll not give in.”
In a few minutes they had reached the Place
Vendôme. Mdlle. Rachel opened the door; M.
Baroche jumped out on the other side to assist her
in getting out.
"This then is your final decision, M. le Mi-
nistre ?"
"And yours, mademoiselle?"
"I have told you mine. Good-bye."
104
BEHIND THE SCENES
Between M. Mazères and Mdlle. Rachel the
Minister was like Buridan's ass.
*
"I should be very sorry though, mademoiselle,
that so original an audience should turn out to
your disadvantage. Give me the letter of the Pre-
sident of the Republic, and go and tell M. Arsène
Houssaye that he continues to be your director.
And to prove to you that I bear him as much good-
will as I bear you, I shall be delighted if both of
you will come and dine with me on Saturday, for I
know that you do not act on that day.”
Thus ended the Mazères management, who con-
soled himself by reading us La Niaise, a comedy
in five acts and in as many "frosts." M. Baroche
had docketed all the letters relating to this some-
what strange affair, and I have just laid my hands
on a letter from him on the subject.
"I thought it my duty a few days ago to oppose
the public sale, organised without my authority, of
a certain number of letters emanating from my
pigeon-holes (Catalogue Charavay, No. 142). I am
informed that you are anxious to possess two of
these letters, one of Mdlle. Rachel, the other of M.
Alex. Dumas, both of which were addressed to me
* "Buridan's ass ""
is a familiar locution in France, and alludes
to the imaginary animal introduced by the fourteenth-century theo-
logian of that name in one of his controversies. The donkey is
supposed to be very hungry and very thirsty, and standing equi-
distant between food and drink. Jack's perplexity is similar to
that of Captain Macheath.-[Transl.]
J
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
105
1
on the occasion of your final nomination to the post
of director of the Théâtre Français. I am very
pleased to be able to offer them to you, being fully
alive to the value you must set on the opinion of
so great an artist and so eminent a writer on one of
the acts of my ministry, an act of which I myself
preserved a truly pleasant recollection.
"J. BAROCHE."
:
106
BEHIND THE SCENES
CHAPTER VI.
BEFORE I endeavour to rapidly sketch the history
of the Théâtre Français during seven years, I wish
to give a bird's-eye view of the French stage in
the nineteenth century.
The theatre is poetry in action; to the poet the
world is the stage; to the spectator the stage is the
world. The theatre has assumed all kinds of cha-
racters in Greece; it has been one of the forms of
religion. It was at the Dionysia and at the Pana-
thenæa that tragedy appeared in all its solemnity.
What were the actors but the survivors of the
gods? Did not they hang up their masks in the
temple after their performance? Who, indeed, did
dare speak of the gods save an Eschylus. As a
neo-Greek pertinently remarked: "Through sub-
lime impiety he rose to a superior piety by pro-
claiming to the world the triumph of enlightened
liberty over blind destiny, by initiating it into the
development of the struggle that begins with
Prometheus and ends at Golgotha. Homer and
the great Greeks felt themselves nearer to the
gods than to men. They represented man as seen by
the gods and heroes; but it was man and not men;
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
107
it was man such as the gods brought him into
the world, gifted more with pride than with the
sentiment of his wretchedness. Hesiod, Homer,
Eschylus, the sovereign masters, were afraid of the
truth, therefore they scaled Olympus, where they
found the ideal. Nevertheless, in his heroic comedy,
Homer did open his eyes to the private actions of
men. If he had not appreciated them justly,
while appreciating their grandeur, he would not
have been Homer. One might say the same of
Eschylus. In one word, tragedy abandoned
Olympus to seize hold of Truth. Opposite Eschy-
lus stands Aristophanes, who conveys moral lessons
through satire. If Eschylus reveals his genius in
the grand days of religious festival, does not Aris-
tophanes reveal his bantering logic in the grand
pages of civilisation's history? He is a follower of
Bacchus assuredly, and intoxicates himself, as it
were, so as to have the right to say any and every
thing; his reason, however, never loses its head.
He ventures as far as the giddy brink of folly's
precipice, but the love of truth flings him back
victoriously from the abyss.
The Greek theatre possesses every possible gran-
deur, every possible beauty. The rhetoricians
have denied Eschylus' philosophy and moral
teaching because he subjected his personages to
blind fate. Was it not after all the highest lesson
he could teach mankind, by consoling them for the
power of destiny by heroic examples? Was it
108
BEHIND THE SCENES
possible to better teach them courage and resigna-
tion in the struggles and trials of life? Christian
feeling was already penetrating paganism. Was
virtue not more beautiful still in the guise of mar-
tyrdom? To get the better of fate is well enough;
but to perish beneath its blows when one is a philo-
sopher, is not that a sacrifice to the gods and to
one's self? That is why Eschylus is a profound
as well as terrible delineator. Onward goes the
world, and it is always from the theatre that we
get our light. In modern times the brothers of the
Passion say to royalty:
to royalty: "Thou shalt go no far-
ther." Hans Sachs mocks at the Papacy when
Luther is still behind the wings. What would the
seventeenth century be without Corneille and
Molière? What is the eighteenth without Voltaire
and Beaumarchais? Voltaire and Beaumarchais are
the first that have made a sermon of the theatre.
They have done more for civilisation than all the
others put together. Bossuet preached religion,
Corneille preached heroism, Racine preached pas-
sion; while Molière and Voltaire, tearing down the
mask from Error's face, have shown men all their
wretchedness in order to make them better, seeing
that after all there is no more fruitful school than
Truth's. The theatre, according to the master
minds that cultivate, is a school either for speaking
magnificently or for speaking well. It makes
people familiar with the grand sentiments of hero-
ism, dignity, and sacrifice; it points the finger at
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
109
things deserving of ridicule, it teaches the science
of the heart, it holds up to man the mirror of
humanity.
Many writers only believe in libraries, but the
book to be studied is everywhere; it is first of all
Nature herself, it is also art in all its manifestations,
at the museum as well as in the playhouse. If the
book be the expression of the inmost thought, the
theatre is the expression of the most extraneous.
It is the visible picture of the heart's throbs and of
reason's victory; it is the whole of mankind showing
itself in all its metamorphoses.
The nineteenth century may be said to have
begun in 1789. The Revolution is as it were our
cradle. The storm tears us away from the shore and
drives us to other horizons. Everything assumes
an unforeseen shape. Tragedy, drama, and comedy
are but one melodrama; the real play is played at
the Convention or on the Place de la Concorde.
That is where the spectacle is, until it shifts to the
frontier. Who, we wonder, was sufficiently greedy
for emotion to go and look for it at the Théâtre
Français ? who sufficiently lighthearted to go and
laugh at the jokes and mawkish sentiment of the
comic actors of those days? It was in vain that
Marie-Joseph Chénier, who was a poet before his
brother found the antique lyre-who was a poet
even by the side of his brother-attempted to fan
the blaze of the Revolution on the stage. He only
interested the rhetoricians. The crowd preserved
110
BEHIND THE SCENES
that drama in five acts, entitled the grand days of
the Revolution. Ducis persisted in re-moulding
Shakespeare, while Fabre-d'Eglantine fancied he
was re-moulding Molière. And how many others
besides Laya, Colin d'Harleville, Arnault, Andrieux,
and Picard fostered similar illusions? Among
the forty comedies of Picard there is not a single
one that recalls the memory of a success. This
alone should be enough to stop the chatter of many
of our contemporaries. And Picard's lot was, after
all, a happy one; comedian, playwright, theatrical
manager, a member of the Académie, and a man
of wit-what more could he want? His only mis-
take was to have lived in a period when they wrote
verses fit to be set to music. Hence, as a matter
of course, did he begin by his opera Les Visitan-
dines, which was performed for the first time on
the eve of the 10th August, and which held its own
throughout the whole of the Revolution.
It was
to the accompaniment of his airs that people went
to the guillotine.
As it was under the Convention so it is under
the Empire. The theatre that had been at the
Pyramids and at Marengo is at Austerlitz and at
Wagram until it is shifted to Moscow, where Napo-
leon will sign the famous decree. Who shall count
the number of memorable acts in this heroic tragedy,
which, like all tragedies, ends in bloodshed and
tears, from Beresina to Waterloo? The Emperor
(according to his own saying) would have made a
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
111
prince of Corneille, but among the tragic authors
of his reign he found not one of whom to make a
prince, neither among the Raynouards and Lancevals,
nor among the Népomucène Lamerciers.
At last came Victor Hugo. That which Malherbe
had eliminated from the glorious Renaissance he
restored to it; nay, he did better than that, he gave
us Victor Hugo. People were fairly dazzled. The
word-spinners were blinded, but the whole of our
youthful generation basked in this unexpected light.
Victor Hugo, the god of the day, conducted the
Chariot of the Sun. Happy above all were those
who counted no more than twenty summers, for
all, Alfred de Musset as well as Alexandre Dumas,
Alfred de Vigny as well as Théophile Gautier, flung
themselves into this second Renaissance, which by
its glare obscured the old schools. French poetry
had henceforth found its master. Lamartine was
the dawn, Victor Hugo was the midday sun.
In the theatre, each of Victor Hugo's attempts
was a battle and a triumphant victory. This is
also the history of Alexandre Dumas. In those
days Paris was consumed by a fever; it was felt
that human wisdom was at stake. In vain did
such intellects as were benighted endeavour to cast
their own clouds on the light-the light was flashed
through, nevertheless. The victories of Hugo and
Dumas have been the more brilliant for having
been the more hardly fought. It is a peculiarity of
France that, swaddled as she is in tradition, she only
112
BEHIND THE SCENES
cares to admire the slain. The blind war waged by
the critics is not forgotten yet. Gustave Planche,
among others, broke his lion's teeth in it. What is
more curious, perhaps, is that the sons of the Revo-
lution were the most uncompromising foes of this
revolution of poesy, imagination, and language.
Did not Armand Carrel say that Hugo would pass
away like the fashion of drinking coffee?
The struggle was absolutely a literary '93; con-
sequently one meets with all the instances of pluck
and enthusiasm that marked the Revolution. France
at the end of the eighteenth century had outstripped
all the other nations, because she was humani-
tarianism itself on the march; but she seemed to
forget her literary mission in her concern about the
philosophical one. It was many years since the
voices of great poets were hushed. Besides, people
no longer cared about the solemn language of Louis
XIV.'s time nor about the quasi-tragic and child-
ish chatter of the versifiers of Louis XV.'s reign.
Voltaire wanted to inaugurate a new departure,
but though he conceived the idea he was not pos-
sessed of the poetic feeling necessary for its execu-
tion; this marvellous prose writer could only write
small verse.
After, as well as before, him they merely did
their utmost to "travesty" the masters of antiquity
-by the attempt to copy them in ridiculous
"transfers "-and the masters of the seventeenth
century by colourless imitations. Comedy alone
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
113
-
continued to laugh its joyous peals with Marivaux,
Lesage, and Beaumarchais. It was in vain that
they tried to inspire themselves with the French
Revolution in order to give themselves a Roman
look or a Grecian attitude; they did not dare to
dare, or rather, genius was absent from all their
efforts.
At last a new theatre succeeded in creating a
new spirit in the grand poetry of truth, while
creating at the same time actors and actresses. In
their "lyrism," these figures were so replete with
life as to endow with life those who represented
them; everything assumed an unusual grandeur as in
the poems of Homer.
Alexander Dumas had valiantly rushed to the
fore in the first hour of this fruitful revolution.
Tragic and comic in turns, he flung the ardour of
his soul in his hundreds of creations, every one of
which still throbs with life. It is scarcely neces-
sary to enumerate the other leaders of parties who
contributed their forces to this army-severe Alfred
de Vigny as well as fantastic Alfred de Musset.
It is not necessary to enumerate the captains and
the simple soldiers in those victorious struggles of
dramatic genius. They were all carried away,
even those who swore by the old gods; proof whereof
Casimir Delavigne, who wrote Louis XI.; Scribe,
who wrote Robert le Diable; Ponsard, who wrote
Charlotte Corday-three works of the Romantic
School.
I
114
BEHIND THE SCENES
!
}
The tempest-tossed river bursting its bonds had
swept over everything and fertilised everything.
*
The literature of the nineteenth century was a
long while groping its way. It aspired to the dis-
covery of unknown hemispheres, but the grandeur
of the classic writers of the seventeenth century
held it bound to the shore. Nevertheless it felt
encouraged to emulate the adventures of Jean-
Jacques Rousseau, of Beaumarchais, of Bernardin
de Saint Pierre; but it lacked the genius for grand
enterprises; M. de Chateaubriand alone dared to
box the new compass. But now many timid minds
around him were content to merely return to the
school of Louis XIV.'s time and to that of Vol-
taire, which in matters theatrical still enjoyed their
prestige. Curious to relate, Voltaire, the great
prose writer if ever there was one, was only held
up as an exemplar in regard to his occasional
attempts at poetry.
at poetry. Who will enumerate the
tragedies of the First Empire; the successes ob-
tained with plays like Caïus-Gracchus, Mucius
Scévola, Timoléon, Marius à Minturnes, Epicharus
et Néron, Edipe à Colonne. This kind of tragedy
continued to flourish during the Restoration with
Sylla, Clytemnestre, Léonidas.
David the painter had brought back the Greeks
and the Romans with his painted statues, like Napo-
leon with the noise of his victories. One gets tired
of everything, even of the grandiose. Talma at last

OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
115
refused to get on figurative stilts; he sued for mercy
in this prison of heroic sentiment; he aspired to
nature and to truth; he was thirsting for water
from the living source; he wished to fling away the
ambrosial cup. For his sake a trial was made of
pieces more French in their scope; authors dipped
into the history of France-unfortunately for them-
selves they always consulted copies. Furthermore,
they neither remoulded their verse nor their prose;
they stuck to conventional poetry as well as to
conventional prose; it was the period of semi-tints
-they were afraid of the sun.
Then it was that, abandoning in despair the idea
of creating a French drama, they knocked at the
door of the foreigner. Ducis had badly translated
Shakespeare in verse; M. Guizot translated him in
prose, still sticking to the idea, however, of gallicizing
him like M. de Barante in translating Schiller. A
spirit of boldness came over the younger minds.
M. Lebrun wrote Marie Stuart after having read
Schiller; Alfred de Vigny translated Othello word
for word, a proceeding which must have rejoiced
the shade of Shakespeare and terrified the ghost of
Ducis. In the heat of the strife Alexander Dumas
produced Henry III. and Antony—an image of the
past and an image of the present. The issue of the
battle was still doubtful when Victor Hugo threw
himself into the fray, armed with the thunderbolts
of victory as it were, that is to say with Hernani
and Marion Delorme. The old school was defeated.
I 2
116
BEHIND THE SCENES
Deny the light as it might, it hung its head, and
rallied its scattered forces, though unable to offer a
regular battle. Of course it made a sortie now and
then, still with the same colourless tragedies of
which it remained obstinately enamoured, and
calling upon all its saints to grant it a victory. It
took the field again, now with Pertinax, then with
Clovis, here with Elizabeth d'Angleterre, there with
Gustave-Adolphe; it lost ground with each new
attempt, it was driven back even unto Arbogaste.
But those victories were not always conquests.
The public, swaddled in tradition, did not always
dare to admire aloud as it were; it still believed
that all this was a mere surprise, the more that the
critics of those days did their best to cast clouds
upon this rising sun. The Republicans of the
reign of Louis - Philippe-Armand Carrel and
Armand Marrast-struck the revolutionaries of
romanticism full in the chest to obtain pardon for
being political revolutionaries. Sainte-Beuve half
denied his gods, Gustave Planche denied them
altogether. Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas, Alfred
de Vigny, those glorious master-minds, were dis-
cussed like so many learners. Neither their dra-
matic triumphs on the stage nor their dramatic
genius was accounted to them; at each attempt
they had to begin anew. The public has never
valiantly thrown in its lot with the living glories;
it never cares for men of renown except at a
distance. It was, besides, afraid of betraying its
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
117
""
ancient gods; it was afraid also, this public, though
born "knowing," of being taken in. It was so for
a moment when Ponsard produced his Lucrèce at
the Odéon. "Behold the real thing in theatrical
work was shouted to the most enthusiastic but
least - convinced spectators. "Behold the real
thing" was said, and that with a masterpiece of
Victor Hugo staring them in the face-Les Bur-
graves,
the beauties of which they obstinately
refused to admit. It was the ever-repeated story
of the petty vexations indulged in by the human
understanding.
Not the least surprised at all this was Ponsard
himself, crushed as it were by his own success; for
his large-hearted nature was too much gifted with
the appreciation of the beautiful not to be grieved
at the clamour of his friends, who denied Victor
Hugo, and wished to over-topple the latter's statue
in order to put Ponsard's in its stead-an effigy in
stone in the stead of one in marble.
What threatened to compromise still further the
victories of the romanticists-that is to say, the
conquest of art in the domain of truth-was the un-
expected success of Mdlle. Rachel, a young tragé-
dienne who invoked the dead to battle. True,
these dead ones, Corneille and Racine, had already
recognised as one of their own the one who put his
name to Hernani and Marion Delorme.
The romanticists found themselves gradually
banished from the Théâtre Français as from the
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BEHIND THE SCENES
Odéon, where the obstinate of the old school still
mustered in numbers. A new theatre became illus-
trious at once by a new masterpiece. In our
memory the name of the "Théâtre de la Renais-
sance" recalls at once the name of Ruy Blas, a
glorious evening indeed, a new dawn; but it was
in vain that the disciples flung themselves within
the rays of the master. They wanted neither in
ardour nor in talent; what was wanted was the
public, this ungrateful public which has only whims
and impulses, which declines to be counted upon,
which shatters its idols as a child breaks its toys.
The French mind is but moderate in its enthu-
siasm, because there is always a speck of criticism
in the French mind. When it becomes impassioned
in its admiration, the thing only lasts for a day,
after which it denies its gods. It will be easily
understood that face to face with that kind of
disposition the romanticists, disdaining to avail
themselves of the Scribean ruses of stage surprises,
have not always been able to hold their ground
with the same success. They lost the game with
all the trumps virtually in their own hands. It is
of no use to deny that too often they took im-
prudence, boldness, nay, foolhardiness itself, for
their auxiliaries. If, as a preface to his beautiful
dramas, Victor Hugo-who could have written a
second volume to Eschylus' first-had begun with
a tragedy, a genuine antique monument, he would
have been permitted to be Shakespeare in France.
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Two pure-bred romanticists, Alexander Dumas and
Jules Lacroix-the first with his Caligula, the
second with his Testament de César-proved that
they were much better posted in antique lore than
the very distant pupils of Campistron. In a similar
way two other romanticists without alloy have
handled the antique drama very learnedly before
venturing into the fruitful grooves of the contem-
porary stage. Is it not also a romanticist who
wrote that beautiful poetical drama, La Fille
d'Eschyle with all the renewed fervour of André
Chénier?
After all, is it worth while to study the theatrical
works of the nineteenth century previous to Victor
Hugo, Dumas, and de Vigny? The utmost one can
do as one travels along is to laugh with Scribe at
the follies he castigates with the feathery end of
his pen and with so sweet a smile; for he has not
the biting laughter of Molière, Regnard, and Beau-
marchais. If we attempt to do more than that we
shall only arouse phantoms of comedy on shadowy
backgrounds of tragedy from the shrouds of ob-
livion. In vain do the lovers of the past oppose
the pieces of Marie-Joseph Chénier and Népomu-
cène Lemercier to the schoolboy dreams of Luce de
Lancival and Laya. Neither these nor the others
live, for the simple reason that they were never
alive. Ducis betrayed Shakespeare until the
moment when Alfred de Vigny translated him.
Colin d'Harleville and Andrieux, Mazères and
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BEHIND THE SCENES
Empis, were under the impression that they were
writing comedies in the country of Molière. Their
ingenuousness merely created a kind of repertory
fit for private theatricals, after the manner of those
who do not know how to write. Contemporary
comedy did not exist until the day-1848-1852-
when Musset, Dumas, Sandeau, Augier, and Bar-
rière gave it to us, as Victor Hugo had given us the
modern drama.
Every reign has had its Casimir Delavigne, that
is to say, boldness tempered by discretion, wisdom
taking the bit between its teeth. With that sort
of thing triumph brings no remorse, everyone is
satisfied. M. de Jouy, for instance, was the Casimir
Delavigne of the First Empire; more impetuous than
Luce de Lancival, but less daring than Népomucène
Lemercier, he proposed the victory but never ven-
tured into the battle. While daring to appear out
of the common by creating Tippo Saib, he re-
conciled his public by a working-out and a context
altogether Aristotelian. When he produced Sylla
he himself was terrified at his boldness-at the first
performance. And no wonder; Talma had made
of his tragedy quite a different one; the hero of
M. de Jouy disappeared beneath the figure of Talma,
because Talma invested him with the character and
features of Napoleon. On that day M. de Jouy
had the chance of enacting a casual part-that of
a literary Napoleon, of an historian disguised, of a
philosopher opening his hand full of truths; but he
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
121
fell back humiliated into chaos, frightened at the
stage conception of Talma.
The real Casimir Delavigne was caught betwixt
two schools, like Paul Delaroche; he was fettered
by prejudices in favour of barren principles, though
impelled here and there by aspirations towards
truth. His temperate works, in which genius stops
halfway, are but a timid expression that stamps
itself in blurred outlines on the theatrical history
of his time. Nevertheless his soul was all aflame.
He had his hour, he had his day; but the day
had no morrow. It is not given to everyone, even
among the most gifted, to shine for as much as one
day. What Casimir Delavigne lacked was less the
inventive genius than the science of style which
confers the stamp of immortality. In the end he
became imbued with the Romantic feeling, but
public opinion is a disdainful dame who never re-
considers her first verdicts. With Casimir Dela-
vigne the past killed the future. In despite of the
admirable lessons in grandeur, beauty, and pic-
turesqueness given him by Shakespeare and Hugo,
Delavigne only listened with one ear, the other
being still occupied listening to the songs of Ducis
and Colin d'Harleville.
A man who really belonged to the family of
Hugo and Shakespeare was Alfred de Musset. He
also said that one might imitate Homer, though one
should refrain from imitating the Iliad. Hence
he was more of a Grecian than of a Roman. His

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BEHIND THE SCENES
only theatrical fatherland was the Italy of the
Renaissance, as his only school was that of the
passions. What delightful pieces are his! poetry
clothing truth without betraying her, the peal of
laughter underlining the burst of tears, as the
sudden sunbeam shows the still-pending raindrops.
Alfred de Musset has proved that art is the infinite;
his stage work rushes into all kinds of perilous and
fantastic adventures. Who shall say that it is not
the reflex of the human heart?
One might say the same of Emile Augier, who,
after creating that delightful comedy L'Aventu-
rière-a most fantastic and poetical work-created
realistic comedies like Le Mariage d'Olympe. As-
suredly here we have a man steeped to the lips in
Gallic wit. In vain did he begin his career with
La Cigue, that charming comedy in imitation of
the Greek ones; he soon rallied to the spirit of
the French theatre. If we are in search of Molière's
grand peal of laughter it is Emile Augier who will
give it us, because he is carried away by his own
dash and momentum; because his is the most
straightforward, the most unfettered language;
because he is Gaul and Frenchman combined.
At that time the Odéon wanted to enter the lists
with the Théâtre Français; it produced the works
of the revolutionaries of dramatic art-Balzac and
Léon Gozlan, Les Ressources de Quinola, La Main
Droite et la Main Gauche-as the theatres devoted
to the drama played Eugène Sue and Frédéric
Soulié.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
123
After these grand stormy evenings the Odéon
had its many a "small and early," in which more
than one new-comer showed his aptitudes. It was
at the Odéon that Camille Doucet (the present
permanent secretary to the French Académie) was
applauded for the first time with two comedies that
have come back to the Comédie Française with all
their gaiety and Atticism thick upon them. It was
also the Odéon that gave Ponsard his first start.
He whom they wished to attach to the antiquated
school in order to defy romanticism was gifted
with a mind that had absolutely sprung from the
new movement. The blind among the critics failed
to perceive that if he did turn towards antiquity
it was in order to limn it with the palette prepared
by Victor Hugo-a fact which he himself acknow-
ledged. His friends, or rather the critics hostile to
romanticism, had confined him within the pens of
conventionality; but with Charlotte Corday he
broke his fetters-to use the old phraseology—and
passed over to the romanticists. There was quite
a revolution respecting a subject taken from the
French Revolution. In fact at the very opening
one beheld Mme. Roland, at the end of a banquet,
picking her bouquet of roses to pieces in the
cup of the Girondins. After this antique scene
the poet took us to Normandy, to a meadow at
haymaking time, illumined by the setting sun.
Antithesis the first: after the political storm the
peace of nature. Another contrast. Charlotte
Corday comes to the Palais Egalité (the actual
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BEHIND THE SCENES
Palais Royal) to purchase the knife wherewith to
strike Marat.
There is a beautiful scene when, entirely absorbed
by her dream, after having hidden the cold steel on
her throbbing heart, she casts a glance at a child
playing by her side. It is because "The Angel of
Assassination" might under different circumstances
have become the angel of the family. And in this
way the whole of the action went on from scene to
scene, ever full of life, ever terrible, ever poetical.
In his turn Ponsard proclaimed liberty in art.
Thus, while the grotesques of romanticism dis-
owned Ponsard, at the representation of Charlotte
Corday, Victor Hugo, the generous chief, applauded
with all his might. When Ponsard presented him-
self for election at the Académie, Victor Hugo,
then an exile, sent him his vote. The vote of the
absent one did not count at the Académie, but it
counted with Ponsard and with public opinion.
In comedy, Ponsard was far from commanding
the fertility of Augier, Dumas, Sardou. His comedy
is still that of Casimir Delavigne. He lacks the
power of evoking laughter and the vigour of style.
This man, so bold in the drama, who so eloquently
expresses the noblest sentiments, who often writes
verse like Corneille and Hugo, does not stamp his
thoughts or his sentiments on comedy by indelible
figures-he is still under the impression that modern
comedy should wear ancient garb. In our days,
Molière would dress his personages in the fashion
of the hour.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
125
Lamartine, that great intellect, has faced the
uncertainties of the stage, but dreams are out of
place on it; the man of flesh and blood is more
eloquent there than a theory, because the mission
of drama is to paint men. The theses of the philo-
sopher will not prevail over the imagery of the
poet, because the poet speaks louder there than the
philosopher. If instead of producing Toussaint
l'Ouverture, Lamartine had given us Graziella, the
poet would have been applauded. As it was, the
statesman only obtained a cold reception.
Georges Sand, with her pictures of rustic life
taken from nature, like François le Champi, won
every heart; but her social novel, like Lelia, would
have bored or disgusted everyone; proof whereof
is Cosima, because it was merely a dream.
A man who knew what he was about was Scribe.
He was endowed with everything that constitutes
an author except the "art of writing." But comedy
in prose has also its "art of writing." Certain
criticisms would not be a jot more witty for being
conveyed in correct French. Nor did Scribe ex-
haust his powers in setting up vain theories. He
never attempted perilous adventures, he entrenched
himself within his own zone without the desire to
go beyond it. If we eliminated the antiquated
songs that provided, so to speak, the relish of the
moment, how many charming small comedies there
would still be left of him!
than a mere vaudevilliste.
But Scribe was more
Robert le Diable is a
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BEHIND THE SCENES
drama of majestic proportions. His big pieces at
the Théâtre Français, criticised as they were fully,
lived their time, and will perhaps weather the
storm that is likely to wreck our own generation
and its works. The two Dumas, both born with
the dramatic genius, are also as often on the stage
as in the pit. The first is the joyous and valiant
musketeer; the second, the witty preacher, makes
sport of
every one before every one.
Alexander Dunias has been the whole theatre in-
carnate in one man (l'homme-théâtre).* Look at
him as he impetuously flings himself on to the
stage with Charles VII. chez ses grands Vassaux.
He has scarcely left school. He is consumed by
the fever of dramatic genius, and at his first shot
hits the bull's eye. He reverses his position, and
from the historical passes to the contemporary drama
with Antony and Angèle. Once more he veers
round, and again and again attempts something
different. He goes in for antique tragedy with the
firm characterisation of the great writers. Why
did the world at large fail to applaud his Caligula?
Because the author was forced as it were to invent
the sensational incidents dear to the playgoers of
the Boulevards east of the Rue St. Martin. But it
did not prevent him from arousing the spectator's
emotion. Every one of his personages is endowed
* A twisting of the word l'homme orchestre, applied to the itine-
rant musician who has half-a-dozen or more instruments fastened
to his body, which he plays by himself.—[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
127
with strong vitality: he is in turns a painter of
frescoes, a portraitist, and a genre painter. He
grasps comedy with the plenitude of his joyous
nature. No greater scenic craftsman ever existed
-a look at his novels is sufficient to convince one.
No one was less fettered in his way of developing
a plot, because freedom of action was born within
him. Who shall enumerate the delightful works,
commencing with Mademoiselle de Belle Isle and
ending with La Jeunesse de Louis XIV., he has
given us? Nothing is too much to this prodigal
child. Terrible but an hour ago, he is as witty as
any one the next. He is as exuberant as a child, as
bitterly flouting as the most confirmed of sceptics.
He had profound faith in himself; unfortunately
the vanities of the world diminished his pride day
by day. He was absolutely grand, and he conde-
scended to be in the fashion. Instead of imposing
his own terms he surrendered at discretion.
Alexander Dumas II. proceeded perhaps the
contrary way. But the road was more toilsome to
him. Not but that he is as gifted as his father;
he also is a born writer, a bold, daring inquirer.
But how often travelling the same roads bas he
been obliged to stop in order to salute his father?
How many situations, ideas, sentiments, was he
obliged to abandon because he found them stamped
with the mark of Dumas I.? No wonder then that
he was more pitiless to himself than the critics. In
literature there are patrimonies that mean ruin.
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BEHIND THE SCENES
Of course no one will charge the author of the
Demi-Monde with a family likeness to the author of
Antony unless it be the relationship belonging to
all great writers in common. Nothing astonished
the father so much as the creations of the son. He
perceived well enough that these were not a continua-
tion of his own work. The son wished to be great
by reason of truth, as the father wished to be great
by reason of poesy; the son called nature, the
father called the ideal, to his aid. Not but that the
poet of Charles VII. and Caligula utters some
terrible cries of truth now and then; but, like
Eugène Delacroix, he painted in the chivalric,
heroic, and romantic style, while the son, more of
a philosopher and a moralist, has a hand-to-hand
struggle with Nature in order to surprise all her
secrets. Whatsoever others may do nowadays,
they will never surpass him in depicting the truth.
M. Alexander Dumas the younger is a moralist after
the manner of Molière; like Molière he has studied
humanity from the least-complicated visual point;
like Molière he has struck the nail on the head. That
is why his contemporaries recognised themselves in
his comedies; that is why the history of the nine-
teenth century will not be written without includ-
ing the study of the historian of our passions and
our follies.
Great minds have their ancestry, they only reach
the point of originality when they reach the age of
manhood. Octave Feuillet springs from Alfred de
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
129
Musset and Marivaux, but he became Octave
Feuillet himself very soon, that is why he has had
his glorious share in the contemporary stage.
Delilah, Le Village, Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme
Pauvre, are works that have succeeded as much
with the literary public as with those who merely
like the theatre for its own sake. No one has more
skilfully depicted the struggles of the heart and
mind. No one has dipped a firmer and at the same
time a more lissome brush in the blue and gold of
the sky to paint the impalpable forms of human
feeling. Octave Feuillet has the genius of the
painter of home life. He portrays to perfection
and true to the life romantic men and women.
Every now and then he surprises the readers of his
novels and his theatrical audiences by the most ener-
getic touches of nature. It has been said of him
that he is the poet of home life; but his horizon is
not limited by the home only, he is everybody's
poet. His works contain bold incursions in the
domain of passion; if he brings his bark safely into
port it is only after having escaped or defied the
storm; hence one gladly lingers with this writer
as with a man of the world, who not only knows
"his own world" but that of every one else besides.
Mme. Emile de Girardin has had her hour and
her day. I am not alluding merely to La Joie
fait Peur, this peal of laughter bursting through
the tears, but to Judith, Cleopátre, and Lady Tar-
tuffe. As a matter of course the critics twitted her
K
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BEHIND THE SCENES
with writing like a woman, when in fact she
wrote like a man. For who after Corneille and
Victor Hugo has written more virile verse? She
was the true daughter of Racine with her softened
passions. There exists no better prose than that
of Lady Tartuffe; everything is to be found in it at
once-strength and wit, satire both trenchant and
brilliant like the style itself.
Theatrical art was as it were an inmate of the
house. I do not speak of Mme. Sophie Gay, but
of Emile de Girardin, who with his Supplice d'une
Femme, while affording the spectator the most
poignant and genuine emotion, has, inspired by
Alexander Dumas the younger, taught the art of
saying everything from behind the footlights to
dramatic authors who hitherto only dared to face
the situations between the wings.
Among the novelists whom the stage was bound
to win over to its cause, M. Jules Sandeau was one
of the greatest favourites. For were there not in
every book he had written at least three or four
living characters unlike those of so many novelists
who only create phantoms? Every novel of Jules
Sandeau might have been adapted to the stage-of
course I speak of those which have not been so
adapted. They would have no doubt lost some-
thing of the ideal which lifts out of the common all
the creations of this matchless novelist who might
have been a poet, but they would preserve all their
vital force, being still further emphasised by the
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
131
player's acting. The novel of Malle. de la Seiglière
is perhaps more poetical than the comedy of that
name, but who would grumble at this charming and
bold creation having been brought beneath the
skyborders" of the theatre ?
66
Victorien Sardou, the lineal grandson of Beau-
marchais, has revealed himself by the boldest
mental conceptions, tempered by his own good
sense and by the most complicated inventions of
sensational comedy. If as yet he has not written
a Mariage de Figaro, he has written dramas that
by far surpass La Mère Coupable; Patrie and
La Haine are masterpieces. Sardou's is a sym-
pathetic mind which was unavoidably bound to
pass from the genre picture to the historical one
-I mean from the genre piece to the historical
play-on the boards of high comedy.
Balzac, hissed on the stage, as was Alfred de
Musset, did not live to witness some of his success.
Even then it wanted a thoroughly inspired actress
like Mme. Allan to introduce him by a side door
with a most trifling production. When dead he
took possession of the stage with La Marâtre and
Mercadet. It did not matter, for had not the
author of the Comédie Humaine already conquered
the theatre of the universe? Alexander Dumas
himself, who could boast of a score of successes in
every branch of stage-craft, finished up by believing
that it is the novel which inspires the drama and
the comedy.
K 2
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BEHIND THE SCENES
The great writers of antiquity have more than
once in the nineteenth century been the cause of
heroic aspirations. M. Jules Lacroix has resusci-
tated the grandiose Greek and Roman figures with
their proud, tragic expression and sentiment, while
clothing his own ideas in noble, vigorous, and vivid
language. It would be unfair to leave unnoticed
the work of a man who started brilliantly on his
theatrical career, and who subsequently devoted
himself to historical study: M. Latour Saint-Ibars.
Vallia was merely a promise, Virginie is a tragedy.
Théodore Barrière's was a mind steeped in wit
but also steeped in good sense. It may well be
doubted whether Aristophanes would have found a
more brilliant disciple in France; but Aristo-
phanes would not have been guilty of the loving
touches of Théodore Barrière. By taking in tow
the drifting skiff of Henri Murger he saved it from
being wrecked, and he saved himself also-he passed
from the small theatres to the big ones. La Vie
de Bohême proved the dazzling preface to Les
Filles de Marbre, Les Parisiens de la Décadence, and
Les Faux Bonshommes. Since then there have
been ever so many charming scenes, ever so many
epigrams coined in gold as it were.
This one at
any rate died not repenting of his wit.
Though only wishing to take a rapid survey of
the theatrical movement of that period, it would ill
become the historian not to salute on the way men
who have often been applauded like Méry, Maquet,
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
133
Mallefille, Legouvé, Saintine, Jules Barbier, Murger,
Banville, Melesville, Dumanoir, A. Second, Mon-
selet, Cremieux.
Equally unjust would it be not to include Gavarni
as well as Daumier in modern comedy. These
two have decidedly also left their mark by their
bursts of unstrained laughter. Daumier, between
the merry-andrew's booth and the genre theatre,
inaugurates the series of Orphée aux Enfers and
La Belle Hélène, while Gavarni goes straight to
the bigger stage as Aristophanes would have done.
Both command their select public. But Gavarni
leaves a deeper mark
upon
his scenes. How many
comedies have held, do, and will hold, the bills that
do not contain a single epigram to be compared to
Gavarni's ?
Molière said, “I take my material wherever I
find it.” It is the alpha of collaboration on the stage,
where often the piece belongs to everybody-authors,
actors, and spectators. But to study the pieces
written in collaboration (and in the fashion) during
the nineteenth century would require a volume.
Three men who had the critical genius without
having been born critics, Théophile Gautier, Jules
Janin, and Paul de Saint-Victor, have by their
brilliant weekly articles contributed in no mean
degree to shed a halo around the stage of those
days. It was like a glamour, often more brilliant
than that thrown by the light from the stage. The
wit, the vivid colour, the eloquence with which
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BEHIND THE SCENES
these highly cultivated writers interpreted and
commented on theatrical productions, is still remem-
bered. It often happened to them to draw from
such and such a piece or author a philosophical
idea, the author having been a philosopher without
being aware of it. Their power was so marvel-
lous that the readers of their analyses became as it
were spectators. To these three masters one might
well add Gérard de Nerval, who during six years
spoke so learnedly every Sunday in l'Artiste about
comedy and the drama. The history of that period
of theatrical art might be written by simply levy-
ing contributions from these four men. By going
further into the past, one could consult Loëwe
Weimars, a Parisian from Attica, an Athenian from
Paris. Closer to our own days, there are also critics
who have written history in that way (ready written
as it were), such as Roqueplan, d'Aurevilly, Henri
de Pène, Banville, Wolff, Thierry, Silvestre.
Nowadays theatrical art has its apostles among
the lecturers. M. Henri de Lapommeroye delivers
from the platform articles that are better than many
written ones. M. Sarcey often pours into the
glass of sugared water of the lecturer the pure wine
of comedy.
The dramatic stage no longer has its grand
innings, in despite of the new comers who have
lately bestowed poetry, historical colouring, the dash
of youth upon it-men like Coppée, Claretie, Delpit,
Mendès, Bornier, Richepin. There is no lack of
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
135
talent in the poets, it is the public that is wanting;
it is perhaps the theatre itself.
The erstwhile celebrated houses have disappeared
or have compromised themselves by spectacular
entertainments which are no longer aught but the
gratification of the eyes. The cock-and-bull story
has smothered sentiment. Adolphe d'Ennery has
fallen from the height of his stirring dramas-La
Grace de Dieu and Marie Jeanne-as low down as
panoramas of the Tour du Monde kinds. Luckily
he has ability sufficient to pick himself up and
resume the old route whenever he has a mind.
Nearly all those who shed lustre on the modern
theatre have been playing at the Théâtre Français
during my management; hence it is rather a page
from their history than from mine which I propose
to write.
At my advent there disorder prevailed in every-
one's mind. The Revolution of 1848-in which
there was a great deal of fire, but also a great
deal of smoke--produced the same topsy-turviness
in literature as in politics. The careful observer
already perceived the dawn of that literature of
the future that wants to relegate Homer to the
Scholiasts, shatter the statues of Michael Angelo,
and burn the pictures of Raphael, because it pro-
fesses itself vexed to death by the gods. Have we
not noticed the hatred of Proudhon, that casual
scribbler, for Victor Hugo's genius? "Stand out
of the way of my sun!"
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BEHIND THE SCENES
I attempted to restore the worship of the great
writers. Rachel had in spite of herself sown dis-
cord; I wished her to restore peace; that is why I
prevailed upon her to play Hugo, Dumas, and the
others. That also brought about a small revolu-
tion. The most benighted began to understand
at last that between a great antique and a great
modern author there is often but the difference of
an actress.
Those who had yielded to the charm of the great
Rachel's Camille and Phèdre yielded to her La Thisbé
and Mdlle. de Belle-Isle, but I did not want the
Théâtre Français to be the entrenched camp of one
particular school. Seeing that the old conventions
had been cut to ribbons, that the grammar had been
torn up, everyone had the freeman's right in this
hospitable building. As such did I
As such did I go half-way to
meet Ponsard as well as Augier, these new-comers
giving promise of so much success. Their entry was
a triumphal one, for almost at the same time Augier
gave us Gabrielle, and Ponsard Charlotte Corday.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
137
CHAPTER VII.
My lucky star had confided the destinies of the
Théâtre Français to me in the halcyon days when
all the literary passions were in full play, when the
great Comedians hallowed by tradition were still
on the stage. Romanticism had invested the talent
itself of the actors with more colour and more em-
phasis. That which was most wanting to the
comedies of Molière as well as to the tragedies of
Corneille and Racine was scenery. I succeeded in
imposing scenery, but not without a deal of trouble,
for Samson and Provost told me that the three
great masters of the Théâtre Français were inde-
pendent of accessories. Like the apostles of Ingrès
they maintained that colour drowns drawing. This
theory was tantamount to misunderstanding the
laws of the stage, which appeals to the mind but
also appeals to the eye. Their theory if pushed
to its logical conclusion would suppress actors, and
admit of the masterpieces being read either from
the stage itself or at the fireside. I began by pro-
ducing the drawing-room of Les Femmes Savantes
according to Molière himself, seeing that Brissard,
the draughtsman in the engraving of that comedy,
138
BEHIND THE SCENES
has depicted things as he saw them; for it is well
known that he was one of the closest spectators of
Molière's plays. The public and the journalists
said that I was right. As a matter of course I
went on more determined than ever. Not only did
I want homely, picturesque, or grandiose scenery, as
the case might be, but I put on the stage appro-
priate and valuable furniture, setting my face once
for all against neologians and vulgarism, for every-
thing should tend to instruct the spectator. I was
compelled to revolutionise everywhere, and grieve
my old sociétaires even in the furnishing of my
private room. Provost, who was a prosaic burgher,
wanted "in order to please me" to decorate that
room in a thoroughly respectable style. He ordered
a green seamless paper, by which is meant a paper
the size of a single panel. I begged of him to leave
it alone, for fond as I am of green in the fields or
in the woods, I detest it inside the house.
had a great deal of Gobelins tapestry at home, and
one fine day the metamorphosis was accomplished.
They thought me mad to carry my fondness for
scenery even into my own room, but the madness
has endured, seeing that the room is still as I left it.
I did for the furniture what I had done for the paper.
I removed an abominable mahogany writing-table
which had probably been the delight of my pre-
decessors; nothing would do for me but a Boulle
table in the purest Louis XIV. style, which had
up till then done duty at home. When M. Empis
I
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
139
succeeded me, he, the desk-worm par excellence,
had the sublime piece of mahogany brought back.
It fortunately disappeared soon afterwards.
As for me, I was not at all the desk-worm. The
director of the Comédie Française should not be
meddling with papers. What is the good of it, un-
less it be to waste time? His work, if he is not on
the stage, should be to feel the pulse of public opinion,
to prove alike to dramatic authors and Comedians
that it is still possible to write masterpieces and to
enact fine parts. Public opinion came every night
to my room in company with actors and dramatic
authors. Literary opinion at that time centred in
Victor Hugo, the Count d'Orsay, the Count
de Morny, Romieu, Alfred de Musset, Augier,
Ponsard, Saint-Victor, Dumas, Gozlan, Persigny,
Théophile Gautier, Beauvoir, Roqueplan, Méry,
Delacroix, Diaz, and a score of others more or less
my friends, who came to spend half an hour some-
times in the intervals of the comedy itself, at other
in the intervals of society's receptions. There was a
constant coming to and fro; everybody felt at home,
and had "his say" on such and such a piece, on
such and such a début. Was not this indeed the
66
sovereign pit"? (of which Napoleon spoke).
And this pit was the more sovereign for women
being admitted to it: Rachel and Rebecca, the
three Brohans, Mdlle. Favart and Mdlle. Judith,
Mdlle. Fix, Mdlle. Théric, and Mdlle. Luther, in
fact the whole of the flying squadron. Mme. Suard
140
BEHIND THE SCENES
came now and then, Mme. de Girardin ofteu, Mme
Roger de Beauvoir nearly every evening. She was
so very pretty and had so much ready wit. She
was Mdlle. Mars between the wings.*
Banville, that essentially Parisian painter in
prose and verse, said in 1850: "When you leave the
reading committee's room for that of M. Houssaye
you imagine yourself to have set foot in a different
country. Instead of the mournful apartment hung
with green like a court of law without air or light,
you get into one hung with Gobelin tapestries
representing Apollo regulating the sun's journey to
the harmonious tuning of his lyre accompanying
the song of the nine stanzas. Here all the furni-
ture is by Boulle or other masters. A few portraits,
such as those of Molière and Beaumarchais, on the
hangings; also some admirable busts, that of Mdlle.
Clairon in terra-cotta, that of Mdlle. Gaussin in
marble; besides two of living actresses, those of
Mdlle. Rachel and Mdlle. Brohan; without men-
tioning a hundred and one pictures that come
and go like charming company at a perpetual 'at
home.'"
A description much more interesting would have
been that of the living personages who went in and
out of that room-actors and authors, actresses and
* This is an allusion to Mdlle. Mars' bad temper when off the
stage. “Am I not amiable, M. Hoffman?" asked the great actress.
"You are downright lovable and charming between the footlights
and the cloths," replied the great phantastic novelist.—[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
141
philosophers, "walking ladies" and journalists,
ingénues and financiers.† In that room all kinds.
*
of stories were incubated and set afloat. Difficult
indeed would it be to enumerate the plots, the
abdications, the diplomacy, the stage revolutions
hatched there.
The story of the Théâtre Français from 1849 to
1856 is very easy to write, seeing that I kept the
notes gathered by Verteuil for reports which I was
bound to despatch to the Minister by virtue of the
decree of the 27th April, 1850.
The official part of my story will be based on
those reports, but wherever I can I mean to supple-
ment it by more intimate details. I intend to show
the spectator who does not belong to my genera-
tion, the living images of a period already distant,
but which deserves to survive by reason of the
great actors and actresses then illustrating the first
theatre in the world.
The reader will become spectator and take part
in the great literary and dramatic entertainments
that were given in the middle of this century. I
will receive him, not only in the "house" of
Molière and in the great crush-room, but in the
green-room and in the actresses' dressing-rooms.
He will witness two kinds of comedy-that played by
the actors on the stage, that played by their passions
* Actresses playing young girls' parts.
† Actors playing the jolly, somewhat boisterous, old or middle-
aged men. [Transl.]
142
BEHIND THE SCENES
behind the wings. While rapidly sketching the
profiles of the most famous artists, I will not forget
to give the outlines of the works represented. I
may be told that after all these are the trifles of
history, but where, I should like to know, shall we
find nowadays the infinitely great? Documents,
whatsoever they may be, are proofs of the spirit of
the times. Beneath the record one finds the man,
I therefore publish these chapters less for my con-
temporaries than for those who may wish to know
in the future. I have already had occasion to
observe that I am continually to the fore here, but
it is in spite of myself, for it is impossible for the
impresario to remain at the wings and to eliminate
himself from his own part; besides, when a man
speaks of himself after a lapse of time he is almost
speaking of a stranger, and it often happens that
he fails to recognise himself.
Happy the kingdoms, happy the republics, that
have no history.
The same cannot be said of the government of a
theatre, seeing that its prosperity is in direct pro-
portion to the noise it makes. But this noise after
all subsides very soon. It is the noise of the
storm dispelled by the wind that drives before it
works that become obsolete. The actor himself
leaves but a fleeting reminiscence. It is simply
the track of the vessel flying its bunting. The
duty of the historian or the historiographer is,
however, to mark the luminous points of the
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
143
legend of dramatic art, like those of all the other
arts.
My lines happen to have been cast amidst the
most dazzling period of the century. In fact, it
will be seen later on, by the list of the members of
the company itself and by those of the pieces re-
presented, that this was one of the grandest phases
of the theatre in France.
In 1850, the Comedians were called: Beauvallet,
Regnier, Sanison, Ligier, Provost, Geffroy, Brin-
deau, Maillard, Got, Delaunay, Monrose, Maubant.
I am only mentioning the sociétaires. On the
women's side: Mdlle. Rachel, Mdlle. Anaïs, Mme.
Allan, Mdlle. Augustine Brohan, Mme. Plessy,
Mdlle. Nathalie, in short a whole squadron of young
beauties and talents; Mdlles. Judith, Madeleine
Brohan, Fix, Théric, Favart, Luther-I cannot
enumerate them all, and I am forgetting some of
the best. And what did this superb company play?
All the old and modern authors.
In 1849, a year still agitated by the shocks of
the Revolution of '48, the Théâtre Français was
neither prosperous nor prolific; there was still too
much comedy left in the streets while the Revolu-
tion continued on the stage itself, seeing that the
actors were governing themselves. True they were
nearly all actors of the best school and by tradition.
I am by no means fanatical in the cause of
tradition, because I am fond of originality and
colour, but I am bound to admit that tradition to
144
BEHIND THE SCENES
the Comédie Française is what correct draughts-
manship is to painting. It has a dignity and
eloquence of its own.
Subjoined is the list of sociétaires and pension-
naires in 1849. With the exception of a few, the
Comédie Française had at no period of its exist-
ence possessed a better company.
THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE, 1849-1850.
TRAGEDY.
Sociétaires.
Ligier-Beauvallet-Geffroy-Maillard-Mmes. Rachel - Noblet
-Guyon-Desmousseaux.
Pensionnaires.
Boccage-Maubant-Ballande-Randoux-Chéri-Mmes. Rimblot
-Favart-Rebecca-Thénard.
COMEDY.
Sociétaires.
Samson-Provost-Regnier-Brindeau-Mmes. Anaïs - Augus-
tine Brohan-Denain.
Pensionnaires.
Alice Théric - Maria
Got-Delaunay-Main viel-Fonta-Mirecourt-Mmes. Allan —
Nathalie Judith
Judith - Fix - Luther
Lopez (Mme. Charles Blanc).
And what think you this company played in
1849-1850?
An antiquated repertory of the vaudeville school
less the songs, and of which Scribe had made him-
self the high priest by virtue of his great talents no
doubt, but above all by reason of his shrewdness.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
145
After all, the productions of the high priest might
have passed muster, not so those of his acolytes and
disciples, which were wearisome to a degree. Un-
fortunately the old repertory, enacted coldly and
without confidence in the dead silence of an empty
house, no longer attracted the public. Mdlle. Rachel
herself—incredible as it may seem-was obliged to
show herself under two different aspects; that is
why the Moineau de Lesbie was put on the bills.
The 22nd of March she appeared both in Phèdre
and in Lesbie. A few days later they played Don
Sanche of Aragon and the Moineau de Lesbie again,
then Athalie and the Moineau de Lesbie, after that
Iphigénie and the Moineau de Lesbie. At last,
on the 14th of April, they played Scribe and
Legouvé's Adrienne Lecouvreur. This dramatic
comedy managed to fill the house five-and-twenty
nights, but not consecutively, for Mdlle. Rachel
never relinquished her own repertory altogether.
She took up all her "creations," but though the
receipts were unexpectedly large, they failed to
stave off impending ruin. During the summer
months, in the absence of Mdlle. Rachel, the
Comedians often played to twenty people. Had I
come upon the scene a little earlier I would have
shut up for three months. On the day of my ap-
pointment "one hundred and fifty francs" was still
considered “average takings," in fact, everything
was lost save honour, for they were playing a small
masterpiece, Il ne faut jurer de rien, by Alfred de
L
146
BEHIND THE SCENES
Musset, and a magnificent drama imitated from the
ancients, Le Testament de César, by Jules Lacroix,
and soon afterwards a charming comedy by Emile
Augier.
Roqueplan and I, while managing the two big
theatres, have had the worst times of it, not with
regard to art theatrical, but with regard to the art
of making money. Do what we would in the way
of producing masterpieces, sung or played by
dazzling artists, we only succeeded in drawing the
select-the "tip-top" of the basket. Unfortunately
it is the lower part of the basket that means the
prosperity of theatrical venture. Paris was not then,
as it is now, the favourite haunt of foreigners; the
railways, which were simply loops, did not convey
every day thousands of country people, who, now-
adays, want their slice of Paris life; the middle
and trading classes only cared for cheap theatres;
the masses in a state of ferment were indifferent to
banquets for the intellect. It wanted a big success
indeed to make a piece run thirty nights with
average receipts. Mdlle. Rachel filled the house,
but the moment she acted more than thrice a week
the public became conspicuous by its absence.
There has been no more fruitful, brilliant, and
sympathetic management at the Opera than that of
Roqueplan. Nevertheless he ruined himself over
it, or at any rate he lost all the money his friends
put into the concern. I was more fortunate at the
Comédie Française, seeing that during those same
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
147
years the sociétaires had profits to divide; but with
the repertory they played then, with the genius
they brought to bear upon it, they would now-
adays fill the house twice over. For, while
having become four times as numerous, the public
has also become a better patron to the theatre
though a detestable patron to art, seeing that it
accepts any and everything offered to it. In 1850
it still exercised its faculty of criticism: it judged
with its hands to applaud; with its latchkeys to
hiss. I had occasion to become aware of this soon
after my advent, when I produced the Carosse of
Mérimée and the Entr'actes de la Comédie de
Molière by Dumas. People were neither more easy-
going with actors than with authors. If they did
not indulge in cat-calls they struck an icy chill into
both when they were displeased. To-day they are
satisfied with everything—a piece that would not
stand reading once runs a hundred nights; we call
it enlightened progress.
Roqueplan had had the reversion of a glorious
past; the Opera still resounded with the success of
Robert le Diable, La Juive, and La Favorita, not to
mention the ballets that had become the fashion
with Taglioni and Essler, and which still held their
At the Théâtre Français, on the contrary,
the school of boredom reigned supreme. They no
longer played Victor Hugo, banished to the Renais-
sance and the Porte Saint-Martin. They no longer
played Alexander Dumas. Grand art at the
own.
L 2
148
BEHIND THE SCENES
Comédie was stifled by the vaudevilles-minus the
songs-of M. Scribe's friends. M. Scribe himself
began to lend an air of antiquity to the playbills.
It was an understood thing that people were bored
at the Comédie Française, except on those days.
when Malle. Rachel resuscitated tragedy. Hence
there was but one course open, to change the
current; but one does not improvise masterpieces
for the stage, especially in comedy, and seeing that
one might count upon Mdlle. Rachel for tragedy,
one had to bait the spectator with comedy. That
was why, while asking Ponsard for his drama
Charlotte Corday, I asked for a comedy respectively
of Emile Augier, Alexander Dumas, and Alfred de
Musset. I intended at once to make clear my
intention of playing no others but the modern
masters. I was not so ill-advised as to break with
M. Scribe, who in his own way was a master also,
but I did not want one as an advanced outpost for
my newly-mapped-out campaign, because I feared
his dramatis persone. I was too fond of works
imbued with life and colour to play any longer the
pale phantoms of the comedies of the Empire and
the Restoration.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
149
3
CHAPTER VIII.
THOUGH Mdlle. Rachel liked Verteuil very much,
she asked me to take, as a second secretary,
Armand Barthet, the author of Le Moineau de
Lesbie. It was arranged between us that, in the
event of the theatre's finances not flourishing, we
should pay Barthet out of our own pockets. The
arrangement did not prevent the sociétaires from
shouting about wasteful expenditure, &c. Still, it
was but child's play to the "row" when I took a
third secretary, viz., Adolphe Gaiffe, ambassador
in extraordinary with the allied or inimical powers
—in other words, the journalists. Gaiffe, from his
very birth as poor as a church mouse, and grand
seigneur to boot, took everything for granted.
Sharp as a needle, handsome as an Apollo, he was
always in quest of Muses to swell his train, know-
ing that with women by one's side everything
becomes possible. He refused to be paid, being
of those who find comfortable quarters and good
fare everywhere without being bothered with the
reckoning. For instance, I was obliged to pay his
secretary, who, until the day of his death, lived on
the budget of L'Artiste.
150
BEHIND THE SCENES
These three new-comers, who cost the Comédie
nothing, became the life and joy of the very spot
where ennui had pitched its tent for the last few
years. I well recollect the surprise of the actors
and actresses when, one evening, I appeared behind
the scenes with my four secretaries. As a matter
of course they were at once christened the "Four
Musketeers," and the four brothers Aymon. The
actresses' mothers protested loudly.
"Who are these women?" I asked of Verteuil.
"They are the mothers of the duennas, and the
confidantes," answered Verteuil, who said the fun-
niest things without moving a muscle.
"I suppose they are here to watch over the
innocence of their daughters.'
""
Those venerable matrons blocked up the wings;
they were there ostensibly for morality's sake, but
they were also there for their own amusement.
They wanted to see their daughters act, and nid-
nod to the applause of the house. I proposed to
erect them a funeral monument right at the back
of the stage; for not only did they fidget the
actors, but they annoyed the audience, who cer-
tainly did not pay for their seats for the pleasure
of seeing their profiles when the scene happened
not to be a set or closed one. In those days they
were quite a clique of their own, these mothers of
actresses, such as Mme. Luther, Mme. Fix, Mme.
Théric, and a few others; but the real type of
the actress-mother was Mme. Fix, a monumental
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
151
matron with a basket dangling from her arms,
which was another monument.
On that very evening I signed an order which
relegated these ladies to a certain corner of the
stage, unless they preferred going to the upper
galleries or dressing-rooms of their daughters.
The actress-mother does not go to the theatre to
keep watch over her daughter, but to spout about
her virtue. A well-known Comedian, who has
written some spitefully-witty things about the
stage, narrates the story of that proud mother who
said behind the wings, "My daughter is a vestal."
It so happened, however, that when, five minutes
afterwards, this vestal appeared on the stage to
play a kind of Agnes, she had a pair of mous-
tachios, while the lover had lost his in the previous
act. The cause of this exchange of moustachios
was that young Agnes and the lover had been
rehearsing their parts too well, in the interim, by
embracing one another. For the sake of the
morals of the stage themselves, a manager should
engage no actress whose mind is still in leading-
strings; the mother should remain at home.
Virtue was never saved by watching; it saves
itself.
I wished to prove to my four secretaries that
they were indispensable to me, so I got them to
study the old repertory; for I already contem-
plated publishing a volume, of which only a
hundred copies should be printed, with the title of
152
Behind thE SCENES
Le Répertoire, for the use of the theatre. But
Verteuil and Barthet could no more agree upon the
pieces to be revived than the two Adolphes, Gaiffe
and Destroyes. In their desire to let the sunlight
in upon some parasite trees, they plied the axe too
vigorously upon the dense growth of masterpieces.
They vied with one another in unearthing for-
gotten works. On the very morrow of their start
they abandoned the thing without compunction.
Verteuil confined himself to his daily duties;
Armand Barthet went a-quarrelling with the
actors; Gaiffe taught the actresses to smoke cigar-
ettes; Destroyes chanted madrigals to the female
supers. I joyfully resigned myself to do without
these young gadabouts. The comic part of the thing
was that they were furious at having nothing to do.
Every now and then Barthet said to me,
"Let me,
at least, write some letters." And when I told
him to write one, he went to Gaiffe, telling him,
"You'll say so-and-so, or something like it."
Gaiffe never failed to depute the writing of the
letter to Destroyes, in almost identical terms,
"You'll say so-and-so, or something like it.'
Destroyes wrote the letter, but said neither "so-
and so" nor anything like it. Consequently,
next morning-for it took a whole day to accom-
plish this heavy piece of work-they brought me a
letter, saying the very opposite of what I wished
to say. Since then I have understood, better than
ever, why, in every Ministry, there are five
גן
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
153
hundred quill-drivers too many. Still, it is no use
to rail against human imbecility being represented
everywhere. I am not saying this with regard to
my three witty musketeers, nor with regard to
Verteuil, who was essentially the man fitted for
theatrical administration.
Barthet was not satisfied with doing nothing, he
gave me a deal of trouble. He was harum-scarum,
and troublesome, though a capital fellow at heart.
From morning till night I heard nothing else than,
"Barthet has made another blunder." Among
many instances I will cite only one. They were
playing a very melancholy piece. The prefect of
police was roaring with laughter, not at the piece,
but at the gossip of a pretty woman occupying
a box next to his. Barthet, who did not know
him, makes straight for him.
66
Monsieur, this is mere bravado; when every-
body is crying you laugh.”
Prefect Carlier laughs all the louder. Barthet
takes things with a higher hand still, and threatens
the prefect with having him expelled by the com-*
missary of police.
"I should like to see you do it," says the
prefect.
Barthet takes him at his word; the commissary
is sent for, the box is opened. The functionary
does not recognise his chief, and says, "Monsieur,
please to follow me.
The prefect continues to laugh, and asks to see
154
BEHIND THE SCENES
M. Arsène Houssaye. They fetch me; I rush to
the spot, and behold a downright comedy scene,
while the house continues to weep copiously. The
prefect insisted upon Barthet coming to his office
to cry peccavi.
"But indeed I will," exclaimed Barthet, "and
what's more, with bare feet, and holding a candle
as a sign of penance."
But the prefect has ceased to laugh, and the
commissary showed not the least inclination to
laugh.
"Take hold of this man," said the prefect to the
latter.
I got Barthet out of the scrape by telling his
name to M. Carlier. "Armand Barthet, Monsieur
le Préfet, is always under the impression that they
are playing Le Moineau de Lesbie."
This witty eccentric had more than one duel; the
following is perhaps the most characteristic. While
out shooting he happens to miss a hare. A gentle-
man belonging to the same party passes in front of
him.
'Monsieur, I'll thank you to take your nose out
of my way."
66
Why, monsieur ?"
"Because it is very red, and dazzles me; it in-
terferes with my taking aim. I missed my hare."
But, monsieur."
66
"Once more, monsieur, take your nose out of
the way, or I'll be obliged to call you out,"
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
155
Meanwhile Barthet reloads his gun.
"What do you mean by 'I'll be obliged to call
you out' ?"
"What I say, only we'll fight at fifty paces, for
at twenty-five your nose would still dazzle me."
The other gentleman, beside himself with passion,
accepts the challenge. Each proceeds five-and-
twenty paces from where he stands, then turns
round. The signal is given, and they fire. Barthet
receives a few small shot in his arm, his opponent
is slightly hit in the shoulder.
"No wonder," exclaims the former; "I should
have known better than to aim at your nose."
Let me add that this honest and joyous poet died
in a madhouse.
*
When Verteuil handed me the list of plays sub-
mitted, I turned pale. There were three tragedies
by M. Viennet, besides a one-act piece; a comedy
by M. Empis; another by M. Samson; a drama by
M. Beauvallet, etc., etc.
"But," said Verteuil, "there are several requests
to have pieces read."
66
By whom?"
"By M. Scribe and by M. Mazères. What's
more, a day has been fixed for M. Mazères."
66
Very well, let us give M. Mazères' turn to
M. Scribe."
So said, so done. M. Legouvé, who had colla-
borated with M. Scribe, read La Bataille des Dames.
156
BEHIND THE SCENES
M. Scribe was keeping his eye on every one without
losing a word of his play, which was rather wanting
in epigram. But the piece was pretty for all that,
and there was no difficulty about its acceptance.
Verteuil, who had the traditions of the house of
Molière at his fingers' ends, said :—
"Now's the time to read M. Mazères' play, for
it is not often that two plays are accepted close
upon one another, the more that M. Mazères
generally picks up the crumbs that fall from M.
Scribe's table. Besides, he'd only make a fuss if
his piece was not read this week." So I resigned
myself to listen to the reading of La Niaise, a
comedy in five acts. Auguste Lireux knew the
piece; M. Mazères had inflicted this martyrdom
upon him in order to have his opinion. As a
matter of course the malicious critic had told him
that it was a masterpiece. To me, however, he
said, "This prefect has perpetrated a masterpiece
fit for a sub-prefecture. The reading committee will
enjoy themselves very much.”
much." In connection with
this reading I will take the opportunity of giving
one of my sketches of the period. The reading
committee is a comedy within the comedy; the
spectators whom accident has brought to the spot
are somebodies: Louis XIV. on one side, Corneille
to his right Racine to his left; opposite-Dufresny,
no doubt, because he was a grandson of Henri IV.,
like Louis XIV.; close to him Regnard. I should
have mentioned that these personages are sus-
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
157
pended on the walls. Furthermore, two busts-the
two beautiful Saintvals, masterpieces which to a
certain extent I have brought to light, seeing that
they had lain neglected for years somewhere at
the very back of the stage.
In the centre of the apartment, a large table
covered with a green cloth, whereon to play the
game of chance and love which is called fame.
Here and there a few armchairs. But the members
of the committee are entitled to sit at the table to
enjoy the prose or the poetry of the patient. For
he is a patient, indeed, having need of all his
patience as well as his listeners. One wonders how
many bad pieces a playwright must write before
being able to write a good one.
Nor were members of the committee mere no-
bodies. There were Rachel and Beauvallet, Brohan
and Geffroy, Judith and Regnier, Anaïs and
Provost, Samson and Mdlle. Denain, Mdlle. Noblet
and Ligier. At their arrival they did not always
take the first seats that came to hand. Some
wanted to be near the mantelpiece, others near the
window, others again close to the table, a fourth
looked out for a comfortable corner to listen-or
perhaps to doze-at his ease, unless it happened to
be a comedy of Alexander Dumas, Alfred de Musset,
or Emile Augier. The women made their appear-
ance quite sprightly, not without a bit of bustle,
Mdlle. Rachel alone excepted. She entered with
dignity, as it behoves tragedy to enter. But Mdlle.
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BEHIND THE SCENES
Brohan did not mind showing her bag of sweets;
Judith waved her nosegay in the faces of her
fellow-actors; Anaïs toyed with her handkerchief
embroidered with the English coat-of-arms; Mdlle.
Denain plied her fan. She was always playing
Célimène, deeming herself the grande coquette of
the establishment since the death of Mdlle. Mars
and the flight of Mdlle. Plessy to Russia.
The proceedings are opened. The author un-
folds his manuscript and attempts to mesmerise his
listeners with a look.
"Gentlemen and ladies," he says, bowing to
them, "the comedy which I'll have the honour to
read to you is entitled La Niaise (The Simpleton)."
"Who's going to play the part?" asks Mdlle.
Brohan, looking at everyone.
"Don't be alarmed," says M. Mazères, for he
happens to be the author on that day; "this simple-
ton hides her game, for she's very sharp-witted."
"Then it's you, Brohan,"
says Anaïs.
"I?" replies Brohan. "I hide nothing at all;
it's rather Mdlle. Denain."
"Do you think that I look like a simpleton,
madame?"
"On the contrary, seeing that you hide your
game.”
Au-
* The word jeu means play, acting, as well as game.
gustine Brohan, the wittiest, perhaps, of all French actresses in
the past, disliked Mdlle. Denain, who was by no means as great an
artist as she thought herself to be, and whose acting was often very
tame.-[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
159
"Hush!
""
says Provost, taking a pinch of snuff,
"hush, we are not 'on' just now."
There is a cross-fire of epigram on all sides;
the director, who has not a bell, uses his hand
instead to demand silence; Mdlle. Brohan offers
Mdlle. Denain some sweetmeats to atone for her
witty but spiteful sally; Mdlle. Judith sniffs at her
flowers; Beauvallet, who has no part nor lot in M.
Mazères' plays, draws a caricature of the prefect.
The latter begins to read in an official tone. He is
evidently under the impression of presiding at an
agricultural meeting; he emphasises each quasi-
epigram; unfortunately he has forgotten to put wit
into them. At the third scene, Mdlle. Anaïs, who
is very sly and clever, and who will not play "The
Simpleton," asks whether the piece is in verse?
M. Mazères, who has not the least notion that he is
being chaffed, replies that, in order to keep closer
to the truth, he has written his piece in prose. The
director calls Mdlle. Anaïs to order. M. Mazères
continues. He is under the impression that his
audience is a very cold one; but he is sure to
break the ice, for he has no misgivings about his
genius. No more has M. Samson, who dozes off
in a vague little way. Mdlle. Rachel looks hope-
lessly at the portrait of Molière, and says to
Geffroy, who sits next to her, "How bored he
seems to be."
"I should think so, indeed," whispers Brohan.
"It's bore in five acts."
160
BEHIND THE SCENES
"And he doesn't get a fee for listening, as we
do," concludes Judith.
The director frowns. The scenes of the comedy
succeed each other amidst a glacial silence. M.
Mazères turns to me.
"I am rather hoarse to-day, and reading very
badly, I'm afraid."
"Not at all; on the contrary, you are really
acting your piece."
"And such a twopenny piece," mutters Beau-
vallet.
M. Mazères, who is getting fidgety amidst all these
whispers, reaches the end of his first act at last,
while all his characters have been falling flat like so
many cardboard figures. Regnier has not uttered a
syllable; but, more cruel than the others, he wants
to time the agony, and now he pulls out his watch.
"You don't seem to be very much amused,"
says Mazères, somewhat tetchily.
"We'll talk about that at the finish. I was
merely looking at my watch to see how long the
first act would play."
The reply encourages M. Mazères; he attacks the
second act without touching his glass of sweetened
water.
"Four more showers to come," says Brohan.
She changes her seat, in the faint hope, perhaps,
that M. Mazères will change his tone. Samson has
waked up for the other act. Provost gives him his
snuffbox. Anaïs is munching sweetmeats. Beau-
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
161
vallet, who has finished his caricature, hands it to
Geffroy, who hides it under a bushel-I mean under
his hat. It represents Mazères as a prefect. They
have caught a glimpse of the portrait and are laugh-
ing. Mazères is pleased, for he thinks they are
laughing at his piece. The laughter continues,
and he himself laughs. During the whole of the
second act the laughter is kept up; at the end, the
author, pleased with himself and his listeners, sips
the glass of water.
"You have noticed," he says, "that the second
act explains the first, and lays the foundations for
the third." After which he plunges, as it were,
into the third act. The laughter continues. They
laugh because there isn't a sentence suggestive of
laughter. They whisper to each other that it is
the wit of a prefect of the third class. And Mazères
himself laughs also. At the fourth act Beauvallet
tells him that he ought to have let Romieu read
the last two acts-Romieu, whom the Revolution
of '48 has restored to literary leisure. "Romieu,"
says Mazères, "is a grasshopper" (jackanapes).
True, but he was prefect in the land of truffles."
Mazères does not understand that his piece wants
"truffling." The laughter is kept up till the
end; Mazères is cocksure of his success.
(6
"" *
The committee votes: five white balls and three
black ones. We shall be compelled to play The
* Romeiu was one of the wittiest men of his time, and perhaps
the greatest practical joker.—[Transl.]
M
162
BEHIND THE SCENES
Simpleton. Oh, committee, this is indeed one of
thy surprises!
*
*
*
Among the living curiosities of the Théâtre
Français I must not forget the celebrated Laurent,
the lineal descendant of the one who had the
custody of the hairshirt and the discipline (a kind
of whip like our cat-o'-nine-tails) of M. Tartuffe.
He was, alas! the only visible representative of the
posterity of the Théâtre Français. M. Laurent was
not handsome, but he was insolent and servile; he
wriggled just like M. Tartuffe. They had made
him a kind of inspector of costumes and scenery-
I do not know why, because he had not the slightest
knowledge of either. He had promoted himself to
inspector in front and off the stage, and was in
a fair way of making everyone submit to his
authority.
At my advent he, as a matter of course, played
a double game: obeying my orders, but faithful to
the sociétaires, though ready to play them false at
every opportunity. There are people whom one
judges at a glance; I made up my mind to place
M. Laurent on the retired list. But to do good is
more difficult than to do evil. I was told that the
Laurents from father to son had been the visible
representatives of the traditions of Molière.
meddle with M. Laurent, the last of the name, was
virtually committing sacrilege. Was there no way
of circumscribing his inspectorial functions, of pre-
To
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
163
venting him from being in front of an evening,
where he saluted every one with a patronising air,
of forbidding him the stage, where he annoyed the
actors? Curiously enough, the latter, who were all
afraid of him, with one voice recommended him.
It was because he had got hold of the secrets of
the Comédie, of the love-adventures and misad-
ventures. What is more, he not only believed he
had, but he made others believe it.
"Well," I said to his patrons, "I'll watch him
at his work."
I sent for him and spoke to him of his functions
by laying down, as it were, a geographical plan of
the theatre where such-and-such province would be
under his control. But what he really wanted was
the province in front, and not the costume, scenery,
or cleaning department. Consequently he paid
not the slightest attention on the first night to my
geographical plan. I found him in front.
"Well ?" I said to him, as I was passing
through.
"All right, M. le directeur, I know my duty."
Saying which he disappeared with a bow. But the
next night he was still in front.
"Take care," they said to me. "If you remove
Laurent, people will say that you do not want a
superintendent in front."
I appointed one there and then: an educated
gentleman, fit in every respect to look to the com-
fort of the spectators. They acknowledged that I
M 2
161
BEHIND THE SCENES
was right, but no pen could describe M. Laurent's
rage. That same evening he came into my room
where I sat chatting with Rachel. He wanted to
take the matter with a high hand, believing him-
self to be supported by the sociétaires; but I there
and then gave him another lesson in theatrical
geography. "Monsieur Laurent, you shall do
what I tell you and nothing else, or you shall do
nothing at all."
He went away hanging his head, when he got
to the door hissing out "Provisionally" (Jusqu'à
nouvel ordre).
Rachel could scarcely contain herself. I called
back M. Laurent, who, in the tone of M. Tartuffe,
and most submissively and conciliatingly, explained
to Mdlle. Rachel his "Provisionally." He could
act comedy with the best comedians.
From that evening forward he was no longer in
everybody's way. It did not prevent him from
playing me every scurvy trick of his trade.
Strange to relate, this one bit of business was
accepted by the sociétaires as a test of my strength.
For five-and-twenty long years they had not dared
to meddle with Laurent, who vexatiously meddled
with everything.
My enemies, through the medium of the papers,
would not allow me to stir without accusing me of
betraying the interests of literature. I had asked to
see the free list, and great was my surprise at find-
ing the names of a hundred personages, altogether
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
165
worthy to figure on it, but who happened to have
died years and years ago. I asked the "incom-
parable" M. Laurent for an explanation.
"Of course, monsieur," he replied, "I am well
aware of these gentlemen being dead, but it would
be impolite, perhaps, to strike off their names; the
rather that it enables sons and grandsons to come
and regret the dear departed here.'
"You mean on those days of wailing when there
is no one in the house ?"
"Just so; it fills the orchestra stalls."
"There is something in that; still I think the
grandsons have mourned long enough in that way.
Let us strike out all those names of the inhabitants
of another world."
men.
It was a rubric of his own to enable him to
66 pass his friends," i.e., the children of his trades-
With one stroke of the pen I suppressed
those very extraordinary complimentary admis-
sions; but lo and behold! the National, which was
on good terms with M. Laurent, got very angry,
and charged me with not knowing "who's who."
The following is the letter I wrote to the editor of
the National :-
"You accuse the management of the Théâtre
Français of having suppressed the complimentary
admissions of a great number of artists, authors,
and scholars. You are perfectly right, monsieur ;
but those artists, authors, and scholars-no doubt
exceedingly commendable happen to have departed
166
BEHIND THE SCENES
·
this world long ago. Far from striking at artists,
authors, and scholars, I have increased the glorious
list of them. M. Ingrès, M. Delacroix, nearly all
those who are an honour to the modern school of
painting and sculpture, meet one another in the
crush-room of the Théâtre Français. The whole
of the Académie has its admissions, and does not
always return the compliment to the Comédie from
the days of Molière to those of Alfred de Musset.*
Those who do not belong to the Académie, Béranger
for instance, are equally admitted. And I do not
wait for a name to be illustrious to welcome its
owner."
Having spoken of Laurent, I should like to efface
this unpleasant figure by those of three worthy
servitors of the theatre: the attendant who took in
the names of visitors, the one who did all the
errands, and the one who carried the letters. I
begin with the last.
Incredible as it may seem, his real name was
Beaubillet. He was a philosopher par excellence.
He perambulated Paris in the morning with tele-
graphic rapidity, delivering notes, boxes for the
theatre, calls for rehearsal, etc. When he had an
hour to spare he sat down at the Café de la Régence,
near "his friend, Alfred de Musset "-at the
theatre everybody is a chum, there are no merce-
naries. Beaubillet, without a "by your leave" or
* Alfred de Musset became a member of the Académie subse-
quently.-[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
167
"with your leave," stuck himself next to the poet,
admiring his way of playing chess, alive to his way
of imbibing, seeing that Alfred de Musset, though
keeping him somewhat at a distance, offered him a
glass of beer or a small glass of anything else.
For nearly ten years, Beaubillet silently watched
Alfred de Musset "at play." When the others dis-
cussed a clever move he nodded his head, never
saying a word. One day, however, he was asked
outright for his opinion. It was then that he made
the reply which has become historical.
"I do not understand the game of chess.'
وو
"What? you have been watching us for the last
ten years, and do not understand the game of
chess ?"
you
"Even so; it amuses me, but I do not under-
stand." How many philosophers are there that
could say the same if their opinion were asked
about "the battle of life"?
I cannot say whether the second of the trio
sprang from the charming Mdlle. de Brie, who so
deeply loved Molière in his early youth as well as
in his years of sorrow. His name was De Brie,
without his being able to produce documents in
justification of his name. Seeing that Laurent
pretended to hail so far back, why should not De
Brie have traversed the same road? This huge
lumbering fellow did not distinguish himself by the
slightest originality; sticking to his duty, he came
and went, stamped notes, sealed letters. He ap-
168
BEHIND THE SCENES
peared to think of nothing in particular, yet he
knew everything. One might safely question him
on matters and people connected with the theatre;
he was sure to hit the nail on the head without
interrupting his work. He belonged to those who
never laugh, not even for money.
Next comes La Chaume. He was an original if
ever there was one. He was pompous in his part
of attendant, wearing his brilliant chain like the
collar of a royal order; he played his part as if
he were introducing ambassadors. An admirable
watch-dog by reason of his goodness and his devo-
tion, he never allowed bores to get near me if he
could help it. He sniffed them from afar, and in
the coolest way imaginable told them, "Reading
committee, committee of management," &c. He
had even invented three or four other kinds of
committees. In his sprightly moods he did not
mind saying "Ladies' committee.'
"Ladies' committee." When people
assumed too familiar a tone and called him "La
Chaume" only, he drew himself up, "Monsieur de
la Chaume, if you please." I have yet to find out
whether the name is a celebrated one in the annals
of heraldry; but it was really his name. Every-
body liked him at the Comédie-I better than any-
body else, though he often worried me through his
insatiable curiosity. When he fancied that I was
engaged not in criminal but in more or less gallant
conversation, he came in saying that I had rung
the bell. I had not rung at all, but he put the
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
169
blame on the clock, or on the gong of a passing
omnibus. He never brought me a letter but what
he had mastered its contents. Hence his, "You
had better read this one; you may save yourself
the trouble to read that one.' His friendship made
itself so manifest at every opportunity that it was
impossible to bully him. Even Rachel allowed
99
him to treat her in a familiar way. So familiar, in
fact, did he become that often, "on reading com-
mittee” days, he would drink the first glass of water
intended for the "patient."
At the hour I write poor La Chaume has been
laid by the heels; gout keeps him at home in his
eightieth year (1885). I go to see him every
twelvemonth because it affords him some pleasure,
and it affords me no less. "You are like me," he
says; "there is no pride about you." Virtue is,
sometimes, its own reward. Being fond of children,
and his marriage being a childless one, he adopted
a little girl, who in her turn has adopted him.
He lives very happily in her home-if happiness
be of this world.
170
BEHIND THE SCENES
CHAPTER IX.
But for my reliance on Mdlle. Rachel I should not
have accepted the direction of the Comédie Fran-
çaise. Her reappearance there was hailed in num-
berless orations. It was in Adrienne Lecouvreur.
So naturally did she enact the death of Adrienne
at the end of the drama that when the curtain fell
she was actually picked up as dead.
I rushed on the stage and took her in my arms,
frightened to death myself at her wan looks. Her
mother and her sister were already bewailing her
as dead. But at last she opened her eyes and
smiled softly. They carried her to her dressing-
room, where she became senseless again. She con-
tinued in the same state during the whole of the
night, at the theatre as well as at her own house.
Next morning the doctor said:
"It will be a long while ere she acts again, if
ever she does act again."
I felt desperate, for her own sake and for that
of the theatre. I called upon all the gods, those of
Rachel as well as those of Eschylus. I would
have sold myself to the devil and his legions in
order to save the actress. She herself, crucified on
her couch, as it were, was angry with herself for
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
171
feeling so plucky and being so feeble. She thought
that all was at an end with her, and that every-
thing was lost to me.
I had need of an iron will to overcome all the
obstacles in my path. My horror against vaude-
villes without songs was no proof against my play-
ing M. Jules de Wailly's Les Deux Célibats, in
three acts, which were enough to bore one to death.
It had been rehearsed for the last two months. M.
Samson counted on the play; added to this the
author had the absolute right to a hearing. I "made
room for the justice" of the reading committee.* The
piece failed amidst the deepest silence. It ran for
the three nights prescribed by custom, after which
I fondly expected never to hear Les Deux Célibats
mentioned again, but the tribe of the de Waillys
boasted of most substantial ramifications, and the
author took the field with my enemies against me.
The Theatrical Commission (of the Government)
was on his side; on his side were the representatives
of the people, who sent a delegate to the Minister.
A paper-war ensued. I wrote to the Committee
of Theatres as follows:-
"GENTLEMEN,
"You desire to protect the author of a comedy
which would condemn the spectators at the Comé-
die Française to the ordeal of being bored to death.
I have only one reply to offer. I intended to take
* A paraphrase of the old cry: "Make room for the justice
of the King."-[Transl.]
172
BEHIND THE SCENES
the piece off the bill, but I will play it once more to-
morrow on this sole condition: that all the members
of the Theatrical Commission, the Minister, and the
delegate of the National Assembly, shall come and
witness the performance from beginning to end."
I remained master of the field, for no one wanted
to see Les Deux Célibats. Théophile Gautier has
very well told the story in La Presse.
"We were under the impression that the public
were the real judges of the success of a piece. It
appears that henceforth the tribunals will be asked
to reverse the verdict of the latter. Hence the
authors of a play performed at the Théâtre Fran-
çais amidst profound ennui, Les Deux Célibats-
a comedy which does not redeem the absence of
the comic by the slightest literary merit-cite the
director of the Théâtre Français before the Com-
mittee of Theatres. M. Arsène Houssaye will reply
in a sensible and witty manner by performing Les
Deux Célibats once more for all the members of
the committee. It is cruel, but just, seeing that
the author would accept neither the verdict of the
public, the amount of the receipts, nor the derisive
leniency of the critics. THEOPHILE GAUTIER."
On the following evening I played La Coupe
Enchantée of La Fontaine, which had not been
performed for a great many years.
The piece,
very carefully rehearsed and "put on," was hissed,
but on the days following the audience proved de-
lighted with it. With the short comedies of
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
173
de Musset, Marivaux, and Molière, I managed to
give performances that drew the public. On the other
evenings we played that capital Roman piece of
Jules Lacroix, Le Testament de César, in which
the tragedians of the company surpassed them-
selves. There was a brilliant revival of Le Mariage
de Figaro, which had almost disappeared from
the bills, owing to the want of suitable dresses and
scenery. In that way we managed to hold out till
the first night of a five-act comedy by Emile
Augier, that beautiful Gabrielle, which appealed
to everyone by its sentiment. True, people no
longer heard the poetry of L'Aventurière; but if
literary men were less satisfied, men of the world.
were all the more enthusiastic, and "tears always
get the best of it" where the stage is concerned.
"Thou weepest, hence thou art conquered.”
Besides, for those who object to having their
lachrymal glands tickled in comedy, there were
smart and epigrammatic passages, in which the
grandson of Pigault-Lebrun proved that he was
also a descendant of Molière.
But what, after all, did a great success mean in
those days? Two thousand francs a night for
about forty performances, after which one had to
look out for another success. To rest on one's
laurels would not do. The morrow had to be
thought of, no matter what happened to be "the
play of the day."
On the very first night of Gabrielle I wrote to
174
BEHIND THE SCENES
the Minister, who required my opinion of every
new piece.
"If there be a man endowed with the comic
genius, it is assuredly Emile Augier. He has a
versatile, bold, and inventive mind. This is the
third time that he shows the force of his talent on
the stage. What I like in him above all is that he
does not repeat himself. One feels one is dealing
with the same personality, but under different
physiognomies—now classic, then Gallic, and last
French. In fact L'Aventurière was in no way the
continuator of La Cigue, Gabrielle is not the
continuator of L'Aventurière. M. Emile Augier
had proceeded with the self-same 'go and brilliancy,'
with the self-same wit, from Greek comedy to
romantic comedy. To-day he gives us altogether
modern comedy, impregnated with the philosophic
sentiment that governs all carefully matured
works. There exists no better sermon than this
comedy, which does not prevent this comedy from
indulging in joyous laughter when it does not
weep. And the laughter is as frank as the tears
are real. Once upon a time it was feared that
M. Emile Augier would become an eclectic like
Casimir Delavigne; there was now no foundation for
those apprehensions, because in the first place his is
a living, vividly coloured, untrammelled language
that would not easily lend itself to the clothing of
impersonal ideas; secondly, because he did not
trouble himself to fuse two different schools, as
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
175
Casimir Delavigne has done, which after all was
trying to marry Life to Death. Emile Augier only
obeys his inspiration and his fantasy. If now and
again he becomes Aristophanesque or Molièresque,
it is not wilful mutation on his part, but because he
likes their particular bent of genius. Wit has also its
pedigree. It is always the offspring of some one.
There is no harm in remembering glorious forbears,
but those who would invest Emile Augier with the
Greek toga or the Louis XIV. wig would ill paint
his talents. I have no doubt that each of his pieces
reveals something entirely new, for his is essen-
tially the mind that jumps at the right conclusion
at once. Les Lionnes Pauvres and Le Mariage
d'Olympe have verified my predictions.
"What invests the author of La Cigue, L'Aven-
turière, Gabrielle, with a character apart from the
dramatic authors that already hold the stage, is that
before all things he is a poet; try as he may for
truth's sake to put his verse into prose, everything
with him still preserves a tone that proclaims his
race. Another of his merits is that beneath his
rroaing or simply biting laughter, one feels the heart
swayed by passions, indignantly revolting against
stupidity, beating in response to every generous
feeling. In one word, one feels that with him
one has entered the best set' of human intelli-
gence.
"The story of Gabrielle is the everlasting school
for woman.
We have not changed the position of
?
176
BEHIND THE SCENES
the heart, but we have changed the figure of
the husband. In Molière's time, the husband,
really or supposedly deceived, was called Sganarelle,
and became the butt for all the jeers and laughter.
Nowadays the husband is no longer a comical cha-
racter; if any one be laughed at at all it is rather
the lover. M. Emile Augier has grappled with
this delicate point of conjugal existence in a highly
moralistic manner. He has pleaded the cause of
society against the blinding impulse of passion with
homely eloquence.
C
"There is not a woman, more or less advanced
on dishonour's path,' who, after having seen this
piece, will not return home leaving at the door
'adultery hitherto encouraged.' She may begin
afresh the next morning, but one day gained is
sometimes everything gained.
"This assuredly is a good opportunity for the
President of the Republic to deservedly bestow
the Cross of the Legion of Honour. M. Emile
Augier deserved it already at his first comedy."
Gabrielle was a great success, it was the piece
à la mode. The Académie awarded it a prize of ten
thousand francs. The President of the Republic
felt pleased to give the cross to Emile Augier.
*
I have already mentioned that I was in hopes of
a comedy by Alfred de Musset, as Rachel had been
in hopes of a tragedy from his pen but he had
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
177
begun to write Fredegonde, and did not even begin
Les Enfans du Siècle, a title that reminded one of
his novel. Women had been his ruin: I imagined
that the love of a woman might save him, but where
to find that woman?
Alfred de Musset, Mdlle. Phèdre (Rachel), and
Mdlle. Aricie (Augustine Brohan) were one day in
my room. Suddenly I said to the tragédienne—
"What in the name of all that is sensible pos-
sessed you when a twelvemonth ago you took a
comédienne and a poet to the Chaumière (an
al-fresco ball) in plain daylight?"
"It was idiotic, certainly," answered Phèdre,
"for it was not to marry them, you may be sure.
I was a-going to
where a woman
to .
goes
that goes out. Out of sheer habit I went past
the Théâtre Français. Alfred de Musset was stand-
ing at the door, smoking a cigar. You know that
I am very fond of him, so I told him to get into
my carriage, but immediately afterwards I said to
myself, 'What am I to do with him?' At that
very moment Mdlle. Aricie appears upon the scene.
I was saved. I call her, haul her into the
carriage, make much of her, and there and then
cast the two upon the waters, that is to say, I vir-
tually fling them into one another's arms by driving
them to the Chaumière, whence I make my escape,
laughing like a schoolgirl. Now you have got the
secret of the tragedy."
N
178
BEHIND THE SCENES
"Is that the truth of the story?" asked Mdlle.
Aricie.
"As true as my friendship for you and your
friendship for me."
"Now I know all about it," said Aricie.
"You had better embrace," exclaimed Alfred de
Musset. "A nice kettle of fish indeed," he con-
tinued. "Aricie narrowly escaped doing a good
action, and I narrowly escaped writing a good
play."
Thereupon Alfred de Musset poured out a glass
of water for himself, and smiled benevolently at
the actress.
""
"You will not throw this one over my head?"
"No, but I defy you to drink it.'
Alfred de Musset heroically drained every drop
of it.
"At last," said Phèdre to me, "he is beginning
to put water into his wine; unfortunately he is
putting some into his poetry also."
The edifying story of this promenade of the poet
and the two actresses was after all simply this.
One day Alfred de Musset was bowing to Phèdre,
who had just got into her landau.
"My dear child, where are you going to,
wreathed in smiles and resplendent with beauty?"
66
My dear friend, you should ask no questions.
I am going whither the wind carries me."
66
Upon my word you are right. May I go with
you?'
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
179
"Why not? I do not mind travelling in such
illustrious company."
"You should speak for yourself only."
"Let us speak for each other."
Alfred de Musset threw away his cigar and sat
himself beside Phèdre. Just as the horses were
starting, one of the three stars of the Comédie
nodded to them. Which of the three? The
wittiest. Each one had been in turn the wittiest.
At that time Aricie was in the ascendant. Sallies
issued from her lips like flaming swords. People
were frightened of falling on the battle-field of her
raillery, but the lips were so red and the teeth so
white, that, notwithstanding this, people sought the
contest if they were worthy of it.
They had dubbed her Trois-Etoiles (Three Aste-
risks), because she disdained to sign her letters in
any other way than by her wit.
Said Phèdre to Alfred de Musset, "Here is
Aricie, she'll tell some nice tales about us."
"Madame," replied the poet,
"she'll never say
as much harm of us as we think of ourselves."
The tragédienne had held out her hand to the
comédienne.
"There's room for a third," she said.
"Nonsense," exclaimed Aricie; " is it likely that
I am going to spoil sport, like a dog flinging him-
self into a game of skittles ?
"I tell you to come in," replied Phèdre, "for
N 2
180
BEHIND THE SCENES
you are the very person that was wanted to com-
plete the outing."
"If there's to be an outing I'm your man;
saying which Aricie got into the landau.
"
There was a fourth seat in the carriage,
but in order to find out whither Phèdre was bound
it would have wanted an Edgar Poe to occupy it.
56 'To the Observatoire," she said to the coach-
man.
"Bravo!" cried Alfred de Musset. "I rather
like the idea of going to discover my star, for,
though I am out and about every night, I never
see it."
"No blame to the star, that shines bright
enough," said the tragédienne.
While the poet was bowing and returning the
compliment by something equally pretty, the tra-
gédienne was mentally reflecting that Phèdre was
not going to the Observatory in search of a star,
but of a comet which she was not likely to find
there, seeing that Aricie had met him (or it) but a
little while before in the vicinity of Mdlle.-
Trois-Etoiles was thinking of the most terrible
of the Aragos, also a poet, who ended up with an
embassy in the mountains (Swiss).
"Evil be to him that evil thinks," said Rachel.
"I told the coachman aloud to go to the Obser-
vatoire because I did not want the people that were
at the door of the theatre to know where we were
going."
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
181
"But I have no passport," said the comédienne,
in mock fright.
"And I have only the shirt I stand up in," Alfred
de Musset went on.
"And I have no night-dress," concluded the
tragédienne.
By this time they were crossing the Place du
Carrousel; the tragédienne, who felt pleased with
Alfred de Musset for having thrown away his
cigar, offered him a better one, originally not
intended for him, but which he lighted with evi-
dent satisfaction. Amidst the smoke the most
charming sallies and the most silvery laughter were
exchanged like the musketry volleys at Fontenoy.
When Hermione did enjoy herself she enjoyed
herself well; neither had her two companions made
a vow of dulness. In that way they had soon
reached the Avenue de l'Observatoire. Alfred de
Musset was delighted at not knowing whither he
was going, Phèdre was amused at the curiosity of
her friend, who, truth to tell, was not in the least
impatient.
"We are going to the Chaumière," suddenly said
the tragédienne.
“To the Chaumière?
What in Heaven's name
are we going to do at the Chaumière, with the sun-
light streaming on us?"
"We'll stroll about like the students and their
inamoratas."
"Where are the fiddles?"
182
BEHIND THE SCENES
"I have forgotten the fiddle. Never mind, the
birds will warble us the love-story of Mimi Pin-
son."
They soon alighted at the door of the Chaumière.
In another moment they are on the battle-field of
Terpsichore, where a few medical students are
smoking their pipes while sipping their grog.
They wander about the groves and thickets, they
pull some roses to pieces, and they arrange to risk
a return to the place one night when both the
comédienne and the tragédienne shall be "off."
Meanwhile Alfred de Musset orders a bottle of
absinthe, a bottle of beer, and a bottle of brandy.
Phèdre thinks the right moment has come, and tells
Alfred de Musset to take care of the comédienne,
At the same time she tells the comédienne to take
care of Alfred de Musset, after which she dis-
appears saying that she will be back soon.
The poet offers a rustic chair to Trois-Etoiles
and sits down at a table.
"My dear friend, will you tell me why Phèdre
leaves us here facing one another?"
"My dear friend, will you tell me whither this
illustrious tragédienne has gone?"
"Does she mean us to play the parts of 'supers' ?"
"Oh, I've no doubt you'd prefer the part of
Hippolyte."
* The heroine of one of the most charming of Alfred de Musset's
tales. [Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
183
Thereupon the comédienne begins to recite the
most telling lines of the tragédienne.
"No," says Alfred de Musset, "I am not the
least in love; you know that tragedy is not at
all in my line. If ever I become enamoured of
Phèdre it will be in her character of a woman of
the world."
"Yes, yes," says Aricie, somewhat sneeringly,
"we know your tastes and habits."
<
"Surely you are not going to reproach me with
spending my evenings with damsels of another
world'?"
"Not at all; it's the land where the virgin
flourishes rank."
"I am not joking. If innocence were banished
from this earth, it is there one would find it back
again."
"No doubt, but you'd do better to try to find
innocence at home."
"Nonsense; you are in a preaching mood to-
day ?"
"Why should not I be? You know very well
that the stage is a school of morality. Christ
changed the water into wine at the marriage feast
of Cana. I should like to change the wine into
water at the sprees you have every night."
"That's it,” exclaimed Alfred de Musset; "here's
another one who tells me eloquently that I'keep
shoemaker's Sunday every day of the week.""
Having said which, Apollo-Musset, getting on the
184
BEHIND THE SCENES
Pegasus of paradox, wanted to prove to Mdlle.
Aricie that Bacchus, son of Jupiter, is the second,
if not the first, of the gods.
“Has not he a barrel for a throne, and a wreath
of grapes for a crown? Where could one find a
god more evenly balanced His mother, Semele,
had more poetry in her than the nine virgins put
together, because hers was the poetry of love.
Bacchus is gay; is not gaiety the foremost quality
in a well-bred man? Those water-drinkers know
not what they are talking about. The gods were
always feasting. Upon my word I am inclined to
agree with that ancient writer, who said that they
were 'as drunk as lords' when they created man,
and, above all, woman. I do like the gods when
I have to bring into the world the creatures of
my brain. Look here, dear friend, you'll have to
come back from all these ready-made opinions."
"It is wisdom that is speaking," said the actress,
with a slight sneer.
Alfred de Musset and Aricie felt towards one
another a friendship very near akin to love; the
actress had already tried to wean the poet of his
nocturnal wanderings, which had become a mania.
Whenever he became "gallant" she wanted him to
be as 66
gallant" at night as well as in the day-time.
"My dear child," resumed de Musset, "when
people have eyes that dart forth flames and lips
that smile, they ought to do something better than
preach; they ought to love."
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
185
"Very well, be it so.
I will love you if you
consent to be shut up at my house."
"That's just what I want."
"But you'll go through a probationary stage of
six weeks."
"That's a bargain.'
"You'll write a comedy for me?"
"I'm agreeable, on condition that you dictate it
to me with those pretty and witty lips."
The poet bent over the actress and kissed her
hair.
"What would Rachel say if she happened to
come back, for assuredly she did not premeditate
this somewhat curious meeting ? "
The waiter at the Chaumière, who had been rather
long, brought a small glass of brandy, a medium
glass of absinthe, and a large glass of beer. Though
de Musset was in the habit of frequenting all sorts
of places, his manners had not deteriorated. In less
than a second he flung the three glasses over the
head of the waiter that had served them.
"I told you to bring me a bottle of brandy, a
bottle of absinthe, and a bottle of beer."
When Alfred de Musset's temper was roused he
assumed an air of authority that was very imposing.
Drenched as he was by the liquid from the three
glasses, the waiter obeyed. This time the poet
complacently brewed his well-known mixture; he
poured out the beer, the absinthe, and the brandy
in carefully-determined proportions. He was about
186
BEHIND THE SCENES
to put the nectar to his lips, like Apollo "out"
with Daphne, when the actress seized this ideal
cup, and in her turn flung it over the head of
Alfred de Musset.
At first he appeared not to understand, for he
said to the actress: "Would you like a glass of
water?" He thought Aricie was offended because
he had not offered her anything.
"What!" she exclaimed, "cannot you see that
I have flung your drunkenness into the garden?"
Alfred de Musset raised his stick to strike the
actress. His eyes flashed and he gnashed his teeth,
abandoning himself to his sudden anger.
"Strike away, my friend," she said very calmly.
Disarmed, he dropped his stick, threw himself
at the actress's feet, and covered her hands with
tears and kisses. She quickly made him rise, and
took him for a stroll to escape the gaze of the
curious.
"You are saved," she said affectionately.
66
'Yes, it's you who have accomplished this miracle.
But tell me that you love me."
"If I did not love you, I should not have been
able to accomplish this miracle."
At that supreme moment they did love one
another; he believing himself capable of being able
to cling hold once more above the abyss of every
flowering and music-laden branch of his youth;
she wishing to sacrifice herself by saving a soul
sorely tried, a soul deeply troubled, but the soul of
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
187
a great poet. Besides, well might she love him,
well might he love her. More than one had singed
his wings before him, more than one had tried
before her. Youth was of the party in this adven-
ture which promised to turn out a splendid adven-
ture, but for the force of circumstances putting a
spoke in the wheel. Behold them wandering about
like the veriest love-sick couple in this garden,
commonplace enough, no doubt, but where the
roses grew charmingly for all that. Alfred de
Musset was no longer thirsty, or rather he was
thirsting for love, for an ideal, athirst with passion.
He stepped along more proudly, he sniffed the
breeze, his past degradation already inspired him
with horror. One woman's love had ruined him,
he was going to be rescued by that of another
woman.
66
Comedy-love," those will say who know no-
thing about the stage. Brohan is not sufficiently
known, or rather, she is no longer known, though
she is still young; but she valiantly abandoned the
theatre to court retirement.
In those days Brohan was a young actress with
all the aspirations to an elevated art. She marvel-
lously enacted all kinds of parts, knowing how to
assume all kinds of character, like a thorough-bred
comédienne. Her intellect, however, did not stop
there; she wrote like Mme. de Sevigné, to such a
degree that Alfred de Musset, when reading some of
her letters, considered her superior to Mme. Sand—of
188
BEHIND THE SCENES
course, as an epistolary correspondent. After
having taken a liking to the woman he took a
liking to her style, smiling and serious, profound
and penetrating, in turns-a mixture of tears and
laughter, with sudden tangents towards the vast
horizons of human thought. In one word, a strange
and charming woman, slightly disguised by that
burst of laughter which to herself was often a
miserere.
This then was the woman for Alfred de Musset,
seeing that she had both a heart and an intellect,
seeing that he found in her both poetry and an
ideal. Besides, it was not the first effort that had
been made to wean Alfred de Musset from his noc-
turnal wandering. His sister had endeavoured to
be the consoling angel that dispels the clouds. A
woman of the best society-who wishes to remain
anonymous-had compromised herself for his re-
demption; but her proselytism had been too serious.
Alfred de Musset objected to a tête-à-tête unless
it was amusing. The comédienne of the Théâtre
Français had, more than any other, the qualifica-
tions for the part.
Meanwhile Phèdre was still absent; Alfred de
Musset gently placed Aricie's arm in his, saying:
"I am your man; let us go. Should Rachel
happen to come back, all the echoes of the place
will tell her that we are very glad to have come
with her, but that we are much more happy to de-
part without her."
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
189
As a matter of course Alfred de Musset refused
to go back to his own rooms. He swore to the
actress that his salvation was practicable on one
condition only--the hospitality of her own home.
"What will they say of it at the Théâtre Fran-
çais ?"
(C
They'll say whatever they like. There is
no mésalliance between a poet and an actress.
Besides, it binds you to nothing, nor does it
me."
"I should think not, indeed. Very well, then,
the die is cast; I'll say that you are writing a
comedy for me."
And I will write you a comedy."
So said, so done-almost. The actress shut up
Alfred de Musset in her own apartments, where he
immediately began to work at his Louison. The
apartment was rigorously divided, the doors locked
on both sides. They lived like friends, not at all
like lovers. They each had the right to receive
the visits of their friends, to invite them to supper
after the play. Those little parties were delightful,
because those that came to supper were even more
jolly than witty. And still there were guests so
widely divergent as Mérimée the misanthropist
and Rémusat the philosopher. People were already
saying that a new life had begun for Alfred de
Musset. Aricie affirmed, on her word of honour
as a gentleman-for this woman is a gentleman—
that the author of Le Chandelier was only another
190
Behind THE SCENES
La Fontaine at another Mme. La Sablière's-both
merely being younger. She also said that after
having played Clavaroche he resumed the part of
Fortunio.
Unfortunately this happy kind of existence lasted
but three weeks; it was but a splendid parenthesis
in the sluggish, though often radiant, orgie of this
great poet. One night after supper-and in the
small hours-Alfred de Musset took a platonic
fancy for Anaïs, that obstinate ingénue about
whom men made themselves illusions to the last.
He saw her as far as the door, he saw her
down-stairs, he saw her as far as her
her own
door, without noticing that he had forgotten
his hat.
Next morning Aricie sent him by an ambassador
both his hat and his comedy, with the following
laconic note-
"MY DEAR FRIEND,
"You lost your head with Louison, for it is Anaïs
who will play the part, because I declined to play
that of Whim' (Le Caprice)."
6
As subsequent events proved, Mdlle. Anaïs played
Louison at the Théâtre Français with her so-care-
fully-rehearsed simplicity. Mdlle. Aricie threw
her a bouquet on the first night.
That is why Aricie, who almost succeeded in
bringing back Alfred de Musset to his poetry, failed
to cure him of his nocturnal perambulations. In-
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
191
stead of a comedy he only wrote the merest trifle
for her, and even that he took to Mdlle. Anaïs. As
for myself, my repeated offer of a premium of five
thousand francs-a thousand francs per act—for a
comedy while he should be engaged upon it, and
five thousand francs more on the first night, exclusive
of his author's right, was met a hundred times by
his promise of making a start, but always on the
morrow.
*
*
The Théâtre Français is a world within a world,
living under its own fig-tree and rarely travelling
beyond. It scarcely ever frequents other theatres
unless attracted thither by a startling success or a
legendary failure. What it enjoys most is its own
green-room, where it feels and is at home. It is
between its own wings that it indulges in the
emotions inseparable from the stage. It also likes
its own dressing-rooms when it happens to be acting,
and even when it happens not to be acting. It is
there that it makes its clandestine appointments.
Excellent fathers and husbands as they are, priding
themselves upon their morality, that which happens
in the theatre counts for nothing. It is so much
comedy acting, the man himself has no part or parcel
in it. In that way one of the seniors had his adven-
tures just like the youngest of sociétaires. His wife
knew all about it, but did not trouble her husband;
as long as he came home after the play she con-
192
BEHIND THE SCENES
sidered him the most galant of husbands. This
great comedian (Samson) was in turns my friend
and my enemy. During the friendly periods he
frequently appeared with some young protégée
of the Conservatoire for whom he requested admis-
sion to the house or on the stage. Sometimes he
strongly hinted at an engagement for the young
damsel. The " young
lovers" of the company
compared him to Auber, who was equally fond of
the perfume of such posies of youth. They did not
foresee that when as old as their senior they would
play the same parts. Still the company did not
exclusively consist of sybarites. Provost and
Regnier were austerely-faithful husbands.
If Geffroy had made a slit in his marriage lines
now and then it had been for art's sake, for this
great comedian contained within himself a great
painter. Beauvallet painted also, and was a poet into
the bargain; consequently I leave you to imagine
his ardour as a lover. He had virtually cut his
marriage contracts into ribbons. "The Cid"
lived with one of his pupils, Mdlle. Chimène, a
young and handsome "second walking lady
whom his comrades had engaged solely in order to
please him. If he was not always a model husband
he was at any rate a heroic lover, though through-
out an excellent paterfamilias.
""
The youngest of the company-Brindeau, Mail-
lard, Leroux, Bressant, Delaunay, Got, Monrose—
had each his particular attachment, which did not
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
193
prevent them embracing the opportunity-oppor-
tunity, that charming damsel which passes by and
never returns the same way. Bressant was as
accessible to duchesses as to figurantes of the
Opera.
In those days the fair ones of the Comédie
Française did not confine their adventures to
their own boundaries. Comédienne is synonymous
with romance, and romanticism is not fond of
the atmosphere of home-its intoxicant is the open
air.
It is scarcely credible, but Mme. Allan, one of
the three plump beauties of the Comédie Française,
was more romantic than a young girl; she doted
on Alfred de Musset, who played chess with her in
Paris and in the country. Mme. Allan averred
that the poet also composed comedies with her, but
this utterly platonic collaboration was no more
productive of plays than of children. Some poeti-
cal epistles attest this quasi-mysterious passion.
People wondered that this dandy-the word still
passed current then-should have taken to this
ultra-developed lady, in fact so developed that
Augustine is reported to have said to her son,
66 If
you are naughty, I'll make you walk round Mme.
Allan." After all there was nothing surprising in
it, for had not the world witnessed the passion of
Paulin Limayrac - this very fashionable but essen-
tially diminutive and tiny journalist-for Mdlle.
Mante, a Tower of Babel, if ever there was one?
O
194
BEHIND THE SCENES
Chamfort would have said something about the
attraction of extremes.
Molière's soubrette in the heyday of her glory
had a court of admirers among the poets-in vain
did people seek for the lover. No doubt that to
her the thing was simply a "wit-combat," which
always ended in a burst of laughter, and which
after all did not prevent her from crying because
beneath the wit there throbbed a heart.
"The Queen of Navarre" was an eclogue in
herself; she reared flowers in her window-sill,
giving them the names of her platonic suitors.
The flowers that withered condemned those whom
they symbolised. Innocent diversion of a witty
woman, lovely as "beauty" itself, charming as
"charm "incarnate. The flower that held out to
the last bore a name dear to the admirers of Italian
opera. When she spoke of her marriage Judith
exclaimed:
"I'll only believe in it the day they plead for a
judicial separation."
Hermione (Rachel) was always playing the arch-
goddess, and remained in the clouds; whomsoever
she entrusted with the golden key was in her
opinion a god. She (Judith) who enacted the
"Angel of Murder" (Charlotte Corday) so well,
often robbed her of her gods in order to punish
her for having taken her parts. There was nothing
prettier on the boards than Judith—a downright
nut-brown angel, a masterpiece of sculpture without
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
195
the aid of stays, a masterpiece of painting without
the aid of "make up."
Théric, Luther, Favart, Fix, and a few others,
flattered themselves that they were dwelling in
purely platonic regions. Was it an illusion on
their part? After all it is and was no business of
mine. Where others saw women, I only saw
actresses.
02
196
BEHIND THE SCENES
CHAPTER X.
THE following are some letters pertaining to the
history of the Théâtre Français in 1849 :-
“MONSIEUR LE MINISTRE,
6
"You will, no doubt, approve of the enclosed
bill, in which I restore to the 'House of Molière'
its real title—the Comédie Française. At the last
Revolution it had been re-christened The Theatre
of the Republic.' Why import politics in a bill of
the play? The Republic of Arts belongs to all
Governments, but it possesses the privilege of
remaining above all Revolutions. In fact, the
Comédie Française has already gone through many
victoriously, without losing an atom of its calm
radiance. It is and will be the Comédie Française,
and not the Theatre of the Republic or of Royalty.
"You will also please to notice on this bill the
date of the foundation opposite the actual date.
I might have reminded the public of an older date,
but the real one of the Comédie Française, by the
amalgamation of all the Comedians, is 1680. Molière
was dead, but it was the company of Molière, the
genius of Molière, the house of Molière.
"ARSÈNE HOUSSAYE."
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
197
"MONSIEUR LE DIRECTEUR,
"M. Empis came to tell me that you will not
grant him an opportunity to read his piece. He
complains of your literary tendencies. He is
convinced that you will only accept and play
romantic works. M. Mazères, who also has a play
he wishes to submit, is of the same opinion, but he
only wishes to read it on condition of a premium
being given to him. See what you can do. M. de
Rémusat is soliciting my good offices on M. Mazères'
part. Many deputies are requesting the same for
M. Empis.
"MONSIEUR LE MINISTRE,
"FERDINAND BARROT.'
"9
"You are in turns recommending M. Mazères
and M. Empis, who no longer recommend them-
selves. They come to plead their cause in my
study instead of pleading it in the repertory.
What would be best for their sake and for ours
would be to offer them a premium for a piece that
should not be performed.
"What a pity that the Republic has given them
leisure, seeing that because of it they both fall back
once more on the stage. M. Mazères was so com-
fortable in his prefecture, and M. Empis was so
thoroughly at home in the Department of the Civil
List.
"People have no idea of the number of comedies
and tragedies which would have never seen the
198
BEHIND THE SCENES
light had not the Revolution ousted people from
their appointments. And if those who have lost
their places could only be replaced by dramatists
like MM. Empis and Mazères !
“M. Mazères wanting a premium (or retaining
fee) before reading his piece simply wishes to play
the comedy of a forced game, i.e. he wishes to
impose the white balls at the poll. M. de Rémusat
is too much of a philosopher to defend a forlorn
hope. M. Mazères, like M. Empis, is a man of the
world, but who, unfortunately, imagines that
comedy still wears the fashions of the Restoration.
Times change, and we change with them. Comedy
should be composed with and in the spirit of the
times.
"I hope to have the pleasure, Monsieur le
Ministre, of seeing you to-night at the theatre; if
not, I shall be with you to-morrow morning.
"ARSÈNE HOUSSAYE."
"To M. EMPIS,
"You credit me with intentions, sir, which I am
far from possessing. I entertain most respectful
sentiments towards you, but at the same time have
the bad taste not to cherish the same opinions with
regard to your comedies which you cherish your-
self. Are you so very sure that the public of the
Restoration is still to be found in the pit? There
is a term to everything, even to pretty come-
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
199
dies, born of fashion; there is a term to every-
thing, except to the duration of masterpieces.
"My friends complain of me, as well as my
enemies, because I am fully determined to flatter
no wishes but those of one single friend-the
public.
" MONSIEUR LE MINISTRE,
"ARSÈNE HOUSSAYE.”
“There is nothing less than a revolution surging
around me on account of some premiums and
advances made to a few dramatists. The excite-
ment of the sociétaires is such as to stop at nothing
short of denouncing the director. Seeing, how-
ever, that no one among them dares to sign the
first, I send you the attainder myself.
"It is but too true that I have dared to advance
a few notes of a thousand francs to Alexander
Dumas, Ponsard, Alfred de Musset, Théophile
Gautier, Léon Gozlan, and this in despite of the
remonstrances of the erstwhile prefect, a perfect
jewel and a man of method, if ever there was one,
whom we have the happiness of possessing as
cashier of the Comédie. But they are merely
payments 'on account' of their authors' rights.
'Tight-fisted' managements are the least fruitful.
"I am, after all, but continuing the tradition of
the Comédie Française. In fact, I read in the
register of Lagrange that Molière advanced eight
hundred francs to M. de la Calprenède 'for a stage
200
BEHIND THE SCENES
play which he is to write.' I might cite many
instances both old and new.
"Have not the Comedians who tax me with
'dilapidating' the funds of the Comédie Française
hitherto given premiums to MM. Scribe, Hugo,
Dumas? They have advanced three thousand
francs to Alphonse Karr for a comedy he is to
write, and they have given a premium to M.
Mazères for a comedy which he would do well not
to write.
"It were well to remember that if the State
subsidises the Comédie Française it is not only for
the sake of the Comedians, but also for the sake of
the comedies themselves. Has not the Minister
reserved to himself twenty-five thousand francs of
these moneys to apply them where he thought fit?
I have no doubt that the Minister's idea of fitness
would mean giving retaining fees to writers such
as Dumas, Balzac, A. de Musset, Théophile Gautier,
Gozlan, Ponsard. Is there any occasion, therefore,
to feel aggrieved with the canons of capital
against the poets if the latter are paid for the glory
of the State?
"I do not suspect your solicitude, Monsieur le
Ministre, for all those who are the glory of the
Théâtre Français; hence I hope that you will
absolve me from convening the committee of
management to discuss these delicate questions. In
these matters there are secrets which ought never
to become the secrets of the Comédie.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
201
"If after all you are of opinion that I have
made a mistake, I am willing to refund to the
cashier of the Théâtre Français what I have
advanced to the authors.*
"People also appear to be very uneasy at my
extravagant folly for handsome furniture. If I
happen to have a Boulle writing-table, a Louis XVI.
clock, and some Gobelins tapestry, it is at my own
expense and not at that of the Comédie. Assuredly
they would not condemn me to the folly of maho-
gany, seeing that I decline to play the pieces that
were fashionable in the days of mahogany.
"ARSÈNE HOUSSAYE."
"TO THE DIRECTOR OF THE THÉÂTRE FRANÇAIS,
"I have just returned from the Council of State,
where I spoke in favour of the abrogation of the
censorship. It was tantamount to speaking for you,
my dear director. You do not want to be tyran-
nised by the principle of the authorities meddling
with the repertory of the Théâtre Français.
Molière alone, owing to his title of valet de
chambre, ventured to say almost everything before
*The Minister agreed with the director, and the director con-
tinued making advance payments. It is well he did so, for without
this piece of kindness a celebrated play, Malle. de la Seiglière, which
still continues to hold the bills, and which is likely to hold them
for a long while if not for ever, would have never been finished.
Malle. de la Seiglière is by the late Jules Sandeau, and is un-
doubtedly one of the most charming productions of that author.
Jules Sandeau was very poor when M. Arsène Houssaye advanced
him money. [Transl.]
202
BEHIND THE SCENES
Louis XIV., but there are many masterpieces that
never passed the lips of the proud Corneille.
"The all-prevailing thought of this century is
liberty. I have not waited for the hour of liberty
to strike to enlist under its standard. Remember
my battles about Le Roi S'Amuse. The autho-
rities must not revert once more to its abuse of
power. Louis XIV. has prevented Corneille from
saying all he thought. Corneille is very great,
maybe he would have been greater still. There
must be an end to a Minister preventing a poet and
the public from being in the right. The Minister
may strike at the lower rung, not at the higher.
He has the right to condemn the immoral stupidity
of the small theatres- he has no right to obscure
the radiant spectacle evolved from thought.
"Hence I claim the liberty of the stage and
liberty on the stage-a responsible manager and a
responsible author. Do not be alarmed, my dear
director; the legislative section of the Council of
State is, like myself, in favour of a Théâtre Français
that shall be worthy of France. Nay, more, one is
not enough, there should be two. One to play the
dead authors, one to play the living ones. Mean-
while you will play both the dead and the living.
They are very well disposed towards you at the
Council of State, consequently they are likely to
give you the means of doing the right thing. And
besides, if they do not give it to you, you'll take it.
"I shake your loyal hand,
"VICTOR HUGO."
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
203
"To M. VIVIAN, PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL OF State.
"M. Victor Hugo told me to-night that he had
upheld before you the prerogatives of the director
of the Comédie Française.
“What I request is simply this—the right to do
the right thing. If I were only granted the right
to twirl my thumbs, I should consider myself as
holding a sinecure, and would soon resume my pen
-my breadwinner.
"For instance, it is absolutely necessary that I
should be able to make engagements without being
authorised to that effect by the committee. As a
case in point, I may be allowed to doubt whether
the committee will approve my plan of having
Tartuffe played by Frédérick Lemaître.
"I must also have the right to cast the pieces.
"Would it be a very autocratic innovation to
ask for the director a vote at the reading com-
mittees ?
"Pray do not forget that with the public it is
the director who is responsible.
"As for the director's share in the profits I set
no store on it, not because this share has been for
many a long day an illusion, but because I did
not come to the Comédie Française in order to
make my fortune.
*
"ARSÈNE HOUSSAYE."
204
BEHIND THE SCENES
}
"TO THE DIRECTOR OF THE THÉÂTRE FRANÇAIS,
"The discussion on the law concerning the
theatres has been prolonged beyond my expecta-
tions; it is not finished yet, but it will be next
week. I hope that the regulations affecting the
Comédie Française will come immediately after-
wards. What has been said already of the house
of Molière and of yourself affords promise of better
things. M. de Cormenin is like myself very
favourably disposed.
"In fact, the project of the section has been
well received, and, in conformity with our wishes,
it confers upon the director other rights than to
twirl his thumbs; for instance, it gives him two
votes on the reading committee.
66 Will you kindly have copied for me the most
ancient documents, so that I may be enabled to
play the historian a bit at the council.
66
Why should not you yourself give your opinion
on the liberty of the theatres?
"MONSIEUR LE Président,
"VIVIEN."
"You want my opinion. Here it is: I am in
favour of the liberty of the theatres together with
all other liberties, but I like the protectorate of
art. If dramatic art be not stamped with the seal
of the State it is no longer aught but industrial
art, and will eventually be no art at all.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
205
"Because, seeing that the stage is only a school
like any other, the State should watch over it and
confer its mark on it. I belong to those who believe
that no Government is hostile to the theatre. The
theatre, therefore, has nothing to fear from any
Government soever—be it called Republic, Empire,
or Monarchy. Is there, in fact, a single master-
piece which but for the Government would have
been able to see the light? Louis XIII. allowed
Molière to be a Republican. Louis XIV. allowed
Molière to be a freethinker. Louis XV. allowed
Voltaire to say any and every thing he pleased.
Louis XVI. allowed Beaumarchais to make the
Revolution. This is the history of the theatre in
France up to the nineteenth century. Hence the
theatre has nothing to fear from the tyranny
of the powers that be; genius pierces through
wherever it may be, like the sun dispelling the
clouds of the censorship.
"Still, I would ask for a protectorate, not for a
tyranny. I go further still, and would ask for
laws against tyranny. A protectorate would allow
a dramatic author to speak more directly in the
name of France, but the protectorate should not
become an act of blind despotism. The censorship
may, in the name of offended morality, demand
the suppression of certain words, nay, of certain
scenes, but it should never suppress a piece.
"As I have been speaking of the censorship, I
might say that it would be useless if all the directors
206
BEHIND THE SCENES
of theatres were appointed by the State, because,
in that case, they would afford a downright gua-
rantee for their responsibility which would become
more signal.
"And now I come to the Théâtre Français,
briefly commenting on the documents for which
you ask.
"The contract of 1689 has regulated the Comédie
until the Revolution; unfortunately the decree of
the 29th Germinal of the year XII. caused a disas-
trous revolution at the Comédie by lowering it to
the level of commercial speculations.
"The decree of Moscow became the charter of
the Théâtre Français; it is still that charter
to-day. Though in 1830 the King's Household
was replaced by the State, and the Minister of the
Interior replaced the Superintendent of Theatres,
the change did not affect the spirit of the Imperial
regulations.
"I am far from asking the abrogation of the
decree of Moscow. There is this much good in the
protection of the State-that it confers lustre as
well as money. Flowers need not feel humiliated at
receiving the rays of the sun.
of the sun. Some very advanced
minds aver that art should live of itself in untram-
melled freedom; but, under such conditions, men
of money would get the best of men of art. The
shop would invade the stage.
66
Consequently the State should protect the
Théâtre Français, which is a school for the tuition
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
207
of the good and the beautiful, a kind of radiant
university- another college of France with all its
great professors. But we should not disarm the
State in the person of its representative.
""
6
'Nor do I ask for the resumption of all the pro-
visions of the royal order of 1847. For instance,
the director had then the right of signing engage-
ments for three years. The power to sign for one
year will be sufficient for me. We should not im-
pose an actor upon the public for the space of
three years, either by recommendations or illusions,
unless he proves himself capable of assuming
quickly burgess rights' before the footlights of
the Théâtre Français. This was Molière's opinion.
If we study this great master amidst his company
we shall soon perceive that his spirit has somewhat
governed his 'house' through the lapse of years.
The same spirit and the same Republic prevail
still. Nay, one feels almost inclined to-day to ask
counsel of Molière himself, so vividly does one feel
that he is still there.
"ARSÈNE HOUSSAYE,"
208
BEHIND THE SCENES
CHAPTER XI.
I DID not live solely amidst the surroundings of
the Comédie Française of 1850. I frequently
lived amongst the surroundings of the Comédie
Française of Molière, going backward for two
centuries into the past, as if to gather fresh
strength from these grand traditions of art. The
muse of Molière and Corneille was to me the
fountain of Numa, an inexhaustible stream in
which I dipped the golden cup to present it
to the public. I did not confine myself to the
inspiration of their masterpieces; I wandered about
at will amidst the curiosities of this legendary
house.
Through one of the freaks of fortune the Comédie
Française has become once more a Palais Car-
dinal almost on the very ruins of the Comédie of
Molière.
When Cardinal Richelieu built a theatre, not for
The Cid but for Myrame, not for Corneille but for
his Eminence himself, he did not foresee that
this small coign of Paris-the wing of the Palais
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE
209
Cardinal, at the angle of the Rue St. Honoré and
the Rue de Valois-would soon become the house
of Molière, the most illustrious home of comedy,
tragedy, and the drama. Who, in fact, could foresee
that this theatre, intended to merely represent so
many wills-of-the-wisp, would suddenly blaze into
flame with as many unexpected masterpieces, with
deathless comedies, which for three centuries have
been the pride of the French stage and of French
genius?
How pleased should we be nowadays if by
virtue of a sorcerer's wand we could-fifteen sols
in hand-enter the pit in company with the body-
guards, the light-horse, the pages, the citizens, and
the students. We should bestow a smile on the
celebrated Saint-Germain and the celebrated Gillot
keeping the door like two caryatides. How joyously
would we tender our pence to the money-taker,
Mdlle. de Létang, and have our tickets checked by
Mdlle. Nanon. Of course we should prefer being
able to offer half-a-louis for a reserved seat on the
stage among the company of marquises, swells, and
grumblers. Nevertheless, we should be only too
pleased to go into the pit, where we should be
obliged to stand throughout the whole of the
performance. Still we should not wait for the
performance to relish all the excitement of a
splendid evening's entertainment. The light of
day penetrates but sparsely into the house, or
rather to speak by the card-the house is wrapt
P
210
BEHIND THE SCENES
in semi-darkness, with its rows of candles and its
three chandeliers that do not make up for the
absence of the sun. It is close upon four o'clock.
People are crowding in from all sides, here for the
amphitheatre, there for the boxes and for the pit.
There is a kind of subdued noise which threatens
at every moment to change into an uproar. The
piece is about to commence, the attendants have
already deftly snuffed the guttering and melancholy
candles with the famous silver snuffers, and every-
body is wondering how M. de Molière suffices for
the management of the whole. He is the leader
of his company, which means a business more com-
plicated than to lead an army to battle; he is a
poet of genius, which obliges him to write two or
three masterpieces a year; he is the familiar of
grand seigneurs who often take up the best part of
his time; he is the aged husband of a young wife
who wants a great deal of looking after; in one
word, M. de Molière is a living wonder.
Hush! The sound of six violins falls clear and
resonant upon the air. They are playing a melody
of Lulli. Every heart beats louder as Molière
enters upon the scene; Molière, the great Molière,
the god of this improvised Olympus, where in
another moment he will be surrounded by a number
of goddesses and semi-goddesses. It is a genuine
pleasure to the whole of the audience to watch
Molière enact his comedy.
Yes, the pleasure is unalloyed. During the
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
211
interval, seeing that as yet Procope is not, the
audience sip sweet cordials in the theatre itself. It
is the Sieur de Chappuseau, the Dangeau † to this
other Louis XIV., recording the sayings and doings
of both actors and spectators alike, who after two
centuries informs us of the delights of the entr'acte.
There was a refreshment counter in front of the
private boxes, and another one in the pit. The de-
scription of de Chappuseau makes our mouths water.
At these wonderful stalls people not only partook of
raspberry cordial, but there was currant and cherry
cordial, fresh lemonade and strawberry water. Let
us listen to de Chappuseau himself. During the
summer all kinds of refreshing beverages, dried
comfits and oranges, are sold, but in winter one can
get warm liquors to comfort the stomach-rossolis,
Spanish wines, Scioutat, Rivesalte. I remember
the time when one could only get beer and barley-
water, neither flavoured with lemon or romaine;
but everything progresses in this world, and which-
ever way one turns there never was more luxury
and pomp than in the Paris of to-day. Paris goes
on increasing in splendour, but I doubt much
whether in beholding the attendants at the refresh-
ment counters of our modern theatres-where, truth
* The Café Procope, which was subsequently established oppo-
site the New Theatre in the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie (after
Molière's death), and which was only definitely closed after many
vicissitudes and changes in 1885.—[Transl.]
† Dangeau has since then become the term for the social and
artistic gossiping journalist.
1
P 2
212
BEHIND THE SCENES
to tell, refreshment counters are not in favour-
de Chappuseau would not look back with a kind of
melancholy regret to the "wonderful stalls " of
the old Comédie Française.
*
*
In 1849 Théophile Gautier in his weekly
Theatrical Gossip wrote as follows: "Mdlle.
Rachel, who will shortly make her reappearance on
the stage, has selected Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle
and Thisbé for her débuts. Le Chandelier of Alfred
de Musset will hold the bills between these two
masterpieces. Seeing that M. Arsène Houssaye is
evidently determined to have done with the com-
mon-place and vulgar, why does not he try to
mount some of the pieces of Mérimée, such as for
instance Le Carosse du Saint-Sacrement?"
While I was turning over in my mind the advice
of Gautier, Mérimée came to see me. He seemed
very pleased at the idea, but told me that he did
not care to read his piece to the committee. I
somewhat lightly absolved him from that formality,
which, as a matter of course, set all the gentlemen
of the committee against the piece. Mérimée, with
his platonic passion for Augustine Brohan, wanted
that actress to play the principal part. Having,
apart from this, chosen her myself, the piece was
put in rehearsal, and mounted with great care.
Mérimée came three or four times to the re-
hearsals, and expressed his satisfaction, though
saying all the while that he knew nothing about
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
213
66
things theatrical." Personally I felt rather
uneasy, foreseeing that there would be more cry
than wool about the piece. I should not have
minded the author withdrawing it, and I went
even so far as to go to him one morning to sound
him on the subject; but Mérimée was like a child
playing for the first time at shuttlecock, and who
already sees the thing up in the clouds; hence it
was of no use trying to hark back.
The piece was acted, or, to speak by the card,
was hissed. It was a long while since the
Comédie Française had enjoyed such a treat within
its walls. The cat-calls came loud and thick from
all points of the house; I honestly believe they
were "guying" it from between the wings. In
vain did the celebrated actress display all the
resources of her art, so spontaneous, so witty, and
clever; they kept whistling and whistling and
whistling over again. The Minister of the Interior,
frightened out of his senses, took flight; Doctor
Véron, that libertine who fancied himself Roman
and Apostolic, shouted that it was a burning
shame to insult the sacred religion in that way. I
already beheld myself being burned alive. Alfred
de Musset said to me, "It is Mazères who is per-
forming cat-calls on the latch-key of Empis."
Théophile Gautier regretted not having put on his
red plush waistcoat.*
* The waistcoat, now legendary, which the great poet and critic
wore at the first performance of Victor Hugo's Hernani, in order,
as he expressed it, "to annoy the Philistines."-[Transl.]
214
BEHIND THE SCENES
The gem of the evening remains, however, to be
told. A belated spectator only arrived towards the
end of the performance. He had a very nice box
in the centre of the house, where he was expected
by two blue-stockings, close upon forty-two
dowdies, who fancied they belonged to the
Faubourg St. Germain because they happened
to live there. "It looks as if he is not coming at
all," they said impatiently.
At last he did come. While the attendant was
taking his greatcoat, after having unlocked the
door of the box, he said to her, "What are they
hissing so nicely ?" He was under the impres-
sion that Le Carosse du Saint-Sacrement was
the second on the bill. "Ah, monsieur," replied
the woman," don't talk about it, one might think
one's self at the Odéon.” Mérimée, who liked
cat-calls for others, appeared very pleased at the
affair, but suddenly noticing the woebegone faces
of his friends, he cast a glance at the stage.
could not believe his own eyes.
are hissing me-me, Mérimée ?"
He
"What-they
He sent me to the devil; hence, since that
memorable evening, we never bowed to each other,
not even at Princess Mathilde's, where we often
met, and where he never ceased to hiss my prose
and my poetry. They asked him more than once
whether he thought that Arsène Houssaye had
organised the cabal. "No," was the answer, "but
he should not have played the piece." Mérimée
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
215
was right, perhaps, but he did not know that the
author of the piece ought always to have a great
many friends in the house. Playwrights are well
aware that it is their friends who, by a kind of
electricity, ignite the flare that often saves the first
night from becoming a miserable failure.
*
*
to have a
They were still determined not
director at the Théâtre Français. One day I
managed to make them all agree by tendering my
resignation.
The cause of it was this. One morning Rachel
said to me, "Ponsard has just finished his Charlotte
Corday. According to Augier, it is very beau-
tiful; I want to play this 'angel of murder.'
Ponsard, therefore, must give his drama to the
Théâtre Français; but I am not on very friendly
terms with him, and I do not think that you are in
his good books."
"Why ?"
"Because they published a spiteful thing of
yours and one of Mery on the Ecole du Bon
Lens."
"What spiteful thing?"
"Of course, like all critics, you forget your
offences against people. Mery said, 'The most
remarkable thing with the poets of the School of
Common Sense is, that they cannot write verse.'
That was coming it strong enough, assuredly,
216
BEHIND THE SCENES
6
without your clenching it with, If they can't
write verse I am sure they can't write prose.'"
"Now that you mention it, I remember. I may
have said this, but one does not calculate one's
blows in the battle; furthermore, I fancy I was
nearer the truth than Mery, for if I have not seen
beautiful
any
prose of Ponsard, I have applauded
some beautiful verse in Lucrèce. He has a feeling
for lyric poetry, and he knows how to put his
characters on their legs, so I am quite ready to
mount Charlotte Corday."
I promised Rachel to go and see Ponsard that
very day. I found the poet in a very small apart-
ment in the Rue des Beaux-Arts, which did not
appear to me worthy of such a master. He was a
gentleman in the best sense of the word. Though
erstwhile enemies, he cordially held out his hand;
we there and then inaugurated a compact for life
and death, and never was friendship more earnestly
felt on both sides. He perceived at once that I would
devote myself thoroughly to the success of Char-
lotte Corday, if he gave the drama to the Théâtre
Français. But he had already promised it both
on the left and right bank of the river-to the
Odéon and to the Porte Saint-Martin. His friend
Bocage was to play either Robespierre, Marat, or
Danton. I promised him to engage Bocage, and
pointed out to him, at the same time, that he would
find nowhere a Charlotte Corday like Rachel.
"Yes," he replied, "I know all about her—she'll
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
217
play my piece about three times, if so much.
Besides, we are not certain about the committee's
acceptance of it."
Don't trouble about that; if the committee
refuses your piece I will insist the more upon play-
ing it, seeing that the public will say that I was
right both ways."
In short, I pleaded my cause-which was, after
all, his cause-so well, that at last he said, "Take
my drama, read it, and play it if you think it
worthy of the house of Corneille."
He was right
in saying the house of Corneille, for later on the
house of Molière refused his comedies.
The right of playing Charlotte Corday secured,
I went straight to the Minister before going to see
Rachel. Seeing that I virtually possessed auto-
cratic powers until the Council of State should
define my prerogatives, I told the Minister that, in
the event of the committee refusing their sanction
to Charlotte Corday, I was determined to do with-
out that sanction.
"But you haven't even read the piece."
"I have glanced at it, and feel that it is an ex-
traordinary drama; a work that will make a noise.”
"Too much noise, perhaps, my dear director.
Just think of it-Marat on the stage!'
"Yes; in a bath. Shakespeare would not have
been afraid of such a situation. Do not you know
the splendid picture of David, "The Assassination of
Marat' ?"
218
BEHIND THE SCENES
"Yes, that is Marat in paint; a different thing
to Marat in the flesh taking a bath, which, after
all, was not his habit."
((
Very well, then, we'll have the scene at the
wings, as in that everlasting French tragedy.
Would you like to read the piece?"
"I can't spare the time."
"Ponsard will come and read it to you himself;
invite two or three political friends to back us up.
99
"Be it so," replied the Minister, smiling. "I
do not want the death of the sinner. I've got a
score of people to dinner here to-morrow; we'll
have the table laid for four more. You'll bring
Mme. Houssaye, and Ponsard will bring Mdlle.
Rachel."
"I understand; after dinner Ponsard will read
Charlotte Corday.'
(C
99
That's it; you invite Mdlle. Rachel and Pon-
sard in my name."
Next evening every one was at his post; the
dinner, though a ministerial one, was exquisite;
wit ran absolutely riot. The moment they rose,
the politicians, who had left their seriousness at the
bottom of their glasses, crowded round the actress
like a set of schoolboys removed from the master's
eye. Though full of smiles, she had the grand air
of a duchess by reason of her solemn simplicity, for
the two words must go together here. Ponsard's
public seemed to me the best that could have been
hit upon; immediately coffee had been served the
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
219
poet made himself ready. I had offered to read for
him, but he fancied himself the best reader in the
world. I have never heard a worse one; he mur-
dered his best lines and missed the best situations.
Nevertheless his listeners were not long in con-
cluding that his work was a powerful and daring
one, worthy of the Théâtre Français. Not one
asked for his carriage. The poet managed to keep
up the interest from act to act without allowing it
to flag for a single instant, and carrying his
audience with him through all the tableaux and all
the portraits of this original drama, which has
remained the principal work of Ponsard.
I have made a mistake. There was some one in
the room who was not pleased. It was Rachel.
Though she had recited the Marseillaise, tricolour
in hand, with truly revolutionary passion, she felt
afraid of being on the stage amidst all those blood-
stained figures. She shrank from becoming an
angel on the condition of murdering any one-even
Marat; besides, she considered the chief part in
the play was not that of Charlotte Corday. Con-
sequently, immediately after Ponsard had read his
last line, she shook his hand in silence and came to
where I was sitting, saying, "I shall never play
that mad girl." I wanted to persuade her in a few
words that she had not listened carefully, but she
was already gone.
Every one congratulated Ponsard, but Ponsard
did not congratulate himself.
220
BEHIND THE SCENES
"You see," he said to me, "Rachel asked me for
the part. I told you that she would not play it three
times; you will find that she will not play it at all."
I tried to comfort Ponsard by telling him Rachel
would play it, and by speaking to him of the
Corneillean beauties of his piece. The Minister
also was very kind to him. M. Ferdinand Barrot
was quite enthusiastic about the three men's parts-
Danton, Robespierre, and Marat.
"There is not," he said, "a single man in the
Assembly who could speak so well according to
the spirit of history save Lamartine and Hugo.
There will be a noise at the performance of your
play, but as Arsène Houssaye says, the adventure
is worth trying."
Ponsard went away, sick at heart. He had counted
on Rachel seeing him back to the Rue des Beaux-
Arts, but if the actress had promised two nights
previous to devise a love-song, she was not the one
to remember for very long. The next morning I
assembled the committee, to which Rachel was
admitted, albeit she had no longer a vote. They
already knew that I was determined to accept the
piece on my sole responsibility in the event of its
being refused.
Charlotte Corday was not accepted unanimously,
a few red balls attested the hostility of the non-
converted sociétaires, of Samson and Provost among
others, who besides did not see themselves com-
prised in the cast of this beautiful drama.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
221
When I went from the committee room to my
own to tell Ponsard the good news, Rachel had
already preceded me to congratulate him.
"The only thing we want now is your voice,'
I said to her.
She embraced Ponsard, but gave him the death-
blow at the same time by these few words, "I
shall not play Charlotte Corday because I should
be detestable in the part. I am a daughter of the
Antique; the pit would shout to me, 'Go and fetch
your peplum.' They would hiss me for my
opinions-past, present, and future. Take Judith,
she has neither opinions nor a personality."
Her words were wisdom itself. Rachel had made
so vivid an impression in the public mind by her
peformances as Phèdre, Hermione, and Emilie, as to
make it difficult to the public to fancy her as the
incarnation of this more or less heraldic peasant-
girl coming purposely all the way from the country
to have a stab at the Revolution; besides, many
among the Republicans bore her a grudge for
having left the Marseillaise and the tricolour “in
the lurch" to go and sup at the Elysée.
Our combined eloquence proved of no avail
against Rachel's determination. I gave the part to
Judith; she was not a tragic actress, but she knew
how to create a part. She was more true to nature
in Charlotte Corday than Rachel would have been.
The casting of the other parts caused no end of
trouble. Who was to play Marat? Nobody wanted
222
BEHIND THE SCENES
to; when that great artist, by name Geffroy, declared
himself bold enough to defy all antipathies. At
the very first rehearsal I saw very well that he
would be admirable. As good a painter as he was
a Comedian, he made of Marat a living portrait,
which David would not have been ashamed to sign.
Ponsard was bitter against Beauvallet. He would
have none of him, either for Robespierre or Danton.
He offered the part to Bocage, but Bocage not only
wanted to play Danton, but disdained to return to
the Théâtre Français except to enact the master.
Accident brought us a young Comedian, thoroughly
sure of himself, and who at the first glance re-
presented the Danton type. His name was Bignon.
He had not been to the Conservatoire, and was
rather proud of it, saying that nature had been his
teacher. His force consisted mainly in his self-
assurance, his capital figure and carriage, his fine
voice. We liked him at once for the part of Danton.
"You'll see," he said, "how I'll jump into the
fellow's skin."
And during the rehearsals he was never weary
of asking, "Well, do you think I've caught him?"
In art one must always allow something for the
unforeseen.
Having got rid of Bocage we went straight to
Regnier for the part of Robespierre. He was
splendid in it, by dint of studying the character,
and by his knowledge of the resources of the stage.*
* Both Geffroy and Regnier, in order to be as near the truth as
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
223
The tragic author Ponsard believed in comedians
rather than in tragic actors for the contemporary
drama. It was virtually agreeing with Rachel's
wisdom, who had been afraid of being too classical
in Charlotte Corday.
Meanwhile the storm was gathering overhead.
I had no sooner settled the date of the first per-
formance than the President of the Republic sent
for me.
We took a stroll in the gardens of the
Elysée. He told me that he himself was very fond
of bold ventures, but that he was afraid of vexing
all parties with Charlotte Corday. He asked me
to read the piece, which I did that same evening.
I went again early next morning; we had another
stroll beneath the trees planted by Mme. de Pom-
padour, who could have never foreseen that in the
nineteenth century so much politics would be dis
cussed in her garden. The Prince repeated to me
that the piece would offend all parties and only
afford pleasure to people of literary tastes. I
pointed out to him that it would be more dangerous
not to play it, because people would make an affair
of State of it. Ponsard, who was only a disciple
of Corneille, would become a Brutus; the public
would not fail to say that Cæsar wished to ostracise
all these grand figures of the Revolution.
possible in their respective parts, went to see the former Conven-
tional Barrère, who then lived in some obscure lodgings near the
Marché St. Honoré, and who of course had known both Marat and
Robespierre personally. [Transl.]
224
BEHIND THE SCENES
ઃઃ
"Really," said the President, "the best reason
for playing the piece is that there is so much beau-
tiful poetry in it. After all, you are responsible;
if there be a storm, the storm will sweep you
away."
"I expect nothing less," I answered, in a deter-
mined voice.
The Prince shook hands; his usual sceptical smile
seemed to say, "Yours will not be a long reign.”
He understood that, by his veto, he armed against
himself all Ponsard's friends, who were numerous
in the National Assembly. He would have liked
Ponsard himself to withdraw his piece, or me to
put it off till doomsday. I do not like going back,
and Ponsard wanted to be played at all risks. That
same day I told him of the danger I had averted;
but he told me that the real peril was not at the
Elysée. In the National Assembly, where the
Reactionaries adopted a louder tone than the Re-
publicans, there was a good deal of anxious specu-
lation about the performance; there was a presen-
timent that Ponsard would imbue the most luke-
warm with the revolutionary fever; the question
was very nearly being discussed from the tribune.
They, however, confined themselves to warning the
Minister, who smiled at first, but who, by dint of
having interpellations addressed to him in com-
mittee, regretted to have been in favour instead of
against the piece. I do not know whether from
pure Machiavellism he put the director of the arts
department on his guard, by telling him that it
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
225
was a reactionary play. Charles Blanc proceeded
through the censorship, which, to my great sur-
prisc, came to put a stop to the affair. The moment
there was one spoke in the wheel people vied with
one another in putting a second, then a third; the
Republicans of the Assembly became very irate
with Charlotte Corday, and condemned her to
death a second time. The rehearsals went on none
the less, albeit that the papers declared that the
piece would not be played. Matters proceeded
swimmingly at the theatre, where they already
counted upon a hundred nights; but politics yelled
so loud at a time when everything had to yield to
politics that I foresaw an order from the Minister
to cut the thing short. The first performance was
to take place in two days; a friend from the Elysée
came to warn me that the piece would not be
played, not through the fault of the President but
through the fault of the Assembly. I knew that the
Minister, a loyal man, if ever there was one, was
moving heaven and earth rather than reverse his
judgment. I wanted to put him at his ease by my
resignation, and in that way assuming all the re-
sponsibility so I wrote him this letter :-
"At my advent to the Théâtre Français, seeing
that I had nothing from the pens of Victor Hugo,
Alexander Dumas, or Alfred de Musset, I thought
that the real pieces to inaugurate my directorship
were Gabrielle, by Emile Augier, and Charlotte
Corday, by Ponsard. The comedy has proved a
fortune, the drama will have a like success.
Q
226
BEHIND THE SCENES
"This drama was read in the drawing-room of
the Minister of the Interior before a highly select
circle, first and foremost among whom was Mdlle.
Rachel. We were of opinion that it was the best
thing Ponsard had written. Mdlle. Rachel ap-
plauded, but declined to play the heroine, averring
that the great effects of the drama would not fall
to her; but, notwithstanding this defection, which
sorely grieved Ponsard, I clung to the piece with
all my strength. You did not, at that time, judge
the representation of it to be fraught with political
danger. To-day, when the piece is on the point
of being performed, you tell me that it must be
postponed indefinitely, in order to appease the
apprehensions of the National Assembly. In my
opinion the piece runs no risk, except of being
frantically applauded. Theatrical allusions have
never made a Revolution. If too much anxiety on
this point existed, we should never allow the repre-
sentation of masterpieces consecrated by tradition,
whether they be Cinna, or Tartuffe, or The Marriage
of Figaro; but should the National Assembly
pretend to put too much pressure upon you, I
deem myself too personally pledged not to retire
from the theatre together with the piece. Hence,
Monsieur le Ministre, I beg to tender my resig-
nation, after having thanked you for all your
kindness during the difficult days I have passed at
the Comédie Française."
The letter was just gone when Victor Hugo
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
227
appeared upon the scene. I told him the story.
"I knew it," he said. "What I am pleased to hear
is that you have the pluck to give in your resigna-
tion, which step on your part will kill the censor-
ship. As it happens, your resignation will not be
accepted, fortunately for Ponsard and all the other
dramatic authors. I have made up my mind that
Ponsard's drama shall be played. They say that
I am his enemy; I'll soon show you whether I
am.”
66
Victor Hugo began his campaign the same day;
he spoke to all the party leaders of the National
Assembly. He spoke so well, he threw so much
heart in his speech for Ponsard, added to a great
many witty things against the censorship, that he
had no difficulty whatsoever in carrying the most
refractory with him. What," he said, to the
revolutionaries, " you have a genuine poet, who
depicts the grand scenes of the Revolution; are
you afraid, then, of seeing the work of your fathers
represented on the stage? At that rate
At that rate you would
banish Eschylus. Would you have the History of
France rewritten in the style of Father Lori-
quet?" he said to the royalist. "Take my advice,
leave Truth alone; she alone is capable of con-
founding traitors and monsters."
Victor Hugo had no difficulty in bringing the
Minister over to his cause, seeing that the Minister
was of his opinion. "Here, look for yourself,"
said the Minister to the great poet; "I have
Q 2
228
BEHIND THE SCENES
already written to Arsène Houssaye that he had no
right to offer his resignation."
Victor Hugo returned to the theatre on the fol-
lowing morning. He was very pleased to be able
to tell me that I might announce the first night of
Charlotte Corday.
Ponsard, deeply grateful, went that same evening
to thank Victor Hugo, who, in the most graceful
and charming manner, said, "That's the kind
of enemies we are." Thus ended the Ecole du
Bon-Lens, which had only owed its existence to
the war of the romanticists.
My struggles, however, were not over yet,
though I was considerably reinforced by the noise
caused by the rumour of my resignation, because
the majority of my enemies were only fighting to
bring me down from my "pacha-couch," to borrow
their own expression. When they saw that I was
taking them at their word and seriously bent upon
going, they partially disarmed, but with the inten-
tion of striking at me unawares.
The common soldier prides himself on the success
of his officers, but in the army of literature they do
not forgive a man for taking the lead. It is because
in the army of literature everybody is a soldier
merely. Why should X. have a position of twenty-
five thousand francs per annum when V. has to
take up his pen every morning of his life to earn
only half of that sum? Equality, if you like, but
not fraternity. I am not speaking of those who
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
229
are guided by their lucky star or who one day will
be stars themselves.
*
*
There is no doubt that Molière was indebted to
Lulli for a good deal of the gaiety and animation
of his pieces. Serenades and ballets, minuets and
sarabands, songs and chacones, the divertissements
of the seigneurs of Versailles and of the picturesque
beggars of the cité—it was Lulli who arranged them
all. This sprightly Italian wanted the stage to be
like the river Arno, redolent of flowers and melody.
He put life into every one, even into the King.
The Liar of Pierre Corneille is not a more impro-
bable character than this "wicked little Italian,
sprung heaven knows whence, and found one day
in the kitchen of la grande demoiselle-this little
imp of an Italian, brazen-faced, ridiculing every-
thing and every one, as sharp as a cat, who invented
the music of the grand century,' as Racine
invented its tragedy." This parallel is Jules
Janin's.
The grande demoiselle gave her scullion to
Louis XIV., telling him that it was a royal gift.
"His is angels' music." Lulli continued his little
game at the Court, and gave himself such airs that
Molière himself looked upon him as a patron;
hence for some time he was the friend of the great
Molière, the one asking for comic songs or mad-
rigals, the other lending his violins for the inter-
mèdes played at the Court. Molière took his lively
230
BEHIND THE SCENES
episodes wherever he found them--as such he made
a great deal of Lulli, whom he considered a
windfall.
In those days people were amused by any and
every thing, because the French character had as
yet not lost its Gallic wit. At the play there was
laughter not only in front but also behind the
curtain, because the actor's business was not con-
sidered a mission. The grand seigneurs who
encumbered the stage did not come there to be
bored; and when the curtain was down they
strolled behind the wings to continue the gallant
comedies, interrupted by the bustle and stir of the
stage carpenters.
Dumas and I had an idea that this comedy,
taking the spectator behind the scenes in Molière's
time, was worth doing, seeing that it had never
been done. Would it not be amusing, in fact, to
represent these unexpected imbroglios: young
actresses giving a last glance at their parts, nobles
venturing to give them advice; the more mature
ladies defending themselves against their too-
pressing admirers by that charming "fan-play";
low comedians hastily swallowing a cup of wine in
a corner, to heighten their "go"; lovers quar-
relling; candle-snuffers cutting in with their jokes;
in short, the complete picture of this feverish
existence of the actor when "on his own ground"
as it were?
Dumas, who only asked five days to write a
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
231
comedy in as many acts, said that he would do the
Entr'actes de la Comédie de Molière in one night,
provided I was there with Meurice and Verteuil.
After all, one pretext for a party was as good as
another. We began the festivities at eight o'clock
in the evening. Supper was to be at midnight.
Dumas had invited some women, but the women
did not come. The supper was none the less jolly
for that—the champagne revived our spirits. The
moment we sat down we vied with one another in
inventing a scene or an epigram. Verteuil had
his inkstand by the side of his champagne glass:
he frequently dipped his pen in the wine, though
he never made the mistake of lifting the inkstand
to his lips. Dumas wound himself up with his
own sallies, and we were obliged to remind him
that it would not do to make the comedy of the
entr'actes longer than the comedy itself.
The choice had fallen upon L'Amour Médecin.
At daybreak Dumas' piece was enframed in
Molière's. We had not a moment's doubt of its
success, but we reckoned without the public, who
did not understand a word of it. We ought to
have told them to laugh, and not to be stupid,
because it was something belonging to Molière.
The title deceived the spectators; we ought to
have called the piece The Wings of the Theatre
of Molière, because, with the public, the word
entr'acte means to go and take a stroll outside the
theatre. In fact, when the curtain fell upon the
332
BEHIND THE SCENES
first act, everybody got up to go, saying, "Not
bad, this comedy of Dumas', he has imitated
Molière." Seeing, however, that there were some
knowing ones among the spectators, the audience
understood at last that they had seen an act of
Molière, not of Dumas. When the three knocks
were given for the first act of Dumas' comedy,
everybody, except the knowing ones, fancied that
it was the continuation of Molière's piece. In
short, the theatre had become a Tower of Babel.
People asked each other, "Is this Molière ? Is
this Dumas?" It wanted a master of the cere-
monies to tell them that the actors were about to
represent such and such a thing, as used to be done
in the early days of the drama.
Dumas, who was in my box, shook with laughter
at his first act; but I did not laugh at all, because
I foresaw the wreck. And such a wreck. Never
since the stage was a stage was so much wit flung
to the stupidity of the public-that abyss deep as
night. It was impossible to bring a single ray of
light to bear upon it. The President sent for me,
he understood no more than the others; it only
wanted a few words, though, to prevent him from
mixing Molière with Dumas. After this there
were, perhaps, a hundred spectators who were
amused, because they understood, such as, for
instance, the actors and critics; but a great
many playwrights openly said that of all pro-
fanations it was the most profane-to dare to
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
233
meddle with Molière, even for the sake of having
him applauded.
The strangest thing of all this was, that at the
second act of L'Amour Médecin, which this time
was given with all its comic interludes, they deli-
berately hissed Molière himself, as if it were the
first performance of his comedy. True, they
thought they were hissing Dumas. And they took
their fill accordingly, up till midnight, because the
actors disputed the ground inch by inch. Never
did actors weather the storm more pluckily.
Next morning the entire clan of journalists
clamoured for my head on the pretext that I had
caused the hissing of M. de Molière. The Minister,
who was among the pick of the spectators, i.e.
among those who did not confound Molière with
Dumas, had the courage to protest against the
cabal, telling me to continue the performance of
Les Entr'actes de la Comédie de Molière. This
became impossible very soon; my enemies, the
enemies of Dumas, the enemies of Molière himself,
perhaps, taking the opportunity of creating dis-
turbances at the theatre. That is how one can
never control human stupidity.
A few days after, one of those wriggling friends,
who delight in throwing stones into the garden of
friendship, met Dumas, and said to him, "Well,
it appears they have hissed you?" "Hissed
me!" exclaimed Dumas; "not at all, they have
hissed Molière.'
99
234
BEHIND THE SCENES
CHAPTER XII.
IMMEDIATELY after the fall of Les Entr'actes de la
Comédie de Molière, Mme. Arsène Houssaye
wanted to cheer Alexander Dumas' disappointment
with a dinner worthy of him. Only last year Emile
de Girardin gave me the following note from my
wife which he had found in his collection of auto-
graphs :
"DEAR SIR,
"A few friends are coming on Wednesday to con-
sole me for the annoyance of our brave Alexander
Dumas, whom I sincerely like. He has shown so
much sympathy to, and wasted so much wit upon,
the theatre, the windows of which my husband has
scaled, without, however, becoming master of the
place. Mdlle. Rachel will be of the party, and,
thanks to Mme. Stoltz, we shall have some music.
There will be a bit of supper and a great deal of
witty talk, especially if Mme. de Girardin will
accompany you. The question is, will she con-
descend to come up so high?"
The supper was very gay. It took place on the
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
235
eve of the revival of Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle
by Mdlle. Rachel. Rachel was often reproached
with being always a Grecian or Roman, but as
Mdlle. de Belle-Isle she was neither Grecian nor
Roman-she was the impersonation of French grace,
of French demeanour, of French passion. It was
because beneath the tragédienne there was a woman,
and because this woman was too highly gifted not
to be able to identify herself with every personage
created by the dramatist; hence it is no wonder that
at the termination of the performance Alexander
Dumas took Rachel into his arms, and uplifting her
gently said to her: "You are the woman of all
ages, the woman capable of any and every success.
You might play all my heroines in comedy as well
as in the drama."
"Not all," replied Rachel, smiling, "because I
do not want to be killed by Antony."
"Oh! Antony would not kill you."
"You incarnation of pride," said Rachel; "you
are Antony, and you do not think that I would
resist Antony?"
"No," said Dumas, "if we were still in 1831,
but those splendid days are gone never to return."
The revival was a great success, but my enemies
did not lay down their arms. As we were still in
the thick of the literary battle I think it will be
interesting to reproduce here the opinion of a
master in criticism as well as in poetry, namely,
Théophile Gautier. This is what he wrote: "Under
236
BEHIND THE SCENES
the direction of M. Arsène Houssaye the Théâtre
Français has shaken off its lethargy. New blood
has been infused into the impoverished veins of old
Æson; the body which seemed fit only to be mum-
mified has gathered itself up and walks. It is not
merely rouge that imparts colour to his cheeks, it
is the purple stream of life. His eyes flash and
sparkle, and to accomplish this miracle the mori-
bund had only to be supplied with healthy and
plentiful literary food. What else in fact could be-
come of a poor theatre under the régime imposed
upon it? What stomach could have digested so
many comedies in jingling verse? They would
have killed stronger constitutions.
"We may congratulate M. Arsène Houssaye for
not having fallen into the error into which literary
men fall when they happen to be called to assume
functions more or less connected with literature.
They pride themselves as it were in being polite,
practical, and capable administrators; they en-
deavour above all not to be led away by wit and
cleverness, because such qualities are supposed to
do harm in business.
"According to M. Arsène Houssaye the Théâtre
Français should be a theatre cf art and poesy. It
is not to be the refuge for adroit and methodical
mediocrities who perhaps avoid flagrant errors, but
who never hit upon the beautiful. A brilliant
failure is better than those colourless successes
d'estime.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
237
"Those ideas, which men of experience would
think somewhat risky, are borne out by figures—
witnesses which assuredly cannot be accused of
poesy or enthusiasm. M. Arsène Houssaye has
already made good his promise to double the
receipts, and still he has pushed to the verge of
cruelty the courage of his literary opinions, for
which we highly commend him.
"As a poet-and consequently as a muddler-he
has been quite satisfied to represent Corneille,
Molière, La Fontaine, Racine, Marivaux, Hugo,
Dumas, Alfred de Musset, Mme. Emile de Girardin,
Augier, and Scribe, the latter of whom would be a
master if he had style, and whom no school, not-
withstanding, should proscribe. M. Houssaye has
already earned much money for the theatre, but
utterly in despite of wise doctrines; hence the
Comedians are drawing up a protest against the
management of M. Arsène Houssaye, like the
apothecary in Monsieur de Pourceaugnax, who
prefers being killed according to established prac-
tice to being cured in an irregular manner."
There were really only two great critics in those
days: Jules Janin and Théophile Gautier. Un-
fortunately the former had gone over to the side
of the burgraves. He said to me, "While the
battle lasts I have no friends." Janin then was a
foe to be feared; he not only spoke loud but from
on high; his door was always open; my adversaries
went to him to renew their energy. He thought
238
BEHIND THE SCENES
me too young to direct the house of Molière; he
wanted at least an Academician-a grey-headed
man instead of a fair-bearded one. The National
Assembly was omnipotent, they were looking for
another director: Mazères or Empis-Empis or
Mazères. I felt almost tempted to send them a
spade to dig up a corpse.
Gautier fought for me in Girardin's paper. I was
also very valiantly backed up in Victor Hugo's paper
by Charles Hugo and Auguste Vacquerie, in the
Constitutionnel by Lireux, but that was all. Rolle
was fighting with the standard of Janin, and was
accompanied by a few patriarchs who had sworn
my downfall.
I stood this warfare well enough, but on leaving
the theatre at night I often expected not to return
to it in the morning. Nothing was spoken of but
my successor. Every one was named in turns as
such. The Minister was well inclined towards me,
but Charles Blanc, the director of the Art depart-
ment, was my enemy, as he always has and had
been. Owing to his brother and to the latter's
political relations he had a great deal of influence
in the Assembly, if not with the Minister himself.
The nomination of Nieuwerkerque and mine grieved
him very much; he himself prepared the comedy
of his fall, for here on earth everything turns to
comedy.
One evening I had stayed late gossiping with
Alfred de Musset, when the individual whom people
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
239
knew by the name of Lassabathie came to tell me
officially that my successor had been appointed.
"I should like to see them at it," shouted Alfred
de Musset, switching his cane.
Very well," said Lassabathie, "you will see
them at it, and not later than to-morrow morning."
The fellow was delighted, because it appeared that
I did not treat him with the honours due to his
rank of quasi-something at the department of
Arts.
He added that the nomination would be in the
Journal Officiel next morning. Consequently I
should have the honour of introducing the ladies
and gentlemen of the Comédie.
"I believe you," exclaimed Alfred de Musset,
"we'll introduce the attendants and the dressers
also. What is this mortal's name ? ”
"It is still a secret; nevertheless, gentlemen, I
may tell you that it is M. de Guizard.”
"Who's Guizard when he's at home?"
Lassabathie replied that M. de Guizard was a
friend of M. de Rémusat.
"I see," said I, "M. de Rémusat remembers that
his father was more or less superintendent of
theatres; it is he who will govern the Comédie
under the name of M. de Guizard."
The ambassador from the Arts made his bow and
went away, delighted at having been the bearer of
a piece of bad news.
"It is strange," observed de Musset, "that the
240
BEHIND THL SCENES
destiny of nations and of theatres should assume
figures like that one to announce its decrees."
Whilst laughing at Lassabathie's figure I felt far
from pleased, because they showed me the door
before I had had time to show what I could do, but
in times of revolution one should not be surprised at
anything. I was considering what I had better
do. Arrange my papers? I had none. Why, in
fact, had I ventured in so frail a cockleshell in such
stormy waters ?
The same idea must have struck Alfred de Musset,
for he said to me: "I am very sorry, but you need
not mind it much; a literary man is never lost.
You'll write the Comedy of the Director. If I
had any influence I would take the field for you.
Let Hugo, Dumas, De Vigny, sign a protest, I'll
sign it twice. I am going over to the Café de la
Régence, where I'll remain for an hour in case I
am wanted."
Just then Brindeau came in.
"My dear fellow," he said to de Musset, "the
more I study Clavaroche the less can I make up
my mind not to play the part."
"I understand," said de Musset, standing by the
door, "
you do not care to play the husband de-
ceived. But we have something else to think of
at this moment than the acting of comedy. Let
me tell you, friend, that it is all over with comedy.
It drew its last breath to-night. To-morrow M. de
Guizard will preside at the obsequies of the dear
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
241
departed. The place of meeting is at the residence
of the defunct."
"What's the meaning of all this balderdash ?"
"Monsieur Brindeau, my name is Monsieur
Alfred de Musset." Saying which he made a real
exit.
As a matter of course, Brindeau, who at the
time of my appointment had come into my room to
fling me out of the window, began to rave and to
storm that he would fling M. de Guizard out of the
self-same window.
But I had better give you the last word of the
comedy. M. de Guizard was no more than myself
the man of Louis Blanc, who wanted Etienne
Arago. Consequently he made a great deal of
Republican fuss to countersign the appointment of
the friend of M. de Rémusat. Besides, he had not
altogether prevailed upon the Minister to sa ifice
me. The latter, who had become my friend, also
knew that I had many friends at the Elysée, among
others the President himself, but he hoped to per-
suade the President by speaking to him about the
support of the rest of the Orleanists. He was to
sign the decree at ten o'clock at night. M. de
Rémusat and M. de Guizard were in his room.
"After all," said M. de Rémusat suddenly,
when he heard of the objections raised by Charles
Blanc to his protégé. "After all, why should not
we make M. de Guizard a Director of Arts instead
of Director of the Comédie Française?"
R
242
BEHIND THE SCENES
“It would suit me a great deal better," said M.
de Guizard, who was afraid of the actors—and
above all of the actresses.
Statesmen are always pleased to postpone every-
thing till the morrow; the Minister caught quickly
at the pretext to adjourn the meeting by promising
the head of Charles Blanc in a few days, which
was very clever, because by this promise he bar-
tered if not all the Orleanists, at any rate the best.
In addition to this he kept me at the Comédie and
caused no uneasiness to my friends at the Elysée.
And that is how Lassabathie, bird of ill-omen,
found himself next morning "with a flea in his
ear."
Nevertheless the story proves that my
sceptre merely consisted of a twig, swayed by
every wind.
[Written after the representation of Victor Hugo's Angelo,
Tyrant of Padua, June, 1850.]
"Such intellects as have never scaled the topmost
heights of poesy deny the truth of Victor Hugo's dra-
matic characters. What is true? Are we to come
down to the villagers of David Teniers? I frankly
confess to sharing the opinion in that respect of Louis
XIV. when he said, 'Remove these apes from
my sight.' Is Rubens less true when he paints
Mars and Venus, Jesus and Mary Magdalen? He
has never beheld them, but what is that to me as long
as they are living, and raise my soul to the splen-
dour of the beautiful, all which is after all the splen-
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
243
If
dour of the true? There will always be two schools —
that of the earth earthy; that which knocks its head
against the clouds. I could not help, therefore,
pitying a few spectators this evening who denied
the truth of Catarina and Tisbé, those two admir-
able figures, into which the poet has breathed life.
you wish the poet to be merely a photographer,
you do away with poetry
poetry and
you suppress the soul.
And if a man be nothing but a reflex how shall he
portray passion? The invisible, the joys and
anguish of the heart, the lofty sentiments on which
God himself has imprinted his seal, could one photo-
graph them? Verily I pity this struggle of the
blind against the far-seeing, of the myope who sees
no farther than his nose against the presbyopia who
sees from afar.
"Does not the genius of Victor Hugo consist in
seeing across the centuries as well as seeing into
the soul? That is why he has created those two
delightful figures, Tisbé and Catarina. He had no
need to go to Padua to reveal to us the manners,
customs, and thoughts of the Paduans. The
woman and the courtesan of the sixteenth century
have sat to him by the mere strength of his own
will, but it is in Padua itself that he has seen them,
in the palace of their tyrant, enwrapt in the atmo-
sphere of their love. Do not imagine that the poet
has in this merely followed his fantasy. Behind
every poet there is an historian. The dream springs
from truth as the legend is born of history. Victor
R 2
244
BEHIND THE SCENES
Hugo began by studying all the Italian chronicles
of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in order to
behold once more in their habit as they lived
'the personage' of his drama. Nor is this all.
Deep down the poet there is an artist as well
as an historian; after having pierced the core
of the archives he has laid bare the soul of the
portraits of the time while studying their ex-
pression and their dress. Painting is a page of
history which never misleads.
"Hence it was Victor Hugo himself who designed
the dresses of Mdlle. Rachel as Tisbé. Mdlle.
Mars had caused him much anxiety with her fan of
Celimène-he felt not the least doubt about Rachel's
greater breadth of conception of this great part. He
told her before me: I am certain of your out-
vying all Mdlle. Mars' charm by your poetic feel-
ing, which will not prevent you from being charm-
ing for all that: but your goddess-like air will
invest this proud courtesan whom they call Tisbé
with more grandeur. And pray remember that it
is not only Tisbé you are representing, but the dis-
dainful victress of the Middle Ages, who sees
nothing inco gruous in seating herself on a throne.
Her father may have been a prince or a robber-
chief, she in turns loves a king or a mercenary;
when she is not in love she amuses herself by
wallowing elbow-deep in gold, for she is insatiable
in everything. She fears nothing-neither God,
nor the people even. Go, you great Rachel, and give
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
245
a portrait, not of a courtesan, but of the courtesan,
with the colour, the proud touch, the superhuman
brilliancy of a Titian, a Veronese, about it.'
"Thus spoke Victor Hugo. And Mdlle. Rachel,
carried away by his lofty genius, gave a marvellous
portrait of the courtesan of the Middle Ages, pal-
pitating with passion and beauty. Those who
have looked for the signature found it inscribed
with the word 'Genius.'”
*
I happen to have found the copy of a letter
to the Minister, also written on the same evening
of the revival of Angelo.
"Mdlle. Rachel has at last
window on the modern world.
thrown open her
She is no more
It is
afraid of wielding the fan than the dagger.
because she is capable of giving the whole gamut
of feeling. She wished to show that Phèdre was
not entirely absorbed in tracking her prey, seeing
that she displayed some of the feline graces of
Celimène. She passes from Corneille's verse to
Victor Hugo's prose with the same splendour of
grasp. Knowing how to drape the majestic folds
of the pallium so as to invest the Roman heroines
with tragic grandeur, she also knows how to don
with charming grace the gold-brocaded robe of
Tisbé the courtesan. It is because she has not
only studied the statuary of the ancients, but
because she has spent much time before the por-
246
BEHIND THE SCENES
traits of Titian. The day before yesterday she was
in Rome; to-day she is in Venice; to-morrow she
will be in Paris.
"Hence, Mdlle. Rachel has acted the part of Tisbé
marvellously. The 'hypercritics' of the orchestra
stalls wanted to refer to the studied diction and
the somewhat finnikin grace of Mdlle. Mars. But
the moment Rachel appeared, the phantom of Mdlle.
Mars was dispelled. The one killed the other.
Mdlle. Mars was a comedy-actress rather than a
woman. Mdlle. Rachel has shown herself to be a
woman much more than a comedy-actress. M.
Victor Hugo has admitted that this admirable crea-
tion of a Tisbé, palpitating with life, captivating in
her graceful, terrible in her tragic, moments, was
new to him. Mdlle. Rachel has enacted the part
in the grandiose spirit of the Venetians of the
Middle Ages, she has majestically carried off the
prose of Victor Hugo in terms clinging to her like
a gown of linen that scarcely hid the pulsations
of her heart, and again like a robe of purple and
gold that enhanced the sculptural grandeur of her
attitudes.
(6
Angelo has proved lucky to every one concerned:
to Mdlle. Rachel's sister, who has also found the
right way to people's hearts by the natural cry of
feeling through her passion; to Maillard, who be-
came 'metamorphosed' with the overmastering
love of the Italian; to Beauvallet, who has resumed
his original part with all the power and emotion of
'
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
247
a first creation. Beauvallet is a painter, hence he
symbolised by his acting as well as by his dresses
the terrible and splendid Venice in its most glorious
period."
The following letter which Rachel wrote to me a
month later shows that her successful creation in
Angelo was confirmed in England:—
"MY DEAR DIRECTOR,
"It is a downright victory along the whole line
-for Victor Hugo, for Rebecca, and also for little
Rachel, whom you call the great Rachel, but why
I cannot tell.
"What a mistake of yours to have refused the
hospitality of my charming little house, where
nothing is wanting but the presence of a friend.
But you are such a fantastical friend. You have
no idea how the cold London public have been
carried away by the magnificent scenes of Angelo,
of their calls, which would make the spectators of
the grave Comédie Française stare, of the flowers
on the stage and in my dressing-room, likewise in
that of Mme. Prévost. Rebecca has had her share.
And when talking of victory and ovation.I am
only thinking of her. You may believe as much as
you like of this.
"The English journalists have lauded us to the
skies. Let us take care not to tumble down, though
we might find loving arms to hold us up. We have
even our own poets, whose effusions I get translated
248
BEHIND THE SCENES
by people knowing neither French nor English.
Luckily I have also French verses sent to me by
one of our young friends who was impelled hither
by his worship of Victor Hugo and William Shake-
speare.
"He says that the two are more or less the
same man, just as one would say that Adrienne
Lecouvreur and I are but one woman.
"I enclose you these verses of M. Philoxène
Boyer, which I do not prohibit you from publishing
in the Paris paper, to the glory of the author. I
fancy I see you smile at this.
out both cheeks to be kissed.
Thereupon I hold
"RACHEL."
During the absence of the great tragic-actress,
who was quickly becoming a great comedy-actress
also, we played Le Chandelier.
*
(August, 1850.)
One may safely say that Le Chandelier of Alfred
de Musset became a finished picture at the Comédie
Française, where everybody acted it to perfection.
Never were comedy personages played with more
character and emphasis. M. Alfred de Musset,
always carried away by his ideal, was delighted
with Allan, with Samson, and Brindeau, but above
all with Delaunay, the ideal Fortunio indeed. It
is a genuine triumph, for if Mme. Allan represents
Jacqueline in the most natural way, if Samson
invests Master André with the figure of old comedy,
if Brindeau plays Clavaroche with the Joannesque
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
249
dash-and-go of a cavalry officer " upon conquest
bent," Delaunay acts Fortunio with all the natural
ardour, youth, and poetry of passion.
What nowadays would La Bruyère have to say
if confronted by all those descendants of Tartuffe,
who smugly cross themselves in the orchestra stalls,
and who whimper in the papers at the gaiety
prevalent at the Comédie Française ? And all this
because the Théâtre Français gave yesterday Le
Chandelier, will give to-day the Mariage de Figaro,
will play to-morrow the Aventurière. As a matter
of course we behold Alfred de Musset, Beaumar-
chais, and Emile Augier, the three "fascinators" of
the modern theatre, consigned to the nether regions.
The Omphre family was, therefore, highly scan-
dalised because the house of Orgon (Tartuffe), of
Georges Daudin, and the Cocu Imaginaire
compromised itself with men like Emile Augier,
Beaumarchais, and Alfred de Musset. Nor is this
all. The censorship is getting alarmed, and wants
to cut out an act of Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle : as
a matter of course the prettiest, most human, and
comic one. Alexander Dumas, like the others,
will proceed to the entrance to Notre Dame, and
do penance there; after Alexander Dumas it will
be the turn of Victor Hugo. I will no longer dare
to play Marion Delorme. All the masterpieces
will be burned on the Place de Grève, and Molière
himself will be proscribed at last from the house of
Molière. We shall have nothing left but the pieces
250
BEHIND THE SCENES
of that good Andrieux; Adrienne Lecouvreur and
Phèdre will be interdicted, because the one as well
as the other is entirely swayed by her love-passion,
It is no doubt on account of this that Casimir Bon-
jour is taking to writing plays again. Pending that
hecatomb, the theatre is assuming its most festive
looks; the house is full every night; the public are
delighted with the actors, who never acted better in
their lives; but Jules Janin said yesterday that it
was nothing but the Song of the Swan. The Minis-
ter has commanded me to-day not to play Le
Chandelier again. I intended to take no notice, but
the following official document was brought to me
by messenger:
"I notice, M. de Directeur, in the programme
you have just sent me, the announcement for
Friday next of a piece which I recommend you to
strike out of the repertory.
"I beg to remind you of this recommendation,
and must request you to comply with it.
"MONSIEUR LE MINISTRE,
"BAROCHE."
"I should be exceedingly sorry, in order to obey
you, to cause so great a grief to Alfred de Musset.
I am, moreover, certain of his wish to revive his
repertory at the very moment when I have pre-
vailed upon him to write a new comedy.
"Alfred de Musset, like Victor Hugo, like Alfred
de Vigny, like Alexander Dumas, like Emile Augier,
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
251
has the faculty of infusing youth into the theatrical
movement. The new generations have accepted
these new masters of the drama: the old school may
say what it likes about forms to be observed—they
will never be aught but the forms of boredom. We
ought not to be afraid of the free and easy airs of
comedy-Molière is there as a sovereign precedent.
Hence I am fully aware that in telling me to
play Le Chandelier no longer you are influenced
less by your own opinions than by the timid ones
afraid of scandal. There is never a scandal where
the real comic genius is at work, because the bold
epigram is saved by art, the situation by the live-
liness of it,
"Therefore, let me beg of you to come and see
Le Chandelier once more, not as a Minister who
deems himself responsible for the shafts aimed at
public opinion, but as a man of the world who
comes to the theatre without any other preoccupȧ-
tion than to see a pretty comedy, and who would
not hurt a great poet."
The Minister came; during the third act I took
Alfred de Musset to his box and introduced him-it
was tantamount to taking him by surprise. The
cause was already half won, the poet completed the
victory because it was Alfred de Musset. That is
why we went on playing Le Chandelier.
*
*
*
On the 11th of May, 1850, Balzac wrote from
Dresden to Doctor Véron (the late director of the
252
BEHIND THE SCENES
Opera, and the actual proprietor of The Constitu-
tionnel), as follows:-
"I am suffering from a nervous complaint which
affects my eyes and my heart. I am in a most
pitiful state for a newly-married man."
The reader expects him to continue in the same
strain-quite the contrary.
"You can form no idea of the lovely things one
sees here. I have already spent from between
twenty-five and thirty thousand francs on a toilet-
service, a thousand times handsomer than that
of the Duchess of Parma. The goldsmiths of the
Middle Ages are very much superior to those of our
own century. I have, furthermore, discovered
some magnificent pictures. If I remain here for
another week I will not have a farthing left
either of my own or my wife's fortune, for she has
bought a pearl necklace fit to tempt a saint."
The reader will be able to judge from this letter
that Balzac, so close an observer when pen in hand,
was absolutely in cloudland when travelling. His
common sense only came to him when face to face
with his work. In the battle of life he was never
anything but a child. His art of communicating
his own intoxication to others was so great that it
took one all one's time not to be led away by his
wills-o'-the-wisp. It is no exaggeration to say that
he was created the very reverse of the poet. Victor
Hugo is a most sensible man when he descends
from Parnassus. Balzac was never in the full pos-
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
253
session of his senses except when writing a book.
At his return from Dresden he wrote to me in a
shaky or rather fidgety hand :-
"MY DEAR DIRECTOR,
"I have just come back from Russia.
Come and
see me one of these days to have a talk about my
plays. I have got an idea that the Comédie Fran-
çaise should be the crowning' of my Comédie
Humaine. My travels have literally cut my feet
from under me. I cannot come to you.
"BALZAC."
I had not much confidence in the dramatic art of
Balzac, with its absolutism that would yield nothing
to the conventionalities of the stage; but I liked the
genius of the great novelist, who gave life to a
whole world, too well not to wait upon him at his
arrival. I did not find him at home.
He called upon me at the Théâtre Français, and
I perceived that death had been a wedding guest
as it were. His paleness struck me as ominous.
He had remained seated in his carriage, for he
could no longer get up-stairs without being almost
suffocated. I had written to him in the autumn
of 1849 to ask him for a comedy or a drama; he
came to offer me what he called his "theatre."
While admitting it to bear the mark of superior
intellect I wanted him to signalise his advent at
the Comédie Française with a new work, after which
I would revive Mercadet (A Game of Speculation).
254
BEHIND THE SCENES
He told me that he conceived comedy especially in
the form of the novel. According to him the play-
wright could only reveal himself in fragments, while
in the novel the novelist presented a complete whole.
“And he never fails to be adequately rendered,
for the reader has the whole of the scenes before
him," he exclaimed. "In the novel the idea of the
author comes to him at first hand, while the comedy
is after all nothing but a translation thereof. What is
worse, there have never been any good translators; it
is better to have to deal with God himself than with
his saints. Even Mdlle. Rachel does not represent
to me the tragic heroines as I behold them in my
own mind."
I pleaded the cause of the stage. "The most
valid of all reasons," I said to Balzac, "is that
there remains nothing for you to do to be the first
of our novelists, while if
you choose
you might be-
come the first of our dramatic authors."
"What does that matter to me? My life is made
bitter to me; my contemporaries have failed to
understand me; look, for instance, at the Académie.
I have done it the honour to solicit its suffrages, it
has given me two votes. Look at the journalists,
how they have slandered me. I am not speaking
of the professional critics."
I felt deeply grieved to see both this body—
so robust but a little while since-struck down by
disease and this fiery soul stricken down by in-
justice. To him, the curtain had already fallen
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
255
upon the Human Comedy; he was already con-
templating the peaceful regions of a future world;
he had already lost his footing on earth. I took
him back as far as his carriage, and promised to go
and see him to talk with him about his future
"theatre." We had been reviewing the principal
characters of his novels, while seeking from among
the remains of the Comédie Française the actors
possibly capable of representing those living per-
sonages of a deathless life. At that moment we
beheld Alfred de Musset coming towards us. They
scarcely knew one another, those two marvellous
men who only partly understood each other. Their
greeting was cordial, but that was all. De Musset
went on, saying that he was going to wait for me
in my room.
"Just look what a secondary thing after all is
the theatre," said Balzac. "What is really good
in de Musset's work, La Coupe et les Lèvres,
you do not play it; and what is downright bad,
Le Caprice, you play it every day."
"We have to teach the public. I have already
played Le Chandelier. I'll play the whole of
Musset, as I'll play the whole of Balzac, as I'll
play the whole of Hugo. Heaven be praised, I
did not come to the Théâtre Français to continue
the old game. M. Colin d'Harleville has passed
muster too long as the representative of French
wit and intellect; the French character has been
dulled and bloodless long enough."
256
BEHIND THE SCENES
Balzac called again, and seeing that his heart
disease made him afraid of going up-stairs, I was
asked to come to his carriage.
He wanted the
at the house of
whole of his plays to be given
Molière. His wife was with him. I had scarcely
been introduced before she monopolised the con-
versation to explain to me the dramatic genius of
the novelist. Frightened by the deathlike pallor
of Balzac, I promised any and every thing. To
please her I should have played nothing but Molière
and Balzac. A few days afterwards I went to see
him at his house, which gave him the opportunity
of showing me his curios and pictures.
had marked him out as its victim. He fancied he
had got hold of some of the marvels of the Louvre,
just as he already beheld himself the Molière of the
nineteenth century.
Illusion
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
257
CHAPTER XIII.
'MADEMOISELLE MADELEINE BROHAN, who carried off
the first prize of comedy at the Conservatoire-one
might say the first prize of wit, art, and beauty-
will make her first appearance at the Théâtre Fran-
çais in the beginning of October."
It was in the above terms that L'Artiste of
August, 1850, presented to the cultured and artistic
public Malle. Madeleine Brohan, the daughter of
Suzanne, the sister of Augustine.
Jules Janin, who himself was the editor of
L'Artiste, took up his Diderotesque pen to an-
nounce the début of the very young and very
handsome Madeleine Brohan.
"I
may tell
you that the theatre will have no-
thing new before the tenth of that month. But on
that day Madeleine Brohan, the sister of Augustine,
the daughter of Suzanne, will appear."
Paul de Saint-Victor, more of a colourist than
Jules Janin, portrayed on the morrow of her first
appearance this lovely Madeleine Brohan with a
brilliant touch: "She is barely seventeen, but her
beauty, impatient as it were to blossom forth, has
S
258
BEHIND THE SCENES
already burst asunder those vague undulations of
girlhood which are to the body as the indistinct
outlines of the scarcely-begun statue already quiver-
ing in the block of marble. Nevertheless the ma-
jestic elegance of her walk, the turn of the proud
and graceful head, the haughty coquetry of her
movements, stamp her at once as of those sculp-
tural figures challenging as it were the scrutiny of
the masses, created for the ideal perspective of the
theatre, for the lofty and at the same time gentle
attitudes of love and passion. She belongs to those
whose mere appearance is sufficient to convulse a
house with enthusiasm, and to set all hands franti-
cally applauding. What is more rare and delightful,
this lovely face of marble becomes mobile at the
merest prompting of a whim, and the ever-shifting
flashes of her physiognomy have full play on the
perfect oval of her features, the serene glance of
her dark eyes evaporates with the last word of the
coruscating sally, the sprightly melody of anima-
tion unites in her voice with the vibrating accents
of emotion; her lips are capable of any and every
smile; the one that pouts them in irony and finesse
as well as that which only settles on them for a
moment like a tiny cornflower composed of sun-
shine and gaiety. Elmire, Araminte, Isabelle, the
Countess d'Almaviva, may serve themselves in turns
of this expressive and gentle head as they would of
a mask borrowed from the Muses. She will be
as much at home in the palatial mansion of the
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
259
Misanthrope as in the pompadour boudoir of the
comedies of Marivaux. Her hand will as effect-
ually whisk the fan of Celimène-which after all
is the greatest test of dramatic coquetry-as toy
with the golden locks of Cherubin, lying at her
feet."
I wanted Madeleine Brohan to inaugurate her
career as a sovereign by entering through the
drawing-room of Celimène. She had already
played the part which Molière created for his wife,
or-to speak by the card-which Armande Béjart
had created for herself by inspiring Molière, and
by enacting it with a delightful cruelty all her
own. But it was not to be. M. Scribe, who in
those days was to be met with in every theatrical
avenue, proposed to write the part of another
queen for the débutante. He mentioned the Contes
de la Reine de Navarre. He, as it were, used the
actress as a screen. "It will be," he said, "a
simple frame for this admirable portrait." No man
could be more amiable, more ingenuous, more in-
sinuating. Before one could say "Jack Robinson"
the comedy was written in which M. Legouvé very
fitly collaborated.
Madeleine Brohan appeared at the hour when
actresses should appear-in the full splendour of her
seventeen summers. Beautiful as a marble statue,
she was after all but a statue of flesh ripening into
greater beauty at every melody of youth and in-
telligence. If there was a great deal of the nymph
S 2
260
BEHIND THE SCENES
of antiquity about her, there was also much of the
contemporary Parisian girl. If every now and
then she smiled like a goddess, she could also smile
like the precocious damsel of Marivaux's plays,
who knows everything without having learnt any-
thing. Difficult indeed would it be to count the
flashes of those magnificent dark eyes, the ironic
sallies that fell from those cherry lips. We say
nothing of the charming attitudes she could fall
into, of the proud gracefulness of her carriage. A
sculptor on seeing her might have chosen her as
the model for this admirable figure of our modern
muse, The Unconscious Coquette.
People can form no idea of the success of this
first evening. The critics nearly fell into one
another's arms. Jules Janin embraced three times
the three Brohans. "Neither applause, nor recalls,
nor praise, nor horoscopes of glory and of a splendid
future, have been wanting at the dramatic christen-
ing of the beautiful child born with a smile on its
lips, to Molière and to the Muse, amidst flowers and
ovations, under the dazzling light of a fraternal
star. For the spectacle of this delightful evening
was not altogether on the stage; we came upon one
of its most charming scenes in the dressing-room of
Mdlle. Augustine Brohan, where Mme. Suzanne
Brohan sat crying. It was worth while to watch
the passionate concern, the undisguised ardour, with
which her eye, nay, her very movements, followed
the young débutante, applauding every now and
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
261
then-though not entirely reassured until at last-
certain and delighted, and drinking in as it were the
sounds of this voice of seventeen which brought
back to her in a sympathetic echo the sound of her
own sprightly wit and the melodious ripple of her
laughter."
And the critic calls to mind the young Athenian
girl of the poet, who, leaning over the stern of her
galley, smothered with flowers, greets her shadow
dancing on the waves, and smiles at this living
reflex of her youth and beauty betwixt the double
azure of the limpid sea and the resplendent sky.
And, whilst applauding Mdlle. Madeleine Brohan,
the public forgot neither Mdlle. Fix nor Mdlle.
Favart-two episodical parts; nor Samson—a frigid
Charles V., very ironically conceived and executed ;
nor Geffroy, as Francis I., love-sick and chivalrous;
nor Regnier, very fantastic as the Prime Minister
nor Got, as a mendacious Cabinet messenger; nor
Delaunay, who played Henri d'Albert in the true
poetical spirit of the sixteenth century.
The piece was perhaps a little less applauded than
the actors, which was unjust, seeing that it amused
everybody. But when one takes one's dram of
history from a very tiny tumbler, one is apt to
alarm the critics, who forget that there is no
question of deciphering State records. No one
better than Saint-Victor has summed up public
opinion of those days on historical pieces :-
"Do you remember that mysterious sweetmeat-
262
BEHIND THE SCENES
box which one of Perrault's fairies gives to her
god-daughter the princess on the latter's wedding
day? The princess, burning with curiosity, opens
it before the appointed hour, and behold, from the
joints of the magic casket drop and jump in dazz-
ling and resonant drops, chamberlains, courtiers,
pages, duennas, grooms and ladies of the bed-
chamber, companies of red musketeers prancing
on pretty tiny Spanish horses, bandmasters at the
heads of their orchestras, huntsmen and their packs
sounding the 'tally-ho,' a whole royal household
in miniature, the tiniest of tiny courts, a complete
microcosm in festive garb. Well, the courts of M.
Scribe, that of Bertrand and Raton, like that of
the Verre d'Eau, like that of Les Contes de la
Reine de Navarre, could be held in that little fairy
toy; there are tiny intrigues enacted on back
staircases, tiny malicious diplomatists, weighed
down by their wigs à la Talleyrand, like Cupids
meant for the decoration of a panel perspiring
beneath the lion's skin of Hercules, petty conspi-
rators who whisper and nid-nod to each other in
small scent-laden and coquettish alcoves, tiny
catastrophes in a teacup, tiny revolutions at the
first drop of bloodshed, in short there is a whole
page of marionette history, the actors of which
dance and jump suspended from the thinnest of
threads moved by the hand of a most dexterous
conjurer full of surprises. So that when M. Scribe
takes it into his head to represent on his puny,
.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
263
C
pretty stage one of those great historical dramas,
the course or the fall of which has made the world
tremble, he reminds one of the irreverent child of
the antique bas-relief who climbs on to the foot
of the sleeping giant, and, laughing, measures the
latter's great toe with a wisp of grass. True; but
reverse your opera-glass, and notice the dash, the
movement, the intellectual sleight of hand in the
bustle and stir of this foreshortened' world; notice
the ingenious method of frittering away history in
crumbs of anecdote, of explaining great things by
small means, of weighing eagle's eggs in cobweb-
scales. It is a downright treat,' says Saint-Simon,
in speaking of a certain historian, 'to notice how he
glides over facts with his Jesuit skates.' It is a
downright treat,' we say in our turn, ' to behold M.
Scribe glide over history with the musically-
jingling skates of light comedy, and embroider
this fragile and insecure ice with fleeting arabesques
of his not-very-lofty fancy.""
6
M. de Morny, who, like a good many dilettante,
came to Mdlle. Madeleine Brohan's dressing-room,
told her that she had very cleverly disguised her
fear in the first act.
"Yes," she replied, "I fancied I was going to
tumble into an abyss of light."
"Well, it is this very emotion that has been
your success; every one felt your heart beat, every
one took, as it were, part in your acting." Then
he added, “I know some one who would very much
264
BEHIND THE SCENES
like to shake your hand: it is the President of the
Republic."
"If he will come I'll meet him half-way, though
Queen of Navarre.”
The Minister had not been present. I wrote to
him after the first performance:
"The first appearance of Mdlle. Madeleine Bro-
han has been the occasion of genuine festivity in
the house of Molière; it is the third Brohan ac-
claimed Comédienne by the will of the public. She
has beauty, a golden voice, intelligence, and charm.
Belonging to the race of actors, she is thoroughly
at home on the stage. She, the Celimène of the
future, has dared at the very outset to create the
principal part in Les Contes de la Reine de Na-
varre. She was charming yesterday, she is charm-
ing to-day, she will be more charming still to-
morrow. She has at once dared to break the
bonds of the 'school.' When she shall be a little
more of a woman-for she is only seventeen-she
will play Celimène better, but she is already fit
to play many parts. Hence her advent is a stroke
of luck to the Comédie Française, which, at Mdlle.
Rachel's return, has some brilliant morrows in store
for it.
"The enemies of the great tragic actress have
become excited, but Mdlle. Rachel has written to
me that she also would applaud the débutante.
Pending her return, which is to take place shortly,
she has sent a wreath of flowers to Mdlle. Made-
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
265
leine Brohan, so that the latter should have her
part in the harvest of flowers gathered by Mdlle.
Rachel in foreign lands. Talent is never better
appreciated than by genius."
*
*
*
*
One of the members of my company was Mdlle.
Marie Lopez, a comedy actress from Marseilles, who
had never been able to get rid of her native accent.
She played chambermaids, and made an excellent
termagant hailing from the Cannebière, but her
method was somewhat out of place in the house of
Molière.
Engaged before I assumed the directorship-on
the recommendation of a protector ad hoc, the
most austere of Ministers-her engagement was
drawing to an end, when one fine evening, before
she had time to finish her part in Les Précieuses
Ridicules, she was apprehended and flung into a
cell at the prefecture of police. "For what, ye
gods ? "exclaimed Beauvallet, lapsing into tragic
verse on the subject of this arrest. People said.
that, in company with her friend Charles Blanc, she
had been conspiring against the State.
I did not believe a word of it, though Charles
Blanc had been dismissed from his post at the
Department of Arts; consequently I bestirred myself
to have Mdlle. Lopez restored to her friend, if not
to the Comédie, for I had no intention of keeping
her, having already many more "chambermaids'
than I wanted in the house. But she was kept in
•
266
BEHIND THE SCENES
the strictest solitary confinement, no communica-
tion from the outside was allowed; which rigorous
measures almost cost Charles Blanc his life, for he
was exceedingly fond of her. At last "her inno-
cence was established." Among my papers I find
the following letter from the Prefect of Police,
Carlier
"Mdlle. Marie Lopez, dramatic artiste at the
Comédie Française, has been apprehended on sus-
picion of being mixed up in a political conspiracy;
she has been detained for twenty-two days, during
which the investigating magistrates have examined
her case. They have concluded that she is inno-
cent of the charge brought against her,' and have
issued an order of nolle prosequi.
6
"I am pleased to be able to communicate this
good news to you."
When I told them in the green-room that the
magistrates had acknowledged the "innocence of
the actress," Samson in his turn lapsed into poetry,
proclaiming Mdlle. Lopez "the rosière of the
Théâtre Français.
* For the information of those not acquainted with the accepted
meaning of the word rosière, it may be stated that the young
damsel thus designated is supposed to be the vestal virgin of the
middle and lower class section of the community, and as such is
crowned with roses and receives a dowry at the annual festival
instituted for the purpose. I advisedly say "supposed," for the
rosière has now and then become a mother immediately after her
marriage, which generally takes place very shortly after her apothe-
osis. The better-class maiden is not excluded from the competition,
but as a rule does not avail herself of the privilege.—[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
267
This particular rosière did not make headway on
the stage. But she became, through her union with
Charles Blanc, member of the two Académies. She
has inhabited the Palais-Mazarin, and lives at
present on the inheritance of Louis Blanc as well
as on that of Charles Blanc.
There is no saying what comedy may lead to
with an intelligent girl.
*
*
*
At that period there was published a small satire
against the burgraves of the orchestra stalls at the
Comédie Française.
Those old fogeys were greatly grieved at the
spirit of youth wafted from the wings into the
house; the deadwood had been cut into bundles as
it were, roses were climbing up all over the place,
the centenarian trees blossomed once more and
swung their music-murmuring branches. The fol-
lowing is a page of the satire:-
Chorus of Old Men in the Orchestra Stalls.
"Oh, sacrilege, they have driven forth our gods!
Ligier himself has gone to mingle his tears with the
waters of the Garonne; Ducis veils his face;
Mazères and Empis condole with one another."
*
First Old Man. "Are not there women who
have just made their 'entrance' ridiculous by their
very youth?"
* The first so-called adapter of Shakespeare, who in his corre-
spondence with Garrick acknowledged and bewailed his utter
ignorance of English. - [Transl.]
268
BEHIND THE SCENES
An occupant of the Stalls. "They are charming."
Second Old Man. "Charming enough to make
one hide one's face. Is it not against every prin-
ciple of the Comédie Française? If this goes on
we'll soon have duennas―duennas, monsieur-who'll
presume to have a complete and natural set of teeth
and who will drive about in their carriages."
Second occupant of the Stalls. "What matter
as long as they have talent as well as beauty?"
First Old Man. "True, they are very hand-
some, and have a good deal of talent.'
First occupant of the Stalls.
complain?"
"2
"Then why
First Old Man. "Because I come here to
admire twelve-feet verses, and not to stare at pretty
women. The pretty women prevent my listening
to the beautiful verses.'
19
First occupant of the Stalls.
bably a judge of good poetry?
""
"You are pro-
First Old Man. Yes, monsieur, I am the
author of a tragedy represented in 1807, in Rouen,
by several ugly women, who did not divert the
public's attention from good poetry."
This kind of grievances was cleverly summed up
by journalists like René de Rovigo and Pierre
Malitourne.
"A singular phenomenon," wrote the former,
"is at this present moment being observed in the
dramatic world. It is well known that for many
years the public has neglected our foremost play-
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
269
houses in favour of the minor theatres. The Opera
was almost deserted, the critics christened the
Odéon the second Théâtre Français, and the
latter bade fair to become a second Odéon. To-day
the house in the Rue de Richelieu is crowded
from floor to ceiling every evening, and the
Opera's 'takings frequently amount to ten thousand
francs.'"
"And would you like to know," wrote the
second, "the kind of reproach levelled at Hous-
saye and Roqueplan by their enemies ?" They
succeed too much," they say.
*
*
66
In the theatrical world the director is worried as
much on account of a success as by a failure, be-
cause a success means a failure to the dramatic
authors and actors who bore no part in it. Accord-
ingly the success of Gabrielle, by procuring me the
friendship of Emile Augier, somewhat threatened
to deprive me of that of Rachel. The reader
may judge from the following letter, in which she
"sir's" me to her heart's content:
"I am being told on all sides, monsieur, that M.
Emile Augier is exceedingly vexed at my reap-
pearance next Saturday in Mademoiselle de Belle-
Isle, and that he intends asking me as a favour to
make my rentrée in a piece of my own repertory.
What am I to say if M. Augier should happen to
acquaint me with his grievance?
270
BEHIND THE SCENES
"M. the Minister of the Interior has just sent to
ask me to play M. Dumas' piece on Saturday. My
doctor does not think it advisable for me to play
another piece of my repertory, alleging that I have
not sufficiently recovered my strength. Hence,
monsieur, it remains with you to point out to the
author of Gabrielle that I am doubly sorry not to
be able to comply with his wish; besides, his worth
is not less great than his modesty, and at the
Comédie Française two successes' have often
marched abreast in the self-same week. I may as
well tell you that I think I am acting in the
interest of the Comédie Française, but, should I be
mistaken in acting thus, I leave you the supreme
arbiter on this occasion, and now as ever I have the
honour to subscribe myself, monsieur, your very
obedient pensionnaire,
C
"Paris, January the 15th, 1850.”
*
"RACHEL.
*
It was on the 27th April that the new presiden-
tial decree appointed me director of the Comédie
Française, with all the powers enacted by the
Council of State. Hitherto the prerogatives of the
director, alternately commissary-royal and adminis-
trator, had been ill-defined. I myself as a pro-
visional director had been both all-powerful and
powerless. At last I had my liberty to do the
right thing.
By a ministerial order of the 24th May, the
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
271
committee of management, presided over by me,
was composed as follows: MM. Samson, Ligier,
Beauvallet, Geffroy, Regnier, Provost, Maillart.
A month later, the 30th June, three sociétaires
were elected: Mdlle. Rebecca and MM. Got and
Delaunay.
On the 13th June I proposed Verteuil, hitherto
simple secretary to the administration, the secretary-
general. For the last ten years he had had but
a small share of the pie-this peerless official, who
died the day that his strength failed him to go to
the Theâtre Français.
On the 19th June we accepted the resignation
of Ligier, who a twelvemonth later would have
very much liked to withdraw his decision.
I omit numberless administrative details that
constitute the infinitely little of directorial exist-
ence.
*
A comedy which amused us much more at re-
hearsal than it amused the public in the house was
the too-exaggerated paradox entitled the Queue du
Chien d'Alcibiade. It was because Léon Gozian
happened to be the best actor of his own comedies.
He enacted all the parts himself, roaring with
laughter-that Phocean laughter that would carry
any and every piece. His victory, as far as we
were concerned, was complete at the reading of it.
In reciting his prose chaplet, he no doubt counted
some of the most beautiful Eastern pearls; unfor-
272
BEHIND THE SCENES
tunately he made us believe that all his false pearls
were real ones. He would have succeeded in pass-
ing the greatest trash of the most trashy author-
only he was not such a fool as to read for others.
His piece therefore had been accepted by us with
the greatest enthusiasm: we made sure that Aristo-
phanes himself had sat down among us at the
reading committee. Our opinion was considerably
modified on the very first night, and it was not the
actors' faults assuredly, seeing that the piece was
played by Provost, Brindeau, Leroux, Got, De-
launay, Mmes. Moreau, Sainte, and Judith, each a
host in himself or herself in the way of gracefulness
and charm, comic talent and "go.
""
"Decidedly," said Judith, seeing the public so
cold, "Léon Gozlan is a jeweller, only he over-
does the thing."
"Too much wit, too much wit," said Provost to
Léon Gozlan himself.
"And still," added Brindeau, "it is the truth
beneath the improbable."
Delaunay, whose judgment is invariably correct,
observed very softly-
"I should prefer the improbable without the
truth."
The piece, then, was but partially saved at its
first representation, but the critics, always friendly
to Léon Gozlan, succeeded in arousing the curiosity
of the Parisians for three weeks.
The fates forbid that I should preach collabora-
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
273
tion, but Léon Gozlan, admitting that he could
stand comparison with Molière - who would not
hear of collaboration-should have enlisted Molière's
servant to give him some hints. He married an
angel of beauty and good sense-his laundress-as
did the poet Dufresny. Why did not he read his
pieces to her? I am certain that she would have put
a stop there and then to a great many harum-
scarum paradoxes, whose outspread wings throw a
shadow on his wit and good sense.
We have had a great many revivals this year of
grace 1850. In the later repertory, Angelo and
Malle. de Belle-Isle for Rachel; in the old one,
Le Menteur, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, L’Avo-
cat Pathelin, Turcaret, Les Surprises de l'Amour,
La Gageure Imprévue, Le Légataire Universel,
Le Médecin Malgré Lui. I am only quoting pieces
which Fame has already inscribed on her reper-
tory.
Talking about revivals, the son of a Minister
came to ask me, a few hours since, when they dared
to play farces like the Médecin Malgré Lui at the
Théâtre Français. He was furious.
"Since Molière's time, monsieur," I replied,
"but of course they were so idiotic in those
days."
One story brings up another. It is also a
Minister's son who asked a painter of religious
subjects to come to the country in order to paint
T
274
BEHIND THE SCENES
the daughter of his gardener. He wished to have
a "Belle Jardinière" like the one by Raphael,
which he had never seen, not even as an engrav-
ing.
All of which would go far to prove that a uni-
versity training means simply a funeral of the first
class of human intelligence. Why has not the
university a window open upon the Academy of
Arts ?
*
In September the Comédie Française represented
for the first time Un Mariage sous La Régence,
a lively play by a very dull man-Léon Guillards.
Janin has had a hand in the piece for the epigram
and repartee. He said he had never been able to
make out the subject. The critics have been in-
dignant at our daring to represent a mythological
fête, under the Regency, in which Brindeau and
Mdlle. Judith appeared as Mars and Venus. I do
not believe that on Olympus itself the gods could
have been more beautiful. The tableau of the fête
has delighted everybody. I will not be thought
presumptuous in saying that it was due to me. I
borrowed for the nonce from the Opera Mdlle.
Camille, who has danced in the "chaste voluptuous"
manner of Mdlle. Taglioni, M. Leroux, and Mdlle.
Fix, another god and goddess, who were also fran-
tically applauded.
The piece had been detained at the Censorship,
but Janin has managed to glide through the meshes
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
275
of the Censors, like a bumble-bee through a spider's
web.
Un Mariage sous La Régence is founded upon the
amours of Riom and the Duchess of Berry. A
critic has said that no fitter actress could be found
than Mdlle. Judith to invest the character of the
princess with the appropriate colour and charm.
At the close of the first act, when they say "good-
bye," she looks at Riom with that searching, bitter,
cruel, voluptuous look which tells the whole history
of this "Messalina of Grange-Chancel." They told
Janin, to please him, that the dialogue was very
clever.
"If all the playwrights will come to me between
nine and ten in the morning I'll besprinkle their
manuscripts with the golden dust from my pounce
box," he has answered in an off-hand way. The
fact is that it is rather a good thing for an
author to read a scene or two from his comedy to
Jules Janin.
*
We have given a comedy of M. Viennet in order
not to be obliged to play one of his tragedies. I
should add that the piece was only in one act.
It was called Migraine (Headache), and true to its
title it has given the headache to both actors and
spectators alike who were trying to find the comedy
behind the words, and failed. What is more, they
have never been able to find out whether the piece
was in prose or in verse.
T 2
276
BEHIND THE SCENES
M. Viennet has religiously attended the rehear-
sals. One day, out of sheer politeness, I sat down
by his side. All at once he gets up, very angry
hearing some one laugh during the rehearsal of a
sentimental scene.
at
"Take care," he says to Mdlle. Judith, "I am
here in the pit."
"That's all right," she shouts, "I knew it, only I
thought you were asleep."
M. Viennet has always had the misfortune of
conveying to the public the reverse of what he
wished to convey. In one of his tragedies occurs the
famous line:
“The citizens fled, carrying away their lares."
Unfortunately the last word sounded so much
like lard that the pit was under the impression that
the fugitives had merely "saved their bacon."
I went to the Elysée to talk over matters con-
nected with the winter season of the Comédie Fran-
çaise. We began by talking about the début of
young Madeleine Brohan. It really seemed as if
she herself were present, the atmosphere was laden,
so to speak, with the ideal charm of her beauty,
enframed in her seventeen summers. Mdlle. Rachel,
though on her travels, was, however, not altogether
absent from the minds of the President and of
his friends. Her image was among us, majestically
OE THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
277
imposing by the remembrance of her dramatic
genius and the supple gracefulness of the woman.
The whole of the company of the Comédie was
reviewed, just as if we had been at the ceremony
of Le Malade Imaginaire. It is scarcely credible
how much the Théâtre Français occupies every
one's mind. After all, it was just the same under
the Empire. I was going to say the First Empire,
so much do we already believe ourselves to be
under the Second. In saying "the Empire is
already an established fact," M. Thiers surprised
no one.
The President, who does not often laugh, told
me with a smile that he would not mind being for
a week the director of so amusing a republic. This,
if anything, would prove that the Elysée is con-
siderably bored now and then. I told him that I
should not like to conduct "the Vessel of the
State" even for a week in his stead.
After which the conversation turned once more
on Madeleine Brohan. The President asked me to
bring her to lunch at the palace of St. Cloud. I
said "no" at once, replying for myself as well as
for the actress. Then there was a silence that be-
tokened a change in the atmosphere.
"Pray do not think that I am inviting an actress
with an afterthought. We'll lunch in company of
these gentlemen. The palace of St. Cloud is, as it
were, a palace of glass.”
"Monseigneur," I said, "I'll convey your invita-
278
BEHIND THE SCENES
tion to Madeleine. Her mother herself is a cele-
brated actress. They will, no doubt, come and
thank you for
your kindness.”
The affair was allowed to drop because Made-
leine, on her side, would not go to St. Cloud, even
accompanied by Mme. Suzanne Brohan. At my
request the mother and daughter asked, however,
a few days later, leave of the President to personally
express their gratitude for his kind and sympathetic
mention. The prince had the good sense not to
allude to his amorous fancy. On the contrary, he
adopted a lofty tone, and spoke of his "protectorate
as a matter of course" of art and artists.
an
"Mademoiselle," he said to Madeleine,
actress thoroughbred like you should be admitted
sociétaire after her débuts."
Prince Napoleon rarely made a step in advance
which he deemed to be useless. He knew, though,
how to retreat a step without losing aught of his
dignity.
Had I gone to St. Cloud with Madeleine, or with
another actress, people would not have failed to
say: "Another man overboard;" as they said of
Bacciochi, that charming "ladies' man" at court,
whom they accused of "stalking" women
women for
Napoleon, when in fact he "stalked" them only
for himself. Napoleon III. never wanted "beaters "
in that respect.
*
I have been looking through all the dramatic
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
279
works of the last three centuries, in order to find
out whether among the plays of Montfleury and
Regnard, among the dramas of the Empire and
the Restoration, there were not some to restore to
the stage. I began with Le Coupe Enchantée; I
am going to continue with the Surprises de l'Amour,
Turcaret, La Gageure Imprévue. Each generation
should study the spirit of the past through the
drama.
CC
·
I have revived one after the other-Le Joueur
and Le Distrait. How is it that with all his comic
go," Regnard has only been able to imbue these
two creations with temporary life. The actors did
their very best, but in vain, the public only beheld
as many spectres of the past on the stage. Must
we take it for granted that only Molière had the
power to endow his comedies with everlasting life?
Has he really killed both the past and the future?
And still Regnard must be considered a master by
virtue of his wit, his gaiety, his devil-may-care
manner. But Molière alone is the master of them
all by his very
*
*
human ego.
The dramatic year has been marked in the his-
tory of literature by the Charlotte Corday of Pon-
sard; the Queue du Chien d'Alcibiade of Gozlan,
the Chandelier of de Musset; Les Amoureux sans
le Savoir of Jules Barbier and Michel Carré; Les
Contes de la Reine de Navarre of Scribe and
Legouvé; the Horace et Lydia of Ponsard, and
280
BEHIND THE SCENES
last by the Carosse du Saint-Sacrement of Merimée.
Every one of these pieces, from the best to the
worst, interested the spectator yesterday, and will
interest the reader to-morrow, for all are stamped
with literary feeling, and all are distinguished
by originality. There is tragic force in Charlotte
Corday; the spirit of the ancient classic in
Horace et Lydia; love-sick scepticism in Le
Chandelier; Parisian wit in the Athenian Comedy
of Gozlan; the venturesome gaiety of the Mar-
guérite of Marguérites, besides curious pages of
history, in Les Contes de la Reine de Navarre ;
and, to sum up, true Spanish boasting and bravado
in the trifle of Clara Gazul.
Among the other pieces given during the year I
must further quote La Migraine of M. Viennet;
the Figaro en Prison of Louis Monrose; La Dis-
cretion of Edouard Plouvier; Héraclite et Démocrite
of Edouard Foussier; and Un Mariage sous la
Régence of Léon Guillard, at which said wedding
the public had a real treat through the mere beauty
of the scenery and dresses.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
281
CHAPTER XIV.
Ir was Jules Sandeau who with Mademoiselle de
la Seiglière took the first and foremost place in the
theatrical world of 1851. Jules Sandeau-whom the
Baroness Aurore Dudevant, the granddaughter of
the Marechal de Saxe, had drawn into the romantic
vortex of life, whom she had imbued with the
passion for writing novels-was born a playwright
rather than a novelist. I had the good fortune of
being his friend almost at the outset of his career.
He paid a great deal more heed to theatrical art
than to the art of the novelist. I have still by me
the scenario of a comedy which we two had managed
to put together—-Les Nouvelles Precieuses Ridicules.
He had already written many scenes in the style
of Le Gendre de M. Poirier before he wrote the
novel which inspired once more the idea of the
piece, when Emile Augier became his collaborator.
The moment of my advent to the Comédie Française
I reminded him that he was a born dramatist; but
by this time he had become the most indolent of
men, responding, like Chenavard, to everything,
"What's the use?" Though I did not write a
282
BEHIND THE SCENES
single line of Mademoiselle de la Seiglière I really
believe that I gave myself more trouble than he
did to get the piece on to the stage. In order not
to vex him, I had to chime in with his own song,
"Everything has been said, everything has been
written, everything has been played." After which
I had to take him unawares; I spoke to him of his
name, I tried to prove to him that celebrated as he
was he would remain comparatively unknown, or
not known in the right way, if he did not take to
the drama. But I dread to think of the number of
cigars I had to smoke. When he had been neglect-
ing his work for several days he used to say, "No
wonder, the cigars are so vile." And still it was
Mme. Sandeau who chose them for him. Seeing
that he was very fond of being petted by women, I
hit upon the idea of getting a handsome Havanese
lady to send him some cigars. She wrote him the
following note which she placed in the box:—
“A romantic woman, who came all the way from
Cuba for the sole purpose of seeing the passions
that sway Paris, and which you have so admirably
depicted, enacted on the stage, refuses to go away
without having seen the first performance of the
comedy upon which you are engaged. She has
booked four private boxes for her women friends,
and she will throw four bouquets to your beautiful
heroine.'
""
To recover his imaginary power, which was
already deserting him, Sandeau had absolute need
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
283
of an atmosphere impregnated with admiration.
I enlisted Regnier on my side; in fact Sandeau
owes a great deal to this excellent comedian, who
did not know what laziness meant, and whose
intelligence, ever on the alert, reminds me of those
lively Spanish postboys who clack their whips to
the tune of their mules' bells.
The first performance of this comedy proved a
genuine delight. For many years no such success
had been seen, for "everybody" partook of the
treat, painters as well as literary men, critics as
well as the world of fashion. The President of the
Republic made it a point to tell Jules Sandeau
himself that he knew no modern comedy to come
up to his. That is why Jules Sandeau was appointed
librarian at the palace of Saint Cloud. The Come-
dians had a handsome share in the success.
It was
Samson's best creation. Regnier was applauded
in it as an actor and as an anonymous collaborator
for his great art of stage-management. Madeleine
Brohan was simply delightful as Mdlle. de la Seig-
lière. Maillart was the very ideal of the lover,
after Menjeaud, and previous to Delaunay.
This same year 1851 shows some vigorous
work done in order to please the groundlings. On
the 4th January, Maillart and Mdlle. Madeleine
Brohan played César and Cytheris—a charming
fresco detached from the beautiful drama of Jules
Lacroix, Le Testament de César. Truly a curious
public! When the drama was played in 1819 they
284
BEHIND THE SCENES
were not in the least impressed by the poetical
charm of the prologue; to-day they are enraptured
with it. On the 21st I enjoyed giving them another
surprise with a picture detached from the Mariage
sous La Régence. It was to gain time for the pro-
duction of the beautiful classical drama of Jules
Lacroix-that Valéria-which was the topic of
everybody's conversation, because Mdlle. Rachel
had, as it were, to play two parts in it. In fact,
she was in turns empress and courtesan, and brought
to bear upon the task all the colour and relievo
which she knows so well how to apply in her grand
moments.* In March, on the days alternating
with Mdlle. Rachel's performances, we played the
Bataille des Dames of Scribe and Legouré, accom-
panied by the Christian and Marguérite of Edouard
Fournier. It was a pretty performance, calculated
to make those laugh who had wept the previous
day. In this way we got to the 1st May, when
Mme. de Girardin gave us a short comedy, C'est
la Faute du Mari. This brought us to the 31st
May, and the Fin du Roman of Léon Gozlan, which
had a very fair success indeed. On the 30th June,
first performance of Les Caprices de Marianne, by
Alfred de Musset-a great success, which helped
to console the poet and Marianne Brohan for the
* Jules Lacroix's Valéria, was the predecessor of Victorian
Sardou's Théodora, but the late Mr. Watts Phillips wrote a drama
on the same subject, which was no doubt also inspired by Lacroix's
piece.-[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
285
sunstrokes contracted during that month. On the
24th, as a sacrifice to the gods, the Comédie played
Les Bátons Flottants, five acts in verse of
M. Charles Liadière. The piece had to be played,
having been accepted long ago, at a time, in fact,
when Mme. Liadière was so pretty that no one
would have had the courage to give her a black
ball. On the 1st August we took our revenge with
Le Baron de Lafleur of Camille Doucet. A few
days later the irreconcilable-romantic, called Ferdi-
nand Dugné, heard the three knocks that announced
the rise of the curtain on his Mathurin Regnier,
three acts and five tableaux, which represent, with
a great deal of colour, the bold poet of question-
able society but of dashing poetry. The 8th Sep-
tember we put on Les Demoiselles de St. Cyr.
Somewhat forgotten in the mortuary shadow that
surrounded Mme. de Maintenon, they reappeared
with some clever retouches of Alexander Dumas,
who had not asked permission of either M. de
Leuven or of M. Brunswick. It was a great
success, but those successes were only so many
"wills o' the wisp" in those melancholy days,
depressed by the sentiment of revolution, and
drenched, as it were, by the flood of ennui of
political oratory.
On the 9th October, the obstinate poet, called
Beauvallet, that splendid and rugged tragedian,
gave us three acts adapted from Chateaubriand's
Le Dernier Abencerage. And if it had only been
286
BEHIND THE SCENES
in prose! The public has been lenient to Beau-
vallet, because he acted his own piece.
"I have got an idea," he said to me, "that we
have got hold of a success.
""
"Yes, my dear Beauvallet, we'll talk about it a
week hence."
In a week Beauvallet said pluckily, "I prefer
playing Polyceute or The Cid." On the 25th
October, Les Derniers Adieux of Jules Barbier
and Michel Carré, a very pretty one-act piece,
which was fast being relegated to the levers de
rideau. The 4th November was a grand day,
indeed, for on it Malle. de la Seiglière made
her appearance on the boards-the last for a long
while, perhaps for ever. It was acclaimed before
the President of the Republic, who had never
shown such enthusiasm with regard to the theatre.
No wonder that people said, "It is all nonsense to
talk about a coup d'état, a man who enjoys himself
like that at the theatre is not hatching anything
serious."
But on Tuesday, the 1st December, there was
something in the air which made people anxious,
for our receipts fell to two hundred and forty-three
francs, albeit that Les Demoiselles de St. Cyr
held the bill. Leopold Le Hon was waiting for
M. de Morny in my box. When the latter came,
he said to me
"How is it there are so few people here to-
night?
""
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
287
"Because Paris has made up its mind not to
enjoy herself any more."
"To-morrow I'll send you some people."
""
nor
Next day, the 2nd December, the receipts went
up. Were they the people sent by M. de Morny?
We played Tartuffe and Les Femmes Savantes.
On the Thursday, the 4th, we had on the bills
La Coupe Enchantée and Le Verre d'Eau, but the
public neither drank the "glass of water
put their lips to "the enchanted cup." Nor did
we play on the Friday. On the Saturday the
same programme. We took six hundred and fifty
francs. A few among the spectators hissed some
allusions in Le Verre d'Eau, but the hisses were
drowned in the general applause. On that evening
the proscription of Victor Hugo was talked about,
so I announced for the next day, Sunday, Marion
Delorme, which drew a crowded house. M. de
Morny looked in for a moment: "We must save
Victor Hugo. I belong to those who wished to
see him Minister, not in revolt. He shall not be
proscribed unless he proscribes himself." Victor
Hugo, thinking to carry his country away with
him at the soles of his feet, passed the frontier.
I made up my mind that there should be great
doings at the Comédie Française on the 6th June,.
1851, the anniversary of the birth of Corneille,
two hundred years after the most radiant period of
288
BEHIND THE SCENES
his genius. Le Cid and Le Menteur should be
acted by the chief actors in their respective lines.
Between the two masterpieces, a poem to the glory
of Molière, from either the pen of Victor Hugo,
Alfred de Musset, or Théophile Gautier should be
recited. Victor Hugo, wholly given up to politics,
said that he had no poem ready, though regretting
his inability to honour his master; Alfred de
Musset hid himself behind his chess-board; Théo-
phile Gautier, there and then, wrote some ad-
mirable verses, which are not forgotten to this
day.
Things went on capitally; the evening was joy-
fully looked forward to, when, all at once, M. de
Guizard, director at the Fine Arts by the will of
M. de Rémusat-for the struggle between the two
powers, that of the Elysée and that of the
Assembly, was still at its height-demanded to
read Gautier's verses. He waxed indignant at the
poet reproaching Louis XIV. for
Louis XIV. for having left
"Corneille without shoes, and Molière without a
grave;" and still more at the fact of a poet,
under a Republican régime, daring to write "that
with future generations, the doings of which are
veiled to us, the poet grows, the monarch dwin-
dles."
Guizard rushed to the theatre to tell me that
the Minister would never permit such sacrilege.
I tried to take the thing very lightly; he, on the
contrary, struck the tragic chord :
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
289
"Unless you suppress this piece of poetry, it
will be my duty to apprise the Minister."
"Very well, let us go to him together." And
away we went.
The Minister at that time was M. Leon
Faucher, a somewhat belated republican, who
thought it very extraordinary that Théophile
Gautier should side with Pierré Corneille against
Louis XIV. "Pray remember," I said to the
Minister, "that on that evening we are not going
to celebrate the anniversary of Louis XIV., but
that of Corneille; who, therefore, will take it into
his head to see in this a piece of impertinence
against the Grand Monarch'? After all, it is
nothing more than history; but, if they worry you
at the Chamber, you can say that it is poetry."
'
The Minister began to ride the high horse.
"Don't run away with the idea that I am going
to risk a Cabinet question about such trifles."
Such trifles! I was disgusted, but I put my
disgust in my pocket.
"There is," resumed Léon Faucher, "a Com-
mission of Censorship."
"I know there is," I replied; "the Republic
had promised to rid us of it."
"Well, it is this Commission which is respon-
sible; it will decide whether your friend's poem
shall be read or not."
"Pray, do not forget, M. le Ministre, that to-day
Louis XIV. means the public, and the public is
U
290
BEHIND THE SCENES
waiting. With the public it is not the Censor-
ship which is responsible, but I. I can change
nothing in this performance, consequently I prefer
resigning to submitting to an order of the Censor-
ship."
"So be it, then; you have given your resigna-
tion, which exonerates you with the public, with
the Comedians, with Théophile Gautier."
Having said which, Léon Faucher took up his
portfolio to attend a Cabinet Council.
M. Guizard summoned a meeting of the Com-
mission of Censorship; those people were afraid of
any and everything. No doubt they were afraid
of Louis XIV., for they demanded the suppression
of all allusion to him. As a matter of course,
neither Théophile Gautier nor myself would con-
sent to the suppression of his best lines.
I was getting ready to go. Beauvallet enthu-
siastically improvised some stanzas to the memory
of Corneille, which, to a certain extent, saved the
situation. What is more remarkable, the future
emperor, who thought it his duty to honour the
memory of him whom his uncle would have made
a prince, applauded the stanzas as if they had
been Théophile Gautier's. But the next morning
there was great excitement in political and literary
Paris.
I had prepared everything in view of my retiring,
but the President, after having declaimed to him-
self, as it were, the verses of Théophile Gautier,
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
291
decided that I had been right in insisting upon
the verses being read as they were written.
"It is very surprising," said Roqueplan, "be-
cause, like his uncle, he fancies that he is the
immediate successor of Louis XIV."
The Prince wept over the privations of Corneille
without remembering to grant a pension to Théo-
phile Gautier, who, it should be said, wore very
handsome shoes.
That
Verteuil, when presenting to me the heads of
various departments, from the scene painters down
to the candle-snuffers, had overlooked one.
one introduced himself. When La Chaume
brought in his name he bent over me and said,
"You see, monsieur, he has taken the 'I'out of
his name; now-a-days it is Vacher."
"What the deuce does he want with me?" I
asked.
"I do not know, monsieur; but, I may be allowed
to say, he is somebody."
Thereupon entered the chief of the claqueurs.
I beheld a philosopher, with a knowing smile, a
broad forehead, a sharp eye, and a bright face.
"Monsieur le directeur, I have been for many
years the leader of criticism."
"Above all, the leader of enthusiasm," I said.
(6
Allow me, I am just
I am just; when I applaud with our
cows-I mean with my men-it is to show the
public that it should applaud."
UorM
U 2
292
BEHIND THE SCENES
"Why do you say your cows? Is it because of
your name ?” *
"Yes, it is because of my name; but also because
the public would applaud in the wrong places if I
did not drag them away from the drinking troughs
round the corner and lead them hither with a leash;
but, when I have them in battle array, they obey
like one man, at the slightest signal, and Heaven
alone knows how many battles we have won when
they were already half lost. The sociétaires are
well aware of it."
M. Vacher spoke like a small Napoleon. I told
him that he had come at the very moment when I
was thinking of suppressing the claque.
"Oh, monsieur, don't do that. If you only knew
how we prevent authors and, above all, actors from
becoming demoralized! M. Samson himself could
not go on acting amidst a freezing silence.'
22
"M. de Molière managed to play without a
claque."
Pro-
"Monsieur le directeur, I know my theatrical
history nearly as well as you do. In those days
there was a pit that knew how to seize its oppor-
tunity. In our days there is no longer a pit.
What are all those curious idlers that come?
vincials, who have lost their way hither, who would
be capable of hissing the most striking situations
or of applauding at random. I who am speaking
to you, I have studied the spirit of all the authors,
* Vacher is the French for cowherd.-[Transl.]
Maou
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
293
as I have studied the acting of every Comedian,
here, at the Odéon, and on the Boulevards. You
will not be able to do without us for the next fifty
years, when the public may be educated up to it.
Remember, monsieur le directeur, the saying of
Beaumarchais, 'How many idiots go to the making
of a public ?""
I was about to defend my opinion against a critic
of such experience when Rachel happened to come
in. She nodded to Vacher, and condescended to
shed the light of her smile on him.
"Behold!" she said, "not the leader of the
claque, but the leader of success. No feast is com-
plete without Vacher."
Vacher bowed and went away, saying, "I beg
of the director to study my art of acting as he
would study that of the Comedian."
That very same evening I watched him at his
work. He worked with both his eyes and his
hands. He had assumed the interested look of a
paying spectator. He directed the manœuvres of
"his cows" without anyone being the wiser for it.
It was truly the master's eye.
*
*
*
There are always in Paris three or four drawing-
rooms into which the least timid man does not enter
without emotion; emotion more or less disguised,
but which, nevertheless, somewhat troubles him.
It is because every new comer is taken in from
head to foot with a relentless eye. Everyone seems
294
BEHIND THE SCENES
to say,
"What does he want here?" Or else,
"We could have done without him." One of these
three or four drawing-rooms is the green-room of
the Comédie Française. The pictorial occupants
smile at one with the charming smile of another
century; but the other, more or less "bepainted"
occupants, who are there to kill time while waiting
to "go
go on" or to go home, have a cruel look for
those who venture into their strongholds. The
latter is, however, by no means a cage full of wild
beasts. But one has to tame step by step those
emperors and queens-those "first old men" and
"juvenile leads."
In an ordinary drawing-room there are at least
the host and hostess to give you a welcome, but in
this extraordinary drawing-room there is not a sign
of friendliness; there is a dead silence at your
advent, a volley of laughter at your departure.
Hence there are few men of the world, even, who
care to risk the ordeal twice, at least it was so
during my management. Such strangers as did
hold out were, so to speak, "of the shop," like
Roqueplan, director of the opera and lover of
Delphine Marquet, whose golden hair inspired him
with a splendid page on blondes. Alfred Arrago
was a fervent admirer all round, for he was no
more attached to one than to another. In those
days he painted pretty landscapes, but what pro-
cured him the Inspector-Generalship of Fine Arts
was rather his charming wit and his art of carica-
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
295
turing political men. His partner was another
painter, with whom he exchanged excruciating
puns. Ponsard and Augier were often in the
green-room. Alfred de Musset looked in now and
then for a minute or so, but he preferred my room
just as well tenanted. A few admirers of "these
ladies," of more or less princely rank, some ambas-
sadors and ministers, accompanied them to the
green-room, or waited for them behind the scenes.
From time to time one would meet with a couple
of critics, like the Duke de Rovigo, Paul de Saint-
Victor, Edouard Houssaye, Xavier, Aubryet, Albéric
Second, Limayrac, and Octave Lacroix.
To symbolize the plots hatched in the green-room,
the apartment had been stigmatised as a store-house
of combustibles, and a hotbed of intrigue. The
truth is that there was little or no playing with fire,
and that its occupants did not conspire against the
life of their neighbours. There was such a con-
sumption of wool* that at times one might have
fancied oneself to be in the sitting-room of Pene-
lope. For some years it was also called the parlour
of "les petits ménages," † because every actress
was quietly chatting with her particular actor.
*
*
Ponsard and Augier have suddenly relapsed into
* Filer de la laine (literally "spinning wool ") is also a figura-
tive expression for "talking commonplaces."
†“Les petits ménages" is even at the present time a kind of
alnishouse where old married couples live together on payment
annually of very modest sums.-[Transl.]
296
BEHIND THE SCENES
archaism. One would have thought that the success
of Charlotte Corday and L'Aventurière would
have brought them back amongst us, but we
see them return to Rome and to Athens as to their
native land. After Horace et Lidie, Le Joueur
Flúte. They are merely the simple diversions of
schoolboys in theatrical art who spend their holi-
days in the country of their youth. I also believe
that the hope of being acted by Rachel has
stirred up once more the classical "go" of those
two inseparables. But Malle. Rachel would not
play the part of Laïs in Le Joueur de Flute, which
was intended for her; luckily Mdlle. Nathalie was
there, only awaiting the opportunity. In fact this
Laïs has pleased everybody, especially Emile
Augier. Thanks to her Grecian profile, to her
poses studied with a view of wearing the peplum,
to her scholarly diction, she has delighted every-
body, even those spectators who have the knack of
piercing the illusions of the stage. Besides, she
was in very good company-that of Geffroy, Sam-
son, and Got. These four have performed wonders
to prove that virtually there was no piece, unless
style, dash, and wit can be considered equivalent to
plot. Molière has been sometimes of that opinion.
Nevertheless it were well not to plunge obstinately
into archaism, for Armand Barthet has with his
Moineau de Lesbie amply shown that a mere un-
dergraduate can be as clever as a Ponsard or an
Augier when it comes to writing one of those
versions so dear to schoolboys.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
297
CHAPTER XV.
WHEN a man talks politics to himself he is dicta-
torial; when two friends talk together they are apt
to become tyrannical; but if a great many men
are gathered together, republicanism flashes forth
like a set of fireworks. In order to be convinced
of this, one has only to watch official assemblies;
are they not always, more or less, travelling
towards Jacobinism?
Jacobinism? It is only
It is only heroes that
are not afraid of being taken in flagrante delicto
of royalism, because this same royalism is in-
differently borne by puny shoulders, kings them-
selves being nothing more now-a-days than the
humble servants of the people. When one takes
a Comedian aside he is dictatorial or imperialist;
but when all the Comedians are assembled in the
green-room they are republicans, hence the socié-
taires and pensionnaires of the Comédie Française
have two ways of looking at the Coup d'Etat: one
moment they are for Augustus, the next they are
for Cinna.
Some of them said to me this morning, "We
had better close for a night or two; we cannot play
in the face of such a catastrophe."
298
BEHIND THE SCENES
I answered them, "Let us endeavour to be above
politics of all shades; the Assembly wanted to im-
prison the President, the President manages to
imprison the Assembly. Which is a great deal more
reactionary than republican, history will prove.
Meanwhile let us play comedy, because it is our
business to do so."
"But there will be some terrible allusions, see-
ing that we are playing Le Verre d'Eau.”
"There would be similar allusions if we played
Le Mariage de Figaro, Tartuffe, or Cinna. You
need, however, not worry yourself, for though there
may be some darkling clouds, there will be no
storm; you are too used to the footlights to be put
out by cat-calls."
We did play that evening; there were some faint
murmurs, but the public, which is much more sen-
sible in that respect than it is supposed to be, has
understood that it was there to enjoy itself, and
not to give a course of political lectures.
The first day of the Coup d'Etat everything
went well or ill according as people chose to look
at it; but there was no fighting. Next day the
demagogues and revolutionaries, who love riots
mainly for the pleasure of making a noise, wanted
to get the better of the Coup d'Etat. The fatal
result was fratricidal strife on a few barricades.
A "utility," who did not come to rehearsal but pre-
ferred loitering on the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle,
got wounded; his wife, dissolved in tears, came to
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
299
ask me whether the theatre would make him an
allowance. "Make him an allowance, because,
instead of coming to rehearsal, he went in quest
of a bullet ?" I gave this woman the wherewithal
to nurse her husband. Samson was there, and
agreed with me that art is above questions of
politics, because, to great minds, there is only
one kind of revolution pregnant with good
results.
"One Collot d'Herbois is already one too many,"
said Samson.*
66
Provost coming in about the same time, said,
Very well, Rachel will sing Partant pour la
Syrie."
"That is not quite fair, my dear Provost; you
seem to forget that Rachel saved the Comédie,
more or less, by singing The Marseillaise. The
fact is that, in those days, we all sang The Mar-
seillaise, because we were under the impression
that we were marching towards the promised
land. I am afraid, however, that none of us know
the way thither. Let us respect all those who
have lost their way, and let us wait patiently for
another Moses."
""
"Oh!" exclaimed Provost, "I do not believe
in another Moses; I believed in Lamartine; it has
been my last illusion."
* Collot d'Herbois, a talented actor who threw himself headlong
into the First Revolution, was transported to Cayenne, and died
there in 1796.-[Transl.]
300
BEHIND THE SCENES
"And mine," I said.
"And mine, also," sighed Samson.
And that is how the comedy ended.
Enter Rachel.
"Well, some of them have
passed over to the Blues, some to the Whites,
some to the Reds.* Victor Hugo is at the head
of the revolt."
"Yes," said Provost, "because they did not
give him a portfolio."
"And they made a mistake in not giving him
one,” I said.
"He will be proscribed, like all those of The
Mountain (the Extreme Radicals)," said Sam-
son.
"Perhaps," I replied; "but, at any rate, we
shall not proscribe him; shall we, Rachel ?"
"I should think not, indeed; I will play the
Thisbé, I will play Dona Sol, I will play Marion
Delorme, but I will begin by asking for his pardon
at the Elysée."
"His pardon! He is not likely to accept his
pardon; he occupies too high a place to come
down so low as that; but in a month's time there
will be an amnesty. Louis Napoleon has spent
too much time in exile, and at Ham, to allow
Frenchmen to be proscribed or imprisoned because
of politics."
It is impossible, in translating this sentence, to convey the
subtle humour of it, which is done by the simple paraphrasing of a
locution pertaining to the washtub.—[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
301
(6
At that moment Brindeau rushed in, consterna-
tion depicted on his face. Gentlemen, Paris is
being given up to fire and sword; we must take
care of the theatre."
"Where have you come from? '
"From the Porte Saint-Martin. They say
there are a hundred thousand insurgents about
there.'
Leopold Le Hon, who was always running after
Mdlle. Rachel, had come in behind Brindeau.
"Don't frighten yourselves," he said, very calmly;
"they are pretending to fight, they are not fight-
ing at all. I have just come from the Prefecture
of Police, where they are not in the least un-
easy."
"Let us go and see Morny," said Rachel; and
away we went, all three-she, Leopold Le Hon,
and myself.
Would you like to know what the Count de
Morny was doing when we got to the Ministry of
the Interior? He was quietly taking a bath,
which did not prevent him from dictating his
orders to two secretaries.
He
"And you are not afraid of my being a Char-
lotte Corday in disguise?" asked Rachel.
simply smiled, and showed us a revolver.
And this is all I have seen of the Coup d'Etat.
I forgot; the first day I saw the President riding
along the Rue de Rivoli, and stopping on the Place
du Palais-Royal, at a stone's throw from the
302
BEHIND THE SCENES
theatre. He carried his impassive and fatalist-
looking head high. On the morrow I happened
to see the disturbances on the boulevards, and to
get myself in for a duel with Clesinger,* who,
since the previous night, had changed his opinions
four times, without finding a good one.
Historians who profess to have seen everything,
have, as a rule, seen nothing at all; they are like
the individual of a comedy played at the Théâtre
Français, who boasts of having been present at the
taking of the Bastile.
66
What, you?" they say to him.
"Yes, as you see me."
"Tell us all about it."
"It is simple enough. I happened to be at my
lawyer's, to give him instructions respecting my
will, when, all of a sudden, a citizen rushes into
the room, shouting, 'The Bastile is taken!'
Whereupon he shows us a small stone belonging
to the Bastile, and faints away.
I took the stone
and kept it as a trophy, consequently I have had
my share in the taking of the Bastile."
Though keeping outwardly cheerful in those
days of deliverance to some, of mourning unto
others, I felt none the less sad at heart. What was
to be the end of it all? Was this beloved France-
still sore with the June revolts, reduced to despair
by the battles, barren of result, of the National
* The celebrated sculptor, son-in-law of Georges Sand. [Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
303
Assembly-was this beloved France to arise, once
more, in all her power, in all her intellectual
superiority, in all her glory? How many of her
sons, and from among the best, were taking the
road to exile because they failed to perceive the
same horizons as those who remained in power ?
After so many convulsions, after so many abysses
—ever yawning; after so many sacrifices, tears,
and bloodshed, why attempt once more a political
adventure?
"Meanwhile," I said to myself, "let us try to
make comedies, and to act them."
*
A theatrical manager receives most unexpected
and most improbable letters. One morning they
brought me one from Pierre Corneille.
"A letter from Pierre Corneille, dated yester-
day," I said to Beauvallet.
"There is nothing very wonderful in that, see-
ing that I play Le Cid to-day. Still, I should like
to see his handwriting."
I handed the letter to Beauvallet. It ran as
follows:-
"Will the director of the Théâtre Français allow
Pierre Corneille to be present at the representa-
tion of Le Cid, the masterpiece of his illustrious
ancestor.
"PIERRE CORNEILLE.
"Rue aux Fèves, near the Palace of Justice."
304
BEHIND THE SCENES
I myself took the orchestra stall to Pierre Cor-
neille to one of those horrible houses of "the cité,"
wrapt in semi-darkness. The descendant of Pierre
Corneille sat there, writing like his ancestors, not
tragedies but letters and petitions for any and
every one. Pierre Corneille a public scribe—and
to such a public, consisting mainly of ruffians and
loose women!
The President of the Republic, at my request,
granted a pension to Pierre Corneille from his
private purse.
Since then more than one Pierre Corneille has
started from the earth, as it were-but not from
the Rue aux Fèves. There was a member of the
Corps Legislative whose name was Pierre Corneille.
Another Pierre Corneille wrote to me lately both
in prose and in verse. It would appear that great
names never die out. Racine has his great-great-
granddaughters—for instance, Mme. Louise-Théo-
phile Merleau d'Illiers des Radrets, who, poor
woman, does not ask for tickets because she is the
mother of a family and has no time to go to the
play, even to see the tragedies of Racine.
A few days later I received another letter proving
that the family of Pierre Corneille was still in the
land of the living. As with the descendants of
authors, so with those of actors and dancers. One
day a pretty girl danced into my room. She
fancied she was a descendant of Mdlle. de Camargo.
That, of course, was a real recommendation. I
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
305
despatched the pretty girl to the maëstro Auber,
who the next day sent me an invitation to come
and breakfast with her and Roqueplan. They were
under the impression they had discovered a star;
that same evening the star disappeared from the
firmament with a lover.
*
*
*
Sidonia Levy has made her first appearance in
the character of Aricie. She came from the Con-
servatoire, and she acted as they act at the Con-
servatoire, pending her acting as they act at the
Théâtre Français. Nevertheless, she promises well;
but how often have the April frosts withered the
cherry blossom. The gentlemen of the claque and
the friends of the family were ill advised enough
to recall the débutante in an ovation worthy of
Rachel. I should have liked them to see the way
in which the great actress said to this débutante
after the oration, "Take care, child, you have
already too many friends; do not forget that for
three months after my first appearance I acted
without either bouquets or recalls." It sounded
like a goddess descended from Olympus speaking
to a simple mortal.
*
*
The Ministers who succeeded each other had
each his particular receipt for making the Comédie
Française the theatre. As it happened, not one
saw with the eyes of his predecessors or with those
of his successors, so that a weak director with no
X
306
BEHIND THE SCENES
ideas of his own would have simply been driven
mad.
I had been playing the works of Alfred de
Musset, Emile Augier, Léon Gozlan, when M. Léon
Faucher, Minister of the Interior, slung his power-
ful ink at me.
"I notice, M. le Directeur, that the Théâtre
Français neglects serious works. Why is tragedy,
which is after all the genuine school for the inspi-
ration of lofty sentiments, banished? Why not
encourage young authors to resume this elevated
kind of literature that has been the glory of our
great writers, which made the reputation of M.
Ponsard. I beg to remind you of the spirit of the
subsidy. I cannot insist too much upon the
reading-committee not being carried away by
those comedies that neither redound to the honour
of the theatre that enacts them, nor to that of the
authors that write them.
I replied in the same strain:
"LEON FAUCHER."
"There is no lack of tragedies at the Théâtre
Français, M. le Ministre. We have at least half-a-
dozen from the pen of M. Viennet; not a day
passes but what Messieurs the Schoolboys transmit
some to the gentleman entrusted with the task of
reading them; but neither the former nor the latter
have succeeded in proving that they are a living
tongue. Tragedy, if you will allow me to differ
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
307
from your opinion, is no longer aught but a school-
boy's exercise. It wanted all the genius of
Corneille and Racine to breathe life into the grand
figures of antiquity at the Théâtre Français. The
drama came and descended from its pedestal to live
our passions over again. When the great Corneille
wrote Le Cid he virtually married the drama to
tragedy. If Corneille and Racine had not been
cramped by the narrow canons of 'the sublime,'
they would, no doubt, have attempted, in addition
to their imperishable works, the fascinating ventures
of the drama after Shakespeare's manner, for they
both proved, by the Menteur, as well as by the
Plaideurs, that they were imbued with the spirit of
comedy.
"After them, and up till now, no one has been
found capable of resuscitating tragedy, not even
Voltaire. They have produced nothing but copies
from the originals; and you are aware, Monsieur
le Ministre, of the exact value of a copy-a little
more or a little less than nothing.
66
'Tragedy is not the final expression of dramatic
art. If Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were
to return among us, they would, no doubt, be
proud of their fame, which has endured throughout
the centuries, but they would no longer write
antique tragedies; they would wish to be of
their contemporaries like Dante, Shakespeare, and
Molière, because every man should bear the stamp
of his own time. The proverb is an old one
x 2
308
BEHIND THE SCENES
that he who imitates The Iliad does not imitate
Homer.' To imitate the Greek tragic writers
one should write modern dramas like Shakespeare.
"All those who to-day are gifted with dramatic
genius-Hugo, Vigny, Dumas-have been par-
ticularly careful not to attempt the resuscitation on
the boards of those banished shades, who can only
live on condition of being a little more human and
a little less mythological. M. Ponsard, whom you
mention, is a romanticist astray, in the region of
antiquity, rather than a disciple of Corneille and
Racine. Lucrèce is a drama rather than a tragedy.
Its success is due to its historical colouring, to its
striving after the true-to its juxtaposition of tears
and laughter, of the grandiose and the homely.
Ponsard felt, well enough, that a mere senile copy
of classical tragedy would not be a living work ;
that he virtually attacked French history in his
Agnes de Méranie, and fearing to be the author
of his first success' only, has valiantly boarded
the drama with Charlotte Corday. He is just now
engaged upon an antique play, Penelope, but he
will take good care not to be fettered by the
unities,' and he will be equally careful not to
adopt the solemn tone of tragedy.
C
C
66
Everything has its day, its period of fashion ;
masterpieces do not go out of fashion, but is the
imitating of masterpieces not tantamount to
parading them ? We do no longer write epic
poems, and the Roi-Soleil no longer dances in
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
309
ballets; we can no longer write tragedies accord-
ing to the solemn manner of antiquity, except as
studies. And are such studies to have the freedom
of the stage conferred upon them? A wit has said
that there should be performances in the colleges
themselves of the tragedies written by collegians,
and the obstinate 'tragedy-mongers' of the ancient
régime.
"Whenever a man like Talma, or a woman like
Rachel, comes to the fore, Racine and Corneille
have their 'red letter days.'
"But pray, M. le Ministre, do not forget that,
since the death of Talma until the advent of
Rachel, tragedy, even when it happened to be the
work of one of these two masters, no longer drew
anyone to the theatre. Hence one must have the
courage to acknowledge that it is Rachel's acting
which now-a-days fills the house. But if, instead
of playing Corneille and Racine-for whom the
public cherish, after all, a religious reverence—
Mdlle. Rachel played a tragedy of M. Viennet, or
of some collegian, she would lose her prestige.
"Believe me, Monsieur le Ministre, I am, like
you, very anxious with respect to high art. I do
not care to see dramatic genius frittered away on
trifles. I would wish to play nothing but great
works, throbbing with life and radiant with sub-
lime thought, in which should be expressed, in the
loftiest style, the loftiest sentiments. But please
to observe what is enacted elsewhere, and you will
310
BEHIND THE SCENES
conclude that the Théâtre Français still manages
to keep up the dignity of the stage. After all, do
not we perform all the works of the most eminent
men of our time?
66
Though I have faith no longer in tragedy, I
love the works of Corneille and Racine too well
not to perform them now and then with all the
splendour due to them. Not a week passes but
Mdlle. Rachel gives herself heart and soul to the
grandiose figures of those antique epics.
"But I firmly believe that it is comedy that will
save the Théâtre Français, which, after all, owed
its birth to the comedies of Molière.'
99
M. Léon Fauchet, who fancied that he could get
tragedies like Cinna and Phèdre for the asking,
did not relish this reply. He sent for me, and held
forth in a lofty strain about his ideas. So little
likely were we to come to an understanding, that I
found myself compelled once more to tender my
resignation. But in those days he had a very
clever and sensible man for his secretary-general-
M. Fremy-who was a frequent and welcome
visitor to the house of Molière, was familiar with
its working, and convinced the Minister of the
impossibility of having masterpieces written to
order.
M. de Morny had his turn. Having become
Minister of the Interior, superintendent of the
Théâtre-Français, he indicated to me his ideal,
which was utterly different.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
311
"I am very sorry to see, my dear director, that
the contemporary stage always does the self-same
thing. On the one hand there is declamatory
tragedy revived from the Greeks; on the other
there is superannuated and wholly conventional
comedy, in which I defy you to find a line pro-
voking general laughter. It seems to me, though,
that our novel ways and manners should furnish
material for novel comedy-for the modern drama,
if you like-which would borrow its emotional
situations from tragedy and its lively ones from
comedy, but without falling into the mistake of
declamation in the tear-provoking scenes-without
descending to vulgarity in the comic ones. How
is it that as yet no dramatist has been found to
adapt the grandiose figure of Napoleon to the
stage? Do not you think that a comedy entitled
'Improvised Monarch' would arouse the greatest
interest if the first act showed Murat, Bernadotte,
Ney, Massena, and other poor devils, who had in
their knapsacks, the former a crown, the latter the
field-marshal's staff?
"How many comedies, indeed, could be written
with Napoleon as the principal character? How
many apotheoses and cruel disappointments has he
had at every period of his life, in every part of the
world, from his first stage to his martyrdom at St.
Helena. His wives, his companions in arms, his
family, the kings he 'undid' and the kings he
made, the sacrifices and conspiracies he provoked;
312
BEHIND THE SCENES
in one word, it has always seemed to me that his
career contained every inspiration fit for comedy
and the drama."
My reply was as follows:-
"It is true, my dear Minister, that this Napo.
leonic epic teems with the grandest and most
startling situations, just as it contains the thousand-
and-one shifting acts of the human drama. But
the pieces performed in the circuses have for a
long while shut the door against any and every
serious attempt for the stage in connection with
Napoleon. If it be permissible to counterfeit Napo-
leon in military spectacle, it is absolutely impossible
to produce a portrait of this gigantic figure on the
stage, because it still lives amongst us. Besides,
his heroic character cannot be reduced to the petty
framework of domestic passion; his life is an 'Iliad'
rather than an 'Odyssey.' Let us wait. In a cen-
tury hence there will perhaps arise a Shakespeare
to represent this king of kings in a dramatic form.'
*
*
Meanwhile the most impossible authors read to
the reading committee the most impossible pieces.
I happen to have come upon the following reminis-
cence in the former Figaro :-
"The departure for London of the artists of the
Comédie Française reminds us of a pat reply of
M. Arsène Houssaye, the director of the house of
Molière. A poet was declaiming to the reading
committee a tragedy of his own.
He thought it
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
313
expedient to preface his performance with the fol-
lowing little speech: 'In order to understand the
drift of my work we must cross over to England,
where the action of my play is laid.' 'Is it abso-
lutely necessary?' asked Brohan. 'Absolutely,'
replied the author. In that case,' said Arsène
Houssaye, rising to intimate that the sitting was
at an end, 'You'll be good enough to give us time
to pack our trunks and to prepare for our departure.
Meanwhile, we'll read such works as will not entail
such fatiguing journeys.'
*
*
米
​I introduced Pierre Malitourner to Mdlle. Rachel
just before the final act of Angelo. I was afraid
that Thisbé would strike him dumb, as it were,
by the sovereign magic of her presence; but he
managed, nevertheless, to say this:-
"Madame, you wear the peplum with an elegance
too majestic (vous portez avec trop de noble vé
nusté-from the Latin venustas-les plis du pep-
lum) for me not to wonder at seeing you within the
space of two days as the Roman woman Camille
and as Thisbé the Courtesan; the Grecian statue
descended from its pedestal; the Venetian portrait
come out of its frame."
"Monsieur,” replied Rachel, "I aspire to the
days when I shall be but a statue and a portrait."
*
A few days ago, Beauvallet told a characteristic
story of Casimir Delavigne that should be recorded
314
BEHIND THE SCENES
in the history of the theatre. It happened on the
day following the first performance of Les Bur-
graves. Casimir Delavigne lay on his sick-bed,
awaiting death, who had already knocked at his
door; but the poet's love of the beautiful held him
bound to the things of this world. Beauvallet went
to see him
"I am delighted you have come, you are going
to give me some lines from the Burgraves."
Whereupon Beauvallet began to recite an ad-
mirable monologue.
"How magnificent!" exclaimed Casimir Dela-
vigne, interrupting him.
"Isn't it?" said the actor, enthusiastically.
"Well, that's what they hissed most unmercifully
last night."
Casimir Delavigne reflected for a few moments.
"The public is strange," he said at last, in a tone
of conviction; "if these verses had been mine,
they would have applauded."
Grand and true words, that go far to explain the
stranding of young ardent natures, full of genius,
on the rocks and sandbanks of the theatre. They
have as yet not been adopted by the public, which
has not the courage to like to-day what it did not
like yesterday. The receipt to succeed in dramatic
composition is as follows: one-third of the dramatic
spirit of yesterday, one-third of that of to-day, one-
third of that of to-morrow.
*
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
315
When I revived La Coupe Enchantée, La Fon-
taine's comedy had not been played for more than
half-a-century. Its frank and spontaneous drollery
had not been pointed out to the public since 1797.
It was a genuine treat to see Brohan, Luther, and
Got flinging broadcast, as it were, their infectious
gaiety, ingenuous grace, and rustic simplicity. La
Fontaine would not have taken the most round-
about way to see his piece enacted so well.*
To
They said in the green-room that the piece was
by Champmeslé, and not by La Fontaine.
decide the question now-a-days we should have to
resuscitate Champmeslé's wife, who gave champagne
both to her husband and the fabulist. What is very
certain is that she pocketed the author's fees. La
Fontaine perpetrated some puns on the subject.
A dandy, having seen Mdlle. Luther, wanted to do
the same.
"Mademoiselle, you have made me a Lutheran."
"I am not so Protestant as all that," came the
reply.
*
*
Like the whole of Molière's plays, the whole of
Marivaux's ought to be in the repertory, seeing
that the latter simply represents another aspect of
French wit and intellect. Like his contemporary,
Watteau, he occupies a first rank by his inventive
genius and his brilliant colouring. His fancy is
* An allusion to La Fontaine's habit of taking the most round-
about way to the Academie when he was bored by society.-[Transl.]
316
BEHIND THE SCENES
sister to Truth. He had so much wit as to dazzle
both Fontenelle and Voltaire, though he never
showed more than half of it.
I was anxious to revive Les Surprises de l'Amour,
pending the revival of other small gems once be-
longing to the Théâtre Italien, and which are no
longer played. Les Surprises de l'Amour had not
seen the footlights since the end of the eighteenth
century. How is it that Mdlle. Mars never thought
of it? Mdlle. Madeleine Brohan did, and proved
what an error of omission Mdlle. Mars had made.
In fact it was a genuine treat to see this comedy
venture into the luminous maze of that charming
wit that, as it were, plays at "hide-and-seek" with
itself. Madeleine seems born to express the subtle-
ties of Marivaux; nature has shaped the corners of
her lips with a master's hand; the artist's soul
flashes from her eyes, and spreads on the face a
kind of bantering look, even in the most senti-
mental passages. Mdlle. Biron in the fulness of
her Juno-like charms imparts a healthy liveliness
to Lisette. Mirecourt, who is not a sociétaire, was
certainly worthy of figuring in the best society of
the eighteenth century. Got contributed his comic
art to the servant, and Monrose interpreted the
priggishness of Hortensius with due gravity.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
317
CHAPTER XVI.
UNTIL my nomination, the Comedians of the Thé-
âtre Français were the most undesirable tenants in
Paris; they owed not less than half-a-million of
francs to the State.
At M. de Morny's advent to power, I called a
meeting, and headed by the women we proceeded
to the Ministry of the Interior. The Minister did
not make us wait. I had scarcely opened my lips
before Malle. Rachel and Mdlle. Brohan apprised
M. de Morny of the purport of our call, in the
following terms:
"We have come to ask a favour.-Which you
will refuse."
They necessarily cut short my intended speech,
because M. de Morny interrupted me.
"Your request is so reasonable that I ought to
have obviated this step. But, nevertheless, I am
very pleased to be able to have a chat with you all
without ceremony. It is absurd that the Comédie
Française, which is after all one of the living forces
of the State, seeing that it is the first school in the
world, should pay rent. It has got its own furniture,
318
Behind thE SCENES
it should have its own bricks and mortar." Saying
which, the Minister, who knew all the actors and
actresses, found something complimentary to say to
every one of them. In fact it looked very much as
if he were going to keep us to dinner there and
then, but he invited us in turns later on, wishing to
show that those who enact comedy, inspired by a
sentiment of high art, are made of the same material
as those who play the first parts in the State.
That kind of treatment was calculated to produce
a change in us, who had had to deal with Ministers
like Léon Faucher, who in their character of unim-
peachable democrats fancied themselves to be of
superior material.
M. de Morny followed the traditions of Napoleon
I. who looked upon the Théâtre Français as one
of his ministries. Was not M. de Rémusat its
superintendent? In 1802, the First Consul ordered
Molé to be buried with all the pomp of a great
dignitary of State. The eight-horsed hearse was
followed by four-and-twenty mourning coaches.
Mass was celebrated at St. Sulpice, the vicar of
which pronounced the panegyric of Molé, condemn-
ing the prejudices that classed actors among those
destined to eternal punishment. It was likewise
the Emperor who abrogated the free list for the
functionaries of State. When he was at the first
performance of a piece worthy of notice, he there
and then granted an allowance to the author; for
instance, to Delrieux for Artaxerce, to Luce de
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
319
Lancival for Hector. No doubt the Emperor would
have preferred to grant pensions to a Corneille or a
Racine, but it was not his fault that they were not
there. The Comedians were called to Erfurt and to
Dresden to perform before the now historical pit,
full of kings. The latter did not pay, but Napo-
leon did, and paid well. In fact he treated the
Comedians somewhat like kings, and perhaps a
little better; proof whereof the following little
story:-
At Erfurt, Talma went to have a chat with the
Emperor about the performance of the previous
night, and about the performance of that night.
Napoleon approved or changed the programme.
One morning as Talma was putting his hand on the
door of the Emperor's room, some one pulled him
back by the skirt of his coat.
"I should be obliged by your telling his Majesty
that I am waiting."
This impatient gentleman was the King of
Saxony, who wanted to take precedence of Augustus
or of Artaxerxes.
Is it necessary to remind the reader that it was
the Emperor who founded the classes for elocution
at the Conservatoire? Every one knows that when
at Moscow he signed the celebrated decree which
is still in force, a concordat of another nature which
prevents the separation of Comédie and State. In
1853, while breakfasting with him at St. Cloud,
Napoleon III. reproached me with playing so many
320
BEHIND THE SCENES
worthless pieces. I caught the ball in mid air.
"Those worthless pieces, Sire, I think them much
more worthless than you do."
If
66
Why then do you play them?"
""
"Because the reading committee accepts them.
you will give me the right to refuse them-
The Emperor considered for a moment or so.
66
'Yes, that is all very well, but we should have to
meddle with the decree of Moscow, and I would not
meddle with that for an empire."
That is why, though producing comedies which
are still an honour to the modern repertory, I have
been compelled to the last to play some rubbishing
pieces which I had not accepted, like La Migraine,
by M. Viennet; Les Batons Flottants, by M.
Liadières; La Niaise, by M. Mazères; and Stella,
by M. Francis Wey-a comedy in five acts in which
there was not a single line that raised a laugh.
*
*
*
The reorganisation of the orchestra has been very
much appreciated by the public and by the critics,
but very much criticised by the sociétaires. And
here I may be permitted perhaps to pass my pen to
M. Paul de Saint-Victor. After having said that
music, placed on the very threshold of the ideal
world represented on the stage, becomes the initia-
tory art par excellence, he adds, that the vague
murmur of melody poured forth by the orchestra
betwixt the silence of the auditorium and the.
apparitions on the boards, is like the gently rippling
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
321
stream of the pagan inferno which the soul has to
cross before entering the kingdom peopled by
visions. M. Paul de Saint Victor continues:
"The Théâtre Français has become a veritable
museum of scenery and decorations since the advent
of M. Houssaye, who has the eye of a poet and the
hand of an artist. It is also, thanks to him, that
henceforth the Théâtre Français will have an
orchestra. The orchestra of a theatre is the organ,
profanely employed, of the Temple of Art; it elec-
trifies the atmosphere of the house; it exalts the
minds of the audience; it inclines them to medita-
tion; it imparts a certain solemnity to them, by the
wild or dulcet strains of the instruments; it prepares
them to participate in the terror of the drama
unfolded or in the joys of the comedy. If there be
a theatre calculated to bring about this innermost
accord of two arts, assuredly it is the Comédie
Française; the music there should be raised to the
diapason of poesy, it should, as it were, scan the
rhythm of the latter by the movement of the violin-
bow. It is this concert of harmony and ensemble
which M. Offenbach is entrusted to organise and to
execute;
henceforth the overture to each piece will
be in conformity with the character and genius of
its author. The grandiose fanfares of Glück will
precede the tragedies of Corneille like the clarions
of a Roman legion; the melancholy cantilenas of
Cimarosa will softly sigh during the divine elegies
of Racine like the cooing of turtle-doves that have
Y
322
BEHIND THE SCENES
built their nest in the crevices of a mask of an an-
tique Melpomene; the bursts of excruciating laughter
of the Italian jester will be the prelude to the
comedies of Molière; and Lulli, that Neapolitan satyr
disguised as scaramouch, shall take up once more
the reed-pipes of the Bacchantes to conduct the
carnival of his 'interpolations' with the rustle of
his skipping music."
The committee of administration rather regretted
to see the orchestra take a few seats from the
public during the successful run of a piece, but art
should prevail over monetary considerations; at
any rate that is the spirit which prompted the State
subsidy.
Offenbach performed wonders. Heaven only
knows how many operas and operettas of his
own concoction he performed between the acts.
He alternately took the violin of Lulli to accom-
pany Molière, and the violin of Hoffman to accom-
pany Alfred de Musset. And what splendid company
he was as long as he remained satisfied to be
enamoured of his wife-virtue and beauty going
hand in hand! Unfortunately, I have seen him torn
asunder like Orpheus, by cruel, unrequited passions.
*
Every one at the Théâtre Français made the
same mistake with regard to Pierre de Touche,
the comedy of Emile Augier and Jules Sandeau.
On the eve of the first performance it was con-
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
323
sidered magnificent; after the performance the piece
was nowhere. And still the Comedians had valiantly
supported their parts. But it seemed as if an ava-
lanche of snow had dropped from the footlights.
Every one felt chilled to the bone, so that the wit of
the authors was dispersed as it were in snowflakes.
Not a single line told, though there were some
genuinely good ones; not a scene went to the heart
or succeeded in bringing a smile to the lips of the
audience. It was simply a first-rate funeral. What
was the evil genius presiding at this first night? In
vain did I try, between the acts, to prove that it
was a work worthy of both the authors and their
interpreters; people failed to perceive aught but
phantoms on the stage.
On the second night the public seemed to think
better of it. They acknowledged that it was a
charming, original comedy, with striking situations;
but the Court of Appeal that sits on second nights
rarely quashes the verdict of the first one. And the
various criticisms that appeared on the Monday
following were virtually nothing but a platonic
Court of Appeal.
Was it because the piece is too philosophical, or
because its action is laid in Germany-a country
where comedy rarely laughs? Fortunately, Augier
and Sandeau are two augurs who cannot look at
each other without laughing: they set to work
to have their revenge. And what a revenge they
did have-Le Gendre de M. Poirier, which has
Y 2
324
BEHIND THE SCENES
been an acknowledged masterpiece these thirty
years.
*
Winckelmann, who very often is nothing more
than a rhetorician with lips of ice-cold marble, laid
down a splendid axiom when he said that "beauty,
like limpid water, must be drawn from a pure well."
The Greeks of the Decadence poured into the fountains
their amphoræ full of wine. Rachel is a splendid
Grecian of the decadent period, but she succeeded
in preserving the air of majesty of the goddesses.
Nowadays expression is one of the character-
istics of beauty. According to La Bruyère, "the
look of intellect is in men what regularity of features
is in women." But women rarely obtain the grand
prize for beauty unless they are beautiful by virtue
of statuesque outlines and facial expression, that is
to say by virtue of design and charm.
One day at a dinner-party at M. de Morny's,
when the host was speaking of her beauty, Rachel
said:
"You have no conception, you who are telling me
about my beauty, how ugly I was in the beginning.
I, who had to play tragedy, had an absolutely comic
face. It would have made you roar with laughter
to see my square forehead, my crooked nose, my
ferrety eyes, my grinning mouth. I leave you to
imagine the rest. I went with my father one day
to the Louvre. I was but moderately impressed
with the pictures, though he pointed out to me the
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
325
tragic scenes by David. But when I got among the
statues I became an altered being. I thought that
it was very beautiful to be beautiful. I came away
from there feeling several inches taller, with a kind
of fictitious dignity which I managed to gradually
transform into natural gracefulness. Next morning
I looked through a book of engravings after the
antique; no lesson at the Conservatoire ever proved
so useful. If I succeeded in appealing to men's
eyes by my attitudes and expressions, it is because
the masterpieces of antiquity had appealed to my
eyes."
The way Rachel said this was enough to impress
every one of us.
It is a well-known fact that she
spoke better than no matter whom-when she did
not speak like the veriest street-arab.
"I forgot," she resumed in a few moments, "I
ought to tell you that if I have managed to become
handsome-seeing that you tell me I am hand-
some, though I do not believe a word of it-it is
because I studied every hour of my life to be ugly
no longer. I had something of the monster in me;
I immolated the monster. As I happened to be in
the springtide of life when this idea took hold of
me of improving upon the paternal and maternal
model, Heaven helping me, everything turned out
for the best. God is after all the great drawing-
master; He has been good enough to put in a touch
here and there; the bumps have fallen away from
my forehead, my hair has veiled it in the manner
326
BEHIND THE SCENES
of the ancients; my eyes have been enlarged; my
nose has resumed its straight line; my lips, that were
too thin, have become fuller; I have ordered my
teeth, that were a struggling mass, to get into
line."
Rachel smiled with that subtle smile which was
a charm in itself.
"After which," she continued, "I powdered the
whole with that look of intelligence which I haven't
got." She was interrupted with too many com-
pliments, which in this instance were only so many
truths, to be able to continue the story of her im-
perfections. Nevertheless she went on.
"The best
of all this is that I did not want to be beautiful to
please a man-which is the case with all women.
I wanted to be beautiful from the artistic point of
view, disdaining the commerce of love,' as the
philosophers say in their splendid language.”
6
On that evening Rachel was applauded more
than ever.
There were no more than fifty guests
at M. de Morny's, but it was the pick of the whole
of Paris, a downright audience of artists, which is
even better than an audience of kings. And yet
there had been no attempt on her part to play
comedy.
According to an ancient writer the face is the
lamp of the body; one may add that the eyes are
the lamp of the face. Homer, who cannot conceive
a beautiful woman without large eyes, gives to
Juno the eyes of a heifer. Theocritus gives to
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
327
You have no doubt
ever seen an owl?
Minerva the eyes of an owl.
seen a heifer, but have you
How beautiful, intelligent, and soft, how luminous
and deep, are its eyes! They are wisdom tempered
by gentleness. The eyes of the Shulamite woman
are compared to turtle-doves, bathed in milk by
the sides of a fountain, a charming image convey-
ing the sweetness of eyes floating on limpid banks.
In fact, where did the comparisons with regard to
eyes stop? for if Gallus said of the eyes of his
mistress that they were diamonds, Lactantius said
that "the eyes beneath their lashes flashed and
shone like a diamond set in a ring of gold." These
were the eyes of Rachel.
*
*
Some instances of the danger of recommending
things:
"MY DEAR DIRECTOR,
"I am afraid you have too literally interpreted
my recommendation of that little comedy, L' Un et
l'Autre (The One and the Other). I would by
much prefer neither the one nor the other on a
stage like that of the Comédie Française. Why
does Mme. Roger de Beauvoir no longer enact
comedies instead of writing them?
"MORNY."
"MY DEAR MINISTER,
"You are right, but there exists no government
328
BEHIND THE SCENES
that can do as it likes. Mme. Roger de Beauvoir
was ill-advised in abandoning the part of Agnes to
play les femmes savantes (to play at blue stock-
ing). I have spoken to her about returning to the
stage, but she sticks to her 'ink-slinging'; she
evidently thinks herself a dramatic author because
she happens to have concocted a few characters. It
is the prevailing sin of the members of the house of
Molière. On the pretext that Molière acted comedy,
all the Comedians set to writing comedies: Sam-
son, Beauvallet, Regnier, Brohan, Mme. Roger de
Beauvoir. What would Molière have said to them?
That he wrote masterpieces, but that he was a bad
actor. At present it is quite the contrary.
"Mdlle. Doze's piece, which is neither good nor
bad, has not been understood, because it is merely
a kind of cleverish drawing-room piece, the effect
of which scarcely goes beyond the footlights. You
have forgotten that you recommended it to me-
when you were not a Minister.
"MY DEAR HOUSSAYE,
"ARSÈNE HOUSSAYE."
"His Majesty is coming to the Théâtre Français
to-night. I hope that this time you will be pro-
vided with the two legendary candlesticks like
Roqueplan, Perrin, and Montigny.
"MY DEAR BACCIOCHI,
"BACCIOCHI.”
"You insist on my being a 'link-boy;' I am
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
329
equally determined not to fall into that error.
Pray remember the origin of the custom, now
nearly two centuries old. Formerly the assistant
stage-manager for the week came to meet royalty,
carrying two large sconces; but this was not merely
a semblance of courtier-like obsequiousness or
futile courtesy; these sconces were not lighted
for the pleasure of lighting them; gas had not
superseded sunlight, and their Majesties' lives and
limbs could not be jeopardised by the risk of break-
ing their necks in the semi-obscure passages of the
theatre.
"Nowadays the tortuous corridors of
of the
Théâtre Français are represented by a brilliantly-
lighted staircase, where there is very little risk of
stumbling. What difference, in the name of all
that is sensible, would two two-branched candle-
sticks make amidst this flood of light? It would
be playing a comedy before the curtain had risen
upon the real one,
"You say, truly, that it is in memory' of a
consecrated usage; but Napoleon III. does not
dance in ballets disguised as Apollo, as did Louis
XIV.
"I beg, therefore, that you will not condemn me
to do what other directors do for their own pleasure.
The Emperor has always been so gracious to me
that I am sure he will take no offence at this
revolt against old customs.
"When the Emperor comes to the theatre he
330
BEHIND THE SCENES
The
shakes hand with me; if I were carrying a candle-
stick I should lose that mark of sympathy.
Emperor often invites me to take a seat in his box;
do
you think that he would care to chat with a
link-boy? And besides, I have an objection to
fancy myself no longer worthy of chatting with
him-or for that matter, with myself."
I do not know whether Bacciochi, who felt some-
what vexed, showed this letter to the Emperor; I
continued to welcome the Emperor, who continued
to be as kind as ever-without carrying a candle-
stick. I am under the impression that he was
still more kind after that.
*
Voltaire has still got his enthusiastic admirers;
they are three, and it is for these three faithful ones
that I play Zaire now and then. On such nights I
take a seat near to them in the orchestra stalls; they
absolutely quiver with excitement at each telling
line. Victor Hugo would say that there are only
three, but the three Voltairians virtually salute
three hundred among the masses. Voltaire himself,
if he came back to make up the quartet, would be
somewhat surprised to see his plays so neglected.
Like Mme. Desmares he would say, "Applaud, you
stupid pit, applaud, it is Voltaire's."
Nowadays there is nothing sacred to the public,
not even godlike Racine. I may give Mithridate as
often as I like, and for every début of the prize
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
331
winners at the Conservatoire, but a refractory public
turns away from the theatre. Beauvallet was indig-
nantly remarking upon this yesterday.
"You are right," I said, "Mithridates accus-
tomed himself to poisons, but the public will not
accustom itself to Mithridates."
*
*
Rachel was often pleased with herself because
she compared herself to the storm traversing the
sky, then bursting into tears and drowning herself in
the ethereal blue. She said that fate had reserved
to her the placid joys of life-she who dreamt of
peaceful solitude, of sweet introspection, of the
"ingle nook" so dear to a loving nature, to mater-
familias. Often and often did she come between
the wings, her face bedewed with tears.
66
66
Why are you crying?"
I am crying because I live the lives of others,
not my own."
*
*
*
For nearly twenty years Rachel had painted and
sculptured all the magnificent figures of antiquity.
I recollect being one night in her dressing-room,
whither I had taken Pradier, Morny happening to
be there also. Both arts were commented upon in
lofty terms. It was after a performance of Phèdre.
For a wonder her courtiers had departed before
the usual hour. I feel tempted to reproduce a few
ideas scattered through this "dialogue of the dead."
332
BEHIND THE SCENES
Malle. Rachel. "Pradier, behold my master."
Pradier. "Since when does the muse take lessons
from a sculptor ? "
Mdlle. Rachel. "Since she has discovered that
the way to the stage leads through the studio."
Pradier. "How handsome you look in this
chlamys! How artistically the folds are arranged;
chaste, and at the same time not chaste. One feels
that there is a woman beneath the dress."
Malle. Rachel. "As with your statues, one feels
the flesh while stroking the marble.”
Pradier. "The more I look at you, the more
I am struck with the idea that one becomes hand-
some when the mind is preoccupied with the
beautiful."
Malle. Rachel. "Truly. I began by being
ugly-"the ugliness of genius" people told me in
order to console me. I told the story to M. de
Morny."
Morny. "Genius is not ugly, be its face what it
may. But there is no doubt to all those who have
studied and loved you
""
Malle. Rachel. "People have always studied
while loving me; they have never loved me while
studying me."
Morny. "We'll have some epigrams by-and-by,
but just let me finish my sentence. To all those
who have loved and studied you, it is patent that the
love of statuesque outline which preoccupies your
mind at all times has gradually corrected the im-
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
333
perfections of your profile; you have not lost in
characteristics, while you have gained in beauty.”
Malle. Rachel. "Do not you think then that
Nature, ashamed of having so clumsily modelled a
woman destined to become the great tragic actress,
'if I may be permitted the expression,' as M. St.
Beuve would say, do not you think then that Nature
would herself, and without extraneous inspiration,
have corrected her blunders ?"
وو
Morny. "Do not talk to me about Nature with-
out art. It is Nature without God, it is a harvest
without sunlight, it is the man and woman without
love, it is truth without poesy. You had better ask
Houssaye, though he has already had so many
opinions on all this that probably he has no more."
Malle. Rachel. "You fancy that Houssaye is
here? Nothing of the kind. He is in my neigh-
bour's dressing-room. Don't disturb him."
I. "Well, seeing that I am not here, you may
change your dress. There is only a sculptor and a
statesman."
Malle. Rachel. "Modesty does not consist of a
dress. But as I am not in the studio, and as I am
not posing for the nude, I shall not undress. There
is time enough. It is only twelve o'clock.'
""
I. "Twelve o'clock, a preposterous hour. But
let us stick to art. You are the supreme example
of the triumph of art over nature. When you
emerge from the wings you stand ten hands high.
You are a Juno, a Diana, a Melpomene. Every
334
BEHIND THE SCENES
thing trembles beneath your foot, which at ordinary
times would not crush a rose, and which I could
hold in my hand.”
Malle. Rachel. "Take care! O Sybarite! it is a
brazen foot."
Pradier. "It is the golden foot of Lysippus.
How admirably it sets off the cothurnus.”
Malle. Rachel. "It is the cothurnus that sets it off
well."
Pradier. "No, I maintain what I said. Tell
me, who taught you to arrange your hair with
this antique grace ?
Cleomenes had no better
style than you. I expect you have somewhat
studied the classic folios.'
""
Malle. Rachel. "I just dipped into Winckel-
mann here and there, and I could make nothing of
him. Is it not he who said that art like wisdom
should begin by the study of oneself? But what
is the good of reading Winckelmann, who knew
everything? I know much more than he does,
because I guessed everything. The first time I saw
some Grecian figures I fancied I recognised my
own portrait."
Pradier. " Nothing more likely. I have seen
you in a basso-relievo of the Hunts of Diana, which
I brought back from the Villa Pamphili. To-
morrow I will send you your portrait sculptured
two thousand years ago."
Malle. Rachel. "That was before I was broken
down by passions, or rather before I became
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
335
familiar with bent attitudes. I was the sapling
before the storm."
I. "The sapling? the sapling? you are the storm,
not the sapling. You speak with the eloquence of
thunder itself. When you step upon the stage you
spread light and darkness upon it, as well as in the
souls of those who look upon you. It is like a
spell. Paris disappears. Antiquity uprises amidst
its ruins, and with its halo of eternal youth. The
splendid figures of Phidias are, as it were, dancing
in the Parthenon. Oh, Rachel, it is you who have
discovered Herculaneum.'
""
Malle. Rachel. "I have no part or parcel in
your lovely visions. Antiquity lives in your mind
as in that of Pradier, and when I step upon the
stage it is not the stage-curtain that rises, it is the
curtain of your imagination."
Pradier. "Not so; it is your consummate art
which hides the present hour from me and carries
me into the radiant spheres of the past.'
Malle. Rachel. "We are getting too poetical."
Pradier. "When I sit watching the graceful folds
of your peplum, caliseris, or cloak, when I see your
hair swept as it were by the waves of passion, it
seems to me that a figure of Zeuxis has become
detached from a fresco."
Morny. "If I had the direction of the School
of Arts, I would send all my pupils to your
school; you are both a great sculptor and a great
painter."
336
BEHIND THE SCENES
Mdlle. Rachel. "I was not aware of it."
Pradier. "Who more than you is imbued then
with the love of classic and severe form, the
learned grace of outline, the passionate charm of
colour? The materials you wear, your diadems,
your necklets, your embroideries, your cameos, your
cothernus, your bracelets, are masterpieces of style.
And when I think that this piece of statuary which
is called Phædra, that this painting which is called
Hermione, will descend from its pedestal or come
away from its fresco to utter all the eloquent appeals
of passion, then I feel my chisel drop from my hands
before my block of marble.”
Morny. "That
"That may
be so, but if Rachel was there
she would pick up the golden chisel and kiss it
before restoring it to Pradier."
Pradier. "Crowned heads no longer indulge in
these things, but M. de Morny, who is almost a
king, picks up Rachel's handkerchief."
Malle. Rachel. "And I, when I
"And I, when I go to your
studio, and when I behold emerging from the
virginal block of marble one of your figures that
will live the everlasting life of art, I look with
compassion on all these tawdry stage rags; I feel
that, like the fantoccini of Seraphim, I shall have
passed away in no time. Your marble will stand
grandly and proudly erect when the grand and
proud tragic actress shall have become food for
worms.'
""
Pradier. "Food for worms!"
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
337
Mdlle. Rachel. "And it will be but just, for I my-
self have made people swallow so many verses. ""*
Rachel, it is well known, was very fond of inter-
spersing her conversation with those conceits, even
when in her most serious moods. It was charac-
teristic of her homely genius to remain grave even
amidst the follies of an orgy-like supper, and to be
lively even as far as the threshold of the home of
the "Horaces."
I shall not recount all the good things she uncon-
sciously said on that evening. Pradier caressed the
marble surface with the chisel of a voluptuary.
True to his axiom that marble should neither laugh
nor weep, true above all to the quivering outline,
he only concerned himself with the visible image.
Mdlle. Rachel tore the mask from antiquity's face,
she flung from her that Olympian imperturbability
that stifled the throbbings of the heart, she had the
courage to make the marble weep, she had the
courage of showing human weakness beneath her
strength, she dared to express any and every pas-
sion that lacerates and kills.
"It is a superb statue of Passion, less volup-
tuousness," they said to Pradier that evening. The
sculptor objected.
"What do you mean by 'less voluptuousness.'
How do you make that out, or rather where are
your eyes? But this pallor, these shudders, this
languor alternated by violent outbreaks of proud
* Vers is both worms and verses.
Z
338
BEHIND THE SCENES
rage, this delirium, these sudden depressions, these
nervous twitchings and inflections, these serpent-
like undulations, are they not voluptuousness amidst
passion?"
What in fact was both their aims? Art for the
sake of the beautiful, and the beautiful for the sake
of art, the interpretation, not the imitation of nature,
poetry in truth, gracefulness in strength; the frescoes
of the Parthenon as a grammar, and Leonardo da
Vinci as their chief master. It is not worth while
to tilt against realism, it has lived its life, or rather
it has never lived its life. Is it necessary to violate
truth in order to fertilize it? In the nineteenth
century one no longer fears the invasion of the
barbarians. Art is greater than Nature; she is God's
offspring like the other, but she carries within her
the divine light-thought-to illumine as it were
the handiwork of the Master of all masters. It is
not Nature herself we must imitate, but God him-
self. Will a cast taken from a living face ever be so
beautiful as the statues of Phidias and of Michael
Angelo? God, when he created the world, thought
it imperfect, but he did not deign to recommence
this grandiose work. He imbued man with the
love of perfection, he placed before his feet of clay
the golden ladder leading to the infinite, he told
those that were inspired to finish his dream, the
dream of a world that should be more beautiful.
Art continues the dream of God.
**
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
339
After the Coup d'Etat, being of opinion that one
ought not to mix up literature and politics, I con-
tinued to play the works of Victor Hugo. Those
who, like Romieu, were more Imperialist than the
Emperor himself, raised an outcry against me.
Romieu happened to be director of the department
of Arts, but I was not afraid of him. After the
publication of Napoleon the Little matters be-
came considerably aggravated; nevertheless I kept
Marion Delorme on the bills. After the publication
of Les Châtiments I still stuck to Marion Delorme,
which contains some of the most lofty sentiments
on clemency. There was a great hullabaloo at the
theatre and at the ministry. The actors said to
me, Surely you won't think of doing it." At the
ministry my dismissal was being prepared; still at
midnight, when there was as yet time to change
the programme for the next day, Romieu, who was
a friend of mine in spite of this, came in the jolliest
way imaginable to tell me.
66
"You'll get your dismissal to-morrow unless you
change the bills, for Marion Delorme must not
be played. It would be absolutely defying the
Emperor."
I told Romieu that as far as I was concerned
the question was wholly a literary one; that I was
bound to keep the greatest dramatic poet of the
century on the repertory of the Theatre Français;
that I would sooner have my hand chopped off than
change the programme.
"Besides," I went on, "I
z 2
340
BEHIND THE SCENES
know the Emperor; he is above party passion, be-
cause he has never had a moment of anger, and
because he is a man of policy."
The bill appeared, my dismissal was signed, the
Comédie Française was in a high state of excite-
ment. Would Marion Delorme be played or would
it not be played?
It was played. About twelve o'clock in the day, at
the very moment when M. de Persigny was taking
up his pen to sign my dismissal, there came a mes-
sage from the Emperor; Napoleon III. was coming
to the theatre that evening. A conflict of opinion,
assuredly. I hurry off to M. de Persigny's, who
with one hand presents me with my recall and who
shakes hands with me with the other.
66
I am sadly afraid that Romieu has wasted his
ink," I said, "because the Emperor has sent me
word that he will come to the theatre to-night to
see Marion Delorme. I should like you to come
also."
"I will not fail to do so.'
If ever a man felt pleased at having been proved
in the right, assuredly it was I. When I came
back to the theatre every one congratulated me by
shaking hands, by sending cards and notes. The
following is a fair sample; it is Mme. de Girardin's.
"Your conduct towards Victor Hugo while he is
suffering proscription is noble and handsome, and
I am anxious to thank you for it in these days of
systematic ingratitude and glorified meanness.
It
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
341
does one good to know that there exists somewhere
a proud heart, a friendly heart that can be rash
enough to be faithful.
“DELPHINE DE GIRARDIN.”
"That letter is as good as a patent of nobility,
said Alfred de Musset, who was also a sincere
friend.
The pick of Paris was in the theatre that
night. How would the Emperor take the matter?
Napoleon III. came before the rise of the curtain.
The principal Ministers, among others Baroche and
Persigny, Rouher and de Morny, came to the im-
perial box. At his arrival the Emperor had told
me to come and see him in the course of the
evening.
The curtain rose amidst a freezing silence; every
one was on the watch. Emperor Napoleon III.
sat like a statue. No one near him spoke a word;
they always waited for him to speak to get the
correct key; all except de Morny and Persigny. I
felt not in the least uneasy; I knew well enough
that a drama by Victor Hugo never fails to tell
upon people by its lofty sentiments, and I was
right. In a few moments the Emperor began to
thaw, and gave the signal for applause. After that
it was magnificent. The whole house rose like
one man, frantically applauding by a thunder-clap,
as it were, both the poet and the sovereign.
The applause was renewed after every act.
Never did Victor Hugo receive such an ovation-
342
BEHIND THE SCENES
never was the Emperor so happy as on that night.
He seemed to say to Hugo:
"Let us be friends, Cinna, it is I who ask you.'
But Cinna declined to take the chair which
Augustus offered him.
Just before the fourth act I went to the Em-
peror's box. He made me sit down by his side,
and in his deep bass voice said, "Beautiful, in-
deed!"
"Then after all, sire, I was right to play Marion
Delorme."
"Certainly."
"Nevertheless, I shall be dismissed for having
played this beautiful drama.
""
The Emperor looked at Persigny.
66
Yes," he said, "I know the story, but it is a
mistake." Then, turning to me: "If
"If you had not
had the courage to play Marion Delorme after
having put it on the bill, then you would have been
dismissed."
*
*
Méry, who like a good many others had asked
for the directorship of the Théâtre Français, but
who consoled himself for any ordinary disappoint-
ment by gaming, came home one day in 1850 with
a splendid poem. He wanted Rachel to recite it
at the Comédie Française. He had taken time by
the forelock and sung The Return of the Eagle. I
* A well-known line from Corneille's Cinna.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
343
took the poem to the Elysée to recommend it to
the Prince, but above all to get a pension for Méry
from the Minister of Public Education. The Prince
himself read the verses to me, though there were a
great many people waiting for him in the adjacent
rooms. I might have been listening to Beauvallet;
it was not only his voice, but they were his ges-
tures. The Prince was a very good comedian when
he dared to give himself scope, and I well remember
to this day how capitally he recited the lines rela-
ting to the Decree of Moscow.
66
Seeing that you like the verses, monseigneur,
I'll have them recited by Beauvallet between the
tragedy and the comedy."
66
'I see no objection. Besides, I hold with remind-
ing people of this grandiose figure, and the verses
are worthy of the house."
But next morning the Prince sent me the follow-.
ing note:
"MY DEAR MONSIEUR HOUSSAYE,
"Do not have the verses of Méry recited. The
hour has not come. Méry is more royalist than
the king. Pray convey my thanks to him. The
verses are very telling and well thought-out; but
it affords me more pleasure to read them to myself
than to hear them recited by M. Beauvallet, or
even by Mdlle. Rachel.
"L. N."
But in 1852 Méry had not forgotten the verses
344
Behind thE SCENES
of 1850, in which he sang the return of the eagle
before the eagle had returned. And when the
Prince had distributed the new standards in the
Champs-de-Mars, surmounted by the eagle re-
covered from its wounds, Méry reminded me of the
forgotten lines.
The promised pension had also
been forgotten. I mentioned all this to the future
Emperor, who answered me, "This time it is all
right."
We gave a performance at the theatre of the
Tuileries, though the Prince was still at the Elysée.
We should have liked Rachel to recite the poem,
but Rachel was going to London. We had to make
shift with Judith, whom I dressed as the Muse of
History. When she stepped upon the stage in all
the splendour of her beauty she looked like a
theoria of antiquity. When she mounted the tripod
she was positively radiant. On that evening she
was magnificent, and invested the lines of Méry
with a golden, poetic flame of her own. They
wanted that, for this marvellous improvisatore
juggled with poetry without locking it passionately
to his heart.
What the Emperor Napoleon III. failed to do later
on for Rachel he did that night for Judith, because
we were in a private theatre. He appeared on the
stage and embraced the actress amidst the bouquets
that had been thrown to her.
The Prince sent six thousand francs to Méry for
his stirring poem. It was the first year's pay of
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
345
the wished-for pension-but princes have a pro-
verbially bad memory. True, when people later on
wished to recommend Méry, they never forgot to
say, "It affords him so much pleasure to lose his
money at Baden." And people are still asking
themselves where he got all the money he lost.
*
People have not forgotten yet the entertainments
at the Castellane town mansion, a kind of supple-
mentary Académie, where they performed comedies
and where the actors of the Théâtre Français felt
thoroughly at home. It is no exaggeration to say
that these were the headquarters of the élite of
Paris, from the Faubourg St. Germain downwards.
After the performance, after the “ wit-combats,'
came the tournaments of beauty. Then there was
the animated supper, not unaccompanied by a some-
what ceremonious stateliness, because the Countess
de Castellane was fond of resuscitating the grand
traditions of the court of Louis XIV. In 1852 they
played Alice, by von Flotow, the Metamorphoses
de l'Amour, a little gem by Mdlle. Brohan, and the
Comédie à la Fenêtre, literally written and played
"from hand to mouth." Mme. de Castellane, who
had read my Voyage à la Fenêtre, suggested the
scenes to me herself.
This attempt at a piece was admirably played
by Got, Brindeau, Mdlle. Judith, and Mdlle. Fix.
Before the comedy Beauvallet inaugurated the de-
testable era of monologues by my Chanson du
346
BEHIND THE SCENES
Vitrier, when he cracked his voice in a sob that
drew tears from everybody.
The Comédie Française was the gainer by this
representation, for the following morning the Count
de Castellane presented to the museum of the theatre
the beautiful portrait of Mdlle. Emilie Leverd, the
Celimène of the Restauration.
The success of the performance was such as to
be noticed at Court. The Emperor expressed a
desire to see the Comédie à la Fenêtre and Meta-
morphoses de l'Amour. I suggested the theatre at
the Tuileries; he told me the simpler way would
be to play them at the Théâtre Français. I pointed
out to him that a director could not play his own
pieces.
"So much the worse," he replied; "you'll play
by command."
They were
My vanity felt agreeably tickled.
already painting the scenery when I bethought
myself that, played by command, these pieces would
be inevitably hissed--at any rate, mine. So I put
off the entertainment till doomsday.
During the year 1852, the performance of some
pieces attained to the dignity of literary events;
for instance, the Diane of Emile Augier, a drama
in five acts and in verse-a high-class work in which
Mdlle. Rachel revealed herself in a new light. In
fact, at that period, she was constantly revealing
herself in new lights, but the public refused to look
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
347
upon her in any other than that of a Camilla, a
Phædra, or a Hermione. The bourgeoisie only
came to see Mdlle. Rachel when she played the
classic masterpieces. When she attempted a cha-
racter of the modern repertory she only drew
artists, connoisseurs, dilettanti, and society. The
run of Diane therefore was worthy neither of the
talents of the author nor the reputation of Rachel and
her fellow-actors, nor of the prestige of the theatre.
In vain had we displayed all the resources of
scenery and acting. After the twenty-fifth per-
formance we had to abandon all idea of it.
""
A success which seemed likely to "go on for
ever was Henry Murger's Bonhomme Jadis. There
the author disappeared behind the actors. The
Bonhomme Jadis was nothing more than a scenario
out of which Provost made a comedy by the sheer
force of his humorous and spirited acting.
After that came a piece that deserved to make a
noise-Le Sage et le Fou, by Méry. There was a
downright good idea underlying his witty and
charming verse, but the characters were too faintly
sketched in. The piece wanted playing in a
rattling way, so that each actor should emphasise
the physiognomy of it. On the stage perfection
often throws a chill on "business." Besides, there
are lucky and unlucky days. The following year
M. Laya wrote Les Jeunes Gens, which had an
enormous success.
success. It was the same subject over
again, the somewhat vulgar prose of the author of
348
BEHIND THE SCENES
Le Duc Job had been replaced by the pretty verses
of Méry; the farce writer had got the best of the
poet.
A success "all along the line," even along the
line of the musicians, was Ponsard's Ulysse. The
poet had done his best to paint antiquity in all its
truth. It was an effort worthy of him who had
revealed himself by his Lucrèce. He had found
out since that his work smacked too much of
the "school," the school of French tragedy. He
consulted a Greek master, took Homer for a model,
and as it were put the Odyssey on the stage.
We
To be nearer the truth still, we bethought our-
selves to represent Ulysse with choruses.
knew of a young composer who had, I will not say
a genius for Greek music, but who, while reading
the ancient poets, accompanied them with charm-
ing melodies, as if merely repeating some of the
beautiful but forgotten airs which the Muses
descending from Olympus were singing to him.
This young musician was Charles Gounod.
I had an "Erard" taken to my own room and
Charles Gounod set to work. It was simply delight-
ful; he improvised music as Lamartine spoke
poetry better still, perhaps, because politics
struck death into the words of Lamartine, while
poetry struck life into the improvisation of the
musician.
The Opera lent us its freshest voices; we even
found some at the Comédie, for instance that of
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
349
Alice Thérie, the freshest and most harmonious of
them all.
I spared no expense with the scenery, and Rubé
did wonders. More than one spectator still reminds
me every now and then of the magnificent pictures
from the Odyssey that were brought as if by magic
on the stage of the Comédie Française. Augier
and Ponsard's friends rejoiced beforehand at the
promised spectacular treat. Did not this antique
drama with choruses betoken a literary revival?
But while they were praising in the theatre, I was
blamed outside. The Minister (I do not remember
who it was) thought it strange that the Théâtre
Français "should take it into its head to sing."
He remonstrated with me about this "childish
nonsense." In vain did I try to convey to him an
idea of ancient history. The ancients to him were
Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire. I pointed out to
him the choruses of Esther. He replied that this
whim of Mme. de Maintenon was only admirable at
St. Cyr. He finished up by telling me to “look
out" for the first night.
It so happened that on the first night there were
two distinct publics. Strange, but most natural to
relate, the school of common sense, founded by
Ponsard, by which I mean the Podsnap family,
rebelled against Ponsard. They asked themselves
whether they were taking leave of their senses in
being amused by those songs. In reality the piece
owed its support to the disciples of the Romanticist
350
BEHIND THE SCENES
measure.
school, who remained true to their worship of
art for art's sake. They were delighted beyond
By this bold attempt Ponsard passed,
as it were, with arms and baggage, to their side;
furthermore, Gounod's music contributed in
small degree to their conversion. At last there
had been found a French musician who poured out
melody from an "ever-full amphora " without
drawing from known sources. Thanks to him, one
felt the fresh morning air playing around one; one
smelt the aroma of Theocritan meadows; one could
fancy oneself lingering in the pure atmosphere of
Penelope's dwelling. Not a single number re-
minded one of the jingle so dear to the Opera
Comique. In those days music was nought but a
"gad-about" in the streets of Paris; Charles
Gounod transformed her once more into a goddess.
At the end of the evening it was impossible to
say who would carry the day, the critics or the
enthusiasts. Alas! it was neither a victory nor
a defeat. Seeing that it was not a victory, the
Minister put me in the wrong, and required the
piece to be "taken off " as quickly as possible. In
fact I had to make a desperate struggle to keep it
on the bills for a score of nights, because the public
by no means "flocked in numbers." The piece
neither increased nor diminished Ponsard's repu-
tation, but Charles Gounod emerged from the
adventure with flying colours. He had been
systematically tabooed at the Opera. It was the
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
351
Comédie Française's good fortune to afford him the
opportunity of revealing himself in all his genius.
He has written nothing more beautiful than the
choruses to Ulysse.
I should not forget to mention as belonging to
that year a romantic comedy by Melesville, entitled
Sullivan,* which afforded pleasure to every one.
Melesville, like Scribe, belonged to no school, ex-
cept the school that moves to tears and to laughter,
the school of the human, which, after all, is the
best.
A charming fellow, indeed, was Melesville. One
felt like a friend towards him at first sight. The
President of the Republic, as good as Emperor,
already seemed more delighted than any one else
with the comedy. He asked me to
He asked me to express to
Melesville the pleasure his piece had afforded
him.
"Melesville is in my box; shall I bring him to
you? He will be delighted at all the kind things
you say.
"I shall be delighted to see him.
وو
Melesville accepted at once, and came to the
Prince's box with me. The interview was so cor-
dial that they both thanked me for having brought
them together.
"It is a friend you have brought me," said the
* Sullivan is the original of the versions of David Garrick,
played by the late Mr. Sothern and Mr. Charles Wyndham.
352
BEHIND THE SCENES
President. "Just explain to me why playwrights
are so infinitely more amiable than other men of
letters."
"It is because they do not spend most of their
time in their study; and, as they are always before
the public, they do their best to magnetise people,
as if every one of them was a spectator."
We wound up the year with Le Cœur et la Dot,
by Félicien Malefille. The original title was La
Fille qui Cherche, and it was on the latter that I
had encouraged the dramatist, famous at that time
through his Sept Enfants de Lara, to write his
comedy. Augustine Brohan, the everlasting seeker
after the ideal, was the very person to represent
the heroine. But Félicien Malefille lost his way
in the five acts and the idea of his heroine's cha-
racter. How many pieces that are really clever at
the first glance crumble away when taken hold of!
The author was a charming fellow, "looked at from
one side," as Georges Sand said, who dismissed him
from her society when she saw that he was blind in
one eye. I am afraid that this affliction influenced his
talent and his conversation. After a great deal of
trouble the comedy was ready to be "put on."
The piece was more or less modified during the
rehearsals. Malefille had many friends; his was a
lofty intelligence, but too much engrossed with
politics. Those would-be reformers of society con-
cern themselves a great deal more with its inequa-
lities than with its follies. They are more fit to
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
353
write leaders than to write comedies. Malefille, as
a matter of course, supported the thesis of the heart
against that of the dowry, but he did it with more
wit than feeling, so that the public found a great
deal more dowry than heart. The comedy suc-
ceeded, nevertheless, by virtue of several rattling
scenes. One felt that it was not the work of a
nobody. Besides, every one took an interest in
Maleville, who, after having cut a grand figure under
the Republic, had fallen into poverty while still
draping his tattered cloak grandly around him. He
had dreamt of a great success commensurate with
his mental height; it was only a very great succès
d'estime, which nevertheless provided him with the
wherewithal to live another year.
I must necessarily omit many pieces represented
for the first time in 1852. We commenced the
series on the 7th January with La Diplomatie du
Ménage, by Mme. Caroline Berton, the daughter of
Samson, and mother to Pierre Berton. It was very
charming and very witty, but essentially a woman's
comedy, fit for the drawing-room rather than for
the stage. In that same month we played Le Pour
et le Contre, by MM. Laffitte and Nyon. Though
this time two men had joined heads to produce one
act, the comedy savoured somewhat of a trifle to
be performed "between two screens," like L' Un et
l'Autre, a comedy by Mme. Roger de Beauvoir,
produced about the same time. As I have already
said, M. de Morny had recommended it before his
2 A
354
BEHIND THE SCENES
advent to office. He came to see it at rehearsal
and asked me to postpone it.
"How it it that she has so much wit when talk-
ing to you, and so little when she makes her cha-
racters talk?" he asked.
"It is simple enough; when she talks she shows
you the prettiest face imaginable, while when her:
characters talk we do not see her."
After all, L'Un et l'Autre was as good as all
the other trifles of those days, except Alfred de
Musset's Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou
fermée.
In March we produced Les Trois Amours de
Tibulle, by Arthur Tailhaud. It was another of
the series of trifles after the antique, like Le Moineau
de Lesbie. One might well apply Voltaire's saying
to the mania for writing these things: "The
first man who compared woman to a rose was a
poet, the second was simply a parrot." I am afraid
that these lines will bring a frown to the placid
front of a president of a certain superior provincial
court, for I believe M. Arthur Tailhaud ha
passed from poetry to the bench. As he might
commit me for contempt of court if I happened to
fall into his clutches, I hasten to admit that Les
Trois Amours de Tibulle caused a gentle thrill
of sympathy in the heart of every lady in the
house.
Le Voyage à Pontoise of Alphonse Royer and
Gustave Waez brought us back, if not to genuine
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
355
comedy, at any rate to comic writing. It was an
indictment of all the finnikin trifles, of all the
pastels and watercolours.
I was not wholly to blame for the latter, because
nearly all had been accepted long ago by com-
mittees at which I did not preside. The difficulty
consists in not producing the piece of an author
who has the right of being produced, who has the
right even of being hissed, for he will prefer being
hissed to not being played at all.
Among the small pieces fated to live but a day
or so, I was obliged to play Les Droits de l'Homme,
by M. Jules de Prémaray, a critic who found fault
with everything, and who, as a matter of course,
wrote a very bad piece, to everyone's great delight.
It is ever so.
M. de Persigny, who was my Minister for a long
while, had sworn that he would neither impose an
actress nor a piece upon me; leaving me free to do
well or the reverse. Unfortunately, he ended up by
recommending to several sociétaires M. Francis
Wey, who fancied himself a phoenix, because, like
Victor Hugo, Jules Grévy, and Jean Gigoux,* he
happened to have been born at Besançon. He had
written a great deal-one did not exactly know
what. He wrote a comedy with the unconcern of
a man who is cock-sure of himself in everything
he undertakes. A capital thing is assurance! In
* A celebrated painter (born 1803), who, like Quentin Matsys,
started life as a smith. [Transl.]
2A2
356
BEHIND THE SCENES
reading it to us he made us believe in him, so much
astonished did he seem at every line and scene.
And there was neither a line nor a scene in this
comedy in five acts. He even had the confidence
to call it Stella, but the star disappeared after one
night.
*
*
On the eve of the Second Empire, the theatres,
which are most consummate flatterers, all organised
a performance in honour of the President of the
Republic, already spoken of as Cæsar Imperator.
I simply did as the other directors. Better still,
Rachel had little difficulty in persuading me to
compose some strophes in honour of the prince who
had impressed every one by the words spoken at
Bordeaux: "The Empire means peace." This other
consummate flatterer told me that she did not mind
appearing as the Muse of History to recite the
strophes, provided they were from my pen. Under
her supervision I wrote some verses in the Pin-
daresque style on the consecrated theme: "The
Empire means peace." Alas! the Empire meant
war. If it managed to live by it, it also died of it.
The whole personnel of the Comédie contributed to
the solemnity. Stalls fetched as much as five hundred
francs each. Madeleine Brohan was charming in Le
Misanthrope, and Rachel was sublime as the Muse
of History. The representation was so signal a
success that an illustrated volume, at present ex-
tremely rare, was published in commemoration of it.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
357
The Emperor sent for me, and in the drawing-
room adjacent to his box embraced me as they em-
braced one another on the stage.
"Go and embrace Rachel for me," he said. And
I went. She was kind enough not to object to the
Ambassador. But what pleased her more, I believe,
was next morning Bacciochi brought her a magnifi-
cent bracelet worth at least ten thousand francs.
About the selfsame hour he handed a similar
bracelet to Mme. Arsène Houssaye. Persigny, who
was very enthusiastic about the whole affair, told
me the day after that the Emperor had ordered
him to give me the Rosette of the Legion of
Honour. Persigny, who had succeeded de Morny,
was at that time my Minister. I begged him to
do nothing of the kind, saying, "Postpone it till
the publication of my next book." My next book
was L'Histoire du 41me fauteuil.
358
BEHIND THE SCENES
CHAPTER XVII.
THE year 1853 opened with the production of Lady
Tartuffe. Madame de Girardin and Rachel had
dared to continue the idea of Molière in giving a
wife to that horrible Monsieur Tartuffe, who has
survived by the sheer strength of genius. At that
time Mdlle. Rachel had taken a violent liking to
high comedy; she wanted as it were to throw to the
winds her tragic mask, and prove that she was a
contemporary capable of expressing any and every
character, any and every passion. But if she her-
self was capable of representing the Muse of
Comedy, the public would not allow its idol to
change her features. This, after all, is the ever-
lasting story of the Paris public. The novelist is
not allowed to become an historian, the historian
must not attempt to become a dramatist. In
theatrical matters the tragedian must remain a
tragedian, the comedian a comedian, whatever the
versatility of his genius may be. The public has
no time to think out a second opinion upon a man.
Besides, Mdlle. Rachel and Mme. de Girardin had
forgotten that Tartuffe owed half his success to the
pluck of Molière, in whose hands the character
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
359
might have proved a formidable engine of war,
calculated to mortally wound Louis XIV. if the
monarch had not taken the matter in good part.
Let us suppose for a moment Tartuffe arriving
upon the scene on the eve of the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes, when Mme. de Maintenon guided,
perhaps held herself, the king's pen. Molière
would have been irretrievably lost, and Tartuffe
would have been played only after the death of
Louis XIV., when the Regency had made an end of
all hypocrites, so that there were no longer any
Tartuffes.
To come in the nick of time is one of the con-
ditions of genius. Nowadays this comedy of
Molière succeeds more by reason of its being a
page of history than because of its comic power.
When Mme. de Girardin spoke to me of this
horrible character which she wanted impersonated
by a woman, I predicted what would happen; but
Mdlle. Rachel was obstinate; Emile de Girardin
declaimed a leader on the subject; the piece was
written, etc., etc. It was read to the committee,
accepted, and played. What was applauded most
was the fourth act, full of masterly things, but I
am afraid there was a great deal of hypocrisy even
in the applause. No one was convinced, except
Mme. de Girardin, who in fact never questioned
her own productions. This self-confidence was
both her weakness and her strength.
Mdlle. Rachel confessed to me that she absolutely
360
BEHIND THE SCENES
despaired of the venture, but she pretended to
believe in it. She at any rate had saved her artistic
reputation by a few dramatic outbursts, by all the
subtleties, cajoleries, and hypocrisies within the
reach of woman.
Soon after that we produced a very tragic scene
by the Marquis de Belloy, La Mal' Aria. It
would have wanted Hébert himself to animate those
pale figures of this ghastly drama.*
Then came Les Souvenirs de Voyage by Amedée
Achard, a comedy that promised to be lively, but
which went all wrong, so that people scarcely
smiled.
By this time we had got to the 1st of April.
The day did not bring us any luck. Was it because
M. Achille Fould, on his accession to the portfolio
of Minister of State, had assumed at the same time
the superintendence or protectorate of the theatres ?
We produced Les Lundis de Madame, a very
clever one-act piece, a kind of drawing-room gossip
after the style of Le Monde où l'on s'ennuie. M.
de Morny had found it among the papers of one
of his friends and given it to Léon Gozlan.
Out of a very indifferent trifle Léon Gozlan had
made a pretty comedy, in which more than one
brilliant sally belonged to M. de Morny, which
fact ruined the piece, because M. Fould, who was on
*Auguste-Antoine Hébert, the painter of the celebrated picture
La Mal' Aria, formerly in the Gallery of the Luxembourg-
[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
361
bad terms with the statesman, took. Heaven to
witness in his indignation at such "rubbish "
being permitted on the stage of the Théâtre
Français.
The report spread that the Minister was furious,
which threw a damper upon the house and even
on the stage. After the performance, M. Fould
assumed a high and mighty tone to tell me that he
objected to the piece being played a second
time.
He had only an ordinary box on the ground tier,
while, as the reader knows, I occupied the stage-
box, which vexed him a little more. He had me
sent for. He was "flanked" by his secretary
Pelletier (?) who on the strength of that title became
a member of the Institute. He asked me how I
could play things like that. I answered him that
Les Lundis de Madame was nothing less than a
little masterpiece on the follies of society, but,
besides that, the name of the author, Léon Gozlan,
absolved the theatre from all responsibility. "The
name of the author," he shrieked; "Morny has
had a hand in the piece."
""
"So much the better. Morny has a great deal of
wit and a great many friends. If all the latter
come, the piece will run a hundred nights.'
"That may be, but the piece will be played no
more."
I told the Minister that every author is entitled
to three performances. M. Pelletier felt it incum-
362
BEHIND THE SCENES
bent to interfere by saying that this abuse would
be done away with, for M. Pelletier thought him-
self half-Minister of State, why Heaven only knew.
There was another secretary by the side of the
Minister, but he happened to be a clever man.
He had not the slightest wish to rule the world;
he only cared to enjoy himself and to make his
way in the world; it was M. de Soubeyran. As a
matter of course he put in his plea in favour of the
piece. Camille Doucet came to the rescue. I left
the box strong in the consciousness of my rights,
but, as the reader will perceive anon, the last word
had not been said.
A few days after that we had a revival of
Amphitryon, a great celebration in honour of
Molière. "His servant in ordinary and extra-
ordinary" (Augustine Brohan) recited some verses
written by me in her off-hand way.* Mdlle.
Rachel, for reasons unknown, neglected to bring
her wreath in honour of the poet. Her absence
was attributed to an indisposition-against the
public-which fortunately is not likely to retaliate.
The day after this ceremony I was sumptuously
entertained at supper by the Sociétaires, the senior
of whom, M. Samson, proposed with a great deal
of feeling the health of M. Arsène Houssaye,
who in response proposed the health of the Comédie
Française and its senior member. Dancing was
* Augustine Brohan was famous for playing the chambermaids
in Molière's pieces. Hence she was dubbed "his servant in
ordinary and extraordinary."-[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
363
kept up until chanticleer mingled his voice with
that of the violins.
M. de Balzac intended to dramatise all his novels,
which would have been a mistake on his part.
Who, after all, could have played his Comédie
better than did his own personages? Are not they
all alive still, with all their passions, follies, idio-
syncrasies, and characteristics strong upon them ?
What do they want with a stage other than they
have got? Would they not shrink in stature if the
actors were not up to their height? Truly, Jules
Sandeau and Alexandre Dumas; the one with
Malle. de la Seiglière, the other with La Dame aux
Camélias, have succeeded in bringing upon the stage
their immortal heroines in all the glow of their love
and passion. But, on the other hand, how many
novels are there the characters of which are living
in our imaginations but that have vanished like
shadows in the glare of the footlights?
This, to a certain extent, is what has happened
with the characters created by Balzac in Le Lys
dans la Vallée. Its heroine was one of his greatest
favourites; he had made a vow to bestow the honours
of the footlights on her. He died. Théodore
Barrière and Arthur de Beauplan wanted to realise
Balzac's dream. They came and read Le Lys dans
la Vallée, a comedy in five acts, which was not an
insult to the novelist's memory, for he himself would
not have done better. The piece was accepted
unanimously; the public were under the impression
that it was a celebration in honour of Balzac, hence
364
BEHIND THE SCENES
there was not the slightest protest amidst the
applause. For a whole month the success con-
tinued unabated; there was a general notion among
all the theatrical managers to dramatise the whole
of the Comédie Humaine, but the illusions were
gradually dispelled; the fanatical admirers of the
great novelist wrote in the papers that to touch
his work in the slightest way was tantamount to an
outrage on his memory. The adaptation could
assuredly not have been made with greater intel-
ligence and delicacy than in the effort of Barrière and
de Beauplan, but there are currents of opinion that
carry everything before them. After twenty-five
nights Le Lys dans la Vallée was nothing but a
recollection.
The Marquis de Belloy, who had been very much
depressed by his drama of La Mal' Aria, gave us
Pythias and Damon, a comedy after the antique,
the characters of which cut a capital figure and ob-
tained a very cordial welcome among the stock-
pieces. A Spanish play had its day also: Murillo,
by Aylie Langlé. It was within an ace of being a
success in the way of high-class fantastic comedy,
but Rebecca failed to import sufficient vigour to the
part of Perdita. On the other hand, Brindeau as
the great painter, Monrose and Anselme represent-
ing two Bartholos, were simply wonderful. Mdlles.
Favart, Valerie, and Fix symbolised the vine in the
three most "luscious periods" of its poetical exist-
ence; the vine of Canaan, the vine of Tiber, and
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
365
the vine of France were delightful by reason of
their dash and carefully-rehearsed gracefulness.
One would have liked to pluck them there and then,
those three purpled bunches of grapes! Meyerbeer,
who was a friend of the author, made his first bow
that night at the Théâtre Français. He set to music
the song of Murillo -a masterpiece in which the
great musician had impregnated himself with the
melodies of Spain.
29
Monographs adapted for the stage never obtain
a success. Edouard Foussier, too much "pushed
by his friend Emile Augier, was capable of writing
capital modern comedy, as he proved by some scenes
of Les Lionnes Pauvres. Why did he give the
Comédie-Française a comedy on Agrippa d'Au-
bigné? Still, the piece succeeded, but there was
no occasion to make such a stir without striking a
forcible blow.
One may argue that it is something to see one's
work live on the stage, if it be only for six weeks;
and, in fact, when one reviews the comedies of the
past, one barely finds a few worthy of being under-
lined again, let alone being readmitted to the re-
pertory.
Towards the end of the year the Théâtre
Français produced La Pierre de Touche, a grand
satirical comedy which deserved a great success,
not only by virtue of its intrinsic merit but because
it was acted by the pick of the company. In what
then did La Pierre de Touche fall short? It was
366
BEHIND THE SCENES
full of wit and feeling. One breathed as it were
the keen atmosphere of the highest summits of art.
At every line one came upon the human ego which
is the soul of comedy. In spite of all this a bitter
wind from the north whistled through the house,
the characters grew pallid before an ice-cold audi-
ence. The flame which in the days of great success
leaps invisibly from the stage to the very back of
the house—the magnetic current which travels from
the idea of the dramatist to the heart of the come-
dian, to set ablaze immediately afterwards, and as if
by magic, the whole of the spectators-was arrested
in its flights. When the curtain finally dropped
everybody looked at everybody else sadly, asking
themselves why La Pierre de Touche had fallen
from such an altitude. It was not even a signal
failure, it was only a semi-success.
In this same year the theatre owed much of
its prosperity to the stock masterpieces. Mdlle.
Rachel and the great comedians of the theatre
revived the school of Corneille, Racine, Molière,
Regnard, Marivaux, Beaumarchais, and the modern
masters who are already numbered among the
classics, and who in a century hence will still be
masters, such as Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas,
Alfred de Musset.
*
*
Let me return for a moment to Les Lundis de
Madame.
Morny had a friend who dabbled in theatrical
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
367
literature for the love of the thing. When young,
he had played the drawing-room pieces of Carmon-
telle, and he amused himself by writing similar
ones. I say that he amused himself because it was
not his profession. Morny introduced him as a big-
wig of the telegraphic department, who, between
two official despatches, gave vent to his wit. Out
of politeness rather than from curiosity I looked
through a score of pieces from his pen, in order to
find one that I might venture to place upon the
stage.
ઃઃ
Well, what do you think of them?" said de
Morny to me one day.
"Well," I replied, "in spite of your friend's
connection with the telegraph, he has not discovered
the brisk style of writing for the stage. He happens
to be witty now and then, but he repeats the same
thing over and over again, like a man who thinks
the public an idiot. In one word, he has the faults
of those who do not write and speak habitually.
Nevertheless I found the idea of a comedy in Les
Lundis de Madame.
"I thought you would."
"Yes, but it is a comedy which has to be
written."
66
Very well, we'll write it."
We had asked Léon Gozlan to luncheon. It was
settled that he should be co-author in the piece.
M. Alexandre would be told that it was necessary
to alter three or four lines to fit it for the stage.
368
BEHIND THE SCENES
He would not attend rehearsals, because the tele-
graph is never idle, but he should have the best
box in the house on the first night. And there
and then we set to work.
M. de Morny was too practically clever not to
use the knife freely; he had too much wit in con-
versation not to find some epigrams for his Causeries
du Lundi, which aroused not the slightest jea-
lousy in Sainte-Beuve.* Gozlan and I contributed
our share. In a trice the drawing-room trifle
became a very amusing comedy, which was put
in rehearsal at once. The first night was some-
what stormy. The piece was considered too ori-
ginal, but what harmed it most was the rumour
that M. de Morny had had a hand in it, as he
already had a hand in everything. If we had
played Le Cid or the Misanthrope, and had attri-
buted it to the President of the Corps Legislatif,
the piece would have been pronounced a failure,
so the reader may imagine the hullabaloo when
it was discovered that this statesman had been
amusing his leisure with the infinitely little of the
theatre. The most profoundly human trait in all
this was that the quasi-statesmen in the immediate
circle of the Emperor contributed most to damn
the piece. The latter pretended not to know that
M. de Morny had had a hand in the piece, for they
dared not defy him openly.
* An allusion to the principal articles of the celebrated literary
critic known under the generic title of Causeries du Lundi, from
the fact of their appearing on Mondays.—[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
369
Les Lundis de Madame, then, were no longer
everybody's holiday. The Minister of State, who
had only been Minister for a few hours, would have
liked to see his superintendence of the theatres
inaugurated by pieces like Le Cid and Le Misan-
thrope. Unfortunately such pieces no longer go
a-begging. About midnight he sent me word that
he forbade me to play the piece a second time. I
wrote to him that same night:
"MONSIEUR LE MINISTRE,
"You are severe upon the Lundis de Madame.
I admit that it may not be a comedy in the true
sense of the word, but it is a sparkling trifle, the
idea of which has been suggested by a man of
parts, and which M. Léon Gozlan has set on its
legs by putting his clever dialogue into it. The
public has been very much amused at this 'interior'
sketched from life, and which may be compared to
a water-colour of Eugène Lami. Never has a
comedy been better acted; Samson, Got, Monrose,
Leroux, Didier, Mdlles. Brohan, Favart, Biron,
Théric, a dazzling constellation indeed. I, to-
gether with M. de Morny and Léon Gozlan, who
both have had a hand in the piece, was under the
impression that it was a genuine windfall to the
public to be exonerated for once from seeing a
lover and his lady-love get married after the
imbroglio has been cleared up, as is the case in
every one-act piece. You wish me, Monsieur le
Ministre, to take Le Lundis de Madame off the
2 B
370
BEHIND THE SCENES
(
bill. One of the authors might not object to that,
seeing that M. Samson told the public that the
piece we have the honour to represent before you
is by the late M. Alexandre.' But M. Léon Gozlan
is, Heaven be praised, not dead, and he would
kick up a devil of a noise against your order, for
he would be justified. Besides, what would the
public say, seeing that the piece is a success? I
think, M. le Ministre, that you are right in judging
the Théâtre Français from the standard of some
masterpieces, but has not Molière himself set the
example of those trifles in the Impromptu de Ver-
sailles and in the Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes ?
"Allow me therefore not to stop the perform-
ances of Les Lundis de Madame."
M. Achille Fould wrote to M. de Morny that the
piece was very pretty, but that it was spoilt by the
incoherent acting of its interpreters.
After all one could perfectly admit that the dis-
appearance of Les Lundis de Madame from the bill
need not give rise to a revolution; still, as a matter
of course I continued to play the piece. Thereupon
there came a second order from the Minister. I
offered him to take my head, which offer he
declined, knowing the Emperor's friendship to me.
Nevertheless Les Lundis de Madame did not hold
the bills for long, because M. de Morny himself
asked me to turn tail.
Gozlan did not like it, M. Alexandre having
made over to him the author's rights, and he took
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
371
a cruel revenge upon the Minister with a little
ditty which became the talk of the town for a
week. To appreciate it thoroughly the reader
should be reminded that one fine morning the
Emperor dismissed M. Achille Fould at the very
moment when he thought himself all-powerful.
The very day before he had been out shooting
with Napoleon III. I only give the chorus of the
"lament.'
""
"Fould a chassé -Z- hier
Avec son Empereur,
Ce dont il était fier
Car il est bon tireur,
Mais aujourd'hui, triste comme un linceul
Il a Z- été chassé tout seul." *
One morning before the first performance I went
to see M. Alexandre. He lived at the former
ministry, at the telegraph department itself.
"Is M. Alexandre at home?" I asked the
porter.
"Monsieur is too late," was the answer.
"What! gone out, already?"
"Yes, you might have met him, if you came by
way of St. Clotilde."
66
What, is he gone to mass?"
* The reader will excuse this imperfect translation :
"Nap and Fould went yesterday
At the birds to shoot away;
Fould felt proud, an awful pot,
For, no doubt, he's a good shot.
But this morn we hear him moan,
For he's got the shoot' alone."
2 B 2
372
BEHIND THE SCENES
"Yes, poor fellow, I should have liked to accom-
pany him.”
"Do you think I'd still find him at the church?"
"You may.
وو
"At any rate, I'll leave my card; don't forget
to tell him that I called."
"You are not aware then that he's gone on his
last journey?"
"Well, you'll forward this card with his other
letters."
"I should be only too pleased if there was a mail
made up for those quarters." Whereupon the por-
ter blew a dense cloud from his short cutty-pipe.
Absent-minded as I happened to be I understood
at last. A comico-tragic scene indeed in connection
with this honest writer of drawing-room plays, who
had thought fit to die without acquainting his
friends. It was the Comedy of Death.
*
*
In that same year of grace, 1853, Dumas, tired
of playing at being proscribed, because he was con-
sidered too clever to be mistaken for a political
man, called upon me one morning, caught me in his
arms and said point-blank :
(C
My dear fellow, you produce too many pieces
that have not got a week's run in them. I have
brought you a couple that will set the town a-fire-
La Jeunesse de Louis XIV. and La Jeunesse de
Louis XV
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
373
"My dear Dumas, you really overwhelm me, but
you will try the capacity for study of the actors too
much, and you know that some of them are no
longer young
?
"Don't worry yourself, there are a great many
female characters in my comedies, and all your
actresses are, Heaven be praised, in the prime of
life. Just fancy what a noise it will make. One
night we'll play La Jeunesse de Louis XIV., the
next La Jeunesse de Louis XV."
"And the next we ought to play La Jeunesse
de Louis XVI.”
"Do let us be serious; Louis XVI. has no dra-
matic existence save on the scaffold. Besides, we
don't want a trilogy. Shall I read La Jeunesse de
Louis XIV. to you?
? "
"To-morrow, if you like, I'll call a meeting of
the committee."
"To-morrow will perhaps be a little too soon, for
my comedies are not begun.”
We both laughed, after which I proposed to him
to read a week hence.
"That will do. If you care to read the piece
first I'll give it to you next Sunday. How much
bonus are you going to give me?"
Five thousand francs per comedy."
"That's agreed; I'll go and set to work." And
away he goes.
But almost at the same moment he comes back
374
BEHIND THE SCENES
with two actresses whom he had met on the stairs,
saying:
""
"Two magnificent parts for these two darlings.
And in his devil-may-care way he embraces them
both.
"Oh, by-the-by, who'll play Louis XIV. and
Louis XV. ?"
66
Nay, nay, I'm not such a fool as to tell you the
names of the comedians. Let us first hear what
they say.
And off he would have been once more, only
I stopped him in the doorway.
I had not seen
him since the Coup d'Etat, and I asked him why
he had played at being exiled. Thereupon he
was going to hold forth like another Lycurgus,
but he thought the better of it and burst out
laughing again:
"A lady of principle carried me off to Spa to
take the waters."
A week afterwards Dumas read us La Jeunesse
de Louis XIV. The piece was accepted unani-
mously and "cast" the same day. But some
busy-bodies from among the committee went and
gave the alarm at the Ministry of State. The
censorship put its spoke in our wheel. Dumas did
not lose a moment in offering battle, so eager was
he to read the five acts of La Jeunesse de Louis
XV. In fact he was going to read this other
comedy, when as a preamble he asked me for the
ten thousand francs bonus. I had already given
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
375
him five thousand francs from my small civil list.
I endeavoured to give him five thousand francs
more, pending the approval of the voucher by the
Minister. But the gentlemen of the censorship
were too much for me. They decided, as they
did later on in the case of Le Roi-Soleil, that one
could not put kings upon the stage without attaint-
ing the majesty of emperors. This appears inex-
plicable, because the Minister of State had at first
been very sympathetic with regard to Alexandre
Dumas, in proof whereof the subjoined letter.
"MY DEAR DIRECTOR,
"I cannot spare the time to come and see you.
Enclosed the draught of the treaty. The Minister
approves. You may, therefore, sign with Dumas.
We consider it a capital venture for every one con-
cerned. There will be twenty thousand francs taken
on the reserve fund for 1853. Cordial greetings.
፡፡
CAMILLE DOUCET.'
و,
Dumas, furious at being "humbugged" in that
way, brought me back my five thousand francs,
"like a gentleman," and went to Brussels to
have his piece produced there. This made a
second exile. The third exile was more fruitful
still, seeing that Dumas-and this is historical-
conquered Naples by himself in order to give this
kingdom of the Bourbons to Victor Emmanuel.
*
*
*
At every moment one was told, "Napoleon has
376
BEHIND THE SCENES
got the documents of his uncle, he will imitate him
in every particular." I found it out one day. He
had me sent for to his box, and said to me in an
aggrieved tone:
"Look here, my dear director, you actors are
poking fun at the public. They are acting as if
they are acting out of charity."
66
They did not expect you to come and see the
tragedy. The principal
The principal piece to night is Le Dis-
trait, a comedy which we are reviving with all
the parts cast by the principal actors.'
99
"That is no reason why the tragedy should be
treated like a mere 'curtain riser.'
"But look, Sire, there are not three hundred
people in the house. Like the Medea of Corneille
you might say, 'I alone, and that's enough.' If
all these actors are already playing the absent-
minded man, it is because the tragedy only begins
at the third act. Your majesty came too soon.'
"Indeed I did not; I came to see the tragedy."
I rushed on the stage and said to Beauvallet,
"Just get up the steam a bit. The atmosphere
of the house is below zero, and the Emperor is
fretting and fuming in his box."
"I did not notice the Emperor," said Beauvallet.
"In that case he is the only one in the house who
cares about tragedy, and I am going to act for him."
When Beauvallet emerges once more from the
wings he is an altered being; he raises his voice
and communicates his tragic passion to the house.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
377
I go back to the imperial box; the Emperor is
delighted.
“Look!" he says,
"how Beauvallet has electri-
trified all these shadows that are acting with him."
"Sire, it is the story of great leaders over again;
it only requires one man to convert a whole army
into an army of heroes."
At the end of the fifth act I went to compliment
Beauvallet on behalf of the Emperor. And in con-
gratulating him upon his fine acting I did not for-
get to mention a gratification of five hundred francs.
He had saved the dignity of tragedy that night.
The last outburst of temper of Napoleon III.
reminded me of the great anger of Napoleon I.,
who in the palmy days of his victories had gone one
night unexpectedly to the Théâtre Français to see
Le Cid. He sat unnoticed at the back of his box.
The masterpiece of Corneille was so badly acted
that at the second act the Emperor stalked out
furious. He sent for M. de Remusat, the Chamber-
lain entrusted with the direction of the Comedie
Française.
"I suppose you do not perceive that Le Cid
played in that way is nothing more than a parody."
M. de Remusat wanted to prove that everything
was for the best in the best of all the theatres, but
in a very imperious tone the Emperor said to him:
"Monsieur, please to write down the cast I'll
give you; Rodrigue, Talma; Don Diègue, Monvel;
Le Comte de Gormas, Saint Prix; Le Roi, Lafone;
378
BEHIND THE SCENES
Don Sanche, Dumas; Chimène, Mdlle. Duchesnois.
It is only eleven o'clock, go to the Comedie Fran-
çaise, call the committee, and give them this cast.
You will please to add that it is my wish that Le
Cid shall be played as I cast it, and on that night I
shall be in my box at seven sharp. But they need
not know anything about that, because I wish them
to act for any and everybody as they act for me."
The master's eye saw everything, but one cannot
help noticing the great love of tragedy. True, it
was Le Cid.
There has been a duel between Augier and Mon-
selet, because Monselet wrote that as an admirer of
Ponsard, Augier loved Honour and Money. The
author of L'Aventurière kicked against this and
sent his seconds to Monselet, who instead of backing
out of it went further into it. The critic behaved
as gallantly as the poet. Luckily, in this duello
with pistols, the two adversaries only killed time.
The title of Ponsard's play, L'Honneur et L’Ar-
gent, lent itself to a great many epigrams. The
papers that were friendly to Ponsard and Augier
reproached me for not putting it on the bill every
day. They particularly reproached me with not
having accepted with greater enthusiasm L'Honneur
et L'Argent, but the play which had not been re-
jected only obtained a succès d'estime with the
committee. As a matter of course I replied to the
editor of the Moniteur Officiel ;
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
379
"It is not part of my duties to reply to the un-
just accusations of dramatic criticism; but seeing
that in the official journal the Théâtre Français is
accused in connection with the play of MM. Pon-
sard and Augier, I will simply reply that the
reading committee did not refuse the comedy of
M. Ponsard. He, however, considering the accept-
ance of his piece a vote of esteem rather than a
vote of admiration, has preferred crossing the Seine
with Honour and Money."
In copying the letter hot-tempered Verteuil, who
would never admit the Comédie Française to be in
the wrong, had written without instead of with.
It may not be superfluous now and then, in order
to confirm my narrative, to pass the pen to one of
the three great critics of the period. The follow-
ing, for instance, is an article of Théophile Gautier
on the Théâtre Francais in the year 1853:
"A special performance, at which the Emperor
and Empress were present, took place on Wednes-
day at the Théâtre Français. It would be difficult
to give an account of it. The crowd was so great
that even the lobbies were full, and the 'bull's-eye'
of every box was besieged by half-a-dozen would-
be spectators, but we were fortunate enough to get
into the green-room and to get a glimpse of the
silver lace of the magnificent costume of Mdlle
Judith, and to be told that Got replaced Regnier,
who was to have played the part of Figaro. Mdlle.
380
BEHIND THE SCENES
Guy Stephen made her castanettes talk with truly
Andalusian volubility. Rosa Espert twisted her
supple body about, and Pepita drew herself up and
pointed her toes pending the intermède; the prettiest
faces of the ballet and the most 'downy peaches' of
that particular part of the wall sunned themselves
on the benches of the green-room.
"Seeing that it was impossible to get into the
house itself, let us remain behind the scenes and
have a little chat about the affairs of the theatre
while the actors are bestirring themselves and do
their best before their august spectators.
"The Théâtre Français has given cause for a
great deal of talk lately, especially with regard to
the pieces it did not produce. People have asked
themselves why L'Honneur et L'Argent was being
played at the Odéon and Philiberte at the Gymnase,
and the success of these pieces has been almost con-
strued into a defeat for the Comédie Française. It
is by no means certain, whatever the merits of these
pieces may be, that they would have succeeded as
well in the Rue de Richelieu as they succeeded on
the other side of the water and on the Boulevard du
Gymnase (now the Boulevard. Bonne-Nouvelle).
Moreover, we do not believe that MM. Ponsard and
Augier are complaining of not being represented
at the Théâtre Français, because during the last
two years we have had there Charlotte Corday,
Horace et Lydie, Ulysse, Gabrielle, Le Joueur de
Flute, Diane, a revival of Lucrèce, and a revival of
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
381
L'Aventurière. The ground matters less than one
thinks in the gaining of battles, and these gentle-
men are dramatic generals too experienced not to
know it. Besides, a theatre cannot produce every-
thing offered to it, and M. Augier, all whose works
from L'Homme de Bien to Diane the Comédie Fran-
çaise has produced, passed the hospitable portals this
time without even taking off his hat. Philiberte
would have succeeded no more than Diane, and
this very pretty genre picture is seen to much greater
advantage within the circumscribed frame of the
Gymnase. M. Ponsard felt slighted in his 'poet's
pride' at having his piece accepted subject to
alterations,' and, like another Coriolanus, crossed
the Seine and,' proud and superb,' took refuge at
Veii-I mean at the Odéon.
C
"It is furthermore impossible for the Théâtre
Français, the claims of whose old repertory neces-
sarily limit the number of performances, to produce
by itself all the literary novelties; it is because of
this that the privilege has been granted to the
Gymnase of playing comedies in verse and in three
acts. L'Honneur et L'Argent and Philiberte would
have ousted Le Cœur et la Dot, Lady Tartuffe, and
Ponsard's Ulysse itself, the latter of which was a
success that by the beauty of its 'staging' has cost
the Comédie Française rather dear. To all this it
may be objected that the Comédie Française does
not mind the time given to the performance of
certain light comedies which would be more suit-
382
BEHIND THE SCENES
more
able to the boards of the Gymnase, or, for that
matter, to the drawing-room. That is the mistake
of the reading committee, which should show itself
But a
severe, not to say more pitiless.
small sketch often reveals great art, and in a picture-
gallery the eye alights with pleasure on a chasson-
nier, not larger than one's hand, amidst large
austere, and frequently dull canvasses.
"The Théâtre Français is somewhat like con-
stitutional government: first of all, because there is a
king who reigns and only governs partly; secondly,
because every one thinks himself entitled to govern
by means of advice. M. Arsène Houssaye has on
the walls of his private room a piece of tapestry
illustrating the fable of La Fontaine, The Miller,
his Son, and his Ass.' It is meant as a reply before-
hand to all those who came to tell him what he
should do. He knows well enough what he ought
to do, but in this instance will is not synony-
mous with power. There is on the one hand
association and its traditions, on the other Minis-
ters who succeed each other rapidly, each one
with a fresh point of view. But the real director
of the Comédie Française is the reading committee,
i.e. this council of ten of the republic of Molière,
which says 'Yea' or 'Nay' to the work submitted to
it. M. Arsène Houssaye does not accept pieces,
nor does he elect sociètaires, nevertheless he is
responsible with the public, as is, after all, a con-
stitutional sovereign. M. Arsène Houssaye has
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
383
only overcome the dangers of such a situation by
sheer success.
He began his directorial career by
the production of Gabrielle and Charlotte Corday;
his latest exploits have been Mdlle. de La Seiglière,
Le Coeur et la Dot, and Lady Tartuffe.
"Added to all this there is the exceedingly cri-
tical judgment of the public, more difficult to
please at the Théâtre Français than anywhere.
If a comedy is being played which becomes more
or less rollicking in its fun they are but too ready
to call it a farce, to forget Molière only to re-
member Sainville and Grassot; if the comedy be
sober and falls short of even Attic subtlety, they
yawn and say that they are bored, that real
laughter is only to be found at the Palais-Royal or
at the Variétés. If it be a drama, they stigmatise
it as a melodrama, and refer the work to the Boule-
vards, expressing at the same time their surprise at
not being treated every day to Le Cid and Phèdre.
Then there are also the old habitués, who sigh for
Voltaire and Lekain, who knew Luce de Lancival,
and have shaken hands with Colin d'Harleville.
They grumble at any and everything, voting it in-
tolerable; they turn their backs to the stage and
admiringly discuss the pieces that delighted their
youth, telling each other anecdotes about Molé,
Préville, and Mdlle. Contat. The critics them-
selves, generally such good fellows, are severe to a
degree with the Théâtre Français, and clamour for
masterpieces, and nothing but masterpieces.
384
BEHIND THE SCENES
"There is furthermore another reason. Let us
suppose that the authorities of the Louvre took it
into their heads to place between the pictures of
Leonardo da Vinci, of Coreggio, of Titian, of Paul
Veronese, and of Prud'hon, a set of modern can-
vasses of even exceeding great merit. Just fancy the
effect they would produce. This is exactly what
happens one day of two at the Théâtre Français."
*
(A letter found among my MSS.)
"14th June, 1853.
"On Tuesday last the Théâtre Français pro-
duced for the first time Le Lys dans la Vallée.
The house was crowded with a brilliant, cultured,
and very critical audience, as is always the case on
first nights; but with an audience that laughed at
the beginning and wept at the end. The piece is
a success of tears,' a success with regard to
dialogue, a success for the illustrious novelist, a
success for the adapters, a success for the actors.
M. de Balzac himself would have applauded with
some surprise the work which seemed impossible to
all those who had read the novel; because it
seemed scarcely feasible 'to put on the stage' this
episode of unavowed passion, this charming and
profound analysis of a heart that loves in silence
without daring to confess as much to itself, all this
veiled poesy which crowns itself with the pale-
tinted flowers of the tomb, even on 'the road of
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
385
love.' Mdlle. Judith has been the true heroine of
Balzac's novel, as sweetly beautiful, as passionately
chaste, as sadly tender-the ideal of the woman of
thirty. Geffroy has added a fine creation to his
already numerous gallery. Provost's interpretation
was a highly intelligent and spirited one. Maillart
<
successfully grappled with all the difficulties of a
character which has scarcely anything to say or
anything to do. He was delightful. Mdlle. Denain
was as beautiful as the original Lady Arabelle must
have been. Mdlle. Théric was pretty as always;
even prettier, for she played from the heart. Even
little Marie performed her child's part' as if she
were with her real mother. All the actors were
recalled, which was but just to them, for never did
they display more talent, or work more closely
together. They reappeared amidst a shower of
flowers, which were a proof of the beauty of the
season, but above all a proof in favour of those
excellent comedians, always liked, though always
criticised, because they are the first comedians of
the world. More than one bouquet that fell at the
feet of Mdlle. Judith was bedewed with the tears
she succeeded in drawing from those hearts of
rock' that make up the ordinary, as well as the
special, public of the Théâtre Français.
"I need scarcely add that the piece is well
mounted, that the dresses are 'romantically exact,' as
befitting the merits of the story, that the scenery
was much appreciated. We have endeavoured to
2 c
386
BEHIND THE SCENES
reproduce the work of the great novelist such as it
exists in people's minds. It was simply giving
to Balzac what is Balzac's. M. Theodore Barrière
has succeeded along the whole line; yesterday
with Les Filles de Marbre, to-day with Le Lys
dans la Vallée. I pass over in silence the successes
of the day before yesterday, the successes he may
reap to-morrow. To his praise be it said, as well
as to that of M. de Beauplan, that they have
merged themselves in the shadow of Balzac; in
their enthusiastic admiration of the novel, their sole
ambition has been reverently to transfer to the
stage the characters, the sentiments, nay, the style
even of the great novelist."
*
What I lacked most at the Théâtre Français was
time. Willingly would I have put over the door of
my room the inscription which Théophile Gautier
put over his: "Those who come confer an honour,
those that do not come confer a pleasure;" or better
still, the words of the Indian poet, "Speaking is
silver, but silence is golden," which a philospher of
antiquity has translated more energetically still by,
"Hold your tongue, or say something which is better
than silence."
The best part of the day is taken up by those who
have nothing to do, who are always coming and
never going. Those delightful intruders put me
in a fever heat. I had at first given orders to admit
no one, but on such days important personages
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
387
were sent away indiscriminately with the others.
True, my attendant resisted but faintly in the case
of ambassadors from the Elysée and the Tuileries,
of sociétaires and dramatic authors. At last I
At last I gave
orders to admit everybody. It was after all the
best policy, for people do not persist very long in
boring you in a buzzing
in a buzzing hive, especially when con-
fronted by a sand-glass on the table, such as I was
in the habit of reversing every minute.
The day only affords a few golden hours, which
should be spent to good purpose, not in idle gossip.
One has only the right of wasting time after the
working hours. As a matter of course I had a great
deal to do to renew the repertory, to study once
more the whole of the old drama, to constantly
mount new pieces, to preside at the reading com-
mittee and the board of management, to re-
organise the whole of the theatre, to face a "devour-
ing" budget, to write many letters in order not to
make many enemies, to dine out frequently in order
to make many friends, which is labour also, to
be as little as possible away from the stage by
being present more or less at every performance
elsewhere, to be the first in the morning and
the last at night as the surest means of keeping
everybody well in hand and to prevent such-
and - such an actor or actress from changing
the piece. I had hoped to be able to continue
writing a book now and then, but with the excep-
tion of L'Histoire du Quarante- Unième Fauteuil
#
2 c2
388
BEHIND THE SCENES
de l'Académie Française I had to abandon that
hope. I accomplished the latter work, instigated
by the idea perhaps that I was avenging the
memory of Molière,
of Molière, who could have done very
well without my taking up his cudgels.
*
Samson never forgave a director for having an
opinion different from his own in matters theatrical.
One morning he rushes into the board-room in a
great fury, for this man, so cold in his acting, could
not control his temper.
"Look here," he says to Provost, "look at the
clever paradoxes of Arsène Houssaye. In matters
of art one must obey art itself, and not tradition.
Thanks to tradition, there will soon be no longer
aught but orators at the Théâtre Français.
"The Conservatoire, like the French School of
Painting at Rome, is simply a forcing-ground for
mediocrities. I have no objection to young
painters being sent to travel, but on condition that
they shall go to Madrid as well as to Rome, to
Venice as well as to Florence, to Antwerp as well
as to Amsterdam. They shall not only go to the
native countries of great painters, but to each of
the museums, possessing a collection of their works.
"Rome is fatal to young painters as the Con-
servatoire is fatal to young comedians; with re-
gard to the former there is no better school than
the Louvre, with regard to the latter there is no
better school than the stage itself.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
389
"If I speak of painters and actors in the same
breath, it is because they practise the same trade,
in that they represent the actions of mankind to
the eye, as poets represent them to the soul.
"The drama is simply a picture endowed with
speech. As such, actors should have a feeling for
form as well as for colour. At the Théâtre Fran-
çais there are too many draughtsmen and not
enough colourists.
"The director of a theatre should know how to
paint in order to be able to establish a harmony be-
tween the scenery, the accessories, the dresses, and
the stage business' of the piece. What would one
think of a painter who has no experience of back-
grounds and adjuncts?
6
"Samson is a very scientific draughtsman, but
his colouring is cold, while Provost, who draws
anyhow' is a colourist full of life and light."
Samson drew himself up to his full height, and
looked at Provost.
"How do you like that kind of criticism?”
"I think it is merely so much stringing of
words," muttered Provost.
"It is simply insulting," exclaimed Samson.
So I am a colourless comedian. And I cannot
work out a part. And I cannot paint the passions."
Both were lashing themselves into a passion,
when Beauvallet appeared upon the scene.
"You also, Beauvallet, have been judged by
Arsène Houssaye."
390
BEHIND THE SCENES
Thereupon Samson went on reading—
'
But
"Nature, which has done everything for Talma,
did not put herself out' for Beauvallet.
Beauvallet put himself out against Nature. He
conquered her by the power of his magnificent
voice and by his power of will."
Samson looked at Beauvallet triumphantly..
"The question is," said Beauvallet, "at what
period Arsène Houssaye wrote this?"
Samson looked at the paper.
"In 1847," he said.
"That accounts for everything," remarked Beau-
vallet, who dearly loved a joke.
"Since 1847, Samson has put a deal of red on
his palette, and Provost has introduced a great deal
of drawing in his colouring. As for myself, I have
simply become handsome and superb."
I have had occasion to watch Beauvallet's, Sam-
son's, and Provost's tuition at the Conversatoire.
Beauvallet is a musician, Samson a poet, Provost a
painter. Beauvallet has a delicately attuned ear,
Samson puts a great deal of thought, Provost a
great deal of colour. Beauvallet produced all his
effects by his voice, Samson in his mind, Provost
in his by-play.
A great comedian is no doubt the foremost of
artists, seeing that he depicts every action, every
sentiment; he is in turns possessed of the soul of
an apostle, and of a criminal; of a god, and of a
scoundrel; of a hero, and of a coward; of an
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
391
ancient, and of a contemporary; of a tyrant, and
of a slave. He has to change both his soul and his
face; he must pass through every metamorphosis ;
he is obliged to show tears and laughter; he
must be ridiculous or sublime; he must, in one word,
be able to play all the personages; be able to don
all the masks in this carnival of humanity; be able
to suppress himself to become some one else; to
force back his own passions in order to render to
the life the passions of a hundred different person-
ages, utterly contrasting with one another.
By
The comedian must be gifted by nature.
dint of patience, a rhymester may assume the sem-
blance of a poet; the dauber, that of a painter; but
not all the study of a lifetime will make a comedian
of a man not born a comedian, because he will
never succeed in making people either laugh or
cry, in communicating an original to the mind, in
touching the heart of the spectator.
The world has made very merry over Rouvière,
who, while playing Antony at a theatre, the name
of which I do not remember, and seeing his mistress
change colour at the blow he had dealt to her, for-
got all about his part. "Great Heavens, I have
killed her," he cried in despair, deceived by the
realism of his partner's acting. It was because
Rouvière had ceased to be Rouvière, and was no
one else but Antony. The comedian who carries
the house along with him, is a general who carries
his army along with him. The dramatic author is
392
BEHIND THE SCENES
apt to flatter himself that it is his genius which thus
causes every heart to throb; but if he himself were
to read the same scene to the public, he would only
produce a mental effect. The affection inspired by
a painter or poet is a merely intellectual one; one
conceives a sudden friendship for an actor or an
actress. As a consequence, they are often permitted
to do things which would be resented if done by
others. One instance will suffice. An actress,
worried out of her wits by the would-be funny
interruptions of a spectator, suddenly interrupts her
part and hisses the word "Idiot" at him. The
whole house rises at her, each one takes the epithet
as meant for him or herself. They insist upon an
apology. There is a tremendous uproar, the ma-
nager is obliged to bring down the curtain. This
only adds fuel to the fire, the public still insists upon
an apology, the groundlings becoming more and
more exasperated. At last the curtain rises, the
actress steps before the footlights with her most
winning smile.
Gentlemen, I beg to apologise
for having called an idiot by his name; I humbly
ask pardon of all the others.' She is greeted
with a triple volley of applause. In the theatre,
wit covereth all sins, because every one for the
moment has even more wit than Voltaire.
(C
"2
I am going to propound a truism, which savours
of the paradox. It is this-
Dramatic genius is the attribute of the comedian,
much more often than that of the poet. The poet
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
393
may breathe life into his personages by the delinea-
tion of heroism, passion, sentiment, by any and
everything that appeals to the heart and mind, but
if he fail to find at least one great actor or actress
among his dramatis persone to translate those
virtues or vices, as the case may be, on the stage,
his work will be still-born, even if it be a master-
piece. While at the Théâtre Français, I have been
responsible for at least a hundred first-nights,
including revivals. I have therefore had an oppor-
tunity of studying at close quarters the strength of
the work produced, whether it was tragedy, drama,
or comedy. I have seen admirable pieces, either
new or resuscitated from the old repertory, fall flat
when badly played, while I have seen indifferent
plays lauded to the skies, thanks to the acting.
Let me not be misunderstood. When I say thanks
to the acting, I mean that at least one part was
acted with a passion that carried everything before
it, or with a dash that had the Devil's own laughter
in it; as a matter of course, the same piece in-
terpreted by others only held its ground as a
literary curiosity. This would explain the success
of the tragedies of Voltaire, which in our days no
actor dare drag from their shrouds, albeit that
Voltaire, though an indifferent poet, was possessed
of the dramatic genius. This would also account
for the personages of Corneille and Racine, Camille
or Hermione, Emilie or Phèdre, relapsing into
their conditions of statues or of figures of bas-reliefs
394
BEHIND THE SCENES
at the death of those great actresses, from Champ-
merlé to Rachel, that had endowed them for the
nonce with the flesh of their flesh.
*
*
*
Home life painted from the living model and
taken in its picturesque aspect is essentially a
picture intended for posterity. In times of yore
people only cared to know things connected with
Courts or with baronial halls;* but nowadays,
when everything has its share of royalty, each
individuality that stands out by virtue of its genius,
talent, heroism, wit, beauty or worth deserves being
perpetuated. How pleased indeed should we be at
this hour if Voltaire, when in love with Adrienne
Lecouvreur, had given us a sketch of a supper at
her house in the beginning of her career, as Alfred
de Musset has described a supper at Rachel's.
The reader, no doubt, remembers that famous
supper in the Passage Vero-Dodat, during the night
of the 29th-30th May, 1839. That was indeed
realism in all its strength, and with all its savour.
Mdlle. Rachel having sent her servant to fetch her
jewels, which she had forgotten, at the Théâtre
Français, goes herself into the kitchen and acts
the cook with the sprightliness of the tom-boy, with-
out abdicating the dignity of the patrician lady.
But let us have a look at the supper.
* M. Houssaye has evidently forgotten the pictures of Van der
Helot, of Rembrandt, of de Keyser, and of the various other Dutch
masters, which he must have seen in the French provincial galleries
as well as abroad.-[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
395
Nothing could well be more harum-scarum.
Rachel has, however, told us since then that
all this was nothing to her goings-on at her
mother's. It was not enough to do the cooking,
the washing also had to be done. And the hours
devoted to these tasks infringed upon those that
should have been devoted to sleep, for in the
daytime there was the living to be looked after,
namely, singing in the streets. Alfred de Musset
asks her if she did not cheat upon the price of the
provisions. She answers no, and appeals to her
mother. Nevertheless, she confesses to having,
during a whole month, kept back two halfpennies
per day, which at the end of that time made her a
capitalist to the extent of three francs.
"And what did you do with those three francs,
Mademoiselle," asks Alfred de Musset sternly.
The mother answers. "She bought herself the
works of Molière."
"Yes," adds Rachel, "but I confessed to my
crimes."
Alfred de Musset looks at Rachel's hands, at the
hands of the erstwhile cook and laundress. They
are very small and soft and white, with tapering
fingers, like the hands of a princess.
They grumble at Sarah, who does not behave like
a princess. That very morning she left the mother's
wing on some kind of escapade, but Rachel has
interceded for her, and she has been allowed to join
the supper,
396
BEHIND THE SCENES
"Suppose we were to make some punch. Give
me some Kirsch, Rose." The cook brings a bottle
of Kirsch.
"She made a mistake," says the mother, "it's
a bottle of absinthe."
Alfred de Musset improves the occasion and
holds out his glass.
"People say it's very nice, absinthe."
"Not at all," exclaims de Musset, "it's detestable."
"Then why do you take it?'
,,
Rachel, her face wreathed in smiles, sets fire to
the Kirsch. The flame casts a gay note in, and a
glamour of wealth on, the humble interior. The
punch is drunk. The guests of both sexes take their
departure. Alfred de Musset remains alone with
Rachel, for the mother has fallen asleep. The tone of
the conversation changes; it becomes altogether lite-
rary. She talks of her "gods;" she has not played
Phèdre yet, but she says that it will be the best
rôle in her repertory.
I let Alfred de Musset continue the narrative:
"She has Racine handy, and begins to read
Phèdre. At first she reads monotonously, as if
reading a litany; but she warms up gradually, still
she is only reading softly, as if to herself. All
of a sudden her eyes flash fire, the genius of Racine
lights up her face, she grows pale and flushes in turns.
I never saw aught more beautiful; I have never seen
her look so handsome even on the stage. The
fatigue, the punch, a slight hoarseness, a kind of
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
397
hectic flush on her small cheeks enframed in a kind
of nightcap, the lateness of the hour, an indescri-
bable charm that pervades the whole of her being,
her flashing eyes that consult you at every moment,
a childish smile with it all, added to the untidy
supper table, the candle whose flame flickers,
the mother asleep, make up a picture worthy of
Rembrandt, a chapter of a novel worthy of Wilhelm
Meister, and an episode in the life of an artist which
will never be effaced from my recollection. Then
the father comes in and tells the daughter brutally,
more than brutally, to be off to bed.
"It's disgusting,' she says. 'I'll buy a flint and
a piece of tinder, and I'll read in bed when I am
by myself.'
"I look at her. Two big tears are coursing
down her cheeks. It was disgusting to see such a
creature treated in that way. I went away full of
admiration, respect, and sympathy."
Nothing can be more curious, more moving than
this narrative, which has now become a page of
history.
There are still people who will tell you, "Mdlle.
Rachel owed much to her father." This man, who
never knew a word of French, has, according to
them, taught her the art of being beautiful, like an
antique statue, and to speak as they did at the
Court of Louis XIV.
Though her mother was an honest woman, a
real family mother, according to the Bible, I have
398
BEHIND THE SCENES
often been tempted to ask myself if Jupiter did not
pay a flying visit there, as he did at Amphitryon's,
nine months before the birth of Rachel. After all
the gods do not tell us what they do.
With the reader's permission, I also will give
him a sketch of a supper at Rachel's. Twelve
years have elapsed, and she no longer lives in the
Passage Vero-Dodat. She has become a real grand
lady, and built herself a house in the handsome
part of Paris. But the Biblical proverb of build-
ing on sand' is nowhere so pertinently illustrated
as in Paris, for, a few years later only, the dwelling
was pulled down to make room for the Opera.
It is midnight, the proper hour for supper, and
the repast itself was arranged on the spur of the
moment, and consequently ordered from Chevet.
We all start from the Théâtre Français, some in
carriages of their own, others in mere hackney
cabs. The first who arrives on the scene is a prince.
He is accompanied by Rachel, who has offered him
a seat in her brougham, a present from another
prince, and the brougham is drawn by two English
thoroughbreds, the present of an
an ambassador.
Rachel refuses nothing to those that are poor,
but she accepts everything from those that are
rich.
The prince would not have done amiss to bring
a couple of his own servants, because the attendance
will not be a bit better than it was at the celebrated
supper of Mdlle. Rachel and Alfred de Musset.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
399
The great actress is not to blame; she is in the
hands of Rose, a servant of the old school, who
would lay down her life for her, but whose very
devotion makes her a tyrant. It is Rose who is the
mistress of the house, who does everything so that
it should be well done. But Rose, not having a
hundred arms, it happens that on the days when
there is a good deal of company the guests are
obliged to lend a helping hand in order to be pro-
perly attended upon.
On that evening there are about a dozen guests,
recruited on the spur of the moment at the theatre,
in order to celebrate the success which Rachel has
obtained in Lady Tartuffe. Rachel is after all
but half satisfied. They have to ply her with com-
pliments, she plies herself somewhat with champagne
to gloss over the impression of several scenes that
"hung fire."
Mme. de Girardin is there also. For the first
time for many years she has prevailed upon Emile
de Girardin to come with her. He is a friend who
is no longer a husband. But if, like Louis XV., he
is the husband of all wives except his own, Mme.
de Girardin, on the other hand, keeps virtuously
at home like Penelope. A great many admirers,
but not a lover amongst them.
Jules Janin, Théophile Gautier, Paul de Saint-
Victor, Alberic Second, and Fiorentino are with
myself of the party.
But what does the Princess Rhea among us?
400
BEHIND THE SCENES
We do not know. But she is so beautiful that they
condone her presence. The mistress of the house
introduces her to Mme. de Girardin as a princess
more strange than foreign. It is a real treat to
softly feast one's eyes on this charming semi-Grecian,
semi-French figure. There is the statuesque beauty
of the Athenian woman, softened, as it were, by the
bewitching smile of the love-sick Parisian one.
Girardin, who knows Rhea very well, seats her-
self beside her, and inaugurates a paragraph.
66
Why, madame, do they call you the consolatress
of the afflicted?
29
"Monsieur," comes the reply, "it is very easily
explained, seeing that I console them by weeping
with them.'
""
Fiorentino tries to cast a few rays of Neapolitan
sunshine on the napery, embroidered by one of
Rachel's sisters, by telling us two, or more or less,
unpublished spiteful witticisms.
The pewter spoons of Rachel at the outset of her
career would make a blot upon the picture. But
they have disappeared long ago. The light of the
magnificent chandelier is reflected, as in a mirror,
in a set of silver, a marvel of the modern gold-
smith's art.
The conversation turns at first on Lady Tartuffe,
but they are regretting that Molière is not there,
for he could have told Mme. de Girardin, though
not stinting his meed of praise, the reason of her
missing her aim. Even the great playwright would
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
401
have admitted that Lady Tartuffe is not the work
of a mere nobody.
Janin exclaims, "Every one will wish to see the
piece in which Mme. de Girardin and Rachel have
confronted so many dangers. Villemain said to
me of the fifth act that Lady Tartuffe is a
comedy brimful of all kind of talent. Bossuet has
said that if the Tartuffes succeed in deceiving man-
kind, they fail in deceiving God. What does it
matter, as long as they take with the public?"
"I did not expect to find Bossuet among the
company," remarks Théophile Gautier.
"This Janin is terrible," adds Paul de Saint-
Victor; "in another minute he will be talking to
us about the Iliad."
And Janin, who has only caught part of the con-
versation, shouts once more, "Yes, when I see
Mdlle. Rachel relinquish the veil, the cloak and the
golden cup, the sceptre and the dagger, I compare
her to Achilles disarmed. Fortunately the arms of
Rachel are not in the hands of the enemy. After
Lady Tartuffe she will play Phèdre."
Rachel, who is good-natured, talks of reviving
the two tragedies of Mme. de Girardin, Judith
and Cleopátre. With the exception of Mme. de
Girardin herself, every one has the same opinion
about Lady Tartuffe. The title of the play had
tempted Rachel, who knew more than one Lady
Tartuffe. She wished to immortalise that odious
character on the stage, as Molière had immortalised
2 D
402
BEHIND THE SCENES
the other one. But Mme. de Girardin, who could
and did rise to the grandeur of tragic verse, did
not possess the faculty of laughter.* It was, there-
fore, not without a deal of pluck that Rachel
managed to play this comedy, that had no comedy
element in it, twenty-seven times. The public told
her that they were pleased with her, but she was
not pleased with herself. And it was after all
Rachel who was qualified to judge Rachel. She
was never blinded by any illusion.
On that evening she let them all talk, saying to
herself that her friends were so many available
Tartuffes. Hence she continued to enact at her own
board the part of Lady Tartuffe, but her eyes told
the real state of things. To those intimate friends
who could read them, she said, in lifting her glass,
"How gladly would I quaff a draught of truth.”
Luckily the conversation turned upon something
else. We had just begun to discuss a game pie
and a páté de foie gras, for everything threatened
to be cold in this supper. Rose had not lighted her
kitchen range, the York ham had been served
up cold, like the chaud-froid of partridges. And
to crown it all they grumbled at Rose, who was
wandering round the table like a lost soul, for not
* M. Houssaye is somewhat unjust. Mme. de Girardin, apart
from a very clever farce, well known on the English stage by the
title of The Clockmaker's Hat, wrote two plays, in which there is
a distinct vein of humour, La Joie fait Peur and Une Femme qui
déteste son Mari. Both have been more than once adapted,-
[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
403
having put the champagne in ice. As I was
saying they were just putting their knives and
forks into the game pie, when all of a sudden
de Girardin interpellated Jules Lecomte. Jules Le-
comte was the sworn chronicler of the doings of
the Northern Courts as well as of those of the
queens of the stage.
*
"I say, Lecomte," shouted de Girardin, "did
you sup like that with Marie-Louise ?”
The prince, surprised at the interpellation, turned
his eyes in the direction of the journalist, who, in
no way confused, replied, "We always supped
more or less harum-scarum fashion, for there was no
government to speak of in her state."
"It was you who gave the orders ?"
Lecomte smiled, "Yes, yes, I told every one to
be off."
"So you supped en tête-à-tête?"
"Yes, I was studying the woman in the empress."
"An unctuous woman in an anointed empress,”
said the prince.
"She might have saved everything, instead of
which she ruined (lost) everything."
"Tell me," said de Girardin, who could be
impertinent without the slightest intention on his
* One of the most gifted French writers of modern times, who
unfortunately was mixed up in a transaction that reflected upon his
honour, and who never recovered the blow to his reputation. He
is said to have been the lover of Marie-Louise, Died in 1864-
[Transl.]
2D 2
401
BEHIND THE SCENES
part; "tell me what Marie-Louise loved in you.
Was it the clever man or the tenor?"
"I haven't the smallest illusion on the subject;
she had already been 'tenorising' with Mario, and
she wanted to compare our respective powers."
"Well," interrupted Rachel, "I'll appoint you
my master of the ceremonies one day, and it will
not be for the sake of hearing you sing."
Théophile Gautier would not miss the oppor-
tunity of breaking a lance against tenors, and
against all those who make a noise under the pre-
text of singing.*
"You had better keep quiet," said Mme. de
Girardin. "When you were in love with Giulia
Grisi, you would have changed yourself into a
nightingale at a mere wink from her."
The prince mentioned having noticed that in
nearly every
house in good society one was sure to
run up against a good tenor.
"Women are sure to be caught with a song,"
said Rachel.
"Not in my house, nor in that of Mdlle. Rachel,"
protested Mme. de Girardin.
"A good reason why," replied some one;
your case the men are caught by your songs."
(6
'in
We noticed that Paul de Saint-Victor expressed
no opinion as to the art of captivating women.
*
In
Théophile Gautier detested music of any kind. It was he who
formulated the axiom that "Music is the dearest noise on earth.”
-[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
405
fact, on that evening he was devoting himself very
assiduously to the third sister of Rachel, the one
who was most like the great actress by virtue both
of her figure and the dramatic accent of her voice.
Rachel will give them their blessing at the house
of Iphigenia. They will be happy for ever after-
wards and beget the most charming of girls.
All of a sudden the door was flung open to admit a
noisy, disorderly whilom cuirassier who had become
a great sculptor, and who behaved everywhere as if
he were at the café of the regiment or in the studio.
"The Lord have mercy upon us," exclaims Rose,
"there'll be nothing left for to-morrow's breakfast.”
"A thirteenth guest," says Théophile Gautier
quietly, throwing a pinch of salt over his shoulder.
The new-comer took his stand behind Rachel,
and in a piping voice, contrasting most forcibly
with his size and general robust appearance, de-
livered himself of the following:
"Well, yes, there is Clesinger, the sculptor. No
supper party is complete without me, provided my
wife is not one of the guests. Do you know my
wife? Very nice and very pretty. A little angel
when her mother is not nigh, for she is the daughter
of Georges Sand.* They say that I take a cast of
* Clesinger was always at war with his mother-in-law. One of
his repartees to her has become historical. "Tell my son-in-law,"
said the great novelist, "that if he annoys me any more I'll sketch
him in one of my books, and every one will know him."
"Tell my
mother-in-law that if she does I'll make a likeness of her in marble,
and nude, and every man will recognise her."-[Transl.]
406
BEHIND THE SCENES
her when I want to produce a good statue. It is
the Academy that spreads those idiotic tales. But
is there nothing to drink here? Are the keys of
the cellar lost, as at our last supper?”
Rachel, smiling all over her face, had turned
round to him.
"Come and sit down here, by me, you big booby
of genius. The keys are never lost when you are
here. Would you like a bit of supper?"
you
"A bit of supper? I want a whole supper, and
I see nothing but crusts of pasties. There is a
cookshop for you. Do think that I live on
chips of marble? Oh, you sublime Rachel, I am
going to make your statue as the Muse of Tragedy,
then as the Muse of Comedy, then as the Muse of
Love, but you shall not sit as the Muse of Gluttony.
When I want her I shall ask Rhea to sit for me,
shan't I, Rhea ?
""
Clesinger notices that de Girardin is reciting his
twentieth love-paragraph to Rhea, so he addresses
him across the table-
"I say you, great "writist" why don't you fill
your garden in the Champs-Elysées with statues?
I'll make you half-a-dozen for thirty-six thousand
francs, and I'll throw in your bust into the bargain."
"Why not my statue ?" asks de Girardin.
"Because you are not big enough as yet. Funny
times these, in which all the men of state are about
as big as my arm. Napoleon III., Thiers, Guizot,
Girardin-dwarfs, every one of them."
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
407
Mme. de Girardin points out to Clesinger that
the great statesmen were all little.
66
Yes, yes," says Clesinger, " you need not tell
me that Charlemagne did not pass his hand to them,
for he was a big one."
And with this he got up, turned on his heel, and
disappeared, saying that he was going to sup at the
tavern.
"I am glad he is gone," exclaims Rachel, "I
was afraid he was going to make the best of it;
the last time he made himself so comfortable
that we found him fast asleep on the sofa in the
library.'
By that time we had got as far as the dessert.
Théophile Gautier had asked permission to smoke,
but his neighbour, Mme. de Girardin extinguished
his cigar almost as soon as he had lighted it.
"Who'll cut up the pineapple ?" asked Rhea.
66
Hush," said Rachel, who felt in the humour
for joking; "hush, this is a sacred pineapple; the
Comédie Française lent it to me for my gala-
days."
"Let's have at least some of those magnificent
grapes."
"You know very well they are in marble. I
brought them from Naples with my set of coral."
A too inquisitive guest asked Rachel if she her-
self did not turn into marble when some one wanted
to bite into her.
She smiled, and said without ceremony:
408
BEHIND THE SCENES
"It appears not, for you may see that the prince
has not broken his teeth."
Mme. de Girardin evidently thought that the
conversation was becoming a bit equivocal, and rose
to leave. Her husband accompanied her as far as
her carriage.
The string was broken, and the beads soon became
scattered. Soon there was only Rose left in this
Pompeian dining-room. She looked at the board,
which, after all, was not very tumbled about.
"Host of Israel!" she exclaimed; "what a ca-
rouse! And they are what is called people of wit.
But Gargantua was an angel from heaven compared
to those voracious animals. I dare not reckon the
cost. A supper at twelve francs a head, without the
wine and the fruit. Twelve times twelve make a
hundred and forty-four. And they only took an
hour to demolish it all."
In fairness to Rachel it should be said that she
never counted the cost of a supper. Nowadays
that supper of a hundred and forty-four francs
would cost twelve hundred.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
409
CHAPTER XVIII.
It was Alexandre Dumas who opened the theatrical
season of 1854 with a charming comedy which has
disappeared from among the stock pieces. I could
assign no reasons why Romulus appealed to every
one's mind and heart, but the spectator most
pleased was assuredly Alexandre Dumas himself.
He was in my box, beaming with good-natured,
but at the same time somewhat cynical, pleasure.
He was laughing at the top of his voice. A tetchy
spectator in the orchestra stalls, who was not laugh-
ing at all, asked him the reason of his mirth.
"It is natural enough," replied Dumas, "don't
you see that I am laughing for both of us;" which
reply was hailed with a volley of applause.
That same evening Dumas promised Girardin
to write him a novel, entitled The Man who does
not Laugh. It happened to be in the green-room,
for Dumas was not in the habit of getting away
from an ovation. I told him it was rather a subject
for a piece than for a novel.
66
Very well," he shouted; "we'll put the piece
410
BEHIND THE SCENES
in rehearsal to-morrow. Samson will play the
principal, unless we can get it acted by the man
who wouldn't laugh."
Dumas took Mdlle. Fix in his arms and promised
her a part that would make her a sociétaire.
Though he did not like obvious puns he swore that
he would fix her permanently in the theatrical fir-
mament. Poor Fix was only fixed permanently in
her shroud.
I had engaged Bressant, and for the last month
he had been trying to select the part for his début.
Should he play Alceste or Almaviva, or should he
venture upon a modern comedy? M. Scribe, who
was always watching the main chance, brought him
a comedy one morning, entitled Mon Etoile.
"I'll just read it to you," said the playwright to the
comedian. Bressant replied that the title by itself
was sufficient, as far as he was concerned. There is
more superstition on the stage and in the theatre
than elsewhere; besides, it was an era when the
Emperor had set the fashion of a belief in lucky
stars. Women were mysteriously talking about the
milky way; the veriest milksop in literature and art
professed to believe in his own star.
"I wanted Bressant to take his place at once
among the exponents of our ordinary repertory.
Mon Etoile was a downright Gymnase piece, but
he told me that in it he would still feel at home,
while if he were to play a grand part he would be
assailed by many misgivings.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
411
success.
M. Scribe said that he wished to ensure Bressant's
It was Bressant who on that evening
insured Scribe's success. Bressant was too great a
favourite with the public for the latter not to sup-
port him, whatever the piece might be. On the
other hand, M. Scribe was too 'cute to miss his
mark the day that the whole of fashionable Paris
would be in the house.
The débuts of Bressant were a lucky event for
the Théâtre Français, but they proved the despair
of a man of great talent-Brindeau, who refused
to understand that in the world of art one man does
not necessarily obliterate another. Brindeau might
have maintained his individuality by the side of
Bressant's without losing his hold with the public,
for he possessed that hold. No one has ever played
Alfred de Musset better than he did. Though
Alfred de Musset was very fond of Bressant, he
said to me one evening, "Oh, Brindeau, where
art thou?" Brindeau had left the Comédie Fran-
çaise to drift from one theatre to another, until at
last he landed in the provinces. He died there,
punished for having forsaken his public. Could he
be appreciated elsewhere than at the Théâtre Fran-
çais, whose public never turns its back upon talent,
no matter how surrounded by rival talent? I met
him lately; he fell upon my neck weeping. "Ah!
1854 was the time," he said sadly, to remind me of
the date of his mortal wound. I know nothing more
sorrowful than the heart of the man who has fled
412
BEHIND THE SCENES
his country without the hope of ever seeing its
shores again.
I understood this long ago, hence whenever a
genuine actor spoke of leaving the theatre I did
everything I could to help him.
The month of February was still running its
course when we produced La Joie fait Peur, by
Mme. Emile de Girardin. Its success was a fore-
gone conclusion; the first night confirmed our ex-
pectations. Regnier scored another double success
like that in Mademoiselle de La Seiglière, for by
virtue of its perfect stage-management he may be
said to have been part-author of La Joie fait Peur.
Few one-act pieces have drawn the whole of Paris
in that way. The public came and came again,
they wept and wept again. It was the very sub-
lime of sentiment, though the plot had been found
outside "The Treatise on the Sublime." Up till
then Mme. de Girardin had been too fond of
rhetoric.
For two months, and although Rachel was absent,
there was no chance of "putting on " a new piece,
but at last we produced Mademoiselle Aissé, a
sentimental comedy by Paul Foucher and Alexandre
de Lavergne. Every one knows that sympathetic
figure. It had only to be brought before the foot-
lights to win every one's heart, but the figures sur-
rounding it were not endowed with the same
theatrical vitality-there were too many fleeting
shadows. Nevertheless the piece kept the bills for
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
413
some time without the house being empty. Mdlle.
Judith, who was charming in the part of Aissé, pre-
vented the spectators from staying away.
Le Double Veuvage of M. Léon Guillard did not
make much noise. In his capacity of archivist he
was as it were a familiar in the house. His piece
ought to have been consigned to the archives to
prove one day that he would have been right not
to play it. In such matters one should only show
friendship to the public. It was Théodore de
Banville who wrote the poem that year on the
occasion of the anniversary of Corneille's birth
(6th June), Mdlle. Judith representing the Heroic
Muse. The beautiful lines could not have been
recited with more telling enthusiasm. No doubt
Rachel would have imparted a more decidedly Cor-
neilleian accent to de Banville's poetry, but she
would not have displayed greater feeling. Mdlle.
Judith always reminded me of Mdlle. Gaussin,
whom I happen to have applauded a hundred and
fifty years ago when I was the friend of M. de
Voltaire, and when he gave me a stall to witness
his tragedies.*
While on the subject of poetry, I may as well
mention here that we produced Le Songe d'une
Nuit d'Hiver, by Edouard Plouvier, and La Reine
de Lesbos of Paul Juillerat. Plouvier's piece was
in prose, but in prose broidered with poetry. Con-
* An allusion to M. Houssaye's book on the actresses of the
eighteenth century.-[Transl.]
4.14
BEHIND THE SCENES
sequently the public itself was so to speak deceived
by it.
"Beautiful verses," they said in the house.
It was an attempt at Shakespearean fantasy which
amused the public quite as much as the vulgar
realities declaimed by the critics of contemporary
morals. Edouard Plouvier was a poet misunder-
stood; a little less wretchedness and a little more
protection would have sufficed to make him cut a
great figure in literature. I may at any rate console
myself with having held out a hand to him when
all the other theatres were closed to him; as such
he wrote to me on his death-bed a farewell letter
that still goes to my heart.
La Reine de Lesbos was that everlasting Sappho
who flings herself from the height of her passion,
seeking amidst the waves the arms of Phaon. It
was well received at the Comédie Française, but
there happened to be too much Sappho in the air at
the time. There were nine. The first in point
of date Rachel wanted to play before I was
director of the Comédie Française; then there was
that of Philoxène Boyer, represented at the Odéon
with great success; last and least two or three others
which kept vainly knocking at the doors of the
theatres without finding any Phaons to answer their
summons.
Towards the middle of July M. de Voltaire was
reproduced once more on the stage of the theatre
so dear to him. That evening he might have
deluded himself with the belief that all his tragedies
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
415
were to be revived. The resurrection was the work
of Albéric Second-La Comédie à Ferney. There
are few pieces in one act so full of life and at the
same time so full of wit. When Geoffroy stepped
before the footlights in the character of Voltaire,
every one hailed the patriarch of Ferney. Not only
was it the head but the whole attitude of that body,
thoroughly worn out and still resisting the ravages
of time; it was the flashing eye, the satirical mouth,
the biting wit. And how well did the walking-
stick of M. de Voltaire play its part. At the
conclusion of the piece there was a call for the
author to crown the bust of Voltaire, but Albèric
Second, who was keeping up the piece in the
room, got out of the ovation.
green-
The reader has already heard of La Niaise (The
Simpleton), the figure which M. Mazères was to set
in diamonds and rubies. Unfortunately he found
only paste with which to do the work. It may be
remembered that La Niaise was accepted by means
of a surprise. The whole of the reading committee
had said that they would vote against it, because M.
Mazères was too dull a conversationalist ever to be
able to create a good comedy, but every individual
member reckoning on the black balls of the others
had wished to give a white ball in the guise of
consolation. Seeing that the piece was accepted,
it had to be played. The actors did all they
could to save the honour of M. Mazères as being
identical with that of the house, but La Niaise was
416
BEHIND THE SCENES
soon wrapped in the shroud of oblivion, to no one's
surprise, except the author's. It was a terrible blow
to him, and I felt, so to speak, obliged to console
my enemy by chimerical hopes, but it was indeed
the death-blow; he did not long survive his fall.
The prefect had already killed the dramatic author
in him. One cannot tell literary men too often that
politics are likely to be their tomb.
Then came Rosemonde, which Latour de Saint-
Ybars had offered to Rachel, and which Rachel had
taken under her protection in remembrance of
Virginie. Latour de Saint-Ybars is also a classicist
who lost his way in the Shakespearean drama. He
drifted from the terrible into the horrible. Rose-
monde drank blood out of a human skull. The
first night Rachel thought she was poisoned and
tried to stab herself. Thanks to me the blow missed
its mark. She had, nevertheless, the courage to
play Rosemonde several times afterwards, so great
was her friendship to the author.
Three days after the mishap the house burst
into loud laughter, forgetting all about Rosemonde
in listening to Une Tempête dans un Verre d'Eau
of Léon Gozlan. It was a downright tempest of
jollity.
That same month of November was one of the
most fruitful in the annals of the house. We
produced no less than five new pieces. On the
29th the turn came of Les Ennemis de la Maison
of Camille Doucet, a comedy in three acts, which
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
417
I am
sure the public would listen to nowadays
with pleasure, so true is the piece to the everlasting
truth of nature.
If Camille Doucet made a mistake at all, it
was in preferring the cabinet picture to the bold
brush of the fresco painter. On the stage one
must limn in bold outlines, still there is always a
refined, delicate public that loves the Metzus and
the Stevens. Les Ennemis de la Maison remained
for the rest of the season "the Friends of the
House."
It was M. Samson who concluded the year 1854
with La Dot de Ma Fille. Luckily for Mme. Ber-
ton she received another kind of marriage portion,
namely, wit.*
Samson was guilty of but one error in his
dramatic work; he made a mistake in his dates.
All his belated pieces would have succeeded five-
and-twenty years before, when Andrieux and his
school ruled the scenic roost.
Samson wanted neither cleverness nor wit, but as
bold as he was in creating a part, so timid was
he in writing a scene; in a word, his pieces
were played out before they saw the foot-
Many people suffer from the same com-
lights.
plaint.
The year had been equally fruitful in revivals
the whole of the company had performed wonders
* Mme. Berton, Samson's daughter, the mother of the well-
known actor, M. Berton.-[Transl.]
2 E
418
BEHIND THE SCENES
in the old as well as in the new repertory. The
Théâtre Français was at its zenith.
Alfred de Musset was the most charming, but at
the same time the most whimsical of gentlemen.
You parted with him the best of friends after a break-
fast at the Café Foy or the Frères Provençaux, and
the next morning he was in a huff. Over night he
had stepped on a woman's train, and from its folds
had emerged a black butterfly. I have preserved a
vivid recollection of our almost daily meetings-
exclusive of the recollection of a meeting on a
different terrain. I have been fortunate enough
never to be in the wrong with him, because my
friendship was composed also of admiration, while
he, in his forgetfulness of the tribulations of life,
was wrong with everybody. All this, however,
was but mere clouds; the sky beyond showed
fair.
His repertory at that time was in great favour.
In fact I played in turns, Le Chandelier, Le Ca-
price, Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée,
Les Caprices de Marianne, Il ne faut jurer de
rien. All these gems appeared every now and
then.
They added nothing to his glory, but, as he was
in the habit of saying, they added to his purse, the
more that, contrary to the advice of some sociétaires,
I often gave a one-act piece of Musset after a
tragedy played by Rachel. He called those days
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
419
his five-hundred-franc notes, and in fact I really
took them from the theatre to give them to Alfred
de Musset, seeing that the house was full in order
to see Rachel. But assuredly there was no better
way of laying out the money of the Comédie
Française. I only did that sort of thing for him,
Murger, Gozlan, and Albéric Second.
One evening when he had gone early, I sent him
his five-hundred-franc note accompanied by a
sonnet. He replied:
"My dear friend, I received the two five-hundred-
franc notes, the one signed by the cashier of the
Bank of France, the other by Houssaye.
not know which of the two I like best."
I do
Next morning the wind had shifted round to the
opposite quarter. Having ascertained from La
Chaume, whom I had occasion to send to him, that
he was not on the bills that week, he despatched a
punning message by that functionary, at which I
might have taken offence had I not known him so
well as I did. I was right, for twenty minutes later
Alfred de Musset entered my room, held out his
hand, and burst into laughter at the cleverness of
the play on the word "Fould."
The "staging" and rehearsing of one of de
Musset's pieces was an almost superhuman task--
when he was not at the Café de la Régence. When
he happened to be present at rehearsals he grumbled
at everybody, at the author as well as at the actors.
Give him the pick of the company-according
2 E 2
420
BEHIND THE SCENES
to him, they were only so many bunglers. He threat-
ened at every moment to withdraw his piece. This
creature, full of imagination, could not, or would not,
see the gradual transfiguration of the comedian into
the personage created by the poet. On the other
hand, on the first night he was enraptured, and
wanted to embrace everybody, including the or-
chestral director, Offenbach, of whom he ordinarily
fought shy as a bird of ill-omen.*
The night before the production of Le Chandelier
I happened to have left the stage, because Mme. de
Girardin was waiting for me in my room. I had
scarcely passed the ordinary civilities with the
Tenth Muse as she was styled then when
de Musset and Clavaroche, that is Brindeau, rushed
in like two whirlwinds. In the hope of quieting
them, I introduce them with the utmost gravity to
Mme. de Girardin, whom they both knew, but
they barely condescend to bow to her.
"My dear Houssaye," says de Musset, "I with-
draw my piece."
"That comes very pat," interposes Brindeau;
"for I'll have no more to do with my part.'
"Gentlemen, and friends," I say, "the piece is
announced for to-morrow, and the piece shall be
played to-morrow."
* Alfred de Musset was not singular in this dislike of Offenbach.
There were, and are still, a great many persons in Paris who main-
tained that he had the evil eye. The same thing was said of
Gambetta.Transl.]
1
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
421
"I should think so indeed," exclaims Mme. de
Girardin, "it is a masterpiece."
Thereupon Alfred de Musset tones down and
asks me whether I know natural history.
"Natural history, natural history," I reply. "I
know natural history as written in lace ruffles. I
know that of M. de Buffon.'
"It is because I am trying to find a paraphrase
in order not to offend Mme. de Girardin. You are
all aware of the goings-on of the female cuckoo
in other birds' nests. That is why the cuckoo be-
wails his tribulations of imaginary cuckoo-ship.
'Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo '-he, so to speak, hoots
at himself. That is the origin of the familiar term
employed by Molière. Well, would you believe it,
Brindeau, here present, refuses to play the cuckolds."
66
No," yells Brindeau, "I did not come to the
Théâtre Français for that purpose."
"Splendid," laughs Alfred de Musset; "M. Brin-
deau has no objection to make cuckoos of people,
but he objects to enacting them himself. He asks
me to alter the last scene. Is that not a request
more stupendous than the towers of Notre-Dame ?"
We all burst out laughing.
"Be of good cheer, M. Brindeau," said Mme.
de Girardin. "I have just come to talk to M.
Houssaye about a part for you: 'Le Fils de Don
Juan.'"
He
Brindeau's face was wreathed in smiles.
was just studying the Don Juan of Molière, Le
422
BEHIND THE SCENES
Festin de Pierre, so he no longer made objections
to sacrifice himself to Fortunio.
It is a matter of history that next night they
were both perfect. In fact it was a victory all
along the line and for everybody concerned except
for Offenbach, whose song was not sung, because
Delaunay, who might have sung it well, preferred
to recite it to the accompaniment of the music.
There is no need to insist upon the art and feeling
with which he did so.*
M. Scribe, who was a master at finding comic
situations, was thoroughly astonished, at one of the
performances of Le Chandelier, at having found his
master in Alfred de Musset, that poet who found
without seeking. If Alfred de Musset had not
been carried away by "Byronism" and "Roman-
ticism" at the very outset of his career, he perhaps
might have been a contemporary Molière, because
he had dash, a knack of hitting upon the unfore-
seen, and sprightliness. Like Molière, he had
acted comedy in his earliest manhood, which always
proves an excellent apprenticeship for comic authors,
for it enables them to judge better of the effect
of an epigram or a situation. They put their
characters on their legs with greater surety by
breathing life into them. With the majority of
dramatic authors, routine kills art; with Alfred de
* La Chanson de Fortunio is the first of Offenbach's best-known
songs, and was composed on the spur of the moment in the mana-
gerial room in less than twenty minutes.-[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
423
Musset art effaced routine. Consequently one does
not perceive the craftsman when analyzing the
passions of all those figures that come and go with
so much truth to laws of nature, even when they
happen to move in realms of phantasy.
The second night of Le Chandelier, Scribe hap-
pened to come upon Alfred de Musset, who was
talking paradoxes to Mme. Allan. He said point-
blank:
"M. de Musset, I am delighted with your
comedy. I wish you would tell me your secret."
"Which is yours?"
66
'My secret? I try to amuse my public."
"My secret is that I try to amuse myself."
*
*
*
*
"About Le Demi-Monde.
"To A FRIEND, July, 1854.
"I am the first to acknowledge the successes
obtained at other theatres than at the Comédie
Française. Thanks to MM. Augier, Sardou, Dumas
the younger, and Barrière, a new school carries the
victory. One might call it the school of truth.
The phantoms of eighteenth-century comedy have
finally fled before the virile creations of those
newcomers, the contemporary ego holds the stage
with all its living strength.
"I am not at all frightened by the boldness that
frightens tradition. M. Dumas the younger is
putting the finishing touches to a comedy which
will be called, I believe, La Baronne d'Ange ou
424
BEHIND THE SCENES
le Demi-Monde. He has told me the plot of his
piece, which will no doubt be one of the most
characteristic works of the contemporary stage.
M. Dumas has discovered a new world in the old
world; he limns it with all the resources of dramatic
genius, hence it becomes a work fit for the Théâtre
Français.
"But M. Dumas is afraid of rooted prejudice. I
have promised that the reading of his piece will be
a mere matter of form. I do not know whether he
will be able to withdraw from the Gymnase, whose
manager has a signed passport not filled in, and
where he has excellent comedians at his disposal. In
that case the Minister of the Interior would have
to interfere and bring pressure to bear upon the
author, who would perhaps not be angry at the
proceeding, but who, I am bound to say, has
become the spoilt child of victory.
"If his new piece comes out at the Gymnase, what
have we to oppose to it the same evening? La
Niaise of M. Mazères, an antediluvian play which
would conclusively prove that the Théâtre Français
is no longer the Théâtre Français.
"Unfortunately M. Achille Fould is afraid of the
new, like all men wedded to tradition. He wants,
and at the same time does not want, Le Demi-
Monde. M. Camille Doucet is pleading the good
cause, but M. Fould cannot make up his mind to
solicit, at my request, the Legion of Honour of the
Emperor for M. Dumas. The latter has, certainly,
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
425
not broached a word of it to me, but this act of
justice would no doubt bring him to the Comédie
Française.
"I have never professed to produce all the works
which from the revolution of February up till now
may be accounted the living expression of con-
temporary dramatic art. I have seen more than
once, in the theatre devoted to genre plays, true
comedy with its inspiriting laughter hidden beneath
tears of passion. I should have liked nothing
better than to attach to myself those who direct
their adventurous skiff elsewhere: Dumas, Ponsard,
Augier, Barrière. I therefore hailed Barrière, who,
instead of giving me Les Filles de Marbre, gave
me Le Lys dans la Vallée. Though I produced a
great number of pieces every year, I could not
produce every one of the authors in fashion. That
is why Le Gendre de M. Poirier went to the
Gymnase. But why should not one go and see the
Théâtre Français away from its own home when
other houses show themselves worthy of the house
of Molière by the acting of the actors, and the taste
of its stage-management and its mounting. I have
always been assiduously applauding in the midst
of other spectators, when it was not the stalls of
the Théâtre Français. I applauded with all my
might La Dame aux Camelias, Les Filles de
Marbre. Still I have not given all hope of pro-
ducing Le Demi-Monde. Good-bye, old friend.”
426
BEHIND THE SCENES
In those days, and in order to enliven the Comé-
die Française, Jules Sandeau, who had his fits of
practical joking, recommended to me by registered
letter the celebrated Bache, a comedian who looked
as if he had just arrived from the booths of the
Richardson shows of yore. It is of no use trying
to convey to the reader an idea of Bache. He was
a head taller than I, and I am not a Lilliputian.
He could have given odds to Sarah Bernhardt for
loose-limbedness. When he bowed to you he looked
like a kite bobbing up and down, while every now
and then he assumed the airs of a sentimental
giraffe. The man, standing over six feet, had the
piping, shrill voice of a youth. He spoke, now
with measured slowness, then with bewildering
quickness, though by his engagement he was bound
to do neither the one nor the other, for I had en-
gaged him on the strength of his face and appear-
ance. He has become legendary at the theatre.
One could not mention the name of Bache before
Brindeau, Augustine Brohan, Geffroy, Got, Mdlle.
Favart, Delaunay, without provoking bursts of
laughter. Curiously enough he was never comic
on the stage, this comic "to look at."
Balzac had promised to write him a part that
would fit his height and general appearance to a T.
Gautier did write him one. His name is a pseudo-
behind which he hides another, honourably
nym,
known in the magistracy of the land. All his
cousins have been Ministers during the last three
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
427
monarchies. At the Comédie Française he was
for a long while under no other name than that
of Farabosco, his first part at that theatre in Le
Songe d'une Nuit d'Hiver. He sometimes acted
outside the theatre, without mentioning that be-
tween the acts he was writing a treatise in quarto
on tragedy. He surpassed the most notorious blas-
phemers. He denied there was a God, or rather,
he spoke of him in a scornful way, as he would
have spoken of some small actor who acted badly.
But Bache made himself most disagreeable to M.
Ancelot, who was his bugbear. He was about to ask
for the hand of Mme. Ancelot when M. Ancelot was
elected one of the forty "Immortals" of the Académie-
Française. M. Ancelot had refused to avail him-
self of his talents at the Vaudeville, of which he was
the director for a twelvemonth. Bache made his
life a misery to him for three hundred and sixty-
five days, finding each morning some new practical
joke to play upon him. He absolutely exhausted
the stock-in-trade of Turlupin, re-modelled upon
the stock-in-trade of Bache. I am honestly con-
vinced that those tricks were the death of M.
Ancelot.
When M. Ancelot presumed to get angry, Bache,
without a muscle of his face moving, replied:
"Monsieur L'Immortel, pray respect me, for I
am a legitimate child. Both my father and my
mother are legally married, though not to one
another."
428
BEHIND THE SCENES
Those were the days when Vivier illuminated his
transparency on the Place de la Bourse every night
with the motto, "Do not go to the Vaudeville
Theatre." The Director, M. Ancelot, was a book
in two volumes, thanks to Mme. Ancelot. The
first volume was to produce a piece by the second
volume. At the dress rehearsal he goes straight
up to Bache, whom he slaps on the stomach ex-
claiming: "Bravo, you act like an angel." Bache
thought this proceeding a little too familar, the
more that he had very little stomach to slap.
That same night began that famous tragedy,
entitled, The Vengeance of Bache. He seized upon
the very moment that some of the "Forty" were
congratulating Mme. Ancelot in the green-room.
Bache rushes up to his manager in his turn, slaps
him on the stomach, and says in the most off-hand
way, "Well, my boy, you ought to be very pleased
with your wife. The piece is a success which will
by no means be disagreeable to your creditors.
The little woman has a pretty knack of writing a
racy song.'
,,
The Academician draws himself to his full height,
and is going to send Bache about his business.
Ho, ho!"
says Bache, "what does this mean,
between theatrical people like ourselves?"
We suppress the intermediate acts of Bache's
Vengeance in order to get to its conclusion. The
first and second volumes had produced a third,
which was worth both the others, namely, a charm-
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
429
ing girl who was going to be married to an eminent
barrister. No marriage portion, but young and
handsome like the heroine of a piece by her mother.
Bache was rather surprised not to have received an
invitation, nevertheless, he bought himself a white
cravat for the wedding-day. The guests were all
assembled and about to sit down to dinner, but
they had reckoned without Farabosco. All of
a sudden the door is thrown wide open, and the
attendant calls out the name of M. Bache. The
company turned round, dismay written on their faces,
but Bache, gloved and curled, advances into the
room with the innate grace of a pantomime mar-
quis. His dress was absolutely faultless. He goes
up to the Academician looking at him in consterna-
tion.
"I am a little bit late, my dear friend, but not
too late to congratulate you on the wit of your
wife, the beauty of your daughter, the eloquence
of your son-in-law Lachaud, Immortal like your-
self."
At that very moment dinner is announced; Bache
rushes forward and offers his arm to the bride.
Nevertheless, he contents himself with the brides-
maid. During the whole of the dinner he is simply
brilliant; he makes some exquisite allusions to the
bouquet of orange-blossoms.
At dessert he improvises a song in which he
toasts the prosperity of the Vaudeville and the
posterity of the young married couple, not omitting
430
BEHIND THE SCENES
the Academicians of both sexes, for it was not
Ancelot, but Madame Ancelot, who had been elected
a member of the Académie Française.
Unfortunately Bache only acted tragedy well
between the wings.
*
One morning M. Fould had me sent for.
"Do you know Charles Ledru ?"
66
Very slightly. He is a barrister who has been
struck off the rolls-by a great piece of injustice,
for he is a very worthy and honourable man. I
should like to render him a service."
"You do not wish him to make his début at the
Comédie Française ? "
The Minister offered me a cigar, as in the days
when the interview took a familiar turn.
"You have gone to the very heart of the ques-
tion. Charles Ledru has introduced me to Mme.
Dartès, who thinks herself a born tragic actress;
she only talks in hemistich; she falls into goddess-
like attitudes. We must get her a first appearance."
Yes, one Sunday," I said sceptically.
"Not at all; I want a brilliant début."
Though the cigar was good, I ventured to remind
the Minister that one could not make one's débuts
at the Comédie Française as at the Folies Dra-
matiques; that one had to begin by getting a
hearing; that the consent of the sociétaires was
necessary.
"Well, you will get the consent of the sociétaires ;
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
431
if not, you will do without it, because I have made
up my mind to give an order for those débuts.”
9
"After all," I said to the Minister, "if you can
lay your hands on a star, it will not be a bad
thing."
Next morning I had convoked the sociétaires for
a hearing. The embryo tragic actress passed
through my room. As she was very handsome I
received her very encouragingly, but I saw at once
that she had not all the aptitude that had impressed
the Minister. Nature had been very bountiful, but
art had done nothing as yet. At the hearing, the
tragic actress was simply incredible. I left the
matter in the hands of the sociétaires, who, to a
man and woman, were all opposed to the début.
When I went to the Minister, I found that he had
already seen the lady, who had told him that the
pit-full of kings, i.e. the pit-full of comedians, had
interrupted her at every turn, in fact had "guyed"
her.
The Minister was furious. He told me that
he appealed against their judgment, and that Mme.
Dartès should make her début at once. In vain
did I point out to him that, in the interest of his
protégée herself, it would be better that she should
take lessons for a month or so of Beauvallet. He
then reminded me that Rachel had been refused
admission to the Conservatoire, after which he
announced his determination of taking no count of
the objections.
It is well known that under Napoleon III., who
432
BEHIND THE SCENES
was a capital fellow himself, and not at all tyran
nical, his Ministers were of a most overbearing
despotism. It seemed as if they had all come back
crowned with the laurels of the Pyramids and
Austerlitz.
I had already on several occasions tendered my
resignation to M. Achille Fould. I did not think it
necessary to do so this time, so I told him that
Mme. Dartès should make her début. And I was
perfectly sincere in the matter. I had this quasi-
tragic actress sent for, and tried to put her on her
legs. She was a dear, good creature, whom
flatterers had spoilt. She no longer walked the
earth, but thought herself a princess of tragedy,
nay, a very archgoddess from Olympus. Beau-
vallet, scoff and rail as he might at times, tried to
coach her in a most amiable way. But she took no
notice of his suggestions, for she only had faith in
her own inspiration.
A woman in society may on the spur of the
moment enact very good comedy in a drawing-
room, for after all she has done nothing else since
she came out, or, for that matter, since she came
into the world; but take a thousand of them and
tell them to play Phèdre or Roxane there and then,
not a single one will play even moderately well:
they will all caricature the character. That is
why there are so many good comedy actresses and
so few tragic ones. I implored Mme. Dartès to
play Célimene or Sylvia, in order to revive the
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
433
glories of Mdlle. Mars, but she persisted in telling
me that she had the sacred fire of the Champ-
meslés and the Adrienne Lecouvreurs burning
within her. I still further tried to warn the
Minister before putting the lady on the bills. He
had commanded like a tyrant, he insisted like a
despot. He seemed to me the more blind, seeing
that as a rule he was a very good "sort." Why
this obstinacy? Heaven alone knows. Still he
had to come down a peg or two at the first
night. He was in the Emperor's box, and thought
all the tragic actors detestable. He accused me of
not having given the débutante sufficient rehearsals.
Of the débutante herself, the least said the better.
Seeing the house crowded with everybody notable
at Court and in the world of fashion, she got into
what in theatrical parlance is called "a blue funk "
-the lines of Racine absolutely choked her. She
asked Beauvallet what Mdlle. Rachel did in order to
quietly face her public.
"She drinks," thundered Beauvallet.
True, Mdlle. Rachel drank beef tea, which after
all was but high treason against poesy. Mme.
Dartès sent for a small flagon of brandy, which
settled her. Until then she had acted her part like
a good bourgeoisie who wants to astonish her
friends and her family, but when she was half
drunk the public witnessed the most lamentable
exhibition it had seen for a long while. They
2 F
434
BEHIND THE SCENES
wanted to laugh, but a great many among the
audience, myself the first among the number, felt
grieved to see the career of this handsome creature
broken up.
I was more magnanimous that day
than M. Fould. The Emperor having sent for
me. I might have assumed a victorious attitude
before the Minister with the words, "I told you
so." I confined myself to explaining how Mme.
Dartès had lost her head at her first entrance.
66
Besides," I added, turning towards the Minister,
"M. Achille Fould knows well enough that there
is only one great tragic actress in a century."
Is it not indeed a pleasure to salute by the way
and in the green-room all those grand figures the
echo of whose voices are still resounding on the
stage? A few words about those of the nineteenth
century.
When in 1799 the Conservatoire was founded
three excellent masters taught the art of acting
comedy and creating other masters. They were
Dugazon, Molé, and Fleury, whose renown is still
living in the annals of the theatre. Dugazon, the
tutor of Talma, had studied at the school of
Préville, another celebrated name. He belonged,
besides, to a family of excellent comedians, seeing
that he was the brother of Mdlle. Dugazon and
Mme. Vestris. Molière himself would have ap-
plauded him in the parts of Scapin, Mascarille, and
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
435
Sganarelle. A celebrity who is not standing
the test of time so well as Dugazon was Alex-
andre Duval. He was both actor, playwright,
and academician. But that inmortality does not
preserve one from oblivion. One should also take
off one's hat to Baptiste the Elder and Baptiste the
Younger, as well as to those two perfect gentle-
men, Firmin and Mengaud, "impersonators of the
courtiers of the old school, as they no longer breed
them," said Bressant, who was himself an imper-
sonator of those characters. Then there is Monrose,
and we may well ask whether we shall ever see his
like again for wit and go and general devil-may-
care sprightliness. Nor should we forget Samson,
the incarnation of mathematical comedy acting, the
comic who calculated the effect of every point
beforehand, this veritable creator of parts-such
as for instance the Marquis de la Seiglière. He
was absolutely a figure apart.
Another contemporary, who has left the Théatre
Français these twenty years, albeit that his armour
is still complete, was also a creator of parts, though
religiously preserving the worship of the old reper-
tory, is Geffroy. Who shall say the number of
characters he has endowed the stage from Don
Juan d'Autriche to Marat? And who at the same
time played Molière's high comedy as he did? Never
was the Misanthrope so proudly and bitterly repre-
sented as by him. Legier has lent his twitching
but expressive features to many contemporary
2 F 2
436
BEHIND THE SCENES
1
creations, but he never had a notion of tragedy.
He enacted it like the ranters of the Hotel de
Bourgogne, while Beauvallet was a perfect master,
gifted with a stentorian voice which could be in
turns terrible or melting. Who does not remember
him in Polyeucte and in all the masterpieces of the
seventeenth century? He has even been able to
invest the theses of Voltaire with tragic life. He
would have been perfect in his contemporary
creations also, but for his recurrent obstinacy of
playing works by Beauvallet. This was Samson's
failing likewise; still, how many works on the
stage have made a noise that were not a whit
better! Molière has virtually obliged comedians
who would write pieces to have genius and to spare.
Provost also took his share of the success of
all the comedies past and present, from Molière to
Alfred de Musset. He endowed the repertory with
new life by virtue of the most subtle "easy-going-
ness." It was the same in the case of Regnier, who
had studied at the school presided over by original
minds. Starting from Molière, whom no one
understood better, this thoroughbred comic revived
the comic characters of two centuries, to find one
day in characters conceived by contemporary
authors the art of moving people to tears.
Among those who are no longer at the Comédie
Française for I do not wish to speak of those
that are there actually, lest I should be betrayed
into point-blank criticism, but above all into point-
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
437
blank compliment-I owe a sympathetic line to
Bressant, another gentleman belonging to the school
of Firmin and Menjaud.
Society in Paris and St. Petersburg talked a
great deal of this gentleman looking the grand
seigneur, and who reminded one in turns of the
d'Orsays, the "incredibles" of the Directoire, the
Richelieus, and the Lauzuns by his free-and-easy
elegance, his sprightliness, his frivolity, his imper-
tinence, and his raillery. He was very much be-
loved by all sorts and conditions of women from
the duchess down to the bourgeoise of the Marais.
Seething all the while he spoke with passion, capti-
vating heart, eyes, and mind in that way at the
same time. His name was Bressant; he conquered
Russia as well as France. He could only return
by breaking so many flowery chains.
There was also Lervoix with his distinguished
air; Brindeau, who enacted so delightfully and
dashingly the characters of Alfred de Musset and
Alexandre Dumas-a creator in his way, but a
spoilt child who in a moment of pride left the
house of Molière, his real home, to find no home
elsewhere. Why did Maillart, who reminded one
of La Grange-whom of course I have never seen,
except on canvas, but who, like Maillart, was a
perfect stage lover and a perfect comedian-why
did Maillart also leave before his time. Some one
said that he was too fond of angling; Maillart him-
self said that he was too fond of sport.
138
BEHIND THE SCENES
Bocage was merely a passing shadow at the
Comédie Française. In his days he was the most
romantic of the Romancists, seeing that he created
Antony and Buridan, but he knocked either too
soon or too late at the door of the House of
Molière.* More is the pity, because he had the
features of Molière Like Moli re he was the
manager of a company, but he in no way played
the Misanthrope.
It is impossible to speak of the actors of the
nineteenth century without lifting one's hat to
Frédérick Lemaitre. If he happened not to belong
to the Comédie Française, he was nevertheless one of
the "glories" of the French Theatre. His ever-
lasting grief-he told me one day in 1849, when I
offered him an engagement--was not to have been
able to play, under the ægis of Moliere, Tartuffe,
Don Juan, and Harpagon. One may well picture
him in those three parts, palpitating, incisive,
holding his audience spell-bound by unexpected
outbursts of terrible passion; one may well picture
him surrounded by the great masters of histrionic
tradition.
The Comédie Française has also missed many
others, such as for instance Rouvière and Mélingue.
Rouvière, that great Shakespearean figure of whom
we are reminded nowadays by the noble, grand
* In Antony and La Tour de Nesle, both by Alexandre Dumas
the Elder.-[Transl.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
439
impersonation of Hamlet by Maurel, the baritone;
Mélingue, who by his satirical dash and his original
acting breathed life into so many dramas, buried
with him.
The green-room will no doubt shortly boast the
portraits of the nineteenth century from Mdlle.
Mars and Mdlle. Rachel to Sarah Bernhardt, in-
cluding the charming figures of Plessis, the Brohans,
Doze, Judith, Nathalie, Luther, Favart, Fix. I
cannot name them all, not even the most eminent,
but even among the least celebrated more than
one has had her hour of triumph, and has thus
deserved a portrait which will perpetuate her name.
•
From the moment Rachel appeared at the Théatre
Français she put into the shadow every one else,
like a queen in the fulness of her splendour.
The following are some dates to serve as beacons
as it were in the history of her débuts, which has
never been correctly told. In 1835, Rachel, barely
fifteen years old, passed from the School of Choron
to that of Saint-Aulaire. Jouslin de la Salle,
the director of the Comédie Française at the
time, saw her act at the Salle Molière of the
Rue Saint-Martin. He was struck with the
'impression she produced on the public, and
made inquiries. Being told that her mother with
her six children were almost starving, he engaged
Rachel, not indeed to produce her immediately,
440
BEHIND THE SCENES
unless it were as Louison in La Fausse Agnes,
but simply to assist the family more or less.
Rachel was to have 75 fr. per month, but it was
merely a verbal engagement and soon forgotten.
Still, on his recommendation Rachel passed from
the School of Saint-Aulaire to the Conservatoire.
This was in October, 1836. Four months after-
wards Provost turned her once more into the
streets to resume her old occupation of selling
flowers. He did not think her good enough to
waste his time over her. Mme. Desmousseaux *
fortunately came to the rescue, and received her
among her pupils, who likewise performed at the
Salle Molière. It was there that the director of
the Gymnase happened to see her, and engaged
her for his theatre, where she made her first ap-
pearance on the 24th July, 1837. It is well known
that she did not succeed in La Vendéenne, for the
simple reason that La Vendéenne would have in-
volved in its ruin any and every débutante who
might have attempted the title rôle.
“And still,'
people were heard to say every now and then,
"this girl has the making of an actress in her."
The Comédie Française got a new director, who in
March, 1838, signed an engagement with her more
serious than the first. She made her first ap-
pearance on the 13th June of the same year before
* Mme. Desmousseaux, the daughter of Baptiste the Elder, of
whom mention has already been made. She was a French Mrs.
Keeley, and the wife of a celebrated actor. -[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
441
a house of three hundred people. After having
played Camille in Les Horaces, she played Emilie
in Cinna, Hermione in Andromaque, and Amenaïde
in Tancrède. She was but partially satisfied, and
reproached her director for having chosen a thir-
teenth day of the month for her début. There was
no run upon tragedy at that time, for all the critics
had passed over, arms and baggage, to the Romantic
School - all but one, Jules Janin, who belonged to
the School of Jules Janin. But he happened to be in
Italy, where Prince Demidoff had made him a
present of a palazzo, which eventually turned out to
be a palace of a fairy play.
After some time he came back and began to cry
Rachel's name from the housetops. She had acted
Hermione before a house of thirteen hundred francs ;
then number thirteen became pleasant to her. Jules
Janin's second article was more brilliant still; and
"this time," said the director, "Jules Janin has
said Fiat Lux; and light broke through, splendid,
dazzling, flooding the inside and the approaches of
the Théâtre Français. Enthusiasm began to spread
like an electric spark, and every one rushed to the
sanctuary that harboured the goddess. Paris had
but one thought, from the porter's lodge on the
ground floor to the attic beneath the sky-Rachel
was on every one's lips. The receipts of the
Comédie Française became colossal; Rachel's name
was a draft payable at sight for six thousand francs,
drawn upon the public.'
""
442
BEHIND THE SCENES
In 1840 Rachel earned a hundred thousand
francs including a performance for her benefit and
the proceeds of her engagements during a three
months' leave of absence. Until 1855 her success
and the favour of the public never waned for a
single moment. She had become sociétaire in
1842. In 1849 she broke her contract, "like a
young eagle in the cage of a blackbird," says the
historian, without sufficient justification.
For in his otherwise very carefully written book,
"Rachel's Life gathered from her Correspondence,"
he errs in representing the whole of the Comédie
Française kneeling at the illustrious actress's feet.
She had too exalted a feeling of duty to wish to
reign despotically. She was always charming
towards every one. She has been represented as
jealous of the success of others, as relentless with
regard to a piece in which she had no part, towards
an actor or an actress who drew large houses. I
have in my possession some letters of hers in which
she congratulates the Théâtre Français, Mdlle. Judith,
Geffroy, Regnier, Begnon on the success of Char-
lotte Corday. She was most gracious to Madeleine
Brohan. "She is charming," she wrote, "and the
theatre will make too much money. People will
no longer speak of the days after Mdlle. Rachel's
performance, but of the days after Mdlle. Brohan's."*
* It is a well-known fact that the days after Mdlle. Rachel's
performances the Comédie Française was invariably empty.----
[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
413
There may have been a touch of sarcasm in this,
but there was also a touch of truth, seeing that
Madeleine Brohan drew the whole of Paris in
Les Contes de la Reine de Navarre.
An ancient writer has said that the most virtuous
woman was she of whom people talked least, which
has led a modern one to say that actresses are those
of whom people talked most. Still, if virtue were
banished from this world, it would be found hidden
perhaps behind the scenes of the theatre.
Like all women, Mdlle. Rachel began by the most
austere and Roman virtue. Nothing was wanting
in her crown but to play Lucrèce or the wife
of Caesar. But, even when she became a little less
Roman than that, she always remained grande
dame. I have seen her called upon by one of the
twenty duchesses of the Faubourg St. Germain,
who came to ask her to play an act in her drawing-
room for the benefit of the poor.
"How much will the most generous of your
friends give you, Madame?" asked Rachel.
"Five louis," was the answer.
"Well, I will give you twenty-five, which will
not prevent me from coming to your reception."
And how often has this woman, accused of being
fond of money-she, who never had any except
shortly before her death-how often has she given
both her purse and a share of her life to the poor,
for it has been proved that every time she acted she
shortened her life by the effort.
444
BEHIND THE SCENES
Every one knows the story of Rachel's reception
at the Conservatoire. Provost nisjudges her
talents and tells her to go and sell flowers. She
did not belong to those who easily lose courage.
One evening when frantically applauded at the
Théâtre Français, when pelted, so to speak, with
bouquets, she takes the handsomest among them
and goes up to Provost.
"You advised me to go and sell flowers, here are
some."
Crowned queen of the stage by Chateaubriand,
as was Victor Hugo king of poets, each step for-
ward marks a new victory. Count Duchâtel,
Minister of the Interior, makes her a present of a
library, composed of the masterpieces of dramatic
literature. Samson gives her the most scientific
teaching, but, as always, it was nature that taught
her most. This daughter of Eschylus, as Chateau-
briand called her, had all the grandeur of the
ancients; the donning of the. peplum transformed
her to such a degree as to make her become instan-
taneously Hermione, Andromache, Phèdre, Camille
themselves, with the proud voice and bearing of
those immortal characters. If she had a master at
all, it was Racine, but it may safely be said that
she enhanced Racine's grandeur by the deeper
stamping of the Olympian characteristics on that
poet, so often misled by the mere Olympus of
Louis XIV. The lachrymose admirers of tragedy
have often reproached Rachel with lacking the
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
445
true chord of feeling and with inability to draw
tears. It were well not to confound styles of
acting. Adrienne Lecouvreur spoke to the heart,
Rachel spoke to the soul. The verdict of Bouchar-
don after reading Homer, "Man's stature seemed
to me increased by at least a cubit," was the
verdict of the spectators who saw this marvellous
actress in the parts of Phèdre and Hermione. And
was not she, for all that, among her friends, the
most delightful of women, witty without the least
effort, with a grace that dared to say and to do
everything? Count Molé, who was prime minister
in those days, once said to her sententiously:
"Mademoiselle, you have saved literature from
the invasion of the barbarian. The French lan-
guage is largely indebted to you."
"That is a good thing, seeing that I never learnt
it," replied Rachel, in the simplest way imagin-
able.
When, through her intercession, I was appointed
director of the Théâtre Français, she showed me
her letter of thanks to the Minister. She had already
been to thank, personally, the Emperor, who was
then only President of the Republic.
"You will think me very pedantic,” I said to
her. "Your letter is like one by Madame de
Sevigné, but there are orthographical mistakes in
it which were not current in those days."
"Never mind,” she replied, "we'll leave them
in; my letter will look much more sincere."
446
BEHIND THE SCENES
There was both heart and wit in the reply. Like
Adrienne Lecouvreur, Rachel died in the plenitude
of youth, after having shed on the Comédie Fran-
çaise the full light of the masterpieces resuscitated
by her splendid acting. But it is above all on the
stage that the words of the poet hold good: "Happy
are those that die young, they are beloved of the
gods." When, like myself, one has seen Mdlle.
Georges reduced to wretched poverty in her old
age, when one has read of Mdlle. Clairon and
Sophie Arnould wailing at the obsequies of their
fame that had virtually been dead for half a
century before that, one is tempted to envy the
actress who dies when at the zenith of her glory.
*
•
Rachel's life contained a good many comedies
enacted off the stage, but also more than one drama.
I have been obliged to catch hold of her arm lest
she should stab herself to the heart, not with the
tragic dagger, but with a pair of scissors that lay
within reach. It is less poetical, but it would
have been more terrible and startling."
At her début she had played Virginie, a real
tragedy, which stamped the author as a young
mastermind. Unfortunately for the poet, Ponsard
threw Virginie in the shade with his Lucrèce.
Mdlle. Rachel was never tired of saying that the
author's turn would come. That is why, from a
sheer feeling of fairness, she asked him for another
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
447
:
}
piece. The upshot was Rosemonde.
It was a
drama bristling with Alexandrine verse. One act
summed up the whole of the plot; and such a plot!
Two poisonings and a murder in less than an hour.
Every crime and horror had been piled up in a
couple of scenes. Shakespeare and Eschylus
would have averted their heads. In vain did we
point out to Rachel that she could not play a
part in which she was compelled to drink her
death potion from a cup made of the skull of her
father-the toast of adultery, as it were. Her
friendship for the poet made her deaf to all argu-
ment. The rehearsals failed to open her eyes to
the madness of this work; it wanted the glare of
the footlights to accomplish it. Face to face with
the consternation of the public she lost ground and
felt her tragic vigour abandon her; nevertheless
she struggled on, for she had an iron will. Even
her friends deserted her at the very moment when
she was more than ever compelled to show herself
ready for any and everything. Already ailing, she
was terrible to behold in her double abasement,
that of Rosemonde and that of Rachel-that of the
heroine of the piece and that of the actress who
felt herself vanquished for the first time in her
life.
And here I pass my pen to a journalist who
knew her well. "The great actress," he wrote,
"had a nervous attack which seriously alarmed
those around her. Leading to her dressing-room
448
BEHIND THE SCENES
at the Théâtre Français was a drawing-room ele-
gantly hung with white and blue damask, and
furnished with comfortable chairs and couches for
her intimate friends and admirers. On that evening,
seeing that the great actress had tarried on the stage
to answer a formal call from people whose duty
was to that effect (the claque), enforced by a few
persons sincerely sorry at this lugubrious fiasco on
account of the poor woman, her friends had time to
foregather in the drawing-room before her arrival.
There was the director of the Théâtre Français,
M. Arsène Houssaye, the Duke de Morny, Leopold
Le Hon, M. Emile Augier, the Marquis de Lavalette,
M. Jules Janin, between whom and Mdlle. Rachel a
reconciliation had taken place after the former's
return from Russia. Mdlle. Rachel came in, leaning
on her sister and terribly agitated. 'What do you
want here in your black clothes? Do you think
you are coming to my funeral? Is it not enough
that you have been the death of my sister Rebecca?'
she exclaimed."
""
This is the account of Jules Lecomte. He had
been in the house, and he came to Rachel's room
like all those whose names he quotes. But unlike
myself and Leopold Le Hon, he did not go into the
adjoining dressing-room with Rachel and her sons.
Her nervous excitement was positively appalling
to behold. The more one spoke to her, the more
one seemed to exasperate her. Instead of un-
dressing, she tore her magnificent costume to shreds.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
449
Then all of a sudden she caught up a pair of scis-
sors and wanted to stab her bare bosom just where
the heart was throbbing. And such throbs.
If I had not clutched her arm, she might have
struck home.
"I wanted to play this execrable part, and I have
been execrable in it," she shouted, wholly overcome
by her despair.
All her friends had rushed in. In vain did we
remind her that every one of us, I above all, had
opposed the performance; but fate had got the
better of reason. Candidly speaking, we had not
foreseen such a catastrophe.
The author, who was in the passage, had not the
courage to come in. I begged of him, in order to
soothe Rachel, to tell her that he withdrew his
piece.
"That is what I came for," he said.
The actress drew a long breath of relief. She
knew that he was entitled to three performances.
"Seeing that you wish to prevent me from
dying," she said, "I'll play this Rosemonde twice
more; but it will be the end of me." And she
dropped senseless to the floor.
Luckily her mother appeared upon the scene,
took her into her arms, and held her there as one
would hold a child. She opened her eyes.
"Poor mother, that is what I have done with
your daughter!"
The tears stood in every one's eyes. They had
2 G
450
BEHIND THE SCENES
never seen Rachel so ghastly pale. It was the
general opinion that she would be unable to act for
a long while to come, if ever she acted again.
Desolation was written on every face.
We had to carry her to her carriage, and then
from her carriage to her bed. She would have no
one but her mother and her youngest sister to
watch by her bedside. They were her ministering
angels.
Next morning, Jules Janin assumed his most
grandiloquent style to narrate this lamentable drama
resulting from an imaginary one. "It is unfortunately
but too true. She came back to her dressing-room
clutching her hands in despair. It was a sad, a
touching sight which I shall not forget as long as
I live. She sat herself down in a corner of that
historical room still pervaded by the perfume of
Mdlle. Mars. She was panting for breath, beside
herself with grief, motionless, dumb-stricken with
overmastering despondency.
despondency. Nothing could be
more eloquent and sorrowful to behold. Poor
daughter of the Muses! She succumbed to the
task; she was vanquished. Her soul troubled to
the core, her mind sick with disappointment, her
health gone, she flung away from her the bitter
cup. She wept, her beautiful large eyes were
suffused with tears, and to a friend who wanted to
comfort her she replied, 'Look for yourself if the
woman who weeps is not already with one foot in
the grave.' Her wandering looks fell upon the
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
451
C
portrait of Mdlle. Mars. Oh, Mars, open thy tomb
to me!' she cried."
Therumour of Rachel's death spread, but she wrote
to me that she had made up her mind to bid fare-
well to the stage, and that henceforth no one should
set eyes upon her but her children. She wanted to
live utterly forgotten. Nevertheless, Janin was
allowed to see her. This charming fellow, who
never had any children, or who at any rate never
acknowledged any, was the perfection of pater-
familias, the true father to the artist. It was he who
induced Rachel to come back to the stage, telling
her that the smell of the footlights was after all
the most invigorating air for her to breathe. Seeing
that she meant to live for her children, she could
not quit the stage, of which she was the very soul,
when still so very young.
Rachel had sent five thousand francs to the
author just as if he had written a piece in five acts,
but she was not in the habit of counting where
money was concerned. He was too much of a
gentleman not to return them to her, with a letter
which was a genuine cry of the heart. As a con-
sequence she said to Janin, "Seeing that
you insist
upon it, you big booby whom I like so much, I
will not leave the stage. And to get the better of
evil fortune, I will make my reappearance in Rose-
monde. I owe as much to Beauvallet, who was
splendid. I owe as much to all my fellow-actors."
It took Rachel ten days to get on her legs again,
2 G 2
452
BEHIND THE SCENES
We had advertised the second performance of the
piece for a Saturday. At midnight on the previous
evening we still hesitated about the bills, but the
great actress came to the theatre like an apparition
from the other world.
"Have the bills out,
said; "the necessity of
strength."
have the bills out," she
the case will give me
We did as she wished, prepared to change the
performance at the eleventh hour, but she played
Rosemonde as she had said she would.
It was not a first night's audience, and the
moment she stepped up to the footlights she was
greeted with frantic applause. Greater justice was
done to the savage energy of the piece; the shade
of Crébillon hovered, as it were, over the stage;
nevertheless, Rachel felt that her gods had deserted
her for the time being. She regretted that the
author, who had been inspired by Alfieri, had not,
like him, softened the horror of the situations
by Racinian sentiment. She had seen Shakespeare
acted in London, and made up her mind to play
one of his pieces, to prove that nothing frightened
her in the drama any more than in tragedy.
She was a long while before she recovered from
this terrible blow; it seemed to her that the sun
of her life was for ever hidden behind the clouds.
She had been as it were in the valley of death. It
was no longer the man of the story who had lost
his shadow, it was the woman dogged by two
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
453
hadows.
Smile as she might, something inde-
finably bitter remained on her lips. There are
years in peoples' lives that count double; that sorrow-
ful winter counted for ten in Rachel's life. The
sweet expression of youth, that had hitherto flitted
across her face like an April or May sunbeam, was
already dwindling beneath the pallor of death. Of
course now and again she tried to shake off her
grief, and to reassume the sprightly look that was,
so to speak, the reposeful change of the countenance
worn on the stage, but they were only so many
flashes of lightning during the storm. In vain did
she endeavour to cling to life by everything that
makes life worth having-love, family ties, pride,
friendship; the ties were tied again to snap once
more. She had reached the dark crossing of
life's road, when one asks one's self whether it is
worth while to proceed. What, henceforth, would
she find? The chimerical hopes that are one's
companions at the outset of the journey, even in the
worst days, had taken flight one by one, like white
doves turning back to the younger travellers, and
the swarming crows already croaked and darkened
the horizon. That, as a rule, is the final escort.
It is of no use to hug to one's heart the dearest
memories, the sheaf of mowed-down flowers; the
flowers are withered and only emit an acrid scent.
Rachel, like all those fated to die young, already
smelt the funereal perfume of the dank grass of
God's acre.
454
BEHIND THE SCENES
Thus far the melancholy consequences of this
But as a matter of course the
terrible failure.
While Jules
ludicrous aspect was not wanting.
Janin and Jules Lecomte struck the tragic note,
another critic struck the comic in a kind of mock
and improvised lecture given in the green-room
immediately at the fall of the curtain on the first
performance. His strictures were a kind of cookery
receipts to illustrate the cuisine of the ancient
and modern tragic writers. "The tragic poets,"
he said, "have always had curious notions of gas-
tronomy. Both beasts and men truly arouse my
pity from the manner in which they feed; the
one eating, the other eaten. In Eschylus it is
the vultures of Prometheus, constantly risking fits
of indigestion by gorging itself with the liver of his
victim; in Crébillon it is Atreus, who as a final
toast, otherwise called the stirrup cup, makes the
son of Thyestes drink the blood of his father. In
all the Medeas of the world, in that of Corneille as
in those of Longepierre and M. Ernest Legouvé,
we have that fatal stew-pan of the daughters of
Pelias, with the broth of which their father for-
tifies himself and renovates his youth; then as a
first course after this tragic soup comes the bloody
dish or bowl of the Gabrielle de Vergy of M. de
Belloy, where this lady carves the heart of her lover
à la Russe. Nor is this all; tragedy, not satisfied
with ordering the bill of fare, has wanted to pro-
vide the kitchen range and a dinner service to
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
455
match. The first thing we meet with on the shelves
of its dreadful sideboard is the cup of Alboin, un-
earthed by M. Latour de Saint-Ybars from the old
rag and bottle stores of tragedies of yore, and
which has just been mounted and furbished anew
for his appalling act."
!
456
BEHIND THE SCENES
CHAPTER XIX.
Czarina of M.
Though it was
THE year 1855 opened with La
Scribe, played by Mdlle. Rachel.
a grand character worthy of a great actress, I
began by dissuading the author, because Russia,
which has often perfected our actresses, has never
inspired us with masterpieces drawn from her
history. But Mdlle. Rachel, who had become the
spoilt child of Russia during her last stay there,
wanted once more to fascinate her friends of the
North. As for M. Scribe, one country was as good
as another to him to borrow his subject from, pro-
vided he could command great interpreters. After
all is said and done the piece was a great pecuniary
success. It was the last part that Rachel created.
She was handsome in it, a queen every inch of her,
without concerning herself much about the truth
of her creation. On the other hand, Bressant and
Beauvallet were simply a couple of magnificent
historical portraits limned in the grandest of styles.
The critics, while lauding the actors up to the skies,
were not very tender to M. Scribe; but it was their
ordinary way
of taking down a peg that very gifted
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
457
but too successful and fortunate man.
Paris does
not like lucky people. If misfortune does not
mark a man for its own to a certain degree he is
supposed by the majority to get his bread by
robbery. Scribe, however, was wrong in one
respect―he too often ousted others; and if he had
not put himself forward it would have fallen to
Alexandre Dumas's lot to create the last part that
Rachel was to interpret. He might not have shown
all the scenic resources of the author of Le Verre
d'Eau, but he would have assuredly created grander
figures. On the stage one should always be human
in comedy, but superhuman in the drama, though
preserving the semblance of truth.
Méry came to the front once more with L'Essai
du Marriage, an ephemeral comedy that owed more
to its verse than to its plot. It was but a few
days after that we produced Les Jeunes Gens of
Léon Laya, a great success, 'pilfered from Méry,
seeing that it was the same subject as that of Le
Sage et le Fou. Still, its success was due more to
the acting than to the author; but whatever the
cause of a success, a theatre has the right to be
proud of it, because there are no good pieces with-
out good actors and without careful stage-manage-
ment,
With Octave Feuillet's Péril en la Demeure we
were once more sailing on the full tide of genuine
literature. With Laya's Jeunes Gens one might
have believed one's self to be at the Vaudeville;
458
BEHIND THE SCENES
with Feuillet's play no such illusion was possible ;
one felt one was at the Théâtre Français. But its
Beaumarchais would not
"How many Philistines
success was less lasting.
have failed to remark:
does it want to make up a good pit ?" For, as a
subtle critic said, "With regard to Feuillet's pieces,
laughter means only smiles, the tears come into
one's eyes without coursing down one's cheeks, but
for all that they are very delightful. The characters
are all taken from life, but the talent of the actors
and actresses gives greater emphasis to their cha-
racteristics. People enjoy the play very much; it
is a downright treat to the refined. Certainly,
the public will not break down the doors of the
Comédie Française or smash the windows because
the author happens to be a subtle and delicate
observer, but they will come again and again to
applaud this playful playing with passion." As
Mdlle. Rachel says, "M. Feuillet starts with a
victory gained at the point of a sword tipped with
wit."
It was Philoxene Boyer who wrote the ode that
year to celebrate the anniversary of Corneille's
death. He had already shown himself a genuine
poet, one might say almost a great poet, this man
who has been so quickly forgotten, except by the
discriminating lovers of poetry.
A comedy by M. Legouvé, Par Droit de Con-
quéte, proved a great success and averted the con-
sequences of a tropical heat. These three acts
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
459
were, however, by no means steeped in ice. They
proceeded very spiritedly and with a great deal of
wit. In the midst of the dead season we also
produced the piece by Kotzebue, Misanthropie et
Repentir (The Stranger), remodelled by Gérard
de Nerval. Why did he insist upon remodelling
the somewhat obsolete work of a foreigner, when
in his lucid intervals he might have written a
thoroughly French piece? With the autumn came
the venture of Léon Gozlan, an historical piece in
five acts, Le Gateau des Reines.* The King was
Louis XV., that witty monarch who ridiculed Adam
in clever quatrain:
"Il n'eut qu'une femme avec lui,
Encor c'était la sienne;
Mais moi je vois celles d'autrui,
Et ne vois pas la mienne." †
Léon Gozlan was scarcely a man of large
undertakings. He said to me one day, "As far as
I am concerned three acts is the Ultima Thule to
me. Then why write five?
On the stage the only thing that counts is the
witty essence of the situation. Léon Gozlan, how-
* Le Gateau des Rois is the French equivalent for our Twelfth
Night Cake. Le Gateau des Reines was an amplification of the
legend connected with it.-[Transl.]
† An imperfect translation:
"One wife he had where'er he went,
And she his own by right.
Others' wives are in my tent,
But mine's kept out of sight."
460
BEHIND THE SCENES
ever, was more concerned with the wit than with the
situation. After a score of performances it was
still a moot point whether his piece was a mild
failure, a partial or a downright success, so much
did opinions vary both among the critics and the
public itself. The battle came to an end for lack
of combatants, and however great my friendship for
Léon Gozlan, I was compelled to give his piece every
now and then at long intervals. As he had received
a bonus, he was consoled, and took to his valiant
pen once more. In September people's thoughts
were far away in the Crimea, and the Emperor told
me to have an ode written on the taking of Sebas-
topol. It was Mdlle. Favard who recited it, without
the least pretension to studied declamation, but
with her usual enthusiasm for everything heroic.
She was so handsome that the public found my
verse magnificent. Two one-act pieces, L'Amour
et son Train, by M. Octave Lacroix, and La Ligne
Droite, were produced at the same time without
setting the Seine on fire. People were pleased with
them, they were acknowledged to be skilled pro-
ductions of skilled theatrical craftsmen, their pointed
dialogue was much admired. We finished the year
with a big play, half comedy, half drama, La Jo-
conda by Paul Foucher and Regnier. Great success
the first night. Foucher, who could not see far
into the future, for he was terribly near-sighted,
went about, saying everywhere, "A hundred
nights at least." Regnier, who was not near-
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
461
sighted at all, and who, though interpreting the
piece in the glare of the footlights, had noticed
more than one insecure trap, said to his collabo-
rator, “Five-and-twenty nights, and say no more
about it." Regnier never made a mistake even
on his own account. But, at any rate, the five-
and-twenty performances drew every one in Paris.
I must needs skip many things worthy of being
recorded at length, such as a trifle on the war in
the East by the impeccable Belmontet; * a great
many revivals, a great many débuts. But time
passes quickly and carries everything or nearly
everything away with it, hence it boots little to try
to galvanise into anything like life the emotions,
the surprises, the enthusiasm of 1855. The most
startling facts are the receipts, for they rose to a
million of francs, though Mdlle. Rachel did not act
often during that year. True there was the Uni-
versal Exhibition, but in those days provincials
were not very lavish; they rarely spent their money
for anything more costly than the upper boxes or
amphitheatre. Paris alone paid more than eight
hundred and fifty thousand francs for its freedom.
of the Théâtre Français.
* Louis Belmontet, born 1799, died somewhere about 1870.
An ardent Imperialist, who was, to a certain extent, the self-ap-
pointed laureate of the Second Empire. He is best known by his
tragedy Une Fête de Neron, performed at the Odéon 1848.-
[Transl.]
462
BEHIND THE SCENES
Alfred de Musset had made up his mind to write
no more. His mind became more sullen every day.
Nothing short of a miracle could have put him right
again.
The Empress Eugénie, who to-day seeks comfort
in the perusal of Bossuet and The Imitation of
Jesus Christ-one might almost say in the imita-
tion of "The Mother of Sorrows"-had a great
liking for Alfred de Musset, as she had a liking for
Octave Feuillet and Victor Hugo. She never gave
up the hope of seeing the author of Rolla finish his
tragedy of Frédégonde.
"Mdlle. Rachel would be so magnificent, and at
the same time so terrible in it," she said, begging
all the chamberlains to place the golden pen once
more between Alfred de Musset's fingers.
Count Bacciocchi was more than once the bearer
of complimentary messages to the Rue Mont-
Thabor, at the very early hour when one was sure
to find the poet at home; but he, no more than
Mdlle. Rachel or myself, succeeded in beguiling
Alfred de Musset back to the Merovingian legends.
Though he was well pleased with the graciousness
of the Empress, he held to the opinion of that
actress who, when they showered madrigals upon
her, smiled and said, "The smallest note of a
'thou' will suit me much better."
Having given up all hope with regard to Frédé-
gonde, the Empress had not given up all hope to
have a comedy from the pen of Alfred de Musset.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
463
In vain did people tell her that his work was no
longer worth anything; she argued with some
show of reason that so great an intellect could not
be wholly wrecked. She knew, moreover, that
de Musset's incessant " night-wandering ". pro-
duced some splendid flashes every now and then
in which he recovered the fire of his youth.
I was requested to be the ambassador. Not only
would the sovereign pay the author's rights, but
taking a leaf from Marie Antoinette's book,
who acted Beaumarchais-she herself would play
Alfred de Musset's piece.
I might have waited till the poet came to the
theatre, or gone in search of him at the Café de la
Régence, but I thought it better to do the thing
with becoming fitness. Early next morning I had
my two horses put to my brougham in order to
make a little bit of a stir in the poet's street, which
in those days was quiet to a degree. Alfred de
Musset himself opened the door to me.
"Are you going to a wedding?" he asked, see-
ing me in evening dress and white cravat.
"No, I am coming on a mission to a great poet,
despatched by an Empress."
The bit of comedy went to de Musset's heart.
If I had said much more he would have embraced
me as on the first night of Le Chandelier.
I told him that the Empress wished to play a
part that he should write for her.
"And what the devil could I write for her?"
464
BEHIND THE SCENES
"It is simple enough; something like Le Barbier
de Seville or Les Noces de Figaro. You know that
Marie Antoinette played both Rosine and Suzanne
at Trianon.
Alfred de Musset cast a glance towards the door.
"In that case you have brought M. de Beau-
marchais with you. He will be in the show.""
And, as he always had an eye to the main
chance, he asked me what would be the price of
such a masterpiece.
•
I had virtually unlimited powers. It is well
known that everything was lavishly paid for at the
Empress's Court, but Alfred de Musset wanted some-
thing more sterling than promises. Since he had
lost confidence in himself, he doubted everything
and everybody. Nevertheless he set to rummaging
among his old
his old papers.
66 Hm,"
" he said, "I have got a comedy here
which is neither finished nor unfinished, in which
there are two capital women's parts. It is called
Comme il vous plaira (As you like it). Very pretty
title ?"
"Very pretty indeed, but of no use to any one
but Shakespeare."
I'll have to call my comedy L'Ane et le Ruis-
seau (The Ass and the Brook). For the idea of
the piece is this: a fellow in love who dare not
cross the Rubicon."
"Very well then, call your piece The Rubicon;
the title is sure to go down with an emperor."
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
4.65
"Not at all," said de Musset, putting on his
dignity like a wayward child, "my piece shall be
called L'Ane et le Ruisseau, and not all the royalty
in the world will make me change its title."
I knew him too well to attempt to contradict
him. "How many acts ?" I asked.
66
'Only one," he replied.
It was somewhat too short, even if it had been
as charming as Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte
ou fermée. At the Tuileries, where the wish was
father to the thought in all things, there had been
a talk of a real comedy, but seeing that Alfred
de Musset could not improvise five acts, I asked
him to spread his one act over three.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because if they are to pay you ten thousand
francs for five acts, you cannot reasonably expect
the same sum for one.'
""
"Well, that's where they would be wrong. Let
them apply to M. Scribe, who will write them a
comedy in ten acts, if they wish it."
Nothing was more difficult than to argue quietly
with Alfred de Musset. I promised him every-
thing he liked. To commence with, he should
have five thousand francs in newly-coined Napo-
leons; secondly, if he made up his mind to divide
his piece into three acts, the Empress should have
the option of increasing his author's rights; the
piece, enacted at the Tuileries at first, should be
transferred to the boards of the Théâtre Français,
2 H
466
BEHIND THE SCENES
the performance at Court absolving the author
from reading before the Committee.
The author set to work. Next morning he asked
me whether the Mint had begun to coin his Napo-
leons. We had not been together five minutes
when my attendant, the celebrated de Lachaume,
who considered himself as much a gentleman as the
author of Rolla, rushed in frightened, thinking we
had come to blows.
We were merely verbally sparring, but we spoke
too loud to produce any effect upon one another.
He had sent me to the devil, I had consigned him
to more distant regions still, but we had not opened
the windows to execute our pious wishes. And all
this noise because I had as nicely as possible asked
de Musset to come with me a few days hence to
read his play to the Empress. In vain did I tell him
that there would be only three or four people there,
friends of his own-the Emperor, Niewerkerke,
Persigny, Bacciocchi, and perhaps de Morny and
Fleury. All these names ending in i and y had put
him out.
"Nothing of the kind," he shouted; "it's all
over. I am going to burn my play."
As I was passing him a match to light his cigar-
ette he thought that I was taking him at his
word.
"You see," he said, "you quite agree with
me."
And then he began to harp obstinately on that
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
467
subject, stamping his foot, and shouting louder and
louder. I involuntarily followed his lead, and
when de Lachaume entered the scene must have
struck him as one of a comedy. This time I made
certain that it was all over with the piece for the
Tuileries, for Alfred de Musset caught up his hat
and bounced out of the room. I immediately
wrote him the following note:-
"I can't very well make out, dear friend, why
you refuse to read your piece to a woman who
admires you, when you consent to read to a com-
mittee of actors who nearly all make the mistake
of judging you only by your flights of fantasy."
This diplomatic communication was sent to Alfred
de Musset at the Café de la Régence. His anger
had suddenly vanished, for he wrote to me in
pencil, "I will read to-morrow."
And to prove
to me that he bore me no grudge, he had added
also in pencil, "Yours very, very cordially."
I went over to the Café de la Régence at once,
but he was already gone to finish his play.
Next day at two Alfred de Musset was at the
theatre, manuscript in hand.
"I say," he laughed, "I look like a poet of the
starvation times of Louis XIII., going to read his
tragedy at the Cardinal's."
"Don't be foolish," I replied, "you look like
Prince Charming going to read a fairy tale to the
Sleeping Beauty."
2H 2
468
BEHIND THE SCENES
I took him in from head to foot. He was dressed
faultlessly, with pearl grey gloves, deftly tied cravat,
the old-fashioned French dresscoat (l'habit à la
Française)* fitting like a skin, his beard pic-
turesquely trimmed, not a hair of his head out of
place. I was almost forgetting his boots, setting
off his handsome foot to great advantage.
"That's right," said Beauvallet, who saw us go
out; "here is Alfred de Musset going to Court
without his young man.†
The real truth was that he had primed himself for
the occasion just by a slight point of intoxication-
or rather by the remains of yesterday's.
When we got into the carriage my hopes fell to
zero again. He kept telling me that it was more
than ridiculous to have to read his works in society,
even among empresses.
"It is the business of one of the chamberlains,"
he said all of a sudden. "I am going to ask
Niewerkerke, who has got as much wit as I have,
to read my comedy."
Count Bacciocchi came to the foot of the stairs
to receive Alfred de Musset. It was by the express
wish of the Empress; but the poet was so whimsical
* L'habit à la Française was a compromise between the modern
swallow-tail and the quaker's coat with stand-up collar, which one
sees still so frequently worn by clergymen in England at evening
receptions.-[Transl.]
† His servant, who was known to have to often fetch him from
the Café de la Régence and elsewhere.-[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
469
that, far from feeling flattered by this kind atten-
tion, he wanted to turn on his heels.
"What is all this?" he said.
Luckily, Bacciocchi, with his dash and pretty
conceits, was the incarnation of an intermediary.
The moment he was ushered into the presence of
the Empress, the poet became a different man. He
held his head high, advanced proudly, saluted the
sovereign, and addressed her with the most perfect
courtesy.
The Empress turned towards the Emperor.
"What did Mérimée mean?" she said.
"That's how people write history," softly replied
Napoleon III.
After having firmly set his teeth together and
produced the grating noise habitual with him,
Alfred de Musset unfolded his manuscript and went
through the opening scenes very quickly. But he
soon began to make the Emperor and Empress
feel uncomfortable because another majesty, "His
Majesty Morny," had come in without being
announced.
I had never seen such a thing at the Tuileries
before, but it was, nevertheless, a fact that Baron
James de Rothschild walked into the apartment
without the least ceremony. Though he seemed
to be a recognised sovereign power, no doors were
thrown wide open for him. He, as I have already
observed, walked in without attracting the slightest
notice.
470
BEHIND THE SCENES
His being made free in that way of the palace
at all hours was to some extent due to his being
treated as power by a power, but it was also
because he told a capital story and amused the
Empress. A good story-teller has always made his
at Court, where there are too many loquacious
and silent bores.
way
M. de Rothschild had been told in the adjoining
room that Alfred de Musset was reading a comedy.
He had not come to listen to this comedy, but he
thought that a spectator like him could not do amiss.
So he walked in. Scarcely a stir, because the
baron made a sign not to mind him by spreading
out his arms as if to appease the rising waves.
"What is this?" exclaimed Alfred de Musset,
jumping up and turning towards me.
"Another majesty," I said.
remember M. de Rothschild."
"You surely
This time he turned towards the Empress.
((
In that case, your Majesty, I'll leave off read-
ing, for I did not invite M. de Rothschild."
The situation was fast becoming dramatic. M.
de Rothschild, who had taken up a position against
the mantelpiece, raised his voice.
66
Monsieur Alfred de Musset, pray go on."
The poet misunderstood the tone; he fancied that
M. de Rothschild was trying to patronise him.
"He has not paid for his seat; by what right
should he hear my piece?" he said turning to me,
folding up his manuscript.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
471
"What does it matter to you?" I replied, while
the Empress rose to mollify him.
But like a gentleman of old, who has drawn his
sword, he would not give way.
"Madame, you are as gracious as you are beau-
tiful," he said. "I made no fuss reading before
your Majesty, but no human power will compel me
to read before M. de Rothschild."
The Emperor understood that Alfred de Musset
would be as good as his word. He also had risen.
He went straight to M. de Rothschild, who would
not budge an inch before the poet.
"I am very sorry to be obliged to make an
entr'acte," said the baron; "but Monsieur Alfred
de Musset makes a mistake if he thinks that his
piece will bore me. Not later than yesterday I
heard one from his pen that afforded me a great
deal of pleasure: Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte
ou fermée."
The Emperor smiled.
de Rothschild," he said.
shut.'
"That's just it, Monsieur
"A door must be open or
The baron understood, but he was not the man
to be disconcerted so easily.
"But for my apprehension of being rude to
Monsieur Alfred de Musset," he said, "I should
not remain until he finished his play. I should
confine myself to applauding it at the Théâtre
Français."
Seeing that the baron spoke so that every one
472
BEHIND THE SCENES
could hear him, Alfred de Musset grated his teeth
and muttered, "C'est un droit qu'à la porte on
achète en entrant." *
We pretended not to hear, but M. de Rothschild,
who had heard well enough, wanted at least to
make a brilliant retreat. He went straight up to
the Empress, raised her hand to his lips, and bowed
so low to Alfred de Musset as to breed the suspicion
of mockery. Then he immediately asked me:
"When do you mean to produce this master-
piece ? "
"6
"Never," I replied, never. The piece has
been written for the theatre of the Tuileries."
Monsieur Million thought he saw his opening for
a counter-thrust.
"So much the better. Then we shall not pay
on going in.”
If he had left well alone M. de Rothschild would
have had the laughter on his side, but he spoilt his
chance by asking the title of the piece.
“L'Ane et le Ruisseau," replied de Musset, with
scarcely concealed mockery
"I understand," quoth the baron; "the ass does
not pass the Rubicon; that ass is a sage.”
Thereupon he saluted once more and left.
* "It is a right one buys at the door on going in." A pertinent
or impertinent application of a famous line from Boileau's Art
Poétique, because Boileau alluded to the right of hissing, not to
that of applauding.-[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
473
The Empress said to Alfred de Musset, "You
perceive, monsieur, that every one obeys you here,
and that you cause everybody to be witty."
The poet bowed, and opened his manuscript once
more. He himself was frequently interrupted
during the reading by the words, "Very charming,
delightful, admirable," that were wafted across the
room like birds' notes.
When he had finished he asked me, smiling,
whether his piece would be accepted. The Em-
press, who had been listening, said aloud, "Unani-
mously."
Yes, his piece was accepted, proof whereof that
de Musset received his author's rights.
Why was it not played?
Because at Court
woman proposes and fate disposes. Those who are
the masters of everything are the masters of no-
thing. This or that thing happens. It is above
all at Court that the unexpected kills the "I will."
When we had turned our backs on the Tuileries,
Alfred de Musset said all of a sudden, "I have
just been reading a comedy, but I asked myself all
the while whether every one around was not acting
one. Are you very sure that we have not left a
theatre ?"
"The theatre of the world," I replied.
"All these
"No, a real theatre," he rejoined.
personages are enacted parts carefully studied. It
is a tragic comedy. While I was reading my piece
4.74
BEHIND THE SCENES
I watched the Empress with the apprehensive terror
of what may happen to-morrow. They say she is
Spanish. Do not believe it; I know better. To
judge by her eyes, by her hair, by her lips, we are
dealing once more with an Austrian like Marie
Louise, like Marie Antoinette. She is charming,
but fate compels her to act a part. All this looks
very beautiful to-day, but I would not give two-
pence for the last act."
I asked Alfred de Musset whether he would give
twopence for the last act of M. de Rothschild.
"Yes; because with King Money two and two
make four-and sometimes five."
*
*
*
After the storms at the outset, I remained between
six and seven years at the Théâtre Français, living
on terms of cordial intimacy with artists and dra-
matic authors. Nay, I might say more. Even the
great forbears of the illustrious theatre, Corneille,
Molière, Racine, Regnard, Marivaux, Beaumarchais,
must have been pleased with the magnificent re-
vivals I gave under their auspices, for I produced
their masterpieces with a worshipful solicitude,
thanks to the talented interpreters who distin-
guished in those days a brilliant company.
No doubt clouds obscured the sky now and then,
for in this republic of sovereigns pride is always
more or less to the fore; but they knew my inten-
tions and good-will, and they always came back
without bearing me a grudge,
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
475
I found the theatre invaded by an obsolete spirit
that would not surrender, by writers of farce inter-
larded with song who imagined they were writing
comedy, by sham romanticists who thought they
were writing dramas, but who wept when they
should have laughed, who laughed when they
should have wept. While renovating the scenery,
I renovated the dramatic sentiment, I energetically
condemned the shades of the departed tragic and
comic writers, the great-great-grandsons of Cam-
pistron, de la Chaussée, Andrieux and others, who
endeavoured to come back to earth. Was it not a
downright offence to the generation of 1850 to see
the Théâtre Français put on its bills such colourless
stuff, with Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Emile
Augier, and Alfred de Musset looking on? Of the
whole of the condemned school only Eugene Scribe
preserved his right of freeman. He was certainly
not a man of genius, but he had the dramatic genius,
and if he had taken the trouble to write he might
have put his naine to many a masterpiece. As
they were, his plays deserved to survive him. The
hard-and-fast theorists have, in connection with
Scribe, accused me of sacrificing to, and I have
admitted that success was in the right. One should
endeavour to educate one's contemporaries, one
should not prevent one's contemporaries from en-
joying the plays of the man most fertile in dramatic
resources. Besides, Scribe understood the art of
taking possession of the stage under any and every
476
BEHIND THE SCENES
pretext. Mdlle. Rachel was thinking of represent-
ing Adrienne Lecouvreur; he rushed in with five
acts from which the genius of Rachel should flash
forth. It was the same story with regard to Made-
leine Brohan. It was necessary that her début
should be a signal triumph; Eugene Scribe almost
spontaneously furnished her with five acts-Les
Contes de la Reine de Navarre. There was no
time to knock at other people's doors, so oppor-
tunely did he smash in our own.
I have not only produced, besides those of Scribe,
the works of the four masters I mentioned just now,
but those of Jules Sandeau, Léon Gozlan, Théodore
Barrière, Georges Sand, Octave Feuillet, Mme.
Emile de Girardin, Henry Murger. When I left
I had two comedies which were almost finished;
one by Alphonse Karr, the other by Théophile
Gautier. They refused to finish them for M.
Empis, who, besides, did not like their style of
wit. I do by no means profess that, in my love
for things of beauty, I have produced nothing but
masterpieces. When in the course of seven years one
puts about eighty new plays on the stage, one as it
were tempts fortune, one risks failure; but after all to
battle means to live. What is a theatre that produces
two new plays a year? That theatre is virtually
closed to the living author, it is no longer the
expression of the dramatic genius of its own time.
What care I for its making money with mediocre
works? I pass by its doors, but do not go in.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
477
Making money does not mean cultivating art. The
State should subsidise a theatre on condition of its
producing a new work every month, as did the
Théâtre Français under my direction. If a master-
piece crops up, let it remain in the repertory, but
why play it more than twice a week after the first
thirty nights? The whole of Paris has seen it, the
whole of the provinces will see it. And if it be
not a masterpiece, why try to perpetuate its success,
seeing that this success will condemn all the other
pieces to a weary waiting for their turn.
It
There is another capital point in connection with
the theatre, -the chapter concerning actors.
requires indomitable energy to get rid of bad come-
dians. Heaven alone knows the battles I have
had to fight, for bad actors have all the tricks of
comedy to get themselves recommended--I might
say to force themselves upon you. The Minister
sent for me several times.'
"You must engage so and so and such and such."
Why?"
66
"Because this one is not worse than so many
others. Because that one has taken a prize at the
Conservatoire."
One day as a conclusive answer I wrote down
all the glorious names of the Comédie Français
while the Minister was looking on.
"Your protégé would cut a sorry figure in such
company."
The Minister dropped his protégé.
478
BEHIND THE SCENES
On another occasion he gave me the order to
engage a very nice-looking fellow, but a tragedian
of the declamatory school, who, worse than Ligier,
set all the dogs of the Rue de Richelieu a-howling
when he was on the stage. I took a revolver from
my pocket.
CC
My dear Minister, this tragedian always fancies
that he is playing the fifth act. He wants to
assassinate me because I have refused to sign his
engagement. Every one in the theatre knows that
it was by a sheer miracle that he missed me, but
now I am on my guard, and I am determined to
kill rather than re-engage him."
The Minister dropped the subject, more con-
vinced by the sight of my revolver than by my
words.
"Alas!" he said, "I want a revolver like that to
keep within its bounds the ambition of the repre-
sentatives of the people who ask for their children
embassies, posts, of receivers-general, and prefec-
tures."
A bad actor is like a bad journalist who in a
paper prevents the good ones from being read. My
erstwhile enemy, the handsome Mme. Denain, who
was such a capital housewife and mother, ought to
have stopped at the most a few seasons at the
Comédie Française. Instead of which she insisted
upon acclimatising herself, and barricaded herself
in her parts of "leading lady" without ever varying
her play with Célimène's fan. As a matter of course
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
479
it prevented the newcomers from stepping to the
front. The very reverse was Augustine Brohan,
that great comedy actress who always yielded her
rights. The more actors and actresses cling to
their parts, the less do they deserve them.
There is one other chapter connected with the
management of a theatre-that of the administration.
From the acting manager to the attendants, all should
put on their best looks, not only with regard to
countenance, but with regard to dress also. Beware
of contrôleurs,* who look like men in a show at the
fair. A grand theatre should only have servitors
with good style and manners. The whole of the
theatre should, as it were, breathe a welcome to the
public. If the claque be considered indispensable,
repudiate the queer-looking customers that disgrace
the pit; there are enough genteel-looking folk
loafing about the streets of Paris to dispense with
the former. Make the claque an artistic thing, it
is no more useless than the censorship; if needs
must, it should bring the public to understand that
which the censorship has suppressed. In Italy,
those who are told off to recall the actors at the end
of each act and to throw them bouquets are well-
bred, educated people, who do not mistake with
regard to the value of the work performed nor with
* The Contrôle is to all intents and purposes a purely continental
theatrical institution. They sit in an oblong box, something like
a jury box, in the vestibule, and change the tickets for a check,
which finally is taken by the check-taker at the doors of the various
parts.-[Transl.]
480
BEHIND THE SCENES
regard to the competency of the actors. M. Scribe
has had a great many collaborators; he might here
and there have given a few louis in the shape of
author's rights to the chief of the claque, for he was
by no means indifferent to its opinion. In ancient
days, we are told, an individual who had carried
laziness to artistic perfection, hit upon the plan of
having slaves to perform nearly every action of life
for him; the one walked, the other spoke, a third got
drunk, a fourth made love for him. The claqueurs
are, after all, but servitors who applaud for us;
sometimes they go as far as to underline the beauties
and smart lines of a play which we failed to appre-
ciate properly. Some one said to me one evening:
"You are not dancing?"
"No," I replied, "I no longer condescend to
dance myself, but do not you see one of my friends
down there who dances for me."
*
*
One evening in the stalls of the Théâtre Français,
I reminded Alfred de Vigny of his book, Servitude
et Grandeur Militaires, for the purpose of directing
the conversation to the servitude and grandeur of
theatrical life. Did not Molière die on the field of
battle for having acted Le Malade Imaginaire, he
upon whom death had already set its mark?* Side
*This is no mere metaphor on M. Houssaye's part. Molière
felt himself dying, but would not close his theatre lest his actors
should be reduced to want.-[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
481
by side with actors who stifle every feeling of
humanity in order to draw a laugh from the
groundlings, there is the grand comedian who
often sacrifices his own private feelings, restrains
his tears, and bids his heart not to throb so loud
because his Majesty the Public is waiting for him.
That celebrated dancer, Mdlle. de Camargo, who
never had aught but smiles for the public, did not
she on the saddest day of her life, at the very hour
when her lover was killed in a duel, execute her
most delightful pirouettes before a public that
idolised her? After which they carried her more
dead than alive to her dressing-room.
No doubt military grandeur has different in-
stances of heroism to show, seeing that the soldier
sheds his life's blood for his country, seeing that he
humbles his pride before a relentless fate; we must
nevertheless admit that whosoever elects to run the
gauntlet of public opinion is condemned to number-
less sacrifices. At the self-same time that Alfred de
Vigny and I were agreed upon that point, Regnier,
that dauntless heart, was on the stage delighting
the house by his bursts of laughter, because the
audience did not see the tears that stood in his eyes
at the recollection of his child that had died but a
few days before. A spectator close to us exclaimed,
"This Regnier makes me laugh till I cry."
Regnier, who heard him, drew a deep sigh and
murmured, "And I also, I laugh till I cry."
The lively anecdote after the sad one. When
2 I
482
BEHIND THE SCENES
lost his father, he went to Buloz and told
him the sorrowful news.
"I see what you are driving at," muttered the
Royal Commissioner, "you are going to tell me
that you cannot play to night.
enough that Beauvallet is away."
You know well
66 Indeed, Monsieur Buloz, I will not act.”
"Don't talk nonsense, you can very well play
Théramène, seeing that it is by no means a lively
part. Nay, more, it will be a part exactly befitting
the circumstances.'
""
The actor played to prevent the loss of six thou-
sand francs to the theatre, because Rachel was on
the bill that night.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
483
1
CHAPTER XX.
THE year 1856 was that of my resignation. Life
has not been given to us to be always doing the
same thing.
Among the pieces produced in 1856, the follow-
ing left a literary mark: Les Pièges Dorés, by
Arthur de Beauplan; Le Village, by Octave
Feuillet; Comme il vous plaira, by Georges Sand ;
and Guillery, by Edmond About.
With regard to the first of these, I have come
across a page dated 1856:—
"A comedy with a slight plot, but sparkling with
epigram. There are so many of them that we almost
think we are in the shop of Bourguignon.
unjust criticism, for they are downright genuine
trinkets.
•
An
"After the performance, Albéric Second, Xavier
Aubryet, my brother Edouard and I went to con-
gratulate the author. He was in the dressing-room
of Augustine Brohan, who has her full share of the
A pretty juvenile lead,' Mdlle. Théric,
success.
212
481
BEHIND THE SCENES
asked Albéric Second, who succeeds Malitourne as
the theatrical critic of L'Artiste-the latter suc-
ceeding Gérard de Nerval-how one could possibly
show wit in criticising the wit of others?
"Now just tell me your article of to-morrow.'
"That's easy enough. I'll say that Mdlle.
Augustine Brohan has shown herself more brilliant
than the author, and that the author has shown
himself more brilliant than Mdlle. Augustine
Brohan.'
"Well, and then?'
"And then, mademoiselle, I'll talk as seriously
as possible about the moral bearing of the
piece.'
"There is a moral bearing then in the piece?'
"I should think so, indeed. Just listen. When
you happen to cross the Place de la Bourse, go, if
you feel so inclined, into a pastrycook's, a confec-
tioner's, a money-changer's, if there be any neces-
sity, which I hope there may be, in short, go in
wherever you like, except into the Bourse itself,
for if you do, you will leave behind you money,
peace of mind, and honour. So you see that this
piece, so full of wit, is also paved with good
intentions; unfortunately, ever since the world
began, everybody has wanted to reform everybody,
and no one has reformed any one.'
"At that point of the critic's homily Ponsard
entered the room to congratulate both author and
actress. Albéric Second went on :
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
485
"My friend Ponsard is just in time to endorse
my argument and to stultify his own.
For L'Hon-
neur et l'Argent is full of splendid verses and
scathing lines against gambling. For all that, he
assiduously devotes himself to lansquenet to atone
for his sins and baccarat to comfort him in his
troubles.'
"Ponsard confessed that his moralising was only
directed against himself. Albéric Second continued
his article for the benefit of the ‘juvenile lead.'
"Nor is this all,' he resumed. 'M. Arthur de
Beauplan, who inveighs indignantly against the
Stock Exchange, frequently goes there himself to
worry his luck. I should be sorry to think that he
had left his peace of mind or his money there. I
am certain that he brought his cleverness and wit
away with him. Consequently, mademoiselle, do
not gamble on the Stock Exchange, but above all
do not go in for "bulling" if the wind is in favour
.of "
bearing," and vice versa. The best part of
Les Pièges Dorés, as far as I can see, is that the
"settlement" will be a capital one for Bressant,
Leroux, and Got. Mdlle. Favart plays her part in
Les Pièges Dorés, as her grand-aunt played hers in
the camp of Marshal de Saxe. But for Made-
moiselle Augustine Brohan being present, I should
tell her the sweetest things possible. I prefer being
pitiless in my part as a critic. Yes, mademoiselle,
you are charming in those "grass-widow" parts
(femmes mariées aux trois quarts veuves), you are as
486
BEHIND THE SCENES
roguish as a legion of demons, witty to the very
gleam of your teeth. And such teeth! I refrain
from saying anything about your dress, because
decency forbids that I should enact your maid even
in imagination, but if I were a woman I should
slowly roast my husband or my lover until I
succeeded in dressing and undressing as you do.'"
Le Village (The Rectory) of Octave Feuillet has
kept its place among the stock pieces, and is too
well known for me to comment upon it here. That
also is a delightful cabinet picture, full of light and
of delicate touch in the style of Octave Feuillet.
Meissonnier applauding like mad is consequently
not to be wondered at. As for the actors them-
selves, their reproduction was undoubtedly a faith-
ful one both as regards colour and design.
Comme il vous plaira of Georges Sand suffered in
the first place from too many rehearsals. It did not
take long, on the first night, to find out that this
work à la Shakespeare was not the work of the.
great English poet. The authoress of Tévérino
gave better play to her fancy in the novel than on
the stage. Georges Sand, the indefatigable seeker
after thunderclaps, dreaded liveliness like
stroke.
It was owing to the production of this comedy
that I became intimately acquainted with this illus-
trious woman, who might rightly have been called
the Muse of the Love Passion but for her seeking a
refuge in good time in the love of her children. In
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
487
her own neighbourhood they styled her the lady
bountiful of Rohant. They might have as well
said the good lady of the theatre. Every one got
the best of her, even when she was right. She
thought that every one was cleverer than Georges
Sand. I often lent her my box, whither I went to
chat with her about the masterpieces of the reper-
tory. Not a single critic ever spoke so lucidly
about the great writers, but Molière was her special
favourite. She would have liked to be his wife, to
prevent him from grieving over the cruel fickleness
of his wife (Armande Béjart). I could not help
saying to her one evening:
66
Why did not you prevent Alfred de Musset's
tears ?" But I added immediately, noticing her
confusion, "After all, you were right, he is only
sublime when he weeps."
I have already given a list of the company of
the Comédie Française in 1849. The following is
that of the company in 1856. It contains nearly all
the great names of the former, plus those of
Bressant, Mdlle. Plessis, and Mdlle. Madeleine
Brohan.
488
BEHIND THE SCENES
THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE IN 1856.
COMEDY.
Sociétaires.
Samson-Regnier-Provost-Maillard-Bressant-Leroux- Got
-Delaunay-Monrose-Anselme.
Mmes. Augustine Brohan-Denain-Madeleine Brohan-Judith-
Nathalie-Bonval-Figeac.
Pensionnaires.
Saint-Germain-Mainviel-Mirecourt-Candeilh-Bache-Castel
Masquillier.
Mmes. Plessy-Riquier-Fix-Luther-Valerie-Théric Biron
-Sarah-Emilie Dubois-Lambquin-Jouassin-Mantelli-
Marquet.
TRAGEDY AND DRAMA.
Sociétaires.
Beauvallet-Geffroy-Maillard-Maubant.
Mmes. Rachel-Judith-Favart.
Pensionnaires.
Cheri-Fonta-Jouanni-Guichard.
Mmes. Savary-Jouvente-Saint-Marcus.
*
*
It was my lot ever since my entrance on the
scene to go through the most troublous periods.
The political hurricane threatened to carry me
off every moment. In those days every one
wanted to be director of the Comédie Française,
-M. Mazères like M. Empis, M. Dormeuil like
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
489
Fiorentino, M. Lockroy like a score of others who
imagined that they would rise to the surface with
each succeeding Ministry. My true strength lay
in my making money while furthering art with
Corneille, Molière, Racine, Beaumarchais, the same
as with Hugo, Alfred de Musset, Dumas, and
Augier, i.e. with the pick of the lot. Hence I had
my champions both among the dead and the living.
After 1851 there were no longer any political
hurricanes, but there were still literary hurricanes.
The Reading Committee accepted pieces which I
would not produce. It rejected many that were
afterwards applauded elsewhere. My friend Jules
Janin made war upon me every Monday; the small
papers every day. At present theatrical managers
are angels who are simply stifled with incense; in
those days the journals that did not go in for
in for oppo-
sing the State attacked it in its theatres. Roque-
plan and I were belaboured every day because
of our very success. The malcontents among the
dramatic authors and actors, among the admirers
of those ladies, among the candidates for the direc-
torship, raised a terrific din about the Minister's
ears. Camille Doucet was too apt to believe in
serious storms when it was merely the whistling of
so much wind. He worried M. Fould, who thought
Roqueplan too brilliant and Houssaye too young.
At his advent the Minister revoked Roqueplan,
which was one of the most crying and ridiculous
acts of injustice of the Empire,
490
BEHIND THE SCENES
Achille Fould, who had one of the clearest minds
with regard to politics and finance, had become
initiated in art matters by a long stay in Rome; but
though a connoisseur of pictures and sculpture, he
had scarcely mastered the A B C of literature. Too
thorough a man of the world, he had too early dis-
carded books to take to ledgers. One does not
become all in a minute superintendent of theatres,
armed from head to foot, if one has not gone
through the mill. He knew the "wings" as he
knew the outside ring of the Stock Exchange; but
when face to face with Corneille, Molière, Hugo,
Dumas, he was but a small personage indeed. Con-
sequently he often hampered me in my manage-
ment and made me grow impatient by wishing to
teach me my authors. He also professed views on
dramatic art, apart from his pretensions of "Don
Juanizing" with the actresses. That is why I ten-
dered my resignation. Besides, my pen was ab-
solutely itching to be at work again. We were in
1856, and since 1849 I had only written one or two
volumes. I wanted to resume my rank in the literary
battle. Those who have said that I was dislodged
by force knew very well that I went of my own
free will. I can prove as much by a small note
from the Minister, who, but a short time before my
retirement, gave me an instance of his good feeling
towards me by sending me a beautiful seascape by
Gudin, who in those days was still Admiral Gudin
among the marine painters.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
491
"MY DEAR DIRECTOR.
Pray accept this little picture, which I have
had a long while, in remembrance of my sincere
friendship.
"ACHILLE FOULD.
“1st January, 1856.”
But this is what happened.
A Minister, whose name I need not mention,
became enamoured of a clever actress. He often
met his son there, so, like Léandre, he had fain to
be content with the platonic part. Nevertheless,
he used his influence on behalf of the lady for two
reasons: the reason of the heart, because he loved
her; secondly, the reason of the head, because
she cost Léandre nothing. He wanted to make
her sociétaire, which request was made to me by
M. Fould. I refused, alleging that, though she
had talent, she had as yet not created any
parts.
Young Arouet, a friend of both father and son,
was asked to write a part for the great actress that
was to be. I was too great a friend of Arouet,
whom I expected to turn out a Beaumarchais one
day, not to give him a white ball. I told the Com-
mittee to accept the piece, not with the intention
of producing it, but to prove to the author that we
wished a piece from his pen. Five minutes later
Arouet would have agreed with me, but at that
moment-which after all was but natural-he said
that the piece being accepted it should be played.
The Minister sent for me.
492
BEHIND THE SCENES
"My dear Director, you are going to put the
piece in rehearsal to-morrow?"
"Neither to-morrow nor the day after to-
morrow."
The smile vanished from the Minister's face, and
a cloud settled upon it instead.
"I do not understand."
"It is, however, simple enough. Arouet, who is
brimful of wit, has improvised, in order to be
agreeable to you, a pretty comedy in the style of
the Palais-Royal. We must let him do like Molière,
that is to say, we must let him write his Dépit
Amoureux, and meanwhile not play his Médecin
Volant."
The Minister insisted violently, and once more I
offered him my resignation. When he saw that I
was determined to leave the Théâtre Français, he
said:
"Whom am I to put in your place?"
As a matter of course I began by proposing my
foremost friends-Théophile Gautier, Léon Gozlan,
Albéric Second.
"I don't want any journalists or romanticists,"
he answered.
It meant, "I do not want men that go in for
eccentricities." I proposed Geffroy. The Minister
accepted him at once, and I was charged there
and then to offer him the direction of the Théâtre
Français. Save for his being perhaps somewhat
too great a chum with all the actors, they could
not have found a better director.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
493
Geffroy, who was a great friend of mine also,
thanked me cordially and asked me to let him
sleep on it. I am not prepared to say whether
sleep brings good counsel or not; at any rate he
declined, and it was in vain that the Minister him-
self tried to make him change his mind.
66
No," he said very quietly to me. "I have
a good many excellent friends here, who would
perhaps no longer be my comrades to-morrow. It
wants an actor like Molière to direct the House of
Molière."
Thereupon M. Achille Fould appointed M. Empis.
This gentleman of great parts and wit, who wrote
comedies-like Molière-no doubt thought him-
self strong enough to govern that illustrious
theatre.
Hence they had after all gone to the Académie-
Française to find my successor, which was not very
difficult to do. For a long while M. Empis had
been aspiring to my directorial chair. I did not
ask him to give me up his among the Immortals.
When I presented him to the sociétaires, both actors
and actresses threw themselves into my arms as a
welcome to him. A great many glistening tears
were shed by the women, many golden words
addressed to me by the men. We were not only
friends now because I was going, but because I had
been a true comrade to them. M. Empis, furious
at the scene, and wishing to cut it short, asked me
aloud where were the documents and the desk con-
taining them. The whole of my "bureaucracy"
494
BEHIND THE SCENES
consisted of a small inlaid writing-table by Boulle;
I had managed to get on without red tape and
scribbling. M. Empis became very indignant and
rang for my attendant, the famous de Lachaume,
who came with tears in his eyes, for he also had
become a friend.
66
Monsieur," he said to him, "I shall want a
mahogany writing-table with drawers and pigeon-
holes the first thing in the morning."
I had caught up my hat.
"Monsieur," Empis went on, "one word. Where
are the candlesticks ?"
"Which candlesticks ?"
"The candlesticks you carry when you receive
his Majesty, for I know that the Emperor is
coming to-night."
"Sorry to say, monsieur, there are no candlesticks,
for I have never been torch-bearer."
The Orleanist partisan saw his opportunity of
giving me a lesson.
"Do you mean to say, monsieur, that you did
not do the honours of the Théâtre Français to
your Sovereign?”
"On the contrary, monsieur, I always spent half
the evening in his box."
M. Empis was thoroughly disgusted. That same
evening he revived the reception by candlelight.
He held the three branch candlesticks so skilfully
that he managed to spill three drips of wax on the
Emperor's coat. The result was that the Emperor,
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
495
pained to see a man of nearly eighty humble him-
self to that extent, had not a word to say to the
Academician.
That was the way in which M. Empis spoiled the
business.
Next day, as a sequel to his mishap, the Comédie
Française offered me a dinner at the "Frères Pro-
vençaux," at which every one, save M. Empis, was
present.
A few days afterwards the Minister sent for me,
and told me that his choice had not been a lucky
one. Of course I was bound not to say any harm
of my successor.
"The fact is," I replied, "that M. Empis is too
much under the impression he is shaping the destinies
of the world, but I can pledge you my word that
he might simply cross his hands in his lap and not
his lips, and things would go on as before."
"You must go back to the Comédie Française."
"With all my heart, provided the Reading Com-
mittee be done away with."
open
"That is impossible, so you had better come to
the Ministry of State. M. de Mercey is ill; if he
goes, you would make an excellent Director of
Arts."
"Perhaps, but I have nothing of the bureaucrat
about me."
"Meanwhile, as I intend the State to exercise a
certain control over all the museums of France, I
will, if you like, appoint you Inspector-General of
496
BEHIND THE SCENES
Arts, which will prove that it is not the Comédie
which abandon you."
After such a gracious speech, it was impossible to
refuse, the rather that while spending my time.
among masterpieces I was enabled to continue my
work as a poet and novelist.
(Note.)—To show that my prevision had been
correct with regard to the piece of Arouet, men-
tioned above, I may point out that after the final
fall of the curtain on its first performance, the
author admitted that I had been his friend in advis-
ing him not to produce it. He failed to account to
himself even how he could have been so foolish to
look for the plot of a comedy among the cast-off
devices of Richardson's show, he, who in his books
depicted modern characters with the skill and wit
of a master. The public were very lenient to him,
because they liked him; but like La Fontaine at the
first night of La Coupe Enchantée, Arouet was the
first to hiss his own play. "Everybody has been
in the same predicament," as Balzac or Alfred de
Musset would say.
I was under the impression I had put the last
stroke to my chapters of the Comédie Française,
but there was more to come. A little while after,
when M. Empis left the theatre, some critics of his
own school, under the pretext of dropping a tear
and a flower on his directorial tomb, thought it
necessary to insult his predecessor. "M. Empis
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
497
has not been a 'fantasist,' he has filled the coffers
of the Théâtre Française, he has played Molière,"
and a great deal more to the same effect. Epi-
taphs are proverbially mendacious, still, it seemed
to me not altogether unnecessary to take up my
pen on that occasion, not to reply to these ami-
able mourners strewing immortelles, but to speak
the truth. So I wrote as follows in L'Artiste of
the 1st November, 1858:-
"We are living in a droll country. Public
opinion in France is a weathercock, turning to
the breezes wafted by the papers. As it happens
the papers blow from the north and south, blow
hot and cold, at the same time. A certain
A certain paper,
which in its noble style twitted me formerly
'with making money, and money only,' accuses
me to-day with having made no money.
"When the President of the Republic confided
the direction of the Théâtre Français to me, the
situation was this: debts that had become pro-
verbial, superannuated scenery, a silent orchestra,
a most unlikely repertory, and a public con-
spicuous by its absence. The day of my advent,
in the best season of the year, the receipts
amounted to five hundred francs, and if I re-
member aright they were playing L'Aventurière
and Le Barbier de Seville, two genuine comedies;
hence, capital prose and capital poetry.
"The house of Molière was an illustrious house;
2 K
498
BEHIND THE SCENES
it has remained an illustrious house, and has become
a wealthy one besides.
"What happened during my managership?
Théophile Gautier is too great a friend for me to
reproduce his praise, scattered through a score of
articles. But still it was not out of friendship for
me that he, nor Saint Victor, nor Janin, nor Fio-
rentino liked my directorship.
"The actors who wanted to continue their
republic sent me in the guise of a welcome a 'citation'
by a process-server. A twelvemonth after I notified
to them, without the intermediary of a process-server,
that they had a hundred thousand francs to divide
between them, 'an event unprecedented since the
days of the Valois,' as a witty writer remarked the
other day.
"I have paid the debts, furnished the theatre,
renovated the scenery, restored the orchestra under
Offenbach-for people well recollect the three violins
of the Comédie before then. I have improved the
position of everybody from the great actor down to
the stage-carpenter. It was under my direction
that the maximum of the sociétaire's shares has
attained the sum of fourteen thousand four hundred
francs, and that their 'fires and lights' have been
doubled.
"I brought back Mdlle. Rachel, who during my
managership has acted more often than ever she
did before. It was at my wish that she interpreted
for the first time the contemporary drama, starting
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
499
with Victor Hugo. I was at enmity with M. Pon-
sard. It is by my unaided will that Charlotte
Corday, a masterpiece, was accepted and played
fifty times; it was again owing to my determina-
tion that another tragedy of his, Ulysse, was
mounted with a lavish display of scenery, and with
those splendid choruses by Gounod, which were
a revelation that France counted one more great
composer. That venture cost the Théatre Français
fifty thousand francs, yet not a single sociétaire
expressed his regret at the outlay, for they are well-
bred people in that set. I prevailed upon M. Jules.
Sandeau to try his hand at the drama; Mdlle. de la
Seiglière will remain in the repertory.
In one
word, whom among the valiant and young, among
the illustrious and established reputations, have I
not played?
"My interest in the living has not prevented me
from studying the old repertory and reviving from
among the works of the great masters such as are
always new. Molière was constantly on the bills,
but I certainly consigned to the tomb all the tragic
or comic phantoms which, from Campistron down
to Wafflard, have dragged their weary shrouds on
the boards.
“I called into being, so to speak, a valiant family
of young sociétaires: Got, Delaunay, Monrose;
Mdlles. Madeleine Brohan, Judith, Nathalie, Fix,
Favart, Emilie Dubois, Figeac; besides Heaven
knows how many others who became the idols of the
2K 2
500
BEHIND THE SCENES
public. I was the means of bringing back Mdlle.
Plessy and Bressant from Russia.
"There is, after all, little need to defend myself.
It has been fully done for me in the papers of the
time. I have only to take at random the articles
of Jules Janin, Fiorentino, Méry, or of Théophile
Gautier.
"Never was the Théâtre Français in such good
health as on the day of M. Empis' advent.
"But what about discipline.?' shout the friends
of M. Empis. True, I was forgetting all about
discipline. No one knows what the word signifies
with a certain kind of people. To these the real
talent of a director consists in dotting the i's, to
compel the box attendants to come an hour earlier,
and the fireman to go away an hour later. Let us
talk of discipline, seeing that they introduce it into
the discussion. Did not the curtain rise at the stipu-
lated hour under my management? There is some-
thing better than discipline, namely, honour, which
is a convertible term for the sentiment of duty. I
do not think that the impeccable M. Empis had to
spur on either after my departure from the house of
Molière.
"The great mistake of M. Empis was the idea
that in managing the Comédie Français he was
directing the storm.
“AR-
H—YE.”
*
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
501
The following are some of the extracts from the
articles alluded to above. The "God speed" of
Jules Janin :-
"This week the Théâtre Français has passed
from the hands of M. Arsène Houssaye to those of
M. Empis. M. Arsène Houssaye will be universally
regretted. He is a brilliant wit, easy to get along
with, full of gracious pliancy which often succeeds
just as well as the most assiduous zeal and most.
rigorus application. He was more than clever, he
was lucky; for luck was with him more than once
at the very moment when every one believed it to
be against him. After all he cared less for his
charge than his charge depended upon him; he
knew that one day the end of all those precarious
positions would come, that it would not do to make
arrangements for growing old in it, and that the
kindly Muses were awaiting him at the threshold
of his own home.
"M. Arsène Houssaye comes back to art, his
true country, and to literature, his genuine passion.
'Let us endeavour to wind up well,' says the philo-
sopher of old. M. Arsène Houssaye has wound up
well, but he also began well.
"He brought his youthful exuberance to the old
theatre; he has shown pious reverence to the old
deities; he has opened the door to the new ones.
There was nothing left for him but to go, for he is
not made of the stuff of those who like to rest on
their oars.
502
BEHIND THE SCENES
"He is gone, leaving behind, besides the re-
collection of him, cherished and applauded by all,
works still brimful of life.
JULES JANIN."
Roqueplan also took up his pen to remind the
public that he had foretold for my directorship
the seven fat kine of the Comédie Française.
Théodore de Banville wrote in 1856 a long
article entitled “La Comédie Française in 1855."
"In 1855," he said, "the Comédie Française
raised its receipts to nearly a million by playing
all the favourite authors, from Corneille to Victor
Hugo, from Molière to Alfred de Musset, from
Regnard to Alexandre Dumas, from Marivaux to
Mme. de Girardin. They paid debts that had been
standing from times immemorial; they divided a
great deal of money and put a great deal in the
Bank. The authors' rights, which ten years ago
amounted to thirty thousand francs, reached a
hundred thousand, to say nothing of the tax for
the poor, which reached a similar amount. Thus
far the eloquence of figures, and no one will deny
that this is money well invested. And now a few
words about those legendary epochs at the Comédie
Française, and which, had I not been an eye-witness
to them, would seem even to me like stories from
Hoffmann or Henri Heine. The house, decorated
by some fossil painter, was crumbling to bits; in the
boxes and galleries there had collected a greyish,
pungent dust, the dust of dulness and despair,
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
503
which floated in the air and settled everywhere.
On the stage, amidst scenery that defies descrip-
tion, an actor in a kind of yellowish coat set off
by black frogs was declaiming to empty benches
lines which were no longer those of Racine, of
Corneille, or of any one else, seeing that they lacked
their most indispensable element-life. In those
days people said, "I am going to the Comédie
Française," in the tone of one who says, "I am
going to Timbuctoo," or "I am going to die." A
young director comes, and a spirit of change per-
vades the whole thing. A bright light floods the
galleries with its golden cameos, over the sides of
which bend an eager public. New productions and
classic revivals bring together an audience which
listens, delighted and spellbound, to the voice of
the actor that has become sympathetic with the
consciousness of being heard and understood. This
audience knows that it is listening to the poet at
first hand and responds to him by its enthusiasm.
In fact, when glancing at the career of the Comédie
Française during the directorship of M. Arsène
Houssaye, I find that this grand institution has
never pursued its glorious destiny under happier
conditions. Not only is the house crowded every
night, but Molière is always of the party. I never
ask for more than that, for you can do everything
with a public that will listen to Molière, and when
Molière is not ailing poetry is in good health.”
Thus spoke de Banville. It will, therefore, be
504
Behind the SCENES
seen that he who was accused of not making money
after having been accused of making too much
created a new repertory and restored the old one
to its honourable position
On the day that M. Empis assumed his functions,
M. Paul de Saint Victor said in an article in Le
Pays :-
"M. Arsène Houssaye has retired from the direc-
torship of the Théâtre Français. Literature wil-
lingly joins in the touching farewell ceremony,
organised by the Comédie Française on the eve of
his departure with a cordiality that reflects great
honour on the organiser. He has shown himself,
during the whole of his directorship, most sym-
pathetic to youth and talent. His vote in the
Committee was ever given on the side of encourage-
ment. The theatre owes him its years of prosperity,
the repertory owes him many works that will
remain on it. He imparted to his functions the
charm of his private character. There is no other
feeling but regret and sympathy at his going. The
tragi-comic republic will not easily forget this
elegant "consulate," whose greatest sin was in-
dulgent kindness."
To conclude. Edmond About wrote an article
on "The Comédie Française during the last Ten
Years" in L'Opinion Nationale of the 5th Novem-
ber, 1858, which would have absolved me from
replying personally to the diatribes of some papers.
"A poet, Lamartine," he began, "saved France
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
505
from the red flag; another poet, Arsène Houssaye,
saved the Comédie Française from bankruptcy."
*
*
The reader has no doubt noticed by this time
that in more than one chapter I have not said a
great deal of harm of myself, and that it was
scarcely worth while to entitle this book "My
Confessions." *
It is, however, not for want of
sins; but Pride, the best of our soldiers (within
us), dies, but does not surrender.
* The original title of M. Houssaye's book, from which the
extracts contained in the present volume were made.
506
BEHIND THE SCENES
CHAPTER XXI.
I PROPOSE in this chapter to jot down some recol-
lections of the wings, a brief record of quips and
epigrams, scattered at random and picked up in
the same fashion.
*
In the green-room of the Théâtre Français. A
youngster with some pretensions to literature, but
a real Paris youngster, thought he would like to
show off a bit by flinging himself on the sofa by the
side of a woman who counted at least three or four
episodes in the comedy of her virtue. Though he
did not know her at all, he had the impertinence to
ask her point-blank:
"Well, beauty, with whom are you now?"
The lady got up, and in the most scornful tone
replied:
"With a very ill-bred fellow, monsieur."
When Madeleine Brohan was about to marry
Mario Uchard, one of her fellow-actresses said to
her with a knowing smile:
"I know all about him-this future husband of
yours. Your future is my past."
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
507
'I did not expect to find a man who did not
know you, madame," answered Madeleine, stung
to the quick.
*
One night, in the boxes on the first tier, an
actress, who, owing to her magnificent diamonds,
looked even more décolletée than she happened to
be, was fidgeting under the assiduous stare of an
individual in the stalls, who constantly levelled his
opera-glass at her.
"There is no need to blush," I said; "it is
"it is pro-
bably a diamond merchant.”
"That's just why I'm blushing," she replied,
"because I do not want to be taken at my worth."
*
*
One morning, to my great surprise, I received a
letter from Bacciocchi, ordering me to cut off my
beard. The Empire was an accomplished fact, and
bearded individuals were looked upon as Jacobins.
I cared a great deal more for my beard than for
my appointment; I objected to the shears of De-
lilah. I replied that I would live and die with my
beard.*
A few days afterwards a second summons to cut
off my beard, with a note to the effect that every
* Until the death of Henri IV. Frenchmen proudly wore the
whole of their beards. But when Louis XIII., still beardless,
ascended the throne of his father, courtiers concluded that their
beards were too long. After a little while they reduced them to
mere moustaches and a mere tuft beneath the lower lip. The
Duke de Sully steadfastly refused to adopt this effeminate fashion.
508
BEHIND THE SCENES
one is doing the same, 66
even Nieuwerkerke." My
splendid friend had, however, not cut off the whole
of his beard; he had merely made a kind of English
garden of it, in order not to be too hirsute. I could
have cried over that sacrifice to the relentless gods,
but at the same time made up my mind not to
sacrifice a single hair. Events proved my wisdom,
for gradually the bearded ones reappeared, without
in the least shocking the Emperor. Bacciocchi had
wanted to play the master of the ceremonies too
much.*
*
One day Rachel, alone on the stage, was going
through her great scene of Angelo. I had slipped
quietly into my stage-box. Not a living soul was
near us. At her last line I leaped upon the stage
and embraced her.
"You were as sublime," I said, "as if Eschylus
and Corneille themselves were sitting in the pit,
and still there was no one there." "9
"I beg your pardon, dear friend, you were there."
One day when he returned to Court the young courtiers laughed
outright at him, but he said to the king, "Sire, when your father,
of glorious memory, did me the honour to consult, he first cleared
the apartment of the buffoons and mummers of his Court."
* Bacciocchi was not the only one that objected to beards. Baron
Haussman had a similar dislike, but was not so candid in express-
ing it. He generally managed to shift the onus of it on some one
else, as in the case of Baltard, the architect of the Paris Central
Markets. When Queen Victoria visited the French capital in the
beginning of the Second Empire, the Paris municipality offered
her a magnificent entertainment. Baltard was entrusted with the
decorations of the ball at the Hotel de Ville. When his task was
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE,
509
"And if I had not been there?"
"There would still have been myself."
*
*
A bust of Mdlle. Mars had been presented by
Rachel to the Comédie Française. As it happened,
the sculptor had libelled the great comedy actress to
such an extent that I asked Mdlle. Rachel whether
her gift was meant as an epigram of tragedy against
comedy.
*
Verteuil rarely opened his lips; when he did
speak it was to the point. For instance, a very
mediocre author asked him one day for a box.
"We must not refuse him," he said, "for he,
more than any one else, has a claim on our grati-
tude."
((
one.
66
Why?" I asked.
"Because he has never sent us any plays."
*
*
*
finished he requested the favour of an introduction to the sovereign
of Great Britain and Ireland. "
Very well," replied Hausmann,
on condition that you shave your beard; the Queen only likes
whiskers." With a sigh of regret Baltard consented, and, to make
assurance doubly sure, made his face as smooth as that of a lad of
sixteen. It was a great sacrifice, for the beard was a magnificent
On the evening of the ball Baltard posts himself by the side
of the Prefect of the Seine. The presentations to the Queen take
place, but Baltard is left in the cold, notwithstanding his frantic
gesticulations to draw Hausmann's attention. "What is the matter
with you, monsieur, and who are you?" asks the Prefect at last.
"Who am I? I am Baltard, and you did not keep your promise."
"I am very sorry indeed, but I did not recognise you, so you must
wait till the Queen's next visit." When the market-women heard
of the mishap to their favourite they subscribed for a dozen large
cases of
wland's macaṣṣar oil.-[Transl.]
510
BEHIND THE SCENES
In the green-room. Quoth an actress, "I don't
like men who have too much control over them-
(literally, who are too much master of
selves "
themselves).
"And I don't like women who are too much the
mistresses of others," replied her lover.
To console himself for being an actor, Samson,
when he had the "blues," delivered himself of the
following:
"All the world's a stage, And all the men and
women merely players: They have their exits and
their entrances; And one man in his time plays
many parts. God alone will be able to tell us
whether we have played them well," he added.*
*
One of our young actresses, who never leaves
Paris, has been dubbed in the green-room "the
irremovable actress." The same cannot be said of
her heart, which has roamed a good deal. She is
the wittiest woman, not exactly of the great world,
but of the demi-monde. While chatting the other
day, some one said that M. X was like the
place commonly supposed to be paved with good
intentions.
"Don't talk to me about your men with good
* The remark is not so original as that of Quin, who, on his
deathbed, said that he would have liked to remain until the
final fall of the curtain, "to see whether he had taken a correct
reading of his part to the end."-[Transl.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
511
intentions," she exclaimed. "I have always found
them so awkward and so melancholy, that for many
years past I have preferred the society of people
with bad intentions."
*
If wit could be taught, I know well enough where
I should go and take some lessons. Mme. Suzanne
Brohan, the mother of the two charming sisters,
would be the professor of my choice. The other
day they were chatting, while she stood by, about
the rumoured marriage of Mdlle.
actress, with a young poet-two mad acts rolled
into one.
-, a young
"Don't distress yourselves," said Mme. Brohan,
"Malle.
is not idiotic enough to marry a
man who would be idiotic enough to marry her."
*
Dumas had just started his paper, Le Mousque-
taire. One day he began his article as follows:
"The Théâtre Français is perhaps under the
impression that it amuses people."
Having got wind that the article was to
appear next day, I made up my bill in conse-
quence.
TO-DAY.
LES DEMOISELLES DE SAINT-CYR,
BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
LE MARI DE LA VEUVE,
BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS,
512
BEHIND THE SCENES
TO-MORROW.
MADEMOISELLE DE BELLE-ISLE,
BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
ROMULUS,
BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
Alexandre Dumas, who fancied there was a cool-
ness between us, came to see me and gave me a
hearty grip of the hand, saying:
"Don't you think that the bills of the Théâtre
Français are better edited than my paper?"
I find the following in a paper of the year 1852 :
"When M. de Morny resigned his portfolio of the
Interior, he wrote to Roqueplan and Houssaye-
the Opera and the Théâtre Français-to come and
see him at midnight. Houssaye was the first to
make his appearance.
"I am Minister still until daybreak. What can
I do foryou?' asked M. de Morny.
“You can give me a cigar,' was the reply.
66
Roqueplan only came at half-past twelve. He
was saluted with the same question.
"We'll just see,' added M. de Morny, 'whether
you are more ambitious than Houssaye.'
"Of course I am,' said Roqueplan.
•
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
513
"Well, you have but to speak; what do you
want? But you must be quick, for in a few hours
ministerial will and testament will be counter-
signed at the Elysée.'
my
66 6
'Well, I think I should like a cigar.'"
*
In 1854 I wanted to leave the Théâtre Français
to take Mme. Arsène Houssaye, who was then
dying, to Pisa. I wrote the following letter to
Napoleon III.:
(6
Napoleon I. said that it was more easy to
command an army of a hundred thousand than to
manage a company of actors. The Emperor had
no knowledge of playwrights.
"What is very certain is that I have had the
courage to make so many enemies, that at the hour
I write I have only one friend left; that friend
is myself. And I should not like to pledge my oath
to that.
"But at any rate, rather than lose him, I humbly
pray your Majesty to allow me to retire. What-
ever there was to be done at the Comédie Française
I have done it to the best of my ability. I have
paid the liabilities of the Company with the pro-
ceeds of old masterpieces and new works. Now
that every one is satisfied, authors, actors, and
spectators alike, I have the right to go without
appearing to beat a retreat.
"I shall ever remember the sympathy shown by
your Majesty towards my management. At a time
2 L
514
BEHIND THE SCENES
when people are in the habit of saying at every
opportunity, 'It is the fault of the Government,
I may safely say that if it be any one has been at
fault at all, it is I, for your Majesty has kept up
the generous traditions of Louis XIV. and Napo-
leon I."
Bacciocchi sent me a note to come to Saint Cloud,
where the Emperor was graciously pleased to tell
me that I had made a mistake in counting my
friends. It was this simple word that decided me to
remain.
When Sebastopol fell the Minister told me that I
ought to yield to no one the honour of "singing "
our heroic army. This time it was Mdlle. Favart
who, in the absence of Mdlle. Rachel, donned the
peplum and the cothurnus. She was so handsome
and looked so inspired that one could have fancied
her to be improvising rather than reciting. How
distant all this seems, if perhaps it be not altogether
forgotten!
A tragic author of the school of M. Liadière and
M. Viennet read us yesterday a terrible work.
Beauvallet took out his penknife to defend himself
against the traitors among the dramatis persona of
this tragedy, or to kill the author, I do not know
which. At the end of the first act I pointed out to
the author that more than one of his lines did not
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
515
walk straight on its regulation twelve feet. The
man of tragedy was not in the least abashed.
"How uncharitable to twit me with such a thing
in such a beautiful line."
*
In those days the son of a certain minister—a
cousin no doubt of the one who expressed his sur-
prise at seeing a rubbishing piece like Le Médecin
malgré Lui hold the stage of the Théâtre Français
-bounced into my room :
"Monsieur Arsène Houssaye," he said scorn-
fully,
"it seems to me that they are taking it very
easy at the Théâtre Français."
The great Napoleon himself had never adopted a
haughtier tone to an unsuccessful officer.
"You are mistaken," I replied, "we are rehears-
ing La Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes."
Never
"La Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes ?
heard of it. As far as I know no such manuscript
has been sent to the censorship yet."
*
Is comedy a moral teacher? Fénelon, who never
went to the theatre, said "yes." La Bruyère,
who often went, said "no." The question hap-
pened to crop up again yesterday in the green-
room between some actors and critics. Jules Janin
reminded them of that clever comment of a miser:
"That whenever he returned from a performance
of Molière's Miser he felt more concerned about
2 L2
516
BEHIND THE SCENES
his cash-box." One day that Father Renaud of the
Oratoire preached on the beauty of charity, the
miser's daughters took their father to church with
them. The priest became so eloquent that the old
man was dissolved in tears and exclaimed: "He
invests charity with so much beauty as to tempt me
to hold out my hand."
The revival of L'Ecole des Bourgeois of Allain-
val afforded Bressant the opportunity of showing
himself as a very elegant, conceited lady-killer.
And what a magnificent Mme. Abraham did Mme.
Thessard make. But all those "Schools for Some-
thing," both in verse and in prose, what good have
they done, in all conscience? Has L'Ecole des
Vieillards prevented elderly beaux from marrying
young hoydens? Have L'Ecole des Femmes and
L'Ecole des Maris cured a single Arnolphe -— have
they lessened the number of Sgnanarelles by a single
one ?
I refrain from mentioning L'Ecole des
Diplomates, L'Ecole des Journalistes, and a hun-
dred other "Schools" that have held forth on the
boards of the Odéon and the Comédie Française.
But so wags the world, including the demi-monde.
Nothing is of use, and everything leads to nothing.
*
*
*
When I see Mdlle. Georges, I seem to be be-
holding the ruins of Palmyra in motion. Age has
played terrible havoc with her, still she is not less
majestic, nor less coquettish. Coquetry in old age
is like a rose in a grinning death's head. Mdlle.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
517
Georges came to ask me yesterday to give a per-
formance for her benefit.
"You'll save me from starving," she said.
I looked at her in surprise, for she wore a mag-
nificent hat and feathers and primrose kid gloves.
"You are thinking how well all this still becomes
me, are you not, my dear Director?" she asked,
smiling.
Thereupon she took a small glass from her pocket
and looked at herself mincingly. I became tho-
roughly alarmed, for she looks seventy-five when
she speaks, and eighty when she smiles.
I
She proposed to me to edit her "Memoirs."
took her at her word there and then, and tried to
gather material for the chapter on Napoleon.
"Is it true that he sent for you long after mid-
night, and that he forgot that you were there
until morning, absorbed as he was in the map of
Europe ?"
“Pure slander,” she replied with dignity. "He
knew what was due to me and what was due to
him. His map of Europe.
of Europe. I was his map of
Europe."
She sentimentally hung her head under the spell
of her recollections.
"What a man he was," she went on, with a sigh
for the Consulate and its glorious years. "I loved
him so much that for his sake I loved Harel."
"I don't understand."
"I only loved Harel because at the siege of
518
BEHIND THE SCENES
Soissons he fought like a lion against the hundred
thousand men of Blucher.
I remembered that Harel, at that time sub-prefect
at Soissons, had heroically defended Clovis's ancient
capital, and had had a Te Deum sung for Napoleon
at the cathedral on Easter Day, consequently a
week after the Emperor had abdicated.
*
Mdlle. Georges made her last bow to the public
in that performance for her benefit. She played
Rodogune. They filled her money-box-no small
matter-consequently the seats fetched fabulous
prices. The Emperor paid for his seat right
imperially. King Jérôme paid for his right royally
with a thousand-franc note.
"" I
"Alas!" remarked the great tragic actress.
preferred the times when he sent me 'love notes"".
for Mdlle. Georges had known all the crowned heads
of the Imperial family.
*
The following happened at M. de Castellane's.
Mdlle. Augustine Brohan had been bold enough to
improvise a comedy, which after all was not a
difficult thing to do for the great comedy actress,
but a formidable ordeal to the fashionable amateurs
she had gathered around her. Unfortunately, no
shorthand notes have been preserved of the clever
things that were scattered broadcast that evening
on those boards. But among others, people that
were there will always remember a character sketch
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
519
All of a
that is wanting in La Metromanie.*
sudden an improvised comedian asked Mdlle. Fix:
"Sister Anne, sister Anne, do you see anybody
coming?"
The actress began to stare at the audience as if to
find among them the inspiration for her reply. The
reply was "furnished forth" by M. Viennet, for
when her eyes fell upon him she exclaimed :
"I only see a dryasdust head and a sprouting
poet." †
Every one looked at M. Viennet, who bravely
rose and straightway made for the stage, where in
another moment or so he assumed the principal
part, and treated the audience to ten fables, four
epistles, and a scene from Arbogaste without leaving
them time to applaud. When he had finished the
whole he took me aside.
"Outwitted you after all, Monsieur Houssaye,"
he said, in a malicious, sententious tone.
"You
* A celebrated comedy by Piron, satirising the mania for poet-
ising prevalent at the French Court and in French society during
the first half of the eighteenth century.-[Transl.]
† Mdlle. Fix said, "Une tête qui poudroie et un poëte qui ver-
doie," a paraphrase of the line in Perrault's Blue Beard, “ Le soleil
qui poudroie et le chemin qui verdoie." Her answer might be inter-
preted in various ways, complimentary or otherwise, though it is
more than doubtful whether she intended it in the former sense,
because M. Viennet was considered a bore by every one.
As a
general rule, when used in conversation or writing, it means a
despondent negative to a question anxiously put. I feel conscious
of having inadequately translated, but could not hit upon a happier
rendering.[Transl.]
520
BEHIND THE SCENES
shut the door upon my plays, I let them in my-
self."
"Monsieur Viennet, it's the public that's been
let in, for you are so very witty when you abandon
verse."
I thought he was going to stab me to the heart
with his spectacles, they gleamed so ferociously.
*
It was Armande Béjart, Molière's wife, who
changed the "stage business" of the Misanthrope.
The strongest will avails nothing against woman.
When Molière "staged" Le Misanthrope, he told
Armande that she "was on" in the first scene.
In
those days Molière only saw his wife at the theatre.
He had conceived and written that splendid part
of Célimène with the vague hope of bringing her
back to him; but at the first mention of the thing
he was met by the haughtiest opposition. For he
wanted her to be there at the rise of the curtain,
and to scornfully sail away immediately afterwards,
and saluting merely with the first movement of her
fan. In that way, the action of the play would
have been begun at once, because though Alceste
does not speak of her in his bitter diatribe, one
feels well enough that there is a woman in the case.
There is no such thing as a misanthrope among
lovers whose love is requited. It is woman who
causes the gall to rise to the revolting lips. Just
let the reader fancy the scene as Molière conceived
it. It is far more vivid by Célimène going away
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
521
with the cruel smile on her face. Alceste does all
he can not to speak of her, but one feels that his
heart is full of her. Molière could, however, never
prevail upon Armande to appear at the very be-
ginning of the comedy without having to speak a
line. Great actress as she was, she failed to grasp
the meaning of the "business," and Molière had to
give way. Since then Célimène has never "been
on "in the first act of Le Misanthrope.
One evening, being at Mdlle. Mars' in company
with Mdlle. Doze (married already at that time to
Roger de Beauvoir), the conversation turned on
Célimène, which had been the most successful part
in Mdlle. Mars' repertory. I recalled to her mind
the story of Armande. The similarity between the
two women was great. As a matter of course she
said that Armande was right, though she admitted
that if it was to the advantage of the actress not to
appear for the mere purpose of saying nothing, it
would be to the advantage of the play for Céli-
mène to appear and to stamp her character in that
way upon the audience at the very beginning.
Some time after I mentioned this to Mengaud
and to Geffroy to Mengaud, a misanthrope
taken from among the marquises of the period
of Louis XIV.; to Geffroy, a misanthrope of the
nineteenth century, notwithstanding his scrupulous
regard for the traditions of the stage. There is no
doubt that both men were comedians of the highest
lineage. They regretted as I did that Célimène
522
BEHIND THE SCENES
was not on the stage in the first act even if she had
not a single word to say, seeing that her exit would
be most telling; but they failed to see how even with
the most absolute powers one could prevail upon a
sociétaire to appear in the first act like a mere
supernumerary.
rare.
I thought I would bide my time till the début of
Madeleine Brohan, but when this magnificent crea-
ture was about to play Célimène nearly the whole
of the company opined that it would be handi-
capping her too heavily to compel her to appear
without saying a word. It was Molière who had
to pay the penalty once more, for Célimènes are
Madeleine was possessed of great beauty,
she was charming to a degree, she had a bell-like
voice, a noble head and proud bearing, she handled
her fan with consummate grace. In the whole
of Paris there was no actress to impersonate this
immortal creation with greater talent, hence I could
not conscientiously impair her début by imposing
upon her the "business" as conceived by Molière ;
besides, her mother would have held me up to public
obloquy. Nor when Madeleine was fully mistress
of her public would she venture upon the first act.
It was the same thing with all those who have
played Célimène since. To hint at their sacrificing
themselves to the first act was tantamount to asking
for their death warrant. Not one of them has
understood that there is a kind of silence more
eloquent than the most eloquent flow of words.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
523
According to Molière's conception, the piece
began and ended with two silent exits by Célimène,
with two flourishes of her fan, flung with the
superb superciliousness of the grand ladies of the
period. The first was made to explain the second.
Well, in spite of all this, no manager in the
present or in the future will succeed in imposing
the will of Molière. Armande Béjart has given
the precedent from which no one will depart.
I should like to see the three Brohans at the
Comédie Française immortalised on canvas by
Carolus Duran. The mother and daughters, if they
had happened to be connected with the magnificent
institution at the same time, could have played every
part in the works of Molière, Marivaux, Regnard,
and Beaumarchais. They will leave the recollec-
tion of all that is graceful, charming, witty, and
passionate behind them. Suzanne was capable of
representing every character, from the most tender
to the most cynical. Augustine played the ser-
vants and soubrettes, but in Mdlle. de Belle-Isle
and Le Caprice she proved that she need yield
to no one in her delineation of the grand lady.
At her début Madeleine was at the selfsame time
a loving woman in Les Contes de la Reine de
Navarre and a grande coquette in Le Misanthrope.
To find the like of such a glorious family of actors,
one must go back to the three generations of the
524
BEHIND THE SCENES
Poissons.* And what charming women they were
in private life. They have been accused of being
too witty. Every one is not sufficiently lucky to
be idiotic. Besides, I have never found wit and
good nature to be incompatible. As a rule it is
only the idiot who is spiteful; wit and cleverness
is an everlasting ray that lights up the heart, and
light let into the heart is akin to goodness.
*
What is Le Bonhomme Jadis? It is an image
of the past, the past which, like the future, has its
mirages, the past which only preserves the recollec-
tion of that which was delightful in love, rejecting
with horror as it does the worn-out garments, the
dull, faded embroideries of reality. Henri Murger
has created a delightful character in this Bon-
homme Jadis, who only turns his looks towards the
magic mirror of youth. The portrait of his youth
is the portrait of his beloved Jacqueline, it is the
sweet air given forth by the violin of his neighbour,
it is the periwinkle which he waters on his window
sill. Nay, even the love of the lovers of twenty
warms his heartstrings and gets into his head. It
is Provost who has identified himself with this
* Raymond Poisson, dramatic author and actor, born 1633,
died 1690. Paul Poisson, the latter's son, great comedian, born
1658, died 1735.
Philip Poisson, author and actor, born 1682,
died 1735.
François Poisson (de Roinville), great cha-
racter actor, born 1696, died 1735.
[Transl.]
Paul's sons.
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
525
character and been absolutely wonderful in it. The
other two figures in this delightful picture spread
the poetry of dawn and spring around Provost.
Delaunay, who represented the swain of twenty, and
Mdlle. Fix, the sweet girl of sixteen, enact their
parts with all the freshness and smiling beauty of
the brilliant summer morn. They proved the true
comedians of Shakespeare and Alfred de Musset.
Immediately after this Parisian idyl, in which
exuberant youth burst forth and rippled with
laughter, we had another picture as a contrast-
the farewell performance of Mme. Desmousseaux,
that perfect duenna whom Molière would have ap-
plauded with her fourscore years. Shall we ever
find her like in her reverence for the best traditions
and her sprightly humour? The answer is, "Yes.
We have Mdlle. Jouassain, who has sacrificed her
youth to her art."
*
*
There is the gospel according to Corneille and
there is the gospel according to Molière. Every
year the Comédie remembers her gods. It indulges,
if only for a few moments, in meditation, and
celebrates a mass to Corneille and to Molière. The
youngest poets are asked to furnish a dramatic
poem, an ode, or a scenic trifle, the better to cele-
brate the commemoration, just as tenors and
baritones from the Opera are asked to come to
Sainte Clotilde or Saint-Roch to sing the Dies Iræ
and the Requiem at a funeral mass. Théodore de
Banville and Philoxène Boyer have both done some
526
BEHIND THE SCENES
excellent things at those anniversaries. Only the
other day we kept that of Pierre Corneille. The
bust of our great poet was there, as on an altar, in
the centre of that stage of which he is one of the
gods. On his brow lay the immortal laurel wreath.
All his latest interpreters, or rather the whole
company of the theatre, stood reverently grouped
around him and the Tragic Muse, grasping the
Sybillic palmbranch, recited stanzas in honour of the
author of Le Cid. The lines were by M. de Ban-
ville; they were delivered by Mdlle. Rachel.
Corneille must have been pleased.
*
Mdlle. Plessy played in Le Bougeoir (The
Candlestick), by M. Caragnel, as she used to play in
the pieces by Marivaux, namely, sparkling with
wit and roguishness. "Well, be frank now, am I
an extinguisher?" she said to the author after the
performance.
"I should say that you are a fusee if I considered
my piece in the light of fireworks, or, better still,
that you were its bouquet." And a dozen similar
compliments.
Among my volume of unpublished letters from
Rachel, I take the following:
"MY DEAR FRIEND,
"I very much want to go to the séance of the
Académie Française on Thursday. I know that the
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
527
Comédie Française is entitled 'by right of conquest,'
and by virtue of its bad artists, to twelve tickets.
Consequently I beg to ask for two. I address my-
self above to the clever director, who must naturally
be anxious to send to the Académie the smartest
people he has got, and I pretend to be one of them.
"RACHEL.
"P.S.—If you like the sight of the Immortals, I
shall be pleased to call for you on my way. I
should be rather pleased to take you to the Aca-
démie (to lead you to the Académie).”
Rachel was as good as her word; she called for
me on her way. It was the first time that I went
into the place, and I never went back to it until
Henry Houssaye (my son) was made laureate of
the grand prize of Napoleon III. in consideration
of having won the grand prize for history founded
by M. Thiers.
*
M. Legouvé, wishing to wind up as a tragic
author, wrote Médée. Rachel promised to play
the principal part, but she changed her mind and
refused. M. Legouvé appealed to the law. The
Minister wrote to me asking me what I thought of
it. I reproduce my reply:
"M. Legouvé and Mdlle. Rachel appealed to
me in the first instance, but they appealed from
my judgment to a more official tribunal. You wish
to know particulars; here they are. M. Legouvé
528
BEHIND THE SCENES
has written a Medea for Mdlle. Rachel, so you will
understand that it is a genuine tragedy. Mdlle.
Rachel, who accepted the part, refuses to play it.
It is a magnificent part, and I told her that she is
wrong, but I think M. Legouvé equally wrong in
bringing a lawsuit against Mdlle. Rachel. Is it
not virtually bringing a lawsuit against one's self?
"Mdlle. Rachel says that the part is one long
imprecation, and that with the utmost goodwill she
would break down before the end. I am bound to
admit that her defence is very sensible. 'If I
asked M. Ingrès to paint my portrait,' she said,
'and if after one sitting he told me that it is
impossible to get a good likeness of me, could I
get a verdict against him to go on with my portrait
against his will?'
"M. Legouvé prints the letters of Mdlle. Rachel
when their ink is scarcely dry. People are asking
whether he intends to add a new canto to Le
Mérite des Femmes of M. Legouvé, senior. If so,
why has he written a Medea that adds nothing to
the merits of women ?"
*
When on the eve of the Empire, after the famous
speech at Bordeaux, with its motto "The Empire
means peace," the Comédie Française and the
Opera gave each a gala performance in honour
of the President, and almost Emperor. I composed
the bill as follows:
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
529
COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
EXTRAORDINARY REPRESENTATION.
CINNA, OR THE CLEMENCY OF AUGUSTUS.
Tragedy in Five Acts by Pierre Corneille.
THE EMPIRE MEANS PEACE.
Strophes spoken by Mdlle. Rachel.
THERE'S NO SAYING WHAT MAY HAPPEN.
(IL NE FAUT JURER DE RIEN).
Comedy in Three Acts by Alfred de Musset.
"True enough," said the public, scanning the
bill. "There is no saying what may happen with
regard to the Empire meaning peace and the
clemency of Augustus.
When, at his arrival at the theatre, I went to
pay my respects to the Prince, he said, half smiling,
half vexed: "Monsieur Arsène Houssaye, you have
got a strange way of composing your bills."
66
"Monseigneur," I replied, "I announced Cinna,
because I know that you will give the people the
opportunity of remembering the Clemency of Au-
gustus. The strophes, the Empire means Peace,
are but the translation of your magnificent speech."
"There's no saying what may happen" is the
invariable comment on the future. The Prince
never got out of temper, but I was by no means
2 M
530
BEHIND THE SCENES
easy in my mind because the bill I had composed
smiling-one cannot rid one's self of that incurable
French tendency to jest at everything—might have
had the effect of making the public too skittish.
But the moment the performance began a solemn
feeling pervaded the whole house, and everything
was applauded.
*
*
In 1856 I wrote as follows:
"M. Henri Meilhac writes comedies in the style
of Gavarni. It has been often regretted that
Gavarni did not put his on the stage. A hint to
M. Henri Meilhac.
"His sketches are simply delightful. He has just
begun the Comedy of the Comedy Actresses in
which, without asking me to give him a sitting, he
brought me on the stage. This is the motto: 'Is
not love the sublimest thing in the world, poet
mine? Of course it is, because God created love."
True, but the devil made woman.'”
6
*
Méry is a friend of a handsome neighbour of
mine. It is he who is the true Napoleonic bard.
It is because of this perhaps that he has not been
made a senator, like so many colourless prose
writers. Certain is it than whenever some one is
wanted to speak in numbers to consecrate imperial-
ist enthusiasm, Méry is sent for. One day, I do
not exactly remember on what occasion, he brought
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
531
me some very lofty strophes, a batch of magnificent
rhymes. Bonaparte rhymed with Sparte (Sparta),
etc., etc., etc. Mdlle. Rachel was to recite the
strophes at the Elysée between two small comedies.
Méry asked me to first show them to the Prince,
preferring not to take his "wares," as he called
them, himself. It was twelve o'clock. I went
immediately to the Elysée, where I had too many
friends to be kept waiting in the ante-room. The
President sent word for me to join him in the
garden. We strolled about under the grand trees
of Mme. de Pompadour until we came to the gate
opening into the Champs Elysées. Here the Prince
took Méry's verses and recited them like a tragedian
of the Comédie Française. But for the face one
might have fancied to be listening to Talma; it was
the same voice, the same expression, they were the
same movements.
(3
Monseigneur," I said, "you would act.comedy
very well."
"I am not doing anything else," he replied,
smiling; "only I often have an unappreciative
public, and it is only the idea of the piece that
keeps me up."
*
+
Mdlle. Rosa Bonheur, the directress of the Munici-
pal School of Arts, addresses the young girls who
study under her every year. On that day I also make
a speech in the Minister's name, and it affords me
the precious opportunity of singing the praises of
2 м 2
532
BEHIND THE SCENES
this woman who paints like a man. She came to
see me yesterday to tell me of the good fortune
that had befallen her the day before.
The story is well known. The Emprèss paid a
visit to her studio. After a few kind words, the
very gracious sovereign pinned the Cross of the
Legion of Honour on the dress of the great artist,
saying, "There was something lacking there."
The scene must have been very touching. Rosa
Bonheur burst into tears bending over the hands of
Her Majesty, who took her into her arms as she
might have taken a sister. Since Charles V picked
up Titian's brush, since Francis I. went to comfort
Leonardo da Vinci on his deathbed, there has been
no grander page in the history of art dealing with
the relations between sovereigns and artists.
Until now they had given the Cross only to
sisters of mercy or to female sutlers. The sutler is
entitled to wear it proudly because she must have
the pluck of two women rolled into one to become
a man in the hour of danger. But what is the
good of giving it to a sister of mercy, who in her
Christian humility can only hide it beneath ber
crucifix.
The first studio of Rosa Bonheur was the Bois
de Boulogne. It is scarcely credible, still it was
there that she first caught the spirit of Ruysdael
and Paul Potter, as Bernardin de St. Pierre had
caught the laws and poetry of nature by studying a
strawberry bed. It was there that she played truant,
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
533
that kind of truant-playing which to dreamers is
tantamount to deep study. Lying by the roadside
she drew with a twig taken from the brushwood
everything that came under her notice or that her
fancy conjured up. But, alack and alas! one day
she was taken away from her beloved bois to be
cooped up in the workshop of a dressmaker. Her
father, however, seeing her so wretched amidst the
chatter of all those young girls, she whose only
delight was the contemplation of nature, exclaimed
with the poet :
“Art also has its royalty, my daughter shall be queen.
Who think you were her masters, the moment
she set foot in the Louvre ? As a matter of course
the reader fancies that she took there and then to
Flemish naturalism. Not a bit of it. For a
while she pondered before the severe painters of
the French school - Poussin, Le Sueur, Claude
Lorrain. She even began to seriously meditate
about plunging into the grandiose of classicism
and into the solemn of history, but she soon felt
appalled at the chasm she would have to jump in her
woman's garment.
After that Rosa Bonheur took to the school of
Ruysdael and Paul Potter. No one since these
two masters has more deeply, more poetically, more
subjectively understood the primitive work of the
Creator- the tree, the moor, the animal. If nature
be the master of all masters, it is safe to say that
534
BEHIND THE SCENES
Mdlle. Rosa Bonheur has chosen her tuition in
nature's studio.
*
The Minister of State having asked me for a
whole volume on the provincial museums, I have
just finished scouring the departments, always ac-
companied by some friend, for I do not like solitary
travelling. We were received everywhere "like
princes," I was going to say; but it was better
than that, we were received like Parisians. Only
ask de Banville and Saint-Victor.* Mayors, pre-
fects, archbishops, and cardinals gave us all we
wanted. Nous donnaient le pain et le sel.t Nay,
more. The Archbishop of Bordeaux entertained us
right royally in his vineyards of the Haut-Brion.
The cardinal likes to have his joke. He would not
be satisfied until we had tasted of every vintage
in the province. True they were not bumpers,
but he would allow of no heeltaps. Each fresh
course was accompanied by a different bottle, with
the cobwebs, dust, and sand still thick upon it.
"How do you like this Chateau-Laffitte, and this
Chateau - Yquem, this Chateau - Latour, and the
Chateau-Margaux ?"
I began to to be puzzled, as I would have
been in the library of a Benedictine monastery
* Saint-Victor is dead. [Transl.]
+"Bread and salt," a popular French locution, signifying
all one's moderate wants, probably from Horace's Satires.
"Cum sale panis, Latrantem stomachum bene leniet." [Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
535
At last I said to the Cardinal: "But after all
you have not said a word about your own vintage
of the Haut-Brion ? Still in this spot, you may
be said to be in the Lord's vineyard.'
Towards the end of the dinner, Cardinal Donne
played his big trump.
"All the chateaux you have tasted, gentlemen,
are the proceeds of my own vineyard, only they
are not of the same year.
The above puts me in mind of a welcome, not
less original, which I received in my capacity of
Inspector-General of Arts. At my arrival at the
Hotel Victoria, in Baden, they ask me my name.
I give them my card. Two or three hours after-
wards the proprietor comes to tell me that I am
going to be "serenaded." He begs of me to
come out on the balcony. Every band of the
grand ducal army was already at its post. I try
to convey to them by dumb motion that they
have come to the wrong address. They mistake
my gesticulations for a grateful acknowledgment
of the honour conferred upon me, and I am
greeted with a loud burst of music, which is
really magnificent. The seductive sounds are too
much for me, and I stand listening with rapture.
But at the end of ten minutes I go down and
say
to the head bandmaster:
"All this is very fine, but why in the name of
536
BEHIND THE SCENES
all that is sensible do you insist upon playing
under my balcony?"
"It is very simple, General," he replies.
"What do you mean by General ? ”
“Does not your card say 'Inspector-General'? ”
In fact my card did say "Inspector-General of
Arts."
*
I have been telling de Morny a pretty story
about the Coup d'Etat to find out whether there
was any truth in it. It was to the effect that
on the eve of the 2nd of December, de Morny,
harassed by his creditors for about a million of
liabilities, no longer slept under his own roof The
Prince-President was aware of it.
"Where do you sleep, Morny?” he asked.
Here, there, and everywhere," was the reply.
He gave three different addresses. The 2nd
December he stayed at the villa of an actress
who perhaps was away from home that night.
The officers of the Court of Commerce, who con-
stantly dogged him, made up their minds that
before daybreak they would put hands on him.
They had been promised ten thousand francs.
When early in the morning of the 2nd December
they came to fetch de Morny on the part of the
President with eight men and a corporal, he
noticed the "Officers of Commerce," and told them
laughing, "Gentlemen, it is either too early or
too late."
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
537
"The story is very pretty," remarked de Morny;
unfortunately it happens to be apocryphal."
But the following one is absolutely historical. On
the eve of the Coup d'Etat, de Morny, who dabbled
a little in everything, even in chemistry, paid a
visit to the laboratory of a member of the Academy
of Science.
"What is this?" he asked.
Prussic acid," came the answer.
"You'll just let me have a pennyworth of it?"
"Not a pennyworth, nor a pound's worth."
66
Why not?"
"Because you are subject to fits of spleen."
"After all," said de Morny, taking from his
waistcoat pocket a bauble called a revolver, "after
all, this will do the business just as well, if not
better, for if there is enough for one there is enough
for two."
*
*
Gérard de Nerval said one day, "I should not
not like to die in my bed." Alas, he had his wish! *
Soldiers are apt to think that they will not die
in their beds. But who of us can make sure of
dying in his own bed? Literary men themselves,
homebirds as they may be, often breathe their last
on a strange bed sometimes an hospital bed.
When they spoke to Henri Murger about taking
him to that other hospital (the Hotel-Dieu), which
* He hanged himself from a lamp-post in the streets.—
[Transl.]
538
BEHIND THE SCENES
by an antiphrase is called the Sanatorium-in short
"l'hospice Dubois"*--he turned pale and exclaimed,
"No, no, it is the first stage on the road to the
grave." His home was by no means palatial, but
such as it was, it was home. To be at home, to
live at home, to die at home is the dream of all of
us; it was the dream of the prince of Bohemians.
Inexorable fate! Scribe himself, who was at the
opposite pole, who was as rich as Murger was poor,
did not die at home. He died in a hackney cab,
he who had carriages, a magnificent town house, a
splendid country seat!
A great admirer of the fair sex, besides being a
man of the world, Scribe was. always in search of
gallant adventures as well as of dramatic ideas.
The theatre, rather than his own house, was his
home. And even at the theatre he was always
restless, whether it happened to be a rehearsal or a
first night. When we produced Les Contes de la
Reine de Navarre for the début of Madeleine
Brohan he said with his knowing smile:
"My dear Director, I shall have to ask you for
three boxes, the one above the other, on the ground,
first, and second tiers."
"In fact, my dear Scribe, you want three dif-
ferent points of view to judge yourself and to judge
the actors."
"Exactly," he replied.
* Still extant in the Faubourg St. Denis, for paying patients.
-[Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
539
But I knew well enough that it was not that.
The fact was that Scribe was fluttering around three
women, including his wife. That's what comes of
making a love match.
*
*
Bohemia commenced with Homer and will end in
about another century when there will be no more
poets, for there is no need to talk of those outside
Bohemias, the population of all of which consists of
a lot of forlorn hopes, who have discounted their
possible reputations beforehand, or taken that of
their neighbours. Whosoever has not been blest
with a gleam of poetry, were it even a pale ray of
the moon, a mere glittering of the stars, should be
outlawed from the realm of Bohemia.
Historians that go back to the prehistoric ages
have found Bohemians on Olympus and in the
Bible. To them Apollo was a Bohemian, only
his great-great-grandsons ought to have got up
as early as he who drove the chariot of the
Sun. But why look so far back and so high
up?
We should not even evoke the shades of
Villon and Régnier, any more than those of Jean
Jacques Rousseau and Rétif de la Bretonne, the
Rousseau of the gutter. We, together with Théo-
phile Gautier, Gérard de Nerval, Roger de Beau-
voir, and Ourliac have both created the term and
the thing itself, because we lived outside the world
and its laws, like those nomadic tribes that pay no
540
BEHIND THE SCENES
heed to civil and social standing, and who are for
ever singing liberty as it is sung by Béranger.
Murger only created his Bohemia by depicting in
his first book the chums he met at the Café. He
used to say to Gérard de Nerval, who was for ever
talking to him about our promised land that had
been abandoned:
"Your Bohemia was the ideal; its younger sister
is nothing but a slut, hob-nobbing with a disre-
putable lot."
"What's the odds," replied de Nerval, "seeing
that bad company is often better than good ?"
Murger thought us grand like gods in our Bo-
hemia, and he took his own too seriously. He
wanted, so to speak, to endow it with principles, he
talked of the heroism of his friends. "A life of
courage,” he wrote, "in which, at the risk of stum-
bling on the way, one should not for one single
moment abandon the pride of self which is the staff
to lean upon; a horrible life that has its conquerors
and its martyrs, and upon which one should not
enter except one be resigned beforehand to submit
to the pitiless law of Fae Victis." *
A mere
waste of Latin, friend Murger. But he did not
stop in the preaching of his new faith. "This life
in Bohemia is but imperfectly known by Puritans
in general, and decried by the Puritans of Art in
particular. No clamour is loud enough, no false-
hood or slander too great, in order to stifle the
Preface to La Vie de Bohème, par Henri Murger. [Transl.]
OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
541
names of those who make their mark by passing
through this ante-chamber to renown, and by yoking
audacity to talent." You high priests of Bohemia,
how you must have roared at yourself at seeing the
process of harnessing audacity going on in an ante-
chamber. Henri Murger had written a little
masterpiece smiling all the while; he was not
satisfied, and wanted to bind it in morocco and gild
its edges.
In our own Bohemia we had honorary acade-
micians who never attended its sittings - for instance,
Roqueplan, who only believed in the Bohemia of
the Jockey Club, though he was not a member. In
speaking of the idlers and "men about town," he
used to say,
"It is the reserve material of France."
Later on, France found the Comte de Morny and
the Marquis de la Vallette, those two Bohemians of
high degree who became excellent political men.
*
*
*
At a recent dinner at Eugène Delacroix's, in
presence of the splendid family portraits painted by
David, the conversation turned on the vacancy for
an honorary academician at the Academy of Arts.
"Houssaye," said Delacroix, "you ought to
present yourself. We do not systematically dis-
countenance merit, as you showed in your book
about the other Academy. We no longer care for
all those who do nothing great, seigneurs who do
not attend our sittings, and who have never left a
recollection behind them.”
542
BEHIND THE SCENES
"Grand seigneurs," quoth Robert Fleury; "to
my knowledge there is not a single one left in
France. As for myself, I quite agree with Dela-
croix, I vote for Arsène Houssaye.
"So do I," said Haléry.
Two days afterwards a journal said that M.
Arsène Houssaye would present himself for election
at the Academy of Arts. I almost immediately
had a visit from M. de Mercey, chief of the de-
partment at the Ministry of Arts.
66
'My dear friend," he began, "a membership
of the Academy has been the dream of my ambi-
tion; do not present yourself this time."
C
Before M. de Mercey had finished his sentence,
I gave way.
"Behold the director of the Arts'
on the road to immortality," I said to myself.
Meanwhile, M. de Mercey repairs straightway to
Achille Fould, at the Ministry of State, to acquaint
him with his candidature-a mere formal visit of
politeness.
Now it so happened that the Minister had
also conceived the idea of becoming immortal.
He makes an appeal to M. de Mercey in about the
same terms that M. de Mercey employed towards
me.
That very same evening Achille Fould was
invited to dine at Prince Napoleon's. The con-
versation turned on the forthcoming election, and
M. Achille Fould confesses to his desire. But
next morning his attendant opens the doors to

OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.
543
their greatest width, which at the Ministries is
only done on the occasion of a visit from princes
of the blood. In walked Prince Napoleon, who
in his turn came to tell him, "I also am soliciting
the suffrages."
It was Prince Napoleon that was elected.
THE END.
WESTMINSTER: PRINTED BY NICHOLS AND SONS, 25, PARLIAMENT STREET.

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